Your Favourite Quote

This is a hard one, mostly because I love so many quotes. I collect them in files on my computer, although I hardly ever use them…I like finding little inspirational nuggets in small amounts of text, I suppose. I find the following three quotes especially touching.

"...if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts." ~Anna Karenina

This quote reminds me that there is no right way to think, or act, or love. We are all different, unique, but still so similar. When I read Anna Karenina, I literally stopped and wrote this down because I found it profoundly touching, the recognition that we all think and love a little bit differently, and that’s ok.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." ~Nelson Mandela

Nelson was such an amazing man. I constantly force myself to face my fears, knowing that good things will come from it. Even when I’m afraid to put myself in certain positions, I almost always tell myself to get on with it. After the first steps, it’s always easier and you almost always get something good out of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Thanks for that reminder, Nelson!

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~Harold Whitman

This goes hand in hand with the courage quote. It can be hard to tune out the noise of the world telling you what you SHOULD do, instead doing what you WANT to do, in terms of job options and opportunities. Don’t be afraid to do what you love, it seems like the people who are infinitely more satisfied with their jobs are those that love what they do. I’m still working on getting there, piecing together the puzzle of what I really love and what makes me come alive, but I know that it’s getting closer.

And at that I’ll leave you. I went to Puebla today for work and I’m exhausted and slightly brain dead. I hope this helps you remember some of your own favourite quotes.

Kim x

Comfort Foods

I love food. I really do. I love trying new foods and cooking new foods and eating new foods. But there are definitely a few choice meals or food items that I tend to whip up or go out and buy when I need that special comfort that only a familiar, long-loved, or uniquely flavoured dish can provide. Obviously, this is dependent on mood, location, and availability. Sometimes you need to get creative to create a familiar comfort food, and sometimes you just have to go without and try to find a replacement. One of those downsides to living overseas, unfortunately. Certain things are just NOT the same or NOT available outside their country of origin. Peanut butter in Europe is so NOT the same. The mangoes, papaya and coconuts in Mexico are 1,000,000 times better here than in the US or Europe. The Bread in Mexico is so lacking in the French bakery tradition that is available all over Europe. And my beloved Wheat Thins are sadly only available in the USA, but somehow Ritz have made the leap into both Mexico and the UK…I don’t understand. Mmmm now I want some Wheat Thins…But I digress…

So, comforting foods. Many of these are from my childhood/life at home with my family.

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese. Baked in the oven, no creamy cheese sauce or breadcrumb topping here. Just noodles, a few different cheeses, salt and pepper, baked until the top is crispy and the insides are gooey. Usually served with a sizzling baked bit of kielbasa and some mustard on the side. YUM! Just like my Mom makes. This is my favourite way to have macaroni and cheese and I make it a lot during the cold Edinburgh winters.

Pizza. I’m sure you all know that my Dad has to have his homemade (sometimes ordered in) pizza every Friday. I can’t handle it every Friday, but sometimes I really crave a good homemade or restaurant pizza, and I’m sure I can thank Dad for that one. Although I prefer my pizza topped with loads of veggies and no meat, maybe getting crazy with some caramelized onions, butternut squash and blue cheese, which is where Dad and I differ.

Grandma’s Spring Rolls. Something my Grandma Sigmund always made, a recipe I believe she picked up in Asia when she lived overseas. I prefer my spring rolls baked, the way my Mom always made them, as opposed to Grandma’s penchant for frying them, but the filling of spicy sausage, Chinese cabbage, bean sprouts, soy sauce and fish sauce is always the same. This is one of those things that makes me re-think my newly minted vegetarianism…

Homemade potato bread. Also a Grandma and Mom-thing. SO flipping delicious you wouldn’t believe it. Toasted with butter or peanut butter, it’s the best breakfast or snack ever!

Mjaddara. This is courtesy of my lovely friend Yara, a Lebanese comfort food that she made for us once when we lived together in Edinburgh, which I love to make and eat in the winter. Lentils and rice cooked together with sautéed onions, cumin, salt and pepper. Topped with more sautéed or fried onions, served with labneh (Lebanese strained yogurt) and a salad of cabbage and tomatoes dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. It is amazingly delicious, and a great contrast with the salad.

Banana Bread or Carrot Cake. I stopped eating sugar back in September, now only eating it once every blue moon. But if there is ever a crap day where I feel the need for some sugary comfort, I’m usually craving a good carrot cake with cream cheese frosting or a warm banana bread with chocolate chips. Also childhood favourites that have stuck with me through the years, and carrot cake is almost always my birthday cake of choice.

So there you go. Many of these foods are family faves. It’s funny how certain things and tastes we have never change over time, while others do. And certain foods can bring you back to a different time and place, usually with happy memories attached. Which is probably part of the reason they are called ‘comfort foods’ (although I think the direct correlation of carbohydrate to comfort must be scientific fact). The funny thing is, I have not been able to make almost all of these items during my time in Mexico. I have no oven in my flat here (I know, it’s ludicrous!) so Mjaddara, made on the stovetop is the only homemade comfort food I have. The sacrifices we make for fieldwork…

All I can say is that I am definitely looking forward to some of these foods when I go back to Cali for my short layover before heading back to Scotland…Hint, hint Mom and Dad. ;-) 

Kim x

Discuss some of the things on your bucket list

I’ve never actually written a bucket list. There are things I know I want to do in my life, but I never physically sat down to write them. So I guess this is my chance!

I want to:

1     1. Live in at least 3 more countries

2     2. Become fluent in Spanish

3     3. Skydive

4     4. Do a road trip across the USA

5     5. Write a book (and be published)

6     6. Visit every continent (sans Antarctica. I’m not bothered with that one)

       7. Go into Space

Those are the major ones I can think of just now. I’m sure you can’t help but notice how dominated my list is by travel and travel-related items. I can’t help it, it is who I am. Haha! So, notes for discussion:

I discussed before my desire to live in a few more countries. I want to really experience a few places, and I feel like you need extended amounts of time in a country to really understand the culture and the lifestyle. So, I might as well live in a few more places and (hopefully) get paid for it instead of doing extended vacations. Unless I win the super-billions-lottery, in which case I’m sure I won’t care about not working.

Spanish fluency is something that I really, really want now. As I get closer to leaving Mexico and my Spanish is good, but stuck in a rut since I don’t have much time for learning new things. I tend to just practice what I know, sloooowly getting better. I know I’ll need a longer period of time in a Spanish speaking country to gain fluency. Another reason for #1 on this list.

Skydiving just looks really cool. Waaay better than bungee jumping!

Road trips are fun. And I haven’t seen SO much of the USA. I love to visit new places, but haven’t had the chance/time/inclination to visit so much of my own country. Yellowstone National Park, Mount Rushmore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Niagara Falls, Boston, Washington D.C., Savannah, New Orleans, some bits of Texas (Hi Aunt Kathie!), etc. And so many places I don’t remember/remember well and would love to see again, like the Grand Canyon, St. Louis, and Charleston. I need a car, a playlist and a buddy, and I’ll be good to go!

Well, I do love to write. And I have a few random thoughts and treads of ideas for novels. Hopefully one day, after the dreaded thesis is FAR behind me, I’ll be able to sit down and focus on writing something non-anthropological and fun! I really look forward to stretching my creative muscles some more!

Visit every continent. Like a road trip across the planet. Except probably spread out over many years. I have been to North America, Europe, and Africa, but there is still so much to see and do! Next I have my sights set on Asia, hopefully at the end of 2015 as a graduation present to myself…

Who DOESN’T want to visit space?!?! It is such a fantastically unknown, scary, yet temping place. To see the planet from SPACE, the stars, the unfathomable void, to experience weightlessness, complete silence and the knowledge that outside your bubble of a spaceship there is no physical way you can survive. What a humbling, beautiful, life-changing experience. Thanks to Sir Richard Branson I might get to do this sooner rather than later. Woo-hoo for Virgin Galactic!

So that’s it for now. I’m sure there are more bucket-list type things that I’ll come up with as I go along, like learning to make my own puff pastry or something ridiculous like that. But the aforementioned are the big ones, the ones I think about often enough to have on the tip of my tongue.

Until tomorrow,

Kim x

February-Gone!

Ok, I know that February is a short month and all, but the past four weeks seriously flew by! I have been so incredibly busy with work, this blog, trying to see friends and keep my sanity that it really does feel like February went in the blink of an eye. I definitely think that this will be the case for the rest of my time in Mexico as well, trying to get enough done while still attempting to enjoy myself.

I started the month by going fully vegetarian. Many of the healers I work with recommend a fully vegetarian diet to their patients as the first step in regaining health, and one of the best ways to maintain health over time. As a good anthropologist (sometimes) who follows the research method of participant observation, I decided to give it a go and see how it felt and whether I noticed a difference in my health. A month in, and I’m still going strong. I never ate loads of meat to begin with, but had been eating more here since it is a huge part of the diet in Mexico (one of the struggles the healers have is getting people to change their diets). So although I felt myself craving it a bit the first week, after that it was easy, and I find myself more and more disliking the idea of eating, what my informants call, ‘los muertos’ or ‘the dead’. I have decided to stick with the vegetarian lifestyle, although if at some point I feel the desire to have some meat, I will. I think my skin is doing better though, which is nice. Maybe I’ll see more long-term effects as time goes on, but I can tell you that the two healers I work with are 65 and 71 years old, and I would definitely have thought they were both at least 8-10 years younger.

February was bookended with two theme parties. At the beginning of the month, my friend Renée threw herself an amazing ‘English Garden’ party, complete with croquet, gin and tonics, the Union flag, and fish and chips. It was held in the rooftop bar of a hotel in the centre of Mexico City, and it was a LOT of fun!

 

Me and the birthday girl Renée

Ammal and Renée-English Hunter and 1940's glam!

Getting our Croquet on! 

There was also a Great Gatsby themed event for Internations to send February off. Internations is a group of expats and ‘internationally minded people’, and most major cities around the world have communities. We get together to meet, mingle and have fun a few times a month. The Gatsby party was held in a great bar in Polanco, one of the nicest parts of town. We loved getting dressed up and seeing how dapper and dandy everyone else looked!

 

As Gatsby as can be!

I also went on a day trip with my two girls Ammal and Renée to the town of Tepoztlan. It’s a well known city for the ‘healing energy’ and ancient pyramid high up a mountain beside the town. There was a great street market on, and we wandered around, getting some tasty, fresh-made tlacoyos (blue maize dough filled with beans, topped with whatever you want. I got nopales (cactus) and cheese) and quesadillas (squash blossom filling-yum!). We also got our tarot cards read, me by an old Mexican man who happened to speak English, which made it a lot easier for me! There’s nothing really esoteric or magical about tarot cards, it’s more you using your subconscious to sort out your own feelings, and interpret the cards you choose in whatever way you want. But it’s fun, nonetheless.

Excited to be here! And by the wall colour behind us! 

Market stalls, tarot and aural readings on offer

Mexican Tarot Cards

One of the small towns many churches

The three of us also planned a trip for my birthday-we’ll be heading to lovely Playa del Carmen for four days to help celebrate my fabulousness and as a sort of send-off, since I’ll be leaving Mexico shortly after. I really, really want to go NOW though. The beach is calling me...

So all that, plus other random nights out, work interviews and going to natural medicine conferences and generally just being too busy…no wonder I’m exhausted and surprised about how fast time is flying!

Hope you've enjoyed your weekend!

Kim x

What do you think about dreams?

Dreams are amazing. Flat out. I could just leave it there, but I’ll expand for the sake of writing. In this case, I’m talking about the dreams we have while sleeping. I think we can all agree that having dreams, as in plans for your future, is a good idea. But dreams we can’t control? Those are some fascinating lil’ buggers! Do you remember your dreams? I am a ridiculously light sleeper, and as such I tend to remember my dreams quite often. Different people and situations play across my mind’s eye from night to night, almost always new and entertaining. I very rarely will have a ‘repeat’ dream, and I also very rarely have bad dreams. What I do have are reminders of different people and places that I may not have seen in a while, or spoken to, or been able to visit. Or new situations that seem wondrous and weird with people I don’t know. The other night I dreamt of friends in Edinburgh, and we were in Edinburgh. A few days before, a guy I knew in High school who I haven’t seen since. I’ve dreamt of my dead Grandfather, my dead cat, people I have never met who I feel very connected to in my dream, and other family and friends over the years. My brain likes to mix it up, stop me from getting bored!

And sometimes I get cameos by famous actors or characters from books I’ve read. Some of my most memorable cameos have been David Tennant (as The Doctor), Benedict Cumberbatch (as himself), and Fred and George Weasley from the Happy Potter series. Those are always the best dreams, when you get to be the star of your own movie or book series inside your own head. J

On a less tangible level, I think what I love the most about dreams is how little we understand them. Why do we have them? What is their purpose? I read a book by an anthropologist who studied Mexican traditional healing, and he learned how to go into the underworld through his dreams to recapture the souls of people who had been bewitched. When the souls got captured in the underworld, the people became physically ill. He was able to learn how to do the lucid dreaming of the shamans to reclaim souls, and control where he travelled during his nightly sojourns into the Mexican underworld. It was a fascinating study. I think the idea of being able to control your dreams is really cool. Maybe someday I’ll try to learn how to do it. I know that lucid dreaming is a thing that many people around the world have attempted and claim to be able to do. Is that the purpose of dreams? To enter a world that exists but can only be reached through dreams?

Or do our dreams connect us to other people living here on earth? Science tells us that it is impossible to create (aka imagine) in our dreams. Everything we dream is an amalgamation of things we have seen and learned before. So when you dream of a stranger, you have actually seen that person before, maybe just in a crowd, for a fleeting moment, but your brain held onto the image and one day supplanted it into a storyline for your night time enjoyment. So it’s weird to think that somewhere, people who you don’t know are also dreaming of YOU as an unknown stranger in their own dreams. What sorts of things are you doing in other people’s dreams? Who can know? How does this connect us as humans?

Also, do you ever wonder if the people you dream about are also having the same dream? And you are meeting in the dream plane of existence to act out this story together? Maybe only one person can remember these dreams, and so the other people just forget the dreams, either upon waking, or sleep so deeply that they don’t consciously remember dreaming at all. Are there dream rules that are looked over by some sort of Dream Fairy? If so, dear Fairy, I request more Benedict Cumberbatch dreams, please! 

Or are our dreams solely a way to connect with your subconscious? Your brain, regurgitating random bits and pieces of the debris that we mentally collect on a daily basis from the media, our lives, and our imaginations? Helping you weed through the static and figure out problems, or helping decide what knowledge to hold on to, and what to lock away for good?

Who knows, but I do know that I look forward to remembering my dreams on a regular basis. Mostly to recall the silly things that can happen, but also to allow myself to wonder, and to think that maybe, just maybe, my dreams might be something bigger than they seem.

Kim x

Poetry

I never read enough poetry...I always loved reading, learning and analysing poetry in school though. I'm short on time today, so here are a few of my favourite poems for you to read: all by different authors from different times and places. Enjoy!

ANNABEL LEE

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
~Edgar Allan Poe


INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
~William Ernest Henley


A SOLILOQUY OF THE FULL MOON, SHE BEING IN A MAD PASSION

Now as Heaven is my Lot, they're the Pests of the Nation!
Wherever they can come
With clankum and blankum
'Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation,
With fun, jeering
Conjuring
Sky-staring,
Loungerin g,
And still to the tune of Transmogrification--
Those muttering
Spluttering
Ventriloquogusty
Poets
With no Hats
Or Hats that are rusty.
They're my Torment and Curse
And harass me worse
And bait me and bay me, far sorer I vow
Than the Screech of the Owl
Or the witch-wolf's long howl,
Or sheep-killing Butcher-dog's inward Bow wow
For me they all spite--an unfortunate Wight.
And the very first moment that I came to Light
A Rascal call'd Voss the more to his scandal,
Turn'd me into a sickle with never a handle.
A Night or two after a worse Rogue there came,
The head of the Gang, one Wordsworth by name--
`Ho! What's in the wind?' 'Tis the voice of a Wizzard!
I saw him look at me most terribly blue !
He was hunting for witch-rhymes from great A to Izzard,
And soon as he'd found them made no more ado
But chang'd me at once to a little Canoe.
From this strange Enchantment uncharm'd by degrees
I began to take courage & hop'd for some Ease,
When one Coleridge, a Raff of the self-same Banditti
Past by--& intending no doubt to be witty,
Because I'd th' ill-fortune his taste to displease,
He turn'd up his nose,
And in pitiful Prose
Made me into the half of a small Cheshire Cheese.
Well, a night or two past--it was wind, rain & hail--
And I ventur'd abroad in a thick Cloak & veil--
But the very first Evening he saw me again
The last mentioned Ruffian popp'd out of his Den--
I was resting a moment on the bare edge of Naddle
I fancy the sight of me turn'd his Brains addle--
For what was I now?
A complete Barley-mow
And when I climb'd higher he made a long leg,
And chang'd me at once to an Ostrich's Egg--
But now Heaven be praised in contempt of the Loon,
I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.
Yet my heart is still fluttering--
For I heard the Rogue muttering--
He was hulking and skulking at the skirt of a Wood
When lightly & brightly on tip-toe I stood
On the long level Line of a motionless Cloud
And ho! what a Skittle-ground! quoth he aloud
And wish'd from his heart nine Nine-pins to see
In brightness & size just proportion'd to me.
So I fear'd from my soul,
That he'd make me a Bowl,
But in spite of his spite
This was more than his might
And still Heaven be prais'd! in contempt of the Loon
I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge


ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
~William Shakespeare

Kim x

If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?

This is a hard one, because there are SO many things I would change about the world if I could. From governments that play games with each other across the globe, allowing atrocities to happen to other humans and the environment because their hands are ‘politically tied’; to our messed-up conceptions of what it means to be beautiful; to the way that education has slipped into being a form of standardized tests, void of much actual learning or expanding of the mind (which is what actual education SHOULD be). No, the first thing that I would change, that perhaps would help with some of the above, which make me insane when I read about how another state has cut funding to the social sciences, or how Monsanto is spreading it’s GMO seeds everywhere, is the lack of TOLERANCE and ACCEPTANCE that we as humans have for each other.

This is not a new thing. Ever since we were half-naked tribes and bands of hunter/gatherers roaming the plains of the Middle East, there was an ‘Us vs Them’ mentality. Some researchers think that this is a survival mechanism, ingrained into our animal instincts for survival. You attack and take out the ‘Them’ that threaten you. Now, when we were happy Hunter/Gatherers, this might have been applied both to other bands of H/Gs trying to encroach on our food supply, or to a band of lionesses trying to eat us. The animal response kicks in and you attack what is different because different is not safe.

This mentality has remained as we settled and developed civilizations, languages, religions, complex cultures, taboos and hierarchies. And it has been used as an excuse to kill, subjugate, steal from, attempt to force conversion, and in some cases completely annihilate whole cultural and religious groups for centuries. This is NOT ok. We are all from the same place. Whether you believe that place is the Garden of Eden or Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, we, as Homo sapiens sapiens, every human on this planet are the SAME. There is no such thing as race. Every culture, every belief system, every form of thinking or being or acting or loving developed on THIS planet. We are different because we have different geographical and cultural influences. Our past is what shapes us, and defines us. Our culture is what creates our identity, our likes, dislikes, tastes, conceptions of what is right and wrong, and ways of viewing the rest of the world.

People use the excuse all the time that as humans with higher functioning brains, we must be better than other animals. We must be the leaders of this planet, we have the right to do with it as we see fit. But when those ‘highly functioning’ brains go to war, whether on a different belief system, a different lifestyle choice, or on a different way of viewing the world because it is DIFFERENT and therefore DANGEROUS, then we need to stop and think about how exactly we are using these brains of ours. Instead of teaching younger generations to accept difference and learn from it, choosing their own conception of what is good; we teach them to fear, abhor, and attack what is different.* ‘If they don’t believe what I believe, then they are wrong and I am right because xyz said so’. We are highly functioning, smart animals. We should be able to easily stop conflict through words, and accept differences by trying to understand them, and then finding a common ground, even if that common ground is just one grain of sand to share. We should be able to easily change our worldview to see things that are new as an opportunity to learn, instead of a thing to destroy or re-mold into something comfortable for ourselves. But we are a product of our cultures. And cultures take time to change.

The world would be a very boring place indeed if we all thought, believed and acted in exactly the same way. The beautiful variety of foods, languages, arts, and minds that populate Earth is what makes it so special, for those people who can appreciate it for what it is: diverse. Every major religion on this planet was founded on the basis of love. Learn to love and accept the difference, tolerate those who have different points of view, and teach them about yours. Don’t expect or demand people to think, believe and act exactly like you. No one wants a parrot following them around repeating everything they say, do they? So why would you want to live somewhere where personal expression is just a parroted version of a dominant idea? Now, I’m not saying that I am all hippy-dippy, sitting in a field holding hands with those who I don’t agree with, totally accepting their point of view because I am so developed and I can see past all my cultural influences to find the higher sameness we all share. I’m not perfect, and I admit that it drives me crazy when people are utterly close minded and refuse to think that there might be a different way to think or do or act. Or when they are completely opposed to my way of thinking. Yes, that grates on me, but I accept it, and if we can’t discuss our different points of view, we probably just can’t be friends. That’s ok. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, but you can’t demand they change who they are to make you more comfortable. Let them on their way, and you go your own way.

Embrace difference, tolerate what you don’t agree with, and live for love. That’s how I think we can change our culture, and the world.

Kim x

*obviously, this is not a universal. Some people are amazingly open and tolerant, and I wish they would have more children and spread their tolerance across the world. The ‘We’ here refers to the family unit, the schools, the churches, and the governments of the world. Many of them are guilty of this.