ditkoofseppala

I kid myself into thinking I like myself quite a lot, but when I’m really lucid I have to accept that if I did, I would like everyone else much better as well. There’s a big difference between really accepting and liking yourself, and just egotism.

I’ve found something that seems quite helpful, though, and I’ll share it with the rest of you. I already wrote this to Bilki, who seems to be causing herself a lot of suffering.

None of us has to feel the way she feels, that self-loathing and the feeling that it will never change. Right now we are wallowing in it, indulging to the hilt in these negative feelings. If that’s what we really want, okay. But we don’t have to feel that way if we really don’t want to. Someone has a method that would can help almost anyone feel differently. Her name is Byron Katie, and she just calls her method “the Work.” It’s simple, and you just have to start applying it. She gives workshops and events, and like most such things they are not cheap to attend. But her method is so simple that it’s easy to try out, and it costs nothing to try it, only the effort of doing the simple things she suggests.

Here’s the page where it’s described:
http://www.thework.com/thework.asp

Good luck to us all. I hope each one of us can succeed in learning to like ourselves.

I had my beignets and cafe au lait at the Cafe Du Monde in the Crescent City, but jesus, I think the last time was in 1976. Now, after Katrina, I wouldn’t want to go back there, it would be too sad. In a long life I’ve learnt one thing: you can never go back. You can’t step in the same river twice. Things change, and it’s almost never the way you might want them to change. Keep your memories bright, and go on to do new things. I treasure that long-ago memory of beignets and french coffee, I don’t need to go back there, and I’m looking for new frontiers.

John, if you have Malamutes, two is plenty to start with. And if you don’t have snow, that’s just fine too. Get yourself a tough mountain bike or even a BMX, loop an eight or ten-foot line around the centrepost above the front fork, attach two three-foot tuglines to the far end of that, and put a neckline between the two dogs’ collars, 10-12 inches long. And you are in business! This is how I train lead dogs in the summertime in Canada, so they know what I want them to do when the snow flies. Maybe even try it with just one dog at first, until you get some confidence. And never, ever try “bike-joring” with more than two dogs, it gets too dangerous.