Sunrise… To Improve Mental Health

Whether we have a mental illness or not, we all have varying degrees of mental health, which we should treasure.  One of the things that I happen to know does wonders for my daily mental health, is to witness the sunrise.

I’ve always liked a good sunrise.  No matter how I’m feeling, it somehow lifts my soul to see the beauty of our universe put on display for me (and you) every morning.  In my younger, fitter and healthier days I used to run regularly at the crack of dawn.  I chose this time primarily because, other than other runners and walkers, there is generally no one else around.  But it also gave me the chance to watch the sunrise.

On particularly energetic mornings I would run to New Brighton Beach to see the sun come out of the sea, and then home around the Avon River in the stunning morning light.  It was impossible not to stop and go

“wow”

It doesn’t matter what your beliefs are about how that sunrise was created, it is beautiful, it is everyday and seeing it is so good for my mental health.  A great way to start the day.

Now that fibromyalgia has put paid to running, I admit I don’t see the sunrise as much as I’d like.  It’s just too hard to get out of bed early enough, but this past week I have been lucky enough to witness two sunrise experiences that are not usually within my reach.

I was flying home from my stay in England this week.  It was 41 hours of travelling and I might have snatched a few minutes snoozing, but not anything worth counting.  Planes and sleep just don’t seem to go together… for me anyway.

Early Monday morning (about 1am) I arrived at Dubai Airport where I had an eight-hour wait for my next flight.  It was going to be a long night.  I set about upping my caffeine levels, as firstly coffee on planes doesn’t even resemble coffee (other than it is wet, warm and brown) and… because it was going to be a long night.

I can tell you that coffee served in airports is also fairly insipid and not resembling the dark, strong brew I prefer.  At 4.20am I was sitting at the Nestle Toll House Coffee Stand.  The coffee was reasonable, the staff were friendly and most importantly, it was quiet (just what I needed!)

At that moment, over the public loud-speaker, came a male voice which I’m not sure whether I should describe as a wail, a chant or a song.  My limited knowledge of religion in that part of the world suggested to me that perhaps this was some kind of sunrise call to prayer.  It went on for about four minutes.  It wasn’t at all intrusive, although it was certainly different from the music that had been playing, interspersed with announcements.

I admit I had absolutely no idea what the words he sung/chanted meant but I liked it.  I liked the idea of calling people to pray, and I don’t really care which religion you or I are thinking of.  For me it was a chance to take a few moments to be thankful for the day.

Having left my boyfriend in England the day before, I hadn’t been very thankful for anything.  I was very upset to have left.  But this unknown-to-me chant, encouraged me to be thankful.  It was a good thing for me, because it turned my emotions from upset to calm.  That had to be good as I faced the rest of my trip home.

Shortly after the chant finished, I walked around the terminal to where I could hopefully see the sunrise (believing that the two coincided).  Actually in Dubai, it’s hard to see the sunrise (and the sunset for that matter).  There is a very thick brown haze over the city.  Of people I asked about it, some said it was smog (air pollution), others said it was sand in the air, heat, and yet more others said “oh, that’s just Dubai“.  Actually I suspect it was a combination of all four, but whatever it was it made the sunrise or sunset rather hazy and difficult to appreciate.

Later that morning my flight continued on to Bangkok, Sydney and then finally Christchurch, on Tuesday afternoon.

On Tuesday morning while flying east across Australia I had the opportunity to see the most amazing sunrise I have ever seen.

“wow”    “wow”    “wow”

Unfortunately the camera on my phone doesn’t work (and I really need to go and replace the phone) so I don’t have a photo of it to show you.  I did find a link to a sunrise similar to what I saw.  I don’t have permission to show it here, but if you are interested… check out this link:

http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/7972?fb_action_ids=463709203717651&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=timeline_og&action_object_map=%7B%22463709203717651%22%3A10150243191270737%7D&action_type_map=%7B%22463709203717651%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

Excuse me for going on about it, but it was even better than that photo (which is pretty amazing).  It started out terracotta red.  Now sunrises in New Zealand are never that colour, just the ordinary pinks and reds, so I knew I was in for something special.  If you can imagine this, it developed into a rainbow effect flat along the horizon for as far as the eye could see (with the colours in their order right down to the red at the horizon).  I could even see green in the sky.  Yes, really.

I have never seen green in the sky as a natural colour, and was completely blown away as I watched for maybe 20 minutes.  When the sun finally came up it was molten gold.  Wow!

That sunrise made my day.  It made me happy.  It made me glad I had been on that plane, at that time, even if it had meant leaving England.  When my brother picked me up at Christchurch Airport, it was one of the first things I told him, even though it was some nine hours on.  It had completely lifted my spirits to see something so natural, be so beautiful.

So maybe getting up to watch the sunrise isn’t your thing.  That’s fine, but there are other times of the day where we can just marvel at the beauty of the universe.  Why not?  What harm can come of it?  Go outside and watch the sunset, or check out the moon and the stars when it is dark.  Do what works for you.  For me it is the sunrise, but also seeing the moon always connects me somehow to my friends on the other side of the world.  I know that they will see that same moon soon.

It’s only a little thing but appreciating the beauty of this earth, and universe is a good way to lift our mental health.  Give it a try sometime.  See what it is that you appreciate.

An excuse:  Two days on, I am still jet-lagged and trying to catch up on sleep, and myself.  So please forgive me for rambling.  I just knew I needed to share the moments.

“And yet day and night meet fleetingly at twilight and dawn,” he said, lowering his voice again and narrowing his eyes and moving his head a quarter of an inch closer to hers. “And their merging sometimes affords the beholder the most enchanted moments of all the twenty four hours. A sunrise or sunset can be ablaze with brilliance and arouse all the passion, all the yearning, in the soul of the beholder.” 

―    Mary Balogh,    A Summer to Remember

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Maybe I’m Not A Real Woman

Sometimes I just have to admit it. While there is a lot about me that indicates I might be a woman, there is also much which suggests that I’m not. Pinterest is just one of those things. Pinterest bores me senseless.  There.  Said it.

Some months back I decided that in order to spread the word of this blog, that maybe I should follow the masses and sign up on Pinterest. It would be one more place I could share my posts, in the hope that it would increase my readership. And I thought that maybe I might find something there that interested me. Wrong… on both counts.

I’ve never once had someone come to my blog from Pinterest, and while what I’ve seen all looks very pretty and nice (BTW, those words just don’t do it for me), I have simply struggled to see the point.  For me, it’s up there with reading Fifty Shades of Grey.  Certainly the two are very different, but what is the point of either?  In my mind, a complete waste of my time.

So I am told, Pinterest is a women’s thing.  Hmm.  Actually I am sure there are plenty of men on there too, but if it is a women’s thing, then I am obviously not a real woman.  Is something lacking from my genetic makeup?   Clearly, yes.  I simply just don’t see the point.

Pinterest tells me it is “a tool for collecting and organizing things you love“.  Surely, if anything, it is a tool for collecting and organising images of things you love.  It seems a little like collecting postcards from yesteryear, of places you dream of travelling.  Personally I’d rather collect stamps on my passport and actually see the places for myself.  What’s more, I also found it more interesting to read what was written on postcards, than simply the picture of a far off place.

Yesterday in my in-box was the weekly email from Pinterest telling me the ‘things that I love’… apparently.  I think they’re pushing it if they think they can tell what I love from my participation on the site.  Apparently, I will love:

Red lentil and coconut soup    (I hate lentils!)

“bows on the back of a t-shirt. this is adorable …” (that would look ridiculous on me!)

The New York Times. 36 Hours. 150 Weekends in the US and Canada   (ah, wrong countries!)

“bought my sister one of these in university, she’s …”   (I don’t have a sister!)

Marilyn + puppy   (is SO not me!)

Iceland   (looks the most interesting of the lot but still not something I want to ‘collect’!)

It’s all marginally better than the random pictures of mansions, room layouts, recipes, makeup, gardens, clothes, hair styles…   need I go on?  All of this is so not me.  And even if it was, why would I waste my time ‘collecting’ images of it all instead of making it all reality?  It’s really the ‘flicking through glossy magazines’ for the 21st century.  I was never into that last century, so it just makes no sense and says ‘complete waste of time’ to me.

All that said, I know many people (particularly women) who love Pinterest, and if you are one of those, I am happy for you.  You go on ‘collecting’ all these ‘wonderful’ things.  Enjoy, have fun with your collections.  Maybe I’m just ‘man’ enough (now there’s a joke) to say I don’t need these things.  There is enough on the internet without living with what I see as the fantasy of Pinterest.

Oh, and I can’t for the life of me see why people want to post pictures of what they cooked for dinner either.  Am I meant to be interested in that too?  I’m not.

♦

“I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.” 

―    Madonna

♦

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.” 

―    Robert A. Heinlein

Definition of Stupid

Believing everything you read on Social Media is true.

Social media is not Academia, and so everything that is said, is not backed up by 20+ references to prove it is fact.  It is simply a reflection of what someone wants to say.  And yes, even what I write here should not be taken as fact.  Is the above definition really the definition of stupid?  If you take the time to check it out in a Dictionary, for example, you will know that in fact this isn’t the definition of stupid.

It’s my definition of stupid for today, simply because it is something weighing heavily on my heart today.  It doesn’t make it true, and if you choose to believe that it must be true because I said it, then (I’m sorry but) you are stupid.

According to a more worthy source of factual information than me, The Oxford Dictionary, stupid is defined as:

lacking intelligence or common sense (1.)

Or if you don’t want to take such an academic approach, The Urban Dictionary, which for all it’s downfalls makes some valid points, defines stupid as:

Someone who has to look up “stupid” in the dictionary because they don’t know what it means. (2.)

The problem with stupid (and I’m thinking of this in terms of social media) is that stupid takes what it reads on social media, believes it to be true, and then makes judgements about people on that basis of that which is probably not true.

I’ve written about the tendency to judge people before, so I don’t want to repeat myself.  Personally I don’t believe I have the right to judge other people.  It’s simply not my job as a fellow human.  I am just as flawed as the next person, and therefore have no right to stand in judgement.

Of course you may not feel that way, and I have no right to expect you to think as I do, but if you’re going to judge a person, at least check your facts.  What is said on Facebook, Twitter or even on WordPress is not necessarily true.  It maybe completely fabricated, and by your choice to blindly believe what you read, you run the risk of creating a whole lot of hurt.

Image credit: FB- Peeling Away The Layers

If we want to stand in judgement of other people, let’s at least make sure we have our facts right.  Let’s at least make sure we’ve given the person we’re judging the opportunity to speak and that we’ve heard all of the story.

When we don’t, the risk of losing what is so important to us is much greater than we stupidly think.

“Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference.” 

―    Jim Butcher,    Vignette

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When Do You Lose Your Right To Be Treated Humanely

It always fascinates me the way ‘Joe (and Jill) Public’ start venting in the comments sections of news articles and social media when there has been some type of head-line grabbing violent crime reported.  It’s true the media themselves tend to make, what I call a, hash of reporting, because they report what it suits them to report, what will get them readers (and ultimately revenue) rather than what we, the public, need to know.

But it’s what the everyday reader has to say that really grips me because suddenly it seems as if the article is not about a human being but rather some ‘non-human’ (some people use the term ‘animal’ but I am reluctant to use that term because animals don’t general commit violent crime).

I have never been in the shoes of a person who has lost a family member, or loved one to violent crime, and so I can only begin to imagine what a terrible experience that must be.  In what I am saying I don’t mean to take away from the grief of people who have just had a loved one ripped away from them by a crime.  Nor am I commenting on the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ behaviour of the perpetrator. Rather what my focus is on what point do we as the general public decide that a person’s crime or behaviour is so bad that they don’t deserve to be treated with compassion as a human being?

Most recently in the news has been the case of Christopher Dorner, the ex-LAPD officer who went on a killing spree.  From various comments I have read today, it seems few have much regard for his humanity.  It was the same for Adam Lanza who killed 28 people in Connecticut in December, 2012.

“I have no sympathy for him”

“He’s a nut job”

“He doesn’t deserve to live”

“He clearly needed mental help”

And on the comments and judgements go.  It’s like suddenly the public view is that this person (the perpetrator) is no longer human.  If he burns alive in a cabin, then somehow he deserves it, for the things he has done.  So often people in this situation get written off as being presumed to have a mental illness.  What else would make them act like this?  And if they have a mental illness then they don’t deserve any better.

Well actually let’s just remember that the majority of people with mental illness don’t act like this.  What’s more, if they get the treatment and support they need, when they need it, such violence can be prevented.  But instead the Christopher Dorner’s and Adam Lanza’s of our world get written off.  “No longer human kind, they deserve what they get.”  By the way I’m not saying either of them had a mental illness, but it does seem to be the reason given for so much crime like this.

I’m wondering though, what it feels like to be the family of these people who have committed horrific crimes.  Actually I think that is almost beyond our comprehension.  It’s too easy, in my mind, to forget that these people had families.  They may have had friends.  They had people who love them.  And how must it feel to be those people, firstly having to bear the weight of what their loved one has done, and then carry the general public’s judgement of their loved one.

Actually it must be almost crazy-making to be in that situation.  How do you grieve for your loved one, while the world hates them?  Grieving for the loss of a family member is hard enough usually, but to carry the hate of the world against that person you loved?  That would be too much.  I suspect that’s why the media seem to avoid the Dorner family or the Lanza family.  Not because they don’t want the ‘dirt’ but because it doesn’t sit right on their conscious to feel sad for them in their loss, and to balance their hate  for the perpetrator.  It’s not about wanting to give them space to grief either.  It’s just too damn uncomfortable.

If we can start to express compassion for the families of those people, then maybe we are on track to realise that in spite of their crimes, these perpetrator’s are/were human beings… just like us.  Surely for some to inflict such crime, something has gone terribly wrong somewhere.  While I don’t for one moment condone the crimes committed, I can’t help but ask “what went wrong?” and “how could this have been avoided?”.

I’m sure there are lots of answers to those questions.  Some of them we know to be around mental illness and treatment.  In other cases it might be some other type of illness, or something completely different.  I just hate the thought that we write people off as human beings so easily.  I hate their crime, but to me, they will always be deserving of as much care as I deserve.  Their families deserve as much compassion as the victims’ families.  For really, in these situations, actually, everyone involved has become a victim.

♦

“It’s funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.” 

―    Rick Riordan,    The Lightning Thief

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Remember You’re a Womble (Or Whatever You Are)

If you didn’t have your childhood in the 1970′s you might not remember The Wombles. If you don’t remember, it’s worth taking a few minutes to watch this clip from the first episode.

The Wombles were fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures that lived in burrows on Wimbledon Common, where they aimed to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. At just seven when this series came out, it was perhaps the first time I had heard of recycling and you know what? The Wombles made it fun.

My favourite Womble was Orinoco.  He was a little bit lazy compared to other Wombles, but still as honest and kind-hearted as the rest of them.

There were many songs but my favourite was Remember You’re A Womble.  A reminder to be true to your Womble spirit.  I am not ashamed to admit that I can still sing this, to the horror and amusement of my teenaged nephews.

But the purpose of this post is not about Wombling, but about remembering who I am.  I take a massive leap from the environmentally friendly Wombles to introversion.  Mostly because I can.

I am an introvert.  That said, I often choose to take on the role of an extrovert, and therefore am assumed to be an extrovert.  Actually I think this is the case for many bloggers, and there is nothing wrong with doing this.  The problem becomes when it is assumed you should always act like an extrovert.  Actually there is nothing wrong with being an introvert.  It is not a disease.  Personally, I love it.

I found this description of introversion on Psychology Today:

“If a crowded cocktail party feels like a holding cell to you, even as you gamely keep up your end of the chatter, chances are you’re an introvert. Introverts are drained by social encounters and energized by solitary, often creative pursuits. Their disposition is frequently misconstrued as shyness, social phobia or even avoidant personality disorder, but many introverts socialize easily; they just strongly prefer not to. In fact, the self-styled introvert can be more empathic and interpersonally connected than his or her outgoing counterparts…”

Unless you take the time to really get to know me, I don’t come across as shy, but then being an introvert is not about being shy, even though that is how many people see it.  Back in the days when I was working full-time I was working as a corporate trainer.  I spent my days in front of a group of people, facilitating training.  Actually I loved public speaking and got energised by it.  One of the most fun things I ever did was compere a fashion show (who of my friends remembers that?).

What made it possible for me to do those things was that I would go home at the end of the day and recharge… on my own.  It doesn’t even mean I lived alone, but time alone was my opportunity to plug in the batteries and let them recharge over night.

As an introvert I do a lot of thinking, perhaps rather than a lot of talking.  I don’t need to talk through what I’m thinking.  I don’t necessarily need to get recommendations from those around me to be able to make my decisions.  As an introvert, I tend to get distracted and side-tracked by others and am much better to do my thinking alone.

To people who don’t work that way, probably extroverts, that is just plain weird.  It’s not though.  It’s simply how it works best for me and millions of other introverts.  As I said before there is a tendency to think that introversion is about shyness and being a quiet person.  It’s not.  I am just as capable as the nearest extrovert of being ‘out there’ and loud.  But it’s not where I get my energy and it’s not the real me.

Recently someone who I thought knew me better, accused me of having not thought through a decision I had recently made.  He drew that conclusion simply because I hadn’t discussed it with him in the way he was expecting.  Actually I had spent hours thinking the decision through, and also listening to what was being said around me by a number of people (including things that he had said).  That’s just how an introvert will work.

Remembering you’re a Womble connected so well to this, because when he said this I thought I had done something wrong.  I hadn’t.  I was just being a Womble (and a proud one) or an Introvert.  The way I function and operate is not wrong, simply because it is different to anyone else.  It is simply being true to who I am.  It’s a shame if other people can’t accept that, actually, we are all different… and that is good.

And in case I’ve left you wondering…  I’m not saying that Wombles are introverts, although they do tend to be wary of humans.  I know the feeling.

♦

“Solitude matters, and for some people, it’s the air they breathe” 

―    Susan Cain

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This Is Not About Animal Cruelty

Image credit: Flickr.com/iambents
http://www.flickr.com/photos/superciliousness/15026740/

Somewhere along the way I learnt to ask myself ‘what can I learn from this?’, when I see sad, or bad things.  It’s not a bad way to approach things when I think about it, and I suspect it is something that my father taught me, by example.

I’ve had a pretty tough weekend.  I can’t go into the details out of respect for people I love.  I know that’s not really the idea of a blog (in many eyes), but you’ll have to bear with me on this one.  I’d rather talk about what I’m learning than about the details.

This morning I saw a particularly nasty picture of animal abuse and cruelty, when I went through my Facebook news feed.  The issue of animal cruelty has always been important to me.  It is so wrong and I hate what is done to animals in the name of humans who think they have the right to do what they like.

I haven’t included the picture in this post, partly because it’s not my picture and getting permission to use it would be time consuming; but more so, because it is simply too disturbing.  If you feel the need to see it, you’ll find it on the Empathy 2012: wake up – change yourself – change the world Facebook page.  But it’s simply a visual image that got me thinking.

Let me try to describe the picture.  There is what looks like a carcass of a rhinosaurus.  It has been severely butchered, and it is clear to see that the tusk has been savagely removed.  No doubt that is the reason for the killing.  Next to the carcass is a live baby rhino leaning against what is said to be the remains of its mother.  The caption on the picture says:

“This calf was found crying next to its mother; traumatized, devastated; and extremely lucky to be alive.  It is horrendous what these animals goes through.  This is how it currently is.”

This picture. as I ate my breakfast, broke my heart and made me feel physically sick.  It’s not so much a ‘tug on the heart strings’ image but a terrible witness of the cruelty of man.  That said, this post is not about animal cruelty.

My first thought was “who could do this?” but then I know the answer to that.  This is a regular event as people hunt rhinos for the value of their tusks.  This is what human beings do.

Without wanting to take away from the horror of animal abuse, my mind switched to “people do this all the time to other people with words”.  Often without a thought, we cut people down with our words.  Maybe we don’t leave them dead, quite like the picture I have described, but I can’t pretend that words don’t have the ability to kill just as much as the knife these hunters used to butcher the rhino.

It is all too easy to think of only the self, and to just say what ever comes to mind.  I’m no expert on bullying but it seems to me that is what happens in the case of a bully.  But bullies aren’t just kids in the school corridors or on social media. They are also adults who should know better but just never think about anyone but themselves.

I’ve mentioned this issue before (see Disturbing) but I keep reading blog posts about teenagers who have been bullied to the extent that they have taken their own lives.  Yesterday I read of an 11 year old who recently died.  Yes, that’s right.  She was only 11.

These are the cases that make it to our screens, that the media picks up on (and has a field day!) but I think we potentially do this to other people every day, simply because we don’t think before we speak or act.  Okay, so I might be exaggerating and not every interchange like this ends in suicide.  My point though is the harm that we are all capable of doing to others when we don’t stop and think, when we don’t put ourselves in the other’s shoes, when we don’t simply treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves.

So often we can say things, and never know the consequences of what was said.  And while we are not responsible for how another person reacts to what we say, I believe that I owe everyone I come in contact with, my compassion and understanding.  I’m not going to get it right all the time, but I can try to live by the principle of putting myself in another’s shoes before I open my mouth.

I’m sure that needs to be an abiding way to live in all our interactions, with people (or animals).  I’m sure that doing so would avoid the literal, or figurative, picture I faced on my screen this morning.  It’s not just children and teenagers who can be bullies.  We do it so often ourselves as adults, without a thought.  Surely it’s time we thought first.

♦

“I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.” 

―    Abraham Lincoln

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Is This Significant?

Image courtesy of [Danilo Rizzuti] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

I’ve been looking around the blogosphere and it seems that 200th post is significant, so let’s be significant today. I’m not entirely convinced that it is a point worth noting, after all it simply says I’ve pressed ‘publish’ 200 times. So what? If I’m honest, quantity has never been important to me. What matters to me is quality?

Every time I pressed ‘publish’ did I have something worth saying? I have absolutely no desire to simply meaninglessly fill your in-box, but am much more interested in knowing whether what I have to say each time I press ‘publish’ actually makes a difference.

So far, to my knowledge WordPress hasn’t found a way to let me know that.  I have numbers coming out of my screen at a rapid rate, and while WordPress also can convey ‘comments’ and ‘likes’ to me, they can’t actually tell me if I made a difference.  Did what I say, inspire or encourage?  What about all those who chose not to ‘like’ or ‘comment’?  I often don’t feel like doing either myself, but I know that a post can have made a difference without that.

If you’re looking for a great 200th post, this one, My 200th post from aliceatwonderland is great.  As usual with her work, I laughed my way through it, and I know I could not repeat, or even replicate her imagination.

Meanwhile I keep pondering.  Numbers have not meant a lot for me for a while now, and blogging is no different.  You see after years of thinking the size in an article of clothing meant the world, and the number which shows up on the scales is the most important thing that day, I know that numbers just don’t matter.  Numbers meant a lot when I had anorexia but now I know I’m better to ignore them and focus on something else.  Numbers are after all, completely relative.

The last time I stopped and thought about numbers here was when I wrote my 50th post, Lessons For Cate So Far…  It was useful for me to think about what I had learned from the blogosphere in the time I had been involved.  At this point, what is relevant to me is what I have learnt about myself as a blogger.  There’s a couple of things worth noting.

I’ve realised that advice is not the thing I’m interested in.  That is, I’m not blogging to give you advice.  And I’m not blogging to get advice.  I’m neither experienced, or trained enough to offer advice to anyone and therefore I would be insulting your intellect if I did.  There is, sadly, plenty of rubbish on the internet, blogosphere included.  That’s okay if that is what you want but I really don’t have any passion for adding to it.  All I want to do is share my experience and my opinion in a way that is hopefully helpful.  None of it is fact, or necessarily right or wrong.  If readers manage to draw their own conclusions from what I have written then I am a happy woman.

I admit too that I’m not even that interested in drawing advice.  That’s not why I share.  If you want to give me advice, fine but what I am more interested in hearing is about your reactions.  Again, there is nothing right or wrong.  You don’t have to agree with what I have said (I’m not used to that anyway), and actually I welcome constructive dialogue.  I won’t be upset if you disagree.

The other thing I have come to realise about myself as a blogger is that I am passionate about being careful with other people’s work and respecting the effort they have invested.  The amount of times that bloggers break copyright that is atrocious, and often it is probably because bloggers haven’t taken the time to find out the rules. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law.

I’m not about to give a lesson on copyright except to say check it out from a reliable source.  Copyright is not only illegal, it is also a hard slap in the face to our fellow writers and artists.  It’s not difficult to respect those people enough to either not break copyright, and at least ask permission before we use their words or images.

I am not aware so far of anyone using my material in this way, and that’s not why I object to it.  Instead it is because I see it regularly on blogs I read, and have come to the conclusion for myself, that I will not follow blogs where I see them consistently break copyright.

Actually I don’t follow your blog to read what someone else says anyway.  I’m interested in what you have to say.  For the same reason I rarely chose to read re-blogs. And if I don’t stand up for the rights of other writers and artists, then I fail to be honest and fair.  I’m not telling you this in order to tell you what to do, but rather to explain my own choices.

♦

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” 

―    May Sarton

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Let The One Who Has Never Fallen

As often happens, I was going to write about something totally different today.  It will have to wait.  Why?  Because today, through another blog that I follow, I learnt of the suicide of a young woman.  She wasn’t someone I knew, but she was a fellow WordPress blogger.  For some reason, and perhaps because of the tragedy of a suicide leaving a grieving husband and child, I felt drawn to read the story told by one of her friends.

If you want to read it, the link is contained in the Related Articles below.  That said, it is a disturbing read.  I don’t feel comfortable going into much detail myself out of respect for someone I didn’t know.  It is her story, and that of her friends.  It’s not my story to tell.

That said, one of the things this young woman struggled with in recent days is the judgement of her readers.  It left her feeling like she didn’t have a place to tell her story anymore.

I guess it really made me think after a conversation I was part of earlier today about that very issue.  The tendency of us human beings to judge others.  No matter what religion you might follow, there are instructions that we do not judge other people.  The one I know best is

throw the first stone”

In other words, s/he who has done no wrong, is the only one who can judge.

When I published my book, Infinite Sadness, I came under attack from a few who felt they could judge the things I had done and the decisions I had made.  I knew it was one of the risks I faced in telling my story, particularly under my own name.  I had already been judged by a few when those things I wrote about actually happened.  Because some people just want to think they are better than anyone else.

We’re not.  It doesn’t matter who we are, what we believe, or what we do… we don’t deserve to be judged ever.  A quote from the story I read hit me quite hard:

“Humanity is not perfect. We are people who screw-up. The worst of the worst come from us. However, the fact is, that the best of the best exists in us too. It is this that God sees. It is this that God understands.” (1.)

I’m not someone who chooses to talk about God, or any other figurehead of religion.  My beliefs in that respect are personal to me, and I don’t see the need to put them unnecessarily on others.  That said, I believe that ‘God’ can take all sorts of forms for different people, and that’s how I think about it in terms of what was written.

Whoever I choose to believe is ‘God’ has an understanding and acceptance of both my, and your goodness.  That’s what matters to me.  And it’s not my role to intrude on that and judge another’s good or bad.  It’s none of my business.

Maybe that’s a simplistic approach for some people but it’s not only about how I treat others, but how I hope others treat me.

This young woman who took her life a few days ago was judged by readers of her blog.  It actually blows my mind simply because I have never felt anything like that from readers in the time I have been blogging.  Being judged is something I often fear, but it’s never something I’ve experienced through my blog.  It’s more than sobering that the judgment she received stopped her in her tracks.  Writing was part of her healing process, but she lost that ability. It’s more than tragic,  it’s something for all of us to think about.  I am confident she was a flower, as much as any of us.

♦

“Once in a golden hour,
I cast to earth a seed,
And up there grew a flower,
That others called a weed.”

―    Alfred Tennyson

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Violating Community Standards

I had firmly in my head, what I was going to write about today. But you know how things happen. We see things, we read things, and suddenly there is a whole new post bursting out of us? That’s me today.

Image credit: Wikipedia.com

Earlier this morning I came across a picture on a Facebook profile which I found offensive and disturbing (not the image above).  I know I’m prone to be disturbed by such images depicting violence, and so usually I have to take a step back and ask myself ‘would others be offended by this picture?’  I thought they would have, so reported the picture to Facebook, hoping that they would also find it offensive and remove it.

I’m not posting the picture here because of how much it disturbs me, and I don’t want others to be disturbed by content on my blog.  But it was an image of a woman holding a hand gun to a man’s head.

This is what Facebook reported back to me:

Status Photo not removed

Details Thank you for your report. We carefully reviewed the photo you reported, but found it doesn’t violate our community standard on graphic violence so we didn’t remove it.

Someone has a gun pointed at another person’s head, and that’s doesn’t violate community standards?  Excuse me, but I find that refusal almost more disturbing than the image I objected to.

Interestingly when I followed their hyperlink to graphic violence, I found a lot of words but no specific definition of graphic violence.  What they did do was define violence and threats as:

“Safety is Facebook’s top priority. We remove content and may escalate to law enforcement when we perceive a genuine risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety. You may not credibly threaten others, or organize acts of real-world violence. Organizations with a record of terrorist or violent criminal activity are not allowed to maintain a presence on our site. We also prohibit promoting, planning or celebrating any of your actions if they have, or could, result in financial harm to others, including theft and vandalism.”   (1.)

But that’s talking about what people say on Facebook, rather than what they depict in their images.  What happened to the phrase we all know ‘actions speak louder than words’?  The same ‘images speak louder than words’ could apply, but my guess is that because it wasn’t the owner of the Facebook profile portrayed holding a gun to someone else’s head then everything is fine.  That’s not fine too me at all.

I accept that the gun laws in my country are very different from in other parts of the world.  It is one thing that makes me glad to be a kiwi.  But look what the world was faced with just a few weeks ago when 28 adults and children were tragically killed by gunfire.  The idealist in me would like to think that social media would have reacted quickly and prohibited this type of violent image to be shown.

Personally I can cope with seeing the image, although I find it very disturbing and unnecessary.  I can manage my reactions so that I don’t think that the behaviour depicted in the image is acceptable behaviour.

But my 13-year-old nephew can see this image too, from his Facebook profile.  I think he is a pretty wise kid, but he is a kid and I don’t think it’s acceptable that he is confronted by this sort of stuff simply in keeping up with his friends.

I’m wondering what would make it unacceptable to Facebook?  All I can think of (and I apologise for the graphic impression) is that is the image included a bullet travelling into the victims head.

Facebook say above that “Safety is Facebook’s top priority“.  What a joke.  What safety do they actually care about, other than their own?  If impressionable minds see the type of image I reported today, they assume that such behaviour is normal and acceptable.

I will never accept that one person holding a gun to another’s head is either normal and acceptable.  And God help us if our society gets to the point where it is.

Right now there are people talking about wanting to keep guns away from people with mental illness, but it is not just those people who need to be kept away from guns.  It’s the people who think that the use of guns against others is okay.

And in that group, I’d be inclined to put Facebook. Shame on them, they have an opportunity to take a stand against gun violence yet they aren’t interested.

After-thought:  There were some other issues about this Facebook profile which should have been of concern to Facebook too.  Don’t get me started…

♦

And apologies to any American’s personally offended by my use of this quote today.  I simply use it, not to offend, but to make a point:

“You can’t talk about fucking in America, people say you’re dirty. But if you talk about killing somebody, that’s cool.” 

―    Richard Pryor

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The Other Side Of The Story

On Christmas night I sat down for a short while to watch the headlines of the daily news on television.  I have been cutting back on what news I watch recently because of the often traumatic nature of it.  Now days I might watch the first ten minutes and then leave it.  That way I know some of what is going on, but don’t need to torment myself with the rest.

The first story was the record number of people who had attended the Auckland (NZ’s largest city) City Mission Christmas dinner.  These types of free meals have been run in major centres for years, and provide a free meal and entertainment for those who can not afford to have their own celebration.

What struck me was the way the newsreader told it.  There was almost glee in his voice as if he was talking about record numbers attending a car show, or some other event where record numbers would be looked on as a good thing.

For me, I see the record numbers as a terribly bad thing, that more and more people are having to turn to charitable organisations to enable some celebration of Christmas.  We should be looking to find ways of making these numbers go down rather than up.  It’s just wrong.  Ironically there were even people there who were tourists in New Zealand.  the bus tour they were on had brought them there for their Chritmas meal.  I admired the head of the City Mission who said it was fine they were there because they were seeing another side to New Zealand.  I just hope they paid for their meal.

I love that these events happen each year, and actually I have grown up  all my life being part of such events.  My parents would regularly do family Christmas celebrations for us at lunch time on Christmas Day, and then we would be involved in putting on a community meal at night for those who had no where else to go.  Mum would do most of the cooking and Dad would be out front welcoming people.  Us kids were often doing the dishes.

It is wonderful that so many give up their time (and money) to run these meals, but the fact that there is growing need for such events simply suggests to me that people are struggling more and so many people are alone.

This is one event where record-breaking statistics should be very unwelcome.  Yes there will always be people alone, and for them I am glad these events still exist.  But many of the people attending are families who simply can not afford to celebrate Christmas.

Image credit: FB/Fresh Minds Matter

Straight after Christmas Day, in this country comes Boxing Day on 26 December.  It is a day recognised in most Commonwealth countries (although feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).  Boxing Day used to be a day to go to the beach in New Zealand, or better yet, the day to head off on your summer holiday.

Traditionally though, Boxing Day was a day to give money and gifts to the poor.  I grew up with the explanation that is was the day when servants packed up (in boxes) all the left overs from Christmas, and gave them to the poor.  Also it was a day when servants who had worked hard through Christmas Day, could have time off to visit their own families.

Boxing Day is probably one of those events where there are many different explanations, but it seems that giving to the more needy is a common thread.  I suspect most countries who recognise Boxing Day have lost this aspect to it, and I think that is sad.  I also have this question in my head of why the poor had to wait to simply get what amounts to ‘leftovers’?  And why couldn’t the rich give to the poor before Christmas?

I think what disturbs me most is what has happened to Boxing Day now.  Boxing Day has lost that charitable aspect and now is a consumer day.  It is now the day when the retail sales start, in the same line as the Black Friday sales in the United States after Thanksgiving.

How did we go from a day recognised for giving to the poor, to a mad scramble around the shops to get the best bargains possible?  Isn’t there something wrong with that?

Personally I don’t handle large crowds of people and so the idea of going shopping for the Boxing Day sales is completely beyond me.  I’m not interested in what bargains I might be able to get, and would rather preserve my mental health.

Boxing Day was yesterday in New Zealand, and like I had done the night before, I watched the first ten minutes of the television news.  The headlines were the record sales for the retail sector.

What I’m wondering is how many people buying up on Boxing Day could really afford what they were buying?  How many purchased on credit, and will struggle to pay it off?  And dare I say it, I wonder if there were people at the Christmas Day meals who were also at the sales, trying to get a bargain?  I don’t mean to criticise them personally.  I criticise a system that has the extremes of wealth and poverty, which no one appears to be trying to align.

There is something wrong with this side of the story.  The news readers don’t stop to align the two, but I bet the social workers who will be trying to help people budget their money know it only too well.

♦

“Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.” 

―    Rick Bragg,    All Over But the Shoutin’