rereading 'Frankenstein'

I'm reading Frankenstein - the 1818 edition - but this one is special. Mary Shelley marked up a copy of the 1818 edition with changes she wanted to make for future editions and she left that copy with her friend Lady Thomas in 1823. That book is now in The Morgan Library in New York. In 1974, James Rieger published an edition of the 1818 text, with Mary Shelley's 1823 changes (indicated in brackets). 

This is a groundbreaking edition for a number of reasons. It is (or was at the time) recognized as the definitive scholarly text, and, at the time of its publication, all the other editions of any significance reproduced the 1831 edition. It's interesting what has happened since: scholars, especially feminist scholars, have signaled a preference for the 1818 edition. So now the 1818 edition is widely available and is often used in courses. 

I first read Frankenstein at uni, and we read the 1831 edition, which I loved, and that's the edition I've reread multiple times. I'm kind of biased in favor of that edition. To me, it is the novel. I only learnt that there were two main editions that are quite different fairly recently - a few years ago. Or I might have known but I didn't think it was that big a deal. I think I've only read the parts of the 1818 edition that are different from the 1831 edition, just to get a sense of the difference. I haven't read it through as a whole, so it's exciting to be doing that now. Maybe my view will change, and I will come to a new appreciation for the 1818 edition. 

wealth

So many really good books are available for free or very cheap on the internet. Technology has given us the capacity to learn and engage with the greatest minds like never before, but, partly because of the ease with which we can access those riches, we don't really appreciate them or make use of them. 

David Hume (1711 - 1776) is regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but who reads Hume now? How many people even know about him? Or maybe a more apposite question is who can read Hume? 

Later edit: Just after posting this I came across a YouTube video and the presenter was talking about his 10 favorite books, and one of them was A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume:
My Top 10 Books of All Time. So that was a pleasant surprise. 

pegs

I watched an interview with Sheryl Crow and she talked about how, when she writes songs, she uses a bass guitar because she doesn't know how to play it very well, whereas she knows what she's doing with other instruments. 

Why would a musical disadvantage help with the creation of music, and why wouldn't knowing exactly how to produce the exact sound you want be an advantage? 

I think it's like how the tires of a car need friction to work. If you can easily produce the sounds you want, you don't need to be creative. 

the word made flesh

I started reading the book of Ezekiel. I was thinking about how, as a prophet, God commanded Ezekiel to do some very challenging things to illustrate the message he was proclaiming to the Israelites, and it's not as if God supernaturally intervened to make the challenges easier. It seems like that's an important part of the message. 

An example of one of the challenges is that Ezekiel had to lie on his left side for 390 days, and he was only allowed to eat 230 grams of bread a day, which he cooked while lying on his side, and to drink 2 cups of water a day. Ezekiel's suffering in this way was to convey a message about God's punishment of Israel because of their sins. 

It's similar with the other prophets as well. Jeremiah and Isaiah went through many hardships and difficulties. They were mocked and abused and ridiculed and faced all kinds of plots on their lives. They had to preach a message which most people didn't want to hear. 

It brings to mind what Paul wrote about the 'thorn in his side'. We don't know what the thorn was but presumably it was painful and debilitating. Paul tells us that he was given this thorn, which tormented him, to keep him from becoming conceited as a result of the awesome revelations which God had given him. He prayed to God that it would be taken away from him - he pleaded with God - but God said no. Paul tells us that God actually said to him: 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' (2 Corinthians 12:9)

When we think about sharing our faith, it's easy to think of it as a matter of speaking a certain message - saying certain words - but what we learn from the prophets is that sharing our faith is about embodying the message - being the message, not just speaking the message. 

blue heeler

As time passes, healing happens. If you break a bone, you put it in a cast, and then, after about 6 weeks, it's healed. What's scary about mental health issues is that that kind of healing is not a given. 

It doesn't seem like there's any authoritative protocol for mental health issues, like there is for physical ailments. 

There are treatments that work, but finding what works is more of an enterprise when the illness is mental. 

But like I said, it's scary. Doctors don't really know how to help you. You can get stuck indefinitely in vicious cycles. 

Something that has helped me a lot is changing my life in different ways. When I have a breakthrough because the new habits I've cultivated are having a cumulative effect, it feels like a cure. But nobody can tell you to do that like a doctor can tell you to take medication. 

The model according to which doctors treat you is based on passivity, because it's not really part of a doctor's brief to push you to change. 

But that is the cure in my opinion, at least for what ails me. 

I'm not suggesting doctors, nurses, hospitals and mental health professionals have never helped me. They have. They have even saved my life. But bottom line, what I've learnt is that my health and my recovery are my project that I need to be in charge of. I consult with medical professionals on that project, but they do not have the magic bullet that is going to fix me. 

conversations

In Queensland: I was watching the movie Hanna and my friend sent me a quote from Kahlil Gibran: "Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror."

In China: I sat with friends in a courtyard, sipping cognac, in the cool of dusk, and we could hear the sound of children playing nearby. 

Somewhere in Hong Kong: I went to a Charismatic Christian conference with my friend, which terrified and traumatized me because I didn't believe or understand, even though I thought I was a Christian. I felt so deeply alone in the midst of a crowd. That evening we went to see Three Men and a Baby, and there was something really comforting and reassuring about watching a film - touching the real world. 

One of the things that drove me to teaching is the fear and confusion I felt about being a Christian....and also the fear and confusion I had known for my whole life. Education was something about which I could say, this is good. 

I was only meant to stay in Hong Kong for a month, but at the end of the month the opportunity arose to stay longer and I really wanted to. So, I deferred my studies for a year and lived in Hong Kong for 8 months. While there, I had my first experience of work - teaching English. 

I really enjoyed it. I had some jobs teaching classes of different levels, some tutoring individual students, and I had a job doing something called 'free talk club'. I think I had 2 shifts of this a week. The job was basically for me as the teacher/ native English speaker to engage in English conversation with a group of students. The students were mostly adults who worked during the day and did this in the evening. 

For some people, it would probably be a really cruisy job - just talking with people for 4 or 5 hours. For me, that was an absolute nightmare, especially because I had to lead the whole thing. I had no idea what to do. But I grew to enjoy it. I came to a new appreciation of just talking with people...conversation. I'd never really liked conversation, but there was something about this that really hit the spot. 

notes on vamp

• I've been writing a post on Medium every day. 
• I always thought that frozen vegetables were bland and not very nice and also that they were lacking in nutrition - not as healthy as fresh vegetables - but I was wrong on both counts. 
• I've been reading a book by an author who believes in a lot of conspiracy theories, or maybe it's more like one big conspiracy theory....the idea that there's a cabal controlling everything that's happening in the world. Some of the claims are kind of compelling, but everything together seems kind of unlikely. Just to give one example of something that seems highly unlikely is that the Beatles were planned. Their success was orchestrated. The idea was to corrupt the minds of the youth. According to this story, all the screaming teenage girls were actually paid to be like that. The idea was that boys would see all the screaming girls and want to be like the Beatles. 
• 2022 cleaved my life in two. 
• My overwhelming impression after listening to 'Hi Ren' the first time and watching the video, was that I have never heard anything like that ever before. I didn't even know that Ren was a serious musician. I'd heard about him because someone referred to a video he made when he was in the grips of his illness and things looked pretty hopeless. Then, watching the start of 'Hi Ren', I knew he was going to sing but I didn't expect that much. He's not signed with a label. He's not famous. But it was the best performance I've ever seen. 
• For a while I was trying to learn classical guitar, but I got too bogged down in the minutiae. You have to pluck the string in exactly the right way - positioning your fingers just right and pressing the strings just right and then moving your finger just right with the right angles and tension between the joints of your fingers....so I spent hours just practicing that. Playing a whole song seemed like the equivalent of exploring outer space. 
• What did Galileo actually see when he looked through his telescope? We'll never know. 
• It seems like Mary Shelley's introduction in which she explains how she came to write Frankenstein is itself a story. It doesn't fit with other people's version of the same events. But of course it's a story. Mary Shelley never knew her mother, except through her writings. How do we know Mary Shelley or any other historical figure? Only through written stories. 
• I remember the day that I bought Sylvia Plath's unabridged journals. I was in the book shop and I was flipping through it and reading bits here and there. It was nice and thick and heavy but with fairly thin, creamy colored paper. I bought it because reading it was like tasting portions of a delicious feast. 

the way of the cross

I remember listening to Gordon Ferguson's Romans series on tape, using a Walkman. What an incredible series of lessons that is. 

People always talk about the book that changed their life. Even though literature is one of my passions, and something I've studied and taught and continue to learn and write about, I can't really say that any literature has truly been life changing. I suppose in a way it has - like Wuthering Heights and some other books definitely occupied me and interested me and moved me...engaged me, but I don't think it's literature's job to change my life, in the sense of changing and shaping my values and my view of the world. The Bible definitely has changed my life, but it's not purely the literary aspect of it that has done so. 

That brings me to the Romans series. Those lessons have changed my life. They have influenced my behavior and the way I view the world. One of the lessons in particular that has done that is 'the way of the cross'. 

Jesus is without sin and yet he took the blame and the punishment for our sin. That is the way of the cross....taking the blame when you don't even think you're in the wrong. Just like Jesus said, look at your own sin first. Stop focusing on the sin of the other person. It's so powerful when we take that approach. 

We get so upset when we feel like we are being falsely accused. We're outraged. It's so unfair. We want justice. But what did Jesus get? He didn't get justice. He got the opposite. He was brutally killed, for us, the ones who are in the wrong. 

So, the way of the cross is, when you have a conflict with someone, you take the blame. You stop thinking, I'm right and they are wrong. You might be right. Jesus is right, but he took the blame for what we do, so we ought to follow his example. It changes situations and it moves people when you take this approach - when, instead of attacking the other person, you acknowledge your own part in the problem. You take the log out of your own eye so you can see to take the speck out of the other person's eye. 

Waking Up

One positive development lately is that my sleep has improved a bit again. I say 'again' because there has been other increments of improvement. I still don't ever sleep past 5 am, but between say, 10.30 pm and 5 am, I can usually get some good unbroken sleep, and maybe wake up once or twice. 

There was even a day recently when I woke up and I felt restful and refreshed. I haven't felt that in a long time. Usually I wake up and I'm immediately stressed, and I'm aware of how extremely tired I am. 

I still can't sleep during the day, not ever, in the last 2 or 3 years. When the time comes that I can sleep during the day, I will know then that I am truly better. It's good having that period at night when I'm pretty confident that I can get some sleep. It builds a sense of security, that I don't have when I can't sleep during the day and I can't necessarily sleep, or at least sleep for very long, at night. It feels like there's no escape when that's the case. 

That's how it's been to some extent continuously for the last 16 months. 

That stress I feel on first waking is like a particular kind of angst. Sometimes it feels like the turmoil that my sleeping brain has been working through, seeping into my woken self. Other times it's like the waves of fear and pain from my daytime life engulfing me as soon as I wake. In any case, it's a transitory phase. 

Something I've learnt, especially from working through withdrawal, is to reframe that mental experience - to think about it differently. Instead of thinking, oh no - here we go. Another day of suffering. More pain. More of this never-ending vicious cycle, I think, this is a good process. This is my brain being renovated and healing. I'm healing and growing and changing. 

That helps as well, because I know that it's true. 

artistry

I watched a documentary years ago about Jeff Buckley and I will never forget it. He is such an artist. I feel similarly about Lana Del Rey. Thinking of individual songs, there's a certain mood, that she just absolutely nails. It's very American, but I don't know if Americans can see that. From my point of view, it's an expression of something distinctly American. 

And then, in terms of albums....Lana Del Rey does something that I don't see in anyone else, although they probably have it - an album for her is really the realization of a creative project. Seeing her process of constructing albums gives me a feeling of joy and makes me want to create. 

it takes time to make a new path

I just keep putting designs on Redbubble even though I don't make any sales. I made a few sales early on, mainly from one friend, but it's been over a year with no sales. I still keep uploading though, and I'm planning to try a few things - improving my graphic design and vector art skills, researching what kind of designs actually sell, incorporating words and phrases, etc. 

But there's a few other things I want to work on first. I'm working on some e-books and planning a new blog, and some other projects. I want to try another print on demand platform as well. Since I got more organized with my designs, it's a lot easier to use my art in different ways. I used to just save my art in folders as files formatted according to the software - so, for example, Clip Studio Paint files saved in that format in a folder. Now I have a spreadsheet and I give all my works a serial number, and I save a PNG file with that serial number. So, if anyone sees anything they like on my Instagram, they can just tell me the serial number and I can put it on products using Redbubble, or some other platform. 

All the YouTube videos about how to do this stuff make it sound easy, but there are always complications. Things only run smoothly once you figure out how to do them yourself. Like, for example, I learnt about opening a Redbubble shop, and I opened one and started uploading designs, but the designs were all too small. It didn't work. So then I watched a YouTube video about how to make the designs bigger. I actually have to use a whole other program to do that - Gimp. There are probably different ways to do it, but that's what I do. 

Medium has been more encouraging in terms of actually making money. Not that I make a lot of money, but I do make money every month, and I'm growing in my writing practice. It's only going to grow. 

I've watched a few videos and read some articles lately that talked, among other things, about the importance of not giving up. Try different things. I want to try all kinds of things. But I can't rush it. It takes time for an enterprise to evolve. There's so much to learn and you can't take the steps that are further down the track until you get there. 

forgetting how

I used to sometimes give up. In my desperation to make some kind of meaningful change, I would change my mind about my internal resolutions. It would start off with one thing, and then that would lead to another thing, and another, until I had given up on everything. 

It was pretty destructive really. I noticed that I don't do that any more. I did cross off quite a few of my daily goals recently, because there are a lot in the second half of the list that I just don't get to. They're good things and I want to do them, but they haven't become habits like most of the goals in the first half of my list. So, even when I do get to them, there's something superficial about the way I do them. 

But I noticed a big difference from how I used to be. I stopped! Yeah, I crossed off a few goals, but I didn't keep going and cross off one after another until there was nothing left. 

My daily goals have become part of my life. I feel good about that. Materially and outwardly, I've really been reduced. I feel like trash. But the challenges of recent years, and to some extent the challenges of my whole life, have pushed me to change. So there's like a new life that has sprouted. 

deceptive appearances

Sometimes we use inspirational quotes because they sound good, and they carry a certain weight because of who said them and how they sound, but they don't necessarily prove what we think they do. 

My absolute favorite example of this is something that John Milton wrote: "The mind is its own place and, in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven." 

It makes a lot of sense and people quote it as an expression of wisdom on the part of John Milton. I've seen it used in psychology books to convey the idea that, if we work on our thinking, we can really transform our world. 

That's true, but there's a huge problem with attributing this quote to John Milton. Yes, it's a quote from his masterpiece, Paradise Lost, but the character that makes this statement is Satan. Satan is trying to comfort himself about being in hell, so he's saying, it's no big deal. I can make heaven here through my thinking. But that, of course is not true, and by putting it in the mouth of Satan, Milton is saying that it's absolutely not true....that it represents a depraved and reprehensible line of thought.