Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Life is soupy, mixed up, and tumultuous. Muddying the waters is precisely the point because it’s from such nutritious streams that life grows…

[KP: How would you start to answer this vast question of what it means to be human? Perhaps, how has that evolved how you might start to answer that question?]

What it is to be human is such a small thing…in this universe, right? Just try to be nice, be kind babies, be kind. As Vonnegut wrote. That’s the only guide. Try to be good and try to do the least harm and be kind. That’s the only human bit. But what it means to be more-than-human, that’s something else. That’s the bigger question, I think, for me is what it means to transcend that narrow frequency of being human in this time here to perhaps partake of something far greater, something more-than-human. That is actually the more deep or meaningful connection to everything around us…

Every time we train our most sophisticated tools upon the central questions of our existence – Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? – the answer comes back clearer: Everyone and Everywhere…

—  James Bridle, excerpts from “The Intelligence Singing All Around Us,” an interview with Krista Tippett. Onbeing, March 2, 2023.


Notes: Portrait: Quantum

Miracle? All of it.

HongBo-Drawing

Fashionable descriptions of the inevitable triumph of machine intelligence (over man) contain many critical biases and assumptions that could derail them from turning into reality. […]

Our brains use energy at a rate of about 20 watts. If you wanted to upload yourself intact into a machine using current computing technology, you’d need a power supply roughly the same as that generated by the Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric plant in China, the biggest in the world. To take our species, all 7.3 billion living minds, to machine form would require an energy flow of at least 140,000 petawatts. That’s about 800 times the total solar power hitting the top of Earth’s atmosphere. Clearly human transcendence might be a way off.

~ Caleb Scharf, Where Do Minds Belong

Find more at Steve Layman’s Blog: A Power Shortage. (Thank you Steve)

Notes:

  • Related Posts: Miracle? All of it.
  • Drawing: HongBo 洪波 (Chinese, Shanghai, China) – Untitled, 2011 – Drawings: Pastels. Source: Thank you Your Eyes Blaze Out
  • Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

4:00 AM. I don’t understand this.

psychology-insomnia-funny-truth


Read more: psych2go.me

A life lived well is never wasted

Marilynne-Robinson

Lori, LouAnn and Sandy Sue inspired me to read books written by Natalie Goldberg following my share last month.  So I dove into the Long Quiet Highway and came across this passage early in her book.

“Often when you take on the voice of a great writer, speak his or her words aloud, you are taking on the voice of inspiration, you are breathing their breath at the moment of their heightened feelings, that what all writers ultimately do is pass on their breath.”

I paused and reflected on the “great” writers that I have read.  Marilynne Robinson immediately came to mind.  She has the ability to transport me to another place and time – – writing with such grace, such beauty and such humanity.  She’s won literary “hardware” for her three major novels.

  • HousekeepingNominated for the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and winner of the Hemingway/PEN Award for first fiction novel.
  • GileadWinner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and winner of the National Book Circle Critics Award for Fiction.
  • HomeWinner of the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction award.

Soon after I read Goldberg’s thoughts on great writers, I came this excerpt from a Chicago Tribune article shared at Lit Verve  where the writer asks Robinson about Rev. John Ames, a congregational minister in Gilead, Iowa and the main character in her novel Gilead: [Read more…]

The Impostor Syndrome

“The thing about ‘impostors’ is they have unsustainably high standards for everything they do. The thinking here is, If I don’t know everything, then I know nothing. If it’s not absolutely perfect, it’s woefully deficient. If I’m not operating at the top of my game 24/7, then I’m incompetent.”

Read more about the Impostor Syndrome (and those afflicted by it including Maya Angelou, Meryl Streep and Tina Fey) in this post titled: Crushing the Impostor Syndrome @ CycloneLife.net.


Source: Crushing the Impostor Syndrome @ Cyclonelife.net via 99u.com.

Is that a path or a rut?

photograph,sand,dune,desert,path,solitude,

“What we don’t know chains us, leaves us sitting in the valley with a stupid smile. We discover our ignorance as we go. After a lifetime, if we’ve been attentive, we should fall to our knees before the vastness, the ungraspable minutiae of our world. We should suspect that it constitutes our God. And we so-called experts of this or that, could we have done more than play our one chord? Wisdom is to know, at best, that we make only a little good noise, a few small dents. It’s why the wise laugh a lot, why the laughter of metaphysicians echoes in the spaces they probe. We walk out of our houses into the enormity of our task. What kind of ant is that? Who named the phlox? Is that a path or a rut?”

 ~ Stephen Dunn, Ignorance – Riffs & Reciprocities


Stephen Dunn (born 1939) is an American poet. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2001 collection, Different Hours.  He was born in Forest Hills, Queens in New York. Dunn completed his B.A. in English at Hofstra University and his M.A. in creative writing at Syracuse. He has taught at Wichita State, University of Washington, Columbia University, University of Michigan and Princeton University.  Dunn lives in Ocean City New Jersey.


Sources: Quote – whiskeyriver.blogspot.com. Image: Jakupwashere

Weekend Roundup…(including The Denali Climb by 5 Wounded Warriors with 4 Good Legs Between Them…)

WEEKEND ROUNDUPHere’s some noteworthy leading, learning & living articles that I came across this week …

Forbes: Intelligence Is Overrated: What You Really Need To Succeed. “Albert Einstein’s was estimated at 160, Madonna’s is 140, and John F. Kennedy’s was only 119, but as it turns out, your IQ score pales in comparison with your EQ, MQ, and BQ scores when it comes to predicting your success and professional achievement.”

(((Note to Tom Hood: Thanks for sharing.  Thank goodness Intelligence research is moving in my direction. Smile )))


WSJ: Mom Was Right: Go Outside. “Children spend more than 4 hours a day with technology and there’s no longer time for nature…latest research – untamed landscapes have a restorative effect, calming our frazzled nerves…after a brief exposure to the outdoors, people are more creative, happier and better able to focus.” 

(((Note: And here I sit, inside, banging away on keyboard.  Hmmmmm.)))

[Read more…]

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