Martin Seligman was the president of the American Psychology Association. He’s written a few best sellers, one of which sits next to me as I write this entry. “Authentic Happiness” is the title. The book blew my mind a few times when it addressed a few psychological misconceptions which alone are worth the price of the book. It surprised me to learn that at least according to statistics and surveys, most people are happier than most people think, even people in dire and difficult circumstances. Also, people usually return to their general level of happiness. Tragedies to do strike, but even after great difficulties, people usually return to their happiness setting or pattern of happiness.

The biggest “aha” for me was finding out that the modern and largely American concept of the value of venting emotions is based on a flawed model. The idea is that people hold emotions like liquids in a plastic bag. If the emotion doesn’t get bled out one place, it will come out another. But psychological studies invalidate this. The expressing of emotions actually tends to increase them. So if you express a lot of anger, you just get angrier. If you express a lot of happiness, you get happier. Suppressing anger can be healthy. This is a gross simplification of the results of the study, I recommend looking up the book for a greater understanding of the science behind it. I’m sure there are times when it is healthy to communicate anger, but the clear message I got from the book and which is confirmed by personal experience – it is healthy to hold back angry feelings because they tend to fade. If you decide to dig the Clergy resources, it could remind you of the bible passage, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” Of course, humans tend to express and feel more emotions than just anger, so it might also be worthwhile looking at something similar to this list of emotions – dailyrx has published or similar webpages, as varying anger levels may not be the only thing that could be healthy or unhealthy for a particular individual.

Yet with all these benefits and messages, what most inspired me to blog about the book was the scientific implication of the God concept. Seligman relates his own journey through the field very nicely in the first chapter, about how Psychology had been focussed on problems, broken people, on mental illness. Seligman found his mission in life when he faced the facinating topic of learned helplessness and discovered that it challenged the psychological models in use. His breakthrough was realizing that they didn’t have a model of happiness and psychological health.

At the core of psychological health he believes are several virtues that are common to all the main world religions:

• Wisdom and knowledge
• Courage
• Love and humanity
• Justice
• Temperance
• Spirituality and transcendence

Seligman doesn’t philosophize much about God in his book, it’s not a theological treatise. But he does write a little in his final chapter. His ideas aren’t developed, it’s an interesting chapter because of the personal way he relates his thoughts through story, and it’s interesting because it raises questions about God, meaning, and purpose. Having spent time with scientists and engineers most of my life since college, I well know that the God concept itself is very suspect in that arena. Seligman seems intrigued by the idea that it could be valuable again in science.

We can go to the moon, we can split atoms, all based on a greater grasp of the material laws. But how meaningful really is any of that, if life has no meaning to us individually and as a culture. Isn’t it interesting that the core values that make life meaningful are virtues common to the world religions, the very heart of where mankind has encountered a Creator, the Buddha, Enlightenment, or whatever one calls the core origins of our universe?

In academic prose and especially college text books, there’s often the statement “the proof is left as an exercise to the reader.”

This blog entry was inspired by a Huffington Post article by Deepak Chopra. I hope it inspires thought and some mental exercise.

Richard Dawkins has written a number of influential books. He invented the term “meme”. Now he’s been taking on God as his adversary, or more accurately the God concept. It is certainly an ambitious project. Deepak Chopra and Richard Dawkins are both bloggers on the Huffington Post, and thus the battleground is set. But I found the opening salvo of this post to be very interesting.

Ultimately, Richard Dawkins can fight with religion all he wants and it will be only a sideshow. He is a color commentator sitting in the bleachers, not a player in the game. Skepticism offers critiques, not discoveries. Ironically, this is a shared fate with religion, which has ceased to play a progressive and vital role in modern society. […] The two are locked in a sterile embrace.[…]

This quote was read to me, and it was on my to-do list to blog about it for some time. But peering at the logged comments, I was amazed at the amount of passionate vituperative responses that Dr. Chopra’s entries had inspired in the comments section of several of his entries. Dare I step into the crossfire?

Sterile Science and Sterile Religion are apparently at war, and non-sterile passionate lively boisterous humans are picking up the ammunition and philosophical hand-grenades to toss at one another. But maybe dialog is really what we need?

In any case, I don’t have much sympathy for the ideas of a “God Delusion”. It represents a deeply uninformed view that Deepak rightly protests. It is a viewpoint that holds many of our best and brightest human beings in bondage. Science hit a wall some time ago in it’s grand project to create a theory-for-everything. But the wall was hit in the deepest philosophical underpinnings of science in ways that did not spread to the rank and file researchers. It is why there are so many books about Quantum Physics these days. The greatest physical Scientists of our times have always also been great Mystics. Einstein. Newton. For they were delving in to the mysteries themselves to find answers.

But what of our Spiritual Scientists? Like Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed? Perhaps the Spiritual truths are much more fundamental and dangerous than the physical truths. We think we can hold physical truth in our hands. But what is matter? What is time? What is energy? If we skip those questions, and say, well, look, you know what matter is. It’s, like, you know. That bit of dirt. And this bowling ball.

True, we do share a physical experience. At least it seems to be the case. But as far as we can tell, we also share an internal experience. A “subjective” experience. For the mystic, for the one experiencing the divine or the sublime, the question of whether there is a God or not is an empty question. Like Deepak says, the people engaging in such debates are really like the people in the bleachers.

If you are seeking a “science-backed” truth to God, then you may never find it (although, alternate views are emerging in Science too). An open-minded spiritual journey, however, may provide different results altogether. Whether today’s modern mystic explores his own spirit and God through Christianity and the ministry for youth; or through Hinduism and its nuanced, multi-sect teachings; or through the Zen so often expounded by Japanese Buddhists; the path may seem different, but the end of the journey culminates at a single point for all.

An observer of a dance might debate the value of dancing. They might fight. But it’s much more interesting to be dancing than to talk about it. Where are you in the dance? The answer is left as an exercise to the reader.

Dan Pink’s excellent book, “A Whole New Mind,” was a wonderful bit of neon holiday reading. It worked great on the airplane to add a splash of color with the huge title and bright orange cover. Seriously now, the book helped recognize some important trends that make certain skills much more valuable and critical in the new economic environment. Specifically, abundance, Asia, and automation are making the previously lucrative analytic and left brain skills less of a competitive advantage. And it makes right brain abilities like design, empathy, and narrative, much more important. There’s a lot of material in Dan’s book for blogging, but I’ll stick to narrative for this one.

The picture to the left is a photo from my mother’s school newspaper when she was growing up in Hawaii. Dan Pink’s book helped me to see that photo, as a result of following his advice and looking up StoryCorps as a way to develop my narrative skills. I found the link before I arrived at the place of my spawning in New York City, and after reading the link I was encouraged to interview my mom on video tape again. I’ve videotaped interviews of other peoples parents, but the interview process never clicked for me before – despite a deep desire to record and remember the stories and heritage from my parents, relatives, as well as friends and even strangers. People have also recommended using the Genealogy Bank website to uncover more of my family’s history hidden away in newspaper articles and obituaries from bygone eras – it’s a powerful resource and grants access to over 2 billion genealogy records. The idea of taking my camera to new people and asking interesting questions has appealed for many years. The StoryCorps site helped me generate a set of questions that led to some amazing discoveries when I interviewed my mother on the kitchen table. I never knew she had won several competitions, including airplane trips to other islands, and was chosen as a 4H club beauty queen. She pulled out a scrap book and I saw her many photos in old newspaper articles, one of which was the national 4H club magazine.

If you want to set up your own interviews, check out the StoryCorps online question generator program, get a tape recorder and ask away. Just a little bit of preparation and planning makes a big difference for a good interview. With that I learned some new stories and some old stories, and hearing those stories made the world richer for me, maybe it can for you too.

Gas prices have risen considerably, and it is clear that the supplies of oil are diminishing. It is well known that any oil field once it is tapped will at some point reach its peak production capacity, and after it reaches its peak, the production level will drop off, sometimes dramatically. While production level does drop off after a while, oil and gas investments are usually very profitable. If you look at the entire earth as an oil field, the question becomes, when is the earth at peak production, and when will the production level start to fall. It is believed we are quite far off from this point just yet. The concept is called “peak oil”, and I’ll let you research it on Google if you want to know more about it. It clearly has repercussions. I get some investment newsletters, and clearly the investment community knows about this issue. A lot of dollars as well as government policy is chasing this one. Some claim our Middle East policy is largely about this issue.

But rather than add to the clamor which has taken up plenty of conversation time at home, here’s something you might not have heard about. There’s plenty of energy, which might be used. Sometimes fuel costs might be very high to afford. But there are many payment plans available to ease your burden. It is not mandatory to pay your whole bill immediately, you can opt for plans through which you can split your entire bill and pay the minimum amount every month. Maybe we’ll run out of petrol, maybe not, but there’s plenty of energy wealth. This kind of fuel investment plan might save you from the moment of crisis. Here’s why.

Perhaps the best medicine for the Malthusian blues is to take a gander at the ideas of Paul Zane Pilzer. Pilzer is “a world-renowned economist, a multimillionaire software entrepreneur, an adjunct professor, and the author of seven best-selling books and dozens of scholarly publications.” He also served as economic advisor to two presidential administrations, and predicted the Savings and Loan crisis in the eighties.”

Pilzer has written books about this issue. In an interview by Anthony Robbins Mr. Pilzer explained that if you had an island where everyone fished for food, and one person invented a fishing net that made all the fishing jobs obsolete, what would you do? It might seem that you have a “net” loss of jobs and thus the island is poorer, but the reality is completely the opposite as the new invention has actually added productivity and value to the tribe. A good economic policy would not force a single fisherman to fish so that everyone else could eat. Instead, just let the newly unemployed do other things that now become possible because of the fishing net. The former fisher people can become teachers, artists, scientists, etc. Oil in the ground used to mean that the ground was not arable, and was thus worthless. Finding that oil could be used to make gasoline essentially created a new energy source unavailable before. There was a prediction that coal would run out in England during their Industrial Revolution, and that coal prices would skyrocket. Coal prices did increase short term, but long term, replacements were found. And the supply did not run out, they kept finding other sources.

Amory Lovins was featured in Discover magazine this past February. A physicist, economist, inventor, and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, he makes clear that there is an issue, but rather than sink into despair, we should see what we can do about it. There are many options for renewable resources, and a healthy path to get there.

Are you thinking of changing energy provider? Perhaps your electrical needs have changed or you are simply looking for a better deal? Reading TriEagle Energy reviews on energy provider comparison websites can ensure you make an informed decision about how best to proceed. As with any utility bill, always remember to do your research before making any changes to your policy or plan.

Of course, this isn’t to say there won’t be bumps along the path, but the correct way of thinking is to know that the solutions are out there, and to get to it. There’s even a great pay off if you can help find new energy resources. And that’s not just the kind that makes the cars run. There’s plenty of energy wealth between your ears to solve other problems that can produce more value, whatever your gifts are.

Face it, the news can be a real downer. And is it really the truth? If you stick your head in a septic tank and report every detail of how things are decaying and falling apart in there, yeah, it’d be true, but the question is how true. Outside, a tree blooms, children play, birds sing. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, perhaps truth is in the heart. If that’s true, what kind of truth do we want to put there?

I’ve seen some great truths, some beautiful truths, some helpful truths at 100bloggers.com. The material you’ll find can help improve your game of life, but even more amazing is that you can get in conversation with these folks, and they’re up to great things, writing books, forging networks, and making this little blue brown ball a little better. Check them out, from the founder Troy Worman, to the wonderful Phil Gerbyshak, Trevor Gay, and many others.

A friend once related a horrible study where the mad white coated scientists put cats in a vise so they could see the world, but not interact with it for a long time, and then dissected their brains and compared it to a normal kitten’s development. He said they found it was mush. Don’t let your brains become mush! The bloggers need your comments and interaction to keep them going, and it will help your brain too. See you in the blogosphere.

Conferences are wonderful opportunities to network, meet people, and to learn about the topic area of the conference. If you’re fortunate enough to be a speaker, the opportunities increase even more.

A friend of mine works in the financial sector and he often tells me that conferences are an excellent marketing opportunity. He leads financial seminars at conferences and finds that these sessions are a unique way to promote his products and services to a wider audience. In financial services marketing staying one step ahead of the competition is fundamental, and attending conferences allows you to keep an ear to the ground.

What about hosting one though?

Tim O’Reilly has invited friends in the computer field to participate in his exclusive “Foo Camps”. They’re conferences that are bascially self-organizing, if you’ve been lucky enough to be invited. But some didn’t feel like waiting, and they started “Bar camp”. You just find a space with several rooms where speakers can speak, invite whoever you want in whatever topic area you like, and let them create the conference.

Would like you like to host a conference? If you need some inspiration, check out this video.

Browsing Phil Gerbyshak’s quite generous offerings, full of great links, I found this link to Bill Kinnon’s mention of the Generous Web. Bill’s post describes beautifully how one billion online people sharing freely and generously of their knowledge is creating a powerful force for good, a disruptive conspiracy that is changing the world.

Generous websters share the best of what they see on the web, and they do it rapidly through links (and there are wonderful links on Phil’s and Bill’s sites). I challenge everyone to go and do likewise, be a part of the generous web. Take from it, and also add to it. There are many challenges around today that are asking for the best from each of us. Join the conspiracy!

Hello from a hotel in Battle Mountain, Nevada. It was as far as I made it last night on my way back to Montana from San Francisco. Notice my new shiny MacBookPro, showing the inbuilt iSight running on iMovie. So this is sort of an iBlogPost. Thank you to Hugh, it was through his support and encouragement I took the bold step of getting this sweet machine. I was seeing it everywhere in California, as I roamed JavaOne 2006 in Moscone Center, San Francisco, hoping I’d get to show of my new MacBookPro, and it was all over the place. Including on the big stage. I was roller blading around Golden Gate Park yesterday, and someone was using it on the side of a road. It was someone who was part of a movie crew.

This fortune showed up a few weeks ago in a Chinese Restaurant in Missoula. Carl Jung, the Austrian psychologist and contemporary of the atheistic Sigmund Freud was one of the early great psychologists, and for me at least, more useful. Carl Jung taught things that have been proven in more modern empirical studies, such as religious conversion is often the best path to deep personal change. Rather than being stuck in a scientific materialist model, which only allowed Freud to go as deep as the sexual drives, Jung was able to delve into the realm of spirit. For many, this is a problem, because the study of spirit and the study of material science had been divided up very cleanly between the priests and the scientists. It wasn’t ok for anyone to wander into the no-man’s divide between the realm of science and that of spirit. But Carl Jung did so, and his theory of Synchronicity made for a wonderful dance song in my college years that perhaps can explain why I think fortune cookies can work.

Synchronicity is the theory of meaningful coincidences, and for me at least, I find valuable synchronicity in the fortune cookies I receive. They can be messages from the universe and the Creator, and not just a cookie factory. And it occurred to me from that fortune cookie that I am reluctant to share bad news even more than good news. But there does seem to be value in it, and it’s something I’m going to practice right now in the blog. The bad news is the meal around that cookie wasn’t very good, and we should have known better, we just forgot that the restaurant wasn’t that great. The good news, it occurred to me it would be a good blog topic and worth sharing. I photographed it on top of a Java book, as I was preparing to get to JavaOne 2006 in San Francisco. And that’s more good news, as I’m done and it was a great conference. Perhaps a topic for a later blog.

I’ve become addicted to 43 Things recently. The website is a place to list 43 goals, and where you can give and get help and encouragement in achieving those goals. But an entry I read recently from someone who cheered one of my goals really struck home. It was titled, “Don’t stop to wave, you’ll drown”. The inspired entry quotes from a couple authors and it explained some of my problems using the 43 Things website, and how I can use it better.

The essence of the entry was that life is like a river, and you have to keep swimming. If you stop to wave, to get appreciation, to be acknowledged, to be anything, you will drown. Waiting for people to notice kills dreams. After a few days I chose a goal to give 43 cheers as I noticed others had chosen similar goals. Many have given 1000 cheers on 43 Things. But in order to give cheers, you have to get cheers. You can get cheers from others, and you also get “a handful” of cheers from the system every day. I started feeling like a lab rat hitting the lever hoping for a bit of food. I was glad when the goal was over.

The “Don’t stop to wave or you’ll drown” entry clarified my troubles. The “high” on 43 Things is being cheered, or recognized, or when someone leaves a comment or response. But it’s better not to want or need that recognition. Perhaps it’s good to appreciate the cheers, but the focus needs to be on the real goal, to keep swimming, flow with the current, and keep moving.

These new social networking websites have a tremendous power. I like 43Things.com because it offers support and encouragement. But the real power comes from giving. Giving others a cheer, or an answer to a question, or just a supportive comment, is a way to appreciate others, and to enrich the internet. I don’t want to wait for others to notice anymore. I choose to keep on swimming.