Benjamin published at off the map!
So I have been hanging out lately over at the blogs of Off the Map, a non profit founded in 2000 to try to help Christians do evangelism. This week, I got "published" twice on their blogs. Firstly was on churchrater.com, where off the map encourages churches to download their church review form and pay a non attender $25 to come and fill out the review about their church--kind of like a secret shopper. I did a review of the church where I used to attend, Grace Seattle (but I didn't get paid for it =)
Secondly, an "interview" with me got published on Conversation at the Edge, another Off the Map blog which is a dialog for christians, atheists, and people in between.
9 comments:
Interview was a good read, thanks.
Don't know where to write it, but i think the dalai lama is happy. if he's not he deserves an oscar. so there is one happy person in our otherwise cursed world.
Wonderful interview, Benjamin. Great to understand where your thinking is. Glad you are enjoying Univ so much.
Gretta, Seren
Thankyou for your kind words. Yay--one happy person!
Dr. Martin Seligman has written extensively on happiness--he says you can increase your happiness level, and had demonstrated this scientifically. I think you can read some of his stuff at reflexive happiness.com. I had the intention of working on some of this stuff to become happier, but I never actually implement any of it.
Yes, i'm actually signed up, and have been a part of the experiment university of penn. does online (positive psychology centre). i think it really did help! i also do seligman's happy little list of three things that went during the day and /why/, in the evening. so i have hundreds of cog. beh. points, not sure if that is the same as heavenly jewels in my crown.
also dalai lama says if we practise sympathetic joy (being happy because someone else is) we'll increase our chances of happiness 6 billion to one.
really? but can you do that without opening yourself to sympathetic fear/anger/sorrow, etc.? I assume the 6 billion refers to population earth, which is actually 6.66 Billion now (now there's an interesting number!). But doesn't this also rest on the assumption that every individual in population earth is bound to be happy at least sometimes? that's kind of a largish assumption.
oh, by the way, the link is reflectivehappiness.com
I'm stoked that it helped you! I think maybe my problem is that I'm very very comfortable, at some level, being unhappy/negative/etc. I've just done it for so long that it's like a nice warm comfortable habit. Kind of like the kid with the poopy nappy who doesn't want it changed, I guess. oh dear.
By the way, I wanted to tell you I really like your new name. Typing it gives one a sense of calm: Seren Rose.
the assumption is that other people are at least as likely as me to be happy. mathematically, you're increasing your chances then. and, yes, there is an increase of sympathetic sorrow. lucky buddhists think everyone will be released from suffering. at some stage in the distant future. and thankyou, i like my name too. i don't think you are half so glum as you pretend to be.
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