What is up with this trend of philosphical discussions everyone is having? It must be all the Google ads on the side that are tayloring themselves to my blog. Anywhoo.
The link below is probably a waste of time. However, I found it interesting. It discusses the anatomy of the brain and the function of each area as it relates to different functions of the mind. Such as the area of the brain determined to be responsible for intent, or the area of the brain responsible for faith, spirituality, beliefs, and cultural things like that. How about an area of the brain that if it were destroyed would only let you see life in a series of still pictures rather than as a movie? I though that one was particularly interesting.
Of course the attempt was to identify what part of the brain was responsible for consciousness of self or a person's identity, not the awake or asleep consciousness. Apparently it depends. If the brain is doing one function or another, it typically is using several parts of the brain. However, the brain is always controlled somehow and able to focus on the task. The front part of the brain governs actions with thought processes. Different amounts of chemical transmitters determine personality. However, the identification of the person or the self as a whole, is not limited to the physical brain. It is presumably, the subjective experience or perception.
Take for example a person with a disease where the brain actually decays. At what point do they stop being that person? They don't even though they may lose memories or functions, or other things. Well, I guess you could disagree and say they stop being themselves, and you could have a point.
There is a part of the neurons in the brain responsibe for sense of time and sense of consciousness (awake asleep). These parts are really tiny parts of the cells that just happen to be highly affected by general anesthetic. Have you ever been put under for a surgery and woken up thinking that it was just a second ago. Well that part of the brain cells were turned off and you lost sense of time.
I find this stuff fascinating. Feel free to share experiences or stories.
I say, how is every one? I hope you ansered well. I just woke from my after lunch nap at work. It was preceded by my pre lunch blog. Before that we hung around anded told stories about the bosses and how bad some of their employment practices have been throughout the years. Before that, I checked out the weather on the weather channel, just after checking the equipment. That was after two early back to back, but not difficult calls first thing this morning. One of them was, you can guess, a man who tried to cut his forearms, and then pretending to have a seizure. Well, here's a clue I knew he was faking. I yelled at him, and he stopped shaking.
So, you see, I have the easiest job in the world. This is pretty much a typical day, more or less. Take care of a person or two, do a little busy work, and kick around the rest of the day. Tomorrow I get to watch a bunch of people run into the ocean in freezing weather to raise money for charity. I don't get it. But, some people get there rocks off doing it. Today it's about 20 degrees here. Yeah, I know.
I wanted to say hello to everyone else out there who has a real job. You have my sympathies for all the hard work you have to do.
Ok, are you sick of the philosophy yet? not me. Here's a link to an argument for the existence of god. It basically argues on the basis of cause and effect. If the universe is the effect, what is the cause if not some sort of creator? Since the universe is the greatest of all inventions, having the greatest set of rules and the most incredible things in it, like life itself, why wouldn't it have an inventor, or cause, just like every other invention, or effect that has ever occured without exception? I don't know, someone smarter than me would have to come up with something to argue against it. It still doesn't mean any particular religion is right. Don't think I'm endorsing anything like that. Don't get me wrong that way.
Alright, I'm still on a political kick. The link below is to an essay on the refugees in the Israel - Palestinian conflict, except this one discusses the Jewish refugees as well as Palestinian. I often listen to the news and hear Palestinians comment about the situation in the middle east, and none of them ever mention their part in the conflict or the part of the entire Arab world who displaced almost 1 million Jews. Not only did they displace all those Jews, but they confiscated their wealth and possesions as well, estimated in the billions of dollars back 50 years ago. Now that's a lot of cash.
Ok, on top of spreading denial and lacking of accountability, there seems an unwillingness to acknowledge the terrorism that are the suicide murderers. To me it all sounds like lies when I here people talk like that. It also amazes me when someone suggests that there is no definition of terrorism or that it changes if you are defending your homeland.
Take for example the last bus bombing in Israel that killed 10 innocent, unarmed people on a bus and injured 50 more. The day before The Israeli army fought Palestinian terrorist forces in a gun fight and killed some of them. The killing of 10 innocent people was the response. Now that is terrorism. Defense would be attacking the army, not blowing up a bus of civilians.
I think the deliberate murder of innocent people constitutes terrorism, how 'bout you?
Ahh, yes. Today we have some very good essays found on the blod of rattlerred. The first one is a link to an essay discussing the link between socialism and antisemitic societies. Free markets and freedom versus closed markets and discrimination. The lack of prosperity brings about the need to blame someone. Since the Jews always maintained a unique identity throughout history independent of their location, they were always the victims.
This second article is an opinion that suggests the West should let Africa figure out its own problems. Let me know how you feel about the issue. [url=]http://www.kimdutoit.com/dr/e...[/url]
Today I went to Barnes and Noble Bookstore. I bought 2 books, a Learn in you car Spanish program, and a venti sugar free vanilla latte. Do you want to know what the books are? I thought you would never ask.
They were [i]Superstrings and the search for the theory of everything[/i], and [i]Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics.[/i] It's just a little light reading, some catching up I wanted to do in my spare time while I couldn't go play golf. There has been snow on the ground for the past few days you know.
I don't usually do these Quizzila tests, but I saw this one and thought it appropos for the recent topics.
You are one of the few out there whose wings are truly ANGELIC. Selfless, powerful, and divine, you are one blessed with a certain cosmic grace. You are unequalled in peacefulness, love, and beauty. As a Being of Light your wings are massive and a soft white or silver. Countless feathers grace them and radiate the light within you for all the world to see. You are a defender, protector, and caretaker. Comforter of the weak and forgiver of the wrong, chances are you are taken advantage of once in awhile, maybe quite often. But your innocence and wisdom sees the good in everyone and so this mistreatment does not make you colder. Merciful to the extreme, you will try to help misguided souls find themselves and peace. However not all Angelics allow themselves to be gotten the better of - the Seraphim for example will be driven to fighting for the sake of Justice and protection of those less powerful. Congratulations - and don't ever change - the world needs more people like you.
I've been writing much about religion, social issues related to religious cultures and philosophic issues. Well, I had a rather poor discussion from a muslim who didn't understand what I had said, nor understood what was even in the Koran. Yet she found a way to be angry, without being correct. Others were able to express there opinions without such hostility. Isn't that always so much nicer when someone comments that way?
Anywho, just wanted to toss out some last thoughts on the latest topics. Whether a person believes in god or in a god, a person typically believes in something. For certain there are very few people in the world who don't believe in anything. For example, anarchists believe in chaos, creationists believe in the story of creation, atheist believe there is no god, some people believe in a higher power, some people believe in living by their conscience, some believe in nature, some believe there is an order to the universe, and the list could go on.
Well, if you're asking about the agnostics, I would propose that they would fit another category and just doubt the word god, which is the big hang up between people. I don't think I have ever met a person who was capable of expressing themselves mentally, who didn't have a thought on the subject of spirituality or belief or faith or morality or existence, and I don't think a person exists that doesn't have a thought on the subject.
I want to suggest to everyone, that whatever they believe is the right way to believe with one exception. It's usually not good to believe in one's own ego or in a bad person's ego and become an egomaniac or the follower of one. That's usually bad.
There's certainly no reason to believe that one person or religion can corner the market on belief systems and withhold some sort of gift from everybody else. That's a joke. There are universal messages from every spiritual master throughout history, no matter what religion. These are simple. Treat others well, like you would want to be treated. The other deals with spiritual issues, and is a little more heady but on the same lines and doesn't come in a cathcy phrase. In order to be the best person possible, you have to forget about your own selfishness. Now how elite are those things.
Anyway, that's what I think about spirituality and my fellow humans and religion. And that's one reason why I find it impossible to join a religion, even though in recent decades I have occasionally had a desireto serve as a spiritual guide of some kind.
I just read Dragonbait22 's blog that challenged its readers to try and define the existence of god without mentioning the Bible. Here's my answer. Feel free to leave your thoughts. You can mention the Bible if you want, I don't care.
As far as the existence of god goes, it's a little tough, but here is the scientific proof. Take all the scientific equations for the universe and what do you get. Well, you can reverse the equations to take it back to a big bang type incident. However, knowing a little bit about math, there are some things that can't be proven with math or equations, and in equations sometimes lines approach limits at infintely closer amounts but never reach a point.
Take these ideas and the idea that the equations that support the theories of the universe show that the Big Bang either doesn't exist, or is a limit that isn't reached or something of the sort. One way or the other, The Big Bang started from a point that ultimately is non existent yet contains every piece of matter and energy and doesn't occupy space at the same time. All of it a bunch of impossibilities, logically and mathematically. Except that there have been some experiments that tend to support the Big Bang theory. One big one measured temperature differences in space and where they were and where they were heading, etc. The results apparently determined a shape that could have formed microseconds after the Big Bang.
All that being said a shift in paradigm is necesary, one way or the other. A person needs to take a leap of faith and believe the science is right and that all this is actually here and real, because the says it shouldn't actually have started in the first place. A person can also take a leap of faith and believe that whatever it is that is beyond space, time, energy, and matter, whatever it is that gave the spark to it all that shouldn't exist, but obviously does one way or the other, is that thing which could be called god in its most basic form.
None the less, a paradigm shift and a leap of faith can occur, but it doesn't mean it needs to change a person's morality. A person can be a good moral person without believing in a god, just as easy (and we all have many examples) as a person can be a bad person who does believe in god.
Anyway that's just a little mental exercise without mentioning the Bible. Thanks for reading.
Today, class, we will continue our lessons on middle eastern culture. The focus of this lecture is Koranic prayer and Islamic teachings as it relates to Islamic extremists and Islamic fundamentalists. I think this might be an important topic for those of us not so familiar with Islam, since there are so many conflicting messages coming from the media. Now here is my opinion to just confuse you even more.
First let me explain that there are 2 different sources that are used to inspire behavior in Islamic culture. These would be the Koran, or Quoran, which is the book of prayers, and the Hadiths, which are like the rules for living. The former are a little more fluid and can have a different number depending on which sect you ask, but the prayers are the same. They are set. They are what every muslim tries to learn arabic to understand, to gain an appreciation of the melodic sound of the singing of the prayers.
As far as the Rules go, Mohammed was a judge early on in the life of Islam. He was a judge of sorts for the town of Medina, where Jews took him in to save him from his brothers, whe wanted to kill him. Islam in fact was Mohammed's way of bringing monotheism, or Judaism, to the Arabs. Apparently, at the time he believed Allah to be the same god as the god the Jews believed in. Hence, the ancient belief in their decent from Abraham and the respect for the Hebrew scriptures, etc.
With that background in mind, these teachings on how to live, continued to come throughout Mohammed's life, and some of them included the following. Do not kill, unless a soldier with his sword raised is coming toward you. Respect the religion of others. This last one is mainly towards the People of the Book, or the Jews, whose religion Mohammed felt he was spreading to the Arabs. There are also five pillar to live by, help the poor, pray five times a day, make the Haj or trip to Mecca, and I forget the other 2, but they are like learn Arabic, and take Allah as the only god and Mohammed as his prophet, or something.
Now these teachings end up to be pretty peaceful, and Mohammed was actually progressive for his time. He practiced some advanced Women's rights for the time, and practice the art of not killing, and stopped vedetta killing and revenge when he certainly had a chance. He also preached taking care of the poor, and taking care of your community. All of which are great messages and which are extremely valid for a spiritual leader. When someone comes on TV saying Islam is a peaceful religion, this is what they base their belief on.
Now for the other side. There is an extremely violent side to the story. Mohammed had to fight for his life to survive and to save Islam, and he was successful, but in the Koran some prayers remain that are extremely violent. They continuously mention that the believers will be reward by god and that the unbelievers will be sent to hell or tortured or whatever.
Here is a snippet from a prayer called the children of Israel, "when the time of the second prediction comes, (We shall rouse another people) to shame you, and enter the Temple as they had done the first time, and destroy what they conquered utterly".
Now hows that for peaceful? Wonder why those islamic extremists are so friendly toward non muslims? ANd that is just one line. Every other line in the book is like that. Don't believe me? two lines later says, "But if you repeat it, we shall do the same". Hmmm.
Now this prediction actually came true. Look at where the mosque in Jerusalem is. It is right on the Temple mount. The holiest place in Judaism. The mosque was built exactly where the Jews had there temple. Of course they did it to embarass the Jews, Mohammed declared it in prayer that every Muslim hears in Mosque.
Ok, I'm really worked up now. So to steal a phrase from the most biased media on cable, You Decide what do you think about Islam in the modern world?
After reading this essay, I just couldn't keep it to myself. This is an extremely well written essay on budget deficits and too much government spending. Enjoy.
Well, here I am, and I read some interesting things today that i thought I would share. Let's start with a quote from Ann Coulter, the propogandist for the Republican party, "The only Democrats who go to church regularly are the ones who plan to run for president someday and are preparing in advance to fake a belief in God."
Now this was an editorial/opinion by dear Ann about Democrats of course, but notice how she educates us on how Democrats only go to church regularly if they plan to fake a belief in God. Interestingly enough, I think my mother and grandmother, and uncle, and aunt, and other aunt, and a whole lot of other people I know would really diagree with the challenge to their faith. I don't think any of them plan to run for president either. Now correct me if I'm wrong but that make her a liar? or a propagandist?
Speaking of propaganda, here are my thoughts about the media from the middle east. Here in the United States, we have professional standards for our media, excepting Fox News Channel. Stories have to be researched, sources corobarated by several other sources before the story can be released, and it's good to give full disclosure about your guest speakers, like who they work for, so the viewer might be aware the speaker might be biased.
Now, at first when I would see broadcast from channels like Al Jazeera, I would think, wow America is messing up, or people really hate America, or something like that. But what I have come to realize is that the media in that part of the world, while increasing its prodution value to look more legitimate, has not increased its journalistic standards to follow suit.
Say for example, a Bin Laden tape is hand delivered to a station, and a reported has contacts within Al Qaeda. The reporter and producers have the ability and moral responsibility to edit the tape for important news content and then report on the tape. However, that doesn't happen. What happens is the tape gets played in its entirety and then they have a mock panel discussion. I say mock, because that is what it is. It's kind of like Fox News Channel. Prior to this Iraqi war a muslim cleric (one who was later killed in Iraq after the war) wanted to be on Al Jazeera to express his support for the US. The Iraqi people were in support of being freed from Saddam those were the facts. Al Jazeera refused to allow him on their panels. Instead they had all sorts of non-Iraqi panelists who opposed the war for different reasons. The Cleric eventually said, after a Bin Laden tape was released that he opposed any US invasion, and he was allowed on the panel. Well, you can imagine what he said. He told the viewers that the people of Iraq supported the invasion and he asked everyone to support the invasion and the emancipation of the Iraqi people. Well, he wasn't allowed to finish the panel discussion.
This is just one shining example of journalistic standards in the middle east. Let's not even get into the Hizballah new media who was responsible for spreading the rumor that 9-11 was actually orchestrated by the Jews and that 4,000 Jews called out sick that day from work to avoid being killed. Where were the journalistic standards there?
Therefore, in conclusion, and whatever else, I propose that the US as a matter of foreign policy make it an issue with allies in the region to educate an institute higher standards for their news organizations.
So, I was just looking at little black dresses at Amazon. Not for my own personal use though. I don't look good in drag. It isn't even a good joke. Monty Python, they can get away with making drag funny. In Shakespeare's day women's roles were all played by young men or boys in drag. But me, I couldn't do any of this.
I needed a picture of a woman in a dress with attitude. Where better to find that than a fashion shot, right? I'm making a little sculpture. One of the figures is a woman in a dress with her hand on her hip giving attitude. Here I am making a sculpture, an artform where nudity and sexuality rule, and I choose to make clothed figures with bad attitudes.
Good evening. Every so not so often I am reminded of my disappointment in the lack of available alternate fuel sources to gasoline. Today, it was a tech show on CNN that reminded me. There was a French inventor who - just put aside that hostility, it's ok that it's French, for now - had developed an air powered automobile.
That's right I want a French air powered automobile. I am sorry, but sometimes the truth is painful. These vehicles are based on an engine that uses compressed air to travel up to 68 mph and can at a speed of 30 mph travel 150 miles. Now that wouldn't quite do it around these parts, but just a little extra fuel or an "air supply" station or two and I would be hooked up.
It costs less than 1 cent per mile to run. That's right imagine from $1.50 per gallon in support of Dumya and his friends to less than 1 cent per mile. That's $1.50 per tank. Oh yeah, the vehicles also cost less than, get this, $7,000.
I could no longer hold out from writing this entry. I was sitting at my computer all filled with glee. I wanted to tell everybody about what I saw at work today. I can't remember the last week that went by at work when I didn't see somebody who was dead or close to it. Today was this week's body. Now he rests peacefully.
This one today was a suicide. The man was on the phone with 911, when he committed suicide. He did it just before the police arrived. The dispatchers were talking to him, then nothing, then they heard the police there. I've seen injuries similar to this man's before, it was with a small caliber gun. Need I say more? Here's the new thing for me at least.
The man wrote a letter, and had all the titles to the cars and house all together and ready for his wife. On top of that the way in which he did this, he was able to contain any mess to a small amount of the bathtub. He showed considerably planning and thought. Even in the fact that he did it so his wife, or whoever wouldn't have to clean up a mess. Now, how about that?
So, does anyone think that this was considerate at all? or just stupid?
So, I'm a hermit, basically. Ever since I moved to lower, slower, bigoted Delaware, I have been a hermit. Sure, I go out and do things, like play golf, go out to eat, go to the movies, go out on dates, stuff like that. I just don't have those friends that I used to have before I moved down here.
The ones that I would just go and do things with whenever, whatever. I guess like everday hang out with ya kind of friends. I must admit that I've failed in developing a new system of those kind of friends since I've been here too. That's why I feel like a hermit. You should see the looks I get sometimes when I try and talk about something outside of the local vernacular. That would be fishing, hunting, cars, work, and the weather. I get funny looks, puzzled looks, bewildered looks, looks that seem to insult me and call me a liberal (that's an insult 'roun her).
Wait, I must stop insulting my neighbors! This isn't about their problem. It's my problem.
Screw that, I love insulting them. Screw them if they can't take a friendly condescending blow to the ego. It's always important to be able to absorb other people's insults. To let them flow past you like water around a rock in a stream. (just call me Buddha).
Here's what I reccommend as far as (non physical) confrontation with other people. It is of vital importance to be self aware. The more self aware, the less off guard someone can catch you. The only time someone can push your buttons is if you don't know about them or if you don't acknowledge them as your faults. If you acknowledge them and claim them and then let them be, it is so easy to blow off insults. I should know, I am so easy to make fun of.
I hope this entry was at least a little amusing, or at least not that depressing. Good night.
I wanted to express my deepest sympathies to those who might sympathize with the Palestinian cause. The Palestinians had a chance to get everything they ever told the West that they wanted - 1967 borders, a piece of Jerusalem as a capital, and land to give to their refugees - but Yasser Arafat, whose name means easy going, turned it down. Why? Who the hell knows? There will never be a better deal. I personally agree with the analysis by experts that Arafat thought he would be irrelevant afterwards and knew he would lose his identity without a genocide to commit. Yet the Palestinians keep him in office. Insanity, I tell you.
Here's some things I know. The oldest group from ancient times who still claims the land today is the Jews, followed by the Palestinians. The Palestinians, whose name in Arabic is Filistine, were the invaders documented by the Jews in the bible that came from across the sea. Yet, that's 3000 years ago and almost irrelevant now.
More recently, in the 1860s, Mark Twain wrote that Palestine was a completely neglected, desolate wasteland. Remember this. Then Jews started returning to the land and later in the century the Zionist movement started, back to the land the Arabs and Palestinians neglected. One of my favorite points is one that not many Arabs will mention. In the early 20th century, Arab nations forced their Jewish populations into exile. Yemen and Oman, most notably at this time. The Jews were forced to walk hundreds of miles across the desert without any assistance until they reached planes provided by outsiders (read Americans and Europeans) to fly them to guess where? That's right, Palestine. Tens of thousands of Jews were forced into Palestine by Arab nations in the 1920s. Of course in the 1940s, this was followed by other countries such as Egypt and tens of thousands of more forced exiled Jews exiled into Israel.
Now after almost 60 years of independence, rather than building their own country and working on infrastructure and government and schools, the only thing Palestinians are consumed by is teaching their children to grow up to commit suicide and murder. That is pitiful, and sinful. And I don't believe in calling anything sinful. But that is the greatest example of failing your children I could ever even imagine. It is the complete lack of taking responsibilty for your own situation and making it better. The Palestinians had their own country several times. Instead they chose to try and commit genocide, by destroying the Jews and Israel. What they should have done is stood up and taken their defeats and moved on.
Did anyone else watch Frontline on PBS last night? They showed a BBC reporter's report on the Iraqi Survey Group (ISG) that's searching for WMD. Starring for the US was David Kaye, the man responsible for finding and destroying Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program in the 1990s. He's the one running the ISG now.
As we all know, they haven't found huge stockpiles of weapons. Which makes huge fat liars out of Dumya and Dick. There were some great things about the program.
They showed sound bites of Dumya, Dick, Dumsfeld, and Powell before 911 and after 911, leading up to the war. Before 911, as clear as day, Powell said that Hussein did not pose an imminent threat and was not a grave threat to the US or his neighbors, and that he was being successfully contained. That was official policy back then. Post 911, about one year later it was the exact opposite. He did pose an imminent threat to the US and his neighbors and blah blah blah. It was excellent to see the sound bites back to back.
One other great point that was made was made by Blix. Now Blix himself, like everyone else in the business believed Hussein had programs and the capabilty to reconsitute and probably had the weapons. However, Blix just didn't believe the proof whether they were there or were destroyed was there and therefore no exact conclusion could be made. That's not the point I wanted to make. The thing Blix pointed out was the language used by the administration following the campaign in Iraq. The ISG began its work and the words being used were search for WMD stockpiles. Then after a while of not finding anything it was search for WMD programs. Now it has been reduced to the ability to reconsitute the programs in the future. They have found plenty of evidence that the Iraqis kept samples of Biological weapons, and plans for long range rockets, and tried continuously to acruire chemicals and parts for illicit military weapons, some of which could conceivably deliver WMD, but none had actually been built.
So here's the conclusion so far. Saddam was bluffing. That's right Saddam bluffed, and we called. Except George Dumya made up a bunch of lies in order to do so just to sell the war to us as a nation.
It was paramedic school, and I was taking my turn through the Labor and Delivery floor. It's a wonderful time in people's lives when they have kids. Sometimes it's tough, but generally it's joyous, I guess is a good word. Sometimes it's unexpected, if you can believe that.
What happens is you walk into a room where a woman is having contractions, and the doctor and nurses think she will deliver sometime that day. At which point you say hello, blah blah blah, and try and make a connection and develop enough trust with these people you don't know so they will let you watch their baby be delivered. I think that's a big enough accomplishment in itself, developing that set of interpersonal skills.
The family and woman I met were absolutely incredible. They were so warm and friendly. I was scared sh**less. When it was time the Doc came in and needed help tieing his sterile gown. He said to me, "You're getting a free show. Help me out here." Oh, I felt better. (yeah, right). Well, I am happy to report the baby was delivered shortly after and with little help was pink and noisy and ready for mom.
Here's a did ya know. Did you know that there are actually some women who do not know they are pregnant until they give birth? Hard to believe? Yep, I thought so too. That show on TLC about the ER actually caught on tape a woman who gave birth who didn't know she was pregnant until the baby was born.
What do rust, soap, oil and water, computer processors, bleach, and magnets and salt have in common? Give up? They all illustrate something something essential about the human body.
I was refilling the soap dispenser with soap, earlier this evening, and I was thinking to myself. Wow that's fat and lye. Yeah like fat and lies. Imagine, "Fat and I'm really not good person, I rob banks for a living", and you could make a bottle of soap. But then I started thinking about how things worked in the human body, and a lot of it has everyday examples that people already know about, like the soap sort of.
Well it's not exactly soap exactly, it's more like fatty oil. In the body it's called phospholipids. Every cell in the human uses it as it's wall which allows it to maintain it's shape. Because it's a lipid, kind of oily kind of soapy, it separates from water due to the chemistry of the two. That is how cells are able to maintain structure. Pretty important.
Then there's rust. You know this one. Iron and oxygen, it's why the blood is red. Without it we die.
Ok, computer processors, are like the brain, not just because they are the parts that do the computing, but for another similarity. Nerve cells have receptors that get stimulated by little chemicals. When enough of these chemicals stimulate the nerve, the nerve cell fires its electrical impulse like the electrical circuit, or turns on, and then resets. This is a lot like computer circuits which work in binary code because they are either on or off, a lot like the nerve cell. I wonder if it was planned that way on purpose?
If you think bleach is a good cleaner, then every cell in your body would agree with you. The hypochlorite ion or one that is found in bleach, is what cells use to clean themselves from infections, viruses, and to commit suicide when they are no longer needed. Bleach is also effective in killing just about anything if you want clean with it.
Lastly are magnets and salt. Well not magnets themselves, but electromagnetism, likes repelling each other and opposites attracting. This is a huge one. The body uses salt with potassium and calcium to conduct and control electrical currents through the body. It's all done with likes repelling each other once the chemical stimulus occurs. Salt also controls water regulation as well. Calcium is also responsible for muscle contractions.
So that's it for now. I use to tutor anatomy and physiology as I was going through school. I loved this stuff. I used to spend hours studying it. What a common miracle we all are.
I wonder how many entries are being written about George Dumya Bush? I believe he straight face lied to me last night. Although the economy has shown that it's recovered according to many indicators, there is one that is overwhelmingly defficient. The debt that is growing at a half trillion dollars per year.
In the 80s, people grew to love Ronald "I don't recall" Reagan, because of deficit spending, basically. But there was the effect of getting control of interest rates that had nothing to do with Reagan and taxes that would be something to celebrate and would be cause for a great bounce to the economy. As far as I see, what we have from Reagan is a 7 trillion dollar debt. What Bumya is doing now is the same thing. I don't want another 7 trillion dollars in debt.
Here's a did ya know. Did you know that about 15% of the national budget goes to maintain the debt every year, and the debt is still getting bigger. I think a good 15% tax cut would be to get rid of this debt. What do you think? The debt now isn't go to invest in permanent infrastructure or projects that return on the investment in America. It is the equivalent of maxing out a credit card to feel good. Personally, I'd rather be responsible.
Okay, so here is the tasteless joke from Sunday night. Well, they must have been die hard Eagles fans. Now making bad tasteless jokes is really a coping mechanism, according to some fine psychologists, but I'm in denial. I think it's a perk of the job. Anyway, if you think instant karma will get me, please let me know.
I did say I would share a Life Tale after all the depressing crap I've been spreading. So, here it is. Well, at least the person lived through this one.
It was O'dark thirty in the morning when we went to the scene of a crash. A car had failed to round the curve on a back road, drove across a field and plowed its hood under a mobile home. The hood of the car looked like the lid of a sardine can rolled up, literally. It was rolled like an area carpet if you've never seen the lid of a sardine can. I was surprised at the speed the car had to have maintained through the field to do that, but there it was, just like a cartoon. The driver was a young man who had been distracted by the blunt he was smoking. It wasn't his car, and there were several other laws he was breaking, but he didn't even have a scratch on him.
Young men like that don't wear seatbelts you know. Well, he didn't, but he did have an airbag. From 50 to 0 without a scratch, that is how to do it. Thanks to whoever invented them, and thanks to whoever put them in cars. There should be more of them.
Oh, I forgot before I started this story that the car caught the trailer on fire and almost completely burned it down. No one was hurt though, so why are you looking at me funny?
Last night I went to a double fatal motor vehicle crash -Millville84.com- involving a single vehicle (The link is also to the left. Look for the pictures on January 18th.). All that jargon means is that one vehicle crashed and killed two people. It has been a long time since I'd been to one of those, and it had been since last summer since the last fatal crash for me.
I've talked alot about how callous my sense of humor is when dealing with death and difficult situations. Last night it just didn't seem right. I'm not even going to share the bad jokes with you. Two people died, a brother and a sister. It was his 31st birthday. They had been out, probably watching the football game, drinking. who knows how much, and the roads had some patchy ice.
Now these 2 were wearing there seatbelts, but don't let that fool you into thinking seatbelts don't help. This accident had some unique characteristics. The pickup went off the road to the left, down a bank, rolled over, hit a tree on the passenger side while upside down then went forward into some trees. Both of them were found sitting upright, except they were upside down. Several trees had to be cut down just to get to the people, but nothing could have been done. The airbags never went off, which means the truck struck the trees with the side of the truck first before the front of the truck.
Here is what I figure could have happened that made the seatbelts ineffective. The human spine is designed to absorb stress more in the forward in backward direction. With this crash, there was a large amount of rotational torque, creating G forces, that all of a sudden stopped the truck, and there was nothing to stop the heads. That would mean cervical spine fracture and instant, painless death. Thanks for small comforts, right?
Here's a few points. Rollovers, in general, are extremely survivable if the person wears their seatbelt, because of the way the energy dissipates. That didn't happen hear. What I've seen as some of the most deadliest crashes are T-bone are semi-T-bone crashes, when one vehicle is struck in the side by another. That's basically what happened when the truck was stopped by the tree. I could and will share some life tales about people who lived through some terrible things, just because they had an airbag. But traditional airbags don't work in T-bone type crashes.
Side cushion air bags, might not have even helped in this crash because it was also upside down and a roll over. I've never actually seen side air bags deployed, but if they work as well as regular airbags, they should be mandatory. So should safety glass on the side windows.
I thought I would write a book review today. The book is [i]The Enormous Room[/i] by E.E. Cummings. It's a novel written by good ole' ee around the 1920s after his WWI experience. Of course, ee is famous for spelling his name in lower case and for writing poems, not for his novels.
Don't be fooled into thinking that he is incapable of the discipline necessary to write an entire novel, because he certainly is. He composed his books of poetry as just that books. Each chapter developing a different part of the character, theme, and plot. His success with [i]the Enormous Room[/i] demonstrates his overwhelming agility with language and character that is hard to find. It displays the typical satirical smartass sense of humor that Cummings likes to use, and reveals the frail man that struggles to cope with the harsh situations he find himself in.
Did that sound like a book review or what???? So this book shows why I like Cummings. He's a smartass at just the right time, and he's your best friend at just the right time. Well, at least the protagonist is. The book is a semiautobiographical account of his experiences in the French ambulance corps in WWI. Apparently as part of his job, he was to go take care of allied prisoners held by the Germans. He was interogated by the Germans because of some letters he had. The moment of truth comes when he could tell the truth, tell the Germans he wasn't a spy and go free, or lie, say he was a spy, and he would be sent to prison. Just to be a smartass, he lied and was jailed in the Enormous Room. I have to love the smartassedness. While in the jail, you go through a process of growing to like this person and find out how sensitive he is to all the horrible things that are going on there.
So I would recommend this book over Hemmingway's WWI book, which I can't even remember the name of, but which I liked as well. Also if you are looking for a book of poetry and enjoy challenges, check out Is5, by EE Cummings. Try and figure out that puzzle and let me know what you think.
Has anyone else done any personality testing, like the Myers- Briggs test? I used to do those tests and IQ tests for fun. I think I was a INTP according to the Myers-Briggs. Whatever one is called the Healer or the Mender. It seems kind of appropriate to me somehow. I think it's amazing that they categorize personalities into 16 types.
Of course it's how personality is defined that makes it possible. Are you introverted or extroverted? Are you intuitive or sensitive, thinking or feeling? So that's your dominat trait, your process of perception, and the process by which you judge. All these things we all do.
It's a kind of ingenious way to break down something so complex. It really doesn't matter the morality of the person, just whether they do what they do in an extro or intro verted way, and the like. So do I have a point? I suppose I wanted to do another of my personality and the job comparisons.
Tonight maybe the doctor and the lawyer. I've always heard people say doctors, lawyers whenever they mention rich professionals in conversations. I think there are similar traits to their personalities. To be a doctor or a lawyer requires a great amount of skill and intelligence and detemination, but so do a lot of professions. I think where they get to be similar is that both have a very stong need to use all that mental power to problem solve, be it medical or legal. Also I think each has a need to fight for something, to stand up for someone, or something in a way. The extroverted counterpart to the Healer in the Myers-Briggs is actually called the Champion.
Most of all I think that so many doctors and lawyers are friends with each other, is because they have similar personalities.
In tonight's blog, you will hear about deep dark family secrets that it took me 30 years and a death (this is life and death tales) to discover. It all start's back in the 1970's when I wore husky corduroys and my hair was that straight, thick, parted-down-the-middle 1970s style like form 8 is enough.
I was only 5 or so when the event took place. I didn't know my cousin. I barely remember anything from that age. My family had moved here to Delaware from Illinois. The majority of my relatives lived in Illinois at the time, including my dad's sister's children, my cousins. The oldest one was, Bill. They all lived in a small town of about 1000 people.
Bill was just about high school or junior high school age. He ended up killing someone. Apparently, Bill was a childhood Schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is rare in people that young, but that's what he was. I met him maybe once or twice, and I would have to say that the man was crazy. I was just told he had a nervous breakdown and had to go live at the hospital. That was the story until last year.
I was young when I met him, and obviously would be able to tell more about him now, except that he's now dead. Bill, of course, spent the rest of his childhood in a mental home and then lived in halfway houses of some sort or other until the day he died, which was late last year. After being missing for a week from his work and his halfway house, he was found by a kayaker in a river.
The police said they thought he got drunk and then drowned, or might have committed suicide. Whatever, it's over for him. I spent some miserable years of life, and I am all the more grateful now because of them. But I couldn't imagine living that way, with a disease like that, and never being able to get better and move on.
I think for my aunt and uncle, they found some relief that the day finally came when someone told them he was dead. They had expected this for most of his life, I think, they don't have to worry about him anymore. Oh, by the way, Bill apparently stayed out of trouble with the law as well since that one time. Now my aunt and uncle can go back and fight about his infidelity (they originally divorced over it and then remarried), and she can worry about her health, and they can part this world a miserable old couple, just like every other couple.
Today, I took care of someone who tried to "kill himself". I put that in quotes because it was more of the typical crying out for attention than a serious attempt. From what I've been taught, typically, are successful in seriously injuring themselves if not killing themselves if they are serious in commiting suicide. This person did neither. He did some superficial cutting, and then took some pills and cough syrup. He probably didn't take enough pills to do the job either, but he took as much as he had.
Where I live if you say you want to kill yourself, or you tried to kill yourself, you get locked up on a suicide watch for 72 hours, regardless whether you want it or not. That's one of only a couple of ways a person can be forced into medical and/or psychiatric treatment.
Personally, I think it's a crime to outlaw suicide. I think we should also have assisted suicides as a common practice. There are far too many people in the world. Obviously I agree with assisted suicide only for those who are terminally ill. If you want to talk about expensive, that's where medical bills can really get expensive. Keeping someone alive just to say they're alive. They also aren't able to work and provide for themselves. Not to mention the pain and loss of control that most of these people feel. I guess that's why they call it death with dignity.
Sometimes an occasion occurs where a terminally ill person is in so much pain for so long that they are on constant infusions of powerful opiates. Opiates as a side effect suppress respiratory drive. Sometimes as the pain gets greater and the dose of medication rise and the person gets closer to death, there will come a point when a choice needs to be made. In order to make the person comfortable the person would probably stop breathing. So what do you do? It needs to be the person's decision doesn't it?
Kudos to everyone's blogs lately, they have been very enjoyable reads.
Today, my shift had it's monthly education day. We're required to have like 72 hours of continuing education every 2 years with certain housr on certain subjects, all in order to maintain our certifications. It's an easy day, basically of overtime. I do refresh my education and learn a little bit each time we have one of these days. Plus we get to hang out, and everybody has a really morbid sense of humor, which makes it enjoyable.
The subject for today was OB/GYN emergencies. Did you see that coming? I have had the fortune to take every woman in labor all the way to the hospital without having to help her deliver in the ambulance. Not everyone or every mother is so fortunate. It's not that I'm not trained or wouldn't be capable, it's just easier to let the staff at the hospital do it in case there's trouble, right? (I keep telling myself that, too)
While I'm on the subject, I wasn't supposed to be conceived or born for that matter. The doctor's told my mom that she wasn't going to be able to have any more children. So, in 1970 they adopted my 2nd brother. In 1971, Surprise! they had me. My mom told me that my dad was all proud of himself, walking around like he accomplished something. It ended up just making it harder for him to talk to me and deal with me as I was growing up, because he didn't want to mess things up. Boy, that messed me up...LOL. Eventually I figured out what was going on inside his head and mine and was able to take our relationship past it.
The other thing I wanted to mention, was that my mother had a miscarriage in 1964 before my first brother was born. She doesn't like to talk about it still to this day. I've only ever gotten her to mention anything serious about it once. I don't understand. She would act as if it were more recent when I used to ask her about it, like it happened last year, but obviously this would have been at least 30 years later. I do know that she can hold on to and bury a lot of misery and grief. I'm sure she's never gotten over it. She's never gotten over that my grandfather drank alcohol, or any of a million ancient things. She ended up a social worker.
Here's a did you know to leave you with. At least 80% of all the people in nursing or social work have at least one person in their family who is an alcoholic or they themsleves are an alcoholic or drug addict.
I decided to stay on the theme I started with the last entry. Not indistinguishable genitalia, particularly, but transgender people. Before I mentioned the few people that get raised as the wrong sex, literally, according to the chromosomes. The rest, don't fit that category, and whether you believe them or not, it's up to you.
Well, I've known (not biblically) a couple of trangender women (who were born men). One I believe that she was meant to be a woman for one reason or another, and the other, well that's more than a little disturbing.
The first woman said she knew her whole life and had always worked toward transforming herself. She was always clear and convinced. She never questioned her sexuality or her identity.
The second woman was a different story. He was a man in the college I attended for paramedic school. He started off as a man in his 40s. He was interested in women, as a man. He had a daughter and had been married before. He would talk about his service in the Navy, and never did he mention any sort of confusion or repression of the sort that seemed appropriate to this kind of change. Then one day he showed up to work in the student assistance center dressed as a woman adn asked to be called a different name. He started trying to change his voice and what he talked about, but it never made sense. He still talked to women, but it was still as a man, and not as a confused man in that regard if you know what I mean. Besides that he was ugly as a man, and an even uglier man. My take is that the man still needed to find or express his identity. Almost like he was looking for attention, something that simple.
Here's a did ya know. It used to be that when a child was born with "indistinguishable gentialia" - that's exactly what it sounds like - the doctor or the parents would decide what sex the child would be raised as, and then a surgery would be performed to make the child's genitals look that way. The belief was that Nurture would be able to overcome any confusion and determine the sex and sexuality and all the behaviors of the person. Now, and partly because of these experiences it is known that people are born with predetermined personalities (that's traits and not certain behaviors and morals and other things, of course). It is however things like introversion vs. extroversion and sense of humor and sexuality. Imagine all that.
Now for the bizarre. Some people who say they are "a woman trapped in a man's body" or vice versa, are actually telling the truth because of what I mention earlier with the babies. That's right, you saw this one coming. Sometimes, a child with XX chromosomes was made to have male genitals and raised as a boy. And sometimes a child with XY chromosomes was made to have female genitals and raised as a girl. So some of those people were literally correct.
I was just debating with myself over which topic to write about tonight. I couldwrite more of my personality type comparisons, or there are some more ex girlfriend relationship type stuff I could always get insightful about and talk about what I needed to learn from the mistakes I made, or I could I always do more blood and guts (these are easy ones, but I feel more of a respect for these because they do involve caring for other people). So tonight, let's talk about what everybody else is talking about (well, not everybody), WMD. It's a current topic with the war in Iraq and all that. I did learn about this stuff in school, and I take a class every year on it. I've also done a research paper on the subject. So, those are my qualifications on the subject, I suppose.
Very quickly I want to give my political opinion on the current situation. WMD was the wrong reason to go to war in Iraq. Technically and legally we were already at war and even obliged to go to war by the cease fire resolutions from 1991, but the crap we were fed by the BUSH administration was crap. On top of that Saddam was the same kind of leader as Hitler, literally. I find it morally sane and reasonable to do what we did to stop what he did. But then again, those weren't the reasons we were lied to about. This part's over.
In northern Iraq, 5 to 10,000 people were killed directly by chemical weapons. To this day, survivors and their families and offspring are suffering morbidity rates of all sorts of chronic, debilitating and fatal diseases at several times the rate that a normal population should suffer. And these weren't the people directly exposed to the weapons. And this is all from just one day of chemical weapon use.
Remember early in the war in the search for weapons, when they would find barrels of what they called unusually strong pesticides that fooled most of the chemical detectors. There's a reason why they were there, and those chemicals themselves could be deadly in a similar manner as the weapons they were meant to immitate. Here's how without getting into specifics. After significant exposure the nervous system (they are nerve agents) is stimulated, and the body starts overproducing things. The things it overproduces or overdoes are saliva, tears, urine, defication, and vomit. That's right all these things start happening at once in large volumes. Then you can't breath from too much fluid in your lungs and your heart eventually goes into a fatal rhythm and you die. Isn't that a pretty picture?
Remember this is pesticides as well as certain chemical weapons. Other chemical weapons burn your eyes and skin (those are like really strong chlorine bleach concentrate), and others do some other things but the ones I already mentioned were the first ones and the most popular.
Other than those pesticides that were strangely similar to chemical weapons and hidden like chemical weapons, other things have been found in Iraq. They haven't struck out completely. They found a stash of ricin in a lab of a terrorist training camp that is associated with al Qaeda (that's al Qaeda associates in Iraq for at least a decade). Now ricin is interesting, and extremely deadly.
Ricin enters the body and destroys a few cells, then a few more, makes its way to the lungs eventually, then there's pneumonia, fluid filled lungs again and death. Apparently once a person is infected with ricin, they might as well say their last goodbyes. There is no cure or even treatment, and if infected sufficiently no survival. Apparently ricin is easy to make and can be made by anyone in any kitchen in the world. Just do a search on the Internet and you'll be able to figure out how.
But there's the catch with all this stuff. Despite all the warnings of how deadly the risks are (and theoretically they are) these things are extremely difficult to make and keep, and even more difficult to turn into effective weapons. That would be why terrorist don't use them, even though it would be more efficient and cost effective for them to do so. It took decades and a lot of money for the US government and the Soviet government to invent this stuff.
So, in conclusion (that sounds like a principal), I would like to say I believe in the freedom of Iraq and its people, our troops and the work they are doing. Let's not forget Afghanistan either. I sleep well at night, and I feel safe in my little corner of the world.
Pseudo seizures, liars, and the pleasures of my job.
So here is one of the best (or worst) parts of my job as a medic. I get to deal with people who try to lie to me. It's one of the best parts of my job because it is extremely difficult to lie about a medical condition or fake something like a seizure or a heart attack, etc, and actually fool someone like me. That's wher it makes it fun for me. What makes it sad is that a lot of people feel the need to get attention from their families by abusing the 911 system. That's sad and tragic.
Back to the fun stuff, though. It is basically useless to try and fake a seizure in front of me. To be honest though, I see more fake seizures than real seizures. (It's all about getting attention from someone, or winning a fight, sick emotional and mental stuff). It takes no more than the first look to determine if someone is faking. The rest is just for fun.
There's the drop arm test. This verifies the authenticity of the seizure. If the arm doesn't smack them in the face, they are lying. You can tell them this while they are pretending to seize and then perform the test a second time, and many times watch as the arm smacks them in the face on the second test.
Here's a dead give away. If someone has urinated or deficated on themselves, it is a real seizure, I have yet to see a faker go this far. However I have seen people vomit on themselves and still be faking. It's a lot easier to make yourself vomit. Don't be fooled.
This is usually good for most, because they don't want to be operated on seriously. Call out to someone like your serious and in a desperate hurry while you pretend to examine the person's throat. This is what you say, "Grab me the scalpal. We'll have to cut a whole in his throat, to breath for him, and there won't be any time to give him any drugs to put him to sleep either. Hurry up." They start talking pretty soon after that one. Sometimes you can tell a man you'll need to stick a Foley catheter... well, you can imagine.
My favorite recently is a straightforward confrontation, "We know there's nothing wrong with you. You scared your family, but you didn't scare me. Now sit up, and stop wasting everyone's time." This one is surprisingly effective.
So that's it. Those are some of the examintion techniques to ferret out a liar. These are real techniques that fall under the classification of confrontation (Psychological term). I take such pleasure in these practices. Although these people have problems of a psychologicl or emotional nature, they aren't having medical emergencies, and they could one day contribute to the death of someone else, by diverting resources away from where they are actually needed.
So, does anyone know any police officers? I have had the opportunity to know a few. When I was in paramedic school, I was one of 3 students- one was a state trooper. I have a great deal of respect for her and I like her a lot as a person also. But that's not what this blog is about. Yeah, it couldn't be that easy kiss ass, they're our heroes kind of stuff. I'll be sharing more on this later, I'm sure. The point here is to illustrate some personality trends.
I call this the cops and robbers personality. Cops and criminals are a lot alike. Here's how. There is only a fine line between police and criminals.
A dominant trait of both personalities is the belief that they have the right to go around the law. Obviously, criminals believe this in order to facilitate their illicit activities. But police, according to my ears, typically complain that they have to follow through too many hoops to catch someone, or punish someone.
I believe it's almost the same side of the coin, as it were. Just each person made a decision, or was raised or pressured into a certain direction, that led them to there decisions.
Thank god a large portion of our constitution protects us from our police. That is the greatest gift our founding fathers gave us. Obviously there has always been a trend to get carried away with a powerful position. "Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely." as the old saying goes.
Now despite all I've said, I do appreciate our police and law enforcement. They do things I couldn't. ANd for that I am grateful.
I would like to take this opportunity to identify the pictures in my new header, starting from the left.
Leonardo DaVinci's only known self portrait. Who could be more inspiring than DaVinci? He was a great artist, weapons designer, surveyor, mechanical engineer, thinker, and eventually a loafer who didn't finish projects and got fired and prefered to lounge around and hang out.
The next pic is a picture of a surgeon holding the hand of a 21 week old fetus who he had just finished spinal surgery on and just prior to placing the fetus back in the uterus of the mother. The surgery was an intra uterine spina bifida operation to deter problems with the brain's development. It's a real picture. How impressive.
The third pic is the exposed spine of a cadaver.
The fourth is me.
The fifth is the brain stem and the "ancient or primordial" brain - once again from a cadaver.
The sixth is the cross section of a spine that has a white spot that is the sclerosis in Multiple Sclerosis.
The seventh is an X-ray of a neck where the disks are compressing the spine.
I am completely fascinated by the spinal cord and love the way it looks during operations. If I were a surgeon, I would specialize in spinal surgery. Besides that the spine is so important to every day movement and sensation. I thought I would put the MS picture in there to show how something so simple looking at the end could have such an effect.
Today, about 8 million illegal aliens were given temporary immigration status. This happens every so many years, after the millions of illegal aliens reach such a number. It also can soincide with a president needing to court a Hispanic vote. Pretty bad, since he already speaks Spanish, I do believe. However, I don't care about any of that.
Illegal immigrants are our slaves in the modern day. They get paid less than minimum wage (legally), and do jobs that most Americans don't care to do. It is a system however that benefits both sides. They actually improve there quality of life and Americans get the cheap labor force. Where it gets a little more complicated is on the issue of paying for things like medical costs and other costs. These are costs that taxpayers rarely think about. It's one of those things like let's spend $1 at Walmart instead of $1.50 at the local store, because it's cheaper, but forget that the local store will have to layoff people and the jobs that replace the ones lost are lower paying and also don't pay for health insurance. So, that $1 just became $1.50 or more in the long run. Or did it? I don't know how to actually tell what the actual numbers are, but that is the process.
As far as illegal immigrants becoming legal, I don't know if it would be good or bad. Here's what I see of illegal immigrants. I meet illegal immigrants that have either been in car crashes or have been shot by someone else. I have never met a sober one who was driving a car, nor wearing a seatbelt, nor had a driver's licensce. Now I have met legal immigrants that were not like this- women about to give birth, or someone who was actually sick. I've had the occasion to try out my little bit of Spanish on them. However, I do see a remarkable difference with the illegal immigrants. Someone has always been hurt and someone is always drunk.
Maybe, the legal status would give them the chance to come forward and get a license or take the class to learn to drive or get a higher paying factory job. Then maybe there will always be the next illegal immigrant right behind that one.
To the links on the left is a link to an essay about the issue of what is correct to say and what isn't. I thought it was a good essay. It took a little bit of a unique angle in the old discussion about what to say and when to say it, by asking the reader to think about compare and contrast talk of ideas in different time periods. I suppose you could do it by geographical means as well. What we could say in America is not what we could say in an Arab country, which is stuck in a battle for medieval Arab morality. I also liked that he called morality a fashion. That is a superb point. Racism is certainly a terrible sin in American secular beliefs (although you would hardly believe to ask many of its people). But to travel to anywhere else in the world, popular cultural opinion relies on racism, or nationalism, or some sort of ism that a moral and spiritually gifted person would abhor. Her are the i.e.'s - Arab world- anti Jew, African continent- anti neighboring tribes or anti white anti black (take your pick), South America- they definitely have a pecking order that ends up with the hill people, French hate Americans, Jews, and North Africans. This could go on, but I think you're getting my point.
There aren't many places in the world who take equality of people seriously. As far short as we may come in the US as not guaranteeing protection from discrimination due to things such as sexual orientation or the like, in reality most countries afford little of the guarantees that we do. So that I think is a great point to remember how lucky and progressive we are in our moral fashion.
Every so often I think about some spiritual principles - or psychological principles if you want- that I've learned over the years. The other day I was reminded of one while reading someone's blog. Have you ever been most attracted to the character trait of a person that was also the trait most painful to you? I know I have. Here's some for examples... The most typical one is the Hollywood movie line. This is where (usually) the woman is attracted to a strong, aggressive successful man who because of his strong aggressive successful character is never around (he's always out being successful, ya know). Now that is clearly the same trait that is causing the attraction and causing the problem. I have had my experience with this as well. I fell for this wonderful woman, who happened to be very outgoing and friendly and had an engaging personality. This was great for me. I was on top of the world when I was with her. Literally I felt high. However, there were other issues complicating things, and friendliness and willingness to keep all sorts of male friends around drove me crazy and became the worst part of the whole experience. Before you think I was just jealous, I want you to know that there were more issues going on that I haven't discussed that push it far past anything so simple. But that's for another time. I just wanted to share that little bit tonight.
I would describe my writing, or what I get from my writing, as confessions. I used to write a lot of songs. Those used to really be confessions - anything I wanted to say, any word I wanted to use, any activity I wanted to talk about, or any feeling I described was fair game. It was all casual. It was all novel. Looking back now, it had the same effect as years of therapy. I was a classic neurotic, introverted, self destructive mess with some problems. Now I'm not so neurotic...
My most popular song was called [i]I Don't Love You[/i]. Here's some of the words
I don't love you, I don't think I will, It takes a lot of apathy and emotional denial To be in a relationship with you,
I don't love you, I don't think I will...
I think you get the gist of it. And that's how I got over being neurotic...
There is that saying....I was going to quote it, but I better paraphrase. It says something like it's better to live having at least tried and failed than to not have tried at all. Guess what I'm gonna say next.... not always.
I tried living by this philosophy once. So, I asked out this one woman. She was tall and thin, Italian looking, with a great name, and a witty sense of humor. She said no. She was flattered, but she was already dating someone. Well Ok I thought, at least I took the chance. Later, I had the occasion to learn that the person she was seeing was a woman. Things got a bit awkward for a while there whenever I saw her.
Yeah, I think it would be more enjoyable to have that particular crush than that disappointment. Not only did she turn me down, but I was wrong thinking that she was interested in the first place. Enjoyment....disappointment.......
