Our life begins as a blank canvas

Throughout the steps of our lives, we are told how to draw a house, a flower, a family, the sun, the sky, the nature... This need of learning the stereotypes of the society that we live in as well as the need for expression exists in every single culture throughout the first steps of humanity and the first steps of the human life...

Drawing is one of the first activities that we all engage as little persons and is something inherent in all the educational programs. We are taught basic principles on how to synthesize our blank canvas, by using different materials, ideas, concepts...The techniques will teach us what is being accepted to be the stereotypical reality such us "The sun is run and yellow", "The standard house has a window, a door and a roof"

The artistic skills evolve when
* observing the world around us, the tones, the shapes, the dimensional relationships...
* practicing, practice makes perfect they say
* experimenting, when combining different techniques, materials, ideas
* engaging those techniques and by adding a touch from ourselves we make them ours

Our life begins as a blank canvas... Our parents, our teachers, our surrounding environment taught us how to apply the first strokes on the canvas... and this is how our masterpiece begins...

Each experience in life, good or bad, each effort, each achievement, each drawback, are just another stroke on the canvas of our life. We are the owners and the creators of this canvas. We can let the strokes that other people put on our canvas to be part of our piece of art or we can transform them or just hide them with something that is more acceptable to us. A not so inspirational day or phase of our life will add it's stigma on our masterpiece. We are able accept that not every stroke is meant to be perfect and to learn from it, let go and move on eventually improving the not so good strokes... Our masterpiece is on ongoing progress...

It's in our own hands to evolve the canvas of our lives as we like it to be in order to transmit it into a masterpiece.

* The observation was there to increase our understanding and assist us to create our own technique our own reality.
* The practice was there to let us make mistakes and learn from them.
* The experimentation was there to find what is acceptable to us and to reach what we perceive to be perfect.
* The techniques were there to guide us to find our own style of expression and not to restrict us.

Everyone is destined to create his/her own masterpiece. It all starts with following some principles and then it evolves to finding our self expression. The principles are there to guide us or to make us realise which principles we are against for and why. This is how we can create the authenticity. But authenticity, takes time to unfold as well as years of practice to become established as a well acknowledged artist. We don't always have the power to control every stoke put on canvas but we will have the power to fix it eventually and make our own masterpiece. It's only our decision how our life canvas will evolve and whether we will let restrictions to push us to make something wonderful or let them restrict us to create something less wonderful of what we are ultimately capable of creating.


With ♥ for philosophy,
Ziuζs 

Food correlation with Thoughts

Our body needs to be fed with energy; in order for our body to survive and that is through our food intake.

Our mind needs to be fed with spirit; in order for our mind to survive and that is through our thoughts, beliefs and ideas.

So essentially, we are our body and our mind.

Our food intake is a fantastic mirror of our thought intake: It will tell us things about us.

Food intake and thought intake are two highly correlated functions:
* the way that we choose to eat and essentially filter our food in order to get energy and pleasure
* will indicate and reflect
* the way that we choose to filter our thoughts to establish our thoughts, beliefs and ideas.

As far food is concerned we are all aware what is
* a healthy source of food and what is not that healthy
* a quantity is ideal and when is not
* a taste and item that we are familiar with
* a taste and item that we are not so familiar

Food can be the source of energy intake but also food can be a source of pleasure or displeasure. By eating a tasty and appealing dish, all our senses are satisfied and that is not only for surviving purposes and is not only to satisfy our energy needs. We are all free to make our own choice in which substance will enter our body to be absorbed as an energy and/or as a pleasure:
* a balanced or imbalanced nutrition intake
* a healthy or unhealthy nutrition

The way that we choose to eat our food indicates and reflects the way that we choose our thoughts. Our thought system receives influences from our external environment but is up to us to filter those to satisfy our spiritual needs. We gather beliefs about ourselves in our whole life: past experiences, past memories, beliefs, ideas... We are essentially made up of everybody else s influences and our choice of how we let those influences to affect us. Whether we gathered rotten flowers or aromatic flowers, that will be framed and decided based on our internal core system. The interesting bit with thoughts, is not that we have them but is that we believe them: thoughts create feelings and feelings create actions. We are not our thoughts but we are a product of how we let those thought affect us.

What we think inside us, is what we feel. Behavioral symptoms such as eating less or more can indicate that the body balance is distorted and therefore that a mind imbalance exists. This imbalance will signify a disconnection of a healthy functioning body as well as a disconnection that the mind does not receive healthy thoughts by the form intangible obstacles or blockages which exist in our mind. Imbalance such as over-eating or under-eating,  will distort self-worth, self-esteem and good feelings such us happiness, love, efficiency, trust and creativity while body will not be able to function at the optimum level.

Both are signs that there is an emotional disconnection from ourselves and others. Disconnection from what is good and healthy for our body as well as a disconnection from our personal values, beliefs and/or needs. Disconnection may result from too many unpleasant experiences or too many pleasant experiences that we have gathered from our so far life journey. Disconnection or imbalance will signify that we are not completely happy inside us, that something that we are doing action/habit/thought influences us negatively and that something is missing. What is missing is inside us and in our thoughts. The only way to change it is to take action doing something aligned with our qualities. This will automatically make us feel more happy and alive rendering the food intake just right for energy or pleasure consumption. And then food overdose or under dose will cease to exist.

Prevention is better than the cure. We are in control to decide whether our food intake will be a near term indulgence/austerity that will lead to a long term torture. We are in control to decide whether irrational and negative thoughts will harm us and avoid thinking about them.  How to cope with cravings of food intake or behaviors and allow them to pass. One does not have to be perfect but one has to make smart decisions when one is the position to do so. We are all valuable human beings and our motto should be set to make the right choices for us doing always the best that we can. Choose healthy food to have a healthy mind and maintain a healthy mind to eat healthy food.

With ♥ for philosophy,
Ziuζs  

Living through the spirit of my dreams...: Reaction

Living through the spirit of my dreams...: Reaction: What happened yesterday, what is happening now and also what will happen in the future is a choice that is in our hands:  fear will bring pain whereas love will bring joy. What will influence our actions and reactions, and therefore the result in ourselves, in others and in the path of our life, is our choice ofwhat we choose to trust more: our fearful mind or our lovable heart?

Reaction

Scientific discovery states that energy never ceases... it flows continuously and it is transformed to a different type of energy. Also, according to the laws of our universe, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction in order balance to be achieved.

As we flow through the paths of our lives some events will happen:
* either we planned them or not,
* either we expected them or not,
* either we welcome them or not.

And when an event happens we will have some sort of reaction: equal, opposite or neutral. This reaction will be formed and will be based on our own universe. That is what we have inside our minds and inside our hearts.

* A mind full of fear will exhibit feelings of anger, jealousy, envy, greed, lying, unforgiveness and selfishness.
* A heart full of love will seek joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth.

The internal fight of mind vs. heart, or interchangeably referred as fear vs. love, will be pushed into the surface every time a reaction will occur. In every such occasion there will be a winner: the winner of this internal fight, will decide what the impact will be. Ones thoughts, feelings and words will define the winner of this internal fight.

Who will win is the one that we practice the most. Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. If we cultivate fear and worry our dreams will become nightmares. If we cultivate love and optimism only good will come.

The more intense the reaction is the more intense the response will be. Depending who will win the more intense or the more balanced the result will be:
* negativity will be washed out with positivity and vice versa
* negativity can be blocked with no reaction.

 A heart full of love will seek to spread good and eliminate fear. A good heart will choose to wash out
* arrogance with peace and love
* greed with generosity
* pride with humility
* despair with hope
* lies with truth
* hurt with forgiveness

A heart full of love can train the mind full of fear to change it's negative perceptions and seek the goodness that only a heart full of love can bring which is ultimately happiness and joy.

And as we choose to respond to those events, the universe will choose to respond back to us in the same way, immediately or in the near future. What happened yesterday, what is happening now and also what will happen in the future is a choice that is in our hands:  fear will bring pain whereas love will bring joy. What will influence our actions and reactions, and therefore the result in ourselves, in others and in the path of our life, is our choice of what we choose to trust more: our fearful mind or our lovable heart?


With ♥ for philosophy,
Ziuζs  

The equation of life

Great thanks to my Diplani for inspiring me to have the following thoughts after our chat:

Wherever we are and whatever situation we are experiencing,
not all the variables in the equation of life will be the same
* some might be positive
* some might be neutral
* some others might be negative

nor those variables will have the same weight
* some might be more important
* and some others will be less important

The variables could be there but their interpretation and how those affect our lives is only up to us. It's up to us to give them a meaning and measure their importance and hence their impact in our lives.

Meaning can be whether the variable is positive whereas measurement can be how positive is that variable is.

The variable is a fact but its definition is an interpretation and that depends on the person, his or her experiences in life, perceptions and current situation. It also depends how one wants to interpret it, how one wants to experience it and how one wants that to affect his/her life or those around him/hers.

Variables can be facts but we will give them their importance in our lives.

Hence, whatever the variables are, the result of the equation is made up by us. If we are experiencing a very sad situation we have the ability to find and interpret other variables as positive... Therefore, the equation of life will not deteriorate further but can move towards more neutral conditions.

Positiveness and negativeness are the two extremes. Human behaviour is also extreme in both environments... Too much positiveness may generate creation, passion or whereas too much negativeness can produce pain, sorrow, distraction or loneliness.

Behaviour, feelings and thoughts perform better in neutral situations where:

* Passion is a positive affinity of love and not a source of lust or vanity
* Freedom is a way individuals control their own actions and not a source of uncontrolled anarchy or imprisonment
* Trust is a source of confidence and protection and not a vehicle of lie coverage to flaw honesty or suspicion
* Dignity is self respect and respect of others and is not transformed to vanity or worthlessness or racism

Positiveness and negativeness will always exist in our own lives and the lives of others. There will always be problems around us as there will always be joy. Whatever the situation is, our core values are only visible and true in neutral situations. Our truthful values or beliefs can only exist in situations of balance. And it is only up to us how to adjust those variables and maintain our true honest self even when some extreme circumstances are found in our path of our life...making the equation of life to be balanced... neutral...harmonic...


With ♥ for philosophy,
Ziuζs  

Choice

Life is like a map  full of different paths & destinations. Each path or selection of  paths leads to a different journey which ends in a different destination. 

Each journey is a matter of choice. Some believe that a predefined choice track exists & that is usually called fate & some other believe that the journey is only the result of their personal preferences & selections.  Some others are inclined to believe that the journey is a combination of  both predefined & personal selections.

Some  journeys are perceived not so risky & their outcomes are usually known. Some others are perceived to be more risky/dangerous & their outcomes are usually not so known. These choices of journeys can give us:

* happiness or sorrow

* enjoyment or anger

* satisfaction or disappointment

* admiration or envy

* love or loathe

* desire or disgust
* trust or suspicion

* inclusion or isolation

* modesty or arrogance

* braveness or cowardice

Whatever the outcomes of a choice are it is up to each individual to control how much the result will affect us as a person or affect our life as a whole. Little moments of disappointment can make us appreciate the big moments of satisfaction but extensive moments of disappointment can even drive us into madness.

Positiveness as well as negativeness can be there in every choice & in every result but it all depends what we are inclined to look for & how we will "weight" it. For some people the same results might be an opportunity but for some others might be an obstacle or a problem. Since positiveness is also a choice why not choosing having it? The outcomes will definitely be inspiring for  us & to those around us...


With ♥ for philosophy,
Ziuζs  

Anthropomorphic Robots

Humans always wanted assistants & maybe that's the origin of servants or even slaves. Over time technology evolved & that gave us the opportunity to create artificial humans: machines called robots designed & programmed to do certain tasks. These robots have the ability to execute tasks more efficiently than humans.

Humans have also a "do tasks" section in their programming code. But humans have also a "feelings" section in their programming code that robots do not have. For some people "feelings" seem to be a "bug" in there programming code since feelings are always affecting their performance on doing tasks in one way or another; for some other that part of the code is perceived to be a blessing since the "feelings" section of the code  can enhance their creativity & do the certain tasks in slightly different way of what the "do tasks" section impose them to do.

Without the "feelings" section of the programming code

*  Feelings of course would never had existed

*  & tears would not had been let to leave the corner of our eyes

*  & smiles would not had let our mouth & cheeks to be stretched

*  & heartbeats would had been limited to certain scales when doing
    certain things

*  & opinions would had also being expressed in standard ways
    or expressions
*  & creativity would had been limited in zero levels
*  & life just wouldn't have been the same...

But "guess what? we are not robots". Whoever programmed us put "feelings", mistakenly or not, to be part of the code. & that made the whole things non standard, diverse, much more interesting, unexpected & live full! & even if sometimes those feelings hurt us especially when tasks seem to be impossible to be done, some other times the pleasure & happiness that those feelings give us cancel the not so good moments out...

With ♥ for philosophy,

Ziuζs  

Smile Maker

Be yourself

Wherever we are, some people will adore us...

* just for our smile 

* or maybe for that blink in our eyes

* or just love our messy hair

* or just for our style & the way we look

* or just love our humour or clumsiness

* or just adore our amazing ideas or stupid moments

* or just adore our soul or inner thoughts

* or just love the 'whole package' of being ourselves...

& equally some other will not love us that much...

* maybe for the same reasons

* or maybe for some other

* or maybe they just wish for something more that we don't have

* or we have but we just don't want to share

* or maybe they just don't want to try to understand us & they just see or want to see a different you...

Maybe they are strange for us or maybe we are strange for them

or maybe we both need time to understand each other & see the real selves. Or maybe it is more simple than it looks & there is nothing we can do except of accepting that that's the way it is...  because we can only "be ourself & that is all that we can do"!

& maybe what Andre Gide says its true, that "It's better to be hated for what you are than to beloved for what you are not." It might be risky but you will be true... Because even if you are mostly hated there is a chance to eventually find someone that loves the true you... or even if you are mostly loved there be a chance to be loved even further!

Audioslave - Be Yourself

With ♥ for philosophy,

Ziuζs  

Border

Border is a human invention that its principal purpose is to define boundaries of political entities. 

This restriction of boundaries helped some countries or empires to blossom... but also helped some other counties like mine to get unwillingly divided from third party forces letting sorrow & sadness to spread & last for years & years...

However not all the human inventions work perfectly & borders might be one of those cases... Or even if we assume that a notion is a perfect or even ideal in theory, in practice is not that prefect since humanity actions proved that in life sometimes things are impossible to be completely clear or aligned with their initial purpose of a concept. Also, human actions have showed that we all have a "minus" in how we think or how we do certain things either as individuals, families, societies or countries as a whole... 

& i am wondering...

* why do all the neighbour countries  historically had if not hate amongst them lets say that they just don't love each other? hate is not something that we are born with but something that we are being taught isn't it?

* countries are not as they where in the past "clear" in terms of ethnicity's - people have the right & they clearly do skip living in their "original" boundaries & move to other countries. & since people move in different countries the pre-hating neighbours do now co-live, co-exist & co-operate sharing experiences, cultures, ideas, feelings or even simpler things such as their local cuisines under one regional boundary.& that seems to work well not to mention better in certain cases. Aren't we all related to all the rest & ultimately isn't that that brings the change? or is anybody the island or the country him/her-self?

* the border isn't a perception that just does exist in our heads? why do we let our head to rationalize our feelings? don't they exist just in our minds & not so much in our heart? will our mind or soul work in a different way if we are in the one side of the border or the other? don't we all breath, feel & live in similar ways?

* why do those borders in times that considered to be "modern" or otherwise more open-minded than those in the past, still constitute the source of pain or hate?  or are we just open-minded & not openhearted?

& I am asking...


" Why we don't realize" or "Why we're too blind to see" or just "Why it has to be like this"... please give me an answer...

Enigma - Why

With ♥ for philosophy,

Ziuζs  

DIY: How to create a banner

It took me quite a while to figure out how to create a banner but... tada!!! If you see the post below it seems that i finally made it! :o)

After popular request I am now writing down the relevant steps. And here we go...

Method 1: The hard way

Step 1
Create the picture of your banner.

Step 2
Create a post that has the picture of the banner inside. Give a title to the post for example Banner. Might be good to add some text as well so you can locate the post later in the html code (steps below).

Step 3
You might find this step quite confusing but please do not panic! :oP
After you publish the post go to your main blog page, right click on your screen & select the View Source. Here you can see the code of the whole page in HTML format.

What you need to do in this step is to track the code of the post you just published that contains the banner. An easy way to do this is to press CTRL + F. A pop-up window will appear where you can search for the title of the post e.g Banner or the text you entered. You are looking basicly for the picture's url. The url of the picture should be like src="something/nameofyourpicturefile".
See my code found in blue in the previous post as a guidance for what you are after. Every details should be the same as my code except the http section where there should be two links:
* the link of your post (href)
* the link of your picture (src as described above).

Copy the code somewhere like a word document or text file. Replace the href, src, height, width appropriately.

Step 4
Go to your blogs design view and click to Add a Gadget & add HTML/JavaScript. In the content section paste the code you just changed above. This step will act as a hyperlink to your post.

Step 5
Now go back to edit your post. Paste again the code that you just pasted in your HTML/JavaScript gadget. Then you would be able to see the banner picture. In order share the code with your followers, substitute the following:
* where you have  <  substitute it with   &lt;
* where you have  >  substitute it with   &gt;

Method B: The easy way

Step 1

Create the picture of your banner.

Step 2

Go to your blogs design view and click to Add a Gadget & add Picture. In the link section paste the URL of your blog & then add your blog banner image from the browse section. Shrink to fit will help your image to shrunk to 220 pixels wide (if is bigger than this). The Title or Caption section is optional.

Step 3

For your followers. Once you have your blog banner on your blog, the followers can get the blog banner in the following way:

* by right clicking on the blog banner image & then clicking to Save Picture As somewhere in their computer

* by going in their blog design view & clicking to Add a Gadget & add Picture

* finally in the link section by pasting the URL of your blog & then adding your blog's banner image

Tada! You now have a banner for your blog! Ping me if you have any questions that I can help with...

Get the banner

Copy & paste the code found below in your HTML/JavaScript Gadget if you would like to have the http://livingthroughthespiritofmydreams.blogspot.com/ banner.

Copy&Paste the code (in blue):

<div align="center"><a href="http://livingthroughthespiritofmydreams.blogspot.com/2010/07/get-banner.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpNb52RkolvLvYX7UEStod7J4KkpiMxLUcqlnuJVhkE4kuxmbmO6ogSDGg7juTxFXi-wzvYNPYOy-BMtWgMtw2mU6rs0tLCX63UpnO2FrhkqsyC5MBNTU7y4cW5MuSTWZM16ttdCi8Safw/s320/LivingThroughTheSpiritOfMyDreamsButton.jpg" width="220" height="56" /> </a></div><div align="center">

Leave a comment or send me an e-mail if you would like me to add your blog in the http://livingthroughthespiritofmydreams.blogspot.com/ blogroll... :o)

Faith

Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness according to my favorite wiki.

Faith can sometimes be confused with religion...

Religion is not possible to exist without being faithful but faithfulness can exist without being religious. And that is because religion exists to "show us the path" but it does not necessarily teach us to be faithful.

Faith is something internal & can not be taught or learned but only be carved in our minds by the heartbeats of true believing...

Believing... 

*  in ourselves & in others

*  in our own personal choices & not in destiny

*  in inspirations that do not exist but we would like to & could create or establish

*  in dreams that we would like to be realised

*  in the cure of an illness that the doctors claim that will not probably be cured

*  in aliens or fairies that we don't have proof of existence but are probably out there

... that it's all about faith.

Some might not believe in our ideas because their mind might just be unable to perceive them as our mind does & see them as illusions or paranoias... Forgive them because they may never tried to see how having faith feels or their heartbeats of believing are simply not as strong as ours...

With ♥ for philosophy,

Ziuζs