Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

There are lots of obvious challenges currently confronting the nation.  Each demands and deserves significant attention and creative thinking to resolve.  Yet, what if I told you there was one solution that would fix all of the problems facing us and it’s within your power to do something about it?

Curious? Intrigued?

Well, first, a little background.

Over the past 50 years, the technological explosion has outpaced our social and spiritual development.  As a result, our application of the technology can be likened to a 12-year-old who is given the keys to the family car.  While he or she may know how to put the key into the ignition, press on the accelerator and turn the wheel… what is intended to be a means of transportation turns into a deadly weapon.  Without maturity, understanding and formal training, a 12-year-old with access to driving a car is… no pun intended… an accident waiting to happen.

So, too, is humanity in relation to technology.  Whether it’s the misuse of nuclear power for aggressive purposes or living lives propelled to the point of insanity by cell phones, blackberries, faxes, ipads, or 24/7 news… we are that 12-year-old with the keys in hand lacking the maturity, understanding and training to moderate how, when and why we use what’s before us.  Absent those safeguards, we are not driving the technology, the technology is driving us (again, no pun intended but I can’t seem to help myself!).

Understanding the point at which we’ve arrived, and the inherent dangers, can be very helpful.  To go back to the car analogy, the 12-year-old is unlikely to self-regulate.  After all, the car is fun and faster than walking.  The most likely event that would change his or her mind would be a collision.  The more serious the collision, the greater the change of mind and perspective.

Unfortunately, humanity cannot afford the equivalent of a significant auto collision.  We have become too interconnected globally, and too reliant personally, to withstand a technologically based accident without severe and long lasting consequences: e.g. Japan’s nuclear meltdown.

What can we do?  Well, here’s what you can do.  Get off this train.

First, evaluate your own life and decrease the role that technology plays in it.  Each self-limitation you impose will restore an equal or greater amount of sanity to your world… and the world at large.  Secondly, daily study and teach, by way of example, choices and behavior that are ethically and morally driven.  Thirdly, reconnect with or enhance the role that God/spirituality/Source plays in your life.

If you think that changing your personal relationship with technology will make little difference, let me remind you of a scientific fact.  When a butterfly flaps its wings in New York wind patterns change in Europe.  It’s just a matter of time.

We, like Nature, are all One and everything each of us does affects the whole.  For good or for ill.  And so your changes matter.  They matter most immediately to the quality of your own life.  Eventually and inevitably, however, they matter to the quality of everyone else’s.

That’s what you can do and that’s how you can change the world.

One decision at a time.

I watched Social Network last night and found it disturbing on too many levels to cover all in one post.  So I’ll focus on the one I found most disturbing.

We have made a legend and role model for our youth out of a thief.

No matter how Mark Zuckerberg tries to distance himself from his character as portrayed in the movie, one fact remains.  In the final analysis, Zuckerberg paid 65 million dollars to two other young men because he stole their idea.

For me, everything else in the movie pales in comparison.

I knew virtually nothing of Zuckerberg’s creation of Facebook and his meteoric rise to fame and fortune prior to sitting down to see the movie other than snippets here and there from the media.  My impression, based upon how he is covered in and by the media, was that he was some young, technological genius who created and designed the powerhouse “Facebook.”

However, after watching the movie, what I knew was that Zuckerberg built his “platform” on the backs of some other people he had no apparent problem climbing over, kicking in the teeth and crushing in the process.  He reminds me of Ivan Boesky, the 1990’s Arbitrageur who, in an address to a Stanford University graduating class, said “Greed is good.”  With that hubris, Boesky set the stage for two decades of plunder and materialism in this nation not seen since, probably, the Roman Empire.

Presently, we focused on the technological wonder of Facebook to the almost disregard for the total absence of ethics upon which it was created.  It’s like saying the economy was good during the Clinton years giving little mention to the immoral virus this nation was infected with as a result of Clinton’s wanton lust.

Today, the day after watching Social Network, I went in search of fact checking the accuracy of the movie.  It seems Zuckerberg was portrayed more asocial and more insensitive that he actually was.  That’s the good news.  The bad, very bad, news is that he did, in fact, steal the idea from two classmates and paid 65 million in restitution.

We should be very careful who we hold up as role models for the young.  In a world where Ivan Boesky is king and greed is good… Mark Zuckerberg is royalty. It’s not a world I want to inhabit.  Nor is it one in which we, as a nation, can survive in much longer.  It’s gotten us where we are at the moment… and the moment is tenuous.

There is nothing wrong with success or money if how you achieve either one of those is respectful of yourself and others.

In such a world, the Ivan Boeskys and Mark Zuckerbergs would be pariahs.

 

“Alone Together” written by MIT professor Sherry Turkle is big news because in it she lays out the case that the various means of social networking, via technological advances, have actually diminished our ability to communicate not enhanced it.

Well, forgive me for I told you so, but I came to that conclusion years ago… writing and speaking about it ever since. While I had no scientific data to back up my conclusion, I had eyes, ears and common sense. Admittedly, pre-technological apparatus… but quite useful none-the-less.

My observation was that when social-spiritual development is outpaced by technological development the result is alienation, dependency and in extreme cases addiction to the technology.

Why? Well, for two reasons.

First, because we are going to be slaves to something in our lives.  Now before you get all huffy about that statement, allow me to explain.  When I say “slave” I mean that we humans will spend our lives in service to something.  We will each select goals, or ends, and means by which to achieve them.  Without core ethical and moral underpinnings that support us in discerning positive means and ends from negative ones, we are easily seduced by the most expeditious route to where we want to go… however, not necessarily the most life-affirming route.  Core ethical and moral values are best developed over time, observing people who exemplify them by their behavior.

Technology applied to social networking lacks these necessary characteristics. In fact, it stands in direct opposition to them:  1) Its rapid, not allowing for a natural unfolding or development.  2) The human element is sublimated to the technology.  3) The physical distance combined with anonymity negates the behavioral aspect completely.

Simply put, social networking is a misnomer.  Its social alienating.

But back to slavery.

In Egypt, Pharaoh knew what he was doing.  In mystical Judaism it is taught that the Jews were slaves not because they were physically imprisoned, but because they were socially and spiritually dependent and thereby imprisoned.  It wasn’t their bodies Pharaoh took claim to it was their consciousness and their laziness (a/k/a wanting to get things the easy way). The Jews traded freedom of thought for comfort and ease. It is further taught that it’s a “story” in which Pharaoh represents the reliance upon materiality and physical enslavement represents unconsciousness (a/k/a) relinquishment of human consciousness.

I remember many years ago, pre-WORD, when I was working in DOS.  As my computer was booting up the hard drive, I saw the words “master drive ” and “slave drive” flash across the screen.  It gave me pause.  I actually thought it was a joke, albeit a dangerous one, originating in some programmer’s mind who then saw the potential inherent in the medium.

I am many things, but first and foremost I am the mother of a seventeen year-old daughter.  Anyone with a teenager knows the distance, detachment and danger inherent in the unbridled access and use of social networking.  The big worry isn’t carpal tunnel syndrome or arthritic thumbs.  It’s inhumanity.

So, many thanks to Professor Turkle for providing data for all those who need it.  As for me, I just looked around at the kids and saw the future.  It’s a time-tested method for discerning where we’re headed.

As for possible solutions:  Reprioritize your life.  Slow it down.  Be able to look into the eyes of the people from whom you are learning life’s lessons.  Be willing to do things the hard way.  Breathe.  Laugh.  Love.

If you’re going to be slave, choose a Master with a heart.

Nature provides the best images. Today I was looking at a representation of a molecule and it occurred to me what a wonderful image of humanity one is. Take a look at one, for example.

Noting that I am hardly a scientist, let’s look into the definition and see what wisdom and guidance we can find.

According to Miriam Webster, a molecule is the smallest particle of a substance that retains all the properties of the substance and is composed of two or more atoms. Again, according to Miriam Webster, an atom is the smallest particle of an element that can exist either alone or in combination.

So, looking at the picture, you see many individual atoms which can stand alone… but when connected by strong bonds of electrical energy, make up the building blocks of life. In fact, DNA molecules contain the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. As in the “stuff of life.”

So, if we move from science to spirituality, what does a molecule reveal?

Well, we are like those atoms. Individual, independent and able to exist on our own. However, we are also able to exist in combination, or, spiritually speaking, in co-creation, with another. When we do combine, or co-create, the outcome (molecule) is only as strong as the bonds (trust and compassion) that exist between us.

Don’t you just love Nature?

I have always felt that It holds the answers to all our questions about existence… if only we would open our eyes, minds and above all our hearts.

Want to have a constructive, productive and powerful day?

Check the strength of your bonds with others and, if necessary, shore them up.

Humanity is a Complex Adaptive System.  Simply put, when a butterfly flaps its wings in New York City, wind patterns change in Jakarta.  Or, returning to my statement about humanity, when one individual changes the way he or she does, thinks or feels about something, it necessarily impacts and changes the way all human beings are, think and behave. 

Humans are an independent, diverse, interactive, co-creative, and constantly changing force wherein change by one impacts the many.  Again, simply put, you are not only composed of matter… you actually matter.

Our world is a compilation of energetic patterns.  Patterns, by definition, repeat themselves.  So, if you use your life force, or energy, in the same way over and over you are guaranteed to perpetuate whatever pattern you’re creating.  Only by changing something within the pattern will you change the result… or more accurately… will you create a new pattern.

Change, however, isn’t something you want to react to.  Change is something you want to be.  When you are forced to react to change, the change has already occurred.  Once that happens you find yourself in the unenviable position of playing “catch up” to Life’s circumstances.  However, if you are the change you actually want to occur, you become the agent of change rather than the object of change.

So, take a look around your life.  How’s it going?  Do you feel empowered or disempowered?  Are you feeling at the mercy of events or as the force behind the conception and inception of events?  Are you resisting change or initiating it?

These times are truly revolutionary.  “Revolution,” as with any word, is only as powerful as the meaning we give to it.  The word revolution has several words hidden within it if you creatively rearrange its letters around to form new words.  (I often do this as a kind of mental gymnastics but also as an insightful guide into hidden meanings).  What I found in “revolution” are the following sets of words:

     1.  Vile revolt; to lure into evil; to lie; to rile; to rule.

     2.  To toil into the root to true love.

Let’s explore them one at a time using the above words.

     1.  Revolution can manifest as a vile revolt whose few proponents will lie and purposefully rile others in order to lure them to an evil end resulting in oppressive and manipulative rule over the subjugated majority.

     2.  Revolution can be a person or group willing to toil ceaselessly and diligently to unearth fundamental truths by getting to the root of existence… which is light energy emanating as true love.

I think we’re in a revolution of the second kind.  At least that’s the revolution I’ve signed up for and since we’re a complex adaptive system… therefore I matter… how I am, think and behave during the revolution matters. You see, I’m an agent of change. 

How about you?

Being highly intuitive, I have lots of like-minded, or should I say like-spirited, friends.  At the onset of BP’s Gulf Oil crisis one of them said, “There’s another one coming.”  What just reminded me of her prediction is the FOX Breaking News headline as I write this. 

Seems there’s been another spill.

The obvious question is “What’s going on?” How can there be so much crisis and bad news day after day?  How much stress can people take?  And why are things as they are?

For me the answer is fairly clear since I have a habit of frequently looking at Nature to clear up the unknown.  In reply to these very valid questions I look at how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.  Its a process of transformation… and a difficult and deadly one at that.  There are stages to such transformation.  As one aspect (or form) disintegrates and ceases to exist, another more graceful and less dense emerges.  Such is the stuff of Life… evolving.

Einstein taught us that matter is neither created nor destroyed, only redistributed.  That’s what a butterfly is…a redistributed caterpillar. Unfortunately, there’s no getting around the fact that for the caterpillar, its the end of the road, so to speak.  But all roads end when you’re in the physical world.  All those roads that led to Rome did also.  The only road that does not end is the one that traverses the cycle of life. 

That road transcends what is in a continuous journey of self-discovery.

My heart aches for all the destruction that accompanies transformation just as my Soul simultaneously delights in the potential expansion of consciousness and quality of life present in the same evolutionary moment.

The chrysalis, that stage of caterpillar transformation, where the adult structures of the butterfly are formed while the larval structures are broken down, must be stressful and can’t be all that much fun.  Neither is all that we are going through.  But as with the larval breakdown, we too are in a breakdown phase of our more infantile or adolescent development as sentient beings… inevitably to emerge as the butterfly…more adult, more graceful, more Light.

Amen.

What if I told you that at this very moment a new, comprehensive software upgrade is being downloaded that will enable you to perform with unprecedented speed, scope and accuracy in everything you do? Would that be of interest?

Good. 

Well, that very download is, in fact, in progress as you’re reading these words. Its just not into your computer.

It’s into you.

Yes, that’s right. You’re consciousness is being upgraded in order to support you in dealing with the global paradigm shift we are experiencing. And in case you’re wondering how all of this came to be, or plays out for that matter, read on.

You know the expression “as above so below”?  Well, that’s how we invented computers to begin with. They are the microcosmic version of the macrocosmic way in which all Creation came to be. Without some frame of reference or idea of what a computer actually was it would have been impossible for anyone to have imagined or envisioned its existence. The “prototype” if you will for the creation of the computer with a hard hard drive that houses certain permanent and/or operating material and programs plus the capacity and capability to receive and periodically upgrade additional material and programs was how (in an admittedly finite sense) God created us.

Now you have to cut me a little slack here as I am not all that savvy on the technology or the lingo,  but whether you utilize Symantec’s Norton Anti-Virus or MacAfee or whoever to keep your computer programs running bug and virus free, it’s safe to say that it’s necessary, periodically, to upgrade those programs as advancements in the technology take place.  Those advancements come to you as downloads, automatically, as part of the service.  And it’s also accurate to say that without such protection, you could lose part or all of your data…and possibly experience permanent damage to your computer…under adverse conditions.

So what’s this got to do with us…and now?

Have you noticed that very little of what is being implemented to “fix” our existing problems is working? Are you finding that not only are your efforts, but also the efforts of everyone you know or hear about, to climb out of what seems like an economic nightmare are not working? Are you stressed because the life you were living seems to be gone and you don’t know what is about to take it’s place? Are you somewhat frantic over all the “bad” news and feelings of helplessness that accompany it?

Take heart.  Here’s the answer.

When your computer is in the middle of a system upgrade you have to wait until its done and reboot, don’t you, in order to have use of the benefits of the upgrade?  Well…

God noticed that we needed an upgrade. We were under attack from some pretty nasty bugs called greed and lack of personal responsibility. And so “technological” (a/k/a “spiritual”) advances to combat the problem are being installed via a download. In the meantime, while the download is occurring, you have to sit back and wait. Then, when it’s time, reboot.

The thing is, we’re smack in the middle of that download.

Trying to operate the computer with the older software…while the upgrade is being installed…is just going to create chaos, prolong the download and is potentially hazardous to your system (a/k/a/ your consciousness).

So, to mix metaphors. Get your hands off the wheel, get out of your own way (not to mention God’s) and kick back.  Go do something else until its time to reboot. In the meantime, handle what’s in front of you each moment and stop worrying. Help is more than on the way, its here. It’s just taking some time…Divine Time…to do what needs to be done in order to be up and running to process the challenges of tomorrow.

For now, leave tomorrow to God and live fully in the Now. You’ll get a notice when the download is complete and its time to reboot.

When Life’s challenges seem to come at us at a fast and furious pace, it’s easy to get bogged down by a very limited view of things. Limited views, by definition, are only a finite part of a greater whole. And so, like the astronauts who get to view Earth from a greater distance and thereby gain a broader perspective, I think it’s important for us to be able to create something like “greater distance” from our daily demands so that we too can gain greater perspective about our lives and our purpose.

Recently I put two ideas together that I recently read which when combined, go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.

Every thought you have has a beginning and an end. As such, thoughts are finite. You, on the other hand, are not. You are non-local awareness temporarily residing in a physical body. Awareness is different than thought. To keep it simple, let’s just liken thoughts to facts and awareness to intuition. Intuition precedes and encompasses thought. It is a kind of knowing…separate from the physical body…at once infinite and eternal. 

When stresses in you Life build up, it’s pretty common to go into thought overload about how to deal with all that’s happening.  It’s in those “thought loops”, as I call them, that we get stuck going ’round and ’round looking for a way out. But if you can stop! for just a second when you find yourself in the “loop” and remember that your thoughts begin and end while you do not…that you are the intuitive knowing that precedes and encompasses all thought…it can go a long way towards giving you that expanded perspective that, by it’s very nature, removes the grandeur and immediacy from those troubling thoughts.

I think outside the box but I live in it, as do you. I never give advice or share perspective that I have not lived or am not living.  Lately, I have had an almost inconceivable amount of stress in my Life. What I am sharing here actually works! Whenever I find myself deep in trying to figure it all out…I just imagine everything that I think is so troublesome as the Earth and my body as that spacecraft the astronauts go up in. Then I look back at it all from my place of non-local awareness and poof!…I see it all differently, more holistically, and certainly more meaningfully.

So, today, when it all gets to be too much…go beyond it all, literally…and retreat to that state of non-local awareness that you are…then sit back and enjoy both the ride and the view.

I blame Aristotle.  He’s the one who laid the groundwork two thousand or so years ago for thinking of reality in terms of duality. He told us things were either “A or not A.” In linear, dualistic thinking, there’s no possibility that anything other than one of two possible conditions or outcomes exist. And things tend to move between the two.. leaving, literally, no other options. So, things are good or they are not good. And if they are not good, well…take the economy as we speak.

The economy, as evidenced by the stock market and the standard of living, was booming. In Aristotle’s world that was good. Now, the DOW has plummeted and the banks may need rescuing so that must now be bad. Hence, all the worry and yes, even panic.

Like I said, I blame Aristotle.

We are two thousand years smarter than when he saw all that he was able to see from where he was standing. Now, thanks to Einstein, quantum physics and a whole host of other intuitive and intelligent women and men, we know that things are hardly what they appear, that what we think we see determines what we see, depending on your vantage point, two observers will see things differently, and finally, and perhaps most importantly, nothing is static…everything is constantly in motion. Which is why Aristotle really set us off on the wrong track because if everything is constantly in motion, then nothing is ever “A or not A” but some combination or variation of both. Which is why the “good” economy was great for some, good for others, and difficult for the rest. But more importantly, it’s why the present economy, that was perceived as good, is not Now bad.

The more accurate representation is the Eastern symbol for Yin and Yang. It is a circle with two sections delineated with one black and one white.  Aha! you say. There it is. Aristotle’s “A or not.” Well, not even close. Because within the white portion of the Yin is a black circle and within the black portion of the Yang is a white circle. Both hold the seeds of the other and both are simultaneously what they are and what they are not.

While things were seemingly great with the economy it held the seeds of the change we are Now experiencing.  And as we go through this transition, no matter how apparently difficult, it holds the seeds of a time when we will have passed through this difficulty. It’s all an endless circle…with every part holding the potential for the emergence of every other part.

Which is where the saying “It’s not what happens to you it’s how you handle it” comes from.

Change is inevitable yet it’s what we resist most in our lives. We like to know who and what we can count on…who and what are reliable. But it would serve us best to accept that since everything is in motion, it would make much more sense for us to remain fluid in our thinking as well so that we can align with rather than resist the inevitable.

The economy and the stock market are never up or down. They are constantly in flux…as are we. It is only the way we choose to look at things that causes us to become worrisome and fearful when that movement accelerates.

Let’s think of the current economic transition as if we are going through a tunnel rather than falling down a bottomless well.  By so doing, we can acknowledge the temporary diminished visibility and know that at the other end will be an expanded vista with greater light. Not to mention that without a little darkness…how would we ever appreciate the light?

I’m not a Pollyanna. I know transition and change are challenging.  But if we can understand that Aristotle was limited in his view and that we have relied upon his thinking for way too long, perhaps we can provide more flexibility and less suffering to the challenges we are Now being asked to meet.

>   I hate to be an “I told you so” but I did. As a matter of fact, I have been saying so for the past 10 years, at least. What it is that I have been saying is that the technology has outpaced our social development and that what we have created runs us..instead of the other way around. So it was no surprise to me that there it was, yesterday, on CNN’s home page. >TimeBanks USA, a nonprofit group
that treats time as money, was created by Edgar S. Cahn, a retired 73-year-old attorney “to put the brakes on people’s high-velocity
lifestyles.”
    It seems there’s a growing awareness that all the technology has so sped up our lifestyles that we are sick of it. More accurately stated, the accelerated  (and I would argue unnatural) pace of things has literally, made us sick.
    In fact, Cahn, the CEO of TimeBanks, says he “came up with the idea in 1980 after suffering a massive heart attack from a frenzied lifestyle that included being a speech writer and founder of a national legal services program and a law school.” And he’s not alone.  The American Medical Association has shown the
negative effects of stress on health. They say stress is a factor
in more than 75 percent of all illness and disease today. And, stress accounts for two-thirds of family doctor visits and half
the deaths to Americans under the age of 65, according to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    So, why do we resist making the connection between how we live our lives and how healthy we are?
    Just today I was with a friend who has had a chronic cough for two years. The only time she was able to get relief from it, without taking three different prescription drugs, was when she restricted her sugar and wheat intake on the recommendation of a holistic practitioner. But she got bored with the diet and went back to her old eating habits and the drugs. Just recently she saw a new alternative medicine physician and he recommended a vegan diet and told her that in less than a year she would be rid of the cough and off the drugs. Now she’s debating whether or not to follow the diet, knowing the drugs are bad for her liver. When I asked her what she would do if instead, the doctor had told her she had 6 months to live unless she went on a vegan diet and she said, “I’d be on it right away.”  Further, she went on to tell me of a female friend who recently went through a devastating financial crisis as her husband had personally pledged their home as collateral for a business expansion he was certain would pay off and instead collapsed.  The young wife spent a year fighting to save her family home and finally did. Yet she remains in dire financial straights and  has now come down with a muscular disease that prevents her from the most routine tasks. Countless medical doctors and as many tests have provided no clue to an origin or a cure. I wonder if any of them considered stress?
    We live at a frantic pace…out of alignment with Nature and our own bodily rhythms…pretending we don’t know the cause of so much illness and disease. This is not a complicated mystery to solve.  But the solution necessitates that we take a serious look at how we live our lives and how we prioritize our wants and needs.     Further, that we actually do something about what we discover.
    Books and personal accounts abound of people who have cured themselves of allegedly incurable illnesses with such means as laughter, laying down upon the earth, prayer, visualization, “energy” medicine, holistic healers…and a list that goes on and on.
    There are Laws of Nature that, when defied, wreak havoc not as punishment, but rather as an arrow pointing to a sign that says,”Your way isn’t working. Try Mine.” The staggering statistics of stress related illness from we humans trying to live at the pace of the technology we created is exactly that arrow pointing at that very sign.
     I am hopeful, and optimistic, that once awakened form our lethargy, we will seek out our internal rhythms and follow them back to health.
    In the meantime, back off of the technology for awhile. And if you don’t want to read my blog, or anyone else’s, for a week or so, well, that’s just fine with me.
    Here’s to your health.

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