two friends

Paul Militaru

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Where to Begin and What to say Next about OCD

Today’s guestwriter is working on overcoming the mental disorder where people feel the need to check things repeatedly, perform certain routines repeatedly (called “rituals”), or have certain thoughts repeatedly (called “obsessions”), Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) disorder (also called obsessive–compulsive neurosis) by all means possible.
She decided to learn new ways to deal with her OCD and it has brought great satisfaction to her finding out through this trial the comfort and satisfaction it gives her to express herself in writing to reach out to others and let them know… they are Not Alone.

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To remember

Writing has proven to be therapeutic > not liking to take NO for an answer => keeps trying

much work to do in educating people about OCD and what is really is

> rising through the humiliation is a large dose of humility {The Big 3 (OCD, Anxiety, Panic) Bully}

Find also: Answers, Help, and a Sense of Belonging

Logically Illogical with OCD

It has been so great to learn how much I enjoy writing!  It is great to get some stuff out of my mind and on to the page.  But as with everything my OCD and perfectionism has to come along for the ride.  So I am stuck inside my mind trying to decide what to blog about.  I have so many things I want to say and share, yet the question I continually have is Where to Begin and What to say Next about OCD. 

I just came back from the OCD conference in Chicago.  It was fantastic!  Any my mind is telling me that I shouldn’t write about anything else until I have properly written about the conference and shared all the wonderful information that I received.  However, while I want to share all of the information…it just isn’t what I feel like sharing now.  While my OCD tells…

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A true friend is like the air…

Purplerays

A true friend is not like the rain
which pours and goes away.
A true friend is like the air,
sometimes silent but always around you.

Photo & text credit: “Precious World” https://www.facebook.com/ourpreciousworld/?fref=photo

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Sensitive trees for insensitive man

even, dense and old stand of beech trees (Fagus sylvatica) prepared to be regenerated (watch the young trees underneath the old ones) in the Brussels part of the Sonian Forest (Forêt de Soignes – Zoniënwoud) in Belgium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For years already, I claim we should treat plants and animals as subjects but also as living beings created by the Divine Creator, who has given them for our use but not mis-use or maltreatment. I always claimed they too have feelings and ways of communicating. In the 1970ies I followed many scientists who tried to proof and did proof how plants also have feelings and communicate with each other.

Though at regular times people seem to be reminded of it. Because too often man forgets that he is not alone having feelings and able to communicate with others of their own sort properly.

It is long known to biologists that trees in the forest are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbours; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web”; and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.

The German Peter Wohlleben studied forestry and spent over twenty years as a civil servant in the forestry commission. For him trees are his life and for that reason he also gave up his job by the state forestry because he wanted to put his ideas of ecology into practice. He now runs an environmentally friendly municipal piece of woodland in the village of Huemmel, holds lectures and seminars and has written books on subjects pertaining to woodlands and nature protection so those interested can accompany him through the forests of his homeland and the whole world.

The Hidden Life of Trees describes how trees are like human families. We as human beings only think of ourselves being able to make a nice family, though many make a mess of it, and when watching Danish television series I even wonder if there are normal Danish people walking around in the North, who can have a normal family life. In the series we come to see they all seem to be unfaithful.

In nature we see better build ups. Tree parents living together with their children, communicating with them, and supporting them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warning each other of impending dangers. With their newfound understanding of the delightfully complex life of trees, readers will never be able to look at a walk.

The deep dark forest One of the tracks through Pantmaenog Forest. There are prehistoric tumuli marked on the map here but they are difficult to find among the dense conifers. The trees here were planted after Bellstone quarry closed in 1908 and some of the old quarry workings are also concealed by the forest: human beings making their mark on the landscape in a variety of ways. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since it first topped best-seller lists last year, Mr. Wohlleben has been spending more time on the media trail and less on the forest variety, making the case for a popular reimagination of trees, which, he says, contemporary society tends to look at as “organic robots” designed to produce oxygen and wood.

Though duly impressed with Mr. Wohlleben’s ability to capture the public’s attention, some German biologists question his use of words, like “talk” rather than the more standard “communicate,” to describe what goes on between trees in the forest. But no matter how you want to call that communication we should come to understand that it is really communicating, no matter if you want to call it talking or something else.

It is also different with human beings who think they communicate and are on social media, thinking they have so many friends, but in reality do not have many friends nor comrades and do not really have any real communication going on between all those people. We did not mind to run around in that what God had created us and did not have to hide anything for others, always able to keep faithful to the one we loved and where we choose for. But to day they want to shine and glitter in fashion clothes but are fast to take those cloths of in the hidden to do things we would have found inappropriate when there was not a strong connection with each other. But to day they seem to change of girl like they change of underpants, and often there is not much conversation going on and lots of time it is just a one night stand with no further communication at all. They have become worse than animals. (Are am I looking at it too pessimistic?)

Whilst I do believe those trees have much more communication going on than their human counterparts who are not afraid to kill more and more of those air-cleaners, not seeing that they are polluting more and more their own environment, making it poorer and poorer. Even those Germans who are reputed to have a special relationship with the forest are a kind of a cliché and it can well be that those Germans do not love their forest more than Swedes or Norwegians or Finns.

When I lived and worked in Germany, for relaxation I went into the woods around Köln and went swimming in open air. Then I could encounter many like minded nature lovers who wanted to be one with it and, like me searched for ways to respect it and to make properly use of feeding us in a clean and appropriate way. No chemicals, no additives, all pure whole grain and pure natural food.

Young musicians living in a shared community in Amsterdam.

Though when I look at how enthusiast we where in the 1960–70ies and had so many dreams, being called ‘flower power‘ people, many not understanding our idea of sharing and love and making a collective community, kibbutz or commune, many of them have gone far away from their idealism and the last few months we see many things we fought for, being undone in a very short time.

Though might we see somewhere some light shining in the dark, perhaps getting back some younger ones again being interested in nature and how we should behave in it? Can it be that there are again seeds planted for people willing to reconsider our human behaviour in the big universe?

For sure it is high time that people are going to understand the need of forests and green spaces around our busy roads and living estates. Yesterday it was again on the news that in the Kempen 122 ha of woods has to be offered for sand-winning, as if it is nothing. Man also thinks it is alright to artificially space out trees, but forget that shall not give the same intensification as wooded areas. The plantation forests that make up most of West Europe’s woods ensure that trees get more sunlight and grow faster. But, naturalists say, creating too much space between trees can disconnect them from their networks, stymieing some of their inborn resilience mechanisms.

Intrigued, Mr. Wohlleben began investigating alternate approaches to forestry. Visiting a handful of private forests in Switzerland and Germany, he was impressed.

“They had really thick, old trees,”

he said.

“They treated their forest much more lovingly, and the wood they produced was more valuable. In one forest, they said, when they wanted to buy a car, they cut two trees. For us, at the time, two trees would buy you a pizza.”

But where are all those very thick trees gone, I wonder. In Belgium some years ago you could find also many places where you could enjoy the view of masterly or kingly majestic trees. The last two years , in the region where I live now (Leefdaal, Flemish Brabant), we have seen hundreds of trees being cut and not replaced.

Deep in the forest something stirred Go Ape, a series of aerial walkways, swings and zip slides in the forestry land north of Aberfoyle. Note – human beings included for a sense of scale. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mr Wohlleben had also difficulties with the ministry of forestry but it turned out that Mr. Wohlleben had won over the forest’s municipal owners. 10 years ago, the municipality took a chance. It ended its contract with the state forestry administration, and hired Mr. Wohlleben directly. He brought in horses, eliminated insecticides and began experimenting with letting the woods grow wilder. Within two years, the forest went from loss to profit, in part by eliminating expensive machinery and chemicals.

We should enjoy those trees going to grow in all sorts of shapes, creating all sorts of designs in the air. When we look at ourselves, we should see that we also do not have a life going in straight lines. We also not all grow up straight. Why should trees have to grow up in those particular straight lines indicated by people in the office. The same as the right 25 cm cucumbers, the bananas with the drawn out moon shape, the tomatoes and apples which may not be too big or flat… everything should be according to the book and numbers indicated,  … but life is not according the book of man … but should be according the Book of life …. with not everything exactly the same, and not always according to the books of man….

When is man going to see we should come back to being close to nature and to be part of nature again? And when is he going to understand we do need much more green around us … to have a colourful life full of health and joy?

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Please also find to read:

1. World Agenda for Sustainability
2. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #1 Up to 21st century
3. 2nd Half 20th Century Generations pressure to achieve

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Related articles

• Forest resilience; can microbes help combat climate change issues faster than genetic adaptations?
• New drive to restore forests in Eastern and S. Africa countries launched
• Data from 1800s can help researchers, forest managers maintain healthy forest ecosystems today
• International Day of Forests 2016: What’s the state of the world’s forests?
• Seeking Peace in a Healthy Environment
• Woodworms threaten Europe’s last pristine forest
• Forests Help Quench Urban Thirst
• Hug a Tree: International Day of Forests
• Forest / Wild Fire – Asia – Nepal
• Report On International Day Of Forests

Winter and Spring wonders of nature showing the Master’s Hand

In the early 1860s, Gregor Mendel developed the concept of the gene to help explain results obtained while crossbreeding strains of garden peas. He identified physical characteristics (phenotypes), such as plant height and seed color, that could be passed on, unchanged, from one generation to the next. The hereditary factor that predicted the phenotype was termed a “gene.” Mendel hypothesized that genes were inherited in pairs, one from the male and one from the female parent. Plants that bred true (homozygotes) had inherited identical genes from their parents, whereas plants that did not breed true (hybrids, or heterozygotes) inherited alternative copies of the genes (alleles) from one parent that were similar, but not identical, to those from the other parent. {Encyclopedia, topic Genes} When you know that we have about 140,000 genes which instruct the body’s cells to put amino acids in the right sequence in order to build proteins, you might wonder how this all was provided in the first instance.

Mørketid or Polar night at the South Pole, Antarctica.

One type of light therapy lamp for classic (winter-based) seasonal affective disorder

After the “Majestic darkness”, the “Mörketid,” or the time when the sun does not rise at all in northern Norway the Northern Europeans may see light coming up the horizon. For two months, only a gray-red twilight glow was visible for a few hours at noontime. Having 21.2 percent of Norwegians living beyond the polar circle suffering from Winter depression they now may come back to life. Some looked for their therapeutic ‘sunlights’. The fresh light shall have the melatonin, a hormone produced in the brain, to increase again. They do know that an increasing number of tourists, however, are enticed to the polar circle by the flickering aurora, the glistening of the snow in the moonlight, and the cozy light of scattered villages. Also for them it are wonders of nature.

In Winter the social activities could have helped to keep people enjoying life. According to a Harvard University study, elderly people who participate in social activities, such as going to church, restaurants, sports events, and movies, live an average of two and a half years longer than less social people. It has long been assumed that it was the physical part of such activities that helped people, said Harvard’s Thomas Glass, who led the study. However, he added that this study provides

“perhaps the strongest circumstantial evidence we’ve had to date that having a meaningful purpose at the end of life lengthens life.”

Glass noted that doing more, regardless of the activity, extended life in almost every case.

With warmer weather awaited and the days becoming longer we should look forward to more outdoor activities which shall give us more fresh and hopefully better air. Though we do have to think seriously about preserving that fresh air and doing much more against the pollution.

TV watching may come in second to relax, after listening to music (according to a study of 2000), people should find more leisure in going to do outdoors leisure activities and socialising more. In this system of things throughout Europe more and more people are feeling pressed for time, reported in 1999 the German newspaper Gießener Allgemeine. The same is true whether people are working outside the home, doing housework, or enjoying leisure time.

“People sleep less, eat faster, and feel more rushed on the job than 40 years ago,”

says sociologist Manfred Garhammer, of Bamberg University.Part of that sleeping less is brought on by watching more television which is recently pushed more in the background by the youngsters who are spending lots of times on social media. Though they seem to accumulate lots of friends on them, they seem to be more lonely and prone depression than some years ago. We also hear of many more borderline personality disorders and eating disorders and broken families which do not help to have some good relations or making people happy.

The second decade of this century daily life continued to accelerate in all the European nations. You would think labour saving household devices and a reduction in hours at work would have brought about any “leisure society” or “time prosperity.” Instead, on average, time for meals has been reduced by 20 minutes and for a night’s rest by 40 minutes and people take less time to look at the beauties around them. The magic of nature, plants growing, animals going around, all seems to pass their eyes unnoticed.

In case they would give it more attention they not only would enjoy life much more but they also would come to see that all that vibrant exuberant activity is marvellously orchestrated and that there is a Master Brain behind it.

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Preceding:

Time to Unwind

Earth’s Unwinding

Autumn is in the land

Spring playing hide and seek

Spring-migration is on at the Holler

Beauty for beauty

Shy beauties

Time to bloom

3 daffodils

Echo

How to make sustainable, green habits second nature

We all have to have dreams

Savouring pictorial entertainement

Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities

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Find also to read:

1. Democratic downfall
2. USA Climate Change Action Plan
3. 20 Best Gratitude Quotes
4. Bad company ruins good morals
5. Cleanliness and worrying or not about purity
6. Man in picture, seen from the other planets
7. Inequality, Injustice, Sustainability and the Free World Charter
8. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1

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Further readings

1. Gratitude; by Lights media
2. Living Life to the Fullest
3. Animal Spirits: The Raven/Crow and The Hummingbird
4. The “Pursuit” of Happiness
5. Our State of Health and Happiness
6. Leisure-time – boredom-issues concerning college-students

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Related articles

• NASA data leads to rare discovery: Earth’s moon wandered off axis billions of years ago
• Climate Change Shifting Wine Grape Harvests in France and Switzerland
• India starts survey of elderly people to address their needs
• The genesis of schizophrenia
• Even if GMOs are safe, mandatory labeling is a good idea
• Is it “Wrong” to Believe that the Earth is a Sphere?
• Loneliness (as seen by Tess Connor)
• “Unnoticed”
• Lonely Life

Illusion of Separateness

Logo for the Addicted to Social Media Blog (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lots of people look for social media to feel at ease and like to be carried away by the mobile phone, television or cinema screen. On the many screens were many eyes are glued on these days everything is done to get people away from the Divine Creator. With smashing sparkling flashing lights on those screens not the light comes in the hearts but those lights blind the many searchers and many are placed in the dark catacombs of the present world.

Instead of uniting with the many social media friends, people get even more isolated and lonely, forgetting also the most important relationship they should work at. That Higher Friend even get not in the mind of most human beings.

Instead of gaining power those caught up by social media and those falling in the trap of the growing number of atheists get more reasons (they think) to be afraid and start fearing people who seem to be different than them, though often they are not so different as they are thought of to be. The clam of the world brings the darkness of the torture rooms of the dark ages. History keeps repeating.

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To remember:

• some humans want to keep other humans in darkness
• cutting off from awareness of our full potential, cutting us off from true connection with our Creator
• creating reasons for us to feel separate from our fellows
• feeding idea of winners + losers > right + wrong.
• feed fear => cannot come together to create a real evolution of consciousness
• more easily controlled when feeling afraid, isolated
• Everyday on television, internet + radio news = fed lies to distract us +> dish out fear
• truth = all are one, connected by a single consciousness => when we harm another we actually harm ourselves +  when we judge another we are judging ourselves =>  plug into our divine creator and perform miracles on planet
• => Open your eyes and rise above the illusion.

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Preceding articles:

1. Putting your feelings into words and sharing them
2. Lonely in the crowd
3. Less… is still enough
4. Less for more
5. The Art of Doing Less – Your Time is Finite
6. How to Find the Meaning of Life and Reach a State of Peace
7. Fear, struggles, sadness, bad feelings and depression
8. Thought of the day: We want more, i want more, but why is that?
9. Of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something

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Additional reading:

1. Walking alone?
2. What Are You Seeking?
3. What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
4. Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities
5. Be realistic, do not pretend
6. Disscusion Questions
7. Gender connections
8. Companionship
9. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
10. Dealing with worries in our lives
11. Migrants to the West #7 Religions
12. Subcutaneous power for humanity 1 1940-1960 Influenced by horrors of the century
13. Subcutaneous power for humanity 3 Facing changing attitudes
14. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
15. Journal for and from bothered citizens
16. Faith because of the questions
17. Religion, fundamentalism and murder
18. Let us not forget it was God who chose us
19. 2013 insecurity
20. 2014 Social contacts
21. Americans wrongly informed about situation in Europe
22. A little ray of sunshine.

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Related articles

• The Ages, are cycles within still other cycles and mankind would do well to note this.
• How to Get Any Work Done (When Connecting Is Your Job)
• The Impact of Social Media
• Best Practices in Recovering From a Social Media Mistake
• Vayikra after its opening word וַיִּקְרָא, which means and He called
• Can A Moral Revival Happen Where God Is Dead?
• 9 Ways to Humanize Your Brand With Social Media
• Can a moral revival happen where God is dead?
• The Pharisees and The One Who Knows My Heart
• Douglas Rushkoff | Program or Be Programmed | Smells Like Human Spirit Podcast

Finding My Authentic Self

There are some humans that want to keep other humans in the darkness, cutting us off from the awareness of our full potential, cutting us off from true connection with our creator.

Make no mistake, they benefit from creating reasons for us to feel separate from our fellows, feeding the idea of winners and losers, that there are those who are right and those who are wrong.

They feed us with reasons we should fear each other, different races, religions, countries, so that we cannot come together to create a real evolution of consciousness.

We are more easily controlled when we feel afraid, isolated, separate from one another and alone.

Everyday on the television, internet and radio news we are fed lies to distract us and they dish out fear, fear and more fear.

If we all knew the truth, that we truly all are one, connected by a single…

View original post 40 more words

Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities

Today we can find lots of people who are not at all interested in The God sole Creator of Heaven and Earth or in gods, though often they create themselves many gods and worship lots of idols, mainly from the little screen which has become a huge screen in these days (some have measures like the cinema screen of our childhood).

Driver in a Mitsubishi Galant using a hand held mobile phone violating New York State law. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A 32 year old single girl who lives alone with three cats, in the process of trying online dating pagan, and likes to think about ‘big’ questions occasionally, currently trying to learn to read the tarot, writes:

Everywhere you turn within Pagan circles these days it seems like you are surrounded by people who have a direct connection to their Gods. They seem to be in possession of their very own ‘Godphone’ (to steal a term I have seen floating about) and are God-bothered on a seemingly constant basis. {G is for Gods}

She is not talking about that strong ‘godly communication‘ we talked about in our previous article. Though the mobile phone may be the new god of many, and lots of them do hope to find with that electronic tool with many gadgets or applications to find the real god app of their life.

Lots of the youngsters put all their aspirations in that mobile phone or their i-pad and are willing to cue all night just to have the latest i-phone or Apple McIntosh gadget. Several i.t.-meetings have taken the place of the old Eucharist celebrations and today we do find high-masses especially for electronic wizards.

After some time many get the feeling they are standing in a becoming colder breeze or getting a ice cold shower, putting them in the Hitchcock thriller were the blood runs in the gutter, taking all their so called (Facebook) friends with it. They do not start wondering if their godphone collection has gone wrong but think they must be at fault.
For sure they must be doing something wrong. The Gods must be ignoring them for a reason,

or you are just not open enough, or maybe you’re on the wrong path.  This is obviously the experience of ‘real’ pagans, so maybe you just aren’t pagan enough. {G is for Gods}

Perhaps there lies the fact: “being not pagan enough”. So this could perhaps give some hope for the many people who felt disillusioned after their internet experience. Perhaps this will give them enough reason to look for other and better values than those that internet can offer them.

The pagan lady writes she is not in possession of a Godphone,

I am not God-bothered, and I can’t think of a single time when I engaged in an actual two-way conversation with my deities. Sure I get a feeling about things sometimes, I know they appreciate the incense I offer her for example, but it exactly that… a feeling. This doesn’t mean I am not pagan enough and it is actually a perfectly normal experience for a large number of Pagans.

Those pagans we would offer a better solution. If their gods are not such listening gods and not so much answering gods, why would they not try to come to find the real Supreme God of gods? Why going second hand when each of us has the opportunity to go first hand 5-star quality?

Many of those not satisfied with what their mobile can bring, are looking for something more sacred or divine. Divination is something they are interested in.

I have spent some time looking at different types and trying to find one that works for me. I’ve tried runes, the pendulum, crystal gazing and even tea leaf reading but I am always drawn back to the Tarot. I am beginning to think it must be for the artwork, as I seem to have little to no skill in reading them! {D is for Divination}

Often we notice people are going to look for it so far away, when it is easy to grab for in front of their nose.

I have had all sorts of advice about reading cards, not just Tarot but oracle as well, but they tend to come back to either ‘learn by rote’ or ‘trust your intuition’. Having tried both, and continuing to flip between the two, I can see that I have problems with both. {D is for Divination}

Japanese mobile phone keyboard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We would say, it is not in those cards you shall find the right answers. You may find and see lots of symbols in it and find word-games made up by human beings, but when taking up a Book of books, written down in very old times, they would be surprised what it all has to tell, also about things happening today. In that Book of books, short “the Bible” they and we can find the answer on many of our daily questions. With that best-seller we get the best guide and best manual for life we ever can get.

When looking at it and giving it more of your time, you shall come to notice that it has not to be a one way road to seeing letters forming words, words forming phrases and phrases forming ideas. By reading all that old stuff we shall get ideas for our life and find out that it is not only our reading effort but also our taking down information out of the book that shall bring us to a two way system of communication.

When we are prepared to listen we shall find answers and we shall get replies.

Paganists looking at their own pagan books may find that when they have tried reading from intuition they went blank. The 32 year old lady writes:

I don’t trust myself enough to just open up and ‘say what I see’ as it were. I am so worried about getting it wrong that I just can’t allow myself to go with it.

Communication Centre, Kimbolton – geograph.org.uk – 1572042 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, that opening up is something which is necessary for everything, to see the good but also to see the bad. We are all created in the image of God and as such we also have the inner feeling of good and wrong. Since the fall of man, having eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil mankind, like the animals have their instinct, but they also received something more which is that inner feeling which gets deep down to them. Lots of people resist that inner feeling and that inner Voice. But as soon as a person wants to open him- or herself to that inner Voice he or she shall be able to come to hear the Voice of God. The Voice of the real God of gods, Who is a much better option than to go for all those other gods.

Go straight ahead to the Only True God of gods, the Most High Elohim, Hashem Jehovah!

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Preceding article: Of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something

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Articles of interest:

1. Do you believe in One god
2. God of gods
3. Attributes to God
4. God is one
5. Does there have to be a Holy Trinity Mystery
6. The Trinity – the truth
7. Bible Word of God, inspired and infallible
8. Incomplete without the mind of God
9. God is positive
10. Let us not forget it was God who chose us
11. God Helper and Deliverer
12. Jehovah my strenght
13. Life with God (video)
14. Faith because of the questions

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• Apple granted patent for facial recognition feature that unlocks smartphones
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• Communities Forced to Accept Refugees With Little Say
• Thugs kills community leader in Benin
• Modeling Mediums Of Communication
• The Top 6 Communication Skills That Will Get You Promoted
• The Qumran Report – Skid Row and the Homeless Community

Watch out

Expectations have to be build on hope, believe and faith. Without believe in him or herself a person shall not be able to get somewhere hoped so easily.

Believing in yourself is the first requirement to get forwards. Having a positive attitude and willingness to dream is the second requirement to get somewhere. Every human being shall have to face difficulties. It is how he or she can cope with it which is going to influence his or her life in the positive or negative way. Going through quite a lot of struggles even can make somebody stronger, more resistant. What is important then is ‘to never give up!’

Others may consider you to be a clown, a swaggerer, a dreamer, or a loony or stupid one. Let no negative reactions stand in the way and go for what you want to achieve. Without dreams nothing can be build up.

If things would not go how you want it, you should try to adjust them so that they can work for you. No matter what you try, how it works out, how negative reactions may be, keep trying, keep going forward trying to pursuing your dream.
Whatever happens try to see the positive in it and always be ready to pursue your happiness. That is the positive lesson in our life where we should keep at.

There always have to be motivation to may the dreams work, but some kind of realism is also necessary to not fall to deep in a well. We always should be careful not pursuing our goal out of greed or lechery. Leering at something materialistic can bring us in a spiral where we do not have an eye for the human thing and spiritual matter. A person can become overtaken by the power of money by the desire to have financial gain, more than spiritual gain.The desires of the flesh can break a person instead of building him up to become a better person. We always have to be careful where we want to set our priorities in life.

Today we can find more people who love wealth and modern gadgets? Wealth has become their biggest motivation. when they are young it may be working very well, and they can love it to swim in their fulfilling dreams of material wealth. But what about their spiritual wealth? Are they interested in that also?

It is not by going to have the latest model of phone or pc tablet a person is going to find the real luck and staying happiness. Soon the phone shall be an old model and the person shall be feeling again not so happy because he has not the newest model any more.

It is good to see and to know you need your “best friends” for ever, around you, because they will be there at the more difficult times and they shall be ready to catch you when you fall down. Because each person has to grow up and learn things by falling and standing up again. And that last bit is very important. Never to get so frustrated that you do not want to get up any more. Everybody can mess up things. To start over again is what you have to dare. Do not stand still by what happened, but get up to try again and go every-time in a new adventure.
You have to keep believing in your dreams and aspirations, no matter what negative things may happen or others may say. But never forget also to be realistic and be taken in account others around you. Never go over death bodies to reach your goal and always stay honest to make it come true.

The biggest difficulty to conquer when trying to build up a financial wealthy life, shall be the ‘sharing bit’. Without willing to give also to others, without allowing others also to have part of what you have, no real happiness shall come into your life. Around the corner shall always be the material egoism and the avarice, which by some even can turn in the acquisitive and stingy. We always should be careful not to become so greedy or money-grubbing. That is not going to bring happiness, though it may be very attractive at a young age. the jealousy of others can also bring bullying with it, making you feeling so alone, being cast out. And people do need other people.

By changing yourself to fit in for others it never is going to work. A person has to stay his Own. You have to believe in yourself, accept yourself for who and what you are. Without the love for yourself you can not give the right love for the other. Also be sure that in case the others only would become your friend because you changed yourself to their way of thinking, than they would not be the right friends. Good friends are those who are willing you for what you are and respect your own personality, your real ‘I’.
Adapting to people is not the right way and shall not bring the solution. Trying to impress people is what many today try, with their gadgets, their capital gain, their way of clothing and their loose way of living. Presenting their world better than it really is. Look at so many Facebook postings which try to present ‘the would like to be’ people and would like to be ‘friends‘. Always try to stay your own self, being honest to yourself and being honest to others, respecting them, also if they do not fit your plan or dreams, or would not agree with your personality. By time they will turn by and get to know your true self and shall come to respect you too.

Without dreams, hopes and aspirations no new worlds can be build, so keep dreaming, keep going forwards, and above all always stay positive.

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Please do find also:

1. Greed more common than generosity
2. Misleading world, stress, technique, superficiality, past, future and positivism
3. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind
4. Gender connections
5. Within despair
6. Preparedness to change
7. Getting fate in your change to positiveness
8. Helping to create a Positive Attitude
9. With Positive Attitude
10. Not holding back and getting out of darkness
11. Your struggles develop your strengths
12. Pain and Suffering is inevitable but Misery is optional
13. Your struggles develop your strengths
14. When discouraged facing opposition
15. Begin your day by, Living your positive attitude
16. Science, scepticism, doubts and beliefs
17. How we think shows through in how we act
18. Don’t be the weakest link
19. Be a ready giver
20. 30 things to start doing for yourself – #6 is vital.
21. Count your blessings
22. God should be your hope
23. Always set a place in your life for the unexpected guest

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Other articles of interest:

1. Celebrating diversity by looking the same?
2. Gender Roles & Self Sacrifice
3. If you can dream it, you can achieve it.
4. Positivism and The Quantity Theory of Money
5. If you’re afraid to do it, do it afraid.
6. Positivism for Millennium 3

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Related articles

• Global education and the ‘American Dream’ (universityworldnews.com)
  Put most simply, the ‘American Dream’ is the belief that everyone has a reasonable chance – although not a guarantee – of achieving success through means under their own control. It is the assurance that personal qualities such as hard work, frugality, honesty and self-discipline can make for a good life, however you (or I) may define that.
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  Poorly conceived, however, global education, like the American Dream itself, can overemphasise the pursuit of material wealth and leave learners ignorant of how systemic and structural inequalities in most, if not all, societies frustrate so many dreamers and so many of their dreams.
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  The recent movement by some scholars to calculate the gross domestic happiness of a country, in contrast with a simple financial measure, both expands the universe of goods constituting success and allows for cultural variety within this expanded universe.Other cogent criticisms of the American Dream focus on the socio-economic and institutional obstacles to the achievement of success by disadvantaged or disenfranchised groups, which may include women, racial, ethnic or religious minorities, the poor or their children.

  From this perspective, the American Dream offers a false promise of fair and equal opportunity to achieve success by ignoring the many ways in which the social order fails to recognise and reward merit.

• What is your dream job ? (beautiful69.wordpress.com)

  Most people I know have a dream. In fact, I’ve asked hundreds, if not thousands, of people about their dream. Some willingly describe it with great detail and enthusiasm.
  Others are reluctant to talk about it. They seem embarrassed to say it out loud. These people have never tested their dream. They don’t know if others will laugh at them. They’re not sure if they’re aiming too high or too low. They don’t know if their dream is something they can really achieve or if they’re destined to fail.

• A Journey Toward Your Goals (robertjrgraham.blogspot.com)
  Too many of us assume if we just have a larger goal in mind and work towards it then success will follow. Well, guess what?! This rarely works in practice. All of us have dreams, but to be truly effective at goal achievement we need to focus on the path toward the goal and let the ultimate dream be our motivation.
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  Set realistic goals. This doesn’t mean that you should not aim for the stars. However, keep a realistic state of mind, taking into account your level of talent and capabilities, as well as, your individual situation. If you presently don’t possess the talents or qualifications to reach your goal, make sure that one of your short-term goals is to acquire some of those skills so that you can reach your long-term goal.
• Sebastiano Serafini 030 – Dream a little every day – (sebastianoserafini.wordpress.com)
  In order to live our lives without limits we must be willing to never let our imaginations die, and we must never forbid ourselves from dreaming at least a little bit every day. Without our dreams we have nothing in our lives to reach for or to go after.
• 10 Habits Of People Who Follow Their Dreams (theunboundedspirit.com)
  People who are true to their purpose and are really successful didn’t always get there because they had the financial means to do so or were just lucky enough to have been brought up in a confidence boosting environment. There are actually a few common habits that have helped them get to where they are.
  People who are true to their purpose and are really successful didn’t always get there because they had the financial means to do so or were just lucky enough to have been brought up in a confidence boosting environment. There are actually a few common habits that have helped them get to where they are. The best part is that these are habits that anyone can attain! – See more at: http://theunboundedspirit.com/10-habits-of-people-who-follow-their-dreams/#sthash.lfFd7SzI.dpuf
• Greed is Wrong, But What About Wealth Itself? (palamas.info)
  Is it morally wrong to pursue wealth? The question was asked because both of my conversation partners had heard from different priests that in fact, yes, the pursuit of wealth is wrong. Christians especially, we are frequently told, should not seek to become wealthy but focus our lives on more noble goals.  On the one hand I agree with this. Wealth is not an end in itself and to make becoming wealthy the sole, or even central, goal of one’s life is not compatible with a wholesome human life much less the Gospel. While granting that working to become wealthy simply for the sake of becoming wealthy is immoral, does this mean that is it morally wrong to pursue wealth? In other words, it is sinful to want—and so to work to become—wealthy?
• Virtuous egoism (profitableandmoral.com)
  Egoism is virtuous because it makes possible the achievement our long-term well-being and happiness without initiating physical force on others. The moral justification of egoism is that it makes it possible for us—who don’t have automatic knowledge about the goals we should pursue and about the means to reach them—to achieve our values in the long-term: to survive and to be happy. It is a moral code for living and flourishing.
  Starting from the premise that the pursuit of self-interest is moral and necessary for our well-being and happiness, Ayn Rand identified seven egoist virtues—principles that define the actions required to achieve long-term self-interest: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride. Rand and others have written much about these virtues, so here I focus only on rationality, the primary virtue on which the others rest. Rationality guides us to use reason—to adhere to reality through observation and logic—as “our only means of knowledge, our only judge of values, and our only guide to action.”
• Chasing Your Dreams (landeniv.wordpress.com)
  

  “Go after your dream, no matter how unattainable others think it is.”

  “Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them.”

  “It’s not enough to dream your dreams. You’ve got to pursue your dreams.”

• Don’t Give Up On Your Dreams (sarahcolevaondemand.wordpress.com)
  Every day you are faced with a choice and that is, do you pursue your dream with determination and zeal or do you sit and wait for that dream to materialize by itself?  I believe in taking action steps every day in order to be a participant in the realization of our dreams.
• Pursuing the Guyanese dream (guyanatimesgy.com)
  Hundreds of Guyanese are now in a position where it is possible for them to pursue the Guyanese dream, regardless of their socio-economic circumstances, ethnicity or political beliefs.The Guyanese dream refers to a situation in which nationals possess the ability to access equal opportunities to work and recreation. It also refers to the ability to achieve prosperity and a higher standard of living through hard work and determination.

  The Guyanese dream is founded on the principle of a realistic society where there are high levels of religious, political and social tolerance. It contemplates a situation where a largely mixed, plural and diverse cultural and ethnic society can co-exist with little or no conflict.

Anthony's au pair experience

I realized something.
It came to me rather slow.
I was pursuing a thing,
I barely even know.

Living up to people’s expectations.
Doing what others think is best.
Handling a lot of limitations.
Maybe this was all a test?

I must say, by all means,
Realizing this is not the way.
Living other peoples dreams,
While mine are slowly fading away.

Missing out on opportunities.
Missing my life because others take it away.
Being part of all those communities.
Being part of something where I have nothing to say.

Time to step up my game and live my life.
Not the one other’s tell me to live.
Time to step it up and go all in on my thrive.
Believe me, I have a lot to give.

My motivation is enormous,
My dedication is grand.
Watch out for my performance,
‘Cause everything is going as planned.

You can be…

View original post 128 more words

Gender connections

Jennifer L Thorpe believes that in order to find true self, we must dig deep into the darkness in order to find the warm, loving light. {Where We Need To Be}

Several people may be lost in the dark and not find themselves any more. It is not that their minds and egos battle with their self, their true being, but because our society has liked to put labels onto them. Many encounter difficulties because they may have friends not liked by others or others seeing more in their relationship than there has to be.

How often our society does want to see men in such roles and women in other roles. Today there is still a gender connection with many professions. But there is also still an idea about how men or women may have an connection with other people, from the same or from the other sex. Still too many  people do want to look for other things behind a close relationship. This makes that people can become very lonely and isolated.

Alysta Lim recognises this this concept society has about masculinity, femininity, and gender roles. she compares it to

mass-produced clothes of the same size and style. It does not matter if they do not fit you. One’s own preference is of little consequence. People give us this pair of shoes, tell us to wear it, and like it. In this subject, at least, man and woman truly are equals. {On Gender Roles}

Woman as sex object or to lure man in buying things. – 2004 Chery Fulwin at Shanghai Shi, Shanghai, China. (Flickr set : Autoshow 2004) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Getting all labels on our ‘being’ this also puts pressure on us and makes us sometimes weary or afraid to go deeper in a relationship because it may be misunderstood. The media do not help much either. They present their twisted idea about relationships as normal standard, by which those who have other standards or a different upbringing at home, are confronted with questions which they should not have. The world of film and television is presented as they world we all should live in and should live accordingly.  But in that world everything seems to turn around sex and violence.

Everything what seems to be sweet is labelled as old fashioned and not strong or not mature.

Alysta Lim rightly dares to ask:

Why do we have to be certain things? Wouldn’t it be better to be ourselves than to be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’?  {On Gender Roles}

Graham and Megan attempt to reinforce their gender roles through performing traditional female tasks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

She forgets that by the contemporary society it is not liked to see people who are wanting to be their own. It is considered not wanting to be part of this or their society. It is considered that that person who wants to be his or her own does not want to adapt to society. They consider them weak, but they should know those who want to stay and can stay their own are just the strong ones in society.

Those who do not do foolish actions and do not cry like so many who demonstrate a football madness, (now) when there are world-championships.

Why should men go out working and women stay in the house to do only household work for their own?

who’s to say that men can’t take care of babies and women can’t work?  {On Gender Roles}

At moments everybody may do like crazy, cheering for the winning team. But when somebody becomes to enthusiastic about an exhibition or a theatre performance, he or she would be considered as a ‘noob’, a ‘fool’ or an ‘idiot’ and not somebody to talk to or to have much connection with.

People who would like to tackle more serious subjects have become cast out in this world. Lots of young people do chat a lot but it is all about ‘chit–chat’, not serious talk with shortened words or signs, in such a way that a lot of them even can not talk and write reasonably well any more.

Though most of them dream about the ideal figure they want to be at the most high post they can get. They all dream of high positions which will get them richness, lots of things to play with.

Broken drams. The Hard life of women. – Roundhouse wipers having lunch in their rest room, Chicago & North Western Railroad, Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Jack Delano, photographer Reproduction from color slide LC-USW361-644 LC-DIG-fsac-1a34808, FSA/OWI Collection http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/boundforglory/ExhibitionItems/ExhibitObjects/WomenWorkersEmployedasWipers.aspx (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Through the years an image is given to all of us, and it seems it is still there hanging in the air. Lots of people still have their picture of the perfect man or woman. By many it has become a chain or like the young Freuddwyn blogwriter notices but would like to see herself it to be something which can be useful

good when used as a handbook, not a prison. We are at heart a man, a woman, a child, and something greater we can’t hope to describe. Why should we strive only for one and disregard the rest, when all of them make us what we are now? {On Gender Roles}

Because of the pressure in schools and at work and still the patriarchal society, women are less self-assured than men. To be able to succeed they need more confidence, because the competence may well be there, but often women have to prove themselves twice more than men.

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman do find that for years women have kept their heads down and played by the rules. Many women believed in fairy tales and were sure that with enough hard work, their natural talents would be recognized and rewarded. They did not count on the many magazines which did everything to present women more as a sex object instead of giving more attention on what women really could manage. all the paparazzi material pushed the serious woman under water and tried the world to believe those who made it in life would be those who enjoy women and show off with all material wealth and all sorts of women they can get. Women were and are presented as a trophy you can use to show off to others and show your success in life.

American ladies may think they have made undeniable progress. In the United States, women now earn more college and graduate degrees than men do. They make up half the workforce, and they are closing the gap in middle management. Half a dozen global studies, conducted by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Columbia University, have found that companies employing women in large numbers outperform their competitors on every measure of profitability.

Our competence has never been more obvious. Those who closely follow society’s shifting values see the world moving in a female direction. {The Confidence Gap; Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. Here’s why, and what to do about it.}

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman write, being aware that as they’ve worked, ever diligent, the men around women have continued to get promoted faster and be paid more.

The statistics are well known: at the top, especially, women are nearly absent, and our numbers are barely increasing. Half a century since women first forced open the boardroom doors, our career trajectories still look very different from men’s. {The Confidence Gap}

In writings of some younger blogger we may find a positive change. Up until now, according to us, women did either try to get on the top the wrong way, thinking they had to crush men, and where willing ‘to go over dead bodies’. They kept showing an acute lack of confidence of what they had in themselves to prove themselves to the others.

spick and span (Photo credit: recombiner)

Bloggers like Jennifer L Thorpe,  Cat Lady Its fruitcake weather and the writer of Freuddwyn show with others that they perhaps can look again at the Universe to learn more about themselves {That Pale Blue Dot}, and that they have come to believe that they should not think anyone is better than anyone else, or that anyone is further along or behind.

They may wonder what they are, compared to the greatness of the cosmos in which they have to bring up patience which is limited as with most things. May we believe we in them can come to see a new generation who starts believing that they have all the time in the world to grow, make or break, heal and recover?

All are where they need to be. It’s an individual path at first. Then, it becomes unity. But, each of us develop at our own speed and per our needs. There is not timing or deadline to reach that place we are all going. We all end up there in due time. {Where We Need To Be}

We amount to little more than a speck, but here’s the twist: each of us is a universe in ourselves, and together we make up a world. We make up a home. {That Pale Blue Dot}

It would be nice to come to see again a generation who is willing to accept their limits, not eager to compete with others just to be better, but more willing to go beyond their own limits and trying to grow themselves notwithstanding what other might do or think.

When they start stepping over the gender issue and consider it a priority to know their own limits, being it more important than knowing the enemy’s, that would mean that boundaries would actually help them to grow and become again a generation to bring a turning point.

Alysta Lim, who may bring with her Deviant art some fresh innocent positivist drawings, got to accept that nobody can be perfect!

We shall never be, no matter how hard we try, for the simple reason that we are human. {On Gender Roles}

There are always things we can’t do. So why bother trying if there is no chance of moving forward? Sometimes it is good to know that there are walls, if only to know when to stop and which way to go when it becomes impossible to move forward. After all, life is always a bunch of wrong turns and detours…it is never a straight line. {Our Limit}

Being a man or a woman, both will have to face obstacles, one way or the other. Both shall also find they need other people on their way, to accompany them or to give them a little help or encouragement to continue their way.

Already being aware that nobody can be perfect and that each of us has to try to make it for himself or herself, an intern acceptance of the self can bring more personal growth in the right direction and offer more success. Until now many women, despite all their progress, are still woefully underrepresented at the highest levels. but this seems to going to change. Looking at the attitude of the twenties we may have hopes they will be able to put away the materialism of the previous generations and will start fining more connection to real friends and to nature. Having them becoming aware that all those social media friends are not exactly ‘real friends’ they need in life or will help their life forwards, they will come to understand it is more important to build up right connection in a honest way and by having real friends around them in their own surroundings.

In 2011, half the female respondents to a review about gender position, reported self-doubt about their job performance and careers, compared with fewer than a third of male respondents. We can say that because they were less confident in general in their abilities this led them not to want to pursue future opportunities or wanted them to gain higher positions by getting rid of their male ‘contestants’. In case we can see a new generation, early in the twenties, finding some assurance what they themselves present has its own value, we might find them going into to market for the person they are really,offering honest work, to take or to leave.

With the encouragement they can get from friends and people around them they shall not have to come to think that they are not totally imcompetent in the area, so they would not going to go for it. Today having so many people just standing on their own they do not have to be afraid to fall or to be afraid to end up going into less competitive fields, like human resources or marketing, because they will have found out it is much more important to do what you really want to do, and to enjoy doing what you do. This shall also give again some ‘innocence’ and ‘purity’ in their work, which shall attract the right persons to what they do and to recognise their work.

At the end this would be much more satisfying than those who only have the money-letters in front of their eyes;

Perhaps many may say

 “They don’t go for finance, investment banks, or senior-track faculty positions.” {The Confidence Gap}

but their confidence in what they want to do, shall bring them much further in a life, full of happiness, knowing that having a cosy nice home or lovely family is more important than having all the wealth of the world.

When the woman is willing to see herself not as an other or competitive gender to male, or shall not be willing to just live quietly by the still discrimination of gender, she shall be able to come more forwards and be come more recognised for what she is able to achieve, without others thinking there where some loopholes or something was needed for her to get so far.

Looking at certain blogs of young people we may see an advancement seeing some young women who are not willing to conform to this gender discrimination, trying to scramble on ways to please men, to do it the ‘right’ societal female way.

Living in an Asian country the (female) writer of Purity opulence writes

Females should be much more dignified than men, we bear children for the world, we did that, we did this. In the eyes of traditional beliefs, everything that females have done is considered rightfully legitimate and a strong must. This disgusting trend has led to many women trying to throw away their dignity, distinctly or indistinguishably. {Purity opulence: to love is to respect}

The previous ten years we have seen kids making themselves up like they would be adults. Parents let them dress like adults in mini format. Parents also demanded to get them ‘diploma’s for alls sort things’. It became even so ridiculous that some kindergarten schools are already giving a ‘diploma’ (not a certificate) for the toddlers at the end of the school-year. Our society recently has done everything to have people to impress others. And men had to be on the top, doing interesting ‘male’ jobs or they were not worthy for our society. And women trying to get some ‘male jobs’ where considered ‘wrong girls’, of the wrong sex, or ‘strebers’.

Purity of opulence remarks:

When women are neglected or toyed by men, the first thing that comes in mind is regret. But just a step before it, why do you have to do everything to impress men? The point that I’m trying to make here is to convey the message that, even in the modern society, women are regarded as shameless, can-do-everything-for-anything person. You can’t completely blame the guys. It is you, these kind of women, who sell themselves by sticking and seducing guys, trying to be as girly or demure so that there will be some forces of attraction. Please? Dignity? Therefore, there is this vicious cycle that’s really vicious and irreversible. Ancient society (oppression) –> girls conform –> men think girls are easy creatures –> discrimination continues. {Purity opulence: to love is to respect}

Age-of-Brass Triumph-of-Womans-Rights 1869 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It looks at last we have come to see the seed for a new generation, where women are willing to see themselves as women who can do their own thing and have their own value, which should not be less nor more than the value of men.

We may have come to a generation which is well aware that

Gender is how we feel and how we express our selves.

and which is willing to give a voice to their own feeling and not any-more want to pretend.

If my sex is the same as my gender, then people can and will say
“you were born a girl so you must act like one.”
I know this because people who feel that sex and gender are the same do say this. But if sex and gender are different, then people are more accepting of those of us who have a gender that doesn’t match our sex. This is why sex and gender must be seen as separate. {Sex and Gender}

It is nice to find again people who want to be themselves.

The dancer Britany Elizabet writes

The very selfish conclusion that I came to is that I am not willing to sacrifice that much of myself anymore. I have already been there. I did it with dance team, I did it with a relationships. I played an unnatural role that did not fit me. I pretended to be the idle girlfriend who stayed at home, doted hand and foot on her boyfriend (like, literally, spent time cracking his toes and massaging his athlete-foot infested feet), put aside her entire life for him. It didn’t work for me and actually turned out to be quite a disaster/caused me immense anxiety issues. I tried to be the popular girl, who involved herself in trivial affairs, such as reality television and gossip magazines, got her nails done every other week, and shopped on her free time. That was too expensive of an endeavor for a very Dutch person like myself.

So, as my existential crisis rounds out and my Victorian literature class comes to an end, I am comforted by the fact that I am just me. I don’t fit any definite, prescribed gender roles (as someone one told me, “you are kind of like a guy”), and I don’t really care to fit any of those specific gender roles either, because as seen by our characters, it is unnatural, it doesn’t work, and most likely, you will end up in the madhouse. {Gender Roles & Self Sacrifice}

In the light of this:

So women, women and women, you want people to respect you as a woman, but you just keep on doing things that propels people to be more discriminating! We have to love ourselves, love for what we are and not change just for the purpose of trying to please this or that.

Hopefully, in a matter of decades, women can rise to be equal with men. I think, you, have heard of the word, “tigress”. {Purity opulence: to love is to respect}

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Other articles related to the subject:

1. The only times you are allowed to be sexist
   Here are a list of times when it is ok to be sexist….
2. Real Women Have Curves
   Why do we use a competitive term to describe women? There is curvy vs non curve, real vs fake, good vs, bad… All of which are used to qualify a woman, none of which actually matter. (Sorry fellas you are still entitled to your good girl). Maybe one day we will live in a society where the ranking of women as objects would sound like a ridiculous idea, until then here is my two cent on the matter of the “real women with curves”
3. how women experience clothing
   “You are what you wear”, we’ve all heard this before. The clothes that you choose to wear send a message out to those around you. What you wear affects others perception of you and also affects how you feel. This sounds agreeable right? Of course it does. It happens all the time in the movies.
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   I am not whole. I am a divided self. Split. I have two ways of seeing myself. I see myself and I see myself being seen. I am a subject and simultaneously I see myself as an object. I assume the position of the other (the person who sees me) and stand away from my physical self. I try to gain a better understanding of myself through my objectification. The divided self is not particular to how women experience themselves. We all experience ourselves through a split self to build our self and identity. I am not one but two perspectives. The perspective of myself and the other. Who is the other? Whose perspective am I using to judge myself? It isn’t mine. Though it becomes mine.
4. Mars needs women (and so does the US Congress)
   To lessen the gender gap in political participation and engagement, it is more clear than ever that we need to have more women in political office– an improving trend that has very much slowed.  The problem is not voters, the problem is that we simply need more women running for office.  And that problem is that not enough women want to run for office.  That’s what we really need to change.
5. Discussion Questions: Interviewing on Race, Class, and Gender
   listening for female same-sex desire in Laura’s interview cannot be only about searching for signs of lesbian identity. It must also take into account the intersection of sexuality with class, race, religious practice, age, and other factors
6. Finding privilege: class, gender and social justice tourism
   Grow your hair or don’t grow it. Wear a dress or don’t wear one. Play with trains or play with dolls. Pick your pronouns, pick your friends, but if you are not born female in a hierarchy which positions women as less than men, you will never be in a position to experience what gender is and does to women and girls.
   +
   Like wealth and poverty, gender is a hierarchy which allows for gradations of suffering. Due to gender some women are denied an education, denied the right to vote or drive, denied the right to orgasm, denied the right to control their fertility and denied the right to withhold sexual consent. I am not one of these women. This does not make it fair or reasonable for me to trivialize what gender does, just because I can. I can let my sons wear dresses (and I do). I can challenge gender stereotypes in my writing and actions (and I do). I can sit with my five-year-old, drawing pictures of him as Queen Elsa, and we can both delight at the thought of a world in which he wouldn’t be made fun of at school for wanting long hair (which he is). I can do all of these things but it does not give me the right to reduce something which ruins the lives of billions of human beings to a fatuous matter of choice.
7. Vulnerability and Mindfulness
   I remembered what I had been told time and time again, that to look at another person in the eyes is a momentary glimpse into the mirror of their soul while simultaneously reflecting back into mine. It is a time of intimacy when the world stops for a brief instant when you realize that you are not really separate beings at all, but simply different points of view to the one being that some may call God.
8. “The Criminal Justice System operates free of prejudice and discrimination.”
   In the modern era of female emancipation and human rights there should be no doubt if our justice system still stays prejudice in the area of gender differences and see us all as equals when we face the law. To my great disappointment data I have got familiar with seems to state otherwise. Is it the fault of the male culture overpowering all the main government bodies and disciplines during all these years of patriarchal control? Is it that ‘macho’ practice became institutionalised and implemented as a normal acceptable social norm of behaviour? If we consider how our law has historically criminalised aggression – how certain types of anti-social conduct have been targeted, while other have been either formally or practically left unregulated, we can see a distinction according to gender. Does it mean that such law is reflecting only male patterns of behaviour and exclusively accepts only male standards of adequate conduct? Let’s take a closer look.
   +
9. “Fight for your rights: Masculinism as a response against inequality.”
10. Fathers should stop babysitting
    Sandberg discusses many issues in her book (obviously, because…it’s a book..) and one of the topics I would like to make reference to today, which struck a chord in my heart, is the topic which deals with socialising men to the concept of gender equality and feminism.
    +
    I feel most men personify feminism, turn it into the new f word and give it an unjustifiable persona of a women who fears personal grooming and deodorant. And for this reason, most men, not just those in my circle, are left in the dark because as soon as they have an opinion about it, it gets shut down faster than Thandi’s dream of growing up to become a F1 racer.
    +
    With initiatives such as www.menengage.org and www.unfpa.org socialising men and young boys, I believe gender equality will no longer be a fable, but a real thing. It will be something effective and in the beginning maybe admirable but hopefully in the end, a norm.
11. Getting Involved with Gender and Enterprise Network
    complicating it intersectionally, and challenging the heteronormative bias of research as it currently exists.
12. Celebrating diversity by looking the same?
    A lot of schools will have a boys and girls uniform or if you are at a single sex school, more than likely you have one uniform option.
    +
    Uniform does another powerful thing – it defines gender. Go to any public toilet and you will know the sign for female is triangle. Last time I checked I wasn’t a triangle. But I know instinctively that this is the door I choose. It suggests that to be female you must be wearing a dress/skirt which creates the triangle effect. If you are a guy you don’t get to wear a triangle – even if you want to.
13. Gender Roles & Self Sacrifice
    the Victorian’s fascination with trying to categorize everything caused them to strive to create distinct categories of what is male and what is female.
    +
    human nature can never be defined into two distinct categories. As seen in Victorian literature and Victorian society, it is when we try to fulfill these extreme, unnatural gender roles that people’s psyches breakdown and they go into a perpetual “madness” (and probably get sent to the looney bin, or as the rich people call it, “The Grove”).
14. Gender roles and inequality
    Gender roles start very early in life where it is defined by the  behaviors and attitudes expected from either sex. Obviously, there are physical and biological differences between males and females and a person’s sexuality also comes into play. But unlike these differences, gender roles are also imposed through external social influences. Little girls are expected to play with dolls while boys are expected to play with cars or action figures. We are all guilty of this.
15. Pink and Blue
    Apparently, when I was three years old, I informed my parents that “Pink is a girl’s color. Blue is for boys.” My parents, recovering hippies that they were, shared a perplexed glance as if to ask each other, Are you responsible for teaching her that genderist smut?! When neither owned up to it, they decided it must have been the evils of society – no matter how careful they were to shroud me from such ideas, societal roles and expectations were just too insidious.
    +
    What would happen if we accepted each other as readily as we accepted societal norms? How would we behave if we did what we knew to be good, instead of what we were told was right? I have wracked my brain to come up with a non-cheesey way to say it, but I can’t, so I’ll just say it, cheese and all: Bare your face, and while you’re at it, bare your soul; speak your truth, and recognize that truth is relative and malleable; don’t worry if you don’t fit society’s idea of you, or even your own idea of you – a person is more than an idea.
16. Equality Or Feminism ?
    What some misogynists do not understand is that feminism exists not just to fight for equal rights for women on political, social and economic grounds but most importantly to fight for equal rights for women who are in countries that are dominated by mostly men; Women who are helpless and are defined by their fathers and/or husbands and male figures in power, women who are seen as a means to an end. Feminists, true feminists are fighting for humanity as is defined by the present society. Do not take everything regarding equality as a feminist slur, that is pure ignorance. Feminists campaign for women’s rights in voting, property, job securing, contract laws etc. They do this all the while promoting integrity, self-respect, self-worth, and autonomy for women. They work to protect young girls from sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence and any form of discrimination towards women.
17. Ladies: It’s time for an Evaluation It’s time to look in the mirror – the mirror of history – and reassess the female behavior.
    Throughout history, women have always been seen as a symbol of purity, the representation of goodness, and beauty – the incorruptible creature.
18. On Gender Roles
    As a child, I have a concept of what I want to be, and it wasn’t a lady. I liked Power Rangers more than Barbie, wore jeans everywhere, continued to climb trees and fight with boys until they suddenly had growth spurts and expanded to twice my size.
19. Gender roles Seven feet tall, fixated facial features and an ice cream cone for a body.
    That was my figure yesterday as I stood in the frozen yogurt shop where I work dressed as the mascot to take pictures with kids at a party.
20. Whisper BS Part 1: Body Shaming
    I very recently downloaded the app called “Whisper” and I’ve been collecting some things that have been horrifying me. Whisper is an app where users are completely anonymous and can post all their secrets and fears without repercussions.
21. It’s A Man’s World (Apparently) I am getting tired of having female characters in movies existing primarily for the bad guy to capture/hurt/kill them so the main man is weakened. Just so he can ‘avenge’ her or whatever.
22. Oh, Boys Will Be Boys
    My Psychology of Gender (which, by the way, was a phenomenal class – or maybe it was just my way awesome instructor 😛 – that I think everyone should take regardless of what your college major is, but I digress) professor once shared with my class that she, while raising her son, instilled in him the principle of not hitting anybody whether it be a girl or a boy.
23. Love nothing.
    Frequently I stand staring at the waters seamless expressions of existence and wonder how persistence even exists in a world of hurt hearts.
24. The War Against Women in Kenya: Sexual Violence
25. I Don’t Belong In The Kitchen
26. Biblical Women Smash the Patriarchy
27. Smashing Patriarchy: Esther
28. Decline of The Modern Goddess
29. Dear Miss Madame : Splitting Chores With Your Man? It’s a Dirty Job!
30. “Attention Whores”
31. Think About It
32. Marriage and a bit of Philosophy
33. A Marriage is Not Easy to Manage
34. Japanese issues in “Tokyo Sonata”
35. A “perverted attack”? A difference of opinion? Or a hill to die on?
36. It’s OK To Cry…

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Related articles

• Genre Talk: Boys and Girls (paranormalunbound.com)
  On my author blog, I featured an urban fantasy title by a debut author who respectfully requested, on behalf of her publisher, that her gender not be revealed. In other words, by remaining “gender-neutral” and using only two initials and a last name, she is in essence posing as a guy in order to appeal to a broader readership. I went along with her wishes, of course, but it really made me think.
  +
  I’m kind of outraged, and the more I think about it, the more bothered I am. What does it say about our society, and our industry, if the only way a woman can publish a non-romance title and be accepted by a broad audience of both genders, at least in certain genres, is to pretend to be male or hide behind a “gender-neutral” pen name? By following this marketing rationale, is the publisher being smart, realistic, or perpetuating a cultural stereotype we should be well past?
• Week Four – Image and the Body (ritviscom.wordpress.com)
  As far as encountering someone who was not distinctly male or female, this experience can be a little jarring. Recently at the Jazz Fest in Downtown Rochester, my boyfriend and I crossed paths with a young lady who may or may not have been born a male. I am an extremely open-minded person and never aim to make anyone feel uncomfortable. With that being said, our society is very black and white when it comes to gender. Media images are flooded with either male or female models, images, visuals, etc. This makes encounters with ambiguous gendered bodies seem out of the ordinary. However, I think with the growing popularity and media attention of actresses like Laverne Cox from Orange is the New Black, we might start to shift in this sentiment!
• What is anti-genderism? (francoistremblay.wordpress.com)
  When I talk about genderism and anti-genderism, what do I mean exactly? How do they work? Since genderism is extremely common, we should probably start there.First, the building blocks of genderism. The most obvious is hierarchy: gender roles form a hierarchical institution, and therefore every principle relevant to institutions also applies here.
  +
  I know it’s fashionable in left-wing circles to be against gender roles or the gender binary but to support gender. I see no point in that whatsoever, and it’s not clear to me how anyone can cogently be against one but not against the other. All I’ve seen were pathetic attempts at rationalization like “gender is sexy!” or “gender is empowering!”, but that’s nothing different from any other woman-hating rationalization out there, so there’s no point in dwelling on it.
• Demolish: Gender Roles (wreckingballtothepatriarchy.wordpress.com)
  We can only have an hierarchy of gender if we have genders first. So if we want to rid ourselves of gender oppression, we need to get rid of the gender binary as it exists. Seems simple enough, right? Well a lot of people don’t think so. There is of course the good old argument that God made us this way, which of course is all shot to hell when you look at intersex people (and also when you are an atheist such as myself), but there are also social reasons that some people espouse:
• Genderism, trans theory and the hostility towards radical feminism. (francoistremblay.wordpress.com)
  The concept of genderism, as used in feminism, is usually defined as the belief that certain behavioral preferences are caused by a person’s sex, in general that one’s gender is the result of one’s sex, and therefore that gender is natural (and even desirable).This stands in stark contrast to the view that gender is a social construct. It is also generally held as being the opposite of feminism, because feminists believe that being of the female sex does not constitute an obligation to take on a gender role which is constructed as inferior and subservient.

  What are the behaviors and roles considered appropriate for one’s sex?

  If you are a Feminist (even a Liberal Feminist or a Fun Feminist), the answer to this should be “There are no behaviors and roles considered appropriate for my sex because Females can be and do anything.”

  There is a lot of nuances in definitions here, but they are not entirely necessary. For example, some include within genderism the belief that there are two genders. But the two genders are an artefact of culture; some culture have three genders or four genders, and really, the exact number is irrelevant: all that matters is that some are seen as superior and some are seen as inferior. Genderism would not magically disappear if we added another gender to the list.

• Gender and Sexual Diversity (dissidentvoice.org)
  anti-transgender prejudice is so deeply rooted and systemic that it is rarely noticed or even considered. Discussions of anti-transgender prejudice, often amongst individuals never directly impacted, are replete with misunderstanding and misused or ill-defined concepts and terminology.
  +
  I would like to disclaim that “transgender” is an umbrella term for many people who defy mainstream expectations and assumptions regarding gender, and can be used to refer to transsexuals as well as people who are gender nonconforming in other ways — for example, feminine men, masculine women, transfeminine, transmasculine, genderqueers (who do not identify exclusively as either women or men), to name a few. There are many different ways to experience and interpret gender as human beings. And there are also several ways to conceptualize gender.
• Inspiring Australian Women Tackle Workplace Gender Gap (woman.com.au)
  Australian women today can follow any career path they choose, but social norms and organisational structures do not aid their success. That was the key message from the Women In Business 20:20 panel discussion held this week to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Telstra Business Women’s awards.

“Unnoticed”

The world is full of beauty which many people do not see. Many run around hectic going from here to there to earn their living and to earn a lot of worldly treasures. Most of them forget there are things which are much more worth than all the money they would be able to gather in their life.

So many small things may pass by unnoticed. In all the turmoil where do we want to stand and what do we want to do to see and meet the other?
How much do we want to open our arms to those we do not know and those we might know?

Many in this crowded world my feel lonely because they have lost touch with the inner and the outer love.

We should all be thankful for the first gift we received when we were too small to think and to do things on our own. We are here because of the first gift of love. Even in case not, we once born have been fostered and treated out of love.

Oh, so often we miss out on that love. Worse we can feel so lonely, though we see all those people passing by.

Is the loneliness standing in the corner or is it love. Often we are in the other corner because we did not dare enough to take both in our arms and shuffle them as a stack of cards in a life full of expectations of the good instead of being afraid for a world with the bad.

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Related articles

• Unnoticed (thefingerprintofmoments.wordpress.com)
  I miss you

  and I’m lonely

  in this house full of people

  and I’m so sad

  I want to puke

• Unnoticed (hastywords.wordpress.com)

  I got down on my knees

  I grabbed a stick and poked and…

  The grasping bones of a long dead hand

  Trying to escape from a prison

  Someone created for poor Ms. Claire

  Unnoticed and forgotten

  Years ago

• My Broken Heart Speaks Erika Berrones (thejourneywomenslife.com)

  I’ve embarked on a journey

  One to set me free

  Free from bondage in life’s array of obstacles

  I’ve chosen to face my failures

  Take responsibility for my choices

  Vanquish my fears

• But it stings, still (kathbra.wordpress.com)
  Drinking alone to dismiss those thoughts I have

  Those thoughts that I have only sometimes

  Because I don’t let them stay all the time

  I guess because I don’t like them as much as they like me

  It’s a loneliness

• Unnoticed (elephant1234blog.wordpress.com)
  I’ve abused my body, I must confess
  I can barely breathe, now I seek rest
  Yet Lord, I cry have pity on me
  For I am prisoner, desperate to be free

  Release my chains and let me see
  The glory of your majesty
  Hear my cry lord, please don’t ignore
  Don’t cast me aside, for I am yours