Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of awesome

Dr. Seuss

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” 

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” 

Ernest Hemingway

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”

We Were Evergreen

HBO's NEWSROOM Opening scene "Why America's Not the Greatest Country"

I have been watching this show religiously ever since I saw this little segment several weeks ago. I could not help but agree wholeheartedly with his argument.  As I have attempted to inform myself better about my country and about where I stand politically, over the past several years, I have mostly become frustrated and saddened by how selfish and petty we have become.  Then, being the son of a historiaholic, who dragged me around the country almost deifying all the great men that established our laws and who fought to make this country great, I was often reminded of the days when this county truly was great. 
I love this country and I feel so blessed to have been born a citizen of it, however we each have a responsibility as such.  As he states in the clip, we need to inform ourselves and realize we can do better.  Our government was established to be "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people".  If we, as the people will inform ourselves and then act in accordence with our beliefs, instead of just stand back, then "change" can truly come.

Scilla Elworthy: Fighting with non-violence

Of Monsters and Men - Love Love Love (Live on KEXP)

Beautiful song.  When I play it I like to change the lyrics at the end of the first verse though.   I think it should be "Well maybe, I know" instead of "Well baby, I know "

Don Tapscott: Four principles for the open world

Jim Carrey

"It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what's left?"

Derek Paravicini - British Musical Savant

Is it not amazing to realize how little we know of how the brain actually works.  We know about the chemical and electrical signaling that is taking place, and we try to map out how the connections correlate to one another, but really we know so very little.  How do all these signals and such turn into the complex and beautiful thoughts and memories that we have in our minds all the time, while still keeping our bodies functioning and alive?  And how does a premature, supposedly damaged, brain like Derek's here, store and create such mindbogglingly beautiful music?  We may have mapped out the human genome, and we may know everything about the evolution and maturation of the brain, but with all we have learned the brain is still mystifying us.