Downward facing dog aka Adho Mukha Svasana. Re-invigorates the person who has settled into a slouch. Enlivens the gaze. Practice for at least five minutes after 4 hours of sitting. Ok to play with it, go into Wild Thing or whatever variation makes you happy. Try getting around on all fours--feet and hands, no knees. The dog knows how. The heart is the center for this asana.

What do you think? Have you ever fallen into that pit where you had no "real" life and your entire life existed through a keyboard and screen? Have you found your way back into the land of living and breathing? Have you discovered your body? Are you OK being alone with yourself??

Got me started thinking about this (again):
http://vimeo.com/70534716

I had a housemate once who would become completely obsessed with a new video game and play it continuously until he had completed all the levels. It took a couple months for him to master Grand Theft Auto. He took me for a ride in it. Our virtual reality was shared in living and breathing space, and he was not a lost cause. I don't think. I hope not.

I have a friend who lives a good fraction of her life in second life. She is married in this life and has a significant other in second life. Her 2nd life SO is known to her and her husband. He has a wife and kids. They visit together, eat icecream, break ankles, breathe the same air. Second life has merged with first life.

I have a sister whose occupation is building things for the second world. That is, she obtains or develops images and sounds that she can sell for virtual money. Her reality is beyond my comprehension, except that when she is there beside me she is just as solidly herself as she has ever been, with a sharpened wit.

I have a boyfriend who barely exists on the internet. I told him how many fb friends I have now and he laughed at me. I think he is afraid that I will go where my sister went, or my friend. He likes to exercise and play his guitar and garden and read. Doing all those other things sounds far better than this. I'm outta here.

A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
--Steve Jobs

....this is a "holy shit!!" for me....

from the Washington Post:
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Economy/Business News Alert: Apple surpasses Exxon to become world's largest company
August 9, 2011 1:35:58 PM
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Apple overtook Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable company Tuesday, as the computer company’s stock continued to defy a slowing market.

The changing of the guard is due in part to a market slowdown that has depressed oil prices and taken Exxon Mobil stock down significantly. But the switch is also a testament to Apple’s gravity-defying growth.

I LOL'd and it's short:

This is BRILLIANT.

This is about how search engines such as google and networking sites such as facebook select for us what we will see based on what we have clicked on before. It appears to me that this limits our exposure to novel ideas, and funnels us into thought tunnels, ie dogma. Interestingly, I receive political ads from every direction, perhaps because I have found good candidates on all sides. I click both ways. On many spectrums. I wonder what google and facebook are NOT showing me.

Found this graphic illuminating:

The least of things
with a meaning
is worth more in life
than the greatest of things
without it.
--Carl Jung, "Modern Man in Search of a Soul"