Inaugural Week, 2013 ~ How we are living up to the mythology of America’s Founding Fathers
25 Jan2013
Inaugural guest posting for the inaugural presidential week!
Many thanks to contributor Scott Young for prompting: What standard has American history set for our personal & national narrative? Do we realize our responsibility to either of these narratives, and if so… are we actually participating? Mr. Young’s topical interests include media, pop culture, and technology in society. This is his first blog contribution. Read the rest of this entry »
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Edu-Hackers independently source knowledge. Blogger Scott H. Young recently completed his MIT Challenge: A blogging project to finish the MIT computer science undergraduate curriculum in under a year for less than $2000, via MIT’s open courseware platform. Scott H. Young represents an evolution of rebel whose mode of subversion is in undermining institutional learning, enabled by those institutions’ provisions of free, digitalized course content. Read the rest of this entry »
- In: Lifestyle|Media & the Arts
- Tags: edu-hacking, feminism
Edu-Hacking is the term for the unconventional sourcing of education. We are living in a post-digital era where hacking conventional norms now spurns social and creative innovation. Smartphone technology revolutionized personal productivity & socializing. Middle Eastern political revolutions are being underpinned by RSS. Digital literacy is a newly essential resource for acquiring more education & improving personal quality of life–for the boon of a higher American collective intelligence, at a fraction of the inflating cost. Read the rest of this entry »
- In: Lifestyle
- Tags: DIY, edu-hacking
Dreams & Self-Cultivation: How your psyche would be the nuts if consciousness were a Snickers bar.
8 Sep2012
I recently stumbled upon an article about scientific dream interpretation that asserts a fascinating argument: Can dreams play an important role in self-cultivation?
In this article’s final analysis: Yes. Read the rest of this entry »
- In: Lifestyle|Self-Cultivation
- Tags: dreams, personality, wisdom
“Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?”
Socrates, addressing Athenians during his defense in The Apology
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty and find the best in others; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived–this is to have succeeded.
“Success,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
- In: To Foster Wisdom
Snuggie down for a good story. Brilliant storyteller, Isabel Allende, heralding women who lead passionate lives:
This is the service of good stories. Good stories remind us that our lives are amidst their own unfolding. According to recent McKinsey research, Millennial women professionals are burning out by age 30. We’re tirelessly thrashing against that ceiling, but at a high personal cost. You don’t become a good story if you’re sacrificing all dispensable energy to your employment. Let your life unfurl into the meaningful tale you are worth leading. Martha Beck provides a unique 3-part assessment process for recovering your passion.
#3, assessing Fear, introduces the soft-hearted, hard-assed approach to passion. Fear is unconquerable. We’re married to it; it’ll accompany us all through life. Passion, however, compels us to form realistic relationships with our fear. Fussing over relationships is a particularly feminine attribute; by nurturing this particular relationship, you’re dispensing the kind of feminine energy Allende proposes will change the world for the better. So fuss over fear. Invite it to your cosplay parties and girls’ night potlucks. Just be different. Save yourself. Be passionate.
“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” –Nelson Mandela
- In: Media & the Arts|To Foster Wisdom
- Tags: feminism, passion
On Facebook, more than being updated about my BFFs or fav relatives, I’m updated about strangers I shared a work shift once. I’m updated about obligatorily-friended extended family on their political views that make me dislike them as fellow citizens. I’m updated about people that, since we met at that party/restaurant/car accident, I only know exclusively via social media. I feel smothered in the traces of by-gone acquaintances. Read the rest of this entry »
- In: Productivity
- Tags: relationships, social media
2012 cinema has dealt a makeover to heroines. “Brave” is the first Disney pseudo-fairy-tale featuring a mother-daughter relationship, where the mom is not dead or evil or a prop. And there is no love interest. “Brave” differs from other girl power! Disney films like “Mulan” in that the central character’s motivation is not to defy a father’s expectations of her as a woman; Merida is defying her mother. Read the rest of this entry »
- In: Media & the Arts
- Tags: feminism, film
“Truth is Boundless” ~ Punk rock & Zen testimony by former Zero Defex bassist/Zen Master, Brad Warner
16 Jun2012
To “know” that what you believe is absolutely 100 percent now-and-forever utterly and completely True is the sickest, most vile, and most foul perversion of everything worthwhile in humanity, of all that is right in the world. Truth can never be found in mere belief. Belief is restricted. Truth is boundless.
Truth doesn’t screw around, and truth doesn’t care about your opinions. It doesn’t care if you believe in it, deny it, or ignore it. It couldn’t care less what religion you are, what country you’re from, what color your skin is, what or who you’ve got between your legs, or how much you’ve got invested in Mutual Funds. None of the trivial junk that concerns most people most of the time matters one teensy-weensy bit to the truth.
Oh, and one other thing: The truth is not open to negotiation–not by you, not by me, and not by the Leader of the Free World or the Moral Majority. The truth simply is.
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth About Reality, Brad Warner
A short extrapolation on the link between Zen Buddhism and punk rock, delivered by Brad Warner:
- In: Self-Cultivation|To Foster Wisdom
- Tags: punk rock, Zen
Fuck those drones that insist the way of the world requires you to relinquish the hours between 9 and 5, as well as swap the intensity of democratic freedom for DISHnet. While others submit themselves to listlessly drifting through the vacuums of their forfeited lives, you struggle for pure existence. Sometimes it feels as if all you’re doing is hauling the water for someone else, without any left over to dilute your apple juice. Read the rest of this entry »
- In: Self-Cultivation
- Tags: existential, pragmatism