Validation

"The primary joy of life is acceptance, approval, the sense of appreciation and companionship of our human comrades. Many men do not understand that the need for fellowship is really as deep as the need for food, and so they go through life accepting many substitutes for genuine, warm, simple relatedness. "

Joshua Loth Liebman

Mind State - DEC 2010

photo by John Morgan

I've finally gotten around to a new look for the blog. At first I was just trying to come up with a new idea for a banner (for months). I thought the previous banner was starting to look bland. It was pale and flat and I wouldn't want that to turn away visitors without gaining the interest of potential readers. I came up with the concept for the background and everything else flowed relatively easy.

The new banner is used to emphasize two of the main elements of the blog, music and photography. Sticking to the leak theme, The Mind Leakings title drips to water into the background. The concept behind the water in the background is that it is the collected leaks(posts) filling the blog, causing water to rise. The number of posts on the main page have also been reduced which should mean less loading for you readers when you visit.

There have been a few more additions to the blog which readers may have already noticed.

• Twitter updates "Live Mind Leak" are now on the side. For those tweeps who for some reason would like to know what's on my mind more often.
• Popular posts for the past week are now displayed on the side.
• Linkwithin widget added, recommending older posts newer readers may not have seen.
• Disqus commenting added. This allows you to connect more types of accounts for commenting including facebook and Twitter, if you aren't already logged into Disqus that is.
• Addthis sharing is enabled for sharing to nearly any platform you'd want to, which you should.
• The simple facebook "like" button was added to each post.

I haven't been consistently posting twice weekly like I wanted to but I still try to keep a good flow of content monthly. Just in case you didn't notice the last time I posted, I posted two related posts: Wise Men Said... and Wise Men Reworded. Check them out if you haven't already.

Mind Leakings was nominated for best personal blog in the Jamaica Blog Awards and voting is underway. If you like this blog, go ahead and vote for it, which you can do once a day. If you do like this blog, thank you! If you read it with any degree of regularity thank you VERY much. I appreciate you spending the time on my ramblings.

For those who celebrate it, Merry Christmas, to everyone else, happy holidays!

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and a happy new year when it comes!

Wise Men Reworded

photo by Kenny Louie

Many people do live by the words of others. However, words are and always will be simply that: words. They can be interpreted, misinterpreted and reinterpreted. These words can be rewritten by those who want to pave a new path, building on the foundations of the wise before them.

Wise Men Said...

photo by Susan Corpuz

Wise men say wise words that will be recounted endlessly. One can often live by one mans words, a single thing that one person said to illustrate his own thoughts or experiences. Just a few short words can affect one person profoundly. It may be a simple, beautiful or witty metaphor or something that helps you define your beliefs.

Trapped with Myself

photo by Ludovic Bertron

"The most dramatic conflicts are perhaps, those that take place not between men but between a man and himself -- where the arena of conflict is a solitary mind."

Clark Moustakas

Soundtrack to My Life

photo by Simon Hua

"Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets."

Oscar Wilde

JMLS: Who Says You Can't Have an Interlude

"It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hamdulillah

JMLS Part 3: Finding Repairs for a Broken Heart

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."
C.S. Lewis



Finding Another You

photo by Andreas Levers

Lens and Waves | Blog Action Day 2010

DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.

JMLS Part 2: Escaping the Flames of War

photo by Chris OBrien

"Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods. "

W. H. Auden

Double Deuce

photo by the_tahoe_guy

"I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent."

Wendy Cope

JMLS Part 1: Stone Cold Heart to Rocky Start

Photo by Nattu

"It takes a lot of experience of life to see why some relationships last and others do not. But we do not have to wait for a crisis to get an idea of the future of a particular relationship. Our behavior in every little incidents tells us a great deal."

Eknath Easwaran

JMLS - Prelude

photo by Alan Cleaver

"They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for."

Allan K. Chalmers

Violent Dreams

Nightmare by ~TheDemonInside

"I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind."

Emily Bronte

Sticking with the Stones

I've recently come across a series of collaborations between artists Angus and Julia Stone and Australian filmmaker Kiku Ohe. The result of this collaboration is a set of beautiful videos for beautiful songs. They each play with light nicely,  tell a story in their own way and have an earthy tone which I always love.

Big Jet Plane is a video about a small town girl dreaming of flying away from her mundane situation as she works her lonely shift in a store. A simple but nicely executed concept. The song however seems to be about the singer promising an escape to someone... or the song could mean something else altogether ;).

Dragon's Halitus

Heart On Fire by ~HeyItsMeDom

"Nothing splendid was ever created in cold blood. Heat is required to forge anything. Every great accomplishment is the story of a flaming heart."
Arnold Glasgow

Know What You're Fighting For

"In the absence of love, there is nothing worth fighting for."
Elijah Wood

A Few Choice Ones

"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for."

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Falling Skies

perseid meteor by ~erikschorr on deviantART

“I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps "Oh look at that!" Then- whoosh, and I'm gone...and they'll never see anything like it ever again... and they won't be able to forget me- ever.”
Jim Morrison

Magic Lost

Levitating by ~Kwinti on deviantART

"Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained"
Joseph Roux

Nowhere Fast

And I wait by ~kshitiz on deviantART

"Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination."

Fitzhugh Dodson

Mind State

The Crown Of My Passions by ~kn00x on deviantART

I'll be using these "Mind State" posts to update readers on the status of the blog itself. I'll use it to explain blog themes, design choices and plans for the blog in general.

Trash vs Treasure

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."

Hal Borland

Music Sounds Better With Your Eyes Closed

Music by ~DrBunsenHoneydew on deviantART

"Music is the mediator between spiritual and sensual life"

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Boxes

Our Differences by ~leAlmighty on deviantART

"Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it."

Max Frisch

Choices of Fate

7 by *bozphor on deviantART

"There is no fate that plans men's lives. Whatever comes to us, good or bad, is usually the result of our own action or lack of action."

Herbert N. Casson

Stray Mind

Scott Pilgrim books 1- 5 by ~Notaku on deviantART




"There is always some frivolity in excellent minds; they have wings to rise, but also stray."

Joseph Joubert

Sensational Burning

Bridges To Burn by ~GSDpuppypaws on deviantART

"The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn"

David Russel

Counting Blessings

Heaven's Blessings by ~LeverDeLaLune on deviantART

"Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence." 

Og Mandino

Funerals

photo by wintersoul1

"Let death be daily before your eyes, and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything."

Epictetus

Rainy Days

photo by Mike Bitzenhofer

"God made rainy days so that gardeners could get the housework done"

Anon

The Beginning

photo by Aristocrats-hat

beginning noun (the event consisting of the start of something)

mind noun (that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason)

leak verb (have an opening that allows light or substances to enter or go out)

mind leakings blog (an escape for my thoughts and feelings)

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"The great thing is the start -- to see an opportunity for service, and to start doing it, even though in the beginning you serve but a single customer -- and him for nothing."

Robert Collier

it begins