Jung, Free and Loving Astrology

As a people observer, I’ve always had a keen interest in astrology and psychology - and suffered for my love of it!
By suffer I mean, I’ve been called many names by miscreantes who have never been open minded enough to look into it properly. I’ve often been called stupid and regularly given that sympathetic withering look by ‘scientifically minded’ people, almost as though I’d just informed them that I still believed in Santa Claus. (He’s not real? What the F&*%?!!)

Thankfully, I was never one to be bothered about what people think of my intelligence. (Its enough for me to know that I’m smart, I don’t have to prove it to the world!) But it was a great relief when I went to study psycholgy and creative writing in the UK at the age of 18 and I finally found someone who agreed with me.
I won’t put his name in here, as I haven’t asked his permission to name him, but it was one of the Doctors of Psychology, a professor and a lecturer of mine for cognitive psychology.
After class one day I shyly approached him. The entire lecture theatre had emptied. My heart was racing beyond belief. He was shuffling through some papers. He was a tall man, African, very dark skinned – with an outgoing demenour.
“Can I help you?” I cannot remember what I said to him. I told him I wanted to know more about astrology and the links to psychology. Intead of laughing in my face and telling me I might be better off leaving the course, he took it very seriously! He told me he believed in it too – and that many psychologists, including Jung, did.
We went onto have a lengthy discussion about it.
As I was leaving he looked at me and he said, “Leo?”
I laughed.  “Taurus…”
“It was your bright clothing and the fact that you had the courage to approach me!” he said.
(I was wearing ridiculous attire.)
“Oh…” I replied. “Must be my Sagittarius moon!” He got it.
I felt suddenly, alot less stupid then I had in years about my interest in astrology and its affects on people. 

It all started for me about the age of 15, it sounds obvious, but that was when I started to notice how people really
related to their star sign. A friends mother had a keen interest and we used to discuss it too. After a while I as I got deeper into it and discovered more aspects to it in the other planets. There was not one case I couldn’t discover a very real insight into a persons character through the use of birth charts. I spent my pocket money and first wages on books about it. And every essential astrologers bible – an ephemerides, which is basically a big fat book of numbers and degrees. This one cost me the grand some of 27 euro (alot when you’re 17 years old!) and gave me every planets placement from 1900 to 2050!

I felt it gave me the edge, secretly. I could have someone figured out before they even knew anything about me.
My favourite part was seeing the similarities between people with similar star signs, moon signs and venus signs. It was uncanny. I loved watching how people related to one another. How perfect compatible matches worked together and filled in one anothers blanks, and how horribly wrong it could all go. To this day I could not imagine a world without astrology. It makes every day more interesting for me. I learn more every single day, week and year about it.

It is encouraging when I get moments of others being surprised at my insights into their own personality and relationships that I could have known little or nothing about, apart from knowing their birth date. At the same time, I keep it to myself most of the time. I accept its difficult for many people to believe or take seriously without solid proof. I accept that alot of it can be intuitive and down to perception, projection and its by no means foolproof. No one is denying the fact that people have unique genes and a unique personality. But astrology is alot more subtle then that. Its knowing what aspects and combinations of personality traits will be sure to point out one star sign for another.
Using broad personality trait words such as ‘brave’ and ‘adventurous’ can actually cause confusion. The most common question I always get asked is “Yeah but can’t you apply those words to anyone?” Of course you can – they’re broad words! But you asked me to describe Capricorn and then wanted me to do it in 30 seconds so what the hell do you expect? I could describe Angelina Jolie in 30 seconds without mentioning her huge lips and the fact that she’s married to Brad Pitt, and you could think she’s any Hollywood actress! But if you got to know Angelina Jolie, properly, and then spent a good amount of time explaining her to someone else who knew her, then you’d be more accurate. I could write pages about someones star sign – I could explain why they’re different to someone else they know with that star sign (because their moon is completely different) and why they get on with one Gemini and not another. In short, its a heavily complex subject. Nowadays people are so accustomed to getting ‘concrete answers’ done in a ‘concrete study’ by ‘concrete scientists’. They’re also used to getting it piped into their brains very quickly. Once something anomalous like astrology comes along, it can be much easier to brush it aside without really giving it any time, thought or research. The ability to really see people is important too. To see whats going on for them on many levels. Remember, you are your version of your birth chart – someone else on the other side of the world might have a very similar birth chart to you. After he or she is raised they might seem completely different to you in many ways on the surface. But I bet if you got to know them you would see how many things in common you ended up having!
I would love if some studies were done on astrology to prove what I am absolutely certain to be real. It makes me laugh when on a night out I can talk to a guy for a minute and then tell them their star sign. Recently I guessed right three times in a row and got called a witch! (One of the drawbacks… good reason never to tell people or indeed boys about this!!) But I do enjoy sometimes when I’m out for dinner and one person hears about it – once I’ve got one person down to a T, the rest of the drunken party starts shouting “do me, do me!!” I remember one time, I spent the whole dinner telling people about themselves and not much of it eating!

Overall, its near impossible to explain how much I can see astrology working in people, even though I come across so many examples every single day. For me, I feel its almost too much evidence! I feel overwhelmed by the evidence, and hence I never seem to find the right way to explain to disbelievers!

None the less, tonight I found some intesting quotes from Jung on Astrology… it feels comforting to know in all the times I’ve been misunderstood on this topic, that good old Jung was misunderstood too!

• While studying astrology I have applied it to concrete cases many times. … The experiment is most suggestive to a versatile mind, unreliable in the hands of the unimaginative, and dangerous in the hands of a fool, as those intuitive methods always are. If intelligently used the experiment is useful in cases where it is a matter of an opaque structure. It often provides surprising insights. The most definite limit of the experiment is lack of intelligence and literal-mindedness of the observer. … Undoubtedly astrology today is flourishing as never before in the past, but it is still most unsatisfactorily explored despite very frequent use. It is an apt tool only when used intelligently. It is not at all foolproof and when used by a rationalistic and narrow mind it is a definite nuisance. – C. G. Jung: Letters, volume 2, 1951-1961, pages 463-464, letter to Robert L. Kroon, 15 November 1958
• Astrology is knocking at the gates of our universities: A Tübingen professor has switched over to astrology and a course on astrology was given at Cardiff University last year. Astrology is not mere superstition but contains some psychological facts (like theosophy) which are of considerable importance. Astrology has actually nothing to do with the stars but is the 5000-year-old psychology of antiquity and the Middle Ages. – C.G. Jung in a letter to L. Oswald on December 8, 1928, in Carl G. Jung, Letters, vol. 1, 1973
• It is indeed very difficult to explain the astrological phenomenon. I am not in the least disposed to an either-or explanation. I always say that with a psychological explanation there is only the alternative: either and or! This seems to me to be the case with astrology too. – Carl G. Jung in a letter to Hans Bender, April 10, 1958, Carl G. Jung Letters, Volume 2, 1951-1961, p. 428.
• So far as the personality is still potential, it can be called transcendent, and so far as it is unconscious, it is indistinguishable from all those things that carry its projections…[that is,] symbols of the outside world and the cosmic symbols. These form the psychological basis for the conception of man as a macrocosm through the astrological components of his character. – Carl G. Jung
• Astrology is one of the intuitive methods like the I Ching, geomantics, and other divinatory procedures. It is based upon the synchronicity principle, i.e. meaningful coincidence. … Astrology is a naively projected psychology in which the different attitudes and temperaments of man are represented as gods and identified with planets and zodiacal constellations. – Carl Gustav Jung
• We are born at a given moment in a given place and like vintage years of wine we have the qualities of the year and of the season in which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything else. – C.G.Jung

So I was having a Ross O.C.K moment…

“Why is there no ‘Exclude Tallaght’ button on Daft.ie?” That’s me, asking God why he can’t make house hunting easier for me.
“I mean if jobs.ie can have an ‘Exclude Agencies’ button, why not an ‘Exclude Tallaght’ button? And while they’re at it, they can also add an ‘Exclude Crumlin’, ‘Exclude Inchicore’ and and an ‘Exclude Kimmage’ button.
And where the hell is “Ballycullen” when its up and dressed?
These are places that daft.ie have all included in the their South City or South County Dublin category.

Oh. Come. ON.

Those places are WEST. South WEST. There is a massive diference between South West and South East.
I mean everyone knows KISS means Keep it South Side. But they should rename it “KISS… EW!” (“Keep it South Side… Except West!” ) to make it clearer, what with all the riff raff sneaking in.

The scariest port, is that I was nearly raised in Tallaght. The only thing that saved me was because my dad had an argument with the builder over a tiny piece of land in the garden (we’re talking feet… but my dad is Irish, we’re sensitive about people taking our land, however small the amount…) I mean Shankill was hardly a barrell of laughs to grow up in either. I couldn’t count the amount of times I’ve had rocks chucked at me, been chased home and set upon by a mob of angry girls trying to wrench a pack of John Player blue from my hands (no she didn’t get them, and yes I did kick her in the stomach and run off)… but at least we’re walking distance from Killiney. And the beach. The worst of the agro buzz people have grown up and its become an alroysh area over the years to be fair…

On another note, what the fock is up with estate agents turning their phone off at weekends?!
How dare they have a life when I’m looking for somewhere to live.
This country is such a pile of weird-balls… total mare, in fact.

Even Naked Gym Guy…

Even naked gym guy gets free minutes.

 

I’m quite surprised I’ve managed to write as many posts as I have and never touch on this subject before.
I choose to write about this now because its been highlighted a few times recently to me. You might say it has been ‘stripped’ down to its core, ‘exposed’ to the masses and that this will be the first time I will ‘bare all’ on the subject.
What to I mean? Erm, nakedness – to put it bluntly.
In the recent Channel Four documentary – “My Daughter the Teenage Nudist” they follow a load of teenagers planning to become nudists, or at least exploring the idea. It makes for occasionally uncomfortable viewing (when they go to the nudist garden full of old wrinklies and join in the naked party – ”darling you’ll love it!’ as though being naked together in a free love frenzy is just like trying the new orange flavoured kitkat) but overall, it opens your mind to that fact that nakedness doesn’t always have to be something to be ashamed of, or indeed a sexual thing at all – it can just be another  tool for ‘baring’ your soul and participating in freedom of expression.
For whatever reason people choose to do it (I won’t pretend to understand exactly why, I’m sure everyone has different reasons) having watched the documentary, it seems there is absolutely nothing seedy about the nudist scene.  
The nudist scene aside, as this can be rather extreme for the majority of us, most of us only enounter the naked issue in pools, gyms and at the beach.
Most Sex in the City fans will remember the episode where Charlotte won’t go in the sauna naked because she is self concious of her body. At one point she is talking to the girls and she says defensively, “I just didn’t grow up in a naked house!!”  
Everyone knows what Charlotte means!
Even if you did grow up in a semi-naked/naked house – you will always have a friend who comes from a more naked house then you do. And if it happens, that your family are in fact all nudists – or hippies who brought you up with the idea that clothes are only there to stifle you and pin you under the thumb of the capitalist regime, even then, you’ll know someone or have met someone LESS naked then your family and so this will be highlighted for you in the opposite way. Lets face it, we all know a prude, and we all know a naked nelly.
I mean for some its okay to walk around the gym naked. For others, its fine to take a naked bike ride. There are people who would  bare all in Tenerife for their weeks holiday every July.
Personally, I like many Irish people have grown up in a very ‘non naked’ house, where it was just the done thing to be covered up all of the time. In fact, I think the Meteor advert above, perfectly epitomises the general Irish view towards nakedness as a whole – not the guy with the towel but the fellas with the grimaces.

When I go topless on holiers, its on the sand dunes, like 3 miles from any living human eye.
As a result, I’m am the girl at the busy Irish beach doing the shimmy inside the towel (occasionally toppling over as I struggle on one leg trying to hide from the passing train) and in the gym the  person who takes her clothes into the cubicle for some privacy. I don’t think this is weird. What I think is weird are those people who strut around naked for like 45 minutes, just casually drying every part of their body and having long conversations with friends as they do… and as a friend of mine once highlighted a few years ago – putting body lotion all over themselves too? For me, not that I ever, ever, go to the gym or even swimming for that matter ( ha! its been over a year anyway…) but I just don’t get it!!When I went to university in the UK I encountered the naked behaviour even more. Sharing houses and flats alot with a whole host of new people all the time was novel. That said, although I did see a few strange things over the years, I actually found the British to be very similar to the Irish in their prudish habits. Its when you get into Europe mainland that it begins to change for the ever more naked.  
France and Germany are definitely more ‘open’ (translation: open = naked). My German friend might kill me for using her again for an article, but she’s just so perfect for this example. During my final year in university over in the UK I ended up living with her.  
She as a German, and me being Irish, we had such different attitudes to nakedness. While I was never prudish in the slightest about most things, such as conversations about sex for example, when it comes to simple things like changing clothes I usually was.
I had a walk in closet in my room (sounds cool, and in fact it was but I had the smallest room in the 9 bedroom house so that was like my consolation prize) and I would always go in there to change when I had friends in my room.
I was also the type of person to do the David Beckham dive and roll into my bed/to the nearest towel, should anyone inadvertedly come in to my room. My German friend had such a completely different attitude. I’ll never forget the first day it happened.
Her room was next to mine. “Knock knock knock” (Thats me knocking on her door)
“Can I come in?”
Loud, relaxed reply: “Yeah sure!”
I open door. Friend is standing there in nothing but a thong, tidying up around the place or doing something or other, I don’t remember what, I wasn’t really noticing what she was doing anymore.
“Hey honey, whats up?”
“Um….”
Avert eyes.
“Um….”
Fifteen seconds might have passed.
“I forget now….”
“Does my nakeness bother you?”
“No…. is just something I need to get used to I think….”
Suddenly remember what I came in for.
“Can I borrow your hair curlers?”
This routine continued for a while. Eventually, I literally didn’t notice. Just to emphasise: friend is NOT a pervert. She is just confortable with her body and being exposed. Is European. Its very, very normal for them to be naked and not bat an eyelid. Im surprised most of Paris and Berlin don’t just gadd around naked come summertime.

So anyway to sum up. I think its great if the whole world wants to go around naked. Just don’t expect me to join you.
Besides, its far too cold in Dublin for naked tea and biscuits by the fire, never mind a naked bike ride…

 

Beauty Essentials…

There are so many products out there for women that at times it may boggle the mind. However, when you get to the grand old age of 26 you become more astute at weeding out the rubbish from the useful.
I won’t lie, I’m an adventurous girl at heart. Usually writing articles about make up and products bore me to tears, but if you want to be adventurous, you have to be practical… And no one wants practical to mean, a pair of birkenstocks, unshaven armpits and god forbid, minger hair.

Below I have detailed my top ten favourite Most Useful Products for every self respecting girl, without breaking the bank – to make sure as Tyra says, you’re always looking fierce! (Wow… I think I just got sick in my mouth a tiny bit…)

"See the difference? I'm smizing in this one..."

1. DRY SHAMPOO – Oh my God, number one holy grail… Any girl who doesn’t own a bottle of dry shampoo, either you’ve got majorly dry hair and you’re very lucky, or you’ve just been living in a cave like, forever.
I used to use it only for festivals when there was no other option except a gross shower full of disease, or a four day unwashed horror hairdo.
Many of my friends lives have been vastly improved by this product. I can confess, I spent the last 10 years of my life washing my hair every single day (bar the odd lazy Sunday of course) because Im one of those unlucky people who has a greasy complexion AND straight hair. This equally total mare in the hair department. But recently I discovered the answer. It means half an hour on my hair every second day, but it still saves time. I wash my hair, dry it, curl it (grease can’t move down curls as easily as it can straight hair), comb it through so its more wavy then curls, back comb it so that its lovely and big and bed-hairish, and then  the second day I spray a bit of a dry shampoo on it and Im good to go again. Similarly, its great for people with curly or frizzy hair. Once you’ve gone through the time consuming bitch that is straightening it/having it blow dried in the salon… you can make it last twice as long with the help of the lovely dry shampoo. Dry shampoo, time saving since whenever you were invented. I salute you.  

Champions among men

2. THE COMMON SHAVER – Hello, I’m your common shaving device. I am plastic and innocent and non-flamboyant. But can you imagine a world without me?! THE HORROR. Can you imagine it? Twud be like living in France in the 1850s… You wouldnt be able to tell the men from the girls, or the apes from the girls for that matter…

I'm the reason he didn't dump yo ass

3. HOME HAIR DYE – This might not be for everyone… I know some people are very particular about their hair… and can I gently say to those people… GET THE HELL OVER IT! Its hair not apartheid! Why are you so afraid of your own hair?  Salons, filled with savvy jacintas, make billions by saying things like “You need to get rid of all dem split ends love” or “You really couldn’t go blonde, not with that hair…” Listen. One think I know from not listening to hair dressers EVER is that they mainly talk crap. My hair is in wonderful condition, and I go to the hairdresser about once every two years. I dye it at home with Clairol every 6 weeks and its a beautiful colour. It looks sort of natural/just suits me, and guess how much it costs? Not hundreds… 6 euro every 6 weeks… Trust me, I LOVE my hair. I would spend the money on it if I thought it would make me look better, but the fact is, it actually doesn’t.   

4. Probiotics and Multivitamins – Every self-respecting party girl should know something. If you wanna drink every weekend, and live life in the fast lane (aka work hard and play hard) you need to look after yourself. Health comes from the inside and glows out in an irradecent beauty… kind of like a glow worm. If you’re binge drinking every weekend (and why shouldn’t you, you look fabulous in that dress!) then taking a daily probiotic keeps your stomach happy and your mood postitive. Alcohol depletes vitamins and so does eating rubbish. If you’re one of those ‘eat the sandwich on the go’ and have a ready meal when you get in type of gals, a good multivitamin (I’d recommend Multibionta probiotic multivitamin) can keep you away from sickness. After all, getting sick is boring… 

5 A Black Leather Jacket – They’re so in at the moment. The smaller the better. Sandy from Grease, eat your heart out.

"You betta shape up... cos I need a man..."

6. Coffee – Oh hell yeah. Every girl needs  a good coffee! Not the instant kind either. Im talking getting yourself one of those proper expresso machines or getting it made in the coffee shop. And Im not talking about this poncy starbucks shite either. None of this extra hot, extra wet, skinny tall frappalapachino with cream and hazelnut syrup. Go in and get yourself a proper manly double expresso and see how your productivity increases ten fold, without the extra sugar and calories… then down it like a man!

Down it in one

7. Pluckers – Im not an eyebrow plucker, Im an eyebrow pluckers son… No one wants to date quasi modo. If it wasn’t for these bad boys, Im sure I’d been languishing on some street corner begging somewhere in Equador… no one hires uni-brow girl. No matter how dope her ride is…

8. Hairspray – Keeping Bon Jovi in business since the 80s… or I don’t know, something like that. While rock stars of yore might have created that hole in the ozone by using so much hairspray. Do them a favour and keep it growing. No one likes a quitter. And no one likes flat or unruly hair for that matter. Show your unruly hair the door… 

9. Good Make up – Its not about money. Get yourself a good foundation (you don’t need to break the bank… 10 – 12 euro will buy you a decent one that lasts for ages) and get yourself a nice mascara – same price should do it, 10 – 12 euro or so, one of the brand names. Eyeliner doesn’t matter so much on the price I find, but make sure it works properly before you buy it by testing it on your hand. You need one of the soft kohl ones. I recently found a store that sells amazing eyeliners for a euro with a sharpener built into to the lid. Eyeshadow wise, I think its good to invest too – find out what colours suit you and invest in a good few and look after them. They last so long and are an investment. I can’t speak for the Mac range but I hear they’re excellent. I personally find Maybelline and Max Factor just great… oh and Sephora… but they’re not in Ireland yet sadly

10. Matt Powder – If you’re a greasy faced person like me, this stops the shine. It means you dont have to redo your make up and don’t even up looking like you’ve just come out of a sauna. Buy one nice brush. I got mine in the Body Shop two years ago. Its proper hair, cost about 25 euro and is lovely and soft. It washes well and is great for applying powder over my shine after a few hours of being out and about.

STAY AWAY FROM

Beauty wipes

Is that a spot I see? Hell no! Oh no he didn’t! I recently went on holiday. I bought face wipes. I now have THREE spots, including a massive one on my chin. They should rename face wipes – “spot creators of the universe” Someone please stop them making them. And please stop buying them. We need to protest against this scourge sweeping the world…

Look at them so innocently sitting there. Like they think we don't know what they're really up to...

SMOKING

Its not a product but it ages you. Need I say more?  

Ya’ll Been Readin’…

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 46,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 17 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Disclaimer: The Following Statement May Be False

I was perusing an interesting book shop the other day and I picked up this book called Born Liars by a smart bloke called Ian Leslie.
Despite the hefty price tag, I couldn’t resist buying it and didn’t regret it as it turned out to be brilliant!
For all those liars and non-liars (if you exist), people who approve and those who disapprove, those who litter their daily lives with a compulsive scattering of fantasy and those who lie to get their own way and manipulate others like their own personal puppet show… even those honest folk  who are merely fascinated by the people that do spend their days confabulating more then a politician on a podium (I’d say I fit into the latter category), you should all read this book.

Apparently, we first start to lie properly around the age of 4, when we realise all people don’t think exactly the same as us. Until then we think everyone loves ” Thomas the Tank Engine” as much as I thought everyone did, back in around 1989. 

And its not just humans. Deception is everywhere in nature. Even plants decieve with their colours. Certain snakes pretend to drop dead and emit a foul odour so they’re not attacked. Chameleons camoflage themselves.

 
Lying may have been a survival tool long ago. Let’s face it, a complex lie, takes a complex set of brain functions to perform. It takes alot to first anticipate what the other person is likely to think, then work a realistic lie around that, meanwhile maintaining an appearance of honesty. You need many traits such as empathy, forward thinking, imagination and acting skills! 

Lying is so rife. One fact that stuck in my head from this book is that we lie on average 3 times in the first ten minutes of meeting a stranger. For example they ask: “How are you?” and we reply: ”Great!” (When in reality we are feeling terrible!) One survey found the average person told a porkie 1.5 times a day – and that estimate was probably conservative.
For example, we fake enthusiasm for someones cooking, for the presents we get, our friends outfit and how we feel about people, well, all the time.

However out attitude is complex toward lying as a whole. We seem torn between bitter morality and scaremongering against it, meanwhile being simultaneously fascinated and impressed by our own lying skills. On the one hand we punish a child for lying about one thing, yet punish them for not lying about another (the fact that they actually hate that scarf from granny, when she asks). The book observes how there are even lies we actively approve of – like the lies you tell to save someones heartache or feelings. Then there are the lies told for the sheer fun of it (Holden Caulfield, Catcher in the Rye for instance: “If I’m on the way to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where Im going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible.”

While many of us compare lying to the worst sins, denounce it as disgusting and accuse past lovers or enemies of it, the reality is we’re all at it, all the time. We decieve others and constantly decieve ourselves (self-deception is incidentally an important tool for saving us from clinical depression). We lie to ourselves that our existence is not entirely absurd and that we are all ‘reasonable’, ‘kind’, ‘intelligent’ people if when we’re carrying out mean or heinous acts, and inflicting pain on others. Even doctors in the holocaust managed to convince themselves it was right to gas people and that they were doing a good thing – perhaps the reality of magnitude of wrong they were committing was almost too large for them to accept and thus they self-decieved. 

Ironically, we tend to think of others as the decievers and ourselves as the truth tellers. We self-decieve into thinking we’re the only ones who are different, a complex being who never says what they mean and is ultimately a many faceted being, full of limitless potential for greatness.

While many may shun it, there have been thinkers who have recognised the benefits of lying.

Nietzsche said: “There is only one world, and that world is false, cruel, contradictory, misleading, senseless…   We need lies to vanquish this reality, this “truth”, we need lies in order to live.” Meanwhile, Oscar Wilde suggested it was an escape route from the insufferable dullness of real life!

The book gets very interesting around about the third chapter – Confabulators. Liars, Artists, Madmen. The opening quote is: “A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction.”
While reading this chapter I had to take a good look at myself and wonder to what extent I lied or have been a liar in my life. Usually, I consider myself a very honest person. Honest to a flaw… but then as a writer, I realised I must be terribly good at lying, if I basically do it for a living (not fiction for a living yet, but I write fiction every day, and alot of it!)

And when I write, I am basically lying. “Paradoxically, artists are able to control the point at which they reliquish control,” writes Ian Leslie. “When I asked Will Self if there’s anything that marks out artists from the rest of us, he recalled a remark made by the author Flannery O’ Connor to the effect that writers have to be ‘calculatedly stupid’.
“‘I can think of any number of people that are more perceptive than me, who have more learned and have more know-how,” said Self. “But what they aren’t is calculatedly stupid, in the sense that they are unable to preserve intact their ability to suspend disbelief. They can’t play, in the way that a child will build a den and say “This is my castle”. Writers can still do that. Creativity is just an advanced form of play, in which the normal rules of space and time are suspended.”

Essentially, the artist is the child that survived. “Every child is an artist,” quotes Leslie of Pablo Picasso. “The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

I re read that paragraph about Will Self many times. I liked it, and agreed with it. I do agree that when I write I go ‘somewhere else’. Into the zone, I call it, but really maybe I’m going to a dream or fantasy world where the sharp edges of reality no longer exist and I can disappear into an easier to deal with internal world. Some people do drugs, others drink or gamble, maybe even over-work or go to the gym every day. For me writing is my addiction. An addiction is something that distracts from an uncomfortable state of being. I remember as a teenager writing was something I did to escape. Now whenever Im having a bad day sometimes the only thing that helps me feel better is writing. If Im having an humdinger, after I’ve been to the cafe to work on my book, afterwards I usually feel a sense of inate peace – maybe similar to how a heroine addict feels after their fix! I don’t know. It is an escape. A suspended reality for me.  

This was where I found the book to be a conundrum. I wondered: as quite an honest person, do I make up for my lack of lying in real life by telling stories in the form of fiction? Do I just believe my own lies and therefore think I’m honest, but really I’m spinning my own fantasy of reality? What is reality (oh no my brain hurts!)

Children go through a phase where their lying peaks to an enormous level. To a place where they are just little walking, eating, sleeping, lying machines. They soon learn that they cannot continue at this level of lying if they want to be taken seriously. Like the boy who cried wolf, if they continue to lie, no one will believe a word out of their mouth ever again. To stay safe in the group, and cool with their peers – they need to become a tad honest again. Perhaps depending on how much you value being part of ‘the gang’ might reflect on how honest you choose to become. I know I always valued my friends highly, and would have paid a fairly high price (my enjoyment of lying) if it meant being a respected, accepted and loved member of my peer group. As a child at home, my biggest fear was always not being believed when something I was saying was actually true – like being locked away for a crime I didn’t commit when I was older! For this reason my strong sense of justice meant I began to tell the truth wherever possible. To never become that boy who called wolf. Honesty borne out of fear of being rejected from the herd perhaps?!

That isn’t to say, and I’m sure most people can identify with this, that I didn’t go through a phase (for me it was about 8 to 11 years old) where I wasn’t highly creative with the truth. I remember making up horrendously creative and extravagant lies and telling them to my friends in school, simply for entertainment value and literally to spice up the boring school day. They wouldn’t always be self serving to the point of having anything I didn’t have, like a helicopter. No, it might have been a terrible illness that I could die from tomorrow in a dramatic fashion. Or an imaginary boyfriend or love affair that never happened! Even a funny indicident that never happened but that would make people laugh anyway. One of my friends, had not a bad bone in her body (now an adult she is closer to what seems like happiness then most people I know, a girl in touch with nature and humour and realness who I envy for her relationship with the world around her). I told inumerable lies to her. She was my best friend of two best friends in the class. We were a three. And she believed every word out of my mouth… until she didn’t. We’re still friends that meet up once a year or so and she still teases me about the stories I made up. I suppose I was too young to reflect, back then, if my lies were upsetting anyone. Lies are innately selfish most of the time… but remember, its not a lie, if you’ve convinced yourself that its the truth!

Nowadays, I dislike lies told deliberately to hurt, manipulate or control others to their detriment. But at the end of the day its hard to classify, because all lies can hurt another person even when they’re not intentionally meant to serve that purpose. Which comes to asking why do lie hurt? Maybe lies hurt because they make us feel unsafe, outsmarted and generally stupid. They break trust, and without trust humans beings can’t feel truly safe… 

Perhaps its not the lie but the weight of the lie that is important to observe. We don’t care if our friend lies about what he or she had for dinner. But we probably do care if they lie about the fact that they’ve been having it off with our partner behind our backs. 

As Ian Leslie points out, the reason that most of us are honest most of the time is that we don’t feel comfortable with deceit. Most psychopaths are terrific liars. Psychopaths know right from wrong, but they don’t feel right from wrong.  Hence they don’t feel bad with decieving people like most of us do.

So in summation, lying… is it important? Yes. Could we survive without it? Definitely not.  

Most people have seen the film Liar Liar where a man, played by actor Jim Carrey is forced to live for a day without lying, making his job as a lawyer very difficult. Although hilarious, the film does make a valuable point that we need white lies to continue with our ordinary lives. 

In essence, lies are there to  help you rub along with people without arguments or offense. They are there to embellish truth with creative design and playful decorations; they’re there to get us out of sticky situations and most of all to save feelings. Self-deception and cognitive dissonance also stops us from going insane or losing the will to live, and it brings us joy. Lying is our free will. So is accepting deception as reality. We’re designed to absorb and believe illusions. 
Without lying, in my opinion, human beings would be colourless, dreary creatures devoid of freedom, choice and imagination. One dimensional and far too simple. To live in reality all the time would be grey, communication would simply be for earnest functionality and creativity would be non-existent.

“Lying is an accursed vice,” wrote the sixteenth century philospher Michel de Montaigne. But what he didn’t take into account was the thoughts of a world without it. Even in the bible, the author so astutely points out, it wasn’t Adam or Eve that was the liar… it was God.

Banksy…

I remember a time back in uni, about 5 or 6 years ago, when liking Banksy was mandatory around the place if you wanted to be cool. I was looking up some of his recent stuff today. I liked. I now share again through this medium of online blogsphere… For more of the below images go to www.banksy.co.uk

 
“My tap’s been phoned”…

Move on with your dating book, it ain’t welcome here anymore….

I got a text from one of my besties the other day. “Just found a book – “Why men love bitches. I think we need this book.” I texted her back. “Step away from the book…”
This woman/writer/bitch… not only has she a book out all why men love bitches – she also has a sequel. Its called: why men MARRY bitches. Sad really that a woman has to write a book about the merits of being a bossy meanie just cos she probably is one.

Needless to say, my friend and I are perfect, we just haven’t met the right guys yet.
If I was a guy, I would definitely marry my best friend. The fact that, to date, no man has been able to see what a gem we have in our midst and snapped her up, is the biggest mystery to me ever. She has also mentioned on many occasions that any man who would let me go is obviously a complete fool. We may fill a mansion full of kittens one day when we’re 50 and move in together should it come to that…

As we come to the end of the year, I realise this year has been all about the ‘letting go’ of the dating books and the rules. Never have I learned so much about myself as this year, and especially in the dating sense.
“Why men marry bitches’, ‘He’s just not that into you’, ‘The Rules’… this list goes on of books ready to tell you how to play the game.

What I really want to do now is write a book called: “You know what… I actually don’t give a monkeys a**e. I’d rather be single.” It might be a bit long for the front cover, but whatever.
We as women, many of us, spend our whole lives trying to figure out what men want and what makes men happy and wondering whether he likes us! Do we ever stop to think – like, what about me in all of this?!!

This, worrying about what men want business starts as early as the playground… I remember sitting around with my friends who were pulling petals off daisies on the grass and chanting: he loves me, he loves me not…. he loves me, he loves me not…. he loves me, he loves me not… Is there any wonder I turned out the way I did? 

Then there was the inevitable arrival of girl talk, and writing the name of the boy we loved on the treehouse walls. Then it was the competition in the discos. I cant remember a point where I was encouraged to wonder whether I liked him – just to worry whether he liked me enough!

There was only one article recently that ‘spoke to me’. I think to be honest, that this article may be right. The thing is, I think some women do what this article advise instinctively, and other women don’t do it instinctively. I’m not even sure if its something you can learn, but I think it had a point.

It talks about how, when women start to really like a guy, they sometimes get insecure and start chasing him subconciously, hence driving him further and further away. It might not be in an obvious way, but its sort of like making herself really available, offering to do loads of things for the guy, acting needy etc (if you’re getting uncomfortable here, don’t worry, so did I… it was like realising you’d put the red sock in with the white sheets, that sinking feeling of oh yeah! I did that loads of times!) The article speaks about how when women fall into the chasing role, they lose their ‘feminine energy’ which makes them so attractive at the beginning and start to have more ‘masculine energy’ (and its not talking about cutting your hair short or wearing trousers… trust me… I manage to be very good at the old chasing role when Im wearing a skirt or a pretty dress…)

Ever see those girls who are always in really long relationships with a guy who is still mad about them? Look at how they act. You can be sure they’re not acting needy, insecure, over-bothered, or doing any of the chasing. Remember reading Sweet Valley Twins back in the 90s? Did Elizabeth constantly check her phone and worry whether Todd was going to text back or come over later to help her study? No, she was like “Im a hot blonde girl, albeit the boring twin, but he totally can’t even touch this!”

So my advice: 1 – Dont subconciously chase/go for the men who from the very beginning are the bad boys and just not that into you cos likelihood they wont change! 2 – Dont wonder or overanalyse why a guy likes you, if he does he does – its cos you’re frikkin amazing! 3 – Learn who you are and to truly love yourself without a man. Stop always trying to please people. Let them accept you for who you are, all of your glorious self!!

These are only my on tips coming off the top of my head.  In short, its not about acting, or trying to be someone you are not, its about finding who you are  – calm, fiesty, shy, sexy, or outspoken – and embracing that woman. After all, its you that he falls in love with and stays in love with!

I know I’d rather be weird, crazy me that scares him off – then the boring bitch that he ‘wants to marry’!

Tings…

Ah things… material possessions…. you have to love them. Needless, silly, lovely things. Things that surround you in that warm glow of enduring contentment making you feel all special and worthy and great about life. Yes, things.  
“Things” don’t really bother me for the most part. And I’m sorry to make this into a personal column, but it is a blog after all - I have to say, I am good at saving money for this reason. That is… until I have a bit more of it then I’m used to. Then it burns a hole in my pocket and I go all lavish and strange. As if a shopping monster has entered my being and taken over. A shopping zombie if you will. Shopping zombie Sinead has no limit… she sees no price tag. Tis all attainable in her eyes…

It was this evening when one such strange and random occurence happened as I was waiting in Dundrum shopping centre for one of my best friends who I was meeting for our Christmas meetup dinner. I left the carpark and innocently decided I might peruse Penny’s for a skirt, and then in the space of half an hour I managed to spend 65 euro. And not even all in the one shop either.

Thats why tonight I blame THREE FOR TWO.
Three for two… whaaaaat a load of baloney. I only went in there for black eyeshadow and then I came out with 35 euros worth of make up in a massive bag! All because of a little chain pharmacy named Boots!
Black eyeshadow indeed. The last one fell out of my bag at my xmas work party a few days ago along with my brand new Samsung phone that I had treat myself to after making do with a rubbish one for months. (I must have been hammered. But I did manage not to embarrass myself spectularly by not snogging anyone at both of the xmas parties I attended (not for lack of trying!) (I am now back using the rubbish phone again, joy of joys!) 

So I went in… found the make up section. Maybelline had a three for two offer on. Oh hello, black eyeshadow… just €6.99… but three for two? Well I do definitely need some new mascara! So if I get the new mascara, and the black eyeshadow, then you’re saying I can have another thing – FREE?!! COMPLETELY FREE?!! 
So I pick a mascara… The thing about mascara is… Theyre all the same really. I mean okay, Yves Sans Lauren isn’t the same as Boots own brand, but most of them are pretty similar. They just give themselves extravagant names. Its between Volum’ (they remove the E for no reason in particular, just maybe to make peoples spelling worse and sound more French)  Express Mascara, The Colossal Cat Eyes Affect – which promises me, wait for it, “Colossal Lashes Go Feline” and a “Full Fan of Wild Volume”. It has a collegen enriched formula too, apparently. I dont need to worry, I have naturally quite long eyelashes… I don’t have a size issue, Maybelline… I mean come on. You’re not marketing penile extensions to men! The other choice is – The Falsies Black Drama Mascara (Note: I have enough drama in my life without this mascara), which as the name belies, basically is meant to make you look like you’re wearing false eyelashes it is so good. The other choice is Volum’ Express One By One Mascara – A Fierce Look with up to 7 times more volume. SEVEN TIMES?! How the hell is this possible. If it has seven times more volume, are your eyeballs meant to end up resembling a camel? And how do they prove its seven times? Who picked this ridiculous number out of the air and who measured someones eyelashes with a ruler to discover: “Yes, seven times… its seven… we thought it might be five, or maybe even ten… but no… 6.98 times longer which we can just write as seven if you want…” 
I picked the first one. I’ve always wanted to be a cat. So I needed a third. That was when I discovered Silk Glam by Eyestudio. Four eyeshadows ranging from a pale golden colour to a warm, browny dark gold. The dark gold looked gorgeous on my eyes. It reminded me of a gold colour I found in Sephora in New York three years ago. My eyes suit browns and golds and greens as I have hazel eyes and a sort of pale yet tannable skin with no freckles (I used to want freckles so badly when I was a kid). So yeah, I fell in love with the dark gold so I had to get the whole palate. This would be my third thing. But then… oh then… I spotted Maybelline Intense Green. At this point I was distracted by a crazed woman talking about mousse make up and the sand colour, and in my mind I got an image of an arab carrying a bag of sand, on a giant moose coming into Boots and pouring a load of sand on the floor for her. My imagination is worrying sometimes. Anyway so I tried the Intense Green, which was bright and wonderful and lovely. It was perfect – just perfect. It was exactly like the green I found that time in Sephoria three years ago in New York, on the same day I found that beautiful gold colour, it made my eyes pop out and look amazing.
And my eyes my only real nice thing, apart from my wonderful pair of personalities, so I need to make the best of them. But then Im in a quandry. You can’t buy four things in a three for two sale. Its just plain wrong. It would upset the balance… no I couldn’t buy four. It was three or six. Or nothing. So I start thinking… well I mean, technically… if I get six, Im only paying for four. And I do really need new make-up. And for a few weeks now I’ve been doing without matt powder to go over my foundation when I go all shiny… since I lost my other Mac one (only piece of Mac make up I owned, present from a make up loving friend… and yes, also lost on a drunken night out, and yes, I was indeed hammered again).  I realise Maybelline do a lovely similar verison called “Dream Matter Powder” which I get in ”Rose Ivory”. So then I have five… the next thing is free. But I realise I now, categorically, do not need or want anything else. I mean, Im not a nail varnish girl. I have eyeliner, two in fact at home… and I dont need liquid eyeliner cos I never use it… I dont even wear lipstick cos it looks stupid on me… but lip gloss. Light, friendly, youthful lip-gloss suits everyone and it smells good, right?! So I get Colour Sensation Lucious Lipgloss in Freshly Sliced flavour. I’ve just realised I SOUND like I am marketing for them. Don’t worry. I am not. Im accusing them of THREE FOR TWOING ME! Emotional, three for two blackmail of the highest order!
Apart from the fact that my hand now resembles a clown from all of the make up all over it, I get to the till and get the shock of my life. 35 yoyo pleethe, says the Chinese girl with a tired look in her face. She’s probably seen hundreds of suckers like me already. Endured thousands of 3 for 2 gift buyers, buying a load of over-priced crap (honestly check out some of it) for people who dont need or want it just because they think they’re getting the third one free.  
I am happy though. I like my new make up.
I then went to Bershka and saw an awesome pair of figure hugging trousers in orange and decided to buy them. After wearing skirts basically for the last six months because I suddenly hated how I looked in jeans, I could do with a pair of trousers that are actually cool and look good on me, I realised.
As I was paying my phone rang. “I’m nearby, where are you?!” Says my friend…
Buying tings. I think. Lovely, tings…

I’m Not Eating That!

Whether it’s the over-cooked Brussels sprouts that you were forced to eat as a kid or the raisins in the pudding that made you sick one Christmas – it seems it’s a common Irish trait to avoid certain foods like the plague.  “Offal is definitely something people tend to avoid,” said Gareth Roache, chef at Darwins restaurant, Dublin 2.  “Chilled soup would be another thing Irish people tend to hate. They don’t like to go for anything too adventurous!”

But, Gerard Carthy from Taste of Ireland, says in his opinion Irish people might be taking their food aversions one step too far – avoiding food they haven’t even tried yet.  “Here in Ireland we are rubbish when it comes to eating anything that isn’t steak. Put tongue in front of an Irish person and they simply freak out, yet it’s a staple in places like Spain or Italy.  “When it comes to fish – if it’s not cod, it’s trying to kill you and should be avoided at all costs! We will eat cod, occasionally a salmon. As a result, much of the fish caught off the coast of Ireland such as mackerel which we have tons of and razor clams have to be exported.” But don’t worry if you’re a ‘play-it-safe’ eater – from the extravagant oyster right down to the modest aubergine, even our favourite Irish celebrity chefs, have foods they simply can’t bear to see put on their plate…

Oliver Dunne, Chef and owner of the Michelin star restaurant Bon Appétit in Malahide, Co Dublin.

 Boiled Eggs

“I just think they’re repulsive. When I was a child my mum used to mash them in a cup and force feed me! To this day I can’t eat them. And the other one is oysters, I don’t like the texture. People say they’re an aphrodisiac but I wouldn’t eat them for love nor money!”

Nick Munier, Co-owner of Pichet restaurant in Dublin’s Trinity Lane. Presenter of Masterchef Ireland, alongside Dylan McGrath

Aubergines

“I just never liked the texture and I never understood why they would be part of a dish. They used to call it aubergine caviar, in the oak room when I worked for Marco; it’s like a puree of aubergine that enhances the fish. I never got it because I find aubergines quite bland. That would be my pet hate. Another one I don’t like is parsnips, my mum used to disguise them as roast potatoes for Sunday lunch and I’d be like – oh no!”

Patrick Guilbaud, Chef and proprietor of that country’s most award winning restaurant, the Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud

Smoked Haddock

“I just don’t like it. My mum made me eat it when I was a young kid and I just didn’t like it!”

Rachel Allen, TV Chef, Cook and Author

Marmite

“I‘ve just never liked it. I know loads of people love it, my dad likes it, and I’ve tried but I can’t!”

Ross Lewis Irish Michelin star winning head chef and co-owner of the restaurant Chapter One in Dublin. 

Drisheen

“Made from pigs blood and spices; it’s got a very chalky texture. It’s a real Cork dish and I shouldn’t be saying that because I’m from Cork but it’s the only thing I’ve ever eaten that I didn’t like, and I’ve eaten plenty of very diverse things! That and Humble Pie – they’re the only thing I don’t eat!”

Derry Clarke, Chef, reality TV judge and proprietor of the restaurant L’Ecrivain. 

Caraway Seeds

“Caraway seeds, because of the taste. Bad food. And big portions, I can’t stand big portions, less is definitely more!”

Kevin Dundon, Chef, TV personality and author. Chef and Proprietor of Dunbrody Country House Hotel & Restaurant.

Nutmeg

“Its something about the smell, it’s very perfumed and pungent. I can smell it as soon as I walk into a kitchen. If someone puts nutmeg into mashed potato or spinach, it can overpower the whole thing. For me it just turns me off the whole plate. The other dish I don’t like is gratin potatoes. I put it in the same boat as creamy pasta sauce – I find as soon as I have one mouthful, I get full straight away.”

Dylan McGrath, Chef. Owner of ‘Rustic Stone Restaurant by Dylan McGrath’ and presenter of Masterchef Ireland, alongside Nick Munier. 

Spinach

“Spinach. I just find it a very lazy ingredient. A lot of chefs rely on spinach. It’s not that nice and it doesn’t really do anything for me, so I don’t use it that much. I find it’s just a ‘filler-in’ vegetable.”

Catherine Fulvio, TV Chef, food writer and cookery tutor. Catherine Fulvio, runs Ballyknocken Cookery School and Ballyknocken House.

Avocado Panna Cotta 

 “The modification panna cotta! It’s quite an American thing to do but I think how they play around with panna cotta and make it savoury rather than dessert, I find it very unpalatable. In America you can get a buttermilk squash, panna cotta, avocado panna cotta and the likes – panna cotta is a delicious dessert, let’s just keep it that way!”