#640 The Value of One Human Being

     Bedazzlement with "science", but most powerfully, the pervasive intrusion of multinational business, has reduced our respect for individual human beings.
     Anyone should be able to reproduce a scientific experiment and obtain identical results - technique & technology rule, individuals are unimportant, interchangeable to science. 
     It's "good for business" to shut down factories at home, putting countless people out of work, and move production to third world countries where slave-labor conditions are standard - neither our unemployed nor the newly-employed have any value at all to big business. It's all about production & profit. The individual person's quality of life (QoL) is of no concern to business.
     Most shocking, we ourselves are ignoring the value, the meaning, of our own individual life. If you doubt this, review your own self-care habits:
     • do I eat a healthy diet?
     • do I exercise regularly?
     • do I get enough quality sleep?
     • do I spend enough quality time with family & close friends? 
     • do I lead a healthy, balanced life? 
     Chances are you're ignoring self-care because you too prioritize production & profit over the value, the QoL of the individual - yourself! 
     Yet our own individual QoL is intimately linked with & thus critical to the QoL of all other humans. Each individual is as profoundly interconnected with & important to the rest of humanity as any one cell in our body is interconnected with & vital to all other cells in our body.

     We must prioritize recovering our profound respect for our own, and each other's dignity as magnificent mysterious evolving vitally important individual human beings.

     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2015/02/the-wise-caring-clinician.html

#360 Technology MUST be Balanced with Timeless Basic Human Skills

     Google's director of research interviewed Nicholas Carr, author of the article "Is Google making us stupid?" and the book "What the Internet is Doing to our Brains - The Shallows." Carr argued that regular use of the internet, computer games & smart phones thoroughly & effectively remodels our thinking, behavior patterns & our brains physically (neuroplasticity), with the corresponding very real danger of disuse atrophy of the neural networks that enable us to reflect deeply AND THUS weaken our ability to behave wisely - "Use it or loose it!"
     "If you look throughout the history of culture, you see that many of the great monuments of culture - whether we're talking about art, science, literature, whatever - come from people who were able to think attentively, deeply, and be contemplative, meditative, and be reflective. And if we devalue those things, and practice those things less, I think we not only get less interesting as individuals, we face a culture that is flatter, not as vibrant, and not as interesting as it used to be.
     ... inundating (oneself) with new technologies, with new information, has to be balanced with being attentive, reading, backing away from technology, even backing away from friends sometimes. It's great to collaborate, but there's also a role in the world for solitude, and I think we should encourage our kids, and ourselves, to practice that as well."
http://fora.tv/2010/06/23/Nicholas_Carr_Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid

     Speed, quantity, meaningless fun, fast food etc must be BALANCED with - and as we mature as individuals & as cultures, progressively REPLACED by - slowing down, quality, meaning, food that's slowly prepared with love & other quality ingredients etc. Our lives have meaning; technology has no inherent meaning. We make tools / technology to improve - not distort - the quality of our lives.

     See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/07/146-time-to-re-engage.html

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#88 Avoidance-Approach Dichotomy

     “We are a creative process in action; change is inevitable, as is our responsibility for our growth. The opposite of responsibility is avoidance, which apathy and fear often engender. Perhaps more than any single attitude, our unwillingness to notice the inner significances of our lives and to understand and care about another serves as the portent of stagnation of person and society.”

     Hart T. From information to transformation. Education for the evolution of consciousness. Peter Lang Publishing, NY, 2009.

     “Experiential avoidance occurs when an individual engages in strategies to blunt, alter, or control distressing private experiences, such as thoughts, emotions, and physiological sensations.”

     Hayes SC et al. “Experiential avoidance and behavioral disorders: A functional dimensional approach to diagnosis and treatment.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1996; 64(6): 1152-1168.

     “… we compound our suffering by trying to avoid it. The anxious person is particularly determined to avoid the discomfort of fear. A feared stimulus can be external, such as snakes (simple phobia), a mall (agoraphobia), or office parties (social phobia); or it can be internal, such as a racing heart (panic disorder) or blasphemous thinking (obsessive-compulsive disorder). Most anxious patients recognize that their fear is irrational, but recognition is not sufficient to alter avoidant or escape behavior during periods of heightened arousal.

     Mindfulness is a technology for gradually turning the patient’s attention toward the fear as it is happening, exploring it in detail with increasing degrees of friendly acceptance.” 
     Germer CK, Siegel RD, Fulton PR eds. “Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.” The Guilford Press, NY, 2005.