7 Essential Books on Music, Emotion, and the Brain by Maria Popova What Freud has to do with auditory cheesecake, European opera and world peace. Last year, Horizon’s fascinating documentary on how music works was one of our most-liked pickings of 2010. We love the work of neuroscientist and prolific author Oliver Sacks, whose latest book, The Mind’s Eye, was one of our favorite brain books last year. Why music makes us feel the way it does is on par with questions about the nature of divinity or the origin of love. Never ones to pass up a good ol’ fashioned erudite throw-down, we can’t resist pointing out that the book’s final chapter, The Music Instinct, may be the juciest: It’s a direct response to Harvard psycholinguist Steven Pinker, who in a 1997 talk famously called music “auditory cheesecake” and dismissed it as evolutionarily useless, displacing demands from areas of the brain that should be handling more “important” functions like language. Patel also offers this beautiful definition of what music is: Donating = Loving
Is love an addiction In the early days of a new romance, it's oh so easy to let friends, work and other areas of your life fall by the wayside as you spend all of your time focused on your new love. In many ways, this all-consuming love can be a lot like an addiction, with each condition characterized by a lack of control, or even a sense of obsession. When psychiatrist Donatella Marazziti studied the brain chemistry of people in love, she found that the levels of serotonin in their brains were much lower than normal [source: BBC]. Fortunately, when Marazziti tested the same subjects a year later, she found that serotonin levels had returned to normal for the couples involved in her study. Of course, this doesn't mean that relationships can't last well past the one-year mark. But what about those who can't seem to find love that lasts?
The Smiley Book of Colors By Maria Popova When Freud came to believe he was going to die between the ages of 61 and 62, and subsequently began seeing the two numbers everywhere he looked, which only intensifying the urgency of his superstition, he came to observe the value of selective attention in focusing the unconscious. But what if we engineered this selective attention purposefully and aligned it with our emotional and mental well-being? That’s exactly what photographer, children’s author, and educator Ruth Kaiser did in 2008, when she began seeing smiley faces everywhere she turned. For the past four years, she has been collecting and sharing photographs “found” everyday smileys in the Spontaneous Smiley Project — an exercise in self-induced feel-goodness, inviting others to upload their own photos and donating $1 for each uploaded photo to Operation Smile, which provides free surgeries to children born with cleft lip and cleft palate. Skeptical, still?
31 Ways To Know You're In The Right Relationship As anyone living in the age of depressing divorce rates knows, a happy long-term couple is almost like a unicorn: If by some miracle you encounter it, you can't stop staring, and you have a feeling no one will ever believe you when you tell them you saw it. The Internet is filled with articles on how to decide when to end it, how to recognize when your relationship is toxic, codependent, one-sided, stagnant, asexual, manipulative. But we don't talk all that often about what defines a happy relationship. Picture it: You're dating someone new. You're waiting to feel the toxic stagnant codependency. To help you answer that question, you lucky thing, here's a completely unscientific list of 31 ways to know you're in the right relationship: You don't... 1. If you're afraid of commitment, best to work that out before you put yourself in a situation where it's hoped you'll eventually commit. 2. 3. If no one's hiding anything, why are you looking? 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.
New Year's Resolution Reading List: 9 Essential Books on Reading and Writing by Maria Popova Dancing with the absurdity of life, or what symbolism has to do with the osmosis of trash and treasure. Hardly anything does one’s mental, spiritual, and creative health more good than resolving to read more and write better. Today’s reading list addresses these parallel aspirations. And since the number of books written about reading and writing likely far exceeds the reading capacity of a single human lifetime, this omnibus couldn’t be — shouldn’t be — an exhaustive list. It is, instead, a collection of timeless texts bound to radically improve your relationship with the written word, from whichever side of the equation you approach it. If anyone can make grammar fun, it’s Maira Kalman — The Elements of Style Illustrated marries Kalman’s signature whimsy with Strunk and White’s indispensable style guide to create an instant classic. On a related unmissable note, let the Elements of Style Rap make your day. On the itch of writing, Lamott banters: On why we read and write:
Love Fitness: Are You in Shape for Your Next Relationship? by Joy Nordenstrom, CMM, MBA | The Toolbox at LisaKiftTherapy.com As you jump into your workout, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, you are definitely on the right track—you are taking care of yourself, your body. This is an excellent step in becoming ready for love. As a certified matchmaker and love coach, I constantly hear the laundry list of what people want in a partner. More often than not, the list includes someone who takes care of himself or herself inside and out, is attractive, emotionally secure, thoughtful and interesting. The following are three vital secrets I begin with as I work with my clients to help them find and maintain a juicy, thriving relationship. Fill up your inner joy. Think of yourself as a rechargeable battery. What makes you feel fabulous, stunning, creative, delicious? By filling yourself up, you come to the relationship not expecting your partner to fill you up. Cultivate a curious mind. This is key to being interesting and interested. Be authentically interested in your date.
Going Solo: A Brief History of Living Alone and the Enduring Social Stigma Around Singletons by Maria Popova “Despite its prevalence, living alone is one of the least discussed and, consequently, most poorly understood issues of our time.” In the 4th century BC, Aristotle admonished: The man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the polis, and must therefore be either a beast or a god. Indeed, the ancient world held exile as the most formidable form of punishment, second only to execution, though in Greek tragedies it was often regarded as a fate worse than death. The nuclear family is a universal human social grouping. Yet our relationship with solitary life has undergone a radical shift in the recent past. Until recently, most of us married young and parted only at death. Klinenberg paints an even more vivid picture by the numbers: In 1950, 22 percent of American adults were single. Klinenberg puts it thusly: Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
20 Ways to Say I Love You | Tivate.com - StumbleUpon First time visiting Tivate? Then make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed before you leave. Thanks for visiting! [article] There’s more ways to say I love you without actually saying it. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. NOTE: If you enjoyed this post check out the follow-up 20 “Real Life” ways to say I Love You and 20 ways to Propose. [SU::darrylheron] [sources] “Those three words,” – ashleyRosex on Flickr [Online Images] “sweetheart” – youngdoo on Flickr [Online Images] “Love on Pier 14″ – Red Giraffe on Flickr [Online Images] “a hearty sandwich” – Rakka on Flickr [Online Images] “the healing touch” – drumtoo on Flickr [Online Images] “Lucy wins monopoly” – all the good names have gone on Flickr [Online Images] “Above Pacific” – a3rO on Flickr [Online Images] “19:00″ – Fanny Lafontaine on Flickr [Online Images] “190108″ – vaquerito on Flickr [Online Images] “elderly couples” – tin-zo on Flickr [Online Images] “your present” – youngdoo on Flickr [Online Images]
Creative Cartography: 7 Must-Read Books about Maps by Maria Popova From tattoos to Thomas More’s Utopia, or what Moby Dick has to do with the nature of time. We’re obsessed with maps — a fundamental sensemaking mechanism for the world, arguably the earliest form of standardized information design, and a relentless source of visual creativity. Map As Art, The: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography is the definitive overview of today’s bravest, boldest creative cartography, featuring 360 colorful creations by well-known artists and emerging visual experimenteurs alike, including Brain Pickings favorites Maira Kalman, Paula Scher and Olaful Eliasson. Matthew Cusick, 'Fiona’s Wave,' 2005 Cusick's oversized collages are painted with fragments of vintage atlases and school geography books from the golden era of cartography, 1872-1945. Qin Ga, 'Site 22: Mao Zedong Temple,' 2005 We reviewed it in full here. We’re longtime fans of the Hand-Drawn Maps Association, an ongoing archive of user-submitted maps, diagrams and other spatial illustrations.
Buddha Buzz: Black Friday, Gray Mice, and White Wives Black Friday is upon us. And as we've come to expect with the arrival of our favorite American holiday, there have been huge sales, massive crowds, and the trampling of workers and pregnant women. Actually, those tramplings occurred three years ago. This year, the American public has moved on to a more popular method of violence: pepper spray. An unidentified woman at a Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch, California, pepper sprayed other customers in an attempt to keep them away from the merchandise she wanted. One wonders if she had been inspired by the UC Davis cop. Stories like these make me want to throw my hands up in despair. Nathan Thompson from Dangerous Harvests has some further thoughts: What I see in the folks buying cheap flat screen TVs, ugly sweaters, ties, useless plastic nick-nacs is a failure to experience love. This band, for one, thinks our culture is a "destitute hell" (from their lyrics).
New Collection Of 35 Creative Photos This is a fresh collection of 35 creative photos that will fuel up your creativity. When you are out of idea its always great and helpful to see some professional work to inspire you to do better. Top Ten Reasons Sex is Good for You - EmpowHER.com - StumbleUpon Okay, we know that sex is fun, but guess what? It’s good for you too! The top ten healthy benefits of good sex are even backed up by experts, researchers and scientists: 1. Sex can lower blood pressure and reduce stress. 2. Good sexual health can mean better physical health. 3. Thirty minutes of sex burns around 85 calories. 4. Women who have more sex tend to have higher levels of estrogen, which protects against heart disease. 5. Researchers at the University of Texas found that a self-esteem boost was one of 237 reasons people have sex. 6. Orgasm and having sex increases levels of oxytocin, the so-called love hormone. 7. As the hormone oxytocin surges, endorphins increase and pain decreases. 8. Bring on the Kegels! 9. According to researchers, oxytocin released during orgasm also helps you catch more z’s.
7 Essential Books on Optimism by Maria Popova What the love of honey has to do with ancient wisdom, our capacity for hope, and the future of technology. Every once in a while, we all get burned out. Sometimes, charred. And while a healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism may help us get by, it’s in those times that we need nothing more than to embrace life’s promise of positivity with open arms. Here are seven wonderful books that help do just that with an arsenal ranging from the light visceral stimulation of optimistic design to the serious neuroscience findings about our proclivity for the positive. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, one of our must-read children’s books with philosophy for grown-ups, is among the most poetic and hopeful reflections on human existence ever penned. Here is my secret. Published in 1943, translated into 180 languages since and adapted to just about every medium, Exupéry’s famous novella is one of the best-selling books of all time. Reviewed in full, with more images, here.