Monthly Archives: October 2009

Vampire Fiction Vampire Reality

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Vampires are in vogue these days. Vampires have even hit late night talk shows. Young, pumped, brooding, and overly sensitive is the vampire of today. What attributes to wrap up into a love story and soap opera all at once.

The idea makes for a romantic setting, but vampires can only be romantic and sensitive in a made up world of fiction. Somewhere where Vampires are more than human. Throw in moral and ethical decisions and the stage is set. What mere human could make a decision as well as a Vampire.

While the world is swooning over Vampire hunks and hotties, and wondering how exciting it would be to be a vampire, perhaps reality is different. Having special powers, never growing old, and lifetimes of knowledge to draw on to do the right thing at the right time sounds exciting.

It was not until the last hundred and fifty years or so since the world has changed and modernized. The world has changed, we have not. We are for the most part the same people that walked around any previous time you wish to imagine. We have our faults, and we have our pinnacles of shining humanity. Most of us live our life somewhere in between. Most of us live a life of neither overly wonderful, or terribly unjust. How many lifetimes living a Vampiric life are enough for an average person? What if a real Vampire walks the street outside your door at night. What would a real Vampire really be like?

vampireIf there were real Vampires, its existence would be one of fear, boredom and misery. There would be brooding deep feelings, but they would not be from feelings caused by human/vampire relationships. How many killings before a Vampire starts going insane. Experiencing distress from boredom and frustration. Imagine living hundreds of years, watching generation after generation making the same mistakes the over and over. Watching people treat each other badly for years on end, would make the most brutal Vampire want to stop living.

What about one Vampire creating another Vampire? Vampires do not have sex, although according to folk knowledge are extremely sexy. How frustrating would that be, and how it would twist your view of life, even a Vampire’s life? What Vampire would want to create a Vampire? Vampires being immortal, would need to be very particular about who has the correct personality to thrive and survive as a Vampire. Not to mention being a friend and good company across the decades.

Vampires living with the fact that they are a murderer, no matter who your victims are would be difficult. A Vampire finding someone to trust would be almost impossible. Think of all the ulterior motives that people would have for wanting to become a Vampire too.

Existing through decades, or centuries, moving from place to place as people usually became suspicious of your lifestyle. Curious about unexplained disappearances and strange deaths in the community would make Vampire life difficult. Then their is a problem of old people recognizing a Vampire because a Vampire does not change. A Vampire would have to be constantly on the move.

Worrying constantly about being discovered by accidently while asleep. No matter how much money a Vampire could afford to pay someone, greed or guilt would eventually make that someone turn on their employer. After a few lifetimes, money would cease to be a thrill I think. Then there is the problem of bank accounts, always closing one account and opening a new account somewhere else.

The pathetic aftermath cleaning up after feeding would be disgusting. I can’t imagine the stink and feeling of being covered with coagulating blood after feeding. Killing anything in that manner is not as easy as in books and movies. People do not lay down and die. Our will to live is very strong.

As Vampires ride the wave of fame and fortune, at least for their creators in movies and books, reality is a along way from fantasy. Looking a little closer to home, how does our individual reality compare to the person we think we are? How do vampires measure up to our idea of us?

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Health By Listening To Our Body Talk

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We should have a class while we are school age to learn how to listen to our bodies. I know when I was growing up I abused the heck out of mine. I would explore boundaries that perhaps should have been left alone. Silly things such as how would I feel staying up for three days straight. Staying in the winter playing with damp clothes until my skin and muscles became numb and stiff from cold – which is very painful during the thaw out process. Letting myself get badly sunburned when there was no real need to. Taking risks I should not have taken because of the possible long term injuries I could have suffered.

There are other more subtle things I did I never really paid attention to because I didn’t know they were important. Eating that last slice of pizza with my third glass of soda. Experimenting with tobacco and alcohol. Ignoring my body telling me it did not appreciate being poisoned. Trying to get by on too little sleep, or not getting the right kind of exercise.

There are a lot of signals our bodies give us that we should take notice of. I imagine that most people are not aware their body performs much better when properly maintained. I was taught as a young child that my body existed and I was in it. Other than eating, bathing and brushing my teeth, nothing else really needed to be done. My body would happily do its thing while I did mine.

better healthWe eventually reach an age where our body starts giving stronger signals about what it does and does not like concerning how it is being treated. Some of the signs are: indigestion, anxiety, stress, tiredness, lethargy, and so on. We start to notice that we do not feel as good as we used to. At first we tend to project these feelings off on something else. Our body is getting old, we have bad genes, the air is polluted, our work is stressful. We make excuses rather than admit listen to our body.

Some people go on ignoring the signs their body gives them telling them something needs to change. In the mean time our body goes on doing the best it can with what it has to work with. When someone discovers they have acid indigestion they are more likely to take an antacid than give up eating greasy foods. We internalize it is our body failing us, rather than us failing our body. We take a pill to mask our symptoms of poor diet and maintenance.

If our heartburn goes away we think all is well once more. What we do not see, is the internal damage going on inside our body. All that extra fat in our diet is coursing through our blood stream. Animal fats are acidy and etch away some of the walls of our blood vessels. Our body in trying to keep everything working applies a cholesterol patch to the etched away areas. As our body is concerned, as it can do no more, but it creates other health problems.

Something I never knew, and it may be news to you too, is these health problems we develop as we go through life are our bodies way of calling attention to itself. When our bodies speak we need to listen. Instead of reaching for a pill, we should evaluate what we are eating and whether it is good for us or only tastes good.

If we are tired all the time, perhaps we should look at our lifestyle. Maybe more than our diet that needs changing. Better sleep patterns and exercise help. Alternatively finding ways to eliminate stress in our life makes us healthier.

Our bodies I have discovered are wonderful and amazing vehicles for us to toodle around in. Our bodies can take an amazing amount of neglect and punishment without slowing down. Eventually there comes a time when all the abuse and neglect on our bodies is too much, and our bodies respond by signaling us something is not right. When those signals happen, it is in our best interest to slow down and evaluate what we think may be wrong and try to correct the situation.

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Diet means go hungry

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I was talking to someone about dieting a few days back. Something they said brought back memories of where I was for many years. I was explaining that dieting really means going hungry. If you are never hungry, you can not expect to lose any meaningful amount of weight. Dieting and hunger go together. Feeling hungry is one of our bodies attention getters. The discussion had been going on for about fifteen minutes and I was talking about my experiences.

I reminded them as you are dieting to lose weight, you will become hungry. Dieting in essence is a well planned form of long term starvation. Feeling hungry is not an unbearable all consuming feeling, but it is powerful feeling never the less. For the first few weeks it can be bothersome, but after a time it is just a feeling our body is giving off. It is best to accept the idea that you are going to feel hungry.

When you eat is very important. Generally you wish to follow that old adage, eat breakfast like a King or Queen, lunch like a Prince or Princess, and dinner like a pauper. In simple terms this means eating most of your daily calorie intake early in the day so your body has food energy available. This helps your body to burn up those calories before you burn up your day and end up in advanced relaxing positions before bed.

get_thinIf you do not wake up hungry, you are not dieting. If you do not wake up hungry, you ate too much the evening before. Your morning schedule should be defined by your appetite as you diet. You can not expect to lose any weight of you do not wake up hungry in the morning. If you are seriously dieting, you may find yourself waking before your alarm in the morning. There is nothing abnormal about it, as it is your body’s natural response to being underfed.

Some people have trouble limiting their last meal to a sensible portion. I am raising my hand here as one of those people. A good solution to this is to eat your last meal earlier in the evening. No matter what your diet plan is you should never be eating your last meal within a few hours of going to sleep.

Your body barely has time to do anything with the food you ate, let alone use any of the energy you will consume. Energy consumed and not used is energy stored and that really gets in the way of a successful diet. Eating is the way we bring energy into our body.

What was the comment that brought back so many memories? I heard another person say, “I can’t eat any less!”

I think that is a common handicapping statement for anyone who is more than a few pounds overweight. I am sure many people share this sentiment with everyone else who wants to diet and does not know how. We generally feel as if we are not eating that much food to start with. I know I didn’t think I ate much each day, and if I added up what I thought were all the calories I consumed in a day, I would feel I was not consuming that many calories.

Perhaps in general I would eat reasonably well. What I failed to do was account for those times when I ate more of the wrong foods than the right foods. Those days when without thinking about it, when the day is one continuous grazing session. I never really felt full, nor hungry, I would just feel like eating.

Those are days that hurt good diets. The second problem I had was I really did not relate portion size and what the food was to how many calories it contained. The biggest miss with this problem is fat calories. A cup of rice and a cup of macaroni and cheese are not even in the same arena when it comes to calorie counting. Neither is two slices of bread when weighed against a slice of chocolate cake. Substituting food by guess is not a successful diet aid.

To help you with diet success, as you weigh out portions and measure foods, pay close attention to what the thin people around you eat. Pay special attention to how often and how much. I found I can live on less. I can survive on what the thin people in my life eat in the same amounts. If you want to be a thinner person, you have to act like one when it comes to meals.

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Make Fewer Decisions Using Three

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If you have been reading my posts for a while you know I like things in three. Three is easy to remember and easy to do. Doing things by three feels natural and simple to do. Three is easy to do in sequence. More steps add confusion and get in a the way of the process needing to be accomplished.

Decision making and the rule of three is a simple way to categorize our options and choices which we use to make our decisions. We almost always have a choice to do something. We almost always have an choice to not do something. We generally have a choice of not making any decision.

Making a decision is an active process. Making a decision changes your life direction and is a proactive action. You are making a change to move your life in a certain direction. Making decision to not do something is an active process. Deciding to not do something is changing the direction of you life by eliminating a certain direction, or life path you could have taken.

Not making any decision is at best a semi-active decision. No choice is made to make a decision. Not making a decision – most of the time is correct – as long as any likely result is not important. Allowing friends on the spur of the moment to take you to lunch is an example of not making a decision. You don’t know what will be served, but you are going to eat something somewhere. Whatever you eat will nourish your body. It is only one meal; what the meal is comprised of does not really matter.

choicesBecause we are the one making or not making a decision we are surrounded by the decision we need to make. Being at the center of a decision clouds our ability to make the best decision. Our ability to make better choices is clouded because we cannot see all the choices or option available to us. We can only see those options pressed upon us by those around us. We do not have the pleasure of stepping back and looking at our options from a more distant unbiased perspective.

A good example is when you are playing a game, verses watching someone else play a game. When playing a game you make continuous decisions based on what you see from your seat and what you did previously. Watching a game and observing what is happening, a different perspective is achieved.

Being able to watch from a distance allows you to see what is influencing the game direction. Being able to see what other players are doing and why allows you to make better decisions because you see more going on than you can see when playing in a game.

At times is not possible to stand back and see all your decision choices from a distance. The decision may be too serious, too emotional, or a decision needs to be made now, not later.

My rule of three in helping to make the best decision are:

1. Is it important? If it’s not important, whatever I decide makes little difference. I save my decision making for another time.

2. Of my remaining choices which decisions will cause the least harm to my life, family, or other peoples life’s?

3. Of my remaining choices, whether no matter what I personally think about it, which choice is best for my life and future life path?

When decisions are difficult and an easy choice is not present, using these three rules will help you to make choices that are the best choices you can make in the moment. Later if you find your decision was not the best you could have made, there may be a possibility of modifying your previous decision to something better.

In any case use what you learned from previous decisions for the tough decision you have to make using little information. If you know you tend to make bad decisions when you have to make quick decisions, postpone your decision as long as you can. If you find you do not consider all possibilities, share your decision with someone you trust.

Someone you trust may not agree with your decision, but they will provide you with options you may not have considered. Making decisions by a rule of three allows each of the three options to become more valuable by modifying any or all of the three choices of decision making on your past decision making learnings. As you refine your options your decisions become better. As your decisions become better, you will have less decisions to make.

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