On becoming a grandfather and carving a ferrocement fountain

Back from Gisborne where we met a new addition to this plane of being! Anna our daughter had a boy, and we got our first grandchild About time. I’ve been feeling quite old… Both birth and becoming a parent or grandparent are thresholds which can open our eyes to the wonder of being here…

The baby (as yet unnamed) cried for the first half hour or so, inconsolably, indignantly, as if protesting the transition into the world. Then he heard Anna’s loving voice and began to calm down, and had his first feed, and began looking around. I stood beside Anna and saw his eyes fixed on her face shift to look at mine, then go back to gazing at her again. So aware, so new, and yet so wise and calm-looking. I thought of the wonderful Wordsworth lines:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,	60
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come	65
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

For the full poem see http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html And I ‘told’ him to remember where he came from… We’ll see if he does…

It’s a big responsibility, being a grandparent. So, while staying at Anna and Marco’s nice hilltop home, I made myself as useful as I could while Raewyn of course gardened (and helped with the gourmet cooking), and built a ferro fountain/birdbath to go in the middle of the ferro raised bed circle I built last time I was there.

This is it on the morning we had to go. It’s nearly finished… The rain slowed the painting so I didn’t finish the two-toning. I did the little details at the base for the baby, of course! The gnome ‘wizard’ looks a bit like me, just shorter and no glasses…:) There’s a gnome lady sunbathing on the far side too. Note, if you will, the dwarf from snow white and rose red looking at a fish in the stream… There’s a rabbit, too, on the other side. I hope to be able to do another one up here for sale at Eutopia – and/or do some to order. It will help keep the wolf from the proverbial door, I hope…

So, what does the baby LOOK like?

He is very calm most of the time. He was born about midday, and came back with Anna that afternoon! They don’t keep them in long nowadays. Here are a few images, which of course don’t really capture the 3d reality.

We found a secondhand book on becoming a grandmother and bought it, and it even had a bit about grandfathers too! So it is another tie that binds, though as with all life we are only here as it were passing through, and just do what we can while we are able… My recent ‘here and now’ realisation takes some practicing! Looking at a baby resting could definitely help us remember how it’s done…

And the ebook in question, a week after uploading as a free ebook on smashwords, has had 92 downloads. Not too bad… I hope someone reviews it some time… It is such a ‘black hole’ mostly, the free stuff – almost no one gives feedback. they just take it and who knows? get a fleeting something from it and then forget it. It is depressing sometimes.  The age of surfeit.

Ah well, life itself goes on, and is real.

Happiness – it’s Now or Never. The ebook I wrote at the airport. Hope it takes off!

I am now pretty happy…. Just before leaving for far-away (well 8 hours by car) Gisborne to join Raewyn at our daughter Anna’s place and await her first baby and our first grandchild, I was stressed and not sure I could cope.  But I saw a book lying round and dipped into it. The next morning I read a bit more of it, and had an epiphany.

The book is ‘Happy for No Reason‘ by Marci Shimoff. The epiphany – well read this free ebook I wrote about it while waiting overnight on standby at Auckland International airport. I had three coffees and didn’t sleep a wink, but I wrote a book! That felt good. See it here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/309807

Last night, safely arrived in Gisborne, I did the cover and uploaded the ebook to Smashwords.

Tell me if it’s rubbish, but I at least have vowed to follow this one until I am able to practice the ‘happiness is here and now’ wisdom at all times. The irony is I’ve been holding up the ideal of Eutopia all these years but not practicing the first principle of Eutopia, which is that HERE is a ‘Eutopia’ or Good Place, and we only find happiness Now, and again Now… Then, happy, we can also work to improve the place yet more. But if in our minds it’s always  ’jam tomorrow, jam yesterday but  never jam today’, we will NEVER have or dwell in Eutopia.  

But do download and read the tract – it’s short and hopefully clear. If you like it, put a star rating on it and propel it to wider readership. That would make me very happy!

Revenge of the Nerds – Letter Two of ‘If You’re so Smart…’ series

Well I’ve been catching up on a few important but non-urgent pet projects, such as this… To download it free, go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/308238

Simple Nodes Prosper – Letter Two of the series “If you’re so Smart, How Come You Ain’t Rich?”

Nonfiction » Business & Economics » Motivational
Essay » Business

By Peter Harris
Rating: Not yet rated.
Published: April 20, 2013
Words: 1,993 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781301465965

Description

More advice, strictly for the Nerds, from the heart and mind of a serial entrepreneur idealist nerd who is now finally getting exactly what it takes to succeed in the actual (socially driven) world. (No principles were injured in the making of this book.)

 

Top-secret Labyrinth plan leaked! Manifesto herewith

It was an inside job. He’s hard to keep under control…

Just drawn up today, too!

Oh well, now the plan is ‘OUT’ , I’d better tell all: Karen is continuing to continue to lease and run cafe Eutopia (www.Eutopia.co.nz - the organic cafe business).  After all, until such time as I or my ilk should buy it. However I still want to do an ‘experience economy makeover’ of the place, as it may be the best- certainly the most fun and meaningful – way to monetise the dream, allowing me to finish the building.

However, Karen is unlikely to relinquish control of the Tent area, where I was thinking to make the Labyrinth. So today I drew up a plan for a relatively simple structure at the back of the cafe. a second, ‘esoteric’ dining area, for the pilgrims of Love Beauty Truth and Freedom. (I KNOW they’re out there – they write something in the visitor’s book almost every day!)

What think ye? I will attempt a ‘Qorflow’ funding of this, if private investors not forthcoming (??:) The economics of it are simple: they pay $2-$5 at the door for the magical transformative experience that awaits them within. There will be coloured light, as in every self-respecting cathedral, in this case coded according to the symbolism of Blue = Love and listening, Green = Beauty, Novelty, Yellow = Truth, logic strategy; Red = Freedom (directed powerful expression of the strategy)

The main idea of the different tables is they can either move though them in turn or go to the colour/zone that attracts them most, there to mingle with others of like mind, with the instructions (in the free handbook that comes with the entry fee) to share and communicate as pilgrims ought. And to play the game of qor at the tables, which will all have the layout on them in full colour…

Or if they want to be intense alone, they sit in the smaller tables which surround the main one for each zone. Note the wrap-around seating for these ones.

I have studied humans for 13 years now at the cafe and elsewhere, and i’ve been alarmed at their opaqueness to anything perceived as ‘abstract’ – i generalise here of course! – but encouraged at the unforeseen power of a walk-through, architecturally expressed concept. the courtyard of the cafe is such an environment

Seagull Cafe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

- AND the power of Story to get concepts past the anti-conceptual filters (as with apples of aeden  - see the Free ebook version of volume one here and see what i mean… http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=girl+and+the+guardian there’s lots of labyrinth action in this epic, and the philosophy is interwoven with the whole world of aeden and the Order of the Makers…

So, after a few too many blank stares about the Game of Qor,

(see http://www.qor.co.nz for news pictures  and theory on this game.) I came to think the only way to get through is to build it big enough for people to ‘get’ it by going THROUGH it. By acting it out, if you like. As they go from room to room they will feel the power of each of the four modes (and in the purple Centre they feel the stabilising power of the Balance, the status quo of life). They will also get the dynamic function of each mode by talking as per instructions ONLY love in the Blue zone, ONLY possibility in the Green zone, ONLY comparison and evaluation in the Yellow, and ONLY action and tactics in the Red.

Powerful? Yes, I believe it will be transformational for many people. And it is non-sectarian, no revelations need be bought into, just common sense about the way the universe seems to unfold.

The completion of the vision of 13 years ago is approaching. Want to be part of the Labyrinth of Qor? Would you pay $5 to experience it and come away with a passport to Qor as well?

Oh yes, here’s the drawing placed on the latest concept map of Eutopia and Dreamspace:

This bookmark will surely die

My latest evangelium:

original post at ebookuploader: http://ebookuploader.com/2013/04/16/this-bookmark-will-surely-die-but-ebook-heaven-offered/

It’s a little bit exciting, thinking how many could find at least vicarious immortality through ebookisation. Spread the word, ye who know! They shall be read by those who seek them down through the centuries, read on readers yet to be invented, and right now on smartphones, ipads, ipods yea and tablets of all kinds and sizes, androids and apples and all kinds.

what a world we do live in! It’s a great life if you don’t get overwhelm. Most of us have, of course… Think how the martyred librarian of Alexandria, Hypatia who was murdered by a ravaging Christian mob, would have wept to see all the books now freely available, forever free from local bodily vulnerability!

On New Things and the Balance

Well the making of the game Qor has been most-if-not-all-absorbing, and last week, still frustrated by the details of making the rules clear for ‘normal folk’ who don’t think abstract let alone process abstract, i realized something about commitment and balance: we naturally are committed to our ‘home zone’ – that part of universal process where we have the most energy and ability. For me this is Green zone – creating new ideas and possibilities and (often) prototyping them. When I have a project in that zone i forget all else, almost, sacrificing my own wellbeing and that of others of course, in the mad pursuit of the finish line which always seems so near and so often recedes maddeningly as one approaches it.

So, here is the latest version of Qor the game. I have put it to one side to catch up with many other commitments, some of which some recipients of this blog know only too well…

more info at www.qor.co.nz 

 

Liberated the Game bird into blue ebook heaven

It feels good! The all-new intro and rule book for the ‘Glass Bead’ Wheel of Wisdom creativity game is live as an ebook – free on smashwords:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/284842

 

 

The FREE Wheel of Wisdom game

Now uploaded to Wheelofwisdom.wordpress.com as a Pdf:

http://wheelofwisdom.wordpress.com/the-downloadable-glass-bead-game-version-of-wheel-of-wisdom/

You just save it onto memory stick or similar, take it to a print/photocopy shop and get them to print to fit SRA3 card, in colour preferably! Then cut out the shapes – that took me about 4 minutes to do.

“If you’re So smart, How Come You Ain’t Rich?” – a money handbook strictly for the Nerds

My fellow-nerds: it’s here already! Very short, very punchy (IMHO), very free: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/270995

I went to bed about 3.30 AM, but I basically did it according to Fladlien’s Formula: one problem, one solution, one sitting. The last would have seemed a problem, but with that last cup of tea at dinner, the time flashed by, and I hardly noticed until it was ‘done’ – good enough for a first edition, to get some feedback, some FAQs, and some encouragement to go on and write Letters Two Three and beyond. All at the one sitting (each).

I recommend it as a way to break potential writer’s blocks, get stuff out there, and find out if it’s worth doing more.

I will now tweet it, and retire to the land i guess to edit the 2000-page epic.

oh, yes overnight (from 3.30ish to now, about 7 hours, it has had over 100 views and 26 downloads on Smashwords. Not bad… It will be interesting to see what it does when it ‘hits’ Barnes & Noble, which happens when it is approved for ‘premium distribution’.

I have no idea what the nerds will think of it. Or their mothers. I hope they take it to heart, bitter though the message may be. It might just save some from a lifetime of beating their heads against the glass wall of an unrecognised Social order.

Also on Amazon (when they process it – always slower!), at 99cents, their minimum price apart from KDP Select free days, but you have to make it exclusive to do that, and that is just wrong, I think, and if too many do it they will be creating a monopoly for Amazon. Serve them right!

So, consider, if you hve a strong simple message burning in you and you want to get it out there, do as I have done. One problem, one solution, one sitting. Then upload that sucker, fearlessly.

 

“If you’re so smart, how come you ain’t rich?”

Happy New Year – wo it’s what year?? 2013!?

Sooo… After a particularly rocky patch and some strong reproaches from a spouse who shall remain nameless here, I’ve been thinking about my various lamentable failures to break through to ‘success’,  ie having financial abundance, without sacrificing the ‘soul’ of what i am about.

my breakthrough is this – a big realisation it is too! - Like many natural ‘intellectuals‘, I have been labouring under a fatal assumption all my life: the assumption that folk are more or less like me in how they see the world, in this one key respect: the degree to which they live in and are aware of the intellectual level. i have seen (or finally faced)  how little they actually perceive of that, and how much they see things through the social lense, which is all about celebrity, praise/blame, socially accepted norms and beliefs, patterns of fashion and tradition old and new. So, my efforts have almost always been aimed at a an (almost) non-existent group i thought was the majority of people, and any market success I had was (almost) purely accidental. like poor old charles peirce, marketing a correspondence course on practical symbolic logic for everyman.

i am now re-adjusting my approach. (Better late in life than never!)

They call me (some of them!) a ‘wizard‘. but what (myths aside) IS a wizard? A wizard (in my book),  is one who sees many things clearly, through the lense of the ‘third eye’ aka holistic intellect (not just the left-brain analysing mind), and then uses the insights thus obtained to do seeming magic within a social order (or disorder), bringing new clarity vision and success to that social order, or at least a better mousetrap or silicon chip, without necessarily ever being understood on his own accustomed level (which is definitely the intellectual/abstract/universal/mystical). It is a lonely life, being perceived, even recognised, on the social plane yet essentially unseen in the level that really matters most to him, where few walk and even fewer meet in the flesh.

So, one year older and maybe 10 years sadder, I see more clearly closer to home, how I appear to the world, and this does open up better alternatives for interacting, and therefore ‘succeeding’.

And my first little project right now is to write a simple report for an ebook, probably called

“If You’re So Smart, How Come You Ain’t Rich?”

- a money manual strictly for the Nerds

Epistle the first.

What gives me the qualifications to write such a guide? Well, I’ve been smart for 58 and a half years now, and I still ain’t rich. But I have given the grey matter a lot of thought lately, and i put two and two together, and it came out forebrain.

Terrible cerebral puns aside, I have tried a lot of things, on the concrete and the abstract levels, and so have a lot of – Data. and it HAS been coming together lately.

So, watch this space. A link will appear to a new little free ebook which could change your life if you act on it. but only if you’re a nerd, compulsive thinker, pundit, intellectual, perennial student, scholar or suchlike.

If you’re too smart for your own good, i think I can help you.

(And me too, even, especially if i charge for further installments…)

[newsflash next morning: fellow-nerds: it's here already! Very short, very punchy, very free: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/270995

In other news: i really AM editing volume IV of the epic (Blue Knight, thank you!), but this little message is burning in me and i am going to practice the ‘One Sitting, One Problem, One Solution’ info product formula i read at product creation secrets by jason fladlien, former rapper, hare krishna monk, etc, turned internet marketer. So it won’t take long, brother Knight, and the Pillars of Aeden shall be edited. Then if my friend Ian’s advice is good, it’s time for the wizard to go to LA and hawk the epic and the Defence of the True West  to hollywood for the film rights. And film the hawking adventure anyway. Crazy idea but why not.  Applying my revelation: think intellectual (write a eutopian epic, for example) but act social (wear a pointy hat, make a spectacle, entertain people even, for example, by pretending to be what you are…

and hey, what a liberating thought that is – to give myself permission to pretend to be what I am! It kind of short-circuits the self-censoring parts of the brain…

My brothers, this new lawtable i set over you: pretend to be what ye truly are! (apologies to Nietzsche)