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.

Breaking up is hard to do!

(Image via Wikipedia)

A recent study published in  TIME put the spotlight on the kind of pain felt by people on the business end of a breakup.

The study notes, with classic academic rigor, that the spurned students had engaged in activities such as "inappropriate phoning, writing or e-mailing, pleading for reconciliation, sobbing for hours, drinking too much and/or making dramatic entrances and exits into the rejecter's home, place of work or social space to express anger, despair or passionate love."

By using fMRI to track the participants' brain activity as they looked at the photo's of the lovers who jilted them, and to nobody's surprise found the pain of breaking up the same same as physical pain, craving and addiction, that is to say they share a similar pattern of brain activity.

Besides attesting what we know; that the mind cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, that every pain is just the same as any other, and that how we feel is more a choice than the result of our experience, the study highlight the fact the pain is unpleasant, even more so if we think it should be, and that the pain of romantic rejection is just as real as hitting your thumb with a hammer.

Seen in the context of similar research on the brain and how it works, it informs our recent understanding that minds make sense of the world through a system of pattern recognition that orchestrate most of our awareness to a seamless flow of highly predicted existance. It is only when we experience something new that our mind come to focus our reason, tickle our fancy, spark the flame of curiosity, and bring our senses to the high alert of adventure and discovery.

Quite the opposite to how we think under the bain of heartache, rejection, loss and pain, but then we must accept that broken hearts don't live well, and just as emotion will twart any attempt at logical thought and deductive reason, we cannot expect to find any meaning without the courage to open our hearts, and share in love and living life.

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The story of water

Water is the most common molecule found on the earth, and at the same time also the most strange. Water is the only molecule that was created by the word of God, and while most people accept water for what it can do, very little ever give a second thought to what it does.

When I was in school someone used the example to illustrate how much power water has, by saying that it was the flow of water in rivers that will eventually erode all the rocks there are on earth and carry the sand back to the sea. When I did some research 30 years later I found a reference to something similar that explained how the expansive quality of water when it freezes is responsible for cracking open rocks and granite. Both examples are quite mind blowing in their scope, but they still do not even come close to the real power of water on our planet.

A very good example of what water does can be found in the way it provides the scaffolding for the structure of biological molecules, molecules like the proteins in DNA that are the building blocks of our human existence.

Proteins are also used as messengers across the complex hormonal networks in our bodies. It is the structural form of these proteins that determine what function they have, and that allow them to communicate across the various receptors that can be found throughout our bodies. Messengers that switch things off or on and regulate things like our immune system and memory.

Water is as much part of you and me as it is part of everything in nature. We can observe the way that it has formed our land, we experience it in the constant cycles of our weather patterns, we marvel at the infinite variety it expresses in every single snowflake, and we drink it to keep us alive.

Water is part of us and who we are.

Water is life.

The pursuit of happiness

It struck me as odd when I first found scientific confirmation that we remember bad things better. If the design of the universe was based on a positive principle, and my experience constantly reaffirms me that it is, then why would we forget the happy things?

But if you take a moment and think about it, it actually makes perfect sense. The reason that we have such difficulty in remembering the joy of our journey is that fun is something you have. It implies participation, and it only makes sense at the time.

Quite the opposite is true when you look at the bad and the ugly, they exist in the past. In fact, without them our past would probably be somewhat uneventful. Not that it would matter of course! If the argument holds true we will most likely be having too much fun to care.

It is therefore no real surprise that scientific evidence has shown that the relation between fun and care is inversely proportionate to each other. This means that if you have more of the one, you will by equation, have less of the other.

So how can we get more? Mingyur Rinpoche is a Buddhist monk and the author of the book "Joyful Wisdom". He carries the distinction of being dubbed "The happiest man alive" after he participated in research aimed at showing how mindfulness meditation could increase our happiness coefficient.

Previous research had shown that there is a shift in activity from the right to the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain in subjects who were happy, and the experiment wanted to determine if purposeful meditation could achieve such a change.

It turned out to be a huge success, and after eight weeks some of the participants showed an increase of up to 800 percent in left sided brain activity by following a 30 minute a day program of mindfulness meditation.

But meditation is only one of the ways that we can increase happiness. Various other experiments has shown that anyone can put a smile on their face just by focusing on happy things, proving the age old wisdom that energy flows where the mind goes.

Those who actively pursue happiness get it, and there is at least one Tibetan Lama that can vouch for it!

What's up with Happiness?

Apparently quite a lot!

According to scientific studies people who are happy and satisfied might be healthier than those that are not and researchers say that "A positive mood enhances efforts to attain future well-being, encourages broader and flexible thinking, and increases openness to information" in a study that shows how a positive mood helps you to see the big picture. Research has also shown that the health gain from being happy make us live longer, and that happy people watch less television.

The last study mentioned is probably obvious, seeing that happy people have less free time on their hands. According to the researchers they spend more time socializing, a fact that has a whole range of benefits of its own!

In another study by the University of Michigan it was shown that 10 minutes of talking improved memory and intellectual performance. This was supported by further research that showed how socializing make us smarter!

Meanwhile the news I announced in my article It's CONTAGIOUS, that happiness can spread to friends and family continue to make headlines across the world!

With all the positive attention the news is currently giving to a positive mood, I will not be surprised if we soon find proof that a smile can change our lives... Or is that old hat by now?