Billions of people are completely forgotten, having left no legacy and with no-one alive to remember them. And with so many Humans alive today, and so many recently dead, who has time to wonder about the forgotten dead?

Wouldn't it be interesting to, pretty much randomly, pick out one person from history, a completely unknown person say from 1920s London, and get to know them? Find out about them, their interests, loves, hopes?

Just in the vain hope that if WE can remember someone else, someone in the future might also be affected by OUR insignificant lives, and somehow rectify the fearful nothingness death that encroaches on us all?

I was thinking about responses to near-death experiences... many people are energized by it. My response to impending nothingness, the victory of death, is to be obsessively productive, short and elitist... but nearly always in intellectual, high-brow ways... I want to understand, forsee and affect the future BECAUSE my life is short.

But others, instead, become obsessed with trivial life, they merely want to see, experience and do. I was thinking, what good is having seen that or having been there, once you're dead? Who would know or care what you've seen or done?

But if you make yourself great and productive, creative in a Nietzsche superman way, it seems to make life worthwhile.

What merit is there in either of these two reactions? Physical, experience, or in future power and foresight? One person decides, because life is short, to do as many extreeme sports as possible.. another decides to change the future and make the world a better place, not caring for their own life. One is a hero, the other is shallow... but both are equally trying to nullify the pointlessness of life.

So is it interesting to find out, WHO IS a dead person? Nearly all dead want to be remembered... but hardly any are. Everyone should research a random dead dude!

Tags: death, history

A friend was once shocked when I demonstrated a consistent ability to rapidly slow my heart rate. I just reading about lots of other incidences, making this a verified phenomenon and not something that is perculiar.

"Experiments in the 1960s showed that experts in yoga in fact were indeed capable of slowing normal body processes, such as the rate of oxygen consumption, heart rate, and breathing. Indian television cameras captured 46-year-old Ramanand Yogi sitting in a sealed box, in which he used little more than half the calculated minimum amount of oxygen required to maintain life. For one hour, he survived on a bare quarter of what his body should have needed.

In other tests, yogis produced sweat on the forehead only, while others slowed the heart rate while sitting still"

My technique is to consciously slow breathing and relax all muscles, which will for very simple phsyiological reasons mean you need less oxygen, therefore need less blood flow, therefore your body slows your heart. The opposite, is to think of your heart going fast... voila... it goes faster!

Other connections that exist include a direct cause and affect between willpower and immune system, willpower and disease & symptoms, etc. It is known that depression and mental weakness causes the immune system to work less well; and merely pretending to be happy or healthy actually increases your health!

[EDIT: Further comment removed due to: I can't think of a careful or sensible way of phrasing them without inviting cared-for friends to think me foolish...]

Tags: heart rate, immune system, psychology, willpower