Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
A Mythic Response to Feelings of Uncertainty
A friend asked me what I thought about two items and it occurred to me that what occurred to me to answer might also be worthy of being on my blog. First: How should we live with the uncertainty of knowing yet not-knowing? What an evocative question! Okay, try this on, just improvising: As I […]
Posted in Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments
Sing! Sing a Song!
I love the words from that Sesame Street song that includes the phrase, “Don’t matter if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear.” I’m interested in helping more people enjoy the arts—not just by witnessing, seeing, listening, but by doing, drawing, doodling, improvising, singing, drumming, dancing. I guess this might be a form […]
Posted in Current Events, My Favorite Things | 1 Comment
Empty (?) Space
(This is a continuation of my trans-dimensional friend Zordak’s reports on his impressions of his visits to our planet and its associated space-time continuum.) In your material universe, things are denser than what you call dreams and as such, they tend to be far less evanescent. In our realm, and most of the others on […]
Posted in Zordak's Journal | No Comments
ON “FAITH-ING”
Faith-ing is a word I use to express the idea that faith is something you do, not something you can “have.” It’s an activity of turning towards your highest values and a somewhat optimistic view of the possibilities in the future. Faith may not require that you think of the future as all rosy; rather, […]
Posted in Follies, Spirituality and Philosophy, Wisdom-ing | No Comments
Zordak’s Journal (Introduction)
This is the first entry of reports by Zordak, a lil’ green guy who visits in his lil’ flying saucer in my back yard. We’ve become friends and he’s finally agreed to “write” this blog—with me as his amanuensis. Some might say he’s imaginary, like an imaginary playmate, but Zordak explains that a fair number […]
Posted in Zordak's Journal | 1 Comment
Prosopagnosia and Other Ability Differences
In the New Yorker of August 30, 2010, Oliver Sacks wrote an article titled “Face-blind: the perils of prosopagnosia” (pp. 36-43). He himself has a moderate case of this difficulty in recognizing other people’s faces, and sometimes even neighborhoods, unless there are other guiding cues he can use to remind himself. This seems to be […]
Posted in Essays and Papers, Psychological Literacy, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry | 2 Comments
Magical Thinking
My wife reminded me that this bit of psychodynamic jargon may not be easily understood by most people, the term “magic” immediately drawing them into their own associations to that term. I realized (of course!) that she’s right, and that I’d grown so used to the term that I thought people knew what it meant. […]
Posted in Follies, Psychological Literacy | No Comments
Aesthetic Indulgence
My latest notion—I tend to have them fairly frequently—is that Freud was somewhat right but didn’t dig deep enough. He reduced the motivation system to sexuality because of its forbiddenness at the time, but I’ve been thinking as I’ve grown older about other deep motivations. For example, what about the small griefs I’ve had about […]
Posted in Essays and Papers, My Favorite Things, Psychological Literacy | 1 Comment
Countering Annoyance at Distractions and Focusing My Priorities
Increasingly in the last year I’ve grown noticeably slightly annoyed at all manner of things, activities that were distractions to my growing focus. I’ve been a little bit puzzled by this reaction, since it seemed new. Then I realized that the annoyance was an externalization—as if the lure of other things was being promoted by […]
Posted in Follies, Psychological Literacy | No Comments
What’s Up With Me Lately
During this October, 2010, I’ve been working on preparing and giving lectures on Lesser-Known Aspects of the Renaissance, to be posted in a few weeks (I hope) on my website—lots of pictures—this for the Senior University Georgetown Fall Program. Beginning to prepare also for the early Spring (February) program next year on the Lore of […]
Posted in My Favorite Things | 1 Comment