Letâs be honest for a moment. Youâd probably be thrilled to have a cool million or 2 in the bank. Money canât buy happiness, as the saying goes, but what you do with your money (as well as time and talents, for that matter) might have an awful lot to do with your quality of life. Sure, doing something nice for someone else feels nice, but a recent study suggests that generosity has a positive biological effect on the brain.
For the study, published in Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland told 50 people they would receive $100 over a few weeks. The team asked 25 of the individuals to use the money only on themselves, and asked the other 25 participants to spend it on someone they knew.
The researchers wanted to know: Would the mere promise to spend the money on someone else be enough to make people happier?
Before handing out the first batch of cash, the researchers brought those in the give-away group into the lab and asked them to think about a friend theyâd like to give a gift to and how much they would hypothetically spend. Then, the participants underwent functional MRI scans so researchers could measure activity in 3 regions of the brain associated with social behavior, generosity, happiness, and decision-making.
Those who had pledged to spend the money on other people were more likely to make generous decisions throughout the duration of the experiment, the team found, compared to those who had pledged to spend the money on themselves.
The groupâs MRIâs showed more interaction between the parts of the brain associated with altruism and happiness, and the participants expressed higher levels of happiness after the study ended.
Furthermore, it didnât matter how generous people were. Even giving away a small amount of cash impacted the participantsâ happiness in the same way.
Lead author Philippe Tobler, associate professor of neuroeconomics and social neuroscience, said:
âAt least in our study, the amount spent did not matter. It is worth keeping in mind that even little things have a beneficial effect â like bringing coffee to oneâs office mates in the morning.â
He added:
âYou donât need to become a self-sacrificing martyr to feel happier. Just being a little more generous will suffice.â [2]
Co-author Soyoung Park says many questions remain unanswered. [3]
âThere are still some open questions, such as: Can communication between these brain regions be trained and strengthened? If so, how? And, does the effect last when it is used deliberately, that is, if a person only behaves generously in order to feel happier?â
Earlier studies have shown that older people who are generous tend to be in better physical shape. Some research has even suggested that spending money on other people is as effective as medication or exercise for lowering blood pressure. [1]
So the next time you feel like treating yourself, consider treating someone else instead. It might make you feel even better.
Tobler said:
âIt is worth giving it a shot, even if you think it would not work. In order to reap health benefits, repeated practice is probably needed so that giving becomes second nature.â
 Do you have anxiety? Have you tried just about everything to get over it, but it just keeps coming back? Perhaps you thought you had got over it, only for the symptoms to return with a vengeance? Whatever your circumstances, science can help you to beat anxiety for good.
Anxiety can present as fear, restlessness, an inability to focus at work or school, finding it hard to fall or stay asleep at night, or getting easily irritated. In social situations, it can make it hard to talk to others; you might feel like youâre constantly being judged, or have symptoms such as stuttering, sweating, blushing or an upset stomach.
It can appear out of the blue as a panic attack, when sudden spikes of anxiety make you feel like youâre about to have a heart attack, go mad or lose control. Or it can be present all the time, as in generalised anxiety disorder, when diffuse and pervasive worry consumes you and you look to the future with dread.
Most people experience it at some point, but if anxiety starts interfering with your life, sleep, ability to form relationships, or productivity at work or school, you might have an anxiety disorder. Research shows that if itâs left untreated, anxiety can lead to depression, early death and suicide. And while it can indeed lead to such serious health consequences, the medication that is prescribed to treat anxiety doesnât often work in the long-term. Symptoms often return and youâre back where you started.
How science can help
The way you cope or handle things in life has a direct impact on how much anxiety you experience â tweak the way youâre coping, therefore, and you can lower your anxiety levels. Here are some of the top coping skills that have emerged from our study at the University of Cambridge, which will be presented at the 30th European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology in Paris, and other scientific research.
Do you feel like your life is out of control? Do you find it hard to make decisions â or get things started? Well, one way to overcome indecision or get going on that new project is to âdo it badlyâ.
This may sound strange, but the writer and poet GK Chesterton said that: âAnything worth doing is worth doing badly.â And he had a point. The reason this works so well is that it speeds up your decision-making process and catapults you straight into action. Otherwise, you could spend hours deciding how you should do something or what you should do, which can be very time-consuming and stressful.
People often want to do something âperfectlyâ or to wait for the âperfect timeâ before starting. But this can lead to procrastination, long delays or even prevent us from doing it at all. And that causes stress â and anxiety.
Instead, why not just start by âdoing it badlyâ and without worrying about how itâs going to turn out. This will not only make it much easier to begin, but youâll also find that youâre completing tasks much more quickly than before. More often than not, youâll also discover that youâre not doing it that badly after all â even if you are, you can always fine tune it later.
Using âdo it badlyâ as a motto gives you the courage to try new things, adds a little fun to everything, and stops you worrying too much about the outcome. Itâs about doing it badly today and improving as you go. Ultimately, itâs about liberation.
Are you particularly critical of yourself and the blunders you make? Well, imagine if you had a friend who constantly pointed out everything that was wrong with you and your life. Youâd probably want to get rid of them right away.
But people with anxiety often do this to themselves so frequently that they donât even realise it anymore. Theyâre just not kind to themselves.
So perhaps itâs time to change and start forgiving ourselves for the mistakes we make. If you feel like youâve embarrassed yourself in a situation, donât criticise yourself â simply realise that you have this impulse to blame yourself, then drop the negative thought and redirect your attention back to the task at hand or whatever you were doing.
Another effective strategy is to âwait to worryâ. If something went wrong and you feel compelled to worry (because you think you screwed up), donât do this immediately. Instead, postpone your worry â set aside 10 minutes each day during which you can worry about anything.
If you do this, youâll find that you wonât perceive the situation which triggered the initial anxiety to be as bothersome or worrisome when you come back to it later. And our thoughts actually decay very quickly if we donât feed them with energy.
Find purpose in life by helping others
Itâs also worth considering how much of your day is spent with someone else in mind? If itâs very little or none at all, then youâre at a high risk of poor mental health. Regardless of how much we work or the amount of money we make, we canât be truly happy until we know that someone else needs us and depends on our productivity or love.
This doesnât mean that we need peopleâs praise, but doing something with someone else in mind takes the spotlight off of us (and our anxieties and worries) and places it onto others â and how we can make a difference to them.
For people who think thereâs nothing to live for, nothing more to expect from life ⌠the question is getting these people to realise that life is still expecting something from them.
Knowing that someone else needs you makes it easier to endure the toughest times. Youâll know the âwhyâ for your existence and will be able to bear almost any âhowâ.
So how can you make yourself important in someone elseâs life? It could be as simple as taking care of a child or elderly parent, volunteering, or finishing work that might benefit future generations. Even if these people never realise what youâve done for them, it doesnât matter because youwill know. And this will make you realise the uniqueness and importance of your life.
The latest video, which went viral over recent weeks, displays this heartfelt kinship. Watch as an entire herd of elephant runs in excitement to greet their newest addition.
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Elephants are magnificent creatures with a proven intelligence closely resembling human qualities. Aware of their own consciousness, herds of elephants will often demonstrate the loyalty, affection and deep bonds with those in their families and those new to them.
Their social networks are often led by the matriarch in their circle. They form clans, are protective of their babies as much as they are over their lifetime friendships. They mourn the deaths of their clan members and often demonstrate a resonating grief for their lost family.
As a social group, their unique bond often extends to family duties to raise their young. Elephants help each other with babysitting, and studies have noted a calfâs survival is dependent on several females within the group rather than just one.
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The latest video, which went viral over recent weeks, displays this heartfelt kinship. Watch as an entire herd of elephant literally run in excitement to greet their newest addition at the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. The baby orphan elephant is quickly accepted into the group as the herd struggles to contain their excitement.
Their affection for one another â even for a stranger â is displayed in this rare capturing of raw footage.
The Earth may not be flat nor is it the center of the universe, but that doesnât mean old-world intellectuals got everything wrong. In fact, in recent years, modern science has validated a number of teachings and beliefs rooted in ancient wisdom that, up until now, had been trusted but unproven empirically. Here are eight ancient beliefs and practices that have been confirmed by modern science.
HELPING OTHERS CAN MAKE YOU HEALTHIER.
In their never-ending search for the best way to live, Greek philosophers argued over the relative benefits of hedonic and eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic well-being sees happiness as a factor of increased pleasure and decreased pain, while eudaimonic (âhuman flourishingâ) happiness has more to do with having a larger purpose or meaning in life. A recent study from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill psychologist Barbara Fredrickson may reveal which form of happiness is more beneficial for health and well-being.
The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year, found that while both types of happiness can make you feel good, the latter could promote physical health and longevity as well. Using phone interviews, questionnaires and blood samples, the study explored how the two forms of happiness affected individuals on a genetic level. Participants with more hedonic and less eudaimonic well-being were found to have a lower production of virus-attacking antibodies, while those with more eudaimonic well-being experienced an increase in antibody production.
ACUPUNCTURE CAN RESTORE BALANCE TO YOUR BODY.
The traditional Chinese medicine technique is believed to address imbalances in a personâs qi (pronounced chi), the circulating energy within every living thing. Whether or not you believe in the existence of this energy flow, a new study published in Archives of Internal Medicine found that the age-old practice may be an effective way to relieve migraines, arthritis and other chronic pains.
Analyzing previous research data from approximately 18,000 subjects, researchers found that acupuncture was more effective than sham acupuncture and standard western care when treating various types of pain, including migraines and chronic back pain.
WE NEED THE SUPPORT OF A COMMUNITY IN ORDER TO THRIVE.
Traditional Buddhist teachings suggest that community is a key component in any happy, fulfilled life. A 2010 study conducted by Brigham Young University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers confirmed this belief, concluding that a healthy social life promotes longevity.
In analyzing the 148 studies â involving more than 300,000 individual participants â available on the subject, the researchers discovered that those with stronger social relationships maintained a 50 percent increased likelihood of survival. The effect of social relationships on mortality risk is even greater than the effect of exercise or obesity.
“A recent study of 261 U.S. senior professionals found that 21 percent had clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits, compared to about one percent in the general population. That’s roughly the same rate as for prisoners.”
When Donald Trump blurted out that not paying his taxes “makes me smart,” he was revealing a truth about the American narcissist. Senator Lindsey Graham was being equally arrogant when he stated, “It’s really American to avoid paying taxes, legally…It’s a game we play.”
The game has become very popular, with an incomprehensible three-quarters of Fortune 500 companies stashing profits in offshore tax havens, avoiding over $700 billion in U.S. taxes.
Who Are the Narcissists?Â
They are people who don’t feel any responsibility to the society that made them rich, largely because they believe in the “self-made” myth. Their numbers are growing. For every 100 households with $100 million in assets in 2010, there are now 160.
Some of the super-rich care about average Americans, and some are well-intentioned philanthropists, but in general, as numerous studies have shown, super-wealthy people tend to be imbued with a distinct sense of entitlement. They believe their talents and attributes have earned them a rightful position of status over everyone else.
The narcissists care less about the feelings and needs of others, become anti-social, less generous with their money, move further to the right, and become less willing to support the economic needs of all members of society. People in rich countries have been found to express less concern about their impact on the environment. And as the wealth gap widens, people at the two extremes become more and more distrustful of each other.
One study showed that those in the wealthy classes tend to behave more unethically than average citizens, especially at the highest levels, where career success has been associated with Machiavellianismâdoing anything necessary to get ahead. A recent study of 261 U.S. senior professionals found that 21 percent had clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits, compared to about one percent in the general population. That’s roughly the same rate as for prisoners.
Narcissists Blame U.S. for Collapse of the Job MarketÂ
Stunning hypocrisy: Apple claims to be responsible for “creating and supporting 1.9 million jobs” while actually employing 115,000; but the company complains that “the U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.” Yet Apple undermines job creation in its role as the biggest overseas profit hoarder and is a leading tax avoider. Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We pay all the taxes we oweâevery single dollar.”
Apple’s store workers make less than $30,000 per year. That’s typical of today’s jobs, as 7 of the 8 fastest-growing occupations pay less than a living wage. Even the Wall Street Journal admits that “many middle-wage occupations, those with average earnings between $32,000 and $53,000, have collapsed.”
For its part, Congress has done little to restore these jobs, and in fact has gone out of its way to stifle job creation attempts. The narcissists in Congress are preoccupied with their own security rather than the securing of a strong society. As we spend a trillion dollars on the military, Asian nations are spending almost as much on infrastructure.
‘They Will Die’
A Forbes writer summarizes: “Somewhere, right now, a cash-strapped parent or budget-limited patient with a severe allergy will skip acquiring an EpiPen. And someday, they will need it in a life-threatening situation…and they wonât have it. And they will die.”
The effects of greater health spending on the wealthy are becoming clear. The richest 1% of American males live nearly 15 years longer than the poorest 1% (10 years for women).
A lack of empathy on the global scale is confirmed by the Global Forum for Health Research, which estimates that less than 10 percent of the worldâs health research budget is spent on health problems that account for 90 percent of global disease.
Billions for One Man to ‘Live Forever’
Amidst all this health trauma, the empathy-devoid focus on self is manifested in the effort by billionaires to prolong their own lives.
According to the Washington Post, “Larry Ellison has proclaimed his wish to live forever.” He and fellow Silicon Valley CEOs Peter Thiel and Larry Page are “using their billions to rewrite the nation’s science agenda,” as some scientists marvel at the “superiority complex” of the big-money men.
100 Million Narcissist-LoversÂ
Narcissism is defined in part as involving an “inflated sense of their own importance…a lack of empathy for others.” Scary enough with such a man running for president. But scarier yet is so many Americans support him.
A phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger Effect suggests that uninformed people don’t know they’re uninformed, and so they have no reason to question their misperceptions. In Donald Trump’s case, they are happy to share in the narcissism. Even to the extent of a profanity spouted by Trump himself: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldnât lose any voters.” Like other great narcissists, Trump is a very important man in his own head.
Paul Buchheitâs essays,videos and poems can be found at YouDeserveFacts.org.
“Exponential growth, everywhere: the terminal cancer of this civilization.”
Sha’Tara
Sept 19, 2016
Thoughts from  ~burning woman~Â
In my introduction on  ~burning woman~  blog I wrote: âI think that every problem is an invitation to all of us to work out the solution, and I believe that no problem exists that does not contain a solution within itself. All we are asked to do is unravel it. Life is like a Rubik’s Cube. There is a solution, it’s just a willingness to work at it until it emerges.â
Taking it from ânowâ hereâs a bit of reality check: (from this blog)
Source:Â Researchers Say Society Is Doomed. Can We Save Ourselves in Time?undergroundreporter.org – Christina Sarich – September 7, 2016Â
Clues unearthed by archaeologists suggest that our society is doomed for collapse. Researchers from University College London and the University of Maryland recently studied 2,378 archaeological sites from Neolithic Europe to discover some tell-tale signs indicating when an ecosystem was shifting into instability. After looking at the data, it seems that every single civilization gave clues to its own impending demise â including our own.
Signs that a society is about to collapse, or undergo a massive reorganization, included fragility in systems that had undergone âslowing downâ or âflickeringâ from impacts such as disease, warfare, resource degradation, or crop failure.
The researchers describe âflickeringâ as a change in a societyâs response to these perturbations resulting in the society becoming caught in a socio-ecological trap that reinforces the same bad behaviour that caused the issues to begin with, and prevents adaptation with new action.
Every time a society âflickersâ it loses recovery time, and you could consider it as moving closer to destruction. The team found that these flickering signs signified an eventual demise of the society, all showing up well before the actual collapse.
Undeniably our current world is severely handicapped by serious and intensifying problems. I donât think I need to name them, we all know what weâre facing, as a global society, and as individuals. It is my nature to seek solutions to problems and the more obvious those are, the more I find myself focusing, perhaps even fixating, upon them. âFind a solution⌠Think!â And itâs what my mind does.
It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. What Iâve been learning lately is that âinventionâ need not be a strictly forward motion: in looking for solutions it can move backward. And this is where Iâm at: how far back must man, as a species, go to solve his current life-threatening problems? To explain that backward move, it is necessary to delve into the main cause of manâs current crisis.
The common thought is that solutions are found in new, forward-looking discoveries. For every action (which comes from a previous reaction) there is a new reaction.  Thus the clumsy reciprocal âchug⌠chug⌠chugâŚâ movement of civilization moves itself forward and each time, like the old coal fired steam trains, the machine picks up speed. A new âdiseaseâ (caused by a previous reciprocal movement) gets a new drug treatment which causes more problems to be met with more drugs. That has been the way, and itâs the accepted way. Except that it doesnât work, and never did, because there never was any track built past the tunnel. But thatâs all beside the point as long as we chose, as a collective, to exist in total denial of history and observation and believe that any ânew and improved whateverâ would solve any current crisis, or make any current burden easier to bear. Thus we blindly entered the age of science as god; the age of technocracy: of technology, of robotics, of machines, of medical interventions and heaping drug prescriptions, of faster communication and travel, of ever-expanding cities to house an exponentially growing population. We entered the age of top-down, system driven, totalitarian collectivization and we were taught in public school, in college, by the media and the corporate world that its called progress. Therefore we progressed into a progressively worsening societal condition, right up to the end of the track which in todayâs parlance we call âthe unsustainable society.”
In 1972, yes, that far back, the Club of Rome and others commissioned computer simulations dealing with unrestrained growth versus availability of space and resources.
From Wikipedia, (excerpt): “The Limits to Growth” is a 1972 book about the computer simulation of exponential economic and population growth with finite resource supplies. The original version presented a model based on five variables: world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production and resources depletion. These variables are considered to grow exponentially, while the ability of technology to increase resources availability is only linear.
And a footnote to the article:  With few exceptions, economics as a discipline has been dominated by a perception of living in an unlimited world, where resource and pollution problems in one area were solved by moving resources or people to other parts. The very hint of any global limitation as suggested in the report The Limits to Growth was met with disbelief and rejection by businesses and most economists. However, this conclusion was mostly based on false premises. â Meyer & NørgĂĽrd (2010).
Itâs important to understand what âexponential growthâ versus âlinear growthâ mean. Youâve all seen graphs showing exponential growth: that smooth line at the bottom that begins to rise ever so slowly, then higher and higher as each segment doubles itself until the line shoots right off the top of the chart. Linear on the other hand shows a steady growth rate, predictable, logical, sustainable. Manâs civilization today is of the exponential kind, and weâre very close to the top of the chart. So close that the system sustaining the growth is failing â AT EVERY POINT and not just on some. Weâve not only reached the limits to growth, we have surpassed them and now we canât stop our train from shooting off the end of the tunnel of progress we created from our lusts and greed and passion for cheap and easy and entertaining.
Now for a very, very brief history lesson beginning with a question: which of mankindâs many civilizations not only succeeded, but continued on and remains âoperativeâ and growing to this day?  And the answer is⌠none. Not a single one. Each civilization that rose from nothing, or from the wrack and ruin of another has in its turn collapsed utterly.
A reminder from none other than the famous poet, Percy Shelley:
 “Ozymandias” I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
What better comparison could one make of this current prideful and shallow civilization than to the boastful one of the great king âOzymandias?â  Oh yes, it is said that science with the faithful and uncanny help of technology can, and will, solve all of manâs current problems. Stupid to worry, to be concerned, about such things as climate change which âRightâ thinking people know to be a hoax; about over population (why, the earth can sustain twice our current numbers!); availability of food and sustainability of edible crops (what about GMOâs and fish farms, etc.?) and simple living space (ah, hmm, well, we can live closer together, build higher highrises and we can go live on the moon, or on Mars with a bit of technological fixing!) and wars (a one-world government will fix that, along with a one-world economy!)
Wonderfully childish reasoning that is desperately held onto by billions of desperate individuals: desperate for things to continue as they are; desperate to ignore, hide, mock, the reality that is threatening to destroy not only most of mankind, but much of his living environment and those âothersâ nature symbiotically âintendedâ for space to be shared with. Simply put, quality has given way to quantity â itâs always what happens when values are determined by numbers â and numbers only work when fed more quantities of numbers. Exponential growth, everywhere: the terminal cancer of this civilization.
Annunaki
Somewhere way back in prehistoric times man âhappenedâ on this world. I really donât know how that came about and Iâm not a strong proponent of Darwinist evolutionary theories, while holding the creation concept equally at arms length, but man âwasâ here. From what I gather this âmanâ creature was living a natural life on a natural world. And as we observe of other animals, all was, relatively speaking, well with that.
Then something amazing and terrible happened: man came face to face with a choice. There was a fork on the road of life, the left continuing the natural pattern of life, and the right promising a much brighter, exciting, morally and technically uplifting future. Man was offered the fruit of civilization. Some saw it as a marvelous opportunity for advancement and took that path. Most did not, but it would be âcivilizedâ man that would rise to conquer and subdue the earth and all that dwell therein. Man became âOzymandiasâ the king of kings, ruler of all creation. Then one civilization after another rose suddenly, then fell slowly until hardly anything remained, and then another took its place, or surfaced somewhere else on the planet and âgreatâ works were accomplished; marvels were created and built, then that too collapsed utterly, leaving only remnants in stone or bits and pieces of clay to mark the passage of civilized man. And on and on it went, until history began to be recorded on clay tablets and parchments, then in books and now in digital information. This is but another of those suddenly risen only to fail, civilization. And no, this civilization isnât too big to fail â quite the contrary: it is too big to sustain itself and must fail.
This is about a solution to our current dilemma. Believing as I do that nothing can fix this toppling purposeless global civilization build on nothing but exploitation, oppression and bloodshed, my solution is eloquent by its simplicity: man must (not should) return to that prehistoric fork in the road and turn back to the left hand path, putting a clear sign on the right hand one that says: âThis is the path to hell. It is forbidden for man to enter therein for this path can only be sustained by oppression and bloodshed, that is, by death.â
Yes: man must give up his pride filled attempts at creating new civilizations and return to his proper, natural, non-exploitative roots. The collapse of this civilization, since it is global in scope, is likely manâs last chance at redeeming himself; at rediscovering humility in compassion, in sharing, in becoming truly a human being to live in peace and harmony with all others on this little world. No amount of âcivilizingâ can do that for man, only a return to nature.
Going with the flow might appear easier than sticking up for yourself when confronted with unanimous disagreement. But as uncomfortable as it may be to walk as the lone dissenter, it not only reinforces core values, it also creates a ripple effect where others take notice.
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A new University at Buffalo study that assessed bodily responses suggests that standing up for your beliefs, expressing your opinions and demonstrating your core values can be a positive psychological experience. Our happiness, and ultimately our lives, are defined by the choices we make. When we allow other people to tell us how to feel, they are making those choices for us, and we are giving away our truth. Since all truths are true, we must define if it is our ego we are standing up for or something more.
There can be a clear divergence between what people do and say and how they feel, according to Mark Seery, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology.
“People can show conformity, but going along with the group doesn’t mean they’re going along happily,” he says. “The external behavior isn’t necessarily a good indication of their internal experience.”
When we passionately believe in something, we should let people know why we stand up for those ideals. We may not change the mindset for others, but we may change the conversation. It then leads into different directions of consciousness and people begin to recognize why we are so adamant and passionate about out opinions even if others disagree with them.
The findings, published in the journal Psychophysiology, provide new insights into what it’s like being alone against the group, investigating the experience as it happens.
Methodologically this a hard thing to capture, according to Seery.
He says there is a long tradition in social psychology investigating how people are affected by pressure to conform to a group. The vast majority of the work has focused on behavior and self-reported attitudes, with the assumption that it’s uncomfortable being the lone dissenter and that people are motivated to conform because it relieves their discomfort.
Questioning study subjects during the experience can be disruptive, while waiting to interview them later demands that they recall feelings that aren’t always accurately reported.
“But we can tap into the experience using psychophysiological measures, which is what we did in this case by assessing cardiovascular responses,” says Seery. “That’s where this study started. To try to understand what that momentary experience of conformity pressure is like.”
Anger is often the emotional indicator of disrespect and injustice. Hiding anger, in turn, is the emotional sign that you will allow it to happen. Many confuse the defensive act of using that little bit of anger, with the expansive attacking posture of seeking egotistical gain at the expense of others. They mistake self-defense for malevolent intent.
So people will remain silent and pretend they’re not affected when they are made fun of, put down, or treated below their true value by others, including family, including “loved” ones. But in the name of compassion and love, in the name of keeping the energy high, it’s not about allowing perceived perpetrators to run rampant at your expense, but letting all others understand that you accept the perspective of others even if they disagree with you.
By measuring cardiovascular responses, Seery and the other researchers — UB colleague Shira Gabriel, Daemen College’s Shannon Lupien and Southern Illinois University’s Mitsuru Shimizu — get a sense for how people are evaluating personal resources versus the demands of the situation while in the act of potentially conforming.
When trying to reach a goal, evaluating high resources and low demands leads to a mostly positive, invigorating experience called challenge, which corresponds with feeling confident. Low resources and high demands lead to a much less confident state called threat, which may produce feelings of anxiety.
The researchers assigned participants into one of four experimental conditions, each with a goal to either fit in with a group’s political opinion or assert their individuality, and with a group that either agreed or disagreed with participants’ opinion on the issue.
“When participants’ goal was to fit in with a group of people who disagreed with them, their cardiovascular responses were consistent with a psychological threat state,” says Seery. “In contrast, when the goal was to be an individual among a group of people who disagreed with them, their cardiovascular responses were consistent with challenge.
“You may have to work to reach a goal, but when you experience challenge, it is more like feeling invigorated than overwhelmed. It is consistent with seeing something to gain rather than focusing on what can be lost,” he says.
The results have interesting implications, especially in an election year when someone can be surrounded by family members, co-workers or even neighborhood lawn signs that run contrary to personal opinions.
There’s often zero to gain from confrontation, especially that which is antagonistic. Don’t look for winning, but kindness. Don’t look for conquering, but compassion. Sometimes situations are not linear, crystal clear, black and white. It is your discernment to know when it’s time to stand up and apply your reasoning or when it’s just best to let go. However, both can be done through heart-felt intention and understanding the perspective of others and that alone reduces your own emotional entanglement throughout each experience.
“It could easily be overwhelming to face a group on the other side of an issue or candidate, but this study suggests that reminding yourself of wanting to be an individual can make it a better experience, challenging instead of threating, invigorating instead of overwhelming,” Seery says.
On this episode we went into some deep subjects like the root causes of addiction, childhood trauma, and some possible modalities that can help heal those root causes of addiction.
For twelve years Dr. MatĂŠ worked in Vancouverâs Downtown Eastside with patients challenged by hard-core drug addiction, mental illness and HIV, including at Vancouverâs Supervised Injection Site. With over 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience and extensive knowledge of the latest findings of leading-edge research, Dr. MatĂŠ is a sought-after speaker and teacher, regularly addressing health professionals, educators, and lay audiences throughout North America.
In many mental facilities, it has become commonplace to keep patients in cages and feed them low-nutrient diets.
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
Indonesian mental facilities have gained poor reputations for keeping their patients in appalling facilities and living conditions.
As youâll view below, some patients are chained in cages, most are fed low-nutrient diets, and it is a common practice to separate the ill from others. In essence, those who need psychiatric help and support the most are being left to suffer life in solitude.
Stunned by this reality yet inspired to raise awareness about this issue, American photographer Andrea Star Reese has been traveling to Indonesia the past few years to document the conditions the mentally ill live in. The photographs are difficult to stomach, but they relay the everyday horrors approximately 19 million mentally ill patients are forced to endure in Indonesia.
âThere are still doctors that use only one prescription and one diagnosis â insane,â says Reese.
The activist hopes that by sharing these disturbing images, mental hospitals and the health practitioners employed by them are forced to adopt change.
âAgus sings in his cage. Keepers wonât let him out fearing he would run away, so this cage has become his permanent home.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âEviâs hallucinations started when she was fifteen. Her parents paid for the wooden bed and Islamic approach to her treatment.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âGaluh Foundation in Jakarta, Indonesia is licensed by the government. No one is turned away, but government provides only two months of food, there is no actual housing, only a cage-like pavilion, where men and women are separated by a wire wall.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âMuhammad (left) is performing a mass healing. For the whole day and night the patients will drink herbal drinks, pray, vomit and eventually enter hypnotic trance.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âFor ten years Anne was held in a room without a window and according to her father she didnât need to eat much. She used to like running, but now she cannot stand.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âKeeping patients in cages has become a common practice.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âLack of food is a reality that patients have to face every day.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âSaimun has been living with a wooden leg restraint for 5 years. Heâs forty, cannot talk and lives with his brother who is also mentally impaired. They and their mother are completely dependant on charity of their neighbors.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âBoarding school staff is trained to deal with extreme situations with their students (left). Seapudinâs (on the right) legs have been in restraints for 9 years. The muscles have atrophied because of the lack of use.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âPatients lack food, clothes, exercise, social interactions.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âThere is no financing for basic things like food, so more expensive projects like facilitiesâ maintenance is out of the question.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âPatientsâ lives are limited by a confined space where they do everything: eat, sleep, shower.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âSome familiesâ of the patients have paid for special healing sessions that usually take a spiritual approach.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âYoung woman in shackles at Bina Lestari Foundation (left). Wediodining Lawang Psychiatric Hospital (right) has been recognized as the best mental hospital in Indonesia. It is the first hospital to realize the need for a geriatric department.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âA bed is one of the biggest luxuries a patient can have.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âSocial interactions are rare and are not done systematically.â
Credit: Andrea Star Reese
âWediodining Lawang Psychiatric Hospital â named as the best mental hospital in Indonesia.â
Buddhist Monks from the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society, on Prince Edward Island, bought 600 pounds of live lobsters and released them into the ocean.
A group of Buddhist monks from the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society, on Prince Edward Island, recently bought around 600 pounds of live lobsters from various restaurants and released them into the ocean.
600 pounds of lucky lobsters were spared the boiling cooking pot last Saturday when Buddhist monks in Little Sands bought as many of them as they could find around Prince Edward island with the purpose of setting them free. Enlightened Dan, of the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society, said the purpose of this unique mission was not to challenge peopleâs dietary options, but merely to send a message of compassion. âWe respect everyoneâs dietary choice, so weâre not doing this to convert everybody to be vegetarians or vegans,â he said. This whole purpose for us is to cultivate this compassion toward others. It doesnât have to be lobsters, it can be worms, flies, any animals, drive slower so we donât run over little critters on the street.â
Photo: Jessica Doria-Brown / CBC / Twitter
After securing the lobsters and putting them on ice in plastic crates, the monks boarded a fishing boat and headed off the coast of Wood Islands to release them back into the ocean, where they belong. âHopefully, we can find a spot where there are no cages waiting for them,â Dan told CBC. Before throwing them into the water, the Buddhists held a 20-minute ceremony with a prayer and chant to the Buddha of compassion.
If your loved ones were in this situation, what would they like you to do?â Enlightened Dan said. âTo give them a helping hand and put them back to where they feel comfortable and we believe if everybodyâs able to do that, it will become a better place, a more harmonic place.â He added that the local community and even the fishermen were very supportive of their actions. In fact, it was the fishermen who helped them find a better spot to release the lobsters, so they wouldnât be captured again.
Photo: Jessica Doria-Brown / CBC / Twitter
The Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society has been on Prince Edward island for eight years. Every year, Buddhist monks travel here from all around Asia to study in their monastery.
Stoopid self-entitled humans, we share the planet with millions of species. We don’t own them. We own nothing. May the universal law of karma apply to all those ignorant doofuses that cannot see anything wrong with what they are doing.
Watch this sad, lonely orangutan share his carrots with fellow primates in a nearby enclosure.
Credit: LA Times
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The conditions of zoos and wildlife facilities vary, but oftentimes animals are not given the space they need and are not treated with the respect and care they deserve.
For animals with a high level of intellect, exercising their minds is just as important as physical exertion. Some primates are proven to share 90% of the DNA of humans and have the mental capacity to harness advanced emotions, maintain social relationships, and even learn sign language to communicate with humans.
When primates are forced into cages, like many are in testing facilities and low-quality zoos, the boredom takes a toll on them just as it does on humans in prisons.
One orangutan at the Phoenix Zoo in Japan, who appears to be alone in his enclosure and likely very sad about his situation, was given carrots to munch on when he saw some fellow primates in the adjacent zoo interested in his food.
Instead of being greedy and eating all of the carrots himself, the lonely orangutan, appropriately named Happy, tossed some carrots over to the other primates so that they could enjoy them as well.
Even though he is a sad orangutan enduring life in a zoo, heâs still empathetic and compassionate. Many humans could certainly benefit from expressing the same compassion towards other humans and animals.
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Watch the video below to see this beautiful act of kindness.
What are your thoughts on this orangutan sharing his food with others?
âWork and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.â
Much has been said about the difference between money and wealth and how we, as individuals, can make more of the latter, but the divergence between the two is arguably even more important the larger scale of nations and the global economy. What does it really mean to create wealth for people â for humanity â as opposed to money for governments and corporations?
Thatâs precisely what the influential German-born British economist, statistician, Rhodes Scholar, and economic theorist E. F. Schumacher explores in his seminal 1973 book Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (public library) â a magnificent collection of essays at the intersection of economics, ethics, and environmental awareness, which earned Schumacher the prestigious Prix EuropĂŠen de lâEssai Charles Veillon award and was deemed by The Times Literary Supplement one of the 100 most important books published since WWII. Sharing an ideological kinship with such influential minds as Tolstoy and Gandhi, Schumacherâs is a masterwork of intelligent counterculture, applying historyâs deepest, most timeless wisdom to the most pressing issues of modern life in an effort to educate, elevate and enlighten.
One of the most compelling essays in the book, titled âBuddhist Economics,â applies spiritual principles and moral purpose to the question of wealth. Writing around the same time that Alan Watts considered the subject, Schumacher begins:
âRight Livelihoodâ is one of the requirements of the Buddhaâs Noble Eightfold Path. It is clear, therefore, that there must be such a thing as Buddhist economics.
[âŚ]
Spiritual health and material well-being are not enemies: they are natural allies.
Traditional Western economics, Schumacher argues, is bedeviled by a self-righteousness of sorts that blinds us to this fact â a fundamental fallacy that considers âgoods as more important than people and consumption as more important than creative activity.â He writes:
Economists themselves, like most specialists, normally suffer from a kind of metaphysical blindness, assuming that theirs is a science of absolute and invariable truths, without any presuppositions. Some go as far as to claim that economic laws are as free from âmetaphysicsâ or âvaluesâ as the law of gravitations.
There is universal agreement that a fundamental source of wealth is human labor. Now, the modern economist has been brought up to consider âlaborâ or work as little more than a necessary evil. From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it cannot be eliminated altogether, say, by automation. From the point of view of the workman, it is a âdisutilityâ; to work is to make a sacrifice of oneâs leisure and comfort, and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice. Hence the ideal from the point of view of the employer is to have output without employees, and the ideal from the point of view of the employee is to have income without employment.
The consequences of these attitudes both in theory and in practice are, of course, extremely far-reaching. If the ideal with regard to work is to get rid of it, every method that âreduces the work loadâ is a good thing. The most potent method, short of automation, is the so-called âdivision of laborâ⌠Here it is not a matter of ordinary specialization, which mankind has practiced from time immemorial, but of dividing up every complete process of production into minute parts, so that the final product can be produced at great speed without anyone having had to contribute more than a totally insignificant and, in most cases, unskilled movement of his limbs.
Schumacher contrasts this with the Buddhist perspective:
The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centeredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organize work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.
From the Buddhist point of view, there are therefore two types of mechanization which must be clearly distinguished: one that enhances a manâs skill and power and one that turns the work of man over to a mechanical slave, leaving man in a position of having to serve the slave.
Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilization not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a manâs work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products.
But Schumacher takes care to point out that the Buddhist disposition, rather than a condemnation of the material world, is a more fluid integration with it:
While the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation. But Buddhism is âThe Middle Wayâ and therefore in no way antagonistic to physical well-being. It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for them. The keynote of Buddhist economics, therefore, is simplicity and non-violence. From an economistâs point of view, the marvel of the Buddhist way of life is the utter rationality of its pattern â amazingly small means leading to extraordinarily satisfactory results.
This concept, Schumacher argues, is extremely difficult for an economist from a consumerist culture to grasp as we once again bump up against the warped Western prioritization of productivity over presence:
[The modern Western economist] is used to measuring the âstandard of livingâ by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is âbetter offâ than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.
[âŚ]
The ownership and the consumption of goods is a means to an end, and Buddhist economics is the systematic study of how to attain given ends with the minimum means.
[Western] economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity, taking the factors of production â land, labor, and capital â as the means. The former, in short, tries to maximize human satisfactions by the optimal pattern of consumption, while the latter tries to maximize consumption by the optimal pattern of productive effort.
This maximization of âhuman satisfactions,â Schumacher argues, is rooted in two intimately related Buddhist concepts â simplicity and non-violence:
The optimal pattern of consumption, producing a high degree of human satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption, allows people to live without great pressure and strain and to fulfill the primary injunctions of Buddhist teaching: âCease to do evil; try to do good.â As physical resources are everywhere limited, people satisfying their needs by means of a modest use of resources are obviously less likely to be at each otherâs throats than people depending upon a high rate of use. Equally, people who live in highly self-sufficient local communities are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on worldwide systems of trade.
From the point of view of Buddhist economics ⌠production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life, while dependence on imports from afar and the consequent need to produce for export to unknown and distant peoples is highly uneconomic and justifiable only in exceptional cases and on a small scale.
He concludes by framing the enduring value of a Buddhist approach to economics, undoubtedly even more urgently needed today than it was in 1973:
It is in the light of both immediate experience and long-term prospects that the study of Buddhist economics could be recommended even to those who believe that economic growth is more important than any spiritual or religious values. For it is not a question of choosing between âmodern growthâ and âtraditional stagnation.â It is a question of finding the right path to development, the Middle Way between materialist heedlessness and traditionalist immobility, in short, of finding âRight Livelihood.â
The human heart emits the strongest electromagnetic field in our body. This electromagnetic field envelops the entire body extending out in all directions, and it can be measured up to several feet outside of the body. Research from the Institute of HeartMath shows that this emotional information is encoded in this energetic field. HeartMath researchers have also seen that as we consciously focus on feeling a positive emotion – such as care, appreciation, compassion or love – it has a beneficial effect on our own health and well-being, and can have a positive affect on those around us.
As cities have developed and become overridden with humans, honking cars, and polluted air, most animals have chosen to relocate to safer and quieter lands â except birds. Birds remain one of the few free creatures to willingly co-exist with mankind as development continues. For this reason, believes artist and activist Thomas Dambo, it is [âŚ]
Over the past seven years, this activist has built thousands of bird houses to provide for the creatures which choose to co-exist with mankind.
Credit: Thomas Dambo
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As cities have developed and become overridden with humans, honking cars, and polluted air, most animals have chosen to relocate to safer and quieter lands â except birds.
Birds remain one of the few free creatures to willingly co-exist with mankind as development continues. For this reason, believes artist and activist Thomas Dambo, it is important to help them feel welcome by offering them safe places to reside.
Over the past seven years, Dambo has dedicated his free time to constructing birdhouses from scrapwood. His colorful creations have been placed all over the world, and have helped raise awareness about the necessity to protect wildlife that chooses to reside in urban locations.
Thomas relays:
âBirds are some of the few animals still living in our cities, and I began this project because I thought that it was important to make sure that they can continue living here.â
Often asked if birds use the houses, Dambo explains that if the birdhouses are hung in the right places, they will be utilized.
ââŚbirds move into the houses if there are birds in the area, so birds will not move into the houses if they are hung on a light pole next to a noisy road. But they will do it in a tree in a park.â
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This project is not only about creating a shelter for birds, but reminding the world that it is important to honor creatures of all sizes as we â humans â continue to develop better so we might live more comfortably in the modern world.
This totem was created as part of a recycle workshop involving the local community.
Credit: Thomas Dambo
Thomas created this recycle birdhouse decoration for the nordic counsel during culture night in Copenhagen, Denmark.Â
Credit: Thomas Dambo
All of the houses are made from scrapwood, and are painted in colors matching the flags of the nordic countries.Â
Credit: Thomas Dambo
Credit: Thomas Dambo
This birdhouse totem is a part of Damboâs ongoing Happy City Birds project and consists of 300 birdhouses put together on a tree.
Credit: Thomas Dambo
This collection was made from broken skateboards in 2012. All the boards were donated by local skateboarders around Copenhagen.Â
Credit: Thomas Dambo
 These birdhouses even look like birds!
Credit: Thomas Dambo
600 birdhouses were used in an installation for a festival. Afterward, Dambo gave all the birdhouses away to people, asking them to hang them up and send pictures.
Credit: Thomas Dambo
Credit: Thomas Dambo
The camouflage bird house project is all about creating safe homes for our little friends.
 âWe are Life, in human form. Descendants of the stars and galaxies, children of the oceans and forests, creative expressions of Nature. As much a part of this planet as the rivers, trees, mountains and butterflies.
As more and more of us wake up to that deeper sense of identity we will be more easily able to transcend old thought patterns and beliefs. Observing Natureâs Systems closely, studying her ways, we can re-write and delete old programming.
To truly bring an end to the destructiveness of humanity- to really transform the world- a deeper wisdom has to first arise from within. We must âbe the changeâ as Gandhi put it. We have to free ourselves first, transform our ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.
Then take the wisdom of our wholeness and apply it to everything we say and do, to all fields of human activity. Economics, entertainment, education, law, medicine, transportation, energy technologies- they all can (and must) be transformed.
We are not the solitary individuals we have believed ourselves to be. We are expressions of Universal life, Children of our Galaxy. We are the âleaves of grassâ Walt Whitman spoke of â the Awakening voices of Eden, instruments of the great turning.
Natureâs Agents of Transformation- The Global Butterfly Effect.
Lecturer in Social Psychology, Lancaster University
Disclosure statement
Jared Piazza does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
February 10, 2016
Futurologist Ian Pearson recently predicted that by 2050 it will be possible to implant devices into our pets and other animals to give them the ability to speak to us.
This raises the interesting question of whether such a device would provide animals raised and slaughtered for food with a voice, and whether this voice would make us think twice about eating them.
Itâs important to first get straight what such technology would and would not enable animals to do. Itâs doubtful that this technology would enable animals to coordinate their efforts to overthrow their captors in some Orwellian fashion.
Animals already communicate with each other in ways that are meaningful to them, but they do not communicate in ways that would allow them to intricately coordinate their efforts with each other. Such large-scale strategy requires additional abilities, including a firm grasp of grammar and a rich ability to reason about the minds of others.
What this technology would probably do is provide some semantic overlay to animalsâ current communicative repertoire (for example: âbark, bark!â rendered as: âintruder, intruder!â). It is possible that this ability alone might be compelling for some people to stop eating meat, that we canât help but âhumaniseâ talking cows and pigs or see them as more like ourselves.
There is some empirical evidence to support this idea. A group of researchers led by Brock Bastian asked people to write a short essay outlining the many ways in which animals are quite similar to humans. Other participants wrote about the ways in which humans are quite similar to animals. Participants who humanised animals had more positive views of them than those who animalised humans.
So if this technology had the ability to make us think of animals more like humans, then it could promote better treatment of animals.
Meat is murder
But letâs imagine for a moment that the technology could do something more â it could reveal more of the animalâs mind to us. One way this could benefit animals is it would show us that animals think about their future. This might stop us from eating animals because it would force us to see animals as beings who value their own lives.
Me? Dinner? You must be barking mad.Evening Standard, Author provided
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The whole notion of âhumaneâ killing is based on the idea that as long as you take efforts to minimise an animalâs suffering, it is okay to take its life. Since animals do not consider their lives in the future â they are stuck in the âhere and nowâ â they do not value their future happiness.
If technology could allow animals to show us that animals do have future aspirations (imagine hearing your dog say: âI want to play ballâ), and that they value their lives (âDonât kill me!â), it is possible that this technology could stir in us deeper compassion for animals killed for meat.
However, there are also reasons to be sceptical. First, it is possible that people would simply attribute the speaking ability to the technology and not to the animal. Therefore, it would not really change our fundamental view of the animalâs intelligence.
Family not food.Targn Pleiades
Second, people are oftentimes motivated to ignore animal intelligence information anyway.
Rationalising our diet
Steve Loughnan of the University of Edinburgh and I recently ran a series of studies â part of a project which is yet to be published â where we experimentally varied peopleâs understanding of how intelligent various animals are. What we found is that people use intelligence information in a way that prevents them from having to feel bad about participating in the harm inflicted on intelligent animals in their own culture. People ignore information about the intelligence of animals when an animal is already used as food in oneâs culture. But when people think about animals that are not used as food, or animals used as food in other cultures, they do think an animalâs intelligence matters.
So it is possible that providing animals with the means to speak to us would not change our moral attitude at all â at least not for animals that we already eat.
We have to remember what should already be obvious: animals do talk to us. Certainly they talk to us in ways that matter for our decisions about how to treat them. There is not much difference in a crying frightened child and a crying frightened piglet. Dairy cows that have their calves stolen from them soon after birth are believed by some to bemoan the loss weeks afterwards with heart wrenching cries. The problem is that we often do not take the time to really listen.
Warning: This article is not for the feint of heart. It gives a glimpse of the horrors that some unfortunate beings, through no fault of their own, face on a daily basis. Once again, thank you USA and the UK, and your pathetic minions.
Well, it didn’t take long for our prediction to come true. We warned back in September 2015 that sympathy for the Syrian/Arab/Muslim refugees would be transformed into hate to fuel geopolitical motives. Just four months separates the ‘refugee rape epidemic’ that, apparently, spontaneously broke out across Europe on New Year’s Eve, from the date when 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach. Like the ‘horde’ of Syrians fleeing their NATO-torn country, Aylan’s family tried crossing the Aegean Sea in a rubber dinghy, in dire weather conditions. Aylan, his 5-year-old brother Galib, and their mother Rehana, drowned.
Just to remind you of the chronology of events here. A photo-journalist happened to be at the beach Aylan washed up on; Western journalists suddenly noticed refugees were dying in droves; and the public expressed outrage for the ‘collateral damage’ pouring out of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Whether or not Aylan’s fate was deliberately used as political capital, public sympathy flowed for those fleeing the shadow of imminent and violent death. So many other events have transpired since that dark day in September. These days, you can barely register sadness for the loss of innocent lives before fresh atrocities make new headlines.
Death toll
But children drowning in the Aegean soon became yesterday’s news, to be replaced more recently by growing public anger at and hatred towards those same people. Does anyone feel like they’re being manipulated?
Over at the Greek edition of SOTT.net, however, we didn’t forget because we couldn’t. Reports of new drownings came in almost daily. We kept track of them as best we could. Since Aylan’s death, about 140 child refugees are known to have drowned in the Aegean Sea. In most cases of mass drownings, a majority of the fatalities are children who don’t know how to swim, and who are too small for their life-saving vests. For some of the refugees, even the parents, it was their first, and last, time seeing open waters. This list (with links to Greek reports) is long, unfortunately:
September 13: Boat containing about 120 refugees capsizes off Farmakonisi island – 34 people drowned, including 4 infants and 11 small children
September 15: 22 people lost their lives, including 4 children
December 8: 6 children from Afghanistan drown near Turkish coast
December 9: 12 people drown near Farmakonisi – 6 children among them
December 18: 3 Syrian children and 2 Iraqi children among 8 drowned refugees in the Aegean
December 19: 18 people drown off southwestern Turkey, including unknown number of children
December 23: 13 refugees drown near Farmakonisi, 7 of them children
December 24: 11 children among 20 drowned refugees near Turkish shores on Christmas Eve
January 3: Two-year-old boy drowns as inflatable boat carrying almost 40 people crashes against rocks
January 5: 38 refugees drown in the Aegean, 4 of them children
January 15: 3 children drown near the island of Agathonisi, while another infant is found dead after 2 shipwrecks off Farmakonisi
One of the children in the more recent January 5th event was a girl found on a beach on the Greek island of Ikaria. She was 4 feet 4 inches tall, about 7-10 years old, and had long black hair. She was fully dressed in pink; her little gloves, her boots, and her little winter coat were a darker pink color. Only her life jacket was blue – which, of course, failed to save her life. Nobody knows how many hours, or days, she struggled with all her strength in the angry winter seas of the Aegean before it became her tomb.
Š Hanife Erdinc/Anadolu/Getty
Like so much seaweed, another child washes up at AyvalÄąk in northwestern Turkey, January 5th, 2016
The beautiful Aegean Sea… I doubt there is a body of water anywhere in the world more celebrated in song, poetry and other works of art. Witness to eons of wars, mass migrations and the simple lives of those living on its shores, the Aegean Sea – like its big sister, the Mediterranean – has today become the final destination for thousands of people. In 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration, 1,004,356 people successfully crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, with some 400,000 of those landing on Greek shores from Turkey. 3,771 people drowned or are missing at sea – 805 in an attempt to cross the Aegean – up from 3,279 deaths in 2014.
An average of 5,000 refugees were arriving daily on the island of Lesvos until the winter set in. Most Greek islanders are doing the best they can to help out. Some of them were once refugees in older wars that savaged Greece, so they understand. Some volunteers take their own children with them: “We are educating them in humanity,” they say. Stratis, a volunteer in Mitillini, says: “Every child I take in my arms when they come out of the boat is my child.” And Vicky from Chios had this to say for the volunteers: “They are giving their souls to help the refugees. And their only reward is a big thank you, ‘shukraan’ in the language of many of the refugees. The volunteers, in their exhaustion, are able to sleep at night with a clear conscience. This is a great thing.”
The locals have been joined by volunteers from all over Greece, and from others all around the world. “We have volunteers from all different countries,” says Matina, a volunteer on Leros. “This happens for the first time. The tourists heard of the large numbers and saw the people, their grief, their pain. And they also saw how helpless Greece is in trying to help these people.”
Greece, currently suffering from the worst ‘austerity measures’ in Europe, is nevertheless being as hospitable as it can with what little it has. Meanwhile, the EU, instead of helping Greece help the refugees, is going behind its back to strike Faustian bargains with Turkey, the country that supports terrorism, ethnically cleanses its Kurdish population and actively traffics refugees from the Middle East to Europe. The EU has paid Turkey an initial 3 billion euros, and promised an ‘accelerated accession process’ for its entry into the Union in exchange for vague commitments by Ankara to reduce the flow of refugees to Europe, and – in the grand scheme of things – to keep supporting the Atlanticists irrational and psychopathic war against Russia.
Fake life-jackets
Just recently a Turkish trafficker spoke to Greek media and was very clear when he said, “If the Turkish government didn’t want us to bring refugees to the Greek Islands, we wouldn’t be able to bring in a fly.” That Ankara has agreed to stem the flow of refugees reaching Europe via Greece in exchange for political gain tells you all you need to know about the people responsible for this humanitarian crisis – the psychopaths in power.
The illegal manufacture and sale of cheap ‘life-jackets’ greatly contributed to the thousands of deaths in the Aegean. They are on display all over Turkish coastal cities from where the refugees begin their sea journeys. A recent police raid at a manufacturing facility in Smyrna uncovered 1,263 fake life-jackets made out of tent cloth and filled with sponges and rags, rather than the buoyancy material needed to keep potential victims afloat – all put together by underage Syrian girls.
Most of the ‘life-jackets’ discarded on Greek shores after the refugees land have messages on them. “My name is Amptirachman Ali Yusuf. If you find me, call this number. This is my mother. Mom, I want you to know that I love you,” reads one. Apostle Veizis, program manager of the Greek branch of Doctors Without Borders, says: “These messages are confirmation of the fact that refugees are aware of the dangers they are up against when they board the vessels that carry them to Europe.”
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It was not the fake life-jackets but the kid’s pool toys used as life-jackets that moved journalist David Darg as he walked along beaches on Lesvos:
If anything can represent the true makeup of the refugee population, it should be these images [of life jackets and children’s pool toys together on the beach]. These toys weren’t used to protect terrorists from drowning; they were used to protect innocent children from a crossing they should never have to make.
I glanced at the back of one of the little life jackets. The instructions sent a shiver down my spine. “Warning: This is not a lifesaving device.”
Š David Darg/RYOT News “Warning: This is not a lifesaving device.”
On New Year’s day, dozens of Greenpeace, Doctors without Borders volunteers and locals created a huge peace sign on a hillside in Lesvos overlooking the small strait between Greece and Turkey “as a way to honor those who have made the journey and to urge peace in the new year.” The sign was made with over 3,000 Turkish ‘life-jackets’…
People are calling out for Peace, but where is she? There isn’t a single place on Earth not suffering from some kind of actual or economic war waged by psychopaths against humanity. They subjugate people and force them to accept psychopathy as a ‘way of life’, to be like them, to not care about each other, and to ignore the fact that there are children, and their parents, dying in the seas all around us.
Killing kids for profit
Not satisfied with plundering Syria’s energy resources, Turkey’s leadership is also apparently plundering its human resources – literally. In April 2014 Nizar Abboud, a reporter at the UN in New York City, cited Syrian doctors’ reports appearing in Middle Eastern media about tens of thousands of Syrian children’s organs being harvested – mainly in refugee camps in Turkey and in Turkish hospitals, where children injured in the fighting go for treatment, but instead end up dead. Watch as the UN Council representative casually dismissed Abboud’s question about the UN investigating these claims:
Were it not for the well-documented terrorism and atrocities that we know are being committed by Turkey’s Erdogan government in Syria, we might pass over as political fiction the hand-me-down news report about injured Syrians being robbed of their organs when taken to Turkey’s public hospitals for treatment.
But in the context of Turkey’s role in supporting and arming the terrorists to overthrow the Assad government in Syria and its history with trafficking human organs, there’s reason enough to take the report seriously.
The Turkish public health sector has a history of operating in international human organ smuggling for money. In 2010 The Guardian reported the theft of human organs by Yusuf Ercin Sonmez, a Turkish surgeon who was sought by Interpol in an international manhunt at the time. Sonmez has been indicted for illegally taking human organs for sale from patients in Kosovo, and has been accused of the same in Azerbaijian, and of being involved in an organ theft ring in Ecuador. In Kosovo, Sonmez was indicted for taking organs from Serb soldiers captured in the 1998-1999 US war on Serbia, and leaving them to die.
Sonmez’s partner-in-crime was Moshe Harel, a Turkish-Israeli. Together they harvested and trafficked human organs for a number of years as part of a global network “covering countries that ran through Kosovo, Turkey, Europe, Canada, the US and Israel.” Though both men were prosecuted and tried, their whereabouts are unknown since 2013. One wonders, with reports of on-going organ-trafficking in Turkey involving young refugees, whether these two are still around and protected by the authorities.
While those ultimately responsible for all this mass death and untold suffering – the powerful and wealthy making political maneuvers from their gilded halls – and while all too many people in Europe block out the refugees’ cries for help with walls of fear, hate-mongering and racism, those who voluntarily help the refugees are exercising conscience to weave a wide net of humanity, dignity and solidarity. Each of us should follow their example, wherever we might be.
Let’s open our hearts and offer help and hospitality, or at least show our support, for those who suffer or could use a helping hand. Compassion is contagious through our innate limbic resonance, and I am convinced that small acts of service to our fellow humans can change the world if done by many consistently. As tragedy upon tragedy piles up, the possibility of a new compassionate world is emerging amid the ruins of war and psychopathic politics… and the children of the refugees, our children, need not continue to drown in the seas.
May our children rest in peace, and may their deaths be not in vain. May it touch our hearts deeply so that we feel a sadness and pain for their loss so intense, that it turns into rage. A true and righteous rage against the policies, the governments, the institutions, the persons that allow the senseless and unjustified wars that produce the deaths of these children and millions of others globally, to continue. Rage against the psychopaths who rule over all life on this planet. Rage and be the voice for all the innocent victims dead and alive. Rage to defend whatever is left of beauty, justice, truth, solidarity, compassion and humanity in this world… For there is a worse kind of death than drowning in the Aegean Sea: drowning in a sea of ignorance and indifference to the plight of your fellow human beings, and losing your own humanity in the process.
Originally from Cyprus, Irini has a Master’s degree in Creative Arts Therapy and extensive clinical experience in the field of mental health. Her desire to understand global reality led to a position as editor on sott.net, where she became passionately interested in uncovering the truth hidden behind the lies mainstream media feed us daily. Irini is also a certified instructor of ĂiriĂş Eolas, sharing the practice that keeps people sane in an insane world. She likes spending time around her loved ones and enjoys learning new crafts and skills.â
While the government is doing everything in its power to make sure patients cannot obtain medical marijuana, the Alaska Green Angels are doing everything they can to make sure they can.
Despite Alaska being on the forefront of cannabis decriminalizationâlegalizing its medical use in 1998 and legalizing its recreational use in 2014âthere is still no state-sanctioned way for medical patients to buy cannabis products.In fact, three businesses that attempted to solicit âdonationsâ for cannabis are now facing felony charges. Until the state allows dispensaries to open, Alaskans seeking medical cannabis must either grow their own plants or find someone who can give them cannabis.Thatâs where Alaska Green Angels comes in. Recognizing that there are many patients in need who donât have a cannabis-growing friend and donât want to rely on the black market, the group has been giving away free cannabis for the past year. Their focus is on veterans and the severely ill.Cannabis is known to effectively treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which affects many veterans returning from overseas war zones. Cannabis is also known to effectively treat pain, especially that resulting from inflammation. Some people suffering from Crohnâs disease find that cannabis is their only way of leading a normal life.
What started as a Facebook page last winter has ballooned into a thriving community, with members communicating independently of the founders. Dakota Davis is one such member who found relief through Alaska Green Angels.
âDavis, 26, said that he had avoided marijuana after being honorably discharged from the Navy due to Crohnâs disease. He had never really used cannabis and didnât like the idea of getting marijuana from âthis black market thing.â
Through the advice of a business professor, he got connected with the Alaska Green Angels. âThese guys have been helping me out tremendously,â Davis said.
He says he uses cannabis to alleviate nausea brought on by chemotherapy he undergoes for Crohnâs. He also uses it in place of opiates, which he said negatively affect his mood.
âItâs not a cure-all,â Davis said, but âit really improves my quality of life.ââ
The Alaska Green Angels have about ten people growing cannabis for contributions to the group, with others providing equipment or raw materials for edibles. However, the charitable endeavor is draining their resources as the group goes larger.
Other groups provide free cannabis products to those with a medical need, such as The Alaska Veterans Cannabis Relief Organization. This group branched off from the national Weed for Warriors Project, which focuses on promoting alternatives to prescription opiate drugs.
According to Keenan Williams, the groupâs president, the Veterans Administration (VA) views opioids as âthe answer to everything.â The U.S. is known for being addicted to prescription pillsâthanks in part to a pharmaceutical industry that has commandeered government to push its products on the populaceâand this addiction has led to an overdose epidemic.
The first commercial cannabis stores in Alaska are set to open by autumn 2016, which will finally provide access for all medical patients. The state is not differentiating between medical use and recreational use in its business model, which means that everyone will be subject to the steep $50-per-ounce tax. However, there is talk of tax breaks for medical patients, but that could not happen until 2017.
Alaska Green Angels plans to continue providing free cannabis to veterans and those with severe illnesses, and would like to become a non-profit organization.
If you are in the area and can donate plants to their cause, you can find them on Facebook, here.
âOur citizens should know the urgent facts…but they donât because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”âOliver Stone
Tales from the Conspiratum 