I just listened to the first part of The Dhammapada, the thoughts of Buddha. I downloaded it from LearnOutLoud, which I’m a big, big fan of!

But I don’t think I can bear to listen to the second part. This one finished just in time! I was listening to it while I was preparing dinner, which is the reason I’ve totally fallen in love with audio books (more on that in a minute), but I’m going to put on some music while I eat.

The Dhammapada, what a pile of tosh. Really.

Here is a summary:

Be good, live a life of temperance, learn to master yourself (very close to the previous point—and reminiscent of a recent post on this blog!)… and guess what? You’ll go to heaven, you may even reach Nirvana.

Do evil things, indulge your desires and live hedonistically, and shun any self-reflection… and guess what? You’re a fool! And where do you think you’re going, huh?

Wow! What a fucking revelation!

And, no, it wasn’t even a revelation at the time.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of words to say that—and not much else. And more similies than a room full of freestylers on open-mic night! Sheesh!

It’s all very poetic and apart from the go to Heaven/Hell bit (which I don’t believe in the existence of because I’m a Rational Atheist), I agree with the basic premise.

Repeat: the basic premise.

There is quite of lot of stuff in there that I patently disagree with (like respect the aged just because they’re aged. Bollocks! I’ll afford you my respect regardless of your age until such time as you do something that warrants its withdrawal).

And stuff that’s just laughable, such as [to paraphrase] if you do evil shit, then amongst the list of 10 things that may happen to you is that lightning might strike your house.

So, I repeat, the basic premise, which I summarised earlier (and which I here snip the religiousity from), is fine: don’t do bad shit (coz we all know what that is! We don’t really need to be told that, do we?), demonstrate temperance and restraint (i.e. don’t behave like a beast), and learn to master yourself… and you’re on the right path to a fulfilling life.

There, you don’t need to read it.

But I strongly recommend you get on over to LearnOutLoud and check out their enormous selection of audiobooks.
I used to not be a fan of audiobooks. Well, I should be honest: “not be[ing] a fan” suggests I’d listened to some! More to the point, I thought the idea was a bit silly (being the big reader that I am). I wondered who would possibly want to listen to a book when reading it is clearly much more enjoyable and blah blah blah [insert host of other reasons—some still valid, some not].

Well, I was wrong. I started listening to lectures that they have on there. How’s that different to listening to a lecture on the radio, say? And I found that I was able to do that while preparing dinner. I don’t commute currently, but if I did, I would certainly consider listening on the bus or in the car too.

Then, once I’d become addicted to listening to lectures, I started listening to the audiobooks. These are much more hit and miss. Sometimes the quality is superb, and they are much, much more engrossing than I’d originally thought they would be.

Sometimes, they’re stilted and painful, like listening to the “Coming this summer to a cinema near you!” voice-over dude. (I secretly think there is only ONE guy in the whole world who does those cinema ads. There couldn’t possibly be thousands of men all emulating that voice… could there?)

To your success!

Leslie

P.S. I just know I’ll listen to the second part. That’s just the sort of twat that I am. So stay tuned for my “review” of the second part of The Dhammapada.

Say, my creepy Orwellian computer system (actually, just a simple WordPress plug-in and nothing to worry about. Honest!) is displaying this message automatically because it wants to help you get the latest updates to this somewhat irregular blog delivered to you direct, hot off the press via RSS! Huh? Via...WHAT??? Don't worry, it's just a fancy email thing without the spam. Easy. Painless. Safe. Click here to subscribe via RSS..

Thanks for visiting & I hope you find some good stuff here! Leslie

I was wondering about music today. In particular I was thinking about the sort of music that is characteristic of film scores.

The reason is that there was some music playing on the school broadcast system during lunch today that really did it for me. There was something rousing about it; something stirring. And it made me think of many things, but one thing that was memorable (coz I was just daydreaming these thoughts that I’m now tapping out here) was the memory of a gal I used to date who had no real interest in music.

I found that incredible.!How could you just shrug no matter what kind of music was playing?

She’s the same girl with whom I had the following conversation:

Me: Okay, look, I appreciate that you say you’re not really into beer, but honestly this is one of the most unique and delicious beers I have ever tasted in my many years of beer drinking… you really should try some, y’know…

Her: Okay… [taking a sip… long pause…] Mmm… … … …* indifferent shrug* beer.

And so it was with music too. It’s incredible that she and I dated for so long now that I think about it! Nah, I’m jokin’ She was a good lass and we were a good couple. Just didn’t work out. But it is quite amazing considering how much of a music-nut I am.

I am truly at a loss to explain how music cannot move a person.

Now, okay, maybe there’s some music that does it for her, but hey! I listen to a lot of different types of music (Geez I love that old joke “I like both kindsa music… country AND western!”) and nothing seemed to make any impact.

So back to the music at lunch today. It was that real stirring, heroic action movie type of music where the hero is really being put to the test. And not in a swashbuckling way, either; more like being asked to do the Henry IV thing and march into battle like an heir to the throne, and shed the skin of his lay-about, larrikin youth; to stand up for something he believes in… in the face of overwhelming odds… where failure means not only utter defeat, but sure death.

[Editorial note: I love the way that I can’t even describe this stuff without using the same old tired literary cliches! Ha! (In fact, there’s another right there!) And another thing: How many movies can you think of that use the Henry IV character arc? Okay maybe some people might argue that The Bard ripped it off from The Odyssey, but I think that tale is rather different. He could have stolen it from somewhere else… if you know, please feel free to leave a comment! But seriously, how many movies have that arc? I started getting tired of seeing it at least 10 years ago, but they keep a-comin’!]

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah, this stirring heroic music…

I was wondering how much of it is enculturation, y’know. For example, if we were to take this same piece of music and play it to the proverbial Lost Tribe of Borneo (of which one was actually discovered just a few years ago! How funny is that!), would they have the same reaction? Would they describe the music as “stirring”?

On first thought, I would say “No”. We have been brought up with a gazillion movies which play that kind of music when a certain set of actions (imbued with a particular and limited set of meanings) occur. And after X number of years of this, we just learn to associate this kind of music with certain pictures. For example, I could “see” certain things as I listened to the music today, but I had never heard that piece of music before (I know because I asked later what it was and it turns out it was from one of the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks. I haven’t seen any of those movies (as much as I’d like to, I might add! I have no idea whatsoever why I haven’t done so!).

But then I thought some more about it. It’s quite possible that most (not all) people might respond to that piece with similar feelings—if not the same set of images to accompany them.

Just a thought. Whaddayareckon?

I saw Transformers at the cinema today.

And there was a line in there that made me wonder:

“Freedom is the right of every sentient being”

And I wonder if it is.

Now, I know this movie is not supposed to be a treatise in classical metaphysics and ethics! What got me thinking afterwards is that we all certainly take this premise for granted.

And I don’t agree that it’s valid ipso facto.

Freedom is something you have to win.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to fight for it. It doesn’t even mean (despite the connotation in the verb) that competition is necessary.

But I do mean that it involves conflict.

It came up in the movie because the evil Megatron wants to get his hands on this powerful object that he will use to subjugate the human race and the leader of the goodies (not “The Goodies”!), Optimus Prime is blathering on about how this would be slavery and he is willing to sacrifice himself for the human race–even thought he’s only been on Earth for about 5 minutes.

The question that it poses, however (quite aside from my rather large reservations about the underlying message trumpeted throughout the movie “No sacrifice, no victory”–was the US Secretary of Defence the Executive Producer or something?), is this:

Why is slavery inherently wrong?

And before you get all indignant and lash out with knee-jerk responses about how badly your great-pappy was treated on the cotton fields, think about the damn question for a minute and don’t just be a reactive dick.

It’s fairly easy to argue that forcing someone to do something they don’t want to do is bad. But is this the same as saying slavery is inherently bad?

What if someone is born into slavery or becomes a slave and decides it’s not so bad.

That’s not the same as someone who stays in an abusive relationship, for example. That kind of person has issues of self-worth that outweigh the desire to escape what is obviously a bad situation.

But who says that slavery is necessarily abusive? What if it’s not? What if the slave is perfectly content to be there?

The primary difference (yes, there are other large ones!) from an employee is that the slave can’t just quit his or her job and find a better one. And, granted, this is a significant point in the conundrum I’m pondering (and I’ll come back to it in a minute). But if conditions were such that the slave never wanted to leave, is this example of slavery inherently bad?

I would think… not.

Maybe taken on average, the cases of abusive slave masters and so on, slavery is for the most part bad. I agree.That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking if slavery is bad… just because?

If we agree that every human has the right to Freedom, then slavery is bad. But two questions arise here:

1. Why is this premise automatically valid?

2. What if someone chooses to “trade” their Freedom chips for whatever benefit they see slavery as having, knowing that they can never change their mind? What then? If they realise they were wrong (not the same as being tricked), then wouldn’t we just say “Too bad! That’s a legally binding agreement!” Plenty of movies have been made about these kinds of deals with the Devil and no one thinks that the guy trying to renege on the deal should really be allowed to do so, do we? What was the name of that one with Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro? That was a beauty!

But let’s go back to the issue of not being able to just resign.

Well, that’s a choice too, isn’t it? Okay, not much of a choice when the entire society you live in tells you that if you were to abandon your master you would be hunted down, punished, and returned to him or her; or killed; or that you would have to move a loooooong way away to live like in freedom. This is one heck of an uphill battle.

Still a choice, really, but I’m pragmatic enough to realise not a very valid argument in the face of the reality of the “choice” in most cases.

Anyway, the relevance of this argument to this blog and this site is not that I think we should reintroduce slavery or any other such thing, it’s that we assume we are free. We assume we are born free. And I see this notion as problematic.

Yes, we are born virtually tabla rasa. I say “virtually” because I don’t know how much an unborn child can understand in the womb and there are conflicting opinions ranging from “Zero” to “A lot!” How would I know?

But the point is, we are born with little or no “pre-programming”. We pretty soon get the “existing programming” of our parents copied across to us like a virus passing from your hard-drive to any floppy that gets inserted into the machine. It’s not intentional on the part of the user in many cases. In others it is, such as the religion the parent(s) adhere to (including the absence of religious adherence) and the ethical precepts attached to that religion or philosophy.

And we grow up thinking we have charge over our decisions and all the things we do.

We don’t. Well, we do, of course, that’s my WHOLE point. But not as much as we would like to–and certainly not as much as we think we do!–in many, many cases.

In Robert Cialdini’s superb book Influence, he cites an experiment in which a mother turkey with chicks has a toy polecat wheeled into her presence. She immediately starts to attack the toy polecat in order to protect her chicks. Cialdini refers to the actions of the mother as a “Click! Whir!” reaction. Why? Because it’s an automatic reaction triggered by some stimulus.

Wow. Sworn enemy approaches, mother tries to protect offspring, what a genius. Well hold your horses because the experimenters did something very, very interesting. They recorded the sounds of the chicks “cheep-cheeping” away and then put that on a tape playing inside the toy polecat. They then wheeled in the enemy predator again. Only this time it was “cheep-cheeping”.

Guess what Mommy did? She welcomed it into the brood.

“Click! Whir!”

Now you have to agree, the main point–derived as it is from the second example–is considerably more interesting, huh?

How often do you do that every day? You sentient being with the right to freedom, you?

If you haven’t already gone and checked out The New Psycho-cybernetics, do so now. This will help you to take charge of the things that were programmed into you, things you just accept, things you realise are fucked up but feel you just can’t change… things that curtail your choosing to live your life as freely as you can (and want to) do.

Am I saying it’s a miracle cure? Ah… no.

But what I am saying is that it is a good place to start questioning your belief systems to find out just how much you limit yourself. Yes, that’s right: you limit yourself.

Lots of these ideas may have come from your parents. Or your grandparents. Or your extended family. Or whoever. But if you don’t choose them as your own, then you are living your life according to someone else’s programming! John Bradshaw’s book is also another good place to go on this front.

So think about it, if you believe that you inherently have the right to Freedom just by virtue of your self-awareness (and you probably do, right?), then why allow your life to be subconsciously directed by things that are steering you down roads you don’t want to go down?

Which brings us back to the conflict that I referred to earlier as being integral to truly attaining freedom. It is, in it’s most relevant form for those of us who live in societies where slavery is no longer tolerated (because there are societies in which this still goes on, you know!), overcoming conflict within ourselves.

It’s like Yoda sending the padawan Luke into the cave. On face value, it appears that the “lesson” is that he must ultimately confront and destroy Darth Vader, which he knows to be true.

However, do you remember the twist in that scene?

Luke defeats the Vadar apparition that appears by beheading it with his light-sabre. But when the facemask comes off, whose face does he see?

Why, his own, of course!

The “lesson”, then, isn’t that he has to complete some big feat. He does have to complete some big feat in order to become a hero and do what he believes is right.

But he will never be able to complete such a task if he doesn’t first defeat the things within himself that undermine his very efforts to succeed. The most amazing feat he can achieve is to become Master of himself.

From that, all else follows.

To your success,

Leslie

P.S. On a lighter note: If you’re a bit of a Star Wars nut and you don’t already know about this site, then ireallyrecommend Wookiepedia!

A lot, actually! Now, if you don’t already blog, you may not think right now that you have an interest in blogging.

However, you might just change your mind a little bit down the track and, well, this post could turn out to be quite useful for you.

And if you do currently blog, then hopefully I can offer some tips. If you’re a seasoned vet, then this category will probably not have much of interest.

First up: I’m sorry, but I don’t know about any other blogging platform at this stage other than WordPress. Apologies if you use Moveable Type or Blogger or something else. Hopefully, though, you might be able to pick up some general tips that are applicable to blogging outside of WP.

So, what have I learnt? Let’s see…

1. Make sure you choose a theme that is “widgetized” or “widget-aware”. Or know how to make it so.

Now, what the heck does this mean? It means that without a widget-aware theme, you won’t be able to display any of the cool little things such as those I currently have in the left-hand column. There are hundreds and hundreds of different things you can display there, but if your theme doesn’t recognise widgets, then you’re plum outta luck.

But hang on… I think I need to back up for just a second. Maybe just for a few people. If you’re familiar with at least the basics of blogging, then you needn’t read the next few paragraphs. Pick us up again at point 2!

What is a “theme”? This is the presentation of your blog. When you sign up for a basic account, you get the stock template. There are about a billion themes out there, though, freely available for you to choose from and download as a zip-file to your computer. Google “wordpress themes” and you’ll return hundreds of sites! There are so many looks you can choose from for your blog. It’s amazing!

Then it’s just a matter of going into the c-panel on your hosting account, selecting “File Manager” and navigating to the folder “Themes”. So for example, for my blog, I would go to the File Manager, then to the “ireallyrecommend” folder, then “blog”, then “wordpress”, then “wp-themes”.

Then you click on the “Upload File” icon and find the zip on your hard-drive. Then the page will refresh and you the name of the theme will appear. Click on the name (not the folder icon to the left) and then up in the top-right it will give you the option to “Unzip the file here”. Do that. Then go back to your blog and select “Presentation”. Your new theme should appear on that page. Click it. All done! New look to your blog. Yay!

Now, the widget thing. If your theme is not widget-aware, when you click on the “Widgets” tab (under “Presentation”), it will say something like “Sorry, your theme is not widget-aware. Go here for more advice” and there’ll be a link.

If you’re comfortable with making a small change in the code on one of the files in your theme, read the tutorial at the link they give you and add the four lines of code.

I did so and it still wouldn’t work. When I went back into the file I’d altered, I found that I’d inserted an extra blank line when I did the cut’n'paste job. Clearly php (the programming language) doesn’t like this; once I removed this extra space, I was all widgeted up!

I think there’s a tool out there somewhere that will make your wordpress blog widget-aware in one-click, but I’m not sure what it is off the top of my head. If I find it again, I’ll add the link here. If you happen to know, please add it in the comments. Thanks.

If all of this sounds scary, just make sure you only download themes that are “widget-aware”. They usually say whether they are or not in their description.

Oh, and you can have as many themes uploaded as you like. Then you just click between them to find the one that looks best to you. I found a few that looked nice in the small demo pick, but which I didn’t really like on the full screen version. So download a bunch of likely candidates as you go round looking. I also found that a couple just didn’t work. So it was good that I’d downloaded a handful.

Okay…

2. Go directly to the “Plugins” library at WordPress and get “Pluginstaller”.

This bypasses the need to go into your cpanel and upload zip-files to the “Plugins” folder and then upzip them for every single plug-in! Instead, this one does this for you in two nice easy steps right from your “Plugins” menu in the admin panel of your blog. Nice!

There is a similar plug-in called “One-Click-Install” and it’s easy and smooth, but the only thing I don’t like about it is that it lives in your “Dashboard” whereas “Pluginstaller” lives in your “Plug-ins” menu, making it a bit easier to use.

3. Keep a copy of the original WordPress installation unzipped in a folder on your hard-drive.

A few times I found that plugins caused my blog to crash. Or more to the point, I tried to upload them and install them and there was some sort of corruption that resulted. It only happened a couple of times, but when it did, I went into my cpanel and deleted the folder (and any files it had unzipped in its failed installation) and then tried again. A couple of times this was enough. Other times it appears that the plugin was just knackered and wouldn’t work. So I repeated the delete step and scratched that one altogether.

However, this still left the blog crashed on a couple of occassions! Maybe the faulty install had left some code in files that if all the components were there would mean happy families with all the other files that make up my blog, but without them, nada.

This is where the unzipped original files are needed. You might have to upload a copy of a file to replace a corrupted one. For example, when widgetizing the blog, as I said, I left an extra space in there. Tried changing it, still wouldn’t work. Replaced that file with an original, undiddled-with version then added the code without the space… no problem. *shrug!* I’m not a programmer. I don’t understand why.

4. Keep a copy of all your posts, including the HTML, in a text editor.

When you write a post, there are two tabs above the writing pane: Visual and Code.

When you’re happy with your post and you hit “Publish” see how it looks on the screen, make any edits, etc. Then go back into the “Code” tab and copy the HTML code into a text file.

I have created two folders on my hard-drive inside the “Blog” folder: “Posts” and “Code backup”. In the first, I plan to save all my articles and ideas for posts. In the second, I will copy the HTML for each post.

Why? Because I’ve added links and ads and things to the posts, as you can see, and I don’t want to have to do all that again if I inadvertently make some change that causes my whole blog to go down. I just want to be able to set it up again and cut’n'paste in all the entries. Fingers crossed, huh!

Now, due to the way computers read file names, I’ve started saving the in the following format:

[year] [month] [date] [abbreviated name of post]

This will sort everything nicely and make it easy for me to retrieve anything at a later date. And if end up with a lot of posts, then it’s obvious how this will save me time if I need something. Again, fingers crossed that I will never need to use this folder!

5. RSS Feeds

Hmm… this is not so difficult, but I’ve been tricked a couple of times by this. There are lots of services out there, but the one that appears to be the easiest (and it’s free now that Google has gobbled it up!) is Feedburner.

***Just make sure you write down the link they give you to your own feed or you could be in trouble later!***

The thing I got tricked with here is playing around with the format of pages to find out if I could do x, y & z the way I wanted to with the blog. Of course, I’d subscribed to my own feed in order to make sure it was working, and I noticed a couple of days later that the “Test” post I put onto the blog was immediately included in the feed! This is exactly what should happen, but it clearly didn’t occur to me at the time that the test post would appear in the feed!

So, word of caution: Play around with test posts and posting features and the difference between “posts” and “Pages” and then delete all the “play” before you install your RSS feed! In fact, get everything running the way you want it to and then, last thing, install your RSS feed! Otherwise everything you hit “Publish” on will go into the RSS feed!

6. Text Boxes & Text Boxes for widgets

I kind of stumbled on these. When you drag’n'drop your widgets into your sidebar (i.e the column or columns to the left or right of your blog. On my blog it’s the column to the left), you usually see a little box that appears in the block. So for example, I dropped the BlogRush widget into my sidebar. This is the block that displays posts from other blogs in the same category as mine. What I notice in my “Widgets” sidebar panel is that a little box appears. Now, if I click on this, I can add some text that will appear beneath the widget! I don’t currently have anything there, but it would only take a second to add some text beneath the widget.

What I’d like to be able to do is customize the names of the widgets. At the moment I’m not sure what is what coz they all read “Text Box 1″, “Text Box 2″, etc. I don’t know if this is possible and if it is how to do it. if you know, please be so kind…eh?

At the bottom of the “Widgets” control panel, there is a little drop-down menu asking how many text boxes you’d like. Select the number you want and they will appear in the little tray off unused widgets. Drag and drop one into your sidebar and it will display… nothing! That is, until you click on the little box and add some text! Take a look at my sidebar, you’ll see at the top it has a little plug for Simpleology (which I really, really, really recommend!). This is done with a text box. So are the four beneath the BlogRush widget.

You can drop javascript or HTML in here. (Don’t freak out if you don’t know what that means! Stay with me here!)

That’s how I centred them, for example. And made a link.

Take the iMindMap block. I wanted the logo and then some text and I wanted them to be centred. So, I created a new file under my “blog” folder called “pics” or “logos” or “images” or something like that (let’s call it “logo” for this example coz I can’t remember and it’s not important). Then I FTP-ed the logo (let’s call it “immap.gif”) to that file.

Then, in the text box, I put the following code:

<div align=”center”>
<a href=”http://www.  [this is where the destination URL goes.]  “>
<img src=”   [in our example it would be  http://www.ireallyrecommend.com/blog/logos/immap.gif]    “></a>
<br>
Start seeing the big picture.
</div><br>

And that’s what you can see in my sidebar! The logo is the link. And my comment is below  that. The comment is not a link because it is not within the </a> tag.

Now, if you know any HTML at all, that’s just way too easy. But if you know NONE (as was the case for me just 6 months ago!) and you want the things in your sidebar to sit in the centre, then this is a handy little tip!

(Notice the difference in the spelling, folks! I’m Australian; HTML does not follow British spelling rules. Write “centre” in HTML and you’ll get… nothin!)

But this is where my HTML knowledge kinda dwindles out, I’m afraid. For example, I have no idea how to get the AdSense block to sit in the centre because I didn’t load the code into a widget textbox, I used a plug-in called AdSense Manager. So I don’t know how to control this. I suspect I just have to put the <div> tags in amongst the php but I have no idea where to start, really. For some clever person this will be a cake walk and if that’s you, please leave your expertise in the comments section!

If the above looks like gobbledygook to you, here’s a break down in real English:

<div align=”center”> means: I want everything between here and the little thing that reads </div> to be centred.

<a href=”XYZ”> means: whatever is between here and the little thing that reads </a> will be a link.

<img src=”XYZ”> means the location on your SERVER (not your computer at home!) where a browser can find and retrieve the image. “img src” is short for “image source”.

If you didn’t want an image as your link here, for example, and you wanted some text instead, say “Try iMindMap now!” then you would just put in that text before </a> and that phrase would show up on your page as a hyperlink!

<br> means: line break. It means leave a blank line, please, Mr Browser.

And that’s it! Now you know enough HTML to be able to edit the things in your sidebar text boxes! yay!

7. Almost all widgets/plug-ins/themes are absolutely, totally FREE!

And while this is nice, I obviously have advertising on this blog so if it starts to make me some pocket money (which is all I can think that it will; I mean, I hardly think I’m going to be retiring any time soon from the coin it brings in! , then I will be sure to make a donation to the programmers. Most of them seem to have a PayPal button on their sites. One plug-in I downloaded had the author commenting “I have been very surprised to receive numerous requests as to the whereabouts of my PayPal button… so here it is!” (that’s not a direct quote, btw, despite the quotation marks; that’s my paraphrase marked off in quotation marks for the benefit of punctuation!).

I don’t think these guys and gals expect anything, they just do it for the love of programming. Much like most bloggers blog just because they feel they have something to contribute in a particular area of discussion.

So if this blogging thing actually turns out to be interesting and useful to people and I enjoy doing it and the plug-ins and widgets make my life easier, then I’ll be sure to make a small donation to each plug-in developer. And a larger one to the designer of the theme I’m using (which I absolutely love! Thanks, Mu!)

And I’m sure that there are other things that I’ve forgotten. That’s why I’ve created a new category on the blog. Every worthwhile new thing I learn about blogging, I’ll be sure to keep you updated on.

Really, until just a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t know how to drive a blog at all. I had installed one on another of my sites over summer and played around with changing themes and installing a couple of plug-ins but I didn’t really spend much time with it at all and I didn’t write any posts. I just wanted to know if it actually was as easy as people say it is.

And I have to say that ,on the whole, it is pretty no-brainer. I have to hand it to the folks at WordPress for making it really, really simple. Okay, I know a little bit of HTML and I’m not too worried about “breaking” something if I play around with the code. But I’ve got the good sense, I think, to know what I am able to play around with and what I truly don’t understand and should leave alone. But for most people, blogging really is a reality. I hadn’t not blogged before because I thought it would be too hard, I just wasn’t overly interested in doing so. Lord knows I’ve got plenty to say! As anyone who has shared a few glasses of wine with me will be well aware!

So if you’re fence-sitting, but you’re interested, then I say dive in! Get your own domain (I’ll post on that another time) rather than hosting it with WordPress and then play around with it. See how you go. There is so much information and help available out there for when you get stuck. The forums at WordPress.org are overflowing with tips and answers to questions. (Oh, I didn’t realise at first that WordPress.org and WordPress.com were different, btw. They are! You want to go to www.wordpress.org)

And sign up for my RSS feed to be sure you get the next installment…

To your success!
Leslie

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Hi and thanks for taking a look at The Blog!

This is my first ever blog(!) and I’ve got plenty of ideas for things to write and discuss here, but at the moment not enough time to type them up and post! (In fact, just learning how to drive this thing is quite the ride in itself! )

I expect that this blog will probably turn out to become my irregular ravings about topics of personal development, self-betterment, getting what you want from life, and things of that nature. But we’ll see… who knows what it will evolve into! There are tons of things I come across all the time that I think would help people out and make people’s lives better and I guess that’s the inspiration behind this blog and the main site.

I’d like your input on what you like and don’t like so make sure you comment on the posts, articles, resources, links, etc.

We’ll get rolling here in the not too distant future, I hope. I’ve got several projects on the burner right now and their “release” dates are all starting to coincide due to factors that I hadn’t initially anticipated. Ah well *shrug* What can ya do other than your best, eh?

So, until then, make sure you check out My Most Common Recommendations on the main site www.ireallyrecommend.com. And be sure to read the About post.

Oh! Before I sign off in this inaugural post, one thing does come to mind that’s worth taking a look at. It’s this video I watched recently:

Video: Why we do what we do and how we can do it better

Yes! It’s Tony Robbins! He of the big chin. He of the good looks and charm and voice to die for. He of the raving, pump-it-up, ra-ra, 3-day-long, 5-figure price tag, “Fuck Yeah!”, firewalking sessions.

The man who gets as much invective directed his way as sycophantic gushing.

He’s a “Tedster”, a member of the organisation TED (read their “About” page here to find out where the name comes from).

Once you’ve watched his video (which runs for about 20mins), go and have a look around the site proper; you’ll find a bunch of other stuff worth checking out. And some that you’ll hit “Stop” on before the first three-minute mark has been reached!

But mostly it’s good stuff. Some great.

Actually, there’s another vid you definitely should watch while you’re there:

Video: Secrets of Success in 8 words, 3 minutes

This presentation will knock your socks off! Get ready to take notes. And then think about how you can start tuning your life to enact these 8 words every day.

So yeah… that should kick us off and give you a fairly good idea what this blog—and the main website that it is the companion to—are all about.

To your success!

Leslie