BeatStreet - encounters.

I see families walking on the streets, dressing their young 3 year old daughters in expensive clothing. I see ladies offering their bodies to get money to replace their old jandals.

I see people throwing away food because they just ordered too much. I see people rummaging through the bins because they haven't eaten yet.

I see people with great big cameras taking photos of the streets. I see people on the streets more beautiful than their photographs.

I see people looking down at the less fortunate ''homeless'' like they're trash, and i see them looking back  at them like they are naive.




We're living in a world that beggars are begging for money, to give to other beggars.

Where we simply would rather look away from the less fortunate and walk to the next shop. Where it's easier to pretend they don't want help. Some do, some don't. Where we would rather carry on with out mundane day, than to take a minute out to do something to help. Where it just is not on our minds.




Why is it so easy for us to shake our heads in the midst of the homeless, the addicted, the abandoned and carry on with our lives like we never saw anything? Why is it so easy.

We live in a corrupt world, but that does not mean you too have to be corrupted.  Don't ignore the problem - it will only worsen.

Dr. Nourozi: Prescription - love and caring for others less fortunate.

When time moves faster than time itself.

Sometimes time seems to go faster than time itself. Things can change so quickly, you can get startled or shocked when you realise how long it has been since that one time. It can be a scary thing. I know i've been scared by time. Life is a fleeting moment. And at the end of it all, what are we left with?

Sometimes i feel like i shouldn't be alive. Medically - I could have died already, a few times over. But here I am writing a blog that maybe just a few people will read. I'm breathing. Blood is still pumping through my veins. This is usually a very liberating feeling, that I bet the demon that was once controlling my entire life - but it was only a year or so ago where i was held captive by my own mental jail. It really does catch me off guard sometimes, this feeling of ''I could be dead''. That feeling of remembering who i once was, and what i once thought and did. I can spend a long time in tears just remembering what happened. It isn't something i'll ever be able to forget and i think because of my past intensity of existence, it will always remain a part of me.

What am i talking about, what is this past existence from just a year ago? The reality was me spending days in bed, so high that time didn't exist. It was me popping pills to the point of no return and being hospitalised when a friend learnt of my state. Of watching the heart rate moniters in hospital dive from 220bpm to 60bpm in a matter of a second. A period of my life where i didn't know why i was alive, nor did i want to be. I felt like a burden, and I know now more than ever, that i was.

And now, here I am in Auckland - living a great life. Pretty happy in general, wanting to serve others more than ever. Filled with passion and enthusiasm.

It is really hard for me to get my head around this really fast transition from dark to light - and that is why I sometimes get stuck outside of it all, narrating my own life. Because it is that surreal. It is not a very enjoyable thing to do. It's almost like rembereing about my own death - or rembereing my own birth. Both perhaps at the same time - it is hard as stone to digest.

It is mad.

While i do not think it is very productive to think of that past too much, it is not in my control sometimes. It can be as easy as thinking of a friend from back in that time of my life - and a thousand thoughts will come back to me, those of that i thought of back then. Or maybe viewing a photograph.

I used to smile and laugh - but it was only an act of my muscles, not of my soul. I can see in photographs from that miserable part of my life that my eyes and smiles were as empty as my soul felt.

I look back on myself in wonder. How did things change so quickly! Sometimes the change is just too much to beleive and I think that maybe it's not real. But it is real. Because my eyes, my heart, my soul and my life is real now. Before i was just a puppet playing out the lines as defined by my health. Now I am real.

That's what scares me, how time can blend and mould.  How the only time that is real is the present. This very second. That's all we have.

Make it worth it. I know I am.

Dr. Nourozi: Prescription: watch your time, count your blessings.

Importance of thin.

Being thin is looked at as a lifestyle. Looked upon as beautiful. As fashionable, as a trend and is sold constantly by the media. Thin is good - thin is something to aspire to - thin is happiness - thin is attractive. Fat is lazy - fat is ugly - fat is something to hate.

In our modern age, with the amount of knowledge we have access to - why is something like an eating disorder so prominent? What is so modern about that?

Men and women with eating disorders are idolized. Although people appear scared, there is some kind of mysterious allure about them. In the magazines, people on ''shock'' and ''fad'' diets are always on front pages. Body transformation is a huge aspect of todays culture.

Image is becoming a disease. And it is a disease.

People love to talk about how they are hitting the gym, or the new regieme they are undergoing. They enjoy publicising how much weight they have lost, or what club they have just joined. They love to show off the reduction of size. It is something they are proud of. Being ''fat'', is not.

People are in such a hurry to get to the new 'it' look. To have the straightest, or curliest hair. To have the highest, or flattest heals. To fit into that smaller bikini. They are in such a hurry that they miss the real point - that beauty is not, and cannot be found externally. It is a pursuit that is everlasting.


Real beauty and satisfaction comes from inside. You can get all the material image appeal you want, and still be the most miserable person ever. You can be on the front cover of a magazine because of the ''shocking weight loss'' and be totally sad and lost.

This generation is growing up in an environment feeding into their young minds this false importance and urgency on ''looking good'' which is also defined by the media. You know, not even 50 years ago the ''good look'' and ''ideal size'' was about a size 14? Now that is considered overweight - and that some weight needs to be lost.

Science is immature and ever-developing - do not let it define you. Do not let it tell you who or what you are.

You don't need to be smaller to be beautiful. You don't have to hit the gym and lose those ''extra'' yet perfectly places pounds. Because the body is such a superficial and material thing. It is material, it is extremely tempoary, it is a tool. Do not let this tool, for your soul, deteriorate and take over your souls true puropse; to be happy, and make others happy.

I see and hear all my friends and people around me talking about going to the gym, about being fat, about not fitting into the clothes they want. And all I see is beauty. But - i have been to the extremes of that mindset.

I have been in the depths of a severe eating disorder. I have felt extremely fat, yet been very thin. I have wanted to get smaller and smaller - but the pursuit was ever lasting. I though, if i lose just 4 more kilos, then, and only then will i be happy. But no, it was more kilos.. and more.. Because it is not about how much we weigh, but what we are placing and translating into our weight.
Our fears, our anger, our insecurities, our hate. We can control our weight, to an extent, but we cannot always control those things.

I wonder if we could live without knowing how much we weighed. Or without looking into a mirror for just a day. These are things that are considered essential. Image has become essential.

Esteem is based upon our image, rank and status, how our day will go. So much relies on how much we weigh. Or that is what you think... I beleive otherwise. So much relies not on how much we weigh, that is only a socially constructed concept. But rather, a lot relies on how we interpret our weight.

I can tell you, being thin - being really thin is not going to make you happy. Only you can do that, your spirit. I can tell you, that losing sizes is not going to make you happy, it might even make you unhappy. I can tell you that you don't need to lose those pounds to impress me, but you do need to lose that attitude. I can tell you that weight has nothing to do with you and your happiness, but to do with your misery.

You have to learn to love yourself for who and what you really are - not for a number or a mediated conception of what is beautiful. In 20 years time, maybe the new look will be to be a size 24. Will you follow that? Don't need to fit in to anything, but your own skin.

I can tell you - that i have never been happier than i am now, and i have never heavy or large.

Do not get me wrong, living a healthy lifestyle and becoming that is great. But when your emotions rely on how much you weigh - that is never healthy.

I love you, you beautiful freak you!

Dr. Nourozi: Diagnonsense: overweight.

Numbers were never meant to mean that much.

It is all too easy to want to checkout. To pack all your belongings in a suitcase and leave. Any place seems better than where you already are. Even if that means an eternity of nothing.

With every breath you take you feel the air fill you up; when all you feel is empty. The world continues to revolve. You can't stop that. Like you have no power, you just have to keep spinning. You feel motion-sick.

You are caged by the law of nature. You are forced to eat. Forced to blink and swallow. There is just no way out; apart from the last exit.

You are born with a set of DNA and you have to deal with that for every living second. The colour of your eyes. Your hair. The size of your hands.

Reality is always going to catch up with you. You can put on your make-up and wear your fancy clothes, but in the end all you are left with is yourself. Naked and alone.

Your mind has to be thinking all the time, not a moment goes by where you think nothing. You can't stop it. It too will catch up with you. Just like your DNA, just like the Earths spin.

With every moment, every fleeting second you are aging. Your youth will disappear and you will grow old wondering why you wasted it. Your beauty will fade with time and then, even the most glamourous tools will not keep you from getting old. Gravity starts to target parts of you that before were uneffected. Your face will droop, your skin will sag, your teeth will hurt, your bones will become more frail, and your speed will reduce.

There's a ticking bomb on each one of us... It is all to easy to want to checkout. To pack all your belongings in a suitcase and leave. Any place seems better than where you already are. Even if that means an eternity of nothing.

You look to the future and fill it with naiive hopes and dreams while the present moment passes you by. You live in the future, but it never comes. ''I will be happy and I will be successful'', but it never comes.

So, this is all true. But who is to say it is bad? It is beautiful. It is human. It is life.

Enjoy your youth, but you wont. Until it is too late and you wonder how you got here. How good you looked. How your skin radiated with youthful beauty.
Don't hurt other peoples hearts, but you will. Until your heart is emptied yet filled with regret.
Remember the nice things people say to you, but you wont. You will only remember the negatvie things people say to you.
Don't worry about the future, but you will. The present will pass you by until you grow old.
Maybe you will get married, maybe you wont.
Look after your body, don't be afraid of it. It is the greatest tool you will ever have, and perhaps the only one.
Don't read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know and love your family, they share the same blood as you; remember this.
Keep the good friends, and leave the ones who aren't.
Travel. See the world through others eyes. Practice being detatched and open.
Don't think about the absolute truths, there are none.
Don't fantasize about how when you were their age, things were different. Things were more simple, milk was cheaper. It wasn't.
Don't put yourself down, others can do that for you. But you will.

It is all too easy to want to checkout. To pack all your belongings in a suitcase and leave. Any place seems better than where you already are. Even if that means an eternity of nothing. But why would you? Everything you could ever want or need is already within you. Love, peace, joy. Its all there. Don't look for it anywhere else or you will miss the chance to grab it when it is sitting right there in your soul.

Don't rely on others to bring you happiness. Only rely on yourself to give others it.
Don't expect others to be there for you, just try your best to be there for them.
Don't place your happiness and peace in others hands, just hold theirs when they can't find any.

Oh, and throw that cheap make-up you bought. You look far better without it.
You can put the scales away too, numbers were never meant to mean that much.

Dr. Nourozi; Prescription: Detachment.

When your heart hurts.

When you've invested everything into someone, you are putting your whole identity, being and spirit into that person. And as easily as you gave it to them, it is broken down. When you want it to work out but the other person cannot or does not want to commit. When you feel like you messed it up and there is no going back to how it was. When you don't think you'll ever move on, and your heart is forever theirs. When you know you can't make their heart feel something it doesn't want to. When you envisioned your entire life with that person, and then it all crumbles. When all you want is for them to be happy, but you cannot be a part of their happiness. When you would give up anything to have them back. When you would change or do whatever it takes to have them. When you want them to want you, but it never will be.

That's when the heart, head, mind, spirit and body hurts. When your life seems to just be meaningless and your past becomes a tomb and your future seems dull and colorless.

When you wish you were in a nightmare and maybe some day you'll wake up and everything will be how you once dreamt it to be. When you stay up crying until your heart is drained and your veins no longer flow with passion. When the wound doesn't seem to heal with time the way you thought it would. When the pain is the most consistent thing in your life.

That's when the heart, head, mind, spirit and body hurts. When your life seems like a collection of photographs and you've run out of film.

When your soul refuses to light up. When your spirit no longer beams. When your face is an image of a worn and exhausted candle. When the muscles that used to make you move ache and refuse to live.

That's when your heart hurts.

When guilt and remorse infuses into every breath you take, for you could have done something different that would have meant you were still with the one who owns your heart. When you wish you could just have one more second feeling the breath of that person. When you feel like you never told them you loved them enough times. When you regret not hugging them enough. When you realize you didn't take care of them like they did for you.

That's when your heart hurts. When your life seems to spiral into darkness and hope is replaced by sadness.

To you, the bearer of this broken and hurt heart.
The world always seemed to make more sense when you were in it. The gloomiest days would vanish with just a glimpse of your smile. You brought out the best in me, and made me feel like I could mean something to somebody. That I could be loved, and am lovable. To you who made me want to help out everyone around me so that they could feel a little more whole, like how you made me feel. To you who made everybody forget their problems, be it in vain. To you who gave me hope, reassurance and support.

To you, the bearer of this broken and hurt heart.
All I can ever wish is that you be happy. Feel as whole and uplifted as you made me feel. To love the whole world like I love you. To serve humanity in the beautiful ways you served me. To feel useful, not used. To smile without thinking. To laugh until your stomach hurts. To have high hopes and aspirations. To live a productive and reflective life. To be loved.
To be you, the most you that you can be. Nobody else can.

For you, I am. And that is okay, no matter how much it may make this heart hurt.