Author: honeythatsok

Beautiful lazy days in Hawaii (on depression)

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I’ve been feeling like a phony lately. I can’t think of a life that could be more perfect than mine right now; summer in Hawaii, no schedule, I am saturated in love that spans half the globe. Sun, sand, ocean. No real worries, only an uncertain future (along with almost everyone else.) I can finally spend all my time writing, creating, watching movies, eat amazing food, learn new skills. Truly getting to know the incredible people in my life. Endless summer, extended holiday. It really couldn’t get any better (well, maybe if someone dumped a million dollars in my lap so I could continue doing exactly this forever) so why is my brain choosing this time to get so goddamn sad about everything? How I deal with depression. Depression and death are closely connected in my mind. I read that the thoughts you have on death and the inherent meaninglessness of life when you are depressed are false, but the cruel irony of depression is that those very thoughts will suddenly seem more genuine than …

Review: Spring Breakers (2012)

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Damn. So I just watched Spring Breakers and I was honestly expecting some version of ‘Disney Grows Up’ Bubblegum Movie with a Morality Lesson at the end. Now I wonder where the hell I got that idea. What I got was a highly stylized, gritty, glamorous, pornographic violence fantasy set an unlikely soundtrack. So I looked up the writer/director. Harmony Korine of Kids fame. Ok, I get it now. The universe has once again aligned. Now I expected to really not like the movie, so imagine my surprise when I did. The movie makes me sad, and I’m happy it makes me sad. The so-called glamour of collage kids gone wild is degrading to both women and men. Alcohol consumed with tubes, bikinis coming off, coke snorted off naked bodies. Beer bottles masquerading as penises and the girls can’t get enough. And that’s just the first minute or so. I am a HUGE sucker for unexpected contrast in films so that’s the main reason this movie appealed to me, even more so than the story, …

World Refugee Day 2013

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June 20 is World Refugee Day. This year a report from the UN’s Refugee Agency, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), says global forced displacement is at an 18-year high, with 45 million people displaced from their homes in 2012. That number includes the over 15 million refugees (people who have fled across borders) and almost 30 millions internally displaced people (IDPs) who were forced to flee their homes but remain in the country. More recent displacements from Syria are not part of this statistic so next year’s report is sure to look even grimmer.

The beginning is near

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This is such a fantastic picture – it really stirs the imagination and I’m obsessed with it. I love the idea of leaving behind the rubble and reaching for the stars. Very fitting sustainability wise, too. Is this the beginning or are we still in the dark ages of true human potential?

10 Steps to a Sustainable Life: Step 4 (Value experiences over material things)

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If I could sum up my master’s degree in sustainability in one word it would be “value”. The value of something is subjective and it means the importance we ascribe physical objects, experiences and even metaphysical undertakings such as learning and spirituality. For instance, I value my family more than anything, certainly more than to put a monetary value on it. I am sure you feel the same way about yours and the people in your life. But you don’t value my family as much as you do yours, and vice versa, so the concept of value is intangible and difficult to translate into a meaningful common reality. So we invented money to make it less confusing. The only problem is we took it too far and today anything can be ascribed a monetary value, including our ecosystem and life itself. When the monetary system was invented as we know it today we forgot to put a value on nature because at the time nature – air, water, soil, plants, forests and other natural resources …

Orwell and good in the land of the free

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Wow, a lot has happened to the stories we tell ourselves this past week! Another layer peeled from the onion that makes up our reality. I have to admit, I don’t pay too much attention to whistle-blower scandals but when journalists like Chris Hedges and the good people over at Truthdig flood their headlines with the name Edward Snowden I just have to know what the fuss is about. Turns out the fuss was pretty major. On June 8, Americans learned that the National Security Agency has been collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of the telecommunication giant Verizon. It was revealed that the NSA claims internally that it has been using a top-secret spying program called PRISM to gain direct access to personal data belonging to customers of top Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo. Those revelations came to us courtesy of 29-year-old Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who currently works for NSA outside defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. And as The Guardian noted, “Snowden will go …

A history of writing

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Hi everyone. This is going to be a more personal post where I talk about my purpose for blogging and how it has been going for me so far. I gave myself a year to figure out blogging in the public sphere and since I started in January, this month marks the six months mark of that year. I have been writing and blogging in some shape or form on the internet since I was 16. That’s when I discovered LiveJournal around 2000. It’s scary to realize that is almost half my life because it doesn’t feel that long ago! I also started posting at FanFiction.net around that time, and no, I will never in a million years reveal my username. At that time I barely had a grasp on the English language but for some reason that didn’t stop me from publishing my angst-filled work and even build a reader base. Ah, it truly was a more innocent time for the internets. The front page of LiveJournal looked like this:

A day in the life…

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… of the world’s most indignant bunny! We are currently in the process of switching from an all pellet-based diet to a healthy hay-based one. This is hunger strike day two and Bun is demonstrating here how absolutely inconsequential my existence is to his life. (When a bunny flops in front of you, he is either showing a) that he’s comfortable around you, or b) find your presence so insignificant that he’s going to goddamn flop anyway. It can be hard to tell the difference. Either way, it’s probably something you did and you should be feeling bad about it.)

March Against Monsanto: Hawaii (NO GMO)

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The global March Against Monsanto, a rally against genetically modified food, took place on May 25 in 52 countries and 436 cities across the world. I was in Waikiki, Hawaii. The energy was just incredible from the moment you joined the crowd. Among luxury retailers and immaculate sidewalks over 1000 protesters took over the busy street around noon on Saturday. It was hard to estimate the number of people until the rally started marching but I do think it was well over one thousand, ranging from adults, youths, kids and some people didn’t even let injuries stop them and came in wheelchairs. It was truly a Hawaiian celebration. Signs like ‘GMOs in Hawaii – we ain’t bout dat life!’, ‘Monsanto is not pono (right)’, and ‘protect our aina (land)’. Jerome James and Joel Spiral provided drums, music and slogans which turned the 90 minutes walk into a real party. If this is what the world looks like without GMOs, sign me up! Doing some in-the-streets activism with like-minded people was the perfect energy boost this …

Writers worth knowing: Chris Hedges

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Really great 30 minutes radio interview with Chris Hedges who has been my journalistic hero for quite some time now. Learn about his past and experiences that led to his current worldview of humanity in crisis. Once you start the journey to sustainability you will experience many stop-overs on just about every issue on the planet – from environmentalism, corporatism, politics, economy, philosophy, humanism, religion, and last but not least, an evaluation of personal beliefs. True sustainability cannot be “part” of all the other beliefs we hold – it has to encompass the whole damn thing. It means the planet’s ability to sustain life has to come before our own needs, and certainly before money. Chris Hedges is one of the few prolific journalists who is not afraid to speak the message “Let’s change or die“. He attacks the problem of injustice from multiple angles, and while most of his writing can be depressing and downright frightening, I always learn something new about what rings dangerously close to “the truth”. In this day and and age, …