Adam Blatner

It’s less important that you believe this version of meta-reality than you be liberated by this example: Fairly mature people (like the author) can engage in what the psychoanalysts call “adaptive regression in the service of the ego” (or ARISE for short) and use this activity as a way to open their minds for fun and profit. Old, rigid structures of expectations and assumptions are dissolved for a while and in the ensuing playful chaos, often scraps of new assumptions can be found, brushed off and polished up. It’s an approach to creative thinking.

I can think straight, and at times one might say even straighter than most, even somewhat pedantic. I can detect rhetorical manipulations, logical fallacies, semantic traps. I think if most people could do this the world would be a better place, less prey to political and religious demagogues.

But there is a limit to rationality. It’s good to a point, but then really good philosophy requires that even strict rationality be transcended, else one’s life becomes too dry. Other values are important too, aesthetic values. In this spirit, then, I offer these story-ettes and cartoons so as to encourage you to fantasize more boldly, share your characters, imbue them with life! If I can do it, so can you!