TonioTimeDaily

"A Healthy Hedonist is someone who is seeking pleasure and happiness in a more mindful way: a person who wants to celebrate life but to also live consciously… It means enjoying the beautiful pleasures life has to offer, while being aware of the impact of our decisions on our body and our mind.

Most of us live a fast paced life! We define ourselves as busy and feel like we are running after time. Desperately, we try to juggle everything: family, work, maintaining a social life, finding love; not to mention trying to squeeze in some me-time and self love!

It’s exhilarating, fun, meaningful, but I think we can all agree exhausting at times!

It can make us feel like we are lacking in space: space around us, space in our head, space between the thoughts & space for ourselves. Between the constant stimulations from emails, social media, texts, phone calls, scrolling down, swiping left, right; we are missing the time for quiet and the space for connection with ourselves.

It’s about living mindfully and being aware of what you need to support yourself in the best way while appreciating each and every moment of life. It means living in the moment and allowing the time and the space to do so... Intentionally savouring the simple pleasures in life!

A nice walk through the park… sun kissing your skin… a crisp morning walk… taking the time to pause and breathe… eating something wholesome and delicious… or sharing a cocktail moment with friends…

Living mindfully doesn’t mean cutting things out of your life, it means growing the good things in your life! A Healthy Hedonist is someone who celebrates life, who creates their own balance and makes the most out of it in a mindful way; in a way that makes them feel good.

Being a Healthy Hedonist is about being present, mindful and celebrating life in a way that makes you feel good!

We love to hear your experiences of living life like a Healthy Hedonist & the things that help you anchor to the present. Remember the lifestyle of a Healthy Hedonist isn’t prescribed, it’s about finding your own balance."

"Myth #1: You Are Trying to Be ‘Special Snowflakes’ (Or ‘This Is Just a Fad’)

This stereotype comes with the assumption that we’re spoiled and looking for attention by trying to be unique.

In actuality, this is simply our experience of gender, and it has nothing to do with “fads,” although I like to think we can be a fashionable bunch!

Common phrases that adhere to this stereotype include, “You can still wear whatever you want and be a girl/boy,” and “Just pick one already.”

When people say these things, they overlook the difference between gender identity and gender expression. Non-binary people can express our genders in any way that works for us, but at the end of the day, our gender identities still don’t fit solely into “male” or “female.”

For a non-binary person, choosing between being male or female is simply not an option.

The range of non-binary gender identities is nearly boundless — and so are the words we use to describe ourselves. Here is a list of some of those words. Our diversity, far from invalidating our identities, is at the heart of who we are.

Being non-binary does not mean that we’re confused about our genders. It simply means that our gender is not solely male or female, or that we have no gender.

Underlying this myth is the idea that because others are often confused by us, there is no way that we could actually be sure about being non-binary.

There also is the assumption that if we’re confused, then it’s okay for people to decide how to refer to us.

However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being confused about your gender! Confusion is completely normal and a part of many trans people’s process.

What is unacceptable, though, is invalidating people’s genders because they’re still figuring things out. No matter what, others should affirm and respect our genders."

What “look” makes a man a man? His facial hair? What about Hanaam Kour, the female model who proudly sports a beard that would make any beard lover (such as myself) swoon?

Is it a specific type of muscular physique? How do you account for female body builders who put most of the guys who go to my gym to shame?

Breasts and sexual organs? If you are conscious of transgender or intersex identities, or acknowledge medically necessary surgeries, you know this not to be the case.

Hormones, chromosomes, genitalia, bodily history and psychology can interact in endless ways to create so many different gender expressions, sometimes with one of those things having more influence than the others. Those things can correspond to a certain look, but they can just as easily not.

Yet, for non-binary people, we often don’t give the same room for their existence to defy that gender has a certain “look” that we may to others.

The truth is the way gender “looks,” just like gender, is on a spectrum, and the cut offs we apply are often arbitrary."

"Many of my friends were similarly critical of my polyamorous relationships.

Adding to that was the lack of polyamorous representation in the media. When polyamory is mentioned in the mainstream media, it’s often represented as deviant and wrong.

Internalizing those messages scarred me and made it difficult to love myself and live my life the way I wanted. As you can imagine, it was a difficult, lonely, horrible time.

And I’m not alone – plenty of polyamorous people are similarly scarred by society’s misrepresentation and criticism of polyamory.

It’s hard not to internalize anti-polyamorous sentiments when you have to face them every single day.

Fortunately, it is possible to heal from those harmful messages. Through the practice of radical self-care, I came to love and celebrate my newfound identity.

It’s incredibly important that non-monogamous people give themselves plenty of healing, validating affirmations to counter the lies and misconceptions about non-monogamy.

Once we begin the process of unlearning compulsory monogamy, we can begin to heal and thrive and love without the heaviness of shame.

Here are a few important affirmations that every polyamorous person deserves to hear.

When you feel like you’ve internalized a toxic societal message, remind yourself of these beautiful, eternal truths.

Read them. Repeat them to yourself every day if you have to. Do whatever it takes to remind your soul that your non-monogamy is powerful, beautiful, and valid."

"I love the concept of Purgatorial Hell. It's retributive and punitive in the short-term, but I think that Hell is corrective, purgative, Purgatorial, temporal, curative, restorative and remedial, and does not last forever. I want to say that if there's a Paradise, all good people (Christians and non-Christians go there.)." -Antonio Myers

"According to a new study presented at the International AIDS Conference in Australia, the transmission of HIV among sex workers could significantly be reduced by around 33-46 percent if prostitution were decriminalized. It may sound contradictory to other people’s opinions, but the study looks pretty sensible.

In places, where prostitution is illegal, sex workers are, in fact, more susceptible to sexually transmitted disease (STD) because of lack of access to healthcare and other social services. This is not to mention that sex workers face discrimination, stigma, and harassment, which drive them more to less likely practice safe sex. Furthermore, sex workers usually experience panicky situations, wherein they are forced to forgo wearing protection, such as the pressure from their pimps and clients, and the fear of using their condoms as evidence against them when law officials caught them.

If the government of the United States and other countries will legalize the sale and purchase of sexual services, it would substantially reduce the number of cases regarding STDs and more importantly, make all sex workers healthier. Once legalized, we can require every sex worker to use condoms and be medically examined regularly for HIV and other related diseases to protect them and avoid causing of widespread health problems. This will not be hard to execute because what sex workers want is money and not disease. In Nevada, sex workers are required to get monthly blood test for HIV, syphilis, as well as weekly blood test for gonorrhea and Chlamydia trachomatis. Furthermore, the use of condom there is mandatory."

"Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.

Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.

Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.

Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Humanists rely on the rich heritage of human culture and the life-stance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of plenty.

Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence. The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.

Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improve society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature’s resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.

Humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.

Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone."

In her book “Back Off! How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassment and Harassers”, street harassment expert Martha Langelan suggests that confronting individual harassers can buck the gender power imbalance at the heart of a harassing behavior by showing that the harassee is neither a passive object of lust nor a hysterical victim.

An assertive, forceful response can have the short-term (and very satisfying) effect of disconcerting the harasser, and the long-term effect of creating an environment that makes it more difficult for harassers to harass:

Try not to get aggressive or swear at harassers. Aggressive responses can lead to the harasser becoming aggressive in turn or not listening to the anti-harassment message you’re trying to get across.

Langelan asks, “Which is more likely to make someone change their behavior calling them stupid or getting them to call themselves stupid?

Talking back to harassers can be empowering and can provide a firm and fair disincentive to harassers to continue their behavior, but harassees shouldn’t feel pressured to respond every time. That kind of undertaking could be exhausting and potentially unsafe.

Always make sure to use your instincts on whether or not a response might lead to a harasser escalating the situation."

"The assessment of the sanity of Jesus first occurs in the gospels. The Gospel of Mark reports the opinion of members of his family who believe that Jesus "is beside himself." Some psychiatrists, religious scholars and writers explain that Jesus' family, followers (John 7:20), and contemporaries seriously regarded him as delusional, possessed by demons, or insane.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

The accusation contained in the Gospel of John is more literal:

C.S Lewis famously considered Jesus' mental health in what is known as Lewis's trilemma (the formulation quoted here is by John Duncan):

The agnostic atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman wrote on his own blog:

"My sex life consists of healthy aptitude, using intelligence correctly, healthy innate qualities, using redeeming qualities correctly, healthy powers, healthy potency, healthy worth, using talents correctly, using gifts correctly, using genius correctly, healthy capabilities, healthy mastery, healthy dexterity, healthy comprehensions, healthy makings, healthy durability, healthy concluding, healthy skills, healthy understandings, healthy faculties, healthy techniques, healthy crafts, healthy self-sufficiency, healthy mutual sufficiency, healthy skillfulness, healthy flair, healthy finesse, healthy experiences, healthy strength, healthy knowledge, healthy adeptness, healthy facility, healthy qualifications, healthy proficiency, healthy artistry, healthy sense, healthy what it takes, healthy brains, healthy knack, healthy know-how, and healthy the hang of somethings, all of my partners and I being each other's standards of beauty inside and out, not cunning at all, healthy cleverness, healthy ingenuity, completely lacking incompetence, completely lacking the unhealthy kind of ignorance, completely lacking the unhealthy kind of inexperience, completely lacking misandry, completely lacking misogyny, and completely lacking phobias against gender and sexual diversity."

-Antonio Myers

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I think of Hell as the eternal capital punishment or the eternal death penalty, eternal abuse, eternal trauma, eternal human rights violations, eternal human rights abuses, and eternal victimization. I don't understand people who oppose the earthly death penalty but support "the afterlife death penalty." How can those people truly be pro-life? If they were truly pro-birth, they would be pro-birth for all babies, not ones born into socially acceptable families. According to the section of "Personified capital cities threatened with rape" within Rape in The Hebrew Bible: "Along the same lines, J.K. Kim (1999) stated about the Whore of Babylon: 'The whore metaphor does not simply stand for the imperial city of Rome but also stands for women sexually involved in a colonizing context.'[119] In Nahum 3, Yahweh seems to be threatening to personally rape the city of Nineveh himself instead of having foreign soldiers do it by his orders or with his endorsement.[1]: 233–234  Similarly in Isaiah 3 and Jeremiah 13, the Israelite god himself is threatening to sexually assault or rape the "Daughters of Zion" (women of Jerusalem/Judah).[1]: 214–218." 

"It is difficult to place Jesus of Nazareth squarely within any of the known religiopolitical movements of his time. He was a man of profound contradictions, one day preaching a message of racial exclusion (“I was sent solely to the lost sheep of Israel”; Matthew 15:24), the next, of benevolent universalism (“Go and make disciples of all nations”; Matthew 28:19); sometimes calling for unconditional peace (“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God”; Matthew 5:9), sometimes promoting violence and conflict (“If you do not have a sword, go sell your cloak and buy one”; Luke 22:36)."

Right speech means abstention (1) from telling lies, (2) from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity, and disharmony among individuals or groups of people, (3) from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious, and abusive language, and (4) from idle, useless, and foolish babble and gossip. When one abstains from these forms of wrong and harmful speech one naturally has to speak the truth, has to use words that are friendly and benevolent, pleasant and gentle, meaningful, and useful. One should not speak carelessly: speech should be at the right time and place. If one cannot say something useful, one should keep “noble silence.”

Right thought denotes the thoughts of selfless renunciation or detachment, thoughts of love and thoughts of non-violence, which are extended to all beings. It is very interesting and important to note here that thoughts of selfless detachment, love and non-violence are grouped on the side of wisdom. This clearly shows that true wisdom is endowed with these noble qualities, and that all thoughts of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred, and violence are the result of a lack of wisdom in all spheres of life whether individual, social, or political."