Adam Blatner

Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner

September, 2012

“Being Yourself”—Some Thoughts

A contemplation on two poems from the early-mid 20th century poet, e. e. cummings: — "may I be I is the only prayer— not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong." – – "to be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody […]

Posted in Current Events, Spirituality and Philosophy, Wisdom-ing | 2 Comments »

The Great Story (Video)

In 2010 I gave a lecture series (posted on my website) about the history of the cosmos as far as we know.   It’s called “The Great Story.” Recently someone sent me a video montage only 2 minutes long that recaptures the drama to some degree. Take a look, and then visit my webpages that explain […]

Posted in History, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments »

Social-Depth Psychology

J. L. Moreno developed a method called sociometry that involved more systematically asking people about their interpersonal preferences according to specified criteria. Diagramming the responses brings into view the intangible matrix of the social field. It operates in a way analogous to what a microscope does. But more, the social field thus exposed deserves attention […]

Posted in Psychological Literacy, Psychology, Social-Depth Psychology (Sociometry) | 1 Comment »

The “Garden” as Metaphor for Selecting Friends

Only a few people resonate that much with our interests, so we should disclose ourselves more fully only to those who seem to care. Young children cannot understand this. (And it took me too long to figure this out—well through my college years and beyond!) I’ve found the following metaphor serves as a mental filtering […]

Posted in Autobiographical, Psychological Literacy, Psychology, Social-Depth Psychology (Sociometry) | No Comments »

Singin’ and Dancin’

I’m having a good ol’ time in my community. We dance several types of dancing—square and round, folk (I probably know over 1ooo dances and in the last 56 years done 1000 or more others), and ballroom dances. For over 14 years I’ve sung in our Sun City Texas chorus and this fall we’re rehearsing—all […]

Posted in Autobiographical, Play and Spontaneity | No Comments »

Shadows on the Cave Wall

In a previous blog-post, I was reflecting on the acceleration of the appearance of mysteries. Now there are others that have come to my attention: changes in the speed of light?? What’s with “branes” (i.e., the concept of other-dimensional “membranes")? Static in the gravity field has been attributed to a magnification of the planck-sized (i.e. […]

Posted in Autobiographical, Current Events, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments »

Beyond the Beyond

There’s a Tibetan Mantra that, when translated, begins, “Beyond, beyond, beyond the beyond…” Recent developments in science have intensified the magnitude of its frontiers, from the vast to the minuscule. We are invited to consider theoretical constructs posed to explain phenomena that we don’t yet understand: At the micro-level,  “strings” of primordial energy millions of […]

Posted in Essays and Papers, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments »

An Exercise of Interpersonal Power

Here’s a way to discover how powerful you can be: Think of someone you know; and then, having thus thought, call that person and say, “Hi, I was thinking about you.” For a little extra credit, when you do think of that person, focus on some little thing they did, or that you did together, […]

Posted in My Favorite Things, Psychodrama, Psychological Literacy | 1 Comment »

Religion for Atheists (Book Review)

The sub-title of this book is “a non-believer’s guide to the uses of religion,” and the author is Alain de Botton (UK) (2011, New York: Pantheon). For a while it seemed to atheists that religion would disappear because it failed to be compelling at the level of of the critical intellect. The author notes that […]

Posted in Book Reviews, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments »

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 […]

Posted in Essays and Papers, Spirituality and Philosophy, Wisdom-ing | No Comments »

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