a keystone laid in mostronial
blepharisms...
under the sparkling sideshow
careens
a glubitude of
prosthetic-laden
vermeilings....
it would crumble, collapse...
if
a visible center existed.
the diffusion is complete....
medallions, crazed quiltings
and
superbuttressed e'er-do-wells
are cosseted in blank-eyed shafts....
there is no center....
the well-annealed hinges hold....
the core, of unbreatheable air,
is not a center....
.the subterfuge, the ruse succeeds
as billions strive, seeking to respire.....
those who would
name the names, fling revelations,
and
shout
of trepannings
are silenced.....
there is no center....
there are only those who mimic....
and
the comedians....
with holographic dust under their fingernails
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
target
"First we make our habits, then our habits make us."- Charles C. Noble
It's such a simple concept, yet it's something we don't always do. It's not exceedingly difficult to do, and yet I think it's something that would make a world of difference in anyone's life.
Break your goals into habits, and focus on putting those habits into autopilot.
Last week when I wrote my Ultimate Guide to motivation, there were a number of questions about my belief that having One Goal to focus on is much more powerful than having many goals.
There were questions about my personal goals (such as running a marathon, eliminating debt, and so on) and how I was able to achieve them while working on different projects, and so forth. How can you have one goal that takes a long time, and still work on smaller projects at the same time?
These are excellent questions, and my answer takes a little explaining: I try to turn my goals into habits, and in doing so, I put my goals on autopilot. Turning a goal into a habit means really focusing on it, intensely, for at least a month, to the exclusion of all else. The more you can focus on it, the more it'll be on autopilot.
But once you put it on autopilot, once a habit is firmly established, you don't really have to focus on it much. You’ll still do it, but because it's a habit, you only have to use minimal focus to maintain that habit. The goal becomes on autopilot, and you can focus on your next goal or project or habit.
My Marathon Example
Let's look at my marathon goal as an example. I was just starting out in running, and I had the brilliant idea to run a marathon within a year. (Btw, that's not the brightest idea — you should run for a couple years before attempting marathon training, or it'll be much, much more difficult for you.) So that was my goal, and it was my main focus for awhile.
But in order to achieve that goal, I broke it down into two habits:
1. I had to make running a daily habit (while following a training plan I found online).
2. I had to report to people in order to have accountability — I did this through family, friends and coworkers, through a blog, and through a column in my local newspaper every two weeks. With this accountability, there's no way I would stop running.
The daily running habit took about a month to form. I focused on this exclusively for about a month, and didn’t have any other goals, projects or habits that were my main focuses. I did other work projects, but they kinda took a backburner to running.
The accountability habit took a couple months, mainly because I didn't focus on it too much while I was building the running habit. But it stuck, and for that first year of running, I would report to people I knew and blog about my running every day (this was in Blogger blog that has since been deleted), and I would write a column every two weeks for my local paper.
Once those two habits were firmly entrenched, my marathon goal was pretty much on autopilot. I could focus on my debt reduction goal (as an example) without having to worry too much about the marathon. I still had to do the work, of course, but it didn't require constant focus.
And eventually, I ran the marathon. I was able to achieve this because, all year long, I had the daily running habit and daily accountability habit. I put my marathon goal into autopilot, and that made it much easier — instead of struggling with it daily for an entire year, I focused on it for one month (well, actually two) and was able to accomplish it while focusing on new habits and goals.
It's such a simple concept, yet it's something we don't always do. It's not exceedingly difficult to do, and yet I think it's something that would make a world of difference in anyone's life.
Break your goals into habits, and focus on putting those habits into autopilot.
Last week when I wrote my Ultimate Guide to motivation, there were a number of questions about my belief that having One Goal to focus on is much more powerful than having many goals.
There were questions about my personal goals (such as running a marathon, eliminating debt, and so on) and how I was able to achieve them while working on different projects, and so forth. How can you have one goal that takes a long time, and still work on smaller projects at the same time?
These are excellent questions, and my answer takes a little explaining: I try to turn my goals into habits, and in doing so, I put my goals on autopilot. Turning a goal into a habit means really focusing on it, intensely, for at least a month, to the exclusion of all else. The more you can focus on it, the more it'll be on autopilot.
But once you put it on autopilot, once a habit is firmly established, you don't really have to focus on it much. You’ll still do it, but because it's a habit, you only have to use minimal focus to maintain that habit. The goal becomes on autopilot, and you can focus on your next goal or project or habit.
My Marathon Example
Let's look at my marathon goal as an example. I was just starting out in running, and I had the brilliant idea to run a marathon within a year. (Btw, that's not the brightest idea — you should run for a couple years before attempting marathon training, or it'll be much, much more difficult for you.) So that was my goal, and it was my main focus for awhile.
But in order to achieve that goal, I broke it down into two habits:
1. I had to make running a daily habit (while following a training plan I found online).
2. I had to report to people in order to have accountability — I did this through family, friends and coworkers, through a blog, and through a column in my local newspaper every two weeks. With this accountability, there's no way I would stop running.
The daily running habit took about a month to form. I focused on this exclusively for about a month, and didn’t have any other goals, projects or habits that were my main focuses. I did other work projects, but they kinda took a backburner to running.
The accountability habit took a couple months, mainly because I didn't focus on it too much while I was building the running habit. But it stuck, and for that first year of running, I would report to people I knew and blog about my running every day (this was in Blogger blog that has since been deleted), and I would write a column every two weeks for my local paper.
Once those two habits were firmly entrenched, my marathon goal was pretty much on autopilot. I could focus on my debt reduction goal (as an example) without having to worry too much about the marathon. I still had to do the work, of course, but it didn't require constant focus.
And eventually, I ran the marathon. I was able to achieve this because, all year long, I had the daily running habit and daily accountability habit. I put my marathon goal into autopilot, and that made it much easier — instead of struggling with it daily for an entire year, I focused on it for one month (well, actually two) and was able to accomplish it while focusing on new habits and goals.
Show me
Show me the place
where we lived once
when the earth was still young,
before man’s hand
like a sickle went over it
and chopped until woods
disappeared totally
and deserts appeared in places.
Show me the fields, marches and hillocks
where animals at a time was carefree
before the rifle
sounded without end
and mines, factories, buildings
and rail tracts harassed the earth
and everything yielded
to steel and concrete.
Show me the blue sky
that at a time was pure
and now is full of smoke and ash
and water that fell sparkling
as rain from the air
and brought life
and could wash everything clean
and now eat
while it falls filled with acid.
Show me the streams and rivers
where at a time there were healthy fish
that could bring water to fields
and where children for the fun
could jump in
and now are filled with sewerage,
poisons, minerals
and garbage that drifts everywhere.
Show me seasons
that comes on their time
and now every day
is winter, summer and spring
while life
pass much too quickly
and the hand of man
for ever are mowing out the earth
and a day might come,
when the earth
becomes man’s own
place of damnation.
where we lived once
when the earth was still young,
before man’s hand
like a sickle went over it
and chopped until woods
disappeared totally
and deserts appeared in places.
Show me the fields, marches and hillocks
where animals at a time was carefree
before the rifle
sounded without end
and mines, factories, buildings
and rail tracts harassed the earth
and everything yielded
to steel and concrete.
Show me the blue sky
that at a time was pure
and now is full of smoke and ash
and water that fell sparkling
as rain from the air
and brought life
and could wash everything clean
and now eat
while it falls filled with acid.
Show me the streams and rivers
where at a time there were healthy fish
that could bring water to fields
and where children for the fun
could jump in
and now are filled with sewerage,
poisons, minerals
and garbage that drifts everywhere.
Show me seasons
that comes on their time
and now every day
is winter, summer and spring
while life
pass much too quickly
and the hand of man
for ever are mowing out the earth
and a day might come,
when the earth
becomes man’s own
place of damnation.
Family, Friends Pay Final Tribute to Michael Jackson
The family and friends of Michael Jackson are paying their final respects the late pop star in Los Angeles, Thursday. Jackson was interred at a cemetery where such Hollywood stars as Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were laid to rest. Mourners recalled Jackson's legacy, while questions remain over the singer's death.
In this handout photo provided by Harrison Funk/The Jackson Family, Rev. Al Sharpton speaks at Michael Jackson's funeral service, 3 Sep 2009
The ceremony at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale will be private, unlike the public memorial nearly two months ago. Family members and friends will remember the singer for his talent and contributions to charitable causes.
Those close to the singer will celebrate a career that began when Jackson was a child and became the star of the family group The Jackson Five.
Jackson will be buried in an elaborate crypt in the ornate mausoleum, where the public is barred by tight security. Security is also tight on streets around the cemetery, which is closed for the day to the public. The Jackson family has offered to pay security costs to the city of Glendale, and a judge overseeing the Jackson estate has agreed.
The drama surrounding the star's death is still unfolding. Last week, the Los Angeles coroner's office called the signer's death a homicide, and the death certificate was amended to show death by another as the cause. Investigators attribute Jackson's cardiac arrest June 25 to an injection of the powerful anesthetic propofol and a sedative. Jackson's personal physician, Conrad Murray, has told detectives he gave the singer propofol and sedatives to help him sleep. No charges have been filed.
But the focus of the private interment service is the singer's life, through a spectacular career that had its up and downs, but lasted more than four decades.
It all ended in June, when the singer was about to attempt a comeback, and died suddenly at age 50.
The Affect of Electricity on Cancer
Can electricity cause cancer? In a society that literally runs on electric power, the very idea seems preposterous. But for more than a decade, a growing band of scientists and journalists has pointed to studies that seem to link exposure to electromagnetic fields with increased risk of leukemia and other malignancies. The implications are unsettling, to say the least, since everyone comes into contact with such fields, which are generated by everything electrical, from power lines and antennas to personal computers and micro-wave ovens. Because evidence on the subject is inconclusive and often contradictory, it has been hard to decide whether concern about the health effects of electricity is legitimate—or the worst kind of paranoia.
Now the alarmists have gained some qualified support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the executive summary of a new scientific review, released in draft form late last week, the EPA has put forward what amounts to the most serious government warning to date. The agency tentatively concludes that scientific evidence “suggests a casual link” between extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields—those having very longwave-lengths—and leukemia, lymphoma and brain cancer, While the report falls short of classifying ELF fields as probable carcinogens, it does identify the common 60-hertz magnetic field as “a possible, but not proven, cause of cancer in humans.”
The report is no reason to panic—or even to lost sleep. If there is a cancer risk, it is a small one. The evidence is still so controversial that the draft stirred a great deal of debate within the Bush Administration, and the EPA released it over strong objections from the Pentagon and the Whit House. But now no one can deny that the issue must be taken seriously and that much more research is needed.
At the heart of the debate is a simple and well-understood physical phenomenon: When an electric current passes through a wire, tit generates an electromagnetic field that exerts forces on surrounding objects, For many years, scientists dismissed any suggestion that such forces might be harmful, primarily because they are so extraordinarily weak. The ELF magnetic field generated by a video terminal measures only a few milligauss, or about one-hundredth the strength of the earth’s own magnetic field, The electric fields surrounding a power line can be as high as 10 kilovolts per meter, but the corresponding field induced in human cells will be only about 1 millivolt per meter. This is far less than the electric fields that the cells themselves generate.
How could such minuscule forces pose a health danger? The consensus used to be that they could not, and for decades scientists concentrated on more powerful kinds of radiation, like X-rays, that pack sufficient wallop to knock electrons out of the molecules that make up the human body. Such “ionizing” radiations have been clearly linked to increased cancer risks and there are regulations to control emissions.
But epidemiological studies, which find statistical associations between sets of data, do not prove cause and effect. Though there is a body of laboratory work showing that exposure to ELF fields can have biological effects on animal tissues, a mechanism by which those effects could lead to cancerous growths has never been found.
The Pentagon is for from persuaded. In a blistering 33-page critique of the EPA report, Air Force scientists charge its authors with having “biased the entire document” toward proving a link. “Our reviewers are convinced that there is no suggestion that (electromagnetic fields) present in the environment induce or promote cancer,” the Air Force concludes. “It is astonishing that the EPA would lend its imprimatur on this report.” Then Pentagon’s concern is understandable. There is hardly a unit of the modern military that does not depend on the heavy use of some kind of electronic equipment, from huge ground-based radar towers to the defense systems built into every warship and plane.
Now the alarmists have gained some qualified support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the executive summary of a new scientific review, released in draft form late last week, the EPA has put forward what amounts to the most serious government warning to date. The agency tentatively concludes that scientific evidence “suggests a casual link” between extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields—those having very longwave-lengths—and leukemia, lymphoma and brain cancer, While the report falls short of classifying ELF fields as probable carcinogens, it does identify the common 60-hertz magnetic field as “a possible, but not proven, cause of cancer in humans.”
The report is no reason to panic—or even to lost sleep. If there is a cancer risk, it is a small one. The evidence is still so controversial that the draft stirred a great deal of debate within the Bush Administration, and the EPA released it over strong objections from the Pentagon and the Whit House. But now no one can deny that the issue must be taken seriously and that much more research is needed.
At the heart of the debate is a simple and well-understood physical phenomenon: When an electric current passes through a wire, tit generates an electromagnetic field that exerts forces on surrounding objects, For many years, scientists dismissed any suggestion that such forces might be harmful, primarily because they are so extraordinarily weak. The ELF magnetic field generated by a video terminal measures only a few milligauss, or about one-hundredth the strength of the earth’s own magnetic field, The electric fields surrounding a power line can be as high as 10 kilovolts per meter, but the corresponding field induced in human cells will be only about 1 millivolt per meter. This is far less than the electric fields that the cells themselves generate.
How could such minuscule forces pose a health danger? The consensus used to be that they could not, and for decades scientists concentrated on more powerful kinds of radiation, like X-rays, that pack sufficient wallop to knock electrons out of the molecules that make up the human body. Such “ionizing” radiations have been clearly linked to increased cancer risks and there are regulations to control emissions.
But epidemiological studies, which find statistical associations between sets of data, do not prove cause and effect. Though there is a body of laboratory work showing that exposure to ELF fields can have biological effects on animal tissues, a mechanism by which those effects could lead to cancerous growths has never been found.
The Pentagon is for from persuaded. In a blistering 33-page critique of the EPA report, Air Force scientists charge its authors with having “biased the entire document” toward proving a link. “Our reviewers are convinced that there is no suggestion that (electromagnetic fields) present in the environment induce or promote cancer,” the Air Force concludes. “It is astonishing that the EPA would lend its imprimatur on this report.” Then Pentagon’s concern is understandable. There is hardly a unit of the modern military that does not depend on the heavy use of some kind of electronic equipment, from huge ground-based radar towers to the defense systems built into every warship and plane.
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