Tag: Mindfulness
Concepts and Skills
Stephen Ambrose, in his new book describing the construction of the Transcontinental railroad, Nothing Like It In the World, suggests that trains were the primary vehicle for introducing the industrial revolution. He quotes an engineer who said, “where a mule can go, I can make a locomotive go.” The poetry of engineering requires both the imagination to conceive and the skills to execute. We use concepts to frame our imagination, we use skills to build Read More
Machines, Money, and Meaning
“And every sand becomes a Gem reflected in the beam divine” -William Blake In 1909, E. M. Forster published a series of short stories in his book The Eternal Moment. The first story is entitled “The Machine Stops.” This chilling masterpiece concerns the role of technology in our lives. Written over 100 years ago, when technology was in its infancy, it is more relevant today than it was then. With an uncanny prescience, Forster wrote about Read More
Timelessness and Transcendence
“This trip had dimension and tone. It was a thing whose boundaries seeped through itself and beyond into some time and space that was more than all the Gulf and more than all our lives.” -John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez We just returned from the Sea of Cortez on a trip with National Geographic to watch the whales migrate from the tip of Mexico to the Bering Strait. The beauty of Read More
Connect, Create, Collaborate
I recently attended a week-end workshop on Calm Clarity conducted by Due Quach (pronounced Zway Kwok), a Vietnamese boat refugee who grew up in a drug infested and gang ridden inner city and then went on to: graduate with honors at Harvard, complete a Masters Degree at Wharton, work for one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the country, scour Asia for the most enlightened spiritual sources, and create the Calm Clarity organization which Read More
Slow Dancing
Remember being back in high school and waiting for the slow dances to play so you could cuddle closely with your friend and enjoy the sweetness of the connection? And how sweet it was. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to create that magical moment without going back to the teenage angst that overwhelmed those tingling feelings? An ever-increasing percentage of people are finding that meditation is one way to capture that feeling of Read More
Serenity AND Intensity
There have been a plethora of articles on the independent health effects of meditation and vigorous exercise, but a dearth on the synergistic effects of combining them. In this post, I suggest that maximum effects can be obtained by bracketing or breaking up your day with an hour of intense physical exertion and an hour of complete serenity realized through deep contemplation or meditation. I am offering myself as an N of 1 for this Read More
Development or Deterioration
As I turn 70, I’m sure the first thought that crosses peoples’ minds when they meet me now is, “He’s old!!” Most people associate aging more with accelerated deterioration than continuing development. But I think there is no end point for development. Growth may take a different form or shape, but it doesn’t need to end.
Narratives
The power of belief is not necessarily related to the strength of evidence. People create different stories from the same set of facts, but the truth does not necessarily rest in the middle. In most cases, it rests wherever the science is, where the evidence is, where the facts are. That’s probably not in the middle. I wish we would quit having debates based on inferences, assumptions, beliefs, and stories and start having them on Read More
Positivity
In Shirzad Chamine’s book, Positive Intelligence, he refers to Sages, Saboteurs, and PQ, or positive intelligence. It’s a fascinating entreaty on the battle between our higher and lower selves and posits that PQ is the tipping force in winning the battle. It should be noted, though, that the ideas of Sage and Saboteur have been elucidated very substantively, in other terms, by others. Chamine suggests that a sage needs to empathize, explore, innovate, navigate, and Read More
Attitude
Randomness is. We can’t control the events that happen in life. We can find meaning in what’s not meant to be. There is not always a reason. External causes bombard us from multiple sources. We can only look inward for our own truth. External forces pull us out. There are always compelling reasons to get caught in the flow. We can only shift our attention inward. Internal forces keep us down. We can’t break free Read More