Multiculturalism
I would like to announce that today our vegetarian, Jewish roommate went to get some ham at the grocery store for Gabe and me. Sometimes irony is just so damn fun.
Add comment February 17th, 2008
Archive for February, 2008
Western Numerals Anyone?
Man pays $14 million for a license plate ‘1′ in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Okay, so first of all, some people have too much money and not enough brains. But that’s old news.
More importantly how the hell can a license plate, according to the article, have “only the western numerals” instead what is apparently the norm in UAE, to”carry both Arabic and western numerals and script”? Our modern-day western numeral ARE Arabic numerals.
Anyone? Anyone?
*shakes head*
3 comments February 16th, 2008
A Natural Management - Seasonal Affective Disorder
I used to write a lot about seasonal affective disorder. I used to use this blog as a way to explore a mysterious exhaustion turned depression that continued to overpower my winters, and found it served as a release for me but also that others with similar issues found the blog through google searches for things like “hypersomnia” or “S.A.D.” *see what the Canadian Mental Health Association has to say about SAD here.
I haven’t written much about it anymore, because I have, effectively, not dealt with it this year. Or perhaps a more appropriate thing to say might be that I finally did deal with it. And so this post is less a release for me, and more for any people who might stumble across through google still suffering every year as the days get shorter.
First of all, it is true that just about everyone feels a little bit slower, and a little bit less energized in the wintertime–and that’s perfectly normal. What’s not normal is not being able to get out of bed, sleeping 10 to 12 to 14 hours a night, every night, and still finding it necessary to nap, eventually becoming so overwhelmed and depressed that you don’t get out of bed to make food….those things are not okay.
As I wrote about in previous posts, light therapy can be extremely helpful. Traditional Western doctors and psychiatrists can help set you up with light therapy to manage SAD. For me, though, light therapy was not enough. My psychiatrist wanted to see me on anti-depressants, and while there are times when they are necessary, I was convinced that there was an underlying cause to my illness which was not being addressed, and as it turns out I was right.
So what can I suggest that worked?
1. Get on Vitamin D. If you live in Canada you need it for 6 months of the year, whether you suffer from symptoms or not. Vitamin D is something our body gets from exposure to the sun, which we simply can’t get enough of this far north this time of year. Also, sunscreen/block stops the absorption of Vitamin D soooo if you’re as white as I am, and need sunblock then you should probably take Vitamin D in the summer as well: it’s very important for regulating your melatonin system, which helps you to have a natural sleep schedule. Melatonin also works in conjunction with the seratonin system, and symptoms of depression are related to decreased levels of seratonin.
2. Get on a Vitamin B complex of some kind.
3. Consider going to see a Naturopathic Doctor.
With my naturopath I uncovered a number of food sensitivities that I never knew I had. I started as someone ostensibly with no allergies whatsoever, only to discover that gluten, corn, egg and citrus all powerfully affect my skin, digestive system, and most significantly (for me) my moods. A lot of my friends have expressed that they could not give up foods like that, and would rather stay blissfully ignorant of sensitivities. I have to say, I don’t see a single problem in the world with that: as long as you are blissfully ignorant, I was not. I was miserable and committed to finding a solution, so giving up those foods has not really been a big deal.
We (my naturopath and I) combined this with the use of a homeopathic remedy and acupuncture. Each of these were tailored to my specific symptoms for a very individualized treatment. To those skeptics reading: I feel you, 100%. BUT the diet alone was not enough, in November symptoms were starting to show and somehow they went away. I can only describe it as feeling like my body has achieved an important kind of internal balance (which is, quite precisely, the goal of naturopathic medicine). At the end of the day its the effectiveness of any kind of treatment that counts. Which is to say, I don’t know if I understand how these treatments worked, but even if has just been some kind of placebo affect, I’ll take that over seasonal depression.
In my case, I could not afford to see a practicing naturopath but instead saw a 4th year intern at the Canadian College for Naturopathic Medicine. She has been incredible, compassionate and helpful, and every visit is overseen by a registered ND.
Right, well that’s it. May your winters get warmer and more wonderful. I, for one, can’t even express how great it feels to be able to really enjoy the beauty of Canadian winters wholeheartedly again.
4 comments February 8th, 2008
Hawksley and Huntsville
You know why living in Toronto rocks? Because this afternoon I was one of like 60 people to see Hawksley Workman perform songs from his new album, Between the Beautifuls, on MTV Live, a 20 minute walk from my house, for free!
I think Hawksley definitely attracted an audience that the MTV Live group weren’t used to, which laughed tongue-in-cheek at their humour, rather than enjoying it outright, but in anycase it was a blast! And if you go the MTV Live website and look at the Hawksley clips from today’s show you can see Gabe and me sitting there (Gabe in green stripes, and me in many multi-coloured stripes) in the ‘chats with the hosts’. More importantly, you can also check out the performances. All three songs he performed were new, and I particularly liked the 2nd on September Lily.
Also, because I have a test tomorrow, and just saw one of my favourite artists, I am surfing the net very aimlessly. Hawksley is from Huntsville, Ontario, so obviously I went to the Huntsville website. Yes, I’m embarrassed. But I’m glad I did because it made me laugh.
Check out #7 on the FAQ page.
I genuinely hope those available at that number are derided daily with prank phone calls.
Add comment February 6th, 2008
Myth, the child, and the fundamentalist atheist
I have struggled, as someone raised outside a strictly religious family, but with Christian influence, and having turned from the teachings of the faith with the idea of how to raise my own children. I do not want to bring them up under Christian theology. I do not want them to feel they are inherantly sinful, or somehow incomplete unless they accept a particular belief system, or to fear that they, or their loved ones may end up in hell (all ideas I struggled with as a child).And yet it seems inescapable to me that the young mind be raised with myth.
Our minds, particularly the minds of our children, are deeply structured on narrative–and in that sense whatever is given to them will be taken as myth. And so I shudder at the idea of raising them, in such a consumerist culture with no structural ideas as their myth. And yet even more frightening to me is the idea of sending them to ‘atheist’ or ’secular’ sunday schools (which are now popping up)–because the last thing you need is a child to develop skepticism as their myth.
Rational engagement with ideas and the development of compassion for others through understanding their choices and needs are ideals I would promote–and those are not ideals afforded by any faith (besides Buddhism) any more than they are promoted by modern day atheism which avidly declares religions to be the antithesis of science.
At the end of the day, I feel it is often lost that believing in God, or claiming that there is a God, is only as ludicrous as believing or claiming there is no God. It seems to me, lost on some secular rationalists that admitting agnosticism, in the true sense of the word, is the only “rational” claim.
5 comments February 1st, 2008
Christianity and our culture
There is something bizarre, to me, about people who claim to be rational, and open thinkers who beat against the Bible and the Christian faith as if it were some kind of punching bag through which they were supposed to be able to make themselves feel smarter.
The Bible is an extremely ancient collection of written works, parts of it respected for millennia, that cannot be easily dismissed. Are there parts of it which are contradictory, or ludicrous in the light of scientific discoveries? Yes. But if you are a secular rationalist then step back and accept it for what it is–a collection of myths and stories that helped, and continues to help, various peoples and cultures around the world through times of strife and trouble when things seemed to be going so wrong in the world that nothing could make life seem worth living.
Sure, you say. But your point is that people out there take it literally! They take it seriously! Every word, you scream, they believe! And I hear you. It stresses me out too. And I’ll admit that I don’t have an answer to that, but I do have a few things to say.
1. Attempting to repeatedly prove that the arguments behind their faith are hollow will never accomplish anything. Their faith is not filling a rational need in their life. It is filling a deep spiritual one, and to take that from them is simply to open them up to the painful experience of absurdity. Only through the experience of seeing the possibility of living and enjoying a compassionate, fulfilling life outside a Christian faith could their beliefs ever be changed–and you are not working toward that end by stirring bad blood with them.
2. As long as you spend so much of your breath attacking their beliefs you are still attached to, and controlled by the role the faith has played in your own life. To actively reject Christianity, so viscerally, or even so rationally (considering it’s not a rational faith) is to accept it as a tenant to be actively argued against. It is not. It is a faith. Ignore it, if it’s not what you want for yourself.
Add comment February 1st, 2008
Arrogance of the scientist
I am frustrated.
I am angered.
I am experiencing visceral and emotional responses to arguments that strike me as unfair, and hypocritically narrow.
It has always seemed patently ignorant, to me, to pit science against religion, or to purport it to be some important step forward we have taken from religion as we progress as a species.
As if science did not depend on leaps of faith. For science to work we need to trust our ability to perform inductive reasoning. We need to trust the theoretical choices and probability assignments we make. We need to put faith in the choices of educated individuals to hold one theory up over another. And that’s okay. That is how it works. And an argument can most certainly be made for using our competency as a species as evidence for our reasoning abilities, and the reasoning of our trained scientists.
But let us not lose sight of the parallels between choosing to hold science above all else, and to take the word of the theorist and the choice to hold religion above all else in taking the word of the theologians. There are differences, absolutely. But, there are similarities, and to deny that is arrogant and ignorant.
*I ended up here because friends of mine had joined a group about it on that evil social network we all use. And I browsed around this mixture of sometimes rational and compassionate ideals based on mindfulness and wellness yet often arrogant and pigheaded battering of the beliefs of religious others and I got frustrated. Because hypocrisy irritates me. You can be dogmatic, and fundamentalist and myopic if you want–but if you’re going to be then leave others to do the same (at least if you’re going to claim ‘rationality’ as your one of your main motivations and inspirations).
Add comment February 1st, 2008