But, I’m not going to write about the bad things. Or the few really good things that happened that are private.

Instead.. I shall mention that I found the right house for me and the relatives I live with.. found the house online, and it has worked out very well for us.

Also, and just as important, I made a few close friends. I was just starting to make some friends in California, in late 2010, but I moved here to Idaho in early December of that year.

I am very fortunate to have made some very good friends here in Idaho.

Finding the house, some private things that happened, and making friends… taking some great nature photos, finding new music (or music that is new to me) enjoying a few TV shows (finally watched “Arrested Development,” all three season.. awesome comedy, and got started watching “Lost,” and am loving it) and movies (my favorite one from 2011 is “Midnight in Paris”) seeing relatives much more often.. those who moved up here years before I did.. these are the best parts of 2011.

I am looking forward to this year, 2012. I have some nature classes I will be taking this winter and spring, more activities with friends to look forward to, and more opportunities to improve and enjoy my life.

Almost all of 2011 was terribly miserable for me though, because of poor mental health, and I need a far better year.

I am going to believe this year will be far better.

That’s it for now. I plan on getting back into the habit of writing entries for this blog, and will likely write at least one per week.

Hmm.. one more thing left to write about tonight.. resolutions.. plans.. etc.

1. Perhaps most important.. stop worrying so much about stuff.
2. go on a special strict diet for awhile to try and clear up allergies and some mental health issues.
3. get in the gym more often, and exercise more effectively.
4. enjoy life a lot more.

Yeah, that’s good enough for now.

Happy New Year to you, and may you be able to accomplish your goals, and enjoy this year.

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Those of us who were alive at the time, and who were not small children, remember that day.

I was working a swing shift, and wasn’t up in the earlier morning, because I’d gotten home late from work the night before, just as I always did during that month, and had needed to sleep in.

I came into the living room at .. I don’t know.. 11 am or bit later?

My dad was passively watching TV, just as he’d done the previous days, months..

What was on TV was not normal. I asked what was going on. Dad said, in his usual voice, that the World Trade Center had been attacked.

I watched for awhile. Perhaps my dad felt like I did. Too much to take in. Just some disaster on TV.

I felt kind of stunned, but didn’t experience a depth of feeling. I was tired, hadn’t had quite enough sleep.

Oh… the World Trade Center was hit by 2 planes, both towers collapsed, devastation everywhere.

My brother came by. Not sure. I very rarely got a visit from him before work.

I don’t know why he dropped in that day. Maybe needed some support, someone to talk to? He had his wife to talk to, but perhaps needed someone who could discuss current events with him, knew the political climate a little, etc.

We sat and watched for a little while longer.

Then he took me to Arby’s, (a roast beef sandwich fast food place), and we ate our food in the restaurant and watched the TV mounted to the ceiling.

Then, I’m not sure what happened. Either we had taken one car, and he drove me back home, or we had taken two vehicles, and I rode to work from there.

I was working as a telephone relay operator. Complicated job. I sat at a computer with a phone connection. A call from a deaf person using a teletext device hooked up to his or her phone would call into me, and I would read their message on the my screen, the number they wanted me to call.

When I got someone on the other end I would ask if they understood the phone relay process. If they did, I wouldn’t have to explain it. If they didn’t, I’d read from a script.

After explanation (if needed) I would type to the deaf person what the other person said at the other end of the line. Then, The deaf person would type a response, I’d read that, then the other person would speak and etc.

I walked from my car into work. It was hot. This was back in California, in the Central Valley.

It was a quiet evening and night at work. Only a few calls. Most just random conversations needing to be relayed, some discussion about what had happened.

Approximately four hours into my shift, I went out for my hour’s break.

I walked across the street to a small, independently owned pizza and Italian food place.

I sat down, probably had what’s called a pizza sandwich, and some fries. Just sat there and ate on my own, as I almost always did.

There was a big screen Tv in the restaurant. All of us diners watched quietly for the most part, viewing mostly what we had seen earlier, but with more coverage of the blinding dust and the rescue attempts, and so forth.

What really troubles me is that there were two dumb, big guys sitting at a nearby table behind and to the side of me.

One of them laughed. I felt sickened. Maybe he couldn’t deal with what he was seeing.. a view of bodies flying out of the towers, and so he laughed.

This still bothers me, ten years on.

After break, I went back to work. Got home late at night, eventually went to sleep.

That was what I did and experienced on September 11th, 2001.

Within weeks, on the news, it was told that there was some kind of military action going on in Afghanistan. We, on the day of September 11th, had heard the name “Osama bin Laden” for the first time. And, Afghanistan was in the news regularly for the first time since the 1980′s when that country was invaded and occupied by the Soviets. The Soviets were eventually defeated by Afghani freedom fighters, who members of the CIA and special forces armed and helped train.

Some of those freedom fighters, who were young during the 1980′s, were seasoned warriors, and eventually fought our troops.

There was no quick full scale invasion on of Afghanistan though, not for some time. I don’t know who was involved in that early skirmish.

Eventually attention shifted to Iraq, for no good reason. Pres. Bush, like just about all Americans, was lead by certain high officials in the CIA and Pentagon, and by Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and needed to be stopped.

Our military actions, which had started in.. 2003? were practically halted, and troops and resources diverted to Iraq. We could have possibly made some progress in Afghanistan, could have gotten bin Laden then, but instead American forces needlessly invaded Iraq.

Even if the events of 9/11 did not happen, American troops still would have probably invaded Iraq. There were no ties between the radical Muslim hijackers, who were mostly, like bin Laden, from Saudi Arabia.

Cheney and Rumsfeld had for many years felt that the previous Pres. Bush did not go far enough to stop Saddam in the first gulf war, in which Saddam’s forces had invaded Kuwait. Our military kicked the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and wiped out most of the military in Iraq, but did not kill Hussein or occupy the country.

Cheney and Rumsfeld and others tricked the rest of us into believing that invading Iraq was necessary. So we did.

American forces are still in Iraq today, although attention has been re-focused on Afghanistan.

In my opinion, VP Joe Biden was right. Within a year after he was elected VP, and serving under Pres. Obama, Biden said he (Biden) believed that a full scale invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was not practical. Instead, Biden argued, we should have small, concentrated raids carried about by special forces.

Obama didn’t go along with this plan, and American troops in large numbers still fight in Afghanistan.

According to recent news reports, Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group lead by bin Laden, is now in tatters and scattered over the face of the globe.

Bin Laden was (it was reported) killed on May 2, 2011.

Perhaps our troops really did some good in Afghanistan. Maybe they did largely disrupt Al-Qaeda. I don’t know. According to the news, the American military has been engaging another group, the Taliban, which is impossible to defeat, because the Taliban can hide in Pakistan, and American troops, and even drone aircraft, for the most part, cannot get at the Taliban forces in Pakistan, or any other radical Muslim groups there.

Biden’s plan to use small groups of special forces worked out. It was a small group of Navy Seals who killed bin Laden in Pakistan, according to news reports.

September 11th, 2001. The world changed, and hundreds of thousands of people are now dead because of those events, and the instability that followed.

American troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Security is much tighter at airports. There have been no successful terrorist attacks these past ten years. Which shows our intelligence agencies have been doing good work.

Our world is different though. And worse, because of the actions of a few deranged men, who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon, and who almost destroyed the American capitol building as well, or perhaps the White House, except that some heroic passengers on Flight 93 defeated their hijackers, and sent the plane down in Pennsylvania, before the hijackers could force the plane to reach its intended target in D.C.

It has been ten years. We pray for peace.

so here I am.. in an imaginary conversation with someone, like usual.. mostly a very unfortunate habit.. very distracting..

but while in imagined conversation.. or my mind fading out of it, in a tired state..

A name came up. I don’t know why, but it showed up in my head.

“Shaftoe.”

As I was typing that surname into google, I came up with the first name, Bobby.

Bobby Shaftoe. Why did this name show up in my head? I couldn’t remember who it was.. not somebody I’d met, I knew that..

So, came up with a few listings on wikipedia.

Bobby Shaftoe was an 18th century member of Parliament in Britain. There’s a nursery rhyme named for him, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard.

The other listing for this name likely explains why the name was in my head at all..

One of the longest novels I read was called “The Cryptonomicon.” I won’t endeavor to describe the plot. Complicated book, and I am not sure why I stuck with it.. didn’t like it all that much, even though it was original.

One of the main characters in that book is named Bobby Shaftoe.

I read that book over a decade ago. Haven’t thought of it in over a decade..

And the name shows up in my head just now.

And I don’t know why.

I thought I might come up with a name referring to a Native American. I am just now recalling why I would have thought “Shaftoe” would have seemed like a Native American to me.

There’s a (likely fictional or at least partially fictional) book about the Yanomamo people of South America, written by an American missionary. Primitive tribe, well-known to Anthropologists. Some anthropologists have claimed the Yanomamo were extraordinarily violent, while others have disagreed.

I know of this group of people because I went to hear a missionary speak at a church. This was in 1999, I’m guessing..

The missionary told the story of the Yanomamo tribes and their supposedly awful sorcery practices.

Some of the natives converted to Christianity, and one of them was a man nicknamed “Shoe-foot.” I find it suspicious that Shoe-foot was not at the church like the missionary said he would be. Maybe Shoe-foot was a fictional person, maybe not. The missionary’s book certainly painted a horrible picture of the Yanomamo.. one of the most violent books I’ve ever read..

Some Christians will write horrible, made up things, and pass them off as truth..for example, a book called, “The Satan Seller.” Written by a Christian comedian named Mike Warnke, who was very popular in the ’80′s, until he was proven to be a total fraud, and his book a work of fiction, not an autobiography.. and it was a Christian magazine that broke that story.. cool.. magazine was called “Cornerstone,” not in print anymore, I don’t think. Maybe some parts of the Bible, even the pre-Christian parts are like this.. I think they are..

But back to the name recognition.. association…

Shoe-foot is similar to Shaftoe..

Sh-sound plus something to do with foot.. so it’s understandable that while typing in the name “Shaftoe,” I was thinking it might be some Native American.

Hmm..

While reading about the historical Bobby Shaftoe, another prominent British politician of Shaftoe’s era was mentioned.. “Pitt the Elder.”

That name seemed familiar too, like I’d heard it mumbled in some line in a movie.. some very quickly mumbled line by a surly person..

But did I really hear this line? ??

Last night, or the night before, I was listening to an audiobook which Stephen Hawking (the most famous physicist on the planet) co-wrote.. and the audiobook is read by a British actor who I’d never heard of.. his voice doesn’t sound surly.. but did he mention Pitt the Elder? I doubt it.. The book is about Quantum Physics, and please don’t ask me to explain quantum physics.. I couldn’t very well anyway.. tried to understand it.

The Hawking book, called “The Grand Design,” .. so far out and strange and .. surreal.. I listened through the first disk.. not likely to continue it!

So.. going back to Pitt..

Pitt the Elder, according to the Wikipedia link was Prime Minister of Britain during what we in America call “The French and Indian War,” and what the British call “The Seven Year’s War.”

(That is, if I’m reading the article right.. rather long, and I’m tired. Hadn’t planned on writing anything tonight.).

I don’t recall where I heard the name “Pitt the Elder.”

And in the article on Pitt, I see a person called “The Duke of Orleans.” Who New Orleans was named after? Seems I’ve heard of the Duke too.. mentioned in some context (not in relation to the city.. ) .. maybe..

Back to William Pitt senior (his son being Pitt the Elder).. Pitt is associated with the name Chatham. I’m not going through the article again to figure out why. It gets confusing.. I don’t know how the systems within the British aristocracy work. Sometimes people have titles because they were born into certain families, some get titles by appointment of king or queen? And some people already with a title get another one if they achieve a military victory. They get promoted..

And when they get a title, they get a new name.. at least some of the time the name is associated with the land/estate they are awarded. I remember this part from Shakespeare.. one of the reasons Shakespeare’s historical plays were confusing..

And from poetry..

George Gordon, Lord Byron. That’s the name of one man, not two. Byron was a poet, 19th century English.. “She walks in beauty like the night..” If you’ve seen the movie “Dead Poets Society,” you’ve heard of Byron and at least one of his poems..

So Pitt the Elder was probably eventually called “Lord Chath.. pardon me.. just saw the heading for the wiki article.. “William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham.” Told you I was tired. “Earl,” in England, is a title, not a person’s name.

Right then..

So.. there are many places in the US named after Chatham (Pitt.. same person). This is because he stood up for colonial American rights. Pitt was concerned that the colonialists in the New World would rise up and fight if their rights were taken away. Nobody listened to him.

He even predicted that if war broke out, America would not be conquered.

I don’t know which cities were named after Pitt before the American Revolution, and which were named after, if any, but there are many of them..

The most famous is Pittsburgh, PA. There’s also a Pittsburgh in CA, which I found rather odd. The city in CA was of course named after the one in PA.

There’s a Pittsfield in Massachusetts, another Pittsfield in New Hampshire, places in several states called Chatham..

Read the article on this historical figure.. interesting..I’ve bookmarked it and will get to it later. I’ve got a bookmark folder for wikipedia articles.. I like that cite very much..

Anyway..

I still don’t know why the name “Bobby Shaftoe” welled up from my subconscious mind. Almost like something that would happen after I’m asleep. I do feel in a bit of a dream state now.. tired but not in a usual way..

And the connection with William Pitt, which I didn’t write about here.. just found the name “Pitt the Elder,” in the Shaftoe article..

And one last name association. “Pitt the Elder” reminds me of the name “Pliny the Elder,” who is some ancient Roman philosopher or ruler.. 23AD-79AD .. wiki sez.. “author, naturalist, natural philosopher” not sure what “natural philosopher means.

There’s also a Pliny the Younger, just as there is a Pitt the Younger. But, Pliny the Younger is the Nephew of Pliny the Elder, but the Pitts were father and son..

It would make more sense if Stephen Hawking mentioned Pliny not Pitt, but I don’t think either were mentioned.. but I’m not going through that first disk of “The Grand Design” again to find out.

So yeah.. Pliny and Pitt both historical figures worth reading about, and Stephen Hawking.. if you want to find your mind in a very strange place check out “The Grand Design,” or his most famous book.. “A Brief History of Time.”

Good luck with all that Hawking stuff. I think I’ll stick with history and leave quantum physics alone.. I hope.

Ok, I’m hungry, still need to take a shower and am getting a headache..

The subconscious is a mystery.. I guess I’ll have to leave it at that.

Very strange..

—————

I wrote the upper part of this post at around 2 am, or something like that.

I got some sleep, and left my bed at 9:30 am.

Just after 10 am, I was listening to an NPR (National Public Radio) interview on the program “Fresh Air.” The woman being interviewed was some kind of high profile restaurant owner.

I was cooking breakfast, so I wasn’t paying all that much attention. I did hear her say that she only went to restaurants a few times when she was a child, and one of the restaurants was..

The William Pitt, in Chatham, New Jersey.

Chatham being another name for William Pitt, also known as Pitt the Elder, who I wrote about in the main part of this post.

And I hear the name this morning on the radio.

Any significance to this? Who knows.. certainly strange.. worth mentioning.

Never thought I’d read that in the news.

I’m neither a Democrat or a Republican. I have no faith in either party.

And generally I find the news too sickening to watch or read.

I was checking my email just now when I saw the story about Obama wanting to keep a tax cut, and the GOP being against it.

Life continues to become more and more absurd.

I don’t think such widespread rioting will occur in the US. There was a large riot in Los Angeles. 1993, I think.

But the riots mostly occurred in black neighborhoods, didn’t spread that much, if at all, into the more ethnically diverse middle class, and there were no riots anywhere else in the country.

Yes, there were riots in the 1960′s.. Kent State, in Ohio, the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the free speech movement in Berkeley, CA. But, even during the incredibly volatile 1960′s the riots didn’t last very long and were not very widespread.

The class struggle riots in Britain that just ended..

I don’t think these types of riots will happen in the US.

Here’s why..

In Britain, it is against the law for anyone other than the military and law enforcement to own firearms. Think about that.

Here in America, just about any law-abiding citizen with no criminal record or history of mental illness can buy guns.

There was looting and burning during the LA riots, but some shop keepers brought out their shotguns, stood on the roofs of their stores, and pointed their guns at the rioters. Even in the mob frenzy of a riot, shotguns get attention. Many shopkeepers saved their stores and their livelihoods because they owned and were not afraid to use firearms.

Riots like those that occurred recently in England and spread to several cities in that country are just not likely to happen here. People will protect themselves.

There is a downside to all this firearm ownership though.

It is slightly possible that American youths could start a riot, and bring guns with them. A band of armed teenagers could do a lot more damage. They’d still be put down buy the rest of us, but it would be a bloodbath. And the rest of us would win.

I don’t think today’s American youth are going to riot, and if they do, I doubt they will bring guns. Frankly, I think American teenagers are far too self-absorbed and lazy and distracted to put down their cell phones and video games and get up from their computers and start rioting.

So I’m not that worried about it.

They drive and drive around and around the lot, risking fender-benders, and irritating themselves more and more..

To get a parking space a few yards closer to the entrance to the gym.

On a day with good weather.

Parking a little closer to the entrance, so they will have to walk a little less far to get to go inside.

And once they are in the gym they will walk or even run on a treadmill for over an hour.

Utter insanity.

Somehow the message got muddled, confused, mistranslated, or just disappeared.

It was always the message that was important, not the messenger.

But we humans, we get things wrong. Throughout time, instead of putting the message into practice, committing it to our hearts, we have instead worshiped the messenger, and the message has faded. Worshiping a messenger is easier than following the message.

Buddha, Christ.. two examples.

Let’s start with Christ. I haven’t studied my bible much in awhile, but I used to read it a lot. Especially the New Testament.

I never once found a quote from Jesus, telling his disciples, or anyone else, to pray to or worship him. In the gospels, it is not Christ but Satan who demanded to be worshiped.

I know that in the beginning of the Gospel of John, it is said that the Word became Flesh. What that means is Christ was the embodiment of the message in human form. But, even so, Christ never instructed anyone to worship or pray to him. Christ taught many things, and when he mentioned worship and prayer, he referred to his father. Christ’s teachings and conduct were the message. That was what was important, not the messenger.

I doubt the real Jesus had planned to be worshiped as God, or have a religion focused on him, the son. Perhaps Christ would have been appalled by how the church evolved, had he known.

Most of the books of the New Testament are epistles – letters written to various emerging church groups, or to people. All the writers of the epistles, especially St. Paul, who wrote most of the letters, got it wrong, I think. The epistles didn’t just focus on the message, they focused on Christ quite a bit too. And so it is today, in modern Christian churches.

Buddha was born 500 years before Christ. Buddha was all about the message too. He was the teacher, and had disciples, but it was what he said and how he acted that was important. Buddha never claimed to be any sort of deity. I don’t think he ever wanted statues made of him, or ever desired to be prayed to. He came to bring a message.

What is the message? At its most basic, the message can be found in all religions.. be kind to others, be kind to yourself, be at peace. In the case of Christianity, love and follow God, in the case of Buddhism, the message was pretty much the same as Christ’s message.. peace, compassion..follow a code of simple morality.

You can find the message in its basic form in other faiths, but the religions of Christianity, and Buddhism – two religions named after the two teachers, have lost some of their intended focus, the focus the teachers had in mind, the message that they taught.

I don’t think Christ or Buddha wanted to form a religion at all, much less a religion focusing on themselves. But, instead of people following the message, the followers formed a religion that was more of a personality cult.

I am not religious, because I don’t like the focus being on any one individual. I feel this isn’t right.

The messenger is not important.

The message is.

..often tend to be at least somewhat nuts?

Check out the backgrounds of so many creative people.. Mozart, van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Miles Davis…

.. Insanity, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide…

Geniuses trying to cope with their various forms of mental instability.

Even in the local arts and music scene where I live.. people tend to be.. kinda weird.

In primitive cultures, those people chosen to be shamans (some of them chosen while they are children) tend to show signs of what most people in the modern world would consider to be some sort of mental illness.

Certain types of behaviour, and seeming to be in a different reality, or several at once.. these sorts of things are what make psychiatrists salivate and quickly reach for their prescription pads.

It’s these same sorts of symptoms that experienced shamans take notice of, and the people who exhibit these symptoms often find themselves becoming apprentice shamans. Even if they don’t exactly want to be apprentice shamans.

It’s a strange thing.. the connection.. being creative.. able to bring forth what was not apparently there before, being able to make magic of one form or another, practicing shamanism or making art.. and having strange mental states and odd behaviour..

I don’t know why this connection exists, but it certainly does.

At least in more primitive shamanic cultures, people with various signs of “mental illness” are treated with respect. People in the modern world who show these same signs tend to be pitied and feared, unless they are very successful at what they do.

But the connection.. that is what I wonder about.. Madness and genius, instability and astonishing creativity or apparently supernatural power (one in the same?).. Why do these things so often go together?

That depends on the shaman, I suppose.

The kinds of shamans most people think of.. medicine men and women who are part of primitive cultures and practice their arts in various primitive ways.. these kinds of shamans tend to ingest various plants and pastes and such that cause powerful hallucinations, trances, dream states.

Does this form of shaman feel an overwhelming sense of awe, ecstasy, being at one with powerful spirits or God?

I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. But always?

Maybe at least some of the time, the shamans just do what they do.. have a vision, say some wise words, drum, chant..

And it might feel to them, at least some of the time, that they are just doing their jobs. They might be going through their rituals, and their minds might be somewhere else, just like people in the modern world whose minds drift off while they are doing their jobs, whatever their jobs are.

Maybe shamans feel anxious or bored, or distracted too. Maybe it isn’t important at all what a shaman feels. What is important is that the work gets done. And maybe the shaman doesn’t have to feel any way at all to get his or her work done.

I was wondering about this a little earlier tonight.

At around dusk, I was smoking a small, crudely made cigar (just tobacco, no weed), and walking around in the large backyard, looking at all the different kinds of trees, watching the doves, examining the pine cones on the grass.. trying to feel peaceful instead of distracted, and commune with nature as best I could.

I then sat down in a chair on the patio and finished another smoke.

While I was smoking, I felt I should play some music to honor the end of the day.

I got out my low whistle, and played it out on the patio. I can play the low whistle in such a way that it sounds sort of like a cross between a Western flute (the kind used in classical music, for example) and a shakuhachi, a primitive Japanese flute.

The low whistle I use is made out of PVC pipe – a tube with 6 holes in it, and a mouthpiece on top of the tube. A very humble instrument, but it has wonderful tone. I have practiced enough to be able to make some moving, primitive-sounding music on it.

I just felt like it was something that would be right to do, that I wanted to do. Honor the ending of the day.

I am not saying I am a shaman, although, perhaps in a way I am, or am trying to be, or on my way to being. What do I mean by this?

If you read the post before this one, you’ll have read a little about Alan Moore, and what he had to say about artists and musicians and so forth..that it is we who are the modern shamans. (Strange that he calls artists and such modern shamans, since the earliest shamans made art and music..)

According to Moore’s definition, I am a shaman, because I write, and make art and music.

When I do these things, I don’t feel powerfully transcendent, or experience overwhelming feelings of .. whatever, nor have I during any practice session, or performance for friends and relatives. Even in times past when I have played at dusk, or outside during the day, I’ve mostly been nervous about what the neighbors might think, or if I’m playing the tune right (if it is a tune someone else has composed, like some Irish Celtic standard), or else my mind has wandered off into a zillion other things.

Sometimes, I don’t feel special. Sometimes, in the midst of my worries and such, I do feel special… like I did tonight.. in a small, quiet way. Sometimes, for a few moments, or way deep down, I feel that I am playing a small but important part in Life.

While I was playing the low whistle tonight, I did feel like I was doing something important, and did feel special about it, but I also was anxious at times, and my mind wandered some. I found myself wondering if shamans feel transcendent, or if their minds wander too. I wondered if sometimes they just make an effort regardless of how they are feeling, because the work needs to be done.

I’ve never met a person most of us would consider to be a shaman, so I’ve never been able to ask this question. Until tonight, I’ve not consciously thought of this question.

Writers, artists, poets, painters, singers, musicians.. people of the arts, who Alan Moore considers to be modern shamans, or shamans of modern times, etc. …

How do we feel?

Some probably do feel transcendent when they practice their art.. some communion with spirits or nature or with the universe. Some feel this way without any chemicals or substances. Others use chemicals or substances to feel this way.

Many of us often just don’t feel that great most of the time when we paint, draw, sing, write, etc. We do what we do because it is what we are good at, and we believe (even if we sometimes don’t feel) that what we do is important.

I wonder if the shamans out there in the jungles, deserts, steppes, and forests feel the same way.