I saw a mouse

I saw a mouse,

It was a brown mouse

And scrutiny was used

Had it been a black mouse

Violence would have been used

Had it been a white mouse

No questions would have been asked 

And the little white mouse would have been let go

I saw a mouse...

I am not human

I am not human,
Humans hurt, kill, lie, and cheat
They don't forgive, they resent
Humans take revenge, they just like to hate.
They don't tolerate, they fight
Humans don't love unconditionally,
They love only if they get love in return.

I am not human,
I love and give without expectations,
I can't hurt another person on purpose,
I have a hard time taking revenge,
I love unconditionally and wish everyone the best.

Humans are full of jealousy,
They are never content and always want more,
Humans like when someone else gets hurt,
They don't have compassion for each other,
Humans think they have the answer to everything,
When they know absolutely nothing at all.

I am not human,
I can't be jealous,
I am grateful for the simplicity of life,
I am hurt when others hurt,
I know that I know nothing,
I am not human, but I live in a human world.

Police vs. Citizens

There has been so much violence reported in the past week.  We have people killing each other left and right it seems.  We have divided people into groups and then somehow we have put each group against one another.  It would seem that this is a new thing, we get surprised every time we hear someone has killed someone else.  Like it is an unbelievable thing for a human being to do, because why would a human intentionally hurt someone else?

In the past few years I have gone through what I like to call an enlightenment period.  I have begun to see the realities of life while also keeping faith that things are not all that bad all the time.  I have come to learn that the term humane needs a different meaning, that violence sells books, TV shows, and even the news.  The word humane means to have compassion towards another person or being, but there is very little compassion shown between human beings.

We are the one species that is capable of killing just for the sake of killing.  We have been doing it for years.  I was thinking about the animal kingdom and I have yet to see an animal kill another animal just because they could.  Animals kill each other to eat and survive, not because one of them was in the way.  Animals do not try to control each other, they just stay out of each other's way.  Humans could use a little lesson on that.  People kill each other out of jealousy, differences of opinion, or just as a form of control.

Even with rational minds, in the animal kingdom it seems we should be at the bottom of the list.  We can't accept each other, have healthy debates without someone insulting another person.  We can't have a different opinion because someone might get shot for it.  We can't have a different religion because someone might not like it.  We are so intolerant of one another that we divide ourselves in groups.  We become biased and take sides and then we wonder why there is such a thing.

Lately we have our attention between police officers and citizens, more specific African American citizens and the police.  A minority vs. a majority.  We are all in shock that this is happening and I wonder why we are in shock, this has been happening for years.  It is not just the police department, it is the justice system, the people who are supposed to protect others, politicians who are supposed to create the laws that supposedly keep people safe.  Instead of tolerating each other and talking about different ideas to make this country greater, we have been creating a separation between everyone.  One side thinks and feels they are better than the other and the other side feels oppressed by the side that feels they are better.

Then the side who feels is better gets hurt somehow because the oppressed side is able to get something change, so whenever possible the other side will punish the oppressed side harder.  This goes on and on in circles and it is never ending.  It won't end until we all realize that each of us needs to be more tolerant of each other.  It won't end until we leave the feelings of greatness and the feelings of oppression to the side and realize that under our skins we all look very much alike.  That each of our bodies will rot inside a hole in the ground.  It won't end until we stop diving people and realize that there are bad humans of every color, every ethnicity, and religion.  It won't end until we all accept that humans are the one animal capable of anything, that they can reason themselves to think that hurting someone else is a good thing.  History has shown us that and it seems that we still have not learned.

I gave in and watched God's Not Dead

Just finished watching the movie God's Not Dead.  I have to admit the only reason I watched it was because Jesse Metcalfe is starring on the second one and he is so handsome that I just want to go see it.  I thought the first movie gave some premise to the second one so I should watch it.  In other words: his handsomeness made me do it...

For the purpose of this blog, I will just refer to the deity as God.  The concept of God can have many different meanings and God to you can be female rather than male.  For others it is a supreme being with both qualities, others like to think that their is not just one deity but many.  Then there are those who don't want to refer to the deity as God but refer to it as Spirit, others call it the universe.  All of which are perfectly fine because faith is a personal thing.  You give meaning to whatever it is that you believe in.  Unless we are going to discuss in order to learn more rather than try to convince the other person that they are wrong, then there is absolutely no reason why we should argue over belief systems.  In this argument, neither point is right or wrong.  
The movie started being pretty interesting; college students being told by a philosophy professor that God is dead and if everyone agrees to that then the semester will be pretty easy and time will not be spent arguing over a "fairy tale."  Philosophy is the love of wisdom and it would be very hypocritical for a good Philosophy professor to not want to hear the arguments his/her students have over such controversial topic, but I get it.

The argument over the existence of God has been going on for centuries, neither side has been able to prove whether or not he exists.  The arguments often used are either that he exists because this book says he does or that he does not exist because you cannot prove his existence.

I should not be surprised at the turn the movie took after a few minutes, I mean it is a "Christian" movie after all.  However, if the intent of the movie was to convince people who are at the fence of either believing or not in God that God is really not dead, then they did a poor job.   Using the Bible as an argument against some of the very weak arguments against the existence of God, does not really make your argument very effective.

As the movie went on, the more the Bible was used the more the movie was a turn off.  All I kept thinking is that there are so many strong arguments for the existence of God, so many good philosophers who have argued that God does exist, that we don't just need the Bible to justify it.  At some point in the movie a Muslim girl is introduced, she believes in the God of Christianity rather than Allah.  Both of which can be compared to be the same deity but just using a different name.  This girl's faith is found out by her father and she is thrown out of the house.  I realized that the movie was not about whether God is dead or not dead,  the movie is about whether or not Christianity is dead or not.

Is Christianity dead?  We don't need Christianity to believe in God, that is for sure.  However, Christianity is slowly dying.  The Bible is not good enough to prove to people that God exists and that therefore we must follow a set of rules, or else we will find damnation.  Christians argue that Jesus died in a cross for our sins so that we would be saved.  But then they also say that if we don't follow what the Bible says we will be damned.  Which one is it?  Can we have it both ways?  Can it be that we were saved but we also have to follow a set of rules in order to ensure that we are not damned once we die?  It seems to me that and all knowing God would know that humans would have continued to commit sins, therefore asking us to follow the rules after sending his son to save us from damnation seems a little stupid, for someone who knows it all.

Maybe we are reading the Bible wrong, maybe it is not Jesus who saved us from damnation by dying on the cross but rather that we as people killed Jesus by committing acts of violence and betrayal, otherwise known as sins.  So he died not for our sins but because of them.  The story of how Jesus died just shows us how terrible mankind can be, and the way mankind is right now just show us that we have made very little progress to change and grow.  Based on the story, why did Jesus die?  He died because he thought different, he died because mankind did not have the courage to open their minds and think for themselves.

It is sad that society has still not changed.  The movie was another way of trying to bring people into the Christian faith, not into the faith of God.  It is another plot to say this way is right and your way is wrong, when the reality is that none of us really know the right way.  Faith is just that, faith.   Some people will have faith in scientific studies, while others will have faith in a supreme being with no name.  Then others will have faith in the fact that they really don't know what the truth is and that is fine with them, while others will put all their faith into the teachings of the Bible.  Are any of them right or wrong?  The truth is none of them are either right or wrong.

This movie would have been a lot more powerful, had it used more than scripture to argue God's existence.  It would have been more powerful, had it not just picked one religion over another.  The movie would have been way more powerful to convince people to look into the existence of God had it not subtly tried to show that Christianity was the only way to find God.  The movie would have been a lot more powerful had it focus on what the name of the movie is trying to convey, that God is not dead and not that Christianity is the way to God.

So is God dead?  That depends on how you see what it means to be alive and what it means to be dead.  One thing is for sure though, God must have been alive at one point, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about God so much right now.  God has been causing controversy even before the Bible was written and I don't think a dead being that never existed could cause so much controversy.  In my opinion, even if you don't believe in God, the mere thought of not being able to imagine that being exists gives life to that being.  Being able to talk about God is enough for me to say God exists and that God is not dead, but that is just me.  I don't think I am right for believing in God and you wrong for not believing in God; I think neither of us can prove the other one wrong, and that is perfectly fine and perfectly acceptable.

There does not need to be bruises in order for there to be abuse.

A 16-year-old girl is beaten by her father.  Her hair is pulled, she is pushed, and hit on her back.  Her stuff gets thrown out of her dresser and she is pushed to the floor to pick them all up.  She is freaked out and wants to call the police.  At this time her father stops and gives her his cell phone.  Scared and knowing that he has done this before to his wife in an attempt to scare her from calling, the girl calls.  The police arrive and see a 16-year-old girl in a panic, all scared, crying and rolled up like a ball in the corner of the room and a man on crutches who is calm and collected.  They talk to him and he says to them that the girl is on drugs and that he did not do anything.  His wife comes out of the car and backs him up.  The police seeing that there were no bruises, only emotional distress walk away and send the girl off with her abuser.

The girl talks to her guidance counselor about this and the guidance counselor contacts children services.  The social worker comes in and takes pictures, there were no bruises.  She visits the father's house, the father calmly explains his concern for his child.  He comes up with a story that the child is around bad influences and well all he wanted was her well-being.  Looking calm and collected vs a girl who was scared to death of what he could do to her, the social worker goes back to speak to the girl and tells her he is just concerned, there are no bruises so there is no abuse.  That is when the girl learned that no matter how hard she asked for help, or how scared she was of someone she should just stay down and keep quiet because help would never come unless there were bruises.  The only thing left to do was to try and protect herself, all on her own and in order to do this she had to become just as calm and collected as the man who abused her.  She had to be in control of her emotions because panicking only means people will not believe you.

4 years later, now an adult, she meets a man.  Instinctively she knew she should stay away from him, but being that people will always say you should give people a chance to prove themselves she gives the man a chance.  The guy was controlling and moving too fast, she never loved him and because of this she thought that she could leave at any time if things got bad.  There wouldn't be a "ohh I can't leave because I love him" statement.  It would be easy.  But it wasn't, she got pregnant and that made her more vulnerable.  Now with a child, her biggest concern was to make sure that the child was well taken care of.  She stopped working and eventually her husband decided to ensure she had no control over finances, no access to money.  He would make sure to ration her meals, if she ate too much he would get mad.  She had no way of communicating with anyone if she was in an emergency because he isolated her as much as he could.  Now it was hard to leave, not because she was emotionally attached to him but because she was in a position where all her power had been stripped out.

Eventually she left, but she left to go back to her other abuser because that was the only one who she thought could help her.  Why? Because the second time around there were also no bruises, no bruises meant no abuse.  When she spoke to a lawyer to see if she could get a divorce, the first thing the attorney asked was: Was there abuse? When she told her what he had done the attorney said: That's not abuse, that is neglect but he never hit you so he never abused you.

For years she thought that was the truth: no bruises mean no abuse.  She always felt like she was over reacting, over thinking, that her fear was unfounded.  When she finally got out on her own she would fear not having enough food, she would fear losing her home.  Her husband had disappeared but the fears and emotional distress never did.  Eventually he appeared again and with him all the emotional distress that she had worked on getting over came back.  This time it was not just because of her but because the little girl they had together would be in the middle of it.

Their little girl was forced to go with someone she did not know only because they share DNA.  The mother in an attempt to make it not so scary for her daughter showed up with her to the first visit.  When an agreement was not reached, his mother (who was present) tried to snatch the child out of her car seat, and then went on to yell that she would physically hurt her mother and then put her in jail.  There were no bruises so there was no abuse.  After that the little girl would have nightmares of her mother being arrested, she would get scared every time she saw a police officer because she thought mommy was going to go to jail and she was not going to see her again.

In order to keep things calm, the mother would tell the little girl that everything would be ok, that all she needed to do is act calmly and be nice even if she did not want to be.  Now the little girl is learning to not ask for help, to keep calm and that if she feel uncomfortable she should not even think about that, just keep it to yourself and hide your feelings.  The mother always thinking because unless there are bruises there is no abuse and she sure as hell did not want her little girl to be hit and hurt.

Here is the thing though, ALL OF THIS IS ABUSE, abuse can come from anyone who is an abuser and it is often not in the forms of punches.  There does not need to be any bruises in order for there to be abuse.  That is the biggest mistake society makes now a days.  It is never the bruises that cause the most harm, it is the trauma that someone is put through that causes it.  We have come so far as to know the signs of an abuser, we know that they only escalate, we know that it is not the drugs or alcohol that make an abuser an abuser; yet we don't do anything until there are bruises.  That is the problem with our justice system, even though we know that someone will escalate and that the escalation can come from just calling the victim names to hitting their victims so hard that they kill them in a matter of a second.  Nothing is ever done before there is a blow, and even if there is a blow, hardly ever there is something done if there are no marks.

Emotional marks never count, but those marks are the ones that matter, they are the ones that make a difference.  They are the ones who open up a circle of abuse victims.  The one girl who was abused and never got help now teaches her daughter how she feels it is best to protect herself: by controlling her emotions and not saying when she is scared because it is hard to be heard and we don't want to be bruised up and hit or even dead in order to be heard so it is better that way.  The system also tells this new child that it does not matter if she feels uncomfortable about someone, she must stick around that person because that person loves them and wants to spend time with them.   Their feelings are not taken into consideration.

What is this teaching them though?  It is teaching them to not follow their natural instincts, those we are all born with to protect ourselves, the ones who tell us that if someone is making us feel uncomfortable we should go ahead and walk the other way, only because this person says they love them.  These kids are being conditioned to end up in abusive relationships, this is how love looks like and it does not matter if you are uncomfortable, they love you so you gotta stick around.

This story is not the only one, there are many just like this one.  Millions of people being abused every day, a lot not asking for help because they do not think it is abuse.  Others not asking for help because they asked for help once and since there were no marks there was nothing anyone could do to help.  They have the choice of either let it escalate to a point where there might not just be a mark but where they will actually get hurt badly enough that they will end up dead or to just keep quiet and continue to secretly be emotionally abused.

The system needs to change some things, if there is enough data showing the signs of an abuser and it has been proven over and over that all they do is escalate, then why is it that we have to wait until they do before we do something?  Why is it that we don't protect children more when there is a cycle of abuse and when the signs are pointing to a new cycle of abuse?  A child who is not comfortable around someone has a reason to not be comfortable, so why don't we listen?  Why do we diminish their fear to it being nothing?  Why do we continue to promote this cycle rather than stop it?

Sometimes the world does not make any sense and one can only hope that eventually all those voices are loud enough that they are heard.  That eventually we can prevent tragedies from happening rather than doing something after the tragedy has already happened.

Randomness

I was sitting here thinking: "One should not spend money they have not yet acquired or spend all the money they have acquired."  That is the problem America has, we are a nation of spenders; every penny we get paid we spend.  We worked all our lives to pay for things and then when the time came to retire we had nothing to live on, so what did we do? We cried out and said: "Government help us." What did the government do? They created Social Security and said well we are going to take money off your paycheck and save it for when you retire because you are not capable of doing that on your own. 

Then the years passed and the plan proved to be flawed, there were not enough money being taken out of one person's paycheck in order to provide for that person's retirement, and people were living longer than government thought they would live.  Now, Social Security is not solvent and my generation will probably not get to ever use it.  Whose fault is that though?

 

Partly is our fault, our society is bred to be spenders.  We live off the idea that we can always get a new credit card, charge what we want and pay it later.  We believe that eventually we are going to make more money and then when we make more money we spend more money.  As I was sitting here thinking why in the hell do we do that? And all I could come up was because we are unhappy. 

It is a human condition to get rewarded for things we don't want to do, we go on a diet and after one week of eating only herbs we say: "Well I have been good this week, let me buy me an ice cream."  It is something that comes from many many generations ago, we clean our rooms because our parents promise that we will get something in return, the reward for stopping what we were doing (having fun) and doing something we do not like. 

And then as we grow older we are marked by our parents telling us how we have to make a living.  A child comes with a dream they have, they want to be an artist and the parent will feed that dream until the child reaches a certain age and then the parent will say: "You are too old for that, you need to think about how you are going to make a living.  You cannot make a living by being an artist."  This gets repeated so much that eventually the child ends up going to college (something they did not want to do) and studying something they did not want to study, and then getting a job they did not want to get. 

The child, now an adult, was conditioned to go and work at a job they will never enjoy but that "pays well."  So they go to work every day, they are miserable because they don't enjoy what they do, at the end of the work day or the work week they go home in all their misery to find something that will make them feel better.  Video games, alcohol, drugs, shopping, food... Anything that will reward them for doing something they did not like to do. 

And so there goes the money they make, they believe that they deserve to buy the video games, the alcohol, the drugs, the food, because they did something that was draining and that they did not enjoy.  Every few months they have to take a break from their jobs because "they deserve it", "they've earned it", they have worked so hard for so many months that now it is time to spend money on a vacation.  But wait!  They are still paying off the last vacation that they took, and then what? Well the credit card is almost paid off so we can use it again right now.  Then we will get back to our miserable jobs and complain about having to pay them off.

After this I was thinking: "what if the reason we have so many depressed people and angry people wanting to kill others all the time was that we are all so miserable because we are conditioned to do things that we completely dislike?"

Could you imagine a world where the child is never told that they should just make sure they go work at something that will pay them enough to live and instead we tell them to go follow their passion and put focus on that.  Tell them that yes it will be hard work but that it is something they can do.  Teach them that hard work is not despised when it is something we love to do. 

Then probably we would have less alcoholics, less drug addicts, less angry, depressed, and violent people around.  Because they would be focus on doing something they love to do and not something they have to do in order to survive and then maybe all these different things they spend money on would never be an issue, that extra money could be put away for retirement.  It could be put away to pay off a house so you do not have to worry about paying rent when you are no longer able to work.  It could be invested and made more rather than just spent.  People could even help each other more rather than compete with each other so much. 

Maybe if we learned how to be and remain happy and full of joy then we would not cry and cling for the help of the very people who thrive and advance their lives by making sure we continue to have the same problems. 

Why Jamberry Nails....

Today I had the gracious idea of painting my nails... Whoever put that idea in my head, I don't know but I have not done this in years and today I realized why I have not haha!!!

It is a freaking pain in the ass to do your nails.  I am not the kind of person that paints their nails all one color but I do what they call "French manicure" which is even harder to do.

While attempting to get this right, the only thought that came to my head was: now I know why people swear by this Jamberry nails stuff.  Those little nail wraps that are becoming increasingly popular and that my mother keeps telling me that I need to sell.

Here is the deal, when I signed up for Jamberry I attempted to get those wraps to work on my nails but even now, they still not last too long.  People kept telling me how these wraps lasted for 2 weeks or more and here I was not being able to make them last for more than a couple of hours lol.  What was I doing wrong? I was taking my time and tried many different methods of putting those things on but it never worked... My fingernails just don't like them and you know what that's ok...  Finally I tried them on my toe nails and they lasted over a month, they looked really cute.

Now back to my wonderful idea of doing my nails today.  They came out great! I am not gonna lie, for someone who has not done this in years, I did a pretty good job.   However it was a long and exhausting job.  It took me just as long (if not longer) than it did when I was frustratingly trying to put those Jamberry wraps on.  And on top of that it's been like 2 hours and I am still waiting for the nails to completely dry.  The nail polish is super messy, so once the nails dry I will have to clean up my desk and well I am pretty sure that they will probably last about a day (longer than the Jamberry wraps but still).  Then there is the smell, my office still smells like nail polish and boy I had forgotten how distasteful that smell is.

I really wish now that the Jamberry wraps would work on my nails.  I have to admit it is not for everyone, my nails just don't like them.  Maybe it is that my nails have a high pH level or maybe it is because they are very curved. (yes I have tried many different ways of applying them but they still bubble up and fall off)  Ask my mother though, and they last on her nails for over two weeks, they don't bubble up, they don't fall off, she has to actually take them off.

So here is the deal, if I had a choice when it came to getting Jamberry wraps on or doing my nails with regular nail polish.  I would definitely go with the Jamberry route, they are just as much of a hassle to put on when you first do them as it is nail polish and you have to take your time but... They do not smell like the nail polish does, they are not messy and you don't really need to wait for them to dry.

If you are like me though, you are not going to take my word for it, so I dare you to try them both.  Do a French manicure with regular nail polish, and then when it's time to get your nails done again do one with the French manicure Jamberry wraps and see the difference.

I did do my toes with regular polish too, those were faster to get done properly but the smell is still not worth it.  It suddenly dawn on me why I stopped doing this a long long time ago lol.