What is this thing called love?

I have been thinking about things I have written in my books and at the moment I am very drawn to something I wrote in my Positive Thinking, Positive Action book. In that book I wrote about stability and risk zones and in particular that many of us who take risks in life need some aspect of our life that is very stable. I have been thinking about this a lot this evening (Monday 26/2) and why many who have serial affairs are also very tied to their domestic conformity because it gives a framework around which to live. In other words we can only take risks when we know that there is a stability zone to go back to if things go wrong - it is safe to take a risk because there is always something stable at base. In fact the paradox may be that those who practice serial infidelity may attach more psychological nourishment to their stable (married or not) relationship than the wholly faithful partner. Of course, the apparently faithful partner may be a tearaway too but has learned to keep a secret!

As I think about this I realise that I am targeting my comments very personally. And I wonder who, among those who read this, imagine that it is targeted at them? That matters less than the person I am thinking of who maybe needs to take a risk because the stability is stifling them. Who are you?

I have had a huge pile of random thoughts over the last few weeks which I always record in a notebook , and I will drop them all here – for future reference:

‘Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin it, and the work will be completed’. John Anster 1835 translation from Goethe’s ‘Faust’

Being more than a ‘never’ person.

Out of the box…but within the box’s container

Loveland (float on).

If I was a jazz musician I would want to be called Ecclestone Wainwright the Third.

‘What we call luck, what we call chance, is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. If you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready." Will Smith

The thought that everyone is having more sex than we are is what gives many people all the purpose they think they need in life. Life becomes a big catch up job after the age of 40. I am fast believing that this is the most sexually active of all age groups. It’s just that at that age we have learnt not to tell to tell everyone about it. Remember John Betjeman at 90 – ‘Any regrets John?’. ‘Yes, I wish I had had more sex’. 40 is the new 90…

No regrets, no tears goodbye…death terrifies the person who has a guilty conscience about his life - someone who has not lived the fullness of it and its possibilities.

Do you have opinions or are you a prisoner of your opinions?

Would the internet have survived without pornography? And why did the number of women accessing pornography on the internet grow by 40% last year? By 2010 women will have caught up with men.

Number of women I know who admit to watching pornography = 1. Number of men I know = Almost all of them.

Why does MS Word not recognize google in its spellchecker?

Advert in The Times quoted in Frankl’s ‘Doctor and the Soul’ – ‘Unemployed. Brilliant mind offers its services completely free. The survival of the body must be provided for by adequate salary’.

Jealousy is an emotion of possession, not of love. (Frankl as well – both noted on the tarmac while refueling at Ankara airport – a good use of ‘dead’ time).

I want to re-read Douglas Coupland’s ‘Microserfs’ and ‘Generation X’’ but I have lent it to the person who is currently having an affair with... The person doesn’t know I know. And the three dots doesn’t know I know.

‘Learnt a new word today – ‘Interiority’. It means being inside someone’s head’. Coupland.

The whole town is laughing at me.

Sexual love transcends everything. Those who love truly do not feel jealousy. Their concern is for the happiness of the other person.

I think of those who are bursting with the desire for love and are totally loveable but whose easy loveability makes them perversely unattractive in the long term to so many – Deborah?

Barry White. Teddy Pendergrass. Eugene Record.

Places I want to work in this year – Baku, Almaty, Sarajevo, Paris (UNESCO) – Jenny can you help?

And Haiti – Judith, too late?

Number of books I want to write this year – 3: ‘The Idea’, ‘The intrapraneur’, ‘Playing at work’.

Phrases I dislike – ‘it’s a no-brainer’. It is for you because you are not using your brain.

Pull the strings and I’ll wink at you. I’m your puppet.

Make peace with the taxman.

Work with Mark Brown?

I hate airports late on Friday evenings.
I love airports on Monday mornings.

And I cannot wait for Mediterranean summer.