consumption, or what lunching ladies have to do with social web karma. Stuff. We all accumulate it and eventually form all kinds of emotional attachments to it. (Arguably, because the marketing machine of the 20th century has conditioned us to do so.) But digital platforms and cloud-based tools are making it increasingly easy to have all the things we want without actually owning them. Because, as Wired founder and notable futurist Kevin Kelly once put it, “access is better than ownership.” Here are seven services that help shrink your carbon footprint, lighten your economic load and generally liberate you from the shackles of stuff through the power of sharing. ... posted on Aug 11 2011 (91,446 reads)

A friend once insightfully pointed out to me that every product we hold in our hands was once just a thought in someone's mind, an inborn desire to imbue life and meaning into something that had yet to take form. With each passing day, I wonder if most of us who work in "for-profits" are actually really working for "beyond-profits," engaging in the act of creation to express our fundamental aliveness. The meaning in our daily work, then, comes from engaging in this creative poetry of life. This is not a new idea. In my own work, I've been encouraged to discover that the beyond-profit perspective is familiar for those who concern themselves with value-creation. ... posted on Aug 8 2011 (14,406 reads)

programs, are the most cost-effective way to address societal inequalities while increasing overall economic output. There are non-economic outcomes that matter, too, of course, and I speculate that Heckman's interventions help with those, as well. Measurement It's often said that you can't manage what you can't measure, and virtues are difficult to measure. Luckily, psychology researchers see it as an essential part of their job to devise metrics for the hard-to-measure. And they are creative. For example, psychologist Roy Baumeister, who has linked self-control to a range of positive outcomes, wrote me that self-control can be measured by self-report questionnaires, re... posted on Jul 18 2011 (12,589 reads)

Means Poverty Although some spiritual traditions have advocated a life of extreme renunciation, it is very misleading to equate simplicity with poverty. Poverty is involuntary and debilitating, whereas simplicity is voluntary and enabling. A life of conscious simplicity can have both a beauty and a functional integrity that elevates the human spirit. Poverty fosters a sense of helplessness, passivity and despair, whereas purposeful simplicity fosters a sense of personal empowerment, creative engagement and opportunity. Historically, those choosing a simpler life have sought the golden mean -- a creative and aesthetic balance between poverty and excess. Instead of placing primary ... posted on Dec 24 2011 (31,997 reads)

genealogy of ideas, why everything is a remix, or what T.S. Eliot can teach us about creativity. Austin Kleon is positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet. His Newspaper Blackout project is essentially a postmodern florilegium, using a black Sharpie to make art and poetry by redacting newspaper articles. In this excellent talk from The Economist‘s Human Potential Summit, titled Steal Like an Artist, Kleon makes an articulate and compelling case for combinatorial creativity and the role of remix in the idea economy. Kleon, who has clearly seen Kirby Ferguson’s excellent Everything is... posted on Mar 1 2012 (9,014 reads)

and then having an emotional reaction. The reaction is to the fantasy that you just generated, and in either case, you aren’t aware that you are living in a fabricated world. That is, not until you come back to the undeniable truth of present moment, reality, manifesting in the arising and passing of sensations. That’s actually the real state in which those fantasies are arising. Another way to describe what happens is that meditation is a stormy, colorful, highly personal creative effort. It’s creative because you have to find your own way through this kaleidoscope of mentation – mental fabrications of desire and fear. And you have to find your way through ... posted on Mar 20 2012 (34,616 reads)

I was planting my seasonal crop of tomatoes last month, a good friend (and my personal gardening guru) informed me that they liked their leaves rubbed, “like petting a pet’s ears,” which I received with equal parts astonishment, amusement, and mild concern for my friend. But, as Tel Aviv University biologist Daniel Chamovitz reveals in What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses (public library), that might not be such a crazy idea after all. Plants, it turns out, possess a sensory vocabulary far wider than our perception of them as static, near-inanimate objects might suggest: They can smell their own fruits’ ripeness, distinguish b... posted on Jun 30 2012 (15,024 reads)

a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” In 1989, Stephen R. Covey penned The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (public library), a book that went on to sell millions of copies worldwide and defined a new genre bridging self-improvement, business management, and personal productivity. This week, Covey passed away at the age of 79. Here’s a look back at his legacy with some of the keenest insights from his beloved bestseller: Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do).   Sow a t... posted on Jul 23 2012 (18,077 reads)

be human is to be aware of the passage of time; no concept lies closer to the core of our consciousness.” For millennia, humans have sought to make sense of time, to visualize it, to ride its arrow, to hack it, to understand biological connection to it. “Time is the very foundation of conscious experience,” writes Dan Falk in In Search of Time: The History, Physics, and Philosophy of Time (public library). “To be human is to be aware of the passage of time; no concept lies closer to the core of our consciousness.” And yet that awareness has a long history of friction — to mark... posted on Aug 6 2012 (10,526 reads)

practices, new systems developments, and potentials for post-growth futures? How can conversations – about the meanings we give to money, the ways we use it, and alternatives to our reliance upon it – be nurtured in public spaces? Free Money Day Inspired by these questions and being big believers in the value of exploring the lighter side of grave challenges, we at the Post Growth Institute decided to conduct a social experiment: Free Money Day. Encouraging creative approaches, we challenged the peoples of the world to take to the streets to give away their own money. Signed-up participants committed to give two small coins or banknotes to strangers, ask... posted on Sep 14 2012 (14,045 reads)

Miller’s studies show that laughter expands blood vessels, and endorphins released in response to laughter activate the chemical nitric oxide in the inner lining of our blood vessels to promote vascular health. Seriously.| STUDY: “Inverse association between sense of humor and coronary heart disease” 2. Age artfully Digging the old paint brush or the dusty guitar out of the closet is always a good idea. However, for aging baby boomers, getting back into the creative swing of the rockin’ ’60s is a matter of health insurance. Research shows that seniors engaged in activities like singing, creative writing, or painting are healthier and happier ... posted on Oct 5 2012 (70,711 reads)

to get an education, too. She and several of her girlfriends managed to find the Dandelion School, which offered them tuition and room-and- board scholarships. Her parents thought that it was some kind of scam to trick them out of their children. The mother told me, “Although we are poor, we will manage. If we die, we want to die together.” Shu Li’s story has a happy ending. In addition to being an outstanding scholarship student, she has recently won top prizes in creative writing, with good cash awards to take home. As a top student in every field she commits to, Shu Li has a bright future. Dandelion, what an appropriate word to name a school that serves t... posted on Jan 20 2013 (8,787 reads)

of the patron saints of my Happier at Home project, Samuel Johnson, wrote, “It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.” One “little thing” that can be a source of unhappiness is boredom. Waiting in traffic. Waiting for the subway. Doing the dishes. Waiting in a doctor’s office. Listening to your thirteen year old talk through her different clothing options for the day. Here are seven tips to re-frame the moment. Even if you can’t escape a situation, by re-framing your emotions about it, you can transform it. 1. Put the word ... posted on Apr 17 2013 (34,561 reads)

details, in the mirror and the hidden, in the tentative and ephemeral. Twenty-plus years have elapsed since my initial wabi-sabi formulations. Back then, the industrialized world was just beginning its headlong drive to digitize as much of "reality" as possible and transfer it into a "virtual" or "dematerialized" form. Back then, wabi-sabi's nature-based sense of "aesthetic realism" offered genuine comfort and inspiration for sensitive, creative souls. Will wabi-sabi's quintessentially analog sensibility still provide emotional grounding and creative nourishment going forward into the future? For perspective, and possibly insight... posted on Apr 23 2013 (30,617 reads)

woman ever to deliver the keynote address at a national political convention. Her 1953 appointment as Ambassador to Italy made her the first female American ambassador to major post abroad. On November 24, 1942, Luce penned a letter to her 18-year-old daughter Ann, a sophomore at Stanford, found in Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children (public library) — the same wonderful anthology that gave us Sherwood Anderson’s timelessly poetic advice on the creative life. Amidst counsel on Ann’s first romantic relationship, Luce offers the following advice: Don’t worry about your studies. When you want to do them well you will do them supe... posted on May 12 2013 (20,426 reads)

and experience, of just where we humans might be heading for our next evolutionary leap. Hock has proved that a very large group of individuals can come together under the cohesion of a unifying purpose while enhancing—rather than swallowing—the autonomy of each participating individual. To say that the individual and collective benefit each other in this arrangement would be an understatement, for, ideally, the intricate dance between part and whole endlessly releases new creative capacities in both. Hock talks a refreshing brand of truth and proves that it's possible for a unified yet diverse group of people to wend its way through tumultuous change while continuo... posted on May 30 2013 (34,330 reads)

order to sharpen our reasoning skills, we must have a good grasp of our own cognitive biases, as well as the basic laws of the universe. But in a dynamic world, new laws are constantly emerging. The editors over at Edge.org asked some of the most influential thinkers in the world — including neuroscientists, physicists and mathematicians — what they believe are the most important scientific concepts of the modern era. The result is "This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts To Improve Your Thinking," a compilation of nearly 200 essays exploring concepts such as the "shifting baseline syndrome" and a scientific view ... posted on Aug 5 2013 (590,958 reads)

to learn to sail. He moved to Berkeley from Wisconsin to work at a sailing school. While learning to sail, David began charting a life path based on his passions. He began reading voraciously. He became a TED talk junkie. He was fascinated by the innovations democratizing the economy. He came to an event hosted byShareable—the web magazine I founded about the sharing economy—that was held at TechShop, a membership-based machine shop in San Francisco. He was fascinated with the creative possibilities and DIY community he found there. When the sailing school laid him off, David promptly joined TechShop to learn how to make things with his hands. Members have access to desi... posted on Sep 4 2013 (17,898 reads)

only leads to an insight when people take it seriously enough to explore it a bit." Act on your insights. Daydreaming isn’t the only state of mind that can lead to insights. "I've found a number of examples where people were under tremendous pressure and came up with marvelous insights," says Klein. "We should embrace urgency." This urgency forces people to look at things they'd otherwise ignore (what Klein refers to as "creative desperation"), and when they gain an insight, encourages them to act on it right away. This is frequently how chess grand masters try an unusual move that ends up being successful and wi... posted on Sep 8 2013 (107,586 reads)

"Up" documentaries have followed 14 people from ages seven to 56—and in the process illustrated recent discoveries about the science of a meaningful life. The film critic Roger Ebert famously called the “Up” series “an inspired, even noble, use of the film medium.” It started, accidentally, in 1964, when the British TV program World in Action profiled 14 seven year olds with the aim of discovering how social class shaped their worldviews. There was no intention of going beyond that one episode, called Seven Up! Symon has faced the death of his mother, the births of his children, unemployment, divorce, and re-marriage (to Vienetta, at righ... posted on Nov 4 2013 (35,997 reads)