Shards of Consciousness

The word vacation is based on a word that meant to be empty, to be at leisure. Regular readers will know that I've been on vacation the past week. It's been a quiet week. I did very little. I read. I thought. I slept when I fell asleep, and woke when I awoke. I spent time with my granddaughter and wife. I watched movies I haven't seen. Basically, I ended my normal routine and was obligated to do anything or be anywhere. It was wonderful!

There is no theme for this week's Sunday Reading. What we have is a range of thought provoking, and practical articles.

A goal of many people who write blogs is to do so full time. An article at Designer's Mind helps us on our way with The 7 Highly Effective Habits of Successful Freelancers

If you're anything like me, one of your homes away from home is the local library. But consider. Copyright has been extended in the US to obscene lengths (It was originally for a term 14 years with an extension of 14 more years possible. It is now for 70 years after the death of the author). Corporations are considered to be legal persons and so can hold copyrights, which can last 120 years or 95 years from the date of publication. Music and film companies have decided their customers are the enemy. Given the current state of intellectual property, Freakonomics asks If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today? This post engendered a fascinating thread in the comments, so don't miss it.

Show me the person who says they are rational, who bases all their thinking on their experience, and logical thinking on that experience, and I'll show you someone who is not conscious of how their mind really works. We all rely on intuition to get through each day of our lives. Intuition can be another word for prejudice, though, so it makes sense sharpen our intuition much as we sharpen our logical thought processes. Steve Olson shows us 6 Ways to Sharpen Your Intuition.

One of the best thing about having the past week off was that I had time to find some new writers that I have never read before. One of these was Universe in a single Atom. A Peep at the Monster is a view into a dark spot in each one of us.

In September Karen Lynch at Live the Power is having a double birthday - her own and her blog's. In celebration, she wants to give us gifts. Check out !!SEVEN WEEKS TO SEVEN DAYS!! to see how you can participate. Happy Birthday, Karen!

Thank you to those who visited Shards this week. Special thanks to John Wesley at Pick the Brain for including Shards in his 101 Self Improvement Resources. In a sense John's definition of self improvement translates as well rounded. Check out the list. There are a lot of useful sites there.