Blogging

The One About Phonies And Alter Egos And Solving Problems, Maybe

/ Ally Bean / 241 Comments

I AM A REALIST. I am who I am regardless of where I am.

As such, being a naturally inquisitive person, I find people who are phonies, that is people who pretend to be someone they’re not, endlessly interesting.

Thought-provoking, in fact.

[E.g., Elizabeth Holmes or George Santos or Rachel Dolezal.]

They are my opposites and tweak my curiosity about the line between reality and fantasy, between harmless daydreaming and unhealthy delusion.

Allow me to explain.

Thinking back over my years of blogging I’m reminded of one blogger in particular who wrote her blog as if she wasn’t who she was. This wasn’t flash fiction nor was it catfishing, mind you, but saying upfront this is a fantasy of who I wish I was, a different personality, so I’ll write all my posts as this alternate version of me.

She lived in a small midwestern town but pretended she was living in a large southern city.  She thought of herself as a resident of that large city and she’d describe her days doing the same things she did now [working, shopping, dining] AS IF she lived there.

The thing was that for me after reading her posts I couldn’t decide if this phony persona was just kind of a fun thing, a light-hearted goof; OR if there was something seriously wrong in her life that prompted her to become someone else, albeit briefly.

In truth I was never sure how to comment on what she wrote, so I politely wandered away from her blog and I cannot even tell you if she’s still around.

I doubt it, though.

• • •

SO WHY AM I talking about this topic today?

Not because I idealize or hold any animosity toward this former blogger, but because of something I read a few months ago and have pondered on since. This something got me thinking and wondering– and reminded me of her.

Believe it or not.

What I read was advice written by someone who claimed to be a mental health therapist. This seemingly legit advice was about how to solve what may appear to you to be an intractable problem.

The advice suggested that you create an alter ego of yourself [not a super hero] that you use to contemplate your problem; an alter ego was defined simply as a different version of you. The advice said that by mentally running the details of your problem through your mind as your alter ego, you’d gain clarity.

Now I have problems, who doesn’t? And I do try to solve them, but never have I ever thought about creating an alter ego of myself, for any reason. I may be too pragmatic, or unimaginative, for such.

Or snarky. Perhaps I’m too snarky.

But I digress.

So tell me, kids, does the idea of creating an alter ego of yourself, something I’d describe as a phony version of yourself, seem like a way to gain real insight into your problems? Have you ever done this? And if so, how’d it go for you?

I’m curious to know what you think about this approach to solving problems. Do you feel it is sound or is it wackadoodle?

Please discuss below.

A Crack In Everything: Talking With A Friend About Aging Gracefully + Announcing A Change To My Blog Schedule

/ Ally Bean / 251 Comments

A WHILE BACK I WAS TALKING with a Friend about a decision she needed to make. Not a huge one, but a smaller annoying one that comes down to deciding who she is comfortable being now.

Friend, much to her consternation, has to alter her way of thinking about something.

While the details of Friend’s decision are specific to her particular situation, there’s a bigger picture to contemplate, especially as you get older.  And a little bit cracked by life.

As we all do.

~ • ~

HERE’S THE DEALIO: Friend is in her early 50s and has been running almost every day since she starred on her high school cross country team. As an adult she runs marathons, not ultramarathons or half marathons, but MARATHONS.

She’s very clear on this point.

Friend is known for, and is externally validated by, running marathons. She proudly & consistently defines herself as a marathoner, and up until this last year she’s ALWAYS been the fastest, or second fastest, in her age group.  She has ruled in every marathon she’s ever run, until now.

This does not please her.

Friend knows she’s getting slower, the numbers prove it, but she still wants to keep running because she likes to run. However from her point of view there’s a decision to be made, one that is more ego-based than anything else.

Should she:

A) Continue to run in marathons like she has her entire life while reluctantly accepting that there’s a good chance she’ll not be the best in her age group anymore which makes her sad?

OR

B) Start to run in half marathons, something she considers second-class to a *real* marathon, but wherein she believes she’d be the fastest in her age group which makes her happy?

~ • ~

I’LL TELL YOU FRIEND’S DECISION in the comments below so that you, my little sparks of joy, can take a few seconds to contemplate how you’d handle a situation that involves your ego struggling with itself to gracefully accept the fact that you’re aging.

That is, are you more inclined to lean into doing the same thing as always, but in what you’d describe as a less successful way? Or are you more inclined to do something new that you consider inferior, but do it in a brilliant way?

To put this quandary in a more chit-chatty pithy way: do you keep on keeping on [focus on perseverance] OR do you accept that life’s tough and get a helmet [focus on modification]?

• • ☀️ • •

PLEASE NOTE:

In order to allow more light to get into my life, The Spectacled Bean will be on SPRING/SUMMER HOURS until further notice.

I shall forget my perfect weekly offerings and instead post every couple of weeks, reply to comments here, and check-in with you on your blogs every so often.

Take it easy, everyone. Ring those bells!

Do good. Play nice. Be happy.

• • 😎 • •

Pondering A Quandary: Is The Goal Of Setting Goals A Good Goal?

/ Ally Bean / 243 Comments

from Gretchen Rubin

Welcome to my quandary of the month.

I took Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Quiz [HERE] to learn what my personality tendency is. I am a QUESTIONER.

As much as I enjoy irony and want to say I question that result, I don’t. It sounds right to me. And it explains, at least to me, why lately I’ve been having a difficult time deciding what to write about here.

Does this happen to you, too?

It’s not like I’m not writing, totally bereft of words, wondering where Muse is hiding.  Nope, I’m writing oodles but I’m never satisfied with what I write. I have an idea, write a post, edit it into perfection, then question whether I want, or need, to talk about whatever I wrote.

Thus I delete many a post and try writing another one, hoping I’ll stumble on a different idea or point of view that seems worthy of publishing here.

Blogging has become one big old game of Ally Try Again.

And the thing is that after all these years of writing a personal blog my hesitation seems odd to me. I’m a free spirit [read my tagline] so wouldn’t it follow that I should just know | intuit | reason what to write about?

In the past that’s been the case.

However lately, much to my consternation, I’ve been floundering confounded by a strange tension in my mind about what to do next. And I don’t like feeling like this, it doesn’t seem like proactive me, yet here we are.

from Witchy Moms

So in an attempt to make sense of my behavior I decided to explore the concept of setting goals. Perhaps I need some? Could that be my issue?

I do tend to fly by the seat of my pants here.

Have you noticed?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary a GOAL is: “the end toward which effort is directed : AIM.” Going a bit further, the dictionary suggests synonyms include but are not limited to: objective, intent, purpose.

In addition to the basic dictionary definition there’s always that business dude, Peter Drucker, and his old chestnut S.M.A.R.T.  This acronym stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time bound.

It’s trite, but utilizing it could help me reverse my recent descent into indecision, I guess.

The thing is that the goals I’m contemplating, ones that’d resonate with me, wouldn’t be based on numbers because that’d be silly. I don’t need to focus on word count or publishing deadlines or reader engagement stats to feel like I have it going on here.

Instead I’m thinking about goals based on a personal sense of purpose. Something like a manifesto, but not so intense. It’d be a declaration of my raison d’être stated in the simplest way possible, perhaps embodied in a few NUDGE WORDS, maybe from the Growth or Adventure categories as explained HERE?

My mythical set of goals would be something I could use as motivation, a kind of thesis statement meant to keep me on the right track so that I’d not waste time pussyfooting around in my mind trying to decide what to write about.

Or maybe I’m overthinking this? That’s a possibility too. Following that line of reasoning I have to wonder if I should get over myself and simply show up, then write something, anything even.

Perhaps THAT is the goal after all– and I already know it.

Thoughts, anyone?

from Disappointing Affirmations

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

If you write a personal blog do you find yourself confused about what to write about next? Never? Sometimes? Always? How do you handle that?

Do you tend to set goals for everything you do? Some things you do? None of the things you do? How has that worked out for you?

Do you agree or disagree with the statement: a good enough something, whatever it might be, is better than waiting for a perfect nothing?

Learn Something, Make Food: My Report On Granola & My Recipe For It

/ Ally Bean / 226 Comments

Be forewarned, I wondered about the origin of granola and ended up going down a heck of a rabbit hole…

MY REPORT ON GRANOLA

Our story of granola starts in prehistoric times

The history of granola is intertwined with oats, a wild grain that was probably first cultivated by the prehistoric inhabitants of Central Europe.

No one is certain about the origins of oats but all agree that once milled the resulting oatmeal, when cooked, is easy to digest, healthy, and economical. It is the basis for many breakfast dishes, then and now, most notably porridge.

Granola owes a debt of gratitude to oats.

Fast forward to the 19th century

In the late 1800s as the US population became more health conscious, Dr. James Caleb Jackson of the Our Home on the Hillside health spa of Danville, NY, developed a dry cereal that he called “granula.” It was the first processed breakfast cereal in the US.

Granula involved oatmeal and twice-baked zwieback mixed together. It was disparaging referred to as “wheat rocks” and was intended to be a healthy grain-based alternative to a breakfast of bacon and eggs.

At about the same time Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of the Battlecreek Sanitarium of Battlecreek, MI, learned about Dr. Jackson’s granula and stole the idea of it. Kellogg, more businessman than doctor from what I can tell, renamed his product “granola” to avoid a lawsuit by Dr. Jackson.

Continuing into the early 20th century

Even though recipes for granula existed, like the popular one by The Sisters of the Brethren Church, Kellogg’s name for the cereal became associated with the product.

Ironically one of Kellogg’s patients at his sanitarium, a Mr. Charles William Post, stole the idea of Kellogg’s granula/granola and created his own version if it called Grape-Nuts.

Meanwhile in Europe in the early 1900s a Swiss nutritionist Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner of a sanitarium in Zurich created a dry grain-based cereal [because apparently who wasn’t?].  He called it “muesli” and his recipe involved oats, nuts, and dried fruit.

Fast forward to the 1960s

Because of the hippie movement granola made a comeback in popularity. Cups of it were popular at Woodstock in 1969.

Sometimes referred to as Sunshine Happy Hippie Granola, this homemade granola was made from a recipe that in essence combined Jackson/Kellogg’s idea of “granula/granola” with Bircher-Benner’s idea of “muesli.”

The new hippie granola hit mainstream America in the early 70s. This reinvented crunchy granola was much sweeter than earlier recipes of granola. It was manufactured by many large food companies, advertised on TV, and became associated with healthy eating despite its high sugar content.

Sources

BREAKFAST DISHES Granula, a recipe by Sister Amanda Witmore, of McPherson, KS, found in The Inglenook Cookbook by The Sisters of the Brethren Church [1906]

Chapter 2, BREAKFAST A History by Heather Arndt Anderson

Charles William Post, Wikipedia

Granola, wordnik

Granola Girl, THE NIBBLE, The Webzine of Food Adventures

Granula, Wikipedia

Jackson Sanitarium, Dansville NY, via #ArtofAbandonment on YouTube

James Caleb Jackson, Inventor of Dry Breakfast Cereal, MENTAL FLOSS

John Harvey Kellogg, Britannica

Maximilian Bircher-Benner, History of the Bircher-Benner Clinik in Le Pont

Peace, Love And Granola: The Untold Story Of The Food Shortage At Woodstock, HUFFPOST

Sunshine Happy Hippie Granola, a recipe by Donna found in Woodstock- Preservation Archives [1969]

THE CEREALS, OR GRAINS., Science in the Kitchen: a scientific treatise by Ella Ervilla Kellogg [1893]

The Origin and History of Granola, CULINARY LORE, Food Science, History and much More!

The Process of How Oatmeal is Made, The Clinton Courier of Clinton, MS

THE SUGAR CONTENT OF GRANOLAS Jane Brody’s Nutrition Book [1980]

MY RECIPE FOR GRANOLA

2 Cups Old-Fashioned rolled oats

1/3 Cup olive oil

1/3 Cup maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 Cup coarsely chopped blanched slivered almonds

1 Tablespoon sesame seeds

1/2 Cup dried cranberries &/or dried apricots

1/2 Cup flaked sweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 300ºF.

Scatter oats over a large rimmed greased baking sheet and toast for ten minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from oven.

In a saucepan on the stove top, combine oil and maple syrup then bring to a boil – cook for one minute. Remove from heat and add cinnamon, mixing throughly.

In a large bowl, combine almonds and sesame seeds, add toasted oats, then mix together. Pour the oil/syrup mixture into the bowl and mix thoroughly.

Spread mixture in a thin layer on the baking sheet and return to oven. Toast for 20 minutes, stirring often, until light brown.

Pour into a bowl, add coconut and cranberries &/or apricots, then mix.

Store in the refrigerator. Freezes well.

~ ~ ☮️ ~ ~