Be yourself

Be yourself.

Everybody else is taken.

Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover

48-year-old Stuns TV Audience

Her only singing experience was in a church choir and before her television performance on Britain’s Got Talent, the 48-year old housewife admitted that she’d “never had a boyfriend” and “never been kissed”. The audience and judges laughed at her. But Susan Boyle soon turned that laughter into tears, singing a stunning rendition of ‘I Dream A Dream’ from Les Miserables and earning a standing ovation. Now she’s a YouTube sensation with 16 million-plus viewers.

Watch the video here

Going to the woods…

 

Here’s a great quote from Thoreau’s “Walden”, written in 1854.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it…” “…The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

– Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862), American writer & philosopher  

Call of the WILD…

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

— Jack London, American Author

Facebook deteriorates moral values?

Fascinating research has just been released by the University of Southern California, in USA’s National Academy of Sciences journal.

 

Today’s fast-paced media could be making us indifferent to human suffering and should allow time for us to reflect, according to researchers. They found that emotions linked to moral sense are slow to respond to news and events and have failed to keep up with the modern world.

In the time it takes to fully reflect on a story of anguish and suffering, the news bulletin has already moved on or the next Twitter update is already being read.

 

As activities such as reading books and meeting friends, where people can define their morals, are taken over by news snippets and fast-moving social networking, the problem could become widespread, researchers warn. Children could be particularly vulnerable because their brains are still developing. “If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states and that would have implications for your morality,” said Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, from the University of Southern California, and one of the researchers. Their work, published next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition, involved studying the response of volunteers to real-life stories to induce admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain.

 

Using brain imaging, they found that humans can sort information very quickly and respond in fractions of a second to signs of physical pain in others, but admiration and compassion – two of the social emotions that define humanity – take much longer. The volunteers needed six to eight seconds to fully respond to stories of virtue or social pain, but once awakened, the responses lasted far longer than the volunteers’ reactions to stories focused on physical pain.

 

Ms Immordino-Yang said: “For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people’s social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and reflection.” She also said that the study raises questions about the emotional cost – particularly for the developing brain – of heavy reliance on a rapid stream of news snippets obtained through television, online feeds or social networks such as Twitter. Digital media may direct users away from traditional avenues for learning about humanity such as literature or face-to-face social interactions, said Ms Immordino-Yang. She added: “We need to understand how social experience shapes interactions between the body and mind, to produce citizens with a strong moral compass.”

 

Manuel Castells, a leading sociology expert at USC said: “The study has extraordinary implications for the human perception of events in a digital communication environment.

“Lasting compassion in relationship to psychological suffering requires a level of persistent, emotional attention.” He said he was most concerned about fast-moving TV or virtual games, adding: “In a media culture in which violence and suffering becomes an endless show, be it in fiction or in infotainment, indifference to the vision of human suffering gradually sets in.”

Antonio Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, who led the research said: “What I’m more worried about is what is happening in the abrupt juxtapositions that you find, for example, in the news.

“When it comes to emotion, because these systems are inherently slow, perhaps all we can say is, not so fast.” He said the research was vital because admiration, “gives us a yardstick for what to reward in a culture, and for what to look for and try to inspire”.

 

Mr Damasio said that Barack Obama, who was inspired by his father, showed how admiration could drive a person onto great things, adding: “We actually separate the good from the bad in great part thanks to the feeling of admiration. It’s a deep physiological reaction that’s very important to define our humanity.”