Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Autobiographical
Broad “Roots” in the Present
One type of root system for people feeling that they really belong in the world is through genetics—who your biological ancestors and relatives are. Genealogy is a “thing” in my community and age group, assisted by computer technology, more people are probing their family roots many generations back. Alas for me, I don’t have much […]
Bucket List
What do I want to have done, achieved, experienced, before I “kick the bucket”? This is the “Bucket List.” It becomes ever-more relevant for some and less so for others. My wife, not relevant. Me? A bit. A cousin as part of his Christmas greeting sent me a picture of his holding the New Zealand […]
Cartoons from Medical School (First Year)
When I went to med school at the University of California at San Francisco (class for 1963) — they have a big ol’ medical center there up on Parnassus Heights just southeast of Golden Gate Park—I would sometimes cartoon during lectures. Sort of multi-tasking. These came to be included in a yearbook we did for […]
Cartoons from Medical School (Fourth Year)
These are cartoons drawn during classes and included in our yearbook for the class of 1963 at the University of California Medical Center. Rotations in various specialties—Ob-Gyn; ENT; Internal Medicine (Joking with Dr. John Carbone), wrote letters to the referring docs, etc. (click to enlarge) See: 1st year in medical school For 2nd year For […]
Cartoons from Medical School (Second Year)
(Click to enlarge) See: 1st year in medical school For 3rd Year For 4th year.
Cartoons from Medical School (Third Year)
These are cartoons drawn during classes and included in our yearbook for the class of 1963 at the University of California Medical Center. In the third year, we learned surgical techniques in dog surgery, worked doing “scut work” for the interns at San Francicsco General Hospital, rotated in Pediatrics, at some clinics. (click to enlarge) […]
Celebrating Your Diversity
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself! I am great! I contain multitudes!” wrote the American poet, Walt Whitman, in the mid-19th century (in a poem, “Song of Myself”). This blog post is a re-affirmation of the glory and necessity of individuality. The notion that we have to bring it all together […]
Changing Computers!
I amth in the complex challenge of changing computers and hope to be in contact again in a few weeks. I’m going to get another windows, but I found out from my son, who is a big shot in desktop publishing, that my Wordperfect desktop publishing program has dropped back in the competition. He doesn’t […]
Chaos Amidst Order
This mandala hints at the swirling process of individuation. It’s never done. Mystically and poetically, God can’t help but to do through you. Manifestation is thus a continually evolving and shifting adventure. Stated another way, I have all these parts that re-combine in unique ways, involving temperament, talents, limitations, karmic residues, social roles, epigenetic influences… […]
Chariots of the Angels
In the late 1960s a book was published titled “Chariots of the Gods,” and its truthfulness was doubted by many. Still, it’s a great title, and if we shift from polytheism to a modified monotheism that includes many orders of angels, well, what do they get around in? It would be too easy to assume […]
Check Out My Website
If you think this stuff is fun, you might find you enjoy even more a variety of topics addressed on my website: Serious psychology, psychological literacy, psychotherapy, psychodrama and its related topics of role theory and sociometry, various types of philosophy and I slip into rank speculation and fantasy at the bottom. For those who […]
Christmas Contemplation
Going along with the cultural thrust, hearing somewhat religious songs at our local Unitarian Church, I enjoy the Holiday Lights. Religion is no big deal for me. While I used to be an atheist in relation to literal beliefs, I am now a true believer in the operation of the cosmos, which is well-beyond the […]
Circuses Without Animals
Reading the July/August 2017 Smithsonian, it has an article about changes in circuses: A century or so ago, through to when I was a lad in the 1940s, circuses exploited captured animals—bareback riders, lion- and tiger-tamers, tricks with elephants , but in the early 21st Century acts that featured animals were phased out. Acts that […]
Clowning
I’m 13.2% clown. I just made that up. Clowns seem to do that—not use percentages, but rather make things up. I’ve learned the hard way not to clown on the job, even slightly. But it’s sorta-kinda true that I have a fondness for the wacky, and Allee and I clown around in our marriage, in […]
Clutterbugging
I’ve been in a phase of going through my cartoon-doodles and realizing that they offer a wealth of diagrams for my pixilated mind and its philosophical meanderings. This cartoon expresses some trends that I hope to forestall, but it’s not easy. By the great cartoonist, George Booth, the old lady is saying, “There’s more inside.” […]
CoCreating My Living
I have created my living, and I wrote a book about it—privately published—called “Creating Your Living”—and I’m planning on revising it some day. But. I just now realized that my “higher self” of which I only know the tippy-tip and then through its effects—yes, that higher self!— “It” has been living me, more or less. […]
Compelling Songs and Stuff
I’m getting older, have topped out, noticing that young people are taking things in may new directions. I’m older, wiser, or at least wise enough to notice my past follies and contemplate my present degrees of ignorance. There are still many, many things I want to do, but I am also realizing that there are […]
Complexoids
On occasion I dare imagine elves and faeries and the like, just for fun. Looking over my cartoons I imagine there’s a “race” or category of lil’beings that are similar resonant energy fields, expressing various complexes. Just as if there’s a spirit of this tree or that rock, so too aspects of mind can generate […]
Confidence or Arrogance?
Many people think they know, or they give out to others the attitude that they believe completely in what they’re saying or doing. Examining history, it’s clear to me that nobody ever should be fully confident, because humans cannot know the full extent of the impact of their actions. A measure of at least 10% […]
Considering Other Dimensions
My latest theory is that although our bodies (as far as we know) are mainly three-dimensional, our minds are able to conceive of many dimensions, though not able to get the proper perspective on them all. Mind penetrates and transcends dimen-sions, but only somewhat. I have been blessed by reading science -fiction, which was directed […]
Contemplating Compassion
This morning I awoke with a couple of dream fragments that felt significant enough to get me to reflect on them. 1. I had to go uptown a mile or so and somehow annoyed my wife so that she was cross with me. I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong. 2. […]
Contemplating This Blog
As a contemplateur, an invented and affected name for one who enjoys thinking about stuff, I like to write on my blog, and entertain the vague fantasy that someone in the great somewhere will find these jottings amusing and perhaps a little thought-provoking. (Someone in the Great Somewhere is a phrase taken from the 1953 […]
Context-Dependent Knowledge
A pickpocket at a convention of saints would only see their pockets. This morning I heard that the World Series Baseball game that I saw part of on television was considered one of the greatest games in the history of baseball. Who knew? The only thing that impressed me was how many spits the various […]
Counting Mistakes
There are parts of life where mistakes really do count, they make a difference. Part of this then involve a ready willingness to get quick feedback about what the mistake was and be willing to correct it. For many people this is undercut by tests in which you only learn (much later) your score, implying […]
Creative Musings
I cultivate a mild state of dissociation and surrender to my primary process, my free-floating imaginativeness, my pre-un-conscious mind. I willingly entertain confabulation, trusting (at least for a while) the sort of stuff my subconscious mind just makes up. This part of our mind is far more clever than even bright people’s minds! It comes […]