The Myth of Happiness

The myths of happiness

This article originally appeared on the L.A. Review of Books and was written by Natasha Lennard.
This is a heavily edited excerpt.

In “The Myths of Happiness,” Sonja Lyubomirsky identifies several important mistakes that we make in pursuing happiness. Lyubomirsky is a leading contributor to what might be called the science of happiness, and her previous best-selling book, “The How of Happiness,” is a compendium of advice about how to make good lives better. Lyubomirsky has argued that roughly half the variation between people in happiness is genetic and essentially unmodifiable. But that still leaves plenty of room for us to improve our lives. We can improve our lives by changing our life circumstances (e.g., finding a loving mate or a rewarding job). But we can do even more by changing the way we think about or construe our life circumstances as they are.

In the new book, here is some of what we learn:

People think they’ll be happy if only they find the right romantic partner. They don’t realize that they may already have done so, but that, as relationships mature, some of the steam goes out of them — an inevitable result of what is called “hedonic adaptation.” If people are aware that this adaptation is coming, they may be grateful for what is good in their relationships instead of casting about restlessly to replace what seems to have been lost.Just as we adapt to our life partners, we adapt to our work. And here, too, the trick is in knowing to expect adaptation rather than feverishly looking to change jobs in search of that lost excitement.Variety can reduce or forestall adaptation, so that introducing variety into the day-to-dayness of your relationship can boost your satisfaction with it.

Positive emotions are the best antidote to the vicious cycle of negative emotions. Indeed, positivity can create a virtuous circle in which the more positive you are, the better your relationships will be and the better your work will be (much of the research behind this claim was done by Barbara Fredrickson, author of one of the books under review).

Parenting may bring many hours and days of misery. It certainly eats into opportunities to do other things that make you happy. And when children leave the nest, marital satisfaction soars. But having kids seems to be worth it. Almost no parent regrets having had kids. Having and raising children seems to add meaning to a life.

But, the daily hassles matter. Little annoyances that you think ought to be too trivial to care about add up, so it is important to pay attention to the small stuff.And the same goes for small pleasures.

Regular, small pleasures can add up to a lot more than a few big ones. You adapt to that fancy car long before you’ve paid it off. A day at the beach, coffee with a friend, a trip to the spa, a delicious croissant — these small pleasures we don’t adapt to because they are many and varied.People tend to think that material things will make them happy. In fact, experiences do a lot more for our happiness than possessions.

People focus on where they stand in relation to others as a sign of their success. This kind of social comparison undermines happiness.People emphasize the “pursuit of happiness” and undervalue the “happiness of pursuit.” In other words, people focus too much on the goal — the destination — and not enough on the journey.

‘Tears are less important when you are alone because there is no one to witness them’

Why do humans cry? A new reading of the old sob story

Excerpt:

Vingerhoets’s explanation is novel: although in certain situations weeping can be risky, he suggests it is far less risky than screaming or emitting some other loud acoustic signal. This is particularly true in the case of interactions at close quarters, such as occur during the extended period of human childhood, when a tear may be all that is required to alert a mother to her baby’s suffering.“When other animals grow old, most no longer emit distress signals, presumably because it is too dangerous, says Vingerhoets. “By contrast, in humans there is a shift from the acoustic signal, emitted in all directions, toward the visual signal of tears, which especially fit closer, more intimate interactions.

The trouble is that quite often – as when people cry when driving alone, a common phenomenon according to Vingerhoets – our tears catch us unawares, prompting us to become upset where perhaps no upset is called for. In such cases, it seems, tears are mother to the emotion rather than the other way round. More so than any other form of emotional expression, tears are also subject to shifting cultural and historical readings, symbolising piety and sensitivity in one age and hysteria and weakness in another.Whatever the precipitant, however, there is a widespread belief that crying is cathartic. However, even this may be a construct, says Vingerhoets. Although people frequently report feeling better after watching a Hollywood “tearjerker” with a friend, when asked to watch a similar movie in a laboratory setting they usually report no improvement in mood at all.

For Vingerhoets this is further evidence of the social function of crying. “Tears are less important when you are alone because there is no one to witness them,” he says. But while we may prefer to cry in the presence of friends and family, this need not be the case. As the pious tears shed by monks in contemplation of God attest, we can also shed tears for distant and highly symbolic attachment figures.

What counts, it seems, is the feeling that our helplessness is being acknowledged.

Tao of Management Verse Nineteen

Applying twenty-two hundred year old Chinese philosophy to modern business management – one verse at at time.
Just as there is no single right way to lead, there is no single interpretation of the Tao.
Today we look at number nineteen. First the original verse, translated into English by John C.H. Wu:

Verse Nineteen
DROP wisdom, abandon cleverness,
And the people will benefit a hundredfold.
Drop humanity, abandon justice,
And the people will return to their natural affections.
Drop shrewdness, abandon sharpness,
And robbers and thieves will cease to be.
These three are the criss-cross of Tao,
And are not sufficient in themselves.
Therefore, they should be subordinated to the higher principle:
See the Simple and embrace the Primal,
Diminish the self and curb the desires!

My Version:
Stop trying to be “wise” and clever,
Stop trying to be “fair” and “just”
Stop trying to be the “smartest” or the “sharpest”
But above all remember this:
Keep it simple, be humble, you have all you need.

As a child, I wanted to be wise, as a teenager I wanted to be clever.
As a college student I wanted to bring fairness and justice to the world.
And as a young professional, I wanted to be the smartest and sharpest employee.
But cultivating these things in a quest for success or accolades is meaningless.
Make yourself simple and humble, and share this with others,
And you will be rich beyond measure.

Whole Lotta Love

what rock and roll should be: raw, sexual, and a little frightening because anything is possible.

A great cover of a great song.

Haunted By Love

Link

Blue Lantern Tattoo

Blue Lantern Tattoo

Blue Lantern Tattoo

Shhhh….Brain…shhh

Source

Neuroscience tells us that, to be more productive and creative, we need to give our brains a break. It’s the quiet mind that produces the best insights. But it’s a challenge to take that sort of time off in the midst of a busy day. Here are three specific, quick, and easy ways to build purposeful break time into your day.

Quick Meditation
New research from the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging suggests that people who meditate show more gray matter in certain regions of the brain, show stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain atrophy. In other words, meditation might make your brain bigger, faster, and “younger”. As lead researcher Eileen Luders explains, “it appears to be a powerful mental exercise with the potential to change the physical structure of the brain.”

Tip: If you commute via public transportation (or even if you’re a passenger in a car pool) use the time to close your eyes for 10 minutes. If you drive, leave a little early, park, and spend 10 minutes in the car before you walk into work. Choose a very specific image, such as a waterfall, beach, or tree, and try to focus on it alone. If other thoughts get in the way, gently push them aside. Do this once or twice per day. The goal is to let your mind achieve a sense of relaxed awareness.

Pulsing
Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson, renown for his research and theories on expertise, points out that top performers in fields ranging from music to science to sports tend to work in approximately 90-minute cycles and then take a break. We are designed to pulse, to move between spending and renewing energy. Pulsing is the simplest, easiest, most immediate way to build breaks into your day.

Tip: Download a “break-reminder” utility, such as Scirocco or Healthy Hints, and set it to ping you every 90 minutes. Focus hard on a particular task until that cue. And then take a walk, talk to a colleague, doodle, or listen to music. Do anything that renews you and gives you a “second wind,” even if you think you don’t need it. You do. Five minutes later, get back to work.

Daydream Walks
Most people have heard the story about how 3M’s Arthur Fry came up with the idea for the Post-it note: he was daydreaming in church. Jonathan Schooler, a researcher at UC Santa Barbara, has repeatedly shown that people like Fry who daydream and let their minds wander score higher on creativity tests. What separates this from meditation is that, instead of emptying your mind, you’re letting it fill up with random thoughts. The trick is to remain aware enough to recognize a sudden insight when it comes.

Tip: Start by taking 20 minutes, two days a week during your lunch break to take a stroll and daydream. Think about anything you want besides work—a beach vacation, building your dream house, playing shortstop for the Yankees, whatever. Ramp it up to three or four days a week. The next time someone catches you daydreaming on the job and asks you why you’re not working, tell them that in fact you’re tapping into your creative brain.

Matthew E. May is the author of The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything. He is a speaker and advisor to companies such as Toyota, Edmunds.com, Intuit, and ADP.

Have Compassion

Source

Compassion is essentially the wish that beings not suffer – from subtle physical and emotional discomfort to agony and anguish – combined with feelings of sympathetic concern.

You could have compassion for an individual (a friend in the hospital, a co-worker passed over for a promotion), groups of people (victims of crime, those displaced by a hurricane, refugee children), animals (your pet, livestock heading for the slaughterhouse), and yourself.

Compassion is not pity, agreement, or a waiving of your rights. You can have compassion for people who’ve wronged you while also insisting that they treat you better.

Compassion by itself opens your heart and nourishes people you care about. Those who receive your compassion are more likely to be patient, forgiving, and compassionate with you. Compassion reflects the wisdom that everything is related to everything else, and it naturally draws you into feeling more connected with all things.

Additionally, compassion can incline you to helpful action. For example, one study showed that motor circuits in the brain lit up when people were feeling compassionate, as if they were getting ready to do something about the suffering they were sensing.

How?

Compassion is natural; you don’t have to force it; just open to the difficulty, the struggle, the stress, the impact of events, the sorrow and strain in the other person; open your heart, let yourself be moved, and let compassion flow through you.

Feel what compassion’s like in your body – in your chest, throat, and face. Sense the way it softens your thoughts, gentles your reactions. Know it so you can find your way back again.

Moments of compassion come in the flow of life – maybe a friend tells you about a loss, or you can see the hurt behind someone’s angry face, or a hungry child looks out at you from the pages of a newspaper.

Also, you can deliberately call in compassion a minute (or more), perhaps each day; here are a few suggestions:

· Relax and tune into your body.
· Remember the feeling of being with someone who cares about you.
· Bring to mind someone it is easy to feel compassion for.
· Perhaps put your compassion into words, softly heard in the back of your mind, such as: “May you not suffer . . . may this hard time pass . . . may things be alright for you.”
· Expand your circle of compassion to include others; consider a benefactor (someone who has been kind to you), friend, neutral person, difficult person (a challenge, certainly), and yourself (sometimes the hardest person of all).
· Going further, extend compassion to all the beings in your family . . . neighborhood . . . city . . . state . . . country . . . world. All beings, known or unknown, liked or disliked. Humans, animals, plants, even microbes. Beings great or small, in the air, on the ground, under water. Including all, omitting none.

Going through your day, open to compassion from time to time for people you don’t know: someone in a deli, a stranger on a bus, crowds moving down the sidewalk.

Let compassion settle into the background of your mind and body. As what you come from, woven into your gaze, words, and actions.

Omitting none.

* * *

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of the bestselling Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (in 21 languages) – and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s taught at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, Consumer Reports Health, and U.S. News and World Report and he has several audio programs. His blog – Just One Thing – has nearly 30,000 subscribers and suggests a simple practice each week that will bring you more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind and heart. If you wish, you can subscribe to Just One Thing here.

How To Pay Attention

Beth Kantor is one of my favorite bloggers, and here’s her take on how to avoid info overload:

1.) Manage Your Attention, Not Just Your Time: Don’t just create a to do list, lay it out on daily and weekly schedule, breaking down key tasks of the project to chunks. But consider the level of concentration and focus that each type of task or chunk requires – and schedule accordingly. For example, if I have to do some writing – that requires a higher level of attention for me than does scanning Twitter or reading and responding to email. I schedule my writing time during peak concentration hours in the day. (I’ve charted those – so I know when they occur). I also use a timer when I’m doing scanning my networks and time box those activities into 15-20 minute bursts.

2.) Visualize On Paper: Over the past 10 months, I’ve made a return to paper and markers and using mind maps or visualization techniques to reflect, plan my week or day. I use this as a pre-writing exercise as well as a reflection exercise. It’s why felt the need to dive into visual facilitation and thinking techniques as a way to cope with content fried.

3.) Establish Rituals: Rituals in your work life are valuable. The mindmap offers a lot of good suggestions for rituals – from decluttering your workspace to healthy habits like sleep and exercise.

4.) Reflection: Reflection doesn’t have to be a huge amount of time to be effective. I’m taking ten minutes every morning to practice some visual recording skills like drawing to create my “3 Most Important Things for Today List.” At the end of the day, I look at it, reflect on what I did – and plan for tomorrow. The advice is not to go online or check email until you get your three things done, but that is very hard for me – given so much of my work is online. What I do is try to avoid email first thing in the morning.

5.) Managing Email and Other Distractions: I’ve turned off notifications that pop up on my computer screen or send me a text message to my mobile phone.

6.) Managing Physical Space: When I see clutter in my physical work spaces, I try to take that as a sign that I need to hit a pause button. Usually it is because I’m doing too much.

7.) Just Say No: Maybe you are going to say no to social media for a day and go to meet with people, take a class, read a book, or talk a walk. When I’m feeling most overwhelmed, I take a break. Even if it is just to get up and walk around my desk.

Dunne’s Precognition Experiments

Daniel Souter & Jessica Francis in “They Came to a City”

From the archives of stuff I find interesting but don’t know what to do with:

source
Time may be more mysterious than we imagine. And for anyone wishing to explore that mystery, I would recommend a book—little-known today—entitled An Experiment with Time.

Written by J. W. Dunne, a British engineer and philosopher (and gentleman—some of the experiment was conducted from an armchair in the library of his club), An Experiment with Time created a stir when published in 1927. Despite his assurances that it required “no previous knowledge of science, mathematics, philosophy, or psychology” and was “considerably easier to understand than are, say, the rules of Contract Bridge,” much of the book is abstruse. But the philosophical portions—which delve into ontology and epistemology, and employ such terms as infinite regress, retro-causality, and quantum-interconnectedness—may be skipped. At the core of the book is a simple experiment, which Dunne performs, explains, and urges the reader to repeat.

Dunne had been bewildered by a series of precognitive dreams. In one of them, he had dreamt of the eruption of a volcano on a French island and the death of 4000 islanders. When the newspaper arrived, it headlined the eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique and a death-toll of 40,000. Seemingly, the horrifying dream had been prompted by his later reading of the newspaper account. Of his predictive dreams, this one was the most dramatic; but all were perplexing. They seemed to violate rules far more fundamental than those of contract bridge.

His experiences led Dunne to make a study of the relationship between time and dreaming. He went to sleep each night with a notebook and pencil under his pillow. And in the morning he quickly recorded his dreams, before they faded from memory. When he compared their images with the occurrences in his daily life, Dunne made a startling discovery. Generally, a dream derived its imagery from vivid or unusual happenings within a space of 24 hours—24 hours in either direction. That is to say, his dreams were influenced by events of both the past day and the next! Impossibly, they were “comprised of images of past experiences and images of future experiences blended together in approximately equal proportions.”

Extending his study to the dreams of friends and relatives, Dunne found similar correlations. He realized that he had discerned a “hitherto overlooked peculiarity in the structure of Time.” And he concluded that the standard model of Time—a series of events flowing into the future—was simply a mode of human perception. Indeed, “past” and “future” were nothing more than artifacts of the waking mind. Beyond our daily experience existed a timeless Present.

What was the significance of his findings? For one thing, Dunne pointed out, they provided an explanation for the curious phenomenon of déjà vu. (Why do we feel that something has happened before? Because we dreamt of it the previous night.) But more importantly, they supported belief in the immortality of the soul. For if Time was an illusion, Eternity was real.

Can it be then? Are dreams a window into the nature of the cosmos? Can they afford us a glimpse into the meaning of existence? Can we explore the deepest of mysteries while dozing in bed (or lounging in an armchair at our club)?

The reader may repeat Dunne’s experiment and decide for himself.

Deadly Maths

“In war after war, it’s the same gruesome story: crude weapons, dead innocents. In World War II, civilian deaths, as a percentage of total war fatalities, were estimated at 40 to 67 percent. In Korea, they were reckoned at 70 percent. In Vietnam, by some calculations, one civilian died for every two enemy combatants we exterminated. In the Persian Gulf War, despite initial claims of a vast Iraqi death toll, we may have killed only one or two Iraqi soldiers for every dead Iraqi civilian. In Kosovo, a postwar commission found that NATO’s bombing campaign killed about 500 Serbian civilians, almost matching the 600 enemy soldiers who died in action. In Afghanistan, the civilian death toll from 2001 to 2011 has been ballparked at anywhere from 60 to 150 percent of the Taliban body count. In Iraq, more than 120,000 civilians have been killed since the 2003 invasion. That’s more than five times the number of fatalities among insurgents and soldiers of Saddam Hussein’s regime.” ~ slate

So let’s do math:

Ratio of combatants kills to civilians killed

WW2. 1:0.67
Korea. 1:0.70
Vietnam 1:0.50
Persian Gulf. 1:1
Kosovo. 1:0.83
Afghanistan. 1:1.5
Iraq 1:5

One might be tempted to conclude that rather than reduce civilian casualties, armed conflicts since the adoption of the Geneva Protocols have increased the ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths.

The Art of Loneliness

Only by being aware that loneliness is a constant for some, can we know true compassion for all.

Click here for more: Link

Taking the High Road

Always take the high road.
It leads to the high ground,
where it’s much easier
to rain down pain
on your enemies.

~Tetsuhaku

Key to Authentic Leadership

Self Awareness: The Key To Authentic Leadership

Still trying out things on the iOS WordPress app…photo loading insert seems a bit wonky…

Read the article though, it is a good one.

“bong”

Good Vibrations

Good Vibrations

This is a test to see how this reblogs this link.

Korean Tango

You Make Me Sick

Bif Naked

Tao of Management Verse Eighteen

Applying twenty-two hundred year old Chinese philosophy to modern business management – one verse at at time.
Just as there is no single right way to lead, there is no single interpretation of the Tao.
Today we look at number eighteen. First the original verse, translated into English by John C.H. Wu:

Verse Eighteen
WHEN the Great Tao was abandoned,
There appeared humanity and justice.
When intelligence and wit arose,
There appeared great hypocrites.
When the six relations lost their harmony,
There appeared filial piety and paternal kindness.
When darkness and disorder began to reign in a kingdom,
There appeared the loyal ministers.

My Version:
When things get “out of whack”,
People will say “well, we do this because its the right thing to do”, or “it seem fair”.
When you value intelligence and wit over balance and centeredness
People will start looking for the seams and angles to play.
When things really start losing their harmony,
People start talking about “loyalty” and “responsibility”.
And when darkness and disorder run the show,
Only the “yes men” and “always be closing” people survive.

This is a great verse to meditate over. One doesn’t rely on loyalty or a sense of “owing” the workers or the company, and certainly management by the Tao is beyond a focus on “shareholder value” or other short-term notions of performance. If you work in a firm that calls for loyalty, respect, dedication, or similar calls to duty, then it is probably not managing with the Tao. The Tao calls for none of these because it is harmony and does not have to call on these constructs for good performance. Manage with the Tao and people perform because they feel in synch.

Recent business history is littered with the remains of “the smartest guys in the room”, and “The Firm”.

There are no seams to management with the Tao, no angles to play, no levers to leverage.

This is a Tao of Management.

Tao of Einstein

From a note Albert Einstein wrote to Robert S. Marcus in condolence on the death of his son:

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”

[see original here]

Tao of Management Verse Seventeen

Applying twenty-two hundred year old Chinese philosophy to modern business management – one verse at at time. This is my project to translate the Tao Te Ching into something usable by modern business leaders. Just as there is no single right way to lead, there is no single interpretation of the Tao. So consider this exercise worth every penny you paid. Today after a long break, we look at number seventeen. First the original verse, translated into English by John C.H. Wu:

Verse Sixteen
THE highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware.
Next comes one whom they love and praise.
Next comes one whom they fear.
Next comes one whom they despise and defy.

When you are lacking in faith,
Others will be unfaithful to you.

The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words.
When his task is accomplished and things have been completed,
All the people say, “We ourselves have achieved it!”

My Version:
The best manager is the one hardly anyone notices
Next comes the one they love and praise.
Next comes the one they fear.
Next comes the one they despise and defy.

If you don’t show trust in your people
They won’t have trust in you.

The wise manager doesn’t take themselves too seriously, or talk too much.
When his work is done and things have been achieved,
The team will say “We did it!”

This is one of the verses that gave me the idea for this project. It’s so clear, and obvious. I like to call this verse the “It ain’t about you” verse. Look, leadership is about getting your team to perform at their best, not about grandstanding yourself. If the team relies on you to save the day, you’re doing it wrong. If they spend a lot of time telling you how fabulous you are and how they couldn’t do it without you – beware.

This is a Tao of Management.

Lamb – Gorecki – Live At Glastonbury 2003

I’m surprised I’ve never listed this before. One of my favorites.

Peeling Potatoes

Goallessness is an admirable and necessary attribute in the Daoist vision of freedom. Which does not mean, of course, that we are to be goalless. It means that we have the kind of detachment from our goals which denies them the substantiality by which they would otherwise rob of us of immediacy and spontaneity. This moment is not a means to an end, but uniquely special in itself. Living here and now, one does not sacrifice the moment to the future. One may peel potatoes to have a dinner, but while peeling potatoes, that is what one does — and enjoys.
~ The Rambling Taoists

A carton of hate. A wedge of spite.

Dairy Products Gone Bad!

Guilty pleasure: Milk and Cheese by Evan Dworkin

Those who make a friend of Tao are never without company

Many people suffer from loneliness. However, the one who belongs to himself and does not try to belong to the world is never lonely for he has himself and his place in the Tao. Human companionship is spotty at best. People change their minds, move away, or die. The Tao never does. It is always here. Those who make a friend of Tao are never without company for they can find it in everything. The Tao is in the sunlight and the shade, the mountains and the valleys.
~ from Roshi Hogan’s Teachings Of The Tao ~

“Hold On To Me” – Theresa Andersson

this reminds me why people make art…

back to blogging.

for more go to: Theresa Andersson

The Dragon Crystals

Part 2 of a dragon story I made up tonight for my son (part 1 is here):

So a long time ago, in a land far, far away – called China – there were dragons.

And there were dragon detectors, like the one invented by Zhang Heng (but that’s another story).

But there were also wizards and magicians and witches (good ones) who tried to help the people. You remember that when the people were good, the dragons of the air, the sea, the land, and the fire would sleep. But when the people didn’t take good care of the land, and made war with each other, the dragons would awaken and cause terrible disasters.

So one day, the most powerful wizards and magicians and witches (good ones) all got together and created the most powerful spells ever. And they went out in all four directions and to the air, the sea, under the land, and even into the fire of volcanoes! And they said their magic spells in secret so nobody would ever know, way up in the clouds, and far out to sea and under the ocean, and deep underground, and even in the fiery lava at the bottom of volcanoes. And nobody knows how they did it, but they captured the dragons, hundreds of them, from all four directions and from all the places around the earth. And they captured them in crystals, that are very very hard, and froze the dragons forever – as long as the crystals don’t break.

Now only the very best people get to take care of these crystals and they are spread out all over the world to keep them safe. They didn’t get all the dragons mind you, so disasters still happen, but the ones they did capture they sure don’t want to let out – because nobody knows the secret spells anymore to put them back in.

And I have one of those crystals for you.

it says what kind of dragon it is and where it was captured

Now some people will tell you it’s a fake, and there are sure some fakes out there – just like there are fake guns, and made-up monsters and other pretend things. But this one is real (I think) and if you stare really hard at it, sometimes you can see the dragon move. And if you do – you know it’s real.

I know you’ll do a good job helping to take care of us by keeping your dragon safely inside the crystal.

I love you, and I trust you, and you’re old enough to take good care of things, so I’m giving this crystal to you to take care of forever and ever. Just like (mommy and) I will take good care of you.

Forever and ever.

Dragons and Earthquakes

A story I made up for my son tonight:

A long time ago in a land far, far away there were dragons. The land was called China and the people there feared and respected the dragons of the air, the land, the sea, and the fire.

When the people were good and took good care of the land, the sea, the air, and their fires, the dragons were kind and slept most of the time. But when the people were bad, and destroyed the land, put their garbage in the sea, polluted the air, and fought with their fires (instead of cooking and making good food and keeping warm), then the dragons were mad and would warn the people to be good.

Dragons in the air would flap their wings and bring terrible storms, dragons of the sea made big belly-flops and bring waves and floods to wash away the towns, dragons of the fire would huff and puff and make volcanoes explode, and dragons of the land would whip their tails back and forth against their homes in the earth – causing great earthquakes.

The people knew they could not stop the dragons except by taking care of the earth and respecting the dragons, who would just as well wipe all the people out to save the earth if they had to. So the people tried to be good.

And one day, a very smart man named Zhang Heng invented something to keep the people safe. He remembered when he was a little boy, that his Nai Nai (grandmother) told him that the lizards and frogs were cousins of the dragons and would always be the first to know if an earthquake was going to happen. If that was going to happen, the lizards and the frogs would all stop laughing and singing and go find a place to hide. Now Zhang Heng was not so foolish to think he could stop the dragons, and he knew that not everybody could pay attention to the frogs (like the people in the mountains or the city) but he knew he could help the people so not so many died or got hurt in the earthquakes.

So he made an invention called the “dragon detector”.

He took a big cookie jar and turned it upside down. Then he put a pendulum inside (you know, like the long swinging thing you see on big old fashioned clocks). The on the outside of the cookie jar he decorated it with little dragons all around it, like they were crawling down the sides. In the mouth of each dragon was a marble, and on the floor around the jar were little toy frogs, mouths open to catch the marbles.

Zhang Heng knew that if the dragons of the earth started whipping their tails back and forth, the pendulum would swing inside the cookie jar and tap the inside – jiggling the dragon on that side. The dragon would drop his marble – right into the mouth of the frog! And the frog’s mouth would close – just like the real frogs!

it looked kinda like this

Not only that, but you could tell what direction the earthquake was coming by looking at which frog had closed her mouth! That way, you knew which way to run in order to be safe! Zhang Heng thought this was a great invention and took it to the Emperor to show him.

But the Emperor’s men laughed at Zhang Heng. “Cookie jars?” “Marbles?” “Toy frogs?” “How can you tell us about dragons by playing with toys?!? You don’t know what you’re doing and you’re acting like a baby playing with toys!”

But Zhang Heng knew what he was doing and knew that he was right, so he quietly set up his dragon detector outside the Emperor’s castle. Then he sat down and he waited, and sure enough, not too many days later the dragon on the North side dropped his marble into the mouth of his cousin the frog, and she closed her mouth up tight.

“Ha ha!” said the Emperor’s men, “That stupid toy is foolish and worthless! We feel no earthquake, yet your toy says their is one! You lose!”

But Zhang Heng knew what he was doing and he knew that he was right, so he quietly sat down and he waited.

And sure enough, later that day a boy just about your age came running into the Emperor’s castle, crying “Help! Help! An earthquake is knocking down our houses and our people need your help!”

“Come here my boy, ” said the Emperor, “and tell me where you are from and we will send help right away.”

“Longxi, my Emperor,” said the breathless boy, “a day’s run North of here!”

“North!” said the Emperor to his doctors and soldiers, “take your men North to Longxi and help the people there!”

Then the Emperor looked at Zhang Heng and he smiled.

“You!” he shouted at his men who had teased Zhang Heng, “Go…make…some…toys…”

And the Emperor and Zhang Heng were best friends forever, and they saved lots of people by knowing where to send help long before a runner could come and tell them where the earthquake was.

And that’s the story of the dragons and the earthquakes, and the first dragon detector.

From a long time ago, in a land far, far away – called China.

Where they say dragons still sleep to this day…..

(read part 2 – The Dragon Crystals here)

A Cacophony of Fallacies in the House of Commons

Quincy Adams Wagstaff, MP

There is a real scorcher of false logic at play in the House of Commons this week. The majority government plans to propose a bill that critics suggest will unduly infringe on rights, and the government claims is needed to fight crime. The argument put forth today by the government was shockingly fallacious.

Here’s the argument broken down as a logic problem:
A happens, and B happens, so A causes B.
B happens, and C is a kind of B, so if B happens, C happens.
A causes B, and C is a type of B, so if A happens, C happens.

C is terrible, so we must do Q.
Q is new, so Q is good, because new is good.

If you don’t believe we must do Q, it is because you love C.
Only horrible people love C, so if you love C then you are the same as those horrible people.

And here it is as it played out today in the House of Commons:
(Canadian) Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, rebutting criticism of C-51 bill:

“As technology evolves, many criminal activities, such as the distribution of child pornography, become much easier,” he told the House. “We are proposing to bring measures to bring our laws into the 21st century and to provide police with the lawful tools that they need.

“He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

#1: Fallacy: Confusing Cause and Effect
“As technology evolves, many criminal activities…become much easier.”
Although these two things may occur at the same time, it does not mean that A causes B.

#2: Fallacy: Assuming that if a General effect happens, a Specific sub-set of the General effect will happen.
“…many criminal activities, such as the distribution of child pornography, become easier.”
Although X is a subset of Y, if Y happens, it does not mean that X subset will happen.

#3 Fallacy: Appeal to Fear
Creating fear in people (easier child porn distribution) does not constitute evidence for a claim (that the proposed bill is good).

#4 Fallacy: Appeal to Novelty
“We are proposing to bring measures to bring our laws into the 21st century…”
What we are doing is new, and therefore better.

#5 Fallacy: False Dilemma
“He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”
Either you are against this bill, or you are for it. You are not for it, therefore you must be against it.

#6 Fallacy: Guilt by Association
“He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”
Horrible people hold opinion B. You hold opinion B. Therefore you are a just like those horrible people.

Six fallacies in three sentences. The government does itself no favours in attempting to pass legislation by relying on such rhetorical errors (or tricks if you like). It is unnecessary to do so in order to pass the bill (the government holds the majority). It is also unseemly to use guilt by association, a child-like rhetorical tactic, in the House of Commons.

How might one respond to such lunacy?

“Child pornography is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison, so anyone who opposes your proposal is a criminal? Has the government just criminalized dissent? Is the government threatening citizens with a decade in prison if they don’t support your proposal?”

Geek Wisdom

Sometimes the geeks get it right. Some words of eternal wisdom.

Bah weep gragnah weep nini bong – Transformers

Klaatu barada nikto – Klaatu

In the end…aren’t we all just dogs playing poker? – Edgar Teglee, Psychonauts

When someone asks you if you’re a god, you say ‘YES!’ – Winston, Ghostbusters

Get to da choppa! – Arnold

It’s a trap! – Admiral Ackbar

Good, bad, I’m the one with the gun. – Bruce “Don’t call me Ash” Campbell, Army Of Darkness

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A – Konami Code

I have come to chew bubblegum and kick a$$. And I’m all out of bubblegum. – Roddy Piper, They Live

Understanding is a three-edged sword. – Vorlon ambassador Kosh, Babylon 5

Spooooooon! – The Tick

Leeeroy Jenkins!!!! – Leroy Jenkins

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations. – The Hobbit

I did it thirty five minutes ago. – Ozymandias, Watchmen

Do or do not. There is no try – Yoda

Selections from a Topless Robot contest. Click here – read more.

Noisettes – Never Forget You

For some reason this makes me think of “Little Shop of Horrors”….

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.

Georges Duhamel

Stop Wasting Your Time Solving Problems

From Leadership Freak:

Search: "building" + "people" <>

Don’t solve people’s problems give them confidence they can solve them.

You’re missing the boat if you:

* Think more about processes than people.
* Jump in and help people solve problems.
* Fix rather than build.
* Speak more than listen.

You’re on target when you:

* Let them talk about problems while you talk about their strengths.
* Explain why you believe in them.
* Honor their hard work rather than their frustrations.

Training or other resources may be required to solve problems; however, instilling confidence comes first.

Read the whole thing by clicking on these words.

Professional blog-as-resume? What the Pros look for.

From Erica Glaiser’s blog, which is one of the best damned social media blogs out there, and a 2011 nominee for Canadian Weblog Awards in Best Written, Business & Career, and the Science, Technology & the Internet categories.

Here’s her take on why the hell and how the hell you should approach blogging if you want it to be an extension of your brand or resume. Obviously that’s not the case with this blog, but it’s good advice nevertheless.

Professional blogs are basically there to serve as an expanded resume, and it helps to know why you’re bothering to become a little publishing machine. What is it employers are going to see for all this effort?

Passion
Everyone can tell when you’re stoked about something (so write about stuff about which you are stoked. It’ll be a better read). Employers ❤ passion.

Insight
“Thought leadership” is the more grandiose buzzword for strong analysis. Tear something apart. Put it back together. Show me you saw beneath the surface, figured out a motivation, or connected some previously unconnected dots with your keen, keen mind.

Ambition
The fact that you bother to construct this whole persona, do research to impress me with your investigative skills, and make images to ease my understanding & please my eye says “hey, this person really wants it”.

Personality
An employer who wants to get to know the you behind the resume will know PDQ if your charming, quirky self is the right fit for their organizational culture. This can help you find a good corporate fit, so be yourself within the realm of good taste.

Skills
Posting struggles, successes, media you’ve produced, and plain ole’ writing shows me what kind of communicator you are. Visual skills translate especially well in the blog medium—cartooning, animation, slideshares, infographics. If you make it and it doesn’t suck, post it. If it does suck, ask for critique so you can improve.

Frequency
Besides showing your knowledge of subject matter, social media & communication, frequent blogging on topical stuff shows me you know what’s going on in your industry & you’ve got the commitment to prove it.

Connections
Comments show people are reading. Retweets show your stuff is worth sharing. Clips of speaking engagements or presentations demonstrate your ability to work a room.

Capability
On a meta level, outside the subject matter you blog about, you’re making it clear you know how to think like a publisher. Brand journalism and content marketing are a growing underpinning of social media marketing. The future employer is relieved to see you’ve worked out all your blogging disasters on your own dime.

Want to read more great stuff by Erica? Sure you do. Click on these words.

Real Friends Got Your Back

source

Major Movements in Philosophy as Minimalist Geometric Graphics

by Genis Carreras

Silence

If you have a gift with words, learn to keep your mouth shut; when you speak, punctuate with pause; and when you have nothing to say, say nothing.

~source

Jack Layton – The Last Airbender?

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic and we’ll change the world.
~ Jack Layton

You must never give into despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.
~ Uncle Iroh, The Last Airbender

Best. Tango. Ever.

My favorite Tango from the movies.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor.

“Please, set aside 15 minutes of your time to watch this amazingly brilliant short animation. I can’t even describe how beautiful, heartfelt, and nostalgic it was to watch. I’m telling you, for all my book lovers, librarians, authors, writers, anybody who has ever loved a book, this short was made for you. Watch it.” source

7 Practices For Cultivating Compassion in Your Life

from zen habits

The key to developing compassion in your life is to make it a daily practice.

Why develop compassion in your life? Well, there are scientific studies that suggest there are physical benefits to practicing compassion — people who practice it produce 100 percent more DHEA, which is a hormone that counteracts the aging process, and 23 percent less cortisol — the “stress hormone.”

But there are other benefits as well, and these are emotional and spiritual. The main benefit is that it helps you to be more happy, and brings others around you to be more happy. If we agree that it is a common aim of each of us to strive to be happy, then compassion is one of the main tools for achieving that happiness. It is therefore of utmost importance that we cultivate compassion in our lives and practice compassion every day.

7 Compassion Practices

Morning ritual. Greet each morning with a ritual. Try this one, suggest by the Dalai Lama: “Today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.” Then, when you’ve done this, try one of the practices below.

Empathy Practice. The first step in cultivating compassion is to develop empathy for your fellow human beings. Many of us believe that we have empathy, and on some level nearly all of us do. But many times we are centered on ourselves and we let our sense of empathy get rusty. Try this practice: Imagine that a loved one is suffering. Something terrible has happened to him or her. Now try to imagine the pain they are going through. Imagine the suffering in as much detail as possible. After doing this practice for a couple of weeks, you should try moving on to imagining the suffering of others you know, not just those who are close to you.

Commonalities practice. Instead of recognizing the differences between yourself and others, try to recognize what you have in common. At the root of it all, we are all human beings. We need food, and shelter, and love. We crave attention, and recognition, and affection, and above all, happiness. Reflect on these commonalities you have with every other human being, and ignore the differences. One of my favorite exercises comes from a great article from Ode Magazine — it’s a five-step exercise to try when you meet friends and strangers. Do it discreetly and try to do all the steps with the same person. With your attention geared to the other person, tell yourself:

Step 1: “Just like me, this person is seeking happiness in his/her life.”
Step 2: “Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in his/her life.”
Step 3: “Just like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness and despair.”
Step 4: “Just like me, this person is seeking to fill his/her needs.”
Step 5: “Just like me, this person is learning about life.”

Relief of suffering practice. Once you can empathize with another person, and understand his humanity and suffering, the next step is to want that person to be free from suffering. This is the heart of compassion — actually the definition of it. Try this exercise: Imagine the suffering of a human being you’ve met recently. Now imagine that you are the one going through that suffering. Reflect on how much you would like that suffering to end. Reflect on how happy you would be if another human being desired your suffering to end, and acted upon it. Open your heart to that human being and if you feel even a little that you’d want their suffering to end, reflect on that feeling. That’s the feeling that you want to develop. With constant practice, that feeling can be grown and nurtured.

Act of kindness practice. Now that you’ve gotten good at the 4th practice, take the exercise a step further. Imagine again the suffering of someone you know or met recently. Imagine again that you are that person, and are going through that suffering. Now imagine that another human being would like your suffering to end — perhaps your mother or another loved one. What would you like for that person to do to end your suffering? Now reverse roles: you are the person who desires for the other person’s suffering to end. Imagine that you do something to help ease the suffering, or end it completely. Once you get good at this stage, practice doing something small each day to help end the suffering of others, even in a tiny way. Even a smile, or a kind word, or doing an errand or chore, or just talking about a problem with another person. Practice doing something kind to help ease the suffering of others. When you are good at this, find a way to make it a daily practice, and eventually a throughout-the-day practice.

Those who mistreat us practice. The final stage in these compassion practices is to not only want to ease the suffering of those we love and meet, but even those who mistreat us. When we encounter someone who mistreats us, instead of acting in anger, withdraw. Later, when you are calm and more detached, reflect on that person who mistreated you. Try to imagine the background of that person. Try to imagine what that person was taught as a child. Try to imagine the day or week that person was going through, and what kind of bad things had happened to that person. Try to imagine the mood and state of mind that person was in — the suffering that person must have been going through to mistreat you that way. And understand that their action was not about you, but about what they were going through. Now think some more about the suffering of that poor person, and see if you can imagine trying to stop the suffering of that person. And then reflect that if you mistreated someone, and they acted with kindness and compassion toward you, whether that would make you less likely to mistreat that person the next time, and more likely to be kind to that person. Once you have mastered this practice of reflection, try acting with compassion and understanding the next time a person treats you. Do it in little doses, until you are good at it. Practice makes perfect.

Evening routine. Rake a few minutes before you go to bed to reflect upon your day. Think about the people you met and talked to, and how you treated each other. Think about your goal that you stated this morning, to act with compassion towards others. How well did you do? What could you do better? What did you learn from your experiences today? And if you have time, try one of the above practices and exercises.

These compassionate practices can be done anywhere, any time. At work, at home, on the road, while traveling, while at a store, while at the home of a friend or family member. By sandwiching your day with a morning and evening ritual, you can frame your day properly, in an attitude of trying to practice compassion and develop it within yourself. And with practice, you can begin to do it throughout the day, and throughout your lifetime.

This, above all, with bring happiness to your life and to those around you.

How Nonprofit Networks Are Raising the Bar on Results

When people are asked to identify nonprofits, certain names jump to the foreground—the YMCA, the American Red Cross, Boys and Girls Clubs, Habitat for Humanity. What these household names have in common, besides size and fame, is that they all work through a network structure, with multiple affiliates across the country striving for significant impact. In fact, nine of the ten largest US nonprofits are networks.

For decades, the main pressure facing networks was to be in more places and serve more people. Now, there is a different kind of pressure: to get better. Networks with multiple sites are increasingly expected to provide donors and supporters with a higher level of evidence that their work is effective and delivered consistently across the board. While an “outcomes” orientation isn’t new, its effect on the sector has been magnified, in part because of the difficult economy.

In our work, we have seen several networks take promising steps to deliver measurably better results in achieving their missions. Central offices are working collaboratively with affiliates to improve the way in which their network’s high-level strategy translates into action across the entire organization. They’re figuring out where their best work is being done, finding ways to become more effective, and learning how to ensure that all affiliates benefit from the experiences and know-how of their peers.

Here are five promising elements that networks are using to raise the bar:

Use the network’s unified strategy to drive decision-making. Maintain consensus around a common strategy to keep each office moving in the same direction. Establish universal key performance indicators that apply to all, regardless of size, programming, and population characteristics. These measures help the organization assess individual high performers, identify the things needed to improve their results, and show where one might benefit from the experiences of another.

Create a common language by defining the dimensions of effectiveness. When everyone shares an understanding of what high performance looks like, it becomes easier to identify reliable indicators of effectiveness. Ask: What information will allow us to set clear expectations and compare results? What will help us see how each office performs against a common strategic goal and understand why some may be achieving more than others? What support is needed to transform the effectiveness of the individual and the national organization itself?

Create paths to improvement. Professionals hone their skills by progressing through a series of developmental milestones. Make the pathway clear.

Diagnose where you are today and uncover pockets of strength. Figure out the developmental stage you’re at, then compare to the baseline measurements for success. They ask: Where do you fall on the developmental continuum? Are there pockets of strength in the organization, despite an overall failure? How might the national organization strengthen performance if each office could improve in one key area?

Capture knowledge that matters: Figure out what to do first and how each office can best learn from others. Especially important may be the use of a self-evaluation tool to track performance indicators, understand individual strengths and weakness relative to others, and tailor performance improvement strategies to those strengths and weaknesses.

From Stanford Social Innovation Review: A new article, “Growing Network Impact: How Nonprofit Networks are Raising the Bar on Results” shows how the work of six networks illustrates these practices.

Red String of Fate

The Red String of Fate

An Eastern Asian legend originating in China and also referred to in Japanese mythology as well. According to this myth, the gods would tie an invisible red string around men and women who were meant to be soul mates and in time, would marry one another. This magical string can twist, tangle, or stretch, but the ‘bond’ will never break.

The two people connected by the red thread are destined lovers, regardless of time, place, or circumstances.

Rhetorical Practices To Watch Out For

1. Panic Mongering. Not fear mongers, panic mongering. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. Why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypass the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don’t think rationally. And when they can’t think rationally, they’ll believe anything.

2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Go after the person’s credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. Ad hominem attacks work not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. “liberals,” “conservatives,” etc.

3. Projection/Flipping. t involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you’re using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first.

4. Rewrite History. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they’ll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.

5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.

6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. Terms like “show of strength” are often used to describe acts of repression. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.

7. Bullying. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a “win.”

8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user’s claims veracity in the viewer’s mind.

9. Populism. The speakers identifies themselves as one of “the people” and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with.

10. Invoking God. The idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, believers and “real people” and anyone who challenges them as not. The speaker has been chosen by God (or is uniquely qualified to know God’s intent) to speak on behalf of him, so any challenge is perceived as immoral.

11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. The message must be repeated cover and over, it must be everywhere and it must be shared across commentators. If something is said enough times, by enough people, many will come to accept it as truth.

12. Disparaging Education. Express a lack of reverence for education and intellectualism. Define higher education as elitist.

13. Guilt by Association. Here’s how it works: if your cousin’s college roommate’s uncle’s ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev’s niece’s ex-boyfriend’s sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.

14. Diversion. This is where the commentator suddenly takes the debate in a new direction, like wanting to focus on “moving forward.” Any attempt to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand will itself be called deflection.

Source

Improve Your Memory In Seven Ways

from Psyblog

1. Write about your problems

Sit down for 20 minutes a few times a month and write about something traumatic that has happened to you. Yogo and Fujihara (2008) found that it improved working memory after 5 weeks.

Psychologists aren’t exactly sure why this works, but it does have a measurable effect.

2. Look at a natural scene

In one study people who walked around an arboretum did 20% better on a memory test than those who went for a walk around busy streets.

In fact you don’t even need to leave the house. Although the effects aren’t as powerful, you can just look at pictures of nature and that also has a beneficial effect.

3. Say words aloud

If you want to remember something in particular from a load of other things, just say it out loud. A study (described here) found memory improvements of 10% for words said out loud, or even just mouthed: a relatively small gain, but at a tiny cost.

4. Meditate (a bit)

Meditation has been consistently found to improve cognitive functioning, including memory.

In one recent study, participants who meditated for 4 sessions of only 20 minutes, once a day, saw boosts to their working memory and other cognitive functions.

5. Predict your performance

Simply asking ourselves whether or not we’ll remember something has a beneficial effect on memory. This works for both recalling things that have happened in the past and trying to remember to do things in the future.

When Canadians tested people’s prospective memory (remembering to do something in the future), they found that trying to predict performance was beneficial. On some tasks people’s performance increased by almost 50%.

6. Use your body to encode memories

Memento style? Not quite. We don’t just think with our minds, we also use our bodies. For example, research has shown that we understand language better if it’s accompanied by gestures.

We can also use gestures to encode memories. Researchers trying to teach Japanese verbs to English speakers found that gesturing while learning helped encode the memory. Participants who used hand gestures which suggested the word were able to recall almost twice as many Japanese words a week later.

7. Use your body to remember

Since our bodies are important in encoding a memory, they can also help in retrieving it. Psychologists have found that we recall past episodes better when we are in the same mood or our body is in the same position.

A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation

Meditation is like chess: the rules are relatively easy to explain, but the game itself is infinitely complex. And like chess the names and techniques of meditation are many and varied but the fundamentals are much the same:

Relax the body and the mind. This can be done through body posture, mental imagery, mantras, music, progressive muscle relaxation, any old trick that works. Take your pick. This step is relatively easy as most of us have some experience of relaxing, even if we don’t get much opportunity.

Be mindful. Bit cryptic this one but it means something like this: don’t pass judgement on your thoughts, let them come and go as they will (and boy will they come and go!) but try to nudge your attention back to its primary aim, whatever that is. Turns out this is quite difficult because we’re used to mentally travelling backwards and forwards while making judgements on everything (e.g. worrying, dreading, anticipating, regretting etc.). The key is to notice in a detached way what’s happening but not to get involved with it. This way of thinking often doesn’t come that naturally.

Concentrate on something. Often meditators concentrate on their breath, the feel of it going in and out, but it could be anything: your feet, a potato, a stone. The breath is handy because we carry it around with us. But whatever it is try to focus all your attention onto it. When your attention wavers, and it will almost immediately, gently bring it back. Don’t chide yourself, be good to yourself, be nice. The act of concentrating on one thing is surprisingly difficult: you will feel the mental burn almost immediately. Experienced practitioners say this eases with practice.

Concentrate on nothing. Most say this can’t be achieved without a lot of practice, so I’ll say no more about it here. Master the basics first.

Zzzzz Zzzzz. That’s not meditating, that’s sleeping.

This is just a quick introduction but does give you enough to get started. It’s important not to get too caught up in techniques but to remember the main goal: exercising attention by relaxing and focusing on something. Try these things out first, see what happens, then explore further.

from Psyblog

Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity

Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb said, “neurons that fire together wire together.”

The implication is that if our brain changes itself based on our experiences, then by changing our experiences we can actively reshape our brains. One way to consciously change our experience is to learn how to apply mindfulness, the ability to be intentionally aware of our experience as it is unfolding. And by being more aware of our present experience as it is happening, we begin to form a secondary ability that UCLA psychiatrist Daniel Siegel calls “response flexibility” – the capacity to pause before we act. He describes it as follows:

“It creates a spaciousness of the mind to notice that an impulse has arisen and to disconnect from the automatic behavior that usually follows when someone is an impulsive person. So mindfulness creates a space between impulse and action that allows us to be more flexible in our responses.”

Being mindful is the exact opposite of our “fight, flight, or freeze” part of the brain, the part of our brain that is activated when we feel threatened or in danger. This state of mind isn’t necessarily bad, but unfortunately, due to our busy and very fast-paced world, we have been conditioned to activate “fight, flight, or freeze” as a reaction to novel stimuli that don’t actually pose a threat or danger. However, when we are able to remain mindful, calm, non-impulsive, and feeling safe, we can free up our mental resources and use them more effectively for things like learning and problem-solving.

For some beginner practices in mindfulness you may want to try:

100 Breaths Meditation
Mindfulness of Sound

from The Emotion Machine

Reality Distortion Field

by Tim Ferriss

Bill Clinton has it. Steve Jobs had it. A “Reality Distortion Field” (RDF)—an aura of charisma, confidence, and persuasion, in which people report it almost impossible to avoid surrendering to the man and following his will when interacting face-to-face.

What was it? Lingering Eye Contact. You can do it to. Here’s how:

STEP 1: Practice Brief Eye Contact With Strangers

While you walk down the sidewalk (during daylight hours!) look at the eyes of every person walking towards you long enough to see their eye color. Less than a second. Then look away.

You can also practice longer eye contact with waiters, salesclerks, cashiers, and other paid service staff, so long as you do it respectfully and in a friendly way.

In all cases, keep a neutral facial expression and soft gaze. You don’t want anyone to think you’re trying to stare them down, rob them, or get them into the sack.

STEP 2: Learn the Art of Personal Space

Our sense of personal space is not a pure function of physical proximity; many other psychological factors influence it. In general, your sense of physical proximity with someone increases when they are:

- Making direct eye contact with you
- Facing you directly (as opposed to standing side-by-side looking into the crowd)
- Touching you (i.e., rubbing elbows in a crowd, patting your back, touching your arm or shoulder)
- Raising their voice
- Talking about you (as opposed to a neutral subject)

If you learn to modulate these five different factors, and combine them in different ways, you can make your conversation partners feel safe and comfortable while at the same time feeling close and intimate with you.

When you increase eye contact, try leaning back or standing back a little to increase their comfort. When you are physically close because it’s a crowded room, try lowering your voice. When you pat someone on the back or touch their arm as you talk, try standing at an angle, not facing them directly.

STEP 3: Practice Being Present

In our age of tweets and Facebook status updates and cellphone buzzes and new texts and IMs and VMs every few seconds, focusing your inner attention on the same person you’re talking with can be challenging.

For one week, whenever you talk with someone, pay attention. Attention is becoming almost as scarce a resource as money. Someone who “pays” it to you is giving you something of true value.

Try to create for you and your companion that feeling of “we were the only two people in the room.”

Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’

from The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Canadian privacy expert David Flaherty expresses a similar idea when he argues: “There is no sentient human being in the Western world who has little or no regard for his or her personal privacy; those who would attempt such claims cannot withstand even a few minutes’ questioning about intimate aspects of their lives without capitulating to the intrusiveness of certain subject matters.”

To describe the problems created by the collection and use of personal data, many commentators use a metaphor based on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Orwell metaphor, which focuses on the harms of surveillance (such as inhibition and social control), might be apt to describe government monitoring of citizens. But much of the data gathered in computer databases, such as one’s race, birth date, gender, address, or marital status, isn’t particularly sensitive.

Another metaphor better captures the problems: Franz Kafka’s The Trial. Kafka’s novel centers around a man who is arrested but not informed why. He desperately tries to find out what triggered his arrest and what’s in store for him. He finds out that a mysterious court system has a dossier on him and is investigating him, but he’s unable to learn much more. The Trial depicts a bureaucracy with inscrutable purposes that uses people’s information to make important decisions about them, yet denies the people the ability to participate in how their information is used.

The problems portrayed by the Kafkaesque metaphor are of a different sort than the problems caused by surveillance. They often do not result in inhibition. Instead they are problems of information processing—the storage, use, or analysis of data—rather than of information collection. They affect the power relationships between people and the institutions of the modern state. They not only frustrate the individual by creating a sense of helplessness and powerlessness, but also affect social structure by altering the kind of relationships people have with the institutions that make important decisions about their lives.

Legal and policy solutions focus too much on the problems under the Orwellian metaphor—those of surveillance—and aren’t adequately addressing the Kafkaesque problems—those of information processing.

Wizards & Warriors Little Nerd Camp

from Boston.com

“You get to fight with swords. How much better could a camp get?’’

What some might dismiss as a geeky alternative to more traditional camps, where sports and arts classes rule, is actually a precious, even irreplaceable resource to the population it serves, say campers, parents, and staffers involved with Wizards & Warriors. Lured away from their computer screens, at least for a few hours, these kids get to engage in more physically challenging and socially interactive versions of games they already love. For many, the excitement comes from playing characters of their own creation in a multilayered adventure story their actions help shape. For others, it’s all about the sword fighting. But everyone seems to agree on the value – and fun – of turning video-game material into real-life play.

“For a lot of these kids, this is their first camp experience,’’ notes Meghan Gardner, a martial arts and fencing instructor whose company, Guard Up, runs the camp. “They usually don’t fit the classic camp mold, where kids go from place to place doing what everyone else is doing.’’ Rather, she says, “We’re taking their dreams and making them happen in a safe environment.’

Joseph Hall, 15, a hard-core Harry Potter fan returning for his third session, said the role-playing camp is completely different from the other camps he attends each summer. “There’s no way this is going to help you later in life,’’ mused Hall, whose self-designed costume evoked that of a Roman gladiator. “There are no professional foam-sword fighters. It’s just plain fun, but it’s having fun in an atmosphere that everyone helps create.’’