Consumed by anxiety? Give it a day or two

Oliver Burkeman puts anxiety in perspective in his The Guardian column: 

The next time you’re consumed by anxiety – which, given the headlines, is probably this minute – you might borrow a tip from the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, author of the excellent new book How To Be A Stoic. In a recent podcast, Pigliucci described how he used Google Street View and Google Earth to create a slideshow that starts with an image of his own home, then zooms out, out and out, until it shows the whole planet. He consults it when feeling overwrought. You couldn’t hope for a more vivid illustration of the Stoic “dichotomy of control”, which urges us to restrict our attempts to change things to those actually in our power, instead of making ourselves miserable railing against those that aren’t. (See also the “serenity prayer”, popularised by Alcoholics Anonymous.) You are – not to be rude – a tiny part of the cosmos. That doesn’t make you powerless. But it does mean you’re almost certainly stressing about things that will, without doubt, remain majestically unaffected by your stress.

What Can Musicians Teach Us about Imagination?

Scientific American Beautiful Minds blog: 

What is the nature of music? What is imagination in music? What's the role of intuition in music? What motivates musicians? What makes a great musical performance? What creates transcendence in music? What is the role of the audience? What are some recommended approaches for increasing creativity in music teachers and music students? These are some of the fascinating questions that we discussed at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. The participants included: Paul Bryan, Dean of Faculty and Students at the Curtis Institute; conductor; trombonist Dan Lerner, Faculty at New York University Gloria dePasquale, Cellist in the Philadelphia Orchestra Yumi Kendall, Cellist in the Philadelphia Orchestra Georgia Shreve, Composer and writer Gene Scheer, Opera librettist Ashley Robillard, Opera Student at Curtis Institute Elizabeth Hyde, Research Specialist for the Imagination Institute Scott Barry Kaufman, Scientific Director of the Imagination Institute Martin Seligman, Executive Director of the Imagination Institute, Director of the Positive Psychology Center, and Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Seth Godin on Innovation

Seth Godin: 

Innovation is essential, but innovation isn't lazy. It takes insight and patience and experience to bring a new solution to an old problem.

Impatience is not a strategy.

Experience isn't free, but it's valuable.

And history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Jocelyn K Glei: How to be productive in a meaningful way in a world of distraction

Jocelyn K. Glei:

"We’ve gotten very good at making time for busywork and very bad at making time for our best work. In this recent talk, I outline why we’re so addicted to “fake productivity” — those small, mindless tasks that feel productive but actually get us nowhere — and how we can shift our attention back to the work that matters."

The Lifelong Effects of Music and Arts Classes

The Pacific Standard on a recent study that highlights the importance of arts education: 

 New research suggests [arts educators] are creating arts aficionados, and cultivating the next generation of patrons and performers.

“If one aim of music education, as many music educators report, is to engender a lifelong connection with the arts,” writes Kenneth Elpus of the University of Maryland, “the results of this study suggest that music — and arts education more broadly — is achieving this aim for many alumni.”

For his study, published in journal Psychology of Music, Elpus analyzed data from the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, an ongoing project of the once-again-threatened National Endowment for the Arts. It included data on 9,482 American adults regarding “their childhood experiences with music and arts education.” A larger group of 35,735 were asked about their arts-related experiences over the past year, as an audience member and/or creator.

“Rather than disengage from art-making and arts attendance upon graduation, students of school-based music and arts education were significantly more likely (than their peers) to create art in their own lives, and to patronize arts events,” Elpus reports.