Darwin’s asylum

Shrewsbury School is one of the oldest public schools in England and it makes much of being the institution that schooled Charles Darwin and introduced him to science.

While the famous naturalist was certainly a pupil there he probably never set foot inside the building that the famous school now occupies because during Darwin’s time the building was Kingsland Lunatic Asylum.

As the historian L.D. Smith noted, the Kingsland Asylum was quite unique in its day. Rather than create a separate institution for ‘pauper lunatics’ – as was common at the time – the authorities in the county of Shropshire had decided to license the Shrewsbury ‘House of Industry’ as a private asylum at the same time.

The workhouse and asylum was opened in 1784 to accommodate paupers and cases of “lunacy”, “sickness” and “single women in a state of pregnancy”.

By 1844 the Kingsland Asylum contained nearly 90 residents who lived under a tough regime:

Payment of one-sixth part of their week’s work is made to all except in cases of misconduct, and punishments are given to all who profanely curse or swear, who appear to be in liquor, who are refractory or disobedient to the reasonable orders of the steward or matrons, who pretend sickness, make excuse to avoid working, destroy or spoil material or implements, or are guilty of lewd, immoral or disorderly behaviour.

But it’s not wholly inappropriate that Darwin has become posthumously linked to an asylum building as he had a powerful, if not fraught, relationship with psychiatry and mental illness.

Darwin reportedly showed ‘a personal interest in the plight of the mentally ill and an astute empathy for psychiatric patients’ but founded a view of madness as a form of degeneration that was enthusiastically adopted by eugenicists.

Thankfully, this strain of Darwinian influence has long since died, but both evolution and genetics remain important foundations of modern cognitive science although the role of evolutionary psychology in explaining mental illness remains controversial.

Curiously, Darwin himself also suffered from poor health for most of his life that has never been fully explained but clearly had many aspects that would be diagnosed as psychiatric disorders today.

So I quite like the fact that Darwin’s picture is proudly displayed inside an old asylum. It’s an ambiguous tribute and reminds us of his own ambivalent relationship with the unsettled mind.

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28 Brilliant Tips for Living Life

Sometimes the littlest change can make a world of difference.

Start waking a little earlier and spending some quiet time to start your day? The rest of the day has been transformed.

What little change might change your life? You can pick one or two from the list below at random — I can almost guarantee that one of them will do worlds of good for anyone.

I compiled this list this morning after asking on Twitter: “What’s your best tip that has made life better/easier?” The result was a wonderful influx of brilliant wisdom. Thank you, my friends.

Enjoy.

Use travel delay as opportunity to stop rather than get stressed. When the world stands still, let it. [Karl Durrant]Whenever your spouse says something the first thing you should hear is “I love you & want to spend my life with you”. [David Inman]Stop clinging and embrace change as a constant. [Isabelle Cholette]Try and give people the benefit of the doubt if they snap at you. Might be something going on you don’t know about. [misslmdavis]Wash your bowl immediately after eating! [niekstarr]The daily practice of silence. [dimovich]Life is so much easier when you make a decision within 5 minutes. Longer than that and you get bogged down & never decide. [Tiffany Cooper]Friendship is a gift, not a possession. [Chris Reetz]Mostly nothing is that serious as it seems in the first moment. [Julian Pollman]Before you go to bed, write down only 3 things that you want to do the following day. This is how to prioritize. [Ziba]Do the most important task first thing in the morning. [Jordan Ayres]Make all driving a mindfulness practice. Well being and safety! [Branden Barnett]When you think you want something, put it on the planner a month from now. When that month rolls around and you still want it, OK. [connie baber]Smiling … seems to help with most things. :-) [zen fostering]Love where you live, and work in walking distance from where you live. [Anoel]Expecting less or nothing, and just being. That way disappointments are nil and you are pleasantly surprised often. Simple. [Traci]Allow extra time in your schedule for wandering. [dylan]Meditate — it makes everything fall into place. Being happy makes life so much better and easier! [Gabriel Rocheleau]Do something relaxing before going to bed. No electronics. [Rozanne Paxman]Don’t fold clothes. Saves time and hassle. [Rachel Jonat]QTIP: quit taking it personally. [Will Hopkins]To avoid cluttering: After any activity, put everything in place. It only takes 5 minutes vs. 3 hours if you allowed to pile things up. [La Piña]Organic steel cut oats. YUM! [Prem]Realizing that you treasure experiences over possessions makes life better. [Sophia Khan]If you lick a glass before drinking from it, your lipstick doesn’t smear the glass. [natalie fergie]When in doubt, take a deep breath. [Kevin Cuccaro]Define what’s necessary; say no to the rest. [Dana]Expect nothing. Welcome everything. (from a homeless man with AIDS on the streets of Vancouver.) [Sarah Chauncey]

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Plodding and Bursting

Plodding and bursting are two different strategies for getting things done. Understanding these two modes will help you in two ways. First, you’ll be able to identify your own default mode, so you can better take advantage of it. And second, you’ll be able to understand others who prefer your non-dominant mode, so you can relate to them more effectively.

Plodding means persevering with a steady and stable workflow day after day.

A nice example of plodding is Jiro from the movie Jiro Dreams of Sushi. He followed essentially the same work routine every day for decades and became one of the best sushi chefs in the world as a result.

A plodding writer would focus on writing every day, in essentially the same place, at the same time, and in the same manner. This approach could be used to create articles as well as larger works. An example of such a writer is Danielle Steele, who’s written more than 100 books. She’s said in interviews that she has a very disciplined work schedule, basically following the same work routine day after day to complete book after book.

Bursting means working in short, temporary cycles of highly focused work while tuning out anything unrelated to the project at hand.

A good example of bursting is when Sylvester Stallone wrote the script for the movie Rocky. Stallone saw an interesting boxing match in March 1975, got inspired, and wrote the whole script in 20 hours straight, spread over 3 days.

A bursting writer catches waves of inspiration and rides them to the completion of some creative work as quickly as possible. An example of a bursting writer is Dan Poynter. He’s written many how-to books and has shared that he likes to complete a new book in about 2 weeks. When he’s ready to write the book, he puts everything else aside and gets the book done, working long hours during that time to see it through to completion. This approach has worked very well for him.

As you may suspect, you can combine these two approaches in different ways.

For example, you could use bursting to prototype a new software application, then plodding to turn it into a completed product, then bursting to launch it, and then plodding to handle the ongoing marketing and sales.

As another example, you could use bursting to shift yourself towards a healthier lifestyle, such as by spending a weekend clearing all junk food out of your kitchen, picking healthier recipes, restocking your kitchen with healthier food, signing up for exercise classes, and putting the classes you selected onto your calendar. Then once you’ve made those initial changes, you could switch to plodding mode to condition some new habits and to maintain them thereafter.

When it comes to personal growth, quite often you’ll see a bursting pattern being very effective for pushing through resistance to create an initial change, and then plodding takes over for long-term maintenance. This works for relationship changes, career changes, financial changes, health changes, and more.

Most likely you’ll observe that you’re much better at applying one of these modes than the other. For instance, you may be great at plodding, but you just can’t summon the energy or inspiration required to really blast through to bigger changes. Or you may be great at bursting, initiating new changes with explosive energy, but you have a tough time maintaining momentum beyond that point.

Plodding and bursting exist along a spectrum. You may be near the middle, feeling competent using either mode, or you may be near the edges, vastly preferring one mode over the other.

What do you do if you discover that you’re really great at one mode but not so great at the other?

First, accept that this is how you are. Instead of lamenting your weakness, think about how you could squeeze even more juice out of your dominant mode. In other words, instead of trying to move towards the middle, consider exploring the extremes of your strength.

So if you’re a plodder, ask yourself how you can become one of the best plodders ever. Think about how you might structure your day into a well-orchestrated performance from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. Turn your goals into habits. Focus on getting your daily routine just right so that if you essentially repeat it over and over, you’ll achieve the goals that are most important to you. If you want to create music, for instance, then specify which hours you’ll do that each day, and decide in advance exactly what you’ll do during that time and for how long (practicing instruments, composing, studying music theory, decomposing great songs, etc). Reduce everything you can into part of a routine you can trust.

If you’re a burster, then ponder how you can burst your way to your goals even faster. How quickly could you move beyond stuckness if you really committed yourself? You could start an online business in a day. Write a screenplay in a few days. Upgrade all your technology this weekend. How quickly could you create a rough draft? A prototype? Push all the unimportant stuff off your plate for a while, and focus on one project or task single-mindedly unless you’ve made a significant dent in it. Don’t stop until you’re done or you really must stop.

My favorite mode is bursting. That’s how I write — quickly and in short bursts. This is how I wrote about 1200 articles during the past 8 years. I don’t write on a set schedule; I write when I get inspired with an idea. I write at different times of day, in different locations, and on many different topics. This approach works nicely for me.

When I’ve tried to set my writing to a regular schedule, I’ve always failed to maintain it, usually because I get wrapped up in new waves of inspiration, such as a new experiment to conduct, a new trip to take, or a new friend to hang out with.

Realize that you can achieve great success in life with either mode. Neither is better than the other. The difference mainly comes down to how you like to manage your energy.

To a plodder, a burster may appear unstable, undisciplined, and unpredictable, like a loose cannon. Similarly, a burster may regard a plodder as dull, uncreative, and tediously slow. But instead of disrespecting the other mode, it’s more helpful to respect our individual strengths — and especially to push our own strengths towards even greater expression.

In school bursters are often labeled as procrastinators. Instead of working a little bit each day on a big project, a burster will often do it all in one marathon session — and still do a decent job on the project. Doing a little each day would make a burster pull his/her hair out from sheer boredom. But bursters eventually learn that the added time pressure of leaving projects to the last minute helps them focus, and this focus lets them plow through the work more quickly than they otherwise would.

Instead of waiting for external time pressure, a burster can create a similar motivational pressure by setting inspiring goals and imagining them as real. My friend Joe Vitale is what I’d call a burster. When he gets a new product idea, he goes into burst mode and gets it done quickly, launches it, and then moves on to the next thing. He recently got into music and used his bursting strategy to create and release his first 4 albums in only 18 months. When he talks about his new products, it’s usually with great excitement, even if he’s the only one feeling it.

Most schools are set up to train and reward plodding, so people who are good at bursting may have a hard time fitting in there. I flunked out of university when I tried to go through it in plodding mode — I couldn’t handle the tediously slow pacing. But when I started over and treated my university time as a bursting experiment, including every project and assignment, I was able to graduate with two degrees in only three semesters. I’ve previously shared that story in articles like Do It Now and 10 Tips for College Students, so I won’t rehash it here. The key idea is that I had to recognize that the university program wasn’t designed for someone like me, so I adapted it to my natural bursting ability as best I could, and that allowed me to excel where I previously failed.

On the other hand, plodders also get stigmatized, albeit differently. They’re labeled as bean counters, as if their contribution is little more than pointless busywork. Plodders often get pulled into positions that require routine tasks done repeatedly, such as accounting, maintenance, or bureaucratic work. Plodders love routine, but if they embraced their love of routine more fully, they could contribute even more. An effective plodder can do more than fielding customer service calls or bagging groceries — s/he could also make some wonderful contributions to fields like art, science, medicine, and more.

If you work with others, then recognizing their dominant modes can be very helpful. For instance, don’t assign a project to a burster and expect him/her to work on it a little bit each day till it’s done. The burster will most likely do it in one marathon session, possibly right before the deadline. Don’t try to make bursters feel bad for not using a plodding strategy. What you regard as a stressful way to work may actually be quite stimulating and effective for them.

Similarly, don’t try to give a plodder a one-time creative project with a tight deadline that would throw their carefully crafted routine out of whack. This will only stress them out. Instead, work with a plodder to adapt new projects to their existing daily workflow, so they can do the work gradually over time and still maintain their steady, graceful rhythm.

It’s also interesting to observe these patterns in your kids. My son Kyle (age 9) seems very much like a plodder at this point. He loves his routine and resists changes to it. He likes to eat the same foods and play the same games over and over again. He says he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. Each time I make him a sandwich, he gives me feedback and a 1-10 rating on my performance, letting me know how close my efforts came to his ideal sandwich, so I can hopefully improve my sandwich making abilities over time. He says I’m improving, and he continues to patiently monitor my progress.

My daughter Emily (age 12) is clearly more of a burster. She doesn’t care so much about routine; she gets bored too easily. She likes to conduct short-term experiments. Lately she’s been seeing how late she can stay up on Friday and Saturday nights before falling asleep and noticing what effect different amounts of caffeine have on her efforts. If she likes a new book or a game, she’ll often go through it fast and move on to something else. She loves creating artwork, especially drawings and origami, in short bursts of inspiration. If I suggest something new for her to try, such as a new food she probably won’t even like, she almost always says yes to it. She even recognizes when parts of her life are becoming too repetitive, and then she seeks to break those patterns to mix things up.

If I try to treat both kids as if they have the same dominant mode, that doesn’t work very well. If I treat my daughter as a plodder, she gets very bored. If I treat my son as a burster, it stresses him out.

Of course this is oversimplified because we all have the capacity to take on different modes in different situations, but generally you’ll find that people — including children — have a preferred mode where they tend to get better results than with the opposite mode.

Do you see any areas of your life where you’re trying to achieve success with your non-dominant mode? If so, you can often improve your results tremendously by switching to your stronger mode.

Are you in a job that’s designed for a plodder, bored and listless because you’re really a burster? Do you crave more creative work? Do you need more variety and stimulation and less tedium and repetition? Maybe it’s time to switch jobs or positions, or work with your boss to redesign your position to allow you to burst through more creative work and do fewer routine tasks. You chose your job, so if it’s not a great fit for you, choose something else.

Or are you doing a burster’s work, but you’re really a plodder? Do you find yourself stressed out by too many new tasks dropping onto your plate in an unpredictable manner, making it impossible for you to create any semblance of routine? Would you feel better switching to a more stable job situation, one where you could optimize the heck out of an existing workflow stream? No one is stopping you from switching; there are plenty of jobs like that in the world.

If you can do work that’s better suited to your strongest mode, you’re going to be more productive. You’ll also feel much better about your work — neither too bored nor too stressed. It may take some effort to make changes, but working in a suboptimal mode for years is a big waste of your life. It’s more sensible to let that job go to someone who’s a better match for it.

On various occasions I’ve been tempted to try to create a plodder-like workflow for myself, and it’s never worked out. I usually sabotage it within a day or two. I find the predictability of it so tedious that I can’t handle it for more than a day or two. But when I embrace my bursting mode, I find that I’m able to get much more done, and I’m a lot happier with my work. For instance, in an inspired burst during the Summer of 2011, I booked 4 workshops, including 3 new ones I’d never done before. I really enjoyed bursting through this huge load of creative work, from design to delivery, one workshop at a time. It was a lot of fun and a great fit for my dominant mode. But if I tried to do the same workshop over and over again on a predictable schedule, I’d probably die of boredom. I need variety and challenge a lot more than I need stability and predictability.

Are you a plodder who hates the ups and downs of dating? Maybe you’d feel better in a stable, monogamous, long-term relationship. Plodders like to lock things down into stable patterns. They’re much more likely to embrace marriage than a burster. A predictable relationship is a plodder’s dream. When a plodder latches onto a decent relationship, they may be happy to stick around for years, as long as you don’t rock the boat or mess up their routine.

Or are you a burster who enjoys relating in wave-like patterns of intense connection, followed by breaks in between? Are you the type to fall in love quickly? Do you like the intensity and stimulation of new connections and new experiences? Do you get bored and want to check out when your relationship becomes predictable? Bursters love to go with the flow of inspiration in their relationships, so they can go deep very quickly when it feels good to them. Bursters are also better suited to open relationships than plodders because of the added variety.

Is it possible that you’re a burster in one part of your life and a plodder in another? Of course. But even if you can see that’s how you’ve been in the past, you might consider trying the opposite strategy in some area just to see how that plays out. You may be surprised and find that you get better results when using the same dominant mode in each part of your life.

For many years I managed my relationship life as a plodder while favoring bursting in my professional life. This was mainly because I was in a long-term monogamous relationship for so many years. When I finally had the chance to try a more bursting-compatible relationship mode, I took to it right away and loved it. I love the pleasant surprises that come from connecting with new people. I also feel no resistance to long-distance relationships — this works well for me in practice because I enjoy the bursts of time together followed by some time apart. Some people would find this situation stressful, but I find the variety stimulating… and even peaceful and relaxing at times. By leaning into my dominant mode here, I’ve become a lot happier in this part of my life.

Once you identify your preferred relationship mode, you can seek out compatible partners who share your desires, and you can avoid trying to be someone you’re not. There’s nothing wrong with getting involved with people who have different dominant modes than you — in fact, those relationships can actually work quite well — as long as you and your partner(s) recognize and appreciate each other’s strengths and don’t try to forcibly change the other. A burster-plodder relationship can be a rewarding growth experience for all involved.

The difference between plodding and bursting is largely a matter of how you prefer to manage your energy.

Do you like the variety of intense, short-term experiences with frequent, restorative breaks? When you get inspired with an idea, do you like to dive into it right away and go all out, so you can fully saturate yourself in the experience? When you meet someone and discover a mutual attraction, do you like to clear your schedule and dive into that connection quickly and passionately?

Or would you rather have the predictability and stability of fairly constant energy output over the long term? Do you like the daily grind, repeating the same pleasing patterns over and over again? Do you appreciate the value of routine? Do you enjoy relationships that are stable and predictable, so you always know what’s expected of you?

Again, neither approach is better than the other. You can enjoy great success and happiness with either approach. If you can identify your dominant mode and leverage it to a greater extent than you are now, you’ll likely find that you become significantly more productive, and you won’t have to struggle quite as much.

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Thought For The Day: Let Every New Year Find You a Better Man

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. By Benjamin Franklin

Traditionally, New Year’s Day is styled as the ideal time to kick start a new phase in your life and the time when you must make your all important new year’s resolution. Unfortunately, the beginning of the year is also one of the worst times to make a major change in your habits because it’s often a relatively stressful time, right in the middle of the party and vacation season.

Don’t set yourself up for failure in 2013 by vowing to make huge changes that will be hard to keep. Instead follow these seven steps for successfully making a new year’s resolution you can stick to for good.

7 Steps For Making a New Year’s Resolution and Keeping It

Brian Lee is the manager of Lifehack.org who covers all sorts of tips for life. Brian has lived and studied in USA, Canada, China and Hong Kong and holds his BA in Global Business.

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The best of TED-Ed: The art of the metaphor

The adage goes: You learn something new every day. This is especially true if you watch TED-Ed lessons, which bring to life educational topics as varied as “insults by Shakespeare” and “pizza physics” with animation. As a holiday gift, we’re bringing you the TED-Ed’s team’s favorite talks of the year that, despite being amazing, didn’t get the number of views expected. Here, a second look at the lesson: Art of the Metaphor, from Jane Hirshfield.

Poet Jane Hirschfield’s language, evoking so many artful metaphors, is matched with Ben Pearce’s equally endearing animation, somehow coming off as cute, clever and relatable. Watch this lesson to be moved by the profundity of the English language.

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How to Keep Your Sanity After Losing Your Job

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The stem cell scammers

Ukraine has become a world centre for untested stem cell treatments where patients can fly in and have embryonic stem cells implanted in their brain to supposedly treat everything from Alzheimer’s disease to autism.

These treatments are entirely unproven and are illegal in most of the world but are available for anyone wanting to pay the price.

Embryonic stem cells are a type of cell that can turn into any type of tissue in the body and can keep on dividing, in principle, endlessly.

They are named ‘embryonic’ because these cells are particularly important, as you can imagine, in the development of the human embryo which needs to grow and differentiate into a rapidly developing complex organism.

A lot of the cutting-edge science is now focussing on ‘reprogrammed stem cells’ – which are adult cells genetically altered to revert to stem cells.

But stem cells used in experimental treatments are often taken from genuine human embryos, usually sourced from IVF fertility treatments.

Here, the egg is fertilised with the sperm in the lab (hence ‘test tube baby’) and the nascent embryo is implanted into the woman’s body after a few days – typically, when it has between 10 and 100 cells and is invisible to the human eye.

However, only the most viable embryos are implanted so there are often some left over. Most mainstream stem cell treatment research uses these as a source of stem cells (although science is increasingly turning to ‘reprogrammed stem cells’ as they’re potentially easier to produce and less controversial).

It’s worth saying that stem cell treatments in themselves are not necessarily bad thing but they are currently at the research stage and so are only usually given as part of scientific programmes to test their safety and usefulness.

The commercial treatments available in the Ukraine are notable for two reasons.

The first is that they typically use stem cells from aborted fetuses “of 5–8 weeks of gestation”.

The second is that they are either entirely untested or have never been confirmed as either safe not effective.

After a brief search it seems there are many commercial companies who offer stem cell therapies that would be illegal in most other countries.

This is quite shocking in itself, but perhaps the most disturbing practice is implanting fetal stem cells into the brains of children with autism.

Brain surgery is dangerous, implanting biological material from other sources even more so, and bear in mind we are talking about treatments that have never been scientifically tested.

This is from the website of one of the biggest Ukrainian stem cell clinics that advertises this ‘service’ and justifies it with lot of scientific bunk:

Fetal stem cells (FSC) that we use in autism treatment positively affect all body organs and systems, and, first of all, this treatment targets the brain. In autism, areas of brain regulating memory, concentration, attention, speech etc. are damaged. Stem cell treatment improves blood and oxygen flow to the brain (improved perfusion), replaces damaged neurons and stimulates formation of the new arteries. After some time, FSC acquire properties of cells surrounding them and multiply into these cells, which results in white and gray matter restoration and, consequently, in subsidence of neurologic symptoms and improved intellectual capacity.

The shady ‘stem cell therapy’ industry is expanding across the world and is increasingly targeting behavioural and psychological disorders.

Companies are advertising ‘treatments’ for, among other things, schizophrenia, depression, addiction and suicidal thinking.

In one particularly worrying testimony video and advert a father apparently describes how ‘stem cell therapy’ treated his son’s “childhood depressive disorder” although the symptoms and outcomes seem to be more about him being a well behaved kid.

Stem cells for neurological conditions are still an experimental treatment. They may yet be one of the greatest medical advances of the 21st century but they don’t work by being added to the brain like some sort of neurological band aid.

Unfortunately, these unproven treatments are already a massive industry and their promise is being hijacked by quacks to exploit the desperate.

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Favorites of 2012: Why the eff didn’t you watch these TED Talks?

2012 was the year of radical openness at TED. In that spirit, while our office is closed for winter break, TED’s editorial staffers have selected their favorite talks of the year that, for a variety of reasons, didn’t get as many views as we would have hoped … giving you a peek into both our process and our personalities. We hope you enjoy.

It’s the end of 2012, and that means end-of-the-year lists. And while you’re scrambling to look at photos of 43 people you won’t believe actually exist, to relive the year in animated gifs, or to download the year’s best 100 tracks, you’re not watching TED Talks. Frankly, I’m disappointed. There’s a whole host of nerdy, serious, socially minded, mildly chiding, frankly bizarre talks you might have missed this year. BUMMER FOR YOU. Here are 11 of my favorite TED Talks from 2012 that I’m surprised — nay, appalled – you haven’t seen yet.

Let’s start with William Noel’s talk, “Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes.” Noel is the Director of the Special Collections Center at the University of Pennsylvania and, in this talk, he tells the story of the Archimedes palimpsest, a Byzantine prayer book containing three hidden and previously unknown original writings: one from Archimedes, one from 4th-century-B.C. Greek orator Hyperides, and one a 3rd-century-A.D. commentary on Aristotle’s “Categories” by an unknown source. These works were finally revealed, obviously, by using a powerful particle accelerator. This is easily my favorite talk from TEDxSummit in Doha this year.
This talk has intrigue, medieval manuscripts and a particle accelerator: Why the eff didn’t you watch it?

Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice
No two ways about it: This is a really, really, really good talk. Bryan Stevenson delivered words at TED2012 that stunned the audience and received one of the longest standing ovations in the history of the conference. And not because he was selling perfume-scented technology flowers from behind well-designed rose-colored glasses, but because he asked us to face harsh truths about race, poverty, degradation, marginalization, incarceration and injustice. At turns candid, stat-filled, intensely personal and acutely aware of tragic moments in history, the talk is an absolute powerhouse. The next day Chris Anderson got on stage and asked for contributions, raising $1.12 million for Stevenson’s nonprofit, the Equal Justice Initiative.
Like I said: really, really, really good talk. Seriously: Why the eff haven’t you watched this?

Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.
Try smelling an e-book the way you can smell a paperback. Welcome: Chip Kidd, design legend. In his talk from TED2012, Kidd showcases the creative process behind book covers he’s worked on at Knopf in the past 30 years, like Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, Augusten Burroughs’ Dry, and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. Also, he does a funny dance and is adorable.
Kidd, dinos, naked skeletons, rehab, the Buddha, weird dance: Why the eff didn’t you watch this talk?

Ed Gavagan: A story about knots and surgeons
I first heard about this guy from a friend who listened to his story on the Moth podcast. While walking down Sullivan Street in downtown New York one perfectly normal day, designer and builder Ed Gavagan found himself face to face with a group of teenagers about to partake in a gang initiation rite — to kill a complete stranger. That stranger: Ed Gavagan. The teenagers opened him hip to neck. Later in the hospital, the doctors gave him a 2% chance of living. In his TEDMED talk, Gavagan pays homage to the surgeons who saved his life.
Ed Gavagan gets stabbed in broad daylight and lives to tell the tale: Why the eff didn’t you watch this talk?

Karen Bass: Unseen footage, untamed nature
Filmmaker Karen Bass shows footage from her shows on BBC and National Geographic. Watch for an INSANE shot at 5:15 of a bat sucking up nectar with a tongue 1.4 times its height.
The bat tongue is ridiculous: Why the eff didn’t you watch this talk?

Leslie T. Chang: The voices of China’s workers
Journalist Leslie T. Chang takes a subtle look at Western guilt and the white-savior complex in this portrait of female factory workers from Dongguan, China. The western media portrays Chinese laborers as if they are forced into factories to slave away and suffer making smartphones for rich Westerners, but it’s simply not true, says Chang. Girls leave their villages with an entrepreneurial spirit, betting on the chance at a better life. It doesn’t matter that they can’t afford iPhones themselves, says Chang, because they don’t want them.
This talk predated the unforgettable SNL iPhone 5 Tech Talk sketch featuring peasant laborers from a Chinese Apple factory and hyperbolic iPhone critics from CNET, Wired and Gizmodo. So: Why the eff haven’t you watched it yet?

Beeban Kidron: The shared wonder of film
At a TED salon in London, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason director Beeban Kidron talks about the importance of a good visual narrative. As a founder of FILMCLUB, an English organization devoted to improving the lives of students through after-school film screenings, Kidron seeks to return to today’s generation a sense of cultural heritage through film. In the words of TED’s content distribution editorial specialist Janet Lee, “Why doesn’t this talk have 1,000,000 views?”
Contains footage that will make you laugh and cry, and you won’t know why: Why the eff didn’t you watch this talk?

Rory Stewart: Why democracy matters
British MP Rory Stewart talks about why the Number 1 reason to support democracy isn’t that it promotes good things like economic growth or equal rights for women … but because it’s inherently a valuable way to approach government.
Rory Stewart talks about the intrinsic, not instrumental, value of democracy. WORD. Why the eff didn’t you watch it?

Leymah Gbowee: Unlock the intelligence, passion, greatness of girls
We should never forget that life can be truly absurd and completely horrible. At TEDActive this year, when I saw Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee’s heart-wrenching talk, you could hear a pin drop in the theater. She talks about a lifetime of having to turn away young Liberian girls who had been denied education and a life free from fear. Each time Gbowee had to say “no” to a girl in need, it spurred her to fight harder for peace and safety for women.
Leymah Gbowee puts the G in girls and gangsta: Why the eff didn’t you watch this talk?

Bandi Mbubi: Demand a fair trade cell phone
In case there weren’t enough things worrying you about your phone (see: aforementioned factory workers in China, the downfall of Apple Maps, 4-14 on Angry Birds), here’s one more for the list. At TEDxExeter, Congolese activist Bandi Mbubi explains that the tantalum necessary for computers and smartphones has a bloody history, and that the mining and trade of tantalum perpetuate the already devastating atrocities in eastern Congo.
People demand fair-trade food and clothes, so it’s only fair they also demand fair-trade phones. Why the eff didn’t you watch this talk?

Bobby Ghosh: Why global jihad is losing
“Jihad” is an insanely loaded word in “the West” (an equally loaded word), and that’s because people don’t really understand it. Before bin Laden made it one of the world’s most powerful and destructive memes, the media was totally happy never talking about jihad. At TEDxGeorgetown, Bobby Ghosh talks about the denigration of the concept of jihad by bin Laden and how his particular brand of jihad died along with him. Now, says Ghosh, it’s time to reclaim the word.
To be an informed consumer of the news, it’s important to understand the players in the failing “war of terror ” and the plurality of agents currently fighting local jihads in the Middle East and Africa. So: Why the eff didn’t you watch this talk?

Beeban Kidron at the TED Salon: Unseen Narratives, London. 10 May 2012, Photo: Dafydd Jones/TED

View the original article here

How to Invite Cuddling Without Inviting Sex

I’ve been getting lots of inquisitive feedback regarding my recent article on open relationships, especially with respect to the section on deeper friendships. One question that a few women asked me essentially boils down to this:

I really love cuddling, but I have a hard time inviting guys to cuddle with me because they might think I’m inviting them to have sex with me, and sometimes I just want to cuddle. How can I ask for cuddling and not have a guy think I’m offering something sexual?

Believe it or not, this can be an issue for men too.

Let’s ponder this situation from some different perspectives since the same issue can have multiple causes.

When it comes to discussing emotional matters, many people are notoriously poor communicators. They express themselves in such vague and fuzzy ways that it’s no wonder they’re frequently misunderstood. They drop confusing hints instead of being forthright and direct. They insinuate instead of invite.

If you want to improve your results in this area, first get comfortable with communicating clearly and directly. In fact, even if you’re not very comfortable with it, do it anyway. You’ll eventually get used to it, and it will produce far fewer misunderstandings.

How difficult is it to make a clear offer? If you’re certain that you just want to cuddle and you don’t want to offer anything more than that, then what’s stopping you from sharing this in your invitation?

For example, you could say, “I’d really love to cuddle you. I think that it would be really nice to try connecting with you in that way. I know some people might assume that cuddling leads to sex, so just to be clear about this, I’m only offering to cuddle — nothing sexual, okay? Would you be interested in cuddling with me sometime?”

Feel free to rephrase that however you wish, so it sounds natural for you. It’s perfectly fine to offer cuddling and share that sex is out of bounds. The way I phrased it above doesn’t put the other person on the defensive since you’re not accusing him/her of expecting sex, but you’re still being reasonably clear about what you’re offering.

If you want to be even more precise, you could share what cuddling means to you. Does it include kissing, caressing, or removing any clothing, for instance? If you know you have certain boundaries, feel free to communicate those up front.

If you can’t make a clear enough offer like this, then that’s one reason you may be having some misunderstandings. Try being more obvious with your offers. Don’t expect people to decipher your fuzzy invitations.

What if you aren’t exactly clear about what you want? What if you’re offering cuddling to begin with, but you’re not sure yet if you’d like to do anything beyond that?

This is usually the situation I’m in. Most of the time when I offer to cuddle with someone, I can’t really say if sex is on or off the table. That’s usually something I figure out while I’m cuddling (or kissing) someone, but not before.

Fortunately this is an easy situation to handle as well. Again, just be honest in your communication. If you’re not sure about how far you want to take things, you can share that up front.

In this case you could say, “I’d really love to cuddle with you sometime. If you like that idea, then let’s cuddle together and see how that feels to us. As far as anything beyond that goes, I might be open to more, but I’d only want to do what feels good to both of us. No pressure or expectations or anything like that. How do you feel about this?”

This opens the door to a discussion, where you can talk further about your feelings. For example, you could discuss what you’re both willing to do initially and which doors are open before you need to pause and check in with each other. Are you okay with massaging each other while you cuddle (over or under the clothes)? Is some kissing okay (on the cheeks, arms, lips, etc)? Will one of you spoon the other, or will you cuddle facing each other? And so on…

I rarely have these kinds of discussions up front because I find it unnecessary with the women I usually connect with. I don’t have rigid boundaries in this areas, and I’m very open to being touched, massaged, kissed, etc. But if I suspect the woman is hesitant and needs that kind of clarity up front, then I’m happy to discuss this with her. Generally though I prefer to check for her boundaries while we’re cuddling. My intuition in this area is pretty well-developed, so I can generally tell which doors are open with someone and which aren’t, but if I have any doubt, I just ask.

The idea is that you want both people to be comfortable and relaxed with the whole idea. If one person is tense and nervous because they’re worried about accidental boundary crossings, then you can put them at ease by discussing all of that, either in advance or while you’re cuddling.

Always limit yourself to the boundaries of whichever person has the tighter limits. When you reach those limits, you can invite them to open up more if you so desire, and then honor whatever they decide.

If you don’t have tight boundaries, then don’t pretend that you do. There’s no need to specify limits that don’t exist. Again, just be honest in communicating what you’re thinking and feeling. If you have certain boundaries, feel free to communicate that. If you feel open to other possibilities, you can share that. If your thoughts and feelings change along the way, go ahead and share that when it happens as well.

What if the other person is more open and you’re the one with the tighter limits? And suppose they express interest in going past your limits? What do you do then?

If you want to move past your limits, you can say yes. Feel free to pause and communicate your feelings about this. If you’re nervous and want to go very slowly, then say so. If you need to be the one to control the pacing, then say so. If you want the other person to lead, while you retain the option to stop things if you feel too uncomfortable, then say so.

If you don’t want to move past your limits, then say no when you’re invited to do so. And be clear that you’re saying no.

If the other person won’t respect your no, it’s time to eject and leave. You don’t want to reward someone for disrespecting your boundaries.

If the other person wants to keep discussing the situation, and you’re okay with that, then do so. But if you feel like you’re being pressured, then let the other person know that this isn’t acceptable to you. If you’re not feeling good about how the situation is going, eject.

When you need to say no, be clear about it. Don’t give a wishy washy, “Gee… I’m not so sure about that.” If you know it’s not what you want, say no. Literally speak the word no. Take note that the word no doesn’t sound like hmmmm, I dunno, or lemme think about that. The word no sounds like no.

What if you’re not sure if your answer is yes or no? One way to clarify the difference in your mind is by asking yourself, “Could I do that now?” and then “Would I do that now?”

Usually when you’re being talked into something by the other person, you’ll answer yes to the first question but no to the second question. You could do a lot of things, but being capable of doing something doesn’t make it a wise choice for you. The second question focuses on whether you’re truly willing to do this, as in “Would I choose to do this now? Do I actually want to do this? Is this my desire?” If the answer to that is no, or even if it’s “I’m not sure,” then simply say no.

When you’re actually willing, feel free to go ahead and do what you would do, but don’t do something just because you could. Not saying no when you really meant to say no is a recipe for regret.

Of course, if you couldn’t do something, even if you wanted to, then that’s an even easier thing to say no to.

Don’t be so surprised if the other person tries to extend your initial offer. It’s very common for people to do this, and it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s a normal and natural part of communication. If you have boundaries to enforce, it’s up to you to say no when necessary; don’t expect the other person to handle that for you. We all have different boundaries.

Some people are very weak at being able to say no when they aren’t comfortable. It’s possible to push through their resistance. When you’re on the less constrained side and you see that someone is hesitant but is having a hard time saying no, I suggest that you put the breaks on and talk about it. Sometimes you may be overly conservative, but it’s better to avoid pushing the other person into doing something they’d regret — and blaming you for it later.

Another question to ask yourself is this: When you invite someone to cuddle, are you sure that’s what you want, or are you using this offer as bait for something more?

Are you making an authentic offer, or is your offer some kind of disguised attempt at a bait-and-switch maneuver?

For example, when you offer cuddling, are you sure that’s what you really want? Or are you actually looking for sex, thinking that cuddling will help you get there? Or are you really trying to initiate a long-term relationship with your potential cuddle partner? Or are you looking for someone to give you more financial security?

Pause for a moment and check in with yourself. Are you sure you’re just offering cuddling for the sake of cuddling and whatever you associate with it (warmth, connection, a deeper friendship, enjoying touch, etc)? Or is your mind looking at cuddling as a stepping stone to something else?

There’s nothing wrong with entertaining thoughts and feelings about where your cuddling might lead, but are those potential after-effects actually more important to you than the cuddling? If so, there’s a good chance the other person will pick up on the fact that you’re really looking for something else.

If you realize you want something other than cuddling, then is cuddling a necessary prerequisite for your true desire? Cuddling someone first isn’t necessary for sex, for instance. If you offer cuddling, but you’re actually more interested in sex, then your offer isn’t very authentic, and the other person will probably pick up on that.

Another possibility is that you’re projecting desires onto the other person, so instead of inviting them to cuddle, you’re subtly hinting that there may be more to your offer. People do this when they worry that the offer to cuddle won’t be enough to get a yes, so they hint that there may be more to it.

For example, are you hinting that you’re inviting the other person to become your boyfriend or girlfriend? Are you hinting that sex may result?

When you show up for a cuddle session, are you dressed to cuddle, or are you dressed like you’re very horny and want to get laid?

Both men and women drop these kinds of hints, hoping that it will increase their chances of getting a yes. People offer the hint of sex as bait for a relationship. Or they dangle the possibility of a relationship as bait for sex. Such manipulative tactics are totally unnecessary. Get used to making authentic offers, and you’ll find that there are plenty of people who want the same thing.

When you offer cuddling, are you masking some hidden motives? And are you giving the other person a fair chance to respond to your cuddling offer without hinting at some other phantom possibility?

It’s fine to hint at something more if you’re truly open to that possibility, but if you’re not actually offering more, then don’t suggestively hint at it.

If you don’t feel your offer of cuddling is authentic for you, then don’t offer that. Instead, offer what is authentic for you.

I know a few guys that truly just want sex. They’re not particularly into cuddling. They’re not very interested in love. They don’t want to get involved in long-winded conversations. Most of the time, they just want to enjoy the physical act of sex with a willing partner that turns them on — no strings attached. And so that’s what they offer. When they talk to a woman they’re interested in, they communicate in an overtly sexual manner, often from the very first sentence out of their mouths. You might think these guys would come across as creepy, but women virtually always respond positively to them, even if they decline the sexual connection. These men respect women and their right to choose, so they make their offers clear and unambiguous. They don’t promise or hint at a relationship. They don’t promise security or love. They just offer a sexual connection. And they end up having a lot of sex since there are plenty of women who just want to enjoy that kind of connection too. Even the women who turn them down normally do so gracefully, impressed by the authenticity of these men.

If you really want sex, then own that desire. Don’t ask for dates or cuddle sessions. Don’t get into mental conversations. When you talk to someone you’d like to sleep with, communicate your sexual interest first and foremost. Then let the other person react as they will. If they’re not interested, you’re free to move onto someone else, and you just saved yourself a lot of time. If they are interested, enjoy. If they have questions, discuss.

I genuinely love cuddling, so that’s what I tend to offer. If that’s not your bag, then don’t try to model my approach since it won’t work for you. You can’t just model someone’s actions and expect the same result if you don’t share their values and desires too. People are normally pretty good at reading each other, and inauthentic offers will trigger other people’s internal alarms.

If you’re honest and authentic in making offers that align with your desires, and if you respect the other person’s freedom to choose whether or not to connect with you on that basis, you won’t come across as creepy. If you make inauthentic offers, however, you’ll come across as creepy.

In addition to cuddling, I’ve made some rather silly offers now and then, and they didn’t come across as creepy because I was genuinely offering something I thought would be fun. I was perfectly willing to hear a yes or no from the other person without being attached to either outcome. If they said no, I already knew other people who’d say yes.

Incidentally, this approach works just as well when you’re in a relationship with someone. Be clear and direct in your offers. Don’t invite your partner on a date if you’d rather just have sex. If you just want to cuddle, then invite cuddling, and be clear that you aren’t initiating sex. And if you’re not sure what you want or if you’d like your partner to lead, it’s fine to communicate that too. This will save you a lot of time and headaches, and you’ll get to experience more of what you want. Also, if you and your partner are not in agreement about what you each want, then you’ll figure that out quickly, and you can connect with different people to explore those desires instead of getting needy and clingy with a disinterested partner.

As a general rule of thumb, if you don’t feel you can trust the other person, then don’t invite them to cuddle. Cuddling can be a very intimate way of connecting, and it doesn’t make much sense to step into a situation where there’s low trust to begin with.

There are a number of online forums where men and women alike discuss how to get better at manipulating each other. In one men’s forum I saw recently, men were discussing how to figure out a woman’s values, so they could use her values against her to manipulate her into having sex. Basically the guy would pretend to be a match for her values, regardless of whether he shared them, so she’d think he was a good match for what she wanted in a man. That kind of inauthentic B.S. has no place in conscious relationships. But there are a lot of people out there that still think this way. It may be hugely immature, but it’s fairly common.

Women’s magazines often teach the same kind of drivel — how to figure out what a guy wants, so you can pretend to be that person. Please leave this nonsense behind you if you’d like to enjoy more conscious relationships without such silly drama.

Even if you’re not the manipulative sort, it’s wise to recognize that not everyone may be as conscious about their choices as you are.

If your intuition is urging caution or if you don’t feel safe with someone, pay heed to that. If you say no and they aren’t respecting your no, it’s time to eject. If you want to help the other person grow up a bit, conduct your coaching from a safe distance.

When trust is violated, it’s really hard to rebuild it, and you’ll have to decide whether it’s even worth the effort. If someone violates my trust in a significant way, I tend not to give them a second chance. It’s just not worth the hassle and the drama to me. I’ll quickly forgive them and let it go, but after that I’ll shift my attention to more trustworthy connections. I’m not trying to punish the other person. I just don’t want to bother with high-maintenance connections.

Knowing when you can trust someone is something you calibrate with experience. If you don’t have much experience, either in relationships or in trusting your intuition, then I suggest you play it a bit safer with your cuddle offers. For example, you could invite someone to cuddle with you on a couch at a party, while your friends are around. See how that feels before you agree to do anything alone together. Your friends are there to rescue you if something goes wrong. Another option is to cuddle together in a public park; you’ll be alone in your togetherness but still near enough to other people if you need to eject.

If, however, you don’t feel good about cuddling people in front of others, then how congruent are you with this desire? If it’s an authentic desire, then what’s to hide? There’s nothing shameful about cuddling someone in front of people, is there? If you have concerns about this, then read Shameless, Fearless, Guiltless. Cuddling is nothing to be embarrassed about.

If you seem to have a knack for attracting low quality partners, then it may be time to increase the quality of your social circle. Most relationship matches come via a person’s social circle, and I suspect that’s true of cuddle partners too. If you aren’t getting good referrals, then find out where your low quality matches are coming from, and stop taking referrals from that direction. Then pay more attention to sources that generate your best referrals, and even ask them for more.

What if you invited someone to cuddle, and it actually did lead to sex? Why would that be a problem for you?

Is sex a big deal for you? Do you attach some kind of meaning to it? Does it mean you’ve initiated a relationship? Is this a special border crossing for you?

It may not be sex itself that’s the real issue for you. Rather it may be that you’re attaching extra meanings to sex, and that’s your sticking point. Instead of making sex the barrier, what if you could let go of the meanings you’re attaching to it? Then if you were open to having sex, it might not be such a big deal if some of your cuddle sessions led to sex.

When I invite someone to cuddle, it’s usually an open-ended invite. I’m not particularly concerned with whether or not it leads to sex. I’m happy to enjoy whatever feels good to us both. If we have sex, that’s nice. If we don’t have sex, that’s nice too. If we go partway and enjoy making out or oral sex, also nice.

In my view, having sex is just another way to deepen our friendship. It’s a form of play. It doesn’t mean we’ve become boyfriend-girlfriend. We got turned on, made each other feel good, and had a nice time together. Friends do that sometimes. It’s a delightful way to connect when the chemistry is there.

Now if you’re fine with having sex, but you’re worried that the other person may attach all sorts of meaning to it, I suggest you communicate your thoughts about that up front, ideally before you have sex. Some of my friends will pause and say, “Just to be clear, I’m not the boyfriend type. I’d really like to enjoy this connection with you, but I’m not looking for a relationship right now.” This works well for them. Being clear about this up front also prevents situations where the other person communicates to his/her friends about their connection with you while attaching all sorts of meanings to it, which could cause them to lose face when they have to tell their friends that they were mistaken about the meanings. You don’t want someone telling all their friends that you’re becoming their primary boyfriend/girlfriend just because you had sex, when that was never your intention.

The idea here is that it may actually be more helpful to manage the meanings you and the other person attach to sex, as opposed to worrying about the sex act itself. If you can release your grip on your socially conditioned attachments to sex, you may be able to enjoy sex more often as a pleasurable extension of cuddling, without putting it on a pedestal. Sex is just play.

Another issue that may arise is that when you invite people to cuddle, they may end up wanting to have sex with you. Maybe you’re just too damned sexy.

So you’re sexier than you may have realized. Is that really so terrible?

If people frequently desire to have sex with you, but you just want to cuddle, then enforce that boundary as needed. If this is a common issue for you, then communicate your boundaries up front with as much clarity as you can muster.

Accept that this may happen now and then. As long as you remain sexy, some people are going to want to have sex with you. Go figure.

This isn’t a problem to solve per se. It’s just part of your reality to accept and to deal with. You don’t actually have to resist that people want to have sex with you. You can let them want it and still decline it, with nary a concern about it.

There are plenty of situations where people might want to connect with someone in a way where the desire isn’t mutual. Pretty much every week, I get emails from people who want to discuss polyphasic sleep with me. I experimented with polyphasic sleep in 2005-2006, and my sleep logs and blog posts from that time remain perpetually popular, but honestly I have very little interest in it today. So when people offer to connect with me on that basis, I just hit delete and move on to the next message. I do this with no guilt whatsoever.

Invest in the types of connections that interest you, and dismiss the mismatches quickly. If you get lots of connection offers in the sexual dimension, and if that doesn’t interest you at this time, then decline those offers without shame, guilt, or regret. You’re free to pursue your own desires, and if others don’t align with them well enough, quickly drop them and move on. Set them free to pursue what they desire, while you enjoy what you desire. Otherwise you’re being disloyal to your own values.

This gets easier with practice, and eventually you’ll decline mismatched offers automatically. I do this every day as a matter of habit, and it’s so quick I barely recall doing it. If a connection turns sour or if the other person wants to head in a direction that doesn’t interest me, I let it go and move on. This frees me to invest more deeply in the connections that align nicely with my desires. If I allowed myself to get wrapped up in managing mismatches, I’d get killed by the opportunity cost of missing out on better matches. Trying to manage mismatches is much too draining, and in the long run it’s self defeating anyway because the associated mindset will cause you to keep lowering your standards, such that you connect out of desperation, not from positive desire.

Once you get used to quickly dismissing the connections that aren’t a good match, you’ll have more time to focus on what does interest you. For instance, you’ll be able to find some good partners who are perfectly fine cuddling with you without needing to make it sexual — if that’s what you desire to create.

So there’s no need to resist your sexiness, just as I don’t need to go back and nuke my articles on polyphasic sleep. You can be sexy and still invite people to connect in the ways that you most desire. Quickly prune the mismatches, and enjoy the delightful matches.

Suppose you make what you feel is a clear offer, and you believe you’re being authentic, and the other person totally misreads your offer and assumes you’re offering much more than you’re willing to? Is this really a problem?

It’s only a problem if you’re very attached to being understood. The truth is that now and then, someone will misunderstand you. It happens.

In my 8+ years of blogging, I’ve had to deal with the reality that no matter how clearly I try to express myself, I’m going to be perpetually misunderstood. Some people will read things into my words that I never actually said. I get misquoted, and then other people quote the misquotes.

If this rarely happens to you, then it may come as a shocker when it finally does. But eventually you may realize that you can’t control other people’s mental models of you. They’ll believe what they believe. Some of it will be accurate. Some of it won’t.

Even if you do your very best to communicate authentically, sometimes you’ll be misunderstood. That isn’t the end of the world though. When this happens, just adapt to it and move on.

Do your best to correct the misunderstanding by re-communicating, but if the other person still misunderstands you, either because they’re unwilling or incapable, then you may as well eject.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that communication is a two-way street. You may be doing your best, but if the other person isn’t holding up their end with decent listening and questioning, you can’t carry the connection entirely on your shoulders.

A conscious connection requires that both people are willing and capable of communicating clearly. If someone is stonewalling you or refusing to listen, they aren’t willing, so you’re done. If they seem willing, but no matter how clearly you communicate, they just don’t seem to get it, then they might not be capable, and again, you’re done. Either way, eject from that connection.

Again, being misunderstood isn’t the end of the world. If misunderstandings were devasting setbacks, I’d have quit blogging in my first year. In fact, a number of bloggers who regard such misunderstandings as major issues do indeed quit within their first year. If it’s really important that other people always understand you, you’re going to have a tough time with any kind of social abundance. You might as well become a hermit.

It’s more realistic to accept that misunderstandings will happen. When they do, roll with them as best you can. I find it healthy to maintain a good sense of humor about it. Sometimes misunderstandings even give me good ideas for new articles.

Being exposed to the various ways people can misunderstand you can also make you a better communicator in the long run. You’ll be able to anticipate some of the most likely misunderstandings and take steps to prevent them. Your results won’t be perfect, but you can certainly improve over time.

Just don’t expect perfection here. That’s neither realistic nor necessary. You can still enjoy lots of cuddling regardless of some misunderstandings, and that’s a lot better than no cuddling at all.

One reason I love to connect with cuddling first is that cuddling helps me see if a woman and I can create a close connection with our hearts. If we can pull that off, then we raise the vibe of our connection, and sharing this vibe makes everything else easier. I can describe this vibe with words like caring, appreciation, gratitude, unconditional love, and compassion.

When this vibe is created, high trust is a natural side effect. It becomes nearly impossible to try to manipulate each other because that requires sinking to a lower vibe. Manipulative thoughts won’t even enter our minds. To most people the vibe of unconditional love feels so good that no one wants to mess it up. We’ll probably be so enthralled with this delightful feeling that we’ll want to maintain it as long as we can.

Secondly, this vibe puts us both in sync. Since we’re holding the same vibe, communicating clearly is easy and natural. We’re on the same page. We can talk openly about anything, and there’s no fear, shame, guilt, or resistance present. We can talk about our desires. We can talk about boundaries. We can talk about blocks we’d like to release. We can share anything from our pasts. While we’re aligned with this vibe, there are very few, if any, concerns about feeling judged or rejected. You can’t feel rejected while you’re too busy feeling lovey-dovey and deeply connected.

Thirdly, in this vibe no one needs to lead. It’s unnecessary. It feels more natural to relax and go with the flow. Someone will get an inspired idea for what to do next, and that idea will almost always be accepted by the other. Quite often we’ll be thinking the same things at the same time anyway. That’s because the ideas that get generated in this vibe are aligned with love, not neediness or fear or anything like that. Love-based ideas are very easy to accept.

When I’m sharing this vibe with someone, that’s normally when we’ll start to escalate things physically, although not necessarily sexually. Usually we’re so in sync that no one needs to suggest anything verbally. We just do what feels natural. What feels good to one of us usually feels good to both of us. I’ll caress her, and she’ll smile. I’ll look at her lips, and she’ll look at mine, and we’ll kiss. It’s like our actions are being guided by the energy of this vibe.

Even if one of us stumbled and did something that made the other person feel uncomfortable, it would quickly be communicated and forgiven, and we’d adapt. In practice this normally isn’t a boundary issue. More often it’s a simple case of one of us shifting and accidentally hurting the other person, like an elbow in the ribs. We both know the mistake wasn’t deliberate though, and so forgiveness is automatic and immediate.

If the vibe starts to lead in a sexual direction, normally we’ll feel the sexual tension building within us, and we’ll automatically start flowing with it physically. But the vibe could just as easily stay non-sexual. It can be unpredictable at times, but it’s always beautiful.

This also works with three-person connections, but those are more complex. I’m still getting practice with these kinds of connections. One thing I discovered is that they can involve waves of two-person connections within the three-person dynamic. So there may be a surge of love between two of the people, then a surge of sexual energy between two of the people (not necessarily the same two), for instance. Or there may be periods where it feels like all three of us are syncing to the same vibe. Three-person connections are more sensitive since it’s relatively easy for one person to fall out of sync with the other two. I imagine that as more people get involved, the dynamics would grow even more complex.

When I cuddle with someone, I’m not concerned with whether or not it will lead to sex. My first concern is to see if we can get a really beautiful heart-to-heart connection going first. It’s only when I’m in that place of love with a woman that I’ll begin to get a sense of where we might go next. And even then, my preference is to just flow with the feeling of love and let it lead us. That feels more natural to me than trying to figure everything out in advance. This is why when I make cuddle offers, they’re normally open-ended. I can’t predict in advance where the vibe of love will lead us. And that doesn’t concern me anyway. That vibe feels so good to me that I’m more concerned with creating and enjoying the flow of that vibe, and how it plays out in terms of outcomes isn’t a big deal.

I have a lot of trust in these love-based connections, so once I’m there, I feel really good about trusting my intuitive guidance. Whatever I do when I’m in that vibration seems to flow very beautifully, whether or not it leads in a sexual direction.

I think that if people focused on creating these heart-based connections first, they wouldn’t have as many hang-ups and worries about whether or not cuddling might lead to sex. If sex would break the heart connection, you won’t want to go there anyway. And if the heart connection takes you in a sexual direction, then it’s easy to relax and enjoy that experience with no regrets.

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The Power of Habit Investments

One of the things I’ve learned in my last 7 years of creating new habits is the power of compound habit interest.

It sounds really obvious when you say it, but if you do something small repeatedly, the benefits accrue greatly over time. It’s obvious, but not everyone puts it into practice.

It’s like putting a little extra cash into an index investment fund … let’s say you put in just $5/day (less than you spend at Starbucks perhaps) … at the end of 20 years, you’d have almost $70,000 if you could make just 6 percent interest, and closer to $90,000 if you could make 8 percent. Change that to just $8/day, and you’re now talking about $140,000 or so. It adds up greatly over time.

The same principle applies to habits.

Let’s take a few examples:

Spend just a few minutes a day studying Anki flashcards, and at the end of a year, you have a ton of new phrases and sentences learned of a new language. Sure, it’s not the same as being fluent, but it’s much better than you were a year ago.Spend just a few minutes a day doing pushups (even if you can’t do any at first), and by the end of a year, you’ll be much stronger. I’ve seen the same thing happen to me when it comes to lifting weights — I was very weak when I started, and though I’m not going to impress any weightlifters with what I can do now, I’ve made remarkable progress over time.I started out not being able to run 10 minutes, but started with 7 minutes. Soon I could run 10, then 12, then 15. At the end of my first year of running, I ran a marathon.

Adding little amounts over time makes a huge difference. And the benefits aren’t just the small amounts added up — there’s interest accrued as well. Running a little each day not only allowed me to run better, but I got stress relief from the running, which helped me to quit smoking. I lost weight. I felt better throughout the day. I started eating healthier.

The benefits from a small amount of investment paid off in huge dividends.

If you repeat something regularly, just doing a small amount each time, it adds up hugely over time. Some ways to do that:

Actual money. Seriously, if you don’t have any savings yet, cut out one or two small daily expenses (Starbucks grande lattes are a good example) and instead, make regular automatic transfers each week (or every payday) to a savings account. Once you have a small emergency fund, pay off debt. Once you’ve paid off most of your debt, start investing. Your finances will improve immensely with time.Healthy eating. Eating just one small healthy thing a day, if you aren’t eating healthy now, will pay off over time. Just add one fruit instead of an unhealthy snack you might have in the afternoon. Do that for a couple weeks. Then add a veggie to lunch. Do that a few weeks. Each step of the way won’t seem hard, but you’ll eventually get used to each change. Sometimes the veggie won’t be something you love, so just eat a few bites. You’ll learn to enjoy it with time. You change, little by little.Waking early. Wake up just a few minutes earlier tomorrow (say 7:55 instead of 8:00), and stay at that level for a week, then another 5 minutes earlier for the next week, and so on. In less than 6 months, you’ll be waking up 2 hours earlier, and you won’t have ever really noticed it. It’ll never feel like you’re waking earlier. Most people, btw, try to do way more than this (say, an hour earlier at first) and then fail, and never figure out why.Writing. If you haven’t been able to create the writing habit, just write a sentence today. I’m completely serious. Then write a sentence tomorrow. Do that for a week. Next week, write two sentences. This sound ridiculously easy, so most people will ignore this advice. But if you follow it, you’ll be writing 1,000 words per day, every day, this time next year. Maybe 2,000 per day the following year.Stretching and/or yoga. I’m the world’s least flexible person (I think it’s in the Guinness Book). So now I stretch just a little each day. I bet in a a month or two, I’ll pass the guy in Luanda that’s just a little ahead of me on the flexibility list. I’ve started by just doing three yoga poses each morning.Musical instrument. My wife Eva started learning to play the guitar yesterday. Just a couple cords. If she practices those two cords each day, then another cord or two when she feels pretty confident with the first two, she’ll be playing some Bach and Granados next year.Meditation. I made a vow to meditate at least 3 minutes a day. That’s all I have to do, though sometimes I’ll do more. That makes it super easy to do it every day. What will I get if I keep doing that for years? I’m not sure, but I know I already have a judgment-free space, with no expectations, and it helps me to be more mindful and focused throughout the day.Decluttering. Just declutter a few things every day. In a few months, you’ll have a dramatically less cluttered home.Language learning. Study three cards a day with words/phrases/sentences on them. You’ll be speaking Spanish like loco in six months. (Yes, I just gave you your first Spanish investment in that last sentence.)

You get the picture.

The habits in the last section are usually seen as good things to build up, but they’re not the only things people put into their habit banks. A few other ones that aren’t seen as good:

Social media sites. Checking social media on a regular basis builds up … what? Not a desirable skill, good health, mindfulness, new knowledge except perhaps what people had for lunch or what product they’ve recently launched. Just think about what you’re building up as you check these sites. The same applies to other things you might do on the Internet on a regular basis.Junk food. When you eat lots of sweets, chips, fried foods, stuff with cheesy sauce, lots of fat … what are you building up? Not healthy habits. You’re building up disease.Watching TV. I’m not completely against television (I love Parks & Rec, Modern Family, the Office, Downton Abbey) but when you watch a lot of it, especially flipping through all the cable TV channels, you are probably not watching the best stuff (any kind of reality TV is mind junk food, in my opinion). Think about what you’re building up with this time investment.Complaining. Do you regularly complain about other people? Do you regularly dislike people, dislike your job, dislike your life? Are other people the problem? You are building up unhappiness.

These are just a few examples, but it’s worth thinking about what you’re building up over time. What we repeatedly do grows into who we are.

It’s a fairly simple process that you can repeat with various types of habit investments:

Pick something desirable. If you repeatedly do this activity, what will it grow into? Is that what you want?Do just a minute or two of it. You can’t build it all up in the next few days. That’s a good recipe for failure. Just do 1-2 minutes of it today. Smile as you do it.Set a daily reminder. Let’s say you want to do it every day at about 6:30 a.m. Set a reminder for that time, and make it a priority to do it each day, just for a minute or two.Watch it grow. If you just do it repeatedly, it will grow. Don’t force it. Keep the repeated activity as small as possible for as long as you can if you want it to grow (it sounds paradoxical, but it works).

A few warnings:

Don’t worry about doing a lot of it. As you repeat this new habit, don’t worry about growing it. That’s a good way to fail. Most people fail because they try to do too much too quickly.Don’t worry about missing a day or two. This is another reason people fail — they miss a day or two, then just give up. If you miss a day or two or three, just start again. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.Don’t do a bunch at a time. Do one per week at the most. One per month is even better.

You’re making daily deposits, tiny investments in who you are. What do you want to invest in?

You can invest in something that will make you live a happy, healthy life with meaning … or it can be a life of distraction and bad health. It doesn’t take a Warren Buffett decide which is a better investment.

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Are You Making Dumbass Writing Mistakes? Here’s How to Avoid Them

There are some fabulous articles here on Lifehack that can help you improve as a writer, with tips and tricks ranging from ensuring that you write something every single day, to keeping a notebook handy for random inspirational thoughts. These are great suggestions and will undoubtedly assist you in building confidence with regard to your writing, but they won’t be of significant help if you haven’t mastered the essentials.

Basically, you can decorate a house as prettily as you like, but if the foundation is weak and the walls have been made of pool noodles and saltines, you’re in trouble.

This was the #1 tip in Leo B.’s article, and I’m going to reiterate it most heartily.

I grant that there are some fabulous pieces floating about on the web that you can read, but anyone with access to a keyboard can post an article; whether they can differentiate between homonyms is a different story entirely.

Published books tend to go through a rather vigorous proofreading/editing process, which generally ensures that the work is quite polished by the time it’s sucked into your retinas. Writers and their editors work together to create cohesive works of often staggering genius, and the more you immerse yourself in good writing, the more your own work will end up improving as a result. We often emulate that which we admire (even subconsciously), and it’s not unusual to see parallels between one author’s work and another’s.

Kurt Vonnegut took cues from Mark Twain, Amy Tan has admitted that she’s been influenced by Isabel Allende, and J.K. Rowling’s work has echoes of Jane Austen. My own influences are drawn from Bill Bryson, Anais Nin, A.S. Byatt, and Terry Pratchett, but I’m a bit deranged like that.

Most of us haven’t delved into the basics of writing composition since well before high school, and for some of us, that was a very long time ago.

Education has changed a great deal over the years, and the average person today would just look at you blankly if you asked them to define a misplaced modifier or define the subject and predicate in a sentence. The use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling isn’t as rigidly enforced as it was in the past, and many people manage to reach high levels of education and employment without ever sorting out “your” VS “you’re”. Hell, I’ve seen PhD candidates commit some of the most flagrant acts of apostrophe abuse you can imagine, and these were College professors.

In addition to revisiting these building blocks, it’s also a good idea to touch upon tips on how to structure both full articles, and the paragraphs therein. If you feel the inclination to touch up your skills in this regard, consider checking out some of these books to help you along:

I can honestly say that the daily tips I’ve received from this website have helped my writing and editing work exponentially. With lighthearted examples and fun quizzes, each email prods at your brain-meat to flesh out areas where you might have difficulty, and helps to sharpen your existing skills.

Daily Writing Tips

SEE ALSO: 12 Tips for Better Business Writing

This is a great way to ensure that your work flows well, and to check for any awkward sentences and spelling errors. By reading a piece aloud, you can see where pauses are needed so you can tuck in some commas, and you’ll notice if your sentences are halting because they’re too short, or if you’re rambling and need to do some restructuring.

Here’s a tip: if you find that there are issues with your writing that keep popping up—whether this is discovered through your own editing or because it’s been pointed out to you by another—write that issue on a large sheet of paper and tack it up above your desk. Since it will be in your line of sight, you’ll be reminded every time you glance upwards so you can to avoid it in future.

We’re all on a journey as we plod through life, and as we learn various lessons and sharpen our skills, we’ll undoubtedly improve in our chosen fields.  It’s important to recognize that by leaving room to make mistakes, we’re also leaving room to grow.

Every single one of us will cock up eventually (often, I would think, especially in my case), but rather than beating ourselves up over errors, we can see these screw-ups as learning opportunities.

As mentioned, there isn’t a single writer out there who couldn’t improve on some level—including me.  Muphry’s Law  (deliberate misspelling) dictates that I will have inevitably screwed something up in this article, and I certainly have a long way to go before I consider my work to be as flawless as I’d like, but both self-awareness and the ability to analyse one’s own work critically are of vital importance for any writer, every step of the way. Keep in mind that there’s always room for growth, treat that ever-evolving learning process with humour and humility, and keep writing.

SEE ALSO: The Ultimate Writing Productivity Resource

Featured photo credit: Pen and paper - IS011-054 via Shutterstock Lana Winter-Hébert has been writing professionally for over a decade, and now divides her time between writing, editing, and doing collaborative projects with Winter-Hébert: the design studio she runs with her husband. Best described as "endearingly eccentric", she spends any spare moments wrestling with knitting projects, and devouring novels by obscure Czech writers. A Toronto native, she now resides in rural Quebec with her Sir and their animal companions.

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Talks to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice

Culture

Two hundred years ago today, Jane Austen published Pride and Prejudice, the classic tale of Elizabeth Bennett. Though the book has now sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, Austen (above) received £110 for the copyright from publisher T. Egerton, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

While Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, just four years before Austen’s death, she lives on in TED Talks. Here, five speakers who’ve mentioned Austen on stage:

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5 Ways to Deal With Hardship and Pain in Life

Life throws many curve balls our way—it could be said that when one person goes to bed heartbroken, another could wake up finding true love. It’s a never-ending cycle of disappointments and achievements, but although we might presume that each of us are capable of getting back up every time life kicks us to the ground, that is far from reality. Sometimes it really hurts being in a situation you have no control of, and making decisions that seem completely unfair to you will definitely find their way into your life. Regardless of the tough issues you may face, it’s getting back up and moving forward that counts the most when you need to deal with hardship. This is a list of 5 things I’ve tried in my own life just to help me believe in a brighter future and get past a tough situation.

This may sound like a bad idea, but it does serve a purpose: you may feel depressed when thinking about past sorrows, but the idea behind reflecting on past hardship isn’t to run you down; it’s to prove to yourself that you have gotten past them. Usually we’re afraid that a tough time will break us, but when you think about the countless times you’ve actually gotten past what you thought was the worst experience in your life only proves that you’ve gotten stronger. Allow those victories to be an opportunity for you to see beyond the baggage in front of you.

I’ll be honest: keeping my feelings to myself used to plague me and made me feel alone, but when I found someone who actually genuinely cared about me, it became natural to share how I felt with her and that contributed immensely to my ability to overcome troublesome situations. Not only did I speak to her about how I felt, I also decided to blog about it, and though talking to strangers about your issues may seem crazy, it actually isn’t. In fact, it’s what therapists regard as their bread-winning strategy; the ability to be neutral and use their lack of a personal relationship with you as a means of helping you. It doesn’t matter if you want to talk, sing, or write about how you feel, just get it off your chest and the weight on your shoulders won’t seem so crippling.

It can be overwhelming when you’re in the middle of a heated argument or office politics, and there’s no way you’ll be able to make a rational decision when caught in the midst of a fire. They say that running away from your problems will never help, and though that’s partially true, it doesn’t mean that you need to submerge yourself so deeply into a situation that you run out of air to breathe and lose the ability to weigh the pros and cons of your choices. That happens more than we like to admit, which is why its important to detach yourself from a situation long enough to think clearly without having people hanging over your shoulders. This helps because you finally have a break to think things through and in cases like this, a lot of thought is needed.

SEE ALSO: Getting Change Done: How to Deal with Resisting Change

It’s easy to curl up into a ball and feel like your world is closing in from loneliness, and it’s so hard to remember that there is definitely someone out there who loves you. I know for a fact that we Lifehack readers are tough folks, and the fact that you’re here means that you have the strength to realize that help is but a URL away. Regardless of who or what you depend on, you need to remind yourself that you are not alone; you have people who do care. Even if it’s just one person, that’s enough to give you reason to remind yourself that you will never truly be alone. Sometimes it’s strangers who may share the same feelings as you do. Think about it—you may not know any of these readers personally but they could be in the exact same situation as you, so in fact, no one is truly alone.

Finally, it’s time to come to terms with what has happened. Regardless of whether the results of your choices proved to be helpful or not, it’s time for you to accept them and get back up. This time you have a new experience to add to your book of life so the next time something tries to knock you down, it won’t be easy because you will be strong and determined to push forward. Life will go on, time will never stand still, and it rests upon you to make the right decision of moving forward. Don’t dwell on “what could be” or “what if” circumstances; things are done, and it’s time for you to see that you may have a new battle scar, but you will certainly have gained a whole lot more character.

Goal: I will write down how I feel whenever I suffer from hardship. Tweet and show your determination.

SEE ALSO: 8 Ways To Get The Most From Hardship

Featured photo credit: Tokyo rainy background, focus on man and umbrella via Shutterstock Zak khan is an avid blogger who seeks to empower,inspire and motivate as many people he can using the power of words. He Lives in South Africa and spends most of his time compiling lists for his site Best of 20 and motivating people at Victorypose. Catch me on twitter and lets chat - Twitter

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