"Stroke of Insight"

http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php

Jill Bolte Taylor is a neurologist who had a brain tumor several years back. During her time on TED she recounted that experience. To begin she explained a little bit about the brain:

Right Hemisphere: learn though movement, images, experience current/present moment, feel as one with surroundings

Left Hemisphere: past and future, linear thoughts, organizes details, thinks in language, "I am," become an individual, brain chatter occurs in this half

When Taylor had her stroke, she lost awareness of the left hemisphere of her brain. She felt at one with the universe; she was no longer an individual. In a way she found Nirvana. Taylor came to the realization during her recovery that everyone has access to that experience. People can purposefully engage in an experience with only their right or left hemisphere at a time. Knowing that, the information follows that people have the "power to choose where [people] want to be in the universe."

http://blog.ted.com/2008/04/amy_tan_creativ.php = Amy Tan's clip

"Where Does Creativity Hide?"

Amy Tan spoke on Ted Talk about the origins of creativity. She said that we can only sense the existence of something if we have experienced its absence. Her lecture went on to discuss moral ambiguity, calling it something of a necessary annoyance. Considering divine intervention is a way of allowing our minds to expand and grow. When we are provided with hints and clues, they are suddenly extremely obvious and you wonder why you had not thought of that before. Tan said, "when you are aware, more serendipitous events occur." We find creativity through associations. Knowing this, it must be acknowledged that we do not know truth, we know uncertainty; this allows us room to be creative. To feel truth is more useful than to know truth because our sources are other humans that are strangers to us. Test what you know because there often is more to something than mere "facts." Question everything, then create.

New, Old, Preserved

Something Old

Reaction to The 11th Hour

The 11th Hour

Directed by Nadie Conners and Leila Conners Petersen, The 11^th Hour addressed the environmental issues that currently plague Earth. Towards the end of the documentary the blame and the doom was put aside and the problems were addressed with hope and inspiration in mind. Demand in the field of design is changing; sustainability is a new challenge that designers are forced to face. In the film one of the speakers said, “Re-design design itself.” As new resources are integrated into production in place of the old, and new limitations are put in place, the products that are designed will have to be different. Further, the priorities of production are changing; what was important in the past may have no place in the present or future. That is to say, as oil is phased out of use, a new form of transportation may have to become the norm and automobiles might have to leave the market. Perhaps that is a stretch, but the idea is that design is going to cause change and be changed. As the documentary explained, it is important that designers look to nature for inspiration, learn how to work with the environment rather than without or against it. One reality that the world must face is, just because it can be produced, does not mean that it should be.