Adam Blatner

Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner

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“Maturity”

I turned eighty a month ago, and recently I was reminded of the word, “maturity.” Wow! I realized that in some ways I might be labeled “immature,” though I hereby declare myself mature enough.  I confess that I pushed the “underside” of maturity, almost being too immature. I’ve also reformed or redefined it, and now […]

“Quantum” Consciousness

I’ve had a brilliant idea and I forgot it…maybe for awhile, maybe forever. We’re two old farts, my wife and I…and we had really good ideas….and then forgot them while we had yet other ideas.  I’m reminded of a song from my adolescence—“Sh’Boom” —in the mid-1950s—about dreams. What if we are indeed dreaming this, but […]

“Surplus” Reality? What a Concept!

It’s time for noting that the arts—especially drama—can offer simulations—which is doing but yet not doing, like kids at sociodramatic play—exploring so many dimensions. What would I sound like if I talked this way? Moved this way? No, moved THIS way? Try it out, adjust it. It’s a far more multi-modal experiment. It’s time also […]

“The Bloody Pulpit”

I have a friend who used to be a preacher, and on the phone recently he mixed metaphors, calling his calling a “bloody pulpit.”  I had heard of a “bully pulpit” —referring to Theodore Roosevelt’s use of his Presidency as that. But nowadays the presidency of Donald Trump has become so very controversial as to […]

A Central Texas “Dragon”

In this Chinese Year of the Dragon, my wife noticed that our region of the Texas Hill Country features a living (?) river dragon of considerable size, also known as “Lake Travis.” But look! So I looked and sure enough. Well, I just had to tell you! With a little more rain it’ll get fleshier. […]

A Contemplation on Faith

I was moved by a plot of a short story, The Toynbee Convector, by the very poetic science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, whose writings I really liked when I was in my teens almost sixty years ago. Written in 1983, this story has some passages that I want to note: The story begins with a […]

A Poetic Heart

Sometimes cartoonists say it well. This old Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoon features an old lady and her love—and he’s a bit of a poet—and illustrates how it’s so great that my darling Allee enjoys my occasional turn of phrase. It’s also an expression of our life in that the details of what’s achieved make less […]

About the Fear of Death and Speculations on “the Afterlife”

Someone read this blog and asked me what I thought about the fear of dying and theories of the afterlife. I don’t know much, but I enjoy thinking, so here are some thoughts: I think a lot of the fear of death comes from the fear communicated to young children by parents and others who […]

Action Explorations: The Field

This field involves improvisation, enactment, insight, and collaborative creativity. Insight involves bringing that which is hardly admitted even to oneself into explicit expression in the group. It helps people be more conscious, to include more within their critical capacity. In turn, that allows people to update old and obsolete attitudes, immature thought patterns, habitual reactions, […]

Adam’s Photo (try again)

Adding Depth Psychology to the Collaboratory

There’s a new web network HASTAC—humanities, arts, sciences, technology, “Advanced Collaboratory.” Collaboratory? What a great word! Anyways, I thought I’d join and try to play with some of those folks (maybe you?) I wrote on my blog there: I notice you don’t have a category for depth psychology. While rather far from Freud in most […]

Amateur Theologian

I am that, too, in addition to a previous list of the many things I do. I also make up universes and reflect on our own. And I am aware that my reflections on our own universe are also made up, but just maybe a little less made up. In other words, I do theology […]

Awesome! No Problem!

The desk clerk was a young man who responded to matter-of-fact arrangements being made at a hotel with such phrases, instead of saying “okay,” “good,” or “yes, Ma’am.” It’s strange when young people say “awesome” to describe fortunate but really rather mundane events. Or when something has evidently been a big problem, but they work […]

Behind the Eyelids

Sometimes, more when I’m half-in-dream, the patterns I “see” with my eyes are closed are complex and slightly changing. Here’s a hint. I’m motivated to represent this density of imagery in my art—it represents the nature of the mind. The slight shift into recognizable text near the bottom hints at a related phenomenon: The rapid […]

Bibliodrama and Noah’s Ark

I just found out about a story, “In the Shadow of the Ark,” by Anne Prevoost, who explores the Noah story from the viewpoint of those not chosen to be saved. It strikes me as a good warm-up to a group process of Bibliodrama, exploring through improvised enactment the story, and adding comments by those […]

Bollards

These are short, sturdy posts used to divert traffic from the road. There are two types: manual, removable ones and automatic, retractable bollards. I’m pretty good with words but never to my recollection encountered this word “bollard” before! (It was in the San Luis Obispo Tribune on February 25th, 2018. Then a doubt crossed my […]

Broadening Horizons of Psychotherapy

I’ve been reading Brent Willock’s, Comparative-Integrative Psychoanalysis: A Relational Perspective fro the Discipline’s Second Century (New York: The Analytic Press, 2007). Great book—erudite, and significant in its purpose: We should consider more how it is time (theoretically and practically) to get past the era of competing “schools” of analysis (e.g., the object relations, self-psychology, neo-Freudian […]

Change “Psychodrama” to “Action Explorations”

Now that I thought about it for a long time, I suggest that we change the name of what we do from psychodrama to action explorations. The reasons are these:   1. The word “psychodrama”—or, indeed, any word with “psycho” in it, brings up associations to psychotic, psychoneurotic, psychopathic, psychological, “psycho,” psychoanalytic, intrusive, and redolent […]

Collaborative Creativity through Psychodrama

The drawing below represents my vision of the way people can join in co-creating a more loving and joyous universe. Although two people are shown, and the symbol of encounter is between them, really any number can co-create. They are different—they offer their own angles on whatever is in formation. There is a playful liberation […]

Complexity

Not only are my writings ambiguous, but they also become complex. This means that I’m aware that there may be seeming inconsistencies that make what I write confusing. It is confusing at a lower level that cannot understand paradox. Some people perceive this as elitist. Many people can not think this way. Since the human […]

Confabulations 11: Jus’ Cruisin’ Among the Sparkelplenties

This is a Calabi-Yau diagram of the 10 dimensions of space that are involved in string theory. There are sub-atomic physicists  who really mean this! About Cruisin’ Perhaps other-dimensional beings should be about more momentous projects, intentional operations. That UFOs should be jus’ cruisin’ around the way you kids did in your hot rods fifty […]

Creativity Stimulation

There’s a new technology that derives from drama and theatre, and more particularly improvised theatre. Its goal is creativity stimulation. We’ve been building creativity for a few centuries, and in the last few generations promoting creativity itself has become a goal. Now we have a technology for it:   1. Get people together sharing and […]

Cyber-Nano-Angels

Contemporary nanotechnological research is also being conducted by transdimensional "scientists" (there is a problem with this term, because transdimensional science recognizes that creative thoughtforms participate in the co-construction of reality, whereas your culture in its present paradigmatic worldview (redundant?) thinks reality is objective and not subjective. (Ho ho ho says one of our Santa-Claus-like sprite […]

Ellipses

I love ellipses, that punctuation symbol ( …) that leaves room for imagined and un-imagined words, and frankly inexpressible experiences. I wonder if ol’ Sigmund (Freud) had any sense of the ultimate in-express-ability of many feelings. There are a couple of books about words in other languages that express things for which there are no […]

Enhanced Simulations

Enhanced Simulations is a more complex form of role playing. It’s a response to the challenge of “teaching” in the face of the sheer complexity of systems. You can’t just teach—students will interpret too much in their own way. You’ve got to do a kind of role play and see how they understand and apply […]

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