Hasta La Gadget!

Everything we share on this glorious Internet is done with the sole purpose of it being seen by others, and that is why you are reading this. Someone, somewhere, read this letter and thought of someone else. They probably thought of many people. You probably thought of many people also as you decided to read this. I wrote this letter with so many faces, memories and emotions running through my mind. Life is fast, breathtaking and noisy. In the midst of all of the noise, we lose people. They slip away. They become a memory. They become a face that seeps into your mind when you start to remember the people you used to know.

Dear Old Friend,

Let’s start out with the obvious; I miss you. I miss all of the people I have lost. It isn’t something I frequently confront or even try to think about. This is because it only feels like a problem if I admit it is. It’s easier to accept change than to try to engage in a bloody war with it. Still, true friendship and love felt deep in a person’s heart is something that doesn’t waver. It can be ignored, but it cannot be destroyed.

Growing apart often feels natural at first. It starts slowly, and then by the time you realize you are losing someone, they’re already gone. There are also the abrupt endings. These are the endings that warrant flames and daggers into years of love. You then stand in the rubble of your lost relationship and wonder if it was all worth it, but again, it’s usually too late. Often in life we are too late, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

I wish you weren’t a person that I used to know. I see your life in photos like I watch strangers in a film. Brief texting has replaced deep conversation and secret-sharing. Memories have replaced realities. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to go back to a simpler time, when friendship and love felt so easy. I wonder what it would feel like to not have a care in the world and just waste hours goofing off with you and the other people we now barely know. I wonder what it would be like to know each other again. You see, I have changed. I have grown. I think you would like who I have become. You may even be proud of me. I can’t explain how much I wonder if you’d be proud of me. I’m sure I’d be proud of you as well. I always was, even if I didn’t tell you enough. I know you knew. I am sure you have grown too, and some days I wish I had the chance to witness that growth the way I used to. I see that you are blossoming into this incredible adult that I barely know.

I wish it were possible to try to be best friends again. I wish it made sense. I wish I could always call you when I am feeling alone or lost. I wish I could tell you when something amazing, or even completely meaningless and silly happens. I wish I still heard the same things from you. I wish you didn’t live a million miles away, or at least feel like you do. I wish I could hug you when I hear that you are going through a hard time. I wish I could be there for you the way I used to be. I wish I could know the people in your life. I wish I could shake the hands of the people you fall in love with, and tell stories with the new friends you have made. I wish I could show up at your door with ice cream and a few crappy movies, just to really talk about the last few years of our lives. It wouldn’t be a lunch every six months or a quick phone call. It would be real, and honest. It would be the old us.

Why can’t we do these things? Time builds barriers. We get so wrapped in our changing lives and responsibilities that we end up often too strung out to try anymore when friendship becomes difficult. We fear rejection. We fear our own neediness and weakness. We fear a lot of things, but why? Life is busy, life is hard, and as I said earlier, life is noisy. It isn’t easy to maintain friendships, and certainly isn’t easy to rebuild them. But life is lonely enough without little empty spaces in our hearts. I miss you. I miss so many people. People miss people every single day, and yet we do nothing about it. I am writing this letter because I want to do something about it. I want to fight distance, time, hectic lifestyles and the inevitable effects of growing up. I want to make efforts where I may have failed to do so before. I want the friendships I know have always been worth fighting for. I don’t want empty spaces. Maybe you feel the same way. Maybe you will read this and not want empty spaces either. I hope my space in your heart is still open, because your space in my mine will never close.

Sincerely,

Your Old Friend

For more, check out my website at www.serendipityandcreativity.com

I was 22 when I tested positive for HIV. Now that I’m 44, that was literally half a lifetime ago. I remember feeling hopeless back then. I definitely didn’t feel empowered to take charge of my own health, let alone change things for the better, for myself or for others.

I have certainly changed my mind since then, but it took a while. I needed time to mourn the life I wouldn’t have before I could embrace the life I did have. I needed time to grow older before I could believe I would grow old. I needed time to accept I would have a life before I could plan for it.

Everyone has their own journey; that was mine. Having spent my youth expecting to die, I admire the courage of young people living with or at risk for the virus who have joined the HIV/AIDS fight. Their hope for a better tomorrow is based on their belief in being part of the solution today.

Even if a cost-effective cure and vaccine were here now, we still would most likely not get to the end of this epidemic without the leadership of the next generation. We must encourage them to lead. To that end, it is my great honor to introduce the 2014 POZ 100, which celebrates youth power.

Our fifth annual list spotlights the efforts of 100 unsung heroes under the age of 30. These young leaders come from across the country — and some from around the world. Some have HIV, and some do not, which seemed appropriate. Regardless of their HIV status, everyone should be encouraged to join the struggle. Click here for the list.

When it comes to empowering the next generation, Adam Tenner walks the walk. As the executive director of Metro TeenAIDS in Washington, D.C., he helps youth provide HIV education. His group also hosts youth-leadership programs that have trained hundreds of young health workers and activists. Click here to read more about his work.

As World AIDS Day — marked annually on Dec. 1 — again focuses our attention on the pandemic, the United Nations continues to craft its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Advocates are working to include HIV/AIDS in the post-2015 UN agenda.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is coordinating those efforts, which include getting young people to advocate for HIV/AIDS in the SDGs. For more on UNAIDS, click here to read our Q-and-A with Regan Hofmann, the former POZ editor-in-chief who is now a policy advisor in the UNAIDS Washington, D.C., liaison office.

We all may not be young in years, but we all can strive to stay young at heart. In that spirit, I’d like to acknowledge yet another milestone for POZ this year. We marked our 20th anniversary in the June 2014 issue. Now we mark our 200th issue. On behalf of the entire POZ family, both past and present, I thank you for reading. You are why we keep doing what we do. Stay strong; know hope.

To all my cumberbitches,

I love you all, and cumberbless each and every one of you. But I have to get this off my chest — I’m just a regular cumberboy. Every morning I get up from my cumberbed, eat my cumberbreakfast, cumberbrush my teeth and head to work.

But lately It’s starting to really cumberbother me how a lot of you are cumberbantering about my name. I know, I have kind of an unusual name. But it’s never fun to be the cumberbutt of the joke. This is in no way a new thing. I’ve been cumbombarded with puns my whole life. But since I became a huge actor this trend definitely got worse.

Ever since I was a cumberbaby I remember hearing people say I had an odd name. But It’s not odd to me. In fact, it goes back a long time, to ancient cumberBritain. It’s a very noble name that I am proud to cumberbear. If any of you find it funny or too long, I think you should keep it to yourself. It’s not clever, and truthfully, it makes me want to cumberbarf.

Again, I cherish each and every one of my fans. You made me who I am today. But I just want to be able to go back home after a long day, take a nice cumberbath and have a pint of cumberbeer. You have to understand what these constant puns are doing to me. All day long I rack my cumberbrain, thinking what’s going to be the next joke. How are people going to cumberbuse my name.

I really want to be nice to my fans. I don’t want to be one of those actors who cumberblows off his admirers. But sometimes I get so tired because it’s everywhere I go. From the teller at the cumberbank to the shoe renter guy at the cumberbowling alley. I didn’t even eat a proper vegetable in a whole year because I can’t step my foot at the cumber’s market.

I’ve decide to write this letter as a hail Mary. I’m going to try and make this whole cumberbloody trend go away. And so, I’m announcing I will be holding a “Cumberbye party” on my twitter. Everyone is welcome to send all their best cumberpuns and I will retweet them all. Get it out of your system, once and for all. And together, we’ll send off this stupid trend in a cumberblaze of glory.

After this, I will have zero tolerance to any name gag. I swear to god, if I see one more pun I will cumberbreak the fucking internet. That’s right, that includes Tumblr!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, all my british actor friends and I are going over to Loki’s house to get totally Hiddlestoned.

Yours truly,
Ben.

How many things are you trying to keep track of at this moment?

Did you respond to all of the latest communications you received on Facebook, Twitter, your texts, your emails or even all your phone messages?

The project you’re supposed to have finished for work in one hour, and the new one that your boss just handed you that’s needed ASAP?

The meetings you have scheduled all your children’s appointments with the coaches, play dates, tutors and lessons?

Your password for your new email account, or was that the one for your bank account?

The list for many of you may seem endless, and you likely feel anxious just thinking about all that you have to remember. And it’s no coincidence that the more you have on your plate, the more you likely find yourself misplacing your car keys, leaving your purse in a restaurant or completely forgetting about an appointment. Your mind is simply overloaded.

Our minds are very much like computers. When you have too much stored in your memory, or too many programs open at the same time, the system will slow down and eventually crash.

Plus, everything you are trying not to remember is pulling at your awareness as well. All our unpleasant experiences from the past are also like programs open in the background pulling at our consciousness and draining our energy reserves.

In fact, according to a study in Nature, our awareness is limited to only three or four objects at any given time. To be able to think at your highest level, you therefore must be very efficient at filtering out all of the background noise: Your racing thoughts, the ringing phone, your neighbor’s barking dog, and the list goes on.

The Nature study found that when participants were asked to “hold in mind” certain objects while ignoring others, there are significant variations in how well each of us can keep irrelevant objects out of our awareness.

The researchers concluded that your memory capacity is therefore not simply about storage space, but rather “how efficiently irrelevant information is excluded from using up vital storage capacity.”

In other words, the more you are able to filter your mind and the information it contains — and hold on to only the most important information – the better you will be able to focus.

You probably also have already noticed that when you are upset it is even harder to filter out the irrelevant. In fact, we can be so obsessed with what we are upset about that we do even know we are forgetting what is important.

Your ability to make decisions effectively is also swayed by information you may not even know is there, according to a study in The Journal of Neuroscience.

In this study, the researchers found that when you make decisions, even seemingly simple, rational ones, you may be influenced by subconscious factors, some that you may not even know exist.

How to Clear Your Mind and Stop Overloading Your System

So how can you allow your mind to focus on what’s important, and let go of all the miscellaneous information and subconscious cues in between? How can you create a state of natural mindfulness?

In addition to the obvious things like using your smartphone to remind you of your appointments and using password organizing software, there is a much more powerful way to clear you mind that will produce lasting effects on all parts of your life including your memory. Letting go!

It’s important to let go of ALL irrelevant information in your life, especially emotionally charged events. When you think about it, you don’t really need to be holding on to the anger you felt from your breakup with your high school sweetheart, or the embarrassment you felt when you sent that compromising “selfie” to your whole list.

When you let go of your emotional charges from your past, you retain the wisdom but stop overloading your system. This results in greater inner clarity and well-being. It also makes it much easier to learn and remember new information.

Technique for Clearing Your Heart and Mind

Here is a simple process you can do right now to start clearing your memory and your mind from all the excess baggage.

Do your best to answer these questions with your heart instead of your head while avoiding over analyzing and debating about the right answer. Also, be as honest as you can with your responses. Often, you will let go even if you say “no.”

Think of something that you are either trying to remember, like a password, or something that you are trying to forget, like a past disappointment.

Now, in this moment simply ask yourself this series of questions:

1. Could I welcome or allow whatever this issue is bringing up in my mind and heart?
2. Could I let the feeling this brings up go as best I can?
3. Would I?
4. When?
5. Could I allow myself to open to the vast open storehouse of intelligence and energy that is right within me?

Each time you take yourself through the above questions you will get some relief. Be patient with yourself and be persistent with this exploration and you will see results. If you apply yourself you can get to the point where you are relaxed and at ease even when you appear to be under pressure and you will have more than enough energy to pursue your worthy goals.

And letting go will free you to learn new information while retaining an inner feeling of calm that you will excel in areas of your life you never thought possible. This is because when you stop wasting energy on bad memories and life’s many irrelevant details, you become free to use this new found energy on the things that really do matter.

And when you do this, the possibilities of achievement and happiness are endless.

Please comment below and share this post with people that you care about.

Love,

Hale

This post is based on the principles explored in his New York Times bestselling book The Sedona Method; Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success and Emotional Wellbeing, in his retreats and on Letting Go: The Sedona Method Movie. It is based on over three decades of experience with a simple, powerful, elegant and easy-to-learn technique that shows you how to tap your natural ability to let go instantaneously of any uncomfortable or unwanted feeling, thought or belief. For more information, visit www.Sedona.com.

A group of researchers at Queen Mary University in London have taken to creating magic tricks using artificial intelligence — something they’ve made available for anyone who is interested over on the QMagic site. There are four tricks so far, including one that involves having a smartphone guess what a playing card is, and another that turns one’s smartphone into … Continue reading