the propeace community - environment - Comments

Hello

jpwrosch — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:43:14 -0400

Susan,

Not quite sure how to cotact you, I'll try here. I'm living in Nashville TN now 631 Murfreesboro Pike, Nashville 37210-351.
Phone is 615-301-1755 Cell 734-678-2706, email jpwrosch@att.net

Get in touch!

John Wrosch

Chris Jordan on TED.org

Jason White — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:00:13 -0400

Also see Chris Jordan on TED.org
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/279

world clock

Jason White — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:51:01 -0400

Thought the link below would be an interesting addition to this thread. Click the "Now" button to reset counters and watch them count up from zero.

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

Solid Waste

Susan Livingston — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:35:42 -0400

...a euphemism for s#@t! May we all connect with the things in life that are actually important and do whatever it takes to bring this consumption to an end.

Let's keep this one front and center with lots of comments. Since the original post in December, I've been asked in multiple context if I've seen the Story of Stuff, and I've wanted to refer it to teachers and others who work with kids, but I couldn't remember where I saw it. And thanks, Jason, for publishing the link to Chris Jordan's work - another piece I've wanted to share and now know how to access.

Editor, propeace.net

Chris Jordan

Jason White — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:11:38 -0400

I was just reminded of Chris Jordan's photography in relation to this Story of Stuff. This is mindblowing. It will help you get your head around the true magnitude of consumption and waste.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7

thoughts, emotions

papananook — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:21:53 -0400

I feel you, Susan, and I think you are a very intelligent person.
We all need to get outside more and reconnect with Gaia as living organisms ...to find a balance between our minds and bodies, thoughts and emotions...i recommend a day of body-surfing in a clean ocean...that always restores Harmony to my soul.
But since i live in Alaska now that's impossible, so i just roll around outside with my grandkids...

a perfect explanation of human's relationship with nature.

paxomniovincent — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:36:18 -0400

"We won't waste our precious time
In our greedy haste
We will wait until it's gone
And cannot be replaced."

I think that is my favorite part of this poem. So many people believe that we can continue using up the earth's natural resources without consequence but this is very untrue. When we completly depleat the earth all life here will end, the unstability of the enviorment needs to be addressed now. Issues concerning the enviorment are always thrown at the bottom of some list, only before it is thrown in the trash. What good is money and power in the long run, the enviorment is a world wide problem that everyone should be aware of. All different types of people can have faith for the furture, issues of the enviorment can unite people around the world on a mission to heal the earth. Mother nature is so beautfiul, and more powerful than any governement, authority, or terrorist group in the world. When will the government (and all the people) realize that the enviorment needs help now, not after ecoside is prevalant throughout the world and it is too late.

thanks

Jasmine — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 01:17:48 -0400

Thanks Silent Lotus. And to everyone - I think this beautiful poem from ee cummings says all I want to say today:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

peace & blessings - Jasmine

The Human Race

silent lotus — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 04:09:09 -0400

Dear Jasmine

My welcome to you to ProPeace
and thank you so kindly for sharing your poetry.

a warm smile

silent lotus

" May your voice be loving enough to silence your own fears." ..... silent lotus
www.silentlotus.net

Compost*Cows

Rainbow Brain — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:57:43 -0500

and after tipping all the sacred cows into the abyss let them compost, allowing the grand and graceful earth to cleanse their energy and return it to her children.

BL*M

Re: A DAUGHTER OF EARTH

Rainbow Brain — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:49:33 -0500

The times are very bad you say; very well you're here to make them better.

Ã¢â‚¬â€ Sidney Smith

and so we*continue . . .

BL*M

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

sushil_yadav — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 04:57:13 -0400

Regarding the discussion about gaps between Thinking and gaps between Emotion :

The gap between Days is Night.
The gap between Nights is day.

sushil_yadav

Bottled*Lightning

Rainbow Brain — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:33:41 -0400

The speed of Awareness is like lightning in a bottle, one only needs to remove the cork and share its light and energy with others, it is then that its pace and destructive force can heal and slow the aggression of ignorance.

BL*M
Global-Luvolution.blogspot.com

Thoughts and Emotions in the Information Age

Susan Livingston — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 02:25:58 -0400

There is a fundamental linguistic problem in our society, and after I explain it, I am hoping that some of our users who were raised in other linguistic environments will tell us if the same difficulty is found in their language. Until we know that, we don't know if the phenomenon I'm going to describe is a human thing or specific to one language group.

Start with the statement that "emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking."

Now turn it around, and see if "thinking is what we experience during gaps in our emotion."

The linguistic problem is that we do not distinguish between the two, and the result is that we use them interchangably - much to our unfortunate confusion. Another problem is that we don't have a good verb to express emotions.

*I am comfortable - a thought in which the subject is defined.

I feel comfortable - a feeling in which a state of being of the subject is described.

In the first assertion, "am" functions as an equal sign in the same way as describing a chosen profession, for example.

I am a teacher - a thought in which the subject is defined.

*I feel a teacher - an action (feel) by an agent (I) on an object (teacher).

That we accept the first pair but not the second pair as equivalent presents a problem. We are not our emotions. The fact that they fade away and we're still here is proof of that. By maintaining constant vigilance about what we identify with, we can create some space between ourselves and our emotions and perhaps begin to identify to ourselves and others what we feel. When we lose that space and become the emotion, we can't get enough perspective to describe it. Then, although we may display emotion, our emotional vocabulary and intelligence remain low. So I'm advocating that we develop the habit of saying what we feel instead of what we are.

We talk a lot in NVC about distinguishing between a feeling and a thought. Although the speaker meant the first two examples to be equivalent, we would argue that the first is a thought and the second is a feeling. Yet consider how often you hear statements that start with "I feel" and are completed with totally cerebral content.

*I feel it would be better to go elsewhere.

I feel angry; I think it would be better to go elsewhere.

I feel like I'm making a mistake.

I feel anxious; I think I'm making a mistake.

This is an interesting set. The first sentence definitely doesn't describe a feeling, so why can we accept the third? We can accept the third if you have made enough of this kind of mistake in the past, and you noticed that you always experienced the same emotion, or if what follows "like" is well-known to produce a consistent emotion across people. Then, the word "like" marks a simile.

I feel like a lost child.

If making mistakes has brought about several feelings in the past, then it is clearer to use number four rather than a lot of qualifiers.

*I feel like when I used the full measure of liquid in that pancake recipe and they came out so flat and hard.

I still have a problem with using the word feel for both of the concepts in the second pair of examples near the top. I like to reserve the verb "to feel" for describing my awareness of sensory input.

I feel a headache coming on.

His beard feels coarse.

We have a perfectly good verb to use when we want to say that an emotion is being expressed: to emote. Yet we save this verb for the non-verbal aspects of communication such as body language and tone of voice.

*I emote strong.

I emote strongly when I'm acting.

Notice that in the second example, it is clear that "strong" is not being used as a feeling word at all.

I have to disagree with Sushil Yadav's contention that emotions are slow. For physiological reasons, they last longer than thoughts, yet they start sooner than thoughts. They are more pervasive than thoughts; thoughts are brain waves - electrical impulses that travel along the neuron and cross the synapse when the impulse causes the release of the neurotransmitter, which is then picked up by the next neuron and sets off a new electrical impulse. Emotions, on the other hand, are chemical cocktails that travel in the blood, a slower mechanism, yet they start faster because the sensory apparatus is more directly connected to the emotional centers of the brain than they are to the cerebral cortex.

In one of the source articles, Sushil Yadav is wanting a way to measure emotion. I maintain that we have several ways to do that. We can measure tiny changes in the amount and salinity of perspiration, tiny changes in the temperature and electrical charges of the skin, tiny changes in the contraction of a muscle, etc., and then correlate these with the subject's self-report to find qualitative differences between emotions. When it's quantitative differences that are being studied, rating scales work just fine when there are no marks on the line and only the extremes are labeled. The subject's mark can then be measured afterward. This technique puts all measures on the same scale and overcomes a great deal of response bias.

I appreciate the loss of self-connection that comes with an urban lifestyle in the information age, but I don't agree that the solution is to return to rural living and slide rule calculation. I haven't yet give up on the human race's ability to adapt and learn how to slow down without regressing to some idealized former state. I think the simple act of becoming aware that we have the problem is already at least half of the solution.

Editor, propeace.net

Weed*

Rainbow Brain — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 00:12:16 -0500

The single largest irrigated crop in the United States is Lawn Turf, more time, energy, chemicals and resources are spent growing, producing and maintaining American Lawns than all other crops combined.

Now that's truly being a slave to weed, while watching the World*Starve.

BL*M

Love*Rulz - (Available on DVD ;) - @
Timeless-ink-Press.com