Living Two Worlds

Reading a latest Derek Silvers Blog “…. its about you, not them” made me think more about the usefulness of Facebook

Facebook may possibly be a good discipline for our lives.

Starting off with what Derek Silvers was sharing, there’s so much music out there we listen to and buy, so many products out there we buy and so many services, even consultants we are quite intimate with ……. that would give us some shock if we knew the people behind what we buy.

The media makes it their job to expose us to the personal and “private” lives of the people we buy from. Their “stories” have an amazing effect and influence on what we buy, and stop buying …. If there was some media that revealed undesirable personal lives of the media people that have this effect on us, would we stop being influences by their “stories”? 

These are sensationalism questions though, so I’ll move onto something that I hope is useful

I’ve been a huge fan of Facebook since it was insignificant against MySpace but I could see what Facebook could become and its getting there. I just hope they find a good monetising solution to keep it going. Facebook do have a horrible habit of setting up something good, and then messing it up, though, but hope they will not mess with the current Profile and Page separations.

We can all now be on Facebook with a Profile and a Page, but the trick is to approach them totally differently.

Use Profile to share ourselves

Share our pics, thoughts “what’s on our minds”, video clips, see what our friends are saying and doing and then making some comments of praise, new ideas, maybe crack a harmless joke or two, exchange of memories, and so forth. This is a place for friends when we cannot meet them at home, in a cafe, down the pub, at the club, at the church and at the community hall. Here people like you or they don’t and click away. Profile is a great place. If you are alone and fancy a bit of social and cannot get out to meet people, such as middle of the night in undies, its good to have a bit of “useless” banter on Facebook. This must be great for seniors. No need to experience loneliness today.

Use Page to share what people can use

I always try to focus my work, job and business on providing something that people can use, which at present is largely serving some accommodation, transport, information and entertainment while folks are on vacation in Ireland, trying to serve them the best for their little time here in Ireland at the best price I can afford to offer. 

I have a wonderful time with these people, and from comments they send back to us they have a wonderful time sharing with Claire and myself. However, though I think we are decent living kind of people, if our travellers knew us more intimately I think some of these folks may not like us very much, and the same would probably be true in reverse.  

Its taken me a long, long time to realize that  fans/guests/clients/customers  and my friends are different people,

They are different worlds, different tribes, even though I still feel passion, concern and interest for my clients.

Sometimes, it can be among the worst events in our lives when we do a business deal with a close friend and the business deal goes wrong, and that valuable friendship dissolves with it.

If that same deal had been put with a non-friend and the same things went wrong, probably because of weakness of the deal and not faults with the person at the other end, the close friendship remains still strong.  Sometimes we may feel hurt when a friend does business with someone else that we feel we could have done better and cheaper, but think of the consequences of your friendship if that deal fell apart!

I feel that friends are an outer sanctuary, the inner sanctuary being ourselves and how we fill and secure this. Some readers here may share how their spouse is also their perfect business partner and when this happens its absolutely fabulous and usually does not get in the way of such a couple being good parents too. However, I do find that business sharing couples do need time apart to be with close friends to fulfill that side of being, and that’s very healthy. It does not mean changing sex partners as I believe that is a separate area of divine bonding.

Our fans, guests, clients and customers are our network, a world beyond sanctuary, through which we can share our creativity expressed as usefulness rather than intimacy. Sometimes our fans really do become friend, and when they do I believe the boundaries do need to change for all to be fulfilled. 

However, its through our fans we operate those cliches “push the envelope”, “look outside the box”, and maybe you can remind me of some more. Through them we can perhaps learn how to be better friends with our friends.

There is a fourth “station” in all of this

This is the effect we have on all those folks who have not demonstrated to us that they are fans or customers, the people who probably do not know we exist, yet all of our actions have an outer resonance on how they live.

Lets use Facebook again as an example. Thousands of people are joining Facebook every day that we do not know, will never know and never desire to know, yet their reason for joining Facebook was through a result of a “trend” and “attraction” that was slightly accelerated when we joined and started using Facebook. 

This unseen outer band is a reflection of how we like the world to be, or how the world will be as a consequence of our thoughts, motivations, actions and sharing. The world domination of communication online accelerated over the past 15 years is very understandable example. Though it may not seem it, this is the “spirituality” we have created for the world that many of us wish to deny by jumping under the sheets of a “religion”. There are also many people focused on influencing a pioneering change of this “outer band” which will be always constantly changing over time.

Our Garden Labyrinth offers visitors a journey of Two Worlds, Four Paths, One Wholeness

Intent of our Two Worlds Garden labyrinth is not to change the world but to invite people to reflect on themselves, their lives and the impact their lives have on others and the world. There are no right and wrong conclusions and no judgements. Myself and others can quite easily leave that labyrinth with a clear vision of self and action that actually causes unexpected conflict and challenge. No problem. We just try again.

I suppose our labyrinth is a different kind of church. I know, while building it, I was heavily influenced by what I had experienced with stone circles, medicine wheels and ancient cairns as well as other labyrinths.

So here’s some of what we have in our labyrinth …

There are two sides which can be used as
one side for sanctuary of self and friends
the other side for how we serve others
and our impact of our actions on the whole world

From that you can already read four elements

or what I call, within the labyrinth, the four paths of
self and arrival which i mark with a sword
self and unity, marked with a unity stone to bond friends
self and service marked with a sickle as its from service we reap
self and impact marked with a cauldron which determines how the world is fed

and all together this synthesises into what each of us interprets as wholeness

Back to the Facebook example …..

within the Profile
we have the “Info” box of ourself
and the “wall” box shared with friends

and if we stretch into creating a Page
we have a “wall” box to serve fans and clients
and a “discussion” utility that could be used to indicate impact

Our Facebook Pages

Celtic Ways  for our guided storytelling tours, Two Worlds Labyrinth Garden Wheel, Healers & Bards Sunday Gatherings 

Claire Roche  for page for Claire Roche, singer and harpist (and piano)

Harps Around Ireland  our developing network of singer harpers in Ireland and where they perform

Details of our labyrinth garden is within our Celtic Ways page

May I invite you to become fans of the above?