I\u2019m tempted to think that everyone has a rich inner life, but my wife says that\u2019s not so. She asked me to think about it, so I did. First, I am reminded that what\u2019s true for me is most definitely not so for others. There are many differences in temperament and other variables. My autobiography may be titled: \u201cIsn\u2019t everybody?\u201d (Subtitle: No, hardly anybody.\u201d) So using this, I checked out my inner life. <\/p>\n
For starters, let\u2019s see, there are hundreds of folk dances\u2014maybe over a thousand\u2014plus ballroom and round and square dance calls and steps. So that\u2019s dancing. Yep, I feel rich in knowing these. Some I don\u2019t really know so well that I could lead the line when the song comes on, but then I remember, see the step, and can do it. There are a lot of those.<\/p>\n
Singing: There are thousands of songs in there, some fully remembered, others more sing-along, but familiar. There\u2019s having sung sets of songs for 17 years in the Sun City Chorus, folk songs, kids\u2019 songs, camp songs, marching and movie songs, and my song-books full of songs. I make up song books and host song fests. Have shelves full of songs. Doesn\u2019t everyone? Hm. No.<\/p>\n
Art: I have thousands of drawings, mandalas, little character elves, other critters, tons of these guys, and the worlds they live in, their pals, and not much back story that\u2019s specific, but yet hinted at. Books of my cartoon art. Lectures I\u2019ve given about these. A few published cartoons in college and medical school.<\/p>\n
Social: Many groups: Singing, dancing, professional affiliations, extended family, etc. Some of these networks are fading somewhat. Others less interested in me, I become less interested in holding on. Many I\u2019ve just moved away from, literally\u2014sheer distance. I remember keeping some Christmas card exchanges for several years afterwards. But now I\u2019m just counting their memories as blessings.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, other networks are becoming more alive, vigorous. Others are maintaining. The point here is that I\u2019ve been embedded, belonged, moved away, some of them moved away, it\u2019s an organic process, social life. But they exist, more or less, in my \u201crich inner life.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are libraries and librarians, and many magazines I read, and many books I return to, or sections in book-shelves. There are topics I dabble in and leave. <\/p>\n
Alas, not so much remains in my inner life of television shows\u2014a few classics\u2014but most more contemporary figures in the mass media seem sort of \u201call the same\u201d to me, and uninteresting at that. I feel I\u2019ve passed a \u201cwindow.\u201d Sports, too. So that sector of inner life makes room for other things. But on thinking of it, lots of people I know hang out a lot psychically in these sectors. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile history gradually builds up networks in my mind as I learn about the fathers of the American Revolution, pioneers of railroads and other forms of travel, old movie singers and dancers, other historical figures, cartoonists, pioneers in psychiatry and medicine, philosophers of religion (some) and many other topics. I\u2019ve been doing this all my life and, in retrospect, these matrices create another facet of a rich inner life. <\/p>\n
Spiritually, I\u2019ve been interested in religion and philosophy, read a lot, and construct and re-construct my \u201cbelief system,\u201d or ongoing \u201ccreative mythmaking.\u201d I draw from many sources, including the philosophical works of Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, Ken Wilber, with flashes or spices from the medieval kabbalists, J.L. Moreno, the romantic poets, and many others. <\/p>\n
I include here also the fairly superficial but moving blurbs found in Reader\u2019s Digest and other popular magazines. I used to cut these out as a teen-ager, put them in an album. Pageant and Coronet were small magazines like Readers\u2019 Digest and were rich sources of idealistic poems and sayings and photo-essays.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I guess I have a rich inner life. Yet what impresses me is how much I turn away from, stuff that seems irrelevant. From this I\u2019m tempted to think myself excessively narrow, almost avoidant. However, Uncle Bud, the name I give to my imagined guardian angel, reviews this scene and says, \u201cAdam, your plate is full. The part that thinks you should be doing more is crazy.\u201d <\/p>\n
I apologize. There\u2019s just so much out there I don\u2019t care about much\u2014if at all—, and other stuff that\u2019s way, way behind me, though I appreciate it a bit, and the angels are saying, \u201cPal, if you can do anything with what you\u2019re interested in, dayenu\u2014a Hebrew word for \u201cIt would be sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, there are a great many ideals that I\u2019m hoping to advance, either through my own writing efforts, some participation, encouraging others, and telling others about. These have a more core place in my identity. My roots lie in my primary love relationship and peaceful home with Allee. So it\u2019s all good. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m tempted to think that everyone has a rich inner life, but my wife says that\u2019s not so. She asked me to think about it, so I did. First, I am reminded that what\u2019s true for me is most definitely not so for others. There are many differences in temperament and other variables. My autobiography […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-favoritethings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813"}],"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=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1814,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}