Revisiting an old video: The Grow Haus

About 3 years back I was given the opportunity to reach out and do some work with a small Denver business that had dedicated its self to providing food access and understanding to a community that had very little in the way of food options.  

"In many urban areas people live in what is referred to as a “food desert” where there is little to no access to grocery stores.  One non-profit has noticed the trend, and is working to empower community leaders to fix the solution in some of the most ingenious ways possible: permaculture, hydroponics and urban aquaponics farming.  The Grow Haus (located in Northern Denver) is leading the charge to put healthy food back in the communities that need it most."

The video can be seen below

 

Original post found here.

How Your Language Affects Your Future Choices

“TO ABSTAIN FROM ENJOYMENT WHICH IS IN OUR POWER, OR TO SEEK DISTANT RATHER THAN IMMEDIATE RESULTS, ARE AMONG THE MOST PAINFUL EXERTIONS OF THE HUMAN WILL” –

NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR

I don't know about you, but I have always been a procrastinator.  In high school I would always wait and do my homework in between periods or in the hallways right before school.  In college my finals weeks were sleepless blurs of paper after paper after project.  When I got older I found myself in awe of people who were 26 and had already started saving a sizable amount for their future.  These things are fairly relatable.  I know a lot of people who have experienced this in one form or another, and I never really thought much about it.  "I'm just a procrastinator" I would think, "I'll just have to learn to make it work for me."  It wasn't until later that I heard a TED Talk that really changed the way I thought about this.

It may have to do with a disconnect from “your future self.”  The disconnect comes from this unconscious belief that the person you are today is a separate entity from the person you are in the future.  The future you wants to retire at 55, but today you wants to take a trip to Hawaii.  The future you should be a successful CEO, but the present you doesn’t want to work past 5:00.  We have these notions on how we want the future to be, and a lot of times we are incapable of reconciling our present actions with our future wants.  This is why you can say over and over that you want to learn Karate and absolutely see yourself kicking ass in a year, but one year later you're still struggling to break a stick in half. 

Keith Chen , an economics professor at UCLA, proposes a rather interesting idea.  As a native English-speaking Chinese person he often wondered at the differences between the two languages, and in particular the difference in their future tenses.  Upon doing a some further research, he realized that this difference in tenses was visible across the board in many languages.  Where in English one say “it will rain tomorrow” in German one would say “Morgen regnet es” which translates literally to “It rains tomorrow.”  This way requires that English speakers make an inherent distinction between the present and the future, in a way that German does not.  This leads us to distinguish the two by saying that English has a strong future-tense while German has a weak-future tense, and it is possible that this discrepancy could be influencing how we connect our present to future selves. 

This may seem a little far fetched but the effects of language on perception are well known.  Keith takes this idea and applies it to economics.  He believes that the separation of present-self from future-self affects us not only on a personal scale, but influences the amount of money that whole countries save.  Not only does this apply to savings, it correlates to the amount of risk that citizens take in their daily lives. For example, those countries with a stronger future tense are statistically more likely to engage in impulse buying, smoking and engaging in unprotected sex. 

For me, just knowing about this helps me to try and combat it.  Since learning about this I have started a 401K (I'M AN ADULT), gotten my lazy butt to start running and exercising and have actually taken some classes to learn martial arts (okay like one month's worth but it's something)

 

Originally appeared on ICOSAMedia.com here

The Best Camera Is The One You Have On You

Taking amazing photographs has never been easier

When I started shooting both photos and video (waaay back when in the distant year of 2009) it was a lot tougher to take a high quality image.  Of course, that probably had a lot to do with my then current status as a poor college student.  I would gaze with envy on the high resolution photos my friends were able to share of their recent trips, or even just their latest walk through the woods.  I couldn't wait for the day that I had my own fancy, expensive camera.  A couple of years later, I finally purchased a Cannon 5D MK II and was able to get out and shoot to my heart's content.  Along the way, I picked up a bad habit.  

I was so excited to use my camera that I took it everywhere and shot all kinds of photos and couldn't wait to share them with everyone!  Then came the time to edit them.  My edits could take between 5 and 30 minutes depending, and then I would have some great images of my own to share out!

As time went on, no matter how much I wanted, there was no way that I could continue to carry my camera with me everywhere.  I would take it on hikes and out to the lake, but I wasn't always able to carry it around with me when I was running errands in the city.  As luck would have it, those would be the times I would see a scene I absolutely had to capture.  I always used to lament the fact I didn't have my camera and take one final look at the image one last time, wishing that I had the foresight to pack my MK II.  If I couldn't shoot it on my best camera, what was the point of taking the picture at all?  I passed up quite a few golden opportunities for this reason.  It wasn't until later that I heard something that really changed the way I thought about cameras.

"The best camera is the one you have on you."  

There are a many reasons you may not have access to your main camera.  It could be you weren't expecting to need to take a photo, or maybe you had to travel light. Whatever the case may be, you find yourself shooting on your phone, and that's okay!  When I was finally able to embrace this idea it opened up a whole new world of shooting.  I often find myself doing some of my most creative work with restrictions places upon my situation, and have actively grown to love shooting on my phone for this reason.  The photos in the gallery above were all taken on my cell phone (and by no means an up do date phone) and I love them all.  They show a specific time and place that I remember fondly and I am glad I was able to capture these images while staying in the moment.  

I guess if there is just one idea that I could impart it would be this; go out and take photos in any way you possibly can.  Go have an experience, and instead of lugging around your bulky DSLR, use your phone to take a quick shot and then get back to enjoying the moment.