There is no doubt I’m a hippy at heart.
And I do like to spread peace and love.
Stay with me.
I had planned to complete the aborted post from Friday about ‘Naked Shopping’. 72 hours ago the towel was thrown in after unforeseen (and undoubtedly) karmic circumstances prevented me from using my laptop – that story I will be telling later in the week. If ever the authenticity of karmic-cause-and-effect was doubted, it isn’t now.
Instead of a delayed Food Waste Friday post, here’s a little Monday motivation as we head into a fresh week.
One of my favourite occupations, as I potter around the home doing mind-numbing but necessary chores, is listening to audio through my earphones. This could be a full audio-book or just a bite-size YouTube clip. While searching for new audio over the weekend I spontaneously typed ‘Elizabeth Gilbert’ in the search box and stumbled across her advice on: rather than following your passion (for some may not know what that is) to follow ones curiosity instead.
This advice I did not need, for I naturally gravitate toward this.
(Regardless of it’s lack of revelation it was still an entertaining clip -you can listen to it here)
In fact sometimes I follow my curiosity too much. This is a habit, that as the years roll on, I may need to be mindful of. Recently there has been the odd occasion whereby the kitchen tap has been left running just long enough for me to fortunately realise I’ve become sidetracked. Literally by seconds a flood has been averted. If the hubby is reading this, yes your suspicions were spot-on, I’m intrinsically hopeless. I’m guessing you had an inkling of my hapless character before we tied the knot (after all our nuptials were 9 years in the coming), but my understanding is absentmindedness isn’t genuine grounds for divorce (but hey who knows in the increasingly litigious world we live in).
It is this side-tracking natural curiosity that inspired today’s topic.
Want to follow along my random train of thought? Alternatively permission to safely jump ship here.
On Saturday afternoon I had a rare, and welcome opportunity, to iron some school shirts. Welcome in that for once it was not a last-minute endeavour. I’m no fan of ironing (colossal understatement) but as my daughters ‘No Iron’ shirts ironically (hmmm ironically starts with ‘iron’, I’d never noticed before), are without a doubt the most creased item of clothing ever to be extracted from an automatic washing machine there is no way of avoiding the most soul-destroying household task.
Saturday afternoon is the perfect time to iron in the UK. Why? The Dermot O Leary show is on BBC Radio 2. Good music can help to alleviate severe discomfort (otherwise known as ironing) in a way an average audio-book may struggle to. Although I cannot sing a note apart from a very ill-tuned one, and do not play an instrument, music is one of my life’s greatest pleasures. My inability to produce, or perform, music comically confounds me and I often think of this grandiose and delusional quote from Lady Catherine De Bourgh , Mr Darcy’s Great Aunt:
“If you are speaking of music…it is of all subjects my delight. There are few people in England I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.”
Dermot’s show, this Saturday, reminded me just how much music can work it’s magic. There was an excellent live set by Jack Savoretti followed by my most-loved Rolling Stones song. The pinnacle, however, was Paulo Nutini’s Iron Sky. Notice anything? I myself only just realised while typing.
(maybe open up the Iron Sky tab in a new window and listen while you read?)
Iron Sky is just one of those songs. Do you know the ones I mean? Even though you may not concentrate on the lyrics, you know that they are talking to your subconscious? There’s no need to even truly hear, or analyse what is being sung. I can’t say before this weekend, I’d ever deliberately concentrated on the message. Many years ago, a hypnotherapist asked me what song I had playing on a loop in my mind. She offered that we may at times subconsciously pick up songs that are ‘speaking to us’. When I considered what she’d said, indeed that week’s earworm (aka ‘stuck song syndrome’) contained some wise-words and much-needed direction.
Three-quarters of the way through Iron Sky there is a thought-provoking powerful spoken part, again not something I’d investigated or determined the origin of. As I’d never watched the official video there was no reference point as to who was speaking, or in what context.
This morning I knitted the threads of my curiosity together. Having a spare 15 minutes, it was time to google the background of the extract. I would not have guessed where it came from, not in a million years.
It is the speech from Charlie Chaplin’s Award Winning 1940 Film “The Great Dictator”.
My ignorance as to it’s existence is not commonly shared. In fact, it is cited as being an ‘impassioned speech that has become one of the most famous in film history’. Although 76 years old, it is a speech that feels very much of the time. That is should be heard now. (source) Both home and away.
Moving over to YouTube to watch the speech, I was greeted with a clip of it adapted and accompanied by Hans Zimmer’s Time. Another fine example of how inspirational music can be.
Further down the rabbit hole, that is YouTube, I went. To finally land upon the ColdPlay video Head Full Of Dreams, also sampling The Great Dictator’s Speech. It seems I’m a little late to the party.
Better late than never, I’ll leave you with one of my favourite parts of the speech:
“In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” – not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power – the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.”
This Monday let’s make this life a beautiful adventure.
Are you in?
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