Monday 24 April 2017

Live in Balance: A to Z Challenge - T is for...

Time, the cross of the modern era
Apple, iWatch 2, image, digital watch-face
My digital watch
Have you noticed how obsessed we are with time? We wear watches, put clock apps on our mobile phones, have clocks in our cars, clocks on our walls and desks. Heck, here where I am sitting at my desk, at home, I can see at least 3 clocks: my watch, my fish tank and my computer screen. If I open the cover on my phone, there would be another.
It is as if we cannot live without those numbers that tell us...what? Time?
What is time?
According to Wikipedia[1], “Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.”
Uh, okay?
While that sounds instinctively correct, it doesn't tell us much about what time actually is, does it?
image, fishtank, clock, time, calendar, temperature
My fish tank
Reading a bit more we see that the number (we note as the date or the time on a clock) is calculated as an event or occurrence measured from a reference.
If you know something about mathematics and science, you will know that there is such a thing as an international time standard from which all clocks derive their reference, or 'starting point' if you like. If there wasn't, there would be chaos in the world and we would have constant disputes as to when we should meet, or when something happened in history. But we don't because people started measuring time, a long time ago.
Evidence suggests that people started 'measuring' time about 6000 years ago by observing the lunar cycles.
Why did people need to know the time?
If your history is up to speed, you will remember that people were mostly farmers, or more correctly, depended on the seasons for their survival. They needed to have some kind of indication of when it would be a good time to plant food, when to expect rain, and when to look forward to the harvest.
They also used the lunar cycles for their religious ceremonies. So, we needed to know the time to survive and to give thanks to the gods for the bounty they provided.
Since then the human race's survival has taken a different turn - the concrete jungle and its rat race. So it is still a survival thing, although it is not our lives that depend on it so much anymore.
How do we measure time?
Historical records are filled with the devices that people used to measure time. Sundials, water clocks (which were surprisingly accurate), the hourglass, and mechanical clocks of various designs.
Today we measure time using an atomic clock. It is the reference standard mentioned earlier. A caesium source is used as the time reference. It is radiated with microwaves to observe the vibrations of electrons inside the Cs atom. The reference unit of measuring time is the second.
The Global Positioning System of satellites are used to synchronise clocks worldwide.
Time on a personal scale
While it is fascinating to know that we can measure time with mind-boggling accuracy, and that our ancestors didn't do that badly with their own time measuring devices, time means more than the hours, minutes, and seconds displayed on our watches.
If you watch the grains of sand flowing through an hourglass, you get the feeling that you can 'see' time flowing away. The older we get, the more we hear people say that time is going faster. Time is not going faster, it is our greater awareness of the time we have left in this life that makes us more aware of the flow of time.
We cannot change time's passage, nor can we recover or save time. We can only use time: for things that make us happy, for things that we need to survive, for things that we don't need to do.
Journal
Explore your use of time in your journal today. Are you spending your time doing things that make you happy? Useful? Productive? If not, what can you change to make that happen?

You can read many more interesting things about time in the links below.

Sunday 23 April 2017

Live in Balance: On finishing what I started

Last night I scrolled through my unpublished writing projects. And there are many of them. I got disheartened when I saw how many of them are still unfinished first drafts. Some may never be finished. I only let a story go if I don't like it anymore.
I have, however, several first drafts that are finished. They need editing, for sure, but the story is done. So why did I feel so negative when I saw the list of files of projects not yet done? Time seems to be the answer. I explore a little of the history of time in tomorrow's post, in the A to Z Challenge.
Time, yes, the one limited resource over which we have no control. But we can control how we spend it, yes? When I read about an English Premier League soccer player who died last week at the age of 44, I felt sad even though I have never met the man. He was so incredibly young. I am in no position to judge how he lived his life, but it again made me think about the way I am spending my limited resource. Am I using all of it without regret and waste?
We will explore the Value of life (and time) in this last week of the A to Z Challenge. And I have to say that through my research into exploring Happiness through Journal Writing, maybe it is time for a change in direction in my own journey to happiness.
I hope you have enjoyed exploring journal writing on this journey of Happiness with me this month.
Next month I will be back to my usual posting schedule (once or twice a week) and I look forward to your company then.
Until next time!

Linzé

The A-to-Z Challenge letters for the coming week are as follows:
Monday: Letter T…for Time
Tuesday: Letter U…for Unique
Wednesday: Letter V…for Value
Thursday: Letter W…for Weapon
Friday: Letter X…for Cross Out
Saturday: Letter Y…for You (art prompt)
Sunday: Letter Z...for Zero

If you missed any of the previous letters, here is a quick recap (just click the letter!)
A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I        K    L    M
N   O    P    Q    R    S

Saturday 22 April 2017

Live in Balance: A to Z Challenge - S is for...

Share what you learn
Yesterday, Friday, I had a migraine and didn't get to do everything that I wanted to. Since I am on leave, my todo list is flexible, but I also have a few things that I want to do. The migraine put me in bed for a few unplanned hours. While the pain wasn't so bad this time, I usually try not to think too hard. So I let my mind drift in whatever directions it wanted to go without pausing to explore any thought that might occur.
Until I fell asleep, thankfully, I realised that I have been reading a lot of non-fiction books recently. It is not unusual to do that when doing research for a new book or blog series, but somehow my research turned into more - I was reading for me.
quoted text, Negotiating the Maze, author Linzé Brandon, non-fiction, writer's life

Why read non-fiction in the first place
In my book, Negotiating the Maze, there is a section on reading and reviewing books, and how doing that for fiction differs from reading and reviewing non-fiction books.
What struck me in particular, was the way the recent books made me think. After almost every chapter, sometimes even after reading a paragraph, I had to put the book down and think about what I had read.
Often there was a Wow! moment, or even a hmm moment. These books have affected my thinking in some way. Changing one's thoughts could change one's way of life. It might have been the intention of the author, but unless I let it change me in some way, I might as well not have read the book at all.
Of course, this is not the case for all non-fiction books. But it again comes back to the intention of reading the book. Although I think some books are meant to change your life, no matter what your intentions were for reading them in the first place.
Share the surprise
Have you read a book that impacted your life although you did not plan it that way?

Friday 21 April 2017

Live in Balance: A to Z Challenge - R is for...

Rambling roses
You have a date with your journal, and you really love the time you spent writing down your thoughts, but you have no idea where to start. Happens to all of us. Novice or experienced journal writers.
image, desk sized fish tank
You have a peek at a daily prompt or pick a letter from this blog, but there is nothing that speaks to you. Is there any advice to help? Yes, there is.
Think shallow to dig deep
Sometimes we know what we need to ponder, but it is difficult to get going. So the approach not difficult to manoeuvre, you start by using the simplest writing technique known to man: word association.
Take a dictionary (book works better, but some online dictionaries will give you a random word) open it and use the first word you see. Write it down. If you don't know the word, learn the meaning and make a sentence with it. Write down the next thing that comes to mind. And the next thing. You can write a sentence about the word that pops up, or just jump to something new.
Keep on doing this for a few minutes or until the words you need to write flows out of your pen.
If nothing happens, relax, ramble some more, but don't force yourself. Your mind may need a little time to process the thing you need to ponder, but until then, pick a word.
Ramble on dear friend
When I need to ramble, revive, repress, rhyme or ring, I pick an object on my desk and whine about needing to put it away, or clean it, or replace it. My favourite is the small fish tank that I bought a while back. There are no fish but I love the sound of the water while I am writing or reading. You can also pick from 6 prerecorded sounds of nature, but I just love to hear the sound of the water.
It can be powered by a USB port. This is a feature I like because I can plug it into my backup battery pack, and use the bright 6 LED light when the power is down.
See? Rambling already and about an empty fish tank.

Today's prompt is to get you going when you feel that words fail you. What other tricks do you use to get going on your journal entry?


Thursday 20 April 2017

Live in Balance: A to Z Challenge - Q is for...

My favourite Quote
Don't you just love words starting with Q? In English there are quite a number, but in Afrikaans, my home language, words starting with Q are rare indeed.
But when it came to the challenge this time, there was no doubt that my Letter Q would be for Quote. So here is my all time favourite quote:
quote, Epictetus

 
I have it printed in large font and stuck up on the cupboard door in my office facing me. All I have to do is look up and over my computer screen and there it is. My inspiration, if you like. The essence of what I feel I could become: dream plus action equals goal...in sixteen words.

What is your all time favourite quote?

Theme reveal: My A-to-Z blog challenge 2024

  It's been a while since I have taken part in the blog challenge. The problem is always coming up with new ideas so it isn't boring...