 © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 Skull Cap Electrodes (detail) Love Overload...
The Thursday Thesis - 27/07/2017 It’s a funny thing, but most people complain of being overloaded – you, yourself, might even think it’s a bad thing. You would – of course – be wrong. Every piece of research I’ve ever read suggests that Overload is a Good Thing – with capitals! Here’s how it works: every time you overload a muscle it suffers damage. But our bodies adapt to that damage and overcompensate: they seem to assume we’ll do the same stupid thing again and provide us with more muscle in a bid to protect us from future damage. A similar process occurs in our brains, that trembling network of connections and cells. Use it, push it, load it up and it will begin to morph into a faster and better brain. The process even has an expensive-sounding name: neuroplasticity. So we are built to grow, but it takes the threat of damage and a crisis situation to trigger that growth – it’s all tied in to our innate fight or flight response to danger. No crisis, no growth. So it’s essential that we do things that Overload and scare us: how else can we develop and grow stronger? I’m currently training to improve my public speaking abilities, which are already pretty good. But what’s fascinating to watch is how I and the other trainees smash through our fear and emerge unscathed. Within three days, one lady went from Overload and total meltdown to confident speaker: a little more practice and she’ll be rocking the house down. How did she get there? Incrementally doing a little more, a little more, a little more... Things stuck, ideas gelled, words tumbled... Do a bit, add a bit, do a bit more. Now repeat. Rest and sleep complete the process. I love Overload, so give me more, more, more! © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 Remember to Like and Share The Thursday ThoughtCast with your friends, family, and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net .
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 Outrageous dancing in St Peter's Square, Rome. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 The Thursday Thesis - 20/07/2017 The very excellent Angi Magic’s favourite word is “Outrageous!” – with an exclamation mark. And, a couple of days ago, I got to thinking about setting some “Outrageous!” and unreasonable goals for myself – wondering what I could do to power-up my productivity and catalyse myself into action. I asked myself “How can I share what I teach - music, guitar, happiness, and all the rest - with the 7 billion or so people I can’t work with face to face?” After one too many espressos it dawned on me that if I got my sorry arse into the chair every single day and wrote for a couple of hours every single day, I could probably finish a book a month – that would be a start, wouldn’t it? Outrageous! Unreasonable? Do-able? Let’s see... I already have over 140 outlines and/or ideas for books sitting on my hard-drive, where they are doing no good at all and helping nobody. My “Outrageous!” Idea looks like a great plan to get them off the drive and into ink... It’ll keep me busy for the next few years, at least. I’m up for the challenge, and I realise that going public with my “Outrageous!” goal is going to nail my backside down: if I miss a deadline, I know I’m going to hear about. Going public with your own Goals and Ambitions might just light a rocket under you, too. The poet, Mary Oliver asks, in one of her works, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” But don’t tell me – tell the people who will inspire you to do it, and who’ll hold you to account if you don’t. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 13/07/2017 “Go into The Silence...” These days, everyone is so “Connected”, our phones are on 24/7, we’re on Wi-Fi wherever we go, and we can stream music, video, and social media almost anywhere. But what are we actually connected to? In becoming more and more a node on a network, have we lost touch with ourselves? Have we, ourselves, become the small voice lost in the babble and roar of the crowd? And have we lost the Art of Solitude: the pleasure of being singular? As we have become more and more bombarded by media messages, constant connectivity and the social pressure to conform, what place is there for Solitude? Now I’m talking about Solitude, here – not loneliness – but the contented state of being quietly by oneself. You will be thought odd if you dare to turn off the phone and go invisible, kill the radio, get the hell away from the toxic telly and go into the silence of Solitude. Can you hear them saying “Are you ok? It’s not normal to be alone...” as though there was some kind of problem in you valuing yourself enough to step off the conveyor-belt of conformity and just be by yourself? Ah, Solitude – my wordless companion in stretching moonlight shadows and whispering winds; passionate mistress of the salt-streaked gale on the shore. I long for your silent embrace, your accepting quietude and your caress. Turn off The World, and let me go into The Silence again. Yes, go into The Silence - I dare you... © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
Remember to Like and Share The Thursday ThoughtCast with your friends, family, and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net 
The Thursday Thesis - 06/07/2017 “Whoever Controls the Language Controls the Debate...” WARNING: May Provoke Uncomfortable Thinking. It’s a funny thing, language. At one level it is capable of vividly expressing the core of who and what we are – this is the domain of poets, writers: those who are determined to be clear and direct. At the opposite pole there is the language that is used to hoodwink, deceive, distort and steal: Weasel Words. George Orwell knew all about Weasel Words and their ability to control the thoughts of others. In his best-know work Nineteen Eighty Four, the totalitarian regime overseen by Big Brother restricts dissent by restricting the words available to contain meaning. He expands his exploration of Weasel Words in the essay Politics and The English Language, which – when read today – seems remarkably prescient of our times. Beware the Weasel Words! Restricting which words can and cannot be used is a powerful way to restrict any exchange of ideas – that is the genius of Orwell’s Newspeak – a language so bland and impoverished the there are no words that can even contain the idea of dissent. Today we see and hear euphemism in place of clarity: nice-sounding words that conceal a vile truth. Remember when we heard “ethnic cleansing” for the first time? It sounds so hygienic, doesn’t it? So much nicer than “mass slaughter of people on religious or racial grounds”, don’t you think? Likewise the tidiness of the “West Bank”, rather than the “land illegally occupied by Israeli invaders and controlled by military force at the point of a gun”. When resistance fighters are labelled “Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists” we can easily lose sight of the reality of a frightened and desperate people fighting for the land they call home, their way of life, and the future of their families, can’t we? If your homeland were invaded by an out-of-control, militaristic rogue state – say, Israel or the USA, backed up by a gaggle of fawning, compliant and gullible allies – what would you do? If you work to repel the invaders, are you a Resistance Fighter or a Fundamentalist Terrorist? When the good ol’ US of A adds to its tally of “interventions” by invading yet another sovereign state, it is a “regime change” – which sounds so much more civilised than decapitating another government that the US does not approve of. In war, the first casualty is Truth. And you know we’re in trouble when “Post-Truth” is the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of The Year (2016), don’t you? And if we are living in the era of “Post-Truth politics”, are we not thoughtlessly submitting ourselves to be governed by the scum and dross which remains after The Truth has been taken away? Words are power – use them wisely. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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