internet marketing quotes, internet marketing business, make money on the internet, how to make money with internet marketing, Inspirational Quotes , self help, self development, inspirational images, inspirational graphics, motivational images, motivational graphics, motivation, inspiration, how to make money online marketing, success mindset, prosperity mindset, goldmine

Side By Side cover set

 

What is the mindset a winner has? Here is what one of the greatest winners in history - Arnold Schwarzenegger tells us. Subscribe for more bodybuilding inspirational and motivational videos 💪 The Gymster 💪: www.youtube.com/channel/UC63_uoMiSKxyGckGmikb5sw ▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾▾ ℱℴℓℓℴω υs: Facebook: ift.tt/2ji71LU Twitter: twitter.com/TGymster Instagram: ift.tt/2ivjkHE ▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴ More Arnold Schwarzenegger motivation: youtu.be/tM435n6vB98?list=PLV-xdhHy-2Tiyy1gfSigg8YPBXUqWmbq4 *************************** 🎧 ♪♪♪ Music tracks ♪♪♪ 🎧: 1. Nightcall - Sleepwalking 2. Nightcall - Hymn ift.tt/1iof4Rq ift.tt/1hlAlso ***************************

Side By Side cover set

Web Success Diva social internet marketing blog graphic for the post Change Your Mindset about Internet Marketing. Topic focused on the differences between old school internet marketing strategies and new school ones.

"Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet."

 

"There’s nothing more humbling than seeing your best quotes in a list, and thinking they could have been written by a coma patient with a keyboard and spasms."

 

"Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn't mean I can't be the first."

 

– Scott Adams

THE BILLIONAIRE MINDSET - Motivational Video (from the great achievers of the world) This might be the best motivational video for someone going through a breakup! THE MINDSET BEHIND SUCCESS - Motivational Video " The Power Of Belief " Mindset and Success MINDSET FOR SUCCESS - Motivational Video 2016 Mindset the new Psychology of success - Great Video to Motivate YOU CEO Mindset - Top Billionaires - Best Motivational Video 2016 !!! Motivational Video - Immortal El Poder de la Pasión Motivational Video • Alone Motivation For Life - Motivational Videos ( Channel ) UNCOMMON MAN - Motivational Video 2016 FOCUS ON YOU - Motivation For Life - 2016 IMMORTAL ► Motivational Video 2016 ᴴᴰ The Power Of Positive Thinking - Inspirational Video 2016 THE OBSTACLE IS THE WAY - Motivational Video 2016 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- motivational videos for success in life, break up motivation, breakup motivation, study motivation, motivation to study, motivational break up, eric thomas focus, focus motivation, mindset motivation, motivational speech for success in life, motivational speech 2016, break up motivational speech, motivation to study hard, motivational speech after break up, break up motivational video, mindset for success, joel osteen motivational speech, motivational speech break up, motivation after break up, et motivation, success mindset, motivational video, workout motivational speech, motivation heartbroken, fitness motivation speech, workout motivation speech, gym motivation speech, motivation study, heartbroken motivational, discipline motivation, motivational speech, motivational video, motivation kelly rowland, motivational videos for success in life, motivational songs, motivational speech for success in life, motivational speaker, motivational speeches for athletes, motivation music, motivation video, motivation song, motivation workout, motivation to study, motivation for students, motivation ti, motivation 2015, motivation arnold schwarzenegger,motivation and emotion,motivation at work,motivation and inspiration,motivation animation,motivational amv,motivation audio,motivation after break up,motivation athletes,motivation about life,a motivational video, a motivational speech,a motivational song,a motivational video for students,a motivational story,a motivational video never give up,a motivational speech on ending poverty,a motivational movie,a dream motivational,motivation bodybuilding,motivation by kelly rowland,motivation boxing,motivation business,motivation bodybuilding 2015,motivation become a lion,motivation baseball,motivation beat,motivation believe in yourself,motivation best,lil b motivation, motivational songs,lil b motivation instrumental, motivational songs 2014,lil b motivational speech,doe b motivation,motivational music,motivation,lil b motivation remix,b.o.b motivation,motivation compilation,motivation choreography,motivation change,motivation commercial,motivation compilation 2015,motivation clams casino,motivation confidence,motivation ct fletcher,motivation clean,motivation crossfit,c t fletcher motivation,c.ronaldo motivation,c.ronaldo motivational video,warrior motivation c,motivation dream,motivation dubstep,motivation depression,motivation don't give up,motivation don't quit,motivation documentary,motivation darkness,motivation desire,motivation dc young fly,motivation dance,d rose motivational video,d rose motivation,d wade motivation, motivation d,motivation dj mike d,basketball motivation d rose,motivational mr d,motivation entretien d'embauche,motivation d'avant match,motivation d'un coach,motivation eric thomas,motivation excuses,motivation eric thomas how bad do you want it,motivation et,motivation entrepreneur,motivation exercise,motivation education,motivation elliot hulse,motivation epic,motivation eric thomas breathe,e motivational speaker,e t motivational speaker,e thomas motivation,e t motivation,e 60 motivation,e-sports motivation,motivation football,motivation for studying,motivation for school,motivation for working out,motivation fear,motivation for life,motivation fitness,motivation for kids,motivation for teachers,motivational videos f,motivational speech f,motivational music f,motivation f,motivational songs f,motivation gym,motivationgrid,motivation grind,motivation gym music,motivation greg plitt,motivation gym workout,motivation guru,motivation get up,motivation goals,motivation get over depression,vince g motivation,chill rob g motivation,bboy lil g motivation,motivation how bad do you want it, hard work,motivation hard times,motivation hip hop,motivation hour,motivation how great i am,motivation hindi,motivation hunger,motivation heartbroken,motivation hero,triple h motivation,triple h motivational video,motivation instrumental,motivation inspiration,motivation in the workplace youtu.be/-ow1Qfp7hUY

Mindset of a Magpie Ring #1

  

Sterling Silver

Bronze

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5hrWGhxVY Arnold Schwarzenegger Motivation | The Winner Mindset What is the mindset a winner has? Here is what one of the greatest winners in history - Arnold Schwarzenegger tells us. Subscribe for more bodybuilding inspirational and motivational videos 💪 The Gymster 💪: www.youtube.com/channel/UC63_uoMiSKxyGckGmikb5sw ▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴ ℱℴℓℓℴω υs: Facebook: bit.ly/2klc9Su Twitter: twitter.com/TGymster Instagram: bit.ly/2jx8c8x ▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴▴ More Arnold Schwarzenegger motivation: youtu.be/tM435n6vB98?list=PLV-xdhHy-2Tiyy1gfSigg8YPBXUqWmbq4 bit.ly/2kOWtDD bit.ly/2jOKLLv

Mindset Evolution performing at the Prairie Capital Convention Center in Springfield, IL on April 26, 2016. Photographed by staff photographer Priten Vora.

 

Mindset Evolution

Prairie Capital Convention Center

April 26, 2016

Springfield, IL

 

More from Rumored Nights Press here: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

"There is strong shadow where there is much light."

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 'Götz von Berlichingen', Act I (1773).

 

"Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things, — old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read."

– Francis Bacon, 'Apothegms', No. 97

 

"Minds are the ultimate terra incognita, beyond the reach of all science and—in the case of languageless minds—beyond all empathetic conversation as well. So what? A little humility ought to temper our curiosity. Don't confuse ontological questions (about what exists) with epistemological questions (about how we know about it). We must grow comfortable with this wonderful fact about what is off-limits to inquiry."

– Daniel C. Dennett, 'Kinds Of Minds'

 

St Edmund, Southwold, Suffolk

 

I kept meaning to come back to Southwold - the church, I mean, for I found myself in the little town from time to time. I finally kept my promise to myself in the summer of 2017, tipping up on a beautiful sunny day only to find the church closed for extensive repairs. The days got shorter, and by the time the church reopened it was too late in the year for me to try again. In fact, it was not until late October 2018 that I made it back there, on another beautiful day.

 

Southwold is well-known to people who have never even been there I suppose, signifying one side of Suffolk to which Ipswich is perhaps the counter in the popular imagination. Some thirty years ago, the comedian Michael Palin made a film for television called East of Ipswich. It was a memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, and the basic comic premise behind the film was that in those days families would go on holiday to seaside resorts on the East Anglian coast. In the child Palin's case, it was Southwold.

 

The amusement came from the idea that people in those days would sit in deckchairs beside the grey north sea, or shelter from the drizzle in genteel teashops or the amusement arcade on the pier. In the Costa Brava package tour days of the 1980s, the quaintness of this image made it seem like something from a different world.

 

I remember Southwold in the 1980s. It was one of those agreeable little towns distant enough from anywhere bigger to maintain a life of its own. It still had its genteel tea shops, its dusty grocers, its quaint hotels and pubs all owned by Adnams, the old-fashioned and unfashionable local brewery. In the white heat of the Thatcherite cultural revolution, it seemed a place that would soon die on its feet quietly and peaceably.

 

And then, in the 1990s, the colour supplements discovered the East Anglian coast, and fell in love with it. The new fashions for antique-collecting, cooking with local produce and general country living, coupled with a snobbishness about how vulgar foreign package trips had become, conspired to make places like Southwold very sought after. Before Nigel Lawson's boom became a bust, the inflated house prices of London and the home counties gave people money to burn. And in their hoards, they came out of the big city to buy holiday homes in East Anglia.

 

Although they are often lumped together, the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk are very different to each other (Cambridgeshire and North Essex are also culturally part of East Anglia, but the North Essex coast is too close to London to have ever stopped being cheap and cheerful, and Cambridgeshire has no coastline). Norfolk's beaches are wide and sandy, with dunes and cliffs and rock pools to explore. Towns like Cromer and Hunstanton seem to have stepped out of the pages of the Ladybird Book of the Seaside. Tiny villages along the Norfolk coast have secret little beaches of their own.

 

Suffolk's coast is wilder. Beaches are mainly pebbles rather than sand, and the marshes stretch inland, cutting the coast off from the rest of the county. Unlike Norfolk, Suffolk has no coast road, and so the settlements on the coast are isolated from each other, stuck at the ends of narrow lanes which snake away from the A12 and peter out in the heathland above the sea. There are fewer of them too. It is still quicker to get from Walberswick to Southwold by water than by land. Because they are isolated from each other, they take on individual personalities and characteristics. Because they are isolated from the land, they become bastions of polite civilisation.

 

Between Felixstowe in the south, which no outsiders like (and consequently is the favourite of many Suffolk people) and Lowestoft in the north, which is basically an industrial town-on-sea (but which still has the county's best beaches - shhh, don't tell a soul) are half a dozen small towns that vie with each other for trendiness. Southwold is the biggest, and today it is also the most expensive place to live in all East Anglia. Genteel tea shops survive, but are increasingly shouldered by shops that specialise in ski-wear and Barbour jackets, delicatessens that stock radicchio and seventeen different kinds of olive, jewellery shops and kitchen gadget shops and antique furniture shops where prices are exquisitely painful. Worst of all, the homely, shabby, smoke-filled Sole Bay Inn under the lighthouse has been converted by the now-trendy Adnams Brewery into a chrome and glass filled wine bar.

 

If you see someone in Norfolk driving a truck, they are probably wearing a baseball cap and carrying a shotgun. in Suffolk, they've more likely just bought a Victorian pine dresser from an antique shop, and they're taking it back to Islington. Does this matter? The fishing industry was dying anyway. The tourist industry was also dying. If places like Southwold, Aldeburgh and Orford become outposts of north London, at least they will still provide jobs for local people. But the local people won't be able to afford to live there, of course. They'll be bussed in from Reydon, Leiston and Melton to provide services for people in holiday cottages which are the former homes they grew up in, but can no longer afford to buy. Does this seriously annoy me? Not as much as it does them, I'll bet.

 

So, lets go to Southwold, turning off the A12 at the great ship of Blythburgh church, the wide marshes of the River Blyth spreading aimlessly beyond the road. We climb and fall over ancient dunes, and then the road opens out into the flat marshes, the town spreads out beyond. We enter through Reydon (now actually bigger than Southwold, with houses at half the price) and over the bridge into the town of Southwold itself.

 

Having been so critical, I need to say here that Southwold is beautiful. It is quite the loveliest small town in all East Anglia. None of the half-timbered houses here that you find in places like Long Melford and Lavenham. Here, the town was completely destroyed by fire in the 17th century, and so we have fine 18th and 19th century municipal buildings. One of the legacies of the fire was the creation of wide open spaces just off of the high street, called greens. The best one of all is Gun Hill Green, overlooking the bay where the last major naval battle in British waters was fought. The cannons still point out to sea. The houses here are stunning, gobsmacking, jaw-droppingly wonderful. If I could afford to buy one of them as a weekend retreat, then you bet your life I would, and to hell with the people who moaned about it.

 

At the western end of the High Street is St Bartholomew's Green, and beyond it sits what is, for my money, Suffolk's single most impressive building. This is the great church of St Edmund, a vast edifice built all in one go in the second half of the 15th century. Only Lavenham can compete with it for scale and presence. Unlike the massing at St Peter and St Paul at Lavenham, St Edmund is defined by a long unbroken clerestory and aisles beneath - where St Peter and St Paul looks full of tension, ready to spring, St Edmund is languid and floating, a ship at ease.

 

Southwold church was just one of several vast late medieval rebuildings in this area. Across the river at Walberswick and a few miles upriver at Blythburgh the same thing happened. Blythburgh still survives, but Walberswick was derelicted to make a smaller church, as were Covehithe and Kessingland. Dunwich All Saints was lost to the sea. But Southwold was the biggest. Everything about it breathes massive permanence, from the solidity of the tower to the turreted porch, from the wide windows to the jaunty sanctus bell fleche.

 

Along the top of the aisles, grimacing faces look down. All of them are different. The pedestals atop the clerestory were intended for statues as at Blythburgh, but were probably never filled before the Reformation intervened. At the west end, above the great west window, you can see the vast inscription SAncT EDMUND ORA P: NOBIS ('Saint Edmund, pray for us') as bold a record of the mindset of late medieval East Anglian Catholicism as you'll find.

 

As at Lavenham and Long Melford, the interior has been extensively restored, but not in as heavy or blunt a manner as at those two churches. St Edmund has, it must be said, benefited from the attentions of German bombers who put out all the dull Victorian glass with blast damage during World War II. Here, the interior is vast, light and airy, and much of the restoration is 20th century work, not 19th century.

 

Perhaps because of this, more medieval interior features have survived. Unlike Long Melford, Southwold does not have surviving medieval glass (Mr Dowsing saw to that in 1644), but it does have what is the finest screen in the county.

 

It stretches right the way across the church, and is effectively three separate screens. There is a rood screen across the chancel arch, and parclose screens across the north and south chancel aisles. All retain their original dado figures. There are 36 of them, more than anywhere else in Suffolk. They have been restored, particularly in the central range, but are fascinating because they retain a lot of original gesso work, where plaster of Paris is applied to wood and allowed to dry. It is then carved to produce intricate details.

 

The central screen shows the eleven remaining disciples and St Paul. They are, from left to right, Philip, Bartholomew, James the Less, Thomas, Andrew, Peter, Paul, John, James, Simon, Jude and Matthew.

 

The south chancel chapel is light and open. The bosses above are said to represent Mary Tudor and her second husband Charles, Duke of Brandon. The screen here is painted with twelve Old Testament prophets, and Mortlock suggests that they are by a different hand to the images on the other two screens. Here on the south screen, some of the figures have surviving naming inscriptions, and Mortlock surmises that the complete sequence, from left to right, is Baruch, Hosea, Nahum, Jeremiah, Elias, Moses, David, Isaiah, Amos, Jonah and Ezekiel. Further, he observes that the subject is a usual one for the English Midlands, but rare for East Anglia, and that perhaps this part of the screen came from elsewhere. The same may be true of the other two parts - it is hard to think that the central screen was deliberately made too wide for the two arcades.

 

The north aisle chapel is reserved as the blessed sacrament chapel. The screen is harder to explore, because the northern side is curtailed by a large chest, but it features angels. Unlike the screens at Hitcham and Blundeston, which show angels holding instruments of the passion, these are the nine orders of angels, with Gabriel at their head, and flanked by angels holding symbols of the Trinity and the Eucharist. Mortlock says that they are so similar to the ones at Barton Turf in Norfolk that they may be by the same hand, in which case the central screen is also by that person. They are, from left to right, the Holy Trinity, Gabriel, Archangels, Powers, Dominions, Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Principalities, Virtues, Messengers, and finally the Eucharist. The Holy Trinity angel still has part of the original dedicatory inscription beneath his feet.

 

If part or all of this screen came from elsewhere, where did it come from? Possibly either Walberswick, Covehithe or Kessingland, the three downsized churches mentioned earlier. More excitingly, it might have come from one of the churches along this coast that was lost to the sea, perhaps neighbouring St Nicholas at Easton Bavents, or, just to the south, St Peter or St John the Baptist, the two Dunwich churches lost in the 16th and 17th centuries. We'll never know.

 

If you turn back at the screen and face westwards, your eyes are automatically drawn to the towering font cover, part of the extensive 1930s redecoration of the building. The clerestory is almost like a glass atrium intended to house it. Also the work of the period is the repainting and regilding of the 15th century pulpit (a lot of people blanch at this, but I think it is gorgeous) and the lectern. Beneath the font cover, the font is clearly one of the rare seven sacraments series, and part of the same group as Westhall, Blythburgh and Wenhaston. As at Blythburgh and Wenhaston, the panels are completely erased, probably in the 19th century, an act of barbarous vandalism. Given that Westhall is probably the best of all in the county, we must assume that three major medieval art treasures were wiped out. Astonishingly, vague shadows survive of the former reliefs; you can easily make out the Mass panel, facing east as at Westhall, the Penance panel and even what may be the Baptism of Christ.

 

Stepping through the screen, the reredos ahead is by Benedict Williamson and the glass above by Ninian Comper, familiar names in the Anglo-catholic pantheon, and evidence of an enthusiasm here that still survives in High Church form. There is a good engraved glass image of St Edmund to the north of the sanctuary, very much in the 1960s fashion, but curiously placed. On the wall of the chancel to the west of it, the high organ case is also painted and gilded enthusiastically.

 

As well as the screen, Southwold's other great medieval survival is the set of return stalls either side of the eastern face of the chancel screen. They have misericord seats, but the best feature are the handrests between the seats. On the south side, carvings include a man with a horn-shaped hat and sinners being drawn into the mouth of hell. On the north side are a man playing two pipes, a monkey preaching and a beaver biting its own genitals, a tale from the medieval bestiary, apparently.

 

What else is there to see? Well, the church is full of delights, and rewards further visits which always seem to turn up something previously unnoticed. St George rides full tilt at a dragon on an old chest at the west end of the north aisle. There is good 19th century glass in the porch and at the west end of the nave. A clock jack stands, axe and bell in hand, at the west end, a twin to the one upriver at Blythburgh. This one has a name, he's called Southwold Jack, and he is one of the symbols of the Adnams brewery.

 

As Mortlock notes, there are very few surviving memorials. This is partly because St Edmund was not in the patronage of a great landed family, but it may also suggest that they were largely removed at the time of the 19th century restoration, as at Brandon. One moving one is for the child of a vicar, and there are some interesting pre-Oxford Movement 19th century brasses in the south aisle.

 

High, high above all this, the roofs are models of Anglo-Catholic melodrama, the canopy of honour to the rood and the chancel ceilure in particular. But there is a warmth about it all that is missing from, say, Eye, which underwent a similar makeover. This church feels full of life, and not a museum piece at all. I remember attending evensong here late one winter Saturday afternoon, and it was magical. On another visit, I came on one of the first days of spring that was truly warm and bright, with not a cloud in the sky. As we drove into town, a cold fret off of the sea was condensing the steam of the brewery, sending it in swirls and skeins around the tower of St Edmund like low cloud. It was so atmospheric that I almost forgave them for what they have done to the Sole Bay Inn.

Made for Scrapiteria theme of the week - "Music". Postcard size.

Ok so it all started when I was born - literally. My parents were young when they had me, just 19 years old. My grandparents got guardianship of my brother and I when I was about three years old. My family has a history of mental illness on both sides, so I was "doomed" naturally. Schizophrenia, bipolar, manic depression, all disorders someone in my family was diagnosed with. My maternal grandmother is manic depressive, and things were very difficult growing up because it wasn't addressed. She didn't believe in therapy and thought that nothing was wrong. Therapy was only for "messed up" people, and she had an extreme stigma about it. There are so many instances of verbal and emotional abuse towards my grandfather, my brother, my mother, and myself. But if you spoke up, it was even worse, you wouldn't dare speak up against it. It was always better to endure it and hope the next day would be better. She was, and still can be, very unpredictable. You'd think everything was dandy, until it wasn't. Things could switch in a moment into a screaming, "you-don't-care-about-me-how-come-no-one-cares-for-me" mess. I never wanted someone to ever go through that, or to feel like they couldn't speak up. I was often the one to speak up, so my grandmother and I would fight often. Hence, the anxiety, people-pleasing, wanting to always keep the peace mindset that I have as an adult. She's always needed help for her mental health, but you can't make someone do something they don't want. If they won't address what's hurting, things can't progress.

 

My grandfather, my grandmother, my brother, and I tried going to group therapy once. It didn't go well, and was entirely unproductive in creating any change. The time was spent with my grandmother asking why she was always the bad guy and how no one ever talked about how they hurt her, and essentially made for a bad time for awhile at home. I did go to counseling in school for awhile, but it was in a group setting so it wasn't as exclusive as going to one-on-one therapy. As a teenager, I did got to therapy for a little bit, but I stopped going because my therapists kept leaving for other practices. And I felt like I was "fine". Plus, what good does it do when you live somewhere that's always stressful and you feel like you can't really talk about your feelings anyways? I didn't want that for my life, ever. I knew that I wanted to be different. I was always sad as a kid that I didn't live with my parents. I never had an answer when people asked me why I didn't live with them, honestly I still am not sure completely why I didn't and I'll be 29 this year .

 

My mother ended up having a drug addiction problem when I was in sixth grade. My mother is also bipolar, although I don't know exactly when this was discovered. My grandmother hated my dad, for whatever reason. So I just had no pull in my desire to want to live with a parent. My mother had always been around, and she lived with us and my grandparents at times. I saw my dad on the weekends and holidays. In the beginning of her addiction, my grandparents got emergency custody of my brother Jacob. So now they were raising three kids. When my mother made the decision to get clean from heroin, I was about 11 (I think, not sure of my exact age). I loved her so much, and I'll always remember driving down the road with her one day as she was crying and saying "I love you, you know I do, right?" I was the one sitting with her in the bathroom while she went through withdrawal. It was hard to see my mother so sick. I stayed by her side and slept in the same room as her at night because I was so happy she was back home. I also went to NA and AA meetings with her. I liked the cookies and snacks they'd have. I really had no business being around so much adult information at my age, but as I see it I was the support in my mother's recovery, because everyone else was just mad at her. Naturally, it makes sense that as an adult my mother uses me as support often. She's better now and has been clean for over 10 years.

 

Eventually, I did get the chance to live with my father and my step-mom the summer before seventh grade. For whatever reason, my grandmother had a moment and agreed to let me live with them. I was ecstatic! I remember hopping onto the computer and instant messaging my step-mom on AIM. I lived with them from the beginning of seventh grade to halfway through my freshman year of high school. Living there was such a change from what I was used to; more routine and structure, more "normalcy". I moved back in with my grandparents halfway through my freshman year of high school. Around that time is when my father was really starting to struggle with his mental health (that I know of). There was one night I remember he got so angry that my step-mom and I went in the basement with our dog. He'd torn off the keyboard holder from the computer desk, ripped the sliding door off the track, and threw the board into the pool. He wasn't going to hurt us and I think we knew that, but he was just SO aggressively upset. I remember he left and that night I woke up to the sound of him crying in the bathroom pleading to God. He got diagnosed bipolar around that time. I didn't leave because he was struggling, but because I felt like me being there was too stressful and I missed being with my grandparents. Things were still the same when I moved back in, it's like I never left. I think part of me is always going to feel guilty for leaving my brothers there, even though getting out made such a change in me.

 

I met a junior boy, C is what we will call him, when I moved back. He was my second boyfriend. I'd only dated one person when I lived in Leominster, and it wasn't for long. I didn't really know much about dating, or sex, or how any of it worked really. I feel like I just figured out a lot of it on my own, leading to many poor decisions. Part of the issue is that my grandmother believed that any talk of sex, birth control, or even asking to be on birth control would automatically lead to pregnancy. And most of what I saw growing up was not-so-healthy relationships. C broke up with me shortly after I made the decision to have sex with him, through a note, passing me in the hallway to lunch. One of my first poor decisions, and it got worse because my grandmother found out about it and threatened to bring him to court for statutory rape. For whatever reason I thought that having sex with someone meant love. I don't know where I came up with that, but it was what I thought mattered. And I also couldn't stand to be alone, I somehow put all my worth in being with someone else.

 

A few boyfriends later, I met P at a little music release basement party for a mutual friend. We were a hit instantly, and I completely ignored all of my friends when they told me the next morning to not get involved with him. Another poor decision. We became boyfriend and girlfriend. I was with him for 3 years almost. We smoked a lot of pot, he skipped a lot of college, he would call out of work to stay with me. My grandmother would call me out sick from school so I could spend a week with him at his dorm in Boston. He practically lived at my grandparent's house with me at one point. It was very toxic. We were very clingy to one another and I had no freedom. I couldn't even really hang out with my friends if he wasn't there too. He didn't like when I colored my hair without asking. One time, I dyed it black without asking and he screamed at me for a good hour through the phone. My friend that was with me had to answer the phone at one point and tell him to stop calling. All my worth and who I was was determined by him. I wanted to stretch my ears but didn't because he got upset and told me that I only wanted to do that so I could fuck his friends. He was extremely emotionally and verbally abusive, narcissistic if you will. And he needed help with mental health, yet another non-believer of therapy in my life, and meds would just make you a zombie so forget that.

 

When I got to college, P had failed out of New England Institute of Art and ended up at The Mount with me. This was problematic. We had a lot of the same classes and friends. I ended up getting very close to another guy, A, who showed interest in me being who I wanted. I remember being told by A that I was being treated like property. I wasn't happy with P anymore, but I didn't know how to leave. I ended up cheating, which is absolutely against my morals. P found out because A was angry I wouldn't leave P and told him everything. It was a nasty breakup and there was a lot of fighting. We had all the same friends and so there was some division and tension. I failed out of college because I skipped classes so I wouldn't have to see him. But even after the breakup, P found a way to always be involved in my business.

While I was dating P, I stopped talking to my father for about a year. My father was trying to look out for me in a particular circumstance and went to P's house on his lunch one day to talk with him. I was a dumb teenager so I chose my boyfriend over my father. During that year my father tried to commit suicide. I only found out because of someone anonymous on the internet. My father did not succeed and is much better these days.

 

After P, I had a lot of small relationships. I was trying to find myself and who I wanted to be. I stretched my ears. I went to a lot of shows, and I did get to live with my mother by the way, when I turned 18. Things were hard and she didn't exactly like who I was. A lot of criticism for my boyfriends, who I dated, who my friends were. Because I was already an adult, her trying to parent me didn't exactly mesh. I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. I was very stressed all the time. I lost my best friend after P, but I also was so caught up in myself I didn't see how awful of a friend I was. She even ended up dating P for a few years, and that was very hard for me. I never took accountability. I was an anxious mess, that couldn't just be by herself. A lot of my relationships felt like I was a "light" for the other person who was looking to fill a void or get over someone else. And even knowing that so many times, I'd just stay sometimes because I was "needed".

 

Eventually, I would meet my now husband Joe a year (roughly) after P. Joe and I were best friends first. We knew each other first, and hung out as friends first. He would drive from Dracut to Athol almost every day, that's like 2 hours just to get to me, then 2 hours home. We would sit in my room and watch Friend Zone on MTV (how fitting, right?) One day we found ourselves just casually holding hands. This was new for me. I didn't see it coming. Our relationship crept up and blossomed instead of my usual just jumping into a relationship. Joe was the only one to ever stand up to P and tell him he didn't have a place in my life anymore. The only person where I never doubted if I was just filling a void from someone else. Joe cared about my interests and what I enjoyed, and has continued to throughout our 9 year relationship. He showed me what being valued as myself was like. This is love. And I am grateful, because he gives me space to figure out who I am and change if I feel like it.

 

The lesson from this is that I finally learned that I was enough as me. I didn't have to try to be anyone's ex, I didn't have to try to be anyone but myself. I learned that I had value as a person, and that I could be who I wanted, because I WANTED to be that person. I could be a light in someone's life, without putting out my own light. I learned that my body was not the only thing someone should want in a relationship, and that sex does not mean love. And most importantly, I learned that I didn't need to fill a void in someone, or try to have someone to fill a void in myself. Things don't work that way. You cannot fix a person, you can only be there for them. As far as mental health goes, my intention was always to break the cycle and take care of myself. I knew it from very early in my life. I mentioned that I stopped going to therapy for awhile. Two years ago I did start going to counseling again. After having our second child, I realized that I was really struggling and things were getting hard, I felt like I was falling apart inside. I couldn't cope strictly by myself. Last year I was diagnosed as bipolar 2. My counselor knew a bit sooner than when he told me, but I respect his reasoning. When he diagnosed me, he said that he did not tell me right away when he knew, because he knew that I would have been devastated, since he knew I did not want to be like my family. But I am not like my family. I love my family, and they are not bad people, they just needed help. I am the change in the cycle. I wanted better and I am creating better. I want my children to know stability and that mental health is as important as physical health. I am still working at being better every day, I will always have to, that's okay. I am open, I am accepting of myself, I know healing isn't linear. In healing, I have learned forgiveness.

Organised by Julie Guegan and Obhi Chatterjee, the internal summer online sessions offer to European institutions colleagues conversations on topics such as navigating uncertainty, building trust, overcoming biases or emotional courage. "All of this with a view to equip ourselves and develop good strategies to cope according to research and the experience of our colleagues", as beautifully expressed by Julie. Last week's session was on What is the right mindset to thrive in challenging times?

 

To feed our conversations, the session hosts chose a Tedtalk by Carol Dweck on The power of believing that you can improve. Here are my visual notes, sketchnotes, where I tried to capture the essence of the points of the Tedtalk as well as those expressed by my colleagues.

 

Thank you Lucia Soldatova Miruna Andreea Stamate Obhi Chatterjee for hosting online so well.

   

Mani Shankar Aiyar, an MP of Indian Rajya Sabha and former Consul-General of India had delivered a lecture to Karachi Council of Foreign Relations on ‘India and Pakistan: Retrospect and prospect’ a few days ago.

 

Following is the text of his address in which he has described his personal experience while living in Pakistan as an Indian official and also highlighted relations between India and Pakistan:

 

“Mr Chairman, distinguished members of the Karachi Council of Foreign Relations, ladies and gentlemen, and dear friends of the last three decades: This is a very personal narrative of an Indian who lived three of his best years in Karachi, albeit 33 years ago, and has since seized every opportunity that has come his way to visit Pakistan, meet his old friends and make new ones. In this last year itself, this is my fifth visit to Pakistan. I hope I can maintain the momentum as Pakistan is my magnificent obsession.

 

I suppose I have read very much less about Pakistan than any scholar of Pakistan studies. And although I came here initially as an officer of the Indian Foreign Service and have visited Pakistan several times in an official capacity, as a member of our delegations, or accompanying Indian ministers, even thrice in the entourage of the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and also as Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas to push forward the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline and later as Minister of Panchayati Raj to intensify interaction between our respective local self-government representatives, I have had strangely little to do with the political dialogue between our two countries. Almost all of my interaction with Pakistan and Pakistanis has been at the personal level. Hence I can do no more than bring a very personal perspective to bear on matters of great pith and moment.

 

Perhaps for that very reason the perspective has its value - although one of my closest Indian friends, former High Commissioner to Pakistan, later Foreign Secretary and later still National Security Adviser, JN (Mani) Dixit, said he could not abide my Pollyanna view of our neighbour. Perhaps not. But there are so many Indians who have their grave reservations about Pakistan and its intentions towards us that there might be some value in listening to a more sympathetic Indian view of Pakistan.

 

I came to Karachi as India’s first-ever Consul General on 14 December 1978, 13 years after Pakistan’s capital moved to Islamabad, around the time of the 1965 war, leading, first, to a downgrading of the High Commission followed by the Assistant High Commission being closed down at the start of the 1971 war. Thus Karachi, refuge of the Mohajir community, those who had left or fled India at the time of partition or soon after, leaving behind in India, however, vast numbers of memories, friends and relatives, was thirsting for the resumption of an Indian visa office to facilitate their all too human desire to go back to the land of their forefathers - and at that time, for many, the land too of their birth. I used to be astonished at their evocation of the filthy gullies of Bans Bareilly and Sambal as if they were talking of Paris in the Spring! But perhaps their sentiment was best summed up by Rais Amrohvi’s ‘O! Hind Jane Wale Mera Salaam Leja:

 

Jab se bichhad gaye hain us khuld-e-rangabu se

 

Mehroom ho gaye hain, dil shauk-o-aarzu se

 

Baaz aayenge musafir kya zauk-e-justaju se

 

Ab tak wahi hai rishte, Dilli se Lucknow se

 

Ajdaad ke watan tak itna payam le ja

 

O! Hind jane wale mera salaam le ja.’

 

My very first afternoon was a revelation. The phone rang. It was the Deputy Commissioner of Sukkur on the line. He said he had a major problem on his hands: a Hindu sant had been given permission to revisit Sukkur for the first time after the 1965 war and his Muslim mureeds wanted to pay their respects to him. ‘Would I grant them permission to do so?’ ‘Of course’, I replied, rather grandly giving my instant assent - but rose from my desk completely confused. Like all Indians I had been brought up to believe that Pakistanis were ardent, even fanatical, Muslims for, after all, had they not broken my country on the ground that Hindus and Muslims did not constitute two communities but two nations, incompatible and, therefore, incapable of living together under one democratic roof? That, in fact, it was democracy that was the problem because democracy rests on majority rule and would not that majority in an independent India be decided on communal rather than political grounds? Yet, here I was being asked - and by no less a dignitary than the head of one of Sindh’s most important districts - whether Muslim spiritual aspirants might seek the blessings of a Hindu holy man?”

 

Later, after Makhdoom Amin Fahim became a close personal friend, I asked him whether it was true, as I had heard, that the Hindu followers of his father, the Pir of Hala, who had fled to India at partition, still sought the Pir’s blessings when there was a birth in the family or a wedding or some such auspicious occasion? Makhdoom sahib confirmed that this was indeed so. But, said I, ‘was it not a fact that the Pir’s blessings could not be validated without a nazrana?’ ‘Of course’, came the reply. ‘But how do they send it,’ I asked? By the same route, he disingenuously replied, that they send their requests for a blessing - through the smugglers! God is clearly no respecter of political boundaries.

 

That introspective introduction to Pakistan on Day One was reinforced the following evening at my first social occasion when I found myself seated next to an unknown Pakistani with whom I began the conversation by asking, in an utterly banal manner, whether he had been to India. ‘Yes,’ he replied somewhat taciturnly. To encourage further conversation, I asked where he had been. ‘Meerut,’ came the curt reply. ‘Oh, really,’ I said, ‘and how long were you there?’ ‘Two and a half years,’ he slowly responded - and it dawned on me with growing horror that I was talking to one of our 1971 Prisoners of War! Seeing the highly embarrassed expression on my face, my interlocutor smiled - indeed, beamed - and enquired if my wife and I would care to dine with them at the Sindh Club the following evening? It turned out to be a most convivial evening and walking back to Hindustan Court after dinner my wife shook her bewildered head and asked whether we had come to an enemy country or what? I shared her bewilderment.

 

That initial hospitality flowered over the next three years of our stay in Karachi into a bouquet of friendships stretching across the entire political spectrum from the PPP at one end to the Islam-pasand parties on the other; on the geographical spectrum from Clifton to North Nazimabad; on the socio-cultural spectrum from affluent Defence Housing Society homes to the rehriwalas of Sadar; on the business front from petty shop-keepers to industrial and commercial barons; on the intellectual level from academics like Sharif-ul-Mujahid and Hafeez Pasha to the poets and poetasters of the Pak-Hind Prem Sabha; to journalists of every hue from sophisticates like MB Naqvi and Sultan Ahmed and Brig AR Siddiqui to the editor of Jasarat, the mouthpiece of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and even Nawai Waqt. My attitude was, I am a foreigner, why take sides in Pakistan’s internecine quarrels?

 

We - me, my wife, my children, my officers, my staff of over one hundred - to go by their present nostalgic remembrances, all had a ball. But on my very last night in Karachi - we were sailing to Bombay next afternoon - I suddenly had a very disturbing thought. What if my euphoric high was only the consequence of my being flattered out of my mind by heading a huge establishment at the age of under forty, the welcome I had received not being to an Indian but to a Consul General who could pull a visa out of his pocket like a magician pulling out a pigeon?

 

I sent for one of my assistants, a man who had reached Karachi the same day as I had and whose personal experience of the city was co-terminus with mine. I asked whether he had experienced any discrimination, any abuse, any invective, even any discourtesy, during his three years in the city. He thought for a while, then shook his head to say No, he hadn’t. But, I persisted, no one could tell merely by looking at him whether he was an Indian or a Pakistani, what about his wife and her give-away bindi? He said no one had ever been rude or nasty to her although she always sported a bindi, neither in the bus she took from the Indian Consulate ghetto of Panchsheel Court, a dead give-away of national origin, nor in the shopping marts of Sadar. That led me to ask him to confirm a rumour I had heard as Consul General - that shopkeepers in Sadar invariably offered discounts to Indian, and especially Indian Consulate customers. Reluctantly but unambiguously, he confirmed that this was indeed so. Thus, his three years had been remarkably like mine. I, therefore, enquired whether he thought we should improve relations with Pakistan. Astonished, he replied, ‘but how could we, were they not all Mussalmans?’

 

That is the central problem: the communalisation of the mind, looking at our neighbours not as one of us, but as the Other, indeed, the Enemy Other.

 

The communalisation of mindsets was the root cause of the division of the country as the price to be paid for independence. Now that there are two countries, independent since six decades, is there no way the communalisation of the mind can be eased in the direction of also recognising the complementarities in our respective national destinies?

 

For we live in the same South Asian geographical space. Although many Pakistanis would deny it, we also occupy much the same civilisational space, diversity of every kind - racial, linguistic, ethnic, cultural, religious and even sectarian - being woven into the warp and the woof of our nationhood. History may have divided us, but geography binds us, and a shared inheritance holds as much the potential to keep us apart as to bring us together. The choice is for us to make.

 

For most of the last six decades, the best and the brightest of our countries - sants and Ulema; ideologues and propagandists; terrorists and cerebral communalists; politicians and statesmen; scholars and the media; diplomats and the military - have done all they can to render us asunder. They have not entirely succeeded. For we remain hyphenated in the eyes of the world because we remain hyphenated in the minds of our people. And we remain hyphenated because we are hyphenated; we share too much to just turn our backs on each other and hope the other will go away. Siamese twins are not free to roam except with each other, even if they keep pulling away from each other.

 

There are four sets of factors that stand in the way of reconciliation. I would classify these as: generic; institutional; endemic; and episodic.

 

Generic: Some in India and many in Pakistan would argue that the very reason for partition having been the religious incompatibility between Hindus and Muslims, it is inevitable that the two nations would also find it incompatible to live together as good neighbours. The argument goes that the underlying hostility is generic, built into our genes as it were, and if it were not partition would not have happened.

 

That, perhaps, is a somewhat fundamentalist way of putting it and, therefore, the point is generally made with greater sophistication and nuancing as not so much a fundamental civilisational incompatibility but a lack of convergence in national interest or even a belief that hostility being the underlying reality, it is not so much a question of promoting friendship as protecting oneself from hostile intent.”

 

The News Pakistan (13/01/2011)

 

Mani Shankar Aiyar, an MP of Indian Rajya Sabha and former Consul-General of India had delivered a lecture to Karachi Council of Foreign Relations on ‘India and Pakistan: Retrospect and prospect’ a few days ago.

 

Following is second part of the text of his address - Part-I was published on Thursday - in which he has described his personal experience while living in Pakistan as an Indian official and also highlighted relations between India and Pakistan:

 

“Yet, there are several levels at which this argument breaks down. First, the Indian Muslim community: are they not living in harmony with their Hindu brethren? If there were no compatibility, how is it that almost every icon of India’s 85% Hindu youth is unabashedly Muslim: the four Khans - superstars Shah Rukh, Aamir, Salman, and Saif; leading ladies like Katrina Kaif following Madhubala, Meena Kumari and Nargis of yore and Waheeda Rahman and Shabana Azmi more recently; the golden voice of Mohd Rafi and Talat Mehmood; the lyrics of Sahir Ludhianvi and Javed Akhtar; music director AR Rahman (who was born Dilip Kumar and converted to Islam, where his renowned predecessor in the run-up to partition, Dilip Kumar, the actor, was born Yusuf Khan in Peshawar and converted to Bollywood under an assumed Hindu name); the makers of Peepli Live, Mehmood Farooqui and Anusha Rizvi, India’s sure-fire entry for this year’s Oscars; ustads such as Bismillah Khan, Vilayat Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Amjad Ali Khan and tabla maestros, Allah Rakha and Zakir Hussain; cricketers like Tiger Pataudi and Azharuddin, and tennis star, Sania Mirza, whom we share, besides a whole galaxy of highly influential opinion-makers of whom I need mention only three - the Group Editor of the India Today stable, MJ Akbar; columnist Saeed Naqvi; and historian Mushirul Hassan, Director of the National Archives - and business barons, Aziz Premji and Anu Agha. The point needs no labouring.”

 

Except that the Justice Rajinder Sachar report will immediately be thrown at those who suggest that the lived experience of secular India shows no incompatibility between the two alleged ‘nations’ of Hindu and Muslim. Yes, indeed, in many, many respects the denizens of the Muslim community are worse off than their non-Muslim counterparts in northern India. Equally undeniable is that while the North Indian Muslim elite largely took off for Pakistan at partition, the vast majority of the ordinary Muslims voted with their feet to remain where they were. Deprived of a middle-class and a political leadership, the community has striven to raise itself by its boot-straps and while there are success stories there is much leeway to be made up. This points to the need for more affirmative action; it emphatically does not mean that Hindu and Muslim cannot live under one national roof.

 

Moreover, it needs to be recognised - in Pakistan, of course, but much more in India - that where population transfer did not take place, as in South India, the Muslim community is doing quite exceptionally well - and is not resented by the majority community for doing so.

 

I do not want to make a polemical point. I simply want to assert here on Pakistani soil that whatever might have been the argument for a Muslim-majority State on this South Asian sub-continent at the time of independence and partition, now that Pakistan has been in existence for sixty years and more, the generic argument for Hindu-Muslim incompatibility has lost its sheen and transmuted more into national hostility than communal animosity.”

 

“In this context, I’d like to share a story with you about what happened when I addressed a Jang Forum meeting in Karachi a few years ago. I was asked from the audience how I could claim to be a friend of Pakistan when I rejected the Two-Nation theory. I replied that whatever the merits of the theory in the period leading up to independence and partition, it was time now to recognise that the Two-Nation Theory had given way to the Three-State Reality, and that if we continued to advocate the Two Nation Theory, it would have to mean that the 15 crore Muslims in India are traitors to their country. At this, the questioner, delighted with my answer, bounded on to the stage, embraced me, and handing over a visiting card describing him as the Vice Chairman of the Karachi Marriage Hall Owners Association, whispered in my ear that when I got married again, he promised me a marriage hall for free! That, I regard, as the highest compliment I have ever received. My wife, however, disapproves - I wonder why?

 

Reciprocally, it is little known in India, and little bruited about in Pakistan, how many members of Pakistan’s non-Muslim minorities hold positions of distinction and responsibility in Pakistan, not only in the higher echelons but in the grassroots institutions of local government, in the civil services, in the judiciary, in agriculture, in business and the arts. Partition over, as the Quaid-i-Azam said before Pakistan was suddenly and unexpectedly emptied of its minorities in the fortnight after its creation: ‘You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the State. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.’

 

It could have been Nehru speaking!

 

Moreover, in numerous countries across the world, where Indian and Pakistani immigrants live and work together, while some do indeed carry their communal baggage with them overseas, by and large there is tolerance, even cordiality, between the two communities. Nothing in either Islam or Hinduism makes for incompatibility. Our syncretic history, our symbiotic past of over a thousand years, beginning with Muhammad bin Qasim arriving on our shores in 711 AD, points rather to a composite heritage than to one that is irretrievably divided.

 

I would, therefore, emphatically repeat that it is not communal animosity but national hostility that keeps India and Pakistan apart: a matter to be addressed by political and diplomatic action, not theology. Indeed, if religious differences were the root cause, how does one explain Pakistan’s excellent relations with the only avowedly Hindu nation in the world, Nepal, or India’s excellent relations with virtually every Muslim country - except Pakistan?

 

The generic argument does not hold, but are the scars of history impossible to raze? Those who became Pakistani on 14 August 1947 had been Indians till the previous day. Therefore, there were many in India who argued, Prof Sisir Gupta perhaps most persuasively, that since nothing in language or literature, culture or cuisine, history or even religion distinguished a Pakistani from an Indian, the only way a Pakistani could distinguish himself from an Indian was by asserting that he was emphatically not an Indian, by building the national identity of Pakistan not with positive building blocks but negatively by stressing that, above all, Pakistan was not India and Pakistanis were Pakistanis precisely because Pakistanis were not Indians.

 

I do not know whether this argument was always a parody, but today, more than sixty years after Pakistan became a reality, those who began life as Indians are a rapidly diminishing breed. I would imagine that some 90% of Pakistanis today have never known any nationality other than their Pakistani nationality, even as 90% of Indians have never known Pakistan as an integral part of India. Thus, history itself is taking care of history. There is no reason why the nationhood of contemporary Pakistan needs to be built with the cement of anti-Indian or anti-Hindu sentiment. And that, indeed, is the reason for the affection with which most Indians are received in Pakistan - and, to a large if not reciprocal extent, Pakistanis are received in India. The political reality of 21st century India and Pakistan has substantially replaced the grievances that separated sections of the Hindu and Muslim community in pre-partition India, especially after the outbreak of communal riots in the Turbulent ‘20s of the last century.

 

Therefore, I see no reason in principle why generic or historical factors need necessarily stand in the way of reconciliation between the two countries. If nevertheless progress in the direction of reconciliation has been slow, then does the problem lie in institutional hurdles on the road to reconciliation?

 

Institutional: From the Indian perspective - and perhaps also the perspective of a majority of Pakistanis - the overwhelming role of the military in Pakistan’s approach to India is often held to be the principal institutional block to reconciliation. The argument goes that so long as the army, abetted by a complaisant civil service, is the effective political power in Pakistan, and so long as the raison d’etre of the huge Pakistani military establishment and what Ayesha Siddique calls Pakistan’s Military Inc is founded on the assiduous propagation of the threat from India - so the argument goes - the Pakistani military will never permit hostility between the two countries to be undermined for that would be to cut off the branch on which the Pakistani defence forces are perched.

 

On the other hand, here in Pakistan it is often claimed that revanchist sentiment in the entire Indian establishment, including the Indian military, is so strong and persistent that the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 was only the prelude to the destruction of the rest of Pakistan, whenever this might prove possible; hence the need for eternal vigilance as the price to be paid for Pakistan’s liberty. Both these views appear to me to be a case of the wish fathering the thought. I don’t believe that the actual course of India-Pakistan relations validates the view that India cannot deal with the Pakistani military; or that India is still hankering after a restoration of Akhand Bharat.

 

Let us take first the Indian view of the Pakistan military. It is rooted, I think, in Gen Ayub Khan’s coup of 1958. Please remember that in 1958, half a century ago, almost all top officers of the Indian military were either General Ayub Khan’s contemporaries or his seniors in the predecessor British Indian army. India, understandably, did not want Bonapartism to spread from the Pakistan army to their Indian counterparts. Gen Thimayya’s resignation at about the same time as the Ayub coup was considered - perhaps erroneously - as an ominous and dangerous straw in a wind that blew no one any good.

 

But it was the Ayub regime that in its earliest days suggested a ‘Trieste’ solution to Kashmir - that is, let the status quo lie and postpone resolution to a future generation - if I am to credit the story recounted to me here in Karachi by India’s high commissioner to the Ayub government, Rajeshwar Dayal. And it was indubitably during the Ayub regime that the Indus Waters Treaty was signed, a treaty that has weathered three wars and continues to offer a forum for the resolution of water disputes, as witness the recent spats over Baglihar and now Kishangana. Moreover, it was during that regime that Sheikh Abdullah, Jayaprakash Narayan and others were, by all accounts, on a successful or, at any rate, promising peace mission to Pakistan when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru suddenly died. Yes, the battle in the Rann of Kutch in April 1965, and Operation Gibraltar in August that year, followed by the September war, took place in the Ayub dispensation, but much of that seems to have been stoked as much by civilian political forces as by the armed forces. In any case, it was President Ayub Khan who signed the Tashkent Agreement, disagreement having been registered principally by his civilian colleagues.

 

Later, it was during the period of Ziaul Haq that, whatever might be one’s reservations about his domestic policies, there was a new impetus given to people-to-people relations, the most important having been the opening of the Indian Consulate General in Karachi. And when in the winter of 1986-87 the temperature started building up over Operation Brasstacks, it was in Ziaul Haq that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi found a most effective partner in defusing the threat of war.

 

And although Gen Pervez Musharraf’s coup was almost universally looked at with deep disapproval and suspicion in India, coming as it did in the wake of Kargil 1999, eventually it was under his aegis that the Composite Dialogue made more progress on the Tariq-Lambah back-channel than at perhaps any other stage of India-Pakistan relations.

 

Equally, of course, the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950, the Simla Agreement of 1972 and the Lahore Declaration were the handiwork of civilian governments.

 

Hence, I do not think the objective record makes for any insuperable difficulty in India dealing directly with the Pakistan military or in dealing with a civilian government that has the military breathing down its neck. In any case, if Pakistan cannot get itself out of the military shadow, what can India do about it? We have to deal with whoever is in power in this country and while we certainly sympathise with the widespread Pakistani desire to become a full-fledged democracy, we have to make do with whatever is on offer - and I do not think we in India should postpone any amelioration in our relations with Pakistan till that nebulous day when we will have in Pakistan a democratically elected political authority that keeps its military in check. Peace is an imperative now, not a consummation to be postponed indefinitely.

 

Part III

 

Mani Shankar Aiyar, an MP of Indian Rajya Sabha and former Consul-General of India had delivered a lecture to Karachi Council of Foreign Relations on “India and Pakistan: Retrospect and prospect” a few days ago.

 

Following is third part of the text of his address - Part-II was published on Friday - in which he has described his personal experience while living in Pakistan as an Indian official and also highlighted relations between India and Pakistan:

 

“On the other hand, the regrettably widespread view in Indian circles that Pakistan is a ‘failed’ State or a ‘failing’ one also needs to be countered. I do not think any nation, let alone Pakistan, which is so firmly anchored in history, civilization, ideology and spiritual belief as is Pakistan, with one of the largest populations in the world (even if relative to India somewhat small), with the high degree of political and philosophical sophistication, which one encounters in this country at every turn, a resilient economy and a burgeoning globalised elite, a strong bureaucracy and a stronger military, and an extremely lively and informed media, can ever be a pushover. When the Taliban was said to have arrived at Buner, a hundred kilometres from Islamabad, there were those in India who feared (or even wished) for the collapse. The fear was always unrealistic, the wish beggared. And was shown to be so when the security forces moved into action and pushed back the insurgents, as they had when in July 2007 firm action was taken at the Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad. Pakistan, six decades after its foundation, is no war-time Afghanistan swirling in chaos at the time of the Soviet and American withdrawal and the political vacuum that followed the end of its socialist phase, and, thus, sucked inexorably into the vortex of religious extremism assiduously egged-on from outside. Yes, you have your difficulties. But so do we. So any strategy built on the assumption that Pakistan cannot hold is misconceived, misplaced and dangerously misleading. And, therefore, bound to be disproved. Equally unrealistic are doomsday prophecies of Pakistan falling into the maw of fanatical terrorists or disintegrating irretrievably into a congeries of nations. Pakistan is here to stay and it would best to deal with it on those terms. While it is the duty of the intelligence community to conjure up far-fetched scenarios and prepare for them, statesmen are required to handle the here and now. And that calls for an engagement with a Pakistan that will last, not a Pakistan on its last legs.

 

That accounts too, in my view, for no one in India harbouring any illusions any more about a return to Akhand Bharat. That was a slogan in the immediate post-partition period, a cry from the heart of those who had been deprived of their hearths and their homes. That generation has gone, the refugee in India is well integrated into Indian society, and there is no homesickness for return except perhaps in the fading memories of some eighty-to-ninety year olds. Moreover, what on earth are we going to do with 15 crore seriously angered malcontents if ever anything so stupid happened as the end of Pakistan? No, there is nothing, nothing at all, to be gained by promoting any disintegration of neighbouring Pakistan, and I would advise any Pakistani who doubts us on this score to consider how steadfast a series of Indian governments, of every hue and colour, were in standing up for the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka through thirty years of a vicious civil war caused by gross discrimination against the Tamil minority despite the strong ethnic links that bind the Sri Lankan Tamil to the Indian Tamil.

 

There being no insuperable institutional obstacle to a sustained Indo-Pak effort to resolve simmering differences, let us now turn our attention to those differences, which, for convenience, I have divided into the ‘endemic’ and the ‘episodic’.

 

Endemic: The endemic issues between Pakistan and India are, from a Pakistani perspective, Kashmir and water; from an Indian perspective, doubtless it is cross-border terrorism based on Pakistani soil.

 

I have no readymade answers. I doubt that anyone has. But is that cause enough to despair of any solution ever being found?

 

The historical record would appear to disprove any military solution to the argument over Jammu and Kashmir. The attempt to annex the Maharajah’s state when he and Sheikh Abdullah were readying to through their lot in with India failed; so did Operation Gibraltar; so did the attack on Akhnur that followed; as did the hostilities on the Western Front in 1971; as did the Kargil misadventure; as did the proxy war of the nineties. And while there are those in India who maintain that the war of 1948 should have been pressed forward to a conclusion, I think Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was sensible in listening to wiser counsel. There is no military solution, and subversion will not work.

 

On the other hand, is jaw-jaw impossible? The United Nations, once the forum for grand forensic battles between Krishna Menon and Feroze Khan Noon and, later, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Swaran Singh, has in effect washed its hands of the issue; the question of Jammu and Kashmir remains on the UN agenda but lies dormant ever since India and Pakistan agreed at Shimla in July 1972 to discuss bilaterally all issues related to J&K. Notwithstanding the Naysayers, and there is no dearth of them in either country, progress has indeed been made. These issues are an integral part of the Composite Dialogue initiated in 1997. And, to go by available records, a framework for resolution had reached an advanced stage under the aegis of President Musharraf and Dr Manmohan Singh through the Lambah-Tariq back channel. Even if that progress is not being acknowledged now, it does seem feasible to hope that the resumption of back channel contacts (made public by the Pakistan minister of Kashmir Affairs, according to reports appearing in the Indian media) might yet move matters further forward. But whether or not the back channel has, indeed, been reactivated, the two countries have demonstrated that, when the waters are not muddied, they can talk to each other even on Jammu and Kashmir and inch towards an agreed settlement. Neither military action nor encouragement to cross-border terrorism can do that.

 

As for waters, when I was in Pakistan in March last year, the drying rivers of the Indus basin were on everyone’s lips; when I was last here in October, devastating floods were on everyone’s mind. Water is a most serious issue and upper and lower riparian, whether within our respective countries, such as Punjab and Sindh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, for example, or between our respective countries, will have to find answers in 21st century technology, not in the polemics of the 20th century. The total availability of water has run so low that where India and Pakistan started in the 1950s with a per capita availability per annum of about 5,000 cubic metres, water availability in both countries has since declined to under 2,000, in Pakistan rather more sharply than in India, down to about 1,200 as against India’s 1,800.

 

The problem of water shortage is, however, common to both of us and is, indeed, a global problem common to virtually every country in the world. Some would call it the most important universal challenge of our times. Israel has shown the way to the conservation of water through drip and sprinkler irrigation and I imagine that it is in such technology rather than in the 19th century technology of large dams and command area channels that the answer lies.

 

But while technology may hold the secret, there is no denying the fact of water deprivation or the politics that flow from it. That is where the Indus Waters Treaty has proved its immense worth. The numerous mechanisms it has for finding acceptable ways of resolving agonized issues, as was demonstrated over Baglihar recently and as is being demonstrated over Kishangana now, are solid examples of India and Pakistan being able to discover forums of settlement in preference to the vapid aggravation of real problems and real issues.

 

I now turn, with some trepidation, to the Indian priority issue - terrorism. Till 9/11, cross-border terrorism was one of several subjects under discussion in our bilateral composite dialogue notwithstanding the proxy war in Kashmir nor the jihadi strategy of bleeding India with a thousand cuts. The attack on our Parliament on December 13, 2001 led to the armed confrontation of Operation Parikrama but did not stall either the Agra summit or the Islamabad Declaration of January 2004 or the dramatic progress made between May 2004 and March 2007 when the going was never better.

 

Meanwhile, the al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers brought the American retaliation to the borders of Pakistan. Ever since, terrorism has become a global issue, perhaps the most important issue before the international community. In that war against terrorism, Pakistan, willy-nilly, has become a front-line state, with horrific consequences for itself. No state has suffered as much from terrorism as Pakistan itself. I think there needs to be much wider appreciation in India than there is at present of how terrible is the daily threat of terrorism striking any day and anywhere in Pakistan and, therefore, how steely is the will of the Pakistani people to not let their country be taken over by suicide bombers and pathological killers. I do believe that while the Pakistan establishment might at one time have been complaisant regarding terrorism directed at the West or terrorism directed against India, while being extremely vigilant against terrorism directed at Pakistan, there is now an increasing realization that all the networks are inter-connected and, therefore, the counter attack on terrorism has to be holistic, taking on all three components without distinction.

 

Indeed, that is the message that came through in President Zardari’s initial reaction to 26/11. That brief flicker of hope of a joint India-Pakistan front against those undertaking, sponsoring or abetting terrorism was snuffed out over the offer, first made and then withdrawn, to send the ISI chief to India to initiate a cooperative approach to the joint threat of terror. However, subsequent developments over the next two years have been far from encouraging. Bluntly speaking, the Indian establishment and almost all Indians remain unconvinced that India-directed terrorism is, indeed, seen in Pakistan as an unmitigated evil that must be stamped out. But while that hurdle looms large on the road to the resumption of normalcy in our mutual dialogue, I do believe only a joint strategy to counter terrorism will enable both India and Pakistan to overcome what is, in effect, a joint threat to both our peoples. We either hang together or hang separately. The challenge is to set the stage to being together on this issue instead of languishing in confrontation, thus giving the edge to the terrorist. There is little sign of this happening, but I remain persuaded that the threat to both of us is so great from what is in practice a single undifferentiated source of extreme danger to both countries that sooner than later a joint process will have to be set in motion.

 

Episodic: In a relationship as turbulent and accident-prone as that between India and Pakistan, it is only to be expected that there would be diurnal disturbances to any equilibrium we might establish or strive to establish. There are any number of issues on which troubles arise. If not tackled, they persist, and when they are resolved leave one wondering what all the fuss was about.

 

Take, for example, for it is the example closest to home, the opening of the Indian Consulate-General when I arrived here 33 years ago. It was expected that a Pakistani Consul General would soon land in Bombay. That was delayed. A year later, elections in India led to a change of government. Jinnah House was no longer on offer. Three decades on, there is still no Pakistan CG in Mumbai. And the Indian CG in Karachi was closed down 17 years ago. I sneaked into 63, Clifton some years ago with my daughter born in Karachi. It was heartbreaking. Who has gained? I do not know. But I do know who have lost. Ordinary, very ordinary Pakistanis and Indians.

 

If an Indian Consulate could run in Karachi for 15 years without a counterpart Pakistan facility in Mumbai, why not now? And as for a Pakistani visa office in Mumbai, I am told by successive Pakistan high commissioners that they have searched and searched but are unable to find a single Mumbai landlord willing to lease his premises to the Pakistan government; while the Indian side tells me that all efforts they have made to make space available to Pakistan have been rebuffed. You and I will never know the full story till WikiLeaks makes it available to us. But amazing is it not that neither of us seems to have the wit to find a mutually satisfactory answer? Or is it just that our authorities do not want to?”

  

Boxercise Demo.Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

Ladie

s Sparring Demo, Bout 1, with Chezz and Tezza. Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

 

mindset

 

Ladies Sparring Demo, Bout 2, with Katy and Kellie. Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

International Hapkido Demo.Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

 

A female job recruiter on LinkedIn inquired whether I was interested in a position. I wrote back that I was not. Being a photographer, I could not but notice that her profile picture was more suited for a shady dating site than a job portal. Taken at night with a webcam, eyes looking down at the ...

 

manwithoutfather.com/2015/10/05/the-stupid-mindset-of-jus...

The Junior Combat demonstration. Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

 

Boxercise Demo.Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

Ladie

s Sparring Demo, Bout 1, with Chezz and Tezza. Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

 

The 2019 Masters World Final Rematch: Richie Rock Myers (USA) V David Baird (UK). Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

Lamb of God

Alcatraz - Milano

07 Gennaio 2014

 

ph ©Mairo Cinquetti

All rights reserved

 

There are metal bands and then there is Lamb of God.

 

A new breed of modern American metal was erected in the 2000s, with Lamb of God serving as an architect, designing the blueprint that would become the standard by which bands that came after them would be judged. So often, the European metal scene has set the tone and established the creative high watermark of the global metal scene, providing the template that their American brethren would follow. Then Lamb of God came along and all bets were off.

 

It was Lamb of God who rewrote the rules, devised a new playbook and raised the standard. The genre was forever and irrefutably changed by what the band has done.

 

By the mid-00s, there was a full metal Renaissance, if you will, in America, with the genre enjoying several years of renewed success and critical respect. Lamb of God worked to establish themselves without question as the scene's alpha males, dominating at every turn, leaving a parade of other acts to merely feast on their leftovers and scraps. Mind you, this was not a scene, style or era populated by middling acts. The era was filled quality bands and still, it was Lamb of God who defined the time period and that quickly ascended as the game changers and torch bearers. No. Questions. Asked.

 

Turns out, they've merely nicked the surface of what they can do and plan on accomplishing.

 

In 2012, Lamb of God remain the pre-eminent metal band and not by default, either. The scene is still healthy, even if some of the peers who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them during that period of growth have fallen by the wayside. Lamb of God still reign atop of the genre thanks to their consistent ability to feed fans with only the best extreme metal there is. Their seventh album Resolution finds the band firing on all cylinders and doing things their way. As if we'd expect anything less from this Virginia wrecking crew.

 

With a rich history including three Grammy nominations, an invitation to tour with Metallica (which they did in 2008 through 2010 on the World Magnetic trek); multiple debuts in the Top 10 on the Billboard Top 200 (2009's Wrath debuted at No. 2 while 2006's Sacrament debuted at No. 8); multiple Platinum-selling DVDs (Killadelphia and Walk With Me in Hell); an arena tour with Slipknot (which took place in 2005); the main stage of OZZfest (2006) and wearing the fact that they were banned in Los Angeles (the Forum had a problem with their name and booted them off the bill of two shows, one with Slipknot and one with Metallica) as a badge of honor, there's no question that Lamb of God rule the metal roost. Everyone else is left to watch and marvel, and choke on their dust. However, they're not resting on past successes or what they've done. For Lamb of God, what happened in 2002 happened in 2002. It's about the right now and what's next: Resolution.

 

With Resolution, Lamb of God emerged from their haven in the South as powerful, as hungry and as extreme as ever. While most bands are running on fumes or coasting and sputtering to album No. 7, Lamb of God are reinvigorated. They still have something to say and more to prove…to themselves and no one else. This sonic terror squad has come along way from playing squats in basements as Burn the Priest with one constant element: the instinct to make legit, honest music their way, which is just what they've done with Resolution.

 

“The first and foremost thing that you have to realize about LOG is that we do exactly what we want, when we want, and how we want to," declares vocalist Randy Blythe. "We always have and we always will. That’s why each record is a snapshot in time. We never consciously sit down and say 'We’re going to keep it heavy. We’re going to keep it metal.' We just do that because that’s what we want to do. If we felt like putting out a polka record tomorrow, we would. We’re trying to make 'smart' heavy music.”

 

Point taken and mission most certainly accomplished with Resolution, a 100 percent trend-free and intelligently constructed album that could power a small country with its unstoppable energy and potent riffery. In a scene littered with "here today, gone tomorrow" bands, Lamb of God have survived because nothing stops them from staying the course they've purposely chosen to embark upon. They're not here to collect a check or respond to a label exec's request to pen a "radio song." It's none of the above for Lamb of God. The men that comprise the band are a little older now, a lot wiser and have families to support. Yet despite all those realities, making this music and making it their way is something that compels them, drives them and sustains them.

 

“You can still be a band that goes to the practice space, actually writes music together and then records. Being an actual band is still a viable option," Blythe says. "Bands are disappearing with digital recording today. Things are progressing to the point where people are just playing a riff or pattern and programming the drums, and at the end of the day, they have a technically perfect record, but it isn’t a real record. We didn’t do that. Our record is a REAL record.” Indeed, there is blood and adrenaline coursing through every vein of Resolution and its pulse will be felt by all who listen. It's an incredibly human record.

 

"We're not spitting out a Lamb of God template record," guitarist Mark Morton says. "If it's uninspired or you have nothing left to say, you stop. We're all putting other things in life off to do this, and we're not going to do it if gets boring to us. It's still exciting on our seventh studio record. We're still gaining momentum and getting better." That's not a quality you come across often with aggressive bands. Playing physically taxing music at full tilt leads to wear and tear on the body and the mind, but Lamb of God are not affected by such issues. They're like mutants made stronger by challenging themselves. While 2009's Wrath was sonically forceful enough to shift tectonic plates, Resolution finds the band knocking out their songs with the signature groove and swagger that made them heir apparent to Pantera's throne --an accolade left at LOG's doorstep by critics over time-- but with a little more refinement and attention to dynamics.

 

Overall, Morton feels that Resolution is the natural next chapter in his band's history, albeit one that harks back to the past, saying, "It almost completes the circle. There is a purity in the music, like when you first begin and you don't have those big aspirations, in a business sense, other than to play."

 

Drummer Chris Adler, long regarded as one of the most jaw-droppingly talented and proficient rhythm keepers in metal concurs, "Wrath was a bit of a first round knock-out punch to the face album and was purposefully very aggressive. Resolution is much more of a dynamic album.” He also feels that Resolution is born of the desire to surprise himself along with the fans who are happily along for the ride. He says, “A lot of bands get to the point where they put out seven or eight records and fans start to take them for granted. They aren’t the 'cool guys' anymore. I’m not immune to that, and we wanted to push ourselves and surprise ourselves by not resting on prior successes and by default surprising our fans.” Even so, he's not interested in following any sort of trends. He continued, “The biggest thing is that we don’t all want to be the next 'fill in the blank.' We don’t have a unified influence as a band. Because of that, our approach and our sound is slightly different than most bands. We fight and argue which makes it a more honest process.” As bandmate Blythe said earlier, Lamb of God, as an entity is like a living, breathing creature, not one that is plugged in.

 

The desire to maintain a "personal best" also keeps Adler and his bandmates at the very top of their game this deep into an enviable career. “What inspires me is to outdo the 21-year-old that I was," he states. "I have to prove to myself that I am still a player in this game and keep up with the best. As a band it was important to us to prove to ourselves that we have something left to offer. We don’t need to put out records anymore, but we want to put out records. We don’t want to tarnish the legacy of the band, so whatever we do has to be stronger than what we’ve done. And we’ve done it with Resolution.”

 

As Blythe decreed, the fact that the band owns the same goals since their humble beginning is what makes the album so real. Bassist John Campbell says, “Putting out heavy music has been our aim since we started this. We wanted to be a great, heavy band. It was never a thought to us that this would be conceptual commercially. We’re all the original members and this is what we do. This isn’t a contrived business thing to get famous and make money. Our core value is to write heavy music, and I think that’s what makes a great band.”

 

Amen to that!

 

So with that mindset firmly and collectively in place, when it came time to write and record Resolution, and to get into the meats and the guts of the album, the band elected to let producer Josh Wilbur become involved sooner, to direct what was flowing out of them, egos be damned. "We did incorporate Josh [Wilbur] a bit earlier in the process this time around," guitarist Willie Adler says. "To have an objective ear early on in the process allowed us to sideline our egos at times and really drive for the best shit possible. We also wanted, as far as guitars are concerned, to really capture our live tone to record.”

 

Morton also revealed that the band did try something new and different with Resolution. “Unlike any other album before, this album was written over the course of a couple of years, at least with the guitars. Willie and I starting songwriting as soon as we started touring with Wrath," instead of their usual M.O. of touring writing upon their return from the road. "Due to having the recording software, we were able to take down ideas," he says about the head start. As a result, Resolution boasts some of the most punk rock moments and some of the bluesiest moments of the band's recorded career, perhaps fostered along by the liveliness of the writing-on-the-road process.

 

The album may display some of the band's deeper and less obvious influences, but Chris Adler is quick to assess the album's frantic energy. You can feel tension and release in the songs, making the album as a whole a truly cathartic experience. He says, “We really were living on a bit of the edge of our capabilities. There are some frantic moments in the music; they sound almost panic-inducing. The album is overwhelmingly aggressive and will definitely get people off their asses and driving fast.”

 

Blythe, he of the booming, bellowing voice, is known for spitting out provocative verses in a militaristic, almost drill-sergeant style bark. His voice and his style demand and command your attention. What he declares in the space of his lyrics isn't always comfortable –for him or for you- but he will always make you think about what he is saying. "I’m 40 years old, and I’m just now really getting some clarity on where my place in my life is," Blythe admits. "This is about me getting clarity after partying for a long amount of time, looking at my life and saying 'This is where I am, where do I want to go now?'"

 

Asking that question, which is something more than a fair share of the band's red-blooded, average American fans are likely to pose to themselves, allowed the singer to enter an entirely different zone on Resolution. While he may have experienced discomfort, LOG ended up with a better and more honest record for it. He continues, "It’s an introspective record and goes over some uncomfortable things for me. I hope people that hear those lyrics will look at themselves and look at the world around them and say 'This is where I am, I don’t like this.' and try to invoke a change in themselves. My overall feeling for this record is 'awakening.'"

 

The singer admits that he was attracted to underground, aggressive music in his youth because it offered a voice of dissent, one that he could relate to, so he attempts to distill that same feeling into Lamb of God. "That’s what I’m trying to put forth in my music," he says. "Not everything is really okay. You can have your cable TV and Xbox in your car or whatever, but that doesn’t mean that everything is okay and you can just stop because it’s easy. The root of what I try to put forth lyrically is 'Think for yourself.' Do something, do anything.” And that's precisely what bonds Lamb of God to their legion of loyal fans that have stuck with them for seven albums. Well, that and those bludgeoning riffs and technically proficient grooves have something to do with it, as well!

 

While Resolution admittedly contains some of "the swampiest, sludgiest stuff" of their career, according to Morton, as well as some of the aforementioned "most punk" songs they've ever laid to tape, the album also boldly goes elsewhere and features strings, orchestral movements and bluesy, acoustic guitars living among the band's patented, potent groove and swagger. The song "Insurrection" is a signature, natural and instinctive moment for Chris Adler, who revealed the song was born when the group was locked together in a room and tasked with seeing what it could come up with.

 

Album closer "King Me" is a real showpiece on an album full of showpieces. As Resolution's punctuation mark, it's a beautiful piece of music from grizzled, meat-and-potatoes-peddling veterans. It was purposely placed at the end of the album, as an unexpected pay off for the fan who spent an hour of his or her life listening to what came before it. Even though Lamb of God make music that could put hair on your chest, underneath the buzz of the guitars, the thunder of the percussion and the ferocity of the vocal declarations, this is still thinking man's metal.

 

""King Me' is an epic song," Blythe declares without hesitation. "It fits that definition, there’s no way around it. When a song is an epic song, you want to make it as big as possible, which is what we did with the opera singer and the string incorporation." Morton shared a little more about the process and how they arrived at such an "epic" moment, saying, "This isn’t necessarily us changing our songwriting approach or the method, but we really stretched out in the way we 'treated' the songs. Those are things that are added to the song after the fact, but they have a very impact on the overall sound. I don’t think we looked at it as 're-inventing' ourselves; it’s really as simple as that we’re continuing to strive to make music that we’re interested in and that we’re challenged to play, and that we enjoy performing.”

 

Now that Resolution is in the books and has asserted its rightful place as one of the most cohesive, dynamic and boot-to-the-throat heavy albums in Lamb of God's already extensive body of work, complete with epic and provocative moments, the goal remains singular: to move fans and connect with them, all the while creatively stimulating themselves. Lamb of God are pleased with the album. The only question mark is the fans and judging from the heft and the intensity of Resolution, there will be nothing but pleased fans once they get a load of the album.

 

Willie Adler said, "To see someone who has really been touched by the music is inspiring to me. Regardless of what emotion they’re feeling, what they’re going thru in their life at that moment, as long as they feel something, I feel as though I’ve done my job.” It's true that Resolution has the capacity to connect with its listener on multiple emotional levels, in addition to the sonic one.

 

Perhaps Morton sums up Resolution the best: "If it doesn't make you want to push the accelerator to the floor a little harder, flip off a cop or throw a bottle against a brick wall, then I haven't have done my job."

 

Few bands can craft an album that's as thoughtful as it is visceral. One is often sacrificed in favor of the other. But such is not the case here. Lamb of God have managed to create a masterwork that allows the listener to unlock layers of sound and meaning on each consecutive listen.

 

There's a whole host of reasons that Lamb of God remain at the top of their game in 2012, while others have faded and fallen away. Resolution is evidence of the band's stronghold on heavy metal in 2012. None can match it, nor do they come close.

 

In 2012, and with Resolution, Lamb of God has earned their place in the metal pantheon.

Mindset, Parkersburg, WV

by ironandresin ift.tt/1SN5HxX

Read more on Auto Design

Boxercise Demo.Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

via Instagram ift.tt/26cTrMx

The Junior Combat demonstration. Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

 

Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

Boxercise Demo.Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.

mindset, inspiration, Inspirational Quotes , lily tomlin, inspirational graphics, inspiration quotes, inspiration images, inspirational graphics, self growth,

Photos taken from Blast off PE Fitness and Mindset Coaching's Exhibition Night and Master Boxing Bout. This great event was held in Dorchester Jail on Saturday 19th November 2022 to show how sport can help your mental health. Note: Dorchester Jail is no longer a working prison - it's now operated by Gloucester & Dorchester Prison Events who run regular tours and events there. Blast Off hire their Gym for their regular meetings.