play is the exultation of the possible -martin buber
An article in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Play details not only how much children’s play time has declined, but how this lack of play affects emotional development, leading to the rise of anxiety, depression, and problems of attention and self control. (in The Atlantic)
harvard psychologist steven pinker’s hopeful new book the better angels of our nature: why violence has declined debuts tomorrow
from slate:“… a monumental achievement. His book should make it much harder for pessimists to cling to their gloomy vision of the future. Whether war is an ancient adaptation or a pernicious cultural infection, we are learning how to overcome it.”
steven pinker loves on the new book willpower: rediscovering the greatest human strength in the nyt
“Together with intelligence, self-control turns out to be the best predictor of a successful and satisfying life. But Baumeister and Tierney aren’t endorsing a return to a preachy puritanism in which people are enjoined to resist temptation by sheer force of will and condemned as morally irresolute when they fail. The “will” in willpower is not some mysterious “free will,” a ghost in the machine that can do as it pleases, but a part of the machine itself. Willpower consists of circuitry in the brain that runs on glucose, has a limited capacity and operates by rules that scientists can reverse-engineer — and, crucially, that can find work-arounds for its own shortcomings.”
marc ian barasch on the mind/body connection, illness, new-age calvinism, and spirituality:
“This is one reason physical illness shows up as a turning point in so many spiritual biographies or as the catalyst of shamanic initiation. It’s a profound shock to the system. It dislodges you. You look in the mirror, and one of the unfortunate ill stares back. But in a way, you could say that disease also abrades away, painfully, all of these superficial ways in which we judge our worthiness, even life’s worthiness. Our worthiness, as in: "Am I strong, beautiful, competent, undamaged goods?” Or life’s worthiness, as in: “Life is good only when it makes me happy, or aggrandizes me, or favors my enterprise.” But who’s bigger, you or life? There’s a Rilke poem Robert Bly has translated: “This is how he grows - by being defeated, decisively, by ever greater beings.”
This attitude contrasts with that of the new-age movement, which supposes the mind can become sovereign over the body or “you make your own reality.” The belief is that your pure intentions will make life happen in a particular way, enable you to control things. Now, intentions can be powerful, but I wonder if this overemphasis isn’t fueled by a sense of outrage at the perceived injustice that we should be subject to the frailties of the flesh. If only we can make our spirits pure enough, our intellects bright enough, the new age seems to say, we shall never die. Death is perceived as an insult to our sense of ourselves as being a spirit or a mind.“
Twyla Tharp on Mozart, creativity, and the myth of unpracticed genius:
Leopold taught the young Wolfgang everything about music, including counterpoint and harmony. He saw to it that the boy was exposed to everyone in Europe who was writing good music or could be of use in Wolfgang’s musical development. Destiny, quite often, is a determined parent. Mozart was hardly some naive prodigy who sat down at the keyboard and, with God whispering in his ears, let the music flow from his fingertips. It’s a nice image for selling tickets to movies, but whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won’t know how to harness the power of that kiss.
“Mozart”, Joseph Cornell
attachment, parents, and a kindergartner’s first school bus ride in the washington post
“As far as I’m concerned, the Miniature Hero of Bus 1112 can have my daughter’s hand in marriage.”
a research study of adolescents that demonstrates that reading Twilight and Harry Potter improves their ability to empathize in the guardian
“The findings could, Oatley believes, have significant implications, particularly in a climate where arts funding is under threat. "It is the first empirical finding, so far as I know, to show a clear psychological effect of reading fiction,” he said. “It’s a result that shows that reading fiction improves understanding of others, and this has a very basic importance in society, not just in the general way making the world a better place by improving interpersonal understanding, but in specific areas such as politics, business, and education. In an era when high-school and university subjects are evaluated economically, our results do have economic implications.”
