Poetry Found

Found poetry is a process where you take a page or a chapter of a book and cull phrases out of it to create a new piece of writing... a piece of poetry. I wrote this one from a chapter in a critical thinking textbook. Enjoy.


Ride the wave of knowledge

Learning is messy, sometimes painful

Interdisciplinarity is universal because it is everywhere

Pressures of reality, convention and popular bias …

Weigh too heavily on her mind

For the pure joy

Adhesion, integration, application, transformation…

Bigger than just words

A Hammer with which to shape it

A weapon the size of your fist

It is the journey that matters in the end

2013 Poetry Corner #6 - "To Be"

To dream is to stretch your soul
... to reach out of your reality to a new place
... to hope for future peace

To plan is to stretch your mind
... to focus on the changes that must be
... to hold onto a goal with purpose

To try is to acknowledge possibility
... of both failure and success
... to move onward anyway

To grow is to reach forth
... to know that to gain may cause pain
... that through adversity, we gain strength

To love is to believe
... to know that the Father loves us
... to have faith in ourselves
... to be

Radiation and the Human Body

When I was in Washington state recently, I visited a museum that had a small section set up to talk about radiation.  I found it really interesting as I just haven't thought about it very much.  If I had, I think that I might have figured that I had a lower dose than the average individual.  After all, I live in a yurt, don't have running water and went at least five years without electricity- I only have one plug now so some have joked that I still don't have electricity.  I consider myself to, with few exceptions, be extremely healthy and until the last few years I ate really well- mostly organic, etc...  I used a radiation calendar at the museum and it estimated that my average was 362 millirems per year.  That didn't sound too bad except that the American average radiation exposure dose is 360 millirems....

It turns out that I have some risky behaviors that keep my radiation exposure at the average level.  It also seems that the world is more radioactive than I had ever imagined.  We live in a world filled with radiation- in the food we eat, in the water we drink... even in the air we breathe.  Half of an average person's exposure every year comes from natural sources.  The rest is all man made so to speak and can usually be separated into three separate categories; medical, commercial, and industrial.

Natural sources seem to be pretty much unavoidable.  The average person is exposed to 40 millirems of radiation from food and drink alone.  Drinking water (especially bottled water), bananas, carrots, red meat and beer are just a few examples of foods that emit radiation.  Any individual that breathes will get about 200 millirems of exposure from radon in the air.  Our bodies - these beautiful and unique temples that house our soul- carry approximately 240 millirems with us throughout our day.  So each of us is an organism that,  while needing to avoid exposure, actually gives off radiation and exposes those around us.  So one form of risky behavior that I engage in is sharing a bed with my husband. The radiation that we give off will give each of us a slightly higher radiation level than those who sleep alone. (Gives a new, positive perspective on being single, doesn't it?  : )

Out of the man made sources of radiation, medical testing really tops the list.  In the guise of caring for our bodies, we sometimes take a greater risk with them then we need to.  With the excuse of 'keeping up appearances' we get porcelain crowns on our teeth if they are needed. (For full disclosure, I have a crown and so I too, am "keeping up appearances".) So many medical tests these days use radioactive chemicals or machines to work. How many X-rays have you gotten in your lifetime? Do you have a pacemaker? When I was sick last year I spent so much time in radiology I am surprised that I don't glow (and on that subject.... maybe it's my husband who is at more risk by sleeping next to me! :D ) Ultrasounds, thyroid imaging and more are all big exposures.

Other ways that we expose would be through television, video game stations,  and computer usage.  If you are in any building with a smoke detector, use an airplane for travel, use luggage inspection at airports, or live within 50 miles of a coal burning electrical plant and/or.......... you are getting higher radiation exposure than those who do not.  Where you live in relation to altitude and sea level makes a difference as well.

Now, most doctors agree that radiation exposure causes cancer and that radiation exposure causes a weakened immune system. A research group studied the amounts of radiation in common medical procedures in 1980 and today – we get seven times more radiative exposure for diagnostic tests now than we did twenty years ago. A study that was just released in the last few days illustrates a disturbing trend in light of the former thought. The study looked at radiology trends for three years over five major healthcare markets. They found that one in ten adults under 64 years of age had in that period of time had a heart procedure/test involving radiation exposure. The biggest used test is called myocardial perfusion imaging (heart stress test) and it accounted for 74% of the procedures in this study. The next was heart cauterization and stents. I am sure that many of these tests were necessary. But I do question whether we are giving medicine and its disciples more leeway with our bodies than we should. Surely, many of these tests did not have benefits that outweighed the risks of the exposure. I wonder how to work on keeping my exposure low (and maybe even lower it) without serious compromise to my lifestyle. But I also wonder if I am being negligent to this great gift that Heavenly Father has given me by simply ignoring the problem through ignorance or even priorities. After all, if I don't care for myself.... who will? And reducing our levels will benefit our families and all those who surround us.

I encourage all who read this to click on the links I have added and see what your approximate radiation exposure is and think of ways you can maybe reduce it. See what you find out... you might be pleasantly surprised... and I might be jealous of your low score!

1. http://www.epa.gov/radiation/understand/calculate.html

2. http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/calculator.html

(The pie chart above is outdated, but I fell in love with it and I couldn't find a more modern, accurate one. I guess I have always loved pie charts....)

Perception and Reality

Isn't it funny that a few people can share a day together and then go their separate ways. The next day two of the members of the group that shared the same exact experience can 'see' the experience so differently from the other person. In fact, if you didn't know better, you might possibly come to the conclusion that someone is lying to you. But in reality how each individual processes their day in their mind made the experience different due to their perceptions.

The word perception in regard to human psychology is usually defined as the process of attaining awareness and understanding of sensory information. How a person perceives their situation, environment, etc... is almost always affected by several factors- past experiences, culture, interpretation of past and cultural events, age, intelligence level and more. Rene Descartes hundreds of years ago conceived the idea of passive perception that can be described as a series of events; input (senses), processing (brain), and output (reaction). Today, many psychologists tend to subscribe to the idea of active perception as a more accurate way to describe the idea that there is a dynamic relationship between the brain and senses which create experience.

So even if every human being is exactly the same in all ways (which of course we are not), we would still find that people's perceptions will differ from each others. If our genes were exact duplicates – in essence, if we are clones- our experiences might be slightly different causing different perceptions and ideas. I find this idea so fascinating and frustrating all at once. It is fascinating because the world is an amazing place with so many differences in people, environments, cultures, etc... Look at the amazing people we learn about in history class and how our world has been shaped by their perceptions of the world around them? One example that springs to mind is Henry VIII of England. Even people who have no interest in history have heard of this king/man. His perceptions of himself, gender and reproduction changed the lives of his many wives (sometimes ending their lives), the lives of his children and the lives and culture of an entire country. One of his daughters Elizabeth I went on to rule after him and her perceptions of power and men again changed the course of her life, the lives of all those around her and the history and succession of an entire country.

However, one thing that really frustrates me about perception is that we as human beings can be so shuttered and trapped into poor perception. When we are born, our brain in many ways is a blank slate which we then begin to fill. As we get experience in life, this experience will change and therefore bias our perceptions- there is now a preconceived concept. This happens because human beings do not readily understand new information without the bias of their previous knowledge. So we can misinterpret others actions and behavior based on the actions and behavior of others that surrounded us in the past which can cause us problems in our present. Or,maybe even worse, we can fail to perceive something at all because our brains are unable to process the information in any way. So something can be explained to you a million times... and you can still fail to 'get it'. So essentially, our reality is biased and as such... boy, it helps to see why we are supposed to forgive people almost everything. If the human mind can only create reality from what it has been exposed, then misunderstandings must be so easy. The mind will just pull out the bits of perception that it recognizes so that we can have understanding or comprehension- even though that probably will not give us understanding and comprehension. “ That which most closely relates to the unfamiliar from our past experiences, makes up what we see when we look at things that we don’t comprehend.”

So know that I truly understand this (at least I think I do.... :), what do I do? If I have communication problems based on the abuse in my past and the way that I was treated early in life, how do I change. What I mean is, I can change outward behavior and I have in many ways. I no longer have a 'anger' problem- I just have to be aware of my emotions an understand that I have a penchant towards anger. By knowing this, I am able to control it. But how do you truly control thought patterns that have been a part of you for so long that I am unable to even recognize that they are thought patterns? How does anyone do it? David Pelzer is an example that I can think of. He had some of the most horrendous abuse I have ever heard of or read about... and yet he has been able to change his actions and his thoughts (at least it appears that he has). Clearly this is a loooong process. So...

How does perception effect you and your relationships? How does it affect your communication with others? How does it affect how you do.... everything!? If you have had abuse in your past or other major problems such as divorce, instability, etc.... how have you dealt with it? What has worked to help change the way you think..... has it worked? Carlfred Broderick talked about a transitional character- one who is able to purify their family line from the blackness and instability of the past and give future generations the ability to not have to confront the pain and scarring. In the past I have thought that I have been pretty successful at being a good transitional character and I have the best husband for that- his patience and kindness are a Godsend that I do not deserve. But... I suspect I have a lot more work to do!