Spirited Thought

I once heard that eighty percent of what we think of today, we thought of yesterday. I enjoy optimizing my world, so increasing the percentage of new thought seems a worthy goal.

Wikipedia lists the United States having a 99.9% literacy rate, citing the CIA World Fact Book. Check the footnote reading that 44 million people (one in seven) can read but not to level of understanding a job application, a food label or utility bill. Consider the fact that when I consider literacy, I do not include this group of 44 million.

Among the educated workforce – college level and above – I routinely witness great disparities in literacy. Being able to read and write are the single most important capabilities of an educated mind and those who write well often read.

Reading is an activity where the brain is engaged. Active readers comprehend the content, exploring what it means. The content influences the formation of language and founds our ability to create more complex conceptual relationships. This complexity adds layers of depth to our thinking and appreciation of the world around us.

Add to the list of what it means to be literate the appreciation of art and music and we get closer to what real literacy is about. There is a texture that only can be felt by wide exposure to new ideas through the mediums of text, images and sound. More importantly is for us to share the pieces of our overwhelming vast and growing collection of media that we believe are of meaningful quality.

The more we read the more we change and the less yesterday’s thinking is today’s.

I am always in the throws of the dilemma to share photographs. I tend to the side of the perfectionist, which means I spend an enormous amount of time with photographs I care about. This makes it prohibitive for me to start the activity of sharing photos, something I actually adore. Another aspect is protecting, what is in some cases my art. I know as well as anyone, once on the Internet, it is like an open market. In addition I am unhappy with the open-source photo gallery experience. Short of Flickr’s other social aspects, none of them really excite me. So, I shelled out $20 for Slide Show Pro, a photo gallery viewer created in Macromedia Flash. It pulls in an XML file and dynamically renders a collection. Check out my first slide show of photographs taken back in July 1, 2006. They are from the sculptures that surround the PepsiCo. headquarters in Purchase, New York.

Being better together is part of healthy relationships. Without one of the two something possible is suddenly not. Life in general has always struck me as an endless list of Choose Your Own Adventure. Pick something, live it and pick another. Anything is possible and some of the best choices are who we pick to connect with, to relate to.

We automatically get our parents, regardless of their availability and quality. No matter their condition, parents form foundational psychological artifacts creating a relationship. The impossibility was your existence and any psychological reality they provided you with, at a minimum their absence or presence.

An obvious relationship is that of the significant other, the wife, husband, girl-friend, boy-friend or lover. These are the people with whom you are truly better with than without and the one that society will identify as your other half. Together quality of life is often enhanced and more psychological artifacts are created, offering future possibilities to work through our reality and conceptions therein. We hope this person will deliver the trust, security and love it requires to break down deeper fears and barriers to wonderment.

Other fantastic relationships are those who are our mentors. Mentors are objects in the mirror that are closer than they appear. They are often individuals who can see something about you that you desire for yourself or they know you need and can help you achieve. In business, mentors are invaluable. They should be sought after even more in life. Even the bad ones teach some of the best lessons. The best transform in a way that no one else could – the envy of a significant other, the one who desires to be all things to their partner. While a significant other might be a mentor, they tend not to have the objectivity or know-how to articulate the required personal change. Mentors are often reverse mentored receiving from the relationship, not just giving. Together, both individuals have the opportunity to grow, create some more psychological artifacts, hopefully more building blocks than plaque.

Muses are a bit tricky. A muse inspires. Together the fruits of that inspiration better the world, regardless of the significance. The psychological artifacts come from both the interactions with the muse and the resulting product of the inspiration. For some a muse helps create better poetry and art. In other instances it is a significant other inspiring to create a better life, be a better person. Mentors could be muses, both helping move in a specific direction and acting as the model and inspiration for how to execute (i.e. how to act a certain way by replicating seen behavior). They can be people we do not know well or those who are our closest friends. Muses are important to have so that we may dream the next turn in our adventure instead of just turning the page to find out what happens.

Figments are things of our own creation. We are the lone creators of the psychological artifact. They help articulate the relationship we have with ourselves. Figments can be dreams or visualizations of our how we want the world to be.

One of the best questions I recently started asking of any relationship, is why am I looking for something here instead of somewhere else. It forces you to articulate the purpose of your actions and identify meaning specific to this relationship and in turn, the connections you have with others. With the multitude of relationships we create in the world, knowing why we seek the company of one and not another can deepen our understanding and connection to all.

This past Friday afternoon, I was having an interesting conversation with a friend from work. We were talking about spas and more particularly massages – the general need and healing from being touched by other humans.

This morning on CNN a story ran on a child who never felt pain. I made a comment that it reminded me of the stories one might find by Oliver Sacks in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and more specifically the one about the woman who could not feel her own body.

CIPA (congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis) is an inherited degenerative disorder affecting the autonomic nervous system – a big deal, as this is where the heart comes in and the nervous system lives. Two key symptoms surface as the lack of feeling pain and the lack of perspiration. In CNN’s story about Roberto, they mention he can not be held, because he sucks the heat out of you. My comment was not speaking to the scientific characteristics; instead it was one of the social impacts of not feeling.

What kind of mental model for pain would a person who can not feel it, have? What kind of mental model for world pain (not individual human suffering) would they have? If they do not have the concrete knowledge of pain, how would they work with the abstract concept when applied to thoughts, imagination, inanimate objects or abstract concepts like a country?

Reach back into a psychology class and thinking about Skinner and conditioning. Try and recall the experiment where the animal, I think it was a rodent, was provided food when it hit a lever – reward the rat and the rat will continue. Map this back to people with CIPA. In the absence of sensory stimuli and limited interactions with others (not being able to be held, presumably cuddled), what is created to match the Skinner-stimuli we all use to operate in the world? Roberto might be aware of a lava stone massage one might get at a spa, but not think much of it. For those who see touch as healing and the need for it, what does it mean for those with CIPA?