Ever since I arrived here, seven years ago, for nine months of the year, I wondered why it took me so long to get here and for the other three months, I wonder: "What the hell am I doing here?"
Summer just arrived and we're already in the middle of a heat wave- with no respite in sight.
Daytime temperatures in the mid-to-high nineties. It's still cooling off a little at night but by this time next
month we'll probably start seeing the "triple digit weeks" when we can go several consecutive days without seeing the thermometer ever drop below 90 deg, (farenheit)
There has been a population explosion in Austin during the past 10 years. It would never have happened without efficient and (realatively) cheap central AC.
I wonder how people existed here without AC? I guess a large percentage of the population e.g. University students and faculty just "got outa Dodge" for the summer .
I'm leaving in two weeks and won't be back until the 3rd week in August.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Helping to Rebuild in S.E. Asia
Bill Clinton's OpEd peice in the NY Times this morning stimulated my curiousity about what volunteers are needed and what they can do to help relieve the suffering of the millions of people whose lives were affected by the Tsunami. Millions of homeless, children without schools etc.
Briefly, it seems that the answer is "None, nothing" hundreds have tried to volunteer their services via the web (see:http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/adwait/archive for examples) but there is no organization willing or interested in matching volunteers with opportunities. It looks like another example of Western civilization strangling in its' own vomit.
Media hype=emotional response=national & corporate promises= "none, nothing"
By the time the beaureucracy is up and running the people of Asia who were devastated by the Tsunami will either be dead or have taken care of the problem themselves.
Maybe it's just another step in Malthusuian population control?
Briefly, it seems that the answer is "None, nothing" hundreds have tried to volunteer their services via the web (see:http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/adwait/archive for examples) but there is no organization willing or interested in matching volunteers with opportunities. It looks like another example of Western civilization strangling in its' own vomit.
Media hype=emotional response=national & corporate promises= "none, nothing"
By the time the beaureucracy is up and running the people of Asia who were devastated by the Tsunami will either be dead or have taken care of the problem themselves.
Maybe it's just another step in Malthusuian population control?
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
"We're Only Here to Help Each Other"
Humor, Creativity and Compassion
Edward De Bono once wrote that “Humor is the most significant activity of the human brain”.
He also proposed the idea that humor, creativity, generosity and compassion all stem from the same area of the brain. This has recently been confirmed by MRI brain scans and the recent neuroscientific research and it is not very difficult to that humor offers us an opportunity to adjust our perceptions of the world around us and a related thought process enables us to perceive another’s need or suffering, to “feel their pain” sufficiently to take some action to alleviate it. The creative process enables us to search out alternative solutions to problems or difficulties as well as thinking of “non-lateral” ways of communicating ideas or impressions.
We don’t expect everyone to be blessed with perfect pitch or a “musical ear”. In fact, the ability to reproduce a piece of music after hearing it only once is a fairly uncommon talent and the simple ability to draw a straight line without a ruler or compute the the total of a series of five digit numbers is again a special talent. Some of us have been born with brain formations that enable us to accomplish difficult tasks easily but many of were not. However, we can use rulers and calculators in our daily lives but if some one is born without the necessary brain configuration for humor and compassion he probably has no way of even knowing even what they are.
The world’s Great Teachers: Buddha, Jesus and some of the Prophets, frequently taught their followers the primordial importance of compassion because they knew that it was not in the hearts (or minds) of everyone. To some, the golden rule or caring for those less fortunate was an obvious duty but others found the idea bizarre or perhaps even incomprehensible. “Taking care of number one” is for many, the only “rule” they obey.
They would probably consider the Golden Rule just another one to be broken.
Our political and religious leaders have an important responsibility to teach compassion and objectivity by their speeches and example. However, in the current era it seems that our leaders lack the very qualities needed to over ride the basic indifference of the majority of their subjects and followers. The new Pope seems to be rattling the sword of the Crusades, while George W. Bush continues to pursue his own “Holy War” against the enemies of Capitalism, Christianity and Imperialism. Coincidence that the two share the spotlights of the world or as Sidney Hook wrote in “The Hero in History”
“The more troubled the times and the more conventional the education, the stronger are vestigial patterns of dependence and the easier it is for the leader to slip into its frame”
Edward De Bono once wrote that “Humor is the most significant activity of the human brain”.
He also proposed the idea that humor, creativity, generosity and compassion all stem from the same area of the brain. This has recently been confirmed by MRI brain scans and the recent neuroscientific research and it is not very difficult to that humor offers us an opportunity to adjust our perceptions of the world around us and a related thought process enables us to perceive another’s need or suffering, to “feel their pain” sufficiently to take some action to alleviate it. The creative process enables us to search out alternative solutions to problems or difficulties as well as thinking of “non-lateral” ways of communicating ideas or impressions.
We don’t expect everyone to be blessed with perfect pitch or a “musical ear”. In fact, the ability to reproduce a piece of music after hearing it only once is a fairly uncommon talent and the simple ability to draw a straight line without a ruler or compute the the total of a series of five digit numbers is again a special talent. Some of us have been born with brain formations that enable us to accomplish difficult tasks easily but many of were not. However, we can use rulers and calculators in our daily lives but if some one is born without the necessary brain configuration for humor and compassion he probably has no way of even knowing even what they are.
The world’s Great Teachers: Buddha, Jesus and some of the Prophets, frequently taught their followers the primordial importance of compassion because they knew that it was not in the hearts (or minds) of everyone. To some, the golden rule or caring for those less fortunate was an obvious duty but others found the idea bizarre or perhaps even incomprehensible. “Taking care of number one” is for many, the only “rule” they obey.
They would probably consider the Golden Rule just another one to be broken.
Our political and religious leaders have an important responsibility to teach compassion and objectivity by their speeches and example. However, in the current era it seems that our leaders lack the very qualities needed to over ride the basic indifference of the majority of their subjects and followers. The new Pope seems to be rattling the sword of the Crusades, while George W. Bush continues to pursue his own “Holy War” against the enemies of Capitalism, Christianity and Imperialism. Coincidence that the two share the spotlights of the world or as Sidney Hook wrote in “The Hero in History”
“The more troubled the times and the more conventional the education, the stronger are vestigial patterns of dependence and the easier it is for the leader to slip into its frame”
Monday, May 09, 2005
An article from this week's issue of the New York Times Magazine offers some interesting directions for the rapidly developing field of Brain Research. I am reproducing it here because I think it should be of interest to very thinking person.
May 8, 2005
" Of Two Minds
By JIM HOLT
The human brain is mysterious -- and, in a way, that is a good thing. The less that is known about how the brain works, the more secure the zone of privacy that surrounds the self. But that zone seems to be shrinking. A couple of weeks ago, two scientists revealed that they had found a way to peer directly into your brain and tell what you are looking at, even when you yourself are not yet aware of what you have seen. So much for the comforting notion that each of us has privileged access to his own mind.
Opportunities for observing the human mental circuitry in action have, until recent times, been almost nonexistent, mainly because of a lack of live volunteers willing to sacrifice their brains to science. To get clues on how the brain works, scientists had to wait for people to suffer sometimes gruesome accidents and then see how the ensuing brain damage affected their abilities and behavior. The results could be puzzling. Damage to the right frontal lobe, for example, sometimes led to a heightened interest in high cuisine, a condition dubbed gourmand syndrome. (One European political journalist, upon recovering from a stroke affecting this part of the brain, profited from the misfortune by becoming a food columnist.)
Today scientists are able to get some idea of what's going on in the mind by using brain scanners. Brain-scanning is cruder than it sounds. A technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging can reveal which part of your brain is most active when you're solving a mathematical puzzle, say, or memorizing a list of words. The scanner doesn't actually pick up the pattern of electrical activity in the brain; it just shows where the blood is flowing. (Active neurons demand more oxygen and hence more blood.)
In the current issue of Nature Neuroscience, however, Frank Tong, a cognitive neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University, and Yukiyasu Kamitani, a researcher in Japan, announced that they had discovered a way of tweaking the brain-scanning technique to get a richer picture of the brain's activity. Now it is possible to infer what tiny groups of neurons are up to, not just larger areas of the brain. The implications are a little astonishing. Using the scanner, Tong could tell which of two visual patterns his subjects were focusing on -- in effect, reading their minds. In an experiment carried out by another research team, the scanner detected visual information in the brains of subjects even though, owing to a trick of the experiment, they themselves were not aware of what they had seen.
How will our image of ourselves change as the wrinkled lump of gray meat in our skull becomes increasingly transparent to such exploratory methods? One recent discovery to confront is that the human brain can readily change its structure -- a phenomenon scientists call neuroplasticity. A few years ago, brain scans of London cabbies showed that the detailed mental maps they had built up in the course of navigating their city's complicated streets were apparent in their brains. Not only was the posterior hippocampus -- one area of the brain where spatial representations are stored -- larger in the drivers; the increase in size was proportional to the number of years they had been on the job.
It may not come as a great surprise that interaction with the environment can alter our mental architecture. But there is also accumulating evidence that the brain can change autonomously, in response to its own internal signals. Last year, Tibetan Buddhist monks, with the encouragement of the Dalai Lama, submitted to functional magnetic resonance imaging as they practiced ''compassion meditation,'' which is aimed at achieving a mental state of pure loving kindness toward all beings. The brain scans showed only a slight effect in novice meditators. But for monks who had spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation, the differences in brain function were striking. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex, the locus of joy, overwhelmed activity in the right prefrontal cortex, the locus of anxiety. Activity was also heightened in the areas of the brain that direct planned motion, ''as if the monks' brains were itching to go to the aid of those in distress,'' Sharon Begley reported in The Wall Street Journal. All of which suggests, say the scientists who carried out the scans, that ''the resting state of the brain may be altered by long-term meditative practice.''
But there could be revelations in store that will force us to revise our self-understanding in far more radical ways. We have already had a hint of this in the so-called split-brain phenomenon. The human brain has two hemispheres, right and left. Each hemisphere has its own perceptual, memory and control systems. For the most part, the left hemisphere is associated with the right side of the body, and vice versa. The left hemisphere usually controls speech. Connecting the hemispheres is a cable of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum.
Patients with severe epilepsy sometimes used to undergo an operation in which the corpus callosum was severed. (The idea was to keep a seizure from spreading from one side of the brain to the other.) After the operation, the two hemispheres of the brain could no longer directly communicate. Such patients typically resumed their normal lives without seeming to be any different. But under careful observation, they exhibited some very peculiar behavior. When, for example, the word ''hat'' was flashed to the left half of the visual field -- and hence to the right (speechless) side of the brain -- the left hand would pick out a hat from a group of concealed objects, even as the patient insisted that he had seen no word. If a picture of a naked woman was flashed to the left visual field of a male patient, he would smile, or maybe blush, without being able to say what he was reacting to -- although he might make a comment like, ''That's some machine you've got there.'' In another case, a female patient's right hemisphere was flashed a scene of one person throwing another into a fire. ''I don't know why, but I feel kind of scared,'' she told the researcher. ''I don't like this room, or maybe it's you getting me nervous.'' The left side of her brain, noticing the negative emotional reaction issuing from the right side, was making a guess about its cause, much the way one person might make a guess about the emotions of another.
Each side of the brain seemed to have its own awareness, as if there were two selves occupying the same head. (One patient's left hand seemed somewhat hostile to the patient's wife, suggesting that the right hemisphere was not fond of her.) Ordinarily, the two selves got along admirably, falling asleep and waking up at the same time and successfully performing activities that required bilateral coordination, like swimming and playing the piano. Nevertheless, as laboratory tests showed, they lived in ever so slightly different sensory worlds. And even though both understood language, one monopolized speech, while the other was mute. That's why the patient seemed normal to family and friends.
Pondering such split-brain cases, some scientists and philosophers have raised a disquieting possibility: perhaps each of us really consists of two minds running in harness. In an intact brain, of course, the corpus callosum acts as a constant two-way internal-communications channel between the two hemispheres. So our everyday behavior does not betray the existence of two independent streams of consciousness flowing along within our skulls. It may be, the philosopher Thomas Nagel has written, that ''the ordinary, simple idea of a single person will come to seem quaint some day, when the complexities of the human control system become clearer and we become less certain that there is anything very important that we are one of.''
It is sobering to reflect how ignorant humans have been about the workings of their own brains for most of our history. Aristotle, after all, thought the point of the brain was to cool the blood. The more that breakthroughs like the recent one in brain-scanning open up the mind to scientific scrutiny, the more we may be pressed to give up comforting metaphysical ideas like interiority, subjectivity and the soul. Let's enjoy them while we can. "
Jim Holt is a frequent contributor to the magazine.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
May 8, 2005
" Of Two Minds
By JIM HOLT
The human brain is mysterious -- and, in a way, that is a good thing. The less that is known about how the brain works, the more secure the zone of privacy that surrounds the self. But that zone seems to be shrinking. A couple of weeks ago, two scientists revealed that they had found a way to peer directly into your brain and tell what you are looking at, even when you yourself are not yet aware of what you have seen. So much for the comforting notion that each of us has privileged access to his own mind.
Opportunities for observing the human mental circuitry in action have, until recent times, been almost nonexistent, mainly because of a lack of live volunteers willing to sacrifice their brains to science. To get clues on how the brain works, scientists had to wait for people to suffer sometimes gruesome accidents and then see how the ensuing brain damage affected their abilities and behavior. The results could be puzzling. Damage to the right frontal lobe, for example, sometimes led to a heightened interest in high cuisine, a condition dubbed gourmand syndrome. (One European political journalist, upon recovering from a stroke affecting this part of the brain, profited from the misfortune by becoming a food columnist.)
Today scientists are able to get some idea of what's going on in the mind by using brain scanners. Brain-scanning is cruder than it sounds. A technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging can reveal which part of your brain is most active when you're solving a mathematical puzzle, say, or memorizing a list of words. The scanner doesn't actually pick up the pattern of electrical activity in the brain; it just shows where the blood is flowing. (Active neurons demand more oxygen and hence more blood.)
In the current issue of Nature Neuroscience, however, Frank Tong, a cognitive neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University, and Yukiyasu Kamitani, a researcher in Japan, announced that they had discovered a way of tweaking the brain-scanning technique to get a richer picture of the brain's activity. Now it is possible to infer what tiny groups of neurons are up to, not just larger areas of the brain. The implications are a little astonishing. Using the scanner, Tong could tell which of two visual patterns his subjects were focusing on -- in effect, reading their minds. In an experiment carried out by another research team, the scanner detected visual information in the brains of subjects even though, owing to a trick of the experiment, they themselves were not aware of what they had seen.
How will our image of ourselves change as the wrinkled lump of gray meat in our skull becomes increasingly transparent to such exploratory methods? One recent discovery to confront is that the human brain can readily change its structure -- a phenomenon scientists call neuroplasticity. A few years ago, brain scans of London cabbies showed that the detailed mental maps they had built up in the course of navigating their city's complicated streets were apparent in their brains. Not only was the posterior hippocampus -- one area of the brain where spatial representations are stored -- larger in the drivers; the increase in size was proportional to the number of years they had been on the job.
It may not come as a great surprise that interaction with the environment can alter our mental architecture. But there is also accumulating evidence that the brain can change autonomously, in response to its own internal signals. Last year, Tibetan Buddhist monks, with the encouragement of the Dalai Lama, submitted to functional magnetic resonance imaging as they practiced ''compassion meditation,'' which is aimed at achieving a mental state of pure loving kindness toward all beings. The brain scans showed only a slight effect in novice meditators. But for monks who had spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation, the differences in brain function were striking. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex, the locus of joy, overwhelmed activity in the right prefrontal cortex, the locus of anxiety. Activity was also heightened in the areas of the brain that direct planned motion, ''as if the monks' brains were itching to go to the aid of those in distress,'' Sharon Begley reported in The Wall Street Journal. All of which suggests, say the scientists who carried out the scans, that ''the resting state of the brain may be altered by long-term meditative practice.''
But there could be revelations in store that will force us to revise our self-understanding in far more radical ways. We have already had a hint of this in the so-called split-brain phenomenon. The human brain has two hemispheres, right and left. Each hemisphere has its own perceptual, memory and control systems. For the most part, the left hemisphere is associated with the right side of the body, and vice versa. The left hemisphere usually controls speech. Connecting the hemispheres is a cable of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum.
Patients with severe epilepsy sometimes used to undergo an operation in which the corpus callosum was severed. (The idea was to keep a seizure from spreading from one side of the brain to the other.) After the operation, the two hemispheres of the brain could no longer directly communicate. Such patients typically resumed their normal lives without seeming to be any different. But under careful observation, they exhibited some very peculiar behavior. When, for example, the word ''hat'' was flashed to the left half of the visual field -- and hence to the right (speechless) side of the brain -- the left hand would pick out a hat from a group of concealed objects, even as the patient insisted that he had seen no word. If a picture of a naked woman was flashed to the left visual field of a male patient, he would smile, or maybe blush, without being able to say what he was reacting to -- although he might make a comment like, ''That's some machine you've got there.'' In another case, a female patient's right hemisphere was flashed a scene of one person throwing another into a fire. ''I don't know why, but I feel kind of scared,'' she told the researcher. ''I don't like this room, or maybe it's you getting me nervous.'' The left side of her brain, noticing the negative emotional reaction issuing from the right side, was making a guess about its cause, much the way one person might make a guess about the emotions of another.
Each side of the brain seemed to have its own awareness, as if there were two selves occupying the same head. (One patient's left hand seemed somewhat hostile to the patient's wife, suggesting that the right hemisphere was not fond of her.) Ordinarily, the two selves got along admirably, falling asleep and waking up at the same time and successfully performing activities that required bilateral coordination, like swimming and playing the piano. Nevertheless, as laboratory tests showed, they lived in ever so slightly different sensory worlds. And even though both understood language, one monopolized speech, while the other was mute. That's why the patient seemed normal to family and friends.
Pondering such split-brain cases, some scientists and philosophers have raised a disquieting possibility: perhaps each of us really consists of two minds running in harness. In an intact brain, of course, the corpus callosum acts as a constant two-way internal-communications channel between the two hemispheres. So our everyday behavior does not betray the existence of two independent streams of consciousness flowing along within our skulls. It may be, the philosopher Thomas Nagel has written, that ''the ordinary, simple idea of a single person will come to seem quaint some day, when the complexities of the human control system become clearer and we become less certain that there is anything very important that we are one of.''
It is sobering to reflect how ignorant humans have been about the workings of their own brains for most of our history. Aristotle, after all, thought the point of the brain was to cool the blood. The more that breakthroughs like the recent one in brain-scanning open up the mind to scientific scrutiny, the more we may be pressed to give up comforting metaphysical ideas like interiority, subjectivity and the soul. Let's enjoy them while we can. "
Jim Holt is a frequent contributor to the magazine.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Sunday, May 08, 2005
French Lessons - Part 1
It was in 1951, there was a "Police Action" in Korea and I was bored in college, looking for excitement and adventure. When W.W.II ended in 1945, I was a disappointed that I hadn't had a chance to be a hero. So I enlisted in the Marines and started an odyssey that would eventually take me around the world and back...
Boot Camp at the Recruit Training Depot, San Diego was mostly like you see it in the movies. My Drill Instructor, Sgt. Snarksy (real name) was a prototype DI - even his name was threatening. (I bet you can't say "Snarsky" without curling your upper lip at the corner)
I was named after my father, who was named after his, so on my birth certificate it says: "Ned Carlton Smith III" and my Marine Corps records show that name. At roll call every morning Sgt. Snarsky would call out each platoon member's name "Adams" and Adams would reply "Here Sir" and this would go until he got to me
and Snarsky would read slowly and carefully "Ned Carlton Smith III" and I would reply "Here sir" every day for 90 days.
Later, I would buddy up with a guy from New Orleans, "Shelton S. Harell III " and we would be known as the "two thirds"
After Boot Camp, I went on to advanced infantry training at Camp Pendleton and then a thirty day leave before going to Korea.
While waiting for reassignment after a short stint in the hospital I was in the Battalion Sgt. Major's office and while waiting to see the Sgt. Major I examined the Battalion bulletin board. Every bit of the board was covered with memos and instructions, the stacks pinned to the board were at least two inches thick and there three rows and four column. maybe 12-1500
documents. I browsed randomly and after only a few minutes came upon one that really caught my attention.
It read: "VOLUNTEERS WANTED FOR SPECIAL FOREIGN DUTY WITH THE STATE DEPARTMENT"
Reading further I discovered that applications were being accepted from Marines with a minimum of 1 year of college, GCT scores of 120 or more (GCT scores are roughly the equivalent of IQ's) Minimum height 5' 10" and fluency in at least 1 language besides english. Although my fluency in French at that time would have been stretching things a little, on the whole I met all of the other qualifications and I decided that Embassy duty would be a lot more fun than a muddy bunker, I took the document into the Sgt. Major's office when he called me in.
He started to hand me my new orders but before he could say "Now, get the hell out of here" I said "Excuse me Sgt. Major but I want to volunteer for this" and handed him the bulletin. He stared at it for a minute and asked me where I got it. I told him that it had been on the Bulletin Board outside his office, which seemed to surprise him completely. Obviously he did not read the Bulletin Board twice a day as we had been instructed to do.
He asked me if I was a "College Boy" and I told him that I'd been a sophomore when I enlisted. Next he checked my Service Record and verified that my GCT was 120 and I was exactly 5" 10".
Then it was the Foreign language fluency. "OK Smith" he said, "what foreign language do you speak?" and I sad "French, Sgt. Major" and this seemed to amaze him but he wasn't flustered, he only hesitated a second before he said: "Yeah, well say something in French to me then." and I said something that sounded like "Bon
jower, monsewer" He though about it, and the said "OK Smith, you're gonna have to wait while I get some new orders cut for you"
Two days later I was on a MATS plane to Washington.
(To be continued)
Boot Camp at the Recruit Training Depot, San Diego was mostly like you see it in the movies. My Drill Instructor, Sgt. Snarksy (real name) was a prototype DI - even his name was threatening. (I bet you can't say "Snarsky" without curling your upper lip at the corner)
I was named after my father, who was named after his, so on my birth certificate it says: "Ned Carlton Smith III" and my Marine Corps records show that name. At roll call every morning Sgt. Snarsky would call out each platoon member's name "Adams" and Adams would reply "Here Sir" and this would go until he got to me
and Snarsky would read slowly and carefully "Ned Carlton Smith III" and I would reply "Here sir" every day for 90 days.
Later, I would buddy up with a guy from New Orleans, "Shelton S. Harell III " and we would be known as the "two thirds"
After Boot Camp, I went on to advanced infantry training at Camp Pendleton and then a thirty day leave before going to Korea.
While waiting for reassignment after a short stint in the hospital I was in the Battalion Sgt. Major's office and while waiting to see the Sgt. Major I examined the Battalion bulletin board. Every bit of the board was covered with memos and instructions, the stacks pinned to the board were at least two inches thick and there three rows and four column. maybe 12-1500
documents. I browsed randomly and after only a few minutes came upon one that really caught my attention.
It read: "VOLUNTEERS WANTED FOR SPECIAL FOREIGN DUTY WITH THE STATE DEPARTMENT"
Reading further I discovered that applications were being accepted from Marines with a minimum of 1 year of college, GCT scores of 120 or more (GCT scores are roughly the equivalent of IQ's) Minimum height 5' 10" and fluency in at least 1 language besides english. Although my fluency in French at that time would have been stretching things a little, on the whole I met all of the other qualifications and I decided that Embassy duty would be a lot more fun than a muddy bunker, I took the document into the Sgt. Major's office when he called me in.
He started to hand me my new orders but before he could say "Now, get the hell out of here" I said "Excuse me Sgt. Major but I want to volunteer for this" and handed him the bulletin. He stared at it for a minute and asked me where I got it. I told him that it had been on the Bulletin Board outside his office, which seemed to surprise him completely. Obviously he did not read the Bulletin Board twice a day as we had been instructed to do.
He asked me if I was a "College Boy" and I told him that I'd been a sophomore when I enlisted. Next he checked my Service Record and verified that my GCT was 120 and I was exactly 5" 10".
Then it was the Foreign language fluency. "OK Smith" he said, "what foreign language do you speak?" and I sad "French, Sgt. Major" and this seemed to amaze him but he wasn't flustered, he only hesitated a second before he said: "Yeah, well say something in French to me then." and I said something that sounded like "Bon
jower, monsewer" He though about it, and the said "OK Smith, you're gonna have to wait while I get some new orders cut for you"
Two days later I was on a MATS plane to Washington.
(To be continued)
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Expectations
I was thinking this morning about how I am frequently getting my knickers twisted about the things people don't do that I expect them to. I send people e-mail and they never answer or even acknowledge receipt, I lend people stuff and they never return it etc. Today I realized that it's all about expectations . When I give someone a gift, my ownership ends at the moment I give it. What somebody does with that treasured bottle of wine, book (read it or not) is not under my control. The recepient of the gift is totally free to do exactly what he wants to with my gift.
The same is true of letters, e-mails etc. If I choose to send a message, that's my privlege and if the recepient chooses not to answer that's his.
We clutter up our lives and our peace of mind with expectations and they are really only simple manifestations of that old devil- ego. Letting go of expectations is a step towards diminishing our own egotism (note, I didn't say eliminating, just diminishing - let's be realistic)
Just as spontaneous acts of gratuitous kindness & generosity are good for your spiritual health as the devine Surgeon General has declared so are expectations a serious threat to our spiritual well being.
I'm going to try to reduce mine immediately
The same is true of letters, e-mails etc. If I choose to send a message, that's my privlege and if the recepient chooses not to answer that's his.
We clutter up our lives and our peace of mind with expectations and they are really only simple manifestations of that old devil- ego. Letting go of expectations is a step towards diminishing our own egotism (note, I didn't say eliminating, just diminishing - let's be realistic)
Just as spontaneous acts of gratuitous kindness & generosity are good for your spiritual health as the devine Surgeon General has declared so are expectations a serious threat to our spiritual well being.
I'm going to try to reduce mine immediately
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Letter to Jerry
4/20/05
Dear Jerry,
Once, a long time ago, I told you that you were my best friend and whether you believe it or not, I want you to know that you have been my best friend, for over forty years and you will always be.
We disagree about a number of things, ideologies, religion, politics among others but over the years none of these have interfered with our friendship. You have been generous, understanding, patient and compassionate with me, often when I didn’t really deserve it. You have shared your home with me, put up with a lot of dumb tricks, shared your friends and your ideas. We have skied together, peed together and laughed together. You have taught me more about myself than any one else could ever have done.
If there ever was a real Odd Couple, it must have been us but I think it was our different backgrounds that made us such a good fit. Our personalities clashed a little too. You the frugal shopper and the guy who taught me how to get the most out laundry, bar soap and so many other things and me, the guy who was always one paycheck behind (I can’t imagine what you could ever get out of that).
Neither of us have ever what could ever be described as “demonstrative” and I don’t think I’ve done enough to convince you I cared but I do want you to know how much you’ve meant to me and always will.
Love-sincerely,
Ned
Dear Jerry,
Once, a long time ago, I told you that you were my best friend and whether you believe it or not, I want you to know that you have been my best friend, for over forty years and you will always be.
We disagree about a number of things, ideologies, religion, politics among others but over the years none of these have interfered with our friendship. You have been generous, understanding, patient and compassionate with me, often when I didn’t really deserve it. You have shared your home with me, put up with a lot of dumb tricks, shared your friends and your ideas. We have skied together, peed together and laughed together. You have taught me more about myself than any one else could ever have done.
If there ever was a real Odd Couple, it must have been us but I think it was our different backgrounds that made us such a good fit. Our personalities clashed a little too. You the frugal shopper and the guy who taught me how to get the most out laundry, bar soap and so many other things and me, the guy who was always one paycheck behind (I can’t imagine what you could ever get out of that).
Neither of us have ever what could ever be described as “demonstrative” and I don’t think I’ve done enough to convince you I cared but I do want you to know how much you’ve meant to me and always will.
Love-sincerely,
Ned
Monday, April 18, 2005
Movies
Saturday night my wife and I watched a movie. It had gotten a lot of publicity and sounded like fun since it was set in a place where we had lived for almost twenty years and was focussed on a subject that interests both of us.
The movie was "Sideways" the place Santa Barbara and the subject was wine. She collects and I drink it. (sometimes our approaches clash.
He: "Let's have the '80 Mouton Rothchild with the lamb on Sunday."
She; "We only have one left. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to replace it?"
He: "Ah c'mon, life's for living and wine's for drinking"
She: "You're crazy."
Anyway, you get the idea. So we watch the movie and at the end I tell my wife that the movie was lousy and how come they don't make good movies any more. On Sunday, I tell some friends how much I was dissappointed in "Sideways" and this morning I look up to see what the critics said about it.
They said it was good/great.
I thought about that for a while and then I realized that I wasn't reacting to the screen play, the directing or the performance of the actors. I was reacting to two over the hill L.A. guys who were fighting the onslaught of middle age and trying to be hot shots. One was looking for a last fling before his immenent marriage.
The other, a wannabe novelist and the ultimate wine snob couldn't get over his divorce and the rejection of his novel. So totally engrossed in his own self-pity he didn't even realize that a woman he had just met was really eager to have a relationship him - self pitying slob not withstanding.
It was the characters and their actions that upset me. "Sideways" may very well be a good movie I just don't like the shallow, selfish world it portrays. I really like movies about heroes. Even "The Clearing" with Robert (Stoneface) Redford and especially the recent "Motorcycle Diaries" . We need heroes more than ever these days.
Real life isn't producing any at all
The movie was "Sideways" the place Santa Barbara and the subject was wine. She collects and I drink it. (sometimes our approaches clash.
He: "Let's have the '80 Mouton Rothchild with the lamb on Sunday."
She; "We only have one left. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to replace it?"
He: "Ah c'mon, life's for living and wine's for drinking"
She: "You're crazy."
Anyway, you get the idea. So we watch the movie and at the end I tell my wife that the movie was lousy and how come they don't make good movies any more. On Sunday, I tell some friends how much I was dissappointed in "Sideways" and this morning I look up to see what the critics said about it.
They said it was good/great.
I thought about that for a while and then I realized that I wasn't reacting to the screen play, the directing or the performance of the actors. I was reacting to two over the hill L.A. guys who were fighting the onslaught of middle age and trying to be hot shots. One was looking for a last fling before his immenent marriage.
The other, a wannabe novelist and the ultimate wine snob couldn't get over his divorce and the rejection of his novel. So totally engrossed in his own self-pity he didn't even realize that a woman he had just met was really eager to have a relationship him - self pitying slob not withstanding.
It was the characters and their actions that upset me. "Sideways" may very well be a good movie I just don't like the shallow, selfish world it portrays. I really like movies about heroes. Even "The Clearing" with Robert (Stoneface) Redford and especially the recent "Motorcycle Diaries" . We need heroes more than ever these days.
Real life isn't producing any at all
Friday, April 01, 2005
Ratios, Connections and Relationships
I discovered ratios in HS Algebra - it was the only thing I got out of the course but it was worth the pain. Ever since I 've been old enough to put two and two together I've been fascinated by the relationship of people, places and things to each other. I learned later in my college philosophy courses that: "Many people distinguish between two basic kinds of argument: inductive and deductive. Induction is usually described as moving from the specific to the general, while deduction begins with the general and ends with the specific; arguments based on experience or observation are best expressed inductively, while arguments based on laws, rules, or other widely accepted principles are best expressed deductively.
Later psychological testing indicated I was significantly oriented towards the deductive method. My understanding is generally based on observation and rarely on theory or rules.
The ratio that has intrigued me lately is the reationship between Compassion to Companionship and Competition and Control.
Obviously. we can arrange the components any way we want to but I believe it's most appropriate. So let's say that x= Companionship, a= Compassion b= competion c= control.
Thus-
The success or validity of a relationship is controlled by the degree of compassion expressed by both parties.
And the final product would be a relationship strengthend by compassion free of control or competition.
As people often tell me,
There is no such thing as competetitive compassion or controlling companionship
and yet how often do I see intense competition be tween husbands and wives: controlling parents.
Competition thrives in the work place and the sports arena. Control must be excercised by the police and the government but how do they fit into the marriage bed?
Later psychological testing indicated I was significantly oriented towards the deductive method. My understanding is generally based on observation and rarely on theory or rules.
The ratio that has intrigued me lately is the reationship between Compassion to Companionship and Competition and Control.
Obviously. we can arrange the components any way we want to but I believe it's most appropriate. So let's say that x= Companionship, a= Compassion b= competion c= control.
Thus-
a:x::b:cor compassion is divided by compassion and control by competition
The success or validity of a relationship is controlled by the degree of compassion expressed by both parties.
And the final product would be a relationship strengthend by compassion free of control or competition.
As people often tell me,
It's just no as simple as thatbut my observation seems to indicate that it is.
There is no such thing as competetitive compassion or controlling companionship
and yet how often do I see intense competition be tween husbands and wives: controlling parents.
Competition thrives in the work place and the sports arena. Control must be excercised by the police and the government but how do they fit into the marriage bed?
Sunday, February 27, 2005
The 10 Greatest " Foriegn" (Non-U.S.) Films
1. La Dolce Vita - (1954, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni)
2. The Seven Samurai - (1954, Japan, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune)
3. La Strada - (1954, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Anthony Quinn)
4. Wild Strawberries - (1957, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman) (Victor Sjostrom, Ingrid Thulin)
5. Grand Illusion - (1937, France, Jean Renoir) (Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay)
6. 8 1/2 - (1963, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale)
7. Rashomon - (1950, Japan, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune)
8. The Bicycle Thief - (1948, Italy, Vittorio De Sica)
9. Diabolique - (1955, France, Henri-Georges Clouzot) (Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse)
10. Fellini Satyricon - (1969, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Martin Porter)
N.B. 6 out of the top ten were made in the '50s (the golden age of Cinema)
2. The Seven Samurai - (1954, Japan, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune)
3. La Strada - (1954, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Anthony Quinn)
4. Wild Strawberries - (1957, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman) (Victor Sjostrom, Ingrid Thulin)
5. Grand Illusion - (1937, France, Jean Renoir) (Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay)
6. 8 1/2 - (1963, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale)
7. Rashomon - (1950, Japan, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune)
8. The Bicycle Thief - (1948, Italy, Vittorio De Sica)
9. Diabolique - (1955, France, Henri-Georges Clouzot) (Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse)
10. Fellini Satyricon - (1969, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Martin Porter)
N.B. 6 out of the top ten were made in the '50s (the golden age of Cinema)
The Real You
Back in the middle of the last century when TV was the size of a
an ordinary microwave oven and the screen the size of the door,
Sid Ceasar's "Show of Shows" was the big event every Saturday night. His zany, "gonzo" humor was unique.
One of his ongoing skits was the world as seen through the eyes of a toddler:
they'd get the video camera on a boom and drop it down until it was about a foot from the floor and then view the set from that perspective. The world was big shoes, pants legs, skirt hems and kittens the size of horses. This was "the world" as seen through the eyes of a two year old.
In Buddhism, we learn that "reality", is what we perceive it to be and your reality is probably different from mine even when we are looking at the same person, place or thing. How we perceive things determines how we think about them. If I see you as a beautiful, sympathetic individual. You are that but someone else might see you as a mean spirted, awkward child. You, on the other hand probably don't see yourself in either of these two ways but as someone completely different.
Which is really you? For that matter is there such a thing as the real you at all?
an ordinary microwave oven and the screen the size of the door,
Sid Ceasar's "Show of Shows" was the big event every Saturday night. His zany, "gonzo" humor was unique.
One of his ongoing skits was the world as seen through the eyes of a toddler:
they'd get the video camera on a boom and drop it down until it was about a foot from the floor and then view the set from that perspective. The world was big shoes, pants legs, skirt hems and kittens the size of horses. This was "the world" as seen through the eyes of a two year old.
In Buddhism, we learn that "reality", is what we perceive it to be and your reality is probably different from mine even when we are looking at the same person, place or thing. How we perceive things determines how we think about them. If I see you as a beautiful, sympathetic individual. You are that but someone else might see you as a mean spirted, awkward child. You, on the other hand probably don't see yourself in either of these two ways but as someone completely different.
Which is really you? For that matter is there such a thing as the real you at all?
Thursday, February 24, 2005
The Original Seduction
Everything started in the Garden of Eden, including seduction.
Adam and Eve were hanging out in the Garden as usual, climbing trees, picking fruit, swimming and just having a good time.
One day when he was playing in the lake, trying to catch a fish that kept swimming around his legs, giving Adam a little nip every once in a while. Eve was up in a big tree with a snake, and she asked the snake:
“Tell me again about babies”
and the snake replied: “I already told you about them” “Tell me again” said Eve
“OK said the snake” and he slid over and coiled up in Eve’s lap. “What did you do that for?”
“So you can hear me better” the snake answered. And he started his story: “Babies are very small people-just like you only very small” “Where do they come from?” asked eve.
“They come out of a woman’s tummy. They call the woman a momy when she has babies”
Eve asked: “How does the baby get inside the woman’s tummy” and the snake said: “It’s hard to explain, you don’t know the words” and Eve replied: “Well show me then, just like the last time”
“Ok” said the snake I’ll be the man’s thing and you’ll be the woman” ...
“Oh my, that feels good” Eve said and then: “ I can’t hear you very well” . The snake slipped his head out of Eve and said “I can’t talk and make babies at the same time”
Later, Eve found Adam down by the lake: “Adam, there’s something I want to show you”
Adam said “Hey, what are you doing, ohhhh that feels good! Eve pulled him closer and said
“Do you want to make a baby? Luke the snake showed me how. Adam replied “ I don’t know what a baby is but if this is how you make them, I don’t mind at all”
Adam and Eve were hanging out in the Garden as usual, climbing trees, picking fruit, swimming and just having a good time.
One day when he was playing in the lake, trying to catch a fish that kept swimming around his legs, giving Adam a little nip every once in a while. Eve was up in a big tree with a snake, and she asked the snake:
“Tell me again about babies”
and the snake replied: “I already told you about them” “Tell me again” said Eve
“OK said the snake” and he slid over and coiled up in Eve’s lap. “What did you do that for?”
“So you can hear me better” the snake answered. And he started his story: “Babies are very small people-just like you only very small” “Where do they come from?” asked eve.
“They come out of a woman’s tummy. They call the woman a momy when she has babies”
Eve asked: “How does the baby get inside the woman’s tummy” and the snake said: “It’s hard to explain, you don’t know the words” and Eve replied: “Well show me then, just like the last time”
“Ok” said the snake I’ll be the man’s thing and you’ll be the woman” ...
“Oh my, that feels good” Eve said and then: “ I can’t hear you very well” . The snake slipped his head out of Eve and said “I can’t talk and make babies at the same time”
Later, Eve found Adam down by the lake: “Adam, there’s something I want to show you”
Adam said “Hey, what are you doing, ohhhh that feels good! Eve pulled him closer and said
“Do you want to make a baby? Luke the snake showed me how. Adam replied “ I don’t know what a baby is but if this is how you make them, I don’t mind at all”
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
About My Pix
'flickr'
Was supposed to have left tag lines on all the photos I posted in My Pix yesterday but well you know what happens. So there are no descriptions.
Just in case anybody ever looks at this blog, I think I'll try to identify the cast.
So, from the top:
A One a It's my grandad, Ned C Smith (the first) with my Aunt Polly and her sister, Aunt Helen. The piture was probably taken in Oakland, CA or maybe Akron, Ohio. Sometime in the mid-to-late 1930's.
2. That's me, at the Longchamps Race Track (Paris) circa 1955.
I was stationed at the American Embassy, Paris for a few years.
3. Hanging out with my grand daughter, Camille -we were riding around Big Sur in July '03.
4. That's my old man, Ned jr., Picture was taken in Baldwin, N.Y. 1940 probably
5. My wife Danielle, the Biker Chick
6. Me on the beach in Santos, Greece - Danielle and I toured the Greek isles - 8it was the summer of '96 (or maybe '97?)
Was supposed to have left tag lines on all the photos I posted in My Pix yesterday but well you know what happens. So there are no descriptions.
Just in case anybody ever looks at this blog, I think I'll try to identify the cast.
So, from the top:
A One a It's my grandad, Ned C Smith (the first) with my Aunt Polly and her sister, Aunt Helen. The piture was probably taken in Oakland, CA or maybe Akron, Ohio. Sometime in the mid-to-late 1930's.
2. That's me, at the Longchamps Race Track (Paris) circa 1955.
I was stationed at the American Embassy, Paris for a few years.
3. Hanging out with my grand daughter, Camille -we were riding around Big Sur in July '03.
4. That's my old man, Ned jr., Picture was taken in Baldwin, N.Y. 1940 probably
5. My wife Danielle, the Biker Chick
6. Me on the beach in Santos, Greece - Danielle and I toured the Greek isles - 8it was the summer of '96 (or maybe '97?)
Hunter S. Thompson Lives!
In the 2004 telling of it, Thompson said the future president had left an indelible impression on him. "He knew who I was, at that time, because I had a reputation as a writer," Thompson said. "I knew he was part of the Bush dynasty. But he was nothing, he offered nothing, and he promised nothing. He had no humor. He was insignificant in every way and consequently I didn't pay much attention to him. But when he passed out in my bathtub, then I noticed him. I'd been in another room, talking to the bright people. I had to have him taken away."
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Hunter S. Thompson Shot Himself
It really is about guns and a guy who played with them.
Thompson was in his own words, a true "Gonzo", a rebel without a revolution.
An idealist lacking any true direction. He spent his life taking pot shots at any target that popped up.
I never knew him and was not a true "fan" but there was something fascinating about Thompson- a
suggestion or hint of a great saint or monster that lurked just below the surface.
We'll never know now.
Here's one to you Hunter. I wonder what you really were.
Thompson was in his own words, a true "Gonzo", a rebel without a revolution.
An idealist lacking any true direction. He spent his life taking pot shots at any target that popped up.
I never knew him and was not a true "fan" but there was something fascinating about Thompson- a
suggestion or hint of a great saint or monster that lurked just below the surface.
We'll never know now.
Here's one to you Hunter. I wonder what you really were.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Summary of Jung's Thought
Summary of Jung's Thought
From years of psychiatric work and phenomenological research in religions and mythologies, Jung identified several key motifs that the archetypes can take. The ones that he felt were especially important include: the persona, the shadow, the anima/animus, the mother, the child, the wise old man, and the self. To Jung, abstract figures, situations, places and processes can also give expression to them.
THE PERSONA: is the mask we wear to make a particular impression on others; it may reveal and conceal our real nature. It is called an artificial personality that is a compromise between a person's real individuality and society's expectations--usually society's demands take precedence. It is made up of things like professional titles, roles, habits of social behaviour, etc. It serves to both guarantee social order and to protect the individual's private life. That is, when the ego identifies itself with the persona, the individual become particularly susceptible to the unconscious.
THE SHADOW: Is a step further towards self-realization when one recognizes and integrates it. It is the negative or inferior (undeveloped) side of the personality. It is said to be made up of all the reprehensible characteristics that each of us wish to deny, including animal tendencies that Jung claims we have inherited from our infra-human ancestors. It is said to coincide with the personal unconscious and because all of us has one it appears to be a collective phenomena.
The more unaware of the shadow we are, the blacker and denser it is. The more dissociated it is from conscious life, the more it will display a compensatory demonic dynamism. It is often projected outwards on individual or groups who are then thought to embody all the immature, evil, or repressed elements of the individual's own psyche. (Symbols of the devil and the serpent contain elements of the shadow).
ANIMA / ANIMUS: following a person's coming to term with their shadow they are then confronted with the problem of the anima/animus, the archetype which is said to personify the soul, or inner attitude. It is usually a persona and often takes on the characteristics of the opposite sex. The anima is said to represent the feminine in men, and come from three sources: 1] individual man's experience with women as companion; [2] man's own femininity--rooted presumably in the minority of female genes and hormones present in man's body; and [3] the inherited collective image that has been formed from man's collective experience of woman through out the centuries.
Anima often appears in dreams, as long as she remains unconscious. She may also be projected outwards onto various women--first the mother, then lover and wife as one grows. This projection is said to be responsible for the passionate attraction or aversion and a man's general apprehension of the nature of women. Should a man mistakenly identify with the anima, Jung says, she can produce effeminaty or homosexuality. The anima remains in an compensatory relationship with the outer, conscious attitude. The more a man identifies with the masculine persona, the more he will be subject to the projections of his anima. In all men the anima is responsible for moods and is a complication in all emotional relationships (rather a stereotypical statement, certainly reflects no attempt to remove himself from cultural assumptions).
After the middle of life, according to Jung, the anima is essential for vitality, flexibility and human kindness. She appears in a variety of manifestations which reflect her bipolarity. She can be both positive and negative from one moment to another, young and then old, mother and then lover, good and them evil, and so on. She is an ambivalent image and has occult connections with the ancient mysteries and hence a religious tinge.
The animus is the comparable counterpart in the female psyche. (Naomi Goldenberg's critique points out that Jung provides emperical evidence for anima, but the 'animus' is just a postulate opposite. See: Changing of the Gods and Returning Words to Flesh). It is said to be the woman's image of a man. Unlike the anima, the animus appears in a plurality of forms. To Jung this reflects the differences in male and female conscious attitudes. He says that the woman's consciousness tends to be exclusively personal and centred upon the family, the man is made up of various worlds of which the family is only one. Thus he finds the anima and animus to be the opposites of each of these conscious attitudes, plural and singular respectively. (Again we find stereotypes of male and female. The fact is that men are trained to be more sinle minded that are women in Western Society. Things have changed dramatically since the last century and the roles of men and women have altered drastically. Jung's response to women who work, unfortunately, is that work too much are too masculine and undesirable, if not suffering from pathology.)
For the anima Eros is the undifferentiated unconscious principle (the root of all emotions), for the animus it is logos (which in the woman's mind is said to be responsible for unreasoned opinion and critical disputatiousness). Animus manifests itself most often in words and not images (Emma Jung), typically as a voice that comments on a person's situation or imparts general rules. When it does take a form, usually in dreams, it appears as a "plurality of men, a group of fathers, a council, a court, or some gathering of wise men," etc. It may also manifest itself in the single figure of a real man--father, lover, brother, teacher, judge, sage, etc. It is in short a manifestation of a man distinguished in some way by mental capacities or other masculine qualities (since when is thinking a purely masculine quality?). Its positive forms are characteristically benevolent, knowledgeable or understanding; its negative aspects are cruelly demanding, violently tyrannical, seductive, moralistic or censorious. It can also function, like that anima, as a bridge between the inner and outer worlds.
THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE: range of images of mother archetype are almost inexhaustible--usually some from of maternal aspect, the underworld, womb-like, etc. Most important of this archetype is mothers of the literal sense followed by those of the figurative. It may also be symbolized in a variety of impersonal forms (paradise [of birth], Kingdom Of God, church, university, city or country, earth, woods, sea, moon, gardens, caves, cooking vessels, certain animals--cow, hare). Evil symbols include, in the Western context, dragons, witches, graves, deep water, and death.
THE CHILD ARCHETYPE: Also takes many forms--child, god, dwarf, hobbits, elf, animals--monkey--or objects: jewels, chalices or the golden ball (trickster like). It represents original or child like conditions in the life of the individual or the species, and thus reminds the conscious mind of its origins and helps to keep them continuous. A necessary reminder when the consciousness become too one sided, too willfully progressive in a manner that threatens the sever the individual from the roots of his or her being. It also signifies the potentiality of future personality development, it anticipates the synthesis of opposites and the attainment of wholeness. Thus it is said to represent the urge and compulsion towards self-realization. This is a reason that so many of the mythical saviour gods are childlike in their nature.
THE WISE OLD MAN: is the archetype of meaning or spirit. It often appears as grandfather, sage, magician, king, doctor, priest, professor, or any other authority figure. It represents insight, wisdom, cleverness, willingness to help, moral qualities. His appearance serves to warn of dangers, provide protective gifts and so one (Gandalf in Lord of the Rings). As with the other archetypes the wise old man also possesses both good and bad aspects.
THE SELF: this is, according to Jung, the most important archetype. It is called the "midpoint of the personality" a centre between consciousness and the unconsciousness. It signifies the harmony and balance between the various opposing qualities that make up the psyche. It remains basically incomprehensible, as ego consciousness cannot grasp this supraordinate personality of which the ego is only one element. The symbols of the self can be anything that the ego takes to be a greater totality than itself. Thus many symbols fall short of expressing the self in its fullest development. Symbols of the self are often manifested in geometrical forms (mandalas) or by the quaternity (Any figure with four parts). Prominent human figures which represent the self are the Buddha or Christ. This archetype is also represented by the divine child and by various pairs--father and son, king and queen, god and goddess, or by a hermaphrodite
From years of psychiatric work and phenomenological research in religions and mythologies, Jung identified several key motifs that the archetypes can take. The ones that he felt were especially important include: the persona, the shadow, the anima/animus, the mother, the child, the wise old man, and the self. To Jung, abstract figures, situations, places and processes can also give expression to them.
THE PERSONA: is the mask we wear to make a particular impression on others; it may reveal and conceal our real nature. It is called an artificial personality that is a compromise between a person's real individuality and society's expectations--usually society's demands take precedence. It is made up of things like professional titles, roles, habits of social behaviour, etc. It serves to both guarantee social order and to protect the individual's private life. That is, when the ego identifies itself with the persona, the individual become particularly susceptible to the unconscious.
THE SHADOW: Is a step further towards self-realization when one recognizes and integrates it. It is the negative or inferior (undeveloped) side of the personality. It is said to be made up of all the reprehensible characteristics that each of us wish to deny, including animal tendencies that Jung claims we have inherited from our infra-human ancestors. It is said to coincide with the personal unconscious and because all of us has one it appears to be a collective phenomena.
The more unaware of the shadow we are, the blacker and denser it is. The more dissociated it is from conscious life, the more it will display a compensatory demonic dynamism. It is often projected outwards on individual or groups who are then thought to embody all the immature, evil, or repressed elements of the individual's own psyche. (Symbols of the devil and the serpent contain elements of the shadow).
ANIMA / ANIMUS: following a person's coming to term with their shadow they are then confronted with the problem of the anima/animus, the archetype which is said to personify the soul, or inner attitude. It is usually a persona and often takes on the characteristics of the opposite sex. The anima is said to represent the feminine in men, and come from three sources: 1] individual man's experience with women as companion; [2] man's own femininity--rooted presumably in the minority of female genes and hormones present in man's body; and [3] the inherited collective image that has been formed from man's collective experience of woman through out the centuries.
Anima often appears in dreams, as long as she remains unconscious. She may also be projected outwards onto various women--first the mother, then lover and wife as one grows. This projection is said to be responsible for the passionate attraction or aversion and a man's general apprehension of the nature of women. Should a man mistakenly identify with the anima, Jung says, she can produce effeminaty or homosexuality. The anima remains in an compensatory relationship with the outer, conscious attitude. The more a man identifies with the masculine persona, the more he will be subject to the projections of his anima. In all men the anima is responsible for moods and is a complication in all emotional relationships (rather a stereotypical statement, certainly reflects no attempt to remove himself from cultural assumptions).
After the middle of life, according to Jung, the anima is essential for vitality, flexibility and human kindness. She appears in a variety of manifestations which reflect her bipolarity. She can be both positive and negative from one moment to another, young and then old, mother and then lover, good and them evil, and so on. She is an ambivalent image and has occult connections with the ancient mysteries and hence a religious tinge.
The animus is the comparable counterpart in the female psyche. (Naomi Goldenberg's critique points out that Jung provides emperical evidence for anima, but the 'animus' is just a postulate opposite. See: Changing of the Gods and Returning Words to Flesh). It is said to be the woman's image of a man. Unlike the anima, the animus appears in a plurality of forms. To Jung this reflects the differences in male and female conscious attitudes. He says that the woman's consciousness tends to be exclusively personal and centred upon the family, the man is made up of various worlds of which the family is only one. Thus he finds the anima and animus to be the opposites of each of these conscious attitudes, plural and singular respectively. (Again we find stereotypes of male and female. The fact is that men are trained to be more sinle minded that are women in Western Society. Things have changed dramatically since the last century and the roles of men and women have altered drastically. Jung's response to women who work, unfortunately, is that work too much are too masculine and undesirable, if not suffering from pathology.)
For the anima Eros is the undifferentiated unconscious principle (the root of all emotions), for the animus it is logos (which in the woman's mind is said to be responsible for unreasoned opinion and critical disputatiousness). Animus manifests itself most often in words and not images (Emma Jung), typically as a voice that comments on a person's situation or imparts general rules. When it does take a form, usually in dreams, it appears as a "plurality of men, a group of fathers, a council, a court, or some gathering of wise men," etc. It may also manifest itself in the single figure of a real man--father, lover, brother, teacher, judge, sage, etc. It is in short a manifestation of a man distinguished in some way by mental capacities or other masculine qualities (since when is thinking a purely masculine quality?). Its positive forms are characteristically benevolent, knowledgeable or understanding; its negative aspects are cruelly demanding, violently tyrannical, seductive, moralistic or censorious. It can also function, like that anima, as a bridge between the inner and outer worlds.
THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE: range of images of mother archetype are almost inexhaustible--usually some from of maternal aspect, the underworld, womb-like, etc. Most important of this archetype is mothers of the literal sense followed by those of the figurative. It may also be symbolized in a variety of impersonal forms (paradise [of birth], Kingdom Of God, church, university, city or country, earth, woods, sea, moon, gardens, caves, cooking vessels, certain animals--cow, hare). Evil symbols include, in the Western context, dragons, witches, graves, deep water, and death.
THE CHILD ARCHETYPE: Also takes many forms--child, god, dwarf, hobbits, elf, animals--monkey--or objects: jewels, chalices or the golden ball (trickster like). It represents original or child like conditions in the life of the individual or the species, and thus reminds the conscious mind of its origins and helps to keep them continuous. A necessary reminder when the consciousness become too one sided, too willfully progressive in a manner that threatens the sever the individual from the roots of his or her being. It also signifies the potentiality of future personality development, it anticipates the synthesis of opposites and the attainment of wholeness. Thus it is said to represent the urge and compulsion towards self-realization. This is a reason that so many of the mythical saviour gods are childlike in their nature.
THE WISE OLD MAN: is the archetype of meaning or spirit. It often appears as grandfather, sage, magician, king, doctor, priest, professor, or any other authority figure. It represents insight, wisdom, cleverness, willingness to help, moral qualities. His appearance serves to warn of dangers, provide protective gifts and so one (Gandalf in Lord of the Rings). As with the other archetypes the wise old man also possesses both good and bad aspects.
THE SELF: this is, according to Jung, the most important archetype. It is called the "midpoint of the personality" a centre between consciousness and the unconsciousness. It signifies the harmony and balance between the various opposing qualities that make up the psyche. It remains basically incomprehensible, as ego consciousness cannot grasp this supraordinate personality of which the ego is only one element. The symbols of the self can be anything that the ego takes to be a greater totality than itself. Thus many symbols fall short of expressing the self in its fullest development. Symbols of the self are often manifested in geometrical forms (mandalas) or by the quaternity (Any figure with four parts). Prominent human figures which represent the self are the Buddha or Christ. This archetype is also represented by the divine child and by various pairs--father and son, king and queen, god and goddess, or by a hermaphrodite
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
The Blog Bog
Once, long ago in the days of radio and iceboxes, before we had psychiatrists,
there were "alienists" and people weren't "disturbed" or "emotionally challenged",
they were "alienated".
Alienated: separated from others, different. Like ET
Now, in the age of the internet, ( more than two decades old) modern technology
has managed to alienate half the world and this paradoxical situation ("the internet was supposed to connect us") has created the new sub- phenomenon of The Blog.
However, I suspect that this will turn out to be a cyber "pet rocks" fad and Blogging will eventually dissappear into Dodoland.
Blogging has risen to incredible popularity because it offers the promise of connectivity that the internet chat rooms, discussion groups and other internet venues (remember news groups?) lacked. The opportunity to publish complete, uninterrupted, transcripts of our own delightful blather. That's the answer to alienation?
Not really because the quintessential element missing from the equation is connection.
No many how many hundreds of my own wonderful words that I post to my blog or bog as the case may be, if nobody reads it and no one responds then as old man Descartes would have queried " If a blog is written on the internet and no one reads it, was it ever written - and even if it was, so what?"
How long before people get bored with writing what no one reads (except maybe their mothers)
Or, how long before the pimps, pornographers and other cyberhoods figure out ways to break into the blogs and spill their "Buy Cheap Drugs" and other s32t all over this and every other similar site's pristine pages?
there were "alienists" and people weren't "disturbed" or "emotionally challenged",
they were "alienated".
Alienated: separated from others, different. Like ET
Now, in the age of the internet, ( more than two decades old) modern technology
has managed to alienate half the world and this paradoxical situation ("the internet was supposed to connect us") has created the new sub- phenomenon of The Blog.
However, I suspect that this will turn out to be a cyber "pet rocks" fad and Blogging will eventually dissappear into Dodoland.
Blogging has risen to incredible popularity because it offers the promise of connectivity that the internet chat rooms, discussion groups and other internet venues (remember news groups?) lacked. The opportunity to publish complete, uninterrupted, transcripts of our own delightful blather. That's the answer to alienation?
Not really because the quintessential element missing from the equation is connection.
No many how many hundreds of my own wonderful words that I post to my blog or bog as the case may be, if nobody reads it and no one responds then as old man Descartes would have queried " If a blog is written on the internet and no one reads it, was it ever written - and even if it was, so what?"
How long before people get bored with writing what no one reads (except maybe their mothers)
Or, how long before the pimps, pornographers and other cyberhoods figure out ways to break into the blogs and spill their "Buy Cheap Drugs" and other s32t all over this and every other similar site's pristine pages?
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Don Juan, Casanova and the Seducers
The myth of the seducer was probably conceived in the late middle ages, during the Age of Chivalry when, under the code, "only a virgin or another man's wife could be the object of chivalrous love"
However, chivalrous love very quickly degenerated into promiscuity and adultery; it is not difficult to see how knights could pledge eternal love (platonic) to his "Lady" and then dream of ways to seduce her. The lady herself probably longed impatiently for adventure and that was the beginning of the myth.
It was not until the time of Casanova that the myth became flesh and blood. Although men had been making love to other men's wives since marriage was first created (probably by the devil himself), seduction as an art form and a mythical adventure only came into its own in the seventeenth century, when Galileo proclaimed the sun the center of the universe and shook the Catholic church and every man's conception of the universe to their very foundations.
"If the earth is round and it revolves around the sun then why can't I make love to my friend's wife?' might seem like a non sequitur to some but it was a good excuse anyway.
Later, we see Don Juan ( a rather clumsy seducer) and much later still, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable and many famous and not so famous seducers and "womanizers". The Seducer never "took advantage" of women in the true sense of the phrase he was more of a facilitator- helping women to achieve freedom and satisfaction through sex. The fact that the seducer did not hold himself to a "code of honor" was simply an expression of his disregard for bourgeois conventions.
Who are the Casanovas of today, the mythical reincarnation of our old heroes? Have we abandoned the myth or has feminism made it meaningless?
However, chivalrous love very quickly degenerated into promiscuity and adultery; it is not difficult to see how knights could pledge eternal love (platonic) to his "Lady" and then dream of ways to seduce her. The lady herself probably longed impatiently for adventure and that was the beginning of the myth.
It was not until the time of Casanova that the myth became flesh and blood. Although men had been making love to other men's wives since marriage was first created (probably by the devil himself), seduction as an art form and a mythical adventure only came into its own in the seventeenth century, when Galileo proclaimed the sun the center of the universe and shook the Catholic church and every man's conception of the universe to their very foundations.
"If the earth is round and it revolves around the sun then why can't I make love to my friend's wife?' might seem like a non sequitur to some but it was a good excuse anyway.
Later, we see Don Juan ( a rather clumsy seducer) and much later still, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable and many famous and not so famous seducers and "womanizers". The Seducer never "took advantage" of women in the true sense of the phrase he was more of a facilitator- helping women to achieve freedom and satisfaction through sex. The fact that the seducer did not hold himself to a "code of honor" was simply an expression of his disregard for bourgeois conventions.
Who are the Casanovas of today, the mythical reincarnation of our old heroes? Have we abandoned the myth or has feminism made it meaningless?
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