Bitter Almonds

The smell of bitter almonds might portend the flavor of a speedy death.  Cyanide is present in bitter almonds and quite a few other morsels we ingest and it’s many a murder mystery that the detective discovers the scent of over a corpse.  

My life has had that scent waft  stimulate my olfactory nerves. Some I have paid attention to some I have ignored still others I saw as the incentive to move forward against my better judgment and my intuition. Now I listen to the angels that my Higher Power sends each morning I awake because there is no scent only the invisible hand that caresses my shoulder and gives me the direction on my compass. The sense of smell is a powerful aphrodisiac but the hand of God trumps the scent of bitter almonds every time.  

Make that Call

The difference between talking about making that call and making the call lies in the face that  we are stuck in the past and not in the present moment. Resistance is a powerful inhibitor because we would rather stay uncomfortable and in fear than take on the present moment.  Make that call you'll be glad you did!

A Hard Days Night

It was one of my favorite songs as it harkens back to my youth in the eye opening but not very complicated 60’s. When I was home in my bed, all was right with the world as I turned on my Victrola.*  I never had a care and the biggest dilemma facing me was would my mother let me paint my room red. By the way she compromised if you have read me extensively and let me paint one wall in what I thought was my favorite color.  God she was right a red room would have been a nightmare and certainly a Hard Days Night into sleep. 

The Beatles were a phenomena that I listened to on my transistor radio with my mono earplug. And when that movie came out it was the first and only time that the audience (teenage girls) were screaming at a motion picture screen. The writers of that film gave us back a musical comedy not seen since another favorite of mine: Guys and Dolls. Beatlemania though probably rose to a zenith when that lighthearted story hit the silver screen. I was there and history will never be repeated like that again at least not in my lifetime.  

In 1967 Cream had a song called: Born Under a Bad Sign and it typified my thoughts when I wasn’t able to reconcile my undiscovered talent for grey cells in my High School days.  Was it only experience I was lacking or was I just shy waiting to leave my chrysalis?  Probably a bit of both and knowing the answer won’t even give me a pie playing Trivial Pursuit which I was pretty good at if I am any judge. Well that’s not a good response, because I am hardly a good judge of character because in the dictionary the word gullible has my picture right next to the definition.  And those that have judged me usually just read the headlines and forgot the body of the story. But in their defense who has time to read anyway. 

* A Victrola is an antique record player; the sound of the vibrating needle is amplified acoustically.

The Sikh's Embrace

Today I experienced something so singular that it made me realize the world isn’t such a bad place after all. I found myself in the company of nearly 3,000 Sikh’s on the grounds of their temple where they held a carnival like no other I have attended. 

  I am fortunate to have met about a year and a half ago a humble man in one of the exercise clubs that I call my second home.  Over the course of time we befriended each other and in a world of separateness and strong ethnicity he embraced my friendship as I did his. When I was introduced to his family at a festive occasion at his home his relatives took it upon themselves to welcome this vanilla man as if they knew me for years.  A hard workingman from India who wears his humility like a blessing and shares his abundance as openly as only the true heart can beat.  

Maybe it was my imagination or just my wishful thinking but I could swear that on those hallowed grounds something special was brewing.  I was anxious for sustenance and as I reticently approached one of the food stands, to partake in the culinary delights a lovely woman adorned in a colorful sari smiled at me and motioned me closer to sample the offerings. She lit my countenance in return and I felt like I was home. And as I wandered the grounds chatting to anyone and everyone I found that their friendly demeanor rivaled friends I’ve had for many a year. 

My friend reminded me of Marlon Brando in: The Wild One. He wore dark shades and an American Flag bandana and the only thing missing was his motorcycle.  And as he directed the cars onto the temple grounds he took pride in being traffic cop for the day with the same devotion he gives at work, at play, with his family and friends. Just someone I admire and a wonderful model for his son.  He takes pride in everything he does and when he takes you in to his confidence you will have a different meaning as to what a friend is.  

Sunny Side Up

So often in our rush to ameliorate our loved ones feelings, we try to save them the emotional pain of sudden trauma whether it be from the death of a relationship, a disappointment from something unexpected or just free floating anxiety. We are not the feelings that travel through us even though it might seem that way. We must face the possibility that there will be times when we can’t make things better and we just have to let the eggs fall to the floor and crack. What is surprising is that when that egg does split open it often is Sunnyside up.  

The Great Divide

No matter how well spoken, enunciated and clearly audibly one can speak, the great divide turns words into a whisper with your back turned. What is tragic is that too many times we choose the default setting of leaving things unsaid, when even the most obvious phrases would be the better choice. We can become lifeless and inanimate when it comes to our communicative skills. Silence is not golden but wooden and too easily subjected to the decay that time brings to every relationship that is not nurtured each and every day. There is no time for he said she said, only what we say every damn day!  

Attention and Other Cognitive States

The first stage of attention is called pre-attentive processing stage in which in my case was determining that a stimulus was being presented of letters rapidly floating by in my field of vision.  In other words, I was asked to identify whether the letters j or k could be identified in any given sequence.  The next stage is called focused attentive processing in which I was trying to determine which of the two letters I actually saw.  What seemed to be happening for my test was that I was focusing on one letter, the letter j and I was having difficulty processing if I saw both letters as I could only seem to place focus on one letter with any degree of perceived accuracy. As I point out perceived accuracy because there was no immediate feedback if I was correct or not (Argosy, 2009).

My visual attention was directly affected as the presentation speed varied.  The probability that I saw both letters at the faster speeds rapidly declined.  I was fortunate to see one. In actual fact I was quite pleased if I was able to see just one of the two letters as I have previously stated.  As the speed decreased the probability that I made the right choice increased however slightly.  At the slower speeds my eyes could focus on each image, the converse was true at higher speeds. What it was reminiscent of is watching a stop watch that shows tenths of a second, it is virtually impossible to see each tenth of a second as it clicks off even though each image is present for 100 ms. My notion is that 100 milliseconds is too fast for me to identify each digit in a tenth of a second.  

Feature integration theory which holds that humans have to take time to process letters that are similar dovetails in my opinion with selective attention which had me trying to select the two targeted letters and disregarding all the rest (Argosy, 2009).  Selective attention is the ability to attend of focus on one source of information that is to only see the letters j or k and to exclude other stimuli which for my lab experiment was to ignore all the other letters that were not j or k. Further along these lines is that this experiment required controlled attention where I maintained a deliberate effort to pay attention to the stimulus at hand and ignoring all others or the letters that were not j and k (Ashcraft & Radvansky, 2010). 

Sleep deprivation affects the brain’s ability to function at the same speed and its capability deteriorates quickly.  The brain will work harder to counteract the affects but the concentration levels will drop and memory will be affected and impaired (The effects of sleep deprivation, 2007).

Attentional blink   which in this experiment has asked us to respond to one stimulus and then immediately to another showed that our response is delayed having to identify another event (Ashcraft & Radvansky, 2010). It is common knowledge that alcohol affects judgment and reduces reaction time.  Therefore a high-pressure attention demanding job like air traffic controllers (ATC) requires much more attention than the Coglab experiment just conducted and any use of alcohol or drugs could have disastrous consequences. 

• Argosy University (2009). Cognition and Learning PSY360 UC Module 3. Retrieved September 25, 2009 from http://myeclassonline.com

 Ashcraft, M.H., Radvansky, G.A. (2010). Cognition. Belmont CA.: Prentice

The effects of sleep deprivation, 2007 Retrieved September 25, 2009 from http://www.sleep-deprivation.com/articles/effects-of-sleep-deprivation/index.php