Is your creativeness fickle?

Creativity is a fickle thing.  For many people, including myself, there are days when we are positively bursting with creativity and then there are days when our creativity is MIA. These are the days that I absolutely abhor.

One day, on a somewhat creative day, an idea began to formulate in my mind.  I have yet to try it, but I have high hopes!  That is why I'm sharing my plan with you before I've even tried it.  My plan is just that good. 

Some of you may have studied or heard about something called classical conditioning. Chances are you know what I'm talking about, but you just don't know its proper name. 

Classical conditioning is something that is studied in psychology ~ this is how I came to know its principles.  (From here on out, classical conditioning will be referred to as CC because it's so dang long!)  CC began with a guy named Pavlov.  His experiment, at first, was not meant to be psychological, but in fact physiological.  Pavlov's original experiment was to measure how much saliva the dog salivated when it was presented with dog food.  This sounds like fun, does it not?

At first, the experiment seemed simple enough, but after a few times of running it, Pavlov's experiment was ruined.  The dog had started salivating before the lab technician had even presented the dog with food!  This foiled Pavlov's experiment since the technician couldn't be prepared to measure the dog saliva the moment he walked into the dog kennel.

It turns out, the dog had learned to associate food with the lab technician's presence.  So everytime the lab technician came, the dog strarted to drool.  Pavlov grew curious by this turn of events and so he designed a new experiment. 

This time, Pavlov introduced something that had no meaning whatsoever to the dog: a metronome.  Then, with the metronome ticking, a lab technician fed the dog.  Soon after the first trial, the dog made the association with the dog food and the ticks of the metronome.  So of course, whenever the dog heard the metronome ticks, it started salivating!

This, my dear friends, is how we can stay creative forever!  Instead of CC ourselves to drool like dogs, we can stimulate our creativity!  Brillant, right?!

Here's my plan:

Step 1)  Go to the store and buy the craziest, most funky hat that you've ever laid eyes on!  Please make sure it appeals to your creativeness.
Step Z) On the days you feel highly creative, put on said amazing hat and do your thang!

CAUTION:  DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT EVER WEAR THE FUNKY HAT WHEN YOU ARE NOT FEELING CREATIVE.  YOU WILL RUIN YOUR CHANCES FOR SUCCESS.

Here's where my brilliant plan comes to a close.  I haven't a clue how to proceed.  At this point in time, I'm planning on wearing my hat at least 14 separate times, on creative days, before I ever wear the hat on a non-creative day.  But, you know how plans go...

So my advice to you is to take it easy.  If you have a moderately creative day and you have worn your hat numerous times, I'd say "go for it!", see if you can take your creativeness to a whole new level!  Good luck with CC yourselves!  If you decide to give this a whirl, drop me a line and let me know how it goes!  I'm sure I'll be blogging about my attempt in about a fortnight or so :)

Truth: the impossible search

As human beings, we find it comforting to believe in truth. But in reality, there is no such thing.

I'm not talking about whether or not someone is telling the truth about something or other. I'm talking about something much deeper: the absolute truth.

I've been taking a class called Theory of Knowledge for the past month and one of the first things I learned in the class is that all statements can be refuted. Even when rebutted, the statements never actually lose their credulity to the original author of the "truthful" statement. It all has to do with one word: belief. Not truth.

I don't care if you walk away after reading this post believing that there is truth. There is only one thing I really would like you to know: when it comes to opinion, there is no truth.

This post is for all of the rude people out there that leave nasty comments on videos and articles. I'm mostly directing this post at the people who write comments on YouTube with curse words galore. It probably isn't any one of you who read my blog that do these obnoxious things, but I'm fed up with these atrocious comments and couldn't resist blogging about it.

Just because you are doing this over the Internet and no one can see you does not give you the right to write nasty things. Please be considerate of your fellow earthlings. Let's coexist peacefully.

Success and its many definitions

Some of you may have noticed my poll on the definition of success (to the right of this blog).  Based on all two votes in the poll, my guess is that only a few people have seen it.  That is besides the point, though.  I was only interested in the viewpoint of my fellow earthlings. 

The other day I read a very interesting article.  The article was highly antagonistic, but at the same time it gave the reader insight into the culture of many Asians.  Then, a couple days later I heard more mention on success in Asian cultures on television.  Many Asians feel a lot of pressure to be "successful" and because of that they have more yearly suicides than most places on Earth.  This caused me to do some serious thinking about my definition of success.

My intent in posting this post is to explore the definition of success, since it is different in every culture.  Every one of the inhabitants on Earth have different viewpoints and because of that we like to come up with definitions which we can all agree on.  In the case of  the word success, the definition is very vague.  Imagine that.

Courtesy of Dictionary.com: Success = the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.  Many people focus on the first part of the definition~the attainment of wealth.  Today, on the Oprah show it was said that, in reality, a family of four needs to make no more than 75,000 dollars a year to easily survive as a middle class family.  This can prove this point quite well, if you chose to believe in it. 


There is always that phrase "wealth cannot buy happiness" hanging over everyone's head.  I think it's true.  We as a society need to value happiness more.  There needs to be a balance.  All in moderation, I always say.  The world is becoming materialistic, rude, and irresponsible by the minute.  Let's get rid of these pukish qualities, shall we? 

There are other less common definitions of success, but from my perspective the primary topics that humans focus on are money and happiness.  What about you?  What's your definition of success?  Vote in the poll before it's over and let's see what is the most common definition!

   

Stress begone! I'm serious. Now, shoo!

With the fast-paced world we all live in today, everyone has their own stress relievers.  What are yours?  Some people have a favorite song they play to calm themselves.  Others go talk with a close friend.  As for me, I've accidentally classically conditioned myself to go raid the gum drawer every time I feel mounting pressure.  I do not promote this behavior~although you might be thinking the contrary after my last post, which I dedicated to gum.  The topic I actually want to talk about on this post is: yoga practices!

It isn't the actual yoga poses I wish to talk about, but rather certain calming meditative-type practices.  I thought I knew I few things or two about yoga until one day at school, my teacher (who is also a yogi) began talking about a specific yoga practice that I was unfamiliar with.

Try this:

1) Sit down (if you aren't already).
2) Focus on your breathing.  Draw in steady, slow breaths.
3) Now lift one of your hands and put it out in front of you.  (I find this the most relaxing when I can rest my arm on something in front of me~like a table.)
4) When you exhale, direct your breath at the index finger pertaining to your raised hand.  Keep doing this until you can feel the blood pulsating through your finger.  Can you feel your livelihood going through your veins all the way to your capillaries?
5) Now, if you really want to challenge yourself, try to distinguish which way the blood is traveling through your finger.

You wouldn't believe how quiet the class was after this 90 second activity.  And we did this meditative yoga exercise almost immediately after lunch~the time when most of us are at our most active! 

Now, whenever I feel like relaxing and improving the longevity of my life~yes, that's right; there are studies that indicate people live longer when they are consciously aware of their heart beating~I focus on feeling the blood coursing through my veins. 

Also, if you have trouble falling asleep, I've read this is a good way to train your brain to let go of your thoughts and to fall peacefully into slumber.

Well, happy stress relieving!

To chew or not to chew?

I don't know about you, but I am a gum addict.  FYI: This is top secret!  I am divulging something my closest friends don't even know!  Actually, the fact that my friends don't know I'm a gum addict is true, but the part about this being top secret is not.  Obviously.   

I guess I have a weird sort of addiction to gum.  At school, I rarely chew it.  But once I get home, oh boy!  Right when I set foot in my house, I feel compelled to chew gum.  So my question to you is: How would you describe your gum-chewing habits?  Answer this question in my new poll!

Lately, I've come to the conclusion that more girls chew gum than boys.  But this is only based off my observation of classmates, nothing factual.  At this point in time, I'm inclined to rule out the idea that gum is perceived as something effeminate.  That doesn't seem to have to do with anything, from my perspective.

I was musing over this idea a couple minutes ago when all of a sudden, an idea struck me!  (Actually, the idea was based off an advertisement on the gum packet I was currently raiding.)  So here's my idea: maybe more girls chew gum because they are trying to deter themselves from eating.  I think there may be some data out there supporting this hypothesis, but I'm not sure this describes many other gum chewers out there such as myself.  So my only other logical answer is: maybe it's in our genes.       

Just kidding.  That's most likely not the answer, but I felt like now was a good time to bring up the age old question: Is it nature or nurture?  What is your opinion?

Well, that's all for today.  Tah-tah and don't forget to vote.  You have the ability to help this mystery appear less muddled in my mind!

Have you ever had some nutcase car-stalk you?

I've never had some crazy follow me, but just the other day a friend of mine had some lady car-stalking her for over 30 minutes.   Here's her story:

It had just snowed earlier and the roads were a little slick. My friend~let's call her Chloe~was on her way home and was coming up to a 4-way stop.  There was a van that was stopping to her left and there weren't any other cars near the intersection so Chloe, since she didn't have good tire traction, figured she could get away with doing a little sliding stop and turn before the van came out of its complete stop.

Boy was she wrong. First, the lady driving the van laid on her horn. This scared the wits out of Chloe, who figured honking was completely unnecessary since the driver of the van had done a complete stop and they would without a doubt have a slow acceleration due to the snow on the ground and wouldn't even be ready to cross the intersection by the time she had. Chloe was extremely shaken up with this lady's honk.  It was completely unexpected; so Chloe, thoughtlessly, flipped her the bird.

With shaky hands, Chloe completed the turn and started driving down the street away from the intersection.  Then, lo and behold, the van turned onto the street behind her!  The van had turned the opposite way to follow her!  Chloe stared disbelievingly in the rear-view mirror.  The white van was speeding toward her, accelerating recklessly fast considering their was a good couple inches of freshly fallen snow on the ground.

Chloe started thinking ahead.  Her neighborhood was only about two minutes away and the nutcase in the van was still stalking her. There was no way she was going to go home so Chloe drove right on past her neighborhood with the white van in close pursuit.

Apparently, this continued for at least 30 more minutes, possibly even 40 minutes. At some point the lady had even daringly passed a semi to catch up with Chloe!  Then, after following Chloe on a wild goose chase through the busy mall area and numerous streets, the van turned around.

Chloe breathed a huge sigh of relief and then glanced at the clock. She had wanted to actually do something that night, but that kook had taken a lot out of her so she turned around and started driving home.  Then, when she was turning into her neighborhood she saw the gleam of a white vehicle in the corner of her right eye.

Adrenaline shot through her veins once again.  Chloe wasn't sure if it was the same lady or not so she kept her eyes dead straight, not making any indication she had seen the vehicle, and drove to her house.  At this point, Chloe decided if this was the same lady she wasn't going to waste anymore time and was just going to wait for the lady to come confront her.

Chloe pulled in to her garage and shut the garage door quickly.  She walked into her house and sat down at the kitchen table, listening to her heart pounding ferociously.  A minute passed by and still no knock at the door.  Curiosity took hold of her, so Chloe creeped out of the kitchen and tip-toed over to the front door.  The driveway was empty.  No white van.  Little did she know, the van would be back in two days time.

It was Sunday afternoon and Chloe was talking to her daughter on the phone when she heard a car go part way down the street and then stop in front of her house.

"Hold on a sec," Chloe told her daughter.  "I think someone just pulled in to my driveway."

Chloe walked over to a window to take a peak and gasped.

"What is it, mom?!" asked Chloe's daughter.

"Remember that white van I told you about.  It's sitting in my driveway."

She stared out from behind the curtains of her window and watched the lady in the van with baited breath.  Nothing was happening.  Then, about 30 seconds later the engine started and the van backed out of her driveway and out of sight.

That was the last time Chloe saw the kook and her stereotypical white van; however, that wasn't the last time Chloe heard from the lady.

The next day when Chloe went to get the mail, right on top of her stack of mail was a blank envelope with no address or postage.  It had been hand-delivered.

Chloe ripped the envelope open right there on the spot.  In loopy, cursive handwriting was a page-long lecture berating Chloe's actions on Friday.  The lady started out the letter scolding Chloe on her incomplete stop at the stop sign and then went on to say that Chloe was lucky that she wasn't some crazy person or Chloe could have gotten hurt doing what she did.  The lady also said that Chloe should be more careful because she could get hurt and her future passengers could get hurt if she upset some kook and the kook were to come after her.  Not hypocritical at all, right?

The letter was left unsigned.  And from what I know, that was the last time Chloe has seen or been contacted by the lady and her white van.

New Year's resolution down the drain?

I don't know about you, but I made my New Year's resolution too hard.  At first I told myself, this will be easy!   Set aside 30-60 minutes a day for writing? Pschhh, you can find time to do that during a boring class at school.  You don't even have to set aside time at home to write.  Here's what happened:

January first of 2011 passed.  There was no pen tickling the paper that day.  None at all.  And you know what?  On that day, I was in the car heading back home from winter vacation.  I had 18 hours to write!  Granted, I didn't have sunlight for all 18 of those hours, but all I needed to do was write for 30 minutes! Instead, I was too busy admiring the view whizzing past me as we hurdled down the highway at 80 mph.  The highway definitely has the world-class scenery, doesn't it?

After pondering how I can stare out the window for hours on end, you are probably wondering why I'm writing about this now when I failed 21 days ago.  Well, to be frank, I just remembered my New Year's resolution a couple hours ago!  You may be asking how I forgot a promise I made to myself, but the truth is: I don't really know.  I guess I have an odd psyche. 

So now that I have remembered my resolution~drum-roll please~I'm going to amend my New Year's resolution!!  And yes, just like a constitution!  Except without as much debating and controversy.

And that is the story of why I am writing a blog now!  I've decided I might actually write 30-60 minutes a day if I interact with others about what I'm writing.  It'll be much more motivating!  So in order to help me with my amended New Year's resolution, will you comment on this article and the subsequent articles I post?  And don't forget to vote in the poll I've created!  I'm very interested to see the results.