Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Autobiographical
Unconscious Depths
I was reminded of the depth of subtle programming in a gentle and amusing way, by realizing that the persistence of songs in my mind—I think they’re called “earworms”—in the week following my participation as one of over a hundred people in our Sun City Chorus singing our Christmas Concert. The songs carry on, after […]
Understanding Understanding
Reading in the March 2014 Smithsonian an article about Carl Sagan, on p.71, he says, “I think I’m able to explain things because understanding wasn’t entirely easy for me. Some things the most brilliant students were able to see instantly I had to work to understand. I can remember what I had to do to […]
Unfolding Consciousness
.Consciousness is progressing gradually, unfolding, ideas building on each other. Things take time and their processes operate on multiple levels and in multiple dimensions. Much of my work has gone in the direction of facilitating this unfolding consciousness, at whatever pace. A bit of encouragement here, a boost there. It’s a very slight intervention I […]
Upon Reflection
I’ve done a lot, learned a lot, loved and been loved a lot. I like the words of the song, “My Way,” which was Frank Sinatra’s theme song, though for me I have to confess that it should often have been called “Thy Way.” I was forced to do some things I didn’t really want […]
Waking Up a Little More
I’ve been waking up to ways I’ve been asleep or veiled in ignorance or self-deception, and one of the things I’ve woken up to is the idea that lots of other people are as caught up in illusions as I’ve been. Everyone has a somewhat different combination of thousands of illusions and self-deceptions. Digging out […]
We Got Off Easy
It’s not just watching television! As grandparents grow older, there’s hosting family in trips out to eat, or at home. Clothes for grandchildren. Kids who are in financial straits or crisis. Paying off cars. Worrying about kids’ family’s debts. Attending sports, graduations—it goes on and on, filling one’s whole life. In our case, we have […]
We Had It Easy!
First, there’s a funny skit by Monty Python’s Flying Circus where four guys try to out-brag how tough they had it as kids. As a child of parents who lived through the depression, a common complaint we heard our parents make was “You kids have it easy! We had it tough!” School was more demanding, […]
Whassup (Early 2018)?
I’m doing my last edited book on non-psychotherapeutic applications of psycho-dramatic methods, which are really just the application of the technology of “enhanced” simulations to psychotherapy. The enhancement comes from the technique of the “double” (or “voice over”) which allows the audience to know what the role players are thinking or saying to themselves. I’m […]
Whassup in Spring, 2015
This is an autobiographical note. It occurred to me to email friends and suggest that they pick up on my blog, starting with this. I’m having having cataracts removed and lens replaced! This used to be a grueling procedure, having to lay still face down for days, maybe over a week at a time—that what […]
Whassup?
Of late I’ve noticed: muscles are contracting; the earth is rotating (duck!) ; neurons are depolarizing (firing) : stomach and intestinal contents gurgle (in medical terms,t that’s called “borborygmi”) ; air is circulating ; fluids are flowing ; there is beauty being experienced ; …and pain ; chemicals are reacting ; hearts are beating ; […]
What Keeps Me Going:
First thing is singing, often an improvised marching tune, or anything. It might be a simple note that I begin to vary and watch what begins to come. The notes are then amplified into a basic tune. Be-boo-bop, no particular words. Occasionally I might insert the words to a spiritual chant, such as Om Namah […]
What’s Up This Month
Oh, my, sometimes I think my mind is like an artist’s studio, an “atelier,” with various papers or books, presentations being prepared or books someday to write or revise, blogs to post, papers to complete on my website. It’s not one thing after another, it’s a little bit of this, and then, now that I […]
Where is Adam?
A friend asked me this: I think she was trying to “feel an authentic connection.” Ah, not easy to respond. Here are some free associations from the moving “pool table” of my mind: I am an illusion, a structure of a life, a sprinkle of narcissism that really functions to coordinate my many parts of […]
Where the Weird Things Are
When my son David was little he had a fear of monsters for a while. To treat it—this was when he was about half-past-2—we role-played a book he enjoyed, Where the Wild Things Are. I worked on the key element of the book, looking into their yellow eyes without blinking once, and saying firmly, “Be […]
Who Am I?
I have a very diversified portfolio of roles. I’m thinking of reorganizing my website to reflect this, because there is a gradual decline in the degrees of investment of time and energy given to the more professional roles and a gradual increase in the levels of activity in more playful and life-savoring roles. At present […]
Why I Don’t Go to Movies
(Well, sometimes I do, but it takes me days or more to get the stuff out of my brain. On occasion, I want that stuff in my mind, but mainly not. Otherwise, they all seem like variations on this chart I saw in Time Magazine 3/7/16 p. 31 (created by John Atkinson, Wrong Hands […]
Winding Down, Finishing Up (I)
A friend wrote me and was wondering what to continue with and what is to be regarded as a closing chapter. It got me thinking: Wow! Have I done enough? (I’m aware that the answer is a rousing YES! But I ask myself maybe for the first time: Can I stop now? I don’t want […]
Winding Down, Wrapping Up (2)
Here I am, happy, as usual, finally, loved by my wifey-p0oh, quite content, realiz-ing that if I were the emperor of all I survey—a childish dream residue— it would be comparatively worrisome! This simple un-worried life is as good as it gets, and it’s quite fine indeed. Having more means worrying more, because there are […]
Winter’s Day
It’s Texas here, and it’s been nicely warm for a few days, and now we’ve been having a freezing cold front come through and we get those times too in Winter. In another corner of my cluttered mind I found the cartoon below and it reminded me how much I enjoyed Charles Addams’ cartoons in […]
Wonder-Filled
A Negro spiritual song from the 19th century goes: “Oh won’t you sit down? Lord, I can’t sit down! (Repeat two more times) I just got to Heav’n, gotta look around!” It turns out that we have a bit of heaven right here for those who have eyes to see. Really, it’s not the eyes, […]
Working on My Magnum Opus
Working on My Magnum Opus: my great work, which may be titled “Dimension-ality.” It’s a summation of my several studies in psychiatry, process theology, new-age philosophy, transpersonal psychology, comparative religions, and bunches of other readings. It’s all coming out in a cartoon-doodle-illustrated book that’s mainly mandalas, but also an illustrated commentary as to how these […]
Writing Systems (Autobiographic Notes)
(I’m putting this in autobiographical notes as well as scriptology): Why am I interested in this aspect of culture? Here are some more personal reflections. I always knew there was something special about writing. (Not the contents of literature, novels, articles for magazines, poetry. Well, some interest, but what I am referring to is the […]
Yiddish: Some Thoughts
I’m am a non-religious Jew. There are millions of us. Many are fairly assimila-ted. More are My own spirituality has ranged in my life from nominal and dutiful student to informed agnosticism to atheism to mysticism to process philosophy to quasi-Spinozan confabulation. In spite of and informed by all these, I harbor some fascination with […]
You Don’t Have to Know What You’re Doing
The other day it occurred to me that although I have high status in several areas, have diplomas and certificates and am generally thought to know what I’m doing, in fact, most of the time, I do not know what I’m doing! I sort of explore the world, improvise, get feedback, adjust, negotiate, feel my […]
Zen Network
My wife is on a Zen Buddhist study group e-network recently, and we were chatting about her spiritual journey. She’s impressed with the very fact that these new friends have sought to raise their consciousness; they’ve embarked on a journey that is in itself sufficient. (The Hebrew word for this is “dayenu,” meaning, “that would […]