Where you sit is where you stand?

Where you sit is where you stand?

The impunity among political elite in Sri Lanka is understandable. 

Why do you need to turn off your intellect?

Everything has its limits. Sometimes intelligence can be a burden, forcing one to analyse things to the point of paralysis. We need not have to assume that we must mull every major decision for hours on end. It is sometimes better to turn our attention to other matters and concentrate on things that make us feel successful – like a favourite hobby.

Of course, our brain needs to feel that progress is being made somewhere. But psychologists argue that if it feels right, it almost surely is right. Why?

The Mind is a powerful thing and in a second it can elevate or crush our mood because of the beliefs lurking behind our feeling. It is easy to get emotionally attached to things. We associate ourselves with Sports Teams,TV characters, a favourite dress or shirt, a

really delicious food or meal. Suddenly, we find ourselves emotionally invested.

Thought Catalogue

While there is “no button to push” to deactivate your thoughts, of course you can” create the right association to help you turn off your anxiety, to rest and/or sleep.

You can do the following exercises:

1.    Busy the brain with mental exercises. This helps your brain to focus away from your worries. It can be as simple, or not so simple, as meditation. It can be as simple as “thinking of fruits and vegetables with a certain Alphabetical letter, or else focus on a particular object, such as its colour, shape and what it is used for.

2.    Focus on the positive, forget the negative. You can think about what’s stealing your sleep or alternatively, boosting, in fact fuelling your anxiety.

3.    Creative visualisation is another way, as you visualise things in the positive side. This means seeing yourself nonjudgmentally. Picture yourself how would that look? Draw a picture in your mind and expand on it.

4.   Build on positive thoughts and actions, recognise and set boundaries to the triggers of negative thought process.

Do you need the brain to turn your attention to other matters?

You could get involved in a local political campaign, joining forces with neighbours to put your energy toward a humanitarian cause or finding a way you can make an even more powerful impact on your community through your work.

A burst of confidence and optimism related to the way you express your ideas and connect with friends and colleagues can do the trick. You may want to put yourself out there in a dynamic way.

                                                  

What are some other ways to make your brain to turn your attention?

An achievement motive is an impulse to master challenges and reach a higher standard of excellence. Both personality and situational factors influence achievement motivation among others.

Researchers often use the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) to measure people’s need for achievement. The TAT consists of a set of ambiguous pictures.

Researchers ask subjects to make up stories about these pictures. Some of the related stories consistently contain themes that relate to achievement. Researchers consider these subjects to have a high need for achievement.

Personality Factors

High achievement motivation tends to lead to personality features. These include persistence, ability to delay gratification and competitiveness.

High achievers tend to be very persistent and work hard to attain goals they set themselves.

High achievers tend to have a greater ability to delay gratification in the short term in order to reach long term goals.

High achievers tend to select careers that give them opportunities to compete with other people.

Besides, expectation can also result in self-fulfilling prophesies. They visualise their success.

Situational Factors

Some situational factors also affect achievement motivation. They include the expectation of success – a feeling of self-efficacy and self confidence in their own ability to meet challenges effectively.

Besides, incentives reward people for their competence and motivate people to achieve.

Further, control over some of their work.  Thus, people are motivated to achieve only when they have or see the opportunity to achieve.

The decisive factor is the Power of Goals

When goals are specific or put it in another way, when goals are difficult enough to be challenging, but easy enough to be reachable, then motivation really works, and achievement is claimed.

Other ways to shut off our intellect?

Switch off our intellect is one thing but switching it back on again is yet another. The fear in our minds is what happens if we are unable to turn it on?

As much as we would like to think we are always in control of our own actions, a lot of human behaviour, mood and habit can be traced to involuntary reactions in the brain.

As researchers learn more about what’s going on inside our heads, they are finding light switches that control some of our most basic functions, many of which can be turned off. Thirst, hunger, consciousness, pain, violence, depression and insomnia among others. Retrieval is switch on and suppression is turn off.  

Without delving in the frontiers of neuroscience, our brains have both these switches. They have evolved to help us adapt in different environments and situations.

We will be hearing more about this science in the years to come.

Victor Cherubim

  

The Experience of a Solar Eclipse

The Experience of a Solar Eclipse

A Total Solar Eclipse occurs when the new Moon comes between the Sun and the Earth and casts the darkness part of its shadow,the umbra,on the Earth. A full solar eclipse,known as "totality" is almost as dark as night. 

Only viewers located around the world, in the path of the Moon's full shadow,its umbra, can see clearly through a telescope,or with special protective glasses,a total solar eclipse.

The next annual total solar eclipse forming a ring of light around the darkened Moon which will be visible in Sri Lanka, will be in Jaffna and in the northern part of the island from Mannar to Vakarai at 09.34 a.m. on 26 December 2019.We are informed that it will last only for 4 minutes,moving at a speed of 1km per second,3600 km per hour.
                                                

This eclipse starts from Dhamman in Saudi Arabia around 0800 hrs and will travel over the Indian Ocean towards Southern India and then over the northern part of Sri Lanka.The whole Total Annual Solar Eclipse of the Moon is expected to last for 5 hours from it's start and finish about noon,12.30 pm to be exact, in the Pacific Ocean.                                              
What it is like to view the solar eclipse? 

The last total solar eclipse which was visible in Sri Lanka took place on 15 January 2010  in Jaffna for about 10 minutes.  

I was able to witness this event as I happened to visit Sri Lanka on holiday.I was "entertained" to this spectacle  in Jaffna at the esplanade and saw the entire disc of the Sun covered by the Moon,through the special telescope provided through the courtesy of Arthur C. Clarke Institute, Moratuwa. It was the then Minister of Technology,Prof. Tissa Vitharane, who enabled this  experience and who explained the entire significance to all who viewed it through the telescope.

It is not the first time I saw a total solar eclipse. I have vivid recollection of the first sight of a once in a lifetime opportunity, of a total eclipse. I was a young lad in Colombo,Ceylon.There was so much anticipation, excitement, if not hype then, that the whole nation literally came to a standstill for days on end in preparation.To some, it was as if it was the end of the world.I was woken up like many others before daybreak to watch the eclipse which was only to take place around mid-morn on 5 June 1955. 

It was a sight.There were crowds outside houses waiting for the event.The eere sound around, dogs barking,the birds feeling displaced,the atmosphere full of excitement. I will never forget it. We were all un-prepared for it.I was given special protective plastic glasses and told not view the Sun without them.I ran out of our home towards Bambalapitiya beach with a few of our neighbours to see if we could get a better glimpse of the Sun on the sea coast horizon.

Almost everyone was exposed to all types of anecdotes,rumours,gimmicks, as no one knew what to expect,or perhaps,what would really happen. For those who can remember, it was the origin of the famous vedamahatmaya's "wadhaka magical decoction," a recipe to change one's complexion,with this apocalyptic change.  The repercussion of this eclipse reverberated in the  composition of the famous Sinhala "bailla" melody - "bewa nay-the wadhaka sudiya". Pregnant mothers and young children were told to be indoors in case of health hazard, not only to eyesight, but also to the unborn. 

The Eclipse !                                      

The sunrise was at 06.10 hrs that day. It was very warm, hot, even humid. As it got nearer the eclipse,we could see the "Baily's beads of the Moon and the diamond ring effect just before totality. As this spectacle took place,only the Sun's corona was visible to the naked eye as the horizon suddenly got darker by the minute. The birds, the crows, the pigeons took flight as if they were frightened as the Sun went dark. The temperature became cooler and even relatively colder. Before long the scene was back to normal, as the sun shone out in its brightest hue.

Solar eclipses are a great attraction for tourists the world over.Some spend years in preparation for this event to visit destinations of solar eclipses. Many researchers are also attracted to study the effects of the sun's corona on life in general. 

We  are told that on average there is approximately one total Solar Eclipse every eighteen months.

The next visible occasion of a Total Solar Eclipse is on 20 April 2023,but we are told it won't be visible from Sri Lanka. 

Victor Cherubim

The Past and the Future we expect

What's gone on in the past decade and what can we expect in 2020's ?

As the decade of 2010 soon ends and the 2020's is before us, we can look forward to all the many new changes ahead with more than curiosity. 

According to the National Geographic: "In the past 10 years,scientists around the world made remarkable progress towards understanding the human body,our planet and the cosmos. What's more scientists in 2010, became more global and collaborative than ever before. So much has happened thanks to so many".

To whittle down the last decade into a couple of pages will not do it justice, so I ask my readers to read the last issue of the National Geographic. The decade has seen numerous advances in understanding our complex world as well as ourselves.

The World in 1960 when I was a young lad?

Over a half a century ago, when I was a young lad,much of the world was also in a broad state of change: we were moving out of the post World War II era and into both the Cold War and the Space Age,with broadening Civil Rights Movement and the Anti Nuclear protests around the world.

I was a student in the United States as a State Department scholar. I had the opportunity of bussing it Greyhound from Michigan to Little Rock,Arkansas and dared to interview Late Governor,Fabus. I stood outside his office one spring morning and waited to be seen by him in his palatial office. I was lucky that Senator Fulbright of "Arkansaw" had also come to the Governor's office. I was hurriedly taken into the Governor's office and introduced to the Governor, as a scholar from Ceylon. The Governor did not know where Ceylon was, but asked me what brought me to Arkansas? I said I wanted to interview him and got his permission to ask a pertinent question.

"Gov. What makes you  feel so much against color"? The Governor replied: " I have nothing against color,so long as it is not black."  I left Little Rock more bemused, as the Governor bid farewell with the comment,"for peace and justice to where you come from?"

In 1961, John F.Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space. Freedom riders took buses into the South to bravely challenge segregation and East Germany began construction of the Berlin Wall. By the end of 1961,some 2000 troops were deployed in Vietnam. That was what it was?

Where will we be 50 years from now?

Let me start with UK? In their own very different ways, during our present 2019 General Election,all the major parties have acknowledged that uncertainty and confidence is the key to the future. Not only uncertainty over Brexit, but uncertainty over Climate Change, uncertainty over Gender Equality and Pay, and other uncertainties, have held back, and perhaps, will hold back productivity, in the future? Major steps are needed to get not only the UK economy growing, but also the world economy growing. This needs massive future investment and successive governments have done little more than tinker around at the edges.

What are we seeing? 

Breathing London air is the same as smoking 150 cigarettes a year, experts warn. Living in the UK's most polluted cities and towns increases the risk of a early deaths. Air pollution must be declared "a public health emergency," the British Heart Foundation has declared."It said current EU limits- which the UK now meets- for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) are 25 micrograms per metre cubed as an annual average"

World Health Organisation (WHO) limits are tougher-at 10 micrograms per metre cubed as an annual average.Legislation was passed over a decade ago to protect people from passive smoke and similarly decisive action must be taken to protect people from air pollution in the future. What next,about the scarcity of drinking water?

If you can imagine what we will be obsessing over in the next 50 years, what would  be, in your opinion to top your list?

Experts state that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be transformative, Climate Change will dominate, the genetic revolution will be in full force.

When we take them together, these themes paint a illustrating and fascinating picture of our future world, from the very perspective of people living today and have laid the groundwork to shape their own future. 

There is no doubt that technology will play a big role in our lives in the future, but the big ethical or even mythical question is: "will it take away our humanity?" This is important for us now and into the future?

Over the past decade,researchers have made incremental steps towards connecting computers to the human brain. They have made test monkeys to control a computer with only its thoughts; paralysed men and women have been able to move artificial limbs,as well as computers,thanks to brain-computer interface. We are already witnessing how remote control devices are invasive and intrusive. A friend of mine said that "the powers to be" are now able to switch on and off  a  Electric bed heating warm blanket, by monitoring brain waves during sleep, by remote control. Genetic modifications are/or may be possible to shut off mutant genes?

Fresh ideas excite us 

The things we have learned,naturally excite us. Archbishop Tutu recently said: "the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything except what is worth knowing". We hear teenagers with acne get higher marks at school than those without? Songs are getting shorter because of "Spotify"? Want to know more?

The internet has made our minds more desperate to find out more. Of course, learning from the world wide web may be said to keep us safe and healthy? We are anxious to explore our surroundings and often question why something or what happens.

                                      

In villages and towns around the globe in the days gone by, we heard the gossip, now it is the internet - "the perpetual curiosity shop," the feeling of uncertainty, that compels us to find out like "meerkats about predators, what's going around us.

Will we be able to control our future in any way?

AI is accelerating the digital transformation in all walks of life, in every industry today, with examples spanning manufacturing,retail,finance,health care and many others today. At this rate every endeavour will be able to use AI to simplify human ingenuity in the years ahead?

But let us also for a moment think of societies that attempt to suppress information from the public. Oppressive regimes around the world are able "to militarise" ignorance.

At the same time, the big four, Google,Apple,Microsoft and Amazon (GAMA) are also growing exponentially around the world, that they "think" they have the "Power of God". In many ways these four seem to be bigger in purchasing power than countries and nations and are able to use "knowledge as power." Will nations and nationalities disappear in 50 years?

Governments and people are becoming weary of the power and the potential these bodies now have to cause or airbrush events and news, or  could acquire the power to de-humanise humans, so that people become pawns, under their spell and may not be able to control their future?

Victor Cherubim

FAST FORECASTS FOR 2070

• World population forecasted to reach 10,277,339,229 1
• World sales of electric vehicles reaches 39,566,667 1
• (Moore's Law) Calculations per second, per $1,000, equals 10^35 1
• Largest age cohort for the Brazilian population is 65-69 1
• Largest age cohort for the Mexican population is 65-69 1
• Largest age cohort for the Middle East population is 45-54 1
• Largest age cohort for the African population is 0-4 1
• Largest age cohort for the European population is 55-59 1
• Largest age cohort for the Indian population is 45-49 1
• Largest age cohort for the Chinese population is 55-59 1
• Largest age cohort for the United States population is 30-44 1