"Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try... " Ah, but is it? Most of us find it difficult to envisage a world without a heaven. We may try hard to seem cynical but deep within, we are all idealists. Not only do we like to dream of an ever-after that is always happy, we also like to feel that heaven is a place on Earth. We keep hoping that any moment now we are going to enter it. ya right?!! Wake up... The "ever-after" bit I am not qualified to comment on. I have very mixed feelings at the moment of whether there is any truth on such a thing...or what the people who came up with that concept were actually thinking!!! My power of cynicism extends only to now ! And all I can think of is "when will I get a little taste of the heaven" they keep promising us?!

We live in an instant, just-add-water, push-a-button, microwaveable-in-under-three-minutes, zap-the-remote-control-and-see-the-war-before-your-very-eyes kind of a world. Not everything about it is good. Too often, we lose our appreciation for essential natural processes that need to happen slowly. We look for ways to hurry them just as we look for ways to depersonalise the injustices that we can see yet seemingly cannot influence. We end up feeling remote. And we end up looking desperately for something to put us right back in touch with the nicest part of reality.
Some people are now staring at their TV screens all day, watching the rolling news in a mesmerised daze. Others are getting the merest occasional glimpse of the war or shall we call it PWN ( Post War News). They notice a headline as they stroll past a news stand or catch a few words of the six o'clock bulletin. Who can say which group is better informed? The propagandists are showing us only what they want us to see. Even if it is not what we want to see at all. I guess it is up to us not to let others to warp our view of key situations and not get blinded by science. I suppose my granma is right when she says: "Ask your heart what it sees. And trust that."

This weekend I decided to retire...retire from this unfair and brutal game of give and take...perhaps retire to a little house on the priory with white fences and a cat who hasn't got a name! Perhaps I would sit on the porch on my rocking chair with the cat and stare at the lily path...! Perhaps I will take up knitting too...but who would I knit for...Perhaps I will make little outfits for the cat!...and perhaps the children from the village will come up to watch the old lady with the cat...Perhaps they will come and play in the yard and I sit there on the porch...on my rocking chair with the cat and watch them play...perhaps I will make them cookies! But then that would mean that I have to take my eyes of the path!
Perhaps a little bird will take refuge in the kitchen and becomes friend with the cat...an addition to our little family! Perhaps I never close my eyes...just in case I miss what goes on the lily path...Perhaps spring blooms come and go...Perhaps the summer warm wind blows...Perhaps the leaves fall as the autumn comes...Perhaps the snow falls and I watch the lily path covered with white crisp snow...closing my eyes...hoping for spring blooms again...year after year!

Some people say, "Don't sweat the small stuff." Others disagree. They say, "Little things count for a lot." To someone else, my current drama might look trivial. But from where I am standing, it seems like a very big deal. And how can any one ever really say what matters and what doesn't. If something is important to me now, it is important and I don't have to justify myself nor do I need to apologise for experiencing a perfectly reasonable reaction.

Have you ever started to feel like an arrow that is about to be fired by someone else’s bow? where you suspect you are being used as a pawn in a greater game!. And you feel a sense of the inevitable about what is happening, yet you are not sure whether you are happy with it, and you wonder whether you can turn back time? Can you stop what has already started? Can you Ignore criticism and suppress doubt? Go with the flow?, even if you are not yet quite sure where that flow is actually going?.
My Dad always says; you are never too sure of anything until it surprises you! But are there really such things as happy surprises?....

"Life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans." This old Sufi saying, was one of Patric Walker's favourites. It became attributed to John Lennon after the late great astrologer quoted it to the Beatle in a New York hotel. Soon after, Lennon gave an interview and he used that phrase. Ever since he has been credited with this particular piece of wisdom. I am not sure if any of this really matter....Only in one way maybe. I think life is also what happens to us while we are busy watching other people. And the more energy we give their stories, the less time we have for our own!!!

Tried to put a picture up....but failed badly :(

Some things never change. They last forever. They will always be what they always were. Our deepest, most emotional bonds for example. They may deepen and strengthen or they may even suffer some stress and weaken. But in some shape or form they will be with us our whole life long. Even death cannot part us from the people with whom we have made a permanent connection! ....:)

I guess some things are just not worth thinking about. The more attention you give them, the more intimidating they seem. And, of course, they are almost always the things we simply cannot bring ourselves to ignore. It can be as hard to resist thinking a particular thought as it can be to stop smoking – or give up cheese cakes. We know we really shouldn’t but we just can’t seem to help ourselves. I don't know why I am talking about this kind of thing to you today!!! Hey this diet thing is making me cranky......

Did I ever say that the journey isn't important; it is the destination that counts? ...I am sorry if I did...because now I change my mind if I ever have committed myself to such idea...I took a completely different route to work today...walked a bit...even took the bus...I can confidently say the journey does matter and the destination is irrelevant...as long you have a set destination...how you choose to get there can make a big difference in the overall scheme of things!!!

The world divides up into two types of people. The pots... and the kettles! Or, if you prefer, the hypocritical and the inconsistent. We are all as bad as each other. We all look suitably horrified and outraged when we discover other people’s glaring contradictions. And we all manage to turn a convenient blind eye to our own, equally bad, double standards. The grass may be always greener on the other side of the fence but the snow always tends to be whiter, purer and more driven on our own side of it!!

What is the secret of true happiness? Over the centuries many people have asked this question but few have ever claimed to know the answer. Perhaps instead, we should ask, what is the cause of eternal sadness? The human heart is amazingly resilient – as too, is the mind. No matter what we experience, we can find some way to accept it or put it behind us. So if sadness cannot last forever, perhaps happiness cannot either. And perhaps, it is only when we understand this that we become truly happy!!!

I went through my phone book over and over...and it is amazing how I realised...I didn't actually had anyone I could call to cry for...some one who would just listen...or offer to hold my hand...some one who would tell me everything is going to be fine no matter how far fetched that might seemed!! some one who would simply offer an open arm...have I really hit rock bottom...what happend to my friends? I guess some where down the path of getting here things kind of changed...ya I guess they did!...So as I watched the Swans drift along the water playfully and the little girl feeding the ducks I realised... one is the loneliest number to be!!

We try so hard to take everything in our stride and to accept without question whatever life puts in our path. Yet every so often the devil takes hold of us. It pins us down, winds us up and says,"Go on, seek an explanation. Try to understand."No matter how often we have tried this in the past, we get sucked in by that idea. "Maybe," we think,"this time I will make sense of it."

Sometimes I just cannot relate to a certain person in the way I once did. Indeed, I seem to be changing one relationship with relationships! Is it because I want something different from them these days. Why?May be I shouldn't bother asking. Perhaps I should just trust that if I now follow what I feel,I won't go far wrong....! ummmmmm

Why do people talk about turning green with envy? If that's the colour we really go, we surely don’t have to worry about the colour of the grass on the other side of the fence. I am not trying to suggest that we are being unreasonably covetous. But if we want to understand the subtle motives behind various people's positions, we need to appreciate how potent desire can be. Someone we feel tempted to move in one way, when we know for sure that someone else is itching to go in a different direction. Both of us think this is the way to find happiness. But is it? I think not! It is through putting down, not picking up a passion, that life can be lightened.

Actually, you don't have to go to the other side of the fence to get greener grass. You can attain it just by pushing the lawn-mower in a particular direction. Some people become almost neurotically obsessed with getting the right stripes. They figure that if their lawn looks perfect, this will somehow help a part of their lives to be perfect. But, of course, we all know that appearances can be very deceptive. So If we want the grass to get genuinely greener, shouldn't we stop trying to sit on the fence!

Has someone slipped something in my tea? Everything seems a little more vivid than usual. Images are sharper, sounds more subtle, colours brighter, Ideas more exciting. And emotions are more intense. What could it be? oh...I get it...it is sunny today!!!!

In every busy street you will find an optician and a dentist. Clearly, a lot of eyes need looking at and a lot of mouths need looking in. Yet where are the people who check our hearing? We cannot even readily recall the name of these medical specialists? Can we conclude from this that the world is full of people who have no difficulty in that department? If this is so, how do we explain the fact that nobody ever listens to anybody else? If we are not all deaf, we are certainly terribly rude!

Every channel i flick through these days are showing images of the war...every conversation you have with people is about the war...I watched the fall of baghadad on CNN yesterday...I saw Iraqi people battering the statue of Saddam on CNN...I also saw an Iraqi girl shout go home americans and swearing at them on Jame-Jam...which one should we hear? which one should we believe? Is this why we are always told not to generalise?

When things change in the world, they change suddenly. The build-up may be gradual but the moment of truth comes from nowhere and establishes itself at the speed of greased-lightning. The whole thing is rather like watching a balloon being blown up to the point where it finally pops. It often seems amazing how much energy or air can be absorbed. it is like thinking, something has surely got to give soon but it doesn’t. And then, the point of no return is brief. What’s coming up for these people? Liberation! The imminent, instant end of a struggle they feared would go on forever?

A tatty piece of paper can be worth a fortune if it contains the autograph of some famous person, long gone from this world. How strange that we should place such a high value on something so trivial while all around us, people starve, suffer and struggle. We live in a world where real, human lives are worth far less than pieces of rubbish. No wonder we have difficulty making sense of anything. How can we ever understand what the TRUE value of anything is? Shouldn't we have start rethinking our priorities? Perhaps it will make us wiser and happier – it may yet make us better off too. Who knows!

Sometimes, the fortune fairy taps us on the shoulder with her wand and everything starts to go our way!
Sometimes, she just brushes briefly past our door, depositing a package as goes. Her deliveries are often odd, (hardly ever a bunch of flower or a cheque addressed to my name, except once actually..a check from some draw for 25p..wow i am rich!!) More likely with a label that says : "Brought to you by Depression International – Premier Promoters Of Global Gloom. Bills, demands, court cases. redundancies, rejections and regrets. Sorrows, sadnesses and stupidities. You name them, we can supply them.” although, They rarely contain the name of the sender.
Often, indeed, they are parcelled up as problems. Even if we can see through this disguise, we tend to discover, as we unwrap, that we have been given a kit for self-assembly. We have only the component parts – not the finished item. I guess that is when we know we have to do a little figuring out and thinking!!! ummmm....and that is when over analysing comes in...I wish things would have been simpler...!!

After a very busy birthday weekend where i didn't really have time to be grumpy or miserable about my age, I dragged myself out of bed this morning, feeling exhausted and not quite 100%. The journey to work was too cold for April and the Metro had all this clips about the war and Sars and got me into a right state!!!!
What if the Iraq War turns into World War III? What if the doctors can’t cure or control the new respiratory syndrome, apparently emanating from Hong Kong and China? What if the stock market crashes and we all lose our jobs? And our homes? What if global warming causes the seas to rise till there’s no land to live on? What if... well, I don’t suppose I need to go on really, do I? If you add all those what-ifs to the more personal ‘worst case scenarios’ I keep considering, you can see why I feel so edgy.
I suppose I could also ask the question : What if it all turns out to be fine?.....ya right!!!!

When I Was Just A Little Girl!
"When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother;
what will I be?
Will I be pretty?
Will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me :
Que sera, sera.
Whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see.
Que sera sera