New Ideas

Thoughts Of Death Yesterday, Now Life!

Yesterday I was thinking on one thing that I’d done, a thing I was not at all happy at myself for doing. I’ve worked on those thoughts, assisted in part by a friend, John Malone, a poet and former teacher, who thinks about things in sometimes quirky, but wise, ways. He encouraged me to write a poem, or in fact a pair of poems about the troubling thing.

I thought on what he suggested, and yesterday in fact wrote those two poems. I’m not sure if other people would get the importance of this pair of poems, but they have much meaning for me. I feel better about myself, I feel like a good person again, doing what I can, when I can, but realising I am not perfect, no-one is.

So today, I’ve been thinking about all of this Covid 19 ‘stuff’ and how many of us are more or less locked away in our own homes. I know I haven’t been doing much at all, in terms of physical things, just sitting around, taking in hours and hours of bad news. But I decided that had to change, I need to be active, at least sometimes, and I needed to get going with it now.

Outside, being active, good things!

I did 31 minutes of Wii Fit exercises today, a fairly gentle exercise program. It’s been 61 days since I last did this, apparently. I did a mix, sticking with easier exercises mostly, and had a ‘results’ mix of rubbish and nearly OK. No Olympic efforts, that’s for sure.

I set myself a new weight loss challenge there, because my current weight is too high still, it was a bit over three and a half kilograms too much, I think. Not good enough. I’ve set a goal to lose half a kilogram in one month. I think I should be able to do that, if I more or less stay with my current diet, and keep on with the Wii Fit as often as possible, heading toward the harder items as feels possible.

Listening to my body, not my mind, doing it so I can really feel it, not woosing out. I still want to get my weight down to a particular weight, but carefully – slow, slow, no rush. It would be a good Christmas present, or even a birthday present to myself next year, maybe …

At Mallala Christmas Party

One thought I’ve had is halving the amount of chocolate I have at night. Easy to do. I’d slow down my consumption of the usual piece of chocolate, and mindfully focus on enjoying it slowly, deliciously … If I were to give up eating the usual chocolate, it would help with any weight loss, perhaps, but it’s the finer things in life, that make it worth living. So small amount of good chocolate, small glass of wine, occasionally, good coffee, but not too much of it.

If I commit to my plans, I can get things happening how I want them to be, in regards to my healthy body project. Will I be able to do the same with my writing projects? I hope so. I’ll think about it and get some words written down in regards to that some time soon. Tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? I don’t know, but hope it will happen, when the time seems right.

Philosophy

Looking Back, and Satisfied!

It’s been an interesting year, this year. 2019 – it was filled with opportunities, those taken, those left, and I’m satisfied with what I achieved, even though there could have been more.

There can always be more, of course there can. But less is another option, and sometimes taking less leads to deeper, more meaningful things instead of the big and shiny things. And of course, there are the things that life throws at us, unexpectedly, and we have to try to deal with them, in the best way we can.

So in this year, I attended book launches, included my own, I lead a writing group that put on monthly Poetry Readings, sourcing Guest Poets to bring new interest to the event. The group Adelaide Plains Poets Chapter and Verse, also successfully put on out fifth Festival of Words. Good things happening, with words, are excellent!

I wrote much poetry, and probably have enough quality poetic words for a new full size poetry collection, and will  into taking that further in 2020. I also broke my right ankle, in September, which could have been terrible, but instead lead to a completely different kind of poetry collection being written, and launched in this final week of the year of 2019.

“Angles on Ankles” is a chap book, all about my broken ankle, and contains my thoughts about this whole broken ankle ‘thing’, all written poetically, 21 poems in fact. This book has been declared to be a good little book, and given I only wrote it initially as a kind of therapy as I was in rest and heal mode in October after doing the damage, I’m happy to have got the book published commercially here, or by leaving me a comment below.

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Other members of the writing group have also had success with their own writing, and I am so glad for them for what they have achieved. What else? Well after breaking my ankle, I have begun an exercise/rehabilitation program, using exercises given to me by the physio I saw when I was actually able to stand up and walk.

I added in a couple of my own physio kinds of exercises, including using our family Wii Fit exercise machine. I’ve been doing most if not all of these exercises every day now, for the past week or so, and I hope I can keep this habit going, because it is certainly a good one.

I have also got more into the habit of blogging much more often, on at least a few of the blogs I have. This blog, focused on me as a ‘wordsmith’ – writer, poet, blogger, etc, is my most important blog, but the blog I began when I was diagnosed with MS, has morphed into a blog that took on things related to my broken ankle, because of course both MS and a broken ankle have mobility issues happening, and falls can be lessened with strengthening of the body …

I was going to work at becoming a writer of Cosy Murder Mysteries this year, and did in fact do some planning, and writing in this particular genre. But it was bad timing, because that broken right ankle happened, and my brain couldn’t focus on fictional problems, when my own physical problem was right there with me … But 2020 is a new year, and certainly I’ll be looking at getting back into my “At Talloola”  murder mysteries!

I am happy with all of this, for sure. 2019 has also been a year of becoming serious about becoming a Stoic. Holding to Stoic thought, thinking about things and acting in a Stoic way has certainly aided me in my life, this year. As I was ‘getting over’ this broken ankle, I had a Stoic outlook, rather than a ‘woe is me’ outlook, and so the time went well for me, with the poetry happening, and then the book.

Stoicism helps in so many ways. Thinking things through, then acting in wise ways, rather than acting with no real thought at all, is almost always the best way. It is a work in progress, and I know some of my thoughts are still far from in keeping with Stoicism, but my actions almost always are more considered than those initial thoughts may have been.

I was pleased that a bit of Stoicism made it’s way into that ankle poetry book, and hope to continue working hard at moving upward and onward with my Stoic Wisdom. This is my Stoicism blog – My Stoic Life. I will be using it more and more, and will endeavour to post there much more often, as I go … I look forward to reading comments on my blogs, often! I will follow, if you give good and thoughtful comments

The theme for our writing group’s Festival of Words next year is “Vision”, and I have my own personal vision, of 2020 being the year my writing really takes off!