The DSM 5 ā Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ā now recognizes hoarding as a disorder. Google [CBS News Seeking help for hoarding] for a short report on this. Frankly, Iād say we have more of a diagnostic disorder. In our quest to identify human problems as disorders, we are blind to the […]
Continue reading…language
Emotion Speaksā¦ Literally
I learned to speak a number of languages during my traveling years. Learning a language in country is an easy, quick and enjoyable way to learn. During those years, my interest was to communicateānot eloquently mind you, but just enough to get by. Several hundred words and some fearless pantomime (especially at first) worked wonderfully. […]
Continue reading…Good Enough Is!
Good enough is good enough, and naturally so. As chapter 46 notes, Therefore, in being contented with oneās lot, enough is usually enough indeed. Besides, isnāt this how nature plays outā¦ step by step? Surely, this is the sentiment expressed in chapter 64, A thousand mile journey begins below the feet. This is how reality […]
Continue reading…And Then There Was Fire
Iāve always found pondering the howās and whyās of life and the world to be irresistible. The mountain of historical and scientific information available certainly makes this challenging. Happily, a lifetime of inquiry may be paying off. I can see outlines of the big picture now. The constant difficulty lies in how mountains of detail […]
Continue reading…Feeling Animal-ness
We āknowā humans are animals, biologically speaking. Yet do we really feel we are? In reality, there is a wide gap between our knowledge and our experience. Catching the flu for the āfirstā time in my life recently offers an example of how thought can distort and pigeonhole reality. Assuming that I caught the flu […]
Continue reading…Is Rock Conscious?
A while ago, I attempted to pin down a friend (1) of mine on the subject of consciousness. My view that a rock could be conscious didnāt go over too well. He said, āWords are sounds that gain meaning with use.Ā Saying that a rock is conscious is like saying a rock is alive.Ā That might work […]
Continue reading…Belief in Nothing is Dangerous
YouTube [Tucson: Descent Into Madness] for the 60 Minutes documentary about a shooting in Arizona. It offers insight into what drives a person to such violence. The perpetrator was Jared Loughner. Excerpts from an interview of two of Jaredās friends are at the end of this post. What caught my attention was when his friends […]
Continue reading…Beyond Spooky
The November issue of Science News, Beyond Spooky, was dedicated to āquantum weirdnessā (1). I love this side of physics. This āweirdnessā may be how it is possible, despite natureās bio-hoodwink (p.11), to sense more than just the tip-of-the-iceberg of reality. Biology requires living things to perceive reality in a way that promotes survival and […]
Continue reading…Science, Religion, Truth
It is striking how obvious, yet subtle, the relationship between science, religion, and truth is. This could be an example of chapter 71ās, My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no one in the world can understand them or put them into practice. There are profound spiritual […]
Continue reading…The less I think, the more I know
The less I think, the more I know sounds a little odd. It parallels that equally peculiar line in chapter 56, One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know. If anything ever begged for elucidation, this does! The problem with thought lies in the preconceptions necessary to think and speak. This […]
Continue reading…What Shapes How You Think?
Google [Does Your Language Shape How You Think?] for research that speaks to my recent post Thinking Clouds Consciousness (p.119). This offers interesting details underlying this question, although, in my view this is a no-brainer. Clearly, language and thinking are inextricably linkedā¦ It takes one to do the other. If you can, flip off the […]
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