4 posts tagged “creativity”

I just found out that the brain is like a computer.
If that's true, then there really aren't any stupid people. Just people running DOS.

The brain is a three-pound supercomputer. It is the command and control center running your life. It is involved in absolutely everything you do. Your brain determines how you think, how you feel, how you act, and how well you get along with other people. Your brain even determines the kind of person you are. It determines how thoughtful you are; how polite or how rude you are. It determines how well you think on your feet, and it is involved with how well you do at work and with your family. Your brain also influences your emotional well being and how well you do with the opposite sex.

Your brain is more complicated than any computer we can imagine. Did you know that you have one hundred billion nerve cells in your brain, and every nerve cell has many connections to other nerve cells? In fact, your brain has more connections in it than there are stars in the universe! Optimizing your brain’s function is essential to being the best you can be, whether at work, in leisure, or in your relationships.

It’s simple, your brain is at the center of everything you do, all you feel and think, and every nuance of how you relate to people. It’s both the supercomputer that runs your complex life and the tender organ that houses your soul. And while you may run, lift weights, or do yoga to keep your body in good condition, chances are you ignore your brain and trust it to do its job.

No matter what your age, mental exercise has a global, positive effect on the brain. So, here are 22 ways to boost your brain power:

1. Run Up Your Brain Cells

Research suggests that people who get plenty of physical exercise can wind up with better brains. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., found that adult mice who ran on an exercise wheel whenever they felt like it gained twice as many new cells in the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved in learning and memory, than mice who sat around all day discussing Lord of the Rings in Internet chat rooms. The researchers weren’t sure why the more active rodents’ brains reacted the way they did, but it’s possible that the voluntary nature of the exercise made it less stressful and therefore more beneficial. Which could mean that finding ways to enjoy exercise, rather than just forcing yourself to do it, may make you smarter - and happier, too.

So, play a sport, train for an event such as a marathon, triathlon or “fun run,” or work out with a buddy to help keep things interesting.

2. Exercise Your Mind

It isn’t just physical exercise that gets those brain cells jumping. Just like those head-pumped cabbies and piano jockeys, you can build up various areas of your brain by putting them to work. Duke University neurobiology professor Lawrence C. Katz, Ph.D., co-author of Keep Your Brain Alive, says that finding simple ways to use aspects of your brain that may be lagging could help maintain both nerve cells and dendrites, branches on the cells that receive and process information. Just as a new weightlifting exercise builds up underused muscles, Katz says that novel ways of thinking and viewing the world can improve the functioning of inactive sections of the brain.

Experience new tastes and smells; try to do things with your nondominant hand; find new ways to drive to work; travel to new places; create art; read that Dostoyevsky novel; write a buddy comedy for Ted Kennedy and Rush Limbaugh - basically, do anything you can to force yourself out of your mental ruts.

3. Ask Why

Our brains are wired to be curious. As we grow up and “mature” many of us stifle or deny our natural curiosity. Let yourself be curious! Wonder to yourself about why things are happening. Ask someone in the know. The best way to exercise our curiosity is by asking “Why?” Make it a new habit to ask “why?” at least 10 times a day. Your brain will be happier and you will be amazed at how many opportunities and solutions will show up in your life and work.

4. Laugh

Scientists tell us that laughter is good for our health; that it releases endorphins and other positively powerful chemicals into our system. We don’t really need scientists to tell us that it feels good to laugh. Laughing helps us reduce stress and break old patterns too. So laughter can be like a “quick-charge” for our brain’s batteries. Laugh more, and laugh harder.

5. Be A Fish Head

Omega-3 oils, found in walnuts, flaxseed and especially fish, have long been touted as being healthy for the heart. But recent research suggests they’re a brain booster as well, and not just because they help the circulation system that pumps oxygen to your head. They also seem to improve the function of the membranes that surround brain cells, which may be why people who consume a lot of fish are less likely to suffer depression, dementia, even attention-deficit disorder. Scientists have noted that essential fatty acids are necessary for proper brain development in children, and they’re now being added to baby formulas. It’s possible that your own mental state, and even your intelligence, can be enhanced by consuming enough of these oils.

Eating at least three servings a week of fish such as salmon, sardines, mackerel and tuna is a good start.

6. Remember

Get out an old photo album or high school yearbook. Your brain is a memory machine, so give it a chance to work! Spend time with your memories. Let your mind reflect on them and your mind will repay you in positive emotions and new connections from the memories to help you with your current tasks and challenges.

7. Cut The Fat

Can “bad” fats make you dumb? When researchers at the University of Toronto put rats on a 40-percent-fat diet, the rats lost ground in several areas of mental function, including memory, spatial awareness and rule learning. The problems became worse with a diet high in saturated fats, the kind that’s abundant in meat and dairy products. While you may never be called upon to navigate a little maze in search of a cheddar cube, these results could hold true for you as well, for two reasons: Fat can reduce the flow of oxygen-rich blood to your brain, and it may also slow down the metabolism of glucose, the form of sugar the brain utilizes as food.

You can still get up to 30 percent of your daily calories in the form of fat, but most of it should come from the aforementioned fish, olive oil, nuts and seeds. Whatever you do, stay away from trans fats, the hardened oils that are abundant in crackers and snack foods.

8. Do A Puzzle

Some of us like jigsaw puzzles, some crossword puzzles, some logic puzzles - it really doesn’t matter kind you choose to do. Doing puzzles in your free time is a great way to activate your brain and keep it in good working condition. Do the puzzle for fun, but do it knowing you are exercising your brain.

9. The Mozart Effect

A decade ago Frances Rauscher, a psychologist now at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and her colleagues made waves with the discovery that listening to Mozart improved people’s mathematical and spatial reasoning. Even rats ran mazes faster and more accurately after hearing Mozart than after white noise or music by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. Last year, Rauscher reported that, for rats at least, a Mozart piano sonata seems to stimulate activity in three genes involved in nerve-cell signalling in the brain.

This sounds like the most harmonious way to tune up your mental faculties. But before you grab the CDs, hear this note of caution. Not everyone who has looked for the Mozart effect has found it. What’s more, even its proponents tend to think that music boosts brain power simply because it makes listeners feel better - relaxed and stimulated at the same time - and that a comparable stimulus might do just as well. In fact, one study found that listening to a story gave a similar performance boost.

10. Improve Your Skill At Things You Already Do

Some repetitive mental stimulation is ok as long as you look to expand your skills and knowledge base. Common activities such as gardening, sewing, playing bridge, reading, painting, and doing crossword puzzles have value, but push yourself to do different gardening techniques, more complex sewing patterns, play bridge against more talented players to increase your skill, read new authors on varied subjects, learn a new painting technique, and work harder crossword puzzles. Pushing your brain to new heights help to keep it healthy.

11. Be A Thinker, Not A Drinker

The idea that alcohol kills brain cells is an old one, but the reality is a bit more complicated. In fact, a study of 3,500 Japanese men found that those who drank moderately (in this case, about one drink per day) had better cognitive functioning when they got older than those who didn’t drink at all. Unfortunately, as soon as you get beyond that “moderate” amount, your memory, reaction time is all likely to decline. In the same study, men who had four or more drinks a day fared worst of all.

Just as bad is the now common practice of “binge drinking,” otherwise known as getting hammered on the weekend. Research on rats found that those who consumed large amounts of alcohol had fewer new cells in their brains’ hippocampus region immediately after the binge, and virtually none a month later. This suggests that the alcohol not only damaged the rats’ brains, but kept them from repairing themselves later on - in human terms, that means you shouldn’t expect to pass the Mensa entrance exam any time soon.

12. Play

Take time to play. Make time to play. Play cards. Play video games. Play board games. Play Ring Around the Rosie. Play tug of war. It doesn’t matter what you play. Just play! It is good for your spirit and good for your brain. It gives your brain a chance to think strategically, and keeps it working.

13. Sleep On It

Previewing key information and then sleeping on it increases retention 20 to 30 percent. You can leave that information next to the bed for easy access, if it is something that won’t keep you awake. If you are kept awake by your thoughts, writing everything down sometimes gets it “out of your mind,” allowing you to sleep (so keep a pen and paper nearby).

14. Concentration

Concentration can increase brainpower. Obvious, perhaps, but the thieves of concentration are not always so obvious. Learn to notice when you are distracted. Often the cause is just below consciousness. If there is a phone call you need to make, for example, it might bother you all morning, sapping your ability to think clearly, even while you are unaware of what is bothering you.

Get in the habit of stopping to ask “What is on my mind right now”. Identify it and deal with it. In the example given, you could make the phone call, or put it on tomorrow’s list, so your mind is comfortable letting it go for now. This leaves you in a more relaxed state where you can think more clearly. Use this technique to increase your brainpower now.

15. Make Love For Your Brain

In a series of studies by Winnifred B. Cutler, PhD and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and later at Stanford University it was found that regular sexual contact had an important impact on physical and emotional well being of women. Sexual contact with a partner at least once a week led to more fertile, regular menstrual cycles, shorter menses, delayed menopause, increased estrogen levels, and delayed aging. Brain imaging studies at UCLA have shown that decreased estrogen levels are associated with overall decreased brain activity and poor memory. Enhancing estrogen levels for women through regular sexual activity enhances overall brain activity and improves memory.

In Dr. Cutler’s study the occurrence of orgasm was not as important as the fact that sex was with another person. Intimacy and emotional bonding may be the most influential factors in the positive aspects of sex. As a psychiatrist I have seen many people withhold sex as a way to show hurt, anger, or disappointment. Dr. Cutler’s research suggests that this is self-defeating behavior. The more you withhold the worse it may be for you. Appropriate sex is one of the keys to the brain’s fountain of youth.

16. Play With Passion!

You can’t do great work without personal fulfillment. When people are growing through learning and creativity, they are much more fulfilled and give 127% more to their work. Delight yourself and you delight the world. Remember what you loved to do as a child and bring the essence of that activity into your work. This is a clue to your genius; to your natural gifts and talents. da Vinci, Edison, Einstein and Picasso all loved to play and they loved to explore.

17. Cycles Of Consciousness

Your consciousness waxes and wanes throughout the day . For most it seems to go through 90 minute cycles, with 30 minutes of lower consciousness. Watch yourself to recognize this cycle. If you learn to recognize and track your mental state, you can concentrate on important mental tasks when your mind is most “awake”. For creative insight into a problem, do the opposite. Work on it when you are in a drowsy state, when your conscious mind has slowed down.

18. Learn Something New

This one might seem obvious. Yes, we capitalize on our brain’s great potential when we put it to work learning new things. You may have a specific topic for work or leisure that you want to learn more about. That’s great.

Go learn it. If you don’t have a subject in mind right now, try learning a new word each day. There is a strong correlation between working vocabulary and intelligence. When we have new words in our vocabulary, our minds can think in new ways with greater nuances between ideas. Put your mind to work learning. It is one of the best ways to re-energize your brain.

19. Write To Be Read

I am a big proponent of writing in a journal to capture ideas and thoughts. There is certainly great value in writing for yourself. I continue to find that my brain is greatly stimulated by writing to be read. The greatest benefit of writing is what it does to expand your brain’s capacity. Find ways to write to be read – by writing things for your friends to read, by capturing the stories of your childhood, starting your own blog or whatever – just write to be read.

20. Try Aroma Therapy To Activate Your Brain

One day, as I was falling asleep, while listening to endless speeches at a conference, my brain suddenly perked up when I caught a whiff of lemon from someone’s cologne. I immediately felt alert and found it much easier to pay attention to the presenter. I discovered aroma therapy really is useful and I have used it ever since revitalize or to relax.

Energizers include peppermint, cypress and lemon. Relaxants: ylang ylang, geranium and rose. A few drops of essential oils in your bath or in a diffuser will do the trick. You can also put a drop or two in a cotton ball or hanky and inhale. One caveat for the workplace; make sure no-one is allergic to the oils before you use them.

21. Drugs To Increase Brainpower

Coffee and other drinks containing caffeine help students consistently score higher on tests. Since caffeine restricts blood vessels in the brain, it isn’t clear what the longer-term effects may be when it comes to your brainpower. So instead of coffee breaks try gingko biloba and gotu kola herbal teas. Ginkgo biloba has been shown to increase blood flow to the brain, and improve concentration.

22. Build A Brain Trust

Surround yourself with inspiring people from a wide variety of fields who encourage you and stimulate your creativity. Read magazines from a wide variety of fields. Make connections between people, places and things, to discover new opportunities, and to find solutions to your problems.

Remember that no matter what your age or your occupation; your brain needs to be constantly challenged to be at its peak in terms of performance. Whether it’s doing logic puzzles, memorizing lines from Shakespeare, or learning a new skill, keep your brain busy, if you don’t want it to rust away like a car in a junkyard.

Once upon a time there was a man, this man was no ordinary man, he was a thinker; a social thinker. Free and abroad there are no limits to where his mind can go. Each project he came upon was a work of art; focusing in the beauty of social networking and constructing the perfect anatomy to which the interaction and workings should comprise of it. However, one problem arises in his approach, he is no manager; his timing is usually off; and the communication with others lacks with his ability to define a fine path for the goals he sets out. Because of this anomaly in design, each project turns into a recursive space of chaos; dwindling down into the black hole of development.

Each time we start developing our own projects there are some that simply dwell on the idea that others will use it, that "it" will become the greatest thing since sliced bread; all will use it and all will adore. Then you begin to think of what it will do: features and ideas simply thrash their way into that roller coasting storm within your brain. Alright then, where do I start. hmm... let's write something down, like a scope outline or a set of goals. So all those ideas you suddenly thought of turn its way to pen and paper (or notepad if you prefer).

Congratulations you have successfully broken rule number 1 in your intent to finish a great project.

Rule #1:
    Firstly, a project, like any work, is a series of steps starting by it's growth pattern.
    Projects grow into beauty, much like artwork. Where you start is up to you, it's simply a matter of starting it that most people tend to forget.

Alright, so you decide let's take a look at those ideas and put together something of a prototype. Hmm, which feature do I start working on? Well, let's see what's available on the internet, I'm sure someone has something that I can take a look at. So you go off, look at a few.. well hundred samples and you find out that there's definitely something missing in all of these samples. An underlying concept or resource that suddenly because apparent and you begin creating to fix this problem.

Rule #2:
    Research and development is a perfect way to figure out a role in either user design or project dynamics. The problem is that it is too often done well over the time that it's needed for. In addition, while you tune yourself in on each project there is a tendency to fall into a thought-process that causes you to stray from the original goals. This, recursive syndrome, is often found in the minds of programmers and developers.
    "Wanting to build a tool to help you write tool rather than just building the original program."

It's really a habit of perfectionists; because as you build each component you want to make it better, more secure and more extensible, more aesthetically pleasing.

Spending 12 minutes on a button because you don't like it's color or agonizing over a single-pixel error is apart of that perfectionist habit. Break it before it takes a hold of your original intentions.

Introducing the next feature, or next set of ideas it is easy for one to break rule #2 over and over again; and before you know it it's 3 weeks later and not a whole lot is done. Getting passed those 2 rules is easy if you've already set a standard for the project and what to complete.

Standards and requirements don't have to extensive, they're there for guidelines; to keep you in check so you don't endlessly break rule #1 or #2. And generally they're supposed to be small, incremental in design, that's usually why it's supposed to be written in almost the 1st day.

Nevertheless, there's a place where you may not even need several documents of requirements, loads of design papers and prototypes. This place is attributed to the sole creator, designer, architect... etc. Quoting Ze Frank, "every time I have an idea, I try to create it as fast and as soon as possible. otherwise I'll get addicted to brain crack." When it comes right down to it, let a project grow into it's amazing beauty, create as soon and as fast as possible; if nothing comes to mind for it's next selection of growth, then go back and strengthen those genes of the project. You'll find out that the creativity will come a lot quicker when you're constantly getting to show what you've already made.

- This post was really directed at myself since last quarter I had just been putting out brainstorms and visions, but I hope it helps anyone else who's gotten stuck somewhere.

Generally speaking, software is complex, I mean really complex. It can be so compounded in complexity that even the developers themselves can't even begin to imagine the extensibility, the portability, the usability of their software. But wait, is this what true genuine software is all about? Basing our features off of every intricate detail we can think of, utilizing everything around us in an attempt to develop the most broad, platform-independent software solution on the face of the planet. I think not. True software, built with a vision and a persona can be like painting a picture, all the little details and patterns are just apart of technique.

Imagine yourself as Michaelangelo, in the Sistine Chapel, painting one of the most intricate paintings every to be made. How is art created? Where does it start? What form does it take, and what do you need to create it? Not one of these questions can be answered because to painters, it simply doesn't matter. To a painter, art takes a natural form of emotion, expressing the deepest pieces of an elaborate puzzle brought forth by a master creator.

We can shape our emotions and dreams into a form in which we call a vision. The vision itself is relative to where you are in the process. It takes time, it grows into something better, something newer and more extravagant with more emotion. The vision is really just a small piece of a large picture to which we may only see at the end of the tunnel.. or at least when we've stopped. In painting, drawing or any form of art really you simply search for a picture, something to create, something that represents a series of emotions and personifications. If the art was formed to represent those emotions and persona's, for a great deal of the time, we can call it beautiful. It's simply a matter of time to detail every aspect of our masterpiece to give further depth to the emotion within the art.

In most software we do have an emotional attachment of sorts. It's everywhere really. Using Ubuntu over XP maybe a principle based on a goal or a set of rules that you may follow by. Or rather, Vox is great for me because it never seems like I'm trying to manage my blog in some alternate universe, I'm always there with my blog; editing and posting away. It's quite nice.

On the other hand software has a huge tendency to put the wrong emotions into people. The triggering of anger and frustration, hesitation and stupidity can be quite disheartening to users and usually ends up with the application un-installed and unused. We can find truth in our ability to create quality, art-form software however.

1. Persona
• Define a person, no an actual person that lives, breathes and moves around in your world. And your software is what runs a very key part of his/her life. This persona is what allows you to focus on the reactions and attachments held with your software. You can take a step back and actually see the big picture.
• Design for them, the interactions, the emotions and all the responses from the program. Imagine them reacting to your software after seeing something they hadn't yet caught before.
• Persona sparks a team with creativity and imagination, it works fantastic!
  
2. Imagine, and just paint it
• Software is an evolution of details, patterns and components. It takes both time, creativity and efforts. Building an extensible framework before understanding who uses the program is a major flaw in planning.
• Don't worry to much about the 'technical' details of creating your software. Developers will always want their software portable, used in a web browser or modular with new frameworks for best performance.
• Users will not, have not and have not cared about these things and should not be your area of focus. Just code it with a model in mind, sketch your designs, and practice technique.
• Coding software, although can be more complex, is actually one in the same when it comes to painting. Except in painting, you are required to have patience, diligence and the ability to morph and grow your picture into a masterpiece.

Masterpiece software takes time, patience and diligence. The ability to grow your software into something great will take more than a few hacks at portability and extensibility, focus on the bigger picture, the emotion, and the code will almost naturally flow. You'll naturally refactor and optimize your code when you get it right, it's like adding the few details to the fingers on a painting or the pupils of an eye, or a mold of a magnificent sculpture.

Kathy Sierra, among the most well known bloggers in our industry on Creating Passionate Users and coauthor of some of the greatest books to ever hit the market, has come upon some serious and simply awful events. I give my deepest apologies to Kathy.

This story is quite graphic and disturbing so please be advised.

Death threats against bloggers are NOT "protected speech" (why I cancelled my ETech presentations)

Thousands of bloggers from around the world are in uproar about this kind of behavior. Scoble even wrote on taking the week off in support of Kathy. All over the physical world we stride in confidence that our choices and actions will spark interest and creativity, a sort of purpose. Purpose that gains meaning with every creation. Purpose that sells on user intentions and a 'better' way to do things. Purpose that raises the bar for a better way to communicate, interact and create.

My interest in this industry was started on creativity and collaboration. I watched as others created things that seemed before unimaginable. Ze Frank called it surfing. Kathy Sierra called it creating passion. That kind of creativity lives on positive energy. It's that positive track that makes it easier to create a since of euphoria, wherever that may be. And really all we're aiming at is being happy. Like creative passion.

We may run into a destructive block where our happiness is... well not so happy. Countering that unhappiness can be tough, and sometimes quite destructive. What's worse is some people may even take it a step further by attacking someone else's euphoric passion. Whenever someone else attacks us in any way, a way that does show any negative signs lots of thoughts can flow through our mind. But what keeps us from taking any drastic and completely unneccisary action is patience. Stephen R. Covey said we should exercise this patience with others.

Saying that in times of stress, our impatience surfaces. We may say things we don't really mean or intend to say -- all out of proportion to reality. Or we may become sullen, communicating through emotion and attitude rather than words, eloquent messages of criticism, judgement, and rejection. We then harvest hurt feelings and strained relationships. Patience is the practical expression of faith, hope, wisdom, and love. It is a very active emotion. It is not indifference, sullen endurance, or resignation. Patience is emotional diligence. It accepts the reality of step-by-step processes and natural growth cycles. Life provides abundant changes to practice patience -- to stretch the emotional fiber -- from waiting for a late person or plane to listening quietly to your child's feelings and experiences when other things are pressing.

Kathy even commented on this subject a while back in her post about negative people. Inspiring as she wrote:

Hmmm... one of the world's leading experts in the art of happiness is the Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Just about everyone who hears him speak is struck by how, well, happy he is. How he can describe--with laughter--some of the most traumatizing events of his past. Talk about perspective...

But he is quite outspoken with his criticism of China. The thing is, he doesn't believe that criticism requires anger, or that being happy means you can't be a disruptive influence for good. On happiness, he has this to say:

"The fact that there is always a positive side to life is the one thing that gives me a lot of happiness. This world is not perfect. There are problems. But things like happiness and unhappiness are relative. Realizing this gives you hope."

And among the "happy people", there's Mahatma Gandhi, a force for change that included non-violent but oh-most-definitely-disobedient behavior. A few of my favorite Gandhi quotes:

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

[Read more...] 

In a gentle way, that passion in this industry has shown me that there are people out there that care about this happiness we all search for. And that furthermore, the creations that come out of that passion have real world value to the people that use it. The same goes for information. Reading an article, watching a show, or reading a post can create real world value too. We call this value impact.

It's like when you go and buy a soda you've never heard of before and you're unsure if it'll be good or not. Once you drink it your reaction can be considered a small start to an long time of impacting value. If it tastes like crap, you'll probably never drink it again. But that doesn't necessarily end there. The next time you see someone drink it you might say don't drink that, it's crap... or how can you like that? In extreme cases you might go to the extent of grabbing the soda out of their hands and throwing it away. Peer pressure may kick in if you get a group of people who hate the shit and tell that person to not drink it.

But what happens if you like it, in fact the soda is so fantastic that you encourage others to seek its great benefits, the amazing power of drinking this soda. It's life lifting, it's a new way to think. A lot of people may end up agreeing with you, and now you've managed to impact more than one life from the value you've gained. A sort of perspective transfer.

"This soda is awesome!"
"Oh man it tastes fantastic!"
"I want this every morning!"

In any case, emotions of others has a way of impacting the emotions of our own. Seeing something funny can really be uplifting. And our virtual world here, that uplifting nature can be... well to be frank a butterfly effect. It gets transferred with every comment, every post, every search, virtually every creation.

It's these kind of virtual experiences that can have greater impacts on what we're doing, or in plain sight just our attitudes. Even if it is for a brief moment, it allows for that patience to set in where we can really start thinking about what we want to do, what we're doing and the approach we're going to take to accomplish it.

Despite whether or not these daily doses create some spark of inspiration, even you can make a difference in someone else's life just by being nice. It doesn't really need to have much significance to it, like holding a door open for someone, or saying hello in the morning. Complementing on our little creations is what makes those creations even better. The purpose grows and the drive to continue creating it gets better. Blogging has this effect every day. Adding a comment shows that not only is the community reading what you've written, but it may even provide a better understanding of what you're doing. Unfortunately there will be times where people will inevitably disagree with your point of views and indeed take things to a point that most adults wouldn't dare cross.

In my opinion, it's up to the community to weed these types of comments out. Digg does a terrific job of this with the thumbs up/thumbs down for every comment made. It shows that the community really does have a say on the behaviour and attitude of the virtual world. Ignoring the comments is alright, but it can get to a certain point where the comments become extreme and nobody likes that. Deleting them can get a little out of hand too, few people from the community will know about the behaviour and may not have much power over what's going on.

The same goes for entire blogs or forums devoted to the kind of behaviour. Removing them will only cause the owners to put the site back up somewhere else. Ignoring them allows the freedom to make life threatening remarks that will in change lives forever. It's really up to the same community that started this surge of creativity and collaboration to have their say of thumbs up/thumbs down to this kind of banter. It helps if you know about it, I can't do much unless I know the problem. All in all, once the problem has been addressed and made example we can begin to understand the nature of our world.

Like the web, we evolve our natural instincts to react to a situation and withold that patience for a cause that is somewhat deemed to be a good thing. Stephen R. Covey calls this choosing the proactive response.

Why do so few of us "do" as well as we "know"? Because we neglect a connecting link between what we know and what we do -- we don't choose our response. Choosing requires us to gain perspective and then to decide our own actions and reactions. Choosing means to accept responsibility for our attitudes and actions, to refuse to blame others or circumstances. It involves a real internal striggle, ultimately, between competing motives or conflicting concepts. Unless we exercise our power to choose wisely, our actions will be determined by conditions. Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

Sometimes this proactive response can not only be a good thing for ourselves, but it yet again creates that sense of community impact. The focus on this sort of circle of impact about things that are deemed good grows and dies by what we think we can control. When we run into problems where we have direct control, a simple change of habits of doing and thinking can solve it. Indirect control problems may require us to change our methods of impact. With problems that we have no control over, we can control our reaction to problems, deciding within ourselves how anything or anybody will affect us.

William James said our ability to change our cicumstances is directed by a mere change of our attitude.

The same goes for our virtual world. With every post it continues those methods of impact, with each comment we provide further meaning to a growing world. Once more, these sort of anonymous services are what really give us the sense of intrinsic worth and self-respect. We can gain much insight into the worth of others by serving them without expectation of publicity or reward. Afterall, it's this selfless service that has always been one of the most powerful methods of influence.

this is nyxtom, thinking of the community