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Need a topic to blog on? How would you like to win free custom graphics and advertising for your blog? Wait, there’s more! I interview you and you get 2 permanent backlinks from here. Sound interesting? Enter my blog writing contest! Details below:

Can you think of someone you admire? Maybe it’s for their brain? their personality? Maybe they are as big as Walt Disney or as ordinary as your dad. I love reading stories of people who use their common brain and inspiration to do amazing things. I’m holding a contest for your articles on that type of person. I think the posts are going to be revolutionary and inspiring to all who read them. Here’s the details:

Before the deadline, June 12, 2008, publish a 200-400 word post on your blog. If you like you can get some ideas what I am thinking of in my archived series: “Amazing Visions.” But please, be as different from me as you can be. In the post you need to link back to this permalink, or this blog’s root url. There will be 2 big winners and 3 honorable mentions. The 2 will get box ads to their blogs for a month free of charge along with optional custom-made 125×125 glass buttons courtesy of our design company, Create and Innovate Designs. Each will also receive a thoughtful writeup about their blog linked back from here in a post.

The 3 honorable mentions will also get a customized glass button to use as they wish along with a free review here and Google-juice linkback of their blog.

Translation: 5 stoked bloggers!

I’m looking forward to reading these entries, the subject as you know is one very close to my heart (and brain). Get your post linked in early, I will be promoting it on a few psychology and inspiration forums as well so expect some stiff competition! (that you may enjoy reading immensely!)

-Damien

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Making something new for dinner can become a good vibe bringing the whole family together. Sarah and I got a little crazy tonight and prepared fondue. It was delicious. I published the recipe and more details of the event in a guest blog over at In Good Taste. If you’d like to read it you can get there through the url below:

ingoodtaste.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/parmesan-fond...

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These are a few great links I read last week. If you check them out and like them, make sure to let the writers know. And, of course, you can always leave your comments here. As always, the links received well deserved Stumbles.

• I won a bluetooth headset in a blog contest!

• A really helpful set of resources to combat conten...

• A BBC radio article and broadcast of “The Hi...

• David Masters nails it head on regarding creativit...

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A police friend I know has been shot at, threatened and scared half to death by some of the criminals he’s dealt with. Another fireman friend of mine from years back has almost destroyed his back pulling people out of burning buildings. As for me, I deal with something every day more ominous than most can imagine: surly kids. In my career I’ve had issues with kids that that few non-teachers will ever comprehend the difficulty of. I’ve had kids flat out tell me “no” to my face. I’ve had kids shout profanity at me. I’ve had kids tell me they are sending their dad, uncle or brother to beat me up. I’ve had days where all I wanted to do was go home to my room and close the vinyl shutters. I am telling you, in the schools and classrooms I have been in, I’ve seen it all.

But, along with the bad there is plenty of good I must add. In addition to the minority of students who have tested my desire to remain a teacher, many more have made me so glad and proud to do what I do. So, enough of of the “pity party” on my part, let’s talk about how to deal with these troublesome kids, because teachers are always going to have them and kids will always weave into every person’s life.

There are so many plans at your disposal as a teacher to control behavior in the class. You can have a warning/consequences chart, you can do positive reinforcements, you can even take entire blocks of time to model your rules and consequences. In my opinion, nothing works better than a certain type of psychology on kids who won’t behave. It is called “Choice, and Consequence” teaching. Let me explain:

When a kid misbehaves it is either because 1) They don’t realize it and are just being “slap-happy.” -or- 2) They know it’s wrong and they do it hoping they won’t be seen or caught. In order to avoid punishing a kid for just being slap-happy, you should only punish if the child disobeys or is defiant, give them a warning. Make sure you state clearly the rule they have broken. ie;

Johnny, you kicked someone’es leg and they complained to me. You did not respect your classmate and that is rule 3 on our list on the wall. If you do it again, you will lose your recess.

Now the child knows what is wrong to do. If he continues, it is defiance. Well, as I have been telling you, I’m familiar with these kids who still do it. At that point, when they do it again, here is the only thing you can and should say:

Johnny, what you have done gives me only 2 options: Write a referral for which you will be suspended for physically kicking another student. -or- make a phone call to your parents in front of everyone asking them to help me teach you this is wrong.

Now you don’t have to use those 2 choices, but that is where teaching creativity comes in. the key is getting them to see the consequences are as a result of their actions not yours and then continue giving them choices until the issue is out of your hands with the office or with their parents.

You can keep up with my ongoing notes on teaching and life in the classroom at my teaching “edublog”: entitled: Dynamite Lesson Plan

What do you think of the choice/consequence method?

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A friend’s spouse told me the other day I was lucky because with a guitar I’d never be unemployed. Hmm, that made little sense to me but I thanked him for the compliment anyway. I used to teach guitar out of my home and had a bunch of marketing pens that lie around my house to this day … without the millions of dollars I secretly thought might follow.

I played until my fingers bled as a kid and spent countless hours through my tween and teen years … even through my 20’s jamming and tuning and restringing that marvelous instrument.

But it hasn’t done me any magical favors or anything. It got me to thinking: What can a guitar player do with a guitar? Here’s my list I came up with:

1. Play on the street corner for maybe a few bucks.
2. Start a band and disillusion other people the same way you are disillusioned (LOL - Oh I have so many times)
3. Record on a home recording system that no one will hear except your wife who will be annoyed she has to sit through it.
4. Play local bars for drunks.
5. Play coffee houses for people who don’t want to hear live music while they talk.
6. “Jam” with friends from work or church etc.
7. Create melodies you think are original only to find later they are plagiarized (there is so little left to invent since the Beatles).
8. Entertain kids that are wild. Music calms the savage beast.
9. Solo to the radio and envision you’re Eric Clapton or that guy from Creed.
10. and finally, smash it to bits against the house in the backyard.

Below are MP3 links to some of the music I’ve wasted too much time making through the years. I could say it feigned insanity but then again … look at the name of my blog I don’t mind the insane label when it involves a 6 string.

people.mp3 surehigh.mp3 fallen.mp3 soultraveler.mp3

If you are a player and a songwriter, you might be interested in my post on how I write songs.

What else can a soul do with a guitar? Your thoughts.

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Did you know that science has looked into anger and rage as they relate to the brain? The findings have been quite interesting. A Harvard study found that when subjects revisited tapes they recorded about events that made them angry or enraged they had measurable chemical reactions in the brain. The beginning of what I refer to here as possibility thinking is having an open mind. Many people in the media and in the everyday world struggle with anger and rage and so I’m tackling this issue in hopes it might offer understanding and direction to open minded people who are concerned with their anger and rage.

Here is a somewhat long quote (for me anyway) that explains what happened in the Harvard study better than I could. It is fascinating:

A look into the brains of normal subjects revealed that anger increases blood flow to a reasoning part of their brains, an area over the left eye just behind the forehead, technically called the orbitofrontal cortex. This flow inhibits thoughts of rage. At the same time, blood flow increased activity in the amygdala, an almond-shaped knot of tissue deep in the brain that deals with emotion and vigilance.

Angry feelings arising in the amygdala are normally cooled by activity in the frontal cortex, part of the thinking region of the brain. However, in some severely depressed people a lack of both recognition and control of anger, can lead to violent rage.

“All of us get angry from time to time,” comments Darin Dougherty, an assistant professor who led the research. “At such times, feelings of wrath in the primitive parts of our brains seem to be balanced by inhibitions of our will to act on those feelings.” Source

This process is like a miracle. Of course, the brain itself is a composite of so many apparent miracles it boggles any brain that seeks to understand it. Still we try. While one part of the brain is fed blood and reacts in anger, in unison other blood is fed to an area that controls inhibition that sort of keeps the angry thought under a lid. Of course, brain damage and mental illness can upset the balance of this process. This is why we see movies of people in mental hospitals screaming in rage without stopping. Somehow the delicate balance their brain was meant to have has been disturbed.

So what does this mean to me and you? Once again, it points us to the truths of Phineas Gage: our mind is a delicate instrument that needs care to stay in balance. When we are getting angry often we should ask ourselves: “Is this chemical?” Is there something disrupting the balance between those two parts of the brain? If so, there are likely drugs that can help … see a psychiatrist or a psychologist that has a practice in concert with a psychiatrist. There are so many triggers that make us angry and even despondent. It could be as big as someone ripping you off or maybe just suffering the empty results of top diet pills.

If you feel the issue has more to do with behavioral issues such as a recurring annoyance in the form of a memory or if you are suffering from some of the cognitive distortions, get thee to a therapist and discuss those issues. Or, you can go to a book store or library and do your own study on these issues. Personally, I would recommend going to a professional instead but just make sure you tend to the problem in some way.

Your brain is your lens to the rich pageant called life. Don’t let anger steal anything from you, there is no reason for that.

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Whether you are learning or teaching, it’s important to not over stuff your brain. Studies have shown that the mind cannot absorb more than three things at a time. So, if you are writing, don’t make more than 3 main points or they will be wasted on over-fed minds. If you are looking to read and understand something, break it down into three or less main categories. Yellow pads are great for this. You’d do well to “space out” the time you have to study as well. The theory of time spaced learning got me through College Algebra at the junior college. I have always struggled with math and a teacher shared with the class about it. My life has been improved ever since!

The theory goes like this: instead of studying to absorb new material over the course of an hour, break up your time into 15 minute increments. The data shows that memory is strongest when you start and stop a study time. Therefore, instead of having strong memories only twice in an hour, you will have them at the start and stop of each mini session. This equals more knowledge retained! Now this was great news to me, because I loved taking breaks from math!

When it comes to our brains, less is more and quality is better than quantity. Slow down and take more breaks, you’ll be amazed how much more you retain for life!

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I ran across this inspiring photo today at Neurophilosophy, a recent addition to my blogroll. Mo, the author, describes the photo in a post there, but here is an excerpt:

Purkinje cells are the largest cells in the mammalian brain. They have a planar structure with a highly elaborate dendritic tree.

I’ve become inescapably fascinated with the brain in the past decade. I’ve begun to see our thoughts in a new way: organic. Just like fertilizer helps a tomato to grow ripe and delicious, so our brains are in a cyclical process of bloom and wilt all the time. Today I am interested in sharing a theory of creativity with you. Imagine that your creativity is like a tree such as the photo you see above. Now imagine something you’ve been told or imagined you “COULDN’T” do for one reason or another. The best way to conquer such a lie is through the stimulation of creativity, and hence: solutions.

Here’s an example of just one crazy thing you can do:

Is there water by your house you can jump in? Do it. I don’t care if it’s cold and I don’t care if it’s even permissible to swim there. Breaking conventions awakens creativity and stimulates the dendrites. No imagine the tree above thriving and pulsating as you swim through the water. Voila! You are out of your rut. The only limitations on what you can do are in your mind, in an organic way. people have said “mind over matter” for years but really the mind itself is matter. It, and only it, holds the key to true human freedom and possibilities.

I wrote yesterday about how the brain is a fragile instrument that must be cared for. I discussed Phineas Gage and the brain injury he suffered at the hands of an exploding metal rod. One capacity that he lost in the 15 years after the accident was his inhibition. Inhibition is simply a region of our brain. It isn’t the ten commandments or even the voice of your parents you hear saying: “Don’t lie!” Instead, it’s like a fleshy computer hard drive that organizes facts and feelings into a paradigm that controls our every move.

Step out of it to escape your rut, or funk, or whatever malady afflicts you … allow creativity to go crazy. Whether it’s an impromptu swim or grocery go-kart races … the results will amaze you like the glowing photo above. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do something you want to do.

What other crazy things could you do to get your creative juices flowing?

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Attention, Important Announcement 5/5/08: This site’s web address, or url, has been changed. Though the old links still work, they won’t change in the search engines unless they show up out there. If you can, please adjust your blogrolls, bookmarks and other backlinks here to: postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/ Thank you for your time.

Traffic
2517 / 3750 (67.12%)

In the words of T.S. Eliot, “April is the cruelest month.” I didn’t meet my traffic goals, not by a longshot. Still, I have to be thankful for every hit I got since my blog underwent so many changes. I see these changes as seed-corn for a much larger field in the future. For example, I changed my domain name from the boring and un-brandable: “postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/wordpress” to the memorable postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com

Furthermore, I decided to pull way back from Entrecard. The reason for this is that I was getting a lot of hits from them, over 60% of all! These hits produced some new contacts and readers, but mostly the bounce rate of my visitors went to 100%. I want the hits to reflect real readers as much as possible. I talked about this in a post in more detail last month here.

Publishing
4 / 10 (40.00%)

I slacked off a bit here. Maybe my goals are too high? This is the primary reason I blog so I will be really paying more attention to this in May.

Money
121 / 100 (121.00%)

I met my goal amount for income in April. My sources were: 1) PayPerPost 2) PayU2Blog and 3) Private advertising.

Now for my May 2008 goals:

Traffic: 2650 total unique visits for the month and 100/day avg.

Publishing: 5 total publishings may include guest blog posts.

Money: 300 dollars through these sources - 1) PayPerPost 2) PayU2Blog and 3) Private advertising.

Thanks for reading Postcards from the Funny Farm. Watch to see how I do in May.

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My friend Shelly wrote in a recent comment:

we don’t prepare for old age, because when we are young we think we are immortal.

This is so true. We see this in young men under 25 and the psychologists call it “young man’s syndrome.” It is near impossible for men in this age bracket to imagine their own death. So why does it come into clear focus later in life? What changes? Is there a certain quota of aches and pains that have to occur before we realize we are mortal? Maybe this syndrome is a survival mechanism. Maybe it once kept us at the top of the food chain before we became domesticated creatures. Whatever the reason for it, it shows a very important point:

Our brain has a lot to do with our notion of reality.

Phineas Gage, whose skull and brain injury is a pillar of brain study, emerged from his injury virtually unaffected. The thick metal rod shot directly through his cheek and up through his brain leaving fragments of of brain and bone on it yards away. Though everyone thought he would die, he lived another 15 years. His reason and inhibitions drastically changed in those 15 years, but he did indeed live.

I think we take for granted that our brain is like a knee or an elbow or any other external body part: It can get bruised, it can get scratched and upset. Birth defects are a given, but during our life, parts of our brain can be neglected, causing neuroses. It doesn’t have to be a metal rod through the skull to affect our brain chemistry. We tend to think that our brains are immortal. Just because they are there hidden and snug inside our skulls, we can trust they are feeding us a perception that is 100% “reality.” I challenge that common belief. I posit that for as many brains there are walking the Earth there are different notions of reality. We may share some of the basics, but after that brain chemistry differs and therefore so does perception.

So what does this mean to you? Do all you can to take care of your brain. The instrument is fine. The treasures you will find will be in your mind. If you are chronically upset, see a doctor. It could be a chemical problem. There are many out there untreated. Why suffer when drugs exist to bring you into balance? Short of drugs, make sure you eat right and get the vitamins you need. Sleep is also crucial to mental balance. The next time you think you are upset because of “real” things, remember that your imperfect and delicate brain interprets real. Until you’ve had the decent sleep, mediation, and diet, you should never assume that your brain is qualified to judge reality. Even then, it still can be wrong.

This blog is dedicated to addressing issues of inspiration and psychology in 2008. I hope you’ll be back as we explore more questions and issues in this niche.

Is your brain getting all it needs?

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