Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Ha! More evidence that I'm not so bad after all - see yesterday - only this time from Oscar Wilde, my hero - at least, one of them.

The last refuge of the unimaginative - by Matt Hempel

But...oh dear. In the spirit of balance, just take a look at THIS:

"Why Consistency Is King
The ordinary person surfing on the Internet is bombarded with a ton of information. The majority of it, they will forget in a couple of minutes. It is a real challenge in this information overloaded environment to make yourself remembered. This is where consistency comes in.

What consistency basically means in personal branding is that the information you send reinforces the same key messages about yourself." (from a guest post by Eduard Ezeanu on Kikolani.com)

Personal branding? Oh well, the key message I am reinforcing about myself is that I AM INCONSISTENT!

(oh, if only this T-shirt had the question mark at the end of the text!)

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go

Okay, a few days ago I said Mark Twain was my number one purveyor of good quotes, then it was Thoreau, now it's Oscar Wilde. They jostle for pole position.

It sounds awfully sick-making for me to admit it, I'm sure, but truly that quote sums up how I strive to be in life.

(Not making people feel happy because I've left their presence, by the way, but causing people to feel happier! )

I think everyone's like that, if they think about it, wanting to spread happiness.  I mean, how many people wake up each morning and think 'I wonder how many people I can make unhappy today?'

                                                                          Demonic laughter, courtesy of Rush619

So here's what to do: Slot as many happy-making acts as you can into your day.

Register them on Little Acts.com - make a little heart appear on the Google map, wherever you are in the world.

Spread a little happiness!

P.S. You can be totally anonymous. It is NOT about being self-congratulatory. It's about become more conscious of kindness, so that what happens anyway, so often in your life, then begins to happen MORE.

I love to talk about nothing it's the only thing I know anything about

...said Oscar Wilde. I'm going to have to develop that facility pretty smartish because my mind's a blank this morning.

Jeanette Winterson came to my rescue. This from Gut Symmetries

"He: What’s the matter with you?

Me: Nothing.

Nothing was slowly clotting my arteries. Nothing slowly numbing my soul. Caught by nothing, saying nothing, nothingness becomes me. When I am nothing they will say, surprised in the way that they are forever surprised, "but there was nothing the matter with her.”

Why do we DO that? Why do I  do that? Actually, for me, the conversation goes more like:

He: How are you?

Me: Fine!

Sometimes, I'm NOT fine. Sometimes there IS something wrong.

I don't think I'm afraid to admit weakness. It's just that I don't want to be a bother or a bore!

And mostly, when people ask those things, I wonder if they REALLY want to know.

"Too much work, and no vacation...

...Deserves at least a small libation. So hail! my friends, and raise your glasses...

Work's the curse of the drinking classes."  Courtesy of Oscar Wilde (the rhyme, not the picture of the cat)

Today is NEARLY the first day of my self-imposed holiday. I still have a few pieces of work to complete for a client (having made the fatal mistake of announcing that I was taking a break and asking if there was anything that needed doing before Monday!)

I WILL get it done today and then start my holiday properly.

...my writing holiday at home.

That is, not a holiday FROM writing but a holiday FOR writing.

I'll believe it when it happens!

Day 10 Update
Zero and sense of unease

The secret of life is in art

More Oscar Wilde.

Some Caroline Coxon - how life-affirming art can be and I want to know why. Not why in general, but why a particular piece of art grabs me by the throat and the heart and the soul and makes me feel ALIVE. Dangerous territory. Welcome, amateur psychologists everywhere.

This is the piece that did it, discovered by accident yesterday when I was looking for Andrew Wyeth images.

It's called 'Winter is coming, dear Red Riding Hood,' and it's by an artist called Daria Kudla.

 She was born in Poland in 1982, lives in Berlin, where she also works as a technical translator AND, in her profile she writes, "I love spending free time with horses and poetry, " - so she must be okay. Anyone who spends time with horses invariably IS. In fact, here is her self portrait:

 ...but it's the Little Red Riding Hood I love, above all. Why? I suppose apart from the beauty of the image, it's the subverting of a fairy tale - something which I've just done with the same story (mine's called There is no wolf) The wolf as victim, as heroine, as protectoress...


I hope I can buy a print.

And now I have TWO dreams. That There is no wolf  is taken up by a publisher and that Daria Kudla will be commissioned to illustrate it.

And this has always been a favourite quotation of mine (by George Bernard Shaw):

“You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'”

Why not?

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

I don't know, Oscar Wilde, I just don't know.

 In some cases, maybe. I know when I was working with children who had special needs, some of them found it much easier to communicate using puppets. Direct interaction with another person was too intense for them.



...and when I'm in my work persona, that's a kind of mask I wear - Caroline, the confident and efficient freelance writer - but of course, it's part of who I am even though it might not be who I am INSIDE at that moment.

Give me a mask and...? I can put on an act. THAT'S what I think.

I am least myself when I talk in my own person? Resoundingly NOT TRUE. Everything I do with my (own) writing, at the moment, involves me struggling to take off the familiar and protective masks that conceal my identity.

Well, that's successfully demolished Oscar Wilde. KERSPLAT. The importance of being earnest, eh?

These thoughts are going round in my head because, for a commission, I'm trying to write using characters someone else has created. I'm not finding it easy. These characters are so unremittingly GOOD. Myself, I don't do good, not JUST good, anyway.

It's like writing with one hand tied behind my back.It's like communicating through puppets or whilst wearing a mask. And what comes out is not the truth.

“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.”

...me and Oscar Wilde both.

He DIDN'T say that on his deathbed, he said 'Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.' (allegedly)

I wasn't preoccupied with death until I saw that image, despite an enormous blister on my left heel. Now I am. I hope I say something memorable on my deathbed but I expect that, as usual, I'll think of it ten minutes too late.

Here are some other Great Things To Say With Your Dying Breath:

"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis."

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist. . . "

General John Sedgwick, Union Commander, d. 1864  
Killed in battle during US Civil War.

(I apologise for being crass but this made me hoot with laughter. )

  "Get my swan costume ready."

The immortal (but not for long) words of Anna Pavlova, of dying swan and gooey meringue desserts fame.




But I think THIS is the sort of thing I am likely to say,

just because I'm British and therefore suffering from a
terminal facility for understatement, rather like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writer, d. 1762

"It's all been very interesting."

 Hasn't it just!