My Half Of...

The Values Behind Concluding

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 02:23:00 +0000

The Values Behind Concluding

How each of us gets to making our own practical conclusions is worth considering. Focusing on uncovering and exploring our favored values helps us with self knowledge, and it helps with convincing others to share our values. Especially useful is when we need to update our convictions after comparing their effect on changing new situations. Some of our own hidden values will have been trained in our micro-culture.

What are they? How do our own values we use differ from our culture's conditioning?

Are you willing to go a bit into this topic?

Why Uncovering Values Is Valuable

The study of whatever we value helps to confirm how our own conclusions are reasonable and not solely emotionally biased.

Spelling out the motives of what's valued also can expand the obscured limitations buried in our hidden reasoning process. Uncovering them gives us some idea of our own issues & concerns that could differ from what our micro culture trained us to embrace.

Once better known, you can separate out these hidden cultural motives & substitute your own. Maybe you might find advantages in rejecting traditional solutions while using their researched information. From regarding information, motives & solutions as being separate features, we can insert our own solutions consistent with different, personally chosen ones. We can know to decide if we really do agree (or disagree) with implied, hidden cultural values, (such as bigger is better, convenience is king or if a long-winded sales routine features a product we will actually use.)

Often I couldn't become aware that I held a hidden conviction until I sensed there was a comparative mismatch.

What can be done about these mismatches, once revealed? Well, let's do the uncovering first.

Whatever is familiar is preferred. What's new will always get noticed as a bit weird. Some people value novelty, given it's a variation on a theme. Wouldn't it be handy to spell out for ourselves what our favored themes are for welcoming what's new? Or realize you always reject what's new?

Sometime our method is our madness; maybe extend our tolerance for what's new for a longer time than is comfortable? Many find extending attention to be challenging, (given the average Attention Span is only 47 seconds now that smart phones have become common.)

Our emotional human Default Mode Network (from neuroscience) dramatically justifies all our snap judgment conclusions as if they are survival needs. Until something goes wrong or depression sets in and challenges this human default certainty function, we won't be able to imagine our conditioned cultural training isn't relevant to every single situation.

A story: My first pet was a long garter snake. When I was six years old (in the 1960s,) everyone around me had huge misconceptions about snakes. If my classroom & neighborhood grownups were so wrong about snakes, what other hallucinations were they also teaching me? I knew my facts were right because they came from a zoo curator of reptiles! I was a skeptical unbeliever from then on, but highly motivated to read.

A sense we are about to "Go wrong" can be relative also. Your sense of "wrong & right" can be trite if you've been too protected. If you've never had to evaluate your conditioning because it included for all you know so far, your motive to hold to what's familiar is always going to feel stronger. If there never were unpredictable situations that made favored values useless, you will have only experienced provided rewards. Our "Default Mode Network" is a protective improviser. This Default Mode Network evolved from self-preservation when humans needed fast conclusions.

That's why travel in other cultures is so eye-opening!

Maybe that's one of our cultural problems happening right now - on our phones we've learned to prefer well-timed but trite rewards because that's what has been honed to coerce our attention.

What's also different in contemporary culture now is communication sources are uncontrolled but possibly unqualified. Even people who are well educated & traditionally qualified have come under attack, especially if they are in political disagreement.

A hammer in hand tends to nail it!
For instance, A.I. can spoof polished authority. In fact, there's a recent crop of A.I. video channels right now that package hallucinated "facts," stories & "news." Few consumers bother with research to confirm proof...yet if they do, there are always groups of outliers gathered around almost any topic or conspiracy theory providing this "proof"! So how do we decide who or what to believe?

Most people just decide whether or not to believe a presentation depending on the presenter. Good-looking? Well-groomed? Clear at public speaking? Does this presentation agree with what I already know? Or if uninformed, does it sound apparently convincing & logical? With A.I., these particular evaluation factors are becoming suspect.

Invested Interests
Sources are always telling. Who frames the question, what are their obvious motives & how does a question lead to an implied conclusion from these motives (as "leading" Socratic questions do.)

Large scale motives of propaganda often are money or power. But as population explodes, bigger might be competition for resources. How to convince & manipulate large groups has become a mass artistic skill - honed from movie storytelling & selling skills while being polished by examples throughout recorded history. Of course, history is usually recorded by the victorious.

What's left out or missing would be a fun game skill to design and train. Can you think of what's been left out of recent historical accounts & political news?

How about what I left out here?

If we're smart, when we make discoveries, it will pay off to get effectively skilled at diplomatic communication ability. Then we can learn to persuade & convince others of the value of any of our new solutions. Using what is a polished presentation of a new discovery is a big part of persuasion.

That's why literary clubs are fun
Actors are in the business of being convincing at portraying the underlying premises of any story. An actor's motive is to lie convincingly, to be believed. In the opinion of many confirmed story readers I knew, what makes a story artistic is it's believability. This gives a story varied meanings to each reader.

Is the artistic value of allowing meaning to emerge uniquely "spoiled" by a story being designed (as a fable is) with an agenda? How about proselytizing? Would having a sales agenda make the value of a story suspect?

(Yes, you can take time to consider these strings of questions & get back with your comments later.)

What can we do to both find our own way & learn from others? Will designing personal experiments show us if a hypothesis works without researching?

Experiment design is a whole world unto itself!

What justifies the trouble the research is going to require? What motives do we have to learn when we get challenged to spend learning time?

What are our choices instead of cooperating or being exploited? This is a blank area that structured education rarely ever trains to notice. In schooling, all ingredients are provided. The "Boss" is Right." Kids must learn to read minds & anticipate "correct" answers. "Correct" according to what group of people?

My early strategy of using the phone calling of businesses to teach me how to ask questions & find or order the right solution helped teach me. It sewed a community of service pros around me who seemed interested in my challenges.

Humans - did we ever get away from preferring herd membership?

Why accept authority? What if our driving force that we cannot resist doesn't come from ourselves?

What combo of values gets used to create our own answers?

How does reading a string of questions make you feel?

For the purpose of changing minds, I relate my own story about what motivated me before I launch into some of my own solutions. I follow this strategy in hopes that one person's story, (even if it's only my story,) will stimulate excitement & drive to pursue new directions - even if another person's own concerns & motives differ from mine.

As a culture, we need many strategies for creating original & practical solutions - what are some of yours?

Since it's handy to select from a list, maybe as an exercise you might enjoy creating a mindmap of some factors you have noticed (in varied writing, websites or sales blurbs) to give others ways to notice what's underneath.

For instance, in this article of writing, some of the values might be...
Self examination of human assumptions is useful.
Communication skills can be handy when used to spell out missing gaps.
Challenging the status quo can be interesting.
Objectively presented logic is easier to accept when being asked to consider ideas...
Stories are memorable as examples...
Personal experience is a valid example by itself, even though it's only one instance.
Information exists, finding & learning it is the challenge.
Hopefully, questions asked in strings (without author's answers) stimulates self-provided answers...
...
Please think of more for your own purposes!

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 07:07:00 +0000

I've been watching a 24 year old guy on YouTube who's interviewing older people he meets randomly and asks them how old they are and other general questions about what it's like to be the age they are.

I thought I might answer some of his questions here, now that I'm older myself...about twenty years older that this pic!

If I answered the first question about my age, I don't think my answer would be useful to many people because of the unique choices I've made about how I wanted to live my life. One of the best things has been that I've avoided getting addicted to "adult" type pastimes. I've only had to deal with getting paunchier from not knowing how to deal with what might be unique dietary issues. You cannot imagine how much respect over the years I've received from those who got to know me - all from not having adopted vices.

If I were being asked for a three to five minute answer as an example, I'd mention how my adoption of a number of mentors had driven the expression of my multi-creative interests. Accepting that I was a multi-talent with needs to express multiple interests was key to my own self-knowledge. I would be in trouble if I tried to live my life like "normal people" did; these multiple interests would act like gremlins if they weren't taken out and exercised.

I also made some rare life decisions - such as not to spawn my own children. I didn't have anything against parenting and spent eleven years being a step parent. I didn't make this decision to not have my own kids lightly. I had significant health issues that I was told were hereditary. There was always the lucky chance that the person I chose to have kids with would prevail in the physical gene pool, improving my potential for healthy children - but I thought that passing on of these health issues that have affected my entire life would be debilitating, selfish and mean to do to anyone.

Plus, I really couldn't afford to be a parent because of these health issues, especially given the high likelihood I would become a single parent. Though the rest of my relatives have long-term relationships with no problems, I seemed to routinely choose very unique guys to couple up with who were somewhat to very difficult people. (For instance, my current relationship is going through a rough spot right now because of his personal challenges that I'm really hoping will be resolved in positive ways.)

There were other questions that @sprougt asked those he encountered...something like, "if you had advice to pass on to younger people, what would it be?"
I'd say, especially if you're a smart person, be sure to study and improve on your own communications skills, especially your ability to speak about subjective, emotional topics. Because if you discover information or an invention - anything notable or specialized, you're going to want to be able to present it so stupid people who happen to have money so they can support your inventions.

"What was a big risk you took in your life that you learned a big lesson from?"
Hitchhiking isn't as risky as people made it out to be. I met so many interesting people, (some of whom became fantastic friends.) Hitchhiking did make me more observant so I could avoid possible problems; turns out that using my intuition over and over again protected me. Happily, intuition and reading body language cues could be learned and trained over time.

There were more questions, and of course I can answer the ones differently - but I'll do that next time...

Productive Procrastination

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 06:26:00 +0000

This is this phenomena that my best friend refers to as "Beer Thinking." But I imagine it's better explained with the term, "Productive Procrastination."

For instance, I bought these "desert boots" to walk on this road pictured above when it's raining and muddy. These boots need to be sprayed with some Rustoleum concoction that seals the leather so rain and mud roll off of it. I haven't done it yet, because it needs to be pre-sealed before the final treatment. This pre-seal needs to happen multiple times and to be allowed to dry in between these applications. This stuff is toxic and needs to be applied outside because it's in a spray form; but outside of where I am now is full of mosquitoes. So each time I'd need to go outside in order to spray on another application, I'd need to apply some more toxic anti-mosquito stuff on myself if I don't want to get eaten. Then wait for an hour with this stuff on me while it dries in between the three or four necessary applications and do it again and again.
Well, that's many steps with waiting in between so that's why I haven't done it yet. Now that I think about it, this means I just spelled out what it is I was resisting about the whole thing.

Duh - I could take the project to another spot protected from the rain but outside where there aren't as many mosquitoes. Good idea! That idea is the result of "Productive Procrastination."

If I'd gone ahead with pushing to get something done - it would have turned out to be unnecessarily difficult, because I wouldn't have thought of the easier solution that just emerged while I was telling this example. Because I procrastinated, (and spelled out what about the project makes me not want to do it,) I found a better way, (better as defined by our various values, like efficient, easier, cleaner, less poisonous, etc.)

I have always been attracted to people who were slightly or outright pushy and even thoughtless. By working with these kinds of people, they got me inspired to not drop the ball entirely while my "Productive Procrastination," Beer Thinking" or "back burner" was was in force.

But it's also possible to procrastinate so long that the intended project NEVER gets done.

For instance, my idea about what I came to call "The Arranger's Game" never really found an audience or perfect time when it's potential could be realized for having people of various skill levels work together. (If you'd like to take a look at it, find a description for it in my other blog: https://franis.blogspot.com (which will open in a new window.)

Now I doubt if my Arranger's Game project will ever happen at all again, beyond the story of what has already happened. Because of being a moderator for Rob Braxman Tech channels, now I know what sort of dedication and effort a really new idea requires. Even with work, it's twenty years before an invention can truely reach its potential.

(That's not including really practical inventions that might be bought out and then shelved by a competitor!)

Anyway, I hope that you have a chance to convert your procrastinating into some Productive Procrastination!

Hand Written

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 22:40:00 +0000

I write by hand quite often.
Mostly I do so because I enjoy it.

I have numerous hand-written notebooks for many different purposes. Most of these are written small with better letter formations than what you see above, (which is meant to be a storyboard for a more polished presentation) These hand-written books are not merely logs about how much gas mileage I'm using or revisits to the many YouTube videos I've watched that I'd like to remember to talk with someone about later.

Often, the first thing I do when I get a new little blank book is to put in page numbers, leaving a few pages at the front for a "Table of Contents." Having the book pre-organized in this way allows me to add (random fashion, usually) to the contents of the book - Then I can notate in the front what page and what the subject was I wrote - so I can find it easier later on.

Currently, I'm adding to a handwritten book about interesting finds and links. Yes, sometimes I do really hand-write the links and titles along with explanations about what they are - so if these videos become become taken off of YouTube, I can often find them later on another platform. Sometimes I paste in pictures and other relevant information in case the links get taken away entirely.

I have other books of lists and processes done with thinking skills. Some of these hand-written books I've made are about my own individuation - such as how I come across to strangers at first impression so I can choose how to use common misunderstandings that strangers assume about me.

I have made various sorts of "Bucket Lists" for various reasons and purposes, (such as movies and books I might want to check out - or books I get from the library that I might want to check out again.)

Some of these hand-written books of mine are written out in multi-colored pens, so the ideas are classified with color coding.

I make lists of people I met incidentally and why I connected with them. I have lists of people I met online and how they came to mean something to me. I have lists of people I ran into on Periscope.tv and what I enjoyed about them, with their user names and how to get in touch later through other platforms.

I made lists of figures of speech, lists of interesting scrabble words and what they mean, collections of strange facts about plants or fruit or places. I made lists about where to find things I might want to locate that I've "hidden in a good spot" from myself.

Since I was a teenager, I have volumes of pretty much all of my "major decisions" that mostly contain the questions I asked myself when I was thinking about what to do next with my life. Strange how these questions are often cyclical or perennial. How often these questions get exactly the same answers (using the I Ching) is even more of a coincidence, especially when these questions are duplicated DECADES apart!

I have handwritten books of collected study notes I've been inspired to write while I read library books or books I borrowed from other people that I had to give back. I found it was a way to put into practice tips and other other good ideas that I wanted to really LEARN that were embedded within the contents of the books.

I read fast, so often I'll read a book at my "regular fast" speed, then go back and annotate and study it the second time through. I have outlines of books that I thought had information for me that were so important that they deserved to be annotated. I wanted to be able to use the book's contents for a tool in the course of my life - books on Dialogue skills, on negotiation skills, on communication skills. For that purpose, they needed outlining, practice and revisiting.

I have made handwritten books of song lyrics; books that annotate what's inside of long sound files when I recorded practice sessions where song lyrics first happen accidentally from complete inspiration. I have notes about how to make clay ocarinas by hand from scratch that an old roommate used to do who told me step-by-step exactly how.

I have books of my own poetry, (which doesn't happen that often! But some of those poetic books are even illustrated.) I have books of dreams that lingered after waking, (but those are pretty sloppy in appearance.)

I wrote out in various collected little books project outlines I thought I might want to do but haven't gotten around to doing yet - just in case I do want to do them sometimes in the future. I have lists of items I might want to make out of clay that I put thought into designing in original ways if I ever get the access to a kiln...the same involving the use of a 3D printer. (These mostly replacement pieces of plastic that I can't get any other way.)

I have lists of things to buy if I ever get enough money for them; (currently on that list is an electric fold-up bike.) I have lists of places I'd like to donate to if I ever have so much money that I might wonder what to do with it.

I have hand-written books like screen-writing for a video series presentation(s) about concepts related to Alexander Technique. (just am working on a many chapter one on "self-judgment.") I type these promising series in words to the computer later and correct for "time of arrival" and do the other editing challenges that make them easier to understand, since people cannot read my mind. Using the computer, I complete these ideas; but I often use handwriting to extend them first in situations where I don't have a computer or keyboard so I can work on them at the moment I get the ideas and inspirations for how to express them.

I have handwritten notes in many books about things I'm learning, such as expressions in Spanish and juicy words to learn. I have hand written books with notes from counseling sessions, random classes, (such as the one I just did on the differences between wills & "living trusts," even though I don't have enough to "fund" a trust.)

I collect strange health facts perhaps related to someone I know who needs help on the subject. I have hand-written notes from lectures I attended on odd subjects such as Neuroscience experiments or countries I've never heard of previously, just in case I might want to go there someday.

Sometimes it's just faster to use a pencil to illustrate what you're designing rather than trying to use words to describe shapes, relationships, colors, relative volumes, what seemed funny or ironic to me...

Plus, I have drawing books of things, images that I just wanted to hang out and draw because they happened to be there. Many of those are of music performers on stage, because performers don't object to being looked at long enough to draw them...as being stared at by an artist tends to make strangers feel uncomfortable.

Yes, I write by hand quite often. If writing by hand makes you smarter...I'M A GENIUS by now!!

WOOFing Warnings

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Sun, 12 Jan 2020 01:29:00 +0000

WOOFer Warnings

There are some worldwide hospitality membership clubs that seem to work to forge some interesting scenes. But watch out for the model of accepting temporary work using the "WOOFer" model!

WOOF stands for "Workers On Organic Farms". It evolved because farmers couldn't pay the prevailing wage to keep its workers there to do the farm work required. So under the promise of teaching people everything they needed to know about how to have their own farm, farmers evolved a sort of "sponsorship" of a time investment for temporary stays in exchange for mentoring people who were considering getting their own farm later in their lives. Essentially, the farmers were supposed to house AND feed their temporary workers, who donated 5-6 hours of work, four or five days a week in exchange for learning how the farm business functioned.

BUT - this quickly became twisted into "let's exploit travelers and then kick them out when they run out of money" sort of thing. People who merely owned property railroaded this significantly decreased cost of labor to babysit, clean their house, clean up their vacation rental, take care of their goats or other pets such as horses or the cattle they used to retain an Agricultural dedication, etc. These land owners sort of "forgot" that the WOOFers involved were supposed to be getting a model of survival strategies toward a lifestyle change. Turns out to be a big advantage to "forget" how a significant part of the arrangement was mentoring the WOOFer in all aspects of their lifestyle.

Once this "mentor" feature of the arrangement was forgotten, no teaching of any business or lifestyle model, just have your "WOOFer" babysit and clean up after your vacation rental business at the pay level of far below whatever you'd need to pay someone who lives there locally.

The first feature of the arrangement to dispense with was feeding the WOOFer. To feed someone is actually quite expensive in Hawaii. Food at the grocery store here costs the same as eating from a convenience store on the mainland, a significant increase of what it costs to eat each month just in the cost of food. Not feeding your farm workers the expensive food, (for instance, just giving your workers what falls off your trees at the farm that they were allowed to pick themselves) was a significant "savings" for the farm owner.

At one point I lived under a roof in an open industrial bay in my own tent as a "night guard" for a tropical fish business. The arrangement with my significant other was him working at minimum wage with the promise of a long-term investment in the business the fish farm never had to deliver on - because who could live for that long on minimum wage in Hawaii? It's impossible to have a car under those circumstances, unless you're also able to fix the car yourself. Plus I had to walk about two miles from where the bus dropped me off to get home or to get to the bus stop.

For example, in Hawaii, it takes a full time job paying $38.00 an hour to pay a mortgage or rent, health care, schools, car and food.

Other strategies that alter the original arrangement that I've heard about is to shut off the worker's electrical connection after 7pm, make them live in their tents outside instead of providing a roof.

Essentially, your workers might leave if they realize they should be making at least $15. per hour and the housing of a place to pitch a tent that the farm is providing them is really worth $250 a month, not the $1000. a month the worker appears to be charged. Doesn't matter if they get Federal Food Stamps of $200 a month, (which not all of them will be able to get because some travelers do not have immigrant status.)

Whatever your situation as a WOOFer, (even if the arrangement is quite generous) there will eventually come a time when you cannot afford to "donate" your time to the farm after all your money has been spent paying for essentials not covered by your farmer. The point of view of the farm owner is they can always find someone else who will take your place, so why pay you anything more? Even if they really are impressed with the qualities of the work you provide.

So if you consider "WOOFING," you'd better have a plan of when leave before you cannot afford to travel to and situate yourself at the next place you land.

The "Me Too" Meme

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 04:02:00 +0000

Why doesn't "no" mean "no" when a guy propositions a gal?

Guys don't understand what's going on when a woman is afraid of a man who seems to has the potential to get angry at a woman for rejecting him personally. This is what women are attempting to dodge when they try to reject overtures "politely." This is why "no" is delivered in a way by a woman that doesn't resemble a "real NO."

For a guy to admit he 'desires" someone or something means he opens himself to disappointment when he is denied or cannot "have" what he expects or figures he 'deserves." But on his end, he doesn't experience that he's putting his expectations onto the woman. He only feels that the woman has the ability to reject him.

She doesn't really know what she's rejecting, just as he doesn't know her well enough for her to make an offer of intimacy that is all too commonly offered. I've had guys propose marriage to me who don't know me as the first thing they say to me! Evidently, local guys in Hawaii routinely proposition tourists they know are leaving soon by saying, "I'd marry you." But most people do not experience their own reactions as originating from themselves. It's all too seductive to imagine it's the other person that is "causing" your own experience.

Why is "NO" the first urge for people to say? No communication training...no negotiation training; no "how to use positive reinforcement" training is offered in high school education, where it should be. Instead, the all-popular replacement strategy of "No" is much too often employed. Then if a little punishment doesn't work, more punishment will work better.

Where can people learn differently?

As a young girl, it used to really make me angry how it was always the female's call about when to draw the line at displays of affection and be responsible. (I imagined it was because it's the woman who suffers the risk of pregnancy and not the guy.) What angered me is that this meant that the woman had to shut down her sexuality and deny feeling it. The guy could give his sexuality free rein because it was going to be the woman who drew the line for him. This seemed to me to be really unfair, because it leads to women having to figure out how to re-open their own sexuality when, sometime in the future, it's appropriate for them to rekindle it in the later context of marriage.

Colleen writes: It would be helpful if men actually realized that, in a dating situation, we don't know you, you are not special to us, you have earned no trust, you are not different to us, etc. If I just met you, you can be NONE of those things to me if I don't know you. It does not mean you are not a good person, you are simply just a stranger. Just because I do not want to screw you does not mean you are less of a man. In fact... not being so pushy about it and being respectful will prove more that you are an honorable one. We owe you nothing in this category when you are a stranger or even if you are not.

Valerie writes: People who think "no" means "convince me" are likely thinking that the fan was brought up to be a 'good girl who shouldn't do things like that' and view smiling and politeness as flirtation. They offer/ask/proposition, get refused and think they just need to be persistent because that's what they'd been taught in the past (like movies in the 1950s). I'll refrain from bashing the patriarchy here but it's mostly about upbringing, a sense of entitlement and decades of being told 'all women want this.'

Brianna writes: I forget what movie I was watching recently but it contained the common trope of 1) Guy asks girl out; is told No, 2) Guy persists and asks girl out in a different way; is told No, 3) Guy persists and asks girl out again after accomplishing the goal of the movie; girl accepts. So maybe it's no big surprise that there is confusion about when a "No" is really "a No."

I'd love to read what you think are factors in this conversation. Please comment.

Get Past Not Being Involved

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 03:44:00 +0000

In a time before mobile phones...

I was coming home from college in the mid 1970s, I was riding in the back of the bus at night when I heard a man going through the pockets of a lone sleeping child with a knife, ripping the pockets of the kid's pack and coat. Rather loudly, (which could be explained because of the sound of the bus) I started talking about anything to distract the thief to him, moving closer to him.

Suddenly, three very large black men moved in behind me, next to and in front of me in the empty seats that were available. One brave guy reached over and woke up the kid, the other verbally confronted the thief, causing him to move away from the kid. The third guy went up and reported what was happening to the bus driver once he saw for himself what was going on. The driver stopped the bus rather suddenly and kicked the thief off.

I was being protected by all by those large, male black guys - they were AWESOME! Together we stopped a theft and possibly the knifing of a child. I told them how much I appreciated their support once the thief was gone. They said, "it's only right - you were brave to bring it to our attention."

The kid who was riding the bus admitted that he didn't have a place to sleep that night, and was offered a place to stay with the family of one of the black guys.
Nobody called the cops, who would have gotten there too late to do anything and taken the kid to Youth Authority jail.

My message is - act!
Do something when you see something objectionable happening that you know is wrong!
Use your advantages, whatever they are to better the situation - you don't have to be directly confrontational. Other strangers around you will recognize your intent and they will join you.

It seems to only take one "courageous" person to interrupt the "I don't want to get involved" mentality.

Creative

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 05:24:00 +0000

Logic says, "the only time another way is necessary to seek out is when current ways are blocked." I know ways to be more creative. Creative ways are "unexploited alternatives," usually in addition to "tradition." So a creative person looks for alternatives, even when there already exists serviceable answers.

I found that formally studying thinking skills has been the most useful to me in developing the ability to communicate my creative abilities...and to invite them to happen with others. There are more thinking skills than mere "Critical Thinking." (There's Parallel, Lateral, Strategic and Design thinking, off the top of my head.)

Many people are defensive about creative ideas - they "defend" against them when the ideas come from other people. Some people, strangely enough, defend against new ideas when they come from themselves! Just because someone hasn't thought of it, doesn't mean a better way of doing things or a new invention is not there waiting to be discovered. One of the ways to present a creative idea: Present the idea in a way so that the people you're trying to convince imagine the new idea is THEIR idea...

How do we know when a creative solution has happened? Remember, when a creative idea arrives, it's usually funny - laughable funny!

What might make you more creative is noting moments when you could have an alternative that hasn't occurred to you yet. To get that idea, one of the techniques is to block out a period of time to wonder about it while you do something else that is pretty much - total time-wasting. My name for this is "Productive Procrastinating." Key is to take your "practical deadline" very seriously.

Our tolerance for unknowns and feeling ambiguity is a BIG factor in our ability to be creative!

As a treat, I'd like to tell everyone the most creatively useful book I ever read on the subject of creativity. It was written by a photography professor. It's titled "Playful Perception - Choosing How to Experience Your World." By Herbert L Leff, Ph.d. (Waterfront books)

Turns out that the little exercises in this book apply to changing your attitudes and expanding your ability to see new possibilities toward any purpose you'd like to consider. (In addition to it's purpose of being better photographer.) This is another skill creative people use. They can take the lessons of one field and apply it to another field...in ways that seem at first totally unrelated.

What do you know about that you can apply to another field chosen at random?
What's your tolerance level for unpredictability and things that are yet to be decided?
What creative thing have you already done that you're proud of having done?

Getting Older Ain't for Sissies

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 10:17:00 +0000

The weirdest thing about getting older is...your peer group starts dying. Relationships that have spanned decades suddenly vanish.

There's a strange routine that happens when people die...and it seems really tragic to me. People recognize how someone dying deserves attention. Every culture offers some recognition of those who are left behind. People feel a responsibility to show up to demonstrate their support...then they leave. It's as if it was a social visit. But it wasn't. It was a wake or a graveside service or a funeral.

People who are grieving need to be present with those offering them support - not just a visit, but in an ongoing way. Social mores that require "not making a pest of yourself" would require staying gone for the customary amount of time until the next visit. There are so many ways to grieve, that friends and family often feel awkward offering their help and wonder if they're supposed to "leave alone" the whole issue. They know bringing up the "elephant in the room" will hurt the person, so they more commonly back off.

Those feeling grief are confused and so often feel awkward initiating contact again with their friends who know they are grieving. So everyone is more often left to suffer alone and isolated...which is probably not so constructive. Perhaps asking for more contact, it's against the customs of what constitutes a "Social Visit?" Somehow the grieving person is supposed to "get over it" in a "reasonable" amount of time. Nobody defines what is "reasonable" about how much time that is.

It's just not even a necessary suffering. If those who are vulnerable would somehow indicate to their friends they need more contact... Or something like that.

We Met Accidently

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Fri, 11 Aug 2017 01:46:00 +0000

Just so I can attach this to an email...

My Activist Friends

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 16:29:00 +0000

I have quite a few friends who are passionate and feel responsible to become activists. I am thankful that questions opened by serious issues have inspired involvement and activism on a whole new level.

But really, I hate politics. It's an arena where cultural cliche`and manipulation is at its worst. I do not listen to the news on purpose,  because of the sensationalism. I regularly impose a "news-fast" state for myself, mostly through music listening - often music without words. 

Becoming burnt out on the subject of politics is the challenge and trap of activism. There exists no verifiable feedback that anything you do really has an effect, because you have only one voice. 

The only drawback with my self-preserving, protective urge to isolate myself and refuse to be involved at all is that it IS interpreted as a sort of silent endorsement or mandate that I accept the prevailing coercive state of affairs. That bothers me.. A huge loss of rights is exactly what happened when the public was lulled into submission that everything was going OK or they just too busy or needed to protect themselves from being concerned with BAD topics. A wake-up call about how bad things have gotten is exactly what has made people riled up now enough to urge others to become politically active. This "riled" state isn't very pleasant - it's angry...it's as if I am the target of an emotion that's just "blowing off" randomly without being directed to whom is really responsible. 

Obviously, this anger/activism needs to be more effectively directed. Really what bugs me about activism on social networking sites like Facebook is people are merely "preachin' to the choir" and imagining they are making some sort of difference = which is EXACTLY what serves whom activists object to who are in power!

So, as far as politics goes, I prefer to target certain specific issues that involve my deliberately selecting a directed effort. This way, I determine what I will and will not do. AND I'm more likely to really DO those things. My actions that I've very selectively decided to DO then become invested with personal meaning. These actions become for me a symbol of my ability to act as a citizen. 

Then, because I'm in action, I can surrender my hopeful expectations of these actions and just do them as a discipline, without seeking evidence that I am being effective. Because I'm in action, I can protect myself from becoming overwhelmed by the desperate calls to action of my friends who are casting about, trying to DO SoMeTHiNG.

As an example of an effective action, I like the suggestion: put the numbers of your representatives in your phone, Call them weekly as a discipline, after asking your political mavens to let you know what needs to be complained about. Done.

...but it is up to you to decide what actions can have meaning for you, of course. 

I also want to suggest all my activist friends to join www.brax.me. There we can plan our political strategies and interact without being under threat of very REAL public surveillance that exists everywhere else online... Because if activists do start becoming really effective, then you will become a target!

Library Project

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 06:56:00 +0000

At the Laupahoehoe library where I live in Hawaii, we are going to design a way for library patrons to check out a real person at the library.

Have any ideas how that might work?

Hopefully, you'll enjoy watching this two minute video that I made with a free online editing service. This video asks the question, "Why would YOU want to "check out a person" from the library?

(If you'd like to have time to read the writing on the still shot posters, you'll need to pause the video.)

Probably you're curious and would like me to report on the results so far of the project.
People gave some interesting answers.

Some were really interested in filming to preserve the accounts of those elders who had unique stories of historical interest to tell while they're still alive. Mentioned as important were the account of someone who had seen a historic tsunami. Also they knew other elders who could tell stories of a time gone by such as the lifestyle of working in the sugar cane fields.

Others wanted to talk to another person who had developed or were born with unique abilities - such as talking with someone who was empathetic. They wanted to be able to bring out empathetic abilities in themselves. They wanted to know how to deal with some of the hidden backlashes of bringing forward a buried capacity.

Another person worked teaching kids how to swim. She was struck with how often these kids emphatically stated how they "couldn't" do what she asked. But later they did learn. She wanted to talk to other teachers who managed to overcome this sense of "Can't" in their students so she could trade notes on ways to do this more effectively for her students. She would also be interested in offering the result of her findings.

Another person mentioned how fun it would be to find a few people who were interested in working together on a project like this. She wanted the rewards of working together towards a common artistic shared goal. Her current interest was "how-to" information on solar energy system design. But she had multiple interests and could go on to work on multiple subjects.

The husband of a woman said he would like to introduce himself and significant skills he had to offer to possible apprentices. This project would offer a platform that would offer a controlled initial time investment. He had not been able to afford the time commitment of existing programs of this type, as these current programs (such as Big Brothers) involved youngsters.

If this existed at your local library, how would you use it?

Turning Judgments to Productive Questions

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 19:54:00 +0000

I'd like your feedback. I'm writing a series on Using Judgments. I need your suggestions on how you find this section on turning judgmental questions into meaningful ones. I'd like to hear how it could be better organized or edited for your understanding and needs.

(If you would rather listen than read, you can also download this podcast for later listening to on your device from this link below.)

https://www.freeconferencing.com/playback.html?n=/storage/sgetFC/IWj67/aI8aYh

But you don't have to take the time to listen, because here's the hard copy of the content of this practice recording above I made...

So far in this series on using judgment, we were discussing why negative criticisms work and offered tips on how to use people watching to develop courage and observation skills. In this, I'm doing to introduce ways to turn judgmental exclamations of dismay into juicy, productive questions.

How do you feel about questionsand being questioned? As I have learned to form them, questions have become friendlier to me instead of being judgmental challenges. Rephrasing a judgmental question has the potential of turning it into a positively juicy question.

Of course, "Juicy Questions" come in different flavors. for me the best questions are ones that generate interesting content, insights or meaningful discoveries. They are the kinds of questions that open or lead to alternate possibilities. They are the perennial "one size fits many." Some like this are philosophical questions that contain paradoxes that imply answers that seem impossible to ever really know.

To start crafting these sorts of questions for yourself, you can start by putting aside the answers you already have. It's useful maybe to categorize the sorts of answers you possess so far, by describing what these answers address.

Notice how each type of question implies a different direction to look for the answers. The attitude of why the question is being asked will result in a very different "right" answer. For our first example, let's take questions that are often asked in a judgmental attitude: "What is going on? What am I doing?"
This question needs clarifying about why it's being asked. One direction could involve impulse control. Rephrased, "What was I about to do that I really did not want to do?" That would result in an answer that focuses on forethought.

But catching your intent beforehand might not work to change anything if your action is disconnected from your intent. So what about this question: "What is happening accidentally on purpose that I don't have much control over and how I can get control?" An even more useful question below focuses on conditioning, habits or history: "How have I set myself up to more likely respond the way I don't want to and how could I set myself up to make the way I'd like to respond more likely?" The answer to this question implies many different strategies that could be designed to indirectly influence many more desirable responses.

That same question could also be rephrased as, "Why am I doing this?" That would imply an answer that prioritizes goal-setting or motives. Another clarification of this question might point focus on exploring aspirations and hopes. that would help to deal than negative, upsetting frustrations. "What are my positive intentions or motives for doing this - and how are the ways might I bring about what I want to happen?" The ability to observe, analyze and diagnose is not necessarily connected to knowing what to do about the situation - which may be unexpected consequence or an entirely new circumstance.
So now you understand more about how re-phrasing a judgmental, rhetorical question to be more specific will make it a constructively useful question. Re-wording specifics will help point to anticipated results. These results are always interpreted by a person with an attitude - who has a point of view with goals, motives, agendas and priorities.

[This concludes my edited version of what I decided to include, because I thought it was focused to discuss and explore one example. But do you think it's better to include more than one example...? What do you think? Should I include the example that follows below somewhere in the main body of the above post?]

Would you like more examples of questions? Let's use another example, the question,"What's in it for me?" This question actually has two parts, the "What, as in, "What am I sensing?" And the second part, which is "how can I make this 'what' useful?"

We know now that rephrasing this question in different ways will show us where to look for an answer. Here we're going to focus on the first part, the 'what' in "What am I sensing?"
"How does my attention work as I'm using it?"
Focusing on timing, I'd ask, "How should I choose my snapshot of the example and where would it begin and end?"
If I focus on volume and meaning, I'd ask, "How much of a sample would be notable or important as an average?" This implies I might want to suspend my conclusions a bit longer, so they're not based on the flukes of what could go haywire.

Please let me know what you think here on comments section here, or on Facebook if we're friends there.

Thanks so much!

Thinking Style

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 14:47:00 +0000

Isn't it curious how, once the scientific method was introduced how everyone scrambled on board to demonstrate they knew how to use it's value? Every published thinker had to justify their observations in at least the semblance of an empirical manner...if not hard fact. When fads first emerge, they work quite a bit like war when it is first declared: the cry is, "Everyone not with us, is against us!" At first flush of the logic fad, any thinking style besides the argumentation of logic was socially ridiculed. Original thinkers had to hide the fact that they used any style of thinking except logic, except people seldom mentioned that strange feature of how to originate a hypothesis. Those who boldly declared all of their real methods of thought had to risk a social fall from grace - or being ignored as they dabbled with areas and methods of thought that were suspect.

This skepticism about a lack of scientific method meaning a lack of Truth-with-a-capitol-T is still in place in our culture. The scientific method is misunderstood by most people. "Scientific proof" is supposed to be king, but if you do the real “hard” proving of fact, people can resist or twist your careful, impartial results. Currently, scientific authorities have even been labeled fanatics with huge vested interests by politicians! Despite the cultural acceptance of reason and a codified way to establish truth, emotional appeals still trump facts.

Imagine the experience of being in a room with people who have the openness to question each other about the way they think (as opposed to what they are thinking about) without insulting or inciting defense - what would happen?

It's tricky to describe thinking, because how can anyone observe it happening? Only observe evidence of it having happened can be observed and described. There's also the problem of how tricky description is when attempting to describe yourself, or how categories work when someone else is doing the description of your thinking processes. People usually do not think of their own thinking style as being distinct because thinking style is by nature, innate. It's the classic “fish describing water” challenge. It's helpful to have someone who is observant and articulate to give the feedback of how another person's thinking style is unique. Because a constructive reason to do this is to offer alternate attitudes and useful ways to be thinking.

The first thing I note when I'm investigating someone's thinking style is the priority and sequence of their train of thought. I ask myself the question, "Why does this person associate a change of subject with what they were previously discussing or considering?" The answers to this one question will help me track the other person's train of associative thinking. Associative thinking is also a tool of creativity, so doing this tells me how creative someone is by nature. Making multiple associations from a "random word" is a well-known thinking process done in order to generate new associations.

Some people seem to be more motivated to communicate than others. One person has an intent to communicate, says or does something - and the other person who is listening must attempt to reconstruct what is meant. The difference between an intent to come across in a certain way and how a person actually comes across to another person can be wildly divergent or really close, depending on many cultural or regional similarities. Some people would be shocked to find so many differences or discrepancy between what they mean to communicate and what the person receives, given both of them come from the same region. But this is what happens during communication between any two people. Asking for these literal translations can be quite enlightening. it's also a signal of openness for feedback about qualities of communication style.

Then there is the structure of the language used for communication to be considered. It's the nature of the English language that opening your mouth implies a hierarchy. You've decided to say something, selecting it from whatever else you could say. To some extent, English is designed to force the speaker to 'take a stand,' even though the communicator may know there are other points of view just as valid as the one they are choosing to put forward. Prefacing what you might say with "In My Humble Opinion" or "from my Point Of View" are ways around this lack of a subjective point of view that doesn't exist naturally in the structure of English. Some listeners might assign the motive that prefacing a statement with "IMHO," or "from my POV" is a wimpy attempt to avoid standing by a firm conviction. That might not be true for the person, who merely has something to say without a desire to become considered an authority.

I like that in certain situations, we don't have to worry so much about getting personally attacked under the justification of "debate" or even "constructive criticism." All this sort of secure intimacy is most often present in conversational confidence rather than in public writing – but I'm daring, aren't you?

What if we gave words or some sort of description to each others' "preferred" thinking style here? Do we dare to do that here? Is using a word as a category to describe a thinking style so threatening that we can't do it without fearing we would be wrong or would hurt the person who is being described?

C'mon – describe my thinking style that's expressed in my writing! Give it a name, make some observations about it, don't worry about being insulting …

Special

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:17:00 +0000

When I was sixteen, I made an agreement with my mother to smile more often. Because of our bone structure, we have a mouth that turns down because our lower jaw is a bit small in relation to our skulls. This makes it look as if we're frowning or are being seriously judgmental when our face is at rest.

Not long before she died at fifty-four, my mom was starting to become upset about becoming older. She pointed out that her face was now sagging, making her down-turned resting face frown more noticeable. Her face looked so much more beautiful when she smiled anyway, so I suggested she learn to smile more often and she agreed that doing that would be a good idea. But she needed my help. To cue her to remember to smile, I began a habit of smiling at her - giving her an outright huge, toothy grin or just turning up the corners of my mouth so they didn't turn down. It turned out that smiling more often actually made me feel happier too, so I kept doing it. I realize now that it's an agreement I made with my mother long ago that still persists and connects me to being her daughter. Here is a picture of me at fifty-four with that slight smile next to my brother. As you can see, I have a smile that almost turns downward.

Smiling more often as a matter of course has had an unexpected effect on others...

Many years ago when I first came to Hawaii, I was invited to this birthday party for someone I didn't know, because I was connected to a band member of the party gal. Most of the people at the party were younger than me. They seemed to be talking about who they knew, how cool they were (or how afraid they were not so cool) and what clothes the others were wearing. They weren't particularly interested in having conversations that were about ideas, languages, relationships or values, which were my favorite subjects. So I spent my time playing with the kids and the household dogs, randomly smiling to recognize people passing by as I wandered around the party. They put up an open mike for musicians to share their original music, so for the birthday girl I sang the Bolinas version of an original "Happy Birthday" written by Ananda Gino Brady.

At the end of the night while driving home, my friend who had invited me said he didn't understand how I could be so completely misunderstood by strangers. When I asked him what he meant, he said someone had asked him if I was a special needs person. Evidently those twenty-somethings believed that if you were smiling too often, there had to be something seriously wrong with your sanity.

But wait! There's yet another story for this topic...

In San Francisco, people who are special needs adults go out together in a group. Along with them comes one or two workers who are paid to chaperone and generally make sure the group doesn't get into trouble.

I was standing at the corner waiting for a bus in S.F. when this sort of group joined me to also board the bus. People of all walks of life take the bus in San Francisco, because of the parking difficulties. I was heading for a music lesson, so I wasn't carrying a pack or purse.

All of us got on the bus together, and I took the only available seat next to one of the special needs people. We began to talk. I guess I encouraged rambunctious replies because their "handler" asked for quiet and to stay in their seats. I apologized and stated that it was my fault to have encouraged the intensity of response. After some time had passed, a metal water container made it out of the pack of one of the members of the special needs group and rolled two seats away back into the depths of the lurching bus. Since I knew all of them were barred against fetching it, I asked the person in the seat in back of me to please hand it forward so it could be returned to the owner. There was no response, so I got up and retrieved the item before it caused a problem.

In a short time, the correct stop came and the special needs group disembarked. I slid over to a window seat that was now unoccupied and glanced back to the woman behind me who had ignored my request previously to help retrieve the water bottle.

She had a flaming red face to match her red hair. She gushed, "I'm so sorry that I assumed you were one of them!"

"Yes," I agreed, attempting some humor. "It's embarrassing when you realize you've treated Special people in special ways. I like to be especially smiley. Sometimes it makes people think I'm special."

"Well, the good kind of special then," she grinned. She nervously laughed with me.

We talked a bit more about how smiling affects people. I told her the story of my smiling agreement with my mom. She declared that maybe she could smile more often, as well as treat special people like people.

Touchy Respect

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 03:03:00 +0000

Although two people may share a particular value, say - "mutual respect is important," exactly HOW "respect" is shown - that is demonstrated with a cultural sense as well as an individually assigned meaning. Important differences in assumptions about the priority of values are revealed in conflict and mismatches that can be quite educational.

The way a value is expressed will reveal content as well as unique meanings. For some, a way to show respect is through admiring, compliments and flattery. A conflict would happen if the other person held the value that the motive to accept flattery would be mere "ego fluffing." Or that if someone complimented a possession, it meant they should get it as a gift. Such a person would rebuff another person's idea of "respect," which would be confusing. Are they rejecting how I want to express the fact that I respect them, or are they rejecting me giving them respect because they want to be respected for other values that I don't know about?

Another example for me came from a mismatch between rapport and respect. To be closer physically is among my best expressions of adopted family and real family connection. Among people who I have known from the UK, affectionate rapport is often imagined to be an "opposite" to respect. (which would be a cultural as well as an individual assumption.) People who feel they must choose between familiarity or respect will tend to physically back away from affectionate displays. It's still difficult in our American culture to gain and keep both respect and rapport.

If people who value closeness, (and they express that with tight spacial boundaries) attempt to have a conversation with someone from the UK or Americans at a physical distance that is, for them, "too close," the UK people (and Americans) will back up. Backing away isn't a meta-comment about whether you are liked by them or not, or if they want to hear what you're talking about or not - it's a cultural misunderstanding about the shared sense of culturally private and respectful spacial distance.

This factor I noticed painfully because I had issues with American conversational distance early in my life. I was near-sighted. I also had a very physically affectionate family life as a child. I solved my problem by "training" my friends to put up with my need for physical contact. First, I determined where these Brits felt least freaked out being touched to find out when I made them uncomfortable, so I could refrain from mindlessly crossing their boundary. Then, I touched them in situations where being touched back wasn't required - mostly during good-bye rituals. Almost anyone in my almost untouchable American/Brit culture will put up with being touched on the forearms or, in an ongoing conversations on the feet, shoulders or upper arms.

The prospective friend learning my own motives about getting touched was also a factor. For instance, I might be allowed to invite being touched for the purpose of getting warmer if I expressed that my feet are cold and need warming up if I was watching a movie at opposite ends of a couch. Or a person may welcome my headache disappearing skills. (Results may vary!)

As you touch someone on this predetermined apparently non-threatening area of their body, it allows them to get used to the idea that you intend to initiate physical contact innocently, in an attempt to adopt them into your circle of intimate (but not sexual) friend-family membership. It also helps prospective friends if you demonstrate how you "touch your friends" by introducing them to your other friends who have learned to allow you to touch them. Then the prospective member can see you touching those friends who welcome your unusual behavior and have come to enjoy being touched by you. This way, you can gain a reputation as a well-meaning "touchy-feely" person that offers this benefit to friendship membership with you. Touching may be gradually negotiated and accepted on an individual basis. It actually works best if you are recognized as "foreign," because then you can offer the level of touch as your micro-cultural history as an advantage of meeting with you - half-way between both cultures. People expect foreigners to be "non-conforming." So when they do "crazy" things, it gives them permission for them to act a bit "crazy" too. It's a fun thing if you can communicate that you're from another micro-cultural segment of society.

Another example of this was my puzzlement about getting pushed away by politeness. Until this happened, I didn't know that I believed that politeness indicates if I knew what the person wanted me to do or act, having been polite means I intend to please the other person, after being given this information. Not being given the intimate information about what is really important to that person beyond politeness meant to me that I wasn't trusted. I ran into problems when polite civility was exactly what this person really wanted; no more or less.

Anyway, the point of my examples here is to show how the assumptions of a couple of specific issues can be examined, (as well as discussing "respect" as specific content.) A similar sense of noticing a conflict or misunderstanding and then sorting things out using a process of disambiguation could be applied to other values too.

Pareidolia and Genius

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:40:00 +0000

Well, what is Genius?
I would say that the ability to combine details or characteristics that most of the rest of us have passed over is a mark of genius. Insights can become, with some work to make it happen, into being a new synergistic synthesis. A person who sees whole systems where nobody else has seen them before - who can put these things together to do something that could become valuable - that is my definition of a genius.

That quote by Ken Robinson that says something similar? He's actually quoting Edward de Bono. It's a trade secret of creative people to keep your sources private. Makes you seem really, really smart as if you came up with it on your own.

But, maybe you did think of it yourself! Wonder who it was that first said, "Great minds think alike..."

The tricky, unfamiliar part of this? Getting the insight in the first place.
The hard work? Turning your idea into something real that has value.
The threat to the status quo: These new systems you imagined can emerge as an entirely new paradigm that can supersede, innovate or collapse what has gone before.

Communication skills are key. Sometimes it seems an insurmountable challenge to describe the value of a really new idea...because it has yet to be used, created or selected as an option. Because you've invented it, it is often difficult for others to understand your invention's significance and what the discovery could mean to them. The significance and value of a brilliant idea is often difficult to determine at the time it happens. Great ideas go unexploited, because the genius often has trouble explaining the thinking that got him into his new discovery. It's not merely the nuts and bolts background that needs filling in - because pretty much every time everyone who does know something about the subject you're innovating will tell you that "that can't be done."

Of course a leap of insight of any magnitude needs to be honed and worked on to explain it. You've gotta have a working model, a prototype. The seed of an idea always needs some sort of work to turn it into something useful. Sometimes the world of geniuses who find a specialty is so unique that it seems impossible to explain it, even to those people who work in the field!

When I was sixteen, I untangled by flashlight the fishing line of a discouraged fisherman who had given up. He had walked up a long flight of stairs carrying his equipment to his car and returned for his flashlight. He found that I had spent that entire time looking at the tangle. Then I pulled one strand and the whole mess unraveled. Although I was only 16 years old at the time, this man decided my problem solving strategies and observation skills could be useful to his "Think Tank" of inventors he knew. At a later meeting, these inventors showed me one of their inventions and tried to explain it to me. They wrote down my questions about it to help them introduce the invention to others. Describing and explaining the worth of what you are doing to non-technical people is a tricky hurdle all inventors must navigate. You need to get funding to actualize your idea and build a working prototype of it. To do that you have to explain it to investors.

There are many instances when a spark of genius emerged quite young and determined the course of a person's life. As a teen, Philo Farnsworth imagined the TV by looking at plowed rows of dirt and realizing slight variations could create pictures viewed from afar. Farnsworth spent his adult life figuring out how to take that insight for a ride - and he didn't even get credit for inventing TV until after his death.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/645193951/Television-inventors-100th-anniversary-will-probably-go-unnoticed-as-did-he.html

There's a word for this phenomena of seeing sense in accidental images. It's called, "Pareidolia." It's how the brain makes sense of accidentally organized visual characteristics that "look like" something else more familiar. The "man in the moon" is an example of Pareidolia. Farnsworth had a pareidolia experience while plowing rows of dirt when he was a teen.

As a teen, Monty Roberts compiled his observations of wild mustang herds. From these observations, he originated a whole new approach to training horses that allowed him to "join up" (rather than "break') a completely wild horse to a saddle in as little as fifteen minutes.

Of course, there are countless more "origin of insight" stories of brilliant ideas. Some of these inventions, (like the LED light,) start out as curiosities or toys...until someone realizes exactly how they might be useful.

I think the ability to "see" pareidolia when nobody else has yet noticed it is the seed of the observation skill to imagining an invention. Of course, once a pareidolia image has been pointed out to you, it's sort of a forgone conclusion or only a curiosity.

Check out this page to see some interesting examples of pareidolia:
http://earthsky.org/human-world/seeing-things-that-arent-there

I'm going to test that out by making some art that requires people to use this ability... Will it make them more creative? Guess making this idea real will be certain to make ME more creative!

Do you have genius in you? What you love to do points to your genius!

Centering

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Mon, 06 May 2013 11:06:00 +0000

Colleagues in my Alexander Technique community were talking about how various Eastern disciplines involving movement commonly use a concept about "centering."

Bruce Fertman blogged: http://peacefulbodyschool.com/2013/04/21/on-the-grounds-of-modesty/ and he also wrote:

Just thinking out loud. yes, there is a geometric center. Instead of a circumference you could think of your periphery. or you could see diVinci's man in the circle and the square and conceive of a geometric center. or we could think of the center vertically, as in where the equator is. and then there is center as in a core. core gets closer to what i think many of us experience inside of our work. a sense of core support, but metaphysically as well, the core of our existence, a sense of depth, deepness. then there is the word central, and central gets close to alexander's word primary, that which is deepest, or most important. it's interesting how much we seem to need this concept of a center. in my answer to the student's question about the center of the body i attempt to lead him to considering what it would be like to drop the concept of a center or the need for a center. It reminds me of the first time i was invited by Dieter Pruess to teach in berlin. It was before AlexanderPlatz went up. We were walking in the center of berlin and dieter said, Do you know why berlin is a buddhist city? he smiled and said, because at its center there is nothing, emptiness. German humor. but it is closer to my experience, this positive emptiness. First there was emptiness and then there was AlexanderPlatz. Jewish humor.

Tim Soar, www.the-alexander-technique.org.uk wrote:

My own experience is that to "find my center" is not to do with finding a location in my body (like noticing my sitting bones for example) but describes a process. My image of this process is one of bringing several lenses into concentricity with each other to make something like a telescope. The various lenses work together towards a single result. The lenses represent the different parts of my Self, in the broadest sense. When I'm centred, something comes into focus. In terms of physical movement, when I'm centred I seem to move "as one" - nothing leads, nothing initiates, nothing lags behind: "I" move! Perhaps a physicist watching someone move in this way would have some observation about the center of gravity?

So I thought I'd say a few things too...
Everyone is going to have a different way of expressing it, but it seems all of us are attempting to describe a common human experience. Perhaps another matching description might be Maslow's "peak experience," or Csikszentmihalyi's "flow"?

Also agreeing with Tim - my insight about the center being an ever-moving fractal spiral of complementary DNA quantum dance also came partly from my experiences with being tossed around while studying Aikido. Later I found similar rapport in establishing and Directing experiences that involved social, solitary and the natural world relationships.

It seems to me that any performance art, or activity with a physical expression, (even a sport, dancing, making pottery, many jobs and hobbies, etc.) can become a source of continual insight of "being centered within movement." Many disciplines studied with an openness to continual learning can potentially offer the effortless non-action wholeness of transforming the activity into an art form.

The signature sensations seemed to be "there is no wrong" because perception becomes enlarged, inclusive and unites paradoxical opposites with a sense of wholeness...but there's still a possibility to not lose oneself, to influence, being mindful of the timing of when to insert the surrendered intention.

What do you think?
Have you had experiences such as what we're trying at describing here?
How would you describe them?

Ant Story

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 04:57:00 +0000

When finding spiders in their house, many people go to the trouble of taking them out into the garden rather than more easily killing them. Doing such a thing makes me feel that I'm doing a bit to accommodate how humans have eliminated the habitat of so many other species. Here's a mysterious thing that happened when I did something like that...

While driving across country by myself in the summer of 2001, I stopped to camp in Colorado in Dinosaur National Monument. Because I had been driving at night to avoid the heat, I was spending nights awake and still wearing shorts.

My campsite was a beautiful one on a ridge. I had made a fire in the camp ring to pass the time by burning the wood that had been lying there for some time left by the campers before me. It was so dark that I could see the light of the fire slightly illuminating the other side of the canyon if I looked away from the fire for awhile.

Of course, without a moon I couldn't see well except for the light of the fire, so it took awhile before I noticed a few carpenter ants who were running around on one of the logs I had used on the fire. I was both amused and horrified to imagine what it would be like to be one of these ants, because they were milling around very fast as if they had to dance to not burn their feet on the warming log. To give them a way of escaping being burned to death, I found another stick and placed it from the log the ants were on to the ground. Delightfully, they figured it out at once and made a beeline for safety.

After arriving on the ground, most of the group of perhaps a dozen ants set off. One ant reversed and came in my direction. When this ant ran into the road block of my bare leg, it stopped and touched my leg with its antennae for quite some time. Then it turned around in the direction of the rest of its comrades and proceeded to catch up to them - post haste.

What I've always wondered was, did that ant say "Thanks?"

Happiness Sensations

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 18:12:00 +0000

How do I tell when I'm happy? I have had lots of trouble with answering the question for myself. Here's a report on my discoveries.

First problems were my misconceptions about the nature of happiness. From having lots of tragic intense experiences, what I didn't want was obvious - and it was repulsive: a huge NO! I made the mistake of assuming that what I did want would have that same intensity of feeling. The admonishment to "Find my passion" did not help.

Inside of me, it turned out that happiness is subtle. Happiness is absorbing, It is something that I do so naturally it's pretty easy to miss it in action. Something I'm doing that makes me happy doesn't tell me that it is making me happy - only in retrospect does this realization of "I was happy!" happen for me. While I'm doing what makes me happy, I'm so absorbed my it that I am too busy to notice how I feel. It soaks up my attention like a sponge. I'm engaged pretty much completely. In fact, the intensity of this engagement can make me a bit scared. I will surface from doing what makes me happy as if I've been asleep and I've just woke up in a fog. Like Rip Van Winkle, who slept for eons, I'll experience a jolt as I if I'm waking myself out of doing what has been making me happy and wonder what has been going on while I've been gone.

Another characteristic of happiness for me is that it's an unnoticed, irresistible action. I can't resist not doing it. Of course I'm going to do things that way, silly. Doesn't everyone? It was a shock to realize that "everyone" didn't value what I thought was "obviously valuable." I began to realize that I needed to consider that other people might wanted to be treated differently than I did, and act accordingly. I also needed to find positive ways to tell other people what I wanted, valued and enjoyed so it could come true for me and them.

For instance, it turns out that I have some big opinions on how I prefer to be touched. As a kid, my brother used to love to have me scratch his back. He wanted to scratch my back in "payment" for getting me to scratch his back, but that didn't work for me. I really did not want to be scratched - it doesn't do anything positive for me. People tend to scratch me too hard. Being touched "softly" is also an issue for me. If someone "tickle touches" my skin, it is slightly irritating because my skin becomes numb rather quickly to the creepy-crawly surface sensations. It feels to me as if a bug is crawling on my skin! In Hawaii we call this sensation of goose pimples, "getting chicken skin." It is as if my skin is too sensitive for such pastimes. But if another person makes calm or firm contact with my muscles underneath my skin, it's heavenly. I love to be massaged deeply. I love to feel someone's body warming my own. I love to feel contact with another person and have them relax and lengthen their muscles, taking contraction away from themselves while they are in contact with me.

One time in my early life when I was first struggling with this question of how to feel what I wanted and what made me happy, I tried a radical, time consuming strategy that worked well for me. I went back to a time when I really wanted something. As a kid, I constantly wanted a horse. At one point in my early twenties, even though I didn't want a horse anymore, (because I'd grown up and my priorities had changed radically) and *because* I didn't know what else I wanted...I got a horse. Clearing the time it took to have a horse helped me to have something to give up when I finally did get a "real yes" about happiness.

There was another more serious problem about recognizing happiness for myself. Decisions that didn't involve considering external circumstances or other people just did not register on my radar. Having someone in front of me who had an opinion one way or another about what made them happy completely outshone any emotions I did have by a mile. Other people's wishes distracted me so completely, that I did not experience my own emotions. Not know what you want is a real deal-breaker in relationships with other people, because they can't tell what to to expect that you might do.

So I had to work on drawing a curtain between me and them to experience what I really wanted to do, irrespective of what they wanted me to do. This meant at first actively seeking solitude - and it was hard to sense my own emotions even then. On top of everything I was even rebellious with myself. I had a hard time picking something I knew I enjoyed doing that didn't take but five minutes a day and doing it every day regularly because I had so much resistance about setting any deliberate routine in place. But with practice, (this took five years or so) I became much better at checking in w/myself and getting an answer. Now I'm almost sixty. All I need to do to find out what I feel is to look away from someone's face for a bit or excuse myself from their presence.

But the way I worked out deciding what I feel is a bit odd too. I only discovered this by taking a poll about how other people determine what makes them happy. I discovered that my own feelings and emotions did not "rise to the top" like cream does, in a hierarchy. This was the most common way most people have access to their feelings. They can merely ask themselves "What would make me happy here?" and they get an answer that is their first priority.

Discovering my own feelings is more like a two step process. It's as if I'm fishing in a mysterious cauldron of potential, pulling up what comes out, describing it. Then I must draw statistics on the results of how I feel about it, after having described it for myself a number of times. I have learned that it's not a good idea to narrate this process in front of others. Because they might assume that because I dredged it up and mentioned it to them, it must be my first priority for wanting it...and that's just not true for me. Many things I want come up, irrespective of "time of arrival." I have learned for myself that when it comes to emotions, it is an important consideration for me to compensate for "time of arrival."

How does feeling what makes you happy work for you?

For Your Own Good

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 01:05:00 +0000

Actually, I find the opposite strategy of slowing down to be a productive strategy. Except at my current pace, it seems that I'm slowed to the point of irritating productive, functional people. I've been accused of being passive-aggressively slow, which is not what I intend.

I do feel a bit self-righteous when I'm driving exactly five miles over the speed limit and I still hold up a line of cars behind me. I can feel the anger of those who are tail-gating me. Then we pass a cop car and they all fall back, obviously thankful that being behind me while I was driving slow prevented them from getting a ticket for speeding fifteen miles over the speed limit as a matter of course.

I used to feel self-righteous about the level that my culture doesn't want to touch each other too - almost to the point of "forcing" or "training" people to allow me to touch them and to invite being touched.

There were many other actions I did that violated people's cultural expectations about autonomy, independence, personal space and respect that I needed to become aware of and problem solve. I've had to learn so much about body language to be able to deal with feeling rejected, isolated and misunderstood. For instance, being near-sighted and not comfortable with glasses or contacts, I tended to stand too close to people when talking, encouraging them to back away from me or flee during a conversation.

When I finally gave in and accepted that it was OK that people in my culture did not want to be touched, I think others lost out on the value I could offer them about the importance of being touched. But they didn't seem to want it anyway.

It happened at the point where the mother of my stepson gave me this little talk about how the people closest to children are the ones who are most likely to be sexually molesting them. She got it from the news, so I could have merely cast it off as a fad. But I couldn't help but take what she had said personally. Because it resulted in her son no longer wanting to enjoy being read to while sitting in my lap, or hang out with the family and friends on the couch draped over each other. It was as if his mother was, in a roundabout way, trying to accuse me personally of molesting her six year old son by cautioning him not to trust people about an issue which he had no clue what it meant at the time. It really made me angry. But it also made me realize how an accusation like that is pretty much the same as a conviction. So I decided to let sleeping dogs lie and stop trying to get people to touch each other more often. I think my decision at that time was a mistake, in retrospect.

At what point does an opinion or belief in a value become a coercion or a sales technique or proselytizing?

People are getting hit with so many advertising ploys, making persuasion into a skill that is getting every so much more sophisticated. I can understand how consumers tend to be suspicious of extremes when they catch wind that someone believes in what they are saying. A person must be very sophisticated in their use of language to gather any sort of support for what is important and personally valuable to them, even if they have no invested interest in the sale of the product itself. Probably jaded from being sold too much useless junk too often, people have become too quick to brand an endorser or a convinced believer as a fanatic.

Music Theory Book Review

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 07:34:00 +0000

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Theory-Decoded-Strictly-Numbers/dp/125701983X

If you've always been confused about music theory, this book will make it understandable. If you've written music by ear and don't know what you did, this book will give you the tools to be a better composer and communicate with other musicians. If you're worried about how to pass your college level music theory class, this book will rescue your ass. If you were afraid to open the can of worms about delving into music theory because it's too complicated, this book will be your Rosetta Stone.

I really can't say enough about how practical and interesting a tool is the book "Music Theory Decoded - Strictly by the Numbers." Lessons are not complicated or long winded, (although the subject of music theory is famous for being that way.) Each lesson has pretty much everything you need on the facing pages that present it. Of course, it takes what it takes to learn, and there is no substitution for practice, but if you're going to spend your effort to learn music theory, this is the fastest and easiest way to do it.

Now - why use Mr. Natural's interval system? Because it makes a very complex subject simple; it starts simple and gets complex in an understandable way. Imagine a beginner's reverse-engineered jazz theory system that continues to build and make sense the further on it goes in complexity.

Even if you've already studied music theory, you must check out this book to get the map - which is what this book offers. I've seen people already trained in music mistakenly dismiss the "intervalometer-slider" as a beginner's simplistic graphic representation of the scale, perhaps useful for transposing from one key to another but not much else. Many tools seem simplistic at face value. The book is filled with simplifications about music that are going to become an indispensable map for a musician at any level. Even if you have already learned the classic succession of street name directions orienting you to musical letter names, learning from this book will set free your ability to command what you've been playing at.

For example, Mr. Natural has invented a handy "wheel" of numbers that have a skipping pattern of 1-3-5-7-2-4-6. These numbers represent the classic order of the skipping pattern inherent in chord structure that has been spelled out (street name style) as C-E-G-B-D-F-A: "Cows Eat Grass But Don't Fly Airplanes." By using the slider and the wheel together, the book teaches a pattern that can be applied to any key and in many situations. Lessons take you through these situations in two page chunks of information. For instance, it shows how to make sense of finding any chord, even augmented and unusual chords, (and why there are confusing theoretical exceptions.)

One of the things that this book includes that I've never seen anywhere else is eleven pages about how use two "sliders" to modulate from different modes and keys, allowing the musician to become aware of a sort of "trap door" that can be used to move between the two. This is jazz level ability music theory - made simple!

Aside from the essentials of every sort of chord formula, mode, and how to learn them, there's a graph of the relationship between chords that's handy for composing, ways how to use chord substitutions in chord progressions, song examples, it's got many brilliant shortcuts...and so much else. If you want to understand music theory, this book is the most direct pathway.

I was disappointed that this book did not include Natural's original system of notation. If you've heard of "Nashville" style tab notation, Mr. Natural's way is a system like that, movable to any key. But Natural's style of notation includes a shorthand to jotting down melodies and rhythms as well, allowing composers to figure out the chords and translate the song into classic notation later. Evidently his system of "Natural Notation" is going to be included in his next book, which will be more geared toward composers. I can't wait!

Get the book on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Music-Theory-Decoded-Strictly-Numbers/dp/125701983X

Are You an Endgainer?

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:51:00 +0000

To Endgain - to be an endgainer - endgaining

Thought you might enjoy learning an interesting new word. It has been in use by the Alexander Technique community since 1930s, invented by F.M Alexander. The word endgaining describes the irresistible urge to gain an intended goal that activates a habitual response connected to using one’s will. It describes the dark side of the expression, “Go for it!” - the troublesome limitations of using one’s will in the face of a new challenge.

The word in the Alexander Technique community is most often used to express a lack of success, for a number of reasons. The best example of the issues may be illustrated by the metaphor of a conductor and orchestra. The conductor assumes when they give the direction for a certain musical effect, that the musicians are skilled and practiced enough to do what it takes to make the conductor’s direction to come true. The success of the in-time response to the conductor will be in direct relationship to the amount of practice the musicians have invested in the skill of playing their instrument, what they expect from their familiarity with the music they have prepared to play and their ability to make sense of what the conductor is indicating. A lack of practice will result in a lack of success and a frustrated conductor.

The first issue is the effect of practice and how repetition builds abilities. Endgaining relates to this because the skill that has been practiced the most will jump forward to carry out the imperative direction to “do it” whenever the signal to do an act is given.

The other feature that determines success is motivation or drive, which is popularly expressed in the use of will. A lack of success expressed in the word endgain is backed up by brain research. Movement actions have already been prepared to occur before conscious awareness of action happens. Technically, a person prepares to go into action long before that person is aware of their desire to act. Humans have only 1/64th of a second to veto or shape the way they are going to do an action that is already been prepared and is in progress inside of them before it becomes expressed in an overt action.

Bet you didn't know about that brain science fact!

So – using one’s will power to carry out an intention only works in relationship to how familiar and practiced a person is with the required skills needed. Endgaining means there is a primary motive towards reaching an aim, disregarding the method used to achieve the intended goal.

If we ignore the way we do things, the means we are most familiar to get our goals will happen. If the goal requires a familiar means for success or successively matches similar skills previously trained, all is well. But a new situation requires a new and unfamiliar means, there might be undesirable consequences. During situations that do not match previously trained skills inappropriate to the situation, pain, illness and injury occur. It will not matter how imperative the need or will to succeed is. An epic fail can still happen in the presence of the most arrogantly successful confidence and drive.

The Alexander Technique demonstrates a process that allows a successful approach to establishing a new means to deal with unfamiliar circumstances. It's one of my favorite and most useful pastimes.

End-gainer's Anonymous

To be an endgainer when a more effective process is available marks the student as naive. They need more practice in the skill of temporarily suspending their goals to allow the use of unfamiliar means. Without using the new indirect means, our responses will most likely follow the dominant and most often practiced movement patterns. These old routines recreate a series of sense perceptions that feel ‘right’ to us – but they are merely the comfort of doing what we know best. To get an unfamiliar new benefit, we need to stop doing what we have practiced and know how to do. We need to be willing to feel “strange” and take a gamble. We need to suspend the goal and stop our will-to-do that wants to endgain.

So how do we tell when something notable has happened and that we have indeed stopped endgaining? Effortlessness and lightness are new signals of success. Isn't that interesting"?!

Published

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:58:00 +0000

Left to right: Paul, Gail (holding a copy of our compilation book - Coconuts & Pearls), John, Marie, myself in the visor, Greer and Jim

When I first came to Hawaii, I wondered where the smart people were. Found some of 'em. This is a pic of me with the the hardcore movers and shakers of my writer's group who meet at Tutu's House in Waimea-Kamuela. Luckily, where this group meets is located a short walk from my home these days.

It's really fun to read what they're writing in installments as they do it, because most of them are fiction writers. It's really lucky that they put up with listening to me write about non-fiction subjects that are quite a bit more boring to wrestle with - but they are really a tolerant and observant bunch. People who join this writer's group learn about what constitutes constructive observations - because people can ask for any sort of feedback they want to get from the group as they read their writing out loud. It's an awesome bunch of smart people to be able to know.

One of the projects that has drawn the group together was spear-headed by Paul, who taught us how to self-publish books. Of course, at Paul's helpful presentation aimed at individual writers making their book happen, I piped up, "Why doesn't the whole writer's group do their own compilation?" This turned out to be an idea that everyone else pounced on immediately; I didn't even have to lift a finger for my own writing to be included along with the writing of 20+ members of the group too. "Coconuts and Pearls" is a compilation of poets (Gail's poems beg to be sung as a sort of female Bob Dylan!) excerpts from novels in progress, (Jim's novel is about his mom's experiences in early Hawaiian culture,) short stories, (Greer writes a brand of "magical fiction" that will fascinate your old "Twilight Zone" fantasy bone) as well as my article titled "Creative Hit List."

Copies of the book are available at Tutu's House - and the proceeds are donated to Tutu's House to help with their wonderful contribution to the community. The writer's group wanted to benefit Tutu's House to help them to continue providing free workshops, meetings and events for the Waimea-Kamuela community.

Cross-Cultural Relationships

noreply@blogger.com (My Half Of) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:30:00 +0000

It's quite a common assumption that just because you both speak the same language, that there are not serious cultural differences. I spent ten years with guy from a very British family who had come to the USA to work as librarians. Our connection came partly from his need for quite a bit more demonstrative affection than was part of his former UK culture. But when we would visit his parents, (and it took awhile for this feature to dawn on me,) suddenly we weren't touching at all!

Even if you share values, there are many assumptions about how values are communicated that are quite different among those who come from different cultures or subcultures. For instance, rubbing up against the UK culture revealed to me that my assumption about politeness was quite different. For me, mannerliness is something you do for others to show you would like to know their preferences. Once those personal preferences specifically are revealed in context, you can dispense with the show of politeness and enjoy a greater degree of intimacy because you have forged an understanding based on tailor-made considerations. This strategy works pretty well among the various American subcultures and among most other cultures I have encountered, but not for the British.

My partner's mom wanted the politeness itself. This made me feel as if she was keeping me away at arm's length. Although I understood what was going on was a cultural difference and talked to her about it, I never did feel comfortable with her or trust her in quite an animal sense.

Strangely enough, eventually the time came when this mother-in-law did provide me with a meaningful token of respect. It only came after I had separated from the relationship a decade later. She made a point to thank me for my part in mediating with her son's ex-wife while raising her grandson, allowing the kid to have so much time with his dad.

This respect also turned out to be a bonding force that helped deal with cleaning up a mess that was left when their son committed suicide six years after we had dissolved our relationship. Even though I wasn't intimately involved with their son at that point, it was still up to me to be the hostess for everyone who showed up from out of town because we knew each other. It was a relief to finally realize that there was a firm connection that went beyond politeness that was functional and in place at such an intense time for everyone. Sort of sad that it took a death to reveal it for me, but it did provide me with some degree of closure.

Cultural differences are powerful - even though slight. It seems when you first meet someone, you see similarities. As you know them, the more differences emerge. If you are lucky enough to have twenty year relationships or more, you'll actually switch roles to deal with their evolving challenges of character!