What goes up…?

I attended a magical wedding last night, charming from the white dress to the fairy lights, the I-do to the white tiered cake. It was an extravagant affair and ended decadently with the bride and groom sailing off into the sunset as guests’ strangled a dolphin with white ribbon. Inspiring indeed, it was so peaceful and Zen.
At a funeral last week it was sad and sombre, until after the prayers mourners threw trash on the streets, it was just so moving. I was touched and my spirits were lifted.

Neither of these actually occurred (I never get invited to funerals). This is the reality though when we release helium balloons into the sky neglecting the fact that these balloons, like all rubbish, must go somewhere. This overlooked litter tradition was used today and I hope to forever remove it’s popularity.

I volunteer for the Crisis Team who assisted the support group Survivors of Suicide at their awareness and remembrance walk. When I opted to do this walk less than a month ago I had no link to such a cause. Until a week later when my dear friend David hanged himself. Into the light is what they call the walk and I wish I could just be happy with what they do, and go with the flow but instead I must challenge it.

The suicide support group encourages everyone to gather and release helium balloons. This is commonly done across the world at kids’ parties or fairs or weddings or funerals or as a marketing campaign in Cleveland.

Here I am, writing this blog for environmental support, refusing straws and packets and yet for an aw-that’s-nice moment we release hundreds of balloons and ribbons up into the air… Thinking they will go where? We all know Newton had a point, and as light as helium is, this little decorative titbit too must come down.

I made my point in my opening, equating the act of releasing these sentimental balloons to throwing trash, spilling oil, or just cutting to the chase and killing something but there is more waste here than just the plastic and just the pollution.

The inert gas required for these sweet seconds of prettiness in the sky is extremely rare. Not only that but according to those foreboding scientists, helium is a non-renewable resource and there is no way of manufacturing it artificially. We should run out of helium within 20 years because it’s being consumed so freely and so cheaply. A natural reserve, so vital for its functional uses that has been created over billions of years, we will have depleted in less than a century, due to party balloons…

While I leave you to ponder this one I am going to look for alternatives for next year’s suicide walk. I am thinking candles… bubbles… see where this is going?

So… What if this is heaven

That statement is on my home page and it could be a little misleading to the religious faithful. To them it is an indication that I’m religious (only if they overlook my sceptic page) and obviously it follows that if I am religious I would believe in their exact religion which is obviously the only one that will get me to heaven… However, that statement simply states that I do not believe in heaven, or at least religious heaven. Having said that I do think that maybe, just maybe, if you look hard enough, and if you look everywhere, you just might find that maybe this is heaven.

So… What if this is heaven? Would we then love the earth as much as we love the god we believe created it? Would we respect each other, and every life form, just because it is here? Would we love for love and be loyal for loyalty sake? Would we pray because we are grateful and be grateful because we are alive? Would we live for life solely because we are here? Would we celebrate being here where absolute perfection already exists and where everything works and where everything we need is in abundance?

Or will we just believe that one religion is right and those believers will be relieved of the burden of being on this here earth by dying. They will then be transported to a special place reserved for those who fucked this one up because all their faith and efforts were directed to a spot in the hereafter that someone made up. Am I offending you by claiming heaven doesn’t exist? Am I offending the version of god you believe in, how dare I?

So what is this then? If heaven and hell are not ours for the taking, if they are not both here, if they are not both one, on the opposite sides of our perceptions and our beliefs? Where are you going when you die? I believe in the sun because it gives us life. I believe in water, because without it we could not exist. I believe in all life and that we are one and the same with all other life that surrounds us, and I wish people would stop turning here into hell because they believe in a story too much and are taking a storybook far too literally.

So what if this is not heaven? How will you live in heaven once you die, if you can’t treat this like heaven while you are alive? You are alive, right? We are alive, so why spend all your time longing for a place that is not here, when what we have here is all the heaven we will ever need? What if only one of you are right and then you do get to go to heaven, even by default because you believed in one heaven so you will be accepted in another, like Jannah, would it have been worth it? Is Jannah as worth it to you? Is one heaven really so different from another? What would it take for you to fight for this heaven, and forget about the storybook heaven?

So what if this is not heaven, would it hurt to treat it as if it were? So what if this is not heaven and reincarnation exists and we keep coming back here, life after life? You know technically we already do, is that not what we will be doing through the generations, what are we leaving behind for the children, or will they get to skip this place once we’ve destroyed it and go straight to the gold? Why would we get to go anywhere else? Why would we want to fight for anything other than the life that exists here? Why would you believe in the son of god but not the sun? You can see the sun right? What if this is hell?

It all boils down to the temperature

This is not a quip about global warming. Obama carries on enough about it, arguing that it is real. Typical that he has to, when so many Americans dub it a conspiracy theory. Not to say I have anything against Americans or conspiracy theories. No I have this blog which means I am accountable for anything I say so if I so much as look at plastic I will get photographed and tuned.

Back to the heat, the temperature heat not the heat I get from the flack this blog brings me. I witnessed an absurdly excessive waste of water in the gym tonight. A lady stepped out of the shower and left it running, walked casually to the tap, drank out of the tap (while the shower was still running), then walked back to continue her shower.

I scolded her in my head (she was naked and I didn’t feel comfortable reprimanding a naked woman right then). I was also speechless by the senselessness that one can be fully immersed in water, but when parched, not think of that water and rather utilize a different source. Granted she did drink out of the tap, the all too often disregarded water source. So the only logical reason I could think of that could make someone act such, was the temperature. She probably wanted to drink cold water but didn’t want to submerse herself in cold water.

I came to this conclusion as I stepped into the steam room (yes I am making a point by mentioning that). The temperature for us humans is never right and is our best excuse for our superfluity. We run the tap to make it cold in summer and hot in winter wasting essentially large amounts of this precious liquid only to make the temperature of it more suitable. Then we also want our homes heated to above summer heat-wave temperatures and cooled to south-pole freezing, so we feel just right. We really are a sorry bunch!

How did we make it this far in the food chain? We have absolutely no natural defenses, we cannot handle the rays of the sun, the chill of the night, and we destroy species after species to make more and more to protect our precious bodies. Quite absurd isn’t it? How much we need to adapt to the weather, and yet everything we do will ultimately impact on the weather and ultimately the temperature, making it insufferable. We can’t take the heat, we can’t take the cold (Ok maybe this is about global warming), what can we take?

Diamonds are for dorks. A little nothing more than dust

De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer said it best when he said, “Diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill.”

Diamonds are not a girl’s best friend. The hit song Diamonds Are A Girls’ Best Friend was from the 1949 Broadway production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Don’t get me started on that title) and does that title not say it all. A girl’s best friend, is a boy. Yes you heard me, boys, and if you don’t agree, then don’t get married. Marriage aside, many want everything diamond, because they think that diamonds are forever.

Diamonds are not forever. At a time when they couldn’t sell them De Beers coined a sales campaign with: A Diamond Is Forever, possibly the best advertising slogan of the twentieth century. It sealed their fate in our lives and that of the conflict they caused in their wake. These random memes were slogans designed to makes you feel inadequate if you didn’t have a shiny gemstone on your finger.
Do you not feel obtuse for owning one or having bought one for someone else? I do not ever want a diamond, and quite frankly until everyone in the world is free to love whoever they want, I do not want to get married (that and my commitment phobia).

The word diamond is originally from the ancient Greek word adámas meaning unbreakable. Who doesn’t want something unbreakable, especially a relationship? Even if you are smart enough not to have been conned into it by marketing, monopolies and price-fixing, and you genuinely believe that this is the gemstone you need for your adornment and you find one that is natural, untreated, responsibly sourced… Does your conscience not get the better of you? Does the mere fact that someone can say, “your hand looks beautiful, war efforts thank you for your financial contribution,” not make you want better?

Does the sheer amount of human suffering, the funding of wars, and the pillaging of this planet in search of sparkling carbon not make you want to opt for beauty without a gemstone. Diamonds are not scarce, they make a terrible investment, they are not forever and just like rhino horn and shark fin soup their value is a faux status symbol. What does that say about your status?

Love and other garbage

I am a firm believer that love is the only thing that is real, but as I write this I am questioning it, so maybe I’m not such a firm believer. Love is real, however, and a lot more real than most things, like money (In theory).

So about love, love is real but what about marriage? It seems that love and marriage are two separate entities, differing concepts, opposing views, to juxtapose not to join. I was thinking about this today on a rubber duck off backline at Scottburgh where hundreds of like-minded ocean-loving individuals converged for a paddle out. A dozen ducks bobbed with banners protesting the numerous atrocities thrust on the kings of the sea: Sharks. United by a love for Sharks. Surfers, divers, paddlers, all gathered and held a traditional paddle out to honour the billions of sharks that die in vain (Because humans are vain).

At the end of the compelling speeches one of the organisers had made a banner and orchestrated one of the sweetest (and only) proposals I have ever seen.

It got me thinking about love. When you question things they change colour.

After the paddle out I attended a beach clean-up, both were organized in honour of World Oceans Day (Yes another Day) and we picked up a lot of trash on a beach that looked spotless. Mostly straws, sucker sticks and bottle tops. It is abysmally annoying picking up straws, sucker sticks and bottle tops. I walked along the gorgeous shoreline (bending over every second to pick up another straw or sucker stick or bottle top) but it was just before sunset when the world has that peaceful haze. I felt nothing but love for the sea, and that is all that matters.

Rock? Paper? Scissors? This one always wins

Technically one will always win, despite the tough decision of whether to play sudden death or best of three, but can one really win? You know, in life (deep).
I’m a writer, and that mostly means print, which means paper, which means sayonara trees. How can I argue against the rape of forests for palm oil when I condone print? Print also wastes water, as does the process of recycling paper (And ways not to waste water is what I bang on about most).

So I go online but wifi ain’t too good either. What about the little worker bees (Swiss scientists have proved that the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but leads to their death) and every other little creature depending on signals that we are fucking with?
Let us say that rock is earth and paper is wildlife (Not just trees which I already determined are fucked) and scissors are people (And all their scissors of course). Can we conclude who will win? Or can they all just get along?

My point really is that the responsible reliable and absolute approach to any dispute is… Rock? Paper? Scissors?

Will you make your mark?

Suffrage is not a universal right yet, (hard to believe right). Is it not a shame that in countries where it unanimously is, not everyone votes?
In fact in places with low turnout 50-60 percent vote (USA, UK, SA) and in places with high turnout a mere 70-80 percent vote (EU).
As Twain said (and I tweaked), “The man who does not vote has no advantage over the man who cannot vote.” (I do still prefer this quote with read).

SA took to the polls today to vote in the national elections. A few too many people did not vote (Some with legitimate reasons but this is not about them). I’m talking about those who decided not to vote (Or those sagaciously lacking who don’t vote based on a religion). Not voting doesn’t mean you did not vote. Either you voted and you made your mark, or you didn’t only enforcing the majority vote.
Like anything in life apathy is as effective as action.

Whatever course you take, be it to act or not to act, your choice is your mark, no matter how tacit.
So not just today in the SA elections or the day of the USA or UK or EU or any election but every day when we vote by our action or inaction, make your mark.
We have our unique thumbprint, fingerprint, footprint, just like we have our unique mark to make on this life. How do you plan to make it?
So vote, because you are voting no matter what.

You spin me right round baby right round like… Earth

I’ve read that one in four people (Your people) still think the sun orbits the earth. I wonder if they were educated today considering it’s Earth Day. The fact that it is Earth Day today was brought to my attention only a moment ago, and this day is nearly done (on this side of the hemisphere anyway).

As a journalist (and fellow lover of celebrations) I love world days. Short for news, write about the day. Short for reasons to celebrate. Celebrate the day. Almost every day is dedicated to something, from the absolutely random day to Earth day.

For instance:
The 11th of July is World Population Day. The population has exceeded seven billion, what is this day meant for? I can only imagine, (or look it up) but why digress. The 28th of July is World Hepatitis Day, tomorrow, the 23rd of April is World Book and Copyright Day. The 9th of October is World Post Day (yes post – that antiquated system we used before email). The 18th of December is International Migrants Day. I could go on and give 359 other examples and include World Water Day again.

Now back to Earth. Does it not make you think Earth should have more than a day? Today is Earth Day, or World Earth Day or some even say Mother Earth Day (Not father though). There is just this one day. One Earth too.

It was Twitter where I was reminded of Earth Day. I saw a tweet that read: “We want to leave the world better than we found it.” (We found it?) The image of Columbus “finding” “China” popped into my head and I and wondered who found Earth. Then I wondered who would break it to this tweeter that it’s too late for that.

A few tweeters posted one of my favourite quotes: “I wish more people cared about the Earth as much as they care about who they believe created it.”

The sentiment online besides complimentary salutes to Earth was this one: “Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can’t eat money.” While money does not grow on trees, food does.

Aren’t we blessed to live in such a place that provides us with everything we need freely, in abundance, and naturally at our disposal?

Happy Earth Day

To care or not to care

“Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care,” raps my tall dark and handsome brother.
“I don’t care,” responds my adorable two-year-old light blonde nephew with his hands in the air. This tune was playing in my head when I woke this morning.

It is much easier not to care because the steady and destructive deterioration of life on earth is so far out of our control. Caring means one of two things, either you become despondent or you become neurotic.

You become despondent because there really is little you can do, and everything seems to be a catch-twenty-two (I know but two rhymes with do in a way that 2 cannot). Or you become neurotic because you have to do your bit, and your bit is so small you need everyone to do their bit too, and they don’t care.

I have to admit, now that I’m despondent and neurotic, I want to go back to being blissfully ignorant and rather choose not to care! It is ok not to care. There is too much to care about. Rhino, shark, tiger, tree, bee, bunny, air, water, all slowly facing extinction because of greed, and because our values have been misplaced.

What is caring anyway? Is caring doing something, or is caring posting a picture on facebook, is caring changing your ways, or is caring commenting on twitter how upset you are about orangutans in Borneo dying for your shampoo?

You can do your bit without caring, getting despondent, neurotic, and without reposting a gruesome sad story telling everyone how much you care while supporting the chain of destruction in your daily choices, or you can raise your hands and not care, at least to save your sanity.

Tonight that tune has been replaced by, “Baby, I don’t know, just why I love you so,” another song my nephew loves to sing with his dad.

Let’s squander World Water Day like we unfailingly waste water every other day

This Saturday, March 22, is World Water Day. I don’t really want to squander it, in fact I see it as a reason to celebrate, of course. Let’s open a bottle of wine, but first let me whine.

Why do we squander water unfailingly? It’s failingly asinine (That could be a word). We cannot live without water (Or air but I will whine about air on World Air Day, there is a day for everything) (Nope just checked, there is not). Anyway here are some irresolute facts: Our bodies are roughly made up of 75% water, as is this planet we are trying to destroy. Earth is made up of 72% water or thereabouts. You can live without food for 20 to 40 days but you can only live without water for 3 to 5, maybe 7 days (Air for 3 to 5 minutes, you’d think a day for air would be pretty important)(having said that, without water, there would be no oxygen). Doctors will tell you that when the water in your body is reduced by just 1 percent, you become thirsty. At 5 percent, muscle strength and endurance declines significantly and you become hot and tired. When water loss reaches 10 percent, delirium and blurred vision occur. A 20 percent reduction results in death.

Water is an essential component of all life, especially our own. So why oh why do we waste it, why we do pollute it, and why do we shit in it? All sewerage goes into rivers, streams and ultimately, if not directly, into the sea. The place where we, factually, scientifically, undeniably, irrefutably, unquestionably, definitely, certainly, unequivocally, incontrovertibly, indeed all come from.

Every day should be World Water Day because it is so fundamentally important for life. So here are some water conservation tips that you can use every day:

1. Do not buy plastic water bottles. Gallons of water is wasted to make the damned substance in the first place. They only hold a few chemically contaminated mouthfuls and are then discarded to live forever usually polluting the sea. Half the time they are filled with tap water anyway.

2. Take quicker showers. Use your brush to finish that song or acceptance speech.

3. Don’t flush fully. If you can’t stop it or if you have an old toilet that uses too much water per flush, put a brick or something in the cistern so it uses less.

4. (I am going to type this next point even though I don’t want to and I cringe thinking that anyone could possibly do this) Turn off the faucet while brushing teeth or shaving.

5. Collect surplus shower water and water your garden with it, or use it to wash the dishes.

6. Don’t wash your dishes and then put them in the dishwasher (I have been meaning to write a blog on this one for months).

7. Don’t clean driveways, sidewalks and patios with water, use a broom.

8. Remember what you throw into the toilet, you throw into the sea.

9.  Water is not just a resource, it is our life source.

10. Don’t waste water.

Cheers.