Watching Wimbleton has offered a wide range of facial expressions to feel inside. That was one of the big attractions when I first started watching tennis. It felt like such a privilege to observe so closely as the camera zoomed in on the face of someone in a pivotal moment. This opportunity to access the attitude toward a significant event felt like it was tuning something powerful inside me. Because we build new circuits to accommodate new experience, I’ve benefited from resonating with the faces of champions. Paul Eckman says we can recognize 10,000 different facial expressions. That’s an incredible spectrum of variation. There are good versions of ferociously determined and bad versions. The best reveal someone at one with their purpose. The expressions I find unpleasant seem dominated by self and something to prove. In a class discussion of beauty one student brought up a television program he’d seen that connected beauty to symmetry. I suggested that symmetry often depends on the purity of emotions beneath it. If there are contradictions or fear beneath the surface, that can twist the features to one side. Feeling more balanced as a person, more focused on a goal without contamination of egotism and the features reflect that inner order.
When we recognize a particular expression it’s because it’s familiar to us. What we notice in the world reflects something we’re trying to understand in ourselves. When I hear people blaming or criticizing someone, I always feel they’re talking about themselves. They know the trait from the inside. It’s not that the label is wrong. But we use what we see in the outside world to illuminate the inner world. What today’s psychologists label “projection” is a human trait that’s been observed by philosophers and writers for thousands of years. Marcus Aurelius said “evil is in that part of us that points to evil.” The I Ching says to look in yourself for the faults you brand in others, and that being a “superior person” depends on the parts of the self one chooses to cultivate. Cultivating your better qualities makes you a better person. Expressions that attract us are leading us to those better qualities. We feel pleasure looking at joy or concentration as we experience the endorphins that are stimulated to encourage us to seek out the positive. What facilitates growth creates pleasure.
My husband has recently gotten into watching Guy Fieri on the Food Network. As he says repeatedly, ”It’s a pleasure to watch him eat.” He has so many version of enjoyment of his food, that it probably adds dimension to our own. We don’t necessarily think about learning from the looks on other’s faces but whether it’s the determination of an athlete or the joy of the beagle that won the big dog show, the range of our own experience is enlarged by witnessing others’ reactions. Facial expressions provide real information about another person’s inner world. When what we see on a face contradicts what a person says about a situation, we tend to believe the face and are thrown into conflict when the other insists on the truth of the verbal statement. Recognizing the importance and persuasiveness of visual knowledge can enhance our ability to understand ourselves and others and stimulate our better selves as we recognize the attitudes that propel us forward.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Watching Tennis for Self-Improvement
My love of watching tennis began in the seventies when I was hunting for a Sunday morning news show. Instead the screen was filled with the face of Bjorn Borg and I was hooked immediately by his look of predatory concentration. Little did I know at the time, that my mirror neurons were firing up brain circuits as though I was making that face myself. I just knew I liked the feeling. My fascination was fueled by the neural action of focus and determination, my own neurons paralleling his. I was feeling the look of winning. Part of the power of visual intelligence is the internal matching of what we see. When mirror neurons were first discovered, the researchers were surprised to see that the same neurons that fired when the monkey performed a certain task also fired just by watching that task performed by someone else. Understanding facial expressions depends on the same mechanisms. We feel them from the inside as though we were making them ourselves. Like the worldwide expert on facial expressions, Paul Eckman, says, “Make the face, feel the emotion.”
And imagine the benefits to the rest of my motor circuits firing as I watch such outstanding athleticism. Tennis players are excellent examples of visual/spatial intelligence at work. Awareness of the court, assessing the speed of the ball, the movement of the opponent and previous knowledge of a particular player’s style constitutes a constantly changing whole that a great player is always adjusting to along with a host of other factors. The best players exhibit intelligence as well as athletic excellence as they make lightening fast decisions. In the heat of an exciting volley, my whole body is twitching, not indifferent to the excitement unfolding in my mirror neurons. Watching these things trains my capacity for awareness and concentration on a purpose.
In the past, when people were curious about why I liked watching tennis, I used to say something about how much I loved saying “wow”, appreciated being impressed, and assuming some good brain chemistry was involved. I later learned that my body’s pleasure response was rewarding me with endorphins for attention to something I admired and dopamine for the unexpected shots and physical stimulation. This has survival value since admiration stimulates our own potential for greatness and novelty focuses attention on something new to learn. Through my mirror neurons I get to play along with the best, the residuals of which are there to inspire me when I sit down to draw.
Today the look that comes closest to the feeling I got from Borg’s is found on the face of Rafael Nadal. But whereas Borg’s intensity was of having his prey in sight, Nadal projects the feeling of a warrior vanquishing a foe, of something being conquered. The war cry accompanying Maria Sharapova’s hits contrasts with the steely sense of purpose on her face before she serves. What we see tunes the qualities in ourselves that respond to it. There is no one best way to play tennis. There are as many styles of play as great players. I’ve often wondered how Roger Federer managed to slow time, gliding easily through points where other players were rushing around. Then I read about new research showing that brain waves vibrate at a higher frequency during peak experiences like intense competition. So if the brain is operating faster, then clock time would seem slower. When we’re most deeply involved we have plenty of time.
The thing the winners most have in common is concentration and attitude, not the same attitude but each individual version of purity of purpose, unswerving determination. When Sharapova’s expression shifted to frustration, Dinara Safina’s face showed her prey cornered, moving in for the kill.
Our brains are changed by what we pay attention to, our reward system designed to keep us doing what’s helps us grow. It’s a pleasure (more endorphins) to see players from all over the world competing together without politics. Most fans don’t necessarily root for the players from their countries but for qualities of individual style. My endorphins flow seeing men’s and women’s tennis treated equally as part of the same tournament. Watching tennis is immersion in a world where excellence rules. Maybe what the feeling of inspiration really is involves the activation of those circuits where our own excellence wants to bloom.
And imagine the benefits to the rest of my motor circuits firing as I watch such outstanding athleticism. Tennis players are excellent examples of visual/spatial intelligence at work. Awareness of the court, assessing the speed of the ball, the movement of the opponent and previous knowledge of a particular player’s style constitutes a constantly changing whole that a great player is always adjusting to along with a host of other factors. The best players exhibit intelligence as well as athletic excellence as they make lightening fast decisions. In the heat of an exciting volley, my whole body is twitching, not indifferent to the excitement unfolding in my mirror neurons. Watching these things trains my capacity for awareness and concentration on a purpose.
In the past, when people were curious about why I liked watching tennis, I used to say something about how much I loved saying “wow”, appreciated being impressed, and assuming some good brain chemistry was involved. I later learned that my body’s pleasure response was rewarding me with endorphins for attention to something I admired and dopamine for the unexpected shots and physical stimulation. This has survival value since admiration stimulates our own potential for greatness and novelty focuses attention on something new to learn. Through my mirror neurons I get to play along with the best, the residuals of which are there to inspire me when I sit down to draw.
Today the look that comes closest to the feeling I got from Borg’s is found on the face of Rafael Nadal. But whereas Borg’s intensity was of having his prey in sight, Nadal projects the feeling of a warrior vanquishing a foe, of something being conquered. The war cry accompanying Maria Sharapova’s hits contrasts with the steely sense of purpose on her face before she serves. What we see tunes the qualities in ourselves that respond to it. There is no one best way to play tennis. There are as many styles of play as great players. I’ve often wondered how Roger Federer managed to slow time, gliding easily through points where other players were rushing around. Then I read about new research showing that brain waves vibrate at a higher frequency during peak experiences like intense competition. So if the brain is operating faster, then clock time would seem slower. When we’re most deeply involved we have plenty of time.
The thing the winners most have in common is concentration and attitude, not the same attitude but each individual version of purity of purpose, unswerving determination. When Sharapova’s expression shifted to frustration, Dinara Safina’s face showed her prey cornered, moving in for the kill.
Our brains are changed by what we pay attention to, our reward system designed to keep us doing what’s helps us grow. It’s a pleasure (more endorphins) to see players from all over the world competing together without politics. Most fans don’t necessarily root for the players from their countries but for qualities of individual style. My endorphins flow seeing men’s and women’s tennis treated equally as part of the same tournament. Watching tennis is immersion in a world where excellence rules. Maybe what the feeling of inspiration really is involves the activation of those circuits where our own excellence wants to bloom.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Cultural Expansion: Building a Bigger Picture
“Wisdom is directly proportional to the size of the group whose well being it takes into account.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Evolving Self
I remember sitting in a waiting room while my husband Michael was getting physical therapy after an operation to his hand. As a guitar player this recovery was intensely important so we were both concerned at how raw the wound still looked two weeks later. I was sitting next to a somewhat intimidating looking man in a sleeveless T-shirt. He took up more space than his waiting room chair but I crossed the silence barrier when my attention fixated on the enormous wound that snaked up his forearm, the center of which was as raw looking as Michael’s palm. My curiosity overtook my timidity,
“How long ago did that happen?” I asked.
He was an articulate and self-reflective storyteller. After my surge of relief when he said it had been a month since his stabbing, I heard a life experience so unlike any I’d ever heard before, it was like traveling to a foreign country. What I was most taken with was his attitude. Right up to collapsing from blood loss on his father’s front yard he had this intense awareness of being. During his recovery he was all gratitude. He hadn’t been able to work at his job as a welder since it happened, but he was determined and optimistic knowing he would do what was necessary to gain full use of his arm again. I left there feeling improved by the conversation.
One of the purposes of emotion is to underscore the importance of an experience in memory, so the fact that I remember this so vividly after all these years shows that it made a deep impression on my worldview.
Gregory Bateson defined information as “the difference that makes a difference”.
When a new bit of knowledge or experience actually changes the way we view the world, it enlarges the scope of our understanding. The world is full of untapped sources of knowledge from which to build a bigger picture of reality. Every human being is a library of unique experiences that form a particular window on the world. No one view can see it all. Each individual story has something to teach us. When someone else’s background is radically different from our own, we can learn more than we might from someone similar to ourselves. When we see or hear something we are already familiar with there’s no real change in our worldview though it may feel good to have our view supported. When we come across something different from what we’re used to we need to adjust our model, which is more difficult and often provokes resistance. Rejecting what doesn’t fit an existing view, using up intellectual resources in the effort to discredit what doesn’t match the existing outlook, is protecting a limited picture. The right/wrong way of seeing interferes with acquiring new information. To not get bogged down in defense of one way of seeing frees valuable mental resources for accommodating more, sometimes contradictory, ideas in the mind at once. This and a tolerance for uncertainty are characteristics of high intelligence that we would do well to cultivate.
An appreciation of difference leads to the intellectual enrichment of us all as we come to understand how personal experience forms every individual viewpoint. To really see a circumstance requires as many views as available. John Dewey wrote that when the personal is taken into account it would revolutionize philosophy. This revolution liberates us from the need to match a standardized way of seeing that denies us access to the full range of ideas that combines to create a bigger picture.
Understanding that every point of view produces valid assessments of some aspect of reality welcomes the many ways of seeing that have been ignored in a world where power has decided what is true.
To create an atmosphere that includes all points of view rather than setting them in opposition, invites knowledge. Put aside the competition to have the right idea and we can have a whole landscape of ideas to choose from to match a particular problem or situation. Insight into a range of ways to consider an issue offers more opportunities to think creatively. With a larger intellectual range established everyone is set free to speculate more widely and more interesting constructions and hybrids can occur. The greater the range of ideas from which to draw the better the final synthesis will be.
Diversity is important for a robust ecology of ideas. Just like a larger gene pool creates hybrid vigor strengthening survivability, so can a larger meme pool invigorate the world of mind.
In his book, In the Mind's Eye, Thomas G. West suggests that the skill of the future won’t be having the right ideas but ability to revise our thinking as new information flows in. He writes, “We spend almost no time on developing the intuitive core of understanding, on building up the ability to model reality in our mind.” Hanging on to one model of reality impairs the ability to grow. Letting go of the idea of one worldview that holds for everyone makes it easier to ride the flow of proliferating information and adjust our image as necessary.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Evolving Self
I remember sitting in a waiting room while my husband Michael was getting physical therapy after an operation to his hand. As a guitar player this recovery was intensely important so we were both concerned at how raw the wound still looked two weeks later. I was sitting next to a somewhat intimidating looking man in a sleeveless T-shirt. He took up more space than his waiting room chair but I crossed the silence barrier when my attention fixated on the enormous wound that snaked up his forearm, the center of which was as raw looking as Michael’s palm. My curiosity overtook my timidity,
“How long ago did that happen?” I asked.
He was an articulate and self-reflective storyteller. After my surge of relief when he said it had been a month since his stabbing, I heard a life experience so unlike any I’d ever heard before, it was like traveling to a foreign country. What I was most taken with was his attitude. Right up to collapsing from blood loss on his father’s front yard he had this intense awareness of being. During his recovery he was all gratitude. He hadn’t been able to work at his job as a welder since it happened, but he was determined and optimistic knowing he would do what was necessary to gain full use of his arm again. I left there feeling improved by the conversation.
One of the purposes of emotion is to underscore the importance of an experience in memory, so the fact that I remember this so vividly after all these years shows that it made a deep impression on my worldview.
Gregory Bateson defined information as “the difference that makes a difference”.
When a new bit of knowledge or experience actually changes the way we view the world, it enlarges the scope of our understanding. The world is full of untapped sources of knowledge from which to build a bigger picture of reality. Every human being is a library of unique experiences that form a particular window on the world. No one view can see it all. Each individual story has something to teach us. When someone else’s background is radically different from our own, we can learn more than we might from someone similar to ourselves. When we see or hear something we are already familiar with there’s no real change in our worldview though it may feel good to have our view supported. When we come across something different from what we’re used to we need to adjust our model, which is more difficult and often provokes resistance. Rejecting what doesn’t fit an existing view, using up intellectual resources in the effort to discredit what doesn’t match the existing outlook, is protecting a limited picture. The right/wrong way of seeing interferes with acquiring new information. To not get bogged down in defense of one way of seeing frees valuable mental resources for accommodating more, sometimes contradictory, ideas in the mind at once. This and a tolerance for uncertainty are characteristics of high intelligence that we would do well to cultivate.
An appreciation of difference leads to the intellectual enrichment of us all as we come to understand how personal experience forms every individual viewpoint. To really see a circumstance requires as many views as available. John Dewey wrote that when the personal is taken into account it would revolutionize philosophy. This revolution liberates us from the need to match a standardized way of seeing that denies us access to the full range of ideas that combines to create a bigger picture.
Understanding that every point of view produces valid assessments of some aspect of reality welcomes the many ways of seeing that have been ignored in a world where power has decided what is true.
To create an atmosphere that includes all points of view rather than setting them in opposition, invites knowledge. Put aside the competition to have the right idea and we can have a whole landscape of ideas to choose from to match a particular problem or situation. Insight into a range of ways to consider an issue offers more opportunities to think creatively. With a larger intellectual range established everyone is set free to speculate more widely and more interesting constructions and hybrids can occur. The greater the range of ideas from which to draw the better the final synthesis will be.
Diversity is important for a robust ecology of ideas. Just like a larger gene pool creates hybrid vigor strengthening survivability, so can a larger meme pool invigorate the world of mind.
In his book, In the Mind's Eye, Thomas G. West suggests that the skill of the future won’t be having the right ideas but ability to revise our thinking as new information flows in. He writes, “We spend almost no time on developing the intuitive core of understanding, on building up the ability to model reality in our mind.” Hanging on to one model of reality impairs the ability to grow. Letting go of the idea of one worldview that holds for everyone makes it easier to ride the flow of proliferating information and adjust our image as necessary.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Mental Organism
My imagination was fired up by the discovery that Thomas Edison saw humans as swarms of life energy units that persist for awhile then disperse and eventually join other energy units to form something else. As an image for death it’s more comforting than the image of a body decaying. It also puts emphasis on consciousness as opposed to the material form. A similar dynamic occurs with a class. For a time we are a swarm of minds that each influence the other and bring out different qualities and ideas that none of us might have arrived at alone. It’s a mental organism that grows and matures over time. When it’s time frame ends, I feel the loss as the energy units that were accustomed to being part of the organism made of the patterns of the class were left with no place to go. Until they get caught up in new currents they bounce around an empty place where something valuable used to be.
The disintegration of any strange attractor (pattern of energy that holds its form) is a kind of death, but the word shifts meaning with the understanding it was always part of a sea of energy flow that is constantly reorganizing. At every level from cells and systems, to societal groups and the larger fields of consciousness that organize the physical realm like a semester organizes a class, the patterns of collaborating elements of consciousness repeat at every scale.
The disintegration of any strange attractor (pattern of energy that holds its form) is a kind of death, but the word shifts meaning with the understanding it was always part of a sea of energy flow that is constantly reorganizing. At every level from cells and systems, to societal groups and the larger fields of consciousness that organize the physical realm like a semester organizes a class, the patterns of collaborating elements of consciousness repeat at every scale.
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