Yes, I have had a great time reading but that hasn't been why I haven't written for so long...the motherboard on my regular computer has failed and left me waiting for a new computor to be installed. This is being written on a very old comp. I have managed to put together using various bits and pieces lying around the house.
So I managed to read one of my Xmas presents...All that I am... by Anna Funder and guess what? I raced out to buy her original first non-fiction book...Stasiland. 'All that I am' hooked me in because for once it was a book written not only in the Nazi Era but in the early 20th century...the years of my mother's growing up. Berlin featured strongly as it did in Stasiland. In both books, my mother's experience came to bite me on the nose. Interesting how some of these books can help us to understand our family's role in those years.
In Stasiland, in particular, I was taken back to the years of my visits to Berlin, Leipzig and Weimar, at first when the wall came down and then in 2001. I discovered the existance of my mother's first cousin, a famous artist and teacher, a member of the "Vertriebenen", the artists who had been forced out of Prussia to live elsewhere in East Germany. In his instance, he took his family to live in Weimar. And it was in his presence when we stopped on the stairs long enough to peer at the enquiring stare of his neighbour. We witnessed, what must have been a very upsetting time for our relative, as he abused his neighbour unremittingly. This man, his neighbour, had been an informer during the GDR years and had obviously not given up his old habits of spying on our cousin.
My second cousin, who now lives in Leipzig, but had been brought up in Weimar started to tell me of her experience...as a brilliant student she was not allowed to enrol in the school of her choosing...she was forced by the establishment to attend a boarding school a long, long way away from home. Did she need her thoughts re-arranged? This experience she has not forgotten, yet she complained to me that when the wall came down and the GDR became non-existant, she was robbed of her nationality. "We all had jobs in the GDR, there was no unemployment as there is now. And there was no homelessness." Her attitude amazed
me. Her husband thought differently. "Yes, everyone had jobs...with nothing to do. At least now we all have career structures." And that was all I could hear. Subject closed. Anna Funder, on the other hand, opened the doors on these years in a well-researched book...another set of books I couldn't put down.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Moments of Philosophy
Yes the moon is ... and I must be feeling philosophical...and I am. But what a surprise! These ideas I found in a book I have known about but never thought that I would read..."A Royal Duty" by the Late Lady Di's personal Butler, Paul Burrell. I couldn't put it down. Perhaps I could relate to it...the rejection by people, friends and family...it was constant! But Lady Di searched and found some very helpful thoughts to assist her in her daily battle to survive this nastiness.
Page 240
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are. How true is that?
The self must know stillness before it can discover its true song. Yes, stop chasing your tail. Learn to like your own company.
Success is the result of good judgement. Good judgement is the result of experience. Experience is the result of bad judgement.Yes and no.
Use problems as opportunities to change our lives. Definitely!
Problems call forth our courage and wisdom. Possibly!
Learn to adapt yourself to the demands of such a creative time. True, don't be afraid of success.
From a correct relationship to yourself comes a right relationship to all others and to the divine. Perhaps that should read, to the Spiritual.
So, digest!
Page 240
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are. How true is that?
The self must know stillness before it can discover its true song. Yes, stop chasing your tail. Learn to like your own company.
Success is the result of good judgement. Good judgement is the result of experience. Experience is the result of bad judgement.Yes and no.
Use problems as opportunities to change our lives. Definitely!
Problems call forth our courage and wisdom. Possibly!
Learn to adapt yourself to the demands of such a creative time. True, don't be afraid of success.
From a correct relationship to yourself comes a right relationship to all others and to the divine. Perhaps that should read, to the Spiritual.
So, digest!
Personal Contemplation-The changing Years
Yes, the more things change the more things stay the same. Agreed? Maybe...read what I wrote 12 years ago.
I am revisiting the shores of the Kochel See, Bavaria, Germany in my mind as I stare at the photo lying on my desk. My mind recalls 1950.
It was later in the day when we were there, our mother and her four offspring, four daughters.
I am dressed in my best, as we all are, hoping that we would appeal. We are all nervous for this photograph is to be sent to Australia and Canada in the hope of attracting a suitable host. Perhaps a family which would be willing to sponsor us.
The little girl in the front, all of four years old, is standing perfectly straight and still, both feet parallel and together, arms side by side, obediently smiling. But both arms appear unnaturally extended, almost like a soldier's arms: trained soldier of fortune, perhaps.
I have to do my best I told myself then: look friendly. But I needn't have bothered. Our mother's world-weary look in her deeply set eyes, ringed by ever darkening circles and so emphasizing the bare bones of her normally high cheek bones, said it all. I am thinking now in the year 2001, how life has changed for us all and how there is no room to regret decisions made at that time of impoverishment in Germany.
We had indeed been the lucky ones. Australian families welcomed us with open arms ignoring willingly our recognised position as the enemy, post World War II. Some children were not so kind but over time we experienced unquestionable hospitality despite our obvious differences. These were the days when people cared for each other purely on humanitarian grounds; when people took responsibility for each other's welfare (and their own) beyond the alien language spoken, the unusual appearance in dress or the differing religious orientation.
Australian willingness to accept these differences resulted over the years for our culture to be regarded as a special gift to Australia to be shared and used to broaden Australia's life experience. Yes, migrants' contributions to society were thus valued and recognised.
How different society is now. A society fed on the notion of fear wherein survival is the motivating factor. The concept of possession and not sharing being the underlying principle.
We are taught that what we have is our own and not to be shared. No longer is it reasonable to trust your neighbours, trust our significant citizens, our valued institutions and most of all we are taught daily that the "d" in difference stands for danger and destruction.
To survive we must maintain our sense of separateness and be prepared to fight to protect what we have created so far. In direct contradiction and in economic terms we are advised to look towards the global village in positive terms and appreciate the arrangement for our benefit.
These thoughts were written by myself at the beginning of the New Millenium and twelve years later I sit and ask myself how different is it in reality today? Have we moved on to better understanding between ourselves? Do we accept difference as a positive or are we still terrified at the notion? I think you know your answer as I do mine. The photo in question is on an earlier Post..."More memories".
I am revisiting the shores of the Kochel See, Bavaria, Germany in my mind as I stare at the photo lying on my desk. My mind recalls 1950.
It was later in the day when we were there, our mother and her four offspring, four daughters.
I am dressed in my best, as we all are, hoping that we would appeal. We are all nervous for this photograph is to be sent to Australia and Canada in the hope of attracting a suitable host. Perhaps a family which would be willing to sponsor us.
The little girl in the front, all of four years old, is standing perfectly straight and still, both feet parallel and together, arms side by side, obediently smiling. But both arms appear unnaturally extended, almost like a soldier's arms: trained soldier of fortune, perhaps.
I have to do my best I told myself then: look friendly. But I needn't have bothered. Our mother's world-weary look in her deeply set eyes, ringed by ever darkening circles and so emphasizing the bare bones of her normally high cheek bones, said it all. I am thinking now in the year 2001, how life has changed for us all and how there is no room to regret decisions made at that time of impoverishment in Germany.
We had indeed been the lucky ones. Australian families welcomed us with open arms ignoring willingly our recognised position as the enemy, post World War II. Some children were not so kind but over time we experienced unquestionable hospitality despite our obvious differences. These were the days when people cared for each other purely on humanitarian grounds; when people took responsibility for each other's welfare (and their own) beyond the alien language spoken, the unusual appearance in dress or the differing religious orientation.
Australian willingness to accept these differences resulted over the years for our culture to be regarded as a special gift to Australia to be shared and used to broaden Australia's life experience. Yes, migrants' contributions to society were thus valued and recognised.
How different society is now. A society fed on the notion of fear wherein survival is the motivating factor. The concept of possession and not sharing being the underlying principle.
We are taught that what we have is our own and not to be shared. No longer is it reasonable to trust your neighbours, trust our significant citizens, our valued institutions and most of all we are taught daily that the "d" in difference stands for danger and destruction.
To survive we must maintain our sense of separateness and be prepared to fight to protect what we have created so far. In direct contradiction and in economic terms we are advised to look towards the global village in positive terms and appreciate the arrangement for our benefit.
These thoughts were written by myself at the beginning of the New Millenium and twelve years later I sit and ask myself how different is it in reality today? Have we moved on to better understanding between ourselves? Do we accept difference as a positive or are we still terrified at the notion? I think you know your answer as I do mine. The photo in question is on an earlier Post..."More memories".
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