An extra post today as this blog is having its third birthday. I find it difficult to believe that I have written 653 posts in that time, most quite detailed essays, quite a lot of them in multi-part series. I seem to have settled down to writing a post each weekday and the taking the weekend off. Now and again I will take a longer break, like at Christmas or if I am travelling somewhere in the summer.
Very often, I have no idea what I will be writing about until the morning I start to write it and there is very little that is planned more than two or three days in advance. Within a series, I only have an idea for the following day's episode and that happens while I am writing the current day's entry.
Considering I am writing mostly esoteric stuff about early Celtic art and Jungian psychology, I am rather happy with the stats. I notice that another stats program gives different results and sometimes the Google stats give conflicting results (a few days ago in the "Now" view, there were five times the numbers of countries represented as the numbers of page views. How does that work? The first tall spike near the beginning of the chart was actually mostly a bot clicking on the bog more than 1,500 times. I have no idea why. It went away and never returned. The rest of the peaks were authentic. I also do not know why February into the first half of March is always quiet. What is not a surprise, though, is why my most popular post has more than 7,000 page views and ranks very high in Google searches: It is about my coyote hybrid (coydog) Tristan. He's the real celebrity; the most famous coydog in the world; people even stop me on the street wanting to take a photograph of him. Although most of his page hits come from the US and Canada, (where coyotes live) he gets a surprising number of hits from all continents.
Another number one Google search result is for "the seal of Alexander the Great" the most popular page in that series is right now at 1,500 views. It puts things in the right perspective: Tristan's 7,000 views are because he's a dog. People like dogs. Alexander the Great is dead. That I have more than 800 hits on an example of early Celtic art I find amazing. That must be just about everyone who is interested in that subject. I remember when Leon Redbone was a guest on Johnny Carson and Johnny said "I have all your albums" Leon Redbone replied "So you are the one!"
Happy Birthday on the third year of your blog. Also, thank you for the information regarding the reading materials. It was a great weekend, sorry to say there was no internet or cell phone connection available making for a great retreat to read and think. Nature was at it best. It is so refreshing to see the world coming alive with the passing of winter.
Thanks Tannis, let me know what you think of the Power Of Myth. Bill Moyers did a good job with the interviews: he revealed Campbell's strengths but also, if you look carefully, a couple of his weaknesses too.
I managed to read a lot this weekend and generally took it easy even though being "connected" all the time. The previous weekend had been far too busy, not like a weekend at all, and I paid for that. This week started much better. Rest and reflection is as important as work.
The weather does seem to be getting milder in these parts, but I still expect one of those big spring snowstorms that sometimes teaches overly confident campers on Victoria Day that nature really is the boss.
Today I went shopping at the Sunridge Indigo book store. Book stores are not a good place for me to go because of all the temptations. Guess what I found The Power of Myth and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I also purchased Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It is about the power of thinking without thinking. Now the question is do I vacuum or read.
Read, always (and if you could see the state of my floors, you would know that I practice what I preach).
The hero with a thousand faces is a very popular title, even though it is about only one of the Jungian archetypes, it is one that is important (overcoming difficulties) and it gave Campbell a lot of mileage. I would still read the other one first, however. After the hero (should) come Senex:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wise_old_man
but modern culture usually gets hung up on the hero. Campbell said something about after the hero gets the girl, the credits roll.
I get a kick out of having a coyote hybrid because there are Blackfoot legends about Old Man and Coyote:
P.S. Thought I would check out Blink. So I just read the Amazon preview of the ebook edition. As soon as I read about the kouros, I bought it. I remember my first impression on seeing its photograph: fake!
That's the way things are with the intuitive empath -- an immediate reaction. Ironically, we are hopeless when it comes to people whom we already know -- far more clueless than the average person about picking up on things. I would need one of those courses on facial expressions and body language just to catch up. Being an unconscious reaction it isn't analyzed but being intuitive one gets the "summary". I'm looking forward to reading it.
I am having a terrible time replying. It is either the operator or the blasted I pad. I have read the first chapter. I enjoy reading his books they give excellent explanations about why things happen. I am the opposite to you in that I can read people well. Sometimes reading the suffering of others is difficult to bear. The other books I have enjoyed reading of Malcolm Gladwell are Outliers and David and Goliath. Joseph Campbell would have enjoyed David and Goliath because the book summary states "Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, revealing that much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. Etc. It may the case that Gladwell was influenced by Campbell. This book is my favorite.
I had an interesting lunch with my Auntie who is 89 years of age. My mothers family came from East London,so long ago. They were well off having servants and nannies but something happened where they lost everything. She gets very confused mixing up the different branches of the family, the Welsh side with the English side. Let me know what you think of Blink. By the way, I wish I had read Joseph Camobell's work while studying literature courses because he gives you food for thought to apply to the reading materials.
When you mentioned Outliers, it reminded me of Colin Wilson's Outsiders and I see that Gladwell is sometimes associated with Wilson, but farm more often with Campbell. I wonder if he mentions either in his works. Bill spoke a lot of Wilson, because of Wilson's shared interest in magic, but Bill was something of an outsider, himself.
I will start reading Blink this weekend as I am trying to keep up with my T. E. Lawrence research during the week. Yesterday I read quite a lot of Rodney Legg's T. E. Lawrence in Dorset. I used to have Celtic stone head that was from Legg's collection of the same. I'm still waiting for one more book to arrive for my Lawrence research: Marie-Louise von Franz's The Problem of the Puer Aeternus. Von Franz was a student and later collaborator with C. G. Jung. Her book on the subject focuses on The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Das Reich ohne Raum by Bruno Goetz.
Lawrence certainly exhibited the puer aeturnus archetype as an adult and as he was also an introverted intuitive, I find I can understand him better from my memories as a child. The Ni type becomes quite different later in life -- all things going well, that is.
Family histories can get confusing regardless: stories about my paternal great grandfather seem to conflate more than one ancestor together with outright lies told by my grandfather who ran away from home when he was ten.
Happy Birthday and long may you reign.
ReplyDeleteJohn Howland
UK
Thanks, John, I don't know about "reign", though. I'm more like the boy who says the emperor has no clothes.
DeleteI've just posted part three -- brace yourself!
Best,
John
Congratulations on three years of Past Times.... Looking forward to your next three years.
DeleteThanks, Dick, I never thought I would be able to do three years worth of posts, so who knows...
DeleteBest,
John
Happy Birthday on the third year of your blog. Also, thank you for the information regarding the reading materials. It was a great weekend, sorry to say there was no internet or cell phone connection available making for a great retreat to read and think. Nature was at it best. It is so refreshing to see the world coming alive with the passing of winter.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tannis, let me know what you think of the Power Of Myth. Bill Moyers did a good job with the interviews: he revealed Campbell's strengths but also, if you look carefully, a couple of his weaknesses too.
ReplyDeleteI managed to read a lot this weekend and generally took it easy even though being "connected" all the time. The previous weekend had been far too busy, not like a weekend at all, and I paid for that. This week started much better. Rest and reflection is as important as work.
The weather does seem to be getting milder in these parts, but I still expect one of those big spring snowstorms that sometimes teaches overly confident campers on Victoria Day that nature really is the boss.
Best,
John
Today I went shopping at the Sunridge Indigo book store. Book stores are not a good place for me to go because of all the temptations. Guess what I found The Power of Myth and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I also purchased Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It is about the power of thinking without thinking. Now the question is do I vacuum or read.
ReplyDeleteRead, always (and if you could see the state of my floors, you would know that I practice what I preach).
DeleteThe hero with a thousand faces is a very popular title, even though it is about only one of the Jungian archetypes, it is one that is important (overcoming difficulties) and it gave Campbell a lot of mileage. I would still read the other one first, however. After the hero (should) come Senex:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wise_old_man
but modern culture usually gets hung up on the hero. Campbell said something about after the hero gets the girl, the credits roll.
I get a kick out of having a coyote hybrid because there are Blackfoot legends about Old Man and Coyote:
http://www.native-languages.org/napi.htm
Oldman River, Alberta is named for him.
Best,
John
P.S. Thought I would check out Blink. So I just read the Amazon preview of the ebook edition. As soon as I read about the kouros, I bought it. I remember my first impression on seeing its photograph: fake!
DeleteThat's the way things are with the intuitive empath -- an immediate reaction. Ironically, we are hopeless when it comes to people whom we already know -- far more clueless than the average person about picking up on things. I would need one of those courses on facial expressions and body language just to catch up. Being an unconscious reaction it isn't analyzed but being intuitive one gets the "summary". I'm looking forward to reading it.
I am having a terrible time replying. It is either the operator or the blasted I pad. I have read the first chapter. I enjoy reading his books they give excellent explanations about why things happen. I am the opposite to you in that I can read people well. Sometimes reading the suffering of others is difficult to bear. The other books I have enjoyed reading of Malcolm Gladwell are Outliers and David and Goliath. Joseph Campbell would have enjoyed David and Goliath because the book summary states "Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, revealing that much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. Etc. It may the case that Gladwell was influenced by Campbell. This book is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteI had an interesting lunch with my Auntie who is 89 years of age. My mothers family came from East London,so long ago. They were well off having servants and nannies but something happened where they lost everything. She gets very confused mixing up the different branches of the family, the Welsh side with the English side.
Let me know what you think of Blink. By the way, I wish I had read Joseph Camobell's work while studying literature courses because he gives you food for thought to apply to the reading materials.
When you mentioned Outliers, it reminded me of Colin Wilson's Outsiders and I see that Gladwell is sometimes associated with Wilson, but farm more often with Campbell. I wonder if he mentions either in his works. Bill spoke a lot of Wilson, because of Wilson's shared interest in magic, but Bill was something of an outsider, himself.
ReplyDeleteI will start reading Blink this weekend as I am trying to keep up with my T. E. Lawrence research during the week. Yesterday I read quite a lot of Rodney Legg's T. E. Lawrence in Dorset. I used to have Celtic stone head that was from Legg's collection of the same. I'm still waiting for one more book to arrive for my Lawrence research: Marie-Louise von Franz's The Problem of the Puer Aeternus. Von Franz was a student and later collaborator with C. G. Jung. Her book on the subject focuses on The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Das Reich ohne Raum by Bruno Goetz.
Lawrence certainly exhibited the puer aeturnus archetype as an adult and as he was also an introverted intuitive, I find I can understand him better from my memories as a child. The Ni type becomes quite different later in life -- all things going well, that is.
Family histories can get confusing regardless: stories about my paternal great grandfather seem to conflate more than one ancestor together with outright lies told by my grandfather who ran away from home when he was ten.
Best,
John