Rings of memory

We are like trees

Have you ever as adult or grown up experienced that the spine tingles when you see kids doing something funny. When a toddler throws a dollop of porridge at the acidic babysitter or spaghetty on himself

.rs_560x415-140324161453-1024-baby-playing-with-food-ms-032414_copy

Or when yelling kids keep sliding down a long and twisted slide, and finally dumps down on soft ground screaming delightedly.

children sliding down a water slide
children sliding down a water slide

Have you watched a father lifting his giggling kid up in the air? Or seen a parent throwing the thrilled toddler toward the ceiling, and then picking him up again before he falls to the ground?

child in the air

Even if you’ve long since put such avtivities behind you, yet you recognize some of the same feelings that is getting these kids to rejoice.

Maybe you see some crazy youngsters rolling around on the ground above and below each other. They are joking and fighting for play, while they scream and laugh. And suddenly you wish you could join them in some careless stolen moments of joy and laughter.

Then I would say, you’re probably still alive with your child, toddler, and teenager within you. You should really congratulate yourself more than calling you childish.overhead-view-of-six-teenagers-in-swimsuits-laying-on-grass-with-heads-aa664t

To revitalize ourselves

In my work one of the most important aspects of it is to revitalize people. To revive the originally very vital and vibrant child inside there somewhere. A child that has had plenty of imagination, energy, and hope for the moment and the future. A wonder of nature itself, – before, sad to say, – something or most likely somebody choked that magnificent and open life force in its very early expression.

Bilde+gutt+ansiktsmaling

To be like a tree

I like to compare a human being with a beautiful tree! This tree has as many seasonal or annual rings as the person has had years. And to quote Forest Academy’s Faculty Manual: “Annual rings reveal the events that have occurred in our environment.”årringer

And like a tree we collect memories. We are just a billion times more advanced than trees. No offence Mr. and Mrs. Pine. But we human beings collect memories both in our body, and in our heads.

The problem with mental memory actually, is that they can be suppressed from consciousness throughout your life. But our body has plenty of memories. It is our body tissue; like muscles, joints, intestines, heart, respiratory system, that absorbs most of our memories. anatomy-information

Kupfermuller started research on this some 60 years ago. How many bits of information are we capable of processing per sec. Many scientists continued this research. About 1990 it was assumed by experiments that we receive about 11 million bits of information per second. Only 10 to 15 bits of this vast amount of information were humans supposed to be able to perceive consciously.

According to neuroscientist Yates Buckley (2015), however, the amount we can process consciously has increased. Now it is supposed to be in average about 40 bits information per second. databank

Advanced databank

Personally, I believe I must be very sluggish, because I would never manage to deal with 40 bits per second in my conscious head. Perhaps 4 bits. Remember, consciousness is always behind the experience, some milliseconds. Consciousness is in arrears as it is called.

11 million bits information every second.

You must in some manner process and deal with the spontaneous experience, and that takes time. But more important than computing accurate bits and discussing milliseconds is the question: What happens to the rest?  The 10 million 999.960. bits that your consciousness could not catch ?

Every small piece of information is stored in the human body.

Yes, the vast amount of information does not disappear in the air, or falls to the ground. It goes directly into your body. As already hinted it goes to muscles, joints, intestines, heart, respiratory system, skin.

These areas of the body function as storage for memory. A storage where the information has no conceptual label or tag. We talk about sensations, visual inputs, auditory and tactile inputs, smell, taste. A whole array of different vivid inputs, that your upper brain has not thoroughly classified yet!

For this reason, You know extremely much, without necessarily knowing how and why. I believe that this enormous bank of unsorted knowledge is the main source of our intuitions. When suddenly from this endless ocean of information a string of causality appears. A string where info on different perceptual channels or levels of elaboration gathers to a strong or vague subconscious feeling. That’s intuition! A feeling often contrary to your rational mind.

intuition

Intuitions are most often vague and should not automatically be acted upon. However, it is important to take them into consideration. To reflect upon that feeling of uneasiness when you talk with a person, or when you suddenly get an impulse to break a relation or cut out a meeting.einstein-valuable-540x338

For artists and genuine imaginative scientists, this memory tree or intuition, may lead to breakthroughs in research or new fantastic inventions. I include our intuitions in this text, mostly in connection with the picture of human beings as trees of information from every year of its growth.

Embrace yourself as you embrace a tree

Therefore I encourage every reader to show respect for this stored information in our body. To pay attention to these our annual rings of memories, that may pop up when we see or meet something that make us react.  It can be everything from weather, pictures, movies, voices, bosses, mothers, fathers, infants, children, youngsters, to younger grownups.

Notice what you feel, even if it is aversion, anxiety or anger. Negative feelings are also important to reflect upon. They can give a hint about what you once experienced when you were at that age in a similar situation.embracing a tree

Then try To connect respectfully and positive to those feelings or mental pictures that shows up for your inner vision.  If nobody else is, at least you must be your own best friend here!

This contact then, may be the very beginning of your capacity to embrace yourself with recognition, respect and love. Not only the conscious part of you. But your whole history engraved in the annual rings of your memory tree!pinus_sylvestris1

 

 

 

Money and Happiness

Many will disagree, when I say that money in general, does not make you happy. Of course, it can! If you are poor and suddenly get an OK-paid job, win in the lottery or get an inheritance that alleviates your accommodation and household to a reasonable standard, you will be happy. At least for some time.happy with his new job

And if your children are smart or industrious or both you will be glad to send them to appropriate schools. But if your country does not have highly qualified free schools, that’s a problem without money. So if you could afford to send your children to good schools you would most likely feel happy. Schools that also enhance their student’s chances of getting a decent job that can secure their life too. Wouldn’t you then be glad? I guess so!research center

Research on happiness and money

Most research on the field of money and happiness seem to agree: We need enough money to secure our basic needs. Earning more to achieve that, and a little more extra will increase our wellbeing. Then there is a leveling out of the increase in happiness as your income or money in your bank account rises.

– Two components of happiness regarding money.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, specifies the concept of happiness.  She says that it is important to divide happiness associated with money into two parts.

1. The Evaluative Component, underscores that you are successful and capable of reaching your goals.

2. The Affective Component refers to the qualities of your emotional life when your income or bank account rises. That is, – how often you experience positive emotions as opposed to negative ones. Positive emotions like joy, affection, and tranquility,

– Money helps only one part of your wellbeing.

With more money on your hand the first part, the evaluative component rises and continues to rise. But that is not so with the second part; the affective component. You may for sure be happy with yourself and your success, without feeling deeply glad, at ease, and joyful.

Besides that, we must admit that happiness or wellbeing above the limit of poverty, depends mostly on your psychology, and reactions to experiences in your early and adolescent life.

– Giving away money

But there seems to be one important investment you can do to sustain and improve happiness and well-being.  That is to give away some of your money to people who need them.

Elizabeth Dunn is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. This psychologist is also co-author of the book “Happy Money”. She has done many experiments on this topic. Her experiments began by handing out cash to students on campus.

She told some of them to spend it on themselves and others to spend it on someone else. What happened to their feelings? When tested, – those who spent money on other people were happier than those who treated themselves.man giving money

Prof. Dunn has since repeated the experiment in other countries across the world. She has extended it to look at whether people were still happy when it was their own money they had to give away, not only money she had given them for free. She also found that in countries as different as Canada, South Africa, and Uganda, giving away money made people happier. Even when it was their own money people gave away, they were still very happy about it. And this was the case even when they themselves were relatively poor.127239288-billionaire-investor-warren-buffett-and-microsoft_jpg_CROP_cq5dam_web_1280_1280_jpeg

We know that in the US. billionaires and other rich, endow themselves in charity and considerable donations. Both astronomically rich Warren Buffet and Bill Gates expressed in 2010 when they wanted to donate 99% of their wealth to charity, that they had never been so happy.

As a Scandinavian, it is typical for me to ask why they could not gladly give away these amounts of money as regular taxes, year by year. The globalized economy is not transparent and it is a problem that some business corporations for example like Google and Facebook, do not pay taxes to the countries they earn money in. (Yes, some of these companies give donations to charity, but often these donations seem to be motivated by improving image and reputation.)YachtsPanamaCity040416_large

We know that the welfare in most western democracies is declining, money gets into fewer and fewer hands, and wages for ordinary people have fallen. This has been the trend since 1975 and deregulation of banks and taxes started with Reagan and Thatcher.

When these extremely rich companies do not pay a cent, it is difficult to feel very much happiness, when with just an ordinary income, you give away money to the state as taxes. It could be much more gratifying, Francis J. Flynn in Stanford Business Grad. School says after studying research that looks into what people are willing to pay for.mossack-fonseca-reuters_650x400_81459741007

Flynn argues that if you come from a country with a more equal distribution of wealth, like Sweden and Japan, you are more likely to be happy for contributing to the common welfare system than if you come from Italy or Singapore. If you also knew how your money was used, that would absolutely increase your willingness to contribute.Paying-Taxes

I challenge taxation bureaus all over the world to use their imagination and this knowledge of happiness and giving away money- relation, to think new about presenting this burden to people and companies. Then not as a burden, but as a “willed donation of their money”, to build infrastructure, schools, rails, airports, hospitals, social security, etc. Something we do together. Here we must have in mind the “evaluation component” of money and happiness.

tax paying

You must feel successful and smart when you pay your taxes, not a stupid idiot that does not know how to avoid taxation. We also know that countries and states with large differences between rich and poor are much more unstable than countries with more equal distribution. In addition to that, it is important to remind company leaders, owners, and shareholders, that countries with a solid welfare base for their citizens and abroad and prosperous working middle class, stimulate business life, not the contrary.

Conclusion:

There seems to be a stronger boost in feelings of wellbeing and happiness, by giving away money to others, than spending it on yourself. This goes for people in rich and poor countries alike.

But having little and getting enough to realize some important goals in life makes you happier than having already much and getting even more. Money gives you status and a feeling of having acquired some important goals in life. This is “the evaluative component” that rises with the size of your bank account.

The other component, “the affectional”, i.e. how often you experience positive emotions like joy, affection, and tranquility, as opposed to negative ones. This part of happiness and money does not often follow the other.

I think it is wise to relate money and happiness to a temporary boost in your ground level of mood. The ground level of mood as such is a much more permanent emotional state. It combines feelings and levels of energy, optimism, and faith in the future. This part however is not much altered by having more money.

The best part of having money is to use them wisely, Sonja Lyubomirsky argues. That is to be grateful for the things you buy, house, or equipment. Don’t forget the first day you bought your new mac or pc. Keep that feeling in mind. If you always raise expectations together with your salary, you will always need more to be satisfied. And you’ll never be, I might add from psychological experience.

To keep up your wellbeing then, share money with others! It need not be millions. Giving away money is an experience with other people that is underestimated. And it will give rise to a wide array of positive feelings. The second best is: Buy experiences more than things because experiences are, believe it or not, more lasting, and they feed the affectional component and elicit a wider spectrum of positive emotions than things.