Autumn

Ralph McTell, my favourite musician and national treasure, ends one of his songs:

"Autumn makes me sad."

I think his hypothalamus might be short of light. The hypothalamus and its good friend the pituitary gland are extremely light-sensitive and they control all manner of mood swings and seasonally-activated depression. Paradoxically, it is right in the centre of the brain; exactly where the light isn't.

I've taken to shining a very bright LED torch in my ear, and it appears to work. I feel much happier.

The other thing I'm doing is breathing through only one nostril. The logic is this: breathing in cold air into one side of your nose cools and slows down the brain activity on that side. So if you want to enhance your creativity and "right-brain" activity, breathe through your left nostril to slow down the analytical "left-brain" chemistry.

So I'm the creative one with a finger up my right nostril and a torch shining in my ear.

Easy to spot in a crowd I'd think.

My Father's Lifetime

Chaos theory is well worth curling up in a chair and reading about. Butterflies creating hurricanes. That sort of thing. Here's one I'm exploring as a "chaotic event": my Dad's life.
In 1929 the world was rocked by a massive Wall Street crash. Nothing like it had shaken capitalism so badly. The world (or, at least, the bits that America was interested in) plunged into depression. October 29th 1929 is the start date for this crash. On November 20th 1929, my Dad was born.
This year, so far, the world (or, at least, the bits that America is interested in) has been spiralling down into another Great Depression. Capitalism has hit the rocks again. Black Monday, 29th September 2008. Billions wiped off the value of shares around the globe. On March 3rd this year my Dad died.
In the same way that it was good of my Dad to mark the 1929 Depression by being born, I think it was fitting for capitalism to put on a good show in the year he died.