Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Autobiographical
Pre-Summer Solstice ‘18
We are approaching the summer solstice in a couple of weeks. It’s 8:30 PM and there is still a pick cloud in the evening sky, while it’s darkening—but not yet dark. I’m very happy because (chiefly) I have a wonderful and beloved wifey who attends to my needs while also attending to many other things. […]
Pretending
I pretend a lot! Part of me is a bit like the little bird, Woodstock. Part of me is a little like the dog, Snoopy. He’s not really a dog, please not. He pretends he is, and Charlie Brown pretends he is. I love Snoopy—love, love, love. He’s so many things. He’s a vulture and […]
Principles of Action Explorations
In a sense, this is a bit of a personal mission statement: I have been fortunate to encounter a goodly number of tools that I think can help humanity evolve in their consciousness. I plan to develop and promote these ideas and complexes of ideas, together and separately: 1. The goals of living become more […]
Priorities!
I just opened to the fact that I’m not just growing older, but I’m getting old. (I’m 80.6 or thereabouts.) What this means to me: 1. My mind is going a little. I can’t recall facts as well as I used to. I’m still pretty sharp, but not how I used to be. It’s […]
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 […]
Prioritizing
My guardian angels are reminding me through many channels that I’m gonna die. My days are numbered. Maybe 4, maybe 4,000, maybe 40,000. So consequently—there’s a word I haven’t used for a good long while—I need to prioritize. In other words, what’s my bucket list? Not easy, but not that hard, either. First, keep on […]
Prolific Thinker of All Thoughts
That’s how my pal Russ Williams addressed me. Yes, I replied, “Ptat”, an acronym that’s sort of spat out, related phonemically to the Al Capp (cartoonist of Li’l Abner) p’tooey. So this essayette focused on the object of the sentence: All Thoughts. Now here we have a category that is not only vast, but fuzzy […]
Pronoia-2
A friend asked, “ Won’t “they” be mad?” I replied: Great question. Actually, “they” hardly know I exist any more. Alas, “they” haven’t been persecuting me at all since the FBI-CIA have looked at their budget and reassigned priorities. (Just kidding! Not really paranoid!) My contact—you know? The one who used to beam threatening messages […]
Propaganda
As we begin the debates and the next round of political jostling for public office, I’m reminded that I’ve been interested since my early teen years 65 years ago in propaganda, the way the newspapers and other media can and do distort the truth. The old term for this is “rhetoric,” and I think they […]
Pseudo-Hypo-mania?
My son has reacted to my bursts of postings: “ Pa’, do we need to adjust your medication or something?!” He was kidding, but he’s got a point. It does seem to be a lot for ordinary mortals. I am not all that much “better,” but I’m certainly not “ordinary.” (I used to think that […]
Psychiatric Practice: Not What It Was
A colleague recently asked me why I was not still in practice. I felt awkward, because if I kept up with the news, I could be just as good a clinician as I ever was—and my wife said she thought I was pretty good—as have some colleagues, etc. But the field has changed! In the […]
Psychiatry History
Yesterday I put up some ideas about permeability that in their implications, metaphysically, may challenge the entire materialistic and positivistic paradigm of the modern era. Lest I seem grandiose, it’s only speculation. I might well be mistaken. But still, that’s my role, to fool around, to explore, to draw cartoons, dance, joke, get serious, get […]
Psychodrama Research
Psychodrama research falls victim to the same pitfalls as psychotherapy research: The mind is many-leveled. There is thinking, and thinking about thinking, and pathological and unconscious dynamics, namely the multi-leveled functionality of symptoms. Symptoms are also expressions of the deep self. (I confess to being influenced by the “wild analyst” Georg Groddek, who was a […]
Rain! Ahhhh!
Being in a time of drought is intriguing. Today it is raining. Don’t know how long it will go, but Allee and I are savoring looking at it. There’s a singing group named “Ladysmith Black Mombaso” who in the 1970s (?) had a record (back in the olden days when there were vinyl 33.33 rotations/per/minute […]
Re-Prioritizing
Revising my “bucket list”—i.e., the things I want to do before I kick the bucket. Here’s how I think about it. Let’s say there are a thousand things I might do, and let’s plot them on a spectrum from 1 for things I hate to do to 100 for things I love to do. Most […]
Really, Really Like
There are tons of things I don’t care for that much. Meh. Some stuff I prefer not to encounter, engage, hear, go to. I don’t need to put them down, but they’re just so not my cup of tea. And then there are things I sort of like. And things I really like. But what’s […]
Reconsidering the Oedipal Complex
I’m thinking that a little bit of this is a good thing. I was watching an attractive young mother coo over her baby, about 9 months old, and I thought, “Hm, I want an Oedipal complex. I don’t want to marry Mom or have sex with her, but I do want her to absolutely delight […]
Reflections of a Gran’popala
Dear “Junior Kiddos” (I am blessed with four darling grandchildren, ages six through eleven, and what with my beginning to post on this blog and their getting old enough to read, I have hopes they will read this. But of course it’s also addressed to kids everywhere and perhaps also will speak for and to […]
Reunion Memories 1
Returned last week from my medical school reunion. A fascinatingly rich experience on many levels, and I’m still sorting it all out. One part involved my awareness that more than most groups, this was my social reference group, the people whom I measured myself against. That is, as a young man, I realize now I’d […]
Reverence for Life? Wowsie!
Albert Schweitzer said that was his goal, and I sort of idealized him. Albert Einstein, too. If I could be like them then maybe my Mom would have been satisfied. She was channeling the mores of the mid-20th century upward-striving middle class, for which nothing was good enough. I was suffering from feeling not good […]
Rich Inner Life
I’m tempted to think that everyone has a rich inner life, but my wife says that’s not so. She asked me to think about it, so I did. First, I am reminded that what’s true for me is most definitely not so for others. There are many differences in temperament and other variables. My autobiography […]
Role Dynamics & Identity
One nice thing about thinking about life in terms of the roles we play—i.e., “role dynamics”— is that it takes the pressure off of having to “be” wonderful. I am not sure, but suspect that many young people still are caught up in the semantic jungle of labels. How can I be okay when I […]
Romance!
One of my subtle roles has been as a true romantic, one of the boy-girl fall-in-love romantic. It was a theme in the 1920s through the 1950s, but then increasing notes of cynicism crept into popular music—alas. Happily, my second wife is equally romantic. I realized, listening to Frank Sinatra’s songs on my audio-tape cassette […]
Rounding Out Life
An acquaintance over email—a new type of relationship, please note—we’ve met in passing and he kindly accepts me into the periphery of his social network— remarked, “Glad to see you’re still going strong.” But I’m not going strong! I’m weakening! I’m wrapping things up. There’s a whole lot to wrap and it may take a […]