Dawn and Dusk – Just a thought.

No pictures – nothing. It’s a simple post.

I was just thinking about dawn and dusk.

I couldn’t decide which I like better. They both have their own beautiful points.

Dawn is refreshing, the feeling of renewal, the birds are singing praise, the leaves of the trees are gently whistling their grace for the blessing of a new day. It’s a rebirth. It’s a new start. It’s peaceful. It’s almost like whatever happened the day before is disregarded, and we have been granted another chance to right whatever wrongs occured the previous day. It’s that moment, right at the start of the day, when everything feels clean, the air seems new and the sunlight is fresh. Just like how our cells renew themselves (mitosis 🙂 ) the Earth seems to have renewed itself.

Dusk is a chance to view another side to the world. A side, which has its own wildlife, its own melodic whistles, its own enriching breezes. The animals of the night come and instinctively do as nature intended. Dusk is like walking into a painting, because as the clouds form and decorate the blue sky during the day, there are suddenly tiny twinkling diamonds embellishing a vast darkness. The stars twinkle further than we could ever travel, but somehow, and with such ease, our eyes can take us there. The Moon is the Sun of the night, watching over us, reminding us that we’re not alone.

I probably do need to point out that I have some form of sky infatuation – I can stare at it for hours on end 🙂

I find it all so symbolic. When I think about dawn and dusk, I associate dawn with ‘beginning’ as I’ve just said. So should it stand to reason that dusk signifies the ‘end’? I don’t think so. When dusk falls it does mean the end of the day, clearly, but with the start of dusk comes the start of something entirely new. A celestial radiance that cannot be experienced in the presence of sunlight. It’s comforting, because although it’s dark, the stars are there. The Moon is there. Life isn’t standing still, it is forever with us. I guess what I’m trying to say is although it appears to be dark, God has purposefully put these natural products in front of us so we don’t lose hope that there will be light at the end of it all. He would never leave us alone, that’s why He put these things for us to embrace in our times of darkness. Almost like, although it appears to be the end, there is life afterwards. We’re comforted, and before we know it, the light reappears and dawn breaks. The cycle is renewed, our faith in the new day is restored, and it continues.

I LOVE IT 🙂

I can’t decide which I like better. And frankly, I don’t think either should be favoured – they are both vital, because without one, the other wouldn’t exist. They complement each other, in a cycle of comfort and renewal. There’s a gorgeous quote:

“Dusk, is just an illusion, because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are; there cannot be one without the other, yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel, I remember wondering to be always together, yet forever apart?”

 

If you could, I would appreciate this :) just a small survey :)

Hello people. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to do me a small favour. I am tight for time, and I need a survey about people’s opinions on social networking and news… Please? You don’t understand how much I would appreciate it, and the questions are minimal – it will take about a minute and a half, I promise you 🙂

Thank you… The link is here 🙂 

<a href=”http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RV59KV5″>Click here to take survey</a>

 

“Just Because It’s In Print Doesn’t Mean It’s The Gospel.”

The title quote is by an extremely clever, sensitive man, the late Michael Jackson. I say he is clever because as well as being well read, I have been looking over a number of his videos and articles since the day of his passing, and I have come to learn he was an incredibly wise and knowledgeable individual. I think what you class as intelligence differs from people, and to me, spiritual intelligence and LIFE knowledge is what is so valuable.

I want to share a couple of the inspirational things I picked up from my time looking at his interviews and various online materials. It will illustrate that he was an incredible human being, entertainment aside. He was a veteran before he was a teenager, and a humanitarian before a human.

“Before you know if you have red hair or brown, before you know if you are black or white, before you know of what religion you are a part, you have to know that you are loved.”

"Bad" Era

“In a world filled with hate…
We must still dare to hope.
In a world filled with anger…
We must still dare to comfort.
In a world filled with despair…
We must still dare to dream.
And, in a world filled with distrust…
We must still dare to believe.”

Man in the Mirror

“That one in the mirror has his doubts, sometimes. So, I am tender with him. Every morning, I touch the mirror and whisper, ‘Oh, friend, I hear a dance. Will you be my partner? Come.'”

During an Interview in 1983 he talks about his inspirations, as the Sun goes down…

Michael pauses his interview to giggle "Boy, get out of her ear!" to someone behind the camera.

“[Dusk] is really magic to me because it’s like a painting, I’s very artistic. It’s magic. [Sings] It’s so wonderful! Just the sound of water is magic. It’s so beautiful. I think with any type of creation you create what’s inside of you, subconsciously, what enthuses you. I’m a fantasy fanatic and anything that can take you off into another world, escapism, um, that’s what I like. I’m not so crazy about the reality of everything, I like the fantasy and that’s why I create, to get away, to become moved.  [Sings] To become moved! (Breaks into song) It’s magic. It’s hard to explain it. Boy, I could just jump up, I swear, and take off. I might do it. You can feel, um, the energy, in everything around me. You can feel the Moon, the plants, everything around me. It’s wonderful. I, um, I think nature, animals and all those things are very inspirational to my work. I play off of those things – and children. It stimulates ideas, um, creates all kinds of things I just can’t tell you. I think the majority of my success is from these sources – People think, ‘Well, go into detail!’ But it’s hard, you really can’t. It’s the whole world, you just, play off of life. I think it’s the same for what inspires painters and sculptors and people of the arts. It’s the whole world. This is a magic place.”

When asked how he comes up with song ideas…

A picture I drew of the King of Pop in 1995

“I’ve always that said I don’t write my own songs because I feel I’m just a source, just a tunnel, through into which they come, I think somewhere in space they’ve all been written before – I mean, Billie Jean and Beat it, and, all those songs have been up there somewhere and just, came through to me, that’s how I really feel. But, I… Even though I did it, I can’t always take credit. It’s like any great artist I guess. Leonardo DaVinci, I mean, he’s doing it, but there’s some other higher force that’s making it happen. (smiles) It’s a wonderful day!”

And, possibly his most famous quote (in my opinion)…

“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.”

For someone to be able to say these things indicates great intelligence, knowledge about what is important, and proves he was extremely in tune with the planet, life and the spiritual wonders that come with it.

It should be said, Michael Jackson did know what he was talking about in the title quote. The molestation charges were known worldwide, and he and a number of onlookers who knew and saw past it realised that “Print does not equal Gospel”. For those who missed the update of the two-decade-old story (Jordan Chandler etc) the “victim” finally admitted what the Jackson family were trying to tell people all along – IT WAS ALL A LIE. It was the greed of Chandler’s father that led him to forcing his son to LIE about an innocent man, potentially nicer than anyone that is walking the Earth right now. People, the public, nationwide wasted no time in jumping on a bandwagon and accusing this poor guy of doing a crime he could not even bear to believe was actually committed in the real world. These people, the majority really, played right into the media’s hands. They effectively printed a lie on paper after paper, filling pages every day, and the world believed it. How dumb must those believers in their hoardes feel now? Stories would come out, providing evidence against the charges, but they were printed in a tiny area of space lost inside a huge newspaper. It was clear what the media wanted to do, in my personal opinion. An African-American superstar that has earned America in particular all of this money. He was away on tour. They printed out as much negativity as they could, as a way of making money from him AGAIN. They exploited him through the power of negative press. Would stories proving he was innocent sell as well? Surely not, they must have thought, and I guess it isn’t what the terrible mass media wanted to write about anyway. As Michael said himself, “People write negative things, ’cause they feel that’s what sells. Good news to them, doesn’t sell.” But I don’t want to talk about that anymore 🙂

But my point above is that the kid admitted he was lying about the whole thing and was deeply apologetic. And Michael knew it was a lie, but he didn’t hate him for it. In his eyes, children are completely innocent. It is the influence of adults, the corruption that many adults have allowed into their minds that override the poor child’s ability to stick to what is good. And I do agree with that.

I think I am almost done here, but I want to say something. For people, some people, to sit and ferociously attack someone in most of the years they were alive is just disrespectful. But to do it when they have passed, is the mother of all sins I think. I am extremely sensitive to people bullying others, I hate it, because, as cheese as it is for a 21st century young person to say this, I genuinely view everyone, every human, as part of each other’s family (“We are all a part of God’s great big family” – I’m sorry, I won’t keep quoting him) and it really upsets me when I, or anyone else, is treated badly. Loving comes so naturally yet we have managed to condition our brains to think that we must only love our family (TRUE, by the way), our other half’s when we meet them, and everyone else is either the enemy, or a mockery canvas, upon which anyone can hurl paints of abuse and completely damage their reputation, their self-worth, their zest and love for life. What right do we have? I have never met Michael Jackson but I know he suffered for no reason, I couldn’t handle seeing him do so much for the world, for the children – who are the planet’s FUTURE, by the way – and receive this horrific treatment from the planet’s present. Ew.

This Is It - Image from Google

I cannot say I have ever been a fan of someone’s “personality” before, or ever will be, but I think that is how I feel about MJ. I’m aware that ‘Truth’ in this case is ONE person’s word against ANOTHER person’s word, but just look at the track record of the media, vs. the track record of Michael Jackson. A humanitarian before a human. A veteran before a teenager. He was a good kid. He didn’t swear. He didn’t sleep around. He had his religious foundations (raised a Jehovah’s Witness, as I was.) He blossomed into a loving human being with his eyes opened wider than 98% of the people around him. He understood things weren’t right, and wanted to change them, to help, to heal the world we live in, and save them for our children. Does that sound like a criminal to you?

Finally I would like to say I pray he is resting peacefully. He received so many blessings which were enough to carry him through life on a pedestal since his performing career began at 5, and eventually propelled him to being known as the Greatest Entertainer that ever lived. It is a shame such a sensitive and appreciative man had to endure what he did, but he continued on his path of good. He deserves a rest now.

May you rest in peace.

Drinking Culture

Is this really essential to having a good night?

The drinking culture. I don’t understand it. I will explain.

I was talking to my parents about this, and people in general who are of the generation above me. I didn’t actually realise that this behaviour amongst teenagers and young adults was a new phenomena. It literally began as the people my age became mature enough to drink (many even before that). And by the way, what I mean by drinking culture, to my understanding, is people, children really, who from the age of perhaps fifteen embark on a conquest 1-3 times a week to drink as much alcohol as physically possible. According to followers of this drink culture, or ‘cult’ if I want to shorten it 🙂 it’s somewhat cool if a person is so inebriated that they are rushed to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped, or at least drunk enough that they “don’t remember what happened the previous night”. The joy…

Okay, I sound a little nasty there, but it’s true, and the way I see it.

I’m really not sure how the drinking culture came about, I did try to look in to it a little but to no real avail. All I know is that is happening all around me, all the time. I always see it. I don’t understand why nightclubs can’t just be a place of congregating with friends and dancing with a drink or two in hand. Instead of this, it is almost like a necessity to people. It is absolutely crucial to some people’s enjoyment that they can’t walk in a straight line and don’t remember how they got home.

The 'Drinking Culture'

Personally, I’m someone in their twenties, and I don’t drink. This is for a number of reasons, but two main ones:
– I don’t like the the taste – I genuinely don’t understand why people can down drinks that taste utterly nasty. I prefer the taste of orange juice or an apple & mango j20 to a double vodka and coke. It actually tastes really bad!!! If people were at a social and were offered between a cup of tea or a pint of grated ginger mixed with mollasses, what would you choose?! I’m just saying…….

– I don’t like how it makes you feel. I have only ever been drunk once (when I was underage funnily enough) the feeling of lack of control, the slurred speech, the slow reactions and just saying things that don’t make sense. The potentiality of falling ill. Having a fight.  Doing things completely out of character. I don’t understand it, nor want to engage in it.

– This third reason is an unofficial but still there. I don’t want to follow the crowd. This reason I don’t usually tell people. But it is true. I don’t want to be a sheep to something that is actually expensive and zero fun. If previous generations didn’t engage in this drinking culture, yet some people decided to start now, does that mean we all have to do it? Am I missing out on my youth because I’m not potentially having my stomach pumped after a birthday night out? I don’t think so 🙂 It’s also just as if all of the health implications that come with drinking excessively don’t matter anymore. There’s things like stomach ulcers, high blood pressure, liver damage or even failure. And what about depression? Dependancy?? I’ve talked to loads of people my age who just don’t believe they can be confident on a night out without downing drinks. Why don’t you work on yourself and build that confidence rather than wasting your money on a quick fix that’ll make you feel awful after?!

It’s not that every young person is drinking themselves to this. But the more it becomes acceptable and ‘normal’ in society, the more it’ll happen, and the more these things will cause fatalities. It’s just scary, and unnecessary I think.

 

BUT THAT’S JUST ME 🙂

Couldn’t think of a better post to read at 06:45 in the morning…
I’m glad I came across it

Live & Learn

We’ve all either given or received the career advice: “Follow your dreams.”  “Do what you love.”  “Love what you do.”

Recently, there have been an increasing number of counterarguments making the case that if we were all going to “do what we love,” we’d starve doing it.

I came across a 2006 post by Paul Graham: “How To Do What You Love” that offers what may be the best thought-leadership on the subject that I have read.

Graham is an essayist, programmer, and investor. In 1995, he co-developed the first web-based application, Viaweb, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998. He has an AB from Cornell and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard, and studied painting at RISD and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.  Graham’s blog is one of the most followed in the blogosphere.

It is an essay (longish for those of us with…

View original post 957 more words

iPhone Siri for iPhone 4S.

iPhone Siri.

What Can't It Help You With?

I am addicted to this technology, for crying out loud. I just needed to put that out there.

It is one of the most poignant things that Apple have added to their latest smartphone, the iPhone 4S. It stands for Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface, and allows you to perform tasks just by the use of your voice. Almost like a tiny robot living in your phone to which you can ask questions, and it replies to you 🙂

You can ask it almost anything, what the weather is like, what the time is in Paris. You can ask it to do things for you, such as note things in Notepad, to call or send messages to people, to search for things on the Internet, set reminders or alarms, and to play specific songs for you on your built-in iPod. It works with your iPhone’s earphones also, if you’re on the go and want music changed it will do this for you if you click the button on the earphones to activate Siri.

It does have funny responses for questions.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” (OK, not so crazy) to which it will respond “Is this relevant?”

“Do you know any jokes?”
“No, I always forget the punch line.”

“Are you single?”
“I don’t have marital status.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, frankly, I’ve wondered that myself.”

It can keep the soft-hearted like me amused for a while is what I’m trying to say here.

I know people have their different views about it but I think it is insanely clever, and I like how Siri has three settings for English; UK, US and Australian. It shows Apple have thought about the accent differences and will make Siri that much more sensitive to recognising what the commands are. I do think that different dialects within countries such as the UK will become more recognised on Siri as time goes on, as I think that could be a complaint some people have. But me, having a completely standard English accent, has no problem.

I do recommend it 🙂

 

Losing Touch With Reality?

People are now all about convenience living – Phones have everything – maps if you’re lost, social network sites so you’re always connected, iPhone Siri so you don’t even have to lift a finger to use your phone – You purely speak to it and it can do everything for you (Next post perhaps?). Shopping is done online. People meet online. Convenience living!

Why do we even need to leave our houses anymore?

I was at an interesting event where I had the chance to talk to a great professor earlier today. She drew my attention to the fact that as I have grown up surrounded by this technology culture, or “Generation X” as someone called it, this is all I know. It makes us lazy. While I know that Facebook is an amazing tool to use for social, networking, and professional purposes, I do try and not become a slave to it because I don’t want to become reliant on this as a means of socialising and staying informed on things.

I think the fun is in talking to people face to face. Meeting and sharing moments.

The way technology is advancing, certainly in the last ten years, for me is causing fragmentation in society rather than cohesion. Okay, in a sense it is cohesive – I don’t know how else I could communicate with family on the other side of the world or have the chance to talk to, say, a member of the Jackson’s, for example. It does make people largely accessible at any time of the day, no matter where they are. But surely, the ability to sit in your room on What’sapp, with Skype on your laptop, Retweeting people on Twitter, I mean, you could feel like you’re the most socially active person in the world but in reality you are sitting ALONE in a room!

With more things coming out, in my view, it is encouraging people into isolation – isolated from physical contact and actually going out and shopping. Going to the post office rather than e-mailing. 

Back to the convenience though, it is great. But I think things in moderation are great too.

 

T”why”LIGHT?

It is that time of year again – when the new Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt. 1 film comes out on DVD. For those of you that don’t know, the release date was the 12th of this month (Monday).

I have never been able to sit through any form of fake program such as horrors, werewolfs – the only thing I could just about sit through was Michael Jackson‘s Thriller video, if that even counts? Having fought tooth and nail to NOT fall victim to the clutches of Twilight, Harry Potter, or any of these daft longwinded mystical make-believe stories – It was Twilight that got me. I was exposed and I never looked back. As soon as I watched Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse over two days, THEN Breaking Dawn Pt. 1 the following day, I have been hooked. I just enjoy it now, and I can’t for the life of me understand why someone who hates all of this fakery can find it SO appealing.

I really want to try and understand why people find it SO damn appealing – what is it about Twilight that makes most of us humans prepare to humiliate ourselves screaming and just generally get far too excited? Is it the vampire and werewolves storyline which we find insanely gripping or is it in fact the human nature aspect of it?

A situation that I guess every teenage/young woman would love to find themselves in – caught in the middle of a fierce, mysterious love triangle, with two gorgeous men who would do anything for her. Bad boys who never smile. Aggressive, yet tame and sensitive. They would do more than merely catch a grenade for you. They would wrestle wolves on some crazy steroids for you. They would wipe out the ‘immortal’ blood sucking vampires for you. They would run really fast with naked torsos and loads of hair wax. For you. Perfect…

Love Triangle

… But I don’t actually care about any of that

I guess I will never know what it is about Twilight that made me pre order it at HMV and actually travel all the way home to watch it. I can’t lie, just writing about it has made me want to watch it. I guess it’s a guilty pleasure… And I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about it.