words

Ten keys to mental healthy-ness

1. Truth telling 

This one is the most important!

Mental health is the conformity of my mind with reality. It sounds really simple, but when we are not feeling well things can go sideways.

My family are NOT truth tellers. In fact, they tell BIG lies and then defend them fiercely.

It has taken me many years to fully get this step.

2. Inventory 

The unexamined life is not worth living – Socrates.

In order to find the truth, we need to take inventory of every part of our lives including our childhood experiences. This needs to happen not once, but needs to happen constantly. Examining our motives and looking closely at our behavior helps us to be honest.

3. Healthy eating 

This one is hard if you turn to junk food when you are not travelling well.

4. Avoid drugs and alcohol

I think they have their place. Alcohol saved me from suicide when I was in an impossible situation. Generally, I don’t recommend drugs or alcohol for your mental health.

5. Hobbies and interests

If we are going to live with purpose, interest and hobbies can help us find meaning and purpose in our lives.

7. Exercise 

Even if it is just walking, exercise can help our mental health.

6. Gratitude 

This little word is just SO important to help us see the good in our lives.

8. Read books and watch stuff that give you a positive vibe

I watch a lot of true crime stuff, airplane disasters, and disturbing movies, but I do offset it with positive stuff too.

9. Groups

Groups are a powerful way to improve mental health. When we see we are not alone things seem less overwhelming.

10. Sleep

Lack of good sleep had me suicidal at one point in my life. My medication helps me to have good sleep.

Worth. A movie about compensation for the families that lost loved ones in the 9/11 disaster

In the movie 

Worth, the line “Remember that you’re not the bridge” is spoken by Charles Wolf (played by Stanley Tucci) to Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) during a pivotal moment of self-doubt. 

The phrase carries a deep metaphorical meaning regarding empathy and the burden of fixing a broken system: 

  • You Are Not the Solution Alone: Wolf uses the metaphor to remind Feinberg that he is not the structure connecting the victims to their peace or the past to the future. The “bridge” (the legal formula and the fund) is fundamentally broken—or as Wolf later says, it is “rubble“—and Feinberg cannot hold it up by sheer force of will or logic.
  • Release from Impossible Responsibility: Feinberg is struggling with the realization that his rigid formula cannot account for the unique value of every life lost. By saying “you’re not the bridge,” Wolf is telling him to stop trying to be the perfect, unbreakable link between the government and the victims. It encourages him to stop being a “numbers cruncher” and start being a human being.
  • Human Connection Over Bureaucracy: The advice signals a shift in the film’s philosophy. It suggests that while the “bridge” (the fund) may be flawed or destroyed, the people involved—the “rubble”—are still there. It’s an invitation for Feinberg to step off his professional pedestal and simply walk among the survivors, listening to them rather than trying to “fix” their grief with a calculator. 

Ultimately, the quote serves as the catalyst for Feinberg’s redemption arc, moving him from a rules-driven attorney to a compassionate humanitarian who understands that some things cannot be fully mended, only witnessed. 

I know I will be able to use this saying to help me in the future. It also reminds me of: ‘Carry the message, not the person’ which is a little bit similar. G

Image

new food pyramid

I’ve finally found the key to my weight loss. I’ve stopped eating carbohydrates.

When I mean stopped, I mean I’m on a low carb diet. No more bread products. No more biscuits: savory or sweet. No more potato chips. No pasta or noodles…and I also continue with my low-sugar diet. (sugar = carbs). I will occasionally eat brown rice that has been precooked (by Me). This de-carb’s the rice.

While eating carbs I get: weight gain, Inflammation: Bloating and reflux.

Before doing this, I was 116 kilograms. Now I’m under 100 kilograms. My correct weight is 80kg, so a way to go yet.

Gavin.

Summertime Love

Summer is my favorite time of the year. It’s time for shorts, flipflops and singlets.

The majority of people who live here don’t like Summer because it can get very hot here. But I would prefer that to Winter any day.

Flip-flops

I suffer from hyperhidrosis so I’m constantly wet all year round. So Summer is very nice because I’m wet but not cold.

Winter I’m retracted and in Summer I’m relaxed. G

Video

Empowering Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse

if you get the time this is a very good video about males who are sexually abused as children.

for me it was very confusing because I didn’t know what was happening to me. The effect has been lifechanging for the bad. There was also a lot of shame (because I was male) that it happened to me, so I ended up hating myself. Therapy has helped. Also hearing from other men about their experiences has also helped. Gavin.

set in stone (part two)

I first time I realized I had something set in stone was when I was in my early twenties and I was a vegetarian.

There is nothing wrong with being vegetarian. For some people it’s a healthy choice and lifestyle.

But for me it was an Identity, not a lifestyle choice, so I had an investment in BEING vegetarian.

What happened was: I went to a vegetarian restaurant/cafe with a good friend. We loved going to this place as the food was delicious. Somewhere during the meal, we were chatting about rice, and my friend said: “rice is a vegetable”.

Suddenly I found myself feeling VERY offended. The feelings were overwhelming, and I was SO angry and so upset by a small comment: “well rice is a vegetable”.

I will never forget that day. I didn’t say anything to my friend because I knew I was in the wrong, and what he had said was innocent.

Fast forward to 2025 and I do my very best not to have things set in stone, so that people cannot upset me.

the three major things that come to mind when thinking about this issue are…

  • politics: if your politics and your identity is caught together, you will be offended if someone thinks or feels different to you.
  • religion: If what you believe in and who you are R caught together you may get offended if someone believes something different to you.
  • sex: because sexuality is something so close to us, we can find ourselves easily offended.

I have a friend who has a long list of things that are set in stone for him.

  • Vaccines cause brain injury
  • Donald Trump
  • Extreme Right Wing
  • Climate change is a hoax
  • Google is evil
  • DMSO
  • Red light therapy
  • RFK ….and I’m sure there is more.

I respect each one of those choices, but for him he believes he has to actively defend those beliefs…and will do so with anger and aggression.

The only thing set in stone for me is God, but it’s not connected to organized religion, so there is nothing anyone can say about God that will upset me.

Everything else is as it is. I have no investment in anything or concept or practice or philosophical beliefs. I am free. G

sayings and origins

One-Trick Pony

noun

a person or thing with only one special feature, talent, or area of expertise.

Some word experts say the idiom “one-trick pony” comes from the circus. A circus pony that can only do one trick is not going to entertain a crowd for very long. The term “one-trick pony” appeared around the turn of the twentieth century. Within about fifty years, the term had become an idiom.

Away with the Pixies

informal•British English

(see also: away with the fairies)

distracted, in a dreamworld, or out of touch with reality.

“you seem away with the pixies, are you listening?”

Pixies are: playfully impish or mischievous, prankish. 

pixie mood; a pixie sense of humor.

The origin of the phrase “away with the pixies” is unclear, but it relates to the folklore of pixies, which dates back to Celtic Britain and is particularly prominent in Southwest England. The idiom, used to describe someone mentally absent or flighty, suggests a connection to fairies taking or captivating people’s minds in folklore. While the phrase isn’t directly from a single source, it draws on the folk belief that pixies were mischievous entities capable of robbing people of their wits, as seen in stories and folklore. 

Enen a trained Monkey can do that

We need to be careful that we don’t offend the monkey community while explaining this one.

To all monkeys past and present, we honour you.

It would be phrased as such largely because the person doing it wouldn’t require much intelligence nor oversight – and likely the connotation that the person would also be paid peanuts. Not literally, of course.

All of this imagery is made to offend deliberately, and to derogate those who take these types of jobs.