The Spirit Of The Great Heart You Can Make A Difference
One Starfish At A Time
From the story The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley
"On a point of land, I found the star thrower...
I spoke once briefly. "I understand," I said.
"Call me another thrower." Only then I allowed myself to think,
He is not alone any longer.
After us, there will be others...
We were part of the rainbow...
Perhaps far outward on the rim of space
a genuine star was similarly seized and flung...
For a moment, we cast on an infinite beach together beside an unknown hurler of suns...
We had lost our way, I thought,
but we had kept, some of us,
the memory of the perfect circle of compassion from life to death and back to life again -
the completion of the rainbow of existence."
In our sheer preoccupation with technology,
we do not realize the inherent artistic choices when creating technology...
and the questioning and reflection
that the process of creating art implies.
-Tapan
Your life can be a work of art
You just have to notice and care...
Arete (Ancient Greek: ἀρετή), in its basic sense, means excellence of any kind. In its earliest appearance in Greek, this notion of excellence was ultimately bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function: the act of living up to one's full potential. Sometimes translated as "virtue," the word actually means something closer to "being the best you can be," or "reaching your highest human potential." Arete in ancient Greek culture was courage and strength in the face of adversity and it was to what all people aspired. Aristotle called contemplation of this a means to the highest human ability and happiness." (Wikipedia)
You Can Care More, But Can You Care Less?
The Heart is a Muscle
It Strengthens with Use
(I could care less vs I couldn't care less)
You can make a world of difference
as soon as you start to give a damn
You don't have to have a college degree to serve.
You don't have to make your subject & verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace.
"On a point of land, I found the star thrower... I spoke once briefly. "I understand," I said. "Call me another thrower." Only then I allowed myself to think, He is not alone any longer. After us, there will be others... We were part of the rainbow... Perhaps far outward on the rim of space a genuine star was similarly seized and flung... For a moment, we cast on an infinite beach together beside an unknown hurler of suns... We had lost our way, I thought, but we had kept, some of us, the memory of the perfect circle of compassion from life to death and back to life again - the completion of the rainbow of existence."
Why does the candy colored shell make a such difference to us? They're all the same chocolate on the inside. Right? I wonder about that.
What is the difference between intelligence and genius? We talk of musical genius, math genius, cooking genius, marketing genius, leadership genius. Are these different kinds of geniuses that we recognize yet all have the same intelligence on the inside? Can I take an accounting genius and teach him to play cello like a virtuoso? Even with the best training...Not so sure about that.
How did intelligence emerge in hominids? A big question in evolutionary anthropology. I started out long ago wondering how we can recognize or measure the level of intelligence and abstract thought particularly in Neanderthals compared with ourselves. By recognizing it in them and ourselves, hopefully there would be insights on its development. My hunch and the evidence I saw from my digs and research had always been that Neanderthals were getting a bum rap on intelligence. New evidence is now supports this view. (A post on Neaderthals is in the works.)
This information can in turn help us in finding and developing the hidden genius within all of us. It couldn't hurt... our education system and business culture is still in the 19th century and we are are in the 21st. We should know more about ourselves.
Of course, we have always turned to formal standardized testing and I.Q.s for this. I've done those tests and yes I did well but I always felt they were missing something vital. In my studies of human evolution I have of course researched our marvelous adaptation, the brain. We ignore qualitative differences because they are hard to measure. But that doesn't mean they don't exist!
Got a lot g, got a lot of success
I.Q. seems very inadequate to evaluate qualitative differences. Does success correlate with IQ only because those are exactly the attributes and qualities the society values and rewards? Are the tests and the testers "colorblind" because of that? Should all smarties, just to be honest, be brown?
My intuition suspects that Western traditional values, may be behind this narrow view of intelligence. It is certainly the orthodox view in Psychology. The consensus there claims there is a core of mental competencies, called g.
My question is, is g, a boxed-in definition that is blinkered to other varieties? Or tongue in cheek, let's say colorblind to that which is not defined by those values. By an arbitrary cognitive performance standard? I refer back to Einstein whose insight was to see that all humans have remarkable gifts. Not the lest of which is making sense of the world and being able to express it. What, then, is intelligence really? Is it the ability to experience and make use of the world? Couldn't that be done in more than one way? Have we even been (mis-)measuring what we think we're measuring? Several critics, such as Stephen Jay Gould, have been critical of g, seeing it as a statistical artifact, and that IQ tests instead measure a number of unrelated abilities.
What's so special about "smarties"?
Sir Ken Robinson on Education & Creativity
"Intellectuals solve problems,
Geniuses prevent them."
Albert Einstein
Intellect
Intelligence derives from the Latin verb intelligere which derives from inter-legere meaning to "pick out" or discern. A form of this verb, intellectus, became the medieval technical term for understanding, and a translation for the Greek philosophical term nous.
Homo sapiens Our species Homo sapiens
gets its name from the Greek,
combining form of homós one and the same;
akin to Sanskrit sama-; see same and
Sapiens (or Sapient)
"wise," from O.Fr. sapient, from L. sapientem (nom. sapiens), prp. of sapere "to taste, have taste, be wise," from PIE base *sep- "to taste, perceive" (cf. O.S. an-sebban "to perceive, remark," O.H.G. antseffen, O.E. sefa "mind, understanding, insight"). Sapience "wisdom, understanding" is recorded from c.1300 AD.
Wisdom Knowledge of what is true or right
coupled with just judgment as to action;
sagacity, discernment, or insight.
(dictionary.reference.com)
Our culture has placed a great deal of focus and energy on knowledge itself and intelligence.Yet, although our species is called wise... very little attention has been paid to wisdom.
What, then, are we talking about when we talk about intelligence? Let alone what it is when we are measuring it. Is the clinical definition too narrow. Is taking it beyond the traditional definitions broadening it too much? Is g really the chocolate? The only g in genius? It may be fun and enlightening to explore this.
Howard Gardener
Could there be a wide range of cognitive
abilities? With only very weak correlations between them? This is what Gardner's
theory suggests. For example, a child who has more difficulty learning to
multiply is not necessarily generally less intelligent than a child who has
more ease on this task.
The theory explains that the child taking
more time:
1) may best learn through a different approach, 2) may
excel in a field outside of mathematics 3) may be looking at an
understanding of the multiplication process at a fundamentally deeper level, or even as an entirely different process.
These differences in learning can be perceived as
"slowness" (As was said of Einstein). Yet a potentially greater mathematical genius may be hidden.
The child who quickly memorizes the multiplication table is a child who quickly
memories the multiplication table. This "bright" child may also have a less
detailed understanding of the process of multiplication.
To date, the theory has been met with mixed
responses. It probably deserves more attention.
There's How Many Kinds?
We have already
expanded the view of intelligence,
as seen by the now familiar list below:
Emotional Intelligence
Being aware of your own feelings and those of others, regulating these feelings in yourself and others, using emotions that are appropriate to the situation, self-motivation, and building relationships.
Moral Intelligence
Integrity, responsibility, sympathy and forgiveness.
Body Intelligence
Your body intelligence largely determines your feelings, thoughts, self-confidence, state of mind, and energy level.
I find that all of these, Emotional, Moral and Body Intelligence are all equally important. And more so, I think they are interrelated.
I also think perhaps we should value these, as well as other ways of knowing and start intelligently taking them more into account.
"If I had never dropped out, I would have
never dropped in on this calligraphy class,
and personal computers might not
have
the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to
connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.
But it was very, very
clear
looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can’t connect the dots
looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to
trust that the dots
will somehow connect in your future.
You have to trust in
something --
your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
This approach has never
let me down,
and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Steve Jobs
Creativity & Innovation
Is it worth the risk and waste?
Have we been misjudging
millions of people?
The same way we have misjudged the introverts?
Those who are
not the traditional "type A" extroverts but who are nonetheless
powerhouses of great and wise leadership?
This ancient wall painting (c. 1994-1781 B.C) appears to depict jugglers.
It was found in the 15th tomb of the Karyssa I area, Egypt.
According to Dr. Bianchi, associate curator of the Brooklyn Museum
"In tomb 15, the prince is looking on to things he enjoyed in life
that he wishes to take to the next world.
The fact that jugglers are represented in a tomb suggests religious significance." ...
"round things were used to represent large solar objects, birth, and death."
(Wikipedia)
The 30 Second Speech
by Bryan Dyson Former CEO of Coca Cola
"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. They are Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you're keeping all of these in the air.
You will soon understand that Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls Family, Health, Friends and Spirit are made of glass.
If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered.
They will never be the same.
You must understand that and strive for it."
Value has a Value only if its Value is Valued
Successful Juggling is All About Timing A flowing, relaxed, AWARENESS Keep your eye on the ball.
"Being completely in the flow of the moment and knowing which priority must have your focus. Then reflexively responding and being there.". Peter Shimon
There have been many Lonesome Georges in natural history. Extinction has always been a part of life on Earth. Right now, there are others still hanging on, soon to be gone. Perhaps today, or rather its more like...What time is?
We pay attention to this particular death because of its fame. It gets its fame from 2 things. 1) Although his sub-species was thought extinct, George was found in 1972. He is believed to be the last of his kind. 2) The Galapagos Tortoises were one of the kinds of animals that apparently inspired Charles Darwin's thoughts on his theory during his HMS Beagle voyage.
That's why its news. So we know about and can feel loss at Lonesome George's passing. But we are displacing (a gentle way of saying driving to oblivion) many species everyday. Both by direct and indirect actions. For example, the global warming we contribute to is just one human cause. Population and consumption being others. We crowd out, hunt down and do much more to many other species.
And none of this is going to stop anytime soon, by the way.
Lonesome George Dies
June 25 2012
RIP Lonesome George
The Last Pinta Island Giant Tortoise
George hatched ~ 50 years after the publication of
On the Origins of Species. His sub-species is no more.
End of the line for this branch on the tree of life.
Perhaps the last video of George June 6 2012
What Darwin and natural history have shown us is that all individuals and eventually species, die. George's remains will undergo an autopsy to look for the cause of death. You see George died young. 100 years young. His kind has a life expectancy of 200 years. So his life was, in this sense, cut in half. What I find particularly sad is the unspoken realization that despite our good intentions, in one way or another we were likely responsible for his death. I think we should accept that. But we can also learn a lesson from his passing into history.
Although there are still other sub-species of giant tortoise. The extinction of this one stands out as a reminder of Darwin's Theory. The world and life on it are an ecological system and inter-connected. The rate of extinctions and loss of bio-diversity in the world are ecological pressures against our own survival. If we wish to stick around in long run, we will have to manage ourselves taking that into account and acting accordingly. Not to do so would court our own extinction sooner rather than later. Let me point one thing out . While there are many of us as individuals... (on what was once a many species limb of our evolutionary family tree) we are today, the very youngest but last and only existing species of Hominids. In evolutionary terms... That's dicey. What it means is, if anything happens to us...That's it. It's the end of our line. Insert Porky Pig voice here: That's all folks.
Perhaps due to their long life span tortoises have traditionally been associated with wisdom. The mystery for us to solve is if we merit our taxonomic classification as the "sapiens" ones.
