In fact, Pauli is most famous for uncovering a second phenomenon which he considered an example of synchronicity, a so-called macropsychokinetic phenomenon known universally as the Pauli Effect: the mysterious failure of technical equipment in the presence of certain people. Pauli himself was cursed with the Pauli Effect. The physicist had only to enter certain rooms, and test tubes would shatter, power would cut out, vacuum seals would begin to leak. While this may seem like something of a myth, so frequent were these occurrences that the physicist Otto Stern, Pauli's good friend and fellow Nobel laureate, forever barred him from entering his lab. Along similar lines, Pauli was keenly interested in the fine-structure constant, which characterized the strength of electromagnetic interaction and was denoted by the fraction 1/137. Harald Atmanspacher, in his essay "The Hidden Side of Wolfgang Pauli," points out, "The number 137 haunted Pauli all his life, and he did not get weary of stressing that its theoretical understanding would be crucial, but missing so far." It was cancer that killed Wolfgang Pauli; though he never did come to understand the fine-structure constant, he did die in a hospital in Zurich, in Room 137.
West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief by Steven Kotler "All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows."
— Nikos Kazantzakis (Report to Greco) Rituals matter. Habits are inportant. Those daily rituals that we do define our life. What we are at the moment is a reflection of the decisions and actions that are por daily habits. We are what we made ourselves. If you have the habit of working out every day, you and your life reflects that choice. Your body shows that choice. If you meditate fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes in the evening, how you react to the world, how you think, literally how your brain is configured and wired will be a reflection of that ritual or habit. Studies show that meditators literlly change how their brain functions, and that is a very enpowering thing. No more can you say that is just how you are, everything csn change, you can change your thinking, your actions, and your life. How you think changes your life, and you control how you think. What you do daily builds your life, and you control your daily actions, your habits. Change your habits you change your life. Create new daily rituals and you create a new you. If you change what you want to do, and you deciee how you want to be, and you want it enough to build your life around it, you will become it. Pick your rituals carefully. Don't use negative thinking, focus on positive actions, on those habits that will make you what you want to be, and eliminate what habits do not help you become what you want to be. Eliminate the nonessential and become what matters. D "To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline and training is all about." — James Clavell "Art isn't only a painting. Art is anything that's creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator.
What makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artists who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances. An artists is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artists takes it personally. That's why Bob Dylan is an artist, but an anonymous corporate hack who dreams up Pop 40 hits on the other side of the glass is merely a marketer. That's why Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is an artists, while a boiler room of telemarketers is simply a scam. Tom Peters, corporate gadfly and writer, is an artists, even though his readers are businesspeople. He's an artists because he takes a stand, he takes the work personally, and he doesn't care if someone disagrees. His art is part of him, and he feels compelled to share it with you because it's important, not because he expects you to pay him for it. Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn't matter. The intent does. Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another." — Seth Godin (Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?) We are raised, all of us, being asked or being told what it is that we will do once we are older. What will we be. Korean's have a ceremony where a one year old child has to pick from a collection of objects, each chosen by the parent to represent a possible future for the child. Everyone wants to predict the future, everyone wants to know it, to see it, but no one wants to create it. We are convinced that there is some ultimate goal for each of us, that we each have some special skill that will set us apart if we could just find that one niche or career where we will shine. Everything would be good, things would just click right into place. We would lead happy purposeful lives fulfilling our destiny. None of that is true , none of it is real, and it is harmful to believe and harmful to follow. There is no ideal you. There is no ultimate goal or plan for you, no one has a master design for you. You will never find that point of being perfect, and never have to change. And that is good. To postpone your life, put it on hold, while you figure it all out, while you find your real calling is a waste of your precious life and time. You can always find a way to make money, or find a new job, get more things, hire more people, but no one can buy themselves extra time. Your time is what it is. It is finite for all of us. So the idea is not to be the perfect you, or to find the perfect goal, the plan is to make the perfect path. You need to consciously design how you live, choose what you do, right this minute, going right into the next minute, and find a way that is perfect for the present you and your life at this minute in time. Do things today that make your time and life matter today. Every day we live our life, our way, is a perfect day. Don't worry about the future you, that will be handled by respecting the present moment in time. There is no final you, ever. It is your calling to make your life yours, that gives it meaning, that makes you interested. There is no perfect job, just the perfect moment. You can't be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man.4/10/2011
"There is no escape. You can't be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing. Don't try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek. You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself. You are a bird in the storm. Let it storm! Let it drive you! How much have you lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you have played the harmonious man, the wise man, the happy, the enlightened man. In the same way, men attacking in war have played heroes, while their bowels twitched. My God, what a poor ape, what a fencer in the mirror man is- particularly the artist- particularly myself!"
— Hermann Hesse “Every man should be able to save his own life. He should be able to swim far enough, run fast and long enough to save his life in case of emergency and necessity. He also should be able to chin himself a reasonable number of times, as well as to dip a number of times, and he should be able to jump a reasonable height and distance.”
(Liederman, Endurance) Richard Branson and Seth Godin on risk
Sometimes you read something and it is immediately true for you. I have been thinking about risk, and I know how discussions about risk get complicated quickly, with talks about probabilities, downside protection, hedging, but those are only tools. The truth is that you need to understand that risk is necessary and inevitable. That to take action is less risky than to take no action. Reading two books, Poke by Seth Godin and Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson (Funny I didn’t get the irony of reading these two books together until just now) are not about risk but both had very clear examples of how to think about risk, and they showed me that how I viewed risk is completely wrong. Richard Branson is all risk. In his book, he told a story about a quiet day at home, and one afternoon a man came and knocked on his door. Richard answered the door, and there was a stranger there, an inventor who was working on a flying machine, a kind of personal aircraft, like an auto-gyro, and the man was there because he knew Branson loved to fly, and he thought that Branson might be interested in investing in his invention. Richard listened, asked questions, and wanted to see it. The inventor had it in his car. Richard looked at it, and asked the man to pull the machine out. Richard wanted to try it on, and did. Branson wanted to run the motor, not fly it as it had never been flown, but to just start it up and see what it does. Branson started the machine, and the craft suddenly surged and took off and Branson went with it. He became airborne while his family watched him fly wildly above, as he had no idea how to actually fly the machine, it was all new to him, but he managed to keep it airborne and he finally landed roughly in a field. The next day the inventor took it up alone to do what Branson did, and crashed and died. Richard Branson met a strange man at his front door, he let him in and listened to him, he put on the device he had never seen before, he flew the craft, and then landed it, all without knowing how it works. Branson not only understands that risk is making things happen, he understands that once in motion, you find a way. Seth Godin’s book Poke, which I will go over more in depth later had a brilliant metaphor for risk. Seth believes that those who take action will define the world and that action will be the key differentiator in the future work force. Everyone has skills, everyone is good, everyone has quality, but only a few have the initiative to take action, and those are the people who will succeed. In his book, he tells a parable on risk and living cautiously. Seth tells of a boulder in a river, which is stopped where it is at, and the river in which it sits is continually charging forward, beating endlessly on the stable rock which is sturdy, it is always there. Imagine the beating the rock takes as debris and water constantly pound the rock, endlessly. The chaos of river, the constant change, is forever beating on the stoic rock, over and over again. Now imagine a stick or log floating in the same river, and the stick goes with the currents of the river, and it is constantly charging, it is constantly moving, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but it rides in the same chaotic river that the boulder sits in, yet for the stick, the water for the most part is peaceful. The water around the stick is calm and there is no battering or pounding, just peace and simple floating. That is the goal. To take no risk is to be constantly pounded by the changing world, to take no risk, is the riskiest thing you can do. By taking risk, by choosing, you manage your way down the river of constant change, choosing paths as you go, as the options change and you ride the ebbs and flows. Action is calmer and more peaceful than no action. D "So he lent her books. After all, one of life's best pleasures is reading a book of perfect beauty; more pleasurable still is rereading that book; most pleasurable of all is lending it to the person one loves: Now she is reading or has just read the scene with the mirrors; she who is so lovely is drinking in that loveliness I've drunk."
— William T. Vollmann Beautiful photo by moriza |
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