08/01/2018

The archive contains older posts which may no longer reflect my current views.

# Thinking more on the subconscious, creatives strive to access it, use it as a tool, a source of ideas that they can't access from the conscious mind that has been programmed to follow the rules.

They struggle to reach it and plumb its depths.

Meditation seeks to go the other way, to silence the chatter but, ironically, when we try to be silent, to be still, this is the time when we encounter it most.

Could this be useful?

As Bryan commented:

"I wonder if instead of overriding that second voice, meditation might invite you to observe it, not letting it dominate, but letting it be; a subtle visitor offering something that might be of use."

How long have authors, poets, painters, musicians used drink or drugs to break down the barriers? Tried anything to open themselves to the subconscious and the treasures it holds.

What if meditation is a better gateway? What if, rather than stifling the subconscious voice, we encourage it, let its ideas invade our thoughts.

What could we do with it?

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Micro Monday

As you know, online discovery is a must for me. A big part of the open web is that we connect with others and show those connections so that our audience is able to discover new voices. This is why I created the webmention directory and added a blogroll.

We can always do more to link to others or highlight work that is worth reading. Sharing is caring, as the saying goes, which is why the idea of posting indieweb likes and replies to my blog appeals so greatly.

Twitter has Follow Friday (where users suggest lists of other people their followers might be interested in) and now micro.blog has Micro Monday. As posted by Community Manager Jean MacDonald:

"we want to encourage helpful recommendations rather than lists of accounts to follow ... give a short description of the reason for your recommendation"

This is exactly my approach with the blogroll - it's no good just giving a link or a name, you need to also provide the why.

I doubt I'll share a Micro Monday recommendation every week (I was notoriously bad for forgetting on Twitter) but I would like to start today with Patrick Rhone.

Patrick is a thinker, a deep soul who always has something interesting to share. He is also incredibly generous with both time and deed. But what really marks him out is that he's a connector - he connects people.

A number of others I follow, either on micro.blog or directly via their blogs and RSS, have all come to my attention via Patrick. They say you are the company you keep and the online company he keeps is impressive indeed.

- #micromonday

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# After a lot of dithering and coming up with reasons not to I have finally deactivated both my Twitter and Facebook accounts. I don't use them and just can't see myself doing so any time soon.

I had previously deleted accounts on a number of services that I had joined over the years so these were the last holdouts.

Do I worry about someone taking my name in future when it can be recycled? No. This blog and my primary email accounts (.me.uk and .blog) are the canonical representation of me on the internet and I don't need anything else.

It's been a long time coming and I'm happy that I finally summoned the mettle to do it.

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