We can all make a positive difference in the world against injustice.

Editor's Note: Invisible Children's latest film, KONY 2012, premiered online today at 12 p.m. PST. It will serve as the cornerstone of a new joint campaign of Invisible Children, Resolve, and the Enough Project to make this year Joseph Kony's last as the leader of Africa's longest running insurgency. This Q+A with Invisible Children's Jason Russell, written by Krista Morgan, is cross-posted from IC's blog.

In anticipation of the Invisible Children Online World Premiere of KONY 2012, I sat down with co-founder and filmmaker Jason Russell to discuss details of the film and what his hopes are in launching the most important film we’ve ever made.

Why 2012? Why this year?

In the last 9 years of trying to end the war, the puzzle pieces have not been aligned like they are now. When Obama deployed the advisory troops in October, it was a shock. My psyche was stunned; I never thought that the government could or would actually do it. The fact that they did do it and that advisors are there now, makes the end of this war totally possible but it’s very time-sensitive. Everyone that’s been working on the conflict from Senator Inhofe to Resolve to John Prendergast know that it has to be 2012 because by the time it turns 2013, the advisors would have been there [some might say] too long.

What inspired you while creating the new film?

This film was one of – if not the hardest – for me to ever make because it was so personal and hard to be objective. What inspired me the most was seeing the purity through the eyes of my 4-year-old son while giving him limited information of Joseph Kony and what he does to children. Hearing Gavin say, “We need to stop him” really reinforced the purpose of the film for me. The intention of the movie from the very beginning was to make a 20-30 minute piece telling the audience exactly what the facts are and what exactly they can to do in order to see this conflict end. And I feel like we’ve done that.

Why make Joseph Kony famous?

We want to make him known, which is really hard to do in a culture that has so many options and distractions and different stories. So the best way we knew how to do that was to take advantage of the fact that it was an election year, and insert his name into a mock campaign in the run for presidency.

I’ve been inspired by Lauren Hill’s quote, “Fantasy is what people want but reality is what they need.” It’s the sense that people don’t want to think about war or think about child trafficking and it makes sense, I don’t want to think about it either.  But if you can do something to influence the end of violence or tragedy in the world, then you should do it.

The problem with Joseph Kony is that nobody knows who he is. It was actually an idea Michael Poffenberger [of Resolve] had while working in DC talking with Congressmen and Senators. He said, “You know Gaddafi is known in North Korea but Joseph Kony is just not known…I wish Joseph Kony was famous.” And out of that came the whole campaign.

What’s the dream for KONY 2012?

The ultimate dream for KONY 2012 is that it becomes a tipping point for conversation, and that people will make a commitment to stop at nothing by making sure Kony is known in their circle of influence, whether it’s their family or office or school. The dream would be for Kony to be captured, not killed, and brought to the International Criminal Court to face trial. The world would know about his crimes and they would watch the trial play out on an international level, seeing a man face justice who got away with abducting children, raping little girls, and mutilating people’s faces for 26 years.

If you could say anything to Joseph Kony, what would it be?

[long pause] I’ve thought about this for a long time. I would just say thank you for creating such a clear example of what it means to be perverse and diabolical and for forcing us, as a generation and as a world, to deal with future individuals who think they can get away with murder.

He is the clearest example of something that we all as humans can agree on is wrong and needs to be stopped.

Broken-hearted” isn’t just a metaphor--social pain and physical pain have a lot in common, according to Naomi Eisenberger of the University of Califiornia-Los Angeles, the author of a new paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In the paper, she surveys recent research on the overlap between physical and social pain.

“Rejection is such a powerful experience for people,” Eisenberger says. “If you ask people to think back about some of their earliest negative experiences, they will often be about rejection, about being picked last for a team or left out of some social group.” People talk about hurt feelings and broken hearts, but Eisenberger realized they might be onto something when she and a colleague noticed how similar their images of brain activity looked in people who had experienced social rejection and others who had experienced physical pain. “We were sitting next to each other and noticed how similar the two brain images looked,” she says. That similarity has held up in later research. Physical pain and social pain are processed in some of the same regions of the brain. Physical pain has two aspects: the sensory experience of pain and the emotional component, in which your brain decides how negative or distressing the pain is. It is the latter that is shared with social pain, although some research has suggested that severe social rejection, like being dumped, can also be processed in the part of your brain that handles the sensory component of pain.

People who are more sensitive to physical pain are also more sensitive to social pain; they feel more rejected after completing a social exclusion task, in which the other two players in a computer version of catch refuse to share the ball. One study even found that people who took Tylenol for three weeks reported less hurt feelings than people who took a placebo. Even Eisenberger was surprised by that. “It follows in a logical way from the argument that the physical and social pain systems overlap, but it’s still kind of hard to imagine,” she says. “We take Tylenol for physical pain; it’s not supposed to work on social pain.”

Eisenberger does not recommend taking painkillers so you don’t feel social pain. And, besides, there may be value to experiencing the pain of rejection. “I think it’s probably there for a reason--to keep us connected to others,” she says. “If we’re constantly numbing the feeling of social rejection, are we going to be more likely do things that get us rejected, that alienate us?” There may be some cases where the social pain is too much, though; future research may look at whether it should sometimes be treated.

The research validates the hurt feelings of people who have been socially rejected, Eisenberger says. “We seem to hold physical pain in higher regard than social pain,” she says. While bystanders understand that physical pain hurts and can be debilitating, the same empathy doesn’t always extend to people feeling social pain. “The research is sort of validating. It suggests that there is something real about this experience of pain that we have following rejection and exclusion.”

Link to source: here.

We create our own realities, whether we are conscious of it or not. Most of us are unaware of the power of our thoughts and so react to life on "auto-pilot", and therfore create "unconsciously". When we become aware that it is our thoughts that create our reality, we can then consciously choose different thoughts, therefore creating a different reality - this is called "creating consciously".  We are the creators of our own life.  If we don't like what we have created, we can simply choose to change our thoughts to create a new reality for ourselves - we are more powerful than we realise.  We are souls on an evolutionary path, here to experience all that life has to offer - whether it be pain or joy.  We choose our pains and our sorrows.

While this concept is now becoming more widely accepted, there are still many out there who will say indignantly, "I did not choose this reality for myself. I would be mad, stupid or both!"

I know that feeling well. I used to wonder why I have created this reality for myself! But I am on the road to find out. I now take full responsibility. The newly released film, 'What The Bleep Do We Know!?' explains the concept of creating our own realities very well. I highly recommend it to you.

We create our realities, whether it be pain or joy, by our self-beliefs.  When we understand this, it moves us out of 'victim' and 'blame' role' and into the role of 'Authentic Power', and Creating Consciously, because these experiences, which are simply just 'mirrors' of our beliefs made manifest for us to look at (without judgement), give us the opportunity to learn the lesson in it and change (if we choose). 

Simply put.... Change your thoughts and you change your reality.  You can continue to create unconsciously, or you can become a Conscious Creator - the choice is always up to you!

"You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
A terrible thing: no one to blame."
~ Erica Jong ~

"I am the perpetrator of my suffering
- but only all of it."
~ Byron Katie ~

"When you assume responsibility for what you experience
and share what you experience in a spirit of companionship,
that is the same as forgiveness.
When you hold someone responsible for what you experience,
you lose power."
From 'The Seat Of The Soul' by Gary Zukav

"Act is the blossom of thought,
and joy and suffering are its fruits."
~ James Allen, (1864 -1912) - Author of 'As A Man Thinketh' ~

Music in the Nursery

A tiny infant lies in a neonatal ward. The heat of an incubator replaces the warmth of her mother's arms; tubes filled with nutrients replace her mother's milk. Every breath is a struggle. Her underdeveloped heart beats erratically. All around her are other infants in distress - the monitors attached to them bleep in time with their struggle to live. Fear is on the faces of anxious parents hovering as close as possible. Nurses scurry to and fro, dealing with crises every moment.

The peace and tranquility of their mother's wombs is replaced with the whoosh and hiss of respirators, bleeping monitors, parents crying, nurses giving and receiving instructions. Even though these infants are not fully conscious of their surroundings, these sounds affect their ability to relax and sleep. And sleep is essential to helping them gain strength and live.In the midst of this, a harpist enters the ward. She begins to softly play an ancient lullaby. After a few moments, the monitors steady. Nearly all of the infants breathe more easily; their heartrates steady, and they rest. Many of them fall into deep sleep - the first they have had since the harpist last was here.

The nurses relax, and smiles of relief grace the faces of the parents when they see the tiny souls absorbing the healing power of this beautiful music.

Music and Alzheimers

A group of Alzheimers patients are gathered in the assembly room of a nursing home. One tiny, frail woman sits off to the side in her wheelchair. Her eyes are vacant - her mind somewhere far from her body and the room in which it rests.

The activities director introduces a young couple. He carries a guitar, and walks with his wife to the piano. The young woman sits down, and plays a few notes. Most of the residents have not even looked up - they don't hear most of what anyone says - or if they do, they cannot, or will not, respond. But the two volunteers are unconcerned; they smile at each other and the seniors, and they begin to play and sing. A rousing rendition of "Oh, Susannah" has several of the residents looking up - flickers of recognition cross their faces. A few choruses of "How Great Thou Art" inspires many of them to stand and walk or wheel their chairs toward the piano. Soon several are singing along to "Amazing Grace". A few country and western tunes bring several more residents into the present, and "In the Mood" has nearly everyone dancing along. Everyone, that is, except the frail, tiny woman in the wheelchair in the corner.

The guitarist is concerned, and calls over a nurse who tells him that the little woman is German, and doesn't know most American songs. She has also reverted back to speaking German - unable to converse any longer in English, for she cannot remember the words.
The young man smiles and signals to his wife. The next tune is the "Blue Danube." He watches closely, and sees that the frail old woman's eyes begin to focus. She watches as several of the residents begin to waltz together - wheelchairs and all. When "The Beer Barrel Polka" starts, this tiny woman, who hasn't smiled or connected in any way with anyone for months, wheels her chair toward the piano. Singing all the way. The other residents clap, and sing along with her, all of them excited to recognize her and each other. The party continues for an hour, when the young couple must go to their day jobs.

Link to source:  http://bit.ly/ngoSrn

Written by Mitch Santell
Executive Producer - H2H

Where do we start? We start with inspiration. Each and every day you may visit Hemisphere to Hemisphere. We wish to inspire you and we also wish to tell the truth. It all comes down to this. Ready?  "If The Powers That Be"continue on the path they are on, all humanity will be in danger. We must come together.

We are going to give you some radical solutions to take your life. The solutions are so radical that they are all things that you learned as a child.

To take our world back we must take our own life back. We are all living in a "Global Corporatocracy" where companies have more rights than people do. Think about that? Where have we all gone wrong?

As you visit our blog every day, as you think about how fast our world is moving. This is something I want you to ask yourself,

As yourself this questions, "When I speak and when I share my personal views on humanity, faith, politics, am I sharing what I really feel or is this something that I was brainwashed with?

This all comes down to three things:

Accountability, Responsibility, and Discernment.

Yes, we are committed to inspiration and we are committed to the truth. Each of our contributors has their own story and their own journey. Through out the weeks and months ahead you'll hear from people form all walks of life.

Have a comment? Have a story to share? All good on this end. Just email me at: Mitch@HemisphereToHemisphere.com as we are open to all ideas.