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Showing posts from 2017

Mindfullness Meditation and Depression - in a pod cast

Over the last 3 years I have found that meditation has really assisted me, in resolving the depression I have had. I have planned to write about my experience for a while, and hopefully will get around to doing that. However today having listen to the latest podcast by Dan Harris on 10% happier, so many things just clicked in to place, so I want to share it. To understand what is covered in the podcast I would recommend you understand what mindfulness meditation is, and what the default mode network in the brain is (see links below). Listen to the pod cast - but here are some extracts (which I do not have permission to publish - and will remove if asked). Link to podcast: tumello.com/listen/H11a5NYJf; or itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/10-happier-with-dan-harris/id1087147821 Chuck Raison, a psychiatrist and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, and Vlad Maletic, a clinical professor of neuropsychiatry and behavior sc

The doomed perpetual quest for happiness and consciousness

We are made so The quest for happiness is doomed. If we are not happy we want to be happy. If we are happy we want to stay happy which is impossible, since you cannot be in that state of happiness forever. Happiness moment are brief. This is the Dukkha of life that the Buddha spoke about. Sometime translated as suffering it is more unsatisfactoriness. In Robert Wrights book “ Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Enlightenment ” he makes a case for the fact that if you wanted to create a system for a being to pursue pleasure the best way to design that being is to make pleasure transient. So the joy of eating a great meal must only last for a short while otherwise we would starve. This means we can only have transient happiness, otherwise we would always be happy. That is why each goal we achieve is only important if we do not achieve it, and once achieved its significance fades, so we can pursue the next goal and pleasure. The problem is that we need to realise

Bitcoin / Cryptocurrency – what is it and how can I benefit

What is it I started investigating Bitcoin when it was worth just over $1000 a bitcoin. I was interested in what it was and how it worked. A lot of people are saying we missed the boat, but I believe that everyone should at least try put a little money in now, or at least use a faucet (see below) to make a little micro-currency. You can read a Wiki article about bitcoin and its history etc. But what you need to know is that it is a currency, that is independent of country. No one really knows who invented the concept of a cryptocurrency since the person who published the paper used a nom de plume. All new cryptocurrencies work more or less the same way as Bitcoin. So as I explain below I interchange these terms. Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency. How Bitcoin works The currency releases a coin based on a mathematical formula. There will never be more than 21 million bitcoins (other cryptocurrencies do not work like this). Each bitcoin can have divided into one hundred mil

April 7 March – Reflection

The Reality I was unsure if people care enough to make an effort. I planned to join the April 7 March to Save South Africa from the Cape Town Town Hall to Parliament the next day. Arriving in town we could see things were different. We walked past the Market in St Georges mall and saw almost no one there.  As we carried on walking towards the Grand Parade we heard first the motorbikes, then the people. Even though it was not yet noon, the crowd that had gathered was substantial, a lot more than the legal limit of 8,000. I looked up the street and then realized that the crowd was very large, my insecurity that no one cared enough to make an effort seemed like a joke. After some politically charged messages we started a slow march towards Parliament via Buitenkant. It was a slow march with some politically charged chanting – but was peaceful. When we got close to parliament as we could I realized there were a lot of people there.  Perspective

Problems updating WordPress site (fixed)

If you are having problems updating your WordPress site there are a few things to check. WordPress Site says it is under maintenance If the update failed you may find there is a problem accessing the site, where it tells you it is down for maintenance. To fix that delete the .maintenance file in the root of your WordPress folder. Set folder rights If the WordPress update or plug updates do not take. using your hosted control panel make all the folders read write. Remember to put them back to read afterwards. Manual update https://codex.wordpress.org/Updating_WordPress#Manual_Update" Plug-in update hack: If you are finding that plugins are not updating. Then download site via FTP Run the update of the plugin (see above about rights) If it crashes then copy wp-admin folder back in its entirity Relaunch wp-admin  see the plug has updated.