royal wedding celebration

Funny comment from a reader:

This is SO interesting. I'm an "old lady" by anyone's standards posting on this site. I was curious about this whole "emo" and "scene" thing as my niece has recently changed her look and style pretty drastically.

In some ways, in reading all these posts, I can only laugh... But the majority, I can totally relate to, appreciate, (and sigh!... remember) what it was like growing up, ESPECIALLY "coming of age" through the **`70's!** and partying even harder through the `80's (guess that tells you how really ancient I am..LOL)

...Anyway, we had the same diverse groups and identities, just with different names or interests than you do today. I'm sure it was all a little more "regionally" based back in my day too. We didn't have, or couldn't even fathom the the incredible technology available that you all have at your fingertips today. ("gasp"...Imagine to your horror, no cell phones, im, texting, ipods, video games, computers, internet etc..hell, even microwaves weren't really even around when i was in middle and high school)

...OK, all this "banter' is to prove my point. Styles, tastes, and interests change multiple,multiple, multiple times during your life. Enjoy it all while you're young, and hopefully have the sense to maintain your individuality and "morality", through out it all. Stay safe, show tolerance, and don't judge one another too harshly. Years from now when you're a wise, (but still cool!) aunt/parent etc. like me, you can look back at all the "stages" and decades of your life, and die of embarrassment, and laugh at yourself, on some of what you once thought was so cutting edge or cool!

Carbon footprints are all the rage and it's a fad to measure your own, much as it was a fad a couple of years ago for everyone to wear pedometers and walk so many miles a day. Somewhere along the line, someone makes a fortune out of these fads and it makes no difference whatsoever to the overall health of the population or the earth. Here's a wacky idea which I think makes more sense. How about the mental footprint we leave behind wherever we go? No one makes money out of this. No one uses this to promote a product (well...a few people try with strange machines) but it has, I think, a bigger effect on the environment in which we all live than anything else. How often to we go into a place that has an atmosphere of gloom and come away feeling exhausted? How often does a particular historical site retain the atmosphere of ages? Some places have a happy atmosphere, others an atmosphere of gloom. Some people you meet leave you feeling much better about the world, others leave you feeling drained. When a house has been the site of a murder, it is often pulled down, so even the most sceptical must accept there is something going on about atmospheres. My suggestion is that instead of measuring our carbon footprint, we measure our thought-print. If we go among people thinking the worst, being miserable and condemnatory we add to that atmosphere. If we go among people thinking the best, we create harmony and will do far more good to ourselves as well as to others, than counting calories or how many watts we have used. The earth is much older than we are and has come through ice ages and all kinds of geological changes. Humanity is much younger than the earth....how arrogant to think we are more powerful than the environment in which we develop. We are not responsible directly for what happens in the ice caps and the weather systems. We are, though, responsible for our own thoughts...If we want to make the world a better place, the best place to start is in our own minds.