News From the Hill

Posts Tagged ‘Listening’

This is where I was today….

Snowy Road

This is where I would have liked to have been…

Irish Protest Nov 2010

This is why I would like to have been in Dublin today…

Irish Economic Crisis Explained (short wee you-tube piece, well worth watching!)

Today we are fog bound, we can only see about 100 metres. It’s a dense, wet fog, the kind that stills sounds and feels really cold. We even lit a fire this morning and that very rarely needs to happen, especially in October.

This week  we had a beautiful, hot, sunny day. Right from sun-rise we had a lovely hot and summery day. We were outside working on our house, putting up rafters with tee-shirts on and a water bottle up on the scaffolding with us to stay hydrated. I even had on a hat to prevent my face from sun-burn.

However we couldn’t see the valley below us because of a low lying cloud of fog that was really thick. The previous day had been foggy in the lowlands however the fog  lifted by mid-morning and we could see really far into the distance.

I went down to the nearest big town for some groceries and cat food sometime before lunch on the really hot sunny day and I put on a shirt over my tee thinking that I would be warm enough. As I drove down the hill I started to chill and regretted not having grabbed a jacket, the temperature really dropped quickly.

Town was really cold and everyone that I met and talked to in the shops (because we talk to each other in small towns, even if we don’t really know each other) was in a downcast mood.  It was as though the fog was clouding everyone’s joy.  I did the shopping as quickly as possible to get back up the hill to the sunshine.

As I put the messages (that’s what we call the groceries here) away in the van I was thinking, once again, how lucky we are to live up on the hills. The radio was on and I was listening to Today FM, a channel that has friendly morning chat and music, nothing too political.

The dj had been interviewing someone and took a break for the “good news” which was a little strange. As I listened to the news I realised why he had called it the “good news”, the newsreader spoke about a little girl who lived in Cork who had the stabilisers removed from her bike and was doing really well. There was mention of a couple who had just moved into their first house together and a beloved school teacher who had been ill and was back in the classroom. All of the stories were good news stories!

The person being interviewed was really impressed and asked if all Irish radio stations did the same thing, unfortunately they don’t – yet. The “normal” news was on ten minutes later and wasn’t nearly as much fun.

When I got home, back up the hill into the hot sunshine, I told my husband about the “goodnews” broadcast and we wondered when was it decided, and by whom, that news broadcasts should be predominantly bad/sad news. Who decided that? Why was the decision made? Who benefits from broadcasting bad/sad news to the nation, every hour on the hour?

I know that it is important to know what is going on around us however I think that it is important to know both the good and the bad news. We don’t have the balance right at all.

Most of my friends don’t buy or read daily newspapers or watch the tv news, most also try to avoid the radio news however that is lots of work as they broadcast it every hour. Thank you to Today FM and the Ray D’Arcy show for the good news! I must listen more often and find out if the good-news is a daily event.

I thought that it was quite fitting that I had driven above the fog to the sunny heights of our hill to have this chat about listening to the mass media version of news and what we are supposed to be concerned about.

Sometimes I wonder about people who listen to the media version of events every day, who read all the papers, broadsheet or tabloid, who watch the tv news – are they living in a fog?

A fog induced by a daily diet of overwhelmingly bad news, fear inducing, power-sapping news that makes them think that they cannot possible change the world, their world, our world?

If you think that there is nothing that you can do to influence change do you give up trying?

I sure hope not ‘cos a lot of people do watch the daily power-sap commonly known as The News. I know that I had to stop watching it every day as it was certainly overwhelming for me. I can only speak for myself of course.

How do you feel about The News?

Please add a comment and let me know……..

Today I read a blog that is on my goggle reader list, written by a woman, Sharman Apt Russell, who writes beautifully about feeling connection with place.  Her blog is here.

This particular entry is called “Love of Home” and it was the last paragraph that gave me pause for thought – It buoys me with proof that one person with one shovel can change everything, given a guiding vision of a more abundant life, a life more intimate with the gifts of its place.

I would encourage you to go read the post in it’s entirety so as to have the excerpt in context. It has me think more about last nights post and whether to become more actively involved in politics, not actually running for election or anything heady like that, simply whether or not to join a particular political party in order to help change it’s focus.

I like that one person with one shovel can bring about great change, it’s more in line with my current thinking, to just do what you do and let that be enough.

Knowing that it is enough is key.

Knowing that it is enough to just do your best doing what you do and let that be.

Letting it go and not try to influence or change anyone else, just do your own thing and trust that it will work out…

Easier said than done…

Help is a wonderful thing, especially help from friends.

Asking for help is easier for some people than others and does not always come naturally. I had to learn how to ask for help, it was a hard lesson and one that I am glad I learnt.

It has certainly made my life easier to be able to ask for help and to be able to graciously receive it – the two do not always go hand in hand!

Now I also need to know when to say no to help.

We have been getting offers of help in building our house. We have also been advised by people that have already been down a similar road that it is not always  helpful to have help – perhaps I had better explain that one!

There are times when you are building with help that you may spend more time teaching the helpers/volunteers than you actually spend working.

It is important when you are working on a project that is new to you that you take the time to learn how to do it properly yourself before you can safely or easily instruct someone else in what to do. Perhaps you are working by instinct or feeling your way, which is fine when you are working by yourself but not easy when someone is watching over your shoulder to see what you are doing!

It may be that it is easier to do a particular job yourself rather than train a volunteer, especially if that volunteer is not there all the time or may even be a different person each week!

Sometimes you may have someone there to help and you don’t have any jobs for them so you can feel under pressure to find something interesting for them to do. You can feel that they have come all this way to help you and the least you can do is create some work for them. This may result in you not concentrating on the task at hand or worse – rushing a job which needs careful consideration.

You also need to match the job to the person, this takes time. If you know the person well it is much easier because you may have a feeling for what would suit them, what they are capable of making decisions about without always asking or checking that what they are doing is ok.

People have different natural skill sets, things that they have  a natural flair for and are comfortable and confident doing and it is important to try and match these skills to the job.

We can easily underestimate the simple things that one can do to be helpful. We had a friend visiting with us last week who really wanted to help and also to learn what she could about we are doing so that when she finds some land and the time comes for her to build her own place she will have a sense of confidence about the possibilities.

She did very simple things for us. Each morning she washed up all the dishes and pots from the previous night’s dinner. This might seem like a small thing but it was so much appreciated. It meant that after dinner we could all just socialise and hang out, play music or dominoes or watch a movie.

She came grocery shopping with me and organised big salads every lunch-time  and then cooked up a great big lamb curry that lasted for two evenings with the simple addition of a side dish of potatoes the first night and rice the second so that we didn’t have to think too much about food.

She understood that we were having problems working out some aspects of  setting out (squaring up) the frame for the building and left us to it, we needed the space to be cranky!

However, I have to say that her decision to organise the outdoor bath was the coup de grace! It meant that firstly she wasn’t hanging around waiting for something to do and secondly it was one of those things that I had often thought about and not gotten around to so I was really delighted that it was happening! It also meant that we were not feeling guilty about not having an interesting building job for her to do!

So the things we have learn are to say no to help if we are not ready to use it. If someone is really enthusiastic about coming and we don’t have anything for them to do we need to make sure that they are capable of working by themselves on non-building related things and if not then they will have to put off their visit for another time.

We need to be organised about having help.

It is really important that we have a list of jobs to do for people with different skill sets.

If something needs to be taught then it is better to teach it someone who will be a regular volunteer rather than teach it over and over again to once-off visitors.

If people really want to come just to learn then we need to barter something in return – food brought and meals cooked or second hand useful building materials as an example. It needs to be acknowledged that we will loose a good deal of time in teaching so I think that we really need to look after ourselves in this regard.

It is also important to look after our helpers by ensuring that all on site eat well and have fun, we would like the house to have happy builders who enjoy hanging out, helping and learning from each other. We also expect that we will  learn from those who come to help us.

Let’s not forget we need to have some energy left to play music and tell stories!

We do not just expect people to help without return, we are more than happy to barter for help given. If someone is prepared to give us a lot of work-time then we will return that favour after the house is built by helping when they are building themselves or by doing something that they need like assisting them to set up their own renewable energy system for example or helping with web design.

Help is wonderful, especially from people you want to hang out with, it’s just not as simple as it first seems…

I have been neglecting blogging for a while now and have spent a bit of time tonight browsing though the wonderful web world and found this lovely post, check it out…