Go to any wedding, and in many ways, you will hear the same phrases: “They are so good together.” “They’re such a cute couple!” Or at a funeral, you’re likely to hear how much that person loved their family and was dedicated to their work.?So is every funeral or every wedding nearly identical??Of course not. Each person has their own story, their own journey. But why is it that we tend to hear the same stories over and over in different contexts? Recently, Wharton Professor Adam Grant wrote a piece in the......
Continue Reading
Recently, I introduced meditation to my high school spirituality class. I joined them, closing my eyes, peeking to see how people were doing. The second time I opened my eyes, I noticed more than one student fiddling with their smartphones. As we debriefed afterward, I asked what challenges they encountered as I guided the group to sit with awareness of breath and body. One student volunteered that she was so uncomfortable with the silence she just had to fidget with her iPhone. The boredom was unbearable. When we ‘zone out,’ we do......
Continue Reading
On The Wisdom Daily this week (July 20-24), we discussed how trust is really a two-way street, how walking offers a shortcut to creativity, how compassionate gestures can retain credibility and how gun violence keeps locking our country into paralysis instead of a commitment to problem-solve. Did you grow wiser this week? We hope The Wisdom Daily played a part. Don’t You Trust Me? – Brad Hirschfield How many times have I – or my wife, or most any parent I know – heard the words, “Don’t you trust me?” from......
Continue Reading
A few weeks back I wrote about how exciting and unnerving it is that, according to a new Pew Report on religion,?institutional religion in America is clearly weakening.?With people mixing, blending and bending their identities – and with spiritual resources increasingly accessible independent of religious institutions and authorities – there are now more Americans religiously unaffiliated than there are members of any denomination! In other words, America’s largest religion is None (or unaffiliated). I suggested that in religion, just as in so many arenas like health, education, music and media, we’re on......
Continue Reading
Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? Inaugurated in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month is touted as “the largest literary celebration in the world.” Writers, teachers and librarians throughout the United States band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. For the organization’s annual event this month, luminaries in the creative arts (the 2015 list includes choreographer Judith Jamison, songwriter Sam Beam, actor Holly Hunter and chef Anita Lo) will gather in New York City to share their favorite poems at......
Continue Reading
Did you know that Benjamin Franklin started his day with an “air bath” – which means he sat around naked? And that Thomas Wolfe wrote while standing up in the kitchen, utilizing the top of the refrigerator as his desk, fondling his “male configurations”? Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on enough tablets to meet ten times the recommended daily dosage of Corydrane (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin). The painter Georgia O’Keefe rose early to drink tea alone in bed and watch the sun rise before entering her studio. And the writer Honore de......
Continue Reading
Bob Dylan’s new album of ballads from the American Songbook is remarkable, heartfelt, and vulnerable. All ten tracks have one thing in common: they were interpreted and made popular by Frank Sinatra. Yes, the enigmatic ’60s counterculture icon, the raspy-voiced rebellious rocker, is rendering songs made famous by one of the smoothest nightclub crooners of all time. But I don’t think Dylan is selling out.?Shadows in the Night reveals an irrepressible, creative spirit once again upending expectations. Ever idiosyncratic, Dylan does what he always does – arranges, appropriates and interprets to create......
Continue Reading
I love when science confirms, and even deepens, the intuition of an ancient practice. A study conducted by Stanford researchers Daniel Schwartz and Marily Opprezzo, reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, found that creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for people when they were walking compared to people who were sitting. In one sample, walking subjects thought of 81 to 100 percent more potential uses for an object than their seated counterparts did. In another sample, people thought of a greater number of linguistic analogies while walking than they did......
Continue Reading
We need outliers, and we need their ideas. We need the involvement in our lives, especially in the big projects on which we work, of those who see the world differently and think about things in ways which will surprise, if not discomfort us. For those who will quickly say that they already embrace diversity and discomfort, let them appreciate that those are their comfort zones, and they need the input of others, others who privilege uniformity and comfort. Whatever our default position is, be it political, social, spiritual or psychological, we......
Continue Reading
Business & Education, Wisdom Warehouse |
January 13, 2014
Hackschooling: No More Teachers, No More Books?
In the 21st century, the notion of hacking involves much more than some computer aficionados spreading viruses and breaking into official websites. Hacking is a mindset, a way of thinking. It’s really something anyone can do by challenging traditional systems. Teenager Logan Laplante isn’t home schooled, private schooled or public schooled – he is hackschooled! His education revolves around the study and practice of being happy and growing up healthy and nurturing creativity, things which Logan and his parents believe are outside the focus of traditional education. Here’s a kid who doesn’t......
Continue Reading