What Makes People Tick?

Recently, I wrote about how I realised that I needed some more happy moments, time in nature and quite simply, time to relax and just be. While I referenced and quoted several articles, there's a lot more information worth sharing and quoting.  For those actually following my posts as I write them (hmmm... maybe one day...), I can confirm that YES, I did it. I spent time in nature. And YES! - It was amazing. It was exactly what I needed. It's almost midsummer here in the northern hemisphere and the days are long. In winter, I sometimes feel lucky to catch even a ray of sunshine as like most people, I'm indoors working during the daytime and barely get (or make) time to go outside. Even then, the skies are grey and the days without snow, rain or hail are often dreary still. Yet now, this close to midsummer, it's light until about 10 pm and heading out into nature after work is actually possible. I'm no therapist or psychologist but honestly, I do very much recommend ...

Today, I'd like to write a bit about something that I've been dealing with for some time now. To say that I'm stressed is a little too simple. To say that I'm depressed isn't quite right either. Rather, I'm tired. Tired of restrictions. Tired of face masks. Tired of spraying disinfectant on my hands whenever I arrive anywhere. Tired of keeping my distance from other people. Tired of not being able to hug my friends when I see them. Tired of being cooped up inside. Tired of working from home. Tired of living my social life through a computer screen. And really, really ready to go back to normal life. Now, before you tune out, this isn't about covid/corona/whatever you want to call it. This is about me. And about how having a few days off from work last week finally made me realise that things need to change before I end up worse off than just tired... It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle somethin...

This awesome image comes from the "I Fucking Love Science" Facebook page . I'm sharing it because I agree! "I don't want to protect the environment, I want to create a world where the environment doesn't need protecting."

“Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.”  ~ Kahlil Gibran “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. ”  ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt “Jaime had never realised that trees made a sound when they grew, and no-one else had realised it either, because the sound is made over hundreds of years in waves of twenty-four hours from peak to peak. Speed it up, and the sound a tree makes is vrooom.”  ~ Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”  ~ Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky “The winds of change are alway...

In The Netherlands, the fourth and the fifth of May are special national days.  The fourth of May is Liberation Day while the fifth is Remembrance Day. "People experienced the Second World War in very different ways, depending on who they were, what they stood for, what they did or where they lived. All those different experiences are reflected in the different commemoration ceremonies throughout the years. During the national commemoration of Remembrance Day on 4 May, those various experiences come together and the dead are jointly remembered." (1) "On the 5th of May we celebrate that we in The Netherlands live in freedom. We celebrate that we were liberated in 1945 from German occupation in Europe and Japanese occupation in Asia and that since then we've been free from war and repression in the Kingdom of The Netherlands." (2)

"Oh come on, you know you want to share it so Go On!" is exactly what went through my head as I saw this image. So here goes! Another one for Earth Day ! Source: Boomer Muse by Layla Morgan Wilde

Tuesday the 22nd of April 2014. Otherwise known as "today". Facebook and Google tell me that today is Earth Day . Google even created a very nice Doodle to mark the occasion. Maybe it´s just me, but this particular Doodle reminds me a bit of drawings by artist Marjolein Bastin that I simply adore! To honour Earth Day, one of my favourite Facebook pages posted an image that - as happens from time to time ;-) - got me thinking. It seems to me that I fucking love science has a very good point! Photo source: I fucking love science on Facebook "Imagine If Trees Gave Off  Wifi Signals, We Would  Be Planting So Many Trees  And We'd Probably Save  The Planet Too. Too Bad They  Only Produce The  Oxygen We  Breathe."