Tag Archives: spirituality

Sci-Tech

Future Of Happiness Will Be Brain Stimulants

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Happiness…..I popped the pink pill into my mouth and waited for the expected feelings of ecstasy.  No, the pill wasn’t the drug XTC, but rather a legal and safe “hacking” alternative. Then I put on my trans-cranial stimulation device, known as “The Thync,” and waited to see what happened. Wow! After five minutes, it felt like my brain was flooding me with endorphins. Finally, I placed the scalp stimulator known as the Tingler on my head. When I did this, an orgasmic wave of intense pleasure rippled through my entire body.

 
After a few minutes of this euphoria, I took off the devices and went about my day. Having just been catapulted into sweet ecstasy, my day became both incredibly productive and happy.
 

This is not a future scenario.

This is how I like to start my mornings. Nowadays, there are new and improved ways to feel good-even ecstatic-that most people don’t know anything about.  In an age when depression is rampant and dangerous drug use is epidemic, amazing new ways to feel peaceful, euphoric, and just plain happy are popping up all over the place. However, people miss out on these amazing methods because they simply don’t know about them. From safe drugs to “happy apps,” to high tech brain stimulation devices, a whole new world of ways to feel good is blossoming.
 
We live in an age where everything is shifting and accelerating.  Yet, most people still pursue an ancient path for finding happiness.  Their formula for being happy is to try to control all the external events and people in their lives to be exactly the way they want.  This is a tiresome activity at best, and there are always some events and people that we can’t control.  However, there is a new model for finding more joy and peace of mind: find it within your self.  Of course, this is a not a new idea.  Everyone from the Buddha to Jesus has said that heaven can be found within, but now there are cutting edge and more efficient ways to tap into this magical inner kingdom. 
 Buddha
As invited to talk to Google employees about “The Future of Happiness.”  I described new ways to control their minds and emotions that were more effective than trying to be happy by controlling all the events in their life.  The reaction was intense.  Everyone wanted to know what some of these innovative ways to “hack happiness” were, and how they could get them.  That led me to write a book on the subject.
 

In my research I learned that different things work for different people. 

For example, there are a lot of supplements known as “cognitive enhancers” that can dramatically increase your focus, energy, and mood. Yet, you have to try out many of them in order to find the one or two that really rock your world.   I also learned that people define happiness in unique ways.  Some people want a gadget that increases their pleasure, while other folks want a tool that improves their relationships or makes them feel totally peaceful.
Gary Numan “Complex” from The Pleasure Principle
 
As with all technologies, “inner” tech keeps getting better.  In fact, some of them are so good that it’s possible to get addicted to them. Ultimately, one has to discern whether a given gadget is truly a friend that helps them find the joy within–or is just another WMD-Widget of Mass Distraction.  Since there are many tools that do different things, there’s no simple answer as to whether  something is beneficial to you. 
 
For example, people become addicted and dependent on coffee.  Yet, on the other hand, caffeine can prevent many types of cancer, and helps people feel good and be productive. So, is coffee a “good” thing?  It’s up to you to decide…
 
In my own case, I decide if a specific technology is truly my friend by asking myself two questions.  First I ask myself,  “Does this tool lead me to being dependent on it?”   It’s always better when technology acts like “training wheels” on a bike-meaning that the tool exists so that you can eventually do without it.  If instead a gadget fosters a sense of dependence, then that’s a warning sign it may ultimately not be worth it.
 
The second question is, “Does this technology help teach me how to better connect with a sense of peace, love, or joy within?”  Even the Dalai Lama has reportedly said that if there were a pill that duplicated Buddha’s awakening, he would take it immediately and prescribe it for all living beings. If a tool helps me learn how to get to a more peaceful, loving place more efficiently, I think that’s a good thing.
 
WargamesIt’s hard to say exactly what the future holds, though Steve Jobs was seemingly pretty good at predicting it. In 1972 I had the unusual opportunity to be in a computer class with Steve Jobs.  Of course, at the time he was just a nerdy teen and I was four years his junior.  He and I would vie to play Tic-tac-toe on a 500 pound “computer” that our High School had recently purchased.  Steve was obsessed with this machine.  One day I asked Steve why he was so fixated on this refrigerator sized computer.  He turned to me and said in an intense manner, “Don’t you see?  This machine is going to change everything! It’s going to change the world!” 
 

It turns out Steve Jobs was right. 

Well, nowadays it may not seem like the latest brain supplement, neuro-stimulator, or mood enhancing app is going to change the world, but technology has a way of discreetly slipping into our lives. This “technology of joy” will only accelerate until the entire way we pursue happiness is transformed in the next few years.  I’ve seen that when people try out enough of these new gadgets, apps, and supplements, they inevitably find something that feels good–and is even good for them.  When that happens, their lives are never the same.  For the Silo, Jonathan Robinson.
 

Click me! Music for Scientists and their friends!

Culture

Groundhog Day

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Maybe Groundhog Day can become a National or Provincial Stat Holiday because February 2nd isn’t officially known as Groundhog Day. Technically it isn’t a National Holiday. It isn’t a Provincial Holiday. [Is Quebec the only province with a Provincial Holiday? CP] But maybe it should be. Groundhog Day isn’t an exclusive celebration that targets a specific demographic such as Family Day. It isn’t religiously or  politically motivated. It doesn’t specify Muslim, Buddhist, Marxist, agnostic or atheist beliefs. It is inclusive, quirky, wacky and fun. There is no need to worry about political incorrectness.

Caddy vs Gopher…i’m betting on the gopher

Maybe Groundhog Day can become a rallying point for Ontarians. Groundhogs are robust creatures. They handle our long winter with style. Groundhogs might be cute but they are also tough!

Maybe the Groundhog can become Canada’s national animal. Does anyone remember  the politician who wanted to make the polar bear our national animal? Most of us aren’t likely to run into polar bears. It’s that old adage: “Out of sight, out of mind” and since we’re more likely to see a groundhog and associate with a groundhog it is an ideal choice. Incidentally Canada’s national animal is the beaver. Another obscure animal that most of us have never seen.

Maybe Groundhog Day is spiritual after all. If a Holiday need to be justified on a basis of spirituality or community consider the following short list:

  • Mysticism  (Shadow casting or lack their off = Long range weather forecast)
  • Fatalism     (Let everyone believe that an animal can come out of the ground on a specific day and tell us how the next six weeks will turn out)
  • Anthropomorphism (Groundhogs can really see? Can they talk? How do we know if they have seen their shadow?)
  • Human/Animal Communication or Telepathy  (Groundhog interpreters/ Groundhog whisperers? Are they specific to Wiarton, Punxsutawney?)

For the Silo, Rick Fess. By the way, groundhogs are no joke. They can carry rabies and pose a direct threat to our crops. 

Supplemental- “Pothole Pete” is a growing legend in New York City. Canada’s groundhog is an albino.

Art

The Bishop’s Man By Canadian Author Linden MacIntyre

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The Bishop’s Man by Canadian author Linden MacIntyre offers a deep and compelling story of one man’s struggle for atonement. The book revolves around a very controversial and current topic, the sexual abuse of children by Catholic Priests. However, this fictional work is much more than a critique on a current situation; it is a journey and dialogue on themes of loneliness, isolation, redemption and spirituality. This novel follows the characters from MacIntyre’s earlier work, The Long Stretch.

MacIntyre begins his story in the present day, sometime in the 1990s, in southern Cape Breton Island. From the beginning, the reader is taken on a journey through the eyes of Father Duncan MacAskill, a priest known as the Exorcist. Father MacAskill, who grew up in this area, is sent for a break from his regular duties, troubleshooting and cleaning up messes made by priests that threaten to embarrass the Catholic Church. Father MacAskill sees this trip home as less of a homecoming and more of a time of spiritual discovery through current events and reflection. MacIntyre weaves present day with the past as he unwinds Father MacAskil’s complicated and somewhat remorseful past.

Father MacAskill is very good at what he does—making troublesome priests disappear by sending them to far off parishes or rehabilitation in Ontario. Upon his return to Creiginish on southern Cape Breton Island, he befriends a young, 19-year-old Danny MacKay from whose father he purchases a boat. Danny’s character is troubled and before Father MacAskill can really reach him and understand the root of his trouble, he commits suicide. This is especially difficult to take in for Father MacAskill when rumours start to swirl that a relationship with a troublesome priest, Brendan Bell, who was sent away from Newfoundland to Craiginish by MacAskill, may have lead to the ruin of Danny MacKay. Upon this revelation, MacIntyre’s story starts to divulge into the past as Father MacAskill tries to sort through his current situation and his spirituality.


The absorbing narrative takes the reader through his missionary work in Honduras in the 1970s, where he has sent to forget what he saw as a young priest between a well respected priest and a young person. The Honduras narrative is threaded between the present day and other reflections. MacIntyre does this seamlessly throughout the novel. Father MacAskill’s stint as dean at St. Francis Xavier is also explored. It is while he is dean at the university he becomes the Bishop’s right hand man and is set out to extinguish potential fires in various churches across Canada. Through all the weaving and reflection, Father MacAskill sorts through his own demons, his past and his family’s problematic and mysterious history.
Although this fictional work discusses a very current and disturbing subject, the sexual abuse of children is never directly addressed or explained in the eyes of Father MacAskill. It serves as a constant undertone to the actions and thoughts of the main character. Linden MacIntyre’s narrative, through the eyes of a troubled priest, provides the reader with a rare insight into the inner workings of the priest hood and the powerful Catholic Church and its place in Canadian culture. For the Silo, Sarah Purdy.