The Dark Side of the Mind

Amazing article I found from Ego Development…

If you desire to stay positive in your life, try to avoid these bad human habits. When you make these changes, you will feel it will make great changes in the way you see things and will help you live a happier life.

1. Fear
“Fear” is one of the harmful negative or depressing emotions. Fear, like all other depressing emotions, poisons the body. This is not said in a figurative sense. It is an actual scientific fact; it has been demonstrated chemically. Were it not for the fact that the lungs, skin, kidneys and the bowels are constantly removing poisons from the body, an acute attack of fear would prove fatal.

2. Worry
Worrying is perhaps the most common and the worst of our mental sins. Worry is like a cancer: It eats in and in. It is destructive of both body and mind. It is due largely to lack of self-control and is a symptom of cowardice. Much worry is also indicative of great selfishness, which most of those afflicted will deny. Those who worry much are always in poor health, which grows progressively worse. The form of indigestion accompanied by great acidity and gas formation is a prolific source of worry, as well as of other mental and physical troubles. The acidity irritates the nervous system and the irritation in time causes mental depression.

3. Guiltiness/Regret.
For one thing, we are all guilty. We live not knowing as much as we need to know about the problems that we have, and so we make mistakes, all of us. It is Nature itself that is imperfect, and we are all the heirs of this imperfection. Knowing that you are totally created makes it possible to rise above personal injuries and move beyond guiltiness and regret. In the words of Lao-Tse, “When I let go of who I am, I become who I might be.”

4. Depression-despair.
Depression affects more than just an individual’s mood and general overall sense of well being. Depression surfaces in a number of other ways, including the form of eating disorders. To be a whole person again, you can move away from ignoring or repudiating your bad feelings and move into a position of being receptive to change. From this position you are compassionate – you recognize that you are more than your bad feelings. Implicit in this attitude lie the words, “I am with you. I do not turn away from you. I acknowledge you. I recognize your bad feelings. My compassion recognizes that you are more than you think you are. Who you are and who you have been have been produced by the processes of Nature/life. I do not repudiate or desert any of you. I do not turn my back on you. I do not try to will you out of existence. I acknowledge your existence, each part of your body and each part of your mind. A person is going to feel the full range of human feelings, including fear, shame, hostility, and guiltiness.

5. Anger.
Anger is a normal human emotion. However, when it’s unresolved or unchecked, it can lead to devastating consequences for the person holding onto the anger and those around him or her. The major reason that anger is so difficult to manage for most people is that it has become a habitual response to certain people, places and situations. Most habits tend to operate below our awareness—meaning we react without considering our choices

6. Self-blame
If you are down on yourself, practicing a lot of self-blame, please remember that it is very difficult to get by in this complicated world as it is without any disorders. Blaming yourself for all kinds of stuff such as whether other people are happy, whether other people work hard, whether your relationship fails to thrive, whether a social event is going well – is so much work! People who blame themselves for too much mistake influence for control. A mother may be able to influence her child when it comes to academic study but she can’t completely control the child’s motivation (or lack of). You may be able to influence whether your partner or friend has a good time but you certainly can’t be totally responsible.

7. Indifference 
An absence of compulsion to or toward one thing or another. To be indifferent is to realize that I have no interest — not now, not yet or maybe ever — in something I have become aware of and spent some time prioritizing. To not know is to realize how futile self-importance is. Ignorance however represents a procrastinization of thought. Ignorance is the substitution of belief for knowledge. Where continuing ignorance would curtain with darkness, realization provides the ubiquity of sun light. The bliss of ignorance is ironic — I’m giving away my bliss to the rapturous.

Uzi USB Drive Marketing Campaign

I don’t normally promote the music or activities of mainstream hip-hop.  But this Marketing campaign for the "Get Busy Committee" caught my eye, especially wit h their custom-made Uzi-shaped USB drives… Clever since their new album is called "Uzi Does It."

Being a novelty USB junkie… I thought it was pretty cool :)

[Wired]

Classic Works get ‘Twitterized’ – twitterature

Now this is a nice modernisation… 60 classic works of literature got re-imagined through Twitter. Everyon’es favourite publishing house, Penguin, just bought the rights to Twitterature and it includes some brilliant re-imaginings of literature.  The book won’t be published in the UK till 5 November but the book has been seen by the guys at the Guardian… check these out…

Romeo tweets his dying lament: O, I am fortune’s fool! Maybe just a tool. And so I die. BTW that other woman I was into before Juliet? Would’ve been a safer bet.

Sherlock Holmes says: Continuing investigation. Made brilliant deductions on many snorts and very little evidence. Notice salt deposits on factory owner’s shoes?

Goethe’s Young Werther emotes: Have I noted how upset I am? I am very upset. #pain #angst #suffering #sexdep.

Elizabeth Bennet muses: It’s as if the less he seems to care about me, the more drawn to him I am. This seems the opposite of how it should be? Oh well.

And then there’s Ishmael from Moby-Dick: We set out. Follow @starbuck, @queequeg for long introspective soliloquies on the human soul. Or @tashtego if you like adorable kittens.

Pretty damn cool, right?  Especially if you ever got down to reading any of the books above or at least know the work in some way. Hence the note from the author…

"There has been some misunderstanding about the book in that it’s been said it’s going to educate people, but you couldn’t do an English class with this book. The humour is heightened by having knowledge of the works."

Anyway… All of the Classic works were distilled into 20 tweets or fewer.

Love it.

Jump Trump Rump Bump

This is a very cool animation I came across… it makes me feel good, you know. It’s got good direction in the way you see one scene fading into the background as the new one takes precedence and the way the characters are introduced is done very effectively.

JumpTrumpRumpBump from Molasses Murphy on Vimeo.

Oh… and the ‘Pull my finger…’ gag is Priceless! It’s so Random! This is a classic.

Chasing Your Tail: A Parable on Happiness

There is this very interesting parable I heard recently about ‘Happiness’ and how to attain it.  I had to share it here is because it made so much sense in a very cool way.  So to all those seeking happiness… here goes…

An old cat in an alley comes across a little kitten chasing it’s tail and asks "What the hell are you doing?" The little kitten replies "Well… I’ve been studying Cat Philosophy and I’ve discovered that there are only two things that are important for a cat… one is that Happiness is the most important thing for a cat and two, Happiness is located in a cat’s tail. So what I figured out is that if I keep on chasing my tail when I finally get it I will have a LOT of Happiness.’

The old cat replied "Well I haven’t had the chance to go to Cat Philosophy School, I’ve just wandered around the alley’s most of my life and I’ve come to the same conclusion as you… Happiness is the most important thing for a cat and that happiness is indeed located in my tail. The only difference between you and I is that I’ve discovered that if you go about your business and do the things that are important to you, the things which need to be done… It will follow after you… wherever you go…"

:)