Bound to be True

Obama Addresses N.A.A.C.P. Convention

Published:

President Barack Obama spoke to fellow black Americans during the N.A.A.C.P.'s 100th anniversary convention in New York on Thursday, saying "no one has written your destiny for you."

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/07/17/multimedia/1247463481827/obama-addresses-naacp-convention.html

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We Had Him

By Maya Angelou





Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing,
now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips
like a puff of summer wind.

Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace.
Sing our songs among the stars and walk our dances across the face of the moon.
In the instant that Michael is gone, we know nothing. No clocks can tell time.
No oceans can rush our tides with the abrupt absence of our treasure.

Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.
Only when we confess our confusion can we remember
that he was a gift to us and we did have him.

He came to us from the creator, trailing creativity in abundance.
Despite the anguish, his life was sheathed in mother love, family love,
and survived and did more than that.
He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style.
We had him whether we know who he was or did not know,
he was ours and we were his.
We had him, beautiful, delighting our eyes.

His hat, aslant over his brow, and took a pose on his toes for all of us.
And we laughed and stomped our feet for him.
We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing.
He gave us all he had been given.

Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana's Black Star Square.
In Johannesburg and Pittsburgh, in Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England

We are missing Michael.
But we do know we had him, and we are the world.

100 Days in Five

Responding to Outbreaks

Take Aways

Mihaly - what are the takeaways

• to improve life one must improve the quality of experience (44)
• enjoyment is characterized by this forward movement: by a sense of novelty, of accomplishment (46)
• enjoyment requires attention (last paragraph on 46)
• Elements:
  
• skill (49-50);
  
• Action and Awareness (53) - flow does not have a peak, it is continuous (54);
  
• Clear Goals and Feedback (54) - enjoyment not possible without (55)
  
• Concentration on the Task (58) - to concentrate, remove chartjunk, focus on the bits because only a very select range of info can be brought into awareness (58)
• Control (59) - possibility rather than actuality (60) - need to relinquish control to get control (61)
• Loss of Self-consciousness (62) - enjoyable activities have clear goals, stable rules, and challenges well matched to skills, there is little opportunity for the self to be threatened (63)
  
• Transformation of Time (66) - most flow activities do not depend on clock time (67) - freedom from Time (the tyranny) (67)
• intrinsic motivation
  
• doing itself is the reward (67)
• enjoyment isn't reflexive/natural (68)
• (page 71)
• the growth of the self is the key to flow activities (74)
• Obstacles: lack of rules (anomie); too many rules (alienation);
  

Shedroff

• Immersion: a composite of sensorial design features and how you engage someone through the senses (284)
• Time and motion (290)
• INterACTivity features: feedback control, creativity, productivity, communication, adaptivity
  

Gasperini

• Interactivity =
  
• ambiguity = textual (words with multiple meanings); interpretive(performance that allows for different interpretations); structural [close-ended (puzzle-solving) and open-ended (more ambiguous)] (the role that audience plays in altering the process of choices and the resulting consequences)
• Structural ambiguity enables interactivity
• Ambiguity allows space for co-creation (creativity)