October 3, 2002

Duct Tapings http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/walltapings/index.html These guys duct tape people to walls and ceilings for fun. This is a testament to the great creativity of the human mind and the mind's quest for novelty. Much of what people consider "fun" has to do with the novelty inherent in the activity -- indeed novelty has a lot to do with much of human behaviour. I believe the quest for novelty should be considered one of the most important human drives and so you'll probably see me touching on this subject a fair bit in this weblog... In the meantime, enjoy the novelty of this link. 11:08:15 PM    comment []

Crawling as a Test of Faith Some Hindu devotees of Shiva, around Kathmandu, Nepal undergo an amazing ritual as a test of their faith. They make a 50 mile journey to visit a temple -- crawling on their stomachs, face down so they will not look into the sky which is seen as the visage of Shiva. In the process, they crawl through mud and jagged rocks and climb steep paths in the mountainous area. Many on this painful, arduous trek (or "Parikrama") cannot complete the journey and shamefully drop out in the middle to try again the next year. Successful crawlers are believed to be "purified" and are believed to have strong faith in their religion. Source: Ripley's Believe it or Not, episode #315; I saw it last night. I couldn't find a web reference for this, but came across a similar "sashtanga danda pradakshina" (circumambulation while crawling) at http://www.lifepositive.com/gallery/kailash-article.asp done around a Tibetan village. Here in Canada, I don't think there are many (any?) such extreme rituals as tests of faith. However, like everywhere, there is always situations and problems that bedog us --- deep suffering is always a test of faith. But how far would you go, how much could you possibly handle, as a test of your deepest convictions? 11:05:08 PM    comment []

Subud http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ewichm/subud1.html This Javanese-originated movement is based around the idea of being "opened", a spiritual experience transmitted from someone who is already opened. It is a bit reminicent of "shaktipat" and results in a spiritual exercise called a "latihan" that is all about surrender to God. More detail about Subud can be found at this page: http://www.subud.org/english/index.html I think the idea of transmission isn't so strange. How often have you picked up the attitudes, beliefs or feelings of others just by being in their presence for some time? 11:01:15 PM    comment []

The Geek Trait http://www.thudfactor.com/geekquiz.php This little personality inventory tests for the probably poorly studied but popularly known trait of "geekiness". There are probably many traits or dispositions that we use in everyday life that don't make it into the psychology textbooks. Can you think of any cool ones?  As for the test, I scored only 33% geek -- that makes me a Geek liason -- which is probably why I seem to be slowly extricating myself from the programming field! Or maybe I should work on my geekiness and become a programmer again... 10:46:54 PM    comment []

Interesting Puzzle http://davenet.userland.com/1997/03/03/DonsAmazingPuzzle I found this little puzzle interesting as it shows us something about attention. Don't worry, if you come up with the obvious number, you may just be right. Do the puzzle first quickly or at a normal pace and see what happens. 10:43:45 PM    comment []

The Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical http://isnt.autistics.org This is a parody site written by autistics that makes the point that "normals" certainly can be seen to have a functional disorder themselves, and that autistics might be more sane than normals! Much of what passes off as normal behaviour, ideation and attitudes is suboptimal functioning, I think... 10:38:42 PM    comment []

Welcome to my blog! I'm not exactly sure about how this will evolve but I think I will be sharing lots of links to do with psychology, religion, philosophy, spirituality and probably any cool thing remotely related to the mind. I might even voice some of my opinions here and there if you are lucky :)  Stay tuned in the meantime while I try to figure out this system! 10:07:16 PM    comment []