Hypnagogic State

There are many ways to confuse a human being: giving him too much to eat, cutting off the internet connection, making him/her watch Only God Forgives, or have him win the lottery or have a very sudden increase in wealth. I'm going to talk about the last one. Let me get started with the tale of MC Hammer, a convenient example to help me pave the road to explaining excessive personal spending. The rapper, who got over 33 million US dollars just with his third album, proceeded then to go on a spending spree that is more common among the newly rich than anyone could possibly suspect. To start it up nicely, he bought a house for 12 million US dollars (which later on he couldn't afford to keep). Did I say house? Well. This humble crib had a bowling alley, a recording studio, a 33 seat movie theater, tennis courts, pools, and a couple other much needed goodies. This house ended up being sold for less than half its original price. Hammer also hired around two hundred people, ...

From birth until your bones can no longer bear the weight of yourself, it seems that we have been taught that failure not only is bad, it's actually the worst thing ever: not only sets you back, but prevents you from doing what you have to do and what you want to do, and is, in the end, a source of humiliation. It's curious that even self-created goals that other people know about can be a predictor of humiliation in case of failure. Even if there are others around you about who you don't really care, depending on your personallity, there's a chance you will. Such will make you perceive such humiliation as something that you'll have to carry unrelentlessly. Where's the problem here? Is it part of our nature to avoid failure in order to achieve set goals, or was it (and pardon the cliché) society that throughout all the history and the years that created this unchanging need to succeed and to shun failure in any way or form? In schools, universities, and mo...

Despite my previous entry I would like now to delve on a rather different topic. Perhaps, in a way, almost opposite to collecting and hoarding: cutting down on items. In short, and before going on too strong, I do not believe you can own either too little or too much. In fact, it is better to avoid any judgements based on what someone owns, right? I hope so. The point of what I'm writing today goes directly to the 100 things project. Me, as an aspiring minimalist, who was trying to sever any sort of emotional contact with objects, also started cutting down on useless clutter. Well, most of it you definitely don't really have any emotional contact, but it definitely clutters your space. To be honest, I was guilty of what many people probably are: not getting rid of that old maganize or toy that even thought nothing kept me from throwing it away, I still didn't. So I went ahead and revised all my stuff. But I did this carefully, as I can't be arsed to follow strict ...

Seeking out for something is thrilling. This is how most of my collections started out. I have a hard time trying to describe what exactly prompts us to have a collection: coins, stamps, vinyl, clothing, empty cans, cats; collections come in all sorts of forms. I am not sure whether to call it a need, an urge, a necessity, or just let it on the hobby shelve. Whatever it is, the amassing of physical (usually) items seems to be taken as an extension of the self. One collects because it is nostalgic, pleasurable, related to an area of interest, or some things are just too good to collect. I'll use coins and bills as an example, as they can be found anywhere, with great variations in value, and there are million different possibilities and ranges in this sort of collection; in short, coins are dependend on time, location, value, aesthetics, material, events (commemorative coins and the such), and of course, there are also coins made specifically for collecting. Anot...

Books. Yes, I used a whole paragraph for that. Today, I choose to write this post to hint a bit at what I would call exagerations of the modern world. The very constant battle you can listen to now everyday on whether books are being left on the shelves for their supposed substitutes: ebooks. Or in short, any form of digital text, which is now getting easier and easier to access and read. Not only on computers or tablets, but on devices designed purposely for the reading of digital text. To go at this from a very simplistic point of view we have to look at two of the factions: the extremes. The ones that can be used better to get this over with. The ones that say ebooks are the future of reading, and the ones that say ebooks should be eradicated, because otherwise, real paper books will. Now, I won't even bother using the 'vinyl argument' here. The main point is that, even though I'm not particularly tech-savvy, I cannot possibly deny the advantages of sometimes...

Eat lots of greens, cut down on your red meat, stop smoking and drinking so much. We pretty much know what's good and bad for our health, don't we? Well, yeah, but there are things we don't that could drastically improve nutrition and well-being. Seeds. Yep, seeds . When added to regular meals, snacks, or even smoothies, they can offer quite the nutritional punch needed to keep you healthy and going through the motions. Here's a compiled list of five of the most powerful seeds you can implement in your diet: #1 - Chia Seeds: Getting a lot more exposure lately, you can add chias to pretty much anything you ingest. From the top of my head, I do not see any dish or salad where you can't add them, which makes these extremelly versatile. What makes them so special, then? Well, first off, they're an amazing source of Omega-3. This, however, is not what makes these seeds so craved. They're also packed with calcium, sodium, fiber, and protein. Not to mention th...

Here is a well-known fact that you haven't thought about lately: people nowadays, with all the buzz from a productive day to day life, either sleep too little or too much. Which, in turn, makes them all the less productive and happy in every single way. While it is hard to ascertain the right ammount of sleep for everyone, as we all have different body clocks, and sleep patterns alter depending on a lot of factors: age, tiredness, sleep deprivation, etc. Truth is: you can never make up for a badly slept night. Sure, you can always sleep more the night after, but what's lost is lost. As such, it is always better to keep consistent sleep everytime the opportunity arises. Sleeping too little is the most common in these burdened days. Too much work, too much play, too much drink: everything contributes to sleeping less which affects our attention span, health, way we eat, how efficiently we learn, motivation, and overall health. Sleeping too much is also connected with an unh...