Truth

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Human Rights

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Today, in honor of Human Rights Day, I'd like to share The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

After the horror of World War II, the United Nations was formed in 1945. The UN charter’s main two objectives are ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’ and ‘to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.’ In 1946, the UN Commission on Human Rights was established. Chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, the commission drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 ‘as a common standard of achievement for all people and nations’. Today, it is the job of the Human Rights Council, an important body of the United Nations, to promote and protect people’s human rights around the world.
Credit for this amazing artwork belongs to ZenPencils.
Read more on the Declaration here.
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Writing

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by Travis Hellstrom

I began writing online in 2005 using blogger.

It was a wonderful experience and made a big impact on my life.

Writing online helped me explore my thoughts and experiences in a way I hadn't before. It also taught me that I enjoyed creating things online and sharing them with people. That is still true today.

Advance Humanity

I named my first blog Advance Humanity because, as I wrote in an article in 2005, it helped "define my principles, my values and in someway it helps define me." It's fun and admittedly a little embarrassing to look back at those articles from 8 years ago and remember where I was when I was writing them.

At the time I was in college trying to wrap my mind around my future. Medical school loomed ahead and a perfectly made path stretched out before me. Even though I was president of the pre-med honors society at the time and had done well enough on the entrance exams to be accepted into medical school, it was a path I chose not to take. I chose Peace Corps and, in some ways Advance Humanity, instead.

Growing

I wrote something in that entry that still strikes a chord with me,

"Stephen King used to have a desk in the center of his study so that he could go in and write for hours at a time. The huge problem with that, which he wrote about in his book On Writing, is that he was using life as a support system for writing. It’s the other way around, he said. Writing is a support system for life. Life is the goal, the adventure and the journey. Medical school isn’t, writing, music, none of that stuff is. I am living to live, to experience life fully in my own way, to grow in my own wisdom, and to learn to love better."

I like that.

I am still growing and I still enjoy writing.

I look forward to sharing that for a long time to come.

Incidentally, Advance Humanity is still growing as well.

I'll write more about that next time.