Meditation for the damned - Notes & Errata by Mark Morford You guys! Great news: Researchers have identified a new, fifth kind of boredom. It’s true! Apathetic boredom is your hot new flavor, which may sound a little redundant, which might sound downright silly, but if that’s what you think, well, you clearly don’t deserve to be a boredom researcher, blithely adding to the great tradition of sub-dividing our many contrived woes into smaller and smaller categories, so we may carry them around like spiteful pets, trot them out at parties and make everyone sad. You’re doing it wrong This is serious! Meanwhile! Meditation really is good for you, Harvard is spending a huge pile of money to prove, for the 10,000th time, though this time they really meant it because, you know, it’s Harvard. Now available in fun size. Also, less stress. Let those of us who’ve been investigating the spiritual path for many years not roll our eyes too far out of their sockets at Harvard’s shocking, lopsided “discovery.” It’s about consciousness, of course. More like this
Picasso, Kepler, and the Benefits of Being an Expert Generalist One thing that separates the great innovators from everyone else is that they seem to know a lot about a wide variety of topics. They are expert generalists. Their wide knowledge base supports their creativity. As it turns out, there are two personality traits that are key for expert generalists: Openness to Experience and Need for Cognition. Openness to Experience is one of the Big Five personality characteristics identified by psychologists. As you might expect, high levels of Openness to Experience can sometimes be related to creativity. However, creativity also requires knowledge. If you are not willing to do something new, then it’s hard to be creative. At the same time, creativity often requires drawing analogies between one body of knowledge and another. In order to have deep knowledge about a discipline as well as a wide base of knowledge that can be mined later for analogies, it is important for someone to enjoy thinking. How About You?
Billion-Dollar Scam In a Bottle: Why Vitamins Could Be Useless—or Even Shorten Your Lifespan Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com If you're like roughly half of your fellow Americans, you probably popped a multi this morning. As the slightly acrid taste lingered on your tongue, you felt good knowing that something so quick and easy would help safeguard your health. Multivitamins are the most popular dietary supplement on Earth. For the last several years, a Mount Fuji of evidence has piled up to show that multivitamins don’t do much of anything for the health of the average person. Yet Americans aren’t getting the message. The victim is not just your wallet. A look at the science As recently as 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association recommended that "all adults take one multivitamin daily." But for the last several years, many doctors have begun to reverse their previous recommendations. Jaakko Mursu, a nutritional scientist, was among those in the medical community who had grown skeptical of multivitamins. Useless is one thing. So what’s the problem? Well, yes. Paul A.
How being called smart can actually make you stupid | Neurobonkers A few months ago I posted a piece which has become my most popular blog post by quite a landslide. The post covered various techniques for learning and looked at the empirical evidence for and against their efficacy based on recent research. This post is my follow up, in which I look at the case for one tip for learning that it seems really could have a big impact. A growing body of evidence from the last two decades suggests that our attitude towards our own potential for intelligence has a considerable impact on our lives, furthermore we are incredibly vulnerable to having this attitude or "mindset" moulded for better or worse, by how people praise us in a way that is both shocking and problematic. Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck has presented a range of startlingly fascinating findings on the topic which have been broadly supported by further research. References: Blackwell L.S., Trzesniewski K.H. & Dweck C.S. (2007). Kamins M.L. & Dweck C.S. (1999).
BEYOND BUCKSKIN: Teacher Resource: The Politics of Fashion I came across this really cool course blog called The Politics of Fashion, which is a class offered by the Gender and Women's Studies Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. This course is taught by Mimi Thi Nguyen, co-author of Threadbared (a favorite blog of mine). The following two posts look at the Native-inspired fashion scene as worn by white bodies. The first one focuses on Forever 21 as a case study, while the second looks more at the hipster headdress trend. I hope to construct some of my own teacher resources and curricula material to post on here to help all you educators out there to present compelling, interesting, and relevant material in your classes. Forever 21′s Fashioning of National Bodies Prepared by Mimi Thi Nguyen In Nancy J. This notion is certainly manifested by the fashion directors working for Forever 21. Discussion Questions: -Do you agree that Forever 21’s featuring of mostly white models is a way of fashioning national bodies?
El ego existe - 02.06.2013 - lanacion.com Señor Sinay: ¿Cómo definiría el ego, tan importante en nuestros pensamientos? Mariana Dreyfus Re: Se suele hablar de grandes egos, que ocupan todos los espacios. Hay propuestas de desprenderse del ego para alcanzar una vida más armónica. ¿Pero, qué es el ego? El ego no es el yo, sino una parte de él. Así como no nos sacamos el hígado por una hepatitis, sino que aprendemos a cuidarlo, tampoco vale abjurar del ego por su inmadurez.
activism, optimism, compassion, occupy love, zainab amadahy, International Indigenous Gathering 2012 In this article, guest author ZAINAB AMADAHY explores the power of positivity as a force of transformation in the world. Here at Occupy Love, we are always looking for love in all the wrong places, and finding it. This is an era of unimaginable crisis, and unimagined possibility. On a panel discussing the relationship between “Love and Decolonization” I once spoke about protocols and ceremonies that are used by Indigenous communities in struggle. Because ceremonies allow participants to give thanks, vision an optimistic future, feel grounded on the land, connect to ancestors, feel responsibility to coming generations and cooperate together, they generate wellness. Mainstream science now understands that cultivating thoughts and feelings of generosity, gratitude, optimism, hope, compassion and cooperation are good for your health. Of course, this mindset also impacts your relationships, affecting friends, family and co-workers in positive ways.
Le Mouvement Matricien | Site N°1 sur le matriarcat et le patriarcat – Projet Prométhée Regulación de la industria de alimentos artificiales o procesados - Cuida tu salud En el Perú se está desarrollando en este momento un nuevo capítulo de la eterna lucha entre la salud pública y los intereses económicos. Por un lado está la Ley de Salud y Alimentación de Ninos.pdf que pretende regular (no prohibir) los mensajes publicitarios de alimentos artificiales o procesados que reciben los niños y adolescentes y por otro lado la airada reacción de tres industrias: fabricantes de alimentos artificiales o procesados, medios de comunicación y agencias de publicidad. Esta nota tiene tres intenciones... Primero, describir brevemente lo que son alimentos artificiales o procesados; segundo, exponer por qué debe regularse ( pero de ninguna manera prohibirse ) la publicidad de alimentos artificiales o procesados dirigida a la niñez; y tercero, dar algunos ejemplos de otras viejas y nuevas luchas entre la salud pública y los intereses económicos. 1. Alimentos artificiales o procesados ¿Se ha puesto a pensar en lo que usted le da a sus hijos? Twinkie al estado natural. Niacina
Mother's Day: The Good Child If your mother was mentally ill, undoubtedly Mother's Day, for you, was not the holiday it was supposed to be. In fact, the very existence of mothers who are emotionally and psychologically unfit to mother, as well as the experience of having a mentally ill mother, is still taboo and most commonly, a conversation left unspoken. When a mentally ill mother "passes" as normal, often there is no one who reflects back to the child that there is something seriously amiss in the behaviors and expressions of the mother, and yeowwwww, that lack of acknowledgment and support hurts. The kind of hurt that is lifelong and personality bending. Dark secrets are held in the hearts of these children, self-esteem is nowhere to be found, emulated or developed, and shame is deeply felt. For every Mother's Day tribute urging a shout out and outpouring of gratitude for Mom, there is a bellowing rebuke to those for whom celebrating Mom would not only be crazy, but wrong.