Heartcrossings

A few weeks ago I met R, my old neighbor whose boys attend the same middle school and J does. Her oldest goes to high school next year and the youngest is in sixth grade like J. We were chatting about the transition experience and how things went for her oldest; she mentioned how peer pressure worked differently for boys than it did for girls at this age.  According to R, the girls had it a lot harder than the boys. I have heard variations on this theme from other parents have to wonder how J will fare. Many women I know have told me that middle school was the worst part of their school years. Reading this David Brooks op-ed piece on why men fail made we wonder if the advantage boys seem have in their adolescent years fades over time. Particularly interesting is the idea that men have become victims of the superior position in the social totem pole : This theory has less to do with innate traits and more to do with social position. When there’s big social change, the people w...

Red field of poppies, linen in bloom. More metal same feeling you smiled. And the ravages of  time came undone.

J's Art teacher has assigned the class an interesting activity. Each student will choose a partner and a poem for this project. They will each create a visual of the poem they have selected. The partner will read the poem while the they hold up their visual and then they switch. I thought this was a great way to introduce poetry appreciation using art as the vehicle. She asked me to help her choose her poem and I took the opportunity to share some of my favorites with her. Most she did not quite understand yet or thought would be hard to depict visually - but Derek Walcott's Midsummer, Tobago clicked with her right away. It was a moving experience for me to able to share something so close to my heart with her. We talked about my favorite lines and the how Walcott evokes nostalgia ever so magically Days I have held, days I have lost, days that outgrow, like daughters, my harbouring arms.  Ten years from now, when J is all grown up and out in the world, I may remember the...

This article about desire modification technology   has to be the most interesting thing I have read this week. There are many hypothetical technologies that have the power to transform the human experience even more profoundly than any that have gone before. Fusion power and self-replicating networked nanotech are two popular ones, but there are others that have the potential to be even more transformational. For example, personality upload (also called "brain emulation"). Why spend all your wealth rearranging the world we live in, when you can just create your own? An even bigger one is desire modification. Why spend all your wealth creating a better world, when you can make yourself like the one you're in? I hope I live long enough to see some of this come to fruition. Buddha taught that desire was the root of suffering. When desire is modified to where it coincides what we already have, then suffering would logically turn to exuberance. Such technology cou...

Watched this TED talk on arranged and non-arranged marriages in India . The author cites the statistics gathered during the course of her research to make her case and draws some interesting conclusions. Unfortunately, I do not have the vantage point of witnessing the social changes in India first hand during the last ten years - but I do see the what happens when the Indian marriage comes abroad.  The couple in an arranged marriage tends to be a little awkward together when they are starting out. The party that has been abroad longer, guides the new arrival around until they get more sure-footed. The families tend to play a big part in their lives, where the support system would have been more physical and logistical back home, it turns into an emotional prop while abroad. Without having full knowledge or understanding of the dynamic between the couple, the respective families arrive at their version of the truth and often advocate that passionately to the detriment of the new...