SUB-CONSCIENCE THINKING CONTROLS YOU

David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, has written a new book entitled, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources O Love, Character, and Achievement. I just finished reading it last night and found it to be very interesting. Mr. Brooks did a ton of research about the unconscious mind. His resources were geneticists, neuroscientists, psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, and many others. He claims that the latest scientific studies indicate that we are not the products of our conscious thinking. We are products of thinking that happens below the level of awareness. The unconscious realm of emotions, intuitions, biases, longings, genetic predispositions, character traits, and social norms are the things that shape are character and motivate us. The unconscious mind does all the work and our conscious will may be an illusion. Maybe Flip Wilson was right, “the devil made me do it”.

Anyway, it is a fascinating theory that seems to prove the importance of passions and perception that are instilled in us by family, friends, and teachers and our beginning environment. “Just as Galileo removed the earth from the center of the universe, this intellectual revolution removes the conscience mind from its privileged place at the center of human behavior. Mr. Brooks has some ideas about what this means for our future. Parents, educators, and political theorist should read this book and pay attention. It is kind of scary but, “we may know more than we know!”

IN HONOR OF FAT TUESDAY

A friend of mine has a theory about why Americans are overweight. It makes so much sense and made me feel so good that I am going to share it with you. With time, we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy. Now, when I look at my backside in the mirror, I think, good grief, look how smart I am!

So you see, we do not eat too much. We just have information overload. Doesn’t that make you feel better? We need to cut down on information and maybe exercise a little more. The smartest man I ever did know was Victor Buono. He said, “Show me the light that I may bear witness, To the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.

I had my paczki; did you have yours?

WHO WAS TOLSTOY?

I am sure you know that Leo Tolstoy was one of the world’s greatest Novelists. His masterpiece, War and Peace, gave a vivid depiction of 19^th-century Russian life and attitudes. It was extraordinary realist fiction. But did you know that his ideas on nonviolent resistance had a profound impact on Mahatma Gandhi? Gandhi acknowledged in his autobiography that he considered Tolstoy “the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced”.

Tolstoy started out in life as a wealthy member of the Russian nobility who dropped out of university after his teachers described him as “both unable and unwilling to learn.” After leaving his studies, he ran up heavy gambling debts and joined the army. His conversion from a dissolute, privileged society boy was brought about by his experience in the army. He served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean war. His experiences in battle helped stir his later pacifism and gave him material for realistic depiction of the horrors of war.

Tolstoy’s Christian beliefs, particularly the injunction to turn the other cheek, moved him to pacifism, nonviolence, and nonresistance. Eventually, he became a wandering ascetic who abandoned his family and wealth. He also became an anarchist who described the state as, “the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers are far less dangerous than a well-organized government.” My favorite quote from Tolstoy’s work is: “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.”

PLEASE, NO MORE ICE!

Don’t give me ice on roads and trees,

Just give me ice in Scotch, oh please,

Don’t give me ice on walks and drives,

Just give me ice on rinks, high fives,

Don’t give me ice on lines and poles,

Just give me ice on food in bowls,

Please, no more ice that kills our juice,

Just give me warmth and Doctor Seuse!

Greenland is covered with a one mile thick slab of ice.

I am not going there cause, to me, that don’t sound nice!

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant. Please, no more ice”

TRADE WITH CHINA --- GOOD OR BAD?

There are many working class Americans who have lost their jobs because of China’s ability to manufacture durable goods at a cost that is less than we can produce those goods. So, is trade with China a bad thing for our country? Maybe for the short term but trade with China is a necessary and good thing for the future of our country. The trend towards a global economy is unstoppable. Trade protection and tariffs are short term remedies that will quickly fail and be bad for the future of the U.S.A.  History proves they do not work.

The U.S. led the world through the industrial era and it will lead the world through the information era. Technology and ingenuity were important for the age of machines and manufacturing. But now, they are even more important for the vanguard of the information era. Overall, we are currently a net exporter of services with a surplus of $136 billion. Now, our most important product is intellectual property. In spite of the recession, exports of financial services were $230 billion last year. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter, shows that we are now the technological leader of the world. Imagination and knowledge will continue to be our strength in the future. Our present economic migration from a material- based industry to a knowledge economy of intangible goods such as, software, design, and media products is a realty that we all must get on with in order to survive. We are no longer the cheapest producers of physical products!

SOMETHING TO GET YOUR MIND OFF WINTER

Biting winds, subzero temperatures, unassembled snowmen, winter-weary depression, makes you wish the recession had not destroyed your get out of here and go south funds. You need something to think about that takes your mind off your misery. Well, try to get you mind around the “Big Bang Theory”. It will get your mind off winter’s stranglehold on you.

Biogenesis is what scientist call the study of the origin of life. The Big Bang is the event that they say led to the formation of the universe. A little tiny speck, the size of an atom, incredibly dense, filled with energy, under super extreme high temperature and pressure, blew up and created a universe filled with homogeneous and isotropic dense energy. Are you with me so far? O K, now, this ever expanding universe, consisting of quark-gluon plasma and elementary particles, starts to smash everything together at speeds faster than the speed of light, which created particle-antiparticle pairs which caused a baryogenesis reaction resulting in quarks and leptons which resulted in the predominance of matter over antimatter. Voila! Our Universe is born! Then, it was just a matter of time (14billion years to be exact) until our solar system came together with earth smack in the middle of a Goldilocks zone, not too close and not far from the sun. Then, a single cell evolved into 30 million species (including human beings) co inhabiting our lovely planet. That only took 4 billion years to happen. I wonder what’s going to happen next?!! 

A BOOK REVIEW

It has been awhile since I have reviewed a book. I just finished reading a series of books that were so good, I have to tell you about them. These books grabbed me and kept me reading until I had finished all three. They are called the Millennium-Trilogy and consist of: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST. The author, Stieg Larsson of Sweden, died at the age of 50 shortly after completing the three novels. Because he was so talented, it is a shame that he died so young. His books have become the second biggest sellers in the entire world.

Larsson’s background in journalism seems to have helped him to become an outstanding novelist. I went from one book to the next as fast as I could. I was led into a world that I knew nothing about and found it to be captivating. His characters are so vivid and complex that they seem real and believable. The imaginative plot kept me completely absorbed. I was delightfully entertained by this author. I wish I could read more of his work but he is gone from this world.