ESP - do you believe it exists or not?

Today I've been browsing a bit through Steve Pavlina's blog and I read a few interesting articles on psychic development. I always was drawn to the inexplicable events that might defy normal logic or the physics laws, my favorite TV series of all times being the X-Files. I also used to read articles about paranormal phenomena like the Bermuda Triangle and UFO, and I like to believe that we as humans have these ESP (extra-sensory perceptions) somewhat like a sixth sense even tough most of us are not fully aware of it.
I am sure most of us experienced at some point in time a dream that came true or knew who was calling them on the phone without expecting that specific call, or even knew what somebody close was going to say before they said it, not to mention that all familiar "deja-vu" feeling we all must have experienced. Well my friends, I think this altogether is a proof that ESP is real and we all have the capacity to use it, this just depends on how open we are to these kind of things and how much time we want to invest on improving these skills.
ESP is comprised of multiple parts:

• precognition - the ability to predict future events
• remote viewing - the ability to picture in your mind places you have never been to
• clairvoyance - the ability to know something is taking place without reliance on any of the other five senses
• telepathy - the ability to know what other people are thinking
• retrocognition - the ability to look in the past and get information that is not otherwise available to you through common means
  

In the end I would like to ask you to share your opinions with me on this subject, maybe you even have some interesting ESP related experiences you can also share.

May the Force be with you!

Mind Maps - a way to organize your ideas

In this post I am going to talk a bit about an intresting way I found helpful in organizing one's ideas and tasks, and these are the mind maps.

What are mind maps? Wikipedia's definition for mind map states:

a mind map (mind-map) is a diagram used to represent words and ideas linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and decision making.

Now I am not going to enter in depth into the definition of this concept, if you like to find out more about it, you can read the rest of the Wikipedia article on this.
Instead I am going to tell you a bit about how I use them. I don't actually use them as often as I should, but when I want to make a short term plan with the things I want to do in one day or in one week, or when I have a long period task at work and I need to keep track of things, I take a few moments to draw a small mind map with the steps I need to take in order to complete my plan or task. For this I use a nice piece of Open Source software called FreeMind which is part of the SourceForge projects. This tool is quite simple and easy to use and I also like the fact that is portable and I can use it on both my Ubuntu and Windows XP systems. What I don't like about it is that it doesn't yet have a nice maps sharing feature so I can make my maps home and read them at work and viceversa - who knows, maybe I am going to think of a solution for this and contribute to the project ;).
If you want to see a nice list of the tool's feature, read the documentation or download it for your use, you can check out the project's wiki.
I hope this post will help some of you organize an plan your ideas a bit better in the future.
Stay tuned for more ;)

The Path (II) - In the Name of Love

This one is dedicated to the spiritual side in "The Path" and to my significant other...
Now, I am not one that believes in love at first sight and in Destiny, I never was, I never will be. However I do believe there is a balance in the Universe, that every action has a reaction, every great thing requires great sacriffice and our lives depend solely on the choices we make or don't make every day - so be careful what you choose :).
As for love, I am drawn to believe that like the ancient Androgyne, who were separated by the gods because they became too powerful and challenged their supremacy, and they ever since are searching for their other half to become again One, we are also passing through this life searching for our significant other.
One might wonder what would happen if the universal balance would be upset or how can we be sure that once we find somebody we love, that is our significant other? I dont't think anyone knows for sure, and I don't think anyone will ever know or figure out the answer to these questions, at least not in this humble existence. I don't think we as humans, are capable of understanding this anyway.
Perhaps in another life...