Intellectual Elegance

Iconic Designer Massimo Vignelli on Intellectual Elegance, Education, and Love

by Maria Popova

“Intellectual elegance [is] a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity.”

Besides the iconic New York City subway map, for which he remains best-known, the great Massimo Vignelli has worked on some of the twentieth century’s most memorable packaging, identity, and public signage for clients like IBM, American Airlines, and Bloomingdale’s, and has earned some of the creative industry’s most prestigious awards, including the AIGA Gold Medal (1983), the New York State Governor’s Award for Excellence (1993), the National Arts Club Gold Medal for Design (2004), and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum (2005). But nowhere do Vignelli’s eloquence, wisdom, earnestness, and sensitivity shine more brilliantly than in How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer (public library) — the same fantastic anthology of Debbie Millman‘s interviews with creative icons that gave usPaula Scher’s slot machine metaphor for creativity.

A champion of “intellectual elegance,” Vignelli explains his lifelong crusade against vulgarity:

MV: When I talk about elegance, I mean intellectual elegance. Elegance of the mind.

DM: How would you define elegance of the mind?

MV: I would define intellectual elegance as a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity. We all know vulgarity very well. Elegance is the opposite.

DM: I have to ask: What would you consider to be vulgar?

MV: Vulgarity is something underneath culture and education. Anything that is not refined.

[…]

DM: Why do you think people are fascinated by vulgarity?

MV: Because it is easier to absorb. Elegance is about education and refinement, and it is a by-product of a continual search for the best and for the sublime. And it is a continuous refusal of indulging in anything that is vulgar. It’s a job.

He offers an articulate definition of what design is really about:

It is to decrease the amount of vulgarity in the world. It is to make the world a better place to be. But everything is relative. There is a certain amount of latitude between what is good, what is elegant, and what is refined that can take many, many manifestations. It doesn’t have to be one style. We’re not talking about style, we’re talking about quality. Style is tangible, quality is intangible. I am talking about creating for everything that surrounds us a level of quality.

Like Steve Jobs famously did, Vignelli has profound disdain for focus groups and, like Millman herself, advocates for not letting limited imagination shrink the boundaries of the possible:

I don’t believe in market research. I don’t believe in marketing the way it’s done in America. The American way of marketing is to answer to the wants of the customer instead of answering to the needs of the customer. The purpose of marketing should be to find needs — not to find wants.

People do not know what they want. They barely know what they need, but they definitely do not know what they want. They’re conditioned by the limited imagination of what is possible. … Most of the time, focus groups are built on the pressure of ignorance.

Vignelli adds to history’s most beautiful definitions of love:

MV: Love is a cake that comes in layers. The top layer is the most appealing one. This is the one you see first. Then you cut into it and you see many different layers. They’re all beautiful, but some are sweeter than others.

How do I define love? I define it as a very intense passion on the one hand, and a very steady level on the other. The first layer, the one of passion, is the most troublesome. God, it’s a pain.

DM: Why?

MV: Because the more you love, the more jealous you get. You become jealous of everything, the air around the person, the people, a look, even the way they look at something. Then there is the extreme pleasure of writing about love, as well. This is fascinating to me. The layer of correspondence — and the anxiety to receive answers. That is great.

Finally you come to the physical layer. The emotion of receiving and conveying pleasure is sensational. It’s unbelievable how your entire body becomes a messenger. Your fingers, lips, eyes, smells. Your whole body becomes involved.

Then there is the layer of suffering. Distance, remoteness, no presence, horror. The suffering of not seeing who you want to see, and not being with whom you love. This is another painful aspect of love. We are talking about pain. All these layers define love. I think that is why it’s so great and so extremely complex.

Like other great creators, including Paula Scher, William Gibson, and Henry Miller, Vignelli recognizes the combinatorial quality of creative work as a sum-total of one’s lived experience:

One of the great advantages of being so concentrated on your work is that it is all there is. Everything I do comes into this and enriches me. Everything, even every book I read, enriches me.

On the life of purpose:

DM: Do you think that there’s a common denominator to people who can make a great contribution? Do you think that there’s something that–

MV: Unites them? Yes. What in Greek is called sympathy, the synchronization of pathos. You feel this incredible level of connection with these people. To a certain extent, it is equally comparable to love.

On the poetics of New York, echoing Anaïs Nin:

New York is a fabulous city. It’s like a magnet. I can’t leave anymore. There is nothing that can compare to New York. And it is not even beautiful. There are hundreds, thousands of other cities that are much more beautiful. But there is only one New York.

On design vs. art:

DM: How do you generally start a project?

MV: By listening as much as I can. I am convinced the solution is always in the problem. You could do a design that you like, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Design must solve a problem. Then, the design is exciting. But I find it extremely difficult. This is why I respect artists. Without a problem, I don’t exist. Artists are lucky; they can work by themselves. They don’t need a problem

Die Pflege von Jing,Qi und Shen fuer ein friedvolles Leben

"Das grosse Handbuch der Chinesischen Ernaehrungslehre", Manuela Heider de Jahnsen, S. 302

Stoics - 8 Guidelines

http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/creating-in-flow/201311/8-ancient-rules-life-we-should-still-follow

I found Evans’ book to be thoughtful and a pleasure to read; even the appendices are not to be missed. Evans, an author and journalist, is policy director at the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London, and helps run the London Philosophy Club. Consider the following guidelines, reproduced here in Evans’ own words:

1) It’s not events that cause us suffering, but ouropinion about events.

The Stoics thought we could transform emotions by understanding how they’re connected to our beliefs and attitudes. Often what causes us suffering is not a particular adverse event, but our opinion about it. We can make a difficult situation much worse by the attitude we bring to it. This doesn’t mean relentlessly "thinking positively"—it simply means being more mindful of how our attitudes and beliefs create our emotional reality.

2) Our opinions are often unconscious, but we can bring them to consciousness by asking ourselves questions.

Socrates said we sleepwalk through life, unaware of how we live and never asking ourselves if our opinions about life are correct or wise. The way to bring unconscious beliefs into consciousness is simply to ask yourself questions: Why am I feeling this strong emotional reaction? What interpretation or belief is leading to it? Is that belief definitely true? Where is the evidence for it? The Stoics used journals to keep track of their automatic responses and to examine them. 

3) We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we react.

Epictetus, the slave-philosopher, divided all human experience into two domains—things we control, and things we don’t. We don’t control other people, the weather, the economy, our bodies and health, our reputation, or things in the past and future. The only thing we have complete control over is our beliefs—if we choose to exercise this control. But we often try to exert complete control over something external, and then feel insecure and angry when we fail. Or we fail to take responsibility for our own thoughts and beliefs, and use the outside world as an alibi. Focusing on what you control is a powerful way to reduce anxiety and assert autonomy in chaotic situations. The Serenity Prayer is a nice encapsulation of this idea.

4) Choose your perspective wisely.

Every moment of the day, we can choose the perspective we take on life, like a film-director choosing the angle of a shot. One of the exercises the Stoics practiced was called the View From Above: If you’re feeling stressed by some niggling annoyances, project your imagination into space and imagine the vastness of the universe. From that cosmic perspective, the annoyance doesn’t seem that important anymore—you’ve made a molehill out of a mountain.

Another technique the Stoics used (along with Buddhists and Epicureans) was bringing their attention back to the present moment if they felt they were worrying too much about the future or ruminating over the past. Seneca told a friend: “What’s the point of dragging up sufferings that are over, of being miserable now because you were miserable then?”

5) Habits are powerful.

One thing the Stoics got, which a lot of modern philosophy (and religious studies) misses with its focus on theory, is the importance of practice, training, repetition and, in a word, habits. Because we’re such forgetful creatures, we need to repeat ideas over and over until they become ingrained habits. It might be useful to talk about the Stoic technique of the maxim, how they’d encapsulate their ideas into brief memorizable phrases or proverbs—“Everything in moderation” or “The best revenge is not to be like that”—which they would repeat to themselves when needed. Stoics also carried around little handbooks with some of their favorite maxims.

6) Fieldwork is vital.

Another thing the Stoics got, which modern philosophy often misses, is the idea of fieldwork. One of my favorite quotes from Epictetus is: “We might be fluent in the classroom but drag us out into practice and we’re miserably shipwrecked.” If you’re trying to improve your temper, practice not losing it. If you’re trying to rely less on comfort eating, practice eating less junk food. Seneca said: “The Stoic sees all adversity as training.” Imagine if philosophy also gave us street homework, tailor-made for the habits we’re trying to weaken or strengthen, like practicing asking a girl out, or practicing not gossiping about friends, or practicing being kind to someone every day. Imagine if people didn’t think philosophy was “just talking.”

7) Virtue is sufficient for happiness.

Stoicism wasn’t just a feel-good therapy; it was anethics, with a specific definition of the good life: The aim of life for Stoics was living in accordance with virtue. They believed if you found the good life not in externals like wealth or power but in doing the right thing, then you’d always be happy, because doing the right thing is always in your power and never subject to the whims of fortune. A demanding philosophy, and yet also in some ways true: Doing the right thing is always in our power.

8) We have ethical obligations to our community.

The Stoics pioneered the theory of cosmopolitanism—the idea that we have ethical obligations not just to our friends and family, but to our wider community, and even the community of humanity. Sometimes our obligations might clash—between our friends and our country, or between our government and our conscience. (For example, would we resist the Nazis if we grew up in 1930s Germany?) Do we really have moral obligations to people on the other side of the world? What about other species, or future generations? 

Most of the foregoing was adapted from Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations, used with permission of New World Library. Jules Evans blogs about practical philosophy on his website.

From HBR, 2 articles, about goals and motivation

https://hbr.org/2014/12/align-your-time-management-with-your-goals
At the end of a busy day, sometimes it’s hard to figure out where the time went. The following excerpt from the book Getting Work Done provides a simple process for you to prioritize your work and understand how you’re actually using your time.

What goals are you aiming for in your work? Does the way that you are spending your time actually correlate to those goals? Without answers to these questions, you won’t know how the many tasks on your list should be prioritized, organized, and ultimately accomplished.

List your goals

Ideally, you and your manager should meet at the start of each year to formulate a set of performance goals. From your discussion, you should understand how those goals tie into the company’s aims and mission. You likely also have your own personal career goals. Together, these may look something like, “Improve people-management skills. Manage six new products. Handle contracts for all of the department’s new products. Develop vendor-management skills.”

Revisiting them now, write these goals down—on paper or in a note-taking app if you prefer. You will use these goals in two ways: first, to prioritize your daily work; and second, to gauge your progress (in other words, to benchmark what you’re accomplishing and whether the changes you make as a result of this book are effective for you). By referring back to this list regularly, you’ll be able to identify which tasks are most important for you to tackle so you can plan accordingly.

Track your time

Once you’ve identified your goals, it’s time to examine how you’re currently spending your time. Are you working on the things you should be doing—the things that will allow you to reach those goals—or are you getting bogged down by unrelated tasks or unexpected crises?

In order to truly understand where you are spending your time and to identify whether you should adjust your workload, track your work for two weeks by completing the following exercise. You may discover that your results don’t align with your goals. The point is to uncover where that misalignment occurs so you can correct it.

First, write down your activities. Consider this a brain dump, and leave no stone unturned. List all of the tasks you perform, meetings you attend, and even the time you spend socializing or procrastinating at work. It can help to look back over your calendar for the last week or two to get a sense of your range of activities. Once you have a full list, break it down into broad categories so you can track the amount of time you spend doing tasks in each category. Some categories to consider include:

Core responsibilities: day-to-day tasks that make up the crux of your job.Personal growth: activities and projects that you find meaningful and valuable, but may not be part of your everyday responsibilities.Managing people: your work with others, including direct reports, colleagues, and even your superiors.Crises and fires: interruptions and urgent matters that arise occasionally and unexpectedly.Free time: lunch breaks and time spent writing personal e-mails, browsing the web, or checking social media.Administrative tasks: necessary tasks that you perform each day, such as approving time sheets or invoices, or putting together expense reports.

Seeing your work broken into categories like this will help you visualize how you’re really spending your time, and you may already be getting a sense of whether this lines up with the goals you identified.

rresponding categories.

At this point, you may be thinking, I’m busy; I don’t have time to log everything I do. It’s true: This system does require an up-front investment of time and effort.

But logging your tasks and how long it takes to complete them will let you clearly see where you’re spending too much time and where you need to begin to reallocate time to achieve your goals. If you want to improve your people management skills, for example, you may realize that devoting 10 hours a week is not enough; perhaps you need to offload some administrative tasks so you have the additional time you need for that goal. By making small, deliberate shifts in how you spend your day, you’ll ensure that you’re investing the right amount of time on the tasks that matter most, making you more efficient at achieving your goals.

This post is adapted from the Harvard Business Review Press book 20-Minute Manager: Getting Work Done.

https://hbr.org/2014/11/what-maslows-hierarchy-wont-tell-you-about-motivation
Autonomy is people’s need to perceive that they have choices, that what they are doing is of their own volition, and that they are the source of their own actions. The way leaders frame information and situations either promotes the likelihood that a person will perceive autonomy or undermines it. To promote autonomy:

Frame goals and timelines as essential information to assure a person’s success, rather than as dictates or ways to hold people accountable.Refrain from incentivizing people through competitions and games. Few people have learned the skill of shifting the reason why they’re competing from an external one (winning a prize or gaining status) to a higher-quality one (an opportunity to fulfill a meaningful goal).Don’t apply pressure to perform. Sustained peak performance is a result of people acting because they choose to — not because they feel they haveto.

Relatedness is people’s need to care about and be cared about by others, to feel connected to others without concerns about ulterior motives, and to feel that they are contributing to something greater than themselves. Leaders have a great opportunity to help people derive meaning from their work. To deepen relatedness:

Validate the exploration of feelings in the workplace. Be willing to ask people how they feel about an assigned project or goal and listen to their response. All behavior may not be acceptable, but all feelings are worth exploring.Take time to facilitate the development of people’s values at work — then help them align those values with their goals. It is impossible to link work to values if individuals don’t know what their values are.Connect people’s work to a noble purpose.

Competence is people’s need to feel effective at meeting every-day challenges and opportunities, demonstrating skill over time, and feeling a sense of growth and flourishing. Leaders can rekindle people’s desire to grow and learn. To develop people’s competence:

Make resources available for learning. What message does it send about values for learning and developing competence when training budgets are the first casualty of economic cutbacks?Set learning goals — not just the traditional results-oriented and outcome goals.At the end of each day, instead of asking, “What did you achieve today?” ask “What did you learn today? How did you grow today in ways that will help you and others tomorrow?”

Unlike Maslow’s needs, these three basic needs are not hierarchical or sequential. They are foundational to all human beings and our ability to flourish.

The exciting message to leaders is that when the three basic psychological needs are satisfied in the workplace, people experience the day-to-day high-quality motivation that fuels employee work passion — and all the inherent benefits that come from actively engaged individuals at work. To take advantage of the science requires shifting your leadership focus from, “What can I give people to motivate them?” to “How can I facilitate people’s satisfaction of autonomy, relatedness, and competence?”

Leaders have opportunities every day to integrate these motivational practices. For example, a leader I coach was about to launch a company-wide message to announce mandatory training on green solutions compliance. Ironically, his well-intentioned message dictated people’s actions — undermining people’s sense of autonomy and probably guaranteeing their defiance rather than compliance. His message didn’t provide a values-based rationale or ask individuals to consider how their own values might be aligned to the initiative. After reconsidering his approach, he created this message embedded with ways for people to experience autonomy, relatedness, and competence:

autonomy, relatedness, competence

https://hbr.org/2014/11/what-maslows-hierarchy-wont-tell-you-about-motivation

Despite the popularity of Maslow’s Hierarchy, there is not much recent data to support it. Contemporary science — specifically Dr. Edward Deci, hundreds ofSelf-Determination Theory researchers, andthousands of studies — instead points to three universal psychological needs. If you really want to advantage of this new science – rather than focusing on a pyramid of needs – you should focus on:autonomy, relatedness, and competence.

Autonomy is people’s need to perceive that they have choices, that what they are doing is of their own volition, and that they are the source of their own actions. The way leaders frame information and situations either promotes the likelihood that a person will perceive autonomy or undermines it. To promote autonomy:

Frame goals and timelines as essential information to assure a person’s success, rather than as dictates or ways to hold people accountable.Refrain from incentivizing people through competitions and games. Few people have learned the skill of shifting the reason why they’re competing from an external one (winning a prize or gaining status) to a higher-quality one (an opportunity to fulfill a meaningful goal).Don’t apply pressure to perform. Sustained peak performance is a result of people acting because they choose to — not because they feel they haveto.

Relatedness is people’s need to care about and be cared about by others, to feel connected to others without concerns about ulterior motives, and to feel that they are contributing to something greater than themselves. Leaders have a great opportunity to help people derive meaning from their work. To deepen relatedness:

Validate the exploration of feelings in the workplace. Be willing to ask people how they feel about an assigned project or goal and listen to their response. All behavior may not be acceptable, but all feelings are worth exploring.Take time to facilitate the development of people’s values at work — then help them align those values with their goals. It is impossible to link work to values if individuals don’t know what their values are.Connect people’s work to a noble purpose.

Competence is people’s need to feel effective at meeting every-day challenges and opportunities, demonstrating skill over time, and feeling a sense of growth and flourishing. Leaders can rekindle people’s desire to grow and learn. To develop people’s competence:

Make resources available for learning. What message does it send about values for learning and developing competence when training budgets are the first casualty of economic cutbacks?Set learning goals — not just the traditional results-oriented and outcome goals.At the end of each day, instead of asking, “What did you achieve today?” ask “What did you learn today? How did you grow today in ways that will help you and others tomorrow?”

Unlike Maslow’s needs, these three basic needs are not hierarchical or sequential. They are foundational to all human beings and our ability to flourish.

The exciting message to leaders is that when the three basic psychological needs are satisfied in the workplace, people experience the day-to-day high-quality motivation that fuels employee work passion — and all the inherent benefits that come from actively engaged individuals at work. To take advantage of the science requires shifting your leadership focus from, “What can I give people to motivate them?” to “How can I facilitate people’s satisfaction of autonomy, relatedness, and competence?”

Life Purpose; a selection of 4 texts

http://www.raptitude.com/2013/03/how-to-find-the-way/

Asyou move north:

Personal criticisms seem less relevant to you and you’re less likely to react to them emotionally.It becomes easier and more appealing to relinquish control over external events, particularly over what other people do.You naturally put a greater proportion of your attention on the physical world around you, which leaves less attention for following your internal dialogue. Inner dialogue becomes less persistent.Ordinary details of the physical world become more beautiful, and feel like they somehow make more sense, and you feel less inclined to tell others this. Private experiences of beauty make up a greater proportion of your day.You evaluate external events more in terms of their overall good in the world — how much joy they bring or suffering they relieve — than in terms of your own interests.You come closer to being able to accept undesirable events in real-time. You lose interest in talking about how the situation ought to be.Other human beings (and, farther north, animals) appear more individualized. They seem more delicate, interesting, and worthy of care and attention. Walking among them begins to feel more like walking in a china shop.Self-consciousness fades. You feel an increased willingness to let things be. Farther north, you cease experiencing yourself as an opaque object moving in the world and instead feel like a transparent subject through which the world moves. You may feel like you are watching the world without being there at all.

***

I don’t know if there’s a specific quality the spectrum reflects. It’s not important. The best barometer for your current position on the spectrum is probably how much peace and ease you feel during in-between moments. By in-between moments I mean moments in which you’re not getting what you want and not getting what you don’t want, which is most moments.

We move north and south along the spectrum throughout our lives. A swing can happen within a day, especially as a reaction to the arrival of exceptionally desirable or undesirable circumstances: major setbacks, major insights, major gains or major losses. You may be in one place one day and quite another a few days later.

It tends to shift in wide arcs though, like the tension in a storyline does. You may spend an arc of a year or two quite farther north than normal for you, if you’re doing something that serves your deepest values, or something that requires exceptional levels of attention or effort from you. You might have an arc in the other direction corresponding with a rough period, like a divorce or an illness.

But generally, if you have a persistent interest in personal growth, you’ll find yourself gradually moving northward over the years.

You move north by doing the things that seem to result, for you, in the “northward” qualities above. You only get a firsthand look at your own inner states, so it’s necessarily a solo practice. Spiritual golf.

For me, what has helped most has been practicing mindfulness informally, reading, simplifying my life in terms of possessions and commitments, confronting long-running fears, and writing.

You find your own best practices by trying things. If you never try anything new you never find them.

“Follow your bliss” is how Joseph Campbell put it. He always knew what he was talking about, but I have trouble with the word bliss because it’s been hijacked by Duncan Hines and other gratification-peddlers. Someone’s “bliss” may be heroin, after all. But if you get a good sense of where north is from the list above, then a personal practice of self-education can’t help but move you gradually northward.

I suppose it’s possible some people have done well a

http://markmanson.net/life-purpose

...Everything involves sacrifice. Everything includes some sort of cost. Nothing is pleasurable or uplifting all of the time. So the question becomes: what struggle or sacrifice are you willing to tolerate? Ultimately, what determines our ability to stick with something we care about is our ability to handle the rough patches and ride out the inevitable rotten days.

If you want to be a brilliant tech entrepreneur, but you can’t handle failure, then you’re not going to make it far. If you want to be a professional artist, but you aren’t willing to see your work rejected hundreds, if not thousands of times, then you’re done before you start. If you want to be a hotshot court lawyer, but can’t stand the 80-hour workweeks, then I’ve got bad news for you. ...

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/01/how-to-discover-your-life-purpose-in-about-20-minutes/

... Here’s what to do:

Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.

That’s it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a counselor or an engineer or a bodybuilder. To some people this exercise will make perfect sense. To others it will seem utterly stupid. Usually it takes 15-20 minutes to clear your head of all the clutter and the social conditioning about what you think your purpose in life is. The false answers will come from your mind and your memories. But when the true answer finally arrives, it will feel like it’s coming to you from a different source entirely.

For those who are very entrenched in low-awareness living, it will take a lot longer to get all the false answers out, possibly more than an hour. But if you persist, after 100 or 200 or maybe even 500 answers, you’ll be struck by the answer that causes you to surge with emotion, the answer that breaks you. If you’ve never done this, it may very well sound silly to you. So let it seem silly, and do it anyway.

As you go through this process, some of your answers will be very similar. You may even re-list previous answers. Then you might head off on a new tangent and generate 10-20 more answers along some other theme. And that’s fine. You can list whatever answer pops into your head as long as you just keep writing.

At some point during the process (typically after about 50-100 answers), you may want to quit and just can’t see it converging. You may feel the urge to get up and make an excuse to do something else. That’s normal. Push past this resistance, and just keep writing. The feeling of resistance will eventually pass.

You may also discover a few answers that seem to give you a mini-surge of emotion, but they don’t quite make you cry — they’re just a bit off. Highlight those answers as you go along, so you can come back to them to generate new permutations. Each reflects a piece of your purpose, but individually they aren’t complete. When you start getting these kinds of answers, it just means you’re getting warm. Keep going.

It’s important to do this alone and with no interruptions. If you’re a nihilist, then feel free to start with the answer, “I don’t have a purpose,” or “Life is meaningless,” and take it from there. If you keep at it, you’ll still eventually converge. ...

www.LearningStrategies.com/EffortlessSuccess/Home.asp

Health Sparks

What's your life purpose? To inspire others to reach their goals? To promote a greener world? To help others heal with Qigong?

Whatever it is, a purpose-driven life could mean a longer life.

A group of researchers at the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago has been tracking nearly 1000 people with an average age of 80 for seven years, assessing physical, psychological, and cognitive wellbeing. At the beginning of the study, participants were scored on their sense of purpose using statements like, "Some people wander aimlessly through life, but I am not one of them," and, "I sometimes feel as if I have done all there is to do in life."

Participants who scored a higher sense of purpose were 2.4 times less likely to develop Alzheimer's than their lower scoring peers – even if their brains showed physical signs of the disease.

"Even for people developing plaques and tangles in their brains, having purpose in life allows you to tolerate them and still maintain your cognition," says neuropsychologist Patricia Boyle, an author of the study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The perks of purpose don't stop there. Purposeful people also had a 30 percent lower rate of cognitive decline, a lower risk of diabetes, and were less likely to die.

A separate study from the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center followed over 1,200 participants with an average age of 78 over five years. Those who scored a higher purpose had nearly half the mortality rate as their less purposeful peers. Researchers controlled other factors that could increase wellbeing, including social relationships, depression, disability, and demographics. They determined that purpose stood alone as a major factor in increased life quality and expectancy.

People "want to make a contribution," says Boyle. "They want to feel part of something that extends beyond themselves...a sense of their role in the community and the broader world."

You can reap the benefits of knowing and living your life purpose at any age. "The clearer you are about your purpose and the more your emotions and beliefs are aligned with it, the more likely it is you will attract what you desire," says Jack Canfield, author of ourEffortless Success course. To clarify your life purpose, he recommends the following exercise:

Think of two personal qualities that others most appreciate about you (i.e., enthusiasm, joy, creativity).Consider the way you most enjoy expressing each of these two qualities. For example, you may enjoy singing, building things, or teaching.Visualize your perfect world. Envision how people close to you are interacting, and imagine how you feel living in such a world.Write a statement in the present tense describing this perfect world – how it looks, feels, sounds, smells, and tastes.Draw upon everything you thought, felt, and expressed in the first four steps. If you were to draw, paint, or sculpt an image of your life purpose, what would it look like?

You can repeat this exercise as often as you'd like. It is okay if you are not completely clear about your life purpose at this point. Once it is clear, revisit your life purpose daily to keep living it!

The Fruitfulness of the Moment - another perspective

In the same vein as the previous post there is David Cain's great post: It's okay to be here


http://www.raptitude.com/2014/05/okay-to-be-here

You can always be where you are (and indeed nothing else is possible.) The real issue is learning to consciously allow yourself to be exactly where you are, including any of the parts that you would prefer to be different.

This is a news flash to some: It’s okay to experience unpleasant feelings. It’s okay for things to happen that you don’t want to happen. It is possible to notice these things happening and consciously allow them to be there. And it makes a huge difference to how traumatic or not-so-bad the experience ends up being. It may still be unpreferable or unpleasant, but it stops being awful. All different kinds of pain can become manageable if you can let them be there while they’re there.

In the West at least, most of us receive zero training on the value (and even the possibility) of consciously allowing our current experience to be what it is. Just a little bit of regular mindfulness or meditation practice can make this fundamental skill into a habit.

Letting the moment simply be what it is is altogether different from wanting it to be that way, or refusing to do something about it, if there is indeed something you can do. This applies to so many everyday moments that can be awful if we don’t let them be what they are: waiting in line, not knowing whether you passed an exam, being in the presence of misbehaving kids.

The key to allowing yourself to be here is locating that aspect of the present moment that you most want to be different — which always seems to amount to a feeling of some kind. For example, it would feel perfectly okay to not know if you passed the exam if you didn’t feel any anxiety in response to that not-knowing. The unpleasant/unpreferable part is the anxiety, not the not-knowing.

The Fruitfulness of the Moment - H.Miller, V.Frankl

Henry Miller's "The Wisdom of the Heart"

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/09/the-wisdom-of-the-heart-henry-miller/

The art of living is based on rhythm — on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, ‘the dance of life,’ metamorphosis. One can dance to sorrow or to joy; one can even dance abstractly. … But the point is that, by the mere act of dancing, the elements which compose it are transformed; the dance is an end in itself, just like life. The acceptance of the situation, any situation, brings about a flow, a rhythmic impulse towards self-expression. To relax is, of course, the first thing a dancer has to learn. It is also the first thing a patient has to learn when he confronts the analyst. It is the first thing any one has to learn in order to live. It is extremely difficult, because it means surrender, full surrender.

For the awakened individual, however, life begins now, at any and every moment; it begins at the moment when he realizes that he is part of a great whole, and in the realization becomes himself whole. In the knowledge of limits and relationships he discovers the eternal self, thenceforth to move with obedience and discipline in full freedom.

An attempt, in short, to arrive at a total grasp of the universe, and thus keep man anchored in the moving stream of life, which embraces known and unknown. Any and every moment, from this viewpoint, is therefore good or right, the best for whoever it be, for on how one orients himself to the moment depends the failure or fruitfulness of it.

Real love is never perplexed, never qualifies, never rejects, never demands. It replenishes, by grace of restoring unlimited circulation. It burns, because it knows the true meaning of sacrifice. It is life illuminated.

http://www.raptitude.com/2013/10/6-helpful-reminders-for-the-overwhelmed-person/

 ... Viktor Frankl’s great discovery — that nobody can take away your freedom to choose your way of relating to your circumstances. Wherever you are, you can do something to make the rest of the day better than it would otherwise be, and that means you are not helpless. No matter how small the action, once you see you are capable of improving your position, the feeling of helplessness cannot survive unless you want it to.

Bucurie si recunostinta in inimile noastre - Joy and Gratitude in Our Hearts

"Si fie ca noi sa avem mereu bucurie si recunostinta in inimile noastre pentru ca Marele Creator al tuturor lucrurilor, in Dragostea Sa pentru noi, a pus plantele pe campuri spre vindecarea noastra." Dr. Bach

"And may we ever have joy and gratitude in our hearts that the Great Creator of all things, in His love for us, has placed the herbs in the field for our healing." Dr. Bach

From "The Twelve Healers"
http://www.bachcentre.com/centre/download/healers.htm

7 Perspectives on Purpose and Doing Work that You Love

Excellent article from brainpickings:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/27/purpose-work-love/

Nr. 4 Lewis Hyde on Work vs. Labor:

Work is what we do by the hour. It begins and, if possible, we do it for money. Welding car bodies on an assembly line is work; washing dishes, computing taxes, walking the rounds in a psychiatric ward, picking asparagus — these are work. Labor, on the other hand, sets its own pace. We may get paid for it, but it’s harder to quantify… Writing a poem, raising a child, developing a new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention in all forms — these are labors.

Work is an intended activity that is accomplished through the will. A labor can be intended but only to the extent of doing the groundwork, or of not doing things that would clearly prevent the labor. Beyond that, labor has its own schedule.

…

There is no technology, no time-saving device that can alter the rhythms of creative labor. When the worth of labor is expressed in terms of exchange value, therefore, creativity is automatically devalued every time there is an advance in the technology of work.”

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has a term for the quality that sets labor apart from work: flow — a kind of intense focus and crisp sense of clarity where you forget yourself, lose track of time, and feel like you’re part of something larger. If you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter for a pet project, or even spent 20 consecutive hours composing a love letter, you’ve experienced flow and you know creative labor."


Nr. 5 Steve Jobs on Not Settling:

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

How do we interpret transits and progressions from a psychological perspective?

http://www.astro.com/astrology/in_transits_e.htm

Liz Green: The Horoscope in Manifestation - How do we interpret transits and progressions from a psychological perspective?

...
Nevertheless, a great deal of what we assume to be predictable may not be predictable at all, once individual consciousness has begun to expand the levels at which we experience reality. For this reason I believe we need to try to live as though we have the freedom to work with our transits and progressions on a psychological level. We may then have room to transform or alter future events, or deal more creatively with anything that is our own creation due to the workings of unconscious complexes. As for those things about which we truly have no choice, we will find out soon enough, and can hopefully learn to accept and live with our necessity in a more tranquil spirit.

One of my main objectives in exploring this theme is to suggest that we may have more freedom than we think, on levels of which we might not initially be aware. If we can learn to work with the planetary movements with more insight and less of a literal, 'Uranus is going over whatnot and therefore such-and-such will happen' approach, we might discover what Pico della Mirandola meant when he said that human beings are co-creators with God. Literal-mindedness doesn't do us justice as astrologers. It can also be downright destructive, because there is, of course, such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because our perceptions are invariably distorted by our individual complexes, we are inclined to interpret transits and progressions not according to what they might mean, but according to what our complexes tell us they will 'do' to us. Even the most orthodox 'traditional' astrologer is not really able to be objective when it comes to predicting events. We cannot even be certain what an 'event' really is, since so much depends on how and when the person registers what has happened. Our assumptions about the future are just as heavily coloured by our own psyches as our assumptions about the present.

Life is glorious - The power of presence over productivity

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/03/11/a-short-guide-to-a-happy-life-anna-quindlen/

Here, Annie Dillard, who so memorably expounded the power of presence over productivity in the making of a rich life, would have agreed. For Quindlen, however, an even richer life than that of simply being present is one of being present with a palpable generosity of spirit towards the world:

"Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take the money you would have spent on beers in a bar and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Tutor a seventh-grader.

All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough."

Be kind to your neighbor and Wash your bowl

Excellent post from David Cain - How to find the way - click here for the entire article

Sint micile obiceiuri care ne fac sa traim frumos, din plin, prezenti. Bunatatea, mintea limpede si linistita, inima usoara. Articolul lui David Cain este amplu si clar. Concluzia este simpla si puternica: fii bun cu aproapele tau si pastreaza-ti bolul curat.

Excerpts:
...
So head north. But keep in mind that the intention to move north is entirely different from pursuing the desire to reach the North Pole. At a glance, spiritual practices seem to focus on figures that have reached the Pole, so to speak — Jesus and Buddha come to mind — as well as the possibility of doing it yourself. But I think the North Pole was always meant to be a lot less important than simply heading north, and even just knowing which way it is. After all, most of the actionable passages in those doctrines describe the smaller habits that gradually move you farther north: being kind to your neighbor and washing your bowl.

....

This spectrum — I never really explained what it was — doesn’t quite equate with mood, or with happiness even. It has more to do with how reactive you are, how self-absorbed your view, how much you are in your own way, in any given moment.

This is how movement along the spectrum manifests itself, in my experience.

As you move south:

You become more self-conscious, more easily embarrassed, and more concerned with how you are perceived by others.
Thoughts have an increasingly strong influence on mood. You can slip into a bad mood just by having a thought about something negative, even something that happened years ago.
You feel more inclined to take thoughts at face value. For example, if you have a thought that a problem of yours is unsolvable, you’re more likely to believe it and stop seeking solutions.
Increasingly, you regard everything that happens in terms of how it affects your own interests, which means external events become more distressing and you become more anxious about controlling them.
You become less inclined to see others as equals. You tend to regard them as either better than you or worse than you.
You become more likely to wish for solutions to your problems, and less likely to believe you are capable of solving them yourself. You feel like a small part of a big world.
You become more reactive. If you are very far this way down the spectrum, you may even react violently.
An increasing proportion of your attention is taken by your thoughts, which leaves less attention for sense perceptions.
Cravings for gratification and comfort increase in frequency and intensity, and appear to be the only possibilities for fulfillment. You grow increasingly less likely to feel peace or joy in ordinary moments.
As you move north:

Personal criticisms seem less relevant to you and you’re less likely to react to them emotionally.
It becomes easier and more appealing to relinquish control over external events, particularly over what other people do.
You naturally put a greater proportion of your attention on the physical world around you, which leaves less attention for following your internal dialogue. Inner dialogue becomes less persistent.
Ordinary details of the physical world become more beautiful, and feel like they somehow make more sense, and you feel less inclined to tell others this. Private experiences of beauty make up a greater proportion of your day.
You evaluate external events more in terms of their overall good in the world — how much joy they bring or suffering they relieve — than in terms of your own interests.
You come closer to being able to accept undesirable events in real-time. You lose interest in talking about how the situation ought to be.
Other human beings (and, farther north, animals) appear more individualized. They seem more delicate, interesting, and worthy of care and attention. Walking among them begins to feel more like walking in a china shop.
Self-consciousness fades. You feel an increased willingness to let things be. Farther north, you cease experiencing yourself as an opaque object moving in the world and instead feel like a transparent subject through which the world moves. You may feel like you are watching the world without being there at all.
***

I don’t know if there’s a specific quality the spectrum reflects. It’s not important. The best barometer for your current position on the spectrum is probably how much peace and ease you feel during in-between moments. By in-between moments I mean moments in which you’re not getting what you want and not getting what you don’t want, which is most moments.

We move north and south along the spectrum throughout our lives. A swing can happen within a day, especially as a reaction to the arrival of exceptionally desirable or undesirable circumstances: major setbacks, major insights, major gains or major losses. You may be in one place one day and quite another a few days later.

It tends to shift in wide arcs though, like the tension in a storyline does. You may spend an arc of a year or two quite farther north than normal for you, if you’re doing something that serves your deepest values, or something that requires exceptional levels of attention or effort from you. You might have an arc in the other direction corresponding with a rough period, like a divorce or an illness.

But generally, if you have a persistent interest in personal growth, you’ll find yourself gradually moving northward over the years.

Meditatia in 3 pasi

WHY YOU REALLY NEED TO QUIET YOUR MIND (AND HOW TO DO IT)
MEDITATION IS AN UNDERAPPRECIATED PRACTICE, ESPECIALLY IN A HIGH-STRESS WORKPLACE--BUT THAT'S WHERE IT'S NEEDED THE MOST. HERE'S HOW TO QUIET YOUR RACING THOUGHTS.
BY STEPHANIE VOZZA

http://m.fastcompany.com/3026898/work-smart/why-you-really-need-to-quiet-your-mind-and-how-to-do-it

1. Get into a good position.

Take a deep breath and sigh it out. Sit comfortably and relax your body as much as you can. “We have these visions of needing to have a full lotus position,” Davich says. “It’s not necessary.”

2. Get in touch with your breathing.

Close your eyes and find the place in your body where you feel your breath most prominently. Davich says it could be your abdomen, diaphragm, or under your nostrils. Start to focus your attention in a gentle way to your breathing--this will be your anchor point.

3. Detach from your thoughts.

Within a few seconds, distractions like thoughts, body sensations, or images will start to bubble up. Realize that this is normal and gently return to the anchor point. Continue this for eight minutes. To keep track of the time and set the tone, you can use an app, such as Davich’s Simply8 or Buddhify.

Davich says most people find morning to be a quiet and convenient time of day to meditate. Others do it before bed, to help them sleep. You could meditate during your lunch break or any other time that works for you.

There is just one rule: “Keep a daily consistent appointment with your mediation practice, just like brushing your teeth,” he says. “It’s a wonderful tool to help put space between you and the world’s distractions.”

Doing vs. Deciding - Clear Mind and Focused Action

One way of aquiring a peaceful and focused mind, besides taking Bach Flower Remedies (to name just two of the possible choices: White Chestnut, Impatiens) is to read and follow the simple and yet fundamental principle described in the article below.

Keep your doing and deciding away from each other - says David Cain and he is so right.

http://www.raptitude.com/2014/02/keep-your-doing-and-your-deciding-away-from-each-other/

It makes sense, then, to keep your decision-making time separate from your doing time whenever possible, as a rule. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of simply asking myself whether I am, at this moment, 1) making decisions, or 2) acting on decisions I’ve already made. It’s easy to slip into a stuttering kind of mode where you’re trying to do both, which feels about as comfortable and efficient as tying your shoes while you’re running.

This kind of clarity is beautiful and powerful, and I want to have it in every aspect of my life. As generally defiant of authority as I am, it turns out I love being told what to do if what I’m being told to do is something that works. It doesn’t even have to be the most efficient or helpful path to my goal as long as it moves me toward it without the constant backpedaling. It’s a very empowering position — to be in a place where you know that all you have to do is do.

Doubt is the real work-stopper, and that happens when you’re deciding what to do, not when you’re doing it. If doubt seems to hinder you while you’re working, it’s because you either haven’t decided what to do yet, or you’re letting yourself reconsider your decision while you’re supposed to be carrying it out.

When it comes to actually getting something done, it makes all the difference in the world to have the decision of what to do already made, whether it was your decision or someone else’s. In the case of my return to fitness, what a relief it is to know I’m almost guaranteed to move steadily toward my goal if I just follow the program. It’s like a yellow brick road. There’s no more trickiness or ambivalence about it, just pushups.

With all of my goals, I want the doing aspect to be as separate as possible from the question of what I should be doing. They’re both essential parts of getting something done, but they need to be done at different times.

Decision points are momentum killers. They’re the moments where high-level doubt about your actions can establish itself. In thirty seconds you can go from doing, to wondering whether you should be doing something else instead, to wondering where this particular plan went wrong, to wondering where your life went wrong. Being uncertain of what to do right now often means you won’t do anything right now, and years can go by that way

How not to Worry & Steinbeck

An excellent article on how not to worry.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/18/you-can-master-life-1934/

The following excerpt from the link above reminds me of what John Steinbeck said in "Sweet Thursday":

"In the following chapter, “Learning to Adjust,” Gilkey revisits the subject through the lens of aging:

Only as we yield to the inexorable, only as we accept the situations which we find ourselves powerless to change, can we free ourselves from fatal inward tensions, and acquire that inward quietness amid which we can seek — and usually find — ways by which our limitations can be made at least partially endurable."

"Nu poti sa te impotrivesti Destinului. Daca i te supui, dobaindesti o forta noua, canalizata intr-o singura directie."

Earth Gym - Gimnastica Pamantului

http://totb.ro/un-barbat-care-locuieste-de-25-de-ani-in-padure-a-inventat-gimnastica-pamantului/


Am început să dansez ca focul, să alerg ca vântul, am devenit puternic ca piatra şi fluid ca apa, prin simplul fapt de a merge în picioarele goale şi de a-i permite Pământului să mă înveţe,” spune Dodge, protagonsitul emisiunii The Legend of Mike Dodge, realizată de National Geographic.

I was dancing as the fire, running as the wind, strengthening as the stone and flowing as the water within, by the simple act of touching with my bare soles and allowing the Earth to teach. It is a simple matter to follow your feet, but is does not come easy. The Earth will eat you if you are not paying attention.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/he-lives-in-a-tree-doesnt-wear-shoes-and-brushes-hisFire is one of the elements of the forest that I have learned to develop a relationship to use in healing. Another key element in healing is water. After all, we are all walking sacks of water. I found during those times when I had been around people from the city, I would catch some kind of cold or flu. I would enter back into the Hoh and drink the water and soak my entire body in the glacial water. My grandfather called it “kissing the foot of the glacier.” There are all kinds of mushrooms, herbs, etc. to be used for healing, and I keep a close relationship with those in the Earth communities that master the healing and herbal arts, such as my friend Doc Gare, who is introduced in the series.

Going barefoot, did you ever injure your feet?
On one of my long running quests in my bare soles into the highlands of the Olympics, I was taught a lesson by the mountain. It was early winter. The snows came and I almost lost my toes. I had no footwear with me. It was a 30-mile walk out. So I cut up my moose hide jacket and had to make a set of mukluks to protect my feet. It was then that I realized that … I better shift my attitude and vow about bare footing. It was a powerful teaching. I learned the meaning and wisdom of the old saying of my elders. "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

How difficult are the winters for you, with diminished resources?
It is not difficult at all. It is an adventure and I have never had to deal with diminished food sources. I just follow my feet. There is not much that I do not eat. I am an omnivore, able to eat a wide variety of food, which also means that I learned how to become a scavenger and allowed the hunger in my belly to guide me into discovering all kinds of food. For example, I would come upon an elk killed by a cougar. When a cougar kills an elk, the entire forest moves in to eat. So I do the same. I often come upon road kill. Many people are scared of such food and yet they eat jerky … and jerky is nothing more than sun-dried meat. So what I eat during a normal week changes depending upon which one of the three terrains that I am footing my way through. But there is one highly spiritual food that I try to maintain in my stashes and storage places and that is chocolate-chip cookies. My grandmothers got me hooked on them.

Have you had any close call animal encounters?
I was footing my way along the road headed for my home camp, when some idiot talking on a cellphone, doing at least 80 miles per hour, almost hit a deer and then me. The most dangerous encounters that I have ever had in the gated wild, walls of the city and in the open fenced lands are with two footed creatures.

What do you do if you get sick? Have you ever had an emergency situation?
Fire is one of the elements of the forest that I have learned to develop a relationship to use in healing. Another key element in healing is water. After all, we are all walking sacks of water. I found during those times when I had been around people from the city, I would catch some kind of cold or flu. I would enter back into the Hoh and drink the water and soak my entire body in the glacial water. My grandfather called it “kissing the foot of the glacier.” There are all kinds of mushrooms, herbs, etc. to be used for healing, and I keep a close relationship with those in the Earth communities that master the healing and herbal arts, such as my friend Doc Gare, who is introduced in the series.

Does this lifestyle give you a heightened appreciation of Mother Nature?
Appreciation is such a weak word to express what I feel for the Earth and the transitions that I have gone through and am still going through. Hell, I am just getting started. One of the ways that was taught to me on one of my long gated wild quests was to break free of the polarization of the modern world. People always trying to put you in box. By getting some distance from the comforts, habits, physical structures like shoes, machines, walls, electronics, I find myself seeking out what makes sense, what fits, and integration of the wild and tame make sense. So l learned to hunt and track the middle path, the middle way. It is not easy at times figuring out the middle way between the modern world and the Earth. But it is fun and adventure.

What's the best and worst part of this lifestyle?
Wherever there is good there is bad. That is the game of life. My passion in life is to explore, engage, challenge and balance whatever comes in the three terrains that I run through.

I don't imagine there are many mountain women out there. Do you get lonely?
On my journey, I have formed so many wonderful connections with women, formed strong brother-and-sister relationships with them. I may not be able to figure out what they are always talking about. But if their soles are touching the Earth, I am more able to figure it out. A few years ago my path wandered into the Cedar Woman. We share a common vision of these Olympic Mountains and a deep musing of the lands, and in order for a vision to manifest from the Earth it takes a mission — a mission brings it to a physical reality. Cedar, along with others, created the Olympic Mountain Earth Wisdom Circle. Our lives are guided by the musings that come from living in a deep connection with the Earth, and Cedar holds the feminine wisdom fire of our hearth, which I keep coming back to, what I call the base camp.

Insightful Analogy

I've always loved analogies.
I couldn't have said it better myself:

From- Peter Lawrence - The Happy Minimalist

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/fulfillment.html


Sometimes, some people can keep eating and yet continue to feel hungry. Gorging oneself with empty calories is no substitute for the essential nutrients that the body needs. Eating a variety of different colors of fruits and vegetables together with nuts, grains and legumes can provide the necessary nutrients that the body needs such that one can actually cut down on the calories without experiencing hunger. Calorie restriction is a proven way to slow the aging process and maintain peak vitality. The goal should then be to consume nutrition dense food rather than calorie rich foods. Unfortunately, many people choose the latter. And when they continue to feel hungry, they continue to stuff themselves with the same junk, processed or packaged foods. But no amount of foods rich in energy but poor in nutrition will fulfill the body’s craving. Likewise, no amount of material stuff can fulfill our highest needs.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow put forth his theory of human motivation commonly known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the bottom of the pyramid are the physiological needs. At the apex is the need for self-actualization. In the developed world, despite having easily fulfilled our lower level needs, many don’t seem fulfilled. The reason is they are trying to satisfy their highest need with lower level stuff. The pursuit to keep up and beat the Joneses is deemed as the ultimate success. As such, they continue to play in the lower levels of the pyramid instead of recognizing that they have enough and transcending. As long as you are stuck in the mode that you have to have a bigger house, a faster car etc; you are never going to be fully satisfied . Just as your body’s needs cannot be satisfied with empty calories, your soul’s cravings cannot be satisfied by material stuff either. As Abraham Maslow said, “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.”

How to live in the Moment - from Raptitude

How to live in the moment
http://www.raptitude.com/2014/01/how-to-live-in-the-moment/



Excerpts. See full article here.

In my experience, if I actually look rather than just think about it, where I’m supposed to have a face I actually have nothing. It’s a clear space. Out in front of that nothing a little ways, there is a nose-blur and sometimes a hair-blur, and beyond that there is all sorts of interesting content which changes all the time — people, skies, computer screens, piles of snow, concerts, city lights, birds, throw rugs, music, food. But in every moment, no matter what the content, at the absolute nearest end is a great big nothing.

I am looking out of this nothing everywhere I go. On a plane. Across a diner booth from someone. From my pillow. While I’m doing a push up. Wherever I am, in every single moment of my life, no matter what I do, I am looking out of an empty space. 

If you don’t follow, point at where your face is supposed to be, where you’re looking from. In your actual experience — not what you think you should be experiencing — is your finger not aimed at an empty space?

You’re always looking out from this same empty space. Things happen in that space — walls, people, computer screens, sunsets, movies, books, your arms and legs — but it’s always just a space. It’s always open on your end.

This is a super helpful thing to notice, because it’s a way to return to present moment reality at any time. You look at something out there in the world, then you direct your attention back the other way along that same line, and see the space you are looking out of. Suddenly the world seems bare again, and you have the sensation of losing a huge weight, because have ceased investing everything out there in the world with its relationship to your story and your needs. You are empty for the world again.

...

Most importantly, the space is always here. It’s the only thing that’s always here. If you notice it, you’re here. Welcome back.
...

Ordinary things sometimes become strangely hilarious. I can’t describe the intrinsic hilarity of watching a spoonful of cereal come closer to your space until it goes blurry and disappears, then becomes replaced by an explosion of invisible taste, sound and tactile sensations. Then an empty spoon comes back into focus and your hand puts it back in the bowl. You swallow, which is another invisible but obvious set of sensations, and you want to do it again.

One-on-one communication becomes profound. You feel instant affection for the faces you do see. There seems to be nothing in the way of them. Rather than face-to-face, you experience these conversations as face to no-face, or face to space. Your space is a perfect place to put this visiting face. It’s much easier to understand what they’re getting at, because you’re no longer trying to keep track of how what they’re saying relates to your little third-person diorama of your life. Almost everyone is adorable when you’re face to space with them.

Perhaps the most profound insight from practicing this is that none of that diorama needs to be sorted out at all anyway. It’s an impossible mess of thought with no solution — most of it is just thoughts about future problems that might actually happen — and when you return to the present moment the whole thing seems like a foolish side project you were working on.

Any of those thoughts that represent real things will be dealt with in their own time, once they are actually real, right here in front of you in the space, because life simply doesn’t happen anywhere else. Life is much smaller and more intimate and more interesting than we ever thought.

How to Fuel the Internal Engine of Learning - Brainpickings

From Don't go back to school - How to Fuel the Internal Engine of Learning - brainpickings.com

Independent learning suggests ideas such as “self-taught,” or “autodidact.” These imply that independence means working solo. But that’s just not how it happens. People don’t learn in isolation. When I talk about independent learners, I don’t mean people learning alone. I’m talking about learning that happens independent of schools.

[…]

Anyone who really wants to learn without school has to find other people to learn with and from. That’s the open secret of learning outside of school. It’s a social act. Learning is something we do together.

Independent learners are interdependent learners.