it's been a while....understatement central...

Hey! So it's time to dust the cobwebs off my blog I think.

I've recently started putting my poetry out there (find me reading it here on youtube https://youtube.com/channel/UCSFBN8ktW-s-8Py12vZfOZw ) and I'm thinking of sharing the written original text (by my fairhand) here on Cat Herding For Beginners.

Book Review: Silver Ninja - Indoctrination by Wilmar Luna.

I enjoyed this book.

You can tell because I finished it (I make a point of never reading a book I don't enjoy to the end) and I finished it in a short amount of time (again one of the things I use to measure my enjoyment of a book).

Indoctrination is the second book in the Silver Ninja series, but knowledge of the first book is not necessarily required to enjoy it. I, at the time of writing this review, have not read the first Silver Ninja book and did not find this a problem at all - though I will be checking the first book out in the very near future and I believe that I would have enjoyed it even more had I read it first.

The story is set in a near-future/alternate present America, it's familiar yet original, and has an imaginative use of technology as part of it's narrative.

I found Wilmar's writing style to be accessible and clear. The book avoids the trap of info-dumping yet always manages to ensure the reader isn't missing information needed to understand the setting and the characters in it.

The story flows nicely, fast paced but not rushed. The characters feel real, the dialogue natural and the actions of the stories protagonists are believable without being predictable.

I found it fun to read, enjoying the ride it takes you on. The book makes you think whilst it entertains you, without sacrificing it's story to do so.

A key point is that I want to read more about the characters and the world around them.

My grumbles in relation to the book are, I believe, down to me not reading book 1 first, as I personally would have loved to know more about the whys and wherefores of the world the story is set in. I expect to get this information when I read the first book.

I have a habit of reading series of books out of order, I have comes across the problem before and it is mostly my problem and not the authors ;-).

I'd give the book a solid 7/10.

This is the first book review I have done in a long long time, I hope you find it useful and I hope you enjoy Silver Ninja Indoctrination when you read it.

A man in a room.

There is a man in a room.

The room is dimly lit and not a nice place to be.

In the wall opposite where the man sits is a door.

This door leads to a better place.

Light creeps through the gaps between the door and the frame,hinting at what the man knows is a better place to be.

The door is not locked.

It never has been.

The man knows this.

The man knows all he has to do is get up, walk across the room, open the door and walk through it.

He's opened the door before.

He's stepped through the door before but somehow ended up back here.

He has paced this floor,getting close to the door but keeps finding himself unable to pass thorough.

The thing that stops him be knows well, but that is not of much help right now.

It's black tendrils, like smoke,flow around him.

The man fights a battle he might not win.

The man is me.

An original piece by me.

My beliefs - a post made in clarity.

In recent weeks, months even, those of you that a friends with me on Facebook or follow me on twitter will have seen posts/tweets from me that have been to do with my beliefs.

My OCD has a particular element to it ( it's not all of it but it is part of it) called scrupulosity, which takes different forms for different people and part of mine is to do with my spiritual beliefs.

Today, thanks to the support of my amazing wife,and the tools my many therapy sessions have equipped me with over the years, I have reached a mental clarity and calmness that has eluded me for a long time.

I have to write this as being open about this is important to me.

I am a pagan, heathen, polytheist.

I have been now for longer than I have been anything else.

I enjoy church sometimes but my beliefs are my own and wouldn't call them christian.

I practice rune craft and I carry out my beliefs in my own, tolerant way.

I'm aware that some people might feel misled by me recently. Please understand that it was something beyond my control at the time.

I know that I'm not meeting any standard of anyone else, only my own.

I know that someone somewhere will look at me, what I have written, what I say, what I do and pretty much anything else and disapprove, condemn or  disagree with me.

And that no longer worries me.

So what?

I do not look at them that way and, even if I did, they wouldn't change their way of living.

I am, for the first time in a long time, happy with me and my beliefs.

Long may this continue.

\m/

Auditory Processing Disorder

Until 6 years, or so, ago I never knew Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) existed.

I was diagnosed after to going for a hearing test. My youngest son was diagnosed with it, following thorough testing, a few years later.

In hindsight, I have had it all my life but never had a name for it.

The good news it isn't life threatening*.

But it makes a big difference in lots of little ways.

So what is it?

Well as the NHS says (http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/auditory-processing-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx ) it is a hearing and listening problem.

To put it in simple terms, it is the inability to process sounds normally. The range of frequency effected includes the human voice - typical eh? The ways it manifests itself is summed up in this list:

I can tick all these.

The condition can make you seem stupid ("can't remember simple instructions , "always needs things repeating", "how can he have misunderstood that) and it leads to mistakes and misunderstandings .

It can also mean that people think you ignorant or that you just weren't listening.

Now don't get me wrong, sometimes I don't listen to people - I'm no angel - but when I do and people think I don't it bugs me.

I also find that, when my APD causes an issue (even a small one) then when I say to people "I'm sorry, but you know I have this hearing thing" they look at you like you're making an excuse.

I don't want to have this wrong with me, neither does my son, but we do.

For all the crap side of it, it leads to some genuinely funny moments.

The things I think people say, when I question it with them, often makes them and me smile.

Conversations between my son and I are often full of misheard words leading to laughter.

It is a disability, it's invisible, and some people probably think I just need to pay more attention but hey ho, what can you do.

* it's not life threatening unless you don't hear someone shouting "mind that bus" or "don't press that button". ;)

A conclusion

I have spent a large amount of the last 24 years of my life reading about, looking up and looking into different religions, their view points, origins, similarities and differences. 

All of this has been rooted, to some degree, in trying to find something that I can stand before myself in the mirror and declare "I believe this...".

The thing is, I have never found that something.

Well not in anything I have ever found written down or spoken apart from one thing.

That one thing is the quote by Marcus Aurelius, Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor during the 1st century CE.:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.  If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them.  If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid." 

That pretty much sums it up for me. I've tried to find "more" than that but for me there doesn't seem to anything more than than to it.

So I'm going to stop searching and get on with living.

Clarity, sweet clarity

For a while now, I've not been myself.

This afternoon I realised that.

Don't worry, my not being myself has hurt nobody other than myself - and that hurt has been emotional but not physical and no lies have been told to anyone.

What's happened has been a symptom of my OCD.

It got under my radar, through my defenses by a back door that I was sure I had locked and barred, and it played a very smart game.... And it nearly won.

But today it lost.

You see, what had happened is that I had, over the last 6-8 months (maybe even longer) I have been obsessively focused on a part of my life that up until then had really been a more minor aspect of my life's interest. That is sport, mostly rugby. 

Now I have always liked sport, especially rugby, and there have been plenty of times in my life that it has played an important role and it has been at the forefront of things.

But never really at the expense of the other interests in my life to this degree (or maybe it has and I've never realised).

Now it is important at this stage to say that what I am writing about here has had no negative impact on my wife and children - they have not been neglected as a result if this. I feel that is very very important - as they are top of my list every single time. :-)

What has happened is that, over time, OCD has used sport has slowly pushed out music and reading (and watching films/tv) out of my day to day life and has replaced it with obsessive action and endless ponderings based around sport. This has lead to a lot of unhappiness as the sports I care about can be quite frustrating in their politics and that has proved to be a massive problem for me.

I just hadn't realised it before today.

I knew I was unhappy but the cause had hidden itself well.

The change started last night, following some news about a rugby team that has always been close to my heart upset me way more than it should.

This set of a thought process that blossomed in to clarity.

The realisation I had was that when I have been at my happiest (within myself - with who I am) is when I have been much less of an ardent sports fan and much more a metal head,a music lover, a reader and a writer (the bit I do) who has an interest in sport.

That is what I'm going back to as of now.

That makes me happy.

That Removes the root of much of my angst and anger and removes the fuel for my self hate.

Of course, first and foremost, I am a husband, father and a friend - it's just that the stuff that sits below those is getting out back in proper order.

\m/ 

2013 - The Review thingy

Well 2013 is nearly done, and I won't miss it- although it's made sure that it won't be forgotten until the autumn at the earliest.

It's not been all bad, but it's been harsh and hard, and I have no desire to repeat it.

I started the year in a house that had been broken into, causing psychological issues throughout the family that linger to this day, and in a job that was draining the joy from my soul.

We are still in the same house ( we don't do running away ) and I am thankfully in a different job. 

We are all doing more than ok, something that I am very thankful for, and I am lucky to have a great many good people in my life ( some physically, others over the web ).

In a few of the previous years I have written a "thanks" list to acknowledge the people in my life but this year, I believe that they know who they are and I'm just going to say : thank you.

My wife, Su, and my two sons need a mention because without them I would be nothing - thank you, I love you with all my heart and soul.

So, 2013 has done enough to mean that 2014 isn't going to be easy as it could have been ( I won't go into details) but having got through 2013 I have a good feeling about 2014....bring it on!

Why I hate being off work sick...

Right now I am suffering with a viral chest infection, which is fecking agony as it is aggravating the damage done by plueresy a few years ago. It's worrying me but that for me and the doctor to discuss when I next see them.

But that is not what this post is about (but the context is required I feel).
You see that above has meant that I have missed 3 days of work last week and am likely to miss a few more in the upcoming week.
This I hate.
You see I hate the idea that I am letting anyone down.
I hate the idea that this, which is beyond my control (and let's be fair I have done everything I could have done [apart from moving to a continent where the temperature never gets anywhere near zero] to avoid this current bout of illness) , is going to cast a shadow over the hard work I have put in trying to establish a good name for myself.
I hate the fact that whilst I am unable to get myself to work or be in a fit enough state to work that my colleagues have to effectively double up on what they are doing day to day. They are good people, who won't grumble too much about it, but that's not the point, my illness makes their lives a little bit harder.

The daft thing is that I am only ever off sick when I really cannot perform my duties, such a now - this is not just a bit of a cold, a snuffle or the manflu, it's nasty, it hurts and if it gets any worse it's going to border on getting scary.

I hope they know that this is not something trivial and that as soon as I am able I will be back at the coal face.

I know that the above post may sound slightly self pitiful but it's not intended to be and I needed to externalise this somehow.

A bit of an explanation...

My last few posts might seem a strange thing to share.

I wanted to share my thought process when I'm having a lapse in my OCD management to try and show what it's like in my head - horrible.

It's helped me, I hope it might help someone else.

I hope you who read them haven't lost any respect for me.

Now I'm feeling great and messing with some Norsk coz I can :-)

OCD & Languages - sorted for good

I swear this is the last I'm going to say about this but what I thought was sorted was actually one step short of sorted.

That last step has been made.

What was that step?

Realising that I don't have to choose. I can happily flit between as many languages as I damn well want to, I can never be great at speaking any of them and do you know what?

That is absolutely fine.

In fact, not just fine, that's how it is and what it is is perfectly imperfect!

Super Happy Gareth!

One day,I'll be able to write that in at least three different tongues ;-)

OCD & Languages - Sorted!

Sorted.

It has taken 3 days, a lot of reading of useful material that I have gathered over the years of group and individual therapy, and trusting my gut.

So the answer to part one of the question is that my desire to learn a language is a healthy one,it's the compulsive desire to be perfect at it with items inherent internal punishment that's not.

So I'm not giving up learning a language.

So the next part of the question is which language?

Now reaching this decision involved thinking about it a lot, then spending a long time purposely not thinking about it and avoiding the question all together, and then trusting my gut.

It's German.

I'll get to why in a minute.

So why not Welsh, Norwegian or nothing at all?

1. not learning a language would have made me miserable.

2. My desire to learn Welsh is driven by a self loathing fuelled compulsion to be as Welsh as I possibly can be. It sets unrealistic goals that can never be achieved and it makes me miserable.

3.My drive to learn Norsk is fuelled by a compulsion to be as Viking as possible - which is daft because apart from loving Vikings and their culture I'm not one (outside of my mind) - and again leads to me being miserable.

So why German?

- quite a bit of what I learnt at school stuck so it's familiar to me.

- I have no desire to be perfect at it.

- I have a member of my family that is fluent and has offered to help me learn.

- I want to understand Rammstein lyrics.

 

And,this is the most important bit, 

It's was my gut decision. 

Under no pressure to pick one, my "gut" chose German.

For the first time in years (and I mean years) I am completely at ease with that choice.

I've done it.

It can be done.

Obsessive compulsions can be beaten.

Never give up. 

Languages & OCD : What if.....

What if the real victory over this is to stop?

To stop making a concerted effort to learn a language and just forget about it?

Maybe the whole drive to learn a language is a compulsion?

I can link at least two of my drives to OCD faulty thinking in part.

One I can't.

This casts some doubt on the what if.

And creates a bit of an never ending vicious cycle.

And if none of it's fun, because of this cycle, should I keep doing it?

Would stopping be letting the OCD win or would carrying on feed it?

These are questions I need to find an answer for.

Wish me luck.

\m/

Languages & OCD - the fight goes on....

I thought I had cracked my language learning OCD cycle last week and, whilst I had made progress, I'd not quite cracked it.

But I think I have now.

Which language I'm learning isn't the issue, it's the feeling that I have to be learning one.

I do want to learn a language.

But I shouldn't feel that I have to be, or that I should be able to do it perfectly.

That's what the problem is.

So what do I do?

Well I go back to being happy with the fact that it's taken me 7 years to complete the first 7 instalments of a beginners course of SaySomethingInWelsh (excellent course by the way) and crack on with learning it be wise it's really the one that I wish I could speak fluently.

But every now and then, if I fancy having a break and dabbling German, Norsk or anything then I will - without having to ditch any other option.

You might think this sounds simple.

For you maybe it is( I hope it is).

For me, it's not and I might no succeed but I'm going to try.

Having a healthy goal is a big help.

So here it goes.

Lesson 8 of SSIW here I come :-)

Just a quick thought....

The good people who made great sacrifices during both world wars would probably not approve of the way modern Great Britain is. But they would also not agree with you not attending church, the language you use when expressing your distress,your choice of clothes or the music you listen to. Oh, and the list of things you couldn't say in public was a damn site longer that it is now.

Before you use the past to add weight to your political standpoint get the facts straight!

Scrupulosity - my ongoing battle

This post may not come as a surprise if you've read some of my previous posts or indeed follow me on twitter (@garethdawson), but in any case here it is.

I have OCD. I've had it all my life, in hindsight, and I live with it rather than suffer with it but it's not always easy (although there are many others out there who have it worse than me).

One aspect of my OCD that I struggle with the most is scrupulosity.
There is plenty of good information out there on the finer detail of what scrupulosity is, so for now I'll stick with the following: It's a OCD specturm disorder which causes the sufferer to suffer from religious and/or moral guilt/doubt.

With me it's more religious other than moral (although the moral side of it does come into things every now and then) and it comes in the form of doubt.

A bit of background:I wasn't raised in a deeply religious household, I had no religious ideology forced upon me and I never had.
In my teenage years I found Christianity at odds in life as I was experiencing it and began reading about other religions. I found the pre-christian religions of Northern Europe fascinating and within them found an approach to life, and an explanation for day to day life, that fit.
At that point I became a pagan, I suppose. I have always read widely on the subject of faith, and atheism, and I've always been a bit of a agnostic theist more than a died in the wool pagan of any particular flavour - although Heathenism ticked a lot of my boxes. It still does.
It is worth saying that all that time I still held a fondness for liberal christianity and find churches fantastic places to spend some time (and it might be the Welshman in me, but I love a good hymn!). But I find the theology/dogma too exclusive for me to be able to subscribe to.

For a quite a while this contradictory approach caused me no problem at all, although the scrupulous side of my ocd was always there niggling away.

It was a few years ago now when it became a real issue for me, and it has been that way pretty much ever since.

The way the scrupulosity manifests itself is often like this:
1. It pushes me to make a choice between two clearly different beliefs.
2. It then causes questioning of that choice from the point of view of the option not chosen.
3. It then questions the answers to those questions from the other point of view, causing a vicious circle of question, answer, doubt and frustration.

As you can imagine, it's not much fun.

The worse bit is that when looking for help with this kind of religious comparison is that is wealth of for and against information out there and believers in either will inevitably promote their chosen faith, always with good intentions.

My scrupulosity means that even trying to find some stablility as an agnostic is really difficult.

And so it goes on.

Yesterday I thought I had go through my last bout but it's still here.

I get frustrated that it keeps happening, I wish I could find a way of beating it for good, which I will.

I am doing well with all the other aspects of my OCD, I WILL get this sorted one day.
I hope it's soon.

I've written this post more for me that anyone else.
I hope that maybe it might help someone in the same position to feel not so alone with it.
I'm lucky, my wife is such wonderful support that I do wonder how I'd cope on my own.

Until next time, take care out there people and be excellent to each other!

Being poor has nothing to do with being a good or bad person.

I have been poor.
I held the same values and work ethic I have now.
It was not fun.
I got lucky, the things I tried to improve my lot worked - to an extent.

There are just as many lazy despicable wealthy people as there are lazy despicable poor people.
Wealth and social standing does NOT guarantee a good heart and up standing moral fibre.

I'm not defending people who refuse to try and improve their situation in the belief the are owed a keeping from the state. But I know, from experience, that sometimes your attempts to improve your lot in life come to nothing.
When that happens, and you're on your uppers, then you have a right to support.

Pre-benefit system Britain was not great. It was a place where the poor, and that was nearly everyone by the way, was either worked to death from a very early age or left to die as a lost cause.
The reason it was changed, by people in government who had grown up within that society, was that it was morally undefendable and just plain wrong!
That has not changed.

We all have the responsibility to care for each other, that goes hand in hand with our responsibility to care for ourselves to ensure we don't over burden others.
The second part of the above is what has failed to be taught to many generations and THAT is what is wrong, not the system.

If modern politicians believe that removing the welfare state, and the NHS, will improve the lives of individuals in Britain then they are wrong. Very, very wrong.

If they believe that it will keep the wealthy rich and widen the gap between those that have and those that don't, which I believe is their main concern, then they are right.

And that is not to mention the rise in crime that'll go with it.......

And one last thing,
Anyone can be poor.
It can happen to anyone, very quickly.
If you are poor, I wish you well in improving your lot.
If you are not, then long may it stay that way.
And if you are in power, how about taking good care of the poor just in case you end up as one of them?

Hope

I like hope.
No strike that.
I love hope.
Without it what is there?

You see life, this life, the life we are living, the life that our ancestors have lived and our descendants are going to live, this life is beautiful.
It's a fantastic, beautiful, mystical, unphamamable, weaving thing. Yes, it contains suffering, sadness and pain, and plenty of it, but in amongst that, running through all that, is beauty, splendour, love and wonder!
And hope fuels that.

Hope gets us through the mire, doesn't matter what it is in, it just matters you have hope.
And believe me, there is always hope.

Be excellent \m/

In the middle....

Somewhere in the middle of the space between Liberal Methodist Christianity and Heathenism stands I.
A foot in each camp, seeing the wisdom in both and appreciating their benefit and similarities.
And unable to choose between the two.

I have always been fascinated by why pagans converted to Christianity. Whilst there is no denying that use of force in the conversion process did occur, I have never felt that it was the full story. After all, if you try and force something on people who are reluctant to accept it then they will always find a way to undermine it, and history has plenty of examples of when such things have happened.

The thing I have never liked about any of the monotheistic religions is this shared notion that only those worshipping their God will be looked after. This, to me, goes against the principles of a all loving god.
Additionally there is the holy texts. Mankind has a habit of changing things to suit itself. Knowing this and acknowledging the existence of free will, I do not see how texts written by man, and then translated repeatedly over the years in different political and social climates, can be treated as something to follow literally and blindly.
Common sense and a forgiving view of things is much more the order of the day in my humble opinion.
After all, is it not said somewhere in the good book "best not judge, lest thee be judged yourself"?
That says to me that any human being who judges harshly another, whether they are basing that judgement on a holy text or a personal opinion, is in danger of receiving the same from the divine force of the universe at the point when they will be hoping for the most forgiving of judgements.

Ironically, Christianity - the religion of love and forgiveness - comes across harsher than the religion of the "barbaric" Northmen.

And here I am, in the middle, doing my best to figure it all out for myself......

I was dreaming.....

I was dreaming when I first saw the dragon, soaring above a land very much like this.
When I was dreaming I walked amongst those of open mind and loving soul,
In a realm where judgement was left to the God and retribution sought only on the evil and vicious.
Where ideas were valued, where good was done without thought of cost and profit came second to need.
The battles were fought in honest view, not hidden behind lies and deceit.
Where the elected served those who voted not those whose money they craved or their own egotistical bent.
And above this land the dragon and it's kin soared, swept and danced,
with a grace that inspired awe and dread in equal measure.....

And then I awoke.

The dragons were replaced with the clouds, and so much else replaced with it's opposite.
And though my heart is heavy at this sight, the dragon still flies within my soul.