{"id":1589,"date":"2013-12-16T09:26:59","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T17:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=1589"},"modified":"2013-12-16T09:26:59","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T17:26:59","slug":"unconscious-depths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=1589","title":{"rendered":"Unconscious Depths"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reminded of the depth of subtle programming in a gentle and amusing way, by realizing that the persistence of songs in my mind\u2014I think they\u2019re called \u201cearworms<\/a>\u201d\u2014in the week following my participation as one of over a hundred people in our Sun City Chorus singing our Christmas Concert. The songs carry on, after months of rehearsal. They weren\u2019t so prominent weeks before the concert, but now it\u2019s done they persist! What\u2019s going on here?<\/p>\n

My guardian angel, Bud, explains. (That\u2019s what I\u2019ve named him, and he doesn\u2019t mind.) \u201cWell, Adam, that\u2019s how your unconscious works. It\u2019s sort of like the Sorcerer\u2019s Apprentice<\/a> section in the 1940s Disney classic, Fantasia, in which Mickey Mouse finds he can\u2019t undo the charm he\u2019s placed on the broom to carry water. The broom overdoes it. So does your unconscious. You\u2019ve taught it these songs and he\u2019s singin\u2019 \u2018em.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a sort of wake-up call that the unconscious is very deep and that much that we do, in song, in prayer, in work, in play, conditions the unconscious. I couldn\u2019t stop it by will. I\u2019ve tried, but these ear worms come back.  It\u2019s a pleasant enough call, but it invites interpretation: What the heaven is that echoing of a song you can\u2019t get off your mind doing? I realized that the unconscious must be respected, trained, reined in. In other ways I\u2019ve been somewhat too permissive and casual, allowing clutter to accumulate around my computer easy chair. I tried to justify this with the rationalization that I\u2019m really rather diversified in my interests. That\u2019s true, but I\u2019m also being reminded that my life is finite and do I have priorities or am I content to die having been a dabbler?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an acute problem, and if I do die, no big loss on this account. But there is a tense middle realm where I will regret having frittered. That I didn\u2019t fritter on television is a limited excuse: I\u2019m spread too thin and that\u2019s on the edge of clear. So I\u2019ll be spending the next year divesting.<\/p>\n

Not easy, because everything attracts me. I\u2019m like a magpie who\u2019s fascinated with anything shiny or colorful. Maybe I can play with this, or do something with that. Some day… is getting limited. So this is a rebalancing part of my multi-faceted self. There\u2019s such a thing as being too much in anything, and in this case, multi-faceted. For example, I confess I\u2019m a bibliophile and I need to confront my addiction to libraries and books. That they\u2019re cheap used books is a rationale. (My, if I bought new books… perish the thought!) So maybe others who read this will realize that we never, ever \u201cgraduate\u201d from all neurosis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reminded of the depth of subtle programming in a gentle and amusing way, by realizing that the persistence of songs in my mind\u2014I think they\u2019re called \u201cearworms\u201d\u2014in the week following my participation as one of over a hundred people in our Sun City Chorus singing our Christmas Concert. The songs carry on, after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,26,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-psychology","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1590,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions\/1590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}