If I go crazy will you still call me Superman?

Those of you that don't read comics may not be aware that Superman has recently rocked the comic world by turning in his US citizenship.

Why?

Because the world is smaller than it used to be. Because there is revolution and strife outside the United States that deserves attention. And because he's sick of being seen as a tool for US foreign polity.

This alien, the last son of a destroyed planet, who landed in Kansas, was raised by humans, and dedicated his life, and power, to saving humanity, but mostly Americans from various alien attacks and power grabs from megalomanic humans that wanted to be more than any human should be allowed to be.

And through it all he stated time and again that he fought for "truth, justice, and the American way".

But why?

Why is it in any way conceivable that this alien would put one nation on earth above all others, and use his might to preserve their place in the world? How, in his alien viewpoint could this nation be the greatest in the world and more deserving of his power than any other?

This is a question I've always asked myself about superman. Through the movies, the remake of the movie, Smallville, and the occasional glimpse of the comics, I've wondered why Martha and Jonathan Kent, who seem to be pretty grounded folks, would raise their alien son to be so short sighted about the world and encourage him to a tool for the government of a single country.

Why, when they knew the extent of his power, did his parents not encourage him to contact the UN and become a citizen of the world, as it were, rather than a citizen and tool for a single country?

With this latest story Superman steps back and becomes aware that there is so much more going on in the world that deserves his attention. He becomes aware of hundreds of thousands of protestors in the middle east peacefully taking a stand against the military while they cry out for social change.

And he made a choice to stand with them. For a whole day he took a stand for social change. Saying nothing, doing nothing, flowers laid at his feet, or being hit with fire, he stood and peacefully indicated his support for change. And the protest grew to the millions. All peacefully marching for change.

In that moment of peaceful protest he saw the world, and realised it was so much smaller than it had ever been.

And he was right.

This world we live in is rapidly outgrowing it's borders. While governments strive to keep their countries easily identifiable as THEIR countries, be they the strongest or weakest, richest or poorest, the citizens of the world are reaching out to each other. Through floods, earthquakes, tsunami, social change, peaceful protest, humanity communicates to each other through social media to send prayers and support.

Every day I communicate with people from around the globe. A concept that was totally alien 50 years ago. I can pick up my phone and find out what someone is having for breakfast in Tokyo, or what the weather is like in Sweden. I can send messages of support to student protesters in Egypt or prayers to those impacted by earthquakes in Japan. I can touch the lives, for a moment, of people thousands of kilometres away from me with ease and while I do this I give no thought to the policies of their governments or the borders that divide us.

And that is what the future should be.

As shown by the amazing writers of Superman we should all strive to be more than citizens of France, Australia, Japan, England or the USA. We should strive to see ourselves as citizens of the world. Representatives of humanity. We are a greater force than one country, we are a united people who want a greater place for future generations.

We seek to be one, as shown by the increasing use of sites like Twitter which we use to communicate globally, not just to people in our backyard.

The hope for the future of this planet, and the people living on it, is that we can step outside our national interests and make global changes to improve this planet for the people that live here. Environmental change, and social change, to give future generations a more stable future not rocked by war.

Some folks will see the latest Superman to be an attack on Americana. A change that will sully his past, and ruin his future. But to me this comic is a dramatic and beautiful message that we can all be better people. We can all see beyond our own borders and do more for the world if we see the bigger picture.

This is a message that should go beyond the covers of this book, be placed on billboards around the world, as a sign that if this great American icon can see beyond the red, white and blue, we all have the power to do the same.

Lucky 13

Thirteen has always been my lucky number. Therefore, without jinxing it, I'm hoping 2013 will be my lucky year.

Because this is going to be my lucky year, I'm going to set myself some goals. Not new years resolutions, just things I'd like to do this year, things to work towards, things I'd like to achieve.

1. I'd like to not give up on this list at the end of the month, as I do.

I'm flighty. Very flighty. I get distracted and bored easily and let myself give up on things. This is the year of will power and getting past my willingness to give up easily.

2. Saving money.

It's always a thing I'd like to achieve, but this year I'm going to do it, come what may. In order to get Americo here in this country I need to have it. I have to pay off my personal loan, and get $5000 in the bank. I've budgeted it out and in theory I can get one of these done by the end of the year. If one of these two things is going to come first, it's going to be Americo. And so, saving. In two weeks I'll be at savings goal number one with a little help of my leave bonus. now to resist new shoes.

3. Fiance visa.

The "why they hell has it taken 6 years" visa. The "I don't know how you do it" visa. The "you guys are so patient" visa.

I don't have answers for you about the above things people say. But enough is enough. Our 6 year anniversary is in August, and hell or high water I will have enough in savings to apply for a visa by our 5 year anniversary. Sacrifices will be made.
HOLY FUCK I just realised our 6 year anniversary is in August. Excuse me while I try to figure out why it's taken this long.

4. Exercising.

I want to commit. I'm not good at it. Any slight distraction, flu, weekend, holiday, I give up. I want to do it this year. I want to be able to do pull-ups, and dips, and free lift weights. I want to be powerful.

There are other things I'd like to do. I'd like a new job, but on the flip side of that coin, I'd also like to achieve certain work things that I can't do if I change jobs. It's an idea that I've been struggling with since I was at an interview on Friday. I want to be able to leave my current position saying I achieved all the things I set out to do when I got the job 5 years ago. I haven't done all those things yet. I'm committed to making that happen. But on the other side of that coin, I'm exhausted. It's been a hard 5 years.

It's all a bit premature, the speculation, I don't even know if I have the job, I won't know for two weeks. Speculating seems to be very close to jinxing myself so I guess I should shut up.

I'm writing this all down to make myself accountable. Feel free to pressure or remind me on occasion, I could really use the help.

The Human Condition

As a group humanity is often known for violence, water, inequality, death, disease, bad politics, and all the hateful debate that comes with those topics.

They're important topics that need to be discussed, but today you should think about this:

Professional surgeons operate for, at times, over 18 and 24 hours at a stretch. They do that after years of punishing study. Years of being short of sleep and overworked. They do that for you.

Man landed on the moon. With less computing power than your iPhone they put three guys in a rocket, sent them into space, and landed on another heavenly body. They left this planet and put their foot prints in space. Somewhere that no other human had ever been. With less power than your iPhone. They did that for you.

There are people, right now, orbiting the earth and learning ways to progress the future of humanity in space. And they're having twitter conversations with Captain Kirk. And also doing science that nobody has ever done. They're changing the face of the world. They're changing the future of more specialities than I can possibly list. They do that for you.

We invented antibiotics, computers, twitter, google, facebook, cars, phones, TV's and virtual streaming of data from one device to the other. We can fix broken legs, put cancer into remission, we can break a persons legs and fix them so they grow a couple of inches. We can give the deaf sound and we're working on the bionic eye so the blind can see. We can build scaffolding to rebuild internal organs to extend human life.

We, humanity, perform amazing miracles every day. We change the future of the world and the human race by reaching beyond ourselves and wanting to give more than we take.

We are amazing.

And, just so you know, YOU are amazing.

The soundtrack to my life

In 1994 a guy I was involved with went to see a band he liked called Pearl Jam. He asked me to go, but my fear of crowds made me stay at home, but when I saw him the next day he played me their album, Ten, and I just though "fuck this is great" but didn't really get hugely into it, they didn't change my life or anything.

Cut to maybe three years later and I was in this relationship with a guy who smacked me around some. A friend decided I need a wake up call and made me a mix-tape of various "fuck that dude" songs, including Pearl Jam's Better Man (repeated a lot).

That did change my life. 

I walked away from the relationship because of my friend, and because I knew I did, in fact, deserve a better man. 

Years later I received apologies in the mail in the form of handwritten letters of nothing but the lyrics to Black. 

And when I was 19, maybe 20, I finally decided to let my dad know what he meant in my life. I gave him a mixed 'tape' of my own, a CD containing Daughter, and photos of me growing up, all the moments he'd missed in my life.

Every moment of my life where I stopped, and made a choice, and decided my future went there was to a sound track provided by Pearl Jam.

The great moments, the terrible ones, the days of my early 20's where I locked myself in the bathroom and played those songs over and over again until I could find a place where I didn't want to give up. All of it is tied to this band, these songs, these moments that I used to remember and cry, but now, I can smile fondly at these moments that changed my life.

These songs that took me from one place to another, these songs helped me sleep, helped me have the confidence to get off the plane, these songs take me through the last 2km of my workout, they take me away from the awful days at work as I crank them up to 20 backing out of the car park and sing along at the top of my lungs and everything is ok.

My adult life, who I am, what I want to be, has been defined by the memories that have Pearl Jam playing in the background.

I don't know when these men were born, where they live, what they do when they're not being Pearl Jam, but if I could meet anyone in the world, it'd be these dudes that changed the course of my life, just by doing what they love so much.

I'm a better person 'cause of the memories made to your music.

I am mine

I turn 33 tomorrow. It's nothing spectacular, it's not a land mark, it's really just another day in which I grow older, and I hope, wiser.

Since I celebrated my last birthday my life has been pretty fucking good.

On my 32nd birthday, for the first time in our three year relationship, my fiance and I celebrated my birthday together. We spent 3 months living together in the same house, and it was pretty good.

I got an incredible promotion, which was recognition for two years of hard work and for years of public service, which I'm incredibly proud of.

And I got to take long service leave, a reward for my eight and a half years of serving the public. I got to spend three months living in San Francisco, experiencing a whole other life of pleasure, relaxation, and getting to know the life my fiance lives.

The greatest thing I've gotten out of the last 12 months, though, is the sense of self that I've been trying to develop over the years since my separation and divorce. And I've decided I'm pretty awesome, and more than that, I can say "I am mine" with delight and pride.

I am strong. I am self aware. I am me.

Body Image Gone Wrong

Body dysmorphic disorder, as defined in this study by the British Journal of Psychiatry, consists of a preoccupation with an ‘imagined’ defect in appearance which causes significant distress or impairment in functioning.

Wikipedia has a slightly looser definition, which coincides with the view of my former psychologist and friend, who is intensely concerned with the increasing rate of body obsession in young people today. And by young I mean starting as young as 4 and 5 years old.

Wiki defines in this way:

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) (previously known as dysmorphophobia is sometimes referred to as body dysmorphia or dysmorphic syndrome is a psychological disorder in which the affected person is excessively concerned about and preoccupied by a perceived defect in his or her physical features (body image).

A person suffering from BDD could regularly complain about one, or a range, or features about themselves and will often become so obsessed that it starts to impact on them socially. They may feel uncomfortable going to work, or school. They may constantly obsess on their physical shape. In some cases what can appear in the beginning as BDD can transform into a greater over all body obsession, eventually turning into Anorexia Nervosa.

While in its technical definition BDD is only ‘real’ when there is clear evidence of the obsession impacting socially or physically, it is becoming apparent that there is an ongoing and dangerous obsession with body image throughout the western world that is having an enormous impact on young people.

In this article (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mom-year-daughter-botox-young-young/story?id=13580804) from abcnews.com a mother gives her 8 year old daughter Botox, and she’s happy to receive it because she perceives that she has wrinkles that are corrected via her Botox injections. And 8 year old believes that she needs Botox to smooth out the lines in her face.

An 8 year old.

I had coffee one day with a dear friend and her 4 year old girl. Mummy asked her little girl if she’d like a babycino and the dear little sweetheart said “no mummy milk makes you fat”. It was just heartbreaking. Some folks will say she was just mimicking her mother, and they’d be right, but does that make it any less horrifying? She had heard her mum say that time and again, and made a strong connection to it. At 4 she had made the connection to drinking milk, turning fat, and that being bad. To the point she’d miss out on a previously loved treat for the fear of getting fat.

A 4 year old.

This is the horrifying reality of the world we live in and its dangerous obsession with body size.

Every day people see images in magazines and on the television that project a totally unrealistic body shape and size. A body gained, generally speaking, through a very strict diet and many hours of exercise with a personal trainer. Something the average Joe can’t afford to do around work and family.

Every day the news, in a variety of formats, tells us that eating this will make us fat. Eating that will give us cancer. We’re constantly bombarded with how the evil fat is ruining not only our lives, but the lives of friends and family who have to live with this dreadful awful imposition that is being overweight. And in addition to the evils of fat we constantly have affirmed that wrinkles and getting old are a fate worse than death. So is dry skin, boring flat hair, freckles and pale skin. Get tanned, get toned, cover those flaws in your skin, and give your lifeless hair body. Every part of our bodies is critiqued and analysed with solutions being offered by magazines and cosmetic companies until we can be assured that if we use X moisturiser we’ll be as gorgeous as the models that grace the covers of our favourites magazines.

The result of this never ending focus on how you look and the fact that no matter what you do you’re just not good enough is resulting in babies believing they need to avoid dairy and making children that should be playing in the mud believe that they need a toxic poison injected into their face.

And so much more.

The instances of eating disorders in young women, and lately more young men, is rising very rapidly. In a study in Victoria (http://www.eatingdisorders.org.au/media/key-statistics.html) it was found that a very alarming 1 in 10 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 exhibited symptoms of a serious eating disorder.

And worse, a 2005 study commissioned by Dove, surveyed 3,300 girls and women between the ages of 15 and 64 in 10 countries. They found that 90% of all women aged 15 to 64 worldwide want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance, with body weight ranking the highest.

90% of women were dissatisfied with their bodies and wanted to change something about themselves.

In the spirit of this topic I must confess that I’m one of the 90%. When I sit down and think about it I have a laundry list of things that I’d like to change about myself. I’d like to be healthier, I wouldn’t mind being a bit smaller, I’d really like my calves to fit into normal size knee high boots, and I wish my finger nails didn’t break all the time.

The thing I like about me, though, is that I have to force myself to sit down and think about these ‘faults’. Day to day when I get ready for work in the morning I look in the mirror and I like what I see. I know my size, I know my ‘faults’ and I think they add overall to the greatness that is me. Most women think about and obsess on those things about themselves they don’t like, and it becomes something to focus on, work on, change.

I should acknowledge, however, how long it took me to get to this place where I’m happy with me and my body (for the most part).

As 16 I was a compulsive eater, in that I watched every tiny bit of food that went into my mouth. This was the start of my eating disorder. From about 12 I started to be a curvy girl. I got hips and tits pretty early and it was a source of amusement for those I went to school with. Although I was a tiny size 6, my busting boobs would cause quite the stir with the fellows, and made the girls quite catty. As a result of constant mocking about my size I decided to fix it by not eating unless forced. I’d have breakfast with my mum watching, and dinner when forced, and nothing in-between. And I’d drink enough water to drown a small child. The result was a gradual loss in body size, and a reduction in both hips and tits. My weight at this time was about 50kg or 100lbs.

At 17 I met up with a boy who quite liked my tiny frame, and we moved in together. Working in a lolly shop and eating out quite regularly, as well as a feeling of safety and contentment lead me to gain a wee bit of weight back. Boyfriend did not like that and teased me about being chubby. The result? Living on jelly beans and obsessively exercising until the weight again plummeted. This time to just under 45kg or about 90lbs. You could see my ribs, my collar bones, and my hips jutting out of my body.

And it was awful and I hated myself.

At 33 I have only just found the self-awareness and strength to understand that my body, flaws and all, doesn’t define me. I’ve discovered many great things about myself that have nothing to do with my appearance, and with that understanding have come to learn that what I look like, weak nails, lifeless hair, big thighs, bad skin, it has nothing to do with what kind of person I am. And that allows me to read through a beauty magazine and not feel self-loathing. Instead I feel anger and disgust that we, as a society, can allow these all pervasive messages of ‘you’re not good enough’ to impact our tweens and children to the point of them adopting harmful diet practices and injecting themselves with toxic poison.

I look through the latest celebrity trash mag and feel sad for the people whose job it is to write about Jennifer Aniston’s latest diet secret, and the 10 ways to get smaller thighs. And I feel worse for the ladies that read it and feel like it’s oh so important that they must work on having smaller thighs to feel better about themselves.

Or must know the 20 ways to get better skin.

Or the best tips for better hair.

Because at the end of the day, what does it matter what your hair looks like, or how your manicure is, if you can think about yourself, what you do, what you give to the world, and know for sure that it’s far more important that the way your skin looks.

So the question is, what can we do, as people, to try and combat this world we’ve made for ourselves? How do we teach kids to feel better about themselves in a body obsessed society? How do we fix this? What can you do to stop this malicious trend of self-loathing that is becoming a dangerous disease impacting children and young people world over?

For a start, look in the mirror and instead of listing your flaws, how about you just say “fuck I’m awesome” and walk away just feeling good about yourself. It’ll change your life.