Tweaked ColorScheme and a link for fediverse.info

content/posts/2024-12-16-family-is-what-you-make-it/index.md

@@ -48,9 +48,9 @@ For some family are choosen by those who will bring joy and delight when times a
 
 {{< figure src="images/fall-trees.jpeg" title="Fall Trees" alt="Fall Trees" >}}
 
-There exist many different ways people have typically defined family and the lottery of birth gives us each our starting point. 
+There exist many different ways people have typically defined family and the lottery of birth gives us each our starting point.
 
-We don't get to choose to be in this world in the first place, nor who are parents are. Instead we simply are. It doesn't matter what you believe or do not about how humans got here in the first place it's enough to observe that you exist and we can start there. 
+We don't get to choose to be in this world in the first place, nor who are parents are. Instead we simply are. It doesn't matter what you believe or do not about how humans got here in the first place it's enough to observe that you exist and we can start there.
 
 But no one asked you if you wanted to be born to parents who were rich, or were poor. Parents who loved you and paid you attention or did not. Parents who gave in to their flaws and took it out on you or did not. This is the lottery of birth. Some people are blessed with being born into a family that's great, while many other are not.
 
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ Some of that was easier because I also chose to be single and content for quite
 
 So I invested in friendships, my close circle of a few best friends I've known since being a kid and growing up together. I invested in friedns in my church and community. I sought out people in the community through the local chamber of commerce - in Garner then and Wake Forest now. Not having any co-workers will narrow down options or open them up when you look to others with small businesses in the area.
 
-It's important to rightly classify relationships in your life right? I got a bit carried away and started sharing about some people in the community that I met. Sure there's a few that are the types I'd take a 3am call or take a bullet for but you can't just do those things for anyone and you should be a bit more conservative with who you include in those privileges in your conscious mind. 
+It's important to rightly classify relationships in your life right? I got a bit carried away and started sharing about some people in the community that I met. Sure there's a few that are the types I'd take a 3am call or take a bullet for but you can't just do those things for anyone and you should be a bit more conservative with who you include in those privileges in your conscious mind.
 
 It's okay to acknowledge when people are just acquiantances. You don't have to be a jerk to them either it just means that you're saving your energy for the deeper relationships in your life. And this is a good thing - you don't have the resources to give everything to everyone so you want to be strategic to show up as your best self for the people that really matter. Your true family. Chosen or by birth, these are the people who are your goal, your journey, your adventure, your partners, and share equally in joy and sorrows of life.
 
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ It's okay to acknowledge when people are just acquiantances. You don't have to b
 
 **Ghost in the Shell Directed by Mamoru Oshii writen by Shirow Masamune**
 
-As a personal lifestyle choice I've cut out the majority of social media from my life. That's to say I made the willful decision to no longer engage with those platforms and their manipulative dark patterns that are basically playing with our emotions to extort money out of us or people trying to advertise at us. 
+As a personal lifestyle choice I've cut out the majority of social media from my life. That's to say I made the willful decision to no longer engage with those platforms and their manipulative dark patterns that are basically playing with our emotions to extort money out of us or people trying to advertise at us.
 
 This is really a post unto itself and I'm sure you're already pretty well aware of what's going on with many of these big tech platforms and social media so I'll stick to sharing my personal journey and how it affects my friends and family.
 
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ Aside from that it wasn't healthy for my mental health. I've often said that tec
 
 Since giving up my use of those platforms I have done much better with my mental health (I still have an account because I don't believe they actually honor one's request to delete data nor are legally obligated to do so). I used to struggle often with depression and anxiety, while I still have some level of anxiety it is manageable and seemingly normal reactions to a chaotic world. I'm much more balanced and joyful and stable in enduring hardships. And it's given me the time and energy to truly connect with people and invest in relationships of all sorts from acquiantances to friends, to chosen family. And as an adult all family is chosen family precisely because we have the options to not chose to engage with people we call family. Even if engaging with them is the default, that we have the option to not do it means that when we do interact it was our decision to make.
 
-[![Fediverse](images/fediverse.jpg)](https://fediverse.to) 
+[![Fediverse](images/fediverse.jpg)](https://fediverse.info)
 
 I've also given up Twitter (which I will always call it no matter who owns it and what he calls it). I've not taken on any new commercial social networks or apps, but I have begun using what's called the Fediverse and the apps Mastodon, PixelFed, and Loops. I still have a take-it-or-leave-it approach with emphasis on the latter. It's there as a fun escape not a staple time consumer for my limited time on this planet.
 
@@ -116,11 +116,11 @@ One last quick thing about social media: people on there are people too. At the
 
 **FX Series What We Do in the Shadows Characters Colin and Evie**
 
-
 > "We're more than a place your spend your 9-5; we're a family."
+>
 > - Many Employers these days
 
-Bullshit. I'm sorry that's just not true. Work is work. It's not your family. You need to have clearer and better boundaries with work otherwise they'll keep taking more of your time and energy. 
+Bullshit. I'm sorry that's just not true. Work is work. It's not your family. You need to have clearer and better boundaries with work otherwise they'll keep taking more of your time and energy.
 
 From the brilliant FX Series "What we do in the Shadows" which is generally about several vampires, there's one peculiar one who is called a psychic vampire or "energy vampire." He's a ghoul that feeds off of draining other people's energy and making them lethargic and exhausted. And I think many of us that have worked office jobs can relate to have seeing someone like that.
 
@@ -132,10 +132,6 @@ They're not your friends, they're not your family. Give them they minimum they r
 
 Once you've cut out toxicity, identified your values, and made time and energy to pursue people who share them you're already home with your family. It might look different, it might change living spaces, but it will almost never feel uncomfortable. Your chosen family must share your values. They may also share many of your hobbies and interests. That's always a great place to find friends. I'd say steer away from things that are too political or tribal at first. If it's a personal interest that you would have without the people, then it's probably a good shared interest to use to meet new people. But ultimately you need people who are already heading in the same direction.
 
-For me that's my lovely partner, it's the family I was born with because we choose to continue to love and support each other, it's my nephews, it's my partner's chosen family comprised of her siblings and closest friends, it's my best friends and my closest church friends who I know would be there for me with a 3am phone call because we've already done so for each other plenty of times before. 
+For me that's my lovely partner, it's the family I was born with because we choose to continue to love and support each other, it's my nephews, it's my partner's chosen family comprised of her siblings and closest friends, it's my best friends and my closest church friends who I know would be there for me with a 3am phone call because we've already done so for each other plenty of times before.
 
 Your family are what you make of them, I won't tell you who to include and exclude but I will encourage you to find them based on your values and invest in them as whole human beings, not simply a transactional group of benefactors. Guard them, fight for them, love them, laugh with them, weep in sorrow with them. For they themselves do not hold the key to your best most fulfilling joyful life: they are your best most fulfilling and joyful life!
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content/posts/2025-05-29-cycles-of-life/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+---
+#menus: "Home"
+title: "Cycles of Life"
+date: "2025-05-29"
+tags:
+  - life
+  - lifestyles
+  - travel
+  - sociology
+  - politics
+  - culture
+  - business
+  - asia
+  - buddhism
+  - evangelion
+  - avatar-the-last-airbender
+  - jesus
+  - grieving
+  - business
+  - dance
+  - music
+  - white-lotus
+description: "Life is like water: always flowing, always connected, always unified, always life-giving, everywhere and nowhere"
+# 1. To ensure Netlify triggers a build on our exampleSite instance, we need to change a file in the exampleSite directory.
+#theme_version: "2.8.2"
+---
+
+# The Cycles of Life
+
+{{<figure src="images/AngThongLagoon.jpeg" title="Ang Thong Marine Park" alt="Ang Thong Marine Park" >}}