“To
find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed;
and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality
is.” C.G. Jung
Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
In going where you have to go
“In going where you have to go, and
doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt
the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and
know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a
whetstone to it, and know I had something to write about, than to have it
bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet,
but unused.” Ernest Hemingway
Koko, the gorilla
Koko, the gorilla who was taught sign
language, once lied to her trainers, blaming her kitten for tearing a sink out
of the wall.
Bach
“Beethoven tells you what it’s like to
be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you
what it’s like to be the universe.” Douglas
Adams
Education does not equal happiness – study
London – Getting good grades and going
to university makes us no happier than failing exams and dropping out of
school, a study claims.
Even the researchers who conducted
study admitted the results were surprising, given that previous research has
found the opposite.
Until now, it was accepted there was a
clear link between level of education and mental health problems.
Poor education has traditionally been
associated with a lower income, living in less desirable areas and problems
such as crime, drinking and drug taking.
Yet a good education was found to do
little to improve levels of happiness – or ‘high mental wellbeing’, as the
study called it.
The researchers say this is because
many people who didn’t do well at school still have a good work ethic – or are
in communities with a good support structure. Having others around them can
help them cope better with any problems they face, the study found.
And high mental wellbeing comes not
from having fewer problems - but being able to deal better with any problems
that one does have. For those who get good grades, it can mean a better job and
more income but this in itself does not necessarily equip them any better to
deal with personal issues that arise.
The team, from Warwick’s Medical School
team examined the levels of high and low mental health from government health
surveys conducted on 17,000 UK adults in 2010 and 2011.
They then matched them to factors like
educational achievement and income, which are known factors in mental health
problems.
They study found that among any given
level of educational attainment, the odds of poor mental wellbeing were the
same.
Lead study author Professor Sarah
Stewart-Brown said: ‘These findings are quite controversial because we expected
to find the socioeconomic factors that are associated with mental illness would
also be correlated with mental wellbeing.
‘So if low educational attainment was
strongly associated with mental illness, high educational attainment would be
strongly connected to mental well-being. But that is not the case.’
Tips for Happiness in Daily Life
You can make your life happier. It is a
matter of choice.
It is your attitude that makes you feel
happy or unhappy.
We meet various situations every day,
and some of them may not contribute to happiness. However, we can choose to
keep thinking about the unhappy events, and we can choose to refuse to think
about them, and instead, think about and relish the happy moments.
All of us go through various situations
and circumstances, but we do not have to let them influence our reactions and
feelings.
If we let outer events influence our
moods, we become their slaves. We lose our freedom. We let our happiness be
determined by outer forces. On the other hand, we can free ourselves from outer
influences. We can choose to be happy, and we can do a lot to add happiness to
our lives.
What is happiness?
It is a feeling of inner peace and
satisfaction. It is usually experienced, when there are no worries, fears or
obsessing thoughts. This usually happens, when we do something we love to do,
or when we get, win, gain, or achieve something that we value. It seems to be
the outcome of positive events, but it actually comes from the inside,
triggered by external events.
For most people, happiness seems
fleeting and temporary, because they allow external circumstances to affect it.
One of the best ways to keep it, is by gaining inner peace through daily
meditation. As the mind becomes more peaceful, it becomes easier to choose the
happiness habit.
Tips for Happiness in Daily Life:
1) Endeavor to change the way you look
at things. Always look at the bright side. The mind might drag you to think
about negativity and difficulties. Don't let it. Look at the good and positive
side of every situation.
2) Think about solutions, not about
problems.
3) Listen to relaxing, uplifting music.
4) Watch funny comedies that make you
laugh.
5) Each day, devote some time to
reading a few pages of an inspiring book or article.
6) Watch your thoughts. Whenever you
catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, start thinking of pleasant things.
7) Always look at what you have done
and not at what you haven't.
Sometimes, you begin the day with the
desire to accomplish several objectives. At the end of the day, you might feel
frustrated and unhappy, because you haven't been able to do all of those
things.
Look at what you have done, not at what
you have not been able to do. Often, even if you have accomplished a lot during
the day, you let yourself feel frustrated, because of some minor tasks you
didn't accomplish.
Sometimes, you spend all day
successfully carrying out many plans, but instead of feeling happy and
satisfied, you look at what was not accomplished and feel unhappy. It is unfair
toward yourself.
8) Each day do something good for
yourself. It can be something small, such as buying a book, eating something
you love, watching your favorite program on TV, going to a movie, or just
having a stroll on the beach.
9) Each day do at least one act to make
others happy.
This can be a kind word, helping your
colleagues, stopping your car at the crossroad to let people cross, giving your
seat in a bus to someone else, or giving a small present to someone you love.
The possibilities are infinite.
When you make someone happy, you become
happy, and then people try to make you happy.
10) Always expect happiness.
11) Do not envy people who are happy.
On the contrary, be happy for their happiness.
12) Associate with happy people, and
try to learn from them to be happy. Remember, happiness is contagious.
13) Do your best to stay detached, when
things do not proceed as intended and desired. Detachment will help you stay
calm and control your moods and reactions. Detachment is not indifference. It
is the acceptance of the good and the bad and staying balanced. Detachment has
much to do with inner peace, and inner peace is conductive to happiness.
14) Smile more often.
Source: successconsciousness.com
Perhaps a bit overstated but..............
“Writing a novel is a terrible
experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m
always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from
reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.”
Flannery O’Connor
A man should
“A
man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture
every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense
of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” Goethe
Get happy
"Happiness depends upon
ourselves." — Aristotle
"There's nothing like deep
breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for
the right reasons." — Stephen Chbosky
"Happiness is a warm
puppy." — Charles M. Schulz
"Success is getting what
you want, happiness is wanting what you get." — W.P. Kinsella
"The best way to cheer
yourself is to try to cheer someone else up." — Mark Twain
"It's been my experience
that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that
you will." — L.M. Montgomery
"Happiness is when what
you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." — Mahatma Gandhi
"We all live with the
objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same." —
Anne Frank
"We're all golden
sunflowers inside." — Allen Ginsberg
"I, not events, have the
power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be.
Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and
I'm going to be happy in it." — Groucho Marx
"The U. S. Constitution
doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with
it yourself." — Benjamin Franklin
"Happiness is not a goal;
it is a byproduct." — Eleanor Roosevelt
"Happiness is a perfume
you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself." — Ralph Waldo
Emerson
"The word 'happiness'
would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness." — Carl Jung
"Happiness is neither
virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy
when we are growing." — William Butler Yeats
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done
reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and
you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't
happen much, though.”
Larry L. King
“The best kind of writing, and the biggest thrill in writing,
is to suddenly read a line from your typewriter that you didn’t
know was in you.” 
Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism,..............
“Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives… and to the ‘good life’, whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.” Hunter S. Thompson
Artist
“Being an artist means forever
healing your own wounds and at the same time endlessly exposing them.”Annette
Messager
To me, poetry is somebody standing up
“To me, poetry is somebody
standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible,
what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment” Galway
Kinnell
Destitutus ventis remos adhibe
Destitutus ventis, remos adhibe...or in other words "If the wind will not serve, take to the oars"
Irish fair skin can be traced to India and the Middle East
From Irish Central. Com
Have
you ever wondered where the Irish get their light skin color from? Well, it
appears we may now have the answer.
A
major new US study at Penn State University has found that Europeans' light
skin stems from a gene mutation from a single person who lived 10,000 years
ago.
Scientists
made the discovery after identifying a key gene that contributes to lighter
skin color in Europeans, and the Irish fall into this category.
The
Mail Online reports that, in earlier research, Keith Cheng from Penn State
College of Medicine reported that one amino acid difference in the gene SLC24A5
is a key contributor to the skin color difference between Europeans and West
Africans. This is undoubtedly where the Irish get their light skin from.
"The
mutation in SLC24A5 changes just one building block in the protein, and
contributes about a third of the visually striking differences in skin tone
between peoples of African and European ancestry," he said.
Cheng
and his team studied segments of genetic code that have a mutation and are located
closely on the same chromosome and are often inherited together.
The
mutation, called A111T, is found in virtually everyone of European ancestry.
A111T
is also found in populations in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent, but
not in high numbers in Africans.
All
individuals from the Middle East, North Africa, East Africa and South India who
carry the A111T mutation share traces of the ancestral genetic code. According
to the researchers, this indicates that all existing instances of this mutation
originate from the same person.
The
pattern of people with this lighter skin color mutation suggests that the A111T
mutation occurred somewhere between the Middle East and the Indian
subcontinent.
‘This
means that Middle Easterners and South Indians, which includes most inhabitants
of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, share significant ancestry,’ Professor Cheng
said.
Professor
Cheng now plans to look at more genetic samples to better understand what role
genes play in East Asian skin color. Perhaps he will take a look into where
Irish redheads come from after this.
The greatest discovery
“The greatest discovery of my generation is
that human beings, by changing their inner attitudes of their minds, can change
the outer aspects of their lives.” William James 1915
William James (January 11, 1842
– August 26, 1910) was a philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a
physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United
States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century
and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the
United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the
"Father of American psychology".
Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John
Dewey, he is considered to be one of the major figures associated with the
philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the
founders of functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical
perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced
intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl,
Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.
Born into a wealthy family,
James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr and the
brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice
James. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education,
metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential
books are The Principles of Psychology, which was a groundbreaking text in the
field of psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in
philosophy, and The Varieties of Religious Experience, which investigated
different forms of religious experience, which also included the then theories
on Mind cure.
Friends
An Australian study that
followed 1,500 people for 10 years found that having good friends helps people
live longer. Those with a large support network outlived those with the fewest
friends by a significant 22 percent. Another major study, this one from UCLA,
found that when women reached out to friends during an emotional crisis, they
coped better. One explanation (among many) is that the friendships triggered
oxytocin—the feel-good bonding hormone—in the body, reducing women’s cortisol
levels and combating stress.
Here's a productive idea
Campaign To Create Giant Smile
Over U.S.
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A new
campaign is setting up billboards encouraging Philadelphians to be happy.
The messages are part of Smile Across America
(#SmileAcrossAmerica), a national campaign from community nonprofit The Joy
Team that’s in honor of International Day of Happiness on March 20th.
According to The Joy Team,
Philly is just one of 19 cities taking
part in the campaign, which creates a giant smile face across the country when
you connect the dots from billboard to billboard. That smile will span from
Vancouver, WA to White Planes, NY with the eyes in Billings, MT; Casper, WY;
Minneapolis, MN; and Des Moines, IA.
The Joy Team says the
Philadelphia billboard will be located
on Ridge Avenue about 30 feet north of Walnut Lane and will read, “Life loves
you. Just the way you are.” It’s expected to be up sometime during the week of
March 16th.
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically.
We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow
partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another.
The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us
in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” Anais Nin
I don't know if I agree fully with that, I would say keep looking maybe you'll see him in the next person.
“If you don’t find God in the
next person you meet, it’s a waste of time looking for him further.” Gandhi
How great would that be?
“Imagine a culture in which everything is
geared toward helping all individuals become the best human beings they can be;
in which individuals are driven to devoting their lives to becoming enlightened
by the natural flood of compassion for others that arises from their wisdom.” Robert
Thurman
What a fantastic thought this is....................
“I promise you that the same stuff galaxies
are made of, you are. The same energy that swings planets around stars makes
electrons dance in your heart. It is in you, outside you, you are it. It is
beautiful. Trust in this. And you your life will be grand.” Kamal Ravikant
I want to make it clear here that I think intelligent arts criticism
“I want to make it clear here that I think
intelligent arts criticism is important and valuable. I want critics, writers,
and readers to stake out their aesthetic ground and defend it. But your
arguments should make us think deeper and harder about books. Criticism should
complicate, not simplify. If you think the above is true, but not worth
fretting over, here is why I disagree: lazy stereotypes about reader
preferences absolutely contribute to problems in the publishing industry. I
know writers of color who’ve been rejected because their writing ‘isn’t black
enough for black readers,’ or is ‘too black for white readers.’ It leads
publishers to reject manuscripts because ‘readers won’t read translated
fiction’ or ‘don’t want more [insert ethnicity] immigrant fiction this year.’
(Then, of course, those same publishers scramble after that same fiction as
soon as one book sells well.) It’s part of the reason that women writers are
pressured into flowery uplifting covers even if their fiction is dark and
gritty. And, more generally, it’s part of why tons of great books that push boundaries
and do new, exciting things get passed over, and literature, and readers,
suffer for it.” Lincoln Michel
Get hopeful
“For in this hope we were
saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” Romans
8:24
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