One of the potential problems of modern life today is the constant access to instant gratification. Sure we all love to get what we want RIGHT NOW! But that erodes the ability to be patient. When we are not patient we tend to do rash things and rash is an opposite energy to gritty determination. The pioneers of yesteryear had both the patience and the determination to build things that have stood the test of time. Simply put, patience is indeed a virtue and without it we lack the determination to succeed at things of substance which also stand the test of time.

Here is one of my favourite stories about such simple determination and patience.

May Savidge lived in a little cottage in a town called Hertfordshire in the UK in the 1950′s. She had bought it in 1947 at the age of 35 and as a self taught home improvement enthusiast was slowly restoring it. She had used a builder to repair the roof, but everything else such as the brick laying, carpentry, glazing and stripping of the plaster she had opted to do by hand.

Then, one day the council informed her that they were going to demolish her house to make way for a road – a rash decision that would not be taken today as historical properties are now listed and protected.

Whilst Ms Savidge was renovating she had uncovered a lot of evidence that she was living in a home that dated back to medieval times, such as Tudor fireplaces and the floorboard wood work of medieval carpenters. It had been recognized as such by the architectural historians May had brought to see it. So she could not bear the idea of destroying such an important part of the national heritage.

The Lioness was awoken.

She dug her heels in and refused to move whilst she fought the council for the next 15 years! Then she came up with the impossible idea of relocating the whole house lock stock and barrel elsewhere. To get started she decided she would number each wooden beam and every pane of glass so that the whole building could be reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle. Because of her inexperience she used greasproof paper and crayons to trace over samples of brickwork so she could determine how thick to lay the mortar.

As the house was slowly dismantled she still had to remain in it, sleeping in the freezing cold, under the wintry sky exposed by a gradually disappearing roof. She would say, ‘ I just won’t have such a marvelous old house bulldozed into the ground. I’ve got nothing to do all day so I might as well do it myself.’

As more and more people got to hear of her story they would send her money to help her out. She eventually found a new place in Norfolk, in the east of England and began the arduous task of transferring the house literally brick by brick. It took a large lorry 11 round trips to carry every part of the house.

Once relocated to Norfolk, she stayed in a caravan with her beloved dog whilst the house was being rebuilt. It was desperately cold but she refused to give up stating that she was brought up on the maxim that there was no such word as ‘can’t.’

A whole two years later the framework was fixed to the foundation by a local carpenter and May had started on the brickwork. She had no experience of brick laying but was determined to fit each brick perfectly. It took a further eight years of May’s tortoise-speed building before the place could be made water tight and the roof added.

When she was in her 70′s she finally was able to move in and continued to build her cottage, climbing the scaffolding day by day despite her age. The Queen having heard of her endeavour and recognizing her strength and British Bulldog spirit had invited her to the palace in 1986.

As she got older, the work started to slow somewhat as she could no longer handle the heavy lifting. When she died aged 81 in 1993 the walls were up, the roof was done and it was her niece who put the final touches to her aunts dream with money raised from selling May’s valuable hoard of memorabilia. She had succeeded in moving her house across Britain, brick by brick so it would not be destroyed and it still stands today as a little bed and breakfast outlet run by that same niece.

…And today

To make a potentially unkind comparison, I had a friend who had wanted to explore renovating houses, selling them, then finding a new property to renovate buoyed by the profit of the previous sale and so on. As we chatted about the process and what would be involved, it became clear that some kind of caravan would be needed to sleep at the properties when the houses were not of commuting distance and my friend and his pals could then return home at weekends – or indeed any time they needed to…

That simple realization brought the plans to a screeching halt. The comparison is of course that my friend was a strapping man who would  have had the camaraderie and support of his pals throughout the job, compared to a lone woman who started the incredible move in her fifties. A modern caravan would be warm and dry, with easy access by car to travel home to warm hugs, showers, tea and biscuits, or potentially the property being renovated could be also lived in, as opposed to 25 years of single handed building with little respite.

It is our tendency as modern day folks to focus not on what we want to achieve but how difficult it might be that separates us from the pioneers or the May Savidge’s of the world.

Like most things in life, achievement is a matter of simple choice. We can opt to be the folks who can always splutter out 20 reasons why everything is impossible, or we can be the ones who persist and insist on only seeing the end goal.

The words above are from me. The pics and the original story is from ‘Miss Savidge Moves Her House,’ by Christine Adams with Michael McMahon.
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I have placed an affiliate link to Amazon below for those of you interested in pursuing this very interesting story. It is first time I have gone to Amazon and read a sneak preview, then found myself squeaking petulantly with great disappointment when the excerpt finished far too soon. P.

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A treat for those of you who are writers and prefer a little bit of solitude and nature to stir your imagination. This is a writers retreat.

Located on San Juan Island, Washington, the intention was to pull the writer into the solace and hum of nature and leave behind all distraction.

The cabin is glass walled with wooden slats that are raised by a hydraulic system. The slats can be pulled up at night, or raised for security when the occupant is away.

Then there is a 180 degree swivel fireplace that warms you on the shutter deck outside or heats you up cozily on the inside.

The minimalist finish and furnishing is simple and basic to keep you focused on that Pulitzer prize novel or blog! And a wide screen, flat screen, big screen, (I scream), TV set is anathema and deliciously absent in this particular setting.

Sublime.

refs:

Olsun Kundig

Unsocial intelligence…Huh?

Well all I mean is:

unsocial ~ not seeking the company of others…and y’all know what intelligence is.

This year will undoubtedly yield more tales of doom, gloom, financial unrest and woe. You have choices. Either follow the (justified) griping, moaning crowd or seek out your own independent future by carefully planning it, overcoming any interim setbacks and working diligently towards that end goal…however much you sweat, however long it takes.

Unsocial intelligence is knowing that your stance or opinion does not require a playmate or a consenting audience. It is being able to take on board information without taking on board the malaise and death of hope that hangs ominously above us currently like an unwelcome fart.

For every town with families squeezed by a newly restricted budget, there is someone buying 5 Rolex watches for an indifferent audience of trust fund pals. For every thousandth child starving in India there is someone planning this years skiing trip to Klosters, it will be their ninth holiday break of the year. For every mithering complainer there is someone, (exposed to the same difficult conditions as everyone else), head bent in concentration creating tomorrow’s Facebook, Harry Potter, Cirque Du Soleil, P.E.T.A, Jimmy Choo, Apple…They are doing this right now! What are YOU/WE doing?

‘The poor will always be with us,’ Jesus apparently mused and as He said this quite a few thousand years ago and the poor have not shifted despite decades of concerts and donations and centuries of good Samaritans, we can probably start to believe in his prediction right about now. Good people help where they can, but I have never found belly-aching to be a solution to any problem. So I entice you this year to resist the seductive call of the crowd and place your focus, skills and intelligence on an endeavour that will alter your own life for the better.

Isn’t it strange that whether we watch the news or choose not to, people are still killed, wars are still waged, and the public purse is still purloined by the corrupt people in charge? Unsurprisingly, this will happen regardless of your devotion to religiously staying up to date with these enervating, defeatist stories. Also, find any newspaper from practically any decade and you will find talks of high tax, protesting angry mobs, recession, unemployment and terrorists. Plus ca change…

However, I will add that unsocial intelligence is not lack of social contribution or sticking one’s head in the sand and hoping a problem will go away. It is more about using refined focus to gain the strength and resource to help oneself and potentially others where possible.

I wish you many glories this year.

I am a big fan of Amish simplicity. A self reliant community for whom everyone from the very young to the very old has a role. Their days are run at the speed of nature – getting up and retiring with the sun and communicating face to face with one another unimpeded by technology or enforced work distance.

Because everyone has a role and are engaged and busy, they are unlikely to turn to drugs and drink to solve boredom issues, or waste time vying to be part of some pointless clique.

They are lucky enough to know where their food comes from and exactly what is in it. No hyperactive children there!

They have low to no rates of depression and any problems are spread amongst the whole community diluting it’s strength.

And who would have thought that Amish simplicity would be rocked by frou frou designers who then spend inordinate amounts of money to achieve a similar inexpensive, rustic look?

I know they are not perfect, but there are some elements of their lifestyle that those of us occasionally left breathless by a new revelation of the depth of human cruelty and windswept at the haste of the very young to ‘grow up’ in all the wrong ways, would do well to even consider re-adopting for our own communities. Not least self respect, work ethic, wide eyed interest and wide eyed innocence.

ref:

csyork65

Colby Combs was 25 years old mountaineer in 1992 when he and 2 buddies, Ritt Kellogg and Tom Walter were on a steep climb on Alaska’s Mount Foraker attempting to claim a new route over three days. As the winds got stronger and visibility plummeted they had decided to abandon their plan to reach the summit. The upward ecsape route was a difficult one and they were further hindered by the porous ice rendering their securing tools fairly useless. The men continued to move upwards unsecured but tied together.

When Combs felt the line tied to one of is friends go slack he looked up just in time to see an avalanche nearly on top of him. He began sliding fast whilst trying to self arrest. He remembers hitting something and sailing through the air at which point he was knocked out cold.

When he came round he was in excruciating pain. His ankle, shoulder blade and two vertebrae were broken and he was suffering from concussion. The rope that led to his friend Walter was limp and he could see that his face was frozen in ice. His best friend was dead. It was not long before he discovered that his other partner Kellogg had also been killed.

He was alone.

Although now alone, devastated by the loss of his friends and hardly able to move without searing pain racking his body, he knew that he had to continue up the difficult technical slope to find safety. Every step was agony and he recalls thinking ‘I don’t care if my foot falls off’ and forcing himself into an ‘unstoppable mentality.’

Once he had reached the top of his route then came the descent. Six days of tortuous, agonizing, frustrating dead ends, getting lost, falling and self arresting – all with the accompaniment of the searing pain of his splintered bones. Even once he had reached the base camp he still had to walk a five mile crossing over a glacier.

He survived and spent three months in a wheelchair.

Combs quotes one of my favourite lines:

“Anything that gets in the way of success has to be eliminated – emotion, fear, pain. It’s the mental things that will impede your survival.”

Impede emotion? Why, it all sounds so cold and calculating surely?

I think of a lioness on the Serengeti Plains meeting an impala and her young ‘in. Then chasing and knocking down the impala’s baby, suffocating it and dragging it back unemotionally to her own children to eat. There is no ‘Is yours teething yet? Mine keeps me up all night…’ chatter between the new mums. It’s wham bam…not even thank you ma’am…just KILL!

It’s crude, it’s sad – (at least to us and the impala family), but the reality is, despite our higher intelligence, cognition and sad feelings towards the underdog, that’s how our lives are also. The survival of the fittest. It is not really a question of right and wrong. It is fact. It is nature.

To get what you want and depending on how much it really means to you, one has to clear the mind and pathway of clutter, nonsense, other people’s drama, our own drama and FOCUS.

We are often too involved in what does not concern us on a daily basis and this is one of the greatest impediments to our desired success.

We are bothered about what someone else thinks about us. We are overly bothered about what other people say about us. We are worried about things that may never happen. Instead of focusing on what we want we focus on the difficulty getting it. Ask anyone considering going on a diet.

I have always enjoyed and solicited the simple focus of Combs’s unstoppable mentality to acquire what I want from life. It is not always easy. Particularly when your attention is split in several ways because actually, quite a few things matter and deserve your attention.

It is interesting to note that notoriously private Steve Jobs decided to write a revealing book once he knew that he was dying, ostensibly to inform his children about who he really was, as his focus was often pointed in the direction of his remarkable business accomplishments and not at them.

It is no secret that life is not always easy, but it appears to be untapped enlightenment for many that consistently and persistently it can be simplified.

Think Tank. Aside from pure, untouched, glorious, beautiful nature to gaze at and absorb with, I love totally impractical, one-chair, minimalist spaces, so empty, so seductive and so peaceful to escape into…

Maybe it’s just one room in the house where you can close the door on the madness to think, regroup, pace, draw, read, strum, make notes, visualize and create a wildly imaginative and exciting future… Undistracted.

Do you have yours yet?

In October 2011 the world lost three young men that frankly I had never heard of…

Dan Wheldon – British racing driver

Marco Simoncelli – Italian motorcycle racer

Antoine Montant – French speed flying champion

They were killed doing highly risky sports activities. Amongst the shock and tributes were a few voices of ‘Why is it necessary to do such dangerous sports?’ and ‘Well it is only to be expected when people don’t respect safety rules and their own lives.’

Me, I’m a careful, mindful soul.

OCD makes me over analyze even the most basic everyday things, but even I recognize that we need the Mad Men.

We need them. They push the boundaries of human ability and exploration. They are the ones that keep discovering that we CAN.

We need people who do that with their intellect, their spirits and their bodies. It means that the rest of us can sit on our sofa’s and computer chairs and pontificate from a safe distance.

Their lives are raw, loud and authentic. It’s hardcore wake up calls every race and every new previously unbroken human boundary. So here’s to the Mad Men and Whacky Women who keep the place jumping and alive, thrilling, rule-free, reckless and on edge.

At the very least, these 3 men all LIVED before they died. Here’s to you!

ref:

The video is Antoine Montant speed gliding in Chamonix. Watch and be amazed.

This post follows on from previous post ‘What It Feels Like To Be Loved.’

People marry for all sorts of reasons. But is the most significant reason love? If your partner wanted to leave today could you allow them to do so without malice? This to me is love in it’s original pure sense.

True love is love that puts the other person above fragile ego, personal need, personal greed  or what the neighbours will think. If divorced couples really loved, where does the often seen bile and latent vindictiveness come from?

Glaring at each other through divorce lawyers they exhibit sadness, disappointment, jealousy, ego, anger, fear…but not love.

There was a man married to his actress wife who ended up living practically next door to her…and her new boyfriend! One good reason was so that everyone could see the children with ease. When asked about this unusual arrangement, the husband said that it was because he loved her he knew she must be free to do what makes her happy, particularly if she no longer reciprocated their love as before.

This was a man with the most uncommon common sense, a deeply spiritual intelligence, anchored unusually and unselfishly by true love.

…And then, dear Reader, there’s Family Member. Today, as I write, a week or so from the last post about not feeling loved, I am once again a wonderful, much loved, depended upon person…in their eyes.

I find myself gushingly re-seated in my old familiar role of The Champion.

But you see…that Champion person, me, who was ‘not loved’ only a week or so ago was exactly the same person as today.

Did Family Member and I have an argument?

No.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m too laid back for life-wasting unnecessary-ness like that, (9 times out of 10).

Did I do something that offended?

No.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I have never been afraid to confront my own mistakes as publicly as I might do others, (7 times out of 10).

So in this instance I was reminded that if someone has something going on in their head and decides to bring drama to you…help them, ask them, cajole them to tell you, understand what they might be going through. However if they are not willing to have an honest discussion or to be mindful of their own actions and the consequences, then you must leave them to it to preserve your own sense of self. You risk self-analyzing into utter confusion when the analysis should be conducted elsewhere. There is only so much you can do.

We are at liberty to fix ourselves – not others, unless of course they ask and then we can only attempt to do it with their full cooperation.

In the end this is really about someone blowing off steam in one way or another. We all do it. Although it does not have to be done at the reckless expense of someone else.

Not everyone who plays aimlessly with what is already comfortable, good and right in their lives in favour of stirring up pointless ill feeling is aware of what they are doing. And I believe that is the case here. But it was important for me to recognize how, (in this case) my actions had little to do with the way Family Member was behaving. This was their choice.

As it was also their choice to randomly reinstall me as The Champion again with no change to my character, routine or behaviour.

For a seeker of beauty and simplicity of life, it is also my choice not to play a starring role in other people’s unpredictable, unacceptable drama’s.

I have always known that if you do not love yourself you will have nothing to give others.

As we are talking about the simplicity of love, this then has to be one of the most important rules:

Don’t seek love from others that you do not have for yourself.

The only place love can be guaranteed consistently and without disappointment is from yourself. This too is about choice. Once you know this you will have fortified armour for drama (yup it rhymes!) and plenty of love to spare, even for those who disappoint you, for those who find someone else to love, or for those who forget what true love means from time to time.

And you? How do you handle vindictive behaviour? I’m not going to lie to you – I’m no saint and my reaction may be different if it was not a family member…