Two of my favorite books:

LIFE'S OPERATING MANUAL by Tom Shadyac (2013)

LET LOVE RULE by Lenny Kravitz (2020)

* * *

Favorite Musician: LENNY KRAVITZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V73KUp-G-L4

"...The whole reason I create and perform music

is to Amplify Love... Love Will Win... We Are All One...

Let Love Rule..."

* * *

Two of my favorite human beings:

LENNY KRAVITZ (born 1964)

TOM SHADYAC (born 1958)

* * *

Something true (and important) to consider...

.

God is LOVE (with Compassion).

Love (with Compassion) is Good/GODLY.

.

Satan is HATRED (with Malice).

Hatred (with Malice) is EVIL/SATANIC.

.

Choose wisely...

* * *

Distance yourself from some or even from many

if you need to, for however long you need to, if

that's the only way you can avoid further harm

to your health (emotional, mental, physical,

and/or spiritual), and if it helps you to reduce

the existing pain you already are dealing with;

however, don't allow yourself to harbor hatred

or malice in your heart or in your mind.

* * *

Here's the URL to one of my favorite 5-minute

TED-Talk videos (especially Minute 0:19 to 3:32),

with examples of what it means to have

a truly good and caring heart & mindset:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZGlU4nj-g

.

"...Great leaders would never sacrifice people to

save the numbers; they would sooner sacrifice

the numbers to save the people..." -Simon Sinek

.

In one of the examples Simon gave, when the

company CEO encountered a crisis and chose

to preserve the people, the numbers (the financials)

ended up improving! So, it actually was a win-win

situation. That said, even if profits had taken a

permanent hit, not laying off people still would

have been the correct thing to do. Again, listen to

the presentation from Minute 0:19 to Minute 3:32

to learn how and why.

* * *

When copying and pasting the URLs mentioned on this webpage into your browser's address bar (especially the longer ones), make sure to check for any missing hyphens, etc., before hitting "Enter"; otherwise, you'll land on the wrong webpage, which is especially true if you're working from a .pdf copy. IMHO, the webpages at the URLs I've referenced are worth the little bit of extra effort it may take to land on the correct page.

* * *

LENNY KRAVITZ AT HOME IN THE BAHAMAS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU7wsg_6DX4

.

https://www.facebook.com/lennykravitz/posts/415pm-giving-the-airstream-some-love/493561215461451/

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S "TINY DESK" HOME CONCERT IN THE BAHAMAS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17mKFPut4FI

.

LENNY KRAVITZ AT HOME IN FRANCE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EftZvRGquA

Lest you misunderstand, the reason I'm providing this URL is not because of being impressed with the house itself (although it is impressive in some of its features and in some of its furnishings, for sure) but, rather, it's because of the reason *why* he has a home in France. Watch the video to find out the touching reason why.

.

LENNY KRAVITZ AT HOME IN BRAZIL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlsKjWqu82k

Also, lest you misunderstand the reason for sharing this URL, too, it's mainly because the place *isn't* in a cell-phone service area. Although the vegetable garden, horses, full gym, massage-therapy room, and some of the other features of the property are great, too, it's really the home's seclusion from tech that's the best feature (I'm guessing probably satellite service would be the only Internet service, which I would forego; if I were to live in a place like that, I'd opt to live without any "Big Tech" gadgets and services, if at all possible, since life was so much better before all of that started taking over our lives circa 1999; I think it was in Lenny Kravitz's interview with someone from Apple where he made reference to f****** smartphones at concerts - my sentiments exactly - on the other hand, it is nice to see videos of concerts that we might not otherwise get to see).

.

INTERVIEWS WITH GUITARIST CRAIG ROSS:

HOW HE GOT THE GIG WITH LENNY KRAVITZ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltbI9HcIUoA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSEAjWMYx8w

.

INTERVIEW WITH DRUMMER CINDY BLACKMAN-SANTANA:

DRUMS & POWER OF FEMININITY & PULSE OF THE UNIVERSE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CoJWnAf_cQ

.

INTERVIEW WITH DRUMMER JAS KAYSER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbJ5V4gXOHI

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SONG, "ARE YOU GONNA GO MY WAY?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdmF_TcWFrI

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SONG, "ARE YOU GONNA GO MY WAY?"

Performed by BAY MELNICK VERGOLINO on "A.G.T.":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJHW_2qDb5g

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S TRIBUTE TO LED ZEPPELIN:

"WHOLE LOTTA LOVE":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-oDk89yHzo

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SONG, "LET LOVE RULE":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvObpLyo_1w

.

CLOSING OUT THE JAZZ FESTIVAL IN NEW ORLEANS IN 2025,

36 YEARS AFTER "LET LOVE RULE" WAS RELEASED:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsF9ZbqeEow

.

"LET LOVE RULE" WAS RELEASED BACK IN 1989.

Lenny Kravitz was 25.

Craig Ross (drummer) was 25.

Goya Toledo (Craig Ross's wife) was 20.

Cindy Blackman-Santana (drummer) was 29.

Jas Kayser (drummer) wasn't born yet.

Tom Shadyac was 30.

I was 29.

.

MY FAVORITE FILMS DIRECTED BY TOM SHADYAC:

"LIAR, LIAR" (1997) / "PATCH ADAMS" (1998) /

"DRAGONFLY" (2002) / "I AM" (2010) / "RACING EXTINCTION" (2015)

.

TOM SHADYAC, ON BEING A DIRECTOR:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA_IoetJECo/

.

PRAISE FOR TOM SHADYAC'S DOCUMENTARY FILM, "I AM":

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jan/16/tom-shadyac-hollywood-movies-film

https://www.one.org/us/stories/review-documentary-i-am-emphasizes-the-power-of-one

https://layoga.com/entertainment/film-inspiration/sitting-down-with-tom-shadyac/

.

TOM SHADYAC'S DOWNSIZED HOME & HIS HAPPINESS PHILOSOPHY:

https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/tom-shadyac-from-millionaire-to-mobile-home (intentionally)

https://www.oprah.com/own-oprahshow/tom-shadyacs-philosophy-and-happiness-now-video

(Be patient with the repetitve commercials in between the segments of this video; his story is worth that small inconvenience.)

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SIMILAR HAPPINESS PHILOSOPHY:

https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/features/lenny-kravitz-mr-love-58889.html

https://www.TheTimes.com/uk/science/article/lenny-kravitz-interview-the-boiler-room-has-become-a-legendary-party-place-rbtz77xrg

The boiler room referenced in the title of this interview is in the basement of his home in France. However, I'm more referring to what he said about his Airstream in the Bahamas in this interview with TheTimes.com. At the time of that interview, he had been living in his Airstream in The Bahamas for many months; what he said was this:

"There's not a day when I want to leave."

.

I felt the same way about The Bahamas the month that I was lucky to enjoy time there on my parents' schooner. We arrived there just before I turned sixteen in late-December 1975 (New Year's Eve is my birthday), and we stayed for almost the entire month of January 1976, before heading to Jamaica for a month, and then to Panama for what turned out to be two-and-a-half-months (it's a little bit of a long story), and then to the Galapagos Islands (an Ecuadorean territory) just overnight, and then to the Marquesas Islands (a French territory) for three months (the longest time allowed on our visas... I would have loved to have stayed there forever)... and then to the Hawaiian Islands for eight months.

.

We had been living aboard my parents' beautiful 40' schooner since November 1974 (its construction was wood, it was gaff-rigged, it had teak decks, a 10' bowsprit [giving the boat an overall length of 50'], and it had a 6' full-keel draft; it was very easy to sail by oneself - although that full, deep keel was tricky in the shallow waters of The Bahamas!). They sold the sailboat in Hawaii in April 1977 (to a pilot, who took us up in his small plane for a private aerial tour of the islands); and then, we took a commercial flight to San Francisco, California; and then, in a VW bus, we did a cross-country road-trip to my father's hometown in New York State.

.

My father's hometown was mine, as well, because I also was born there; but in my case, I was born at the SAC-USAF Base Hospital that existed there at the time (where, as a "premie" born a month early, I spent ten days in an incubator). I wasn't raised in that hometown, though, because we soon spent some months in Huntsville, Alabama, for some of my father's Air-Force training (and I don't recall if there was anywhere else they told me that he trained before we were sent overseas). I was only a year old and my brother was an infant when we were sent to live in Izmir, Turkey (which turned out to be for two years, 1961-1963), because my father had been stationed at a missile base in Turkey. Because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we were sent back to the U.S.A. in 1963; we were sent to Lompoc, California, where we lived for about six months. My father had decided he didn't want to be in the military anymore, despite having risen quickly from 2nd Lieutenant to 1st Lieutenant to Captain in only about four years. He sought and obtained Congressional approval to get out of the military, and left with an Honorable Discharge, in 1964, at the age of 26.

.

After that, my father found a job in Corporate America, specifically at Eastman Kodak during its heyday, for close to a decade before he eventually became disillusioned with that, too, despite that once again and just as he had in the military, too, he had quickly attained a high level of "success" (recognition and money).

.

My paternal grandfather's suicide in 1971 had precipitated my father's decision to leave the corporate "rat race" in 1972 and our move that year to a 40-acre property with a 1/4-mile-long private driveway winding through the woods to a not-large house at the top of a hill. At the time of that move, I was 12-and-a-half and only had continuous recollection of and, therefore, identification with, living in nicer houses in the suburbs of various cities (including but not only of Philadelphia and Boston). So, this was a major change.

.

We lived in that rural area for a couple of years (the 1972-1973 and the 1973-1974 school years, and the first part of the 1974-1975 school year, where I started and completed Grades 8 and 9, and where I started Grade 10; that was during the time when I was 12 years and 6 months old to when I was 14 years and 10 months old). At that time, my father worked in sales at a friend's furniture store in a nearby city. My parents also did some successful real-estate investing during that time. As they had done with most of the other houses they ever had owned, they made some improvements, which increased the property value, in this case not so much to the house itself, but to the property by constructing another building on it, which served as a large garage on the bottom floor and a large workshop and rec room on the upper floor, where he placed a Franklin wood stove, a pool table, a ping-pong table, a dartboard, my brother's Lionel trains, workbenches, etc. Another project was a purchase, renovation, and flip of a house across the street from the 40-acre property, and yet another project was a new-house construction on a five-acre property next to the flipped property. My parents then sold the forty-acre property (to a television producer) and moved us into the new house, which they eventually rented out to tenants when we moved onto the sailboat mentioned above. (One of my uncles, one of my father's three younger brothers, managed the rental property for my parents while we were away.)

.

My father's intention was for us to sail around the world over a period of at least five years, and there was no plan for continuing anyone's formal education. As you probably know, there was no Internet available for the masses until about 1999. In the 1970s, there were correspondence courses available by mail, which my father considered having us do and which would have allowed us to progress along academically on time, but despite that my parents easily could have afforded it, my father ultimately made the unilateral decision to deprive us of that.

.

Our life on a sailboat was cut shorter than the intended five-plus years because my parents' already not-great marriage deteriorated further in the late-1970s and a change had to be made. My father had done so well and had been such an example of sales-and-marketing success at Eastman Kodak (they actually literally used him as an example to emulate when they were training newbies) that they had told him that he could return, but he never wanted to do that.

.

After we returned to a "normal" life after life on a sailboat, my father's preference for an occupation was to do more real-estate flipping to support the family. First, my parents sold the house which they had turned into a rental property and which one of my uncles had managed for them while we were living on a sailboat (which was in a different town from the town where we moved after life on the sailboat). Next, in my father's hometown (where he had moved us when we returned from the sailing life), my parents purchased a small and very old and rundown duplex literally on the wrong side of the tracks. They renovated that property while we stayed with one of his younger brothers and his family for a couple of months (the same brother who had managed the rental property while we were away).

.

An unrelated side note is that a couple of decades later, in the 1990s, that same uncle of mine, mentioned above, sadly followed in his father's footsteps and committed suicide, too. My paternal grandfather had been materially very successful and the sole provider for his family of wife and four sons, providing them a very comfortable and privileged lifestyle. My paternal grandmother frequently played golf and tennis and backgammon, rode horses, went out on their motor yacht, the "Camelot," with my grandfather and my father and his brothers, and so on; my father and his three brothers also didn't lack for anything materially. Obviously, though, my grandfather struggled with dissatisfaction with his "successful" life, likely feeling there was no-one to turn to, to talk to and be real with, as sadly is all too common in so many families and societies, regardless of where and no matter the socioeconomic level. My uncle who followed his father in suicide had been experiencing financial difficulties in the housing-construction business that he owned and operated and previously had been doing well in, so I think that that probably contributed to his severe depression, along with probably the two divorces that he went through. My father, who passed away in March of 2022, of natural causes, at 84 years and five months of age (from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm), was an atheist; and maybe his father and the brother who committed suicide were, too, because apparently they either didn't believe in or never developed a strong enough faith in God and the Divine, because, otherwise, they probably would not have done that... no judgment, just observation and speculation.

.

During the late-1970s, things deteriorated further in my parents' marriage and despite my father's promise that we never would move into either side of the duplex on the wrong side of the tracks, that's exactly what happened. He moved us into one side, rented out the other side, and never made any effort to flip the property, as intended, nor did he ever buy any other properties to renovate and flip, as he also had intended. He had become seriously depressed.

.

Eventually, my parents divorced (more about that later) and both quickly became seriously involved with other people, my mother even more quickly than my father. My father moved away in 1980 with his new girlfriend and her two young sons from her first marriage. In the Southeast, the four of them lived on another sailboat, my father and his girlfriend got married, and then eventually they divorced.

.

Two decades passed before I ever saw my father again (and, by then, he was married to someone else new). He and his third wife remained together for the rest of his life, but despite that he had left the military a very long time ago, he always continued to have a harsh, authoritarian "military personality" and was difficult. He and I almost never could communicate without him hurting me, and I'm sure that despite that it was never my intention, I hurt him, too.

.

The difference, though, is that I don't ever treat anyone with disrespect who hasn't first treated me with disrespect; and my reactions never at any time have been motivated by hatred or malice, nor would they ever be (check the Akashic records on that and you will find it and everything else in this post to be the truth).

.

Sadly, my father passed away before ever letting me in. At the time, we were estranged again and I never even learned of his passing until a week or more after his remains already had been cremated. A cousin in Connecticut, from whom I hadn't heard in many years--(we weren't estranged, just hadn't lived near each other in many years and hadn't established a habit of being in long-distance contact)--called with condolences for my loss and when I said I didn't know what he was talking about, he seemed surprised and told me what had happened.

.

My father's passing has been a blessing for both my father and for me, though, because now he knows that his atheism was misguided (as was mine from childhood until around the age of thirty-three, which was when I started to believe otherwise); that an end of an incarnation doesn't mean death of the soul, only death of a biological body; and that soul growth and communication are possible (in fact, it's common) after an incarnation ends. Today, he is one of my spirit guides.

.

Back now to school experiences...

.

In September 1977, I re-entered high school in New York State after a two-year break in between my sophomore year and my junior year (months after I otherwise would have graduated). Fortunately for me, none of the other students could have guessed the situation because of the facts that (1) I had started school a year earlier than most people my age, (2) I looked younger than my actual age, and (3) we didn't return to any of the same cities, suburbs, or towns where I ever had attended school prior to the 30-month break from "normal" life (i.e., prior to when we had begun living on a sailboat).

.

Although we lived aboard my parents' schooner for 30 months, the total amount of travel time during that period was 22 months. Before we began traveling for an indefinite period of time, I completed my sophomore year of high school (November 1974 to June 1975) while living on that sailboat - in Massachusetts, at a marina that had bubblers in place to keep the water from freezing so that the boats could remain in their slips over the winter. Fun times. Lol.

.

I looked up that marina recently and it seems to be under new ownership and they apparently don't still use bubblers to allow boats to stay in their slips over winter. They also now seem to cater mainly to motor yachts and motorboats, as I see only extremely few sailboats there now.

.

Anyway, that was the only time I ever was forced to change schools after the school-year already had started. All of the other times, at least we always had moved during the summer - every two years, on average. That was because of my father's work (as an officer in the U.S.A.F. immediately after he had graduated from university; and then, as mentioned above, in sales and marketing at Eastman Kodak, which moved us around almost as much as the military had); with every promotion came another U.S. city where he worked, a new suburb where we lived, if not within the city itself, and a new school.

.

I was in Saratoga Springs, New York, for two years (Kindergarten and First Grade, ages 4-6). Then, I was in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia), for three years (Grades 2, 3 & 4, ages 6-9; that was the longest I ever lived anywhere as a kid or teen). Then, I was in Sherborn, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston), where I lived for two years (Grades 5 & 6, ages 9-11). (It was there, during Sixth Grade, that I reached my full adult height of 5'0", and went through puberty at 11-and-a-half, and also reached my adult weight of 88 lbs. [technically "underweight" by generic guidelines, but actually perfect for my very tiny, petite frame; too tiny a frame, IMO]. I've maintained that weight for most of the decades of my life, so far [never exceeding it by any more than fourteen pounds; and even when I've exceed it by just two to four pounds, reaching 90-92 lbs., that really does feel uncomfortably fat, especially when it's mostly in my belly area; so when I was at 102 lbs. for a little while in my 40s, more than a decade before I became a most-of-the-time vegan, I definitely had way too much fat on my body, but that only rarely ever has happened]; lucky genes in that way, if not certainly in some other ways. At age 55, four years after having changed my dietary lifestyle to veganism most of the time, I looked 30 whenever I wasn't sleep-deprived [which, back then, was almost always]; but now, after nine years of menopausal insomnia, so far [since early-2017], and extremely little exercise in all of that time [despite a small home gym] because of the exhaustion from so much sleep-deprivation, and due to some of the other curses of menopause, I definitely am not looking or feeling the way I'd like.)

.

It also was when we were living in Sherborn, Massachusetts, that I starting taking horseback riding lessons and also learned how to take care of a horse. I couldn't stay in the barn long, though, because the hay always triggered an asthma attack. I remember making friends with a Shetland pony that I used to go visit outside whenever I could. I liked the pony more than the larger horse I rode, I guess because I'm small, too, and also because I'm afraid of heights. I always preferred being on the ground spending time with the Shetland pony to being high up on the back of the horse I rode during my horseback riding lessons. I remember, too, that a friend had a Clydesdale and I once rode that horse with her. I don't remember the specific kind of horse the other horse was that I rode for my lessons, but one day when I still only had learned to walk and trot, so far, not even canter yet, I remember that when we were heading back to the barn, the horse knew I wasn't experienced and, I guess in a hurry that day, decided to take off galloping, jumped over a stream, and I fell off. The instructor brought the horse back to the spot where I had fallen off, had me get back on, and we trotted back to the barn, where I groomed and fed the horse, as always, but that was the last time I ever chose to ride a horse. I still love horses, but I prefer not to ride.

.

Anyway, after that, the next promotion had my father based in Rochester, New York, again, which is where we had lived, in an apartment in the city, when he had just joined Kodak seven or eight years earlier, in 1963 or 1964 (I'm not sure which month and year it was after he left the Air Force in 1963 that he started at Kodak); but, this time, in 1971, my parents chose Pittsford, New York (a suburb of Rochester), for us to live in while he was working overseas most of the time (doing marketing for Kodak in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East). Before my father quit "the rat race" (which happened in 1972, not long after his father had committed suicide in 1971), I had my first year of Junior High School there (Grade 7, age 11-12).

.

Pittsford, New York, is where I started babysitting. My first babysitting job was in my neighborhood, taking care of a two-week old infant. As an adult now, I cannot imagine leaving a two-week old baby with a kid of only eleven-and-a-half years old. But, on the other hand, there was a list of emergency numbers by the phone, and my mother was close by, too, and I was very responsible and mature for my age, so it was okay. The baby slept the majority of the time, and when the baby was awake, all was well. I remember when my father decided we were going to leave Pittsford, one of my classmates organized a surprise party and gave me a silver necklace as a going-away present. The way she got me there was she said she wanted me to go with her on a babysitting job, and to meet me at her parents' house. Everyone there was dressed up (this was the early 1970s; people used to dress up for parties), but I was dressed for babysitting, so I felt embarrassed, and also because I don't really like surprise parties. But it was sweet of them and I appreciated it, especially since I only had been there for one academic year, not even a full calendar year. Other places, it used to take about a year to feel comfortable enough to become friends with anyone, and then usually only a year after that, we moved again. But this time, I made friends sooner than I had when I was younger.

.

The time in Pittsford, New York, was the least-stressful time, with my father away most of the time, and before a really terrible thing happened the next year when I was 13-and-a-half, something which scarred me for life, worse than anything else ever had before; I won't say more about that here. Anyway, when my father was working for Kodak in the U.S., he almost always would arrive home from work at 5:00 p.m. (it wasn't like it is now; back then, work outside the home was literally from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., or something similar, and even calling employees at home outside of normal work hours was taboo; downtime was understood to be very important). Just before he arrived home, I almost always went to my room and closed my door to avoid him as much as I could, to decrease the "walking on eggshells" feeling that I almost always felt. That year, I didn't have to hide as much, because he was away a lot, working for Kodak overseas. And, at that time, I never believed there was any reason to think of my mother as anything other than really one of the very best mothers possible.

.

My mother, of course, was a homemaker for the time she was pregnant with me and for all of the first 19 years of my life, until some months after my brother turned 18. I remember that when we lived in Sherborn, Massachusetts, she volunteered to teach some 4-H classes in cooking and baking; she's always been an expert in the kitchen.

.

My parents met at Buffalo University in Western New York State, which is the region of the state where my mother grew up. My father grew up in Northern Upstate New York, close to the border with the Province of Quebec, Canada, where many of our ancestors several generations back are from (according to what I have been told, the ancestry on my father's side of my family is English, Irish, Scottish, French, Quebecois, and a little bit of Native American; and the surnames of ancestors on my father's side of the family certainly do bear that out, at least the English, Irish, Scottish, French, and Quebecois heritage; I shudder to think how the small amount of Native-American heritage got there; I highly doubt it involved any love stories, although I do hope I'm wrong in thinking that it probably didn't).

.

Mentioning the Quebecois heritage reminds me that my father's mother's sister was a French teacher. I think I met her only once or maybe twice. She was married to a man about whom all I know is he owned a racehorse at Saratoga RaceTrack (https://www.saratogaracetrack.com/about/history-saratoga-race-course). I remember he took me there once and let me choose the numbers for the Daily Double. If I had bet the two numbers in my age, I would have won $300, which today is equivalent to either almost $2,000 or a little over $2,000 - depending on whether it was 1973 (when I was 13) or whether it was 1974 (when I was 14), about which I'm not sure, but it definitely was in one of those two years just before we moved onto my parents' sailboat. I remember clearly that I got the "1" in the Daily Double, but I don't remember if the other winning number was a "3" or a "4" - but it definitely was one of those two numbers, and unfortunately I missed it. Zut alors. I still enjoyed the day, though. (In Saratoga, I also remember going to see the New York City Ballet at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center: https://spac.org/saratoga-performing-arts-center/new-york-city-ballet/ and I recall that the New York City Ballet's Prima Ballerina once came to my school where she led a ballet class that I was participating in at the time.)

.

My paternal great-aunt (my father's mother's sister) and my great-uncle (her husband), just mentioned above, never had any kids. There are several women in my family who didn't have kids: my paternal great-aunt (just mentioned), my maternal aunt (my mother's younger sister), and I, and my eldest cousin (born in 1964). I don't know the reasons why some of my other relatives didn't have kids. Despite that I love babies, I have a very long list of reasons for saying, "no, thank you" (only two of which are mentioned below). Nobody else in my family has severe asthma, or any asthma at all, though, except for one of my mother's male cousins (whom I never met) who had severe asthma, too. So, severe asthma--(defined as experiencing asthma symptoms to any degree--mild, moderate, or severe--at least twice per week)--with sometimes very severe and life-threatening symptoms, wouldn't have been a reason for why any of my other female relatives who didn't have kids didn't have kids.

.

Even though I did get a few desirable genes, I swear I also got almost every undesirable gene known to both sides of my living family, and then some. I guess those other ones came from ancestors nobody living ever knew. That genetic bad luck is evident, for example, in my extremely long list of food allergies and other types of allergies, as well, many of those severe and life-threatening. That's one of the many reasons I chose not to have kids. (Even if I could have managed to get through a full-term pregnancy, doubtful due to the severity of some of my experiences with asthma, I wouldn't have wanted to pass on those genes. No guarantee I would have, of course, but I wouldn't have wanted to take that chance.) The genetic bad luck in those two areas and in at least a couple of other areas, too, might be a big part of why I'm an introvert; my genetic coding is not exactly conducive to easy socializing, lol. Oh, yeah, I'm an Aspie, too (or Level-One Autistic, if you prefer), which you probably can tell by now.

.

My Aspie test score, although it varies a little from time to time because the answer to some of the questions is, "it depends," always is way above average, among those very likely or most likely to be an Aspie. I say there's little to no doubt. (My score on the one on the page at the following URL, for example, was 26/30 the last time I took it, which is very similar to other times, too: https://clinical-partners.co.uk/for-adults/autism-and-aspergers/adult-autism-test.) Also, it's my opinion that being an Aspie is not a disorder (for one thing, we're usually quite ordered, lol). In fact, I think the world would benefit if the majority of humans were like us, because a lot of scientists are, a lot of people in some of the most academically challenging fields are, a lot of people who care deeply about our world are, etc. On the other hand, a lot of I.T. people also are, and most people I've met seem to agree that the world would be a whole lot better if we all would go back to the way that most of us did things prior to about 1999, which was that we did not have any Internet access and, therefore, we did everything offline. We had home computers, which, at that time, did save us time; but then, adding the Internet has, overall, done the exact opposite (and it has added other even more serious concerns, which nobody except cybercriminals seem happy about at all).

.

It's a myth, a very misguided notion, that all Aspies are unempathetic; some of us tend to be more empathetic than most (and it's important to keep in mind that not every Aspie has exactly the same characteristics as each other). So, really it is not a disorder, probably in most cases. It's just that we're at the more analytical, more logical, more organized end of the human cognitive spectrum, at least when it comes to certain subject areas and to certain aspects of life, if not when it comes to certain other aspects of life (who knows, maybe we have more alien DNA than most, lol; it would be interesting if we ever were to discover what all of that so-called "junk" DNA is, which I would bet probably is not actually "junk" at all, or almost at all, and maybe some of that is relevant to some of our differences on the human cognitive spectrum: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-complex-truth-about-junk-dna-20210901/).

.

Anyway, if anything, there seem to be more undesirable traits in neurotypicals, IMHO. And, to set the record straight, there are more unfeeling and dangerous people in this world, such as narcissists (especially extreme narcissists), non-benevolent dictators, murderers, what-have-you, who are neurotypicals than who are Aspies. It also seems that there possibly are more apathetic people in this world who are neurotypicals than who are Aspies, too.

.

An example of a very caring Aspie is Greta Thunberg, who is mentioned here: https://www.wired.com/story/the-enduring-power-of-aspergers-even-as-a-non-diagnosis (the reference to "a non-diagnosis" of Asperger's is because "the powers that be" now are calling our range of characteristics "Autism, Level One"). Greta is still young; now that I'm older and mellower, I wouldn't get quite as "in your face" and emotional as she does in the video on the above-referenced page, but I certainly do understand her sentiments.

.

In any event, a global benefit of some of us not having had any kids is that we have not contributed to the global overpopulation crisis: https://www.science.org/content/article/best-way-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-one-government-isn-t-telling-you-about

Regarding the comment at the very end of the article, mentioning that some of the measures require so-called "extreme changes in lifestyle," that's no excuse. Humans are very adaptable. It's true that most of us don't like change; but once we've implemented a change and have stuck with it for a couple of months (for example, becoming vegan or very close to it), we oftentimes find we prefer our new way of being (and if it helps more than just ourselves, all the better). So, we all really should try to do as much as we can on that list, as often as we can manage to, even if we're among the ones who have brought only one or zero new human beings onto the planet (and certainly everyone else absolutely should). Nobody is going to be perfect in the efforts, but billions of people making more efforts every day definitely can make a very big and positive difference.

.

It matters, because human overpopulation is THE root cause of most of the environmental problems and many of the other problems that we face on our planet. Even during the height of the covid pandemic, daily births still outpaced daily deaths. And despite the fact that birth rates have fallen in some parts of the world in recent decades, we as a species haven't yet made enough progress in this regard, because (a) most if not all of the areas where birth rates have fallen are areas of the world that are the most materialistic and wasteful, (b) more and more societies around the globe are beginning to emulate the highly materialistic and wasteful lifestyle of the more "developed" countries, and (c) the net result still is that daily births continue to outpace daily deaths: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

.

So, you're welcome for my not having had any kids. No shade on anyone who had one (or two, if you had your second one before about 1975 or so). Or, actually, no shade on almost anyone, really, because most people have not been aware, or have not had a choice. Those who were aware and had a choice and chose to bring more than one new human onto the planet instead of adopting someone in need (whether an infant, a toddler, a child, a teen, or even another adult who's age 18 or older: https://americanadoptions.com/adoption/adult-adoption), then, yes, shade on you, because it's actually you who are extremely selfish (sorry, but it's the truth). That kind of selfishness needs to change. And the ignorance and the inability to choose need to change, too. People usually make better decisions when they are correctly informed.

.

There really is only one humane way to return our numbers to what the experts agree is the upper end of the sustainable number of humans on the planet (with regard to the health of our environment, upon which we all depend), within one long human lifetime of about 100 years, which is to a maximum of about 3 billion humans (where we were around the time I was born, a mere 65 years ago - consider that it took about 200,000 years to reach only 1 billon humans on the planet; and then, only about 200 years to reach 7 billion: https://populationmatters.org/the-issue/ ; and then, it took only about 12[!] years to go from 7 billion to 8 billion: https://populationconnection.org/learn/population-milestones/).

.

The only humane solution is (a) to educate women, and men, about the issue; (b) to provide the top two or three most-effective types of birth control possible (up to and including tubal ligation for the woman and vasectomy for the man at the time of the birth of the first child, if not sooner by choice; however, if we had started back in the 1960s or 1970s, it could have been after the birth of the second child - both tubal ligation and vasectomy are important within a couple, just in case one or the other partner ever strays, since it can take only once to create another new human, and also since humans are not naturally monogomous [if we were, there would be no need for any rules about that; and those rules get broken by both genders, for a variety of reasons]; and (c) for governments across the globe to provide the necessary support for both education and contraception. It's far less expensive for governments to provide education and contraception than it is to have to maintain a welfare system to help support a huge amount of new human beings resulting from unintended births, or even from intended ones born to couples or to a single parent who cannot afford to raise them (due in very large part to corporate greed in the form of paying wages and salaries too low for their employees to meet all of even just their most basic needs).

.

Even if we could prevent just the 40% of unintended pregnancies, that would make a huge difference for the global environment and the quality of life on the planet: https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2014/new-study-finds-40-pregnancies-worldwide-are-unintended (that's 40%, though, not "40").

.

It's important to inform others correctly about spiritual love; and about the perils of lust, especially when acting out of character from peer pressure, and/or from other dubious cultural influences, and/or from having been hurt by someone else, and/or out of just plain stupidity (i.e., not thinking), which most definitely is not worth it (observation of others and experience talking); and about the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual benefits of celibacy.

.

It also is important to inform others correctly about being mindful about the number of new human beings we as a species allow ourselves to create and bring onto this planet, going forward.

.

I suspect that Lenny Kravitz possibly would agree, because it seems he does care about the environmental problems we face on this planet: https://www.facebook.com/lennykravitz/posts/my-nephew-and-all-of-the-children-are-the-reason-we-must-strive-to-preserve-this/994118485405719

.

Like Lenny Kravitz, I work for God (he gets paid to, but I don't yet). I love when he sometimes lectures a little before he starts singing; I love that he wants people to think (about something other than just his gorgeous face, his very long and sexy dreadlocks, his beautiful body, and that silky voice), and I love that many in his audiences don't seem to mind his lecturing and preaching (targeting both the mind and the heart); I get the feeling that many people actually really do not object at all. We need even more people to become willing to listen and to think with the mind and feel with the heart and not too much with anything lower. We need far fewer--ideally, none--who are so unevolved that they actually even assault another person, even one of God's chosen messengers, no less; maybe that young woman at one of his concerts in 2025 thought that his dreadlocks aren't real, as in his own hair that he grows out, as opposed to cosmetic dreads attached artificially; even if they were the latter, which I think they are not, what that fan did was not cool at all... Lenny Kravitz, though, as almost always, absolutely was: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRdAvPfjv-W/.

.

Leaving that tangent now, and getting back to what I was saying before...

.

My father got his bachelor's degree in Geology, and was thinking about going to dental school, but then went into the Air Force instead, as soon as he graduated. My mother was studying Business, but then as many women did in the 1950s, she left school after only two years to get her "MRS" instead, which she did in 1958, despite that she had been a good student (she was Salutatorian of her high-school class, and was the first and only person in her family or in her parents' family before her to go on to university). After leaving school, she went to work for an attorney for a year to help my father finish school. I seem to recall that they told me that his parents cut him off when he married her, and I remember (for sure) her telling me that her parents cut her off when she married him.

.

My parents come from very different backgrounds. Dad's father was white-collar; Mom's father was blue-collar; and her mother also worked, in a factory as a seamstress. I didn't grow up around my mother's family and barely ever saw them, so I never identified with "blue collar" or with a woman earning an additional paycheck for the household, or with the Sicilian-Italian part of my heritage (and I even hate tomato sauce, so although I did get a lot of their genes, too, as well as a lot from my father's side, I didn't get taste buds that like Italian food; I don't, except occasionally; I wouldn't like to eat lasagna or ravioli or spaghetti with tomato sauce very often). My mother's grandparents (my maternal great-grandparents) came from Sicily. I actually got to meet two of my great-grandmothers, one on my mother's side, and one on my father's side. Anyway, family socializing was with my father's family, 99% of the time. My father's heritage is what I mentioned earlier (English, Irish, Scottish, French, Quebecois, and a little bit of Native American), and his mother and at least one of his three younger brothers seemed a bit snobby about the English, Irish, Scottish heritage (if not about the French, Quebecois, and little bit of Native-American heritage). My mother's heritage, as I just mentioned, is Sicilian - don't mess with me.

.

I'm kidding... although, I'm God's daughter, so if you've messed with me with malicious intent, you'll eventually answer to Him in this life, if you haven't had to in any way yet; and/or you certainly will when you return home to the purely spiritual realm after your current incarnation ends. And if the negative karma you created for yourself hasn't been balanced out by that time, then your children and maybe future generations will be affected by it in some way, because negative karma accumulated but not transmuted by the perpetrator continues to affect the next generations; I don't make the rules; and it's not a malicious thing itself; negative karma transmuted is meant to bring about spiritual growth by the process of transmutation.

.

Anyway, my mother told me that my father's mother had told him not to marry her because their kids would get called "wop." I guess she knew that "exotic" genes usually are biologically dominant (so, why are they socially considered "inferior," something to think about). Btw, we never were called that (at least, not that I know of). My mother's parents didn't want her marrying him either, because he wasn't Sicilian, and he wasn't Catholic. Officially, he was Episcopalian, but he was an atheist; I wonder if they knew that when he was a young man. I doubt it. If they had known, it seems to me that they wouldn't have cared what religion the future wife had been baptized, since the couple wouldn't be practicing any religion. But they apparently did care, for whatever reason.

.

Before the wedding, my mother converted to Episcopalianism, which quite likely was to try to please her fiance's parents. I was born about a year-and-a-half after they got married. I was baptized Episcopalian, but have no traditionally religious practices. My younger brother, who was born on Valentine's Day, thirteen-and-a-half months after I was born, was baptized just generic Christian, I guess for him to decide later if he wanted to choose anything more specific after having been raised by a father who was an atheist and a mother who didn't dare go against him, except only rarely (and it was like that so much so, that since my father disliked team sports and encouraged individual sports, such as skiing, swimming, etc., I never knew for a second, until after my parents divorced, that my mother doesn't just like baseball, she's absolutely crazy about it, an obsessed New York Yankees fan; how does a person hide a passion like that from her kids for nearly two decades, literally never mentioning it at all, in over nineteen years; never heard any games on the radio, never saw any on TV, never heard a word about baseball, ever, in all that time).

.

I can't really say that I know much about my mother's family, because the number of times my nuclear family ever had contact with them, I can count on one hand. I think my mother did used to talk to her sister on the phone sometimes, though, if memory serves, but then they became estranged for decades, and of that I am completely certain. (My father's mother and her sister also couldn't stand each other, which probably is why I only ever saw my paternal great-aunt only once or twice.) Both my mother and her sister are the ones who really taught me, by example, about removing someone from your life. Maybe she's an INFJ, too, idk, but for me as an INFJ, there definitely are the infamous "INFJ door slams" when deeply hurt for too long (I give many chances, but then when the projections and the gaslighting and the pain become too much, when the other party perpetually refuses to work on themselves and the relationship; or worse, they throw me under the bus with twisted truths and outright lies, never owning their share of responsibility in anything (and certainly never doing anything toward making things right), caring only about making themselves look "good" to others, no matter the cost to someone they have claimed to "love," then it's good-bye, usually forever, but not necessarily in every case, because sometimes misunderstandings do happen that eventually get cleared up, as long as it isn't b.s., which I usually can see through, a mile away, in which case that door stays closed for the remainder of our earthly lives - it's the only way to have peace).

.

It's important to note that not every lack-of-contact situation is the result of anything that led to a "door slam." As probably everyone has experienced in life, people often eventually lose touch with one another, even family, even formerly close friends, especially if you don't live near each other.

.

Although it isn't really saying much, I know more about my father's family because I saw them almost every Thanksgiving and/or Christmas, and sometimes at other times, too (but only very rarely). For most of my childhood and teen years, and just the same as my mother's family, too, we didn't live in the same area as any of my father's family, either - so, for those Thanksgivings and Christmases, we had to travel to his side of the family, or sometimes some of them traveled to us. Later, after returning from living and traveling on a sailboat, we lived near some of my father's family. Still, though, everything always (99% of the time) remained only superficially surface-level (you know, just "small-talk," which annoys and drains introverts; I've gotten better at doing that, though, as I've gotten older, at least I don't loathe it as much as I did when I was younger). So, that never allowed us to know each other very well.

.

People can't truly know each other if they always remain on only a surface level (even if someone illegally plants recording devices in your home or in any other space of yours where you have an expectation of privacy, and even while seeing a range of human behavior, they still don't know, for example, the feelings and unresolved issues that never have been permitted to be talked about enough or at all, which causes frustration and necessitates "walking on eggshells" the majority of the time; and then sometimes, out of frustration, overreactions happen, such as comments not always meant, a raised voice, a literal door slam, the cold shoulder for a little while, those sort of things that everyone experiences in this life). As for extended family and so-called "friends," most especially if you don't see them often, if you don't go deep in your conversations and/or if you're not willing or permitted to speak honestly about how you feel and why, and about how you would prefer things to be and about how you could get there, you just basically stay strangers, even if you've been acquainted for many decades - and, I don't know about you, but related or not, I don't like strangers hanging around for long (especially any who seem to coordinate sabotage behind your back), and I am not comfortable with some of them ever in my home (especially ones who have gone into my room and into my closets without permission many times, once even after several times of having been asked nicely that evening not to do so, but one of them kept going back in there anyway; and then they even had the audacity to complain because I got upset that time, as anyone else certainly would have, too; and had the nerve to call me "vicious" for giving a stern look because of their egregious behavior; and then they even had the gall to expect an apology from me without any apology from them first).

.

Anyway, back in the 1960s and 1970s, in urban and suburban America, white-collar jobs typically paid men well enough to support a family very comfortably. For example, my father was paid $17,000 in 1971 when he was at Eastman Kodak, which today is equivalent to about $136,000 (https://www.usinflationcalculator.com). That, along with responsible and conscientious money-management practices, made it possible for my parents to live without any debts other than a home mortgage and to accumulate some savings. We always had summer vacations and winter ski trips and lavish Christmases. They never had any debt for cars, boats, travel, or anything else; they always used cash or checks to pay for everything, never had credit cards, and they always made a profit whenever they sold a house, which they did about every two years, on average, because of the required moves (and Kodak paid for all of the moving expenses, and even paid an additional month's salary on top of that, just for the inconvenience of moving). The suburban-American experience of the 1960s and 1970s practically has disappeared, though, because corporate jobs with high pay and excellent fringe benefits are not as abundant as those used to be, for a variety of reasons (some understandable, some inexcusable in the eyes of God and of anyone who truly aligns with God) and, generally, the situation only seems to be continuing to get worse.

.

Something that my parents never did, though, was that they never established any school fund for their kids to go to college or university. Despite the fact that we were well-above-average students, our futures never even were mentioned to us or discussed with us at all, never mind planned for, even though they could have afforded to save up something for our higher education. In fact, in line with the chauvinistic opinions of most men of the time, I actually overheard my father say to someone that a woman's place is in the bedroom and in the kitchen. Also, in the suburban neighborhoods where I lived during my most formative years, before the move onto the sailboat, I only ever encountered three women who worked a job outside the home, and they were considered weird for doing so (one was a nurse in one of the areas where we lived; and in another neighborhood where we lived later, one was a scientist and the other was a teacher; most teachers didn't live in upscale neighborhoods as that one was where we were living at the time, and it still seems to be (the house my parents owned there, which sat on about four acres, currently is valued in the range of $1.1-$1.2 million), so it was just strange to come across a woman bringing in an additional paycheck to the household, because that was something that only the man was supposed to be doing. At least, that was our perception at the time. Anyway, but that doesn't explain why my father also didn't seem to care anything about my brother's future, either. I still don't know why that was, because his own parents had handed him on a silver platter even more than what most middle-class couples with a white-collar income provided for their minor children and their college-age/university-age kids at the time.

.

In any event, for me, at least, my parents got off scott-free regarding higher education (not one penny from either parent or any other relative for tuition, textbooks, lab fees, or occasional travel to Quebec with classmates; I took care of all of that myself). My father didn't help my brother at all, but my mother did incur debt to help my brother during his undergraduate years. Also, despite that it's tradition in the U.S. that the bride's family covers all of the costs for a daughter's wedding, my parents never paid for any wedding. Being an introvert, and much shyer in my twenties than now, I preferred a judge's chambers or a justice of the peace and only the requisite one or two witnesses. Even if I hadn't been so shy, though, simple still is better, IMHO.

.

My parents divorced soon after my younger brother turned 18. It was the first divorce I ever had encountered in my life; that was in 1979. All of my cousins are younger than I am (born 1964 and later) and none of their parents had divorced yet (and, as far as I knew, none of my classmates' parents ever had divorced yet, either). The entire time that I was in elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school (in multiple different locations in New York State, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts), I never encountered anyone whose parents were divorced. I suppose there may have been some, but it wasn't common back then, and I never met anyone whose parents ever had experienced that, and I never even had heard of anyone whose parents had ever gotten divorced.

.

As for university, I lived at home (first with a parent, then with a partner), and I put myself through entirely on my own (I covered all of my university expenses [including also occasional short trips to Quebec] with a Pell grant anytime I attended full-time; and a small scholarship, just for one semester, the only one I ever applied for, out of curiosity; and earnings from working every summer, as well as also earnings from working for a full year one year, at a time when I wasn't attending at all; more about that time, below).

.

As you might imagine after all of that moving around since birth, combined with the fact that I'm an introvert (my MBTI test result usually is "INFJ," but because the answer to some of the questions is "it depends," my test result sometimes is "INTJ"), I definitely didn't want to move away to attend anywhere other than the university that was practically in my backyard. In high school, I had been inducted into the National Honor Society, and I had gotten close to the highest possible composite score on the A.C.T. exam (I had opted for the A.C.T. exam over the S.A.T. exam because I had heard that the A.C.T. exam was more challenging; apparently, that's still true: https://blog.prepscholar.com/is-the-act-easier-than-the-sat ...no, it isn't easier; in fact, it is more challenging).

.

I probably could have gone away to a university in the Ivy League, if I had applied for admission and a full scholarship and had gotten one, but at that point in my life, geographic stability absolutely was what I wanted more than anything (I stayed in that town for ten years, which at my young age seemed like a very long time, and that felt good, except that eventually I became intolerant of the long and very cold winters).

.

Anyway, so, I started out at the local campus of the state university, taking and acing a night course in English while I still was in high school. Then, after I matriculated, I took and passed a couple of proficiency exams (one in Chemistry, and one in French), which added some more credits to my transcript without having to attend classes for those two courses.

.

Before I matriculated, I didn't apply for any scholarships even though I'm sure I could have gotten one, possibly even a full one. The reason I didn't bother is because I knew it wouldn't be necessary because university was quite easily affordable at the time, especially at a state university versus a private university. To pay for school, I had a Pell Grant (thanks to my parents' divorce, I qualified) and I worked full-time hours every summer, always at the same Buick dealership in town, except for the summer before my last academic year when I instead worked part-time hours for the local public-television station, doing bi-lingual "phone-a-thon" fundraising work, soliciting pledges from viewers in New York State, Vermont, and Quebec, for a couple of weeks, during which time I managed to accumulate the highest amount of financial pledges of anyone working the phones (I was the only one working in French, in addition to in English). That summer, I also worked for six weeks as an administrative liaison between my university and Laval University in Quebec, where I was doing a six-week French-immersion program, in which I had placed at the second-highest level and finished the program with all "A" and "B" grades, not graded on a curve in any of the courses, which included studies in more than just language skills, but also in civilization, history, etc. (not a word was in English; this was at a francophone university, in a francophone city, in a predominantly francophone Canadian province).

.

Out of curiosity, I eventually did apply for a small scholarship just for one semester, which I got. I don't think it was a need-based scholarship, meaning it wouldn't have taken anything away from someone who was truly in need (if it was and did, then with regret I would extend out a sincere apology to whomever it was that I may have deprived).

.

As an undergraduate, I explored several different majors. Over time, those were: Biology, Psychology, Sociology, French with a minor in Canadian Studies (with an emphasis on Quebec), and then eventually vice-versa: Canadian Studies (with an emphasis on Quebec) and a minor in French.

.

Before those explorations began, I had started out in the BSN/RN program. However, in October 1980, while I was in my third semester, I had to take a leave-of-absence, which I officially categorized as "personal" because "health-related" carried a stigma at the time, so I felt embarrassed, but the leave was taken actually because of a bacterial lung infection, the effects of which knocked me down for about a year. It significantly exacerbated my lifelong asthma, which I've had since the age of one (ever since infancy, I've almost always had asthma symptoms, to one degree or another, multiple times daily, no matter the number or type of medications; the only complete exception having been when I lived on a sailboat on top of saltwater). Also, I lived in the Northeastern U.S. where most homes at that time didn't have any central heating-and-cooling system, and not even any ceiling fans, so that made recovering a lot more difficult because of the lack of whole-house air filtration and circulation.

.

A little side note is that I kind of wish my parents hadn't rushed to save my life when I had my very first asthma attack at the age of one, when they found me in my crib with cyanosis (blue lips and blue fingernails from the lack of enough oxygen from the severe symptoms, the first of many times I've needed a hospital, an oxygen tent or another method of oxygen supplementation, various meds for asthma, respiratory therapy, etc.), because then I could have reincarnated into a body with better lungs. Of course, by then, since my brother already had been born and my mother, therefore, had had a tubal ligation, the soul that I am would have been born to different parents. My mother told me that my father told her that she could stop having babies as soon as a boy was born. She said that because I was born a girl, my birth was a disappointment to my father. She said he was glad, though, that I was born about eight hours before the turn of the calendar to the new year and the new decade (1960) because that meant I could be claimed as a tax deduction for the prior year, which was precisely why he had sent my mother outside to the driveway to shovel snow, to induce labor that day. It was eleven hours of hard labor and, not having some of the diagnostic tools available that became available later, they didn't know until I came out that I was in a "sunny side up" position because, being born a month early, I hadn't yet turned to the correct, face-down position in preparation for birth: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/9677-fetal-positions-for-birth "...the fetus moves into position for birth... in the last weeks of... pregnancy (...between weeks 32 and 36...)" Mind you, the tax deduction wasn't needed; it was a selfish "want." When I was born, at 4:08 p.m. that afternoon on New Year's Eve, I was only 4 lbs., 9 oz. and had to stay in an incubator for ten days, until I reached 5 lbs. (My mother didn't bother to pump breast milk for me, and I was given formula instead, which continued after I was brought home. My brother, however, did have the advantage of being breast-fed, which could be one of the reasons why he's always had much more reliable health than I have had.)

.

Anyway, back to what I was saying before...

.

In general, of course, university programs typically are much more rigorous than high-school programs, and the more so the BSN/RN program than some of the others. It was during that time (1980-1981) that I realized and accepted the fact that I really never would have the physical stamina to complete that program.

.

I already had known, before that, that I wouldn't be able to have the same types of activity combinations in my life that many women have in theirs, because I've never had reliable enough stamina. In particular, I knew it would not be possible for me to make it through an entire pregnancy, since there would be pressure on the diaphram during the last trimester and I already too often couldn't breathe comfortably as it was, and never mind the trauma of childbirth or the physical demands of actually raising a child. Occasional babysitting was the extent of the childcare I provided; I did that for a few years before the time away on my parents' sailboat, and then again for a couple of years after we returned to the mainland U.S.A. (I was considered more mature than most of my peers at the time and started babysitting at eleven-and-a-half and continued up until fourteen-and-a-half; and then started again at seventeen-and-a-half until nineteen-and-a-half.) Fortunately, I never had to have any pregnancy aborted, but I did miscarry a pregnancy in October 1979 at about six weeks along, when I was 19, almost 20; and then, after that, I made sure never to get pregnant ever again. I also already knew that I'd never be able to work and go to school at the same time, so I always worked only during the summer, with the exception of infrequently leading conversational French workshops or occasionally tutoring other students in French, but those were not very time- and/or energy-intensive activities, and I only did that for a couple of semesters, and I only did one of those activities at a time in any semester (not both of those) on top of my own coursework.

.

I always thought I'd at least be able to make it through the BSN/RN program, though, and then work part-time as a nurse at a school or in a doctor's office. So, at the time, I felt really down about leaving that program, also because I had been the top student in it for the entire time that I had been a part of it.

.

I thought about maybe attending only part-time to complete the program over a longer period of time, but there were two main considerations/problems. One was that full-time students always were given priority during the course-selection process near the end of each semester for the following semester, and space was limited, so it likely would have taken quite a long time even just to be allowed into courses that were a part of the BSN/RN program. The other was probably the most important consideration, which was that I hadn't before ever stopped to consider how unwise it would be to work in a field in which I'd be running the risk of contracting pulmonary infections more often (bacterial or viral or possibly even fungal); and although I understood I'd probably develop higher immunity than the general population, I also knew that that was no guarantee against becoming seriously ill, sometimes to the point of being on death's door, and then being debilitated for lengthy periods of time, which I really wanted to keep to a minimum in my life, as much as possible. So, instead, I started to think about exploring other academic fields (and thought about maybe eventually teaching or tutoring in one of those fields, since teaching or tutoring could provide more scheduling flexibility and more time off during the year than most other types of work).

.

After finally recovering to my normal levels of pulmonary function (not normal for most, but normal for me), I spent 1981-1982 working full-time as an assistant office manager at a Buick dealership (where I already had worked full-time hours in that capacity during the Summer of 1980, after completing the 1979-1980 academic year). So, I was gone from university for two academic years (1980-1981 and 1981-1982).

.

At that point, I already was four years behind a typical schedule for formal education, due to the forced two-year break from high school to travel with my family on my parents' sailboat (I really wish that that had been postponed until the youngest of us had graduated from high school, which would have been only two years after I would have graduated; my brother is a year younger than I am, but because I started school a year early, he was two years behind me), and also because of the two-year break from university because of health struggles and because of needing to work full-time for a year before returning to school. So, instead of graduating from high school at seventeen and also doing my entire first semester of university at seventeen, I didn't get to do that until nineteen (I could have done it at eighteen because I was offered the option to combine my junior and senior years into one year, but I declined because I wanted the full high-school experience; I always loved school and didn't want to miss anything. Academically, it wasn't worth the delay in matriculating at the university; but in other ways, it was worth it because of French Club, Hiking Club, Junior Prom [went with one of the best-looking, most-popular guys in school], Yearbook Staff, etc.).

.

I was 20 (almost 21) when I went into the hospital in October 1980 and had to forfeit my third semester of the BSN/RN program (the first semester of my second year). Then, I was 22 (almost 23) when I returned to school. I returned in September 1982, after the lengthy recovery period following that hospital stay and also after working full-time for a year. (September 1982 was a year and four months after I otherwise would have graduated, had there not been any interruptions to my high-school and university studies.)

.

After that, there were more delays because I alternated part-time and full-time semesters, which physically helped me a lot. (My asthma has put me in the hospital several times since infancy, and there have been countless other challenging times with asthma, especially before I learned how to better manage it; and no matter the amount or type of meds, experience has taught me that I'm apparently always just this side of significant pulmonary distress. Over the decades, I've learned to manage my asthma with lifestyle adjustments that allow for far fewer meds [lower activity levels help a lot, as does being vegan most of the time, which I have been since August 2011 (when I was 51 years of age), and as did sleep before menopause; in menopause I've been experiencing an almost constant release of adrenaline, which, combined with hormonal changes, hinders the ability to sleep to a greater extent than asthma meds alone ever used to, but it helps the asthma since adrenaline (epinephrine) is a natural asthma med itself, so menopause is both a curse and a blessing in my life], but there still are symptoms at least a couple of times every day, with or without additional "maintenance" meds; and I know from experience that if I'm not careful enough, no matter the number or type of "maintenance" meds, pulmonary function can deteriorate quite rapidly and that is something I always am trying to avoid.)

.

The 1982-1983 academic year was when the exploration of other undergraduate majors began (and I intended to focus in on just one specific subject area later, in graduate school, for at least a master's degree and maybe more).

.

If I had been able to start on schedule at seventeen, and if my pulmonary health weren't so dependent on not physically pushing myself beyond my limits for too long (or sometimes at all), I would have graduated from university at twenty-one, in 1981 (it's probably silly and irrational, but it always has bothered me that I didn't).

.

I finally graduated with my bachelor's degree in May 1987, in the top 2% of my class (ranked #15/814), with high honors: magna cum laude, with a cumulative G.P.A. of 3.82 on a 4.00 scale, never having been graded on a curve in any course in my life (I also had been a well-above-average student in high school and earlier, and I did even better in my university studies, no doubt because I got to choose more subjects that I enjoyed).

.

For those who don't know, grading on a curve, instead of grading according to a standard that actually measures how much of the material the student legitimately demonstrated that he or she comprehended, can result in someone receiving an "A" who comprehended only, for example, 80% of the material, if 80% was the highest grade in the class (remember, 80% in reality is only a "B-"). A problem with a dishonest letter-grade like that, is it gives the false impression that the student comprehended more than he or she actually did comprehend, since typically a real "A" means that the student demonstrated 95% to 100% competency in the material taught. I was very glad that all of my "A" grades were real "A" grades, not fake "A" grades on a curve that tell us very little about the student's actual competency in the material and often just tells us how he or she did compared to other students in the class. Would you want a doctor or an engineer (or anyone else in a profession where a very high level of competency matters) who earned real "A" grades or one who was handed fake "A" grades just for doing better than his or her classmates but who did not necessarily actually comprehend 95% to 100% of the material?? Grading on a curve doesn't often just give some students higher grades than they actually deserve; it also often gives other students lower grades than they actually deserve, too (https://jaymedyer.substack.com/p/grading-on-a-curve-hurts-students), which can end up disqualifying some from entrance into graduate school. That, IMHO, is a tragedy.

.

Regarding my cumulative G.P.A. back then, I was kicking myself because that was just eight one-hundreths of a point shy of highest honors: summa cum laude, which I had maintained until I slipped just a little bit at the end of my undergraduate journey. Zut alors. Well, it doesn't really matter now, though, because I've forgotten a lot of what I learned back then, anyway.

.

Of course, at the time, I fully intended to go to graduate school for at least a master's degree. At the time, I was considering teaching French, which, at that time in New York State, required at least a master's degree, and a state teaching certificate, and at least intermediate-level proficiency in another foreign language (presumably to be able to fill in sometimes when a teacher of the other foreign language was out sick; I don't really know and hadn't yet found out, but that's my best guess); I chose Spanish as my second formally studied foreign language, and completed a beginning-level Spanish course in my very last semester as an undergraduate, on an elective basis. So, obviously, there still would have been some additional undergraduate work to do even after already having graduated with a bachelor's degree.

.

Other considerations at various times, before that, for graduate-level studies, were Biochemistry with a focus on Genetics (dreamed about eventually applying to work on the nascent Human Genome Project. Organic and Biological Chemistry was the course that came the most easily to me of anything during my undergraduate years; I even correctly pointed out an error in the textbook that my professor at the time had authored; and asked a question in lab. to which the T.A. replied, "You'll learn that in graduate school," while all of the other students there in lab. that day seemed not to understand the question that I had asked); or Counseling Psychology to become a one-on-one Counselor/Therapist to help other adults to heal from various types of traumas. The biochemistry route seemed as unwise a route as the registered-nursing route, though, because of the physical-stamina issue. Either of the other two options, becoming a therapist or a French teacher, had the possibility of offering more flexibility and more time off, which physically is a necessity for me in order to maintain my health; however, at the time, I decided I probably wouldn't be very effective at helping others to heal emotionally when I hadn't yet even begun to heal myself.

.

Anyway, but, then, something happened. I moved with someone from the Northeast to the Southeast where his next job was located; and the next chapter of my life brought significant discoveries about the situation in which I found myself that I hadn't been told the true extent of, and that I didn't discover the true extent of until it was too late. There were some things beyond my control that I adjusted to as best as I could, none of those too terrible at the time, but there also were two major issues that shocked me. One of those I couldn't see a way to solve without the help of someone else, and that help was not there; but it had become moot, anyway, for at least the next several years, because of the other major issue (which, at least, was one that I felt I could solve). Previously, I had thought that that other major issue was only a relatively minor issue that would take only about two years of sacrifice on my part, which is what I had been told, but I hadn't been provided with any of the pertinent details. Then, in mid-1989, close to two years after I had been told what I had been told, I looked into the issue myself for the first time and discovered, to my horror, that it actually was a much more serious issue that would require additional time to solve. However, I never imagined the extent of the hindrances there would be along the way or just how very long it actually would take to solve the problem; it took twenty-five years (two-and-a-half decades; one quarter of a century). In the meantime, the cost of graduate school became so unaffordable that I realized that it probably wouldn't be worth it.

.

So, because of that and other factors (some directly relevant to that, others not), my PTSD, which actually had begun in childhood, gradually became much more debilitating than it ever had been before (https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/symptoms/).

.

I still haven't yet fully recovered (in some ways, I have; but in other ways, I haven't yet almost at all). I've gone from being highly organized and disciplined for all of the various periods of about the first five decades of my life (for example, all of the time with regard to my physical self-care, and in my schoolwork, and in my musical-instrument practice time [I did well enough that I always sat first chair, first violin in orchestra; and first chair, first clarinet in band, everywhere I ever lived as a kid and teen that had an orchestra or a band; and I was chosen as only one of six students each year whom the Boston Symphony Concertmaster selected to have private violin lessons with him; he told me I had perfect pitch - I also briefly played snare drum in a marching band, but more often I played clarinet in band, marching band, and pep band in the stands at games; it was a Mazzeo, which I always could play much better than a Boehm - but something I never learned to do was to compose music or to play without having to look at sheet music; I am in awe of people who can do that - and it's been so long now since I've played that I've even forgotten how to read music; I stopped playing violin soon after moving to locations where there was only band and not orchestra, and I stopped playing clarinet at some point after we started living on a sailboat]... anyway, and in my vegetable gardening, and in my housework, etc., and even most of the time in the different types of administrative jobs that I worked at that didn't align with my soul but that I took in order to solve that unexpected and massive issue I had discovered in mid-1989), to being a lot less organized in some ways, and one of the least disciplined in some ways, too, none of which I ever imagined ever would happen. Deep depression apparently does do that, though...

.

Whereas I had had the experience before of becoming very depressed many times during my life from trying to cope with so much negativity and other forms of toxicity that were around me since early childhood (despite outward appearances to the contrary), I never before had felt such a high degree of overwhelm (especially from some things that didn't ever used to overwhelm me very much or, in some cases, at all), and I also never had felt such a level of despondency as that which I've experienced more recently. There's obviously a cumulative effect... I'm sure it's also that despite some improvements, some certain factors have persisted from which I feel it's probably impossible to escape without further harming my life.

.

I usually can hide what I've been going through pretty well when I manage to get myself together to go out to run errands, or when I'm on the phone or in chat online taking care of administrative tasks, and I sometimes even can hide it to some degree at home, but it's usually been pretty obvious at home for a while.

.

For all of my book-smarts (in some areas, anyway), I'm disappointed in myself that I've obviously not had an abundance of life-smarts (at least in some areas, for sure). At least I know I am certainly not alone in that in this too-misguided, crazy world.

.

The main circumstances that have driven me "crazy" in this world have been: (1) six-plus decades of severe asthma (the definition of which is that symptoms to one degree or another are experienced two or more times per week; in my case, it's almost always been two or more times per day, regardless of types of meds; and I didn't realize when I was younger that, as time went on, I'd eventually become a lot less tolerant of even just the milder symptoms; and I didn't realize that the depression from it would get worse); (2) my experiences with a few other recurrent health challenges (especially in my younger years before becoming vegan most of the time, which happened in the latter part of 2011 [one of the examples is that I had viral pleuropericarditis three times in six years in the 1990s; it was something that recurred when I got too rundown from working too much]; and then, more recently, due to bouts with covid [and, so far, have had long-covid twice, three months each time]; plus the menopausal insomina that began in early-2017 after a year of only mild hot-flashes ended, which hadn't interfered with sleep at all); and (3) far too many of the people I've encountered in this life, seemingly so incredibly petty and unevolved.

.

We all vent, of course, but we all do not intentionally and maliciously harm others; we all do not do evil. At least I can say I'm "good-crazy," meaning I like to help others in genuine need; not "bad-crazy," as people are who are malicious and actually even enjoy harming others in a variety of ways, even if they already have far more than most ever likely would have. My type aligns with God, while that other type--whether they realize it or not--aligns with Satan/Evil. Obviously, many "know not what they do," which is the meaning behind "love your enemies," which in part means don't respond to malice with malice; instead, pray for their soul to evolve, which, if they would allow it, would benefit themselves, as well as their targets and their victims, and the world.

.

The reasons for follies usually are subconscious and are physically and psychologically complicated, but they also are simple and obvious at the same time (in hindsight). And as astute psychologists correctly point out, PTSD actually is a normal response to trauma, one that is expected from whatever an individual perceives and experiences as highly traumatic, whether the significant traumas have been unwittingly self-inflicted (which is very common) or unintentionally or intentionally inflicted by others (also very common) or a combination of self-sabotage and others' unwitting sabotage or, worse, their malicious and open or covert sabotage (some combination probably is the most common).

.

Also, something that's highly traumatic to one person is not necessarily highly traumatic to another person, and vice-versa.

.

Four Interesting Videos about the

Mental-Health Profession and Healing:

.

A Former Therapist's Critique of Conventional Psychotherapy:

Daniel Mackler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2-p4A7Bl6s

.

Why This Therapist Quit Being A Therapist:

Daniel Mackler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Fi32LbXHA

.

Psychotherapists Often Are Less Healthy Than Their Clients:

Daniel Mackler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwS7HyA6Oaw

.

Note: Personally, when I click on one of Daniel Mackler's videos, I usually scroll down and listen, instead of also watching, because oftentimes his mannerisms are too distracting for me, especially in his more-recent videos. I'm an HSP, though, so it could be just me, but thought I'd mention it for you to consider doing, too, instead of just dismissing him if you find that his mannerisms sometimes are too much for you, because most of the points he makes are very valid and, IMHO, he's very worth listening to. I think most of the comments beneath his videos also are worth reading, as well.

.

An Interesting Technique for Helping Oneself To Heal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqZjdasiNrY

It won't be ideal, of course, because it's not actually the person or the people you wish were mature enough to honestly own their imperfections and recognize the healing power (for you and for them) of genuinely apologizing for the damage they've done, but it still possibly may help. Or not. Eventually, you'll get to the point that although you'd still benefit from their genuine apology and other healing actions (born of maturation and spiritual growth), you won't actually need it so much anymore, because you'll recognize just how mentally ill they always have been, too (just like most people, if we're honest). There's a saying that goes something like this: There's something fundamentally wrong with being "well-adjusted" to a fundamentally sick society. Some say they turned out "just fine" despite emotional neglect and other forms of abuse in certain areas of their life; however, anyone who wants others to suffer because they suffered (for example, as just one of many possible examples, anyone who ever told you that someone told them that they made their bed and had to lie in it, and that you will just have to lie in the bed you made, too, without any genuine or realistic offer of help from them, at a time when they knew you were in serious need), they absolutely did not turn out "fine." What really needs to happen is that we all need to be fully educated in The Golden Rule and follow it; if we don't do that, life on this planet always will be hell - and very unnecessarily so.

.

A word about credit, blame, responsibility, and adulthood... think about this... When something turns out well, and someone else (a parent, for example) is given partial credit for something that helped whatever it was to turn out well, usually that's accepted by that person and often by others. However, when something doesn't turn out well, and someone else (a parent, for example) is given partial blame for whatever it was that didn't turn out well, usually--and illogically--that's not accepted by that person and often not by others, either. I think that really anybody who cannot accept their portion of the blame for things that didn't turn out well that they had a hand in not turning out well (whether it was intentional or not), doesn't deserve to accept any of the credit for things that did turn out well. Period.

Also, people tend to confuse blame and responsibility. When someone says they are not responsible for something, they usually mean they are not to blame for whatever it is. However, what they should be saying is that they are not wanting to be held responsible for something, which may be an entirely or partially valid stance, even if they actually are partially to blame for that same something, whatever it is.

Taking responsibility means taking action to correct or at least improve upon a situation, whether or not you are partially to blame for the situation. Blame implies causation; responsibility does not necessarily. Those two words should not be used interchangeably. Taking "responsibility" is remedying a situation in some way; "blame" is a result of having been a part of causing the situation to happen in the first place. Those are two different things.

A person of integrity will accept some of the responsibility for something they are partially to blame for (it's rare that anyone ever is 100% to blame for anything), whether they intended to harm or not. In most cases, harm is not intended (only truly evil people intend to harm - except, of course, harming another person isn't evil when it's defending oneself physically at the moment of a violent assault, for example).

*THE* most important definition of "adult," IMHO, is someone who is readily able to accept one's portion of blame for something negative that they had a part in bringing about, and who takes some responsibility (i.e., takes some action) to remedy and heal that situation (ideally from their own initiative; someone complying with a court order, for example, doesn't necessarily count, if it's not genuinely from their heart; and if they couldn't settle with someone on their own, they're likely not very evolved).

From my observations of life, so far, most human beings never actually reach true adulthood. Some do reach it, and a few even reach it before reaching legal adulthood. Those tend to be old souls (i.e., not on their first incarnation). Others, some of whom actually are evil, require many incarnations finally to elevate to a benevolent, non-evil level of it being their default to be truly good people who don't maliciously harm anyone, and who actually care about the ones they've unintentionally caused emotional, psychological, spiritual, and/or physical harm, and who prove that they care, after it's brought to their attention that they've caused harm, if they hadn't already realized it themselves (i.e., they behave as true adults). True adults emulate our God who shines Love & Light on our world, and true adults reject the opposition who tries to sow Hatred & Darkness among us; true adults do not emulate the opposition.

.

A word about apologies... Anyone who knows me well, really ever has bothered to get to know me well, knows full well that when an apology is asked for and owed (and sometimes even when it's not asked for, but I know it's owed), I give a genuine apology. I am not perfect, nor are you - so, occasionally there are things that do require apology. If I owe you an apology and haven't yet given it, it's either because I'm not aware that I've offended you in some way, in which case, you need to tell me; or you know full well that there's an apology that you owe me first (and, then, if it's been given genuinely, from your heart, you would get your apology from me for my overreaction to what you did to offend me first). And if you're not clear on what you think I feel you need to apologize for, then you should ask me. Misunderstandings can cause estrangements for months, years, or even decades.

.

A word about forgiveness... I have forgiven every negative thing that every clueless person ever has done to me, and even that every evil person has done to me, too (they know who they are). However, that doesn't mean I'd ever want to be in their presence ever again without their genuine apology and some reasonable effort from them to atone for the evil things they've done. And it also doesn't mean I'd forgive absolutely everything, although I'm fairly sure--(according to my intuition which usually is accurate... not always, but usually)--that even the evil people with whom I've had the misfortune of having been acquainted (some of whom know each other well, others of whom are acquainted with one another and maybe would be surprised that I've been aware for a long time, in some cases even decades, that certain ones have been acquainted) would not go so far as to do something totally unforgiveable (forgiveness, though, doesn't necessarily mean that atonement isn't necessary for the most damaging things done behind my back; it just means I don't feel anger toward them, only a lot of hurt and extreme disappointment that, in some cases, they seem to be really horrible people).

.

I'm sure that full healing or very close to full healing of my spirit already would have happened a long time ago if not for certain persistent factors partially or fully beyond my control, including but not limited to the periodic inability throughout each day to breathe well (literally and figuratively), on top of everything else, which leaves me with very little stamina. A silver lining to the experiences, though, is that I'm able to understand and not harshly judge others who have experienced or are experiencing the same or very similar types of traumas and trauma responses in their lives.

.

I also know, too, that my spirit eventually *will* be fully healed... because I have faith in God and the Divine to deliver me from the curses in my life... not that there haven't also been blessings; there have been, and I am grateful for those... some experiences have been both blessings and curses... and although some blessings have outweighed some of the curses, there just have been too many curses... and to break free from those, I need God and that is the Father that I turn to, first and foremost.

.

Lenny Kravitz has said that he knows he would not be where he is today without the advantages he had because of his parents, especially his mother, Roxie Roker, which advantages were extraordinary, and which seem to have been fairly consistent (and presumably he doesn't have any chronic health conditions at all, or at least it seems he doesn't have any of a type that, so far, ever has hindered him much if at all during demanding touring schedules when he's on tour). That means that when he encounters the many others who didn't have similar advantages, or at least not as consistently as he had, he could relate to the saying: "There, but for the grace of God [especially through his mom and his godmothers], go I." When I look at Lenny Kravitz, the saying for me is, "There, but for the curse of Satan [through his unwitting or witting followers], go I" ...(well, okay, maybe not Lenny Kravitz because I can't sing worth a darn, and I never could compose music or play musical instruments without reading sheet music, but you know what I mean). Nonetheless, I try to stay strong... and to keep the faith...

.

Despite having felt like it more times than I can count, I haven't followed in the footsteps of my paternal grandfather and one of my paternal uncles, and I won't. To quote or paraphrase Lenny Kravitz: "I [too] have come to save the day, and I [too] won't leave until I'm done. I [know] why we always cry; this we must leave and get undone. We must engage and rearrange and turn this planet back to ONE..." Lenny Kravitz probably would like the plaque I've had on a wall in my house for many years; it reads: "LOVE WILL SAVE THE DAY."

.

Thank God there are people like Lenny Kravitz and Tom Shadyac in this world. I hope they both continue to influence millions for at least another couple of decades, so that maybe a whole lot more people will be awakened to that truth (and then those millions can help awaken others, and so on, and so on, until everyone moves into Love & Light and away from Hatred & Darkness). I intend to continue to try to help, too, in my own much-less-impactful way.

.

Since I already tend to preach a lot when the opportunity presents itself (not in the traditionally religious sense, though), I decided to become a non-denominational ordained minister, to have "permission," at least in some people's eyes, to preach spirituality, peace & love, and also some of the practical ways that we all can help to heal all of the types of environments which we and all other life on this planet need to survive and thrive (it maybe isn't too late for that, but it probably almost is), and just generally to help us all to heal each other (when I preach, I'm preaching to remind myself, too, because I am not perfect, either).

.

Anyone who thinks I wouldn't be the right person to preach or guide because of a few times I've committed sins, mostly out-of-character and with extenuating circumstances (which sins I absolutely would go back and never commit, if I could go back in time; though some people maliciously paint me as though I am only the sum of those things, and about which some also exaggerate, twist truths, and outright lie, which some do because they could gain from that in various ways), I would quote Oscar Wilde, who said the following: "Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

.

Whether you believe in God or not, He exists and He knows everything in your heart and everything in your mind, and He knows everything in mine. He knows who is malicious and who operates from Hatred & Darkness (and, in some cases, also from what else is considered a root of all evil), who has malicious intent toward others, and who does not.

.

God calls me and gives me permission to work for Him and to try to help other Lightworkers (such as Lenny Kravitz and Tom Shadyac) in their work, from my own corner of the world, and that is the permission which matters the most.

.

God is the one who has called me to help to raise the vibration of humanity; I listen to Him, and to other Lightworkers, and to no-one else (except to try to help others to elevate to a higher vibration of Love & Light, where we all belong). Of course, I listen to others' concerns; I just mean I don't listen to anyone's discouragement or projections. I have enough of that type of negativity in my own head from so many unevolved people's comments and actions over the decades (and, in some cases, their inaction when benevolent action was needed; I certainly could have healed a WHOLE lot faster if certain ones actually had behaved as though they loved and cared about me instead of just saying empty words and, in some cases, twisting truths and outright lying about certain interactions). I just do not need that sort of behavior and will shut it down whenever possible.

.

There's a big difference between being "nice" and being kind; "nice" words and "nice" actions aren't necessarily kind. Remembering something from decades ago that I relayed to someone that someone else had said, it's *not* a compliment, for example, when someone says they think you're good at office politics (because that usually means manipulating and using others against someone else for one's own gain).

.

I forgive, but I don't forget, and I'm not about to let anyone tell me anymore that I'm nothing, and that I don't matter, and that only they do, which is the message I've gotten my entire life from almost everyone who's ever been in my life. Sure, some have seemed to care about physical/biological health, for a while at least, but nothing or almost nothing whatsoever about emotional, mental, psychological, and spiritual health. One person who absolutely should have known what's needed to heal (it's what anyone needs to heal) said she didn't know how to help. Really? You don't know how to love? (That topic is discussed here, by David Mackler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Fi32LbXHA .) There were times when that person seemed to, but "seemed" became the key word, because apparently (despite outward appearances), real love seems not actually to be in that person's make-up. That person only knew how to throw salt in a very bad wound, one that was partially that person's doing, from neglect in a certain situation, and that salt added many, MANY years to the healing process. That type of behavior tells me a lot about that person's own upbringing, which must have been cold.

.

And since cognitive dissonance is a powerful "drug," too many people also don't even seem to notice what's forever been wrong with human societal health... in just about every human society... (and I wouldn't be surprised if in *every* human society).

.

Many people finally are starting to wake up, though. Thank God for that. But, still, a lot of people still have a lot to learn. It isn't their fault, though; it's clearly a problem that's been with humanity for many, many, *many* generations, the world over, maybe since the beginning, I don't know, but someone has to lead others to change things for the better. I always thought it was common sense, but clearly I've been wrong. So, since I guess it's not obvious to most what's wrong, or how to fix what's wrong--(Tom Shadyac knows; read his book, "LIFE'S OPERATING MANUAL... and Lenny Kravitz knows, too: "LET LOVE RULE")--I'm energetically joining forces with other Lightworkers; and eventually will do so outside of "the 5D," and maybe will do so outside of cyberspace, at some point, as well, to help teach what too many forgot about God and about all of us when they incarnated or reincarnated (myself included; I didn't even used to believe God existed). I can teach what I've remembered or learned, however you may consider it. (Lenny Kravitz knows: "WE ARE ALL ONE"... but, apparently, we have to explain what exactly that means, because too many really don't seem to understand at all.)

.

It recently has become clear to me the probable reason why so much of my genetic make-up was designed to separate me out from most, to make me "the black sheep," and "a hermit," not because I'm fundamentally any better or any worse than any of God's other children (including even the ones who have allowed themselves to be duped into following the enemy and doing that entity's bidding), but rather it's because God needs a few chosen ones to teach, to try to prevent humanity from utterly destroying itself; we're not far from that, it seems. (Btw, the word "chosen" wasn't said arrogantly; I said it literally, that a few just are chosen to teach, that's all, and only because someone has to do it. I guess I signed up for it before entering this lifetime and only just recently have started to remember on a subconscious level and to realize it on a conscious level.) I guess all of the other stuff was preparation. Lenny Kravitz awoke very early in his life (possibly an older soul than I am), and he has been on the mission to amplify love and to raise the vibration of humanity for decades. I'm impressed. It took me a whole heck of a lot longer to awaken to the point of realizing what I'm supposed to be doing.

.

Lenny Kravitz has a way cooler way to do the spiritual job, though - and aren't we all lucky that he's here (thank you so much, Roxie Roker).

He's our "Minister of Rock 'n' Roll":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-jr8f8nD3I

.

And he asks us, "Are You Gonna Go My Way?":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V73KUp-G-L4

The ending of his "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" during the performance that night is the best I've seen anywhere; I think he always should do the ending of that song like that. :)

.

Ditto for Tom Shadyac; we're all lucky to have him here, too. Like Lenny Kravitz, he also seems to have elevated spiritually a lot sooner than I have; and from what I've seen, his intellectual capabilities are above mine in some ways, as well. Lenny Kravitz is no slouch, either - most of the time, from what I've seen so far, he seems quite smart, both intellectually and emotionally; I think he may even have the highest E.Q. of anyone I've ever encountered (at least his public persona seems to indicate that). I like people who are ahead of me, and who are better at things I'm interested in, because I can learn from them. I also especially like people who are down-to-earth, compassionate, humble, and (most of all) able to keep their ego in check the majority of the time (and who understand why that's one of the most important things that we as humans must do in this life).

.

There's no place for envy or jealousy in this world (envy is wishing you had some thing or some quality that another person has, which in and of itself isn't evil, but it becomes evil when you say or do things to hinder that person in life; jealousy is the fear that someone else will take something from you that is yours, or that you either correctly or delusionally believe should be yours, which only becomes evil if you harbor hatred and act with malice in your heart and mind to do things to steal from someone what is theirs and not yours and which is not meant to be yours). Envy and jealousy are wasted emotions, and extremely destructive ones... very low-vibrational. Admiration, and "mudita" (sympathetic or vicarious joy; being happy for someone else), should be the default. I don't understand why more people don't feel that. I almost can't remember a time when I didn't; it's rare that I wouldn't feel that way about someone else's talents and other assets (used benevolently, never maliciously; I only wouldn't feel that way if someone were using their talents and other assets to harm someone with the malicious intent to do so). Even the people who have chosen to make themselves my enemies, I'm genuinely happy for them when they do something well, as long as it's not harmful, and especially if it's obviously good for the world (such as writing and performing music that doesn't contain any hateful lyrics, for example). If more joy from good things like that were experienced directly or vicariously more often by more people, this world would be a better place.

.

Everyone has beauty and talent and potential within, something beautiful and kind to develop and share with the world, and that enhances outward beauty, too (and sometimes it will be different things at different times). Yes, I know, we all wish we could do some things the way that some other person does, but allowing any green-eyed monster to rear its ugly head isn't ever going to accomplish anything good for anyone. We're meant to learn from each other; we're meant to HELP each other (especially those struggling to survive in some way); we're meant to celebrate one another; we're not meant to stew in negative feelings or especially plots of sabotage just because we don't like that someone has some quality or some thing that we wish we had; and it's twisted to wish that they didn't have it (of course, I'm referring only to God's gifts, not to ill-gotten gains from criminality instigated by the opposite of God). God gave that person what He gave to him or her, for a reason, which we may not understand, but eventually we may. That will be one of the things that I'll be teaching.

.

So, as for me, I became an ordained minister (of peace & love) online, on Thursday, August 8, 2024; and although I haven't officially done anything in that capacity yet, I do intend to.

.

Inserted this section on 2025-12-15:

I'm really down at the moment, because of this:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/glvwT9z-EIM

I agree with this comment from @lifepurpose-careerreadings:

"Not feeling it. Kind of disappointed. I thought Lenny was about purity of the soul, authentic nature, and Mother Earth. How does [this] fit into that narrative...? This is a sell-out, tainting the spirit within."

Lenny Kravitz has said of Bawma, the villainous black-market arms dealer he decided to play in a James Bond video game, "He's magnetic and unpredictable; there's danger in him, but also heart and purpose..."

Hmm, well, "magnetic" isn't always a good thing; ditto for being "unpredictable"; and just because, for example, a mafioso may love his family and may be good to his family, showing "heart and purpose" toward them, that does *not* make him a good person, if he's done things to others with malice (evil) in his heart and in his mind - i.e., choosing to operate in Hatred & Darkness and as an agent of Satan in this world, which automatically rejects God.

So incredibly disappointing from someone who purports to be devoted to God and to operate in Love & Light, someone whose stated mission in life is to raise the vibration of humanity, someone who had renewed my faith in humanity... I suppose I should be used to this by now... meaning that just about everyone in this world disappoints... oh, well.

I still love Lenny Kravitz... I just don't like him as much anymore... (it's always much more difficult to like than it is to love... if you understand what love really is).

I can't imagine what possessed him to accept the role of a villain, except for maybe three things. One, maybe he was literally possessed, since Satan does use his minions, his legion of devils, to go after God's chosen ones who are here to raise the vibration of humanity; dark entities do whatever they can to distract God's chosen ones from their mission. Or two, maybe he allowed his ego to get the better of him, considering how great he looks (sort of... sure, he's objectively physically very attractive, but I just mean evil never subjectively looks good on anyone, at least not to people keeping their devotion to God in the forefront of their mind). Or, three, maybe he's overextended himself with too materially lavish a lifestyle and maybe he needs the money - in which case, if I were in his shoes, I'd downsize the lifestyle a bit; I'd sell one or more of the mansions before I'd ever sell out; i.e., before I'd sell part of my soul and accept a villainous role.

Whether the money from that project is needed or not, understanding that too many material things aren't called "trappings" for nothing, I'd recommend observing and learning from Tom Shadyac: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20130912-the-reinvention-of-tom-shadyac

Part of raising the vibration of humanity is fully walking the talk, and setting a good example, especially if you're a public person, which means not only *not* accepting an offer to play a villain, but also not buying or ever even playing any video games or watching any movies that portray violence and cruelty, because that is mind-poison that influences people in very undesirable ways. Even if good prevails at the end of the story (and I won't know because I don't play video games and I avoid movies and anything else with violence and cruelty), it still just is not a good idea to expose oneself and others to evil for "entertainment" purposes, or for any purpose at all - IMHO, that does nothing to raise the vibration of humanity; it too often does just the opposite.

I wish I had never seen the trailer for "007 First Light" because, as the @lifepurpose-careerreadings commenter said, it "taints the spirit within."

I'm so disappointed in this choice that Leonard Albert Kravitz recently made. I hope and pray he doesn't make any similar choices in the future.

I'm sure my opinion is in the minority; it usually is... I've come to realize that pretty much everything about me is rare in this world... I don't know why... it just is what it is... it would be nice to find more people who think and feel as I do in this world... I really thought that in Lenny Kravitz I had come across one of the very few kindred spirits I've ever encountered in this life, so far, in six-plus decades; but if an arms-dealing, villainous character like Bawma appeals to him, as it apparently does to the majority of people (sad to say), then it doesn't really seem so... maybe I'm being too strict, but just as he has correctly mentioned that it's important to be careful about what he puts into his body (raw, vegan fare, most of the time), I think it's just as important to be careful about what we put into our minds... I know that both of those things can be difficult when others around are bad influences, and that even the most disciplined and principled people can be negatively influenced sometimes, so maybe that's what happened.

.

Anyway, more about my unusual journey in this life, some other time...

probably some other place...

.

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SONG, "TK421":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFfqeD4CAeE

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SONG, "STILLNESS OF HEART":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ8fYMpIt0M

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lennykravitz/stillnessofheart.html

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SONG, "BELIEVE":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-e0zwYKZuQ

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lennykravitz/believe.html

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SONG, "FLY AWAY":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH8wSID95eQ

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lennykravitz/flyaway.html

.

LENNY KRAVITZ IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, IN 2025:

7NewsAustralia's Interview with Lenny Kravitz in Nov. 2025:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3oS3cD8Zwo

Correction to an error in this interview:

He's been touring for nearly 4 decades (not five).*

*(On his birthday in 2025, Lenny Kravitz turned 61.)

*(His music career took off in 1989, when he was 25.)**

.

**UPDATE: Correction to my "correction": His first

experience touring began at 12 with a classical

boys' choir, so, yes, nearly 5 decades of tours, so far.

.

Lenny Kravitz frequently says that he doesn't write "his" songs, that they actually just come to him, like dictation, that they're just floating in the air. In the interviews I've seen so far in which the interviewers have heard him say that, the interviewers seem not to understand what he's talking about, or at least they don't say anything (maybe fearing their bosses would think they're "crazy" and then their job might be in jeopardy). I know exactly what he means, though (and I suspect some of them do, too), because that's the way every one of "my" poems has come into existence in the material world (not that there are many or that any of them are great). However, if I try to write one, I can't; but then sometimes one will just come to me and will "write itself" in a matter of only a very few minutes. In those moments of "flow," in those moments of inspiration--and to be "inspired" literally means to be "in spirit"--you're in collaboration with Spirit, meaning with your higher self (which is a part of your soul that remains in the unseen realm while another part of your soul is incarnated), and/or with your spirit guides (angels, loved ones whom you knew in biological life who have gone back home to God, ancestors whom you never knew in biological life, and others), and/or with higher Divine beings (Archangels, etc., and God) - i.e., your Spirit Team.

.

If you think that's "crazy," I'll just paraphrase Guitarist Craig Ross, who correctly says that the older we get--(and we've completed more than six decades on this planet already; consider that when you're 10, you've completed one decade; and when you're 60, you've completed six)--the less we care about others' opinions of us - and I would add: especially when we're right, and I'm 99% sure that I am right about certain aspects of spirituality that I've become conscious that I've experienced.

.

LENNY KRAVITZ'S SONG, "ARE YOU GONNA GO MY WAY?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdmF_TcWFrI

"I was born long ago. I am the chosen. I'm the one.

I have come to save the day, and I won't leave until I'm done...

I don't know why we always cry; this we must leave and get undone.

We must engage and rearrange, and turn this planet back to ONE...

But what I really want to know is, ARE YOU GONNA GO MY WAY?..."

.

One of the things you can do on a path to healing yourself and this world is to try to help someone else who is in need of basics to a much greater extent than you are, if you can help without harming yourself too much in the process. (For example, even if you have some savings, if you have major expenses coming up, such as necessary home repairs, dental work, medical expenses, and anything else that's necessary for which those savings are crucial, definitely don't dip into that needed reserve.)

.

Always manage finances so as not to allow yourself to slip into any kind of unnecessary debt, either for yourself or to help anyone else, unless you can pay all of it off within thirty days to avoid interest charges, because accumulated debt can take years or even decades to recover from, and it will destroy your peace of mind. It also possibly will sink you into a deep and prolonged depression, which tends to negatively impact physical health, too.

.

Personally, prior to the late-1980s and despite a small household income in the early-1980s, other than a home-mortgage loan, I never had had any experience with any long-term accumulated debt; that highly damaging experience only began unexpectedly when I discovered, in mid-1989, the true extent of the situation I had found myself in. (Since then, I have tried to make lemonade from a very lemony situation, to the extent that I could. It has not been easy. A person with greater physical stamina and/or a person with better emotional health [i.e., more maturity] could have done better. In some ways, I have succeeded, but in other equally important ways, I have failed. If I could go back in time, I would do what I almost did do, meaning that I would leave the situation, but I didn't and part of the reason was because not long after the mid-1989 discovery I had made, I experienced something that made me aware that my life could become threatened in an even more significant way. So, I just tried to hang on and to improve the situation to the extent that I could, based on what I had been taught. There's an irony, though, which is that there have been indications over the years and up until even now that a potentially more serious threat to my life seems not to have actually ever ended. To cope with that possibility, I place my faith in God.)

.

My parents had taught us, through setting a very good example in this aspect of life, how to avoid all non-home-mortgage debt, including but not limited to debt for automobiles, furnishings, trips, clothing, etc.; I paid attention, but I think my brother did not, as I recall him mentioning that he had taken on long-term debt multiple times for unnecessary "wants"; I hope he eventually realized the wisdom of not continuing to do that. I haven't always been able to avoid automobile loans, but eventually that became possible. And knowing my parents, if a lesser amount of money had been coming in, as opposed to the somewhat above-average household income (equivalent to about $136,000 today) that my parents had from my father's salary, there maybe would have been one or two automobile loans, but there would not have been lavish Christmases or ski trips or any boats or any other frills; and only a smaller house ever would have been purchased each time we moved to a new location - for example, the 5BR, 4BA, 3100-sq.ft. house they bought in one of the areas where we lived when I still was in elementary school (Sherborn, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, where we moved when my parents were 31 and I was 9), where their (purchased-used) paid-for Mercedes (driven most often by my father) and their paid-for VW bug (driven most often by my mother) were in their garage, and their 34' sailboat was docked not too terribly long a drive away, would not have been a part of our lives, because financial peace of mind absolutely is much more important.

.

About the house I used as an example, I looked it up online recently and discovered that new owners obviously redesigned the already spacious interior, apparently to make part of it even more spacious, because now it's 4BR, 3BA (instead of 5BR, 4BA as it was when my parents owned it). Personally, I don't like living in a large house, for several reasons. One reason is that a large house takes too much time and energy to clean (which triggers an asthma attack in me, almost every time), unless you have kids old enough to help you with it, or enough extra money you're willing to spend on hiring people to come into your house to work (I'm not a fan) and also on a security system to catch when anything is taken without permission and/or when any visitor plants any hidden recording devices. (Later in life, menopausal insomnia and increased depression significantly add to the preference for a smaller house, for the less time and energy it takes to clean it, and for other reasons, as well.) My parents had us to help my mother with the housework and to help both of them with the yardwork (and the vegetable garden when we had one) and, of course, my parents never hired anyone for that type of work or for much of anything else unless absolutely necessary (which was rare, since my father, despite having been raised in a privileged household with a mother who was a homemaker and socialite and a father who had a white-collar career, was highly capable in most areas of home repair).

.

Another reason I don't like large houses is that unless there are many people living there, it's a lot of wasted energy consumption to heat a lot of unnecessary space when outside temperatures are cold; and to cool it, too, when outside temperatures are hot, if it has an air-conditioning system. The ability to pay a large energy bill is not the point; the point is that wasting so much energy is environmentally irresponsible, unless it's 100% clean energy, considering that fossil-fueled energy sources fuel detrimental climate changes; and even many of the "best" homes unfortunately tend to have suboptimal insulation. Most, for example, don't have this superior type of insulation that provides better energy efficiency, and that also provides sound-proofing and other even more important benefits, such as that it's resistant to moisture and even fire: https://insulation4us.com/blogs/guides-and-news/why-is-roxul-insulation-such-a-good-sound-and-fire-barrier , etc.; whereas fibreglass batting, for example, becomes useless as an insulator after it gets wet from condensation or anything else, and it doesn't inhibit mold, and it's just terrible for the environment in many ways. In any event, building codes just typically are not as good as they should be for energy efficiency and other considerations. There are better options in the world.

.

Five of the world's most indestructible homes: https://www.treehugger.com/worlds-most-indestructible-homes-4863496

.

Here's one option (for homes and other structures) that costs the same as or less than conventional construction to build, and takes less time to build than most conventional homes, and costs less to insure, and costs less to run and maintain, and is stronger than and provides much better protection against most natural disasters than conventional homes: https://www.monolithic.org/benefits/benefits-survivability

.

Also see: https://www.monolithic.org/homes/home/the-true-cost-of-a-dome-home (Overall, it costs less than a conventional home of the same size.)

.

Be careful not to confuse monolithic dome structures with geodesic dome structures. Here's why a monolithic dome structure is a better choice than a geodesic dome structure: https://www.monolithic.org/blogs/presidents-sphere/from-geodesic-to-monolithic-domes

.

Here's a five-dome school in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin: https://monolithicdome.com/johnson-creek-five-dome-school-was-product-of-planning-and-thought (Also see: https://monolithic.org)

.

Here are some monolithic dome churches: https://www.monolithic.org/churches

.

Here's a monolithic dome tornado shelter in Delaware: https://monolithicdome.com/delaware-state-park-tornado-shelter

.

Here's a collaborative vision for multi-family monolithic dome apartment buildings: https://monolithicdome.com/a-collaborative-vision-for-multifamily-monolithic-domes

.

Here are some multi-purpose, transportable dome cabins: https://static.monolithic.com/pdfs/cabin_sales/infopak.pdf

(DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with monolithic.com, or with anyone at any of the referenced URLs; I just find the information interesting and provide it in case anyone reading here might, too.)

.

Here's a two-dome home in Hudson Valley in New York State: https://hvmag.com/archive/dome-sweet-home/

.

Here's a much larger two-dome home in Lehi, Arizona: https://monolithicdome.com/le-chateau-de-lumiere-an-experiment-in-beauty-and-practicality

.

Here are some small monolithic dome homes in the Philippines, built by monolithic dome home builders based out of Italy, Texas, U.S.A.: https://offgridworld.com/typhoon-proof-dome-homes-for-less-than-7000 (The square-footage isn't mentioned and they look small, but maybe these are not really all that small, after all, because they mention that each has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a den; and I would guess that each also has at least a small eat-in kitchen.)

.

Here's a small multi-dome "tiny home" in Thailand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02NtjypMHwk

.

Here's a much-larger monolithic dome home on Pensacola Beach, in Florida: https://www.monolithic.org/homes/featured-homes/there-s-a-dome-of-a-home-going-up-on-pensacola-beach (It's done, it's gorgeous, and it's safe.)

.

Here's another large monolithic dome home, one that's not on but is near Pensacola Beach, Florida: https://monolithicdome.com/hurricane-ivan-and-the-magenheimers-search

.

Here's another very large monolithic dome home, one that's located on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina, with photos of its beautiful interior: https://monolithicdome.com/eye-of-the-storm-for-sale (It's been sold.) (Members of the press sometimes have been allowed to stay as guests there during storms because it's such a much stronger and safer location to be than anywhere else during a major storm.)

.

Dome homes (and other dome structures) provide not just better energy efficiency, but also protection against most natural disasters. However, to protect against flooding, obviously buy or construct one that's elevated. (Opening the garage doors of the one on Pensacola Beach in Florida allows water to pass beneath the living spaces of the structure. Some others already have open pass-through space beneath the living areas, such as the one referenced above that's near Pensacola Beach in Florida, and the one on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina. Although those are more open than the one on Pensacola Beach in Florida, those spaces also are used as parking locations for vehicles. I would like to see construction that includes a pass-through beneath the first floor of the structure and that isn't used for anything else, and a first floor functioning as an enclosed garage [with a ramp to drive up into it], and a second floor [and maybe a third floor, as well] functioning as the living space. Vehicles then wouldn't be lost to storm surge or to any other type of flooding.)

.

For close-up photos of the garage/water-pass-through area beneath the dome home on Sullivans Island, South Carolina, see: https://monolithic.org/plandesign-residential/wind-water-corrosion-and-monolithic-domes/photos

.

The dome home on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, also is referenced here: https://engineering.com/outside-in-designing-building-envelopes-to-withstand-climate-change/

.

In addition to protecting against other threats (bullets, wildfires, etc.), monolithic domes protect well against wind, water, and corrosion: https://monolithic.org/plandesign-residential/wind-water-corrosion-and-monolithic-domes

.

Here's a community of monolithic dome homes on Mauritius, the main island of the Republic of Mauritius, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDiMDsV8FPo&t=13s

.

Remember, the cost to build a monolithic dome of any size is about the same as it costs to build a conventional home of the same size (whatever the size is that you prefer and can comfortably afford) and, even better, the cost to insure it, to run it, and to maintain it, is less: https://www.monolithic.org/homes/home/the-true-cost-of-a-dome-home (It's less expensive than you may imagine.)

.

However, it wouldn't be wise for a majority of people to construct a concrete home. To learn why, you could watch Season 6, Episode 8, of "NASA's Unexplained Files." Even though the topic of too much concrete being used on the planet and the effects of that on our globe, specifically when there's a lot of concrete being used in one area of the globe while not being counterbalanced by an equal amount of that weight of concrete in an opposite area of the globe, isn't mentioned in the description of the episode, there actually is a segment there that deals with that topic. It's the second-to-last segment, about the Earth's axis, massive amounts of water redistribution in India, and massive concrete usage in China, the latter needing to be counterbalanced in and near the country of Chile on the continent of South America, in order to prevent some very dire consequences for North America in the future (including but not limited to the entire U.S.A.) if that counterbalancing doesn't happen. IMHO, it's an important segment to watch. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page at the following URL to find "S6 E8"; this episode initially was broadcast on television on May 29, 2019: https://www.amazon.com/NASAs-Unexplained-Files-Season-6/dp/B07QLNN3MP

.

That being the case (about concrete), another better alternative to conventional construction materials is eco-friendly, quickly renewable, sustainable bamboo: https://bambooliving.com

.

Like concrete monolithic dome homes, bamboo homes and other structures can be constructed much more quickly than conventional homes and other structures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNt3WaGWluw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs3Pd_IEzIc

.

Bamboo structures fare better than concrete structures in earthquakes: https://goodnet.org/articles/bamboo-houses-are-designed-to-be-strong-safe

.

Bamboo is an eco-friendly building material:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB19rDDhwLo

(Both pros and cons are mentioned.)

.

Here are some examples of homes and other structures made from bamboo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGOJpMQFHiQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dK8-s4YeW4

.

Anyway, from my observations as an adult in this life, it seems that a lot of others' parents apparently didn't set an example of never getting into debt for anything other than a home-mortgage loan (although, I am not talking about situations that are beyond someone's control; I am talking about unwisely spending money on far too many "wants" versus mainly just on actual "needs" when funds are not abundant enough; and by "funds," I mean actual money, not available credit unless you conscientiously pay off the debt within thirty days to avoid all interest charges and the accumulation of debt beyond a home mortgage). Too many people seem to care more about "keeping up with the Joneses" than anything else, either that or surprisingly somehow they manage not to feel stressed by having massive amounts of debt and paying a lot of interest charges on a large house or mansion (one or more), in the cases where debt has been incurred, which is in most cases. That's something I learned primarily while working at a law office where one of my duties was to prepare financial declarations for divorcing couples, where I saw that no matter the level of household income or their ages (fifties was the oldest I encountered in that setting), literally almost everyone (including doctors and others also in occupations with some of the highest incomes in the area) had set up their lives in such a way that they lived perpetually in the red. (That is not a good practice for anyone, whether a household; a church, business, company, organization; a hamlet, village, town, or city; a borough, township, parish, or county; a state or province, or a country.)

.

In any event, if you can help others in genuine need, especially students and entrepreneurs struggling to meet basic expenses or people whose employers cruelly don't pay them enough to meet basic needs--(and that situation, which should be a crime, IMHO, has been getting worse over the past two to three decades; I am not talking about very small businesses that legitimately can't afford to pay a living wage or salary [in which case, they should be hiring only students and others who typically don't need to support themselves and/or any dependents]; I am talking about big-business corporate greed)--your assistance can help to ease burdens, it can give hope for at least for the immediate future, it can build faith in humanity, and it also can help you to feel better knowing you've done something to help make the world a kinder place.

.

You also can encourage people to "pay it forward" sometimes, when they can safely do so. With or without huge efforts from the minority of very wealthy households and companies in this world (whose incomes are hundreds of thousands of dollars, or millions of dollars, or more), lots of smaller efforts from many regular people (whose incomes are significantly less) absolutely can add up to help alleviate financial hardships and make significantly positive differences in this world.

.

Let our efforts and the significant differences be positive, kind, and compassionate.

.

Encourage the very wealthy to be positive, kind, and compassionate to those in need, too (especially since big-business corporate greed, in the form of wages and salaries too low to meet even just basic expenses, is to blame for a lot of people's need, in the first place).

.

Remember, We Are All ONE.

.

Helping someone in genuine need is good for your soul. Years ago, I used to help others a lot more, in part because I know how it felt not to have help (my father never offered; and although my mother offered, she really couldn't afford it, so I wouldn't have felt right about causing her to incur debt to help me with school; and fortunately I didn't need it - and, actually, by that time, my father probably couldn't afford it, either - in any case, it didn't feel good to know it wouldn't be there at all or without financially harming someone else, if I had needed it; I have had an up-close view of the fact that there are some adult kids who just do not seem to care about anything like that at all, and that's something in this world that I definitely do not understand).

.

The first help to individuals (as opposed to monetary donations sent to organizations, such as to "Population Connection" and to a few others, and donations of gently used items to "Salvation Army" and "Goodwill" and a local ministry), was to two younger relatives in need of financial assistance (required for tuition, textbooks, lab. fees, health insurance, and travel; and to help pay for living expenses) while attending college and university (one did a lot of undergraduate exploring, too, having taken seven or eight years, with no part-time semesters and no leaves-of-absence, to complete a bachelor's degree; I personally never saw the diploma and don't recall for sure if it was eight years but I recall it definitely was at least seven years). The part of those contributions from my household that came from my salary were the once-monthly health-insurance premiums for one, as well as twice-monthly amounts to the same one to help pay for living expenses. It wasn't much, but it was all that my household could afford at the time.

.

The reason was because there had been a fight about getting an unnecessarily larger house (which wasn't possible to do at that time without my signature and income) and, at some point, I got tired of the yelling and eventually gave in. That's something I should not have done, for many reasons, at least not at that particular time, in part because interest rates were quite high at the time (and ours was higher than average because of his undesirable credit status at the time; the mortgage loan initially had a 10.5% interest rate in 1990; and then refinancing happened in 1993 at a 7.5% interest rate, at which time the annual salaries were $37,750 and $28,000, so mine was about 43% of the total household income). Anyway, that's what happened, and it wasn't even possible to fully furnish the house for a while. So, only a small portion of my salary was available to be sent twice every month to help with student living expenses (it was a total of $200 every month, which, calculating only from about the median year it was sent, would be the equivalent of more than $450 per month today). My salary also covered a monthly health-insurance premium for one, as well as travel costs for one (mostly just within the U.S. for holidays, but also including once to London, England).

.

The rest of my salary was helping to meet not only my own household's living expenses but also to make payments toward paying down massive debt that preceded me and that I didn't learn the true extent of until only a year before the fight about getting a larger house that we absolutely did not need and could not comfortably afford at the time.

.

Those pre-exisiting debts, which were not incurred by me--(and I did not have any pre-existing long-term debt, whatsoever; I had only about a $300 balance on one low-interest credit card and that was it, and I paid that off within a couple of months' time)--consisted of charges on a fistful of high-interest credit cards, an automobile loan, and even a little bit left on a student loan, so not for anything that would appreciate in value. There was no real-estate in the picture at the time that I was told that what existed would be able to be cleared up in two years by my delaying saving for graduate school and instead putting money toward clearing up those pre-existing debts (the living situation was a small rented apartment with minimal furnishings; in fact, the bookshelves in the living room were homemade from cinder blocks and plain boards from a lumber yard). The total amount of existing debt was a little over $25,000 (which was slightly higher than the starting annual salary of the new job that was the reason for the move to the Southeast), which would be equivalent to a little less than $71,500 today. That may not sound like a lot to some people today, but it was a huge amount of non-mortgage debt for anyone to have at that time. Worse, more debt kept getting added, which made for a two-steps-forward, one-step-backward, very slow process of getting out of that very unexpected nightmare.

.

As soon as I discovered the true amount of what I was dealing with, and the fact that only minimum payments were being made to each of the debts, which I also didn't know before, I immediately took charge of the bill-paying, consolidated the debts, stopped traveling internationally (and I was the only one that made that sacrifice), reduced domestic travel, and made several other sacrifices and changes that would help and which did help. I haven't been perfect at money management (nobody is perfect at anything, other than God), but I've been a whole heck of a lot better at it than what I encountered. My definition of "afford" has never been "I have available credit on several high-interest credit cards" when there wouldn't be any way to pay off the debt in full within thirty days, sixty days max. (Again, I'm not criticizing anyone who is in a situation beyond their control; I am talking about what I encountered, that a lot of charging had occurred that didn't have to happen and, in most cases, should not have happened, especially to the extent that it did. If you want to live like that, there should be full disclosure before you bring anyone else into your life who would be severely affected by just how much in the red you are. Someone with more reliable health and, therefore, more reliable income, maybe would not have felt as injured, but even such a person still should be fully informed about a situation of extreme debt, or any pre-exisiting debt, before being asked to make any major life changes.)

.

Anyway, then, later, there was some significant help (it was a significant amount for my household all at one time, for sure) that was provided for both of their weddings, which occurred in 2002, within just weeks of each other (credit-card cash advances were taken out to help with their weddings; although at least those were taken out on a new credit-card account that had a 0% promotional interest rate for over a year; still, though, it was a lot of additional debt to take on at the time, a total of $4,000 - which, today, is the equivalent of more than $7,200). Plus, there were travel costs, which is all there really should have been (and just a normal wedding gift for each couple, of course, such as a blender or something else reasonable from a gift registry), since they were grooms, not brides.

.

And do you know the thanks that I got? Among many other injustices over the years, one night at the home of one of these couples, they were ordering take-out food to be delivered for supper and I was sneered at for choosing something that cost literally only $1 more than what anyone else had chosen. Such ingrates. These people are the ones, not I, who deserve to have had nothing handed to them in the past. They only ever just greedily took and took, and yet sometimes complained it wasn't enough, and never even once ever thought to give anything back, even after their households became wealthy from very high-paying jobs that pay more than most jobs in the country. One even said that everything always should flow only in the direction of the younger generation.

.

I guess they've never heard about some wealthy people who actually are kind-hearted and generous, who even have bought a house for a struggling parent, for example. We don't need that. We've bought our own houses over the years, with zero help from anyone (lest anyone misunderstand, we have one house; we have moved a few times and when we moved, we first left an apartment and bought a house, and then later sold a house and bought a different house; the latter was done twice). Ditto for everything else we've ever had; we've done everything ourselves without any help from anyone else, only hindrances from others who needed and took help, which was given freely and without expecting anything in return, other than appreciation for the sacrifices; however, there hasn't ever seemed to be any, at least not for my sacrifices (and even a few times, it seems there may have been some behind-the-scenes malicious interferences during our processes of making major sales and purchases [at least one of the houses, and a vehicle at least a couple of different times, it seems], which no one would have had any right to do). Anyway, the example of some wealthy people in this world having bought a house for a struggling parent was just an example of the ridiculousness of what was said. I personally wouldn't take anything from them, mainly because it would feel to me that they would be being disingenous. Anything illegal they may have done, if a court were to award damages, that would be a different situation; but, otherwise, I wouldn't want anything material from those people.

.

All of the unexpected issues prevented saving for my graduate-level education, which, before I moved from the Northeast to the Southeast years earlier, was the intention for part of my salary after moving (which happened only about a month after I had graduated). I intended also to apply for a scholarship, but that became moot for a long time because of discovering the truth about the situation I had found myself in. Anyway, there was another serious issue that I didn't expect, which would have required the help of someone else, which would have been to drive me into the city for classes and drive me home afterward, but that type of help was denied. (By the time I would have felt okay about starting to take a class or two, it had been an extremely long time since I had done any driving outside of just a very small area near my house, and even back when I briefly did, I was terrified of it and hated it and was afraid I'd get into an accident because the anxiety is so great that my palms sweat and my heart races and I get tunnel vision. So, ever since, I've driven only in a small, very familiar area, within only a couple of miles of my house.) I didn't know before moving that it wouldn't be possible to afford to live within walking distance of campus. I also didn't know that there would be fewer graduate-degree class offerings in the new area than there had been where I had moved from. That was totally unexpected because the area moved to is much larger than the area I had moved from. Remember, this was in the days before the Internet, so there was no ability to look up information quickly and easily.

.

After the Internet came along for most people (1999) and after getting the household into the black (2012), I had resigned myself to life as it was, no more formal education. I felt beaten down by life (in general, and by stupidities of my own, and by the stupidities of others, and in some cases, by the thinly veiled malicious intent and actions of certain individuals; and by the increasing incivility in the world, etc.), and I just really didn't care anymore about graduate school (and still don't, considering how ridiculously expensive it's gotten and that the return on the investment likely would be low).

I still study plenty; it's just not going toward a formal degree, and at this point, it doesn't really matter.

I've seen people with advanced degrees not making much money in their job, and many having a lot of debt. No, thanks.

Maybe I'll use my informal "higher education" to teach others, online, some of the things I've learned from many years of informally researching and studying. A little bit of it is here, for free, in this post (URLs to information about alternative building materials and styles; URLs to information about emotional, psychological, and spiritual healing; etc.).

.

Anyway, so, much later, in 2015, at a time when my household financial situation was better (debt-free), I began helping Kiva and Zidisha students and entrepreneurs in need, while always keeping my household financially in the black (meaning most times anything was charged, it was charged just for convenience and to earn bonus points for a monthly cash-back credit applied to the account; with the balance almost always paid off within thirty days to avoid interest charges [and anytime it went longer, it was on a credit card with a 0% promotional interest rate for a year or more, but no charges ever went unpaid for anywhere close to that long]; and also meaning saving something, in case of any future out-of-the-ordinary situations that wouldn't be able to be covered within a month by the usual monthly household income, such as necessary home repairs, dental work, etc.).

.

A relative had introduced me to Kiva, but I didn't stay there for very long, soon afterward having found Zidisha which seemed better for students and entrepreneurs in developing countries, especially at that particular time when the financial terms were better. I also began doing a lot of volunteer work with a mostly great group of people, which made me feel a part of something good, for the first time in, well, almost ever (university was the last time I had felt that). Eventually, I headed up several teams of volunteers. And since it was online, it was flexible, which was great, too. The only missing thing that could have made a close-to-perfect work environment even closer to perfect would have been to have been able to get paid for the work, especially the behind-the-scenes work, applying payments, solving problems, doing English-to-French and English-to-Spanish translations (before those and other tasks got automated), training newbies, etc.

.

Groceries and other basic costs unexpectedly have risen very sharply in the U.S. over especially the last three years or so (and it only has been continuing to get worse), so I stopped contributing here for about two years (2023-12-12 through 2025-11-13). On 2025-11-14, I resumed helping others found here at Zidisha, but it still won't be much or often, until I maybe could find or create another income for the household (which would need to be very flexible, due to health concerns, including but not limited to the menopausal insomnia that's been wreaking havoc on my life for the past nine years; these days, I get only about one day per month, on average, when I don't feel like a zombie trudging through wet cement; maybe eventually it will resolve; the mild hot flashes that I experienced for one year never interfered with sleep and resolved quickly, but then the insomnia started after that and it unexpectedly has been a huge problem ever since).

.

Here are a few examples of some of the types of projects I like to contribute to:

.

Entrepreneur Stocking Clothing and Beauty Projects into Her Shop:

https://www.zidisha.org/project/clothing-and-beauty-products-loan

.

Entrepreneur Crocheting Clothes and To Sell From Her Home:

https://www.zidisha.org/project/handmade-crochet-clothes

.

Cybersecurity Professional Enrolling in a Master's Degree Program:

https://www.zidisha.org/project/funds-for-enrollment-for-masters-studies

.

Electrical Engineer and Entrepreneur Purchasing an Oxygen Concentrator for His Father:

https://www.zidisha.org/project/purchase-of-dads-oxygen-concentrator

.

Construction Subcontractor Needing Additional Funds To Pay His Workers:

https://www.zidisha.org/project/loan-to-prefinance-my-current-construction-project

.

Community Worker and Entrepreneur Purchasing Materials To Build a House for Himself and His Wife to Live with Their Minor Children:

https://www.zidisha.org/project/to-purchase-building-materials-for-building-my-own-house

If you watch Christian's video, please keep in mind that English is not his first language.

.

Btw, when a backer "Likes" a borrower's comment, and/or when a backer posts a note on a borrower's page, the system automatically sends a copy via email to the borrower. For that reason, knowing they've received my note, I usually remove it from public view (in case anyone may wonder why they hardly ever see any "Likes" or posts from me). Also, my long post here is just temporary until I move it somewhere else, format it in a different way, and maybe include some pictures (which isn't possible on this page).

.

.

Here, too, are some favorite backers encountered at Zidisha:

.

ANDRE: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/531599 :

"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad."

.

CHRISTINE: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/5807

"It's great to help others out when they are in need!"

.

DAO: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/248317

"I want to make an impact, but I also value ease.

Zidisha makes it possible to meet both... needs."

.

DARRELL: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/228081

"A software engineer who cares..."

.

EMMA: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/35147 :

"...Just looking to do my bit to edge closer

to breaking the poverty cycle..."

.

JEANETTE: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/229690

"I spent 4 years as a child in Ghana and Ivory Coast,

and I have a love for Africa. I am looking forward

to helping Africans with their small businesses."

.

JIM: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/3134

"...I am a firm believer in the equality of all people,

and am committed to sharing... resources. My best

to everyone, and thanks to Zidisha for facilitating..."

.

JUHANI: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/194292 :

"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.

Without them, humanity cannot survive." -Dalai Lama

.

MIRKO: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/415947

"Never too late to stand together."

.

RICHARD: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/445188

"Just trying to help a little by paying it forward."

.

STEVE AND SON: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/2468

"We believe in the power of the good that we can all do...

when we work together."

.

VINCENT: https://www.zidisha.org/backer/419185

"...God has brought me through some terrible times

and blessed me materially, so I would like to bless others

with his gifts. I pray that God leads me to those asking Him

for help and hope these loans help those people..."

.

"WE, NOT ME": https//www.zidisha.org/backer/196159

.

.

ATTENTION: If you've ever visited this webpage at any time before (even just earlier today), do a hard-refresh at least three or four times, and then do a regular refresh, too, to increase the chances that you would be seeing the most-current version of the post (and to ensure that the formatting gets correctly displayed, because I've noticed that blank lines that are included in the post and expected to appear don't always appear right away).

.

Doing a hard-refresh at least three or four times, and then a regular refresh, too, sometimes is necessary to get the most-current version of the webpage to appear, and to get the formatting of the webpage to display correctly. (It should take only one hard-refresh, but for some unknown reason, I've found it often takes three or four tries before the most-current version displays, even after I've cleared out my cache; and sometimes a regular refresh is needed right after doing the hard-refreshes, which is very odd. This is the only website on which I've ever experienced such strange webpage behavior.)

.

Instructions for how to do a hard-refresh are provided on this page: https://filecamp.com/support/problem-solving/hard-refresh/

.

.

NOTE: Only my imperfect human brain has been used in the composition of this post, not any A.I., all of which also is imperfect in its syntax, in its grammar, even sometimes in spelling, too. So, I prefer to use just my own imperfect brain to write my own imperfect posts. (I do tend to edit a lot, sometimes even multiple times in one day, striving for "perfection" even though I know that perfection isn't humanly possible. The best we can do is strive for excellence. I try here, and sometimes it does drive me "crazy").

.

.

RE: URLs ON THIS WEBPAGE: It's my understanding that it isn't a legal requirement to obtain permission to refer readers to others' work. However, that said, if you are a copyright holder of content on any of the webpages located at any of the URLs I've included on this webpage and if you would rather that I not refer others to your content from here, please use the Contact link below to notify Zidisha's director; then, upon receiving a forwarded copy of your communication, I would comply with your request, of course.

.

ALSO: Regarding brief quotes and paraphrasing, I believe each of those to be fair-use; however, if not and if you're the copyright holder, please get in touch via the method mentioned above and, of course, I would remove whichever quote(s) or paraphrasing of something of yours that you may want me to remove from this post.

.

.

EDITED: 2025-12-18 @ 6:12 A.M., E.S.T.

https://www.zidisha.org/backer/30131

.

.