Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Essays and Papers
If Not Resurrection or Reincarnation, What?
A respected acquaintance noted his belief in reincarnation. Got me thinking: First, what about several other scenarios?: One, dissolve into the Great Becoming-ness, having contributed your life to that process, adding a little creativity here, posing a bit of a problem there, perhaps giving to the becoming-ness of children and grandchildren, directly or indirectly. Weeds […]
If You Can Change The Way You Look At Things…
… the things you look at change. This was sent to me as part of another email-blog from Chuck & Karen Robison at www.whatifitreallyworks.com Wow. And of course I like mandalas so…
Imagination (a Personal Reflection)
I’m blogging various thought complexes in between my home-making tasks of laundry, drying, folding, preparing foods, hanging up clothes, keeping track of my various papers, reading library books, waking up, going to sleep—and those are peripheral to my core identity, which is manufacturing ideas for God. (Well, these other mundane tasks are less peripheral than […]
Improvisation & Confabulation—an Art Form?
Whether consciously or unconsciously, we are improvising, making it up as we go along. We pretend that we are following rules, sticking to what’s expected, playing out the lessons we learn, and to some degree we are. However, in greater and lesser ways we are adding our own creative twists, nuances, stylistic elaborations, exaggerations, accentuations, […]
Improvisation and the Burden of Shame
Hypothesis: A key element in improvisation is the willingness—even a bit of an expectation—to make mistakes, with a fair degree of confidence that when these mistakes are made, they can be coped with in a number of ways: – joked about, with gentle, self-forgiving, self-deprecating humor exaggerated pride, consciously denied (“well, that was just what […]
Improvisational Theology
In 1979 Elaine Pagels wrote a book titled The Gnostic Gospels (Vintage Books), in which she noted that for the Gnostics, being considered “spiritually mature” or “initiated” was to write something that is stimulatingly original. That’s how I understood it. We have been living through millennia of quasi-worship of those who presume to know enough […]
Inanition
This word is defined as a loss of vitality. It can be from malnutrition, perhaps mixed with physical exhaustion, but the term also speaks to a state of vitality—or the loss of momentum thereof—of an individual, group, organization, or even political dynasty. The word seems fit as I notice trends in culture, certain fashions dying […]
Inter-Spirituality Issues
I read a column by Eileen Flynn recently about the problem of interspirituality. A recent book by Stephen Prothero, God is Not One, challenges the idea of unity in religion, and of course he’s right on one level, but mistaken on another level. It has to do with levels of abstraction, essence. And what is […]
Is a Puzzlement: What to Do?
Sometimes I want to get out and do various things—support local or national candidates or causes, work for the team, give more money to this or that charity, get all worked up about various political issues, religious issues, social issues—so many things. And then there’s my profession, and the insatiable needs to do more to […]
It’s Complicated
Inner Whiner to God: Why does it have to be so complicated? God (aka The Becoming Everything, among other sobriquets): “It’s not complicated from my perspective.” Actually, credit where credit is due: This gem was said to me offhanded by my son, David. He didn’t realize how great it was at first! Other things […]
Just Do It–A Misleading Cliche
The saying, “just do it,” is an oversimplification and deserves to be critiqued, semantically unpacked, examined more closely, which is what this blog piece aims to do. (Please forgive my pedantry. One of my goals is to promote imagination, spontaneity, play. Another goal is to promote critical thinking, reflection. It might seem that these two […]
Just Kick ‘Em Out (?)
I know a nice lady who suggested that we should "rise up and dump the tea into the harbor. Kick out everyone in Washington and start all over." Well, I considered this and please forgive me, but I do have a suspicious bone in my body. The problem is that the people who would then […]
Leaping Beyond Our Positive Thinking Base
I am honored to have Marilyn Schoeman as a friend. She is known as an author, international speaker, thought leader, creativity catalyst and game developer in Seattle, Washington: gogreenlightway.com. Her book, GO! How to Think, Speak and ACT to Make Good Things Happen, introduces the Green Light® language, mind set. The Green Light®. Goal: Create […]
Liberating the Mediocre to Enjoy the Arts
One of my missions is to foster the liberation of the mediocre, which refers to the majority of the population. Most people are not all that great when it comes to singing or dancing or making music or doing drama or whatever—but these are important vehicles for self-expression, self-discovery, and having fun. It is a […]
Life Enrichment
For a score of years I taught at a lifelong learning program for senior adults in my community in mid-Texas. It was one of the activities we enjoyed. Reflecting on this, it occurs to me that much if not most of education should be elective like this. It may not be practical for all sorts […]
Life is Very Multi-Complex
There are so many things to do, so many roles to play: Going to the toilet has many sub-roles, depending on whether you’re a man or a woman, depending on whether you’re constipated or have diarrhea, on the quality of the plumbing and the warmth of the toilet, on whether the toilet is in the […]
Making Meta-Cognition Explicit
One of the trends in the last century—still not apparent to most people, though—is the increasing interest in how we think. It’s an extension of the interest not in the content but the spirit of psychoanalysis. In other words, let’s wonder about the possibility that what is true in astronomy and microbiology is also true […]
Making/Discovering Meaning
I’ve been associated distantly with the “Network for Personal Meaning,” get their e-mailings, and have been contemplating the place of “meaning” in human life. It recently occurred to me that meaning operates at a mid-higher level of mental organization. Mind operates in layers, just like body operates in levels of function, and that operations on […]
May I Dance With Your Eyes?
This is a trans-dimensional perspective on things. I dare to play, because pure reason backed by evidence is the basis for responsible discourse only at the 6th and lower 7th dimensions. At the upper 7th dimension and certainly above, categories of reason don’t apply. Much is indeed paradoxical. Let me explain: Most humans experience a […]
Meaning of Life (Provisional)
An acquaintance heard that I was interested in philosophy and jokingly asked me, “What is the meaning of life?” I didn’t have a ready answer then, but the next morning, in reverie, I found myself thinking, “You know the answer.” Surprised—because I didn’t know that I knew—, I asked this inner voice, “Oh? What is […]
Metaphysical Fovea
This is the part of the retina where one gets the sharpest images, where images are focused. All the eye muscles coordinate so the main part of the image focuses on the fovea. It’s rich in cone cells. So my latest theory is that we are figuratively God’s fovea. The Great Becoming Everything is so […]
Mind/Brain Research: A Dialogue
A few days ago my friend John asked me to think about and respond to a few questions he had, and it occurred to me to also post it here: 1. J: What is new concerning mind/brain research? AB: tons, but much is still preliminary, and has little relevance to anyone. What relevance it […]
Miscommunications
“I know you believe you understand what you think I said but I’m not sure that what you heard was what I meant!” (I encountered this line on a button back in the early 1970s when lots of slogans were put on lots of buttons. T-Shirt printing wasn’t so easy then.) What we say that […]
Mission Statement 10/21/10
A friend asked me, “What is your goal when you are exploring such territories as spontaneity, creativity and in a more spiritual/esoteric domain, mysticism? I mean, some folks just close the door to these explorations, but you don’t do that. . .. I think you try to have a critical and rational approach to it, […]
More God-Talk
I speculate. I dare to do this, because nobody who has any authority that I respect says thou shalt not speculate, and anyway, it’s not about you or others, it’s just witnessing to what works for me. If it stimulates you, if you agree in any way, or you find you disagree, it’s all grist […]