Genius vs Flow

 

The difference is obvious 

The expression of fortuitous happenstance

I must confess I'm often blessed in serendipity, and happy to share my blessing in the ebb and flow of resonance.

I've recently happened to chance up on PATH, a non-profit global health organization that: 

... dare to believe that innovation can change the world

As luck would have it PATH's vision is "a world where innovation ensures that health is within reach for everyone." You'll see the synchronicity if you read my recently updated app manifest for Stardeck, my own take on the age old public health conundrum of how to package the whole idea of "... improve the health of people around the world by advancing technologies, strengthening systems, and encouraging healthy behaviors."

As fait de compli I'd like to present you with the last of my app objectives, to monitor personal health with easy-to-use, app-on-board, state-of-the-art, clinical measuring instruments that would

• detect when you're stressed and advise you on a choice of stress reduction techniques
• suggest ways of managing stress when the app detect any chronic stress metrics
• inform you on how to eliminate stress completely by enrolling as a rookie in my no-patent-pending, open source, loads of gratuitous 
• public health goodness Stardeck Bootcamp Habituary.

I must admit I might even be a tad superstitious, some would even say obsessive about the whole experience of synchronicity, ascribing to the universal point of view that if a venture doesn't hum in harmony, it's a foregone conclusion that its not going to resonate, and if it doesn't resonate then it's most likely an idea that's just biding it's time to fortuitous happenstance.

Much like PATH above, and Lylith below, if you see what I mean.

The reality of awareness

According to the article by New Scientist, our brains manage the huge task of visual observation by extrapolating predicted visual inputs based on recent and relevant experience. 

"The brain expects to see things and really just wants to confirm it now and again," says Lars Muckli at the University of Glasgow, UK.

Predictable sights trigger less brain activity than unfamiliar stimuli, bolstering the view that the brain is not merely reactive, but generates predictions based on the recent past.

The finding follows a series of scientific discoveries that challenge our current view of awareness. It challenges our understanding of reality, and throws a curve-ball to philosophers and scholars alike, neither of which have ever been able to come up with any satisfactory explanation for the rational mind or the origin of consciousness.

Recent research has provided us with inconclusive evidence that awareness is a highly lucid and mindful experience that depend more on our frame of mind than on actual experience. 

According to the research there is about a 20/80 split between our expectation and the actual experience we perceive. All of which confirm something we have known for a while, that reality is a highly individual experience. 

If we add to that the latest revelation that our sense of observation mostly confirm our own presumption you'll start to see why your view on reality and consciousness is in urgent need for a change.


Since the historical debate on the nature of reality that started way back in the Age of Enlightenment has failed to provide us with any solid argument we can believe, I suggest the time has come to wipe what we think we know from the table, change our perspective, and begin our view on life with the conscious perception of mindful awareness, the mutual intention of curious abandon and having a good time.

By starting with a clean slate, and founding our arguments on what we know rather than what we believe, chances are good we may end up looking at ourselves in a totally different way, enlightened by the reason incumbent to life, and enthralled by the beauty and wonder of living it.

Since all of this is rather sudden and unexpected, not to mention virgin territory to such as me, I'd like to invite you to share your own experience, and would love to hear your point of view on reality, reason, and living from shared and present sense perspective.

Reason that pertain to your reality

Identify the shared perspective

It may tickle your fancy that research findings bear witness to the fact that your attitude is still one of the best predictors to having a good time.

Not to mention the fact that good intention is by far the best way to foster positive engagement and honest deed is by any and all means the best expression to entrain the synergy of mutual heed, and synchronicity pertain to be the only consideration to proffer the harmony incumbent to existence. Harmony in turn engender resonance, a quality perceived as inherent to reality, and which evoke the requited principle of serendipitous afford.

From a shared perspective, synchronicity makes perfect sense, harmony a blessed sensibility, and with resonance bespoke as unconditional reward, my only question is why it doesn't seem to find accord.

My guess is lack of information about the reality of change, lack of knowledge about the principles that pertain to harmony, the absence of experience incumbent to resonance, the constant heresy embedded in almost every aspect of our modern day society, and the ever present all-prevailing propaganda for repentance and damnation of the false belief that preach a social "quid pro quo" in stead of the instinctive "hoc in quod", despite the abundant evidence evident.

I'd love to hear your point of view!

Pack up your troubles!

While many people believe that happiness is as easy as winning the lottery, human experience will show that happiness is much more elusive than winning, power or cash, and history hold many a legendary tale of fabulous fortune and ultimate ruin.

In the past, the only tried and tested way of finding happiness lay in monastic pursuit, but somehow the habit of monks, the vows of chastity and never ending meditation never caught on, and somehow the vow of poverty could never quite make sense.

While happiness through sacrifice may feel good while you are doing it, the pleasure quickly fade in the face of our modern day living. But thanks to the research that started this journey to sense, we now have the answer again. And were it not for the fact that the secret was hiding in sight all the time, we may never have believed that it's as easy as making up our mind.

In his article that highlight the latest revelation on nature, Dumb Little Man provides his readers with the science behind the facts that make happiness a breeze. Take for example that only 20% of our reality experience is made up by perception, be that sensory or more, while a whopping 80% is preconceived and subject to choice.

It boggles the mind when you think that happiness is a decision, and in the absence of choosing it our feelings would default to any of a number of subconscious fears, assumptions, probabilities and presumption. That our live can change miraculously if we start to choose how we feel, and that lofty and noble ideas of mindful living, of being the change we want to see, of creating our own destiny and making the most out of every single moment of life are all in within reach.

If you think about it, it almost make sense, until you start living it. By living our life as nature intend, we begin to comprehend the the answer to most of the questions in life look for value and meaning, and most of the time we'd be happy to live it just as it is, if only we were happy to get it.

Got it?

Good!

Birds do it, bees do it

 Image via Wikipedia

... and don't quote me on this, but I have a sneaky suspicion even fleas do it. But before you get carried along in the enthusiasm of the classical song, this article has got nothing to do with love. (At least not as far as popular convention goes) I'm talking about flow.

Not the kind you may find in a river, or the molecules in a body of fluid mass, but the universal flow that has been known since the dawn of man. Until recently, not much about flow has been known, even though it is commonly found throughout nature, is one of the very few life experiences considered to be truly shared, and the only feeling known to man that remains the same no matter who they are, or what they did to trigger it. It doesn't matter what the persons sex, age, color or creed that describe it, the qualities of flow remain constant all over the world.

The best way to describe it, as those in the know would agree, is a profound sense of purpose and freedom, of effortless being, and feeling suspended in time and space. People often refer to a flow experience as having the best time of their life.

If you would like to know more about flow, you are welcome to take a look at some of my earlier articles on the subject, like What is flow? and Being in flow that describe the experience in more detail, and define most the qualities of flow that we know, Meeting God or reality and belief that explore flow as a spiritual experience.

Zen and the art of doing chores...

Washing up is always like therapy, and difficult doctor that I am, I try to evade it for as long as I can stand the ever growing reality of dirty dishes. But there is nothing that creeps up on you quite like something you are trying to ignore, and dirty dishes are no exception.

It is times like these that I bow in the wake of grease and grime and dirt. I roll up my sleeves, clean the sink of everything but the cutlery, arrange the wash in categories, clean the kitchen and pour a me a hot tub with suds.

I have come across many a way to wash the dishes, but none that come with such a sense of accomplishment and Zen as starting the process by washing the glasses, and ending the journey with a satisfying slurp as the last water drain from the sink.

What comes between is nothing less than a miracle as the cleansing ritual unfold, and more and more pans and pots, containers, utensils and modern living brick-a-brack join their kind in their designated spot. First the glasses, then the cups, followed by the plates, cutlery, pots and pans. Tupperware normally require that you pour a fresh batch of bubbles.

Everything in order, everything in place, and from beginning to end my mind is free to travel where it may in flow and serendipity. For some it may be a mindless task, but washing up for me, opens a rift in time and space. It allows my mind to roam without fetter, free to find the joy and peace there is in the tranquil flow of ritual and task, and it rewards me with a spanky-clean and sparkling kitchen, and the deeply satisfying knowledge of a task well done.

Washing up is like Zen if you do it the right way, just like all the menial tasks we indulge daily as a byproduct of technology and modern living. So why not treat yourself to a mind spa at every task you can? Who knows, your dirty dishes may end up as the pause you need and never knew you wanted. And it's fun!