Chocolate

When anything is so longed for as much as chocolate is by so many, someone inevitably has to research the reasons. Why it is usually favored over broccoli is instantly visible. Just look at faces, given a side by side taste of each. Chocolate is craved by women, perhaps more than men, it is believed. But then again, women are considered more prone to depression than men...certainly men are never post-partum! Earlier, we were told it is craved by women pre-menstrually because they lack iron. However, nothing is simple. If it were, it would have been understood much earlier.

Now science is zeroing in. Not only does it taste good, we need to understand WHY it tastes good to us. Beyond that, why does it taste better to some than to others. That is not easily tested. Some chocolate is made from organic and higher quality ingredients.

Much American chocolate, like lots of other products made here, is made without the knowledge passed on for generations in Switzerland and Belgium, for example. Should all this research allow us to eat chocolate guilt-free. It should. Does it let us forget calories. Certainly not. Does it rub in the adage: You are what you eat. Absolutely!! Now turn off the TV, stop shoving chocolates into your mouth, and get back to work!

Let the Sunshine In

Just as I was planning to ask the Almighty for the plans on ark building, the light became blinding from the orb in the sky and sunshine lit my world. Granted, we had a very dry summer, but it seemed Nature was trying to make up by one, long, watery drain of the atmosphere above. Despite the current bit of sunshine, weather predictions are for four more hours of precipitation today. For those of us with seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) it made the light box use more critical than ever.

While I've never really suffered more with S.A.D. than just feeling I was dragging an anchor from October to March, I noted a propensity (not normal to me) to tear more easily, a readiness to cry (definitely not the usual me) at any trigger of sympathy or empathy. Many suffer severely and can become quite incapacitated. I'm one of the luckier ones. Another effect for me, is that in October my pineal gland is broadcasting a message that I should load up my body fat for the winter. I can eat everything in sight. I try to keep fattening food out of the house but when I start hankering to chew on the woodwork, I go to the grocery store and try to buy the lowest caloried snacks I can find. Prior to my light box use, my weight was gaining steadily each winter. I feared rolling right out of the county one day if I didn't stop the trend.

Since light therapy is not invasive, reasonably inexpensive and easy to obtain, people who feel a mood and energy dip in the fall might want to try it. Google to begin your search, though there are also local resources. There are theories that it is the blue light in the spectrum that is critical. The higher the number of lumens, the better to match daylight and sunshine. You do not have to look at the light. I just stand the light box beside me at the computer, when I am working at it, and receive the light through the side of my eyes. Instructions to me were that I shouldn't be more than 18" or so from the light source.

This might explain why so many people take winter vacations in the sunny South. I just don't know how long the effect of a few days of that intense sun lasts. The light box may not be as much fun, but it is certainly a lot cheaper!

Flexibility

Merriam-Webster defines flexible as 1: pliant (capable of being flexed), 2: tractable (yielding to influence), 3: characterized by a ready capability to adapt to a new, different, or changing requirement.

With passing years, my body has gotten pretty stiff without the aid of alcohol. When I was a kid I could touch my thumb to my wrist. (Now I can see how really useless THAT accomplishment was. You can't do anything, with your thumb touching your wrist, because your other hand is holding it there.) I marvel at dancers who have kept their bodies so limber that some can, into their 80s, still kick over their heads. I'm ecstatic just to be able to lift my leg up to the next step, or still climb into the bathtub without having to use a stool. The only muscles I routinely flex are my jaw and my brain. As for being tractable, it takes very convincing arguments to influence me. The less-informed still think of this as 'stubborn'.

The longer one lives, the more one learns, and the more precious one's time and space becomes. I cringe when I hear about college dorms where privacy and ownership of personal property no longer exist. None of this for me! What is mine is mine and my boundaries are getting more rigid every day. Children and job require less of me so, while I move more slowly, I gain some free time. 'Free time' is an oxymoron. Time is NEVER free. It costs a lot and suffers many intrusions, thefts, and is often seized by people who have no business in your life. (That's a subject for another ranting blog).

However, as for readily adapting to the new and different...I believe adaptation to the inevitable is necessary for all ages to survive in today's world. I guess you can be rigid and protective about what is yours, but the world will not tolerate your rigidity beyond. You will be knocked down. If you can't roll with the punches, you and your rigidity will crack and break.

Where did you lose it?

Another of the useless sayings: Where did you lose it? Obviously, if I knew where I had lost it, I would have no difficulty finding it. When people ask a relevant question, like, "When do you last remember using or seeing it?" This question is useful...it forces one to trace steps and may trigger the answer to the first useless question.

The second, a useless comment, on this subject is, "You always find it in the last place you look." What a surprise. Why would you keep looking after you found it?

Another useless saying, after you've told someone you have lost something is, "Oh, I had one of those once." How helpful to you is that?

Do people ever listen to what they say to others...if they did, maybe they also would see how many useless things come out of their mouths.

Our one-size-fits-all way of life today

Mental health professionals used to believe that all children were born with the same potential to be good, moral, peaceful and law-abiding adults. Only as scientific research progressed to a better understanding of brain chemistry and how its function, have we come to realize how that picture was naive. Some of us have been able to alter our understanding as to what our system can do to change some of the problems we see in our society.

While I consider myself a compassionate human, I realize that good and talented people will die because we have not yet found a cure for cancer, ALS and other causes of death. We have not found a cure for pedophilia, sociopathy, and the very serious crimes those conditions inflict on our society. Instead, we warehouse criminals, creating a Hell on earth, and taking away resources from others who could use them to make our society a far better place. We have come to view a 'one size fits all' view of life.

Being the daughter of people who were born in Europe at a time when infants born with serious physical defects were killed on the spot (there were no hospitals and people worked so hard just to survive, such a child could not have been cared for) it is impossible for me to understand those who value life of any human being equally. Many people care not that an unwanted child will be ill-cared for or grow up to take life away from many others. Abortion has come to be viewed as critical to save a life, though many more may be destroyed or irreparably damaged by that action and that life may not be a Beethoven but a serial killer.

An article in today's BBC news brought up a conflict for me. Since the UK no longer uses the death penalty, it suggests that if this predator is found, he will not be put to death penalty, no matter how many lives have been ruined. Authors have tackled the subject but there remain those who cling to the hope that rehabilitation is possible for everyone, that 'finding God, Christ, or some other savior' will have them cease their criminal behavior and will a useful life again though that life may be spent imprisoned until death.

When we raise so many of our children in poverty in the USA today, supposedly the richest country in the world, in order to fight a useless war in Iraq for oil, we are killing our own with no conscience in doing it. Yet, we do not think we can kill the perpetrators of heinous crimes. Instead, we must pay huge amounts to warehouse them with others who grow to hate our citizens for putting them there. While 38 of the 50 states have the right to serve capital punishment, public opinion makes it rarely used, except in Texas where Bush, the 'compassionate' leader, who disallows abortion, found no difficulty in putting to death many people later found to have been innocent. A classic case of the wrong place, wrong time appears in a Texas paper. However, there are criminals about whom there is no question of guilt. In the late 70s one such man, Gary Gilmore, fought for his right to be executed.

Will we ever gain some sort of balance and discretion in our society?

The world has totally lost perspective

Mental health professionals used to believe that all children were born with the same potential to be good, moral, peaceful and law-abiding adults. Only as scientific research progressed to better understanding of the chemistry of the brain and how it functions, have we come to realize how naive that picture was naive. Some of us have been able to alter our understanding of what our system can do to change some of the problems we see in our society.

While I consider myself compassionate as a human, I realize that wonderful people will die because we have not yet found a cure for cancer, ALS and other causes of death in good people. We have not found a cure for pedophilia, sociopathy, and other very serious crimes which infect our society. Instead, we warehouse criminals, creating a Hell on earth and taking away resources from others who could use them to make our society a far better place. We have come to view a 'one size fits all' view of life.

Being the daughter of people who were born in Europe at a time when infants born with serious physical defects were killed on the spot (there were no hospitals and survival for people so difficult that such a child could not have been cared for) it is impossible for me to understand those who value life of any human being, regardless of the pain it may cause to others, as all important. Many of these people care not that an unwanted child will be ill-cared for or grow up to take life away from many others.

An article in today's BBC news brought up this conflict for me. Since the UK no longer uses the death penalty, it suggests that if this predator is found, he will not be given the death penalty, no matter how masny lives he has ruined.

The Jane Austen Book Club

Last night three of us saw The Jane Austen Book Club. I hadn't realized it had been a book since I more frequently read non-fiction. That only made it more exciting and fresh for me. It was a wonderful movie and viewer experience. It was brilliantly written for pace, well-acted by pros with lesser parts and wonderful new-to-me, great performers. I love that we are seeing more actors from the UK. Emily Blunt was a good example of this as was was Hugh Darcy. Neither gave away that they were not American. Perhaps the Romanian linguist from My Fair Lady might have been able to distinguish the accents but I, an American, did not.

It is easy to keep up with actors' aging since one does not look into their mirrors daily. I would never have recognized Lynn Redgrave who gave a brilliant performance as a the mother none of us would want to call our own.

I have committed to watching only 'feel-good' movies for the rest of my life. Occasionally, I blushingly admit, I go off that wagon for exceptional dramas and documentaries. This movie had every dimension one could ever hope for in entertainment, covering expressed emotion and all the behaviors eliciting it, inner human conflicts, humor, clever dialog, biases, assumptions, ultimately showing the viewer that much of what we strongly believe has acceptable alternatives to those beliefs. If my review mattered to anyone else, I would say, "Go see this movie and come out of the theater with a lightened heart and soul." The world may briefly seem a better place than we all know it to be.