Bohemian World

How to deal with loneliness: People who are lonely have brains that are wired differently, but four steps could help them overcome it

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 23:52:00 +0200

How to deal with loneliness: People who are lonely have brains that are wired differently, but four steps could help them overcome it

Lonely people shun interaction because they are more vigilant to threats
This is according to two separate studies this year by Chicago University
Scientist has come up with the 'Ease method' to help deal with loneliness
Steps include accepting social invitations, creating a social calender, meeting people with the same interests and expecting the best

By Ellie Zolfagharifard For Dailymail.com

Many people who are lonely end up in a negative spiral of behaviour.

Despite feeling alone, they shun social interaction because they dread rejection from friends and strangers.

Now a husband-and-wife team at Chicago University has revealed this pattern is the result of different wiring in the brains of people who feel lonely.

And they say there are four steps, known as the 'Ease method', that can help people overcome chronic loneliness.

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Many people who are lonely end up in what negative spiral of behaviour. Despite feeling alone, they shun social interaction because they dread rejection from friends and strangers. Now a husband-and-wife team in Chicago has revealed this pattern is the result of different wiring in the brains of people who feel lonely

These include accepting social invitations, creating a social calender, meeting people with the same interests and expecting the best from each interaction.

Stephanie and John Cacioppo recently conducted two studies which has shed light on how 'lonely minds' are hyper-alert to social threats.

The researchers found that, when shown negative social cues, the electrical activity in the brains of lonely people was faster and more pronounced.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, this means that lonely people are constantly guarding against social rejection.

The first study, published in July in the journal Cortex, involved 38 people who were very lonely and 32 who weren't lonely.

Researchers measured the electrical activity in their brain as the volunteers were given something known as a Stroop test.

SCIENTIST PROVIDES FOUR STEPS FOR GETTING OUT OF LONELINESS

Dr Cacioppo has provided four steps for getting out of loneliness, which he dubs the EASE method

In an article in Psychology Today, Dr Cacioppo provided four steps for getting out of loneliness. He named it the EASE method.

1 - Extend yourself

This means accepting social invitations even if you don't feel like it. 'You cannot connect if you isolate yourself - or if you only connect online where many people present a non-authentic self,' Dr Cacioppo says.

2 - Get an action plan

'The simple realisations that we are not passive victims, that we do have some control, and that we can change our situation by changing our thoughts, expectations, and behaviors toward others can have a surprisingly empowering effect,' said Dr Cacioppo.

He recommends mapping your social life out on your calendar, and creating events so that others can join you.

3 - Selection

The solution to loneliness is not quantity but quality of relationships,' says the psychologist. That means spending time with people who have things in common with you, in order to develop meaningful connections.

4 - Expect the best

Warmth and goodwill on one person's part is more likely to elicit warmth and goodwill from other people. Expecting this best in any situation can help achieve this, bring you out of loneliness.

This involved being shown words written in different colours and asked to name the colour but not the meaning of the word.

The test was designed to find out how participants' brains worked when it came to automatic and subconscious influences.

A quarter of the words were social and positive, like 'party,' while a quarter were social and negative, like 'alone'.

Other words were emotionally positive but non-social, such as 'joy,' and others were non-social and negative, such as 'sad'.

After a word was shown on the screen, lonely people's brains went into a series of three different microstates.

Microstates are periods of relative stability when different parts of the brain are activited in a consistent pattern. Change of a microstate indicates new pattern of thought.

The researchers found that, when shown negative social cues, the electrical activity in the brains of lonely people was faster and more pronounced

In the study, the brains of lonely entered a microstate that specifically responded to socially negative words, causing them to become extremely alert.

Lonely people were also able to pick up on the differences between socially threatening and negative non-social words.

This suggests lonely people were looking out for negativity.

A second study by the same researchers, published online in August in Cognitive Neuroscience, involved 19 people, 10 of whom were lonely.

There were shown 28 pictures; seven that were social and positive; seven that were social and negative; seven were non-social and positive and seven were non-social and negative.

Their brains were scanned for electrical activity and, like the first study, the researchers found lonely people respond to social threats more quickly than non-social ones.

Dr Cacioppo argues that it’s important for people who feel lonely to be aware that their brains are making them more alert to threats, and take control of their behaviour.

He has created the 'Ease method' which involves accepting social invitations and getting an action plan for socialising with more people.

He also recommends make friends with the same interests while changing your attitude to expect the best from each interaction.

Osho on relationships

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:01:00 +0200

Relationship is a structure, and love is unstructured. So love relates, certainly, but never becomes a relationship. Love is a moment-to-moment process. Remember it. Love is a state of your being, not a relationship. There are loving people and there are unloving people. Unloving people pretend to be loving through the relationship. Loving people need not have any relationship – love is enough.

Be a loving person rather than in a love relationship – because relationships happen one day and disappear another day. They are flowers; in the morning they bloom, by the evening they are gone.

You be a loving person, Mantra.

But people find it very difficult to be a loving person, so they create a relationship – and befool that way that “Now I am a loving person because I am in a relationship.” And the relationship may be just one of monopoly, possessiveness, exclusiveness.

Relationship may be just out of fear, may not have anything to do with love. Relationship may be just a kind of security – financial or something else. The relationship is needed only because love is not there. Relationship is a substitute.

Become alert! Relationship destroys love, destroys the very possibility of its birth.

Osho, Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind, Talk# 8

If you can love without jealousy, if you can love without attachment, if you can love a person so much that his happiness is your happiness…. Even if he is with some other woman and he is happy, it makes you happy because you love him so much: his happiness is your happiness. You will be happy because he is happy, and you will be grateful to the woman who made the person you love, happy – you will not be jealous. Then love has come to a purity.

This love cannot create any bondage. And this love is simply the opening of the heart to all the winds, to the whole sky. It looks a little strange; but we have been taught continually that love is a relationship, so we have become accustomed to the idea that love is a relationship. But that is not true. That is the lowest kind – very polluted.

Osho, Light on the Path, Talk #25

Freedom is the ultimate desire of man. Man comes to flowering only in freedom. Meditation will bring freedom.

And I am not against love; it is just one step lower than freedom, and it is beautiful to have love as a fragrance around you. Let freedom be your center and love be your circumference. Let love be the circumference and freedom the center, and you will have a total being, a whole being.

But relationship never works. You are asking me: “How can two people be committed to each other?” They cannot be. Commitment is toward existence, not toward each other. Commitment can only be toward the whole, not to each other.

“How does a relationship work?” you ask. It does not work – and you can see it everywhere. It only pretends to. People go on saying that everything is okay, everything is good. What is the point of showing one’s misery? What is the point of showing one’s wounds? One goes on hiding them. It is humiliating to show one’s wounds, so people pretend that everything is going well. They go on smiling, they go on repressing their tears.

Friedrich Nietzsche is reported to have said, “I go on smiling and laughing for the simple reason that if I don’t smile I may start crying.” Smiling is a way to cover up tears: you shift your energy from the tears to the smile so that you can forget your tears. But everybody is full of tears.

I have looked into thousands of people’s lives, their relationships. It is all misery, but they are covering it up, pretending everything is going okay. A relationship does not work, cannot work.

And you say: “I am afraid of commitment, so I avoid relationships.” You are perfectly right in being afraid of commitment and you are perfectly right in avoiding relationships, but don’t avoid relatedness. Don’t make any exclusive relationship, be friendly. Let love rise to the level of friendliness, let it be just your quality. Be loving. Don’t make it a relationship, just be loving.

These are the three stages. Relationship is the lowest, it is animal. Love as a quality of your being. Just as you breathe, let love be, that is human. And love at its ultimate expression is not even a quality, you become love itself. Then it is not even like breathing, it is your very being; then it is spiritual. But the third possibility can happen only through meditation. That refinement is possible only if your energies go through the whole alchemy of meditativeness.
Osho, Zen: Zest Zip Zap and Zing, Talk #5

Unless you are enlightened, extra-marital relationships are good. So please have as many as you can have before you become enlightened, because once you are enlightened I cannot help! Then you are finished.

Once in a while just a little taste of a new woman, a new man revives your interest in the old woman and the old man. You start thinking, “After all, she is not so bad.” A little change is always good.

I am not against extra-marital relationships. The people who are against them are really teaching you possessiveness in an indirect way. When I say I am not against extra-marital relationships I am teaching you non-possessiveness. Just see the point: if I talk about non-possessiveness people think, “That’s spiritual, that’s religious – that’s great!” But if I talk about extramarital relationships, the spiritual and the religious are immediately offended.

But I am saying the same thing. Talking about non-possessiveness is abstract, talking about extra-marital relationship is concrete. And you cannot live with abstractions, you have to live with concrete life. And what wrong can it do? If a man is tired of the same woman – the same contours, the same geography, the same topography – once in a while a little bit different geography, a little bit different landscape…and he comes home again interested in exploring the old map. It gives a break – a coffee break. And after each coffee break you can again get involved in the same work, the same files, and you open them and you start working…. The coffee break helps you.

I don’t want people to be interested in impossible ideals. I am not an idealist at all. I am down-to-earth, a pragmatist, a realist.

If people want to live together in a deep intimacy, they should not be possessive. They should allow freedom. And that’s what extra-marital relationship is – freedom.
Osho, Philosophia Ultima, Talk #3

Relationship is beautiful because it is a mirror. But there are stupid people – they see their face in the mirror and they see it is ugly so they destroy the mirror. The logic is apparent: this mirror is making them ugly, so destroy the mirror and then they are beautiful.

Relationship is a mirror. Wherever you are related with a person – a wife, a husband, a friend, a lover, an enemy – a mirror is there. The wife mirrors the husband. You can see yourself there. And if you see an ugly husband, don’t try to leave your wife – the ugliness is in you. Drop that ugliness. The mirror is beautiful; be thankful to this mirror.

But stupid and cowardly people always escape and renounce; brave and wise people always live in relationship and use it as a mirror. Living with someone is a constant mirroring around you. Every moment the other reveals you, exposes you. The closer the relationship, the clearer is the mirror; the more distant the relationship, the less clear is the mirror.

Osho, My Way: The Way of the White Clouds, Talk #11

Live, and live so totally that you come in contact with yourself. And there is no other way to come in contact with yourself. The deeper you live, the deeper you know yourself, in relationship, in aloneness. The deeper you move in relationship, in love, the deeper you know. Love becomes a mirror. And one who has never loved cannot be alone, he can at the most be lonely.

One who has loved and known a relationship can be alone. Now his aloneness has a totally different quality to it, it is not loneliness. He has lived in a relationship, fulfilled his love, known the other, and known himself through the other. Now he can know himself directly, now the mirror is not needed. Just think of someone who has never come across a mirror. Can he close his eyes and see his face? Impossible. He cannot even imagine his face, he cannot meditate on it. But a man who has come to a mirror, looked into it, known his face through it, can close his eyes and see the face inside. That’s what happens in relationship. When a person moves into a relationship, the relationship mirrors, reflects him, and he comes to know many things in himself that he never knew existed.

Through the other he comes to know his anger, his greed, his jealousy, his possessiveness, his compassion, his love, and thousands of moods of his being. Many climates he encounters through the other. By and by a moment comes when he can now be alone; he can close his eyes and know his own consciousness directly. That’s why I say that for people who have never loved meditation is very, very difficult.

Those who have loved deeply can become deep meditators; those who have loved in a relationship are now in a position to be by themselves. Now they have become mature, now the other is not needed. If the other is there they can share, but the need has disappeared; now there is no dependence.

http://www.osho.com/read/osho/osho-on-topics/relationship

30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:07:00 +0300

30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself.

Marc and Angel are the authors of 1000 Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently. Here’s their amazing list of 30 things to start doing for yourself. If you enjoy this, be sure to visit their website for more inspirational advice and tips for life.

#1. Start spending time with the right people. – These are the people you enjoy, who love and appreciate you, and who encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways. They are the ones who make you feel more alive, and not only embrace who you are now, but also embrace and embody who you want to be, unconditionally.

truongxuabancu.fpb.yuku.com

#2. Start facing your problems head on. – It isn’t your problems that define you, but how you react to them and recover from them. Problems will not disappear unless you take action. Do what you can, when you can, and acknowledge what you’ve done. It’s all about taking baby steps in the right direction, inch by inch. These inches count, they add up to yards and miles in the long run.

Seth Casteel

#3. Start being honest with yourself about everything. – Be honest about what’s right, as well as what needs to be changed. Be honest about what you want to achieve and who you want to become. Be honest with every aspect of your life, always. Because you are the one person you can forever count on. Search your soul, for the truth, so that you truly know who you are. Once you do, you’ll have a better understanding of where you are now and how you got here, and you’ll be better equipped to identify where you want to go and how to get there. Read The Road Less Traveled.

Brian Oldham

#4. Start making your own happiness a priority. – Your needs matter. If you don’t value yourself, look out for yourself, and stick up for yourself, you’re sabotaging yourself. Remember, it IS possible to take care of your own needs while simultaneously caring for those around you. And once your needs are met, you will likely be far more capable of helping those who need you most.

Alex Goh Chun Seong

#5. Start being yourself, genuinely and proudly. – Trying to be anyone else is a waste of the person you are. Be yourself. Embrace that individual inside you that has ideas, strengths and beauty like no one else. Be the person you know yourself to be – the best version of you – on your terms. Above all, be true to YOU, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.

Paul Kipping

#6. Start noticing and living in the present. – Right now is a miracle. Right now is the only moment guaranteed to you. Right now is life. So stop thinking about how great things will be in the future. Stop dwelling on what did or didn’t happen in the past. Learn to be in the ‘here and now’ and experience life as it’s happening. Appreciate the world for the beauty that it holds, right now.

Lisa Brown

#7. Start valuing the lessons your mistakes teach you. – Mistakes are okay; they’re the stepping stones of progress. If you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not trying hard enough and you’re not learning. Take risks, stumble, fall, and then get up and try again. Appreciate that you are pushing yourself, learning, growing and improving. Significant achievements are almost invariably realized at the end of a long road of failures. One of the ‘mistakes’ you fear might just be the link to your greatest achievement yet.

Vivian Maier

#8. Start being more polite to yourself. – If you had a friend who spoke to you in the same way that you sometimes speak to yourself, how long would you allow that person to be your friend? The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others. You must love who you are or no one else will.

Daesung Lee

#9. Start enjoying the things you already have. – The problem with many of us is that we think we’ll be happy when we reach a certain level in life – a level we see others operating at – your boss with her corner office, that friend of a friend who owns a mansion on the beach, etc. Unfortunately, it takes awhile before you get there, and when you get there you’ll likely have a new destination in mind. You’ll end up spending your whole life working toward something new without ever stopping to enjoy the things you have now. So take a quiet moment every morning when you first awake to appreciate where you are and what you already have.

Gregory J Smith

#10. Start creating your own happiness. – If you are waiting for someone else to make you happy, you’re missing out. Smile because you can. Choose happiness. Be the change you want to see in the world. Be happy with who you are now, and let your positivity inspire your journey into tomorrow. Happiness is often found when and where you decide to seek it. If you look for happiness within the opportunities you have, you will eventually find it. But if you constantly look for something else, unfortunately, you’ll find that too. Read Stumbling on Happiness.

Tal Cohen EPA

#11. Start giving your ideas and dreams a chance. – In life, it’s rarely about getting a chance; it’s about taking a chance. You’ll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won’t work. Most of the time you just have to go for it! And no matter how it turns out, it always ends up just the way it should be. Either you succeed or you learn something. Win-Win.

animalstime.com

#12. Start believing that you’re ready for the next step. – You are ready! Think about it. You have everything you need right now to take the next small, realistic step forward. So embrace the opportunities that come your way, and accept the challenges – they’re gifts that will help you to grow.

acidcow.com

#13. Start entering new relationships for the right reasons. – Enter new relationships with dependable, honest people who reflect the person you are and the person you want to be. Choose friends you are proud to know, people you admire, who show you love and respect – people who reciprocate your kindness and commitment. And pay attention to what people do, because a person’s actions are much more important than their words or how others represent them.

Igor Guschin

#14. Start giving new people you meet a chance. – It sounds harsh, but you cannot keep every friend you’ve ever made. People and priorities change. As some relationships fade others will grow. Appreciate the possibility of new relationships as you naturally let go of old ones that no longer work. Trust your judgment. Embrace new relationships, knowing that you are entering into unfamiliar territory. Be ready to learn, be ready for a challenge, and be ready to meet someone that might just change your life forever.

Anna Gorbach

#15. Start competing against an earlier version of yourself. – Be inspired by others, appreciate others, learn from others, but know that competing against them is a waste of time. You are in competition with one person and one person only – yourself. You are competing to be the best you can be. Aim to break your own personal records.

Yongzhi Chu

#16. Start cheering for other people’s victories. – Start noticing what you like about others and tell them. Having an appreciation for how amazing the people around you are leads to good places – productive, fulfilling, peaceful places. So be happy for those who are making progress. Cheer for their victories. Be thankful for their blessings, openly. What goes around comes around, and sooner or later the people you’re cheering for will start cheering for you.

Sanket k

#17. Start looking for the silver lining in tough situations. – When things are hard, and you feel down, take a few deep breaths and look for the silver lining – the small glimmers of hope. Remind yourself that you can and will grow stronger from these hard times. And remain conscious of your blessings and victories – all the things in your life that are right. Focus on what you have, not on what you haven’t.

Max van Son

#18. Start forgiving yourself and others. – We’ve all been hurt by our own decisions and by others. And while the pain of these experiences is normal, sometimes it lingers for too long. We relive the pain over and over and have a hard time letting go. Forgiveness is the remedy. It doesn’t mean you’re erasing the past, or forgetting what happened. It means you’re letting go of the resentment and pain, and instead choosing to learn from the incident and move on with your life.

Ana Gregoric

#19. Start helping those around you. – Care about people. Guide them if you know a better way. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you. Love and kindness begets love and kindness. And so on and so forth.

Wason Wanichakorn AP

#20. Start listening to your own inner voice. – If it helps, discuss your ideas with those closest to you, but give yourself enough room to follow your own intuition. Be true to yourself. Say what you need to say. Do what you know in your heart is right.

bluebirdsunshine.co.uk

#21. Start being attentive to your stress level and take short breaks. – Slow down. Breathe. Give yourself permission to pause, regroup and move forward with clarity and purpose. When you’re at your busiest, a brief recess can rejuvenate your mind and increase your productivity. These short breaks will help you regain your sanity and reflect on your recent actions so you can be sure they’re in line with your goals.

Waugsberg

#22. Start noticing the beauty of small moments. – Instead of waiting for the big things to happen – marriage, kids, big promotion, winning the lottery – find happiness in the small things that happen every day. Little things like having a quiet cup of coffee in the early morning, or the delicious taste and smell of a homemade meal, or the pleasure of sharing something you enjoy with someone else, or holding hands with your partner. Noticing these small pleasures on a daily basis makes a big difference in the quality of your life.

Vivian Maier

#23. Start accepting things when they are less than perfect. – Remember, ‘perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good.’ One of the biggest challenges for people who want to improve themselves and improve the world is learning to accept things as they are. Sometimes it’s better to accept and appreciate the world as it is, and people as they are, rather than to trying to make everything and everyone conform to an impossible ideal. No, you shouldn’t accept a life of mediocrity, but learn to love and value things when they are less than perfect.

Lars Anshelm

#24. Start working toward your goals every single day. – Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Whatever it is you dream about, start taking small, logical steps every day to make it happen. Get out there and DO something! The harder you work the luckier you will become. While many of us decide at some point during the course of our lives that we want to answer our calling, only an astute few of us actually work on it. By ‘working on it,’ I mean consistently devoting oneself to the end result. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Konstantin Kaminsky

#25. Start being more open about how you feel. – If you’re hurting, give yourself the necessary space and time to hurt, but be open about it. Talk to those closest to you. Tell them the truth about how you feel. Let them listen. The simple act of getting things off your chest and into the open is your first step toward feeling good again.

Igor Efimov

#26. Start taking full accountability for your own life. – Own your choices and mistakes, and be willing to take the necessary steps to improve upon them. Either you take accountability for your life or someone else will. And when they do, you’ll become a slave to their ideas and dreams instead of a pioneer of your own. You are the only one who can directly control the outcome of your life. And no, it won’t always be easy. Every person has a stack of obstacles in front of them. But you must take accountability for your situation and overcome these obstacles. Choosing not to is choosing a lifetime of mere existence.

Scott Sculberg

#27. Start actively nurturing your most important relationships. – Bring real, honest joy into your life and the lives of those you love by simply telling them how much they mean to you on a regular basis. You can’t be everything to everyone, but you can be everything to a few people. Decide who these people are in your life and treat them like royalty. Remember, you don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of.

Simone Sbaraglia

#28. Start concentrating on the things you can control. – You can’t change everything, but you can always change something. Wasting your time, talent and emotional energy on things that are beyond your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your energy in the things you can control, and act on them now.

Manu Fernandez AP

#29. Start focusing on the possibility of positive outcomes. – The mind must believe it CAN do something before it is capable of actually doing it. The way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful. Listen to your self-talk and replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Regardless of how a situation seems, focus on what you DO WANT to happen, and then take the next positive step forward. No, you can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you react to things. Everyone’s life has positive and negative aspects – whether or not you’re happy and successful in the long run depends greatly on which aspects you focus on. Read The How of Happiness.

Vivian Maier

#30. Start noticing how wealthy you are right now. – Henry David Thoreau once said, “Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” Even when times are tough, it’s always important to keep things in perspective. You didn’t go to sleep hungry last night. You didn’t go to sleep outside. You had a choice of what clothes to wear this morning. You hardly broke a sweat today. You didn’t spend a minute in fear. You have access to clean drinking water. You have access to medical care. You have access to the Internet. You can read. Some might say you are incredibly wealthy, so remember to be grateful for all the things you do have.

Miyoko Ihara

Credit: marcandangel.com

This is such a wonderful list. If we take little steps every day and practice these things, we can make great improvements in our lives. Share this post with your friends and loved ones.

Owl City - When Can I See You Again?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 9 Jun 2014 19:34:00 +0300

"When Can I See You Again?"

When can we do this again?
When can I see you again?
When can we do this again?
When can I see you again?
When can we do this again?
When can I see you again?

Switch on the sky and the stars glow for you
Go see the world 'cause it's all so brand new
Don't close your eyes 'cause your future's ready to shine
It's just a matter of time, before we learn how to fly
Welcome to the rhythm of the night
There's something in the air you can't deny

It's been fun but now I've got to go
Life is way too short to take it slow
But before I go and hit the road
I gotta know, 'til then,
when can we do this again?
Oh oh oh oh
When can I see you again?
Oh oh oh oh
When can we do this again?
Oh oh oh oh
I gotta know, when can I see you again?
(When can I see you again?)

Joined at the hip, yeah your sidekick needs you
Life is a trip down the road that leads you
Look all around at all the mountains you haven't climbed
It's just a matter of time, before we learn how to fly
Welcome to the rhythm of the night
There's something in the air you can't deny

It's been fun but now I've got to go
Life is way too short to take it slow
But before I go and hit the road
I gotta know, 'til then,
when can we do this again?
Oh oh oh oh
When can I see you again?
Oh oh oh oh
When can we do this again?
Oh oh oh oh
I gotta know,
When can I see you again?

Don't close your eyes 'cause your future's ready to shine
It's just a matter of time, before we learn how to fly
Welcome to the rhythm of the night
There's something in the air you can't deny
So let me know before I wave goodbye

When can I see you again?
Oh oh oh oh
When can we do this again?
Oh oh oh oh
When can I see you again?
Oh oh oh oh
When can we do this again?
Oh oh oh oh

Yeah, it's been fun but now I've got to go
Life is way too short to take it slow
But before I go and hit the road
Tell me when
When can I see you again?
When can I see you again?
Tell me when
When can I see you again?

The meaning of the Naughty Boy - La La La ft. Sam Smith

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 8 Nov 2013 14:27:00 +0200

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_La_La_%28Naughty_Boy_song%29#Meaning

According to Ian Pons Jewell,[5] the music video, which hints at "The Wizard of Oz", is about an oral Bolivian legend dating to the early 20th century, which concerns a boy who fled from his abusive home and found a stray dog that accompanied him since then.

After living on the streets for undefined amount of time he discovers that he has special talent of perceiving people's troubles, which he can heal by screaming, which is said to be as loud as an earthquake and a tornado. One day, he finds an old man who is being stoned by villagers while being taunted and ridiculed. By screaming, the boy resolves the situation and revives the old man's heart (in the video, by buying him a new heart).

Together, they meet a disfigured man who was abused, considered a leper by society. The disfigured man reveals that he is a prophet who was cursed by a demon (El Tio) because he didn't worship him anymore, and abandoned the society where the demon resided. El Tio is considered as the lord of the underworld, to whom mortal people offer gifts to him in order to be protected by him or to ease his anger.[6]

The prophet said anybody who could hear the demon would fall under his control. He told them the demon could be found in desert, where there once was a town in which people worshipped the demon and he cursed them to kill themselves.
Together they go to the place where the demon should reside. They arrive at a mine where the demon is supposed to be, but everybody with their hearing intact could be cursed by the demon, thus the boy had to face the demon alone and overvoice him with his scream to stop him from cursing others.

The video ends with an open end, considering that El Tio is the lord of the underworld who rules in the mines, which were of use for people for a prolonged period of time, whom miners sacrifice a llama from time to time to avoid from being cursed, the boy could be seen as a big sacrifice to redeem the miners from El Tio's undesirable influence.[7]

Let's be more open about the joy of sex

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 8 Nov 2013 14:08:00 +0200

Let's be more open about the joy of sex

Promoting or at least discussing pleasure has been shown to increase consistent condom use and other forms of safer sex

Doortje Braeken
theguardian.com, Monday 29 April 2013 11.00 BST

The Kama Sutra is being used to spread safe sex messages in India. Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex

It appears that sex is fun. This may not come as a surprise but, working in sexual health, one can easily become blind to that fact. To work in sexual and reproductive health and rights is to be drip-fed a diet of warnings, doom-laden data on violence, population and epidemics; no wonder we have forgotten a central truth about sex – namely that it is pleasurable.

The idea of pleasure and confidence in your sexual life is not a new concept for us at IPPF (the International Planned Parenthood Federation). In 1998, we enshrined the concept of respect and pleasure in our youth manifesto, based on core values of respect for diversity, informed choice and freedom of sexual expression and sexual enjoyment. And then more recently in Healthy, Happy and Hot – a young person's guide to rights, sexuality and living with HIV – where IPPF had the courage to suggest that young people living with HIV could also live healthy and sexually fulfilling lives.
Now it seems the development community has caught up. The discussion around the new sustainable development goals – replacing the millennium development goals – are forcing us to re-examine the issue of sexual health and rights as the key to alleviating poverty and empowering women.

There is growing evidence that promoting pleasure alongside safer sex messaging can increase the consistent use of condoms and other forms of safer sex. With this in mind, IPPF is beginning to reframe the debate on sexual rights, health in terms of pleasure and confidence.

This new, pleasure-positive approach couldn't have come at a more crucial time. There is now general agreement that sustainable goals for alleviating poverty and encouraging lasting development depend on empowering women. Women's ability to contribute to their communities and economies depends on empowerment, confidence and equality. Sexual confidence, negotiation, collaboration and pleasure are all pivotal in building gender equality and ending gender and sexual discrimination.

So sex confidence is empowering. It's not just about not getting pregnant or avoiding an STI (sexually transmitted infection), it's about being comfortable with yourself, feeling accepted and accepting your partner, treating the other person as a person and not a body. It's about being confident and enjoying our bodies, having fun and not being forced into having sex when we don't want to; about using education and information to reinforce positive messages about safer sex, so that people of all ages can enjoy it when they feel the time is right.

Western-led discussions of sexual health have majored on facts, dire data and warnings, and what not to do. We can help construct a sex-positive language by talking about sex in our homes and families. It doesn't have to be the "big talk" about sex; much better to start an open, ongoing topic. Evidence shows that if you talk to teenagers about sex and relationships, they'll feel less pressure to have sex, which means they're more likely to wait.
The reproductive health community needs to take some of the blame here, being curiously silent on the subject of pleasure. Last year's Family Planning Summit in London made no reference or mention of it. If pleasure is the goal of our sexual lives, discussion of pleasure is clearly key to encouraging safer behaviours.

The generation of young people we want to reach with safer sex messages are inundated by the language and drama of love in films, song lyrics and soaps, yet most formal education literature has all the eroticism of a car manual. Between the medicalised world of sexual health and the commercialised world of the sex industry, we have lost sight of the messy, emotionally-charged reality of sex.
We need to find a more positive way of looking at sex that promotes sexual pleasure, not as a side-issue but as a way to re-engage with our audience – a chance to make our messages about sexual rights sexual and safety more effective.
The Pleasure Project has started the ball rolling by mapping initiatives around the world that use pleasure as the primary motivation for promoting sexual health, including working with Catholic churches in South Africa to improve sex among married couples and using the Kama Sutra to spread safe sex messages in India.

There's a long way to go. A report in the Lancet noted obstacles to condom use including the extra effort needed, embarrassment and the perception of reduced pleasure.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has issued a call to develop "the next generation of condom that significantly preserves or enhances pleasure, in order to improve uptake and regular use".
The community and governments are waking up to the fact that recognising and promoting pleasure and confidence in sex is vital to achieving development goals. That's undoubtedly good news, but, meanwhile, let's not forget that it's something to be sought and celebrated as an end in its self.

Doortje Braeken is IPPF's senior adviser on adolescents and young people, responsible for co-ordinating programmes in 26 countries implementing a rights-based approach to youth friendly services and comprehensive sexuality education.

The 12 Cognitive Biases That Prevent You From Being Rational

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 7 Sep 2013 11:16:00 +0200

The human brain is capable of 10¹⁶ processes per second, which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence. But that doesn't mean our brains don't have major limitations. The lowly calculator can do math thousands of times better than we can, and our memories are often less than useless — plus, we're subject to cognitive biases, those annoying glitches in our thinking that cause us to make questionable decisions and reach erroneous conclusions. Here are a dozen of the most common and pernicious cognitive biases that you need to know about.

Before we start, it's important to distinguish between cognitive biases and logical fallacies. A logical fallacy is an error in logical argumentation (e.g. ad hominem attacks, slippery slopes, circular arguments, appeal to force, etc.). A cognitive bias, on the other hand, is a genuine deficiency or limitation in our thinking — a flaw in judgment that arises from errors of memory, social attribution, and miscalculations (such as statistical errors or a false sense of probability).

Some social psychologists believe our cognitive biases help us process information more efficiently, especially in dangerous situations. Still, they lead us to make grave mistakes. We may be prone to such errors in judgment, but at least we can be aware of them. Here are some important ones to keep in mind.

Confirmation Bias

We love to agree with people who agree with us. It's why we only visit websites that express our political opinions, and why we mostly hang around people who hold similar views and tastes. We tend to be put off by individuals, groups, and news sources that make us feel uncomfortable or insecure about our views — what the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner called cognitive dissonance. It's this preferential mode of behavior that leads to the confirmation bias — the often unconscious act of referencing only those perspectives that fuel our pre-existing views, while at the same time ignoring or dismissing opinions — no matter how valid — that threaten our world view. And paradoxically, the internet has only made this tendency even worse.

Ingroup Bias

Somewhat similar to the confirmation bias is the ingroup bias, a manifestation of our innate tribalistic tendencies. And strangely, much of this effect may have to do with oxytocin — the so-called "love molecule." This neurotransmitter, while helping us to forge tighter bonds with people in our ingroup, performs the exact opposite function for those on the outside — it makes us suspicious, fearful, and even disdainful of others. Ultimately, the ingroup bias causes us to overestimate the abilities and value of our immediate group at the expense of people we don't really know.

Gambler's Fallacy

It's called a fallacy, but it's more a glitch in our thinking. We tend to put a tremendous amount of weight on previous events, believing that they'll somehow influence future outcomes. The classic example is coin-tossing. After flipping heads, say, five consecutive times, our inclination is to predict an increase in likelihood that the next coin toss will be tails — that the odds must certainly be in the favor of heads. But in reality, the odds are still 50/50. As statisticians say, the outcomes in different tosses are statistically independent and the probability of any outcome is still 50%.

Relatedly, there's also the positive expectation bias — which often fuels gambling addictions. It's the sense that our luck has to eventually change and that good fortune is on the way. It also contribues to the "hot hand" misconception. Similarly, it's the same feeling we get when we start a new relationship that leads us to believe it will be better than the last one.

Post-Purchase Rationalization

Remember that time you bought something totally unnecessary, faulty, or overly expense, and then you rationalized the purchase to such an extent that you convinced yourself it was a great idea all along? Yeah, that's post-purchase rationalization in action — a kind of built-in mechanism that makes us feel better after we make crappy decisions, especially at the cash register. Also known as Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome, it's a way of subconsciously justifying our purchases — especially expensive ones. Social psychologists say it stems from the principle of commitment, our psychological desire to stay consistent and avoid a state of cognitive dissonance.

Neglecting Probability

Very few of us have a problem getting into a car and going for a drive, but many of us experience great trepidation about stepping inside an airplane and flying at 35,000 feet. Flying, quite obviously, is a wholly unnatural and seemingly hazardous activity. Yet virtually all of us know and acknowledge the fact that the probability of dying in an auto accident is significantlygreater than getting killed in a plane crash — but our brains won't release us from this crystal clear logic (statistically, we have a 1 in 84 chance of dying in a vehicular accident, as compared to a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying in an plane crash [other sources indicate odds as high as 1 in 20,000]). It's the same phenomenon that makes us worry about getting killed in an act of terrorism as opposed to something far more probable, like falling down the stairs or accidental poisoning.

This is what the social psychologist Cass Sunstein calls probability neglect — our inability to properly grasp a proper sense of peril and risk — which often leads us to overstate the risks of relatively harmless activities, while forcing us to overrate more dangerous ones.

Observational Selection Bias

This is that effect of suddenly noticing things we didn't notice that much before — but we wrongly assume that the frequency has increased. A perfect example is what happens after we buy a new car and we inexplicably start to see the same car virtually everywhere. A similar effect happens to pregnant women who suddenly notice a lot of other pregnant women around them. Or it could be a unique number or song. It's not that these things are appearing more frequently, it's that we've (for whatever reason) selected the item in our mind, and in turn, are noticing it more often. Trouble is, most people don't recognize this as a selectional bias, and actually believe these items or events are happening with increased frequency — which can be a very disconcerting feeling. It's also a cognitive bias that contributes to the feeling that the appearance of certain things or events couldn't possibly be a coincidence (even though it is).

Status-Quo Bias

We humans tend to be apprehensive of change, which often leads us to make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible. Needless to say, this has ramifications in everything from politics to economics. We like to stick to our routines, political parties, and our favorite meals at restaurants. Part of the perniciousness of this bias is the unwarranted assumption that another choice will be inferior or make things worse. The status-quo bias can be summed with the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" — an adage that fuels our conservative tendencies. And in fact, some commentators say this is why the U.S. hasn't been able to enact universal health care, despite the fact that most individuals support the idea of reform.

Negativity Bias

People tend to pay more attention to bad news — and it's not just because we're morbid. Social scientists theorize that it's on account of our selective attention and that, given the choice, we perceive negative news as being more important or profound. We also tend to give more credibility to bad news, perhaps because we're suspicious (or bored) of proclamations to the contrary. More evolutionarily, heeding bad news may be more adaptive than ignoring good news (e.g. "saber tooth tigers suck" vs. "this berry tastes good"). Today, we run the risk of dwelling on negativity at the expense of genuinely good news. Steven Pinker, in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, argues that crime, violence, war, and other injustices are steadily declining, yet most people would argue that things are getting worse — what is a perfect example of the negativity bias at work.

Bandwagon Effect

Though we're often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd. When the masses start to pick a winner or a favorite, that's when our individualized brains start to shut down and enter into a kind of "groupthink" or hivemind mentality. But it doesn't have to be a large crowd or the whims of an entire nation; it can include small groups, like a family or even a small group of office co-workers. The bandwagon effect is what often causes behaviors, social norms, and memes to propagate among groups of individuals — regardless of the evidence or motives in support. This is why opinion polls are often maligned, as they can steer the perspectives of individuals accordingly. Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform, as famously demonstrated by the Asch Conformity Experiments.

Projection Bias

As individuals trapped inside our own minds 24/7, it's often difficult for us to project outside the bounds of our own consciousness and preferences. We tend to assume that most people think just like us — though there may be no justification for it. This cognitive shortcoming often leads to a related effect known as the false consensus bias where we tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none. Moreover, it can also create the effect where the members of a radical or fringe group assume that more people on the outside agree with them than is the case. Or the exaggerated confidence one has when predicting the winner of an election or sports match.

The Current Moment Bias

We humans have a really hard time imagining ourselves in the future and altering our behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later. This is a bias that is of particular concern to economists (i.e. our unwillingness to not overspend and save money) and health practitioners. Indeed, a 1998 study showed that, when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit. But when the food choice was for the current day, 70% chose chocolate.

Anchoring Effect

Also known as the relativity trap, this is the tendency we have to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. It's called the anchoring effect because we tend to fixate on a value or number that in turn gets compared to everything else. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself. This is why some restaurant menus feature very expensive entrees, while also including more (apparently) reasonably priced ones. It's also why, when given a choice, we tend to pick the middle option — not too expensive, and not too cheap.

Images: Lightspring/Shutterstock, Tsyhun/Shutterstock, Yuri Arcurs/Shutterstock, Everett Collection/Shutterstock, Frank Wasserfuehrer/Shutterstock, George Dvorsky, Barry Gutierrez and Ed Andrieski/AP, Daniel Padavona/Shutterstock, wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock.

DSM-5 Released: The Big Changes By JOHN M. GROHOL, PSY.D.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 May 2013 00:47:00 +0200

DSM-5 Released: The Big Changes

By JOHN M. GROHOL, PSY.D.

The DSM-5 was officially released today. We will be covering it in the weeks to come here on the blog and over atPsych Central Professional in a series of upcoming articles detailing the major changes.
In the meantime, here is an overview of the big changes. We sat in on a conference call that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had in order to introduce the new version of the diagnostic reference manual used primarily by clinicians in the U.S. to diagnose mental disorders. It is called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and is now in its fifth major revision (DSM-5).
James Scully, Jr., MD, CEO of the APA, kicked off the call by remarking that the DSM-5 will be a “critical guidebook for clinicians” — a theme echoed by the other speakers on the call.

Why has it taken on such a large “role [both] in society as well as medicine?” he asked. Dr. Scully believes it’s because of the prevalence of mental disorders in general, touching most people’s lives (or someone we know).
The APA has published three separate drafts of the manual on their website, and in doing so received over 13,000 comments from 2010 – 2012, as well as thousands of emails and letters. Every single comment was read and evaluated. This was an unprecedented scale of openness and transparency never before seen in the revision of a diagnostic manual.
“The manual is first and foremost a guidebook for clinicians,” reiterated David Kupfer, M.D., DSM-5 task force chair, who walked us through the major changes detailed below.

1. Three major sections of the DSM-5

I. Introduction and clear information on how to use the DSM.
II. Provides information and categorical diagnoses.
III. Section III provides self-assessment tools, as well as categories that require more research.

2. Section II – Disorders

Organization of chapters is designed to demonstrate how disorders are related to one another.
Throughout the entire manual, disorders are framed in age, gender, developmental characteristics.
Multi-axial system has been eliminated. “Removes artificial distinctions” between medical and mental disorders.
DSM-5 has approximately the same number of conditions as DSM-IV.

3. The Big Changes in Specific Disorders

Autism
There is now a single condition called autism spectrum disorder, which incorporates 4 previous separate disorders. As the APA states:

ASD now encompasses the previous DSM-IV autistic disorder (autism), Asperger’s disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified.
ASD is characterized by 1) deficits in social communication and social interaction and 2) restricted repetitive behaviors, interests, and activities (RRBs). Because both components are required for diagnosis of ASD, social communication disorder is diagnosed if no RRBs are present.

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
Childhood bipolar disorder has a new name — “intended to address issues of over-diagnosis and over-treatment of bipolar disorder in children.” This can be diagnosed in children up to age 18 years who exhibit persistent irritability and frequent episodes of extreme behavioral dyscontrol (e.g., they are out of control).
ADHD
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been modified somewhat, especially to emphasize that this disorder can continue into adulthood. The one “big” change (if you can call it that) is that you can be diagnosed with ADHD as an adult if you meet one less symptom than if you are a child.
While that weakens the criteria marginally for adults, the criteria are also strengthened at the same time. For instance, the cross-situational requirement has been strengthened to “several” symptoms in each setting (you can’t be diagnosed with ADHD if it only happens in one setting, such as at work).
The criteria were also relaxed a bit as the symptoms now have to had appeared before age 12, instead of before age 7.
Bereavement Exclusion Removal
In the DSM-IV, if you were grieving the loss of a loved one, technically you couldn’t be diagnosed with major depression disorder in the first 2 months of your grief. (I’m not sure where this arbitrary 2 month figure came from, because it certainly reflects no reality or research.). This exclusion was removed in the DSM-5. Here are the reasons they gave:

The first is to remove the implication that bereavement typically lasts only 2 months when both physicians and grief counselors recognize that the duration is more commonly 1–2 years. Second, bereavement is recognized as a severe psychosocial stressor that can precipitate a major depressive episode in a vulnerable individual, generally beginning soon after the loss. When major depressive disorder occurs in the context of bereavement, it adds an additional risk for suffering, feelings of worthlessness, suicidal ideation, poorer somatic health, worse interpersonal and work functioning, and an increased risk for persistent complex bereavement disorder, which is now described with explicit criteria in Conditions for Further Study in DSM-5 Section III. Third, bereavement-related major depression is most likely to occur in individuals with past personal and family histories of major depressive episodes. It is genetically influenced and is associated with similar personality characteristics, patterns of comorbidity, and risks of chronicity and/or recurrence as non–bereavement-related major depressive episodes. Finally, the depressive symptoms associated with bereavement-related depression respond to the same psychosocial and medication treatments as non–bereavement-related depression. In the criteria for major depressive disorder, a detailed footnote has replaced the more simplistic DSM-IV exclusion to aid clinicians in making the critical distinction between the symptoms characteristic of bereavement and those of a major depressive episode.

PTSD
More attention is now paid to behavioral symptoms that accompany PTSD in the DSM-5. It now includes four primary major symptom clusters:

Reexperiencing
Arousal
Avoidance
Persistent negative alterations in cognitions and mood

“Posttraumatic stress disorder is now developmentally sensitive in that diagnostic thresholds have been lowered for children and adolescents. Furthermore, separate criteria have been added for children age 6 years or younger with this disorder.”
Major and Mild Neurocognitive Disorder
Major Neurocognitive Disorder now subsumes dementia and the amenstic disorder.
But a new disorder, Mild Neurocognitive Disorder, was also added. “There was concern we may have added a disorder that wasn’t ‘important’ enough.”
“The impact of the decline was noticeable, but clinicians lacked a diagnosis to give patients,” noted Dr. Kupfer. There were two reasons for this change: “(1) Opportunity for early detection. The earlier the better for patients with these symptoms. (2) It also encourages an early effective treatment plan, ” before dementia sets in.
Other New & Notable Disorders
Both binge eating disorder and premenstrual dysphoric disorder and now official, “real” diagnoses in the DSM-5 (they were not prior to this, although still commonly diagnosed by clinicians). Hoarding disorder is also now recognized as a real disorder, separate from OCD, “which reflects persistent difficulty dis-carding or parting with possessions due to a perceived need to save the items and distress associated with discarding them. Hoarding disorder may have unique neurobiological correlates, is associated with significant impairment, and may respond to clinical intervention.”

Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, President-Elect of the APA reminded us that the DSM-5 is not a pop-psychology book intended for consumers: “[It is] a guide, an aide to assist clinicians to … help facilitate treatment.”
The APA also noted that a large number of sessions — 21 — will be dedicated to the DSM-5 this weekend at the APA’s annual meeting.
Commenting on the swirling controversy regarding the DSM-5, that perhaps the diagnostic system isn’t good enough, Dr. Lieberman said, “It can’t create the knowledge, it reflects the current state of our knowledge.”
“We can’t keep waiting for such breakthroughs,” (in reference to biomarkers and laboratory tests). “Clinicians and patients need the DSM-5 now.
Critics have accused the DSM-5 of lowering diagnostic thresholds across the board, making it far easier for a person to be diagnosed with a mental disorder. Lieberman disagrees, however: “How [the DSM-5] is applied reflects critical practice… it’s not necessarily because of the criteria [themselves]. It’s because of the way the criteria are applied.”

Escapism

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 16 May 2013 02:02:00 +0200

Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an "escape" from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life. It can also be used as a term to define the actions people take to help relieve persisting feelings of depression or general sadness.

History

Entire industries have sprung up to foster a growing tendency of people to remove themselves from the rigors of daily life.[citation needed] Many activities that are normal parts of a healthy existence (e.g., eating, sleeping, exercise, sexual activity) can also become avenues of escapism when taken to extremes or out of proper context. In the context of being taken to an extreme, the word "escapism" carries a negative connotation, suggesting that escapists are unhappy, with an inability or unwillingness to connect meaningfully with the world.

However, there are some who challenge the idea that escapism is fundamentally and exclusively negative. For instance, J. R. R. Tolkien, responding to the Anglo-Saxon academic debate on escapism in the 1930s, wrote in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" that escapism had an element of emancipation in its attempt to figure a different reality. C. S. Lewis was also fond of humorously remarking that the usual enemies of escape were jailers. Some social critics warn of attempts by the powers that control society to provide means of escapism instead of actually bettering the condition of the people. For example, Karl Marx wrote about religion as being the "opium of the people". Escapist societies appear often in literature. The Time Machine depicts the Eloi, a lackadaisical, insouciant race of the future, and the horror their happy lifestyle belies. The novel subtly criticizes capitalism, or at least classism, as a means of escape. Escapist societies are common in dystopian novels; for example, in Fahrenheit 451 society uses television and "seashell radios" to escape a life with strict regulations and the threat of the forthcoming war. In science fiction media escapism is often depicted as an extension of social evolution, as society becomes detached from physical reality and processing into a virtual one, examples include the virtual world of OZ in 2009 Japanese animated science fiction Summer Wars and the game "Society" in the 2009 American science fiction film Gamer. Drugs cause some forms of escapism which can occur when certain performance enhancing drugs are taken which make the participant forget the reality of where they are or what they are meant to be doing. This is highly illegal because it can make users act strangely and do unpredictable things.

German social philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote that utopias and images of fulfilment, however regressive they might be, also included an impetus for a radical social change. According to Bloch, social justice could not be realized without seeing things fundamentally differently. Something that is mere "daydreaming" or "escapism" from the viewpoint of a technological-rational society might be a seed for a new and more humane social order, as it can be seen as an "immature, but honest substitute for revolution".

The Norwegian psychologist Frode Stenseng has presented a dualistic model of escapism in relation to different types of activity engagements. He discusses the paradox that the flow state (Csikszentmihalyi) resembles psychological states obtainable through actions such as drug abuse, sexual masochism, and suicide ideation (Baumeister). Accordingly, he deduces that the state of escape can have both positive and negative meanings and outcomes. Stenseng argues that there exists two forms of escapism with different affective outcomes dependent on the motivational focus that lays behind the immersion in the activity. Escapism in the form of self-suppression stems from motives to run away from unpleasant thoughts, self-perceptions, and emotions, whereas self-expansion stems from motives to gain positive experiences through the activity and to discover new aspects of self. Stenseng has developed the Escape scale to measure self-suppression and self-expansion in people´s favorite activities, such as sports, arts, and gaming. Empirical investigations of the model have shown that (1) the two dimensions are distinctively different with regards to affective outcomes, (2) that some individuals are more prone to engage through one type of escapism, and (3) that situational levels of well-being affects the type of escapism that becomes dominant at a specific time.

I wanna go back to heaven!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:06:00 +0200

But swimming in your water* is something spiritual
Ooh!
I'm born again every time you spend the night
Ooh!

'Cause your sex takes me to paradise
Yeah, your sex takes me to paradise
And it shows, yeah, yeah, yeah

'Cause you make me feel like I've been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long
Yeah, you make me feel like I've been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ooh!
Oh, yeah, yeah,
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ooh!

You bring me to my knees, you make me testify
You can make a sinner change his ways
Open up your gates 'cause I can't wait to see the light
And right there is where I wanna stay

'Cause your sex takes me to paradise
Yeah, your sex takes me to paradise
And it shows, yeah, yeah, yeah

'Cause you make me feel like I've been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long
Yeah, you make me feel like I've been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long

Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
Can I just stay here?
Spend the rest of my days here?
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
Can't I just stay here?
Spend the rest of my days here?

'Cause you make me feel like I've been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long
Yeah, you make me feel like I've been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ooh!
Oh, yeah, yeah,
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ooh!

5 Scientific Explanations for Your Sexual Perversions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 09:37:00 +0200

5 Scientific Explanations for Your Sexual Perversions

The thing about our sexual preferences is that we just accept them -- of course guys like boobs, and couples like kissing. Well ... why? Why don't we rub armpits instead? Why do so many people have foot fetishes? There has to be a reason.

And while maybe we can't explain your thing with puppets, science does have a few ideas about the other stuff we're into.

#5. Foot Fetishes Kept Us Free of STDs

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Looking to warn your kid away from sexually transmitted diseases? Try encouraging him to lust after feet. No, that isn't an excerpt from our parenting guide, So You're Stuck With a Baby: Tips for Making It Interesting. It's actually a sound theory based on some pretty badass science.

Feet are the most fetishized body part out there. There's no obvious reason why -- it's not like, say, a leather fetish, where everyone can look at Catwoman and say, "Yeah, I get that." You can't have sex with feet, and even if you could, would you want to? A lot of fungus lives there.

Condoms won't help, and lube just makes it worse.

Well, scientists wanted to know why, so they started digging. First of all, how did it get started? There are several theories, including one from an expert who says that sensation in the feet and genitals both transmit to the same area of the brain, so there could be some accidental crossover there. But why would it persist through thousands of years of evolution? The answer appears to be disease.

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And the tireless efforts of certain visionary directors.

Researchers collected history's records of foot-lust and compared it with the greatest STD outbreaks of the last thousand years: gonorrhea (the 13th century), syphilis (the 16th century, with an encore in the 19th century) and AIDS (the break-dancing years up to now). Scientists learned two things. The first was a greater appreciation for antibiotics, and the second was that foot fetishes are most prevalent in times of disease.

In other words, when our genitals know it's too dangerous to go outside, we start fantasizing about toes and bunions and the way sneakers smell. To test this theory, an intrepid band of sex researchers looked at the prevalence of feet in eight major pornographic publications from 1965 to 1994. Then they made a graph, because graphs are what get scientists off.

Discover Magazine
You're welcome. Now clean yourselves up.

It's worth noting that a general obsession with feet also correlated with periods of greater female power, as if women themselves were taking away the usual goodies and substituting the third filthiest part of their bodies instead, just to show men what was what.

#4. Oral Sex Helps Prevent Miscarriages

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The nice thing about oral sex is all of it. No one gets pregnant, people who are virgins can stay virgins when they do it and according to the '90s, it doesn't technically count as sexual relations. Win-win-WIN. So it's easy to see why humans and animals and all things with genitals engage in oral sex in the first place. What's not so obvious is the evolutionary value of the act. It doesn't pass on the genes. And what do women get out of going downtown, other than an occasional free pass later on in the month?

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"Let me and my entire extended family visiting for the week explain after you cut the grass."

If Dr. Gustaaf Dekker is to be believed, she gets the benefit of safer future pregnancies ... but only if she swallows.

Among other things, there are unique proteins in every man's sperm, and the more "familiar" a woman is with her partner's semen, the more likely her uterus is to accept it when it's time to procreate. And according to science, or this scientist, anyway, the very best way to get familiar with your future mate's manseed is to digest it.

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Man gravy is good with beef and is best used as a garnish.

Dekker also found that pregnant women who practiced oral sex were less likely to have preeclampsia, a condition where the woman's immune system rejects her own placenta, presumably because she's less likely to recognize the fetus as a foreigner. Dekker puts it this way:

"If there's repeated exposure to that signal then eventually when the woman conceives, her cells will say, 'We know that guy, he's been around a long time, we'll allow the pregnancy to continue.'"

"He got a good job? He law abidin'? He better be."

Here's a hint to teenage boys everywhere: This is not the message you want to pass on to your girlfriend in the back seat of your car.

#3. Multiple Orgasms Exist to Encourage Freaky Group Sex

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We've previously speculated that the female orgasm was strictly a leftover of evolution, that the clitoris is wired to feel good during sex because it's really a pre-penis. But there are other theories about the purpose of the female orgasm out there as well. Such as the one about how orgasms are merely an award for getting freaky with multiple partners. And why would a woman want multiple partners? So none of them would murder her babies.

Getty
"I want what every girl wants: a man who gets confused enough by orgasms that he forgets to kill my children."

According to one anthropologist, and also anyone with sexual experience, the female climax is a completely different animal from the male's. For one thing, it's harder to achieve. And for another, lots of women can have lots of them at once ... just over and over again. Men can't do that.

So Dr. Sarah Hrdy speculates that the orgasm was once an incentive for women to keep on mating once their first, or second, or third partner was done with his business. Because if she mated with lots of guys at once, none of them would know who had fathered her children. Which meant that killing off your rival's kids was impossible -- because they could be your kids. You Game of Thrones fans know what we're talking about here.

"No, his sociopathy is from his mother's side."

Dr. Orgasm's theory is backed up by observations in the animal kingdom. Langur monkeys are relatively (for monkeys) monogamous, and dominant males are all about infanticide in order to secure their rank as alpha male, and also to make the mom stop producing milk so she can mate again. And also because adult langur monkeys are monsters.

Getty
"You know what part of a baby monkey tastes best? The tears."

But you don't find that behavior among macaques and chimpanzees, or at least not nearly as much. And sure enough, the difference is that macaques and chimpanzee females bone lots of different dudes. So, the female orgasm may very well be evolution's reward to women for hosting nasty ape sex parties.

#2. We Kiss to Get Close Enough to Detect Pheromones

Getty

In this article, we explained the theory that kissing evolved as a way for women to expose themselves to cytomegalovirus so their future babies wouldn't get hit with a herpesesque disease in the womb. And man, is that the most unromantic explanation for kissing EVER. The good news is that there are other, less awful theories about smooching out there. One is that we've all got a secret sex nerve in our brains that compels us to swap spit.

Getty
"My nose is telling me it's time to tongue your face-hole."

But first, some background. Everyone has 12 pairs of nerves jutting out of the brainstem, appropriately named Nerve I through Nerve XII. And most of them are regular sensory nerves, like the olfactory one and the optic one and the one that helps us see the dead. But in 1913, scientists discovered another nerve that everyone had missed before. "Nerve 0" (or, as we like to call it, Nerve Oooooh) sits at the base of our skulls, seemingly useless, like a third testicle on an already sterile old man. So it's not surprising that everyone kind of forgot about it.

Getty
Although that doesn't make them shut up about it at parties.

So when scientists finally got around to figuring out what this nerve did, they discovered something funny. Even though it looked like an olfactory nerve, it was present in creatures that had long ago lost their sense of scent. Which means it must have some purpose in humans (and all other animals) besides making public transportation unpleasant. Shortly thereafter, scientists discovered that cutting this nerve caused mice to stop breeding.

It turns out Nerve 0 is directly connected to the regions of the brain associated with sex and gives your nose a direct, private highway to your genitals. Well, that's interesting. What could that be for?

Getty
Stop having sex with those flowers and we'll tell you.

Scientists theorize that when you kiss someone, Nerve 0 picks up their pheromones and warns your body to start sending blood and good vibes down to your crotch as quickly as possible. It's important to note that Nerve 0 doesn't travel through your olfactory bulb at all, which means you can't actually smell any of the things your sex nerve is designed to pick up. And since our pheromones don't carry very well, getting close enough to kiss is basically the only way your Boning Nerve can do you any good.

And what kind of things does your brain learn by picking up pheromones this way? For one thing, it allows you to sneak a peek at your lover's immune system. People you're attracted to will tend to have been exposed to very different antibodies over the course of their lifetimes. This ensures that you have a lower chance of miscarriages and a higher chance of birthing superbabies with badass immune systems. It alsostops you from finding your relatives sexually viable, so let's give it a round of applause for preventing a lot of awkward family reunions.

#1. Big Boobs Exist Thanks to the Missionary Position

Getty

Here's a question we bet you never asked yourself: Why do guys prefer big breasts? Don't say it's because it signals that a woman is more capable of nursing -- huge boobs serve no practical purpose for the delivery of milk. Well, according to one theory, it has to do with our ancestors preferring face-to-face sex.

Getty
"I call them 'shock absorbers.'"

The humble "missionary position" has the unfair reputation of being the boring option for couples too tired to try anything too crazy. But out in the animal kingdom, that position is crazy -- face-to-face sex is something of a revelation for mammals. Our ape ancestors preferred a much less ... frontal method. But the pair bonding that occurs when couples look each other in the eye while doin' it is beneficial enough to humanity that evolution favored people who had face-first sex.

Getty
Also our heads were getting much larger during this time, and that shit gets heavy.

In The Naked Ape, British zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris proposed that the social benefits to our ancestors who liked missionary-style sex were great enough that evolution favored frontal features that mirrored the backside. Namely, giant breasts that mimic the bulbous buttocks of our great-to-the-power-of-500 grandmas. As Desmond put it:

"The protuberant, hemispherical breasts of the female must surely be copies of the fleshy buttocks, and the sharply defined red lips around the mouth must be copies of the red labia."

Getty
The first time he shopped at the greengrocers, he had to lie down in a dark room for three days.

Of course, Desmond, they must be. And that means that big breasts exist purely to compel attention. In other words, evolution masterminded the single most successful advertising campaign in world history.

Robert Evans oversees the image captions at Cracked and has a blog where he writes letters on our messed-up justice system, illegal immigration, oil drilling and drug policy to the conservative parents of the world. If you'd like to hire him, he can be reached at revanswriter@gmail.com.

For more science behind human actions, check out 6 Obnoxious Old People Habits (Explained by Science) and 6 Factors That Secretly Influence Who You Have Sex With.

And stop by LinkSTORM to discover which columnist won't leave people's feet alone.

And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get sexy, sexy jokes sent straight to your news feed.

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Walk in Dublin Streets Nightlife

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 4 Feb 2013 15:47:00 +0200

http://vimeo.com/56336219

Just Saying from Dave on Vimeo.

'Just saying' film-maker left reeling as short on lost generation strikes a chord online

The frontal lobe is fully mature around age 25

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 3 Feb 2013 07:36:00 +0200

Frontal Lobes Development and Technology Use

Apr 1st, 2009 by Ivo Quartiroli | | Permalink

[en]

Neuroscientist Gary Small, co-author with Gigi Vorga of iBrain: Surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind writes:

Teenagers desire instant gratification – they want to satisfy their needs and do it now, not later. Their underdeveloped frontal lobes often impair their everyday judgment. Many teens feel they are invincible – danger will bounce off them. Today’s obsession with computer technology and video gaming appears to be stunting frontal lobe development in many teenagers, impairing their social and reasoning abilities. If young people continue to mature in this fashion, their brains’ neural pathways may never catch up. It is possible that they could remain locked into a neural circuitry that stays at an immature and self-absorbed emotional level, right through adulthood.

Then he writes that when we act in a way that gratifies our needs instantly, the brain’s emotional centers, the parts of the brain which aren’t able to plan for the future, take over.

What’s the role of the frontal lobes? From Wikipedia:

The frontal lobe reaches full maturity around age 25, marking the cognitive maturity associated with adulthood. Arthur Toga, UCLA, found increased myelin in the frontal lobe white matter of young adults compared to that of teens. A typical onset of schizophrenia in early adult years correlates with poorly myelinated and thus inefficient connections between cells in the fore-brain…The frontal lobe contains most of the dopamine-sensitive neurons in the cerebral cortex. The dopamine system is associated with reward, attention, long-term memory, planning, and drive. Dopamine tends to limit and select sensory information arriving from the thalamus to the fore-brain. A report from the National Institute of Mental Health says a gene variant that reduces dopamine activity in the prefrontal cortex is related to poorer performance and inefficient functioning of that brain region during working memory tasks, and to slightly increased risk for schizophrenia…The executive functions of the frontal lobes involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions, to choose between good and bad actions (or better and best), override and suppress unacceptable social responses, and determine similarities and differences between things or events. Therefore, it is involved in higher mental functions.

If there’s a time in history where a long-term vision is needed, it’s now. Both in the environmental and financial areas we are going to pay the cost heavily for a short-term view. Environmentally, we exploited the planet’s resources as if they were infinite with a very short-term view of the consequences of our decisions.

Financially, the credit craze privileged the consumption today over the bill tomorrow, putting the whole system in a mess which nobody knows if and when it will ever recover. Without a well-developed frontal lobe, the higher mental faculties of long-term planning are substituted by short-term childish gratification.

The frontal lobes “determine similarities and differences between things or events.” It seems that the frontal lobes integrate the qualities of clear mental discrimination, which allows us to make subtle distinctions and to recognize the truth.

On a spiritual plane, “discriminating awareness” is an important mental quality to develop in the path toward an expanded awareness. Even though the qualities of mental discrimination are going to be overcome in the advanced stages of the path, those stages can’t be bypassed. While the absence of mental discrimination in an enlightened being means joining a larger awareness which doesn’t depend on the conceptual mind any more, in a person who didn’t train his mind and soul it means a schizophrenic state.

Without well-developed frontal lobes in the population, political leaders can easily manipulate truth, gain approvals with highly emotive messages and contradict themselves often – with no consequences. If people can’t see the big picture any more, focusing only on the last novelty with a weak memory, there’s not even any need any more by states to threaten the freedom of the press. Simply, people won’t be bothered by consistency and truth any more. Then promises and declarations by politicians can be disproved without even being noticed.

Damage to the frontal lobes include distractibility, poor attention and poor memory. Those damages also cause inability to plan ahead and indifference to people and the world around, alternated with euphoric and uninhibited behaviors. Those symptoms are related to physical damage to the frontal lobes and it would be going too far to apply them to the use of technology: however there’s a strong resemblance of those symptoms with Internet addiction or with attention deficit disorder.

Many pediatrics associations suggest to parents to avoid video technology in the first 2 years of age, while the Waldorf education method refrains from exposing a child to technology till much later to respect the cognitive and emotional development of children. Without need of brain scans and neurotechnological tools, the mystical sensitivity is able to connect with the inner nature of the mind.

If frontal lobe development is being stunted in young people by the massive use of technology there’s little surprise that those symptoms are rising in young people as well as in older people who have already had their frontal lobes developed, on different levels of intensity. On a widespread level, with the fast pace of technology, more and more people experience difficulties in concentrating on a long task, as for instance in reading books.

So will the world resemble Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where society was structured in such a way that every desire was satisfied in a short time? In case of unpleasurable feelings, there was soma, the perfect drug with no side effects.

I feel the conflict between short- and long-term goals will be at the center stage in the next few years, as well as the one between the mind frames for specialization versus seeing the whole picture. System theory and the science of complexity are important developments toward a vision of reality which takes complex interactions into consideration, but basically they are founded on the same thought modalities of specialization and reductionism.

For instance, now we have much more knowledge of the complex environmental interactions but we are still far from seeing the whole picture. Like the search for the elementary particles, there will probably be no end in that knowledge. Though the more we progress in environmental knowledge, if we just rely on information, the more we risk making bigger disasters looking for “solutions,” as in the geo-engineering proposals to “hack and fix the planet” in order to reverse global warming.

We can probably find good advice in ancient Taoist, American Indian, or just philosophies of organic farmers on how to interact as human beings with nature and, it would be much better if we join those philosophies with scientific data.

What is needed in the complex world is to conjoin the science of complexity with a sensitive intellect connected both to the inner world of the soul and the outer world. An intellect which can pierce reality and thoughts, with an intuitive and large vision, a kind of wisdom which allows wise people to know the depth of reality through direct contact.

Dubstep

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:02:00 +0200

Amy Farah Fowler is a neuro-scientist so what?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 11:08:00 +0200

of course nothing new in that
she is a neuro-scientist
but Did you know that the real Amy is a real neuro-scientist :)

Off The Wall: Bird Lady

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:22:00 +0200

Off The Wall: Bird Lady

Such a beautiful piece of ancient Egyptian art

Off The Wall with Michelle Maryk. In the galleries of the Brooklyn Museum, curator Edward Bleiberg discusses Bird Lady.

This series was produced by Gallery HD, a channel dedicated to visual art and the artistic process, catering to a wide array of art lovers. Through visually stunning imagery and compelling storytelling

GALLERY HD is the first and only HD channel that defines the most talked-about artists of today and tomorrow.
http://www.voom.tv/galleryhd.html

Female Figurine ("Bird Lady"). Egypt, from Ma'mariyah. Predynastic Period, Naqada II, circa 3650-3300 b.c. Terracotta, painted, 11 1/2 in. (29.3 cm) high. Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 07.447.505

Picasso - Still Life Mandolin and Guitar

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 9 Jan 2013 13:01:00 +0200

Picasso - Still Life Mandolin and Guitar

Woman with Book by Pablo Picasso

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 9 Jan 2013 12:59:00 +0200

Woman with Book by Pablo Picasso

Learning from the Octopus: Nature’s Lessons for Good Global Governance

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 7 Jan 2013 23:59:00 +0200

Decentralized

The most successful biological organisms have an organization that eschews centralized control in favor of allowing multiple agents to independently sense and quickly respond to environmental change. Our immune system trusts millions of cells all over the body to look for, and neutralize, invading pathogens without any conference calls to our brain to plan and execute an appropriate response. The octopus, which has a powerful central brain, nonetheless knows how to balance its advanced cognitive capabilities with the quick responsiveness afforded by having millions of color changing skin cells spread across its body.Pretend you are an octopus. You are happily (yes, octopuses seem to have emotions) skipping over a coral reef looking for crabs to eat, when suddenly you spy a large mouth grouper swimming your way. Your best bet at this point is to hide, but how do you do it? You have a wonderful brain, why not use it to tell your body what to do? Okay, start shouting orders: “Arm 1, turn pink! Arm 2, turn greenish yellow! Arm 3, turn sorta red-fuschia-ish!” You can see the problem right away. Not only will your brain be too slow to tell a complex body how to act, but the coral reef is too complex for your central brain to even have a good sense of what it looks like in each little micro-environment at once. Fortunately the octopus has millions of skin cells that can each respond to the environment around them, changing shape and form to match the very local conditions in their immediate area. Their collective actions give the octopus as a whole its camouflage. Research by Geerat Vermeij, who looks at broad patterns in the history of life, suggests that the most adaptable organisms use decentralized organization—where multiple semi-independent agents sense change and respond to it on behalf of a larger body, but not under the control of a central brain. The vertebrate immune system is an excellent example, wherein many independent sensors scan the body for invading pathogens, identify and upregulate an appropriate response without deference to a central brain.In society, there are both negative and positive analogies to this type of system. For example, putting most of the U.S. security agencies into a single large centrally controlled bureaucracy (the Department of Homeland Security) after 9/11 led to ineffective responses to the next major security emergency, Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath of Katrina, the question on everyone’s mind was, “Where’s FEMA”, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Finding an agency within a bureaucracy means finding the “org” chart, and the org chart of DHS looks like this:Can you find FEMA in that (hint: it’s the box with the dotted line around it)? The org chart is a symbolic representation of the difficulty for ideas to find solutions or solutions to find ideas in a centralized organization.By contrast, Google Flu Trends uses the distributed sensing power of millions of Google users searching flu-related terms to accurately detect flu outbreaks. Unlike the centralized US Center for Disease Control’s flu trends reports, which require surveys to be sent to doctors and hospitals and returned to CDC for analysis and report writing, Google Flu Trends are available (like the camouflage of an octopus) almost instantly, and up to two weeks earlier than the CDC data.But we also like to say, “Have an Open Mind, But Not So Open That Your Brain Falls Out”. By this we mean, all that decentralization is great, but it will never work effectively without some central control. In adaptable systems there are several key roles of a central controller, an organization, or a manager. A central controller is useful for getting the resources that decentralized problem solvers need (all those skin cells in the octopus wouldn’t work at all without the metabolic energy provided for them by the octopus and its clever brain). A central controller is also often useful for having a bigger vision (the octopus seeing the threat of the predatory fish) and that is essential for helping define the actual challenge. For example, while the most effective research, mitigation, and adaptation strategies for climate change may be at the local and regional level, it is still necessary to have a body like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that can see the collective effect of our actions on the planet as a whole and across long time scales.

Satyr calling the Nymphs by Ken Tregoning

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 7 Jan 2013 22:46:00 +0200

Satyr calling the Nymphs by Ken Tregoning

Regina Spektor - Fidelity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 4 Jan 2013 03:20:00 +0200

Regina Spektor - Fidelity

(Shake it up)

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

And suppose I never ever met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose we never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course its gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better
Better better better

I never love nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting by heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind
All this music
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

I hear in my mind all of these voices
I hear in my mind all of these words
I hear in my mind all of this music

Breaks my
Heart
Breaks my heart

Great Pyramid tombs unearth 'proof' workers were not slaves

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:49:00 +0200

Great Pyramid tombs unearth 'proof' workers were not slaves

Osiris, Anubis, Horus, Osiris Pharaoh XVIII dynasties and Isis.

Egypt's leading archaeologist says 4,000-year-old burial plots with skeletons expose myth that builders were slaves

Associated Press in Cairo
The Guardian, Monday 11 January 2010 18.44 GMT

Egypt displayed today newly discovered tombs more than 4,000 years old and said they belonged to people who worked on the Great Pyramids of Giza, supporting evidence that slaves did not build the ancient monuments.

The modest 9ft deep shafts held a dozen skeletons of pyramid builders, perfectly preserved by dry sand along with jars of beer and bread for the afterlife.
The mud-brick tombs were uncovered last week near the Giza pyramids, stretching beyond a burial site first found in the 1990s and dating to the 4th dynasty (2575BC to 2467BC), on the fringes of the present-day capital, Cairo.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus once described the pyramid builders as slaves, creating what Egyptologists say is a myth propagated by Hollywood films.

Graves of the builders were first found nearby in 1990 by a tourist. Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the finds show the workers were paid labourers, rather than slaves.
Hawass told reporters at the site that the find, first announced on Sunday, said the find sheds more light on the lifestyle and origins of the pyramidbuilders. Most importantly, he said the workers were not recruited from slaves commonly found across Egypt during those times. One popular myth that Egyptologists say was perpetrated in part by Hollywood held that Israelite slaves built the pyramids.

Amihai Mazar, professor at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says that myth stemmed from an erroneous claim by the former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, on a visit to Egypt in 1977, that Jews built the pyramids.
"No Jews built the pyramids because Jews didn't exist at the period when the pyramids were built," Mazar said.

Dorothy Resig, an editor of Biblical Archaeology Review in Washington DC, said the idea probably arose from the Old Testament Book of Exodus, which says: "So the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel with backbreaking labour" and the Pharaoh put them to work to build buildings.
"If the Hebrews built anything, then it was the city of Ramses as mentioned in Exodus," said Mazar.
Dieter Wildung, a former director of Berlin's Egyptian Museum, said it is "common knowledge in serious Egyptology" that the pyramid builders were not slaves. "The myth of the slaves building pyramids is only the stuff of tabloids and Hollywood," Wildung said. "The world simply could not believe the pyramids were build without oppression and forced labour, but out of loyalty to the pharaohs."
Hawass said the builders came from poor families from the north and the south, and were respected for their work – so much so that those who died during construction were bestowed the honour of being buried in the tombs near the sacred pyramids of their pharaohs.

Their proximity to the pyramids and the manner of burial in preparation for the afterlife backs this theory, Hawass said. "No way would they have been buried so honourably if they were slaves."
The tombs contained no gold or valuables, which safeguarded them from tomb raiders throughout antiquity, and the bodies were not mummified. The skeletons were found buried in a foetal position – the head pointing to the west and the feet to the east according to ancient Egyptian beliefs, surrounded by jars once filled with supplies for afterlife.

The men who built the last remaining wonder of the ancient world ate meat regularly and worked in three-month shifts, said Hawass. It took 10,000 workers more than 30 years to build a single pyramid, Hawass said, a tenth of the workforce Herodotus wrote about after visiting Egypt around 450BC.
Hawass said and that evidence indicates they the approximately 10,000 labourers working on the pyramids they ate 21 cattle and 23 sheep sent to them daily from farms.
Though they were not slaves, the pyramid builders led a life of hard labour, said Adel Okasha, supervisor of the excavation. Their skeletons have signs of arthritis, and their lower vertebrae point to a life passed in difficulty, he said. "Their bones tell us the story of how hard they worked," Okasha said.
Wildung said the find reinforces the notion that the pyramid builders were free men, ordinary citizens. "But let's not exaggerate here, they lived a short life and tomography skeletal studies show they suffered from bad health, very much likely because of how hard their work was."

Bulworth as Radical Honest Character

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 19:24:00 +0200

Bulworth on Wikipedia
The movie about a politician
who started to be a radical honest
and how awesome he started to feel
after he was thinking about killing himself by a hit-man
since he started to tell the truth
things start to go in a hilarious turn of events

A politician gives an "Honest Speech" for a change!

Watch Full Movie Online

The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 9 Dec 2012 22:08:00 +0200

"Bittersweet Symphony"

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
You're a slave to money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you to the places
where all the veins meet yeah,

No change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
But I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no

Well I never pray
But tonight I'm on my knees yeah
I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me, yeah
I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now
But the airways are clean and there's nobody singing to me now

No change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
And I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no
I can't change
I can't change

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
Try to find some money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you to the places
where all the things meet yeah

You know I can change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
And I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no

I can't change my mold
no, no, no, no, no,
I can't change
Can't change my body,
no, no, no

I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
Been down
Ever been down
Ever been down
Ever been down
Ever been down
Have you ever been down?
Have you've ever been down?

50 Cent - My Life ft. Eminem, Adam Levine

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:28:00 +0200

50 Cent - My Life ft. Eminem, Adam Levine

Download MP3

[Hook: Adam Levine]
My life, my life
Makes you wanna run away
There's no place to go
No place to go
All this confusion
Such an illusion like a movie
Got nowhere to go
Nowhere to run and hide
No matter how hard I try

[Verse 1: 50 Cent]
Yeah, OP, I went from back filthy to filthy rich
Man, the emotions change so I can never trust a bitch
I tried to help niggas get on, they turned around and spit
Right in my face, so Game and Buck, both can suck a dick
Now when you hear 'em it may sound like it's some other shit
Cause I'm not writing anymore, they not making hits
I'm far from perfect, there's so many lessons I done learned
If money is evil look at all the evil I done earned
I'm doing what I'm supposed to, I'm a writer, I'm a fighter
Entrepeneur, fresh out the sewer, watch me manuever
What's it to ya? The track I lace it, it's better than basic
This is my recovery, my comeback, kid

[Hook]

[Verse 2: Eminem]
While you were sipping your own kool-aid getting your buzz heavy
I was in the fucking sheds chopping my box Chevy
Sipping some of of that revenge juice, getting my taste buds ready
To whoop down this spaghetti, or should I say spaget-even?
You fucking meatballs keep on forgetting
Party was finished, motherfucker, it's only the beginning
He's buggin' again, he's drinkin', fuck who he's offending
He'll rip your fucking chords out
With 3000 volts of electricity
Now take the other and dump him (?) in each
(?)
I'll teach you to (?) in me
I done put my blood, my sweat, my tears in this shit
(?)
Feels like I'mma snap in a minute, yeah, it's happening again
Thinking the same shit like everybody else that's up in this bitch, what
Cause this is all I know, this is why so hard I go
I swear to God I put my heart and soul into this more than anybody knows
I'm trapped, all I do is rap, everytime I rap I'm on track
(?) bubble rap
This is like a vicious cycle, my life's in a crisis, crisis
How was I supposed to know you'd turn up like you did
Feels like I'm going psycho again
And I might just burn my lip
I almost wish that I would have never made Recovery, kid
Cause I'm running circles with

[Hook]

[Verse 3: 50 Cent]
I haven't been this fucking confused since I was a kid
Sold like 40 million records, people forgot what I did
Maybe this is for me, maybe
Maybe I'm supposed to go crazy
Maybe I'll do it 3 AM in the morning with Shady
Psycho killer, Michael Myers, I'm on fire like a lighter
Tryna say the same (?) shit, get your ass kicked, magnet
Wrap your head up in plastic
Soon I'm in a casket, dirt nap with the maggots
It's tragic, it's sad it's
Never gonna end, now we number one again
With that frown on your face, and your heart full of hate
Accept it, respect it
This a gift God gave me like an air of lungs
And everything with it

[Hook]

50 Cent ft. Eminem & Adam Levine - My Life
50 Cent ft. Eminem & Adam Levine - My Life
50 Cent ft. Eminem & Adam Levine - My Life
50 Cent ft. Eminem & Adam Levine - My Life
50 Cent ft. Eminem & Adam Levine - My Life

Bohemian World

How to deal with loneliness: People who are lonely have brains that are wired differently, but four steps could help them overcome it

How to deal with loneliness: People who are lonely have brains that are wired differently, but four steps could help them overcome it

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