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David Bowden – The Inner Net [Poem]

David Bowden - The Inner Net [Poem]

David Bowden - The Inner Net [Poem]

The Inner Net – David Bowden

Woven into each and everyone of us there is

an inner net

We connect

To each other

Thread to Thread

Cell to Cell

Heart to Heart

When formed correctly the net forms community

            And we catch boat loads of life

We all yearn to be hewn[1] in this collection

            For it is the human connection

            It’s the reason why we have eyes, tongues, and lips

            So we can be intertwined together as we see, speak and kiss

            It’s the reason why we have right and left hands

            So when my right reaches your left

            Pinkies, rings, middles, pointers, and thumbs interconnect

            In the loom of the human thread

But we have become disconnected

  By nations and nationalities

            Language and legalities

            Wars and quarantines

            Prejudices and bigotry [2]

The net of humanity

Has been severed severely

As we cut ourselves off

In the pursuit of individuality

And in the midst of this shrinking world sensation

Many are placing the blame on

Technology

As we burrow into browsers

Unplug by plugging in for hours

Miss blue skies while working in the cloud

Laugh out loud without laughing out loud

Humanity seems to be disconnecting

            At the one point in history when it is the most connected

But just as to the good we are not entirely compliant [3]

            Nor entirely resistant

Neither is this tool entirely consistent

For the problems of our world used to be too big and too distant

            To connect to and know of its widespread existence

            But now our world is too small and too close for us not to make a difference

We can now connect

            Crowds around a cause

            The ignorant to knowledge

            The isolated to college

            Orphans to their fathers

            Donors to non-profits

            And injustices to those who can stop it

We can now see

            Our newborn nephew

            A revolution breakthrough

            The troops as they withdrew

            Uncensored world news

            And what is and isn’t untrue

We can now hear

            Cries from Thailand

            Shouts from Somalia

            And can shove our arms, elbow-deep,

            Through our screens, reach out,

            And touch them

But so often

            We use this tool to ignore them

            And the rest of those humans

            For just as fire can be used for warmth or destruction

            We misuse url’s, firewalling off the world with distractions

We search daily, but find nothing

Add friends, but lose community

Look for love but get pornography

Try to discover ourselves, but lose our identity

And though this entity is filled with both

            Healing and brokenness

Guilt and innocence

Some of what’s Godly

And some of what’s Devilish

That does not detract from its significance

When it comes down to it

The true nature of this new age unit

Is in how we use it

Woven into each and everyone of us there is an inner net

And I pray we may stitch our world back together

As we knit, patch, and connect

[1] hewn: shaped

[2] bigotry: intolerence

[3] compliant: obeying

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The Science of Happiness – An Experiment in Gratitude

The Science of Happiness - An Experiment in Gratitude

The Science of Happiness - An Experiment in Gratitude

Psychologists have scientifically proven that one of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness in your life is how much gratitude you show.

In this experiment put on by Soul Pancake, subjects who wrote a letter of gratitude, thinking of someone that influenced them the most, saw a rise in happiness of 2-4%.

However, for subjects who picked up the phone and personally expressed their gratitude to the person that influenced them the most in their life, there were happiness increases of 4-19%, showing that expressing your gratitude will make you a happier person.

This happiness experiment in gratitude is based on the following study:

Martin E. P. Seligman, Tracy A. Steen & Christopher Peterson, “Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions.”

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21 Videos Showing Acts of Kindness and Good Deeds

20 Videos Showing Acts of Kindness and Good Deeds

20 Videos Showing Acts of Kindness and Good Deeds

1. There are Still Good People in the World

2. Restoring Faith in Humanity

3. Hidden Cameras Reveal People Risk Their Lives

4. Helping Others. You Can Be the One

5. Beautiful Reactions from Homeless Receiving Food

6. Acts of Kindness Caught on Camera

7. Real Life Heroes

8. Video That Will Change Your Life

9. One of the Most Courageous Things You Will Ever See on a Running Track

10. Where Sports Meets Humanity

11. This Will Make You Restore Your Faith in Humanity

12. This Photographer’s Profound Experiment Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity

13. Random Acts of Kindness

14. A Drowning Man. A Selfless Act. A Life Saved in Portland

15. Heroes Restoring Faith in Humanity

16. 22 Random Acts of Kindness

17. 12 Acts of Kindness from Police Officers

18. The Power of True Kindness

19. The Science of Happiness: Operation Kindness

20. Amazing Acts of Human Kindness

21. Simple Acts of Kindness – Give it a Try

Image: "Kindness" by Joy Jordan.
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Benefits of Sympathy and Cross-Race Friendships Explained by Science

Benefits of Sympathy and Cross-Race Friendships Explained by Science

Benefits of Sympathy and Cross-Race Friendships Explained by Science

When people do overcome the temptation of self-interest and instead help and cooperate with others, they become more respected in their group, and then upon receiving that respect, they then help others even more.

–Robb Willer, Ph.D., M.A., B.A. Associate Professor of Sociology at Stanford University.

 

3 Benefits of Being Sympathetic

We [psychologists] have become interested in concepts like compassion and gratitude. Only 8 or 9 years ago, there was one study of gratitude in scientific literature. 1,000s of studies of anger, and one study of gratitude.

There is this long standing assumption that in terms of evolution, it is survival of the fittest, and it is important to know, that wasn’t Darwin who said that, but somebody who came after Darwin named Herbert Spencer. What Darwin said in Descent of Man is, ‘Sympathy is our strongest instinct.’

Sympathetic people do better in the game of reproduction. It turns out they are more attractive as mates. Sympathetic parents have kids who are more resilient, and who thrive more. Sympathetic people do better in competitive situations with strangers. Data shows kind people fair pretty well and evoke a lot of trust in others.

–Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychology professor leading research in emotion and social interaction.

 

See How a Cross-Race Friendship Is Good for Your Health

In a Berkeley experiment designed by psychologist Rudy Mendoza-Denton, researchers sought answers to overcome prejudice.

They put two strangers of different races together in a room. They first measured the level of the hormone Cortisol, which is elevated when a person is under stress. They are given increasingly personal questions to ask each other, to impel them to get to know each other better.

After the last meeting, in which they play a game, their Cortisol levels are tested again. The study shows that Cortisol levels dropped significantly, as low as the control group of same race pairs.

I expected those anxiety effects, and those awkwardnesses that happen in those initial interactions to persist for a long time, but those barriers came down pretty quickly, and we were really happy to see that. I think one of the primary lessons to learn is that cross-race friendship can be good for your health.

–Rudy Mendoza-Denton, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley.

 

The Science of Happiness [Video]

The above quotes were taken from the below video on the science of happiness:

Image: "• • • Happy • • •" by David Robert Bliwas.
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Egghunt [Animation]

Egghunt [Animation]

Egghunt [Animation]

Egghunt is the tale of a hungry caveman on a quest to fill his stomach. He discovers a nest full of plump eggs just inches beyond his reach and must devise a way to get them before he loses them all.

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What Do We Need to Do to Get Closer?

What Do We Need to Do to Get Closer?

What Do We Need to Do to Get Closer?

Pro Infirmis conducts an experiment: there are only a few people who don`t have empathy with disabled people. Nevertheless, the passenger seat in the public bus next to Fabian often stays empty.

This video clip raises the question at the end: Do we need to disguise ourselves to get closer?

What do we need to do to get closer?

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Amazing Starling Murmuration Displays the Beauty of Unity

Amazing Starling Murmuration Displays the Beauty of Unity

Amazing Starling Murmuration Displays the Beauty of Unity

Bees come in swarms and fish come in schools. Starlings, in the area around Edinburgh, in the moors of England, come in something called a murmuration, and the murmuration refers to the murmuring of the wings of the birds, and throughout the day the starlings are out over a 20-mile radius sort of doing their starling thing. And at night they come together and they create one of the most spectacular things in all of nature, and it’s called a murmuration. And scientists that have studied this have said they’ve never seen an accident. Now, this thing has a function. It protects the birds. You can see on the right here, there’s a predator being chased away by the collective power of the birds, and apparently this is a frightening thing if you’re a predator of starlings. And there’s leadership, but there’s no one leader.

Now, is this some kind of fanciful analogy, or could we actually learn something from this? Well, the murmuration functions to record a number of principles, and they’re basically the principles that I have described to you today. This is a huge collaboration. It’s an openness, it’s a sharing of all kinds of information, not just about location and trajectory and danger and so on, but about food sources. And there’s a real sense of interdependence, that the individual birds somehow understand that their interests are in the interest of the collective.

Perhaps like we should understand that business can’t succeed in a world that’s failing.

Well, I look at this thing, and I get a lot of hope. Think about the kids today in the Arab Spring, and you see something like this that’s underway.

And imagine, just consider this idea, if you would: What if we could connect ourselves in this world through a vast network of air and glass? Could we go beyond just sharing information and knowledge? Could we start to share our intelligence? Could we create some kind of collective intelligence that goes beyond an individual or a group or a team to create, perhaps, some kind of consciousness on a global basis? Well, if we could do this, we could attack some big problems in the world.

And I look at this thing, and, I don’t know, I get a lot of hope that maybe this smaller, networked, open world that our kids inherit might be a better one, and that this new age of networked intelligence could be an age of promise fulfilled and of peril unrequited.

Let’s do this.

–Don Tapscott in his TED Talk, “Four Principles for the Open World.”

Image: "Starling Murmuration" by Edd Cottell.