Ι think Eugene /Flynn in Tangled is not just the most romantic but also the most Christian male hero in Disney movies.
He embodies the christian teaching ''Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her'' because he is the only prince that actually died for his woman. For those who havent seen the movie, Rapunzel tried to save him with her magic hair when he was mortally injured, by promising a life of slavery to the wicked witch in exchange for his life, but he cut off her hair - thus rendering it no longer magical- and sacrificed his life so that she could be free. He gave himself for her showing that her happiness and welfare were dearer to him than his own - the true test of deep, real love.
O πριγκιπας της Ραπουνζελ-το απολυτο αρσενικο κι η ενσαρκωση του σωστου αντρα κατα Θεον ''Οἱ ἄνδρες, ἀγαπᾶτε τὰς γυναῖκας εαυτων, καθὼς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς ἠγάπησε τὴν ἐκκλησίαν καὶ παρέδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς'',ο μονος ηρωας παραμυθιου που εδωσε τη ζωη του στ'αληθεια για τη γυναικα του, για ναναι εκείνη ελευθερη κι ευτυχισμενη...
And by 'staying with you' much more is implied than their physical presence .All kids leave the nest eventually. But some never do psychologically.
If your kids reject , challenge or disapprove of your values, ideas, or even everything you hold true and dear, be HAPPY. It does not mean that you FAILED.On the contrary, it means that you succeeded as a mother, where most failed.
You see, any mother can give love, but it takes a great mother not just to love, not just to teach about values, but go beyond that and give her kids the love that is truly God-inspired: the freedom to her kids to challenge EVERYTHING that was given to them, to wreck it to pieces, if they must, her own ideas and values included, so that they create something TOTALLY NEW AND MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN WHAT CAME BEFORE THEM.
Progress in our human race comes only through furthering what knowledge was received from previous generations. But the only individuals capable of doing so are the ones that feel free to explore, challenge and even reject everything that is given to them, so that they can build everything anew, keeping only what feels right to them.
This is a tough thing to do for a mother. Because our instinct tells us to try to protect our kids, isnt that our job? And protecting means, as they are getting older, trying to give them guidelines that we think it is needed to keep our kids safe and happy.
So it takes guts and balls of steel to tell/show your kids that ''hey, that's what I believe and hold dear but you know what? It's totally ok for you to reject it. It's even totally ok to think I'm stupid or ignorant for believing what I believe, if that's what it takes for you to grow as a free mind that challenges everything, because that's what I wanted for you in the first place. Be free, my kids, even from me and my ideas. go into the future, where I cannot go and further humanity into something exquisitely beautiful that I am not even capable of envisioning.''
Homer used to say ''παυροι γαρ τοι παιδες πατρι πέλονται, οι πλειονες κακιοι, παυροι δε τε πατρος αρειους '',meaning very few children are the same as their father, most are worse, very few are better than their father''. I believe by 'very few' Homer meant those rare kids who are free to challenge everything their parents gave them and create anew.
Give your kids the rarest treasure there is in this world and all others: the gift of freedom to be themselves, even if that means rejecting everything you hold dear, for truly this is the way God loves us in this and all other worlds....
That intangible thing that some people seem to possess an excess of, whereas some others barely have got any to keep them going. It was a matter of constant fascination for me. To this day my favorite pastime is watching people walking by in public.
And I have noticed a weird thing; even though build, height or unisex clothes can be sometimes totally misleading in helping me guess their gender, I can almost invariably guess correctly people's age, even from afar, when no telltale age sign is visible from such a distance. And I bet you can do that too. Long before you can see someone's face walking tow\ards you ,you can tell their age, give or take a decade at maximum.
How does this happen?
I have pondered on this and realised that the deciding factor is THE WAY THEY MOVE.
It is something about the way they walk, the way they hold their body, posture, attitude, but it boils down to movement. There seems to be a kind of movement or lack thereof that is charactreristic of each and every age group, a few exceptions and idiosyncratic habits aside.
I 've been watching people moving around bearing that principle in mind and if you do too, you'll draw the same conclusion. Young people seem to be vibrating with excess energy, even when they just sit around.
The older the person, the more obvious the lack of this energy seems to be getting. By the age of 40 the majority of people seem to have lost most of that pulsating energy that is tangible in the way they move, slowing down their every move, slumping them into an invisible sluggishness bubble, that natural freedom and swing in their movements gone or slowed down. Young people vibrate with this movement energy, older people seem to be gravitating towards non-movement ( of the body, at least).
Why is that important?
Simple.
Everything that moves in the physical, thrives and flourishes and grows. Everything that doesnt, becomes stagnant, sick and eventually dies or disintegrates. Everything on this planet is moving and changing, when it stops doing that it deteriorates and ceases to exist.
Read this again and make sure you realise the implications: ''When a living thing stops moving, it slowly starts deteriorating''.
Prolonged inertia can potentially kill every living cell, by squeezing out its spirit and agility. And that goes for mental activity too, but that's not our point, because as people are getting older they gravitate towards mental activity and movement , to the exclusion of physical activity or to the minimisation of it.
However, there seem to be some exceptions. A few (lucky?) individuals that seem to be immune to this age slump, their body vibrant and alive, making it almost impossible to guess correctly their true age, because they seem to possess the moving dynamics of a younger age group.
Ask them or watch their habits and you'll realise they are at a state of constant physical movement. They may exercise-and most of them do- or they may not, but the determining factor is that they are at a constant state of moving in their waking hours. They move their bodies constantly , just like most kids and young
folks do. And that gives them their aura of 'youngness' and keeps their body young looking too in most cases, according to the principle that 'form follows function'.
How does this applies to you and me?
Moving your body can transform not just your body per se, but your whole life.Even a few weeks of exercising or forming better moving habits can make a huge difference to the way you look and hold your body, even if nothing else changes , no diet, no nothing.
To me exercising is all about posture. Having suffered- and still suffering to a certain extent- from scoliosis as a teenager and spending lots and lots of time on a chair giving private lessons or doing my translations and student assignments that I do for a living or surfing the net, gives me awful back and neck pain or even cramps. My body was not designed to spend so much time just typing and neither was yours.What I enjoy most about working out is the posture I get after only a couple of weeks or doing it regularly. I seem taller, my movements are more graceful, because my chest is thrown back naturally when I'm walking, my hips move in more harmony with my torso and my neck stops hurting. And yes, I look thinner and younger, which is what I wanted in the first place too.
So lets do it. Let's defy fecking energy loss that comes with age, or, if you are still very young and/or athletic, lets create more life energy by moving more. And no, moving around the house to do stuff for your kids doesnt count. You have to sweat, my friend. Sweat real hard or at least incorporate much more movement than the level you're comfortable at right now.
It is a surefire way for you to be transported into another universe, an alternative reality where the younger, vibrant and healthier version of you is having one hell of a time, because ''a healthy body only hosts a healthy mind'', remember?
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