Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Current Events
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
There’s a new field emerging: Life Enrichment. It’s for just what it says. It emerges from improvisational theatre and psychodrama, and has roots in the way we played with imagined scenarios as kids—cops and robbers, house, hospital, whatever. Our great grandchildren may say about our generation, "Can you believe they were mostly just one person? […]
Little Paradigm Shifts
I was thinking about mailing boxes of books and realized that scanning books on has become almost cheaper than mailing overseas. This floored me, as I realized that electronic copy technology has overtaken mail. Shipping costs make it relevant to compare what it might cost to ship versus scanning-on and emailing the copies. It occurred […]
Living in Exponential Times
What a phrase, “exponential times.” A five minute YouTube clip emphasizes this: . I was told that the Sony Corporation played that clip at an annual shareholder meeting. My friend, Ed, who sent me this went on to say: “It has ever been thus, but in exponents there is a cusp where things do change […]
Meshuggenosis: 21st Century Neurosis
(Meshugginah: Yiddish word for crazy. Maybe just eccentric.) My grandkids will not be neurotic in the way their grandparents were, products (so it was thought) of the parenting of their parents. We were scolded too much or not enough, given too much freedom or not enough. Always the analysts—the arbiters of blame—could find a problem […]
Meta-Existence
In a recent Discover magazine there’s a small article and visualization titled “When Black Holes Collide, which illustrates in 3 dimensions (plus color—which adds another type of dimension) “how black holes stretch and bend the fabric of space-time.” Now this concept of stretching or bending space-time is inconceivable—Dr. (Kip) Thorne says that “The human mind […]
Money as a Political Tool
The comedienne Lily Tomlin wrote, “No matter how cynical you get, it’s almost impossible to keep up.” I just came upon another column by Jim Hightower about how big money is purchasing politicians to further the corporate agenda. Yikes. I fear that I may be sent to a concentration camp for this if a certain […]
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 […]
Multi-Perspectival Man Meets Modern-Man!
[Chapter 3: Previous episodes on August 29 and August 23] In this episode, Modern-Man protests, “Of course there is truth! It is out there, And we can and will discover it. Truth is at least in theory accessible. Everything fits, or at least would fit together, if we were only clever enough. It has to! […]
Multi-Perspectival Man: Historical Background
2nd episode: Multi-Perspectival-Man didn’t come crashing out of the sky in a rocket ship. He emerged naturally in his human form as just this guy, a product of cultural evolution. But, wait! What about his ancestry, and the world in which they lived? I mentioned earlier that there’s a lot to distract one nowadays. Yes. […]
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 […]
Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids (Book Review)
Mason, Phil. (2009). Napoleon’s hemorrhoids (and other small events that changed history. New York: Skyhorse Publishing —delightful book, chock full of brief anecdotes about the little glitches, where things went awfully wrong, close calls, or moments of serendipity. It’s amusing or terrifying to contemplate how things might be different but for… The author in this […]
Natural Inclusionality Approved
I have been corresponding with some acquaintances who in my estimate are really very bright, and I’m honored to be included in their circle. One Alan Rayner, is a retired professor of biology in England who evolved a theory of what he calls “Natural Inclusionality,” an approach that he thinks (and I agree in general) […]
New Information
In the olden days it was sufficient to learn new information. We were sort of expected not to play with it. But nowadays the thing with information is that many bits invite a shift from assimilation to accommodation—which means that to really “get” the new information, we must creatively adapt it to our interests, needs, […]
New-Fangled Cars Today!
My son got a new car with a lot of “bells and whistles,” new gadgets. He writes: “Alas, it lacks the latest Telepathic Soul-Connection (TSC) technology. So it’s not so great. It doesn’t do the driving for you.” But he says he is relatively sure we will be able to buy self-driving cars within 10-15 […]
Nibbling at the Ineffable
It’s all so big, so multi-dimensional, so head-spinning complex, all we can do is to nibble on this “mountain.” The Ineffable is a adjective that means it cannot be captured in words, nor music nor art. It’s way too big. We can try, recognizing that whatever we say is only a pointer, and by definition, […]
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 […]
Nurturance as a Primary Motive
Freud made sexuality a primary motive; and aggression another deep motive. Today I realized that nurturance is another profound motivating force—quite deep! I was cutting up a plum for my sweetie and realizing that I got a kick out of feeding her the way a momma bird is driven by the nonverbal cues of hunger […]
On Loneliness
At first, I think of being lonely in terms of the popular songs, focused on yearning for a true love, romance. But then I realize this is just the most appealing format, the type where we’re more likely to feel sympathy for the yearning person. However, there are other, far more pervasive types of loneliness. […]
Opening Frontiers of Knowledge
Consider that we live at the surface of existence, and are learning to partake of increasing “depth” through successive expansions in many directions, including some of the following: During the 15th and 16th century, the Renaissance, Western culture expanded to reconnect with its own pre-medieval past, the classic Graeco-Roman civilization, along with the spiritual traditions […]
Out in Left Field
This is ambiguous: perhaps a put-down, perhaps an expression of guarded admiration and wonder. A friend, a poet, said that she was told by a friend that she was “out in left field.” I responded: “Well, maybe left field is a good place to live. It’s a “place” or state of mind in which one […]
Over-Load Eluded
One of the challenges of the postmodern era is that we become aware—no, we are gently assaulted—with a range of interesting and compelling possibilities, and also calls to action from seemingly noble causes. This morning I was reminded of someone who says the Navy’s sonar testing is hurting the whales and inhibiting their own emission […]
Paparazzi Play Set
On a recent trip to California, in Santa Monica (west of Los Angeles), on their “Promenade” of special shops near the beach, they had a toy shop with various toys, including those little sets of toy soldiers or medieval knights. What struck me was a set of these little figures titled “Paparazzi Play Set.” It […]
Paradigm Changes in Our Time
I’m aware that this phrase, paradigm change, has become somewhat cliché’d, but I think it useful to recognize what we are going through many cultural trends or shifts of world-view. It occurred to me that while the years around 1901 have been called “fin de siecle,”—meaning the end of the century, our own era, the […]