Read: it can blow your mind?

  19th Nervous Breakdown

Here it comes....

So before we go running for the shelter—Rolling Stones lyric to be continued below— 

As promised  the SPJU will include some insights from books that have seeped through my awareness recently.  Let’s start with the non-fiction.  4000 Weeks is by far the finest time management book out there.  Of course those terms time and management  are completely erroneous.  In the seeking peace and joy world we are not concerned with “time” per se—it’s about experience creation and it’s not management it is “use.”  You can’t manage time  because it happens and you have no way to make it go any direction but “forward” or seemingly forward.  Actually it doesn’t go anywhere because when are you living?  You aren’t living in the future and while sometimes your thoughts are  influenced by what has happened you aren’t breathing air in the past either.  so this book helps people focus on  the illusions we get caught up in.  For example  it reminds us that the better we get at doing some things the more we “get” to do —like the more e-mail we respond to the e-mail we are likely to get and the better we use our time the more things we are likely to attempt.  The book reminds us that there will always be more experiences that we might choose than there will  be “time for so we can best find peace if we accept that instead of feeling overly anxious about it.   

Every  Minute  is a Day... Authors: Robert? Meyer and Dan Koepell.). This is a book about New York emergency  room activities and personnel and the initial COVID slam.  No matter what your stance on the virus—and the virus doesn’t care what your  stance it by the way—this book gives a compelling description of how some real human beings dealt with the  real onset of this era in New York City.  

Fiction. 

Well it’s the “who-done-its” that usually get my attention and we’ll see what Scooby and Shaggy  pulls the mask off about these in a second.  By far the best fiction so far this year is 

Mitch Albom’s. 

Man in a Life Boat. 

You want social commentary, spirituality, exploding luxury liners with rich people?  You want tropical islands romance and more...  This is the book for you.  It’s a book about the real power. Of believing  in something and coming to grips with the meaning of life’s experiences.  If there was a Seeking Peace and Joy Universe Library, this would lead the suggested reading in the fiction section and for quite some time.  

Jack  Reacher  and Jessie Stone are the hero’s of record in most the other fiction consumed since the first of the year.  Lee Child and Robert Parker (as interpreted. And channeled by Mike Lupica) provide The good guy wins mob, Terri or its, drug cartel villain riddled  adventures of quick witted good people who creatively weave justice through intense situations.  There’s also Jack.Noble as a hit man (can’t remember the author)  in a series of adventures I’ve read. This year.  Why these books?  

well... unusual circumstances happen and people act fairly decidedly which is an approach  to fear that seems pretty effective and in sync  with seeking peace and joy.   Oh and Now back to the top and The Rolling Stones..

Running for the Shelter of Mother’s Little Helper....

Yesterday the reading pile was  topped with a little dessert  from the November issue of Good Housekeeping.... and lo and behold the magazine suggested that we all might share  instead of getting off of my cloud and look to the promise of organic medicine...  yes  Good Housekeeping featured  the upside of magic mushrooms and other psychedelics which are now being seriously  studied for their beneficial properties.... 

So Betty Crocker is not only baking  with stones... we might be seeing our domestic engineering magazines supporting getting stoned and baked as well?  

Seriously, alternative medicine is being used with greater  effectiveness every day and Good Housekeeping  showed real courage in publishing this.   Here is another instance where folks the bed their nose at fear and said let’s tell the story.... seeking peace and joy behavior  at its finest.

Well it is time to do some domestic  engineering  of my own (don’t  you just love a “good” Housekeeping  term?  

Stay warm wherever you ar Peace