Closing Pandora's Box

The web of life. Sprawling. Interconnected. Laced together with fine strings of silk. Each thread, a different moment, a different relationship, a different entity, held together with the glue of emotion. Each fine fibre holds firm another, supporting and being supported. And yet at times it feels so flimsy and weak. All it takes is the blink of an eye, a moment, an incident, the breath of a single word to tear it all apart. And then you are left with the pieces of your life scattered across the floor. Battered, broken and longing for a reason to believe.

The silk of a spider is stronger than steel, they say. It acts as a place to sleep, a place to catch food and much more. Who taught the spider how to spin its web? We humans regularly demolish these beautiful structures. What do spiders do? They move on, and rebuild their lives, from scratch.

Bad things happen, but life goes on.
It is not long before we go are gone.¹

God gave everyone the ability to make a life for themselves. Yet, “we do not rise to the level of our abilities, but fall to the lies (sic) of our excuses”.² When it feels like it is all disintegrating, remember the spider. Every thread you lay, make sure it is stronger than steel. And try again. Remember, when it all seems to be falling apart, it may just be falling into place.³ Remember, and keep the faith.

*****

Thank you to B for giving me the idea for this post. I dedicate this to Tutti Fruitti and all others who are going through testing times.

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Photograph of an exposed web just after sunrise from personal photography, available here.
¹ A couplet from a poem I once wrote.
² This was a quote I posted on Twitter in the last couple of weeks, but I can no longer remember where / who it’s from.
³ This is another quote I posted onto Twitter a month or so ago. Unfortunately I cannot remember its source.

This is a song EllaUnread posted on her blog. I loved it, and so borrowed (without asking) it to share with you guys:

I’ve had a bit of a tough and tiring week, and this song really put a smile on my face (thank you Ella). And I hope it puts a smile on yours too.

Have a lovely weekend everyone. :)

[ This is a scheduled post ]

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Title: On the bright side – NeverShoutNever!

I was going through my photos that are stored away in the hard-drive of memories. Dad brought this hard-drive a few years ago, solely for the purpose of storing photos and videos of the family. I came across this photo:

This photo I took myself, many years ago. I think it was the beginning of high school; year 7 or 8. On that day there was a blackout in our area, which is quite a rare occurrence here. It’s the only time I can remember it ever happening to be honest. While the house was flooded in darkness, I remember mum walking to the kitchen and fetching some candles a friend of hers had given as a gift a few days before. She gave me one too, so that I could continue doing my homework (I was a good little boy back then). Now that I think of the incident, I am made to realise that sometimes you need a little darkness to see the light.

*****

I’m also quite a lot behind on blog reading and replying to comments. Sorry guys, I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll get round to that ASAP.

[This is a scheduled post]

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Title: Bowl of oranges – Bright Eyes
Photograph showing flame – Personal photography

This article appeared in the Local Guardian last week:

(click to enlarge)

If when you stand in front of the mirror and are not happy with what you see, remember that you are BEAUTIFUL and be grateful.

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Title: Firework – Katy Perry
If you would like further information about neurofibromatosis, click here to visit the medical website that I use to do my university homework.

Last semester, I had one taught module i.e. one module for which we were lectured. It was the Therapeutics: Protein to patient module, and dealt with drugs^*, their discovery, making, action and other bits and bobs of pharmacology as well concentrating on 5 specific diseases; learning about their discovery, how diagnosis, prognosis and treatment or management has developed over time and what the future holds. An integral part of the module was, in the words of the module organiser, "’Bullshit Detection”. In today’s exponentially expanding technological world, we are constantly bombarded by drug adverts from every direction; creams that will make your wrinkles disappear, pills to make you smile from sunrise to sunset, lotions that’ll make your your hair so thick, you could be mistaken for a yeti, or if you’ve ever taken a peek at your spam / junk mail, pills that’ll grow your third leg by a good 7 and a half inches¹. There are so-called doctors, who have graduated from universities with names that are vaguely familiar to names in Lord of the Rings, handing out leaflets on the street claiming to cure erectile dysfunction, cancer², and anything that’d make even grown men blush. Coupled with the fact many people are just so busy and don’t have the time to investigate the claims made by the multi-million pound advertising companies that are shoving ‘magical-cures’, quoting long words from non-existent research that are nonsense. But we still buy them. We still pay that extra couple of pounds to buy the carrot that contains beta-amyloids³ to combat hair reduction. The bullshit detection part of the course was to enable us to recognise and analyse ‘quacks’, their treatments and bogus forms of health information we are exposed to. One lecture in particular which focused on complimentary medicine was so funny, that each and every student in the lecture theatre was LMAO-ing so hard at the sheer stupidity of how some of these forms of treatments are carried out.⁴ All in all, a lot of the scams mentioned above are ways of stealing money from the uneducated general public, though it is amazing to see how those people who are educated, still make use of such things, but that’s not the point of this post. Below is a slide from a lecture we had on the history of asthma, and I think it puts the point across quite nicely:

While revising some of lectures from that module a few days ago, I got distracted as I always do, and started thinking about something completely unrelated. It all started with homeopathy. Homeopathy⁵ is an alternative treatment, known by many as the sweet little white balls. The lecturer who taught us, was extremely anti-any-type-of-complimentary-medicine and therefore he gave us one side of the argument. To balance the whole thing, we also received a lecture supporting homeopathy. Medicine is an evidence based field in which all drugs are vigorously tested, undergoing clinical trials to determine whether, if any, of the potential benefits are due to the drug itself or placebo⁶. Many sceptics of alternative medicines such as homeopathy argue they work, if they do, by a placebo effect as the ‘active’ constituents are so dilute they could not possibly induce any effects themselves. So while sitting there pretending to revise, I thought to myself about those people / patients who claim to have been cured or gotten better after taking such alternative medicines.

Regardless of your personal belief^**, let us take sides with the sceptics and assume for argument’s sake, that complimentary medicines don’t work. If they don’t work for whatever reason, and people are still getting ‘cured’, without having taken any conventional medication, one can conclude the alternative medicines had a placebo effect. The positive effects must therefore have all been psychological. It was the person’s belief which cured them, the pills were just something to instil that belief. As my train of thought continued to choo-chooo along, I was reminded of a quote from a lovely film a friend of mine forced me to watch (forced because it was a chick flick, and I was sceptical about how good it would be):

Happiness is a state of mind – Love happens.

Come to think of it, I totally agree with the quote. Like the patients above who had such strong faith in the amazing-ness of the sugary white balls that they got better, I think each and everyone’s mental state of mind can play a great impact on the healing of wounds; physical and or emotional. It has been observed by many that those people who are optimistic tend to heal faster, whereas those with a negative state of mind, heal a lot slower and may even get worse spiralling downwards. Patients in wards that have a good support structure as well being full of life, quickly overcome their problems and reclaim their life that they lost to injury and or illness.

Everyone comes across instances in life when they feel hope is lost, life changing events that open the inviting door of depression such trauma and loss. In these situations it can be difficult being positive, because it hurts so much. The injustice of the incident leads to anger and we become trapped thinking, “Why? Why did it have to be this way?”. I’ve been there, so I know what it feels like sitting in the darkness searching desperately for even a speck of light. But I made my way out of the darkness. It all starts with you. The hardest part about the fall is picking yourself up. After that, once you’re on your feet it becomes easier and easier and easier. Believe tomorrow will be a better day, believe you will find happiness and love and laughter and life, and maybe if you believe hard enough, your beliefs will turn to reality.

For the Muslim readers among you, I would like to share a hadith from Muslim in which the Holy Prophet (sa) said that whoever was guilty of spreading pessimism among the people was leading towards their downfall as pessimistic ideas tend to discourage one and halt progress.⁷ So find the butterfly of happiness and share it with everyone around you.

*NB: In the healthcare profession, when someone uses the word drugs it encompasses all medicines and not just those ‘street drugs’ such as cocaine and heroin. Normal medications such as paracetamol and aspirin etc are also drugs.

** I am personally undecided about homeopathy, as I like to conduct my own research before making up my mind, and haven’t really got round to it.

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Title: The storm is over now – R Kelly 
¹If you didn’t understand this, then don’t worry. If you’re a guy, you probably got exactly what I meant
²Claiming to be able to cure cancer is against the British law and a punishable act: Click here to read the Cancer Act
³Beta-amyloids are found in plaques in the brain’s of those with Alzheimer’s Disease. If I hadn’t mentioned this, you’d have thought they were good for your hair.
⁴There is a website dedicated to historical remedies used for the treatment of many illnesses. It is good for laughs: http://thequackdoctor.com/
⁵A brief introduction to homeopathy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
⁶An introduction to placebo-controlled-studies used to test drugs can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo-controlled_study
⁷Muslim, Part II, vol. 2
Picture 1 of a lecture slide take from my university given notes.
Picture 2 of homeopathic medicine showing container and balls taken from this website: http://www.drallanapolo.com/images/general/homeopathy.jpg

I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky. I think about it every night and day, spread my wings and fly away.¹

I recently watched a filmed called ‘Dinner for Schmucks’. The film itself was full of crude humour, and personally I didn’t think it was all that. But there was a scene in it that I particularly liked and have shared it with you below:

When people tell us what we are doing is stupid, or we will never succeed, tell them, I am a dreamer.

You can only dream if you believe. If you believe in yourself, your ability, and what you want to do. Don’t just be a dreamer, fulfil those dreams of yours and don’t let anyone take them away from you.

I am reminded of my high school’s motto:

Vincit Qui Patitur
He who perseveres, conquers

Happy dreaming!

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Title: I Believe – Yolanda Adams
¹I Believe I can fly – R Kelly [Title of a previous post]
²Dinner for Schmucks [film] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427152/

This picture I stole off the loveeeeely Bubblegum (thank you!). She is truly amazing.

I’ve never really been much of an X Factor fan, but I think this song is really rather good and quite inspirational. Joe McElderry was the winner of 2009’s X Factor.

Footballers are known for their lavish lifestyles, fast cars and HOT babes. But here’s some down to earth advice from Javier Hernandez, Manchester United’s first Mexican player (click to enlarge and read what is in the red box):

This is for you Marshmellow, Furree Katt & The General :)

*****

You should all recommend me a blog or two to read. It can be anything which you think I’ll enjoy. I want some more reading to do!

I’ve nearly finished writing part 2 of the post about racism, hate and discrimination. That’ll be up soon, sorry to have kept you waiting.

I’ve always loved sitting outside talking to the stars. Charley and I did it quite often. We would share our secrets, our hopes and our dreams sitting there covered in the silvery blanket of the stars and the moon.

“Every night I go to bed, I look at the stars and wish that one day I could just reach out and touch one of them,” she said with a glint in her eye. A glint of hope, of want and of a dream.

*****

When we were young we had many dreams. Some of us dreamed to be cowboys chasing bad guys on horseback, some of dreamed to be power rangers using kick-ass moves to save the planet from evil aliens, some of us dreamed to be train drivers flying on land, some of dreamed to be pilots gracefully roaming the air like birds, whereas others dreamed to be trees (yeah that was me, don’t ask). As we grew older and saw more of what the world had to offer our dreams changed.

Are dreams just for little children? It’s easy for us to believe, and many of us do, that the person sitting next to us in biology class would be an excellent surgeon, the cousin who breaks all his toys will one day be a skilful engineer and the neighbour’s little girl who can so convincingly change her mood will one day be a famous actor. But why do we never think ‘that could be me’? Our mind never happens to cross the path of aspiring. Believing in a dream is hard work. You don’t have to tell me about it. It is just so much easier do to nothing. But what if there comes a time when you can no longer do nothing?

People who really dream never give up, no matter how many legs are stuck out in front of them. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again. It’s like an obsession which clouds their vision and whatever they do, is a small step to fulfilling that dream. Whether it be passing exams with good grades, buying a cosy little house in a peaceful area, earning a promotion or just resolving a few family issues, no dream is too small to pursue.

Dreams are so fragile, like the dew drops on a rose. There are some dreams which we chase on our own, from which we get fame, glory or money. There are those dreams that can only be achieved with the combined effort and power of a number of dreamers, for example those dreams that are remembered in the annals of history. Most dreams require a finger to hold onto, guidance of where to go, they need to be nurtured. It is these dreams that require a dreamer like you and others to lead, encourage and give them hope. Those dreamers who make it a life ambition to pursue their dreams, become a Nelson Mandela, a Mother Teresa, a Martin Luther King, a Princess Diana etc. People like the ones I have mentioned have a great power, and that is their belief.

The scene below is from one of my favourite films, ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ in which the father tells his son the importance of believing in and pursuing one’s dreams despite what others may say.

Though Charley passed away at the beginning of this year, I still go our special place and share my secrets with the beautiful stars and like before, the stars quietly listen. The stars are like a repository for dreams. With each dream that is shared with them, they become brighter and even more beautiful. The heavens are full of the dreams shared by countless people over the millennia.  Your dream could be residing in the same star as the dream of Mahatma Ghandi after he was thrown off a train in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The real question is, he had a dream and he pursued it but will you pursue yours or will you leave your dream to wither away like a dead flower?

If you ever feel your hopes and dreams slipping away and you need some reason or some hope then this following PowerPoint may give you inspiration. It was emailed to me by my dad.

Click here to download