Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Wisdom-ing
Divine Pollen
Here’s another mythic construct: I get to be a point of “focusing consciousness” in the cosmos. It’s sort of like a pollen grain. Staying with that metaphor, the cosmos has been spending billions of years in constructing: – a star not too hot or cold, and a planetary system with at least one planet capable […]
Does God “Exist”
Does “God” exist? It’s a hard question because so many people have different conscious and unconscious understandings of that word, “God.” We must remember that it’s only a word, and more, there are different words in different cultures to refer to sort of the same thing. But actually, the complex of associations called up in […]
Dogma in the Postmodern World
As we’ve become increasingly aware of the nature of mind and its intrinsic complexity, I perceive a rationale for a postmodern perspective. The perception of a non-trivial truth must resonate through the wholeness of our being, and as we recognize several elements, the idea that two people can deeply experience (perception plus interpretation) in the […]
Don’t Watch It—Do It!
The number of screens is multiplying—movies, television, hand-held electronic devices, e-books, computer “games”—all “shadows on the wall,” illusions seductively fashioned to offer a hyper-reality, “bigger than life,” more wonderful than anything puny you could actually do yourselves. You can partake of this far more excellent world while in fact in your actual body-mind turning into […]
Dream Dynamics
For a few minutes between deep and eventful dreaming and full awaken-ness, I discovered myriads of fragments of old dreams, vivid but partial scenes! They were extracts from dreams over scores of years! Reflecting on these, I had several insights: (1) Mind permeates multiple realities, and ordinary consciousness just skims the surface; (2) we live […]
Dream Realities
I had a vivid dream a week or so ago: It was an early morning dream; those seem to be more vivid. I thought about it, dreams in general, memory, the way things can seem real enough to catch you up in dealing with them, and, in short, the deeper nature of reality. Dreams do […]
Dream!
Dare to dream new dreams! This is not in the sense of the night-dreams that come to you, but rather in the sense of daring to envision possibilities for your life, even if only fantasy. At the end of the Muppet Movie around 1979, Kermit sings, “Life’s like a movie, write your own ending! […]
Dynamic Tree of Life
Things are dynamically changing. A couple of days ago I noted this about one cosmic diagram, the Shree Yantra. (A yantra is sort of a map of the cosmos, allowing for the understanding that no such map could ever be made no matter how many dimensions we could conceivably represent. But for meditation purposes, some […]
Education of the Heart
I like this phrase. It’s a chapter heading if not a book title I’ll use. The Dalai Lama used it in a recent book, just noted on another blog post today. But his book—really, quite good—reminds me that there is a pedagogy, an art of education, a way to bring minds forward towards the achievement […]
Eggsistentialism
Recently I’ve been contemplating the internally-reinforcing logic of a strict materialist, a modern thinker, and how, from another perspective, how shallow it is. The Aristotelian may note in full the details that lead to details, how seemingly un-ending is the extrapolation of the sources of bacon, toast, or coffee, of its own birth in butter […]
Elitism?
A recent “Hi & Lois” comic strip struck home! Could it be that there are many people with less intelligence, vocabulary, and correspondingly more entitlement to their own prejudices who are inclined to condemn offhandedly anyone with more critical thinking as “elitist?” For example, consider this exchange: … and his office mate replies: … so, […]
End-of-Life Doula”! Brilliant Idea
I picked up a book at the public library titled A Graceful Goodbye: A New Outlook on Death, by Susan B. Mercer. She’s an end-of-life doula. The idea of “doula” as one who facilitates a major role transition like birth was familiar. Indeed, I was a doula for my daughter’s first child’s first few weeks. […]
Enhanced Simulation (More)
Enhanced simulations should be used as a kind of therapy, and indeed, as part of the training of helpers, paid professionals. It’s also a part of therapy, including psychodrama, drama therapy, and related approaches, may be thought of as a kind of education. Simulations should be applied not only as therapy but rather for all […]
Enhanced Simulations
Our increasingly rapidly changing world needs techniques that are of sufficient complexity so that they can meet current needs. No longer can standard exams do this; what’s needed are simulated challenges. Simulations are now being used in training for space, for military purposes, in surgery and medicine, and an increasing number of other applications. What […]
Epistemological Mind-Stretchings
Everything nowadays is being revealed as being far more complex than we thought it was. This trend has involved all fields, including subtle differences in psychology. For example, there is the problem of how do we know what we know? This is a philosophical problem known as epistemology. For example, we start with what is […]
Epistemology and Depth Psychology
Epistemology is that branch of philosophy that inquires into the problem of how we know what we know. Can some of what we think we know be illusions or errors? How could that be? Can Truth be known? Reality? The first point here is that most people seem to buy into the idea that truth […]
Equality? Wow.
I hadn’t been aware that I had been harboring elitist sentiments until a Unitarian church service that valorized sports. Then I realized that I had subconsciously thought of my own interests as superior—but when I looked again, I realized that a theme that is no interest to 75% of the people is hardly superior in […]
Eventfulness
…muscles are contracting; the earth is rotating (duck!) ; neurons are depolarizing (firing) : stomach and intestinal contents gurgle (borborygmi) ; air is circulating ; fluids are flowing ; there is beauty being experienced ; …and pain ; chemicals are reacting ; hearts are beating ; chemicals are reacting ; mites are eating… and […]
Exploratory Drama for Life
It may be time to confirm some rapprochement among drama therapy (all varieties, and there are several!), psychodrama (several varieties), and other arts “therapies”—and more that their being considered together, and consider now how they do not have to be therapeutic. In the mid-1950s some people partook of psychoanalysis because it was fashion-able, not because […]
Exploring More Paradigm Shifts
Reading some Whitehead and other philosophies, I’m impressed again with how the paradigms are changing in some ways I didn’t talk about previously. We learn, but in contrast to the general tone or world-view in the past, we learn also that the learning is un-ending. There is almost nothing of significance that is learned definitively. […]
Extending the Parable of the Blind Men and Elephant
In a recent post I mentioned the recent probable confirmation of the Higgs boson, which is only a condensation (?) of the “Higgs field”—which is still very mysterious indeed. Indeed, there are many mysteries at the edge of what our most expensive and complex machines can access: Also there are the various models of subatomic […]
Facets of Meaning
I’ve been reading about Paul T. Wong’s Network for Personal Meaning. I’ve been to a few of their conferences and think what he’s doing is good. Of course, he’s right, it seems, but also meaning-making seems to me to be an intermediate step. For many, finding meaning, co-creating meaning, may serve as a fulcrum. I […]
Factors in Human Development
There are so many things to take into consideration when trying to understand a human life. Several years ago I made a tentative list on some of the many issues affecting the development of babies, children, and teenagers. Today I posted another paper that offered a preliminary listing of many of the issues that affect […]
Final Letter
I thought I’d post this now because in the future I may be too forgetful, preoccupied, or disabled to do this. So (possibly way in advance): It was great, and now I’m finished. Thanks for all you’ve all done. Most of you have been friends who’ve helped me. Admittedly, some few of you haven’t liked […]
Finding God’s Purpose
A friend used this term, “God’s Purpose,” and it got me to wondering: Well, one interpretation is to just do what we can to make everything nice, the greatest good for the greatest numbers, as Jeremy Bentham suggested? (Or was it Frances Hutchinson? You go to Wikipedia and find that clichés are more than what […]