"Call" and "Hurt"

I wrote some about the book “This Is Going to Hurt” by Adam Kay.  That book and the TV show “Call the Midwife”, now in its 15th season”, are both about women’s lives and bodies.  It is amazing that we all came out of a woman’s body.  That fact and how the process of us emerging gets started is often disguised or avoided with children until somebody thinks they are old enough to hear about what happens.

To this American with a rather sketchy understanding of medical training and the vocabulary connected to it, reading about medical training in Britain is interesting.  But I didn’t know that the training involved is in the gynecology and obstetrics field.  I read that “Call the Midwife” was very popular on British TV.  I am confident there are many paths to interest in the book and the TV series.  Both are arresting.  

Take the recent episode in the book where a young woman was unhappy with the appearance of her labia and just took some scissors to what she felt was misshaped. She bled very badly, even to the point of threatening her life.  She explained to the author that she just wanted to look normal.

Enough!

When you have bought enough books, you have enough semi-smart devices, it may be time to decide “Enough!”.  You may have to rely on yourself to make a decision like that but it may be worth doing.  That pair of sentences contains three instances of “may”, a word I have an increasing aversion to. You may have enough, it may be time, you may have to decide yourself.

I don’t want to try to be more definite but in today’s world, relying on yourself can save overspending, acting out of an outdated habit and opening the door to new adventures and worthwhile habits.

Duration

I sometimes find that a specified duration is unnecessarily long.  Take meditation sessions.  They can sometimes be recommended for an hour when I find that a good effect is attained in 15 minutes or less. I wonder if longer periods are specified because good timers for shorter periods were rare.

I do find that repeating training regularly is an important practice.  I like to pick a time somewhat arbitrarily, one that fits into other plans and activities and make sure I repeat the activity daily.  That is often key for me: repetitions, not duration.

One of my favorite books is Prof. Larry Rosenberg’s “Breath by Breath”.  The title refers to using breath as a focus in meditation.  He cites a time when he and students traveled to a Buddhist monastery in Korea, to experience meditation there.  He found that the institution had a tradition of staying awake and avoiding sleep for one entire week.  My background immediately makes me wonder if that length of time was first used in order to be long enough to be difficult, to make a physical challenge that would be felt. It doesn’t take much for males to dream unnecessarily big.