How far we’ve (not) come

Success

What do you see?

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found this poem. Its so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this ‘anonymous’ poem that is spreading across the Internet:

Cranky Old Man:
What do you see nurses? What do you see?

What are you thinking when you’re looking at me?
A cranky old man, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice, ‘I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice the things that you do.
And forever is losing a sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse. You’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of ten, with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another
A young boy of sixteen with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at twenty my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five, now I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home.
A man of thirty, my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me to see I don’t mourn.
At fifty, once more, babies play ‘round my knee,
Again, we know children, my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me. My wife is now dead.
I look at the future. I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own.
And I think of the years, and the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man and nature is cruel.
It’s jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles. Grace and vigour, depart.
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass, A young man still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living life over again.
I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people. Open and see.
Not a cranky old man.

~From Facebook group “Positive Change on Earth”~

The Disney way of life

So you remember as a kid watching old Disney movies? And thinking back the morals they had? The parents just wanted the best for their children, children respect parents, they look for their one true love, they have a lovely white wedding and live happily ever after. Well Disney seems to have decided to keep the morals exclusively for films and disregard any of it on their channel.
When I was down visiting my partner’s family with him they were having trouble with their eight year old daughter who wasn’t respecting them, demanded more and more clothes and refused to behave. We couldn’t work it out until we were watching the Disney channel.
The children strut around with the parents being represented as stupid, the girls are obsessed with fashion and which boy they’re going to date next and take the mickey of each other. Rather than encouraging girls to be successful they had one mini episode where there was a boy and a girl fighting it out to be head of year, to win they start off saying their policies, then just go into general insults she says she likes him, they go off screen and he comes back covered in red lipstick kisses and says to vote for her…what is this teaching young girls??? Even my partner who enjoys a sexist joke as much as the next man was shocked and said it was too far.
The kids disrespecting their parents is ridiculous. They take the mickey and make it look like the children are more intelligent than the adults, which meant my partner’s little sister would turn around and gob off her parents hecause that’s what she’d been watching for the last hour.
The girls always talk about partying, being famous and clothes…what is that encouraging them to grow up to be? A wag? Great.
Because of this his sister see’s school as a chance to make her boyfriend ‘love her’ even more and wanted clothes despite her parents being in financial trouble. They can’t give them to their daughter so she screamed in the middle of a shop.
You could say it was down to bad parenting, but how can you teach an eight year old girl when everything you say is being undone by the tv?
One episode a relationship broke up, and within ten minutes she had a new boyfriend and said

“i don’t mind [about having to play in a band with her ex] I’ve got a new one[boyfriend] now” which just oozes morality.
These programmes are aimed at kids her age. And all they’re teaching her is to misbehave. Me and my partner suggested they block the channel and four months later she’s like a new girl. She occasionally has a slip up but all children do, she did as her mum said, she was polite and respectful and it was amazing to see.
So the point of this is; keep an eye on what your children are watching and what it is teaching them. It’s all harmless good fun but young children mimick what they see. So if a tv character is rebellious…the child will be.
So just keep watch for it…

Don’t be so quick to judge

Question 1:
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she had an abortion?

Read the next question before looking at the response to this one.

Question 2:
It it time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates
Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults astrologists. He’s had two mistresses he also chain smokes and drink 8-10 Martinis a day
Candidate B: He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He’s a vegetarian, doesn’t smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never committed adultery

Which of these candidates would be your choice? Decide first…no peeking, then scroll down for the response.

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolf Hitler
And by the way, on your answer to the abortion question…if you said yes you just killed Beethoven

Maybe the faults on your side of the pitch…

No One is Unique

u·nique:   adjective

1. Existing as the only one or as the sole example; single;solitary in type or characteristics:

 a unique copy of an ancient manuscript.

2. Having no like or equal; unparalleled; incomparable: Bach was unique in his handling of counterpoint.

3. Limited in occurrence to a given class, situation, or area: a species unique to Australia.

4. Limited to a single outcome or result; without alternative possibilities: Certain types of problems have unique solutions.

5. Not typical; unusual: She has a very unique smile.

noun:

6. The embodiment of unique characteristics; the only specimen of a given kind: The unique is also the improbable.

~Dictionary.reference.com~

If everyone is unique then surely being unique becomes normal?

You’re not the sole example of being unique because everyone is…

If everyone is unique then you’re all alike and paralleled in uniqueness…

You’re not unique to you’re area because everyone is…

We’re all limited to different outcomes: doctor’s, teachers etc, so we’re not all limited to the certain outcome of the same thing…

If everyone is unique it becomes the typical…

And if everyone embodies unique characteristics then what is unique about the unique characteristics?

Maximum Media Paranoia

The slogan of “bad news sells” is well known and easy to be proved, however, it wasn’t till the other day I realized how much the media can twist something into bad news.

A few days a 5 year old girl was sadly killed in crossfire between two rival gangs. She was playing in her parents corner shop and one gang member ran into it to hide and a rival gang pursued him in, the little girl was caught in between as the pursuers shot at the rival gang member.

A few days later I saw a headline that read “What sort of a world do we live in where a 5 year old girl is shot?” to any unknowing passer by it the title makes it seem she was shot deliberately, and condemns the society we live in. The headline made me realize how much power the media have over us and our opinions.

Having studied media studies for 2 years in school I have become much more aware of the media and what it does. This article would obviously have taken the stand point that the world is corrupt, we’re all killing each other and no one is safe Cue Maximum Media Paranoia Mode.

So the point of this is to say;

• Be careful what you read and how you read it
• Try to read between the lines, don’t just take what they say at face value
• Don’t let a reporter you’ll probably never meet make up your own mind for you

We’re all just animals

Although we consider ourselves higher, more intelligent beings, we are really just animals with a conscience. Scientifically the specification is:

• Animals can’t make their own food – (as in like plants do), and as we are not plants, we fit this
• We digest our food
• Many animals move from place to place to find food, mates, a better place to live or to escape enemies. If they can’t move or they move slowly, they will have adaptations that let them take care of these needs – we move from home to start our own family, to find jobs to get more money so we can eat and live better and show off to potential mates, or to escape a family fued etc
• Animals have many cells – our skin is made of cells
• Animal cells are eukaryotic (they each have a nucleus and organelles surrounded by membranes) – our skin cells are made up like this
• Body symmetry (the way body parts are arranged around a point or central axis) arguably our spine or center of gravity
• Directions on the body (used to describe areas on the body of an animal) – our head is our top surface, our back (or bottom) is our hind end, our feet our our bottom surface and the front of our body is  our front end.
• Pattern of body development (a sequence of developmental steps) – baby to child to teenager to adult.
• Formation of germ layers (layers of specialized cells in the early development) – foetus’ and embryo’s.

This may seem a pretty obvious observation, but it’s quite intersting when actually applied to our daily lives, so when you’re sitting at work, walking down the street or just procrastinating, it makes the world around you and life quite interesting (not that it isn’t anyway but a new look on things is always refreshing and interesting).

We spend ages looking for love, fantasizing about it and there are countless films and books about it, but in a more primal perspective, this is our desire to find a mate to reproduce with and continue our species. Some scientists believe we look for mates who are as different to us as possible to expand our gene pool. I am a fair skinned red head and my partner is tanned with dark hair. This may not seem so obvious for most couples or tastes, but if you look hard enough, I expect you could find this is true.

We are go through years of school which is the elders of our pack teaching us and preparing us for the wider world, like birds do when they teach their chicks to fly,or when lions teach their cubs to hunt.

We make ourselves attractive (physically and in personality) which is a primal ‘plumage’ as we are advertising ourselves to the opposite sex and showing our prowess over other ‘rivals’ of the same sex.

We aim high to earn more, this allows us to live better (improving our nest) eat better (better feeding ground) dress better (plumage) and do more (learning, animals learn through doing). We seek more friends (better pack as we are pack animals, even undiscovered tribes still live together), we move to a better place for us (better ground) and this all allows us to fulfill our basic instincts of eat, drink, survive and mate. It’s a bit blunt but it’s simple and probably very true.

Yes, scientists have been telling us for years we are animals and I know I’m not spouting anything new. I’m just saying, next time you are bored at work or just walking down the street, think about what you and others around you are doing, and see how it relates to this theory. Suddenly our high and mighty proceedings just seem a more dressed up primal instinct, I found it fascinating to watch, and maybe you will too.

 

What To Live Your Life By

When I was younger I lived my life by these principles:

1) Guys only like you if you’re popular

2) You have to be perfect ALL the time

3) Money is the be all and end all

4)Being famous is very important, the more famous the better

5)You need to put yourself over others and never let anyone come between you and what you want, even a lover can’t

6)Using people to get better at a goal and learn lessons is acceptable

This was until I met  my partner. He loves me as the outcast I am, he doesn’t care if my legs aren’t always silky smooth, if my hair isn’t perfect, if I make a fool of myself. Money doesn’t make the world go round, love does(both relationship, friendship and family love). Privacy is underrated, you can’t deal with a problem if everyone is talking about it, you need your private space to live, breath and grow – me and my partner have been through some tough times and if everyone was involved we would never have got through them with all the different opinions being forced upon us. You need to COMPROMISE, you are just as important as the other person, and since I’ve been in the relationship with my partner I’ve realized everything I had wanted wasn’t really what I wanted, and it’s more fun to get from A to B with someone rather than alone. Using people is one of the worst things you can do, I would hate to be used, so I should NEVER do it to anyone else, it’s selfish and ignorant of the other persons feelings.

So here are my new morals:

1) When things get hard, never give up

2)Never let go of those closest to you and who love you

3)Love is the be all and end all

4)Never deny who you are, if people don’t like you f*** them

5)Never settle for less than the best…you are worth every ounce of it

 

What do you live your life by?