Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Essays and Papers
More on the “War Against Drugs”
I’ve noticed a number of recent articles in current journals—Time, National Geographic, etc.—that speak to the argument for the legalization of marijuana and the counter-push, the “War” against drugs. Tobacco and Alcohol are excluded from this “war,” please note, in spite of the extensive damage they do to health. In a recent book titled the […]
More On This Blog, and On my Website
My son has been transferring more of my website web-pages onto this blog, so you can have more fun browsing around. There are also lots of other papers and cartoons and such still on my website. There’s even another related website that is a companion to my anthology, Interactive & Improvisational Drama. Check it out. […]
Multi-Dimensional Metaphysics
I’ve contemplated and considered the idea that our cosmos involves many dimensions. Mind itself operates at a 5th dimension, beyond time and space, mainly; to some degree it penetrates yet higher dimensions, but rarely can make out their meaning in any definite way. That is to say, the conscious aspect of human mind hardly penetrates […]
My Angle on God (Part 2)
This evocative phrase occurred to me last night, following some reading about the mid-Renaissance German mystic, Jacob Boehme. It’s a playful turn of phrase that stands in contrast to the idea that there is only one right way to understand the Divine—i.e., orthodoxy. Can people develop their own take, their own interpretation, aside from that […]
My Dharma
It occurred to me that I’m twenty rows back, supporting those in front. I’m still part of the 0.01% of the vanguard of evolution, at least in this part of the cosmos but yet not the leaders. Nor do I need to be, nor want to be. Higher conscious-ness than mine carries with it more […]
Mysteries in Nature
There was a lovely scene in our back meadow this morning. A little fawn scampered up to his mother and began to nurse. It took about ten minutes! After about four minutes the mommy ewe reached around and liked the baby’s bottom. What’s that about? Meanwhile the fawn is eagerly licking and thrusting its head […]
Neuro-Biology of Play
I have an interest in play, and I just encountered news of a book, The Inter-personal Neurobiology of Play: Nurturing brain development in children through play, by Theresa A. Kestly, who is a sand-play therapist and teacher in New Mexico. She updates our understanding of the natural ways play promotes maturity in children. (My point […]
New Posts on my Website
Sometimes my percolating brain generates more extensive essays, which I post on my website. The following posted today are worth checking out: 1. Belonging-ness: Posted on webpage: http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/belongingness.html 2. Paradigm Shift: My intuition is that we are in the midst of several fundamental shifts of world-view. One is the developing of more complex forms of […]
New Website Papers
You might also go to my website papers and browse to see what is new. Longer papers have been written. More recently, I’ve prepared (and posted) papers on the following topics: 1. De-Mystifying Mysticism, a talk I give on October 27 at a conference on Pediatrics and Spirituality in Houston, Texas. 2. Visionaries: […]
Not-Really-Effortless Writing
It’s true that writing comes easier to me than many people, but it’s not as easy as it seems. What I write is at times flowing, but I have tendencies to digress (in case you hadn’t noticed), and on re-reading from a new reader’s perspective, I think I would lose part of my audience. So […]
Now! Whoops, Then!
(A Meditation on the Present Moment): Now! No, that was then. Now! Dang it! Passed! Okay, deep breath: Now! Whoops, slipped through and is receding into the past. Okay:Deep breath: Right now! Ha! Got it! Oops, slipped through! It sure is hard to get that ol’ "now," isn”t it? Okay, try again. Now. Got […]
On Bullshit*
Sorry, but that is the title of this tiny book by the philosopher Harry Frankfurt and published in 2005 by Princeton University Press. To save your sensibilities, I’ll just use the term b.s. It has some good ideas, but the idea of selling as a book that which more properly should be a longish article […]
On Intellectual Inhibition
A friend of mine is interested in the frontiers of consciousness development—as am I—and had recently attended the national conference of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). One theme he noted was the growing confidence that appreciation for the not-entirely- materialistic way of viewing the world was growing. I asked him (as I am wont […]
Peace and Quiet
It seems to me that the consumerist, competitive, marketing-oriented thrust of our culture has been upping the intensity of stimulus, towards excitement, towards “full flavor,” adding salt, sugar, alcohol, hot-pepper-spices, loudness of music, brightness of colors, degrees of whirling, and vertigo not just with roller-coaster-rides, but by extension, even simulated rides in theme parks or […]
Perhaps Psychotherapy Cannot Be Evaluated Scientifically
Some aspects of psychotherapy might well be able to be scientifically assessed or validated, but many other aspects transcend this kind of assessment because these aspects are not specific, replicable techniques. Rather, they prepare the stage for clients possibly making some new synthesis, creative breakthrough, or other type of progress. If one approach doesn’t work, […]
Perspectives and Dimensions
We live in a reality that is bigger than ordinary reality, because mind operates beyond reason, beyond its own ability to comprehend it all. I’ve found the metaphor of dimensionality useful—and mainly that there are higher as well as lower dimensions. The point or zero dimensions is the peculiar but widespread idea that words mean […]
Philosophy-Poetry-Cartoon Art
I think that things have changed in a fundamental way: People have become empowered to think more actively, flagrantly, to articulate that which used to be taboo. This has been catalyzed by the emergence of “transgressive art,” art that transgresses rules of rationality and decorum, in cartoons, comics, comedians, some television, and less so, but […]
Philosophy: A Spectrum of Coherence
For many people it doesn’t take that much rational coordination to sustain a viable philosophy of life. Such a system can be sufficiently developed and maintained using a limited number of relatively self-evident platitudes and general social norms, loosely assembled and supported by one’s peer group. Interestingly, all that is needed is the illusion of […]
Pioneering?
A friend, Dr. John Christie-Casson in England wrote, in response to my saying that I considered him a pioneer in his researches into the actual authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, “…the fact is I have only travelled on from where others had previously gone.” I appreciated his modesty, but it occurred to me that most pioneering […]
Power of Words
I’m going to a conference titled “The Power of Words,” in Kansas in mid-September. I’ll be presenting on Role Theory as a User Friendly Language in Life. Words mean different things to different people Speaking of semantics, a friend sent me this by Simone Weil, page 271 from her Simone Weil Reader, titled, “Power of […]
Premature Closure: Some Thoughts
In a book I’ve recently begun to read, Exploring Happiness: from Aristotle to Brain Science, by Sissela Bok (2010, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), I was struck by the author’s use of the idea of premature closure. That term is also used by Erik H. Erikson as a pitfall of adolescence. It means that […]
Priorities: A Scale
A friend asked about my priorities in life. After some pondering, this was my response, in the form of a mini-essay, after some pondering. (Such questions are truly food for thought!) Well, I have a bucket list, things I want to do before I kick the bucket. Really, there are fuzzy boundaries. But still, consider […]
Prosopagnosia and Other Ability Differences
In the New Yorker of August 30, 2010, Oliver Sacks wrote an article titled “Face-blind: the perils of prosopagnosia” (pp. 36-43). He himself has a moderate case of this difficulty in recognizing other people’s faces, and sometimes even neighborhoods, unless there are other guiding cues he can use to remind himself. This seems to be […]