Constructive Critisism

It can be hard to reach the heart when you have something on your mind and try to tell it to someone that need a little bit of correction. A good comment on this from Tim Harford, Big Think:
Constructive Criticism

A 23 min stress-down

Whenever I feel too stressed out or ill to think or do anything reasonable, I like to take my car and just drive, to places I never been or places with soothing scenery. I found this lovely drive today, for those who can not just do that!
This was a beautiful and gorgeous drive and the music! ...enjoy!
Drive the Canyons

Genesis - Hold On My Heart

Paulo Coelho quotes

'

Lottery-imaginations

Buying a lottery-ticket can undermine your self-control and activate materialistic thoughts.
The idea of gaining money without working or earning it have been considered by many as a form of greed. Now research shows that buying a lottery ticket also can make you spend more money (or eat more chocolate!) even if the winner is not even revealed yet.

  "The problem, according to a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, is that for most people, a lottery ticket leads to thoughts of the wonderful things you would buy if you hit the -jackpot. That focus on concrete, specific items—a type of thinking psychologists call “low-level construal”—makes it very difficult to exercise self-control."....
"“...Self-control is perhaps one of the most important attributes that a person needs to succeed,” he adds. “Materialism has a negative impact on it, and that is of concern to not only individuals, but also society.”
Money flies!
The study also show that people who rather thinking of traveling instead of buying material things have more abstract and long term thinking, and for this reason are less negatively affected according to self control.

“Lottery-induced self-control failure is not universal,” Kim concludes. But his research suggests it is “predominant.” He adds that plenty of other activities also activate “a burst of materialistic thoughts,” including “media filled with lavish consumption.”

That’s why you can’t stop snacking on Bon-Bons as you leaf through Vanity Fair.

So catalysts creating a materialist mindset are all over, and purchasing a lottery ticket is a strong one. If you do so, go right home afterwards—and keep the computer off. Some of those online sales will probably look pretty enticing."

..You can read it here!

More about how to avoid buying too much : Awake Magasine June 2013

Muse - unintended

Chick-wisdom

The Road

Take this my shivering heart  be careful with it from the start  scars and wounds must heal I will carry you like a seal Always and forever? Who knows what time will bring Moving forwards from that light summer rain to this thunderstorm that now beats in my vein it messes with my brain The lightning will strike  on  the highest peak Please don't burn me down I want to make it on my own Then the road will open  the horses can come on My soul is shaking  The road is waiting L.T.

Do you know your limits?

A very interesting article in Scientific American shows how our abilities can expand beyond what we would think of, only by the expectations of it.
The placebo-effect in medicine is well known to us, but this studies take us further into the world of imagination:
"There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person’s level of general knowledge. Psychologists Ulrich Weger and Stephen Loughnan recently asked two groups of people to answer questions. People in one group were told that before each question, the answer would be briefly flashed on their screens — too quickly to consciously perceive, but slow enough for their unconscious to take it in. The other group was told that the flashes simply signaled the next question. In fact, for both groups, a random string of letters, not the answers, was flashed. But, remarkably, the people who thought the answers were flashed did better on the test. Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right. "

(Maybe this do not mean that people that always think they are right actually is closer to the truth but it could have some interesting potential in some levels.. )

.."Our cognitive and physical abilities are in general limited, but our conceptions of the nature and extent of those limits may need revising. In many cases, thinking that we are limited is itself a limiting factor. There is accumulating evidence that suggests that our thoughts are often capable of extending our cognitive and physical limits..."
...
"Expectancies, such as expecting that one’s work will bring about health benefits, are capable of producing physiological outcomes. Learned associations, such as the association between being an Air Force pilot and having good vision, can alter other cognitive processes, such as visual perception. Meanwhile, placebo effects observed in clinical research work via expectancies and learned associations created by fake operations, sham drugs, etc. Such expectancies and learned associations have been shown to change the chemistry and circuitry of the brain. These changes may result in such physiological and cognitive outcomes as less fatigue, less immune system reaction, elevated hormone levels, and less anxiety. The interventions that resulted in better performance in a knowledge test or better vision are placebos outside of the clinical context. However, the chemical and neural mechanisms by which they operate are probably similar."

In other words, having low expectations will make us perhaps do a lower performance as this effect goes both ways. Other studies have indicated that we are more likely to fail if others or/we expect us to fail. ("others" may be the parents, friends,co-workers or spouses) 
If you find yourself in a environment where little or nothing is expected from you it could also be damaging your self-esteem. This may be at work or school where the tasks is not in proportions to your real skills, or in other specific situations like if you are ill and others "overdo" things to help you out.  

We can not always count on our thinking-power to solve all kinds of challenges, but it sure make a difference on the outcome in many cases. That brings to my mind the words of Jesus from Luke 17;5,6 :"Now the apostles said to the Lord: “Give us more faith.”Then the Lord said: “If ​YOU​ had faith the size of a mustard grain, ​YOU​ would say to this black mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea!’ and it would obey ​YOU."  

The proofs that our faith actually makes a difference should make us think a little longer into the ways to achieve more faith. 

IF, Rudyard Kipling

Another of my favorite poems, If by Rudyard Kipling:

"Inspiration

If by Doubleday Page & Co., Garden City, New York, 1910, and ebay.

According to his 1937 autobiography Something of Myself, Kipling wrote If— in his Burwash, East Sussex home Bateman's inspired by the news surrounding Dr Leander Starr Jameson in 1895, when Jameson led about five hundred of his countrymen in an armed raid against the Boers in southern Africa. What has become known as the Jameson Raid was later seen as a major factor in bringing about the Boer War of 1899 to 1902, but at the time the story as recounted in the press was quite different than the events. The British defeat was interpreted as a victory and Jameson portrayed as a compassionate, daring hero in the hour of ultimate despair and chaos. From 1904 to 1908 he served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. On different occasions, both Jameson and Kipling were guests at the South African ranch of Cecil Rhodes, who sponsored the raid.

The last three stanzas of The Undertaking by John Donne are said to have served as a model for the format of the poem.

Influence

If by Rudyard Kipling in the Dave Wood Art Gallery.

If— in turn has inspired a multitude of artists, from greeting card designers to translators to musicians such as the Czech composer Otmar Mácha (in his Songs of the White Men from 1947), Howard Blake(whose version was recorded in the Royal Albert Hall 23 March 1999) and Joni Mitchell (on her albumShine, released 25 September 2007). The poem is read on Youtube by kings and commoners alike, ranging from Robert Morley and Dennis Hopper to livingpassion and Ukuleleric. The rendering as If by Rudyard Kipling Compared to No Suprises by Radiohead is certainly the most confronting. Do enjoy the team effort of If - World Cup 98 and the personal touch "If" (We Can Make a Difference to Our Kids).

When in 1995 the BBC asked the people for Britain's favourite poem, Kipling's If— received twice as many votes as the second in line, Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott."

                                               IF

• If you can keep your head when all about you
• Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
• If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
• But make allowance for their doubting too;
• If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
• Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
• Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
• And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
•  
• If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
• If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
• If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
• And treat those two impostors just the same;
• If you can bear to hear the truth you ’ve spoken
• Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
• Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
• And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
•  
• If you can make one heap of all your winnings
• And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
• And lose, and start again at your beginnings
• And never breathe a word about your loss;
• If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
• To serve your turn long after they are gone,
• And so hold on when there is nothing in you
• Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
•  
• If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
• Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
• If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
• If all men count with you, but none too much;
• If you can fill the unforgiving minute
• With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
• Yours is the Earth and everything that ’s in it,
• And—which is more—you ’ll be a Man, my son!

Written in 1895, first published at the end of Brother Square Toes, the seventh chapter of the children's storybook Rewards and Fairies in 1910."

Translated to other languages and more :spanish

Storm - Lifehouse

Words of Anais Nin

Personal poison

"Each spit of toothpaste down the plughole can be a shot of poison for streams, new research hints¹. Chemicals from soaps, deodorants and contraceptives are reaching river water and cutting the number of different algae for fish and other animals to feed on.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) has found traces of pharmaceutical and personal-care products downstream of water-treatment plants in 139 rivers in some 30 states². Streams and rivers near farms and hospitals are more likely to be contaminated than others.
Waste water is cleaned before being re-introduced into the environment, but many facilities fail to remove all household chemicals and antibiotics. "We're evaluating the different types of treatments on these chemicals," says Herb Buxton, coordinator of the USGS Toxic Substances Hydrology Program.
But finding these antimicrobial compounds in the river system is just the beginning, Buxton explains. "The next step is to look at sensitive ecosystems and determine the ecological significance [of the pollution]."
Val Smith of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and his colleagues have done just that. "We asked 'how does a real-world community of algae respond to these compounds?'" he explains. Smith's team took algae samples from Cedar Creek, near Olathe, Kansas, 25 meters downstream of a plant that treats three million gallons of sludge each day.
In the lab, the antibiotic ciprofloxacin - often used to treat urinary-tract infections - and the antimicrobial triclosan - commonly found in acne soaps and antiseptic chopping-boards - eliminated one or two species of algae from the stream community, says Smith. “No organism is ever exposed to a single chemical in isolation”

Tergitol, a component of hair dyes and spermicides, had the most significant effects. It halved the number of algal types and reduced the overall volume of algae by more than three-quarters. This finding will feed into future USGS surveys, says Buxton: tergitol was not measured in the last one. Smith had to make a best guess at an environmentally reasonable concentration.
But individual compounds are just part of the story. "No organism is ever exposed to a single chemical in isolation," says Christian Daughton of the Environmental Protection Agency in Las Vegas. "The biggest unknown right now is interactions."

Yes who knows how this cocktail mix works, and how long will it take before we know the effect? It is long ago time to change our habits and to go for the green products!
More Here

  Who keeps track on your wastewaters..?

                                                                  

Large talk

Collect moments, not things

As several recent researches brings out it may be better for you to invest your money into memorable moments in your life than into real estate, at least when it comes to happiness.
Forsaking travels, family, dinners or other activities to earn/save money for the sake of owning your own house may not give a better life in the long run. Loans, repairs, taxes etc. may cause worries. The pleasure of owning a property soon becomes a habit, and the responsibilities takes up your time and decide your priorities.
So why not try to think differently, after all people who rent a place is not more unhappy that those that own their own. Money saved for repairs could be spent making a nice travel to a place you never visited before, family activities, or you could sell your property and go volunteer working for a year or two! That would bring even more meaning into life, and boost the healthy ways of happiness!
Read more in the New York Times.





        Interesting places to go (Recommendations from National Geographic):

Madagaskar

                                                                               Cuba

                                                                       
                                                                         Australia

..or why not explore one of these European adventures, like joining a photo workshop in Paris ?
Make your own wish-list and make it real!
These arrangements are of course not necessary to follow but give ideas to work on.
More travel tips from Travel National Georaphic

You may find it even more interesting if you book accommodation through this page, private lodgings @ www.airbnb.com, a different way to see the culture and a great way to know the area you visit by getting to know local people.

Meaning of life vs "hedonic happiness"

What is the benefits of living a happy life? And how could we define "happy"?

Research shows an interesting connection between our immune system and feelings of happiness.

This have been known for a long time, but even more interesting is the distinction between "empty happiness" as in just being happy(feeling good) for having a good life, and "meaningful happiness" that comes from a life who has some form of higher meaning in it.

Surprisingly this article,a new study published in

 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

 brings out that our physical state/defense is strengthened by living a meaningful life even when it does not make us very happy. And being happy but without deeper meaning gives our immune system the same pattern as if we were under stress! 

It suggests that actually having a meaningful life is the real benefit for our wellbeing, and if we feel particularly happy or not have less importance. 

"Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life, in which things go well, needs and desire are easily satisfied, and difficult or taxing entanglements are avoided," the authors of the study wrote. "If anything, pure happiness is linked to not helping others in need.” While being happy is about feeling good, meaning is derived from contributing to others or to society in a bigger way. As Roy Baumeister, one of the researchers, told me, "Partly what we do as human beings is to take care of others and contribute to others. This makes life meaningful but it does not necessarily make us happy.”

If we sometimes struggle to help other people or our environment,  but do not feel the great happiness in our life  it it still is to our benefit. The deep satisfaction by knowing that what we do make a difference is more value than shallow feel-good.

We remember the words of Jesus "It is more happiness in giving than to receiving",and realize even more the truth that it holds- it is not only bringing true happiness, but healthy life.

Read more in the Atlantic

If you forget me, Pablo Neruda

I fell in love with this poem that I came across a while ago.
It made me look a little closer to the author Pablo Neruda, and I- as growing up in Norway did not have any slightest idea who this person was. Then I found even more great poetry and the background of a Nobel-winning poet in Spanish language:

Pablo Neruda's Biography

Pablo Neruda is Latin America’s most well-known and most read poet of the twentieth century. He was born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto on July 12, 1904, in the town of Parral, Chile. His father was a railroad worker and his mother died shortly after giving birth to him. When he was sixteen years old he began submitting articles to the literary journal “Selva Austra” using the pseudonym Pablo Neruda. Neruda chose to publish his poetry under a different name because his father adamantly opposed poetry as a career. Neruda quickly began publishing his books of poetry. Along with his literary exploits he studied French and pedagogy at the University of Chile in Santiago.

Neruda began a promising political career and moved to Europe to further that career; however, his writing never took a back seat. Neruda’s poetry can be seen as blueprints for his life. If you follow his poetry in chronological order, you can see every place he has been in his life –the young man full of blooming love, the depressed man writing of his home, the ardent politician, and the old man full-circle back to the rapture and passions of love. Beginning with 1927 until 1935, he was given consulships to many different countries: Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. While in Europe, Neruda became a follower of Communism which would color his later poetry and politics.

In 1947 Neruda had to live underground, exiled from his home because of his anti-President González Videla sentiments. Neruda continued his poetry but during this time it expressed his fiery leftist political views. In 1952 he was invited back to Chile and he happily returned home.

In 1971 Pablo Neruda received the Nobel Prize for Literature among other awards.
Pablo Neruda passed way in a hospital in Santiago, Chile on September 23, 1973 from a battle with cancer. The beloved poet was dead, but his poetry would live on forever. 

_________________________________________________________________________________

More on the blog,  neruda.blogspot.no by Melissa

"If You Forget Me"

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
If I look
At the crystal moon, at the red branch
Of the slow autumn at my window,
If I touch
Near the fire
The impalpable ash
Or the wrinkled body of the log,
Everything carries me to you,
As if everything that exists,
Aromas, light, metals,
Were little boats that sail
Toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
If little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
You forget me
Do not look for me,
For I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
The wind of banners
That passes through my life,
And you decide
To leave me at the shore
Of the heart where I have roots,
Remember
That on that day,
At that hour,
I shall lift my arms
And my roots will set off
To seek another land.

But
If each day,
Each hour,
You feel that you are destined for me
With implacable sweetness,
If each day a flower
Climbs up to your lips to seek me,
Ah my love, ah my own,
In me all that fire is repeated,
In me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
My love feeds on your love, beloved,
And as long as you live it will be in your arms
Without leaving mine. 

Beautifully wrote and amen

John Cleese - a lecture on Creativity

Being creative is fun and inspiring but how do we get there if we are overwhelmed by daily craves and tasks that seem to be never ending? The lightness and playfulness seem to drown sometimes into all the should-do during the day. At least that is for me a reality.
John Cleese is a great example on how to get going and remind playful! We just have to

1. set aside enough time for it to open up and let it in

2. give yourself space, without all the craves

3. wait some more time and see if something better comes up

4. wiew everything in the light of humor,(of course!) and

5 . have confidence; when you play and being creative there is no wrong or right, just be open for whatever that comes along! ..take a look at this lecture:




Well done, let`s put a moment in the schedule for this and see what happens!

Quotes and a poem

-" When everything else fail:

time to breathe

and grow faith."

-"Any obstacle are allies for change.

Just try it."

"Hold on there..if any doubt, do nothing."

 "Lo más perfectamente divino que existe es luchar una batalla perdida
 - y no perderla"

Just Be!

-G

----.----.----

 Lifeline

I am swimming

keeping my head above the water

Threading waters

when my arms too tired

Then I am sinking

sinking in the oceans of your heart

You throw me a lifeline

and I know

everything will be allright

-L.T

Poesia

This poem was touching me deeply. I could not find one translated,so you better start learning Spanish..

Cuando ya nada se espera
personalmente exaltante
mas se palpita y se sigue
más acá de la consciencia.
fieramente existiendo
ciegamente afirmando,
como un pulso que golpea
las tinieblas,
que golpea las tinieblas.

Cuando se miran de frente
los vertiginosos ojos
claros de la muerte,
se dicen las verdades, las bárbaras,
terribles,amorosas crueldades,
amorosas crueldades.

Poesía para el pobre,
poesía necesaria
como el pan de cada día,
como el aire que exigimos
trece veces por minuto,
para ser y en tanto somos
dar un sí que glorifica.

Porque vivimos a golpes
porque apenas sí nos dejan
decir que somos quien somos.
Nuestros cantares no pueden ser
sin pecado un adorno;
estamos tocando el fondo,
estamos tocando el fondo.

La poesía es un arma cargada de futuro (extracto) , Gabriel Celaya. 

Musicado por Paco Ibáñez.