I’ve been meaning to put this review up for a while, and haven’t had the time. Now’s the time!
Mind Programming, by Eldon Taylor, is a book about persuasion techniques, marketing methods, and self-change.
I SEE YOU!!!
While Eldon is a little redundant at times, and pulls from many other sources in the first half of his book, his summary of mental manipulation techniques is a good one, and worth reading.
The second half of the book is devoted to Eldon’s discussion of the subliminal self-help programs he has created, along with other methods for creating self-responsibility and feelings of self-affirmation.
They say that “knowing is half the battle” (thank you, G.I. Joe), and I agree completely. The other half is taking action on that knowledge. To that end, I really like Eldon’s book, and his presentation of the knowledge, and the know-how to make change.
On the “critique” side, I do think the book is a little redundant and stream-of-consciousness in places. It also begins to promote Eldon’s own views/methods more and more as the book continues.
While there are many facets to recognize in order to achieve true autonomy in our society (if that’s even possible), Eldon’s book does a great job of pointing out the main, media-driven, detractors from autonomy, and for that reason, I highly recommend this book.
According to Duff, citing a recent journal article from the Archives of Internal Medicine:
More than half of the nation’s medical residency programs to train doctors in internal medicine accepted financial support from the drug industry, even though three-fourths of the programs’ directors said accepting the aid was “not desirable,” a survey found.
He’s trying to get some insight into the factors affecting child development – from parents, educators, and policy-makers. I’m sure that he’d even accept some ideas from folks who have an educated opinion, but don’t fit into any of those specific categories.
Supposedly, “thousands of sports educators, coaches, athletic directors, recreation directors, association members, sponsors, students, and parents across the country will show their support of the Day and of this year’s theme, “Stay Strong, Play On.”"
I hadn’t heard anything at all about it. But, congrats girls and women! I’ll back you up any day of the week!
Posted in Life Lessons on February 23rd, 2010 by Josh
Guy McPherson’s most recent blog post over at Nature Bats Last garnered a lengthy response from me that I’d like to share and expand upon here.
Guy reviews Tom Blees’ book “Prescription for the Planet.“ While I haven’t read the book (and that’s partly the point), Guy cites some issues he has with it. Namely, that Blees’ recommendations don’t call for any radical (root) change in the way things are done, but merely use alternative forms of the same (destructive) system.
Guy says:
Ultimately, Blees’ plan boils down to two “solutions,” both of them extremely suspect. First, he claims we can we can ramp up production of renewable energy systems and also fourth-generation nuclear reactors to keep the power on. Indeed, Blees claims our lives depend on electricity. As such, he dismisses the first two million years of the human experience. If our lives depend on electricity, it’s because we’ve abandoned a viable, durable set of living arrangements in exchange for endless opportunities to destroy the living planet. Second, Blees promotes the notion that boron-powered automobiles will keep us on the highways. And he thinks that’d be a good thing. After all, boron seems to be essentially limitless on this world. Just as crude oil seemed, not so long ago.
Indeed, Guy.
The rest of this post is my response, with some editing.
we need power
Welcome to the Machine
It’s not that I disagree with Guy’s sentiments, but it’s worth noting that he and I wrote our opinions (and you are currently reading them) on a piece of equipment that is an integral part of the “omnicidal technology” that we decry.
The roots of the culture of omnicide are not located in any single place. They’re distributed through our culture. This is true of any culture. Culture, as accepted, shared values, is always self-policing. Individuals within the culture accept it, and see anything that is different from the culture as “foreign,” and therefore also “dangerous,” or “threatening.” They then seek to ostracize or destroy that foreign element – whether or not that makes sense.
The greatest example I can think of is the American Civil War. Brother fighting brother, father against son. It didn’t matter whether or not they were family, or that they loved one another (previously, at least). What mattered was that they had become “the enemy” to one another, through a process of enculturation. The Northerner accepted the cultural values of the North. The Southerner, those of the South.
Beneath that lay the dominant drive of life – at any and all costs to expand, to become more (people call it a lust or desire for “power,” though that description seems flaccid to me).
The two forces combine. The Southern father is now a foreigner. A threat to the Northern son’s expansion – and not just his expansion, but his entire culture’s expansion – everything he stands for or represents…a force greater than he himself. A fight to the death is the only option, it seems.
brother, can you spare a bullet?
Wherefore Art Thou, Culture?
The thing is, the roots, the seeds of the “omnicidal technology,” must already have existed in our culture from the beginning, in order to be able to sprout into their current form. I don’t think they were “planted” along the way. I think they were always present, like anything, just needing ideal conditions for their growth.
What happened? How did “hard work” turn into “entitlement?” How did the earth-consciousness of the small farmer turn into the money-consciousness of modern agribusiness?
Some values were (are) allowed to be stressed (or impressed), while others were (are) allowed to be suppressed. How did those allowances occur, or how were those allowances coerced?
This, I think, is the appropriate starting-point. Starting from a discussion of right/wrong tacitly concedes the ground that supports the undesirable state. Once conceded, it is the “dominant system.”
Now (still) the dominant system, any energy put into it, is used by it (not singularly, but in a distributed fashion) to further its cause.
The “antagonist” must fight against an “agon.” There must be a hero for the villain to fight.
I think these are clues to the way out. Any argument that relies on something other – especially any argument that relies on reference to the current (read, dominant) paradigm – will only be used by the current paradigm.
The Peckham Experiments have been a series of “experiments” on the effects of social solidarity and access to physical activity on a socioeconomically disadvantaged group (the “Peckham” region of London).
What happens, the originators asked, when a “deprived” group of people are given a place where they can have access to sporting events, physical health monitoring, and other workshops, at a very very low cost?
Very good things – that’s what!
People begin to organize themselves into small groups to achieve creative ends. Health indices go up, and disease indices go down.
This next “experiment” left me shocked and amazed. I hope you take the time to watch the entire 50-minute documentary about this incredible woman, and her experiment.
The incredible woman is Jane Elliot, formerly a 3rd-grade teacher in Riceville, IA. The experiment involved separating the children in her class into two groups – those with brown eyes and those with blue. Whichever group was judged to be “superior” on the first day was given special privileges, the other group had privileges taken away.
Why, you might ask, would someone do this? Ms. Elliot was moved by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to teach her schoolchildren about racism and prejudice – by having them experience it firsthand.
While her method would not fly today, watch the video and see what you think about it for yourself.
I think both of these experiments reveal a glimpse of the profound effect that small changes in our environment can have on us.
Aside from citing a bunch of studies and trying to draw general conclusions from them (which is an incorrect use of science, by the way, for a great discussion of this, see John Sifferman’s most recent blog post), the author describes the field of ecopsychology, from its inception to present attempts at connecting individuals’ psychology and environment.
I dare you to look inside...
The article cites a study by Marc Berman, at the University of Michigan, whose study “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature” describes attentional gains after participants have walked through a setting full of “nature” (in this case, the Ann Arbor Arboretum…is that redundant?!).
But what is “psychology?” Until that question is answered succinctly, all “psychological” studies are potentially redundant and misleading.
But what is the “mind?” (let’s leave questions of the “soul” out of the discussion for now). Apparently it’s a combination of “mental functions and behaviors.”
Most of psychology, if you’ve ever taken a psychology course (or several) addresses “mind” as a thing separate from physical reality. Theorists make up their own paradigms of mind and mentality, of “mental functions and behaviors.”
The terrible redundancy can be seen most clearly in the field of Child Psychology, or Child Development. There are five or ten competing theories of child development at different stages of maturation. All are right, most are completely redundant with one another. Many (if not most) create definitions of the child’s developmental process that are obviously derived solely from the researcher’s personal experience…no “objectivity” there (the question of “objectivity” is quite another question entirely).
This redundancy seems extraordinarily silly to me. For one, can’t we all just get along?! But for another, where does this “mind” come from? I mean, “mind” doesn’t just exist on its own, apart from the physical body…apart from “behaviors.” Does it?
I think the development of the field of psychology stems largely from the Cartesian mind/body dualism, and an underlying belief in “human supremacy” in the Order of Things.
Foucault me.
That is, human beings always believe that they are somehow specially different, better, “more special” than anything else in nature. We always try to find qualities that separate us from the “lower animals.”
But, one by one, all of those arguments have been disproved. I’ve heard them all – human beings have language (all animals have language); human beings are creative (ever see a spiderweb?); we use tools (ever see an ape catch termites with a long blade of grass?); we are self-conscious (debatable, and impossible to prove that other animals are not also self-aware/conscious)…etc.
The list goes on, but always with the same result – we are no “better” than anything else this planet has produced, we’re simply “different.”
This led, in combination with the Cartesian separation of mind from body, to a belief that our thoughts were somehow separate from our bodies, from our “physical” selves.
“Ecological Unconscious” or “ecopsychology” is one attempt to put those things back together, but it has skimmed over one of the most important questions – “When studying psychology (the mind), what exactly is it that we are studying?”
In reference to this, I’d like to cite a 2007 study by Japanese researchers (following up on several earlier studies of a similar nature). The study is called “Psychological effects of forest environments on healthy adults: Shinrin-yoku (forest-air bathing, walking) as a possible method of stress reduction,” and, similar to Berman’s study, looked at the effects of walking or sitting in a wooded environment on physiology.
Needless to say, the effects were drastic, and positive. Physiological markers of stress (salivary cortisol, resting heart rate, blood pressure, etc.) decrease in a “natural” environment.
Do the participants’ “psychologies” change? Undoubtedly, yes.
I guarantee that changing your breathing will change your mind.
You see, for me, “psychology,” or “mind,” is just a product of the physical body. Sure, at some level it also becomes the product of the interaction of itself (recursive thought) and anything else (mind-to-mind, mind-thinking-about-itself), but without the physical body, there is no mind.
How can I assert this? Well, you can “change your mind” by changing your body. If you’re feeling blue, go out for a run. It will change your mind.
So when fields like “ecopsychology” spring up, or talk of an “ecological unconscious” begins, I wonder why. Why is it that we want to separate our physiology from our thoughts (or vice versa)? Why is it that we hold onto this belief that there is some “magic” happening in our gray matter?
While it is magical that we have such a complex brain, the brain is not the mind. The entire body is your brain. To quote George Leonard:
Some researchers in the comparatively new field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) argue that the interplay of peptides with peptide receptors on the surface of cells throughout body and brain carries considerably more information than all previously discovered brain mechanisms combined. Imagine a pharmacy with well over a hundred potions that can be mixed in all possible combinations and proportions, and you can begin to understand the power of this chemical information system.
So don’t speak of an “ecological unconscious” as something separate from your body. Don’t speak of nature as something separate from your body. You are continuous with your habitat, with your environment. This is why people living in cities get chronic diseases associated with urban environments – associated with pollution. This is why people have the same diseases as their friends.
Everything “external” to your body can and should be considered your “external organs.” There is nothing you see that does not affect your physiology on some level. There is nothing you hear, smell, touch, that does not do the same. At the same time, there are many things that you cannot sense in any way that are affecting your physiology…that are “creating your mind” – the invisible pollutants in your environment, the trees you do not notice that supply you with oxygen, the microbiomes that inhabit your body.
Stop separating your unconscious from your physical self. And stop separating your physical self from the totality of your environment. When you do that, you regain control over who you are and how you behave.
Only then can you finally say that you have a “mind.”
Posted in Life Lessons on February 16th, 2010 by Josh
The Palm Beach Post did a great piece on some new literature about the frequency of junk food product placements in films.
A new study by Lisa Sutherland, assistant professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, reveals the incredible amount of product placement occurring in popular movies.
138 of 200 films analyzed had some kind of product placement – food or beverage – most of it, what we could consider “junk food.”
How many products can we fit into one "placement?"
The problem with this is that the more we are exposed to a stimulus, the more likely we are to accept that stimulus as normal.
A lot of studies have shown dishabituation in people after being presented to stimuli a certain number of times. That is, they cease to notice the stimulus as being novel. Most of those studies have stopped there. Yes, you cease to notice the thing. But what does that mean with regard to how you treat it?
How do you treat something you don’t notice?
The fact is, we treat things we don’t notice as being non-threatening…as being “normal.” When we notice something, we say it is “unusual” or “out of the ordinary.” It is not “normal.”
Advertising achieves a few things at once. First, it exposes you to a novel stimulus, and presents that stimulus as something desirable (for good or bad reasons) and as being socially acceptable or creating a certain social status.
Then, it continues to pummel you with the messaging, till you aren’t even aware of it. For instance, if you watched TV last night, try to name ten commercials that you saw. Specifically – what were they about, what were they selling, how were they trying to convince you to buy?
It’s a hard game to play.
Finally, every now and then the advertiser tweaks the message. You receive a new stimulus. Your “desire-reaction” grows.
Tweak the message
Children may be more susceptible to this type of messaging than adults, having not fully developed their “executive control” functions (though whether or not many adults have fully developed this is questionable as well…).
Exercise, he says, involves sets, reps, forced movements in unnatural or limited planes of motion, etc.
I think he’s right.
Nice gym.
The “Workout” Dilemma
For many of us, even the term “workout” fades into the single word “work.” It doesn’t sound like fun. What’s supposed to be enjoyable about it? Especially after you’ve already been working all week anyway?! Who wants more work?!
A Rose by Any Other Name
It’s important to remember where gyms came from. Original “gymnasiums” in Ancient Greece (the ones the European gymnasiums were modeled after, which are the gyms that ours were modeled after) consisted of an open sandy pit outside, and maybe a large, empty room, with some different apprati and weights to throw around. But mostly, you’d just throw yourself (or maybe another person) around.
In the process, you’d learn some things. Like how to deal with your own body. Or how to deal with disorientation (tumbling). Or how to deal with another person’s body (wrestling, boxing), or an external body of other sorts (shot put, weight, discus, javelin).
In the earlier part of the 20th Century, most American gyms still looked this way. They were mostly empty space, with some weights around the perimeter, and maybe some uneven bars and gymnastic rings. Maybe the gym would be totally outdoors. Or at least have some outdoor space to play around in.
Your “workout” would consist of a combination of strength-skill movements. Things that weren’t as simple as “just pick that up.” You’d have to think a little bit about what you were about to do.
You might even have done some gymnastic-type things in there.
Further, there would be a community of like-minded folks in there watching you, coaching you, helping one another out, and competing with each other. It wouldn’t be a line of hamsters on their wheels…excuse me, treadmills…
Oh The 80’s
In the 1980’s, the bodybuilding phenomenon really took off. Large chain gyms like Gold’s, Bally’s, etc., took advantage of, and fueled the craze.
Group exercise classes became modeled after school classes – One Teacher, Many Students.
People grew competition-crazed.
Muscles bulged and glistened.
And the nation continued to get fatter.
Please adopt a cardio machine...they're lonely
The True Cost of Fitness
And in the melee, we all were swept up.
But what was it all about, in the end? “Fitness?” Fitness to do what? For what purpose? To be able to do our jobs better? No, most likely not. To contribute to our communities? No. To hunt more effectively, or do something better?
No, just fitness. To be fit.
Many of the aspects of our lives have turned into this in the past twenty years – to do something, simply to do it.
No value other than the doing of it. Which is fine, but weird.
Those massive gyms, with all of their equipment, and the fees people pay to belong to those gyms…what is that about?
It isn’t about fitness.
What is your goal? Why do you do it? And wouldn’t you want it to be enjoyable?
Another beauty...
Exercise, Fitness, and Movement
Frank insists that what people need is more movement. I agree with him 100%. But I also see that people must be coerced to move. Calling it one thing or another doesn’t mean much. Changing the way it looks, its external appearance, attracts attention.
All animals are attracted by the new, the novel. They require what is familiar, but they are attracted to what is different.
So while I agree, that people need to move more, and that “exercise” may inhibit them, I think the means to get ourselves moving will come from different sources than from symantics.
We need more toys.
Worlds that change toys.
Toys That Change Worlds
Toys That Change Worlds is the subheader of one of my all-time favorite blogs (linked to the first few words in this sentence). It’s not for everyone. It’s very philosophical…just warning you.
But the point of that blog is that it’s possible to change your perception of reality, to change yourself, deeply and meaningfully, by playing with a new toy.
That’s why I’m not against things like Wii Fit, or the vibrating health saddle, kettlebells, bodyblades, or anything else.
In fact, I wish there were more of them! And I wish that more groups of people would get together on a regular basis to play with all of those great toys.
Imagine if you had a block party, where everyone went around the block, into everyone’s house, and had to use the workout toys in that house for at least 5 minutes. Then you all rotated. Heck, what if you raced from house to house?
Sounds like fun!
And I think there’d be a lot of exercise equipment that would get dusted off, and have the hanging clothes taken off it.
Sure, strong. Sure, flexible. Sure...
Real Strength
In the end, true strength is total-person strength. It is strength of will, strength of character, strength of judgment, strength of muscles, lungs, heart, mind, connections. Real strength knows no bounds. It spills over and out of the individual, into everything they do and touch. It extends beyond them, into their friends, family and community.
Real strength also accepts no limits. It seeks constantly to improve itself, to become more, to become stronger still.
Real strength is flexible. It does not break, it bends, and then springs back into place. It flows like water, wearing away even the hardest material over time.
To be truly strong, you must cultivate yourself. You must accept who you are. You must come to learn and embrace your greatest gift to humanity, and act to express that gift in every word, thought, and deed.
You must “workout.” You must “exercise.” You must “play.” You must “stretch.” You must do it all, and do it from the core of your being, for all you are worth, every day, tirelessly, until your time has run its course.
Posted in Life Lessons on February 12th, 2010 by Josh
I was prompted to write this post, finally, after avoiding and/or forgetting about it the past seven or eight times.
DOH
People Watcher
Whenever I’m out in public, I watch people. I love to watch the way they move, and to try to imagine what’s happening in their bones and muscles.
Do they favor one leg over another? Why? Is it the foot, ankle, knee, or hip on one side or another? Or is it something else? Sometimes, people look like they’re “favoring” a leg because they’re carrying a heavy bag on one shoulder.
But I also see people whom I think might be in for some serious musculoskeletal difficulties in their future. Women wearing high heels, clonking like Clydesdales, slamming their already out-of-place feet into the ground, with their pelvis tilted forward…I don’t know. Maybe they’ll have issues, maybe not.
She might have other issues...
And that’s what I thought today. I was driving down the street, and saw a distinguished-looking older gentleman walking along. His feet toed-out a little as he walked…a slight “duck walk.” This type of walking position typically means there are some dysfunctions up the kinetic chain, which can lead to more serious issues over time – as the unbalanced wear and tear on the joints destroys or malforms them.
Then I realized something.
This guy most likely won’t ever experience any issues from this style of walking. In fact, he’d probably been walking exactly that way for most of his life. And here he was, walking just fine, looking happy as can be.
Yes. Just this happy!
Leave Me Alone!
We have a tendency in this country…at least, I know that I have it – to think that people should be doing something better. That things need to be different in order to be good. When that may not be the case.
In the same token as the man I saw, many people will never experience disability from not being physically active or following a good diet. They’ll never notice. It doesn’t matter to them.
It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. In fact, it seems silly.
I’ve gotten that reaction from people a lot over the years – “you’re crazy,”
But, while I personally agree with Craig 100%, I don’t think that’s as meaningful as I used to. You have to meet people where they are. And many of them don’t care if they’re fit or active.
So if that’s the case, how do you convince them? Or should you even try?
