"Mind Mapping" is a concept that has held my interest for some years especially in relation to mapping with computer software. True assimilation and integration of life is one of the things that challenges 21st century man. We are simply deluged with information and stimuli. I am certain this is the appeal of online networking communities. But does it really provide any sense of unity or integration? Not for me.
Mind mapping is a process of intuitively arranging ideas in a way that places them in a hierarchy or category. Since 1998 I have used a software program called Ecco to do my own version of mind mapping. Ecco is not true "Mind Mapping" software but considered more of a PIM (personal information manager). A complex program to learn, but one that totally integrates all factions of my life. I keep notes to myself, addresses and contacts, calendar and a lot of other data in this program. This is where my life integrates and comes together. The data is moved between the three computers I use via thumb drive. So access to the "stuff" that integrates my life is always at hand and backed up. True mind mapping software is available. Although I have tried some of the newer mind mapping programs, I have still never found a program I like better than Ecco.
The history of Ecco is quite fascinating and mysterious. If you are interested in Ecco have a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecco_Pro#Attempts_to_duplicate_Ecco_Pro
At one time you could download Ecco at a couple of different places. I would not know where to send you now. The story is that the rights were sold to Microsoft and aspects of the software were integrated into Outlook. As Microsoft has done with so many companies purchased the intellectual property was removed and the company consumed or killed. So it was with NetManage the original producers of Ecco.
But, if you are interested in other true mind mapping programs check out:
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
http://www.thebrain.com/
http://www.novamind.com/
http://www.evernote.com
http://www.gemx.com/
http://www.mindmeister.com/
I don't know which one is the best but I am sticking with Ecco unless Microsoft figures out some way to remove it from my computers......you laugh!!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Courage
Courage is a relative thing. Fear is a pervasive element of the human condition.
We all feel fear in differing ways, so acts of courage differ between individuals depending on how fear is felt.
We all face the inevitable fate of death, deterioration, illness and loss without really knowing what the future holds. I am convinced that no one really knows what is ahead in life, nor in the afterlife, regardless of religious teaching or any special insight. If you are human, you face the same abyss of the unknown. Facing this takes real courage.
So it is in death that I have seen the most courageous acts demonstrated.
I saw my Grandfather of 96 endure a long battle with illness and pain while keeping a positive cheerful attitude. This was truly a courageous act in my opinion. He continued to find ways to help others even while he was dieing in a great deal of pain. He used to say, “getting old is not for sissies….” I admired his positive loving spirit in the face of a lot of pain and discomfort. He always smiled, had a kind word and kept a positive attitude of kindness to all. Facing our imminent demise with dignity and leaving the world with grace. This to me is a demonstration of true courage.
We all feel fear in differing ways, so acts of courage differ between individuals depending on how fear is felt.
We all face the inevitable fate of death, deterioration, illness and loss without really knowing what the future holds. I am convinced that no one really knows what is ahead in life, nor in the afterlife, regardless of religious teaching or any special insight. If you are human, you face the same abyss of the unknown. Facing this takes real courage.
So it is in death that I have seen the most courageous acts demonstrated.
I saw my Grandfather of 96 endure a long battle with illness and pain while keeping a positive cheerful attitude. This was truly a courageous act in my opinion. He continued to find ways to help others even while he was dieing in a great deal of pain. He used to say, “getting old is not for sissies….” I admired his positive loving spirit in the face of a lot of pain and discomfort. He always smiled, had a kind word and kept a positive attitude of kindness to all. Facing our imminent demise with dignity and leaving the world with grace. This to me is a demonstration of true courage.
Those Winter Sundays
Those Winter Sundays
by Robert E. Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert E. Hayden (1913 - 1980)
More on Robert E. Hayden
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=3014
by Robert E. Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert E. Hayden (1913 - 1980)
More on Robert E. Hayden
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=3014
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Waiting Place...
Today is the day to just do it....
The Waiting Place...
By Dr. Suess
...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
The Waiting Place...
By Dr. Suess
...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Digital Footprint
Reducing my digital foot print today. First step is trying to wrap my mind around it all. Indexed for eternity? Not only my digital footprint but digital shadow as well. Pretty frightening....
"New research shows that we need to be aware of much more than just online mentions. What we need to concern ourselves with now, is the other half of our digital footprint. This "ambient content," the research team concluded, comprises of passive contributions, something termed as your "digital shadow."
Your shadow includes things like images of you on a surveillance camera, your bank records, your retail and airline purchase records, your telephone records, your medical database entries, copies of hospital scans, information about your web searches, general backup data, information about credit card purchases, etc."
Complete article at:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_tool_calculates_your_digital_footprint.php
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Light and Love
This is true for all the arts, "In the new millennium, perhaps it is time for musicians to abandon their limited concepts of what music is and who they are. Historically, we have been at the forefront of cultural and spiritual revolutions. It is time for us to drop our petty concerns of what is and isn’t jazz and allow the music’s original purpose to manifest: Music can express the inexpressible. It can bathe us all in light and love, and continues to be God’s most potent tool of inducing ecstasy, which is our birthright." Kenny Werner
Art, Music and Markets....
There is a connection for me with art, clay, music, philosophy and financial markets. All are driven by human behavior and capture my attention. It is no coincidence that many of the most successful investors have also been those who endow and support the arts. Attenuation to those things that make the human experience deep.
"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid." Frank Zappa
"It’s extremely zen-like. Although I don’t really adhere to any form of ritualistic demand from any religion. But all of them, in terms of theosophically speaking, are vividly pointing to sensitivity, which is a very difficult situation. They are demanding sensitivity in the midst of insensitivity, if only so that you can see both at once. And the moment you can see both at once, you are in a third place. And that’s where you attain a greater consciousness. "Pat Martino
"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid." Frank Zappa
"It’s extremely zen-like. Although I don’t really adhere to any form of ritualistic demand from any religion. But all of them, in terms of theosophically speaking, are vividly pointing to sensitivity, which is a very difficult situation. They are demanding sensitivity in the midst of insensitivity, if only so that you can see both at once. And the moment you can see both at once, you are in a third place. And that’s where you attain a greater consciousness. "Pat Martino
Monday, November 2, 2009
facebook and loss of privacy
If you don't want to see it on the front page of the paper, don't put it on the internet....this includes e-mail. "While social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace effectively own the data we post on their sites, internet companies like Google and Yahoo keep records of what we look for on their search engines."
Here is what you agree to with Facebook, "‘By posting Member Content to any part of the website, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt and distribute such information and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorise sublicenses of the foregoing…’
Read full text at: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4482/
Here is what you agree to with Facebook, "‘By posting Member Content to any part of the website, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt and distribute such information and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorise sublicenses of the foregoing…’
Read full text at: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4482/
writing about art
Been working with students taking a course I teach called "senior exhibition" (Art 4192)which is a capstone course for BFA majors. A lot of writing about art is required. Interesting how detached the process of writing about art can be when it really should be a most integrated thing to do as artist, an introspective process, a verbal bridge from the viewer to access the work of art.
"My theory is that the purpose of art is to transmit universal truths of a sort, but of a particular sort, that in art, whether it's poetry, fiction or painting, you are telling the reader or the listener or the viewer something he already knows but which he doesn't quite know that he knows, so that in the action of communication he experiences a recognition, a feeling that he has been there before, a shock of recognition. And so what the artist does, or tries to do, is simply to validate the human experience and to tell people the deep human truths which they already unconsciously know."Walker Percy
"My theory is that the purpose of art is to transmit universal truths of a sort, but of a particular sort, that in art, whether it's poetry, fiction or painting, you are telling the reader or the listener or the viewer something he already knows but which he doesn't quite know that he knows, so that in the action of communication he experiences a recognition, a feeling that he has been there before, a shock of recognition. And so what the artist does, or tries to do, is simply to validate the human experience and to tell people the deep human truths which they already unconsciously know."Walker Percy
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Facebook Alternative
I am moving to my blog and web site from Facebook for things I want to share with the world. Have never really gotten comfortable with the Facebook format and it seems to be getting more complicated and a real time sink vortex. Time I can't find. Facebook will be a conduit to let you all know when I post to my blog.
"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." -Carl Sandburg, poet (1878-1967)
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