Enklings Studio

The Curious Case of Dan DeVaul

Sunny Acres is a home grown Recovery Center outside of San Luis Obispo, CA owned by Dan DeVaul.  Over the past few years, wealthy housing developments have grown into the landscape where this little ranch once stood by itself.  Neighbors are appalled by the conditions of the ranch where Mr.DeVaul has been helping the homeless and addicted for years all on his own.

Through his own efforts he built a dormitory to house the many that come through his gate seeking help.  This dormitory and the abandoned cars that litter his property have been at the center of a moral controversy in this quiet little liberal town.

The dormitory is not up to county codes, so it is now boarded up and the residents live in a tent city on the property which is apparently legal, but not any safer.  The abandoned cars are an eyesore to the wealthy homeowners that have built near his ranch.

One can't hold the county code enforcement officers at fault here for doing their job, but it seems when someone is doing good like this the county itself could give a variance for the property.  You would think that in a liberal town such as San Luis Obispo, the care for the homeless and less fortunate would be the priority, but apparently it is only OK if it's done in a way that keeps them out of site.

The most recent development has been that a judge has disallowed the testimony of the homeless in a"necessity defense' argument.  This is being appealed as it seems to smack of disenfranchisement of those wanting to testify.

With the economy the way it is and unemployment at these record levels across the nation, how long  will it be before there are mass tent cities rising up on the roadsides and countrysides as they did during the great depression?  They'll probably be less safe than Sunny Acres and my guess is communities like San Luis Obispo will push them away as an unacceptable eyesore. 

simply,

Tim

Are You Going To Finish Strong?

My Brother Daniel sent me this video this morning:

simply,

Tim

Pure Gold - Why we shouldn't put out the refining fire

My buddy Dave and I were talking this morning about how the government is desperately trying to put out the economic fire raging in the U.S. and the rest of the world.  It dawned on us that refining fire, like the kind they use to purify gold and other metals, are at times necessary to get to the pure essence of anything.

So should we be putting this economic fire out or is it a refining fire that will eventually purify the nation and the world of unnecessary business?

I know in my own life (and I'm in a refining fire of my own right now) the times when I have been refined, the seasons where my life has been consumed by the fires of hard times have been painful, but extremely productive.  Each one I go through makes me a purer person.  I become more at peace.  I suppose the product is wisdom which is the purest form of knowledge.

It is good for land to be burned every so often and it is probably good for the economy also.  If we put the fire out before it has done it's good work, what will we have?  Something less than pure.

simply,

Tim

Simply Suzuki

The real essence of art turned out to be not something high up and far off—it was right inside my ordinary daily self—If a musician wants to become a finer artist, he must first become a finer person.

Shinichi Suzuki

Enklings Twine

If you get a chance, stop by the Enklings Twine to see the websites I've been finding on books, authors and reviews.  Join the twine and contribute.  Especially in times of uncertainty, knowledge is a contributor to peace. 

I read in The Laws of Simplicity this morning that knowledge is also a contributor to simplicity for it reduces the complexity of a given thing when you understand that given thing better.

(This works in everything but women, the more knowledge I get about my wife and daughters, the more complex they seem!)

simply,

Tim

Two Sentence Stories

Found a very fun site for honing your simple stories: Two Sentence Stories.

You could also win $150 AUD - well, I'm not entirely sure he gives prizes to people out of the U.S., but at any rate, it's a fun and short project to work you mind a bit.

Here's my story.

(no, this isn't about me or anyone I know...just a personal awareness campaign I feel strongly about!)

simply,

Tim

This Is Your Brain On Joy - Dr. Earl Henslin

Just finished the book This Is Your Brain On Joy by Dr. Earl Henslin. 

This was one of those books I couldn't wait to get back to.  Having dealt with the effects of depression in our household, I have read numerous titles on the topic from lengthy medical tomes to simple healing and nutritional techniques.  This book covers the gamut. 

From a licensed counselor's viewpoint with decades of experience dealing with all sorts of problems, Dr. Henslin give a rare glimpse inside the brain through the lens of the Amen Clinic brain scan technology.  He draws heavily on Dr. Daniel G. Amen and the research done there, but also give many examples from his own practice.

Dr. Henlin brings the brain down to simple terms and gives a broad look at all sorts of clinical problems from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) to PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) to Depression.  In each case he shows what is happening in the brain through brain scans and also gives a glimpse into treatments, clinical, medical, spiritual and nutritional.

There is quite a bit of practical advice in this book and it references numerous other books that I plan on picking up also.  I would highly recommend you pick up a copy of this book, I doubt there is a household or business in the U.S. that is not affected by some of the issues covered in this book and that couldn't be helped by understanding them more.

simply,

Tim

Twine.com

This website has been around a while, but I'm just getting around to figuring out how to use it.  It's a really valuable time-saving tool for keeping up with stuff on the web. 

Basically, Twine enables people to put websites into a "thread" or "twine" that individuals join to make a group.  As the individuals add content to the twine, the group is informed about the content through a "digest" of the websites.  For example, there is a twine called "Cool" that has 2500 members that are posting websites every day as they fine cool stuff and technology on the web.  To see what these 2500 people think is cool today, you just have to look at the twine digest.  I found this link there today - pretty darn cool!

Anyway, I have a couple of public twines I started: thelifesimple - about all things simple and sustainable and enklings - about all things author related, books, blogs, poetry, etc.  I've also joined one on social networking and one on web 3.0

You can join Twine and then join these two groups to keep up with what I'm finding and also add your own.  For me, the personal organization this brings me while I'm doing web research will be benefit enough to use it.

simply,

Tim

FREECYCLE - Changing the World One Gift at a Time

Found this cool site that it seems everyone know about but me. (So you ask "then why post about it, you must be a verbolatrist?!")  Anyway, the site is FREECYCLE, and it's simply a network to keep stuff out of landfills that could still be used by someone. 

I joined the SLO group - there are over 4000 members - pretty great!

See if there's a network in your area...

simply,

Tim

Verbolatry

I get a word a day from the Visual Thesaurus site and I was surprised at this word in my in-box this morning:

"Verbolatry - If you're a practitioner of the activity denoted by this word, you can probably figure out     what it means: "worship of words." The verb- part is from Latin verum, "word." -latry is a productive suffix from Greek meaning (in modern English) "worship."

I don't know why this struck me as funny, but the fact that I have a subscription to the Visual Thesaurus on-line probably struck a chord that perhaps I am a verbolater.

With Twitter, Facebook, blogs, books, newspapers, magazines, etc. it seems that perhaps we are a nation of verbolaters.  The fact that I'm writing this and you're reading this might give you a clue that we worship words. 

Is that bad?  Reading is increasing in the U.S. according to a recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts.  That is great!  My guess is that for most of us, Twitter, Facebook and the like are just a current fad.  We will all get tired of hearing about someone's breakfast or afternoon walk eventually.  Substance will win in the end and we'll all get back to doing what is important and not trivial. 

So the question I ask is: Why do you write a blog or updates on Facebook or Twitter?  Are you in love with your words?  I've read a lot of posts recently that really didn't need to be written (this may be one of those!) and perhaps when things get a little more back to normal, we'll all look back and laugh at the things we wrote.  For me?  It's therapy as I assume it is for a lot of people.  We know few people really care what we think, but pixelating our ideas somehow gives value to them.  When one person reads it, that value in our minds increases.  When 100 read it, the value must be really high, right? 

Seth Godin says that you only have a viable tribe if you have one thousand true followers.  (Not Twitter followers I might add.)  I'm unlikely to reach that point with my words and the same is probably true for you, but keep the "pixideas" coming.  Just make sure they are really "pixideas" and not just words.  Otherwise the verbolatry is just narcissism.

simply,

Tim