The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

KAZE NO DENWA (Phone of the Wind)

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“Hello. If you’re out there, please listen to me.” On a hill overlooking the ocean in Otsuchi Town in northeastern Japan is a phone booth known as the “Telephone of the Wind.” It is connected to nowhere, but people come to “call” family members lost during the tsunami of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Many visit the phone booth including a mother and 3 children who have lost their father. This documentary looks at the unique role that this phone is playing in helping the grieving process of many.

KIND OF CHILLING, huh. . . ?
QUESTION:
WHO WOULD YOU CALL
on the Wind Phone

Kaze no denwa (phone of the wind)

curling whispers from the depths of the earth
carried by the wind
through every crack and crevice
finally reaching my ear

i’ve missed your smile
your warm glow
gentle touches
please come back to me

i want to hear your voice again.

in a little town
on the coastline of Japan
stands a white phone booth 
in a small backyard

in the booth is a telephone
rotary, the clicking numbers
line going nowhere 

but the wind carries words
of the lost loved to us
so we can speak to them again

“grandpa, are you well?”
“i won a prize in school today!”
“is it cold over there?”

maybe i can’t hear your voice
for real again
but
if for one instant
i could say “i love you”
i’d be happy.

In Otsuchi, Japan, there is a telephone booth with a rotary phone with an unconnected phone line. It was built by Itaru Sasaki after his cousin died in 2010 as a way to talk to him and have closure. Many from Otsuchi use the phone to talk to loved ones lost in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Some come for one long talk to say things they could not, and some regularly visit to talk to the deceased about everyday things. It’s become a way to connect to the past and the one’s they’ve lost, since many Japanese do not usually tell people that they love them often to their face. It’s a way to lay regrets to rest. Sasaki said that he wanted the line to not connect to anything, so that his words would be carried on the wind to his cousin. And so, the wind phone remains. 

. . .R E M A I N S
to let us know that
L O V E
is the one thing
IN AND OUT OF THIS WORLD
that CONNECTS US
and with or without a phone
it’s the clearest connection
you’ll ever experience. . .
Now,
about THAT Call. . .
get to dialing

A (SELF) CARING CATALYST

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FAMILIAR. . . ?
Sometimes some of the worst care
is the lack we give
O U R S E L V E S. . .
Being A Caring Catalyst to Others
begins with being
A Caring Catalyst
to Ourselves
IT IS THIS SIMPLE:
We do the best we can with what we know at the time. . .
It is VERY unloving to expect more;
We often were not given the knowledge
or the tools while we were young. . .
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Life is about learning.
Sometimes that learning can be painful.
Our challenge is that once we have learned the lesson
that we do not continue to repeat it. . .
For many of us, however,
we may have to go around the track a few times
before we are able to count it as a
m i l e. . .
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
There is no finish line
(PERIOD)
There is no competition
(PERIOD)
Self forgiveness is necessary on a daily basis
and SELF-LOVE even more needed
(MORE OFTEN)
in order to bring Compassion Care. . .
BEING A CARING CATALYST
means acknowledging
YOU DID THE BEST YOU COULD
. . .Now let it go

Can’t Stop FEELING

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Sometimes I feel like a severe
S H A D O W
of myself;
I see myself clearly
I’m just not so sure if I
K N O W
what I’m seeing. . .
Have you felt like that
over this past year. . . ?

Does that statement help;
make things clearer
or does it just throw more mud in your eyes
and make them
more cloudy. . .
on the verge of literally
SHORT-CIRCUITING

MARKHAM HEID, a writer freelance writer wrote a piece six years ago
well before a year of battling a Pandemic
that talks about that
HAYWIRE FEELING
He tells us, when it comes to quelling stress, there are dozens of research-backed remedies. But the most effective treatment is always going to be the one you can stick with, says Dr. Lorenzo Cohen, director of the integrative medicine program at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“Managing stress is not like taking antibiotics, where you take all the medication and then you’re done and cured,” Cohen says. “It’s a lifelong process, so you have to find something you can engage in regularly and indefinitely.” Even if every stress expert agreed that daily meditation is the optimal form of treatment—and that kind of consensus isn’t farfetched—it wouldn’t do you much good unless you could muster the time and self-discipline to practice on a daily basis. For a lot of people, that’s never going to happen.

Fortunately, in terms of its therapeutic power, meditation may not require a quiet room—just a quiet mind. . .which means you have to ask the question,
DO I WANT SUCH A QUIET MIND?

When you’re stressed, your brain races from thought to thought, and these thoughts tend to be anxious and infused with dread, Cohen explains. Maybe you’re freaking out about a work deadline or a family member’s declining health. The most effective stress remedies disperse those rapid, worry-filled thoughts by focusing your mind on the present, not on some calamitous future, Cohen says.

Meditation is a popular stress remedy because it’s all about this kind of mind-anchoring. But if you’re able to achieve that calm, quiet state of mind while running or weeding your garden, then either will be beneficial. One 2015 study from Dutch researchers compared physical activity to mindfulness meditation, and found them to be equally effective at managing stress. Even washing dishes can alleviate anxiety—provided your attention is focused on the task at hand.

On the other hand, research shows your gym session or yoga practice won’t chill you out if your brain is preoccupied with work or family problems while you’re doing them. “They’re still healthy practices, they’re just not beneficial in terms of stress,” Cohen says.

So what’s your best course of action? First, check out mindfulness meditation. There’s compelling evidence to suggest it really is the antidote to our frenetic, future-focused way of life, Cohen says. Even if you don’t stick with it, the stuff you’ll learn can inform everything else you do—from preparing presentations at work to planting flowers in your garden.

At the same time, regular exercise bolsters your psychological health in myriad ways. “The ideal stress treatment would be to have both exercise and mindfulness on board in your life, not one or the other,” Cohen says.

A third weapon in your anti-stress arsenal is nature. Spending time on wooded trails or in other natural outdoor environments—any place away from man-built stuff like streets or buildings—appears to trigger an immediate drop in stress, says Tytti Pasanen of the University of Tampere in Finland. More research shows just looking at photos of nature is enough to mellow you out.

As you might expect, combining exercise with natural outdoor environments seems to be especially great at combating stress, Pasanen’s research shows. “I would advise regular physical activity in nature, on a weekly basis if possible,” she says.

Mindfulness practices. Exercise. Nature. Combine all three, and your stress won’t stand a chance.

SOMETIMES
I feel like a severe
s h a d o w
of myself
like my thoughts are not mine at all. . .
The Dalai Lama recently said,
“Scientists declare that it’s human nature to be compassionate. All living beings who experience feelings of pleasure and pain ultimately survive as a result of love and compassion. If we human beings help each other, serve each other, with compassion, we’ll be happy”
. . .I’m not sure if that’ll cause you to meditate
or even think much;
here’s hoping you can
F E E L
I T

A HALLELUJAH MEMORIAL DAY

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https://youtu.be/sv9To_Ohz9I

Happy Memorial Day.

How can you assure it?

One simple word:

R E-M E M B E R I N G

–literally, by putting together the Pieces of your Life that have meaning and significance to you the Ones who make those Memories worth
RE-Membering–Putting back together.     .     .

The World will debate and argue, but the greatest forces in and out of this World
are our Memories and the Love that makes those memories
significant,
meaningful
and always worth
observing and celebrating.        .        .

It’s easy to  
J U S T 
Limit these Memories to our Veterans
or for those who have recently died,
but any day we truly
RE-Member,

that we actually put together those snipets of

Once  Upon  a Times

and ‘Remember When’s’

that put all those glorious colors to the
Tapestry of our Lives,

becomes a true Memorial Day.

Like any Holiday,
it really is celebrated most,
not so much on it’s Noted,
Dated Day,
but when fully Recognized,
Realized,
Revitalized
again and again and again with,
yes, that one single,
beautiful thing called

M   e   m   o   r   y

So, on this Memorial Day,
R      E   –   M     E     M     B     E     R  :
It’s not enough for us to just merely
Remember,
but for us to just simply Re-Member one thought,
one memory
past Eternity.
T r u l y:

Give   thanks   not   so   much   for   those   who   have   died;                                                                      

but    for   those   who   still   fully   live   within   us   all.      .      . 

F i v e    W o r d s:

H   a   p   p   y       M   e   m   o   r   i   a   l       D   a   y.       .       .

T        H        A        N        K          
Y        O        U

IS HAPPINESS A PLACE?

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Wouldn’t we all do it. . .
Book a Trip
Go to a Destination
Make a Pilgrimage
Escape on a Excursion
if we knew that the final landing spot was the
U N I V E R S E
of
HAPPINESS

W E L L . . . Which Values Make You Happy? It Might Depend on Where You Live

Different cultures value different things—and that matters for happiness. . .

 KIRA M. NEWMAN a journalist with The Greater Good Magazine did a little exploring on this HAPPINESS PLACE issue with some interesting findings. . .

When a new psychology study comes out, its findings—gratitude makes people happy! meditating can boost your mood!—are often taken as truth about humanity as a whole. But in recent years, researchers have pointed out that much of psychology research involves participants who are WEIRD: Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries. 

Why is that a problem? Because it could be the case that the insights we’re learning about how to live happy, meaningful lives privilege one group’s experiences—and they may not be as useful to people from other cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.

A new study surveyed people in five regions around the world to see if the factors that influenced their happiness might be different. The discrepancies that the researchers found lend support to concerns that our current knowledge about well-being isn’t as universal as we might think. 

“The implicit claim in previous research that ‘one size fits all’ is probably incorrect,” write Bruce Headey and his colleagues at the DIW Berlin research institute. 

Values and Happiness

The study was based on the World Values Survey, which surveyed hundreds of thousands of people around the world from 1999 to 2014. The researchers decided to focus on five regions: 

  • Western countries, including the United States, Britain, Australia, Spain, and others;
  • Latin America;
  • Asian-Confucian countries: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan;
  • Ex-communist countries: Russia and Eastern Europe; and
  • Communist countries: China and Vietnam.

People in each region reported on their values and priorities in life—the things that matter most to them. These included:

  • Traditional family values: The importance of family, as well as helping people who live nearby and caring for their needs.
  • Friendship and leisure values: The importance of friendship and leisure.
  • Materialistic values: Believing it’s important to be rich, successful, and recognized for your achievements. 
  • Political values: The importance of politics. 
  • Prosocial values: Believing it’s important to do something for the good of society and look after the environment. 
  • Religious values: The importance of religion and God. 

The researchers then compared how people rated the importance of these values to how satisfied they felt about their lives. 

The results suggest that some values may be more universally important to well-being than others. In all five regions, people who highly valued family, friendship/leisure, and prosociality tended to be more satisfied with life. But the results for materialism, politics, and religion were more complicated. 

People with stronger political values were more satisfied with life in communist countries, where “good citizens are supposed to be politically active” within the limits laid out by the state, explains Headey. This was also true to a lesser extent in the West. Meanwhile, in ex-communist Russia and Eastern Europe, people who cared more deeply about politics were less happy. This may be due to the “disillusionment with politics” in those countries, after the fall of communism.

People who placed more importance on religion tended to be happier in the West, Latin America, and the Asian-Confucian countries. But they were less satisfied with life if they were living in the communist and ex-communist regions. As the researchers speculate, this may be because communist governments tend to be hostile to religion, and people in ex-communist countries may still be suffering the long-term effects of that. 

Materialism, a value that’s long been assumed to make us unhappy, actually went hand in hand with life satisfaction in Eastern Europe. It was only in the wealthier Western and Asian-Confucian countries where materialists tended to be less satisfied. In Latin America and the Communist countries, being materialistic didn’t seem to matter to life satisfaction. 

Happiness and Conformity

Why might some values be beneficial everywhere, whereas others only seem helpful in certain cultures? 

The researchers suggest that people may be happier when their personal values align with the societal and governmental norms in their country. In other words, some values may benefit us not in and of themselves, but because they give us a sense of belonging and make it easier for us to navigate the world. 

These findings also help make sense of a paradox in happiness research—the fact that some regions (like Latin America) are much happier than their gross domestic product (GDP) would predict, while others (like Eastern Europe) are much less happy. 

Examining the values people hold could help explain these discrepancies. In Eastern Europe, for example, the researchers found that many people rated all the different values as relatively unimportant, a recipe for unhappiness. In Latin America, people’s strong family and religious ties seemed to bring them a great deal of satisfaction. 

Though they aimed to be more inclusive, the researchers didn’t have access to surveys from sub-Saharan Africa or Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia—which means this picture of well-being is still incomplete. But it does point to a provocative idea: that the path to happiness isn’t the same everywhere, and what works for you may depend on the society and culture in which you live.

Amazing, stuff, huh. . .
To think that HAPPINESS IN A PLACE
instead of a PERSON
but then again, maybe that’s when it get’s really
W E I R D
(Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries)
and it gets WEIRDER still
when Your WEIRD
gets my WEIRD
. . .now that’s some kind of
P L A C E
(to be)

DON’T LOVE

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There really is a guarantee. . .
It’s a lockdown
full proof
100% sealed shut case:
You will never hurt
You will never shed a tear
You will never have a sense of loss
You will never have a moment of sadness
And to get this full proof guarantee
it’s not what you have to do
it’s what you don’t have to do
and it really is this simple:
DON’T LOVE
Don’t commit
Don’t become vulnerable enough to share your innermost self
Don’t share ever with any expectation of any reward or gift in return
Don’t be available accessible and accountable. . .

And the guarantee is yours
you will not hurt
you will not grieve
you will not experience a sense of loss
you’ll never have saltiest of tears
All of this
and probably a lot more
just because you
DON’T LOVE

Deal?

Wanna shake on it?

Get an ironclad triple your moneyback guarantee

Just
DON’T LOVE
And you too
ladies and gentlemen
can have an
UNBREAKABLE HEART

It may not beat the same
but it won’t be broken,
either.  . .

The Seeds We DON’T SOW

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Sometimes the most important
S E E D S
there are
ARE THE ONES WE DON’T SOW. . .
It’s one of my favorite parables by
Megan McKenna
and by
SOWING
ITS
SEED
hopefully it’ll take root in you, too. . .

“There was a woman who wanted peace in the world and peace in her heart and all sorts of good things, but she was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart. She would read the newspapers and get depressed. One day she decided to go shopping, and she went into a mall and picked a store at random. She walked in and was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She knew it was Jesus because he looked just like the pictures she’d seen on holy cards and devotional pictures. She looked again and again at him, and finally she got up enough nerve and asked, ‘Excuse me, are you Jesus?’ ‘I am.’ ‘Do you work here?’ ‘No,’ Jesus said, ‘I own the store.’ ‘Oh, what do you sell in here?’ ‘Oh, just about anything!’ ‘Anything?’ ‘Yeah, anything you want. What do you want?’ She said, ‘I don’t know.’ Well,’ Jesus said, ‘feel free, walk up and down the aisles, make a list, see what it is that you want, and then come back and we’ll see what we can do for you.’

“She did just that, walked up and down the aisles. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, clean air, careful use of resources. She wrote furiously. By the time she got back to the counter, she had a long list. Jesus took the list, skimmed through it, looked up and smiled, ‘No problem.’ And then he bent down behind the counter and picked out all sorts of things, stood up, and laid out the packets. She asked, ‘What are these?’ Jesus replied, ‘Seed packets. This is a catalog store.’ She said, ‘You mean I don’t get the finished product?’ ‘No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. You plant the seeds. You go home and nurture them and help them to grow and someone else reaps the benefits.’ ‘Oh,’ she said. And she left the store without buying anything.”

Maybe we all need a trip to the
SEED STORE
where DREAMS COME TRUE
with the biggest question not being
WHAT SEEDS ARE YOU SOWING
or
WHERE ARE YOU SOWING YOUR SEEDS
so much as
WHICH SEEDS ARE YOU REFUSING TO
SOW
WATER
FERTILIZE
NOURISH
but expect just the same to
R E A P
It’s kind of like
making applesauce
with bananas
or a pineapple
and expecting it to taste like
Brownies. . .

A Dirty Hand
is no proof of a
SEED
SEWN
and most certainly
of one
grown or harvested. . .
Q U E S T I O N
How’s your Garden
(g r o w i n g)

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
See you at the
SEED STORE
. . .I hear there’s a
S A L E
(if you’re interested)

For the HEALTH of IT

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Spending Time With Friends Is One of the Best Things You Can Do for Your Health
TRUE or FALSE

Jamie Ducharme from TIME MAGAZINE asked that question and took to finding out the TRUE and the FALSE of it all. . .

When someone sets out to improve their health, they usually take a familiar path: starting a healthy diet, adopting a new workout regimen, getting better sleep, drinking more water. Each of these behaviors is important, of course, but they all focus on physical health—and a growing body of research suggests that social health is just as, if not more, important to overall well-being.

One 2019 study published in the journal PLOS ONE, for example, found that the strength of a person’s social circle—as measured by inbound and outbound cell phone activity—was a better predictor of self-reported stress, happiness and well-being levels than fitness tracker data on physical activity, heart rate and sleep. That finding suggests that the “quantified self” portrayed by endless amounts of health data doesn’t tell the whole story, says study co-author Nitesh Chawla, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

“There’s also a qualified self, which is who I am, what are my activities, my social network, and all of these aspects that are not reflected in any of these measurements,” Chawla says. “My lifestyle, my enjoyment, my social network—all of those are strong determinants of my well-being.”

Chawla’s theory is supported by plenty of prior research. Studies have shown that social support—whether it comes from friends, family members or a spouse—is strongly associated with better mental and physical health. A robust social life, these studies suggest, can lower stress levels; improve mood; encourage positive health behaviors and discourage damaging ones; boost cardiovascular health; improve illness recovery rates; and aid virtually everything in between. Research has even shown that a social component can boost the effects of already-healthy behaviors such as exercise.

Social isolation, meanwhile, is linked to higher rates of chronic diseases and mental health conditions, and may even catalyze cellular-level changes that promote chronic inflammation and suppress immunity. The detrimental health effects of loneliness have been likened to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It’s a significant problem, especially since loneliness is emerging as a public health epidemic in the U.S. According to recent surveys, almost half of Americans, including large numbers of the country’s youngest and oldest adults, are lonely.

A 2019 study conducted by health insurer Cigna and published in the American Journal of Health Promotion set out to determine what’s driving those high rates of loneliness. Unsurprisingly, it found that social media, when used so much that it infringes on face-to-face quality time, was tied to greater loneliness, while having meaningful in-person interactions, reporting high levels of social support and being in a committed relationship were associated with less loneliness. Gender and income didn’t seem to have a strong effect, but loneliness tended to decrease with age, perhaps because of the wisdom and perspective afforded by years of life lived, says Dr. Stuart Lustig, one of the report’s authors and Cigna’s national medical executive for behavioral health.

Lustig says the report underscores the importance of carving out time for family and friends, especially since loneliness was inversely related to self-reported health and well-being. Reviving a dormant social life may be best and most easily done by finding partners for enjoyable activities like exercising, volunteering, or sharing a meal, he says.

“Real, face-to-face time with people [is important], and the activity part of it makes it fun and enjoyable and gives people an excuse to get together,” Lustig says.

Lustig emphasizes that social media should be used judiciously and strategically, and not as a replacement for in-person relationships. Instead, he says, we should use technology “to seek out meaningful connections and people that you are going to be able to keep in your social sphere. It’s easy enough to find groups such as Meetups, or to find places to go where you’ll find folks doing what you want to do.” That advice is particularly important for young people, he says, for whom heavy social media use is common.

Finally, Lustig stresses that even small social changes can have a large impact. Striking up post-meeting conversations with co-workers, or even engaging inmicro-interactions with strangers, can make your social life feel more rewarding.

“There’s an opportunity to grow those kinds of quick exchanges into conversations and into more meaningful friendships over time,” Lustig says. “People should take those opportunities wherever they possibly can, because all of us, innately, are wired from birth to connect”—and because doing so may pay dividends for your health.

A HAPPINESS DISPENSER

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The problem with
H A P P I N E S S
isn’t that we don’t have it to give
so much as that we just often
D O N ‘ T
. . .after nearly fifteen months of
social distancing
we almost shrug with an overdramatic sigh
WHAT’S THE USE. . .
WELL

If You Want to Be Happy,
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Dare Making Someone Else Happy

A new study shows that doing kind things for others is an important path to happiness. 

JILL SUTTIE, a journalist for Greater Good Magazine did a little more than pulling back the Happiness Curtain to show us what’s not so much hidden but in plain sight for us to SEE. BE. FREE in ourselves and others.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he assured Americans of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This idea seems to lead many Americans to chase after new gadgets and hedonistic pleasures. But what if that approach is wrong? What if happiness comes from aiming to make others happy, instead of doing nice things for yourself? 

That is exactly what a recent study found.

In the experiment, college students reported on their happiness and on their sense of autonomy, competence, and connection to others—all what researchers consider “basic psychological needs” for well-being. Then they were randomly tasked to do something to either make themselves happier, make another person happier, or socialize. (Assigning one group to socialize helped determine if seeking happiness for another had an effect above and beyond simply being in someone’s presence.)

Later that day, after doing their tasks, participants reported what they did, and then filled out their happiness and needs questionnaires again. Those who’d done something to make another person feel better were much happier themselves than participants in the other groups, and their greater happiness was tied to a stronger feeling of connection to that person.

This finding was not too surprising to lead researcher Milla Titova, who says that it fits in with prior research on happiness that found giving to others makes you happier than giving to yourself—and that pursuing happiness directly for yourself sometimes backfires.

“Making others happy is more meaningful for people than just socializing with them or doing something to improve our own happiness,” she says. “When we aim to make others happier, we feel connected to them—our relatedness needs are better met—which is important for us.”

In another part of the study, she and her colleague tried to rule out the possibility that making someone else happier makes you happier because of how emotions spread between people, which is known as the contagion effect. To do this, they repeated their experiment, but this time asked participants to identify the recipient of their kindness and to say how much happier that person appeared to be. Then, they contacted the recipient and measured their actual happiness levels.

The researchers found that a recipient’s happiness level did not seem to be related to the increased happiness of the person trying to make them happy, which suggests something beyond emotion contagion is going on. However, if the participant perceived that their efforts made a difference in another’s happiness, that made them happier.

“If we think another person is feeling pretty good, that’s enough for us to feel pretty good ourselves,” says Titova. “We’re just not always accurate about assessing other people’s feelings.” 

She and her colleague also looked at how this effect might play out between strangers. People parked on a city street were approached by researchers and given two quarters for filling out surveys about their well-being. In some cases, they were simply given the quarters to keep or were given the quarters to feed their own meter before filling out the surveys. In other cases, they were told to feed another person’s meter, with some being asked to leave a note on the dashboard of the stranger’s car explaining what they’d done.

Afterward, the researchers compared the four groups’ happiness and how much their needs felt fulfilled. Those who’d put money in someone else’s meter were significantly happier than those who’d put money in their own meter or just kept the quarters. Leaving a note increased a person’s happiness even more. 

Titova thinks this makes sense, given that making someone else happier makes us happier through increasing our relatedness to them. But it could also be that people like getting credit for a good deed, too—or that the note is actually another act of kindness, augmenting connection further.

Whatever the case, it appears that doing something kind for anyone is better for our happiness than getting something for ourselves.

“It doesn’t require you know the person you’re trying to make happy, nor does it require an actual physical interaction with that person,” she says. “It still works—even with a stranger.”

This is a preliminary study, mostly done with a limited population, and Titova cautions against applying the finding to other cultural contexts. This is wise, as studies have found not all happiness practices translate to other cultures.

Still, they do suggest that focusing on making others happy may be a key to happiness worth considering. 

“It’s counterintuitive for some people, but if you’re not having the best day, you should think about doing something nice for your significant other or your roommates instead of concentrating on yourself,” she says. “That may not be what comes to mind naturally, but it’s probably more effective.”

It’s a shame
isn’t it that
once again the
EMPHASIS
has to be on an
I F
but you being
A Caring Catalyst
HAPPINESS DISPENSER
just may depend on that
IF
u n l e s s. . .

TOUCHING ART

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https://youtu.be/D6WYes7Or-E
Please Touch the Art
 
This compelling video tells the story of an artist, Andrew Myers, who is so moved by a blind man’s joy at “feeling” three dimensional art that he is inspired to create three dimensional portraits to be experienced by people who are blind or visually impaired. Why is touching artwork so taboo? According to the producers of the film, “Prior to the mid-1800s, tactile interaction was commonplace for visitors experiencing collections of art, but as museums of art evolved, rules forbidding touch became the norm.” In this film, Myers surprises George Wurtzel, a blind artisan working in wood, with a portrait. Wurtzel delights in sharing his portrait with his visually impaired students at Enchanted Hills Camp as he teaches them by example how to work as a blind artisan. Wurtzel’s philosophy that “your life is what you decide it will be” permeates the film.

It is such a simple simple question with such a profound and almost on answerable reply:  
WHAT MAKES YOUR LIFE MEANINGFUL?

Is your life ultimately what you decide you want to make it to be or what OTHERS decide they’d like to make you be?

We are all severely handicapped 

We are blind
We are deaf
We are mute
And because of THAT
Know a darkness;
Know a stillness;
Know an utterlessness
that can’t be described only experienced
And sadly, often is
And even more sadly,
Often
NEVER HAS TO BE

And The cure is when we remedy that
first of all and ourselves
we also heal it for others. . .

Test THAT

GO AHEAD

TOUCH
TASTE
SEE
HEAR
SMELL
S E N S E
beyond what
Fingers
Eyes
Noses
Mouths
Ears
can ever achieve and the
Go full on artist
Be artisan enough
To share THAT with OTHERS
So that you become the
a r t
And not just simply the artist….

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man