Inner Beauty VS. The Perfect Mask

Sometimes it´s a surprise to me how superficial people really are. I mean of course it is great to look good, it isn´t forever though, time will take it´s toll on your face, your body.. You can try to keep a distance to that by taking care of yourself  or even try to avoid it by cosmetic surgery but eventually, time will catch up with you no matter what..

People spend a lot of money to look good nowadays, there are different kind of lotions, chemicals whatever designed to make you look perfect, for what? perfection wasn´t the original design for the human race, it still isn´t, we are in the fortunate situation that we are actually allowed not to be perfect. In fact it´s even recommended to admit to not being perfect.

I´ve met a lot of people throughout my life who just concern themselves with their outer appearance, sometimes these people even state that they do not care about developing themselves, their intelligence or their personality because all that matters is that they look good and will get far in life with their looks. Well sure, of course it works for a certain period of time but what will happen when they get all old and wrinkled and their body will go through the "metamorphose" that is eventually going to happen to us all? I like to describe these kind of people as walnuts, I know it sounds ridiculous but think about it. You have a huge walnut and you are opening it up expecting to find the actual nut inside which is the best part just to find out that the shell was actually empty.. what a disappointment.. some of these people are the same, the "shell" well rather the exterior of the person is absolutely amazing and beautiful but when you get "inside" their heads,, there is nothing inside, it´s empty, it´s like having a beautiful jewelry box without any actual jewelry inside ..

Developing "inner beauty" takes time, it´s a combination or your personality and traits as a human. I personally think that people who have a strong mind and a soft heart are extremely beautiful people. People who actually take time to consider the people around them. Inner Beauty also often radiates to the exterior of the person, especially through one´s eyes. Developing your mind in a way that it will bloom is important to your well being as well. I try to keep my mind focused and always learning something new, you can actually learn a lot of things about different kinds of situations every day, my mind works like a sponge sometimes :-D but it will just conclude stuff in it´s own way too :-D

To be honest, I know that I have a pretty outer layer, it´s ok to admit it. It´s nice to look good but you know the first little smiling wrinkles just close to my eyes made me smile instead of making me panic about it, I think an elderly person with smiley wrinkles tells you a lot about that person and the way they have adjusted to life throughout it,  they´ve certainly smiles a lot :) my great aunt was like that, she was blessed with over 100 years of a wonderful life and even at the end of her life you could see the most beautiful smiley wrinkles on her face, she had a beautiful soul and you could see it from her eyes, a true inspiration for me :)

Don´t get me wrong, taking good care of yourself is important, taking care of the shell that protects and carries you through life is just as important as taking care of your mind but obsessing about your appearance isn´t, I also would like to say that every grown person will influence the younger generation. What kind of example would you like to set?

a simple life?

People are always "downgrading" their own lives. I think this just mirrors the current society. You have to get more, you have to want more in every aspect, Now why is that? Is it an image fed to us via the media? Is it a craving for a certain social status? Is it just something that is automatically grown in a persons mind?

Where does the childlike appreciation for the little things in life vanish when you grow up? I lost that ability at one point and I did a massive job in getting that quality back, now I have a so-called dual will in me :-D I am ambitious and I want to go far and I work really hard for that but for example money for me isn´t that important anymore, I want just as much that I am able to get by and provide a good life to my boy and be able to give back as well and to be able to support charities as well. But I mean ambition is good, a target to aim for in life is good but why is it necessary to have the 2,5 kids, 2 cars, a house and a bank loan, a perfect marriage where the façade is kept up at every cost, even at the well being of the people involved. People are getting more torn, more stressed, pushed around and the huge load is grown on their shoulder, they cannot avoid to being pulled down under all of the expectations and pressure being fed into them. Eventually people living that way will lose themselves, it´s almost like extinguishing the natural flame that we were born with.

Is it really so bad to let yourself enjoy a beautiful morning when the birds sing and you feel the first rays of the sun on your skin sitting down on the fresh green grass with a cup of coffee? going outside  when the first beautiful snowflakes fall down and throw yourself down on the ground and do a snow angel and admiring the perfect starlight sky you are laying under? We are surrounded by the beautiful "little" things every day which are massive when added up, a co-worker telling you a great joke during the coffee break, someone holding the door open for you, a quick smile from a stranger at the grocery store when you pass by them, finding a small coin in your pocket, anything basically if you decide to take it with a smile. stop, listen, learn, enjoy..

I personally am a rebel, I choose to take the little things in, enjoy life, be kind to myself as I have no reason to be cruel. I do not apologize for who I am, I am me, I am this way and I am proud of myself. I am not perfect and I have never claimed I was, still I try to be the best person I can.

live every day enjoying the little things

Christmas stress and chaos

I personally love Christmas and I don´t get stressed over it :) but this post is based on my experiences throughout my 29 years of what happens when Christmas is near

Now, first of all I feel like they are putting all of the Christmas stuff up in stores every year earlier and earlier and maybe that is something that´s effecting people in a way that they get the stress and stress combined with the shopping hysteria equals chaos :-D

I usually buy my gifts way before October to avoid going to the city center in November and December and last buy´s are from the wonderful world wide web if I have forgotten to get something because something hilarious always happens especially in December in Vaasa. The Christmas songs start to play in every store ( basically Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer on repeat ), the mood that the songs are creating is cheerful but if I look at the people in the store, their demeanor, faces and behaving patterns it something else. People are frowning, sweating in their thick winter jackets, their kids are screaming to get their parents to buy stuff, people are pushing each other to get out of the way and people are just well basically rude and every store in my city is like cramped with people, I don´t like it even though it has some humor value to it too, so you won´t see me in a store in December, except in a grocery store.

22. of December people suddenly realize that they don´t have their Christmas foods yet, so everybody rushes to the grocery store at 4 pm causing chaos and mayhem :-D there are people on every aisle having a conversation with a friend who they haven´t seen in a while blocking the way with their shopping carts, people are running around with massive grocery lists back and forth in store, again some with their kids who are stressed to the max in the flow of people. I do my last grocery shopping 19th of December because honestly, nobody´s at the store on that day buying groceries :-D also I make everything that´s served on Christmas eve myself, and I start around the independence day ( 6th of Dec in Finland ) with the stuff that I can put in the  freezer to wait and im one with the food on 22nd and then I can sit back enjoy before the Christmas eve.

Somehow I think I might have the wrong understanding about Christmas in comparison to many people, for me it´s a time to see friends, have some glow wine with friends boosted with cinnamon and apple cider, play in the snow, build a snowman with my son, bake the ginger bread house for Christmas eve, make the Finnish traditional breads for Christmas dinner and just relaxing.

Ok so Christmas eve.. 24th is the day to have the x-mas dinner and exchange gifts in Finland ( and other parts of Scandinavia and Fenno-Scandinavia). Most people have the traditional rice porridge in the morning, head out to the cemetery to take the candles, go to their parents, eat exchange gifts and then clean up.. and then they are tired as hell and go to bed :-D I have made the choice when my son was born that I won´t go anywhere on Christmas eve and we are staying at home, so everyone who want´s to join us for Christmas dinner and spend the evening at my place are welcome so usually I have my closest circle of people, my family over at my place with the exception of my oldest bro who comes over before x-mas eve cause he want´s to spend the evening with his family .. We take the candles to the cemetery on 23rd in the evening and admire the sea of candles before heading home. I put the ham in the oven before I go to bed on 23rd, when I wake up on the 24th before my son does I take out the ham from the over, put some honey and mustard on it and stick it to the oven for another 30 mins, start to cook the rice porridge and usually at that point my son wakes up and I give him the first gifts (my gifts) and tell him that the elf´s brought the first ones  because Santa´s slay was so full, that we he stay´s happy until it´s time to exchange the rest of the gifts and the Santa really comes ( I always hire and actor to be the Santa for my son, cause he loves it :) ). we have the Christmas morning porridge and take out a little plate outside for the house elf so that he will watch over us the following year ( it´s me that really eats it during his nap and make little footprints with my fingers in the snow around the plate and leave it there for him to find and notice that the elf really ate it.. the porridge however tastes like crap when it´s cold :-D sacrifices that mothers make.. right? :-D ) the we watch a show called the Santa´s hotline, kids can call in and make merry Christmas wishes for their loved ones and sing to Santa before Santa leaves to deliver the gifts, kids love... well I love the show too :-D then we watch the Christmas peace declaration in Finland, then we watch a must cartoon for every Christmas eve -> the snowman and then we cry a bit watching it. ( here is a link to the part that makes us cry : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb-pX7sIjFY and the part too where the snowman has vanished, that makes us cry too ) we are a bit sensitive that way :-D  then we watch Walt Disney´s Christmas cartoons. after that I usually go and fire up the Christmas fires in the garden and the snow and ice lanterns and then I start heating the x-mas dinner, when everyone comes over we eat, the Santa comes and after that just relax and spend the evening together and play a few board games so for me Christmas is all about love, time to relax and enjoy, eat well and see the joy on my son´s face--

never got the stress and chaos and I do my best to avoid it :) try to do the same and it´s easier to stay sane this year around :-D

Why divide when you could be uniting?

This subject started out from twitter, I've actually had this convo before with many people but this was the first that really lasted for a while. so my friend @MichaelOpadoja  and me were talking about races and how pointless it is to divide humanity based on that simple factor. We think that it´s utterly stupid to divide and discriminate people based on one´s heritage.

I think dividing people based on race and heritage is extremely stupid, the human race was evolved from one cell.. from the same cell that means we are all the same, the skin color might vary, the size of a certain group from a certain heritage might be different, we are shaped differently, so what? I think the best symbolic example would be a huge box of different kind of chocolate truffles, think about it for a while.. the pieces are shaped a bit differently, one might be a square and it´s covered with milk chocolate, the other one resembles a clam shell and is made of white chocolate, the other one is completely round and is made or dark chocolate.. those look different and taste a bit different but all of the pieces in the box are still chocolate truffles right? I don´t mean to offend anyone with the example I just gave btw, I think it´s one of the best comparisons I can think of, besides I just thought about it so I thought I would use it here :-D

Why does the racial separation happen all the time? you know we can learn from each other, we all have different histories, we all have diff. kinds of stories to tell about our own culture, we can teach each other different ways to interact, we have the same common history at the dawn of ages right? so why do we keep doing this same crap from year to year "you are this so you should stick with your own kind" come on!! stupid as h**l. For example I know many mixed couples ( btw, extremely stupid common way to describe two people who are together but come in diff. colors ) and they get a lot of crappy things said to them, just based on the little fact that they don´t have the same skin color.. why should this be an issue in any relationship? that couple consists of two people that have fallen in love with each other and weren´t thinking about who they for some odd reason couldn´t be together because they have diff. skin color. I know a lot of people who think that "you should stick to your own kind" from every culture, but that´s one of the biggest ways to promote racism, also this way of thinking promotes racisms inside their own culture too in the way that for example if a white female would meet a black male and they would be together I know people who would diss the person just cause they are dating a black man.. extremely stupid.

Sometimes I cannot even believe how ignorant and mean people really are.

I was so unbelievably angry a couple of months back at the stupidity, ignorance and arrogance of people when I heard the following story, the story made me cry too:

There was this young boy at a kinder garden and he was in a new country trying to make friends, he never had a birthday party before and he wanted to have one to invite all of his new friends. His parents decided to throw the party for him and invite all of his friends, one mother with a son showed up.. no one else. This boy´s mom got very very angry and asked the other parents why didn´t they bring their kids over for the party cause now her son is upset and thinks nobody loves him. The parents replied : "your son and my kid have nothing in common" when the boy asked his friends at the kinder garden why they didn´t come the kids however  said "my mommy and daddy didn´t let me" so there, nobody´s a racist from birth! ignorant parents bring up racists!! think about that and let it sink in for a while.

I have brought my son up in a way that he accepts and appreciates the varieties of people and cultures around the world, I was raised up like that too (thank you mom, I love ya!! )

Now it´s scientifically explained why people come in different colors. Mother nature gave us the pigmentation based on the area where we live at. For example I am fenno-scandinavian so mother nature gave me a very pale skin with little fragments of red pigment and we are more heavily built compared to other "races" , the reason for that is that we live up here in the north where the temp change is 60 degrees cel. in a year and the longest period of the year is winter for us when it´s very dark, basically no sunlight and very cold. so mother nature basically had the reasons to create us in the way we are:

1. They need to stand the cold weather well, -> ok so let´s give these people height and a size that will keep the warmth longer.

2. They don´t need protection from sunlight that much, they need a good circulation to keep the blood flowing and warming up their skin -> ok so i´ll make them very pale, so pale that their blood vessels can be seen through the almost-transparent skin so that the vessels are close to the skin making the blood flow faster and the skin get´s warmer faster cause the skin will be a bit thinner.

BASICS PEOPLE!! End the racism.. it´s just another ISM that is destructive!!

Dreams..My own "weird" experiences

Post pondering about a coffee table discussion this morning.

We all do it, even when you don´t remember the dreams you´ve had the night before, you daydream too right? Dreams tells us about our mind, about you and I believe that there is something strange about night time dreaming, I don´t know what it is but something strange is happening when most of your brain goes to sleep and your subconscious mind get´s control of you during the night time, remember that people do not use their full brain capacity currently so there must be something to it. Well at least I think so.

Dreams are interesting to me because I don´t usually remember what I´ve dreamt about during the night when I wake up but when I do there is always one similar thing between these dreams. Maybe im just a bit crazy or something :-D  Ever since I was a child there has been one character that repeats in the dreams I remember. It´s a male figure and I´ve never seen his face completely as usually something, like a shadow or something is covering his face partially. This guy is strange cause he has always showed up in my dreams when I have been going through something big in my life. The last time I remember was when I was thinking about and very worried about the renovation work that I was about to start on my house because I didn´t know at the time if there would be some irreversible damage already done by the weather conditions or something else on the house, I didn´t know where to start the whole thing and I remember falling asleep and thinking if I would end up loosing the house that has become a part of me, my own childhood home which I have fought to get. ok so, the dream was weird, I was laying in my bed in the dream in my dark bedroom with just the street light coming in and the guys was standing beside my bed and we were talking about something, I couldn´t remember what when I woke up but just a little before my alarm went off on my phone he said the last words in my dream which I can remember, he told me "You know what? it´s time to stop for tonight as it´s time for you to wake up" and believe it or not but my eyes opened a split second before the first little prr sound from my phone started before my alarm went off, when I woke up I felt relaxed and I somehow knew immediately where to start and when I came to work I called the house condition inspector to come over and check my house. Weird huh?

This male figure has appeared so many times and the only dreams I can remember is those where he appears in and I have no idea who this guy is as I have never ever met anyone who would resemble him the slightest way. He seems to be very close to me in dreams and he seems to know how my mind works but don´t get the wrong idea, we do not have any romantic bond ever in my dreams, he is just there and sometimes he tell´s me things when I get anxious or worried.

Dreams are a way for the brain to release stress and to handle your emotions etc. But this man figure has always puzzled me, because I don´t know who or basically what he is. I know that some people believe we have guardian angels around us, some people believe we have spirit guides but I don´t know what to think about this dude :-D

Another thing which is strange about my nighttime dream world is that I have had the same dream repeating every 6 years. I know it sounds crazy but It´s true.. I had the dream first time when I was 6, the plot is always the same, it´s just me, my reactions and the color pallet that changes a bit, the first time I had the dream I was terrified and woke up screaming and sweaty, it´s been easier every time and the last time I had it, I was just like "oh it´s this again, ok so that will happen next and so on.. " and I was just walking through the dream like I would have been watching a movie for the 100 time because I was so familiar with it. When I had the dream the first time the setting of the dream was completely black and white and it was a bit unclear and grainy, the last time I had it the setting was more like a sepia colored and very clear and the images and things that happened were crystal clear I am a bit intrigued that will I see the dream again next year because the anniversary will be in 2014 again :-D my 6 years is up :-D

Dreams are very interesting as it´s a part of the human mind that nobody can really understand. What´s your opinion on dreams?