Smile! It's good for you ;-)

According to all sources, cardiovascular diseases remain the biggest cause of death globally, which fit well with our 21st century lifestyle that leave us with hardly any time for fun and games, and push our stress level to breakpoint.

It is with exactly this in mind that happiness is becoming more and more important in all aspects of our life. We have always suspected that being happy is good for your health, but with the latest research providing conclusive proof of the benefits it holds, and recent scientific evidence that happiness is no more than a choice, I'd say there is nothing to do but to smile!

Dear Ellen

I would just like to thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you for all the fun and laughter you bring to the world. We may be a tad behind when it comes to watching your shows, but even though we only got to see Dough-Vember in January, and when we heard about your 'O so fabulous' cover they were all sold out, we absolutely love you to bits.

We love how you bring us pride in ourselves by living it, spread joy and peace by giving it, how you interest us with interviews and inspire us with your guests, those famous and not. We love how you bring us stories of ordinary people living extraordinary lives simply by being true to them self, and making the most out of every moment alive. We love when you amaze us with the talent you discover, and roll about laughing at the fun and games you play every day. You raise our spirit and brighten our day, and come what may we love the way you make us dance to celebrate life.

On behalf of all your devoted fans here in South Africa, I want to assure you that your quest for world domination is going as smooth as a dream. Here's to love and peace, and the hope of sharing a cup of tea sometime.

Yours truly
Cornelius Engelbrecht

Love it or hate it.

For some things there is no in between. Take windchimes and you quickly see what I mean, even better, hear what I say.

The sound of the chime is a gentle nudge, carried on wind that echo the dream of our being, pure as the time it become.

It can drive you quite mad, if you want, but only if you insist on listening, and in hearing the meaning over and over...

...and over again, some come to reason and some just remain. Some go mad and others flow. Like Zen I suppose...

News to use

In this latest edition of "News to use", Aggie finds new evidence on attitude, morals, values and happiness, and introduces a website that is guaranteed to have something to entertain almost everyone.

And if that is not enough, this month's news contain a fabulous alternative to pill popping that is guaranteed to lift your mood.

Beautiful

The 2009 Autumn and Winter supplement to the absolutely fabulous FANTASTIC MAN magazine is BEAUTIFUL, and it really is! From the monochrome cover that is just ever so slightly rough to the touch, to the model that tease you inside with his beautiful smile.

In this article, Aggie explores the subject of beauty as it is expressed in the printed media.

Now you've ruined the friendship

If you are looking for likely candidates to bring ruin to any relation, you have to look no further than words. I will always maintain a healthy respect for the power of the spoken word, but goodness knows. There is hardly a word still around you can trust for the sense people try to make when they share the idea.

Do you know who you are?

I recently read a quotation that alluded to the fact that trying to describe magic in words, was like using a skewer to eat fillet mignon, or something to that effect. And in truth there is wisdom in the words if you imagine that you could use a skewer if you really, really want too?

In the case of the movie "The Seeker" you might be surprised to find how delightfully perfect a skewer can be in the hand of a master with talent and a taste for meat. Through the experience of a boy who have just reached the age of 14 we get to travel through time in an edgy adventure to find 6 signs to conquer the darkness, and he has 5 days to do it. Through the experiences of the unwilling young hero, the seventh son of a seventh son, we discover that the only way we can ever hope to conquer darkness is by using time and the elements we find on our journey to willingly create our reality.

Before I go and spoil the whole movie I would like to abide by giving "The Seeker" my most hearty recommendation to anyone who question their journey in life, and perhaps even those in search of meaning to magic as well.

lighten up!

Here I am, struggling with the implications of wisdom received through the toil and sweat of a lifetime, and anxiously searching for any possible means I can find to address the general lack in the world I perceive and what do I find? The movie by Mike Myers called "Love Guru".

And to be honest, this is the second time that I was so impressed, that I needed to write so badly, that I still haven't watched the movie. From what I've seen I am pretty much sure that one of the meta-messages of the movie is to lighten up. For reasons that will be clear to anyone that have read some of my prose before, this is a message that would clearly change much of my life! It is therefore just that it should be examined with the utmost of care, as I am pretty much satisfied with the life that I have at this moment in time.

It must also be clear at the start that offering salvation to souls that are lost, and having them accept it at last after years of persuasion does not count as lighten up. Even if there are striking similarities between the two. Even if I have found that a life of wisdom is far better off without the emotion that sways the windmills of our mind like a rudder in the storm.

What I haven't found, at least not yet, is the daily enjoyment of the wide range of sensory delights that I know are there to behold in their choice. Up to now I prefer to remind others about the blatant display of heavenly pleasures that tease and entice their ignorant minds with a luscious array of wisdom and choice that others would have to suffer to achieve. I need to lighten up!

It is true what they say about wisdom being the domain of cobwebs and dust, but with that there is also wisdom that say its your choice. I say it is time for something fresh, perhaps a little gay, but fun none the less. It is time to open windows as they need, and winds to blow away the Grey that often come wisdoms way.

Lighten up, I say!

Monty Python vindicated...

According to Stanton Peele, Ph.D., J.D., who has been researching and treating addiction since he wrote Love and Addiction (1975):

"Virtually all happiness/antidepression psychology breaks down to one recommendation - look on the bright side. Any one of us can look at our lives in negative or positive terms. All of us have accomplishments, successes, good relationships, skills, hopes, pleasures, contentments. All of us have the reverse. And all of us have the capacity to dwell on one side... or the other."

All of which reminded me about a Monty Python song.

A social lesson or two, from fish.

How Fish (Yes, Fish) Punish Each Other - TIME: "The researchers believe the results are relevant to humans because it may offer clues to how humans evolved their own uniquely complex system of punishment. Despite the centrality of the concept of punishment to human society, evolutionary biologists are stumped as to what selective pressure would have led us to punish people who have cheated or harmed not the person who does the punishing, but a third party — even if that party is no genetic relation. Some biologists suggest that punisher's benefit from a boost in social status and are thus more attractive as a mate."

I suppose it is typical of the scientific community to try and compare observed behavior across different species from totally different environments and then to postulate imperative similarities, and more pertinently so because humans are scientifically proven to enforce our own reality into everything.

In the example from the article in TIME our collective consciousness go so far as to imply that negative social behavior like punishment could have a positive social impact by improving the mating probability of the punisher. And without one single shot being fired a declaration of victory has been made to justify the social existence of punishment, even though there is an ever increasing snowball of opinion that the social value of punishment has reached the end of its delusional existence.

In my own point of view it is about time that we collectively question the existence of many of the so called "human" or natural behavioral traits, particularly those that are rooted in our own survival. While it is true that anything with the potential to trigger our fight or flight response has the power to limit our entire comprehension to three imminent choices, it is also true that we can consciously understand that our severe incapacity to comprehend anything other than choosing fight, flight or passing out is the result of adrenaline.

We are able to consciously comprehend that our intellectual limitation is the result of a hormone that has been released in our blood stream, following what ever it was that scared us. We understand that our heightened sense of awareness and superhuman abilities are merely the result of our unique biological design, and that the initial hormone rush responsible for our transformation will abide within 90 seconds. We are capable of reason that may prevent this hormonal response from being triggered, and instinct that prevent us from perpetuating this rush beyond our conscious experience of danger. Most of us have knowledge about individuals that spend their entire human experience in a constant search for that rush, and many of us have done so in the past.

The mere existence of any particular social behavior does not imply any value to its existence. Much like fight or flight, punishment does not really have any worth or value in the society we have become, and should be seen as the remnants of a bygone era to perpetuate a social pecking order based on power and greed.

As for the fish, my guess would be that there is any of a number of alternatives to why they would display the behavior labeled as punishment.
Maybe its because they get cranky due to little sleep, I know I do!

Talking to myself…

When was the last time that you talked to yourself, seriously? I personally know people that mutter and even some that loudly talk to themselves , but not a lot that actually reply to them self I think.

A stray thought pronounces that dialogue is the highway to wisdom, but would such a conversation actually be considered as one?

And thus it seems, from the example above it may well not. Then again I have never been a good example of normal. I do remember well the last time I talked on a toy telephone and relayed the conversation to my enthralled friends, all the while following the caller with the occasional  “are you serious!?” or “I would love to hear more…”.

It was a silly lark at the time, but later I somehow felt that it was a performance that portrayed more than just a mindless act of humour. That by talking to myself I had managed to transcend some rule of space and time to tap into something that was very funny at the time, but also in some way sublime…

But I do not have a lot of experience in this curious art of inner communication. Then again perhaps I do! I only express it on paper.

How do you do?