Why does the term 'Leap of faith' mean to jump blindly into something?
I Grant you that faith is blind. Faith is something you need to have in something else when it claims to be true yet cannot provide any evidence...but that doesn't mean faith is something you obtain with no prior knowledge. Faith, with all due respect, is the most educated guess you can make. When we think of faith, we usually think of God. People chose to believe in God - people chose to have faith in God - when they can accept the things they've been told through the scriptures. There's nothing written in the scriptures that provide cold hard facts to anyone, but there are a lot of things that are hard to believe. Yet people chose, not to overlook those facts, but to see them as a test of their faith in that almighty being. That being that is so much greater than themselves that he can make these seemingly impossible things realistic. It takes a great deal of faith to believe that there is a God(s), but that's not a decision any believer ever takes lightly, blindly, or without education.
Love is also something that needs a great deal of faith. Love is very similar to believing in God, nobody can prove it exists (sure, Doctors can say different parts of the brain is stimulated when a person is in love), but the only person who knows it exists is the person who is in love. Just like the person who believes in God, they just know he exists...they don't need the scientific proof. And it's with this inner-proof that they jump with both feet deep into the faith, which holds them securely and strongly, like the embrace of a parent comforting a scared child.
These people - the ones who have faith, in whatever it is - are the luckiest people in this world. They have an inner knowledge, something that fills the hole that exists in everyone's heart until that day they find love, or realise they have God in their life. There are so many other forms of faith, but when you have it in such an all-encompassing manner, that is a person gifted with something special
Personally, I am too confused and not intelligent enough to figure out what's the deal with higher beings, deities and other such things on that level; And love? I've either never been lucky enough or never been brave enough to find this, but I always hope to myself that it would never stop me taking that leap of faith. And if you're out there in the same shoes as me, whether you make your educated guess with your heart or with your mind, just remember to do one thing:
Leap with both feet!
Sunday 24 April 2011
Thursday 21 April 2011
A thought about 'The Little Mermaid'
I'll tell you why I don't like The Little Mermaid.
This under-the-sea world that they live in is supposed to be parallel to our dry-land world. Now, i can accept that there are going to be certain discrepancies, certain ideas that just won't work. But you let them pass, you know, you suspend your disbelief so that things can flow nicely. Fair enough, but even if i do that a few things still niggle at me.
Allow me to explain: throughout the film all the mermen and mermaids speak fluent English to each other, they have an extensive vocabulary and every word of theirs match ours. I mean, logically speaking their language is coherent as far as we're concerned so why is it in one of Ariel's songs she refers to objects as "whatcha-macallits".
She continues by talking about "a fire and how does it...what's the word...burn!" She does, however, seem to know the word "dance" and "legs" the latter of which I'm adamant they don't have below the ocean. This bugs me.
Secondly, what's the deal with the lack of kids down there. It's like the movie 'Children Of Men' was inspired by this animation. Teenagers are the youngest people you find down there. The mer-people are in for certain doom if those teenagers don't start hooking up any time soon. And it's not like they they haven't figured out how to do it yet. Of course, we have speculated time and time again how we would copulate with such a creature only to no avail, but surely they must have a clue - I mean their parents got it right!
Finally, what's the deal with everyone looking aesthetically amazing. Every guy seems to be buff, loaded with six packs and a healthy pair of guns; and all the women are slender, slightly curvaceous creatures with a ample set of bussoms! I kept an eye out during that film and with all the mer-folk you encounter I saw one over weight mermaid - and to be fair, she was getting on a bit.
I begun theorising the possibilities of these social anomalies and at first I attributed it to steroids, but that would only answer the male part of this equation, so why is it all the women are so aesthetically pleasing? Then it occurred to me. The one answer I've been looking for my entire time of watching The Little Mermaid and it actually helps with my 3 main problems I have with the film as well.
Take a look at the land-walkers in that film: they are short and fat, skinny and tall, and more often than not, ugly. They sound funny but there are the exceptions and this is Prince Eric - prince charming himself. However, the exceptions down under is the overweight, aging mermaid I mentioned previously. Everyone's beautiful. There can only be - and is only - one answer to this...dumping.
The land-walkers have been dumping toxic waste into the sea for so long that these mutations have occurred. What happened? Who knows, maybe fish mixed with human DNA and over time wham! Mer-people! But the toxic waste dumping has had both a positive an negative effect.
Positives - it's left everyone beautiful: The men are buff and the women curvaceously awesome.
Negatives - People are no longer able to conceive. The dumping has either dramatically reduced and then killed male sperm count or it has effectively made the female eggs inhospitable. Also it made them slightly amnesic. Clearly the toxins affected their cerebral cortex in some way they've been left unable to remember names of things they learnt through word of mouth from the surface. Hence the reason Ariel can't remember what it is a fire does...oh that's right, burn. Poor girl.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if there's one moral to be taken from this story it's that every action bears a consequence. Do you hear me? Dumping wastes into the ocean has an adverse affect on those creatures, whether they be mythical, whether they be animated...they're still being affected.
Stop the dumping. Heed my advice.
This under-the-sea world that they live in is supposed to be parallel to our dry-land world. Now, i can accept that there are going to be certain discrepancies, certain ideas that just won't work. But you let them pass, you know, you suspend your disbelief so that things can flow nicely. Fair enough, but even if i do that a few things still niggle at me.
Allow me to explain: throughout the film all the mermen and mermaids speak fluent English to each other, they have an extensive vocabulary and every word of theirs match ours. I mean, logically speaking their language is coherent as far as we're concerned so why is it in one of Ariel's songs she refers to objects as "whatcha-macallits".
She continues by talking about "a fire and how does it...what's the word...burn!" She does, however, seem to know the word "dance" and "legs" the latter of which I'm adamant they don't have below the ocean. This bugs me.
Secondly, what's the deal with the lack of kids down there. It's like the movie 'Children Of Men' was inspired by this animation. Teenagers are the youngest people you find down there. The mer-people are in for certain doom if those teenagers don't start hooking up any time soon. And it's not like they they haven't figured out how to do it yet. Of course, we have speculated time and time again how we would copulate with such a creature only to no avail, but surely they must have a clue - I mean their parents got it right!
Finally, what's the deal with everyone looking aesthetically amazing. Every guy seems to be buff, loaded with six packs and a healthy pair of guns; and all the women are slender, slightly curvaceous creatures with a ample set of bussoms! I kept an eye out during that film and with all the mer-folk you encounter I saw one over weight mermaid - and to be fair, she was getting on a bit.
I begun theorising the possibilities of these social anomalies and at first I attributed it to steroids, but that would only answer the male part of this equation, so why is it all the women are so aesthetically pleasing? Then it occurred to me. The one answer I've been looking for my entire time of watching The Little Mermaid and it actually helps with my 3 main problems I have with the film as well.
Take a look at the land-walkers in that film: they are short and fat, skinny and tall, and more often than not, ugly. They sound funny but there are the exceptions and this is Prince Eric - prince charming himself. However, the exceptions down under is the overweight, aging mermaid I mentioned previously. Everyone's beautiful. There can only be - and is only - one answer to this...dumping.
The land-walkers have been dumping toxic waste into the sea for so long that these mutations have occurred. What happened? Who knows, maybe fish mixed with human DNA and over time wham! Mer-people! But the toxic waste dumping has had both a positive an negative effect.
Positives - it's left everyone beautiful: The men are buff and the women curvaceously awesome.
Negatives - People are no longer able to conceive. The dumping has either dramatically reduced and then killed male sperm count or it has effectively made the female eggs inhospitable. Also it made them slightly amnesic. Clearly the toxins affected their cerebral cortex in some way they've been left unable to remember names of things they learnt through word of mouth from the surface. Hence the reason Ariel can't remember what it is a fire does...oh that's right, burn. Poor girl.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if there's one moral to be taken from this story it's that every action bears a consequence. Do you hear me? Dumping wastes into the ocean has an adverse affect on those creatures, whether they be mythical, whether they be animated...they're still being affected.
Stop the dumping. Heed my advice.
Life can be about campfires and marshmallows: A new perspective...
It's true what they say, if you think that the world is - on the whole - a terrible and dangerous place, then you most definitely read too many newspapers and watch too much news on the TV.
Sensationalism sells issues, rakes in viewers and betrays our minds on daily basis. What can you say about a world so resplendent; so unequivocally, so unabashedly beautiful when all the mass media want to do is trodden on it with disease-laden, formal-wear shoes.
I'm not asking you to live in denial, to think that bad things only happen to other people. Of course they don't. Naivety of that standard will only serve to get you into trouble sooner or later. Yes, people are murdered both tactically and in cold blood; friends and family are lost to vicious diseases; famine sweeps and embraces the poorest parts of the world; natural disasters take lives sometimes without any warning; our daily actions are draining the earth of the natural resources it has taken millions upon millions of years to create. Whether these events, these actions, these consequences are within the grasp of our control or not, it is still not enough reason to live in fear.
Do football fans avoid going to matches for fear of being attacked by notourious hooligans; Do surfers avoid the sea for fear of being attacked by sharks; Do people avoid living on fault lines for fear of that one impending earthquake.
Of course they don't because all these events occur in their minorties. They are so miniscule in their occurences that they are not even worth thinking about.
I urge you to look around, see the beauty of the world and envelope yourself in all the things that are good in this world.
I'm sitting here right now surrounded by half a dozen panoramic windows as I overlook one of the most stunning sights I have ever seen. I have the privilege of living in Queenstown in New Zealand. If you've been here before then you'll know that I'm greeted by the sight of the Remarkables Mountain Range (named as such because they are one of only 3 ranges in the world that run from north to south); the Wakatipu lake sits at the feet of these mountains, rippling delicately as they reflect the ever-dynamic colours of the sky; and rolling hillsides drenched in a coating of - what looks like - millions of Christmas trees. To top it all off, part of the sky looks like the cotton wool section in the chemist, only to be bizarrely contrasted with the other half looking like the sheets of a gunshot victim.
Without sounding like an over-the-top environmentally friendly hippy or some brainwashed cult member I ask of you to cut down on watching the news and reading your papers. Yes, keep up to date on the goings on with the world, because ignorance isn't bliss, it's dangerous. But take some days to indulge in your world, rather than someone elses that happens to be filled with tragedy at that time. Take some time to enjoy what you have around you, whether it's a concrete jungle or a real life jungle. Our world is amazing and there are so many good things going on around them. Make some impulsive actions once in a while; don't get caught up in your 9-5 all the time; and more what's more important than anything else: enjoy your time with your friends and family. Life can be all about campfires and marshmallows, you just have to change your perspective.
On that note, for food tonight, I'm going to indulge in the local delicacy: Fish and Chips.
Fan-bloody-tastic!
Sensationalism sells issues, rakes in viewers and betrays our minds on daily basis. What can you say about a world so resplendent; so unequivocally, so unabashedly beautiful when all the mass media want to do is trodden on it with disease-laden, formal-wear shoes.
I'm not asking you to live in denial, to think that bad things only happen to other people. Of course they don't. Naivety of that standard will only serve to get you into trouble sooner or later. Yes, people are murdered both tactically and in cold blood; friends and family are lost to vicious diseases; famine sweeps and embraces the poorest parts of the world; natural disasters take lives sometimes without any warning; our daily actions are draining the earth of the natural resources it has taken millions upon millions of years to create. Whether these events, these actions, these consequences are within the grasp of our control or not, it is still not enough reason to live in fear.
Do football fans avoid going to matches for fear of being attacked by notourious hooligans; Do surfers avoid the sea for fear of being attacked by sharks; Do people avoid living on fault lines for fear of that one impending earthquake.
Of course they don't because all these events occur in their minorties. They are so miniscule in their occurences that they are not even worth thinking about.
I urge you to look around, see the beauty of the world and envelope yourself in all the things that are good in this world.
I'm sitting here right now surrounded by half a dozen panoramic windows as I overlook one of the most stunning sights I have ever seen. I have the privilege of living in Queenstown in New Zealand. If you've been here before then you'll know that I'm greeted by the sight of the Remarkables Mountain Range (named as such because they are one of only 3 ranges in the world that run from north to south); the Wakatipu lake sits at the feet of these mountains, rippling delicately as they reflect the ever-dynamic colours of the sky; and rolling hillsides drenched in a coating of - what looks like - millions of Christmas trees. To top it all off, part of the sky looks like the cotton wool section in the chemist, only to be bizarrely contrasted with the other half looking like the sheets of a gunshot victim.
Without sounding like an over-the-top environmentally friendly hippy or some brainwashed cult member I ask of you to cut down on watching the news and reading your papers. Yes, keep up to date on the goings on with the world, because ignorance isn't bliss, it's dangerous. But take some days to indulge in your world, rather than someone elses that happens to be filled with tragedy at that time. Take some time to enjoy what you have around you, whether it's a concrete jungle or a real life jungle. Our world is amazing and there are so many good things going on around them. Make some impulsive actions once in a while; don't get caught up in your 9-5 all the time; and more what's more important than anything else: enjoy your time with your friends and family. Life can be all about campfires and marshmallows, you just have to change your perspective.
On that note, for food tonight, I'm going to indulge in the local delicacy: Fish and Chips.
Fan-bloody-tastic!
What has the world come to?
I realised how pathetic I am today. What can I do in comparison to a majority of the public? A lot, to be quite honest. I'm well educated, well traveled and I'm a very athletic person. I've had a 9-5 job; I've been face to face with the poverty and hard times that inner city kids have to deal with in America; I've dealt with the elderly knocking at death's door forgetting if they even LIKE tea, let alone whether they want it with their meal; Using hand gestures alone I've taught foreign people - who can't understand a word of English - how to safely use extreme sports equipments; I've looked after animals day in, day out as they drop dead all around you or are sold on as temporary crutches to settle an irate child.
I've been to 4 out of the 6 continents in the world; I'm not as well traveled as I'd like to be, but I've seen more than my a lot of my friends, much more than my siblings, countless times more than my parents and my grand parents can't even grasp the distances I've traveled.
I've had a "dance-off" in a hip-hop location against a black guy who's jeans were slung low and his hat turned the wrong way around and still won; I've walked through Harlem at 3am where there were no other white people around; I've been in a fight and won convincingly; I've been in a fight and lost convincingly.
I know what I've done with my life and it's not enough. Not yet. There's so much more I want to do. I've not even finished the start of living my life. But given all of this information I can still say outright, "I am pathetic."
It's not an issue of self esteem, or confidence, or a damaged ego. It's a matter of fact.
I look at my ancestors, granted I don't have vivid documents to peruse, but due to what anthropologists have told me our predecessors were:
- Clothing themselves without clothes shops, factories, sewing machines...hell, they didn't even had a thread and needle.
- Hunting and feeding themselves without farmers, abattoirs or Macdonalds.
This is just a couple of examples of the amazing things our so called "primitive" ancestors were doing...and I'm in total envy of their abilities. What happened to the natural man?
If our technology stopped working today, I'd be screwed. I don't have an ounce of survival knowledge. I wouldn't know what fungi, berries, plants are safe to eat.
And that's why I'm pathetic. I don't even know how to start - and successfully - keep a fire going. Matches, Lighters, Firelighters and all that jazz. My only job was to start a fire and keep the room warm. I don't know how many pieces of scrumpled-up paper and firelighters and matches I wasted just trying to get it going but I hit an all time low as the fire kept dying out.
How I kept it lit at the end, I have no idea, but out of respect to my ancestors and - god forbid - just in case the world ends and I have to start a fire and I have lots of scrumpled up paper, firelighters and a box of matches to hand, then I endeavour to use the internet - not for pornography or watching people hurt themselves - but to find out the basics behind lighting a fire and keeping it burning.
I'm pathetic, but at least I know it. And at least if I die because of my lack of "primitive" skills, then it'll be my own fault and not that of an ever depleting society who's inhabitants are growing more and more inept with every blog-posting, TV-watching minute that goes by.
I've been to 4 out of the 6 continents in the world; I'm not as well traveled as I'd like to be, but I've seen more than my a lot of my friends, much more than my siblings, countless times more than my parents and my grand parents can't even grasp the distances I've traveled.
I've had a "dance-off" in a hip-hop location against a black guy who's jeans were slung low and his hat turned the wrong way around and still won; I've walked through Harlem at 3am where there were no other white people around; I've been in a fight and won convincingly; I've been in a fight and lost convincingly.
I know what I've done with my life and it's not enough. Not yet. There's so much more I want to do. I've not even finished the start of living my life. But given all of this information I can still say outright, "I am pathetic."
It's not an issue of self esteem, or confidence, or a damaged ego. It's a matter of fact.
I look at my ancestors, granted I don't have vivid documents to peruse, but due to what anthropologists have told me our predecessors were:
- Clothing themselves without clothes shops, factories, sewing machines...hell, they didn't even had a thread and needle.
- Hunting and feeding themselves without farmers, abattoirs or Macdonalds.
This is just a couple of examples of the amazing things our so called "primitive" ancestors were doing...and I'm in total envy of their abilities. What happened to the natural man?
If our technology stopped working today, I'd be screwed. I don't have an ounce of survival knowledge. I wouldn't know what fungi, berries, plants are safe to eat.
And that's why I'm pathetic. I don't even know how to start - and successfully - keep a fire going. Matches, Lighters, Firelighters and all that jazz. My only job was to start a fire and keep the room warm. I don't know how many pieces of scrumpled-up paper and firelighters and matches I wasted just trying to get it going but I hit an all time low as the fire kept dying out.
How I kept it lit at the end, I have no idea, but out of respect to my ancestors and - god forbid - just in case the world ends and I have to start a fire and I have lots of scrumpled up paper, firelighters and a box of matches to hand, then I endeavour to use the internet - not for pornography or watching people hurt themselves - but to find out the basics behind lighting a fire and keeping it burning.
I'm pathetic, but at least I know it. And at least if I die because of my lack of "primitive" skills, then it'll be my own fault and not that of an ever depleting society who's inhabitants are growing more and more inept with every blog-posting, TV-watching minute that goes by.
Big Issue?
I talked to the homeless guy, who sells the 'Big Issue' in town, today and I said to him that it's quite ironic that the magazine is called 'Big Issue' when homelessness really isn't THAT big an issue.
He went off on some self righteous rant reeling off stats about how many people are homeless in UK, how many CHILDREN spend Christmas freezing cold, and maybe dying on the streets...alone.
I pleaded with him to look at it relatively, and to put it into contrast with AIDS, poverty, terrorism, and the potential threat of global warming and all of a sudden it becomes quite apparent that homeless people and homelessness as an "issue" in the world, is sort of like a slug on the street:
It's not nice to look at, they always seem to get in your way on a rainy day, but at least you can just walk around them and pretend they're not there.
For his arrogant rant i decided not to buy a "big issue" off him this week.
He went off on some self righteous rant reeling off stats about how many people are homeless in UK, how many CHILDREN spend Christmas freezing cold, and maybe dying on the streets...alone.
I pleaded with him to look at it relatively, and to put it into contrast with AIDS, poverty, terrorism, and the potential threat of global warming and all of a sudden it becomes quite apparent that homeless people and homelessness as an "issue" in the world, is sort of like a slug on the street:
It's not nice to look at, they always seem to get in your way on a rainy day, but at least you can just walk around them and pretend they're not there.
For his arrogant rant i decided not to buy a "big issue" off him this week.
Welcome...
...to the world of tomorrow.
No idea why I wanted to start my blog off with a Futurama quote, but you can't go wrong.
Enjoy what's to come. If in fact, you do end up reading them at all.
Ahem.
MB
No idea why I wanted to start my blog off with a Futurama quote, but you can't go wrong.
Enjoy what's to come. If in fact, you do end up reading them at all.
Ahem.
MB
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