my plan for 2010 is to visualize that i’m dying, and that i have only one year left to live. this is a contemplative exercise, and an opportunity for me to work with fear more directly.
i may journal on this blog from time to time about it.
i’m not really dying. don’t worry. this is just an exercise, which i described first here:
i’ll take care of myself in this process, and only engage with it insofar as it feels like a spiritual practice and growth process. if you’d like to be involved in this with me though please let me know. i’m inviting you to involve yourself if you’d like; if you think it would be valuable to you too. we could make it a group practice and compare notes, or i can just tell you more about how it unfolds.
Posted in dharma by David
October 25, 2009 Tags: pema, video
from an Omega Institute program. She’s referring to a well quoted Shantideva passage, to cover your feet in leather instead of covering the whole world in leather. She has such a charming way of saying things.
Posted in dharma by David
September 22, 2009 Tags: paper
From: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21 August 2009
Misperceptions about the Acceptability and Attractiveness of Aggression
by Joseph Vandello, Sean Ransom, Vanessa Hettinger, and Kevin Askew University of South Florida and Tulane University Medical Center
Abstract:
Norms about aggression may be perpetuated in part by the belief that aggression is more expected or socially desirable than it really is. This paper explores the accuracy of people’s beliefs about the acceptability of aggression by examining men’s perceptions of descriptive (what their peers do) and injunctive norms (what their peers approve of or desire). Study 1 found that men (but not women) overestimated the aggressiveness of their peers. Study 2 demonstrated that men (but not women) overestimated peer approval of aggression and disapproval when an affront was not responded to aggressively. Study 3 found that men overestimate how attractive aggression is to women. Study 4 found that greater perceived discrepancies in aggression between self and peers was related to lower self-esteem, a weaker gender identification, and greater feelings of social marginalization, suggesting that men’s misperceptions about aggression norms have negative consequences for self-perceptions.