“The present represents a process of transition, and that man may account himself modern who is conscious of it in this sense…”

C.G. Jung’s The Modern Spiritual Problem in “Modern Man in Search of a Soul”

Si jeunesse

savait,

si vieillesse

pouvait

JR

JR recently won the TED 2011 Prize because of his pervasive photography projects. What started as street art in Paris grew to become a global expository of individuals as unique entities, not as parts of this group, or that race, or this religion. The growth of his projects was organic, unexpected and miraculous all the same. View the video and read more in depth on this artist by clicking this sentence.

GLAD TO THE BRINK OF FEAR

The occasion and the experience…are nothing. It all depends on the capacity of the soul to be grasped, to have its life-currents absorbed by what is given. “Crossing a bare common,” says Emerson, “in snow puddles at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.”

-William James, from “On a Certain Blindness of Human Beings”

CHANSON

Quel jour sommes-nous

Nous sommes tous les jours

Mon amie

Nous sommes toute la vie

Mon amour

Nous nous aimons et nous vivons

Nous vivons et nous nous aimons

Et nous ne savons pas ce que c’est que la vie

Et nous ne savons pas ce que c’est que le jour

Et nous ne savons pas ce que c’est que l’amour

Jacques Prevert

MARK WOJDA

For the interest of full disclosure, the following isn’t about the current state of rollerblading’s industry or the lack of media exposure…It’s simply about what rollerblading has given me and the positive culture and community behind it…Not to mention how badass it’s become…

HAIKU

There is some…contention…surrounding whether contractions are appropriate to use in haiku. To that I can do nothing but attest to the bizarre nature in which this Biblical piece came about – being what you might call the opposite of religious – and so I find myself loathe to change anything.

Sodom (our Lot in life)

“don’t look back,” he says

strong hand taking mine, we run

but i have to know

It’s probably garbage. When I woke up this morning, for whatever reason, I was thinking about curiosity – so strong as to defy logic – and the haiku poured forth in the ensuing seconds before I fully had time to really grasp what was happening.

By James Simone

ANIS MOJGANI

Words by Henry Fandel

Two-time (2005 and 2006) National Poetry Slam Individual Champion and 2007 World Cup Poetry Slam Champion Anis Mojgani is so honest, I sometimes believe the bristles of his mustache catch every exaggeration intended for the microphone.  Other days he’s clean shaven, and I think he might just be a 9 year-old boy in a 32 year-old man’s body, relaying his every thought to weird strangers in the crowd that want to hear his voice.  But every time after hearing this poem, the significance of his words settles in my brain like a snow-globe’s flurry, and it’s suddenly a snow day–I’m invincible.

Probably my favorite:

HONORED PETER, QUERIED

I Want to Call her Father

to talk

the Man

no longer Mister

only Peter

and Suddenly, I’m frank.

The Man is Great.

He Lives the Life

of a Great Man

and Meticulously maintains

his Flaws and Holes

and Imperfections

through which I can see

Clear

Clear to the Other side.

I can See.

I See daughters and sons

and Wives

and Past Lives,

and I Want to ask,

Why?

To be sat in his kitchen

He and I

To Read His Face

when He calls Me,

Son,

and Tells Me

Why.

OUR MEMORY TELLS A STORY

This TED talk involves concepts of behavioral economics applied to our immediate experience vs. our memory.

FEELING DRIVES MORAL BEHAVIOR

Jonah Lehrer, contributing editor for Wired magazine and writer for other publications like the NYTimes, author of “Proust Was a Neuroscientist” and recently “How We Decide”  successfully saddles knowledge of the scientific world and the more abstract part of life: emotions. He maintains that emotions are generated by experience and are an integral part of our decision making process.

How We Decide

The link above is to a presentation he made on “How We Decide” recently after his book was published. Chapter 3, of 20 chapters (you can skip to each chapter of the video according to what topic you are interested in hearing) describes a patient, Elliot, who had life saving brain surgery which was successful in most arenas – Elliot maintained his language skills, could count, speak, reason. But he was left with one negative side effect,  he lost all ability to experience emotion.  He couldn’t feel happiness or sadness: he became emotionally colorless. This led to a devastating change in his daily life. It took him immense amount of time to choose what he wanted to eat, what to wear. He became ‘pathologically indecisive’ – everyday decisions became time sucking obstacles.

This case helps prove that our lives are largely guided by a “subterranean world” of emotions, whether or not we are conscious of their activity. And this transcends mundane decision making to more meaningful choices, to moral choices. It’s fascinating that in a world whose history has placed precedent upon Platonic reason, it is really the emotions that are integral to decision making.

Check out his presentation, he gives a lot of interesting cases that open your vision to this topic.

COMMON GROUND WITH A STRANGER

There seems to be a trend in reaching out to strangers. New phenomenon “Chat Roulette” is a way to video, microphone or text chat to strangers from every corner of the world that has technology. If you’re not pleased with the person you are talking to, press “Next” and you are connected to another totally random person. What sorts of things can come from this? Nudity, for one thing. But this could prove a valuable medium for sociological research. Can this new way of connecting with strangers bring about a greater degree of global dialogue? Since people are in the comforts of their own home, it seems they might be more willing to ‘let loose’.

Below is a video that shows the local, face to face connection between strangers. It is an act of creative philanthropy, something (somewhat) recently discussed in an NYTimes article, Seeing How Far $100 Can Go. Peep the video, read the article, it just may inspire you to interact with strangers in ways you hadn’t thought of.

EAGERNESS

Wherever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant. Sometimes the eagerness is more knit up with the motor activities, sometimes with the perceptions, sometimes with the imagination, sometimes with reflective thought. But, wherever it is found,

there is the zest, the tingle, the excitement of reality;

and there is ‘importance’ in the only real and positive sense in which importance ever anywhere can be.

-William James, “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings”

THE PYROMANIAC

A flowing force comes down to him in dark

The boy’s uneasy hand leaves burning mark
It stays, decays, but could not move an inch
A crime that puzzles insecure police
The flame, extinguished here but rises afar
Unbroken continuity ahead
Gives light and warmth to deadened visions and
Rekindles dormant motions, through direct
Encounter to the barest chaotic sense
Cannot be touched because there’s no pretense
The rapid movement has no boundaries drawn
Its highs and lows resembles night and dawn
A little shift could trigger flashing shock
Unchanged is one, the ticking clock rotates
Between fixed happenings a shaken heart
Who has the glimpse of all protracted pipe dreams
Now wants to see the fastest dance of all
Unable to controll, the arrogant
From now on sees horror and fear
What he, and we, all know, is that, history
Is written on singed walls and burned debris
And they, become the painter’s charcoal pen

By Yi Wu

BU CAS 12′

ANTI FEAR

There’s a new drug on the market. It started out as a medication to help people overcome phobias, but scientists were able to suppress the bodily function responsible for creating the chemical that is fear. Needless to say, that release has caused a ripple of unnerving events.

By Morgan True