Spooning.

I love mornings like this :D

<3

Growing up.

The more you get into life,

 the more it makes sense.

Inspiration.

Enjoy.

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."

Marcus Aurelius

Food is friend.

STOP diabetes!

It scares me to think how out of control diabetes has become, especially in the last 10 years or so.

PLEASE don't ignore the signs, even if you are young...

• 
  
• 
  
• - 275 Australians develop diabetes every day
• - Diabetes is Australia’s fastest growing chronic disease
• - Nearly 1,000,000 Australians are currently diagnosed with diabetes. 
• - For every person diagnosed, it is estimated that there is another who is not yet diagnosed; a total of about 1.7 million people.
• - The total number of Australians with diabetes and pre-diabetes is estimated at 3.2 million.
• - As the sixth leading cause of death in Australia, it is critical we take action.
• - Up to 60% of cases of type 2 diabetes can be prevented.

Sources:
Diabetes Atlas, third edition, International Diabetes Federation, 2007
Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease: Time to Act, International Diabetes Federation, 2001
AusDiab Report, 2006
The Economic Costs of Obesity, 2006
World Health Organisation Diabetes Uni

Long term effects

Symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes

In type 2 diabetes, many people have no symptoms at all, while other signs are dismissed as a part of ‘getting older’. By the time type 2 diabetes is diagnosed, the complications of diabetes may already be present. Symptoms include: 

• Being excessively thirsty
• Passing more urine
• Feeling tired and lethargic
• Always feeling hungry
• Having cuts that heal slowly
• Itching, skin infections
• Blurred vision
• Gradually putting on weight
• Mood swings
• Headaches
• Feeling dizzy
• Leg cramps.

Preventing Type 2 Diabetes

It is estimated that up to 60% of type 2 diabetes can be prevented. People at risk of type 2 diabetes can delay and even prevent this disease by following a healthy lifestyle. This includes:

• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Regular physical activity
• Making healthy food choices
• Managing blood pressure
• Managing cholesterol levels
• Not smoking.

Don't worry, be happy.

Young and free.

I have no idea what my life is about yet, I wish I could fast forward time.  But in saying that, I guess like surprises, and I'm willing to sit out each day if it keeps coasting this way.

I am young. Endless possibilities await.

Scare yourself, its healthy.

If your dreams don't scare you and excite you at the same time, they're not big enough!

Analyse and Question.

Many of us are well equipped to be rational and developed thinkers.  With all that grey matter (among other things that would be too retarded to list) that make up our anatomically pleasing human brain and CNS, it is fair to say that we are rather lucky in the scope of living animals.  But are we rational and logical thinkers?  Do we do more than just “think”?  Can we put our brains to good use?

Have you ever noticed a child’s curiosity?  To say purely that curiosity is responsible for developed thinking, in my opinion, is invalid I know- that will not be the basis of this argument.  It is evident that many animals are curious, but what seems to differentiate us from other animals is our driving need to know. I know that children ask questions, so many questions, but it would seem that they have a driving need for valid answers; they must know.  “Children are born to perceive – they make the ‘cause-effect’ links and relationships” (from the book “Why people believe weird things”…. Give it a read)!  So as I have established, as the child wonders, he must find out.  So as the adult wonders, what stops him from finding out?  That’s what I want to know?  It seems far less adults have the driving need to know that children so classically possess.  Do adults hit much bigger walls?  Is it too difficult to ‘find out’?  Surely not.  Do we think we know enough at a certain point, to get by without knowing more?  I guess on a basic level, thinking is required to keep us alive.  As children, thinking is required to help us grow and although we may not think of it, we are aware.  It is a competition to know.  But as we mature do we give in?  Do we see that specializing in a certain field of knowledge is more relevant as we become adults?

I suppose I think that that is so.  For I myself will not go out of my way to learn computer programming, the most uncommonly used words in the Oxford Dictionary or anything of sorts like that.  Do I need to know that or are there other more relevant and more important things for me to know on a personal level?  Do I know that I realistically do not have time to know those words or how to program and because everything is somewhat prioritized, they are further down on the list than others that hold greater status in the scheme of knowing?  Perhaps.  But if I had all the time in the world, would I ever want to know; would I try to know or would I stick to what I want to know most?  When is it progression and when is our mind’s curiosity to know, a limitation?

One thing I wonder, is how we can know what nobody does?  How can we really know that a big discovery is valid and real?  Because we hear about it, does that make us believe its true?  What I love most about science is that it leads us towards rationalism.  Science cannot improvise details as it must give valid details.  And if details are left out we, as humans, question relative evidence, and if evidence is scarce or irrelevant, this affects our scale of belief…. A rational mind would think this is valid to say?  So when you read a text, do you not analyse its content and rationally critique it, like us skeptical humans might with any new and valid information?  Don’t we select credible sources when writing academic papers, instead of just anything written?  I think so.  So why do many not perceive and/or read scriptures with a skeptic’s mindset?  This has puzzled me for years.  It seems such texts as the bible and other similarly based written work is that it lacks critique in itself and does not provide any absolute evidence, nor much reason.  As a contrast, science must prove itself to be believed, unlike religion, which seems a little ‘wishy-washy’ for me.  Take Darwin for example.  If he just chucked everything out there without properly discussing it or providing any evidence for his theories, would we even consider believing them?  The thing I love about Darwin is no matter what he argues; he likes to touch on “negative evidence” or “difficulties of theory”.  These are rational arguments that discuss exceptions to rules and theories.  I’d like to think that a rational mind would have decided to include such things (yes, perhaps to improve credibility) but it’s his open minded and thorough discussion of perceived and collected evidence that makes his personal papers/texts so pleasurable to read.

So why can’t religion be rational?  Why can people read the bible and assume it to be true because of its age and all the mystical things it says?  How is the bible any less or any more valid than any other piece of writing ever produced?  And who and how many people have ever critiqued it close to the time it was written?  Who was ever there to rationalize?  It makes it a very difficult task for us to do now as it could have held some truths.  But we will never know, so why build our lives around something that has such flimsy evidence, when science produces so much more, especially as technology has and does progress?

Although I have drifted, I conclude with my initial train of thought –

Why do humans have a limit on their ability to wonder?

Why do some choose not to think at all, if given the choice?

How can we get by with so little thought?

How can one ever be fulfilled with something without proper assessment?

I hate how some things just sound good, so convincingly good.

Please be rational, please think, please be inspired to learn in order to progress.

I know all of these things are only values to me on a personal level but I wish more people in the world analysed and questioned.

Growing

Stay balanced and grow.

10th August.

There’s a kind of luck that’s much more than being in the right place at the right time, a kind of inspiration that’s not much more that doing the right thing in the right way, and both only happen when you empty your heart of ambition, purpose and plan; when you give yourself, 

completely, to the golden, fate-filled moment.

Shantaram

"They’d lied to me and betrayed me, leaving jagged edges where all my trust had been, and I didn’t like or respect or admire them any more, but still I loved them. I had no choice. I understood that, perfectly, standing in the white wilderness of snow. You can’t kill love. You can’t even kill it with hate. You can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can’t kill love itself. Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own; and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. Every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good".

The hate that feeds you.

I'm not quite sure what fuels long lasting hate in the heart.  Perhaps when humans hurt, our weakness is that we can't instantaneously let go.  I'm reading a wonderful book and here is a quote from it:


"I don't know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it".

Dealing with hate and bitterness has always been a plague to me.  If conflicts can't be resolved, it is evident that we can only let them be.  Trying is wise because once you've tried, no matter the outcome, it seems easier and lighter to endure.  This is because you know you've tried and therefore can walk away with nothing but peace in your heart.  Letting go is all that can be done, all that is healthy.  Life goes on regardless, but for those that hold that bitter hatred, life will progress with this thing that pulls at you from time to time.


Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny precious wisdom they give to us, even those dreaded and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be.

My light

Never be a scratching post for someone else's anger.  And don't worry about the cracks.  They help the light get in!

Press your belly button against mine...

“One thing I do know about intimacy is that there are certain natural laws which govern the sexual experience of two people, and that these laws cannot be budged any more than gravity can be negotiated with. To feel physically comfortable with someone else's body is not a decision you can make. It has very little to do with how two people think or act or talk or even look. The mysterious magnet is either there, buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not. When it isn't there (as I have learned in the past, with heartbreaking clarity) you can no more force it to exist than a surgeon can force a patient's body to accept a kidney from the wrong donor. My friend Annie says it all comes down to one simple question: "Do you want your belly pressed against this person's belly forever --or not?” 
― Elizabeth Gilbert