Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Wisdom-ing
Metaphysical Explanations
(With a drawing at the end as an example.) I’ve begun a new art form that mixes drawing and prose. Through this synthesis I attempt to explicate my version of how the cosmos is in an ongoing creative process. It’s poetic, not to be taken literally. I seriously doubt that language as it operates today […]
Mild Social Learning Disability
f I’m so smart, why am I so dense? I have a little bit of social learning disability, a term I used for a borderline form of mild Asperger’s disorder. It’s enough so that I annoy people who think that I’m ignoring their feelings when really I mis-perceive or really fail to perceive those unspoken-about […]
Mind Dimensions
I’ve been reading Prof. Alan Lightman’s book of essays title, “The Accidental Universe,” (2013, Pantheon Books) and what occurred to me is that in talking about the mind-boggling complexities of the sizes of stuff, it’s mysterious energy and all, the author nevertheless omitted (it seems) the most obvious factor: mind. Or perhaps he did acknowledge […]
Mission Statement 10/21/10
A friend asked me, “What is your goal when you are exploring such territories as spontaneity, creativity and in a more spiritual/esoteric domain, mysticism? I mean, some folks just close the door to these explorations, but you don’t do that. . .. I think you try to have a critical and rational approach to it, […]
Misunderstandings Abound
I recently inquired about some item that I wasn’t sure I should be looking for somewhere in the context, but the person I asked took it as an implied complaint, as if she “should” have had it there for me. I hadn’t even thought such a thing; there was no reproach in my mind—but the […]
More God-Talk
I speculate. I dare to do this, because nobody who has any authority that I respect says thou shalt not speculate, and anyway, it’s not about you or others, it’s just witnessing to what works for me. If it stimulates you, if you agree in any way, or you find you disagree, it’s all grist […]
More Metaphysical Ontology?!
Yes! Here’s the low down on the higher-ups! Try on this metaphor for size: I (and you, of course, all of us) am sort of a cell surface on the skin on the edge of a ridge in a pattern of finger-prints on the tip of a finger and where I connect with the world, […]
More On This Blog, and On my Website
My son has been transferring more of my website web-pages onto this blog, so you can have more fun browsing around. There are also lots of other papers and cartoons and such still on my website. There’s even another related website that is a companion to my anthology, Interactive & Improvisational Drama. Check it out. […]
More, Yet!
I am re-reading and continuing to enjoy and be proud of my son David’s new book, Spectrums. It expresses a proper appreciation of everything (or as I call it sometimes, The Everything Becoming. But on contemplating this, I also intuited a further category he didn’t address: We can open our minds with awe and fun […]
Moreno’s “Idee Fixe”
I wrote about what Moreno called his Idee Fixe in 1996 and was reminded of it in a correspondence by a colleague, Ed Schreiber. The article that J. L. Moreno (1889-1974) wrote was published in a booklet last year, titled The Future of Man’s World. Moreno wrote: “Why I chose the course of the theater […]
Multiple Personality Order
Not dis-order; order. Or at least not chaos. I’m a Board-Certified Psychiatrist and there is a “condition” called Multiple Personality Disorder. I want to suggest there being a healthy form called multiple personality order, also known as healthy involvement in many things. People can indeed be very varied! The Utility of Consulting With Our Other […]
My (?) Identity
As another bit of mythmaking, this metaphor is useful: I’m but a cell on a finger-tip of God. We cells sort of know about the other cells that make up the skin, and there are other cells in the subcutaneous tissue, pressure receptors and such. Here the metaphor shifts over to the ranks of angels, […]
My Angle on God (Part 2)
This evocative phrase occurred to me last night, following some reading about the mid-Renaissance German mystic, Jacob Boehme. It’s a playful turn of phrase that stands in contrast to the idea that there is only one right way to understand the Divine—i.e., orthodoxy. Can people develop their own take, their own interpretation, aside from that […]
My Approach
This list is about 24 years old, written while I was still practicing psychotherapy and serving as an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Louisville: 1. Weave “inner connections,” using arts, drama, the urge to creativity. 2. Develop “psychological literacy,” skills for managing thoughts and feelings, basic knowledge that such skills can […]
My Core Myth
Far from me considering that I can say what my own purpose on Earth is. I am deeply apophatic, meaning that I believe rather strongly that I cannot begin to think about what it’s all about, nor what I’m all about. Our accelerating discoveries about the universe prove to me that whatever our philosophies were […]
My Dharma
It seems to me that we have many dharmas, worthy paths, duties. Mainly my paths calls on me to be a loving man to my family. There are many other things to do, such as maintain my health. Aside from those, though, my dharma or path seems to be primarily to witness to ideas, and […]
My Faith (?)(!)
How embarrassing. I used to think of myself as an unbeliever! But I’ve come round. A friend really challenges me. He is where I was ten years ago. He made me realize that I have truly delved—what a portentous word!—and I don’t want to give that short shrift. I have taken LSD a few times; […]
My Karma
I’ve had it easy. No, Uncle Bud says, You were given the stresses and challenges you could handle, precisely calibrated to your talents and potentials. A small part of this judges—erroneously—and compares myself to the cultural ideal of the courageous and stoical Marine who takes on stresses of the training and the battlefield that would […]
My Role Repertoire
Frank Sinatra, in one of his performed songs, “That’s Life,” sings: “I’ve been a puppet, a pirate, a pauper, a poet, a pawn and a king,” —and the song goes on. I realized I, too, have played many roles: I am a fairly good ballroom dancer—or at least I was—a folk and square dancer for […]
My Spiritual Myth
The first statement is that I don’t know; and my best guess is that I will never know. Nore, to take it a step further, do I think that any human mind can really grasp what it’s all about. This active abdication from the arrogance of trying to name or know “the Everything” goes by […]
Mystery versus Problem
One of the ideas that deeply impressed me was the re-interpretation of the idea of mystery by Huston Smith, a scholar (1992, Essays on World Religion). Our tendency is to turn mysteries into problems, or worse, problems into puzzles. Worse because we are inclined to use the same trick we use to solve one puzzle […]
Natural Inclusionality Approved
I have been corresponding with some acquaintances who in my estimate are really very bright, and I’m honored to be included in their circle. One Alan Rayner, is a retired professor of biology in England who evolved a theory of what he calls “Natural Inclusionality,” an approach that he thinks (and I agree in general) […]
Neuro-Biology of Play
I have an interest in play, and I just encountered news of a book, The Inter-personal Neurobiology of Play: Nurturing brain development in children through play, by Theresa A. Kestly, who is a sand-play therapist and teacher in New Mexico. She updates our understanding of the natural ways play promotes maturity in children. (My point […]
New Information
In the olden days it was sufficient to learn new information. We were sort of expected not to play with it. But nowadays the thing with information is that many bits invite a shift from assimilation to accommodation—which means that to really “get” the new information, we must creatively adapt it to our interests, needs, […]
Nibbling at the Ineffable
It’s all so big, so multi-dimensional, so head-spinning complex, all we can do is to nibble on this “mountain.” The Ineffable is a adjective that means it cannot be captured in words, nor music nor art. It’s way too big. We can try, recognizing that whatever we say is only a pointer, and by definition, […]