I downloaded Apple iTunes into my laptop this evening.

The idea is that I'll upload my hypnosis MP3s to bring them to a wider audience.

Not discovered how to become a content providers on iTunes yet but I'm sure it will come.

Did spot some interesting and some very dodgy hypnosis products on there already. I feel the need to check out the other offerings.

Words are important...

I hear many people say "I'll try..." and then they fail.

Try implies failure!

Choose a different word and change your mind.

Give "I'll strive to do that ..." a road test. You might be surprised by what you achieve!

A tidal wave of news that swamps the mind

I like to stay up to date with current affairs. I listen to the radio, watch TV news (less often) and follow blogs. But there are times when it can all feel a bit too much. When the tidal wave of negative images and stories makes me forget just how great the human spirit can be.

Then it's time to turn off and reflect on what I have (and you have too) rather than what may or may not happen in the future. And while you are turning off the news flow a picture can calm the mind. This one was taken in Lyme Regis earlier this week.

Sun rise at Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK - click to enlarge

Super hi-res and wide picture of Lyme Regis

Today we got up early and went to Lyme Regis. It looked lovely as the warm colours of the sun came through the clouds. So, I took another panoramic pictures. This time stitched together from 6 images.

It was taken from the Easter end of the beach looking towards the Cobb.

A Somerset orchard - super wide image

A visit to Burrow Hill Cider Farm showed me that the orchard looked wonderfully lush. So out came the camera to create a super wide image from 6 images stitched together.

Hope you like it!

TV news can drain the life force of the most robust

I had to travel a good deal this week. Business meetings, staying in hotels, and too much driving but seeing different parts of the country.

In one hotel, Sky news was playing in the bar area. I ordered a meal, sat down with a pint of beer and wondered why they had the TV on. The news was overwhelmingly depressing. Death, disaster, war, unemployment on a 20 minute loop.

I finished my meal and moved to another part of the bar but no, there was a second TV screen putting out the same awful mix of soul destroying awfulness. There was no "and finally" moment as used to be delivered by the news at ten. No story to uplift the heart that was centred on human kindness.

No it was unremitting pain and suffering.

No extra bar sales that night! No reason to stay in that gloom.

I know that there is suffering.
I know that it is happening every day.

But if we allow ourselves to only see this side of life we will be like the poor unfortunate souls who took their life on the Paddington to Swindon trainline on Tuesday evening. Unable to see a way out, convinced that death is the only answer.

I removed myself from the bar, went back to my room and chose not to watch the TV and did something positive instead.

What about you? Will you keep allowing the media to poison your mind or will you decide to break free?

Travel pictures

I've had a busy few days travelling around the South of England. I love taking pictures on my travels; some good, many less so. Here are a couple.

The view from my hotel bedroom in Epping. It's the first time I have been to this town. The town itself seems to have suffered a lot of shop closures.

A shot of the sun setting over Salisbury Plain. Always a fantastic sight.

Canary Wharf London - Travels

In the last few months I have had to visit Canary Wharf in London several times. It really is a town in itself with the Dockland Light Railway, shops, bars, restaurants and of course a huge amount of office space. It is also an intriguing place visually.

I have take a few pictures with the Blackberry phone each time I have been. Perhaps next time I'll break out a better camera for some decent shots.

Looking at the HSBC tower in the centre

Taken from one of the many bars on the water's edge

You can see two of the original cranes here

How to self actualize when others try to infantilise

How do you become all you can be when there are others around you working to keep you a virtual infant?

How do you become an adult when other want to infantilise you and societal groups actually want you to remain with the intellect and emotions of a  child?

I wonder how often you have been told that "you should do this" or "you shouldn't do that". Perhaps you have heard a clamour for "something to be done" about this problem or that issue. The latest and greatest band wagon of causes that "all right thinking people must support".

I'll guess that this has happened to you many times, perhaps hundreds of times.

Most recently the "something must be done brigade" have decided that tobacco can only be sold in plain packaging and must be kept from view in shops. Now they move on to alcohol and attempt to do the same.

"It's for your own good" they say. Sounding like the nannying parent addressing their wayward child. Which in many ways they are.

I have found again and again, that if you treat a person like a child they will start to behave like a child. This of course reinforces the drivers of the person doing the nannying and they can then say "I told you so".

The state does, charities do it, schools do it, workplaces do it, social groups often do it. Why? Because it is a source of power, it's the parental high, the "I know better than you how it should be" response.

And mostly it comes from people who have barely had an original thought in their life. But by telling you how you should behave they have a sense of power and unwarranted significance. Telling other people what to do means they do not need to look inward at their own inadequacies. It saves them a lot of personal turmoil.

So we we have people telling what to eat, what not to smoke, what not to drink when not to drive your car and why you should pay more (to them) for the privilege of just being alive.

You can try and defeat them with logic and smart arguments but this is like debating with a fool. You do yourself no service by debating with someone who has not thought through their own position. Such a debate becomes a shouting match that ends somewhere near "because I say so!"

For each clever fool you defeat with your devastating logic, two more will replace them because, they have money (mainly yours that they took from you as taxes) and they have "the consensus" and heaven forbid that any human being should try to argue against "the consensus". There is no shortage of useful idiots available.

So whether you want to deny man-made global warming, wear a cross at work, drink 3 pints of beer a night, eat red meat, argue that the state makes no sense or just do things your own way...you're screwed.

They only answer I have is, withdraw, learn for yourself from many varied sources. Take nothing on trust, check every assertion, assume that if you are asked/told to do something there is an agenda running. In this way you have a chance to grow. In this way you take a step towards self actualization. In this way you can be prepared for when the useful idiots do their best to take from you what you have created and worked for.

Withdraw from the clamour, reflect on life as it is for you and decide to be the person you want to be not the person others expect you to be. You may also like to read Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell for more insights.

Heathrow Terminal 5

I had to pick someone up from terminal 5 at Heathrow recently. Whilst waitinmg I was struck by just how massive the steel work of the building is.

I thought it appeared to be rather over engineered until some one reminded me that if a jumbo jet landed on it...