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Be Creative Everyday

By Amazon, Books & Authors, Creativity, Happiness & Joy, Inspiration, Journalism, Thinking2 Comments

Recently I’ve been thinking about being creative, but not actually doing anything creative. Creativity should be something I do everyday, as it has so many benefits, including:

  • It lights up my imagination, giving me pleasure and increasing my happiness.
  • It motivates me.
  • It is good for my mind, heart and soul. It makes my mind more active, my heart beat faster and enriches my soul.
  • It helps me deal with my feelings, good and bad. It also helps me to express these feelings.
  • It makes me a better problem-solver. When I’m feeling creative, I can come up with better solutions to problems.
  • It allows me to explore ideas.
  • It enables me to look at events, situations and people in different ways.
  • Helps me to hope for and imagine better or alternative futures.
  • It gives me hope, at times when I feel that I need it.
  • Other people’s creativity inspires me.

The way to be more creative, is to play, as children do inhibited. So when I was at Waterstones at the weekend and saw these books, I just had to pick them up. Here’s my opportunity to play and be creative:

642-things-to-draw-book-cover 642-things-to-write-about-book-cover

I picked up both of these books along with a pack of felt tip pens. I’m going to draw or write something in these books at least once a day. I’ve already started.

I’ll be posting my progress here by sharing a few scanned images. Don’t expect any drawing I do to be an artistic master piece (for that see my fabulous Illustrator friend Sye); or that any writing I do will be literary genius. Just take it for what it is – me playing. I’m aiming to post a progress update once a week.

Blog soon,

Antony



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Film Review: After The Dark (The Philosophers)

By Amazon, Inspiration, Reviews, Thinking, TV, Online Streaming & FilmsNo Comments
after-the-dark-film In After The Dark it’s the last day of term and Mr. Zimit, a Philosophy Teacher challenges his international high school students to take part in one final thought experiment: It’s the apocalypse and there’s a bunker that will save some of them. There’s twenty-one of them and only ten places in the bunker. Having more than ten people in the bunker will mean that all in the bunker perish. The class must decide who will get a place in the bunker and who wont.

To help the students decide, Mr. Zimit hands them cards with skills on (e.g. Organic Farmer, Structural Engineer, Poet, etc.) for their character in this thought experiment. He encourages them to make logical decisions.

Later Mr. Zimit ups the ante by telling students that they are required to get at least one pregnancy going during the year in the bunker and asks the students to open their cards to reveal another aspect to their character (e.g. one is gay, one is sterile, one is a midwife, one will get cancer in 3 years time, etc.). Then they have to decide again with this new information who will get a place in the bunker.

Here’s the trailer:

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After The Dark is a superb film that uses the dialogue and snippets of action to keep the watcher hooked throughout. Set in the Indonesian city of Jakarta, there are some beautiful settings in this film including Prambanan temple. The cast are mostly unknowns, but fitted their individual roles and worked together well.

There is good representation of gay people in this film. One of the students is a gay man who is out, accepted and valued by his fellow students (and there is another one that isn’t out at the beginning of the film).

The lead male character who is identified as straight, opens up his Organic Farmer card to reveal that his character is gay. He gets a place in the bunker, but when it comes to pairing up to get a pregnancy going he says he feels he wouldn’t be comfortable sleeping with a woman as a gay man. This is followed by a short scene of him and the openly gay student getting it on and then shows them becoming close as a couple.

After The Dark is a film that challenges what you believe about philosophy, logic, the survival of the human race and whether it’s important to exist or live. You’ll find yourself watching it again and again and thinking about it for days afterwards. It will be a great source of enjoyment and generate a good debate among the people you watch it with.

After The Dark is a fantastic five star film, one that has been under-rated and missed by most. It is available to pre-order/order on Amazon.

Published by: The Gay UK on Sunday 6th July 2014.

Review soon,

Antony



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Happy Belated Litha & More Rivington Photos

By Adventures, Happiness & Joy, Inspiration, Life, Love & Relationships, Nature, PaganismNo Comments

Happy Belated Litha (see Pagan Festivals)!

Boyfriend-A and I took a spontaneous outing to Rivington on Friday. It happened to be Litha, which is the longest day of the year. It was bright, warm and the perfect evening to explore Rivington. We spent quality time together and I also took the opportunity to appreciate nature.

I have previously blogged about Rivington and included plenty of photos. But I felt compelled to take some more photos of this beautiful place on Friday. So here are some of those photos (click on any image for full size):

Rivington-June14

Boyfriend-A Looking at the view

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Rivington Ruins 1

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Rivington Ruins 2

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The Pond 1

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The Pond 2

Rivington-June14

Rivington: A Gorgeous View

Rivington-June14

Rivington: Another View

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Pigeon Tower Information Board

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Pigeon Tower

I hope you all had a equally fantastic Litha.

Blog soon,

Antony



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Import: Celebrities and Others Record Video Messages to Gay Teens to tell them: It Gets Better

By Gay, Inspiration, JournalismNo Comments

November is anti-bullying month. In 2010 there were a few high profile cases of gay teens committing suicide as a result of homophobic bullying both in school and in their communities in the USA. Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller uploaded a video on YouTube titled ‘It Gets Better.’ The aim of this video, as you may have guessed, was to encourage gay teens to hang in there, as it does get better.

it-gets-better-logo

It Gets Better Logo

From this sprang the It Gets Better Project, an international campaign that aims to communicate the ‘it gets better’ message to gay teens to give them hope. The It Gets Better Project also aims to inspire and bring about change, so that there is less homophobia, more tolerance and more acceptance of gay teens.

Celebrities have voiced support for the It Gets Better Project with the likes of Zachary Quinto and Adam Lambert making their own ‘it gets better’ videos.

zachary-quinto-video-screen-shot

Zachary Quinto Video Screenshot

Zachary Quinto in his emotional video said: ‘The are countless other teens and young adults that are struggling to find a sense of identify and belonging in a chaotic and often unforgiving world…and to you I say it gets better.’

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adam-lambert-video-screen-shot

Adam Lambert’s Video Screenshot

Adam Lambert in his upbeat video said: ‘You have to be strong…and you have to pay attention to the positive… and in doing so you will push through and you will rise up and you will live your life to the fullest. It gets better but its up to you.’

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President Obama, other American politicians and employees from the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Dell have added their videos. Employees and students from Universities, Sports Clubs and other institutions have added supportive videos.

Thousands of people have used their webcams, video editing software and internet connections to uploaded their own individual videos aiming to give hope to gay teens.

The success of the ‘It Gets Better Project’ has been phenomenal. Seth Levy, Chairman of the Board of Directors for the project says that they’ve had success, but recognises that there’s still much more work to be done:

‘The It Gets Better Project works globally to share message of hope with LGBT youth and to make things better for them. The Project has already had great success through its international efforts in the Americas, Australia, Western Europe and the Carribbean. We are now beginning to work in more regions where, at times, the circumstances for LGBT youth are especially challenging and LGBT-focused resources are scarce. Moldova has historically been such a place. We are very excited to have partnered with our local affiliate, Egali, to help improve things for LGBT youth in Moldova. ‘

To learn more about the It Gets Better Project, visit their website: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ .

Published by: The Gay UK on Friday 8th November 2013.



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