A Breath of Fresh Air.

Amidst all the rather bleak news in the media at the moment I came across this article from one of my favourite websites. I think it's worth showing this in full as I feel the writer Ken Robinson is so refreshingly positive and I like to think that people with passions in their lives tend to attract others. Anyway here is the article and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


"It was Jeremy Bentham, I believe, who said there are two types of people in this world: those who divide the world into two types and those who do not. Well, these days I do. On the one hand, I'm constantly surprised by how many people settle for so little fulfilment in their lives, who endure their lives rather than enjoy them. On the other, I know people who simply love what they do and couldn't imagine doing anything else. "This isn't what I do," they say, "this is who I am." There are people in every walk of life for whom this is true: people who are in their element. Being in your element involves doing something for which you have a natural aptitude. But it's more than that: it's about passion. You have to love it, too.
Passion can be a disconcerting idea in Britain, conjuring up images of fiery glances, pounding hearts and a hint of castanets. It's not always like that. Passion is a deep attraction. It can be for someone else or for a process: music, maths, cooking, sport, entrepreneurship, teaching… whatever fires your imagination and stokes your energy. We all have different aptitudes and we have unique passions. The challenge is to find them because it's in the fusion of both that we live our best lives.
An original meaning of "passion" is to suffer or endure, as in the Passion of Christ. Its modern meanings have evolved to include love, attraction and pleasure. Finding our own element is also a journey from endurance to enjoyment. It's a vital step, too, in moving from being one type of person to being the other type."


See the article and others on matters related to philosophy/psychology at:
http://www.theschooloflife.typepad.com/

Now I feel it's time to consider and cultivate my passions.

Translation as a Negotiation Process

The whole issue of translation is something I find continually fascinating, so much so that I've recently started reading Umberto Eco's book "Mouse or Rat; Translation as Negotiation" He argues that translation is not just "typing in a foreign language"; translators are forced to continually examine, interpret, evaluate and - as Eco puts it - negotiate with a text in order to craft a translation that conveys not just the "meaning" but the intent of the original. The term negotiation is an interesting one here; for example he uses an online translator to change the heading: "The works of Shakespeare" which is rendered as "Gli impianti di Shakespeare" which when returned to English becomes "The plants of Shakespeare." Clearly with a bilingual Italian or English speaker a more authentic translation would be produced. This concept of distance between languages reminds me of  when I was living in Spain as each time I stepped outside of my front door it became an adventure as I was one of only a handful of English speakers in the town so I had to operate in a foreign language. I felt as though I was wearing a cloak; something over me but not truly me. Yet paradoxically I felt a sense of liberation; being set free from the cultural landscape of one language and exploring the vast plains of another. It is the joy then of exploring these great plains that is the joy of translation.

Meet Larry - Downing Street's new cat

Richard Hawley - Hotel Room

The place of exams

Sometimes I question what examiners are looking for. Having recently retaken an exam and missing it again, I'm beginning to question the role of exams. Are examiners requiring candidates to merely replicate a particular world view namely their own prescribed world view or are they genuinely 'testing' ability and dare I say it personal creativity or difference. Whoops where are the criteria to measure someone's creativity or individual flair. I'm not saying I was particularly creative yet I thought I had answered all the questions thoroughly and answered them according to my knowledge and experience.
It's interesting to think back to exams I didn't do so well in; I still remember much of the course content and isn't that assimilated knowledge more useful than the fleeting knowledge gained by someone who had passed yet a few months later had forgotten what they had studied in the first place.

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative"
(Oscar Wilde)

Dinner for One

Allison Moorer ~ Looking for a Soft place to Fall.

This is a beautiful song that accompanies this video.

Faintest glimmers of firefly light

"Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows." Here Ray Bradbury in his story "The Pedestrian" describes the life of a man who wishes to engage with life. He refuses to have a wall screen in his house and decides to walk the empty city streets at nights looking for meaning; a meaning or explanations apart from those which are presented by the huge wall screens which like fireflies glimmer behind windows; the windows of houses or "tombs ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the grey or multicoloured lights touching their faces, but never really touching them." I recently reread this short story and it's just as chillingly real now as it was then; plasma screen televisions, home cinema 3D television... time to explore the great outdoors I think or as ee cummings says:
"listen:there's a hell of a good universe next door;
let's go"