Sunday, February 28, 2010

Intimacy and power

True interpersonal intimacy is not built by the wielding of power, but by the yielding of power.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Live or die for a cause

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."
-Wilhelm Stekel

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Pining for youth

Those who continually live in the days of their youth as the pinnacle of their existence have either closed doors of opportunity through their decisions or failed to open new ones revealing new adventures. Their clinging to the past is evidence of an unwillingness to cope with the rigor of life's greater challenges and discover the value of new opportunities for creating an abundant life. Those "halcyon years" of youth were never meant to last forever. Each phase of life has its own joys and its own sorrows. The innocence of youth is unburdened by the cares of experience, but the joys of perspective belong to the seasoned.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Life is a wave

A wave moves across space and time, transferring energy through physical media. Along its path it creates disturbance, bringing motion and activity to previously inert elements. Then it continues on its path and these elements come to a rest behind it. The wave does not permanently deposit its energy nor does it accumulate matter along its path.

Life moves as a wave. It passes through the generations, giving itself to common elements by immaculate organization and then setting them in motion. Each new being follows the pattern of its species while standing unique among unlimited possible versions. Babies come into the world in simple brilliance and undefined potential. They live their lives and grow to maturity, eventually bringing forth their own children. These parents nurture and steady their children as they grow older and assume distinct lives of their own. Eventually they become grandparents. They grow old and pass on. Their bodies return to the earth, empty of the energy which once animated their matter. And the living wave rolls forward. Those that die leave behind their posterity and the legacy of their lives.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

The Stages of an Idea

An idea begins as an inkling--as a hunch--and when it is pursued through questioning one begins to discover the length and limits of that hunch. In its inchoate stages, the idea is amorphous and weak and useless. If it withstands enough mental or empirical testing to demonstrate its applicability in a variety of contexts, then it moves from being a hunch to becoming a useful idea with borders and backbone. Continued testing of the idea will knock off its rough edges and perhaps force a shifting of its form. The greatest ideas are elegant and compelling. They are powerful in reshaping peoples' consciousness and perspective. The greatest ideas find ready application and wide applicability.

Monday, February 8, 2010

How long does it take to change yourself?

We often think that it takes a long time to change ourselves. That's not true. Change is instantaneous. It's not changing that takes so much time.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Children follow their parents' cues

How do children navigate the enormous confusion of a complex world? They follow the lead of their parents. What they choose to value, to pursue, and to conform to is heavily influenced by the opinions and attitudes of their parents, even if those views are only expressed through their behavior. Parental influence also shapes how children learn to categorize their surroundings and rank their preferences.  Parents with a strong desire to be accepted and validated by others will raise children who are more susceptible to peer pressure, whereas parents who focus on making decisions according to firmly held beliefs in principles will raise children with greater discipline and conviction. Parents who ignore the flood of media deceptions and actively choose to limit themselves to enriching media will raise children who discriminate in their own media choices. Your ability to break a negative pattern in your own life can bless your family for generations.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Your "way of being" matters

"Generally speaking, we respond to others' way of being toward us rather than to their behavior. Which is to say that [people] respond more to how we're regarding them than they do to our particular words or actions."
-The Anatomy of Peace

Monday, February 1, 2010

Do schools kill creativity?

A very funny TED talk on the diversity of intelligence and how to cultivate it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY