Reading the headline today (below) reminded me of writing blogs for my own sanity, to balance my own life of intellectual challenges I face daily. Some bloggers want get the attention of the world's media at the snap of a finger with bold titles and blog posts. Not me.
I used blogs to breathe, to look out of the window, to see my own mind, to record some thoughts, to capture a moment of my brain momentum. Getting attention from readers is a side-product. You never know, however, that habit of writing blogs may save your life out of depression, just as described as below. How?
The key is you don't count the clicks of your posts. If you count, you're abided by depression of counting. You can't predict any readerships of any topics as readers have different perspectives from yours. You're uniquely wired and built in your own way - How can you expect others align with your own things?
Just like painting, focus on the moment of inspiration in art craftmanship, getting perfect for a stroke, for a view of landscape, a wonder of God creation.
Triology of you, physical, mental, and spiritual being - you need equally divide your time for care of all three. What's your mental and spiritual? Are you seeing some shrinks? Writing blogs is my shrink.
Stay in faith. Stay healthy at the snap of a finger. Why not?
***
社會公德和規矩後麵，有個核心(2015-08-19 10:37:52)下一個
Note: "社會公德和規矩後麵，有個核心的、看得見摸得著的東西，這就是別人的利益。教會學生正確對待別人的利益，是中國教育所缺乏的，而這恰恰是美國教育的一個重要內容，也是美國名校的期望。美國的教育，從家庭到學校，對孩子感受並尊重別人利益的能力，非常重視，而這就是人品的基礎，也是評價一個孩子時，說他“nice（好）”和“fair（公平）”的實質內涵。學生不僅成績要好，有激情有特長，還要具備能在社會上成功的心理素質和人格魅力；在一個成熟穩定的社會，年輕人要出頭，人品是不能差的，要懂得顧忌別人的利益。資本主義的美國，名校錄取學生時，對學生的人品看得這麽重；也就不奇怪了，申請名校，還要附加作文、推薦信、麵試、現在還要查Facebook等社交留言記錄，涉及方方麵麵很多人、環環相扣；有時這個過程之微妙，隻有圈內人才能意會。最頂尖名校的招生官從這些東西裏麵，飛速解讀和預測一個個申請學生的各個方麵，包括性情人品。對那些成績特好，自我感覺也特好，別人好像都欠他的學生，對不起，格殺勿論；最頂尖名校最喜歡炫耀的，就是屠宰（slaughter）了多少SAT考滿分者。
承認個人的利益，是社會發展的動力；尊重別人的利益，是社會穩定的基礎。
老的說法將這歸因於為人，性格決定命運；時尚的解釋叫情商。為人也好，情商也好，其實後麵都是同一個核心的東西：即感知並尊重別人利益的能力，其它的很多東西，都是虛的玄的。我們常說要尊重別人，但到底什麽是尊重？
“己所不欲，勿施於人”，實質就是換位思考、尊重別人的利益。"(by 徐罡博士)
*** Reference: I'd credit the original source of my inspiration to write this post by citing the entire article above, only for academic/teaching purpose, but not for commercial purpose - making and promoting any products. I use both URL (URL is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator and is a reference (an address) to a resource on the Internet. A URL has two main components: Protocol identifier: For the URL http://example.com , the protocol identifier is http . Resource name: For the URL http://example.com , the resource name is example.com .) and the entire article for my electronic library as URL is drifted with time, so it's hard to find the original citation. Let me know if you're objected to my citation of your article - I'd act accordingly. Thanks so much for your attention.*********************************************************
Andrew Marr on how art saved Winston Churchill's life
Andrew Marr knows about the healing power of painting better than anyone. More than two years have passed since the BBC presenter suffered a stroke, during a vigorous bout of high-intensity exercise, and he credits pencil, paintbrush and easel with aiding his physical and mental recovery.
He’s therefore ideally placed to explain why he believes painting saved the life of Britain’s most famous politician: that Winston Churchill, who famously suffered from bouts of severe depression, would have killed himself had he not been able to seek solace in his paint palette.
Throughout his life Churchill was tormented by the mental anguish he called his “black dog”. And in the years before becoming Prime Minister and leading the country to victory in the Second World War, Churchill suffered a series of political setbacks, including criticism for the disastrous Gallipoli expedition, which led to his resignation from the cabinet in 1915, and his “wilderness years” in the 1930s when he was out of power.
“I think Churchill was semi-suicidal at the time of his decline and that painting saved him,” Marr says. “It brought him back to sanity. Even when you’re under pressure in other areas of your life, to paint even half-competently you can only think about colour, line and shape. You’re thinking in a completely different way, pouring your entire self into it. And that is what Churchill found, that his personal crises would fall away once he was painting. And I think painting saved his life, candidly, so that he was still around to lead the country in 1940.”
The immersive nature of painting has helped Marr to face difficulties and demons in his own life, too. “I don’t have the kind of depression that Churchill had,” he says. “But recovery from something like a stroke is always difficult, and you get ups and downs. The most I would say is that painting has helped me through the downs and produced more of the ups than there would otherwise have been, which to me is a very important part of life.
“I certainly find that if I’m feeling down or gloomy or harried, if I paint for a few hours I feel better. I find it very difficult, but the nature of the difficulty is in itself a kind of therapy. The fact that I’m concentrating so hard, and things aren’t working, but then there are serendipitous moments when it goes well, all of that is good for me, mentally.”
Aside from the emotional impact of such a traumatic event, Marr’s stroke also took a physical toll, leaving him with impaired mobility on his left side. He says that, in his recovery, art has been “not as important as physiotherapy, but more important than beer”. Nevertheless, he has been forced to change his painting style.
“I don’t want to exaggerate my disability, but a natural thing to do would be to hold a small canvas in my left hand and crouch over and draw very minutely with my right,” he says. “I can’t do that since my stroke because my left hand won’t hold the canvas firmly enough.
“I’m now painting more abstract paintings, too. I always used to paint outside, with a canvas, and paint what was in front of me. But I simply can’t do that any more. I can’t carry the stuff, I can’t put up the easel, and if I do get it up the wind blows it over and I’m stuffed. I have to find a place inside where the situation is controlled and calm [he has a small studio], but that means, of course, that I’m not painting what’s in front of me, I’m painting what’s in my head, and that’s a completely different kettle of fish.”
Marr has entered earlier paintings in exhibitions, but says he has been advised by art expert friends that his abstracts aren’t yet ready to be shown publicly. Churchill, who was initially too shy to exhibit under his own name, sought advice from major 20th-century British painters such as Walter Sickert and William Nicholson, and Marr reveals that he too has had tuition.
“I was friendly with David Hockney for a few years,” he says, “and if you ask him about specific painting problems he is incredibly generous. I remember asking him how he does that particularly cold white sky that is so characteristic of the British winter. And he explained exactly how to do it, the oil paints to buy, the brushes. He definitely improved my painting.”
Marr insists that he is not an artist, merely “someone who paints and draws”, but what about Churchill? The former prime minister’s most famous painting, The Goldfish Pool at Chartwell, his family home in Kent, sold for £1.8 million last year. Was it really any good?
“I think if his paintings weren’t by Churchill, they wouldn’t be collected,” says Marr. “If they’d been done by Sidney Nobody down the road, we’d think that some of them are a damn good piece of Sunday painting. He is certainly not unskilled, but he is a pretty good, second-rate impressionist – and that’s meant to be praise.”
Andrew Marr on Churchill is on Monday 17th August at 9.00pm on BBC4
See Andrew Marr at the Radio Times Festival on Saturday 26th September at 1pm
The broadcaster and journalist will discuss his forthcoming poetry history of Britain, We British: The Poetry of a People.
選擇“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
選擇“don't run on pages on this domain”
