Another Obituary Moment.....Or It's Time To Really Live !

As I was growing up, my parents would remark 
to each other about someone famous either in 
music or film, or a relative, who had passed away. 
Depending on how far or close they were to 
my parents lives, and how much they identified 
with them...they would exhibit that amount of 
sorrow. It always fascinated me and 
I would take interest in listening to them, 
with a mix of new sorrow for whoever it was 
to a neutral learning about that person...


It seemed to me that my parents were quite 
taken by some peoples passing....and that's 
usually when I learned of that person...because 
of their obituary. I remember learning the word 
"obituary", and realized that all the recent deaths 
in the local area were printed in the newspaper. 
That was quite a read for a while....

The most famous person I didn't know about 
until he died was Martin Luther King. I remember 
sitting in the den and watching a show on television, 
and all of a sudden the announcement interrupted
my show, saying that Martin Luther King was shot, and he was dead.
I was briefly upset that my show was interrupted, but I also knew 
that I was going to tell my Mother the news, and maybe she would
be interested or not....


To my surprise she was devastated. She began to cry and 
was so smitten by it that she was completely taken with the news. 
I had no idea who this man was, or that she even knew his name..
but in the ensuing few days I saw the national funeral and non stop 
news coverage about his legacy and what he stood for. 


Mr. King (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was shot in 1968, 
and I was born on July 25, 1956, so I was 11 years old. That 
time was also filled with the deaths of John and Bobby Kennedy, 
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jack Ruby, and many many 
others including our own relatives.


We watch the procession of births and deaths on a daily basis....
but I for one felt like I would live to a ripe old age, and I could 
live and act in any manner I wanted. Time keeps marching forward... 
See the world clock here:  and see the world birth and death rate here   

(Right Click the links and click "Open In A new website or use your 
Back button to return to the Blog)


This is the most amazing site Ive ever seen on the net  
You click the little icon to launch it, and then you are taken 
to the most sobering info you'll ever see. If you hover your 
cursor over any country, you will see the birth and death rate 
of that country in real time, and you will see the amount of CO2 
being released by that country and per person!

In the US someone is born every 7.4 seconds, and dies 
every 12.1 seconds. We have a population of 311,000,000+ 
and climbing, and we release CO2 into our air at the rate of 
1000 tonnes every 5.3 seconds!! Thats 19.22 tonnes per 
person per year....and thats only the US...


This website is absolutely staggering...a stunning real time 
WAKE UP CALL to the citizens of the Earth to stop "Living a 
Death march", and to start pulling together and conserve, and 
stop populating at such an alarming rate! We might even be at 
a tipping point already! We simply cannot keep going at the 
rate we are and maintain the same quality of life that we are 
barely enjoying now!

It's definitely time for me to start Living, in every way I can 
to Love and be Loved, To Fulfill My Dreams, and more than 
that, to do what I can to help my world and my fellow man! 


Watch The Girl Who Silenced The World For Five Minutes

Its time my friends....what happened to me showed me 
that Death is right around the corner.. it can and does happen 
every second.....life is precious and fleeting, and the consequences 
of our actions will no longer be local, but Global! 


You can believe I'm drawing, practicing my music, and 
Following My Bliss. 

To hell with wasting time! 

To Love and be Loved.....To make sure Im 
doing my part at the voting booth and beyond!


Like 9/11 banded us all together for a short while, I 
believe that world disasters will bring mankind together to 
aid each other....We will be "scared straight" from being 
pushed to the precipice of Eternity....To Hell with 
partisan politics ! To hell with greed and corruption...
To hell with waste and pollution!  If mankind doesnt act 
and act quickly, there wont be a world 
to gloat over in riches and authority! 

OK! I can get off my soap box now...but I really have 
new eyes....I have a third aneurysm and it could burst 
at any time...Ive had two aorta surgeries this year, and I 
wish I had a dollar for every time I was told how lucky I was
to still be alive! 


We dont take our belongings to the afterlife. We dont 
garner an award for how much we earn, but we sure will 
still have our relationships with each other I believe, and 
the quality of our judgments and actions both personal and 
to our fellow man. 


What am doing to help? What do I conserve? What cause 
am I interested in? Who do I love, and how do I really treat 
my peers? Why am I or arent I religious, or political, and how 
does it really affect anything but to create an argument?
What strengths do I have that can benefit people, or improve 
the quality of life?


Please leave Comments: I Love it! Thanks for reading this far....
I get to pour my heart out here and Im grateful to you for reading. 


“Death is more universal than life. Everyone dies but not everyone 
lives.” -Alan Sachs




Thanks


Stephen Stavropoulos
Dec 17 2010