Marketing to the Child of Tomorrow

Post title and photo are related. Really.

Pico Iyer has an op-ed piece at the New York Times with a significant message for all of us who are plugged in. It's called The Joy of Quiet. In light of Facebook, email, web articles, and work that requires me to sit in front of an online computer... I am taking his words to heart.

The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

I am not giving up Facebook, blogging and other Internet joys. They are useful, relevant, and too much fun. I love mind-expanding gems I find on my Facebook feed—including this article I am urging everyone to read. Plus, I can't give up  work which requires me to use and mine the Web. 

I will, however, take more time cultivating that ability to sit quietly alone in a room. I will allot more time for being unplugged, connected only to real live people and whatever part of Mother Earth surrounds me. My 2012 resolution duly noted.

But here's a clincher: While Pico Iyer's Joy of Quiet rings so true, so do these words from Clay Shirky.

There’s no such thing as information overload — only filter failure.

Only ten words, but so much truth. It's a quote I had  picked  up from a Salon interview of David Weinberger, senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He  talks about how the Internet has revolutionized knowledge, and how we now have a medium that, finally, matches the breadth of human curiosity. It is a fact that is profoundly awesome, but Pico Iyer reminds us of an equally profound caveat in The Joy of Quiet. 

Speaking of curiosity, it's 2012 and I still obnoxiously peddle stuff I've read. Some things will never change. And speaking of obnoxious, if this post's title and photo still don't make sense to you, you probably still haven’t read The Joy of Quiet. Click! Click!

May all our resolutions be fulfilled this 2012!

Teaching Compassion and Empathy

When I grow up I want to be fearless like Joan Halifax.

She is a Zen Roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, writer, teacher, LSD researcher, scholar of the US Library of Congress and the only woman and Buddhist on the Advisory Council of the Tony Blair Foundation. Joan Halifax is described in her TED profile as "a driving force of socially engaged Buddhism." Her activism involves helping the sick and dying. In this TED Talk she describes the true meaning of compassion and empathy.

Her talk was enlightening and emotional in many ways. But aside from her clear description of what compassion truly is, here are my highlights, paraphrased:

Compassion is an inherent human quality. We are all born compassionate, but it has to be aroused.

Compassion has three enemies—Pity, Moral Outrage and Fear. To which my mind clicked… 1) Pity—Many people think compassion IS pity. This is what some dogmatic institutions lead us to believe. 2) Moral Outrage—This is why dogma is dangerous. 3) Fear—Which is why the most enlightened people are the least worried about outcome, mistakes, failure and loss. Which is why I aspire to be fearless like Joan Halifax.

Those who cultivate compassion feel suffering more, but they return to baseline a lot sooner. This is resilience. True compassion does not drain us, it enlivens us. It compels us to act.

Neuroscientists have seen how cultivating compassion is not just good for others and humanity in general. Compassion is good for our health. It enhances neural integration—hooking up all parts of the brain and making it work better. It also enhances the immune system. 

And now the highlight of my highlights is this… she asks, "If compassion is so good for us why don't we train our children in compassion?"

The next big query is, and there's already a long thread about it on TED: Exactly how do we train our children in compassion? I have my own thoughts, but it’s a great question to throw out there. Think about it. I'd love to hear your ideas.

i'm so distracted

Thank you New York Magazine. 

I work on my computer which can be challenging because it's my veritable box of distraction. There's this blog, my multiply, facebook, favorite parenting sites, other blogs-of-note that I click on regularly. Plus all the magazines and newspapers on-line. I have a tab on Safari just for those - from Salon, The New York Times, to The Guardian, just to name a few. It's wonderful really, but also crazy... like my head could explode crazy.

So of course when my friend Jam calls my attention (via facebook, hello!) to an article from New York Magazine called In Defense of Distraction I am so clicking on it. Well, it was worth the few minutes of uhmm.. distraction. An excerpt:

The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction. Unwavering focus—the inability to be distracted—can actually be just as problematic as ADHD. Trouble with “attentional shift” is a feature common to a handful of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and OCD. It’s been hypothesized that ADHD might even be an advantage in certain change-rich environments. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that a brain receptor associated with ADHD is unusually common among certain nomads in Kenya, and that members who have the receptor are the best nourished in the group. It’s possible that we’re all evolving toward a new techno-cognitive nomadism, a rapidly shifting environment in which restlessness will be an advantage again.

So neuroscientists think we are evolving into humans that can sift through more information than ever before - even if delivered fast and simultaneously. They predict our children will develop capacities such as "a sense of the way ten projects all dovetail into something totally new." Those ADHD tendencies may actually come in handy. Hmm... another thing to keep in mind as a 21st century parent. These are theories of course, but still I'm tabbing them into my head.

So what is focused distraction and why is techno-cognitive nomadism not exactly multi-tasking? What does this have to do with meditation and Buddhism? Answers in the full article.

Or may I distract you with the question: What if your kids went to Camp Michael McDonald? Just for some 46 seconds of laughter. Confession: I watched this about 8 times while trying to finish this post. Distractions, distractions....

See how New York Magazine, neuroscience, Buddhism, The Doobie Brothers and Conan O'Brien all dovetailed into this one blog post? Is it too late for my 30-plus-year-old brain to evolve?