Nearly half a century after her death, Emily Post is still a name that is synonymous with manners and perfect etiquette. Her books and newspaper columns on this topic spanned a wide array of events from formal weddings to simple table manners. Well…maybe they’re not so “simple” considering they cover even the slightest details such as how to “hold a spoon“. But whether or not you find her helpful tips on how to be a proper lady or gentleman to be a tad too much, there is no denying however the fact that she definitely got it right with the following quote.
Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.
What a beautiful reminder! Not that you guys need a reminder, of course. SuperForesters are among the most “mannerly” people I know. :)
Written in playful, colorful text, it says, “Relentlessly Cheerful Art.” These are the words playfully scrawled across the top of artist, James Hance’s website. It’s a pretty bold claim for a subtitle, but as one skims through the pages of his work, you begin to feel a little smile begins to creep up onto your face.
Among his work you find popular culture clashing with classic pieces of art; a Picasso inspired “Burt and Ernie”, a Van Gogh inspired Batman piece, Hendrix totally shredding it on Guitar Hero, and when you stumble across a print of the Fab Four running away from a T-Rex, it hits you: “Relentlessly Cheerful Art” couldn’t be any more of an understatement.
Visit his website and explore his works, here! You’ll be so glad you did. And that’s a promise.
I woke this morning and brought tea to a guest who’d arrived in the night. Then I returned to my bed.
When I awoke a second time and went to visit my new guest, I found him on the front porch of his little house speaking to a happy group of Zero Oners.
He said:
“The children of the world are assembling. They are coming together and they are saying they want peace, love, and harmony.
We must learn to share. There is enough for all life. Our job is to learn to share the abundance.
There is an internet without wires that connects us all. We must learn to hear with our hearts, and not with our ears. We must learn to see with our hearts and not with our eyes.”
The guy that just made my sandwich at Subway (footlong Spicy Italian on Italian Herbs and Cheese! Represent!) was missing 3 1/2 fingers. Seriously all touchin my food and all that! Except he had gloves on, one hand of course only being occupied by barely enough fingers to keep the glove in place. Which, that’s fine and dandy. Fingers shmingers. As long as my footlong gets made to order and tastes like the bomb Subway sandwiches I’ve grown to almost become aroused by, then go ahead and make the damn thing with your feet, if you can do it. I just request that you wear foot gloves.
But my visual issue I had with this man went far beyond a lack of piggies. He also had a pantload of (assumedly knife) scars across the back of his hand (I also assume this is how he lost his fingers. I imagine a story of a knife fight with a monkey on a yacht in international waters.), and a tattoo on his wrist that was the Roman numeral 6 (perhaps how many monkeys he killed for his lost fingers). That was everything I caught while glancing at his left arm and hand. Then, while he was toasting my sub, I noticed the red jacket he was wearing was one that said “Black Panthers” across the back. This is very much a white dude. As white as me, if not whiter. REFERENCE POINT: I’m white as can be. Does “Black Panthers” have a different connotation than I was told? Is it now a brand of clothing for ironic ghetto white folks? Or is he just still really upset? You have to have a pretty visible and frequently validated hood pass to pull that off, I imagine. I couldn’t do it. That’s for sure. But I probably also couldn’t get into an actual knife fight with a monkey. If I did, I’d probably just give him a fake knife. Like he’s gonna know the difference. IT’S A MONKEY. Monkey’s don’t know stabby knives from fake knives.
But aside from the international monkey fight association (IMFA), I don’t know. I got a vibe from this guy that I couldn’t quite shake. It’s like when you see a prisoner in prison and still think he’s capable of eating your brain straight out of your skull, no matter how many bars are between you and the psycho. It was kinda like that! Except he was super friendly and the sandwich came out perfect. So, judging his book by his cover? Flawed. Don’t do that. Because who knows who really is a great sandwich maker at their part-time job at Subway? That’s exactly why I don’t get in fights with strangers or walk to the other side of the street to avoid thugs. I want to get to know them. Figure out what kind of Subway sandwiches they like to make best. Find out what Subway they work at. Go in. Enjoy a delicious toasted sub. Attempt to not look at their missing fingers too much. Or.. hell… maybe ask them about it? I haven’t figured out which way to go with that part yet. I guess it depends on if they like to talk about their history with the IMFA or not.
Lover of the Sub-er,
Scott
(I’d like to take partial credit for the brilliance that is Scott Cassidy’s Workspace Oddity…after all, I think I kind of annoyingly pushed him toward creating a tumblr and giving it a quirky work-related name, but alas, I cannot. All the witty words and subsequent laughs created are all him. So I guess all I can do is send a sincere thank you for his sharing this fun piece with us. Thanks, very much Scott! -Carla)
Alright, I’ll admit it. I’ve been glued to the television set these past few days cheering on my favorite gentlemen (cough, cough, Novak and Roger) in the incredible celebration of grand slam tennis that is the US Open. What I didn’t know was that as I watch the lovely sport that is tennis, a lot more goes on in my brain than the flurry of emotions that go through the minds of sports fans. Then the ever-insightful SuperForester Susan sent this in for us to read:
My love of watching tennis began in the seventies when I was hunting for a Sunday morning news show. Instead the screen was filled with the face of Bjorn Borg and I was hooked immediately by his look of predatory concentration. Little did I know at the time, that my mirror neurons were firing up brain circuits as though I was making that face myself. I just knew I liked the feeling. My fascination was fueled by the neural action of focus and determination, my own neurons paralleling his. I was feeling the look of winning. Part of the power of visual intelligence is the internal matching of what we see. When mirror neurons were first discovered, the researchers were surprised to see that the same neurons that fired when the monkey performed a certain task also fired just by watching that task performed by someone else. Understanding facial expressions depends on the same mechanisms. We feel them from the inside as though we were making them ourselves. Like the worldwide expert on facial expressions, Paul Eckman, says, “Make the face, feel the emotion.”
And imagine the benefits to the rest of my motor circuits firing as I watch such outstanding athleticism. Tennis players are excellent examples of visual/spatial intelligence at work. Awareness of the court, assessing the speed of the ball, the movement of the opponent and previous knowledge of a particular player’s style constitutes a constantly changing whole that a great player is always adjusting to along with a host of other factors. The best players exhibit intelligence as well as athletic excellence as they make lightening fast decisions. In the heat of an exciting volley, my whole body is twitching, not indifferent to the excitement unfolding in my mirror neurons. Watching these things trains my capacity for awareness and concentration on a purpose.
In the past, when people were curious about why I liked watching tennis, I used to say something about how much I loved saying “wow”, appreciated being impressed, and assuming some good brain chemistry was involved. I later learned that my body’s pleasure response was rewarding me with endorphins for attention to something I admired and dopamine for the unexpected shots and physical stimulation. This has survival value since admiration stimulates our own potential for greatness and novelty focuses attention on something new to learn. Through my mirror neurons I get to play along with the best, the residuals of which are there to inspire me when I sit down to draw.
Today the look that comes closest to the feeling I got from Borg’s is found on the face of Rafael Nadal. But whereas Borg’s intensity was of having his prey in sight, Nadal projects the feeling of a warrior vanquishing a foe, of something being conquered. The war cry accompanying Maria Sharapova’s hits contrasts with the steely sense of purpose on her face before she serves. What we see tunes the qualities in ourselves that respond to it. There is no one best way to play tennis. There are as many styles of play as great players. I’ve often wondered how Roger Federer managed to slow time, gliding easily through points where other players were rushing around. Then I read about new research showing that brain waves vibrate at a higher frequency during peak experiences like intense competition. So if the brain is operating faster, then clock time would seem slower. When we’re most deeply involved we have plenty of time.
The thing the winners most have in common is concentration and attitude, not the same attitude but each individual version of purity of purpose, unswerving determination. When Sharapova’s expression shifted to frustration, Dinara Safina’s face showed her prey cornered, moving in for the kill.
Our brains are changed by what we pay attention to, our reward system designed to keep us doing what’s helps us grow. It’s a pleasure (more endorphins) to see players from all over the world competing together without politics. Most fans don’t necessarily root for the players from their countries but for qualities of individual style. My endorphins flow seeing men’s and women’s tennis treated equally as part of the same tournament. Watching tennis is immersion in a world where excellence rules. Maybe what the feeling of inspiration really is involves the activation of those circuits where our own excellence wants to bloom.
Pretty awesome, right? Lucky for us, Susan has an entire blog that holds these types of writings and reflections. And I highly recommend you give it a good read whenever you get a moment.
“2.7 billion people live on under two dollars a day, 1.1 billion of whom live on less than one dollar a day. It is easy to assume that such poverty consists of a hand-to-mouth existence where people scrape together a dollar each day to be spent in its entirety, only to start the cycle again the next day.”
Hello SuperForest!
Today I am going to share with you a story that was brought to my attention recently. It has all the parts of a good story: a group of friends, an adventure, a goal, many challenges, and a dream that spurs them on.
Zach, Chris, Sean, and Ryan are four college students who want to make a difference. How? By sharing an experience that many in the world, unfortunately, experience as well, poverty. They remind us that so many people (that 1.1 billion mentioned above) live on less than one dollar a day, and that number is just an average. Some days there is no money, some days might feel like what Christmas feels to us. So, they decided to set out to Guatemala to live life as closely as possible as the local subsistence farmers in rural villages. Their final goal: create a documentary that, in their words,
will follow the development of 6-8 families/entrepreneurs in the town of Peña Blanca as they face the complexity of the financial reality that confronts them, using Portfolio’s of the Poor financial diaries as a model. While not compromising the integrity of our documentary, we also want to create a compelling story to which people living outside of poverty can relate.
They started by taking out a $300 micro-loan to pay for their nine week journey. A large part of their mission to study and try to understand the way of life for people who seemingly live on so little, at least monetarily. They used the aforementioned Portfolio’s of the Poor to support their ideas, using the book’s conclusions:
1. Money management is a crucial part of everyday life.
2. Poor households are plagued by the poor quality and low reliability of financial services.
The believe that one of the most important things to teach the modern western world is to understand the reality of poverty. How else can we begin to make an impact? They hope that their documentary will affect their fellow university students, “who have the potential to create the innovative solutions needed to combat world poverty.” Here is a quick introductory video:
These four college students are doing something that I think, personally, is phenomenal: they are educating AND learning. So many organisations will set out to help our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate, but do it through monetary means only. By this I mean we donate some cash, and that organisation buys supplies and food, and then gives it out to those in need. Don’t get me wrong this is awesome, but is it enough? I don’t think so. I fear it is that good old western mentality of saying, “Well we did help them….” These four guys are doing something very different, something that I get very excited about. They are reaching out to people in need as people. They are not looking for a short term fix, but instead they are searching something more concrete, something more exciting. They are looking to learn how those in poverty discover and learn ways to manage their funds, studying “how the Grameen Bank, the world pioneer of microfinance, operates, including both challenges and benefits,” operates, giving valuable insight to how those in poverty strive to raise themselves out of their situation.. As they say themselves:
While it is true that the majority of income is spent on basics, especially food, the poor still have to budget their money to save for emergencies and large investments such as building a house, weddings for their children, and retirement.
They are going to learn about those in need, and then teach others that we, as they represent westerners, actually care on a personal level. As valuable as a food or supply drop can be to those who need it most, no matter how much they appreciate our western gifts, there is nothing equal to sharing a experience with another human being. To quite literally step into their shoes. That creates a great appreciation, a friendship, and an understanding. All of those things are invaluable, and are exactly what will change this world. I sincerely hope you go check their website after reading this to learn more. All four of them each have an individual blog, as well as one video blog. They are also looking to raise $100,000 for Fonkoze and Grameen Guatemala, Whole Planet Foundation’s microfinace partners in Haiti and Guatemala. Both are the largest micro-finance institutions in Haiti and Guatemala and they target the poorest of the poor.
All four are now back in the U.S. after their two month journey, so you can read up on all of their adventures and lessons learned right now! They are currently working on putting together their documentary.
I want to share one of their video blog entries with you that truly show you all that I have tried to express in words. There is also a whole environmental side to all of this that I could get into, but I will save it for some other time. In the mean time be amazed, and then go check out their site.
I’ve been so lucky as to keep stumbling upon so many mind-blowing videos lately! Check out this clip of Mike Parsons surfing a 65-foot wave at Jaws, a big wave surfing reef break on Maui. Thats about a 7-story tall building. I love that something as simple as a man on a board riding a wave (albeit a humongous wave)… can inspire and bring joy to so many people. Being one of the folks standing on that cliff top witnessing that with their very own eyes must’ve been spectacular!
The following clips, put together by filmmaker Jason Silva during the making of his upcoming film Turning Into Gods, features random thoughts and reflections on all sorts of topics ranging from art, love, and beauty to techno-transcendance. Yes, techno-transcendance. And it’s more than just an awesome use of alliteration. As Jason describes it, it’s “a kind of engineered transcendence….Ecstatic mind-states and techno-immortality are promised; a world created entirely by our minds; where we all become imagineers.”
It’s a lot to take in, but after a few seconds of this video, you begin to catch on to his thoughts, his musings, and all of his reflections almost instantaneously.
It’s a little over five minutes, but it’s worth every second.
See what I mean?! At first, I thought he was a little too much. The ferocious intensity by which the video begins totally catches you off guard. But despite this, there’s something about his energy that (a) keeps you interested and is contagious in the best way possible, and (b) almost leaves you falling in love with the guy because Jason Silva is a guy who is genuinely excited about what he has to share. And when you get past the crazy hand movements and the Ashton Kutcher-esque voice and start to listen to what he has to say, you realize that all that enthusiasm just makes sense.
I’m not sure when Turning Into Gods will be released, but you can check out my post on it, here. And you can rest assured that as soon as I find out, I’ll definitely pass on the word. Because this definitely doesn’t seem like a documentary we want to miss.
Okay, okay, so this isn’t very zen-like at all and doesn’t really create a relaxing atmosphere with which you can meditate to (trust me, I tried finding some sort of inspirational loop-hole with little luck), but the video does create smiles, and at the start of a fresh new week, you can never have too many of those.
Happy Monday, SuperForesters, go out there and do what everybody says you can’t.
Today I have stumbled upon this incredibly fun and entertaining video! Watch the grooves and the moves of this young buck, and become thoroughly entranced. After that put on a song and do some of your own dancing!
Pretty cool, huh? Go get your groove on SuperForest!
The members of our team are scattered across several countries, all united in a journey toward exploring how to redefine "environmentalism" and "sustainability" to encompass all aspects of life.
Being so, everything you find on this website has been chosen to uplift and inspire one person: you.
(Click on a picture to read individual posts.)
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