Did you ever swing and stargaze as a kid? Now you can float through the starry galaxies with the use of a starlight projector and an indoor swing! Lab212 devised this clever swing with a Kinect sensor which tracks your motion, moving the star field in unison so it feels like you’re passing through it. And to make you feel like you are making galactic progress, the star field moves twice as fast when you swing forwards as it does when you swing back. Brilliant project from the creative minds at Lab212.
“Fitter Happier”
more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that’s driven into
frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that’s driven into
frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics
James Blake – Overgrown
“Blake opted for the singer-songwriter move in this new album, making heart music instead of head music.” ~Pitchfork
Stunning talent pours out of this 23-year-old from London town. Overgrown is the second studio album from James Blake, released on 5 April 2013 by ATLAS Records, along with A&M Records and Polydor Records. You can check out Blake’s new album here and I highly recommend that you give it a spin.
And He Is Not Diminished
“Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. You can feel it growing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. And then — the glory — so that a cricket song sweetens the ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and he is not diminished.” ~John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession, and the road away from here seems broad and straight and bright and sweet…”
“I have always lived violently, worked too hard and too long in glory. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage.” ~John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley: In Search of America
Our Definition Of Success….
Lately I have been thinking a lot about a holistic view of success and how it can differ from person to person. I often interact with people in the technology space who are all about the bottom line or the big exit. While I appreciate their ferocious fervor, my definition of success seems to differ a bit from theirs.
I took some time out this weekend to really think about how I define success and decided to jot down a short list. Interestingly enough, money is nowhere to be found on it. I don’t see capital as good or bad – simply as a tool I hope to use to maximize efforts in other areas. This is my (completely subjective) take on factors for a fulfilling and successful life.
A Few Pieces of a Successful Life:
1.) Building deep and meaningful relationships
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ― C.S. Lewis
I’m quite certain that if colleges taught us what is actually useful in the world, half of our courses would focus on interpersonal relationships. Ensuring that those around us know that they are loved and supported may be the most important thing on this list. Making people feel valued and helping them to succeed is my ultimate goal both personally and professionally. It is interesting to also note that business is all about relationships, yet techies tend to often forget that people are at the heart of it all.
2.) Exploring
“I like to travel. Or maybe that’s not exactly right. As I go out, my idea of home is expanding and I can’t wait to find out how big it will be.” ~ “Traveling Light: Stories &; Drawings for a Quiet Mind”
I was basically born on a plane and grew up with family and friends scattered across the globe. This type of upbringing inevitably gives me a different perspective (and unquenchable wanderlust tendencies) but also encourages me to be relentlessly curious about the world and to keep getting out there to see what I can find. Feeling at home in the world is a gift and something that I will never let myself take for granted. I’m not promoting rootless wandering, but purposeful exploration and trying to impact all those you meet.
3.) Passion and Purpose
“Live as if you were on fire from within. The moon living in the lining of your skin.”
― Pablo Neruda
It is never about a job, or even about a career, but about working on projects that have impact and push things forward. Working on things that make you giddy with excitement alongside people who you love, respect and admire may be one of the greatest highs we can have in life. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some truly inspiring people in many countries and can only build on the things that they have taught me. I’m now building a tech consultancy (hey there passion project!) that helps innovative founders succeed and can’t imagine anything more fun than helping those with wild ideas, and the courage to execute them.
4.) Health and Wellness
“Silence is not silent. Silence speaks. It speaks most eloquently. Silence is not still. Silence leads. It leads most perfectly.” Sri Chinmoy.
Taking care of yourself can be tough when you have a million things to do, but I’m starting to realize that it is vital to be good to yourself if you want to be able to be good to others. Investing in yourself is incredibly important in order to make sure that you are functioning at your highest potential – mentally, physically and spiritually. Sidenote: transcendent meditation – try it out.
5.) Hope
“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope and long for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” ― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
Being relentlessly optimistic can be annoying to those around you, but acting from a place of deep hope is essential to seeing things go your way. No matter how many times the world knocks you down (and I get knocked down a lot) keeping hope in your heart translates to doors opening where before there were only walls.
This list is my anchor – what I base all major decision on. I’ve put it up above my desk as a friendly reminder in times of unnecessary stress and worry. Try pausing for a minute this week, and give some thought to the type of “successful person” you strive to be.
Passion Pit – Sleepyhead
“Sleepyhead” live at the Warfield, SF. The band will be making a triumphant return to the venue in late August. Ticket info coming soon.
“Take a Walk” ~another personal favorite:
Be Realistic
The Biological Advantages of Being Awestruck
“Humphrey refers to consciousness as a magic show that you stage for yourself inside your head, which lights up the world and makes you feel special and transcendent… this magical theater provides a reason to live, a love of occupying the present moment, and a desire to sustain it into the future, that over time has proved stronger than anything else, and accounts for humanity’s swift and triumphant success.”
This video by futurist Jason Silva was inspired by three big ideas:
1) The ideas of psychologist Nicholas Humphrey who wrote about “The Biological Advantages of Being Awestruck”. Our ability to awe was biologically selected for by evolution because it imbues our lives with a sense of cosmic significance that has resulted in a species that works harder not just to survive but to flourish and thrive.
Humphrey says: “being enchanted by the magic of experience, rather than being just an aid to survival, provides an essential incentive to survive.”
“We relish just being here. We feel “the yen to confirm and renew, in small ways or large, our own occupancy of the present moment, to go deeper, to extend it, to revel in being there, and when we have the skill, to celebrate it in words…” ~mmm beautiful.
More: online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703858404576214771893335998.html
2) A recent Stanford study that found that a state of awe is clinically good for you, expanding perception of time, increasing compassion and empathy and promoting well-being:
3) Ross Andersen’s meditation on the ontological awakening of our psyches provided by the Hubble Space Telescope:
“At first glancing the Deep FIELD “one might mistake it for gemstones scattered across black velvet, but a closer look reveals that each smudge of light, 2,600 in all, is a galaxy dense with billions of star-fired worlds, pinwheeling in deep time. … To that point, astronomy had imaged objects only four billion light years away, and poorly at that. Here a telescope reached 11 and a half billion light years into space and delivered an image legible to the layman: an unprecedented expansion of human vision.”
More: lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=331
Feel what Silva is putting down? Check out his YouTube channel for more glorious rants on science + art + wonder: http://www.youtube.com/user/jasonsilvamindmeld
A Manifesto….
Don’t tell us that it’s impossible and that there is no budget for glitter…
Video collaboration between Melcher Media, Prologue and Erik Natzke of Adobe rallies the creative community around the ability to have real, meaningful impact on the world.
On Persuasion…
Brain Games host, Jason Silva, believes that targeted marketing can be a consumer-empowering concept. Do you agree?
