FLOW: For Love of Water

Flow: For Love of Water (2008)

How did a handful of corporations steal our water?

Water is the very essence of life, sustaining every being on the planet. 'Flow' confronts the disturbing reality that our crucial resource is dwindling and greed just may be the cause.

Architects of Mind Control

Architects of Control

Top Blogging Mistakes and Crimes

Technically, there is no right or wrong way, but you're here to read an article to help you with blogging, right? So if you're new to blogging, you're probably finding out the way to do it, if you've been blogging for a while now and you're unhappy with the results then you're probably reading this to find out where you are going wrong. I want to start by saying that this is not like the thousand other articles that you'll find on the net about blogging and provide you with a cheat sheet on how to hit the right marks and earn lots of money by publishing articles on the internet, I'm just going to show you how to be a good blogger, and by reading this article you're already 90% of the way there.

There are many reasons to start blogging, and there is only one truly good reason to be a blogger - that is because you enjoy writing and the process of sharing your thoughts with others. Many people want to make money on the internet these days, they hear success stories of how bloggers make a living selling advertising on their blogs, and they are drawn to the idea of blogging because of the potential monetary rewards. These people never had any interest in writing, their sole motivation for starting out in the first place was to make money; if you're one of those people who want to blog for money, then here is a nice piece of advice for you - DON'T. If money is your motivation, trust me, there are plenty of other jobs where you can earn money without putting in effort, try selling your body on the street corner or pushing drugs to junkies instead (please don't take that advice seriously) - Find something you enjoy doing, rather than forcing yourself to make money with something that you have little or no interest in. If you're writing for solely for money, perhaps you will make some cash at first, but eventually the incentive to write will disappear as the money becomes less important, and your writing will reflect that in dull, boring, and uninspired articles. This is something you may end up doing for a long time, do you think that you'll be able to maintain a website, would you want to be stuck doing something you don't enjoy?

For those who do enjoy the process of writing, then you're more likely to succeed as a blogger than the gold diggers (by succeed, I mean create a popular blog). You should concentrate on writing, not visitor count or money, because if you write well, those things will come to you. Patience is key, and it is important to keep writing and publishing those articles, build up a solid blog so that your subscribers know that you are here to stay, you will get the attention you deserve. Stick to writing things that you have a passion for or are knowledgeable about, once you start wandering into subjects that don't interest you, the readers will be able to sense your apathy. Invest in a comfortable keyboard, go to a store and take the time to try the different keyboards, sample the touch and feel of the keys, and buy a keyboard that you'll enjoy and look forward to typing on. A comfortable chair is important to help you relax; your ideas are the most valuable things and if you're uncomfortable then it's going to be harder to focus on your concepts.

Once again, patience is key. Don't quit your day job, keep churning out the articles and try to post frequently so your readers won't think that you're dead. Don't think about making big bucks from your blog, because once you start thinking along those lines, it can be demoralising because you're using income to guage the quality of your writing. You should be fully focused on the task that you have set yourself and that is to write, write what you love because it comes easily, and when you do start earning from your blog you can smile because you are doing something that you love rather than forced - so stick to your style. Also the benefit of writing and posting frequently is that it will quickly help you improve, the more you write, the better you'll get and the easier it will be to express your thoughts and ideas, naturally you'll advance.

This is the best advice I can give you, most of the work is up to you. There are too many blogs designed to make money, hit keywords, and talk without passion. Write about the things that concern and interest you, show off your writing talent, and after all of it, you will have a resource to remember.

Exercise Motivation that Works from the Mind

I cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain good physical fitness and health. Exercise is as important as getting enough sleep or drinking water, but many choose not to do it, in the same way that children don't eat their vegetables. As part of a healthy lifestyle to maintain one's body function at optimum efficiency, exercise is not a choice, but an essential regime.

People do not value their bodies enough until it is too late, and partly the problem is to do with their perception of exercise. Children will not eat greens until the adult explains that their growth will be stunted if they don't eat vegetables. In the same way, adults can delay beginning a healthy exercise routine by creating all kinds of excuses in their heads. Once again, we're dealing with psychology, it has nothing to do with the starting physical condition of the individual, it has nothing to do with willpower, it is all about how one perceives the tasks at hand.

The task of exercising can often be seen as daunting, an enormous vehicle to overcome. People who don't exercise and want to start, generally set their goal too high. The goal exists as an image or phrase within the individual's mind, but when the bar is set too high, then one's morale may start to wane after a few weeks. So the trick is not what the goal is but rather, how one sets the goal. Whether through imagery or linguistically, the goal can be set so it is an easily accessible target for the body and mind to achieve and gain satisfactory results each time. It is common to say, "I want to lose weight", instead this can be rephrased, "I want to become lighter" - the use of the word 'lose' often comes with negative connotations; nobody wants to lose something. So once we begin to apply these newly reworded goals, the tasks magically become easier and more doable.

The other problem is time; in this day and age, with all our modern technology and devices, we're spoilt for instant results, we expect to get trim and fit in just a few weeks rather than thinking in terms of years. Also modern advertising is partly to blame, as many ads for weight loss and gym programs claim big results within a month, but these claims are false, as the companies that produce these adverts often place a disclaimer in small print at the bottom of the screen or poster to say that it won't for everyone. Time and patience is another topic I will cover in more depth later on, but in terms of exercise and fitness, you won't see results very quickly and because of this there is little incentive to keep going or even start. Most people are stuck in the process of preparing for the day when they 'really need to start' but by then it is too late.

Routines are important, and there are many routines that we perform (naturally and unthinking) on a daily basis that don't provide any immediate benefits. A daily routine that most people perform is washing their hands after using the toilet. We cleanse our hands of bacteria invisible to the naked eye, we can't see the bacteria yet we wash with soap and water with the knowledge that it helps remove the germs. We have such confidence in this routine because in our mind, we envision getting some heinous stomach bug and sitting on the toilet with cramp for hours if we were to ignore it. Brushing our teeth is another one, I do not know many people who don't brush their teeth, and the longer we delay to clean our teeth the more we envision our teeth slowly rotting and decaying right inside our mouths - I think it's hard for many people to skip brushing their teeth for long, even after a couple of days, there might not be any sign of visible decay, but the thought and the fear is there, enough so we're willing to take some time out of our daily schedules to take preventative measures. This is something that has been hammered into you from the day you learnt to brush your teeth and learnt about teeth hygiene, and it stays with you because you know that negligence leads to black rotting teeth which you have seen photos of.

So exercise, what are the consequences of not exercising? We already know what they are - weight gain, heart disease, premature ageing, high blood pressure ... the list goes on, but why are they not enough to shock most of us into exercising regularly? The answer is simply that we cannot imagine those things happening to us in the time frame that those things usually occur, we're talking maybe decades. Teeth decay is a different matter, we've all lost teeth, it's a part of growing up, so it is something that we can relate to, thus we continue to perform our teeth brushing, and we're taught that when we aren't brushing our teeth the decay is occurring all the time. Now we should think of exercise in the same terms, people are more motivated to prevent loss than to work towards gain. Someone may be quite reckless in their life, taking risks like drink driving, but if someone pointed a gun at their head, they may view their life differently, most people are not as response to gain as they are to loss. You could tell someone that by exercising, it will improve their looks, but that might not be the type of gain that they're interested in, but if you say instead that they will lose their looks by not exercising, it might be a more persuasive suggestion.

So we learn that in order to motivate ourselves to become better, we should keep in sight the pit that awaits us should we decide to ignore the advice. Think that each day you delay, you are losing your health, the opportunity to preserve your youth, your overall fitness. We do not need to think in terms of years, because you can wake up tomorrow morning with an extra wrinkle, because each day we fall apart, our bodies are continually decaying when we are not servicing them, this is a reason to begin today, for each hour provides an opportunity to preserve what you have, and tomorrow you can be better than without.

iPhone Vs a thing called life

So the new iPhone 4 has been launched and ready for release in stores, are you thinking of getting one even though you know that deep inside that you don't really need it and it is an unnecessary luxury and waste of money. 'I can do whatever I want, it's my money!' you retort, but, are you really doing what you want? Have you like many millions of others been captivated by Apple's clever branding and marketing?

You know, I watch people go crazy when talking about the iPhone, they don't even see it as just an electronic device, to them, it is a solution to all their problems! This is how most modern day advertising works, the products are pitched in such a way that you're made to believe that somehow the product will transform your lifestyle for better. In truth, the only way that this phone (some will go so far to say it is sacrilege to call it as such!) is going to transform people's lives is by putting them into debt. Many are led to believe that by purchasing and owning an iPhone, somehow all their life problems will ebb away and never been seen again - The iPhone is not the answer to all your life problems, in fact, it may well become the opposite!

Firstly, I'd like to do a quick thought experiment. The current competitor for the iPhone 4 is the HTC Evo, which has a faster processor and is capable of multitasking applications. Even though the HTC Evo is a slightly more powerful phone, many will still choose to buy the iPhone for whatever reason they believe or convinced themselves to believe. If we were to take the Apple logo and put it on the Evo, and put the HTC Evo logo on the iPhone, would this change people's perception of the products if they had never seen or heard of either phone before? Most claim that the iPhone is the better looking phone, but with the Evo logo, would it perhaps look slightly less attractive, because in terms of design, what do we use to guage what is better looking than our own biases and what we have been told is good. I imagine, and I hope you will too, if the Apple logo were to be emblazoned on the HTC Evo phone, it would somehow become a different object in many people's eyes.

There are many reasons to own an iPhone, but the reasons for owning one may outweigh them. Out of all the companies, Apple have latched on to the idea that people are embarrassed of owning an older model phone, while most companies have already built in a lifespan for their phones, Apple have gone one step further and made it so once you buy an iPhone, you become invisibly subscribed to Apple's 'upgrade or be embarrassed' money sucking scheme. Because who wants to have last year's iPhone, when the latest iPhone is marketed as the item that only cool kids have? Now think about each iPhone generation, is each successive iPhone really that much better than the previous - essentially it is a phone, and perhaps a bonus if you can access the internet on it, but how much does it contribute to improving your life overall?

I can name a few things that most people might use their iPhone for ... check Facebook, watch YouTube, check Facebook again, and again ... Is it really constructive to be so connected? I've seen groups of friends sitting together, all busy posting their Facebook statuses via their iPhone about how they are hanging out with their friends. How is that productive? Some people will argue that social networking is important in this day and age, and if you don't do it, you'll be left behind - little do they know that most of these claims are sponsored by the very companies that promote them! How strange is that? Not very, all these companies have their own interests to look after, and social networking is another way for companies to administer their advertising to us. It's a multi-billion dollar business, and it is not very hard to understand why they would want us to be staring at advertising wherever we go; the iPhone is in essence, an efficient portable advertising viewer.

Why do people want to make their lives so complicated with electronic gadgets all of a sudden? I believe it all started with the Tamagotchi craze, the electronic pet which needed your attention at all times to feed and clean it, or it will die. The iPhone has become the replacement for that toy, Facebook and Twitter are the virtual pets. We've all become addicted to this new game of trying to keep our friends happy by publishing our statuses to the world every five seconds. Why do people do it? Because they're unhappy or bored. Like I said at the beginning of this post, the iPhone is not the answer to your life's problems, and many people who have problems or are unhappy (and believe me, it seems to be he majority these days) look to these products to fill an emptiness in their lives.

There are other ways to fulfill your life, and it is simply a matter of discovering it, and looking within yourself for the answers. We just have to stop being busy, because to be honest, Facebook is not constructive for our time. We can find other ways to improve our life and ourselves. Maybe think about getting fit? Some will say that the iPhone is an excellent way to pass the time, but time can be passed in other ways, for example if you are waiting for your dental appointment, you could do some exercises in the waiting room, bring a pen with you and do some relaxing doodles, improve your mind by doing a crossword puzzle, most of these alternatives are cheap or free and they provide endless benefits.

So if you don't spend the money on an iPhone, then what to spend it on. Who says you need to spend money? Maybe the need to spend comes from a less answered need within you. Like I said, we look for answers in the wrong places, and we often think that buying something provides the solution, but if only there were such quick fixes to our problems! Some people have never traveled outside of their own country, the price of the latest iPhone may get them a holiday abroad - life is too short to be staring at a tiny screen, the world is to be explored! Invest the money in life experiences, whether it be business, learning, creativity or exploration!

Motivation: Work Hard Vs Play Less

Motivation, or the art of getting things done is a subject that goes beyond simply telling yourself repeatedly to do something, and there are other factors involved such as psychology, upbringing, environment and peer pressure. There are numerous websites out there that claim that they can teach you how to be motivated and succeed in life, but they never question whether the motivation is right or suitable for the individual. These sites will motivate you to 'get rich' (for a one time fee), and they'll tell you how and what to do, although I doubt that they really work because such website prey on the vulnerable and the desperate whose minds are already open to suggestion - I suggest that one avoid these type of 'get rich motivation' schemes at all costs.

First of all, let's try to understand what motivation is. For a start, everyone is motivated, people are naturally motivated to pursue happiness, and happiness may be sought in various ways. The mistake is to believe that money is motivation, although money can be a by-product of motivation, money itself is just paper -what you do with the money can be motivation, although it shouldn't be because there are more ways to make money than one can possibly conceive of. If money itself were motivation then there would be many prostitutes standing on every street corner of the world, and some financial professions could be considered to be a type of prostitution.

When we were growing up, our parents and teachers will often tell us to 'work hard'. This is part of a global cultural meme that has been passed down generation to generation without questioning whether it is valid advice or not. There is a difference between 'motivation' and 'self-motivation', 'motivation' itself does not guarantee success (success in the sense of achieving one's goals), one needs to be self-motivated. If we take the example of the farmer and the workhorse who pulls the plough to cultivate the land, the farmer is motivating the workhorse to pull, and the workhorse works hard to do the farmer's bidding, yet left to its own devices, the workhorse would not have the self-motivation to pull the plough by itself, but would probably rather be relaxing and eating hay. This concept can be seen everyday in society, in our cities, where the workhorses are the office workers and the motivators are the bosses.

As I already stated, everyone is self-motivated, we're self-motivated to eat when we're hungry, we're self-motivated to explore, have fun, laugh, be creative. Most of these self-motivations are a natural part of being human, and everyone is gifted with these natural abilities. Think about that most things in life are quite pleasurable or fun to do, but we've been taught to separate fun and work, when actually, and ideally, they could become one and the same thing for everyone. Our educational systems teach us that we must 'work harder' towards goals that we don't want, we are like the workhorse who just wants to eat hay, but the farmer drives us forward with his riding crop, achieving his goals rather than our own.

So how do we begin to be self-motivated? First we must discover in ourself for ourself what we want. Usually the things we want most are those things that we pursue when we are not working, ie. our hobbies and interest, these pastimes that become the manifestations of escape from our tiresome work routines. I mentioned in the previous post, that I do enjoy writing, as much as I enjoy the sound of the keyboard when I tap the keys, it is a pleasurable experience for me - I'm also listening to music as I type this, all these factors combined, the writing experience itself is its own reward and therefore motivation for this piece. Some people may see this as hard work because it is not for them, others may think about it, and realize, 'hey you're right, I'm just as self-motivated to continue reading as you are writing!' - now we are beginning to establish a relationship here, and if everyone could alter the way they think about work, we could have a perfect and efficient society where everyone had fun and did their best work without feeling as if it hurt them.

Often than not, some of those things that require self-motivation may not be too pleasant to do, but they may be needed in order to fulfill our overall happiness plan. This is the most psychological part of self-motivation, and that is our perspective on how we look at things. Exercise is something that is essential to our lives as sleep to maintain our health, yet it is one of those things that many people find it hard to build up the self-motivation to even get started. How we change the way we look at something can often make all the difference. In the same sense as looking at deciding whether the glass is half empty or half full, we can apply that linguistic approach towards how we set our goals in our mind. Self-motivation exists as a constant stream of internal dialogue in our minds, and how it appears inside our head, is how we deal with it, and depending on our character, we can either see it as a challenge, a new experience or an insurmountable barrier.

The human mind has an internal dialogue, a debate rages on inside your head to decide whether you do something or not. You throw some words into the debate, like danger, or pain, and the question is quickly resolved. The brain usually responds to a little coaxing with words that it likes. If we tell ourselves to 'work hard' then for most people those two words immediately conjure up images of sweat, exertion and pain; instead, an alternative choice of words that could be just as effective are 'play less'. Instead of 'lose weight', how about 'gain confidence', 'stop smoking' becomes 'breathe more fresh air'. In order to convince ourself and others, we avoid using negative words or phrases, and replace them with positive terms.

Later on, I will go back to some of these topics like exercising, and cover them in more depth. The point I want to make, is instead of 'forcing' or somehow 'coercing' yourself into doing something, as many of these websites and books will teach you how to do, focus on what you want, and what you want to achieve. If you want to achieve a healthier body, and that is what you really want, the motivation to do that is already inside you, you just have to tap into it, and phrase it to yourself in the correct way, and it will be done. Also, self-motivation comes easily to the things you are interested in, turn your hobbies and interests into your job and earn money from it! You do them anyway, why not think of a way to turn that hobby into an investment, and get paid to do something you enjoy.

I will cover the topic of motivation again in the future. In the meantime, avoid those motivation websites and books, the only thing that they motivate is the author's bank account.

Sharing Yourself as a Way of Life

I write this blog because I like to share my thoughts to the world, also I enjoy typing on my keyboard, I like the feel of the keys, the soft clicking sounds as I tap them, and the process of connecting my mind to the internet. I feel that in this way, if we all do something that gives us pleasure while at the same time giving something to others, that we could benefit each other's lives as well as our own.

This is not a blog to teach you how to make money, or tell you how to live life, as you are probably well aware there are many such resources out there on the internet if one would do a simple search on Google. I have a personal dislike for blogs aimed at telling people how to 'become successful or rich on the net', the only purpose of such blogs is to exploit those less fortunate and only looking for a way out of their financial desperation. The people who claim to help you lead a successful life, and speak arrogantly of themselves as a shining example of what one can be, climb their pedestal on the backs of those who have nothing left to give except their blind loyalty. These people may be better aided by not teasing them with glimpses of unimaginable fortune or power, but rather giving them the tools to become what they want to become - It is a mistake to tell people what they want, because people want different things in different times of their lives according to how they choose to travel the lessons on life's path.

One way we can improve the quality of life for everyone is by sharing ourselves to others, by that, I mean share our thoughts, our time and our fears. Only by exposing our feelings can others begin to understand and perhaps aid us on our path. Sharing itself is not necessarily good, as we can share things that can cause harm to others. The problem with modern society is that nobody discusses their fears, so these problems never get dealt with, instead the fear is repressed by the individual and manifests itself as other symptoms within the person. Fear plays a large factor in society's ills, and it is something that is difficult to discuss, and perhaps considered a form of cowardice to be frowned upon. Instead we're provided many distractions from that fear, although those types of fears may be expressed in books and movies, it seems the only outlet for such angst is as a passive onlooker, which further distances ourselves from dealing with the issues.

Unfolding Life

Welcome to Unfolding Life, I say this to both my readers and myself, as I write the first post of this new blog which will be a resource of information and, hopefully, inspirational anecdotes for living in our times.