'Proper Kind of Disagreement'

Fell over this study, and had to reflect this a little more. As a mom with a 15 and a 12 year old, this kind of troubles are, as for any other parent, a kind of 'daily bread' we got to positively deal with.While I find it easier to argue in good ways with my 15 year old daughter, I am presently heavily struggling with a 12 year old wild boy who is sweeping his growing deer antlers - and does so with me as his sparring partner. I know they need that to learn using them in good ways. But at the same time he ought to do with other stags. Well, looking at the study once more I find that also it is some kind of natural doing so on a safe terrain. And that safe ground is obviously me.

Looking at this behavior closer, it might be that it is in fact an honor that they do such learning process where they trust in the counterpart. Where such trust does not exist, they also can't perform that training process.

As parents all this strange behavior kids express towards us is often enough not really understandable, and my daughter is very funny when she is able to express some days that she definitely knows the periods when her mind and hormonal brain flooding is playing tricks on her. Also learning to self-assess and realizing such factors is very important for finding ways to communicate and find together. Provided that the counterpart accepts this benevolently and does not use such kind of acknowledgement of own weakness of the other to weaken him or her further and then attack on this weak point. The latter is definitely just very undeveloped social skills and unfortunately, many people make their little wins that way. Even dogs have more advanced social skills. It is a nice outcome of the study that apparently humans can also learn to get there.

Teens who express differences might also resist peer pressure
Anne-Marie Tobin, The Canadian Press, Thursday, December 22, 2011 12:00 AM

[...] Essentially, the kids who express their own points of view in the right way are practising an important life skill. Allen said teens need to learn to stand up for themselves somewhere, and those who learn to do so in the right way with their parents are actually much better suited to do it well with their peers.

The study is published Thursday in the journal Child Development. [...]

The study was only done with moms because there were more families with mothers, due to divorces and the rates of single-parent families, but Allen said it's possible the same process applies to interactions with dads.
Allen said it makes sense that the teens who can disagree with their parents can disagree with their peers and don't get influenced as much.

"A teen who is successful at standing up for themselves might have a friend who's abusing substances, but is able to stand apart from that behaviour," he said.

"Whereas a teen who, for example, with their parents just says 'yes sir,' 'yes ma'am,' even when they really don't agree or really don't understand, it looks like they maybe do the same thing with their peers — and they just say 'OK, I'll do it,' whether or not it makes sense for them."

He said the challenge for parents who disagree with their kids is to work toward having the right kind of disagreements that are handled in a reasonable way. [...]

I certainly consider the ability to discuss any problem in good ways a matter of highest relevance, and it will be even more the more crowded and closer the world becomes. We all are different, we all have different views and opinions, and with some people it also becomes evident that we might never find a common basis. Also that we have to accept.

But in general it would be possible to deal with any kind of diversity, to be able to explain and to be able to also understand. Provided that the participants develop a sense for anything that is outside of their own little soup bowl. And that is a phase of social-emotional development that got to happen if anyone ever wants to grow. For everyone. A conglomerate of ego-driven dummies won't be able to face what's ahead. We only will if we see there is more than our individual needs and baby-like behaviour. Such development of in-and-outsight usually takes place in the stage of pubicity, and therefore it is so important to interact in that phase, not just to let flow or even go back to an earlier stage, stuffing into widely opened beaks when the nestlings expect us to do so. Naturally, the process is started by our internal programming which is perfectly synchronized for making humans grow. It virtually makes no sense to carry around 1,50 up to 1,80 meters tall 'babies' or driving them around in cars as many parents do when they realize that prams don't work out anymore. If healthy, kids naturally prepare for release and start up the respective steps. All is well arranged. If that step does not occur in natural and healthy ways ... well, then something must happen. Kids just will fill into gaps and breeches they find open to their convenience and develop according to what is around.

Any children undergo a process to understand that they are not only part of a group but also play an individual role within, and it is of importance for them to learn and understand the world they live in and what place they find in there. How that process will be successfull certainly depends on a lot of factors. It starts with the parents and peers, but it is also a commonly known fact that

'It takes a village to raise a child'.
(African proverb)

I can only confirm that the phase for kids is very important to stand up and express their own opinions. If these are their own and at least halfway processed and not just an unreflective reproduction of programming from otherside, any statements are discussable. Cultural and social environments, societies and media have a strong impact on the early development of children already - and I certainly have also underestimated the latter even though due to my background already much more aware of media psychology than many other parents. That makes it even more important that children learn to have and reflect own opinions and not just flow with the stream. If we would have been meant to be parrots we certainly would have become such.

Living beings learn to stand in life. 
Dead bodies flow with the stream.

It really depends on how the parents deal with it. That part is often difficult enough and sometimes (often) just extremely challenging. The good thing just is that

Challenges are there for growth. 


Keeping on loving, moving ahead,
Lyn


Links

• Predictors of Susceptibility to Peer Influence Regarding Substance Use in Adolescence Joseph P. Allen, Joanna Chango, David Szwedo, Megan Schad, Emily Marston Article first published online: 21 DEC 2011
• Argumentative Teens More Likely to Resist Peer Pressure
• Virginia Adolescent Research Group
• Medicine JournalFeeds

Job's Tears or Squeezing out the Limon(ene)

It's crazy, these days. Hope you all had a merry good Christmas and not just 'another holiday season'. You may guess what I mean. Times are moving, changing, and that is, of course, the way it should be. Just where to it's changing, is another thing.

More or less while I wrote the last post on 'getting rid of our shit', my son's brandnew iPod, birthday present from our cousin, perished. To be honest, it did because it stole my son's ability to act on other things but the siren call of that 'i'-thing. I love technology, I love machines (preferrably big ones - real big ones which produce a lot of power), I have always been pushing forward new ideas and, yes, technologies, especially communication technologies (and am shocked by what was made out of them). But to me it is always clear that the human is to master the machine and not the other way around. And anything that is invented for good, people are able to misuse for bad. Must be an unwritten law or something like that.

My son was mastered by Steve Jobs' - may God be merciful to his ashes & soul - team's gorgeous invention which is beautiful, fascinating, gorgeous in design and technology but desastrous and destructive to the social, emotional, brain and nerval development of our children.

It's all about the 'i', isn't it (but not meant is the 'eye' that sees - more the 'ego' that sees nothing but 'i'tself).

A bad aftertaste of last century's 90s. Our kids didn't experience any of the developments consciously and didn't grow awarely into what happened. That makes them easy victims. Adults, too, when they are steered by wanting to be wannabes, and have not started yet to use their brains. Mac was cool when it started up. It was for unique and special people, creative people, people that were out for more quality and more user-orientation, people that needed the advanced features and applications in a special, the creative field - and people who fall for design, of course. Design in a sense that you receive the beauty of something that is created with dedication and some kind of love for what you do, inside and outside.

My son cried real tears when that thing had to go, and I understand him perfectly, from his point of view. I would just like to know if S. Jobs might also have cried some tears (or not) for what has happened to and with his idea(ls).

Apple just became uncool when it started to be all about 'i' - when it started to bet on making the not so special people feel as if they were special. A simple marketing offense, of course, appealing to the 4th level if you look at Maslow's pyramid.

Wanna play a little with the essence of word? 

Translate the 'pod' literally and combine with the 'i' (which is then 'you'). So we talk about the hull of someone, the shell for him, for you which is this little designed music thing. And there is where the dilemma starts: the technology is great and fine, but here, out of the sudden. it starts to claim being the mantle, the shell, the jacket of the 'i', of what you are, a shell for the 'I am'. Think plastically: the kid's self ('i') then must be inside the 'pod' - if it is an 'I' 'Pod'.

Take away the 'i', then it becomes what it is meant to be - a fun thing (though terribly overprized) to listen to some music you like. Unless it separates you from the world. This is your, my, everyones's own responsibility. Wanna be a pea in a pod? Go ahead. A mollusk in its shell? Please, feel free.
(Beautiful pic, by the way. Just not if that shell is to contain me or you, at least according to my point of view.)

Or choose.

Oh dear. You know, they never lie. They do not need to lie because anyway, the set-up triggers work so perfectly that no one could stop the victims to happily enslave themselves. The Matrix is certainly very clear in its metaphors.


My second 'Job's tears' came in with a brand named 'Rituals'.

My dearest wanted to do me something really good, and knew my affinity with the mental ways of cleaning (out) and also knows how much I need a time-out these days. So he in best intention stumbled over a promise that's completely misleading. A clever concept to sell people what they inside are searching for. Just create some chemical mix that got nothing, really nothing to do with the promise on the nicely designed plastic.

Starting with a pseudo-celtic-asian fused symbol creation, they sell 'T'ai Chi' (an inner martial art people practice and learn for ages) or 'Wu Wei' (the art of not acting in a very special sense) and other inner and mental arts for just some €s in bottles and tubes. Also my short descriptions here are very 'short' in that sense, as to understand the terms and meaning behind, it takes processes to really get the meaning and incorporate those. A foot balm of theirs is for instance named 'Lao Tze'. Some might know that we are talking about a high-end philosopher whose insights are still quoted all over the world. So now, that guy is to end up as a foot balm for spoilt and superfluous luxury ladies with a bad common education. Otherwise they would refuse to degrade the wise for using them for their feet. But many do and are captured by the consumption call.

The product line is called 'Tao' - The Way. Others are not better, named 'Zen' (get Zen in bottles - gorgeous) or 'Sakura'. For the last one, though people might misinterpret in a different way, may they all receive what they call for when asking for transience without knowing what they do.

Good luck, ladies!

Yeah, that was deeply sarcastical, of course. Carpe diem b(u)y consumption. Dears, like it or not, it does not work that way.

Some of that stuff contains an ingredient named 'Job's tears' where there is nothing wrong with, of course. It's just my link to the earlier event these days. Other ingredients actually make me much more worry and wonder.

The company 'sells' that stuff with pseudo-responsibility labels and nevertheless, if you look deeper, you are just 'fooled by facades'.


Check out yourself how much is inside those 'philosophies' when you read on lists like some of these:

Polyethylene, Glycerin, Ethylhexyl Stearate, Glyceryl Stearate, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Glyceril Stearate Citrate, Parfum/Fragrance, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Cetearyl Sulfate, Polyacrylamide, Benzyl Salicylate, Citric Acid, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), FD&C Blue No.1 (CI 42090), Citric Acid, Limonene ....

So now, what got Titanium Dioxide got to do in a body scrub? Neither is the scrub supposed to protect from sun, nor does it make it more pleasant to look at if it is Tipp-Ex white, no? But look at how else Titanium Dioxide is discussed, e.g.

According to the Cosmetics Database, Titanium Dioxide is considered a low to moderate hazard ingredient, depending on use. The EWG notes concerns regarding cancer, allergic reactions, biochemical and cellular changes, organ system toxicity and irritation. Titanium Dioxide can produce "excess reactive oxygen species that can interfere with cellular signaling, cause mutations, lead to cell death and may be implicated in cardiovascular disease." Animal studies showed that very low doses were able to cause respiratory and cardiovascular effects, and this ingredient has been classified as "expected to be toxic or harmful" and as a medium health priority.

Limonene, Citric Acid?
Well,as a child I knew to use orange peels to clean off the tar clumps that you automatically got sticking to your feet walking down a beach at the mediterranean east coast (guess where they came from).
Limonene and Citric Acid are now both ingredients in a a 'Rituals' cream bath named 'Wu Wei'. Citric Acid actually, I prefer to use to decalcify very stubborn residues on hot water or coffee machines, and I certainly have no problem using lemon juice also for my skin. Just bathing in the chemical version of it? I bet it softens the skin ... and longterm certainly not the way I want it. Or, as from Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetics database:

Limonene is a scent ingredient and solvent naturally ocurring in the rind of citrus fruit. Upon storage and exposure to sunlight and air, limonene degrades to various oxidation products which act as skin and respiratory irritants and sensitizers.

On Polyacrylamide some comment found via truthinaging.com:

Polyacrylamide is a polymer that is formed from units of acrylamide, a known neurotoxin. However, Polyacrylamide itself is not considered to be toxic, but is a controversial ingredient because of its potential ability to secrete Acrylamide, according to Wikipedia.[...]
The Cosmetic Database finds Polyacrylamide to be a moderate hazard ingredient and notes multiple concerns, including neurotoxicity, organ system toxicity and data gaps. The biggest warning regarding the use of Polyacrylamide is the contamination concern and the presence of Acrylamide, a known toxin.
Acrylamide is rated by the EWG as a high hazard ingredient, at a 10, the highest level possible, due to cancer, developmental and reproductive toxicity, allergic reactions, organ system toxicity, neurotoxicity, irritation of the skin and eyes, and endocrine disruption, as well as biohazardous effects.

The question is, do such things factually need to be in something we smear on and in our bodies? Our skin is permeable and same as our lungs and intestinal walls absorbing and transporting various stuff into the organism.

Now, what I seriously have a problem about is Benzyl Salicylate.
Again, from EWGs Skin Deep Cosmetic data base:

EU Banned and Restricted Fragrances
BENZYL SALICYLATE
Fragrance chemical, which, according to existing knowledge, is frequently reported as a well-recognised consumer allergen

'Rituals.com' uses symbolisms like 'Tao' (and Zen, and others) and the value of purifying mind and soul, and at the same time is doing the absolute opposite for people who especially look for and are in search of that. This is ab-use. And that is what makes me so very, very angry. My first professional education is in sales, communication and marketing, and that does not automatically include lying. Just some people who see this as 'opportunities' are making that from it.


Not tested on animals as a sales argument? 
Just looking above you will find that the ingredients have been tested, of course, even if not directly for a certain product but nevertheless more than to exhaustion in the past. Check out the EU wide ban on animal testing of 11 September 2004, including the plan for fading out those tests. Overdue. But the company founded in 2000 has quite likely not done much towards this development as such takes ages of time. Surely it is always nice to decorate oneself with something one has done not much for to happen.


Do we really believe that we can pursue inner and mental e-volution in the bathtub with certain products while renowned philosophers are soothening our feet and respected philosophies have to stand in for scrubbing our backs? For the Asian culture this is mostly considerable as an absolute insult by complete disrespectfulness.


It's up to everyone to feel free, and fall for misleading symbolisms that sell you 'wellness' with appealing to a wish for higher levels.
You can ease your mind and don't think about it, as that is what you are supposed to. Or you can do. It's up to you.

Another little thing I just tracked, just look and sense yourself how interestingly it matches:

Your body. Your soul. Your rituals.
(rituals.com)

Chemistry – our life, our future.
(chemgeneration.com)

2011 was called out the International Year of Chemistry (with the slogan 'celebrate chemistry') and lots of public money was spent for the community to celebrate themselves and the illusions made up for (us?) stupids to believe. Check out the sponsors, check out the backgrounds to their statements, the ethics of today and what they are built on by ethics of the past (going back just 70 years is very sufficient for some of the big players), entanglements and influences on what we have to swallow (or smear on our bodies) .

Check out what works they really do, what fruit they really bear, here and now and in reality and not in their  PR campaigns. And make up your own mind, free from dogmata or what you are made to believe. I am more than happy it will soon be over with the turn of the calendar, this celebrating. There are many sciences that have their own little problems, but the chemical industry is a problem in itself.


Except those future and future-minded chemists that will be needed desperately one day, namely to clean up the mess chemistry has committed on this planet.

With my sincerest apologies to Lǎozǐ for marketing-misguided co-inhabitants down here and to give that wisdom a better place than on some Titan dioxide containing tubes, herewith found from BrainyQuotes TM - Lao Tzu Quotes:

He who controls others may be powerful,
but he who has mastered himself
is mightier still.
Lao Tzu

Enjoy a gorgeous good time,
Lyn


PS With many thanks for the gorgeous photographies by Michael Dunne. Check out more if you like so on (mick)'s photostream

Finding of the Day - Get Rid

... of your shit.


You can pay a lot for an interior designer or even, if you like it more exotic, for Feng-Shui counselling and where you should best position this or that item in this or that colour or symbolizing this or that in your place (which makes a difference, of course).

Just that whatever you do, it only makes sense if you first

get rid of your shit.


(T'was nice to repeat that once more, it is of eminent importance.)

I guess it is a good day for it. Enjoy the feeling,

Lyn

Got a Dove on Your Roof?

A German proverb says

A sparrow in the hand is better than a dove on your roof. (Ein Spatz in der Hand ist besser als die Taube auf dem Dach)

and on the other side of the world people most likely must have similar ideas, stating

Dumplings are better than cherry blossoms.
(Japanese proverb)

I just find that every One in the end must make up his/ her own mind and his/ her own decisions what is worth going for and what we are ready to give for that freedom. Our lives are results of our decisions. We must know what we want from life. If we stay in unsatisfying relations, professionally, personally, we in the end end up finding that we only smuggle our Selves through our very own life. A pity.

Have you ever figured out the dove that might be so near - already sitting on your roof?

It just takes you to take a short break and to start to see ... just a little, little further.


And sometimes, when the worlds really come together, they even show up personally, as happened at my place the year before. Pic is not very good, but the pic in my heart is certainly very, very clear. I just can recommend to go for it.

The world as it is will surely turn.
If you stick to what you got just because you gave up dreaming,
that then might have been all there ever was - for you.

Love,
Lyn

The Power of Song

Recently strongly feeling that I need singing, well knowing what it does, here some re~flections on the power of singing. Singing by itself is doing a lot to harmonize the breath and with it a general well-being, as well. It's some kind of funny that our societies have come down to offering paid, of course, breath therapies. Singing itself is the best therapy for re-learning to breathe.

But not every song does the same. It depends on the frequencies of the songs we choose, the message in the wording and the vibrations they create in us. In the best sense, singing creates flow and harmony. In the worst sense, we can call in our most feared nightmares and get struck into problems by unconscientously choosing what we sing, in which context and towards or with whom. No person is an island. People are always a part of a whole. What we vision, there we will come, and what we sing that comes on us. What we set our minds on becomes reality at a point when we might already have forgotten an unconscious 'wish'. What we connect strong emotions with, sometimes unfortunately by choosing words and thoughts carelessly, we call into life. We are all creators. And we are all in a world where there is lots of people around who also have their wishes and who also do create.

There is good reason why singing is used in any kind of 'magical' contexts. Dancing and singing is what comes deep out of ourselves as humans, and what goes deep into ourselves, at that point, when using it sloppily or being unconscious about the impact, beyond controllability by will.

What we dance can do the same, by the way. In various cultures, everyone (or at least some person/s) knows that certain entities 'own' certain songs and dances. For good reason. All is re-flection out of and on and into our brains, whether as external observers when we just let it come through to us, or as actors as singers and dancers ourselves. Our bodies and brains, our emotions and thoughts form a unity we can not escape. One is the other part of the other, always and whether we acknowledge it or not.

Singing is certainly one of the strongest emanations of thoughts and words. It involves the whole body, a vessel only but at the same time an entity with very own powers. The power of 'the word' is in principle well-known, the thought, the clear formation in our brain. It is no coincidence that old scriptures so emphasize that power. 

So just my little hint that it really matters what you sing, when, with whom, to whom, with which emotions (which we ourselves sometimes do not realize so clearly at all), with which intention and in which context.

Words matter. If we slur with words, we slur with our lives as well. And wonder why things show up so weirdly as they sometimes do. At the same time, regard that none is all alone and that we always act within a system of others who all have their own visions and goals, and the same power as anyone else. 

Just start caring a little, reflecting a little, from time to time. 

That's all what's asked. The rest comes from alone.

As similar attributes count for symbolisms as for singing, maybe we (you, she, he - whoever feels free) also can start reflecting which symbols we are using or exposed to in every day life.  

Every little thing we do shines through. 

On many different levels.

And hey: Everyone of us is still only human. So it's good to take things serious, but also not. Where and when, depends. It's just that we may, no: we must (!) also forgive ourselves. We need to, to be honest. None of us is perfect ... and none of us is imperfect at the same time.


With my best wishes for a good week
and a good song from time to time (and right now is actually a good time),


Lyn