Saturday, July 02, 2005
$ matters
The air conditioning in my husband's car broke down, so we only had mine for a few days while the mechanic version of the Keystone Cops got it fixed. On the day his car went in, MINE naturally didn't want to start, and then didn't want to stay running; it ran fine after a while, and my husband insisted it was just a blip and not indicative of a problem, but then it happened again, so when we got his car back we had to leave mine there to be worked on. We got it back today, and on the way home my husband was sideswiped on the freeway by a teenager driving a new Mercedes; he wasn't hurt, but the car will need body work along the entire passenger side... that's right, it had to go right back into the shop. The girl's insurance company has already admitted that she was 100% to blame, so they have to cover the cost of the body work, but the repairs we DID have to pay for, plus some unavoidable taxi rides when we had only 1 car between us, added up to a tidy sum... and it's times like this that I'm particularly grateful for being financially solvent, because to many Americans this sort of unplanned expense would be a major problem.
My husband and I have no debt other than the mortgage; ZERO. How many people do you know who can say that? We also have enough $ to never worry about failing to pay for bills, eBay purchases, dinners out, or, and here's the biggie, unexpected disasters... and how many people in America can say THAT these days? The scary thing is that this did NOT used to be the way things were; I'm old enough to remember when credit cards were a new thing, crushing mountains of credit card debt had never been heard of, and people lived within their means AND saved at least a little $ pretty consistently... what happened to us?
That was of course a rhetorical question; it doesn't take an economics PhD to see that the combination of the availability of easy credit, the sharp increase in the sheer # of things to buy, and the sense of entitlement that's become part of our national character made it inevitable that most Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck, with their credit cards stretched to the max, such that something like 2 cars needing repairs at the same time, or even ONE car needing them, can cause a desperate scramble to stay afloat.
I know couples who make 6 figures a year who're always fretting about how they're going to cover their bills, whether they're going to have to sell their house, or can afford to furnish a room for their new baby, or will be able to take a trip to see their family this year... people who should be living comfortable lives free of $-related stress, rather that having to agonize over whether canceling cable TV and brown-bagging it to work will allow them to make their minimum payments on everything.
I cringe to contemplate what folks from other countries think of people with that sort of $ being unable to budget it so that they can pay for essentials as well as frivolous things.
If you're worried about the economy now, ask yourself this; what happens when that 1st wave of savings-free, debt-swamped people reaches retirement age and has to file for bankruptcy en masse because their only $ is from Social Security, and that won't even cover basic living expenses much less credit card bills? What happens when they go from spendspendspend to ceasing to take part in the rampant consumerism that fuels the economy because they no longer have any extraneous income? What happens when our refusal as a nation to live within our means and handle $ responsibly comes home to roost?
My husband and I have no debt other than the mortgage; ZERO. How many people do you know who can say that? We also have enough $ to never worry about failing to pay for bills, eBay purchases, dinners out, or, and here's the biggie, unexpected disasters... and how many people in America can say THAT these days? The scary thing is that this did NOT used to be the way things were; I'm old enough to remember when credit cards were a new thing, crushing mountains of credit card debt had never been heard of, and people lived within their means AND saved at least a little $ pretty consistently... what happened to us?
That was of course a rhetorical question; it doesn't take an economics PhD to see that the combination of the availability of easy credit, the sharp increase in the sheer # of things to buy, and the sense of entitlement that's become part of our national character made it inevitable that most Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck, with their credit cards stretched to the max, such that something like 2 cars needing repairs at the same time, or even ONE car needing them, can cause a desperate scramble to stay afloat.
I know couples who make 6 figures a year who're always fretting about how they're going to cover their bills, whether they're going to have to sell their house, or can afford to furnish a room for their new baby, or will be able to take a trip to see their family this year... people who should be living comfortable lives free of $-related stress, rather that having to agonize over whether canceling cable TV and brown-bagging it to work will allow them to make their minimum payments on everything.
I cringe to contemplate what folks from other countries think of people with that sort of $ being unable to budget it so that they can pay for essentials as well as frivolous things.
If you're worried about the economy now, ask yourself this; what happens when that 1st wave of savings-free, debt-swamped people reaches retirement age and has to file for bankruptcy en masse because their only $ is from Social Security, and that won't even cover basic living expenses much less credit card bills? What happens when they go from spendspendspend to ceasing to take part in the rampant consumerism that fuels the economy because they no longer have any extraneous income? What happens when our refusal as a nation to live within our means and handle $ responsibly comes home to roost?
Friday, July 01, 2005
I got them site-feed blues
I got too excited about the joys of blogging, so of course the blogosphere has thrown me a curve, lol:
Today, my new friend Daniel, whose terrific blog is here
http://ds.blogzy.com/
told me that he'd been subscribed to me via Bloglines for some time, and that it never updated; the last post he was seeing was from July 15, 2004, almost a YEAR ago!! :-O
I hadn't visited my Bloglines account since shortly after I set it up early last year, as I don't use it to track or read blogs, so I went over there to take a look; after a great deal of floundering around, clicking every link, I finally was able to see my posts, and verify that what Daniel had seen wasn't something buggy with his account... and that meant that something was terribly wrong with my site feed.
Any sort of blog-related problem is a bummer, but I still don't know the 1st thing about this part of blogging, so I'm out of my depth here; all I could do was give it my best shot. I clicked on the RSS/Feedster thing in my sidebar, and saw that the code and text that used to come up had been replaced by "en-us Fri, 01 Jul 2005 01:55:51 PDT"; my RSS feed info was GONE. I went to the Feedster site and did searches for both my feed and blog URL's; the system returned no results. I looked around for the link that used to exist for their service that'd give you an RSS feed URL for your site; it was also GONE.
The only conclusion I can come to is that Feedster went out of the RSS-feed-URL-providing business... about a year ago, judging by Bloglines, which was using that feed. It sounds crazy to think that they deactivated everyone's RSS feed URL, when so many people had entered those URL's in so many blog search engines and such, but what else could explain what's happened? I've written to them asking about this; who knows, maybe I missed something on their site, and my old feed still is recoverable... that'd be nice, because then I could get Bloglines working again.
I've written to Bloglines, because it seems likely that my old feed will NOT be coming back, and I can't find a way to change the RSS feed they use for my site to one that works; I've got subscribers who signed up in good faith and have a right to expect me to fix this, and if you're one of them, rest assured that I'll keep on top of it... they warn to not expect a reply for a couple of business days, though, so don't expect anything to be fixed until next week. In the meantime, please accept my apologies for having no idea this was going on.
My next step was to get a new RSS feed URL, so I went to the only place I could think of; FeedBurner. I registered, entered my site info, and... the XML thing (which should have shown my recent posts) was BLANK. I started methodically clicking through every page in my account area, and eventually found the reason; their system had picked up on the Feedster URL and was trying to use it. I would've been at a loss at that point, but luckily Daniel had mentioned my Atom feed (which Blogger automatically generates), so I got that URL and tried to substitute it into FeedBurner; it gave me an Error 404. I tried to access the URL directly, and got a Blogger "page not found" error... and yes, I DID have it set up to publish my site feed. I then implemented a strategy from my old programming days, "when it's failing for no reason, change something, anything, and try again"; I changed the "Descriptions" control from "Short" to "Full," republished, and tried the Atom feed URL again... and there it was!! I tried to enter that URL at FeedBurner again, and the system accepted it; I checked the XML, and there it was!! (If you don't know what any of this means, click on the orange XML button in my sidebar.)
Then, a new thought occurred to me; this must be why I couldn't get Yahoo to accept my RSS feed and generate a "+ My Yahoo" button for my site... too bad their tech people couldn't ever be bothered to reply to my messages asking what the problem was, grrrrrrrrrr. I'd bookmarked the page to add RSS feeds to Yahoo, so I went there, added in the new URL provided by FeedBurner, and... it claimed it couldn't find that URL. Ok, I thought, there might be a lag in the system; I tried again a few minutes later... success!! The result can be see in the sidebar.
THEN, there's that NewsGator thing, not to mention "+ My MSN"; I'm going to pass out from sheer exhaustion if I don't get to bed now, so I can't do anything more at this point, but I'll try to check it out sometime soon.
AND, I'm almost certainly going to have to go around and re-enter my RSS feed in every directory and blog search engine that asks for it... whimper...
Anyways, this was an important thing, and it's most of the way fixed now; thanks, Daniel!! :-)
Today, my new friend Daniel, whose terrific blog is here
http://ds.blogzy.com/
told me that he'd been subscribed to me via Bloglines for some time, and that it never updated; the last post he was seeing was from July 15, 2004, almost a YEAR ago!! :-O
I hadn't visited my Bloglines account since shortly after I set it up early last year, as I don't use it to track or read blogs, so I went over there to take a look; after a great deal of floundering around, clicking every link, I finally was able to see my posts, and verify that what Daniel had seen wasn't something buggy with his account... and that meant that something was terribly wrong with my site feed.
Any sort of blog-related problem is a bummer, but I still don't know the 1st thing about this part of blogging, so I'm out of my depth here; all I could do was give it my best shot. I clicked on the RSS/Feedster thing in my sidebar, and saw that the code and text that used to come up had been replaced by "en-us Fri, 01 Jul 2005 01:55:51 PDT"; my RSS feed info was GONE. I went to the Feedster site and did searches for both my feed and blog URL's; the system returned no results. I looked around for the link that used to exist for their service that'd give you an RSS feed URL for your site; it was also GONE.
The only conclusion I can come to is that Feedster went out of the RSS-feed-URL-providing business... about a year ago, judging by Bloglines, which was using that feed. It sounds crazy to think that they deactivated everyone's RSS feed URL, when so many people had entered those URL's in so many blog search engines and such, but what else could explain what's happened? I've written to them asking about this; who knows, maybe I missed something on their site, and my old feed still is recoverable... that'd be nice, because then I could get Bloglines working again.
I've written to Bloglines, because it seems likely that my old feed will NOT be coming back, and I can't find a way to change the RSS feed they use for my site to one that works; I've got subscribers who signed up in good faith and have a right to expect me to fix this, and if you're one of them, rest assured that I'll keep on top of it... they warn to not expect a reply for a couple of business days, though, so don't expect anything to be fixed until next week. In the meantime, please accept my apologies for having no idea this was going on.
My next step was to get a new RSS feed URL, so I went to the only place I could think of; FeedBurner. I registered, entered my site info, and... the XML thing (which should have shown my recent posts) was BLANK. I started methodically clicking through every page in my account area, and eventually found the reason; their system had picked up on the Feedster URL and was trying to use it. I would've been at a loss at that point, but luckily Daniel had mentioned my Atom feed (which Blogger automatically generates), so I got that URL and tried to substitute it into FeedBurner; it gave me an Error 404. I tried to access the URL directly, and got a Blogger "page not found" error... and yes, I DID have it set up to publish my site feed. I then implemented a strategy from my old programming days, "when it's failing for no reason, change something, anything, and try again"; I changed the "Descriptions" control from "Short" to "Full," republished, and tried the Atom feed URL again... and there it was!! I tried to enter that URL at FeedBurner again, and the system accepted it; I checked the XML, and there it was!! (If you don't know what any of this means, click on the orange XML button in my sidebar.)
Then, a new thought occurred to me; this must be why I couldn't get Yahoo to accept my RSS feed and generate a "+ My Yahoo" button for my site... too bad their tech people couldn't ever be bothered to reply to my messages asking what the problem was, grrrrrrrrrr. I'd bookmarked the page to add RSS feeds to Yahoo, so I went there, added in the new URL provided by FeedBurner, and... it claimed it couldn't find that URL. Ok, I thought, there might be a lag in the system; I tried again a few minutes later... success!! The result can be see in the sidebar.
THEN, there's that NewsGator thing, not to mention "+ My MSN"; I'm going to pass out from sheer exhaustion if I don't get to bed now, so I can't do anything more at this point, but I'll try to check it out sometime soon.
AND, I'm almost certainly going to have to go around and re-enter my RSS feed in every directory and blog search engine that asks for it... whimper...
Anyways, this was an important thing, and it's most of the way fixed now; thanks, Daniel!! :-)
Thursday, June 30, 2005
50,000 hits!! :-)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! :-)
First and foremost; to all my readers, and especially my link-buddies; THANK YOU!! :-)
For both old readers and new, here's the "Omni FAQ," presented here because I couldn't think of anything more profound to commemorate this milestone:
Q: Why did you use "omniverse" in your URL?
A: It's all-encompassing, like my topics.
Q: Why do you post on other blogs under the name "Omni"?
A: It's short for "omniverse," and so connects my "posting name" to my blog URL... and it seemed simpler than making up a whole new name.
Q: Why do you use such a plain, low-tech template?
A: My blog isn't one you can really scan or skip around, it's one you have to settle in and read, and a simple layout with black text on a white background, and withOUT distracting colors and graphics, is what best lends itself to reading long posts.
Q: Why don't you get your own domain name?
A: Because they don't give them away for free, and because I don't want the confusion of multiple URL's for my blog.
Q: Tell me about you.
A: I'm a late-30's, happily-married (most of the time) American woman with no kids (unless you count my husband, lol) who doesn't get enough sleep, but nevertheless spends a great deal of time thinking about a variety of topics, and is on a protracted, if sporadic, spiritual journey.
Q: That's it? Why don't you give details, post a pic, etc?
A: I've gotta remain anonymous.
Q: Why?
A: If you posted the sort of stuff on this blog, wouldn't YOU want to be? Seriously, though, I've posted things about my friends that I want to be able to maintain deniability about... and I don't want any psychos tracking me down.
Q: You say you're a geek-does that mean you're chubby, with thick glasses and stringy hair?
A: No, I don't resemble the physical stereotype of female geeks in any way (other than my preference for geekish t-shirts).
Q: Why's there no way to comment here?
A: Again, the psychos; they come on here, read my posts obsessively, and then attack me on other people's blogs. Also: Just yesterday, I came across a blog that purported to be owned by a sexually-open 19 year old Asian girl (which means it's probably owned by a sexually-repressed mid-50's Caucasian man), with a 7-digit # of hits, that had apparently just added commenting; there were troll attacks that were PAGES long in every thread, and in several spots people had posted that, although they'd wanted to be able to respond to her posts, they thought she should REMOVE the commenting, because the troll posts were so unpleasant and distracting. If you think it'd be nice to have commenting here, believe me, we'd have exactly the same situation if I enabled it.
Q: Why can't I email you?
A: Because they haven't invented a filter that would block troll emails, and nothing could induce me to give trolls ANY way to contact me; I refuse to subject myself to abuse from belligerent strangers.
Q: Why do you use so many capitalized words (and parts of words) and ellipses ("...")?
A: That's my attempt to mimic my speech pattern as closely as possible; if you use the stresses and pauses as I've written them in your mind when you read my posts, you'll get a feeling for how I speak.
Q: Is that why you use words like "gotta" even when discussing a serious topic?
A: Yup; that's part of how I learned to talk to people, so as to not come across as quite so intense.
Q: You don't use curse words or vulgar language, though; are you a prude?
A: Gee, I hope not, lol; I want this blog to be readable by people of all ages and degrees of "social casualness," and in general I don't curse around people until I'm sure they don't find it offensive (eg they've done it themselves)... after which I curse as much as anyone else.
Q: Why do you typically use "1st, # and $" for "first, number and money"?
A: I'm a slow and horrible typist, and I've gotten used to using those sorts of shortcuts to speed things up.
Q: Do you realize that some of the contractions and compound words you use aren't accepted as actual words, and neither is "alot"?
A: Uh-huh; I use 'em because they're the fastest and simplest way to get things said... and just watch, they'll become accepted as words eventually, and then I'll be seen as a pioneer.
Q: You know that some people find short posts more enjoyable to read than the looooooooong ones you write, right?
A: There are a zillion blogs for those people to read, so they won't suffer from my posts not being the type they prefer. I don't go into every facet of a topic to be different, though, but because that's how I think... and that's what this blog is about, what *I* think.
I may add to the above as time goes on, but for now it should provide a decent bunch of answers for inquiring minds.
The other thing I wanted to mention is the downside of becoming a more established blog, with more "link buddies"; my link list of cool blogs keeps growing (and if you haven't checked them all out, including the ones I just added, you really should do so ASAP), but my available free time does NOT, with the unfortunate consequence that I've gone from visiting my favorite blogs every day, to every few days, to once a week, to closer to every other week as often as not, and, although I try to always leave a comment, I can rarely leave the sort of in-depth responses that I used to... my apologies, folks, I really am doing the best I can with my current schedule.
Time issues and trolls aside, my blogging experience continues to be overwhelmingly enjoyable, and it continues to be a source of daily joy that people from all over the world (130 countries and counting) choose to take time out of their busy days to come and see what I've ranted (or rambled) about; again, thanks!! :-)
First and foremost; to all my readers, and especially my link-buddies; THANK YOU!! :-)
For both old readers and new, here's the "Omni FAQ," presented here because I couldn't think of anything more profound to commemorate this milestone:
Q: Why did you use "omniverse" in your URL?
A: It's all-encompassing, like my topics.
Q: Why do you post on other blogs under the name "Omni"?
A: It's short for "omniverse," and so connects my "posting name" to my blog URL... and it seemed simpler than making up a whole new name.
Q: Why do you use such a plain, low-tech template?
A: My blog isn't one you can really scan or skip around, it's one you have to settle in and read, and a simple layout with black text on a white background, and withOUT distracting colors and graphics, is what best lends itself to reading long posts.
Q: Why don't you get your own domain name?
A: Because they don't give them away for free, and because I don't want the confusion of multiple URL's for my blog.
Q: Tell me about you.
A: I'm a late-30's, happily-married (most of the time) American woman with no kids (unless you count my husband, lol) who doesn't get enough sleep, but nevertheless spends a great deal of time thinking about a variety of topics, and is on a protracted, if sporadic, spiritual journey.
Q: That's it? Why don't you give details, post a pic, etc?
A: I've gotta remain anonymous.
Q: Why?
A: If you posted the sort of stuff on this blog, wouldn't YOU want to be? Seriously, though, I've posted things about my friends that I want to be able to maintain deniability about... and I don't want any psychos tracking me down.
Q: You say you're a geek-does that mean you're chubby, with thick glasses and stringy hair?
A: No, I don't resemble the physical stereotype of female geeks in any way (other than my preference for geekish t-shirts).
Q: Why's there no way to comment here?
A: Again, the psychos; they come on here, read my posts obsessively, and then attack me on other people's blogs. Also: Just yesterday, I came across a blog that purported to be owned by a sexually-open 19 year old Asian girl (which means it's probably owned by a sexually-repressed mid-50's Caucasian man), with a 7-digit # of hits, that had apparently just added commenting; there were troll attacks that were PAGES long in every thread, and in several spots people had posted that, although they'd wanted to be able to respond to her posts, they thought she should REMOVE the commenting, because the troll posts were so unpleasant and distracting. If you think it'd be nice to have commenting here, believe me, we'd have exactly the same situation if I enabled it.
Q: Why can't I email you?
A: Because they haven't invented a filter that would block troll emails, and nothing could induce me to give trolls ANY way to contact me; I refuse to subject myself to abuse from belligerent strangers.
Q: Why do you use so many capitalized words (and parts of words) and ellipses ("...")?
A: That's my attempt to mimic my speech pattern as closely as possible; if you use the stresses and pauses as I've written them in your mind when you read my posts, you'll get a feeling for how I speak.
Q: Is that why you use words like "gotta" even when discussing a serious topic?
A: Yup; that's part of how I learned to talk to people, so as to not come across as quite so intense.
Q: You don't use curse words or vulgar language, though; are you a prude?
A: Gee, I hope not, lol; I want this blog to be readable by people of all ages and degrees of "social casualness," and in general I don't curse around people until I'm sure they don't find it offensive (eg they've done it themselves)... after which I curse as much as anyone else.
Q: Why do you typically use "1st, # and $" for "first, number and money"?
A: I'm a slow and horrible typist, and I've gotten used to using those sorts of shortcuts to speed things up.
Q: Do you realize that some of the contractions and compound words you use aren't accepted as actual words, and neither is "alot"?
A: Uh-huh; I use 'em because they're the fastest and simplest way to get things said... and just watch, they'll become accepted as words eventually, and then I'll be seen as a pioneer.
Q: You know that some people find short posts more enjoyable to read than the looooooooong ones you write, right?
A: There are a zillion blogs for those people to read, so they won't suffer from my posts not being the type they prefer. I don't go into every facet of a topic to be different, though, but because that's how I think... and that's what this blog is about, what *I* think.
I may add to the above as time goes on, but for now it should provide a decent bunch of answers for inquiring minds.
The other thing I wanted to mention is the downside of becoming a more established blog, with more "link buddies"; my link list of cool blogs keeps growing (and if you haven't checked them all out, including the ones I just added, you really should do so ASAP), but my available free time does NOT, with the unfortunate consequence that I've gone from visiting my favorite blogs every day, to every few days, to once a week, to closer to every other week as often as not, and, although I try to always leave a comment, I can rarely leave the sort of in-depth responses that I used to... my apologies, folks, I really am doing the best I can with my current schedule.
Time issues and trolls aside, my blogging experience continues to be overwhelmingly enjoyable, and it continues to be a source of daily joy that people from all over the world (130 countries and counting) choose to take time out of their busy days to come and see what I've ranted (or rambled) about; again, thanks!! :-)
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Puzzled about parenting probs
For this post, "parenting" will refer to the care of "fur babies" as well as the human kind; the confusion I have applies equally to both cases.
How many times have you heard "pet parents" complain about not being able to sleep in, or even sleep past dawn, because their pets are leaping around and clamoring for food? These folks all have something in common; they feed their pets right after they get up in the morning. Can someone please tell me why none of them see where the problem lies in that situation? Granted that I haven't questioned them all, but this one is so easy to solve that it wouldn't make sense for them to keep on suffering if they saw the solution... which is of course to STOP feeding the pet 1st thing in the morning, so that the animal stops associating morning, and especially early morning, with being fed, and loses its desire to stomp on mommy and daddy's faces at 5AM. To make REALLY sure the animal has stopped making the daylight=food connection, don't feed them until after dark, and maybe even wait until near your bedtime to fill their dishes, so that they'll most likely lay down to sleep when you do, and STAY asleep because they're not starving. (It should go without saying that giving in to begging and giving them food other than when you intend to do so will NOT help them to learn to eat only at night and not to pester their "parents" all day.)
When you suggest this solution to pet parents, they'll be stunned and speechless at 1st, and then will start making excuses like, "I'm used to feeding them then," "They're used to eating then," "My parents always fed our animals in the morning" and so forth; the only 1 of these with any shred of validity is that it's less than ideal to have a pet not be fed until a dozen or more hours later than they're expecting, but that's easily overcome by feeding them half their day's food in the morning to start, and the other half at night, and then gradually increasing the % they get at night until that's when they get it all... not totally effortless, but hardly a big deal.
The related situation where small kids are concerned is when you hear the parents complaining that their little ones are up and around at the crack of dawn. This one's even easier to see the solution for; however much earlier the kids are waking up before you'd prefer them to, put them down for the night that much later. Is that so hard to figure out? If the kids are already nodding off at their current bedtime, you can make it a few minutes later each night until you reach the desired time, and if sunlight is waking them up early, put blackout shades on their windows.
Again, the parents are astounded to hear this simple solution; the main rebuttal is that they "can't" put the kids to sleep at whatever time they'd need to to have them waking up at the ideal time... and if you ask them why they "can't," there's never a valid reason, just a repetition of how you "can't" put a kid down that late, that it's somehow "wrong" in a way they can't describe. If you pursue the matter, you'll eventually discover that someone told them that a child of age X should be going to bed at time Y, and they took it as gospel, totally ignoring the wide range of sleep needs that kids can have, and that the length of nap a child takes, if any, alters how much sleep they need at night, and thus when they should be put to bed. A healthy child will wake up and want to get up when they've had enough sleep; with that as a guide, you can ignore the "shoulds," figure out how much sleep your child needs and plan their bedtime accordingly (consult your doctor if that amount seems way out of line for their age group, of course).
And do please show some sense, not to mention sensitivity, about what bedtime you enforce after a child reaches school age; don't be like MY parents, who, despite the fact that I woke up over an HOUR earlier than I needed to to get ready for school every single day, refused to budge on my bedtime... even though the other kids my age were going to bed an hour later than I was, so they didn't even have the excuse of following the crowd. When you force a child to adhere to an unreasonably early bedtime, they feel punished, and that makes them tense as their assigned sleep time approaches, which can lead to insomnia... believe me, I know all about that one. As long as your child is awake, or easily rousable, when you need them to be up, that's all that matters; you don't get bonus points if you make the kid go to bed earlier and they then wake up at sunrise.
We're a desperately sleep-deprived nation; did you know that, before the invention of the lightbulb, the average adult slept TEN hours per night? Preventing our babies, of both human and fur varieties, from stealing even an hour or 2 of sleep a day from us is far from trivial, so it's well worth the effort to correct those things; as to how to get yourself to bed earlier, with so many movies to watch and emails to type (not to mention blog entries)... you're on your own, lol.
How many times have you heard "pet parents" complain about not being able to sleep in, or even sleep past dawn, because their pets are leaping around and clamoring for food? These folks all have something in common; they feed their pets right after they get up in the morning. Can someone please tell me why none of them see where the problem lies in that situation? Granted that I haven't questioned them all, but this one is so easy to solve that it wouldn't make sense for them to keep on suffering if they saw the solution... which is of course to STOP feeding the pet 1st thing in the morning, so that the animal stops associating morning, and especially early morning, with being fed, and loses its desire to stomp on mommy and daddy's faces at 5AM. To make REALLY sure the animal has stopped making the daylight=food connection, don't feed them until after dark, and maybe even wait until near your bedtime to fill their dishes, so that they'll most likely lay down to sleep when you do, and STAY asleep because they're not starving. (It should go without saying that giving in to begging and giving them food other than when you intend to do so will NOT help them to learn to eat only at night and not to pester their "parents" all day.)
When you suggest this solution to pet parents, they'll be stunned and speechless at 1st, and then will start making excuses like, "I'm used to feeding them then," "They're used to eating then," "My parents always fed our animals in the morning" and so forth; the only 1 of these with any shred of validity is that it's less than ideal to have a pet not be fed until a dozen or more hours later than they're expecting, but that's easily overcome by feeding them half their day's food in the morning to start, and the other half at night, and then gradually increasing the % they get at night until that's when they get it all... not totally effortless, but hardly a big deal.
The related situation where small kids are concerned is when you hear the parents complaining that their little ones are up and around at the crack of dawn. This one's even easier to see the solution for; however much earlier the kids are waking up before you'd prefer them to, put them down for the night that much later. Is that so hard to figure out? If the kids are already nodding off at their current bedtime, you can make it a few minutes later each night until you reach the desired time, and if sunlight is waking them up early, put blackout shades on their windows.
Again, the parents are astounded to hear this simple solution; the main rebuttal is that they "can't" put the kids to sleep at whatever time they'd need to to have them waking up at the ideal time... and if you ask them why they "can't," there's never a valid reason, just a repetition of how you "can't" put a kid down that late, that it's somehow "wrong" in a way they can't describe. If you pursue the matter, you'll eventually discover that someone told them that a child of age X should be going to bed at time Y, and they took it as gospel, totally ignoring the wide range of sleep needs that kids can have, and that the length of nap a child takes, if any, alters how much sleep they need at night, and thus when they should be put to bed. A healthy child will wake up and want to get up when they've had enough sleep; with that as a guide, you can ignore the "shoulds," figure out how much sleep your child needs and plan their bedtime accordingly (consult your doctor if that amount seems way out of line for their age group, of course).
And do please show some sense, not to mention sensitivity, about what bedtime you enforce after a child reaches school age; don't be like MY parents, who, despite the fact that I woke up over an HOUR earlier than I needed to to get ready for school every single day, refused to budge on my bedtime... even though the other kids my age were going to bed an hour later than I was, so they didn't even have the excuse of following the crowd. When you force a child to adhere to an unreasonably early bedtime, they feel punished, and that makes them tense as their assigned sleep time approaches, which can lead to insomnia... believe me, I know all about that one. As long as your child is awake, or easily rousable, when you need them to be up, that's all that matters; you don't get bonus points if you make the kid go to bed earlier and they then wake up at sunrise.
We're a desperately sleep-deprived nation; did you know that, before the invention of the lightbulb, the average adult slept TEN hours per night? Preventing our babies, of both human and fur varieties, from stealing even an hour or 2 of sleep a day from us is far from trivial, so it's well worth the effort to correct those things; as to how to get yourself to bed earlier, with so many movies to watch and emails to type (not to mention blog entries)... you're on your own, lol.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Bank of America = STUPID
My husband has a long and illustrious history of losing things, including bank cards (he typically misplaces several of them per year); this causes the expected problems and stresses each time, compounded by his foot-dragging, first in doing a real search for them, and then in getting them replaced the majority of times that they're never found. For this most recent episode, however, the incompetence and stupidity shown by Bank of America actually eclipsed his.
It started out typically enough; he came home without his debit/ATM card, but denied that he'd lost it... until I played him the message on the answering machine from a B of A branch informing him that his card had been turned in there, at which point he admitted that he must have left it at the store. {sigh}
Stupidity #1 from B of A: They claimed that if my husband didn't get to the branch the next morning, they'd "have to" destroy the card... which is utterly ridiculous, as they'd NEVER "have to" destroy a bank card unless they got hold of one after a new one had been issued (as they don't want people to have more than 1 card at a time). Unreasonableness and a threat; how's that for customer service?
Stupidity #2 from B of A: By the time my husband got to the branch the next morning, they'd LOST the card. You read right; their system recorded the card coming in, but there's no record whatsoever of where it went to after the call was made to us... and they NEVER found it.
Stupidity #3 from B of A: We were told that the replacement card that they were then required to send, which after all was just a little embossing and magnetic coding put on a card blank, was going to take up to TEN business days to reach us, when in fact they should have been able to print it up right away and get it to us in a couple of days... especially since their own astounding screwup was behind the need for it.
Stupidity #4 from B of A: When I tried to pay some bills via their online banking setup, I discovered that I couldn't log in, and there was a weird error message saying that our login name didn't exist... silly me, I thought the site was down, when it in fact was just the failure of their programmers to make an error message that actually explained what the problem was. What the error message was indicating turned out to be...
Stupidity #5 from B of A: Although the card was NOT stolen, and even if it had been it contained no info that'd allow anyone to access the online banking setup, when their system processed the request for a new card it shut down our ability to pay our bills online... and remember, this is in addition to being unable to use the ATM's or make purchases with the card-talk about adding insult to injury, not to mention having no clue as to how the online world is connected (or not, in this case) to the real world.
Stupidity #6 from B of A: Because the online banking setup had been signed up for using my husband's info, even though there was a joint account involved they tried to convince me that there was no way that *I* could get the account unsealed... I eventually talked them into it, and paid the bills I'd intended to, but I shouldn't have HAD to fight for access to my own @#$%^&* checking account.
Stupidity #7 from B of A: When the card finally got here, my husband followed the instructions to activate it over the phone, and they didn't work, and the system told him to use the ATM... and of course, when he went to the ATM, IT didn't work, and told him to activate it by phone.
Stupidity #8 from B of A: I went to pay some bills online, and... you guessed it.
Stupidity #9 from B of A: They tried to convince me that there was no way they could have any sort of interchange with me that would allow the account to be unsealed, despite the fact that they'd had that ability just last week, and yes, I told them that; my husband came home at that point, and to save time I just handed the phone over to him.
Stupidity #10 from B of A: My husband told them that he wanted me to be able to have access to the online banking regardless of what was going on with him, as I had every right to expect to be able to do, but they said they "couldn't" add me on as an equal user to the account; all they could do was add me on as another user with different login info... and there's no guarantee that I won't still get locked out the next time he loses a card, as all the accounts still have his name on them (would YOU trust anything they said?).
Stupidity #11 from B of A: They informed him that the payee info that I'd laboriously entered for every company we get billed from could NOT be copied into this new user account!! This one is the worst of all, really, because there's no possible security issue even in the mind of the most clueless person with all account holders being able to pay their bills without having to re-enter all the info, it'd be trivially simple to program, and it's a GROSS lapse in customer service and common sense to not be able to do it... so, even if I CAN still get access to online bill paying next time my husband loses his card, I'm going to have to use so much effort to pay anything that I'd be better off just writing out a check.
Stupidity #12 from B of A: When I logged into the new account area (with gritted teeth), I discovered something amazing; the account info for our savings account was on there... but it does NOT show up in the original user account's listing. An email has been dispatched to inquire as to WHY we're not seeing the savings account under the original login name, since now it's clear that the info IS available online. Their system claims that a reply will be sent within 12 hours, which tells me that either they're lying through their teeth, or they've outsourced some or all of their customer service stuff to other countries... neither of which option endears me to them. (Update: they NEVER replied to me, but the savings account info has appeared on the original user account.)
When I announced my intention to start up with online banking in my post of 3-25-05 (because my bill payments were vanishing into the nether regions of the postal system), I said, "I'm nervous about what disasters could befall me if I try to deal with $ online"; I wish my instincts had been off just this once...
It started out typically enough; he came home without his debit/ATM card, but denied that he'd lost it... until I played him the message on the answering machine from a B of A branch informing him that his card had been turned in there, at which point he admitted that he must have left it at the store. {sigh}
Stupidity #1 from B of A: They claimed that if my husband didn't get to the branch the next morning, they'd "have to" destroy the card... which is utterly ridiculous, as they'd NEVER "have to" destroy a bank card unless they got hold of one after a new one had been issued (as they don't want people to have more than 1 card at a time). Unreasonableness and a threat; how's that for customer service?
Stupidity #2 from B of A: By the time my husband got to the branch the next morning, they'd LOST the card. You read right; their system recorded the card coming in, but there's no record whatsoever of where it went to after the call was made to us... and they NEVER found it.
Stupidity #3 from B of A: We were told that the replacement card that they were then required to send, which after all was just a little embossing and magnetic coding put on a card blank, was going to take up to TEN business days to reach us, when in fact they should have been able to print it up right away and get it to us in a couple of days... especially since their own astounding screwup was behind the need for it.
Stupidity #4 from B of A: When I tried to pay some bills via their online banking setup, I discovered that I couldn't log in, and there was a weird error message saying that our login name didn't exist... silly me, I thought the site was down, when it in fact was just the failure of their programmers to make an error message that actually explained what the problem was. What the error message was indicating turned out to be...
Stupidity #5 from B of A: Although the card was NOT stolen, and even if it had been it contained no info that'd allow anyone to access the online banking setup, when their system processed the request for a new card it shut down our ability to pay our bills online... and remember, this is in addition to being unable to use the ATM's or make purchases with the card-talk about adding insult to injury, not to mention having no clue as to how the online world is connected (or not, in this case) to the real world.
Stupidity #6 from B of A: Because the online banking setup had been signed up for using my husband's info, even though there was a joint account involved they tried to convince me that there was no way that *I* could get the account unsealed... I eventually talked them into it, and paid the bills I'd intended to, but I shouldn't have HAD to fight for access to my own @#$%^&* checking account.
Stupidity #7 from B of A: When the card finally got here, my husband followed the instructions to activate it over the phone, and they didn't work, and the system told him to use the ATM... and of course, when he went to the ATM, IT didn't work, and told him to activate it by phone.
Stupidity #8 from B of A: I went to pay some bills online, and... you guessed it.
Stupidity #9 from B of A: They tried to convince me that there was no way they could have any sort of interchange with me that would allow the account to be unsealed, despite the fact that they'd had that ability just last week, and yes, I told them that; my husband came home at that point, and to save time I just handed the phone over to him.
Stupidity #10 from B of A: My husband told them that he wanted me to be able to have access to the online banking regardless of what was going on with him, as I had every right to expect to be able to do, but they said they "couldn't" add me on as an equal user to the account; all they could do was add me on as another user with different login info... and there's no guarantee that I won't still get locked out the next time he loses a card, as all the accounts still have his name on them (would YOU trust anything they said?).
Stupidity #11 from B of A: They informed him that the payee info that I'd laboriously entered for every company we get billed from could NOT be copied into this new user account!! This one is the worst of all, really, because there's no possible security issue even in the mind of the most clueless person with all account holders being able to pay their bills without having to re-enter all the info, it'd be trivially simple to program, and it's a GROSS lapse in customer service and common sense to not be able to do it... so, even if I CAN still get access to online bill paying next time my husband loses his card, I'm going to have to use so much effort to pay anything that I'd be better off just writing out a check.
Stupidity #12 from B of A: When I logged into the new account area (with gritted teeth), I discovered something amazing; the account info for our savings account was on there... but it does NOT show up in the original user account's listing. An email has been dispatched to inquire as to WHY we're not seeing the savings account under the original login name, since now it's clear that the info IS available online. Their system claims that a reply will be sent within 12 hours, which tells me that either they're lying through their teeth, or they've outsourced some or all of their customer service stuff to other countries... neither of which option endears me to them. (Update: they NEVER replied to me, but the savings account info has appeared on the original user account.)
When I announced my intention to start up with online banking in my post of 3-25-05 (because my bill payments were vanishing into the nether regions of the postal system), I said, "I'm nervous about what disasters could befall me if I try to deal with $ online"; I wish my instincts had been off just this once...
Monday, June 27, 2005
Summer sun sense
With the July 4th weekend fast approaching, it's time to give a little thought to not getting fried by the sun at beaches and BBQ's; not only is the pain something we can do without, sun damage is aging, and, worst of all, greatly increases the possibility of getting skin cancer. Most of us are bright enough to glop on sunscreen before spending a day in the rays, but it turns out that this might be doing more harm than good, according to a blurb in the June 2005 issue of Cosmo:
"Many sunscreens only protect against UVB (or burning) rays because it was thought that those were the only beams that caused cancer. However, there's new evidence that UVA rays, which age the skin but don't burn you, are carcinogenic too, says dermatologist Nick Lowe... 'A sunscreen that doesn't protect against UVA rays can be worse than none at all, because it allows you to stay in the sun all day without burning, but you're still damaging your DNA,' says Sheldon Pinnell, MD, professor emeritus of dermatology at Duke University Medical Center."
WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!! After all those years of telling us we'd be safe as long as we used sunscreen and prevented burns, now it turns out that people who've used sunscreen to be able to enjoy being out in the sun all the time have been putting themselves at INCREASED cancer risk, not to mention enduring photoaging (aging by sunlight)? Why do we EVER believe it when doctors tell us that XYZ will make us safe, when we know perfectly well that they don't know all the facts about ANYTHING?
The updated advice for selecting sunscreen is:
"Your best defense is a sunscreen (minimum SPF 15) with zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, or avobenzone (also called Parsol 1789); it will likely be labeled as full- or broad-spectrum or indicate UVA and UVB protection. It's also good to choose a block laced with antioxidants like vitamins C or E or green tea. They help your sunscreen do its job by fighting off free radicals generated by UV light."
Other articles I've read have claimed Parsol 1789 to be the best sun protection ingredient available in this country (there's a supposedly better one available in most of the world outside of the US called mexoryl, but without FDA approval no accurate comparison can be made), so that's the one to go for if you can afford it (the others are cheaper). They tell us to use enough sunscreen to fill a shot glass to cover our bodies, or an amount the size of a golf ball, but most of us only use 1/4 that much, which, according to Dr. Pinnell, "turns SPF 30 into about SPF 4" (I guess SPF doesn't work according to basic math), so it's best to use the highest SPF you can find and NOT to trust that you're getting the level of protection the # suggests, by a wide margin.
They say you should wear sunscreen every day, which would be honestly unbearable for ME, as, perhaps because I have sensitive skin, I can feel the nasty stuff sitting there on me, and it feels AWFUL; also, despite what they say, you can NOT put it under makeup... even the concealer that comes in a hard stick can't hold on very well to those greasy chemicals. The closest thing there is to an exception is the one I'm going to recommend:
Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock, UVA/UVB Protection with Parsol 1789... in SPF 45. It's non-oily, contains antioxidants (A, C and E), and is waterproof, sweatproof, rub-proof and non-comedogenic (won't clog pores and cause acne); it's one of the more expensive options, but, as much as I love to pinch a penny and get a bargain, this is one of the areas where I'd say it's crucial to go for the best. You may notice a few moments of "sunscreen ick" before it's absorbed, but after that you won't have that gross feeling of wearing sunscreen, and you can put some makeup on over it (I haven't tried liquid or cream makeups, but powder and stick are ok), so you can protect your face from the sun without having to show your undereye circles and blotches. It's available most places where sunscreen is sold, or you can order it online
http://store.yahoo.com/seabreezewholesale/ulshsp11.html
If you forget the sunscreen and end up burned, take a cool shower as soon as you can (like regular burns, sunburns develop slowly, and cooling the skin can stop the process), take ibuprofen and vitamin E, slather your skin with moisturizer and hydrocortisone (and a first aid or waxing-prep cream with lidocaine or pramoxine if you need extra pain killing); you can also puncture an E oil capsule and apply it directly to your skin, which works well but stains, so you can't use it under or near your clothing, or on skin that's about to be in contact with bedding.
My final tips:
Men, your greatest skin cancer risks are the tops of your ears and, if you're bald(ing), the top of your head, so be sure and protect those areas... a hat would be a good idea if you're comfortable wearing one (NOT a cap, as that doesn't protect your ears).
Ladies, I've read that as much as 95% of facial aging is photoaging, so for extra protection you might want to consider a wide-brimmed hat if it fits in with your style, or, if not, carry an umbrella or parasol to shade your face... with the big bonus of the latter being that you can twirl it coquettishly and attract admiring male glances.
And the most important tip of all; make sure your KIDS are covered in sunscreen every time they're going to be out in the sun... their future skin cancer risk will be determined in large part by how many burns they get in their first couple of decades.
"Many sunscreens only protect against UVB (or burning) rays because it was thought that those were the only beams that caused cancer. However, there's new evidence that UVA rays, which age the skin but don't burn you, are carcinogenic too, says dermatologist Nick Lowe... 'A sunscreen that doesn't protect against UVA rays can be worse than none at all, because it allows you to stay in the sun all day without burning, but you're still damaging your DNA,' says Sheldon Pinnell, MD, professor emeritus of dermatology at Duke University Medical Center."
WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!! After all those years of telling us we'd be safe as long as we used sunscreen and prevented burns, now it turns out that people who've used sunscreen to be able to enjoy being out in the sun all the time have been putting themselves at INCREASED cancer risk, not to mention enduring photoaging (aging by sunlight)? Why do we EVER believe it when doctors tell us that XYZ will make us safe, when we know perfectly well that they don't know all the facts about ANYTHING?
The updated advice for selecting sunscreen is:
"Your best defense is a sunscreen (minimum SPF 15) with zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, or avobenzone (also called Parsol 1789); it will likely be labeled as full- or broad-spectrum or indicate UVA and UVB protection. It's also good to choose a block laced with antioxidants like vitamins C or E or green tea. They help your sunscreen do its job by fighting off free radicals generated by UV light."
Other articles I've read have claimed Parsol 1789 to be the best sun protection ingredient available in this country (there's a supposedly better one available in most of the world outside of the US called mexoryl, but without FDA approval no accurate comparison can be made), so that's the one to go for if you can afford it (the others are cheaper). They tell us to use enough sunscreen to fill a shot glass to cover our bodies, or an amount the size of a golf ball, but most of us only use 1/4 that much, which, according to Dr. Pinnell, "turns SPF 30 into about SPF 4" (I guess SPF doesn't work according to basic math), so it's best to use the highest SPF you can find and NOT to trust that you're getting the level of protection the # suggests, by a wide margin.
They say you should wear sunscreen every day, which would be honestly unbearable for ME, as, perhaps because I have sensitive skin, I can feel the nasty stuff sitting there on me, and it feels AWFUL; also, despite what they say, you can NOT put it under makeup... even the concealer that comes in a hard stick can't hold on very well to those greasy chemicals. The closest thing there is to an exception is the one I'm going to recommend:
Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock, UVA/UVB Protection with Parsol 1789... in SPF 45. It's non-oily, contains antioxidants (A, C and E), and is waterproof, sweatproof, rub-proof and non-comedogenic (won't clog pores and cause acne); it's one of the more expensive options, but, as much as I love to pinch a penny and get a bargain, this is one of the areas where I'd say it's crucial to go for the best. You may notice a few moments of "sunscreen ick" before it's absorbed, but after that you won't have that gross feeling of wearing sunscreen, and you can put some makeup on over it (I haven't tried liquid or cream makeups, but powder and stick are ok), so you can protect your face from the sun without having to show your undereye circles and blotches. It's available most places where sunscreen is sold, or you can order it online
http://store.yahoo.com/seabreezewholesale/ulshsp11.html
If you forget the sunscreen and end up burned, take a cool shower as soon as you can (like regular burns, sunburns develop slowly, and cooling the skin can stop the process), take ibuprofen and vitamin E, slather your skin with moisturizer and hydrocortisone (and a first aid or waxing-prep cream with lidocaine or pramoxine if you need extra pain killing); you can also puncture an E oil capsule and apply it directly to your skin, which works well but stains, so you can't use it under or near your clothing, or on skin that's about to be in contact with bedding.
My final tips:
Men, your greatest skin cancer risks are the tops of your ears and, if you're bald(ing), the top of your head, so be sure and protect those areas... a hat would be a good idea if you're comfortable wearing one (NOT a cap, as that doesn't protect your ears).
Ladies, I've read that as much as 95% of facial aging is photoaging, so for extra protection you might want to consider a wide-brimmed hat if it fits in with your style, or, if not, carry an umbrella or parasol to shade your face... with the big bonus of the latter being that you can twirl it coquettishly and attract admiring male glances.
And the most important tip of all; make sure your KIDS are covered in sunscreen every time they're going to be out in the sun... their future skin cancer risk will be determined in large part by how many burns they get in their first couple of decades.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
The development of the soul
My contemplation of what sort of soul, if any, an evil person might have in yesterday's post got me thinking:
The soul is formed from the energy of thought and feeling; does the KIND of thoughts and feelings you have affect the size and quality of your soul? If you're not much of a thinker and/or are unemotional, do you have a stunted soul? If your soul is of the wrong kind or not sufficiently powerful, does it fail to form a spirit when you die?
That's a BIG question; is there any reason to think that EVERYONE has a soul, much less that everyone has a spirit after their death? Does every soul eventually become a spirit? Can negative energy, can evil, make something wonderful like a soul, much less an eternal spirit? If not, how much of that can you have before your soul can no longer reach "critical mass" to form a spirit, or falls apart entirely?
Negative energy isn't just evil, violence, hatred and other "bad" emotions, but things like fear and sadness as well; if you've had an unhappy or anxious life, does that affect your soul? I sure hope not, but from a cold-blooded viewpoint of analyzing energies it seems as if it MUST have an effect. If you go through life thinking unpleasant thoughts, no matter how justified, no matter how appropriate for what life has done to you, what sort of soul are you creating?
If you produce positive energy and thoughts, does that counteract the negative stuff, as if opposing charges were literally canceling each other out, or do they mix together like white and black paint to make ever-changing shades of gray whose darkness or lightness depends on how your life is going?
If you die when your life is at a low point, can you be cheated out of having a spirit, even if most of your life was good? If you get your life in good shape before you die, can you overcome years of strife and stress and be assured of having a spirit? Or, does it all average out, and that average is what counts when you die?
Does this sound crazy? It does, yes, even to ME, but when I consider that humans can be born lacking, fail to develop, or lose literally EVERY other piece and part (sometimes leading to death, of course), I have to accept that it's only realistic to see the soul as being variable, and destructible, as well.
I've always said that, for the sake of your karma, it's important to try to avoid negative thoughts and emotions, and to cultivate positive ones, because you draw to yourself what you put out; now, I'm facing the realization that our souls, and our ability to continue to exist after the death of our bodies, may depend on this as well.
No horror movie could ever be as terrifying.
The soul is formed from the energy of thought and feeling; does the KIND of thoughts and feelings you have affect the size and quality of your soul? If you're not much of a thinker and/or are unemotional, do you have a stunted soul? If your soul is of the wrong kind or not sufficiently powerful, does it fail to form a spirit when you die?
That's a BIG question; is there any reason to think that EVERYONE has a soul, much less that everyone has a spirit after their death? Does every soul eventually become a spirit? Can negative energy, can evil, make something wonderful like a soul, much less an eternal spirit? If not, how much of that can you have before your soul can no longer reach "critical mass" to form a spirit, or falls apart entirely?
Negative energy isn't just evil, violence, hatred and other "bad" emotions, but things like fear and sadness as well; if you've had an unhappy or anxious life, does that affect your soul? I sure hope not, but from a cold-blooded viewpoint of analyzing energies it seems as if it MUST have an effect. If you go through life thinking unpleasant thoughts, no matter how justified, no matter how appropriate for what life has done to you, what sort of soul are you creating?
If you produce positive energy and thoughts, does that counteract the negative stuff, as if opposing charges were literally canceling each other out, or do they mix together like white and black paint to make ever-changing shades of gray whose darkness or lightness depends on how your life is going?
If you die when your life is at a low point, can you be cheated out of having a spirit, even if most of your life was good? If you get your life in good shape before you die, can you overcome years of strife and stress and be assured of having a spirit? Or, does it all average out, and that average is what counts when you die?
Does this sound crazy? It does, yes, even to ME, but when I consider that humans can be born lacking, fail to develop, or lose literally EVERY other piece and part (sometimes leading to death, of course), I have to accept that it's only realistic to see the soul as being variable, and destructible, as well.
I've always said that, for the sake of your karma, it's important to try to avoid negative thoughts and emotions, and to cultivate positive ones, because you draw to yourself what you put out; now, I'm facing the realization that our souls, and our ability to continue to exist after the death of our bodies, may depend on this as well.
No horror movie could ever be as terrifying.
