albert einstein

funny.. often people say.. self-directedness is really only for a few. a special few. they say – there are only so many einsteins.. and yet… the man himself was all about – this being a narrative for 100% of humanity. no?

quotes abound, picking this one for now:

[more on this one from Steve: http://www.stevehargadon.com/2015/04/everybody-is-genius-but-if-you-judge.html ]

ok.. and this one:

one reason

is so resonating.

and why we’re thinking a curiosity app may just placebo us into that narrative.. for 100% of us experiencing betterness.

ridiculous… no. not really. good bye cycle ness.

einstein insanity law:

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Interesting description of his ed via Teresa Amabile, via Chris‘s In Defense of Childhood – protecting kids inner wildness:

As a child, Einstein attended rigid, militaristic lower schools, where he was a less than illustrious student. Then, as the age of fifteen, he ended up enrolling in a Swiss boarding school after he failed his university entrance exams. Fortunately, this school stressed the students’ need to search for knowledge on their own terms. There was little emphasis on memorization; instead the focus was on individual lab work, student-initiated investigations, and relaxed, democratic exchanges between students and teachers. Einstein later wrote about the school: 

It made an unforgettable impression on me, thanks to its liberal spirit and the simple earnestness of the teachers who based themselves on no external authority… 

It was at this new high school that Einstein devised the first experiment that would eventually lead him to the theory of relativity.

Amabile found that the personality trait all (hundreds of well-known creative individuals) shared was independence, which she defined as an absence of conformity in thinking and an absence of dependence on the approval of others. Creative people look first to themselves for an assessment of the quality of their creations, and only secondarily to the opinions of others...    p. 66-67

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fav pic of einstein.. – huge into play..

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via Armando Silva:

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from book – on a beam of light – curated by Maria:

he often chose his clothes for thinking…

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Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~Albert Einstein

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All that is truly great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. – Albert Einstein

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quote first heard from Richard Davidson:

free ourselves.. by widening our circles of compassion..

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. – Einstein

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this isn’t (doesn’t need to be ) rare.

imagine – facilitating authenticity…

finding all the geniuses inside.. waiting to be seen/heard/loved.

ie:

and imagine if we called – facilitating curiosity – school – in the city – as the day?

7 billion such researchers/entrepreneurs/happy people.. no?

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Einstein writes to his 11 yr old son…

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[image by Simon Ensor – which he shared with #rhizo14 fb group – with quote below. when asked if it was depicting noah’s ark – he responded – I have no idea what you may see. and then – Taking stock at the moment and drawing is a nagging presence that refuses to be filed away.]

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.”  – Einstein

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on war via Maria:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/05/06/why-war-einstein-freud/

In 1931, the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation invited the renowned physicist to a cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas about politics and peace with a thinker of his choosing. He selected Sigmund Freud, born on May 6, 1856, whom he had met briefly in 1927 and whose work, despite being skeptical of psychoanalysis, the legendary physicist had come to admire.

. A series of letters followed, discussing the abstract generalities of human nature and the potential concrete steps for reducing violence in the world.

[..]

Political leaders or governments owe their power either to the use of force or to their election by the masses. They cannot be regarded as representative of the superior moral or intellectual elements in a nation. In our time, the intellectual elite does not exercise any direct influence on the history of the world; the very fact of its division into many factions makes it impossible for its members to co-operate in the solution of today’s problems.

[..]

This is the problem: Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?

[..]

Thus I am led to my first axiom: The quest of international security involves the unconditional surrender by every nation, in a certain measure, of its liberty of action — its sovereignty that is to say – -and it is clear beyond all doubt that no other road can lead to such security.

[..]

How is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions. … An obvious answer to this question would seem to be that the minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and makes its tool of them.

[..]

I know that in your writings we may find answers, explicit or implied, to all the issues of this urgent and absorbing problem. But it would be of the greatest service to us all were you to present the problem of world peace in the light of your most recent discoveries, for such a presentation well might blaze the trail for new and fruitful modes of action.

[..]

freud: But then I realized that you did not raise the question in your capacity of scientist or physicist, but as a lover of his fellow men…

[..]

Freud argues that shared identification and a sense of community are a better bastion of order than force:

Thus the union of the people must be permanent and well organized; it must enact rules to meet the risk of possible revolts; must set up machinery insuring that its rules — the laws — are observed and that such acts of violence as the laws demand are duly carried out. This recognition of a community of interests engenders among the members of the group a sentiment of unity and fraternal solidarity which constitutes its real strength. …

[..]

freud: Paradoxical as its sounds, we must admit that warfare well might serve to pave the way to that unbroken peace we so desire, for it is war that brings vast empires into being, within whose frontiers all warfare is proscribed by a strong central power.

[..]

Freud brings his theory back to the present predicament, proposing that there is only one certain way of ending war — establishing, by consensus, a centralized body of control that resolves all such conflicts of interest. But that necessitates certain conditions, which at the time remained — as they do today — unmet:

[..]

freud: Our logic is at fault if we ignore the fact that right is founded on brute force and even today needs violence to maintain it.

oh my.

Freud then sets forth the most compelling portion of his theory, which deals with the dual capacity for good and evil in human nature, and argues that these two seemingly opposing forces operate in necessary unison:

oh my.. like saying we can’t love w/out aggressive hate.. not sure eros is opposite of hate..

freud: That men are divided into the leaders and the led is but another manifestation of their inborn and irremediable inequality.

?

not us ness.. we created this idea of leader.. no?

[..]

freud: The ideal conditions would obviously be found in a community where every man subordinated his instinctive life to the dictates of reason. Nothing less than this could bring about so thorough and so durable a union between men, even if this involved the severance of mutual ties of sentiment. But surely such a hope is utterly utopian, as things are. The other indirect methods of preventing war are certainly more feasible, but entail no quick results.

a nother way..

[..]

Unless our civilization achieves the moral strength to overcome this evil, ..

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from Greg:

@digitaltonto

1/31/16 5:14 AM

The One Thing Nobody Ever Tells You About What It Takes To Succeed – digitaltonto.com/2016/the-one-t…

The Not So Prodigal Son

Near the turn of the century, the son of a well-to-do industrialist, recently graduated from university, found himself poorly married, with a young child and unemployed.  He fell into a deep depression, became nearly suicidal and wrote to his sister in a letter:

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