Newsletter - April 19th,
2015 - Volume 2, Issue 5 |
TSW Posts from the Past
Week |
The
Core Principles of the New Spiritualist - Dutch spiritual writer Lisette Thooft wrote an outstanding article in the May / June 2013 edition of a The Intelligent Optimist magazine in which she succinctly summed up the core principles of the New Spiritualist movement. This grouping is often identified with the phrase “Spiritual but not Religious”. The basis of the article is that an increasing number of people over the last 30 years have moved beyond organized religion into
a realm where they believe that there is “something” beyond our ordinary reality. This “something” points to a more inward and direct connection with the divine:
Inequality -
The Choices We Have Made - A Concise Timeline: Most of us recognize that Inequality is a growing problem and last year Thomas Piketty in his book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, gave a data driven economic analysis on the self-feeding implications of capital concentration in the hands of the few. But to get a better understanding of the various political decisions that have lead to the current situation, Yes! Magazine created a stunning visual timeline of Hedrick
Smith’s analysis from his book - Who Stole the American Dream?. Putting Piketty’s work together with Smith’s fleshes out the Systems Thinking analysis of the drivers and outputs of the current inequality problem.
Stop Stealing Dreams - A Systems Thinking Approach to our Current Educational System: In April of 2014, author and entrepreneur Seth Godin, wrote a very profound and insightful manifesto on the state of our current K-12 educational system – Stop Stealing Dreams. If you have school age children, you will have
probably noticed the same issues that Mr. Godin speaks of. The acute problem is that the continuing test-driven, information memorization educational model no longer makes sense in a period when robotics and the internet make rote memorization less important. What is more important is making connections across different functional domains, how to access the necessary information dynamically as needed, understanding how to create new ideas and solutions, and having the skills to
proactively learn new things and upgrade your capability on a lifelong basis.
Neuroscientist Dr. Olie Johansson Exposes the Dangers of Electromagnetic Fields: (video): Dr. Olie Johansson – Associate Professor in the Neuroscience department of the world-renowned Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. The presentation takes place at a technical seminar for physicians on the Environment and Health in
Barcelona, Spain. If you have come to accept that we are energy beings, then you can probably understand that being bombarded by EM fields from all our various technology devices, including WiFi and Cellular services, could have dangers for our health. Dr. Johansson demonstrates that all people are hypersensitive to EMFs. The health effects are long term – including DNA fragmentation – as well as being linked to a growing number of allergies and even
tinnitus.
How Information Overload Sabotages Our Observation Skills (video): Bob Hambly, Creative Director, Hambly & Woolley design firm in Toronto: examines the topic of observation in this video presentation – how we’ve become
visually complacent, how we are manipulated to see certain things, how important it is to have good observational skills, and how we can go about improving them. This is something we can all get better at. And the better we get at observing, the better we will get at generating creative ideas. “Roughly 25 years ago, it took five full workdays to view the amount of information we now observe in 24 hours. Due to this increase
of information, our minds have become very proficient at tuning out to prevent an information overload – making us lazy observers.”
Smart Change by Art Markman: Art Markman is
Professor of Psychology at University of Texas at Austin and the Executive Editor of the Cognitive Science Journal. In his book Smart Change, Professor Markman addresses a major difficulty that all of us face – changing long established habits. In fact, some neuroscientists are stating that up to 95% of our daily behavior is of an automated variety that is generated by memories and learned behaviors stored in our subconscious. In other words, we are in many ways one big walking
habit! Which points out how difficult it is to make transformational changes in our lives since much of what we do is deeply programmed within us. What Markman does so well in this book is to show that the solution to this dilemna is to learn to re-program the subconscious in order to break the habitual cycle and implant new, more desired behaviors.
Amir Aczel and the Reuniting
of Science and God: Amir Aczel holds a PhD in Mathematics from Berkeley, is a science writer for Scientific American, Discover Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times, and is currently a research fellow at Harvard University. The book does a terrific job of chronicling the history and intersection of religious thought and scientific discovery. Prior to the 16th and 17th centuries, most
European scientists were in fact working to uncover the scientific basis for “what God had created". But as knowledge grew, they came into direct conflict with the command and control structure of the Catholic Church – that’s where things went wrong: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) – was religious. His daughter was a nun and he had many friends in religious circles (including the pope). He was known as the father of
astronomy and modern science. In 1600 Galileo using his telescope verified the theory of Copernicus – that the earth circled the sun. The church was furious, and thus began the fight between science and religion.
Kingsley Dennis and the Phoenix
Generation: The sociologist and futurist, Kingsley Dennis, is a man that will make you feel better about the future. In his recent book, The Phoenix Generation, he lays out how over the next 15-20 years it will be the current crop of children being born on the planet that will take us out of the current lower levels of consciousness that have stagnated human attempts to achieve higher levels of cooperation, collaboration, and co-creation.Links Worth Investigating
- Robots to replace white-collar jobs by 2035. A report recently presented by the Pew Research Centre in the US predicts that professional roles such as doctors, lawyers and accountants could be replaced by artificial intelligence by the year 2025. This could have huge implications for a range of industries such as health care, transport and logistics.
Proactive Access to Knowledge and Wisdom |
- “Discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” -Marcel Proust
- “When you are through changing, you are through.” - Bruce Barton
- “According to research by a trio of Stanford psychologists, Americans see independence as a symbol of strength, viewing interdependence as a sign of weakness. Givers on the other
hand, reject the notion that interdependence is weak. Givers are more likely to see interdependence as a source of strength, a way to harness the skills of multiple people for a greater good.” - Professor Adam Grant, author of Give and Take
- “Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.” — Richard Carlson
Question to Ponder for the Week |
Why are there so many chemicals in our foods? What is the impact to our health? How could as a society effect change to remove them from our food system? What can we personally do in the mean
time?
One of my favorites from a previous Spring...
Have a Great Week, Stay in the Present Moment, and Proactively Choose Your Thoughts to Create Your Desired Reality.
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