100+

Found this in my documents folder and thought I'd share. I don't know if these things are causal or just symptomatic (meaning just because people who live to 100 do these things, doesn't necessarily mean you'll live longer if you do them.) but it couldn't hurt.

I'm not sure where I got this from but I think it was an Ayurveda article from the raj.

The nine common factors of living to over a hundred from "The Blue Zones"

1. Stop Eating......when you're 80 percent full. Using smaller, 10-inch plates can help with this habit, as can serving meals in discrete portions instead of buffet-style.



2. Dine on Plants. Eat more veggies, and less meat and processed foods. A balance of healthful fats (such as those found in nuts); a variety of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants; whole grains (quinoa, brown rice, etc.); quality protein (found in beans and lentils); and high-nutrient foods will leave you with stable energy levels and contribute to healthy body weight. Avoid buying junk food, or put it on hard-to-reach shelves, and cook your own meals whenever possible to avoid fast foods.

3. Keep Moving. Find ways to move naturally, such as walking, gardening, using fewer labor-saving devices. Get a pedometer to keep track of your activity. Many physicians recommend a minimum of 10,000 steps a day. And of course, as any yogi knows, nothing keeps you young like a daily dose of spine-twisting yoga asanas.



4. Slow Down. Balance work and rest, take vacations regularly, don’t overschedule yourself. In other words, stress less.

5. Drink Red Wine. People in most Blue Zone communities drank red wine consistently, but in moderation. The antioxidants in wine are powerful disease fighters; if you don’t want to drink wine, organic grape juice or other fresh juices high in antioxidants are a good substitute.

6. Find Purpose. And pursue it with passion. Having a purpose of life keeps you engaged, vital, and young at heart. Your body will reflect these qualities too.



7. Join a group. Create a healthy social network. People with strong social support groups are known to live longer and they navigate life’s ups and downs better.



8. Feed your soul. Engage in spiritual activities, which bring deeper meaning to your life. This doesn’t necessarily mean religious activities, even a walk in nature can be a spiritual activity, as long as it helps broaden your perspective and connect you with the wider cosmos we are a part of.



9. Love your tribe. Make family and community a high priority.

Firefly

May 18th, 8:35pm

First firefly of the season spotted.

I stand very still, almost not breathing, watching inside myself like an ancient hunter stalking a rabbit.

I stalk my heart, my pain, and the motions of my mind. My attention is rapt, hoping to kill, to love, to end the tortured life of the hurt inside me.

Only attention will do it, so I pay rapt attention. I listen to the feelings going through my heart like my life depended on it.

Because there's nothing else to do, and I'm tired of doing nothing.

Sometimes, little flecks of light drift out of my heart, like dandelion seeds blown on an unknown wind, like fireflies searching for a home. Touching down on random objects; sunsets, a finger, a big white wolf-dog, a piece of seaweed,

they impregnate the world with love.

I'd like that to happen more often.

Secret Posts

I haven't stopped writing by the way. I've got around ten to fifteen posts, that are still in draft form, that I'm just reticent to post. I can't remember why. Recently I've just been writing them in my journal because they don't seem fit for public consumption. Maybe I'll do something about that. Maybe not. Here are some trinkets, for now:

I'm going to bed really late, consecutively. That plus starting to work out more regularly = tired Isaac.

I have a girlfriend. Yay! How many posts have I complained about not being able to get a girlfriend? How many conversations? How many times have I tried, unsuccessfully, to just get rid of this desire so I didn't have to be so dissatisfied with myself? I feel like I'm out of character. I feel like I'm going to get letters to my script writers from angry, single fans who related to me and are mad that I'm gettin' some while they're still single and socially dysfunctional with relationships (jury's still out on my social disfunction. Give it a few months to shake out.)

Geoffrey Baker died recently. He was a wonderful, wonderful human being, hilarious and truthful and unique. Many people's lives will be poorer for his passing, but they're lives are richer still for having known him. Death may keep assholes from being king for too long, but it also keeps cool people from staying around forever.

Death and life have become more real for me. My emotions have become more real for me.

Still trying to figure out what to do, what new goal I should pursue, since Waking Up nuked my previous ambitions and entire paradigm of seeking. Currently I know one fundamental quality that is worth pursuing: Love. To elaborate, currently, I am pursuing my deep heart satisfaction and fulfillment, looking for a heart full of love and hopefully joy, though I think my vision of permanent happiness is a figment of my imagination. Not that it doesn't exist at all, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist how I picture it.

Hmm, it now occurs to me that my motto since high-school was "Truth, Love, Laughter." I didn't realize I might have been prophetic with the order.

The nugget of wisdom the universe gave me for today:

it's relatively easy to come into contact with your true nature, the Self, and recognize it. I'm confident that with most people who are sincerely interested, I could help them find it in an hour or two, and if they're open, five minutes. But the trick is living from there permanently.

Apparently, for that to happen, "...the mind must immolate itself in total surrender to the deep undifferentiated state; to the Divine."

Sounds right.

Rock n' Roll

-I

Choke

I choke on my own spittle periodically. I wonder if that's like reverse drooling. Stealth drooling. Dangerous though because if you actually start choking, it's way more conspicuous.

Peanut Butter

08/14/08

That's the expiration date of the peanut butter my aunt found somewhere in the house. It has been opened previously. When my aunt heard the expiration date she said in a surprised and frightened voice, to throw it out. However, I was curious, what three to five year old peanut butter looked like, so I opened it up. Knife marks. No mold. As smooth and brown as the day it was made. I think I have to try eating it. First, because peanut butter is awesome. It shouldn't be wasted if it can be eaten. Second, because how else will I know if peanut butter keeps for two and a half years otherwise. Tomorrow, I begin the experiment.

A very Sad Love song

I haven't posted in a while. I've written posts, but I haven't put them up. Some of my posts may be better left to my private journals.

nonetheless, I feel like writing a little something, for the oceans of adoring fans.

Life goes on. These last few weeks, New Years, brought back memories of Dan. I often take the opportunity of new years to review the year. And this is the first new years without dan. How long has it been? It was may. I remember it because it was so close to my birthday. When I got back from my Survival Treck to that email, one of my thoughts, after the initial shock and lack of reality, was, "happy birthday dan."

I can, I am, going on without him, but what a poorer world for me. Dan was my closest friend. I know of no one who's primary interest is as closely aligned with mine. We were scientists, researchers on the frontier of enlightenment. That was both of our's fondest desire. We burned for it with an unquenchable desire that kept us up late into many a night, discussing pro's and con's of paths, helping each other through each hardship as it came, discussing each new horizon and discovery.

We had such different worlds, were such different people, and yet the core was the same, the exact same. With dan, there was no drama. There were no fights, little ego between us, even when there was plenty between the rest of the world. There was nothing we couldn't tell the other person. We were each other's spiritual coaches and cheerleaders. We told each other where they were getting stuck, and it was taken not as a personal affront, but as a gift, showing each other where the next step might be. It grew over time, like all relationships, but right from the beginning, there was a resonance that was explosive in it's power.

There is no way to decide to get and then create something like that kind of friendship. It is a total gift, a miracle. Dan and I both knew that something like what we had was not the norm. that almost everybody went through life without having a friendship like that. Dan thought it would last forever, and perhaps he's right. I couldn't bring myself to believe that, since I knew it might end some day, and didn't want to feel the crushing disappointment of broken promises. I never let myself believe it would go on forever. I hoped. I dearly hoped.

I so much want to grow old with you, dan. You are not replaceable. I suspect you will always be missed by me. Every time I think of you, I see what my life would look like now, with you. We had it all figured out. From now till we were old men chasing around the nurses and streaking through the old folks home, laughing our asses off. I cannot imagine that my life will be richer without you. Certainly, right now, it is poorer for your absence.

I would like to believe that God will look after me, and send me the people or the person that I need to make life feel full. But once again, I cannot bring myself to put my faith in that, for fear of the heartbreak of disappointment. Sixty years old and still alone, realizing God has failed to bring me my mate. Or sixty years old with someone I only like.

It haunts me, the question, "can I find someone who I resonate with as much as Dan?" It seems a daunting, impossible task. How the hell to I find them out? I can only imagine, at this point, this late in the game, most of them have already been taken, have already found a satisfactory partner, best friend.

I'm not gay, fyi, but, it feels like I've found the love of my life, and they've died. Not just died, but killed themselves. And I wasn't there for them. Maybe I could have stopped them, and I didn't know, didn't take it seriously enough.

I hate being right, sometimes. I'm good at looking at situations in a level-headed way, weighing possibilities, and coming up with the most likely outcomes. Like realizing me and dan might not be together forever. I never thought he'd kill himself. But I realized, maybe we'd move to separate places. Maybe our paths would diverge. It was not preferable, but that stuff happens, in life.

And so it happened. I'd say, "I told ya so." but there's no one to say it to.

And now I say, it's unlikely I'll find anyone I'm as close to as dan. Not impossible, but looking at the odds, even finding one person I matched with that well is an outlier. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just a hard person to get to know. Maybe if I meet more people, spend more time with people, I'll find another. But I look around at my friends...And I can't find one person or one pair, that had as much intimacy as me and dan.

I'm not being hyperbolic (not using hyperbole.) There is no one on earth who I feel closer to than dan.

There are oodles of people who've been fucked up by his suicide. I'm just one. But I honestly don't know if anyone has lost much more than I have. I don't even know if anyone has lost as much. His family? Maybe. They didn't have the same kind of relationship I did. They only occasionally had the same kind of conversations. And, though they are all healers in there own way, none of them had the same identical frequency.

His girlfriend? Maybe. She may be more fucked up by the suicide. She and him had broken up by then though. And even she sometimes said she envied our relationship.

Are you starting to get this? I'm not just being Byronian and twisted and tortured. I'm fucking FUCKED. I had a one in a million friend. A one in a million million. One in a million people is this close to you, and one in a million actually meet that one.

I had it and I lost it. I have failed in the most gargantuan way imaginable. I have epic failed. You have to work really damn hard to have enough stuff at stake that you can fail that hard and that massively.

I just want somebody, everybody, to fucking get up and salute me and say, yes, you really are a bigger failure than just about everyone else. You really screwed up, more massively than almost anybody else. Maybe it wasn't your fault, maybe it was. The bottom line is you lost many times more than most people ever lose in several lives.

What I'm trying to say here, what I'm trying to get across, is that I, Isaac, have lost something. I have lost something huge. I have lost more than you and you and you. I've lost more than most people ever loose.

So YES, I'M A BIT FUCKED UP RIGHT NOW. If you wouldn't mind giving me a hug or something, I fucking need it more than you know. And the fact than I feel totally meaningless, passionless, uncaring, and depressed, WELL, THAT'S FUCKING UNDERSTANDABLE. so no fucking surprise, I'm not over it yet. No surprise, if I never really get over it. Not unless dan comes back from the grave and goes for walk and talks with me once a week like old times.

I miss looking up at the stars and exclaiming in amazement at the vast and fabulous beyond description beauty of life, and talking in reverent tones about the deepest secrets of existence, with someone who's seen the same things my eyes see.

I really hope I am totally dead wrong. I really, really hope I find someone I'm even closer in spirit to than dan. Someone I can share the same night sky with. And talk with awe and reverence of the Great Mystery of Life, from our own experience of it.

You were such a bright burning star Dan. In all of my town, you shown brightly, turning heads. You gave life to the spiritual gatherings you attended, you attracted people with your wisdom and your humor and kindness. You helped many, many. so many have you helped. Perhaps there among them is someone, maybe, who you helped more than me. who's lost more than I have.

Eternity goes on. The great wheel turns. You'll have more chances to help. We, I hope, will have more nights to spend together. If I meet you up in heaven, I may slap you for your assholery. But then I will hug you, and we'll will catch up on all that we've missed of each others stories. Next time, come back as a fucking woman, and we won't have all these problems. eh, maybe we'd have more...

You've goddanm made my job way more difficult dan. you were supposed to be my support. and I was supposed to be yours.

I don't think people knew how close of a relationship we had, dan. Otherwise they might be more worried about me committing suicide too. Or else they just know me too well for that.

I don't want to let any of you worry, though. Suicide was never my thing. I came to that cliff long ago, and unlike dan, who looked down and said, "well, not now, but maybe later." I said, "that's not for me."

I've gone through more emotional pain than most people; it's one of the many things me and dan shared in common. If suicide was a viable option, I'd have been dead back when I was 14. The reason I'm not dead is I didn't believe it would solve my problems. That, and when I tried everything I could think of to get out of that emotional pain, something worked.

What worked? First, as an initial pick me up, meditation, and second, as a continuous crutch, a group of friends.

It scares me, how reliant on friends I feel. I am scared of the power they hold over me, angry sometimes. They have the sole power over my happiness. I don't have control. When I am lonely and miserable, I stay lonely and miserable, until a) some random amount of time has passed or b) I am with friends.

[Notes from the future: I'm leaving this untouched save spelling corrections. If you read this and feel offended, don't. This is just a record of my feelings, raw and uncensored in the heat of the moment, not an accurate statement of my general understanding and beliefs. I don't actually feel like I got the worst end of dan's suicide. I've got no way of telling how it affected other people and I don't care how I'd compare. What I was saying was evocative of how I was feeling in all it's pure, childlike, irrational intensity]

so sad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7kQN7tWFio

sad. lonely. Isolated. Miserable. Paradise, vacation. Dust and ash in my mouth.

I am depressed, and that sucks.

Away from my friends, I shrivel and die.

Family is no help. I feel judged, trying to interact with them. It hurts. I run away. In there eyes I see the incredible weight of the self criticism I level at myself constantly. The weight of it is crushing and extinguishes the light from my world and the joy from my heart. I see the beauty and recognize it but do not feel it. It is difficult if not impossible to do anything that requires any effort at all since I am so unhappy and dispassionate that I see no reason to put myself through further discomfort, since It will do nothing to make me happy in my heart. lies lies lies. I tell myself and it makes me miserable. things i do will make me happier. not actually deeply happy, but certainly superficially happy.

I don't care about that though. perhaps i should, in order to be functional in the world, but i don't. I want deep satisfaction and joy that touches the deepest part of my heart and remains there, or else it isn't interesting to me. I am deeply confused. I feel too incompetent to take care of my self. my best friend in the whole fucking world shot himself, blew his head off, with a shotgun. what the FUCK!!!!!!!????????!!!!!!!!!!1

fuck me, I am the most Byronian, unfortunate put upon fuck in my awareness. I roll in it like a pig in shit. I revel in being the most wretched. I feel darkly justified in suffering, in not caring about anything.

just another thought. zero truth to it.

yet it has such a powerful effect on my body, my feelings, my actions. wow.