Write-Place

 Mind, Brain, Soul - Who we really are ... Most of us prefer to think that we possess something which is greater than the sum of our neurons; something which animates us and makes us the human individual we are. But much of what used to be classed as mind turns out to be brain and some part of all that must surely be the soul.  If we question who we are in these terms, we soon discover that we are not only our minds, but something else - and maybe everything else - at the same time. And is the soul one entity or are we all separate souls ? One of my favourite topics for questioning and discussion is memory, and how we define and recall our memories and many much greater 'minds' than mine have, over millenia, investigated and debated these issues.  A memory, at the cellular level, is a particular pattern of cellular changes on particular spots in our heads. A mood, however is a compound of neuro transmitters and if there's too much acetylcholine and not enough serotonin, t...

Looking back over past posts that I have written for this blog - as I often do when I need to focus my mind on one new thing to write about - I found a post from way back with  this title ,  "Know Thyself".   I wrote that I had found the ultimate "get yourself moving and write" site or at least thought I had. The idea was to take part in that year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) the idea of which was to begin writing on November 1st with a goal to write a 175- page, 50,000 word novel by midnight on November 30th.   NanoWriMo I declared that this seemed "simple", and then immediately decided that it was not so. Having started with good intentions that morning and being sure that at least a few hundred words would be written that day, despite having "other" things to do, my plan went awry and I castigated myself that I ought to have "known myself better". I then described my scenario that day - the site itself was running v...

It has long been recognised and accepted that listening to and taking part in musical activities has an effect on our feelings and emotions.  We all have pieces of music or songs which reminds us of a particular event or time in our lives and most of us can recall when the hairs on the back of our neck stood up, we had goose-bumps on our arms and shivers down our spine at the musical sounds we were hearing. I am fortunate that I was brought up within a family who loved music - my father a pianist and church organist, my mother a pianist and a member of numerous choirs. I have lovely memories of singing 'around the piano', duets with my mother, especially at bath time, and my attempts at harmonising from the age of about 3 years old.  Musician Billy Joel once said "I think music itself is healing. It is an explosive expression of humanity and something we are all touched by. No matter the culture, we all love music". Most of us, I'm sure, agree with this statement ...

Due to age, health or just too much information in my head, my memory gets poorer by the day.  Reading back through this blog written over the last 12/13 years, I am quite surprised myself that I barely remember writing some of posts. So I thought I might as well re-post some of them for my own benefit, and for anyone who hasn't come across them in the past and may find them of interest.  This seemed like a good one to start with - from February 10th 2014. Is your memory bad ?  Well, it's actually worse than you think, it seems.  A study by researchers at  Northwestern University, Chicago shows that o ur memory is a poor way of recording events. Maybe  a better way is to film and photograph every detail of every experience that we have over a lifetime so that we can check back that what we think happened, really did.  Some of us are well on the way to that scenario already. There's hardly a holiday, birthday, day out with friends or visit to the superm...

While looking for and attempting to organise some photographs, I have come across many of my written pieces/thoughts/poetry from the recent and distant past. (Oh no ! Not the poetry again !  I hear you exclaim). I think this one is worth revisiting however, if only to show thankfulness and gratitude to whoever or whatever did "somehow help".  Obviously a culmination of many things, but I am pleased to say that I travelled through that dark and helpless place that I wrote of, and came out the other side and back to "normal" (relatively ! ) Hope others may identify. Perhaps you could somehow help, for a ll the things that I held dear have left me. Everything I thought I owned, all the treasures of a personal world, all that I call ed mine , gone . And not just the material things. But yes they are gone too. The things that mattered and made me what I was,   the books, ornaments, memory trinkets of the past. Pictures, photo...

Is your memory bad ?  Well, it's actually worse than you think, it seems.  A study by researchers at  Northwestern University, Chicago shows that o ur memory is a poor way of recording events. Maybe  a better way is to film and photograph every detail of every experience that we have over a lifetime so that we can check back that what we think happened, really did.  Some of us are well on the way to that scenario already. There's hardly a holiday, birthday, day out with friends or visit to the supermarket that is not photographed, Instagramed and voice recorded to be then "shared" on social media sites to every corner of the globe, almost in real time. We have hardly had time to digest and internalise the event or our feelings about it before it's out there, a record in quite a lot of detail, for all time. Or for as long as we have the current equipment to watch and listen to it. I am as guilty as the next person for this of course and often wonder if the...

Watched  The Grumpy Guide to Christmas  last night - amusing, if not predictable. All those so called celebs telling us how much they hate Christmas, but obviously revelling in the revenue that moaning about it brings by talking about it on TV. As Ozzy Osbourne said "When I was a practising alcoholic it was the best time of the year, but when you don't drink it's just another day". They also talked about sending (or not sending) cards at Christmas and how you always get one from someone who you have never heard of. Me, cynical as ever, thought - that never really happens, it's just you have forgotten or something. But, another one of those coincidences that aren't  really coincidences happened this morning.   I received a Christmas card through the post this morning... from someone I've never heard of.                                              ...