Weltanschauung

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Art for Housewives

Why do people behave the way they do? Could it be that their Weltanschauung needs restyling?

Weltanschauung, minimally speaking,is one’s interpretation of life based on their own personal experiences and the perception of these experiences. I only know about this term because I live with a philosopher. He’s always talking about Weltanschauung, his favorite leitmotif. And, in an attempt to transform his monologues into diaglogues, I did some research of my own.

Wikipedia tells me that it was German historian and hermeneutic professor Wilhelm  Dilthey who, around 1911, came up with the term Weltanschauung that became popular with so many psychologists such as Freud and William James. But not everyone speaks German so “Weltanschauung“ had to be translated. The Anglo-Saxons translate it as “worldview” whereas Italians as “immagine del mondo” (image of the world). And here we find a big difference…is your Weltanschauung a view or an image?

A view means you are looking at something outside of yourself from a specific view point. But an image is a representation of something that’s not there. One Weltanschauung comes from looking out wherea the other comes from looking in.

So, in my mind’s eye, am I on the inside or outside of myself?

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References: World view by Michael Kearney on archive.org HERE + Dilthey, philosopher of the human studies by Rudolf Makkreel on archive.org HERE

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The Midnight Library

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Art for Housewives

The need for my mind to travel has me reading a lot—mainly fiction that promises a happy ending.

Matt Haig’s “The Midnight Library” is the story of Nora Seed, a young woman who sees her life as a series of failures. Her cat’s death pushes her to the brink. She decides to commit suicide but is a failure in this, too. Instead of dying, she wakes up in a very strange library with a very strange kind of librarian, Mrs. Elm. Thanks to the magic of the library, Nora has the opportunity to see what her life could have been like had she made other choices. And [spoiler alert] after having visited various possible lives, Nora understands that the life she most wants is the one she already has.

Nora’s story inspired the following DIY suggestions for living a happier life:

  1. Make friends with yourself so that you can have someone to count on
  2. Declutter your mind of negative thoughts as they are toxic
  3. Remember that if you focus on the good, the good will get better.

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Moderate Your Tone

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Art for Housewives

I’ve discovered the pleasure of talking to myself. To avoid being called crazy, I simply refer to this new pleasure as “thinking out loud”. Or, if Volver our cat is present, I pretend to be talking to him. Because I do talk to him all the time although the tone of voice I use when we cuddle is not the same as that when I reprimand him for whining for more food. It’s not the words that he understands but the tone.

Men (who are not good listeners to begin with) may be more willing to listen if the tone is right. Some research indicates that men prefer women with high-pitched, breathy voices that stroll when they talk. Women, however, prefer Barry White like voices that wrap themselves around the ear and make you want to snuggle. But this changes with age. Men begin having difficulties hearing high frequencies and women difficulties with low ones. So, to be heard, it’s best to moderate your tone.

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Related: Do Men and Women Hear Sounds Differently?

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Harold Takes a Walk

Posted on January 24, 2022 by Art for Housewives

Getting old, said Bette Davis, is not for sissies. Aging is a transcendental experience in that it forces one to go beyond themselves. And going beyond the self can be fatiguing. In recent years, there’s been an increase in coming of age books for the elderly. For example, Rachel Joyce’s THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY.

One Tuesday morning, Harold receives a letter from Queening Hennessy. Queenie is dying of cancer and just wanted to say good-bye to her ex-colleague. When someone writes that they are dying, it’s a letter you can’t ignore. But Harold is not good at expressing himself. So after several attempts at writing letters that only end up crumpled and thrown in the bin, he winds up writing Queenie two stiff lines then tells his wife he’s going to post his letter. Once outside the front door, Harold just starts walking and can’t stop.

To discover the world, all you have to do is put one foot in front of the other.

Harold, a “tall man who moved through life with a stoop, as if expecting a low beam, or a screwed up paper missile, to appear out of nowhere,” was not a walker. But“now that he’d accepted the slowness of himself, he took pleasure in the distance he covered.” And this acceptance of the aging self is obligatory if you want to enjoy what remains of your life.

In the autumn Harold’s wife, Maureen, used to wear fallen leaves in her button hole. The couple had lost a child years before and the pain, despite the passing of much time, still lingered. But, says Maureen, the “difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It’s like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget it’s there and you keep falling in. After a while, it’s still there, but you learn to walk around it.”

Harold and Maureen, like many married couples, had at a certain point chosen to pursue loneliness even though “being alone required such constant effort”. But Harold’s walk had provoked the couple back to the present where “beginnings could happen more than once.”

And with this thought I’ll start my day.

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Jailbird 

Posted on January 22, 2022 by Art for Housewives

In 2005, Pink Flamingo No. 492 escaped from a zoo in Kansas. Originally from Tanzania, No. 492 was miserable and wanted to go to a warmer climate. Luckily, the zookeepers had forgotten to clip his wings so when the opportunity presented itself, No. 492 didn’t hesitate and took flight.

For years his whereabouts was unknown. But then, in 2018, No. 492 was spotted on the Gulf Coast of Texas basking in the ocean spray. It was possible to identify him as he was still wearing his yellow ID tag.

What a lonely life it must have been all those years on the lam without a fellow flamingo for companionship! But No. 492 was eventually sighted in the company of a Yucatecan flamingo known as HDNT. Were the two simply friends or, instead, flamed colored lovers?

Imagine a flamingo from Tanzania and a flamingo from the Yucatan that, while flying over Texas, meet and stay together for the rest of their lives like flamingo couples do.

Today, like every day, is a perfect day for a love story!

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P.S. A group of flamingos is called a flamboyance.

Related: Flamingo that escaped a zoo in 2005 spotted in Texas + Birds That Mate for Life +

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