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There is one question that I can’t get over. I can’t approach it, and I can’t get any sort of hold on it. I can’t even begin to imagine the correct answer. Where does Space expand to? That’s what they say; Space is still expanding, but what it expanding to? Even if it doesn’t expand, what holds Space? What’s behind the edge of the Space? If it doesn’t have an edge, what shape is it? How could something not have limits, and if it does have limits, what limits the thing that limits space?

There are plenty of things that we don’t fully understand. Dying, soul, ghosts, life after death, concept of God, meaning of life, but all of this is easy stuff compared to that one question, and the annoying thing about Space is that we KNOW it exists. We can’t just ignore it and explain it away as old women’s stories and superstition. It’s there, and it must end somewhere, because that’s the way we have learned to understand the world, there’s an end to all of this. Resources are limited. Things can be worn out. Not Space though… It’s sitting there in it’s unlimited vastness, and I can’t even begin to guess… The meaning of life has a possible answer, easy stuff, but space… The limits or the lack of limits of Space… And what comes after Space?

I hate not to have an answer.

The following is a response to a post at http://redcardigan.blogspot.com/2010/06/love-casts-out-fear.html and was intended as a comment but turned out to be too long for the form to accept.

I find these sort of articles interesting, as before I started reading what other people thought about the chilfree, it never even crossed my mind that someone would consider it odd or “unusual”. I crew up in a comparatively religious (evangelic Lutheran) family, but my parents were the odd ones out as they had children. Their combined 5 siblings were either childless, childless by choice or married so late in life that the ship simply sailed.

I am a married childless by choice woman. I knew at the age of 6 that I didn’t want children. FEAR had NOTHING to do with it, I just know I don’t want to. SELFISHNESS has nothing to do with it, but my view of the spiritual truth of the universe (can’t really call it religious as I don’t belong to any organized religion anymore) has a part to play. I believe that a child is a gift to his parents, but I also believe that “the gift of life” is no gift to the child itself. The value of life, I feel, is highly exaggerated. I often feel I’d rather have not been born at all, even though I have had a pretty happy life. In a way, I love my children too much to give them birth.

As for my marriage, I really don’t understand why I would need children to validate it. I don’t care if other people don’t take my marriage seriously because I don’t have children.  It’s none of their business, it’s between me and my husband. We wanted companionship of a person who is already sentenced to life on planet Earth, without the need to add more prisoners just to make ourselves feel better about life. From this point of view, I think parents are often incredibly selfish, not the child-free. Children are born because the parents need something to validate themselves, give a purpose to their lives, they have a need to nurture and feel love and what not. Where does the child’s needs come to play? In the best case scenario the child comes through it happy and contempt, and the arrangement is mutually beneficial, but that is not always the case, not even if the parents are the best in the world.

Fear is a big factor in having children as well as not having them. Fear, in general, is people’s highest motivator. For parents to be there are the following motivations, of the top of my head:

- Fear of not having someone take care of them in old age.

- Fear of ending up alone.

- Fear of marriage breakdown. (Same as with CF, but for different reason. Yes, CF people get divorced easier, but that has nothing to do with the assumption that parents bond better. There are tons of unhappy parents that stay together “for the sake of the children”. Studies also show that children make their parents unhappier, not happier, but less likely to file for divorce. Children are the true ball in the chain of marriage.

- Fear of not fitting in with society or circle of friends.

- Fear of God. (Usually deemed a good thing, but I wonder what kind of God rules with fear.)

- Fear of being forgotten.

- Fear that you’ll regret it later.

- Fear of upsetting their parents, who are dying for grand children to tote on. (Think about yourself, if you were catholic and simply didn’t want children – how would that go down? Isn’t it likely that you would cave to pressure?)

- The fear of being labelled selfish.

And the list goes on.

As for the child free, one of the high motivations you didn’t mention is environmental reasons. Every child that you have, increases your carbon footprint by 5.7, I read today somewhere else. Over population is starting to be a problem, and will only get worse. We don’t want to add to that. Also, many of us want to serve the society through voluntary work or other means, feeling that we have more value to other people (who are already here!) that way, rather than create someone to take care off.

The bottom line for both groups though is the answer to this simple question: Do you want them or not? Whatever fears we might have are really reflected on that one question. It becomes complicated if you simply don’t know the answer, or don’t know if your answer is socially acceptable or not…

Often when we set out to loose weight, what ever the method we choose, we use terms like “whipping myself” into it. I think it’s often seen as a punishment to your body for becoming fat. Now it has to pay for it. However, your body never asked to be fat, nor did it ask for that pizza you ate. If you want to blame a body part for your weight, blame your mouth. It can have some pretty counter productive suggestions as to what you should eat.

When you set out to become lean again, (I’d rather you’d want to become lean instead of thin, as that’s a healthier approach) tell your body that you’re going to pay back all the lard you made it store, all the sugars you made it process, for all the high calorie foods that you pushed down your throat never giving your body enough nutrients to maintain itself. Admit you haven’t been a very good friend to your body, that only wants to keep you alive and take your mind/brain to places where it’s needed. Your body is your servant, and you have been a horrible employer to it, paying it with rubbish forcing it to work for pennies. Pennies, in this case, being the poor substitute for nutrition you’ve given it.

If you differentiate yourself from your body, you will not feel quite as hostile towards it as you would if you say “I’m fat”. It’s your body that is fat, not you. You have a fat body. Your servant is fat, because you made it so. You have the power to become a good employer again, and make your body happy to be serving you. And, then, when you grave for that chocolate cake – and who doesn’t – you can have a piece every now and then and your body will clean it up for you – but you have to give it enough to work with! Being healthy and lean doesn’t mean your mouth will never be happy again, in fact, you can retrain your mouth to enjoy healthy food but  you can’t make your body thrive on the unhealthy.

I know you’ve got a lot of love to give – give some of it to your body and treat it fair!

Imagine this… At a BBQ out at a friends place, a mother is looking at the playing kids in the garden and making conversation:

Mother: So, do you have kids?
Woman: Oh no, not us.
Mother: Oh I’m sorry.
Woman: No need, we’re childless by choice.
Mother: Childless by choice? Isn’t that a bit selfish?
Woman: Oh, so you adopted yours?
Mother: Oh no, why would you say that? They’re all ours.
Woman: I was just wondering, since you called me selfish – so you didn’t want yours?
Mother: What ever do you mean? Of course I wanted mine! I love them!
Woman: Oh then it must be your superior genes that will enhance the gene pool of the man kind?
Mother: What must be? What do my genes have to do with this? I have my health problems just as anyone else!
Woman: Well, do enlighten me, if you wanted yours, you weren’t pushed into it by someone else and you deliberately planned your children, but not for the genetic good of mankind, then how does that make you self-sacrificing enough for you to call me selfish even though you don’t have the foggiest idea about my motivations or how I spend my days?
Mother: Oh well, I don’t know if selfish is the right word, but I mean I wanted to offer a child a happy a loving home, and I spend my days nurturing the children and making sure they’ll have a good life – that’s what I mean.
Woman: But you didn’t offer a home to a child. You WANTED a child because you had the NEED to nurture, and you CREATED a life despite the fact there are a multitude of children who already were here living in poverty or neglected and mistreated, who needed homes and love, but since you WANTED a CHILD OF YOUR OWN genetic make-up, you created one, despite over-crowding, despite the fact each extra person on the planet is an ecological disaster, despite the possibility that your child will not be happy with you, because you wanted one and pompously decided that any child should be happy to be your kid. Then, you decided to repeat the process. Now, I don’t have a problem with that, but don’t you dare call me selfish.

This conversation is fictional, but the fact that childfree people are labelled selfish just because, isn’t.

A few months back my husband attended a business productivity seminar of some sort, and was inspired by a speaker who talked about healthy living habits, including sleeping with the Sun. We agreed that we’ll try out all of that healthy bullshit, even though we’ve never had terrible habits, there was clearly room for improvement. We made complete overhaul to our diet based on Donna Aston’s books (lots of real food, very limited processed foods.) We started drinking water, and to go to bed at 11 the latest and get up early. We introduced each change at a different time, and while I could clearly see the advantage of the water drinking as well as eating well, (I lost all my excess fat and no muscle!) I cannot say the same about the sleeping thing.

We lost the sleeping rhythm for a few weeks and yesterday my husband, for whom the sleeping thing works like magic, announced that we’re going to bed early  again as he needs the extra energy for the week that he’s alone at work while his brother is away. So we went to bed around 11 and got up earlier, I don’t know when he got up, but I got up after 9, which should be more than enough sleep. At noon, I’m like death warmed up. I can’t think, my brain feels like it was full of fizzy water, I’m cold, and my face is tired. I don’t know if you identify, it’s like the whole thinking part of the brain would be grasped in this tiredness that radiates into the face. On Saturday night I went to bed at 2 am and got up around 10. 8 hours. In the afternoon, I felt pleasantly snoozy, but nowhere near as tired as I feel now. The snooziness, I believe, was because I hadn’t drank enough water too, not for the lack of sleep. This is the way I felt the last time we tried this, while my husband was clearly invigorated and looked about 10 years younger than normal.

Now, I’m going to test this sleeping thing for the week. I’m going to stop doing anything exciting an hour before bed time (at ten that is) and maybe have a glass of warm milk – I’ll have to mix it with chocolate, as I can’t stand the thought of warm milk alone – and do the whole bed time thing by the book.  I’ll see once and for all if this has any effect, and if, in fact, I can get up after 8 hours feeling as if I’d slept enough. Although, some say women need 9 hours instead of 8 hours… Oh well, I’m going to write down my exact hours too, and report to you later. Damned, I do need a half an hour snooze today or I won’t survive. I HATE being tired!!

Sarcasm is a type of humour that can be used to insult or ridicule a person or an institution who is present or absent in the situation. Directly spoken to the object of insult, sarcasm is rather lowly rated form of “humour” ie. “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm”, but used properly, it can be hilarious. Many stand up comedians use sarcasm to a great success.

In a normal situation, sarcasm is a phrase that the person saying assumes nobody in their right mind would take it seriously. Some nationalities use different tone of voice (Americans) to emphasis that they are using sarcasm, some don’t, like the British, who can say pretty much anything with a straight face. Not emphasising sarcasm can be dangerous, as it can be taken seriously, as states this story about two mothers who were appalled by being told by an UK bus driver to stop having kids. I wasn’t present of course, but I would imagine that what the bus driver intended to say is: “The company policy is crap for mums, and if you want to have easy time using buses, you’re better off not having children with you.” Instead he opted out saying: “I’d stop having kids if I were you.” probably not expecting anyone to take him seriously enough to be offended by his remark.

When the person who hears the sarcasm has a different experience base to the one doing the joking, she or he can interpret sarcasm as a serious sentence, especially when no tone of voice emphasis is applied. In the case of the mommies, they have probably heard or read about childfree people who are dead serious when they say people should THINK before they have children. Maybe they’ve even run onto someone who seriously hated children.

Sometimes, people have such a low opinion of other people, that they’ll believe people can say absolutely anything and mean it. While most of us would instantly interpret “Sure I like children, I have them grilled and eat them with a lot of gravy” as a sarcastic comment, some would actually take it seriously and think you really do eat children. Sarcasm is handled in the right parahippocampal gyrus of the brain, and brain damage to this area will result into hardship in understanding sarcasm. Also dementia and autism can cause troubles understanding sarcasm. The good news is, that the sarcastic people can use this when insulting someone who didn’t get their first joke: “Do you have damaged brain or what?” but if the listener actually has a brain damage, they might just respond: “Yes, I do, how did you know?”

Sarcasm is often lost in inter-cultural speech as well, when the other party has low English skills or doesn’t understand the culture where the other party is coming from. Sarcasm is pretty useless between a Finn and an Indian for example, as neither one has much of a clue about the other one’s culture, so much that eating children might actually be a possibility for all they know. Some languages have “sarcasm marks” that are used similarly to the question mark and exclamation mark, and naturally them lacking in the English language will make it difficult for these people to get sarcasm in the written English language.

The next time you feel like saying: “you didn’t just say that?!” try “was that intended sarcastic?” instead before getting utterly insulted.

A deco is a small booklet that is made normal envelope size (or smaller) enabling it to be sent through mail from one person to the next. Each person who receives it, decorates one page and sends it to the next person. When the booklet is filled up, the last person sends it back to the person who started it or to whom it was created for. Take a look at this fantastic artistry, this deco is one of the best I’ve ever seen, I really truly loved it!

I wish there was more email addresses in the booklet, but if the artists ever google their own names, chances are they’ll find here.