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"Human knowledge is not like data stored in a computer’s memory banks. A computer doesn’t get better at remembering things as its database becomes more crowded. Human knowledge, on the other hand, is hungry and alive. People with knowledge about a topic become faster and better at acquiring more information and remembering what they learn."
David Brooks, The Social Animal
Jennifer Lawrence, watch your back.
- A: I think I saw Jennifer Lawrence today.
- riding past me on a bike in the west village
- I'm like 95% sure it was her
- W: WHAFLKSDJF()@u3J!OQRFKLWE)(FUIJ!@O$rflks;djhdsifjk29038uirwjeaofdk;jlw93uj2rwefn,aku9werjifosakdlasdfjaslkdfasdfl;asdfsafasfdaslkfj10923jlrfkasl;fjas;fajsdf;lkjs
- A: How do you find out where celebrities live?
- W: You turn around when you think it's them on a bike and follow the shit out of them in a noncreepy way.
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As a science journalist, I have devoted my career to writing about science and trying to illuminate its findings and methods. Science is incredibly tough in practice despite its often gentle and glamorous image. By nature, it seeks to limit the role of faith, to make as few assumptions as possible, and to subject the information it gathers as well as its own tentative findings to withering doubt. A synonym for ‘science’ is ‘organized skepticism.’ The process can be intellectually brutal. The constructive side is that science, done right, also works to suspend judgment, to collect and test and verify before coming to firm conclusions. In theory, it can see without prejudice.
Science — even at its best — is nontheless extraordinarily crude. IT ignores much about reality to zero in on those aspects of nature that it can quantify and comprehend. What gets set aside can be considerable — the wonders of the Sistine Chapel, among other achievements. Science, for all its triumphs over the last four centuries, sometimes fails to see the obvious. It is blind to the individuality of a snowflake and the convulsions of the stock market, not to mention ethics….
What I know with certainty is that science cannot address, much less answer, many of the most interesting questions in life. It’s one finger of a hand, as a wise man once said. I treasure the scientific method for its insights and discoveries, as well as for the wealth of comforts and social advances it has given us. But I question the value of scientism - the belief that science has authority over all other interpretations of life, including the philosophical and spiritual, moral and humanistic.
"William J Broad, from The Science of Yoga.
"We do not believe in our selves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit"
e. e. cummings
Getting accurately punctured.
As someone who has a heightened sensitivity to nearly all internal and external physical sensations, I hate needles. When I get a shot or have my blood drawn, the doctor or nurse always ask as I turn my head away from them, “are you scared of needles?” I answer something along the lines of: “I dislike them; I’m not scared. Don’t worry about it, I’ll just be looking away.”
However, as my yoga practice led me to a greater understanding of my subtle/energetic body, I became increasingly more curious about acupuncture. Two weeks ago, the City Acupuncture booth caught my attention while I was perusing the YogaJournal Marketplace in midtown. I went up to it, flipped through their brochures, and asked the girl at the table, “Does anyone ever get acupuncture done… for kicks?”
“What do you mean ‘for kicks’?”
“I mean, I don’t think there’s anything really ailing my body. I’m pretty intrigued about the energy channels in the body and how acupuncture can be used to open them up and wanted to learn about it by experiencing it firsthand.”
I set up an appointment on the spot. Prior to going in, I was asked to fill out an extensive questionnaire online regarding my physical and mental state. When I went in, Melissa (my acupuncturist), went through the items I checked off (e.g., joint pain, headaches, restlessness) Admittedly, I was a little dismissive in elaborating on these things.
“When I do experience joint pain, it’s pretty intermittent. Like, from bending my knees in yoga too much or something.” “Headaches usually abound when I am thinking too hard.” “I’m more physically restless than I am mentally, so going for a run or doing yoga helps.”
After going through the rest of the list, I was instructed to lie down. Melissa adeptly placed eight needles in me. A pair were placed at my wrists, a second pair between my first and second toe, a third pair in my inner ankles, one below my navel, and the last one on my forehead. I noticed a bit of a pinch as the needles went in, and didn’t experience any other pain beyond that.
Then, I closed my eyes and meditated. I noticed my right arm and leg begin to tingle and I remember thinking to myself “oh so this is the magic happening!” (before returning to my breath, of course).
After an hour, Melissa came back to remove the needles as I fired away on questions. I asked about how she decided where to place the needles, and she talked about the location of different meridians in the body and their functions. I told her about the tingling I experienced in the right side of my body, and she said that depending on where women are in their menstrual cycle, they can feel varying degrees of left-right imbalance (of how much they feel the acupuncture). She also talked about the trends of people during different times of the year - that is, people who come in for acupuncture in the spring report feelings of anxiety / nervousness, people are generally happier in the summer, and then as fall and winter come around, people start to cocoon up in their bodies to ‘plant their seeds’ in order to bloom for spring. I found that concept of constant rejuvenation incredibly logically beautiful.
She shook my hand as I got off the bed. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Wudan. And don’t brush off the little things; everything is related.”
Dove Beauty Sketches
Videos that have gone viral usually capture my attention right away (e.g.: the goat remixes), or fall under my radar (e.g.: Harlem Shake, Gangnam Style).
The Dove Real Beauty Sketches fell into the latter category, until a friend sent the one of women getting drawn to me yesterday. I found the clip touching, but it did not reflect on anything poignant. In other words, the message that I thought was presented was perhaps not anything new (that we are our own harshest critic), but the way that message came across is certainly effective.
This morning, I had noticed that a spoof/spin-off had been created.
Taking these two videos together, it seems like what is being said goes along the lines of ‘the way we think we look are different from the way we are perceived by others.’ I think I do care about how I am perceived, but more so through my actions and thoughts than my appearance. None of these people who they’ve sketched on these videos are unattractive, by any measure, I feel. Their physical beauty is being conveyed through their confidence (which is apparently downplayed by women, exaggerated by men), and I feel like that characteristic is so much more telling of a person than just their appearance.
“The only thing sexier than curiosity is confidence… the person with both will simply ask away” - Brian Christian, The Most Human Human.
I recently completed a Proust Questionnaire. Two questions that were asked (and that I answered) are as follows:
- What is the quality you admire most in a man? Modesty/humbleness. Also, nice forearms.
- What is the quality you admire most in a woman? Radiance.
Yes, she could have called it “Instant Awesome,” but the quote she reads at the end is just so phenomenal. Worth sharing;
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. … No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” - Martha Graham.
"Standing on my head before bedtime on that rock roof of the moonlight I could indeed see that the earth was truly upsidedown and man a weird vain beetle full of strange ideas walking around upsidedown and boasting, and I could realize that man remembered why this dream of planets and plants and Plantagenets was built out of the primordial essence. Sometimes I’d get mad because things didn’t work out well, I’d spoil a flapjack, or slip in the snowfield while getting water, or one time my shovel went sailing down into the gorge, and I’d be so mad I’d want to bite the mountaintops and would come in the shack and kick the cupboard and hurt my toe. But let te mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious."
Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
