Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Zordak’s Easter
My little flying saucer little green man friend Zordak was explaining: The Easter Bunny is an example of neoteny—the tendency of species to take on the qualities of the young child—which evokes instinctual responses of “cute” and the desire to nurture, to have around as pets, or stuffed toys. It speaks to the archetypes of […]
Posted in Current Events, Foolin Around, Zordak's Journal | 1 Comment
Meshuggenosis: 21st Century Neurosis
(Meshugginah: Yiddish word for crazy. Maybe just eccentric.) My grandkids will not be neurotic in the way their grandparents were, products (so it was thought) of the parenting of their parents. We were scolded too much or not enough, given too much freedom or not enough. Always the analysts—the arbiters of blame—could find a problem […]
Posted in Current Events, Foolin Around | 1 Comment
Re-Thinking “Disorders”
I just read that "federal health officials" said that, using a wider screening for "autism spectrum disorders," guess what: more kids are picked up who fit the broader or looser criteria. Duh. If you loosen the criteria on anything, that increases the sensitivity to shades on what used to be the borderline and you’ll pick […]
Posted in Current Events, Psychological Literacy, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry | 2 Comments
Can We Know Truth?
Perhaps we should not even try to know “truth,” because it’s an asymptotic limit, like the speed of light, or perfection. The idea that we need to know what’s going on is so late 19th century (and early through mid-20th century with some hold-outs even today). The problem with the desire to really “know” the […]
Posted in Spirituality and Philosophy, Wisdom-ing | 1 Comment
The Curves of Becoming
The cosmos operates in magic curves that are based on the phi ratio found throughout nature. This is the basis for the “Golden Triangle” pictured at right, a major element in sacred geometry. Sometimes things move along seemingly slowly at one level, while at a deeper level things are germinating, resting, gathering strength, reorganizing and […]
Posted in Essays and Papers, History, Spirituality and Philosophy | 1 Comment
Waking Up a Little More
I’ve been waking up to ways I’ve been asleep or veiled in ignorance or self-deception, and one of the things I’ve woken up to is the idea that lots of other people are as caught up in illusions as I’ve been. Everyone has a somewhat different combination of thousands of illusions and self-deceptions. Digging out […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Psychological Literacy, Wisdom-ing | 1 Comment
Adam Many-Parts
In a recent blog post on dancing a thousand flames, I mentioned the idea of being many selves—playing many roles. I’m flagrant in this regard, playing with the whole idea of playing roles. Of course many cartoonists, comic book writers, and dramatists do likewise, and I’ve been more than a little influenced by these genres. […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Play and Spontaneity, Psychological Literacy | No Comments
How It Really Works
Okay, this is a bit mythic, and speculative: The cosmos breathes, the rate of expansion and contraction operating along the course of what in mathematics is known as a sine wave—not a spike, not a square wave—but gradually then faster then slower then that sequence going in the opposite direction. It becomes more complex and […]
Posted in Foolin Around, Spirituality and Philosophy, Wisdom-ing | No Comments
To Dance a Thousand Flames and Call Them “Self”
This phrase and picture came at me some years ago and re-presented itself recently in light of a growing awareness that I serve as a vehicle for innumerable roles. Some of these include dishwasher-guy (a not-particularly-super-hero), amanuensis (I just take dictation), encourager of others (often international students), etc. The point of course is that “Self” […]
Posted in Autobiographical, Spirituality and Philosophy | 1 Comment
Mister Pixie
I’m sort of a generic pixie, not particularly devoted to any specific task, just generally promoting the mood, you know? (No, I didn’t know.) Well, here in this parallel dimension, there are many who are more into, like, helping blossomings happen, or saving lost bird-babies. You know—your species has started to open to the world […]
Posted in Foolin Around, Play and Spontaneity, Spirituality and Philosophy, Zordak's Journal | 1 Comment