Daily Prompt: Karma Chameleon

This just in: let’s pretend that science has proven that karma is a thing. Your words and actionswill influence what happens to you in the future. How (if at all) will you change your ways?

Let’s face it, as soon as you read the heading, this is exactly what went through your mind. It’s okay, you’re only human.

Now, raise your hand if you read the prompt and the first thing you thought of was

Again, I’m not surprised. Admittedly, I did the exact same thing. I really can’t help it due to constantly overhearing it being said, and having it said straight to my face whenever I’ve planned something… unsavoury.

Good ol’ Karma. That one theory that so many people believe in. Every now and then I find myself part of a conversation and somebody will either refer to not wanting to do X-action because they don’t want bad karma. Or on the flip side they believe that if they do something good, or do mutliple good things, then they will get a lot of good karma.

I’m a bit of a fence-sitter when it comes to this… sometimes I believe in it, and sometimes I don’t. It really just comes down to my emotional state at that precise point in time. Hmmm, it seems most things nowadays depend on my emotional state…

I think generally speaking, overall I would say that I do actually believe in karma in both good and bad forms. But then sometimes even whilst I might say I believe in karma, I’ll sit there convincing myself that it’s actually just a bunch of crap, and I’ll probably be due for a truck load of bad karma to come my way (let’s face it, if karma exists, then there’s a whole heap of bad karma with my name on it.) and so as a result, I do something positive instead in some pathetic attempt to balance it out. You know, because 6-months of bad karma is totally going to dissipate when I donate $70 to some charity that I saw on late-night television.

…although in saying that, their commercial was quite compelling and I wanted to contribute. I really should just do that more often so that I stop accruing bad karma points and start earning good karma points.

My approach to good karma vs. bad karma is the same way most people approach the gym: if I go do a cardio class / workout for an hour, then I can totally eat that box of 6 donuts / packet of biscuits without remorse.

Sidenote: if you are in fact one of those people, you need to realise that eating those donuts or that packet of biscuits actually means you’ll need to do at least 6+ classes / hours of exercise just to counterbalance all the calories you’ve ingested. 

Some people take the belief in karma quite seriously… some of them also tend to not believe in showering or not wearing footwear, and only wearing natural (tie-dyed) fibers… I on the other hand take it with a grain of salt. Does it make me want to change my behaviours? Not really. But I at least acknowledge that I need to change my behaviours – it’s just not as a direct result of believing in karma.

…It’s because I’m just a bitch.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/daily-prompt-karma-chameleon/

Jan 30: Persuading Others

If you could persuade people to do one thing right now, what would it be?

I would actually try to persuade people to have more of a social conscience.

Only in the past few years have I really developed more of a social conscience in terms of being more vocal about things that I believe in – things like animal rights, climate change, marriage equality, boycotting companies that don’t support the same beliefs that I have.

And then we end up with this complete and utter monstrosity, Tony Abbott, as our leader, who is so completely backwards, he almost seems to be determined to try and inflict as much damage as possible, so that when he gets voted out at the next election, him and his Liberal government will then have all this damage and destruction to use as a platform for the incoming government, and use that to make them look inadequate because they won’t be able to fix it overnight, and they wont have billions of dollars at their disposal to start trying to undo all the damage that the Abbott government has, is and will cause to our country.

Without actually thinking about the country that we live in and the world that we live in, people tend to just sit back and ignore or avoid these kind of things because they don’t think it affects them; or they think that they can make a change, (or maybe they don’t want to?!) but the fact still remains, that there is a lot of shit that happens in this world, and not enough people really seem to care about it to do anything to create a positive change. Yes, there are a number of activists out there, but more often than not, they give the actual term ‘activist’ a bad reputation.

What’s the first thing you see in your head when you hear the word activist? I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that it’s something like a person with some signs / placards, chaining themselves to a fence or a tree, or maybe standing in the way of a bulldozer in a picket line. Perhaps they’re rocking out a giant mop of bushy dreadlocks, screaming into a megaphone, barefoot, with a face full of piercings and referring to themselves in the third person by their alternate non-religious name of Sapphire or Moonflower.

That doesn’t have to be the case. Any body can be an activist without having to resort to that kind of action. You can do little things, small every-day things, that will at least make you feel like you’re doing your part to help a worthy cause.

Personally, I’m not going to go out of my way to go to a rally. Even if it’s for something that I support, I generally loathe them, because you see those people I just described, and they make me want to throat-punch them. Instead, I do my own stuff. I’ll sign petitions; I’ll buy only free-range eggs; I’ve even gone to the point now where I completely emptied my entire bathroom skincare and hair care products for cruelty-free brands. I’ll donate money to charities like the RSPCA, or supporting initiatives for the homeless. I refuse to support companies that don’t support marriage equality, or have financial ties to anti-gay organisations like the christian lobby. I no longer donate clothing to The Salvation Army or The Red Cross because they refuse to help people who are in need that are homosexual. Those people are more than happy to take my hard-earned pink dollars, but if I ever found myself in need of their assistance, it’s so disheartening to know that the people who gladly took my money would refuse to help me.

Why would I continue to support that. Especially when I’d blindly been doing so for so many years. Part of me wishes I could ask for a refund of everything I’ve donated to them, just so I could give it to a more deserving charity.

But I am just one person. I cannot make a big enough difference to influence any change, but I can tell other people about it. And they can tell people, and so on and so forth. But there’s a difference between agreeing that there is a lot of stuff that is wrong in this world and actually stepping up and doing something to make a difference.

So if you were to sit there and make a list of what do you feel strongly about in terms of a broader social aspect, what would you write down? What are your top five issues? What small steps can you take to make a small difference?? And for those of you that believe in it, I think we can agree that by making a positive change for a social cause will bring you good karma.

And everybody wants good karma, right?

Daily Prompt: Daring Do

Tell us about the time you rescued someone else (person or animal) from a dangerous situation. What happened? How did you prevail?

This one time, (at band camp…. just kidding) I rescued a baby possum.

It was quite a few years ago. I was living in a share-house in Camberwell, and one of the girls that I lived with had a cat, Beauchamp. Beauchamp was a small tortoise shell and she LOVED attention. She also loved destroying the furniture and all-but destroyed one side of the couch.

This one day, the three girls and I were in our typical frantic morning routine. Racing around the house trying to get ready, fighting for the bathroom, and trying to eat breakfast. One of the girls, left for work, and the two (poorly) closeted lesbians and I were left.

I was in my room getting dressed, B was in the bathroom, and H was in the kitchen.

B walked out into the loungeroom wrapped in her towel to get her work shirt that was hanging up with the other washing on the clothes rack, and suddenly let out this squeal. As I walked out of my room towards the loungeroom, Beauchamp went flying past my ankles and straight out the back door.

I go into the loungeroom, and B is standing on a chair, in her towel, with water slowly dripping onto the carpet. Her face was white and her eyes had dilated to the size of dinner plates.

‘DON’T COME IN HERE’ she yelled. ‘THERE’S SOMETHING BEHIND THE COUCH!!’

‘What?’

‘THERE’S SOMETHING BEHIND THE COUCH. I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS, I THINK IT’S A RAT!!’

H, appeared behind me. ‘A rat, you say. I bet it was that damn cat! Beauchamp? BEAUCHAMP?? BEAUCHAMP!!’ The cat suddenly appeared in the doorway. It arched it back and started to growl. The ears went back and the tail started flicking from side to side, and in an instant, it had literally dived under the couch. Then there was all this commotion.

H and I crept up to the couch, and we could hear the cat clawing around and growling inside the base of the couch. Just as we lifted the couch, something dark and furry ran past our feet. We both squealed and dropped the couch and jumped up on the armchairs.

‘WHERE DID IT GO?!?!’

‘B – DID YOU SEE WHERE IT WENT?’

‘WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT THING!??!’

B was still standing on her chair, still in her towel, still dripping water. She was terrified to move. She was too scared to even look at the floor.

H saw the cat dart around the side of the couch and behind the back of the chair I was standing on. Next to the chair, between the chair and the wall, was a pile of old magazines. I could hear some scurrying around underneath a magazine that had fallen down in the space behind it, and I could hear Beauchamp growling.

I slowly crouched down on the chair, whilst H grabbed the cat. As I lifted the magazine, I saw it, and squealed again.

‘WHAT? WHAT IS IT?!?!

‘I… I don’t know, actually…” I saw this small dark brown furry thing, curled up in the corner. It certainly wasn’t a rat. I used the magazine to poke it. ‘OH MY GOD IT’S A BABY POSSUM!!!’

Just as I said that, Beauchamp clawed H in the arm, and she dropped her, and the cat tore around the back of the couch and grabbed the possum in it’s mouth and just as quickly, ran back under the couch.

‘BEAUCHAMP, NO!!!!’

H and I grabbed the couch, and completely flipped it over. We could see the cats back legs and tail hanging out of a hole in the base of the couch, and we grabbed her and pulled her out. H threw her into a bedroom and closed the door.

We saw the possum curled up amongst some of the springs, but couldn’t reach it to grab it. I didn’t know if it was dead, if it was injured, if it was even still alive. It was so dark, and I couldn’t see anything. I grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and stuck my hand in to try and grab it, but it let out this high-pitched squeal, and I panicked and yanked my hand out of there so quickly. In doing so, I cut my arm and the top of my hand on a sharp piece of broken metal spring. I grabbed a towel to absorb the blood from my arm, and as I did so, the possum ran out of the couch and under the arm chair next to me.

Without thinking we grabbed the chair and carted it out into the backyard. I wrapped my arms in towels, and grabbed the baby possum and yanked it out from amongst the springs.

Not the actual possum, but this is kinda what it looked like. Tiny and adorable!

It was curled up into a ball, and was so tiny, it fit into the palm of my hand. It didn’t appear to be moving and I thought it was dead. I examined it for any bleeding and / or puncture wounds, but there weren’t any and then all of a sudden, it’s tail started moving and it started squealing again.

Further down the backyard, there was a rustle in the trees, and then this giant possum appeared on the fence.

‘ahh, H, I think that’s the mother…’

‘But shouldn’t we take it to a vet first?’

‘I dunno. What if we put it on the ground and see if it moves?’

So we layed the possum on the grass and took a few steps back and just stood watching. It didn’t move. We thought the worst. B appeared on the back steps, ‘is it dead? Oh my god, why isn’t it moving? It’s dead, isn’t it!?’ She was a heartbeat away from bursting into tears.

The possum didn’t move.

‘B, grab a couple of teatowels and the shoebox out of the recycling!’ I wasn’t wasting any time. There was a vet just down the road, I was going to get them to look at it.

H confronted the possum on the fence, ‘I’m really sorry, Mrs Possum. Beauchamp did a really shitty thing, and we’re going to take your baby to the animal hospital. We’ll be back soon, so don’t go anywhere!’

We took the possum down to the vet. H and I were still in our pyjama’s and were barefoot, an I still had a towel wrapped over my cut arm, but we didn’t care. They took the possum in, and came out a short while later. It was just in shock, and they were giving it a bottle, and if we came back in a couple of hours, we’d be able to take it and release it back to it’s mother.

We went home and I called work, explaining that I was going to be late, and I made an appointment to get a tetanus shot later that afternoon.

H called me later that morning to say that she got the possum back and that it was fine. Not even a scratch on it. Phew!! She took it home and released it into the backyard, and it reunited with it’s mother a couple of minutes later.

I may have ended up with a few cuts on my arm and a tetanus shot, but it was worth it to save a baby possum. I felt so great after that. It really lifted my spirits.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/daily-prompt-daring-do/

Daily Prompt: Now You See Me

You have a secret superpower: the ability to appear and disappear at will. When and where will you use this new superpower? Tell us a story.

I remember when I was younger, I would often write stories about a boy who could either make himself go invisible, or, had the ability to fly. Sometimes even both.

I vaguely remember one of these stories I wrote, was about a boy. I remember that I wrote it for a creative / free writing assessment task. I still remember the day I wrote it. I was in my english class, full of dickheads. Somebody had thrown a small pot of glue at the fan on the ceiling, and it exploded, and lumpy, chunky translucent globs went flying all over the classroom. It was all over the walls, all over the floor, and all over the students. They, the bullies, thought it was hilarious, so they did it again. Then they followed up with a couple of bananas. When the teacher walked in, she was beside herself. She demanded to know who was responsible, but everybody was too afraid of the bullies to say anything, so the whole class received lunchtime detention for a whole week. That afternoon, after school, I went and told the teacher who was responsible. She said she would keep it anonymous.

She obviously didn’t understand what anonymous actually meant. She turned around and told them that I was the one who demonstrated the most confidence to stand up for my classmates, and that they should all thank me for getting them off lunchtime detention.

…fucking retard.

Although I wrote it about 13 years ago, and I don’t have an actual copy of it anywhere, I can still pretty much remember the foundation and structure of it. It went a little like this:

________________________________________________________________________

He was different to all the other boys in his school. He liked dancing. He liked reading. He loved art. And writing. And drama.

He didn’t like football. He wasn’t interested in getting into trouble. He wasn’t into sports, either. A lot of the time, he would fake an injury or an illness just to get out of P.E. (Phys. Ed.) class. Sometimes, he’d even forge his mum’s signature on a note, because he was that desperate to not be involved.

He didn’t like school that much. He had a very small, close circle of friends. A lot of the other kids would pick on him. Daily. Everyday he would be bullied. They would call him names. Constantly.

Poofter.

Faggot.

Retard.

Loser.

Gaybo.

Homo.

Dickhead.

Pansy.

Every. Single. Day. Multiple times a day.

Sometimes he’d be thrown against a locker. Or have food thrown at him. Or he’d get his books knocked out of his hands. Sometimes the bullies would take his backpack and play keep-away and then throw it in the bin. A lot of the time his belongings ended up in the bin. Once they threw firecrackers at him. Once they threw a bomb bag at him, it landed on his backpack and exploded – some white substance went everywhere. It smelt like rotten egg and went solid like PVA glue. It ended up in his hair and he had to have it cut out.

He made complaints to his teachers, and they did nothing. He made complaints to his school principal, who also did nothing. A couple of teachers suggested that he was bringing it on himself. That he was causing it. One teacher told him he was just being ridiculous. Another teacher told him to stop acting like a child. One teacher actually stopped and sat down to listen to him, and as soon as they asked what was wrong, he broke down into tears in front of the teacher. They took him down to the Deputy Principal, and later that afternoon, all the bullies were called into his office.

Nothing happened to them. They were given a stern talking to, and basically told to never do it again.

The next day, they attacked.

They threw glue at him just before the school assembly started; threw water bombs at him just before he walked into class; filled his backpack with flour; stuck all the pages of a textbook together; cut a giant hole in the centre of a workbook; broke into his locker and threw the contents out onto the floor in the hallway. All of this happened in front of multiple teachers, who all turned a blind eye, and quickly looked the other way.

Out of sight, out of mind.

 

Sometimes he would wake up in the morning, and dread having to go to school, because he knew what would happen. Sometimes he’d find himself crying in the toilets. Sometimes, he’d feign an injury, just to go to sick bay and get sent home. He hated school. He was miserable. Sometimes, he would come home from school, fall onto the bed, and cry into his pillow until he fell asleep. Sometimes he would just refuse to go to school.

In his dreams he was strong, and he had magical powers. He could make himself invisible. In his dreams, he would stand up to his bullies. He would shout at them to stop, and confront them. He would be able to turn invisible, and then avoid their attacks. Initially, when he would retaliate, it started off simply by pushing them into each other, or knocking their heads together in cartoons. Sometimes he’d push them into puddles, or throw rubbish at them. The rest of the students would all see it happen. They’d all witness these bullies getting their just desserts. They would all cheer and he would be the hero.

If only!

As time passed, the dreams progressively more violent. He would turn invisible and start shoving them into walls, or picking them up and throwing them in giant rubbish bins and close the lids on them. Soon enough he was wielding weapons like metal bars, tree branches and bricks. Breaking noses, and arms; dislocating shoulders and smashing knee caps.

Soon enough his dreams stopped taking place in the school playground. He’d turn invisible and follow his tormentors home. Silently observing the interactions they had with their families. Trying to understand why they were full of so much hate towards him. Why were they constantly victimising him? The worse the bullies acted, the more deadly things were in his dreams. Sometimes he dreamt about turning invisible and harming himself, just so he could write their names in blood before he died. Sometimes he would be invisible and floating. Watching over them as they slept, smothering them with a pillow, or stabbing them when they were alone. Watching them die slowly, and painfully. Oh so painfully.

By the time he graduated high school, the dreams were all the same. They were all about death. Either his death, or the bullies death. And they always died violently. The last dream he had, was of one particular bully, the ring leader of the group. Again, he was invisible and floating, but he had developed super-human powers. He was now able to lift and move objects just using his mind. He didn’t understand how he could do it, he just knew that he could. He had a vision in his head. The Ring Leader had gotten into a car, and was on his way towards the school. It was the middle of the night, and there was nobody around.

As the ring leader drove up the hill, towards the school, He used his powers to drop a petrol tanker truck out of the sky, and drop it on the car. Crushing it instantly. He floated down to the ground, and became visible. He stood there waiting for somebody to come out to investigate what all the noise was, but nobody appeared. No other cars drove past. It was as though they were the only two people left. The petrol was gushing out of the truck and all over the car, pouring in through the shattered windscreen. The Ring Leader was screaming out for help. His eyes, blinded by blood from the cut on his forehead, he was trapped in the drivers seat.

He started laughing to himself. The Ring Leader heard the laughter and called out for help. He just kept walking closer and closer to the car. He crouched down to get right next to his ear and softly said ‘well, well, well… it would appear that you’ve gotten yourself into a spot of bother Mr Tinder*.’

‘OH GOD, PLEASE HELP ME!! GET ME OUTTA HERE!! I CAN’T SEE!!’

‘Well, see, there’s the problem. I could help you. I could easily make all of this stop, but you’ve been a very bad boy, Tinder. A VERY BAD BOY. And bad boys don’t deserve to be helped. They deserve everything you get.’

‘WHO ARE YOU? JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE!!’

‘Sorry, Tinder. That’s not going to happen. I’m going to stand here and enjoy watching you die. This is what you get. This is your karma. This is what happens when you spend years tearing somebody apart, destroying their spirit day after day, week after week, month after month, and think that it’s okay to do so. You are nothing but a vile excuse for a human being and you do not deserve to even BREATHE the same air as me. You have made my life a living hell every single day, but not anymore. I’m freeing myself from you. You’re nothing but a demon, and it’s time for you to go.’

And with that, he snapped his fingers and the car erupted into a giant fireball. At the flames engulfed the car, he heard nothing but screaming. He turned his back and walked away.

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http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/prompt-see-me/