Weekends are difficult to separate the home from the task. Perhaps the notion of separation is a reaction to the situation. It seems to be a symptom of caring that one becomes isolated, the distinction between work and home becomes blurred because caring is work, and so it can get to the point where you think you are always working, even when you are just at home.
It draws one to the conclusion that a degree of separation is necessary. It is sometimes not all that fun living and working in the same place, especially when the hours become so mixed up.
In fact not just the hours get mixed up, it is the whole dynamic.
You grow to understand the nature of the dementia slowly. You know what to say and how to react, when to do what, and how to steer around the pitfalls you've made before. Yet you know this person. You knew her before some connections in her brain got fried by a cold night spent on the floor at the foot of the stairs. You have to reconcile the past with the present on a human level, respect the relationship you had before. Dementia isn't that the brain doesn't work, the synapses still bang away sending their signals, it's just that the memory access is a bit suspect. I'm still a grandson, Granny is still a grandmother. She still thinks that she is perfectly ok, and in some ways she is. That's where I have to help her to be. It's hard at weekends though, where one ends and the other begins.
So runs chapter 3.
(I should note that this translation comes from S. Mitchell and is posted at http://www.wuwei.org/Taoism/taoteching.html)
and there are lots of other translations out there too, the Tao Te Ching was written, it is said, by Lao-tzu who having decided to leave the service of the Emperor was stopped by a palace guard who had him sit and impart his knowledge/wisdom to paper before he was allowed to leave, which he then did. It could be true, who knows, the past tends to be generally a matter of opinion.
It draws one to the conclusion that a degree of separation is necessary. It is sometimes not all that fun living and working in the same place, especially when the hours become so mixed up.
In fact not just the hours get mixed up, it is the whole dynamic.
You grow to understand the nature of the dementia slowly. You know what to say and how to react, when to do what, and how to steer around the pitfalls you've made before. Yet you know this person. You knew her before some connections in her brain got fried by a cold night spent on the floor at the foot of the stairs. You have to reconcile the past with the present on a human level, respect the relationship you had before. Dementia isn't that the brain doesn't work, the synapses still bang away sending their signals, it's just that the memory access is a bit suspect. I'm still a grandson, Granny is still a grandmother. She still thinks that she is perfectly ok, and in some ways she is. That's where I have to help her to be. It's hard at weekends though, where one ends and the other begins.
If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.
The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything they know,
everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.
Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.
So runs chapter 3.
(I should note that this translation comes from S. Mitchell and is posted at http://www.wuwei.org/Taoism/taoteching.html)
and there are lots of other translations out there too, the Tao Te Ching was written, it is said, by Lao-tzu who having decided to leave the service of the Emperor was stopped by a palace guard who had him sit and impart his knowledge/wisdom to paper before he was allowed to leave, which he then did. It could be true, who knows, the past tends to be generally a matter of opinion.
