{"id":759,"date":"2020-08-19T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/?p=759"},"modified":"2020-08-19T14:12:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T12:12:00","slug":"bruised-but-never-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/2020\/08\/19\/bruised-but-never-broken\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruised, But Never Broken!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:17px\">I was reminded of my uniqueness and beauty today. I sometimes forget this and dark thoughts start. Actually each and every one of us are unique, beautiful individuals. Sadly, we just don&#8217;t always see it. Isn&#8217;t that Ironic? Since we are all so wrapped up in our own little selves, I would have thought that beauty, value and our worth, would be the first thing we see and acknowledge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:17px\">I think humanity took a wrong turn somewhere&#8230;I seriously do, because sh*t, we are lost! Somewhere along the way, we started assigning value, worth and even beauty, to a monetary value.  Come on, we are <strong><em>all<\/em><\/strong> guilty of it, so stop protesting with the vehement &#8211; <em>Never! not me!<\/em> Just think about it for a minute\ud83e\udd14 The first thing someone would ask, after complimenting you on a beautiful blouse or dress, would be <em>&#8216;How much did it cost?&#8217;<\/em> or they would just say<em> &#8216;Wow, that&#8217;s stunning, must have cost a fortune!&#8217; <\/em>I&#8217;ll be honest. When I was a young girl, I refused to wear clothes from a specific retailer. When my mother asked why? I answered, that only poor people got their clothes from that store! See? Even before I developed my taste for beauty, I knew that cheap equaled ugly&#8230; But did my mother raise me in such a bratty way? Of course not!!! I&#8217;m sorry to say that the <em>media<\/em> has evolved into an evil tool, used by marketing, and it&#8217;s  been infecting us with poison for years! Put that tinfoil hat down!!! Now!!! Back away back slowly!\ud83d\ude24 I am not part of the &#8216;fake news&#8217; idiots, but you know what I mean&#8230; I blame marketing, created by greed, using the media (in every possible way) to convince us that certain <em>&#8216;want&#8217;s&#8217;<\/em> are actually <em>&#8216;needs&#8217;<\/em>. Like convincing us that skinny is beautiful \ud83d\ude44 and all of a sudden there is huge &#8216;want&#8217; for gym memberships, exercise equipment and outfits, dieting pills, shakes, protein bars&#8230;.and the list goes on and on. All these &#8216;wants&#8217; from just one idea subtly suggested by the media, and in the end costing a lot of money.  Of course today, the media is way bigger than when I was young (quite a couple of moons ago&#8230;\ud83d\ude33) Back then we only had T.V. magazines and newspapers. Today&#8230;OMW not only do we have cell phones now (my mother said I&#8217;m wasting my money, when I bought one&#8230;) but the internet and social media alone is&#8230;.is just &#8211; Wow! \ud83d\ude32 Emoticons&#8230;always handy when linguistics fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:17px\">Sorry for the long ramble, but finally I remembered the point I&#8217;m trying to make!\ud83d\udc30  Our whole value system is screwed up by money! That&#8217;s why it is so easy for people with disabilities to feel broken, ugly and worthless. Take me for example. Due to TBI, I am on disability and not earning an income anymore. No use, no value, no worth. Overweight, with horrible scars and I mean really, horrible scars, my body rippled with varicose veins due to tissue damage and thrombosis&#8230;Let me put it this way &#8211; I am so not the image of beauty sold to us by the media&#8230;you know? &#8211; the long, sleek legs, slim, little waste and hair waving in the wind&#8230;.So for a long time, I felt really useless. Ugly. Worthless. But as time progressed, and thanks to social media (I know, but I said marketing &amp; greed is evil, not the media) I met wonderful souls, all of them with their own individual stories, similar to mine. And as I listened and got to know them, I started seeing things differently. They were all beautiful and successful in their own unique ways, weather it be writing, art, studying or still performing in their professional capacities, just at a slower pace. I realized that I, and my friends are all <em>Kintsugi<\/em>, a beautiful Japanese art. You see, scars, cracks and brokenness does not lower one&#8217;s value, it&#8217;s part of life and you know what they say&#8230;life is art. When pottery is broken or damaged, the Japanese, would fill up and mend the cracks, with a gold dust instead of hiding it, or throwing it away. Damaged or broken goods are not considered useless &#8211; it only means they have a history, that make them even more unique, beautiful and valuable. \ud83d\ude01<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:17px\">Fortunately, I am blessed with many <em>Kintsugi<\/em> friends! But if you ever feel broken, damaged or worthless, I want you to remember <em>Kintsugi<\/em>, the beautiful art of scars.  You are never broken! You are never damaged! You are an unique masterpiece beautifully created by your scars and history\ud83e\udde1<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was reminded of my uniqueness and beauty today. I sometimes forget this and dark thoughts start. Actually each and every one of us are unique, beautiful individuals. Sadly, we just don&#8217;t always see it. Isn&#8217;t that Ironic? Since we are all so wrapped up in our own little selves, I would have thought that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblingrabbit.co.za\/di\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}