L1OR's Space!: Ponderisms

Discoveries & Application

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:53:38 GMT

Medical Discoveries: The way I see it, there are 2 main ways that new discoveries are made:

Accidentally: This is the case where you're ill with disease X and one day for some reason have one too many of food Y and discover you feel a lot better, and then think "Ooh - I wonder if food Y has something in it to help anyone with disease X" - and then test to see if the discovery applies when repeated, and try find what it is in food Y that helped.
Purposefully: Start with a hypothesis that food Y treats disease X because food Y has this and that component which works on this or that system in the body by known mechanisms - and then prove it

Is one method better than the other? Well it's a good idea to understand the concept/ hypothesis behind a discovery to allow you to moniter more safely what something does to the body. The problem with accidental discoveries is that sometimes it's hard to understand the logic behind how it works... and then you end up with things which seem to work based on a lot of anecdotal evidence (and maybe even some scientific evidence), yet despite years of research we still don't really understand how it works physiologically. The question is, should you use something that can potentially help even though no-one fully understands how it works? If it doesnt seem to do harm, then why not - but we don't know if it can do harm because we dont understand how it works! Seems a bit of a grey area to me.. I don't know what the right decision is.

Connecting....

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:30:50 GMT

Are there certain essential qualities needed in order to connect with someone on the deepest level?
Here's my 2 cents on what I think is required in order to truly connect deeply and truly (this applies to any sort of relationship I think, from family to friends to lovers):

Awareness and sensitivity to understand one another
True whole and mutual acceptance of each other. There may be judgement but there is acceptance no matter what the judgemenet is.
Some common basic life principles and values are essential to allow you to relate and to understand one another
Truth and honesty (leaving room for tact too though)
Being able to express your thoughts and feelings openly and compeltely without holding back (again leaving room for tact and appropriateness where applicable)
Love: The feeling that allows you to whole-heartedly care, be interested, be sympathetic, compassionate and loving.

Chemistry is...

Tue, 06 May 2008 22:41:07 GMT

When a person feels chemistry with another person, they're feeling an experience that is subjective to them. It's an energetic thing which may expess itself as tingling, heat or any other sensation particular to that individual. Everyone can feel it differently. And the exact factors (whether it be certain words, certain breathing, certain energy flows) that trigger these feelings remain outside conscious awareness. Most people are just aware of the end result - and so they call it the vague blanket term: chemistry.

According to pick-up artists though, that feeling of chemistry can be triggered if you just know how to set it off..... In fact, pick-up coaches insist that anyone can *make* a person feel chemistry if they use the right steps. And of course since everyone has different "right steps" the pick-up artist has to be an amazing reader of people to sense what their triggers are.. and then to use them to their own advantage.

If that's true, and all chemistry is, is a set of person-specific triggers, I guess when two non-coached people feel a chemistry, they feel it because they just happen to set off each others triggers without really thinking about it too much... maybe their triggers are similar making it easier to set each other off.

What friendships are all about....

Sat, 03 May 2008 23:40:46 GMT

Cue Garfield song:

Friends Are There
To Help You Get Started,

To Give You A Push On Your Way.
Friends Are There
To Turn You Around,
Get Your Feet On The Ground For A Brand New Day

They'll Pick You Up When You're Down

Help You Swallow Your Pride
When Something Inside's
Got To Break On Through To The Other Side

Friends Are Someone You Can Open Up To

When You Feel Like You're Ready To Flip

When You Got The World On Your Shoulders,

Friends Are There To Give You A Tip

Friends Are There When You Need Them,
They're Even There When You Don't

For A Walk In The Park, For A Shot In The Dark

Friends Are There.
[Garfield:] "I Don't Care"

But Friends Will Care
For You-u-u-u-u-u-u!

Or more seriously, here are some more ideas collected by Leil Lowndes about what possible qualities the best friendships are all about......

· Friends make our days more pleasant:
John Lubbock said, “A friend is like a sunny day spreading brightness all around.”

· Friends help you make sense of your thoughts:
“A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away,” says an Arabian proverb.

· Friends won’t judge you:
Mother Teresa believed “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

· Friends are there through conversation or silence:
Friends give the gift they give you is comfortable silence, the contentment to be with them when you don’t feel like talking.
“When the silences are no longer awkward, you know you are around friends” is a proverb.

· Friends are there even when they'd sometimes rather be somwhere else

· Friends motivate you and believe in you:
They help to keep you on track with your dreams when you falter, or believe in you when you’ve ceased to believe in yourself.
“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”

· Friends make life interesting by sharing otherwise never-heard of/ never-seen knowledge and experiences
Anaïs Nin wrote, “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

· Friends help us understand ourselves:
George Herbert’s expression, “The best mirror is an old friend.”

· Friends help you grow:
Henry Ford maintained, “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”

Seeking understanding...

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:10:59 GMT

Understanding how something works makes living with it easier, adds appreciation and enriches your experience of it as a whole.
Ignorance and lack of understanding promote fear, superstition, criticism and other potential negative emotions.

Confidence

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:54:24 GMT

It's interesting thinking about what makes someone confident... Sometimes outward appearances of confidence or of lack of confidence can be deceiving. Personally, I think that true confidence on the most honest and deep level is rare.

"Confidence is directly proportional to the degree you will experience a rewarding and fulfilling life"

Where does confidence come from?
Confidence comes from believing in yourself, and knowing that you are a worthy human being.
Confidence is being secure in your abilities and talents without having to rely on external praise and confirmations from others.
It allows you to feel at ease with youself, and as if by magic this makes people around you also feel at ease.

Deceptive appearances of confidence:

Competence: A person who seems to be good at something is not necessarily confident about their ability. On the flip-side, some people have confidence without competence which is also not ideal. It would be scary having a confident but incompetent surgeon operating on someone for example.
Cockiness/ Arrogance: A confident person need not proclaim how wonderful they are to the world because they are secure enough to know their self-worth without having the need to show off about it.
Bullying: If a person bullies people and tramples over them, it does not mean they are confident. True confidence generates positive feelings in others, not negative ones.

Is Fear the Root of all Negative Emotions?

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:32:25 GMT

Jealousy: We are afraid that we will lose the source of our love
Envy:       We are afraid we'll never be able to have something
Anger:     We're afraid that someone's ruined our chances of doing something
Greed:     We're afraid that there won't be enough of something to go around - afraid we'll be lacking
Self-pity: We're afraid we'll never be happy

If Fear is the root of so many negative emotions, by addressing Fear can we eliminate loads of negative emotions?

Soulmates: Jung's Synzgy

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:21:22 GMT

According to Carl Gustav Jung we are all composed of 4 main archetypes: The Shadow (deep and darker elements of our psyche), The Anima, The Animus (Male and Female aspects of the Soul) and the Self.

In combination, the anima and animus are known as syzygy, which represents wholeness and completion.
A perfect partnership between man and woman is when man and woman complete each other. Soulmates can occur when not only are our physical forms compatible but also the anima and animus.

Identity

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:27:45 GMT

I am the sum of my histories:
- I am composed of all the moments at all ages of my life
- I am a coathanger of a range of emotions for different people who I've come across throughout life

I am restricted to the era of history during which I live. Identity is situated in time.When we think of a historic figure we associated them with a period in time, where the other associations of that time give them context and meaning.

I am the product of my genes and my environment. This forms my constitution. Since I am in part the product of my environment, the concept of "I" is a continually changing concept, varying in response to external stimuli met in life.We cannot define ourselves because in defining the Self we are setting a limit for something that is in fact limitless, ever-changeable.The "I" is time- and context-dependent.

I am a separate entity from all Others. Without the Other it is harder to understand the Self. Part of who I am is only emergent when I interact with others.

I am part of many collectives: part of the living beings in the universe, on Earth, of the animal kingdom, of the phylym chordata, of the class mammalia, of the order Primates, of the family Hominidae, of the genus Homo, of the species sapeins... part of the human species, part of a gender, a country, a nation, a religion, an era in history, a culture, a society, a family, a class, a group of classmates, workmates, friends, hobbyists, specialists in a field.

I am composed of both my inner self and of the Self that is expressed to Others. Different aspects of the Self may be expressed to different people depending on how I feel towards them, and on how they feel towards me.

Who I am is expressed through my speech, my writing, my art, my music, my likes and dislikes.

Identity lives on in other people's minds and memories and in all records of that person (writings, art, music etc). There is a tendency for identies to be exaggerated after death such that people can become idealized legends or villians.

I am a physical being: The being I see in the mirror.

[Based on http://changingminds.org/explanations/identity/]

<See also Ponderisms: The Warp and Woof of What's important: Blog entry 17/3/08>

Multi-dimensional relationships

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:45:02 GMT

Every relationship is multi-dimensional....
   Data: There's the very basic data exchange dimension: data-in/ data-out dimension ie Talking
      Time & Space: There's the experiencing-the-moment dimension ie Just being together
         Emotions: There's the emotional dimension
            Contact: There's a physical dimension..
                Biochemical: There's a biochemical dimension eg pheromones
                   Spiritual: There may be a spiritual dimension

What makes something fun?

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:52:16 GMT

Continuing with the idea of "What's fun all about" in an earlier post I was thinking of what makes something fun. There's always the old argument that you only know what something fun is after experiencing what "definitely not fun" is... but maybe there's a better way to define it...

I did an internet search on it. Mostly sites on how to make computer games came up but I did manage to scrape together a few points....

Fun is a subjective concept but some things are more fun than others since they meet the "fun factor" requirement of more people. People must share some communal idea of what a good time is. At the risk of picking fun apart...you know something's fun when...

it is different from the norm in terms of creativity and innovation. This is also part of what makes it memorable
it provides an opportunity for collaboration and/or competition with others. Human interaction increases the enjoyment
it evokes positive emotions eg evokes feeling of pleasure, makes you smile/ laugh/ cheers you up/ makes you feel relaxed and at ease
you want to do it without being forced to.
it provides a feeling of freedom, and/ or enables you to express yourself in terms of doing something you want to do.
it is interesting - whole different topic on what makes something interesting...
it provides some kind of excitement eg rush of adrenaline
you want to tell your friends about it
it remains fun even after doing it a few times
it is rewarding, provides a sense of achievement and/or makes you feel successful in some way
it provides feeling of fulfillment
it provides a bit of food for the imagination, a bit of fantasy, and an opportunity for escapism

There was a word of warning I came across in my reading about when apparent fun is actually a not-so-fun soft addiction!
"Soft addictions are habits or compulsive behaviors like channel or net surfing, patrolling the mall, playing video games or being obsessed by celebrity gossip. They may give you the illusion that you're doing something restful, but in reality [they probably aren't exactly restful, and in addition probably aren't doing you much good]." [Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NAH/is_7_35/ai_n6116723/pg_2]

Some other answers off the internet on what makes someting fun.....:

If you have the right attitude then ANYTHING can be fun!!
Making something into a game (...)
Anything can be fun as long as you add alcohol (again with the alcohol?)
Anything as long as you do it naked... (hmm...)
Oh and this came up too: "I suppose that everyone will have an idea of what makes something fun but I think it was clear this past weekend that many, many people enjoyed the Oregon Cheese Festival" lol

I think a lot of factors contribute to making something fun... but could it be that some types of fun are better than others?
In my opinion, the best types of fun may be found in those fun things that energize or inspire us. It's amazing how energizing a good time or a hearty laugh can be!

Why Question the World around us?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:28:53 GMT

What good comes from questioning how the world around us works?

Here are a few things I've come up with:

By *understanding* how the world works, it gives you a deeper appreciation for it, and can enrich your experience of it. In a way it's almost a spiritual thing of connecting with the world around you. In Chinese philosophical thought maybe it would be considered as being "at one with the Tao" - being at one with nature.
By figuring out the secrets behind the mechanisms of how things work, you can maybe apply some of those things to create new things - inventions that you may not have thought of otherwise.

The Warp and Woof of What's important

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:24:53 GMT

What's important is:

- Not what you have eg money
- Not what or how much you do eg bad or good deeds
- Not what or how much you know eg having or not having a university education
- Not your physical appearance
- Not what others think

What's important is who you are.

If you depend on any of the above listed "Not"s, your happiness and positive feelings are dependent on external factors whereas if you are happy with who you really are, happiness comes from within.

Now the question is, if you're not defined by all the above "not"s... then what are you defined by?

<EDIT>
What defines who you are are 3 main things:
- Your inborn constitution: The personality you are born with, your nature
- The environmental experiences that occur throughout your life shape who you are, which includes your upbringing, your friends and family
- The interaction between your nature and how it was nurtured by your environment.

Could it really be this simple?

I don't know if something like "who you are" could ever be wholly and completely understood.

At least according to Traditional Chinese thinking we don't fully need to understand things like this because "Wisdom is embracing the unknown with trust and acknowledging the profound truth and tranquillity of the unknown." I dunno - I would quite like to think that there's an answer to everything if you just search/ think hard enough. We may not discover all knowledge in our life times but I think the answers probably are out there somewhere in the unknown, just waiting to be discovered.
<See Ponderisms 13/4/08 post Identity for more on this>

The Search for Meaning

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:47:53 GMT

In life, there is no ultimate goal that you can arrive at in order to reach and attain happiness/ success/ enlightenment. All you can do is enjoy the journey and appreciate that you are growing, improving and progressing in your own unique way towards your own unique goals.

Everyone's journey is different so no two lives can ever be comparable. Appreciate that your life is your own, take it in your hands and run with it because only you can change/ improve your life.

The Search for Meaning

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:08:20 GMT

We are explorers. Our purpose is to explore life and the world around us - To learn and coexist in harmony whilst exploring the ultimate questions and searching for meaning.

Living in Obscurity

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:22:42 GMT

Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever - Napoleon

I'd like to think we all leave some kind of mark on the world, even if we do live in obscurity. Glorious events and their impact on the world is one kind of mark you can leave behind but surely there are many others too...