In the minds of everyone, everywhere.

I used to keep an interesting journal and I regret somewhat that I've gotten out of the habit. It wasn't your usual "this is what I did today" journal. It was a "Thought" journal. I recommend that everyone keep one. It's very interesting to look back on how I used to percieve things and they way I see things now. Sometimes I'm a completely new person and other times my thoughts are only reconfirmed in my mind. There's one entry in particular I've been thinking a lot about lately. I don't remember when exactly I wrote it, or why I was thinking those things at the time. But I would like to put them here and get some outside thoughts on my own. Maybe someday when/if more people read this blog, if there's one post I'd like people to read and comment on it's this one. It's a collaboration of thoughts I had and the thoughts of others that could explain what I was thinking more profoundly than I could. Enjoy.

Many times, people use the word "love" but do not understand what it means. They will say "I love this car" or "I love these shoes", but that isn't love. You don't love those things. you "want" them. You want to own them. True Love is a gift. Sometimes a person might say "I love this girl/boy", but in actuality they mean "I want this girl". Many of the things in this world; money, material power, people; you might want them to belong to you, but that isn't True Love. You don't love those things. You love the idea of ownership of those things. You love what you think ownership will mean to you.

Perhaps having that car means freedom ... or security ... or some other emotional state ... but ultimately it is just a desire for whatever that "thing" means to you. Do you love the girl/boy or do you love what being with that person means to you? True Love is a gift given to others. There is no sacrifice with True Love. Their happiness brings about your own happiness. It is important to be clear on the differences in True Love versus desire for ownership. It is also important to understand that True Love and Romantic Love are different things too. Sometimes they are coupled together, but you can have one without the other. When True love and material desire are against each other, True Love will always win.

For example, if you truly love someone, and they would like something that you own, you will gladly give it to them. True love has no ownership ... it has no self ... no personal desire ... it is only given as a gift. It is not something you want for yourself. There are no attachments, and with no attachments, there is no pain. If your girlfriend or boyfriend leaves you and you have True Love for them, you want only what makes them happy, even if it's not in your personal best interests. Attachments to your best interests aren't as important to you as their happiness. You are happy if they break up with you if it will make them happier. If you just have the love of attachment, or just have romantic love without True Love, then that loss hurts because you are thinking of your own personal loss of ownership or attachment with that person.

True love is obviously not as common in today's world. A person might love their clothes ... or might love an activity like singing, dancing, playing an instrument, photography, martial arts, whatever it may be ... but if their True Love says "I want you to stop those things and move with me to New York" then you will stop them and move. In essence you could have True Love for those activities. A complete dedication to something they really want to do or achieve. People will see that nothing in this world is truly ours anyway. That ownership is simply an illusion of the mind. The only things we take with us from this world are our relationships with others. In understanding the impermanence of things, they remove themselves from attachments, perspectives and postition -- they can become neutral. Seeing through the illusion of ownership allows you to give, unconditionally, of yourself to others, and to demonstrate the qualities of True Love.


A Quick Story


Once a woman when having a conversation with her lover, asked:

Woman: Why do you like me..? Why do you love me?

Man: I can't tell the reason.. but I really like you..

Woman: You can't even tell me the reason… how can you say you like me? How can you say you love me?

Man: I really don't know the reason, but I can prove that I love you.

Woman: Proof? No! I want you to tell me the reason. My friend's boyfriend can tell her why he loves her but not you! I need to hear it!

Man: Ok..ok!!! Erm… because you are beautiful, because your voice is sweet, because you are caring, because you are loving, because you are thoughtful, because of your smile, because of your every movements.

The woman felt very satisfied with the man's answer. Unfortunately, a few days later, the woman met with an accident and went into a coma. The man then placed a letter by her side and this is the what it said:

"Darling, Because of your sweet voice that I love you…Now can you talk? No!Therefore I cannot love you. Because of your care and concern that I like you..Now that you cannot show them, therefore I cannot love you. Because of your smile, because of your every movements that I love you.. Now can you smile? Now can you move? No, therefore I cannot love you… If love needs a reason, like now, There is no reason for me to love you anymore. Does love need a reason? No! Therefore, I still love you…"


“True love never dies for it is lust that fades away. Love bonds for a lifetime but lust just pushes away."

"Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you."



I realize some of that may be extreme, but none of it was thought in an obsessive context. I'd love to hear anyones thoughts, kudos, criticism, etc. Remember to always treat your neighbor like someone who lives next to you.

One Million... WORDS! With "highlight to read" technology!

A little bit to think about from the linguistics side of the brain. (I LOVE LINGUISTICS!) English speakers and scrabble players everywhere have many words to choose from and on this date shall we all rejoice! Is your stylus poised? It's April 29, 2009. (Plus or minus a few days) That is when the English language is expected to acquire its millionth word. This prediction comes from Global Language Monitor, an organization in Austin, Texas, which uses proprietary software to track and analyze trends in language. "Global English" is its particular focus. A million words doesn't really seem excessive, given 1.35 billion speakers of English on the planet. That works out to only one word for every 1,350 speakers. But the decision about just what is "a word" is not always absolutely clear cut. And just how do you count? Is 'dogs' a separate word from 'dog'? The Economist (interesting global news site) exudes skepticism but can't resist at least a brief celebration of the richness of English vocabulary, from the Scottish Highlands to Australia to India.

Among the words to have come into English from India, the Economist piece mentions shampoo. I might have guessed it had a French background. (Champoux?) Actually, Champoux turns out to be a French surname, and I've just wandered off to a French-Canadian genealogical site that is ... not on topic.

Where was I? Shampoo, from the Hindi 'champo', was first recorded (1762) as a verb meaning to give a head massage. A century later it referred to washing hair, and a few years later, it referred to the soap with which one shampooed.
Hmm ... if English didn't have a word for it until basically the mid-1800s, does that mean that perhaps the English-speaking peoples did not have the thing itself? Short answer: yes. Blech... The somewhat longer answer: People used ordinary soap to wash hair in earlier times but then had to deal with soapy residues, especially in places with hard water. No wonder the new compounds that came in during the 1930s seemed like progress. In its references to Anglo-Indian vocabulary, The Economist makes passing reference to a phrase that may be unfamiliar to some but is worth knowing about: Hobson-Jobson. As Dictionary.com puts it, it's "the alteration of a word or phrase borrowed from a foreign language to accord more closely with the ... patterns of the borrowing language, as in English hoosegow from Spanish juzgado." You hear a foreign phrase and try to fit it into the language you know, in other words. (Like people speaking "Spanglish (Spanish-English)" or "Danglish (Deutsch-English)" for example)
The phrase Hobson-Jobson (I didn't find that word from googleing myself by the way) goes back to 1634, to the early years of the British presence in India, as a mangled Anglicization of what British soldiers thought they were hearing during processions by Muslims during Muharram, an important period of mourning. The soldiers misheard "Ya Hasan! Ya Husayn!" ("O Hassan! O Husain!"), a call of mourning for two grandsons of the prophet Muhammad who died fighting for the faith. "This," says the Online Etymology Dictionary (AWEsome site by the way), "led to the linguists' law of Hobson-Jobson, describing the effort to bring a new and strange word into harmony with the language." The authors of a late 19th-century dictionary of Anglo-Indian vocabulary knew what they were doing when they picked "Hobson-Jobson" as its title. And the story behind the phrase gives a glimpse of how many layers of understanding human language involves.


ANYWAY! I hope you will all keep an eye on the Global Language Monitor and join me in those most special of days when English joins the million word club!

(I initially heard about this event from "SKY Magazine" on a Southwest Airlines flight. Cool, eh?)

The newest phobia!

I recently recieved my new "Samsung Omnia SCH-i910" cell phone from Verizon. Shweet! After torrenting hundreds of dollars worth of programs (major exaggeration) to practically do an entire conversion into a Windows Mobile based "iPhone" a few thoughs came to me. I am officially obsessed with a small electronic object that has turned me into a radiated, email and mobile web obsessed zombie! (Just as a side note; I'm actually writing this from my phone. I'll fix up the typos on my PC later...)

As I went about my duties in Germany and Austria a few years ago, I recall multiple times when I observed mere children ranging from age 5 (no joke) to 15 carrying not only a mobile phone (called a Händi over there) but multiple phones per child! I specifically remember at a train station, a boy of about 10 pulling four phones from his pockets as he searched for the culprit playing the "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi ringtone. Only to overhear his conversation with his mother telling him to come home for dinner! I lived until I was 22 without a cell phone and now kids that need their parents help to zip up their pants go into a frenzy of wanting.. no.. needing to join the "in" crowd by getting their own unneeded sources of communication to flash around to their friends and have them confiscated by the justly, unruly teachers that listen to them interrupting their classes all day.
AAAaaaaahhhh, but be ye therefore not decieved! Adults are usually the source of such obsessions through their own slightly (if not overly) immature obsessions. As I look back I realize I've become an object of my own pet peeve. After a few thoughts on my newly discovered (or realized) obsession I did some research on the matter. I've only come to find we afflict ourselves with our own phobias... Read on.
Getting married, starting a job or going to the dentist have long been recognized as sources of great stress. But it seems they are now matched by a new, peculiarly 21st century affliction - the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Millions apparently suffer from "no mobile phobia" which has been given the name nomophobia. It's become so bad they had to name it so psychologists could earn their keep. People have become so dependent on their mobile that discovering it is out of charge or simply misplacing it sends stress levels soaring. 
Experts say nomophobia could affect up to 53% of mobile phone users
More than 13million Brits fear being out of mobile phone contact, according to a survey in London somewhere. (Apparently Europeans are worse than Americans at the moment. But there's more of them. We're catching up...)

Keeping in touch with friends or family is the main reason why they are so wedded to their mobile. More than one in two said this is why they never switch it off. One in ten said they needed to be contactable at all times because of their jobs, while 9 per cent said that having their phone switched off made them anxious. (You can't tell me this doesn't sound familiar.) Experts say nomophobia could affect up to 53% of mobile phone users, with 48% of women and 58% of men questioned admitting to experiencing feelings of anxiety when they run out of battery or credit, lose their phone or have no network coverage. We're all familiar with the stressful situations of everyday life such as moving, break-ups, and going to school. But it seems that being out of mobile contact may be the 21st century's latest contribution to our already hectic lives. Whether you have run out of credit or battery, lose your phone or are in an area with no reception, being phoneless can bring on a panicky symptom in our 24/7 culture.
Researchers advise those keen to avoid nomophobia to keep their credit topped up, carry a charger at all times, give family and friends an alternative contact number and carry a pre-paid phonecard to make emergency calls if your mobile is broken, lost or stolen. (what a pathetic life)
Other tips include keeping a record of your numbers in case you lose your handset and carrying the phone in a closed pocket or bag to avoid loss or theft. They add that you could also try to liberate yourself from the shackles of your mobile by simply switching it off once in a while. Blasphemers! Stone them! Burn tham at the stake! ...ahem...

Can you imagine if everone that had a cell phone would have the same kind of devotion to their education, family relations, religion, jobs, etc. that they have for their cell phones! Teenage girls would rule America! PDA toting businessmen would be world dominating! If only those values bacame as big a fad as being able to text your friends, we'd go across the room and say "Hi! How are you? Want to see a movie later?" and actually make friends instead of pay some large company to send "how R U? want 2 c a mu V l8tr?" over cancer inducing, radiation filled radio waves to an obnoxious electronic device that we payed too much for.

Don't worry, I'm not a fanatic. Technology is a blessing that has helped the world in many ways. It's just something to think on.
Now if you'll excuse me, my hands are staring to shake. I need to go plug in my Omnia before I play a quick game of Bejeweled 2 and check my email and SMS messages.

Vitamins!

I admit the human body is an amazing thing. To think that this soft, pudgy, burnable, breakable, stink producing, hairy mass made from nothing more than the elements surrounding us is the closest thing to cold fusion the Universe has ever seen. No computer can even compare when it comes to the ability to remember, rationalize and just plain thinking. To think that there are billions of microscopic organisms living inside us with no purpose other than to use our cells to reproduce, thus destroying our body one cell at a time and our bodies have the ability to recreate new cells and destroy all those teenage-boy-like creatures without us even knowing!

(a picture of an actual Chicken Pox Virus)


I was looking at the bottle as I proceeded to swallow my daily multivitamin supplement pill and I got to thinking. Who names vitamins and minerals? Reading the suppliment facts on the bottle revealed to me that scientists or nutritionists or whomever it was had no imagination whatsoever. Not only that but they never watched Sesame Street as a child. We start off with the vitamins that have the word "vitamin" in their name because if you called them their names without it they would be nothing but a lonely, meaningless letter. Now, pardon my ignorance and lack of will to check wikipedia, but does anyone really know what these are for?

For example; Vitamin "A" is obviously for every part of your body beginning with that letter. Why else would it be called such? So, Vitamin A happens to be very good for... Your Adam's Apple (don't get me started on where that name comes from!) Or was it just the first vitamin ever discovered? The first time someone saw the moon or the Sun (whichever was first) they didn't say "I'll call that the big round thing in the sky 'A' because it's the first one I've seen!" did they?

Vitamin B throws us for a whole different spiel! Apparently there's 12 of them but we only ever get to meet B6 and B12. Vitamin C, as we all know is good for us because our mothers have always told us that fruit and veg is good for you and those and the Sun seem to be our only source. It's also good for scurvy. (a la Eddie Izzard) Vitamin D was only good for the "special" kids in elementary school who got their milk in the red box instead of the blue box.

Although it seems that over the years, or however long it took to get through Vitamins A to E, the vitamin gods became angry or bored with the alphabetized naming of their helpful concoctions, so they decided to be creative! And they came up with your friend and mine, "Riboflavin" and his trusty sidekicks "Thaimin", "Niacin" and "Biotin"! (all part of the "in" croud apparently). I usually would have a hard time putting something into my body that I can't pronounce correctly. Another oddity I've noticed is there's no Vitamin F, G, H, I or J but somehow Vitamin K popped in there. I'm not making this stuff up. It's all from the label on my "New Formula" (trademark) "Centrum" (little "r" in a circle next to the name). What the heck is Vitamin K?! The vitamin that KILLS! Bwa haha! Ahem..

THEN it just keeps going on! The further down the list you go the weirder it gets! 2 mg of Silicon?! I thought that's what prosthetic limbs and scuba gear waterproofing was made of! There are at least five things ending with "-ene" or "-ein" then we have a bunch of metals and acids! Is it really healthy to eat a metal we use for a five cent coin? Or even a metal we use for pipes and pennies? 100 mg of magnesium! Why would anyone in their right mind want to put that in their body?! Do you know what magnesium can do?! It's the white you see in fireworks because it burns the hottest!
To make a long story short (too late), the human body is really amazing. Take care of it and don't take too many vitamins containing iron. Because even though all those killer and questionable materials are in your little pill, it's the every day, rustable metal that will kill you. I should know. I read it on the label.