Mandela’s long walk to freedom. Kim Ludbrook/EPA As Black Lives Matter protests, triggered by the killing of George Floyd, spread across the world in response to systemic racism and police brutality, questions are being asked about how white people can lend their support. Our previous and ongoing research into the South African anti-apartheid movement provides four key lessons we can draw on today in the fight against racism. 1. Use privilege to support the oppressed The first lesson is that privilege, conferred to some by the system, can be used to support the oppressed. The African National Congress (ANC) launched its Defiance of Unjus... posted on Aug 19 2020 (6,798 reads)

left to right Anne Veh, with her Kindergarden teacher, Betty Peck, and ServiceSpace volunteer, Audrey Lin Audrey: There are so many stories of Anne. She has anchored kindness circles in different schools where a group of volunteers will go into a school and spend the day engaging on the theme of kindness and then doing acts of kindness. Last month she was at a middle school, and at the end of the day Anne gave this gift to the principal and it was a pomegranate; it was a very weathered pomegranate that she had saved. It was special because it was given to her by a dear friend, Mark DuBois, a past Awakin Call guest and quite an environmental legend. So Anne said to herself "... posted on Aug 18 2016 (14,008 reads)

time running backwards. People would grow younger instead of older and, after a long life of gradual rejuvenation – unlearning everything they know – they would end as a twinkle in their parents’ eyes. That’s time as represented in a novel by science fiction writer Philip K Dick but, surprisingly, time’s direction is also an issue that cosmologists are grappling with. While we take for granted that time has a given direction, physicists don’t: most natural laws are “time reversible” which means they would work just as well if time was defined as running backwards. So why does time always move forward? And will it always do ... posted on Apr 7 2021 (6,956 reads)

may be more beneficial than we commonly suppose. One recent study asked subjects to write a note of thanks to someone and then estimate how surprised and happy the recipient would feel – an impact that they consistently underestimated. Another study assessed the health benefits of writing thank you notes. The researchers found that writing as few as three weekly thank you notes over the course of three weeks improved life satisfaction, increased happy feelings and reduced symptoms of depression. While this research into gratitude is relatively new, the principles involved are anything but. Students of mine in a political philosophy course at Indiana University are reading ... posted on Nov 13 2022 (4,987 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 (18,145 reads)

almost incomprehensively ambitious vision unsupported by any sort of business plan may sound like a vision doomed to fail. Yet more than 35 years after the first Aravind Eye Clinic was set up in South India, Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy’s (Dr. V) mission to eliminate curable blindness in the country is surpassing even the most optimistic expectations. This excerpt from Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World’s Greatest Business Case for Compassion describes how a precisely defined set of creative constraints, including never refusing to provide care, never compromising on quality, and never relying on outside funding for patient services, became t... posted on Jun 10 2013 (48,151 reads)

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a lot of examples of case studies of people he worked with. I’m curious what you think about someone who says, “Is this from my own biological family line or maybe it’s from a past life?” MW: We just don’t know the answer to that until we cross over. I know Roger well. In fact, during that time when my eye couldn’t see, Roger was one of my teachers, one of my great teachers. I loved Roger. There were these events that we would land on in our inner images, which very well could be past-life images, but I’ve discovered that they could also be in the family history, and that we just don’t know the family history. So, I don’t k... posted on Dec 4 2020 (9,671 reads)

psychology of how we use frames, categories, and storytelling to make sense of the world. “It’s insulting to imply that only a system of rewards and punishments can keep you a decent human being,” Isaac Asimov told Bill Moyers in their magnificent 1988 conversation on science and religion. And yet ours is a culture that frequently turns to rigid external rules — be they of religion or of legislature or of social conduct — as a substitute for the inner moral compass that a truly “decent human being” uses to steer behavior. So what can we do, as a society and as individual humans aspiring to be good, to cultivate that deeper sense of right and w... posted on Jun 13 2014 (17,865 reads)

for art, life is difficult, hard to understand, useless, and mysterious." “As a person she is tolerant and easygoing, as a user of words, merciless,” the editors of The Paris Review wrote in the introduction to their 1992 interview with poet, short story writer, educator, and activist Grace Paley (December 11, 1922–August 22, 2007). Although Paley herself never graduated from college, she went on to become one of the most beloved and influential teachers of writing — both formally, through her professorships at Sarah Lawrence, Columbia, Syracuse University, and City College of New York, and informally, through her in... posted on Jul 31 2015 (12,583 reads)

is an adapted transcript of a talk delivered by ServiceSpace founder, Nipun Mehta, at the 2017 Wisdom Together conference in Munich, Germany] Today I want to talk about this very interesting tension between algorithms and love. While algorithms are a set of recipes, or a set of instructions, that help us filter data on the outside, it is our intuition that helps us with a lot of data on the inside. Now, that intrinsic data doesn't have the same kind of boundaries as extrinsic data, so holding theme together makes for a very interesting tension -- that I want to explore today. Many years ago, I saw a movie called “Minority Report”. Tom Cruise opens in his da... posted on Aug 17 2017 (21,647 reads)

in NY in the 1980s for 10 years. Source: various online news releases. Not every artist feels compelled to tackle vexing issues in a direct visual statement. At least for now, I am one of them. However, this doesn't necessarily mean remaining silent. I've chosen to be involved in hands-on action for immigrant members of my community. But those who do choose to give public voice to their concerns and resist the wrongs they perceive approach their art projects in individual ways. The images I've gathered reveal how certain artists have responded to the conditions they know about through personal experience or learn about through the news as well as friends, relatives, and coll... posted on Mar 16 2018 (7,733 reads)

I was in college, my boss drove me to a meeting. He had trouble finding a parking place—and, when he realized we were going to be late, pulled into a handicapped parking spot. As we got out of the car, he turned to me, grinned, and started limping. I fully knew that what he did was wrong. And I said nothing.  My failure to call out my boss is hardly unique. Yet like most people, if you’d asked me beforehand if I’d have the courage to do the right thing—to confront someone who uses a racist slur or engages in derogatory behavior—I would have said yes. But in reality, most of us fail to step up when actually facing such a situation. Why?  ... posted on Dec 3 2020 (8,873 reads)

I think the situation is changing. It would be ridiculous to claim that we know how we make consciousness in our brains, but we certainly can begin to approach the question, and we can begin to see the shape of a solution.  And one more wonder to celebrate is the fact that we have imaging technologies that now allow us to go inside the human brain and be able to do, for example, what you're seeing right now. These are images that come from Hanna Damasio's lab, and which show you, in a living brain, the reconstruction of that brain. And this is a person who is alive. This is not a person ... posted on Aug 15 2021 (8,213 reads)

burnout is on the rise, according to several surveys. People are feeling emotionally exhausted, detached from their work and colleagues, and less productive and efficacious. This makes them more likely to suffer health consequences, need sick days, and quit their jobs. Not too surprisingly, burnout has become even more prevalent during the pandemic, particularly among health care professionals, causing widespread concern. But, while many employers recognize the problem, they often don’t recognize the solutions, says journalist Jennifer Moss, author of the new book The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It. ... posted on Nov 22 2021 (5,201 reads)

imagination is a magical garden where all plants and creatures find their Eden. Her stories, detailed images, and colours reveal a hidden depth, a reflection of a timeless soul, rich with experience, empathy, love and generosity.” —Paul Destrooper, Artistic Director, Ballet Victoria All photographs by Stefan Cremers.  My winter garden is quiet and lovely, with snow piled onto the shrubs and outlining the trees. For me, this is a time for resting and reflection, reading, drawing, and planning next year’s garden. Gardening has always been a part of my life. As a child, I spent summers playing in my grandfather’s stately and formal gar... posted on Dec 9 2021 (6,244 reads)

is inevitable. Romances end, loved ones die, friends let us down. These experiences might be universal, but their impact can still be devastating. 
This is what science journalist Florence Williams discovered after her husband of 25 years unexpectedly asked for a divorce. William found herself in a daze, shocked and miserable, and even ill. 
 “Physically, I felt like my body had been plugged into a faulty electrical socket,” she writes. “In addition to weight loss, I’d stopped sleeping. I was getting sick: My pancreas wasn’t working right. It was hard to think straight.” To help understand what was happening to her, she t... posted on Apr 13 2022 (7,619 reads)

you willing to believe that you are wrong about something? I was attending a lecture called “Civil Conversation in an Angry Age” by philosopher David Smith, and he offered a prescription for bridging divides that began with this question. “Is it safe to assume all 63 of us are wrong about something right now?” Smith asked the virtual, pandemic-era class. In Zoom squares on my screen, heads considered, then nodded. “I think so, because we’ve been wrong about so many things before,” he continued. But there’s a problem: We don’t know what we’re wrong about. “That simple observation, ‘I’m wrong, I ju... posted on Apr 30 2022 (8,767 reads)

Chandler Allen’s creativity is on display. She’s come up with a new way to provide funding for art supplies in urban public schools, promote the importance of art education for all kids, and beautify office buildings at the same time. Here’s how it works: Allen’s organization, Fresh Artists, invites students in grades K-12 to donate the use of their artwork for large-scale reproduction. Businesses and organizations that make donations to Fresh Artists receive images of the artwork for their offices. In turn, Fresh Artists uses the donations to buy art supplies for Philadelphia’s most under-resourced schools. Allen calls it “lateral philanthr... posted on Dec 5 2010 (6,074 reads)

Interview with Dr. Paul R. Fleischman How would you define meditation? First off, I’d like to clarify that whenever I talk about meditation, I’m really talking specifically about my own experiences with a technique called Vipassana, which I learned in 1974 from Mr. S.N. Goenka, and have been teaching since 1986 under his guidance. Meditation is a form of self observation. In Vipassana meditation, the unique feature is to observe oneself at the level of sensation. Or more specifically, it is to cultivate the capacity for relatively constant, thorough observation of the arising and passing of body sensations. Along with that observation is a concurrent unders... posted on Mar 20 2012 (34,763 reads)