Category Archives: mind

PROMPT: Bothered

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Daily writing prompt
What bothers you and why?
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The second half of the question is quicker and simpler to answer. Things bother me because I — through conditioning and petty impulses — allow them to bother me. I neither blame external circumstances, nor accept that said externalities can be responsible for my state of mind. I could remain unbothered by the things that bother me, with enough work to break engrained patterns. I should also note that I could choose to be bothered by a great many happenings that don’t bother or offend me in the slightest.

As for what bothers me, the list — sadly — remains many. That said, I don’t think it’s wise to broadcast the things that get under one’s skin out into the universe. Just like I wouldn’t announce if I had a gimpy knee or a weak jaw to a general audience that might include those who wish me ill. It just seems strategically unwise.

“The Rainy Day” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

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The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
 It rains, and the wind is never weary;
 The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
 But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
   And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
 It rains, and the wind is never weary;
 My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
 But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
   And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
 Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
 Thy fate is the common fate of all,
 Into each life some rain must fall,
   Some days must be dark and dreary.

Countless Pieces of Hate [Free Verse]

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Countless pieces of hate
   Tumble through our days,
   Clogging up our Flow --

Tiny bites of thought
   Pit us against 
   Imagined adversaries...

But aren't all adversaries 
   Imagined adversaries?

 Those who act badly against us
   Are only adversaries 
   If we slide them into that
   Mental basket.

PROMPT: Improvement

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What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?

Realize you have no control of what happens in the world, but complete control of your perception of it.

BOOKS: “Play” by Stuart Brown

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Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the SoulPlay: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart M. Brown Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Why does biology encourage play? Why does it stop encouraging play at some point? Should play end, or should one maintain a dedication to play throughout life? These are principal questions addressed by this book.

Brown explores the advantages of leading a playful life, and he doesn’t restrict himself to childhood play. In fact, the book doesn’t restrict itself entirely to human play, but also presents insights derived from the study of other playful species. One of the most profound lessons from the book comes from a story about a sled dog that has repeated playful interactions with a polar bear — a hungry polar bear, at that.

The book is presented more like an essay or a collection of essays than the usual popular science or pop psychology book. That is to say, it is not annotated and lacks a bibliography. The author sites the occasional book or study in the text, but it’s in the manner one would see in journalism or essays. This approach has its advantages, but the flipside of those advantages are the disadvantages. On the positive side, the author is able to communicate more freely, including the ability to discuss more speculative possibilities than one would expect from scientific reporting (with its usual “just the facts” approach.) Of course, the extensive speculation will be frustrating to readers who want to know what evidence has been produced for the proposed benefits. Furthermore, it often feels like the speculation in question is of the “when you’re a hammer every problem is a nail” nature — i.e. when one is a play researcher, one may be inclined to see play as a panacea for all the ills facing humanity (it surely is for some, but probably not all.) [To be fair, the book is almost fifteen years old, and I suspect it was / is probably harder than pulling teeth to get academic funding for play research outside of early childhood development, and so part of what the book was probably trying to do was build enthusiasm for supporting this kind of research, which necessitated talking about possibilities that were outside the known.]

The book does have a chapter on “the dark side of play.” It deals with compulsive behaviors like gambling and video game playing addiction (i.e. not people who like playing video games once in a while, but those who go 48 hours without sleep and who live in cave-like darkness to limit screen glare.) Much of the chapter argues that, while those problems are real and of concern, the activities aren’t play, not as per the definition presented early in the book.

This book does make a sound case for a number of benefits of play and for not abandoning play in one’s youth. If you’re interested in how play can help one to cope in a world of uncertainty, to keep one’s mind and body healthy, and to maintain or grow one’s capacity for imagination, this book is well worth reading.

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Worlds, Inner & Outer [Free Verse]

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Inside -- Outside...
    Is there an outside?
 I don't know.
 I feel I can breathe into 
   Infinite space.

But how far beyond
   My reaching fingertips
 Must the cage walls be
   For me to feel that I'm
     In a cave of unknown 
       Circumstance?

Starry Nights [Verse / Free Verse Mutt]

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I’m stunned by all the starry nights
   Beyond the sprawling city’s lights:
 Swirls made of so many colors —
   The dark, the light, middling others.

What eternal infinite 
   Exists out there between 
 All those stars?

All the dust and nothingness 
   Of that cold, unbounded expanse
 Dances in the hot shell
   Of my skull.

BOOKS: “Inner Space Philosophy” by James Tartaglia

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Inner Space Philosophy: Why the Next Stage of Human Development Should Be Philosophical, Explained Radically (Suitable for Wolves)Inner Space Philosophy: Why the Next Stage of Human Development Should Be Philosophical, Explained Radically by James Tartaglia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release Date: July 1, 2024

This is a strange book, and I suspect it will be mostly loved or loathed, with relatively few people in that usually broad spectrum of indifference. It’s not strange in its message (which is an argument for philosophical Idealism and a metaphysics consistent, therewith,) but rather it’s odd in its delivery. It mixes fact and fiction, often in an ill-defined way, and it’s loaded with fourth wall breaking self-introspection. I enjoyed reading the book, found it amusing at times, and received a lot of food-for-thought from it (but not without some frustration, particularly around not knowing which were true stories. I suspect this was intentional. Philosophical Idealism being a notion that what matters is our internal [i.e. mental / emotional] experience and that that experience may not have much to do with any external “reality” [and, to the degree it does, that we have limited capacity to know how.] Therefore, it makes sense that a book taking such a stance would eschew the importance of external world “truths” in favor of building mental models that have pedagogic value regardless of whether the reflect external world happenings. The book boldly puts its money where its mouth is in that regard.)

It should also be said that part of the reason for the book’s unusual approach was to make a hard break from the usual mode of philosophical writing, which is often pedantic, pretentious, and elitist. That’s because, beyond the metaphysics it’s prescribing, the book is also proposing a need for philosophy to be a broadly human endeavor – approachable by all, rather than the domain of an elite who communicate in their own special jargon-laden language and argue over minutiae irrelevant to everyday living. Like a number of books of recent years, it’s proposing that we need a philosophy of life that helps us live better lives, rather than a philosophy of semantics and elaborate logic that helps “professional philosophers” score points in a game of philosophy.

A few things I liked about this book, include: a.) it didn’t treat the Western Philosophical tradition as the sum total of philosophy (as many books have.) For example, it explored Akan and Buddhist philosophy alongside the ancient and modern philosophy of the West. b.) it gives special emphasis to Cynicism, a school of philosophy that is usually disregarded as the domain of a few madmen of ancient Greece. There is a chapter imagining Trinidad’s Gambo Lai Lai as a Cynic of the modern world. c.) I liked that it used the last chapter as a way to review in a way that was fun and echoed the approach of the Socratic dialogue. It pitted a scholar in favor of the ideas of the book against what might best be thought of as a mainstream academic philosopher (though he was also an opponent of the book.) This allowed the author to review the book’s ideas in a way that can only be experienced through a clash of ideas. (And it offered some levity, as well.)

I got a lot out of reading this book. If you can cope with your belief in the importance of factual happenings being challenged, you too will probably enjoy it.

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PROMPT: Negative Feelings

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Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?
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A practice of feeling gratitude is extremely beneficial in that regard. Simple meditative practices help one become aware of thoughts and feelings more quickly, before they are fed through rumination, making the down-spiral cycle easier to disrupt.

And, sometimes, I rant. This usually veers quickly into comedic territory and I’m reminded of the ridiculousness of taking human life too seriously, given the absurdity of being primates in pants who love shiny things. (It would be unimaginable if human life weren’t absurd.)