Sorry, but most of the things you ‘choose’ are random

 

Let me blow your mind a bit: When you choose things, you’re not choosing based on personal preferences. Your choices are somewhat random, and you’re wired to like them.

Every day you choose between nearly identical sodas and sunglasses and seats. Psychologists have long known that over time those choices lead to biases, such as always reaching for a Sprite or Dr. Pepper or Coke. Now researchers at Johns Hopkins have found the same behavior in babies, whom they watched (over and over and over again) as they randomly chose a block from a room full of identical ones—and then stopped liking all the others.

This suggests that we like things because we chose them, which is very different than what we think we’re doing, choosing things because we like them.  Continue here....

-- Arianne Cohen

Make Up of the US Supreme Court

AXIOS

Aunt Chloe’s Politics

'Poem for the week' -- "Aunt Chloe’s Politics":

Of course, I don’t know very much
    About these politics,
But I think that some who run ’em
    Do mighty ugly tricks.

I’ve seen ’em honey-fugle round,
    And talk so awful sweet,
That you’d think them full of kindness,
    As an egg is full of meat.

Now I don’t believe in looking
    Honest people in the face,
And saying when you’re doing wrong,
    That “I haven’t sold my race.”

When we want to school our children,
    If the money isn’t there,
Whether black or white have took it,
    The loss we all must share.

And this buying up each other
    Is something worse than mean,
Though I thinks a heap of voting,
    I go for voting clean.

-- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Must First Have It

Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart. 

-- St. Francis of Assisi

Empathy Is Taking The Time

Empathy is taking the time to understand the path that someone else has walked.

-- Mrs Murphy, Idaho Falls teacher

Both individually and collectively, we could all benefit from extending and receiving more empathy right now.  

What might be hidden here is the observation that it takes time to do this.  We so often feel that we don't have the time to truly do this well.  Why is that?  Time is really all we do have.  Perhaps, it would be helpful to consider what is it that I'm letting compete for my sense of time.

Besides this being just good theory, what can I do more specifically empathy-wise for someone else?  For myself?

Something Else

If you find that you can't seem to give yourself to something, it usually means that you are giving yourself to something else. 

What are you giving yourself to?

One Week to Election Day or...

"Times are a changin'", regarding how we do things.  As of just a few days ago:

 

AXIOS

So many are hoping that in just one week, this will finally be over.

If only that would be true....

Speed of Time

I've had an 'I’m wondering...' mini-series going on here for some time now (follow the link by the same name, if interested).

Lately, I've been wondering about time.  I’m wondering...does the speed of time change?  Scientifically, the answer seems like an easy ‘no, of course not’.

But, you don’t have to talk to very many to hear a common refrain, life at times can feel like it really speeds up.

This weekend, I spent some time with my 2 1/2 yr old grandson.  We went on a walk.  He found lots of things that interested him — sticks, seeds, water, mud.  He used a stick to hit the trunk of a tree (dozens of times).  He saw some workers digging a hole; and watched and watched, and watched some more.  He found a mud puddle and sat down in it, rubbing his hands in the mud.  And, then he four a unique-looking seed pod and pushed it around in the puddle...for what felt like a long time to me, but not to him.  

Time had no pace.  He had no place to go.  I really didn't either.  

I made a mental note; how different this pace is than that of most of my days.  

When I talk to my parents, who are in their late 70s, I get the impression their sense of time is more like by grandson's.

In other words, on the edges of life — in the beginning and perhaps towards the end — time seems much slower than it does in the middle.

When time feels fast to us, what is happening?  Does it really have anything to do with time?  Or, is this about something else?

If time is constant (is it?), what is the difference in our experience with it?  Why can it feel like it changes, at different points in our lives?  And, what about the moral quality we can so often attached to the use of time?  I'm wondering....

You Still Dream

'Poem for the week' -- "You Still Dream":

Here, poem meets prayer.

We are exceedingly comfortable

with posturing and self-defense

that masquerade as apology.

But what’s needed in this moment

is unmixed confession

of our nation’s sin,

deep and indefensible.

“Now I lay me down to sleep”

must make way for

something more muscular:

sack cloth and ashes,

prayer and fasting,

naked prostration.

Daniel understood

radical repentance begins

with this unvarnished profession:

You are righteous,

and we are not.

Please heal our nation.

Cleanse our stubborn hearts.

Show each of us what part to play.

Broken as Judah and Jerusalem,

we cry and come bending our will

toward the good

you dream for us still,

no matter our sin,

no matter what skin

we’re in.

-- Nikki Grimes

From the author:

“Confession is the first step towards meaningful change, but when it comes to the sin of racism, many Americans skip this all-important step and jump straight to a pious posture of prayer for the nation. I believe absolutely in the power of prayer, but not when it’s hollow. This poem is a response to that hollowness.”

Current Events

The secrets to a healthy life

In the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, patients who adhered to healthy dietary principles (low meat consumption and high intake of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain bread), never smoked, were not overweight, and had at least 30 minutes a day of physical activity had a 78% lower overall risk of developing a chronic disease.

This included a 93% reduced risk of diabetes, an 81% lower risk of heart attacks, a 50% reduction in risk of stroke, and a 36% overall reduction in risk of cancer, compared with participants without these healthy factors.

That’s really mind-boggling. Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes are pandemic, already affecting almost one-half of all Americans. United Health Care projected that if current trends continue, annual costs from these will be more than $3.3 trillion over the next decade, which is clearly not sustainable.

And yet the EPIC study showed that type 2 diabetes is completely preventable for at least 93% of people today. We don’t need a new breakthrough; we just need to put into practice what we already know. Also, lowering blood sugar with diet and lifestyle is more effective at preventing premature death and disease than getting it down with diabetes medications.  Continue here....

-- Dean Ornish

Visual: Fall Tree Of The Day, 2020

Visual - 'Fall Tree of the Day, 2020"

Winona Lake, IN

More Fall 2020 pics here....

Preferred Future

New actions will be guided by a preferred future that embraces:

• resilience in place of growth
• collaboration in place of consumption
• wisdom in place of progress
• balance in place of addiction
• moderation in place of excess
• vision in place of convenience
• accountability in place of disregard
• self-giving love in place of self-centered fear . . .

-- Jim Antal

It Is That Serious

When you judge people that are different from you, you’re killing them.

Yes, it is THAT serious.

You're killing part of them and, any time that happens, it feels (to them) like you're killing all of them.

When you reach conclusions about people; when you don’t engage with them and instead foster your conclusions about them (privately or in the groups you belong to), you are judging them.

When you spend more and more time building a case against people — or, even worse, let other people do it for you — especially people that you’ve never even talked to; you are reaching for conclusions, you are judging them.

IT is that serious.

And, if you need moral authority here, remind yourself of the Scriptures which say “Judge not...lest you be judged”.   Did you read the last part of that (or just the first part)?

If that's true and if judging kills, your very life hangs in this balance, not to mention theirs.

It is that SERIOUS.

When you’ve not been curious enough to talk to actual people that you are judging; when you’re not personally engaging with the systems that you are using to judge those people, then you really are just interested in conclusions (judgment).

...not in curiosity, not in love.

It IS that serious.

When can we talk about our systems?

Your team is down by a few points and the game is almost over. What play should you call?

[When can we talk about the system of drafting and training that got your team to this situation in the first place?]

Your back hurts and you think you need surgery to help with the pain.

[When can we talk about the technique you use when you go running every day?]

Your employee shows up late regularly. How can you get them to care more?

[When can we talk about your hiring and leadership approaches?]

There’s racial injustice and unfairness all around us.

[Can we talk about persistent indoctrination around caste?]

You just had an argument with your brother. What’s the best way for him to see that you’re right?

[When can we talk about the narratives your family has developed for generations?]

Universities and local schools are in crisis with testing in disarray and distant learning ineffective…

[When can we talk about what school is for?]

It’s comfortable to ignore the system, to assume it is as permanent as the water surrounding your goldfish. But the fact that we have these tactical problems is all the evidence we need to see that something is causing them, and that spending time on the underlying structure could make a difference.

In a crisis, there’s maximum attention. And in a crisis, we often discard any pretense of caring about systems and resilience and focus only on how to get back to normal. This is precisely why normal is what normal is, because we fight to get back to it.

Changing the system changes everything. And it might be even less work than pouring water on today’s tactical emergency.

-- Seth Godin, When can we talk about our systems?

Strengths & Surroundings

Ever noticed...how often people’s strengths, good or bad, are often a function of or correlate with their surroundings?

Character, Compassion, Vulnerability

 

Instagram: mariashriver

I want to remind you of your decency, of your character, of your compassion and your vulnerability.  I want to remind you that these qualities are strengths, not weaknesses.  Use them this week to sow love when you see hatred.  Use them to calm when you detect fear.  Be a beacon of understanding.  We need you!

-- Maria Shriver

Sell Things

I'm not against Christian hope, just using it to sell things.

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

What Makes Some People More Resilient Than Others

A few years ago, an unimaginable thing happened in my life. I wanted to help someone I cared about, someone who was sick with an illness he was hiding. I went to his house, intent on a rescue operation that would end, I thought, with a trip to the emergency room. Instead, it ended with a trip to the morgue. What I found when I arrived was my ex-husband, dead on his bathroom floor. The hidden illness? An intravenous drug addiction.

It was, without question, the most traumatic event of my life, but not only mine. I had two teenage children at the time, who had unknowingly been given a front-row seat to their father’s slow suicide. It took two years for me to settle my ex-husband’s estate, which was thrown into probate, and meant a kind of suspended traumatic animation for me, as I continued to live in what felt like a constant state of emergency.

Back then, I thought we would never really recover, that our lives would always be stained with this terrible sadness. But now, nearly five years later, we’re doing well — really well. Or we were, until recently, when along with the rest of the world we began living through the current convergence of crises. 

...

The tools common to resilient people are optimism (that is also realistic), a moral compass, religious or spiritual beliefs, cognitive and emotional flexibility, and social connectedness. The most resilient among us are people who generally don’t dwell on the negative, who look for opportunities that might exist even in the darkest times. During a quarantine, for example, a resilient person might decide it is a good time to start a meditation practice, take an online course or learn to play guitar.

Research has shown that dedication to a worthy cause or a belief in something greater than oneself — religiously or spiritually — has a resilience-enhancing effect, as does the ability to be flexible in your thinking.

“Many, many resilient people learn to carefully accept what they can’t change about a situation and then ask themselves what they can actually change,” Dr. Southwick said. Conversely, banging your head against the wall and fretting endlessly about not being able to change things has the opposite effect, lessening your ability to cope. Continue here....

-- Eilene Zimmerman

Third Rock from the Sun

'Poem for the week' -- "Third Rock from the Sun":

That streetlight looks like the slicked backbone
            of a dead tree in the rain, its green lamp blazing
like the first neon fig glowing in the first garden
            on a continent that split away from Africa
from which floated away Brazil. Why are we not
            more amazed by the constellations, all those flung
stars held together by the thinnest filaments
            of our evolved, image making brains. For instance,
here we are in the middle of another Autumn,
            plummeting through a universe that made us
from its shattering and dust, stooping
            now to pluck an orange leaf from the sidewalk,
a small veined hand we hold in an open palm
            as we walk through the park on a weekend we
invented so we would have time to spare. Time,
            another idea we devised so the days would have
an epilogue, precise, unwavering, a pendulum
            strung above our heads. When was the sun
enough? The moon with its diminishing face?
            The sea with its nets of fish? The meadow’s
yellow baskets of grain? If I was in charge
            I’d say leave them there on their backs
in the grass, wondering, eating berries
            and rolling toward each other’s naked bodies
for warmth, for something we’ve yet to name,
            when the leaves were turning colors in their dying
and we didn’t know why, or that they would return,
            bud and green. One of a billion
small miracles. This planet will again be stone.

--Dorianne Laux

Visual - "Veins of Color":

Pierceton, IN

Curators

At the end of the day, we are all mostly curators.

Sometimes a thought needs description; context that enhances the quality of its truth.

At other times, a thought is enhanced most by lack of anything that distracts from it.

Which is best for the original statement above?

Being Present

The other day, a beautiful sunrise was taking place right in front of me, and yet there I was fiddling with my phone so that I could get a picture of it.

How much time do we spend recording life, rather than being present to it?

It seems really hard to be present at times or, to put it another way, really easy not to be.

Being present will cost you something — mostly though, only to the ego.  But in the end, I suspect not being present will cost you more.

Great Insights

Great insights come through interacting with people, gaining experiences and letting your mind make connections. 

-- Scott Barry Kaufman

Hurt You

I've noticed...you have to be willing to be hurt by the ones you love — it is the only way.

The alternative — being unwilling to be hurt by them — never works for the reason that make sense to you because it is the belief that I can only love when I’m not being hurt that is the true illusion.  This is based in the fear that I am only loved when I deserve to be loved, which is a fatal flaw in our perception of what love is, both in terms of receiving and giving it.

This is the way all those who have loved greatly have taken — willingness to let yourself be hurt by those you love...by the way, the very thing that makes you even more capable of love.

Instagram: mariashriver

Loathing Will Numb Us

We must pray "Search me & know me" more than "Convince & convict them."  To loathe our enemy more than we look at our brokenness will numb us to grace & deaden our hearts.  An unexamined heart rarely leads to life & healing. In the pursuit of justice, submit your life. Go first.

-- Ashlee Eiland

Unless we find concrete ways to weep over the brokenness, we will use the brokenness to break others. And ourselves. 

-- Aaron Niequist

...you cannot heal what you do not acknowledge; and what you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within, harming you and those around you, particularly those you love. 

-- Richard Rohr

Humiliation is the way to humility. 

-- Thomas Keating

So confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and this will cure you. 

-- James 5:16

Survey finds we worry about the wrong risks

A new global risk poll surveyed tens of thousands of people in 142 countries to determine what people worry about when it comes to risk and safety.

Why it matters: The poll offers a telling snapshot of how people around the world perceive the risks they face, which often turn out to be different than the risks they are actually experiencing.

By the numbers: The poll, which was carried out by Gallup and the Lloyd's Register Foundation (LRF), found that people around the world were most worried about the effects of severe weather, violent crime and food.

Be smart: The survey found that what people around the world thought was a major risk didn't always line up with the risks they were actually experiencing, notes Sarah Cumbers, director of evidence and insight at LRF.

• That was especially true of violent crime, where nearly twice the percentage of respondents reported being very worried about violence as those who had actually experienced it.
• 43% of Americans were worried about violent crime, even though the U.S. murder rate in 2019 — the year the survey was done — was lower than it was in 1960.
• By contrast, respondents tended to underplay less dramatic but more common threats like malfunctioning appliances and mental health.  Continue here....

-- Bryan Walsh

Why Conspiracy Theories Are So Addictive Right Now

The other night, as President Trump convalesced at Walter Reed, I took a spin through social media to see the latest news on his health.

Instead, what I found were a bunch of paranoid partisans posting grainy, zoomed-in photos, analyzing video footage frame by frame, and people straining to connect the dots on far-fetched conspiracy theories involving a cabal of nefarious elites staging an elaborate cover-up.

No, I didn’t stumble into a room for QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory. In fact, many of the people sharing bogus and unverified claims on my feeds were die-hard Democrats. Some of them were speculating, with no evidence, that Mr. Trump was faking his bout with Covid-19 to engender sympathy and boost his re-election chances. Others claimed that Mr. Trump had died and been replaced by a body double (nope), that he had gotten a secret vaccine from Russia and was quarantining until it took effect (also nope) or that he had deliberately contracted the disease to distract the public from a New York Times article about his taxes (creative, but doubtful).

None of these theories passed the smell test, but they were retweeted and shared thousands of times anyway.  Continue here....

-- Kevin Roose 

Visual: Wood Eye

Visual - "Wood Eye":

Winona Lake, IN

First Time in 208 Years

A too-simple answer to a complicated problem

The problem: how can we get people what they want and need?

It turns out that the simple short-term answer is the market.

The marketplace makes it possible to buy a nail clipper made of hardened steel for just four dollars, but only when you’re ready. The marketplace offers some people a solid brass set of the cups and balls magic trick and other people a hand-blown glass vase.

The marketplace is hyper-alert and never tires of finding overlooked corners of desire.

But the marketplace is not wise.

It’s blind, short-term and fairly stupid. Because it has no overarching goal. The market is nothing but billions of selfish people, trading this for that, without regard for what’s next.

Left alone, capitalism will devolve into corruption, bribery and predatory pricing leading to monopoly. Left alone, capitalism will pollute rivers, damage our health and create ever greater divides.

Capitalism gets us an opioid epidemic, the dark patterns of social media and doom scrolling.

Because the market isn’t wise. It has no sense of time or proportion.

The only way for the simple answer to solve our complicated problems is for it to have guardrails, boundaries that enable it to function for the long haul.

That’s something we need leadership to get done. And it’s more likely to get done if we acknowledge that we need to do it.

-- Seth Godin, A too-simple answer to a complicated problem 

What are we going to do to make things better?

Our question needs to evolve from what’s wrong, with this or that, to what are we going to do about it?  

    What are we going to do to make things better?

Being the critic, or simply trolling to reinforce my position, on what's wrong is not enough.

    What are we going to do to make things better?

Nothing...is not an answer.

    What are we going to do to make things better?

Details matter.

    What are we going to do to make things better?

Who's job is it (can't keep saying, "It's not my problem"), is the fundamental question.

    What are WE going to do to make things better?

Otherwise, things won't get better...I suspect that is already obvious enough.

Integrity

Integrity is when our words and deeds are consistent with our intentions.

-- Simon Sinek


Another thing we could use a little more of these days....

Connection

Ever noticed...that connection to ideas seems to go only so far without connection to people those ideas impact?

This betrays the fact that at the center of good ideas are people.  People are the energy for ideas, both for them and from them.  

In other words, if you take people of out of the picture, ideas start to wither in terms of their import, their energy, their efficacy and they begin to become something else.

People are connected thru ideas.

Authentic Spirituality

Authentic spirituality is about finding true freedom. It offers us freedom from our smaller selves as a reference point for everything or anything.

We become ever more free as we let go of our three primary motivations: our need for power and control, our need for safety and security, and our need for affection and esteem.

Powerlessness is the beginning of wisdom.

-- Richard Rohr

Something Deeper

In the end, we need a purpose for our existence...some reason (or driver) that compels us thru the meaninglessness of many things about life.

We all have awareness that there is something deeper in us to trust; something deeper than the political winds of our lives which are vying for our attention (often successfully), by appealing to what we think we need to do to survive.

Some refer to this as common sense.

But, it’s deeper than that; what we can trust is something innate within us—a love...of self, of another, of creation...of God.

Red Brocade

'Poem for the week' -- "Red Brocade":

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.

Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

--Naomi Shihab Nye 

Couldn't we use a little more of this right now?

Un-Presidential Debate

Maybe next week the Vice-Presidential candidates can return things to something more...Presidential (our children are watching how our leaders treat people, you know).

Unfortunately, to say the least, this week's debate was so...un-Presidential (not at all an adequate presentation of the ideals of leadership in the free world), including characteristics like:

• Chaotic and distracting
• 'Just making things up' (including numbers)
• Hyperbolization
• Self-aggrandizement
• Pot-calling-the-kettle-black — law-and-order, violence, Russia, etc.
• Disrespectful — no listening to observations (experiences) of other people
• Name-calling — what grade are we in again?

It did nothing to exemplify why a debate contributes to the kind of discourse that is needed in and a feature of a healthy democracy.  And, it robbed the people of an opportunity to listen to how facts are viewed from different (even opposing) perspectives and make an intelligent decision (vote).  A reality-TV show model for living real life does not serve this or us well.  

Though I'm not a huge fan of many of the Democrats' ideas; at the very least, they seem to try to address the people's issues.   But, I despise how Republicans run things.  They look so chicken-shit scared of losing power (to either the Democrats...or Donald Trump) that they just don't say anything (ex, taxes, among many other even more things) and pretend as if nothing is happening.

I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing — not from the right wing....

-- Donald Trump

'Everything I see...'—it can be frightening to not admit that what we so often see is precisely limited to what we are already looking for.

When we are content and satisfied on the inside of any group, we seem to suffer from a structural indifference.

-- Richard Rohr

From the stats above, 30% of Americans said they were 'entertained' — humans are better than this, or should be.

Let's work against de-humunization wherever it is, but especially in the service of public office...starting at the highest level.