While performing in Abu Dhabi, UAE – we had the opportunity to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. I visited in the early evening and was able to hear the beautiful dusk call to prayers.

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is located in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. It is the country’s largest mosque, and is the key place of worship for daily Islamic prayers.

The Grand Mosque was constructed between 1994 and 2007 and was inaugurated in December 2007. The building complex measures approximately 290 by 420 m (950 by 1,380 ft), covering an area of more than 12 hectares (30 acres), excluding exterior landscaping and vehicle parking. The main axis of the building is rotated about 12° south of true west, aligning it in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

“We all benefit when an INFP personality type goes ‘Sir Lancelot’ on the world.”

Somehow in my graduate studies on Arts Leadership, I ended up taking a personality test. With both the paid personality text on http://www.myersbriggs.org/ and the free personality test at https://www.16personalities.com – I ended up with the INFP personality type.

I’m not much for online tests, but I was really blown away by how accurately these tests described my cognitive and social function. There is the old story about the college psychology professor who hands every person in class their weekly horoscope and asks students to raise their hands if the horoscope is accurate. Usually a large percentage of the class raises their hands, only to find out that they all have the exact same horoscope. In other words, we read so much in to descriptions that seem to match us.

But this seems altogether different. I do spend a great deal of my time pondering connections and abstract thoughts. In addition, I have absolutely no time for many things that almost everyone else I know sees as essential daily or weekly activities. And the biggest one: I am unable to highly function on a project unless I feel like it is aligned to my core values.

At the Meyers Briggs website (ttp://www.myersbriggs.org/ ) they identify 16 basic personality types.

INFP personality types, according to what I have read, can easily accomplish very little life because they are only highly functioning when they feel a genuine drive that coincides with their intrinsic values.

Why is this even important? I’m have an upcoming crossroads in my career life (which as an artist is nothing new) and I find that each time I make a decision, a nagging voice comes back the next day and says “Are you really making an impact with this, or are you playing it safe?” – It’s confusing. But now, I am armed with a little knowledge on my personality type. What I’ve learned so far, which I already know from experience, is that if I play it safe I will probably fail. If I try the impossible I may also fail, but I won’t know it’s impossible if it’s totally in line with my core drive and values.

I’ve also read many articles that say the Myers Briggs personality tests are meaningless, as well as other similar tests. So maybe it is all just like that psychology 101 Horoscope Exercise. In any case, it is interesting to think about how we individually process information and how we form procedures over time for decision making.

Here are several YouTube videos on INFP personality types:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2012/8210.html

Excerpt:

The love song of an extinct cricket that lived 165 million years ago has been brought back to life by scientists at the University of Bristol. The song – possibly the most ancient known musical song documented to date – was reconstructed from microscopic wing features on a fossil discovered in North East China. It allows us to listen to one of the sounds that would have been heard by dinosaurs and other creatures roaming Jurassic forests at night.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT9PlgoXXhk

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyQ57X3YhH4

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zHmYCBgwNk&NR

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrVeKUs9f50

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRxKnjn704Y

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbEGTcGzBr8

What an incredible video. It’s sublimely beautiful…

And check out this mosaic photo of a center region of the Milky Way:
http://www.astrosurf.com/sguisard/Pagim/GC.html

With a sea of information coming at us from all directions, how do we sift out the misinformation and bogus claims, and get to the truth? Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine lays out a “Baloney Detection Kit,” ten questions we should ask when encountering a claim.
The 10 Questions:
1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
2.Does the source make similar claims?
3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
4. Does this fit with the way the world works?
5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?

Michael Shermer says the human tendency to believe strange things — from alien abductions to dowsing rods — boils down to two of the brain’s most basic, hard-wired survival skills. He explains what they are, and how they get us into trouble.

Dr Michael Shermer and Dr Georgia Purdom talk at the Creation Museum.

http://www.ted.com Why do people see the Virgin Mary on cheese sandwiches or hear demonic lyrics in “Stairway to Heaven”? Using video, images and music, professional skeptic Michael Shermer explores these and other phenomena, including UFOs and alien sightings. He offers cognitive context: In the absence of sound science, incomplete information can combine with the power of suggestion (helping us hear those Satanic lyrics in Led Zeppelin). In fact, he says, humans tend to convince ourselves to believe: We overvalue the “hits” that support our beliefs, and discount the more numerous “misses.”

“We Are All Connected” was made from sampling Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, The History Channel’s Universe series, Richard Feynman’s 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye’s Eyes of Nye Series, plus added visuals from The Elegant Universe (NOVA), Stephen Hawking’s Universe, Cosmos, the Powers of 10, and more. It is a tribute to great minds of science, intended to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through the medium of music.