- There really ought to be a law. Recently I was walking
past the magazine rack in a grocery store. With one quick glance over to
the rmagazine rack my eyes were assaulted by two giant words on a magazine
cover "Orgasm Whisperer." If that doesn't sound like the
absolute dumbest lead ever for a story, I don't know what is. Are publishers
really that desperate and have hit bottom? This was a magazine and not
a tabloid, too.
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- We are incessantly, constantly bombarded all day long
by mentally disabling and mind-numbing crap. Do we really understand the
beings we are and what's happened to us? Like an addicted smoker at 3 or
4 packs a day, are we buried under such a mountain of BS that we can't
see daylight? Ron White, a comedian, once said he grew up near a paper
mill. He actually thought as a child that this was the way air should smell
sickening and polluted. One day, his parents took him for a ride
in the country and he immediately noticed the air had a very different
scent.
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- When I was in elementary school "some time ago"
like many who read this, we saw filmstrips. Incredibly boring, they were
right on a par with watching paint dry. But it was better than staring
at the chalkboard with a nasal teacher droning on and on. While I cannot
recall one single memorable film-strip I was forced to watch, I do remember
one thing in common about almost all of them. The first frame had a very
large eye in a triangle with the caption, "GATEWAY - The eye is the
gateway to the world." And it most certainly is.
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- Our vision is the most valuable of all our senses. Without
it, living independent is perilous, hazardous and also very lonely. Just
having one good eye to read and withstand my badly written rant shows you
have a great gift. But do we realize how much harder life is on those
without the great gift of sight? I salute all those who are involved in
the largely thankless world of vision research, as they have given the
gift of sight to countless people. And their work has helped to preserve
it for the rest of us. There was a time when you would be told by a doctor
that you're going blind and nothing can be done about it. Any disease at
all could do this to anyone, but not anymore. Now many are curable and
reversible. Yet very few people can appreciate thisuntil it happens to
them.
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- As the gateway to our minds, our eyesight functions like
a video camera connected to a computer, which has a hard-drive that has
infinite storage capability. Every thing and every person we see is tucked
away in the brain-box somewhere. It has a significant impact on everything
we do, see and think whether we know it or not. Children playing violent
video games or watching wrestling on television have been known to imitate
it in real life sometimes with deadly results.
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- There is an expression in the computer world that dates
back several decades "Garbage in, garbage out." Our minds
are no different.
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- Some people have suddenly lost their eyesight without
physical damage or disease It can happen when they experience something
so terrifying and incomprehensible their mind could not deal with it. Working
like a circuit breaker, the brain shuts down the vision center of the brain
as a form of protection. Sometimes these patients get their vision backand
sometimes not.
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- When sound accompanies a degrading assault on our eyes,
the impact upon us can be even more indelible. Now a connection is made
between sound and what we saw. One example is the debut of the Beatles
in America on the Ed Sullivan show. Many people remember the song they
played, and ran out and bought the 45 RPM record. And when they listened
to the record, they remembered the video. It was the precursor to MTV.
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- Adults are one thing and children are another. The link
between television shows, movies and video game violence to behavior is
well known. My wife and I strived to control the exposure to violence in
our home, and never allowed our children to have violent video games. We
also knew that we had no control over the exposure our children had to
violent video games in their friend's homes.
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- Video games of yesteryear pale in comparison to what's
out there today. Our children were young in the 1970's and 1980's, and
already back then studies had been done which showed a direct correlation
of videogames to children's behavior, attitudes and actions. The effect
of the assault on the eyes and brain was proven more than THIRTY years
ago!
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- Is it possible to remove all such exposure? No one can.
In fact, a small amount of exposure is probably helpful. Life itself is
violent and children need to be given the tools to deal with it. When they
are very young they will not grasp the eye-brain-gateway connection and
what it can do to them in the long term. But as children get older, they
need to be made aware of what excessive exposure will do. It doesn't hurt
to plant the seeds of understanding in them when they are young and still
impressionable. You can water the seeds of knowledge as they grow up, or
at least try to.
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- As adults, it's never been a luxury to understand the
visual assault we are under but a necessity. In the Victorian era such
visual exposure was heavily controlled, and people were actually probably
the better for it. They read books instead of website blogs. The people
of that era could appreciate talent, literature, music, fine art, sculpture
and paintings that took months or even years to complete. How many young
people today, if they were taken to Italy, could look up at the Sistine
Chapel ceiling and fully appreciate the years of work it took to paint
it?
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- Isn't this work marvelous? This photo cannot capture
all the love and detail that Michelangelo put into it. Michelangelo Buonarroti
was commissioned by Pope Julius II della Rovere in 1508 to repaint the
ceiling. It was completed between 1508 and 1512. [1]
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- Who can gaze upward at the astounding detail of all these
scenes and not be amazed? If anyone cannot appreciate a unique work of
art like this, they need a mental enema to clean out their mind and make
room for the good things in life.
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- Western culture, whether it be in Europe or North America,
has become completely polluted with cheap everything. This includes but
is not limited to cheap entertainment, cars, clothes, shoes and even cheap
dates. And the saddest part is that it doesn't have to be this way. As
human beings have allowed the marketers to take over our lives, like it
or not.
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- I had the privilege of being in the Waldorf-Astoria in
New York City in April. The lobby itself is an amazing work of art, and
the appearance has been maintained exactly as it has been for about a century.
There are a number of openings similar to those in a bank along a very
long MARBLE wall where you check in with a uniformed professional
working at each one of them eager to help you. Service there is second
to none. If you can imagine stepping into a Bogart film, then this would
be it. A truly wonderful experience, we were privileged to stay on the
same floor Nicholas Tesla was on. Each room has a gold-plated doorbell
button. This is a wonderful thing for the eyes to behold.
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- Although I'm certainly not an artist, I can appreciate
fine workmanship, talent and skilled hands. It's humbling to stand in such
a place and try to grasp the vision they had to create it. These are some
of the things that, like fine art, uplift our soul and instead of beating
it into submission.
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- Even a walk among nature in the country is incredibly
powerful and healing. Take a drive in the country and leave your cursed
cell phone (virtual ring in your nose) in your glove compartment. Then
take a walk until you can't absorb anymore. Can you imagine what a delight
to your eyes and pleasant music to your brain this simple act is?
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- We are here on this Earth to ENJOY what's here and now,
not spend all our waking hours to make a living. If that's all we do with
our waking hours, we've completely missed the point about being alive.
Life isn't about being rich or be able to have everything you ever wanted.
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- Michael Jackson had all the money he ever needed. In
an interview recently aired not long before he died he exposed his troubled
and unhappy soul to the world. All his millions, his Never Never land or
all the boys he surrounded himself with could not buy him that one elusive
joy in life known as happiness. Perhaps his theme-park like home named
Never-Never land was appropriately named after all.
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- When you go to a gas station, mall or grocery store and
see someone smoking cigarettes that you known earns minimum wage at their
job, is this not an assault on their soul? Do they really understand what's
going on? It really hurts to see them trapped in an endless downward spiral.
I asked an acquaintance of the family that works in a gas station why they
did this routine. The sad answer given was "Because that's all I have
and all I know." But the real answer is, "That's all you want
to know and change isn't part of the picture."
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- If you think I can't understand this, think again. I've
been to the very bottom of picking up bottles and cans, and redeeming them
at the store to feed my family. But I chose NOT to stay down at the bottom.
Everyone has more choices than they realize, if only they will apply themselves
and set some attainable goals.
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- Project managers usually have milestones in their charts.
These are critical time points in a project that need to be met to keep
it on schedule. Those who think there is no hope need to "see"
ahead to their goal in life and set milestones to get there. For example,
if changing a profession is desired then setting a goal (milestone) of
getting the needed education and/or experience should be one of the milestones.
Project planning is really nothing more than thinking out all the steps
required to complete a project or reach a goal by a certain date. And,
it also requires a solid belief you can do it.
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- Life doesn't have to be miserable, and our minds don't
need to create bandages for the pain we see. Every single thing we see
affects us, and there are those who are paid big bucks to do nothing but
manipulate our minds. It is without a doubt just a form of mind control.
Patriotic people might be aware of the manipulation to get the world to
believe in a terrorist organization that doesn't really exist, yet many
seem to be painfully unaware of the day-to-day twisting of reality they
are enduring and the effect it has on their families.
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- It's our individual responsibility to do the right things
to protect our minds. When you cut yourself, you sterilize the wound so
it will not become infected. We must all do the same thing with our minds,
just in a different way. Although we won't need alcohol or peroxide, we
will need good old fashioned common sense and self control. Perhaps in
the future it could even put the psychiatrists out of business.
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- But we'll have to "see" how that goes
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- Ted Twietmeyer
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- [1] www.christusrex.org/www1/sistine/0B-Ceiling.jpg
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- [2] More about the chapel here at http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sistine/
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