brotherly love

Come rain or shine, 88-year-old Bermudian Johnny Barnes devotes six hours every day to an endearing traffic ritual that has made him one of the island’s most cherished citizens. 

Mr. Happy Man from Matt Morris Films on Vimeo.

raising awareness about food...

creating a healthier more sustainable food supply

1+1=beauty

I just read John Green's new book, The Fault In Our Stars. While I was reading it, I also happened to watch a cool video by Salman Khan called The Beauty of Algebra. In addition, my son is studying M.C. Escher in art. This combination  has me thinking a lot about the mathematical beauty of the universe.


Check out these two videos by Spanish filmmaker Cristobal Vila, Nature by Numbers and Inspirations. See if you can find beauty in the Fibonacci Series and Spiral, the Golden and Angle Ratios, or the Delauney Triangulation.




INSPIRATIONS from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

M.C. Escher (1898-1972) was the Dutch artist who explored a wide range of mathematical ideas with his woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. I fell in love with his work at a gallery showing at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Although Escher had no formal training in mathematics beyond secondary school, many mathematicians counted themselves as admirers of his work. (Visit this online gallery to get better acquainted with Escher’s art, and be sure to click on the thumbnails to enlarge the images). As Vila explains, Inspirations tries to imagine Escher’s workplace, “what things would surround an artist like him, so deeply interested in science in general and mathematics in particular.” This video is three minutes of unbridled imagination.

the genius of true love

Back in 2010 Malcolm Gladwell was on Radiolab. He had just written Outliers and introduces us to a cool idea...


The idea that so-called 'geniuses' are not, in fact, more talented or more evolved or more intelligent, but rather they are actively in love with the object of their vocation.

"Why are people so hostile to the notion that what genius is is an extraordinary love for a particular thing?" 

~ Malcolm Gladwell

If we reframe genius in this way, then...

Wayne Gretzky is in love with hockey. Lady Gaga is in love with self expression. Albert Einstein was in love with theoretical physics. Yo-Yo Ma is in love with the cello.


In love... the I can't stop thinking about you, obsessive, lose all track of time, kind of love.


This state of extraordinary love, as Gladwell puts it, allows us to do extraordinary things.


I recently posted on the genius of Richard Feynman. The divorce complaint filed by his second wife Mary Louise Bell states: He begins working calculous problems in his head as soon as he awakens. He did calculous while driving in his car, while sitting in the living room, and while lying in bed at night.


Richard Feynman loved calculous.


What do you love? Where does your passion lie?


listen to the old Radiolab below:

educating the heart

Sir Ken Robinson + The Dalai Lama Center = Wonderful



For the full talk... click here

interconnected

One Day on Earth is a documentary media project about the amazing diversity, conflict, tragedy, and triumph that occurs in one 24-hour period on this planet . More than a film, “One Day on Earth” is a multi-platform participatory media project.


Global screening on Earth Day 2012 


One Day on Earth - Global Screening Trailer from One Day on Earth on Vimeo.

think funny

Every act of communication is, in some way, 

an act of translation.

leave the door ajar

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.” 

― Richard P. Feynman

lollipop moment

We've made leadership about changing the world, and there is no world. There's only 6 billion understandings of it, and if you change one person's understanding of it... you've changed their world. If we can define leadership like that, we can change everything.


It's a simple idea... but not a small one.

american poverty

Steve Liss is the project director of AmericanPoverty.org
His goal as a photojournalist is to "take invisible poverty and make it visible once again."

"I don't think people really understand or have had the opportunity to see the new face of poverty and that's something that we're endeavoring to do."

Listen to a September 2011 NPR interview of Steve Liss here.
Watch an interview on CNN.

AmericanPoverty.org CNN Interview from AmericanPoverty.org on Vimeo.

change the way you eat

TEDxManhattan


"Not a sparrow falls, without his maker knowing."


Eat consciously.

happy 200

“The most important thing in life 

is to stop saying 'I wish' 

and start saying 'I will.' 

Consider nothing impossible, 

then treat possibilities as probabilities.”

~ Charles Dickens,  David Copperfield

Spoken word poet Kelly Tsai


"Marking the day when my family will stop saying 'American' when they mean white."


Kelly's book recommendations for becoming a spoken word poet :

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Steven King

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Writing Alone & With Others by Pat Schneider

June Jordan’s Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint by June Jordan

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver

recurring

I received an email the other day that some friends have started a cancer wellness community in Boise. Their vision has lead me to re-read Mary Oliver and have this recurring thought...

Life is relentlessly precious.

one important point

There is only one important point you must keep in your mind and let it be your guide.

No matter what people call you, you are just who you are. Keep to this truth. You must ask yourself how is it you want to live your life.

We live and we die, this is the truth that we can only face alone. No one can help us, not even the Buddha.

So consider carefully, what prevents you from living the way you want to live your life?

-
HH Dalai Lama