All posts by erk

I love writing, computers, puns... and can sometimes be spiritual, or mindful.
Politics and Society, Talk

Hague Invasion Act

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Did you know there’s an American law that would ultimately result in a US invasion of the Netherlands?

Oh, yeah. It’s even called the Hague Invasion Act. The response to an American citizen being arrested by an international criminal court… the ones that deal with war crimes and crimes against humanity… you know, like genocide…

I’m not saying US lawmakers are making room for American war criminals, but it is a bit like catching your kid bringing a pack of condoms to a “sleepover with friends”… they might not need them, but you’re not going to take any prisoners on that one.

Humor

Things that will kill you

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Things that will kill you:

  • Three minutes without air
  • Three days without water
  • Three weeks without food
  • …oh, and Three hours without coffee… right? 😀

But there are always exceptions:

  • In cold water, there are reports of survival up to an hour without oxygen. Freedivers manage up to four and a half minutes (22 minutes when not diving to depths), helped by the mammalian diving reflex (and some preparation like oxygen saturation)
  • And if you’re unfortunate enough to be in an Austrian prison in the 70ies, you may have to try to survive without water for 18 days… although, there may have been some wall licking going on there…
  • If you are overweight, you can survive much longer than twenty one days without food
  • The coffee, however, that’s an absolute! 🙂
Fiction

Thin and Narrow

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She was thin and narrow. Her siblings called her ugly. I thought she was beautiful.

When the two-legged ones came they threw her to the ground. One of them even stepped on her, squashing her open.

I watched her for days, halfway buried there in the dirt. She started decaying. I feared she was gone for this world. And for what? Being thin and narrow?

After a week she sprang roots, digging into the ground, and not soon after she reached for the azure skies.

At first, she was just a twig with two leaves on top. She did not even reach above the high grass. I teased her and called her Sprout. She bent in the wind and I think she laughed.

Continue reading Thin and Narrow →

Personal Development

Four keywords to spot a self-lie

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Do you lie to yourself?

You probably do. We all do.

Do you know how to spot such a lie?

That may be a bit trickier, but there are four keywords you can be on the lookout for. When they rear their heads you know you’re lying to yourself.

The keywords are:

  • Everybody
  • Nobody
  • Always
  • Never

Whenever these words appear in things you say about yourself you can assume the statement isn’t true.

Statements such as, “nobody loves me,” or “I’ll never be able to get this right” are in almost all cases untrue.

Sure, you may in fact never get that advanced course in quantum physics right… but I refuse to believe anyone is unable to get anything right!

In a philosophical/logical sense, a statement like “nobody loves me” essentially requires that you know what every person in the whole world thinks about you, or doesn’t think about you…

The problem is that your unconscious seems to take these statements at face value, and if you can convince yourself that nobody loves you, your unconscious will start seeping misery into your life just because you were sloppy with words…

These keywords can also appear in things other people say about themselves or someone else. You can assume they are just not true in those cases as well.

When we make statements that can affect how we think about ourselves, such huge concepts as everybody, nobody, always and never, are best remodeled into something less enormous, or simply called out for being untrue!