Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Wisdom-ing
Folly in Culture
A recent article in Wired magazine addressed tendencies in the field of medicine to perhaps over-reach itself, and to not-entirely-rationally support whatever seems new or fashionable. As an amateur historian of medicine, I found this wonderful. Several articles from many sources have explored the tenuous nature of modern medical "knowledge." However, lest we get all […]
FOMO Comments
This came across my “desk” in the mail, and I mostly agree: Have you heard the acronym FOMO? It stands for “Fear of Missing Out,” and a popular hashtag. Personally, I’m not sure I ever experienced FOMO, even in my younger years, but I know now, with age, I feel entirely justified in my lack […]
For the Heaven of It
Play is fun, and creativity as play is fun, is heaven. It’s not done “for the hell of it.” That was from a time when the Protestant Ethic ruled, and if it was fun, there must be something wrong with it. Duty and work were unpleasant in the old days, at least in the minds […]
Forms of Foolishness and How to Resist Them
The point of this series is that knowing about the various types snares and traps that lure us into foolishness may help us to resist or minimize their impact. What I mean by “foolishness” is sort of compounding of ignorance and pride. The ignorance is morally neutral: There are innumerable items we don’t know—and a […]
Fractional Roles
Here’s a concept I just made up. I think we play vicarious roles and sometimes only parts of these as we interface with mass media. We root for our preferred team in sports, or for our combatant in television wrestling or online computer games. We “become” various characters in the dramas and comedies we view […]
Fully Enlightened or “Excessive ‘Spiritual’ Excess?
This is a gentle rant against the use of such words as “fully,” “completely,” “absolutely,” or “pure” in talks and articles that have to do with spiritual practice. Such words represent that category in grammar called the “superlative”—as in not better, but “best.” The trouble with this group of words is that they often represent […]
Future Computers: Clever or Wise?
In a recent Time Magazine February 21, 2011, a feature article speculated on the exponential growth of computer speed, power, size of memory, and other variables. As an example, a computer named Watson beat other experienced (human) contestants in a difficult game of Jeopardy! Computers will become smarter than humans soon! (?). I’m dubious about […]
Futurological Perspectives: “Framming the Zhork.”
The more I study history the more I’m convinced that humanity is less than a quarter of the way on its journey to wisdom. I imagine a compliant child, an earnest child, and the parent says, “Now, be responsible.” The child nods, sincerely desires to achieve that state, yet we know that young children cannot […]
Gemeinschaftsgefuehl
This mouthful translates from the German, a feel for the togetherness-group, a social club. Alfred Adler, the individual psychologist and physician, used this term as the pro-social alternative to egotistic competition, trying to be one up. He saw it as the primary alternative to neurosis—and I agree. “I get to help” is one of my […]
Geometry
For a while I was into geometry. Contemplating geometry was amazing! Mind-Expanding! So G’d’s glory is there implicit in everything! I’m not talking about the literal G-d of the Bible, of Jewish, then Christian history, but the Beyond-the-Beyond, the Becoming Everything. True, the mystics in the Western religions intuited this, but then re-folded this intuition […]
Get a Life! Considering Pseudo-Reality
I think modern media and other devices offer an opportunity to expand and enrich our imaginations; beyond a certain point, though, they can dilute the effective experience and action of the self. The Psychology of Imagination Consider this hypothesis: Psyche is expandable to a startling extent. In addition to mere perceptions and actions, the human […]
Getting on Someone’s “List”
I was just solicited for a role that I’ve dropped almost two years ago, and really moved away from in the decade or more before that. It’s so easy to get on some-one’s list! That associates to phone solicitations, too. Although I’m gradually disconnecting from professional involvements, they are not disconnecting from me. But it […]
Gimme Gimme
(Give me, give me; buy my this, get my that.) Our Sun City community association just had a vendor faire and I went and saw what they had, partly out of a sense of community cooperation. It was a trying experience, passing through rows of salespeople wanting my attention, wanting me to sign up for […]
Give Yourself a Medal
Marian Henley, a cartoonist who did “Maxine!,” created “medals” (back in 1999)! She created: The Triple Star Telephone, for refusing to surrender under heavy barrage of telephone solicitation calls; The Silver Cereal Box. for extraordinary strength of will, courage, and endurance displayed by simply getting the heck out of bed every day! […]
God Made Mud
I must confess that this passage from Chapter 99, page 149, of Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s 1973 novel, “Cat’s Cradle” appeals to me. I’d like to have it read at my funeral. It’s from his imaginary religion of “Bokononism,” which says that all religions are based on lies. I am a flagrant myth-maker, who nevertheless aligns […]
God Realization (??)
We all get our god-realization in different ways. For me as I fell asleep on the edge of the Autumnal Equinox or thereabouts, 9/21/11, something like a minor god-realization happened through a gentle extension of a slight talent I have—i.e., when at the edge of sleep I begin to remember thousands of dream images as […]
Happily Ever Aftering
What a sweet idea, part of the lyrics to the title song in the 1960s Broadway Musical, “Camelot.” How appreciative I am that I seem to have settled into this condition with my soulmate-wife, Allee, and our wonderful home and community. Yet happiness is by no means complacency or stasis: There is work to be […]
Helping Others Feel Better
In the aforementioned Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. book, “Cat’s Cradle,” there is another quote that asserts the priority of encounter, human help, over mere, dry, facts as we believe them to be. One of the characters, a Doctor von Koenigswald, in Chapter 98, page 148, says, “I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything […]
High Dimensionality
I’ve been coming to the thought that mind itself is the primary reality, not matter, the 3rd dimension—which is what most people take to be hard reality. Most recognize that the 2nd dimension—what they can see in pictures, read in papers, is not altogether reality. Alfred North Whitehead went up one notch and noted that […]
Higher Dimensional Thinking
Yes, about “straight answers”— what if at higher dimensional levels of mind there are no straight answers? so I’m putting on my blog and also will weave into my lectures: S.J. Perelman, in his book, Most of the Most of S.J. Perelman (Modern Library, NY, 2000), on page 64, wrote: “Yet figures, which I am […]
Holiday Cards? Life Moves On
‘Tis the season to be jolly, and part of that is the exchange of cards and connections. Aside from the cards exchanged, there is a small degree to which this ritual arouses mixed feelings. On one hand, I am a little hurt, if I think about it, at the degree to which people I’ve reached […]
Holiday Greetings 2015
Much has happened if I think about it, and also I sort-of forget, thinking that life goes on, la-dee-dah, nothing much happening. Yet both a lot and nothing much are both illusions. I’ll be talking and posting in a while about illusions, mainly psychological illusions—the defense mechanisms of the psychoanalysts, the cognitve distortions of cognitive […]
Hoodwinked by Expert Culture?
An acquaintance wondered if I was “hoodwinked by expert culture.” What a provocative phrase! (Provocative is a compliment, because it provokes my thought, not my defensiveness.) I responded, “You might be right. Blind spots happen.” But what is “expert culture?” Is it the received knowledge of the dominant worldview, what is taught by those whom […]
Hope and Reality: Bridging the Gulf
The Theme for the 2011 conference of the American Society for Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, held from April 28 – May 2, is “Bridging the gulf between hope and reality: Putting our ideals into action.” The theme also relates to the fact that the conference is being held in Clearwater, a suburb to the west […]
How Action Expl0rations Work
I see action explorations as being a synthesis of all of the following: 1. The general principle of “Creativity” as a general goal—which contrasts with the 20th century goal of hoping to “get it right” (as if some authority knew what the right answer was). There’s a whole world-view here that shifts from the world […]