Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas?

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I take a look at my life and realize there's nothin' left

Something, hum, hum, something…

Been spending most their lives, living in the gangsta's paradise

Something, something, something, hum…

Tell me why are we so blind to see

That the ones we hurt are you and me

That’s me trying to sing along to Gangsta’s Paradise the other day while I was watching Dangerous Minds. I couldn’t really remember much of the song – or the movie for that matter. I vaguely remembered it as the story of a tiny little white teacher having to teach a class of streetwise kids from the ‘hood.

What I didn’t remember, was the coolest part of the whole movie – the way she gets the children to be interested in poetry, by using music. I loved the idea of the Dylan/Dylan contest!

So this got me thinking – there are so many songs out there that, if you strip them of the instrumentals they would still totally stand up as poetry.

Let me just clarify – I’m not saying all lyrics can be likened to poetry. Despite how well I like big butts rolls off of the tongue, it’s hardly poetry (even though it actually rhymes!) But there are some really great songs out there that could be considered as serious poetry. In fact, I think there are many songs out there far more beautiful than any poems I’ve ever read.

Here’s one of the favourite bits I came across the other day:

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,

He said to me, "You must not ask for so much."

And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,

She cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

~ Leonard Cohen, Bird on a Wire

But my latest thing hasn’t been so much looking at song lyrics as poetry, but rather plucking one line from songs – one line packed full of meaning that you can take so much from. I’ve found a few good ones, and I’ve decided that I’ll line a wall in my house one day with framed lines from songs.

Like my all time favourites from the Beatles:

All you need is love

Let it be

Take a sad song and make it better

I am the Walrus, goo goo g’joob (Just Kidding)

So far I’ve got:

We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl

Don’t worry be happy

Don’t stop believing

Everybody hurts sometimes

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Nothing Else Matters

Excuse me while I kiss the sky

Hey Joe, what you doing with that gun in your hand

There must be some way out of here

Hello darkness, my old friend

There’s a lot to be said for nowhere

I even found a great one by 2 Pac – Even the genius asks questions.

It will probably look a little something like this

Or this... take a moment to figure it out.

And so I’m just going to keep collecting cool lines from songs to add to my wall one day. Let me know if you think of any.

This is an advertisement:

For any writing that you need done - check out Jo Watson Productions

Don't give so many damns

The less you give a damn, the happier you’ll be.

I came across this saying while randomly trawling the Internet the other day for funny pictures of cats and other entertaining things, and it really struck a chord with me.

But surprisingly, not all that many people agreed with me. So I had to take a second to think about it, and I realised that there could be a lot of different interpretations to this one seemingly simple and innocent phrase. 

“Oh, so if you just go through life not caring about anyone else and doing whatever you want you’ll be happier? Sure, maybe if you’re an insensitive asshole with no conscience.”

Woah there! Just because I liked the saying doesn’t automatically mean I want to hand in my nice card and become a complete douchebag. 

 “Well if you don’t give a damn about anything, that means you have no ambition to become anything better."

And it also doesn’t mean that I want to quit my job and move into my mother’s basement for the rest of my worthless life, simply spending my days walking around being an asshole to people all the time. 

“So does that mean you want to grow old and die alone? Because if you don’t give a damn about anything – how can you ever love someone and be in a successful relationship?”

I definitely don’t want to live in my mother’s basement all alone, except for my 39 cats – who I’m a total asshole to all the time.

So, now that that’s all cleared up. I don’t think that you shouldn’t give a damn about anything. You shouldn’t suddenly stop caring about other people and how your actions affect them. You shouldn’t completely give up on anything you care about.

It just means that you shouldn’t give so many damns all the time.

There is a balance – there are things you should care about, and some things that just aren’t worth caring about so much. So to me, the phrase 'The less you give a damn, the happier you'll be' doesn't necessitate the extreme that not caring about anything at all is the ultimate level of happiness. To me it simply means that if you cut back on your cares a bit, you might be a lot happier. Make sense? It’s kind of like ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’.

Sometimes we just need to have the guts (or maybe the anger) to not care too much – so that we can have the freedom to live life on our own terms.

We just need to know when not to give a damn.

And for me, that’s when something is negatively affecting my life. I’ve decided to not allow negative things in my life to get me down. So instead of obsessing about all the little things in my life that I’m not happy about – I simply let them go. Anything negative is put out of my mind. And it’s true – I do think I’ve been a lot happier because of it. 

Sometimes it’s okay to not give a damn.

Hakuna Matata!

It's a problem free philosophy!

  

ADVERTISEMENT:

So you have some writing that needs to be done? Check out Jo Watson Productions - we can write it for you, whatever it might be.

Good old New Year's Resolutions

 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

So another year ended - and everyone grabbed it as their chance to make a(nother) fresh start and to be a better person (again). We’ve all seen the gym packed to capacity for the first few months (whether we’re the exasperated regulars getting annoyed that our usual routine is getting interrupted, or the noobs trying to become regulars and giving up after a month).

It’s all about New Year’s resolutions right. Because it's the beginning of a new year we feel motivated and inspired, but secretly we all know from the start that they don’t usually make it past March, maybe June if you’re lucky. 

I read a cute anonymous quote about them the other day that I thought was pretty much 100% spot on: “New Year’s resolutions are a bit like babies – they’re fun to make, but extremely difficult to maintain.”

And yet, everyone runs around making commitments to themselves along the lines of:

·               Eating healthier, exercising and losing weight

·               Drink less alcohol, quit smoking or get rid of any other bad habits

·               Save money, get out of debt or invest

·               Get a better job, improve education or read more books

·               Pray more, be closer to God or be more spiritual

Sound familiar?

Thought so.

What got me thinking about this so much is the amount of people who have been asking me what my resolutions are. 

I’ve never really bothered to make any before – but I thought that that was a pretty boring answer, and decided I should try and get myself some.

Since I had never done it before though, I didn’t really know where to start so I went on a search to find some inspiration. I quite liked this one: 

Then I found this little website – a really cool New Year’s Resolution Generator.

And this is what it gave me –

This year I will (apparently):

Make a short film (Oh sure, I’ll just whip one up on my cellphone quickly.)

Participate (Uhm… in what exactly? I’m fairly adventurous, but we all have our limits…)

Throw a party (Who needs a resolution to do this one?)

Be serious (Okay… *sniggers* wait, wait. Give me a second *sniggers* to pull a straight face)

Say hi to a stranger (I’ve already done that to all the ‘strangers’ that showed up on my usual jogging route)

Improve (What’s with all these weird, vague resolutions? Oh wait, I get it. The more vague it is, the easier it is to stick to!)

Get married (Woah there Mr Generator man. I’m not ready for any kind of shotgun wedding!)

Take a nap (This one should be *yawns*easy enou... Zzzzzzz)

Learn to say hello in 5 languages (Ooh! I like this one. *Googles* 1. Turkish – merhaba 2. Swedish – Hallå (Holla? Swedish people are gangster) 3. Swahili – hujambo 4. Polish – cześć 5. Irish – dia duit)

Be me. (Ooooh. I can do this one!)

That last one is where I decided to stop – and that was the one that I chose as my official New Year’s resolution – because it’s nice and vague, so it’ll be easier to convince myself that I stuck to it – I just tweaked it a little. Instead, I made it – be more of the person that I want to be. (That’s even more vague) Yay!

 

ADVERTISEMENT

 

For any writing that you need done - check out Jo Watson Productions.

We provide full writing services - brochures, articles, SEO, website copy, TV and radio scripts - you name it!