Tuning in to Gestures

Gesture gets its power in part from the fact that it is seldom noticed by the speaker or listener yet is easily understood and included in our conversations. The challenge is to use it to good effect. 【小题1】

Gesture more when you speak. It will help you learn and understand, and also think in a more abstract way. If you gesture while talking, you will remember more of what you have said. Do it while you are multitasking and it will lighten your mental load. What’s more, when you gesture, the people around you tend to do so too. 【小题2】

Encourage gestures in your children, students and anyone else you are trying to teach. This will help them understand the material you are conveying. 【小题3】 That is important because being able to generalise what we learn is essential to acquiring new knowledge.

Pay attention to other people’s gestures. These offer a window into the thoughts that speakers have but don’t express in their words. These thoughts are often at the cutting-edge of their knowledge or address issues that are uppermost in their minds. Noticing and responding to such gestures will improve your interactions at home and at work.

Observe the gesturing of infants (婴儿). While learning to talk, children typically convey sentence-like meanings in a combination of gesture and speech before using words alone. 【小题4】 If a child fails to produce these gesture-word combinations, it may be a sign that their spoken language development will be delayed, allowing you to intervene and help.

81-year-old Paul Harvey became well-known last September after his son Nick had recorded his two-minute piece from four notes—F natural, A, D, and B natural—and posted it on Twitter.

Nick posted the piece online to show how musical ability can survive memory loss and Paul won the hearts of the British nation when he played the piano from his home in Sussex live on the television.

To mark a year since he played his composition, Paul was invited to conduct the BBC Phiharmonic orchestra(管弦乐队) playing two of his compositions at the studio in Salford. He spent an emotional afternoon with the orchestra, during which he conducted both Four Notes, while his son Nick played the piano, and an older composition of his called Where’s the Sunshine.

Paul, a former music teacher and classical pianist, said. “It was magical, it was very, very special to work with such wonderful musicians. It made me feel alive, I couldn’t believe that an orchestra was playing my music and I was standing in front of it conducting them.”

Five years ago, Paul moved into sheltered accommodation as part of his dementia(痴呆症) care.

Nick, who joined Paul on the trip—organized by Music For Dementia—had seen his dad “come alive again” since the video of him playing piano went online.

He said, “His short term memory is generally shot to pieces but when big events like this happen it’s like a branding iron on his brain. From my experience with dad, the right piece of music at the right time can be absolutely incredible. For the first time in years he has got active again. It really brought him back to life again.”

Campaign Director at Music for Dementia, Grace Meadows said. “Seeing Paul performing beyond his dementia and having the contact with the musicians was a wonderful thing. It was very emotional.”

Why Pursuing (追求) Happiness Will Make You End up Being Unhappy

When we talk about happiness, we think about staying happy all the time. We try to pursue this constant state of “happiness” as our goal. 【小题1】 No one has a perfect life. Pursuing happiness makes us end up being unhappy. There are several ways to avoid it.

Stop trying to be happy. It’s natural to want to be happy as often as possible. So what can you do? Throw away the belief that a perfect life means happiness. It’s from experiencing the pains of lifelong challenges that drive us to care for others when they are experiencing the same tracks. If life were perfect, you wouldn’t be able to comprehend. 【小题2】

Understand the importance of gratitude. Instead of focusing on the unpleasant moment right now, flash back your memory to when you had or didn’t have something. I like to think about my career, for example. 【小题3】 But when I found my purpose and started my company, I was deeply happy, even before I realized I would be successful! This memory keeps me going when there are tough spots. It takes the darkness to make us grateful for the light.

【小题4】 Your life will be filled with beautiful, happy and incredible moments. But your life will also be filled with rain and storms that don’t ever seem to pass when you’re going through them. 【小题5】 Don’t try to avoid “sad” or “negative” experiences, and blindly chase being “happy”. Being able to create growth and meaning out of both positive and negative events—that is the true meaning of “happiness”.