The article is called:

Be Confident of Your Greatness: Being in Control of Your Life in Tough Times

I really like Kevin Hogan. He’s made of the good stuff. His articles are consistently worth reading and this one is stellar in my opinion.

In fact, I liked it so much that on my twitter post I said:

“Reading @kevinhogan ’s http://tinyurl.com/dfk3nq - best self development article I’ve read in 3 yrs & timely”

I put 3 years and was thinking 4, and on this blog post I’ve modified it to the last 12 months just in case my time guage reading is off! However,  still think it’s a really great article to read and read now.

How do we form our identity? We enter this world totally clean and clear of any definitions of who we think we are. Then we start learning what we can control relatively easily (arms, legs) and what we can’t (other people, things).

In the pursuit of enlightenment, you start to question the limitations of who you are. Yogis and mystics spend lifetimes in meditation and tell us we are much more than we think we are. Some hint that we are God, or the Tao, or one with the Absolute Reality. But it’s hard to appreciate this when you are cramming a toastie into your mouth and running out the door to try to make the bus to work.

It intrigues me to watch kids playing computer games. They get so involved. They take it personally when the Super Mario character that they are operating gets killed. They don’t say, “Oh no, Mario got killed”… instead they say, “Nuts! I got killed!” and they flop down in desperate annoyance. What’s that about?

That’s the power of identification.

Have you played on a computer game? It’s not just children that become identified with the avatar character they are operating, is it? We all do.

It may be a fuzzy logic conclusion to make, but it’s hard not to look at that process and wonder if the same thing goes on with this human life we are living. Are we actually a vast consciousness, unlimted, free, that plays this human game and becomes temporarily identified with the avatar character (you, your life)?

The research in Sweden adds another dimension of fact to this observation of the ease with which we become identified with something that we can control…

Here’s the story:

Swedish Scientists Trick People Into Thinking They’ve Swapped Bodies 

The Associated Press

Published: December 3, 2008

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Shaking hands with yourself is an amusing out-of-body experience. The illusion of having your stomach slashed with a kitchen knife, not so much. Both sensations, however, felt real to most participants in a Swedish science project exploring how people can be tricked into the false perception of owning another body.

In a study presented Tuesday, neuroscientists at Stockholm’s renowned Karolinska Institute show how they got volunteers wearing virtual reality goggles to experience the illusion of swapping bodies with a mannequin and a real person.

“We were interested in a classical question that philosophers and psychologists have discussed for centuries: why we feel that the self is in our bodies,” project leader Henrik Ehrsson said. “To study this scientifically we’ve used tricks, perceptual illusions.”

It sounded intriguing enough for me to try it, though entering the laboratory on Monday, I was having second thoughts.

The first props I saw were two kitchen knives, three naked dummies and a prosthetic hand sticking out from behind a curtain.

“You have the right to say stop at anytime if you feel uncomfortable,” said Ehrsson’s colleague, Valeria Petkova, as she rubbed my left hand with electrolytic gel and attached electrodes to the middle and index fingers.

She assured me I was not in any danger. Still, a nervous tingle rushed through my body as she placed the headset over my eyes.

In the first experiment, the goggles were hooked up to CCTV cameras fitted to the head of a male mannequin, staring down at its feet. Through the headset I saw a grainy image of the dummy’s plastic torso. I tilted my head down to create the sensation I was looking down at my own body.

At that point, it didn’t feel very real. But when Petkova simultaneously brushed markers against my belly and that of the mannequin, the effect started setting in. As my brain processed the visual and tactile signals, I had a growing impression that the mannequin’s body was my own.

That was good fun, until the gleaming blade of a bread knife entered my field of vision. Petkova slid it across the dummy’s stomach, sending shivers down my spine and a pulse of anxiety through the electrodes. My heightened stress level was illustrated by a spike in a computer diagram shown to me after the experiment.

“Approximately 70-80 percent of the people experience the illusion very strongly,” Petkova said.

Apparently, I was one of them.

The second experiment was more benign. This time my headset was connected to cameras mounted on a round hat that Petkova was wearing. We faced each other, extended our right arms and shook hands.

Now that was weird: I was supposed to have the sensation of shaking hands with myself. The illusion wasn’t perfect as I couldn’t quite recognize Petkova’s grip as my own, even though that’s what the goggles meant to make me believe.

Perhaps the session was too short. The actual study, in which 87 volunteers participated, consisted of repeated sessions that gradually provided more accurate data. The results were published in PLoS One, the online journal of the Public Library of Science.

The principle finding was that under certain conditions a person can perceive another body as his or her own, even if it is of an opposite gender or an artificial body.

“These findings are of fundamental importance because they identify the perceptual processes that make us feel that we own our entire body,” the study said.

Ehrsson said the study built on a previous experiment known as the “rubber hand illusion” in which participants were manipulated to experience a rubber hand as their own.

Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, said the Karolinska study was a “step up” from other research on the subject.

“This goes beyond other recent studies, where you’ve taken ownership of rubber hands and rubber legs,” said Spence, who was not involved with the study.

His only concern was whether there might be any lasting effect on participants.

“The questions is what happens if you did it much longer? If you were in there for days and weeks. Would it be like something out of Total Recall?” Spence said, referring to the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger science fiction movie about a virtual vacation that turns into a nightmare.

Ehrsson suggested the findings could be applied in research on body image disorders by exploring how people become satisfied or dissatisfied with their bodies. Another possible application could be developing more advanced versions of computer games such as Second Life, he said.

“It could lead to the next generation of virtual reality applications in games, where people have the full-blown experience of being the avatar,” Ehrsson said.

Fascinating, isn’t it? Next time you are caught up in your problems, pull back and think about what you are identifying with. Is it just a game? Are you much more than you think you are?

Be big… 

I really enjoyed reading this interview with the now 75-year-old, Edward de Bono: http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2009/01/04/interview.html

In it he calls for an Embassy or “Palace of Thinking”, a grand edifice building that would visually impress the importance and regard we choose to give to the thinking arts in the new millenia.  

This Palace of Thinking would be situated in his homeland of Malta, the tiny Mediterranean island which would be rebranded the Creative Think Tank of the world!

Check out some of Edward de Bono’s other provactive ideas in this article, namely:

1. That he goes to America, as a ‘gift’ from the EU, to teach Presidential elect Obama how to think creatively!

2. The invention of a new spending currency “the Bon”. He explains how that would work.

3. The development of a currency for buying and selling property with a managed exchange rate mechanism to stabilise property markets in times of bubble/bust.

4. What a fat female cross-eyed hunchback can expect if she ever crosses paths with Mr de BONO!

It’s very waffo and you can read it here: The Embassy of Thinking

It sounds like a Disneyland for the creative mind. Check out this cool news item to learn about what those folks are doing over there:

Clay St Project lets P&G Think Outside of the Pyramid

I love the firestarter question that sparks a lot of creativity over there:

“If you were going to come to Earth and see things for the first time, what would they look like?”

A great question to take with you into 2009 — so you can see with fresh eyes… and thus see what others miss.

Wishing you happy new year and creative days,

Wily

His three little categories for sorting your ideas into make perfect sense.

Of course, once you’ve done your brainstorming, and made your own choice as to the best ideas, you need some feedback.

Trouble is… when you ask for criticism you get it. People automatically go into “what’s wrong?” mode and that can savage a perfectly good idea and perhaps stop you in your tracks.

Fortunately, Mitesh has a way round that, by getting the feedback group to apply the same categorization process to the ideas and see which ones triumph overall.

Shows what a few beers and a playful attitude with a focus on strengths can do to unleash creative thinking.

See how one place inspires another place to adopt town and city planning with a focus on relaxation and quality of life — surely the way towns and cities should be designed — to enhance the experience of the peoples living and visiting there?

Too much trying, feel like crying. Just get doing, ‘tivity’s a shoe-in.

Possibly worst rhyme you’ve ever heard.

Don’t care.

Not the point.

Have fun. Be creative. Chillax about the quality.

Let yourself be free… and you throw wide open the doorway to your deepest creative thinking.

Her articles are always so nicely weighted, clear and useful.

Here she explains Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking in an easy to understand and apply way. You’ll enjoy the lateral thinking puzzles she includes too.

‘Lateral Thinking’ by Edward de Bono was first published in 1970. It’s a landmark book in the creativity field. It was the first book on creative thinking that I ever got. It had an impact at 15 years of age and I’m still learning from it 25 years later.

It encapsulates the struggle that we sometimes feel to reach for that free, beautiful, peak performance part of ourselves… when we are locked up in the tight, restrictive, controlling parts of our mind.

The call for the whirlwind to blast away our limitations.

Why?

Because it exposed a few hidden home truths that most self-confessed ‘creative types’ hide even from themselves.

And what is that?

That we enjoy creative thinking while it is fun, but often bail out when it starts to feel like hard work.

But as Edward de Bono points out in this article, “the disciplined use of creative thinking often turns up ideas way beyond those that arise from the habit of creative thinking.”

Becoming a disciplined creative thinker is a whole different ball game.

Are you up to it?