Sarah Wilson

Google: reflection of life?

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I just came across this telling Google algorithm in Salon. The journo had done a search for “bad fathering”. The search came back with the helpful suggestion at the top of the screen: “Did you mean: bad mothering?”  They also get a similar suggestion when they Googled “poor fathering.” It’s not Google’s fault. Google just … Read more

sunday life: in which I ruin my relationship prospects

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Last week I mentioned I visited a shaman in Bali. The reaction from everyone was, did he dress like Sandy from Monkey (skulls around neck, carrying a staff), and what wisdoms did he impart. To the first, no, he wore shorts and plastic sandals and we sat in his kitchen as kids and cats run amok and his wife cooked curry.3025999800 05180face5 sunday life: in which I ruin my relationship prospects

And his profound insight? Oh yes. Well, he told me I don’t much go for relationships. And that I shouldn’t. Go for them, that is. Nor should most women like me. If we want to be happy.

Now this might strike a shard of horror through the spleens of some.  But I’ve had a week to digest and clarify the idea. It opened interesting cans of worms, with myself and with friends, both partnered and otherwise. And I wrangled with whether to explore it as part of this journey to make life better. In the end, I decided I had to.

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eat this way

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This much we kinda know by now: * How we eat is being controlled by big fat corporations * We’re getting big and fat – and sick – from the way we eat. But, here, the rest of the story.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0[/youtube] I got goosepimply where the farmer says, “People have to start demanding good wholesome food … Read more

a night snacker? 10 ace tips.

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I’ve confessed to this before (on twitter, in Cosmo): I have this thing where I have to eat before I go to bed. Doesn’t matter how sustaining dinner was. I have to snack. Honey on rice toast. Toasted nuts with cinnamon. spaceball a night snacker? 10 ace tips.spaceball a night snacker? 10 ace tips.4032778902 5b989e6af5 a night snacker? 10 ace tips.It ticks many wrong boxes and doesn’t do great things for my self-esteem. Or weight at times.spaceball a night snacker? 10 ace tips. I’ve managed to steer the habit around with sheer tenacity. But for anyone still struggling, these tips made sense to me. I stumbled upon them on a post on Huffington Post by Janice Taylor, who refers to herself as, intriguingly, “Our Lady of Weight Loss, Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal .

Ten Ways to Curb, Conquer and Control Nighttime Eating

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i love: whimsy

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Right now, I’m noticing little moments of whimsy. Pockets of of creativity that explore ideas capriciously. Whimsical people are a little bit quirky, a little bit nerdy, often loners.  They were the kid who’d delicately pull apart a daisy. Or watch a worm for a full 45 minutes in a puddle. Now they create music … Read more

straight from the school of Getting Real…

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“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
– Leo Tolstoy

Change yourself and everything else around you changes, slowly. It’s a knock-on effect.  And in time the world changes. It’s slow, but it does happen. Which is more than most of us can say for our best intentions to go out there and create something grand and exciting that will fix depression, or youth suicide, or breast cancer.

Bring it in close to home, rather than working outwards, and you get results. Gently. Effectively.

My spiritual counselor friend Sky once told me to “be my message”. I’d been rabbiting on about how I wanted to show, and to tell, people how to do things better. 

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sunday life: try a “think week”

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This week I had myself a “think week”.

I read in the Wall Street Journal that every six months Microsoft’s Bill Gates extracts himself from his chino-wearing Silicon Valley brethren and heads to a wee cabin on a hill for a “think week”. He removes all distractions and armed with (I’m imagining) a bunch of Enya downloads, some butchers’ paper and coloured textas, nuts out ideas and new directions. I can see it now. Scrawled in big letters and taped to the wall next to the mounted moose head, “Portals? Doorways? Euraka!!! Windows!”.

Yes, yes, I think I need a think week!

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life is hard. life is precious.

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Warning: this is just the trailer…but prepare to cry big connecting-with-humanity tears. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5FYahzVU44[/youtube] Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire (this is actually the full title) hits screens in a month or two. But a water-cooler-ready overview in the mean time: * Oprah’s backed it * the plot follows the truly tragic life of … Read more

high school politicking 2.0. (shudder).

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Marketing supremo Seth Godin wrote today: “Any sufficiently overheated industry will eventually resemble high school…filled with insecurity, social climbing, backbiting, false friends, faux achievements, high drama and not much content. Much of this insecurity comes from a market that doesn’t make good judgments, that doesn’t understand how to reliably choose between alternatives. So it turns into a popularity contest.”

As Tom Hanks reportedly said, “Hollywood is like high school, but with money.” The internet, Godin says, is like high school but with a modem. And twitter… is high school but only 140 characters at a time.

As with high school, you ultimately win out when you keep your distance from irrelevant people. And do your own thing.

I was bullied mercilessly in high school. The “clique” found me weird (lived in country, big family, quite liked studing). I found them weird.

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