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Sure, imagination is powerful. But can it really change the world? Indeed, it is tempting to answer “no” here -- to disagree with Glaude about the transformative power of imagination. After all, imagination is the stuff of fancy, of fiction, of escape. We daydream to get away from the disappointing monotony of daily life.

The post The power of imagination appeared first on OUPblog.

“You really need to be better at thinking on your feet. You were way too quiet in there.”

That’s the fun feedback I got from my boss after a very long “brainstorming” meeting. This was early in my career and I really let it get to me. For years after, I sweated meetings and routinely kicked myself if I hadn’t thrown out a handful of frenzied ideas along with the rest of the group.

I got over it. Eventually.

It took years to learn this about myself, but I finally realized and accepted that everyone doesn’t need to think at the same pace to be effective. I also learned that group brainstorming sessions are complete bullshit. Typically they become an exercise in everyone making sure the room knows how smart they are. I’ve never been part of an idea-vomiting party that resulted in a great solution. Usually they fizzle into an apathetic pile of half-baked concepts that nobody knows how to execute.

I used to listen to my colleagues whip up complex schemes on the fly and bat them around the table like wadded up pieces of paper. I could follow the conversation, but trying to get my own creativity operating in the melee was almost impossible. I had the confidence to speak, I just couldn’t think.

For a while I researched all kinds of articles online to see if I could change the way I operate. I was so sure that I was somehow inadequate. Sure enough, the Internet assured me that I was indeed totally lame because I couldn’t toss out fully-formed ideas like walnuts in a salad.

They made me feel like crap. The thing is, I’m a smart person. I’m a creative person. And one of my unique skills since childhood has been coming up with simple analogies for complex concepts. So it was pretty ridiculous that I was being shamed into feeling that I just couldn’t keep up and had to change.

Here’s how it works for me. I’m an observer, a sponge, a Bounty paper towel of things going on around me. So after I soak up everything in the room, I go away to a quiet place and wring myself out into a basin. It’s only after gaining true understanding of an issue that really juicy and effective ideas get compiled by my brain.

I still admire quick thinkers. It can be fun to watch, and I’ve worked with some truly genius people who could access their brains as quick as a Gmail search.

I’m not going to be that person. More importantly, that’s completely okay. I don’t have to be. You don’t have to be, if that’s not the way you operate.

Think about how you come up with your best ideas. How does it work? What do you do to make that happen? Because the path you took to get there is not going to work for someone else. In the end, the result is what matters. We need to teach our kids this little secret so they can confidently contribute to a team.

I’d love to hear how you operate. Toss it out there in the comments. NOW! Quick! You’re taking too long…

But seriously, I’d love to hear from you. Take your time.

What makes discussion great is when thought leaders’ advocate, debate, pontificate, commiserate, relate, educate and collaborate…until thought turns to spate, promotes hate, carries weight, problems accelerate, personal ideals dictate, ideas deflate, people turn irate. And, then it’s too late.

-TA Gould

Little bee, no swerving from your line when you deliver the goods back home.

A busy place with no door but when you enter you still use your buzzer.

Then back again from flower to flower, collecting the pollen that gives you power.

It’s home again, little bundles carried to feed the Queen

Justice is a matter of belief that fairness has won the day, that truth and honesty has prevailed …

But alas, Justice is only a perception that many times is corrupted by greed …

As they come together and chatter about this and that the world watches to see if they can really fly or are just a lot of noise …

When you are feeling all alone, if you just sing out loud you may be surprised how many others will join in with you …

I was just thinking that it’s not the perfect flower I look for in my photography, it’s the perfect feeling, same with my friends, they all have little flaws just like me but when I close my eyes and think of them I only know the sweet essence of their perfection and see how wonderful life is to let me see them … Love you all !

A quite lively discussion has blown in from space on a friends Face-postcard about something I forgot because it went a completely different way in short order and is now a history lesson on indigenous peoples.

It was said the “Native “”American”” people” were here first and that they claim to be “Indigenous” and that they have their traditional stories to back up their claim to properties etc.

That got me to thinking (usually leads to minor disasters) that just because someone in your past lived some place and told creation stories doesn’t always mean you have any more rights than the guy who was born there after you lost the battle, in my case way after.

I know, growing up, my mother used to tell me, when I asked how I got here that I came from heaven and perhaps, if I’m a good boy, God will give me land there again though I think he may balk at the casino I want to build even if it is to take all the sinner’s money or credits or what ever the currency of his realm is.

And further more if in the past there was only one super continent, Pangaea or what ever they really called it, then we all have a claim to everywhere cause we are all descendants of the original inhabitants and I’ll bet a dollar to a doughnut there aint anywho who can tell me where they thought they came from even after the break up.

I thought perhaps we are all from Mars via the Pleiades star system but had to leave cause the Marshonians wanted the place back so we moved on as they had come from the Hercules system to Mars first.

To send every one back to where they came from is stupid, you can’t fit that many people on Ellis Island let alone grow enough hemp there to have a trade economy with New York.

I don’t know the answer other than if we don’t start being natives from “EARTH” the little grey men will boot us out and wipe out the myths of our origins from then to eternity.

It’s a race none us may win …

One of the, if not The, deepest questions of the universe.

You have to start with what you believe is the force that is the creator of this life I believe.

Some think of GOD as a human type creature in who’s image we are created, with long flowing hair, robes to make him modest though he needs to hide nothing from his creations as I see it, and a celestial kingdom where he, or she in some cases, sits reining judgement down upon the works he designed and gave free will to.

I can not see that which created me in such limited form. I can not even envelope the concept of never ending or forever just because I am temporary in this form at least. I do however believe I was created from and by the “GOD” that has no limits and this is exactly why I think I am made in it’s likeness, BUT not in it’s totality, there are things missing if I am separate FROM God, God did not make me GOD, God, or even god, GOD made me human, GOD made everything else what it is too I believe but I think, like one atom in my body or even smaller than that, to infinity small, that part is still a part of GOD though never “GOD”, only a part, that the smallest part of me is still me, I am made in the likeness of and from GOD, I am alive, that smallest part of me is alive, GOD must also be alive if we are all part of everlasting life.

Conclusion; Life never begins, it is never ended, It IS!

Consciousness in itself does not prove to me that I am not alive.

The fact that when sperm and egg combine and the DNA messages combine to spark cell multiplication (The spark of life if you will) and a plan is put into affect to form a body which will make a human or any other living thing would seem to be life to me.

BUT it was life even before that! The EGG and the SPERM were also alive, donated by the life forms of at least two separate beings, who were made in the image of GOD, who is also alive.

GOD talks to all of us in GOD’s own way. Some hear “Him” like “He” was talking in their language and sitting having tea I suppose. Others see the “Great Spirit” manifest as all that surrounds us and all that can not be seen or even heard but that still is. I am more from that camp I suppose but still believe all is possible.

The right to life for me is hard to conceive when I believe that life is never ending. The right to life is not for me to tell you, you may or may not have though if you threaten my life I will not hesitate to use what ever is at my disposal to protect mine and stop yours!

The question to me is more the quality of the life you give rather than just letting all life happen. If all in creation is from GOD then even the worst of it is sacred and the Jaines may be correct and may have more in line with current Christian values than most think. But if we do not take into account what we offer, if a human is brought into this world through violent action that threatens the life that brings it who is the killer here? The mother who was raped or is too young and will surely die from the birth or the entity being born who would kill it’s mother, most assuredly it would be the rapist but can we take his life either? I would say it is not my place to judge any of these unless they are me. I WILL FIGHT FOR MY LIFE! But a Mother must make the call of giving herself for another in my view. It may seem selfish or unjust but it must be hers with as much help and support from all sides as she can get. Advise and support but not Judgement and in the end her decision as final carrier of that which will always be alive to enter into this world.

If you believe in eternal life you will not be sad for the soul who returns to it’s maker but wish it return another time

I got a pingback on yesterday’s post and it got me to thinking about another item between family members and friends.

Dreams flow well in letters, don’t they? I think we’ve lost part of that connection, especially because of the internet. No anticipation flutters our heartbeat when we think of getting an email. That sensation came when we waited for real mail, on paper, with ink covering the page like so much ivy growing out toward us, carrying dreams, images, and speculations. Secrets huddled within the lines of word leaves, providing us with tiny thrills and mysteries.

These were the reasons we wrote to cousins, best friends on vacation, or pen pals. Most of that is gone now with the arrival of internet. That loss is what I regret, for now, instead of picking up fountain pen and paper, I reach for a keyboard, and the thought and care that would had gone into writing to a love one has dissipated into a mist of remembered pleasure.

Can you imagine how much of our world’s history, knowledge, and philosophy would not exist if it weren’t for written letters?

Much of the ancient world would be a mystery to use without those letters between philosophers and historians. The treatise is a simple extension of the letter. Those documents formed the very foundation of what we know as literature, scientific notation, constitutions, etc.

Family members wrote to one another, knowing that they might never get a response from the one who’d moved so far away, or the one who’d stayed in the old neighborhood/country. Hope clung to fragile ink-covered pages, written with love, despair, anticipation, disgust, and all the rest of human emotion. Did those pioneers recognize the tradition they followed from a thousand years before?

As we move further into a new world that disdains the tangible personal letter, we need to look back for a moment to imprint in our minds what we’re giving up. Physical remains of letters have survived for thousands of years. One badly timed lightning strike can wipe out years of work or correspondence.

Mother Nature doesn’t care about electrons that floated around or are stored in the ether around us. A scrambled atmosphere can do as much damage in the long run as a flood. All communication is vulnerable to disaster, computer driven no less than the Pony Express.

At the end of the day, though, we choose to use our time to communicate with dreams, aspirations, and secrets from one person to another, or merely to open a channel and punch keys.

The individual decides. Quick and dirty or thoughtful and fulsome? When is the last time letters arrived in your mailbox?

It’s been said that, “When you look at your life, the greatest happiness [es] are family happiness [es].” One of the questions, for me, is whether that statement is true or not.

I’ve had many happy moments in my life with and without family members in attendance. I tend to focus on how one quantifies happiness.

Does extreme happiness always have to be accompanied by tears, for instance? Or, is such a deep emotion as true happiness so overpowering that expression of any kind is beyond the ability of the one experiencing it?

What about a lack of happiness? I’ve seen occasions when great sorrow, not happiness, was what took over when family arrived. Where does a person draw the line of family involvement in one’s personal happiness?

Here’s another example of relevant questions. How many degrees of happiness does a person feel and does everyone feel the same degrees of that emotion and label them the same way? I don’t think anyone has a definitive answer to either of these questions simply because each person’s emotional thermometer registers feelings differently based on personal experience.

When you realize how genuinely moved a person is to meet you, does that evoke great happiness, sweet satisfaction, or deep humility coupled with gratitude. If humility, does that constitute a portion of happiness? If you feel satisfaction only, does that mean that conceit has crept into your thermometer?

You see how complicated emotional definitions and signals are? What if you feel nothing at all except seeming boredom when someone exhibits excitement at shaking your hand and talking with you face-to-face? After all, this could be a cousin that you’ve never met before.

Does your lack of emotion mean that you really don’t want to know any more family, that you’re too important to worry about those on the fringe of the family, or that you’re just a jerk?

Or, could it mean, as it does with me, that caution and trust issues rule your actions and responses during first meetings?

Circumstances dictate our responses to events in our lives. The exact experience also contributes to those responses, as well as the circumstances immediately preceding an event.

For instance, many years ago, when I was teaching in an elementary school, I’d gone outside during recess. I needed some quiet time without children’s voices in my ears or designs on my next thought. I spent my ten minutes breathing in the scent of blooming forsythia and tulips in nearby private yards, listening to birds announcing their romantic intentions, and generally decompressing. The afternoon sun warmed my face and hands, clean air wafted past my nose, and a sense of rightness filled me.

On my way back to the classroom, a curious sensation flooded my body. I stopped walking. I closed my eyes and felt my whole body fill with blinding light from the inside. I could see it, behind my eyelids, flooding through me. Such a wave of pure joy washed over me that there were no words, no other sensations, no sound. All else in the world fell away, leaving me held within this personal lightshow.

It ended, and I nearly cried. I felt in that instant the most amazing happiness. I’ve yearned for another taste of it ever since. I wait for the day I can feel that sensation, that joy, again. Where it came from, or why it came, I have no idea. I don’t care.

I only know that that one blazing event taught me more about joy than a lifetime of other experiences. Nothing can compare to it. I wish everyone could have their own instant of pure joy that they can aspire to feel it again.

:: My recent entry for Kelir, this month topic is about 'Tintin' :) just click the picture to see it bigger
and Djamboel means 'top knot' in Indonesia..

Once during a time before this time there was an advanced group of people living on what is now called earth. They were advanced enough to be in the beginnings of off world flight and living for extended ages in the quite of space. These people had several colonies on outer planets and were mining comets for iron to build fantastic ships that would support large colonies for ages in flight to other galaxies.

By the time they had 3 expeditions launched the earth was pretty depleted of those who were capable of living off planet even with their work in the nano-health  sciences making the remaining population live longer and healthier, the greatest of their minds had opted for the grand travel in search of new worlds and higher learning.

As the last, as it turned out, star ship was leaving the galactic boundaries it learned of  a catastrophe about to send solar debris toward earth in a massive wave that was more than the inhabitants could overcome and an almost complete annihilation of life on earth would happen but because they would be drawn in and also destroyed if they tried to reverse course to help, they stayed their course and the ships leader General Odessa Davis sent word to the other outbound vessels of the destruction and that he and his crew would go into dormancy except for the AI and robots who could carry out advanced scientific studies that could be fed into the human bodies as they rested in stasis and would come out after a period of time when it was again safe to venture back to help what ever was left of society in the solar system.

After many eons Davis was awakened, fully rejuvenated by the internal bot-medics, his DNA advanced and most known human physical problems dealt with. His crew as well had been resurrected to a much advanced state of physical ability. The AI was far advanced but still willing to be part of “The new humanity”.

On returning to Earth they found all the outposts along the way had suffered total annihilation and only Earth was left with life but not human in nature. Only larger land animals and ocean creatures lived well but were in an altered state from the creatures who the space dwellers had left behind before the destruction  of the planets they knew as home.

The land masses had turned under in the violence and no sign of the former intelligence was in evidence beyond things that were rusting beyond recognition or were soon to be abducted under the volcanic eruptions still roiling upon the surface.

General Odessa Davis’ crew was small compared to the other colony ships human cargo but it had wide diversity in genetic standing. It was agreed that a new human society was to be created on this “New” Earth and their ship would explore the outer reaches of this galaxy while it naturally built itself with no artificial intelligence help.

Science Administrator Thomas Alvin Nester was assigned to find suitable earth hosts for DNA from the ships ancient cold storage to start the new humans on the planet. A few examples where gathered from warm blooded species that could simulate human form though not so close as to copy human form as it was in the past and the most dangerous animals that would be a hazard to these prototype “New lifers” would be eliminated using low tech asteroid bombardment which would also rearrange the world to have more water segregated continents for the experiment to give more chances one would work in favor of a new society that would eventually be allowed to carry on the work of the ancients in outer space while giving diversity to the human body form.

S.A.Thomas A.  Nester or as his suit tag read S.A.T.A.N. was told to give the subjects only pure original DNA because G. O. Davis wanted Independent natural growth before any advanced knowledge was invested in this new human experiment. But Nester thought he knew more about science and what should be the new form of things than the General and allowed advanced knowledge to be a

The new year is about tradition, where all the family members gather together and pay respect for the elder, my family is not really a ' Chinese' family, well we have a crescent shape eyes and yellow skin tone, but we can not speak mandarin, we are better Javanese speaker though.. :)

But I loove the tradition, in fact I love tradition from all around the world, it is fascinating, knowing what the reason behind every cultures and things.

:: The seller said that this sticker is the chinese character for "luck" , I use it as a hung pao sealer.., sorry for the upside down photos :)












:: Bunnies finger puppets  for Rabbit Year!

BEFORE NEW YEAR's EVE

• Clean the entire home to get rid of all the things that are associated with the old year.
• Put away all brooms and brushes.
• Pay all your debts.
• Resolve differences with family members, friends, neighbors and business associates.
• Buy the following: - red money envelopes
  - oranges and/or tangerines
  - circular candy tray
  - flowers (especially plum blossom, peach blossom, water lily)
  - a new set of clothes and shoes for children, preferably something red or orange.
  
• Get new dollar bills from the bank. Insert the new dollar bills into the red envelopes. Now the red envelope is called a lee see or lucky money envelope. (note: Very few modern families follow all the "cleaning" traditions.)

2 Comments on The Lunar New Year 2011, last added: 2/13/2011

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theartofpuro said, on 2/12/2011 4:18:00 AM

Great post and pictures:)Happy New Year:)

Eugenia Gina said, on 2/13/2011 5:50:00 AM

Thank you Monica.. :)!

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I know some people, not to mention names, who are like old teasel.

They grumble and rumble and sometimes grumble about their rumble.

At times their age shows in the form of sharp barbs and spotted faces.

But I would not trade them for any other because you see they are still beautiful to me.

They are still like that quick young person I knew when they get sassy and say things that others may fear to say.

But now they don’t whisper it and come right out loud and say it to my face.

When they put on a new hat they are still handsome, though in a more dignified way even if some of them don’t pick the best look, they never did then either.

Yup! they may be old and slow and have weaker eyes to see all my imperfections with but I still got um and maybe my barbs are showing a bit more too.

I think all those young and brash weeds I knew may not be young in the eyes of the world but I still see them fresh and green with high hopes.

I try to listen more to what they  have to say too because the older I get the more there is to know.

Young weeds tell me what they think is right, and where they think I should go and how  I should go because they read it in a book  but old thistles tell me from experience what’s really in store for me because they wrote the book.

Eh bukan masalah trafficking ya ini, tp ttg mainan anak2 perempuan skrg ini :)

Kalo diliat2, bener2 banyak sekali industri komersil yang mengangkat efek2 emosional dan fisik anak perempuan, coba aja liat Barbie, Princess, dan masih banyak lagi. Terus terang dari kecil saya tidak mau mendorong anak saya untuk 'attached' dengan salah satu karakter yang sangat komersil ini, kalaupun ada , kebanyakan karena faktor lingkungan dan teman yang benar2 membombardir dengan segala barang2 berbau glitter dan warna pink ini. Rada mabok juga karena setiap kali ke mall, semua yang berwarna pink dan berkilau ini terasa sekali mendominasi mata. Kenapa saya enggak suka?

1. Ada pembentukan stereotype tertentu dibalik produk2 ini, bahwa yang namanya anak perempuan itu harus penuh dengan semua yang berkilau, harus berwarna pink, harus berambut panjang, berbadan seksi, anak saya yang berumur 6 tahun sudah bisa berkomentar, perempuan itu seksi lho... apa itu seksi nak? itu yang perutnya kelihatan mah..Yah kebanyakan  karakter princess kelihatan perutnya lho.

2. Korelasi ke sifat, coba lihat film2 barbie, euh.. penuh dengan tipikal sifat khas perempuan, yang kalau melihat baju bagus langsung matanya melotot, suaranya melengking tinggi sambil menjerit kecil, 'eeeek... so kyuuute...', yaah tidak langsung secara harafiah begitu, coba lihat gestur tubuhnya, cara mereka bicara, cara pemerannya berbisik2, aduh, itu yang biasa diterapkan dikehidupan sehari2 oleh si anak2 kecil yang manis2 ini.., hasilnya, itu tambahan pekerjaan buat orangtua untuk meluruskan label2 yang sudah kadung nemplok dijidat anak2nya. :)

3. Jadi sekarang peernya adalah untuk menjelaskan ttg kenapa ngak sopan kl bisik2 didepan teman, bahwa berambut pendek itu tetap cantik, bertemanlah dengan banyak teman, tidak usah pilih2 hanya mau berteman dengan sesama anak perempuan saja, bahwa berteman dengan anak laki2 tetap ok, bisa main sepeda2an atau bola atau petak umpet, intinya kreativitas, jangan batasi diri dengan segala macam faktor duniawi yang intinya menjual menjual menjual.. :)

4. Dan buat orangtua, ya harus sensitif juga, sensitif memilihkan barang2 untuk anaknya, tidak cuma melihat bungkus luarnya, tp esensi dari barang itu, jangan termakan bujuk rayu iklan tivi dan yang lain2nya. Maka marilah berdoa dan menguatkan diri.. heehee

Like some Japanese pine, I think heavy weights have been placed on some of my thoughts to try and bend them into “Correct” shape but my acid personality, I fear, probably has eaten away the wires that holds them in place and I keep going astray ”c)~

As we are busy blaming “BP” for messing up the Gulf of mexico I would suggest a solution for oil barriers along the beautiful beaches there and in fact all along our coastlines. First I will direct you to search floating “debris in the gulf of Mexico”.

There are enough objects floating there that if gathered and strung along the beaches could cover all the coastlines of our country I believe. It is floating so we would not have to buy new floating barriers, all we need is nets, which could be made from shredding more of the junk out in the ocean. “BP” didn’t put it there, it came from the cities along the waterways that feed into the gulf.

Though much of it is oil byproducts washed out from storm drains, a lot came from the “Beautiful” beaches and those “Valuable tourists” that are so afraid of getting a tar ball on their tootsies visited and left behind. They should come back and volunteer to help clean it if they really care!

I also propose instead of dredging sand that will destroy animal habitat we build berms of the garbage that came from those beaches in the first place. It may be ugly, to say the least, but it would do more for the fish and birds in the region that get trapped in it than any other thing I can think of, just cover it with a small portion of sand from the tourist beaches.

The wild life doesn’t want it and it’s only fare that the people that made it take it back and recycle it or something. They need to pay for every bit of the pollution just like “BP”, all of us who let that junk float out to sea should pay for it to be cleaned up!

If an honest look at what is in the ocean was taken “BP” would look like small potatoes or in this case oil  byproduct pollution.

Almost every week we go to 'pasar' - local market. There's so much to see in there, and somehow I could find my happiness in here, despite all the heat , busy, clattered things around you, there's so much to see here, the mutual transaction between the seller and the buyer, all the fresh things that you could find and see, a rather non artificial feelings - if you know what I mean :).

I don't know why, I love the traditional things lately- maybe gonna use the traditional mail rather than email for this year Christmas card.. hmm, and trying  to sew again- well wish me luck for this one.

:: A 'Padang restaurant', looking at this make me drool again, I love Padang food.





















:: Things, things, things
the wood board is a 'washing board', the truly invention before the 'washing machine' eh..?

I'm so feeling this today that I made this doodle..