Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Idea: Lessons for the Living
"Moving through his high school hallways, Mark recounts the first time he entered the hospice unit at age 18 - “You have to leave yourself at the door...you become an empty vessel.” He meets a terminally ill man with a broken voice who will tell him things about life no text book could ever write.?
from the documentary film by Lily Frances Henderson
Design: Airport Sleepbox
Designers: Arch Group
Currently Installed in Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow
Art: Being Elmo
The doc focuses on one of the most iconic Sesame Street characters and the creative mind behind him.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Event: CAA Young Hollywood Party
ABOUT
The Creative Artists Agency (CAA) Task Force will host its 9th Annual Young Hollywood Party on October 13, 2011 at The Colony. Over 1,000 celebrities and entertainment industry professionals from nearly every major talent agency, management firm, production company, studio, network, and public relations firm will be invited to help raise money to support Communities In Schools of Los Angeles West (CISLAW).
*This event is 21 years & up.
THE CAUSE
The mission of Communities in Schools (CIS) is to surround students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. Through a school-based coordinator, CIS connects students and their families to critical community resources tailored to local needs. Working in nearly 3,300 schools in the most challenged communities, CIS has become the nation's leading dropout prevention organization, and the only one proven to increase graduation rates and decrease dropout rates.
Since 2007, Communities In Schools of Los Angeles West has grown to provide integrated student services to over 1900 students at 8 traditional, title 1 public schools throughout Los Angeles Unified School District. Partner schools are Alexander Hamilton and Venice High Schools, as well as Mark Twain, Daniel Webster, John Liechty, Emerson, Hollenbeck and William Jefferson Clinton Middle Schools.
TICKETS
General Admission - $65
2-hour Hosted Bar
VIP - $100
2-hour Hosted Bar
Young Hollywood Party Gift Bag
5 Opportunity Drawing Tickets
To purchase a table ($5,000 for 10), please contact caataskforce@caa.com
All proceeds benefit Communities in Schools.
For more info, Click Here
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Idea: Have We Lost Our Wisdom?
Where Have All the Wise Men Gone?
By Michael Meade, D.H.L.
We live in a time of great forgetting. It's not just that people live longer and short-term memory loss becomes inevitable over time. We reach for a familiar name, but it is temporarily out of our reach. Having parked a car so many times, we forget exactly where we parked it this time. We enter a room only to forget why we crossed that threshold and what we were looking for.
There is no tragedy, no great loss in that. Some forgetfulness is natural, just as eyesight weakens over time. Yet nature, in its wisdom, may see the whole thing differently. After 40 or 50 years a person has seen enough of this world and the point may no longer be just looking at life or observing what is going on. After enough time has passed, the issue is not the simple loss of sight, for the point has become the need to develop a genuine vision for life.
The loss of common sight might serve to precipitate deeper insights about life and about death, another event that nature requires. As we "grow older," we are supposed to also grow deeper and thereby become wiser. Those who continue to grow as they grow older are able to develop long-term vision where most become blinded by near-term needs and common neediness. Growing older happens to everyone, but growing wiser happens to those who awaken to a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life.
Similarly, the inevitable loss of short-term memory that accompanies aging is not intended to be a complete loss. Losing one's immediate grip on certain details can be related to gaining a greater grasp of the long-term issues that affect both culture and nature. The first kind of forgetting misplaces things in the moment, but the great forgetting involves a loss of memory regarding the gift of life itself and a lack of living wisdom that helps make both individual and collective life meaningful.
By Michael Meade, D.H.L.
We live in a time of great forgetting. It's not just that people live longer and short-term memory loss becomes inevitable over time. We reach for a familiar name, but it is temporarily out of our reach. Having parked a car so many times, we forget exactly where we parked it this time. We enter a room only to forget why we crossed that threshold and what we were looking for.
There is no tragedy, no great loss in that. Some forgetfulness is natural, just as eyesight weakens over time. Yet nature, in its wisdom, may see the whole thing differently. After 40 or 50 years a person has seen enough of this world and the point may no longer be just looking at life or observing what is going on. After enough time has passed, the issue is not the simple loss of sight, for the point has become the need to develop a genuine vision for life.
The loss of common sight might serve to precipitate deeper insights about life and about death, another event that nature requires. As we "grow older," we are supposed to also grow deeper and thereby become wiser. Those who continue to grow as they grow older are able to develop long-term vision where most become blinded by near-term needs and common neediness. Growing older happens to everyone, but growing wiser happens to those who awaken to a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life.
Similarly, the inevitable loss of short-term memory that accompanies aging is not intended to be a complete loss. Losing one's immediate grip on certain details can be related to gaining a greater grasp of the long-term issues that affect both culture and nature. The first kind of forgetting misplaces things in the moment, but the great forgetting involves a loss of memory regarding the gift of life itself and a lack of living wisdom that helps make both individual and collective life meaningful.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Idea: What 9/11 Can Teach Us
We were in the midst of second period when it happened: my teacher became so fed up with my chatter that he kicked me out of Spanish class and forced me to stand in the hallway with hopes of the dean being near. Luckily, that did not happen, but still I chuckled to myself when I asked, ‘how drunk was the guy when he flew a plane into a New York City building.’ Our teacher had just stopped the lesson and turned on the television to the exact same image on every single station.
My chuckles began to go away until they completely turned into concern when a second plane hit the second Twin Tower. The shock and grief that overcame our class transitioned into a disconnected nation in search of an answer.
Ten years later and everyone still remembers exactly where they were when the tragedy happened.
Ten years later, but what can we learn from it?
According to one of the essential doctrines of existence in Buddhism, impermanence is something that constantly comes to mind when I think of such life-changing events. But the question remains, ‘why only life-changing events?’ Why do we recognize everything we had when it is no longer ours? Why do we choose not to live for the moment?
Impermanence is an undeniable and inescapable fact of human existence from which nothing that belongs to this earth is ever free and internal.
“According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where as in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment.
So does life.
It changes continuously and becomes something or the other from moment to moment.”
September 11, 2001 is a date that will be forever ingrained into America’s heart and should teach us the important lesson that nothing lasts forever.
Today, I not only encourage you to take the time out to think about 9/11, but also the last ten years of your life.
What you dreamed for yourself ten years ago, how close today are you to what you envisioned?
One Life, You Decide™
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
A Year's Passing
"With returning home to Chicago after this weekend in NYC, I have realized where my heart truly lies and I am really looking to begin the important steps to beginning life after college in Los Angeles. Although I am a recent college graduate, I know I have the drive and creativity to make up for everything I may lack in professional experience."
Exactly one year ago, I wrote those overlying words in an email with an attempt to position myself closer to one of my dreams. Today, I am very blessed and grateful to be exactly where I envisioned (and more). But it's nowhere near over. Over the last few weeks I have discovered how much I enjoy helping and enabling others' dreams and aspirations.
Friends - with the right attitude, ambition, curiosity, hard-work, passion, heart and a smile on your face, you have the power to make all your dreams come true. Harness your passions with your power and chase after what's most important to you in life.
Never give up, fail courageously, give each moment the same amount of love and always keep moving forward. If you don't believe in yourself, who will?
One Life, You Decide™
Monday, September 05, 2011
Thursday, September 01, 2011
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