Category Archives: Psychology

PROMPT: Traits

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What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

When a “grown man” makes life / wellbeing decisions based on what others will think of him, one of the words in quotation marks is in question. So, I guess… conformity.

BOOKS: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

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The Creative Act: A Way of BeingThe Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This book offers Rick Rubin’s philosophy of creativity and art. For those unfamiliar with Rubin, he’s a ZZ Top-looking music producer who contributed to a lot of successful albums, ranging from hip hop to the rock-n-roll of Tom Petty. He was a major player behind the Run DMC cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” that blew peoples’ minds in the 80’s. Interestingly, Rubin is neither a musician nor a technologist, and I heard him say in an interview that his great value-added was having an extremely high level of confidence in knowing what he liked. Rubin has a persona that is as much guru as music producer, and this book reflects this broad insight and wisdom.

In the book, Rubin lays out his view of the creative process and the mistakes people make with it, but along the way he offers insight into such interesting questions as why some artists only seem to have one major work in them. While Rubin’s experience is mostly with music (though he also worked with comedian Andrew Dice Clay on Clay’s albums,) his book is broadly targeted towards all artists, and he seems to use as many examples from literature and graphic arts as he does from music.

Rubin does sound a bit woo woo here and there, but I found that many statements — e.g. those that spoke of the universe’s role in artistry — could be interpreted in a way that wasn’t necessarily superstitious. While woo woo sounding statements often get on my nerves, I felt Rubin’s use was poetic and spoke to a broader truth.

I’d highly recommend this book for artists and creative types, regardless of field.

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BOOK: Caged by Brandon Dean Lamson

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Caged: A Teacher's Journey Through Rikers, or How I Beheaded the MinotaurCaged: A Teacher’s Journey Through Rikers, or How I Beheaded the Minotaur by Brandon Dean Lamson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

In Caged, Brandon Dean Lamson tells the story of his time teaching inmates on Rikers Island, finding himself in conflict both with students and with the guards. There is definitely a unique culture to the world of incarceration. I found myself thinking about the Stanford Prison Experiments in which ordinary people were randomly assigned to play either inmate or guard. The subjects’ behavior changed during the short period of the experiment, guards becoming more domineering and sadistic and inmates becoming more scheming and duplicitous than these people were in their regular lives. One sees evidence of this strange power dynamic and the resulting unusual behavior throughout the book. Lamson and the other teachers and staff involved with the school often saw the guards as vicious fascists, but – at the same time — they couldn’t trust the prisoners because learning was never an inmate’s top priority but rather was a combination of survival and maintenance of status.

As interesting as the story inside the wire is, it’s equally fascinating to learn what happens with Lamson outside his workday. The author is forthright about changes in his own psychology as he developed a need to work out his own violent tendencies as well as uncharacteristic sexual behavior. Lamson describes time spent in a boxing gym and S&M dungeon in service of these changes.

The book also offers some insight into what teaching methods worked or didn’t. Some of this pedagogical insight might be exclusively applicable to jails and prisons, but some would likely be of use to regular teachers, particularly in dealing with troubled or challenging kids. Lamson is also forthright about his own teaching missteps and failures, while offering the reader insight to what he learned from those teachers who seemed to be unusually effective.

I found this to be a fascinating book. It’s well-written and thought-provoking. I’d highly recommend it for readers of nonfiction.


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PROMPT: Motivation

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Daily writing prompt
What motivates you?
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The need to break free of the program -- e.g. to be master of fear & anger, not slave to them.

PROMPT: Peace

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What brings you peace?

Being in the now, and feeling – but not feeding – emotional sensations.

PROMPT: Gratitude

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Daily writing prompt
How do you express your gratitude?
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I have a daily practice of FEELING gratitude for this awesome life and all that contributes to said awesomeness. I don’t place much emphasis on EXPRESSING emotion beyond the usual social protocols and niceties. Quite frankly, I think expression of gratitude is overrated. It binds the process up with ego and desire for reciprocity, and the next thing you know you’ve lost all touch with the experience of gratitude and the powerful influence it has on fostering a positive outlook.

Furthermore, when one emphasizes expression, one tends to develop a blind-spot, thinking that the only entities worthy of consideration of gratefulness are other intelligent beings (or constructs attributed intelligence — e.g. gods.) I begin (though do not end) my practice of gratitude with my body (/ mind) and its systems. I’ve been told many people have trouble fostering gratitude when they focus on their body, but I don’t think one really understands gratitude if one can’t feel deep gratitude for one’s body and mind (literal warts and all.) For the body is the means by which one experiences everything, and one can only be unconditionally grateful for it. [For those who have trouble being grateful for body and mind, I’d recommend the book, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominique Bauby. It’s a short read because it was dictated using eye-blinks by a man who developed “Locked-in Syndrome,” a condition that left its author only with conscious control of an eyelid.]

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PROMPT: Good Life

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Daily writing prompt
What are the most important things needed to live a good life?
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1.) Good company; 2.) studiousness; 3.) a sense of humor, and 4.) the capacity to let go of that which has no value.

Hit by a Hard Word [Free Verse]

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How is being hit by a hard word
 different from being hit by 
  a brick or a bat?

To burn, the spark of a hard word
  must find some kindling inside
   the recipient, elsewise it can't ignite. 

If someone points at me and screams:

"YOU ARE SUBPAR AT ALGEBRA!"

I remain unwounded.

[I'd like to say that it doesn't burn
  simply because it's true, 
   but the truth or falsity of hard words 
   is -- perhaps sadly -- not a major
   ignition factor.

 The kindling is a thing that sits inside one --
  something that makes one care,
   probably a complex mélange of factors.

 The truth of hard words? 
   That is an outside factor.]

Even if I were to discover that,
  to the person who issued the insult,
   there is no greater disparagement 
   than to cast aspersions upon a 
   person's middle school-level
   mathematics competency, 

I would remain unwounded. 

If I were to feel any sort of way
  about uncovering that knowledge,
   it would be to feel sort of bad 
   for the person who issued the taunt.

Now, how to burnproof one's soul,
  that is the question?

Jung Limerick

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There was a psychiatrist named Jung
 who thought the Unconscious was far-flung --
  like Sandman's "The Dreaming"
  that you've seen on streaming:
 farfetched and fictional -- with heroes, unsung.

Freud Limerick

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There once was a psychiatrist named Freud 
 who thought all were obsessed with filling a void...
   a void in the pants!
   Though some looked askance,
 and those whose cigars weren't cigars were annoyed.