8 Principles of Fun - Or Life?
Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 07:17PM Well moving on from some altercations here, today I was sent this link latte (via Artella membership) for a site that has supposedly the 8 Irresistable Principles of Fun. The site itself is called Get Unstuck and Get Going.
Watch this, it’s great. But more than anything, no matter what situation you happen to find yourself in at that time, the principles appear to be relevant.(Certainly, the first two I’ve applied to the situation here on Scrapability today, and felt vastly more powerful for it).
If you watch all the way through (it’s long), you will get to a signup page for a weekly e-letter sent out promising some creativity splashes as well. Sounds fun…
Principle 1 - Get focussed. Step 1 - Stop Hiding Who You Are. (sidenote from me - and don’t allow other people to make you stop being yourself no matter their opinions also). When it comes down to it - what do you stand for.
Principle 2 - Get focussed. Start being intensely selfish. Um, actually that’s always a little difficult for me, but I doubt they really mean it, it’s more towards focussing on self-recognition and preservation for the sake of life.
Principle 6 - Use your Wisdom. Start Getting rid of some of that crap. Interestingly, the animation goes on about memories on this one.
Memories - hmmmm. The business of the scrapbooker. Sometime ago I was reading a message board in America where some scrappers started to have an honest discussion about not scrapping some memories best left to rest. These were women who obviously and admittedly had pasts which involved family upsets, some domestic abuse, some sexual abuse - all of which still preyed heavily in their own lives. But a couple of people on that thread appeared to be affronted that some memories weren’t being scrapped. The fact that those women were on the boards, as survivors of such things suggested that they had in some ways, moved on from those experiences - and those other women suggested that in some small way, the past memories might like to be scrapped in Books of Me type layouts to explain themselves now.
I have no opinion on that particular matter, as my own memories are not as dark as that, and I have had a reasonably fortunate childhood. I also did not see the end of the discussion, so am unaware of where it might have ended for each individual. But one brave soul did respond to suggest she had scrapped several layouts about her dark memories, put them in an album, then set the album alight.
As scrapbookers, we dwell in the world of memories more than many others. I remember as a child spending hours going through boxes of old photographs and slides with my mother. The photos ranged in ages from the early 1920s through to the late 60s when I was born. They were since destroyed in a flood through the house, unfortunately. My mother was not a scrapbooker of course, and many if not most of the photographs were explained to me via her own memories. Some had names of long-forgotten family members marked in biro on the back of them. Others had no way of telling who was in them, unless my mother remembered clearly.
My mother was a woman who divorced her first husband in the 1950s (completely unheard of in conservative 1950s New Zealand) and remarried in her own fifties a second time in the 1960s, before adopting myself as a baby. Four years later, her new husband (my father) died of a brain tumour. In the 1970s as a young child, we lived in my mother’s local area, surrounded by her family. My father was sent to a hospice in Wellington, which was in the North Island, and a half hour aeroplane flight away at great expense. As far as I can tell, my mother and I visited my dying father for the few months of his hospice attendance only the once. I have no memory of him.
My mother’s first marriage had absolutely no photos. Or she had destroyed them. My father’s memories (until destroyed in that flood) were found in the form of one and one only photograph of himself. And a handkerchief with his name embroidered on it. For whatever reason unto herself, my mother already worked to principle 6 in the link I’ve given you. Sh got rid of bad memories, the physical evidence of such anyways.
Like many, I do have tales of some darkness in my own past - mine deals with some treatment of my young self as a child in the hands of particular close family members, and some minor abuses (stupid stuff like beng made to eat bread off the ground, and some racism towards my own part Maori ethnicity and non-family blood due to my adoption) - all of which explains some of my own areas of concern to this day, and how I don’t deal with rejection too well. And why I do not put up with offences of anything possibly racist, sexist or abusive in any form.
My mother obviously got rid of the crap out of her own life by destroying the evidence of it. She was a wonderful, brave and obstinate woman, and gave me a childhood and upbringing that I will never regret. And she never appeared to have any regrets about her own past either. That was her way of focussing for the now - and bringing up children on a widow’s benefit and then a full governmental pension.
When I scrapbook, I delve deep into my own being, to formalise how I want those particular memories, photographs and stories to appear for my daughter in the future. I audit myself and our lives in doing this. Some of that comes from darker memories from my own past, and I am aware of it. Perhaps the above link is not only to do with Principles for finding fun in life, but for life in life itself. However, instead of throwing out memories, I adjust them and realise that they form part of my own essence and take on the world itself, and that is who I am. My way may be different from that of my mother’s but in many ways we are, of course, similar. For me, fun is found in my family life, and my creativity. The link above speaks of creativity also.
Today we spent the day as a family at Whipsnade Zoo. We were incredibly gifted by luck in being able to view bears which hid for many other people, and having a trunk-to-tail train of mother and baby elephants walked down the road right in front of us. Just as it was beginning to get too hot for all of us to bear walking around the vast roads of the park, clouds covered the intense rays. Traffic only delayed us for an hour getting there, thanks to some bad sign-posting from our direction, but we made up for it going home. We were indeed blessed today for many reasons. Today reminded me and my hubbie of the many many other zoos we have visited worldwide (it’s one of those “things we do”), the differences and the same-nesses. I don’t have photographs or layouts of many of them, but the memories still exist on a rudimentary level. Perhaps Singapore Zoo sometimes is mixed up with Amsterdamn, and Wellington with Melbourne, but the feelings and happiness still exist. But then I remember the associations with my own Melbourne Zoo visit which aren’t quite the kind of memories I particularly want to hold onto. That visit was years ago, but the surrounding memories are not nice. I don’t want to dump them, however - because they are part of me. And part of how I now make sure that any visit to the zoo for myself and family is full of happiness. Just like today. My krap has not been thrown out completely - just used to form working approaches to fun and happiness for me and my family now.
How fun is that?
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