It comes up every so often, here in Blogitland, a devastated cry of, How could he? How could she? How could anyone betray me like this? In fact, in a life, who doesn't know betrayal? Such an overwhelming cascade of disappointment, anger, and very personal hurt! For some of us, it links us right back emotionally to other betrayals, other pain, and that puts the current event totally out of proportion: a broken heart is never healed, though we adapt and find ways to put it behind other feelings,... Sign in to see full entry.
Recently, two books have crossed my path, about autism. One is a novel, one is autobiographical. The first is called THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth Moon. Her story is fiction, told by an autistic man. She is qualified to speak with this voice as she is the mother of an autistic son. The second is ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION by Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who struggled through her personal challenges and a world not always helpful or understanding, to achieve a PhD and a career in animal... Sign in to see full entry.
An aside, to consider The Beast... 666 the Number of the Beast. 664 the Neighbor of the Beast 999 the Beast doing handstands... 696...and backflips... 888 The Beast in a Corset 000 Fat Beast 111 Skinny Beast (666) 666-6666 Phone Number of the Beast Sign in to see full entry.
Lurking, whispering, doing their best to distract and seduce... Self-pity... Resentment... Envy... Others, in other masks and guises... They all have pitiable reasons for their existence and their tragic twistings of truth and light, but we do not dare give ourselves over to them, no matter that we understand and weep with them sometimes, and wish with all our hearts to heal them... What does it take to heal them? They would say, "Give me what I ask for and I'll be at peace," but to give them... Sign in to see full entry.
It has been recently reported that liberalism and conservatism are personality-driven choices: the more anxious personality clings to the security of rules and order. This personality prefers everyone to follow the same rules, to keep the world more predictable. Being so fear-based, this is a body-driven personality, where Self is identified with the body's imperatives When such a personality looks to the spiritual for support, it is looking at the Divine, however it defines that, as something... Sign in to see full entry.
I've written on this topic before, a long time ago, a long ways back: the difference between physical and spiritual realities, and the futility of trying to manage either one with the truths and solutions of the other. We are human beings: creatures composed of physical matter, that houses spiritual essence. We don't have souls: We are souls, that have bodies. (Someone recently attributed this statement to CS Lewis, but if he said it, good chance he got it from George MacDonald, one of the... Sign in to see full entry.
I am amused, thinking about chimps making tools to fish snacks out of termite mounds, while I am sitting here making tools to fish lint out of my lap-top. If you've been following this blog for a while, you know already that I see the world of the wild great apes as the world from which we ourselves emerged: creatures breaking free of the simple life guided by instinct and supported by nature's providence. Our essential humanity, that which truly makes us different from animals, is our... Sign in to see full entry.
I can see the inner child/adolescent/adult model. My dad defined those three aspects thusly: a child needs to be cared for; an adolescent can care for him/herself; an adult is able to care for others. Once we have been all three, we have those aspects, those parts of our selves, that come into play. That's a nice psychological model. Then, there is also the outer Self, the one that is not a 'part' but the source and container of the 'parts.' Child, Adolescent and Adult all influence, but the... Sign in to see full entry.
That blog quotes a philosophy of 'threes' and states that Unity is the absolute goal, if I understood it correctly. ( http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Bowl_of_Saki/ ) There is another 'three' also: the body, the mind/heart, the soul. Some problems, solutions, and philosophies, apply more to one of these parts than to another. Absolute freedom is the ideal of soul, but it is abolute chaos to the body: we drive on roads with curbs, stop at stop signs, obey conventions like all driving on the... Sign in to see full entry.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/2012/04/you-are-your-connectome.html#igImgId_36589 Seung is focusing on the brain itself, where what I've studied before is the mind. They are not quite the same, but they go closely together. The mind might be considered the astral body of the brain. I have to think on that some... Anyway, what he calls 'connectome' seems to match up with what I'd call the individual's 'totality of belief systems,' and the key to healing damaged connections is also probably a... Sign in to see full entry.