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Best night ever…

On the 28th of September, I experienced one of the best nights of my life. Yes, I know how cheesy that sounds, but it honestly was so much fun, and quite emotional actually. One month ago yesterday I went to the One Direction concert at the O2 arena in London. It was so great that I want to share it with you, and no matter what your opinion on the band are, I would really appreciate if you would stick around and share your (positive) thoughts. 🙂

I have been to a One Direction concert before, last June at Wembley Stadium and, although that was obviously so much fun as well, I just knew this one would be even better. But before the day of the concert there was already a lot of drama, as originally my friend and I were going with my mum and 10 year old sister, but about 3 weeks before my family pulled out. So I had got (or so I thought) 2 other girls from my year to come, but when I asked one the week before the concert, she said she couldn’t come. You can imagine how stressed I then felt, because I had a £50 ticket that I had to offload in just over a weekend. Finally, after asking probably about 5 or 6 people, a friend accepted them. That’s when the excitement fully kicked in.

The whole day at school on the Monday I was bubbling with excitement, and every glance at my friends showed we all felt the same. Then 3:45 came, and two friends and I headed back home to ‘beautify ourselves’, and half an hour later, we were rearing to go.. We met our other friend at the train station and, after what felt like the longest 40 minute tube trip I’ve ever experienced to the O2, the four of us practically ran out of the station to collect our tickets.

Before the concert we had about an hour to kill, so we got sushi and waited tentatively, each holding our tickets like they were our lifeline (which, in a way, at that moment they were!) watching the minutes pass on the clock. And of course, waiting in the toilet queue passed a lot of time, with the ladies’ line ridiculously long in comparison to the basically non-existent men’s line. At a few points during the wait we saw girls go into the men’s’ loos, and we were so tempted to join them. But after a long wait and a final exit of the toilets, it was time to go into the arena.

I can’t describe how it felt to go into that arena, and although it was not even half full, the noise and chatter from the multitude of teenage fans was tremendous, and only made us feel more excited. This did not surprise me in the slightest though. What did was the number of young children and men that were there. Now, I’m not saying that males can’t like One Direction and I highly respect those who do, but there were a lot of dads there! There was a girl aged about 5 behind us with her dad, and I felt a bit bad because I knew we would be standing up the whole time. But the bubbling excitement soon distracted us and, after taking a few customary selfies, we settled into our seats and waited for the back up band, Augustana, to come on.

Augustana came on at about 7:30 and performed for roughly half an hour. They were quite good actually, and because I had done my research, I knew a few of their songs so could sing along. They were fun, but of course there was inly one band that the whole stadium wanted to see, and about 55 minutes after Augustana’s last song, the lights were cut and the heart attack-inducing intro music started.

There is honestly no feeling strong enough to explain the emotional journey and excitement that occurs throughout the duration of a One Direction concert. The opening, this time it was Clouds, was… No words can describe it. Even if you lose your voice from screaming so much already, you know you are in for one AMAZING concert. Once the music starts, cue the screams of 50,000 people, and about half of those probably cry at least once during the concert. All I can say is that one minute you will laugh your head off because of Harry telling their families to “get off your pretty asses!” Then almost cry with joy because they sing your favourite song (which happens every song because, if you are a true directioner, every song is your favourite!) And of course scream with happiness and excitement every time Harry flips his majestic lion-like mane of luscious hair, and when Niall does his crotch-grab during Midnight Memories, and when Louis and Liam run around the stage chasing each other with silly string or water bottles (which is for the majority of the night.) But the thing that is one of the most enjoyable parts of the night? Singing along to every single song, and dancing and screaming the whole night long.

The only negative feeling you endure the whole night is the feeling of pain when they leave the stage, and you are forced to go home. And yes, post-concert depression is a very real thing.

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Just writing this has got me smiling and reminiscing, wishing I could go to one of their last 3 OTRA shows. They really are great entertainers and an amazing band, whatever people say about them. It was the best night, and even if you are not a fan I assure you with 100% confidence you would enjoy a One Direction concert. I am so excited for their album to come out on the 13th of November, and I will definitely miss them during their break. I can’t wait for their tour in 2017!! 🙂

events, GCSEs, milestone

I guess that’s a wrap then…

So something really weird happened to me today. I finished school. Well, I still have my GCSEs to do, they start on Friday (aaaahhh!!!) and of course the two years of sixth form, but I have finished the official part of year 11. I start study leave now I guess, and for all of you who don’t know what that is, it’s when students leave school in order to ‘study’ for exams. That’s the intention and that is most definitely what I intend to do. (So sorry if I disappear, yet again!)

I think the strangest thing about technically finishing year 11 is that it is not like any other year we have experienced before in high school. For starters we have finished in May which is just odd in itself. Yes the majority of us will just move into year 12 with all of their friends like it’s no biggie, but people leave. In my year roughly 10-15 girls are leaving, and considering there are only 88 girls in the whole year, that’s quite a lot! It will definitely be a weird feeling when we have our induction and all of them are missing. 😦 (Shout out to you R!)

Yesterday was my year’s last full uniform day together, as today half the year had their art exam, so wore own clothes. As you can only imagine, the halls were a frenzy of squealing, thousands of pictures taken, selfies galore and of course, the legendary shirt signing. As we don’t wear uniform in sixth form, this is our way of celebrating, and in a way making sure we remember everyone. So we thought it would be a great idea to have a whole year photo in our shirts out on the tennis courts. The photos are truly brilliant and such a great way to have ended the year as a year group. My friend also made a good luck video for us using clips of everyone dancing, in small groups and then just before we took the year group photos. It is such a beautiful video and I may have teared up just a little when I first saw it! The music is “started from the bottom now we here”, which we all agreed is very fitting 🙂

Today we had our good luck tea, which included a handmade powerpoint made by another friend of  hundreds (literally 600) of photos that were mainly hideous, but also very cute, and stretched all the way from year 7 to yesterday! The “aaawwww”s and “oh my gosh!”es that were ricocheting around the hall were all you could hear, and it was hilarious and a great reminder of our year group’s journey through high school, as cheesy as that is. It was definitely touching, even if it was slightly cringey, but great to make us laugh before the real struggle takes over, oh joys.

So that’s it for the fun and games of year 11; now we get down to the nitty-gritty terrible twos, this time two months chocker-block with exams, with my first out of 18 in Friday. My last exam is on the 12th of June, and I am holding out for that day! That’s when the celebration of a culmination of 2-3 years of work begins. And I cannot wait. The promise of Thorpe Park and a great summer holiday is what will ultimately  get me through. Now I just need to knuckle down, as my parents say. So what more can I say, except: GCSEs here I come!!

Wish me luck in the comments, and please like and subscribe!!

arts, culture, events, food, London

Radiant Vermin, they Said…

Good evening my dear readers! Although I am still on my Easter holidays, I haven’t exactly been enjoying myself, due to having to be revising/working constantly. Well, either that or feeling really guilty because I’m not working, which is worse to be honest. So because of this, I have hardly anytime to myself, hence why I haven’t posted in over a week. My drama piece, my first GCSE, is in two weeks yesterday, so you can imagine I am freaking out only slightly!! As you can guess I probably won’t be posting much due to my never-ending workload and the increasing pressure that is mounting on me, but I shall try! For now, enjoy this little insight into what I got up to last week 🙂

Last Tuesday (7th April) my mum and I got dressed up and took the train to Oxford Circus (Again! If you want to see what else I’ve been doing near Oxford Circus, check this out: We then took a walk along Oxford Street, and I noticed how many Spanish tourists there were! I’m not sure if this just me, but because I learn both Chinese and Spanish, if I hear people speaking those languages, I try to see if I can understand any of what they’re saying. Anyone else? No? Just me then…

Finally we found the alley we were looking for and turned down into Soho. I’m not sure if I have ever been before, I’ve been to Carnaby Street but I’m not entirely sure if that is part of it? Anyway, we arrived at Soho Theatre which, in my opinion, is pretty cool and I definitely want to start going to more small-scale pieces at venues like Soho Theatre. We went to the bar, and with a quick checking out of my surroundings, I realised I was definitely the youngest there. By at least 3 years, and that was only 1 guy. The rest were in their early-mid twenties at the very least. Still, I didn’t really mind and just wanted to have a fun night (with hindsight I highly recommend this theatre!!) The play started at 7:15 so we had some time to kill, but finally we were allowed to make our way into the performance space.

As it was my first time at Soho Theatre, I was quite sceptical about what to expect, but when I walked into the room with tiered seating that I thought hold roughly a maximum of 100, I was immediately reassured. The bright white minimalistic set that I had seen in so many movies as what  ‘typical small plays should be performed on’ had me on edge, but also very excited. It was a first-time experience for me, and was thrilling to say the least. I was squirming in my seat with eager anticipation, when two people ran out onto stage; a young couple with their ‘baby’ in a baby carrier. They were gushing about their beautiful, amazing family home, but how they had to do horrible, shocking, horrific things to get to where they were now. (Never in a million years would I have ever guessed what they actually did. Not that I would ruin that bone-chilling surprise for you. you will have to find out for yourself.) It started with basically the epitome of a fairy godmother (working for the Government, so take that as you will) giving them a free house “because you are the perfect fit, who else helped their mother bathe when her arthritic fingers became too much for her to handle?”, with the intention that they would do it up in whatever way they could, so attracting people to the area. This lady was played by Amanda Daniels, the reason we went in the first place, as my mum is friendly with her. She perfectly portrayed the happy, seemingly-generous-but-actually-manipulative government worker, and her audience asides were witty and brought a comical element to the increasingly deep, intense and at some times quite scary piece of drama. Focussing on the main couple, they showed their struggles, both morally and emotionally, in a way that was engaging for the audience, and made me get so caught up in the moment that I jumped when my mum accidentally nudged my arm. And their multi-roling skills were so brilliant, I have actually stolen some ideas on characterisation for my GCSE piece! So without giving away anything about the play, ‘Radiant Vermin’ is definitely a must-see, especially if you are in the mood for a very intense and somewhat chilling comedy, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

As the play was only an hour and a half long, it was about 8:55 by the time we got out, so my mum wanted to take me to this beautiful chocolate café she had been to before , with Amanda, the actress we had just seen perform, of all people.  After about half an hour of fruitless searching, plus a frantic google search, we finally arrived at Said, a pretty little Roman chocolate café. The rustic design had me itching to take tons of photos, so here we go lovelies:

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Look at all that yummy chocolate! Well, it gets better, because here is what I ordered:

Milk chocolate hot chocolate, that was as thick as my dipping chocolate for the churros in Spain! Delicious! I especially love the delectable lipstick print 🙂

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My mum’s coffee and my hot chocolate

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These strawberries (pre-dipped in milk chocolate) were literally the size of my palm! And made my evening 🙂

If you love chocolate as much as I do, or just want a delicious hot drink (or a bar of chilli chocolate which is apparently very popular with the ladies), go check out Said:

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Here are some snaps of Soho and Carnaby Street, and we found Shaun the Sheep! Turns out there are fifty of these fluffy menaces dotted in and around the city in a colourful charity trail, so see if you can find any 🙂

I hope you guys enjoyed this little taste of my evening, I know I enjoyed it a lot, thanks mum for this treat! Will definitely have to make further trips to Soho, that’s for sure. I would love to know if you guys have found any hidden treasures; in London or wherever you are from. Please comment, like and follow to join our little online family 🙂 Good night!

events, new years resolutions

2014 was a bit of a mixed year for me: I started year 11 and a close family friend passed away earlier in the year, and my whole family went through a tough time with that. But on the plus side, I had lots of family that visited from Australia that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen, and got good results at school! (Plus many more for both sides) I hope 2015 will be even better, despite it being quite a stressful year with me doing my GCSEs. (Eeeek!)

So time for my traditional New Years resolutions. I wasn’t really sure about how many to make, so I decided on 3 major ones.

1. Work for at least 2 hours every day, whether I have homework or not. This, in turn, will hopefully allow me to achieve my goal of 10 A/A*s in my GCSEs, which I would really like to get!

2. Go running at least once a week. As my mum says, “a healthy body has a healthy mind!” I started going running properly with my friend, aka my personal trainer, about 2 years ago, but come on, who runs in the park in the freezing London winter? Well not me for sure, so I want to resume improving my fitness in 2015. Also, it will give me a chance to get out and take a breather from revision when it becomes stressful in May/June!

3. Work on my blog religiously, and I wanted to just use this to say thank you to everyone who has been reading/following my blog! Every time I get a view or a follow or a like or a comment, I get a little burst of happiness, and think, “people actually want to read this?” It means so much to me, and I want to keep building up my little community on here, because it is like my tiny part of the internet where I can almost spill my heart out to you guys! I love every single one of you guys!

So that’s it guys, my last post of 2014! I hope everyone has a great New years eve, whatever you are doing, and a brill start to 2015! As I said, love ya all, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!! See you in 2015!

christmas, events, family

A typical Australian family Christmas…

Also sorry I haven’t posted the past couple of days, but my cousin has come from Australia so its been a pretty hectic (but amazeballs) Christmas Eve/day. Even though I didn’t spend Christmas in Australia this year, I think its such a different and major event for my family, that I wanted to tell you guys what happens.

My family and I always stay at my grandparents’ house for Christmas (when we go), and on Christmas Eve we leave out, as tradition tells, a caramel koala and a mince pie for Santa, then go to bed, all excited for Christmas Day. When we wake up, the first thing we see when we come out of our bedroom is the living room, which heralds the massive, amazingly decorated by us, Christmas tree. My two siblings and I always wake up first, and we rush ecstatically to look at all the presents, waiting ‘patiently’ for our parents and grandparents to wake up. (Which usually involves a lot of jumping on beds) After the presents are opened (screaming and mess happens here) breakfast is made.

In Australia, I spend Christmas with my dad’s family, and he’s one of six children, all of whom have three or four kids each. Meaning we have a massive family! For lunch, we ALL go to one of the houses and have a massive feast with potato bake, ham, chicken, turkey, veggies and even prawns! (Massive ones to be exact) The classic drink for me is of course: Solo. For all you non-Australians reading this, it is the best lemon drink ever made. As a surprise this year, my mum bought us a few Aussie goodies – including Solo, Mint Slices (!), and of course, my favourite, the legendary strawberry Freddo Frog.

Once we finish the main course, which isn’t usually a big sit down thing because, honestly, their just isn’t enough room, all of the cousins play the legendary annual family football (soccer for you Americans/Australians) and cricket match, which usually gets the majority of the fathers involved as well. It is so much fun, but as Australia is in the height of its summer at Christmas, (so unbearably hot!) and basically everyone has a pool, so most of us go for a swim to cool down sometime during the afternoon. (as well as the dogs!) Dessert is also a massive event, with practically the whole of my family having a major sweet tooth. We all just hang out for hours, and we all get along so well which is fantastic!! In the words of Miranda, “Such fun!!”

I hope everyone had a brill Christmas celebrating with family and friends, and hope you like this little peek into my Christmases in Australia. Love ya all, and to all, g’night!!


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In daily life we often face situations in which we have to make a decision of what is “right” or “good” to do. Those can be ethical dilemmas, difficult choices of lifelong importance (job, partner, moving to another place, etc.), or just simple judgments of incidents, statements, observations and actions with political, social, cultural or other dimension. Since we are embedded into a network of social and cultural interconnections, we are able to come to conclusions without much sophisticated knowledge but just on the basis of our education, experiences, cultural confinements and other factors that constitute a kind of “common sense”. However, in many cases our judgments, conclusions and decisions conflict with those of other people. Then, our viewpoints and the foundations of our reasoning standards are challenged – we have to make clear to ourselves how and why we come to these viewpoints in order to convince “the others” of the correctness and reasonability (or in some cases: superiority) of our arguments. This kind of dispute is the core of all kind of conflicts – political, religious, scientific, in personal relations, etc. – since mankind developed the skills of communication and conscious reflection. History provides uncountable examples of what can go wrong: dogmatism, ideology, superstition, manipulation, physical threats, and many more. For many millennia it wasn’t “the most reasonable argument” that always won, but in many cases that argument that was brought up and pushed through by the most powerful (the strongest, the wealthiest, the armed, the educated, the rhetorically most skilled, etc.) instance. Especially organised religions, for example Christianity and Islam, with their highly dogmatic belief systems, but also scientific approaches to understanding the world (examples: Phlogiston theory, geocentric worldview), run the risk of erroneous interpretations of the “world”. The consequences of unreasonable world conceptions can be dramatic and catastrophic, leading to injustice, mistreatment and misery (examples: the racism and fascism of the Nazi regime in Germany, the persecution of “witches” in medieval Europe, ideology-based exploitation and suppression of “minorites” around the globe, massive environmental destruction and extinction of species due to human activity).

We might compare the development of mankind and its insights into the world fabric to the process of growing up from a child to an adult. A baby doesn’t understand anything, not even itself (or “its self”). A young child that just discovers basic mechanisms of the world (cause-effect-relations, gravity, time, etc.) and human skills (for example language, intentional action) is not capable of scientific and metaphysical understanding of the world. It will believe fairytales and stories when they match with the simple observations it can make. The moon glows at night, so it is reasonable to believe that there is someone on or in it who switches on and off a lamp. On Easter morning there are colourful eggs hidden everywhere in the garden, so of course there is an “Easter Bunny” that came at night and put them there! Also, adults give the child simple orders like “Don’t touch the electrical socket!” rather than explain the technical background of high voltage and its effect on the human body. The older the child grows and the more it learns the more we will expect it to “know” and “understand” these things. It will not be satisfied anymore with simple orders, childish explanations or flowery stories. A reasonable teenager will start questioning things, identifying flaws, fallacies or “lies”. The process of learning is mostly one of “acquiring knowledge”, both technical-factual and normative-orientational. With the ongoing process of maturation more and more “beliefs” and “dogmas” can either be substituted by “knowledge” and “insight” or be put on more sophisticated foundations of knowledge and reason. The latter often requires a refinement or modification of worldview and understanding. We can imagine that insights with strong impact can change a person’s attitude towards or opinion about something. The same goes for societies: Ancient civilisations cultivated cruel customs such as cannibalism, slavery, human sacrifice or barbaric methods of capital punishment. They believed in ghosts, gods, super- and para-natural forces (some people still do), or based their explanations and worldviews on “facts” and “knowledge” that – from today’s perspective – was simply wrong. Most of these false beliefs and immature practices disappeared or have been abandoned, mostly after periods of philosophical and intellectual insights like the European Enlightenment era leading to Humanism or the establishment of Confucian social structures after the Chinese “Warring States” period.

Is the current state of civilisation ready to be called “mature”? Regardless of the fact that there is not just “one civilisation” on Earth but many different ones with varying degree of maturation, we can state that around the globe the access to sophisticated knowledge and insight is given to a larger extend than ever before. Natural and social sciences as well as Philosophy and Psychology have elaborated profound understanding of worldly and human affairs. The question is: What do we do with that knowledge? I’d like to make a point that is by far not self-understanding for many people and/or societies: The basis for any form of reasoning – be it technical, logical, metaphysical, normative, etc. – should be knowledge. At the same time (and this is my second plea), we (like the rebellious teenager) should always question and doubt everything. Knowledge should inform worldview, but worldview in return should evaluate and analyse knowledge constantly. When the rebellious teenager matures into a young adolescent, he or she will usually become more peaceful by solidifying his or her worldview which is based on the questioned, modified, refined and challenged knowledge. With a little optimism I’d like to state that I see a chance that the mankind of today is capable of throwing old dogmatism, false beliefs, misled and corrupt knowledge aboard and substitute it by knowledge-based insight on the world fabric, mankind’s place in it, and the human condition. In the following I’d like to draw a sketch of what that might look like.

Worldviews and ethical theories are most challenged by finding their “deepest” reason, the most fundamental basis that all argumentation is built upon and that – ideally – can be understood and agreed upon by everyone. Constructs that take a belief or a story, legend or claim that can never be proven as the starting point or “ultimate truth” are called “dogmatic”, for example religious systems that are built around the faithful belief in a God. It is the standard of philosophical reflection to go deeper than that. Attempts to go back to the very beginning of reasoning and reflecting on the nature of reality are sometimes called “first philosophy”, for example skepticism (e.g. Descartes), induction (e.g. Hume), transcendental philosophy (e.g. Kant), and others.[1] There is an intrinsic circular problem that all these first philosophies have to deal with: We want to base a worldview on what we know, but that provokes the question of what we – as human beings – are able to know. This question can only be answered satisfyingly on the basis of a worldview – the one we want to elaborate from what we know. With other words: What the observer (we) wants to observe is the observer itself, more precisely: his ability to observe. Or, as Heinz von Foerster puts it: “What does it need to understand a brain? – A brain!”.[2] We need knowledge to draw conclusions on the epistemological question “What are we able to know?”,  which is ideally fed from ontological insights into the reality of the world.  A “one-and-half-cycle” approach is suggested: Based on the very general and fundamental assumptions that are formulated in the ancient Chinese philosophical texts and that we can assume to be more or less secure “knowledge” of the principles and mechanisms of the world, a worldview is drawn that allows conclusion on the “human condition” – the position of mankind in the “world fabric” and, by that, the abilities and limitations of cognition. With an idea of “what human are able to know” the validity of the initial knowledge base is checked and – if necessary – refined. With these more secure insights an extended ontology, the metaphysical foundations of a worldview, can be elaborated. This can serve as a starting point for “applications” such as ethical principles, scientific methodology, human psychology, etc.

The most fundamental phenomenon that we can observe in the world is “change“. This can be agreed to even without any scientific knowledge or philosophical preconditions. Nothing remains the same forever. Time and space are spanned up by “change”.[3]

In the next step, we have to conclude that there must be a governing principle. Otherwise we would end up either at chaos with all being as a product of randomness and chance, or at the postulation of an organized order under the guidance of a powerful entity creating a deterministic causality. Both are not reasonable to assume: the former because it does not match with our daily life experiences, the latter because it is laden with additional preconditions that are either impossible to prove or a matter of belief (but never of knowledge). Here, we can adopt the concept of Harmony from the Yi-Jing and its further elaborations in Confucianism and Daoism. Harmony must not be mixed up with “sameness”. Also, “equilibrium” does not imply “the one perfect state”. We can imagine these ideas in the picture of a pendulum: “Equilibrium” means the alteration around the perpendicular. As long as there are causes and effects in the universe, the pendulum will never come to a perpendicular stop. In this sense, harmony describes the tendency to balance out the energies that arise from the interaction of different elements in creative tension. Therefore, it is different from the “immediate harmony” in the Hegelian understanding, and different from the “natural state” symbolised by Adam and Eve in the Bible. This form of harmony is reflective, mediated, and highly relational.[4] In order to make this work, we have to assume a network of conditionality, both in the diachronic and synchronic dimension. The former means, a current state is caused by former states; the latter means, a current state is causally connected to other contemporary states. Additionally, still on save grounds, we can formulate that the ongoing process of oscillating around a point of harmony – disturbance of the equilibrium due to change of the conditions, re-aligning to the new surrounding state, establishment of a new equilibrium that is in harmony with the new state – necessarily leads to emergence, the development of more and more sophisticated and causally interwoven states.

These insights draw this picture of the world (we are now at Box 2: Basic Ontology): In the course of time and space that is made up by the properties and characteristics of Qi (call it “energy”), mankind’s appearance following evolutionary processes is embedded into this set of properties. Interaction with the specific environment on Planet Earth equipped the organism “human” with the senses and abilities that are useful and advantageous in this particular surrounding. Therefore, the actual cognitive and mental capability of humans is extremely limited given the complexity and variety of phenomena of the world. The development of brain processes known as “consciousness”, allowing volitional action, might be insignificant for the “world fabric”, but increases the complexity of human capabilites and human understanding massively. Especially the ability of communication (including self-communication, thinking) and its tool – language – widened the range of human action immensely. However, the idea of the world that is consciously perceived is condemned to remain a confined cut of the actual world. Moreover, it is a construction in the human mind. This leads us closer to the question of what we are able to know. But before we elaborate further on that, let’s have a closer look at the characteristics of this worldview that was just described.

We analysed the human condition solely in terms of its natural embedment in its environment, with the universal law of “cause and effect” as its foundation. Obviously, by doing so we follow a naturalistic approach which is the common term for the argumentative elaboration of “values” (like “harmony” or “balance”) with the focus on conditionality and cause-effect-relations. Among Philosophers, Naturalism became very popular in recent years. So many contemporary Philosophers claim themselves and other (ancient) Philosophers “naturalists” that it is hard to find a clear definition of what the term means and what it actually implies.[5] It seems safe to claim that Naturalism opposes the supernatural, and in certain understandings also the artificial. But it is the matter of heated debate whether Naturalism has to or needs to stand against “the normative”, too. From the Asian perspective, this question would surely be answered in favour of “naturalised normativity”: The norms and codes of conduct that are derived from ethical reasoning must be rooted in the nature of the world that mankind is embedded in. Everything else would be an “uprooted”, artificial, “thin” man-made concept. It is important to point out (as mentioned above) that it is necessary to be aware of a “separation of tasks” of different stages of reasoning: At this point we are investigating the human condition. Here, naturalistic perspectives like the Asian one are reasonable and appear helpful to address the respective questions. The introduction of “value” in order to elaborate normative statements will be done later when the whole metaphysical worldview is complete and when the perspective is focused specifically on “human affairs” rather than generally on “universal affairs”.

At this point, we can already exclude certain paradigms and principles – metaphysical perspectives that are certainly not element of “my philosophy”:

  • Dogmatism: Ideologies or teachings that are based on “belief” and mystical hypothesis are neither considered for nor concluded from this worldview conception. All it needed so far is a bit of experience and reflection, but no speculation about God(s) or other “creator entities” and no unprovable initial dogma.
  • Transcendentalism: According to E.O.Wilson, there is a significant difference between transcendentalists – those who believe that there are moral guidelines outside the human mind – and empiricists – those who think of them as contrivances of the mind.[6] Some philosophers understood the Yi-Jing as proclaiming “intrinsic value in the universe” and, accordingly, interpreted this as “transcendental”. The naturalistic “value” of harmony towards which everything is aligning and striving, however, should not be seen as transcendental since from a perspective of morality, it is “neutral” in the sense that it can’t tell what is good and right. “Equilibrium” shows “the direction to go”, but still the society and its members is obliged to figure out the methods and tools to go that way (the particular morals). Asian morality, especially as suggested by the Yi-Jing, is characterised as contextual prescriptivism, a highly situational ethics that depends on time, space and condition, but is firm in its principles and virtues. There is neither any form of “moral absolutism” nor a commitment to unshakable “cosmic norms” that are valid beyond the framework of human reasoning.
  • Human Nature: In the same sense, it is difficult to talk of “human nature” as something intrinsically given. Human traits are, according to Confucianism and Buddhism, manifestations of states with causal origins that change over time. In a more biological sense: The behavioural attitude of human beings (over the evolutionary development course of mankind) adapts flexibly to the environment according to its requirements and beneficial rewards. The attributes of “good” or “evil” are added by human from human perspectives.

The question “What can we know?” (Box 3: Epistemology) is a crucial one in the endeavour of building a worldview upon knowledge. In the West, the two major “classical” positions on this question are empiricism (knowledge as the result of experiences and cognitive perception) and rationalism (knowledge as the result of rational reasoning and mental reflection). From the previous insights we know that both our experiences and our ratio are “flawed” and/or incomplete and, therefore, our knowledge is also construed. This “constructivism” underlies both insight through reason and insight through experience and cognition. Buddhism (but also other Asian schools of thought) propagate an almost radical constructivism in questions of world perception and recognition.[7] In the European tradition, the idea that the mental representation of the world is not a depiction of the (real) outside world but rather a construction of an image inside the observing mind was elaborated comparably late, but is now widely accepted among philosophers and other related scholars.[8] Meanwhile, constructivism pervaded many academic and scientific disciplines, ranging from natural sciences[9] and psychology to sociology[10] and anthropology, especially prominent as “social constructivism”[11]. There is a clear tendency towards naturalism and constructivism going along with each other since both share, in parts, the same basic assumptions.[12] An idea that can be given up at this point is “truth” or, respectively, the possibility of getting anywhere near the “ultimate truth”. Therefore, also the attempt to achieve it is given up.

With these insights, is it necessary to revise, change or even discard the initial input of “basic knowledge” (Box 4)? Would we have to admit that the basic ideas of the world are in any way “wrong” or so flawed that they can’t serve as a starting point for metaphysical reflection any longer? The understanding that both the “human reality” and the “human options of acquiring knowledge” are best described by constructivism might leave the impression that “all we are able to know is that we know nothing”. However, this is a misconception. First, “knowing that our knowledge is highly filtered” and “knowing that what we believe we know can be wrong or corrupt” is not equivalent to “knowing nothing” (the nihilistic or fatalistic viewpoint). Awareness of the constructive character of our worldview and our reflections on metaphysics is important to avoid dogmatism, to increase the chances of both empiricism and rationalism to be “precise” or “correct”, and to align the worldview steadily to newly acquired knowledge. Moreover, the most important claim of all metaphysical and, in the following of it, ethical reasoning should be to be done “to the best of the available knowledge, insight, and conscience”. There is simply no other chance to base the reflections on “what we know” and “what we are able to know to the best of our abilities”. This corresponds to the Daoist idea that all we are able to do (and, therefore, obliged to do) is “getting as close as possible to the “Dao” (the point of total harmony) with our actions and behaviour, admitting that it will never be possible to reach it.[13] Here, too, it is impossible to reach the point of “ultimate truth”, but it should be taken as our goal to get as close as possible to it when reflecting on metaphysics.

Initially, it was claimed that the basic principles of the world fabric are:

  • Harmony – Cause-effect-mechanisms due to constant heading towards equilibrium states, spanning “time and space”
  • Conditionality – No existence without anything else existing, but no “ontological determinism”
  • Emergence – Increasing complexity through sophistication processes and development towards more elaborated states, resulting (among others) in consciousness.

Ancient Asian thinkers and intellectuals recognised – and I fully support it – that no phenomenon of the world manifests itself independent from other elements of the world. This can be observed for both material aspects of the world (the interaction of matter from the atomic to the cosmic scale) and abstract entities that occur in the mind of a conscious being. Moreover, even this classification of “material” and “mental” aspects of the world does not imply that they are separated, but regards them as connected as well, e.g. by understanding cognitive and mental processes as of material origin, for example the interplay of biomolecules, or by realising that also the “material world” is just another construction in the mind of the perceiver. Here, my idea of the world stands in sharp contrast to Cartesian dualism.

The initial assumptions are confirmed and supported by modern methods of scientific investigation and observation. Natural sciences created in-depth knowledge and understanding of the matter that the world is made from and how it is kept together. Mankind has access to knowledge about the atomic constitution of the world as well as the cosmic mechanisms of solar systems, galaxies and the universe. This knowledge confirms the important insight that whatever happens in the universe is happening because of a constant heading towards equilibrium states. Two atoms in a molecule oscillate and vibrate around a point of (energetically) “most favourable” distance to each other. In a chemical reaction, a “trigger” (for example an input of energy in form of heat or light) disrupts this balance, forcing the components to find a new “best” state of energy, eventually forming new bonds with other atoms or molecules. Macroscopic processes follow the same mechanism with increasing degree of complexity: Water runs down a mountain in the “energetically most favourable” way according to gravitational forces, friction forces, momentums, etc. Evolutionary processes creating “life” and bringing about consciousness and the ability of self-recognition, reflection and abstract reasoning evolve in a fine-tuned balance with the environment. Even psychological, social and cultural phenomena follow this rule of cause and effect – a trigger causing a disruption of the current equilibrium state, forcing the formation of a new equilibrium according to the new conditions. Reaching states of equilibrium is the fundamental driving force of everything that happens in the world. This can be taken as true independent from human observation and understanding. The examples used here, including “atoms”, “molecules”, “gravitation”, “energy”, “evolution”, “psychology” or “society”, are the current state of human knowledge, have been different 1000 years ago and will be different – maybe refined or discarded and substituted by new, more precise knowledge – in a thousand years from now. The overall principle of cause and effect, however, will most likely never be proven invalid, no matter how incomplete, insufficient, flawed and ignorant our human knowledge of the world turns out to be.

We can elaborate those first insights further. A simple conditionality would have to be understood as deterministic causality, but with the high degree of complexity that is found in the world, we better speak of “complex conditionality networks” pervading the “organic whole” that the world constitutes.[14] First, that allows the influence on “Karma” by volitional actions which is necessary to make sense of the Buddhist goal of enlightenment; and second, with this tenet we circumvent the threat of “nihilism” and “fatalism” that come up with stricter determinism. Emergence within this network of conditionality is “upgraded” to evolution by adding an element of “improvement” or “sophistication” through the growing complexity of “re-harmonising” processes. This evolution – a constant increase in cause-effect-relations within the network – necessarily leads to a high degree of interconnectedness of literally everything with everything. In this dynamic oneness, subject to constant change, nothing is permanent or eternal but everything contains of an intrinsic impermanence.

Another important concept in Western philosophy that must be regarded critically in the context of this (mine? “Asian”?) worldview is teleology – the question whether beings have an intrinsic purpose of existence or not.[15] Aristotle gave the example of an acorn that has the “telos” – the intrinsic purpose – to grow into an oak tree. The response from the perspective presented here would be: The acorn grows into an oak tree because that is its place in the conditionality network, both as “effect” (an oak tree produced an acorn as its way of sustaining the existence of the kind “oak tree”) and “cause” (the acorn is supposed to grow into an oak tree because that is its position in the causal chain that was established as an equilibrium to ensure the ongoing existence of the kind “oak tree”). Several scholars interpret this still as a form of teleology,[16] but the difference is an important one: “purpose” is a human concept, whereas thinking of states as result of karmic interconnectedness works out well without adding “humanisation” of processes (or “pathetic fallacy”).

Let me come to Box 5 and extend our ontological conception. The sophisticated cause-effect-law suggests that the world can only be understood “in its whole” since everything is connected. This can be best described by a combination of holism and monism (in “Western” terms). Realising that evolutionary processes proceed under the principle of “harmony” (heading towards equilibrium states) puts the human realm (as result of an evolutionary process) into a larger perspective of cosmic relations: We are neither “divine” nor “outstanding”, but just another “entity” that is part of the overall balance.

In Western philosophy, “monism” as counterpart of “dualism” often referred to a solely “idealistic” or a solely “materialistic” ontology, claiming that only one of them (respectively) is representing the reality. However, the dualistic separation of mind and matter sphere is still present in this attributive distinction. “Neutral monism” tries to overcome this separation.[17] The monism inherent in Chinese Philosophy can be best described by “dual-aspect monism”.[18] The first Buddhist philosopher that systematically pointed out the monistic character of a Buddhist’s understanding of the world was Nagarjuna.[19] His concept of “sunyata”, usually translated as “emptiness” could be considered as a form of cosmic monism when taken together with holism.

Holism as the counterpart of reductionism has a rather short history in the Western philosophical tradition. The term is coined by J.C. Smuts[20] and has ever since been subject of philosophical debate and dispute.[21] Several understandings of “holism” have been expressed, such as “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.” (naïve holism), “An understanding of a complex system is best sought at the level of principles governing the behaviour of the whole system, and not at the level of the structure and behaviour of its component parts.” (methodological holism), “Some objects are not wholly composed of basic physical parts.” (ontological holism), “Some objects have properties that are not determined by physical properties of their basic physical parts.” (property holism). Modern understandings are strongly linked to the growing awareness for the high degree of complexity of the world.[22] Especially in the biological sciences, a reductionist ontology and methodology is more and more replaced by holistic conceptions of complex systems. With the acceptance of a complex conditionality it is, furthermore, possible to circumvent a strict determinism (see above). In Chinese Philosophy, Holistic world conceptions were much more widespread since ancient times. In most of the classical texts (Yijing, Daodejing, etc.), the complexity of the world as an organic whole is paid tribute to by analysing and understanding it in view of its constant processes of change and movement.[23]

The reflections above have revealed insights on the basic characteristics of my philosophical view on the world. The four key elements, so to say the cornerstones of that worldview, are identified to be holism, monism, naturalism, and constructivism. Their combinations result in further important concepts of the world fabric and its mechanisms:

The monistic and holistic world conception almost necessarily leads to a cosmocentric position in questions of ethical accountability and evaluation.[24] With a naturalistic approach to a holistic interpretation of the world fabric, credit is given to a complex conditionality as driving mechanism of all being and happening. The interconnected oneness of all being within the framework of Nature should be read with atheistic or agnostic accounts: It does not support the existence of a divine entity like the God of the Abrahamic tradition. The religious idea of monism becomes obsolete in a naturalistic fashion. The acceptance of a constructive character of human perception of the world adds further specific implications. In the ongoing debate between realists and antirealists, the ontology developed here can be grouped around the middle, comparable to pragmatism (in the Deweyan and Rortyan understanding)[25] or the “Natural Ontological Attitude” introduced by Arthur Fine.[26] To illustrate Buddhism’s nearness to Fine’s ontology, compare the Buddhist ideal approach of “seeing things as they are” to Fine’s statement “The attitude that marks [my naturalism] is just this: try to take science on its own terms, and try not to read things into science”.[27] Understanding both as approaches to “know reality” (Buddhism in a wider sense, Fine with means of science), they share the pragmatic and constructivist notion of being constantly aware of the pitfalls of human perception and cognition. Moreover, modern forms of “Engaged Buddhism” – the layman practice of actively supporting peace and the cessation of suffering – are based on a pragmatism that is characteristic for Buddhist practice in all its schools.[28] Constructive Realism, a model of knowledge- and language-based reality-understanding that I support (I will explain later), makes even more sense when embedded into a monistic interpretation of the world. The alternatives – ontological idealism or materialism, or epistemological rationalism or empiricism – are all dualistic and don’t fit into this scheme that emphasises monism. The “no-substance ontology”[29] that is prevalent in Asian Philosophy, especially in Buddhism, finds its foundation in the constructivist paradigm within a holistic worldview. That is so because a holistic world conception – of everything being holons that are parts of larger holons – within a constructivist paradigm (we can always only grasp parts of holons, e.g. certain properties and features) identifies “substance” almost inevitably as an illusion, whereas reductionism would conclude “substance”.

As pointed out earlier, I believe that my worldview shows significant parallels and similarities to what we can call “Asian worldview” which is fed mostly from the two directions of “Dao” (as in the Yi-Jing, in Confucianism, and in Daoism) and Buddhism. However, my focus is on Buddhism since its metaphysical foundations are further and deeper elaborated. This is perfectly reflected in the analogy between Buddha’s teachings and the cornerstone overview. Each link can be understood in terms of one or more of his key concepts:

Emptiness can be readily understood as the consequence of a monistic and holistic worldview.[30] Same as a cosmocentric framework for ethical reasoning, it propagates that there is no “intrinsic values” in parts of the world (for example, “human” or “mankind”), but only in “the world itself”. Complex conditionality leads to the concept of Karma, additionally reflecting the idea of “harmony” (for example, in the understanding of “dao”). A key factor is the complexity that allows the emergence of “consciousness” so that volitional action, and by that the influence on retributive karmic relations, becomes possible. In an interconnected world of natural entities, the practice of morality is expressed through “the middle way” and, for human beings, in compassion (rather than in following divine laws), while the source for it must be sought in proper (or “right”) understanding of the world. Moreover, the karmic interconnectedness leads to compassion (or better: the understanding that it is “right” to show compassion for all being), while the “Middle Way” is the active practice of supporting the establishment of balance and harmony. The case of constructivism is important for the Buddhist “Theory of mind”: The idea of accepting the constructive character of our world perception, resulting in the plea for practicing mindfulness and awareness in order to “align the construction as close as possible to the actual reality”, is another way to describe the goal of Enlightenment. The formulation of “microworlds” and “lifeworld” in constructive realism corresponds to the “Theory of Two Truths” in Indian Buddhism.[31] Ultimately, the central element of Buddhist metaphysics, the links of interdependent co-arising, are best mirrored in view of a combination of holism (everything is karmically connected and impermanent) and constructivism (ignorance, delusion, attachment, cognition as “contact” between sense and sense-object, etc.).

The following overview summarises the collected reflections of this letter by setting all important characteristics of this worldview into perspective using “western” terminology.

  1. For an overview: Ritchie J, “Understanding Naturalism“, Acumen Pub., Stocksfield, UK, 2008, chapter 1
  2. von Foerster H, Pörksen B, “Wahrheit ist die Erfindung eines Lügners. Gespräche für Skeptiker. (Truth is the invention of a liar. Conversations for skeptics.)”, Carl-Auer-Systeme, Heidelberg, Germany, 1998
  3. On the philosophical implications of “change”: Mortensen C, “Change and Inconsistency“, in “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” (ed. EN Zalta), Fall Edition 2015
  4. Li CY, “The Philosophy of Harmony in Classical Confucianism“, Philosophy Compass 2008, 3/3, pp.423
  5. For an overview: a) Bashour B, Muller HD (eds.), “Contemporary Philosophical Naturalism and its Implications“, Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 2014; b) Braddon-Mitchell D, Nola R (eds.), “Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism“, MIT Press, Cambridge, USA, 2009; c) De Caro M, Macarthur D (eds.), “Naturalism and Normativity“, Columbia Univ. Press, Chichester, UK, 2010; d) Fischer E, Collins J (eds.), “Experimental Philosophy, Rationalism, and Naturalism. Rethinking Philosophical Method“, Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 2015; e) Flanagan O, “Varieties of Naturalism“, in “The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science” (ed. P Clayton), Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2008; f) Galparsoro JI, Cordero A (eds.), “Reflections on Naturalism“, Sense Pub. Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2013; g) Gasser G (ed.), “How Successful is Naturalism?“, Ontos Verlag, Heusenstamm, Germany, 2007; h) Milkowski M, Talmont-Kaminski K (eds.), “Beyond Description: Naturalism and Normativity“, College Pub., London, UK, 2010; i) Nuccetelli S, Seay G (eds.), “Ethical Naturalism. Current Debates.”, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2012; j) Olafson FA, “Naturalism and the Human Condition. Against Scientism.”, Routledge, London, UK, 2001; k) Price H, “Naturalism without Mirrors“, Oxford Univ. Press, New York, USA, 2011; l) Ritchie J, “Understanding Naturalism“, Acumen Pub., Stocksfield, UK, 2008; m) Walsh DM (ed.), “Naturalism, Evolution and Mind“, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001
  6. Wilson EO, “Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge“, Chapter 11: Ethics and Religion, pp. 260, Vintage Books (Random House Pub.), New York, USA, 1999
  7. Vogd W, “Constructivism in Buddhism“, in “Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions” (eds. Runehov ALC, Oviedo L), Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2013
  8. a) Lenman J, Shemmer Y (eds.), “Constructivism in Practical Philosophy“, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK, 2012; b) Pörksen B (ed.), “Schlüsselwerke des Konstruktivismus (Key works of Constructivism)”, 2nd ed., Springer VS, Wiesbaden, Germany, 2015 (in German); c) Bagnoli C, “Constructivism in Metaethics”, in “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” (ed. EN Zalta), Fall Edition 2016
  9. Golinski J, “Making Natural Knowledge. Constructivism and the History of Science“, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 1998
  10. Onuf NG, “Making Sense, Making Worlds. Constructivism in social theory and international relations“, Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 2013
  11. a) Berger PL, Luckmann T, “The Social Construction of Reality“, Anchor Books, New York, USA, 1966, b) Kukla A, “Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science“, Routledge, London, UK, 2000; c) Wilson DS, “Evolutionary Social Constructivism“, in “The Literary Animal. Evolution and the Nature of Narrative” (eds. J Gottschall, DS Wilson), pp.20, Northwestern Univ. Press, Evanston, USA, 2005
  12. Mallon R, “Naturalistic Approaches to Social Construction”, in “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” (ed. EN Zalta), Winter Edition 2014, available from (accessed July 24th 2016)
  13. Moeller HG, “The Philosophy of the Daodejing“, Columbia Univ. Press, New York, USA, 2006
  14. a) Gershenson C, Aerts D, Edmonds B (eds.), “Worldviews, Science and Us: Philosophy and Complexity“, World Scientific Pub., Singapore, 2007; b) Gregersen NH, “Complexity“, in “Encyclopedia of Science and Religion” (ed. JWV van Huyssteen), Macmillan, New York, USA, 2003
  15. Bronkhorst J, “Karma and Teleology. A Problem and its solutions in Indian Philosophy“, Studia Philologica Monograph series, Tokyo, Japan, 2000
  16. for example: Full G, “Education in Buddhism“, in “Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions” (eds. Runehov ALC, Oviedo L), Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2013
  17. Overview: Weir TH (ed.), “ Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview“, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, USA, 2012
  18. Vimal RLP, “Buddhism and Dual-Aspect Monism“, available from, 2013
  19. a) Fatone V, “The Philosophy of Nagarjuna“, Motilal Banarsidass Pub., Delhi, India, 1991; b) Burton D, “Emptiness Appraised. A Critical Study of Nagarjuna’s Philosophy“, Motilal Banarsidass Pub., Delhi, India, 1999; c) Tuck AP, “Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Scholarship. On the Western Interpretation of Nagarjuna“, Oxford Univ. Press, New York, USA, 1990; d) Westerhoff J, “Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka. A Philosophical Introduction“, Oxford Univ. Press, New York, USA, 2009
  20. Smuts JC, “Holism and Evolution“, Macmillan, London, UK, 1926
  21. Procacci S, “Holism: Some Historical Aspect“, in “Determinism, Holism, and Complexity” (eds. V Benci, P Cerrai, P Freguglia, G Israel, C Pellegrini), Kluwer Academic, New York, USA, 2003
  22. a) Edmonds B, “Pragmatic Holism (or Pragmatic Reductionism)“, Foundations of Science 1999, 4, pp.57; b) Esfeld M, “Holism in Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Physics“, Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2001; c) Esfeld M, “Physicalism and Ontological Holism“, Metaphilosophy 1999, 30(4), pp.319; d) Pigliucci M, “Between holism and reductionism: a philosophical primer on emergence“, Biol. J. of Linnean Soc. 2013, 112(2), pp.242; e) White M, “A Philosophy of Culture: The Scope of Holistic Pragmatism“, Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, USA, 2002
  23. Tonietti TM, “Towards a History of Complexity. A Comparison between Europe and China“, in “Determinism, Holism, and Complexity” (eds. V Benci, P Cerrai, P Freguglia, G Israel, C Pellegrini), Kluwer Academic, New York, USA, 2003
  24. McShane K, “Individualist Biocentrism vs. Holism Revisited“, The Ethics Forum 2014, 9(2), pp.130
  25. a) Hookway C, “Pragmatism”, in “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” (ed. EN Zalta), Summer Edition 2016, available from (accessed July 24th 2016); b) Dewey J, “The quest for certainty“, in “John Dewey: The later works (Vol. 4)” (ed. JA Boydston), Illinois Univ. Press, Carbondale/Edwardsville, USA, 1984/1929; c) Pihlström S, “Neopragmatism“, in “Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions” (eds. Runehov ALC, Oviedo L), Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2013
  26. a) Fine A, “The Natural Ontological Attitude“, in “Scientific Realism” (ed. J Leplin), University of California Press, Berkeley, USA, 1984; b) Fine A, “And Not Antirealism Either“, Nous 18, p.51-65, 1984
  27. Fine A, “The Shaky Game: Einstein Realism and the Quantum Theory“, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA, 1996
  28. Adorjan MC, Kelly BW, “Pragmatism and ‘Engaged’ Buddhism. Working toward peace and a Philosophy of action“, J. Sociol. Self-Knowl. 2008, 6(3), pp.37
  29. Bhatt SR, Mehrotra A, “Buddhist Epistemology“, Greenwood Press, London, UK, 2000
  30. Gyeltsen GT, “Mirror of Wisdom. Teachings on Emptiness“, Thubten Dhargye Ling Pub., Long Beach, USA, 2000
  31. Thakchoe S, “The Theory of Two Truths in India“, in “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” (ed. EN Zalta), Summer Edition 2011, available from, accessed 11.4.2016

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Asian Magick Luck

Asian Magick Gook Luck BraceletAsian Magick Charm Bracelet: $45

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AP Pre-Registration Workshop at MHS!

ALL students enrolled in AP courses are required to attend the AP Pre-Registration Workshop on Wednesday, April 16th at 2:20pm in Cafeteria B. If students are unable to attend because of work, family commitments, activities, athletics, etc…all have been told, via AP Exam letter, to make arrangements with Ms. Karamcheti PRIOR to Wednesday.

College and Career Readiness Workshops for Seniors!

Attention Seniors!

Your guidance department will be hosting a series of  College & Career Readiness Workshops every Tuesday afternoon this semester. Please stop by H206 (the computer lab) anytime between 2:15-3:00 pm on Tuesdays for help with the Common Application, resume writing, college searches, TOEFL registration, or SAT registration.

Any question? See your house guidance counselor!

Hispanic College Fair Trip!

If you are interested in attending the Hispanic College Fair at Regis College on Tuesday, October 1st from 9:00am-noon, please see Mrs. Lipinski in the Holland House office before Friday, September 27th. You must get a permission slip from Mrs. Lipinski and sign-up. Space is limited so don’t wait! This is an amazing opportunity to start the college process and learn about many different colleges and universities.

Class of 2014 College & Career Night for Students and Families

On Thursday, April 25th at 6:30pm in the Jenkins Auditorium, the MHS School Counseling Department will be hosting Junior College and Career Planning Night for students and families. At this event participants will learn everything you need to know about planning for life after high school. The guidance department will present, as well as Admissions Counselors from local colleges, universities, and training programs. All will be on-hand to share words of wisdom and experience. Hope to see you at this important event!

MEFA After the College Acceptance Seminar, April 4th

Congratulations! The waiting is over and you’ve received your college acceptance packages. Now what?

The transition to college isn’t always easy and your concerns about paying for college aren’t like every other family’s. MEFA’s After the Acceptance Seminar provides college financing strategies that fit your needs. We’ll tell you about payment options, ways to minimize college loan debt, financial aid award letters and the billing process

What You’ll Learn…

Spring is the season for college decisions and conversations about affordability. Our After the Acceptance Seminar provides clear, straightforward advice on how you can finance a college education, so you can feel confident that you have a plan in place before you decide where to enroll. Topics include:

  • Payment options and ways to minimize college loan debt
  • Award letters and the billing process
  • Working with the financial aid office

MEFA representatives will also be available after the program to talk with you about your particular circumstances, so bring your financial aid award letters.

This event will take place in the MHS Jenkins Auditorium at 11am on Thursday April, 4th, 2013.

Malden High 8th Grade Family Night!

Please join Principal Brown and learn more about Malden High School on Monday, March 18th, at 6:30 in the Jenkins Auditorium. Meet other families and hear about the academic and social opportunities for students at Malden High School. Learn about our school and how high school is different from middle school. This is a great opportunity to ask questions about the high school. We hope to see you there!

JWU On-the-Spot Admission Day 2/11/13

Attention Seniors,

Johnson & Wales University will be visiting Malden High School to conduct an On-the-Spot Admissions Day on Monday, February 11th! See your guidance counselor by February 5th if you are interested in attending this university and meeting with their representative on the 11th.

Johnson & Wales is located in Providence, Rhode Island. JWU offers many majors, but specializes in Business, Culinary Arts, and Communications. For more information on Johnson and Wales University, visit www.jwu.edu

Spring BHCC Dual Enrollment Meeting

There will be a mandatory meeting for all students registered for a spring Bunker Hill Dual Enrollment course on Wednesday, January 16th at 2:30pm in the MHS Gallery. Students will receive text books, schedules, and other important information. Students should see Mrs. O’Connor in the Jenkins House office with questions.

Free SAT Prep Program: Let’s Get Ready!

Let’s Get Ready offers free SAT prep courses to seniors at Malden High School.  College students from Boston University will come to Malden High School to prepare students for the May 4th exam.  In addition, they will help students research colleges, work on applications, write personal statements and more.  The program also includes a presentation about financial aid and scholarships, and a college visit.  Let’s Get Ready runs Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6:00pm-9:00pm and starts on February 5.  For more information about this fun, free program, CLICK HERE.

Priority will be given to Juniors and Seniors.  The online application can be completed by CLICKING HERE.

Please contact Steve with any questions: swaniak@letsgetready.org

Attention class of 2013 and families…

FREE Help Applying for Financial Aid for College!

FAFSA Day Massachusetts, a College Goal Sunday Program, is a non-profit, volunteer driven program in its 9th year providing free assistance to students and families seeking to complete the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The event will take place at Malden High School on January 27th, 2013 from 1pm-4pm.

Please register for the event at www.fafsaday.org

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to e-mail Manjula Karamcheti at mkaramcheti@malden.mec.edu, contact your MHS School Counselor, or stop by the College and Career Center.


text:
How to Find Your Passion

Three Lessons For Your Personal Journey

I always knew I would publish a book. It was on my bucket list before I had ever heard of bucket lists. I was raised with the idea that those who work hard in life get rewarded. After a lifetime of hard work, I would finally have the space in life to publish a book of my very own – say by the time I’m 70. I’d also have time to do all those other things that I didn’t get to while having a successful corporate career. Little did I know what’s possible…

Finding Passion is a very recent event for me in the last few years. Prior to what I’m about to share, I was very content with the process of going to work, earning my salary, and keeping my Passion (whatever that was) way out there in the future. My new vantage point comes from a place of harmony with who I am, what I want and finally (yes!) what I do. Here’s three insights to finding passion.

1. We learn when we stumble

Fast forward to 2010. This was the year I had burned out. I had burned out to the point that I didn’t recognize myself nor my life any more.

Stumbling is a part of life. And it happens to everyone. There are those that stumble and quickly brush it off, get angry and blame others, etc. But there’s another way to look at stumbling, and I’m telling you my experience set the plan in motion. My stumble was my tipping point that my life and career as a consultant had to change. Had I not stumbled so wonderfully, I wouldn’t have started my own business, discovered my core personal values, and found a career that really I had already been doing only now I was doing it in an authentic and inspiring way. And also, I wouldn’t have achieved a bucket list goal so soon. But more on that in a minute.

2. We must listen to our wisdom (Intuition)

As I was stumbling, my inner critic really wanted me to stay the same, unchanged, and living in fear. Many times I heard that voice say, “This is just how it is. This is just what it’s like at this level in your career and having a family.” So I sought a coach who could be objective and external to the situation to help me find the answers I had been looking for. I declared, “just because I’m good at my job doesn’t mean my job is good for me.” Feeling physically ill, stressed, not sleeping were all warning signs that I had long ignored that something was wrong.

There comes a point when you can’t not make a major change.

3. When we find Passion, life becomes simpler

On November 19th, I published Finding Passion, and it has been the best accomplishment of my professional career. This book is a snapshot of my personal transformation from burnout to rediscovering the parts of me that I had hidden. The book is about running towards the future you want, not about running away from problems. I rekindled the relationship I had with myself – to trust myself, love myself, and accept myself. Being reunited, I supported myself with permission to live the life I want. And in doing so, I recognized that my passion was helping others in the most meaningful way to bring forward their best self. Finding my passion helped me make better decisions in my life, and gave me peace of mind that I’m  aligned to who I am inside.

The best advice for finding passion is that you have to find it for yourself. No one can tell you a shortcut to this work. What I know is that my journey resembled a lot of inward focus in order to move one step forward. Knowing yourself is amazing, and that knowledge changes as we evolve and shift our perspectives in life. I hope you find what it is you’re looking for, and with a little courage to look inside yourself to discover the answer your intuition has known all along.

Email me at for career questions you have or if you would like a PDF copy of this blog post.

Curious to try 20 self-discovery strategies and exercises for your career direction?
Join others who now see their strengths, weaknesses, drivers and values in a new way with this self-guided DIY resource. If you liked this post, you’ll love my book, “Finding Passion: A Self-Discovery Approach for Navigating Career Crossroads” to help you ask the tough questions you’ve been avoiding and rediscover what you really want in your career. Available on Amazon.

JESSICA MANCA is a certified coach, author, entrepreneur and former management consultant. She founded Managing Mindspaces, a professional coaching firm, providing sensible career and life coaching services to professionals making life-changing decisions.

© Copyright 2014-2015 Managing Mindspaces. All rights reserved.

2 thoughts on “How to Find Your Passion

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Translations: One Piece 869 by cnet128 , Gintama 640 (2)

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Title RAW/Scan Type # Post Date Updated Series
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Dodgers’ Spring Training and Eleanor

Dodgers Spring Training

Bemused, Eleanor studies the picture she has found outside the stables. Forsooth, she has never seen such a sight! Men are dressed in strange clothing, the like of which she has never seen before, and they seem to be holding large balls in the air. They do not wear the garb of jongleurs or of the traveling troubadours, so why they would be holding these balls makes no sense to her at all. Another puzzlement: some of the stable boys were mumbling about “spring training” when she was preparing to ride to the hunt. Why would anyone have to train for spring? she wonders. Spring just happens, she told herself. Indeed, why would anyone have to train for anything, save for jousting and combat? Then she sighs, thinking of Lord Hugh, who is scheduled to joust, soon. How she would love to wear his colors. Would they be blue and white, perchance?

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Wild Goose Chase – Chapter 1

Yawning Angels – what a title. Puts pictures in my head just reading it. Also thought provoking … do angels yawn?

Mark Batterson is the author of this book (also of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day). He nailed something right on the head when he wrote,

“We try to make God fit within the confines of our cerebral cortex. We try to reduce the will of God to the logical limits of our left brain. But the will of God is neither logical nor linear. It is downright confusing and complicated.”

This is so true. We could never grasp what God’s will is based on our knowledge or our logic. We know nothing in comparison to what God knows. It would be like expecting a new born to understand the things that a 90 year old does.

Mr. Batterson gives a warning:

“I think it is only fair that I give a Wild Goose warning at the outset of this book: nothing is more unnerving or disorienting than passionately pursuing God. And the sooner we come to terms with that spiritual reality, the more we will enjoy the journey. I cannot, in good conscience, promise safety or certainty. But i can promise that chasing the Wild Goose will be anything but boring!”

The Wild Goose is the Holy Spirit – it comes from the Celtic Christians name for the Holy Spirit – Geadh-Glas.

Wow! I can see this book is going to be one that speaks the truth and is in your face. Making me look at some of the dark areas that I may have.  Mr. Batterson writes,

“If you would describe your relationship with God as anything less than adventurous, then maybe you think you’re following the Spirit but have actually settled for something less – something I call inverted Christianity. Instead of following the Spirit, we invite the Spirit to follow us. Instead of serving God’s purposes, we want Him to serve our purposes. And while this may seem like a subtle distinction, it makes an ocean of difference. The result of this inverted relationship with God is not just a self-absorbed spirituality that leaves us feeling empty, it’s also the difference between spiritual boredom and spiritual adventure.”

Well said. It made me think of prayers. As I think about it, I hear more prayers that fit into the “we want Him to serve our purposes” category than into the “serving God’s purposes” category. Not just prayers I hear others pray, but I think I pray more prayers in the serve me category than the serve God category. Leading to the question of what would a serving God prayer sound like. Hmmm. There’s something there, in that dark corner that I might need to clean out. Which leads to his other point of letting the Spirit lead instead of letting Him follow me. I have to say that more times than not I feel pressured by others (more in my head than actual pressure) to pray in a certain way. For example, people tend to want prayers for healing instead of a prayer for God’s will to be done. Who really wants to be sick or hurting, or going through a life threatening illness? Quite honestly, I don’t – I want healing. I would imagine instead of a prayer that just asks for healing, a prayer like the one prayed by Jesus in the garden is more a serving God following the Spirit prayer.

41He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Luke 22:42-44 (NIV)

Mr. Batterson writes, “I wonder if churches do to people what zoos do to animals.”  He goes on to say that he loves the church and that it isn’t intentional. He says, “We have a primal longing to be uncaged. And the cage opens when we recognize that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to keep us safe. Jesus died to make us dangerous.”

Imagine that … A dangerous Christian. Funny how it does not even seem to fit together. But in the Bible times there were plenty of dangerous Christians. Throughout history there have been dangerous Christians. Maybe not dangerous in what we would tend to view dangerous but more in line with the real definition: involving or causing danger or risk. Some that pop right into my head are Peter, Paul/Saul, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King.  Hmmmm This lead me to another thought, about integrity and tolerance. All these mean had great integrity and very little tolerance. It seems that the dangerous Christian has been slain by tolerance. Pondering that one ….

Funny that I mentioned prayer above. For a minute I thought I had gotten side track and off topic. But now I know I did not. Mr. Batterson writes,

“Praying for protection is fine. I prayer for a hedge of protection around my three children all the time. You probably pray that kind of prayer too. But when was the last time you asked god to make you dangerous? I would like to think that when I pronounce the benediction at the end of our church services, I am sending dangerous people out into their natural habitat to wreak havoc on the enemy.”

Now that’s a picture! I’ll think of that this coming Sunday when we all heard out the doors. lol

So here is the title coming into play. Mr. Batterson wonders if the angels get bored because we are living boring lives instead of living dangerously. He wonders if angels yawn.

Here is another hard hitter. Mr. Batterson writes,

“The Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard believed that boredom is the root of all evil. I second that notion. Boredom isn’t just boring; boredom is wrong. You cannot simultaneously live by faith and be bored. Faith and boredom are antithetical.”

I have to agree very much with that. He also writes,

“But too many among us end up settling for spiritual mediocrity instead of striving for spiritual maturity.” “In the pages that follow I will identify six cages that keep us from roaming free with the Wild Goose and living the spiritual adventure God destined us to …”

The chapter ends with some questions:

  • What’s your reaction to the ancient Celtic description of God as the “Wild Goose” – untamed, unpredictable, flying free?
    • Perfect! It’s a perfect description.
  • How have you been living “inverted Christianity,” trying to get God to serve your purposes instead of you serving His purposes?”
    • I listed one way above. I also think that I prefer comfort and security over what a Wild Goose would want. So I tend to fight anything that goes against those preferences.
  • Right now, where are you on the spectrum? Between Playing it Safe and Living Dangerously for God?
    • Somewhere closer to the middle but on the side of Playing it Safe.
  • How does the call to spiritual adventure strike you? What is it inside you that resonates with that call?
    • I would love to jump right up and do it … but (there in lies the dark area that needs cleared out). There is something inside me that does feel caged and I want to be free, the only thing that stops me, is … me.
  • Of the six cages described at the end of the chapter, which do you think might apply to you the most and why?
    • The cage of responsibility.  A little bit of the cage of assumption and the cage of fear. All of those cages are there because of the ‘they’ peer pressure I place upon myself. If I don’t do this, they will be upset … If I say it this way, they will be upset … They won’t think I’m qualified …. They are counting on me … If I don’t do it, they won’t either and it won’t get done … They need me …. They want this … They expect this … They  … Hmmmm ….

You can read the first chapter at Mark Batterson’s website http://chasethegoose.com/

Feel free to post comments, especially answering some of the questions that he asks.

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I really appreciate the fact that V is enthusiastic to do things by herself. “I’ll do it” is probably the phrase I hear the most throughout the day.

She wants to do everything herself from the morning she gets up to get dressed. She can do her own socks, her own pants, her own shoes. I have to help with the shirts but she’s getting better with that.

She even wants to go to the bathroom by herself, telling me to, “Stay there” wherever I happen to be in the house.

In the kitchen, she wants to mix whatever I’m making in a bowl, she wants to add the ingredients in one at a time, she wants to sprinkle in the cinnamon or spices. She also wants to kneed my dough and roll it out. There’s no way she’ll stand by and just watch if she can help it.

I love it that she wants to do so much, and I know she’s going to be a better helper the older she gets, but still, there are times when I’m on a tight time schedule and need to do things quickly. What do I give her to do? Another of her favorite past times: cleaning! If I give her an old tooth brush, a little bit of liquid soap on the counter and a wet cloth, she’ll get to work scrubbing the grout and tiles that is our counter. She enjoys that, and well, it helps me keep her busy and productive.


text:
Black Magic, continued

Geologic time is another kind of magic. Who can conceive of those extraordinary spans of time? It takes a little over three years to equal 100 million seconds in our everyday existence. Three years worth of seconds is hard to grasp. Now think of those seconds as years. Can you imagine 100 million years? Maybe not, but that’s what the geologists ask of us. When they talk about the Rocky Mountains they tell us that they started growing 70 or 80 million years ago, an event they call the Laramide orogeny. This was after a time when present-day Wyoming was at the bottom of a gigantic inland sea. This mountain-building time lasted perhaps 25 million years. Again, those numbers! The Rockies formed then were high mountains and plateaus interspersed with broad, low-lying basins. Erosion stripped much of it away, and glaciation—very recent—carved the landscape we see today. The marine deposits of the ancient seaway created much of the oil and natural gas that lie under Wyoming. Once the mountains grew, the sea retreated and the basins became inland lakes fed by rivers. The climate was sub-tropical, and many of the basins were vast swamps surrounded by forests of ferns and deciduous trees. Over time these swamps were successively inundated and then buried by sediments. Enormous peat bogs formed, some the size of small states. Bury a peat bog deep enough and long enough and you get coal. Wyoming was the beneficiary of a remarkable sequence of geologic events that created its modern mineral wealth.

wyo geol
From the USGS:

Coal, like oil, is amazing stuff. It fired the Industrial Revolution. Once it fueled all of our trains until diesel engines took over. These days it is mostly used to make electricity. According to the Energy Information Administration coal is the source of 39% of our electrical needs. But coal comes at a cost, like all fossil fuels. Coal has to be burned to make heat, the heat needed to make steam and turn a turbine. When you burn something you create waste. Coal makes a solid waste called CCR or Coal Combustion Residue. Some of it is fine material, or ash. There’s also boiler slag and the sulfur-laden materials collected from flue gas scrubbers. It’s a lot of stuff, over 100 million tons per year. Some of it can be used by the cement industry or gathered with gypsum to make things like wallboard. The rest has to be disposed of like all solid waste in landfills. Coal burning creates not only greenhouse gases but persistent air pollutants like nitrogen oxides. Not all the sulfur by-products can be scrubbed from the waste gases and those enter the atmosphere as well.

So what are we to do with this abundant and accessible resource? Obviously we are going to burn it but just as obviously we have to find ways to do it better. To those in the industry new technologies and methods can create “clean coal” which has a nice politically acceptable sound-bite ring to it. Environmentalists say such a phrase is oxymoronic, that coal cannot ever be “clean.” It’s a lot like gasoline. We know that our cars pollute but we keep driving because the costs are dispersed. That is, the impacts on the environment and on our health are spread out over the entire nation and sprinkled amongst us here and there. And we’ve seen the success of the Clean Air Act in places like Los Angeles where the air is cleaner because of the regulations and better automobile engines. It’s not like your neighbor collapses in an asthma attack when you start your car. If he did we might notice the effects of burning fossil fuels.

All extraction industries alter the landscape. That’s another cost. Mostly these things happen far from population centers so we don’t notice. And we live in an advanced country with some government oversight and opportunities for citizens to redress grievances or at least express their concerns. You can imagine the impact of fuel and mineral extraction in places where the ruling classes are insulated from the people and from the consequences of their rapaciousness.

Capitalism depends on growth. If your business isn’t growing you are failing. If we aren’t producing and consuming new products our economy tanks. If we don’t get the returns on our investments we can’t make new investments and the economy tanks some more. All of our politicians talk about growth. It’s a sacred tenet of the American way of life. We must continue to get bigger and better. We know there are limits to growth but we don’t want to hear about them. We just want to keep going. Some day, perhaps, we won’t be able to grow any more and we’ll have to figure out a new way to live. For now though we’ll keep the tanks full and keep cruising. Maybe we’ll see something on the journey that will open us up to new possibilities.

4 thoughts on “Black Magic, continued

  1. Coal is also used to produce coke, which is used for steel making, aluminum making, forging and other processes. Burning coal produces sulfur dioxide, mostly eastern coal. Western coals, higher in flyash, tend to be much lower in sulfur content. That is why acid rain is, primarily, a problem in the eastern US. It has been largely abated by the use of wet scrubbers. Oxides of nitrogen are by products of combustion – any combustion, including oil, gasoline and natural gas. They are formed from the heat of combustion reacting the nitrogen in the ambient air. Carbon monoxide is another contaminant, formed from combustion without sufficient oxygen. Unfortunately, oxides of nitrogen are formed from an excess of oxygen. Combustion of coal also releases a large amount of flyash, or particulate matter. Also unburned hydrocarbons. Finally, mercury and other toxic air contaminants, which of course vary with the specific coal that is burned. These, and the requirements to abate the emissions of these compounds, are among the reasons that electric power production has tended towards natural gas as older coal-fired units have aged.

    The combustion of coal also releases carbon dioxide, the biggest contributor to global warming. The EPA has promulgated the Clean Power Plan that is aimed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal power plants and other power generation. This is deemed the “War on Coal” by the republicans, the reason there is such strong anti-Obama sentiment in coal mining areas. It may, in fact, prevent democrats from winning states where there is a strong coal-mining industry (and maybe they wouldn’t anyway). This is a good article in the SF Chron’s Sunday Magazine by Abe Streep:

    One way to look at it is to coal is to consider it a resource that, if not exploited now, will be available to be exploited later, maybe when other parts of the world do not have energy resources to exploit. Although reading the article makes it easy to understand how uneven the distribution of costs in choosing that kind of a route are. Or, indeed, how uneven the costs are to regulate carbon emissions enough to make a significant difference in global warming. I am, of course, strongly in favor of limiting emissions of air pollutants to ensure public health, including carbon emissions. And, in fact the EPA regulations do not shut down coal power. The owners of coal power plants, however, may make an economic decision to shut their doors and invest in new technology. What then do we owe these people?

  2. I’ve been thinking about writing something on iron and steel. from mining to production, and as you say you can’t make steel without coke.

    It’s obvious we need more solar and whatnot*. The greenhouse gases, the pollution, these are significant. It’s just no one drops dead of them in front of you so the urgency isn’t there. And the coal abundance cannot be ignored. It’s just sitting there, begging to be burned. There should be some sort of economic incentive to switch to something cleaner, like gas. Talk about resources! There’s a hell of a lot of that, too. I can imagine lots of futures with improved, more sustainable energy systems. But I live in this one, right now.

    *Nuclear-powered desalinators! You could just use old submarines retired from the Navy. San Diego would be a great place to try it out. 🙂

  3. There are incentives. Air pollution control regulations have an affect on the market, even those most sensitive to existing economic investments. Burning coal requires a much greater investment than gas in pollution controls, although, as I noted above, both produce NOx. Consider that much of the eastern part of the country, not to mention Britain and Europe, had home-heating coal furnaces. And that had a profound health impact. They don’t have those anymore.

    And coal is no more begging to be burned that information wants to be free. It is a simple economic decision by whomever wants to provide power to potential customers. Build a power plant on top of a coal mine and suffer the transmission losses to your customers (see: Four Corners Generating Station)? Ship that coal via rail to your power plant? Put stationary gas turbines in cities close to customers and NIMBYs? It’s an economic decision based on, in part, the projected costs of fuel. Coal is not very expensive, but neither is natural gas. See this:

    The circled lights are flares from fracking in North Dakota, from space. That is (mostly) natural gas being burned in flares without any use of the heat energy. That is because, at the current price, it is not worth building a pipeline to transport it somewhere else.

    A wise friend of mine, way back in 2000, was of the opinion that Al Gore (remember him?) should have campaigned on the premise that America should set a goal of adopting clean and independent energy. Not a mandate, a goal, just like they had a goal of putting a man on the moon in the 1960’s. I think we should have a goal to move all electric power production to sustainable sources, and require all transit to move towards hybrid power. We can discuss and argue about how to get there, but I believe that the perils of climate change warrant such large scale thinking, and that simply “leaving oil in the ground” as a euphemism for scaling back our comfort and mobility is not going to be politically viable, even leaving aside the protestations of climate change deniers and those who profit from delays.

  4. It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about the Bakken and the gas flaring and the whole explosion of “new” American oil and how that really changed the politics. I mean I remember having these SAME CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ENERGY when I was a student at Cal in ’80 and ’81 and here we are doing it again. I was convinced then that in 30-40 years coal would have been close to being phased out, nukes more prevalent, and solar panels spreading like mold on cheese. Alas, it didn’t happen that way so I imagine what happens “next” will be equally unexpected.

    My dad use to tell us about shoveling coal into the furnace “back in the day” on cold Boston mornings, of which there were many. It’s nuts that we can’t get natural gas piped everywhere (there’s none here, for example). A far superior fuel source, to be sure.

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Walking Advertisements

I am always on the lookout for unique, out-of-the-box marketing ideas. The other day, I came across one that I thought I would share with you.

Smartphone and tablet usage continues to rise. Here are a couple statistics:

  • About 20% of U.S. adults own a tablet.
  • 35% of U.S. adults own a smartphone.

With the rise of smartphone and tablet usage, there is an accompanying rise in accessories for these devices. One cool accessory is the Gelaskin. If you are unfamiliar with this ornament, a Gelaskin is a removable art skin or case designed to personalize and protect portable devices.

These cool covers for smartphones, tablets, laptop computers, and e-readers dress up any electronic device. Not only do they dress up electronic instruments, they offer another way for you to promote your book or brand.

Over at the Gelaskin website, there are hundreds of designs available for order. Gelaskin also lets you design your own skin.

Head on over to this website and upload the image of your book cover or brand. Order yourself your own uniquely designed Gelaskin that promotes your book and put it on your electronic device.Then anytime you use your smartphone or tablet in public, you become a walking advertisement for your book!

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