Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
The Myth of Efficiency II
A recent conversation on email with a colleague who is interested in emotional intelligence sparked my thinking: I realize that I’ve written about the myth of efficiency before, but this just raised the theme again. He wrote, “I strongly believe that strong communication and understanding will always triumph business owners who focus mainly on numbers, […]
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Reverence for Life? Wowsie!
Albert Schweitzer said that was his goal, and I sort of idealized him. Albert Einstein, too. If I could be like them then maybe my Mom would have been satisfied. She was channeling the mores of the mid-20th century upward-striving middle class, for which nothing was good enough. I was suffering from feeling not good […]
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Postmodern Vocabulary: Logocentricity, Marginalization, Privilege, etc.
New words can help us think clearly about new concepts. It isn’t that we’re just trying to be fancy. Old words don’t address the meaning at all. For example, here are some words that help me think about new trends: Logocentricity is a word that suggests that someone speaks in a mode of discourse (or […]
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Oppression, Gross & Subtle
I have just given a series of talks on oppression, my last one being posted on my website. Certainly the theme is a relevant challenge in our world today. Though I acknowledge grosser forms, my focus was on more subtle types. We’ve had a revolution of rising expectations, more and more sub-groups identifying and rebelling […]
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Open Letter on Action Explorations
I sent an email to a wide range of colleagues who might in turn disseminate it to their own wider networks of their colleagues. I am calling for a gentle unification )(at least in principle) of a variety of a variety of fields who participate in methods that combine: group processes that are collaborative rather […]
Posted in Action Explorations, Play and Spontaneity, Psychodrama, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry, Wisdom-ing | No Comments
Prolific Thinker of All Thoughts
That’s how my pal Russ Williams addressed me. Yes, I replied, “Ptat”, an acronym that’s sort of spat out, related phonemically to the Al Capp (cartoonist of Li’l Abner) p’tooey. So this essayette focused on the object of the sentence: All Thoughts. Now here we have a category that is not only vast, but fuzzy […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Foolin Around, World of Almost-Real | No Comments
Moreno’s God-Playing
Psychodrama was invented by Jacob L. Moreno in the late 1930s, and applied mainly in psychotherapy—although he tried to spread it into business and education. I have books of ideas about psychodrama, building on his foundation. Moreno was an odd fellow, a bohemian if there ever was one. I’m reading about the modern-day fusion of […]
Posted in Psychodrama, Spirituality and Philosophy | 1 Comment
Last Day of Life
I’ll go with dignity, I expect. But I giggle when I think of my Shadow complex, as illustrated by the Charles Schutz’ character of Lucy in the 1973 Peanuts cartoon: Another variation of Dylan Thomas: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night ?
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Changing Eras
Allee & I read in bed: One flosses, the other reads. Right now it’s Bobos in Paradise, Bobos being Bohemian Bourgeosie. It speaks to the sociological shifts of the late 1950s through the early 1970s. We only vaguely knew this was going on. The American culture was shifting from subtle aristocracy to meritocracy. More Jews […]
Posted in Essays and Papers, History, Wisdom-ing | No Comments
Folk Songs
I was lucky enough to live through the era of folk songs and learned thousands of songs, folk songs, kids’ songs, ballads, funny songs, rounds, Broadway tunes, etc. Although the cartoon strip portrays an old geezer in a nursing home, most of the old geezers I know are independent! They live on farms, are still […]
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