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The Joker doing his joker thing and causing deep unease

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Looks like the new Joker movie has opened to some controversy:

But “Joker” is also causing deep unease. Some people, including a few rank-and-file employees on the Warner Bros. lot, worry that the violent, hyper-realistic movie is potentially dangerous — that rather than critiquing the societal failings that have given rise to America’s mass-shooter crisis, the film legitimizes such atrocities and could provoke more of them.

I haven’t seen it yet, so no spoilers here. What I’m finding fascinating is people’s reactions, one of empathy, toward the main character which I think is bound to happen when a villian is cast in the lead role. In story structure, we’re used to the main character being the hero of the story, especially in comic book movies.  But of course it gets crazy when people let the emotiveness of a movie spill over into real life. The FBI have sounded the alarm:

Amid the critical praise are scorching reviews that use words like “irresponsible.” The F.B.I. has warned about ugly online chatter surrounding “Joker,” prompting the police in cities including New York and Los Angeles to step up theater security and reigniting the debate over First Amendment rights versus Hollywood accountability. Relatives and friends of those killed during the 2012 movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., sent a letter to Warner Bros. expressing disquiet over “Joker” and its empathetic depiction of the character.

Warner Bros says it was not their intention to hold Joker up as a hero. They just wanted to make a gritty film with edge:

It was very much the intention, however, to make an audacious, boundary-pushing movie — one that could cut through the deluge of Netflix-Amazon-YouTube streaming content and get people out to movie theaters to buy tickets. When in doubt, sharpen the edges

I like the Joker as a character when he’s philosophically contrasted against Batman, especially as Nolan’s portrayed as a pure agent of Chaos, above and beyond the concepts of good and evil.

I’m looking forward to seeing the Joker’s re-invented backstory developed in a modern context.

Link: ‘Joker’ Movie Is a Risk, but a Calculated One, for Warner Bros.

 

What do you care about?

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I’m prepping for an upcoming leadership symposium at Wright Hassall that I’m co-facilitating with the brilliant Andy Chandler. Rummaging through Steve Radcliffe’s book Leadership: Plain and Simple, I stumbled upon these two questions that Radcliffe says are essential to leadership:

What do you care about?

and

What do you want to lead for?

During my morning reflection time, I decided to tackle the first question: What do I care about and here’s what came out:

– I care about language and the power of words and images to move people
– I care about stories and the power of storytelling
– I care about freedom of choice
– I care about literature and music, books and knowledge and learning in 3D
– I care about wisdom and how we apply what we learn
– I care about creative self-expression
– I care about treating people with dignity and respect
– I care about influence

That’s me, now what do you care about?

Inattentional Blindness

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I have to confess, I struggled with this one.

Amber Guyger was justified in shooting black man, Dallas ex-police chief says.

I’d have to say this ex-police dude is totally wrong.

A woman, a police woman, wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing, walks into an apartment she thought was her own, shoots and kills the man who’s apartment it actually is, and she’s justified in doing so?

How can that be?

So an innocent dude pays for her stupidity with his life. One minute he’s in his living room eating a bowl of ice cream, the next minute he’s dead. She said she shot him with the intent to kill him because, as a police officer, that’s what she was trained to do.

She says she hates herself for doing it and that she has to live with what she’s done for the rest of her, but that doesn’t excuse her actions for which she must pay.

I’m not sure I’d call it murder, but I certainly wouldn’t call it justified.

When asked how could she not notice she was going into the wrong apartment, she said she had been distracted by a sexually explicit phone message from her police partner.

Crazy times man.

UPDATE: In the end, the Judge sentenced Amber Guyger to 10 years in prison for murder. But there’s hope:

Geeked out

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In addition to taking Ruth and her Mum to Heathrow airport, I geeked out a bit.  I figured if I’m going to get back into the blogging game and re-define for myself through it, then I best clean-up the back end a bit. Basically backing up my site, which I did through Jetpack. I went for the Pro option. I also upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and deleted all my obsolete plugins and themes, before finally upgrading to the latest version of PHP (7.3). I started this process yesterday, it’s not all that quick of thing to do especially if it’s the first time you’ve backed your site up and if you have a lot of plugins then the PHP Compatibility checker takes a while.

If you have a Tumblr site, then you probably got an email today letting you know the the terms and conditions have changed now that Automattic have bought Tumblr. I’m pleased that they did. I’ve always liked Tumblr, but fell out of using it much because, as a social networked blogging platform, it kind of fell out of favour with the mainstream. It became a great place to find memes and porn. Then Tumblr cleaned the place up and banned porn from the site (to make themselves attractive to buy i’m sure).

I’m hoping under Automattic’s stewardship that Tumblr will be able to thrive again.

Standing out is no longer optional

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“The danger of overstimulation and external voices will erode one’s core and necessitate the natural desire to compare and copy, which leads to living life from an “outside-in” point of view. I believe your lifestyle can never reproduce the joy and satisfaction that is associated with the opposite.”

Dr. Flo Falayi dropped this on Forbes today the idea that we’re born to stand out, especially if you want to be a leader in any capacity. However, I’ve found that between all the noise and self-absorption,  it’s hard to stand out. Throw on top of that, the natural urge to blend in with everyone else, from the way you dress to the way you talk, and you have the perfect recipe for mediocrity. I agree with Dorie Clark:

…standing out is no longer optional, and for anyone to make a name for themselves, create true job security and make a difference in the world, they will have to share their unique perspective and inspire others to take action.

Inspiring people to action is key. Look at what Greta Thunberg has done. Whether you agree with her views or not, she’s moved folks to action on both sides of the argument, including the richest man in Europe and this guy:

Back to Dr. Falayi:

The first hurdle anyone has to overcome is the self-limiting beliefs that you are like everyone. This is untrue and damaging, as it renders one powerless to step out and stand out.

To stand out you have to tap into the desires, habits, and activities that make you happy, or what scientists, Todd Rose, and Ogi Ogas, call micro-motives. This is all a part of discovering the core values, stories, interpretations, and idea that make you uniquely you. Everyone can stand out because everyone has micro-motives.

Some clarifying questions to help you discover the you that is you:

  • Which influences shaped you early in life?
  • If you could change anything in your past, what would you change?
  • What types of issues get your attention?
  • Which issues energize you?
  • What would you do today if money or time weren’t an issue?

My big take-away from Dr. Falayi’s article is this:

You have to know who you are before you can stand out and lead others to do great things.

How did I almost miss #OneHitWonderDay

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I could have gone on for a while digging through the one hit wonders of my listening journey, but I’ve limited myself to these 15 One Hit Wonders!  #OneHitWonderDay

What’s your favourite one hit wonders?

C

Do you miss the stars like I do?

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I want to go somewhere where I can see a billion stars in the sky at night. I was taking the trash out in the wee hours of the morning and noticed the stars. We don’t get to see them often in the UK because it always seems to be cloudy or partly cloudy (slight exaggeration, I know).

Anyway, I looked up, saw the stars, and was happy (because I don’t get to see them often ?).  However,  the light pollution being what it is near my crib,  all I could see was the usual suspects – the Big Dipper, Orion, Ursa Major, etc. I remember my time in the jungles of Malaysia and looking up at the night sky and being overwhelmed and in awe of the endless spread of stars which looked something like this:

I need to see this view in my life again.

I dipped into town to see my friend Sarah for coffee, conversation, and lunch. We didn’t record an episode today, just spent the time catching up. The school holidays and personal holidays created the gap between our last meeting. Like the newsletter, I need to get back into the groove with the podcast.

Life IS the adventure is my latest strapline. I’ve come full circle with the personal growth adventures idea that started me on this path 20 years ago (it feels weird to write that…’20 years ago’ but I’m of that age now, I guess…). Anyway, I was thinking about what ‘life is the adventure’ means to me, and it’s this:

…a mindset built around curiosity and creativity, exploration and discovery. It’s about trying something new, something that expands the boundary of your comfort zone. It’s about embracing all of life, the ups and the downs, the good and the bad. The goal is to have more good days than bad days and experience more ups than downs.  And in the end, being able to say: ‘I lived a good life.’

Life IS the adventure!

What is the number one rule of Funk?

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Inspiration is wild.

And it can come from anywhere, anytime. I literally stumbled upon this 1 min 20-sec video of the one and only Bootsy Collins explaining the power of The One and it lit my whole morning up. I’m sure I’ll be buzzing the rest of the day just from this video.

The rule of funk: Keep it on the One. Listen to Bootsy lay it down:

“It’s however you feel, you just gotta fit it in that little space that you’ve got…. Once you got it, you can do anything you want to do with it! Just keep it on THE ONE.”

Why am I so fired up about this? Because The One is both practical and mystical. It’s about freedom through the constraint of form, but it’s also about something bigger. Think the Magician, who occupies the position of One in the Tarot:

In the Magician’s right hand is a wand raised toward heaven, the sky or the element æther, while his left hand is pointing to the earth. This iconographic gesture has multiple meanings, but is endemic to the Mysteries and symbolizes divine immanence, the ability of the magician to bridge the gap between heaven and earth.

Or as James Brown lays it down:

“The ‘One’ is derived from the Earth itself, the soil, the pine trees of my youth. And most important, it’s on the upbeat—ONE two THREE four—not the downbeat, one TWO three FOUR, that most blues are written. Hey, I know what I’m talking about! I was born to the downbeat, and I can tell you without question there is no pride in it. The upbeat is rich, the downbeat is poor. Stepping up proud only happens on the aggressive ‘One,’ not the passive Two, and never on lowdown beat. In the end, it’s not about music—it’s about life.”

Bridging the gap between heaven and earth, tapping the Divine for inspiration.

You can bet, I’ll be keeping it on The One all day today.

P.S.

Do you want to take a mystical journey today?

Wait till it’s dark, then find a quiet room. Put your headphones on, turn off the lights, and listen to the original version of Maggot Brain.

You’re welcome.

Waiting for life to begin

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I woke up feeling a little like Bruce Springsteen in Better Days:

Well my soul checked out missing as I sat listening
To the hours and minutes tickin’ away
Yeah just sittin’ around waitin’ for my life to begin
While it was all just slippin’ away
I’m tired of waitin’ for tomorrow to come
Or that train to come roarin’ round the bend
I got a new suit of clothes a pretty red rose
And a woman I can call my friend…

It’s easy to put things off until the stars have aligned just right, or you have enough time, money, or other resources. You want everything to be perfect before you begin. In my experience, waiting for the perfect time is just another avoidance tactic. Forget that!

Instead, begin now with where you are and what you have. There will never be a perfect time. Start small or start big, who cares? Just begin!

And if not now, when?

In fact, don’t answer that question, just start – NOW!

Can you ever have an original thought?

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Your coffee contemplation today:

“In a mutually interdependent world, none of us has absolute control over everything we choose to do. You are either being influenced by others or exerting influence simply by being who you are.”

I think it’s a curious exercise to reflect on who you’re being influenced by and who you’re influencing without even realising it.

Can you ever really have an original thought? Or is everything a remix? And if so, how can you use that to boost your creativity?

Hat tip

Shaking the holiday dust off

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Here we go, back in the game after a week’s worth of holiday. I need to unpack my time away, but the quick story is, we did a week-long camping tour, changing campsites every few days.

We started off in Skegness, then headed north to the North York Moors for a few days, then headed east from there to the Yorkshire Dales for 3 nights before heading south and home just ahead of the nightmare Bank Holiday traffic.

The highlight for me was the time spent in the Yorkshire Dales. We stumbled upon a great campsite just above Bolton Abbey. We were surrounded by rolling hills and cows.

One of my favourite things about camping is waking up at dawn to watch the sunrise (on the days it wasn’t raining or overcast (and there were a few)). I usually read in the mornings, but on this trip, I mostly just watched the sun come up while slowly sipping my coffee and doing some deep thinking and reflecting.

That tends to happen when I reach another birthday (I turned 51 on this trip). Instead of making New Year’s Resolutions in January, I think it’s more appropriate to make New Year resolutions on your birthdate, it is after all your true “new” year.

I got to thinking about how I want 51 to be different from 50. The truth is I didn’t have huge revelations, just a refining of previous themes like getting obsessive about physical fitness again. While I do workout most days, it’s usually only for about an hour, which is better than nothing, but when you consider the rest of my day is pretty much spent on my ass staring a screen, an hour doesn’t cut it.

I want to adopt some of Mark Sission’s Primal Blueprint ideas which are based on the Palaeolithic rules of living 10,000 years ago which is basically:

1. Eat lots of animals, insects, and plants.

2. Move around a lot at a slow pace.

3. Lift heavy things (hehe my favourite thing to do)

4. Run really fast every once in a while (I’ll struggle with this given that my knee is kaput at the moment)

5. Get lots of sleep (I’ll have to incorporate napping to make this happen considering I only sleep about 5 hours night).

6. Play.

7. Get some sunlight every day (speaking of which, I better hurry up and get out of this Starbucks and catch some rays before I head back to the office).

8. Avoid trauma.

9. Avoid poisonous things.

10. Use your mind.

The basic goal, as Mark sums it up, is to be healthy, energetic, happy, lean, strong, bright, and productive.

Worthy goals for sure.

Time out in nature reminded me of how much I miss being out amongst the mountains and trees. I don’t get out in the wilds anywhere near the amount I used to do. I cite work as the negative influence, but that wouldn’t be a fair assessment. I’m the real culprit for not making the time to take to the hills. So my commitment this birth year is to embrace nature with a stronger faith.

Once upon a time, my outings were focused purely on the physical. How far could I push myself? How fast could I climb? Then for a time, it was spiritual. I’d go to the mountains to disappear into myself and become one with Nature. And now, I’m returning with the intention of exploring natural history and perhaps even a little transcendentalism.

So these are just a few of the things I want to do with year 51.

 

Take Another Happy Pill

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I had to come down off the crest of the hill. It was getting dark and the hounds would soon be released. The speckled purple shadows behind me lengthened.

A dog howls, it’s not dark yet. I lengthen my stride.

I could hear my brother now, he would be talking about tanks and how their treads tear up the European mud in the Fall. The boy is obsessed with mud. I’ve known him to strip totally naked and go lie down in a mud puddle for hours.

More grainy pictures flood my mind.

I remember there was a gun, small caliber. We didn’t dare talk about it. My sister captured every five minutes of my panic. I was wearing dark blue pajamas and hopping around on one foot.

If you get caught…

All eyes on me, the faces peer from the shadows, leaning in to get a closer look, I notice faces from my past. Uncle Pete, who raced swan boats on the Boston Common. My cousin Sibyl, who, wanting to know what it was like to a kiss a boy, kissed me instead, pretending she was teaching me how to kiss a girl. My aunt Faith used to masturbate to Christian Rock. All you could hear from her room was Jesus, oh God, Jesus.

She sat with someone else on the carousel that night. I wanted to ask her about her red painted fingernails and the French beans she was so fond of eating when it rained, but the brass sprinklers caused a distraction, getting everybody wet. Your loss, I said. My gain, you pervert, she said back. I didn’t know what to do with that.

I stood up and went to the window. I’m only trying to help, I said.

Why don’t we have our last meal together? Forget all this talk about families and travels and girlfriends and pointed daggers. Your physical body soothes me. Eyes like Orange Crush, with hair too match.

A vague mist floats in. heads nod.

Every girl I’ve ever met became my tormentor. Over the years, I learned to bare their torment stoically, which led to orgasmic dreams, a small price to pay for middle-class privilege.

I should take another happy pill and forget about her.

Donuts

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At breakfast, they took away my donuts.

 

WB: Of course you’re mad. Why do you think they’ve gone through such lengths to confine you to the back pages of the Internet. If your ideas got out and went viral, it would be the death of nations.

SC: And so what, the people have a right to know, a right to decide for themselves.

WB: Please, don’t be so naive.

 

 

Out of the blue

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When you were younger did you ever have the feeling that you were headed for great things once you finished high school and headed off to university or into the world? Or did you feel like everyone else, but you, was headed for something great? And let me ask you this: at what point did you ‘jump track’ and realised after many years wasted, you were on the wrong track to begin with?

I got a chance to catch up with my friend Naomi on the phone today. It’s been an easy while since I last had any contact with her. Her face has cropped up from time to time on my social feeds, but that’s about it.  I like out of the blue calls like this. They’re interesting because you both have to fill in the gaps of time which causes you to reflect on what exactly you’ve been up to in the intervening time. 

Naomi is hardcore Gen X. She’s kind of on social, but not really into it. I think it’s FOMO, more than anything else’s, that spurs her on.

 Her go-to social is FB which, of course, according to marketing stats, is the place most Gen Xers hangout. My guess is FB reminds them of the old walled garden days of AOL. I have a love-hate relationship with the Face of Book. I much prefer Twitter, but if I want to reach people who fall in the same demographic as I do, then Facebook is the place to do that statistically. 

And just to be totally random with you, I bought one of these reusable Starbucks flasks…

the other day because I am determined to move more and Starbucks is the furthest coffee shop from where I work most weekdays. Gotta get those extra steps in, especially as I’m banned from my beloved weights. But we make do with what we have.

Oh, I didn’t get the all-clear from the doc today. Looks like my hand is being stubborn. For some reason, it keeps over granulating which isn’t allowing the wound to close up so it can get on with the business of healing.

I wrote a flash fiction piece this evening, but won’t post it yet until I’ve seen it in the light of day.

I enjoyed the process.

Desert Nights

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So Toni Morrison has passed on to the afterlife, wherever or whatever that is. Obama dropped a nice tribute tweet to her in a more eloquent way than I could do.

Obama, ever the great orator. Many were singing his praises as he stepped up and gave a presidential condolence to the people of El Paso, something our current chief doesn’t seem capable or willing to do. 

My memories of El Paso are from a distance as I looked across the New Mexican desert at the shimmering lights of El Paso. I used to dream about escaping my Ranger School misery and disappearing into the city.

My jaw seems to be continually on the floor in shock at the state of madness we find ourselves in these days. The Chinese curse is most apt – may you live in interesting times they said – and boy do we live in interesting times. The rise of populist governments has me shaking in my boots a little bit. Politically the world is becoming more dangerous. There’s too much ‘you’re either with us or against us’ rhetoric going on. People are becoming tribal again and squaring off for war.

My broken body is slowly on the mend. I limped a little less today. I’m off to the doc tomorrow to see about my hand. I doubt that she’ll clear me as one of the wound holes has not completely closed yet and is still leaking out. It’s been 3 1l2 weeks now, when will it end?

Broken though I maybe, I’m back in motion again, so that’s good. I’ve captured some good sunsets over the last two days out on my evening walks (my only form of exercise at the moment as the gym is off limits until I get the all-clear from the doc).

Fields of Southam
View from St James Church, Southam

I started reading the Alexander Hamilton biography that inspired the musical. Ron Chernow is a great storyteller.  I love narrative history books. They really bring the his-tory alive.  And Hamilton is such an interesting character. I’m looking forward to taking a deep dive into his life.

Invite the Gods of Chaos

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It’s amazing how much of life is routine.

I guess it has to be, otherwise we’d have chaos and chaos doesn’t make for good productivity and effeciency. Robert Spencer calls these routines power sinks as expressed by our habits – habits of being, habits of thinking, habits of doing, habits of feeling and habits of perceiving. But according to Spencer, these kinds of habits rob us of our power.

While they make our lives efficient, they also make our lives pretty dull.

If I compare my today with my yesterday, it’s pretty much the same. I drove the same route to and from work. And so far, I’ve sat at the same desk, done the same type of work, followed by a walk to Sainsbury’s for lunch at Starbucks. The variables – I had an egg sandwich instead of chicken, and a lemon-lime drink instead of a raspberry-blackcurrant drink. The coffee was the same in the same black thermos. I sat inside today instead of outside. Some of the people were different, some were the same (we’re creatures of habit after all and eat lunch more or less at the same time and there are only a handful of food options within walking distance of this office complex and industrial estate.

My thoughts were variations of the same handful of themes I think a lot about.

Perhaps I should start dicing again to breakup the monotony of my routines with randomness and chance.

Invite the gods of chaos into my life.

A Statement and a Question

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I felt a bit scrappy this morning along with an incredible urge to walk around naked. There must have been something in my coffee to trigger a primal reaction.

Having watched Hamilton over the weekend, I now have the soundtrack on repeat in Spotify. Particularly the lead track Alexander Hamilton, also My Shot, Ten Duel Commandments, and Non-stop.  I admire people like Hamilton – people who are driven to a fault. They know what they want and are willing to move heaven and earth to get it.

Me, I’m way too laid back for that. I’m more of the Jimmy Buffet type in Margaritaville wearing my flip-flops and strumming my six-string.

Years ago I stumbled across this statement and question: It’s your life, what are you going to do with? Today, I contemplated this. I’m only a few weeks away from my birthday and I was wondering what am I going to do with the rest of my life?

I had the good fortune to witness this sunset tonight:

I must make time for more of these.

The Four Agreements

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In this week’s episode of the podcast, we share our thoughts on Don Miguel Ruiz’s thoughtful book, The Four Agreements.

I’ve read the book several times now. Sarah is on her first pass of the book. I return to from time to time because the messages are simple and sound.

Anyway, enjoy the episode and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below or in the Facebook Group.

Sarah Hunt

If you like the podcast and want to help us grow, please like and share. And if you’re really feeling frisky, leave a nice rating on iTunes. This is how independent artists grow.

Peace and love,

Clay