#1396 - Accepting the internet was not working - I tried for a while and I wanted it to work so I could write these, but it didn't lead to stress. I recorded my gratitudes in my journal and thought about my/our expectations such as, "This should work," and how quickly they can lead to agitation.
#1397 - While I was cross-country skiing today I thought about the last time I skied, which I believe, was the first day I wrote this. It was interesting to come home and read a comment on my last blog, by the only person I don't know who reads this, advising me to read entries from my first month and see how much they've progressed. I tried reading a few they were kind of boring and too generalized. I'm not sure what she means exactly, it can be hard to see yourself from the outside. However, the idea that doing this every day has lead to better writing is certainly encouraging.
#1398 - Cross-country skiing is a very quiet activity. I often end up feeling trapped with my incessant repetitive thinking. On top of that it can be a lonely activity after going by myself for the umpteenth time. Today I was grateful: first of all that we have enough snow in early Dec to ski, second that my brother came with and helped motivate me to go on a longer course, and third that after creating space for all those annoying thoughts to babble they eventually quiet down.
#1399 - Seeing Wheelchair Cross-Country Skiers
#1400 - A Week with Low Lighting in the Evenings-My lighting style in the evening is usually less than other people, I find it relaxing.
Hi Tammy,
ReplyDeleteI don't think they were boring. It's just that now to me your gratitudes seem deeper, purer.
Although they are less centered on yourself or your life, they tell much more about you as a person, about your values, your inner growth.
Which, I must say, I envie.
stephanie
Tammy,
ReplyDeletethis is the link to the Belgian article, but indeed, it's in Dutch: http://demorgen.be/dm/nl/2461/De-Gedachte/article/detail/1191889/2010/12/06/Dateline-USA-Droom-kapot.dhtml
It says (translated very quickly so sorry for the mistakes):
1.
These past couple of days in Washington have been quite tumultuous. The Republicans wanted new tax-decreases for the rich, for 700 bilion of dollars spread over 10 years.
At the same time they refused to prolongue the unemploymentpayments, due to which 2 milion of Americans will be without income for the coming holidays.
2.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats found this scandalous, but as usual they appeared not strong enough to have any influence.They are not only internally divided and afraid of their own shadow, but they also have to deal with a president who does not want to say unambiguously what it really is he wants. Furthermore in these last days Obama's lips don't utter much more than empty and obligatory oneliners about cooperation between both parties.
In the mean time, the unemployment has risen to 9.8%.
3.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talk to Americans, you notice that a lot of people start to seriously consider the possibility that their country is going to hell.
Depending on where they find themselves on the political spectrum, they have this fear for different reasons, nevertheless: they believe it's possible.
If you start hearing that fear with a certain frequency, from a people which is almost patholigically optimistic as the Americans, then you know something is really wrong.
What is wrong, a couple of levels deeper than the bickering in Washington, is that the American Dream is broken. The 'American Dream' does not even mean 'from shoecleaner to billionaire' any more, it's become something much more humble: a house with a little garden, a job which allows you to live comfortably and mostly the calming knowledge that your children will live better than you do.
4.
ReplyDeleteBut even that's too much asked these days. They mortgage-crisis, which started in 2007 and led to a Wall Street-crisis and a worldwide recession in 2008, is not over yet.
Up until today, American families lose their homes with tenthousands at the time.
The difference is that in 2007 this happened because they had loans with variable interest rates which all of the sudden peaked, so that they could no longer cope with the payments, but now it is because they have lost their jobs.
The result is the same: every time someone's American Dream is lost.
5.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile Wall street is turning fully again and the traders are once again complexly spendingn money on superfluous luuxury.
Not only expensive suits, pieces of art and fast cars. In The New York Times an esthetic surgeon told how she feels that the incomes are increasing because the wall Street-types don't only ask for operations on their faces, but also (again) on their hands.
(then is the part which I copied in my blog)
6.
ReplyDeletePut all this together and you cannot but conclude that the system in this country is fundamentally unfair: it has been conceived in a way that it's always the rich who win.
It would make you lose courrage.
Especially now that Barack Obama, the man in which so many people had put all their hope to break this status-quo, these days doesn't seem to be capable to do more than to go beg to the Republicans to get compromisses. In vain.
7.
ReplyDeleteIn his first 2 years, Obama has reigned impressively. Some of the most obvious: a new health-law, the reform of WallStreet, and the economical stimuluslaw which forecame a depression.
But none of these things are irreversible.
And today it looks like with all these successes, he has more than ever stimulated the powers of the cynical status-quo.
The final verdict is not there yet and in politics the tide can sometimes turn very quickly, but still: the way things are going, he is obtaining the complete opposite of what he intended to.
(written by a correspondent living in the US).
stephanie