I was recently invited to give a talk about the relationship between creativity and science at the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition.  In particular, the organizer wanted me to structure my talk around some of my science-themed poems. 

It seems some of the scientists there were rather intrigued by the whole idea. 

Like many people, I don’t subscribe to many magazines.   I hate having to recycle them when I’m done as I always feel guilty throwing away good writing.  But one enjoys a special place in my mailbox: The Sun. 

It’s a bit like A Prairie Home Companion in print, but darker.  As they say on their About page, “words and photographs to invoke the splendor and heartache of being human.”

I finished Hecht’s The Happiness Myth (a full review to come this week) and am now devouring Switch by Chip & Dan Heath.  They also wrote Made to Stick, a terrific how-to for effective communication.

One of the things I like about the new book is that it reinforces the communication concepts from Made to Stick, and then shows you how to apply them to affect significant change, whether personal or professional.  They use an analogy throughout the book of the brain as an elephant and its rider–borrowed, as best as I can tell, from Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis. 

In the analyogy, the brain has a rational, long-term thinking part (the Rider), a huge, emotional, short-term satisfaction part (the Elephant), and both have to work together to navigate a path (life).  When the two are in conflict, the Rider can only win temporarily before being overpowered by the Elephant.