Quote of the day

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
(Albert Einstein)

We use our smartphone as a shield, as a distraction and as a obsession, being simultaneous our remedy for solitude (but we are being socially active without going out from the house), as a distraction from the current problems and difficulties (at least we are not overcompensating through eating) or as an obsession in our race for more dopamine based rewards (see the latest high addictive games, able to create in our brain a reaction similar with heroin). What can we do?

One day per week without mobile.

Mindfulness walk - wall slowly paying attention to all our 5 senses, internally and externally. We will look around, feel the wind on the skin, smell, taste, but we will also be aware of our internal sensations, our emotions, our state of mind.

Touch, hug, make love, try to find all those rewarding feeling through some oxytocin based neuronal path instead of dopamine based ones.

Good luck,
G.

Quote of the day

Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet, as flour goes into the making of bread.
(Pablo Neruda)

I know this. I know this from long time ago. And even more. Poetry brings a smile for everyone who is listening. May be the rhythm, or just the words harmonically coming up together, i will never know. But what i know best is how to translate my feelings into poetry. I will do this, again and again, until i will live in the world that i would like to live. Ideals becoming reality, this is the dream i dreamed tonight.

Sweet dreams!
G.

The theory of giving - The feeling behind it.

I know what I have given you... I do not know what you have received.
(Antonio Porchia)

And a touching video about giving back to the one who give. Enjoy it!

Quote of the day

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.

- Wendell Berry -

How often do you smile? Do you remember when and why did you smiled last time? We cultivate this whole culture of seriousness, forgetting that in Far East, for example, it is a culture of joy and smiling. Are those people happier and living longer than us? Of course. This could be the reason, or not. But, as someone says, angels are hiding behind out smile. And measuring physiological responses shown us that smiling make us healthier, physically and emotionally. Start smiling then, and say your favourite joke today to some friends, in order to bring a smile. You have nothing to lose.

Quote of the day

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

- Anne Frank -

They say that being happy enable us to see the beauty around us. But the reverse mechanism is also true. By trying and succeeding to see the beauty around us, we can also raise our happiness level. Think about a time when you have seen a butterfly with marvelous colors, or the full moon through the trees. It was beautiful, isn't' it? Think about the smile of some  very young member of your family, as a toddler. First walk hand-to-hand with the loved one. First kiss. Was that pure beauty or pure happiness? Can you differentiate between them? Bring all these memories to your mind. What is your state of mind now? How do you feel your emotions? If only thinking about it made all these changes, what will happen when you will do it for real?

Have a pleasant and lazy afternoon!

G.

Quote of the day

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

- Albert Einstein -

Is this true enough for you? When was the last time when you were truly, deeply in awe? Why are we trying desperately to become the perfect little robots that will know only to work, eat, sleep and satisfy our primal needs, i would not understand. There is much more in life than this. And yes, we can be free, we can live the life that we design for us. Yes, this is the trick. You are living the life that you designed for you. Ah, you did not designed yet? Then why you complain? There is much more in life than fulfilling your basic need. Start working. Make a plan. And stop often to check the sky,and see how the clouds are travelling from one point to another. It is the wind that is doing all the work for them? Tell me?

Quote of the day

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we merely borrow it from our children.
(Native American proverb)

This is one way to see the things. And a good way, because even as we speak, one entire animal species will disappear, and we will never see it again. This will be only a myth, a mystical creature that once existed, for our children. Think about it. What can you do to change this? Find your own ways to help your planet. Because every little help matters.

Question of the day

Presuming money are not a problem, what would you do right now?

Quote of the day

The task of healing is to respect oneself as a creature, no more and no less.

- Wendell Berry -

This reminds me of an old story, when someone asked Raphael, the archangel of health and healing, about the secrets of the eternal life. The angel said:
"When you need to sleep, sleep as much as is deemed necessary. When you need to eat, listen to your inner voice, and eat only as much as is needed. When you need to move or walk or work, do all this, but only for as much as you feel right about it. Do all these actions every day, and your life will be a long happy one. You body already knows what is needed, all that you must do is to listen, to really listen. "

Quote of the day

One single gift acknowledged in gratefulness has the power to dissolve the ties of our alienation.

- Brother David Steindl-Rast -

Most of the people find great pleasure in giving, if they deem someone worthy, but they find hard to accept a gift. It is ironic and almost comical to see grown ups trying to refuse a gift. How can someone enjoy giving, if they do not also enjoy accepting a gift. I do not even remember who said to me when i was little, but i was told this: "Always accept a gift genuinely offered, because if you refuse it now, maybe next time when you will really need it, nobody will be there willing to give it." Remember these words, they are so true.

And a gift for you here.

Quote of the day

"The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul."

- Alfred Austin -

We are not use to do effort, to connect with the earth. Remember when was last time when you walked barefoot? Some of us did that last time as children. We almost forget that feeling of happiness and plenitude of walking barefoot, of being with our hands in the dirt, feeling the heat or the coolness of the earth. The fulfillment of eating something that you grow, with your own powers. Think about, it is an experience worth trying. Good luck.

G.

What happen if you live the life you want to live?

What if? How often did you ask yourself this little question? If it is at least once a day, it is one too many times. Here is a vibrant example of what happen if you choose to follow your passion and live the life you want.

Click here for video.

Quote of the day

"I think that music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music."
(Billy Joel)

Think about this next time when life feels empty and bleak, when everything around you is grey and you find no reason to continue to hope. Find one song that you really like, and dance like no one is seeing you. That's it. Just dance.

Pokemon go? No!

As I study the happiness and the delicate mechanisms behind the hedonic adaptation, I did a very interesting field study on the release of the new virtual augmented reality game Pokemon Go!. I will start with that classic story of first release of internet on the plane, in Seventies. The story say that when this was first time presented to the passengers, they were amazed, ecstatic even. Internet on the plane, during flight, imagine that. Many of them did not have internet at home, and the mobile connected phones were yet to be invented. But sometimes in the middle of the flight the connection will drop, and everybody become angry and frustrated. That is just how much a miracle will last.

Now back to our pokemons. The goal of every game we play is to bring us some kind of satisfaction, to improve gradually or to compete with others. Pokemon Go! is bringing all this at once, through the capture of your own pokemons, and competing for the gym, to get more gold coins, basically. They will make money through the general public tendency of impatience, the modern culture of "I want it now", although seems that you can get everything for free if you want to walk enough. The innovation is that people need to physically walk to get the eggs open, and to find new pokemons to capture for your Pokedex. At the moment connection is difficult, if not impossible, as the people told me that they tried to login and couldn't for 90% of the time in the last 3 days. They like the game, that is becoming a global phenomenon, but the problem is that at the moment everybody is frustrated because they cannot play. It is only a fine line between being a craze and being the biggest failure of all time as the potential is practically unlimited, starting to influencing even the economy and marketing of the small or bigger businesses. The tipping point is here, and they need to get together, fixing the major bugs (the screen is freezing faster then Elsa's room in Frozen) and building a sustainable server or they will lose all.

We will see what happen.

Alzheimer - solved. Cancer - next?

Seems that we got some good news from Australia. They restored memory to 75% of the mice tested, with no damage whatsoever on the surrounding brain tissue. Testing on humans will probably start at the end of 2017.

The whole article here.

Quote of the day

"Our task must be to free ourselves, by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature, and its beauty. "
(Albert Einstein)

Why? Because based of Bolivian Law of Mother Earth, signed in 2010, all entities in nature have equal right with humans. What about that? Until we will reach same deepness, all the protests, Greenpeace and animal right protection are just some words for some of us. We are all equals and we all have the same right to live here on Earth. What can be more humble than that? Just think about.

Dialogue

Why do you still try?
I try because i believe in the morphogenetic theory of Rupert Sheldrake, I try because i still care, I try because i learnt about the tipping point, and maybe I am the 100th monkey, maybe I will be the one to tip the point in the right direction. That is my reason.
OK, but now, on the serious note, what it is your next goal?
To change the world, to make it a better place.
Do you think you gonna do it?
I can always try. As Buddha said, if I will help one single person in my whole life, then i did not live for nothing. Judging from the thank you messages and notes I get every week, I think I am going in the right direction. The one direction. And I feel blessed, man, I feel full of gratitude when I can see where I am and where I could be. So many things could have been wrong at the time, but they didn't. I am Here and Now, and I like it.
Any last word?
Follow the voice of your heart. It is only a whisper, it was so long from the last time you listen it. But you can do that now. Follow the voice of your heart, and live a happy life. I know you can do it.

Quote of the day

"If a man going down into a river, swollen and swiftly flowing, is carried away by the current -- how can he help others across?"

( Buddha )

Probably this was the inspiration for the most famous quote of Mahatma Gandhi - If you want to change the world, you need first to change yourself, or the other version - Be the change that you want in the world. Nevertheless, the idea is that, until you are prepared, your efforts to make a change in the external world could lead to extra time and extra energy spent by you, with average results. Even if failing is better than not trying, i bet that all of us want to succeed, right?

See you tomorrow!
G.

Hurricane

In a whirlwind of thoughts,
I look for the door
to the Wonderland kingdom.
I cannot go through the looking glass,
as i am a bit overweight,
i carry on my shoulders
the heaviness of an entire generation.
Let's meet there
where the Silence is golden,
and the Sun is not a star,
but a start
for the Journey to myself.

Technology, attention span and the real worlds

Motto: Technology challenges us to assert our human values, which means that first of all, we have to figure out what they are. (Sherry Turkle)

Look at this picture. Can you see something familiar? Do you see this too often? Why? What do you think it is the solution?

We got hooked, we got a whole life and expectancies inside that little screen. And in doing this, we forget to look around us, to see that majestic tree, that bunny shaped cloud, the rainbow behind the neighbor house. 

And we don't have time. We never have enough time, spare time is an urban myth, it is a legend similar to Excalibur, the sword from the stone. Just for you to know, right now, year 2016, the human attention span is 8 seconds (down from average 60 seconds 30 years ago). The goldfish has a 9 seconds attention span. That's telling us something, right? Everybody complain, but nobody want to learn that looking at the screen will change the way that we perceive the world, and speaking about something else, did you know that being in awe for one minute will modify your time perception, making you to feel that you have enough time for the next 24 hours? You see, i am good enough to give you the solution too. Now it is your turn. Go out, put everything in action. 

And thank me later for it.

Yours truly,

G.

Quote of the day

"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy."

( Thich Nhat Hanh )

You can change your perception changing your physiology, in a heartbeat, if it is needed. And the results can change your state of mind, but also your state of mind can change your result. In the end, we talk only about having enough practice and experience, because we need to be pro-active in order to have a happy life.

Good night!
G.

Quote of the day

And God said "Love your enemy", and I obeyed him and loved myself.
(K. Gibran)

Why this? Because very often we are the ones that can build our own heaven or hell, right here, right now. We are the masters of our own life, and it is better to design a life that we would like to live, and live it, than to believe that we are out of control, spiraling downwards from birth to death. As my favorite writer said, the optimist believe that he is living in the best of all the possible worlds, the pessimist knows that there is no better world out there. But we can change our life in a heartbeat. We can leave all the nonsense, all the pain and all the rumination, and we can live plenary, happy and fulfilled. I know it is possible. But this will not come to you, you need to take yourself there. To go to your highest peak, in order to see the panoramic view. Our life goal is to be happy. No, even more, it is our duty to ourselves to be happy. Even if we need to work for that.

Quote of the day

"Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar."
(Bradley Miller)


It was once a world where everybody else started to withdraw within themselves, to not pay attention to the outside and to burrow deeply into the smartphone screen, the endless TV shows, the magical internet. They started to forget to tell to their parents or to their children that they are loved, they stopped eating together in the evening, they become tired, clueless and frustrated. They complained about how hard is life, how they want to find love and to live happily ever after, but this is not possible anymore. They ask their experts what to do, and their experts said they do not know. Meanwhile, in one of the hundred houses of the big city, one child was teached how to take care of his hamster. He started with a cactus, watered every two days. And he look at his parents with bright open eyes, when they said that a dog will be the next friend to come, given that he will take care of his hamster for one year. This little man will be the savior of the Earth. When did you start to teach kindness to your child?

Quote of the day

"To write a poem you have to open yourself to the universe before something starts to come."
(John Tarrant)

In order to express something bigger than yourself, something that cannot be put in words, or notes, or painted, you need to become a channel. You need to accord your soul to the music of the spheres, to hear the unseen symphonies, to see the unheard sunset, and to mix them together into the molded miracle that is you. To become the spring of the eternal youth, the one that will not belong to the physical world. Only than you can call yourself an artist. Only than you will be alive.

My poem for you, for today is called:

O

ou
vieux
plus
root.

Let it sink in, and enjoy a beautiful afternoon.
G.

Quote of the day

"It can hurt to go through life with your heart open, but not as much as it does to go through life with your heart closed. "
(Jim Doty)

Why this, now? Because slowly we are becoming close to the mythical automata, the machine than can do the task that was made for, over and over, but nothing else except this. Think about your yesterday. Or even better, take a pen and paper and write what you do every hour. Use your alarm hourly if needed. Just write, and after three days, divide everything and give percentage to every bunch of activities. Must be something like

Sleep -40%
Eating - 12%
Cooking - 8%
Going to work 9%
Work - 33%

Wait, what? I am already at 102%. Yes, it was a joke, but you can see that often we got no time left for ourselves. To grow up as a person. We become grey, eternally stuck between light and darkness. And we choose to not follow our emotions, our feeling of joy and happiness. We become frustrated, close within ourselves. What we shall do? What is the magic trick? Mindfulness is one solution. Being kind is the second, expressing compassion and helping the others. We need to let ourselves to live, to enjoy our life, this is a must. This is our number one priority. It is our duty to search and find happiness. What are you waiting? Go, start your journey and change yourself. Change the world. The time is now!

G.

Quote of the day

"Justice is Truth in action."
(Benjamin Disraeli)

Let's talk a bit about the Navajo notion of justice. Their word for "law" is beehaz-aanii. It means source of healthy meaningful life. It is their equivalent to the Sanskrit sahrdaya  सहृदय. It is what we sometimes call Soul, the real me, the spark from God's Fire. The Navajo goal is restorative justice, because where there is hurt, healing must come. But not ordinary healing, this must come from the deepest corner of our heart, must be light in action. Different than what we know about justice, isn't it?

Quote of the day

"Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better."
(Albert Einstein)

Is that true? Is the nature the ultimate teacher? Think about it and tell me. You can also watch this before answer.

See you later!
G.

Quote of the day

"Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth. "

Swami Vivekananda

No comments.

Facts of life

My girlfriend accused me of being immature. I told her right away to get out of my tree house.

Quote of the day

Today i will speak about alchemy of the heart. Seems such a pugnacious and belligerent subject for some of us, but first let me to introduce to you our quote for today:

"In art, sublimation refers to the psychological processes of transformation, in which base and unimpressive experiences are converted into something noble and fine - exactly what may happen when sorrow meets art."
(Alain de Botton)

What we have here is one of the key to alchemize and enhance our life, to change our negative responses and feeling to something greater, to translate everything into the awe of the superior living. It is as easy as that, all we need to travel into the deepness of our soul is art, and we can use any feeling as fuel for this kind of travel, changing in is something grater than us. Because it is nothing wrong if we experience passion and feel more than others, as we know. As Elie Wiesel said, the opposite of love is not hate, is indifference. Feeling is good, as any kind of feeling can be the fuel to support the journey to our core, to our true heart.

That's it for today, enjoy the sunshine!
G.

Elie Wiesel and the Nobel prize

Speaking about multiculturalism, the Romanian-born Jewish writer and American citizen Elie Wiesel just died few days ago. But his words will live forever, even more now than 30 years ago when he was awarded the Nobel Prize. I will just share with you some of my favorite quotes, and I will let them to squirrel their ways to  your heart.

"No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them."

"We must always take sides. Neutrality help the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. "

"As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. Al long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know they are not alone, that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs."

Such a beautiful way of expressing all this, in a way that we understand and that we can use to boost our compassion and our kindness. Be safe in your heaven, Elie Wiesel!

About colour of your skin and racism

I find a very interesting Ted Talk about this. Inspiring, will make us to reconsider our previous beliefs, and can lead to a real change in the world. Watch it here.

The website she is talking about is this one.

Enjoy it!

Quote of the day

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what make you come alive, and go do that, because what the world need is people who have come alive."
(Howard Thurman)

What a wonderful though, and what a great advice for the future generation. If you are one of the dreamers who want to change the world, think about what this great man said. And go and learn how to live your live and be happy. Because if you are plenary living, you can impact much more that some feeble effort to do this forcefully.

See you soon my friends.
G.