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Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.
I hope people see that I am kind
That I care about things
Wrap my heart and soul
Round those who need.
But if they don’t see it?
Not important,
as long as things improve
Kindness can be hidden too
Who needs recognition?
If you can help anyway.
And yes, I am soft hearted.
A poet I know has published a long paragraph purporting to be by artificial intelligence. I think he wrote it himself? It is like one of those sentences that you write by using the central choice on your keypad to generate a string of words, but much more complicated. For example :
I think I was a child and I used to be a sunset……
Would be a generated sentence.
I’m not using any AI to write but I decided to say something using the word “cuttlefish” just because I thought of it.
So…… here goes.
“Very old cuttlefish walk across pink dessert avenues. They mean nothing to the public air. Hand wash slowly, using cranium crystals. Bleep out sanding shores. Official decision is required before trash can be planted in allergies.”
I guess you can write anything, but will it be understandable, and if infinite monkeys are not able to write Shakespeare, will AI make it so?
Are you more of a night or morning person?
Night is good for fireworks, comets and supernovae. You can’t see them well in daylight.
Also exciting things like auroras and the bright glow of volcanoes.
You might be able to see the milky way galaxy, planets and meteors.
Not that I’m obsessed with astronomy.
Also when you go inside you can watch interesting films on TV.
Daytimes? Well if you are looking forward to nice weather you can sometimes be lucky and get sunshine. But isn’t watching a thunderstorm at night more exciting? And reading a book in bed is relaxing.
Plus, getting up early in the morning it’s often cold. I prefer to stay snug, thank you.
Is Lady Liberty disappearing into mist and fog? What happened to the support of huddled masses? Can there possibly be mass deportations?
Looking up the name of the island where people arrived in America, Google says:
On 1 January 1892, Ellis Island opened to receive immigrants. At its peak, during the early years of the 20th Century, thousands of people passed through its gates each day. Angel Island in San Francisco Bay had the same role on the west coast from 1910 to 1940.
So why is this aspect of America. Support and kindness now being curtailed? Perhaps it is through fear, perhaps it is selfishness. I don’t know. There seems to be almost a mass hysteria around the world where xenophobia is taking control. We see it in the UK where the legal routes to migration have been reduced and people fleeing conflict have been forced to risk travelling across the Channel in small boats to get to the UK. Vicious rumours about those poor people have caused riots and misinformed so many people in negative ways.
We see war in Syria now that has started to maim and kill people again. Destabilising countries causes strife and fear and forces people to move. Gaza is in crisis, Ukraine is being destroyed. Sudan has floods and starvation to mention a few current crises. But instead of dealing with the bad actors we allow the oligarchs of the world to feel they can get away with their cruelty.
All of us need to stop and think about kindness, caring and love. It’s about time we thought as President Kennedy did, not what we can do for ourselves but what we can do for others. Somewhere humanity needs to think about our fellow humans and not just grabbing what we can and damn the rest.
It makes me dispair and worry about what we are doing. Maybe fear of what’s happening to the Earth’s environment is now impacting on its population. Somehow we must start to care more about each other.
Christmas, alone for another year. Make Merry they say. Bah Humbug! Do I reply? No, I’m not so lost that I turn my cheek to the world. But a quiet Christmas? Maybe. One chicken leg. A small bottle of beer. Three sprouts if I’m lucky? Any sparkle and cheer? I might make handmade crackers and tie one end to the door handle to pull them. Meanwhile, I bought myself a new garden bench to sit alone on, so happy new year, dear.
Does anyone else mutter extra words after they have finished a phone call? I just caught myself doing it, adding a little comment when my caller had ended the call. It wasn’t rude, just something along the lines of ” oh leave me alone”, but it could have been multiple phases. I think it must be something to do with being tired. It was just that I realised I might not have hung up properly. But no it was OK. I wonder how often this habit occurs? I shall have to be careful!
After 14 years and about 200 followers I’ve left X/Twitter. It was feeling pointless and I rarely used it.
I decided to try out Threads and it just felt friendlier, and then as I tried to post to both apps, X seemed more and more boring. Endless silly questions about where you went to school, were you around during the moon landings? Do you know one word that explains making bread? Trivial stuff. I’m not saying my new choice will be any better, but I’m giving it a go.
Anyway it’s nice not to be supporting Musk. X(kiss)
Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.
There may already be one?
A day to celebrate the Earth, a day to spend thinking about how to improve and support the world. Trying to clean the rivers and seas, reducing pollution, supporting poorer countries so the world uses greener and safer technologies. Actually caring about the land under our feet. Working out how to capture carbon and start to reduce gobal temperature surges. Hoping that the richest people get involved too.
Why? Because it’s needed, it could be the most important holiday that we ever create.
From the fuzzy grey of my brain I seem to have developed a need to think of an unusual name that I could, if I ever wrote a novel, use as a character.
This normally happens when I’m half asleep, it might be a continuing dream. And like a dream, I think of a name and then almost immediately forget it!
I don’t have a list, I didn’t think of writing names down. But I think each name is a little complicated, perhaps having several syllables. Is this normal? Is there a name for it? (like nominative determinism, where a person’s name relates to their job… A Mr Kitchenn as a cook for example?)
I am trying to think of names….
Buttercup Sylvester
Pamela Praline
Humphrey Othello?
Or maybe
Martia Stephinkos
Greg Carlos Carlisle?
I think I come up with better ones when I half asleep.
I just read a random post on Facebook that said if someone I knew was dead that was younger than me, that I should take a few seconds to Thank God for Saving me!
I thought about this and replied:
“This is really upsetting, I have lost people recently and to think someone could be so crass as too say they weren’t worthy in some way? Also what about all the innocent people that die in wars, hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters? Was that because they didn’t pray enough? I’m proudly agnostic, I don’t pretend to know the “truth”.”
The point is that whoever wrote it does not know the people I’ve lost, cannot say if they were good or bad. Their deaths were random. A big finger didn’t come out of the sky and strike them dead.
When someone you know dies, it’s a body blow, it’s overwhelming. It’s not a competition to see which one of you is a “winner” in some deities eyes. And if I could bring them back for one second I would. Maybe I’d be more inclined to pray, but I can’t, so I won’t. We don’t live in a fairytale.
Mallaband-Brown