Elementary

Memorable Quotes from The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976):

"I never guess: it is an appalling habit, destructive to the logical faculty."

NPR : Finding Happiness in a Harvard Classroom

NPR : Finding Happiness in a Harvard Classroom:

"Six Tips for Happiness

Advice from Tal Ben-Shahar.

1. Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions -- such as fear, sadness, or anxiety -- as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.

2. Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.

3. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?

4. Simplify! We are, generally, too busy, trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.

5. Remember the mind-body connection. What we do -- or don't do -- with our bodies influences our mind. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.

6. Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile."

Against the odds...

The Dilbert Blog: Winning:

"If you don’t follow the game, let me give you some background. Blake is the son of an African-American dad and an English mom. He was raised in Connecticut and had to wear a back brace for years when he was a kid. He took up tennis, excelled, and went to Harvard for two years before going pro. He looked promising, along with a number of other young Americans, but not top 10 material. He was most noted for his sex appeal and great personality.

...Then in 2004 he had the year from Hell. He ran into a tennis net post and broke his neck. Then he got a shingles virus in his face that paralyzed it on one side. Then his dad died.

...I don’t know what kind of training he did, but oh-my-god. I watched him play in person during the first week of the Indian Wells tournament and thought it couldn’t be the same guy. There was ferocity to his strokes. He wasn’t just hitting the ball, he was punishing it. His court speed was breathtaking. His shot selection was brilliant. His backhand, previously a weakness, had become a rocket.

...Blake blasted through the field of world-class tennis players and found himself in an unlikely semi-final with a Spanish force of nature named Rafael Nadal. Nadal is the #2 player in the world. He hits with brutal topspin. It’s a relentless attack that less than a handful of elite players have been able to withstand in the past year.

Nadal brought his best, but Blake blew past with a combination of game and gamesmanship that surprised almost everyone, not the least Nadal himself.

Now it was time for the championship match against Roger Federer, the best player in the world. Correction – make that the best tennis player who has ever lived. That’s not just my opinion. He already has seven Grand Slam wins. If he stays healthy, many people expect him to hold every important record in tennis.

Against all odds, Blake blazed to a 4-1 first set advantage against the all-time greatest player on earth. It seemed as though nothing could stop him.

And then something happened. The momentum shifted. The rest of the match was all Federer. Blake seemed to fade away, settling for runner-up, but his effort that week was enough to put him in the top ten in the world.

At the trophy ceremony, Blake spoke to the crowd. He said that in 2004, when he was in the hospital with a broken neck, only one tennis player sent him a note to wish him well. It was Roger Federer.

I wanted Blake to win that match, yet somehow, by losing he found perfection. "

"Security is mostly a superstition..."

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

- Helen Keller

The brain...

...is a pattern recognition system. An evolutionary biogical survival tool that is highly useful.

But.

That being the case, as a pattern recognition system, the brain will sometimes make connections and linkages where none actually exist.

[Which is how optical illusions sometimes work... the brain "fills in" information that's missing.]

So, is what you know real, or a connection made in the absence of information?

You don't create your own reality...

But you do create your own representation of reality...

There is a distinction, but in most cases it doesn't matter.

Wake Up.

Musings on Reality, the Scientific Method, and the Cure for Dandruff:

"When I look around at how most people are living, they look like walking zombies. They get up, go to work, eat unhealthy food, watch TV, argue about politics, and repeat the cycle until retirement. After retirement they preoccupy themselves with equally pointless activities as they wait for death. They spend their lives thinking nothing that’s real, doing nothing that’s real, and talking about nothing that’s real. But every once in a while, some experience happens to them that temporarily wakes them up… ever so briefly. Maybe it’s getting fired, suffering the death of someone close to them, or enjoying a mental breakthrough. For that moment they are awake, but too often they panic when this happens and resubscribe to the old mass hypnosis."

Assumptions of the scientific method...

Musings on Reality, the Scientific Method, and the Cure for Dandruff:

"The Scientific Method pre-supposes that we live in an objective universe, where observer and observed are separate entities. This is the common model of reality we share in the West.

However, I feel it’s best not to make that assumption because I strongly suspect it may be incorrect. And I do not want to make all the decisions of my life based on an inaccurate model of reality. For one, that would mean making some really, really big mistakes… the kind that human beings have been making all throughout history. I have no interest in repeating that pattern.

I can only be “scientific” to the degree that I subscribe to the objective reality model of the universe. Now don’t get me wrong. This model certainly has its advantages. Nothing can take the place of the Scientific Method in the area in which it works. But if reality is not entirely objective, then there is an area in which the Scientific Method won’t work. And that area may be hugely significant.

Very few people in the West are aware that the Scientific Method begins with an unprovable assumption about reality. Even experienced scientists will admit that science begins with an assumption, and in fact, many scientists are running right up against this limitation when studying quantum physics and are seriously questioning the validity of that assumption. Some scientists are already uprooting it… and suffering the slings and arrows of their peers as they do so.

...Instead of matter and energy being the fundamental building blocks of everything that exists, I think it’s more likely that consciousness itself is the fundamental structure. In my current “best guess” model of reality, I see the world as a collective co-creation by conscious beings. The world remains relatively stable (i.e. seemingly objective) because we keep recreating it in the same pattern (past, present, and future). But if every human being were to shift their beliefs about reality, then I suspect reality would change to accommodate our beliefs (including the past, present, and future).

Furthermore, I suspect there is in fact only one consciousness, and we all share it. We have separate minds and bodies, and therefore our own individual thoughts, but consciousness itself is an underlying field that we’re all connected to. One of the freaky things I did a few months ago was to shift my identification of self away from my own body-mind and into this field. Imagine regarding your self identity not as an individual person with a body and a mind but rather as all of consciousness itself. Then from that vantage point, you regard your body and your mind merely as parts of you but not the whole you. Your body and mind are merely limbs in a larger body. But then in this larger identity, you also have access to other limbs, like the ability to manifest synchronicities out of thin air or to manipulate reality through intention."

Achievement and Fulfillment

Don’t Die With Your Music Still In You:

"To abandon a comfortable lifestyle that isn’t deeply fulfilling is to abandon nothing. There’s nothing of real substance there to protect. An income, a car, a house, or a lifestyle are not worth protecting if the cost of such protection is your own fulfillment and happiness. People who achieve some of the external trappings of success without internal fulfillment are only living an illusion when they tell themselves they have something of value to protect. In most cases the feeling that there’s something to protect is just an excuse used to avoid facing the real fear — that maybe all this stuff isn’t really worth anything compared to what’s being lost… that maybe I should be living more boldly and not be so concerned about what happens to all my stuff."

Wanna know your future? Look around.

Are Your Friends An Elevator or a Cage?:

"Think for a moment about the 5-10 people with whom you spend the most time. Even include online communities if you spend a lot of time reading them — which individuals are having the most influence over your thinking right now? Actually write out the list — it should only take a minute. And this includes family members.

Now look at the list. It’s been said that this list will give you a glimpse into your future.

Do you want to become more like these people? Yes or no?

...Now have you ever thought about consciously changing this list? Do you realize that you have the ability to populate this list by choice instead of by chance? You’re free to say no to having certain people in your life, and you’re also free to make the effort to introduce new people you want in your life. Sometimes there are serious consequences, such as with family members and bosses, but it’s still a choice."

Like when your family still treats you like you're 17.

Or when you, hypothetically speaking of course, switch over to a vegetarian diet.

Social Drag:

"Social drag is what happens when you undergo a significant personal shift, yet everyone around you still treats you the same. Suppose you’ve decided to switch careers. Even though you’re still working in your old career, mentally you’ve already made the leap to the new one, and it’s only a matter of time before your external reality reflects that. But the people around you haven’t yet internalized your shift. It isn’t real to them yet, so they keep interacting with you as if you haven’t made the shift at all. Has this ever happened to you?"

Your problems don't mean anything. Not really. It's just your ego tricking you...

Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog:

"When you encounter a seemingly serious (but very common) human problem, it’s tempting to blow it all out of proportion and turn it into a major stumbling block that paralyzes you from moving forward. Social conditioning teaches us that losing someone close to you, getting a divorce, or being diagnosed with cancer are huge, life-wrenching issues. But that’s merely the ego’s perspective. In the grand scheme of human existence, such problems are about as common as dirt."

The Lazy Way to Success: Profiting From Your Passions

The Lazy Way to Success: Profiting From Your Passions:

"I have frequently maintained that the key to wealth, health, fame, power, love, happiness, and personal fulfillment is simple. All you have to do is do what you feel passionate about. In fact, it seems to me that doing anything other than what you love is a total waste of time.

Whenever I write (or say) something like that I am deluged with questions and rebuttals. Folks inevitably point to the innumerable starving artists, musicians, writers, and actors who are, well, starving, even though they are following their passions.

I also hear from guys who tell me the sole reason they were put on earth is to run an animal rescue operation or some such low-paying/no-paying occupation. And then they challenge me by asking how are they going to get rich/famous/successful doing those things?

On the other side of the bell curve, I hear from people who say they are passionate about a bazillion things. They ask how can they possibly decide which one to pursue.

Here is what I tell all these folks:

I believe that it is not enough to begin your journey by following a path characterized by only one passion. I have noticed that success comes when you incorporate several passions at once. It seems that an activity that combines several passions is a more complete reflection of who you are. Not only do the possibilities seem greater when more passions intersect, but the joy of doing is fuller."

I've gotta re-watch this movie.

Rigorous Intuition: Name that tune:

"Remember Magnolia? Most people who do probably still don't know what they saw. Those frogs - where'd that come from? Even The Guardian could say, 'This scene does successfully manage to shock the audience, but possibly only because it makes no sense whatsoever.' But of course it did: an audience member had earlier disrupted the gameshow What Do Kids Know? by holding up a sign that read simply 'Exodus 8:2.' Of course it took looking up the reference to get it: 'If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs.' So it required some work, and interest, to find the sense. And if you didn't get the frogs, you'd likely have also missed The History of Freemasonry on contestant Stanley's bookshelf, the Masonic symbols adorning the television studio, the conspicuous Masonic ring on the finger of the producer who consoles his paedophilic host Jimmy Gator, or the significance of Gator's farewell, 'We met upon the level and we're parting on the square.' Far from being meaningless, Magnolia is one of the most meaningful of American films, for those with the semiotic skillset to decode it."

Spreading some of that freedom.

KRT Wire | 03/19/2006 | Iraqi police report details civilians' deaths at hands of U.S. troops:

"According to the U.S. account, the house collapsed because of the heavy fire. When U.S. forces searched the rubble they found one man, the al-Qaida suspect, alive. He was arrested. They also found a dead man they believed to be connected to al-Qaida, two dead women and a dead child.

But the report filed by the Joint Coordination Center, which was based on a report filed by local police, said U.S. forces entered the house while it was still standing.

'The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men,' the report said. 'Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals.'

The report identified the dead by name, giving their ages. The two men killed were 22 and 28. Of the women, one was 22, another was 23, a third was 30 and the fourth was 75. Two of the children were 5 years old, two were 3, and the fifth was 6 months old, the document said.

The report was signed by Col. Fadhil Muhammed Khalaf, who was described in the document as the assistant chief of the Joint Coordination Center.

A local police commander, Lt. Col. Farooq Hussain, interviewed by a Knight Ridder special correspondent in Ishaqi, said autopsies at the hospital in Tikrit 'revealed that all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed.' Efforts to reach hospital spokesmen Sunday were unsuccessful."

Intellectual Property Run Amok

Intellectual Property Run Amok:

"IN 1982, Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti told Congress that “the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”

A DAY AFTER Senator Orrin Hatch said “destroying their machines” might be the only way to stop illegal downloaders, unlicensed software was discovered on his website.

BILL GATES had the 11-million-image Bettmann Archive buried 220 feet underground. Archivists can access only the 2% that was first digitized.

AMONG THE 16,000 people thus far sued for sharing music files was a 65-year-old woman who, though she didn’t own downloading software, was accused of sharing 2,000 songs, including Trick Daddy’s “I’m a Thug.” She was sued for up to $150,000 per song.

MICROSOFT UK held a contest for the best film on “intellectual property theft”; finalists had to sign away “all intellectual property rights” on “terms acceptable to Microsoft.”

...IN 2002, Valenti described Hollywood’s antipiracy campaign as “our own terrorist war.”

...“SENSORY TRADEMARKS” include a duck quacking (AFLAC), a lion roaring (MGM), yodelling (Yahoo!), giggling (Pillsbury), and a “pre-programmed rotating sequence of a plurality of high intensity columns of light projected into the sky to locate a source at the base thereof” (Ballantyne of Omaha).

FOR INCLUDING a 60-second piece of silence on their album, the Planets were threatened with a lawsuit by the estate of composer John Cage, which said they’d ripped off his silent work 4’33”. The Planets countered that the estate failed to specify which 60 of the 273 seconds in Cage’s piece had been pilfered.

...THE PUBLISHER of Super Hero Happy Hour removed “Super” from the comic book title after Marvel and DC Comics stated they own the phrase “super heroes and variations thereof.”

42% OF ALL VIDEO files shared online are pornographic. No porn-sharing cases have yet been tried in the U.S.

...RENTAMARK.COM makes money by claiming ownership of 10,000 phrases, including “chutzpah,” “casual Fridays,” “.com,” “fraud investigation,” and “big breasts.”

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’s estate charges academic authors $50 for each sentence of the “I Have a Dream” speech that they reprint.

THE VILLAGE PEOPLE refused to let their songs be used for a documentary called Gay Sex in the ’70s because they want to be thought of as “mainstream.”"

Reality Tunnels

Thornton's Guerilla_Blog: Reality Tunnels. . . .:

"Reality tunnels are the myopic thoughts that we repeat often enough to use as stories of self identification.

And reality tunnels create the way we percieve the world at any given time."

"I am an optimist because people die."

Thornton's Guerilla_Blog: Either - Or & Other. . . .:

"I am an optimist because people die.

The bitter old men who argued for slavery didn't change their minds. They eventually all died off. The bigots in the South who argued for segregation didnt wake up one day and realize that we are all equal in Gods eyes. Nope, most of them just died off.

And currently?

Sure we have some lunatic fundamentalists that conclude that two women, or two men, who love each other and wish to have all the rights that come with a full legal commitment, should never be allowed to do so. . .and some how they also feel its their business to tell them no. In their twisted logic, they fear it will affect their own marriage. Bizarre but true.

Besides the obvious stupidity that says someone "chooses" to be gay, or straight, there is the reality that many of these people already raise children. Many of these couples are families, and are raising healthy, happy, beautiful kids. And yet we would deny our brothers and sisters the right to legally make this relationship official?

Why? Because we have taken seriously the ramblings of a few loud mouth simpletons who believe that a rapture is going to come take them out of their SUV's sometime soon, and homosexuality is a choice. After all it must be in order to be a sin to God right?

But here is my reason for optimism again. . . .when polled as to whether gay marriage should remain illegal, 80% of the youths under the age of 25 stated flatly, absolutely no.

So no, the current generation of bigots probably wont come around. A few might, and there is always that hope for the individual. But in large number no, they wont change their opinion.

But, they will all die eventually. And that is how our system betters itself.

..."just like when members of our generation look back on our great grandfathers generation, and they cannot understand why mixed race couples dating was considered 'immoral' and illegal by the majority at the time. . .there will be a time when our grandkids will look back on our generation with a certain wonderment at how so much of our population could be so backwards, on so many things.

One of the main conservative myths is that are ancestors (even our grandfathers generation) where some how 'more' moral.

This idea is of course completely backwards factually speaking. And yet it is always a side belief of conservatives. A poorly thought out assumption based in ignorance and supported by fear. But one that they absolutely need in order to preserve the terror of the unknown future. . .something that is key to the whole paradigm."

Ah, yes...

Thornton's Guerilla_Blog: Either - Or & Other. . . .:

"Have we figured out yet that being in the 'majority' isnt usually a good thing? And that being 'radical' is rarely a bad thing?"

Implications

Thornton's Guerilla_Blog: Either - Or & Other. . . .:

"There is an assumption that if their is no 'free will' as it is thought of by most people, then everything must therefore be fate. And that is not factual.

One does not automatically imply the other."