Because it’s universal.

Get out from behind the panel, folks…

I’d love 10 hours, 100 minutes and 100 seconds in a day – scientists would love it. But could people cope with such a fundamental change to everyone’s (in the world!) lives?

We are so obsessed with defining ourselves inside constructs that divide us, why not discuss what could possibly unite us?

If that person has no love for themselves … Is it possible that they can truly love another? If a person has no respect for themselves … Is it possible for them to respect others ? Would this then suggest that a person won’t be truly happy in any situation unless they have achieved that elusive frame of mind of loving, understanding and trusting in one’s own processes?  Wouldn’t it also suggest that we should view the state of our relationship with ourselves and others as being reflective of each other? And finally wouldn’t that then indicate that unless we can love ourselves we can’t love others? … So is it  important for a ‘happy life’ to love and appreciate yourself?

I have a mental illness in a regional city. I had an episode of anger which I understand is due to acute anxiety, at my daughter’s school. Three years on, people still cower, there is gossip about me, that is of the effect that I am going to coffee shops to ‘meet’ and ‘pickup’ men, and that I am most interested in meeting married men. I am told I have to just move around and amongst the society, (by my psychologist) but I find it safer and apparently I am becoming more reclusive, to remain at home. I don’t condone aggressive behaviour. The school and my workplace, were trying to ‘support’ me, by having psychologists at the school, monitor my behaviour and have people behave ‘accordingly’. I began to feel I was living ‘The Truman Show’, and realise none of my interactions were authentic. Initially those people were being ‘kind’ but misguided, in supporting me, and I guess, my daughter. I have 3 years until she leaves school. I will go ‘somewhere else’. Michael Kirby has spoken of the chaplaincy program being a ‘front’ to filter through students of need/risk. I plod on. This stigma came into my new workplace. I plod on. Btw: this is not my paranoia. Underneath, I find it deeply alienating and distressing.

Why not?

I have many relatives and friends who have died from tobacco related illnesses. We should all care about this. Tobacco is different even from other ‘vices’ (including alcohol) in that it has no health benefit even at low doses. Selling tobacco with its known problems is a ‘dangerous act that knowingly puts the health of others at risk’. These are two important manslaughter criteria. Is the absence of ‘intent to kill’ enough to exclude it?

Modern society has taken to mobile technology at an astonishing rate. Most of us are plugged in, connected, friended or have followers; but is our immersion in the online world and our obsession with the next gadget adversely affecting our engagement with, and enjoyment of, the real one?

I was watching a flock of birds and I wondered at their perfect movement.

The edges of our roads should have piles of worn-off rubber everywhere, but I don’t ever see it.