A well known speaker started his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?” Hands started going up. He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He proceeded to crumple the dollar […]
Category: Self Image
The movie The Elephant Man tells the true story of John Merrick. Merrick was born in the slums of England in 1862, and almost from birth experienced massive rejection due to his grotesque appearance. Merrick suffered abnormalities that resulted in a large and severely misshapen head, loose, rough skin, and twisted arms and legs. His mother loved […]
Categories
Body Image
Judith Durham was one of Australia’s first international pop stars. As lead singer for The Seekers she toured Australia and the world and had a string of hits, including the first Australian group to have a No 1 hit overseas. Yet while Durham appeared to be on top of the world, emotionally she was a mess. In […]
Jacob Dylan is the lead singer in a band called the Wallflowers. He’s also the son of Bob Dylan, and all his life he’s had to live in the shadow of his famous musician father. When his band went on their first tours they’d find the audiences packed with middle aged fans of his father […]
He’s the most successful songwriter in history, his boyhood home has been preserved by the British National Trust, he’s one of the world’s most famous people, he’s been knighted by the Queen, he has a personal fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet he’s insecure. When interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald in 2002 […]
David Suzuki is one of the world’s best known campaigners for the environment. He is a respected and regarded citizen of his homeland Canada. Many people are unaware however of the painful memories Suzuki has from childhood. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese airforce bombed Pearl Harbour and so Japan entered the Second World War. […]
Categories
Seventeen
Janis Ian is a Grammy award winning American singer-songwriter who had a number of number one hits in the 1970’s and 80’s. One of her hit songs was At Seventeen. The lyrics are a deeply moving comment on “beauty” and the ways we treat those considered “ugly”. I learned the truth at seventeen that love was […]
The Frillfin Goby is an ugly little fish, 10-15 centimeters long, that lives in tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world. You find them in rock pools. See a goby and you’re not likely to give it much thought. It’s not pretty like so many tropical species, nor is it impressive in size, nor is […]
Categories
Angelina Jolie
Like most of us actress Angelina Jolie went through a period of defining her life. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald Jolie reflected that: “I do feel more centred now…Certainly, I was lost at times in my life. I’d like to think I was never a bad person, but I certainly went through times where […]
In the seventeenth century France a humanist scholar by the name of Muretus was an ailing fugitive. When he presented himself to the medical doctors he was dressed in the rags of a pauper. The doctors discussed his case in Latin, thinking he would not be able to understand them. “Faciamus experimentum in anima vili” […]