Category: Environment

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Getting Unstuck

I don’t like to make new years resolutions as I will quickly abandon my best intentions and then feel like a failure. Who needs that? I have plenty of opportunities to feel like a failure in my normal every day life. Mostly because I am doing a whole lot of shit I don’t like doing. New Years resolutions don’t usually involve fun, and that is why they don’t work. I already have enough of not fun in my life.

I suspect that many others have a lot of not fun too.

That is why so many determine to change their lives at this time of year.

But boy, life can sure try to keep you where you are at.

Why is that?

Despite our longing to be free, our supreme desire to be different, our yearning to follow our passions, we fail to get a breakthrough. It isn’t for lack of persistent trying. Many have pushed and pushed and come up empty. We never hear about the failures, only the success stories. I think hearing only one side of the equation makes people feel very very bad and sets them up for unrealistic expectations.

But I am definitely not saying don’t try, to give up before you even start, because you might be one of those success stories. At the very least, you will have learned something and got some valuable experiences. It is sad however, that most of us never get the lasting changes, the highs we want.

I know I often talk about failures, only because I think to fail is more realistic an outlook than success.

I do know that even when you do try, you still have regrets. I hate it when people say to me “Well, at least you tried. At least you did it”, implying that having just pursued a dream is good enough. It is not. Anyone who has pursued their dreams and failed know this. You still have regrets, maybe even more regrets because you failed. Your dreams are a big part of who you are, so they leave deep wounds. It touches your identity. It can make you lose hope.

The best advice I can give myself is to look for joy. Joy can be found anywhere in most everything. It can be extremely small and yet fill your heart with warmth. It may not change your world, but it will change the moment. If you can find joy in the moments it can help get you through all the rest of the shit you must endure to stay alive.

Getting unstuck from bad situations can take a long time, and I think we get disheartened because it takes so long. We are quick fix creatures, so we need a lot of Zen to make things happen.

I think you need to know what it is that you really want. Not the external stuff like houses, cars, money. But the inside deal – freedom, peace, love, that kind of stuff. If you know what it is you truly want, then maybe you can match your experiences to that, and find it, and keep it and change your world.

So don’t set any resolutions. Just try new stuff, new experiences and look for joy and endure another year. Maybe you are closer to success than you realize.

At least, that is what I keep telling myself.

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70 is NOT the new 65

Anyone who says 70 is the new 65 is not even close to being 65 yet.

My health started to give me attitude in my late 50’s despite me being athletic, active, eating healthy and all the rest.

It is called aging.

I think we are developing a dangerous skewered view of aging that is similar to the warped view of entrepreneurship when you are old.

The media highlights the success stories, which gives us the idea that all you need to do is work at it and you can stay healthy and young forever.

I agree that ‘working at it’ increases the odds in your favor to be healthy as you grow older, but it is not a guarantee. Yes, you should do all you can – but when you get older, your body WILL have other ideas, no matter what you do. It slows down, it loses ability and agility, it gets ill, it dies. I have seen so many people in denial about this who torture themselves to cheat death.

Society has bought into this New Age crap about mind over matter, positive thinking and all that shit, and it is causing us to be more youth orientated than ever. We have a very flippant and unforgiving attitude towards aging that is doing serious harm to the elderly.

It is an unfortunate lie to presume that aging is all in your head – that it is just a number. It is not. Your body wears out. You cannot do what you could at 20, 30 or even 40.

Look at the real world, how many seniors can you truthfully say are younger in body than in age? We only hear about the exceptions, the ones who defy aging – they are in the minority. The truth is not so rosy.

The dangerous part of this thinking is that it could set in motion policies designed to cut out or delay necessary help for the aged, namely medicare, pensions, government assistance. Saying that 70 is the new 65 implies that all seniors are able to keep on working and take care of themselves, this is so far, far from the truth.

Equally so is the fallacy that when you are old you can just start over when you are cast out of your job and deemed redundant. Many do not have the resources to do this, nor the energy or health. It costs a lot of money, time and energy to start your own gig, and if it fails, like most of them do, seniors have no way of recovering what they have lost. Even to keep working 8 hours or more a day, 5 days a week takes a hell of a toll on an older person. They can’t keep it up.

The truth about aging is this: Our bodies deteriorate, no matter what. We cannot do as much as we used to. Our ability to recover from loss; mentally, physically, financially is almost ZERO.

Before I got sick, I used to think the same way, that aging was all in your head. That I could keep on forever working hard, playing hard and doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But it is a lie.

Aging is not a disease. It is not something you can outsmart, overcome or out do. And you will need help, of some kind, in your later years because you cannot function as you did when you were younger.

My Mother always warned me that I should save enough money because I will get tired. Of course I did not believe her. And anyone in good health younger than 60 reading this will not believe her either. Nowadays you could never save enough money anyways.

Take a good look at those older folks who are celebrities, or successful. Are they doing it on their own? NO. They have staff that does a lot of things for them, that is how they can stay active doing what they love. When they get sick, they get instant attention and the best care. Do most seniors have that luxury?

My Mother got to live in her own place well into her nineties, but this was not because her body was healthy like a 40 year old. It was because she had an awful lot of help. This is reality. Ask anyone who is currently taking care of an aging relative.

It is not right or fair to ask or expect an older person to continue doing what they did when younger. We must ensure that our aging population is taken care of. It is not their fault that they get old, sick and die. It is mother nature.

So stop waving the flag that 70 is the new 65. It is total bullshit.

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3 Books

This is a very dangerous time, and most people are oblivious.

There are 3 books you should read, and soon.

1984 by George Orwell. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Oh yeah, depressing books for Christmas reading, but our society is on the brink of becoming a mix of these futuristic scenarios. Democracy is on the verge of becoming a dictatorship.

Think not?

I think you’d better start paying attention to what is going on in the world, and at home. I mean, really paying attention – that is THINKING. Thinking means analyzing what you are hearing, reading and seeing. Too many are just parroting back what others tell them. Tsk. Tsk. You shall pay big for this. You will lose your freedom of movement, of speech, of being.

Check out people like John Oliver, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and their commentaries on the state of our leaders and world on youtube. You will laugh, you will cry, you might actually pay attention and think and see the truth and not be caught up in the flow of magic thinking.

You know how I feel about magic thinking, aka, New Age hocus pocus. An excellent book on how we got into this lame brain wishful thinking, and how it has resulted in Trump, is a book by Gary Lachman, Dark Star Rising.

You can never read enough. The people who need to read, do not, the people who need to be informed are not. People are walking around with what I call non-opinions. They don’t know why they think or feel like they do. They just say what someone else has told them. They accept everything at face value. This is the stuff of immature, juvenile minds, who cannot think and analyze for themselves. Time to grow up. Our leaders are imbeciles, dangerous juvenile delinquents. If we don’t smarten up ourselves, it will not matter any more. We will live under a dictatorship where we are told what to think and do – or die. These are harsh words at Christmas, but I am fed up with seeing people blinded by charismatic leaders who talk absolute gibberish bullshit. Leaders whose only goal is world dominance and to line their own pockets and establish an empire. This is dictatorship and it is ugly, savage and corrupt. It will destroy everything and everyone you know and love.

Dictators will sacrifice your life for themselves. They kill any perceived traitor, even their own families. Haven’t you already heard and seen veiled threats, the speeches that incite violence against fellow human beings, against creatures, against the environment, and ultimately, the world? Their finger is always on the trigger and they make others do their dirty work. How many people take the fall for their crimes? They rewrite history. They invent non existing things and scenarios. They proclaim their own brilliance. All for their own glory! They don’t give a rats ass about anyone else. They just want to look fabulous! They slander and smear everyone else, but even the tiniest criticism of them results in a huge revengeful backlash. Everyone is silenced. There is no truth or justice. They commit horrendous crimes and no one can question it. Dictators are not accountable to anyone or anything. They are above any and all laws.

Think this couldn’t happen here? It is happening!

How does this way compare to what you normally think of as being a democracy? What does freedom mean to you? To society?

Tune into the wise men of youtube and hear what they have to say.

I strongly suggest you watch John Oliver explain to you how dictators fool you with words; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZAPwfrtAFY You will learn about the 3 tricks; delegitimizing the media, whataboutism and trolling.

I hope watching this will encourage you to check out more. Yes, they say it like it is – with profanity at times, but we need these wake up calls.

Like Bill Maher on illiteracy https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=bill+maher+youtube#id=124&vid=6206a6f3adde32bd26ce5d7abb8d68fb&action=view

This is my plea to you, this Christmas and New Years. Make a New Years resolution to think. Make your own opinions. Check out the opinions and thoughts of others. Read. Watch. Research. Make informed decisions. All of our lives depend on it.

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Magazine Subscriptions

There is something about a printed page, holding a book or magazine in your hands and turning the pages, that is magical. That is why I am surrounded by books and magazines most of the time.

I have several magazine subscriptions and I usually read them cover to cover.

There is just one thing that is slightly annoying, that I have been bothered by for decades but never mentioned.

It is this:

Every 4 or so months I get this, a notice of urgency, that my subscription is about to expire and I need to renew, which is clearly not the case (I circled the expiry date). I signed up at the time for a 2 year subscription, and I keep track of this for a good reason. They are hoping I forget and send them more money, which I have to admit, I did in the past, and I might add, the new renewal date did not reflect the additional money I sent. It was not moved forward.

The expiry date is there, but if you are rushed, or enthused by how much you will save today, (in the above case it was the unbelievable amount of $251.75 so I’d only have to pay $17.95), you’d gleefully send them another cheque. It is easy to lose track of your subscriptions.

I know, a very petty thing to be annoyed with, but it is my Blog!

On a happier note, I just published another photobook to usher in winter. Very unusual for me to celebrate cold weather. Enjoy!

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Christmas Spirit

It started happening a couple of weeks ago, that feeling of joy in the air. People are becoming more friendly, grateful and cheerful. Ah, the Christmas spirit. No one is immune to it.

A heaviness is lifted, scowls are turned to smiles, impatience with enduring, and forgiveness instead of fault finding.

After a year of our leaders nit picking, outrageous crimes and blatant lies, and worst of all name calling, smear campaigns and all sorts of juvenile, reprehensible, disgusting, vile behaviour, the Christmas spirit is a most welcome reprieve.

I was most impressed with Tom Hanks starting a trend of tweeting good things said, I hope that continues. We need to have fresh air. The antics of our leaders have made everything stale and most foul. I am heartily tired of it.

It seems as if avarice has infiltrated every sector of society. I am so disheartened to learn just how far these tentacles have reached, into everything and anything that might make someone rich, famous and powerful. I am sickened that many support this, especially women. Ugh.

I have nothing against being rich, famous and powerful – only the means by which this is attained, and the aftermath of it, how it is used. From what I’ve seen, I’m not greatly encouraged. Not more cars, telephones and f’in rocketship space junk puhleese!

However, Christmas is coming and with it, the joy I see in peoples faces. The weariness of day to day living is lifting and we are remembering what life should be all about.

As an aside, I am also very happy to see a resurgence of the craft industry, people making things, taking up knitting and stuff. Seeing people make things that have value and meaning and are fun! I was excited to see that toy trains are experiencing a renewal.

As I am rambling in this blog (and it is my blog to ramble in) what I would absolutely love to have is my own workshop, replete with lathes, drill press, scroll saw and lots of tools so I can make stuff like I used to in my Dad’s workshop.

I guess at Christmas I revert back to my childhood when life was a whole lot more creative and fun than it is now.

But, I have the Christmas spirit and I am happy.

Bring on the fruit cake, yule logs, shortbread cookies and lots of smiles!

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Cure the Introvert

I am an introvert. Can you please just leave me alone about it?!

Stop trying to make me an extrovert.

The latest is, us introverts ‘suffer’ from social anxiety disorder. Puh-leese!

First of all, I abhor labels. Labels belong on products like carrots, hairspray and toilet paper. Human beings are so much more than a character trait, and we can change hourly. One minute we are a snivelling, wretched mess, the next superman/woman. I refuse to be identified by a singular characteristic. What makes extroverts normal and healthy and the rest of us dysfunctional? It is bullshit.

Animals are sometimes solitary (and aggressively defend such times) and other times social. Feral cats spend evenings with their buddies, the day is mostly on their own. I watch seagulls who quite happily fly around all day where ever they please and then also quite happily congregate in huge numbers for an afternoon siesta. Animals choose how they spend their time and who with. We are no different.

Sometimes I am an extrovert, I like to socialize, the difference being, I can only do short periods of it, not 3 days of constant partying. I spend 90% of my time alone. So whereas my periods of socializing are anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours a few times a month, extroverts have the opposite schedule.

The differences between us are a matter of scale and preference. Neither is wrong or right, we are just different.

Calling introversion a social anxiety disorder puts an urgency on a trait that is quite normal for a great deal of people, and sets in motion the idea that we need to be treated and cured. It is NOT a disorder. We are NOT sick. Stop it!

Instead of beating us up, why not focus on our strengths, cut us some slack (i.e. stop making us go to office parties, do presentations, schmooze, share office space and the like). Let us decide if we want to participate. Making us be you is bullying.

You cannot change us. My Mother (God rest) tried to convert me into a social butterfly princess and caused me intense suffering, along with many well meaning work places and people who knew what was best for me.

So accept the fact introverts like to be alone most of the time. There is nothing to cure.

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Time to Stop/Start

A lot of young millennials are out protesting and yelling at us ‘boomers’ about climate change. Pointing the finger at us and scolding and shaming us. Fine. Yes, we created problems. And yes, these problems are frighteningly real.

Every generation blames their parents for a bad world that they inherit. We got a mess from our parents, now you do too. There is always a big mess.

However, it is time to stop blaming us and take action, otherwise, you become just like us – endless talk and research and nothing gets done. It is time to mature and stop whining. It is my experience that protesting incites violence and results in minimal change.

If you want policy change, get in there, you are old enough to run for office. If you want a clean ocean, take a cue from Boyan Slat (The Ocean Clean Up), and get out there and clean it up! You want to protect the forests and wildlife – get out there and do it!

Your generation has many more opportunities, is much better educated than us, and has more innovative technology than we had. Just as we did beyond our parents generation. The best way to shame us is to do a whole lot better than we did with all the advantages we had.

Yes, there are very real problems and threats to our well being, there always has been, and yes it is a crisis. Stop yelling at us to fix it. Give us constructive workable solutions, like Boyan Slat (The Ocean Clean Up) and we can supply the money and experience. You have the imagination, innovation and energy.

Young and old, men and women and all cultures need to work together and create a great world to live in. Let’s work together. Stop ranting and start taking action. We will help.

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Asleep But Still Functioning

I know that what I am about to write about is rather obvious to most of you, but for me it is novel. I equate it to having been unconscious and still functioning, walking around asleep but managing, and not being much aware of it.

Let me explain. For 2+ years I have been ill. I developed a condition that decreased my physical mobility to that of those lumbering ancient tortoises you see on the Galapagos Islands. While acutely aware of my new physical limitations, I was unaware of how much this was affecting my mental abilities. Not just my mood, but my perception and ability to do things, especially the mundane, so called easy tasks.

I noticed this as I folded my laundry this morning. For the first time in what seems forever, doing laundry seemed to go much faster and all my towels etc. were neatly folded. I marveled at the straight uniform folded pile of towels and how easy that went. A simple task that I struggled with, not just because my limbs were tired and hurting, but I was not able mentally to fold anything straight.

Perhaps this sounds ridiculous, I guess it does. As time goes by and I get better (thanks to big pharma), I am noticing how much trouble I had with mundane tasks for the past two years. Of course I was aware of how much trouble the big things were, like getting on and off a bus, sitting on low seats (ahem, toilets) and then trying to get back up, carrying groceries, even pouring a cup of tea! Physical things were exhausting and difficult to execute, even just standing for a short period of time was depleting. And managing a cane while trying to do all this was enlightening. All this gave me a new outlook and empathy for others similarly struggling.

But what I missed seeing was the mental struggle. Being depressed and moody was understandable. But losing some mental ability was startling. I was not thinking straight. My perception of the world was skewed. It was not a huge difference, perhaps not even noticed by others (or they were polite!), but now I am thinking like I used to, before this condition, without ever realizing I had stopped thinking like I used to. Very strange.

As I said before, we are very much chemical beings. The chemistry of our bodies and minds quite often determine our behaviour, thoughts and actions, and we are unaware.

I liken my experience to being sleep deprived. You think you are okay, but you are not. You do not realize how out of it you are until either someone points it out, or you discover it yourself as a blatant mistake you made in judgement and reasoning or in performing a task, much after the fact.

At any rate, I am back to being my very happy old self! I certainly missed her!

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Talk is Cheap

I’ve been watching Trump and company for some time now, all the high crimes and misdemeanors, and have decided to go on a Trump free diet.

The realm of politics is one of pure evil, where all manner of crimes go unpunished. Corruption is the norm. Politics attracts criminals because it is a safe haven for them. They can commit all kinds of atrocities and never face justice. Politics is immoral and indecent, the devils own playground.

In the ordinary world, a person commits a crime, is arrested and goes to jail. I have never seen a politician arrested, do time or even been handcuffed. And their crimes way outstrip that of most of the populace. In the normal world there is protocol, accountability, manners, a code of conduct and decency that we try to follow. There is at least a sense of fairness and justice in our day to day interactions with others. We know how to be civilized. Could any of us do any of the things Trump does so blatantly without recourse? Would we even want to? No way!

Politics enables the psychopaths, egomaniacs, narcissists, and the psychotic to wreak havoc without consequence. Their crimes range from verbal abuse all the way to genocide and they never do time, they don’t even pay a fine. They are allowed, even enabled, to give free rein to their severe personality disorders. Such a person would not last long in normal society. In politics, they are there forever.

Crimes in politics just goes on and on and on without any resolution. Endless investigations and talk, talk, talk. Talk is cheap. I have no tolerance for unfinished business. What is there to investigate, to debate? It is right there in our faces. But . . .

The rules of my normal world don’t apply to politics and therefore I cannot hope that good will triumph over evil. Politics disheartens the good and instills hopelessness. Who needs that?

I want my head to be where there is hope and peace. The place where ordinary people do extraordinary things. The smallest acts of kindness are a million times more grand than the endless spewing of meaningless promises coming from any politicians mouth.

The real doers of this world get my vote – the person who frees a bird from a fishing net, who rescues an animal in distress. Who gives a hungry person a meal, a homeless person a pair of shoes. The people out there cleaning up the oceans and landscapes. The ones rolling up their sleeves and doing the work and we see results of their labour.

There are enough mini psychopaths and tyrants in my own normal world, thank you very much, that I have to deal with. Fortunately, in my realm, good outstrips evil most of the time, and these people are kept in check. Good outweighs evil and that is the only place I want to live.

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Chemical Beings

As much as this upsets me to admit it, we are chemical beings.

When I was young I refused to believe this, which is ironic, because it is when you are young that you are the most influenced and controlled by the hormones in your body. I wanted to believe that us humans were some how above our biology, that we are intellectual and mind over matter and all that stuff.

Having been sick for several years, and resorting to big pharma for a remedy, (it is working), I have come to the conclusion that chemicals rule pretty much all of our thought processes.

I did realize as an older person, that hormones controlled most of my adulthood, leaving me to say, what the fuck was I thinking, in a lot of the ridiculous choices I made. Decisions that were not rational, and I did know better! It was not just youth and lack of experience, it was something more, something sinister. Biology! Back in the days when pairing up with another biological being was the predominant force in all of life’s choices – whether I was conscious of it or not. Oh that nasty oxytocin!!!

While I was sick my world view was quite skewered into negative land, though I fought long and hard to keep my head above the water line and stay positive. Taking medication has thrown my world into euphoria (at least for a while), and though a whole lot better way to be, has made me see, I am a product of the chemicals in my body, both physically, and mentally.

Isn’t it strange hearing this from someone with a university education in biology? I had to live a long time to believe what I was taught.