Reality, What a Concept

The purpose of this blog is to add some gravity to the Friday Night dinner table. Please share.

This week: A Rorschach Test and the Chinese moon-landing for your Shabbat table.

First, the Rorschach Test:
What's your reaction to the images on the left?

Some people find it amusing that someone could be so unaware as to think they could drive through a painted tunnel.

Some people think it's a cruel trick, and feel sorry for the driver.

Some spoil-sports claim it never happened.

But . . . on two levels, the image gives us two great questions for the table:

1. Did you ever experience reality not being what it first seemed to be?
2. What are the two levels of this allegedly illusionary image?

Regarding the moon-landing. Ask: Do you think it happened, or could it be a grand Chinese hoax?

Ask: By the way, how come the moon keeps going around us, and doesn't fly off into space?

Somebody is going to say, "Gravity."

Hmm.... Try this: Ask everyone at the table to pick up a glass or other semi-heavy object and hold it on the palm of the hand. You feel something pulling it down on your hand. What is this force?

Again, someone will say, Gravity.

But gravity is just a name. It means "heaviness". It doesn't explain what the force is, where it comes from, and how it somehow goes through your hand and pulls the object downward. And apparently nobody can explain this.

All we know is that Planet Earth is trying very hard to accelerate the glass (and everything else) downward at a rate of 9.6 meters per second per second. Fortunately, our muscles are stronger than this mystery force, so we can walk around and hold glasses and so on.

But maybe it's a good thing we don't understand gravity yet. China has some pretty clever engineers who are already mastering quantum engineering. I'm not sure we're ready for them to start experimenting with our gravity.

Or would that become the new normal?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Did you solve last week's riddle-title?

 

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I of the Beholder

The goal of this blog is to make the Friday night dinner table more real.
Wishing Mom a continued recovery.
Wishing Harmon in San Francisco a speedy recovery.

Last week I asked you to define true art.

This week is a related question.

It begins with an anecdote that occurred a few days ago.

Tehila, our six-year-old, lost another tooth.

This one had been tenacious. It seemed to be dangling there forever. She finally pulled it out herself.

The next day, she said to me (in front of the whole family), "Abba, the Tooth Fairy didn't come!"

"Hmm..." I said. "Who's the Tooth Fairy?"

I literally had no idea how she was going to answer that question.

She said, "Mommy."

My question for you, dear reader, is what do you think was going through her head when she said those words, "Abba, the Tooth Fairy didn't come."

May I underscore: Mommy was there in the room when this conversation took place.

That same day, somebody sent me this dramatic video of giraffes doing something incredible:

GIRAFFES

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure giraffes can't do that. I'm pretty sure that if someone had actually trained one giraffe to do anything remotely like this, that I would have heard about it.

But they can do it, can't they? I mean, look at that video.

So this week's question for your table is:

What is "real"? What you "see"? What you think? What you feel?


Shabbat Shalom 

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Get Moving

The purpose of this blog is to provide a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table - please print and share....

Remember the Little Engine That Could?

Does any kid ever believe that story?

We all believe in the power of positive thinking, but is it enough?

Three months ago or so I wrote about my year-long attempt to get into shape and  my quest for a 6:30 mile.

It appeared that much of what was holding me back was my belief that I could do it.

Since then, I've been pushing myself hard to stay at that plateau.

Then, last week, it occurred to me that I wasn't pushing myself as hard as I could. So it was time to try for hte 6 minute mile.

For the record, I don't have a particularly intense exercise routine. Just 3x/week, walk a mile, stretch, run a mile, stretch, calesthenics and maybe a few weights. That's about it. Unstudied, unschooled, I do what feels right to me.

But following the strategy as then, I got the same results, i.e. I'm now a 6 minute miler.

Who cares? The length of 1 mile and the time are so arbitrary. What difference does it make?

I think the answer is that although they are arbitrary, they give me a goal to work for. Without concrete goals, it's hard to feel like you're getting anywhere.

Have you ever tried to learn a language outside the classroom? You get a book, maybe some CDs or videos. You dabble. But if you decided, "I'm going to try to learn the Hebrew alphabet by February 27, 2012" you are highly likely to succeed. Or how about this: "I want to learn 1 new Hebrew phrase a day for 30 days." You'll do it, if you give yourself a deadline and numerical goal.

(I'm not saying you have to be Daniel Tammet, the kid who learned fluent Icelandic in one week, but watch this video and maybe you'll be inspired.)

Some readers may recall that when I first started exercising a year ago, I was so afraid of failure I actually bet a friend $500 that I could lose 8 pounds in 8 weeks. I knew that I could do it but wanted to make sure I did it. Put my money where my mouth was, quite literally.

But now something new has happened. For the first time, I'm thinking the previously unthinkable. I'm wondering if I could run a five minute mile. Is it conceivable or ridiculous? Understand, I'm not even close to what you would call an athletic person. I'm the kind of guy that real athletes smirk at if they see me in the gym. I did some googling around to see what's considered a good mile for the over-40 crowd. It seems that five may be a bit optimistic. Very very few achieve this, even with the intense motivation of competition. Five minutes looks too ambitious.

What do you think?

Here's today's question for your table: Which of your goals do you know you could achieve in the next 60 days if you were sufficiently motivated?

(If you say it's a top goal, and you know you could achieve it, but you're not willing to put your money with your mouth is, then it's not a real goal. Think about it.)

Shabbat Shalom

PS -  Version 2.1 of my iphone app was released last week. Thanks for all the great feedback that went into making these revisions. Hope you enjoy it (links below).


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