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Loneliness - More Dangerous Than We Thought
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Posted:Feb 19, 2014 8:08 am
Last Updated:Mar 1, 2014 7:39 am 15397 Views
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By: Beth Greenfield
Feeling like you might die of loneliness is one thing. But could it actually happen? Apparently, as researchers have found that leading an extremely lonely existence could increase an older person's chance of premature death by 14 percent — providing good reason for everyone to make sure to maintain connections with others as they age.
“We looked at perceived loneliness versus objective isolation, and how it leads the brain’s biology to change over time,” John Cacioppo, University of Chicago psychology professor and the study's lead researcher, tells Yahoo Shine. “There are toxic effects.” Even after taking into account lifestyle behaviors, like diet and exercise, he adds, the impact of simply feeling isolated — disrupted sleep, elevated blood pressure, surges in the stress hormone cortisol, compromised immunity, and increased depression overall — is profound. “When you are isolated from companionship, then the brain goes into self-preservation mode,” Cacioppo notes.
For his findings — shared Feb. 16 at a scholarly seminar on aging at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Chicago — Cacioppo, one of the nation’s leading experts on loneliness, examined data from a 2010 meta-analysis.
For seniors, loneliness can be particularly threatening. “This study makes sense to me,” Paul Kirwin, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University and past president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, tells Yahoo Shine. “There are so many losses that happen in this stage of life — of partners, friends, the loss of one’s role or sense of purpose — and it has a huge impact on people psychologically.”
Previous studies on loneliness have found that it can have myriad impacts on people’s health. In 2012, for example, University of San Francisco geriatrician Carla Perissinotto found that 24.8 percent of seniors who felt lonely reported declines in their ability to perform daily-life activities — bathing, dressing, eating, or getting up from a chair on their own; among those not feeling lonely, only 12.5 percent reported such declines.
“Lonely older adults also were 45 percent more likely to die [earlier] than seniors who felt meaningfully connected with others, even after results were adjusted for factors like depression, socioeconomic status and existing health conditions,” the New York Times noted about Perssinotto’s study. But that research, Cacioppo suggests, did not strip out the added effects of lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, etc.) as his new study did.
He stresses that loneliness is an equal-opportunity emotion and can strike people whether or not they are in a relationship. “You can feel connected when not with someone, so loneliness is not a solitary experience,” he says. He also suggests staving off feelings of isolation before they start, especially for older adults.
“Retiring to Florida to live in a warmer climate among strangers isn’t necessarily a good idea if it means you are disconnected from the people who mean the most to you,” Cacioppo noted in a press release about the findings. “We are experiencing a silver tsunami demographically. The baby boomers are reaching retirement age. Each day between 2011 and 2030, an average of 10,000 people will turn 65,” he added. “People have to think about how to protect themselves from depression, low subjective well-being and early mortality.”
Psychologist Guy Winch, based in New York, dedicates a chapter of his book “Emotional First Aid” to loneliness. To fight it, he tells Yahoo Shine, “realize that there are more opportunities to connect than you might realize.” This, he notes, requires a “leap of faith,” and should be viewed as a process of connecting gradually. Therapy, he adds, can help lonely people to identify what he calls “self-defeating patterns” that might be getting in the way of making meaningful connections.
“Loneliness is defined as a subjective experience, and as social or emotional isolation or both,” he notes. “And what it does, psychologically speaking, is to make us feel so emotionally raw and averse to rejection that it changes how people respond socially — often pushing away the people who can alleviate their loneliness.”
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There are truly Bad People In This World
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Posted:Feb 17, 2014 6:21 am
Last Updated:Feb 17, 2014 8:02 pm 15462 Views
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( From News)
Miranda Barbour, 19, told a newspaper she killed a man she and her husband met through Craigslist, and said she killed at least 22 others for a Satanic cult.
SUNBURY, Pa. — A woman charged along with her newlywed husband with killing a man they met through Craigslist admitted to the slaying in a jailhouse interview with a newspaper and said she has killed more than 20 other people across America, claims which police said they are investigating.
In an interview with The Daily Item in Sunbury, 19-year-old Miranda Barbour said she wants to plead guilty to killing Troy LaFerrara in November. She also said in the interview she has killed at least 22 others from Alaska to North Carolina in the last six years as part of her involvement in a satanic cult.
"I feel it is time to get all of this out. I don't care if people believe me. I just want to get it out," Barbour told the newspaper for a story published Saturday night.
Sunbury police Chief Steve Mazzeo told the newspaper that investigators were aware of Miranda Barbour's claims of involvement in other murders. He said they are "''seriously concerned" and have contacted police in other jurisdictions.
In a statement issued Sunday, the FBI's Philadelphia division said it had been in contact with Sunbury police and "will offer any assistance requested in the case."
Miranda Barbour's lawyer did not immediately return messages from The Associated Press left at his office Sunday. Mazzeo did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment left at his office Sunday.
Attorneys for Barbour and her husband, 22-year-old Elytte Barbour, have both sought psychiatric evaluations for their .
Miranda Barbour's attorney also asked a judge last week to toss out statements she made before she was charged. Public defender Ed Greco said in the motion that Barbour wasn't afforded an attorney despite repeated requests during two police interviews.
Barbour said in the jailhouse interview that she wanted to plead guilty at her arraignment, but that Greco pleaded not guilty for her.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both defendants in LaFerrara's killing.
Miranda Barbour, a petite woman with long brown hair, told investigators she met the 6-foot-2, 278-pound victim after he responded to her Craigslist ad offering companionship for money.
Elytte Barbour told investigators they committed the crime because they wanted to kill someone together, according to court papers. The couple, who were married in North Carolina and moved to Pennsylvania about three weeks before the crime, told police Miranda Barbour stabbed LaFerrara in the front seat of her car while her husband held a cord around his neck.
Miranda Barbour said in the interview that she doesn't want to get out of jail and that she would kill again if released. She said she had no remorse and killed only "bad people."
Miranda Barbour offered little detail on the murders she claimed to have participated in in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California.
She claims she joined a satanic cult in Alaska when she was 13 before moving to North Carolina. Online records for the woman that the newspaper identified as Barbour's mother show her as having lived in both Alaska and North Carolina.
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What has happened ??
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Posted:Feb 16, 2014 9:02 am
Last Updated:Feb 17, 2014 6:01 pm 14865 Views
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Today, it seems that so many can't love and many who do have it seem to be on a mission to destroy it and others who seem to have so many things which become deterrents to finding it.
The question of Trust, by that I mean the trust in one being of honesty in character and having truth in the image of integrity they present.
Has vanity and materialism become so ingrained until we have become to worship the material matter and the power of money has become so over-bearing in our aims, until we can't see love without first trying to measure it through these things?
Has it become so crazy that people think their gender and their organ between their legs gives them a bartering position, which ultimately makes them become foolish unto even themselves?
Has the concept of life become so envisioned with material matter, until people can't be happy with the simplicity of health and wellness as a person and the ability to provide the basic of food, water and shelter... and appreciate the ability to work and be a contributor.... Must wealth seeking bring a misery to the degree people can't appreciate these simple things?
What would happen if a natural disaster came and took it all away and left one with some disability of some sort?
______________
I often think of people I've known who have ended up in a care facility behind the debilitating results of a stroke, or those who have died young due to preventable conditions. I had a friend who died from a diabetic coma, because his wife and those around him did not know or think to take him to the hospital in a timely manner.
We some-how live as if we have forever, yet truth of life continues to show us, that we don't have forever. We age, our body changes, our faces change and our financial situations change as does everything in our lives continue to change.
As someone posted a blog about people using 'old" pictures to present themselves. Why? are people fixated on a time when they were youthful and smooth skin with more muscle tone to the body...... Then be assured, that time will change those things if one continues to live.
I can look at my hands and remember when they were youthful smooth, but today they have the natural age wrinkles in the skin as that is just the way nature is.
the color of our hair changes and in some the hair may simply disappear, These are things of nature and life which shows us that we won't remain the same.
What do we really know about beauty? we like the fresh face and youthful appearance, but the heart is so often not even seen because of the fixation on seeking the youthful looks.
Yet..... as we all age, we know the fickleness that youth is filled with, and the lack of temperament which exist in youth that ones learns better to manage as they age.
It often is just how life flows... it does not give the individual all things at once... there is no such thing as finding a perfect person, because there is no measure as to what is perfect in the lives of human beings.
Life is of so many things within the minds of each individual, among those things, we always have what we know as 'choice".... we can choose to incorporate love within our living and sharing, or we can create any and many ways and reasons to put off, deny and avoid love and the sharing of it, and then we can find ways in our minds to claim justification for our avoidance.
We can do all these things, and within doing so, we find that time does not stand still.... some cry and 'wonder, why me", but turn in another breath and state their claim of being the captain of their own ship.... but seem to deny when it does not choose and follow its course.
Yes, we are the choosers of love and our loving engagements, do we seek erotic arousal before we can focus on what is love, must we become obsessive before we can appreciate loving? How do we think that love stands outside of living, when no relationship which has love can exist without dealing with the reality of two individuals daily lives.
Do we spend too much time- measuring what our love could be based on what the media has depicted in its pre-formatted scrips? How much do we allow the ploys of marketing and advertising to tell us when we are happy or what will give us a feeling of happiness?
How important have we made status a factor of measuring our relationships based on what others think, expect or tell us that we should have and what we should do and how we should do it?
One truth remains the same... Older couples who have been together for decades... will always tell any person, that their key to longevity in love, is a continual investment of working at it, working on it, and working through their challenges.
Yet... we by some means, still expect some instant situation and then assume that it is to be a 24/7 bliss of infatuation fancy.
Oh how little we have come to respect of love, and how little we disregard the truth that love is a continual process of working to be and pursue the spirit of loving and share it.
There is no Utopian life, but there is a joyous one that the works of living can provide unto the willing who seeks to learn more and more of how to love and be loving.
We have that choice......
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"Stuff"
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Posted:Feb 15, 2014 1:13 pm
Last Updated:Feb 22, 2014 7:32 pm 16072 Views
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I often wonder, why do business open and claim to produce a product, then use not only poor methods of production, but they use low grade material and the assembly process is not concerned with quality and durability... ??
I think any company be it a start up or a long standing company, if they focus on the integrity of the brand, the quality of their products, the character of their service, they will have an edge over any competitor.
There is nothing worst than ' low grade products" which people spend their money to acquire.
I have a phone case from the Blackberry I was previously using, not only was it made good. They used "REAL LEATHER" and quality stitching. It was not built with low grade materials, it does not stretch out of shape and its form remains as it was originally made to be.
The recent phone I bought, the store provided a case, I was in the store yesterday, the clip fell off, If I'd not looked down, I would have lost my phone.
good thing the phone I have will fit snugly in the blackberry case, as I prefer to carry it in my back pocket, rather than to clip it on my side. However, the case that came with it, also has belt loop, they are not made of the best material and though I may use it sometime, I don't think the loops will hold up very long.
I bought a case for my work phone, it is leather, but it also has a re-enforced section which hold the swivel clip so it does not break away.....
I have two cases for work material I carry when I go to work, One is made of leather and it was produced by London Fog, it is made of quality and the Other is made by the company which places the swiss logo, like found on the swiss knife... both are well made bags.
When I comes to shoes, I buy the Stacey Adam's Madison Style, then I have the sole protectors added on, these shoes hold up very well.
Now, On to Dress Shirts.... there are a few brands which are good, they retain their form, they don't shrink and after many cycles to the laundry they remain looking good.
It is so much less costly to review products and look for the quality in construction, more than the brand name, with the exception, some 'brand name" items are made to meet standards which protect the integrity of their product line.
If a company as such offers a 'cheap" model, it may be best to save yourself some hassle and go for the level of standard among their product line, which gives some assurance they have put their better materials into the production.
Example: I bought a 300E Mercedes some years ago, I drove it for 15 yrs.... with little to no problems. I currently have another 320E and I've been driving it for 8 yrs. I knew people who bought the 'lower brand 190 Mercedes, they had continual problems and came to despise the vehicle. I had suggest they buy nothing less than the 300 series of Model... but they insisted the price on the 190 they liked. It resulted to cost them a great deal to keep it operating.
I bought a Bedroom Set years ago, it must at least 10yr+ by now, It is made of Pine... it is all very solid, and has stood up far longer than the laminated particle board that is so often sold with the overly fancy looks in design.
( I remember as a , my parents bought a Oak bedroom set, it lasted forever)... even the old veneer of wood built on a solid wood frame that were the styles during the 1940's -1960's.. are pieces which many people still have and it hold up great.
Then, when I look at carpet... now so much is some type of synthetic fiber, which gives you a static shock, to go from the carpet and touch something metal.... I am going to go with wood or tile for my floors, I had wood placed in the office where I use the computer at home, and the floor has been down for about 4 yrs and it works great.
I wrote another blog about the quality of things, and discussed my issue with some printers, mainly the HP, what I do know is there is terrible quality in printers below a certain price range... why they even make them does not make much sense. They should focus on their quality not how many different cheap models they can come up with.
I now have an Epson, it works great, the original ink that came with it has lasted longer than the ink that comes with HP, it has WIFI and other attributes which can print directly to the Cloud storage on Google.
I like that I bought the Nokia Windows phone, the only problem now I have to upgrade my computers to Windows 8.1 and the stupid thing is, windows will not allow it to simply over-write XP and keep programs and files, everything has to be re-installed. So, that means when I buy the windows I have to also buy the MS Office Professional Software. Then when I get a Tablet, I'm finding it must have excellent internal memory and also have ability for a microSD expandable memory and be able to access a flash drive.
I noticed the New Nokia phones have eliminated the microSD and only provide 32gig of memory. ( this is not a good scenario, because various apps take up lots of memory and they ill considered that many of these apps will submit upgrades which take up more memory. Mine has only 8 gig of onboard memory, but it has an microSD card that can hold up to 64gig. I will keep the one I have, at least I can put what I want on the microSD... the only problem, it will not run apps from the microSD, but at least I can install and uninsal them without a problem and the app is stored on the SD card. The only issue with that, is unstalling it does not retain the data if it is re-installed. ( they should make it read from the microSD card).
Cloud Storage I think is Ok, but the fact things sit on someone else server, I don't particular like that idea, especially for anything related to work or critical data to be stored.
I read an article today that said 48% of Apps, do not have the level of security that is available, yet All Apps want access to your stored info n the phone.
Then I question why people would store their banking data and passwords on the software of the phone, or in some app on the phone.
Eventually Hackers will start to target these phones, and they will sadly result to steal a great deal of information. Unless some very good security is added into the App owners server. I hope there is a requirement for App developers to insure and have their product scanned for security before they are deployed for public use.
I'm contemplating whether or not to hook up a camera to my computer- I have the camera, and its been sitting there for a while, un-connected.
I've always liked tech things, but the current activity of hackers is a great cause to consider much when putting this stuff to use.
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Do you want a mate: ( for any and all to consider)
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Posted:Feb 15, 2014 12:18 pm
Last Updated:Mar 15, 2014 5:49 am 16146 Views
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Many people have far too much fantasy chasing, money measuring and subliminal influences from media presentations to even began to function within a relationship.
Sadly, some can't observe the reality around them, because they are looking for excitement and drama... but all they need do is look at older couples who have been together for decades. They are able to do so, because they did not chase every whim of drama fantasy, and they did not get dis-illusion behind the ups and downs of actual living, and they came realize being in a relationship does not mean someone has to entertain them.
I feel sorry for many young people today, they base their relations on so many material, fantasy and drama embellished things until, they can't stay together once the Restaurant, and other things fade from being primary concerns. Some look for these story book homes in some story book community and then get buried behind the expense and status obligation they fell they need to uphold by being in these environments. They have to go to the so called " right club", the so called "right stores", and drive the so called "right vehicle" and wear the so called "right labels on their clothes", then they want their to go to the so called 'status school" and be in the 'status programs and organizations".... and they want all of it INSTANTLY!!!!
IF we listen to many who claim money is not a matter, but the summary of what they say is all about how much and how many ways money does matter.
Honest and free flowing love, does not have anything to do with what one's job title is, nor does it have anything to do with what one's degree is, nor what their profession is.
All people have to do is be two individuals, willing, capable and engaged in work, and if they are temp. out of work, actively engaged in seeking work and accepting it when it present.
It does not matter who makes more money, if they claim they are in it to share their lives.
But this 'barter and buy a mate" madness is at a level of pure craziness. The material measure of individual lives by material standards has made many idolatries of many sorts. Then you got the 'romance novel script" seekers who claim love is gone if no one is on a continual mission to erotically stimulate them with some fancy. People have forgot how to accept and give simply appreciation.
In many situations soon as a man is determined to have money, the smile come flowing like water out of a faucet, then when they don't get to spend and waste that money, the frowns are so thick, the bright sun can't even dim their glare.
then comes the 'worship me because I have this sex organ or that sex organ.... It's pure insanity.
But the sad thing is it goes to absurdity, about the look of 'faces'... when no matter what a face looks like, it cannot and does not and never will be an indicator of integrity and honesty of character and person.
A shapely butt might be a lure, but it is no guarantee of anything else, a buffed body might be an allure, but it is still nothing more than a buffed body....
If you are quick to prejudge another and ones self, over a meal, or at a movie, then you just might be misjudging both the other person and yourself.
But it is up to each to figure out their own trips, and when they figure them out and over come them, then they might be ready to share love with someone.
but getting together with a list of expectations, that ultimately become demands and then those demands seek obligatory conduct and performances... then two people will find a misery they probably deserve for seeking such.
None are a Princess, nor Prince, nor is anyone a Queen or a King.... no matter what they conjure in their minds to make them think themselves as being such..... First and Foremost it might be good for people to first simply seek to be a good person in and of themselves, and be open to share... as well as to appreciate the same within another.
What people end up doing is chasing fantasies, making babies that result to have to suffer because of the adults fantasy chasing.
if you don't know what "marriage is", then stop obsession over it, until you can first see what it is, and then learn to respect what it means.
no one owes you a fantasy, and if you seek one for yourself, eventually reality will awaken you, when you fail to do the work to build what it takes to make dreams function and be functional within your life and your relationships.
We become too often 'obsessive beings" always in search of something to 'obsess over".... until we have forgotten how to simply appreciate and be appreciated.
WOMEN are fundamentally different from men, they focus on the feeling tones in what is said then then seek out the logic...
MEN, many times will focus on the logic of what is said and then add in the feeling tones.
They are both dealing with the same things, but from different leading perspectives...
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Finding Balance -
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Posted:Feb 14, 2014 7:17 am
Last Updated:Feb 16, 2014 8:00 am 15225 Views
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Probing the web, just to read stuff.... I come across this 'unpublished" ( No author attached)... page.
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"learn to love less
“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” - Socrates
In that one little line, Socrates summed up one of the major problems with our modern society, and offered a simple solution.
In fact, he negated the need for me to write more, but stubborn as I am, I will proceed. I’d like to talk about this capacity to enjoy less.
Is it difficult to enjoy less? No, not really, but it takes a change in mindset, which as with many such changes takes time and adaptation.
If you enjoy chocolate ice cream, as I do, when confronted with a tub of it would you also enjoy eating as much of the tub as possible? I know that’s what many of us do when faced with delicious food.
But what if you learned to enjoy just a few bites of the ice cream? And with each bite, savor the flavor, the coldness, the creaminess, the chocolatiness. (Yes, that’s a word, spell-checker – I made it up.)
If you love clothes, instead of buying more and more each weekend, can you learn to cull your wardrobe into a few quality, beautiful pieces that you can wear often, and enjoy more?
The same applies with anything we love … including online reading and communicating (email, Twitter, Facebook, forums). We often seem obsessed with more of it. But instead, consider reading just the quality stuff, and if a blog or Twitter feed doesn’t deliver quality consistently, consider dropping it.
Learn to love less television, movies, chatter, spending, shopping, eating out, junk food, technology, consumption, productivity. You get the idea.
When you focus on enjoying less, you focus on full enjoyment. You learn to be content with little, and when you do that, a life of happiness is at your disposal. The only limit to your happiness, then, is how much you can learn to enjoy less.
(end)
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What do you think?
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Making Love Last by Learning to Love
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Posted:Feb 14, 2014 7:09 am
Last Updated:Feb 18, 2014 11:18 am 15006 Views
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Look up the word love in any dictionary and you'll find two separate definitions. The first: an abstract noun encapsulating a feeling of tenderness, passion and warmth. The second: a verb defined by concrete actions such as giving affection or expressing tenderness and care. The trouble with these parallel definitions of love is that too often people are satisfied with (and even preoccupied by) the primary definition and never get around to the secondary one.
Treating love as an "entity" or "idea" often leads to a fantasy of love. This fantasy connection, which binds people together in an imaginary fusion even as they continue to mistreat each other, makes practical and personal adjustments to improve the relationship difficult. We often first experienced the discrepancy between a fantasy of love and the experience of love as , at times when our parents, who claimed to love us, acted in ways that were not always loving and, even destructive. The more we see love as an ethereal concept, the more we lose sight of the specific behaviors that make love an active expression of our feelings for others. When we see love as a product of action, however, we can look into ourselves and our relationships with fresh eyes and examine how loving we truly are.
If everyone you know was to make a list of the actions they find loving, these lists would most likely include similar qualities. Expressing affection, sexuality and caring are universally considered loving behaviors. Similarly, there are specific actions that are recognized as going against loving feelings. By approaching ourselves and our relationships with this proactive, pro-action perspective, we can change the course of our relationships and develop into more loving individuals.
How to Be More Loving
1) Look at What You Do, Not What You Say
Take a step back and ask yourself: How do I actually treat my partner? Do my actions match my words? One helpful way to examine this question is to make a list of the behaviors and actions you would define as loving, then ask yourself if these behaviors and actions match your own. What specific things can you do to be more loving? For example, if you say it is important to you to support your partner's independence, but act upset every time they want to hang out with their friends, you should alter your behavior to fit your beliefs.
2) Stop Withholding
Withholding is one of the biggest obstacles to becoming a more loving individual.Early on, learn to withhold positive qualities either as an indirect expression of anger or as a self-protective defense against being hurt. In either case, withholding often persists into adulthood leaving us guarded and less vulnerable to love. Sadly, it results in hurting both people involved. These patterns of withholding often include feeling victimized or consumed by others.
Holding back positive qualities, especially ones that your partner values, disrupts the loving feelings and intimacy in a relationship. For example, if you know it makes your partner happy to be affectionate, but you refuse to be affectionate in public, you hinder your partner's loving feeling toward you. Breaking your patterns of withholding is an immediate way to become a more loving individual.
3) Lay Down Your Arms
If you find yourself in a heated argument with your partner, the most loving thing you can do is unilaterally disarm. Drop your stake in winning the argument in the interest of improving your relationship. This does not mean that you should suddenly agree with everything your partner says and stop having an opinion. On the contrary, unilateral disarmament is a rational decision to take the high road, not overreact and lash out in the moment and choose to approach the problem with a cooler head. Even the most intense arguments can be diffused by saying something warm and understanding, expressing physical affection and stressing that being close to the other person is more important to you than being right.
4) Fire the Coach in Your Head
All of us are plagued by a critical inner voice, which provides an inner dialogue of destructive thoughts toward ourselves and others. These "voices" not only do damage to our confidence and self-esteem, they also wreak havoc on our intimate relationships. Through negative coaching, our critical inner voice encourages our defenses and diminishes our trust in others. Sometimes these thoughts come in the form of self-attacks (i.e. "You're such an idiot, no wonder she doesn't like you."), other times they attack the objects of our affection (i.e. "He is so pathetic, why do you even like this creep?"). Another way the voice operates is by providing bad advice (i.e. "You can't trust anyone. Don't be too vulnerable or you will look like a fool.")
Listening to these "voices" and acting on their bad advice, creates a greater fear of intimacy and puts distance between people in a relationship. Identifying specific things your critical inner voice says about you and your relationship is the first step toward breaking the pattern. Voice therapy, a process of verbalizing the the negative point of view of the critical inner voice and then answering back to it with your real point of view, is an effective way to insure that this negative coaching doesn't continue to interfere with your relationship.
5) Develop Yourself as an Individual
Recent studies show that individual happiness and self-confidence are key factors in determining a successful relationship. All the pressure you may put on yourself to find the "right" partner doesn't amount to much if you are not right with yourself. The more you develop yourself as a strong, confident, non-defensive individual, the more likely you are to find happiness with another.
Redefining love in terms of action can benefit an intimate relationship enormously. Following these suggestions will not only make you more loving, it will also make you more lovable. Sadly, many people are more comfortable with the idea of love than they are with real intimacy and relating. By seeing love as a product of action we can break free from our fantasy of love and truly experience loving and being loved. With February looming around the corner, I can't think of a greater gift for Valentine's Day.
by Lisa Firestone, Ph.D. in Compassion Matters
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A Brief History of Human .....
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Posted:Feb 10, 2014 7:32 am
Last Updated:Mar 15, 2014 5:50 am 14881 Views
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A Brief History of Human Sx
By: Heather Whipps
Birds do it, bees do it, humans since the dawn of time have done it.
But just how much has the act really changed through the millennia and even in past decades? Are humans doing it more? Are we doing it better? Sort of, say scientists. But it's how people fess up to the truth about their sex lives that has changed the most over the years.
Humans have basically been the same anatomically for about /?????????? years—so what is safe to say is that if we enjoy it now, then so did our cave-dwelling ancestors and everyone else since, experts say.
"Just as our bodies tell us what we might like to eat, or when we should go to sleep, they lay down for us our pattern of lust," says University of Toronto psychologist Edward Shorter. "Sex has always offered pleasure."
Hard wired
Sexuality has a lot to do with our biological framework, agreed Joann Rodgers, director of media relations and lecturer at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
"People and indeed all animals are hard wired to seek out sex and to continue to do so," Rodgers said in a recent interview. "I imagine that is evidence that people at least like sex and even if they don't they engage in it as a biological imperative."
It is nearly impossible to tell, however, whether people enjoyed sex more 50 years ago or 50,000 years ago, said David Buss, professor of psychology at the University of Texas and author of "The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating" (Basic Books, 2003).
There is "no reason to think that we do more now than in the past, although we are certainly more frank about it," Buss told LiveScience.
Indeed, cultural restraints—rather than anything anatomical—have had the biggest effect on our sexual history, Shorter says.
"To be sure, what people actually experience is always a mixture of biological and social conditioning: Desire surges from the body, the mind interprets what society will accept and what not, and the rest of the signals are edited out by culture," he writes in his book, "Written in the Flesh: A History of Desire" (University of Toronto Press, 2005).
That's not to say that cultural norms keep people from exploring the taboo, but only what is admitted to openly, according to archaeologist Timothy Taylor of Great Britain's University of Bradford.
"The idea that there is a sexual line that must not be crossed but in practice often is, is far older than the story of Eve's temptation by the serpent," he writes in "The History of Sex: Four Million Years of Human Sexual Culture" (Bantam Books, 1996).
eligion especially has held powerful sway over the mind's attitude towards the body's carnal desires, most sexual psychologists agree. Men and women who lived during the pious Middle Ages were certainly affected by the fear of sin, Shorter said, though he notes there were other inhibiting factors to consider, too.
"The low priority attached to sexual pleasure by people who lived in distant times is inexplicable unless one considers the hindrances that existed in those days," Shorter writes. He points especially to the 1,000 years of misery and disease—often accompanied by some very un-sexy smells and itching—that led up to the Industrial Revolution. "After the mid-nineteenth century, these hindrances start to be removed, and the great surge towards pleasure begins."
Many historians and psychologists see the late 1800s as a kind of watershed period for sexuality in the Western world. With the industrial revolution pushing more and more people together—literally—in dense, culturally-mixed neighborhoods, attitudes towards sex became more liberal.
The liberalization of sexuality kicked into high gear by the 1960s with the advent of the birth control pill, letting women get in on the fun and act on the basis of desire as men always had, according to Shorter.
"The 1960s vastly accelerated this unhesitant willingness to grab sex for the sheer sake of physical pleasure," he said, noting that the trend of openly seeking out sex just because it feels good, rather than for procreation alone, has continued on unabated into the new millennium.
Global variations
But despite the modern tendency towards sexual freedom, even today there are vast differences in attitudes across the world, experts say.
"Cultures vary tremendously in how early they start having sex, how open they are about it, and how many sexual partners they have," said Buss, noting that Swedes generally have many partners in their lifetime and the Chinese typically have few.
An informal 2005 global sex survey sponsored by the condom company Durex confirmed Buss' views. Just 3 percent of Americans polled called their sex lives "monotonous," compared to a sizable 26 percent of Indian respondents. While 53 percent of Norwegians wanted more sex than they were having (a respectable 98 times per year, on average), 81 percent of the Portuguese were quite happy with their national quota of 108 times per year.
Though poll numbers and surveys offer an interesting window into the sex lives of strangers, they're still constrained by the unwillingness of people to open up about a part of their lives that's usually kept behind closed doors.
And what if we weren't bound by such social limitations? Taylor offers the promiscuous—and very laid-back—bonobo chimpanzee as a utopian example.
"Bonobos have sex most of the time ... a fairly quick, perfunctory, and relaxed activity that functions as a social cement," he writes. "But for cultural constraints, we would all behave more like bonobos. In physical terms, there is actually nothing that bonobos do that some humans do not sometimes do."
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"Mythological Characters"
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Posted:Feb 10, 2014 7:19 am
Last Updated:Feb 11, 2014 6:29 pm 15023 Views
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Characteristics
The main characters in myths are usually gods, supernatural heroes and humans. As stories, myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and closely linked to religion or spirituality. In the society in which it is told, a myth is usually regarded as a true account of the remote past.In fact, many societies have two categories of traditional narrative, "true stories" or myths, and "false stories" or fables. Creation myths generally take place in a primordial age, when the world had not yet achieved its current form, and explain how the world gained its current form, and how customs, institutions and taboos were established.
( as defined by Wikipedia)
Where do you think the line or if a line exist between, Myth, Legend and Folktales?
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well that won't do any good. 
this won't fix anything
time gets wasted
complaining seems to be pointless
shock and awe serves no objective
It's just the craziness of people and things
I'll go back to news articles and blog... 
eventually, they'll fix it....
