I Believe…

I BELIEVE there are Events that are Life Changing..I’m not talking about the ‘BIG ONES’ – Getting Laid…or Married…or Promoted etc. – all of which, inarguably – are Events with a capital E…I’m talking about Life Changing Events that hardly even make a blip on the Radar at the time…Nothing earth shattering..nothing note-worthy – BUT – somehow – it causes you to stop whatever it is you are doing – Years Later – and say to yourself: ‘WOW – I get that now…I like that…I’m going to apply that to MY Life…MY Philosophy..MY Path..’
A favourite Aunt once told me that there would always be People in the World who had MORE than me…and there would always be People in the World who had LESS than me..and that I should be Happy with what I have.. Being that I was around 11 or 12 years old at the time – I have to assume that my bored, uncomprehending response went something along the lines of: ‘yeh…ok…sure..can I have a Popsicle now?.. SOMEHOW, tho – I have NEVER forgotten it, and it has seeped into the…fiber..of my very Life..It has helped shape me…helped form my priorities…It became a Life Balancing Tool that i strove to instill in my Children…Envy is poison – POISON ENVY – forgive the pun.. Such a mundane Statement…such a huge Lesson for me..Do your personal Best…Try your personal Hardest – but – don’t envy – it’s just a Waste of Time, Energy, and Life..
Here’s Another small personal ‘event’…Did ya hear the One About the Journalist who was doing a Story on a Pair of Identical Twins???… I did – and – once again, it was a ‘Nothing’ that somehow turned into a ‘Something’ in my life… Here’s how the Story goes: Folklore has it that said Journalist was spurred to write said story because of the  vast, gaping Differencenes in the Lifestyles these Identical Twins lived.. One twin was wildly Successful – top of the Proverbial Heap – running a Fortune 100 Business…having the Respect of all he met…Happily Married with Beautiful, Happy Children.. Rich beyond his wildest Dreams – Financially, Socially, Privately, Spritually… His identical Twin, however, was a Homeless, glue sniffing Alcoholic living on the Mean Streets with no known address.. When the journalist finally located the Homeless Brother he had but one question for him:  ‘What Do You Owe Your INCREDIBLE Lifestyle To?’.. His answer was short and simple – ‘What else would you expect….my father was an alcoholic…’When the journalist caught up with the hugely Successful Brother, he asked the identical Question: ‘What Do You Owe Your INCREDIBLE Lifestyle To?’.. This Brother’s answer was short and simple: ‘What else would you expect..my father was an alcoholic…’ One person’s excuse is another’s Motivation…hmmmm…. This little ditty also stuck with me..
Remember – FREE THINKING IS FREE!!

In the world where every one is so reoccupied with daily chores it has become so hard to communicate or even meet on a daily basis, there are services that have been established to bridge these gaps and run side by side without interfering with day to day activities. People have become so innovative that you do not need to go to the mall to get your basic needs but they can be delivered to you anytime and any where at your very convenience. This does not only apply to goods but other life necessities like information and knowledge.

These trends have led to people thinking outside the box and coming up with mail delivery, outside catering for the busy Executive, wedding planners and blind dating among many. One of the most amazing service innovations in history is the Hamilton Spectator Death Notices. No one would have imagined that this noble service could be embraced with the connotations, myths and believes surrounding death. Many thought that death is a preserve for the bereaved until this concept came into existence. For this innovative individual to demystify death more detailed services were added to his portfolio such birthday greetings, thanks giving cards, greetings and announcements and thank you note among others.

Innovating the service of death notices meant that he had he had identified a gap in provision of such service hence the need to fill it. The service allows people to go about their daily activities and checking on his particular website to see for instance burial date, program and location of burial at a click of button. The advertisement or notices are normally polite and brief to the point so as nor to raise the emotions of those mourning but console them.  On the other hand, this creates the convenience of the bereaved not to run up and down informing friends and relatives of a death in the family. This is seen as a consoling service for the bereaved.

This is a creative way though of earning a living, hence a job opportunity all over the world, though, in some communities this is not recognized as legitimate business due to traditional believes but with advancement in technology and changing lifestyles, the is eventually being accepted. It was a taboo for instance to mention death lest one of your own will be befallen by the same. So death was communicated by crying, smoke or even drums. So the Hamilton Spectator Death Notices service has changed all this.  

Multilingual students will be more motivated to learn the language if they are encouraged to include facts about their culture.  The first generation typically is not interested in the American culture and has difficulty adjusting to the change.  In order to encourage them to read, they must read about something which is familiar to them.  This would be an effective gesture of good will.

 Preserving Lifestyles from the Country of Origin

Multilingual people are very proud of their culture and feel threatened when they are told to speak English.  Even though their quality of life has changed, they still want to maintain their culture.  This is why they often shop at the markets where they can secure goods from their own country, rather than American goods.

 They are informed about current events and enjoy discussing the world in relation to their own country.  They want to know what is occurring in their country, as most of them still have family there.  They observe the relationships with the other countries and note what changes have occurred.  They look forward to returning to their countries to pay visits to relatives.

Class discussions will always be centered on their culture or globalization, as this is a frame of reference for them.  Whenever I teach my classes at the local community college, the students talk about their culture constantly.  There are communities here in the United States where multilingual people continue to practice their culture, such as having parties, following the sports, playing the music, and eating the ethnic food.  They even adorn their yards with cultural symbols.

Using Local News in Assignments  

In the summer, multilingual students attend the festivals related to their country and have parties at their houses often.  At times, they will integrate with Americans and attend the outdoor events.  They are accustomed to attending outdoor events in their own country.  This is a time when they celebrate with family and friends.

 These events which they celebrate are often the topics which they write about and discuss.  They will tell their classmates about this and they will include the events in their writings.  Whenever I prepare materials for discussion, I incorporate ethnicity into the lessons to give multilingual students more of an incentive to learn the language and to make it more enjoyable for them. 

 In conclusion, when multilingual students have a familiar point of reference incorporated into the English as a Second Language lessons, they will be eager to learn English and make efforts to communicate more in English.

SOCIAL CIRCLES THAT EXTEND AROUND THE WORLD

I have some very dear friends here in my hometown and in nearby areas but I also have an extended community of friends that I care just as deeply for and we share some great times together yet we have never really met; well, I take that back, I have met a couple of them when they came to Vermont on vacation and we spent a wonderful day together.

Since the arrival of the internet the world has become a much small place and my knowledge, my experiences and my social life has become much greater as I share adventures, life in general, photos, family, holidays and just chat with folks from just about every walk of life all around the world.  It really amazes me just how much alike we all are and yet so very different.  I have loved learning about the different cultures and lifestyles of others from real people who tell it like it is. 

The computer, the internet has become very much a part of my life.  I work on the computer five days a week for eight to ten hours a day with several breaks since sitting and staring at a computer screen without moving from my chair is bad for my health but I love the work.  I use it for my research and my writing and I belong to several writing groups where I have met other writers from around the world and we have become friends.  We critique each other’s work and comment on the good and the bad points and encourage each other. 

I occasionally play on the computer.  I have a few games that I find challenging, fun and a break from the real world when it is too stormy to go outside and enjoy the world of nature and spend some time with my photography, a favorite hobby of mine.  I love getting out and walking or hiking and photographing the world around me and I sometimes sell those photos via the internet.   

I shop on the internet.  I have certain sites that I go to regularly and since I can no longer drive because of some disabilities it makes shopping an easy experience and often less expensive than going to the stores.

You can even go to school on the internet and often at considerably less expense than a campus education.  Many online courses are offered by nationally accredited colleges and universities and there are those who are not accredited as well but still offer very good courses that will enhance your knowledge and lifelong living experience if you choose to take them.  I’ve taken a couple and found them very rewarding and fun to do.

I can watch movies, listen to music and get the news and weather, local. national and international all from my chair in front of my PC just by tuning in to the right site. 

I sometimes go to church on the internet and I even travel, take armchair vacations via the internet.  I’ve had some marvelous adventures without ever having left home and have spent no more than the cost of my DSL each month.

All of this is wonderful and keeps me connected when I can’t physically connect. It has given me a new awareness, knowledge and a more acute sense of being and put me in touch with the world beyond my own little place on the map.  It builds relationships and friendships and understanding and makes the world a better place despite the politics and propaganda we are expected to swallow each day, and here I can find good news, not just the bad.

I belong to several social groups on the internet; these groups are usually themed and though some are public access many require your membership be approved first.  That helps prevent spamming and helps protect you from having personal information stolen or used carelessly by others.

Among the groups I belong to are Christian fellowship groups, environmental groups, writing groups, travel adventure groups, women’s groups where we share girl stuff, no men allowed, sort of like those clubs we had when we were nine or ten and boys were yuk and not allowed in our clubroom.  I belong to a gardening group, a group where we discuss our pets, everything from animal care and welfare to their antics and the joy our pets bring into our life and to a group of rock hounds and we all share all kinds of information and just plain friendship.  We care about each other and we come from all walks of life, various income levels and a wide variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds from all around the world.  It has made my world a bigger and brighter and better place; social circles that extend around the world. 

There is probably at least one group and I’m sure more that will fit right into your life’s interest and enlarge your personal world too.  There are even dating sites if you are looking for romance and that kind of friendship.

The internet; it is here to stay and though I may not like or agree with everything that goes on here and often cringe at the ways it is being misused and abused, it has also made the world a better place, one person, one social group at a time.  It is a marvelous way to stay connected and in touch with family, friends and the world at large.  It helps us to know and understand each other better; social circles on the internet, building friendships and bringing hope and encouragement around the world.  

O’ FARDEL CAKES

It is a snowy and blustery winter day, not a good day to be out and about so I’m curled up with my afghan and browsing old recipe books, reading in general and more specifically about the “good old days,” and wondering what it was really like living way back when, remembering the stories my grandparent told and recalling days of my youth as well.  Those “good old days” weren’t always good and sometimes they were danged difficult. 

I love delving into the past, history clear back to the ancient of days.  It is a pleasant way to spend a stormy day and there is sweet and gentle warmth found in being curled up in this afghan with all these tales and warm memories that has nothing to do with me being cold or the cold and blustery day outside my window.

I’ve just finished reading a story about how life was in the days of my Gaelic, Celtic ancestors, how they lived.  It is fascinating and I wonder how we would survive living under the conditions they lived under; probably not so well.  We’ve become soft as a society and automation as taken over and replaced common sense and hard work. 

As I was reading, I read about this shepherd family and the wife was preparing dinner I thought, I’m going to make this meal for me, just because I can.  I have everything I need and I am going to try to make it in the same way she did but without the open fire; they aren’t allowed and I really have no desire to stand outside in the middle of a blizzard to cook over my grill which would be closer to the way she cooked.  I’ll use my kitchen range and make do.  These cakes or breads are the same kind made by the pilgrims, the pioneers, explorers, prospectors and early settlers of our nation; the same bread carried by school children in the old lard buckets used for lunch pails and carried to school and the same bread eaten by wranglers as they herded cattle across the prairies; skillet bread or fardel cake.  

This story I was reading reminded me of the cakes my once elderly neighbor and landlady, Reva, sometimes made to go with stew or with her scorch gravy, fried salt pork or bacon and boiled potatoes with green beans, a very Irish or maybe Scottish meal.  She taught me to make sour dough and other simple foods that taste really good and are inexpensive to prepare. 

Reva called those skillet fried cakes or bread, fardel cakes, but they are also known as skillet bread and by other names depending on where you are from and who is making them.  They are all the same basic recipe and all cooked on a skillet.   I learned to make them and they were good and usually served them with marmalade or jam to slather on them or maybe honey or maple syrup to dip them in.   They are easy to make and are made with buttermilk or whole milk soured with vinegar can be substituted if you don’t have buttermilk available.  

If you cut them and baked them in the oven you’d call them biscuits(though most biscuit recipes call for a little shortening) but they don’t taste quite the same baked as they do cooked on a skillet and cooking them on a skillet gives them a different texture than baking them in the oven.  More often than not they are served just plain and hot with butter and jam or honey but occasionally Reva would add fruit, usually raisins, dates, cranberries or blueberries to them or herbs or spices, serving them with a fruit sauce or gravy depending on what she was serving them with and when she was serving them.  When she made them she often brought me a plate of them to enjoy too and they were always delicious.

To make fardel cake all you need is a heavy skillet or griddle and a low fire.  In olden times they cooked them over the coals.  While your skillet is heating mix together in a large mixing bowl; 2 cups of flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, a scant 1/4 tsp. salt (a good pinch) and mix it together.  Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in 1 cup of buttermilk (or 1 cup whole milk soured with 1 tsp. vinegar)  Mix together into a stiff dough.  Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead gently just until the mixture comes together and you can shape it into a ball.  Divide the ball in half so you have two balls of equal size and pat each ball down until you have a flattened round about 1/2 inch thick.  Cut each ball into 4 wedges cutting crosswise in each direction with a floured knife.  The cuts should form a cross.  Lightly dust your hot skillet with flour and cook the wedges for about 6 minutes or a little more on each side until they are lightly crispy on the outside and golden brown.  Place them in a bread basket and serve hot with your choice of condiment.  I love them with honey or fruit preserve and they are wonderful to go along with a stew or baked beans and a salad.  It is good food right out of the past.

NOTE: If you flatten the balls even more so they are thin (about 1/8 inch thick) you have flat bread for making delicious roll-ups and you can make them with a variety of flours using 2 parts regular flour and 1 part corn meal, rye, rice, whole wheat, oat or your favorite choice. And fill them with meat, refried beans and other wonderful vegetables or fruit and cheese.

When beginning the process of sharing your home with a boarder or fellow renter this is the first essential step. Insist on face to face meeting to arrange finer details and to learn as much as you could about the potential renter. This is a great time to pick up on non verbal language and get a feel of the person.

Tip 2. Ensure potential renter/boarder has adequate affordability.

This is a no brainer and another essential tip in ensuring your not setting yourself up for trouble down the road when your choosing for that potential stranger to share your home with. Once their affordability has been established you can move onto the below steps.

Tip 3. Ensure the potential renter/boarder respects personal space and your privacy.

Privacy is very important in everyones life and so is your personal space. For you to coexist successfully with a stranger they would have to share the common value of privacy and uphold common courtesy with such factors as noise control, adequate clothing around the house etc.

Tip 4. Ensure the potential renter/boarder upholds a good sense of cleanliness and personal hygiene.

You’ll find that this factor is very important and something that all house members are attuned to equally. After all who wants smelly unshowered housemates who don’t clean up after themselves. Ensure your code of hygiene and cleanliness is made very clear and upheld strictly.

Tip 5. Ensure that everyone does the housework equally.

If this means writing up a roster for jobs like dishes, sweeping the floor etc, then this would be a worth wile measure. Everyone should carry their own weight and contribute towards a smooth running and clean homestead. Your needs should be made very clear with the potential boarder.

There is a biological clock in everyone of us and it is set in a way that it doesn’t function well after midnight. Our bodies will gradually feel tired most probably after midnight. Our eyelids will start to feel really heavy (one of the signs to tell us to stop whatever we are doing and go to sleep).

#2: Constantly skipping breakfast in the morning

As we all know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast is like fuel needed for our bodies to start functioning. Having breakfast in the morning also keeps us alert and focused whether at work or in school. If you are into the habit of going to school or work on an empty stomach, you will most likely find it hard to stay awake because food needed to supply energy throughout your body is absent. Thus, your body responds by shutting down.

#3: Having your cellphone with you 24 hours

Cell phones give out radiation whenever there is activity on the cell phone (incoming calls, texts, outgoing calls). It is proven that a cell phone’s radiation can cause cancer when in very close contact(almost touching your skin) with your skin or is already touching you.

#4: Smoking and over drinking

Of course, the most common ones are smoking and over drinking. Everyone knows that smokers have a greater risk of getting all kinds of cancer. The alcohol in alcoholic drinks slowly damages the liver and it will eventually fail to function.

#5: Going to bed on a very full stomach

Going to bed with a full stomach is unhealthy as the stomach works to digest the food when it is supposed to be the time for sleep. Instead, your stomach has to work doubly hard so as to digest the food as quickly as possible. Tests were also carried out and people who go to sleep with a full stomach tend to have nightmares.

Make no mistake about it: Self-employment done right is a pretty darned rewarding experience. That being said, it can also be a devastating life draining fun sucking relationship ruining pursuit when done wrong.

First off get used to people, especially those closest to you, when exposed to the words self and employed combined together to interpret that combination as an idiom for unemployed and available at any hour of the day or night for any purpose, no matter how trivial. Initially, it can be difficult for the newly self employed to define the difference to time sucking focus impinging parties, but the sooner a defensible line is drawn the better.

Image by misteraitch via Flickr

(Don’t look directly into the puppy dog eyes.)

A handy phrase to use is “When you interrupt during my work hours there will be bloodshed.” Let them figure out if that is present or future tense, it’s more fun that way.

I know all those fantastic and well produced work at home ads on television at 3 am say to throw out the 9 to 5 workday and be there for your family. Those ads are lies. The truth is that no matter what you do, with rare exception you’ll need to make a schedule for yourself and stick to it. That doesn’t mean that the schedule needs to be completely inflexible (after all, when there’s serious injury or flammable materials involved even I will take a few minutes to see if I’m really needed) but it needs to be respected.

To that point, unless you look forward to seeing your venture’s income garnished for alimony and child support and weeping bitter tears of desperation for human contact in order to get yourself to sleep at night, learn to flip the off switch on the day job at a reasonable hour and spend time being a human being.

Get enough sleep to function and go to bed. It is all too tempting to justify a few late nights because you don’t have a boss to yell at you for stumbling in hung over, covered in glitter, unshaven and reeking of cheap perfume from that totally innocent Mah Jong game that ran late and sleeping in to make up for those lost hours of sleep. The problem arises in that the world contains an epic level of not giving a diminutive rodent’s backside to any one individual and you need to keep up with it, not insist that it slow down for your pathetic sleep deprived corpse.

Clients/Customers are not always right. I know you probably accept this as a fact but clients are often so deeply embedded in their own little fantasy worlds that they might need a little education in this area. In fact, clients wallowing in the darkest dankest recesses of inexorable wrongness and are more than happy to drag you into the muck that they have created for themselves. If you fold to a client’s every misguided whim and whimsy without a fair attempt at protesting the travesty, later you can expect an inordinate amount of complaints about your work—especially if you’re a designer.

If the client/customer knows so much about what you do for them, then they are perfectly capable of doing it for themselves. Along the same lines, go through your client/customer list and weed out the ones that consume the most time and energy. You know those ones that call at odd hours and want to be your friend (or believe that psychiatry degrees come in the same packet as your knowledge of php and html), the ones that pay very little but demand top shelf services, the ones that need constant supervision and the ones that always want things done yesterday; fire them. There are plenty of well balanced, adequately financed and pleasant people to work for/sell to that you don’t need to hang tight with a client or customer that sucks you and your business dry.

Invoice immediately, professionally and persistently. There’s nothing rude in demanding payment for services/goods rendered, although some clients will insist on treating you like it is. Presumably these people have their own source of income from which to pay their obligations and would be irate if it were suddenly not honored in a timely manner. Anyone that can’t deal with billing and handling the more than occasional non-payment does not deserve to stay in business.

A few clever clients think that that payment due upon completion means whenever they feel that they have enough money and will demand trite changes to put off the completion of their commissioned projects. The best approach to take is to have explicit contracts when the words due upon completion are involved, describing in detail the client’s full expectations and clearly stating that completion is at your discretion—not theirs. I like to add a little clause that states anything exceeding the original contract is billable. It doesn’t always result in immediate payment, but it does murder the pointless email exchanges between you and the client deader than shit.

Reserve enough from profits to keep your business and household going; do not float your business on your personal funds and hope that things will sort themselves out next month. This is especially necessary if you are bootstrapping a business together on a budget that can only be described as homeopathic—that reserve to keep you in operation is absolutely critical. Although it would be nice to reserve the money in one large chunk, it is relatively simple to open a savings account and deposit a small percentage of each paid project into that account.

Stick those funds in an interest bearing savings account and unless you’re depositing more money (with each paid project) ignore the account. It’ll come in handy later.

Stay on top of the office work at the end of each business day, big lumps of paperwork and receipt sorting is almost as soul killing as late night cable access programming. Don’t let it build up. No one likes accounting—why? Because screw accounting, that’s why.

Finally, don’t let a lack of incoming projects slow you down. There is no reason to quit working (except vacations, personal days, sick days, and bereavement leave.) Create a stack of income producing personal projects to work on during the slow seasons and work on those with just as much dedication that you would give a paying client. Because, you know, eating food is good.

THE PLEASURES OF LIVING A COUNTRY LIFE

I grew up country.  For most of my life I have lived in small villages with open country, woods, farms all around me.  I have been very blessed.  There are advantages to rural life that do not come with any other life style.  There is a freedom in country living that does not exist in life in the city.  I’ve lived in cities for a few years at different times when life situations took me there.  There are conveniences to city life that I appreciated but for all the “at my fingertips” conveniences and the excitement the city may offer from time to time I was not truly happy living there.  I have always found more to be treasured, more pleasure in country living, living in a rural community.  I’ll take a more rural life.  It has advantages the city can never give.  The serenity, the peace, the beauty and wonder of country can never be replaced by all those city lights.

You don’t have to drive far beyond the city limits and you begin to notice the air smells fresher and you can breathe deeper.  The grass seems greener and the sky a brighter, more radiant blue.  The world just seems a better place; more relaxed, more congenial, less rushed.  Once you get beyond the city the traffic thins, there is less noise, fewer sirens, and you begin to notice the peace and calm, see things that fill you with wonder.  Noise is everywhere around you in the city, constant noise and not pleasant sounds, seldom pleasant sounds.  The city never really sleeps but in the country, in those rural villages and towns there comes a hush, a soothing silence in the night, a restfulness that revitalizes the body, mind and soul.  You sleep better in the country, maybe because you feel safer.  There is less crime.  You can walk along the streets of a rural village and not get that pushed and shoved feelings like you are caught in a stampede of human bodies.  You’ll see more smiles and even a stranger will nod and wish you a good day.  There is more congeniality in the country.

When I lived in the city I barely knew my neighbors.  Oh we might say hello or good morning and I might know the name of a those who lived within my own complex, at least some of them but we didn’t really know each other, we were more acquaintances that friends.  In the city I could easily feel very lonely and alone in the crowd.  There seems to be a lot more anxiety in the city, more stress.  That’s not how it is in the country, in a more rural setting, small towns and villages, here everyone knows just about everyone else and you become close friends, sharing, reaching out to each other.  It is the country way of life.  You are both independent and dependent on your neighbor and your neighbor is always there to share both your joy and your sorrow.  The rural life seems kinder in many ways, gentler, less confining.  There is togetherness, a real sense of community that does not seem to exist in a city setting.  I’ll take the rural life.  It pleases me and I appreciate the closeness to God and nature that I did not feel or see on city streets.  Country just makes you feel good, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  The rural environment provides quality over quantity and a life of quality is a life all of us desire.  The advantages of rural life are multiplied seven fold over life in the city.  Here in the country I not only have the advantage of enjoying wide open spaces and fresher air, I can have fresher food, purchased directly from the farmer’s fields, the farmer’s market and village stores and I can grow some of it myself if I so choose.  I have the advantage of enjoying fresh wild edibles as they come into season that has not been polluted by chemicals.  And I have the peace and quiet, oh the wonderful peace and quiet of life in the country.  I can enjoy the wonder of the heavens by night and by day I can walk along the river’s wind, enjoy a sandy beach and the ebb and flow of the ocean or a pristine lake.  I can meander through a wooded glen and listen to birdsong and laugh at the antics of the squirrel.  You can’t ski or go snowshoeing in the city and when it does snow the city gets bogged down for hours and sometimes days.  That doesn’t happen in the country, not often.  There is quality to rural life and quality counts.

The rural community has much to offer.  They have some of the best schools in the country.  We have some of the finest medical facilities around.  Though many of the businesses are considered small business they employee the locals and most of them pay a fair wage.  We have sports and theater and all the other social amenities of the city only on a smaller scale.  We have some of the finest dining facilities in the world.  Many of our five star restaurants and hotels are in rural communities or on some mountaintop in the country.  There is something good about country and something more congenial and peaceful about the rural life style.  I’ll take the rural life any day over life in the city.  Yes, it has its hardships in some ways.  Distance can sometimes be a disadvantage.  Everything you may want may not be immediately at your fingertips but the quality of life is so much greater that quantity takes a back seat and people seem to live longer and are healthier living in a rural environment.  Maybe that really says it all. 

ok, create in your mind, a continent, or country. all the homosexual people’s of the world had moved here, with every single living need being met. doctors, food markets, everything any society needs to survive. imagine them all living healthy, long lasting lives. but how long would they last? eventually, some time, they will realize they need to reproduce to keep their legacy alive. is that not against the homosexual mind state? that having sex with the opposite gender is not what they do? homosexuality is not natural, they will have to break everything that they hold true to survive. a person is not born gay. it is a life choice. think about it.