It’s time for another Wednesday audio delivery of Spark My Muse. This is Soul School Lesson 91 [SSL91]
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Another Wednesday Audio delivery!
This is Soul School Lesson 67 (SSL 67)
The human brain is a “soup” of chemicals (the consistency of soft butter) encased in the bone “bowl” of your skull. This gelatinous cocktail needs to stay in balance for optimal mental and bodily health. Today, I’ll talk about serotonin and dopamine and an experiment I’m taking during February that you might want to try too. (scroll down for the AUDIO PLAYER)
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Make sure your wine never tastes like wet dog fur. huh?
Spark my muse is The podcast for curious creatives types, wine newbies, and those willing to put up with my occasional silliness. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me.
How wine can go to the dogs and how to best store wine in the wine segment.
Plus, a bit about a topic and a book that has made a huge difference in my life.
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by:
Dog in the Gap
Having a pet in your care, who helplessly depends on your for life and well being can teach you a lot of things. 10 essays both funny and insightful written by 2 authors and plenty of memorable photos.
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Today’s wine segment!
Why might your wine taste like wet dog fur….and what to do about it?
Basic Stats:
A wine bottle has 25.33 oz. (750ml).
A serving (a glass) of wine is 5 oz . (Half way up the glass is full. Where the glass is widest (aroma reasons in the design)
1 bottle = five glasses.
If your wine smells stale or like wet dog fur…it is Corked!
(The cork is not working and too much air has mixed with the wine.)
Wine last 24 hours if the air is pumped out
Here’s the one I recommend we use it at work. It pays for itself after two uses.
Wine lasts only a few hours if it’s not pumped. It’s not harmful, but it won’t taste its best. Pushing the cork back in won’t help too much because air is trapped in there.
Another reason Wine is stored on its side to expand the cork. A bottle corked with a plastic cork won’t be helped by horizontal storage.
On the next PODCAST – I’ll talk about my favorite tool for opening wine and why, and the bottle opening tools you should (probably) avoid !
Now to spark your Muse
Brené Brown’s work made its mark on me before she did her famous 1st TED TALK which lead to you famous ins TED Talk on her research about shame and vulnerability at the University of Houston.
The topics in the book and some of the passages I’ll read to you have really gained new significance because putting up a podcast is risky. I feel vulnerable and I feel like I might get rejected. Some people won’t like it and I can’t change that. I don’t want to fail. And I don’t want to look like an idiot. And looking like an idiot is extremely probable.
When we are about to step out into unknown territory or if we doing something that makes us more vulnerable the two main things we think are “who do you think you are?” and “You’rd going to look like a fool” and I might add one to that “You won’t do it right” (it ’s related to the 2nd one) Maybe you can think of others that come to you mind.
We seem okay to handle other people’s vulnerability but really reluctant to risk that ourselves.
Excerpts from Daring Greatly:
Pg 35 “I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure”
My note: We can’t risk feeling vulnerable if we are dealing with shame.
pg 68 “people who don’t experience shame lack the capacity for empathy and human connection”
My note: Social also social pain. We fear rejection and isolation.
pg 67 “shame derives its power from being unspeakable”
Language and story bring light to shame and destroy it
pg 71
Guilt is “I did something wrong”
Shame is “I am bad” (or “I am something wrong”)
• When new feel shame we lash out, get anxious, hide, or numb out, and really we need to do the opposite of those things to have victory.
• Instead of lashing out or hiding we need to reach out, to some one we can trust.
• Instead of overcompensating we have to cut ourselves a break. “I make mistakes. I’m moving on past this one.”
Pg 80 Brené says “If I own the story I get to write the ending.” I just heard a fascinating TED TALK from Monica Lewinsky and she sounds like she’s taking this advise. She said it was time to take back her story and control her own narrative.
Reaching out and being honest creates an environment of empathy, and that’s really why I’m sharing all this with you.
Don’t be afraid to create and do things that are your passion. And mess up while doing them. I’m messing up a lot, but I’m trying to not let those mistakes put me in a choke hold of shame and inaction.
I hope you will be inspired to do the same.
Thanks for listening today!
Or if you have read Daring Greatly, what was the most powerful thing you learned. I’d love to hear from you! Leave comments at sparkmymuse.com or the email contact@sparkmymuse.com
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Whether it’s an Episode of Saturday Night Live, a late night tv host monologue, a webisode, or humor website, one of the many uses of humor one is to prove a point. People who find themselves funny may often aspire to more elevated forms of comedy:
Satire, wit, or something that seems noble.
If not fully noble, then at least something useful for creating meaningful change.
And if not that, then a comic may just try for old fashion notoriety. But, plenty of people simply settle for infamy.
Cuss words, crude jokes, and whatnot. But, in an effort to avoid thorough banlality the aim might be satire.
In the dearth of well-formed, well-put, well-placed, and well-timed, first-rate satire, many hope their wild comedic jabs will do the trick. They don’t.
True and artful satire is really rare; just like true brilliance is rare.
sat•ire(sătˈīrˌ)
►
n.
A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
n.
The branch of literature constituting such works. See Synonyms at caricature.
n.
Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.
On Satire
Besides that, the difference between satirical prowess and just being mean is more of a fine line. One that rests in the subjective ear of the hearer. Vary the audience and you have a flop. Get it right and you can have an impeachment.
I asked my friend Dougto elucidate us on some of the finer points of comic relief.
If any one put this sort of thing on the map, it was Shakespeare.
(Not Billy Crystall, Whoopi Goldberg, and Robin Williams…which was a fund raising thing.)
Either way, I’m soon out of my depth.
• So, what’s the point of (Shakespearean) COMIC RELIEF?
• How does it work, or not work.
• Does it work now?
A modern audience of non-English majors might not get Elizabethan wordplay…a lot of the problem is that people begin with the general idea that this is serious literature and therefore one is not supposed to laugh.
Not true. Sometimes it gets lost in translation.
While many think of comic relief as a literary ploy to give the audience a break from the latest dramatic event (a murder, beheading, or suicide etc), there is more to it.
For starters, says Doug, take the Fool in “King Lear.”
Cambridge poet and scholar Malcolm Guite asserts that, “Shakespeare, with a true understanding of the cross, always puts his greatest wisdom in the mouths of his fools.”
Throughout the early parts of the play the little fellow offers repeated jabs at Lear’s stupidity in attempting to step down from his throne but retain his power.
The idea of “royal retirement” amuses the Fool. Like a standup comedian with no “off” switch, he shoots out one-liners until several different people threaten to have him beaten.
He’s funny. He’s even funny in the howling storm when Lear begins to lose his mind and Edgar pretends to lose his and we do indeed need a break. But the humorous bait conceals a serious barb, both for the characters and the audience. The fool sees what the wise men miss.
Drawing on the common usage of court jester in that day, Shakespeare can deliver a message of great import.
Shakespeare here draws on the origins of the trade. Wealthy people in the medieval world sometimes kept mentally impaired people around because their antics amused their betters.
They could say or do anything and get away with it, basically, on the insanity defense.
Eventually a few very clever people figured out that such a role would allow them to engage in serious political critique without the usual inconveniences of getting exiled or sent to the Tower of London.
The Fool is such a double-dealer, offering a needed message disguised as “mere” comic relief.
Just as it happens today, comedy and the use of humor serves many purposes. Entertainment may be the first one, but a lot more may happen in the process.
In excavating the sites of Elizabethan theaters, archaeologists have found the shattered remains of pottery boxes into which theater patrons would drop their admission fee.
At the end of the night the company would smash the container – like a kid breaking his piggy-bank – and divvy up the night’s take. (This, by the way, is the origin of the term “box office.”)
This little factoid is a reminder that Shakespeare did not so much write for the ages as for the commercial stage. As a professional playwright he had to produce shows that people would pay to see.
His diverse audience wanted action, politics, poetry, and, yes, humor. But with each of these elements he did more than met the eye. His “comic relief” is like drinking sea water: It briefly relieves our thirst for wholeness only in order to make us crave the real thing even more.
It would seem that comic relief still has its place. Jokers ARE wild.
But, whether a comic gives the challenge due diligence is another question.
What’s been your favorite bit of satire, recently?
Hopefully, by now you’ve done homework and feel like you are progressing in new ways.
(I’d love to hear about it! Send me a note.)
Now we are on STEP 3
“S”
Service
This one may make little sense to you.
You may think,
“Really? That sounds backwards. I don’t know my purpose yet. I’ll try service once I get that figured out, duh.”
It’s not as backwards as you think.
(Creative Commons photo)
What will appeal to us in terms of service is often closely tied to our talents, gifts, and greater purpose.
Here’s an example:
When my kids were very little I made a point of helping my friends prepare for a big, yearly program. Instead of being fulfilling, it was frustrating and felt futile. I realized that my skills and passions were better served elsewhere. This eventually lead to many other types of service that tapped into my greater purpose and held greater meaning for me.
In the beginning, what drew me to help out was a sense of friendship, community, and desire to love and minister to others–to be part of something greater than myself. Those were all things I kept seeking. What I left behind were projects that could miss the forrest for the trees. The experience helped me know when projects were too detail-oriented to be optimally useful in a greater way, for my preferences.
Would I have been able to narrow things down for myself without making this (seeming) mistake? No. And it wasn’t a mistake to help, it was a clarifying exercise.
Would I have been able to decipher what types of service aren’t a good fit for me without this experience? Unlikely.
In serving, something else happens. It’s big and you’ll see the pattern once I mention it:
In losing ourselves we are found.
That means by taking ourselves out of the middle, we can see and choose better and more easily.
(It doesn’t mean thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less–by design. Thus, we more expertly “stumble” on to bigger insights.)
In a way, you don’t find your purpose at all, it finds you.
From my perspective, finding God works the same way. You are only lost to yourself, not to God. So you don’t so much “find him” nor does he “find” you. Instead you wake up.
The same holds true for finding your purpose.
We tend to assume, just by default, that finding our purpose must start and end with us. Not so.
Just like Worship, service makes finding your purpose far easier because it becomes a revelatory process. Finding your purpose, like finding happiness, comes as a byproduct of doing other things.
So where can you start with meaningful service that will help you find your purpose?
Here are some categories and qualifiers to explore:
If one stands out as more meaningful, or ignites your passions (which is directly connected to your purpose), try that first. Check with your church, your community, your local schools and organizations, local charities, or just asking around to see what available or sounds like a good fit.
What ever it is, do something. The key on this step in ACTION followed by reflection.
If you are already serving, reevaluate it. It is leading you to a greater purpose or holding you back?
(If you are overly involved in service, then it’s time to scale back.)
HOMEWORK – take some field notes on the following questions:
• Do you like Creating? (What do you like and how do you like to do it?)
• Do you like helping and being useful? In what ways?
•Using your body more than your mind to help out?
OR
Using your mind to help more than your body?
(At the end of the day, which feels more satisfying and why?)
• Do you like being the glue that holds people and projects together?
• Does helping behind the scenes feel meaningful?
• Do you like detail-oriented projects…
OR
Being the visionary that comes up with and starts the project?
• Do you like teaching? (If so, what about it appeals to you?)
• Do people in need ignite your passions?
What about your past service appealed to you and why?
(If you don’t have much past service to serve as a gauge, that’s your biggest obstacle. Start right away. You are much too “in the middle” of your world and you need a break from yourself.)
[You guesses it! This is handy-dandy notebook time! Write out your field notes from the questions above.]
Also consider:
What specific population do you feel drawn to serve?
(It’s okay to specialize and then turn away things that fall outside your scope. This refinement is usually helpful. However, once in a while change it up and serve outside your specific domain–it will surprise you by opening new doors or clarifying your purpose further.)
Types of Populations:
• elderly
• children
• poor
• students
• the needy
• peers
• 20-somethings
• new parents
• the forgotten populations (immigrants, incarcerated, homeless, mentally ill, etc.)
• who else?…
Assess how your TALENTS and SKILLS play into your past service decision.
• What sort of technological knowledge, special skill, unique experience, or centering insight makes certain kinds of service easier?
• What is your “backstory”? Your backstory tends to shift you toward you purpose.
The next step is “P”…come back soon.
Do you know anyone who’s struggling finding purpose, or feels “off-track”? Pass this along!
![12 Seconds of Held Breath [SSL91]](https://lisadelay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/woodsrelaxing.png)
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![The Straight Dope (on your brain) [SSL 67]](https://lisadelay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/braincomputerscan.jpg)
