Music Selections

[Joe Mahmood]

FRANCO - LOST IN YOUR UNIVERSE

 

[Joe Mahmood]

THE ROOTS FT. ERYKAH BADU - YOU GOT ME



THE ROOTS FT. CODY CHESNUTT - THE SEED

 

[Joe Mahmood]

STICK FIGURE - FIRE ON THE HORIZON

https://youtu.be/LXQHmVVU8Cw

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In 1991, a group of 8 people isolated themselves for 2 years. Spaceship Earth tells their story.

The new documentary tells the weird and surprisingly uplifting story of Biosphere 2.

In 1991, a group of eight people entered a giant dome, a closed-system biosphere intended to be self-supporting. They called themselves “Biospherians,” wore space-age jumpsuits, and planned to stay two years, growing their own crops, recycling waste and air, and performing an “experiment” to see if it would be possible for human life to be sustained in such an environment. The structure was called Biosphere 2 (because Biosphere 1 is Earth), and it was a huge media sensation.

If you remember the media coverage of Biosphere 2 — or the 1996 Pauly Shore movie Biodome, which is (very) loosely based on the experiment — then you might remember the Biosphere 2 “experiment” as having flopped due to the interpersonal conflicts and scientific controversies that inevitably arose. At its conclusion, the project was mostly painted by media coverage as a farce and a failure.

But if you don’t remember it, and even if you do, the real story as captured in Spaceship Earth is fascinating, both much stranger and oddly more inspirational than the media reports from the time and people’s hazy memories might recall. The project was part of a long string of commercial ventures from a sort-of commune of inventors and forward thinkers that started in the 1970s, a group that called themselves “Synergists.” And the eventual end of Biosphere 2 involved a twist nobody could have seen coming.

Documentarian Matt Wolf decided to explore the Biosphere 2 project by backing way up and beginning with the Synergists, delving into their archives and talking to the members of the group and the Biospherians — most of whom are still alive — about what really went on. It’s a weird, surprising, and even hopeful tale of how groups of people can band together and actually effect change, even when that change looks mystifying from the outside.

I talked to Wolf by phone about the resulting film, Spaceship Earth, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is opening on digital platforms and through virtual theatrical engagements on May 8. We discussed the odd contours of the story and what he hopes it will bring to people who watch it. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Alissa Wilkinson

When you first started making this film, what did you think the story would be about?

Matt Wolf

Going into it, I obviously thought that the film would be about Biosphere 2. And then, as soon as I started reaching out to the people who were involved with the project, I came to understand that the pre-history of the project was pretty fascinating. The unconventional group who had conceived of the project, the so-called Synergists, had a fascinating history beyond that, as well as a one-of-a-kind archive. They recognized that what they were doing was of historical significance, so they began filming as early as the 1960s. In fact, the story of Biosphere 2 is actually a half-century epic involving their journey as a small group trying to literally reimagine the world.

As I started to get a sense of the scope of the material, this unfamiliar story about this group of outliers, I recognized that I wanted to follow their journey and to tell their story. Their work found its greatest expression in Biosphere 2 — but it was rebuked.

Alissa Wilkinson

That’s what literally happened, but I also felt like there was a deeper tale here — something that transcends the Synergists. There’s something here about idealism, about movements, about people who try to make the world a better place despite outside forces.

Matt Wolf

That’s a really important thread. There’s a history of back-to-the-land counterculturalists who get involved in cyber cultures — it’s, in some sense, the history of neoliberalism. This group, though, wasn’t hippies; they were capitalists. They were interested in ecologically minded enterprises, and they forged an unlikely partnership with Texas oil scion Ed Bass.

So, I think the idea that one could combine business enterprise and ecology for endeavors that are both ecologically sustainable and economically sustainable was definitely a product of its time. But that became the downfall of the project. And it proved to be impossible to accommodate the vision of Biosphere 2 with the short-term profit-maximization reality of capitalism. There are limitations to operating on a huge scale because of the practical implications of that. To me, it’s both an inspiring story about human achievement and cautionary about the limitations of that as well.

Alissa Wilkinson

I was young enough in the early ’90s that I don’t remember this happening.

Matt Wolf

Same.

Alissa Wilkinson

So at every turn, I thought, “Wow, what is going to happen next?” I kept expecting things to go wrong, or for there to be a giant twist, and it bucked my expectations every time.

Matt Wolf

Right? When we were making the film, we were like, “Is it a problem that there’s not really any problems or conflict for the first hour of the film? Everything just seems to be going their way. There’s no conflict.” Of course, eventually, there is. But it’s remarkable how much goes right for this group of people for a while.

Alissa Wilkinson

I wonder if the audience’s expectation that there will be conflict produces enough tension to keep us going.

Matt Wolf

Also that people aren’t rooting for missionary projects. People come to them with skepticism, and that’s only increased over time. When people are attempting to reimagine the world and are doing it outside of mainstream institutions or the establishment, it’s rare that the larger culture says, “Those guys are amazing.” More often, people say, “Yeah, but what’s the hitch?”

I think that Biosphere 2 is separate from that. But [the Synergists] put themselves out there, and it became a pop culture phenomenon. When you court that level of media attention, when you become a phenomenon of that scale, its narrative definitely spirals out of your control.

Alissa Wilkinson

The way the group courts media attention feels oddly innocent — like it’s done in good faith, to attract attention to an issue, rather than just creating spectacle for personal gain. It’s not about one person.

Matt Wolf

Not a cult of personality.

Alissa Wilkinson

Right. It’s so different from reality TV, which we might expect today for a bunch of people who go live in a dome for a year. They’re not trying to become celebrities.

Matt Wolf

Right. From their point of view — particularly the Biospherians, who were not media-savvy but were thrust into an international spotlight — they had an opportunity to get out a message that was important to them. At the time, the word “biosphere” wasn’t even in common vocabulary. People didn’t know what it was. This was also pre-internet. So I think the notion of a story going viral was not there yet.

But I think you’re right: This was really on the precipice of the kind of voyeuristic entertainment that we still live with today. When The Real World came out, I saw a New York Times piece that compared it to Biosphere 2. I wasn’t able to substantiate this, but there’s been some writing on Biosphere 2 that suggests that John de Mol, the creator of Big Brother, was inspired by Biosphere 2 as well. And also, of course, the show Survivor. The connection is there. There are so many dimensions that would become standard for reality television and its voyeurism at play in Biosphere 2. In some ways, it was predictive. But it also suffered from people’s voyeuristic fascination, more than perhaps they had anticipated.

Alissa Wilkinson

I imagine that coming into this situation, where people who were involved with the project back then got burned by the media, must have been difficult. How did you convince them that you were for real and that you wanted to tell their story?

Matt Wolf

That’s the biggest part of my job, to some extent. All filmmaking is about relationships. Not in the sense of business relationships, but in the sense of collaboration and building trust with subjects. It’s all at the center of the filmmaking process.

For me, it’s all about doing my homework. Instead of going to people unsure what I want to say, I need to understand what’s been said about their projects and their life’s work, and to understand what they’ve said, and also to try to think about what hasn’t been said. To figure out how to do something unique based on a nuanced understanding of my subjects’ lives or work.

So, I think a big part of earning people’s trust was doing my homework.

But these guys were really rebuked and slammed by the media. So of course, they had some hesitation and reservations about participating. Part of my work was to convince them that I wasn’t doing what the conventional media did, in terms of depicting Biosphere 2. I wanted to tell a bigger story with a longer view. Twenty-five years had passed [when I started production]; people are ready to reappraise a story like this.

Alissa Wilkinson

Do you think this story should inspire people to not be so cynical about these kinds of projects and to take action about things they care about? We live in a time when some people’s activism seems to take the shape of tweeting a lot. But the group you profiled saw activism as something very different.

Matt Wolf

I think what is so compelling about this group is that they actually act on their ideas. They do things. They realize projects. Their ambition is so high, and they aren’t deterred by lack of experience. They learn by doing.

Those are all things that are super inspiring. I left the filmmaking process with the idea of small groups — that small groups are a model for realizing new ideas and doing ambitious things.

I think people feel there’s a certain futility in trying to gain consensus in the world, or even within their peer group. But [this story says] that it is possible to find a smaller group of people in your smaller world that have common goals and to do things together, and that there could be a cumulative significance to that if people band together.

So I hope the film inspires people to do things. And I hope also that through this episode of isolation and social distancing, people might leave with a sense of personal transformation, an awareness of the fragility of the world, and the belief that what we do has consequences. There’s an opportunity for us to look out for each other in a new way.

Spaceship Earth will be available on Hulu, VOD, virtual cinemas, and participating drive-in theaters beginning May 8. See the film’s website for a full list of partners.

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/5/7/21248439/spaceship-earth-review-interview-biosphere

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20th September 2020


NASA will pay people to spend 8 months in a lockdown to simulate missions to Mars and the moon

NASA's long-term goal is to have astronauts head to Mars in the 2030s, but before it gets there, it's going to pay people to act like they're headed to the Red Planet.

The government agency said it is looking for six people to isolate for eight months in Moscow, Russia, to help the space agency understand "the physiological and psychological effects of isolation and confinement on humans in preparation for Artemis exploration missions to the Moon and future long-duration missions to Mars."

As tempting as it might be to spend eight months in isolation in Moscow, NASA isn't looking for just any regular person. There are a number of requirements applicants need, including being a U.S. citizen between 30 and 55 years old, being proficient in Russian and English, and having a college degree, preferably a master's, doctorate or medical degree, as well as completion of military officer training.

Those with bachelor degrees and other qualifications "may be acceptable candidates as well," NASA said in the statement.

https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-pay-people-spend-8-months-lockdown-simulate-mars-moon.amp


NASA keeps astronaut selection for bold new missions shrouded in mystery

Even former astronauts don't know why they were picked

By Julia Musto | Fox News

The newest class of NASA astronauts has opportunities like never before: two new commercially developed spacecraft designed to travel to the International Space Station, as well as a third capsule that will take astronauts to the moon.

NASA SPOTS FIRST POSSIBLE 'SURVIVOR' PLANET HUGGING A WHITE DWARF STAR

It's a sharp turnaround from 10 years in which the only way Americans could get to space was by hitching a ride on a Russian rocket.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft successfully launched in May; Boeing is working to get its Starliner capsule ready for a fully crewed flight sometime in 2021, and NASA is hoping Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft will fly astronauts around the moon by 2023.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nasa-tak...ronauts-still-dont-know-how-theyre-picked.amp

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2nd January 2021

Astronaut Scott Kelly: How to survive a year in space

By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website

25 December 2020


Astronaut Scott Kelly tells the BBC how he managed to live for a year on the International Space Station and why, four years into his retirement from Nasa, he would go back if someone asked.

It's 16 July 2015, and all three occupants of the International Space Station are squeezing into the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that acts as their lifeboat in the event of an emergency.

The crew members have been told by mission control that a large, defunct satellite is hurtling their way at 14km per second. Controllers know it will come close, but they can't track the object precisely enough to know if it will skim by or score a devastating bullseye.

US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russians Gennady Padalka and Mikhail "Misha" Kornienko hunker down in the cramped capsule, waiting for the speeding hunk of metal to close in, following the procedures drawn up for such an eventuality by preparing to detach from the station at a moment's notice and return to Earth.

It's hardly the first time Captain Kelly, a former military pilot, has been in a life-threatening situation. But the experience caused him to ponder their collective powerlessness; had the satellite hit, there would have been no time to get away.

"Misha, Gennady and I would have gone from grumbling to one another in our cold Soyuz to being blasted in a million directions as diffused atoms, all in the space of a millisecond," he recalls in his memoir Endurance.

Crew rotations on the ISS come with many of the mundane features of everyday life on Earth: video calls, cleaning and bad days at work. But every now and then - as on this occasion - astronauts get a stark reminder of the hostile environment beyond the comforting walls of their vessel.

Since 2007, Kelly has made three separate visits to the orbiting outpost. But it was on his last flight between 2015 and 2016 that he gained worldwide recognition.

Along with Misha Kornienko, he was tasked with spending a whole year on the space station - twice the length of a regular stay. In doing so, he smashed the previous long duration spaceflight record for an American - set by astronaut Michael López-Alegría - by more than 100 days.

But Kelly is just as well known for having an identical twin brother - Mark - who was also a Nasa astronaut. Mark, who is older by about six minutes, was elected as a senator for the state of Arizona in the 2020 US election.

Speaking to me by video call from his home in Colorado, Scott Kelly says there was never a moment he felt like coming home early. "My goal was always to get to the end of the flight with as much energy and enthusiasm as I had at the beginning - and I think I did that.

"I could have stayed up there longer, if there had been a good reason. So I never really doubted my ability to do that."

Despite the fact that astronauts and cosmonauts are screened for their psychological ability to cope, he says: "I know that other people have had hard times with it. I've seen that myself in person - some folks having a challenge being isolated like that. It's hard, but it's not so hard you can't do it."

He explains: "I don't know if it's necessarily an introvert/extravert thing, but you definitely have to be comfortable being your own entertainment," adding: "It's not for everybody."

The toughest things, he says, are not being able to go outside and experience nature, as well as the formidable daily schedule of space station tasks. Another challenge, he says, was sharing a relatively small place with the same people for so long - "even though all those people are great".

It was a challenge successfully navigated, however, as the close quarters confinement helped forge long-standing friendships: "I was just exchanging emails with (Nasa's) Kjell Lindgren. My wife and I did a video conference the other day with (Italian European Space Agency astronaut) Samantha Cristoforetti. I talk to Misha Kornienko and Gennady Padalka," he explains.

The US is committed to four more years of funding for the ISS, but uncertainties remain about support for the orbiting lab after that. The space station was born in the 1990s, during an era of political détente between the US and Russia.

"The space station programme has been a great example of international co-operation in a peaceful way," he tells me, "My experience with the cosmonauts on the station has always been one of professionalism, of respect, reliance on each other.

"My hope is that, whenever we do decide to put the space station in the Pacific Ocean, there is something there to replace it. For the last 20 years, all humans have not been on Earth at the same time. I would like to see that continue."

Kelly wasn't consumed by work for the whole of his year in orbit; he also managed to find time for much-needed fun and games. In what would become a viral video, he chased British astronaut Tim Peake through part of the space station dressed in a gorilla suit. Peake, it has to be said, does a good job of projecting alarm - if he is indeed acting.

The suit - vacuum-packed and sent up on a supply flight - was a birthday present from Mark, and I ask Scott whether it was some sort of in-joke between the brothers.

"My brother said: 'Hey, I'm sending you a gorilla suit.' And I said: 'Why are you sending me a gorilla suit?' He said: 'Why not?'" Kelly says, with a wry smile. "That's about as much thought as was put into that."

The siblings were raised in suburban New Jersey by parents who were both cops. Their mother was the first female officer in the township of West Orange where they grew up, and Scott cites the determination she showed as an inspiration in his efforts to become an astronaut.

Mark and Scott showed similar, early propensities for risk-taking that led to frequent injuries, including hospitalisations. But there was a point at school where Mark surged ahead in his studies, while Scott was prone to being easily distracted in class.

At college, it was the party scene competing for Scott's attention. He credits a phone conversation with Mark - who told him to lay off the socialising and knuckle down - with turning his academic fortunes around.

After training as a Navy pilot, Scott was assigned to a strike squadron called the World Famous Pukin' Dogs. He flew the F-14 Tomcat - the plane featured in Top Gun - during the 1990s, and carried out combat missions during the first Gulf War.

However, Kelly was eager to become part of an even more elite group - those who have flown the space shuttle. Following his selection as a Nasa astronaut in the class of 1996, along with Mark, Scott served as a pilot on one shuttle mission before commanding another in 2007.

On the shuttle, it's the commander that actually pilots the vehicle, and it's on the dizzyingly difficult landing that these skills come into their own.

"I only flew it once. It's kind of crazy to consider how much time and effort you put into doing this one piloting task and then you get to do it once, or twice," says Kelly.

"You've got one chance to land this. If you don't, it's not like you're adding power and coming around again. You recognise not only your colleagues are watching but a large part of the rest of the world."

The shuttle was a magnificent, if flawed, vehicle. And the world was reminded of the huge risks of space travel when, in 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up while returning to Earth - killing seven astronauts.

Nasa's safety culture was criticised by investigations in the wake of both the Challenger and Columbia disasters. Kelly lost friends on Columbia and, when I interview him, he is preparing to address the virtual SafetyCulture Summit , alongside Charles "Sully" Sullenberger - who landed a stricken US Airways flight on the Hudson River - and environmental campaigner Erin Brockovich.

"The stuff that we do is so extraordinarily risky," he tells me. "Safety has to be everyone's responsibility… everyone needs to know that they are empowered to speak up if there's an issue."

When it was originally proposed that an identical twin would be sent into orbit for a year-long stay on the ISS, one group of scientists eyed a unique opportunity to study the effects of extended periods in space on the human body.

By using an Earth-bound Mark as a genetically identical "control", scientists would have greater confidence that any changes they were seeing in Scott were caused by the space environment. Both twins were subjected to a battery of tests measuring potential shifts in their physiology, cognitive abilities, immunity and DNA.

Among other things, the results revealed genetic changes that suggested Scott's DNA was repairing itself due to damage from cosmic radiation.

Scientists also saw unexpected changes in "caps" on the ends of Scott's chromosomes, called telomeres, as well as shifts in his blood chemistry, body mass and gut flora. But the vast majority of these reversed themselves once he was back on Earth.

Four years on, he says: "I don't have any symptoms of anything that I can definitively point to as caused by that amount of time in space, but I do have some structural and physiological changes to my eyes - though it doesn't affect my vision."

Scientists know that some people are affected more by ocular changes in space than others. And there has been work on the genetics underlying these differences. I ask Kelly if, as we learn more about how different people respond to the space environment, these biological markers could play a bigger role in astronaut selection - perhaps even at the expense of more traditional qualities.

"I think that's not just an issue for Nasa but our society in general… it goes deeply into insurance and pre-existing conditions - whether genetic susceptibility could be considered a pre-existing condition. That is definitely an ethical conversation to be had," he says.

The findings of the twins study were reassuring in light of space agencies' plans to send humans on a round trip to the Red Planet, which lies 34 million miles from Earth and could take nine months each way. But astronauts will be exposed to around 10 times the radiation dose they would get in Earth orbit - putting them at long-term risk of cancers and other illnesses.

"You'll either have to find a way to shield or get to Mars quicker," Kelly says. "The other option is you just accept the risk."

It's a dilemma you suspect Kelly himself would have considered carefully. He retired from Nasa in 2016, and has since been writing and speaking about his experiences. With his wife, he has since moved from Houston - the hub for Nasa's human spaceflight programme - to Denver.

In the four years since he left, new opportunities have opened up for travel into space, and skillsets like his are in demand. The astronaut whose long duration spaceflight record Kelly surpassed - Michael López-Alegría - is now set to return from retirement to command a privately-funded flight to the ISS aboard Elon Musk's Crew Dragon vehicle.

Despite having achieved so much, it's clear that Kelly's fascination with spaceflight remains undiminished. "If someone asked me: 'Hey do you want to fly in space?' I'd say: 'Sure, absolutely.' Depending on what I'd be launching on: I wouldn't get into a cannon and launch myself like a cannonball," Kelly says.

"It would have to be something that made sense, that was safe. But I wouldn't rule it out.

"If you know anyone out there who has a rocket ship they need piloting…"

Captain Scott Kelly recently participated in the virtual SafetyCulture summit , sharing his tips for how businesses can succeed in 2021 despite the challenges of the pandemic.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/science-environment-55415233

 

[Joe Mahmood]

MAFFIO, FARRUKO, AKON FT. KY-MANI MARLEY - CELEBRATION

 

[Joe Mahmood]

SEAN PAUL - GET BUSY

 

[Joe Mahmood]

NELLY - JUST A DREAM

 

[Joe Mahmood]

YOUNG MEDICINE - LIVING FICTION

 

[Joe Mahmood]

LEDGER - NOT DEAD YET

 

[Joe Mahmood]

FOZZY - JUDAS

 

[Joe Mahmood]

CRUCIFIX - MY WAY

 

[Joe Mahmood]

MATTHEW WEST - QUARANTINE LIFE

 

[Joe Mahmood]

THE REKLAWS - I DO TOO

 

[Joe Mahmood]

YELAWOLF - TILL IT'S GONE

 

[Joe Mahmood]

ITALOBROTHERS - TILL YOU DROP




"Children today who go to exclusive private schools and have personal tutors are better prepared for the job market because they have more opportunities to master difficult materials. But if everyone has had their intelligence enhanced, the fault lines within society will be evened out. Then how far someone goes in life would be more related to their drive, ambition, imagination, and resourcefulness rather than to being born with a silver spoon in their mouth."~ Professor of Theoretical Physics, Michio Kaku.


"...theory is "sexual selection," the idea that females prefer to mate with intelligent males. In the animal kingdom, such as in a wolf pack, the alpha male holds the pack together by brute force. Any challenger to the alpha male has to be soundly beaten back by tooth and claw. But millions of years ago, as humans became gradually more intelligent, strength alone could not keep the tribe together. Anyone with cunning and intelligence could ambush, lie or cheat, or form factions within the tribe to take down the alpha male. Hence the new generation of alpha males would not necessarily be the strongest. Over time, the leader would become the most intelligent and cunning. This is probably the reason why females choose smart males (not necessarily nerdy smart, but "quarterback smart"). Sexual selection in turn accelerated our evolution to become intelligent. So in this case the engine that drove the expansion of our brain would be females who chose men who could strategize, become leaders of the tribe, and outwit other makes, which requires a large brain.

These are just a few of the theories about the origin of intelligence, and each has its pros and cons. The common theme seems to be the ability to simulate the future."


IQ EXAMS AND DR. TERMAN

By default, the most widely used measure of Intelligence is the IQ exam, pioneered by Dr. Lewis German of Stanford University, who in 1916 revised an earlier test devised by Alfred Binet for the French government. For the next several decades, it became the gold standard by which to measure intelligence. Terman, in fact, dedicated his life to the proposition that Intelligence could be measured and inherited, and was the strongest predictor of success in life.

Five years later, Terman started a landmark study on schoolchildren, The Genetic Studies of Genius. It was an ambitious project, whose scope and duration were unprecedented back in the 1920s. It set the tone for research in this field for an entire generation. He methodically chronicled the successes and failures of these individuals throughout their lives, compiling thick files of their achievements. These high-IQ students were dubbed the "Termites."

At first, Dr. Terman's idea seemed to be a resounding success. It became the standard by which both children and other tests were measured. During World War I, 1.7 million soldiers were given this test. But over the years, a different profile began to slowly emerge. Decades later, children who scored high on the IQ exam were only moderately more successful than those who did not. Terman could proudly point to some of his students who went on to win awards and secured well-paying jobs. But he became increasingly disturbed by the large number of his brightest students whom society would consider to be failures, taking menial, dead-end jobs, engaging in crime, or leading lives on the margins of society. These results were quite upsetting to Dr. Terman, who had dedicated his life to proving that high IQ meant success in life.

SUCCESS IN LIFE AND DELAYED GRATIFICATION

A different approach was taken in 1972 by Dr. Walter Mischel, also of Stanford, who analyzed yet another characteristic among children: the ability to delay gratification. He pioneered the use of the "marshmallow test," that is, would children prefer one marshmallow now, or the prospect of two marshmallows twenty minutes later? Six hundred children, aged four to six, participated in this experiment. When Mischel revisited the participants in 1988, he found that those who could delay gratification were more competent than those who could not.

In 1990, another study showed a direct correlation between those who could delay gratification and SAT scores. And study done in 2011 indicated that this characteristic continued throughout a person's life. The results of these and other studies were eye-opening. The children who exhibited delayed gratification scored higher on almost every measure of success in life: higher-paying jobs, lower rates of drug addiction, higher test scores, higher educational attainment, better social integration, etc.

But what was most intriguing was that brain scans of these individuals revealed a definite pattern. They showed a distinct difference in the way the prefrontal cortex interacted with the ventral striatum, a region involved in addiction. (This is not surprising, since the ventral striatum contains the nucleus accumbens, known as the "pleasure center." So there seems to be a struggle here between the pleasure-seeking part of the brain and the rational part to control temptation...)

This difference was no fluke. The result has been tested by many independent groups over the years, with nearly identical results. Other studies have also verified the difference in the frontal-striatal circuitry of the brain, which appears to govern delayed gratification. It seems that the one characteristic most closely correlated with success in life, which has persisted over the decades, is the ability to delay gratification.

Although this is a gross simplification, what these brain scans show is that the connection between the prefrontal and parietal loved seems to be important for mathematical and abstract thought, while the connection between the prefrontal and limbic system (involving the conscious control of our emotions and pleasure center) seems to be essential for success in life.

Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, concludes, "Your grades in school, your scores on the SAT, mean less for life success than your capacity to co-operate, your ability to regulate your emotions, your capacity to delay your gratification, and your capacity to focus your attention. Those skills are far more important - all the data indicate - for life success than your IQ or your grades."

Excerpts extracted from "THE FUTURE OF THE MIND" by Michio Kaku.

https://mkaku.org/

 

[Joe Mahmood]

BLOW - FALL IN DEEP

 

[Joe Mahmood]

GREY DAZE - B12

 

[Joe Mahmood]

MEMPHIS MAY FIRE - YOU AND ME

 

[Joe Mahmood]

COLD - QUIET NOW




Einstein’s Remarkable Letter to a Grief-Stricken Father Who Had Just Lost His Son

To outlive one’s children is arguably the most unbearable of human miseries. Even the most empathic among us can never fully imagine the incomprehensible anguish of a parent who has survived the loss of a dear life that had only begun to blossom.

In February of 1950, a devastated and disconsolate New York father who had lost his eleven-year-old son to polio several months earlier turned to none other than Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879–April 18, 1955) for pain-salving perspective.

The grief-stricken father writes:

Dear Dr. Einstein,

Last summer my eleven-year-old son died of polio. He was an unusual child, a lad of great promise who verily thirsted after knowledge so that he could prepare himself for a useful life in the community. His death has shattered the very structure of my existence, my very life has become an almost meaningless void — for all my dreams and aspirations were somehow associated with his future and his strivings. I have tried during the past months to find comfort for my anguished spirit, a measure of solace to help me bear the agony of losing one dearer than life itself — an innocent, dutiful, and gifted child who was the victim of such a cruel fate. I have sought comfort in the belief that man has a spirit which attains immortality — that somehow, somewhere my son lives on in a higher world.

I write you all this because I have just read your volume The World as I See It. On page 5 of that book you stated: “Any individual who should survive his physical death is beyond my comprehension … such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.” And I inquire in a spirit of desperation, is there in your view no comfort, no consolation for what has happened? Am I to believe that my beautiful darling child … has been forever wedded into dust, that there was nothing within him which has defied the grave and transcended the power of death? Is there nothing to assuage the pain of an unquenchable longing, an intense craving, an unceasing love for my darling son?

May I have a word from you? I need help badly.

Sincerely yours,
R.M.


Einstein writes on February 12, 1950:

Dear Mr. M.,

A human being is part of the whole world, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.

With my best wishes,
sincerely yours,
Albert Einstein

https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/03/14/einstein-grieving-father-letter/

 

[Joe Mahmood]

CLINT LOWERY - DISTANCE

 

[Joe Mahmood]

EVANS BLUE - ERASE MY SCARS