What I REALLY Want For Yule/Christmas/Festive Guilt & Debt Producing Holiday Is:

[Griffin NoName]

A book that costs £80 second hand. <sigh>

[Sibling Chatty]

EEP! Even on Amazon in the used books section?

[Griffin NoName]

yes - exactly on amazon 2nd hand - that was the cheapest copy - the next highest copy 2nd hand was around £140 and it went on up.... it's odd, it's an ordinary book on counselling....

[Vita Curator]

NoName,

What is the name of the textbook and the author?

[Sibling Chatty]

I'm thinkin' that if it's something available in the US, I know where the 'excess inventory' storage for our regional Half-Price Books is...and someone who works there.

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

Is world peace an acceptable Christmas present to wish for?

.....................................................

Just kidding, actually (and I even surprise myself) I don't want anything for Christmas, except maybe a little love...

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Is world peace an acceptable Christmas present to wish for?

It's ALWAYS acceptable to wish for, any time any place.

Unfortunately, wishing is not enough. Neither is praying for it, it seems. 

If either were sufficient to bring it about, it'd happened long, long ago, no? 

It seems that the task of World Peace won't come about by supernatural means after all - the Powers That Be seemed to have deemed it a HUMAN task. *sigh*

_______________________________________

As a kid, I used to have "evidence" all over the place of supernatural intervention of minor "adjustments" of individual lives every where I looked.

Yet, I could never see any evidence of major "adjustments", no matter how hard I tried.

As a small child, I concluded that the Powers That Be were only capable of affecting lives one life at a time, in very small ways (relatively speaking).

__________________________________

As an adult, I'm not nearly so certain that those "adjustments" were supernatural any more.  I have a great deal of faith and awe in the power of the Human Mind to affect what it has direct control over:  the Human Body.

I think the brain-body connection is still poorly understood, and there are likely interconnections we are only now beginning to discover hits about.

(I cannot simply dismiss the brain-body connections as demonstrated by mystics like the Buddhist monks' abilities.)

___________________________

Perhaps, there is a Cosmological Lesson in that?

Perhaps it is NOT in our power to affect the World Directly at all-- we must remember we REALLY only have power over a SINGLE person.

Ourselves.

____________________________

So-- if all you REALLY want is Love for Christmas (see? I got around to it  ) then I humbly suggest that you give LOVE to as many people as you are capable of.  (And the little details seem to be inordinately more important than the Grand Gestures.)

I would stake my life, that if you do that, you will reap boundless Love in return.

starting------now .... ! 

[Griffin NoName]

It's Existential Psychotherapy by Irwin D. Yalom. However, it is now showing at a normal sort of price for hard backs. Bad Amazon. Panic over.

[Sibling Chatty]

Ah, Yalom's good.

If I still have the stash of Yalom books that were at the Houston house, i'll send them to you...if I ever find them. (Kelly, the person I used to take care of, bought books to try to work through her 'problems', along with a lovely therapist who wouldn't challenge her to stop the Xanax addiction and THEN try to work things out. It was, to say the least, interesting.)

[Griffin NoName]

I think once one reads Love's Executioner one is hooked for life....

I'm not sure I'd choose Yalom if I were trying to work through stuff on myself. I find people like Freud who I disagree with more effective, maybe because it's more of a challenge to think about why I disagree.

[Vita Curator]

It's Existential Psychotherapy by Irwin D. Yalom. However, it is now showing at a normal sort of price for hard backs. Bad Amazon. Panic over.

Let me see what I can do, do you mind "gently used"? Or would you prefer new?

Ugh, I am in the camp that DISAGREES (what a polite word) with Freud.

Edit:  I found it NoName for an oustandingly excellent price.  I would like to try to get it to you for Christmas.  PM me if you will.

[beagle]

Dear Santa,

Please may I have a remote controlled Dalek, and Lord Clark's "Civilisation" on DVD. If I've only been good enough for one then we'll skip the dvds.

Thanks

P.S. What happened to the change of Prime Minister I asked for last year?

[goat starer]

you got that. he was changed from 'a bit worrying' PM to 'full blown loopy (santa and his elves are coming so lets hide i the bomb shelter) nutter' PM.

It was not an improvement.

[Bluenose]

Dear Santa,

Please may I have a remote controlled Dalek...

I just love those Daleks.

Way back when, a bunch of us Navy types figured that 'Dalek' must be a real word when it was used in the then current edition (circa 1980) of Jane's Fighting Ships* as a recognition feature of the Kurril class Soviet cruiser, the exact quote as I recall was taht this ship was easy to idenify because of the "two Dalek like structures amidships".  Indeed, it really did look like someone had plonked two Bl**dy great Daleks on top of the ship!

Dear Santa,

I want a remote controlled Dalek too...

sibling Bluenose

* Jane's, as it is usually known, is the bible for warhip recognition and every self-respecting Navy ship has a copy of the latest edition.  I remember our (Australian) admirals being a bit miffed in an exercise we had with the Malaysians once because the Malasians wanted us to fight the excercise "according to Jane's", rather than assuming that we had just fitted the latest US gadget that our ships were "fitter for but not with" at the time.

I still want a Dalek.  A full sized one.  Preferably the black one, with the gold bits.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I think I'd like to add a Captian Planet t-shirt to mu list.