This is living now.

Have you ever found yourself cursing the waste of time that comes from waiting in a queue? Have you ever found yourself looking for faster and faster ways of getting things done? I have. I used to pride myself in finding the most efficient way of doing things. If I could type an email and answer the phone while the kettle was boiling and the computer was working in the background, I pretty much thought I was being super efficient.

But in being super efficient I would find myself lying in bed at the end of the day asking what happened? Usually it was at the end of the week because the days flew by so fast and were so busy that I hardly noticed the interruptions of sleep.

What happened? How was this day any different than all the others that stretched before it? And in the confusion of speeding through my days and my to-do list I lost track of my thoughts. My mind was constantly racing. Constantly projecting different scenarios and out-comes. Constantly reviewing past events and replaying different ways they could have happened. In short I was either living in the past, with memories of what had happened, or in the future, with plans of what would happen. The present moment for me was just a waiting room in anticipation of future events. A thing to endure in my race to some perceived goal always tomorrow.

This contempt for the present moment lay like a fog over the events that happened in it. Nothing was ever clear or wholly enjoyable in its own right. Everything was just a means to an end. And life had lost its magic.

Do you remember how you felt as a child?

You could play for hours not noticing the time until it was getting dark and your mother was calling you in for supper. When I was young we lived in a village and our house bordered the cane fields that stretched over the hill. Some builders had dumped a pile of stones next to us for a house they were building and I had found an old piece of metal. I remember spending hours on that pile hitting stone after stone off into the cane fields. Being thrilled when I nailed a stone and it flew for miles. Such a small thing, and yet such a profound memory for me.

Why was it such a profound memory? Because at that time I was doing what all children are able to do, I was in the moment. I wasn’t preoccupied with what had happened before nor was I worrying what would happen in the future. I was simply there. But along the lines of living I lost that simplicity. I got caught up in better, faster, harder, quicker, more. I love the line that the media uses for this. Work hard, Play Harder.

Across the world people are awaking to the fact that faster is not always better. Multitasking is not the most efficient way to get things done. The occurrence of depression from work related stress and burnout already costs the UK government 20 million pounds a year. And what do we get for all this better, faster, harder? A fog of doing that obscures the only true experience of being.

How do we recapture the experience of being? What can we do to get it? And the truth is you can’t do anything. You can only be by allowing yourself to be in the moment. This means to give your whole attention to the specific thing that you are engaged with at all times.
The easiest way to focus on the present moment and not get caught up with past ideas of what should happen or future imaginings of where it could lead is to practice acceptance of what is. There is a great story that illustrates this type of mindset.

A wise man won a sports car in a competition. When his friends heard they all proclaimed how lucky he was. “Isn’t this great!”. To which he would reply, “Maybe.”

He drove his new sports car around enjoying it for a few weeks and then one day a reckless driver jumped a red light and smashed into him. Waking up in hospital the wise man found all his friends surrounding him all lamenting his fate. “Your new car is totaled and you’re lying in hospital with a broken leg. What a horrible thing to happen.” To which he again replied, “Maybe.”
That night as he was in hospital a torrential storm hit and his house was crushed under a landslide. When his friends found out they all marveled at his luck. “Aren’t you lucky that you were in hospital that night otherwise you would have been killed in the landslide?” To which again the wise man replied, “Maybe.”

So to recapture the simple joy of being; be present, release judgment and slow down. This is living now.

Happy Makers

A Lion from the lion park up maritzburg way wanted some fresh sea air and so trekked all the way down N3 to Crusaders. He forgot to pack any pad-kos and so was a little bit peckish, felt like a bite to eat and walked through the door right now. What would we do? Most likely we’d all move, very quickly, to the other end of the room holding chairs in front of us to keep from being eaten. Its not a hard situation to mentally picture. We don’t need to bring a lion in here to see what would happen because we are able to simulate our reaction to the situation. This ability to imagine simulations is one of the traits that sets us apart from all other animals. We’re gifted with an experience simulator called the pre-frontal cortex.

This prefrontal cortex also allows us to predict if certain situations will make us happier than others. For example which would you prefer? To win the lottery? Or to become paraplegic? It might seem like a silly question because you will say that winning the lottery will make you happier than becoming paraplegic. But there is actually data on the two groups of people. And much to the surprise of everyone, one year after the event lottery winners and paraplegics are both equally happy with their lives.

How can this be? The reason why this is, is that we are able to automatically simulate happiness with our situation. Not given a choice we are automatically happier with what we’ve got. You might not believe me and so I’d like to share and experiment that was carried out by researchers at Harvard called the Free Choice Paradigm. Volunteer subjects were brought into a room and asked to rank 6 art prints from most liked to least liked.

Which they did. They were then told that, as luck would have it the researchers had some extra prints of number three and four and as a reward they could choose a print to take with them. Naturally almost every one took their number 3. Two weeks passed and the volunteers were called back and asked again to rank the same art prints. Watch as happiness is synthesized. Number 3 moves up and 4 moves down the list. What they are saying is the one I’ve got is great the one I left behind’s horrible.

Your response is yeah right. They’re just telling themselves that they’re happy with what they’ve got. Let me show you now the second half of that experiment. The researchers then took their prints to hospitalized patients with anterograde amnesia. Basically these people could remember their childhood but could not form new memories. The prints were put in front of the patients and they were asked to rank them from most liked to least liked. And then again as before the researchers told the patients that they had extra prints of number 3 and 4 back at the office and they could choose which one would be mailed to them. As with the normal control group all the patients chose number 3. The researchers said great, we’ll send it to you in the post, gathered up all their things and waited outside for half an hour.
At the ping of the egg timer they walked back in and said hey remember us we were just here? And the patients would apologize profusely. I’m so sorry I don’t know who you are. I’ve got this memory problem. And the researchers would say not a problem we just want you to look at a few art prints. But firstly can you tell us which one is yours? The patients would look at the prints.
The normal control group responded with 90% accuracy which one they owned. The amnesiacs guessed. As a result their strike rate was 1 in 6 or about 15% chance of getting it right.

Then without being told which one was theirs they were again asked to rank the prints from most liked to least liked. And watch again as happiness is synthesized. Again they ranked the one they owned higher the second time around than one they didn’t own. They automatically changed their affective reaction to the prints without conscious knowledge. They’re not saying they liked it cos they were trying to make themselves feel better. They genuinely liked the one that they owned more without knowing that they owned it. They automatically were happier with their choice.

I recently lost my phone. When I went to get a new one I looked at all the different models and choices of contracts. And there are hundreds. I agonized over making the right decision. Would I need an mp3 player, would I need a 5 mega pixel vga camera? Would I need a phone that did everything including sending emails, doubling as a data projector and an espresso maker?

Finally I decided on a straight forward phone.
I chose a phone that was a phone. I remember saying to my friend Bryan who was with me when I was going through my ring tones trying to decide on the right one.

Why don’t they just have a simple ringing sound? Why can’t I get a phone that sounds like a phone when it rings. I don’t want the Ride of the Valkyries playing when someone calls me I’m not that much of a Wagner fan.
But ringtones aside, I’m very happy with my new phone. It looks nice, it sounds nice, it doesn’t have all the sliding, popping up, whizzing contraptions that can break and malfunction that the other phone that I didn’t choose had. And I know that my happiness with my phone is genuine because I know that my prefrontal cortex is able to synthesize my happiness with the choice that I make.

And so it boils down to the fact that you will be happy with the choice that you make because being human means that you are able to synthesize your own happiness.

Choose Life

Choose Life.

A line from the movie Trainspotting. The movie dealt with the horrors of heroin addiction and the catch line of the main characters monologue was choose life. It’s obvious to see an addiction such as heroin abuse. There are needle marks on their body, loss of weight, sallow skin, mood swings and risk of disease.

This is an obvious addiction to see and I am not here to talk about this addiction. What I am here to talk about is another addiction. An addiction that I too am fighting. An addiction that is socially acceptable to the point that “Choosing life” is a deviation from the norm. That addiction is that of eating meat.

Already I’m aware that there are a few people who on hearing that line have ceased to listen having been bombarded over and over again by Patrick Holford Bible Bashing Vegetarians who wear Ché Guevara t-shirts and tie their dreadlocks back with hemp rope while signing Kumbaya.

I’m not going to tell you not to eat meat. What I am going to tell you is some of the facts on eating meat. Facts that went toward changing my mind. Facts that I hope will make you investigate this idea of not eating meat further.

From a humanitarian point of view, eating meat is the height of selfishness. This year alone 23 million people will die of malnutrition. One child every 2.3 seconds. Think about that. By the end of my speech 130 children would have died. How does this correlate to eating meat? If the US alone reduced its meat consumption by 10 % 100 million people could be fed off the land freed from cattle farming. One acre of land can be used to produce 129 kg of edible beef or 18 000 kg of potatoes to feed the hungry.

Environmentally, we are all aware of the drastic changes attributed to global warming. As we speak the south east of Britain, China, Thailand and the Philippines are all experiencing floods. Australia and Central Africa are having their worst drought in 60 years while the whole of the Gulf of America is trying to recover from their 3rd category 4 hurricane. A recent German study on the effects of farming on the environment showed that an individual diet with meat is responsible for producing in a year as much greenhouse gas as driving 4758 km. That’s from here to Cape Town and back, twice. Where as an organic vegan diet, 281 km. Here to the Berg. This doesn’t include the 260 million acres of forest land that has been cleared to make way for crops to feed the meat industry attributing to the loss of 1 000 species a year. Meat farming is widely accepted as the second largest contributor to greenhouse gasses after industry with cars a distant third.

In addition meat eating is devouring our oil reserves. It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef as opposed to 2 calories of fuel for every calorie of soybean for example. Doing the math if every human ate a meat centered diet, the worlds known oil reserves would last 13 years. While if we stopped eating meat altogether we’d be able to extend our reserves by 260 years.

What about health? A 100g serving of beef has 43% of its calorie count as protein but 57% as saturated fats while broccoli has 50% of its calorie count as protein, more than the beef, and the rest as carbohydrates and fiber.
As for milk it is wondrous for a calf. Milk is designed to assist a calf to double their weight in 47 days and reach 130 kg by its first birthday. As a result it is more than 50% fat and has 3 times as much protein as human breast milk. We have long been fed the lie that you need milk to grow strong bones. The opposite is actually true. The high protein content of milk results in raising the ph level of your blood. To counteract this excessive acidity the body leeches calcium from the bones to neutralize the blood actually causing long term calcium deficiency.
Statistically you’re 3.8 times more likely to develop breast cancer as opposed to your vegetarian neighbor, 3.6 times for prostate cancer. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the western world killing 1 person every 45 seconds. The average meat eaters risk of death from a heart attack, 50%. The average vegetarian, 15%.

Lastly I want to look at the ethical reasons. Forget about religion, philosophy, karma, dharma and dogma and let’s just look at compassion. In the US alone 660 000 animals are killed for meat every hour. An average person will eat in their lifetime 11 cows, 3 sheep, 23 pigs and 1 100
chickens.
Mahatma Gandhi said “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be measured by the way in which its animals are treated.”

As I said I’m not going to tell you not to eat meat. I’m going to ask if you still want to?

Yes, and...

I’m not too sure if you know this but today is my birthday. Don’t you have a birthday present to give me?Aw thank you, wow! Let’s see what’s inside… graaarrr rraaarrrr DOWN! DOWN BOY! NO!That’s so cool. It’s what I’ve always wanted. What do you call it? Aw! Excellent. A ….. that’s just going to complete my collection. Thank you!

What we just did there was an improvisation exercise that helps an actor develop their improv technique. Improv is a genre of performance where the story line and development of the plot is left solely to the actors on stage and is performed totally off the cuff. Think of Theatre sports and “Who’s Line is it Anyway.”

The beauty of improv is that there are no rules, which means that you can make anything up. This means that the outcome of any scene is completely unpredictable. And the joy of the audience is in the constantly shifting perception of what is happening.

When the thing popped out of the box, who saw a 12 legged monster?Who saw a saber-toothed bunny rabbit? Who saw the alien from… Alien? And then when I pushed it back down saying DOWN BOY! How did your imagining of that creature change? And finally when the toastmaster named it, how did your perception alter even more? The beauty of that scene was the evolution of what you thought was happening.

Now I said previously that there were no rules with improv. That was a little bit of a lie. There is one rule. Although since actors tend to be slightly anarchistic in nature it’s touted as more of a guideline. That rule, guideline, is you cannot refuse what’s given to you. You cannot say “No but...” you can only say “Yes and...” and where this leads you is accepting what’s given to you and building on it.

Earlier on our volunteer gave me a present. By the way that he held his hands, the way he presented it, it looked like a box. He could have given me a tube, he could have given me a ball, he could have given me a basket. But no he gave me a box. And so I accepted the box. I said yes by taking it, and… when I opened it the story developed. Then when I turned to him and asked him to name it, he said yes, there is something there, and… I’m going to give you its name. Through these “yes ands” our picture of what was happening evolved. My reaction to what was inside the box dictated what you saw, as well as what he called it. He didn’t know he’d have to name it. I told him to mime giving me a biggish present. That’s all I told him. I said nothing about what was inside and nothing about my reaction to it. His naming it then changed how we all saw it because I guarantee you, each of our pictures was different.Now through all of this neither of us said “No but”. That way we built on the beauty of the creation.

When you are doing this exercise with a group of performers inevitably someone knows, like they know like they know, that they are the best, funniest scriptwriter in the room. They think “I’m a funny guy. So I should be in charge.” And they try to control the process.

For example “I’m sorry to see you limping, what happened?”(response)“No, no, no. You’re supposed to say, you’re supposed to say, now listen to me now. You’re supposed to say: A dog bit my leg. That way I can say: But I thought you said you dog doesn't bite? And then you can say: I did, it was not my dog. And then it will be funny!” But it’s not because it’s, contrived. We've all heard that joke before. However she didn't say that. She said to me… (her line) How wonderful is this now? Now we’re sitting on a story. Where did this happen? Why did this happen? What will happen when we’re together and it happens again?

That’s where the magic lies. The beauty of the uncertainty of not knowing where it’s going to go. Her giving me that small lead and together us saying “Yes and” building a narrative more interesting, more powerful than either of us could do by ourselves.

By nature parts of this speech has to be slightly improvised. I had no clue what she was going to tell me. Not the foggiest what she was going to throw my way.
But isn't that exactly what we experience all the time? We’re given something, a situation, a reaction from someone, we can’t turn around and say “I’m sorry, I don’t like this line. Take it back. Give me a new one.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t like this situation. Take it back. Give me a new one.”
“I’m sorry; I don’t like this life…”

We have to respond to what we’re given. We have to make the best of the gift of the situation we’re in. We have to say: “Yes and…”
Yes! I accept it. And! How can I change it?
Yes! I accept it. And how can I make it better?
Yes! I accept it. And how can WE make this work?!
There’re no “buts…” You can’t give back a situation once it’s given to you. You can’t say I don’t want it scripted this way. I want it scripted that way. Make it funny that way! Uh-uh.“Yes and…”

So the next time that you’re faced with a situation that you find impossible, that you find intolerable, that you find is eating away at the very core of your soul. Don’t go “No but this is not me. This is not who I want to be! This is not my life!!!”…. Yes and.

Addicted to Emotion

I want you to close your eyes and picture. You’re sitting behind the wheel of your car. Carefully driving along the highway. You’re doing about 120.

Its fast but you’re comfortable. The radio is softly playing a tune you like. The car is smoothly responsive. Everything is absolutely fine.
Suddenly out of nowhere this inconsiderate jerk flies up your tail and sits behind you flashing his lights. He’s so close you can see the veins standing out on his neck as you lip read the curses he is hurling at you. You know if you just had to touch the breaks you would both be dead. Why is he being so inconsiderate? So impatient. Such an...

Who got angry there? I got a bit angry. In fact my anger was tinged with uncertainty having to try and provoke you like that. So who did get angry? Good. My opening achieved its goals. The goal was to get you to feel that anger. I wanted you to be aware of the emotion that you just felt. Now I want you to think. What did you just feel? Yes sure we call it anger. We label it with a word but what intrinsically was happening inside of you that caused you to have a feeling that we associate with the word anger?

What was happening inside of you was that your brain interpreted an outside stimulus, it made a value judgment of that stimulus according to past preconceptions and then it reacted to that judgment. The precepts that you hold are those that you label “What best serves me.” In receiving any information you immediately judge if it serves you or not. According to the answers given in that evaluation your brain reacts by inducing an emotion in you.

This emotion aids you in deciding how to physically react to the external stimulus. What I was doing in my opening was making sounds. Sounds which we have accepted as associations with concepts. We all agree that the sound “agree” means to agree. Do you agree?
So in no way could my opening be seen as placing you in any physical danger. Why then did you brain react with the survival instinct of the production of anger? The production of a chemical that floods the entire system and prepares one to react to the physical effect that is causing the emotion.
What I want to look at is the actual chemical process that has caused you to feel what you felt.

Your brain made an evaluation which set off the production of the relevant chemical compound to induce the necessary emotion. This then is flooded through your entire system via your nerves and synovial fluid. It reaches every cell in your body and docks on a receptor site of that cell. The cell absorbs the chemical and reacts to it.
In the example of anger. The anger chemical is released throughout the entire body. This then triggers the adrenal glands to produce excessive amounts of adrenaline which causes the muscles to tighten in anticipation of the fight or flight response and all non essential functions like digestion to stop in order to direct all energy to the muscle system.

What does this mean to us? When a cell divides, in the production of new cells, if the parent cell was constantly exposed to a specific type of chemical it will produce more receptor sites for that chemical when it divides. Hence the new daughter cell would have more receptor sites for anger, in our example, than the previous generation of parent cells. Unfortunately there is limited space on the outside wall of a cell and so producing more “anger” receptor sites means the loss of other receptors for other chemicals, nutrients and waste disposal. Elastin, which keeps the skin supple, is a protein. When you cannot absorb as much elastin as before, because of reducti

on in receptor sites for elastin, your skin ages.

This leads us to an interesting outcome. Any organic system that is put under repeated effects adapts to compensate for those effects. Thus even a cell can build up a tolerance toward a specific chemical, which means that to get the same effect as before the cell will need more of the chemical. As in our example, if you are angry often your cells develop a tolerance for the anger chemical and so more of it has to be produced to get the same result. This leads to more receptor sites which raises the tolerance levels, which leads to more receptor sites. And the circle is vicious and complete.

Any addiction to a chemical leads to dependency on that chemical to experience the similar state. This dependency changes and impinges on the body on a cellular level. So what do we do? Do we live our lives as emotionless automatons? Not likely. One way to avoid over dependence on a chemical rush is to learn to become detached from results. This does not mean lack of preference for a specific outcome it simply means calm and rational acceptance of whatever circumstance has resulted.

So politely change lanes. Allow that driver to disappear into the distance. Roll down the window. Feel the wind in your hair. Turn the radio slightly up. And breathe.

Internet Dating

Hey Sexy-kitten 157. I saw your profile on the internet dating site and was very impressed with your description of yourself. I too am a fun loving person who lives life to the fullest. As you can see from my profile I am a sporty guy who knows what he wants from life. I’m sensitive but still a man. Compassionate but I will still kill that big hairy spider if you need me to. I’d really like to go out for a drink with you. Drop me an email some time and we can get together. Eagerly waiting your reply. Studmeister 239. Send.

Profile no 2. Hey Hot-Roxy-girl...um copy, paste, send.

Forgive me father for I have sinned. I have signed up on an internet dating site. I have allowed myself to send the same email to seven different girls in a row through just copying the body of the mail and changing the name. I even lied in the email. I’m not sporty. I wouldn’t know a rugby ball from a bowling ball. And what does it mean to live life to the fullest? That’s not even a word!

But girls all want the same thing. I should know. I’ve been reading millions and millions of their profiles. They want a guy who is a man. I think they mean they want a guy who watches sport… or plays sport. I know it has something to do with sport. They want someone who likes to go out and dance at a club, but also likes to stay home and watch DVDs. They want someone determined, ambitious, a guy who knows where he’s going, but he must spend all his time on them. They want a strong man, able to make decisions, but would really like it if he cried at the end of Thelma and Louise.

Maybe I shouldn’t tell them I enjoy going to the theatre. It might sound… pansy.

You might be asking why I joined an internet dating site. Well the reason is obvious, one would assume. The excuse is: “Where do you meet eligible singles now days?” It’s been statistically proven that you have a 65% higher chance of meeting your life partner in a super market than in a bar. It’s also been statistically proven that 96.3% of statistics are made up on the spot. But that’s besides the fact. At a bar there is just so much more risk. The rejection is instantaneous and direct.

“Hi my name’s Oded. Can I buy you a… “
“No you cannot.”
“… a heart?”

At least with the internet dating site you usually have to wait a day to get a return email. And by blanket emailing all 700 of your favourites your odds of success are increased.

And if you get a positive reply then comes the anticipation. The back and forth emails getting to know one another. Then the relinquishing of one’s cell phone number. Finally after numerous and numerous smses, the arrangement to meet.

The internet dating site does have a disclaimer on the proper precautions to adhere to on the first blind date. Safety rule number one. Meet the date at a public place. Under no circumstances give out your home address or let your date pick you up from said address. This would render you carless should you wish to make a hasty retreat not to mention that if your date turns out to be a psychotic stalker he then knows where you live. Safety rule number two: Choose a noncommittal first date. A quick drink after work or perhaps coffee over a lunch hour is advisable. This always allows you the excuse of having other commitments should you wish to cut the date short. And finally rule no three. Do not mention your cat.

And now we’re on the date. I’m sitting at the coffee shop trying to look casual and clam reading the menu for the 24th time. I arrived half an hour early. Mother always said punctuality in a man is a sign of good breeding. Every time a person walks through the door my heart jumps. I never look at them directly because that would seem over eager. And zealousness is uncool. But make no mistake; I see every movement with my peripheral vision. “Wow they have a salmon salad with fresh cream cheese and sliced avo (when in season). Hmmm that sounds great.”

“Hi are you Oded?”
Gasp!

I wave her down into the seat as if landing a plane while trying to recompose myself. She smiles sweetly as nervous and terrified as I am and says “You’re probably wondering why I don’t look like my picture on line? It was taken 10 years ago.”

And those years have been good to you.

I’m not a shallow person. All shallow people say that don’t they? But there is a certain caliber of partner that I’m looking for. As she drones on and on and on I first start devising plans to escape. Maybe I can somehow phone myself. Or maybe I can start coughing and wheezing and fake an asthma attack. Then I start devising plans of homicide. If I moved really fast she wouldn’t be able to stop me sticking this knife in her throat. I’m really starting to regret not paying attention to rule number two, have an excuse to escape.

And then she looks at me and says. “Have I told you about my cat?”

“Cheque please!”

Does it serve you?

You can do it! You are a precious flower who’s buds open up to the blossoming light of your life. Your power is now! Your time is now! Begin the rest of your life with one tiny step! Begin it now!

Yeah right. We’ve heard it all before. All the spiel about new paradigms, about freeing ourselves, about finding our goal, about being the real you, you were made to be. And it all tastes kinda stale in our mouths. I’m willing to bet there isn’t one person who hasn’t heard a motivational speaker. 

A while ago we had the minicon conference at Gateway. It was great. Very well run, excellent speakers, superb humorous competition and the photographer! Wow! A visionary! I was the photographer. But also at the minicon we had a guest speaker at the banquet. He was a professional speaker and he spoke very well. However how he said it was not as important to me as what he said. What he said laid me bare. It left me deflated. It left me uninspired. It demotivated me.

Let me quickly tell you what he did. He deconstructed motivational speakers. He logically and maybe correctly broke them up into different categories. There were the lazy motivational speakers who rely on clichés and factory produced stories that we’ve all heard before all the way to the threatening motivational speakers who aggressively ask the audience “Do you still wana be in the same place next year?”

And he was very good at getting the audience to agree with him. He turned to the audience and said,

“Do you know the one about the starfish?” as if it was some kind of bad joke. For those who don’t know the starfish story, a boy is throwing washed up starfish back into the sea and the speaker, who’s placed himself in the story, says to the boy “There are so many. What difference can you make?” And the boy replies as he hurls another starfish back to the sea “I made a difference to that one.” It’s a commonly used story to illustrate how a small difference is all it takes. But it is overused. As our speaker asked if we’d heard the starfish story he paused and looked at us expectantly. And guaranteed there were some people who groaned in agony at reference to it. He played upon a very common sentiment that pervades humanity. The idea that being a cynic is cool.
And, while he did make sense. And while he did find all the flaws and poke out all holes in the motivational speaking industry, his speech did not serve me.

Why do we go to the theatre? Why do we watch movies? Listen to music? Read books? Entertainment? Probably. Escapism? Definitely. To vicariously experience a situation through someone else?
When I think about it this is the point that I keep coming back to. Why do I watch Keanu Reeves freeing himself from the prison of the Matrix? Why do I watch Mel Gibson falling in love with Helen Hunt while hearing her thoughts? Why do I listen to Tony Robbins telling stories of other people’s success? Because I am able to see myself in them. Because I’m able to transpose my identity onto their situation. This is not something that I alone am gifted in doing. Everybody does this. That is why when we find a good medium who is able to convey emotion to us, like Jack Nicolson, we pay them millions of dollars. Because the experience of vicariously living a situation for us is real.

And so when someone stands up in front of us and delivers a speech, we’re not just listening to what he is saying, we are experiencing what he is feeling. That’s why we need motivational speakers. Because they stand up there in front of us and they show us how inspired they are. They stand up there in front of us and they show us how successful they are. They stand up there in front of us and they show us how significant they are.
And then they do one more thing.

They do one thing that none of the other forms of entertainment or escapism do. They validate our experience by telling us that we can do it too. That yes we can be inspired. Yes we can be a success. Yes we can be significant. And personally I don’t care how many clichés I have to listen to and I don’t care how by not looking cynical I might seem uncool. The value of knowing that I can make a difference is incalculable.

So yes we need motivators. Motivators in every walk of life, spiritual, emotional, financial. Motivators to drive us to succeed. Motivators to show us our grandeur. Motivators who through any means necessary get us fired up and excited about what we can be.

And no. Cynicism does not serve me. Does it serve you?

Scientia est potentia?

01001000
01101001

Or in more colloquial terms “Hi.”
I want to ask you to consider a question. A question that’s been on my mind for quite some time. A question that often plagues me. What I will ask you to consider is “Have we lost the ability to wonder at our world?”

I opened with the binary code for “H” followed by that for “I”. The 8 digit binary code is the way computers… think. For want of a better word. More specifically they think in terms of on and off. On is when an electrical current is passing through a circuit and off is when one is not, 1 and 0 respectively. So for a computer to think of the word “Hi” it needs to reduce it to 16 different states of on and off. Granted it does this in 1 millionth of a second but the point remains that the word “Hi” is reduced it to an elementary system.
This is where our curiosity as humans has brought us.
You remember how at one time in your childhood you wondered how something worked. You looked at the radio and said how does the music come out of it. Those of us with a more reckless spirit often wound up with the radio in pieces at our feet non the wiser but a great deal more fearful of when dad got home. Somehow it never fitted back together again the way it came apart. There was always one piece extra when you were finished.
This curiosity has driven us to explore our world. We have become so adept at opening things up, dissecting, investigating and reducing to component parts, almost everything seems to make sense. If not directly to us, we feel comforted by the fact that it makes sense to someone out there. Very little fills us with wonder.
Have we lost the ability to stand in wonder of our world?

1221 AD. Soren Bjornson has just stepped off his boat. His Viking army’s raid on the northern shores of Scotland was a great success and he’s returned to Hålogaland with a hoard of pillage. As he’s disembarking he sees the sky light up in a band of green fire. The billows of luminescence roll across the horizon. He looks up with fear and wonder knowing that the lights are the flashes off the Valkyries armor who had been riding with them and Odin is demonstrating his approval by granting him such an entourage. Soren feels connected, his wonder makes him feel part of something.

767 or so years into the future. Magunus Kvande is crossing the street to the local Strabucks in

Tromsa to get himself a low-caf-double-froth-single-pump-hold-the-cinnamon-mochachino. The light in the street has a green tinge about it and he glances up to see the Aurora Borealis. The northern lights dance across the sky. Magnus has seen it before. He looks up and remembers back to his physics 101 lecture at Oslo university. The solar wind pushes out bursts of electron’s, which burn against the troposphere up here near the poles where the magnetosphere doesn’t deflect them as much causing the ionization of the oxygen particles hence the green glow. The little bell on the door dings politely as he enters the coffee shop not missing a step.

Who had the richer experience? The Viking, caked in dry blood, holding his war axe, staring up at something he didn’t understand or the physics student, glibly sipping on his warm, comforting beverage?
As we dissect things and reduce them to their component parts in our world, we gain remarkable insight to how the world works. We develop fantastic tools that simplify our lives. We further our understanding of ourselves and extend our lifespan by decades. We also become overconfident in our knowledge. We become blasé. We become glib. We lose the wonder at how our world works.

As a teacher I see this all the time. The underlying common attitude of the children is one of nonchalance. Nothing amazes them anymore. They’ve seen it all. They know that if they don’t understand exactly how it works, it’s ok, science can explain it. There’s nothing, really, that we don’t have a handle on.
That’s when I like to throw them a curve ball and tell them that according to the maths involved with quantum physics the direction of time is arbitrary. In other words there is no real distinction in the positive as opposed to the negative direction of time. There is no reason, quantum-ly, why something that will happen 5 minutes from now has any less effect on this moment than something that happened 5 minutes ago.

Then you see it. The small ember of wonder briefly sparks in their eyes.

So have we lost it? Have we lost the ability to wonder at our world? I never said I would answer the question for you. I said I would simply pose it.

In the beginning there was but a word
as in the end there will be but a silence.
In the beginning there was but belief
as in the end there will be but science.
When we have unraveled the world
and torn the fabric to see how it works,
when we have pierced the essence
and bared the soul to see what there lurks.
Might that we find god and so rejoice
or find nothing and be faced with the choice
of believing all said but knowing it false
or believing none said and knowing naught else.

Let me translate for you.

Extra-extra! Read all about it.

“I had sex orgy with Brittany Spears” crazed fan tells all
Extra-extra! Read all about it.
Joan Rivers 75th facelift makes her look younger than her granddaughter.
Extra-extra! Read all about it.
Media is conning you into paralytic fear and abject despair expounding goals you can never attain.

Are you happy with your life partner? Do you find yourself paging through magazines and asking yourself “why can’t I have someone like that?” Well ask no longer ‘cos now you can. Welcome to the new age. The age of happiness, the age of prosperity, the age of having the life partner that you want, no, that you deserve. Welcome to Live-Science Airbrushing. Send us your old, used, broken-down life-partner and in a few short days we’ll return them to you, rejuvenated, revamped, renewed, reupholstered. It’s your life partner, only better.
And so it goes. And so we’re told. You deserve better. You deserve more. More money, more free time, more muscle, more car, more sex. You’re a unique snowflake. There’s no one quite like you so you should have the best. You should have what everyone else has; a Lexus 300 S.U.X.

And we listen, and we hear them, and we think
“Yes! I do deserve more. I do deserve a Lexus 300 S.U.X. I’m a unique snowflake!!”

But we don’t hear what they are really saying.
Let me translate for you:
“You deserve more.”
You don’t have enough.
“You deserve more free time”
Your job consumes your life.
“You deserve more muscle.”
You’re unattractive.
“You deserve to drop a dress size.”
You’re fat.
“You deserve more sex”
You’re unloved.

A prime example is the Ford Fiesta advert. It opens on a man sitting alone on a bench. Next to him is an open space which obviously used to be filled by his loving girlfriend and it follows him showing her absence. A bathroom scene with him, alone, at a 2 basin vanity wearing a "his" gown, an empty space next to him on the movie couch and him struggling on a 2 seater bicycle. All showing that what was once there is now no longer.

The final scene ties the story together. Our heartbroken loser is walking across the park pulling petals off a flower. The image immediately says “She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not.”
Suddenly out of a house across the street bursts his girlfriend, waving. He looks up as if heaven has answered his prayers, but, she laughingly jumps into the passenger seat of a new Ford Fiesta and speeds off with its new owner. The final insult to our intelligence is the catch phrase which burns itself white against a black background: “Live Sexy”

Let me translate for you.
If you don’t have a Ford Fiesta, a machine, a vehicle that transports you from A to B, then your girlfriend, who loves you, who you love, will leave you for someone who does. Your value as a person which we measure through how much we are loved is diminished by not having a Ford Fiesta.
On principle I will never ever buy a Ford ever in my life.

But it is not only in advertising that we are lied to. The media tells us of stars, celebrities, that are constantly going to parties, driving fast cars, living in 100 million dollar palaces, being adored by millions and we consume that information with a macabre fascination all the while turning a deaf ear to what is really being said. Your life is not as grand nor as interesting. You, by comparison, obviously are not as valued.

Do people like to hear that? Do people like to hear negative things? Because gilded in its hype about their lives lies the negation of your life.
Who are they to negate you?
Who are they to say you’re not valuable?
Who are they to make you doubt yourself because you don’t drive a Ford Fiesta?

Your value as a person does not depend on what the media tells you.
Your value as a person is what you chose it to be.
The only person who can value you is yourself and the only system of values you can apply is your own.

Unfortunately we live in a world in where the media attempts to model our value systems for a profit. Short of gouging out our eyes and ears with sharp sticks we cannot escape it. They say in the valley of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

I want to leave you with one last example. A woman runs through the forest. She passes other runners, cyclists, people doing yoga and swimmers using a pool ladder(?) to climb out of a lake. She then arrives at a water fountain, drinks from it and makes flirtatious eye-contact with a handsome, eligible man. The camera pans back as she returns to her treadmill to retrieve her towel and the logo for Virgin Active overlays the image.

In the Values of the blind the one-eyed man is king… open your eyes.

7 Spiritual Laws of Success

I read Deepak Chopra’s book “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” and just wanted to summarize it for myself so I can have a record of it. I recommend reading it as there are aspects and ideas which I personally just take as generally known and so I haven’t bothered to reiterate them here. For example the principle that we are all one and separation is an illusion.

The Law of Pure Potentiality: The source of all creation is pure consciousness… pure potentiality seeking expression from the unmanifest to the manifest. Application: Take time each day to be silent, to witness nature and to practice non-judgment.

The Law of Giving: The universe operates through dynamic exchange… giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy.
Application: Each day continue the circulation of potential by giving and receiving with gratitude, pure intention and no thought of retribution. Each time you meet someone wish them joy and happiness.

The Law of Cause and Effect: Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind. Application: Be consciously aware of the choices you make and the consequences that they will result in but trust your intuition and what your heart tells you.

The Law of Least Effort: Natures intelligence functions with effortless ease.
Application: Practice acceptance by knowing that each moment is as it should be and having accepted take responsibility of the moment. Remain open to all points of view.

The Law of Intention and Desire: Intention and desire in the field of pure potentiality have infinite organizing power.
Application: Consciously make a list of all your desires and meditate on it but relinquish it to the pure potential of the universe to manifest it as needs be. Accept the present moment as it is. Do not try to manipulate the manner in which the universe manifests your desires.

The Law of Detachment: In our willingness to step into the unknown we surrender to the creative mind that orchestrates the universe. Application: Allow yourself and all around freedom to be as they are. Accept uncertainty in the knowledge that solutions will spontaneously emerge. Uncertainty is the path to freedom, the more uncertain the more secure I will feel. Uncertainty gives rise to the field of infinite possibilities. Consciously detach yourself from results.

The Law of Purpose in Life: Combining our unique talents in service to others we experience the exultation of our own spirit.
Application: Be aware of the Devine that is a part of you. Awaken the deep stillness in your heart. Know your talents and find ways to express them to bring joy and happiness to the world. Daily ask “How can I help?”