Greetings!

Visiting the blog, A Sudden Unexpected Twist (I love that title because the word EXPECT is dead-central to it!), I left a comment on a quotation of Oscar Wilde. Then I thought it would make a post here, as I have been naughty and not added more posts recently. Though, I see I have 129 junk comments , mostly in Russian, to clear from my Dashboard!

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde entertains, with clever words. But, wisdom is usually elsewhere. I think there is a danger in the first sentence, if anyone applies it personally. It disempowers. Of course, the second sentence explains his meaning.

The quotation reminds me of something in one of Leo Buscasglia’s books. (Yes! What a surname! He was the first to offer a university module in California on Love. Outrageous at the time. Called ridiculous! Quite unnecessary! Hundreds applied.)

One of his students criticised him by saying, “Leo, you said something quite different on Monday!” He answered, “I was a quite different person then!” He meant we constantly grow and change. We should aim to do things differently and to create new experiences constantly.

Change habits. Why do you put your right shoe or sock on first? Dress differently every morning because it adds curiosity and creativity. How many ways can you shower? And tie your shoelaces? Always do something you have never done before: small and large. Speak to new people. Find something amazing about them, and tell them. Then, find more. Find things to love, genuinely. (This interests interesting people.) Fascination is all around us. In the eyes of a baby. The way we always comb our hair. An insect that is frightened. (Not in the hair!) Our hidden motives. The choice of words. Why certain things are said and done first. Every breath and expression is a clue to the individual beneath the facade. It is rewarding to be a loving, expectant detective.

Robert Louis Stevenson said he had 6 true servants, named Who, What, Where, When, Why and How, to help him write. But, I think the best investigative assistant is WHY. It unlocks the world for kids. And us, too!

So, in my opinion, we are never other people. We borrow thoughts and opinions. We imitate lives, (literally walking in others’ shoes when tiny!) We need quotes to populate our thoughts and react to them. And thus create our own.

So, Wilde the self-publicist (like George Bernard Shaw) was only offering a comment for clever minds. If he said it to any insecure person, he could shock and devastate. (Still, I like the quote.)

Hope you enjoyed your visit to Wales. (But, you were a different person in December, weren’t you? And have moved on since then.) Happy New Year, Katrina, to you and your visitors.

My blog is left aside, at the moment. I want to write a film script in January. Never done it before. So, why not? As the ideas run hot.

In closing, as I see it is 12 minutes to midnight, 31st December 2009, I wish my visitors and friends all the very best in 2010. May your New Year provide a host of Daily Differences! And heartfelt fulfillment.

Related posts:

1. Loving Thursday 3
2. Loving Thursday 2
3. Please Sign The Visitors Book

Kiss and make up!

To be really successful in a job, you need to love what you are doing. If necessary, get another job. To succeed in a good relationship, love is not an option. It’s essential!

In business, the same rule applies. Love your customers! Show fascination in what they do. Ask how you can make their lives better for them. Plot how to amaze them. Link a string of amazing surprises, focused intently on the customer. And you get appreciation back. And loyalty. Keep-up the genuine intensity, and you create an unpaid ambassador recommending you personally. It is hard work, however. Love is. But, joy and reward nevertheless.

You have ten fingers. Count on them those businesses that you are convinced really LOVE you. Perhaps just one. Or one less? That’s my point! There is virtually no competition! You get service, attention, assistance, efficiency. But, when last did your supplier wrap the product with love, when you paid for it?

A friend on mine has a book shop and asked for my advice. I watched a queue of customers at the till. A lady bought a thin, low-cost book. The assistant lifted it and wrapped it as if it was made of gold leaf, remarking it was a magnificent choice. The lady beamed. However, when the next customer handed over a book, ten times the value at least, it was just wrapped in silence. The smile was casual. He walked away as though his face had been slapped!

Invisibly, a future customer was quite possibly lost.

There is a shop I avoid going in. I go out of my way to avoid it. One of the women at the till, a part-timer, conveys such disinterest bordering on dislike. No amount of cheerfulness or friendly remarks change her. She has been there years. She is a paid saboteur.

Make people happy! Or lose the business and become bankrupt. Or, be the most sought-after person. It’s a choice. Love pays best!

It is all about contact, mentally. Conviction emotionally. Gratitude and appreciation conveyed without words. Tone and body language are almost all. We only pay attention to 15% of what people say. 85% is about what we see and feel.

Whoever loves customers sincerely has wonderful feedback BEFORE even expressing anything directly.

Why not, (every Thursday perhaps), plot and plan and enjoy planting what I call ‘love-bombs’ to explode and give pleasure to your unexpected ‘victims’? They may be highly surprised. They certainly won’t forget! Why? Because you may be unique in their current experience. Being different daily adds up to being unprecedented in your field.

Have a lovely day! I wish to wrap up this matter sincerely and gently, though I cannot see you. Change that to a fabulous day!

Related posts:

1. Loving Thursday 2
2. Loving Thursday 4
3. Loving Thursday

A Mind Change

Living in Britain, the song God Bless America can make me squirm. Often triumphalist. A tear-jerker operated for politicians by Party loyalists. However, I came across this rendition via StumbleUpon. Scroll down to it and be happily surprised. Perhaps delighted. Do you like it? And do you live outside the USA?

A musical hug is worthwhile, don’t you think?

Related posts:

1. Hug Special 2

Can I write this post in under 10 minutes?

What is love without gratitude? Call it appreciation. It’s more than respect. It’s greater than affection. It is passion with morals. It is linked with the meaning of life, personal Purpose.

Can I make this post better than the last?

Only if I dedicate myself to making not just my dreams come true, but to helping other people fulfill their own life purposes, by giving them the welcome and encouragement all of us needs. That I do!

Heart-felt hug,

Alastair

In 8 minutes full of meaning. Checked and posted in 9.

Related posts:

1. Hug Special 2
2. Loving Thursday 4
3. Loving Thursday

Thanks to Katrina of A Sudden Unexpected Twist

It’s weird where curiosity takes you! (OK, I mean me. But, I hope you share in this.) After subscribing to Blogging Without a Blog, I noticed the above blog in its free register. It seemed girl stuff. Not for a 69.7 year-old man exactly. Besides, I dislike orange. Didn’t like the wide orange tabs for latest posts, comments, etc. Thought the print too small maybe. Yet liked the twirly bits of the design. But the independence, different attitude and roots, and go-ahead energy of the blog owner, writer, cook-and-bottle-washer (as all blog owners have to be), pleased me. So, I read on.

And on. Each day. Till today, a few weeks later.

Her today’s post, 3rd December 2009, had an orange-red car at the top. Matching the flaming blaze of the title. I came to discover I like orange, even when it flames! How can this be? If first impressions are so important, why do I take pleasure in what I disliked and now like?

Today’s post was Thankful Thursday, a regular feature of appreciation for any aspect of life however large or trivial. What a good idea to self-train and exercise with others on the mental gym equipment called Thankfulness! Unashamedly, I decided to lift the idea (in Internet morality) and use it myself. Thus my title above. I mean almost the same thing. But I am so glad Thursday exists! This Thursday.

Why? Because I found a sudden unexpected twist. At the top of K’s blog is “Life List”. I had never seen it before. Maybe it’s new. Maybe it was staring me in the face. Perhaps I was meant to see it today. It is a draft Life Plan, really. A world tour of fascinating places. What blew my mind was that it had 151 (or so) items to dream of and move towards. Her brain had clear goals and lots of daily joy to anticipate.

Then I was thrilled to read that K. has a wall board to progress her dreams. Something I had mused on having for many years. So, now it’s me-too! There was another wonderful thing that I realized. Each of the 151 items are nodes or growing-points of a tree of new life. There is the possibility of readers adding suggestions, brainstorming with her, offering photos of dreamed-of places. Each is a potential branch for discussion and shared discovery. If K. wants it.

We are all told to “focus”. But, we can misunderstand. Are 151 points a focus? I say, yes absolutely! And more! The focus is K’s own: her “Life List”. We move from the macro to the micro in a blink, yet focus on both.

So, unashamedly, I’m going to keep expanding my ideas. If there are 151 growing points for me, then, I say that is a good beginning. But, why not more? The passion behind my blog is huge creativity. (I wanted to say mass-creativity, but I funked it. I put it in brackets, for the present.) I believe in the release of not one person’s innovative dreams but that of a whole community and then society.

It just so happens that I began with the idea of transforming politics, because politicians in Europe and North America have undermined popular control. Something downright evil has occurred. Historically, this theft of wealth and power leads to major war, within a decade. I HATE conventional party politics. But, I do believe a better version of ‘democracy’ can be built fast by millions of Electors, and there is little politicians can do to really halt such change. It just requires initial lunatics to not see apparent obstacles. My idea of “democracy” is 100 times as inventive as we have now. And it includes helping each other change our lives and fortunes. Blogs being one aspect.

We wrong-step, mistake and surprise our way to success in whatever we do. We make Lists. We stick them on the wall. We blog and talk. Swap. Make ideas come alive.

LOVING THURSDAY is my delight in what others are doing that moves forward, pushes, invents, creates, inspires and “tries” (though I am suspicious of that word, as it can mean avoiding a real, firm decision).

I thought Katrina could be Visiting Professor of New Ambitions, Motivation, Power and Fulfillment. That’ll be number 152.

Related posts:

1. Loving Thursday 3
2. Loving Thursday 4
3. Loving Thursday 2

Predicting the death of the EU

Violent language is entirely appropriate when a foreign power has taken possession of this population, labeled British, without a vote! In long defiance of the request for one.

In one stroke, from 1st December 2009, following the Treaty of Lisbon, now forced upon us:

1. The EU makes itself our enemy, ruling us without our permission.
2. The British Parliament, acting illegally in democracy, is now illegal.
3. Democracy in Britain clearly no longer operates.
4. The three main political Parties, by denying us a referendum, are no longer representative.
5. Our ineffective system of politics may be near redundancy.
6. Those who engineered this situation have to be banished from Parliament.
7. A CLEAR-OUT PARTY (COP) is a good start.
8. We need an ELECTORS’ CHARTER to regain authority and to begin replacing EU documents.
9. We desire the death of this imposed system, while being fully European in reasonableness.
10. WE STAY SOVEREIGN AND FREE WITHIN OURSELVES. Therein lies our irremovable power!

In democratic terms, the EU condemns itself and walks the first steps towards the political guillotine.

A Second Draft of THE ELECTORS’ CHARTER follows shortly, for anyone in the democratic world to improve and correct.

No related posts.

Fastest post yet!

My mistake is being too slow. Thinking too much. Not acting. Being too intellectual. And the like.

I have 10 minutes before I go out of the house to catch a bus. (I have given up driving. It’s more peaceful. I can be slow, think, not act, create big thoughts. And repeat mistakes…..Oh, dear!)

Well, I don’t care any more! I will post more often, change anything that has to be changed, stand on my head if necessary.

So, I have more time to give you a hug, forget myself (you are more interesting!)

Oh, and did I tell you that you can break (almost) any rule on this site? Write about whatever takes your fancy. Take the wheel! Steer in a better direction! As long as it’s vaguely in the direction of “Difference”! Any topic. Try it!

What are you standing there so puzzled for? Oh, yes. I forgot the hug! THERE! A special hug for you! For, you are special! Everybody who reads this is special. Each of you can seriously write ANYTHING you like on my blog until further notice, within the law of common-sense. Have fun. Be surprising. Amaze me!

Isn’t life fun?

Amaze us all!

Have another hug while you are waiting, thinking. Like me, change your habits. Write in an unexpected way. BEFORE you dare to think otherwise. It will be really great to hear from you!

P.S. I’m really surprised! I did this post in about 12 minutes!

Must beat that another time!

P.P.S. Don’t forget to comment, at length if your ideas roll. No limits!

Whoopee! I feel great! I hope you do, too!

Related posts:

1. Loving Thursday 2
2. Let the People Tell the EU Where to Get Off!
3. The Daily Hug 3

Have a whale of a time!

Take your hug-experience “to a new level!” as the stock phrase says. Imagine you are the person riding this white Beluga whale in the freezing ocean! What a wonderful sense of delight and achievement!

As you cannot be affected by the cold, are guaranteed the sensations of a lifetime, and will make an extraordinary new friend, just seriously put yourself into the mood and these emotional and physical reactions. For if this woman can, you can! We all share the same neurology.

This means that, by serious imagination, we can put ourselves into a wet-suit, feel the responses of this gentle giant, get fresh emotions and different thoughts.

Focus. Try it! Repeat it. Have the experience. Think about your new thoughts. Now imagine how you can make them even stronger, better and more valuable. Test the experience again.

This is not merely another link to a website. This is the chance of a neural connection with a unique experience. The more you trust your brain to create and re-create this remarkable event, the more you realise we all have astonishing capacities.

(The fact that I haven’t given you a hug lately doesn’t mean I have ceased to care about you! I’ve been re-thinking. And, as most men do, I go into my ‘cave’ until I have found a solution to the challenge now in my head.)

If you want a “Daily Difference”, ride a Beluga whale!

Related posts:

1. The Hug Laboratory
2. Illness Has its Merits
3. The Daily Hug 3

The EU is democratically-illegal!

The majority of the British people believe that the main Parties, in collusion with the EU Commission, have stolen democratic authority from them. Few realize that by so doing, those involved have also made the Westminster Parliament and the three main Parties within it democratically-illegal organisations, too! For, merely passing laws ad infinitum does not confirm their legality. Under democracy, the People are supreme, not the State and certainly not the Parties.

Many people across the EU have the same resentment at not being consulted or being able to vote on the EU as an imposed political force. They, too, do not realize that their politicians, by denying them their sovereign decision, have removed their own legitimacy. That lost legality cannot be regained without the rebirth and public validation of these Parties. Deliberate suspension or withdrawal of democratic choice upon who governs is democratically-illegal. It puts the whole organisation of European politics at the mercy of voters. It spotlights the EU as an imposed organisation, unrepresentative, illegitimate, non-authoritative, criminal, corrupt, untrustworthy, increasingly illegal and due for replacement by a democratic structure, genuinely under the control of the people of Europe.

Just as, for example the French Republic has undergone five manifestations, so must the EU be guillotined and the Parties be cleansed to the satisfaction of European electors. Meanwhile, the People can legitimately get busy with their future, planning alternatives, substitutes and scrapping of whatever is inefficient and wasteful of their resources. As sovereign citizens under the system of democracy, they can correct their politics and vastly better it.

For a start, they can design their own flag rather than have a noose of stars forced around their necks! I suggest a circular design, being completely different and referring to the immense, latent power of the People in democracy when acting together, able to transform the political landscape. I invite my fellow citizens to compete for the best design for a flag, suitable for a commonwealth of nations, for public consideration.

Meanwhile, we treat the EU and its thieving politicians with the contempt they deserve!

No related posts.

Second Draft of the Electors Charter

[0.1] Introduction

Tony Blair (British Prime Minister 1997-2007)

We are not the masters. The People are the masters. We are the servants of the People… What the electorate gives, the electorate can take away. (1997)

Masters, yes! Necessarily. For, politicians can never be fully trusted. In democracy, the People are supreme. Free people decide their government.

A massive fraud has taken place. Democracy has been avoided and denied. The British people have been forced to submit to the rule of the European Union without consultation, undeniable agreement or confirming vote. Fraud, being fraud, can never be legal. Parliament cannot legalize its own democratic illegality.

It is as if a lawyer, acting in the name of a client, had forged his signature, transferring title rights to his friends and access to his wealth, in perpetuity. Then, made him accountable to them. Insisting all was legal as he was his representative!

Parliament represents the People. They say! But, it has transferred resources and powers to the European Union for decades, plus adjudication rights to its courts, deliberately without “the whole-hearted consent of the British People”. (Prime Minister Edward Heath, 1970)

Many despair. They say fatalistically, “This is what elites have always done!”

There are fresh answers, however, within democracy. The sovereignty of the People can be exercised in quite unexpected ways. For example, by this counter-Charter for electoral power in new forms. It returns supremacy to those who lend it: the People. It wrenches it back from those who steal it: Parliament and the EU. It develops democracy beyond what it now is. All from the innate authority of the People, their innovation and votes.

This second draft edition is subject to correction, improvement and addition by any Elector believing in the need of democracy, with all its imperfections.

Contrary to imposed, government Charters, this Charter starts as a consultation channel. Its end face will be very different from now. It works towards the goal of a Magna Carta of Democracy for the 21st Century, from the People to those privileged by them to govern. It can become one of their controlling, corrective mechanisms. It gathers public support and approval throughout the democratic world.

The Charter Text, 2nd Draft follows soon.

Related posts:

1. Towards a new Magna Carta