Adventures in Skin Care

Johnny Cash had me in mind when he wrote “I’ve Been Everywhere”.

I’ve tried many many many combinations of products on my face and here’s what’s been the best:

Honey

Aspiring

Olive oil on my lower cheeks

Fasting on lemon juice

sweating

eating mostly vegetables

alpha hydroxy lotion

biotherm superactiv

sleeping before 11PM – perhaps hormone related

changing my pillowcase

cleaning face gently

scrubs once a week

astringents and a mask once a week

Water Fast – Testing It

I woke up this morning in a very violent state of mind after sleeping uncomfortably on the couch downstairs. In the midst of my anger I decided I was only drinking water today and eating nothing. Anger does a superb job of killing any appetite I have.

It was 35 degrees in the shade today and the house was literally on fire – in addition to that my  kitchen is being cleared of all appliances for a new floor. Means lots of noise. The day before I was suffering from a massive sugar crash after a Wendy’s frosty – I haven’t felt that sluggish in years. So my fasting was intended to clear up both sluggishness and the shame I felt from the angry outbursts.

I felt a comfortable rumbling in my stomach initially. Some people are uncomfortable with the sensation of an empty stomach. I find it much more tolerable than feeling bloated. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel hungry at all past 12PM. I drank about 4-5L and still felt very thirsty until late at night.

Of course, a bucket of cookies and cream Soy icecream threw me right off the tracks – I cleaned up half the bucket. Big mistake. Right now I am fart central – and I feel like something is alive in my stomach and knawing at me.

I am no health expert. Various sources (including the Bible) credit water fasting as the most basic way to purify your body. The basic gist is your digestive system is allowed to rest – allowing your body to focus all its energy on healing and rejuvenation.

On July 16 I am beginning a 10-15 day water fast/master cleanse. For spiritual reasons, energy, and because I was just cast as a very fragile looking cripple in a feature that’s being shot on HD. So I feel that committing this time around will involving nearly no self-doubt or moral questioning. Exciting. Exciting. Exciting.

I will miss my piano when in Germany.

Further Reading:

http://drbenkim.com/fasting.html

http://www.gaianstudies.org/articles4.htm

Most Absurd Websites

1. Peter Pan’s Homepage

Seen a website that was far and beyond what you thought the human imagination was capable of? Recommend it.

The 3 most motivational words

‘Virtually impossible task’

Being faced with a ‘virtually impossible’ task and learning that I have a lot to lose motivated me beyond belief. To stay in class, I had to complete 60 hours of research and 9 deep, personal, well thought out projects – in 10 weeks. I was essentially screwed – but I have never smiled wider in my life. I saw this as an opportunity to show people that I was capable of the ‘virtually impossible’. There is almost nothing as glorious and feel-good as knowing that you have done the impossible. And here I am, being given that chance.

Countless others have been motivated to greatness simply by being faced with what seemed like an ‘impossible task’. Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings, for one. Nobody believed that J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic was filmable. Jackson proved them all wrong.

Running: the real ’secret to success’?

“A successful life is merely a series of successful days in succession”

My definition of success. Just get through today successfully – the rest will come naturally. Never fails. But alas, we are all human, and sometimes it’s difficult to consistently have our successful days in succession. I’ve found running to be ‘the’ determining factor in whether my day will be ’successful’ or not. Sound crazy?  

Building literally gets hole-punched

Richard Wilson is an acclaimed British sculptor and installation artist.

Here he literally cuts into a building – connects the peice to a track – and rotates it. Unbelievable.

Want more ridonculous? Check out The Daily Serving

Art can open your mind like a chainsaw on a can of tuna.

Baking cookies can teach you how to reach those goals

I’m always on the lookout for abstract analogies now that I’ve made a commitment to dedicating most of my time to art-related endeavors.

This morning – being the priority-orientated person I am – I decided to stay up all night and bake cookies at 4:30Am. Mmm. Great idea mate.

Then I realized that the ‘formula’ for success is universal, even in the things as trivial as cookie baking.

How does that work? How did I do it? Keep reading.

Creating my own flow of inspiration – for life’s emergencies

I like to write down my goals, it’s a good practice. I’ve tried and thrown out a few ways to do this – in an ongoing attempt to keep that all important representation of my ambitions inspirational. Theres nothing quite as derogatory and banal as a having your set of goals mimic a grocery-list.

The following is my newest – I did three things:

1. Divide it into sections – for organization and focus

2. Put some words of people I can trust at the top – for days when I can’t trust myself

3. Ask questions – so each time I review my goals, I can also rethink them and refine them.

This took me about 3-4 hours to put together. The time is worth it’s weight in gold.

Feel free to take something from this, but remember it’s important for you to go out and formulate something that inspires you specifically.

Want to see this forever-changing goals-binder format?

‘It’s highschool, it’s bullshit’ – An Enlightening Attitude?

I never would’ve expected something like that to enlighten me in any way.

Countless people have told me that the key to success in the world is a good attitude. Great. Thats easy. I just start to love my work and…whabam! Miracles.

However…

Sometimes repeating “I love work, I love work. I love work” doesn’t work. Sometimes work doesn’t give that love back. So, sometimes it takes a completely unconventional approach to kickstart that work into behaving itself.

I went out on a fragile limb – revisited my old attitude: Studying is a ‘waste of time’ and there are better ways to learn. As soon as I began to realize (again) that studying isn’t worth the time I put into it – I began to look for ways to speed up how I do school-related anything.

I was led to a site on holistic learning – it helps you to understand concepts better by linking them to things you already know.

This what I discovered via thinking it’s highschool, it’s bullshit, you’re missing out on life, fix it now.

Holistic Learning

But never say die.

So thats how I realized that you need to recognize that there is a problem before you can really solve it. Until you see that something is not right, it will keep getting worse.

An artist – blindfolded – painting a picture of a red rose in green paint will not remix the paint to fix his mistake. Take off the blindfold – make him aware that he’s got the wrong color – and he can turn the rose to red in no time.

Sweatpants can make you fearless. How?

I can wear sweats – and so can you. What a concept.

Personally, I feel more secure when I get up late, and go to school the sweater I wore to bed, socks sticking out of my shoes, sweatpants yanked on. Dressing like that seems to be a physical reminder to myself: “Hey, I really don’t mind what people think of me. Check out that tomato stain on my pant leg. Nobody’s commented on that yet. They probably won’t judge me on anything less obvious than that tomato stain – like my personality. Why is life so good?”

If I dress like nobodies watching, I’ll act like nobodies watching. And when you act like nobodies watching, life never lets you down.

On the flipside …

You know the saying ‘fake it ’till you make it’?

Self-help gurus and motivational speakers like Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar and Earl Nightingale preach it like their pants are on fire.

Vanity – and faking it – can work against you.

Sometimes I feel I might be the most secure person in the world, but dressing like I’m not can change that entirely. Vanity is a well-known characteristic of a person who is – deep down – insecure and unsure of themselves. By embracing vanity, one can unconciously become that insecure person.

I can spend 2 hours each morning making myself look like a porcelain doll. Coat my face with mascara and makeup. Lather myself in perfume. Wear clothes that give me wedgies and increase my risk of being arrested for public indecency by 50%. Make my hair defy gravity, put spikes on my heels, anything to make me feel entirely unnatural and fake but slightly goodlooking. Look at myself in the mirror a few extra times, to verify my existance. Make sure I’m still there.

Then I go out and I feel fake, like people are seeing, smelling, and evaluating every inch of me. I act like everyone’s watching, and thats a good recipe for stage fright.

Moral of the story? Wear your dirty sweatpants and forget about your worries.