The invention of social media has transformed the way football clubs connect with their fanbases. From Facebook to Twitter, to Periscope, Snapchat and Instagram, there is a host of digital platforms for clubs to pump out content. It has become a conversation, a social interaction to make people feel like they are part of the club.

But what is it like to be on the end of all of those love this admin or admin needs a payrise replies, or to see gifs and memes dominate the replies to tweets? The Athletic spoke to several social media managers to get their views on how football clubs can use these platforms to improve not only the way they interact with supporters, but for the benefit of society as a whole.

Twitter is the dominant platform for interaction, but it has evolved since it was first used by football clubs. Gone are the days of bland, corporate tweets. They have been replaced by fierce competition over who can come up with the quirkiest, most...

More here:
From 'orchestrating banter' to being repeatedly told to 'announce Babacar': the exhausting world of running a... - The Athletic

Savange x Fenty show performance preview Amazon Prime Video Radical inclusiveness

Diversity in all its forms will break into mainstream culture by 2020. Greene gives us an example: Universal Standard that sells clothing from American size 4 to 40 (EU 34 to 70). Henning of Lauren Chan, on the other hand, makes formal clothing for work situations that flatters every type of body. Sainsbury's came up with an atypical pregnancy and breastfeeding line and Tommy Hilfiger, with Tommy Adaptive, focuses on consumers with a disability. Campaigns are also increasingly seeing models of real skin conditions such as psoriasis, acne, cellulite or stretch marks.

Fear also stimulates trends - the climate protest is driven by fear - and thus becomes - cynically enough - something that can be capitalized on. "Gen Z grew up with uncertainty, thinks progressively and is very entrepreneurial but with a social purpose. They see themselves as a brand, partly through social media and influencing. They think creatively, make something and sell it immediately, via social media. Retailers who want to appeal to Gen Z must realise that they are dealing with conscious consumers," says Greene. "They love vintage and unexpected categories such as anti-consumption brand Everybody.world or genderfree-shop Phluid. A trend that will become very important in 2020 is the impact of gaming. Greene: "For Gen Z, gaming is a form of social media. They meet on games, and date through apps. They make contact via Tinder and then meet each other on Fortnite. The world of gaming is interwoven with the visual culture. We already had virtual influencers like Lil Miquela, but now there is a complete intersection of gaming and beauty of fashion. For example, the Dazed Beauty platform brings unexpected, futuristic beauty reports with inspiration from cyberspace.

Greene also points to the so-called 'goal revolution' - a redefinition of why people are here, what makes them happy and what they spend their money on. Wellness is what millennials want today: from air purifiers to organic cotton and everything that makes us healthier and improves our lives. Sustainability is no longer a trend but the basis from which new brands can start," Greene explains. "Brands that aim to change consumer behaviour include By Humankind, a beauty label with reusable packaging, or For Days, where you can take out a zero waste T-shirt subscription. Another trend that comes under this is the vegan lifestyle, which is sustainable and good for your health. In addition, innovation in the field of sustainability is called the new luxury, such as new textiles as an alternative to animal materials, with Stella McCartney as the pioneer, of course. Social collabs are also being created, such as Guerlain x Unesco or Timberland's reforestation project", she further illustrates.

Photo: Timberland

The fifth trend mentioned by Greene responds to the general wave of isolation: "Social media can tend to make consumers unhappy or lonely. So brands are building new communities where activities and workshops are organised so that they can find that sense of belonging. Examples are the social bakery Luminary Bakery in East London, the collaboration of Vans with avant-garde gallery KK Outlet in Covent Garden and the pottery classes of Still Life Ceramics in L.A.".

The text continues after the video

"More and more is also becoming possible due to the rapid technological evolution", says the trendwatcher. "Lil Miquela now has more than 1.5 million followers and has deals with major brands such as Supreme and Diesel who sees her as a powerful marketing tool. Other examples include experience-focused e-commerce, such as Obsess, the shopping platform that leases out virtual, experience-focused stores to brands, as well as the investment in interactive mirrors from the sportswear brand Lululemon. In addition, technology is a source of inspiration for new products: game branding or virtual collections such as Jeremy Scott's collection for The Sims. Augmented reality filters are used to advertise products such as the Adidas Deerupt filter on Snapchat or Candy Crush filter on Instagram to increase brand awareness. It's the 21st-century version of the billboard," concludes Greene. Photo: Moschino The Sims

This article was originally published on FashionUnited.BE by Katrien Huysentruyt before being translated and edited to English

Main photo: Universal Standard campaign NYC metro

See the article here:
Futurologist Lucie Greene: 6 trends influencing consumer behavior in 2020 - FashionUnited UK

Hollow, Kristy Johnson

This is the first of a four-part series from the winter 2019 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly addressing the decline of small and mid-sized donor households. NPQ considers this issue an urgent matter for the entire sector.

The steady decline in the proportion of Americans who report making donations to charitable organizations is gaining more attention in the nonprofit sector, but it has yet to surface as a concern in private foundation spaces. The topic did not appear on any of the agendas of the major learning conferences for foundation staff this past year, hosted by groups like the Council on Foundations, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, and Grantmakers in Health. With twenty million Americans having decided between 2000 and 2016 to stop contributing directly to charitable organizations,1 there should be concern not only for what this shift means for charitable organizations that depend on contributions from individuals to support their mission, but also concern among foundations. After all, foundations are themselves dependent on a healthy and thriving charitable sector to sustain the impact of their grantmaking and broad public confidence in charitable giving, as an underlying factor in their claims for legitimacy.

Although the apparent lack of awareness of or interest in this important trend is stunning, it is, to be fair, easy to miss the message of declining participation, when top-line messages in the media and in sector reports focus almost exclusively on the record high levels of charitable giving. According to the 2019 edition of Giving USA, giving by individuals totaled an estimated $292 billion, which represented a slight (and expected) decline from 2017 levels, but was still the second-highest amount in nominal dollars on record.2 Add to that the nearly $76 billion in foundation grants, the nearly $40 billion in bequests, and the $20 billion in giving by corporations, for a total of giving by individuals and organizations that reached over $427 billion in 2018.3 This paints a picture that is far from a crisis situation, even though the spread of this high level of giving is experienced unevenly across subsectors and organizations. However, these top-line figures that focus on the total levels of giving mask important and significant shifts in who is doing the giving.

Figure 1 (below) shows the declining share of Americans who report that they have made contributions to a charitable organization. To be clear, this is not a measure of Americans overall generosity, since it does not capture giving outside the context of formal charitable organizations. It would be a mistake to conclude from this figureas some dothat fewer Americans are participating in charitable giving, since it does not capture person-to-person giving, which is another way that individuals express their charitable impulses. Nor does it include political giving, which, like charitable giving, also serves as an expression of individuals values. What we can take away from this chart is that there is a declining preference for the kind of charitable giving that is directed to a charitable organization as the recipient. The record levels of giving reflect higher levels of giving by those who do give to charitable organizations.

Figure 2 (following) provides a snapshot of this dynamic across race and ethnicity groups. Almost 60 percent of white and Asian households gave to charitable organizations in 2015. (Note that the data presented as share of general population are data for 2015.) Black and Latinx households were less likely to donate to charitable organizations. However, controlling for wealth, giving participation is higher in Black households than all other groups (i.e., percentage share of population giving to charitable organizations). For those who do give, the level of giving, measured as a share of median family wealth, is higher for Black and Latinx families than white or other families (i.e., charitable giving as a percentage share of median family wealth). Given the high level of giving participation to nonprofit organizations among high-net-worth households across all race and ethnicity groups as shown in Figure 2, it is most likely that households choosing not to give to charitable organizations are in low- and middle-income households.

Evolving attitudes toward a focus on causes instead of organizations, and the growth in types of activities in which individuals can participate to feel connected to a cause, are part of the forces that are leading to decreased levels of participation in giving to charitable organizations. These organizations face greater competition for donors at a time when conscious consumptionor buying socially responsible goodsis increasingly being considered as a substitute for charitable giving, or when there is increased interest in receiving a monetary return through vehicles like impact investing or providing start-up capital to social enterprises.4

Additionally, the rise of social giving through the various crowdfunding platforms is reshaping the giving landscape by enabling the kind of person-to-person transactions that allow donors to directly help individuals in need of things like the means to cover medical expenses or memorial funds.

It is not clear whether these shifts are a result of donors increased interest in these new modes or if they are a reflection of dissatisfaction with nonprofit organizations among donors from low- and middle-income groups. What is made clear by these trends, however, is that donors are seeking impact through forms of giving that are not intermediated by charitable organizations in the traditional sense.

Unlike foundations, whose grantmaking is by and large restricted to charitable organizations, individual donors (especially those who are not seeking tax deductibility for their donations) have the flexibility to direct their donations to individuals or other types of nonprofit and social-welfare organizations.

What issues are raised for foundations when low- and middle-income donors are choosing to direct their donations in places other than charitable organizations? Two issues come to mind that reflect the complex interplay between individual and institutional philanthropy. The first relates to program sustainability and the desire of foundations to see that the work they support through their grants continues beyond the grant cycle. The second relates to the legitimacy of foundations and the reliance that foundations have on a general norm around charitable giving to underpin public support for the privileges they receive under the tax code.

One measure of the impact of foundation grantmaking is whether the projects that foundations support or the capacities that they help to develop in nonprofit organizations sustain beyond the grant period. This metric is especially relevant to foundations that are working in support of community change in particular places, and among those who view their grants as investments in sustained community capacity for social change.

In this context, the availability of other sources of funding is an important environmental factor that will determine whether projects and capacities can continue beyond the grant cycle. For many organizations, government funding and fee-based revenue are viable options, but the playing field is not level when it comes to which nonprofits have access to these resources.5 For many community-based organizations, their path to sustaining projects and capacities relies on their ability to connect with and attract donations from individuals across their community.

The loss of small and medium-sized donors who have stopped giving to nonprofit organizationseither because they are no longer able to make donations or have shifted their giving to alternative approachesis of great concern for the small and medium-sized nonprofits that depend on individual donations for their programming and for the flexible capital needed to develop their capacities for greater innovation and impact. These, in many cases, are the same organizations that large, multipurpose foundationswhich are trying to overcome historical legacies of distance and lack of transparency by connecting their work in closer proximity to the communities where they want to deliver impactraise concerns about vis--vis the sustainability of the projects, and see this as a barrier to funding their work. This sustainability challenge is not tenable in the long term for community-based organizations and the important purposes they serve in maintaining a healthy and vibrant charitable sector.

With so much focus on the instrumental dimensions of charitable giving (who gives and how much), the underlying expressive values that are connected to charitable giving are often overlooked. In his 2006 book Strategic Giving: The Art and Science of Philanthropy, philanthropy, nonprofit management, and social entrepreneurship expert Peter Frumkin emphasizes the expressive quality of giving.6 He notes that giving is an expressive exercise through which donors project their commitments and beliefs onto the world. That donors may be choosing other forms of giving that help them make a connection to a cause rather than to an organization is, therefore, not itself a problematic situation. It is the act of givingwhether to an organization or to a person asking directly for helpthat provides a valuable opportunity for all people to express interest in a cause that means something to them, or to have the opportunity to participate in the kind of social change they want to make possible.

However, the continued decline in the percentage of Americans choosing to give to charitable organizations presents something of a dismantling of the neat narrative (which, in part, was constructed, held together, and incentivized by tax policy) that giving to Americas charitable organizations is the preferred way to realize the expressive function of charitable giving. This narrative and the norms of giving that are connected to it are directly linked to the publics understanding of and support for the role and functions of philanthropic foundations. In their introductory chapter to The Legitimacy of Philanthropic Foundations, Steven Heydemann and Stefan Toepler point out that the legitimacy of the foundation form benefits from deep public and official support for charitable giving, volunteering, and self-help.7 They note that foundations as institutions are the beneficiaries of deep normative commitments to charity that are so widespread as to be virtually universal.

The question that the philanthropy field has to grapple with today, then, is, what happens when the normative commitment to charity through charitable organizations is no longer universally heldwhen tens of millions of Americans choose to stop giving to charitable organizations, or as new norms that bypass the middleman continue to take root? What does it mean, in other words, to be a formal, organized expression of a deeply held norm that is, undoubtedly, changing?

Although there has been a concerted effort through the professionalization of grantmaking and through waves of operating frameworks (e.g., scientific, strategic, effective) to distinguish institutional philanthropy from individual giving, it would be a mistake to overlook the links between the two. They cannot be walled off from each other. They are both sources of revenue for many of the same organizations, and are parts of a broader conception of the field of American philanthropy. If foundation staff would zoom out to see themselves as part of a much broader philanthropic marketplace, they may be able to see opportunities to influence individual donations so that they, and their grantee partners, are less impacted by the changing dynamics in individual giving.

Foundations have always been active participants in addressing the environmental conditions that have the potential to limit their impact or undermine their legitimacy. Through public outreach, support for research or advocacy by infrastructure groups, or direct engagement, there are examples from the past where foundations have had to work to engage the public or build public support for their work. However, the challenge of shaping donor behavior and attracting donors back to charitable organizations will require more than public awarenessit will also require that foundations directly engage with individual donors and find ways to bring them along through their grantmaking.

Research suggests that individual donors already look to foundations for information on charities to make informed giving decisions. Although early economic studies hypothesized that foundation giving would crowd out private donations, more contemporary studies show that in many cases foundation grants attract private donors, because they provide a signal of charity quality. A recent study of Canadian social-welfare and community charities found that an additional dollar of foundation grants to charities crowds in private giving by three dollars on average.8

Building on this signaling effect, foundations can attract individual donors by designing campaigns for matching funds to their grantee partners. The results of an experiment by Dean Karlan and John List, published in 2012, show that lead donors can help charities attract other donors by announcing their gifts and by matching other peoples gifts with their own money.9 They found that announcing matching gifts from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation multiplied the number of donors who responded to a charitys appeal. Their research provides further evidence that quality signaling through the foundations name can work to enhance both the size of gifts and the number of donors. (The Koch-affiliated Stand Together Foundation is one example of a foundation that took a deliberate step to build a network of everyday donors to support the grantee partners they had selected to participate in their antipoverty strategy, by launching a matching gifts program, the Giving Together Initiative, in which the foundation matches donations up to $1,000 each.)

A similar approach is to create opportunities for collaborative funding with individual donors. Co-Impact, an initiative housed at the Rockefeller Foundation, describes itself as a platform where donors can join in to support a portfolio of programs that the core partners have identified as strategies for systems change. This model was developed to provide individual donors with access to the kind of thinking and structures that are widely available in institutional philanthropy, to help them align their giving to opportunities of greatest impact. Models like this can be developed where foundations can attract and educate donors by providing them with insight and expertise, including options like sharing program officers due diligence assessments or giving donors summaries of the performance reports submitted to the foundation.

Another way foundations can assist their grantee partners is to help them adapt to the changing dynamics in charitable giving by funding donor-engagement programs. Many nonprofits simply lack the capacity and resources to respond nimbly to leverage some of the new technology and digital strategies available to engage donors effectively. The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund made significant investments in research and capacity-building support to help their grantee partners raise money from individuals, after hearing their grantees identify this as one of their major challenges. A related approach to building fundraising capacity is through planning grants and challenge grants, which provide organizations with the time and resources to design and test sustainability strategies for their programs. The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati (now Interact for Health), for example, developed a model for sustainable grantmaking to ensure that they were thinking with their grantee partners about ways to sustain programs funded by their grants.10

Finally, foundations can actively participate in shaping the culture of giving in the communities they serve.11 Community foundations have historically provided assistance and support to giving circles, which are helpful in connecting a community of donors and providing a social experience that donors want around their giving. Other examples include building awareness for individual donors around the issues the foundation supports. One example is provided by the Harman Family Foundation, in Washington, DC, which publishes a Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington to attract individual donors to small local nonprofits in the region. These are just a few examples of ways foundations can participate in supporting the philanthropic infrastructure beyond grantmaking by leveraging their communications, advocacy, convening, and research capacities.

The loss of millions of donors to charitable organizations presents an interesting juncture in the evolution of charitable giving, which could have effects that extend beyond nonprofits to institutional philanthropy. This calls for attentionif not actionon the part of foundations. As our understanding of the dynamics of donor giving unfolds through better data and research to help understand why and how donors are shifting their giving, the field will be able to develop targeted strategies for organizations to draw donors back to charitable organizations or adapt to the new reality of giving without the charitable organization as the intermediary. In the meantime, such silence as now exists within the philanthropic sector is not warranted. Foundations cannot remain comfortably unaware while everyday donors are walking away from charitable organizations.

Notes

Continued here:
Why the Decline in Individual Donors Should Matter to Institutional Philanthropyand What to Do about It - Nonprofit Quarterly

Lets begin with a story. When I lived in Southern Ontario, my most heart-heavy season was that long stretch of winter in which cloud coverage blotted out the sky for weeks: a hazy pink canvas over salmon-orange streetlights, dark shadows, and deep snow.

I need that clear night sky. I need to be able to look up sometimes into an immensity of stars, like a seal sucking on air pockets under a stretch of endless ice. I need to gasp at something outside the murkiness of cultural narrative in which we swim.

And the night sky is perfect, because in an instant it reminds me that all our rituals, our stories, our understandings of what lifeshouldbeare pure artifice: a blip of chatter between a few billion biological beings on a pale blue dot in a speck of a galaxy drifting through cosmic background radiation.

What remains when these narratives are stripped away?

Well another narrative (these are allnarratives, arent they?), but one at least based on harder facts. In this more fundamental narrative, Im no longer a single 33-year-old white feminized queer atheist/humanist Canadian-immigrant to Colombia. Im not a writer, or a teacher, or an editor aspiring to translation work, either.

Im simply a biological entity with a central nervous system (which includes a brain with the capacity for more abstract environmental processing), thanks to evolutionary pressures that benefitted organisms better able to anticipate future needs.

I also have a sexed body (female) because around 1.2 billion years ago our Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA) got into the true sexual reproduction game, which was winning out as a more effective way to prevent the inheritance of deleterious effects in the genome, as well as better defense against viral riders the code.

Fairly incidental and value-neutral events, no?

And yet, within our culture these simple factshaving an abstract-idea-generating central nervous system, and having a sexed bodyhave created a truly boggling range of social expectations for how to behave, how to strive, and how to live a good life.

As such, even though I firmly recognize the underlying meaninglessness of all meaning-creation I still fall prey to social expectations. I struggle routinely, that is, with how to spin a story for myself that satisfies our cultures implicit sense of what a life is supposed to include and what mine does instead.

I think a lot of my fellow humanists do and feel the same. So lets consider why.

I recently had a serious discussion about some of the flawed givens underpinning my perception of the world. I dont mean my cosmology, exactly. I mean, how I interpret behavioural signals from other people, and the kinds of fight-or-flight responses they trigger in me. The way I think Im drawing rational conclusions from the facts at hand, but am nonetheless colouring them with both my greatest hopes and worst fears.

This kind of reckoning is not easy. It requires advancing your theory-of-best-fit for the data, then letting others counter with their own, and then often haggling over the validity of the data points themselves. It also requires being exceptionally leery of any assertion that seems to affirm what you already feeleven though our self-help industrythriveson our desire for just such affirmations.

Ill give one example, to keep this from getting too abstract:

I was asked what I wanted in life; that is, whatIthought would fulfill my requirements and make me less anxious and sad (as I often am). Because the answer wasnt living with someone else (I prefer my solitude to write), but it also wasntnot having someone to just relax around (touch, after all,is a key component of human thriving); and it wasnt marriage, or having kids, although I do sometimes get a twinge of sadness when I see other people on the street holding handsthe small, quotidian affirmations of a commitment to share a life (or a few years, or maybe just a moment).

The best I could manage, when asked, was that I wanted to feel like I belonged somewhereand I knew that this was correct because I choked up when saying it. And then I choked up again when talking about a fear of abandonment:a fear of never being safe, never being loved, never being able to rest, always needing to provemy right to exist.

Sound familiar? This is the kind of rhetoric that often serves, in spiritual realms, as a precursor for finding God. Of courseyou want to belong, the argument in many denominations of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam goes: Youre being called to return to the divine, to be reunited with a creator who will fill that ache in your heart!

I remember, for instance, a young adult who had recently been converted to Christianity, and was as such eager to try his hand at converting those he knew. He told me all the usual reasons for a later-life conversion: the relief, that is, of giving all ones problems to another, of letting oneself be washed clean of so much pain from fruitless striving come before. He told me about his pain at various rejections, and how much it meant to him to have been forgiven for all past transgressions; how the church community, conversely, had welcomed him with open arms.

I was happy for him for finding a community that gave him hope, but as Ive written about before, the one good thing about a fraught childhood is that itcansometimes remind you that a person born into a painful situation is not responsible for that situation. The idea of needing forgiveness for being born, or for being in a context where whatever you do only compounds systems of trauma come before, is repulsive to me.

More importantly, though: Im fully aware of why the ache in my heart exists. I dont need to grope around for new quick fixes, because I understand the vast majority of biochemically impactful experiences that shaped my responses to new stimuli, and set me down certain reward-seeking pathways less conducive to emotional stability.

As such, after being asked by my first conversational partner what it is I thought I wanted, our conversation turned to familial preconditions. After all, a childhood wherein one knows love is contingent, love can be taken away, love has to be relentlesslyearnedis not a healthy precondition for adult thriving. It is, instead, a recipe for never feeling that one is good enough, and that one never has a place they can call home.

Its also, I might add, often why people have children of their own: tomakea family, tomakea home, and in so doingto fill the ache that their own difficult pasts created. Which, from an evolutionary perspective, is still fine and dandy, because youve fulfilled your biological purpose! Huzzah! Time to pass on those troubled genes!

And so, as an adult human with just such a childhood, yet no progeny its not technically wrong to say that I am a deficient biological organism.

As are, Im sure, quite a few of you.

But are we simple biological organisms, deficient or otherwise?

Hardly. This very deficient biological organism, for instance, nevertheless has a nervous system that can experience wonderful emotions, and a brain that can produce original contentwords in orders never before seen in its given language!in a universe where we humans are rare, precious witnesses to existence on whole.

So how do we focus on those positives, and build better secular narratives from them?

Its not easy as you might think, even if we secular folks think ourselves well immunized from religious rhetoric. In the secular sphere westillhave narratives built on dangerous premises: many so pervasive, we hardly realize were swimming in them.

The person I was talking to about my wants and needs, for instance had asked me a great question, but they then followed up my answer with a bad suggestion: Volunteering! Volunteering, they were sure, would make me feel useful! Volunteering would make me feel a part of something!

But hearing my anxieties uttered aloud, and hearing which words had immediately made me want to cry, Id realized that the solution to my existential complaint was instead something far more in the realm of Buddhism, withall its observations about how want itself is the real problem. Indeed, I knew volunteering would be a poor solution to my internal issue (though again, still a good thing to do in general!), because mywantto belong was insatiable. Myneedto prove my worthiness was relentless. And so the exhaustion of new proving ground after new proving ground would remain, in volunteerism as in every other community Ive struggled to belong to, until I stopped treating the fact of my current needs and wants as evidence of theircorrectness.

In other words, I needed to recognize the natural fallacy at work in it all.

And yet, when I look at our cultures storiesabout relationships, careers, life success on whole I find that we still take our biological striving, deficient or otherwise, more or less for granted. The body wants what the body wants. The mind craves what the mind craves. (And for my religious humanists: The soul cries out for what it longs for most.)

Listen to your hearts desires, say our stories.

Follow your passions and your dreams.

Pour your heart into what you love, and the rest will follow.

Aim big.

Shoot for the stars.

Nor does this rhetoric relent for smaller existences. Even when our lives are incredibly mundane, were likewise tasked by many of our cultural narratives and economies to find that heightened state of achievement and self-control within the everyday. Weve got a whole industry, for hecks sake, around bullet-journaling, which might be our most bonkers attempt yet to gain mastery over every minute facet of our secular existence.

Likewise, even when we do articulate that some behaviours are destructive compulsions that need to be curtailed, we tend to frame the problem around competingdrives. To this end,we have concepts like the framing tool of an inner child, which positions a great deal of recovery work for poor coping mechanisms and social maladaptivity around an anthropomorphized set of behavioural responses formed by trauma. In the process, the concept of an inner child concretizes our anxieties as in legitimate need of being answered and placated.

And all of thiswhy? Why, really?

To soothe the anticipatory excesses of nervous systems that can tolerate a significant amount of individual maladaptivity before losing overall evolutionary benefit.

Now, Im not trying to discount the need to provide comfort to folks in distress.

But I do favour some tools over others, and one of themCognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)relies on a humanistic argument not always reflected in our cultural storytelling. In far too many of our stories, the existence of an ache, that compulsive drive toward or away from specific beliefs and actions, is still equated with the necessity of trying to fill it. Yet humanists need to be leery of such alignments, because in both secular and religious spheres youll find that theres always someone more than happy to exacerbate an unanswered need, then capitalize on the delivery of solutions.

CBT, conversely, proposes something radical: What if wedont give unconditional reverenceto that inner drive? What if we focus instead on minor acts of disruptionfrom countering negative self-talk with stop-words; to applying our senses to the observation of our immediate surroundings instead of dwelling on future or past; to practising active, conscientious breathing; to setting ourselves very small and specific tasks as distraction from negative thought processes and behaviours; to keeping meticulous records of our basic bodily activities and moods throughout the day?

Put another way: What if, instead of striving to acquire the object of our current need or want, we try disrupting the intensity with which the desire manifests within us at all?

Ive struggled my whole adult life with fears of making others angry, of never earning love, of never belonging, of always losing safety once its found. As such, I could cling to all the external activities and affirmations I wanted, and still never be convinced that any were sufficient to make me worthy of continued existence. Why? Because the very act of trying to prove my worth, of trying to fill that need, affirms the validity of the need itself.

And yet, when I suck at the right air-pocketswhich is to say, when I look up at a clear night sky I remember the vast context against which all these intense sociobiological pressures are playing out.I remember that I am simply one of 7.5 billion working drafts in my species; one of 7.5 billion powerhouses of central-nervous-system activity perpetuating genetic lines either directly, or (as myself and other childless people do) indirectly through contributions to communal welfare.

I remember the biology, that is, behind my every conscious experience in the cosmos.

And then it hits me, if only for one brief breath of clarity, that the most extraordinary win-condition for sentient beings has already happened. I remember that I have the abilityas do all of youto see compulsive drives within us for what they are, biologically speaking, and to turn unthinking evolution against itself. To choose to strive less to appease needs or wants simply because they exist, and more to recognize when they are destructively insatiable and then learn to let them go.

Its a major season for Christianity, so fellow atheists will see lots of discourse about religions flaws on their social media channels in the coming weeks. (Christians probably will, too, but hopefully not at the hands of secular humanists.) Meanwhile, our shared sphere has some serious narrative failings that tend to go unaddressed so long as we have easy scapegoats like the Christ-child story to pick on instead.

Even though CBT is a standard tool in the mental-wellness paradigm, its not well-supported by our cultural storytelling writ large. But it could be, and it should bebecause when we give too much credit to inner drive, or when we otherwise treat all our needs and wants as intrinsically valid, we conflate biological imperatives with what makes human existence so extraordinary.

We forget, that is, that whether our biochemical responses are healthy or maladaptive, the human central nervous system has incidentally yielded enough self-awareness for us torecognizeits autonomic nature.Ourautonomic nature.

And so even if we cant escape our biology entirely, neither do we have to let the stories we create become mere endorsements of our most compulsive, unthinking behaviour.

We can choose, instead, to remember that all our losses and setbacks, all our emotional wounds and skewed perceptive states, are simply stories laid over a fairly basic set of biochemical responses. As such, when thatinner drive yields only aches and pains that make us susceptible to the promise of anyones quick cure we have it in usall of usto choose different narrative overlays instead.

May there be clear skies ahead, for all of you, so as to light the way.

Go here to read the rest:
Beyond the Biological: Why Humanists Must Be Leery of Inner Drive - Patheos

Written by C. Raja Mohan | Updated: December 3, 2019 11:42:59 am Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Mauritius counterpart Pravind Kumar Jugnauth at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi. (Express photo by Renuka Puri)

As it prepares to host the prime minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth, who returned to power in the recent general elections, Delhi needs to change the lens through which it sees the small island republic in the western Indian Ocean.

For far too long, Delhi has viewed Mauritius through the prism of diaspora. This was, perhaps, natural since communities of Indian origin constitute a significant majority in the island. But the time has come to reimagine Mauritius in much larger terms.

More recently, Delhi has certainly begun to see the strategic significance of Mauritius thanks to the renewed great power contestation in the Indian Ocean. Right at the very start of his first term in May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi saw Mauritius as part of Indias neighbourhood and invited its leadership to join his inauguration along with other South Asian leaders.

It was during his visit to Mauritius in 2015 that Modi unveiled an ambitious policy called the SAGAR (security and growth for all). It was Indias first significant policy statement on the Indian Ocean in many decades. Delhi has some ways to go before it can translate the logic of SAGAR into effective outcomes on the ground.

But there is a bigger challenge for Delhi in dealing with Mauritius. It is the urgent need to discard the deep-rooted perception that Mauritius is simply an extension of India. It is not. Mauritius is a sovereign entity with a unique national culture and an international identity of its own. Its leaders are also conscious of the islands special place in the Indian Ocean as a thriving economic hub and an attractive strategic location. Although it is quite small with just 1.3 million people, Mauritius has been punching way above its weight.

Jugnauths visit is a good moment for India to visibly demonstrate its respect for the sovereignty of Mauritius. Jugnauth, who took over from his father Anerood as the PM in January 2017, has now won power on his own steam. At 61, Pravind may not be too young, but he represents a new generation that is immensely proud of the republics extraordinary evolution from a slave island to a prosperous economy.

An India that begins to see Mauritius on its own terms would want to go beyond sentimentalism and to explore the immense possibilities for elevating Indias strategic partnership with an island that is looking beyond sugar plantations to financial services and technological innovation.

Mauritius is all about location and the genius of its people. As early European explorers sailed around the African continent and ventured eastwards to India, they began to call Mauritius, the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean. If the Portuguese and the Dutch were the first to gain a foothold in Mauritius, it was the French who gained effective control over the island in the early 18th century.

The French developed sugar plantations, introduced ship building and developed a naval base. The French certainly understood the strategic significance of Mauritius. A French soldier and colonial official, Flix Renouard de Sainte-Croix, described the island as a central geographical point between every other place in the world.

The British who gained control over Mauritius during the Napoleonic wars turned it into a garrison island that would help secure the sea lines of communication between Europe and India. The enduring value of its location is reflected in the fact that Diego Garcia, once part of Mauritius, today hosts one of Americas largest foreign military bases in the world.

But in emphasising the value of military access to Mauritius, it is easy to miss its geo-economic significance. The French description of the island as a central geographic point holds equally true for commerce and connectivity in the Indian Ocean. As a member of the African Union, Indian Ocean Rim Association and the Indian Ocean Commission, Mauritius is a stepping stone to multiple geographies.

If Delhi appreciates the value of Mauritius as a regional hub, a number of possibilities present themselves. One, as new investments pour into Africa, Mauritius is where a lot of it gets serviced. Mauritius can be the fulcrum for Indias own African economic outreach.

Two, until now India has tended to deal with the so-called Vanilla islands of the south western Indian Ocean Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Reunion and Seychelles on a bilateral basis. If the Indian establishment thinks of them as a collective, it could make Mauritius the pivot of Delhis island policy.

Three, the Mauritius pivot can facilitate a number of Indian commercial activities in the south western Indian ocean as a banking gateway, the hub for flights to and from Indian cities and tourism.

Four, India could also contribute to the evolution of Mauritius as a regional centre for technological innovation. India has not really responded so far to the demands from Mauritius for higher education facilities from India like the IIT.

Five, climate change, sustainable development and the blue economy are existential challenges for Mauritius and the neighbouring island states. Mauritius will be the right partner in promoting Indian initiatives in these areas. It could also become a valuable place for regional and international maritime scientific research.

Finally, if Delhi takes an integrated view of its security cooperation in the south western Indian Ocean, Mauritius is the natural node for it. The office of a defence adviser in Mauritius, for example, can service the demands of all the island nations as well as the East African states.

All this and more is possible if Delhi takes a fresh and more strategic look at Mauritius. One way of getting there is to have an early Indian summit with the leaders of the Vanilla islands.

This article first appeared in the print edition on December 3, 2019 under the title A new mould for Mauritius. The writer is Director, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore and contributing editor on international affairs, The Indian Express.

For all the latest Opinion News, download Indian Express App

See original here:
From trade to geopolitical significance, it is time for India to look again at Mauritius - The Indian Express

Events at the Ocean Beach Green Center

December 12th Thursday 7 pm. Film Night.In keeping with the holiday spirit when people feel more inclined to help the poor, we will honor Dorothy Day who dedicated her life to helping the poor. Depending on availability, we will be showing Entertaining Angels or Dorothy Day Documentary: Dont Call Me a Saint Dorothy Day was a journalist, social activist and a political radical. In the 1930s she co-founded with Peter Maurin the Catholic Worker Movement, a pacifist movement that combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. Day co-founded the Catholic Worker newspaper in 1933, and served as its editor from 1933 until her death in 1980. In this newspaper, Day advocated the Catholic economic theory of distributism, which she considered a third way between capitalism and socialism.

Here at the Green Center we have the poster of her at a United Farm Workers protest in 1973 surrounded by police with her famous quote Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy rotten system. This was an extraordinary woman who the FBI once considered her a threat to national security and now the Catholic Church is considering her for sainthood. A new documentary REVOLUTION OF THE HEART: The Dorothy Day Story will be premiering on Public Television this spring.

Every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. Climate Mobilization Coalition Meeting. December 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th.ocean Beach Green Center 4862 Voltaire St. Come help plan for the upcoming Climate Action events. More info https://www.facebook.com/SDClimateMobilization/ Climate Mobilization Coalitions own Nancy Casady is running for Congress against Scott Peter who refuses to support the Green New Deal. Here is the Union Tribune link: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2019-08-26/democrat-nancy-casady-to-challenge-rep-scott-peters-in-2020-primary

The Ocean Beach Green Center is looking for volunteers to work on Fundraising and Social Media Presence. We are a nonprofit 501 c3 and welcome High School and College students that need to meet their Community Service needs. Please email us at oceanbeachgreencenter@gmail.com. Ocean Beach Green Center, 4862 Voltaire Street, Ocean Beach 92107 oceanbeachgreencenter@gmail.co

Events not at the Ocean Beach Green Center

December 2nd. Monday 12:30 pm 2:30 pm Energy Efficiency Health & Wellness Nexus hosted by San Diego Green Building CouncilCounty Library Imperial Beach Branch 810 Imperial Beach Blvd Imperial Beach 91932 The health and wellness movement in the built environment is becoming a more and popular topic of discussion. Numerous studies have corroborated the notion that green buildings have a positive effect on its occupants. Investments made to buildings that directly affect occupant health and wellness directly correlate to more productive, happier and healthier workers. A local expert will give participants a high-level overview of the WELL building standard with an emphasis on energy efficiency and its correlations with health and wellness. More info: https://www.sd-gbc.org/calendar

December 2nd. Monday 6:30 pm ES5- USA Health Care- Policy and Politics in 7 BiopsiesBalboa Park Club, 2150 Pan American Rd W, San Diego, CA 92101 Social Networking; 7pm Presentation Dont miss this opportunity to understand healthcare from the eyes of a physician. Dr. Jeoffry Gordon, practiced 35 years in family medicine, was the first Medical Director of the Beach Area Community Clinic and was on the CA Medical Board; Consulted in Bioethics at Sharp Hospital and a long time member of Physicians for a National Health Program. Advocate for victims of child abuse and neglect. More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/535765627021053/

December 3rd. Tuesday 6 pm 8 pm Data Driven: Advancing Racial Justice & Police Accountability Hosted by ACLU of San Diego and Imperial CountiesUDW/AFSCME 3930 4790 Seminole Dr, San Diego 92115, We have a right to know how law enforcement interacts with our communities. The public should be able to trust that when an officer stops a person, it is for a legitimate and justifiable reason. However, officers entrusted to enforce our laws disproportionately stop, question and search Black and brown people in our community. the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties will release a commissioned report that analyzes traffic and pedestrian stop data from the San Diego Police Department and San Diego County Sheriffs Department. The reports author, Samuel Sinyangwe, data scientist and co-founder of Campaign Zero, will present on the reports findings and recommendations. More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1143385202518847/

December 4th Wednesday 6 pm- 8 pm Clean Elections Organizing MeetingUnitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, 4190 Front St, San Diego 92103, More info: http://www.sdcleanelections.org/

December 5th Thursday 7:30 pm 9:30 pm Community Forum and Screening of The Feeling of Being Watched Hosted by Tech Workers Coalition San Diego City College 1313 Park Blvd. Business Center MS 162 San Diego 92101 Over the last month a group of more than twenty San Diego community organizations have come together to form the San Diego TRUST Coalition (Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology). This coalition has challenged the city of San Diegos smart streetlight surveillance system as one example of artificial intelligence-enabled technologies adopted by the city with little community input or oversight.

The coalition seeks a moratorium on the usage of smart streetlamps until San Diego has policies that ensure civil liberties and democratic oversight over these big data systems. At this event, coalition members and allies from Pillars from the Community and TechLead will update the community on the state of surveillance in San Diego and talk about what communities and tech workers can do. We will screen the award-winning PBS film, The Feeling of Being Watched. More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1090712211136541/

December 6th Friday 8 pm 6 pm Strike With Us Hosted by Sunrise Movement Balboa Park Plaza de Panama Fountain 1549 El Prado San Diego 92101 We have a clear message: we are calling on San Diego City Council to declare a climate emergency and we ask the public to support us in our fight for a San Diego Green New Deal. Back in September, 7 million people around the world walked out to demand real climate action from election officials. We know governments wont deliver climate action and justice on their own, so were going on #ClimateStrike to show them the power of the people once again. More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/437353927182499/

December 6th Friday 4 pm 6 pm UCSD First Friday MeetingCrick Conference Room, Mandler 3245, 3rd floor, Psychology Dept Building off the momentum of the Climate March on Sept 27th, were launching First Fridays. Please join us!. On the first Friday of every month, join the UCSD Green New Deal movement to discuss ongoing campaigns to push UCSD to address the climate crisis. More info:https://www.facebook.com/pg/UCSDgreennewdeal/events/?ref=page_internal

December 7th Saturday 10 am to 11 am Green Living Tour Solana Center for Environmental Innovation137 N El Camino Real Encinitas, CA 92024 Visit us at our home base in Encinitas as we walk you through some easy steps to address issues around water, waste, soil health and more with practical solutions you can incorporate into your life and home starting now! More info:http://solanacenter.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=1293

December 7th Saturday 10 am 12 pm Green Routines Workshop Otay Mesa- Nestor Branch Library 3003 Coronado Ave. San Diego 92154 Join I Love A Clean San Diego as we team up with the City of San Diego for our FREE Green Routines Workshop . Whether youre starting your zero waste journey or ready to take it to the next level, come learn how to set yourself up for zero waste success! Through educational booths and hands-on activities, you will learn ways to go zero waste in the kitchen and bathroom, and common areas throughout the home. We will discuss the importance of a zero waste lifestyle and how to confidently implement sustainable practices into various aspects of your life. Hands-on activities will be available for all ages, including an eco-kids craft and a make-and-take project! More info: https://www.ilacsd.org/event/green-routines-workshop-december/

December 8th and 22nd. Sundays 5 pm Amnesty International OB Chapter Meeting.Coastal Sage Gardening 3685 Voltaire St. OB 92107 Visitors and New members are always welcome.

December 8th Sunday 4 pm 6 pm Not In Our Name! Hosted by San Diegans Against the Death Penalty330 W Broadway San Diego 92101 Rally and Prayer Vigil to Oppose Federal Death Row Executions. The federal government is planning a series of executions after a 16 year hiatus. Join us outside the federal courthouse in our witness against state sanctioned killing. Clergy and community leaders will lead a candlelight vigil in opposition to the death penalty on the eve of the first scheduled execution. Speakers include: Auxiliary Bishop John Dolan, Imam Taha Hassane, Genevive Jones-Wright, Justin Brooks, and Jeff Chinn. More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/457779004943296/

December 8th Sunday 6:30 pm 9:30 pm A Celebration! The Peace Resource Center Annual Meeting & A Dessert ExtravaganzaFirst Church of the Brethren 3850 Westgate Pl. San Diego 92105. 6:30 pm Dessert Extravaganza Live Music Social Hour. A celebration of our peace & justice community. Delicious planet-friendly desserts (brownies too!), local coffee & live music. 7:15 pm 2019 PRC Annual Members Meeting. Meet the 2020 nominees for the PRC Board. Co-create the PRC 2020 Vision & Work. Special Guest Speaker Kathryn LaPointe Director, OASIS Center Love and mutual support break down border walls. $10 For info & RSVP: 619-263-9301info@prcsd.org More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1128275380711460/

December 8th Sunday 11 am 2 pm The Really Really Free MarketTeralta Park in City Heights (on Orange Ave between 40th and 41st st). Join in and invite your friends to this ongoing community event! You do not need to bring anything to take anything. You do not need to take anything to bring anything! No trades, just FREE STUFF! You can also share any skills or services you might be experienced with (haircuts, bike repair, massages, clothing repair, etc.). Also, if you would like to play music in a public, acoustic setting, this a great opportunity to do so! Vegan food donations accepted for Food Not Bombs! More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/431989700840482/

December 8th Sunday 1 pm 3 pm Indivisible December Social Hosted by Indivisible San Diego PersistEvents Blind Lady Ale House 3426 Adams Ave. San Diego 92116. Come meet other resisters, chat about how youve been involved recently, and find out more about upcoming events & actions in an informal setting! All ages are welcome, so feel free to bring little ones! Please bring a donation of non-perishable food items for the San Diego Food Bank. See most needed items & guidelines here:https://sandiegofoodbank.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Food-Items-List-2014.pdfMore info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1426590737489852/

December 9th 10 am 12 pm San Diego Regional CCE Board Meeting 505 S Vulcan Ave Encinitas, California 92024 The San Diego Regional Community Choice Energy Authority is having their board meetings to discuss important policy that will shape the direction of CCE in the region. This an exciting time in the formation of CCE in the region and this is an opportunity to get involved in the decision making process. The ability to participate in local meetings is one of the great benefits of a local CCE program. We can help to direct policy and show public officials that local, clean, renewable energy that creates well paying local jobs and benefits communities of concern are priorities of the CCE . More info: https://sandiego350.org/blog/event/civi_event_966/?instance_id=3767

December 10th Tuesday 5 pm to 6:30 pm Voices of our City Choir Holiday Concert and Community PotluckSacred Heart Church Catholic Church of Ocean Beach 4776 Saratoga . Choir will perform at Christmas Concert, followed by a community potluck dinner. All are welcome and a dish to share is requested of those who can. More info:https://www.voicesofourcity.org/live

December 10th Tuesday 4:30 pm 7 pm Green Business Solutions WorkshopEncinitas Library 540 Cornish Drive Encinits 92024 Join I Love A Clean San Diego and the City of Encinitas for an informational and interactive session focusing on zero waste business practices. . We will identify the importance of a zero waste lifestyle, how to implement these practices in your business, and the environmental and economic benefits of going green. Whether you work in an office, a restaurant, or in retail, we will have valuable information for all business models. This will be a great opportunity for you to network and share ideas for creating a more eco-conscious work space. More info: https://www.ilacsd.org/event/green-business-solutions-workshop-december/

December 12th Thursday 5:30 pm- 9:00 pm San Diego County Bike Coalition Holiday Joy Ride 20191450 El Prado San Diego, CA 92101 Light up your bikes, wear your best/ugliest holiday attire (the crazier the better) and come and enjoy the holiday spirit with us! We will begin with a festive light-your-bike ride through Balboa Park and Uptown and end back at Panama 66 for a family friendly celebration of bikes, and the Holidays! This event is family friendly. Your $25 ticket includes the ride, 1 raffle ticket, 1 beer token, and light appetizers. More info:https://sdbikecoalition.org/event/holiday-joy-ride-2019/

December 12th Thursday 6:30 pm Electric Vehicle Association of San Diego, monthly meeting Center for Sustainable Energy 3980 Sherman St, San Diego. Featured Presentation: New San Diego County EV Initiatives Emily Wier, Environment and Energy Policy Advisor for San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, will present on San Diego Countys EV Roadmap, the newly approved Clean Cars 4 All program, and exciting developments at the California Air Resources Board. Supervisor Fletcher is raising the level of awareness about the effects of San Diegos poor air quality and implementing policy to combat climate change as a member of the California Air Resources Board. More info:https://www.meetup.com/San-Diego-Electric-Vehicle-Association-Meetup/events/266457832/

December 13th Friday 6:30 pm Sierra Club Film night Rigged The Voter Suppression Playbook 8304 Clairemont Mesa Blvd #101, San Diego 92111, this 2019 documentary is a powerful, information packed film which reveals how, during a ten-year period since the election of a black president, Republicans and their allies have deliberately devised a playbook of strategies to suppress or intimidate minority voters. The documentary describes in detail the ten strategies and gives examples of them in action: A Latino man in Texas arrested on false charges of voter fraud; efforts in a rural Carolina county to purge voters from the database, just two of the examples given. One strategy, voter ID laws, has been temporarily stopped in some of the states shown by the courts. But activists still have a long way to go in order to protect the right of citizens to vote and by studying these ten strategies they can better prepare themselves to fight for that basic civil right.More info: http://sandiegosierraclub.org/news/activities-calendar/

December 14th Saturday 7 pm 8:30 pm 7th Annual Sandy Hook Vigil Hosted by San Diegans for Gun Violence PreventionOn December 14, 2012, 20 children and seven educators were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We pledged to never forget them. Seven years later, we come together to honor the victims of Sandy Hook, and all the many thousands of victims and their families. While we have made progress, the epidemic of gun violence still ravages the country. With hope and with action we will continue to fight to bring it to an end. Contactteam@sd4gvp.orgfor details. https://www.facebook.com/events/2378266885613772/

December 14th Saturday 4 pm 6 pm Screening of Push Out: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools Hosted by March For Black Women SD.Educational Cultural Complex 4343 Ocean View Blvd. San Diego 92113This feature length documentary takes a close look at the educational, judicial and societal disparities facing Black Girls. Inspired by the groundbreaking book of the same name by renowned scholar, Monique W. Morris, Ed.D. The documentary confronts the ways in which the misunderstanding of Black girlhood has led to excessive punitive discipline which in turn disrupts one of the most important factors in their lives, their education Panel discussion to follow! More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/527740297784240/

December 14th Saturday 1 pm 3 pm San Diego Fixit ClinicSecond Chance Beer Company, 15378 Ave of Science #222 San Diego 92128. We have been all too accustomed to the throw away lifestyle. If something doesnt work, throw it out and buy a new one. Because of this behavior our landfills are filling at a rapid rate and electronic waste has become the one of the largest pollution generators. So why not learn how to fix it?! Bring your broken, non-functioning things: electronics, appliances, computers, toys, bicycles, clothes, etc. for assessment, disassembly, and possible repair. Well provide workspace, specialty tools, and guidance. More info:https://zerowastesandiego.org/event/san-diego-fixit-clinic-33/

December 17th Tuesday 6:30 pm 8:30 pm On the Human-Animal Bond Hosted by California Native Plant Society Balboa Park-Casa del Prado, Room 101 Speaker: Richard Louv, Journalist, Author, and Co-Founder and Chair Emeritus of Children and Nature Network. Our Wild Calling: how connecting to animals can transform our lives and help save theirs. In his newest book Richard Louv explores the powerful and mysterious bond between humans and other animals, including both domestic and wild animals. He makes the case that deepening our connection with other animals, both wild and domestic, can improve our mental, physical and spiritual lives; serve as an antidote to the growing epidemic of human loneliness; and is essential to the preservation of life on Earth. More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/445953979439515/

December 19th Thursday 6:30 pm Evolution 2020 (CoCreation Team Planning) Hosted by Local Earth10622 West Lilac Road, Valley Center 92082 It is with great joy we invite YOU to join our Planning & CoCreation Team for Evolution 2020! Evolution is an annual gathering of global rEvolutionaries, visionaries and changemakers ready to create ReGenerative Solutions for the Planet! Evolution is the integration of a ReGenerative Solutions Summit, Transformational Festival and Epic Concert all in ONE! Evolution is a Party for the Planet! This gathering will take place over the Fall Equinox of next year. Evolution 2020 is our launchpad for the Earth 2.0 Research Project and fundraising initiative to begin building the first official Local Earth Village! More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/773460259782328/

Continue reading here:
December 2019 Events for OB and San Diego From the Ocean Beach Green Center - OB Rag

Greta Van Fleet have said they are making headway with their new album.

Read more: Ramble On: meet Greta Van Fleet, the post-millennial Led Zeppelin

Frontman Josh Kiszka revealed that the band have been working on the follow up to their 2018 LP Anthem Of The Peaceful Army debut since the summer.

For about two months in the heart of the summer of this year we really poured everything into the writing and recording, and were hoping that sometime earlier next year well be able to put it out. Were super excited about it, he told Kerrang.

Their first album scored three stars with the NME describing it as: This head-banging, Led Zep-indebted collection of rock songs might not change the world, but itll at least give yer head a little wobble.

They previously refuted claims that that they were a Led Zeppelin rip-off.Its being said over and over, and I think its one of the greatest compliments that could ever be given to a young band like ourselves. Theyre arguably one of the greatest rock bands of all time, so that is humbling and inspiring and honorable, in that sense, guitarist Jake Kiszka telling FaceCulture.

But I think that weve become more conscious of the similarities, because its been said, and I think weve taken some time to go back and almost identify with it. Oh, its interesting, because there is a lot of those commonalities.

Now Kiszka said of the new album: Honestly, the way that we approach our music is that were writing it for anybody who has any reason to listen to it.

Were creating something simply for the sake of making a work of art that were proud of, that we ourselves like to listen to. I dont think we set out to prove anything, particularly, but to point out some things about the world and our society. There are some of those elements to this album. And its the next step I think, in the evolution and the sound of this band.

The band released new single, Always There earlier this year. The song comes from the soundtrack of the movie A Million Little Pieces, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, which hits cinemas in December.

Read more here:
Greta Van Fleet say their new album is the next step in the evolution of the sound of this band - NME.com

In a world overloaded with inspirational quotes, daily affirmations, and endless positivity, sometimes it can seem wrong to feel anything less than cheerful. Buy into this relentless flow of messages promoting happiness and feeling good above all else, and we end up in a kind of spiritually anemic wasteland a type of toxic positivity that would have us believe that emotions can fall into only one of two categories bad or good. And, if we fail at feeling only the good ones, then we are somehow inadequate and miss out on creating an engaged and purposeful life. Sigh.

Heres the problem with this over-simplified view of our interior lives:

The things that bring true meaning and purpose to our lives are often the same things that invite the whole array of emotions into our consciousness, even the supposedly negative ones.

For example, think of a long-term intimate relationship, or when a person becomes a parent. These are complex life experiences that require us to be vulnerable, to step into the unknown, and brave the full array of our emotional responses. Its totally unrealistic to assume we could orient to these types of circumstances with the goal of only feeling the good vibes.

Having such an expectation sets us up to miss some of the most enriching opportunities for growth and connection. How can we teach our children about emotional resiliency if we are demanding they embrace a false positivity instead of learning to deal with the world the way it is? How can we model self-acceptance and self-compassion if we are effectively denying huge parts of ourselves and deeming them unacceptable simply because those parts are less than comfortable to feel?

The rigid approach of positivity and nothing else is indeed toxic. It stands in direct contradiction to a path of conscious evolution, one in which we welcome in the moments of vulnerability and see them as opportunities to acknowledge and feel all of our feelings. This is how we gain wisdom in life and access to deeper layers of our own potential by allowing ourselves to be present to full spectrum of our experiences and emotions.

So whats the antidote to this epidemic of toxic positivity? In a word, its authenticity.

Unlike the counterfeit form of enlightenment promised to us with toxic positivity, authenticity promotes a deep and potent inner-knowing, and allows us to show up in the world from a place of embodied presence no matter what emotions we are experiencing. But how exactly do we do that?

1.To be authentic, we must start with awareness.

We need to be willing to show up, stay curious, and make ourselves completely available to the present moment. When we do that, we are setting the stage to stay open to possibility and invoke the power of beginners mind. We refuse to make assumptions, including the assumption that certain emotions are better than others. Only then do we become truly available to listen to and receive from the experiences life is offering us.

2. With awareness intact, the next step towards authenticity is to clarify and connect with our values.

This is an essential step for making life more meaningful. When we know our values, what we want to be a stand for in this world, we can have a different orientation to our feelings. They are no longer good or bad. Instead, they are opportunities to learn more about what truly matters to us.

We tend to have the strongest emotional reactions to things that are important to us. For example, if we feel big grief about the millions of children living in poverty in our world, perhaps that is an indicator to us that we might deeply value being of service to others less fortunate than us. And as such, we can start to choose actions that align with that, which leads us to the next step.

3. Once we are clear on our values, then we can choose to act in accordance with those values to create a purpose driven-life.

Life no longer is about seeking out perpetual happiness. Instead, we choose to connect and prioritize those things that will move us further in the direction of what matters most to us.

When we have a clear connection to our inner purpose like this, we develop a much greater tolerance for the full spectrum of feelings. We dont fear the difficult emotions any longer. Instead, we understand that each feeling we have is part of a larger process of self-discovery and self-creation. And with our values at the forefront of our mind, we feel motivated to create a life filled with meaning and passion. But the practice of authenticity doesnt stop there.

4. To fully own our deepest truth and leave the cult of toxic positivity behind us, we must also embrace the ambiguity that inevitably comes with choosing authenticity.

As they say, the only thing certain in life is change. When we stop wasting energy trying to be in control of everything (including our emotions), we enter a more truthful relationship of co-creation with the universe. We allow ourselves to be changed by the journey as it unfolds.

This is where our true power lies not in cultivating some artificial sense of positivity but in genuinely showing up in the here and now, clear on our values, ready to act, and willing to be changed. This is the ground from which a life of real meaning and purpose can blossom and flourish and incidentally its also the place from which we truly can experience authentic happiness and fulfillment.

Read the rest here:
Toxic Positivity is a Thing and It Needs to Stop - Thrive Global

If you reach for extra helpings of turkey and stuffing on Thanksgiving, don't feel too self-conscious. Chances are, everyone else gathered at the table will pile more food onto their plates, too.

Blame the indulgence on one another, and our evolutionary wiring that dates back to our primitive days.

It's a real thing, and researchers call it the "social facilitation of eating" the tendency for people to eat more when they are with company than when they are alone. In fact, according to a recent British study, a meal size could be 29 to 48 percent larger when someone eats with other people, particularly when they are with friends and family, vs. people they don't know well.

Psychologist Helen Ruddock, an author of the study, said that, indeed, she eats more when she is with friends and family "especially at Christmas, because there's always so much food available."

"I often eat beyond the point of fullness in social situations," Ruddock said.

Our tendency to eat more with companions goes back to the hunter-gatherer days, when people competed for resources, Ruddock said. This created a tension between wanting to get enough food for ourselves, and not wanting to look greedy. People would strike a balance by eating roughly the same amount as those around them.

"Individual group members are guided to match their behavior to others, promoting a larger meal than might otherwise be eaten in the absence of this social competition," the study states.

Of course, most of us aren't hunter-gatherers in the modern world, but the evolutionary roots still guide our eating habits, according to the study.

Ruddock and her colleagues at the University of Birmingham's Eating Behaviour Research Group did a meta-analysis by examining 42 previous studies about social eating, which was published in the fall in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The studies include those in which participants were observed eating alone and with others, and also those that examined people's food diaries.

Researchers discovered that other species do the same. Animals, including chickens, rats and gerbils, also eat more when they are in a group, the study stated.

"This suggests it serves an ultimate purpose," the authors wrote.

While our close relations seem to have a big impact on our meal size in part because the meal can go on for hours the analysis found no major difference in food intake when people eat alone vs. with strangers and acquaintances.

Thanksgiving, with large quantities of comfort food and a celebratory vibe with loved ones, creates a perfect storm for stuffing ourselves with mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and green bean casserole, said Tessie Tracy, an eating-psychology coach affiliated with the Boulder, Colo.-based Institute for the Psychology of Eating.

Tracy, who is not connected to the study, said that with friends and family, there's an expectation and also almost "an unspoken pressure" to eat a lot on holidays.

"Auntie says, 'Oh, you have to clear your plate, " said Tracy, who coaches people to explore their relationship with food. "Auntie says, 'Oh, you're not going to try my pie?'"

She also said that, apart from family pressure, many of us just like to join the pack when there's a delicious sweet-potato casserole and fresh-baked rolls on the table.

"Everyone else is doing it, so I'm going to do it," Tracy said about our mind-set.

While this kind of eating once served a survival purpose, let's face it: Now that instinct can lead to indigestion and unwanted pounds. The authors recommend that future studies on the subject look at ways to enjoy social eating without being unhealthy.

That might be extra challenging at the holidays. There's some evidence that the Thanksgiving menu in particular fits well with the social facilitation of eating: Foods high in fat and protein like turkey and gravy have a strong association with eating more while with family and friends. One study found that the highest social-facilitation effects came from high-fat sweet foods such as pumpkin pie.

Whether it's the entree, dessert or the company or likely, all three the Thanksgiving meal is bound to foster a hearty appetite.

After all, it appears that we are just being human. And everyone else at the table probably will be polishing off their heaping plates, too.

Visit link:
You do eat more at the holidays: Evolution trained you to - Utica Observer Dispatch

With all the buzz about millennials over the past several years, brands are quickly shifting their focus to the emerging generation of influencers: Gen Z. If not already the largest living generation, by 2020 Gen Z will account for 40% of all consumers worldwide a staggering number, not just in sheer size, but also, importantly, in influence. The first digitally native generation, Gen Z (those born between 1997 and roughly the early to mid-2010s) grew up with technology at their fingertips, with the introduction of the iPhone considered to be the defining moment of their evolution.

Parents of millennials are, for the most part, baby boomers, who themselves grew up in an age of relative financial prosperity and security, and whose goal then became to provide an easier life for their children, resulting in what many perceive as a sense of entitlement among millennials. The parents of Gen Z are predominantly Gen X, who value teaching their kids to be self-sufficient and conscious of spending, as well as naturally being competitive and self-motivated. Gen X was widely affected by the Great Recession and, in turn, passed along the notion of fiduciary responsibility and self-reliance to their offspring. The difference in parenting styles is evident in the way Gen Z considers their travel decisions and spending of their own discretionary income, though that isnt the only way Gen Z is impacting the luxury travel market.

The combination of those two factors parenting and digital innovation has rendered Gen Z hugely influential in the decision making process of those bankrolling luxury travel.

Parents, who are largely responsible for providing an income for the familys livelihood and for their recreational travel, dont necessarily have the time to do all of the research for trip planning. Being so technologically intuitive, Gen Z has their fingers on the pulse of trending destinations and experiences through information seen in highly visual, bite-sized servings on social media. They are the generation most likely to travel internationally, preferring off-the-beaten-path destinations to tried-and-true ones, and authentic local experiences to the sightseeing and group excursions their grandparents may have preferred. They value living like a local.

Parents increasingly consult their kids on family travel planning decisions. Gen Z is likely to embrace active experiences, and is more open to considering alternative accommodations and the sharing economy, impacting the way travel providers are approaching their business models and planning for the future. Pursuing highly visual destinations and exotic, unique activities, Gen Z is looking to differentiate themselves in a homogenized world of social media, finding innovative content in order to stand out. That entrepreneurial spirit has resulted in a wealth of opportunities for DMCs and service providers the industry over.

New businesses are emerging to cater to the complex and diverse needs of this new consumer base, even if the ones funding the costs are boomers or Gen X; after all, grandparents often favor the opinions of their grandchildren over their own adult kids. If a multigenerational trip is about engaging the entire family, its prudent to cater to the desires of those most easily distracted or dissatisfied.

Additionally, new destinations like are increasingly finding fast footing, at the risk of developing more quickly than infrastructure (or culture) allows. Gen Zs open-minded, unusual choices veer away from traditional destinations in a search for singularity. They are savvy about where they want to go, eschewing Paris for Marrakech, the Caribbean for the Galapagos.

In order to reach the luxury travel spender, brands need to sell the experience and meet Gen Z where they live, on social media channels like Instagram and SnapChat (Facebook is already pass for those under 25). Paramount is a focus on peer inclusion; Gen Z digests information almost exclusively from their peer group, not adult or perceived authoritarian sources. Including imagery with people that look like them is crucial to success for travel companies. Some agents and providers either have or will soon start enlisting Gen Z influencers themselves to create awareness among the peer group, one that is budget-conscious but willing to spend where it increases the aesthetic or the experience something best sold through social media. For a self-aware generation, theres still a healthy dose of FOMO to which brands, destinations, hotels and service providers can appeal.

Read more:
Lessons In Luxury Travel: Gen Z's Influence On The Economy - Forbes