Color theory

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As you can probably tell from my blog, I like color... This got me thinking.

Did you know that it has been scientifically proven that our taste buds change about every 7 years? So when you go to eat something you used to like and find that you no longer like it (or vice versa) it is probably due to the fact that you hit that 7 year mark somewhere between this time you ate whatever and last time. Of course, your sense of smell also plays a part in how you taste things, but that is not what this blog is actually about.

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Color theory! It is the belief that a color can influence behavior, mood, and even action. For instance, take the color red. Red is a color of alertness and hunger. All emergency vehicles have red flashing lights and it is supposed to alert us to pull over. When you see the flashing red police car lights in your rear view mirror, you pull over... Well, most of us do anyway, there are those who run. When traffic lights turn red, it is to alert us to stop so that we don't crash into another car who has a green light. The color red (and yellow) is also supposed to illicit a feeling of hunger  or a desire to eat. Take McDonald's; do you think that it is so successful because of its healthy and amazing tasting food? Probably not! 

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Unless I am traveling, I don't really eat there, but even my favorite fast food restaurant's sign has quite a bit of red in it... Wendy's.

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Which, by the way, I have currently been on a red kick.. Especially red and white stripes, like the old fashioned candy canes. I think if I was to paint our fence out back, I would paint the boards red and white, alternating colors. I've never been particularly drawn to red, so this is new for me.. It started around Christmas 2009 but I found myself really really drawn to red this Christmas. My client's family put a tree up for him that had a string of green lights along with a string of red lights, with little bottles of Smirnoff vodka for the decorations. HOW CUTE!! Made me wanna go out and reproduce it next year, assuming I am still in a red kick...

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My main question though, is why do we have color preferences? When I was younger, I had about a 2 year purple stint. Everything I wore was purple or had purple in it.. Or some variegated shade of purple.. I even had purple jeans. Purple, purple, purple. I would have been ecstatic had the whole world been made up of shades of purple... While I still like the color purple, it is not my favorite color, by any means. I have gone through many color phases, many of which were black. The black, I wore because I was either depressed, uncomfortable with my weight or a mixture of the two. Maybe black is a "confused" color. I hate to think of it as a depressing color. I mean, there are people who are "goth" that wear lots of black, but aren't necessarily depressed, just confused... or maybe even uncomfortable. I could see black signifying confusion and discomfort. I mean, if the lights go out all of a sudden and it is pitch black, most people feel confused or uncomfortable... Those might recede a bit but until the lights come back on, there is still some of both. Try going to the bathroom in the pitch black dark. If you are like me, and don't often keep the TP on the roller thing, you can find yourself plenty confused and uncomfortable trying to find it in the dark!

But in all seriousness... Is the color theory related to our color preferences? Or, is it something else like our taste buds that change every so often due to some scientific reason. A chemical change in the body? Hormones? It is an interesting thing to ponder, in my opinion. I wonder if there has been any study done on it? I am sure that there are more pressing studies to be done before this one gets hit upon, like actual health and human nature studies... but, who knows, they have done far less impressive studies as well. I guess, we will just have to wait and see... assuming, of course that it hasn't already been done...

Until next time!!!

Getting what you want and more!

I saw an episode of Oprah a few years ago about some belief system that was breaking out at the time. I can't actually remember what the belief system was called, but it is irrelevant to this blog post anyway. They believed that if you took a poster board and put pics of all the things you desired on it, that those things would eventually come to you. I remember this one lady said to be careful because she had a picture (of what, I can't remember) of something she wanted but there were also dogs in the picture. I don't remember if she got the thing she actually wanted but she did get the dogs, which were just sort of background additions. They said that lists can also work.

This got me to thinking about diaries. If putting things you want on a poster board or on a list, is supposed to bring them to you, then perhaps putting things that happened to you in a diary should be done with caution. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am a horrible diary keeper. I have started at least a handful of diaries with all intentions on being diligent and writing in them every night... Yea, right! That lasts a week at most before things start breaking down, and within about a month, I usually can't even find the stupid thing when I do think to write in it... And that also brings me to why I would be looking for it in the first place... In my experience, I tended to write all the negative things down and very few, if any, of the positive things down... This brings me back to the belief that a list or board of pics brings you the things you want. Nobody really wants bad things, but if you write down all the bad things that happen, is that acting like some list that brings more bad things? I don't know...

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To make this blog entry even more confusing and convoluted... On the subject of Karma... I was thinking that it seems kind of disrespectful to write anything negative on any kind of paper.. Why? Because if everyone and everything is connected, then paper, which is made of trees, is connected to everyone and everything as well.. so in writing something negative, it is like throwing a negative pebble into the world with a pen/pencil (pencils too, are made with wood) and paper.. Ok, so then I thought, maybe on a computer... Which, for personal use only, might not be as bad.. However, posting it to a community site, like Facebook or something, is just as bad and maybe even more so... At least a diary, even with the negative pebble, is not reaching people to where they are actually aware of it.... But then there is a dishonesty in the diary because you are affecting the world with your negative pebble covertly... On top of disrespecting the poor trees (or whatever) that the paper was made from... I say, just don't write anything negative... lol... like I am innocent of that, myself!!!

!!! GO POSITIVE !!!

Having a Path

Life takes us places we don't expect. For instance, my mother had an adult foster care home and while I enjoyed visiting with the people she cared for, I never really thought about doing a similar job. Yet, here I am, doing in home (theirs, not mine) care giving. At the moment, my only client lives an hour away and I work a 48 hr shift. I mention this because 48 hrs out in the middle of virtually nowhere, gives one ample time to do many things, thinking included. I have been thinking a lot lately. My husband has been a philosophical Buddhist for many years. I have waffled back and forth with the idea. While I appreciated the basics that I knew of it, I never really committed to the practice of learning all that can be learned. I suppose it was because of laziness, more than anything or maybe it just wasn't the right time. I am ready now. I need to do this, for many reasons. I need to do it for me, my family, and (as corny as it may sound) for the world. All of those things are interconnected and I fail to see how becoming a better person for everyone can be a bad thing. I am just one fiber in the fabric of life. I know that I will not be able to fix all the tears, holes, and frayed seams. I hope that strengthening my little thread will help others strengthen theirs and it will spread like a ripple started by a pebble.

I used to be a very selfish person. I still have selfish tendencies, but nothing like they used to be. When I was young I would see documentaries on famous people who had died and they would interview all their friends, family, and colleagues. Those people would say beautiful things about the individual who had passed. I wanted that. I wanted to be famous so that when I died, they would make a documentary about me and say beautiful things about me. The problem with that dream was that it was a selfish dream. It was all about me me me. I, no longer need or want to be famous. I DO want to be great. Even if I am not recognized for whatever deeds I do, that make me great. Although, I will admit there are times I struggle with this at work.

I was raised Catholic. Buddhism, in the eyes of those who understand it, is not a religion, per se. Buddha was just a man, like Jesus, who had a higher understanding of things. Just like Jesus, in Christianity, people choose to follow Buddha's teachings. There are definitely differences between Buddhism and Christianity, but they are more alike than a lot of people realize. I have found less inconsistencies in Buddhist writings, than in Christian ones, which is something that has always kind of turned me off of following a Christian belief system. One of the bigger differences of the 2 belief systems, is what life leads to. In Christianity, when one dies, they either go to Heaven or Hell. In Buddhism the goal is Enlightenment, which looked at abstractly could be considered Heaven. However, the path to Enlightenment is not a one life time thing. One is reborn as many times as needed, to continue learning, until they reach enlightenment. On one hand, this seems a mighty long, tedious and nearly impossible task. On the other hand, it seems so very simple and oddly obtainable. I'm, sure I am but a fledgling soul, with lifetime's to go, before I reach enlightenment.

It is ironic, in my opinion, that the person that I think of when I think 'enlightened', wasn't even Buddhist; she was Catholic. Mother Theresa. There is a reason the Catholic Church nominated her to be recognized a Saint. It is a shame that more people, of any religion, or belief system, are not more like her. Like the Dali Lama, she was truely great.

So, my choice to delve into Buddhism to learn, grow, and in an effort to be great, is born. 

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