Good vibes!

Today was a good day.

I went for a nice long walk downtown and in spite of it being minus 12 outside, with the warmth of the Sun it felt a lot warmer and much more bearable walking for 2hours.

I feel really happy. I went to hand in my resume at a place that seems to fit with me. Fingers crossed for the BEst outcome for me. :)

I also received a package of materials I have been waiting on for me to start creating my lovely DreamCatchers and other pleasentries. I did some dishes and have felt rather accomplished today. I am excited to announce that tomorrow I will bake some cookies! :)

Oh I got some gifts from the Universe, a bag of wine bottles, amounting to $1 and the other day... the same thing, so I got two dollars today from Great Mystery. And on the last bottle return run, one of my favourite guys was there to do the return for me. He is super sweet and he makes me smile every time I see him.

I wore my new jacket around town today. And I that had me feel pretty good.... good vibes all round, good vibes! :)

Freedom...

At last... I have reached a better place in my life... after much, perhaps too much rumination over celebrity life... I have realized, after viewing certain people's facebook pages how regular they are... I am smiling now.. the dark days are coming to an end... tomorrow I will wake after dreams enriched and walk with enthusiasm. :)

The Spill Over from two days...

I swear I am getting much better at living MY life and not caring about other people's lives.. focusing on myself in existence in each moment is what today has lead me to...In fact I have been thinking about the future more and more, today especially and how I will make it in my own life, yet thinking about these things is headache inducing, as being present in the moment is for sure the best approach best way to enjoy life.

In spite of this, accepting that I read magazines for practically the entire day, of what has now become yesterday, went for a bike ride in the cold, picked up ingredients for today's cinnamon buns and here I am still recording thoughts of what can only be referred to as remnants of a thought pattern that is reaching the final stages of it's percolation (out) through my system: my BEing. And it's time I stop wasting my time writing up on something that is really kind of dumb... yet necessary to get out so I can move on from this and not have it resurface at a later date.

A few days ago my dad had an appointment at the hospital... While waiting, I was caught up in thinking "OMG, would so-and-so be doing this, would they come to the hospital, would they be waiting around in some seat looking out the window?" Yes, they probably would if they were in my position.

The truth of the matter is that life happens,  accidents happen all the time to those we love & sometimes (unfortunately) place them in the care of nurses and doctors that we need to trust, in the environment of a hospital, that's life and as it was a part of mine, I need to accept it. There was a quote on the hospital's flag posts that read, "every gift makes a world of difference". I read this and thought it actually read, "Every life makes a world of difference". This stuck with me because it is truthful to say that we all have our own unique capabilities that allows us to live in existence today. We have various things that we are good at, no two people are alike in this respect and therefore every life, does, very much, make a world of difference.  This goes hand in hand with saying that everyone is good at something. Talents are so widely spread out into the world. Hence us existing on this Earth today... to bring something new and exciting to the evolution of the human race and to change, to shift the consciousness that is currently present on this planet!

Those thoughts brought me into thinking that there are all kinds of individuals on this Earth, French, German, Arabic, etc.

I was sitting in Loblaws the other day eating some food with my dad and sister and there was this mother with, what I feel, was her daughter and son. Her daughter was making fun of a classmate of hers and imitating this particular classmate, according to the way the daughter was describing the classmate was "mentally delayed", the mother insistently asked her daughter in a leading manner.. is that nice? Implying what her daughter was doing and saying was not nice. They were speaking in French, I understood. After that I thought, "wow... cruel people still exist, so in addition to their being German, French and a plethora of others that live in this world, there are also cruel people, how comforting... I think it may be a long time before they are all gone... it takes time to fully change that kind of thing and to exert the kind of healing onto the world; to change the vibration to One Love.

Moments earlier, when I first saw the young girl, I thought to myself, "wow, it's seeing girls like that; pretty, eyes wide open-alert, etc. that makes me happy to be living my life in the manner I am- I am grateful to bare witness to the wisdom, innocence and beauty children bring to the world".  Little did I know how un-innocent this girl was, as was made explicitly clear through her feelings & actions about differentially abled individuals. Her comments made later about her classmate were extremely derogatory and unpleasant to listen to. It made me scowl and completely turned me off from my initial perception of her... A true testament to being unable to judge a book by it's cover. Or, as a friend of mine put it, a wolf in sheep's clothing, as people like this walk among us daily.

As mentioned previously, this world is made up of a variety of people!

Ultimately, people are people too, they do things they feel they need to do to survive and to, often, in their position, thrive. Sometimes they put people down because they are not secure within themselves, they do what they feel they need to do for their rightful privacy- to protect themselves from ridicule and judgement and from being vulnerable to the outside world. Everyone is a person, regardless of one's recognition of this fact or not, they deserve to live, they deserve to be happy with themselves and the lives they lead!

Yesterday, while reading the magazine articles I was caught thinking that everyone wishes to live healthily. This is a commonality people share and we are all searching for connection with others. I think that is where my focus is these days, my ability to connect with people and that it seems so easy for so many, but not me. There were a number of articles I read that were about eating right, exercise, vitamin health and an overall balanced lifestyle. People also want to have good looking, flattering to their body type, kinds of clothing and it hit me that people, everywhere are living their very own distinct life, with much of the same goals that others have and people are a hell of a lot more alike than perhaps they would like others to know; they have role models, they shop, they eat, they read, they learn, they grow, they live.

Lisa Kudrow says she looks up to and likes to be surrounded by people who cope with life (I read it in one of the articles in one of the magazines I had at my disposal yesterday)... and then I thought, what does this mean? Life? How do individuals cope with life? is it illness? loss? As these things are intrinsically a part of life and help to bring out one's strength?.. is this what she meant? It was also this that made me realize that we all cope with whatever the Universe decides to toss our way, whatever we decide to let in our lives. Its inevitable, we adjust ourselves accordingly and that's life.. in a nutshell.

As I write this, I am thinking to myself, "who is this person with these crazy stupid thoughts on what it means to live a life of meaning- thinking her life is not meaningful, who is this person that thinks someone else's life is more important than hers... Who is she and what has she done with the beautiful young lady that knows her life is meaningful and full of adventures yet to be explored and generally, who knows better than to think ill of herself and cause herself pain?" It must be a mask I wear to hide my true self; because I am afraid of the me that might be exposed without this mask, because it serves as a distraction from my own life. A distraction that I do not wish to have because as mentioned in a former post, my life is pretty awesome and I need to start surrendering to what is. Instead of wishing for something else apart from what I have, as that manifestation is within me, if I so choose it and if it is aligned with Spirit, as everything that I desire that is aligned with Spirit is on it's way- Thank you Wayne Dyer!

I was thinking that the reality I seem to be trapped in, that I wear this mask in, is a reality based on escapism, which is also something Lisa mentioned as one of the reasons people said "Thank you" to her, upon Friends being a means for laughter post 9/11. It is nothing new to hear that everyone in one way or another feels the need to escape their own life and they do so on their own accord, using their own methods. Personally, I would like to be living a life I do not need to escape from. One that I am truly content and happy to be living in the most honest of ways. Waking up each morning in gratitude for being alive, this seems to not be there right now with me, I mean to say to the Universe, "I am grateful to be alive today, to be living the life I am!" and sincerely mean it... When I say those words, as I often do, because living in gratitude is the way to invite more things to be grateful for, I usually am lacking in truly feeling the words and knowing within my heart of hearts that they are true, it's this sincerity, this genuineness that I need to reclaim. And I am the only one that can achieve it for myself.

Furthermore, people tune into movies and shows to get lost in a fantasy world, for a period of time because they do not, for whatever reason, like their own world, their own life, or at the very least, they need a break from their own experience as a two-legged. That is a fair statement, as it does get to be exhausting from time-to-time. Yet again, what is a way in which one can strive for it to be energizing, as opposed to energy depleting and exhausting?

I am actually kind of sick of writing all about this mumbo-jumbo that doesn't count for nothing but a speck, less than a speck in fact, within a single fragment in this moment and time within this time-space continuum that is this Universe. In two years I will not even remember all of this. Yet I find I am attached to looking deeper into why I am fixated and consumed by the unhappiness I feel in my life. Something I am hell bent on finding out why I have these sado-masochistic ways toward myself. It most certainly is not a glamourized lifestyle I need to be happy. I am content, for the time being in living my life, as is.

If a friend was talking to me right now... they'd be saying that I am wonderful and beautiful, I have a good heart, a kind heart, and a shinning soul... Why is it hard for me to see these things within myself right now... I need to float out and up above myself and pull out from within me the joy and the meaningfulness that creates my life. It's not that hard really I have a lot of things going for me and I need to spend my energy on those things. I also need to force myself to disengage from activities that are detrimental to me, like thinking that someone else's life is better off than mine. Mine is good for me and has been working for me, just as others have their respective lives that have rightly been working for them.  And its not like they are focusing on other people's lives.

A Meditation is in order here. Speaking of which we go through a meditative state to get to know ourselves better, to figure out why we do the things we do, why we react in the manner we do, why things bother/affect/ make us irksome. So again I ask why it is important for me to cling onto something that is causing myself pain? Instead of focusing on things that bring me joy, bring light into my life and that make me want to be better than who I am.

In thinking about shows and the characters certain actresses/actors play.. these shows and movies are not the reality of anyone. And in terms of it being a form of escape for some, to get lost in a reality that does not belong to them, actresses and actors, although they play the characters, that reality  to which they are a part creating for others, on screen, doesn't belong to them either. They have their own life outside of this enterprise. And it really doesn't involve me, so why am I involving them in my life?

Realistically speaking, superhero/action packed films are under the guise of fantasy... because that is what it is... it's fantasy, unreal, perhaps even magically real but it's not based on someone's life, it's based on fiction- someone's idea of fun and they used their creative force to create it! And I do enjoy shows that are both non fiction and fiction because they are purely entertainment. Nothing more.

The reason they are appealing to so many of us is because they signify the longing of the existence of that knight in shinning armour ideal, that hero and as a young girl many of us were conditioned to believe, existed. After much rumination and hacking of society's misconceptions however, we know that fairy tales are far from reality, so that knight in shinning armour does not exist in the perfect way they have been messaged/conveyed to exist to us via Disney and other means. This is something I already wrote about so let's be done with it. After all, the real fairy tales are our very lives being lived in their imperfectly magically, real way.

As I woke this morning I came to some more realizations.... Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield have pronounced that there are far more important things in the world, than their lives, like poverty for example, homelessness, teen suicide, to name a few... so why bother pulling one's focus away from the things that matter, to something that doesn't. Why are we so interested in their life? This makes no sense, again perhaps to distract us from our own so-called "unexciting" lives.

I had a thought that if I was in Bali right now, standing on a bridge looking down toward the rainforest none of these things that I am giving so much power to would count for anything... The important message out of this is as long as I am living a  life that makes me happy, nothing else matters. I am slowly building my life up to that happy ending for myself.

Another short yet enriching message is that I, like when I was younger should wear my cap backwards and not give a fuck about what others are doing, what others are saying and just, quite simply focus on my experience as a two legged.

Finally, celebrities wouldn't want others to live their life based on whether they do something or not> they'd want us to focus on our life and that is it.

Dragonfly came to me: 2 years.. I need to reread it's messages.

Horoscope Happiness

So, I just mentioned in the previous post how freedom is my next point of rumination and I just finished reading the following: on the site I go to to check my daily horoscope and well how attuned am I? to know and to have written on a piece of paper an hour ago, "freedom" to stick it under my pillow for tonight... Such a blessing to be able to be given signs to believe yourself. Yes, today's horoscope and foretelling is ever so wonderful and a gift! :)

Cancer- Wednesday, January 14, 2015

A plan you are working on is risky, but then you’re an expert risk taker. There is an excellent chance that a certain gamble will pay off. Everything depends on how ready you are to take action. It’s proving hard to actually start things up and get it moving, but your time will come. Take one simple step at a time and you will find that a special moment will arrive that galvanizes you into definitive action.

Daily Thought
Never Lose Hope 
Peaceful crowds demonstrating for freedom of expression flooded into the streets of Paris and other major cities throughout the world on Sunday. Neptune and Chiron where both forming sharp powerful angles to the dark star, Antares, in the constellation Scorpio. The Heart of the Scorpion, as he is known is closely associated with the aggressive power of Mars, but it is a dark and pernicious power.

Antares, as I’ve discovered, brings heavy precipitation and floods to certain areas of the world when it’s activated. This time, instead of rain, it brought a flood of tears, sadness and anger to countries that luxuriate in the right of freedom of expression.

It has shocked the world into realizing that freedom is not a guaranteed human right and must not be taken for granted. It has taken centuries to attain it in the western world, but it’s a fragile right that can literally be lost in an instant.

Mercury, the Master of Strategy, is slowing down to a crawl as he prepares to go retrograde next week on Jan 21. Today, he forms a harmonious angle to Uranus. This is good if you are searching for an innovative idea and the inspiration to get out of a rut.

If you feel trapped in a dungeon of sorts, you have the possibility today of being inspired with a plan of escape. Freedom is within your grasp. Mercury is offering a strategy. A way will be found to fulfil your dreams. Don’t give up and don’t give in. Never lose hope. The Universe is guiding you.

Additions

Arrow and other shows I have been watching lately, I have found tend to have quite a bit of good messages in the plots... things like not blaming others (although blaming yourself is not necessarily good either) and believing in oneself, the importance of family, sacrificing one's happiness for the happiness of lives of others (although over compromising is something perhaps that is too present, as one does have to also account for one's own happiness)... among others that come with each episode.

The other few things is there is a lot of good music as well that is coming out of these shows: The Vampire Diaries, Arrow, The Originals, The Flash... etc... and this is at-testament to how music brings individuals together as it has very much done so in this case... And this reminds me of that quote by Plato, "Music gives a Soul to the Universe, Wings to the Mind, Flight to the Imagination and Life to Everything" 

The final thing I would like to touch on is this... message boards and sites dedicated to certain celebrities, while it is a nice sentiment to be a fan of someone, or admire them, or anything else, it also comes to pin point out changes within that person... For example the imdb message board for Emily Brett Rickards, there is a discussion of whether or not she is pregnant. I haven't read any of the messages there, but my guess is that it has to deal with her looking a different way on the latest season of the Arrow and this speaks of where our minds go when we see normal bodily changes taking place with someone we expect to stay a certain way forever. Falsehood.

Okay, that's it... for now... 

Freedom is my next major concept being tackled!

This is proving to be a lot longer than anticipated!

Apparently as much as I feel I am done with this topic, thoughts keep on pervading my mind that bring me back to it... Particularly, thoughts I had yesterday regarding this topic of celebrity-dom vs. the reality of my own existence are this...

While watching Arrow last night, the camera did a close up of Stephen Amell's face and rightly so, as is seen from non-close-up shots as well, he has a beauty mark on his lower right side of his face, just below the lip..."he's human", I thought to myself and it was based on this inference that brought me into realizing we are more like celebrities than perhaps the media would lead us to believe. Even, Willa Holland has a beauty mark on her back, in some screen shots it's more visible than others. Here I am thinking to myself, "hey, I have a beauty mark on my back too, that's kinda cool" (I am sure I am not the only one). Again, this brought me back into thinking, we are all the same... souls dwelling in human form.

I recently got together with a friend of mine, in reference to my own experience right now as a two legged, she shared with me:

1.) Celebrity's lives are all idealized ideals; very much portrayed in a pseudo-real way... by virtue of magazines, paparazzi, and other Entertainment affiliates which all focus on making us believe certain things about certain actresses/actors. A falsified version of their life. I am fully aware of this fact! (Do I wanna believe it however and pull myself out of this inadequacy I feel in my own life? - That is the true question. The Answer is a resounding yes, yet I feel something within me is holding me back... delaying the process.. let's figure out what it is!) Sometimes I catch myself thinking.. would so-and-so do this or that... like today for example, right now I am wearing one of those blemish facial masks... would Rachel Weisz do this?- The Answer, maybe, probably, yes, or a no. I'll never know, but keys to healthy, glowing skin is a regime that includes facial cleaning. ahahaha.

The second thing my friend shared with me that stuck out in my mind was this:

 2.) Would you really wanna not be able to walk down the street because you have swarms of people asking for your autograph? Or you need to have bodyguards? - Personally, I wouldn't wanna lead a life, where I would need a body guard to, as Eminem put it in one of his songs, go to the washroom or anything else remotely related to the daily living activities of a human... taking a shower and not having privacy... that's crossing the line & not a fair way to live at all.

And to be completely honest, I don't really understand why it is that so many people get caught up in a movie being filmed or a certain celebrity being in town. They're just people who are on TV, what is the big deal? Is this me being a hypocrite, as I seem to be lost myself in recognizing illusion from reality? What I mean to say is this, I get that it's out of the ordinary, exciting, and like-OMG-today-I-can-meet-a-celebrity-kind-of-day, but it's also where I realize that they are again, like everyone else. They just so happened to choose a profession that puts them in the spotlight and makes them very much a target to the public eye. I think about my reaction sometimes when I see films or shows being shot here in Toronto and I just generally walk right on by, without notice because I understand that there is a job that is being done and I kind of really don't care. The other thing I realized is this it's so much easier for celebrities to separate their working lives with their personal lives (most of the time anyway) because they are on set and then they go home, or go sleep in their trailer/hotel room or do whatever else they do on their spare time - the lines seem to be very easily defined (for them, according to me). Whereas, as part of a viewing audience, I can totally see how sometimes the lines get blurred between someone elses' reality and your own... That's kind of where I am right now, in the middle.

I read an article today on intuition, and how everyone has the capability to tune in to themselves.. this seems rather obvious yet I don't do this as often as I would like to in a meditative practice sort of way (I do, if you count writing and other such things, like walks, reading, listening to music, making crafts etc. that can be meditative in and of themselves)... something to change within the coming weeks, here's hoping. Anyways the article says to listen to what your heart tells you as it shares what is best for you... My mindset these days is not necessarily as healthy as I would like it to be... what would a person who loved themselves do? They certainly wouldn't give it a second thought to focus on anyone elses' life but their own, so why am I? Do I not love myself enough to focus on my own life and living it?

I was also caught thinking of a few places that while in PEI made me happy... I often revisit them, through vision travel, when I need that extra soul nourishment! It makes me smile just thinking of them.

My favourite character on Arrow is Felicity Smoak... she is super cute and has this intelligent sexiness going on. Plus her and Oliver belong together. I had a thought... she is from Vancouver, Canada, Hooray! She's Canadian! Cause for celebration! Since she is from there and Arrow is actually filmed in Vancouver I was thinking of another element that bridges the invisible gap between celebrity and "regular" person and that is family. It's January right now and the Holidays have just more or less ended and she was probably with her family and that humanizes her... When we think of celebrity, what I feel the media wants to get out of us, is for us to believe that they are non-human... that could not be further from the truth because they still grocery shop, clothing shop, spend quality time with those they care for... possibly even playing scrabble. But we are not supposed to think of celebrities like this. Instead we are to consider them quintessential flawless, walking perfection. This again, is so fucked up and ridiculously unrealistic!!!

Emily's (the actress that plays Felicity) imdb page is not ridden with information about her personal life, which is totally within her rights. I can understand the need to be private about one's personal life when their lives feel so exposed. The only aspect of them that is supposedly in the spotlight is their working career. Yet, our world has made a business out of commodifying their very existence and every move they make, ie when they go out without make-up it's such a huge thing, when really it's not that big of a deal, it's human! This is something I am grateful for to not be happening with my life.

And on that note... my reality is composed of what I would like to believe are the simple pleasures...
Physically, I am attractive... I don't wear a lot of make-up, if any... The medicine of a tree teaches to be content with our natural beauty... in Hollywood, I don't know how I would blend in or stand out because of this... I don't think I would do too well to conform to their ideals and standard of what it means to be beautiful in the Industry, yet one often thinks differently prior to being immersed into a culture that has presumably high expectations of them and then once immersed, struggles to survive within that culture and cannot help but recalibrate their own selves and their beliefs and conform.

 This is something I am sure I have already done an impeccable job at, as I have conformed to, like the Industry has wanted me to, placing the people in movies/shows on a pedestal and looking up at them as though their lives are the lives to beat, to live, to emulate, to make standard: a sheer impossibility! I watched a Matty B video today on "True Colors". Matty B is a young rapper that has quickly become very well known, on his original covers of popular songs such as the one mentioned above. And it made me come to recognize that there are so many people in this world... someone with down syndrome for example... would they be considered beautiful in Hollywood? Probably not, the reason being, Hollywood has superficialized beauty and glorified a life that is unattainable in the real world. Hollywood is stupid... or smart depending on the way one looks at it! It's also very much one's perception of these things.

My life is also made up of a family that is irreplaceable. I would not be who I am without them, without the experiences I have had throughout my life, the interactions I've had with those in my life, who have come and gone and those that are still present; my education, something I often regret, yet something I am grateful for in the long run, because it has taught me to look at things, if not everything, with a critical eye; my spiritual beliefs have lead me down a path that erases itself with each new forward step I take. In other words, no matter how small (or large) of a step I have taken in learning something new about the Universe, the World, other BEings, the energy and vibration of a Higher Consciousness, I would not be able to return to the place I was in my BEingness prior to having taken that step (however minor or major it might be). Whenever I experience something new, or old (repeatedly) I continue to learn and grow in my Soul's evolution, which is important. I am facing the exact things I am facing now because I need to. I need to surrender to this, accept it, embrace it, welcome it, trust it!

This could turn into a rather lengthy list of what I feel comprise my BEing, but recalling a quote I read on a friend's facebook wall "... I am the vast emptiness, I am the sky"... I don't even own my own name! What an intense thing to ponder...

I feel heavy in not being able to live my life without knowing what is going on in so-and-so's life (when it doesn't even matter, in the grand scheme of things, to my own existence)... stupid right? I need to let that go!

After-all I don't find any one of the characters from Arrow, particularly (physically) attractive (except for a few of the females- haahaha) and so they rightly have and are living their lives and I, mine. Not the characters, the actual people who personify them by playing said character. It makes no sense to covet something that I do not even desire in the first place that which also feeds into the conspiracy that is Hollywood and that is... I am judging these actresses/actors based solely on their appearance (the superficialization of beauty)... I don't know anything about them at all, personality or otherwise, only what I read on the Internet and that is very well inaccurate. So, coming to conclude this extremely long blog post. It seems to me, to be a fools game, where I cannot win, only in allowing myself distance and disengagement from the enterprise that is Hollywood and to not buy into any of their garbage.

Also, I Love myself to know that I wish to be free... I do not need to submit to any of these ideals whatsoever. I need to just BE.

Nature always guides me, brings me back into myself. And I am grateful for this additional Mother of Mothers. She is a blessing and I love her dearly. Every time I lose myself in my thoughts, I am brought back into the reality that is my own life when I go outside and see the wonderful world for what it is, the bright sky, grey or blue (depending on the day), the trees, the birds- their flight, the innocence of children. All of it... gives great meaning to life and the confinement my own mind gives me, floats into oblivion. I also find that I am more present!

Something that come to me today... a few things actually... 1.) When one does not recognize their own life as significant and something worth living... knowing one creates the meaningfulness of one's own life themselves, they are doing themselves a diservice because their path is not caught up in recognizing/acknowledging and appreciating the significance, perceived significance that is, of another's life- Their path is in fact living their own life and learning their own lessons... coveting the life of someone else... well, that's wasted energy to say the least. The other thing that came to mind was 2.) If I was standing on the precipice or the ledge of a cliff, staring out into the grounds, the trees below, or standing on a beach looking outward onto the ocean, the sea... I would be thinking about how truly grateful I am to be there and be present and to be able to have my sight, to live in freedom and I would be thankful... I wouldn't be thinking at that point how much better someone else's life is... my life is pretty awesome! I need to start seeing that! :)

illusionist!

I am currently dabbling into the understandings of the illusionist's mind.... it's quite illusionary.

For the past few weeks I have found myself getting lost into believing certain things to be true, knowing full well they simply are not. Like the idea that celebrities have it so much easier than us "common-folk" do in our own lives. I could not be further from the truth.

Let's go back a month when it all began, actually let's go back several years earlier... When I was first beginning my teenage years... it brought me great pleasure to put together collages of various celebrities I liked at the time. This changed constantly with each new movie/show that came out. Now, I have a number of completed agenda books full of these collages that mark this time in my life.

I also recall having written in my journal how badly I wanted to be dating Tobey Maguire and therefore was either jealous of, or wanted to be Kirsten Dunst, back when Spider Man was out in Theatres and they were the In couple. He's now happily married to someone else with kids of his own and Kirsten is probably engaged in her own respective relationship. But, coveting the life of others is no way to live. In fact, it's not even living at all- it's grovelling, it's an attempt at trying to find your own (meaningful) existence... one might go as far as to say that one is fully capable of turning into this bitter entity of resentment. I am capable of greater things!

In any case, I idolized celebrities as a young girl. I looked up to them, made them my role models and wanted so badly to be like them. It wasn't until later that I realized I had absolutely no interest in becoming an actress and having my name up there in bright lights (Who's to say it would have even been anyway?). Regardless...

What is it about this kind of lifestyle that makes it so desirable? the Money? the Fame? the so-called Beauty? - These are all conventions the human mind has made important. And they are all based on a form of conditioning and streamlining that has a fabricated premise; a very, very false foundation; a dark and devious misconception; and that is, one where we seek gratification - happiness external to ourselves. How can this kind of lifestyle, correction, perceived lifestyle be one to generate happiness for ourselves?

A side note, Society's understanding of what Beautiful and Beauty is, are so mis-aligned to what Beauty and what it means to be Beautiful actually is, it's laughable and rather sickening... Society's conventions are totally distorted and it has fucked up the human psyche! It has made us believe that we need to be thin to be beautiful, that we need to wear top designer clothing, that we need to wear an x amount of makeup, that we need to be with someone to be happy, that we need to be a certain size, height and weight to be considered attractive, that we need to follow a certain religiosity, that we need to be of a particular skin colour... among an extensive list of other traits that are so incredibly narrow-minded, ignorant, conservative and idealistic.

Lives are all colours of the rainbow and that is a wide spectrum of colours!

Yes, the above is probably outdated in as much as we would like to claim to be more evolved and improving upon the advertising and marketing of particular brands and the media's portrayal of the "good" life. Yet, the stereotypes are still present and very much embedded into the fabric that is the entertainment Industry. So, the complete and total elimination, change over of it if you will, has yet to be seen.

Okay, so now that my earlier years are taken care of and out of the picture, what happened a month or so ago was this... I was watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a show that I used to watch when I was younger, but never finished the series. I finished it with glee last month. Yet, what I was left with upon completion was unsatisfaction, and a feeling of emptiness (much like a friends-with-benefits relationship), a feeling of wanting something more - Ultimately, the same childhood feelings of desiring that happy coupledom with another person.

And that threw me through a loop because I thought I grew up and learned how to be better, from not wanting to be an actress; out with the actress aspiration went the ideal, fairy princess dream of the perfect relationship, I thought. It's a fabrication of the mind and I clung to it so much so I stopped dead in my own tracks because the crux of it all is that I would like to find the person I am meant to be with (yes, I believe in fate). And when I see how simply it is portrayed on-screen I fall into the rabbit hole, the trap of thinking it is equally simple to achieve in real life. What I often fail to account for is that there is a team of professional writers that make it look so easy... there is no such team equipped for the writing of our own life stories, we do that all on our own.

This is one of my own illusions- that relationships are easy because quite the contrary is true, relationships are hard work; you have to give as much as you take and if you bend too far you might break... it's a balancing act of trying to find your equilibrium, while the other person(s) find theirs too. I used to think that relationships are easy with the right people. A part of me (if not all of me) still believes this. After all, on the outside looking in, it doesn't look all that hard and it very much comes down to the person you are with and the person you are when you are with that person.

Plus, I feel very strongly that it is realistic of me to believe that having a special someone in your life is achievable. Heck, non-celebrities have it. So the illusion that celebrities have it easier is false... celebrities are people like (most) everyone else and they too go through certain life struggles that others face as well. They are people too, they eat, poop and sleep like the rest of us and we, I forget that from time to time when I choose to put them up on pedestals to which they do not belong. Celebrity life is not a standard! This is an illusion I need to disillusion myself from!

When I get trapped into a belief system after watching a show or a movie, like I did with Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and later with Divergent, than with Men in Trees, and then again with The Hobbit and now semi, although I am currently getting out of it, with Arrow. I feel like it's the be-all, end-all. It's so stupid really to consider celebrities and how perfect their life appears on the outside looking in. This is why, judging them, comparing our lives to theirs is pointless, because we know nothing of their journeys just what we perceive, which is through the filter of the paparazzi and the media's lens of what they want us to see. We don't know who these people are, what they are like and why it matters who they are dating? (Reality Check... it doesn't!) Why do we/I choose to let their life over-power, over-rule my own? Their life has no relevance to mine whatsoever, so why bother caring? I am the one who is living my own existence- all that matters is the way I choose to show up for it daily, very little else counts!

It's funny how seriously engaged I am with all this. Life is too important to be taken seriously. I give myself permission to have fun! And it's so easy to allow myself to get all caught up in this when I am in my own head, however, when I step outside the door, everything fades away & the light of the day, the Sun, magnificent and warm and beautiful shines and I realize how small everything else is.

Also, it does help to realize that all these celebrities are more than their shows they act in. Stephen Amell, the man who plays Arrow is married to someone who I've never heard of before and who is not his co-star on the show, he's 34 and has a kid. Katie Cassidy too has her own boyfriend... and it is very different to make these shows than it is to watch them... there is so much work involved in the creating and the perfecting of the various scenes and stunts, etc. ANd just because celebrities work together doesn't mean they also play together and then get involved with one another.  Celebrities are much more than their characters and we have this very poor habit of living our life according to what is deemed "popular", which is often done by the media and what the "stars" are wearing. Who decides this? Who decides who's hot and who's not? What is popular and what isn't? Why is it so important to be physically beautiful? Something that already is inherently distinct & defined by each individual!

I thought the show was alright at first and now I am the target (in that I have been captured by the entertainment this show provides) and now I consider it to be better than alright, but all it is is purely entertainment. Sometimes, I frequently forget this too.

I went to school and learned to critique things... critical thinking they called it... so when I look at a show like this, I think it's privilege... Not only am I privileged to be able to view it in the society in which I live, but also, the Media itself is built on Whiteness and that's privilege; most of the actors and actresses that play roles in this show are White. They have this presumed sense of superiority and stature that allows them to seemingly walk above the rest, which again has often become the standard to which we live our lives and then we often think difference is deviant, ie not normal and this is something that has come to govern our existence, either overtly, yet mostly covertly.

Not the smartest of concepts to adopt and something so many "White" persons do not even think about because they have that privilege already within their reach.... Is this an illusion too? or something that is all too real?