I can't sleep…
We get a little further from perfection,
each year on the road,
I guess that’s what they call character,
I guess that’s just the way it goes,
better to be dusty than polished,
like some store window mannequin,
why don’t you touch me where i’m rusty,
let me stain your hands.
– Ani DiFranco
Photograph: Eric Rose. Poem: Fables of the Reconstruction. Ani DiFranco Bio: Wiki
I think a lot about the contrast between banality and wonder. Between disengagement and radiant ecstacy. Between being unaffected by the hear and now and being absolutely ravished emotionally by it. And I think one of the problems for human beings is mental habits. One we create a comfort zone, we rarely step outside of that comfort zone. But the consequence of that is a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation. Overstimulation to the same kind of thing, the same stimuli, again and again and again, renders said stimuli invisible. Your brain has already mapped it in its own head and you know longer literarily have to be engaged in it. We have eyes yet see not. Ears that hear not. And hearts that neither feel nor understand. There is a great book called “The Wondering Brain” that says that one of ways that we elicit wonder is by scrambling the self temporarily so that the world can seep in. Henry Miller says that even grass when given proper attention becomes an infinitely magnificent world in itself. Darwin said attention if sudden and close graduates into surprise, and this into astonishment, and this into stupefied amazement. That’s what rapture is. That’s what illumination is. That’s what infinite comprehending awe that human beings love so much. And so how do we do that? How do we mess with our perceptual apparatus in order to have the kind of emotional and aesthetic experience from life that we render most meaningful. Because we all know that those moments are there. Those are those moments that would make the final cut. Only in these moments we experience a fresh, the hardly bearable, ecstasy of direct energy exploding on our nerve endings. This is the rhapsodic, ecstatic, bursting forth of awe that expands our perceptual parameters beyond our previous limits. And we literally have to reconfigure our mental models of the world in order to assimilate the beauty of that download. That is what it means to be inspired. The Greek root of the term means to breathe in. To take it in. We fit the Universe through our brains and it comes out in the form of nothing less than poetry. We have a responsibilities to awe.
~ Jason Silva
Source: SwissMiss
One year ago this weekend, I ventured out into the blogosphere. In this Happy Anniversary to Me Post, here’s a few of my observations and reflections over the past year:
STATS: 882 posts. 215,946 views. 14,202 comments. (Can these be real?)
INSANITY. Doing The Same Thing Over and Over and Expecting a Different Result. My “Tags” have reproduced like rabbits. 1,946 Tags. (WHAT. AM. I. DOING. HERE? I have Tag addiction. I tried to create a Page and they all wouldn’t fit. Tags have become the drawer that you keep stuffing the “really important stuff” that you’re going to need later – the drawer is now impossible to open and close. And I have no idea how to unwind this monstrosity.)
I Just Don’t Get It. My “Categories.” I have 11 categories. I mark most posts with many categories. (So, exactly how are you helping your followers find a post if they all have the same categories?)
NAGGING at me. Months ago, Joe C. had told me that I had my Blog Name (Lead.Learn.Live) backwards. He believed it should be re-ordered “Live.Learn.Lead.” (As each day passes, I think he’s right. Yet, I can’t do it. I can’t change it. I just can’t. NO. NO. NO.) Continue reading “1 Year. And Counting…”