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Showing posts from December 7, 2008

Brain "warshing"

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I prefer to pronounce brainwashing with an Ohio or American Midland Dialect. "Warsh". Its a catchy pronounciation. Step one of any effective brainwashing is to eliminate any notion or self-evidence of brainwashing. "I am absolutely sure I am not brainwashed. I am an American. I believe in the individual. I believe that all of my ideas and thoughts are my own." Those thoughts are a good starting place. The fact is that you, as a human, are a herding animal. It is a lesson that I found in my time in Antarctica and watching my own herding animals. "No man is an island" --John Donne (1572–1631). Is also a good start. We are all affected by our instincts. Tribalism being one of them. Many of us have lost a lot of our instincts. When we loose enough we probably fall somewhere into the vast ontology and categories of mentally ill. So, You are what you eat, both informationally and physically. Think different. Use what you learned in school about empathy. Pr...
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Winter is here. It has been cold, windy and the days have been microscopically short. It is hard to be optimistic with shortening days, cold and holiday season pressure. It is what I do though. It has been said the difference between achievers and non-achievers is that the non-achievers see a setback as a permanent condition and the achiever has a much more optimistic outlook and believes the setback is temporary. I believe that fact to be true. If you were a wild animal and you had to choose between being an optimist and a pessimist which would you choose to increase your chances of survival? I turned in all the paperwork to become a Distinguished Toastmaster today. This is the highest level of achievement in the organization (well it used to be). Hopefully I can get up in the air this weekend. My last lesson was tough. I had a lot of wind shear and a nasty crosswind. It was bumpy and variable winds. I need to know how to fly in bad weather too. It helps understand why you don...