An Effective Anti aging skin care guide gains paramount importance when we have lost our young skin and vigor. You need not lose hope, because the right anti aging skin care treatment is all that you need to regain that young, supple and vibrant skin.

An effective anti aging skin care need not be complicated. Simple steps followed consistently shall give the desired young skin naturally. The right knowledge is what sets apart a world class anti aging skin care treatment from the mediocre and useless ones.

First, let us look at some basic, but important tips for maintaining and preserving a young looking skin -

1) Exposure to sunlight for a limited time is beneficial for skin health. It gives us vitamin D. But over exposure to the sun is very harmful. The UV rays severely affect the production of Hyaluronan by our skin cells. The role of hyaluronan is very important in tissue repair.

Although applying sunscreen lotions offers some limited solution, but most of them contain harmful chemicals and preservatives that do long term damage to skin health. So, indiscriminate usage of sunscreen lotions should be avoided.

2) Our body is made up 70% of water. Although, it might sound like a frequently heard health tip, but it is very important. Drinking plenty of purified safe water is the key for a healthy young skin. You should drink around 8-10 glasses of water everyday for a good skin hydration.

3) Your Diet also plays a crucial role in your skin health and youth. You are what you eat. You should include a diet rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Antioxidants help in countering the effects of free radical damage and prevent skin aging. Some foods rich in antioxidants are green leafy vegetables like spinach and broccoli.

Thus, an Effective anti aging skin care guide includes a multi step approach comprising of anti aging skin care treatment on one hand and a healthy living regimen on the other.

Natural Ingredients for a Young Skin

Your efforts for achieving a young and vibrant skin can be boosted if you use such natural ingredients in an effective anti aging skin care treatment that helps in -

a) The natural production of Collagen and Elastin by your body: These are the two vital skin proteins that are responsible for giving you a firm, supple and pliant skin. In other words, these are the youth giving proteins in your body.

When we were young, these proteins were produced in a good quantity by our body. But as we age, their natural production slows down and we suffer from signs of skin aging like wrinkles, saggy skin, age spots and dark uneven skin complexion. So, the key to restart this inner fountain of youth is to use such natural substances that enhance this natural production of these vital skin proteins once again.

Some clinically proven natural substances that help in natural skin rejuvenation are Cynergy TK, Phytessence Wakame and Nano-Lipobelle H EQ10. An effective anti aging skin care treatment is incomplete without their presence.

b) Effectively hydrating your skin: Natural skin hydration is very important for a healthy, young and supple skin. A dry skin is more prone to rashes, allergies, cracks and premature skin aging.

c) Countering the effects of skin aging: Skin aging leaves signs like wrinkles, fine lines and dark uneven skin complexion in the form of pigment inconsistencies. An effective anti aging skin care treatment should be able to gently and naturally counter the effects of skin aging by boosting the natural skin health and vitality.

You can see clearly how easy it is to achieve and maintain the young and vibrant skin that you had in your twenties. Right Scientific knowledge sets you apart from the ignorant masses. Visit my website for an in depth look into the components that form part of the best anti aging skin care guide.

Vijay Raisinghani
http://www.articlesbase.com/skin-care-articles/the-anti-aging-skin-care-guide-to-regaining-your-lost-skin-youth-and-vigor-729729.html

Acne is the most common of all skin disorders. And acne has some types. It is about eighty percent of all people between the ages of twelve and twenty-four suffer some types of acne. It is a problem of the oil glands in the skin. In contrast to several conservative conceptions, it is a problem experienced not absolutely by teenagers. A number of people are overwhelmed their whole lives with endless outbreaks of acne.

There are various types of Acne. The most general type is Acne Vulgaris which is well-known as Acne Simplex too. Other types of Acne except Vulgaris are Cosmetica, Excriee, Cystic and Occupational Acne.

However, many other types of acne exist. Informations in relation to 5 types cited above are:

ACNE VULGARIS: This acne type is a chronic inflammatory condition wherein surplus fluid is formed by over-active oil and sweat glands. Hair follicles become congested with this surplus fluid which is incapable to run away. The trapped sebum could later lead to bacterial inflammation in and around the hair follicle. This type of Acne typically starts at puberty and comes out principally on the face as pimples, cysts and blackheads.

ACNE COSMETICA: it is caused by topical make-up. Typified by small pink bumps, acne cosmetica is typically somewhat mild, with little possibility of scarring. The protracted usage of cosmetics, particularly those including isopropyl myristate and greasy ingredients for example lanolin, may be responsible for this type of Acne. It has been advocated that around 25% of women have this type of Acne, the majority of who contain a history of heavy make-up use. The management is uncomplicated. Find out which cosmetic is leading to the Acne and end applying it.

ACNE EXCORIEE: This is one of acne types that typically discovered in young girls, beginning in adolescence. The girl might discover a pimple and begin scratching at it cruelly. The skin is injured by the fingernails and is not able to cure because of constant scratching, which leaves a broad, superficial scar. This must not be confused with an oblivious nervous practice. In this situation, minimal acne lesions on the face are worsened by neurotic pressing and squeezing of the pimples, trying to clear the contents with the fingers. Consequently, hyperpigmentation and stellate constricted scars take place, while frequently the original underlying acne has cured.

CYSTIC ACNE: One of the most ruthless types of acne, it arises when the infected contents of a pustule or pimple erupts under the skin, rather than on the surface. The body’s natural protections afterward attempt to combat the infection, causing swelling and pain. Cystic acne frequently leads to facial scarring. This type of Acne typically involves the back, upper arms, shoulders and neck. Cystic Acne frequently comes about in males and usually perseveres beyond 20 years of age and can cause enduring scarring. This type of Acne could be medically dealt with and needs specialist recommendation. In some situations it may be rather painful and can effect in the patient feeling unwell.

OCCUPATIONAL ACNE: This is one of acne types which typically shape as the effect of touch with mineral oil or petroleum. This acne type is a general condition had by motor mechanics that are often uncovered to oils and grease. The oil annoys the hair follicles leading to blackheads to shape profoundly in the skin and is hard to treat. Get in touch with the oil must be reduced or eliminated.

M Raflee
http://www.articlesbase.com/acne-articles/acne-types-5-types-of-acne-you-should-know-672362.html

Do you have any theories as to why you can’t seem to be able to find skin care products that will work effectively for you?  All of the major cosmetics companies claim to provide you with the very best skin care products, but very few of these products can even come close to living up to the promises that the companies make.  Why is it so hard to find an effective product?

The truth of the matter is that the skin care products that are being mass produced by the major corporations do not contain the ingredients that are necessary to enable them to make any kind of significant difference in the way that your skin looks, and feels.  It is simply impossible for these formulas to produce healthy skin when the bulk of the ingredients are nothing but chemicals.

In order to manufacture the best skin care products a company would have to use strictly all natural ingredients in their formulas.  Unfortunately for all of us the processing that is required in order for these natural ingredients to be useable in cosmetics products is more expensive than using their chemical counterparts.  The cosmetics giants will not pay the extra money for these processes to be completed.

This is why you are generally forced to buy skin care products with potentially harmful chemicals in them, because the major cosmetics companies would rather save money than deliver to you an effective product.  They are of the mindset that it is perfectly alright to allow you to absorb known carcinogenic chemicals into your body as long as it helps to widen their profit margin.

It is fortunate for us as consumers that not every company shares the ideology of the major cosmetics corporations.   There are many smaller companies spread across the globe that are serious in their intent to bring you the best skin care products that they can possibly produce.  It is from companies like this that you should look to make your cosmetics purchases from in the future.

One company that comes highly recommended manufactures the finest all natural anti aging skin care products in the cosmetics industry.  Using a unique combination of keratin proteins, and a Japanese kelp extract called Phytessence Wakame, these products can literally take years away from your appearance through greatly increasing the amount of collagen, elastin, and hyaluronic acid that your skin has.

The reason that everyone says that this company  has the best skin care products is because people are getting results from the use of these products that they could never achieve through the use of the popular mainstream products.  The difference is that the company from New Zealand that developed these products was not afraid to invest all that was necessary to make the formula safe, and effective.

The developers of all skin care products should manufacture their products with the same type of dedication to quality, but sadly they don’t.  So, if I were you I would buy my cosmetics from a company that has chosen excellence over corporate greed any day, because it will pay dividends for your skin in the long run.

To learn about the products that I personally use that contain Phytessence Wakame visit my website today.

Rachel Hammond
http://www.articlesbase.com/skin-care-articles/the-best-skin-care-products-discover-the-untold-secrets-730470.html

The androgenic hormones, particularly testosterone, that increase at puberty, and the surge of premenstrual hormones, trigger increased production of sebum in the sweat glands. The pores become clogged with both sebum and dead skin cells creating a prime breeding ground for bacteria. These bacteria and the breakdown products of sebum cause irritation and inflammation in the pores. The result is acne – blackheads, whiteheads, pustules, and cysts in the skin.

Teenagers are not the only ones who can get acne. Adults, at least 50%, suffer from blemishes and acne also. Sometimes adult acne is a result of pregnancy, diet, menopause or emotional upset. For some people acne is due to genetics or hormones that create excessive oil production and this clogs the pores of the skin. Some cosmetics can block pores which will create pimples.

Severe acne can affect many facets of a person’s life, causing a great deal of embarrassment and stress. Some severe forms of acne like acne cysts may rupture and cause scars that can result in psychological effects on the sufferer. Having skin full of pimples and zits may significantly limit one’s social life and even diminish career prospects. Although acne is not considered to be a life threatening disorder, the psychological impact of acne can be quite profound as it affects the most visible parts of your body. If your acne condition is severe it can be disfiguring and require years of treatment.

Use a good toner. Spray onto face or wipe on with a cotton ball and wipe off with a clean, dry cotton ball. This gets rid of excess cleanser and tightens pores. Good, inexpensive choices include plain witch hazel for normal to dry skin, or 3% hydrogen peroxide for oily skin. 70% ethyl rubbing alcohol can also be used for severe oiliness, but it can really dry out your skin and irritate it more. Some toners are medicated, too, and this stage is the best for using a medicated product if you’re only going to use one medication. Lemon juice is a good option, too.

Nutritional supplements

Nutritional supplements for acne will decrease inflammation and infection and nourish the skin. If consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is low, take a multi-vitamin supplement. Buy supplements at a health food store rather than a discount store or supermarket. The vitamin and mineral sources will be higher quality. Remember that foods provide a more balanced and absorbable form of nutrients than pills. Reliance on supplements as the only source of vitamins will not produce adequate results.

Vitamins B5 and B6 and B3 have been shown to have an amazing effect on acne outbreaks. Vitamin B5 was studied with people taking 10mg per day plus a 20% topical lotion of B5. Those with minor acne cleared up quickly and those with severe acne cleared up within 6 months. The safety of such high doses has not been determined, though.

Greens

They’re available at health stores and are basically vegetables that are powdered. If you want to get rid of acne quick you should try to eat around 5 tablespoons a day or more. This will greatly help with clearing up acne if you are eating right as well.

Corwin Brown

Does anyone know where or what will do this?

You can get a lovely tint from benefit called ‘benetint’ and this will stay on for ages.

Facial skin care is big business. There are so many products available that it can be overwhelming. It is important to sort through the jungle and find a product that is actually effective. This article will help you make an informed decision on your next purchase.

Many people are not aware that many of the facial skin care products on the market today contain harmful ingredients that are bad for your skin. It is important to avoid these ingredients. You are better off not using anything on your skin than using products containing these ingredients.

Now, let us briefly go over these specific things to avoid in your facial skin care program. What are parabens? These are nasty chemicals used in preservatives to give the skin care products a longer shelf life. A longer shelf life of a product could result in more profits for the cosmetic company. Parabens are so dangerous that they may cause cancer.

The facial skin care product you use should also not contain any fragrances. These are not necessary in a skin cream. They are chemicals that are added to these products that do nothing but potentially harm your skin. They are absorbed into the bloodstream and could cause skin issues such as irritations and allergic reactions.

Other common ingredients to avoid in facial skin care products are alcohols such as isopropyl, methanol, ethyl, benzyl and ethanol are all bad for your skin. They will dry out your skin and cause skin irritations.

The last ingredient that you should avoid in your facial skin care routine is mineral oil. This particular ingredient makes your skin feel soft and smooth. However, it clogs your pores, which could lead to acne breakouts or other skin irritations.

Now that you know what to avoid in a facial skin care product, it is time to focus on some ingredients that are actually good for your skin. These natural substances will help boost the production of vital skin proteins that give your skin the look and feel of younger skin.

Facial skin care products should contain natural substances that help to boost the production of vital skin proteins; one of these natural ingredients is called Cynergy TK. This substance is high in functional keratin, which is a skin protein that works with other skin proteins to help reduce lines and wrinkles on your skin.

On my website, I have more information on other natural substances that help boost the natural skin proteins. These types of facial skin care products are much more effective than most of the products on the market today.

Tara Mathews
http://www.articlesbase.com/skin-care-articles/what-type-of-facial-skin-care-product-are-you-using-730958.html

You might disagree, but hear me out on this. My readers often have questions about the recommended vitamins for healthy hair and skin. Here’s what I tell them. To have the best looking hair and the healthiest skin, you need all of the basic, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, amino acids, essential fatty acids, protein and carbohydrates. And, when it comes to the skin’s health, you need a good skincare routine.

When a person is deficient in any nutrient, it shows. The symptoms may be dark circles under the eyes, blemishes, uneven pigmentation, paleness or a specific skin condition like eczema or psoriasis. The hair may look dull and lifeless, instead of shiny and richly colored.

The cosmetic companies have allowed us to cover up these signs of nutritional deficiencies with makeup and hair coloring. Those things should only be necessary to highlight our features, emphasize the color of the eyes or the fullness of the lips. We should need them to conceal an underlying health problem.

Are there specific vitamins for healthy hair and skin? An excellent daily nutritional supplement provides everything that you need. The average ones that you see on store shelves are not of the highest quality. Most of them contain synthetic vitamin E, which regardless of what the manufacturer’s say, I cannot believe that a compound derived from crude oil is actually beneficial for a person’s health.

Once you find the best nutritional supplement, you should focus on getting rid of the toxic personal care products that you are using every day. Your shampoo and body wash, as well as the cosmetics that you use should be as natural as possible. Ingredients like petrolatum and mineral oil are also derived from crude oil. These substances clog your pores and are often contaminated with hazardous compounds, many of which cause cancer.

A mild all-natural cleanser is just as important as vitamins for healthy hair and skin. And, after cleansing your face, you should be using a nourishing moisturizer, both day and night.

Many people feel that their skin is too oily and that there is no need to use a moisturizer, but when you clean your face, the solution removes natural oils. If you don’t use a balancing moisturizer, the sebaceous glands will secrete even more oils to try to compensate. The moisturizer that I recommend contains grape seed oil, passion fruit extract, coenzyme Q10, natural vitamin E, kelp extracts and protein.

These ingredients contain many of the nutrients and vitamins for healthy hair and skin. Maracuja passion fruit extract helps to regulate sebum production, so that your skin will not be too oily or too dry. Coenzyme Q10 and natural vitamin E must be properly prepared or they cannot be used by the skin’s cells to protect them from free radicals and oxidation.

Do yourself a favor, to help maintain the health of the hair, scalp and the body, I recommend a showerhead filter for those people that have chlorine in their water supply. There are many other things that you can do, as well. These are just the basics of vitamins for healthy hair and skin. There’s always more to learn.

To learn more about vitamins for beautiful skin, and other incredible natural substances for natural healthy skin care, visit my website today.

Laurel Levine
http://www.articlesbase.com/skin-care-articles/a-guide-to-vitamins-for-healthy-hair-and-skin-738733.html

I don’t know a thing about you, but I have heard people interested in the health of their skin wonder many times, just what is the best makeup to hide fine lines and wrinkles? The reason is that everyone is at least somewhat self conscious of the lines on their face, and some are desperate to find a solution to eliminating their wrinkles. Until they find the answer they feel that they at least need to find a way to conceal the way that their skin looks.

The problem really lays in the inability of the major cosmetics companies to come up with the answer to the problem of erasing the lines and wrinkles that form on our skin. They simply keep throwing the same products at us year after year, and somehow they trick us into buying these useless products every time. When though will they give us something that we can really use?

There would be absolutely no need for people to seek out the best makeup to hide fine lines and wrinkles if we had products that contained ingredients that would aid the body in increasing the amount of collagen, and elastin it produced. Instead they try to convince us that all that we have to do is rub a little collagen into our skin, and that somehow everything will be better.

The truth is that collagen cannot be absorbed by your skin, so no amount of rubbing with these formulas is going to do any of us any good. Even if they could somehow produce absorbable collagen the amount that you would receive would be so miniscule that you wouldn’t even be able to tell that you had used it. External application of collagen is not the answer.

If you want to avoid shopping for the best makeup to hide fine lines and wrinkles then you should consider trying the products that are being produced by a certain company from New Zealand. They were already respected for producing some of the most potent all natural health supplements in the world, and now they have ventured into the world of all natural anti aging skincare products.

What they have developed are a line of products that are focused around two very unique ingredients. Functional Keratin is the main player in these formulas, because of its ability to greatly increase the production rate of you own natural collagen and elastin. The second ingredient is a kelp extract from a variety that is found exclusively in the Sea of Japan.

With the effects that these Functional Keratin and Phytessence Wakame have on your skin there will be no reason to waste your time or money on trying to find the best makeup to hide fine lines and wrinkles. Wakame raises the level of hyaluronic acid that is in your skin. Returning this tissue back to healthy levels will help your fresh collagen and elastin iron your wrinkles right out.

Do yourself a favor, save your money! Who needs the best makeup to hide fine lines and wrinkles when there are products available that will do for you everything that the others can’t!

Laurel Levine
http://www.articlesbase.com/anti-aging-articles/why-you-dont-need-the-best-makeup-to-hide-fine-lines-and-wrinkles-723068.html

When your baby is born, you will suddenly discover that the whole world has turned upside down. You need to pay special attention to your little ones, and it is sometimes so excruciating that you cannot handle it. But you are compelled to do so, and your parental instinct will take over. That’s why giving birth is something really amazing and you should take the matter as seriously as possible. What will a baby need except for the love that you have to offer him or her? Well, the list is quite long…

First of all, you need to take care of your baby’s health. This includes a lot of things including food, sleep, and skin care. Here we will talk only about baby skin care, as it as an important factor for the whole baby health. Baby skin is something so gentle, that it needs to be treated appropriately. Their skin, eyes, bottom, and other features are just so delicate.

That’s the reason for the special products that you have to buy. Baby cosmetics ensure that your baby’s skin is being taken good care of. A lot of cosmetic companies like Johnson pay great attention on the factor ‘baby skin’. They produce special baby skin care products, which can safely be used in cleaning your little one.

When you baby is born, the skin is so red, that it offers irritates. Every touch and material can cause irritation and even infection. That’s why all baby clothes should be washed with special detergent. Baby skin care also includes taking care of the head. The skin on the head is the most delicate thing on earth. You should be really careful, and use only baby skin care shampoos. The body wash should also be carefully chosen.

You can always pick up baby skin products in your local stores. Department stores such as Macy’s and Nordstrom’s are really the best places to do that. You may as well go online and check out everything about baby skins and baby skin care. You may realize that taking care of the skin is one of the absolutely vital things to do for your little one. There are a lot of baby skin care products in cyberspace, you can check them all and pick up the best for you.

Ronald Eapen
http://www.articlesbase.com/babies-articles/some-important-advice-for-good-baby-skin-care-731715.html

Everyone I know says I am spaced out.

My wife tells me I’m distracted and self-absorbed. She says I have no sense of time, lose things constantly, and cannot be trusted with small appliances. She says these things are evidence of my dysfunction.According to her, I fade in and out of reality all the time… but she doesn’t know the half of it.

My friends think I’m a pie-in-the-sky dreamer too, a guy who spends most of his time in La La Land. They’re too nice to say it, but half the time they think I act like I’m from another planet. That’s because when they see me, half the time I have just come back from another planet. I’ve been hiding this for a long time, but the truth is…I am a REAL space ranger and I have traveled all over the galaxy!

I try to tell my buddies what I have discovered about the inner workings of the universe, but their eyes just roll back in their heads like the reels in a slot machine. It happens so often I have taken to cupping my hands under their mouths on the hopes I will hit the jackpot. So far the only payoff I’ve gotten is a spray of spittle when they burst into laughter.

I know I am hoist on my own petard. It’s my own fault that people question my credibility. Part of my problem comes from publishing a newspaper in which fact is indistinguishable from fiction. In the past, I must admit I have written a few things that stretch the truth. Many people doubt my in-depth interviews with Santa Claus and Bigfoot.

I understand that some folks question whether the Register is really locked in a vicious print war with the New York Times; that our columnist is really over two hundred years old; or that Round Top’s Town Marshall is really 6’9” tall and rides tornadoes.

These are reasonable doubts, and I cannot deny that I might have played loose with the facts a time or two for the sake of art.

But in all fairness, anyone who studies physics will find what most of us think of as “the real world” doesn’t exist. One of the founders of quantum physics, Erwin Schrödinger, points out that at the atomic level, all matter performs in a “completely disorderly heat motion, which opposes itself to their orderly behavior and does not allow the events that happen between a small number of atoms to enroll themselves according to any recognizable physical laws.”

That means if you look closely at the building blocks of the universe from which everything is made – your car, your kids, your dinner, your new pair of shoes – you won’t find anything that looks like facts or reality.

Reality is just a story humans tell one another so we won’t be utterly overwhelmed by the incredible complexity of the world in which we live. The universe is incomprehensibly vast. Life is unfathomably complex. Few of us have the slightest idea what is going on around us, and for the most part, we don’t want to know.

Accepting the truth about our insignificance in the grand scheme of things is a real blow to the ego, so who wants to do it.

The fact that everyone makes up their own reality is just one of the basic truths that even the most backward of the galaxy’s species takes for granted, but here on the old home planet we are still having a hard time getting the message.

People on our planet often think there is some “real and objective” world that is the same for everyone. This kind of provincialism is very embarrassing for a space ranger like myself.

Put yourself in my shoes. You are at a cocktail party at a penthouse in an upscale tourist colony orbiting a gas giant in the Betelgeuse system, and your host, who looks a lot like a six foot tall oyster with chrome hood ornaments suddenly shouts “Humans believe what?” and the whole party breaks up in riotous laughter.

This kind of thing makes it very hard to act cool. Belonging to what many interstellar beings consider “one of the goofiest-looking species in the universe” is hard enough, but being an intellectual laughing stock just adds insult to injury.

That is one of the reasons I have decided to come clean about my secret life and try to explain what is really going on in the universe to the rest of humanity.

Salt Crystals on a String

My strange situation began a long time ago when I first became a space cadet. It began innocently enough. I had a big imagination as a child and was fascinated with the workings of the world – why salt crystals appeared on a string suspended in salt water; why the program in your hand shivers and quakes in a concert hall when the strings crescendo at certain notes; why snowflakes are all unique and other amazing mysteries of science.

When I was a kid, the world was a source of wonder for me, and that wondering set me to wandering in my mind…and the next thing you know I was a space cadet.

It all started when I met Tom Corbette and the Space Rangers.

Tom was as all-American boy, tried and true, and a fellow cadet at the Interplanetary Space Academy. He and I teamed up with two other young cadets. Roger, who was real wise guy but a crack navigator was the first, and Astro, our massive but good-natured engineer was the other. The four of us rocketed all over the solar system before I was out of the sixth grade.

In the summer after I graduated from elementary school, I discovered a book called Glory Road, and found myself hopping from one dimension to the next.

That was where all the trouble started. It was fun, flitting from one alternate universe to another battling impossible odds, but there are serious consequences when you defy the laws of physics, and before long I was paying the piper.

I first began to notice strange things happening when I was in the seventh grade. That school year I lost three watches and four coats. My mother assumed I was simply careless, but as far as I could tell those personal items just disappeared. Right away I knew they had slipped into another time/space continuum but it was hard to prove to my mom.

Sadly, a little known effect of such quantum phenomena is that there is a corresponding perturbation in the electro-chemical energies passing through the synapses of the brain when they occur…which means you can’t actually remember the alternate universe events when they happen to you.

I knew those watches – including the one with Roy Rogers and Trigger on the dial - must lie half buried beneath the purple sands of a distant world. They were probably being crushed under the twelve armored feet of a methane-breathing three-headed desert beast rather than lost in my school locker. But no matter how articulate my argument, I couldn’t convince my unimaginative mother. When I came home from school without my coat for the third time, she grounded me.

That’s when I realized my life as starfarer was better kept a secret.

Now all these years later, I realize that I am not alone. There are other people like me out there in the world, lonely and lost, never seeming to fit in, observing a universe that their friends and neighbors can’t perceive. They seem like normal people except for a few unusual quirks.

They tend to lose anything not chained to their belts. They are constantly looking for their keys, their cell phones, their screw drivers and wallets. Important papers vaporize on their desks at work. They have no sense of time. They have a hard time remembering names and phone numbers and never read directions. They leave lights on all over the house and can’t be trusted with toaster ovens.

They spend a lot of time lost in thought, staring off into space with wistful expressions on their faces. Sometimes they become fixated watching a cloud, or a crawling bug, or the reflection of light on water, and you have to shake them to get their attention.

In other words, they have the attention span of a four-year-old.

If there is anyone in your life like this, I ask you to be patient and forgiving. They may be annoying and hard to live with, but they’re behavior is an unfortunate side effect of an important mission.

They’re secretly defending the earth against invasion by the forces of galactic evil, so give them a break. It easy to get a little distracted when you’re standing alone against the death rays of the machine-beings from the Crab Nebula.

Facing such responsibility, anyone could forget a birthday or two. These people deserve your respect because they are performing a valuable public service. Defending the planet earth from total annihilation is a thankless job, but someone’s got to do it.

To my clients, friends and neighbors, I am a regular guy who happens to be a little eccentric. They assume that I lose things and can’t remember people’s names because I simply don’t pay attention, or because my brain was damaged in the 1960’s by recreational drugs.

Actually, I am constantly cycling from one dimension of space to another. I’ll be in Round Top talking on the cell phone or sitting at the drafting board trying to design someone’s country house…and then all of a sudden I’m taking four G’s as my spacecraft leaves the atmosphere of the fifth planet out from Alpha Centauri in pursuit of insectoid aliens bent on galactic domination.

Needless to say, these circumstances make it difficult for me to maintain my professional composure at my architecture firm. It’s hard to explain what is really going on, so I find it necessary to preserve the charade that I am simply a garden variety ditz.

This guise has long worked to my advantage. You learn a few things about the behavior of sentient life forms when you hang out with aliens from all over the galaxy. I’ve seen it over and over in fifty different star systems. When some species find out you are different – and Homo Sapiens are among them – it makes them afraid, and organisms that are afraid have a tendency to get nasty.

It’s long been my opinion that it’s better to take a little lip, than to have your lip busted. As a result, I have lived a double life. But now I am throwing caution to the wind. I’m going to tell everybody what I have found out in my travels about what is really going on here on the planet earth.

I have to run to the house because I forgot to turn off the coffee percolator and the Queen is afraid I am going to burn the house down. I’ll clue you in as soon as I get back.

The Ultimate Truths of Life on Earth

Whew! That was close. The bottom of the coffee pot was starting to look like a black hole. Now back to the facts about life on earth. There are a many such truths of course, more than I can tell you now, so I am going to focus on the top seven.

1. The Aliens are getting restless.

For the last million years or so, most of galactic society has ignored human beings. I mean, there have been a few good sitcoms based on human beings, mostly comedies sort of like Bedtime for Bonzo, but for the most part no one really cared. Human beings were just funny monkeys scratching themselves. They felt safe from the various types of crazy violent madness we are so good at cooking up because we were stuck on our own planet.

But then Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, and that changed everything. Those of us who were alive when that happened experienced a very rare event. Life on earth is roughly 3.8 billion years old. Each of us lives an average about 70 years. That means the odds that any individual organism would be alive when a representative of life on earth actually set foot on another world is 5,428,5714 to one.

It’s not just the Beatles that make us a unique generation and this fact is not lost on folks who live in neighboring star systems, especially because things are happening pretty fast. Our seed is spreading. Voyager I is now about 8.7 billion miles from earth and moving towards them at 46,000 miles an hour. They watch the History Channel. They know what maniacs we are and it is making them nervous.

Now what you need to understand is that most of our neighbors in the galaxy are pretty nice folks. They tend to be forgive and forget types. But there are races out there that view us the same way we view a venereal disease, and if they decide we need a dose of antibiotics, we are toast.

That’s the main reason I have decided to speak up. We need to get our act together in the next couple of generations, or our communal butts are going to be in a sling.

The second thing you need to know I already talked about above. It’s important truth number two.

2. You live in your own little world.

Each of us makes up our individual reality. I mean really. I’m not saying the material world doesn’t exist. There is a world out there, but each of us perceives it differently in significant ways.

Throughout the galaxy, every different organism has its own “real world.” Highly social species like us can coordinate our behavior by talking and mimicking each other, and by building a common living space to channel our actions, but those are just tricks our brains have evolved so we can get more food and make more babies than the other animals we compete with for survival.

Bottom line, you have to guess about what the other guy is thinking. After millions of years of evolution, our brains have gotten very good at guessing. But really…you don’t have the slightest idea what is going on in the minds of your wife, your husband, or your kids….let alone behind the fevered brows of Osama Bin Laden or Tom Delay.

There is no point in worrying about what other people think. There is no point in talking to other people about what they think other people think. There is no point to watching television shows or reading books about what other people think. You’ll never really know.

So just relax and pay attention, because the only way you are ever going to get any idea what a person thinks is by listening to them and watching their behavior.

On advanced worlds, listening and observing are competitive sports. You can get a Ph.D. in them. In many societies, talking is seen as an unpleasant but necessary metabolic process, something like urination or defecation. The smartest people never say a darn thing!

2. You are never alone. You just think you are.

You are really just a cell in a bigger organism. Every advanced society understands this. I know you think paying your own bills and having your own body makes you all grown up and independent, but the truth is that you and every other living thing is just a piece of the living earth.

All the incredibly diverse species that cover our planet are just specialized cells like those in your body. Some are liver cells. Some are stomach lining. Some are neurons.

I know this is a blow to your ego, but it is time to grown up and face the music. You aren’t really all that important in the grand scheme of things. Even humanity as a whole is not all that big a deal. Our living planet was growing and evolving just fine for billions of years before anyone invented a BMW. It may seem like the American Idol results show is the center of the universe, but it really isn’t.

The reason you think you are an individual is because all living systems are built of small pieces that must be distinct from one another if they are to work. Identity is necessary for their functioning, just as an individual cell is important to the functioning of your pancreas. What a liver cell thinks about the liver makes no difference. All that matters is whether it oozes bile.

The same is true for you. I know this is hard to swallow, but time is running out so I can’t afford to break it to you gently.

3. Everything in the universe is always running down.

Human scientists call this fact the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or entropy. Most physicists consider it the most general law of nature.

When the energy in any system – a star or a living organism – runs down to the point that it becomes a dead, inert lump of matter, it reaches a state that a physicist calls thermodynamic equilibrium, or maximum entropy. It can also be described as “greater order” as significant change in its form stops for all practical purposes.

Most substances degrade relatively rapidly from the relative disorder caused by heat to a more “stable order” as they cool to absolute zero, but the march towards maximum entropy exhibits itself in many other ways. When two solutions are mixed - for instance a jar of sugar water and a jar of plain water - the sugar has a “goal” of becoming equally distributed throughout the liquid water. When it reaches that state, maximum entropy is achieved.

Such effects occur throughout nature. For instance, Americans degrade the complex organisms we refer to as cattle at a mind-boggling rate. In the year 2000, somewhere around thirty-eight million of those highly organized and brilliantly functional organic systems, each capable of independently maintaining its energy level for a considerable number of years, were “degraded” to the more stable state we refer to as sewage by the process of our consumption.

That sewage is then consumed and degraded by specialized microorganisms even closer to thermodynamic equilibrium.

In that same year, each American converted an average of 195 pounds of red meat, poultry and fish into simpler forms. Every year of our lives, we convert more than our weight of other “higher life forms” into energy and protein which we use to battle the relentless march of entropy.

Each individual organism on earth is an efficient processing plant that is remarkably effective at making other organisms in the world around them - and even inorganic compounds - more “stable.”

Eating and finding food are so basic to the function of living things that in almost all organisms the brain is located near the entrance to the gut. There are several families of genes that govern both brain and gut development, which reflects the ancient relationship between the gut and the brain.

It is humbling to consider while pushing our carts through the grocery store that we may be utilizing the first and foremost purpose of our minds, but those are the facts. Like every other animal, our primary business in life is to find food that can be converted to energy to support the functioning of our bodies. What we do not use, we excrete as feces, urine, and perspiration.

Combined, the amount of waste generated by living things, both in life and in death, has altered a significant portion of the earth’s crust. Soil and limestone deposits, both results of millions of years of processing by living things, cover our planet.

All life is knee deep in birth and death, two extremes of a powerful entropic process. This universal contest is present not only in the grand scheme of nature, but also in the daily existence of everything in creation.

Our sun is a powerful generator of energy, but like all sources of energy, that energy is slowly suffering the attrition of entropy. The powerful heat and pressures within the core of our planet create complex mineral deposits, which emerge through volcanic activity and other geological phenomena to create mountains and other grand features, which are in turn worn down by wind, rain, glaciers and other natural forces, and turned into sand and soil.

Our bodies face entropy each day. Millions of years of evolution have built a grand engine in the human physique. Each human body has incredible abilities to persist in the face of entropy’s relentless march - but in the end - every individual living organism, every mountain, every energy source…wears down.

So the bottom line is that your decline is inevitable. No matter how much you work out and how well you eat, you are still on the way out. All you are ever going to do is eat, poop and die. I know that sounds like bad news, but every cloud has a silver lining.

Entropy means that there will always be plenty of work for doctors, remodeling contractors, cosmetics sales people and washing machine repairmen.

4. You only exist as a relationship.

Now this might be hard to understand, so I will use a metaphor that makes it easier. First, I have to tell you that you are what is called a “dissipative structure.” Such a structure accelerates the pace of entropy by taking energy from the world around it and hastening it towards thermodynamic equilibrium.

Dissipative structures are easily observable in nature. Whirlpools and tornadoes are two common examples, but galaxies and eco-systems also qualify.

When barometric pressure rises in a storm front, a regular form with a recognizable structure emerges. We call it a tornado. A tornado allows the high barometric pressure to dissipate more effectively in exchange for maintaining its structure. It has to have a thermodynamic imbalance to exist. When the build up of pressure is equalized, the tornado disappears.

In the early 1990’s, earth scientists performed a thermal analysis while flying over several varied ecosystems and discovered that the more developed the eco-system, the colder its surface temperature. They discovered what the rest of the galaxy already knows, that complex living systems dissipate the sun’s energy more effectively than those that are less diverse. The more complex the living system, the more effective dissipater it is.

Your body is a complex living system too, just like a jungle. The city you live in is also complex living system. Both you and the city are dissipative structures. You take energy out of the world around you like a tornado, and use that energy to avoid the impact of entropy. As pointed out above, you are very effective at turning cows into poop. You do this so you can continue being yourself. The cow is sacrificed to maintain your structure.

A tornado’s identity is a relationship between a high pressure storm system and a low pressure layer of air. A tornado is an identifiable thing, but though it has a structure you can see and it can blow a piece of straw through a fence post, all its parts are parts of other things. It has no distinct content. Its behavior is the only thing unique about it, and that behavior is completely determined by its environment.

So is yours. You are merely a relationship between your physical and cultural environment, and the genes you inherited from your family. The only thing that is “you” is how you act, and how you act is almost entirely determined by your instincts and your environment.

Sorry. I know it’s hard to feel like the most important thing in the universe when someone is trying to say you make decisions like a termite, but…well…you do.

5. Your brain is not designed to make you happy.

Have you ever noticed that it is incredibly difficult to get happy and stay that way?

We have been evolving for several million years. The amazingly brilliant brains in our skulls make us smart enough to get to the moon. Since almost all of us want to be happy, you would think natural selection would have done a better job of getting us that way.

The problem is that natural selection doesn’t care if you are happy unless your happiness makes your genes more likely to make it to the next generation. Genes are very selfish. They have their own agenda, and don’t care a whit about your happiness.

Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker makes this point as follows: “People don’t selfishly spread their genes; genes selfishly spread themselves. They do it by the way they build our brains. By making us enjoy life, health, sex, friends, and children, the genes buy a lottery ticket for representation in the next generation.”

So you see, your brain isn’t designed to make you happy. It is designed to give you grandchildren, and if they make you happy, that is because your genes want you to throw yourself in front of a lion so they can have grandchildren.

After they are born, you see, you are expendable. The reason for this is perhaps the most important truth of all for human beings.

6. All that really matters is sex.

There are plenty of galactic races that don’t have sex. They reproduce with spores, or through binary fission like a paramecium, or are manufactured in a factory. I met an alien one time that reproduced using a Xerox machine. There are many different ways to do it.

But in the long run for human beings, sex is all that matters. Ultimately, every man is a sperm, wiggling his little tail while racing all the other little men up the birth canal for a one-in-a-million chance of getting laid. Every woman is an egg, waiting for first few suitors to arrive, and then being picky about which one she lets penetrate her cell membrane.

That’s about it. Sex is the point of all human existence. Money, power, beauty, kindness, love, morality, success, and all our other cherished ideals are merely various strategies for making babies and helping them survive so they can make more babies.

There are currently about 6,451,058,790 human beings on earth. One year ago there were 6,376,863,118. That’s 74,195,672 more in a year. In 1950, the global population was 2,556,517,137. That’s more than a 250% increase in only 55 years. At that rate, in 110 years there will be about forty billion of us.

You can see why our galactic neighbors are so worried about what will happen if we move into their neighborhoods.

Christopher K. Travis
http://www.articlesbase.com/humor-articles/spaced-out-my-life-as-a-space-ranger-696400.html