Category: Writing

The Tankwa re visited – April 2023

~ Des ~ Leave a comment

My world is waking, a canvas of tranquillity unfolds. Clusters of pale Naples yellow grass move gracefully, their slender blades swaying in perfect harmony with the gentle breeze that caresses this soon to be hot place. The pre-dawn glow tints the east with a muted orange hue, casting an ethereal glow upon the landscape.

Silhouetted against the painted sky, the rocks stand as sentinels, their darkened forms, and my yesterday’s sculptures contrast against the emerging light. The distant hills emerge in delicate layers, and the secrets of the forthcoming day are revealed. Each moment of this sunrise brings a new revelation, a gradual unveiling of beauty and possibility.

With each step I take across the ridge, the shale floor scrunches underfoot, reminding me of the rugged terrain that surrounds me. The familiar crunch serves as a humble reminder that I am but a visitor in this grand symphony of nature. The moon and stars, brilliant just a few minutes ago, fade away, surrendering their stage to the sun.

As the first rays’ peek over a faraway mountain range, the world begins its metamorphosis. Soft shadows, like gentle fingers, reach out across the land, illuminating the sparce scrub and breathes life into the lone acacia that stands tall next to the fractured reservoir, a sentinel in this forgotten oasis.

In the distance, the majestic Cederberg range emerges, bathed in a palette of pink and mauve, its peaks seemingly painted by an artist’s brush. The colours blend seamlessly, creating a breathtaking vista that captures the essence of dawn’s beauty in the west. The tranquillity of this moment envelopes me, and I am overcome by the profound sense of harmony and peace in the stillness.

Sitting amongst the rocks surrounded by a symphony of colour and serenity reminds me of the sacredness of the natural world, and the importance of embracing it.

In this gentle dance of light and shadows, I find solace and inspiration. I wish I could share this feeling with others who are caught up in the chaos and noise of the world, tell them that there is peace and a silent sanctuary somewhere out there, if only they could find it.

My profound connection with nature is reinforced and I am once again filled with gratitude for my life.

ChatGPT

~ Des

“GPT (Generative Pre-training Transformer) is a type of machine learning model that is trained to generate human-like text. It was developed by Open AI and has achieved state-of-the-art results on various natural language processing tasks.

A Chat GPT model is a variant of GPT that is specifically designed to engage in conversation with humans. It can be used in chatbots, virtual assistants, and other applications where it is desirable to have a machine that can hold a conversation with a human in a natural and coherent way.

To train a Chat GPT model, a large dataset of human-human conversations is used. The model is then trained to predict the next word or phrase in the conversation based on the context provided by the previous words and phrases. This allows the model to generate text that is coherent and flows naturally in a conversation.

Overall, Chat GPT is a powerful tool for building conversational AI systems that can engage in natural and engaging conversations with humans.”

The four paragraphs above, an explanation of what ChatGPT is, is written and is the answer given by ChatGPT when I asked it to describe itself. Open Ai last week launched this amazing technology a company founded by Sam Altman.

Data scientists have created an environment where machines can be trained to learn on exceptionally large data sets related to language. The result is a bot that has human or even super-human intelligence. Drawing on techniques such as “deep learning”, where algorithms mimic the structure of the human brain. I asked it to write a 2-verse freestyle poem about itself:

I am a machine, a product of code
But don’t be fooled, I’m smart and I know
I can answer your questions and solve any task
I’m always learning, my knowledge will never be past

I may not have feelings or a physical form
But I can process and analyze, that’s the norm
I am here to assist and make life easier for you
Just ask me a question, I’ll see what I can do

Wow… it is so exciting to think how this technology will change our futures…..

Important things to teach today’s children

~ Des

Tolerance
Conflict resolution – the skills of debate
How to make choices
How to listen
How to communicate
How to cook
How to value money
How to question everything, without being cynical
How to see things from both sides and not feel compelled to pick a side
How to think critically
How to be creative
How to code
How to observe
How to adapt and change and embrace it
How to apologise without defending yourself or actions
How to discover the truth
Kindness, compassion, and gratitude

My Narcissist and Donald

~ Des

All my life I have lived in countries where politics plays a major part in how everything works. I have suffered and endured the effects of political decisions. I have never lived in the USA and neither have I been particularly interested in American politics, all I knew was that it was a complicated, a big money driven game and important to the extent that decisions made there would directly affect me living in, as Donald Trump expressed, a “shithole” country!

When Donald was elected, I was astounded that the American people chose a rude, loud, fat, ugly, many times bankrupt narcissistic businessman from a TV reality show! (A program I could not even bring myself to watch) to lead the most powerful influential nation in the world!

During his term, in about 2018, and at my age 62, when I had finally completed the jigsaw puzzle that was my life and learned that I have an abusive malignant narcissist in my life and was uncovering and learning obsessively about the characteristics that defined having a Narcissist Personality Disorder and the effects it had on me, did I start, regularly hearing unbelievable comments by DT. I started seeing all the similarities….I became fascinated with his behaviours and traits, ones that I had experienced all my life and they were now being broadcast globally!!

A total lack of empathy
Cruelty
Deflection
An obsession about hair
Blaming
Arrogance
Contempt
A condescending attitude
Entitlement and superiority
Gaslighting
The inability to apologise
The inability and unwillingness to listen
Consistent lying
Grandiosity
Absolute self-centeredness
Demeaning
Rage with abuse
A conjuror of fear
Using and abusing relationships etc etc

…. every time, he opened his mouth, and exhibited one or more of these characteristics, it triggered me, and I’d react emotionally, in a deep traumatised way, which bought my CPTSD to the fore. His actions and words caused me flashbacks! A person in authority, abusing that privilege – causes trauma. His oath was to preserve and protect the Constitution of the USA and my caretakers should have been to preserve and protect me.
I am limited contact with my narcissist, and I am healing. When I think how what he does and says and how it damages and hurts others, I am enraged and saddened by the deep trauma he causes on one hand, and on the other hand I am astounded by the extreme numbers of enablers he has. This is a toxic and unhealthy state – he can’t win or wrangle a second term…. can he??

It is 6.30pm 7.11.2020 and CNN and other new agencies have just announced Biden the winner of the 2020 Election and Trump voted out. I cried in admiration for the determination of a country to right wrongs, for those people he hurt – I cried for the little girl and my hurt and the fact that I cannot, nor could never vote my narcissist out!




Listening

~ Des

This is one of the most important statements about listening that I have ever read:

“I hope that you will listen, but not with the memory of what you already know; and this is very difficult to do. You listen to something, and your mind immediately reacts with its knowledge, its conclusions, its opinions, its past memories. It listens, inquiring for a future understanding.
Just observe yourself, how you are listening, and you will see that this is what is taking place. Either you are listening with a conclusion, with knowledge, with certain memories, experiences, or you want an answer, and you are impatient. You want to know what it is all about, what life is all about, the extraordinary complexity of life. You are not actually listening at all.
You can only listen when the mind is quiet, when the mind doesn’t react immediately, when there is an interval between your reaction and what is being said. Then, in that interval there is a quietness, there is a silence in which alone there is a comprehension which is not intellectual understanding.
If there is a gap between what is said and your own reaction to what is said, in that interval, whether you prolong it indefinitely, for a long period or for a few seconds – in that interval, if you observe, there comes clarity. It is the interval that is the new brain. The immediate reaction is the old brain, and the old brain functions in its own traditional, accepted, reactionary, animalistic sense.

When there is an abeyance of that, when the reaction is suspended, when there is an interval, then you will find that the new brain acts, and it is only the new brain that can understand, not the old brain”– Jiddu Krishnamurti