Anne Emerson-Photographer,
Wordsmith, and Twin
The Pursuit of Happiness
In pursuit of happiness, would you choose wealth or joy? Read on...
Annie is incorrigibly interested in everything and everyone. She is an avid reader and writer. Annie's reading list is designed to invite exploration and discovery - what a deeper happiness may be... But, of course, this is just Annie's sharing. Everyone has their own journey. You are invited to click on the "Reading List for Joy" link above, for Annie's quick summaries of several books, and her own journey while reading them. Or, for each book individually, without Annie's journey, you may click on the "book" links below. Or, you might prefer to explore the text boxes on this page. For a quick summary, if you are already a searcher, you could try books twelve and thirteen (Falling Upward, and The Deepest Well).
Resources for the Pursuit of Joy
Each of the books at the links below is ALREADY summarized in the reading list at the "Reading List for Joy" link above. Each now has its own link below. For Annie's journey, you are invited to click on the Reading List link, above, and find both the book which interests you, and Annie's response to it. Or, you are invited to explore the "book" links below and/or the text boxes on this page and Annie's pics, poems, and essays, on other pages of this website.
"Smoking Sunrise," accepted to, but not exhibited at, Mid-Atlantic Photo Visions, 2024.
"Sail Away" accepted to, but not exhibited at, Mid-Atlantic Photo Visions, 2024.
This photo was taken at a Chincoteague Photo Workshop recently, given by Nikhil Bahl. He taught me how to expose for the sun. It might have been nice to have known this for the eclipse at Niagara Falls in 2024. For more photos from this workshop, please see the Blog page on this website. More from this trip coming soon (maybe).
Annie took this photo in Colonial Williamsburg. She likes the gardens better than the many historical and educational exhibits, but that is because she is a gardener. The Living History Colonial experience can probably have something for everyone!
About Creativity
We human beings need playtime. When we are children, we play. When we are adults, we create. Annie talks about her journey into the art world, on other pages of this website. You are welcome to explore the other pages, to see Annie's idea of creativity in action. Here are a few more wonderfully creative videos she would like to recommend: Loving Vincent, Tim's Vermeer, Fiddler on the Roof. Please see Galleries page for more of Annie's thoughts on Creativity.
Please see Blog page for more about the photograph at left - it's called, "Opalescent."
Shortcut Book, if you were raised Christian
If you are comfortable exploring spirituality in a Christian context, there is a book, to which Annie was recently introduced, which may be read instead of the whole list here. It is called "Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul," by John Philip Newell. It offers a Celtic version of Christianity - a melding of early Christianity with Celtic traditions and teachings. It can be difficult for devout churchgoers to absorb; yet it appears to be consistent with early Christian teachings.
Annie liked Book Seven so much that she made notes on it. It's quite a technical treatise in psychology, by a recognized master of what we might call "Wellness." Maslow studied the "well" person, rather than the "sick" person. It might be interesting to note that Maslow's last book was compiled by his wife, from his notes, after his death.
The Book Report at the link (above right, in blue and yellow) is much more detailed than the book summary, above.
Here are some other famous male-female pairs: Jesus and Mary; Muhammad and Khadija; Muhammad and Aisha; Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić; Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt; Winston Churchill's father and his heiress mother; Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed. Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Bernstein; Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson; well, you get the idea. Perhaps this gives new meaning to "Behind every good man there is a good woman."
Annie doesn't think much of the "double standard." She expects her husband to be faithful, whatever kind of man he is. Lies destroy intimacy. Period.
Annie adds - It has been suggested that many social animal groups are led by a matriarch, not by a patriarch. Young males do the "heavy lifting"; the matriarch chooses strategy. (Wolf packs; elephant societies; others?) Annie hopes to explore this theme, going forward.
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And, meditation is becoming "Received Wisdom" in the treatment of trauma. If a guru such as Sadhguru (you can find him on the internet) is too far out for you, there are books by Jon Kabat Zinn which say something similar. "Wherever You Go, There You Are," is a good one to start with.
This photo is entitled, "The Skyward Stair." Annie has at least one other photo that fits this theme, and she has written a tongue-in-cheek poem about it. The photo was first displayed at Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus, many years ago. Community Colleges are good places for local arts groups to exhibit, as are small businesses and libraries - it's a win-win: exposure for the artist and decoration for the walls. If musicians can play on opening night, as well, then everyone can have a pleasant evening. It doesn't have to make the big-time, at all.
About World War II, or is it III?
Some wonderful plays and movies were made, about how it feels to be a civilian in the approach to war; or about changing times in general. Annie has watched them again in her old age, and seen much that she had missed, when she watched them as a child, or in her young adult days. Not all of them are suitable for children, but many of them are. Here are just a few to re-visit, partly for joy, and partly as food for thought:
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Fiddler on the Roof; The Sound of Music; Mary Poppins (starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke); Oklahoma; Casablanca; The King and I; Chariots of Fire; Gandhi; Peter Pan (U.K. Pantomime version might be fun); Antony and Cleopatra (BBC version is probably less sensational than others), Works of Shakespeare, especially the plays; Pride and Prejudice (version starring Colin Firth); Secretariat.
Shadowlands (version starring Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins), Out of Africa, Citizen Kane, Laurence of Arabia, Gone with the Wind, Loving Vincent, Book of Joy movie, The Two Popes, A League of Their Own, The Last Emperor, An Officer and a Gentleman, Yanks; Charlie Wilson's War; perhaps a movie teacher can tell you more.
Shortcut Book, if you feel at odds with the world
This is a book from which Annie has read only excerpts. However, she has read a thought-provoking biography of the person who authored/delivered the book. So, if you can identify with the trials and tribulations of someone at a Crossroads, read on. Perhaps this book is for you. If so, Annie can recommend a translation into English...
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According to history, he was orphaned very young; he was raised by an Uncle. Then, a wealthy widow, old enough to be his mother - and already his employer - proposed marriage to him when he was still a very young man. His circumstances were such that he decided to accept her offer. Then, they had to make it work.
She needed him, Annie assumes, because it was not easy to be a woman living alone in her world, and he needed her, because he did not have many other options. His biographer, in the version Annie read, wondered what type of mental illness he was suffering from (how presumptuous can you get - to impose Western medical terminology on an Arab whose life we can barely imagine?), when he started going into trances and reciting the stream of consciousness that became....
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The Qur'an.
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Annie recommends the following translation, written by a scholar who spoke both Arabic and English: "The Qur'an: English Language Edition by Abdullah Yusuf Ali." ISBN: 978-0-7858-4258-3 (That's the number you can give to a bookshop, so that they can get it for you.)
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Annie is also in possession of a version of the Qur'an written in both Arabic and Urdu (she was told, by an Urdu-speaker). She is not sure how she came by such a special book.
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The biography is:
Mohammed, by Maxime Rodinson, translated from the French by Anne Carter
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Here is a "popular" book about the challenges of the Catholic Church today: The Catholic Church and American Culture: Why the Claims of Dan Brown Strike a Chord by Plumer, Eric ISBN 10: 1589661354 / ISBN 13: 9781589661356 (Disclaimer - Annie is personally acquainted with Dr. Plumer. It's still a very good book.)
More Not-English Classics
Annie prefers only to list books she has read; usually in translation. Therefore, many wonderful books in non-English languages are absent. This is just a small introduction to the non-English-speaking world:
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A Dream of Red Mansions (Chinese classic)
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Dance of Divine Love (The Rasa Lila of Krishna, Scholarly version by Graham Schweig; ISBN 0-691-11446-3)
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Dr. Zhivago
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
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The Trial, by Franz Kafka
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The Muqaddimah (Annie has read extracts from this, only)
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The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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Living Buddha, Living Christ, by Thich Nhat Hanh
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The Book of Joy (well, that one is written in English)
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Seven Pillars of Wisdom (in English, about Arabia)
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The Arabian Nights
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More to follow; book reviews by others may usually be found on the Internet.
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​Ten Philosophical Mistakes, by Mortimer Adler; books by Sartre, Nietsche, the feminists Germaine Greer and Sartre's girlfriend ("The Second Sex" is one of them - please note, these women did not have children); The Ghost in the Machine; National Velvet; Possession; almost anything by Oliver Sacks; The Field, by Lynne McTaggart; popular science books about the quantum world, quantum entanglement, and the conscious universe; Upon the Interpretation of Dreams, by Freud; A History of the Arab Peoples, by Albert Hourani; Molecules of Emotion, by Candace ??; The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell; almost anything by Carl Jung, especially about the human shadow. Annie has not read any Jung, but the psychologists who reference him seem to "have it sussed."
Ode to War
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When boots are made for marching
and minds are trained for warring;
when hearts elect a leader
and knowledge sits in silos,
then marchers can’t be warriors
and warriors can’t be leaders;
then leaders can’t be knowers,
and hate shall grow in silos.
When knowers blame their leaders,
and leaders blame their warriors;
then warriors blame their marchers,
and all shall die, in silos.
Anne Emerson, December 2022
First published in Poets' Domain 2023
About Child Psychology
Annie speaks more as a child than as a psychologist: The following are among the other books and stories that helped her learn to be an adult (many of them, she encountered in school): The Pilgrim's Progress; Grimm's Fairy Tales; The Water Babies; Pinocchio; Hans Anderson's Fairy Tales, especially the original version of The Little Mermaid; Peter Pan and the Lost Boys; National Velvet; Wind in the Willows; The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, by Alan Garner; also, The Owl Service, by Alan Garner; the Narnia books, by C.S. Lewis; Perelandra, Malacandra, and Thulcandra, by C.S. Lewis; and many books of poems, children's rhymes and songs from past eras. Perhaps an English teacher can tell you more.
For teens and young adults: Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Othello; almost anything by Shakespeare, in the Elizabethan English if you can (Shakespeare's vocabulary was phenomenal); Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, almost anything by the Bronte sisters (a.k,a, Currer, Acton, And Ellis Bell, or similar); Short Stories by Somerset Maugham. Cry, the Beloved Country; Complete works of Oscar Wilde; Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott; Anne of Green Gables, and the rest of the series about Anne; Alice in Wonderland, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston; anything by Mark Twain; Zuleika Dobson; The Great Gatsby (book not movie); Hard Times by Charles Dickens; almost anything by Charles Dickens; the biography of Lincoln by Carl Sandburg; complete works of Jane Austen;
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There are many good books that a baby boomer born in the U.K. has not yet read. I omit them because I have not read them, not because they are not good books. This is one that I have not finished, but it is good so far: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. There is a series, "Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers" about it.
Wellness
We can refer to Eight Dimensions of Wellness - Social (how we interact with others), Emotional (how we feel), Spiritual (our connection to our Higher Power), Intellectual (our rational mind), Physical (sports and games), Environmental (the world, large or local, in which we live), Financial (money in our lives), and Occupational (our employment or volunteer work, or our work at home).
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You can find out more at www.samhsa.gov (this is not a link; it's a website that you can find).
Get to Know Annie's Journey
Is Annie Trustworthy?
Well, the US Defense Department thought so. She used to teach, to the US Military, MBA and BBA classes in Economics for Managers, Managerial Economics, Business Research Methods, and Business Research Project. It is a little sobering when one's class informs the instructor that a student can't come to class this evening "because he has gone to Somalia." So, I wondered what that was about. There was a war in Somalia, and I didn't know. I don't think it was a U.S. war, but our military was being sent over there anyway. I know, from later conversation with a woman from Afghanistan, that the U.S. military - the ones with their boots on the ground - did excellent work in Afghanistan. It was not their fault that their government recalled them very quickly.
I'm Thankful for...
​I'm thankful for the Universe and for the Great Divine.
The Universe is ev'rywhere and I am small therein.
The Great Divine looks out for me and knows me very well.
It walks with me and talks with me and I am large there-with.
So, am I small or am I large, within the Great Unknown?
How can it know of ev'ryone, the way it knows of me?
How can it care for all of you, the way it cares for me?
I hate to break the news to you - and me - and all the world:
That God of mine who knows me well, She's my own soul, all mine.
The rest of you - so blind - you have your own Divines Within.
And yes, I thank the Universe for all of you as well.
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Annie E.