Monthly Archives: November 2022

Dystopia

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One of my favourite themes for books and movies involves a dystopia.

Definition: “…an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.”

It is not the suffering I enjoy about this theme. For me it is the futuristic setting. I get a glimpse into the future.

I also get a look at the problems the people deal with in the future and the advanced technology they employ.

The Divergent series of books that were made into movies are what I am reading right now and they follow that theme.

Ever Learning

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Maybe you have heard the expression: “Ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.”

I seem to be the epitome of an example of someone whom never seems to learn certain lessons.

It believe that I have come to learn and embrace certain truths. This includes facing painful truths about myself – my character defects.

What occurs to me, however is that I struggle to learn certain principles of behavior that are ingrained in me since a child. I think these behaviors are essentially bad habits but require conscious thought.

Hong Kong

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When I went to Taiwan with my family our intention was to be missionaries in China. The plan was to land in Taipei, Taiwan where we could get some orientation and prepare for going into China.

We had booked our flights through a travel agent (this was in August 2000 before most used online bookings) and arranged to go to Taiwan, on to Hong Kong, and return trip to Texas. We got our visitor visas for Taiwan as well.

We went to Taiwan and stayed with missionary friends in Taipei and soon realized we might tale trips into China but actually living there was not going to happen right away. We took Chinese lessons and took some time to get used to the climate and the culture.

Once we decided we were going to stay in Taiwan we went to Hsinchu and fell in love with it. We managed to get out own apartment in Hsinchu which is about an hour drive from Taipei.

It soon became necessary for me to get either a missionary visa or a work permit in order for us to remain in Taiwan. I managed to get an offer of employment as an English teacher but I needed to leave the country and come back in with a different visa.

To get a different visa we proceeded to use out pre booked flight to Hong Kong. At the time Hong Kong was still independent of China and the infrastructure had a lot of British influence such as trams for downtown travel and fancy busses to the airport.

When we were finished in Hong Kong and went to board our return flight to Taipei we found out we did not have a flight booked! Apparently, our itinerary was Texas-Taipei-Hong Kong-Texas. Yikes!

We had to get a flight back to Taipei and pay cash at the airport. The good news is that we could get the money from the ATM machine in the airport. It became obvious that our booked flight from Hong Kong back to Texas was never going to get used, unfortunately. We were just relieved that we could get back to Taiwan that day…

Serenity Prayer

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Some of you may be familiar with the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.

Twelve Step Programs

(For more history and the more complete versions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer)

Here I present a variation:

Takes the Serenity Prayer to a new level…

I oftentimes need to remind myself that I am not in control. In Recovery CBT training I learned that I cannot control feelings and sensations but I can control thoughts and impulses.

What that means is that I may feel a certain way and want to react in anger or throw a temper tantrum, or whatever. That is an impulse and I can control that if I wish to.

I can also control what I think of a situation.

Remembering Names

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Something that I have struggled with my whole life is remembering names, especially of people I meet.

This past couple of years I have made an effort to remember names and three things have helped me:

1) One thing that really helped me start remembering names is deciding I have been living a lie – I do not have any more difficulty remembering names than the next person. Believing that about myself caused me to not even try.

2) The second thing that helped me remember names was repetition out loud. I would ask someone their name and repeat the name in our conversation that follows. By saying their name out loud a few times it would stick with me. This method has made a huge difference.

3) This should probably be first but I came to the realization that I was honouring my new friends by remembering their names and that if I cared about them and wanted their friendship, the least I could do was remember their name…

Overall, I was no longer going to have this negative can’t do attitude. I found out I may not be the best at remembering names of people from the past but I am doing a whole lot better than I ever thought I would in the present!

Exceptionality

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I am Another concept relates to being ‘exceptional.’ I always have a big problem with this and it is part of my cognitive behavior. For some reason I think things only happen to me, or or wonder why something happened to me. It is a negative thought process, a type of sabotage as described by Dr. Low of Recovery International.

Why does the bus pass me by and not wait for me to cross the street? The bus driver didn’t ignore my attempt to cross the street and get to the bus stop. He has a schedule to maintain and passengers on board that want to get to their destinations on schedule. He can’t wait for someone like me that is behind schedule and not standing at the bus stop waiting for him to arrive…

This is an example of my thought process.

Expectations

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There is a slogan from Dr. Low of Recovery International that we learn as part of out cognitive behavior training (CBT) that states, “Lower you expectations and your performance will rise.”

The basic idea behind this slogan is that if you set lower goals for yourself or lower what you expect to receive or achieve you will not only achieve those goals and receive what you expect but that your overall performance with be better.

I don’t know how many times I have expected some outcome and it didn’t materialize leading to disappointment and discouragement. It also led to ‘feelings of inadequacy’ or failure. The times I set more realistic goals or lowered my expectations, not only did I get better results, but my self-esteem was raised and the rest of my day went better.

I don’t know why I am ‘plagued’ with this problem or why I have a low self-esteem but remembering to practice this principal helps me on a daily basis. I have not achieved perfection – in fact I still need to try to practice this on a daily basis and still fall prey to this character defect…

Muscle Memory

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Something I learned from being involved in Recovery International and practicing cognitive behavioral training (CBT) is the concept of ‘muscle memory.’

Muscle memory is the idea that ‘Your muscles teach your brain a higher set of values’, something taught by Dr. Low who founded Recovery International and who pioneered CBT.

As a segway, most people probably associate the term ‘recovery’ as referring to recovery from alcoholism. I will elaborate on that concept in other posts as I am also involved in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Back to muscle memory: I am convinced that it is true and have noticed a number of things I have learned through my muscles. Hands on training is what most call it but it definitely applies to playing a musical instrument. That is why music learning in elementary school and high school is so crucial to a child’s learning and caries throughout their life.

In other posts I get into home schooling. I homeschooled my seven children while posted abroad on the mission field, some through to grade 12.

P.S. Dr. Low did not refer to CBT as therapy but rather as training since with training you can learn to help yourself. With therapy you always depend on a therapist to relieve your problem.

My Hobbies

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I have several hobbies.

One of the most recent hobbies is guitar building. See my post(s) on that topic for more details.

Another even newer one is investing in cryptocurrency. Again, please see my posts on that subject if you are interested. I haven’t explored this topic on here yet but plan to in the near future.

Music listening and playing guitar, drums, and bass are my longest standing hobbies and I intend to explore those as I expand my posts, so stay tuned…

I was involved in Recovery International, a mental health organization for nine years and still try to practice the principles learned to better my cognitive behavior. ‘Not sure you can call that a hobby but it was a daily practice and involved a number of other hobbies such as web design and public speaking that I also want to explore.

As mentioned web design is a large ongoing hobby of mine. I have designed and curated a number of websites with emphasis on non-profit organizations such as labour unions, a mental health organization, a charity fundraiser organization, and a church. I will elaborate on web design in other posts.

With time I may be able to come up with other hobbies I have had it continue to be involved in. Stay tuned…

Guitar Building

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Here I would like to take a moment to introduce a recent hobby: guitar building.

I started into guitar building in 2019 when I moved to an attic apartment on Napier Street in Sarnia. I used the second bedroom as a workshop for the sake of sanding and refinishing as well as the soldering needed to build my first guitar, a blond Telecaster DIY build.

The apartment was small but had a nice second bedroom that I didn’t need and it was bright. I set up a large solid wood dinner table as a workbench.

Small second bedroom on Napier Street

My first guitar build was a bit crude in the sense that it had a maple neck I got on eBay from a Chinese vendor that had been grinded down a bit to remove the serial numbers. I couldn’t tell that from the pics posted on eBay but it was cheap and too difficult to return so I sanded it and finished it and made it work. It was a challenge but I made it work…

Telecaster ‘Chinese’ neck (with Fender logo ground off)

I bought the guitar body already finished and ready to go:

Telecaster body: Paulownia wood

Paulownia wood is very light and when you try to anchor a screw it tends to fall out over time as the wood turns to dust, almost to chalk. When you add the guitar neck it tends to cause ‘neck dive’ where you are always trying to keep the neck from falling forward as you play…

I upgraded a few things including the neck on this guitar but got rid of the body and neck the following year as I had a few others by then to replace it. It was fun building it and catapulted me into the guitar building hobby.