Thinking out loud

The week has been full to overflowing, and my thoughts are sloshing around like water in a bucket so, taking a tip from a fellow blogger, I am going to simply share a list of questions on my mind today, and let you think about them too! Feel free to respond.

1. Why am I surprised when the moon, which has a strong enough pull to move the oceans, also makes
   
   kids crazy?
2. Wouldn't it be nice to know how to predict what will stay with your children and what will be forgotten?
3. How can we integrate more time with nature into everyone's lives? (This thought was provoked by the information that second grade students from Minneapolis and St. Paul just released 75,000 ladybugs in the Mall of America to help keep their plants aphid-free! I love the ideas of ladybugs at the mall!)
4. Why are great gifts of artistry so often accompanied by mental illness or addiction?
5. Do chicks pecking their way out of eggshells or plants bursting out of seeds suffer pain or discomfort? In other words, is all growth accompanied by pain?
6. How can we better control the power of the internalized expectation? (This is provoked by information from a study that says having a college fund, regardless of size, increases the likelihood of college graduation by 45%. We should figure out how to harness this power because we also know that if we expect failure we are also likely to get it!)
7. How do we stop being so "parochial"? Comparing the news reported by the BBC and the news reported by ABC makes me wonder if Nero's "bread and circuses" have arrived in the United States.
8. What do you call the mindset that is neither competitive nor collaborative? Perhaps the word does not exist because the mindset doesn't either? Are there implications for relationships in this?

Sorry for the half-baked ideas. Perhaps one of them will reach completion before next week! In the meantime, send me any insights this generates for you. I'd love to hear your thoughts, stories, or examples.