A Harvard University research team under neuroscientist Robert Stickgold reports that when people face problems, napping helps. He explains it to 'Science News' this way: "If you're studying something tough, get the basics down and take a nap. If you dream about it, you will probably understand better."
The napping part is known by every college freshman, but the dreaming part inspired me to dream my way to an idea. Historians have long debated the forces that shape history. Generally the scholars fall into three camps: Determinists, ideologists, and the great-man theorists.
The first take the measure of the determining forces of a country such as its climate, natural resources, national genetics. Factors over which a nation has no immediate control. Favorable or unfavorable, these factors largely determine your fate. The second camp argue that national ideologies are the essential driving force in a country's achievements or failures.
The last group postulate that the occasional appearances of "great men" in history are what largely shape the course of the times. These historians have a suite of examples to lay out: Alexander the Great, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Philip II, Henry VIII, Washington, Napoleon, Bismarck, Mao, Hitler, Churchill, FDR. [There are those who push this envelope all the way to the prediction of a world-changer known as the anti-Christ ]
Right or wrong, the "great man" theory of history crept into my dreams recently, Here's what I found. Th landscape of a stressed world in which climates are changing, economies are faltering, institutions are cracking, and confidence seeping away faster than my 401K funds. In my dream -- nightmare? -- I saw the shadows of great men and women looming over the scene, raising their voices to confront the challenges and lead "the people."
At first, exciting...!
But then in my dream I saw and heard "the people" drowning out the calls from the leaders. "Why go that way? What about this way? We have a right to take you down! We don't like too many orders, too much arrogance!" A discordant chorus of free voices freely expressing their 101 different alternative ideas.
And so everyone raised their own battle flag and pointed in their own direction. "We are a free people, so no one has the right to lead...!" As my dream faded, I no longer saw or sensed any "great men" at the head of "the people." Only a thousand-points-of-light each illuminating a thousand different paths.
Just then I woke up. I'm still trying to sort through my dream. How's your dreams?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
THERE'S NO TURNING BACK NOW, DOCTOR
On these fresh spring mornings, optimists and pessimists wake up with different expectations. The first with enthusiasm -- I haven't lived this day before! The second with dread -- what new crisis took place while I was sleeping! There's a third group -- those who prefer to roll over, and get back under the soft safe covers.
Eventually all three of us will be stepping out our front door. Out here are at least four changes we'll face. How we do it is up to us, but we will have to face them:
* First, spring proms have now and forever changed. Once a college campus promenade, they have trickled down to high schools and elementary schools where girls are outfitted with some of the same flair and finances of a bride, and guys chip in for sleek white limousines and midnight boat rides. Style was once the standard; now it's splash. The bigger and richer the better!
* Second, telephone pages are about to disappear. Who needs a ten pound lump of book cluttering up your closets, when you can look up numbers on the Net. No more curious let-your-fingers-do-the-walking. Soon it will be, let your keypad profile whoever you're tracking down!
* Third, post offices are about to diminish in size, hours and especially bravado. Whoever's left isn't guaranteeing anything anymore. Oh, maybe except for longer lines at stations staffed by fewer people!
Fourth...well, this change is a little off the charts. The wonderful world of research has been sifting through our brain circuitry and genetic cell pools for years, coming up with the most extraordinary solutions to some of our most intimidating problems. But then again, when you unleash the tiger of scientific inquiry, you can't limit where it will take you. Right now, laboratories like Mind Research Network in Albuquerque is taking us into the mysterious realm of human creativity itself. The realm of Plato, Dante, Newton, Einstein and Lady Ga Ga.
According to team leader Dr. Rex Jung, "Creativity is kind of like pornography -- you know it when you see it." Now his team is trying to know it even better by figuring out precisely which biochemicals, electrical impulses and brain regions are being used during those special Eureka! moments of discovery and creation.
Those first three changes are something we can all learn to live with. But this last one...! Every instinct and historic experience in you just knows what comes next. If we can understand creativity, then we will soon be able to unleash it. Hmm, exactly why and how and who would we slip this creativity chip into...?
Eventually all three of us will be stepping out our front door. Out here are at least four changes we'll face. How we do it is up to us, but we will have to face them:
* First, spring proms have now and forever changed. Once a college campus promenade, they have trickled down to high schools and elementary schools where girls are outfitted with some of the same flair and finances of a bride, and guys chip in for sleek white limousines and midnight boat rides. Style was once the standard; now it's splash. The bigger and richer the better!
* Second, telephone pages are about to disappear. Who needs a ten pound lump of book cluttering up your closets, when you can look up numbers on the Net. No more curious let-your-fingers-do-the-walking. Soon it will be, let your keypad profile whoever you're tracking down!
* Third, post offices are about to diminish in size, hours and especially bravado. Whoever's left isn't guaranteeing anything anymore. Oh, maybe except for longer lines at stations staffed by fewer people!
Fourth...well, this change is a little off the charts. The wonderful world of research has been sifting through our brain circuitry and genetic cell pools for years, coming up with the most extraordinary solutions to some of our most intimidating problems. But then again, when you unleash the tiger of scientific inquiry, you can't limit where it will take you. Right now, laboratories like Mind Research Network in Albuquerque is taking us into the mysterious realm of human creativity itself. The realm of Plato, Dante, Newton, Einstein and Lady Ga Ga.
According to team leader Dr. Rex Jung, "Creativity is kind of like pornography -- you know it when you see it." Now his team is trying to know it even better by figuring out precisely which biochemicals, electrical impulses and brain regions are being used during those special Eureka! moments of discovery and creation.
Those first three changes are something we can all learn to live with. But this last one...! Every instinct and historic experience in you just knows what comes next. If we can understand creativity, then we will soon be able to unleash it. Hmm, exactly why and how and who would we slip this creativity chip into...?
Friday, May 7, 2010
THESE ARE THE GOOD OLD DAYS
This comment from author Ellen Glasgow will make little sense to anyone under 40: "No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. And no idea is so modern that it will not someday by antiquated."
Take the land-line telephone, for example...! Or as Henny Youngman would quip, take my wife, please....! Or for those of you under 40, take Henny Youngman...!
OK, lets hang some numbers of the point here. Someone in the government conveniently reported the following up-beat, be-glad-you're-alive-today mumbers:
* The remote Brazilian tribes had no more than about 300 products like baskets, arrows, and bowls; today residents of any big city have access to about 10 billion
* Anthropologists estimate hunter-gatherers earned the equivalent of $100 a year; today's average in urban America is $40,000
* Our homes have doubled in size from 1950 to an average of 2200 square feet
* Since 2000, crime rates have dropped, our air is cleaner, and we have four times more leisure time than in 1880
This giddy, anonymous statistician titled his report: These are the good old days!" Like you, I have some dear friends who have access to zillions of products, earn well over $40,000, stride in homes easily more than 3000 square feet. However, I've never asked them the question I ask myself every night slipping into bed: Are these the good old days for you...? If not, when...? Where....? Why....?
Take the land-line telephone, for example...! Or as Henny Youngman would quip, take my wife, please....! Or for those of you under 40, take Henny Youngman...!
OK, lets hang some numbers of the point here. Someone in the government conveniently reported the following up-beat, be-glad-you're-alive-today mumbers:
* The remote Brazilian tribes had no more than about 300 products like baskets, arrows, and bowls; today residents of any big city have access to about 10 billion
* Anthropologists estimate hunter-gatherers earned the equivalent of $100 a year; today's average in urban America is $40,000
* Our homes have doubled in size from 1950 to an average of 2200 square feet
* Since 2000, crime rates have dropped, our air is cleaner, and we have four times more leisure time than in 1880
This giddy, anonymous statistician titled his report: These are the good old days!" Like you, I have some dear friends who have access to zillions of products, earn well over $40,000, stride in homes easily more than 3000 square feet. However, I've never asked them the question I ask myself every night slipping into bed: Are these the good old days for you...? If not, when...? Where....? Why....?
GREED IS GOOD...RIGHT?
Michael Douglas personified, for many, the idea of American free enterprise in the 1987 film hit "Wall Street." A sequel is in the making right now, but frankly I've already seen it...
I have this friend who does something in the financial markets. [Right there is cause for concern, for no one I know knows exactly what this "something" is; but then, lately we're learning not many people making money on Wall Street can explain exactly what they're doing there with other people's money]. In any case, my young rich friend personifies what young rich Americans often say America is all about.
I once asked him whether he agreed with H.L. Mencken who said, "If given a choice between liberty and safety, a man will always choose safety." As expected, he dismissed Mencken with: "The only way to be me is to let me be me; as for the rest, I'll take my chances!" Spoken like most free-wheeling heroes from Davey Crockett and Andrew Carnegie to Steve Jobs and, well, Michael Douglas.
My friend surfboards in Hawaii where I can picture him riding the big ones. And yet, if swamped, I can also picture him loudly calling the shore patrol for help. Just as he does the police when stranded on a highway or the medics in an ER or even his old-fashioned parents in old pensioned Florida when his last big roll of the dice busted.[ By the way, that last picture played out only two years ago].
His story is really an American archetype here on the bloody ideological field of battle between those economic warriors who say greed is what made America great...and those collective planners who say the European social safety net is what Americans now need in a global age of uncertainty.
Politicians, economists, pundits and street marchers all bring their own battle flags to this field. Capitalism vs Socialism...pay-as-you-go vs deficit-spending....Main Street vs Wall Street...Obama vs Palin. Through this daily din, I keep thinking how my young, free-wheeling friend stayed within the security of Mom and Pop's modest Florida home all those dead-broke months.
They played it safe with their dollars; he played it risky with millions. They found a cove of seashore safety in their lives; he's back in the game throwing Hail Mary passes again. It's looking at America from two different generations...from two different idologies....from two different personalty types. In the long run, though, there's only one fundamental life-choice available: You either put risk or welfare first!
In the European welfare states, they've made their choice. Here in a maturing America, we're in the process. It's far bigger than simply parties or pundits or politics. It's philosophies. It's how we believe life should be lived.
I have this friend who does something in the financial markets. [Right there is cause for concern, for no one I know knows exactly what this "something" is; but then, lately we're learning not many people making money on Wall Street can explain exactly what they're doing there with other people's money]. In any case, my young rich friend personifies what young rich Americans often say America is all about.
I once asked him whether he agreed with H.L. Mencken who said, "If given a choice between liberty and safety, a man will always choose safety." As expected, he dismissed Mencken with: "The only way to be me is to let me be me; as for the rest, I'll take my chances!" Spoken like most free-wheeling heroes from Davey Crockett and Andrew Carnegie to Steve Jobs and, well, Michael Douglas.
My friend surfboards in Hawaii where I can picture him riding the big ones. And yet, if swamped, I can also picture him loudly calling the shore patrol for help. Just as he does the police when stranded on a highway or the medics in an ER or even his old-fashioned parents in old pensioned Florida when his last big roll of the dice busted.[ By the way, that last picture played out only two years ago].
His story is really an American archetype here on the bloody ideological field of battle between those economic warriors who say greed is what made America great...and those collective planners who say the European social safety net is what Americans now need in a global age of uncertainty.
Politicians, economists, pundits and street marchers all bring their own battle flags to this field. Capitalism vs Socialism...pay-as-you-go vs deficit-spending....Main Street vs Wall Street...Obama vs Palin. Through this daily din, I keep thinking how my young, free-wheeling friend stayed within the security of Mom and Pop's modest Florida home all those dead-broke months.
They played it safe with their dollars; he played it risky with millions. They found a cove of seashore safety in their lives; he's back in the game throwing Hail Mary passes again. It's looking at America from two different generations...from two different idologies....from two different personalty types. In the long run, though, there's only one fundamental life-choice available: You either put risk or welfare first!
In the European welfare states, they've made their choice. Here in a maturing America, we're in the process. It's far bigger than simply parties or pundits or politics. It's philosophies. It's how we believe life should be lived.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
A DEATH IN AMERICA
America may be dying a little bit each day. Perhaps not your America, but the America the rest of us knew during the last half of the last century. A pretty good America when you consider it tamed a Depression, won a World War, became the most productive economic empire in history, and along the way began to free blacks and women and gays and ghettos.
The "death" is the dying off, one by one, of all those brilliant little pieces that somehow fit together to create the enormous 20th C American mosaic. Lets me count the brilliant little pieces as some of them begin to disappear...
Live national radio programming...live national television broadcasting...weekly national magazines like "Life," "The Saturday Evening Post," and now perhaps "Newsweek"...national news services like the UP. The operative words are live and national, meaning most everyone from sea to shining sea once heard and saw the same things at the same time. Regardless of race or nationality or gender or region or party.
One of the few times this now happens is tragedies like 9/11. What happened that day is precisely what is dying off. That sense of immediate participation by almost all 300 million Americans. When there were no filters, no intermediaries, no cable pundits and bloggers to get between us and an event which binds and bonds us together. As a people, as a nation, as a force.
Without such togetherness, a diversity-rich society like this becomes all centrifugal thrust outward into a thousand different directions with all too little gravitational force drawing us inward. To beat a Depression, win a War, conquer space, or change history, 21st C America may want to use some of its 20th C American ways.
Coming from the 20th C tends to make you recall such ways. Then again, most of America's proudest national holidays are also about recalling...!
The "death" is the dying off, one by one, of all those brilliant little pieces that somehow fit together to create the enormous 20th C American mosaic. Lets me count the brilliant little pieces as some of them begin to disappear...
Live national radio programming...live national television broadcasting...weekly national magazines like "Life," "The Saturday Evening Post," and now perhaps "Newsweek"...national news services like the UP. The operative words are live and national, meaning most everyone from sea to shining sea once heard and saw the same things at the same time. Regardless of race or nationality or gender or region or party.
One of the few times this now happens is tragedies like 9/11. What happened that day is precisely what is dying off. That sense of immediate participation by almost all 300 million Americans. When there were no filters, no intermediaries, no cable pundits and bloggers to get between us and an event which binds and bonds us together. As a people, as a nation, as a force.
Without such togetherness, a diversity-rich society like this becomes all centrifugal thrust outward into a thousand different directions with all too little gravitational force drawing us inward. To beat a Depression, win a War, conquer space, or change history, 21st C America may want to use some of its 20th C American ways.
Coming from the 20th C tends to make you recall such ways. Then again, most of America's proudest national holidays are also about recalling...!
FROM GOTCHA TO OMG!!
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? PLENTY!
Picture a Little League game where the kids are playing their hearts out. Among the adults watching are the coaches....some parents...some neighbors...some guys with cameras. The coaches are advising the kids between innings. The parents are cheering their hearts out with every play. The neighbors are politely indifferent. Now about those guys with the cameras -- they're sitting sullenly by until one of the players makes a dumb mistake.
Metaphor for modern civilization!
In this game of life there will be a total of at least 5000 pitches & plays. A few of them outstanding, most routine, two or three really dumb. The parents and neighbors (that's you and me) are observers...the coaches (that's the people in a society with some game-of-life skills) do what they can to help improve the game....the sullen guys with the cameras (today's gotcha media) seem obsessed with the idea of catching any dumb mistake with which to show the world how really dumb "the game" is. From city politics to airport security to oil rigs.
If those gotcha pictures are all about the-people's-right-to-know, I'd counter with this. What we the people really want to know is not more about the occasional dumb play, but more about the plays that were good enough in the world today to make this game worth playing again tomorrow....!
OMG...LOL....WTF
If you don't understand these codes, you probably don't text. You use the phone instead. Oh, but that's so 20th century!
The Pew Research Center has now validated what most parents have already learned. Kids text more than they talk. In the survey, up to 80 messages a day vs only five phone calls. The one exception is with parents. Most teens call their parents, because they understand this is the easiest mode for them.
The question then arises: What about adults? Is texting between adults (say on Facebook) an effective mode or not? On the No side is the lack of vocal nuancing. On the Yes side, Facebook can put you in touch with hundreds, maybe thousands, of fellow adults who are really interested in in-depth conversations about a wide range of subjects. Usually considerably more than tea-time talk or locker-room chatter with face-to-face friends.
For good or for bad, it's a new day and a new way. OMG!!
Picture a Little League game where the kids are playing their hearts out. Among the adults watching are the coaches....some parents...some neighbors...some guys with cameras. The coaches are advising the kids between innings. The parents are cheering their hearts out with every play. The neighbors are politely indifferent. Now about those guys with the cameras -- they're sitting sullenly by until one of the players makes a dumb mistake.
Metaphor for modern civilization!
In this game of life there will be a total of at least 5000 pitches & plays. A few of them outstanding, most routine, two or three really dumb. The parents and neighbors (that's you and me) are observers...the coaches (that's the people in a society with some game-of-life skills) do what they can to help improve the game....the sullen guys with the cameras (today's gotcha media) seem obsessed with the idea of catching any dumb mistake with which to show the world how really dumb "the game" is. From city politics to airport security to oil rigs.
If those gotcha pictures are all about the-people's-right-to-know, I'd counter with this. What we the people really want to know is not more about the occasional dumb play, but more about the plays that were good enough in the world today to make this game worth playing again tomorrow....!
OMG...LOL....WTF
If you don't understand these codes, you probably don't text. You use the phone instead. Oh, but that's so 20th century!
The Pew Research Center has now validated what most parents have already learned. Kids text more than they talk. In the survey, up to 80 messages a day vs only five phone calls. The one exception is with parents. Most teens call their parents, because they understand this is the easiest mode for them.
The question then arises: What about adults? Is texting between adults (say on Facebook) an effective mode or not? On the No side is the lack of vocal nuancing. On the Yes side, Facebook can put you in touch with hundreds, maybe thousands, of fellow adults who are really interested in in-depth conversations about a wide range of subjects. Usually considerably more than tea-time talk or locker-room chatter with face-to-face friends.
For good or for bad, it's a new day and a new way. OMG!!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
OUR PECULIAR NEED FOR HEROES
Myths (collective beliefs in something that often becomes larger than mere reality) lead in time to legends (remarkable stories) which are populated by heroes and heroines. To wit --
* the myth of female sensuality is captured in the historic legend of Rome & Egypt with Cleopatra as the heroine
* the myth of the wild west is captured in the historic legends that made heroes of Buffalo Bill & Jesse James
* the myth of Camelot is captured in the legends of Arthur brought forward into heroes like John F Kennedy
So here's the question: Are myths lies? Are legends illusions? Are our heroes and heroines frauds? Here's the answer: Yes and no! Yes, by most scientifically objective standards, these are lies, illusions and frauds. No, by the standards of the human heart, these are all true and real and staggeringly authentic.
Make of this contradiction what you will, but there are times when some things and some people tower taller and more real than what smaller minds insist is reality. We need heroes and heroines to believe in, to embrace, to imitate. History reminds us that we don't follow titles, we follow courage...we don't invest in birth certificates, we invest in leaders...we can't spend all our time in libraries, but instead must spend our lives in causes.
This is why as a kid I dreamed of great heroes and heroines. Now as an adult, I've learned that some heroics can actually happen once you discover the headwinds of cynicism are often just that -- wind in your way!
* the myth of female sensuality is captured in the historic legend of Rome & Egypt with Cleopatra as the heroine
* the myth of the wild west is captured in the historic legends that made heroes of Buffalo Bill & Jesse James
* the myth of Camelot is captured in the legends of Arthur brought forward into heroes like John F Kennedy
So here's the question: Are myths lies? Are legends illusions? Are our heroes and heroines frauds? Here's the answer: Yes and no! Yes, by most scientifically objective standards, these are lies, illusions and frauds. No, by the standards of the human heart, these are all true and real and staggeringly authentic.
Make of this contradiction what you will, but there are times when some things and some people tower taller and more real than what smaller minds insist is reality. We need heroes and heroines to believe in, to embrace, to imitate. History reminds us that we don't follow titles, we follow courage...we don't invest in birth certificates, we invest in leaders...we can't spend all our time in libraries, but instead must spend our lives in causes.
This is why as a kid I dreamed of great heroes and heroines. Now as an adult, I've learned that some heroics can actually happen once you discover the headwinds of cynicism are often just that -- wind in your way!
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