‘Rock n’ Reel’ magazine reviews ‘Dangerous Loving’ – 4 stars!

”Smoke-fuelled and chameleon-like, tortured and released, Faye Patton exudes forgotten Jazz. Articulating and punctuating her vocal authority with her independent piano playing, this is a supreme effort of both freeform and choreographed musicianship. Definitely in the jazz pigeonhole, there are elements of highbrow funk in ‘Ripped and Torn’, boogie woogie musical theatre throughout ‘Susan Says’ and lounge blues with ‘A Game’; and more in between.

The beauty with these overlapping and contrasting styles is that there is no great leap from one track to the next and she makes herself an effective gatekeeper to the concept of the album as a whole. With flute, cello, trumpet and even flugelhorn joining the tales of lost love and, well, more lost love, the songs manage to stay intimate and retain the emphasis on her boundless vocal.” (Gareth Hayes – Rock n’ Reel magazine May 2012)

 

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Survival Tips

Here’s the guest blog piece I wrote in 2014 for London Jazz News as part of their Womens’ Day feature. I think it bears repeating, as it’s all true today and I like to refer to it regularly. Hope you find it useful – enjoy!

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– If you want to survive in music, you have to totally accept that time, (like money) is an illusion. Aim for longevity and consistency and repetition. Never go away, never give up. Think big, whilst attending to the everyday details of what needs doing each day to advance the goal. Trust that people will start to recognise your name.

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– Cultivate solidarity with female projects and initiatives, and mentoring networks. Accept and enjoy professional solidarity from both guys and women.

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– Be aware of reputation. Cultivate it consciously. Your actions are powerful. If you hire musicians, treat them well, speak of others well, be aware that you function as part of a community and that your actions and words reflect upon you. Cultivate connection and right relationships. We draw that which is like, unto ourselves. I have tried and trusted personnel that I work with over and over again. Band members, mentors, engineers, venue managers – we stand the test of time. Build and keep a team of extended and expanding professional family and keep it tight and good-natured. Pay debts, get paid. Work clean.

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– With so much emphasis on social media and internet marketing and promotion and the onus upon the individual artist like never before, we are living on the edge of a business paradigm that changes daily. There is an option (even subtle obligation) to be available 24 hours a day via social media. On top of this you have to practice and rehearse your actual music. It’s brutal. Periodically, allow yourself your regular descent into the underworld. You are an animal, not a machine. Avoid burn-out by getting outside and away from computers as often as possible.

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– Be aware and sceptical about the current plethora of  business advice out there, some of it New Age/Law of Attraction in tone. Much of it is common sense and true but think twice before paying through the nose for it. It may be stuff that you could have worked out yourself. Skim it, apply the principles but stay grounded, stay independent and focus on the content of what you do. ‘Advertising speak’ can be confusing. When people talk about ‘branding’ it just means be clear and consistent in what you are selling and where customers can find it.

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– Successful people tend to have huge ups and downs and have no fear of taking risks. They know that the tools required to survive both poverty and riches are the same. Stay cool, hang on to your hat – know that it’s an illusion and could change at any minute, so be alert, be curious, stay in the arena and get ready to have fun!

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Jazz is Life. NEW YEARS EVE 2018 …

 

A quiet NYE. Connecting with self and others. Lighting a candle. Breathing and reaching – out and in. In 2018, I resolve to be conscious of the work/life/play boundaries and to push forth but take good care of myself as well as others. To be happy and curious – to know when to take things fast or slow. To have good discernment regarding rhythm, pace, company and solo space. Both onstage and off. Whilst loving my city life I have a long-term dream to build a tree house and live in it. Yes, really.

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Here’s some reasons why I am so excited to play at Toulouse Lautrec this January 20th. It’s 10 mins walk away from my house. Wonderful! It has 3 floors and 2 (white!) pianos  – for some reason I find this totally charming. Wooden floors and banisters – a winner, acoustically speaking. Great stage decor with midnight blue background curtain decorated with stars. Cool, affable and reliable management who really do their bit in terms of marketing, promo and communication – don’t you love this in-house flyer? And they know and love jazz, (especially new music) and jazz musicians. And they have a classy French themed food and vibe. I’m starting as I mean to go on! Let’s dream big in 2018

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! Click HERE to book: http://tlvenue.live/patton

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Click HERE to read my recent interview with jazz author Debbie Burke

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Another New Year …

A massive thanks to all the forces that somehow kept me going in 2017 through ups and downs, feasts and famines. Still getting used to yet another re-location within this great city – but feeling more at home. It’s been a very busy year, what with joining, (and training hard with) a new LGBT martial arts club and at one point also going to three sets of dance classes – Vogue, Hip Hop and Kpop (at my age, can you believe it …) – I guess the theme has been movement and pushing to new limits of endurance and self-discipline. The ongoing aim of the Mexican Toltec shamanic practices that I also study, has been to evoke the hummingbird energy. The ability to do the impossible. To expand and keep on pushing through – with joy and curiosity.

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 Not surprisingly, like many other artists in this current climate, I’m also involved to a degree in grassroots politics and civil rights issues, mostly LGBT and anti-racist, which feels like a priority, though the work I really admire and wish for the courage to engage with, is environmental and ecological work. ”Taking it to the street” seems non-optional with so much at stake these days. My best thing ever of 2016/17 was being able to stick up for a refugee friend in court and help win her case – and her right to life. Few personal successes this year came close to the immense honour of being part of such a meaningful process. Talk about getting things in perspective.

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The year rolled on with regular gigs at my usual haunt – Camdens (multi-award winning) Green Note  and a wonderfully rock ‘n’ roll week in  August performing at Manchesters prestigious ‘Rebellion’ nightclub with the ‘Shit Lesbian Disco’ crew. Who are neither shit, nor a disco. They are an all-female and lesbian musical collective, (DJs, tech crew, session musicians) of truly awesome industry credentials. Great mates and connections to have made. September was lean and mean as is often the way, then the season changed again, with prodigious songwriting and guitar playing, university teaching, private students, gigs and enormous worries about the UKs ongoing cock-up with Europe. Not to mention our future with the USA. And finally, the shocking, wasteful Christmas suicide of one of my favourite Korean musicians. The gifted fall, filled with doubt and self-loathing, whilst those who only destroy, wake up feeling great about themselves.

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The world is shaking up. The years don’t get easier. Nor does the music industry. I worry about the march of tech, ‘smart’ devices that require our stupidity and passivity and the lack of discernment between organic and artificial realities. In all my activities, I work steadily to strengthen the muscle of courage, which like all muscles, improves with use. I believe in understanding beyond borders, love and friendship, spirit and soul, intellect and art, self-education and reliance and music above all. Everyday. No matter what. To those sensitive ones out there, who create and live beauty but never think it’s enough, please don’t commit suicide. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes it’s alright to have a break or even a break down. All things change eventually. Let’s remember Bruce Lees example and try to ‘walk on’ and see something new.

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Click HERE to read my recent interview with jazz author Debbie Burke

She writes a fantastic jazz blog and is the author of ”Glissando, a Story of Love, Lust and Jazz” – to be published in July 2018.

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 If you are in London (or even if not) come and see me and my talented band members – billed as the FAYE PATTON QUARTET – at  jazz club Toulouse Lautrec, Sat Jan 20th. Click here to book.

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 I’ll also be playing Camdens Green Note, (as a duo, myself plus drummer) on Sun Feb 11th. Click here to book.

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 Happy New Year and bring on 2018!

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Cry Me A River …

 

 

“Tears are a river that takes you somewhere … Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace better.”

 

The above quote is from Clarissa Pinkola Estes ground breaking book – ‘Women Who Run with The Wolves’. In this work, about the power of story, dream and myth, she also describes tears as being what makes – literally manufactures as though it were a substance – that mysterious thing we call, soul.

 

What follows is no scientific treatise on grief, gender, tears or emotions. Tears defy science, logic and explanation.

 

Crying is such a powerful experience and social significant act, it’s hard to really describe. In some cultures and situations, to cry is a sign of extreme weakness and will be punished. Elsewhere, it’s not just expected, it’s required. The legitimacy of tears depending on gender roles and expectations is also a minefield of different meaning, with different rewards and punishments. Crying goes in and out of fashion – seen as both soft and strong. As a man, do you repress tears because you were told that boys don’t cry? Women do you repress them too ? We are also shamed and attacked if we cry, especially if we do it in the workplace. Our crying is seen as not ‘real’ but something manipulative, ‘turning on the waterworks’ for sympathy and worst of all, ‘proof’ that we are weak. These days, male crying is increasingly seen as something attractive – a sign of modernity, vulnerability and metrosexuality. Again, there are huge cultural variables. In North Korea, people are conditioned to cry, in ecstasy or grief depending on the fortunes of their great leader – and there are penalties for not crying on cue. And in the South, male Kpop idols breaking down in sobs at the end of their gig is absolutely de rigueur.

 

So go ahead, cry. When’s the last time you did? Are you someone who prides themselves on not? Can you no longer – or are circumstances such that it’s all you can do? How many songs have crying as a subject? What’s your crying style? Do you weep, wail, bawl, sob, boo and hoo or are you more of a silent tear rolling down a stoically stony face kind of crier? Are you a secret crier or a public one? Do you feel empowered or weakened if others see you cry? What’s the evolutionary function of tears? How do we navigate the connection between social shame or stigma and crying?

 

That moment when we know, suddenly and unexpectedly, that we are going to cry – especially if others are present, has a frisson of danger, of taboo intimacy to it.  It represents a surrender, a small death of illusion and of control. Like vomiting, or falling in love – there is a moment of no return. And in those moments we are as honest as we ever can be. No hiding. No pretending. Feelings don’t lie, they simply are.

 

The last time I cried was on my own this Saturday, in Ronnie Scotts, listening to bass player and singer, (and pianist and producer/band leader) Richard Bona. He settled into a chord progression that hit my heart and made me bury my face in my hands and practically choke. it was a moment for me alone. I can’t explain why or what it was about. Just the sheer beauty and intensely high quality vibration, I suppose. I know that I felt better for it. And soon I was laughing too. I have had parents in my music for babies and toddlers classes literally weep when I sing ‘Puff The Magic Dragon.’ Which is definitely a mystery to me! It seems that some melodies or frequencies just set us off.

 

Go ahead and cry if you want to – and cry for those that can’t. It’s natural and normal. You might just add years to your life.

 

Some fun things:

 

Sam Taylor Johnsons famous weeping men photos

 

Only in Japan: Rent a hot guy to make you cry then wipe your tears away

More handsome weeping boys of Japan. 

 

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Covers vs Originals … ?

Many of us start life as creative, professional musicians with an absolute aversion to playing anyone elses music ever at all. No way! We want to tell our own stories and have something original and unique to say that no-one else has. For others, it’s the opposite – not everyone is a natural at songwriting and composing and there is a fine career to be had just playing and interpreting what’s already been written.

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I prioritise my own material 95% – confident to call myself in general terms a ‘jazz musician’ as the idiomatic jazz references in my work are unmistakable. Over the years I’ve found an increasingly interesting (and sometimes rocky) relationship between covers and original music and getting known for doing both.

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Here’s my Top Ten (and somewhat random) Tips and crazy notions to navigate and have fun with the covers/originals balance.

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1. Never forget that what lies in your own brain, imagination and invention is your gift to the world. You have a duty to bring it forth. Original art is everything. You’ll know if you have something to say with your songs as they will write you – you won’t have a choice. Never block the flow, you will make yourself ill if you do. Trust that you have something to say and get out of the way of creation speaking through you!

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2. As a child, I was told off, (in a grudgingly admiring way) by my piano tutor for using our lessons to show her my own compositions. She wanted me to focus on the Purcell (yuk …) and Mozart (yawn …) that we had to study. In her head, this was clearly the concert pianist path. I was more interested in making up my own chord sequences, although I felt guilty for including a hooky progression from a current TV show.

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3.  It was at this point that she was more helpful and told me not to worry about little steals and derivations and that the famous composers quoted from each other all the time – both deliberately and unconsciously.

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4. One huge and obvious advantage of sticking to your own work is that the royalties and rights are yours. No need to negotiate or buy access or clear it with anyone before you record. If original work is your default process then you find yourself wanting to record a cover and then sell the resulting album, it can feel (and is) somewhat more complicated.

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5. An advantage of doing covers is that (for me) there is a blissful and much needed buffer zone of objectivity. What a relief to leave my own stories behind and put something less risky on the line! If the audience rejects it, (either the storyline or the melody) it’s so much less personal.

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6. Approaching and arranging  great popular standards can and will make you a better player and composer for your own stuff. Tackle John Coltranes ‘Giant Steps’ just for fun – it’s such a good theory lesson and can be treated and redone in endless ways. (A repertoire of classic covers also serves as ready teaching material.) Program your set so that you hit a new audience with 4 originals, then a really popular standard that shows off your skills but continues the theme. Like dominos, make sure they’re connected by something – subject matter/mood/tempo/key. If you can get your original songs mistaken for classics then this is a good thing and means you’re writing the standards of the future! I had a (not very pleasant but certainly interesting) post gig scenario once at the Isle of Wight jazz festival. A well known festival director accused me of plagiarising my own songs. He was drunk and out of order and quite aggressive. Horrible – but it was proof that my songs are strong!

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7. Unless the fee is really good, (weddings!) only choose covers that you genuinely love and will stand the test of time and endless repetition as part of your set. Be steadfast in refusing requests (to perform/arrange/prepare/record/deliver) popular songs that you honestly don’t like – it will erode your soul.

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8. Check out other musicians who’ve covered songs maybe more or less successfully than the original songwriter. What makes a great song? One that can be endlessly reinterpreted or one that is untouchable? I fell in love with Carmen McCraes version of ‘New York State of Mind’, then Oleta Adams version – long before I realised that Billy Joel wrote it. It’s a truly solid song, great melody, feel, structure and storytelling. Removed enough from the author that it can live an independent life. In my own set, I include a few K pop songs – which have been translated (into Japanese) for the (huge) Japanese market. One of these, ‘Juliette’ started off as ‘Deal With It’ released by ‘High School Musical’ singer, Corbin Bleu. Then K pop giants Seoul Media bought the rights and transformed it utterly for their top boy band ShinEE – but kept the melody and structure. (Geeks and enthusiasts, listen to the original HERE. The Korean cover/transformation HERE and the Japanese translation HERE.)

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9. Choose wisely – though if you fall on your face, that’s half the fun. I refuse to do Joni Mitchell covers, despite being asked. To ‘superfans’, she is an immortal (rightly so!) and only Joni can do Joni. Likewise Prince – if you attempt it, better do it right! When choosing a cover, have fun taking it as far away from its original incarnation as you can. Mess with the tempo and instrumentation. Strip everything back to the song. See if you can take an industrial metal number and redo it for acoustic jazz guitar. Check out Amy Winehouses version of The Beatles ‘All My Loving’ – which in my opinion is better than the original.

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10. In these days of social media and Youtube – well placed (and non copyright infringing) cover versions and treatments of other artists songs can really work in your favour by drawing fans into your world, your website, your mailing list. The next generation of music lovers is always growing up in waves, discovering the great artists for the first time – they may be led to your version first – or next – through search engines, key words and hash tags.

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No one has covered my work to my knowledge. How would I feel … I think I would hate it! I want to be the unique legend that non-one else can do! (But one day I guess it might happen.)

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Here’s a clip of me singing ‘Feeling Good’ (Leslie Bricusse/Anthony Newly) in Trafalgar Square, with my own pre-recorded piano arrangement. (I like this song so much, I later did a different version for guitar.)

Lastly, find out what you need to know to protect your work (copyright – there’s more than one way to do it) and tread respectfully and honestly around others. If your songs are out there, live, recorded or online – there are multiple royalty avenues that you can and should access. Be clear (onstage and everywhere else) about the intellectual ownership of your own work and seek advice before recording others.

 

Resources:

 

Musicians Union – Benefits, protection, legal advice, community.

 

BASCA – British Academy of Songwriters, composers and authors.

 

Performing Rights Society – Music copyright, royalties and licensing.

 

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Collaborate! Er…or not? …

 

”If you want to travel fast, go alone. If you want to travel far, go together.”

(Generic truism attributed to just about everyone from Al Gore to Richard Branson. Likely to crop up in entrepreneurial self-help or business speak – oft quoted as traditional African folklore. But … is it true?)

 

I was inspired to think and write a bit about this when reading a random tweet from a jazz enthusiast. She said she sometimes felt tired of seeing musicians cropping up in each others bands all the time and felt the sound and vibe would be too samey and predictable. I thought about times in my life when collaborating felt like the right path and when it didn’t. I think both ways – solo artist and team member on others projects are great and necessary – at different times.

 

Here’s 5 advantages of each. Thoughts that might be of use to beginners and learners, (read it here my Middlesex students, since you never show up to class!) and seasoned (even jaded) semi or full professionals.

 

COLLABORATION PROS – Music is life, is communication. The more we live, breathe and play music, it becomes one more way of being. It should be as natural as breathing and creative projects should feel as organic as any other conversation. Our fellow musicians are closer than family and what we do is in some ways more intimate than partners. Even if we ARE partners. Creating art and community together, is pure strength and joy. It’s about the ‘we’ not just the ‘I’ and everyone benefits.

 

1. Do something as a team and your other members get to shoulder some of the work. Putting on a night with a group of co-promoters? You can get to delegate roles and responsibilities and portion out tasks according to genuine areas of strength and enthusiasm.

2. In these days of pressure to get bums on seats, a shared project means a shared demographic and shared crowd. In this way you can bring in a lot of audience through the door and hopefully keep them via a shared mailing list/data base. Funders seem to like group projects and collectives. And since funding applications are such hard work – a team environment can really help. You can pool your all your skills, labour and industry contacts and move forward as a whole.

3. Doing things together is fun – less loneliness, more camaraderie, shared anecdotes and laughter. Including when things are going wrong or getting discouraging or where an extra viewpoint is needed. Writing songs together is joyful and playful and sharing dreams and ambitions for the future is energising. Approaching the industry together lessens some of the pressure provides a buffer – especially when the doors are slamming.

4.  If you put in the hours, pay your dues and earn your keep as a session player or singer in other peoples bands, choirs, recordings or gigs, you will certainly improve. Nothing like instrumental session playing to get your chops (and your reputation) to the next level. Also it’s worth being that indispensably reliable person in someones teaching deputy Rolodex.

5. Ever notice how playing other peoples music has that emotional distance that can be liberating? It’s the vulnerability of someone elses story and history on the line. All you have to do is enhance it and get the notes right. The session player can often appreciate something new and fresh that the songwriter can’t hear. Plus doing something for someone else (for wages or not) often behooves us to work in a way that it’s harder to do for ourselves.

And ….

 

COLLABORATION CONS – I’m a bandleader. I don’t share power easily and I get uncomfortable when someone mentions ‘co-creating’ or ‘community’. I don’t welcome suggestions or feedback on my songs. I can’t help the lone wolf tendency. I have a need for and a simultaneous fear of artistic intimacy. I don’t delegate well. I like defined roles. I’ll follow, (playing/composing/arranging – for a fee) or I’ll lead. Lead the band, write the songs, book the gigs, promote the gigs, pay my players, liaise with venues/media/competitions/festivals and deal with the endless run arounds and rejections. In return for shouldering those responsibilities, it’s my name on the poster and me who owns the copyright.

 

 

1. Writing music ‘together’ can tie you together more surely than marriage and for longer, if a dispute occurs. Personally I avoid it. It’s my song or it’s your song. I don’t share. It can get too delicate with copyright and royalty issues.

2. Time is a factor. Just as it’s a good thing to want to do your best contributing to someone elses event – imagine if you put that great, selfless, unconditional energy into your own work and creativity. Food for thought. When is it going to be time for you? Especially if the group project starts to gain momentum. You could be tied up for a while. Which is the whole point, but don’t get spread too thin with conflicting interests.

3. Some people are just loners. We emerge and submerge and re-emerge but do most of our creative work privately. If you’re the kind of artist who doesn’t like to share the process or keeps things secret until they’re finished – group collaborations can feel weird and forming collectives can feel too much like commitment.

4. Even in an ideal world, it’s hard to get reciprocity and know that your fellow collaborators are truly as reliable as you. Is their definition of hard work the same as yours? Is their concept of an ‘early start’ or a ‘thorough’ job, the same as yours? Do they take too long to do stuff and are you just carrying them because they’re scared (and unable) to work alone?

5. The necessary evil that is money and that weird boundary between work and play. If I’m being paid, then I have the energy (literally the fuel) and therefore the liberty to do the job. If I’m paying someone I can expect that they’ll deliver. It comes down again to rock solid roles and responsibilities. If something is freeform play and maybe it’s professional maybe it isn’t, then the boundary is elastic – literally. Exciting and creative for sure. Potentially draining and dissipating too.

My final analysis is that creative intimacy (like other kinds of  love relationships) has an on/off rhythm to it. Too far into ‘solo artist mode’ and it’s time to play on someone elses tunes, or work as an accompanist. Time spent giving ones all in another band inevitably has to give way to going back and prioritising the individual career. The one helps the other, for sure. I come out of ‘session player’ mode burning to get back into my own stuff and often with better technique and faster memorisation. But if I don’t have my time alone in the woodshed, (days, months, years) I have nothing to give. The magic happens in the dance between the two.

 

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Social media – Ruining Your Life?

In the last few years I’ve noticed something very concerning in my life. It crept up on me and surprised me even more given that I’m not of the iphone generation. I grew up with radio, then black and white TV, (rationed, regulated viewing) books, music practice, drawing, cassette tape, creative writing, sports and board games.

 

I noticed recently, that I had become addicted to my computer – that I was logging into my social media stream as a comfort blanket (despite the anxiety generated by seeing news and current events) and was checking messages and micro managing all my music business related communications in a way that I never associated with myself. In the cold weather, I even liked the warmth of the laptop and the cheery screen saver! I have a long attention span, single-minded focus, an ability to really enter the zone – or so I thought. But I have found my mind wandering whilst doing things that I usually concentrate on fully and have found myself breaking up the day with social media check-ins. For obvious reasons this has been heightened at the time of Brexit and now the current emergencies in the USA which do require than one stays informed. It’s also a side effect of having  to promote and self-publicise my work as a musician. Sometimes it feels like 90% online promotion/admin and 10% rehearsing/ performance energy. A problematic equation!

 

I fully appreciate all the amazing things that super fast computers and interactive media platforms give us. Free education, endless archives, search engines, alternative news reports, social activism, (‘clicktivism’) international messenger services, entertainment at the drop of a hat. Used wisely, all these things can make us more informed, more intelligent, and more empathetic.

 

Or they can make us more and more passive and unable to distinguish reality from fantasy.

 

Let’s take back our lives!

 

Top Ten Tips to master social media/computer addiction:

 

1. Make a commitment to watch and ration the time you spend on your computer – which these days probably means your smart phone. When you log or switch on, know where you are going and why. Do your errands (emails, research, skype call, Facebook message to transatlantic friend, or promotional twitter fest for your forthcoming gig) then put it away.

 

2. For every hour spent on a computer, looking at that screen – spend 2 hours doing something organic, such as playing a musical instrument, interacting with children, animals, or a meaningful conversation with a friend, exercise out-of-doors, reading or just being. Try writing a letter (made your hand ache did it?) or drawing or painting as a way to relax, process information or think up new ideas.

 

3. Time is an artificial concept anyway – so whilst you time the necessary evil of your computer tasks – when you are away from it – don’t look at the clock and experiment with discarding clocks and watches. Let your time be elastic – there is so much more of it than you think. Modern physics has shown us that the physical, phenomenal natural world is mostly empty space. Enjoy this miracle and focus on the content of what you do in your time – not the time itself. That means not checking your phone clock.

 

4. Still using a relatively old fashioned non-smart phone? Good! Well meaning friends or colleagues still trying to give you phones so you can stay in touch/not miss opportunities etc? Don’t apologise for not having a mobile phone or for not using social media much. Think about where coltan, the mineral in all our devices comes from and the human cost of mining it. With this in mind, think twice about upgrading and buying new devices all the time.

 

5. Try going for 2 days at a time without logging on. Deal with that initial feeling of panic. Especially in these recent times, we want daily news immediately – just to know the likely level of catastrophe, as things change rapidly. But deal with it. Ever consider that the real catastrophe is that speed for speeds sake is taking over our lives?

 

6. Invest in and experiment with some protective devices or practices that balance the radiation coming off your computer and phone. I wear and recommend sacred geometry devices from The Template.

 

7. No phones in bed at night. Ever. Best way to ruin your relationship.

 

8. Enjoy all the silly fun clips, memes, mash-ups, twitter trends and entertainment that is on offer – but regulate yourself. If you catch yourself surfing, idly, late at night, make a plan to go to bed and get proper sleep and proper dreams before that threshold. We only do that when we are too tired to resist – and if that makes you worried – it should.

 

9. Following on from that, be very discerning as to what images you let in. Some things can’t be unseen or unknown once encountered, and if you view stuff late at night, it will go into your dreams. Nothing wrong with that, so long as you are choosing what.

 

10. Without getting into a paranoid mess – please consider the fact that your computer may be watching you. Those ads are popping up because someone, somewhere tracks your internet searches and your status and value as a consumer. Doesn’t that worry you?

 

Still reading? Stop it! Go away. Log off and go and do something that matters. Create the life of your dreams in actual reality! So many worthwhile things: friendship, sex, cooking, being in nature, laughing and joking with others, writing a song, perfecting a martial arts sequence, traveling, walking, watching, listening, thinking, dreaming or shouting in the streets at the injustices of the world. You, yourself, your mind, body and spirit – this is the most miraculous of technologies. Let the computer be your servant – not your master.

 

Resources:

 

The Template Sacred geometry and more.

 

Minerals for computer processors and how we get them. Who really pays for our ‘free’ technologies.

 

Cell phone addiction amongst the youth in South Korea.

 

Possible solution! South Korean Space out contests!

 

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