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Thank you Gretch 😊
This new page may make it easier for many..I managed to access the blog up to today by signing in every time, not a problem either way.
Indeed, thank you Gretchen! It’s a lot easier to load a page with 5 comments than a page with 4,000 comments. Even with a fast cable internet connection, it was taking me almost 15 seconds just to zero in on the latest comments.
Here.
At home the end of the blog page, where I want to put comments, can be very slow to reach, so this helps. It’s the ads which slow it down. At work we must have some type of ad blocker, so that’s not a problem. I’d like to get that for my PC at home.
Phil
nearly every browser offers AdBlocker. I have Kaspersky Total Security. Early on many sites were restricting access in response to adblocking, but seem to have given up on that.
I am moved by this father’s 5 minute time-lapse video portrait of his daughter from birth to age 20. Our closest relatives, apes and chimpanzees, take 3-4 years to develop from birth to adulthood, whereas we require 20. It brings me to tears to think of how caring and attentive this father was to his children’s development. It makes me feel sad that I never had kids. It makes me feel awful and hopeless for how starved for caring and attention I was during my development years, and how that blighted the rest of my life.
On Oct. 30 I wrote about getting ready to exhibit my prints in an art show fundraiser, held on Nov 1 & 2. Having to present to the public for the two days was exhausting. The other exhibitors had the same feeling. I felt overall disappointed with the show. Thinking about it primally I guess I didn’t get the love I was wanting. During the show I felt a cold coming on. The next day the cold got a grip on me and I’ve been dealing with it since, going for long stretches of poor sleep, too exhausted to do much or to primal, and feeling more and more isolated and fragile, more and more empty, worthless and despondent about my life, and feeling I’ll be unable to ever muster any will or energy to pull myself out of the hole I was spiralling in to. In recent days I felt some panic that I’ve forever lost any zest for life, that I’m close to a breakdown of the kind that people get put into institutions for, that I desperately and anxiously need to be loved, held and cared for like a little child if I’m to have any kind of meaningful existence at all for the remainder of my life, but no one is going to care for me like a little child so I’m up against an existential wall.
This morning I guess I felt recovered enough from the cold, and I broke down. You can say all kinds of wonderful things about this therapy, the therapists and the retreats, but what it all boils down to is that we are each individually all alone with the devastation of our lives and how we deal with it. I cried poison that’s been coursing through my veins as far back as I can remember. I cried my truth of being so alone for so long, feeling the cruelty of the love not being there that a child needs to grow up into life, feeling the need for a reason for why life went so wrong for me, then crying exquisitely painful awful truth that there was no reason other than the cold reality that my parents were inadequate, so by cruel heartless chance, my life was doomed to a shattered, short existence almost from the start. After feeling some of the unchangeable truth, if I’m to carry on I now somehow have to find a way go forward despite the void.
The life unleashing power of this therapy is that it got me here, still willing and wanting to make a better present and future for me, where only hours ago I didn’t see one was possible.
Larry, those sound like heavy feelings. I hope you can find a way forward after feeling some of that truth about your life, I feel like you can. Phil
Thanks Phil. I hope I can. Perhaps due to the lingering effects of weakness and isolation due to having a cold for the past 3 weeks, or because I’m facing up to my reality, I feel depressed about the emptiness in my life. Event though I had lunch with an acquaintance on Thursday who I did a favour for, and even though I attended a workshop at church on Friday evening and today and participated and spoke my mind in group more than I ever dared before. People listened intently because they felt that what I said was meaningful. People in the congregation have told me they are glad that I haven’t left the congregation the way some others have given up on it in the turmoil following a congregational crisis 1 1/2 years ago. I hadn’t realized I fill such an important space in people’s lives who are trying to hold the congregation together. Nevertheless, I come home to emptiness. I feel that I have no one to enjoy life with.
In the small group discussions and soul searching that took place in the workshop today, I was surprised and disappointed by how little in touch these good people were with their feelings and intuition, and how little they are able to empathize with, hear and emotionally support each other through the crisis that the congregation has been going through for the past 1 1/2 years. It is as if the congregation has become my token family, but like my real family they are out of touch with themselves and each other, so I am alone.
I wish I was working, not retired, and had the workplace routine and colleagues to distract myself from my life problems, but I guess distraction doesn’t solve them. I need a few people or at least a person in my life where we have a deep understanding and respect for who each other is and want to spend time with each other. I guess if I was a child, I’d feel a similar need for the understanding and respect of a mother who cares.
I notice it lifts my spirits to have you to write to on the blog about this, rather than keeping it to myself.
Larry,
I’m glad you shared about this with us on the blog.
My news is that my wife and I finally had a discussion about our argument from two weeks ago when we had friends over. It was helpful and it seems like we needed that delay before being able to address it. There has been a big improvement between us, but we aren’t entirely back to where we should be. I hope that will happen before we go away for Thanksgiving this week to spend a few days with my extended family. I don’t like the feeling of being kind of like a fake couple, one that isn’t getting along right in private, when we are at such a gathering. It has happened quite a few times in the past.
Phil
Wow I bet she appreciates being able to discuss it, even though I guess it’s scary to do for you both.
Larry,
Well, she didn’t seem to want to discuss it, I guess because of the potential for making things worse, but luckily that didn’t happen.
Phil
at 1.30 a.m. last night I got a phone call from the nursing home.
my mom had wandered around in her room singing a bit, and possibly going up to her table to drink some water. the nurses had heard it but suddenly heard her screaming. she had lost her balance and it seemed she broke her shoulder and was in a lot of pain.
so, Wim, the male nurse, told me he had considered calling a doctor and transferring her in the morning to the hospital, but had then decided to call an ambulance right away.
It was of course a bit of a shock, in the middle of the night, while I had had to take some migraine medication when i went to bed.
I called the emergency ward from the clinic and they told me they had given her some more painkillers and would take an X-ray soon.
I left a message to my brother but when I noticed he had not heard it gave him a call.
one hour later I called the emergency center again, as by then I felt I needed to go there if she would have to stay there, i did not want to wait and leave her there by herself until my brother would drive over the next day.
it would have been hard as I had not had much sleep and still felt the migraine, but I was willing to do it and go there with a taxi if necessary.
but the doctor of the emergency told me she had indeed broken her left shoulder but added he had already sent her back to the nursing home with her arm in a support.
it would have to heal with time, and she would have to come over for checkups from time to time.
it felt like a bit of a relief she was already going back to the more familiar surrounding, so I called my brother and we will go there this afternoon.
at 6 a.m. the same nurse called me to let me know she was back and that she had slept a bit but would need good painkillers.
it will be difficult, the pain won’t allow her to dress or to walk or maybe even to use the wheelchair for a while, and she will have to have a safety bar back on her bed and won’t be able anymore to go to the bathroom by herself as she was doing lately again.
i feel very sorry for her, but well, better a shoulder than her hip, and luckily no stay at the hospital.
Friday she will have her 89th birthday.
she was getting very well lately, active and walking more and more again, so she is luckily in a better shape than if this would have happened one or two months ago.
hopefully she finds the courage and strength once more to heal…
M
Margaret, I hope your mother is able to heal quickly from that. Much better that it wasn’t her hip.
Phil
Margaret: Sorry to hear about your mom’s fall. I hope she recovers from it quickly, but good that she’s not isolated in the hospital, but back to things more familiar. I too have to be very careful about losing my balance and falling.
Jack
Hi Everyone: I went to see the doctor on Wednesday and the results are still somewhat inconclusive,, but it seems that cancer is not one of them, though the diagnosis, is not decisive enough to totally rule out. So! I have been asked to come back again and have another C T scan in January to see if they can pin it down.
There was also, from the Xrays, a sign that there is some infection in the right lung; so I am on another week of antibiotics. Conclusion … for me … these are the result of getting old.
My general feeling is:- not the same amount of energy as before all this occurred and somewhat lethargic. However, I do have a lifesaver in Jim, and I feel really lucky about that, and love him dearly for it.
Jack
Thanks for filling us in, Jack.
Phil,
I am impressed with my mom.
we heard that her upper arm bone is broken just below the shoulder, a spot where they can’t plaster it so the only solution is for her to hang her arm in a supporting ‘towel’, don’t know the proper name for it.
the good news is she was in her wheelchair despite the pain and still participating a bit socially.
but of course it is a sorry situation, she forgets what happened and will have to endure pain for weeks and weeks until it heals.
to sleep there is only laying on her back, in a safety kind of sleeping bag in which she can move but can’t fall out of bed.
I gave her a book with pictures of cats and brief sentences with each picture, the title of the book’ what we can learn from cats’. one of the sentences was ‘always honestly show what you feel’, no idea what the picture showed , maybe a hissing cat, maybe a cat purring and rubbing his head against someones face, with its eyes closed in delight as they can do.
tomorrow a girlfriend will come over and go with me to see our mom, which is very nice.
hope mom gets the painkillers she needs, specially at night .
and still she is so sweet and easily smiling, and showing concern all the time about us, are we ok, do we have all we need, do we have a partner etc.
love her so much.
M
It must be hard for her to sleep without a cast to protect the break.
Jack,
yes, I am happy for you and Jim to have each other!
M
Margaret: Thanks, and yes I feel so lucky.
Jack
Margaret,
Your mother sure seems tough. She goes through a lot, recovers, and is able to continue. She’s resilient, and you have a lot to do with it because of all the support you give.
Phil
A ‘sling’ is the word I think you want for what your mom is having to wear for her arm Margaret.
Sorry to hear about her injury. She must feel so fortunate to have such love and care from you!
L
hi all, thanks for the support.
went to visit my mom with a girlfriend today. mom started crying upon seeing me, distressed because hurting and not knowing why, but she quickly cheered up again, interested by the book I gave her yesterday, ‘what we can learn from cats’.
it was fun while she read all the sidelines of the pictures and her comments on it, showing her spirit still, making us all laugh.
we had hot chocolate in the cafeteria and I asked one of the nurses to try out putting a pillow or folded towel under her bad arm at night to keep it in the same position more or less as during the daytime while laying on her back to sleep.
she said she would suggest it to the nurse of the night shift, hope she does not forget…
Mom is inspiring in both allowing herself to express her feelings and still making the best of life and being concerned with the people around her as well.
quite a lady really.
M
Hi everyone: I had a really bad dream last night and I am still reeling from it.
In the dream, I was asked by what I assumed was Art Janov to join a group of patients (10 or so) to a form of retreat. At the end the guy leading the group (A therapist from the center I presumed, told me that I was not doing Primal therapy and was fooling myself and that I was a terrible patient. I realized at that point it was not Javov since he was dead but one of the leading therapists at the center. I was shattered, but I did not argue with him … then I woke up being very agitated.
I began on waking to wonder what the feeling was in that dream, but came up with a blank and was thinking about it all during getting dressed, washed and having breakfast. I am still not quite sure what it all really means in terms of feelings. However, it brought up the following for me in this order:-
1) Maybe my response to Larry on the blog was a terrible mistake.
2) Throughout my life, I was always pretty confident in life, thanks to my Granny, who loved me dearly.
Except for one period in my life from 5 through 9 when my father would creep up the stairs after we were all sent to bed well before we were ready. Then on some pretexed that we were misbehaving would spank each one of us on our bottoms until we cried. crying ourselves to sleep.
That had a profound effect on us all and in particular me and my brother who shortly afterward started to wet the bed during the night and started for me to shit in my pants. well into my teens. All this demonstrating the damage done by spanking us children for being children.
On regaining some of myself in later teens and 20’s I regained back some of my confidence, which carries through to this day. Now, (after this dream) I am still in a lot of doubt about that confidence. I will do my utmost to work through all this for the rest of the day, AND if anyone is able to give me some idea/feedback (seeing me from the outside) I would greatly appreciate it.
Jack
Jack,
Which response to Larry were you talking about? I looked but couldn’t figure out which one it would be.
Phil
Phil; I too cannot find it so perha[s I never posted it in the first place, but at the cost of it perhaps being a mistake here it is again:-
“Larry: That loneliness of yours seems to have been reverberating within you for the whole of your life.
As I see the difference between aloneness and loneliness, that “loneliness” is suffering “aloneness”, I’m sure you know all this. As I read you, I feel you need to work on getting out there to find a partner to live with, which would perhaps help, especially if you could talk about your loneliness together.
I am aware that you go to meetings of the congregation, AND, perhaps there is a potential partner there. If not, try and find other groups … of say, retired singles. There must be many people out there having retired who are feeling lonely. Of course; no-one is ever going to be able to replace Noreen; but from my last seeing you, I feel you are a very eligible candidate for a compatible partner. Sure enough, just getting out there is both scary and trying, but I feel it’s worth trying out that route.
I hope you don’t mind me putting in my two cents worth.”
Jack
Jack,
It’s more for Larry to say, but I don’t see anything wrong with this comment.
Phil
Jack, just to give you feedback, your comment doesn’t tell me anything that I don’t know.
I should add that it’s OK that you offered your two cents. I want you to know that the more I accept my aloneness, the more real and meaningful my relationships with casual and more serious friends and with family are becoming. It’s astounding to me how I’m being allowed more intimately into their lives. That I’m worthwhile and appreciated by them gives me increasing confidence in trusting and being who I am, though it’s scary. It is incredible to me how much suppressed fear I’ve lived with much of my life, that I’m uncovering.
My intuition and radar drive and guide me in the hunt for a partner….but loneliness is not sufficient criteria for a relationship. In my quest I keep opening more deeply to how alone and scared I feel, and to how Noreen is never coming back to comfort me, while at the same time there are many women out there any one of whom being in a relationship with would exponentially enhance both our lives, if it’s the right person. My strategy for finding that right person is to embrace and engage in my life as openly and fully as I can. That includes being a member of a singles group, and yes, there is a surplus of retired, single women in it.
This morning I have some memories filtering through, things I’ve repressed, of my mothers erratic behavior towards me. I think it’s in connection with problems my wife and I are still having. Why
it can be difficult for me to discuss things with her, and why I usually let certain things go which bother me. This time we had a confrontation, but we should be able to recover from it. We have more things to discuss, as she’s still shutting me out and upset about what happened, whereas I feel pretty much finished with it.
Phil
Hi Everyone: I have just learned that my little sister has had a fall and broken her hip and is in hospital. The problem is:- there is no-one close by to come and visit her. She was in the process of leaving her current home to be near to her two daughters when she had the fall. Her daughters are 200 miles away and working and unable to come up and visit or take care of her. I will email one of her daughters to see if they have been able to talk to her.
My other sister lives 20 miles away, but neither she nor her husband has a car and that 20 miles trip is not easy by public transport. She does possess a cell phone but I have not been able to contact her using that number, which on checking is the correct number.
All this is bothering me and causing some anxiety since she is my favorite sister, and we are quite close. Also, there is no-one at the hospital that I am able to get in contact with … so I’m left ‘whistling in the breeze’.
I just needed to write it here to get it off my chest.
Jack
Such is our dilemma when we live lives apart from family.
Larry: for me, it’s not such a dilemma as I do have several ways to keep in contact.
However, as I see it, we start off needing mommy and daddy and our siblings, but as we progress through life they become less of an imperative … yet reaming something we desire to keep in contact with for many of us.
However, Jim wants little or nothing to do with his family for his own good reasons, and I know others that feel the same.
Jack
The norm I grew u with, was parents provided for their vulnerable children, and then later the grown children provided for aged parents. Amazing, too, how it was the norm for folks in their 90’s still independent in their own homes. Now that 60 is becoming the new 90, the nursing home industry is rampant, folks often placed 100’s of miles from their home communities.
Jack,
even if your sister does not have her personal phone line in her hospital room, you should be able to talk to her if you call her ward, by asking the reception desk helper to put you through, and often the nurses pass on their phone for a little while to the patient in these cases.
minimally they should pass on a message to her from you.
good luck, M
Margaret: Thanks for the info, but I got in touch with her daughter, my niece, and am now being kept up to date.
Jack
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
We’re traveling today and having Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I wasn’t feeling any enthusiasm for this in the past days, except for having time off from work. But now I am looking forward to seeing my extended family and we’ll be talking about fun things like impeachment and the upcoming democratic primaries, but usually nothing personal. It’s OK, that’s how they are.
Phil
I was of the impression that it’s dangerous to discuss politics at family gatherings if you want to try to have a happy time together.
Most of us are in agreement. I wouldn’t discuss those things if it could lead to an argument. My uncle will hardly talk about anything else. Well, he also likes history,
but that gets old for me.
Phil
Larry: Not in my family, since we all loved the argument, and it was encouraged by my father in particular. He felt it kept us all on our toes, and it was NEVER unpleasant, as I remember it. We did this with religion, politics and some other factors of our current lives as of then:- like who we wanted as friends, and playmates
Jack
Phil: I find this holiday in the US to have lost its original intent. As I understand it; some of the earlier settlers were very grateful to the native Americans for their survival.
As I once noted at a ‘thanksgiving’ retreat I asked where was the native American to give our thanks too.
My asking drew a blank.
Jack
How the West won the Cold War
Daniel: My gut tells me the West did not win the cold war; the east (Russia), lost the cold war. Mainly as a result of the Bolshevik revolution finishing up in the hands of Stalin.
What it showed in that clip, was the Rusian folk dancing that originated in France, got transposed to Russia, perfected by Balle Russe (Diagalev), then the west took it up, calling it Ballet.
Had Stalin not been so paranoid he could have actually eventuated the ultimate goal of Marx’s communism. He Stalin stalled it on his inauguration.
All this put civilization back many decades, that I sincerely contend the next generation yet to be born, will protest, and eventually achieve that ultimate goal … where each of us individually will achieve total sovereignty of ourselves and FREEDOM. As of the moment; it is not comprehended.
Beware … it on its way.
Jack
Astute, Jack
Daniel: Did the west actually win the ‘cold war’? I’m not sure we did. Seeing what is happening globally, I see disaster for humanity … primarily because we have wars … hot or cold.
Jack
Received an ad presented on what appears to be letterhead for this page. Gretchen is this valid?
David Hardy, Primal Class of 86/87 (:
ahh , finally got my wordpress Public ID to change; now I need updated photo, I’m again clean shaven.
Phil,
happy Thanksgiving to you too, and to everyone else.
hope the family gathering is nice, I heard there is a lot of snow in the US .
yesterday I was at my mom’s birthday with my sister, and will go tomorrow again with my brother and his girlfriend.
the head nurse told me they have to be very vigilant with her, specially during the nights.
despite the fixation precautions as a kind of sleeping bag and a bar on the side of her bed to prevent her from falling, she still makes attempts to get out of the bed, even with her broken arm/shoulder, not in a cast. they found her once already with her two legs dangling over the bar on the side of her bed, which would be a pretty high fall.
they do what they can, checking on her regularly and helping her to the toilet before going to bed and when she asks for it at night.
during the day she is in a wheelchair, sometimes with the sling, sometimes without as she does not like it and refuses it. the knot on the back bothers her at night as well, so sometimes she sleeps without.
it is amazing with all of that she does fairly well in remaining active and curious.
also it was a relief to watch her get out of and back in the wheelchair with the use of one arm and the help of one nurse without too much pain.
but i got the impression they give her stronger painkillers now as her voice was more soft and her words a bit as if she had drunk sometimes.
on the other hand sometimes she brought up persons she usually does not even remember. ha, she must be somewhat stoned I guess with the painkiller.
she is allowed to have one strong one a day apart from the usual paracetamol.
I tend to think it would be best they give it at night but I cannot control it all of course and must trust their judgments sometimes.
but I got angry yesterday as she was in her room when we arrived, in her wheelchair but dressed almost in summer cloths, the window half open and the heating off, it was cold in there and drafty and her hands were ice-cold.
I have told them repeatedly to dress her warmer, but those nurses sometimes go by their own perception, forgetting they are busy and the patients sit still.
Sigh…
but well, so far so good, I am still very proud of my mom and about the way she copes making the best of things still.
I hope so much she can get better and heal and have some more nice time we can enjoy together, outside when spring and summer come back!
m
Margaret,
I hope they can continue to help your mother so that she is comfortable but doesn’t fall again.
Phil
Margaret: It’s lovely that you are so concerned and loving towards your mother, but I do feel it’s better asking her what she wants and why she doesn’t want to be strapped in bed.
I say all this as I can easily relate to her, as I’m in a similar situation … having to get up several times in the night to pee. and do it on my own … my way. Sure enough, I also have to be careful of falling as my balance is not ‘up to par’.
Jim often insists that I do it his way … That annoys me since as I keep telling him, it’s my body and some of his instances I don’t always find helpful. A good example is if my contact lens slips, and I’m not able to get it back over the eye, I have to ask him, and he hardly relates to what I go through and he insists on doing it his way. Sometimes that hurts, then he gets upset that I twitch from the hurt.
Sure enough, I’m no always the best judge of things, but I feel ‘it takes two to tango’
Jack
My indigenous family views it a bit differently from the church recorded story of the etiology of tanksgiving…. more a story of one more lure to death by massacre.
We are back from our Thanksgiving gathering and everything went pretty well. I was sad to see that my uncle has faded considerably and I didn’t spend much time talking to him as a result. I don’t think he’ll ever be able to tell me much more about my mother.. The young people, including my sons, had a great time bonding with each other, and to me, that has always been the main reason for going to these gatherings. Otherwise, they would never have had any contact with my extended family, because we aren’t close.
Phil
Now that my parents have both died, my siblings and I and their spouses rarely get together all under one roof, so my nieces and nephews don’t see each other much anymore and miss the big family gatherings.
Phil: I find a lot of this family gathering stuff to be counterproductive, One is either close to one’s family OR not. Luckily we were a close family (due mainly to my mother) but Jim is on the very opposite end of that spectrum … and I understand him and it.
I contend we take issues about many things, many times that are contradictory to our feelings. Family gatherings are such a case.
Unless there’s some joy in the gathering; what’s the point?
Jack
Jack,
it isn’t so black and white for me in being either close to my family or not. Of course, if I don’t go to gatherings, there would be no opportunity to be close. My impulse for Thanksgiving is to be with family, and I think that’s important. As I said, I think it’s also important for my kids to be able to connect with my extended family. My aunt and uncle include us in their family gatherings, which is nice, since we have no one else, and they have an intact family which properly relates with each other, and they don’t need to include me.
My closest family is my sister, but she wants nothing to do with me. I don’t want to be like her. She’s completely isolated herself from the family. Over Thanksgiving, my uncle asked about her, but my answer is always the same every year; I haven’t heard from her. This year I realized a little better why he always asks. He is only 12 years older than her, so it was like a sibling relationship that he remembers.
Phil
Phil: I see the poignant line in your response:- ” if I don’t go to gatherings, there would be no opportunity to be close.” as the key.
I personally don’t feel that going to these events creates closeness. If one is not already close,, then these events don’t make for more closeness. IMO
Of course, in your case, it’s more than just yourself and as you stated your own kids made connections to cousins and other members of the wider family.
So I see clearly that for you it’s not so black and white’
Jack
Jack,
what makes you think we do not listen to my mom and try to find ways to respect her wishes and still keep her as safe as possible?
she is not ’strapped to the bed’ as you put it.
it feels unpleasant how you feel like having to make out as if you know better as usual.
I should not try to explain this, but one big difference between you and her is that she has no memory of her fall and of having broken her arm. and when she could not walk still, only a few weeks ago, she did not remember and would have gotten up and fallen and broken a hip possibly.
as soon as she was able to she was encouraged to start walking and moving around but you can’t let people with a case of dementia just do whatever comes up in their minds.
in that case my mom would still get into her car and on the road, not only a risk to herself but to others.
I am entirely pleased of how the nurses of the home deal with the actual situation and always check with me about every decision they take.
they love and respect my mom and she feels it and is very cooperative and likes living there .
your feelings about your own situation are valid of course, but well, your judgement about my mom’s situation felt somewhat hurtful.
M
Margaret: I am sorry if you felt my response was hurtful. I am not suggesting that you are not listening to her. Perhaps I’m suggesting that you might try asking her what she wants and then perhaps discussing with her whether or not it is a good idea.
At the risk of coming across as defensive, I feel it is very important for doctors and the medical profession all the way down to nurses that they spend way more time, listening, rather than a desire to nail it all with a diagnosis. I am experiencing just this with the doctors and doctors assistant where I go for health care.
I contend the greatness of Art Janov and Primal theory is that more listening and letting the patient come to their own subliminal conclusions, is the way to go. I feel it is a universal opinion that children need to be told how to live life … instead of letting them discover it for themselves. Hense neurosis abounds.
I feel strongly that your mother’s potential desire to drive a car and be dangerous to herself and others is because of the repression that she got in her own childhood. It is more, as I see it, as a rebellious act, rather than a real deep need to be controlled from doing what she or anyone else, desires (deep down) what to do for themselves.
Of course, these are just my feeling; and mine alone. If it was seen as me expressing my feelings I feel it would alleviate a lot of anger we have of other’s actions … towards us.
If this sounds complex or convoluted I’m sorry again.
Jack
Hi everyone: We are in the process of refurbishing the kitchen with another and went to a company that does all this. We decided on one of their units and another company, contracted by them, will come tomorrow to dismantle the present one.
What we have both realized is the amount of preparation required, and has taken up the whole of this week to prepare for it.
It turns out to be more than we bargained for and is causing both of a lot of anxiety about the process and whether, in the long run, it will be worth it. I’m coping with the anxiety better than Jim, but it further worries me that he’s not coping very well.
He got a short jab of ‘a chest’ pain last night, and that has further worried me greatly.
It seems like we are going to be without a kitchen from tomorrow (Wednesday) until next Tuesday when ostensibly it will all be complete. I am preparing a document as of now, for a check at each stage of the dismantling and replacing like:- water in the rest of our home, electricity, gas and wastewater outlets at both stages:- dismantling and then constructing.
As time progressed our feeling of confidence in the company has waned somewhat.
So! I’m letting it all out here and hope it helps.
Jack
Jack,
I can relate to this. We had our kitchen remodeled a few years ago and it was unavailable for complete use for several months. I remember washing dishes in the bathtub and having everything in boxes in the living room. It was very disruptive. None of it went as smoothly as expected. I think this happens because contractors are more motivated to start new jobs than finishing the ones they already have. I’m not sure it was worth all the money and aggravation we went through, but my wife is happy and satisfied with it.
Phil
Phil: Wow! I hope to fuck that is NOT what happens to us. It’s been a nightmare for both of us and in particular for Jim as he doesn’t have a way to cope like I have.
However, stage one has been completed and the old unit is now out; so we are surviving these next 7 days by having stuff laid out on trays on stands and getting water from me the bathroom. Also while it is out, we’ve been able to get a plumber to fix intermediary faucets to the gas and water pipes, to install an electric outlet for the stove exit fan and for electrical ignition for the gas stove. that will connect to the new unit. Next Monday is the time they say thy will come and install it.
We’ve also prepared cardboard over our wood floor and I have made a list of things to double-check before we let the worker’s walkout after installation. It requires a great deal of thinking and planning since to cancel the whole thing would have meant losing the deposit (the equivalent of $1,000.00).
BUT as you say, for all the planning, things never go quite the way one hopes. Jim’s answer is:- “never again”, but who knows what is around the corner?
Thanks Phil, for giving me the opportunity to let the blog know what going on in our ‘nick of the woods’.
Jack
Hi
I am looking for a place to live and was wondering if anyone knows of a room to rent, sublet
or share apartment in La. Need soon. Please get in touch if you know of anything.
Mary 424-672-5188, email yziryzir@icloud.com
Hi everyone: Since the blog seems to be quiet for a while, I thought to offer my ‘same old same old’ in the hope of stimulating some conversation on the subject. So here goes:-
The interplay between nations is becoming a greater and greater complication due to so-called national interests which often go against personal interests and yet the process seems to be accelerating at a greater and greater pace.
There is a madness to this whole process, along with global warming that is a sure sign that things cannot go on as they have been doing … yet no-one seems to be offering any form of a solution.
I contend that very solution was thought up well over a century ago, but because of a lack of intent to implement it, (except one), it got ditched as ‘impractical’. Then that one got ditched for another reason. Thus we kept the madness going.
Is it a case of “going down the very same rat hole and expecting a different result?” I say yes! … and I’ve suggested an alternative plan to do so …. not that my plan is the correct one, but merely by it being suggested,, others will proffer their own … based on the very same concept.
Ah well! neurosis abounds and propagates itself over and over again.
Jack
On another note:-
The new kitchen is well on the way now, with the old one having been taken away and all the parts of the new one delivered, but piled up in the living area ready for assembly. I was originally scheduled for next Monday, the 9th, but we got a phone message to say now it will be Tuesday the 10th.
The problem is making meals and washing dishes which along with most of the space being taken up with boxes of the new one makes life somewhat more difficult.
It’s bothering both of us, but for me, it’s a case of where the fuck are things that we need and having to walk around all those boxes to get at anything. Chalet living means having minimal space. Then Thursday we got a plumber in to fix the water and drainage system in preparation, and this morning an electrician to fix a new outlet as requested but the company installing it.
Is this all ‘an omen’ that it’s not going to work out? I sure hope not. Jim is losing sleep over it and I’m just so frustrated, and doing the best I can, to express it without causing a ‘spiral effect’.
Jack
Jack,
The news is very discouraging. Here we have impeachment going on, and at the same time Trump and his associates are continuing with the very same behavior that prompted the investigation. And, there are so many other reasons for impeachment, but it most likely won’t remove him from office. Democracies are not working right, that’s clear to me. I’m in favor of a very weak president or prime minister, who would be unable to do so much damage. Capitalism is also a problem, and out of control, but I still don’t think your alternative plan is the right one. These are not new ideas for me, but I just thought to add that.
Phil
Phil: thanks for your response. I agree in general on the point about Trump, and then UK Prime Minister is doing. For me that is a backward step in terms of where I see us, humans, going to start to see us as one species and to stop all this divisiveness, which inevitably brings about all the conflicts, wars and killings.
On the other hand, it is one thing to see the problem, but it takes a different mindset IMO to figure out a possible solution. So far I see no-one actually looking at the bigger picture of humans as one species and figuring out a solution in terms of that bigger picture.
I would appreciate any potential solution you yourself could proffer.
Jack
Jack,
A quick response. I don’t have any good solutions in mind. I’m afraid that although we’re very intelligent, we are no different than other animals, in that we can’t go against our basic nature, which is to reproduce and pass on our genes. Over population is the basic problem, and on the whole, we are unable to have concern for other species and the environment.
Another recent news story is about Germany’s decision to end nuclear power and the problem of what to do with the huge amount of accumulated nuclear waste which will be extremely toxic and dangerous for millions of years. Scientists who push nuclear power may be very smart, but are severely lacking in common sense.
Phil
Phil: I totally agree with all you say in this last response.
Maybe I need to look into why I am so pre-occupied with all this stuff about humanity. So far, I’ve not been able to come up with an answer.
Jack
Hi Mary,
so good to hear from you. i had actually been wondering about you lately, hoping you had found a job back then, a few years ago. it seemed like a very hard situation you were in back then and I felt concerned about you.
hope you find a good and affordable place to live in, you are such a fighter, having managed to stay in LA despite all the hassles.
are you still working and do you have any option of some retirement income at some point?
wish you all the very best and hope someone can give you a hand in finding what you need.
Margaret
I feel beat down and sad, kind of hopeless. part of the feeling is ‘no one would want me’.
the weather is cold and grey, I was supposed to go tango dancing tomorrow but I can’t bring up the courage and energy.
part of that is I discovered a water leak in my kitchen under the sink and it was literally like the drop making the bucket about to spill over.
this weekend my brother won’t come over to visit our mom, which feels bad.
partly it is about her, but when I imagine still having a car and being able to drive over there, it becomes more clear it is also about me being so sad and lonely.
going to see her would in that regard be seeking some comfort without really feeling able to be entirely open with her or expecting real support of her about feeling so lonely and hopeless about ever finding a partner in life again with my disabilities, not to mention the old feeling of not being of interest or worthwhile.
I know it is all the more reason to go dancing, but the water leak freaked me out at first, I did not really want to call the janitor as he does not like to be called in the evening or in the weekend.
then over night I realized the problem was not as urgent as I had feared, the heater leaks slowly and with a few cloths I can keep it under control so far.
I shared this with a girlfriend and she strongly advised me to take action, so I did text the janitor and he promised me to come by on Monday, which eased the tension.
but still the feeling lingers and what could be a nice weekend of rest feels at the same time empty, even while I cooked, cleaned, put out the Xmas stuff, also on the front door, which i like.
I am about to wrap up the actual course when I get the feedback for the corrections to make, and next week will get together with the teacher from the next statistics course to work on the software.
a few busy weeks ahead, which is good, but still the hopeless feeling has me in its grip right now.
or sadness and fear whatever, it is paralyzing and prevents me from going out to dance tomorrow.
it is harder than usual as it is in a new place unfamiliar to me, and I need to get there on my own terms which makes it a bigger challenge still as it is in some kind of warehouse neighborhood, not that easy to find possibly.
but those are merely excuses together with the water leak in my kitchen to stay home.
will have to sit it out I guess, I canceled but added my new year’s resolution will be to go dancing next month.
also one of my cats seemed ill yesterday, so i did plan a visit to the vet in 8 days when I will have someone help me to get there.
feel bad about my mom not having a visit for seven days, but part of it is me projecting my feelings on her, while probably our feelings are quite similar some of the time, feeling lonely and sad and scared…
will just give myself a break for now, maybe the feeling will come to the surface in one of my dreams soon…
feel too overwhelmed with dealing with it all to have access, or to want access maybe.
what I want is rest and peace of mind and if it would seem possible, some happiness ha, but all I can do right now is moan a bit like this message.
maybe it will resonate most with Larry, who has been in similar situations of knowing going out to dance would be the best thing to do while still not feeling able to do so on the same moment….
M
Margaret: I truly sympathize with your current situation and hope things will turn out for the better.
However, I feel confident that you are doing the right thing by stating it all on the blog here. For someone with your disability with sight, it is remarkable that you are able to write and read on this blog. I also think it shows great resilience in you
All the very best and hope the leak is not too great of a problem for you to at least survive it, until Monday.
Jack
There are a number of things currently that if I did them I would probably feel better, even just doing the dishes piling up in the sink. It’s occurring to me that a big feeling reason why I hesitate is because if I did what I think I should to take care of myself and feel better, I would find out holy smoke, there is only me to take care of me. I think that right now I’m in a dull hole of hesitation, wanting someone to do things for me and take care of me. I don’t want to find out there is only me to do it for me, even if accomplishing what I need to do would be better for me. I am getting into a depressing slump. Part of the reason is due to a cold that has lingered more than a month, but I think another part of the reason is that I’m a terrified little boy who doesn’t want to see that there is only me to take care of me. I’ve succumbed to a kind of frozen state of feeling unable to change, which I know is fear of change. Just having to make a living made me have to overcome my fear and make big changes in my life. I don’t have to make a living now and so there isn’t that impetus driving me to make change that I’m afraid of. I find that making a meaningful retirement requires quite a bit of self-discipline, and courage, that I feel short of recently.
Larry: That is an interesting insight in that post and why you were and still are, to some extent, indecisive.
I personally discovered my things about me that I did not like, and were not serving me well. Having done that first part I now needed to figure out a way to change it for myself. That I found was the hard part, now I have to face that hard part head-on. Otherwise, I am left suffering from old unexpressed feelings.
I’m lucky in that I have a partner to share it with. Thanks for putting this forward as I need this blog to keep me as straight as I can be … but it does require effort.
Jack
That’s heart warming to hear Jack, surprising even. You’ve always told us you need this blog for the sake of blogging.
Larry: That was one reason … there are actually many reasons why I love blogging and in particular this blog.
Jack
Margaret,
I hope you can go dancing, I’m sure that would be fun, and help brighten your mood, and that you do well with that course.
Phil
Here we are still struggling with the effects of the argument we had in front of our friends some weeks ago. I felt done with it fairly soon by my wife is still clearly upset about it. We both
have the problem of letting things drag on when we are upset. She has said she doesn’t trust me now, and that makes me feel abandoned and punished, like I’m serving time.
Phil
Phil: From the distance, I see that the problem with you and your wife is something I can well relate to, as being something you have to deal with yourself first, without it involving your wife. Leastways that was the way I had to do it.
Granted; in these types of relationships, it seems only logical that it has to be a two-some resolution. I struggled with that one for sometime before seeing the only way out was to explore what it was about me that seemed to exacerbate the problem, knowing that Jim will be Jim and there’s no way I can change him … but I am able, if I put my energy into it, to change myself.
I hope this does not offend you and that it might be helpful.
Jack
Jack,
I think I probably do need to address it to my wife some more as it involves the two of us. Maybe I’ll try to do that this weekend.
On a different note, I went out to yoga class, which was really good and I need to do that more often.
On the way back in my car I had some feelings about my father, similar to some deeper ones I had the other day. Really about how much I loved him, and didn’t treat him so well, and I have a lot of sadness about that. I’m just having more clarity that he wasn’t perfect, but was the only person I could really count on as a child, all I really had.
Phil
Phil: OK! you know your own situation best.
Jack
the water leak is stopped for the moment hurray!
it took Gregor and Pjotr 3 hours of searching and unmantling chests and water heating system in vain, to then move on to the roof and the little chimney of the heating system to detect where the water was coming from.
a lot of stress as the heating and water was out of order in the meantime and I worried about it not being solved.
but although my bathroom and kitchen ended up kind of messy and they had to come back the next day to put a little roof over the chimney, all worked again when they left.
the visit to my mom was nice too, the whole nursing home was decorated for xmas and there was a Xmas market and nice things to eat and drink.
it was all the more nice when we discovered they sold handmade ponchos there for only 6 Euro a piece, exactly what my mom needed to wear over her broken arm and hurting shoulder!
so now she has three ponchos and one coming up soon.
also very nice was an unexpected meeting in the cafeteria with a long lost friend.
he was there with his family and reached out to me asking if I was Margaret, my mom’s daughter?
it turned out to be one of the two little boys with which we used to play when I must have been 6 to 9 years old, friends of my brother initially as they lived in our street.
I always cherished the memories of being allowed to come along to play football with the three of them, me in the goal as I was the littlest and had no say in the matter.
I specially liked the younger brother who has died in a car accident sadly enough 20 years ago.
but styill it was such a nice, warm encounter with that little boy of my childhood now well in his sixties, after not having been in touch for more than 50 years and both liking it a lot to run into each other.
it was one of those nice surprises that life sometimes offers, and for some reason very uplifting as most surprises are like the water leak, not that pleasant…
M
I was thinking I’m not going to bother with sending Xmas cards anymore. Yesterday I received from a friend my first Xmas card of the season, and felt how fortunate I am to have friends who care to send me Xmas cards. After crying primals this morning about how life veered far from optimum for me very early on, sinking into current and very early kid feelings that “I don’t want to live with my truth” because it is so bleak, and crying unfathomable sadness that it’s taken me more than 6 decades of wasted struggle to finally begin to let go and accept that I will never know the feeling of being seen, held, and cared for by loving parents, ever.. from the beginning of my life.. to the present .. and into whatever future I have left … I now sit down to write Xmas cards to friends who I feel fortunate to have.
With that feeling of the truth of how bleak things have been, I wish to share this medieval music expressing our eternal hope at this time of year for sucour:
Larry: I’ve had the same feeling about Christmas cards, but I decided for the sake of those I am sending them to I decided to do so and am sending out 12. Mainly family but a couple of others,
Jack
I can’t compromise. I can think of many comparison’s, but, succinctly, I cannot embrace a weapon, christianity, used to annihilate and suppress my First Nations family, past and current.
Hi Everyone: Finally, after almost a week without a kitchen we now have the new one installed and so far so good. I like it more than Jim does, but we’ve had some consternation as to where certain things should go, after agreeing before it got constructed, as to which things in which cupboards, etc.
So! Margaret, I am glad you got your leak sorted out, and it related to me, the mess we were in for almost one week. Well! I suppose that is the way things “crumble”.
Jack
Hi everyone: I feel so bad about the UK election and though I am biased since while we were in the EU I was able to use the UK NHS for my health care. Now I will have to buy a separate insurance here in the Netherland when the UK leaves.
That said I also feel that it is a backward step in terms of where the world is going and I felt that the Johnson campaign did the same as Trump in that it was more spin than fact. From my history classes at school, it all makes sense, but I feel the Brits are hanging onto something that has long since gone.
I also get the sense, that Trump is doing much the same with lies making it appear to be spin, and painting a picture that is no longer practical, let alone reasonable.
Where this leaves me:- is feeling somewhat down, and has been like that for me for most of the day. It all convinces me more than ever that what we term as democracy is a system of winners and losers, and I tend to feel this is becoming more obvious due to social media and easy access to it all. Thus I see the division as being more prominent and more bitter.
There’s gotta be another way … a way that is a win-win.
Jack
Jack,
I have been following Brexit and the UK elections and also find it a disappointing result. I think the Labor party might have been outmaneuvered and had an unpopular leader. They should have taken a strong remain position from the time the question first came up. On this most important question they were equivocal. I hope this isn’t a sign that Donald Trump will be reelected.
Phil
Phil: Yep! it has a deleterious effect and I feel it a characteristic of the Brits to want to keep all their traditions … but I contend are not serving them or the country well.
Of course, as I see it, it’s going to take the young of the next generation, yet to be born that I contend will see what all this governing is doing to us as people. It’s much the same in the US but more critical. There are other countries also jumping on the same bandwagon.
My feeling … and mine alone, seemingly, That Primal Theory showed us where the problem lies. Now we need to find a way to implement it.
Jack
Hi everyone: After my almost 40 years of therapy and currently seeing the news via social media and TV, I have come to the revelation, and a lot of reflection, that as a baby until my third year, I was not ever, aware of any sense of the following:-
1) A sense of a deity or a super being.
2) A sense of belonging to any culture.
3) A sense of belonging to any nationality.
4) A sense there was any monetary value to anything
5) A sense of any rules
6) A sense of rule-makers (governments, religious leaders, and all other authorities)
7) A sense of right and/or wrong
8) A sense of any need of competitiveness,
It was only AFTER encountering the trauma though my parents, that I began to have some sense of the above mention factors, Especially after being sent to bed before I/we were ready and I/we just wanted to romp and play; then being punished by my father by spanking.
Slowly I began to form opinions based on these now subliminal traumas. I began, as I now see it, to be driven from my natural self, and feeling the need to go along with the rules that were being set for me, first by my parents, and later on, going to school.
Now I feel I am able to see the world, the news, TV, social media and the rest of mankind in a similar situation, particularly with respect to politics. All the arguments for both sides of the political spectrum, that people are arguing their own subliminal traumas. It’s a sort of ‘going nowhere fast’
In conclusion for me, it’s trauma creating neurosis.
Jack
Ho ho ho happy Christmas!
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmV5ihuOKwsGjzUgj1yyz7D2rlfw?e=j047AA
Margaret,
Plukkie looks very contented there in front of the Christmas tree, like he’s enjoying the holiday season.
Phil
It looks like Plukkie’s feeling better than I am, although Impeachment is one thing that’s giving me a boost today.
Phil
What about you Margaret? How are things going?
Phil
Margret: I personally have a problem with wishing either “Merry Christmas” OR “Happy Christmas”. I just say now “Christmas greetings” and leave it at that.
Like:- for one day to be happy or Merry (presumably drunk), so! that you can be miserable for the rest of the year.
As I see it, it, it’s something for children, because, for them, many have a terrible childhood, so we attempt to fool them with presents; or fairy tales where it’s “Happy ever after” BUT depriving them of what they really need:- TO BE LOVED.
Jack
Jack, do you wish people a happy New Year? In that case you are covering the whole year, not just one day.
Phil: as with Christmas and all other holy-days (the original meaning) I just say:- “New Year Greetings”
Jack
Margaret, I wish you and all participants who keep this blog going a safe and happy Christmas with loved ones nearby.
Is that a picture of your cat? How did you manage to post it on the blog?
Phil,
Plukkie and his brother Pluche are very helpful in adding smiles to my life and by being natural and healthy tranquilizers gladly offering me their silky fur to caress and responding with the very soothing sound of their purring.
I am doing OK, coping with a lot of problems to solve, took the cats to the vet on Monday, very stressful as to get them into the travel cages in time for the appointment and the ride there, but luckily they are in fine shape.
supporting my mom in dealing with her broken upper arm and the restrictions that causes, but she is a good fighter with an easy smile and so far things go fairly well.
today I went to the university to deal with some practical problems with the current and next courses, which take effort and energy but are not ‘insurmountable’ with the assistance of my study mentor.
a lot of statistics ahead, but also a new course called ‘androzoology’, a course about the history of humans and the contact with animals, the therapeutic value of contact with animals and more , a course which is appealing to me as you may guess.
I will spend Xmas day with friends and the next day will visit my mom with my sister, and Sunday with my brother and his wife.
so I manage to cope with the challenges each day brings as they rise, sometimes with painful effort, sometimes fairly easily.
I find it does build up my self confidence though even while at times I have to overcome fear and discouraged feelings, maybe just because of that the process ends up being strengthening. but also exhausting at times of course.
and you, Phil, how come Plukkie seems to be feeling better than you do?
M
Margaret,
Well, I think Plukkie isn’t married for one thing. The state of the union here is pretty bad since we had an argument over a month ago.
Besides that problem going on it’s been triggering old stuff, about my mother. This morning I had some related feelings, remembering how it was to see all my friends had mothers, but I didn’t, and which of those mothers seemed to be nice and caring. Plukkie, I’m sure, had a mother too, who probably did whatever cat mothers are supposed to do. I think my mother gave me little of what I needed for the short time I had her.
Phil
Larry,
yes, this is one of my cats, Plukkie, his twin brother looks 99 percent the same, colourwise, but is more slender, his name is Pluche.
and Phil was as always so nice to help me post it all here.
it was funny as I first saw Pluche on the kitchen table close to the tiny Xmas tree, and used a few cat snacks to get him well situated in front of the tree for some pictures. one of them is ok, his head close up and the tip of the tree showing between his ears. he looks straight into the camera but he is a little fuzzy.
his brother though suddenly appeared right in front of the tree all by himself a little later, behaving like a real model.
no snacks needed for him! a real pro although in the picture he seems to pretend to be a little shy.
with the Iphone I can make out general aspects while taking a picture, but some details have to be pointed out to me by friends, well, sometimes not really details, it depends of the shapes and contrasts how much I can distinguish.
but it feels very good to be able to make some pictures of them, and even videos while they drink at the bath tab which are very funny. one of them, plukkie, used to sit by the running water as a young cat putting in turns his front paws under the water to use them then to wash his face and ears. more efficient than licking, and looking very ‘human’, haha.
as I say, all of my cats brighten(ed) up my life big time.
and their trust and affection feels healing in many ways.
https://dm2304files.storage.live.com/y4pEuy0YlpXK7qi82dj0BgaZCfr9VfgDATZsOb03j43rYUf4j3evKg3xP6fOuSVBp_JHp9fFi2xG-7vAsrLY63BEm0bC8eC3cLDlupwh39U_6kQ1UZx0L9VVnt4OVLGYn6El7CEskxhJ07KnwPb6MS8nZ-oEjzuSnKsqSXpElhW60tnz6ZNr8ZWqKymi2dKtRdeyo-v6l8T6b2WP5O_XckwZwFykqVsuplzJQcnfAfw7H4/PHOTO-2019-12-18-12-54-47.jpg?psid=1&width=463&height=617
M
Margaret: for reasons unbeknown by me I was denied access to the site.
Jak
I went to see a doctor at a local clinic here, about a boil I have on my bum and it tuned out that all I needed was a cream to draw it out, but it’s taking a lot longer time than any I had before. The discomfort of just sitting is:- the main problem.
I feel very happy that I have a partner who is helping all he can (his way and not necessarily my way) Still!! I do appreciate the help he offers. What most worries me now, on almost a daily basis is how would I cope if he died on me.
It’s very hard to ignore, and also; to just accept the moment whilst it all lasts.
I do relate to most of what others express on this blog recently:- Margaret, Larry and Phil.
Furthermore, watching TV and social media on my lap-top also pains me since I am more and more convinced that politics and governments don’t cut it. Not only in the US with the Impeachment, but in the UK with Brexit. Then, of course, there are all the protest taking place around the globe. There gotta be a meaning, and way beyond it, but so far I don’t see the current young generation see a way to fix it. I just hope that my prediction:- that it will be the very next generation not yet born.
“Sorry”, to you guys that get irritated by my pressing this point.
Seasonal greetings for all that read this blog. Jack
Jack,
Merry Impeachmas!!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi-4cXiu8LmAhVKVd8KHf5BDpMQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trendsmap.com%2Ftwitter%2Ftweet%2F1207435016176840704&psig=AOvVaw1gwmNveRldKKDaQIw5bxUp&ust=1576870815476891
Phil: There’s nothing ‘MERRY’ about impeachments unless you too think most are drunken fools … It is merely a show showing the dysfunctionality of government/s,
As I understand it the “merry” was put into the Chrismas greeting, to suggest it was a time to drink yourself stupid while the kids played with their new toys.
Just my take. Jack
Jack,
I see merry as a synonym for happy, no matter the origin of the word. Trump’s impeachment, for me, is a happy occasion, a good feeling, it needed to be done. You seem sometimes to over analyze. I’m assuming you’re pleased with impeachment as well, although as we know, it isn’t enough.
Phil.
Phil: On the immediate scale of things; I do not like Trump and I fear the effect he might have on the world. So yes I like that he’s being impeached, but sadly perhaps not removed.
On a larger scale, I see it as an overall demonstration that for us humans things are amiss.
So much so that I feel strongly that something on a larger scale, than “just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” as t’were.
So much of our general discourse is seemingly always on the small scale of things, hoping there is a fix in there somewhere. Well!!! we’ve been at this ‘small scale’ for eons … and things, in general, remain the same,
Looking at it on reflection things are really much the same. If it’s not a king it’s a dictator, or maybe President, or the Priest, or Pope or some such religious leader, or simply on some God or other.
I contend we need to broaden the outlook.
Jack
I can commiserate , Jack, it’s a pain in the ass….. After acquiescing to taking an antiviral drug for, ” Shingles lesion,” on mine butt, with no benefit after a month; in desperation I turned to my Bear Fat and Juniper, grease. 2 days, effect noticed, 7 days healed. RELIEF.
Ho, ho to you, Phil, Nancy Pelosi is playing Santa by giving us the present of impeachment. Jack, the website Margaret put up I could not access either, it said there was an error. Even so, I did appreciate the picture of Plukkie. Thank you Margaret and Merry Christmas to you and all here. What do you know, Belgian cats look just like American cats.
Sylvia,
This was one gift I was hoping for, but I really want the second part completed too, and as soon as possible.
Phil
Yeah, but Belgian purrs are SO European. Now dogs, on the other hand, have only one language, he said, whilst lobbying the ball back into Sylvia and Margaret’s court (if you’ll pardon the pun), and that is,”Love!”
‘Merry Christmas’, ‘Happy New Year’, and ‘God bless all here’, as we say in County Down.
Barry M
This is Margaret’s picture which is on the site denying access. Maybe this will go through.
https://dm2304files.storage.live.com/y4p4TQ5I8XLqffwYOkQVWdkcYvssGAx_PhkVtBP2LI7pAIjao_pnhKpD4HPMNtmSITr9GRHKaOTuyaoHzCDFqmnanNtEMurVMI797QRC_ZUNWQb5HOAXmvKpr7ty-RaX6KS-U_yNMCfukB1I1yuzZA5b9LsQRxBQVgshCHB1xbMKsVID_Q8pPkj0aN-UtC_WroGpNVaszd1hrNlq4QCy8A3cHnzY-RyySNYVtIKogM65JA/PHOTO-2019-12-19-08-22-49.jpg?psid=1&width=139&height=186
It wants me to have a Microsoft account, which I don’t have nor do I want one.
Sylvia, how did you manage to see the picture then?
I sent it with What’s ap to Phil, so I did not set up any website really.
I tried clicking on the link in the comment myself out of curiosity and went to a microsoft site asking me to accept their cookies which I did not feel like as well, I have the picture on my own phone in its original form isn’t it?
Too bad pictures can’t appear on the blog directly, at least I never discern them in any way.
Phil, it is sad you had to miss out on so much and I wish your wife would communicate more in a way that dissolves the tension.
actually Plukkie was tiny in comparison to his siblings at first, and had pneumoniaa on top of it.
I notice he regards me as his mommy now and in that way needs more cuddlinbg and comforting than his more independent but also sweet and affectionate brother.
sometimes when I gently stroke Plukkie, he gives tiny moaning sounds while also purring, which seem like a way some of his old pain finds a way to leave his systemm.
I am glad I adopted him as well as the little sickly ‘small one’ of the bunch besides his active ‘bigger’ brother, ha, and now ‘little’ Plukkie is almost two times as big as Pluche.
they get along very well and they are both adorable in their different ways.
ho ho ho meow meow purho, purry Xmas all
Margaret, I saw your first post with the kitty picture, but then there was the later post to Larry that had an address that was very long and that said it was an error when I clicked it. I thought it was a picture of something else. Then Phil re-posted that address and it was the original picture of Plukkie. It all worked out. Your Plukkie looks like my cats, the 2 1/2 year old ones. Pinky has similar markings to your kitties. When she was little her nose was a pale pink of a morning and I thought maybe she was unwell, but the color grew deeper pink as the day wore on and then I knew she was all right. She is very cuddly and affectionate. Her sister Oreo is more independent and less afraid of someone visiting. Their 2 siblings are still half wild but i can pet the brother, but not the sister. They were raised by the mama cat. She and the papa cat are a little friendly.
Phil, you know the republicans will all stick together and not convict. I can’t believe how they lie to themselves about what happened with Ukraine.
Sylvia: you wrote:-“Phil, you know the republicans will all stick together and not convict. I can’t believe how they lie to themselves about what happened with Ukraine.”
As I see it all, the only real solution is:- to abandon the idea that we need to be governed. Democracy, as I have said before, is a situation of ‘winners & losers’.
We need a “win-win” situation and it is out there and been there for over 150 years.
I predict the next generation (yet to be born) will see it and demand it and will eventually get it to happen.
Jack
A Christmas song for you Jack!
Leslie
Leslie: I wrote extensively in response mainly to Renee, in the article before this one (2) and yes, for me, it is Lennon’s best.
Whether Lennon was an anarchist by design or admission is a moot point, but in my opinion, if it does come about; it will save this beautiful planet (our one and only home) as otherwise, I see the demise and extinction of the homo sapien and perhaps the rest of life on this planet.
Yes, I will accept it as my Christmas song.
Jack
January 14, 2020
Check out Elton John’s paean to John Lennon if you’ve not heard it. Lennon was shot in New York City December 8, 1980 but Elton John’s song wasn’t released until spring 1982. It’s much better than Paul’s. It is called “Empty Garden”.
I think I posted this story early on in 2018 but it bears repeating. In June 2001 I finished reading “Therapy Gone Mad” about the Center for Feeling Therapy in LA. That center had broken off from the Primal Institute in 1971 or early 1972 and set up business on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. A Primal Therapist told me in person in 1972 that “they are doing the same thing we are doing here”. This was directly outside the Primal Institute when it was located on Almont Drive in West Hollywood (then an unincorporated area).
Well, something went terribly wrong. They began to veer further and further away from Janov’s concepts. Long story short it became a cult. I HIGHLY recommend the book: “Therapy Gone Mad” by Carol Lynn Mithers. It is RIVETING.
When I finished reading it in June 2001, I went into a primal. Not immediately. I got in my little Honda CRX and drove over to the neighborhoods mentioned in the book (above Sunset, east of the Ralphs store there in the west side of Hollywood). The song “Empty Garden” was playing on my car stereo. I played it over and over again as I drove the two miles to the area where the compound for the Center for Feeling Therapy was located. I found it easily enough.
I pulled over and wailed! I wept for my generation and the (lost) dreams we had, especially the primal pioneers. I cried SO hard.
On that trip in 1972 when I spoke with the Primal Therapist (was his name “Bernie”?), I and the two people with me also visited the Center for Feeling Therapy. They SEEMED okay at the time. They were at 1017 S. La Brea. Obviously, they changed. Someone in LA told me on the phone in 1976 that they were getting “militaristic”.
I had two friends in Norman, OK who were bound and determined to go to the Center for Feeling Therapy. I told them of this phone conversation but they were unphased. They followed up on their “threat”, if you will. They found out, first hand, although they came in towards the end, 1978. They did however, join the class action lawsuit and got all their money back.
I believe the egregious practices of the Center for Feeling Therapy, a virtual cult, that led to lawsuits; ironically on Election Night, the very night Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan; led to the California legislature passing strict new laws governing who could practice psychological therapy. Previously, they were very lax. This was probably overall a good development.
To me, the book is a MUST read for anyone interested in Primal Therapy.
A few years later the author Carol Mithers, did a magazine article on Janov and Primal Therapy. I believe it appeared in Buzz Magazine (now defunct). I have it if you want it. I can make xerographic copies.
FRED
January 14, 2020
to Leslie on “Imagine”
John was such a unique soul. A musical genius but much sadness in childhood. There will never be a generation of songwriters like the one that included Lennon, McCartney, Jagger, Richard, Moody Blues, Bob Dylan, Graham Nash, Cat Stevens, John Fogerty, etc. It’s OVER.
Who knows where we’re headed? Lennon stated “The world may not have many years”. Not that Lennon is my guru but I understand the concept.
I think the great Songwriting Era, in our terms, began circa 1920 or so, with the development of recorded music and the phonograph. Indeed, the “right” persons appeared at the “right” time in our social denouement.
However, for me having been born in 1949 and “coming of age” in the 1960s, the heavy action began in the 1950s. Buddy Holly MUST be placed at the forefront because, unlike say, Elvis; he WROTE or co-wrote many of his songs. This is not a knock on Elvis. He is beyond great.
There are so many “fortuitous” developments in life. One was the fact that Buddy Holly left behind undoubtedly his best songwriting on an Ampex reel-to-reel tape recorder, not discovered until after his death.
These songs put Buddy Holly in an entirely different level. He moved from being just a pioneer to an avatar, if you will. The songs discovered (on the “Apartment Tapes”) include “Peggy Sue Got Married”, “Crying, Waiting, Hoping”, “Learning the Game”, “What to Do” and “Dearest”.
The first two are his best songs, period. “Crying Waiting Hoping” is my favorite non-Beatle song of all time. The “Apartment Tapes” were recorded by Holly in December 1958, not long before he would head out on his last bus tour which would end with his death in Clear Lake, IA, February 3,1959.
The tapes were discovered posthumously by his widow and two versions of the (at least) five songs were released. The first was in 1961 on an extended-play 45 with the Picks doing dubbed-in background vocals and I THINK the Crickets playing. The second release was in 1963 with the Fireballs over-dubbed. The Fireballs would have a hit in 1964 with “Sugar Shack” by Jimmy Gilmore & the Fireballs, recorded at same studio in Clovis, NM where Buddy Holly & the Crickets got started.
Remember this also. John Lennon gave the Beatles their final name “The Beatles” in a kind of homage to “The Crickets”. Graham Nash & Alan Clarke did the Beatles one better. They named their Manchester-based British rock group after Buddy Holly himself: “The Hollies” The Beatles recorded “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” live on the BBC and a CD is available. Unfortunately, George is given the vocals when John would have been a much better choice.
The Beatles also included Holly’s “Words of Love” on their 1965 album (in America) “Beatles VI”.
Also, I have thought for years that Paul McCartney’s “For No One” was inspired by Holly’s “Playing the Game”. Check out the two songs. The theme is identical.
And “The Cat Carol” for Margaret & Sylvia!
L
Thank you, Leslie. Never heard that song before; nice artful snow scenes too. A bit sad, so didn’t let the kitties listen to it. Hope Barry didn’t get hives watching it, being allergic and all–ha.
Too funny Sylvia!! ho ho ho
Thanks for Imagine Leslie…great to hear it again
ox Jo
Happy Holiday everyone 🎄and Healthy New Year! 🌞
Happy Holiday Jo!
Thanks for the Christmas songs Leslie.
Here’s another one you might like:
I definitely do like Phil – thanx! Hope you and your family enjoy your holidays!
We will have both of our sons home for Christmas this year – which thrills me – hence not sleeping!!
L
Thanks Leslie, happy holidays! to you, Barry, and your sons. That’s great you have them both there making it special.
Leslie,
as often is the case I could not find the link in your comment to the cat carol, which I regret.
often when someone replies to a mail with such a link, it does become visible in the part that shows above the reply comment of the writer.
maybe it is also due to getting the comments by mail, that some links do not appear, no idea.
happy xmas to all, which of course does not mean the other days will hopefully be mostly happy as well.
I agree with Phil, Jack, you make life more complicated than useful sometimes. a happy new year is just a happy new year’s wish, as is happy birthday etc,, an expression of friendly goodwill.
if you go all the way with your interpretation, Jack, we cannot say good morning either, what about the afternoon then? that makes no sense to me, but well, it is not all that important is it?
M
Margaret: To me, it is important, as I need to be honest with myself and stop trotting out cliches as if it is generally understood, when, as I see it; It’s the cause of so much misunderstanding.
|I don’t wish anyone happiness since in primal terms ‘happiness is not pursuable IMO and can never be a single constate state of being. I wish some people to pursue the route of being feeling full.
So greeting/s are my way, and it is not stressful for me. I have also moved away from “Good morning” and just say “mornin” or some time now “dag”.
Jack
If you want to Margaret you could google ‘The Cat Carol’ to find it.
Otherwise, google youtube music – The Cat Carol.
I do realize your system is different & this may not be possible.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas Margaret!
L
Leslie,
by Sylvia’s reply to you the link showed up and I just listened to the cat carol.
actually tears are still running over my face.
I was already crying from the start, triggered by the loneliness of the cat and mouse and the gentleness of the cat.
then on top of that the sadness of the loss and terrible permanence of death came on top of it. I was hoping Santa would bring her back to life, in vain.
so this song really triggered me as these days I feel pretty lonely as well, feeling the cats ‘save’ me while I also try to protect them…
Sylvia, all the best to you and your furry bunch as well, xxxmas, M
I feel you are a brave soul Margaret. I wish for you love and fullness for Christmas.
Thank you Larry,
actually I will have to wait until xmas day when I go to friends for a nice dinner, it is always cosy there, they are great cooks and invite just a few also pleasant people.
the next day I go to visit my mom with my halfsister.
today I did give my mom a call, called the ward and they passed on the phone to her.
it was heartwarming she sounded so pleased when they told her it was me on the phone for her.
i will call her again tomorrow as it feels hard to have 8 days between visits this week.
but calling helped a lot.
here at home I did my best to use xmas lighting to cheer up the place, works well in these dark days, and hurray, from today on the days will get longer again!
I cooked and made extra fish as a treat for the cats, considered opening up a bottle of Spanish bubbles but decided not to as I don’t like having a drink alone.
luckily I have some nice audio books and having the cries triggered by the cat carol helped as well.
a bit after the first cry I had another, just about ‘no no no no!’ generally relating to death and loss, evolving into desperate sadness about it being so painful and definite.
a peaceful death in company of loved ones seems so much more acceptable than a lonely unhappy or even scared death.
the cat’s dying in the song felt so unacceptable somehow, but now I can maybe find some consolation that the cat actually was not all alone, but had the mouse to take care of and protect.
boy, getting teary again, guess I feel like the cat with my cats being the mouse, if that makes sense.
I was thinking about you, Larry, I know you said you don’t want a pet as you feel it would be an excuse not to socialize, and then I imagined you with for example one of these beautiful huskies and having to make long walks with it, which would bring another kind of socializing, as people, specially dog lovers, like to stop for a chat and a pet.
but probably it was merely me projecting and trying to resolve pain and loneliness…
thanks for the wishes , I keep hoping to find some nice company for (some of) the years to come. it might not happen, but then again you never know, and the hope feels like it keeps me open towards opportunities.
ope you will have some warm company as well during these dark weeks where loneliness comes more to the surface with all the festivities and longing for warmth and comfort for our weary souls…
M
I should perhaps talk a little about the other, not so lonely side of my life. I write here mainly when it might help me to flesh out a feeling on the rise in me, so I mostly write about the devastating aloneness that I’ve been running from for at least as far back as I have conscious memory. I have to keep pushing forward to make something out of my life despite the aloneness, When I do so, …go against the grain of my fear and emptiness, is usually when I break down/open and the feeling breaks out. By pushing forward and reaching deeper, my life is becoming fuller and richer.
I’m on a small environmental committee in our Unitarian congregation. There are 5 other people on the committee, all like me in having a concern for the natural environment. For the past two years I’ve been the chairperson of the committee. I’m not the boss of anyone. They are a group of interesting, capable individuals who comprise a dynamic committee. Yet I’m discovering/feeling that as chair I really am accomplishing a leadership function. It feels like having a primal sensibility and insight into people and interest in them seems to help foster a safe inviting atmosphere where people want to participate and give their best according to their interest and energy. I think our committee is one of the most interesting and dynamic in the congregation. Recently I felt the weight of responsibility of being the chair and decided I couldn’t go on and would resign as chair. But I had a primal, and continue on as chair because it is such a stimulating, rewarding learning experience on this committee.
Through the activities of our committee and other ways that I volunteer or participate in other activities, I’m getting to know new and interesting people and growing deeper relationships with those who I know. The rift that tore the congregation apart almost 2 years ago has brought me closer to a lot of folks in the congregation, because they respect how I remained stable and present and tried to talk to and understand the individuals involved in the rift rather than take sides like almost everyone else did. That rift shattered me because it felt like I was losing my family. It brought up a lot of feelings. I used to think I was invisible to people. Now I’m realizing that they see me as a kind of leader, and that I’m helping the community to heal just by my presence and manner. I’m losing my invisibility, showing more who I am, and becoming closer to and respected by people. It is gratifying and scary because it requires I not run from being me.
Two separate families invited me to spend Christmas day with them if I don’t travel to spend it with my relatives. A single mother and friend invited me to join her to see a live Christmas bells performance last Friday. Two other friends my age, a married couple, invited me to see a play with them last Sunday afternoon. On Sunday evening all four of us enjoyed dinner and socializing at the married couples home. His aged mother died a few weeks ago, and I was surprised to find out that I was his closest friend. A new friend my age who I met through our committees activities invited me to her house party last Sunday evening. She is a painter. Her guests were musicians, painters, singer song writers, and a forester. It was a really interesting group of people and I quite enjoyed the evening. She told me she does them once a month in the winter and will put me on the list of guests to invite to her future parties. Recently she invited me to a small outing with some of her friends. I find her interesting. Last Saturday I enjoyed a pre-Christmas get together and meal at a restaurant with about 40 other people from a singles group I meet with sometimes. I’m feeling more and more comfortable in this group, seeing beyond their facade up front and relating more and more to them as flawed human beings who I’m getting to like and understand. On New Year’s eve I will get together with single friends from the congregation at one their homes, for treats and socializing. I look forward to it not just as a device to not be alone, but because I actually look forward to their company. (I think I will be the only male amongst 10 or so lady friends).
A big change that I recently notice in me is that I am more confident socially can enjoy the company of people a lot better that I used to be able to. I used to always feel extremely unworthy socially and desperately needed constant reassurance that I belonged in whatever social event I was participating in. More lately though I understand that I will never belong to parents who will hold and love me, and that I am starkly alone. It doesn’t mean that I’m unworthy though. I’m realizing that I am a person that people like to be with and it is an upset, in a nice way, of how I used to feel how people felt about me. I erect fewer walls and instead let people in more for who they are. I’m noticing in a way that I didn’t before, that all of my friends are flawed, that they all harbour some kind of pain that cripples them in some way, that they are trapped in. I feel sad that they can’t work through their pain like I can, being that they aren’t getting primal therapy.
Take every advantage that you can to progress through this therapy. Very, very, very very few people get the opportunity to.
I hope you all are able to enjoy some time with friends and family in the days ahead.
Larry: You wrote:- “… band understand the individuals involved in the rift rather than take sides like almost everyone else did.”. That sounds like a great insight and one that I had about ‘conflict’ between people.
We miss so much IMO if we are not able to see how and perhaps why others tick. It’s all part of a grander scale for me, in that I find co-operating with others, way more fascinating and joyous than ‘competition’, which at best, gives a short moment of gratification about winning, or the opposite, feeling bad about losing.
Good to read about your chairmanship also. It seems to me you enjoy ‘congregating’ the most gratifying.
Jack
Larry: In quoting you the first slipped in a “b” unintentionally … sorree.
Jack
Indeed I do Jack. I think I always did but it hurt too much so I socialized minimally and carefully. These days it doesn’t hurt as much, after almost 4 decades of primalling – and 1 decade of retreats that accelerated the healing.
Larry: Great.
Jack
Larry,
It does sound like you have a lot of good things going on, despite the struggles you sometimes report.
Phil
Everyone: There is something going on in the world that is bothering me and I feel more and more people are getting very concerned about it also. With protest in many counties and governments clinging desperately onto power, through policies that apparently appeal to their base, mostly from slogan demanding more military spending to protect them from invasion, where, for the most part, they are not being threatened.
Then the assumption that- ‘to have faith’ among many people especially the young who see religion as just another form of authority, based on scriptures supposedly sacred, but actually written by fellow neurotics (sinners in the case of Christian).
The Evangelical magazine started by Billy Graham is now calling Trump to be immoral. Yet those evangelical voters are not lining up with the calls of that Magazine. Something is going on in the minds of many people, hoping desperately there is some solution and as a consequence swinging from right to left and then back again from left to right: political ideologies.
Why this troubles me is because I see danger ahead and not too far into the future. There’s Global warming, There’s Brexit that will affect me greatly, and then there’s Trump, who, if he gets re-selected, will feel he’s got ‘carte blanche’ to do what he feels like doing … and the rest of us ‘be damned’, and that includes others in different countries.
Then there are the new Nobel economic winners (man and wife) working on eliminating poverty when the very exchange system (economics) is the very cause of that poverty. Yet they don’t see that way. It is very core of economics that is causing it
All these protests I see as a subliminal responses to old pain. Yet Primal theory is not being promoted.
Maybe it’s just me …………..
Jack
Larry,
thanks for sharing this side of your life with us as well.
it is inspiring how you kept making your social circle bigger and better and how you are able more and more to enjoy it.
M
Thank you Margaret. I feel that, from pretty much the beginning of my life, circumstances robbed me of the fuller life I should have had. Now that we have access to this therapy, I don’t want to go to my grave not having tried to recoup as much of the kind of life I should have had. I feel lucky for what I have, yet the status quo just doesn’t feel sufficient, and my experience of this therapy is that gradually over time life experience does keep getting deeper and fuller for me, so I can’t give up trying. That my life gradually is becoming more satisfying takes the edge off of my big regret that I’m running out of time. I think progress would be harder to achieve without this blog. I’m glad to know you, my fellow bloggers, who are on the same course.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all of you (and a happy Hanukkah to Patrick, wherever he is).
Daniel: I suspect he’s reading it, or worse still, will make him more determined to see the divisiveness between all us humans.
I am not sure that Jew Jesus, ever existed and was more a wish myth by those Jews lead by Jesus, who broke with the then orthodox Judaism. Then why Abraham broke away for worshipping those celestial things they/we saw in the skies. But I gather before all that, it started with creating totem poles as something to worship … or blame.
Meantime I hope the season brings some goodies for you. Daniel; and to everyone else as well … BUT; if not, then I hope at least I/you can feel it.
Jack
What Jack, no wise guys riding their camels across the seas ?; no Bethlehem Starbucks ??? (:
David: Correct … I don’t see “wise guys riding their camels across the seas …; no Bethlehem, or Starbucks either.
But a great excuse to take a day or two, from normal slavery (work). I sure enjoyed it as a kid and no school, then with all the parties and then full stockings and then on coming downstairs, to see a table full of toys laid out for each of us.
In adult life, it was a great excuse to have a big meal and go out to some gay bar to meet others and whoop it up.
Jack
Yep, the only SAINT, whose existence and worth I do not question. That may have kept me alive in the years beyond my failed 8 year old attempted suicide.
My happiest years, with children, including creating a small wonderland for xmas, the 20′ fir trees; bent on them never experiencing my childhood horror story.
Thanks Jack. I see the scare is behind you, that you’re up and about. Looks like you’ll be burying us all.
Not sure about Jew Jesus, but Mary with her “my son is God” is truly a great original Jewish Mother.
Daniel: Now that I am a post formal therapy person; I see almost daily the entanglements we neurotic humans get into. I’ll list most of them here, but I’m not expecting agreement, but just rather putting it out there:-
The nature of thinking, religion, culture, education, and yes,, sport, art, science, medical practices, and especially philosophy.
No other creature practices any of them; even though some people relate our practices to animals. I contend it is due to our neurotic thinking and conceit…
I wrote a book to that effect and will send you a free e-copy of it if I have your email address. Mine is. jackwaddington@yahoo.com.
I contend it our ‘neurotic needing’ these myths is what drives us into us, into a great deal of our human problems
I doubt these feelings are what is keeping me alive and I sure don’t want to bury or cremate any of you. I do like life, but I am beginning to see that hoping for a long life is not necessarily a good thing. It depends on how I feel (and perhaps suffer) as I grow older.
On the last line you say:- “Not sure about Jew Jesus, but Mary with her ‘my son is God’ is truly a great original Jewish Mother.” My partner says “Mary Christmas”. he has a point.
I had a doctor friend some years ago, who say many girls come in wanting know what was happening to them, and he said simply:- “You are pregnant”, to with the patients would say “but I have never had sex with any boy”, then he’d reply- “Well! I happened once before”.
We’re so full of so many myths going all the way back to ‘totem pole worship’, but to what effect? I suspect everyone knows mine.
Jack
It seems many peoples had identical stories, creation and redemption, primitive and sophisticated. The complete ‘jesus,’ fable is told in a Persian poem, 5000+ bc. These fables, and compendiums of fables tell much about their time, and the development of the peoples. I wonder if this got replaced by popular music. Certainly music of the late 30’s and early 40’s, and across the genres, questioned children being chattel, and the effects of brutality and drunkenness. Tear evoking , ” dead kid,” were popular. My mother listened to them, often sobbing; but still beat me, near to death sometimes. christmas day was a truce. Although it was always painful, I’d never get what I asked Santa for from the Sears catalogue. Right now that old pain settled in, heavy chest and constricted throat, tired, weak, fear, something familiar about it; it’s like it’s impossible to take it in, understand, I’m focused on trying to understand, and being very quiet, trying not to be seen. At 73 I still don’t ask for anything, for help, and , ha, elicit that stable of feeling symptoms when I don’t. So many threads making up that story.
David: It seems to me you are somewhat on the same wavelength when it comes to all these religious rituals and myths.
It ought to be a day for children … and why not call it children’s day. Sure enough they/we need/ed more than just one day. I should have been all 365 of them and 366 on leap years.
It sounds like you went through hell when you were so young. How did you fare with your kids and are they willing to tell you what kind of father they felt you were?
Ah well! hope the day with your great-granddaughter went well.
Jack
it was good, Jack.
Why happy Hanukkah only for Patrick? What about the rest of us?
Hey Phil, it was kind of a joke. But, Happy Hanukkah to you and also to all the rest of the bloggers. I’ll be thinking of you as I light my (4th) Menorah candle tonight.
Our two sons arrived on Friday for the holidays and I’m enjoying having them around. They both have a lot of things going on and make the house lively. It reminds me of when they were still kids living with us, and everything I went through around Christmas. to keep them happy. I don’t remember anything badly going wrong.
Apart from that, the holidays arriving bring up other big feelings for me. I remember many happy Christmas’s from the distant past, my childhood, which is long gone. There were some difficult ones too, but the good ones are the ones that tend to bring up feelings. Sadness for no longer having my childhood family. With the progress I’ve made now, I think I would better appreciate and enjoy what was going on, and what I had at that time, if I was able to do it over. It’s sad that’s all done with and my parents are also long gone.
Phil
That is regretful and sad that it’s all done with. I know a similar feeling.
I’ve seen friends simply self destruct after the death of a parent. All hope to resolve shit dies,too unless they have the gift we all found, Primal Therapy. After PI an occasion arose when I confronted my father about his disappointment and disdain for me. I felt sick after, It did not help me and it hurt him.
Just saw the last part of a documentary about indigenous people in Canada living in extremely poor housing conditions in the middle of large industrial zones exploiting the richnesses of oil and gas etc. on what used to be their land.
many of the women and girls just disappear and there waas a very moving interview with a boy who lost his mom that way when he was ten. I think the documentary was by Louis Theroux but I was not quite sure, it was definitely his style.
then he went to Vancouver and interviewed an ex addict social worker on the immense problem there of drug addiction to opioids and more specially the 40 times stronger than heroin synthetic medications that also form a huge problem now in the US.
he mentioned the rate of overdoses in the US now being higher than the deadly car accidents or the gun shot deaths.
he filmed in Vancouver in a volunteer center offering a safe place to inject drugs, clean needles and people ready with oxygen or medical assistance when overdose threatened.
they had already intervened and prevented more than 1000 overdoses that way.
one of them just almost occurred when they were filming, and Louis, if it was him, was very affected emotionally and impressed with that initiative and what they managed to do.
documentaries like this really matter, I admire the work and emotional and mental investment and the eye opening and hopefully useful effect they can have on everyone seeing them, specially politicians and people working in places where they can initiate changes for the better.
M
I just finished reading a newly published book titled “From the Ashes” written by Jesse Thistle, a Metis-Cree man born in Saskatchewan, Canada, who after childhood grew into drug addiction and homelessness, until in his 30’s he pulled his life together and currently is an assistant professor. Because it is a memoir of his troubled life, it is a difficult read but one that has changed me in that I find myself still thinking about his life. I’m giving the book as gifts to some of my relatives. I’m unsure how well it will be received because I feel that they don’t like to look at the disturbing side of life that is right under our noses. Nevertheless the book is well written and kept drawing me in to read more. To know that his life would eventually turn out better than it was helped me to keep on reading through all the disturbing bits.
Speaking of books, here’s one with an interesting title. I haven’t read the book so I don’t know if it’s any good*, but it shows how the Primal Scream, though written 50 years ago, became part and parcel of current culture.
* It seems to argue a connection between the sexual revolution and identity politics, which on the face of it is an interesting connection to make.
Daniel: I checked to see what book you were referring to … to no avail. I doubt I would read it either unless I could get a free download of it.
My take is that Janov had a very powerful message and became his book became a ‘best-seller’ as a result of it, but because of factors not yet obvious, I suspect the public out there, got a sense of what he was saying and implying, but for reasons of how “neurosis” gets entrenched, it was left as some 70’s fad.
However, I feel strongly that the message remains there in the subconscious and will eventually get revived … Sadly, it could be someone that does not even acknowledge Janov. Should that happen, it would be antithetical to Primal theory.
Jack
I think that the expression Primal Scream is very evocative. I recently read a piece about Trump’s tweets, and the writer said that the ALL CAPS portions of his tweets are his primal scream. I liked that. I liked that not only because it was an apt and evocative metaphor for Trump’s states of mind, but also because I was glad to see this lovingly familiar phrase alive and well. And, I also got that strange intoxication of, “well, here you go talk about the primal scream, but I actually got to do it”. I liked that about myself.
Personally, I’m not sure whether the decline of PT (along with other psychodynamic therapies) is a bad thing, because it would mean there is now no prestige in it, no money, no large attentive public, no glamour. And since there are no prizes to be won you’ll practice or apply for it only if you love it, if it engages you somehow, and that will free both practitioners and patients to keep on figuring what it is and what is it good for.
PT customarily shielded itself from the outside and went it alone. Perhaps for good reason. Today, however, one can’t go it alone. One has to talk to other fields (sociology, anthropology, history, literature) and to critics, patients, or anyone else who is interested and can open it up. I’m not familiar with the details but I think Janov tried to do that somehow but wasn’t very successful, although, If I remember correctly, Gretchen mentioned once that Janov wasn’t trying to make friends in the intellectual world.
Daniel: A very interesting take; but I see it all a little differently. On Trump’s all caps emphasis,, I agree … the guy is screaming, but he knows not why.
The title “The Primal Scream” sure was evocative and was what drove me to want and read the book. However, I felt just after reading the introduction, (albeit that I had had one such event prior to knowing or reading the book), it was the discovery that was the major breakthrough. I feel that is not emphasized enough, by anyone outside of primalers.
If I am correct, then it makes sense why most other mental health professionals never took to the therapy, nor the medical profession either, since, in its own way, they saw it as some break away from Freud, and those that followed Freud.
It is my reason, it was the greatest DISCOVERY mankind ever made, OR will ever make … reason:- we discovered something very fundamental about ourselves:- the ability to re-live all those old painful and devastating feelings. Whether or not, the therapy is effective, becomes subjective. Does it CURE neurosis?
We intellectually, spend more time responding to the effectiveness of therapy, rather than looking into the discovery and further, looking into the theory that Janov developed afterward. It was just that, that made Janov a genius IMO.
My suspicion is that the Primal revival will not come out of psychologists,, but rather from outside forces making life difficult, and the people protesting and NEEDING a way to live, relatively contentedly and through nature. Some of that, as I see it, is happening right now, with all the protest, and governments after increasingly seeing that even repression of its people, is not working out.
Jack
Margaret: That story in the documentary really: disturbs me to the point of being so angry that some humans are doing to other humans, and especially the disappearance of women. It is lovely that there are some people and organizations who are doing their best to help them, but for me, it’s attacking the problem from the wrong end.
We ought to be treating the people that are committing these horrors or better still making sure that the babies of now, are getting what they need and being unconditionally loved. Thus being able to retain all their human feelings and sensitivities, such that they would not be committing these horrors.
The same applies to rape and the notion for many men that women’s bodies are there for the ephemeral enjoyment for those men, committing these atrocities against women…
And on and on and on, taking land from the indigenous peoples. We Brits did so much of that around the planet. Fuck fuck and fuck!!!
Jack
Gretchen, I found the new page, or, it found me, I’m totally incompetent with electronics gadgetry.
I’ve been crying this morning…I don’t know if I’ll ever see my mummy and daddy again..I’m alone somewhere..I don’t know when mummy is coming back…I’m in hospital…I’m on my own….it’s agony….
This Christmas is more triggering, I’m actually around family and people that love me, and I notice I’m anxious when any conflict or discomfort arises in their/my interactions. It’s tricky to navigate the old feelings and the present. I strive not to placate, I fear that I/they won’t be loved anymore. My usual daily life is usually devoid of interpersonal dialogue and contact, so the current situation is making me more aware of what goes on with me.
My hosts have left early to be with their grandchildren when they open their presents. I’m due to join a large family gathering later. Hence I’m alone right now, and that feeling came up.
That is interesting Jo. Thanks for sharing that. What you said struck a chord in me, that your usual daily life is usually devoid of interpersonal dialogue and contact. For me the lead up to Christmas and the anticipation of being with my family felt more Christmassy than does the actual being here with them on the eve of Christmas. I don’t have any opportunity to be alone and see what feeling might arise, so I just have to be mired down in whatever the feelings are until Dec 30 when I get back to my home, alone.
What seems to be troubling my consciousness and interfering with my enjoyment of this Christmas while I spend more time here in daily close physical contact with people than I normally do, is that a big chunk of my life is lived and over and with it are gone opportunities for life experiences such a being a parent or taking on adventures that require a robust youthful energy that I feel I don’t have as much of lately. In other words, I have a sense of my life in decline in that the window of life opportunities once open to me has closed down by several degrees.
Also I feel sad that with the brother and sister-in-law with whom I am staying, I cannot be myself. Furthermore, for more than a month something is causing my breathing to feel laboured and I’m mystified as to whether the irritant is emotional or physical. I have a suspicion that I have a mild but irritating upper respiratory tract infection or series of them that has lingered for more than a month. On top of all that, I think I’m becoming conscious that uprooting my life and moving to live nearer to my family won’t fill my feeling of emptiness. The question of whether to move nearer to family or stay in the city and community I’m currently in, far away from them, seems to be settling on staying where I’ve been living for the past 25 years. Making the decision causes me distress because it closes the door on options, but helps me to confront and do something about feelings of emptiness past and present in my life where I live and call home.
It was good for me to write this down and bring it into better focus for me, before the day begins this Christmas morning.
Larry: I also feel, you writing it all here is a great help, it sure is for me.
Something as simple as a blog where one can attempt to be one’s self is such a gift.
Jack
That choice of uprooting where you live to be near family comes up for me too sometimes Larry…family is a pull…then I get to realise old feelings (of wanting to be cared for) are involved, and I remember that I’ve built a real life where I am, which is as good as can be so far.
Jack, I think you’re mistaken in assuming the medical and psychological establishments was Freudian. I also think, as I argued here before, that Janov and PT are not Freudless, even though there are different emphases and conclusions.
On your second point, PT may have been the greatest discovery ever for us personally, but you can say that only because we were born into a time were many more important and far reaching discoveries had already taken place. For example, just in the field of health: disinfection, antibiotics, vaccination, soap and sewage have contributed and continue to contribute daily to public health way more than PT ever will. They are surely “greater” discoveries and developments for mankind.
That being said, what psychotherapy can help us find and understand – and medicine and technology cannot – is how to live.
Daniel: My understanding of Janov was:- he was trained as a Freudian and practiced it until he discovered ‘re-living’. He acknowledged Freud was a genius.
You state:- “On your second point, PT may have been the greatest discovery ever for us …” I did not say PT (assuming PT is an acronym for Primal therapy). I said (or meant to say) the discovery was:- the ability to re-live forgotten events in our life. Primal therapy was Janov’s creation after making that discovery … of the ability to re-live the past, as opposed to merely remembering it, AND to re-live moments in our lives when those moments had to be relegated to that area of the brain we had almost no access to:- the subconscious. We primalers now know it’s possible like- pre-birth, the actual birth, and many more moments in very early childhood.
Freud discussed the unconscious and neurosis and was the first to coin the phrase … to the best of my readings, but Freud did not DEFINE it nor state what caused it. Merely acknowledged its existence. The medical profession has stated there is a condition called amnesia but never got further to explaining the why and how of it. Janov cleared up that factor by showing how trauma creates the ability (for the sake of survival) to relegate that unbearable event and its memory from coming to the conscious mind, substituting the process of the ‘act-out’.
As for all the other discoveries, (explanations), I contend, our need for those explanations are the results of neurosis. None of those other discoveries did anything to either alleviate the effects of neurosis or define it; merely allowed us humans, to continue a neurotic life (lifestyle if you wish).
On your last line:- I would prefer to state it somewhat differently: “what Primal therapy can help us find and understand; and medicine and technology cannot – is how we should have been able to live; just as we did BEFORE we humans became neurotic.
Finally, Freud contended that to be humans was to be neurotic Janov (as I understand him) completely refuted that notion.
Jack
Jack, just to set the historical record straight yet once again,
was Freud’s first theory at the end of the 19th century and the root for what later became psychoanalysis. Janov sort of picked up where Freud left off and indeed carried the theory and especially the practice much further. By the way, although Freud changed his mind and stopped developing his external trauma theory (for reasons which have been debated on the blog before) he nevertheless carried forward the idea of something that overthrows the self’s ability to master and digest stimuli, bringing it to a state of insufficiency that calls defensive measures which may or may not be successful. The difference from the first theory regarding trauma lies the composition of the traumatic stimuli which now include not only external forces but internal as well. Henceforward, Freud’s researches focused mostly on those internal forces. In other words, trauma is still there.
Freud coined neither Neurosis nor the Unconscious, but these became household words thanks to the rise of Freud’s psychoanalytic ideas, especially after WW I.
Daniel: I do enjoy our back and forths and some of the things you state, are new to me. However, it is the perception of what advances Janov made in the world of psychology, we seem to differ on.
From what little I read of several psychological thinkers before I came across Janov; it was the psychologists analyzed their patient, and then made so-called helpful suggestions to the patient. Hense ‘analysis’.
On reading “The Primal Scream” in 1972, I just knew he’d discovered something quite new,, different, and impressive.
Because I had had a re-living experience that at the time baffled and confused me. In so far as I knew it was more than a memory … a ‘re-living’ the event, as Janov stated in that first book. It hit me ‘right between the eyeballs’; I instantly knew this was something quite different.
I wanted to do it. rather than my feeling, I needed to do it. First: it was subjective and not objective, as I felt most of the psychological profession practiced it, also from my reading and knowing several people undergoing psychological treatment.
Academia IMO has a habit of making their subjects complex and convoluted for reasons that I find misleading and promotion of high PAYMENT for their work, thus it is neurotic; by how I see neurosis manifesting itself with almost ALL of us. We’ve built our individual survival on this method of an exchange system, (now money) to keep the capitalist system in place. the only one we know.
I contend it requires a fundamental mind shift from those ideas. I’m not the first, nor will I be the last to do this:- “mind shifting”, “looking outside the {conventional} box” “anarchy” or what you will.
I also contend that most are not willing to go there, as you said of yourself, because it is FUCKING scary. Yes! it is all of that and perhaps more.
Which brings us back to the difference between Janov and Freud.
The Primal way encourages us to go into and explore those ‘SCARINESSES. Something I never saw with any prior psychology school of thought.
Meantime, the sun is shining and it’s a clear blue sky … as of now … yippee …but very cold.
Bbrrrr!!
Jack
I believe what was needed in 1900 was sanitation. Clean air,drinkable water, safe food staples were in place. For a myriad of reasons that would take an epistle to cover, while sanitation was improved the other elements have degraded. I grew up in a rural community. My progenitors lived into their 90’s and early 100’s, most independently until life’s end. That is the story told by rural graveyards. The overcrowded, filthy, cities are another matter. Certainly the dollar power of the Drug Industry have convinced most that their antibiotics and vaccines have saved us all, but the facts being updated daily by docs who have actually done the research instead of toeing the company line and vacated their muzzling masters are telling a different story. Industry does not inform only the Public School System as to the style and content of curriculum. I believe that Primal Therapy, like all medical arts not fuelled solely by the , ” tools,” from Big Pharma’s medicines chest, was an enormous threat that had to be controlled, preferably annihilated. There are online, ” QUACKBUSTER,”, sites dedicated to taking out the opposition. 10 cases of Measles or Whooping Cough makes headlines, an , ” epidemic,” of world threatening proportion. That over 400,000 S citizens died by, ” .. physician caused death, Iatrogenesis, goes unpublicized. Not only will all Non Allopathic practitioners be targeted, but so is the MD, MD PHD, formerly highly respected, who thinks for themselves, does their own extensive examination of the actual peer reviewed published Science, and discovers a different answer, lack of efficacy, known dangers,….. They also discover the vast number of Federal Court convictions against the Big Drug manufacturers. They the become dangerous pariahs, …..
And while Jack doesn’t need anyone to stand up ‘for him, I think it is fruitless for you to believe you can school him on Primal Therapy. I put on my Mr Polite tinfoil hat before composing this. My reptile brain is straining at it’s constraints though, Daniel. I, of course, have no understanding of your credentials that you believe inform your assertions in your attempt to educate Jack.
I interned at a Psychiatric Hospital in 1969, 1970. The explanation attached to the action of anti-psychotic meds was, that they close the gate between the unconscious and conscious mind. Conversion hysteria was also well explained. So names for , ” what the patient has,” shows they were knowns. States of mental illness, rather, giving them names, is a favourite pastime of Big Drugs and the Allopathic Sickcare model. Janov explained how accepted treatment was an obstacle to resolution. I did not know Dr. Janov, but just maybe he wanted to challenge us to think for ourselves, maybe, that twinkle in his eyes…….
David: I did not know Art that well either, but read everything he wrote both on his site and his books.
What I feel is the difference between Primal therapy and Freudian ‘psychoanalysis’ is that Janov abandoned the idea that the therapist told the patient … whereas he sure shifted 160 degrees with Primal therapy stating, the patient told the therapist.
To and for me, that was his genius.
Jack
Addendum: Coaxing, only the patient to tell him.
Jack
Happy Holiday to everyone in the Primal Community ! We hope it is a wonderful New Year for you all ! Gretch and Barry
😊
Hi Everyone … just to be a contrarian I hope for every one of us, we can be more feeling-full for next year and the rest of our lives.
Jack
Happy Decemebrations to youse… best thoughts and hopes for your future Yea(s)
Jack,
I agree that Janov took reliving to its full extent. Nobody does it better than PT. In a more general sense, nobody does repressed feelings as good and as fully as PT.
I disagree that psychodynamic psychotherapy before Janov consisted mostly of giving helpful suggestions. The central ‘tool’ at the dynamic psychotherapist’s disposal was the so-called interpretation which was/is meant to reveal something hidden in a way that will help to reconnect it to central mental life. As can be gleaned from this description it is a sort of an art form rather than an exact science, and therefore various schools of thought defined differently according to their emphasis. What was common to all of them was the idea of the unconscious and its special language.
You’re right that such an endeavor can easily become defensive where words and sentences and paragraphs spoken may be used to conceal the truth rather than bring it to the open. Patient and therapist can certainly collude in this. I think Janov was aware of this and was trying to cure psychotherapy of its reliance on speech alone.
However, please be reminded that Janov very quickly ran into the very same difficulty. While trying to do away with the defensive aspects of speech he found that not all feelings are created alike. Feelings too may have a defensive aspect to them, can be real or not, can used for actual connection or for defensive purposes (abreaction). In this point, Janov was brought back to square one whence he started his theoretical journey.
Apparently, whenever there are two of something one can be employed as a defense against the other, and so both speech and feelings can be a defense against true connection and knowledge. The false self can pose as a true self. A major goal of therapy of any kind would now become to distinguish between the real and the defensive, between the true and the false, between actual feelings and abreaction.
But this is only a first step, because once the defensive is differentiated from true thoughts and feelings (not an easy task) you’d now have to develop a way of therapeutically dealing with it. Easier said than done. Such resistances can be very recalcitrant or protracted. It is a professional challenge of the first degree.
Daniel: An interesting description as you see it, and no doubt are faced in your practice.
I do concur that it is possible to use one feeling, as a ‘defense’ against another, but as I see it, it’s a process of gradually going deeper. I have noticed this with some buddies I’ve sat for and found myself doing much the same.
However, there is another factor that we’ve not discussed and that is the eventual ramifications of feeling unresolved, reverberating in the Subconscious, I say subconscious (as I prefer to call it since it sits below the conscious level. Theoretically, there is no subconscious with none neurotics and is not just part of the consciousness. The consequences of reverberating feeling never getting resolved, and are the result of later maladies like heart, diseases, Parkinson’s and many others and I did like Janov’s noting that cancer is/are the cells going crazy. Or words he used to that effect.
Because of my aging and loss of energy I am fully cognisant of all this. Seemingly, according to some, I am doing well for my age, BUT is that any real consolation.
Meantime, I kinda glad we’ve gotten over the first part of the season … now to deal with the rest.
My feeling is that it belongs to children and even there, it’s a form of placating them.
Jack
Jack,
I thought you might like this article since it’s about the evils of capitalism. Maybe with the coming crises there is some hope, but I’m not feeling it.
https://truthout.org/articles/humans-arent-inherently-destroying-the-planet-capitalism-is/?utm_source=sharebuttons&fbclid=IwAR3i92nnh3v32wRi-g1UvLJwe0ZK8X3KT4_RES7KEzpDrOHDL0PgFjZ9Q0o
Phil
Phil: Thanks for the site. I am taking the liberty to quote some of the poignant lines in it, which attest to what I am also claiming:-
“If we are to stop the destruction of the planet, then we need to name the systems that cause it and observe that there are some humans who had nothing to do with it”
“Capitalism is a system that doesn’t pay its bills”
“capitalism has figured out ways to defray or move around the real consequences of its uses of things like nature, work, care, lives, energy, food, and money. These are all things that capitalists are trying to make a profit from,”
“unpacks this idea of how nature, work, care, food, energy, money, and lives have been cheapened ”
“What that demonstrates is that humans feel so separate from the rest of the web of life that we feel able and licensed to take animals and mutate them in ways that are very much geared toward profit.”
“Capitalism depends on the policing of bodies and of humans so that there are those humans whose lives are systematically cheaper than others.”
“We borrowed that line from the Marxist scholar Fredric Jameson, and part of the logic behind that statement is that quite a lot of capitalist effort has gone into crushing our imaginations for creating utopias and alternatives to capitalism.”
“Quite a lot of capitalist effort has gone into crushing our imaginations for creating utopias and alternatives to capitalism.”.
I will write further, after reflecting more on what I read here. Thank again, Phil.
Jack
Jack,
I found the article quite interesting and informative. It emphasizes that capitalism is based on the exploitation of people and nature, in an unsustainable way, although I already knew that. It’s based on greed. I’m not seeing the end of capitalism coming anytime soon, but it could become more heavily regulated as we get deeper into the climate crisis. I don’t think the article really describes what a good post capitalist system would look like. It’s interesting that one of the legacies of out civilization and capitalist system, will be a huge number of leftover chicken bones. I’ll probably continue eating chicken but will stay away from chicken nuggets, as I have up until now.
Phil
Phil: What I think the article is articulating is that we’re in the midst of destroying the planet, not only with climate change, but within our own behaviors. Also, it reveals to me, that there are perhaps more people becoming aware that all is not well, and so far all we’ve done it tweak things here and somethings there, resolving nothing fundamental.
None of it is making things better. I further see that it is up to the young to become more radical in their thinking, but not sure this generation of the youing getting to the point of some major radical thinking, but the ideas ARE out there.
However, the article does begin to reveal IMO that capitalism is not the way to go as you suggested. There’s no such thing as “a better capitalism”. I suggest you talk to your sons about it. I feel it might be surprising just how much nearer they are to some of these radical thoughts (albeit that they are not new). Regulating is not IMO the way to resolve matters either, since the outcome of regulation is ‘UNINTENDED’ consequences, and thus more regulation then that purports even more regulation, and on and on and on. Which is ‘part and parcel’ of capitalism.
The first major breakthrough as I see it was:- Primal theory, discovery, and the modus appreendi of the therapy. The means to get back to our own NATURE, as opposed to our behaviour.
I also contend the end of capitalism is closer than anyone imaginges. How; I have no idea nor does anyone else, but one possibily is a major major stock market crash on the global stock markets. Some are suggesting is iminant.
Lastly:- the chicken bone idea is a great analogy, but not the way I see it. Also, no one knows what it will be like … all we are able to do (which most refuse to do) is to CONTEMPLATE it. Prouhon did it and so did Marx as so did I (not that that means I rank with those giants.
Jack
I think what the problem of our consumption vs Nature boils down to is that to survive, all life has to consume some aspect of Nature. Our species is supremely flexible and imaginative in finding ways to utilize Nature to enhance our survival and comfort, but there are too many of us now for Earth to support all of us in the Western lifestyle of material comfort. Either we have to find way to have our comfort but with less demand on Nature, or there has to be fewer of us who enjoy a safe, healthy, comfortable life.
Another difficulty I see regarding reducing our environmental footprint is that we organize our societies around an elite who run aspects of it, and the elite rarely want to give up the status quo and their prestigious position in it. I don’t blame them. I don’t want to give up mine, either. I’m always conscious of my environmental footprint and try to fill my life with quality emotional life experience instead of material consumption, but I do have nice things that are important to me and enrich my life, and I don’t want to give up my comfort so that others who have little can have more.
It seems to me that the best hope for humankind’s future rests on there being a big enough critical mass of people and influential leaders who have emotional/social wisdom and intelligence and who have empathy for humankind and Nature. In other words, I think we have to find a way to all work together in an informed, wise, intelligent manner for the benefit of all and Nature, not just for personal gain only. I maintain hope that we can rise to the challenge, but I feel it is likely we won’t in time to avoid a lot of suffering for a lot of people due to stress and calamity arising from climate change and from the breakdown of the balance of Nature that we are accustomed and adapted to.
Larry, here are some interesting statistics: “Right now, our planet only has enough resources for each of us to consume 1.8 “global hectares” annually – a standardised unit that measures resource use and waste. This figure is roughly what the average person in Ghana or Guatemala consumes. By contrast, people in the US and Canada consume about 8 hectares per person, while Europeans consume 4.7 hectares – many times their fair share.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs
The US and Canada should move towards consuming much less, towards Europe’s level, and eventually to that level of 1.8 global hectares. Judging by trash cans seen outside we do pretty well at my house. We don’t produce that much garbage compared to other people, or we’re better at recycling. But I’m sure we could do much better.
Phil
Trash cans aren’t the only measure of the size of our environmental footprint. Everything we do to in support of our comfort and convenience, even using our computers and smartphones, takes a big toll on the environment. https://www.fastcompany.com/90165365/smartphones-are-wrecking-the-planet-faster-than-anyone-expected
Larry,
I think we’ll need government policies to help us reduce our consumption. One time use plastic bags will be banned here in New York starting Jan 1st. But these kinds of policies are unpopular and hard to put in place.
My son got me a cell phone upgrade, which was very thoughtful of him. But it’s a refurbished one rather than new. I thought that link was going to point out how cell phone usage is damaging to the environment, but it was more about the excessive amount of resources needed to make new ones. Although I got on board late, I’m hooked to my smart phone now.
Phil
Phil, the article also points out that the servers and data centres consume a lot of energy to respond to our Google searches and Facebook posts, tweets and on-line gaming video streaming that we do on our computers and smart phones. I was very surprised when I recently heard elsewhere about the enormous and rising amount of energy needed to power those servers and data centres.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/15/why-energy-is-a-big-and-rapidly-growing-problem-for-data-centers/#54ce882e5a30
Larry: Your comment inspired me to write about some of the things happening to me now.
I contend, in our search for solution/s, we fail to see that we need to go way beyond many of the thoughts, ideas, and opinions we currently use in an attempt to resolve them. I relate much of this via my therapy like:- after resolving one problem there is another close behind that one. That ultimate goal of “cure of neurosis”, seems unattainable UNLESS we see “cure”, from another perspective. Vivian in the early days of the Primal journals wrote that we “ought to give pause to cure” or words to that effect. That piqued my thinking at the time of reading it.
I’m not sure we are either intelligent or even flexible, as I see it. We’ll sacrifice anything to maintain the ‘status quo’, which includes our current means of ‘creature comfort’. I tend to want to look at how other creatures deal with many of the things of their life. We assume we are different, whereas I see our only difference being that we are neurotic and not fully-feeling, and have lost our real nature.
At this late stage in life, I am not sure I will ever be the natural-self I would have been had I not been traumatized. And as I grow older, I see more and more trauma happening to me that even until recently did not consider traumatic. Now I am slowly realizing the insidious depth of what happened to me.
Of course, it would be easy for me to put it down to getting old and getting nearer to death. I am not sure that is correct … perhaps I’ll never really know.
Jack
Jack it’s interesting how you keep being able to see and acknowledge more deeply into your trauma. I feel sad that most of us will not live long enough to resolve all of our infant and childhood pain that interferes with our becoming our full potential selves. But when I look back at what my life was before I started pt, I see that this therapy has already performed a miracle in having enabled me to have made a meaningful life for myself that I would otherwise never have had. Because this therapy works for me, I find I still want to try to make more out of what life I have left.
Regarding other creatures and ourselves, other species have a limited range in how they can make a living off of Nature. For example, fish in the sea cannot live directly off of food grown on land. We can do both. We are different from other creatures in that the range within which we figure out how to utilize Nature to our short term benefit seems boundless. Thanks to our ingenuity and our hands and our upright walking ability, we’ve been able to utilize almost every ecological niche there is. No other species has done that. Our abilities enabled us to overcome a great range of ecological diversity and adversity, thus far, in a way that no other species has.
Larry: I don’t quite agree with your characterization of other creatures. For the most part (the exception being all the domesticated creatures), If, as I feel, being neurotic is so insidious, then those other creatures have ‘one-up’ on us, in that they are fully feeling, and NOT neurotic.
All those other things about uprightness etc, are no real benefit. We view and study other creatures from our own (neurotic) perspective; but is that realistic in the long term? To me, it sure explains why we are destroying the one and only home we ever had, or are will ever have, IMO.
Jack
You missed my point Jack.
Larry: That’s (always) possible. On re-reading after posting I sort of realized some of that.
Jack
Things haven’t been good here and that put a damper on Christmas, but it was about as good as I could expect considering all that. Gift giving was nice and holiday dinner especially having our sons around, coming and going. The holidays are almost never quite right, it seems, even if the problems started in October, as happened this year. But my feeling is they could be or should be, it doesn’t have to be so hard. Something is really wrong with us. I have to remember that even when we are doing well, it’s deceptive. We are actually ready to fall apart at any moment. Its not over yet, with New Years coming, and our sons still around, but I’m not expecting any improvements. At least no more incidents have happened making things worse, but it’s not a good way to start the new year.
Phil
I’m sorry to hear that Phil. It’s painful to but I guess good to acknowledge problems, because acknowledgment is an important step toward hopefully working through them. But it sometimes take years, in my experience.
Everyone: New year greetings from this side of the pond. It’s been a sunny day with clear blue skies … but cold. I wish I/we will live to experience. a feeling-full year and for all the rest of the years that I/we will be here on our lovely blue planet, earth.
Jack
I saw an interview last night on Amanpour of an African American playing the part of Willie Loman in Death of a salesman, by Arthur Miller, in a West-end London theatre
An old boyfriend of mine played the part of Wille Loman in a repertory company and I helped him to learn his lines. I never quite saw the play the way Wendel Pierce spoke of it, but I did see it as an ambition to make lots of money; as both my father and my brother were also salesmen.
I just knew that I did not want to pursue that kind of a living, and the stresses and pressure it put both my father and more so, my brother.
The gist of what Wendel Peirce was saying was that it is a precursor to what is happening in the US and the UK. ‘Make my country great again’, whereas, I see neither country was ever great, but it did demonstrate to me that there is a movement of dissatisfaction going on with many people around the world, as demonstrated with all the protests in numerous countries.
My take is:- whilst we humans are great at seeing the problem, we’re remiss in finding real solutions. I contend the reason is, as Wendel Pierce stated, we’we are a creature of behaviors, that he stated was our nature.; I see it as behavior, for we lost our real nature, but we’re still talking about the dark side of human nature.
As I see it, Art Janov and Primal, had the beginnings of those solutions, but as of yet, not convince the population at large. We need to get back to our nature, most of us were born with … then lost it …, due to parenting.
Jack
Jack, Most people don’t want therapy, and those that do, usually want something
short term. Even now when there’s more and more focus on trauma and
various therapies to address it’s effects. I guess most people are happy and not
worried about the future of the world. Some people think the past was better, or they were happier, maybe when there weren’t so many immigrants and they could be freely racist. Those are the great times they’re thinking of.
Primal is more for those of us who want a complete overhaul. The way I see it, primal is never going to save humanity, since few people want it.
Phil
Phil, I’m not sure I would agree exactly. If you consider all the different ways people mask their pain, drugs, alcohol, gambling, politics ( lol) I’m not sure I would say most people are happy. What I would say is it takes tremendous courage to confront the issues that keep us sick. If you consider how many years we have been around and the thousands who have considered therapy it may be few in terms of the world population but not completely hopeless either. There are still many who want and need help, not just from us but from the many therapies available in our communities. What I think is really sad is that getting therapy of any kind is not necessarily an option for all people. Gretch
Gretchen,
Well what if I put it this way: most people are not so unhappy that they would consider therapy, or don’t think it could be effective. Or they think pursuing other things might make them happy, and maybe that’s possible . Just some thoughts, I’m not really concluding anything.
Phil
It’s also maybe a feeling I’m dealing with: many or most people seem to be happier than I usually am, or don’t struggle as much. Maybe not at all true and just part of my feeling.
Phil
Phil: I feel you are missing some fundamental aspect to humanity, of all races, groups, and kinds of people; I fear that no-one escapes neurosis, (unable to even be aware of their deep hidden pain) … and thus passes it on to their young, (inadvertently, and on and on and on. As Art so stated ‘neurosis IS THE PROBLEM.
You stating that:- “I guess most people are happy and not worried about the future of the world”. It appears to me, the way you see others … because IMO they are masking AS GRETCHEN WROTE, their deep innermost pain, in that area of the brain we as babies created to store that ‘unbearable’ pain.
When we humans look for solutions from a state of not knowing the root of the problem, then we come up with political solutions … little realizing that (to quote Art) we are looking in all the wrong places. SO!!!!! Where is the right place to look for it?
I personally, have no idea (nor does anyone else IMO), but I feel if we can become aware of other places to look for them, and then, sift out all those places we’ve been looking for these solutions; then I feel we may well be onto finding where those real solutions are, and pursue them.
Granted; it’s more complex and convoluted and thus few are willing to change their mindset in order to make that “conceptual leap” … “get out of the box”, required, IMO, to go that ‘extra mile’.
As for folks “not being interested”, true in one sense UNLESS one has children of their own and are REALLY interested in their future.
Jack
Jack,
Those of us lucky enough to do primal therapy hopefully have shifted our positions on the neurosis spectrum, we are less neurotic than before, but not cured. And we are aware and actively progressing on that spectrum. But many people are ahead of us (me) who have never done therapy. That’s the way I see it.
Phil
It ended up I had a big feeling with this, I guess related to whats going on with my wife. My mother doesn’t talk to me, that was the feeling. She literally didn’t talk to me for years. She wasn’t interested in me. She was sick, but even before that, I don’t remember much, nothing nice she said. I got more of a handle on this, how huge it is, to have had a mother like that. It was necessary for me to forget about her, as best I could, while she was still living. Anyway, she had forgotten about me.
Phil
At the time of the run-up to the last election for President in the US. I felt that whether Trump was elected or not would be a barometer of the overall mental health of the US population. A write up that I find very interesting in the Opinion section of today’s issue of the New York Times is: “Why Is America So Depressed? It’s no coincidence that our politics and our mental health have declined so rapidly, at the same time.”
Repeating what I’ve said before on the blog, I feel that increasing societal material inequality gives rise to a diminishing sense of connection to each other, a breakdown of a feeling of community and trust and a shrinking emotional investment or sense of belonging and a shrinking sense of a future for ourselves in the society we find ourselves in, a decreasing sense that we are all pulling together to achieve a better life satisfaction for all, and gives rise to a decline in overall societal mental health.
Below I’ve pasted excerpts from the NY Times article that give a sense of the tone its message.
“The really sorrowful reports concern suicide. Among all Americans, the suicide rate increased by 33 percent between 1999 and 2017.”
“All of this mental carnage is occurring at a time when decades of social and political division have set against each other black and white, men and women, old and young. Beyond bitter social antagonisms, the country is racked by mass shootings, the mind-bending perils of the internet, revelations of widespread sexual predation, the worsening effects of climate change, virulent competition, the specter of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, grinding student debt and crises in housing, health care and higher education. The frightening environment helps cause depression, depression causes catastrophic thinking, and catastrophic thinking makes the environment seem even more terrifying than it is.”
“Out of this dark cast of mind arose the hunger for a strong, avenging figure whose arrival has sent even more mentally harrowing shock waves through society. If President Trump is indeed mentally ill, as so many of his critics claim, he may well be the most representative leader we have ever had.”
“The real national division is between people who have the resources, inner and outer, to survive their mental illness and those who don’t.”
“Affording a therapist and finding the right therapist — it is rare: wisdom, empathy and kindness cannot be taught — they are the first obstacles to overcome.”
“Yet even as our mental health crisis proliferates, even as streams of books and articles are published about depression and anxiety, the subject of mental illness has become another voyeuristic exhibition in the carnival of commerce. We talk about it, but we don’t talk about how to address it.”
Larry,
We are very divided here politically. Hillary Clinton is not popular and that’s another reason we ended up with Trump in 2016. He was different than the other republican candidates in that year; he said things which caught people’s attention who had been lied to for many years. Of course Trump is an even bigger liar. I have to wonder about the mental health of the people continuing to support Trump. None of those problems the NY Times article talks about are brand new. I think you’re right about societal inequality. That, together with our emphasis on material possessions as a measure of success and happiness is a bad combination. People in some poorer countries I think are overall happier, and probably have less mental illness.
Phil
Inequality is a big part of the problem but voters will still vote for people like Trump who make that problem worse. They are fooled into thinking the problem is immigrants and racial minorities.
Phil
Phil, I understand that Trump’s support base also feels that the elites and experts who have run the country run it mainly for the benefit of the already rich and powerful, whereas regardless of what he actually is and isn’t accomplishing, because he behaves and talks in ways that his support base identifies with, his support base feels that Trump is their hero and that he is disrupting the elite’s hold on the reins of power to the benefit of his support base. .
Phil: I disagree with your analysis of the result of the 2016 election. The problem is right there in the US constitution that allows 540 Electoral College Members, to finally decide who with be the next president. This demonstrates to me, that the election of a president in the US is NOT democratic.
Being an outsider; I see several other flaws to the US constitution the biggest being the 2nd amendment. Sadly, we all have to live with the laws other people make … I see that as madness.
Jack
Jack,
I agree, that the Electoral College is a big issue, and there are also problems with the nominating process for both parties. That’s another reason why republicans ended up with Trump in 2016, even though there were other better candidates running in the primaries that year.
None of this will be fixed this year, and maybe not anytime soon.
Phil
Phil: The deeper issue as I see it, is governing and Governments … with all the convolutions they bring about, by proposing their ideas.
My take:- “dead on arrival”, as I would prefer to state it.
Jack
Various measures suggest that people in Scandinavian countries are among the happiest. Those countries also have more socialist governing strategies where higher taxes go to more spending on public institutions and services and greater equality than in most other countries.
Phil, the reason I cited that article is that it’s author highlights a concern that increasingly more people in the US (the subject of the author’s topic) need help but don’t have the resources to get therapy, nor, as Gretchen mentioned, is there enough availability of any therapies to help them if they seek it. As I’ve gradually healed via PT I’ve become increasingly sensitive to others’ unmet need and the emotional prisons they try to but can’t escape, even in my orbit of family and friends who I once thought were happier than me.
Just as and example, the topic of the unitarian church service this coming Sunday is: “We all know the platitudes about struggle and change being good things, but… How? How exactly to do you navigate those choppy waters? How do you let yourself be transformed? How do you let go? How do you make it through the day when things are really tough?”
As I get to better know people in my life and sadly see them resigned to or wanting and trying to break free of unfulfilling, self-limiting or destructive feelings and behaviour, I feel how really lucky I am to have awareness of this therapy, to have access to it and to have the resources to do it. I’ve become more sadly aware of others’ need for help but there is none available for them.
Larry: It is for that very reason that I developed my idea of how to get there (abolish money) … the one thing no-one seemingly, see as possible. I know it’s a difficult task to see that, as a possible solution, but like you, I see no other, and as is obvious to everyone, getting access to psychological help is both costly and often impossible; to get for varying reasons
Jack
I sense your desperation of a need of a solution, Jack.
Larry: If by “desperation” you mean that I am so very concerned for the future of humanity, all living creatures, and the very planet. Yes, I sure am that concerned. (call it ‘a Solution’ if you like)
The problem with the use of “desperation” in an everyday context, usually signifies some state of agitation. I don’t feel agitated about it, but I certainly am deeply concerned. Just like Greta Thunberg, the Swedish girl, about Climate change.
It is people just like Greta that changes the mindset of people, history is full of such people. I don’t claim to one of them, but I do hope and wish that we humans might begin to see that our current way of behaving isn’t serving us well at all. I claim Janov was one of those people and Janov sure ‘rattled my cage’.
Jack
Larry: To quote your last line “voyeuristic exhibition in the carnival of commerce. We talk about it, but we don’t talk about how to address it.”
I agree wholeheartedly, For me, the more pain I feel and the more I am able to feel. Especially now in the waning years of my life.
Jack
I want to clarify that the last line is not my words but is a quote from the article.
Larry: Although it’s a quote it felt to me that you support the notion … for why else quote it.
Maybe I did quite see your point; even though I’ve just re-read it.
Jack
Phil,
that sounds like a great insight you had.
sounds familiar too, I remember once, long ago, being in a pub and feeling the same thing more or less, and feeling inadequate when suddenly i realized myself the young lady ordering something at the bar, at first sight looking happy and highly functional, as opposed to how I felt, probably also had her own insecurities and fears like we all do. it helped me to know on some level we all carry a same kind of problem to deal with, our unmet pain and fear and having to cope with life while keeping up some kind of front most of the time.
on another note, the conservation about therapy made me wonder about whether starting therapy is more difficult of a step to take for more right wing orientated people, maybe their defense being stronger or something, as I got the impression during my own years of therapy, most patients are what in the US is democrats, or more left wing or liberal.
does that make sense, Gretchen? I remember once on a retreat talking about the topic over lunch, and we were kind of agreeing that in primal therapy chances might exist right wingers would slowly evolve towards a more tolerant viewpoint , possibly turning into democrats. or maybe they tend to drop out or not even start therapy?
I did seem to notice staying in therapy can be especially hard for people (men?) with a lot of anger.
but those are just personal impressions, and I would like to know if some of them make sense to you, Gretchen, or not at all.
M
Larry,
in the middle of your comment I got triggered just by the words empathy and kindness, used in reference to how a therapist should be.
specially the word kindness set me off, hearing it as being important by another person kind of acknowledged my own feeling which i tend to question, as it seems to be linked to possible rejection and disapproval somehow.
Gretchen came to my mind, and me not feeling entirely safe while also longing for connection. I thought of Barry and how safe I feel with him, and imagined telling Gretchen about my feelings, and when I imagined her telling me ‘but I do like you’, that set me off.
I shifted to crying about mommy, going over the possible situations in which I might have felt hurt as a small child, and what popped up was how I often was laughed at for crying, or for how I looked while crying. there are pictures of me crying, like, which parent would think of making a picture of his kid while they are crying??
she even had some ‘funny’ name for me and my face and what hurt seems that she did not take me serious, did not support me, made me feel like it was not safe to cry in front of her, while I needed her to be there badly on those moments and the feeling of not being safe when crying feels like it took away a major something which left a huge empty gap of need, a bleak void which has been hard to face as this is the first cry directly about that specifically.
and I caught myself still searching for solutions, while the feeling is just exactly the absence of any solution, just sadness, even anger does not really do as the need is too urgent and the sadness too acute for my mommy not to be available when I would show my distress.
far too scary and lonely as a small child, too big of a harsh truth to accept.
what makes it bad as well is that it feels like she did not mean to be cruel or mean, but that she really did not have a clue of how I needed to be able to trust her.
there seems also an important point, I know it feels hard for me to trust Gretchen entirely, or probably most female therapists at some point.
there was one, particularly gentle one, who worked at the PI for a while on Pico, which felt safe, I can’t think of her name right now.
the feeling also has to do with me feeling ‘discarded’, my feeling or behaviour not worth of the attention or even regarded as laughable, ridiculous.
or annoying.
guess you can hear the feeling is still hanging on but well, it felt useful to be able to cry and get some insights, just triggered by the word ‘kindness’, ha…
M
Thanks for sharing, Margaret. I’m glad I posted excerpts from that article if it helped you toward a personal insight.
I have a similar assessment about my parents. I don’t feel they intended to ever be cruel or mean. I feel that they wanted the best for us, better than what they ever had. But they were not emotionally or physically available to us kids, could not meet my need to be held, comforted and loved, my need being especially more acute after the disruption of any parental bond by being given away to live with an aunt and uncle from when I was 1.5 until 4 years old. Yesterday I had the disturbing insight that my father was more like a labourer who worked the farm and kept it functioning and kept us materially comfortable, but in all other ways I was a very scared, lonely little kid in desperate need of love and comfort, without a father. It is, as you say Margaret, a bleak empty void that’s hard for me as an adult to accept, and impossible for a little kid to face. No wonder we hide it from our consciousness. But when we open our consciousness to it, we see how it is at the root of so much of our lifetime struggles.
Margaret: Wow! that seems like a very deep feeling and a lot of revelation in that comment. I felt very sad for that little girl that was laughed at for crying.
How parents are so cut off from their feelings to act in that manner. It also shows to me your mistrust of female therapists. I suspect the therapist at Pico you were referring to was perhaps Judy. I mention it just in case that was the one; and revived your memory of that name.
Jack
Jack,
in the meantime I remembered her name was Eva.
Larry,
that sounds so hard to process for a kid so young. first you suddenly are torn out of your parent’s house to get used to living with your aunt and uncle and then after a few years once more your life suddenly changes without you having any say in it all, it is a miracle you came out so well considering the circumstances, you found a loving partner and made a nice career despite it all and now you keep improving your social life.
but so sad for that lonely frightened little boy…
my mom could be comforting and caring a lot of the time, maybe that made it all the more unsettling when she found me funny looking while crying at times, I guess it made me feel it was somehow my fault for behaving in the wrong way or something like that. Shame and guilt seeping in and deeply buried resentment possibly, very scary as need was there and anger would maybe ruin whatever there was…
but at the time I think confusion and hurt was prevailing…
m
I identify with the confusion and hurt Margaret, so deeply buried that I wasn’t previously conscious of it.
What your wrote about me there unsettles my composure…in a primally healthful way.
This got me thinking more about our country’s “trump” controversies and polarization over all related issues. As the article says, “it wasn’t that people who couldn’t stand Trump decided they loved him when he took office – but they did start to dislike him a little less. ” “It is as though they can’t bear to continue feeling angry, so they subconsciously look for ways to convince themselves that it will all be okay.” Not “done deliberately. Instead, it’s a way of freeing up cognitive resources to get on with life. There simply isn’t time to be angry about everything.” Historically, “this psychological process could have had a dark side: it may have encouraged people to put up with regimes they strongly disagree with.”
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-surprising-reason-people-change-their-minds?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Vicki: Your comment and the site you cited got me a thinging also.
I feel certain that all my opinions are rooted in old feelings and as such, I look at them from that perspective. But there is the factor the article noted about us changing our opinion/s and it was that part that got me assessing the “old Feeling” route.
As I feel right now I have and do change my mind, opinion, and ideas, but still based on another old feeling that somehow supersedes the last one. So! fundamentally I am still holding onto my ‘old feeling’ opinion. (I hope that doesn’t sound contradictory).
In the broader sense, I feel I need to encapsulate many of my idea within simple well thought-out notions. That way I am more able to live with the ideas and opinions I have. Surveys and statistics tend to bother me. That goes back to my early days when two friends of mine were studying statics which to me at the time was new. Averages and percentages don’t, I feel, really tell us that much. For that very same reason, I feel democracy is not a good idea for running an organization, much less a country.
Jack
Vicki,
That’s an interesting article. I disliked (hated?) Trump a lot from the time he first started running, even before that. I thought it was outrageous, unbelievable that anyone would vote for him
After he took office I thought there was a slight possibility that he wouldn’t be as bad as expected.
That was proven wrong; he’s worse than I could have imagined. So nothing has really changed for me.
Phil
I had an unusual bad dream last night. I somehow entered into my mother’s coffin where it was buried in the ground. It was very cold, dark, and dead there, and I was hugely terrified. I don’t know what I was expecting to find. In the dream I was making a lot of noise being terrified, I worried I would wake my wife in bed with me (actually I was alone). Then, in my terrified state I went to hug my father who was somehow next to me in bed, but it turned out it wasn’t him, it was just a ball of bunched up bed covers. I think the dream covers a few things. First off, that I don’t like sleeping alone, I like someone with me, preferably my wife, and we’ve been having problems with that lately. Secondly, my father in general was not there for me for support around the sickness and loss of my mother. and although I remember nothing good about her; she seems to be the source of many of my issues, but it seems I still hoped for something, or there must have been good things and an attachment that I can’t recall. Another thing is, after my mother was gone, there were some years, maybe something like ages 8 or 9 to 11 or 12 when I slept in bed with my father. I’m not sure how or why that happened, as I did have my own bedroom and bed. I don’t think it was because I was scared, and jumped into bed with him. Something not so cool about it was he slept naked. At age twelve or so, my sister came back from her travels, and was outraged and even angry to learn about these sleeping arrangements. From that time on I slept in my own room, a different one upstairs, in what used to be her room, far from my father. She was right, I guess, and yet I feel, she was envious that I was close like that with our father, as I don’t believe, or remember, that she got much from him, and they didn’t get along so well.
Phil
Phil, that does sound like your sister was upset about more than she let on. I always thought other cultures were more natural in their sleeping arrangements. This article shows all you were missing in the bed was a dog and a visitor.
https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/sleep/bed-sharing-co-sleeping-different-cultures/
Sylvia,
Interesting, those families all sleeping together like that is probably healthier. Maybe at retreats that’s what we should be doing.
Phil
Phil: Ooops, that sounds like that it might trigger sexual desires. However, there is another way to look at what you wrote, and that is that dorm sleeping is a sort of sleeping together.
If sleeping together is only for sleeping, then I suppose it could be healthy in one sense. I once slept with my father who came to London to see me, knowing I was having a difficult time and we shared the bed since it saved him going to a hotel. I don’t remember much about that night other than we we were sleeping in the same bed.
Jack
Seems like a lot happening in that dream Phil.
Larry
An update on my interpretation of this dream after some big feelings yesterday. I think it’s good for me to write about it here. In the dream my mind traveled into my mother’s coffin buried under the ground, and I was terrified with what I found there. The big feelings yesterday were about needing my mother. Although I can’t say I was feeling that in the dream, I think that’s what that was about, and that should have been obvious. In reality I was afraid of my mother a lot of times even before she was dead and buried, and that buried my need, along with how she behaved towards me, but it’s been getting resurrected by the therapy process. The second part of the dream still applies, my father wasn’t really there and couldn’t do the job of being both a father and a mother for me.
This stuff comes up regularly but more strongly right now I think because of problems with my wife. She is upset because of a brief but nasty fight we had in early November. It’s frustrating and upsetting to me that she can’t get over that and is dragging it out, even after we’ve discussed it some more. She was trying to claim her problem was I don’t help much with cleaning the house. Which could be true, but it all started with our fight, which had nothing to do with cleaning, although that is an obsession of hers.
Phil
I’m glad you’re getting insights, Phil. Hopefully it will help you to see through the issues in your relationship with your wife.
Larry: I have looked through the blog to find my response where you were posted as Larry Gand I am unable to find it so I will post the first part, here again:-
“Larry “Memories remind us that nothing lasts forever” Correct … hut there’s one better than memories and that is re-living. The problem there is that until fully re-lived and expressed then they are reverberating within us ‘forever’.
“Time is precious and should not be wasted”. What constitutes ‘a waste of time’? Once I know that then I can move onto those that are supposedly not wasting time.
“Enjoy life”. That’s impossible; UNLESS, you are able to enjoy misery. AND tell that to a baby screaming its head off in trauma.”
The rest of the post was welcoming Larry
Jack
Phil: Interesting dream, then feeling; it sounds very distressing for the little boy you were. The connection to your wife, I also can relate to. The way I resolved it, in particular since Jim is not a Primal person, was more to do with just listening to him rather than a discussion with him, then at the end of listening adding nothing about how it affected me.
As I see it, it’s me trying to show my point in the situation that doesn’t resolve anything. So I am left with waiting until he’s out shopping and then having my feeling about what it is for me.
Leastways, so far that seems to be working for me.
Jack
Jack,
In those situations don’t you think it’s important that Jim knows how you feel? In our case, my wife isn’t saying much, her behavior is showing me how she feels.
Phil
Phil: “No” to your question. Jim sees the world as it affects him, and I feel strongly that if I can keep my worst feelings towards him, that serves the relationship better, It’s easier for me to live with him, for he sure enough, cares about me on a lot of other levels.
At this stage of my life, I also need him … and tell him so
Jack
Jack,
The way that I see it, I do have to express how I feel directly to my wife, hopefully leaving out the part which is an old feeling. Otherwise, there is less of a chance that I will get what I want and need out of the relationship. The benefit for her is she can then see why I behave certain ways, which can then change things. The same for my wife telling me how she feels, so that I’m not left in the dark.
Phil
Jack, at least for me, not saying how I feel can be a kind of acting out behavior, especially when there’s something I’m hoping for, and not getting.
Phil
Phil: I agree that not having the feeling is a sort of act-out. In my case, I do my best to have the feeling in full … BUT I make a point of not having the feeling in his presence or earshot.
It doesn’t always work out that way, as there are moments when I can’t hold it back, but my experience is that it is not productive. Then the animosity between us continues. Such that at a later stage, I need to complete the whole thing on my own, without him hearing it.
Jack
Phil: If that is working for you, then my guess is your relationship will improve. I sure hope so for your sake.
Jack
Jack, If our relationship won’t work under conditions where I express how I feel to my wife, then something is wrong with it, which may be the case. Nothing I’ve done recently has improved things.
Phil
Phil: I just hope that somehow things will improve. Take care anyway.
Jack
I just want to share these simple few sentences I came across that say so much:
Memories remind us that nothing lasts forever.
Time is precious and should not be wasted.
Enjoy life and remember, don’t count the days, make the days count.
Larry: I responded to the 4:26 pm reply thinking it was someone new, then when I checked on the blog itself, rather than the email, the gravitar was the same.
I’m now confused.
Jack
Jack, the phrase that I shared was part of an image that I tried to copy and paste here but it can’t be done. Next I explored whether I would be able to share the image here through my Facebook account. I tried and it looks like it might be possible, but then I decided I didn’t want Facebook involved, so I cancelled the process and just typed here on the blog the phrase without the image.
Recent news is emphasizing how dangerous Trump is as president. He’s leading us into a totally unnecessary war with Iran. That in itself should be enough for impeachment. But Trump isn’t the only one. “Pompeo says God may have sent Trump to save Israel from Iran”
Pompeo said that months ago. We have religious fanatics in charge encouraging Trump, including VP Pence, Attorney General Barr, and Secretary of State Pompeo. Help!. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47670717
Phil: I get the very same feeling about Trump and that he’s dangerous to all, not just Americans, but all of us
As for playing to ‘the religious right’. I doubt Trump as an adult has ever gone to church. I find, for the most part, all religion is part of our neurosis. It sure helped my mother to keep clear of her pain.
To set about to kill someone … on any pretext is NOT the way of Christianity. I don’t think one needs a degree in psychology to figure out where Trump is coming from.
Jack
Phil,
I can relate to your frustration.
I am curious as to how your wife responds or would respond when you ask her about what she feels or thinks, does she remain silent?
wish you all the best, M
Margaret,
No, she doesn’t remain silent. She’s still quite upset, and that shows when I try to get her to talk
about what’s going on. It’s also clear that she doesn’t want to talk about it, but wants to go along as if it didn’t happen, but that doesn’t leave us relating properly. From past experiences we could continue like that for a long time. I’m trying to make clear to her that I’m unwilling to have that happen again.
Phil
Margaret, here is a summary of the argument we had in front of friends at our house in November. My wife was putting me down, I felt, while saying she saved us by getting her studying and becoming a teacher. I know that our friends have heard this story many times. I wasn’t in that conversation but overheard it, and then jumped in to add that I helped her a lot with getting the Masters classes, , by proof reading her papers and making corrections, and at least one time writing the whole thing. That made her very upset because I guess it ruined her narrative. I wasn’t trying to diminish her accomplishments, but put that in because of what she was saying about me. It kind of refers back to earlier things which happened between us which haven’t been completely resolved.
Phil
I made some mistakes in that last message. “Getting” should be removed from two sentences., it should read, “by her studying and becoming a teacher”. and “I helped her a lot with the Masters classes’..
Phil,
it does not sound as if you said something that hurtful really.
sounds like there is some very sensitive spot in her that got touched almost accidentally, but of course I don’t know at all, just an impression.
maybe it could help her if she would want to have a talk with Barry, but right now that might be a very dangerous suggestion to make by the sound of it.
you have made efforts to communicate which is all you can do probably at this point.
wishing you all the best sincerely, M
Phil,
it does not sound as if you said something that hurtful really.
sounds like there is some very sensitive spot in her that got touched almost accidentally, but of course I don’t know at all, just an impression.
maybe it could help her if she would want to have a talk with Barry, but right now that might be a very dangerous suggestion to make by the sound of it.
you have made efforts to communicate which is all you can do probably at this point.
wishing you all the best sincerely,.. M
Margaret,
I could suggest a joint session. We had a few in the past, but I haven’t so far felt like doing that.
Phil
Phil,
and of course I have no clue about the tone of voice of the discussion, as that can send all kind of messages regardless of the relative innocence of words.
M
Phil – it truly is sad to read your account of the argument. Hard to imagine that even if at the time your wife was not able to stop her story and acknowledge your help in her getting her degree & credentials – that later on and even now she has not apologized and given you that due credit. Somehow, its as if it takes something away from her victory.
I could not have completed my degree without Barry’s help in doing all that he did, as you did.
Not to mention the time, patience and energy in both of us helping one another @ different times in our lives.
L
Leslie, I’m discouraged about this, as we aren’t doing well. I’m going to add a few more details to the story. Juana is also upset because she feels I exaggerated my role in helping her with her Masters degree, in that exchange in front of our friends. By I thought we corrected that, and agreed, right in that moment.
She didn’t like it that I brought it up at all. After that she made a comment that she became a teacher, but I didn’t. A way of emphasizing her achievement, and that I couldn’t do it. And it is a great achievement for her. I had also tried making a career transition to teaching about 5 years after Juana started full time teaching, because I was having employment problems. I only had two more classes to complete, but there were quite a few other things I needed to become a certified teacher. Ultimately, as I was in front of students, I decided it wasn’t going to work for me, nor did I think I would be hired. A job came up for me in clinical lab testing, my long time occupation, so I dropped the idea of also becoming a teacher. It was a bad idea to begin with, and I should have known better, because I never liked school myself. I was trying to force it to work. I’m just not somebody to stand in front of students to be talking for hours, and I didn’t have any skill controlling them, and I didn’t enjoy it.. So that comment of hers, that I didn’t become a teacher didn’t bother me.
I’m afraid she wasn’t at all helpful and supportive for me as I went through the stress of unemployment, I guess because it gave her stress too. She is still resentful about that, even though I supported her the first 11 years we were married. These are some of our big issues.
Phil
As you tell them, they do seem big to me, Phil. It mattered to me that most of the time my spouse was proud of me, and vice versa.
Larry: Not to deny you your feelings towards Noreen, but in my case:- I’m not proud of my spouse (if that is what Jim is), but I sure am very grateful that he cares for me so much, and makes getting old; bearable.
Jack
Still sorry to hear Phil…Sounds stingy on her part to deny your input way back then. Wonder why she begrudges sharing the limelight with you even as you both created your life together & raised your sons…
Must be so hard to have her not want to explore this to improve what you have together.
Hi everyone: Am I just imagining it or are things around the world getting worse … if so, is there a way to change it all?
Jack
Jack, 40 years ago I still has at least 50% of the answers…. I recall a song lyric lie, “.. in the good old days when times were bad,” It’s kind of a religion in itself, isn’t it ? The past tense of hope, the notion things were ever really great. I am concerned where it is now. I watched a video on , a, ” barn raising.” A barn fell to a tornado. The neighbours gathered, cleaned up the mess, a great feast was prepared and a new barn raised, ( a beeeg barn,) and, a barn dance ensued. Didn’t see any non whitey folks. But that was community in action. My younger son’s paternity leave has ended, he’s back teaching at university. His wife returns to her private studio in Feb and their beautiful 14 mo old son will be off to day care. I cry privately for him, for them. They love each other, seem to be amazing parents. That’s the world in miniature, I think. A lack of understanding of connectivity, from the point of need; lots of points of view, as plentiful as the shelves full of commissions and studies, and about as much use. A friend had an epiphany last year, resulting in that he would try to treat others, not as he wished to be treated, but as they wanted and needed to be treated. I realize it will take a lot of filling in the blanks to try to fit that in with an answer to your question, oh revered sage saith me sated on my humble pie… (:
Whaaaat, Gretchen….no emoticons nor emogees..
David: My question was rhetorical, in that I do have my answer in my head, which I feel everyone who reads this blog, knows about.
I feel it’s worth repeating some of it again. I personally don’t need a leader, a culture, a belief system, merely my gut feeling that I was born with. I see most conflicts taking place as I see on the news and read on the internet, as being act-outs by these ‘so-called’ leaders. They are into their own heads and egos, pretending they are for the people. No one human is capable of knowing the sentiments, or wishes of any other person in-spit of polls and questionnaires.
Therein is the problem. SO!!!! how do we get beyond all this “brain-washing” called politics of left and/or right, or as the bible puts it:- righteousness or wrongteousness.
Simple:- Abolish it all. and the glue that holds it all in place:- an exchange system. This for that. “I’ll give you this IF you’ll give me that”
The problem for most of us with that notion is:- it scares the hell out of us … little realizing, that, that fear (terror, horror) relates to our past … and only has ‘triggers’ for us in the present.
I hope that makes some sense to you David.
Jack
Correction: I stated:- “of any other person in-spit of polls and questionnaires.” should have read:- “of any other person in-spite of polls and questionnaires.”
Jack
I believe I had a clear understanding of the question, Jack. I have considerable respect for your shared thoughts. I am notorious for taking things seriously, and my attempt to add some levity in my comment was apparently clumsy and not apparent. An emerging sense of humour seems to be one of the few gifts , ‘old age,’ has afforded me. (: Pulling my professional and personal experience, there is little evidence ,” things,” were ever very good. I once researched a history of human violence for a friend teaching Clinical Psychology at Acadia University. I was left wondering with all of that inhumanity coding our cells if there was any hope. One near past bit that freaked me out was the, ” good,” , white,”,” christian folk,” selling their excess children into slavery, at 3 Maritime locations, twice yearly. They called it , ” indenturing,” but it was clear slavery, labour, prostitution, slaughter. They described their child offerings like other cattle for sale.
To quote ecologist, Dr. David Suzuki, ” It’s like we’re heading towards a wall at breakneck speed, one foot on the brake the other on the accelerator.” Growing up in rural Nova Scotia, I do remember community. It was waning even then. There is little evidence now that it ever existed. I believe it has gotten much worse and if it’s ever to be turn aroundable I cannot think it will happen in my lifetime.
Swedish ecologist, Greta Thunberg’s, mission, eloquence, and bravery moves me deeply. But those who benefit, powerwise, from the continued miseries, far outnumber her band of cadres. I expect they will, as always, assassinate their initiative. I hope I am wrong and that a great humanitarian social movement is afoot. I hope I am totally mistaken and that, ” things,” are not and have never been as bad as I believe.
David: It was good to read your reply and I feel sure you understand my POV.
It is those that feel the changes are minimal, that worries me. Not for me personally as I’m on the very last lap of life, BUT I worry for the upcoming generations and the future of humanity. I do have nephews and nieces that now have children and some of those are almost ready to have their own children.
The denial by many of us is perhaps the scariest, but understanding their denial does not help the world of us humans. There is no way, as I see it, of educating them either. The ‘conceptual leap’ is far too great.
Primal therapy will never be available to the masses either. So!!! where do we go from here? I have my idea, but I doubt my idea or others of like mind, will convince the masses either.
I contend all we need is to put the idea out there and let it mature and only then will it evolve, then others catch on,,, mainly due to seeing the current system is NOT working out for us. Then with the idea being out there, hopefully, we’ll at least give it a try. Nothing so far in terms of fixes seems to have worked out for us.
Jack
An early mentor suggested to me ,” Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” The end of the box box stores is happening, mom and pop shops, butcher shops, farm gate shops; small radio and tv stations are gaining. The small town where I attended high school had 2 rather small grocers, and 3 convenience stores, 3 restaurants, 2 banks. 2 big box grocers crowded out the 2 small grocers; now, 2 too Big Box grocers, 5 convenience stores, 7 restaurants, 4 banks, serving a population diminished by more than 50 %. Like HF that doesn’t compute on any logic scale. When the big box stores first opened they had enough employees to make a movie, now, skeleton crews. Investment news claims that Walmart will shift to on line retail completely within 6 years, 63 % of stores closed in 2019. Well, mail order, was the retail service to rural areas. Not really different. I’m just rambling now Jack,so…later, gator..
Reread your reply, and, yeah, I agree, putting the idea out there, is the only response. A friend, now passed, had that conversation, by letter, with Art. He believed quality control, was fine but in the extreme would be the death of PT, which he believed was the only viable treatment model. He believed Art should have gifted PT to the world and encouraged others to take up the practice. He believed that as in all things the wags would be turfed, the , ” chaff,” he called them; the , ” cream,” would rise to the top.” And, he wrote, ” Surely the most lack lustre would be better than the status quo that has let down and endangered the mental health patients it is supposed to serve.”
David:- ” I agree, putting the idea out there, is the only response. ” … then from there permitting the idea to mature.
“He (your mentor)believed Art should have gifted PT to the world and encouraged others to take up the practice. “. Not sure he’s right but only time MIGHT tell. I feel as Fred mentions there is a great danger of just letting someone PRACTICE this therapy without adequate training, from an experienced therapist. It took me a long time to be a good listener that I can now use in buddying … without putting my ‘oar’ in.
Jack
Art waded into unchartered waters with a Masters degree in social work, ethically and successfully, developing primal theory and practice. One of my friend’s, post ‘ primal, ‘ patients went on to be a therapist at Art’s New York Primal clinic. I appreciate and admire the great care the PI takes in the care and safety of patients. I did my social work internship at a psychiatric hospital which was fraught with criminally chargeable professional misconduct towards patients. But protected. My own complaints resulted in being told to keep my head down, my mouth shut, or be disqualified from my placement. My friend’s first patients were the tragic resultants of conventional mental health, reclassified as, ” chronic;” write-offs; who though the primal approach regained health, independence, and productivity. Like you I jealously guard Primal Therapy. But I must question if it could have become much more, at least a choice in every State and Province. I believe it’s notorious success is the only explanation for the assassins still having their knives out 50 years later. That is the reception every healing art that doesn’t practice from a prescription pad faces. ” Pseudoscience,” and, ” Quackery,” are two of the nicest names the medical industry tosses at it.
I received an e-mail from the nursing home a few days ago, to let me know they were advised by the hospital to administer my mom a baster of Aclasta, a medicine against osteoporosis.
I would need to give my consent first and sign a paper before .
I did look up the medication on the web and felt worried about all the possible side effects and contra-indications.
patients with kidney problems should not take it, patients with heart fibrillation should not take it, and patients with teeth that aren’t in good shape should not take it.
at first it was not clear whether my mom had had that medication during her stay in the hospital last summer, where she had had a complete kidney failure and heart fibrillation, so I wondered if that had been caused by this medication in the first place.
later I found out mom had not had it so far, but I only found that out recently.
so I was a bit stressed, as I could not get hold of her regular doctor until today.
talking with my brother learned me he felt very inclined to refuse it, but I needed to find out more as I did not want to decide without having all the information.
so today I could finally talk with her doctor, who at first reassured me mom’s kidneys are again in good shape, and that her heart is ok as well.
but then I brought up the dental risks, the medication can cause necrosis of the lower jaw, dying off of the jaw really, a lot of pain, infections and teeth falling out.
the doctor asked me about the state of mom’s teeth, and in her lower jaw she has still remaining parts of teeth which she refuses to go to a dentist for as they would have to cut them out etc.
so the doctor said that certainly was a contra indication, minimally a dentist should check that first in case the medication would be administered.
then the doctor told me she had indeed already had a patient who, from the medication, had had the starting necrosis of a jaw, a lot of misery really, and six months of continuous antibiotics.
so she agreed with me it might be best to just not give the treatment at this point.
mom takes daily doses of calcium and vitamins, and her fracture has healed surprisingly well so far, so I am relieved the decision has been made this way and that I actually was able to detect possible complications that might have occurred without me double checking.
my brother was glad to hear about the conclusion as well, and I feel a weight is off my shoulders.
of course as mom will regain more mobility from now on, the risk of her falling and having new injuries gets bigger again, but that is part of life, preferable to fixating her in a wheelchair forever etc. instead of with physiotherapy helping her to regain her capacity to walk and move around more freely again.
but again this illustrates how it is often necessary to be on top of things and to look for information and to communicate over and over with medical and nursing staff.
in this case it is a good thing they do need my consent for a lot of decisions.
glad the stress is dissipating now…
M
Margaret: I too grapple with these kinds of questions, but for the most part I take Jim’s word for it. Always when seeing the doctor I ask a lot of these questions.
It’s all part of growing old; none of us live forever. That said, for me, it’s how pleasant life is,, on a day to day basis. For now, with Jim taking care of me, that is all I need, but there is always the possibility that Jim also will become ill and/or even die before me. Should the latter happen, I’m not sure I would want to continue to live, but I don’t want to commit suicide either. Best I know how I would just let myself die, but even that poses some problems:- like our home and what money remains in the bank.
We’re both contemplating making another will, to update the old one we made in California.
So! I can relate to both your concerns and what concerns your mother has.
Jack
P.S. are you going to the retreat this next Thursday?
Leslie,
I have scheduled a joint session for us, which she agreed to without hesitation, which is good news. So we’ll see what happens. Ideally I wish she’d do her own therapy, put she hasn’t been interested in that so far..
Phil
Wonderful news Phil! It feels so good to both be heard – and to truly listen to the other person with someone you can trust there to help.
L
Phil,
that sounds like good news, glad for you, and for her of course.
M
January 14, 2020
I can’t receive regular updates. It has something to do with AOL mail.
I’ve been AWOL from the blog for three months. I’ve done a couple individuals at the Institute in that time. Always I believe the Primal Institute does a great service to humanity.
The calendar says it’s a new year and decade. Our years are based on the birth of Christ. We know that Christ wasn’t born 01/01/0000. I saw a good YouTube that put Jesus’ birth in 4 B.C.
I believe the Primal Institute should prepare for the future; I hope there is an ongoing program. After all it’s not 1998 when I attended a public seminar at Dr. Janov’s International Primal Center called “Primal Therapy in the Millennium”.
I think people who feel the “calling” should consider getting the necessary requirements for the state of California to practice therapy. I don’t know them but I’m thinking either an MFT or M.A. in psychology. Hopefully, the Institute has a training program. I believe Dr. Janov’s still does. The torch must be passed on.
I know for myself, however, to be honest; I would chafe a little at having my therapist be 40 and my being 70. Who knows though? Sometimes younger people can manifest a type of wisdom and much older patients might trust them.
Obviously, I’m not a regular on the blog. Sometimes I wish I were but my life’s path has taken me in unexpected paths. I will try to be a bit more regular and keep up with suffering humanity a bit more. I do like to stir things up (did not Art stir things up in the psychological establishment big time?). On this matter, I was a journalism major at university of Oklahoma. I was supposed to graduate in 1971. However, I was more than a year behind and my draft deferment ended due to changing majors. I was not afraid of being sent to the rice paddies of Southeast Asia because Nixon signed a bill ending the Draft, summer of 1971. Free of the fear of going to the (illegal) Vietnam War, I kind of dropped out. I read the Primal Scream summer of 1971. I did take a couple classes, fall of 1971 but my principal focus was Primal Therapy. Long story short I did the therapy 1973-74.
In therapy I learned the difference between a “primal” and, what Janov called, “abreaction”.
I returned to Oklahoma summer of 1974 and helped raise my sister’s children. I also got a job as a janitor on campus and resumed my studies in journalism fall, 1974. As a reporter I interviewed a psychologist in Norman, OK about Primal Therapy. She said it was legitimate but warned against self-primaling. Nevertheless, I felt like she was threatened but who knows?
In order to continue to stir things up, here is my imagining the channeling for the new year of Arthur Janov, Part 6
__________________________________________________________________________
Profound New Year to all
It was an understatement in a way when I stated that conditions of one’s birth color one’s daily reality.
What occurs in birthing into the three dimensional reality is an entire incipient world-view. It basically needs only for the individual to reach the age of 12 and-a-half or so, when these “instructions” hold sway more than they don’t. Then, over the next 12 and-a-half years there is a maturing and growth.
The conditions of one’s birth were predetermined, in your terms, telepathically. You have free will, of course.
Suffering should teach one not to suffer. I’m afraid to tell you but I think you already know. The long term “cure” (my word) for suffering is to integrate it.
All disease is emotional, thus if you are feeling the emotional information that makes up the suffering, you are allowing the body-psyche to free more energy to healing.
This is hardly revolutionary, really.
Much is said in the Primal community about the “Feeling Child” or “inner child”, yet it is the nexus to other worlds, to the vast untapped resources of healing. I cannot emphasize enough the intricate, knowing purity of the tsunami of healing within.
I said this last time: “You have strands of feeling-convictions that, if followed, will lead you into unchartered territories. Following them often leads to the classical primaling”.
Unchartered territories indeed with the concomitant slathering on of a grounded feeling of well-being. To quote Yoko: “we lost our true wisdom, now we live in despair”.
I said also: “There is no practical limit on experience actually but, nevertheless you insist on your limitations”.
Consider. You got nothing to lose but some of your lost-ness of true wisdom.
Say, you are in group and you say “I am blocked”. Really you aren’t. You have the feeling-idea “I am blocked”. Primal THAT!
I did not make adequate plans. I did the “easy” stuff. My storehouse of endorphins eventually ran low.
Make a plan.
Baby steps at first, then infant, then, early childhood…you get the sequence, I’m sure.
Make sure you include having your feelings, expanding that ability.
Make short-term, mid-term, “long-term” plans in various arenas of your life with reachable goals. Who knows? You might live as long as Enoch!
Fred:- “The Primal Institute should prepare for the future” Best I know, I feel both the Institute and the Center are training as many as they can, they feel are good candidates.
“I do like to stir things up (did not Art stir things up in the psychological establishment big time?)” I agree that Janov stirred things up in the mental health profession, but sadly they dismissed it when Art stated only he and his staff were capable of training, AND he had a good point; demonstrated IMO as you stated about The Feeling Therapy organization.
“In therapy, I learned the difference between a “primal” and, what Janov called, “abreaction”.” I too learned that, but I saw it as an acting-out
“The long term “cure” (my word) for suffering is to integrate it. “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” My take also
“I’m just rambling now Jack,so…later, gator..” I will in a while, crocodile; meantime, ramble all you like. You reveal quite a lot by these ramblings IMO. I suggest you come onto the blog more often and tell us more about yourself. You’ve mentioned so many interesting things just today in 5 postings.
Yes Fred; I would love a .PDF file of Carol Mithers’ book, if you’re are able to do that. The only other way would be to order it online.
Granted that would be complicated, first by scanning the book then using some software like Microsoft’ Office, then creating a .PDF file, rather than printing.
Jack
Jack, I agree with Fred that “Therapy Gone Mad”, by Carol Mithers, is a really interesting book. I’ve read it several times and enjoyed it each time. It doesn’t get things exactly right where it describes primal therapy, but that’s to be expected.
As far as I know, and what I’ve heard, there are no new therapists being trained at the Primal Center, and if someone’s being trained at the PI, that’s news to me.
I thought the last training program at the Primal Center ended years ago. They do sell the “Legacy Program”, an extensive set of videos which outlines how the therapy works. I’m afraid that all the interest and demand is for newer therapies like EMDR, somatic experiencing, various kinds of CBT, and a whole host of other methods. But the problem is at least getting a lot of attention with the realization that so many people have PTSD, and a recognition of complex PTSD (C-PTSD) or developmental trauma.
Phil
Phil: I am really interested to read the book, but I kind of know what it’s about. Should I need to quote from it, is my main reason to read it.
I do not actually know if either the Institute or Center is training anyone, but I would hope that there are some in training from either place. I feel no-where else would be truly able to train anyone. The danger is always breakaway centers/institutes, might have good intentions, but are still neurotic enough to bring in their own ‘old feelings’. I contend Janov saw just that and attempted to guard against it.
My real concern is that before all the therapists are retired or dead, there is a way found to prevent neurosis in the first place. Therein there would be no need for Primal therapy. A hope that I too, feeling, may not happen.
My idea for that to happen is via ‘Anarchy’ is merely just that:- my idea, contention, opinion; BUT I feel it is worth contemplating. I personally don’t see any other way.
Jack
Jack,
The Center for Feeling Therapy evolved into a cult, and that is well known. but what’s so interesting in the book is the story of how that happened.
That’s an outstanding case, but otherwise how can we tell if any therapy center or therapist is neurotic or not. There’s no objective measurement, it seems to be mostly a judgement call for anyone to make.
Scientists say the universe is moving continually towards entropy, which is randomness or disorder (anarchy), maybe that is reassuring for you.
Phil
Phil: “otherwise how can we tell if any therapy center or therapist is neurotic or nott are easily recognizable”
I feel strongly disagree. Anyone having done a substantial amount of Primal therapy can see the defensiveness, denial, and compulsiveness of people who are neurotic to whatever degree. The reason these other therapies/therapists do not ‘cut it’ is, via these characteristics.
The problem is mainly, as I see it, from people entering these therapies, knowing little of what the process is.
The fundamentals of Primal therapy is that the patient is the one that knows. Any therapy that tells their patient what is wrong with them or tells them how to correct their behaviors, is anathma to the whole of the Primal theory and therapy.
It would have been easy for Art Janov, after seeing ‘Danny Wilson’ go through his reliving by explaining to Danny, what had happened. Janov did NOT do that and therein ensued the ACTUAL discovery, then the therapy.
Jack
Jack, You would know what to look for having had success with the therapy. But for others who haven’t, it may not be so easy. That’s why a lot of people ended up being abused at “The Center for Feeling Therapy.”
Phil
As much as Janov’s writings irritated me & left me running to Vivian’s place instead, I do have genuine concerns about the Primal movement dying off since Phil has said there are no new therapists in training anymore. I’ve done too much crying to shrug off the grave possibility of the entire movement disappearing, for I’m sure I have plenty more crying to do during the right moments.
No new therapists in training is a terribly concerning sign given the labor-intensiveness of facilitating primals
No sarcasm intended, but which, ‘christ,’ would that have been. The mythological one as head of christianity, according to the deciphered Hebrew manuscripts is a compilation of 3 ,’ christs,’ including ,’ christ the levitator,’ whom ‘ jesus, brother James,’ is implicated in stalking and turning his disciples against him, ending in a fatal stoning. A newer cult springing from the original church of the nazarene preaches that the christian church figurehead, jesus, is actually satan and he named satan the real jesus. A new twist on an old myth, eh? But who was born, where, when, to whom is where you were going.
Guru: If my gut feeling is correct, then I feel the Primal notion, (the triad) will be revived and maybe, just maybe, will get more scrutiny from the medical and mental health professions.
I also feel there will be some very sincere person to warn against abusing it. by the abuser thinking they know better than the patient. I feel strongly, that if abuse occurs, those being abused will speak out about it and persuades any potential abuser from going in that direction … normally for the purpose of monetary gain.
It is the monetary gain that causes 95% of all abuse, crime and even other types of gain/s.
I hope my feeling is correct. I sure would be interested in feedback from you, or anyone else.
Jack
I honestly don’t know what more I can say about this, at least for now. I do remember blogging with Phil a long while back about the Center for Feeling Therapy debacle & Phil bringing up the “Therapy Gone Mad” book about what happened.
Primal never took over the world because of the inherent unpleasantness and the TONS and TONS of one-on-one or small group work it can take to try to send a person off to a better life on his or her own.
I never experienced any significant therapist abuse (or if I did it was very mild), so I can’t really comment wisely there.
It does seem as though you are leading back to love of money being the root of evil and money should be abolished, as per usual.
I did have a really terrible substance abuse therapist once. In her world everything I thought was wrong and the 12 step program was the only way to salvation. By the time I finished with her (thankfully only an hour), I felt as though a mobster had put my head in a vise and turned the crank as hard as he could!
Guru: If it looks that way (to you), it sure ain’t mine. It has been gotten in my way all my life and when I first went to that lecture in London at age 25 on ‘Democracy’, was the moment for me that I began to look at what I took for granted, a lot more seriously. My very first was on realizing I was gay.
It’s just that every time I directly mention “abolishing money” I don’t get the results that I would like or hope for … so I’ve accepted that, and now I come to it from a different angle … knowing (now) that going down ‘the same rabbit hole and expecting a different result’, never work as far as I can see.
Just as with many that I turned onto reading “The Primal Scream”, most were unmoved by it. Even in Ibiza among other hippies who’d already made a shift in their thinking by rejecting the established way of life.
I can only conclude that most of us (normally) will do our best to avoid pain. Therein is the conundrum.
Thanks for your response Guru.
Jack
After graduation, while waiting for a social work position to become available, ( I was hired on paper but there was no money in the budget for a salary,) I worked at a GM dealership. The difference between the entry level pickup and the top offering was an automatic transmission, $ 100.00, dealer cost, and a plastic plate, free to the dealership, which said, ‘SUPERCAB’. For which the customer paid an extra $ 1750.00. The price of status.I have read the papers of people professionally cited to be the best financial minds who each offered a formulas for ending financial poverty by providing a dignified level of income for every adult citizen, single, couple, with and without children. And every paper concluded that by abandoning the draconian individual income revenue policing system, by having an at deposit taxing and remitting process, a 1% tax on the amount above the dignified income level, governments would have more tax dollars in the coffers and citizens had the potential for dignified living.Medical care, even in the very flawed concept, ( I prefer to be able to choose my provider, allopath, chiro, naturopath,)treatment cost, dental care, eye care, free to all, would lower health care costs. But it will cut into the wealth of the entrenched, and largely non efficacious, entrenched corporations that choose our governments. For that reason, it will have to be wrenched from the clutches of the incumbents. I believe that the main foe of Primal Therapy is the balance sheet and total monopoly of those same businesses. We do not provide the PI with weekly or monthly income for the rest of our lives after PT, nor contribute to the engorged purses of those corporate predators.I’m pretty much ok, most of the time. And, thanks to PT I KNOW I was born 100% unmarred potential and injured by victimization. I feel sadness for myself for the remaining tentacles that diminish my quality of life, but I do not feel guilty.I cared for my 90 year old father everyday when he was palliative, 6 am – 11 pm. I believe he was kind to me when I was a baby. He liked babies. When I was 11 he put it into words that I was not the son he wanted. My narcissistic brother, the favourite, went off to his winter home in Florida. The other narcissist, professional, too, and equally as corrupt visited once, the night our father died.I lost it after several weeks, listening to my father extol the superior qualities and accomplishments of my brother, and said, where is he, dad, I’m here, what about me. The impact was like hitting him with a hammer. And I felt like a shit. It was not the time to say that. Thank you PI and PT, my decency is intact.
David: Quite revealing about you and your relationship with your dad, but not enough love to make life something to enjoy as you went through it.
Watching the news twice a day on CNN TV, makes me realize, all is not well in the human world, but how to fix it, never seems to be talked about, except for just tweaking here and there, around the edges.
However, there is one bright spot. It’s that feelings are now being talked about more often and there was a surprising interview by Christian Amanpour, with a female writer who wrote, some time ago, on girls, and now she’s written another book about boys. The revelation she came to was that boys were never allowed to be emotional and girls were always supposed to be subservient to men/boys.
I have the feeling that Janov’s work is beginning to percolate through about the effects of trauma.
Jack
You can probably get book on amazon cheap.
Maybe this is a SIGN that someone ought to maybe REALLY “buckle down” and, to an extent, re-think a bit or two of Primal Theory, practice. Then one should move to California, if not already here, get a an MFT or whatever Masters required in order to become a Primal Therapist. Maybe the Institute and/or Center can create an endowment to help with tuition
There is TOO MUCH at stake to allow all Janov’s work to peter out. I know the IPA is trying to keep the flame alive.
I might think about doing it myself. Get cheapest dadgummed MA possible, maybe online.
I went to the Center last last year. They’re still going on. I believe Ms. Janov has at least temporarily stepped back. I talked the receptionist there and she is from France also. I had met her a couple of other times, in 2015 and 2016 when I brought Dr. Janov a birthday present in August, right before his birthday. For some reason I didn’t in 2017. He died a few months later, as you know.
Fred, does Trump University possibly offer an MFT or Masters program needed for Primal work?
I should have typed ‘a MFT’. The phonetics of the letter ‘M’ seduced me into carelessly typing ‘an’.
Trump University provided live, real world, scam training , the best in the world outside of Nigeria.
Oh come on Phil, why would the greatest President the world has ever known be involved in something like THAT? In the meantime, I was simply hoping whether Fred could find out for us if Primally-related Masters degrees are available at Trump U.
Guru, I think Trump U was shut down: “A federal court approved a $25 million settlement on Tuesday with students who said they were duped by Donald Trump and his now-defunct Trump University, which promised to teach them the “secrets of success” in the real estate industry.” A good secret to success would be to get in on that settlement.
I think a great idea for students of psychology during their years of clinical internship, would be to practice diagnosing Trump and his voters.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/federal-court-approves-25-million-trump-university-settlement-n845181
I actually don’t find your sarcasm funny. It’s fine but we are talking about REAL stuff here, not someone’s perceptions about a COMPLETELY irrelevant subject.
If I do say so myself, I’ve benefitted quite a bit from what I learned in Primal Therapy. It very much colored by path. When my dad died in 1977, my ability to access feelings made so much of a difference.
That said, I was always troubled by a few things which I later determined were in Primal Theory. I posted on this subject. My questions expanded my path. Ask and you shall receive worked. My SOUL was crying out. The “universe” provided almost EVERYTHING I need to synthesize seemingly disparate psychologies, philosophies, etc.
Now, with a generation of unmoored and self-indulgent humans, I BELIEVE 100 percent that there is a place for Primal Therapy.
I had an insight only yesterday. We are all rushing through life. This behavior began probably before birth and became more entrenched afterwards (see also “The Primal Scream” by Arthur Janov, PhD). It may VERY well be the flotsam and jetsam of repression. This ongoing partial-flight mode may actually be the CAUSE of aging. Get it? We flee through time and we age while maybe, just maybe the neonate perceives time as a psychological phenomenon, that is, a construct of this dimension. It may ACTUALLY be that Enoch of the Bible (and the non-Biblical “Book of Enoch” which is only in the Orthodox Ethiopian Bible) actually did live to be 1000 and then simply willed himself out of his body.
O, ye of such little faith!; or to quote Graham Nash (“Chicago, 1971”) “we can change the world”.
i will look for the magazine. It is in cabinet. Also there was an article on a play performed in Pacific Palisades in the free Malibu Magazine. The name of play was “Primal Scream” I think, about 5 years ago. I gave one copy to Barry, Will look for that. My email fw28@AOL.com
Fred: Thanks for the reply you made to mine. Yes, I went to that ‘musical’ with my buddy, who paid for both of us. I met and shook hands with him. Just prior to that he’d read my 2nd book and given it a short but favorable crit.
Take care, Fred.
Jack
I LOVE it! Was ole Art beaming with pride?
You have my email. Contact me and I will try to scan what I can. You sent me your communist manifesto back in 2018. I still have on PDF. My favorite article on PTh is the GREAT piece in Rolling Stone, circa Feb 1971. I’m betting that is findable online. I also have it. Now that was pretty good reporting, coming from a guy who got a j-degree but didn’t get along with people so I got smart and got an acctg degree whilst in my 30s, returning as a serious adult student in the US of A. That said, at 70 y/o I STILL don’t know what I want to do in life. I figure I still got time. Maybe lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of time, if Enoch is true. Long ago I stopped subscribing to consensus reality. It’s lonlier but fewer people bug me.
Basically, “damn the torpedos, damn the medical profession, damn the ruling class with its deep state, damn the media (my former profession!), damn the avaricistic agricultural industry that feeds steroids and antibiotics to animals and all the rest of the crimes.
They have all sold their soul and what Jesus said:
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
I can dig it!
Let me know by email. I will try to scan.
To all you ‘treaters’: I wish you all the best for the retreat and that most of you get what you went there for.
I’ll be thinking of you from time to time over these next four days.
Meanwhile, some interesting posts on the blog this Wednesday morning. I will respond to some of them later … off right now to the hospital for one of those scans done by the CAT 🙂 🙂 .
Jack
Hi Everyone: Back from the hospital; the whole trip being something of a: nightmare … literally, since I had to get up at 5:30am, in the dark, get dressed, washed and then make breakfast, then get my scoot mobile out, unfold it, drive to the park gate and wait for the taxi. It was a cold as all (I was about to say:- “hell” then realized it is supposed to be bruising hot, down there 🙂 ). The hospital is about 7 miles from where we live.
The taxi duly arrived, then sped off without us which meant phoning the company, getting it to turn back, but eventually getting to the hospital on time. No problem in the C T scanner except they had to do it twice as I was apparently wearing something metal.
By that time daylight had arrived, so then, I scooted back to the main entrance, with Jim in tow, phoned the taxi company, to take us back home. 😦 😦 .
Phew!!! it was not pleasant. The next two visits before the end of the month are at a later time; thanks be to Godo.
Jack
I hope the scan results alleviate any worries Jack.
Larry: Thanks for your concern. Actually, I’m not worried; Jim is more worried than I am. I have long been able to take whatever comes my way, my only I hope is it’s not too painful. Since Jim is a medical technician he tends to take these things more seriously than I do. Ever since I was conscripted into the Army in the medical corps I have never had that much faiths in doctors and particularly since my mother used herbal cures with us as kids; seeing a doctor was only on rare occasions when I fractured my wrist or, gashed my eyebrows slipping on to a rock with my head, bathing in a stream. The only other time I remember was when getting measles and chickenpox
Death is the end of life, and I’ve no delusions about life after death … which is a contradiction in terms.
If you are at the retreat, I hope it’s going well for you, as I believe you are
Take care Larry
Jack
I’ve been participating, even if for periods just following, not commenting, on this blog for 8 years. I just read, ” Guru’s” post that there are no longer therapists in training at the PI ? Is that the same for Art’s LA clinic ? Even though it’s been 32 years, and I likely will never be in a financial position to return to therapy, the thought of the collapse of PT terrifies me. There’s no fucking hope if it does
I wasn’t the originator of the rumor that no new therapists are in training anymore. Phil said that.
Denial accepted (:; for most of my life I’ve never said anything right, now I cant read anything right…
Hi, all you retreaters: I hope for you all of you, you can come from this retreat with a better ability to express your feelings more easily, are able to make life a little easier.
I thought about you all quite a bit.
Even if it would have been easy for me to get there, I doubt I would have wanted to go, as my traveling days are over. I really am beginning to feel I’m on the last lap of life. It’s not particularly sad, though I do have some worries about the future, both for me personally and also for humanity. Maybe there is some old feeling component in that, but my real concern is also a present one.
All the protest going on around the world and Brexit in particular for me, I feel lots of these protest are somewhat misplaced in that deep down, anyone of us wants to be told what we can and cannot do, We’re all of us humans, capable of figuring it out for ourselves, and thus it is governing and governments (authorities) that are the real problem … BUT, there I go again!
I Hope this Sunday (I assume is the lasts day of the retreat), you’re all able to take something back home from your experiences of the last four days.
Jack
Correction: the penultimate paragraph, the third phrase should Have read: “not anyone of us wants to be told what we can and cannot do,”.
Jack
January 22, 2020
You are a good soul yet we disagree about SO much but that’s all right, that’s okay and as they used to say at the high school football games fall 1965 and 1966 “we still love you anyway”.
Of COURSE, we survive death. We are energy. Our consciousness is ENERGY. I’m not getting into this.
However, I SPECIFICALLY remember a “past life” being killed by Indians. This was in a dream, like a MOVIE. I had this dream in 1968.
Over the years “past life” memories have come to me. I’m up to 10 lives now.
My first memories of “past lives” were at age 3 or 4 “this life”. I always knew as a small child that I had had two “peasant” lives in Olde England. I clearly saw myself out in the fields. How does a young child “know” this stuff? I can’t exactly say but I just KNEW. A few years ago I had the insight that I “got all the ‘peasant lives’ out of the way” by having two consecutive lives in England.
In 1973, when I was actually in Primal Therapy, a group of us from the center went to some psychic in Berkeley. Long story short she, to my surprise, said she saw a “crown in my aura”. I asked what it meant. She said that in a past life I had seen (the historical) Christ. The moment she said it (maybe power of suggestion?) I had a “movie” in my head of Jesus Christ walking by a group I was in, maybe indentured servants.
In 2005 I had this little movie play when half asleep, half awake. It was in the 1700s in France, maybe around time of revolution. I was in an VERY upper class family, maybe French royalty. I was maybe 11. I was looking in mirror. I believe I died not too long afterwards. In this vision I HATED my life. In this life I’ve NEVER liked France, French and French antiques but I’ve LOVED Spain, Castillian Spanish, etc.
Other lives were one as a maid in old England maybe 1700s or 1800s I was an inveterate flirt. I remember this other woman worked there. We were friends, yet rivals. She was jealous of me because I attracted the men. I REMEMBER the pub. I remember nights talking to her on a cobble stone street. I was actually jealous of her because I felt she was more feminine. I believe my gay friend in Puerto Vallarta whom I met in 2007 and talked to on the phone many years, and saw each time my wife and I went to Puerto Vallarta in subsequent years and guy whom my wife adored; was that woman in past life. I told him this a few times on phone conversations between him in Mexico and me in West Hollywood. He died, by the way, in November 2018 of pneumonia. NOT AIDS as everyone speculates. He finally found the “love of his life” after years of living alone, a much younger Mexican guy, Jose. They went to France (of all places) in September 2018. He returned to Puerto Vallarta and in October got very sick. I last talked to him in late October when I was sitting in Coffee Bean in Cedars-Sinai, trying to deal with my grief by going back and seeing Cedars. On that day he said it was the first day he felt half decent in three weeks. I immediately booked a trip to Puerto Vallarta for about two weeks later, but when I got there he had taken a turn for the worse and was basically in a coma. He died about 10 days later.
In 2011, I had another movie in my mind while half asleep and it was of a life in meso-America where I had moments of illumination although the overall life contained much “pain”. I could see the verdant fields. I knew there was great cruelty in the culture, yet a connection to All Creation.
I also had a movie in half-dream/half-awake state of being a infant in a crib. NO!!!! Not this life. It was DEFINITELY early 20th Century, maybe 1906. I believe I died not too long after well before my first birthday.
I said this before but I will repeat.
Our lives have very individualistic themes. The themes are related to one’s belief system. One incarnates to “wear the suit” of a certain belief system. That doesn’t mean that every “soul” makes a “wise” decision. Arguably, say Mussolini might have not incarnated when he did, for example.
What is the purpose of this? What’s it all about, Alfie? Welp, it’s to GROW. Why else would 7 billion souls chose 7 billions life paths? Believe you me. Each and every one has a very SPECIFIC “life mission”.
But the beauty of it all is that we’re not bound by say a small list of goals. We got free will,dude! Truly, the potential is limitless.
A few souls are waking up to all this.
Okay, where does Primal Therapy, Theory etc, fit in?
It is about the EXPERIENTIAL. This is absolutely CRITICAL. This is why new age, metaphysical, mediation, even religion slow way down after the initial endorphin-rush.
We gotta GROW and that means FEELING.
Janov BRILLIANTLY described the process of how beliefs are inculcated–birth, infancy, childhood; you know the drill.
But ole Art, he just did not see all that forest because he focused on the few trees. But it is for us the LIVING to keep the faith, forge on, evolve Primal Theory, of integrate, to assimilate thought; to live more in the persistent present, to remember more and more of our past (this life and other lives).
By the way, you and I could not be politically further apart. Brexit is FREEDOM! And ole Boris, Nigel & Katie TOTALLY rock as the Slacker generation used to say.
i guess the addition of this “page 3” of comments has made it possible for my old pc to allow me to be on this blog again. all my ram has been going to monitoring stray cats. anyway, that is mostly all i can say. there might be a training program going on at the institute but i think it is different than what you would be thinking of. anyway, i am still on the outer rungs of this therapy, what the f do i know. cheers. i did not go to vietnam. mankind’s greatest threat is that we always have super-alphas like trump who stoke the fear and the hate. all those bozo’s want is superpowers. the rest of us would just be happy to eat and be cozy. anyway we are an infinitismal speck in time and space, but we certainly feel big. what kind of bullcrap am i saying? there is just nothing on tv.
Otto, I’m not sure why you dismiss what you wrote here is bullcrap, for all the points you made were salient enough to our everyday lives for me to appreciate. It’s not going to happen 100% of the time, but you activate the chemical reward centers of my own brain more often than you may think. Your ‘super-alphas running amok while most of us just want to eat and be cozy’ comment was on point. I deal with that sort of nonsense everyday.
Otto: Great to see you back. The number of posts on any article on the blog should not be a problem. All, I reckon you have to do is, sign up to receive emails in one of the boxes just underneath the reply box. From then on, you’d have no need to search the blog article to see what’s new.
Hope that helps.
Keep looking after those stray cats. and I agree all we each need to do is make life nice and cozy, and open up to expressing our feelings … Yeah????
Jack
correction. monitoring stray cats, raccoons, my dog sophie, and an occasional possum. a big effort of mine last year led to all those cats getting neutered, however just this week, there appeared a new young cat who eats like a horse. now i go to bed and have bad dreams.
Hello, Otto; Professor Dr. Richard Pitcairn, DVM, Phd; recommends ground pumpkin seed for worm eradication and prevention. He has a brilliant book for animal care. I took his course years ago, applied the info and had healthy, flea free, tick free, and, worm free animals, including cats and dogs. And no toxic chemicals. The average earth years life span of the animals was 20 +.
Something about pumpkin seeds? I may try that next flea season with my three cats that my wife so KINDLY left me to care for .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNKZHHi0FSU&feature=youtu.be 2WBK RUB JOESBOX ORANGE WATCH GOOD Motion 57255
Raccoons do like cat food. I locked my cats on the back porch at night so the raccoon could not eat their food. The raccoon then went over to my neighbor and must have knocked over a planter and messed up her porch.
Nice to see you back, Otto. Good thing you didn’t go to vietnam.
I am surprised how many people are still for trump. I thought his abandonment of the Isis-fighting Kurds is the worst he has done.
If you get tapeworm pills for the new cat she might eat less. There was one showed up here with a big appetite too, and wild.
I just called the nursing home.
since a few days mom was a bit agitated at night, walking around and going into other rooms.
they decided to lock her door after some time, try out if that helped, while they would check out on her regularly during the night.
they let me know, and I agreed for a little while it is better than starting up more medication or fixating her in some other way.
I checked yesterday and today and she seemed more restful, maybe it was her newly regained mobility and freedom to walk that triggered her.
yesterday she had even sneaked out of the protected ward following some people who had gone out through the code protected door, or maybe someone had left it open.
the caretakers soon missed her and started searching, and found her in the nearby chapel, just a bit further in the corridor.
she had seemed tired so then she was taking a nap when I called.
so today I called again, and had a little chat with her, she asked me as usual when she would see me, so I told her the day after tomorrow, Tuesday, and next Sunday.
I repeated it several times, every time she asked again, and then told her to be careful, to which she replied yes yes, there are just some doors that won’t open well. I reassured her it would be ok, and after some more chatting and telling her I love her, she said goodbye and I heard her give the phone to a nurse.I did not hang up rightaway and kept listening, and heard how she broke out in a deep crying.
it affected me, I felt very sorry for her.
I hesitated a bit about it but then apped my brother telling him about it, as I keep him posted.
I felt bad at first, worried if it had been my mistake calling her and thereby triggering her, felt guilty about not going to her more often and wished my brother would again come weekly instead of every other week.
but finally I realized myself crying is just part of what mom goes through, feeling sometimes lost and lonely and frustrated and scared.
I sent my brother another text message adding that as mom had seemed a bit restless, possibly a good cry would dissipate some of the tension and make it easier for her to enjoy herself again afterwards. after all that is how our mom functions, she cries easily but smiles again easily as well.
so that helped me to accept better how it is and to separate my own feelings of loneliness from those of my mom.
these winter days between courses and with best friend out of the country, and not that many acctivities at hand this weekend, but household stuff and reading, it feels empty and lonely and scary to me too a lot of the time.
one good thing is I managed to reach a long lost schoolfriend who was very happy to hear me as she had lost my adress in a computer crash.
so that is a small bright spot in my somewhat barren social life.
I also contacted sailing people to try to subscribe for a Belgian sailing week in summer, and the gym class on friday started up again too.
also finally I had a bit of a conversation in the hallway with some of the Roumenian neigbours who always tend to leave the door open, which highly frustated ,e.
one of them asked me about the bad smell they sometimes have, and I told them to contact the janitor as it is their connection with the sewer system that is inadequate and old.
but it helped me a lot that he told me that that smell is why they sometimes leave the door open, which is much easier to accept than imagining they do it out of carelessness or even provocation, as they see me close it 15 times a day to keep the cold out.
but now I can just leave it open for some time as finally I know what goes on.
and so small things help to deal with bigger issues and to move on to hopefully more fun days…M
John Lennon – Oh My Love (1971)–FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, MY EYES ARE WIDE OPEN. WOW THIS THERAPY WAS A BOMBSHELL FOR ME WAY BACK WHEN. RIPPED ME OPEN. NOT SO MUCH NOW. I MISS THAT INTENSE FEELING. FUCKING MAGIC, DR. JANOV. UNBELIEVABLE SHIT!
A lot of intensity in your last sentences, Otto. Brought up feelings of being in the hallway before big group. PT is kind of like a water tap that keeps dripping after it’s turned on. ” Oh Mr. Janov, Primal really is a scream.”
Lennon also apparently was precognitive. In November 1968 the Beatles’ White Album (actually titled “The Beatles”) was released. In the song “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”, Lennon sang: “The man in the crowd with the multi-colored mirrors on his hobnail boots, lying with his eyes while his hands are busy working overtime…bang bang shoot shoot”.
Somehow, this seems to be what David Chapman did. A few days earlier he got an autograph from Lennon. Then 12/08/80 he fired five shots. Four hit their mark, that is. the body of John Lennon. It is important that one missed because “bang bang shoot shoot” implies 4 bullets.
Chapman’s girlfriend, ironically, was Asian as was Lennon’s (second) wife.
Lennon was living in the Dakota Arms. Lennon & McCartney, early on in 1964, were persuaded by their manager, Brian Epstein, to “give away several of their songs”; a group of songs termed “The Songs the Beatles Gave Away”. This was an horrible crime because some of their best songs were never commercially recorded. Over about 4 years they “gave away” two more albums’ worth but most were in 1964, to other acts that Epstein had signed up. Most of these were third rate, fruity Liverpool-area bands like the Applejacks. This proved that Epstein, while only 9-12 years older than members of the Beatles did not FUNDAMENTALLY understand what he had there.
This leads to my next point. Some of the BEST songs the Beatles gave away were “From a Window”, “Bad to Me” and “I’ll Keep You Satisfied”. These were the songs given away to Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas. Yes! DAKOTAS. Thank God “Bad to Me” was available on acetate with John strumming guitar. It was on bootlegs for years and later on “Anthology”. However, as far as I know, “From a Window” a GREAT song was never recorded in any way by John or the Beatles. If some demo ever comes out it would be GREAT but I’m not holding out any hope. It would have been on Youtube by now. However, for ALL Beatles fans check out “From a Window” by Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas. Ya’ll will weep for the loss; maybe have a primal.
TRUMP: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” he is nothing but a rich charles manson. psycho killer.
Agree, Otto; my comment, exactly, to friends. To me the greater threat is the people who see him as credible, or sane, and those who would save him for their own vested interests and ideologies. I have relatives in Eastern, ( Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,) and, Southern, ( Georgia, North Carolina,) USA, who consider him, ” God appointed and anointed.”
The hardest 3 things to say:
1) I was wrong
2) I need help
3) worcestershire sauce
🙂
Do you know someone who needs to say them Leslie? 🙂
Larry: I would say most of us, for most of the time. Some are more able to than others … currently, the biggest culprit of them all is Donald John Trump.
Jack
I would just say this. Trump is not materially affecting my reality in a negative way. My more major concerns is to nurture my best friend each and every day. That best friend is my grief. It cannot be described completely. It cannot be understood entirely. It sometimes is UNFATHOMABLY sad, if you will. It is that Feeling Child someone spoke of 18 months or so again. The grief contains so so so so much emotional information. Indeed, it informs me, informs me of what I’m REALLY thinking.
It reminds me that happiness is an illusion like that song said.
It is there, however, NOT to cause me to suffer but for EXACTLY the opposite reason to transmute the suffering into a more palatable emotional experience where insights are the fruit and the honey.
My grief is ME, part of me, an integral part, albeit not all that INTEGRATED.
Of course, being in Therapy gave me at least the basic tools. My life’s path gave me MUCH additional information about the nature of reality. The death of my beautiful Suz transformed my rather previously lackadaisical, meandering search into something ABSOLUTELY exigent.
I would digress. My Primal of 11/17/1996 at the Insight Seminar in Santa Monica blew open the Gates of Heaven (along with blowing the minds of the other 30 or so participants, seeing this rather strange guy having the most massive primal imaginable right there on the carpet) where I, if you will, touched the face of God, beheld the liquid white of the angels and heard The Buzzing; the buzzing we were trained wasn’t proper, maybe meant we were crazy.
Society got it mostly wrong. Indeed we’re still swimming against the stream.
Finally, my sense of righteousness I believe honed by my hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of real primals since my wife died 11/22/2017 ABSOLUTELY convinced me that Trump is best President on my lifetime. I was born during Truman Administration.
Fred: Sorry to read about your wife.
I’ve read both of your responses to me and thought about them very carefully. When you wrote in your first paragraph:- “You are a good soul yet we disagree about SO much but that’s all right, that’s okay and as they used to say at the high school football games fall 1965 and 1966 “we still love you anyway”, that’s a nice thing to read but it’s not totally correct as there is the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of me also.
The rest of it I do not agree with it at all, but that is your feeling and it’s not for me to say to judge you. However, I did read both … carefully … and gave them some consideration.
On the second post, writing:- “My grief is ME, part of me, an integral part, albeit not all that INTEGRATED.” I find very revealing and some great insight for yourself.
On the Trump thing; that’s your prerogative, but seemingly for most people (according to most polls) don’t agree with you. He’s never (apparently) gotten even 45% approval ratings. I am also fascinated by the Senate impeachment hearings and I’m not sure the Republicans can offer a good case, other than attacking the process. They rarely if ever talk about the actual substance of what he did.
All this demonstrates to me, the absurdity of government and governing, and the glue that keeps this all in place … ‘money’.
Meanwhile: I need to look into why I am so compulsively intrigued with all this, in particular since the US is not my country … if ever I have/had one, and I’m not living there anymore.
Jack
Again, thanks for being thoughtful. Grief must, in part, be pre-verbal in a “Janovian” sense because the character of grief has dimensions not totally communicable by language. I have a feeling that most posters and “patients” past and current have this kind of experience.
Mankind is SO not ready to govern him(her)self so I don’t fret too much about the absurdity of government. Maybe some day, over the rainbow, this time will come. On that subject, the UN should rededicate itself to peace among nations. There should be freedom of religion, speech, some form of democracy. This should be Goal #1.
On global warming or cooling or change, first let’s have the REAL violators China and India clean up their act. The air is SO much worse. Plastic is truly an evil. ALL plastic should be recycled. We need to find more biodegradable substitutes. Plastic and trash emptying into the streams, rivers and oceans is the WORST kind of sin against this paradise planet in which we live. SUCH a violation!
Hopefully, prayerfully, this century will be the decade of the woman. I just have a feeling that women aren’t as warlike. I was so GLADDENED when Prez Trump reversed Obama’s rule allowing women into direct combat. When Barry (Barack’s real name) did that I was FURIOUS. Women have NO place in combat. I know. No human does. I agree but you know what I’m talking about.
I believe that women are in combat these days. With no draft all are needed, apparently.
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/08/16/army-ahead-of-schedule-in-integrating-women-in-combat-arms-outgoing-sma-says-as-he-departs/
“Barry” is not Barack Obama’s real name. His father, Barack Sr. also used “Barry” as his nickname to fit in when he was in college in Hawaii. He named his son “Barack”, but to fit in as a youngster Barack was also called “Barry.” When entering college Barack wanted to reconnect to his African heritage and resumed his birth name of “Barack”, and was called that thereafter.
If there is more factual interest, you can google: Is “Barry” Barack Obama’s real name.
Larry: Since you wished me ‘good luck’ with regards to my C T scan. I went to see the doctor at the hospital yesterday and the result was:- There is no change from the previous scan, suggesting that it’s not getting worse … BUT it’s not getting better either.
I’m OK with that. Jim isn’t … he wants it to be cured. I’m not sure what ‘cued is.
Jack
Food servers…?? (:
Leslie: I’ve been aware of these three the latter for many years going back to my teens. Pronunciation-wise its Wuster Sawse.
The other two came much later after a lot of therapy, the middle one coming first and is particularly relevant right at this moment in time. “I sure NEED Jim”. and telling him helps with the relationship. The first one took a bit more time when I saw Jim was totally unable to even come close to admitting he was wrong … I then looked into myself. Now I find it relatively easy (though not always) for the very same reason as the one above … AND it stops the ‘spiraling effect’ (as I call it).
Jack.
– –
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oooops… my attempt to, ‘ draw ,’ a goofy, smiley face gooofed
David: The real problem is the very dichotomy of right (righteousness) and wrong (wrongteousness) when in actuality neither exists.
As for worcester sauce, that’s the craziness of the English language which, at root, is an amalgam of several languages
Jack
‘T’is in the eye of the beholder…( humour.)
We were taught Brit, spelling and strict observance of accurate punctuation. I’m still totally anal about both. I cannot say, ” ain’t,” and while I can swear with the best of pirates, ,” fart,” makes me cringe, like, ” how course and crass.” Weird old indoctrination.
So true Leslie, something for all of us to keep in mind, especially in our darkest or hungriest moments ! 🙂 Gretch
Lol Gretchen!
Gretchen: There have been several questions of late in reference to the future of Primal therapy and I would be very eager to know your’s and Barry’s view on the matters.
I’d also be interested to know your’s and Barry’s feelings on finding a way to PREVENT neurosis universally … especially in view of my possible/potential way:- Law, government and money, abolishment.
Lastly; are there any trainees?
I am aware there may be a very good reason/s for NOT answering these questions on the blog.
Jack
When certain questions were offered to Barry in men’s group, the stock answer was, ” Why do you need to know that ?” Good questions Jack. Is Dr,Janov’s Primal Center still operating ? I read somewhere that one of his objectives was to train therapists. Any chance the PI and PC will ever merge ? A PI in every major city would be the ideal. IMHO.
David: om:-“only parent as well as we were parented. ” I feel there are too many things to be taken into consideration to generalize on just one POV.
On:- “I think it would be, at best, tough for fucked up, ( a PT term,): ) parents”. I sort of agree, therein IS the problem.
On:- “T’is in the eye of the beholder”. Of course, and therein is the dismissiveness, that is being widely talked about, especially in the political realm.
On:- “fart, makes me cringe”. What other word would make it less cringe-full? In the end, it’s all words, whatever the language.
On:- “Is Dr,.Janov’s Primal Center still operating ?”. I have no idea.
Jack
What is it that isn’t getting worse or better Jack, if you don’t mind my asking?
TO: Leslie, Jack, Larry, David, Barry, Margaret, Gretchen & all other young men & women; as well as the scoundrels, the n’er-do-well’s, the outsiders (that is I), the slackers and the betrayed.
One: “preventing neurosis universally”. I think Janov kinda outlined a strategy. Treat your babes, infants, children lovingly, bite thy tongue and count to 10 when necessary, etc. Love them from the “heart chakra” even when you “feel” no love and here’s an obvious. Don’t drink during pregancy. In doing all this you LITERALLY change not only your world and future, but the ENTIRE WORLD. It is called the Theory of Probabilities, or Probable Realities (aka, parallel universes).
Two: This is my opinion but I would say that if ole Art underestimated ANYTHING it was the role of birth trauma; and believe you me. He didn’t give it the the short shrift if you picked up on key paragraphs in “The New Primal Scream” and “Why You Get Sick and How You Get Well”. When I read what he said in 1997, a big piece of the puzzle fitted itself into place.
I now “get it”–how, what we think of as, “neurosis”, is so early-on inculcated. Birth Trauma actually has a verbalizable theme, ironically enough. Basically, it is almost the playbook by which the body-personality utilize to process events.
But ultimately EVERYTHING must be felt. Feeling automatically allows for the riding back-in-time to the life event. Obviously we gotta a ways to go in that regard but at least the Primalers got some concept of the process, if flawed. We should get hoppin’ however. The sooner the better.
Now, it should be obvious to all, that for most personalities, they ain’t gonna make it, that is, they will die before The Really Big Deal. This is almost presupposes, “reincarnational” existences; but who says we die at 75, 80, 90, 100?
Maybe, just maybe the real treasure is still there, in plain sight, yet relatively undisturbed. And the Feeling Child weeps on, crying waiting hoping that some day Puff, the Magic Dragon will re-emerge from its cave.
Coming home will be so sweet.
Fred, you don’t have to find my sarcasm about Trump University to be funny. More to the point I will just say that when you claim Trump is the best President who ever lived it makes it hard for me to take you nearly as seriously as I may have if you hadn’t made that claim.
vote trump this time
I recall Vivian telling a story about diapering Rick, she in a hurry to go out, finally frustrated with his lack of compliance, held him down. In short order he began having a scary monster in his closet. She and Art reviewed the recent past, and Art led him to revisit those feelings. I worked in human abuse for 40 years. The event Vivian related pales compared to the horrors I witnessed. But left unresolved the impact could have been a trigger for all sorts of act outs. And, oddly enough, folks who had survived the most bizarre traumas made some of the better recoveries, especially those who used substances to medicate.
David: I remember Vivian telling that story about Rick, but though a few of us had babies since therapy,. and to a far greater degree have babies, now adults better able to prevent neurosis or, leastways 99% of it, However, there’s always the chance that the very capitalist system we live under does not prevent all of it … sadly
But does not address the question of preventing neurosis universally or globally is not resolved by objective means, neurosis. So how do we get all of us humans to experience SUBJECTIVELY, to fully expressing our feelings?
I’ve laid out my idea. and contend it’s worth contemplating., which suggests to me, that it is a stupid idea, or not workable or that I’m not convincing. I’m currently assuming the last one.
Jack
With great respect for you, I realize it is gratuitous to mention, we only parent as well as we were parented. I know I was a better parent to my daughters. And I was a, ‘superb,’ parent to my step kids, according to them. The results of children raising themselves, and children being role models for younger children, such as is the case with the, ” middle school,” concept where Gr 5 – 8 are a segregated population, have produced tangible results, children who are loosely attached to others. There still seems to be belief that if they are fed, clothed, and subjected to, ‘ education,’ what possibly can go wrong.
I think it would be, at best, tough for fucked up, ( a PT term,): ) parents, and other fucked up adults entrusted to provide care, to tolerate having their children to express themselves. I suspect it would be intolerable, and haphazard, IMHO.
WE WENT DOWN TO SAN PEDRO FOR MY GRANDAUGHTER’S BIRTHDAY. SHE IS LOKE 3 OR 4 OR SOMETHING. NOW I AM JUST A DEAD PERSON AND FOR THE MOST PART I DON’T YEARN TO BE AROUND PEOPLE. AND I WOULD NEVER HAVE PICKED GOING TO A MOROCCAN RESTAURANT ESPECIALLY ON A 4 UYEAR OLD’S BIRTHDAY. THE FOOD WAS OKAY AND IT…WELL CANT FINISH NOW. DOGS AND CAYTS WANT AYTTENTION.
well lets just say the belly dancer got the kids a-dancing and the music was bright and it was like a swirl of magic time and space that came out of nowhere and burst into gorgeous blossum. magic. fucking magic. not like the 8mm film i have of me as a very young child sitting in a hifghchair crying my eyes out and a birthday cake and candles in that scene. but anywauy i have not seen so much organic fun maybe ever. at least not in a long long time.
Otto, looks like you are enjoying pieces of life again. I bet primals had something to do with that. Thanks for the share.
yesterday something happened i dreamed of but did not dare to count on, me and my mom danced again during a musical afternoon at her ward.
and sunday me and my brother walked out in the garden with her between us, also a milestone after almost losing her!
today I was listening to the last of the six books in The dark tower series of Steven King, in which there was a very sad part of someone dying.
it triggered me while listening, first just very sad but mostly adult crying, but then, even while the audio book was still playing and on some level I could still follow the story, it shifted to baby wailing, the tiniest baby , just after being born, actually right before that there was a short span in which no sound came out of me, no breathing either, just mouth wide open.
the baby wailing went on for a while, turning from sad distress into sadness of some kind.
after it stopped, I was puzzled at first at the connection between death and recently being born, but then it occurred to me my very first trauma was almost dying during my birth, which was very difficult, so I was faced with death even before being born which had a big impact on me.
I still feel feeling being stirred while writing.
in its own way it is reassuring even after not having been to LA for a few years, a book can trigger me into this kind of feeling.
long live this therapy!
M
P.s. is the blog just silent or is something wrong with the mails?
That sounds like quite a profound experience Margaret. I arrived home from the retreat feeling very disoriented and unhappy. I hoped that in short time I would feel safe enough to access primal truths that were stirred by my trip to California and by the retreat, but no, this Monday I awoke with the flu, so I continue to suffer miserably. Oddly though, I am finally feeling more settled and at home. I suspect that the trip to California and the retreat has stirred existentially troubling feelings from early childhood about not having a home where I belong. Time will tell.
Larry,
Sorry to hear you’re suffering with the flu. I hope you get better soon.
Phil
Margaret,
The blog has been a little quiet.
That’s wonderful about your mother, and amazing about the feeling you had, triggered by that book.
Maybe you don’t really need to go to retreats with that kind of access, but I’d still like to see you there.
Phil,
that is a nice thing to say, thanks.
I certainly hope to be at a retreat with you as well in the coming years, or rather at several retreats and to have a good time there as well.
how are you doing now?
M
Margaret, I’m not doing that well. Still struggling with relationship problems. We had our joint phone session the other day, and I thought it was helpful, but it’s too soon to tell what it achieved. At least it did have us talking about our issues, as we weren’t doing that for weeks. I went to the recent retreat and that was a good experience and worthwhile, even though I was there only four days.
I continue to be triggered by this situation and I don’t think that will improve until we get a resolution, or at least have some positive steps. It has resulted in some deep feelings, which I feel are important, even representing a breakthrough, but they’ve given little relief.
Phil
Larry,
hope you get better soon!
that sounds like an important change starting for you, to feel more settled and at home. it is such a basic feeling.
for me some moments in nature came closest to feeling at home, even while having had cozy moments in my childhood and later years.
I guess nature, at least when it is pleasant to be in, for me can feel, or could feel like it is right, it is how it is supposed to be.
now even that I cannot fully savor anymore, sadly enough.
still I do enjoy the wind in the trees and the whistling of birds, and of course the sweet company of my furry friends…
M
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. No profound change happened Margaret. After returning from the retreat, I felt really awful, displeased and disoriented about my life. Now with the flu I actually feel better, more like my usual self, except for suffering with the misery of the flu. It’s as if getting the flu was a good thing, as if it shut down my feelings of existential torment. At the time, the only way I saw out of my torment was to aggressively make changes to my life, which I dreaded and which felt impossible. I suspect the existential torment will return when my physical health returns. For now I get a break from the torment.
Being in Nature can be healing, but so can it be deadly. I mean, in Canada people can walk out their door and die if they don’t take precautions against Nature.
Phil,
sounds like you do all you can do.
wishing you the best. M
Tonight I had some big feelings which gave good relief, allowing me to engage with my wife better, ignoring for a moment the issues getting in our way.
The feelings were about my mother in several scenes where I remember and describe feeling very overwhelmed and stuck. What I realized better now is that what was stuck was my feelings of overwhelming grief and need which were just too much, and with no one to help me. I needed to leave from those scenes and have my feelings, as I can do now. But I was pretty much shutdown and nothing could come out. I hardly felt any grief for losing my mother at the time I was a child. Last week I was transported back to a day it opened up slightly, but then I must have completely closed it off, at age 11, not long after she had passed away. . I am getting under all the bad treatment I received from my mother to the terrible realization of how much I needed her, but she would never be coming back. The people I was left with were never going going to be good enough.
Phil: Wow! WHAT great revelation, That sounds like a major breakthrough for you. to me.
Jack
I posted a comment which now seems to be gone, so I’m going to try again.
Tonight I had some big feelings which brought good relief, allowing me to engage better with my wife, leaving aside our issues for the moment. Maybe that will help a little to interrupt the negative cycle.
The feelings were about my mother and some scenes from childhood where I felt overwhelmed and stuck in her presence. When she was very sick, not seeing me, and when she dead in front of me in her coffin. I’m understanding better now that what was stuck were my feelings, in those episodes, because of the way she treated me and how that impacted me, but also because of my huge backlog of feelings of grief and unfulfilled need.
Some of that opened up tonight in relation to those scenes where I felt stuck. No one there was seeing me, not just my mother; my father and grandmother were of no help either.. They were all oblivious. With no help, I needed to leave and go have my feelings in those moments, like I can do now, but that was impossible for me at that age. No wonder I felt stuck.
I think I hardly felt hardly any of that grief during childhood, Last week I was transported to a day when I was alone in my room, at age 11, sometime after my mother had passed away, Some grief and memories were coming out, but I think I closed it all off.
The grief was built up from a much earlier age, when she already nonfunctional. It was too much, and no one was helping me. There are all the negative things I connect with and remember about my mother, but underneath are huge feelings of grief and need, and the realization that the people I was left with were never going to be good enough.
Phil
Your last phrase describes something impossible for a kid to face Phil.
So now there are two versions of my last comment. I hate WordPress. I looked and looked to see if the first one was there, but it was gone, even checking with another device. Anyway the message got through. Sometimes I need to share these things, and this is a good place to do that. Phil
Phil,
i am glad you reposted it, as that was the only version I received through the WordPresss mail.
m
I’m trying out the WordPress cellphone app to see if that helps. Phil
Phil…how did you post this photo??
Jo, as a WordPress member you get your own free site. I found I can upload photos directly to that site, my own blog, and then copy the address there and paste here.
From the recent retreat in Ojai.
Yay!!
https://icreate4dogs.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/194d7b9c-80ab-4f72-b194-63559f68930c.jpeg?resize=320%2C320
Phil = how do you get the image directly? Email me?
This is my childhood home as it looks now, not much different than I remember. The window in front on the second floor looks like an addition, maybe an added bathroom. Also the back porch has been converted into a room.
https://icreate4dogs.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/me-n-ma.jpg?quality=80&strip=info&h=80
Maybe this will work:
Cantmake it work Phil,, it posts as a photo on my site but “copy image address” just cpmes up with the wordy link 😦
Jo When I paste it here, it starts out as a wordy link, but it turns into the image once it posts.
And this is an example of why Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire.
Ok, thanx!
Hi everyone: I went to see the lung doctor this morning, and the results were very encouraging in that the potential malignant part that the C T scan and Xray showed was now almost completely gone. That was the good news. but she prescribed an inhaler, which the pharmacist demonstrated, which is very complicated to take, as it’s not a simple spray.
The bad news was the journey to the hospital left me totally disorientated, even though we (Jim and I) took a taxi there and back.
I suggested to the doctor that I was not surprised, as I seem to have a very good immune system,, which I feel is due to my therapy.
However, I feel if Jim dies before me there will little point in continuing to live, and sadly I am unable to stop thinking about it.
Jack
Jack,
That’s great news about your lungs. Do you have some reason to believe that Jim will go before you?
Phil
Phil: No real evidence except that Jim is very prone to illnesses. And is a dedicated proponent of the medical profession and is in no way wishing to look into Primal therapy Primal theory. I have used what I know to help Jim to indulge his feelings on both expressing his anger by listening to intensely and not responding by distracting him of his feeling/s, and provoking him to laugh, by joking
Jack
I’ll try another one, here’s a recent family picture:
I’m going to try an experiment, I’ll post a pic here and then delete it from my WordPress site. I think it will then disappear.https://phiban.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/image_5906ad26-c789-48bf-971d-8f7e7a4c3a1f.img_1089.jpg?w=497
I deleted it from my wordpress site and it’s still here. Paris, last summer.
So, my photo was deleted here after I removed it from my own WordPress blog. I’m removing my family picture too, as I don’t want it here forever.
I have a lot of new found respect for Mitt Romney, who said today he’ll vote to convict on impeachment of Trump for the abuse of power article. At least one Republican has a conscience.
That is really impressive from Romney; he’s going to be taking a lot of abuse for that.
The good news for me is that my wife and I are finally working through our recent problems, although it hasn’t been easy. I’m feeling much better as a result.
Phil
Phil, I have to say that Romney’s decision to break ranks emanates from the same fiendishly clever mind that enabled him to amass a $250 million fortune stripping the carcasses of troubled companies from his days at Bain Capital. I could go into a whole host of advantages this decision provides, of which Romney is well aware of. Trump’s health is falling apart, anyway, and someday Romney might want to run for POTUS again. What better way to run than setting up an image as a courageous patriot who broke ranks?
Guru, I guess Romney is a strong believer in capitalism. If voting for impeachment benefits him so much, why didn’t other republican senators, who are also ambitious, think of that?
I can only surmise Romney doesn’t have as much to lose as the other senators do if they turn their backs towards Trump (moot point now that the impeachment vote is over). Romney’s set for life regardless of what happens. Maybe there are some Mormon Utah-related cultural explanations here as well.
On a related note, Trump’s neurological health has been markedly deteriorating these past few weeks.
Phil: Good to know you that you are finally beginning to work things through with your wife … That’s how it happened with me and Jim … when I finally I was able to just sit and listen to him.
Jack
Jack, We had a joint session which I thought was very helpful, and my wife was impressed with this video Barry recommended: . She looked at other videos by Alain de Botton, including one called “The School of Life” and would like to attend a workshop, but there aren’t any coming up in our area.. Check it out, what do you think?
Phil
That is a really insightful video. I first looked at it several weeks ago, then again just now after reading your post Phil, and it impresses me more on the second viewing. I’m thinking where circumstances feel appropriate of sharing it with some of my friends.
Phil: I checked out the video you posted, but I can’t say, offhand, I totally agree. I agree more with Art Janov, who stated that it was our neurosis that guided us to who we choose for a partner.
If someone appears, during courtship, to be our kind of sexy person, then the tendency is to hook up with that person and close the deal.
As I see it, the reason we chose the wrong one, is we see the sex-act as a gratification of the genitals, but that is not the whole story. Sex is more IMO that just ejaculation. It’s about loving the person for what and who they are … unconditionally, and that decision should be made before ‘tying the knot’ or leastways before there are children. Likewise, those very children need to be unconditionally loved (as we Primalers know) from the moment the female becomes aware of being pregnant.
We’ve failed to assimilate sex into the act of loving when it comes to partners, and I for one am also a culprit That part never got discussed in that video, as I saw it. Hense, my disagreement.
Jack
This picture is a group of my third and fourth generation ancestors standing next to their first family car in 1916.
My grandma as a young girl (center) with her younger sister and little brother (seated). Woman is my great-grandpa’s younger sister (my great-grand aunt).
This is a 1912 picture of my great-grandpa & great-grandma with my grandma and grand-uncle as tiny schoolchildren. Great-grandpa was a railroad blacksmith/repairman. This is going back to a time when very few Americans had electricity.
I made a few small mistakes in my last post: The curly-haired girl was my grand-aunt, not grandma. I mistakenly said “schoolchildren” when the boy (grand-uncle) was not in school yet. Also, this picture may have been taken in 1913, but no later than that due to other materials I keep stored (ie. I can definitely narrow it down to 1912 or 1913).
I just thought it was cool to post a couple of really old ancestor pics. I could post more and more all day long, but I’d better go. Thanks for showing us how to do this, Phil.
OK, one more. This one was taken EXACTLY on September 22, 1914. This picture’s date was fully documented. Grandma is on far right and my curly-haired grand aunt was the other girl. Interestingly, none of the ladies in the back row were related to me.
Guru, interesting, nice pictures.
Thanks, I had fun posting them. I think three pictures are enough for a while. Like yourself, I may take them back down again soon.
Strange to think of their lives still young and full of potential at the moment of time frozen by that picture, and that their lives have been lived to old age and death, and now their lives are at most distant, fading and eventually forgotten memories. Strange to think how the present time feels permanent, when in fact our allotment of time and the only reality we will know from the day we were born is running out and too soon will end, and will eventually be a forgotten thread in the fabric of history. Feels so strange to wrap my head around the truth that the reality in my soul upon which I base my life, that feels so centrally, primally important to me, becomes nothing eventually.
Larry, your post sounds so incredibly despairing. I thought it seemed sort of magical to have such old & irreplaceable pictures around. A nice bonus, so to speak.
https://time.com/5777514/women-wearing-white-state-of-the-union/
Women Democrats wore white in protest of Trump’s state of the union speech. The symbolic protest marked the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote as granted by the 19th Amendment. It’s interesting to note that all the pictures I shared above predated that amendment. None of the women could vote when those pictures were taken, yet almost all of them wore white at the time.
Guru, maybe white was the style or they dressed up special to be photographed.
Phil, most likely you’re right. The meaningfulness of photos 100+ years ago was probably a function of their rarity as opposed to the deluge of casually snapped selfies taken everywhere today. The white dresses did leave me wondering if there were any suffragist undertones to it, though.
Here I am with my mother and older siblings, I think during Christmas, next door at grandma’s house. You can’t tell, but my mother was already very sick, and would have to go to live permanently in a nursing home only a few years later.
Wow Phil! All the pictures we see (not just yours) mostly of people smiling depict really so very little of what is actually going on in their lives. Good thing, I think, that when that picture was taken none involved could see the horrible future awaiting them.
Man, Larry…you make it sound as though Anton Chigurh is waiting just outside the door with his silenced shotgun ready to burst into Phil’s kitchen to perform his next hit job.
That’s where I’m at UG. That’s how I see it. The point that I think I’m self-exploring is that as innocent little kids we need to hope and believe that the future will turn out alright, but for a lot of innocent little kids it doesn’t, and good thing when they are little that they don’t know what’s in store for them/us/me/.
OK, if you have to stay there I won’t fight it. It does show me how I also burden myself with a lot of different distressing thoughts of my own. When we have 75,000 thoughts per day, I suppose all sorts of weird things can happen.
I trust myself. I’m pretty sure I won’t stay there. A full rebound from the flu that I had will help.
Phil,
could you please e-mail me the link to that video?
my screenreader could not detect it in the comment and it sounds interesting.
Thanks, m
Hi everyone: I am feeling increasingly closer to my last days as the days progress. I am not sad or despairing about it, but just merely hope it’s short and relatively painless. when it starts to be imminent.
The only real worry I have is about leaving Jim all on his own. Of course, he’s far more capable of managing than I would be if he died first. It’s his country, his language and he knows his way around.
What is more important to both of us, in the meantime is we both love our home, our garden, and we have most of the means for being comfortable. even as our bodies are beginning to deteriorate.
I just felt the need to put it out there.
Jack
Margaret, I will send the video to you.
Jack, The main thing for me is, I’m just glad that my wife was effected by the video in a positive way.
Phil
Phil: that makes sense and I understand.
Jack
Phil,
Thanks!
I really liked how he defines love.
he mentions generosity and interpreting, looking below the surface, and accepting weaknesses and need.
and that not blindly, but while speaking up as well in an open but non aggressive way when necessary, which sounds constructive.
I like that a lot, as it is subtle, not the rude honesty patients in PT sometimes regard as healthy.
especially for relationships this sounds very useful advice.
It is a very good thing the video was liked and I am happy things are improving, good for you two, always nice to hear about people becoming happier, this goes for you and Jim too, Jack. it is nice you and Jim have found peace in a pleasant setting enjoying each other’s company for hopefully many more years.
M
Margaret: Thanks. How long it will last … both life and our relationship is anyone’s guess.
Jak
P.s. I just heard I got a 7 for my Literature study about the usefulness of green areas for people in nursing homes, with or without dementia.
and accompanied with a very nice e-mail from the female professor which made it extra nice.
now preparing for an intimidating course of statistics, focusing on experimental designs in practical and theoretical ways, argh…
M
Margaret, congratulations for doing so well on that literature study!
If researchers are going to use statistics to help make sense of their data, then their experiments should be designed taking into account the theory behind the statistical design that they intend to use. Good luck Margaret with the stats course Margaret. 🙂
Thanks Phil!
M
Sylvia,
how are you doing?
M
Larry,
I was thinking back about what you wrote recently, about having to adjust to the knowledge our life is gradually coming closer to its unavoidable ending, no matter how deeply we are aware of our own personal inner life.
it reminds me of some of my own feelings and thoughts about the matter, which usually bring me to the point of regretting never having had and raised kids, and my brother neither.
it feels really like I failed on an or the most, important life matter, or goal…
it feels like being a dead end of a tree, a branch that will never ever blossom anymore and continue itself.
even while I know in my personal situation it was probably a wise decision not to go for kids at the time, being in an unstable situation with addiction issues and a partner that did not seem to care about starting a family either, and myself not feeling I was ready to have and take good care of a kid.
it took me years in therapy before it hit me that actually I regretted not having one, that it would have been life changing in a positive way and deeply emotionally engaging and often fulfilling, the most intense ‘challenge’ and loving engagement one can possibly have.
so I really feel this is a major part in which I feel I failed, and that is sad.
it also feels like nothing goes on from me, not only my genetic material but not even just having helped a small kid to develop itself even if it would not have been my own.
so what does life mean in that setting?
what have we added to our world?
what is valuable or will remain in some way?
to that I can only find consolation in the idea I have done my best, specially in the second part of my life, while in the first part I was mainly ‘lived’ by my unrecognized needs and feelings.
I feel compassion for that me, but also regret to have wasted all those opportunities.
in my life now what gives me consolation is the feeling to try and make the best of it, and the feeling of being able to be there for others, to do my best to be gentle.
being ourselves as well as possible is what remains, and that is not a small thing really, isn’t it Larry?
you are a very sincere person and certainly do your best, which is a lot.
M
Margaret: I too have done a lot of reflecting back on my life and feel the reason could be, my life is coming to an end. I have very few regrets but not having children of my own is not one of them. I feel that is more of a female thing.
I do have many embarrassing moments that I am remembering, but the most they cause me is to shudder at the thought,. I knew why, at the time, I did it/them and had I given more thought about how I might have avoided most of them.
As such I don’t remember any regrets, and even some of the arrest I got actually were lessons to learn from, but your post got me a reflecting on any regrets.
Jack
Before I craft a reply, Margaret, I realized I need to know are you wanting to enter into a discussion to explore your feelings, or are you wanting to reassure and comfort me or yourself or both of us? I guess you are referring to my Feb 6, 6:45 am comment. By the way UG, I rewatched No Country For Old Men last night. What is most memorable for me about the movie is the ending.
Larry, I wasn’t specifically trying to encourage anyone to watch the film. The ending of the film was my least favorite part. My comment on Phil’s picture was simply my way of saying you seem to have a flair for the dramatic as you go about your daily living.
Guru,
About that picture I shared; what ended up happening to my mother and brother I would say was as bad, or worse than if an armed intruder had broken in and shot them. They had a bad future, so I look at that scene, which I can only vaguely remember, with sadness.
Phil
There’s always the option of destroying the picture so you won’t be saddened by it anymore.
Guru, that wouldn’t take away my sadness. I think you should feed that cat, it’s probably a good luck charm and showed up for a reason.
Phil
Phil, the cat is long gone now so whatever is said about this is moot.
Guru, put it out for him, he’ll be back. In the future we may get to see happy pictures of the two of you.
Guru, in my WordPress app I see you also labeled as “Baby Boy Blue”; what’s up with that?
Margaret, I think my mom was my kid. I always watched out for her feelings cuz she was so easily hurt and prone to nervous breakdowns. I understood her, her loss and grief in childhood. Maybe because I was a girl among 4 brothers I understood and could relate and care as a daughter. I think we had a similar nervous system, she a worrier and me also. I did not regret not having a child, my pets were good enough.
cats are driving me nuts right now. Ate some candy bars the other day and got sick, is the answer to how I’m doing. Can’t handle junk food at all. Back to natural foods and carrot juice. See ya later. smiley face…..=^–^= S
A black cat found its way to my front porch this morning and settled there. I carefully thought about what to do (whether to feed or not) when scaring it away could bring bad luck. I decided to carefully back away from it without making a sound, so as to retain any potential good luck generated by the scene.
I don’t believe in bad luck and black cats, poor kitty disrespected by a myth. I’ve come across stray cats who will let me pet them. They usually have a home and are just wondering. It wouldn’t hurt to pet it. If it should run away to the right or left that is not bad luck, that is just a cat habit. People who made up that black cats are bad luck had already a primal fear unfelt and projected it onto a hapless undeserving little animal.
Sylvia: I too don’t accept the notion of good and bad luck symbolism, but I do feel that Guru is entitled to express those ideas on this blog. as I do you expressing yours.
Jack
Larry,
to start with, I like it you ask me instead of just assuming one mindsett or the other.
actually I had no intention of comforting you or engaging in a discussion when I decided to write.
I merely noticed something in me resonated with what you had written, even while i did not remember your specific words, but mostly the line of thoughts that must be familiar to many people of our age.
so my focus was mostly on unravelling my own feelings and thoughts while writing.
and as usually happens, for me, is that I automatically, after exploring the more painful side of my feelings or some event, I then also come across without any conscious effort, to the more positive aspects as well.
it does not feel like a defense, as it is not a way of undoing the pain, it is for me as I say, like second nature sort of,.
it reminds me of my mom who seems to be very alike in this way.
allowing tears and pain while still being able to laugh sometimes in the middle of crying.
Somehow, it feels healthy.
I say this as your question sounds as if you wonder if I try to give you comfort and take your feeling away, to which I can only say that what I wrote was completely heartfelt and sincere.
of course who knows what went on below the surface for me, unmet feelings so far, but I had no conscious intentions or need to reassure you, just went with the flow of my writing and thoughts.
it is also very possible I was projecting my own feelings on you, as of course I know little about what you really are going through and feel in the present.
I hope this gives you some idea of my mindset while writing.
I do know I also have a strong tendency to take care at times, and sometimes that is more than welcome and sometimes it is not.
in this case I did not even reflect on that while I wrote, just went with the flow.
so in case it did irritate you in some way, I am sorry about that, but it certainly was not an intentional action of deliberate attempt of comforting, I expressed how I see you and what I actually admire in you, your efforts to make the most of life.
M
All I gleaned, Margaret, from your post was the words and sentiment of a decent person. If the worst that comes from my 35 year old dripping , ” primal,” tap is that I dare admit caring, I’ll not pay much thought or feelings to critics. Neurosis leading a person to caring palliative care volunteering
brings no criticism from me. At 73 I’ve become more gentle with myself, most of the time. The lot I was handed was shit. I don’t need to participate in the abuse.
I think I go through a similar process, Margaret, in that I let myself explore painful feelings or events, but also see positives and progress. Eventually though the painful feelings become all encompassing and erupt into a primal.
If you had been trying to comfort me, I would reassure you that I’ve felt through the substance of what I wrote recently that you referred to and have pretty much passed through those feelings and moved beyond them, at least until they might arise again and prompt exploration of deeper, broader connections another time around.
On the other hand if you were exploring your feelings, then I’m glad that what I wrote maybe helped stimulate you to do so and I’ll get out of the way of your exploration.
Thanks for you nice comment Margaret. 🙂
P.s. when I said “ I know I am a caretaker’, it does not mean I do not try to monitor myself about when it feels OK or not to go with the impulse.
in primal contexts I try to be aware of when someone is approaching a feeling, which of course is easier in a life setting.
but in other situations what feels like the right behavior can vary a lot.
Who never really needs some comfort after all.
we had a huge storm yesterday night and for once, one of my cats who always sleeps by my feet, changed position and for once curled up against my side and was very happy to get some comforting petting, smiley.
support can take many shapes, including letting someone have the cry they need.
if I would have to chose how to make a mistake, I’d rather offer too much comfort than too little.
guess I sound a bit defensive, smiley.
I can only do my best and keep learning if necessary.
M
thinking more about it, what might also play is that I get triggered into feelings a lot of the time by someone being nice to me, as it can take away some kind of defense.
and of course sometimes being hurt is a trigger, I prefer the first one.
M
Wow, in a documentary on TV learning about wildlife in Hawaii.
there is a female albatross, number on her ring Z300, but named Wisdom by the scientists. she is the oldest wild bird known, 67 years, and nursing her 30th chick, feeding it after a two week hunting trip.
the sounds she makes upon her return really sound sweet, the chick recognizes her instantly.
during her life so far she has flown 500000 kilometers, which is incredible.
Etc., beautiful wildlife…
M
thanks Larry,
see, your nice friendly reply with the little sigh of relief it gave me, did me realize once again how I almost always brace myself against possible criticisms in any kind of situation really.
the occasions when I can really ‘come loose’ of that , feel at ease and open up, laugh and chat and talk spontaneously and easily stand out, but luckily are becoming more regular lately.
gradually the ‘tough’ mask I used to wear to hide the frightened child inside, is melting into a more unified feeling of ‘resilient vulnerability’ maybe, hard to find a way to describe it.
both sides can still rise to the surface but not that often anymore, which feels good.
M
Guru,
well, offering it some food might have given both the cat and you instant pleasure, and a possible friendly visitor and companion. how much more luck did you expect?
M
Margaret, it was the first time I had ever laid eyes on the stray cat, and I wasn’t sure if it would simply run away in great fear if I approached it with food. Based on its strikingly monochromatic jet black fur, “Vantablack” would have been a perfect name for it.
As for your question, I think it’s best for me not to second-guess my decision to slowly back away so it would remain undisturbed on my porch as long as it needed to be. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle demanded that I quickly look away anyway, so I wouldn’t witness the cat make any movement which would be widely considered as bad luck to the viewer, I once heard a black cat leaving your vision by sprinting to the left it brings bad luck, so the situation demanded I look away forever to forestall the possibility.
Black cats are supposed to be bad luck, but a black cat bone is good luck (except for that cat).
HAAAA !
What you have to do to get a black cat bone is pretty gruesome and crazy:
“After a black cat is caught, it is almost universally boiled alive in a pot of water at midnight, so that its bones may be more easily looked over by the practitioner. One particular bone, special to each individual cat, contains all the magical efficacy alone. This part of the ritual comes from the European magical text, the Book of Saint Cyprian.[4]”
“A variety of rituals and methods are used to determine which bone is the right one, and preparation before the cat’s slaughter can vary according to tradition.”
“One method of obtaining a black cat bone, described in Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men, involves a period of fasting before the actual catching of the animal. After the standard boiling of the cat’s corpse, each bone is tasted by the hoodooist, who then selects the first bitter-tasting bone as the correct one.[5]”
“Another way to determine the magical bone, though it is otherwise similar in procedure, involves a mirror. When the reflection of the bone becomes dark, the hoodoo practitioner will know that it is the right one. A variation of this method is also practiced on the Sea Islands, where the one bone that does not reflect in the mirror is believed to be magical.[2]”
“Yet another method of determining which bone is the correct one is to dump all the bones into a river. The bone that floats upstream is to be considered the bone of choice.”
Phil: What a horrific story. I don’t know why I continued to read it to the end.
It demonstrates to me, the madness of man.
I couldn’t help but Identify with the poor cat … being boiled alive. Gggrrr!!!
Jack
Jack,
there’s so much bad luck that people experience; bad things happening for no good reason, that I can see why some people are superstitious. Bad luck is probably why we’re here or following this blog. The bad luck of being born into our families and for the events in our lives which have effected us severely.
Phil
Phil: According to Werner Erhard of EST nothing happens for no good reason … OR for any reason; It is all a case of effect, effect, effect. I bought into that
That we may deem it good or bad luck is merely a feeling someone has about something. I don’t see my family as being good or bad … just neurotic … and thus I became neurotic myself. My only concern as of this moment is:- go and behave in the least way possible, in order to have feeling-full life; for what is left of it.
It is for that reason I came all the way across the pond … leavings my paradise island (Ibiza), borrowed the money to start therapy and worked my ‘balls off’ moving furniture and paying off my debts, and paying for groups and eventually retreats.
Spending time thinking in terms of ‘good luck or bad luck’ in IMO, is a futile pursuit.
Jack
Jack,
i was just pointing out that luck does exist, and that’s one reason why people are superstitious.
Phil
Phil; I gathered that. I was just trying to explore the fundaments reason/s for the dichotomy of luck as either good or bad. eg, is there luck outside these 2 bounds?
Jack
I agree Jack. Horrid beyond belief. But…..Sounds like a more believable origin to godianity religion, than the little black books, Jack; at least the mental mettle of the architects is clear, primitive and insane. And no more insane . I wrote a short story some decades ago, the art work, an outhouse/privy, with moon and star cutouts on the door and walls, titled, ” The Outhouse or the Urge to Eliminate, Which Came First ?”
I feel there is good luck and bad luck, ie. events which we have no control over but which can cause a dramatic shift in the outcome of our lives, for better or worse. Our unwillingness to accept that we have no control leads us to superstitious (defensive) thinking in an attempt to feel we do have control.
Larry: I refer you to the commented I just made to Phil, Another example I would put forward is:- it a matter of luck that I/we were born?
There is so much in life that we have no control over, like the weather or natural disasters, but to bind them into luck, good or bad, I feel, serves no purpose other than giving us some psychological reason for the happening
Like:- Its pure luck the earth is spherical.
Jack
This lady’s music, which my cynical self assesses as overly sentimental, nevertheless is greasing the bubbling up of crying for me today. For twelve days I visited California and attended the recent retreat. By many measures it was a fulfilling experience, yet I felt increasingly empty and returned home in a blackening mood. It keeps washing over me that I never had a home to come to the way I have fantasized that I had. I’m finally simply accepting that I am and have been, except when my wife was alive, deeply alone, and despite it I have to find a way to continue on and make something more for me. The truth seems and feels unbelievable, but nevertheless a solid and real foundation upon which growth is more possible than it is on fantasy.
I relate to that, Larry. No home, no family of origin, no family tree. I feel there is no where I belong.
That sounds like it would be really tough to live with David.
Larry, that sounds a devastating realization about never feeling you had a home. What about with your wife; did it feel more like home then?
Phil
Phil, for the first time in my life that I am conscious of, home and the center of the universe felt like wherever I was…with her. I still experience waves of grief over losing her, as I did yesterday, but each time they are a deeper sense of loss tied to a deepening consciousness, appreciation and feeling of the otherwise emptiness that feels like the dominant feature of my early life. It is phenomenal to unravel the falsehood that I conjured up to survive childhood, and now to finally accept truth, albeit 6 decades later, of how alone I was in childhood. The reward for feeling and accepting consciousness-altering truth is that I can let go, move on and build something more real and worthwhile for me now, with what feels like a stronger, more powerful attitude. I don’t want to cling to a better past, real or idealized, for comfort. I want to grapple with what is, including all of the loss, and to hopefully summon strength to have faith that there might be good things ahead for me if I would reach out for and open up to them.
There is a deep, full body cry about losing my wife that I am gradually accessing, that is difficult to fully open up to all at once like I should have been able to when she died, because it opens me up to the even deeper, more profound grief of what was missing in my childhood, that is difficult to face, but is more and more fully washing over me.
I’ve noticed that half way through retreats the feeling of being at them becomes unbearable to me. It seems to me that the atmosphere of openness, spontaneity, trust, caring, and more real interaction that the retreat atmosphere fosters, inevitably pries me open to how much those relationship qualities were missing when I was growing up. I notice that at retreats I want to and expect to open up and be more real and honest with my friends, yet I feel like I fail to and half way through the retreat feel miserable for it, the deeper truth I’m realizing is that being at retreats stirs a deep emptiness in me that there is no escape for me from, that is the mirror opposite of the richness and fullness of interrelationship that I always fear yet hope to experience at retreats.
Larry: that is so sad to read about your horrendous childhood. I sure hope you can find another loving relationship, but know no-one could ever fully replace Noreen in your heart.
Tke care Larry
No one can replace her Jack, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be room in my heart for someone else with whom a relationship could be as unique, meaningful and special or more so in its own way.
Larry: That’s good to know, AND I hope you do find someone else
Jack.
Larry: It was so sad to read your post about the horrific childhood you experienced. I sure hope you can find another relationship that can give you some pleasure. Of course, no-one will ever replace Noreen.
Meantime, take care, Larry. Jack
Sorry for the duplicate, but I thought I’d lost it before posting.
Jack
Larry,
wow, great answer to that question. It’s interesting how the circumstances of our lives, along with therapy, work to open us up to our childhood pain. I find you quite real and honest at retreats, and although powerful, I’m afraid those experiences can only open us up a little at a time. I hope you will be able to reach out and find good things in the future for yourself.
Phil
My ‘irrationality’ can be convoluted. Sometimes half way through retreats I feel I am the problem,…other times I blame everyone else for not seeing beyond their pain and making me not wanting to trust them and feeling really uncomfortable with opening up. But after I get back home I discover I’m no better off and just feel awful after a retreat. That’s when more childhood pain percolates up, stirred by retreats but I only sometimes make the deeper reverberating connections when I’m at one.
I absolutely don’t want to interrupt the conversational tempo between Phil & Larry. I’m only going to jot down here that the black cat lucky charm didn’t pan out well. My favorite presidential candidate, Yang, ended his race tonight….a couple other unlucky occurrences today as well.
No more lucky charms for me, I guess.
Guru: I feel you don’t have to apologize for ‘butting-in’, That, as I see it is part of this blog. If it were not It would be just one dialog after another
Jack
How would you know if the lucky charm had anything to do with the outcome, except if by lucky coincidence supposed effect followed the supposed cause and so you form the based on one example unproved conclusion that one caused the other?
A large part of it was my way of trying to drop out of the lucky charm conversation altogether. It was simply a fun story in response to what Sylvia was saying about her own cats. Somehow the topic grew more life than I expected!
David,
I like what you wrote about yourself a lot.
and what you said about me as well of course, smiley.
I have learned the hard way how valuable and precious a caring person can be.
you sound like a nice person.
M
I’ve been having more feelings on the theme of the loss of my mother. The old overwhelming need is coming through, despite all the negatives I’ve connected with coming from her over the years. There was a lot of bad stuff but the bottom line is I just needed my mother and she was taken away from me at an early age. Nothing was the same or OK after that. Nothing was done, or could be done about it.
Phil
So hard to face ancient need that will never be met.
Barry Bernfeld, in his prologue, introducing Shane Roberts’ letter to Barry, ” This patient’s ruthlessly honest personal inventory detailing the damage done to him and the damage done by him to loved ones and others is heartbreaking. ” Both with light humour, and distinct seriousness, I propose that this confers on us the act of caring for others is both positive and acceptable. Recently I heard the vehement argument of a blind deaf person demanding that blind deaf people be left alone by the seeing, hearing, majority bent on normalizing the hearing and sight impaired. She went on to say she hoped any baby born to her would be deaf blind. My own 74 year life aside, for 40 years I was witness to every human abuse imaginable. A world where not only the wrong colour, but the wrong size, the wrong teeth, can impair or strangle even birth rite aspirations. I cannot imagine wishing the burden of sensory challenges on anyone. A friend, who is now totally blind, lost and regained vision 5 times after contracting genital herpes virus on his face and his eyes while in hospital. Blind jokes have been invaluable in his accessing his feelings about the impairment. He has laughed at death all of his life. His lifelong struggle to stay alive was a prelude to this current chapter. Fuck, so much. I feel for him. Whether a defense, a manipulation, decency, capacity to love, empathize, whatever, the misery of others I find heartbreaking.
Jack and David, you guys are posting on an old page. Right now Bernie Sanders is favored to win the Dem nomination, according to the “538” website, which uses statistical methods and is the most respected for political forecasting. That is very hopeful. Everyone who wants to maintain the status quo is trying to knock him down, but he’s running very strong with young people, and enlightened old folks.
Phil
So interesting. He is the polar opposite of Trump. I would think that a moderate or centrist would be needed to heal the divide in the country.
Larry, I don’t think Trump is in any way authentic, he has no ideology, Not that many years ago , Trump was a Democrat and gave large donations to Dem politicians. He just wanted power and attention, and now wants to maintain it.. On the other hand, Bernie Sanders comes across as very authentic; his views have stayed consistent over many years. He is a true populist, whereas Trump is a con man. Sanders probably has his own desires for attention and power, like any politician, but he is far preferable to me. I don’t know that a moderate is what we need to heal the country, but I do hope we get someone who can beat Trump as the Dem nominee, whoever that might be.
Phil
Larry,
I probably follow this all too closely, but I also like Elizabeth Warren who has similar views to Sander’s, and Amy Klobuchar. Klobuchar is moderate, but I think she could beat Trump as she’s very experienced and a senator from Minnesota; the Midwest is key to the Dems success. Of the other major candidates, Pete Buttigieg is too young and inexperienced, having been mayor of a small city, and Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of NYC, a billionaire, the 14th richest man in the country, is a basically trying to buy the election, and I don’t think we want that, although he does do very good things with his money.
Just my take on it all.
Phil
I forgot to mention Joe Biden, the former Vice President, but I don’t think he’s going to make it. He’s old and not as sharp as he used to be. Another moderate. Bernie Sanders can win because the moderates are splitting their votes in the Dem primary race, and he has good name recognition having run in 2016, and has all that experience from that last time running.
Phil
I feel bad for Joe Biden because I think grief at losing his son Beau some years ago at the age of 46 devastated Joe enough to not even run for POTUS in 2016 when he had a very real shot at it since he was still Obama’s VP at the time. Yes, I think Joe’s grief has accelerated his decline these past few years.
Andrew Yang should have taken the job as POTUS this year, but alas…
While it is dangerous to approve people I don’t know, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Saunders stated persona are closest to my own values. Joe Biden seems, as his record suggests, to be a competent, decent person, but a status quo guy. Bernie would try to tow America, with it’s screaming and kicking OK Corral population segment towards the 20th and 21st century. To be at all successful that would mean tapping into the greed fortunes of the real power holders. I suspect they might resist. But.he’s likely the best president that the USA will likely never have. He really should have kept his admiration for Fidelle Castro to himself, until elected. That plays right into the hands of the rabid mercenaries. I fear all powerful wealthy would prefer to have Trump remain for another term regardless of individual political anchoring, whilst they ready an acceptable status quo , ” man.” Mike Bloomberg’s participation is evidence of that, I thought Pete’s entrance into the fray was encouraging, but, too, may have been part of the defeat Bernie program; ie: like Mike, limited chance, but enter then fold and throw support to Joe.
Sad while tech changes have been astronomical, social development, as evidenced by modern popular thinking and behaviour remains tethered near the mouths of our ancestral caves and vines.
Phil, I must point out, in Canada, a,” moderate,” is kinda interested in the dignified interests of all; shuns cannibalism, and will put their ass on the line to defend that. Well, I may have gone a bit far there. Maybe suffice to say, a moderate here is anything Trump ain’t.. To reference Trump, and I cringe, I suspect some politicians are decent, honest folks. Our former PM , Steven Harper, was kinda Trumpish, but bigger hands and vocabulary. He told a New York business luncheon audience he would rather be American. And like Trump got away for several terms with saying and enacting outlandish things. Scuttled the Council of Women, gagged scientists, denied climate catastrophe, heavily audited small public charities for political leanings, lied, directed campaigns of personal assassination, misdirected voters at polls; cold, paranoid, depressive. Trump has not distanced himself from the wackiness and skullduggery as most less insane, crafty politicians do. Do true narcissists believe that is unnecessary? Or is the psychiatric diagnosis more complicated than merely one entry in the old DSM ?
The buffer line is supposed to allow a leader, hand on heart, to declare and avers having no knowledge of anything that could land him on the unemployment line. Trump thinks he is KEVLAR, and so far, he is correct. If he was to lead a mass massacre, a church, a refugee centre, he might be elected Pres for life.
Oh I feel so warm and fuzzy and mentally congruent when I compare me to the T maniac.
David, I’m reading a book that analyzes the psychology of Trump and his followers, “Dangerous Charisma: The Political Psychology of Donald Trump and His Followers” “https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Charisma-Political-Psychology-Followers/dp/1643132180
It points out Trump has a craving for attention and for people who will follow him blindly, to bolster his insecurities and inner weakness. His followers need a charismatic leader who does something similar for them, filling some kind of need. It’s a very interesting book, and appears quite accurate. It explains why Trumps followers stay with him even though it seems irrational. It mentions other charismatic leaders and their followers.
It also reviews Trump’s childhood, relationships, and upbringing, adding all that to the picture.
It’s scary what’s going on with Trump and his core group of supporters.
Phil
It would take a very short clinical interview to peghole Trump. But seriously, he flaunts the most extreme immoral illegal behaviour and the Trumpinites kiss the hem of his dress. No effort, or,likely, ability on his part to even try to act like a sane decent being. The whole process of politics is like , the ” Rocky Horror Picture Show,” on steroids…
From around 1960 until today, how many total words and utterances about Donald Trump have been spoken by the masses of billions of people along with all forms of media spanning the internet, television, radio, newspapers, and magazines?
Would 10 sextillion (10^37 = 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) total utterances or references throughout the world be a reasonable guesstimate?
(Yes, I’m asking this stone cold seriously)
Jesus, man, I think about my mother getting killed at 30 and it’s only worth a 130-word article buried deep in one city newspaper…and she had a brilliant career!
When I look at that compared to the insane number of Trump utterances, life is pretty much beyond pathetic.
Guru,
What was your mother’s name? We can try to talk about her some more here, to even up the score a little, if that helps.
Phil
Phil, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but that really wouldn’t be a good idea here for a lot of different reasons. I just had to vent about how pathetic it is, but I’m fine otherwise. The very best time to have started paying attention to her case was immediately after her death in a mainstream context rather than originating from a Primal psychiatric care blog almost 50 years later.
Guru:: It sure is, and my sense is we’ve got our priorities all wrong.
Jack
Guru, at that time, soon after her death, what would you have liked for people to have,said about your mother? In the media, or where ever.
Larry: Just my con contentious opinion, but that division is norman and natural. It is when we let one person decide for the rest of us; albeit that, that person is benevolent or not, is the wrong way to approach it.
We solve one problem and that solution creates another one … then we set out to solve that one … and on and on and on ad infinitum
The saying goes:#- “we keep going downs the same rabbit hole, and expect a different result”. Yeah???
Jack
Phil: for me governing and especially democracy. with capitalism is all beginning to fall apart as I see it, and I contend we are on the wrong path.
I feel there is a need for a discussion (Primal wise), to see a way beyond it, for the sake of future generations and life on this one and only we place which we can live on … for all the fantasies of scientific thinkers, that we might one day, be able to live on Mars. Even if it were possible, we’d take neurosis with us
Even scientists and the brainiest of us is IMO, is highly neurotic.
Jack
I just worry that the Trump will pull the old , ” Commie,” doll out of the closet and use the fear factor to seal another term. Any idea who Bernie’s VP woud be ? Weird, eh, the voters chant for change then work really hard to ensure the aristocrats thrive to repeat the crumbs for serfs and vassals routine.
David, No word yet on who Bernie’s VP could be, although there’s speculation. Some names being tossed around, in general, are some of the candidates currently in the race, Warren and Klobuchar, or Kamela Harris who has dropped out. But I think Bernie would want to pick someone who would really be with his program. Trump will try to put that Commie label on whoever the Dems come up with in any case.
Phil
But Bernie proudly wears the socialist label. I am touched by him, as presented. How about Pete Buttigieg ? A youthful understudy to Bernie… but, is a homosexual even more scary than a socialist in America ? Have watched several interviews with Pete. Had a positive vibe. I mean, hey, if Trump can manipulate the oval office doorknob, how big an intellectual deficit is required to spell total disaster. I am glad the Trump wasn’t convicted. In many ways I find Pence even scarier. Unlike Trump he can imitate normal when it computes to be advantageous.
Yeah, Kamela Harris, mid 50’s, academically and experientially accomplished; comes off as very bright and considered, not a fence sitter, doesn’t simply repeat talking points. I like Warren’s stated values.
Jack and I are old farts, Phil. we’re not expected to be masters at the new fangled techinsanity of you young folk…
Phil, I have to answer your question down here. I honestly don’t think going into all that is going to be helpful for me now. It’s honestly not necessary. Just because I was briefly pissed about how terrible the discrepancy is doesn’t necessarily mean I need further or deeper probing on it.
The whole point of my illustrating the horrific levels of ‘attention unfairness’ was so we could learn valuable lessons from it, namely just how cheap a person’s life can be among other things no matter how accomplished that person was. Society is paying way too much attention to bombastic self-promoters, perhaps as a circus show diversion from their own empty lives.
Guru,
My assumption is it has to do with your old feeling, that’s why I asked.
Phil, the really sick part about the Trump saga is that, in spite of the fact we have ALREADY paid sextilions of utterances about the man, collectively we will be FORCED to devote sextillions MORE words to the man because of the dangerously powerful position he is in which won’t be relinquished lightly. We’re now being held hostage to paying infinitely more attention to him.
Guru,
Yes, Trump is going to get loads of attention, even after his presidency, and after his death too. But it’s not going to cure his mental/emotional problems. He doesn’t have the best reputation right now, I think it will be getting worse as time goes by. Also,a narcissistic and charismatic leader probably needs to be leading to get any satisfaction for himself and his followers, and at some point that will come to an end.
Phil
I bet if I earned a PENNY (yes a lousy fucking PENNY!) for every time the word “Trump” was mentioned throughout the world since the beginning, the world’s entire $600-$750 trillion of household net worth would be firmly in my possession by now making for a perfect Gini coefficient of…..one.
Guru,
Trump will be forever remembered for getting impeached over his corruption, not at all comparable to Clinton lying about a blow job.
Guru,
In my case, I like to see evidence my mother existed, and have her talked about. In the past I’ve felt disconnected from her, although I’m doing better with that now, so any added information has felt helpful.
Phil
That tells me why you would want to keep that kitchen photo in spite of the backdrop of sadness,
Guru,
I wouldn’t discard any old photos, but my sister did just that. She threw out almost all of the family photos without checking with me. We don’t communicate, but that bothers me just the same. I don’t think she could stand having them around.
Phil
I would have been terribly upset about that, Phil. Historical provisions are irreplaceable.
A great Valentine’s Day story I saw in the Washington POst
Phil
By Melanie McCabe
Feb. 13, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EST
“I’m going to tell you a story,” I tell my class of high school seniors.
All eyes look up. Nothing quiets a chatty group of teenagers faster and causes them to put down their phones more effectively than the promise of a story.
“It’s a tale about love. And heartbreak.” I pause for dramatic effect. “And humiliation.”
Their eyes widen. I add the clincher. “Mine.”
Now I have them.
I’ve been looking forward to telling them this tale. It is a story I’ve told every February since I started teaching in 1999. Its power lies, I think, in how it changes the way they see me. Gone temporarily is whatever omnipotence I command as their teacher. Left behind is an 11-year-old girl whose feelings are crushed — and each of them is outraged by the brutality of the one who did the crushing.
“In sixth grade,” I begin, “I fell madly in love. His name was David. He was tall, cute, kind of a bad boy — which I found tantalizing. He had no interest in me at all, but I doodled his name all over my diary. Wrote DT loves MM in giant hearts. You get the idea.”
They get the idea. The girls are laughing — and remembering.
“So it was Valentine’s Day, elementary-school style. Construction-paper mailboxes. Someone’s mom brought in cupcakes. Our parents bought us those variety-pack valentines to send to everyone in class. Dreadful things with corny sayings like ‘Bee My Honey’ and ‘I Gopher You!’ ”
All of them are laughing now.
“It was party day. I spilled my cards onto my desk, and amid many small envelopes, I saw one enormous one — spangled with glitter. My mind raced: ‘Wow — someone likes me enough to buy me this giant valentine. Who could it be from?’ With trembling hands, I tore open the envelope and drew out a sparkly image of a queen seated on her throne. The heading read: To A Queen of a Valentine.”
I give the class a meaningful look. “I was swooning with excitement. Slowly, I turned the valentine over and at the bottom I saw the signature and almost fainted: David. It was all too perfect to be real.
“Then my eyes traveled up to the writing above his signature. In large, uneven letters, he had written me a special message.”
My students lean in, waiting. You could hear a pin drop.
“It read, “TO THE UGLIEST GIRL IN OUR CLASS.”
Valentine’s Day off to a rocky start? They’ve had it worse.
Feb. 14 isn’t all candy, roses and cupid arrows: for some folks, the “Hallmark holiday” brings back back awkward, cringe-worthy memories. (Allie Caren, Breanna Muir/The Washington Post)
There are audible gasps. Mouths drop open. Some look down at their desks, seemingly embarrassed for me.
“What did you do?” asks a brave soul.
“What do you think?” I say. “My eyes filled with tears. My nose was stinging, my cheeks, burning. I was devastated — and so afraid that he and his friends were watching me, eager to see how I would react.”
They nod sympathetically.
“Well, it ruined Valentine’s Day for me. It shook what little faith I had in myself for a long time after. But I survived. And now I refuse to cede this holiday of love to the meanness of one rotten boy. Instead, it’s given me the motivation to undo the malice of David.” I smile. “And that’s why we’re going to have a party. A party that celebrates kindness instead of cruelty.”
Their eyes light up. They are willing to let me take them wherever I am going.
I hand out construction paper so they can make mailboxes. “You don’t have to, but you’re welcome to decorate them. I have markers.” A few studiously cool boys refuse to do more than scribble their names, but most students cover theirs with hearts, swirls and fancy lettering. I can attest that no one has more fun in school than an 18-year-old given permission to be 10 again.
The night before the party, I cut pink paper into hundreds and hundreds of small squares.
“What are we supposed to write?” someone asks when I distribute them.
“Do we have to sign our names?” asks another.
“Of course you sign your names,” I say. “You’re not going to write anything you’re ashamed of, right? The objective is to write something positive and sincere to everyone in the class. Even if it’s someone you barely know, there’s always something nice to say. Admire their fashion sense or their skill at basketball. Tell them you appreciate their friendly smile. Remind them of something fun you remember about them from grade school.”
Looking on as they compose each message is always a treat. I play a mix CD of oldies and Motown love songs, and the vibe in the room is happy. Feet tap. Sometimes I can’t stop from dancing. But the real fun comes when they read what people wrote to them. Watching a shy kid tentatively open a card and then break into a big grin is worth all of the hassle.
A decade ago one of my students named Julio confessed to a girl named Rosa that he’d loved her since third grade. For months after that, they were a hand-holding, starry-eyed pair. But romances are rare, and not what matters to me. There are far better measures of success.
Three years ago a boy named Hal wrote me that I was the only one who had noticed when he was depressed a few months before and how much it had meant to him. Former students have shared with me that they have hung onto their valentines and sometimes read through them when they’re feeling low. Parents have emailed to tell me that the valentine exchange boosted their child’s self-confidence at a time when it was greatly needed. An especially sweet class had an artistic student draw me a valentine of a queen with the caption, “To The Prettiest Girl in the Room,” and everyone signed it. That one still hangs next to my desk
After 20 years of teaching, I harbor few hopes that students will retain all of the grammar or vocabulary I taught them. Maybe they will remember a book or two with some pleasure, or a fun and creative writing assignment. But if all a student recalls of one of my classes are the valentines they received one long-ago February, to me that makes all of it worthwhile.
In recent years, the world that all of us inhabit has grown uglier — more divisive and unkind. Today there are bullies we contend with via social media who are far more powerful and corrosive than the childhood villain I remember so vividly.
Add to that the high-stakes push to achieve, to earn A’s, to get into a top college that dominates the lives of my current students, and they are left saddled with a level of stress far greater than anything I experienced decades ago. If, for one day a year, I can help them turn all of that off, if I can create an environment where they are intentionally kind to one another, then I count that as something to be proud of.
And whatever hurt David intended for me all those years ago, it has now been canceled out, many times over. I think he would be startled by his legacy.
Nice.
Thank you so much for that Phil! Love it!!
Happy Valentine’s Day.
❤
Leslie, my wife is doing this with one of her 10th grade Spanish classes even though it’s a few days late. She says the kids love it.
Phil
Hi everyone:
I have been reflecting on many events in my life recently; especially when I go to bed and don’t fall asleep immediately. It is incredible just how many places I’ve been to and where I have lived and the people I have met. I am not sure if these are a result of knowing I am at the end of my life (relatively).
I see a little more fully how I felt at the time and how much of it was sort of accidental, and has lead me to this point. Things could have been much worse and not sure if any of them would have made life better. My greatest achievement was discovering this therapy and it was a bit of hit and miss that I even got to read “The Primal Scream”.
The last one being:- meeting Jim my partner. That also was pure chance; and pure luck that it survived these last 40 years. However, I dread the prospect of him dying first and I also fear what he might have to go through if I die first. Other than all that I am able to accept old age and even death, on the premise that it is quick and painless (everyone’s wish & maybe a forlorn hope).
I have no illusions there is anything for me after death.
Jack
One of our neighbors passed away a few days ago; he was 89. He and his wife have been our friends since we moved here 27 years ago. Also our kids were friends with their grandkids, who were around very often. My wife basically took on these people as her surrogate parents here, as her own are far away. I’m sad, and also sad about how I set myself apart and couldn’t feel so close like that. My wife would often go to their house, and I wouldn’t, so it doesn’t hit me that hard, just that I should have been able to do better. Today I found it hard to go across the street to express my condolences, as there were so many cars there. I finally went and they were glad to see me; it wasn’t so hard. It’s just an example of the kinds of things which still hold me back and get in the way. Phil
Hi everyone: This ‘coronavirus’ and its rapid spreading is getting very frightening and I contend the medical profession is remiss and totally on the wrong track to solving/resolving it.
I contend that it’s most vulnerable to those with the least efficient IMMUNE system/s, and is further exacerbated by the various professions that try to resolve these viral infections through pharmacology. As I see it we’re approaching the problem from the wrong perspective. In a weird sort of way, we actually create these viruses by our approaches to getting rid of them, only for them to mutate into something less eradicable. Just my little theory
I would be interested in Larry’s take on it all.
Jack
2770 people have died from coronavirus since it was first reported January 1st.
175,000 people have been killed in car crashes during the same time frame.
The topic is a waste of time & energy.
Guru: I agree. What I would like to read from you is:- any ideas for a solution as to resolving both or either one.
I personally see it as ONLY being able to be resolved is:- by ridding humanity of neurosis.
If public transport was the only means of traveling, then the only other problem might be the transporting of goods. … of course, there’s technology and self-driving automobiles, but are all these just tweaking around the edges?.
Jack
Jack, I won’t be offering a solution to either problem. I want a house in Malibu with a Bentley, a speedboat, and all insurance, maintenance, and property taxes paid for in perpetuity first before I discuss solutions for humanity.
I should give a disclaimer here that there’s a small chance this virus COULD exceed the mortality of traffic collisions, but we’re still a very long way from that point. If it does, I will begin setting aside my own topic.
I don’t think about it much, Jack. Disease has always been with us. I had a flu in early February that I am still rebounding from. I’m glad I had a pneumonia shot in early January. I see nothing wrong with trying to understand the cause of disease and trying to protect ourselves from it and we in materially rich countries have been pretty successful protecting ourselves, so successful that we tend to think we are no longer susceptible to the vagaries of Nature.
I’m kind of shocked to discover that the land in northern Canada is still rebounding and rising, after the weight of 4 km high glaciers that was on it…including on my home city, receded only 10,000 years ago. The land will continue rebounding and rising for another 10,000 more years before it comes to rest. I feel unsettled at reading that as the land rises, the water in the large lake north of my home city will move south and in 10,000 years will submerge my home city.
There have been 20 or more cycles of glaciation where masses of ice covered much of the northern hemisphere, and at one time millions of years ago the entire planet was ice. If not for global warming due to human generated greenhouse gas emissions, we would now or soon be entering another cycle of glaciation.
“Nature” does its thing irregardless of our lives. We can try, but we can’t always control its effect on us. I’m glad my life is relatively safe and comfortable so far. Too many lives are not and so very many people have had a horrible life and end. Mine isn’t impervious to disaster, but I will do what I can to live as best and as long as I can, and I’m grateful for any advances in knowledge and in civilization that help us to have a better chance at living safe, comfortable lives.
If you asked me the question for the sake of disagreeing and arguing with me, I’m not interested in arguing with you.
Otherwise, how are you Jack?
Larry: Thanks for your response; and “no”, I wasn’t looking for an argument, just interested in YOUR particular take, as I felt it was your subject and career or near enough to it. so thanks again for your response.
As for me, it’s a tricky one, as I have never met or heard of anyone that was willing to share their deeper feeling/s on knowing they are coming close to death, and so I felt this blog would be the best place to air my feeling/s on the matter.
I am not unhappy or disgruntled about my condition and feel lucky that I’m able to accept it, though a lot is dependant on my relationship with Jim, that is going exceeding well, AND for this therapy that completely changed my life.
I do confess to still having many compulsions and slowly becoming aware of even more … one of them being argumentative; not for the sake of winning, but more like I did with playmates when young … as entertainment … and fun. I feel most people, including my ‘Jimbo’ take it far too seriously, and personally … like it’s a strike against them. | don’t see or feel it that way. As I’ve said before ” I love the banter”
Jack
We’re all going to die of something, sooner or later, and now, because of the Chinese appetite for exotic animals we have this new corona virus, which just represents a new way to get sick and die.
Because it hasn’t been contained, it looks like it’s a new infectious disease we will be dealing with continually.Trump has been very irresponsible in his statements about it. He seems to be more worried about the stock market than our health.
Phil
Phil: That “We’re all going to die of something, sooner or later,” is no consolation. eg. telling a child, dying and in great pain “We’re all going to die of something, sooner or later” is no help to that dying child,
What I was proposing was that our interference in curing us of these types of diseases is perhaps another example of ‘unintended consequences’. My take, theory, what you will; has more to do with flawed immune systems, rather than some we contracted a disease through some people’s desire to buy exotic animals.
I agree that anyone wanting to cage any other creature is a direct example of our unfeeling-full-ness (neurosis). We have a knack of going down the same ‘rabbit hole’ and expecting a different result ……… if you get my drift!!!
I could be ‘way off track myself’.
Jack
Jack, in China many people want to eat exotic animals which are thought to contain powerful remedies.
Even people with perfectly healthy immune systems are susceptible to infectious diseases. We are in a continual war with microorganisms which are also trying to thrive and survive. We aren’t always going to win. Phil
Phil
Phil, I think your narrative of “Chinese eating exotic animals” is both misguided and racist.
In fact, it looks like climate disruption might be the underlying cause. Take a look at this:
https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/coronavirus-habitat-loss/
“Although stories illustrated with pictures of wild animals as “the source” of deadly outbreaks might suggest otherwise, wild animals are not especially infested with deadly pathogens, poised to infect us. In fact, most of these microbes live harmlessly in these animals’ bodies…….The good news is that, because we are not passive victims of animal microbes invading our bodies but fully empowered agents who turn harmless animal microbes into pandemic-causing pathogens, there’s much we can do to reduce the risk that these disease-causing microbes emerge at all.”
Renee, this article doesn’t really contradict the idea that the source of the virus was wild animals. “Scientists have fingered bats and pangolins as potential sources of the virus, but the real blame lies elsewhere—with human assaults on the environment.” We are to blame, but those microbes are still thought to come from wild animals. There is news that the Chinese government plans to clamp down on the trade of wild animals, which I think is a good idea. Phil
Rene: I thought your take was very appropriate. I read the site, and agree, the root of it may lie with our human assault on the environment, and depriving these creatures of their natural habitat, was more on point.
Jack
Was Henry Ford a wild animal for propagating the Model T Ford contributing to tens of thousands of auto fatalities thereafter?
Guru: the quick short answer is:- YES. It’s all “effect, effect, effect” as promoted by Werner Erhard in his ‘EST’, sessions.
Example:- as it relates to your very existence and being born;- If your father had married another woman rather than your mother, would you have ever exited? … and that applies to all of us … hence it’s not ’cause and effect’ as much as it all about what caused the “cause” that created the effect. Hence:- effect, effect, effect, all the way back downtime
Eg. what was the cause that affected the creation of us humans?
What was the cause of the creation of the universe? … a study that Steven Hawking spent a lifetime dwelling upon? AND, as I see it, caused his Lou Gerrick disease?
He was all in his head … as I am right now.
Jack
Jack,
We are all here because a certain of our father’s sperms was a better swimmer, or at the front of the line, at the right moment. Just another example of how random the world is, and our existence.
Phil
Phil: I totally, fully and absolutely agree with all that wrote and even go as far to say it applies to the laws that other people make for us, and the governments and their constitution, and the GLUE that holds all that chaos together ‘MONEY’
Doesn’t it also apply in all areas of our lives and living of it???
Jack
Guru, there’s no evidence that anyone was trying to eat Henry Ford, if that’s what you were implying. I think that the invention of the car and it’s mass production has had
many unintended consequences. It has had a large contribution to climate change and destruction of the natural environment, besides all the auto fatalities.
Phil
After we transitioned 10000 years ago from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one where we took more control of and altered our environment and depended more on domesticating plants and animals for our food, we along with our animals lived together in ever denser colonies and subsequently experienced an intermixing and evolution of pathogens and an escalation of the ravages of disease. For instance, smallpox originated from cowpox in our cattle. It must have been horrific to experience an unprecedented large portion of communities succumbing to mysterious illness and dying out and at the time not understanding why. Some people, who had a fortunate combination of genes that made the person more resistant to that disease pathogen, lived, and so over generations people in the Old World gradually evolved immunity to diseases such as smallpox. Not the case however for people in the New World. When Europeans first arrived to the New World, they unwittingly brought their diseases with them, which swept through and shattered New World communities and societies, making it easier for the Europeans to overpower the locals. Anyone fascinated by this stuff might be interested in the book “1491…New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus”, by Charles Mann, and the older “Plagues and Peoples” by William McNeill.
Larry: Fascinating … and why I thought your expertise was a good way to look at this coronavirus outbreak. I have heard some of this before and read about it.
However, you left out the neurosis factor, which IMO plays a greater role in all this, especially on the “compromised immune system” that I feel Janov made a great point about.
Do you have any thoughts on that, from your studies?
Jack
I’m no expert Jack but since I was a kid I’ve sought and absorbed evidence based information to satisfy my curiosity and build my understanding, my mental algorithm, about what Nature is, who we are and how we got here.
It is well understood that stress, inadequate rest and poor nutrition weaken the immune system. I think that likely most of us who have done primal therapy have experienced that the more we lift our neurotic load, the more emotionally able we are to take responsibility for our lives and the better we tend to take care of ourselves. There is no mystery about it.
It seems to me that at least some of what Janov said in all of his writing was informed, inspiring and insightful conjecture on his part. What do you think?
Phil: I agree:- we aren’t always going to win. I disagree that there are people out there, that don’t have compromised immune systems. I contend we humans have been neurotic for many millennia … 20 to 30.
Jack
Jack,
It looks like the corona virus will be spreading rapidly in Europe. I’d try to stay home away from crowds of people where it can be transmitted. It looks like it will also be spreading in North America, despite anything Trump says, but I don’t see any reason to panic.
Where I work the doctors don’t want anyone coming here with a highly contagious infectious disease, if possible. Those patients are advised to go to an urgent care facility. I’m glad about that.
Phil
Phil: Jim my partner is so afraid of it, that he’s insistent we don’t have any visitors until it is resolved, (if ever) and though I hardly ever go out he’s very careful when he goes shopping.
I too am scared, but for other reasons.
Jack
Hi Everyone:
Each day I am getting emails asking me for money to support this candidate for President, then another … also for various charitable causes. If I were to give one dollar to each, I would be broke by now.
Then on watching the news, I am seeing members of the Trump administration and how they made their millions and sometimes billions on the backs of the poor and on none-whites and seeing how that puts trillions on the national debt, but giving the bottom 90% a mere pittance for seven years while the corporations and wealthy, will still get their benefits in perpetuity. .All the while, especially the Republicans are stonewalling any attempt to hold anyone, the president in particular, in check
Being a complete outsider I do not see the US constitution as being anything special or even profound let-alone different from what the US broke away from. Not that it shouldn’t have demanded freedom from Westminster.
From my perspective of looking in from the outside in. It took most of what it broke way from, substituting a President for a Monarch, but giving the President more power than any king since 1649 (Charles the 1st).
My mind boggles when I see all these attempts to rectify our problems; little realizing we’re actually creating them.
If we were to take a different look, most of our societal problems are related to money, but yet are so reluctant to get rid of it. If there were no laws there would be no criminals … if there was no money or a means of exchange, to get what we need; GREED would cease to exist. as would many other factors of our (neurotic) behaviours and we could let ourselves become the natural selves we each were at birth.
Alas; I see us humans going around in circles keeping ourselves grappling in the status quo.
The status quo of yesteryear is not the status quo today, and the status quo of tomorrow, will not be the status quo of today..
Life moves on.
Sorry for the repeat, but is what is bothering me right now, and my need to express it
Jack
Renee,
I felt your label ‘racist’ on what Phil said was not quite in place.
to mention what is commonly seen as part of the traditional Chinese eating habits , part of their culture so far, is that they (used to) prepare any kind of creature as food, forced to do so by scarcity of food supplies regularly.
as far as I have read they regarded it differently as we used to do so far, and of course as times change habits can change.
to me pHil’s commment sounded not racist at all, more as a cultural aspect of how it has been over many decades in the past.
we feel shocked at how they eat cats and dogs and specially how they treat them at markets at times, at least I am, don’t even want to go into the details about it here.
and English people often are shocked at other nations regarding eating horse meat.
talking about what used to be a cultural habit of food choice has nothing to do with racism.
in my opinion.
you can interpret it that way if you want to but it feels not right to me in the context and knowing Phil who is far from a racist as far as I know.
M
Margaret,
There’s nothing wrong with the Chinese eating a variety of creatures, except that it can contribute to spread of pathogens, and cause the extinction of endangered species. There is a lot of evidence that the origin of HIV was the butchering and consumption of monkeys in Africa. I had a Chinese friend who took me to a very authentic restaurant where many of the delicacies were body parts that we don’t typically think of eating, from our usual menu of animals, . We are pretty far removed from our food sources here, and don’t make as full use of them as we could.
Phil
Hello my friends,
I find myself worrying about you all, especially those in the US and of these especially those in the Western US. The reasons are: first, unlike other countries you have a very sick and decentralized health system where people are left on their own. And second, the current Corona crisis is very serious and requires a truthful and competent leadership, while you have as president someone whose attitude toward facts, science, experts in their fields and governmental agencies using these is contemptuous, and actions toward such agencies are budget cutting at best and outright firing at worst.
Take care and take advice only from credible sources such as CDC.
But Daniel, president Trump says not to worry, the Coronavirus will disappear one day, like a miracle, and we should keep buying stocks. Phil
Also Trump has a hunch about the coronavirus, “President Trump downplayed worries on Wednesday evening, telling Fox News that a 3.4 percent mortality rate announced by the World Health Organization was “false” and suggesting it was under 1 percent.” ” “This is really my hunch,”””Trump said”.
Phil
Really, no words. I guess he’s concerned about November which is understandable. It would take balanced character, selflessness and competence to do what is best for the country, but these three virtues though sorely needed now seem to be painfully lacking. His countrymen and women may die all around him and still at the end of the day it will all be about him.
Phil: he greatest and mos stupid fake news comes right out of Trumps mouth.
Jack
Phil: I stated “he greatest and mos stupid fake news comes right out of Trump’s mouth” it should have read:- “Phil: The greatest and most stupid fake news comes right out of Trump’s mouth”
Jack Correcting himself.
Daniel: It’s all very simple:- Just abolish laws, governments and the thin that hold all that together:- M O N E Y . The idea was put forward over 150 years ago by a Frenchman Pierre Joseph Proudhon, then further researched by Marx and followed up by Bakunin & Kropotkin.
I also feel Janove was somewhat caught up in it. I does, however, required some deep contemplating to see the path forward, as t’were.
Otherwise, we are just acting-out our desire to resolve something that was created many eons ago.
If you don’t see it I feel your children or grandchildren will see it and wonder why Grandad didn’t’
Jack.
Jack, in the meantime if you wish to abolish your own personal money I’ll be happy to help you with that and take it off your hands.
Daniel: I have no desire OR wish to keep you in your ‘delusion’ so! “N0” and, I long ago gave it to my friend and lover. Tough shit for you
Pull the other.
Jack
Hi Everyone: I hope you are all keeping free from the coronavirus.
It is a very worrying situation and I feel is going to get much worse before it gets better. I could be very wrong, but I feel it has more to do with our compromised immune systems, thus leaving us seriously vulnerable. the more our immune systems were compromised in childhood, the more vulnerable we become,, and,the more directly proportional to old feelings than the medical profession is prepared to look into.
Again I feel it is a case of looking for answers in all the wrong places. it also fits into my contention that abolishing money by allowing it to evolve, rather than pushing to make it happen which I feel is where all he communist dictators missed the Marxian goal.
I feel strongly the idea of abolishing money is suggested as an idea, to the very young that they may see the possibility of getting there by simply letting it happen when we older folks are dead and gone as we carry our biases to many areas of living a meaningful life. I don’t know anyone that recognized that money resolves very little for anyone least of all, a happy life, or even a contented one. and least of all a stressful life. Seemingly even Daniel would love me to give all my money. Don’t wish for it Daniel … you never know what it would bring for you, and quite different than your imaginations seems to think it would
Just me again … putting in my oar
Jack
Jack,
China seems to be having success controlling the spread of the coronavirus within their country, but they’ve had to use drastic restrictions on the population to achieve that result. Outside of China it is spreading out of control and dangerous because none of us have been exposed it before. If you look at China, with a population of over 1 billion, and some 3000 have died from corona, but it is now coming under control, that is bad, but nothing to panic about. Hopefully the rest of the world will be able to respond and limit the pandemic as well. Eventually this virus might end up being another continuous threat equivalent to the flu. In another year or so, an effective and safe vaccine will be developed, and people who have had the illness will have natural immunity.If you look at it that way, most people actually have a good, intact immune system, and can recover from coronavirus infection. A much smaller number of people are susceptible because they are elderly and/or have other underlying conditions.
In other news, it looks like Joe Biden will be the candidate to run against Donald Trump.I’m starting to get a good feeling that he will be able to win, although he wasn’t my top pick. As a kind of compromise moderate figure he might be the right one to help the Dems win the senate and keep their House majority, and eradicate the Trump infection, but it will unfortunately continue to circulate as well.
Phil
Phil: That’s fine, but we need to get to the bottom of what really causes most illnesses as in “Why we get sick: and how to get Well” by Janov.
Jack
Jack,
I never really bought into all of Janov’s speculations as to what causes disease. One reason is he didn’t prove anything in that regard except through anecdotal reports. Now there is the evidence from the adverse childhood experiences research, but I think there are various causes of disease, including the new coronavirus.
Phil
Phil: I clearly understand that that is your take. I need to let you know, It’s not mine. I feel that Janov’s work needs to be experienced subjectively … in a world where almost everything is viewed objectively.
I am fully aware that most people, even on this blog, feel I take Janov too literally. and in a way they are right.
I have just listened on TV to a person critiquing meritocracy. He made a very good point of putting his notion across, pointing to putting it all to the interviewer, suggesting that it all feeds back onto itself. Maintaining the status quo.
In the end, it is not what you are good at, or supposed talented with, but “how satisfying is your life and not the fame, money, celebrity it might bring you.
I have mentioned this before, so forgive the repeat,; but in school, the English teacher set up a debate. The motion being:- “Better to be Socrates wise; but miserable, rather than a little pig content”.
I argued against the motion … now I know why.
Jack
I’m with Phil on this issue. Jack, I would think you of all people, decrying our departure from Nature, would accept the fact that we are creatures who not only eat other members of nature but also are being eaten by other such members, the Corona virus being such an example. You’re probably familiar with the fact than many more American Indians died from viruses unfamiliar to their immune system brought from Europe, than by outright killing. This is also a big concern from global warming – that viruses common to the southern hemisphere and tropical regions will travel north to areas where human immunity systems are unfamiliar and therefor unable to cope with them.
Regarding meritocracy, it’s important to because of fame or money, but because of aptitude in dealing with public matters. So, for example, in matters of creating and implementing education policies it would be nice to know that the people in charge and those under them all down the line are there because they have thought the matter at hand through, because they know a thing or two about education, and have the ability and know-how to implement their policies – not because they are family members of the one nominating them. I grant you that unfortunately this is not always the case and the system may become corrupt and serve the public no more, but still – the idea that people who serve the public are chosen for their abilities rather than family relations is very important IMO.
Daniel: I feel we need to be very careful when referring to humankind and where and when we might find a tribe that is NOT neurotic. If, as I believe, neurosis was incubated some 20 – 30 thousand years ago (based on the work that Bernard Cambell of Cambridge University as an anthropologist.)
As for creatures that eat other creatures, it is hard to define humans as meat-eaters. And I know many vegans. Also, I don’t see virus’ as creatures in that sense. Granted they sure perhaps were the first forms of life on the planet, and perhaps before the evolution of vegetation. We humans have been attempting to figure all this out ever since neurosis drove us into thinking after losing much of our ability to feel.
While I feel global climate change to be a very serious problem;; to relate it all to something starting in the tropics and then moving north, is not particularly relevant to this situation.
Regarding education; I have always insisted that we naturally LEARN, but that TEACHING is alien to our nature. I see a lot of it in the reliance on it as not being productive for us. However, I understand most peoples insistent of it for their children in order to live a fulfilling life. I don’t see the ‘learned’ or the rich, living a happy or contented life. As I alluded to it in the debate set up by my English teacher.
Most of the rich people I have met were not particularly happy nor content.
Daniel; if it all seems to work or you … well and good … for you … I feel we need to be careful about any attempt to impose it on others … something I feel I LEARNED from doing this therapy and seeing into more of my old feelings.
Jack
Jack, I’m afraid I didn’t explain myself very well. I wasn’t speaking generally about eating and being eaten (plants are also members of nature), and then about the familiarity of our immune system with some viruses. I mentioned one example, but one can use any other. The same goes for meritocracy – my point wasn’t about education specifically but about who designs and administers public policies. This goes for all areas of public life, education being one example of. My point is we want the most able people possible regardless of their family relations, sex, color, etc. The current epidemic is a good case in point: who do we want handling all this, people who are best at it or somebody’s cousin?
That should read: “I was speaking generally…”
Daniel: I understood that.
Margaret left a comment I read earlier before reading you, and it boggle my mind at all the hoops she has to go through:- This series of statistics and that statistic, and ponder if any of it is generally useful in the practice of psychology.
I personally am not convinced of any of these statistical studies, OR their outcomes, and seem to me to complicate and convolute how to cope with these maladies as they occur.
While we attach monetary costs to healthcare, I feel we’re on the wrong path. As in the UK’s NHS it is a right and NOT a privilege for those that can afford it.
Jack
Daniel: I feel I know just where you are coming from, BUT I could be deluding myself … a great possibility. However, in essence, I don’t disagree with what you state in your responses.
What I am trying to illustrate is to look further into our way of life, and why we seem to fail to live a pleasant and feeling-full one for most people. The acting-out that accompanies everything especially that that is placed upon us by fellow neurotics, mouthing off in government buildings. One has to take note of the definition of neurosis, that I contend for the very first time in our know history, Janov was able to define it whilst for all his genius, Freud merely coined it.
If on attempting to eliminate the virus or at least it’s killing effect is:- to see it from more angles than I see any government doing, or even the medical profession’s attempt to analyze it Most of it IMO is fluff talk that appears learned, but isn’t solving what we’ve designated as ‘The Problem’.
We, humans, are so busy analyzing everything and calling it science. seems not to make our LIVING of life any better. We need, as I feel Janov stated over and over again, to go to the very ROOT of it all.
I personally am trying to see it from a philosophical perspective; and since I seem not to have gotten to that point, I am not willing to suggest a quick and simple way beyond it.
I do like our ‘back and forth and feel it is helpful in a Primal context for us all.
Jack
Yesterday i spent the afternoon here with a girlfriend that goes back all the way to the 5th grade of primary school, with whom i lost contact about ten years ago.
while I wondered why she had not replied to the last efforts of contact I had made, I decided to give it another try as i missed her still.
and hurray, she ressponded and explained how due to a computercrash she had lost the data to get in touch with me all those years ago.
so she came over here and it was just so easy and nice and fun. a bit like a homecoming…
even my cats immediately approached her, partly due probably to the scent of her two cats on her, one of them a female…
a lot to catch up on, so we already planned a next visit in a few weeks to continue.
it feels good, so glad I did reach out again, a nice improvement to my social circle…
otherwise I am in a fierce struggle with the material of yet another module of statistics, this time building on the more simple analyses of the first module, this time including apart from t tests, and one way anovas, also ancovas, factorial anovas and repeated measurements analyses, complicated by interactions of different variables with each other etc.
the screenreader navigation in combination with the statistics software, ‘R’, the data sets, the output and the material on the course site is once more a huge challenge, as it is not really ready for the use of ‘R’ on the site.
my teacher told me his colleagues are resistant on switching to the new software, as they are used to SpSS, even while ‘R’ is not only more accurate but also a lot cheaper for the students, open source.
it is frustrating for me and for my teacher, who had hoped to get the funds to adapt the study material entirely to the use of ‘R’ which he prefers.
so it takes a lot of putting bits and pieces of information together, while the time I can spend with the teacher is limited.
but well, somehow we will manage, as so far we always did…
but it is stressful at times to struggle for an hour for example just to find and open and save the proper file in the midst of loads of material on the site.
moan moan, haha, at least I have a day extra as there will be no tango dancing tomorrow due to the Corona virus risk…
another good thing is my cats have stopped vomiting, a fine brand of cat food, Royal Canin specially against fur balls, did the trick, now the bits of fur come out the rear end as well, which must be a big relief for them, and for me…
so well, that’s the local news of to all, M
Margaret: Good to know you’re around to keep us informed about you.
Jack
Jack,
I feel you use too often the either …or dichotomy, black and white reasoning.
it is all so very relative, viruses exist and specially elderly people are more vulnerable as their immune systems are not as efficient anymore, neurosis or not.
so Janov has good and interesting points, but regular medicine does too.
they both have their merits .
statistics also are of the same kind, not solving it all, far from, but useful in many conditions.
for example the medication you have been taking for decades has been tested and the tests have been analized using statistics to be able to work out in detail as much as possible what effects they do or don’t have.
so wouldn’t it be better to add some subtlety to your opinions?
there are flaws and merits all around and what is helpful in one situation is not in another.
M
Margaret: Interesting you feel I use a ‘black and/or white opinion. I will sure spend some time exploring that Towards the end you state:- “what effects they do or don’t have.
so wouldn’t it be better to add some subtlety to your opinions?”.
I am not sure just what you mean by “subtlety”.
One of the things that bother me about Psychology is it is all based on Fred and others that added to Freud, but has never mentiones, Janov and/or Primal therapy/theory. If one wishes to become a Primal therapist it is required by law to have a master’s in Freudian psychology and yet that therapist when practicing their craft, I suspect, will never use any of the things they learned getting their masters.
It seems to me you are required to learn all this stuff. Further, I feel you disagree with me on all this. I would be interested in other opinions (feeling) on it.
I contend Janov turned all of that subject ‘on its head’ and put forward implications that I feel no-one has speculated on. I did so on my first book but since no-one seems to read it except Vivian, and I’m lucky if I make $5 a year in royalties.
Ah well! as I stated above, I will explore it.
Jack
Jack,
I agree with Margaret. Education is important. Maybe you would have made a good physicist, or chemist. In those sciences statistical methods aren’t so important because, for the most part, the experiments either work or don’t work. In life sciences, including medicine and psychotherapy, statistical methods are very important. There are no treatments that work 100% of the time. Primal therapy is no exception. Unfortunately no good outcome studies have been performed for primal therapy.. But let’s say that the therapy was found to have an 80% success rate using the standard tools in use to evaluate therapy outcomes. What are the 20% of patients who have failed supposed to do? What about the people who weren’t accepted into therapy for various reasons? What about people who have had good outcomes from various other methods. I think it’s a good thing that therapists are requited to get degrees and be licensed, and that there are many therapies to choose from. I have to believe it’s helpful for a therapist to have a general knowledge of psychology and there is a lot of overlap of methods used in all therapies. These requirements exist to protect the public.
On large internet forums and facebook support groups where there are many thousands of people interested in therapy, rigid proponents of primal have no more standing than someone advocating for equine (horse) assisted therapy. Patients can claim to have gotten good benefits form both therapies and any others. The primaller might claim, and I have seen this, that primal is the only valid method and everything else is BS. Why? Because Arthur Janov said so, etc. etc. The primal adherent has no standing, nothing to really back up claims, except subjective experiences. It’s better not to make exaggerated claims, but understand that primal is just another method among many others, and it’s important to try to prove it’s effectiveness through studies.
Phil
By the way, Equine assisted therapy might be an attraction. Those horses don’t study or practice Freudian methods. There is probably little thinking or talking involved in that method, at least not coming from the horse. It seems to me that it would be quite feeling oriented.
I don’t know what training the horses receive, but I think therapy and service dogs do undergo a lot of training. Maybe it’s similar for horses.
Phil
I’ve recently read that all psychological therapies are frustrated in not having been able to devise a direct, objective way to measure and demonstrate a successful outcome of the therapy on an individual…in the way that for instance that a doctor can objectively measure whether an individual’s eyesight has improved or broken bone has successfully healed etc.
Larry,
Another problem with outcome studies is that people have different reasons for starting therapy and different goals in mind. To me, primal involves a complete overhaul, at least that’s what I’ve wanted from it. A primal outcome study would have to follow patients for years. Other people aren’t interested in digging deeply into childhood. They want some kind of quick fix and are satisfied with managing symptoms. A properly done study for a new drug involves control groups, but with psychotherapy, there doesn’t seem to be any good way to have a control group. Some therapies claim to be evidence based, such as CBT, because they are backed by a lot of outcome studies. That does show something.
It’s too bad that it hasn’t been done for primal.
Phil
A few years ago I wrote here the following. I think it’s still relevant.
“The most important things in our lives are most important precisely because we can’t measure, predict, or have much control over them, be it love, mourning, sexuality, amusement, inspiration, God and, especially relevant in our case, our distant past. On the contrary, the very attempt to control these is what drives people crazy. It is a terrible thing to measure the mind”.
I’ve come to realize sometimes when considering Art Janov, I’m triggered into some angry feelings. Not just with the above comment, but many other times. I don’t think he did a good job selling his therapy. The therapy takes many years, but he closed the NY center only 2 1/2 years after I started. I needed it continuously up until now. He created a wonderful therapy but I think it’s much better now. I needed it to be that good when I started.
I relate all this to how I felt about my father, who seemed useless to me. He became more like a friend, and not even a good one. I couldn’t tell him much, and he didn’t want to know how I was really doing. He was a good guy, making it difficult to be angry with him, and also because he was mostly all I had.
Phil
Phil: This last comment of yours demonstrates to me that you are doing this therapy and that this therapy is simpler then is normally recognized. What is difficult is being a ‘Primal Therapist’ since however good that therapist is, he/she often has the tendency, to bring into the therapy room, their own old feelings.
As for Art not doing “a good job selling his therapy”. He was not a salesman, nor did he want to be; from my memory of some of the things he stated. He hoped one of his patients that was good at seeling, would do that for him. I gather no-one showed up for that task.
What I feel he set out to achieve, was to inform the medical profession and in particular the neurological departments of the medical profession of the sheer simplicity of what previously has seemed a complex subject.
Feeling are:- normal, natural, and simple … It’s the thinking that requires at least 15 to 25 years formal education to get the hang of what life is ALL ABOUT … even then, many of them fail to reach that so-called goal and I’m one of them. Stephen Hawking was another.
Poor guy: he gave up his physical being just in order to pursue his act-out … figuring out what black holes are.
Of course, this is all merely MY OPINION
Jack
Jack, what I meant where I said selling the therapy, was convincing and proving it’s effectiveness, and that needs to be done first in psychological terms, not neurology.
In my opinion, a large outcome study should have been started when there were many patients and therapists at the peak of popularity for primal therapy. It’s important to show that people get better, that symptoms are reduced, etc. That wasn’t really done except through testimonials and clinical observations, which, I’m afraid, aren’t worth much. Also, Janov made too many unproven claims about what happens as a result of the therapy. He was also extremely critical of other therapies, which I’m sure didn’t win him friends in the therapy community.
For these reasons, unfortunately, there is very little acceptance of primal therapy as a valid and effective method of psychotherapy. That’s a shame, because it didn’t need to be that way, in my opinion.
Phil
During the 70’s and 80’s when the popularity of Primal Therapy was perhaps at its peak, evidence based outcomes apparently were not yet part of the mindset of healthcare practitioners. In the opinion of this article published in 2017 in the scientific journal Neurotherapeutics https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5509639/ , apparently the concept of evidence based practice (treatment) “did not become a hot topic” in the healthcare community until the 1990’s.
Here is a link to a Psychology Today article (2012) on “Why Psychotherapy Efficacy Studies Are Nearly Impossible”. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/matter-personality/201212/why-psychotherapy-efficacy-studies-are-nearly-impossible . One item that caught my attention was the issue of allegiances to different schools of therapy usually each designed by charismatic, creative individuals. My impression, based on the little I know of the failed New York and Paris Institutes and that Art Janov would not acknowledge the work of the Primal Institute when he created and ran the Primal Training Center, is that Art Janov wasn’t good at developing allegiances to him and his practice of Primal Therapy. Also, it seems to me that not many people want to be a Primal therapist, and of those who want to, not many are capable. From that I have the impression that it would be difficult to build a large following the psychological community to Primal Therapy.
Larry,
For example, proponents of CBT can claim it’s evidence based because of all the outcome studies performed showing its effectiveness.
Phil
“Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been demonstrated in hundreds of studies to be an effective treatment for a variety of disorders and problems for adults, older adults, children and adolescents. Below is a list of disorders for which CBT is effective, followed by sources.”
benefitshttps://www.academyofct.org/page/OutcomeStudies
https://www.academyofct.org/page/OutcomeStudies
Looks like those studies were done relatively recently, Phil, more than 30 years after the Primal Scream first came out, my point being that at the time when Primal Therapy first came on the scene and the Janovs, especially Art, were presumably putting all of their time and energy into developing and expounding the theory and practice, therapeutic outcome studies and presumably how to do them were not part of the healthcare mindset.
Larry,
Outcome studies still could have been done, even recently, although I’m sure it’s a big effort, rather than trying to prove the biological basis for the therapy. First you have to prove it actually helps people, otherwise there’s no point.
Anyway, as I’ve said, those are my feelings.on it, whether justified or not.
Phil
Phil & Larry: I read all these emails from both of you and also looked at the sites that you posted. I did not totally read all through to the end. When I felt I had gotten the gist I stopped reading further. Were I feel all these so-called studies lead us to, is an objective observation of the therapeutic process and what the outcome appears to be STATISTICALLY. And thus it is assumed scientific and provable. I refute that claim.
Why I refute it that what Primal therapy did for the VERY FIRST TIME (Aa I see it) was to encourage the patient to go into her/himself, to see what was causing them (the patient’s) problem. NOT SOME THERAPIST PLAYING THE EXPERT. That is not how I see all the other methodologies as:- ‘looking in all the wrong places’, to quote Art Janov.
Why Primal therapy/theory is unique and quite different to ALL other psychotherapies, is that the therapist doesn’t need a degree. to practice Primal therapy, but merely the ability to listen to their patient and ONLY when they see the patient vearying away from the expression of their feeling/s to ‘but in’. That requires GREAT SKILL and a lot of experience IMO with both their OWN therapy and dealing with a patient’s tendency to act-out, rather than go into that horror world we experienced as fetuses, babies and young children. Simple to say … but very complex to put into practice (as I understand it). From my experience watching skilled therapists at the retreats.
Finally; reflecting back before I post it; what is going for me, wanting to argue this case.
It bothers me greatly that people put Primal therapy in the very same box as all those thousands of other modalities to help suffering humans, like Aromatherapy et al. that’s all tantamount to giving a starving child a sandwich. That starving child needs way more than that. I contend most of those other modalities are merely ‘giving a starving child a sandwich’
Jack
Jack, I don’t really agree; primal does go in that box the same as any other psychotherapy. About Janov, my feelings on him are also maybe related to the fact that he never did anything personally for me. So, in that sense he was useless. In my mind he was just sitting around writing books and theorizing, and that didn’t do a whole lot. Yes, he created the therapy, but I never did therapy with him.
Phil
Phil: neither did I, nor did I see him doing therapy, but none of that matters to me. I did see Vivian working and I found her impressive and I doubted she was doing it differently than Art. I also worked with many therapists … most now gone off on their own, I also liked.
Neither do I care what he was like as a person. I was solely interested in his discovery, the creation of a theory he wrapped it into, and the creation of the therapy.
As for not agreeing with me … that’s fine. I see now, the perspective in which you reply to me. However, it does get me ‘a wondering’ what brought you to do this therapy in the first place?
I do find it strange you see him “as useless ….. sitting around writing books and theorizing, and that didn’t do a whole lot.” that is obviously your feeling, as you stated, and that also is OK by me, but (obviously) it’s not mine.
Jack
Jack,
What’s interesting is that some people involved in other therapies, rave about those methods just like some of us do about primal. I’m in a somatic experiencing Facebook Group. Many people there seem to think trauma is all in the body, it’s all about flight, fright, and freeze, and regulation of the nervous system. These ideas seem to be extremely popular at the moment. Therapy has to focus on the body, and that relivings are retraumatizing to the patient, according to Peter Levine, who created SE therapy. He believes that trauma and the success of his therapy are explained by the polyvagal theory. I swear by primal, but other people feel the same way about what works for them. I tend to think somatic experiencing therapy and it’s theory, fit within and are explained by primal theory, but that’s just my opinion. None of these things are truly proven, except by personal experiences, and those vary.
Phil
Phil: to some extent, I agree. That is what I mean by Primal being subjective Whereas I see all the others as being more objective, even though the people doing them feel a lot of gains.
Jack
I have a friend, an MD and Zen Psychotherapist. She is unequivocally convinced about the retraumatization thing. It is abundantly clear that her years spent in therapy before qualifying as a Practitioner did mostly nothing in healing her own trauma. She is inordinately kind, and insightful, has always been, totally avoids confrontation, dwelling in the land of nicey-nice faeriedom, karma, signs, while blissfully banishing the horrors committed against her as a child. And, as such, is the thesis of her Practice.
Phil, my first thought regarding the CBT studies that you linked to is that they could be useless or worse misleading. Did the researcher doing the study have a personal investment in the outcome? The link that I referred to, https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/matter-personality/201212/why-psychotherapy-efficacy-studies-are-nearly-impossible , states that there is a high correlation between the researchers’ therapy allegiance and outcome of the studies.
Did the outcome studies look only at short term symptom relief following
CBT, or did they follow the client to see whether symptom relief was long lasting?
Did the CBT outcome studies focus only on the symptom being treated, or did they also look at the resulting overall long term health and well being of the individual after the CBT. I’m currently reading the interesting and seminal book “The Hostage Brain” by McEwen and Schmeck. In the first chapter is describes how research showed that anti-cholesteral drugs effectively reduce cholesterol and the number of heart attacks and deaths due to heart attacks, so specialists in the US and Europe advised that everyone, even children, should reduce total dietary fat intake. However, it was eventually discovered that lowering cholesterol did not lessen overall death rate. Subsequently an expansive, painstaking study followed the lives of 25,000 men for years many of whom took anti-cholesterol drugs and it was found that the act of lowering blood fats reduced heart attacks but increased the number of deaths due to violence. What I’m trying to say is I think that to be truly useful therapy outcome studies should be done by independent observers and should look a the long term overall health outcome to the client, and I wonder do the CBT outcome studies do that.
Though I think that Primal Therapy outcome studies would be very complex and time and resource demanding, i suspect they will be done when more in the psychology community become more open minded and accepting of the potential healing power of primal therapy and are curious to research and demonstrate how effective it is and how it accomplishes what it does. I think it would be nice to live in a world where primal theory and therapy is widely accepted, understood, and practiced. In the meantime I’m super grateful and thankful that I have access to the therapy in my lifetime.
Jack,
with more subtlety i mean more shades of grey, more ‘nuance’, if that word is used in English, more attention for all the variety that exists, hardly anything is entirely black or white, but usually a mixture of many influences and realities of all kinds.
and it is not always true that if one statement or theory is valid, that means another is not.
and some of your starting points are simply wrong, Freud gets little attention in most of the psychology classes, it varies a bit with what university is looked at, some are more focused on dynamic approaches where emotions and feelings are a large part of clinical therapies, other universities focus more on cognitions and neurology.
of course they all must pay some attention to all aspects, but it really is far from the truth that Freud is everywhere regarded as the most important of all, on the contrary I would say, he is often mocked a bit in many textbooks.
and here too, there is no clear pro or contra as he has his merits as do most psychological schools.
Art Janov himself had a lot of interest as far as I know in the neurological aspects of our states of mind and emotions and thoughts.
an open mind can go hand in hand with healthy critical thinking and checking of factual realities.
there are several classes far from my main interest but they all have some value so far for me, otherwise I would not keep putting so much energy in studying and exploring if it would not be an interestin voyage.
which does not exclude that Primal Therapy for me has changed my life for the better a hundred percent.
and yet for other people in other situations some shorter therapies can still be very helpful and non primal people can have completely meaningful full lifes as well.
everyone has feelings, not only primal patients, but sure, PT makes it all much clearer and more efficient and resolves so many problems, it is great and deserves all kinds of credits and a successful future hopefully.
M
Well said Margaret….balanced, informative, and helpful, in my opinion.
Phil,
I think with horses it is a bit different usually than with assistance dogs.
i think the horse is not specially trained, but chosen for its gentle and quiet character, and the therapy consists in the healing interactions for example for people with autism, with a gentle, warm, living creature, that can be touched, caressed, brushed, fed and even saddled to ride on.
it requires trust from both sides, and gentleness and is rewarding just by the horse being what it is, a warm and gentle creature. of course that is why it would not work well to pick a young and restless horse that gets easily scared.
I think interacting in a caring way with animals is healing for most people in general as it is so pure and rewarding in a direct way by the trust that gets created and the closeness of the interaction.
I miss horses in my life a lot as from a very young age I was attracted to them and fascinated by them.
i have spent some of my happiest hours riding out in nature, just the horse and me having a great time together.
they represent beauty and strength for me in the way cats represent also beauty and grace, intelligence, and vulnerability combined with strength.
their trust, both of horses and cats, and of dogs and other animals really, feels like a precious privilege to cherish when it occurs.
once I saw a wild fox on a mountain walk, from not very far away really, and we just stood and stared in each other’s eyes, his had the colour of honey, and then I could sense and see how he did not feel any threat of me as he turned around and went his way in a very relaxed way. that too felt like a very precious encounter and a privilege.
writing this I become aware of loving a lot of what makes our world, its beauty, its living creatures of all kinds, it is nice to feel that love.
this morning I happened to talk about the cosmos with someone doing my shopping, and about how vast space is out there,m and how much life there must exist ou there as well, which in a way feels reassuring. this planet is just one of myriads and it would be a thrill to get to know more about what is there, all around us, more to explore and more to love…
M
Margaret, Phil, and Larry. I read each of your comments at least twice, and I felt I could see the context in which you were writing them, AND in terms of the context, for the most part, I agree.
However, most of my comments particularly relating to money are not in any of the contexts that I read in any of your remarks. Before going further, I feel on the question of horses that Margaret is referring to horses, as she has known them,. had already undergone a rigorous “breaking in” My fathers father worked with horses and was a saddler, meaning they made the harness for horses. I have seen films and videos of these trainings and they’re extremely cruel and it goes on until the horse begins to accept its lot, and then appears to us humans as docile and gentle … but if ever you’ve seen wild horses that is certainly not the case as I observed them in Cornwall, quite recently, and was told to keep my distance from them.
My father oft suggested that the way to bring up children was to do as is needed with horses “break their spirit” such that they (both children and horses), react obediently and compliant then bringing them up, is made easier for the parents. Little realizing what the child is going through
I have also had and cats and dogs, already trained and domesticated, but these are not the same animals in the wild. For all your observation of the fox. Sure if you don’t appear in any way, as a threat, then (unless it’s hungry) will not bother you.
I will continue with answering other aspects you guys brought up in my next post.
For now, Jack
From 1957 – 64 we lived in the bush. We encountered all wild beings and raised a fawn deer, an orphaned bear cub, foxes, raccoons, porcupine, partridge. Moose, wild cat, lynx, bobcat were common. Never an incident. My father taught that the only animal to fear walked upright on 2 legs. I regularly see coyote, an occasional bear,cougar. None thought I was lunch. Sad we’re encouraged to fear every being except white humans. Politics and capitalism…. IMHO
David: I agree
Jack
Cheers, Jack…. the only thing slower than this page to function, is me….. hope things are well with you. I’m amidst my Springtime terrors. On a positive note, it began with being woken from sleep approx 2 wks ago feeling the most afraid I have ever been in my life, absolute terror, which I welcomed. No understanding of a specific etiology but it hasn’t lingered for days as it did in the past,and a number of insights about things I do to try to belong emerged over the next several days. Tough job being a humin bean…. best thoughts, sir.
David: Please don’t call me ‘sir’. I was never struck on the shoulder by a monarch. The nearest I came to a monarch was a monarch butterfly that landed on my shoulder. 🙂 🙂 . I saw him/her several times last summer.
I am faring very well considering that I’m knocking on 90, living in a country whose language I do not know, but in one of the best homes, I lived in since turning 70.
I am living with someone that cares a great deal about me, as I of him, and he does most of the shopping and deals with government things like taxes and dealing with the owners of the Chalet park here. There are many trees surrounding us, and a very private space lined with high bush hedges. He also tends the garden and takes joy in tending it. During the warmer weather, I sit outside on the patio in my deck chair and bask in the great plants in the garden. contemplating the wonders of nature. .. both in the sky and on the ground.
However, I freak at where I see humanity going. It’s the only planet we have or ever have, and we’re abusing it badly IMO. Happily, there are some … the young, that are questioning a lot of the current status quo.
So!!! How are you doing?
Jack
Well, ” SIR,” of the Monarch Butterfly Clan, struggling with the unidentified bug that slays me annually at this time of year. On the positive sides I began a physical treatment , ” Matrix Repatterning,” the aim to resolve old bone memories, which has knocked off 20 years of my physical functioning, and in the process, I think it was the treatments, brought up a myriad of feelings and new to me old memories. Recently the terrors started again, the most intense fear I’ve ever felt this time. I invoked my old mantra, ” it’s only fear;” ; the origin of the terror remains unknown to me. I just let the feelings be. I’m reminded of Rumi’s, ” The Guest House.” I’m back to sleeping, fitfully, in my recliner, feeling jostled about at times and enormously ill. I have my opinion as to what it’s about. Nearly 74 I wish it would cease as I see no evidence of my being improving as a result of feeling the suffering. My mentally ill old Ma often told me I’d never be free of her. Poor old dear the hell she survived that shaped that sick mind.
David: that’s great … just keep posting your comments as they come up for you.
Jack
Well, this
Jack,
I had no intent of adressing your money issues, Jack.
and while I was talking about trust and love, you respond with your story about breaking horses and kids.
well, as there are other ways to raise kids, luckilhy there are other ways to bond with horses as well, also with love and respect.
no violence needed at all, just making sure trust gets a chance right from the start with the young foal.
and I assure you that feels like a privilege and something to value and cherish, like any trusting relationship.
your inclination to ‘banter’ seems to take you into unnecessary negative responses sometimes in my perception which is sad as one on one you are a nice person and more pleasant than appears on this blog at times.
you come across as very critical and always wanting to have the last word, well, in any case in the responses you gave just now.
maybe I am bit sensitive right now, but well, so be it.
Larry, thanks, that was a nice compliment you gave.
i was still thinking of life on other planets, wondering about all the shapes it could take, if only you look at all the shapes of life on this planet well, the possibilities are countless.
still there must be a lot of similarities as there are certain patterns that are recurrent, like the spiral of the surface inside a sunflower, and of its seeds, is the same shape as the spiral of a galaxy.
I am fascinated by well, hesitating which word to use, reality, the world, existence, life?
M
Margaret: I take your crits and will explore them. As for bringing up a foal, the one to bring it up is its mom. We neurotic humans are not able to get into the heads of foals or any other creature. Yet there are cases of humans rearing the young of other creatures as happened in the film (movie) in Kenya “Born to be free” where the people there shot the mother and then discovered it was protecting its baby cub. So they reared it and then set it free, but had to go back many times before the now grown tiger found its freedom.
Jack
Jack,
you again interpret what I said in a way you can argue with it.
i never said I would raise the foal instead of her own mother.
right now I think of a foal I got to know last summer, in the company of its mom and a few other horses, grazing freely outdoors.
it was a young foal, the entire group these huge type of horses that used to pull ploughs before.
at first the mom horse kind of kept the foal away from me a bit, she was checking me out and finally she must have started trusting me, as she actually ended up encouraging the foal to go towards me as well.
and that was a great moment, when that very young foal started smelling the palm of my hand, and then pushed its velvet nose into it, and even licked it for a while.
it touched me deeply, as it felt like true connecting of two different species.
that is a good starting point for any relation, gentleness, respect, trust and going with the flow the other creature has.
no rushing, no forcing, but kindness and attention for the pace of the other.
M
Margaret: That is a lovely and touching story. I am aware that you love animals.
That was not my point. This whole back and forth started with me while I was reading your frustration with the studies of statistics.
As I thought I had made clear in the past;, I’m not a fan of statistical studies.
Jack
I can equate that feeling to the one I get when wild birds choose to land on my wrist or palm to take seed. Very similar to holding a newborn and looking into it’s eyes. The reward of being judged trustable.
I’m extremely distressed about the neighborhood dynamics surrounding my home. I’m in a situation very much like Vera Coking’s old boarding house being surrounded by Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City. No, selling this house is NOT an option.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-time-donald-trumps-empire-took-on-a-stubborn-widow–and-lost/2015/09/09/f9cb287e-5660-11e5-b8c9-944725fcd3b9_story.html
I can’t give out any more details; I only talk about it here because I’m so distressed about it so often. I wish I could sue these people to the gills for ongoing, long-term emotional distress.
I wish my thoughts weren’t so flooded by this issue. Feeling the anger doesn’t work because it’s a severe ongoing environmental annoyance I can’t do anything about in the short term.
Sorry if I took your limelight UG. I didn’t see your post until I sent mine, following yours. Looks like we’re both feeling pretty distressed tonight.
No problem on the limelight coincidence. You, Larry, already know a bit about what I am dealing with (no need to relate the details here). Truly solving this problem to my complete satisfaction would require a shitload of money.
Let me just add this: If my home was sold to the people completely surrounding me, evil would win. That’s the bottom line. I could write a book explaining why this is so; I just don’t have the energy or strength or time for that now
Guru: Just a suggestion:- Are these feelings in any way related to some in your childhood? You don’t have to reply unless you wish to.
Jack
So you think Vera Coking’s childhood played a role when Bob Guccione and Donald Trump went after her house, too?
I have no idea, but was that relevant o my suggestion?
Jack
As I explained earlier, the situation I’m dealing with is very similar in structure to what Coking faced. That’s why I linked the Washington Post article.
It has nothing to do with childhood and everything to do with an aggressor’s greedy aspirations.
Guru: OK.
J<ck
Guru,
I don’t know about your situation, but if I was that woman in Atlantic City I would have strongly considered selling my house for 1 million, when that chance came up. I’d certainly sell my current house if offered that amount, even though I’m there a long time and like it a lot. To me, it seems that woman lost in the end; her house was worth nothing.
Phil
Phil, As much as I despise wasting any more of my brain cells on Trump considering his name has already been uttered many quintillions of times worldwide while most everybody else in the world are ignored as non-beings , I will respond.
Trump offered the million because it was worth much more than that to him to have the house removed. Vera had the satisfaction of:
a) Keeping a sentimental home
b) Knowing the aggressor is losing more by her NOT selling than what she would gain by her selling.
Guru,
It’s clear to me she also went through a lot of stress with lawyers, lawsuits, and receiving abuse which could have been avoided by selling it at a good price. The house was also no longer in a good location, after the surroundings had been so heavily developed. Seems like it was a case of extreme stubbornness.
Phil
Personally I don’t think it’s fair to call her stubborn. It’s not her fault that casino people decided to build next to her instead of a few miles away. If the developers decided to build a few miles away and Vera still had her home anyway, would she still be stubborn? No, just more fortunate she didn’t have to deal with the stress of being under seige.
I have seen what could be many cases of this. Where there’s a house, clearly still someone’s home, in the middle of a busy suburban commercial strip or the middle of an urban business district. It’s probably a fairly common story. People stay put and hold out against all offers. I would no longer want my house under those circumstances. What’s going on in your neighborhood? Is it something similar?
Phil
You’ve seen many cases of someone’s house completely surrounded by a developer gnawing for it? Is it common, as you say? In every neighborhood in America from sea to shining sea?
I’m guessing less than 0.3% of American households are facing such situations, and that’s a generously high estimate. Far from common.
Guru,
I’ve seen several similar cases around here, but I don’t know the whole story. On a nearby commercial strip which goes on for miles, there are several houses like that. One was torn down a few years ago. Thirty or more years ago, before we moved to the area, that road wasn’t nearly as developed. Very few people will want to buy such houses stranded in an area which isn’t at all pedestrian friendly, surrounded by gas stations, car dealerships, fast food shops etc. I have seen cases like that in cities too, a house surrounded by tall buildings, in nonresidential areas. I didn’t say it’s happening all the time, but I have seen it.
Phil
Guru, I tend to notice these things as I’m quite interested in any environment I’m in, whether I live there, or am just passing through. We live in a suburban development of houses where we are safe from any radical changes.. I don’t like to see more houses built on empty lots, but that isn’t surprising. But as the general area has undergone massive development it’s become less and less attractive to me. I like to see open space preserved, and that hardly happens.
Phil
Phil, let’s back up for a second. You asked what’s going on in my neighborhood, and I cannot share that here for fear of increasing risk of facing a defamation lawsuit as more and more details are divulged. I’ve seen far too many times what gaslighting assholes these people can be, so answering your questions here is not a wise idea.
I am done with this topic. except I wanted to share it yesterday in the hopes I could drain their presence from my mind as much as I can so I can focus on my work.
My goal was very simple: A cathartic release of extreme frustration and anger so I can calm down and think more about what’s relevant for my own day-to-day affairs.
I’m especially paranoid tonight. Global climate change, disintegration of ecosystems upon which civilizations depend, droughts, famines, fragmentation of societies, massive movement of peoples met with closing of borders, wars, plagues, collapse of the stock market, mounting fear and distrust. This is how it al happens at the end doesn’t it. Too many crises erupting world wide all at once because too many people are making too much demand right now on not enough resources and too few are working for the better good of all. I don’t like living in what the old Chinese proverb calls interesting times. I sure hope there is an early childhood feeling that I can get through soon that is inflating the paranoia I feel right now.
Well at least all the assholes in the world will check out along with us!
Maybe not if they have the power and resources to isolate themselves from it.
In 1993 I attended a talk featuring a multidegreed fellow. One section dealt with was health and longevity. He said in 1900 North Americans had exercise, nutritious diet, good air and good water. Rural dwellers lived long lives. What was needed was sanitation. Now we had sanitation, horrible diet, polluted air and water and no constant exercise. He suggested that my age group, cusp baby boomers, would be the first to die younger than their parents and grandparents.
I found that the following link and the others embedded in the article to be helpful in putting an informed perspective on what the threat of cov19 is and how to confront it.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-ten-reasons-not-to-panic/?fbclid=IwAR3l9_pzVMY4R6qe_c2OoH1wG9zxaQyvW-J3lxCmEF3DETCo305ZJxJ85z8
Larry: I feel you are correct about there being an old feeling in there for you. I hope for you, that you’re able to get into it. I was tempted to say;- “get through it”; then reflected on ‘Do we ever get through it?
I have my way of knowing for me. This whole neurotic system is now catching up with us and I see one and only one way, to get beyond this so-called civilization which is anything but civil; as you just described it. Sure, my way would cause some initial chaos, but I repeatedly state:- We’re living in greater total chaos right now and no-one sees a way beyond it … as far as can ascertain.
All I can say from my own perspective is that I’m not depressed about it. Just frustrated that I don’t seem able to get anyone to contemplate my suggestion. … yep! there’s an old feeling in there for me to explore.
Jack.
About the coronavirus outbreak, I think the reaction and media hype is almost worse than the epidemic.But the government action on it has been very inadequate, which doesn’t help. Probably any administration would be criticized, but the Trump group is very disorganized. I think much of the world is going to go into a recession, and that might be a good sign that Trump won’t be reelected. Another good thing about a recession is it slows down the destruction of the planet. I’m not optimistic, just seeing certain good aspects of this..
Phil
Phil: Like you, I feel Trump and his admin is taking the whole world down the wrong path. I see that many now around the planet are beginning to see the plight of humanity. So far there appears to be no solution, but I hope someone out there, might find one that appeals to most of us.
Communication is now so easy and it would not take long to broadcast it everywhere for all to ponder.
Jack
Jack, very important and doable is to remove Trump. Other than that, I have to admit, I wouldn’t feel that bad if he would get infected by coronavirus himself.
Phil
Phil: e also.
Jack
Should have read:- ” me also
I cannot wrap my head around the , “WHY,” this case of fear mongering was conjured up and dispersed, and, at this time. Have you read any of Dr Len Horowitz’ writings, ” Aids and Ebola , Accident or Invention,” comes to mind. The history of why he developed from chief US Federal Public Health officer to whistle blower is fascinating. He hasn’t weathered well all of the pressure dumped on him. Based on his thought process I ask myself who the intended target of the Covit 19 fiasco is, flailing and flaying China and Iran at the same time. Promoting economic globalism while escalating global ethnicity paranoia and hate; bad guys portrayed as good guys….
Of course that would mean I would have to believe Trump is capable of thinking a thought and playing with others even warped minded others…
Do your neighbors know you as Guru? If not, you should be OK
Phil
They’re not neighbors (or only ‘neighbors’ as a meaningless label with all the spirit taken out of it, yet the term works nicely for their public image). Predators who have encircled me is more of an appropriate term.
I’m done now regardless of whether you say it’s OK to continue. I know much more about what I am up against than you can appreciate right now.
Is there any safety to be found in publicly exposing your situation ? I do know the fate of folks who kept the evil under wraps hoping they’d not become target. The only surviving physicist who jointly developed the US Microwave Topograhical Creep weapon is the one who went public. The 5 others all died unexplained deaths by accident after making their political masters aware what they had created. A friend of mine, then a psychiatrist, persuaded him to go public. My friend lost his position but opened a private practice. The physicist survived.
When for head of US Public Health, Dr Len Horowitz, exposed the US covert Biological Warfare Program and Plan, he was professionally assassinated, he’s been threatened but still alive and thriving. And not forced to living in a foreign country.
Speaking of evil, NY Court just handed Trump’s pal Harvey Weinstein a 23 year prison sentence; now on to LA….
David,
Exactly, you wonderfully described it, as the reward of being judfged as trustworthy.
that is a blissful feeling as it does not really need words and as I noticed since losing the possibility of making eye contact, not even that. Gentleness, patience , kindness and warmt, or in short terms, some kind of love, all seem to work.
it is a wonderful feeling of connection.
i am curious as to in which circumstances wild birds landed on your wrist?
we raised some birds fallen out of the nest, crows of some kind, and they would fly around freely and come to us and land on our hand or wrist or head.
and hey, actually on the same hill where I met that fox, once a big burrerfly landed on the tip of my nose. I managed to be able to not scare it off, and getting the attention of the two friends walking with me.
that too felt like a little surprise miracle gift of life.
you sound like an interesting person, David, nice to read your comments.
M
Except for my PI time in LA I’ve always lived in rural Nova Scotia. We lived in the bush when I was 11 – 18; raised orphaned animals, bear, deer, fox, porcupine, rabbit, raccoon; my father had a special connection with wild things. ( Sadly not with me.) Anyway, birds, as you know, will gain trust and come for food, the smaller ones, Chickadees, Nuthatchers, Finches, Grossbeak; land on the rim of the palm; the larger, Grey Jays, Cowbirds, land on the wrist; crow, raven, will land on the wrist, shoulder, head; partridge chicks will, too, while the moms prefer staying on the floor while taking food from the hand. I volunteer at our native retreat so can still experience the birds, just small ones now. Crows and Ravens are really developed; holding funerals for their dead; one by one having their say as they walk around the carcass, then fly off.
I feel particularly touched by coyote who seem not to fear me. I have never felt any aggression from them. They are very curious, like deer. A friend left a trail cam in a wooded clearing for a week. We were blown away to watch different species playing together, a bear and a raccoon. A friend who lives off grid has a Blue Heeler. We watch him play with coyotes. I watched coyote playing with a fawn deer. Not the stories that sell horror headlines.
Two years ago I spent some weekends at an animal and bird rehab facility. One crow decided to like me, perching on my head and pulling my hair, then peering down and cackling at me.
A friend, a rescuer of injured beings, had Hummingbirds land on her last year.
Nice chatting
I could only skim over all the new comments and I only have a minute to post a couple of brief and simplistic responses:
–Re Janov: It’s a very difficult job trying to be a pioneer in anything. There’s no roadmap to follow and your initial conclusions will often be wrong. Also important to remember Art was only one person, and one person can only do so much.
–I am now at the point where I am taking the coronavirus more seriously than before. Stocking up on groceries, washing hands more often, etc. With Italy in complete lockdown and WHO declaring it a pandemic, it’s probably time to appreciate how highly contagious this is. Even though only a small percentage of infected die, it appears 10% require hospitalization.
Angela Merkel now believes half of Germans will ultimately be infected.
Corona and its prevention strike here.
from today on for the next 40 days, there are no visitors allowed in nursing homes to protect the vulnerable group of the elderly. only people who are terminally ill are allowed visits, at least that is the plan.
my class at university tomorrow is also canceled, we will try to do the class and the private coaching on line…
it is a hard situation, 40 days is a long time and it could even be longer if necessary.
i will call my mom, and maybe some visits will be allowed, time will tell…
all large events are canceled as well, and more and more smaller events as well.
M
Margaret: I see this virus as being a huge threat, and causing many to rethink their daily lives. I am no exception. It must be very difficult for you and your brother with your mother.
I hope it works out well for all of you.
Jack
The CDC and WHO experts state this Covit 19 is less threatening than the annual flu, which I unsubscribed from contracting 50 years ago. It’s stated threat is in it’s supposed high spread that could bankrupt the health , rather, sick care, services. But the standing advice to the infected is to self quarantine until the symptoms pass, 14 days. For most they claim symptoms are so mild they are practically undetectable and the , ” virus,” has shown to be no threat to children. I heard the director and head of medical staff at a Seattle Care Home practically weeping with sadness for the death of an 89 year old resident with serious previous existing complicating health factors who had succumbed to , ” this deadly virus.” Suddenly this non lethal thing labled Covit 19 is deadly. Suddenly CDC, WHO, who 2 days ago poopooed the notion of epidemic and pandemic have bowed to populace parlay and declared a pandemic. The last one was the Swine Flu that broke all hearts by not happening.
The Spanish Flu, that never made it to Spain was only lethal under Allopathic care and in the Allopathic Hospitals where the standard treatment included 400 mg of acetylsalicylic acid,( ASPIRIN.) Pretty much enough to internally bleed out a pony. And internal bleeding was the recorded cause of deaths.
According to John Hopkins and Harvard research, upwards of 800,000 Americans, and 47,000 Canadians die annually due to ,” IATROGENESIS, physician caused death.”
And what is the vehicle of the spread of respiratory viruses? Is it produce ? I’m less convinced of the old CDC , ” scientific,” theory that a breeze blows a virus off of a duck in China each winter and deposits it here in Nova Scotia where the unlucky happen to step out and inhale at the wrong time. Contaminated Big Box food stores seem a bit more credible, IMHO.
WHO states that in, ” a good year the flu vaccine is 8 – 13 % effective.” Yet gov’ts goad and shame everyone to show their love for mankind by getting vaccinated. Our Big Box Stores are running out of masks and toilet tissue as folks prepare for the onslaught of the fierce CAN. I never was great at thet new mathymatics Jethro…
David: That was quite a mouthful for me to digest. I’ll mull it over and see what happens. However, I’m inclined to say that in most cases of these human tragedies they are preventable. The trick (and it sure is tricky), we need to spend more time looking into root cause/s and thus preventing it all in the first place … AND the answers ARE out there. IMO it was conceived in 1967.
But then who am I. As my partner suggests… ‘I’m the virus’ … to which I reply:- “and you are the carrier”. then we laugh.
Nuff said.
Jack
David, because there’s no treatment and no vaccine, all they are doing is slowing down the coronavirus. It seems like it will run it’s course and most of us will get it. German Chancellor Markel said that 2/3 of her country will get it, and that’s probably right for all of us. They are trying to stop it from overwhelming the healthcare systems and the consequences are trashing the world economy. To me it’s feeling a lot like the crisis of 2008.
Phil
Phi/l: to me, i/t’s wore worse than 2008. for me other than WWII /it’s the worst and the outcome is so indeterminate. I sense that most of the governments and professionals battling it, are seeing it from a comparative lens.
I may well be wrong and I hope I am. but I find it hard to optimistic.
Jack
Do CDC and WHO experts state this COVID-19 is less threatening than the annual flu?
No, they don’t. At least I couldn’t find any reference to it. According to the CDC, for 2020
That’s a fatality rate of 0.057%. Regarding COVID-19, the Chinese published an official report that puts the fatality rate at 2.3%, with rates increasing with age up to 14.8% in people in their 80’s, and decreasing with age down to 0.2% in younger people aged 10-40.
2.3 is about 40 times greater than 0.057. Just to put it in perspective: If current epidemiological estimates that some 60% of the population will rapidly be infected with COVID-19 will materialize, a 2.3% would translate to some 7.5 million deaths in the US alone.
It may be argued that the Chinese didn’t have in their calculations a very accurate denominator, because they haven’t tested enough people that were infected with COVID-19 but showed little or no symptoms. However, the South Koreans have done that. To date South Korea is the most tested country in the world with about 1,000 tests per million people and so a rather accurate denominator that includes people with COVID-19 but little or no symptoms. They came up with a fatality rate of 0.6%, which is much better than what the Chinese reported but still 12 times greater than the death rate from seasonal flu.
David intimates that the virus hits mostly old people and so perhaps can be ignored, but I know some people in their 70’s and 80’s which I’m quite fond of and you too may have dear ones in that age group, not to mention we’re all going to get there pretty soon.
Is in ”a good year the flu vaccine is 8 – 13 % effective”?
I couldn’t find any WHO information stating such numbers, but according to the CDC,
It’s important to be accurate when it comes to epidemics, because its outcome, our health and the health of our fellow human beings are also dependent on the way we behave. Please take advice only from credible sources and even if you’re inclined to distrust anything official try to suspend your disbelief. Even if you’re right, wouldn’t it be better to err on the side of caution?
Correction: according to the estimates described above, 2.3% would translate to 4.5 million deaths in the US and not 7.5 million.
40 days IS a long time.
Jack, I was attempting to explain to you my feelings about Janov in the context of old feelings which are triggered when considering him. I wasn’t expecting or trying to get you to feel the same way.
Phil
Phil: that’s OK
Jack
If anyone is interested as to why John and Yoko left PT, you can find it here: http://pillsworld.blogspot.com/2008/05/john-lennon-primal-therapy.html Reading this brought back memories of being a teenager. Back in 1983, when “The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles” by Peter Brown came out, I remember staying up the whole night reading this book. I had never done this before, nor since. But I simply could not put this book down. It was that well-written. Btw, I think Art’s behavior was totally unacceptable, unethical and disgusting. He was being a total self-absorbed and narcissistic asshole, as I heard he could be at times. Just as he could brilliant and inspiring at other times. Which I guess made him human.
Renee: Interesting, and I read the sites. I enjoyed that whole period and hoped it could return. It felt to me, magical
I was never interested in the private lives (if they ever had one) or any of the bands of the time, but I did feel it took the pop music scene into what I claimed was classical.
that period was also was a very exciting time for me. I was living in a house with many people and lots of parties and very interesting people for me. Strange looking back on it since I was never into alcohol or drugs during that period. Only when I left that house after 7 years, did I start smoking pot (marijuana) and eventually move off go Ibiza. Quite a different period, but nevertheless another exciting time for me, and that lasted 10 years
Thereon afterward I came over to LA to do therapy at the PI. Wow … that got me a reminiscing
Jack
Don’t recall any reports of Dr. Janov requiring heroin or social spectacle to face the day. The music and the man shouldn’t be confused. Speaking of Daddies, Julian could have used one who cared enough to not cause him to languish in dire child poverty. Ones work choice and income doesn’t confer anything. Unearned respect is, IMHO , dangerous.
Ooops. I meant to post it here, on its own at the bottom of the page, but unintentially first posted the following under David’s March 11 comment.
I found that the following link and the others embedded in the article to be helpful in putting an informed perspective on what the threat of cov19 is and how to confront it.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-ten-reasons-not-to-panic/?fbclid=IwAR3l9_pzVMY4R6qe_c2OoH1wG9zxaQyvW-J3lxCmEF3DETCo305ZJxJ85z8
Larry,
That seems like good information.
Here’s a different perspective; there are things to worry about (but that won’t help):
“We don’t have enough ventilators and I.C.U. beds if there’s a significant surge of new cases. As with Italy, the health system could become overwhelmed.”
Just listened to CDC; the doc/scientist said Covid 19 is less dangerous than the Corona Virus caused Common Cold and Seasonal Flu; except to elderly, and others, with serious preexisting conditions; that with most the symptoms are so slight it might not be noticed. He said, hand washing and social distancing is all that is needed to halt spread. Hoarding for long term isolation, he laughed at saying the media was getting it all wrong. It will be interesting to study the 2020 death #’s; that regular annual stat. John Hopkins and Harvard studies conclude that around 800,000 Americans die from Iatrogenisis, ( unintentional doctor caused death,) annually; and a million from loneliness.
Although diarrhea is not a feature stores have been emptied of toilet paper. Last week CDC pronounced hand sanitizers as ineffective, yet they figure large on the , ” Survival Kit.” According to lab chemist 200 Proof Alcool or 91.8% min Isoprop are the %ages of alcohol to be effective, with 1/2 cup Coconut oil, 1 cup sea salt per gallon to protect skin. I remember when , ” duck and cover, ” was the UN direction for surviving nuclear attack. Let y’all know next year if my ho hum response is ill advised.
Just in, CBC news, ‘ Newfoundland and Labrador, ( a Canadian Province, an Island + Far North mainland) just announced a state of public emergency, although there are no cases of Covid 19.”
I think the point of the article that I linked to was to not panic, but that definitely we should worry enough to be vigilant and careful to try to contain or at least slow the spread of COV19, especially for the sake of those in our communities who are most susceptible to serious health consequences from being infected with the virus.
My take, too, Larry. But the world is headed for the bunkers.
Look at this bad information that’s still coming out:
“Leaving an infant to ‘cry it out’ from birth up to 18 months does not adversely affect their behaviour development or attachment, researchers from the University of Warwick have found, they also discovered that those left to cry cried less and for a shorter duration at 18 months of age.
An infant’s development and attachment to their parents is not affected by being left to ‘cry it out’ and can actually decrease the amount of crying and duration.”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-baby-adverse-effects-child.html?fbclid=IwAR0giaau2GN4Kn8SeLBOmmx74Te4gbn-_xZ1HIwONOSj4JBj6MCTwDVOKcM
Phil: I started to read the site but soon stopped as I found it absurd. A crying baby is IN PAIN. Full Stop.
Where do find all these sites and what about them intrigues you about them?
Jack
Jack, I also found the report disturbing as it’s so recent. I look for interesting and relevant articles to post on my Facebook group, and I found this one of interest as I was curious to see how they came to those conclusions. Phil
Phil: thanks for replying.
I am retired and am unable to spend that amount of time it seemingly takes to do all that internet research. Is this the kind of thing you can do at work?
Jack
Jack, it only takes me 5 or 10 minutes to find some relevant articles now that I know where to look. Phil
Phil: so where exactly are those places? I’d like to try them too.
Old age is creeping up on me and several things I could do easily just a couple of years ago are now causing me a lot of difficulties.
Jack
Jack,
I search using Google for articles on any subject I’m interested in. After you’ve entered something click on news, at the top of the Google search page. You can adjust the time frame you’re interested in by clicking on tools. I like to look for recent reports, in the last month. You can also use Google news. In Google just enter news and you can jpick various general topics.
Another website which is a good source is this one: https://medicalxpress.com/psychology-news/
Phil
Such garbage pisses me off. My youngest daughter, (who died, age 4 after heart anomaly surgery,) was a frequent in patient for tests. I spent time with the kids suffering from ” Hospital Syndrome” from no parent involvement; depressed, flat affect, no tears, no nothing. Failure to thrive mode. They were perfect patients, asked for nothing. I was actually asked by nursing supervisors to leave them that way. Maybe I was being more unkind by inviting them back into the world because after a week I’d be gone, too.
Here is kind of a song for the times, depending on your musical taste:
It Makes Me Scream
Meena, The Chris Fillmore Band
It makes me scream
Ooh, makes me suffer all night long
I said that, oh, it makes me scream
Hey people, makes me suffer
I said, all night, all night long
I see the pain of the world, oh
And I carry it home
This no way I’ll walk, I’ll walk, I’ll walk
And it’s heavy
If you don’t care
I said that, I don’t care
If you don’t care
I said that, I don’t care no more
I know you love to block your ears
I know you love to close your eyes
‘Cause it makes things going easy, easy
I’ll tell you this one thing for that
It’s quite an easy thing
Fear, fear, fear
Fear is the most dangerous thing
Fear tears you down
Fear is making of them alone
Let me take you by your hand
I said, oh, let me take you by your hand
You don’t have to be scared
I’d know the way pretty well
I walked many times
Open your ears
Open your eyes
Open your mind
‘Cause if you don’t care
I said I’ll turn my back around
Don’t let the fear bring you down
Don’t let the fear bring you down
Don’t let fear bring you down
Oh, hey, don’t let fear bring you down
Holy Smokes. I’m getting worried now. The mayor has confirmed that there is a case of Cov19 in our city. I read that it was someone who returned home after travelling abroad. The person is self-isolating at home. What worries me is that already, some of my social gatherings that I need for my sanity and to beat back my sense of isolation are being cancelled. The university class for seniors that was to start next week that I am registered in was cancelled in, as have been the unitarinan church Sunday services that I count on as an opportunity to get together in community with friends. The choir that I’m in won’t be getting together to practice. I expect ballroom dance class witll be cancelled for the season. I need these outlets as ways to be with people, otherwise I am too alone too much.
I see that Justin Trudeau’s wife has tested positive for the virus. I think we all will be exposed eventually, everywhere, but by isolating and not going to events everyone will not be sick at once and the health care system won’t be overloaded. It is a scary time, though, for people with underlying conditions. I hear that the bioflavonoid, “Quercetin” can be helpful in keeping viruses from replicating in your system so am taking that as a little insurance.
Seems odd to look at people now that we come in contact with as potential carriers instead of just people to talk to.
That song was full of sadness and loss, it felt like, Larry–very primal, I thought.
S
Sylvia and everyone else: commenting about Covid-19 sure is scary, and both Jim and I are worried about it; though differently. Not that that matters. What I feel matters is it’s potential to spread so rapidly and it’s potential death threat, to the like of me. Plus I feel it being handled badly by governments, in particular. They seem to be hampering all real attempts to stop the threat and hinder the professionals.
TRUMP BEING THE PRIZE EXAMPLE.
I sure ‘have a thing’ about him …, and explore it daily.
Jack
Jack, it struck me and I wonder if it did you that the scientists, statisticians, mathematicians, virologists, neurologists, psychologists, health care specialists, …the professionals as you put it…..who want to help humanity and who are figuring out how to best tackle COV19 and get us as safely as possible through the current pandemic, ….are thinking, highly educated and trained people who you so often deride on the blog.
Larry: I agree … because I look at those highly educated folks fighting this for me,
Yes, they are, but it’s a case of ‘closing the barn door after the horse has bolted’ Those guys are (like me) highly neurotic. If we were smart and Janov had been taken more seriously, we might have had the ‘wit’ to look into the root cause (fetus, childhood trauma) and started out to tackle that one.
Then we might not have had to take the steps we’re taking to tackle this disaster.
Jack
I don’t listen to blues music much, Sylvia, but sometimes it hits the spot, like that song did for me last night that a friend posted on Facebook.
I have the impression that you live in a rural area. Seems like living in a low population density would be a better place to be than a city during a pandemic. Will cancellations of large group gatherings affect your life much?
There may be a silver lining to the COV19 pandemic threat to humanity. It might make us slow down and cherish life and the people in it more. Overcoming the pandemic might spur global consciousness more towards the reality of other existential threats to humanity and that our hope for a good outcome is best placed in co-operating to confront them.
If in the months ahead the scare of COV19 is behind us and I’m still alive, I’ll be interested to see if the slowed economy caused a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions, and if it did, whether it spurs a shift in attitude toward global cooperation to deal with climate change, and other problems. I wish!
Larry: The greatest opportunity I see from this pandemic is that we now might start looking at what governments and our laws are doing to and for us … AND see that most of it is not for the betterment of our lives AND that the notion that was proposed some 180 years ago were/are not that impossible, ridiculous or undoable.
It’s the only silver lining I can see. BUT then I would, wouldn’t I.
Jack
Yes, Larry, it is rural here but they are preparing at the schools to send home anyone who has the sniffles or fever, including teachers. They will cancel assemblies and the larger counties around are cancelling musical performances at the colleges. I don’t know, though, if test kits are available for those who suspect they could have the virus.
It hasn’t affected my plans because I’m a bit of a germ-a-phobe anyways. I haven’t been to the small casino in the area even, which is about the only entertainment in the around.
I’m putting off my yearly check-up at the doctor’s till next month anyways; don’t want to sit in a waiting room full of people and wonder if someone has a fever.
Yes, if I live thru this, I too, hope we all can work together and see what is important for the environment.
That story about the Chinese women really brought a human face to what China has endured.
Jack, I do think there are many very sensitive, non-neurotic people about and some are scientists, artists, etc. I think if they had a good birth and gestation and good childhood they have a good chance at growing up into sensitive caring people. I have had some caring friends and relatives in my life and have been very thankful for them.
Sylvia: If you feel there are some non -neurotic humans on the planet, then I feel those very humans would either be promoting the insidious behaviour of others and be very outspoken about seeing others that obviously are. I personally have not met or heard of them.
I doubt for those of us admitting to being neurotic, we are in any position to see others as “non-neurotic”.
Jack
I hope, Jack, that I am much less neurotic now and can see those who are sensitive people. I think people are drawn to others who are feeling. Children are for sure. They know who is real and caring. And those who are non-neurotic do feel compelled to write about the injustices and craziness perpetuated by neurosis. Many authors and film makers expose the fallacies and emptiness of an unfeeling life.
I do feel that Janov’s premise of growing up without repression, which begins in the womb with good nutrition and a stress-free carrying mom, and having parents who care is the basis for having a feeling-ful life. There is no reason to shut down then and the child grows into an open, empathetic adult. You’ll have to look around a little harder Jack, and see them.
Sylvia: I do look around on a daily basis and don’t see any
I suspect it’s a matter of, what one considers ‘neurotic’.
I see things that others don’t see as neurotic whereas I contend the disease is so subtle and elusive.
But thanks for your take.
Jack
Well there’s nothing stopping us from chitchatting safely here on the blog. Even though it’s been almost a year, I feel terribly alone without dad & I’m still remembering what a sweet, incredible guy he was. He was an innocent teddy bear who didn’t deserve the acute stresses life thrust upon him. I feel badly all the time that I couldn’t help him more or make his life more fulfilling somehow.
Since he was in his early 80’s he would have been under significant risk with this new virus anyway. Germ-killing hand sanitizers have been flying off the store shelves, but my dad had several bottles still in his bedroom I could freely take since the casinos he used to frequent were such disease-ridden Petri dishes. Even after death, he made life easier for me that way.
It’s just wrong that he died. A complete injustice done to an amazing individual.
I won’t harp on this anymore for now. I still feel badly for him.
I talked to my cousins about dad recently. Although I knew dad was a life master at Bridge the card game, she added that dad once played against Omar Sharif personally. I really wish I had known this and talked about it with him when he was still living, or at least put that story in his obituary. Everything was too chaotic at the time, I guess.
Guru: I disagree with your last line:- ” I won’t harp on this anymore for now. I still feel badly for him”
I feel you should keep harping on it, Guru. You lost your mom xo early and only had a dad … it seems normal and natural that you feel the way about him you did, and I’m sure was everything you say about him. I feel it helps us all reading your comments about your dad. It sure helps me.
Jack
Larry,
We are also concerned mainly with how this will be disrupting our lives. All kinds of things are getting cancelled. In the general area there are a few cases of covid19, and I’m sure there will be many more. I work in a small medical office, so that could easily be closed down, and as far as I know, I would have a loss of income. My wife is a teacher and we are expecting town schools to close at any time. She’s upset about that possibility and what that would mean for scheduling, how she would teach, and if days would have to be made up.. We like to go out to concerts and shows in the city, and that won’t be happening in the near future. So far I’m still going to do things like go to the gym, until the risk is considered higher. Our son who is in a higher risk area doesn’t feel he should come home and possibly infect us. All this could disrupt our lives and plans for months.
Phil
A sad story about covid19 illness in China. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-death-life.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Yes. Sad….
This sounds familiar to uk’s current situation… https://youtu.be/nSXIetP5iak
Are cancellations of group assemblies happening?
We only had a few corona virus cases in our area. One showed up in a local hospital yesterday, and I found out today that 38 ICU employees were later sent home. That shows how the healthcare system can be overwhelmed.
Phil
Now our county executive has declared a state of emergency, schools closed for at least two weeks etc. No gym for me today.
Phil
Glad I stocked up on groceries for a little while. I’m not an epidemiologist by any means, but I am recalling the Spanish Flu from 1918 or so. It came in two waves, with the second being much, much deadlier than the first wave. I’m hoping there won’t be two waves of the COVID-19, since those who manage to avoid the first wave won’t have any built-up immunity to any possible second, more deadly wave.
You’re way older than I thought, UG. Gurus must age better than the rest of us.
I was thinking the exact same thing, Larry. How old were you during the Spanish Flu, UG?
I remember reading about it too. There weren’t even enough coffins available. Terrible time.
Here’s a pic of my great-grandma and her three kids (my grandma second to right) around the time the Spanish Flu hit (approx. 1917-1919):
How did they do?
All survived into their eighties, except for grandma who only made it to 74. I think grandma’s life was cut a bit short due to the contagion of dad’s stress emanating from what happened to my mom.
Looks like they are standing on a cobblestone surface. That was probably the common road surface in cities then. Do you know the setting where the pic was taken?
Larry, yes that’s a waterfront setting. My little grand-uncle with the stocking cap is standing on a boat turned upside down for storage, presumably to keep rain from collecting inside it.
This picture helps to clarify things. I’m pretty certain these pictures were taken around 1919, at the tail end of the Spanish Flu:
Nice pic Guru, they must have just gotten back from a cruise. Or maybe not, the Titanic had sank a few years earlier
So interesting peering back in time and giving thought to their lives at the time of a pandemic similar to or more likely worse than what we are going through. Looks like a row boat against which they are propped. I wonder whether anything in that scene still exists today, or whether that beach will be under the sea in a century or two.
david, nice to hear about your experiences with animals. margaret, horses are so special, so smart and beautiful. i should go see some before covid tales my old butt out. i count the feral cats daily to see if they have survived speeding cars. now why the heck does bb say i have morbid thoughts…ha! i play scott joplin and taylor swift for them often. mango is big and eats the most, and he is slow. i honked at him today because he meanders across the street so slowly. blackhead kind of trusts me since i feed them all. mom does not like her last batch of 2 kittens, 2 of the 4 survived. they must be a year old now. 2white big kit, 2white small, 2white big new, siam –no yuppie names for me. 3rd inside cat finally beginning to trust that we are not going to kill her, and has halfway stopped attacking the other 2 cats and the last old dachshund. oh yeah my younger kid and his family will be financially hurting from covid19. she is a waitress and her restaurant is a ghost town. son works as cook supervisor at a school and i guess they have closed. THANKS DONALD DUMPTRUCK, AND ALL YOU HICKS WHO STILL LOVE HIM!!! for your stupid incompetent slow self-serving dipshittedness….older son in ohio was going to fly to visit us, glad he stayed home. it finally rained hard for a week in l.a., which it seems to do every 10 years.
z thinks the grocery stores will be sold out. i go in morn to see. she ordered her food for amazon to deliver.
maybe a famine coming, like the dust-bowl that put icing on the depression cake. hmmm morbid. but i would not have z, whose okie mom came to calif to escape the dustbowl. z, who bb says saved my life, and me hers. hmm anything can happen.
here Belgium speaking…
a few weeks ago we had only 2 cases of Corona, now 600. right now 22 of them are on artificial breathing devices. 6 deaths so far.
from today on, all restaurants, bars and cafes are closed, as are dancings, gyms, schools and during the weekends also all stores except pharmacies and some take aways.
all events are canceled for several weeks minimally, and no gatherings with more than 50 persons.
even religious celebrations can’t take place.
no visiting in nursing homes, and from today on none in hospitals either, except for births and some children’s wards.
most operations and other forms of not so urgent treatments are canceled to save place for possible corona cases to come.
almost all sports events are canceled as well, and cinemas and theaters and zoos are closed.
it is spooky and depressing.
yesterday evening, last night of the cafes until midnight, a lot of them organized shut down parties, people drinking and singing and hugging even still after the bars being shut on the streets, so the police had to send them home at some point.
that of course, the getting together like that, was not very responsible to say the least.
people only think of themselves, seeing little danger and wanting to have fun, but don’t consider the possible risk they will form for others afterwards.
Donald Trump being one of them, he has been in contact with two known cases of Corona, then refused to be tested, and now he halfheartedly said he might get tested anyway, but shortly after he was shaking hands all over the place…
he is such an arrogant idiot…
so far I have not been able to get my mom on the phone yet, and I also feel worried about my brother who I heard coughing over the phone.
all of this makes me worried and sad, so many people going to hurt and I fear becoming one of them.
it already hurts to be thrown back on myself to such a degree, just one or two visits from professional caretakers in the week, and otherwise all socializing has come to a stop, if not on the phone or other virtual means…
universities are closed as well, only providing virtual classes and assistance.
it is lonely and a bit scary, thank heavens for my dear cats here!
Gretchen, how are you and Barry doing? we haven’t heard you in a while.
take good care all and be well,
M
Margaret: The situation for just over the border there, sounds pretty rough for you right now, and not being able to visit your mom must be quite a shocker. l also I hope your brother is OK.
For me and Jim here in this fairly rural area of Oosterhout (Eastwood), things are pretty calm.and in a way I’ve been isolating for several weeks now. Jim does go shopping every other day so that is the only risk. Meantime, shops are open and though there is some over-demanding of some items, apparently most shelves are somewhat well stocked.
Of course, things could change any day and we’re both aware of it, and just making sure we keep the fridge reasonably stocked. and we’re always well-stocked with toilet paper.
Jim being an ex medic is making sure I keep to all the safety measures.
Good luck Margaret and everyone else. Is the institute taking any precaution actions about groups etc?
Jack
It starts to feel pretty freaky when all the organized activities that I depend on are cancelled. The irresponsibility of the crowds in the bars as you describe is disconcerting. Your brother’s health is worrisome. Overnight, society changes and our lives become more fragile.
I feel for you Margaret, you are more vulnerable than sighted people. Jo.
I came across this interesting article that describes an effective strategy that was used during the 1918 influenza epidemic that I have not heard discussed with the coronavirus:
https://medium.com/@ra.hobday/coronavirus-and-the-sun-a-lesson-from-the-1918-influenza-pandemic-509151dc8065. I like the picture of the open-air hospital in Boston, 100 year ago.
“Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff. There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu virus and other harmful germs. Equally, sunlight is germicidal and there is now evidence it can kill the flu virus.” I like the picture of the open-air hospital in Boston, 100 year ago.
Well I personally liked my ancestral pictures a lot better. They are much more stylish and enlivening. Who wants to see sick people sprawled out on their potential deathbeds?
Oh never mind, I know the picture is valuable for its historical context. I would be a hypocrite for sticking to my opinion in my last post, for I once actually showed Gretchen a picture of a row of severed heads placed on top of their individual coolers in front of a Mexican police headquarters. A drug cartel’s message designed to terrorize local law enforcement.
Anyway, the outdoorsy thing sounds like a good idea to try out this spring.
I see the mistake I made here. I should have said “scene of extremely graphic violence caused by drug cartels”. Sorry to any offended readers. Many years ago I sent Gretchen that picture asking her how humans can be capable of such barbaric savagery. The Rwanda massacre from 1994 would have been another example. She seemed to be a good person to ask given the breadth of her psychology knowledge, etc.
Just wanted to clear that up.
.
Guru: there’s no way you could offend me over such matters as displaying pictures of graphic cruelty. I feel they need to be shown in the hope that all people will re-think being cruel to others … especially children.
I personally don’t need to ask Gretchen or anyone, why some act quite cruelly to others … it’s all there in Primal theory. Also being cruel to others, under whatever prerequisite, is a gross act-out of an old feeling of those committing these atrocious acts. In other words neurosis abounds.
Jack
I find it interesting that you see “sick people sprawled out on their potential deathbeds”, UG. When I look at the picture, I don’t see that. I see sick people who are lucky enough to be able to be outside in the sun with fresh air, and a beautiful blue/grey sky to look up at. I’m with Jack. If I am ever in the hospital, it is definitely something I hope I can have.
I was kidding and casting false aspersions to the situation. When I brought up the waterfront pictures out of the blue, Phil complemented them (thanks Phil!) and you decided to complement a wholly different picture except for age.
Now I don’t have some sort of neurotic need for praise. Phil (or anyone else) could have not said anything and I would have been fine with that, but when you go out of your way and make it a point to complement an entirely different picture….for some reason it almost felt as though you were taking a subtle ‘dig’ at me in some way.
Important to keep in mind my little pictures are simple family pictures & not top-notch professional pictures financed by a national health organization, so the clarity would be better in the hospital’s case.
I can’t put my finger on exactly why I sensed you might have been taking a ‘dig’ at me…hard to explain, but I decided to cast false aspersions upon your chosen picture to subconsciously recognize your earlier rebuff.
Honestly I have plenty of bigger things to worry about than this. This matter is pretty trivial to me overall, but since you were interested in my deathbed characterization I thought I’d give you a fuller explanation.
Guru, they are nice, interesting pictures and so old. I don’t have any like that of my ancestors so far back. Phil
Thanks again Phil. The earliest paper photos I have are from the early 1910’s, yet I do have a few ‘tin type’ (daguerrotype?) photos which seem to date from the 1890’s to 1900’s. My best guess that they’re siblings of my great-grandparents along with a couple of possible fifth generation (great-great grandparents & siblings) when they were young. The tin type photos in particular demand a ton of research to pin down exactly who these people may be. I do have a suspected home location for them, though. Maybe I’ll look into all this someday.
I wish I had that kind of view into my ancestors lives. I know very little about my grandparents and have seen only a couple of pictures of them taken in their days when they were raising a family in Canada after coming over from Europe. There are apps with algorithms for cleaning up a digital copy of a picture and restoring the image closer to its pristine state. A friend of mine does that for people as a hobby. Pictures like the ones you showed us are a treasure, I think.
Thanks for complimenting my pictures, though.
UG, I wasn’t taking a “dig” at you. I’m sorry that it felt that way. Actually, I just found it interesting that two people can look at the same picture and make such different meaning out of what we are seeing. That’s all. I can relate to your feeling, though. I am also sensitive to people possibly taking a “dig” at me, having grown up with that actually being my reality in my family, on a daily basis. So I know how much it can hurt. And how it is not always clear in the present what is a “dig” and what isn’t. Thanks for checking. It is a good reminder for myself to check more when I have been hurt and not assume things.
Renee: I read the site you posted and found it quite interesting with reference to open-air beds outside tents as temporary hospitals in 1918, during the flu epidemic of that time. I will certainly keep that in mind, should the infection get to me ,,, particularly since I’m well into that age range.
Jack
Hey All, Thanks so much for your thoughts and concerns. I wanted to wait a bit before responding with the hope that we would have more information to properly assess the situation. First, Barry and I are fine and I have heard of no one in our population that is ill. That is the main thing we are focused on right now. We want you all to be safe. We are still seeing people and continuing with groups while following the guidelines of the CDC in terms of keeping things as clean as we possibly can. Additionally we have advised that any one who has symptoms or concerns is more than welcome to do their sessions by phone. On a personal level we are approaching this calmly but with appropriate caution. For me it has been best to try and stay in the present vs worrying about what might happen. I do feel and it’s no surprise that much of this has been poorly handled . It’s clear that Trump along with the leaders of other countries are way out of their depth. What does concern me at the moment is the panic I’m beginning to see. It is not that these reactions are not understandable, they are, but they also create further chaos and confusion. For instance…. I stopped at a small market yesterday and they had locked their doors! I was told by one of the checkers who was arriving to locked doors that so many had descended on them that they were completely overwhelmed. I then decided to try Ralph’s where the line to buy a new toothbrush was an hour wait. I saw carts filled with water despite signs asking people not to take more than was necessary ( so there was enough to go around) and other carts filled to the brim with frozen waffles and pop tarts ( lest we starve) and the only thing left on the shelf. There isn’t a square of toilet paper left in this city ( which personally I’m fascinated by as it was the last thing on my grocery – concern list) We all know the result of this kind of panic , simply put its crime. This is what happens when your leadership is quite frankly in the dark and seemingly has no problem spreading misinformation in every news conference. Don’t get me wrong, I take this very seriously and I have not a clue what the answer may be to solving this problem. As for now I plan to take the common sense precautions and remain calm. If I was to have symptoms of this virus I will isolate myself to protect others in the hopes of curbing the spread of the virus. I’m also washing my hands constantly and reminding myself to avoid touching my face ( a bad habit of mine). In the meantime we are taking it one day at a time. Please take good care of yourselves and feel free to write or call with your concerns. We value all of you so much! Gretch
Your grocery shopping experience is shocking, Gretchen. It isn’t conducive to feeling good about the society one lives in.
I decided to do some grocery shopping mid-day Friday. The shops are normally quiet during the work week because everyone but seniors and the unemployed are at work or in school. On the previous day our Mayor announced that we have a presumptive case of COVID19. The infected person, who returned home from travel overseas, is self-isolating, but with the news, suddenly the pandemic has hit home. I decided I better stock up on a few things in case I get sick and run of necessities. It turned out that lot of people were thinking the same way. It felt eerie that all three of the grocery stores I went to were full of people shopping with animated purpose. It’s feeling very real now that most of us will be touched by the pandemic in some way. I was relieved that the grocery shopping crowds were being civil and good-humored toward each other. But guess what, in none of the 3 stores that I visited was there any toilet paper on the shelves, and I wasn’t the only one looking for it. I suspect that people must be confusing corona virus for norovirus, which causes severe diarrhea.
More of the social gatherings that get me out of my home and among people were cancelled today. Being alone is becoming a serious concern. A kind of paranoia sets in when I’m alone too much. It helped to talk to some friends and family on the phone this afternoon. Pretty soon I’m going to want to go to the store just to satisfy the need to be physically near people and to be seen and maybe talked to in person by someone. Actually, late this afternoon I did go to another, different grocery, partly for an excuse to get out, and partly because I was out of vegetables for salad and because I wanted to look for toilet paper (not that I was in dire need of any just yet). I was dreading finding the store full of crazed shoppers, or finding the shelves almost empty. I found neither. There were few shoppers, and there was plenty of almost everything, even toilet paper. I bought one package. I feel very relieved that there is enough groceries for people, that crazed hoarding isn’t taking over and that people are being considerate toward each other. So far. I’m glad that we currently have a socially progressive mayor and city council, as is the current federal government, and competent leadership in the health care field. They make me feel that they care about people and we’re being looked out for and will be taken care of as best as possible.
Gretchen: good to hear from you guys and:- “. It’s clear that Trump along with the leaders of other countries are way out of their depth. ”
I agree, that most governments are way out of their depths; and creating more panic by the lies, as Trump does all the time, and only being interested in their egos, and the next election.
In the case of Trump insisting they have it all under control when that’s not the consensus, IMO
To and for me, this is the problem with governments and governing.
The one hope I have is that the young are beginning to realize just this. What I most fear is that they don’t see a way out of it … yet!!
It is precisely why I feel the idea of abolishing it all needs to be put out there; then let it take it’s very own course, without ANYONE deciding how. That is where I saw Marxs and all the government … especially the communist AND socialist ones failed … someone deciding for us.
If anyone thinks that would be chaotic, yes … it would, but is that any different to the current chaos. We’ve been living with chaos for centuries. AND it’s not so terrible after all.
Jack
It’s good to know that Gretch and Barry are well, and none of us in the community have come down with virus so far. Even so, it will trigger some of us into fear, new and old, (for me – no-one to take care of me/struggling for breath and dying alone, and fear of the possibility of people’s desperation leading to crime). I’m grateful for Gretch’s advice to take one day at a time. Today, Sunday, I will go on a search for groceries, as I think that us over 70’s will have to isolate very soon.
Yeah, struggling for breath, having no one to rely on but strangers, dying alone, and the collapse of caring society (I recognize lots of old feelings inflating my current ones) are feelings I’m battling with, and now my usual social outlets that help me to keep them at bay and manageable aren’t there anymore, all while we try to stay healthy during this crisis. I’m going to approach a neighbour in my building who I normally only occassioinally interact with when we run into each other outdoors in the parking lot, and see whether we both agree it would be a comfort to check in on each other now and then and know that we’d be there to help if one of us was in a crisis. It will help me to feel better just to talk to someone who I know while physically in their presence. I think Tuesday was the last time I spoke to people who I knew who I was physically present in a gathering with.
That’s a good idea Larry.
thanks to all of you for being there and being a support.
Jo, that touched me, it went through my defense and for a moment made me feel teary.
one positive side of my situation is that I already have regular professional assistance for example to do the shopping once a week that hopefully will be able to continue.
it is kind of spooky here, the town is incredibly silent, no cars, no voices out on the street, no kids yelling on the playground of the school next-door.
I feel concerned about the people living in the uK, as health care does not have a very good name there, and the government seems reluctant to take the necessary action.
we have Italy as an example to where it can lead, it is not only the virus then being a huge threat but all other emergencies not getting the assistance they need and all hospital beds taken.
that is a dreadful situation to think of.
but yes, taking it a day at a time and doing what we can do in our own personal situation is the best option.
there also are a lot of people volunteering to assist persons who need help, and that is the nice side of all of this.
we are thrown back on the basics of what matters and of what we really care about.
and society as a whole gets faced with a reality check about mankind not being in control of it all and having to let go of some arrogance and carelessness about our environment and others around us.
it is indeed striking how toilet paper seems to be what people focus on worldwide, here too it is one of the first items to disappear from the shelves..
I hope to get an extra packet tomorrow, , ha…
take good care all of you,
M
Larry,
I relate to what you write in your comments.
I imagine you probably feel specially vulnerable with your asthma.
do you know who you can turn to in case you would need any help?
M
In recent years haven’t had many colds, so for a while there I felt pretty robust, even though I’m asthmatic. But in the recent couple of years I have been having colds, and in early February I awoke with the flu for the first time in decades. I suspect I am allergic to some of the food condiments and supplements I introduced to my diet in the past two years so I recently stopped eating them. When I’m sick breathing has been more of a problem than it used to be when I was sick. Maybe anxiety plays a part in it. I try to consciously do whatever I can that I’ve learned over the years helps to lower my anxiety. This kind of situation though of being in a pandemic where all kinds of social and community activities are cancelled is unprecedented in my lifetime. I wonder how the experience will change us personally and as a global community.
Here is an interesting analysis of how the experience of the COVID19 pandemic might change our attitudes globally. Not by much, according to the authors, who suggest that we will each individually interpret our experience of the pandemic in a way that supports our already pre-existing mental models of reality. Makes sense to me.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/is-the-virus-killing-globalization-theres-no-one-answer-51584209741
Margaret, there are friends in the unitarian community and my wider community who I’m going to phone up more often and talk to to help calm me down. Probably I’d reach out to one of them in a crisis but it won’t be easy for me to There is a deep, deep feeling in me that there is no one out there who can help, that makes it feel difficult for me to reach out generally. I don’t like to think too much about being in that desperate situation.
Also I think I might strengthen a connection to a decent neighbour in my building who I’ve only ever talked to in the parking lot or the entrance to our building and who is probably feeling as anxious and alone as I am, but it’s a difficult tightrope to walk because I don’t want her checking on me and knocking on my door when it happens that I’m in the middle of a primal or coming out of a primal and answering the door with teary, puffy red eyes. She might jump to the wrong conclusion that I’m desperate and falling apart (which come to think of it actually I am at the moments before I fall into a primal 🙂 ).
Larry, I’m curious as to what you’d do in my neighborhood situation? Completely surrounded by a family hell-bent on a multi-decade long quest to tear down my house for their own business purposes? I’d add other things here, but I’m carefully walking a tightrope here.
I can’t really talk to these people because every piece of info about me has been used against me in one way or another. When they learned I like trees they destroyed half of one of the trees in my front yard (legally permissible but extremely malicious).
I’m serious I’m dealing with a really REALLY R-E-A-L-L-Y fucked up situation.
Larry, I’m sorry if I came across as unempathetic to your feeling of anxiety.I shouldn’t have detracted from that. The anger overflows from the continuously annoying and harrowing neighborhood dynamic I am confronting. Your own neighbor comment triggered me.
You may wish to have ancestral pictures like mine, but I’d gladly offload this so-called ‘neighbor’ situation I have.
I can’t know your situation as intimately as you do UG, but generally in a situation of the sort you describe, I’d get the heck outta there. Offering little resistance, a blade of grass bends in a hurricane and survives to another day, whereas a tree standing firm against the gale, cracks. We choose are battles. There must be deep reasons why you chose this one.
Larry, saying I chose this battle is much like saying I chose to have a gang of muggers surround me and try to take my wallet. It irritates me greatly not to talk about it more here, but it’s best for me not to.
Everyone chooses their battles. You made the choice that resistance for the sake of keeping your home is worth it.
Important footnote: 99.8%+ of American households don’t have to make this so-called ‘choice’ because they did not completely become surrounded like this.
A choice made under duress is not the same flavor.
In the example you presented of being surrounded by muggers, the choice is whether to let them have your wallet or fight them for it. The choice you make would probably depend partly on how dangerous and irresistible a force you judge them to be and partly on how much you value your life and well being vs your wallet and what’s in it. We’re always making choices, including when to take a stand and battle it out or not. No one chooses to be surrounded by bad guys, but when it happens a choice has to be made in how to deal with it, unless Superman arrives in time to deal with it.
I’m glad to here that Barry, Gretchen, and everyone in the primal community, so far as we know, is OK. We are all at risk, no matter what statistics say about who gets it and is most vulnerable. I have been thinking we are lucky being in far suburbs in that social isolation here is easier. The response has been so bad at the federal level, lies and misinformation by you know who, a late and poor response, lack of adequate testing etc, and that’s why we are in such a situation here. At the local level I feel like it’s been much better here, but who knows what the future will bring. It is unsettling and scary.
Phil
If anyone is in need of some hope while the world is hopelessly upside-down, take a look at this:
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/13/meet_the_17_year_old_behind?fbclid=IwAR349UlE4XWyJwRA2jS3nYvqca-jgITexrrJbIGY44UJY35YmGf9sPNumiM
This 17-year-old created a website that tracks the coronavirus worldwide. It is so clear and easy to navigate. It is continually being updated. And it includes people who have recovered from the virus, which is really cool and a good reality check. Once again, it reinforces my belief that when I need to feel hopeful, I look the young.
Jack, I will talk a little down here, as the sentences way above get hard to read. For my purposes someone who is non-neurotic hasn’t completely shut off to their feelings. They are in touch with their own childhood memories and therefore can relate to children’s feelings. That would include many primal people who have felt where their pain came from and people who had a good gestation period and birth experience–lucky them–and didn’t have to shut down. Also included would be a safe childhood and caring parent(s). To me if someone is kind and empathetic and isn’t a passive or always angry person, that is a good indicator of non-neurotic person who has dealt with their pain or hasn’t had that much to begin with. The more I feel, the more I can see other’s hidden pain or their wellness. If they are 80% non-neurotic caring human, then that is great to me, and I can feel more of a connection in some way, to them.
Sylvia: Thanks for your reply clearing up the way you see it, I understand clearly where and what you mean by “non-neurotic”.
We all see things from our own particular perspective and as I see it, that is where most misunderstandings take place. The worst lead to war … the least ‘worst’ just lead to disagreement.
I personally prefer to look at people from the depth of the act-out and/or the amount of defensiveness of the person/people in question.
Jak
Jack, a typo of course.
Jack, I think we are essentially saying the same thing, that we view people by their pain. I think before practicing the therapy I did the same thing too. It is instinctive. We know and knew that if people had insecurities they probably were not treated well in their family or experienced some kind of trauma. I never knew quite where my insecurities came from since my siblings seemed to have fewer ones, and we were raised in the same family and treated about the same. But our gestation period and births were very different. Hence the differences in coping with life in general. The later books by Janov explained a lot for me, particularly “Life before birth” and “Primal Healing.”
Sylia: I did not know you were a therapist. Were you trained at the PI or the Center or none of them?
However, good luck with your work.
Jack
Jack, I meant by “practicing the therapy”, doing it on my own and gleaning what I could from both the primal sites, being active on the blog, watching videos and reading books, besides having a faulty gating system that made feelings come up and felt whether I wanted them to or not.
Sylvia: Yes,,that clears it ut up for me now, … and I do think we’re on the same page as one another.
Jack
I went shopping today and finally saw what people are talking about, a lot of empty shelves. The stores look like they’re closing; with so many essential items missing, not just toilet paper and hand sanitizer. People may not realize that washing hands with soap and water in a sink is actually better. But there was plenty of fresh vegetables and I don’t think we’ll be starving. It’s amazing how people are panicking. Phil
SOME ADMIRAL DOCTOR SPOKE ON TV TODAY DURING TRUMP ADMIN COVID BRIEFING. MADE ME TEARY BECAUSE HE MADE ME FEEL THAT ALL WAS GOING TO BE OK. SOME GOOD CARING PEOPLE STANDING BEHIND HIM. EVEN PENCE WAS SOUNDING LIKE STUFF WAS GOING TO GET TAKEN CARE OF. TRUMO SOUNDED HALFWAY NORMAL (IF WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A GIBBON)–SORRY TO ALL GIBBONS WORLDWIDE. Z ANF I WENT TO DUCK PARK TODAY. ALBERT THE GOOSE ALWAYS HEARS MY CAR AND COMES TO SEE ME/US. HE MUST HAVE BEEN SOMEONE’S PET AT SOME POINT. HE IS NOT JUST INTERESTED IN FOOD BUT SEEMINGLY EMOTIONAL CONTACT. MAKES ME TEAR UP.
Sure made me laugh, Otto — “if we are talking about a gibbon — sorry to all gibbons worldwide”. He did sound a bit more somber, but considering he called today a “day of prayer” and claimed we can just pray away the coronavirus, I’m guessing he looked somber or halfway normal because he didn’t get to fly away to play golf today, instead.
I took z to whole foods last night to see if she could get in or not. not crowded but very little on shelves. she took so long that I, of course like the asshole I can be, i confronted her about the amount of time she spent in the store that had little food, no crowds and no lines. I had been hoping that I could get some food at ralphs, since it was late and I hoped the hoarders had spent themselves, but they were closed. and I was angry at z and we argued. at some point I became aware that this was my old feeling of me getting nothing. about me starving when my mom went away, when my uncle punished me when I wouldn’t eat the baby pigeon that he had killed in front of me. I got to the starvation feeling at one retreat but I never went back to that feeling, I don’t think. I was able to apologize to z, briefly, but at least that, since I rarely do. anyway. this was all in kodachrome as the last 2 days took place, but I can only paint it here in drab text.
covid19 lurks in every quarter, everything I touch–in my mind. co-workers can be bringing virus from the many patients at our hospital where i work. this could be curtains for me since they say viruses thrive on high blood sugar, which I have, and my lungs and heart are bad from many years of smoking. I will ask my boss if I can work from home from now on, when I get to work tomorrow.
If anybody happens to be politely waiting for me to finish blowing off steam, thank you for your courtesy and I am finished. I was triggered, I become outraged (at something completely divorced from the blog), and now it’s over.
Feel free to talk about anything else you want at anytime, I’m done with my stream of anger.
For my money this is the best article written so far about The Corona pandemic. It can be dealt with if countries around the world will take immediate measures as Taiwan did (but not Italy). Each day brings us closer to healthcare collapse and rising rates of death and pain. As an aside, a very interesting (and dangerous) experiment is going on in Britain, which has decided to take a different approach. Here is the article:
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
Also, I’ve been around to see the 1987 Black October stock market crash (was a patient then at the PI), and been through the 2000 and 2008 crises. The fear in Wall Street these past few days and especially today is in a league of its own. It is violently difficult to watch one’s future pension fading away so rapidly. We always knew that Trump is not one for leadership in times of crisis, many words were written about it, we just hoped none will come during his time in office. It was symbolic that on the day China sent a plane with much needed aid and advisory staff to Italy, the US banned all flights from there. So, who is the world power these days?
Daniel: Interesting article, but thinking in terms of me and how the whole thing is affecting me and the potential of it all both upon me and the world and how in light of all this, is this going to work out finally. for the way, we are living.
Perhaps my idea about money is actually less terrifying for you now; yeah???
As Gretchen stated “These leaders are way out of their depth” or words to that effect.
I contend civilization (being anything BUT civil is crashing around us as I write all this.
shit! shit! and more shit! Perhaps that’s the reason everyone is stocking up on toilet paper. 🙂 .
Jack, this too shall pass. The way it affects you as well as the rest of us is we all have to stay home as much as we can, follow the disinfection guidelines, and minimize all contacts that may spread this virus – practice that so-called social distancing. First let’s stay alive and well. Hopefully in time a vaccine will be available (the best scenario but will take many more months), or that we will gradually develop herd-immunity enough for this virus to stop spreading, and all that without overwhelming current health systems.
I hope and believe civilization will not disintegrate, that it’s just another big test of our ability to learn, to come together, to change and adapt, and fight off the dangers inherent in being alive. It is frightening though.
My best wishes to you and Jim in this endeavor.
Daniel: Thanks for your reply. I wish I could feel that thing will go back to normal (pre-Trump), but I am not that optimistic. However, I have had these feelings pre coronavirus, I am sure eventually we’ll adapt for the only alternative is the extinction of homo sapiens.
Again; it is the young and their babies that will ultimates make that call.
It’s not that I invented any of these ideas,, it’s just that I attempted to bring together Primal theory and Pierre Joseph Proudhon. One leads to the other IMO.
Jack
Well, the UK experiment is over and they’re on board with all other affected countries: closing schools, isolating the ill and practicing social distancing. Apparently, they received some very scary numbers from their epidemiologists (estimates of some 250,000 deaths). Their reasoning still seems to have some logic to it, but the current system is just unable to contain such a massive and rapid outbreak and the consequences might be many deaths and a collapsing system.
Since the Basic Reproduction Number (so-called R0) must get below 1 in order to contain this epidemic, and since there is still no vaccine, the only remaining option is isolating the ill and socially distancing. However, this will not fully solve the problem, because we can’t keep the entire economic system shut down for months on end without bringing about a massive recession or even a full-blown depression. Even if we succeed in taking R0 below 1 what will happen when we remove distancing remains a mystery. We might experience a renewed outbreak. In fact, it’s not unlikely that COVID-19 will be with us forever, like the flu. So the logical conclusion is we must test for COVID-19 like crazy. Island, for example, decided to test the entire population and isolate the ill. Granted, in Island it’s only some 375,000 people but the principle is true for all countries.
In case you’re wondering or still haven’t read about it, R0 is is a measure of how many people are infected by a single carrier of the virus in a population which is not protected (naturally or through vaccination). R0 for measles, for example, is 12-18. Ebola is 1.5-2.5 and regular flu is 1.5-1.8. R0 of COVID-19 is 1.4-3.9. As long as the reproduction number (R0) of an illness is larger than 1 it is exponentially contagious, while when it’s reproduction number equals or is less than 1 it cannot spread into an epidemic.
There are 3 ways to reduce R0: having a population naturally immune to the virus, having the population unnaturally immune to it (vaccination), and isolation and social distancing.
Without a vaccine we actually have available only option 1 and option 3. So let’s look at option 1- having a population naturally immune to the virus. To calculate the portion of the population needed to be infected in order to develop a herd-immunity epidemiologists use the Basic Reproduction Number. If each infected person can potentially infect 3 people, then to bring R0 to 1 we would need 2 of those 3 to be naturally immune – meaning 2/3 of the entire population must be immune. It looks like this guided the British policy. They wanted to get to that hoped-for herd-immunity (to have 2/3 of their population immuned through infection), but ran against that huge number they would have to treat in a health system unprepared for such numbers and so sure to reach insufficiency.
So, we’re left with option 3. With no vaccine yet to help us get to R0 ≤ 1 the only remaining choice is social distancing, to slow down the contagion rate to a level our health systems can cope with. And again, since we can’t stop our lives forever until a vaccine is found it will come down to testing and isolating the ill while allowing the rest of us to carry on with our normal lives.
Personally, my wife is in a risk group because of COPD (too many years of smoking) and we’re as vigilant about it as we possibly can. We leave our home only when absolutely necessary, we disinfect and wash our hands regularly. We buy time.
Daniel, besides all this, which is very informative, I think there’s a good chance that doctors will soon find an effective medicine; one that is already in use for other things, or an effective combination of medicines. I’m sure they’re trying hard. There must also be a certain number of individuals, who when exposed, don’t get the illness at all, or are exposed enough to get immunity without getting symptoms. I wouldn’t count on it however. I work in a doctors office and for many years have never gotten the flu, nor do I get vaccinated. My boss, a doctor, doesn’t get that vaccine either. When the corona virus vaccine comes out, I’ll want to get that one, maybe after millions of others have tried it first. Phil
Good point. Let’s hope better treatments are found.
Maybe the best thing to happen is to not find a vaccine at all? This virus has killed 10,000 people while saving the lives of about 100,000 people from being killed in their cars by forcing them to stay locked down in essential travel patterns and driving a lot less. That’s a bonus of 90,000 lives saved so far, isn’t it?
Letting this virus go on in perpetuity may be for the best overall.
Guru, Italy had 3,333 total road deaths in the whole of 2016. It now has 4,825 Corona deaths in only several weeks. By the end of this epidemic wave that number will rise substantially. In the US, due to late response, corrupt healthcare system and inept leadership, the numbers, without real grave measures and heroic efforts, are likely to be catastrophic. Tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions might die, far outnumbering the 39,888 road deaths (for the full year of 2018). Healthcare systems will be on the verge of collapse and in some places beyond it. And, this is without counting collateral deaths when healthcare systems are at insufficiency, all those with other life-threatening conditions who stop receiving the care needed, even an arrival of an ambulance in a reasonable time. So, I beg to differ. It has the potential, and in some places it already is, a catastrophe.
Daniel, I’ve read your response & I am weighing whether or not it is worth the emotional energy spent engaging in any sort of struggle with you over this. I make these considerations early on whenever potential disagreements arise. For instance, I’ve pondered this question many, many times in the past when Jack says something I disagree with. Eventually even pondering the question no longer becomes worth the effort in cases such as his & it becomes a simple, automatic “no, it’s not worth it” answer. Life becomes a lot easier that way. In your case, though, I am still in the active pondering stage.
As a small preview to what I might say: I think you’re putting way too much narrow focus on Italy alone when there are almost 200 UN member countries each with their own different scenarios yet to play out. For instance, I think China has 90,000 road fatalities per year, yet it has now managed to bring COVID deaths to a near complete halt after only 4,000 or so casualties.
There are more things I could add to more deeply engage in the struggle with you, but a big part of me is still saying. “Why bother? What’s to be gained from this? What’s in it for me?”
Maybe you noticed my previous post had characteristics revealing my intense cynicism and jadedness about based on my own bitter experiences? No big deal if you didn’t see it; it’s hard to detect sarcasm on the internet, anyway.
A plausible argument regarding myself personally is that I am far too emotionally spent & exhausted to emotionally engage in much of any struggle for a while. This doesn’t obviate the reality that people are wildly different & will require differing amounts of emotional investment when struggling with them (eg. the more ‘reasonable’, ‘pliable’, ‘malleable’ having a lower emotional investment required than individuals more rigidly adherent to their beliefs and so forth)
I vividly remember the super-long, protracted struggle you had with Renee over whether women are being properly represented in Western historical, literal, and philosophical texts. I remember being flabbergasted at how the struggle went on for months and months with scores of posts back and forth.
In my case, after about two or three posts going back and forth with something like that (maybe a day or less) I would have been thinking, “Man, this is getting too hot and heavy. Too much of a sunk emotional cost with no appreciably pleasant returns to be gained. Let’s start looking for an exit door and wander around elsewhere for a while.”
Stuck at home self-isolating? Got a few too many rolls of toilet paper? Would like to work on your physical health and not just your mental health? This only takes 8 minutes, but it is harder than it looks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAQ_W6MVSZY
Looks hard actually. 🙂
Renee, looks like a good workout. But what should those of us do who have toilet paper anxiety. The ones who couldn’t grab enough rolls, and are shit out of luck.
These are lousy excuses, Larry and Phil. Firstly, some of the exercises are hard and some not so hard. The last one, the “cat and cow,” is super-easy, no-matter your fitness level. Secondly, this workout allows you to keep your toilet paper anxiety, Phil. If you watched the link you will see that that the instructor is not using up her precious toilet paper. She is simply borrowing the rolls for another activity and will return them to the bathroom when she is done. If she was sweating, she would use a towel, not the toilet paper. That’s why these are lousy excuses. I suggest you actually try the workout. You can modify, as needed. I did.
Renee: I’m not sure what all this thing is about toilet paper. When I was in Istanbul, Turkey, defecating was:- ‘crouch and crap’ over a hole in the ground then a faucet to one side was turned on and the arse as cleaned by washing it. No toilet paper needed.
Also when I lived in Ibiza the toilet was the ‘prickly pear cactus patch. and I used a jug of water, poured it onto my hand and cleaned my arse the way I did in Istanbul. On returning to the patch some one hour, later, all the shit was totally gone.
That was the way the farmers in their primitive farmhouses (fincas) did it, Other than sleeping everything was done outside. Of course, it was a very warm and sunny climate. If we had 7 days of short rainfall that was the maximum.
Those days were paradise … though I could not do that now. I need more creature comfort.
Jack
I don’t understand this toilet paper thing either, Jack. But perhaps with your life experiences where have done without toilet paper, and survived just fine, you could help Phil with his anxiety. Take a look at Trevor Noah’s funny take on this “toilet paper panic” phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGq7e1jtHMc
Forget about fancy cars and jewelry etc, I think toilet paper has become the new status symbol. It’s important to have as much of it as possible, and then flaunt it, as in the video Renee shared.
Phil
Renee: I think I am surviving without it, though it’s very handy for blowing my nose into it. Since Jim is a ‘clean freak’, I doubt he’d manage, but because he is, we’re always stocked up on the stuff and I doubt he’d even have approved the prickly pear patch.
We’re both worried about the fast-spreading ‘virus’, but for different reasons. Mine is because we seem not to understand the very root of all diseases … trauma in utero, the birth process, and those very early years of life … that affected me.
I doubt I could help Phil. I only know my way for me, and I feel lucky at knowing it.
Jack
Renee: Very funny clip.
Jack
Went to Walmart late yesterday for a few things, still no TP. Jack, I think we’re getting a very small taste of what anarchy would be like, and I’m not enjoying it.
From my understanding, the number of cases of covid-19 is expected to peak here in late April or early May, and go down after that. But additional waves of infections may be coming in the Fall and/or later. My son in NYC doesn’t want to come home. He promises to take precautions. but that’s still worrisome. Economic conditions look like they’ll be extremely bad for some time to come. The only good news is it’s looking better and better for getting rid of Trump in November
Phil
Ah Phil. Yes there is a silver lining to all this disruption. When things go bad, the electorate always blame the leader for it and vote for change. But holy smoke, it seems to me the world economy will be badly beaten up will suffer for a long time.
Phil: Yes, we are getting a small taste of what ‘anarchy’ is like, in its beginnings,, but the operative word you used was “small taste”. It’s not until the ‘end game’, that we begin to see where it is all going. For that very reason is why most people are scared shitless about it, but as more and more advantages occur to us, about how it frees us up to living better lives and that most of the current downsides just evaporate before our eyes, is when the scariness also begins to fade’
What most people want to happen is to keep the ‘status quo’ going. before these tragic events occurred. Little realizing that it was the “status quo” that brought us to this point. All major changes are scary, but in Primal terms, it is just another feeling; NOT one that should be kept away from us, at all costs
I see, that most on this blog think it’s something I thought up … sadly, I’m not THAT smart. I came to it all through lectures, books, and other anarchists that were able to answer my “What if” questions … questions, when I posed them to these people. Perhaps that was my one and only redeeming feature, since I did not reject their notions, out of hand. The same gets done with Primal Therapy/Theory.
It’s something that has to be thought through. Most do not want to go through the thought of “contemplating it” … l as I see it. It’s worth a rethink Phil, particularly since I feel it going to happen anyway.
Jack
It will be interesting in June 2021 to survey 2020 death numbers, country by country. I expect it will be consistent with the previous 20 years. To quote Mons, Trump, ” Maybe, maybe not, who knows, I like the idea…..” The, ‘ thingy,’ spread faster than good news. That puzzles my pea brain. I suspect that the fear and loneliness caused by the panic may be the most dangerous aspect. According, and a mega ton slide of toilet paper. This one does have the characteristics of the cocktail that whistle shouter, Dr. Leonard G Horowitz, formerly US Federal Dep’t of Health, cautioned about in his 1997 lecture at University of Toronto, ” …. a bug that makes vast segments of a population ill. That can cripple an economy. Killing two billion of a country’s population has the medium to long term outcome of strengthening an economy.” I don’t side with the, ” nutters,” but this guy, once an insider, speaks from the authority of TS documents, not a crystal ball. Albeit the years of persecution have sullied his objectivity, or maybe, at least how he presents himself today. But isn’t that how , ” they,” tried to kill, PT, particularly branding Dr Janov as a quack, a nutter, PT, a ” pseudo science; robbing desperate people.” Certainly that’s how I watched politicians here, over my 43 year tenure, deal with any threat that competent, caring, professionals would rise to the status of influential, in the human care sector. Fell the scourge and fill the void with political loyalists; in my 4 decade experience, incompetent and very dishonest.
Cheers, best thoughts to all…
Oh, they’ve shut down all alcohol beverage venders here, including the gov’t stores; … that’s a good thing…IMHO… It’s to discourage home partying I think. Entrepreneurs Making booze for direct retail is now legal here, including MOONSHINE. Not to be undone, the MOONSHINERS have switched to making hand sanitizer. There are 19 suspected C19 cases here. 4000 per month die from MD error in Kanada, according to StatsCan. 470,000 in the US but Harvard study suggests a more accurate # is upwards of 800,000.
( I stole that, ” IMHO,” from Jack several years ago. It’s my stay out of lynching card. (: )
David: no! you didn’t steal it, It’s now yours to do as you desire with it.
Jack
The following notification was issued at my physio friend’s medical clinic where she works, and it seems sound:-
Virus Detection:
The simplest way to distinguish Coronavirus from a Common Cold is that
the COVID-19 infection does not cause a cold nose or cough with cold,
but it does create a dry and rough cough.
The virus is typically first installed in the throat causing
inflammation and a feeling of dryness. This symptom can last between 3
and 4 days.
The virus typically then travels through the moisture present in the
airways, goes down to the trachea and installs in the lungs, causing
pneumonia that lasts about 5 or 6 days.
Pneumonia manifests with a high fever and difficulty breathing. The
Common Cold is not accompanied, but there may be a choking sensation. In
this case, the doctor should be called immediately.
Experts suggest doing this simple verification every morning: Breathe in
deeply and hold your breath for 10 seconds. If this can be done without
coughing, without difficulty, this shows that there is no fibrosis in
the lungs, indicating the absence of infection. It is strongly
recommended to do this control every morning.
Prevention:
The virus hates heat and dies if it is exposed to temperatures greater
than 80°F (27°C). Therefore hot drinks such as infusions, broths or
simply hot water should be consumed abundantly during the day. These hot
liquids kill the virus and are easy to ingest.
Avoid drinking ice water or drinks with ice cubes.
Ensure that your mouth and throat are always wet, never DRY. You should
drink a sip of water at least every 15 minutes. Why ?
Even when the virus enters water or other liquids through the mouth, it
will get flushed through the oesophagus directly into the stomach where
gastric acids destroy the virus. If there is not enough water, the virus
can pass into the trachea and from there to the lungs, where it is very
dangerous.
For those who can sunbathe. The Sun’s UV rays kill the virus and vitamin
D is good for you.
The Coronavirus has a large size (diameter of 400-500 nanometers) so any
face mask can stop it, no special face masks are needed in daily life.
If an infected person sneezes near us, stay 10 feet (3.3 meters) away to
allow the virus to fall to the ground and prevent it from falling on you.
When the virus is on hard surfaces, it survives about 12 hours,
therefore when hard surfaces such as doors, appliances, railings, etc.
are touched.
Hands should be washed thoroughly and/or sanitized with an effective (60%alcohol)
sanitizer (hospital standards). If only soap available, wash hands for >20 seconds and DO NOT TOUCH FACE
The virus can live nested in clothes and tissues between 6 and 12 hours.
Common detergents can kill it. Things that cannot be washed should be
exposed to the Sun and the virus will die.
The transmission of the virus usually occurs by direct infection,
touching fabrics, tissues or materials on which the virus is present.
The virus survives on our hands for only about 10 minutes. In that time
many things can happen, rubbing the eyes, touching the nose or lips.
This allows the virus to enter your throat. Therefore, for your good and
the good of all, wash/sanitize your hands very often.
You can gargle with disinfectant solutions (i.e. Listerine or Hydrogen
Peroxide) that eliminate or minimize the amount of virus that can enter
the throat.
Doing so removes the virus before it goes down to the trachea and then
to the lungs.
Sanitize things touched often: hands, mobile phone, keyboard, mouse, car
steering wheel, door handles, etc
Please share this information with family, friends and acquaintances. We
must take care of ourselves, for our good and the good of others.
Phil, I also hope all of this situation will at least help to get Trump out of the picture..
another side effect is that the climate might be served, over here the air pollution has diminished a lot and no traffic jams anymore.
also the exaggerated consuming of goods has had to come to a temporary stop at least.
which can make the affected people reflect on what remains and what really matters, other people and our bond with them and the caring for each other, health, life and life quality being something separate from consuming luxury goods…
Jo, we got that same mail over here, something coming from Stanford or Stanhope something, seemed kind of scientific but still, it was on the news here that it is mostly fake news…
no idea what in it makes sense and what might not do so…
our own common sense seems a good guideline in the meantime.
wish you all the best, the ones in the UK are the ones I feel most concerned about, with another nutcase at the top…
M
The consuming of goods and services has slowed to almost a halt by I feel for those people whose jobs and incomes come from providing those services. How especially anxious they must be now.
Well< it appears my friend and several of us are subject to fake news. Sorry. Take from it what you will.
Actually, a lot of it tallies with advice already given
IMG_4806.jpeg
Ok how do I post a photo? G
Gretchen, I find that copying the address of a photo that I uploaded to my WordPress site, and then pasting it here works. Phil
It’s been 10 days now since I was last in the physical presence of someone who I know. I haven’t gone insane yet. Haven’t had any primals yet either. I don’t feel safe enough to I guess. Seems to me just about every person on the planet must be close to having a primal, though they’ll all have their myriad ways to evade one. I’m on the phone or on email daily connecting to friends and family. That’s what’s keeping my squirrelies from coming out of the shadows. At the end of my solitary day, I watch solitary TV to distract myself from worries for a while. I get lost in watching a really good series, Near the end of my evening tonight I pulled myself back to reality with a jolt. My world is upside down. The life I knew has been taken from me. I can’t do anything about it. We are at war. There’s no escape. We can’t know when it will end, or whether things will go back to the way they were. ….. they never do.
This evening this tune gave me some comfort, so I want to share it.
Nice, comforting song. Thanks, Larry.
I’m glad you enjoyed it Sylvia.
I like this guy:
Professor Lawrence Gostin, world expert on how governments respond to pandemics, on President Trump’s “pointless” travel ban and why America isn’t ready for the coronavirus.
On YouTube: ‘America’s not safe’ – Leading coronavirus expert on Donald Trump’s response to Covid-19
Hey All, This has been a hectic week. I have received so many emails saying that with this period of isolation the need for community is greater than ever. Barry and I have been doing mostly phone sessions but will probably move to all phone sessions next week. We will let you know the plan hopefully tomorrow. The thing I’m most excited about is the possibility of a virtual group that could include those of you that are far away. With Vicki and Jeff’s help ( well more than help) I have set up an app that would allow for that. Those groups would probably begin next weekend. We will do a mailing as soon as we have more info as to how you can participate etc. . That mailing will go out in the next day or two as well. It will be nice to see all your faces again! I will keep you posted ! Gretch
Gretchen, that is exciting new that you’ll be doing virtual sessions! I’ll definitely want to be a part of that.
Phil
Me too! I’ll sign up for sure – thanks G!
Very exciting Gretch and Barry, and thanks Vickie and Jeff too! Yay!
Wonderful!
…and an excuse to resume shaving and combing my hair. 🙂
LArry😳😅
As Italy quarantines over coronavirus, dolphins appear in Venice canals
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/488286-italys-coronavirus-lockdown-shows-what-nature
I do think that everything happens for a reason. I don’t always know the reason, but it might reveal itself in the future. If it takes one little virus to stop the insanity just for a moment, a few weeks or months – be it economical, social, environmental, political – then so be it! Maybe, just maybe, will this “time-out” provide us with a moment to reflect on the damaging and unjust actions we are perpetrating against each other, the natural environment, our planet. Maybe we will find out that there is no reason to go to such an extent to exploit people and natural resources. Maybe, just maybe, we come to the conclusion that we could do with half (or less) of the consuming and wasting of goods and resources. Maybe, as we see nature recover quickly, as it is resilient, are we in awe of what wonder it really is and are willing to protect it more in the future. Maybe, as we watch our leaders falter and fail under the pressure and helplessness that this virus brings, will we listen less to their worthless words but rather depend on our own intuitions and instincts and find our own way. Maybe, as venues for entertainment and distractions are taken away for a while, are we willing to look inward for a moment, observe quietly the deep inside space, where true values lie. Maybe we will find that kindness, compassion, and togetherness take us further than competition, rivalry, and aggression.
Or maybe, I’m just dreaming…
Be safe, everyone!
Bernadette
I wish.
I believe humanity will eventually get there. I’d like to see it in my time.
Larry, I am with you believing that humanity will eventually get there. I also believe that we will achieve some of it for both of us to see… Changes can happen quickly, we might be both surprised 🙂 Stay safe!
Yes, there is more happening in the transition away from fossil fuels than we hear about in the news, and I read science news today that the transition that has been happening for the past 10 years to renewable energy has been having a bigger effect on dampening greenhouse gas emissions than has been accounted for. With the price of fossil fuels now falling so low, there might be a lot of second thought about whether they are a sound investment. Relatively suddenly we could transition to a very different world, like the transition from transportation in cities by horses to by cars was.
Larry:
I wouldn’t be surprised if this administration suppressed information in regard to the advancement of renewable energy. It’s well known that they are in denial of climate change. And of course they want to protect their own interests, investments in fuel industry. But as you point out, the fuel prices are falling and the investment is no longer sound. I agree with you that we could transition relatively quickly into a very different world. I wouldn’t be surprised either if the entire financial system as we know it is on the brink of extinction… something new and better is on the way, a more just system that allows equal distribution of goods and riches, more respectful to people and nature… I’m dreaming again.
The denial of science in regards to environmental crisis is just one example. As Professor Larry Gostin said in the above interview, this administration “…has long been questioning of science….and had advised the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not to use the words “evidence based” or “science based…” – shocking! Why would a leader of a rich and powerful country not want to know what works best in the event of a deadly health crisis? But now that the people are dying in masses, they are forced to rely on science to quickly find a cure or at least a vaccine against this virus. I am curious how Trump will talk himself out of this one… he’s been putting his foot in the mouth lately quite a bit 😉
I truly believe that it had to come to a crisis like this one, in order to wake people up. I believe, unless they are shocked into awareness, most people don’t want to see the damage we are doing to the environment and each other; most feel powerless against the established financial and social structures in place; most don’t realize how complacently we are giving away our power to incompetent leadership. (And I am not only talking about Trump). We have to learn that we have a lot more power and responsibility than we have assumed so far. I do believe in a better, more just future for all!
Bernadette
Bernadette: I’m with you on most of this.
Jack
My wish is that you see your dream come true Bernadette.
👍🌲🌈🌻
It’s nice to hear your thoughts Bernadette. I believe that some change will happen for sure. From now on I for one will to the end of my life be washing my hands more frequently and thoughtfully. Awesome to think that it can save lives.
Larry:
If nothing else, you will have very clean hands for the rest of your life 😉 I’m sorry that you are missing out on your dancing. How much longer is your isolation period?
Bernadette
How long is my isolation period Bernadette? The number of COVID19 cases is going up exponentially and has nowhere near peaked yet, never mind started to drop. The thinking is that public gatherings will be discouraged likely at least into May, meaning city life slows to a trickle until then. Some people can have the virus, be incubating it for days and spreading it around and putting other people’s lives at risk, before they themselves even feel sick.
I’m not sick with COVID19. I don’t have the virus as far as I know, but I or my neighbour or the postman might have it and not know it yet. I’m keeping myself and my community but mainly myself safe by self-distancing and by staying at home a lot. So that’s until the pandemic is over if I don’t die first, or until I become immune.
It feels very strange how it looks entirely normal outdoors, as if there is no health crisis. Yet an invisible danger lurks almost anywhere and maybe everywhere that people physically gather and connect. I live far from a coastline, far from international travel centers, far from China where the virus first jumped into a human being, incubated in that person and jumped to another, and that way spread from person to person all the way to my home city. So to be safe we self-imprison ourselves to avoid physical connection and slow the incubation and spread of the virus. If it has no people to incubate in, it dies out. But avoiding physical connection goes contrary to human survival, so we are each caught between a rock and a hard place. For the near future our individual survival is at risk any time we engage in physical contact, and is when we avoid physical contact for too long.
Meanwhile Nature looks so tantalizingly normal otherwise. It is a bizarre, exasperating, dangerous, stressful time. There will be people who we know who will be affected.
Are you not self-isolating?
PS. Stay safe Bernadette. We need you to infect us all with your dreams, I think. 🙂
Bee, So well written and so true! Gretch
Gretchen – thanks!
And maybe – evidently – as we are forced to function with limited resources and accessibility to do “business as usual”, we will come up with innovative and creative solutions, that maybe in the long run are more practical and sustainable 🙂 ❤️
Bernadette, well said 🧡
Jo, thanks! Stay safe!! ❤️
How do you WordPress savvy commentators put emoticons in your comments?
Download an emoticon keyboard
👍
Larry, I usually write my comments in a Word document, including emoticons, then copy it all into the blog 🧡. And, if you type directly into the blog a colon and right parenthesis 🙂 it will automatically convert to a smiley face once you post the comment.
👌
Yay! 👍🏻
this morning I got a phone call from one of the two companies that provide personal assistance.
she told me they were ending the house visits for now.
she assured me that if the other company would not do my shopping anymore either,they would do that for me but without entering the house.
when I told her that that morning I had felt a bit of a sore throat and had suddenly been struck by worry about what would happen with my cats if I would get ill, i could not help starting to cry.
the lady that has been assisting me for a while now, years in total, is a very nice person and she reassured me in that case they would come every day to feed the cats, which felt like a huge relief, but by now I dare not count on anything or anybody too much anymore.
I called my sister later on but was disappointed by her response, as usual she talked a lot about herself, and said I should contact cat pensions as it would be difficult to find help.
I had hoped she would have told me she would go out of her way in that case to find a solution.
i did tell her a few times that what she said did not make me feel much better, and that I had considered a cat pension but only as a plan b or a plan c.
it is scary to feel more and more the situation is becoming more precarious, as it seems to need little more bad luck to end op in a real problem situation.
my main worry are my cats, who are my responsibility and who I want to take care of and protect.
of course I want to remain OK as well, but that is a different topic.
now I will put my different friends and relatives and caretakers up to date about who has a spare key, and give them each other’s phone numbers so at least my little network gets connected.
it feels scary and lonely to find out my cats for most others are just two more pets, some caretakers and friends seem to understand better how much they matter to me than some family members, which is very sad.
M
Margaret, that’s understandably very worrying and scary for you. I hope your network are reassuring for you. Jo
thanks jo, thet is sweet of you.
I just managed to get my mom on the phone and at some point I mentioned to her I need to stay healthy to care for the cats, and she replied I can always bring them to her to care about them.
that is the kind of response I crave, in general, or ‘I will do my best to help you find a solution’ would do as well, for others, but of course in this case my mom is not allowed to have the cats with her there, sadly enough.
they used to have cats there, who remained outdoors but were well fed and had a good shelter but when they died the director did not allow the nurses to get a new cat there. my mom used to help feed it every day, and she was one of the only ones who could actually pet it as well.
it is a scary situation indeed, a mixture of people reaching out offering help and of people not being available at the same time.
so I better take good care and hopefully stay healthy enough myself.
a pet becomes close family somehow and they really are the one reliable source of affection in any situation, but vulnerable as well and needing protection and care.
I am still in a feeling so sorry if I sound a bit confused,
M
Margaret,
I hope you can find a way to make sure your cats will be taken care of.
The doctor who is my boss, says our local hospital where he goes now has a whole floor of corona virus cases, and there is stress for the employees because they can’t use masks whenever they want. Apparently there aren’t enough to allow them to do that.
Phil
thanks Phil. let’s hope I can keep taking care of them myself. that is one positive thing about being so isolated, few chances to get infected.
but of course I might still be in an incubation period of last week or earlier, at least my throat does not ache anymore.
the situation you describe in that local hospital sounds bad, very difficult for everyone involved, and if it is that bad already now it is worrying of what is still to come.
our king managed to get a large sending of masks from the Chinese, not sufficient in the long run but helping us out for the moment.
then there has been some fraud going on with an even larger order of protective masks, which was paid but never delivered, got stuck somewhere on the way…
hope you can have enough disinfecting tissues with you to for example disinfect the handles of shopping carts, or gloves to wear if not.
it is very hard to not touch your face, mouth, eyes or nose if you might have touched some infected material, until you have disinfected or washed your hands.
here the supermarkets now leave in limited persons at a time, disinfect each car’s handles every time, and want people to keep a good safety distance.
that is good, that the precautions become kind of systematic.
stay well, M
In Spain we are hearing that every afternoon at 2;00 PM people are now stepping outside or hanging out their windows to applaud for the healthcare workers who are dealing with all of this.
Phil
another good tip is to take a pencil or pen with you in case you have to enter your bankcode in order to pay, so you can use the pen to do so.
Any spot where a lot of hands and fingers can indirectly get in touch is dangerous.
better to be careful than sorry.
M
Phil,
Yes, here we do that at 8 pm, I will join it for the first time today, not sure whether from my balcony or by going to the front door.
it is also for the people in supermarkets etc., who often get snapped at while going out of their way to provide enough supplies.
for everyone doing his or her best under the circumstances.
it also seems to give a sense of community as people get in touch who otherwise never would. for me it might be better to go to the front door as there it might be easier to talk with someone, at a safe distance that is…
a meter and a half seems to be the minimum.
m
Hi everyone: What I feel is that the whole system under which we are living if collapsing around us, and we’re having to adapt The problem as I see it is:- we don’t know how to adapt.
I contend we’re never going to go back to what we knew (: (:
Jack
Sorry, I meant:- ): ):
Jack
i have several questions on my mind about the virus and the nearby future.
firstly I wonder if someone that has become immune, after having had the disease in some way, can still spread the virus, for example after having shaken hands with someone in a contagious state?
and then, say the spreading diminishes its speed, and we are allowed to have more contact again, what then? say we are immune, the above question matters. and how can we know we are, if we haven’t been tested for the virus?
I know there are tests to check for the disease, which are now limited to the more serious parts of the sick people as it requires certain chemicals that are getting scarce. then I heard there is another more simple but effective test to check if one has developed immunity, testing for antibodies.
if we are allowed more freedom of movement and contact again, I would very much like to know whether i am immune or not, as if not, I can only suppose there will still be a risk to catch the disease for a long time, as we don’t even know if it will ever be entirely inactive again, momentarily or not…
so there are a lot of serious questions that would remain, even if the spreading would be controlled, which is far from happening in the near future.
and say we here in Belgium do well, as we reacted very quickly, and it gets more or less under control, for how long would that last if all countries around us are worse off?
what with all the people that are not immune yet, and will there be general testing to know who should be careful???
so worries and problems for a long time to come I am afraid.
my brother will try to come by tomorrow, with some extra food and toilet paper etc., if he is allowed to cross the border…
only ‘necessary’ trips are allowed, but it is a bit arbitrary, to renew a bank pass and to drive across the border for that is accepted, to do the same to visit a relative to help them out is not unless you are an official caretaker…
but a lot of care taking is also coming to a gradual stop for precaution or because they get ill or are too scared to continue..
I noticed I need to stay relatively busy to not get depressed, did a lot of cleaning etc. today but that won’t work forever of course.
the weather being cold and cloudy does not help to cheer up the situation…
hope my bro makes it here tomorrow…
I also noticed that the touch of a warm cat body against my hand feels like what helps, some warm living creature’s touch, so basic!
Larry, maybe you should get a pet now, it might be very good company in the coming months or years, that is if it would not worsen your asthma. and of course it is also a responsibility and needs a plan b in case of illness…
wish you all the best, specially the ones living alone,
M
Margaret, yes it definitiely would be comforting to be living with another warm, beating heart instead of just hearing my own. I do feel lucky though for having been enabled through this therapy to grow community. The unitarian community continues to hold services and coffee chat but now via online audio-video using a Zoom conferencing app. The choir director even used Zoom to have an online sing-along during what would otherwise have been last Thursday evening choir practice. The online connection events help me a lot. I’m also finding that helping people during the pandemic helps me a lot too. I’m on a church committee that is working out, via phone conference, how to recruit volunteers for helping us to check-in on and feel connected to each other and grocery shop for those who are isolated and vulnerable etc. Some people in the community have already on their own phone-checked in on me because they know I live alone and we’ve decided to phone buddy.
Nevertheless, for the sake of their sanity human beings absolutely need close physical proximity with family, friends and neighbours, and I’m not getting any of that now. A couple of times in the past 2 weeks of isolation and taking precautions against becoming infected I nevertheless developed a dry sore throat and difficulty breathing, which heightened my anxiety greatly. However being asthmatic results in me getting those same symptoms when I’m very anxious, so which was the horse and which was the cart. On the first occasion I tried not to let my thoughts race out of control and the next day the sore throat and breathing difficulty subsided. On the second occasion, this weekend, I couldn’t shake the symptoms. Finally on Sunday morning I had my first breakdown and deep cry since the beginning of self-isolation. Like all primals, the insights were profound to me. Afterward the sore throat faded quite a bit and breathing was easier, but improvement wasn’t complete, so I still agonized over whether to accept the invitation from an elderly couple to join them for dinner in their home that evening. I dreaded being infected with COVID19 and being responsible for making them seriously ill. Anyway, in phone conversation back and forth they convinced me that all would be alright and to visit. All three of us are very responsible about social distancing and monitoring our symptoms for any sign of illness.
Well, as soon as I stepped into their home yesterday evening for dinner, my sore throat and breathing problem were gone. I’d never been with them one on two before ever, never mind for an entire evening of dinner and socializing. I have great respect and admiration for them. They are pillars in the unitarian and the environmental community. I once felt very inadequate and uncomfortable in the presence of highly competent and capable people like them and consciously avoided them. The earlier version of me could never have tolerated being the center of attention with them like I was at there home last night. Also this pandemic was one of the five worst nightmares that the earlier version of me super-feared becoming reality. So last night was a milestone in my life. The three of us really enjoyed the evening together, and this morning I continue to bask in residual peace of mind from it.
Margaret, I think the testing in general use for the corona virus is very sensitive. It looks for viral genetic material and then amplifies whatever it finds during the testing procedure. I have performed this kind of test for the chlamydia organism at a lab I worked at in the past.
I saw somewhere, maybe the CDC website, that two negative results by this method shows that a person is virus free, meaning not contagious and recovered. The test depends on getting a good sample from the patients nose and/or lungs. People who have recovered and are viras free should be immune, I think is the assumption. But the virus could mutate in the future like the seasonal flu.
Phil
Testing here has been very slow and with poor availability, which has been a big problem mentioned in the news. I think the main reason is there’s normally a lengthy process to get new medical tests approved by government agencies. Just because a foreign agency has approved something isn’t considered good enough. Right now it’s taking 5, 6 or more days for corona virus test results to come back. Where there’s drive through testing, that just means samples are collected there, and have to be sent to labs somewhere else for testing. I saw a report saying some companies are trying to develop a portable device which could perform the same sophisticated kind of testing; that would be a big improvement.
It is important that there’s confidence in the test being used, but none of them work with 100% accuracy. A false negative result would mean someone with the illness could be walking around infecting others.
Phil
Phil,
ok, thanks. I thought it were two different tests, for the contagious or for the immunity.
but then I suppose, apart from virus mutations, for as long as some part of the population is still infected, the contagion can still be spread around in the environment by immune people handling doorknobs or tools that recently have been contaminated by people still carrying the disease. the immune persons won’t get it themselves but can still spread active virus with their hands unless they wash them, isn’t it?
so one progress would be, if the spreading gets less aggressive, hospitals would be less overflowed, but everyone who is not immune yet would still be at risk to some degree. and even the immune could get a mutation virus…
so our elderly will remain a higher risk group as will all people with lung disease or low immune system be.
it seems at least our coming years might be more insecure and unstable as far as I imagine, as borders are of limited use in the long run.
a good remedy would help a lot of course!
it would be reassuring for some of us and discouraging for others if the test would at some point be generally administered as to be able to know if you are immune or not (yet).. to the actual type of virus….
it is disenchanting to see how even such a virus, much less dangerous than a lot of other viruses, can completely disrupt our society worldwide, and it is only starting still possibly…
Sigh…
M
Margaret, I saw somewhere that antibody tests are out for corona but so far not considered that useful. If someone has had the covid-9 illness and recovered, that means his body has produced a good enough antibody response to get rid of the organism, which should mean immunity. But sometimes people can have chronic cases of viral illnesses, don’t quite recover, and so are still contagious. I also think we are going to be dealing with this for a long time.
Phil
Something interesting I saw is that when viruses mutate and evolve they are almost always less dangerous as a result of that process.
It doesn’t benefit them to kill off the hosts they are infecting.
I think a vaccine will come out and we won’t have to worry so much about corona in the future. We can then go back to destroying the planet and having a lot of car accidents. like Guru says.
Phil
Margaret, I wondered if you’ve heard of “the sofa singers”? its like doing a video conference call, where you can join in singing from home. I dont think it matters if you are in another country. Here is the link – https://thenudge.com/london-things-to-do/the-sofa-singers/
Jo
If it doesn’t work there must be similar things evolving in Belgium
Jo, thanks, that sounds like fun, I will check it out later!
M
Phil,
I think that antibody test can be very useful at some point as there are many people who catch the disease but do not get ill, or hardly so it resembles a cold or flu. then it is impossible to know whether you had the corona and are immune or not unless you get tested. it would be very reassuring to find out to have had the Corona at some point without having had the bad effects. then at least you would now to be immune for the actual virus.
I for sure would like to know whether my slight colds from the past weeks were some mild Corona effect or if I am still never infected and so still vulnerable to possible get very ill!
so the test I heard of, just testing a seemingly health y person for antibodies, to detect immunity or not, feels very welcome really to me.
it is simpler than the regular test and faster too.
here the regular test takes about two days to get the result but the basic chemicals are getting scarce to perform the testing.
I would be happy to remain fairly healthy and to get the second test at some point and find out I have had Corona without damage…
one can o
hope, but I guess it will take time until we are here in the stage when there would be time and freedom to go to the doctor for that antibody test, as the rate of infections should be much lower then and the precaution rules much less.
but on the other hand that test could also allow a lot of persons to reenter the active working life and care taking knowing they are not at risk anymore as they would be sure to have been in contact with Corona and are immune as a result.
so I do hope both tests are fabricated at high speed now!
they do exist but if the virus gets spread fast worldwide we would need billions of tests to be on the safe side…
M
Margaret,
I agree. It would be important to know who has already had corona and recovered.
We just got some new strict guidelines here. No one can go to work or out in general for anything nonessential. NYC is getting hit hard because it’s so densely populated, but the new rules apply to the whole state.
Phil
This website has a very good summary of the pandemic with updates. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/countries-where-coronavirus-has-spread/
Hi everyone: I hope everyone is keeping safe, and wondering if some of you may be out of work because of the coronavirus shutdown.
It seems to me, we’re entering a phase of humanity that we’ve never encountered before in our known human history … and no-one seems to be offering a conclusive solution Even the police and the prisons are now having to rethink their means of operation. I personally feel there is a silver lining in it all.
The UK is adopting one approach and the US seems to be floundering and Italy is wondering what hit it. China is the only place where they seem to be on the downward slope from the perpetration of the virus’ aspects, of doing something, but I’m not sure that any form of repression; even if it’s for a so-called good purpose, is the right way to go about it. Sort of same old, same old.
I personally feel that we only have one option and that is to go way back in time to look at some of the options we chose (not that we should go back to the way we lived then). I feel we’re now seeing the culmination of those options we chose, them. But then I would, wouldn’t I?
Jack
Jack, I think thousands more people will die from the pandemic, but not millions, and there will be a deep recession. But in another year or so there will be a vaccine available, and effective treatments will be found, probably sooner than that. Then things will be back to “normal”, but yet to be seen will be how bad the recession will be, and how long it will last. I think you’re expecting or hoping for the system to fall apart, but I’m not seeing that as likely. Maybe in the future when climate change hits very hard, but not now. Phil
I don’t agree, Phil with that assessment of yours. Sure enough, most people wish to see the status quo before Trump and this virus For me that is ‘wishful thinking’. Just looking at how my granny lived as a young girl, as she related it to me. A whole slew of things have changed. Nothing really stays the same.
One of the major changes that has taken place since my granny’s childhood is what is termed “The Economy’. That very word was initially devised as a means of studying how and where money flowed … but now we’ve started to manipulate that money flow, and still calling it ‘Economics’. We all of us have a knack of using words and hope it fits into our meaning. But words are ambiguous, and also change over time.
I still hold to the notion that Art Janov’s discovery stated something quite new, that the implications have not yet been accepted; except for most that do this therapy. If we could see just 50 years into the future I feel most of us would be shocked at the changes (especially attitudes) that will have changed. I contend that this generation will be seen as way out of date.
I have gone into this mindset with a lot of thought, over a number of years, and I am aware that I’m thought of as some weirdo. So-be-it.
Jack
Jack, yes, things change, but I’m not thinking this virus is some major turning point, except that voting Trump out of office is probably more likely. The stock market actually dipped below where it was at the beginning of his presidency, and we may be at the beginning of a major recession. Phil
Jack:
I’m with you on most of this.
I think that people who hope for things to return to the “times before Trump” are blind to the major issues. Exploitation of people, resources and the destruction of the environment started taking place long before Trump. And those are the issues we need to look at…and change.
Bernadette
For those interested in matters of policy and this pandemic, here is a very good article IMO. It’s scary but makes sense and is based on facts, not wishful thinking.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
Selfishly choosing now to say ‘Hi’!
Having a shit week
All my work cancelled [Covid-19 related] for 12 weeks
single again – and no distraction or respite from being able to get lost in work
Feelings are overwhelming at night – always worse then
the feelings are relentless… I seem to have gotten a stamina for feeling that my brain can’t tolerate. I fear i go insane before it will subside
I crave numbness. Escape. A vacation from pain… it never really ends does it
No need to respond – I just want to be ‘seen’ somewhere.
“Me”…you are seen, glad you reached out
thanks Jo – I appreciate that
Changed my ‘name’ – realized it could get confusing
Freaking out today realizing the implications of 12 weeks alone
Are you over seventy or in a vulnerable category?
No Jo – I’m fine, not that old and no health issues at all, luckily.
You? Are you dreading the next months?
What does all this mean for you?
Guru, I wouldn’t call this a “struggle”, not just yet, but a discussion. It may develop into a debate but at least for me this isn’t in any way a struggle. In that comment your irony, which I respect and love, didn’t go unnoticed and perhaps I should have left it at that, knowing you’re not really against finding a vaccine to combat this pandemic, it’s just your way of making a point.
As for the subject in hand, I continue to disagree, because any country can become Italy (I recommend reading Italy, Pandemic’s New Epicenter, Has Lessons for the World). And then, the comparison of Corona and traffic deaths is relevant only were lock-downs are in place so there’s no traffic. In China, which you mentioned, and which has about 250,000 road deaths per year, or Japan, or South Korea, things didn’t fully shut down country-wide and so I would presume traffic accidents were and are still happening, the point being – I’m not sure all those traffic accidents are really prevented.
You bring up the debate Renée and I had as another example of “sunk emotional cost” (an interesting metaphor I think). I agree that at times such debates or struggles can be draining but I’d say at other times they can be quite enlivening, making one think and feel in all sorts of ways. It would be interesting to examine more closely the difference, what exactly drains here vs. what exactly enlivens there.
But as a side issue, if you will permit me to make a personal observation, your attitude here – namely, bringing something up and then dropping it prematurely – is very familiar to us. This Coitus interruptus, this emerging and promising presence followed by a surprising and baffling withdrawal is by now part of what defines your blog presence, your idiom if you will.
Daniel — I am having difficulties figuring out how I should respond to your comments. You do remind me of something not talked about here, though. I can clearly see how my writing skills have deteriorated markedly in the past few years. Part of this is due to lots of external stress, to be sure, but also I’ve had to focus a lot more on computer programming. In doing so, my untrained brain has had to do away with habits of florid, superfluous niceties.
Even your ‘Coitus interruptus’ phrase raised a host of interesting issues for me all its own.
I’m honestly not sure how I am going to carry this discussion onward at this point.
I can tell you with certainty how thoroughly mentally exhausted and spent I am, though.
Guru, I’m sorry to hear of your exhaustion so as much as I would love to hear your thoughts – which I always enjoy reading and are IMO well-written – just go ahead and do or say what’s comfortable for you. I’ll like you anyway.
Obviously, that includes saying nothing.
Daniel, right now for the most part I simply need lots of comfort and reassurances in a general sense. Having these reassurances whispered to me next to a gently flickering bonfire or fireplace setting on a clear night in a natural, rustic setting would be a nice addition.
I’m not specifically asking you to fill this role; I’m simply explaining what would help me out right now.
Guru, you see how good your writing is? I wish I could supply you with the reassurance you need, complete with a fireplace and natural rustic atmosphere. Somehow I imagine this job better done by a woman, is there one currently in your life?
No 😦 I have a few friends and cousins…that’s the end of it for me.
Sorry to hear that, assuming this is something you’d want. I think It’s never too late for a romantic relationship.
How do I begin explaining that I would have been in a staggeringly different universe had my mother not been in a head-on collision? I can only just roll my eyes and shake my head at the hot new catchphrase going around today, “I’m not going to die for Wall Street”.
Hi everyone: I read all the posts in my inbox this morning.
I was particularly pleased with Bernadette’s post and know I have one person who see some of what I am saying. However, Bendeette I feel you are biased in my favour.
The primer for me is Art’s contention that our prone-ness to diseases stems from a compromised immune system, due to early trauma. Many now are seeming to accept that prognosis especially in the Medical profession; but are not saying why some have less immunity than others.
As for our adqptability:- We always adapted is sort of correct, as seen from our current position. We adapted even to neurosis. However, if we wish to get rid of neurosis we, are going to have to do more than just adapt; AND I don’t see that we can reasonably say:- “We always came through” YEP! we did, BUT grossly damaged. I personally don’t see that as “coming through”
I do agree that most seem content to settle for our present ‘FUCKED-UPNESS’ I’m not content to ‘just accept it.
I personally want to see such a radical change that we humans will STOP destroying the planet; just because at one point in the past, we ‘came to a fork in the road’, and seemingly chose the easy route as it appears from that position. It’s only later if we think back on it (which most are reluctant to do) we might see we ‘took the wrong fork in the road’
As I have previousy said:- we can’t go back to that time, BUT we can bear it in mind as we try to move through it … feel it … and express it, which I see most on this blog are doing
Nuf said … I just hope it doesn’t come across as ‘defensive’.
Jack
Jack:
If by saying that I am biased in your favor, you mean that I am unduly influenced by your opinion, then you are mistaken. I can think for myself, thank you very much, and am quite capable of coming up with controversial or unpopular ideas and opinions -or dreams- myself 🙂 Neither do I have to say anything here to please you particularly. It just so happens that I agree with some of what you said above, and then again I don’t agree with some other stuff you sometimes say (as you already know from our private email conversations). For example, I would not agree with you that abolishing money will cure neurosis. But I would agree with you that the current financial/economic system is corrupt and unsustainable and needs changing drastically. I would not agree that “We always came through … BUT grossly damaged” (as though this was the end). I see the current neurosis and fucked-up-ness as a brief stage in human evolution, and I believe humanity will soon move out of this stage into a better, more evolved consciousness.
Or maybe I’m just dreaming again… (which, by the way, is entirely my prerogative if I wish to do so).
Bernadette
Bernadette: By biased; I meant that we are close and as you stated, we communicate a lot privately. I am also aware of the many things you disagree with me.
I say all this here, not for you, but for the rest of us bloggers to know what I meant,
Jack
I think it is very difficult to enjoy sex, or anything else for that matter, if we are feeling threatened or unsafe. Regardless of whether the fear is real or imagined.
Mother’s Day in UK….
Me and my mum
I see some physical resemblance between adult you and your Mom then. 🙂
Oh wow! Facial profile, I guess
Jo:
Nice picture! I’m curious. Do you remember how you felt as a toddler? Particularly when this picture was taken? I have similar pictures…
Bernadette
Bernadette, this was taken at my Grannie’s house; my mum would have been asked by my photographer Grandfather to pose with me, and I felt restricted and wanted to play on the ground with my brother. Most of my photos of me, as a toddler, with my mum are like that. Through my early childhood I felt she always kept me ‘at arm’s length’, physically and affection-wise, was strict until I finally was compliant in my behaviour.
Do you remember?
Jo, your picture brought up memories of a picture of my mom cuddling my baby-sister who was born two and a half years after me. In the photo, my mom is smiling and tickling her, and my baby-sister is giggling. I stand next to them, trying not to look at them and clearly feeling something painful.
Much later, in therapy, I remembered how extremely painful that moment was and how insanely jealous I was! I don’t remember mom ever cuddling me in that way, or having such a close bond.
I am still not sure whether it was me who rejected my mom first, and she rejected me as a result, or the other way around. I was born under very difficult circumstances and had medical problems as a baby. I keep thinking that I didn’t want to be cuddled because of the physical pain I was in, therefore creating the rejection from my mom. Gretchen thinks that my mom should have reached out to me and held me until I was ready to bond. But why would my mom want to cuddle a baby who squirms in her arms and wants to get away from her. Either way, the feeling of not being loved by my mom the way I needed it, was with me until the day she died (and beyond, if I think of it).
When I first saw your picture, I noticed that you were not comfortable with being close to your mother. I wondered whether that was just at that moment, or whether that was a general feeling for you. You explained that most of your photos as a toddler are that way and in early childhood she kept you at arm’s length. Do you feel that your mom ever loved you the way you needed it?
How sad about you and your mum Bernadette; Gretch is right, your mum should have held you, giving you the ultimate message that she was there, no matter what.
I understand that insanely jealous feeling too…my older brother had so much more ‘adoration’ from my mum.
That’s a painful question… « Do you feel that your mom ever loved you the way you needed » and the answer is no..she couldn’t connect with me.
Jo, your answer “no” — wow, that hurts my heart. Do you have any memories when your mom (or mum) came through for you? When she did something good and loving for you?
Yeah, I know my mom should have… but she couldn’t and didn’t and that’s painful. But I also believe that she loved me as good as she could, I’m sure. She did some good stuff for me later on in life and helped me in many ways that showed that she loved me. That of course didn’t make up for the lack of closeness as a baby. But… I forgive her and love her.
That’s a lovely photo, Jo.
Thanks Daniel😊
Jo, great photo! They say a picture is worth a thousand words, or something like that. Phil
Thanks Phil
I find psychoanalytic jargon to be annoying and irritating. Just speak regular English, Daniel.
Yes mam.
However, since my comment didn’t include even a single psychoanalytic term – perhaps upon rereading I missed that “psychoanalytic jargon” – I’m not sure how I am to speak now.
Daniel: Just a suggestion:- Speak the way the little boy Daniel did if it’s still there in you.
Of course, I should do the same, but I’m not sure anyone would recognize what I was saying as I spoke with a very strong Lancashire dialect. Like:- Pu wood int’ole. Meaning “close the door”.& “goin whome” going home.
Jack
Thanks, I feel what you mean, but I’m no longer that boy. He’s in me somewhere and I feel him from time to time, but I cannot talk the way he did back then because I’m an adult now, I have way more responsibilities than he had, more concerns than he had, thoughts more complex or multi-angled than he had. I don’t have the parents he had but on the other hand I have a family of my own – I have children, I have students, I have friends and other family members, so I can’t nor do I think I would want to talk the way he did.
Again, I feel and understand what you mean – you’re after the most direct and true feeling of the moment – but I think that does not preclude in any way observations or thoughts more elaborate than those of a child. On the contrary, the curiosity of the child takes many direction and is alive and well (when things are going the way they should, which obviously they not always are) in the adult.
Also, English is not my native language so I guess a lot is lost, perhaps I sound more formal than I would have had I been a native English speaker.
Daniel: I actually meant for you to be that little Daniel only on the blog. I do understand it’s hardly possible to go beyond that.
I’m curious:- what was your native language … I assume, perhaps wrongly, it’s. French and you’re Canadian.
Jack
I too am wondering what jargon laden comment could you be referring to Renee.
Larry, I am referring to Daniel interpreting UG’s behavior as, “Coitus interruptus, this emerging and promising presence followed by a surprising and baffling withdrawal is by now part of what defines your blog presence, your idiom if you will.” Give me a break!
Oh.
Do you think I should…..pull out from specifically engaging that sort of dialogue?
It never occurred to me that you, or Daniel should and I don’t know what sort you mean. Also I don’t want the responsibility to cast a verdict on the matter. Best discuss it with Renee and Daniel, because I don’t understand what’s going on.
I wonder if there are any countries where it has not been spread yet. of course there are plenty of countries probably where hardly any testing has been done…
at first I was thinking maybe some African countries have been spared but the last decades China has been very active in Africa so chances exist the virus has travelled along at some point…
my brother did not make it here today as the borders have been closed for ‘non-essential’ visits.
if this situation goes on for months I will have a very hard time not to get nuts or very depressed, i am already feeling stressed right now due to all uncertainties and concerns…
I realized myself being blind, or almost, makes it a lot harder still as if I would want to go out for a walk it would not be very relaxing or rewarding.
and with any company I should keep a meter and a half distance which would not be much fun either.
the concern to stay healthy for my cats obliges me to follow the rules strictly, if not I might bend them a bit more…
mom stays well luckily..
M
Me-Incognito, and for anyone else listening… I’m feeling different daily; I hit a wall last week when my main social thing, tennis was cancelled, I thought I wasn’t allowed out, and someone would be shopping for me. That sort of isolation is horrible. Then my art group cancelled. Couple of days later it appears I and my age group can go to supermarkets for the 1st hour to buy essentials, before younger people strip the shelves. That day I felt elated.. who’d of thought going to the supermarket could bring such a rush.
Yesterday I went for a hike with someone, fresh air and sunshine. Wonderful…
I and people I know are video linking every day, so in fact I’m probably speaking more than ever.. and my art group has given us a challenge to motivate us into painting…all good.. but on a solo walk today I witness family groups having fun, with kites, dogs, football, barbecues.. and I suddenly feel down. I have no-one.. so I can only deal with one day at a time. Everything’s changed
Same here. After writing this morning about how at peace I felt for a change (my reply to Margaret’s March 20 8;10 am comment), within three hours my feeling of peace dissipated. At 10:30 am I joined the unitarian Sunday service Zoom conference. While we logged in before the service began and during the service, it tugged at my heart to see and hear everybody and want to be physically in their presence. After the service there was a check-in where we heard in turn from each other how we’re doing. I started to really choke up when upon listening to each one of them in turn I realized I was the only one living alone, and who had not much contact with family. I had to exit the conference before my turn came to say how I’m doing because I was feeling too alone and on the point of breaking down. They were trying to sound upbeat. I couldn’t.
In times like these I wish I was a log driver. Looks like a good life.
Geez I miss social gatherings, like ballroom dance where people are enjoying being together and I can be physically close to and holding the ladies, talking, dancing and enjoying ourselves. Shit. How am I going to last months of this isolation.
Feels like I talked up a feeling.
sure am listening!!
I’m up and down so much too – the news, the impacts, my personal responses. as you find it – I do too.
It was good to read that you are acknowledging the unexpected joys that are coming. I wish you more better days than not so good.
Thanks. I’m wondering whether I ever met you. Have you gone to any of Gretchen and Barry’s retreats?
Often a good sleep or a half hour walk banishes my squirrelies for a while..
Conflicting information from the authorities about COVID19 upsets me. One says it’s better not to wear gloves but wash hands frequently, another local authority recommends to wear gloves in the home if living with someone who is infected. We are told it spreads mainly from touching contaminated surfaces and then touching your face or from being near an infected person and breathing in airborne contaminated droplets soon after the person coughed or sneezed. We’re told the droplets don’t remain suspended in the air for long, then yesterday I read a warning from a doctor in Italy that the virus remains suspended in air for a long time and people are unknowingly breathing it in and should wear a mask to protect themselves in public. I haven’t determined whether that last warning is fake news. but generally I don’t have as much confidence as I’d like to in my medical authorities. Two weekends ago a group of 20 medical doctors from here traveled to another province to attend a curling bonspiel, (ie. a public sport event), even though that province had a much higher number of COVID19 cases than we have here. After returning home, 11 of those 20 doctors have tested positive for COVID19. It seems to me even the medical authorities are blind to what we are really dealing with regarding this pandemic. I’m swayed to Vicki’s and that Italian doctor’s argument that testing of everyone needs to be done so that we can know where the virus is and stop it’s spread. If everyone who tests positive stays home for two weeks or isolates until recovered if sick, the virus will have no new hosts to incubate and multiply in and will disappear. It upsets me to think it could be that simple to stop this pandemic but as far as I can tell the authorities, in western democracies at least, are unwilling to take such firm measures.
It’s surprising to me how a few days ago I felt comfortable about how my city, provincial and federal government is seeing us through this pandemic, whereas today I don’t have the same confidence in them. I suspect some undercurrent of anxiety over something else or too much isolation is exacerbating my worries.
Larry, it’s already getting bad around here and will get worse. I’m afraid we’ll end up like Italy because the response has been so slow and is still weak and uncoordinated.
In some reports I’ve seen, towns have been washing their streets around the world, and that’s most likely a wasted effort. I think the coronavirus is transmitted mainly by person to person contact through droplets in the air. or shaking hands etc, but I guess it’s good to be extra careful, in general, and assume that surfaces could be a risk. People bring it home to their families and there are clusters of cases.
We have strict new guidelines here which went into effect last evening, but this morning I didn’t notice much of a difference on my way to work. I’m considered essential because I work in healthcare, but we are a small business and would be at risk if one of us gets infected. Then the office might have to be at least temporarily closed. A lot of people don’t seem to be taking social distancing seriously, and that’s a big problem. If the number of infections is expected to peak in late April or early May, as I hear, I think these restrictions will probably have to continue for months after that, through the summer.
Phil
Whereas if the authorities had the vision and the balls to confront the pandemic head on, we’d all be required to stay home for 2 weeks. Then the virus would die out, although the population would still be susceptible to re-infection from outside of the community. I guess the health authority’s strategy is not to prevent the spread but for us to social distance to just slow down the rate of spread so that hospitals aren’t overloaded and can manage to help those with serious health consequences while over the same time eventually a sizeable part of the population catches COVID19 and survives and eventually sufficient herd immunity naturally develops and then the virus peters out of the community and the community is no longer susceptible to re-infection from outside and a rapid explosion of cases.
Now that I’ve thought that through, I feel better about how the health authorities here are managing the spread of COVID19. Nevertheless it’s alarming to see the number of cases here going up exponentially like everywhere else, despite measures been taken here intended to slow its spread. Like everywhere else, we don’t have the number of hospital beds and ventilators needed for the worst case scenario that we seem to be headed for despite all attempts to avoid it. I wish they were testing everyone so there would be a clearer picture of what we are dealing with in the population, enabling more informed, intelligent, efficient, firm management of the pandemic.
Thank you
Definitely some “primal” references in here, although not directly to therapy:
“4 Ways to Control Your Emotions in Tense Moments”
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/4-ways-to-control-your-emotions-in-tense-moments?utm_source=pocket-newtab
For those who think that there is no value in wishful thinking (or dreaming), ponder this:
“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.”
– Langston Hughes
And then ponder this:
10 Dreams That Changed Human History
https://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/10-dreams-that-changed-the-course-of-human-history.html
Maybe if enough of us dream of a better world, we can create it.
Bernadette, I agree completely. A dream is a beginning on a path toward achieving it. I dreamt my life toward what I achieved. Sadly, my main dream now is to survive the pandemic without going nuts.
Larry, thanks for the kind response. Everything that we have created so far, was first perceived as a thought (or dream). No thought, no creation. I am confident that you can think of many ways to make this isolation time a productive time, rather than just a period to survive… Hang in there!
Bernadette
Renée, you sound livid with me. Just so you know I hold no grudge and feel no anger towards you and generally wish you all the best.
As for my following interpretation of Guru’s behaviour on the blog:
,
Coitus Interruptus is a Latin term that has little if any to do with psychoanalysis and served here as a metaphor. Idiom belongs to linguistics and carried forward to literature. The rest of the words in that paragraph are more or less plain English.
As for the paragraph as a whole – there’s nothing specifically psychoanalytic about it. A Janov might have said something similar. My guess is he would call the behaviour described in that paragraph a “memory”.
Livid? No. In the past, I have felt angry towards you and hurt by you. Now I feel mostly irritated and sometimes bemused by you. The only person that I feel livid towards is Trump.
Btw, Freud’s early theory of anxiety assumed that anxiety was the result of coitus interruptus, the interruption of sexual enjoyment. https://www.freud.org.uk/learn/discover-psychoanalysis/what-did-freud-say-about-anxiety/ : “Freud’s argument was that when the path to satisfaction is blocked (for instance, in coitus interruptus, when sexual intercourse ends before ejaculation), the resulting build-up of unsatisfied libido takes on a toxic character, finding an outlet in anxiety. As he would later put it, “neurotic anxiety arises out of libido, and is thus related to it in the same kind of way as vinegar is to wine.” Yes, vinegar to wine! Yes, the cause of men being anxious is that they are not ejaculating when they have sex! Thank god for Ronan Farrow. Thank god for the #MeToo movement. That is why I presented an alternate theory for UG frequently needing to flee from conversations…….that it is very difficult to enjoy sex, or conversations, or anything else for that matter, if we are feeling threatened or unsafe. Regardless of whether the fear is real or imagined.
I thought Daniel’s metaphor was a good one, and funny. The term coitus interruptus, in any case, is ridiculous, and part of why it’s funny. Does stating it in Latin add to understanding or better classify what goes on in that situation? I think there’s much simpler ways of stating it in English or any other live language. If true about Freud, then that’s just another example of his strange ideas.
Phil
Particularly with the introduction of Daniel’s ‘coitus interruptus’ comment, I’ve noticed there’s been a marked turn towards sexually-related topics here in recent days. I’ve often been interested in better understanding why some people feel a deep sense of Puritanical shame regarding the topic while others are quite open about it.
What are the roots behind why the topic can be so difficult to discuss for some people while others seem to have zero problem uhmmm….shamelessly ‘letting it all hang out’ (such as X-rated entertainers), so to speak?
Guru: I am not sure if I’m one that seems to have no problem discussing sex. I had to come to terms with my sexuality early in my life and especially since I was bullied at school for being different. At the time I had no idea why I was different only that I was goaded and called various names.
My initial response was to tell my dad who only suggested that I learned to fight … wrestling style, which I did, but that didn’ stop the goading and bullying. This set me on a path of adapting to my situation without (luckily) despairing of my sexual orientation, as many ‘Gay’ people do when they begin to realize it. I say luckily because I now had to look very carefully at a lot of ‘currently accepted notions’ about many things, including sex, and particularly at that time it being illegal … which got me a thinking about legality, the Law and all those people that made those laws.
It all fell into line for me, when I attended a lecgure in London about Law, Governing and Money and how it was all intertwined.
The other people that are shamed out of touching their genitals and sex, which was the way most kids were treated, or just asking questions about it to their parents. and the separation of boys from girls at school, and especially the separation of toilets for men and another for women. It’s little wonder that young boys and some girls are curious about members of the opposite sex.
Things ‘are a-changing’ but many are still holding on to their childhoods attitudes of those times. That to me, explains it
Jack
Larry,
I think that apart from contagion by droplets floating in the air, there is also the possibility of contagion by touching surfaces like plastic, metal or cardboard etc. having been contaminated for example by someone sneezing or by someone’s hands with virus on it.
it seems some surfaces can keep the virus virulent for many hours.
so actually if you wear loves or not is not so much the issue, it is then touching your face with your bare or gloved hands that is passing the virus onto a target zone.
I find it difficult not to touch my face, it is an ingrown habit and my nose gets tickly or I need cleaning it or touch my mouth or eyes or whatever, so it is good to be on my own so much, as at home that does not matter as long as I keep it clean after a possible contagion by a brief visit, like someone doing the shopping for me, or after having gone downstairs to close the hall door.
then i wash hands and if necessary clean some surfaces with disinfectant.
I do that too to protect the assistant shopper, I clean the shopping cart and bank card before letting them use it, and clean door handles before and after their visit.
during the visit we kept distance and she seemed very much at ease this morning.
it felt very good to have this good humored person over, chatting about her and about me, and she promised me in case I would get sick she would find a good solution to take care of the cats.
she added they are so very cute, of course we’ll take care of them well, which felt like the response I needed.
I told her that was nice to hear, even if maybe she would not succeed, but then again she reassured me there is always a solution.
I hope she can keep coming as she is so sunny and funny and nice and wise at the same time.
I could get hole of my mom as well in the afternoon which was good as she seemed a bit down at first.
I could make her smile again and we laughed both when I promised her we would party when we would get together again.
a day at a time for now.
no slopping towards a stage of pajama all day because I found out that actually is very depressing.
nice the blog is more active too, so nice to feel in touch with others…
M
I’m glad to hear how your are keeping safe, connected and sane Margaret. To me your informed strategy seems intelligent, wise and effective.
Hi everyone: I read all your posts and see most of where everyone is especially regarding coronavirus.
I feel I am in a unique position (not out of choice but sheer luck). I’ve been in a sort of isolation since I last went to the hospital some months ago. I hardly step outside the door, in this cold time . My life, as of now is watching 2 hours of TV to get the news and see interesting interviews by Christian Amanpour.
The other activity is going on the blog and for the moment I don’t think it’s capable of sending the virus over to me. So! the only danger from getting this virus is through Jim, and as of now I willing to take that risk. Jim’s is “MR. Hygiene” and keeps a close watch on me to make sure I do it all his way.
For the last week we’ ve not been touching one another. I don’t like that, but we made a pact to not touch each other for a week and today ended that week, and so for the first time in a week we hugged. For me, that’s back to normal. Yippee!
As for the Virus, it seem no-one has a real handle on it so all the theories are just that:- THEORIES, even from so-called experts. I’m taking a philosophical view of it all and behaving more or less the way I have been doing for the last two years. If the virus hit me, then I’ll sit with it and only email my doctor when I feel I might be a danger to someone else. If this is the way I am going to exit the world … so-be-it.
The last thing I want to do is to put my 2 cents in, as to what it all means. Strangely; none of it poses a threat to my notion about ……… guess what … MONEY.
Jack
I have no problem agreeing with you about that Jack. The virus can surely spread by unprotected handling of easily contaminated money. 🙂
Larry: Nice pun. You actually know what I mean, and I feel you don’t think ‘abolishing money’ would help transform:- the way we live. Yet! we are creating neurosis as we speak.
And also I feel strongly that the current coronavirus is demonstrating that the whole world is being brought to its knees
No-one on this blog, as I see it, has offered a way to rid humanity of neurosis. Merely only:- to suggest my idea would not work .. yet, offered no support as to why it wouldn’t work.
I have gone to the trouble to write a short book/pamphlet on it … which no-one, seemingly, wants to read.
I can accept that. but I do feel sad about it. 😦 😦
Jack
It seems to me that if you abolish money then people will resort to some other form of fair exchange, like giving pigs, chickens, or cattle in trade for something received. I think the real problem is not money but greed. I could agree with you Jack that the simple solution to humankind’s problems is to abolish greed. I believe that and the notion of anarchy are what Jesus Christ preached, to considerable affect, but 2020 years later humankind’s problems are still with us.
Larry: As I see it, your are putting the “cart before the horse”. Money and all forms of exchange (and that includes barter); CAUSES greed.
That needs thinking about IMO.
Jack
People were killing one another for control of territory and resources all the way back into the hunter gatherer stone age mists of time.
Larry: I wish to take way further back than all of that. about 20,000 – 30,000 years ago.
If you can remember that far back, let me know as that would be very interesting to me.
Jack
Ha ha you know me Jack. 🙂
Jack: This is the way I see it: There is nothing intrinsically wrong with money. It’s only the way the rich and powerful use it to suppress, exploit, and manipulate the rest of us, that’s wrong.
You say greed is the underlying factor, and I agree with you. But I would even go deeper: what makes a person greedy? Lack of self-worth. The feeling that “I am not enough” translates into “it’s never enough” money wise. Then comes the associated fear with it, to appear worthless and a nobody, and therefore not worthy to be loved. We are all afraid of not being loved. Somehow, in the course of the millennia, we have associated the value of a human being with the amount of money he/she can accumulate. That’s wrong.
So, the way to address it on a deeper level is to address the feeling of worthlessness.
If we really could feel the deep sense of worthiness inside each of us, if we really could feel how absolutely precious each and every human being is in his/her own right, then we would never even consider to exploit or diminish another human being by power of money (or any other power). We would only see their preciousness, their beauty, their creativity, whatever they could contribute to society. We would make sure that each human being is taken care of. We would work with each other instead of against each other. There would be no competition, because competition is the opposite of love. If we knew how precious we are, we would never doubt that we all deserve to be loved, and would never withhold love from each other.
The way I see it, greed is a symptom of the lack of self-worth; money is the band aid to fool yourself that you are “somebody”. In the long run, I would agree with you that we could do away with money all together. But that will not happen until we have recognized that each of us has the same value and is entitled to the same distribution of goods.
My dreams are getting better by the day… 😉
Bernadette
So true Bernadette👌💫
Thanks Jo 💖
Bernadette: I’ve already answered you privately, but here’s another take:-
You say:- “greed is a symptom of the lack of self-worth”. Correct, but what is the cause of the ‘lack of self-worth? Then what is the cause of that cause? and on and on and on. as I’ve said before:- effect, effect, effect.
So how do we break through that process? I contend, by breaking the whole system that holds it all in place. We can’t IMO, just fiddle with a bit here and a bit there, and hope we’ve fixed it. We humans have been doing just that for eons, yet! we seem to be going down that very same ‘rabbit hole’ and expecting a different result.
My take:- Scrap the whole of it and don’t replace it with anything, then see where that leads. It’s worth a try and the one solution (idea) that’s never been tried … yeah?
Jack.
Jack: The cause of lack of self-worth is not being loved. We gain a sense of self-worth by being loved unconditionally, acknowledged, and valued for who we are. Not for what we do or for how much we have or for how smart we are.
How do we break the cycle? Love unconditionally, acknowledge and value people for who they are, not for how rich or famous they are. Pass it on to the next generation. It is in each of us to do so. I am not saying it is an easy task, but it’s doable if we give it a chance. It’s as simple as that.
You say we humans have done the same “fiddle with a bit here and a bit there, and hope we’ve fixed it” for eons, and in some ways that’s true. But the process has also evolved over the eons. The awareness of people has evolved. Never in the human history have so many people recognized how corrupt and manipulative the system is, financial, social, political, environmental. Many atrocities are being uncovered and come to light. People are waking up and are fighting. And many more will follow to fight for the basic right for every person to be acknowledged, loved, respected, and treated with justice and dignity.
During this crisis, as we are losing more and more lives, rich and poor, old and young, we hopefully will start recognizing the real value of a human life… Corona doesn’t distinguish between classes or castes or socio-economic status. It casts its shadow indiscriminately.
I wonder, is this the silver lining? Maybe this tiny virus is “breaking the whole system that holds it all in place” doing exactly what your course of action would be. Or maybe, you and I both are dreaming…
Bernadette: You’re absolutely correct on all counts, in the context from which you are beholding all this. that was not the context I was referring to it all.
I learned at school about the idea and introduction of a POLICE FORCE. It was conjured up by a British MP in the late 19th century, called Robert Peel and the very first police station was right opposite Covent Garden Opera House on Bow Street and were called officially ‘The bow street runners’ other names were given later., More and more places created police stations and cities and were called ‘Peelers’ or ‘Bobbies’
Now it seems every country has them and everyone thinks we need them. Now we have millions of the many acts of “police abuse”. Let’s step back:- why do we think we need them:- because there are a lot of ‘bad’ people out there committing crimes. Who are these ‘bad’ people? … as you hinted, children that were unloved. Why were they unloved … because their mommies and daddies were in turn unloved by their mommies and daddies … and why were those mommies and daddies unloving … because their mommies and daddies were unloved;. and on and on and on, seemingly, ad infinitum. AND who are these people that become policemen? Mmmmm! ……….. my characterization is “overpaid bullies” who in tern as babies, we more than likely, bullied. And so the ‘MERRY’ goes round and round.
HOW DO WE BREAK THAT CYCLE??????? If ‘bad’ people are created by ‘bad’ people and they, in their turn we created by ‘bad’ people; stopping this process is not going to happen by just telling other people to love one another. That’s not human nature, that’s how we evolved from the moment we became neurotic and is now our behavior. Our nature got lost in the very process of our upbringing, and for us humans has been going on EVER, SINCE we became neurotic. So now the question becomes:- if education/teaching is not going to prevent neurosis for the future generations; WHAT WILL?
I contend, by the most radical change ever for us humans … That, I contend, is the ONLY way.
We’re the only creature that does not know how to bring up its young. You can’t teach, it … its unteachable.
At best for us in this therapy it comes along slowly, by INSIGHTS as only we Primal people know. BUT those outside this therapy don’t know, and seemingly are not willing to give Primal therapy a second thought. It is way too radical. So is:- abolishing Law, Governing and the glue that holds both these intact … MONEY repeat with a little more emphasis
M O N E Y.
Jack
Jack,
I hesitate to engage about this, but what’s very striking to me is how you fail in this explanation to connect the lack of love children receive with money. That is the disconnect in your thinking, as I see it
Phil
Phil: I am aware you don’t see how the money connects to child-rearing.
Every thinker on the subject and every anarchist has had the very same problem. It’s actually very similar to the acceptance of Primal theory and why many don’t see the connection to our birthing methods, child-rearing, and childhood trauma. It’s very hard to PROVE. It requires a “Conceptual leap”
Said another way it requires getting out of our preconceived BOX. Like Primal therapy as practiced, the patient is the expert, not the therapist. That’s very unconventional.
I cannot deliver it to you. It’s an INSIGHT and comes from within.
This is how I got there. I was told in that lecture many years go in my 20’s that democracy and the very essence of government were NOT really freedom. Also, like religion; the leaders told us:- what was right and what was wrong. So we become brainwashed into believing experts and NEVER questioning anything.
That’s the box I had to get out of. Soooo!!! I started by imaging a world without any controls set up by anyone. I started to see that I, personally, had to figure it out … and I did it by “WHAT IF’s……….”
Slowly it began to dawn on me that I had to get rid of my preconceived idea about so many things and being gay (different), helped. The very questioning of myself and pre-conceived ideas then revealed it all to me. BUT, like Primal therapy, I had to take that journey, myself, on my own … No-one could do it for me … mommy, daddy, teachers, professors, therapists, or leaders of any kind.
What, for me, would be more interesting would be to know just what you think of me, having these ideas … Am I crazy, demented or just a weirdo? And why did I take this path? Every night I ask the very same question of myself.
If you would start at that point that would be helpful to me AND possibly to you also.
Sorry Phil: but that is the best I can do.
Jack
Jack, for most of us starting with primal therapy, or all of us, there was no “conceptual leap” connecting primal theory to child rearing and childhood trauma. It’s attractive because it goes with our feelings and makes sense intuitively. Your ideas on money don’t follow the same pattern, in general, or maybe just for you and some other rare individuals, nor do they seem to go together with primal theory and therapy, except for you.
Phil
Phil: I don’t agree since I feel every one entering this therapy made the “conceptual leap” that reliving our traumas was the royal road to being free from those traumas. Those traumas were going to be back in our consciousness. There might be some exceptions as I understand Gretchen’s entrance into this therapy, being one.
Jack
Jack, but the traumas I relive are never about money, they’re about love. What about your’s, do they involve money? I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t think there is some simple fix for societal problems. I’m pessimistic in that I think we’re ruining the natural world, which I find very sad, and there isn’t any easy answer to that. To me the big issue is overpopulation; there’s too many of us, and most of us want a modern lifestyle, advanced medical care, etc, but that’s not sustainable.
Phil: “I don’t think there is some simple fix “I am aware of that.
I feel there is.
Jack
Jack, what if there is no solution that you or anyone else can think up to save all of us. Not money, primal, love, or anything else. Just our own individual solutions for our own lives. In other words, why not give up trying to save mankind -and womankind?
Phil
Phil: for the very same reason you are unable to stop responding to me. BUT please don’t stop responding. I love it.
Jack
Jack, it’s my own feeling of wanting to get through to you. I don’t give up maybe because of people in the past who at times I felt I couldn’t get through to, but I needed to. Phil
Phil: That’s absolutely fine, and I hope you’ll keep it up.
If you can,tell me precisely what it is you are trying to get through, to me, I would really like that.
Jack
Jack,
that’s a good question. I guess what I’m trying to do is loosen the seeming rigidity to which you hold these ideas. You don’t seem to see how unreasonable it is to continually push those same ideas on the blog. I guess I would like to see you do that, as well as uncover what really drives this behavior.
Phil
Jack, in your earlier message you asked whether I thought you were crazy, demented, or weird. None of those, but I do wonder what drives you with these ideas to save human kind. You have mentioned a lot about being controlled, and wanting less of that. But that might just be you, and not something universally good for everyone, and that might be something for you to consider. Phil
“You have mentioned a lot about being controlled, and wanting less of that. But that might just be you,” Of course, t’s just me.
But for you to suggest it is not universal, is a bit of a stretch, IMO.
Jack
Jack,
You agree about being controlled, that “of course t’s just me”. So how can you expand that and consider it valid to apply to everyone? It’s not a theme which comes up for me, which may be partly why your theories have no appeal for me. Phil
Phil/; I tend to think you are misreading me, OR I am not clearly expressing what I want to say.
I am totally against any one person controlling any other person or persons; including little children So! I am not sure what you are actually asking of me.
It’s not hard for me to see that my idea/s (or theories as you put it) don’t appeal to you. Many of the friends and relatives I tried to turn onto Primal therapy, or “The Primal Scheme”: said much the same thing
An example that comes to my mind is that:- “Feelings” ARE universal, not only to us humans, but all living creatures even perhaps plants (as in a Scottish experiment some years ago ‘Findhorn’
I am only asking that my idea be given some serious thought. I try hard NOT to force anything ‘down anyone’s throat’.
Jack
Jack, you say “I try NOT to force anything ‘down anyone’s throat’. Are you kidding me? That exactly what you do here all the time, try to force your ideas/feelings on us. Please don’t say we haven’t considered them either, that’s very far from the truth. Phil
Phil: Is there a difference between ‘thrusting something down someone else’ neck’ and stating an idea?
Jack
Jack, well, when you state an idea over and over when people have no interest in it, that is like forcing it or thrusting it down someone’s neck. Also, I get the feeling when you say we haven’t considered your idea, what you really mean is we don’t agree with you. Stating your idea repeatedly over years probably won’t get anyone to agree. I certainly have considered your ideas and read your book years ago. By trying to force your ideas like that, doesn’t it amount to trying to exert control? It’s what maybe prompts me to respond, as I said in an earlier post. Not the content of your ideas, but the way you keep pushing them. I’m not upset, otherwise I’d cut off from the discussion, just sharing my point of view and how I feel about it. Phil
Phil: stating over and over is NOT ‘thrusting it downs people neck’ it’s merely stating it over and over again. What no one attempts to do, as far as I perceive it, is to ask me how it would all manifest itself. I get the feeling that it’s a case of “attacking the messenger”.
I have been asked numerous times; what drives me to promote this. In one sense that a valid question and I’ve attempted to explain why, in the old feeling context, but my old feeling DOES NOT INVALIDATE THE IDEA.
As I stated to Margaret some months ago:- if it irritates her, me going on and on about it, the simple solution is to not read my comments and just delete them. If I am irritated, I look into myself as to what is driving me irritable.
I repeat for the 999th time … It’s not my idea, and the only thing I have brought to the table for other anarchists, to look at it is, THE PRIMAL CONTEXT, that I HAVE WRAPPED IT INTO.
Talking of the controlling factor; putting the idea of neurosis and then Janov’s cure of it seems to me, to equate the two by suggesting that Janov’s 14 books and his blogs on the subject. …for you, that would consist of control? There are millions out there promoting ideas about making the world a better place and their insistence goes on and on and on. Look no further than political parties I don’t agree with either, but I am not irritated, AND I will listen to them, only to draw my own conclusions, about their idea/s, and I try to do that from a RELATIVE POV
You say you read my book years ago. The book/pamphlet I wrote on anarchy I wrote last year. Perhaps you are referring to another book I wrote?
I get it you are just putting forward you POV and that OK by me If you wish to argue the merits or demerit of ‘anarchy’ that would be fine also., but I don’t get that you are doing that. I could well be wrong.
Jack
Jack, I have debated with you numerous times in the past about anarchy and the abolition of money, in all its aspects, and I’m not interested in doing that again today. I just don’t see the merit of those ideas no matter who is promoting them. Phil
Phl: Fine.
Jack
Jack:
You say: “If ‘bad’ people are created by ‘bad’ people and they, in their turn were created by ‘bad’ people; stopping this process is not going to happen by just telling other people to love one another. That’s not human nature, that’s how we evolved from the moment we became neurotic and is now our behavior.”
So, are you saying that to love one another is not human nature? Do you really believe that we have evolved into “bad” people and “being bad” and “bad behavior” have become human nature? If that’s what you are saying, I wholeheartedly disagree.
I am not in denial about certain humans acting in “bad” ways. But I would never assert that human nature is bad. To the contrary, I believe human nature is Love at the most fundamental level. It is the highest and most precious good we have.
And I disagree with you that love cannot be taught. When I was a kindergarten teacher, it was relatively easy to guide children to love and respect each other, to see the other’s point of view, and to be kind and forgiving. Maybe we should start including daily lessons in self-love and love for the other in school? If each child would be given a safe place and the time to become aware of, and practice accessing his/her source of love, and get educated in treating the other with love, I believe that we could change society.
I also don’t believe that only primal people have the inside knowledge or insight on how to love or raise children. I know people not in therapy who are kind and loving and instinctively know how to treat their children with love and respect. They are not raising “bad” people.
And here we are a whole generation with the knowledge and insight of primal therapy; so why not pass it on? I don’t think it is absolutely necessary to go to therapy; my sisters and niece are learning to pay attention to their feelings, recognize neurotic patterns, connect current feelings to old traumas, allowing themselves to cry; my eldest sister has been “primalling” for years and has never been in therapy. All it takes is awareness and dedication. And someone who gives them reality. I agree it is a slow process but evolution is slow and we have eons to perfect ourselves. (But actually, I don’t believe it will take that long).
We can also observe that humanity is evolving rapidly as we speak; more and more people become aware of, and speak out against, injustice, inequality, perpetration of violence against minority groups, misogynistic behavior, etc., which is a sure sign of self-respect, self-love, and love for others. It is an indication that we do have the fundamental knowledge or intuition for love and that we are waking up to it. The process of evolving into a more loving, less neurotic society might be accelerated at this point in time.
So, this is just one idea in opposition to your radical theory of “abolishing Law, Governing and the glue that holds both these intact … MONEY”. Your theory doesn’t prove that abolishing money would end neurosis IMO. Even if we did do away with money, it wouldn’t guarantee that “bad” people (as you see them) would suddenly be less neurotic. If the neurosis is so deeply imbedded in humanity as you point out (“mommies and daddies were unloved; and on and on and on, seemingly, ad infinitum”), then it would take a deeper overhaul of their neurotic psyche as merely relieving them of money.
Or, maybe if that does’t work, Earth can bring in a replicator that gives us everything we want…like on Star Trek 🙂 BTW, are people on Star Trek always happy and not neurotic?
In general I find your outlook very dark and pessimistic. I wonder why you see the world in such a pessimistic way.
Bernadette
Berbadette: In quoting me I wrote “just telling other people to love one another. That’s not human nature, that’s how we evolved from the moment we became neurotic and is now our behavior”. then YOU reply with “So, are you[‘re] saying that to love one another is not human nature” No No and No! that is not was I am saying. It’s TELLING other people to love one another that is not our nature. that’s neurotic. You can’t teach people to love and worse tell others that’ what they ought to do.
“Do you really believe that we have evolved into “bad” people “Yes, yes, and Yes we’ve evolved into BAD people. Being neurotic is BAD Becoming neurotic, however, that happened, was part of the evolving.
If we had our human nature back, then we’d all be GOOD people (my definition of good and/or bad) doing our own thing in our own way without anyone telling us what we can do OR, telling us what we cannot do. There would be no desire for anyone to any harm anyone else since we’d have our real nature and be naturally empathetic towards all other people. The bug in the works as of now is:- money all means of exchange that means, is we have to adapt to all these impositions placed upon us under what is called capitalism (money dealings). No country and nowhere in our current civilization does ‘money’ NOT exist. it’s the “fly in the ointment” or as the early computer developer stated:- the “bug in the electronics”
You say:- “I am not in denial about certain humans acting in “bad” ways. But I would never assert that human nature is bad.” I agree and thought YOU understood that about me.
You say:- “I also don’t believe that only primal people have the inside knowledge or insight on how to love or raise children.” In the strict sense of that word ‘Love’ I have never met anyone able to totally love their children … it’s conditional … always. There’s the “rub”
For now, Nuff said, but thanks for the opportunity to banter with you.
Jack
Jack, so you are telling me I can’t tell people to love one another (because it it neurotic to tell people what to do, as you say), but you are trying to convince me that you can tell people to give up money, live without the law, and fend without a government (because that would make them less neurotic, as you say)… hmmm… Maybe we should do a survey on this and see which choice people would prefer 😉
Bernadette: I am not telling you (commanding you) I am telling you (informing you)) that all telling, teaching, or any form of commanding others is, by MY definition, neurotic
In no way an I commanding people to give up money. |am suggesting if we collectively gave up money and all forms fo exchange, we might be able to live far better lives; collectively. It’s an idea that has been around for over 100 years before my birth.
Yes, I am suggesting if we abolish Law, Government and Money SURPRISINGLY it would all work out and as a result, many thing that happen now, would suddenly cease to happen. However,, it’s a complex situation to consider, since as we all know there are unintended consequences to many of the things we do now. I could cite an example but you would immediately jump on that example.
I am not chastising you for jumping on it, merely suggesting that it is just such cases that makes the subject very complex to describe. Karl Marx had to write at le\st two long and detailed books to get his idea across. very few people were willing to wade through them. And to complicate things further Markx felt the need to go into the historical context of governing and law-making in order to make a thorough case.
I personally critiqued Marx for the way he suggested to bring it about, and that is where I brought in ‘the Primal context. In the end, it was Stalin’s version (Stalininism) that killed the communist notion. and all the subsequent Communist experiments, not Marx’s version of what could be.
No survey needed, and anyway, surveys do not necessarily give us a clear and full picture.
Jack
40 years of my life was spent in professional interaction with people, including families. In that time I met only a few in my total, personal and professional, including professionals, passed my sniff test as to who I would have entrusted to interact in a ,’ person of authority,’ way with my children. I thought my 2nd wife was the best parent I had known, kind, demonstrative, involved. But then it became clear how she adopted roles, and, kindly, manipulated her children to aspire to become faux superior class, as coldly compartmentalised as she.
(Having to re-register)
I would not be too certain that x-rated entertainers are all that open about sex actually. For that matter you might be surprised to find that many would not describe what they do as sex. Gretchen
Gretchen: I totally concur with that. Most of us have done it, least-way tried it. and it’s a very natural and normal process that takes place for all of us in puberty. AND most creatures one way or another do it.
Jack
I’m sorry, but you’ve confused me there. I’ve never counted on people who never wear less than three layers of clothing in public to be more open about sex than those who would fully expose themselves in front of the public???
Renée, for me the main point was Guru and not Freud so let me just stress that mine was an observation and not a theory, which would be something seeking to explain the observation. In a subsequent comment I did write that an Arthur Janov (and Freud too while we’re at it) might have called it a “memory”. That is indeed a beginning of a theory, but just a very first step.
I have no idea what Ronan Farrow or #MeToo have to do with all this, but regarding Freud’s early theory of anxiety your introduction to that quote from the Freud Museum is tendentious. The quote is describing a general theory of what causes anxiety, and it does so, as it should, in general terms, “…when the path to satisfaction is blocked”. It then adds, in brackets, a specific example to illustrate that principle, “(for instance, in coitus interruptus, when sexual intercourse ends before ejaculation)”.
Your introduction, however, turns the example of coitus interruptus into the general theory and decisively but erroneously rules that, “Freud’s early theory of anxiety assumed that anxiety was the result of coitus interruptus“.
Coitus interruptus was very well known and described and was, and is, a widely practiced means of trying to avoid conception while having sex. My own use of it here was just that – means of preventing something from being conceived and born. You can disagree with my use of that specific term – as Phil wrote, there are probably better ways of expressing the same idea. But that was my way. Freud and psychoanalysis had nothing to do with it.
Daniel, your prowess of the intellectual variety is impressive. But it does not excite me.☹ Rather, it comes across as mental gymnastics, or mental masturbation, if you like. This is just my observation. Not attached to any theory or shaft. The only sentence that was somewhat pleasurable (and made total sense) to me was your comment that, “I have no idea what Ronan Farrow or #MeToo have to do with all this”. I think that this unlikely to change. So be it. Sometimes social intercourse is fun and exciting, sometimes it leads to climax and sometimes it just ends in frustration.
Ew…
Never in the field of human discourse was so much owed by so many (words) to so few (syllables). Thank you Jo.
😁
Daniel, I love it when you try and use simple words, even if it is a work in progress. It felt really good to read this. Keep it up!
As usual, nothing about the issues at hand and all about me personally. I’m not sure why you need this. Anyway, the condescension with which your recent comments is laden doesn’t wear well on you. Condescension without substance is empty.
Oh no! Just when I start to feel some pleasure and enjoyment, you feel frustrated. And experience me as being condescending. And then you descended. Sorry you couldn’t keep it up. Oh well……I guess I’m frustrated now.
Yes, I feel frustrated as I do when a conversation proves to be impossible to have. It’ll be over soon. One of the benefits I got at the PI and from the life-long primal process was to better tolerate my frustrations. It made a considerable change in my life. So the fact that what corresponds in you to my frustration are “pleasure and enjoyment”, though not entirely surprising, is adding a saddening tint to my frustration on the one hand, but also already pointing a way out of it on the other.
Seems like you’re enjoying a fantasy of a sexual encounter with Daniel, Renee.
That’s some interpretation, Larry, brace yourself.
Lol!
That’s my perception, too. Similar to the ,” teases,” attempted effort to achieve control. Well, sure changes the , ” same old,” air construct of the rather comfortable veteran contributors. Let the ,” battle of the nubile ensue.” (:
Guru, I’m not certain if this was a question or not but if it is….yes someone wearing three layers of clothing can certainly be more sexually at ease than someone wearing very little. Sometimes someone who is coming across as very sexual is doing so for other reasons. As an aside I don’t think Daniels comments were at all sexually related though it seems you did. I think he was saying something very similar to what you and I discussed recently. That you introduce a subject and when you get a response that’s uncomfortable for you, rather than explore what’s uncomfortable, you say you are too busy, tired or whatever to speak further. That’s ok if that’s what you need to do but it may make it more difficult to get closer to others which I believe you really want. Gretch
With a heavy sigh of resignation I see I have a lot of work ahead of me to thoroughly respond to everything you said. I will get back to you as soon as I can after I properly dissect your statements and organize my responses.
Gretchen’s writings in quotes.
My responses following hyphens.
“Guru, I’m not certain if this was a question or not but if it is….yes someone wearing three layers of clothing can certainly be more sexually at ease than someone wearing very little.”
–Just because something CAN be true doesn’t mean it’s CONVENTIONALLY true. I CAN walk down to the convenience store and buy a winning lotto ticket right now. Does it mean it will
conventionally happen? No.
Or…how about this snippet?
A hetero couple is lying blissfully naked in bed.
GUY: ‘Honey, let’s make love’
LADY: ‘Sure sweetie, let me go put my clothes on.’
Can you see what I am trying to convey here? I really think you can, yet you’re actively trying to emphasize a strange exception to the colloquially accepted rule.
Why are you doing this so forcefully where I am concerned?
“Sometimes someone who is coming across as very sexual is doing so for other reasons. As an aside I don’t think Daniels comments were at all sexually related though it seems you did.”
–Gretchen, look you have Daniel talking about coitus interruptus and Renee talking about ejaculations. Yes, I think we all understand it was to poke fun of Freud’s liberal
use of sexual ideations, but how often do you hear these things at your local supermarket, post office, or convenience store? Do you casually discuss ejaculations with the cashier?
Most people don’t. What I decided to do was simple. The group was becoming more liberated than normal in terms of sexual discussions & I simply took the unusual opportunity to examine a
tangentially-related topic (range of sexual shame/acceptance across society) while everyone seemed reasonably close to the topic.
“I think he was saying something very similar to what you and I discussed recently.
That you introduce a subject and when you get a response that’s uncomfortable for you, rather than explore what’s uncomfortable, you say you are too busy, tired or whatever to speak further.
That’s ok if that’s what you need to do but it may make it more difficult to get closer to others which I believe you really want. Gretch”
–Hopefully this time around my working efforts to address this are more fruitful.
Knowing you from the blog and from a few phone conversations, I imagine it took focused, intentional effort for you to compose and present your reply above to Gretchen, UG. I’m impressed that you did, given how much it seems to make you uncomfortable and taxes your energy to do so.
As for myself, for sure I’ve noticed that writing on the blog is work that consumes my time and energy and to me feels emotionally risky every time I post, but the opportunity that this blog offers me for unique connection with you all has been and continues to be helpful to me on several layers, so I’m still here.
I hope that over time, as you feel able, we hear more from you on how you are doing.
Now that I think about it Guru why was the couple hetero ? G
It doesn’t matter; my words and/or pronouns are completely interchangeable with lesbian couples, as well.
I’m sorry, but trying to imagine two guys going at it for me personally creates a visceral, “Ewww” or “Ugh” reaction from me. I can’t help how I am personally wired, OK?
Works for me. Probably most of us love you however you’re wired.
This does bring up another interesting question for me: Does refusing to marry or have kids with someone not of your own race make one a racist? I’ve had mixed responses to this one with about 70-75% ‘not racist’.
How do you feel about it, Guru? Do you have an opinion? In your census taking has anyone asked what you think?
I’m thinking if one cares about someone of a different race enough to have them as a friend then it would not matter or be a question to marry or have a child with them. It may go against family wishes, though.
But just on the face of it I would have to say, “Yes” racist, if there is hatred or a sense of superiority feeling over the other’s race that is involved .
Is it instinctive–I don’t think so, I think it depends on how and where you are brought up. My friend from England had none of the prejudices my family had. My nephews grew up with Asian and Hispanic kids and had no prejudices about them like some in my generation did.
Sylvia, thanks for telling your logic on this and your story with it. To be as honest as I can, I’m having a really tough time with this question, which is precisely why I asked a few people about it over the years. Also, if you look up Quora questions or Reddit forums on the matter, the percentages (70% not racist, 30% racist) are roughly in line with what I encountered.
Seriously, it’s a very difficult one for me and I can see it cutting both ways. There is a part of me which says personal preferences are sacred and race-baiting shouldn’t impugn on those personal preferences.
Perhaps it’s worthwhile to explore whether we’d be offended if someone of another race refused to intermarry with Caucasians? (I’m assuming that’s the vast majority of us here on the blog).
Anyway, it’s just an interesting question I wanted to throw out there.
Guru: On the issue of “racism” it is another layer beneath ‘Culture’. To the best of my knowledge, I have not idea what my culture/race is … AND am not particularly concerned. Looking at the back of my hand just now, it didn’t appear white. It looked more like a wishy-washy shade of pink and brown.
.
As for intermarrying. If I were to marry someone outside of my immediate family I would be inter-marrying. It’s all about words and our sense of their meaning.
Just another aspect if my weirdness.
Jack
Guru: Right on. Don’t worry about how guys ‘go at it’ … there are several hundred ways. All of them, I’m sure, will give you the shudders.
As I see it, it’s all about how we came about to understand sex. Sex is one part of a wider experience. The experience of how 2 people are romantically engaged … normally in bed … ‘making love’.
Seen that way for me; makes a ‘whole host’ of a difference.
Jack
WOW !, just WOW !! that’s a, ” why,” that everyone wanted to work with you.
Also having worked with hundreds of folks who used sex as currency, and advertised with attire, I concur.
Larry, in response to your question on March 22, 2020 at 8:53 pm above:
I have been pretty much self-isolating since early January. I got very sick back then and since then, instinctively have not had the desire to commingle with people. I was sick for about 5-6 weeks with symptoms very much like COVID19 although at that time, it had not officially arrived yet in the US, per the experts… I have had the flu before, but this felt exponentially worse. From everyday yoga classes I went to zero yoga. No hiking or biking or meeting with friends, no work outs, I missed small group twice. Even if I had wanted to go, I didn’t have the physical strength to go. And I didn’t want to expose anybody to whatever I had. I also dealt with very scary and painful feelings connected with birth and dying (and survival). Then the official word came that CA has COVID19 cases and the mandate to social distancing, and that sealed the deal to stay home. I have no desire to expose myself to another bout of “whatever” – I’ve had enough already. I have been out only for groceries.
I don’t have a problem with being isolated. I have always been a bit of a recluse, so this is nothing new for me. I like spending time with myself and keep myself busy. Email and WhatsApp are great ways to stay connected with people/family when the need arises. And luckily, I am not alone, my hubby is self-isolating with me.
I found the best way to handle the isolation is to make a conscious effort to stay in the present, instead of wanting to be somewhere else. It helps to stay informed but not make myself crazy with every bit of news. Trust that everything is just the way it is supposed to be. Watch the flowers grow. Listen to the birds. And lots of dreaming … 🙂
Hang on in there, Larry!
Bernadette
Thanks for filling in that background Bernadette. I think all of us on the blog are happy you are self-isolating, for the sake of your health and for our sake because we get to hear from you a lot more.
While in LA for the January retreat I heard the news about the weird virus spreading in Wuhan. The news made me want to get home soon and away from airports and crowds before infected travelers started carrying it to North America. On Jan 30 I arrived home from the retreat. The next day I had aches, pains and chills that told me I had a flu. It was my first in decades. A few days after that breathing and coughing became pretty bad toward evening. I am asthmatic. When I was 20 years younger I never had as much breathing difficulty from the flu. By 10 pm one evening I was coughing so spasmodically that my chest muscles hurt and I got really worried. Luckily Buckley’s cough medicine calmed my airway down enough that I could sleep a few hours. Day by day I improved, but was really weak and tired until about the end of Feb. At the time I didn’t at all believe that what I had could have been COVID19/ Of that was a regular flu, I’m terrified of succumbing to COVID19, so I wish it had been COVID19 and I have immunity to it now. Unfortunately I doubt I do, so I’m behaving as if I’m infected and don’t want to spread it to others, and as if I’ve never had it and desperately never want to get it. It means disciplined self-isolation for me I think at least until this first wave of the pandemic dies out.
Larry, looks like I am having some technical difficulties. I have been trying to post a response to you for the last hour; it is not showing but when I try to re-post, it’s giving me the message that it is already posted and it’s a duplicate. Sorry. It might show up tomorrow, if not I will retry posting tomorrow. It might show up after I post this message…
Bernadette
Bernadette: I’ve had the same problem and in my case, it turned out I was answering on an earlier blog article. Not sure if that is the situation in your case. but you could check out those other articles.
That’s a long boring endeavor, so! another idea is to slightly alter the wording in say the first sentence, then make sure you’re posting it on this current one. That prevents the pesky “duplicate” response.
Jack
Trying again:
Larry: Thanks again for your kindness 🙂 I am enjoying the blog for now. The Google dictionary is getting a lot of hits from me these days as I am expanding my English vocabulary.
Your experience at the end of January sounds very scary! I can relate as your symptoms sound very similar to mine, including the dry cough that almost ripped my chest apart (I used Rocky Mountain all natural cough syrup, which helped after a few days). I had the shallow breathing because the lungs didn’t want to expand. I was weak and had no energy, my entire body was in pain, and I lost a lot of weight. It must have been even scarier for you because of your asthma. I definitely agree with you that the best course of action at this point is to self-isolate. Since neither of us knows whether we had the Coronavirus or not, it’s better to be safe than sorry! Maybe one day there will be a test available that can detect our immunity. Until then I will do as you do, behave as though I’m still infectable and keep my distance.
I am getting more apprehensive by the day as my shopping list is getting longer and I know I will have to face the hostile world soon. When I was out last week for groceries, I was first afraid and perceived every person as a potential enemy, every thing I touched was a potential time bomb. (If I remember correctly, you mentioned a similar notion in another post). I noticed after a while though, that I felt more comfortable being out and among people… as long as they kept their distance and I washed my hands when I came back home. Still I am only going out when absolutely necessary. I am good for a few more days, thankfully!
Halleluja!
Praise the Lord and the dictionary, Bernadette! 😊
I think the safest time to do grocery shopping is first thing in the morning when the store opens. Heavy contact surfaces in the store will have been disinfected and there won’t be many customers about, I think. I tried the strategy last week. As I entered the store first thing in the morning and I disinfected my hands and my shopping cart handle with the sani-wipes provided inside near the store entrance, I soon felt my defensive, vigilant wall of COVID19 induced paranoia relax some. There being only a handful of us in the store, the social atmosphere felt normal, even friendly, relaxed and most of all safe, reminding me of what regular, pre-pandemic life once felt like,. I felt as if we were all glad to see each other engaged in what was once a normal, mundane routine, even while at the back of our minds we know that grocery shopping a risky event with potential deadly consequences, so we responsibly practice social distancing while at the same time we rely on each other’s appreciation that our collective, thoughtful behaviour toward each other’s welfare will reduce suffering, save lives, and cut down the monster in our community. I became aware of how much trust I place or not in my community, even for something as unexceptional as grocery shopping.
I think the grocery store cashiers are unsung heroes. They are at the front line of interaction with a constant stream of grocery shopping possibly infected public. I wondered what will happen when the cashiers are no longer willing to take on the risk of doing their job. I’m glad that one of the grocery chains will be installing plexiglass partitions to help isolate cashiers from customers.
Some of the grocery stores and pharmacies here have allotted the first hour open only to seniors over 65 for daily shopping.
Often I’m angry that our city, provincial and federal officials have had lots of time to see the deadly consequences of the pandemic breakout in other countries and that it will undoubtedly erupt here and they could have adopted preventative measures early to slow its spread, yet they seemed to keep their heads in the sand and behave as if it won’t cross our borders, and only began to react when finally it appeared here and they had to. At other times I’m glad for the leadership and community wide response now at least. Sometimes that feeling of trust in my community erupts in feelings going back to childhood of not being able to trust my community (my parents). I’m learning how as a child I was unable to trust that my community (my parents) would do the right thing by me, and what a suite of vulnerable, paralysis inducing lonely feelings it framed my life in from then on. Those feelings originating in childhood seamlessly mesh with and reinforce my self-distancing self-isolating pandemic paranoia triggering vulnerability and helpless feelings now, balanced with the need to be able to trust my community and leaders to do the right thing to get us through this.
I have a few groups I’m getting audio-visually engaged with, and phoning, texting and emailing. Without the electronic connection, and primal therapy, I don’t know how I’d safely, sanely get through this.
Larry: Amen! 🙂
Last time I went to Trader Joe’s, I arrived 20 minutes before the store opened in the morning and there were already 15 people in a line waiting. By the time the doors opened, there were 30 more behind me in line. TJ’s doesn’t let senior people shop first, but I like their policy, that they allow only a certain number of shoppers in the store at once, so that the recommended distance between people can be maintained. I was disappointed though that the shelves were almost empty and some of my food staples were missing. I went to two more TJ’s, only to find out that most items were already off the shelf. Returning home, I got into a feeling: “I won’t have enough food!” and cried about it. It is clearly related to my early childhood, when I was not allowed to, or couldn’t eat because of medical treatments. I must have felt the sensation of starvation or something like that and the associated fear with it would have felt life threatening to a baby. Anyway, after I cried I was okay and not afraid anymore that I would starve during this pandemic.
I had a friendly conversation with a woman while waiting in line, we exchanged recipes and showed each other -from a safe distance – pictures on our phones of family members and dogs. But generally, I noticed that people avoided eye contact with each other, kept to themselves very much. I sensed a lot of anxiety and fear of the uncertainty to come. One man in front of me at the check-out had about a dozen shopping bags with him but only was able to buy groceries to fill three or four bags. He looked like he was in a lot of panic, his eyes darting around the store and from person to person. My heart went out to him.
Today we received a pamphlet from the city of Culver City listing a whole lot of services for the elderly and the community. I thought, Oh maybe I could volunteer for one of the organizations… only to find out that they counted persons at my age to the elderly!! That’s a laugh! And a shock at the same time! Am I really that old? I don’t feel “elderly” or “old” and I certainly could volunteer, taking food to the “real” elderly….hmmm! But I get it, I need to be protected from the virus. This pandemic is appearing more ridiculous as we speak!
How fascinating that your distrust in the community, paranoia, vulnerability and helplessness tie neatly in with your childhood experience. I think this pandemic probably pushes on everyone’s bottom line feeling. Most just don’t know it, and I am afraid we might be seeing a lot of act outs as the mandates of social distancing and self-isolation are drawn out to weeks, maybe months. Violence. Domestic abuse. Child abuse. Elderly abuse. Alcoholism. Drugs. Murder. Mayhem. Anarchy! 😉
Part of me is getting annoyed and bored with this. I want this to be over now… I don’t know what hit me, but I am suddenly getting very depressed about it all……
Owww!!!! Grocery lineups and empty shelves. That would super spike my stress hormones and ruin my sleep if that was happening here. Could be on the way. I don’t like to think about it.
For sure this has to be tapping into each person’s trauma all the way down to first line. I feel real bad for the people who don’t have sufficient education, critical thinking skills, information, or financial and physical resources to understand and try to cope with what is happening, whose life experience never gave them reason to trust their society, who live with fear and hopelessness at the best of times. I don’t think about it too much though and focus on reaching out to family and friends,by phone and online. Connection is rejuvenating.
Larry, when you think about that a huge percentage of families who live from paycheck to paycheck and are just one little disaster away from ruin or living on the street… this pandemic must scare the life out of them! And it breaks my heart seeing senior citizens going to the supermarket and standing dumbfounded in front of empty shelves! What are they going to do? For these people it must seem that the world has come to an end…. it’s really hard right now for many. At least we have the inner and material resources to cope with it.//
What’s going to happen when Jack abolishes money? How will we cope with the pandemic then?
Good question… I’m sure he will have an answer, if you ask him//
Anarchy.
Guru: Once money has been off our manner of living, then our immune systems would be totally intact and those viruses would not be able to get at us.
Jack
A bit of infamous BC BUD might be in order…. Finally, I started music theory / guitar theory study. I’ve played for 60 years, but no formal education. Amazing how simple it is, and easy to learn. I dispute that ageing is an obstacle to learning,
I was already accomplished in social isolation….(:
Wow, another self taught guitarist on the blog called David and who’s studying music theory at the moment. What an absolutely bizarre coincidence! Well, I guess it is the world’s most popular instrument.
Well, how do you do, David?
Well, thanks for asking David. A bit freaked out about the virus and the economy but otherwise…
Guru, I am baffled by your response. First of all I don’t have Daniel or Renee talking about anything. Their responses are theirs. I also did not think they were making jokes about Freud though it’s possible I missed the joke. Also I was not referring to exceptions or obscure occurrences in my comments, not at all. What I was referring to has nothing to do with your example of two people in bed. I also am not saying that there is something wrong with discussing sex here but rather addressing a larger issue. Possibly I was not clear or maybe you misunderstood what was clear. I’m not certain. Gretchen
Since you’ve interacted with thousands of different people from all across the globe, I figured I could be a bit lackadaisical with my writing,
So, if you truly needed clarification, I meant “we see Daniel and Renee talking about…” instead of “you have Daniel and Renee talking about…”
I admit I was a bit careless there.
Also, we see Daniel, Renee, and Phil at times derisively and amusingly discussing Freud and his use of sex terms, etc.
The larger issue you discussed earlier was my staying responsive to you and others. I’m trying to address that when I can.
For those of you who, like me, are also currently experiencing very high levels of lividness toward Trump, this is some good medicine, IMO. I think comedians should be classified as an “essential service”. They definitely are for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqrhH6xIegw&t=1s
Renee: Livid is not the word I am tempted to use. but my feelings towards him are not the question. My feelings belong to me and I attempt to express them simply without acting-out, z best I can.
If I’m failing in that endeavour, I stand to be corrected by anyone on this blog.
Jack
I’m coming to realize when I am super mad at someone, that person has a lot of power over me whether I am consciously allowing it or not. Also if you become incredibly rich, you can literally make Trump your servant who will do good things for you. A complete anarchist, laissez-faire capitalist, and jungle law president kowtowing to only one ruler: wealth.
Guru, That is great that you are addressing your issues as much as you can but by larger issue I meant sexuality and how it’s expressed. In other words I meant the issue of the naked porn star being open sexually vs the fully clothed person repressing their sexuality . Gretchen
If this is an issue for you, would you like to talk about it some more?
I see what you mean, Gretchen, that what looks like sex isn’t always sex, and that it can be hi-jacked by any emotion or first line experience. Exhibitionists who like to show their efforts, porn stars, probably feel the need to be on display. They get some emotional lift from the attention, or maybe it is a destructive emotional pattern continuing from their earlier family life. Many of those women have early deaths due to overdose. Clearly there is some pain not being addressed in their lives.
Janov’s book, “Sex and the Subconscious,” explains well how pain affects our ability to be in touch with our emotions and therefore how to relate to another person in intimacy. Also, any repression from infancy, the pain from birth or gestation can shut down our response and cause frigidity or impotence.
I’m glad I’ve felt a lot of my first line pain and emotional pain too, but I still like to dress conservatively in public.
And here’s Jimmy Kimmel’s take on the current situation. It’s amazing what you can learn from comedians. For example, I didn’t know about the extreme and dramatic measures that some mayors of Italian cities are resorting to, to get their citizens to comply with the rules. And I didn’t know that that the N.Y. Dept. of Health just put out safety guidelines for sex and how these guidelines could lead to a whole population of people needing therapy in the future. Funny stuff! Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5DCq0FbzpE
I’m doing OK with social isolation, but I do miss some regular activities. Also worried abut some family members.
I’m outraged that Trump is willing to risk lives in favor of a good economy.
And here’s a sickening story about the Lieut. Gov of Texas, who is willing to sacrifice old people, for that same reason:
“Dan Patrick, the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, told Fox News’ disproportionately older audience Monday night that he and other American seniors would be willing to risk dying from the coronavirus in order to ensure that the economy doesn’t slide into a serious recession.
“If that’s the exchange, I’m all in,” Patrick said of the choice between risking infection and protecting the economy by returning people to work. “I’ve talked to hundreds of people… making calls all the time, and everyone says pretty much the same thing: That we can’t lose our whole country, we’re having an economic collapse.”
“My message is: Let’s get back to work,” said Patrick, who emphasized that he is a grandparent. “Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves, but don’t sacrifice the country. Don’t do that. Don’t ruin this great American dream.”
“You’re basically saying that this disease could take your life, but that’s not the scariest thing to you,” replied Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “There’s something that would be worse than dying.”
“Yeah,” said Patrick.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/24/repulsive-outrage-texas-lieutenant-gov-says-seniors-willing-risk-coronavirus
And younger people are dying from covid19 as well. I think this crisis is helping us to focus on what’s important in life. Like, being alive is important.. Maybe if we’re lucky it could result in changes to our culture and attitudes.
Phil
A new variation of “cannon fodder” IMO! Disgraceful! Dan Patrick would be the first to get excellent medical care including a ventilator, should he get infected, therefore doesn’t really risk his life as much as the thousands that he lured into his twisted mindset and back to work and most likely death; they would be just thrown under the bus, as there are not enough hospital beds and/or respirators to give them the care they need, should they contract the virus. When are people standing up for themselves and stop dying “heroic deaths” for the country?
What is so great about America anyway that needs dying for? Shouldn’t we first save lives and then make sure that America is great for us all? Not riches for the few and the dumps for the rest of us. “Liberty and justice for all” my a….! It makes me angry!
A song for the times 😀:
Larry,
good one!
I echo Phil’s sentiment, Larry. What a beautiful and perfectly appropriate version.
Larry: absolutely brilliant! I cried with laughter… then with sadness. Thank you!
Reminded of this one I heard a few weeks ago:
Love it! “And we can’t ever let the darkness win!”
It is a sad song.
“If he wins we’ll kiss our country good-bye”. All to true.
This was posted on my neighborhood website along with offers for rides, grocery shopping and free goods – really wonderful – gretch
My son, Nathan, came home from a bike ride with his dad on Saturday with some exciting news. “A neighbor is going to make a parade for my birthday!”
He (with some help from dad) explained that some neighbors were planning to celebrate kids who were missing their birthday celebrations due to the lockdown. They wanted to be sure the kids still got to have a special day. “People are going to make signs for me!” Nathan explained.
This act of kindness, initiated by Barb, a wonderful neighbor (and until today, to me, a stranger), created so much excitement in the days preceding Nathan’s 7th birthday, that it nearly obliterated the sadness he felt having had to cancel his birthday plans.
But in our wildest imaginations we couldn’t have conjured up what we found today…Neighbor after neighbor posted beautifully and creatively decorated signs in their windows or on their lawn or wrapped around their parked cars, wishing Nathan a happy 7th birthday. Some even gave him small gifts (left on lawns, one with the thoughtfulness to leave a pair of gloves for Nathan to pick the gift up with). We rode our bikes for hours finding dozens and dozens of homes spanning from National to David, wishing Nathan a happy day, all the while practicing physical distancing.
To our wonderful neighbors…From the bottom of our hearts: thank you, thank you, thank you. You came together to help a boy you don’t even know have the most memorable birthday he’s had yet (and I’d venture to guess the most memorable one he may ever have)! We will be retelling the story of Nathan’s 7th birthday for weeks and months to come, and I anticipate beyond this: for many years to come as well.
We are so uplifted by your generosity and dedication and creativity! You are an embodiment of the power of community, and a thick, ginormous bold silver lining in these challenging times. We will never forget your kindness, and please know that we will be paying it forward; kindness is contagious too.
With deeply heartfelt gratitude,
Hey, Nathan is welcome to live in MY neighborhood anytime for a harsh wake-up call to the reality of what pieces of conniving, avaricious, silver-tongued, snake-oil sacks of gaslighting dogshit people can truly be.
I want to make something perfectly clear so people don’t gather the impression I am some sort of raging lunatic. I really don’t apply the adjectives I did above in a light manner. I’ve lived in several US states and all of my neighbors have been either neutral, pleasant, or even generous and kind (I remember one particular lady who gave me ham sandwiches all the time in suburban Los Angeles). I don’t need neighbors to kiss my ass at all. Even neutral ones who don’t give a shit about me & want me to leave them alone are still acceptable; I am very reasonable to deal with overall.
No, the shit I’m dealing with has been an entirely different diabolical animal & I wouldn’t be outraged about it if the situation truly didn’t call for it. That’s all I’ll say about it now.
Sounds like a terrific neighborhood to live in, especially for a kid to grow up in. There are too few like that I think.
Gretchen,
What a wonderful story and great neighborhood!
Phil
Amazing and heart warming story! What kind people in your neighborhood! Lucky boy Nathan! 🌻
Bernadette, in reply to your question “Do you have any memories when your mom (or mum) came through for you? When she did something good and loving for you?”…
…there was a feeling of warmth and safety at a Christmas around 5 or 6years old, and when I was 4 she held when I had earache till I slept. Then at 14 she stood up for me against a punishment I received from headmistress, and took me away from boarding school, and put me into a day school.
That is it. This brings up so much pain still. However, I think my mum mostly did her best, she had masses of pain herself, and she was a good person. And she was the only mum I had.
Jo, I am glad that you had some loving experiences with your mom. I don’t know about you, but for me those tidbits of good memories were very important as I grew up, they gave me something to hold on to.
I am one of those primal patients who had enormously horrific experiences throughout my early childhood, and I had never a problem getting into a feeling about one or the other trauma during the many years of therapy, and by god, the feelings were horrendous. But, the conscious realization that “mom didn’t love me the right way when I needed her, she didn’t see me when I was hurting” was the most painful feeling of them all. And I just felt it thoroughly rather late in therapy; maybe a few months ago. Sometimes, the most obvious is the most painful. And the most difficult to get to.
That’s right, our mothers (and fathers) had masses of pain themselves that they needed to cope with while raising us. While that is not taken as an excuse for their behavior or neglect toward us, I think it is part of our healing process as we acknowledge this and accept it. We could go on for years wishing it would have, could have, should have been different, and blaming their incompetence, and staying angry with them, and get stuck there. I think finally accepting what was and couldn’t be done differently, is part of the final healing of the wound. What do you think?
Bernadette, I agree totally that acknowledging what was, and couldn’t be done differently, is the final part of the healing process. That can only happen after we feel enough of that devastating wound. Having said that, for me the hurt erupts in dribs and drabs, perhaps because of the early trauma and subsequent relentless repression I experienced. And my subsequent lifestyle of a tendency to isolate isn’t ideal.
We have a nurse who’s working with us one day a week, and she’s full-time at a local hospital. Today she said her ward, which is normally “step down” (patients coming from surgery or ICUs etc) has been turned into a Covid19 ward. So she’s on the front line working with those patients. I think here in NY state the healthcare system is already stretched very thin, and is about to break. It’s a little scary having this nurse here, and I know when I tell my wife she won’t like it at all.
Phil
Why won’t your wife like it, Phil? Is it the risk factor?
Renee, yes, the risk factor. She is a lot more freaked out about this than I am. We watched a movie last night, and I was attracted to watching “Pandemic”, but she said there’s no say she’ll watch that. Instead we saw “Inception”, which is about entering other peoples dreams. The concept for that movie was good, but it was just too hectic, violent, and too many details.
Just now I found out that my boss sent the nurse home I was talking about. He feels it’s too risky for our cancer patients.
Phil
I feel a little bad about that, because she’s someone I can talk to here, a friend.
Phil
Makes sense, what you say, Phil. I cannot imagine what it must be like for front-line workers now. But my heart goes out to them.
For those of us who are needing humor to get through these insane times, here is Jimmy Kimmel from last night. I love seeing the Italian priest who accidentally put on a filter for his Snapchat when he set up his live stream to his audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yS4MBk-y1E
Just watched the news, it is disconcerting to witness how all over the world things seem to be deteriorating.
and then there are the incredibly stupid and arrogant so-called ‘leaders like Trump who says things will be probably back to normal around Easter, and the president of Brazil, dismissing precautions some provinces are taking and saying all the concern is just exaggerated.
the mayor of new York was on the news as well, saying in April it would get worse than in March. and in May worse than in April.
there is a huge lack of aspirators and beds and I feel very concerned about all the Americans out of a job receiving little to no money anymore and all the people with a bad or no medical insurance.
and then the unbelievable asshole, sorry but that is the only adequate word, Trump boasting it will all be over in just a few weeks.
anyone that will still vote on him has his head stuck deep in the ground, and must be completely cut off from reality…
m
This ProPublica article is an excellent primer on how scary a serious case of COVID-19 really is. People fighting for their lives with this condition have inflamed lungs and drown in their own blood.
If this article doesn’t serve as useful motivation to be extremely careful not to catch this, nothing will:
https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes–terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients
finally I wanted to watch the first video of the comedian Renee posted, but then saw I accidentally deleted the comments I had saved for doing that.
but hey, after checking a lot of them in my trash box i found it and watched it, and it was so nice to hear the relaxed funny way in which Jimmy (?) and the other one, the podcast comedian, had their encounter on the streets of LA…
just the tone and the language was cheering me up already, made me feel at home somehow.
I do miss LA, and hope i will be able to come back there and stay for longer periods again at some point.
they must have set up the encounter but the conversation sounded spontaneous and made me smile a lot.
thanks Renee
I’m glad you enjoyed watching Jimmy Kimmel, Margaret. If you, and anyone else, needs more comedic medicine, here’s Trevor Noah’s recent take on events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V09iZcfXsvM. His words are so delicious, healing and satisfying!
ps Larry, that new version of that song was funny and impressive how they managed to make it sound as if it was the original!
Boy, must be tired or old, or both, can’t come up with the name of the song or the band, probably will right after sending the comment…
M
One of my ‘senior’ friends had a response to it that surprised me. She said the song creeped her out. I haven’t had a chance yet to ask her how so. The only thing I can figure is that there was too much pandemic reality in it for her.
….or maybe the masturbation sequence bothered her (though I felt it to be one of the quite funny sequences).
Larry, please don’t pay any attention to Daniel. No need to brace yourself. You have always treated me kindly, gently and respectfully. I couldn’t imagine not responding likewise.
That’s nice to know Renee but you’ve not always had that opinion. There was a time when you were quite angry with me. Maybe we’ve evolved. I WAS bracing somewhat, even though I have no intention to be mean to you. You never really know where a person is at and how they will react..
She once threw a dirty Kleenex right in my lap in a fit of abject disgust. I didn’t even have time to brace for it.
UG, I do not remember this event that must’ve taken place well over 20 years ago. However, if it actually happened, and if I did indeed have a “fit of abject disgust”, I have no doubt that it was in reaction to your repeatedly fleeing from conversations that you initiated yourself. If I could go back in time and do a do-over, I would kindly and gently bring you a box of clean Kleanex. Because I can so relate your feeling of needing to escape. And the pain underneath that reaction.
Renee, you weren’t disgusted at me; you were disgusted at someone else. We had never formally met at the time, and you stormed out of the room in an angry huff while throwing the Kleenex at a nearby random sitting person which happened to be……moi.
Actually, Larry, I have always had this opinion. I think we can be evolved and still feel angry at times. Your feedback leads me to think that it can be tricky to be angry and still be kind, respectful and gentle! Especially if we also want to be authentic. And double especially if we didn’t grow up with appropriate role models for how to be angry. What you say about never really knowing where a person is at and how they will react is so true. Anyway, I’m sorry if my words ever hurt you. That was never my intention.
Be assured, Renee, you’ve not said anything on the blog that hurt me. I’m thinking of some of our personal exchanges before you were ever on the blog, but that is long ago, and as I said, we’ve changed. Yes of course to be authentic sometimes means authentically feeling anger toward someone, but it doesn’t have to mean not being respectful toward that person. The angry person has to care enough about the person they are angry with to be both authentic and respectful to him/her. I wish there was a lot more of that authenticity balanced with respect among all people everywlhere.
Yes, I agree. But, as I said to Jack, I don’t think this stuff is as clear cut as you are making it out to be. Sometimes, I can experience someone as being angry and disrespectful toward me, but it doesn’t bother me. And sometimes I am really hurt. I think ALL of this is connected our specific traumas and triggers.
Renee: As I understand it, Anger, along with all the other feelings are totally valid. What is not valid is acting-out those feeling as opposed to simply expressing them.
It is perhaps for many, the biggest hurdle to grasp.
Jack
I agree, Jack. However, I don’t think it is as simple as “grasping this hurdle”. Especially, if we grew up in families where where anger was not expressed respectfully most of the time. Then this line is not always clear. I might think I am simply expressing my feelings but the recipient does not experience it that way. And vice versa. That is why it is so important to follow-up later and do any reparative work that is needed. IMO. Even if it is years (as with Larry) or decades (as with UG) later.
There is no repair work where I am concerned, just an amusing memory LOL.
Oops! I guess I have only one thing to say then, UG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjYoNL4g5Vg
As I’m sure you can see now, you are catching a glimpse of the dangers involved when operating with extremely limited information and how it can lead a person astray into making bad decisions.
The principle of incomplete information is exactly why I was complaining about my mother’s case and the pathetic lack of news coverage on the aftermath of car accidents. I made all kinds of terribly counterproductive decisions for many years earlier in my life not understanding exactly what I was up against in terms of economic impact, whether my own biology was defective or not, etc.
Renee: What I found doing this therapy is that it is so easy in ‘seeing’ the complexities of it. What I got out of it was that it’s all so simple if we can relate it all to ‘feelings’, and stop THINKING about it. That is what I meant by ‘grasping’.
This brings to me an incident in my first three weeks when my starting group was brought together. I was under the impression before going to the group, the Institute was going to tell us how we were progressing. I was shocked on realizing they we asking us/me how I felt about my progress
The world out there rarely does it that way.
Jack
For your entertainment: Interviews with hilariously dumb and ridiculously stupid Trump supporters. Example: when he asks a woman whether a woman could be president, she replies: “No! A woman has more hormones. She could start a war in ten seconds…boom!”
Jordan Klepper vs. Trump Supporters. The Daily Show
Video unavailable in my country.
Being stuck self-isolating offers great opportunities for learning new things. If you want to learn about Canada, learn some Spanish, discover the best way to learn languages in general, and enjoy some good comedy…….you can get this all at once in just a few minutes from my favorite Canadian comedian. Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfyf2bFXfNI. If you can’t access it, just go to YouTube and put “Martha Chaves – Learning New Languages” in the search bar.
Definitely entertaining. Though I did have to track it down on Youtube as it wouldn’t play here. I don’t much come across Trump supporters in my daily life, though I did have a memorable spat with one recently on Facebook. After putting some measured, reasonable questions to her like “If he’s such a great guy, how come so many of the people he’s associated with in the past are now in jail?” and other similar ones, she came back at me with an immense tirade. During this she refered to Trump as “my Father”, said he was the greatest president in the history of the US, and said Obama deserved to be hated. The real highlight was when she said I deserved to be given a good spanking for my “dullness and ugly false information”. Pretty hilarious. I used to think comparisons between Trump and Hitler were extreem, but now I’m not so sure. I see the same identification with a narcissistic leader. If you criticise him in any degree his supporters can often take it as deep insult to them them personally.
I’ve felt particularly furious with Trump this week for his gaslightling – he said he’d always known the CV would be a pandemic, having previously called it a hoax – and also for asserting that the US should be back to work soon. He cares more about his re-election than people’s lives. He’s so totally self-absorbed, dangerous and irresponsible.
My post was in reply to Bernadette’s Trump supporters video post.
David: I totally agree about Trump. Since I’m not a citizen and can’t vote I have very little say in the matter. All I know is ghat he a no elected, merely selected by 540 Electoral College members.
That o my say of thinking is not even democracy.
Jack
Jack, I was born in Canada so have dual citizebship, and am geographically at least closer to being able to vote, but ultimately just as frustrated. I agree the Electoral College is an outdated system. I think it should be got rid of, and the second ammendment too, while they’re at it. With the former, I suppose there’s more chance of that happening in the near future if those who benefit most – the Republicans – can be replaced in the House and Senate. Hopefully in November.
David: I couldn’t have put it better.
Canadian Mmmmm. During the war (WWll) when all the bombs started dropping all around us, it was suggested we kids ought to be evacuated to Canada. Some were, then my parents changed their mind. I am pleased they did
But I’ve always had a curiosity about Canada.
Jack
At times I find it funny, hearing his supporters… and then on a deeper level it’s quite scary. These are the people who determine the future of the country. Frightening! I am trying really hard to understand where they are coming from, but none of them can give an intelligent, fact based answer reflecting his/her values, beliefs or opinion. Which makes me believe that all these people vote viscerally. The woman you had the exchange with on Facebook makes the point; she sees Trump as her “father” – if that is not primal! Trump supporters actually think that he is “one of them” (which he pretends to be to get their vote) and they believe his raucous, lying behavior gives them permission to act the same (which they always wanted because it’s in their nature). The very scary thing: Trump is actually very good at giving people what they want to hear; he is very good at manipulating the masses; drawing them into his lies; he is a master at it, and that’s why it’s working for him. He builds his rhetoric on people’s hopes and dreams, but never delivers. In that aspect a comparison with Hitler is appropriate; he, too was a master in mass deception.
His most recent lying about the Corona pandemic is more of the same behavior typical of the narcissist that he is. His grandiose self image and inflated ego, constant need for attention, need to be admired, can never be wrong. I would find him infuriating if I didn’t find him – quite frankly – rather pathetic.
David, the above post is in reply to your reply to my Trump supporters video post 🙂
Bernadette, yes, Trump’s supporters are funny until they’re not. Which is when you realise how many people in the US are basically like him and see themselves in him. And openly, if unconsciously, see him as some kind of father substitute, like the woman I mentioned on FB. It’s perplexing and alarming how recently his daily misinformation about the CV and his hope for an early return to work haven’t affected his approval ratings. To many in the US it really is like he can say and do anything, and they will continue to support him. He is this idealised figure. The US is now the epicenter of the epidemic, and it’s people like the govenor of New York who I think are emerging to display what real leadership looks like, who seem to show the appropriate level of alarm as well as calling out the lack of help at a federal level.
A great deal of what you’ve said here is exactly how I’ve thought and felt about Trump. But where I differ somewhat is that while It’s true that he has his unshakeable base, I’m not quite as pessimistic as you sound about the future. Because young people, who are the real future, are much more distrusting of him and are generally more left leaning. If only they would get out and vote in greater numbers.
Renee, I’m definitely with you on the appreciation of sharp comedians. I’ve been following Seth Meyer’s Closer Look and Stephen Colbert’s monologues online for some time. They’ve given me hilarious and insightful commentary on the Trump era throughout. Too bad there’s no one like that in the UK. Brexit was missing having that kind of incisive wit applied to it. On TV at least.
David, you might not have a Seth Meyer or a Stephen Colbert but you definitely have the very British comedian, John Oliver, even though he doesn’t live in the UK anymore. Here he is talking about the Coronavirus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EqftCI2tUE {Coronavirus explained by John Oliver}. And this British comedian, Anuvab Pal, isn’t a legend but he definitely should be. I was in stitches the whole way through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjQJan2paXs. {The world’s first brexit (stand up comedy)}
Renee, Thanks for the links. I’d forgotten about John Oliver, though as you say he isn’t UK based. I like him but he just isn’t as on the mark or as witty – or should I say his writers aren’t – for me as the SM or SC shows, which I tune in for regularly. Real shame Jon Stewart isn’t around anymore, I liked him the best. Not sure the “British” comedian was actually British, but he was pretty good.
David: I can only assume Brexit was because of that British mentality that:- I was brought up with the notion:- :We invented everything, we discovered everything and ‘the sun never sets on the British Empire.
I contend it was a backward step and one way or another, we’ll pay the price for it. Possibly the break up of the United Kingdom.
Jack
Jack, I was so disappointed by the election results and the subsequent furthering of Brexit, past a point of no return, that I’ve really withdrawn a lot of my interest from British politics for the last few months. I totally agree it is a big backward step. I have gone from being a remainer to a rejoiner. I remember examples of British exceptionalism also in my upbringing, but I think the reasons for Brexit are closer to the reasons for the US electing Trump; years of austerity giving rise to an increase in nationalism and populism, anti-immigration. I also think the labour party botched their chances by not having a more focused message. I heard campaigners weren’t actually not sure what the message was or what they were supposed to be ultimately trying to put across. And were thus caught on the hoof when going door to door. Plus, a good section of the media were very anti Corbyn and a great many of the British working class read the Daily Mail!
As for Boris, from the little that I’ve paid attention too, he hasn’t done anything yet to really anoy me. Maybe he can really rise to the occassion with this current challenge. At least he’s listening to his scientific advisers.
David: Since I am now living in the Netherlands and haven’t lived in the UK for over 50 years, I see it somewhat differently than I used to. AND should you have been following my comments here You know politically, I’m an Anarchist. (granted that sounds like a contradiction in terms) So none of it would ever get my vote and anyway if one thinks about it, democracy creates winners and losers. I’m for all winners … in life.
It’s a hard sell to get people to realize they don’t need anyone making the rules for them for the simple reason; most of us are afraid of the other guy … little realizing they/we ARE the other guy.
Most people see their politics as to how they perceive it will affect themselves; instead of realizing we are each of us cocooned in our own being, but needing others to be around us (as in early childhood) … otherwise, life would be very boring. …and definately unfulfilling
I am aware that all this is my take, but as one person, and only one person said of me “At least you’ve done your homework”. Strangely, it was an American visiting London.
Jack
Jack,
I think anarchism or living without any rules or laws is something that might be in the future for us if we evolve and mature enough to be able to live each of us that responsibly. Maybe then laws can exist more as a philosophical idea than as something that are recited back to defendants in a courtroom. The thing is though, even in nature, for example a group of apes, there is a tendency for there to be an alpha male to rise and assert himself over others, but unlike us, apes don’t have the luxury of voting him out if they find they don’t like him so much any more. And then there is the problem of succession. When a leader dies, who replaces him? And leaders – people who have wisdom and vision and can inspire and persuade, especially the young – are a value to society and even a necessity in society.
I’ve become more interested and fascinated by history in recent years. Understanding more about how I came to be who I am makes me more curious to know about how we came to be who we are, collectively. And from that I see the definite value in rule of law and liberal democracies as we have them in the west, in enabling society to function as we are now in our evolution. And I think a person’s upbringing, who their parents were and how much they were loved and accepted, has much more to do with how one goes forward in life with an advantage than how many rules there are or aren’t.
David: Interesting to me that you’ve taken the trouble to look into it. I feel if you continue doing this it will develop over time and maybe even change your perception. That is how it happened to me. then it sort of incubated over several years before I was able to be definitive about it. Of course, I was reading book on it, and reluctantly I read Marx.
Jack
Guru, regarding your interracial marriages survey, I think it depends on the circumstances. My own opinion is it first of all has to do with attraction – who one is attracted to, be that who he or she may. Surprising as it may sound many times people are not really aware of who or what they are exactly attracted to. Then and only then the other social circles come into play, such as family and society at large.
As Sylvia mentioned, if such refusal is based on hate or prejudice then indeed racism may be the case.
My own experience as therapist working with others is that it’s almost always an issue one way or another, and that there is a variety of motivations for people who enter interracial relationships. It ranges from true love and genuine attraction to various forms of splitting where such a relationship serves to rid oneself of a part of one’s psyche.
By the way, sexual attraction is strange that way – one can feel negative feelings, even hate or disgust, toward another and still, without wanting to, be attracted to that same other.
Daniel, thanks for throwing in your two cents on the matter I raised. As I mentioned earlier, it was simply a question I asked on a whim for it is not an issue in my life right now. During my high school years it was more of an issue for me along with some other significant complications, namely my growing up in a lower-quality school district than what my mother would have originally intended.
Let me ask you this, Daniel: You’re Caucasian, aren’t you? Ashkenazi Jewish? If you had married and had kids with someone who was not Caucasian, would your own parents been disturbed at the thought of having bi-racial grandchildren? For some family lineages, I do wonder if “breaking the purity” by intermarrying is considered by elder generations to be a sign of failure, debauchery, or betrayal on the part of their adult children especially with a permanent legacy of such staring the elders in the face through their own multi-racial grandchildren
Tough issues to ponder, wow.
Unfortunately I have to continue working on my taxes and I am not having an easy go of it this year. See you later!.
Here is a musical accompaniment to the conversation had about the worth of dreaming. It has a powerful effect in these times when sung along with friends. This evening I participated in an online Zoom conference choir. This was one of the songs we joined in on. It was my first time hearing it and it struck a chord in me.
Somewhere to Begin
by T. R. Ritchie
People say to me, “Oh, you gotta be crazy!
How can you sing in times like these?
Don’t you read the news? Don’t you know the score?
How can you sing when so many others grieve?”
People say to me, “What kind of fool believes
That a song will make a difference in the end?”
By way of a reply, I say a fool such as I
Who sees a song as somewhere to begin
A song is somewhere to begin
The search for something worth believing in
If changes are to come there are things that must be done
And a song is somewhere to begin
Additional verses: 2) Dream… 3) Love…
Larry, this made my day! Thank you for posting! A beautiful song, amazing voice, words that soothe my soul. “A fool such as I who sees a dream as somewhere to begin” … something I can relate to, as you know. “The search for something worth believing in” …. right up my alley. “A dream and love and a song is somewhere to begin” … beautiful! I needed to hear this, today, just now it is very comforting.
Doesn’t work.
Nor this, Jo.
Jack, you asked Phil, “Is there a difference between ‘thrusting something down someone else’ neck’ and stating an idea?” This is my point exactly! It’s all subjective. One’s person’s thrust is another person’s statement. I share Phil’s perspective here. I think you are skilled at thrusting and, at the same time, not realizing that you are thrusting. To you, it is simply stating. Do you think this could be possible?
Renee: Of course … BUT if it merely your perception, say so, and as I oft stated to Patrick. Stop telling me that your perception is a universal truth.
Jack
Why so defensive, Jack? We are in agreement about this! 🙂 I thought you would see that when I said I thought this stuff was subjective. Or when I said that one person’s thrust is another person’s statement. Where are you seeing universal truth in this? I don’t get it.
Renee: Sorry I was in the middle of responding to another email and didn’t see your point of agreement. However, It does worry me from time to time that some Primal people are not prepared to look into their own subconscious reasoning, but are very willing to insist I look into mine. So again sorry!.
I perfectly agree it’s subjective. In the end, it’s all subjective.
Jack
P.S. a bad habit of mine is trying to do two things at once.
Apology accepted, Jack. Thanks. I’m sorry that your passionate statements, that you have shared so often and frequently are experienced by many of us, after a while, as distressing and uncomfortable thrusting. I think it can sometimes be challenging to meet our own needs, while also being sensitive to the needs of others.
Renee: Agreed. How are you coping with life and this coronavirus manifestation? s seemingly the Prince of Wales has it an apparently now, Boris Johnson.
Could it be that this ‘virus’ shakes up a lot in many of us and be a process that makes us all look into ourselves, our lives and where we are heading?
Jack
Jack, you ask how I am coping. Well, it still feels kind of surreal to me! I am not used to being forced to self-isolate. I am used to choosing it voluntarily. I notice my anxiety increase when I go out for a walk or to buy food. That is new for me. And I am trying to wrap my head around a virus that can kill some people and have no impact on others. And I find myself wondering who gets to decide who will die, who will get sick and recover, who will carry the virus but not not get sick or not even carry it. Or is just fate? I think the hardest thing is the not knowing how long this “new normal” will go on for. As to you question, I really don’t have an answer. It sounds to me like you might be asking if there is a silver lining. What is your answer to the question you pose?
Renee: A follow on:-
The isolating is not new for me (several months) and easy to do, as Jim, my partner is the one that goes shopping and having to deal with other people. Also, him being in the house with me, means I am not alone in my isolation.
My take on the outcome of this virus and the outcome, in terms of its psychological and economical effects, is that there is going to have to be a total re-think about many things, and the way we conduct our lives. It means that perhaps it will come from the young who are thinking more long term, than geriatric like me. They will search for a Way-Out of our current way of living. I even feel it might create a revival of the ‘Pierre Joseph Proudhon’ and the basic Karl Marx notion, (not the Stalin version of it); for a thorough think-through. I feel the young are seeing things are amiss. both politically and socially. The Swedish teen promoting Global Warming threat, is a case in point, for me.
I see things are NEVER going to be the same, but that doesn’t bother me either. If I’m around as it all takes place, I will, as best I can ascertain. slide along with it.
It is obvious I don’t have the knack to be convincing others enough, to give it all a thorough contemplation. So, hopefully, I will leave it to others, if I don’t make it.
Jack
Jack, are you thinking you might not make it to the end of this virus crisis? 😢
Renee: not particular, depending on how long it lasts, and if Il catch it, if my immune system has deteriorated with age, it used to be reasonably good, and lastly, I don’t die from something else.
I do think about death, and as a result, I.m very careful, especially my balance and falling. Knocking on 90 all these things are coming into play now. Its another phase in life … the last one … ostensively.
How are you doing? … you don’t have to say so if you don’t wish.
Jack
Phil,
that last comment is so well worded, hitting the nail on the head but in a friendly way.
you found the key connecting word in all of this imo, control…
it is not so much the message that is irritating but the repetition, a hundred or more times as we don’t really ‘take the time to give it some proper thought’, once more, another hundred times, it is irritating so I am glad you put your finger on what seems a driving force so well, thanks, M
Hi Margaret. Do you think your cats in any way sense there is a pandemic? The pandemic is a human phenomena. I wonder if the rest of the plant and animal world notices. Probably not, given that most of humanity doesn’t notice when pandemics surge through wild waterfowl or shellfish populations for instance.
Margaret: at the risk of playing therapist … What is the deep cause of irritation when simply you could just delete all my comments? I gather you do still read them, or at best skim over them.
Jack
Guru, Yes, I’m an Ashkenazi Jew. I think that had I married a woman from another race my own parents would not have objected to me in my face, although they might have had their own private concerns (which is fine). Both grew up in big cities of Weimar Germany and were liberal in their views.
I grew up in a small community, where my mother was unofficially a keeper of secrets. Other people’s secrets. One of them was an affair a 17-year-old had with a black man (Ethiopian Jew). When it finally came to the open her parents who came from small villages in Poland more of less disowned her. The community too was silently in shock because it was a first. Nevertheless, the two eventually got married, everybody got used to it, and when grandchildren came along even her parents slowly relented. They still live there.
My guess is it might have been more difficult for my parents had I married a non-Jew, even though I believe they wouldn’t have openly opposed it and would have continued to function as parents and grandparents. This has to do with something emotional, even mystic, that I share – that I’d like to see the Jewish people carry on and survive. It has to do with identity.
Now, regarding identity (private and social) I feel I understand those who wish to keep it and are afraid of changes to their identity, especially when such changes feel overwhelming to them. It’s natural – all groups of people would like to preserve their identity. I also share the opinion that part of the crisis in our world over the last few years stems from such threats to group identities.
For me, the problem with racism is when it manifests itself in actual behavior, when you actually discriminate against or persecute others based on their racial or ethnic group.
Good luck with your taxes. I also have to do mine.
Larry,
I do think my cats pick up my tension while of course they do not know about the rest.
today we heard on the news about a cat from a person that got infected here, and the cat too got infected. it got the infection from the human, not the other way around.
so maybe they can smell some disease, who knows, or not, a mom can smell when a kid has a cold as well, not only a mom, it is a clear smell actually.
I just managed to get a form for my brother allowing him to cross the border to visit me or my mom for assistance.
Hurray.
Jack, just skimming would be OK if it would be a rare event, but well, it gets irritating when it occurs over and over and over, while I have to navigate with the screen reader to run into the same old same old again and again.
I am sure you must have other interesting stuff to talk about which we miss out on due to this fixation.
please talk about something else? what else goes through your mind?
M
Margaret: I have talked a lot about other things and only take up this subject when someone makes reference to it.
I do see your problem relative to your having to use an application to read it out for you.
Sorry about that.
However, I am not able to adjust to everyone’s whims and difficulties since for the most part I am into what it ALL means to me .. about life in general, my life, and my own current situation and getting old.
The other item of news that is upsetting is the coronavirus, and ll it relative outcome for many in many nations, including this one The Netherlands.
I hope you’re coping with,it also.
Jack
Toronto Star, couple of days ago:
Thanks, Daniel. This post of yours definitely put a smile on my face! 😊
Whew! That clears things up.
Kidding aside, I’m impressed by the editors’ thoughtfulness in wanting to get good advice out to their horoscope readers, because even if they only half believe in it some people really do find comfort in reading their horoscope as a way do structure and make sense of their day and calm their anxieties some.
I use to find comfort in the horoscopes and still pay attention to the ones that say not to spend money or save money. I didn’t always it take to mean actual money, but my resources, whether it was time or energy. I felt it was encouraging that someone would tell you that it was a good time to go get what you wanted, to risk asking for something, or whatever. It was the only encouragement I had at times so I was thankful. Sometimes I would pick one of the other birth sign’s advice because I liked it better. As I look back over the time I went by it, it was because I was floundering and rudderless in my life. I studied a book about it that said it was based on patterns. What planets have to do with it I have no idea.
Jack, I kind of skim your ideas about money too, like others. I know my irritation is deep rooted. I think it comes from coming up against a parent who doesn’t listen or take in what I am saying because they have their mind made up. I feel some of the opposition have given good reasons why your plan will not work in their eyes, but I don’t think any of the practicality they offer may be evaluated or seen as worth consideration by you. In the end, I just want to see you happy, so I wish someone would agree with you. Of course, I could be wrong about what you take in and consider worthy. Stay safe and well, dear one.
S
Sylvia: it was so lovely to read your response. It’s not that I NEED it, as I feel at this moment. Unlike some, I don’t feel gang-upon either. I fully understand that most people see chaos as something to avoid. Since I’ve been with this idea for decades and found few that see anything in it, it’s not surprising to me either. Although it is very reassuring when I do meet another anarchist,
So the question becomes why do I take every opportunity to try another way to get across to others. I feel (though I could be wrong) that everyone, one way or another does more or less the same thing … look for allies. I feel it is sort of natural, (in-so-far as we are able to be natural), we all do it.
Knowing that this idea is way too radical for current thinking; it becomes an even greater task. However, there re many ideas down history that were consider so radical as to be ridiculous and my example is the ‘Copernicus and Galileo’, notion that we were not the center of the universe, AND that,t we lived on a flat plate. Now that very idea Gllaleo proposed is taken for granted. However, it took over 100 years. So me going at it for at best, two decades is short by comparison.
I’m sure my competitiveness to Galileo will irritate even more … in spite of me insisting, I did not dream up the idea.
Jack
Here it comes. Just so we know what is at stake and how crucial competent leadership and management are.
https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2020/03/27/coronavirus-covid-19-henry-ford-life-death-protocols-letter/5085702002/
That this even has to be considered shows the extreme lack of leadership. This week Governor Cuomo of NY asked for 30,000 ventilators from the national stockpile, and Trump said he had “a feeling” that not that many were needed. I believe 400 were offered and sent, but that might have been somewhat adjusted to a few thousand more, I think. Now Trump is trying to force the Ford car company to make ventilators. I’m doubtful an analysis was even done to see which company could best handle such an order. Trump should have been impeached long ago; it’s a very sad time for this country to be going through this with such incompetent leadership.
Phil
He was impeached, I mean removed from office.
It’s actually GM that Trump is forcing to make ventilators. Here’s an opinion article, which makes sense,?as to why that may not be a good idea. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/27/why-defense-production-act-wont-get-us-ventilators-any-faster/
It basically says that it’s better to enlist companies to help by the government offering a very good price for ventilators. A price that covers the cost of retooling factories, training workers etc. That’s better than forcing a company, which won’t then be enthusiastic about such a deal.
Part of my reaction to the virus is having to be well informed about everything. I do have a certain level of anxiety about the whole thing, about what could happen to family members, and I don’t want to end up in the hospital with a severe case of Covid19 myself.
Phil
Phil, here’s the true current leader of the free world addressing this crisis.. A depressing reminder of how low the US has sunk as a nation:
17 year-old California boy goes into cardiac arrest and dies of COVID-19 after health center turns him away for lack of insurance. Lancaster mayor explains:
This story might not be entirely clear or placed in an inordinately inflammatory light. It appears the kid was turned away from an urgent care center because it didn’t have the medical resources to help him regardless of financial matters & he needed to go to a more suitable medical center. So, it is possible I should reframe what I said in my previous post.
Guru: not necessarily. the point, I feel was taken. It was a very sad situation.
Jack
Guru: This is why I feel our current way of living, is not serving us (any of us) very well. It needs to change … but what kind of change??? That’s the $64,000 question.
Jack
“(At $1.3 million per roll) This is the most expensive toilet paper roll in the world. A quality 3-ply toilet paper with 22-carat gold through the roll,” the product’s website boasts.
“As you use the toilet paper 22-carat gold flakes will fall onto the floor and your behind taking you to another level of sophistication,” it adds.
Wow, we can all flush our money down the toilet this way. Would this, in effect, mean the end of money? Phil
I don’t think so Phi. I can see where we would still need it. We’ll switch to using golden toilet paper for money and dollar bills for toilet paper.
Good point Larry, it might just reverse things. We’d be buying dollar bills with our toilet paper. I have seen rolls for sale with presidents’ pictures on them, but I don’t think they were intended for routine use..
Ha ha ha. And who do you think would be the first President whose picture would be on the new toilet paper money to make it the official new currency?
Larry: I wouldn’t want any of them, nor pictures of the touching my arse. Too precious and useful to me.
Jack
Phil: Yep, Yep, and Yep One good way to get rid of it, BUT also to make sure all the other thing it supports should also go down the toilet as well Yeah?? 🙂 🙂 🙂
Today…
https://joanna4art.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/img_0089.mov
It’s one of the top 20 songs of all time according to the following list:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=top+20+songs+of+all+time
OK, I felt it was appropriate
On the following list it’s one of the top 20 songs of all time. It’s probably enjoying a revival these days.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=top+20+songs+of+all+time
Nicely done!
🙏🏻 Phil !
Like many of you, I have strong views about parenting, most of them rooted in PT and an understanding of trauma and needs. I can be quite passionate in my statements/thrusts about this subject. In addition, I am generally very judgmental and critical of spiritual beliefs, like “mindfulness”, “the ego”, and “being in the present moment”. I have an almost allergic reaction to them. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I came across this psychologist who comes from a spiritual perspective that I could totally connect with in what she says about parenting! I can also see her views as a critique of parenting within a Capitalist economy. Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSPwanpoGzU&t=12s. (Shefali Tsabary, Ph.D. – “The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting”)
Jack, I’m glad you’re being careful. I want you to be around for a while longer. As for your question as to how I’m doing……I already answered it. Here it is again, with only a slight change: It still feels kind of surreal to me! I am not used to being forced to self-isolate. I am used to choosing it voluntarily. I notice my anxiety increase when I go out for a walk or to buy food. That is new for me. And I am trying to wrap my head around a virus that can kill some people and have no impact on others. And I find myself wondering who gets to decide who will die, who will get sick and recover, who will carry the virus but not get sick or not even carry it. Is it simply a matter of being careful and following the precautions? Is it fate? Is it random? Or something else? I think the hardest thing is the not knowing how long this “new normal” will go on for.
Renee: Your last line askes “Is it random? Or something else? I think the hardest thing is the not knowing how long this “new normal” will go on for.”.
I feel it’s all just a consequence of our neurosis. I have no idea how long it will go one for, and I doubt anyone else knows. What I do feel is that we set out on the capitalist system and hoped it would all work out. I contend it is now showing us it will never work out. Like a totalled car, we need to scrap it and start from scratch.
Jack
Jack, who is the “we” you refer to that set out on the capitalist system? And for which people did this “we” hope it would all work out for?
Renee: In both cases “we humans”
Renee
Are you sure, Jack? Are you saying that “all we humans” set out to create a capitalist system that would work work out for all? This sounds like you have bought into a capitalist myth. Do you really believe that the European white, male explorers in the 16th and 17th centuries saw the indigenous populations that they tortured, brutalized, raped, murdered and stole land from, as humans?
Renee: Let me start over.
We humans started out on the planet (according to anthropoloist) 100,000 years ago. Then somewhere along the line, we became neurotic. At the point of becoming neurotic we, us humans, now started to organize society, first in little groups then slowly over time enlarging those groups, until finally creating nations, but in the very act of organizing those groups we (humans) set out to create methods to hold that grouping together. The origins were perhaps religion (firstly totem poles) and from, and within, those religions created leaders.
Eventually, from religious leaders, we eventually created monarchs and slowly we got to a point where the advisers of those monarchs, rebelled and created parliaments. That process of change often was achieved by revolutions. However, these new leaders needed a mechanism to hold the populous together. That meant an exchange system, (Barter being an early one). That evolved into money via precious metals, and later paper representatives. Therein was the birth of capitalism (money manipulation).
I know this is sort of skimming over the total history of it all, but that is more or less the way I see it. Now the very nature of capitalism is being questioned … by a few. Seen, ‘in terms of the big picture’, its all a part of one whole Everything is dependent upon all other factors
I try hard to include myself when I say “we” meaning that I am part of it, and find it hard to escape it, by moving to another place or by taking up some ism and have now landed here as a Primal patient, now hanging with it, by buddying and using the blog.
I hope it made some sense Renee.
Jack
You’ve lost me, Jack. I’m not seeing the connection between what I wrote and your response. I was simply pointing out that the “we” you were using (and continue to use) in universal terms to cover all humans, wasn’t and isn’t universal at all. It was rather a very specific “we” that included some people but excluded many others. That’s all.
Renee: OK Got it,
Jack
Just a quick reminder that conquest, enslavement and brutalisation of the indigenous populations weren’t a White European invention or specialty, but something present all over the world from antiquity onward. See for example here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade
Just a quick reminder that you are comparing the Ebola virus and the Corona virus. Both are brutal and violent but not nearly on the same scale. The economic system of Capitalism has destroyed and decimated, and continues to destroy and decimate, peoples, cultures, lands, animals, the earth, the sea, the air, and the climate. In just about every corner of the world. Your comment sounds a lot like an example of “white fragility”. Sadly, Capitalism and racism go together like bread and butter. 😢
I have done a fair bit of academic research on the subject Danny, but I’ve never used the Academic Journals you cite. None of my research led to the conclusion you have reached. You do realize that Wiki is only as good as the author(s)…?? It’s not the definitive source of anything; that’s why they ask for corrections..
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica even precapitalist stone age hunter gatherer indigenous societies in the New World owned slaves. It would appear that throughout time all people had the willingness to see others outside of their tribe as sub-human.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology
“In the New World some of the best-documented slave-owning societies were the Klamath and Pawnee and the fishing societies, such as the Yurok, that lived along the coast from what is now Alaska to California. Life was easy in many of those societies, and slaves are known to have sometimes been consumption goods that were simply killed in potlatches.
Other Amerindians, such as the Creek of Georgia, the Comanche of Texas, the Callinago of Dominica, the Tupinambá of Brazil, the Inca of the Andes, and the Tehuelche of Patagonia, also owned slaves. Among the Aztecs of Mexico, slavery generally seems to have been relatively mild. People got into the institution through self-sale and capture and could buy their way out relatively easily. Slaves were often used as porters in the absence of draft animals in Mesoamerica. The fate of other slaves was less pleasant: chattels purchased from the Mayans and others were sacrificed in massive numbers. Some of the sacrifices may have been eaten by the social elite.”
Larry, I never said Capitalist cultures were/are the only ones to have slavery. See my comment to Daniel. But if you want to read a novel that brings to life the reality of the slave trade and slavery in America, read “The Book of Negroes” by Lawrence Hill. I recently read it and was blown away. The narrator is an old woman in the 1700’s who tells her life story from when she was a child in West Africa and how she and others survived their horrific capture and taken on a slave ship to America. And her life after that. The author made sure to make it as historically factual as he could. All I can say is that I knew slavery was bad but this book brought that fact to life in a whole new way.
I read it a few years ago. Everyone should.
Lincoln waited years before the 1865 slavery ban was actually enforced, giving time for Southern prisons to be built and replacement for slave labour was in place. That era was even more brutal; any whim could cause an undetermined sentence to be visited on any Black person. Book of Negroes was filmed near my home. The only good thing about having been raised in poverty is we were all the same colour, poor, various shades of brown, from , ” white,” to ” black.”. But skin colour for me was no more a marker than hair colour. That my father trapped, built baskets and canoes, and never lost his tan in the Winter, all escaped me. I deduced later that it was just the poverty that made us lesser than.
He was also a theologian, sportsman, musician, mechanic, plumber, electrician, carpenter, cabinet maker, chef, hair stylist, jeweller, clock maker, cobbler, hunter, knitter. But still there was an invisible QUARANTINE sign on our door. School mates were not allowed by their parents to visit. Wish they’d told me I was a , ” breed.” I thought it was me.
It’s the same as catching a cold Rene. Based on latest information, mathematical models can be made that help predict the rate of spread of infection through a population. Factors that influence the infection rate are the pathogen’s method of transmission, how densely packed the population is, how much mingling there is, and how much care its taken to contain the spread of infection. Also….
“In general with respiratory viruses, the outcome of infection – whether you get severely ill or only get a mild cold – can sometimes be determined by how much virus actually got into your body and started the infection off. It’s all about the size of the armies on each side of the battle, a very large virus army is difficult for our immune systems army to fight off.
“So standing further away from someone when they breathe or cough out virus likely means fewer virus particles reach you and then you get infected with a lower dose and get less ill. Doctors who have to get very close to patients to take samples from them or to intubate them are at higher risk so need to wear masks.
“The fewer people in the room, the less likely it is than one person is coughing or breathing out infectious virus at any one time, so mixing with as few people as possible is the safest way.”
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-questions-about-covid-19-and-viral-load/
How sick you get from it is also determined by your pre-existing state of health, and by how robust your immune system is. You can lower your risk of becoming infected by knowing the enemy and ways to try to protect yourself from it I trust the World Health Organization to be a credible source of info on the COVID19 pandemic.
Click to access who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
One of the silver linings coming out of all of our lives being so dramatically affected by COVID19 in some way is a raising of public consciousness about the importance of public health, as expressed in the following excerpt from a recent article in ‘the Atlantic” that assesses how the new normal might unfold.
“After 9/11, the world focused on countert errorism. After COVID-19, attention may shift to public health. Expect to see a spike in funding for virology and vaccinology, a surge in students applying to public-health programs, and more domestic production of medical supplies. Expect pandemics to top the agenda at the United Nations General Assembly.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/?fbclid=IwAR3xt1NVt4aodfriff0LCwf-UTsNAho1e-sfXRtgI9t_WGDyerqRpnDQEx4
Thanks, Larry, this is all very interesting. I am a little hung up on your first sentence though. I can’t quite wrap my head around this virus being the same as catching as a cold. Aren’t there some ways this virus is different from catching a cold? After all, many of us have caught colds, but never before have whole populations been asked to self-isolate. And never before has there been a shortage of ventilators because of people getting colds. As far as I know.
I don’t mean the symptoms are the same.
Oh okay.
Here I am with my father and older siblings:
I get warm feelings seeing my father in a picture, but not the same seeing my mother. With the current pandemic, as with other things, I sometimes wonder what my father would say about it all and how he would feel. He was a calming presence for me, reassuring.
Phil
Its a nice photo Phil, who took it?
Jo,
I can’t say for sure, as I don’t remember, but I would say it was my mother, and it was taken at a local amusement park. A place we went every year, you can see some rides in the background.
It looks so normal.
Larry, things went downhill fairly rapidly after this.
I feel sad about that, Phil.
Phil, do you remember if your mother was still well when this picture was taken.
Renee, she was sick at the time the picture was taken, but not yet disabled as was the case a few years later. She was sick with MS years before I was born.
Man, a photo can, for me, be so affecting, the colours, the styles… wonderful, Phil.
Thanks David. I feel a benefit posting photos here. It has me focusing more on them and the memories around them. Also the necessity of describing the contexts and history about those moments captured. Phil
I SCREWED. >65 BAD LUNGS HEART DIABETES ETC. STAYING HOME FROM WORK BUT MY SICK LEAVE WILL RUN OUT IN 5 MONTHS. GO TO STORE FOR FOOD AND WHAT I BREATHE OR TOUCH HAS A VIRUS. TRUMP WILL CONTINUE TO SCREW THE WORLD AND WILL CHEAT TO WIN RE-ELECTION. MY ONLY HOPE WILL BE A TUBE SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT, AND A MACHINE BREATHE FOR ME AS I SLOWLY DIE. ON THE BRIGHT SIDE…8 CATS OUTSIDE WHO DEPEND ON ME TO FEED THEM 3 INSIDE. BB, I NOT MACABRE. HA. NOT FUNNY. LOT LOT PEOPLE DIED ALREADY.
what the f happened to the 80’s.
jesus friggin christ
i am so sad
am so angry. cursing under my breath in my car, windows closed, at every human who makes me feel unsafe.Altered Images – I Could Be Happy (Official Video)
f trump
chinese eating bats–give me a frigging break
I found this partial excerpt meaningful, from a COVID-19 article in The New Yorker, March 17, 2020. — Vicki
“How to Practice Social Distancing”, from an interview with: Asaf Bitton, a primary-care physician, public-health researcher, and the director of the Ariadne Labs, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
“Social distancing isn’t some external concept that applies only to work and school. Social distancing is really extreme. It is a concept that disconnects us physically from each other. It profoundly reorients our daily life habits. And it is very hard. We have all these built-in human needs and desires because we are social creatures who connect with each other, and I think one of the profound challenges, and one of the ways we will know whether we are meeting this crisis head-on, is whether we can sustain this very unnatural—from a human perspective—physical separateness.
But I want to really emphasize that social distancing is really about that physical separation. It is not—and, in fact, it won’t work if it means—an actual disconnection socially from each other, which would have tremendous, tremendous effects pretty much on everybody, but especially kids and the elderly and other vulnerable populations.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-vital-importance-of-isolation?itm_content=footer-recirc
Good article, Vicki. I wonder if we will ever feel the same anymore about close quarters with strangers, like at the grocery store standing in line, or in an elevator, or at the movies, if anyone goes to those anymore. Hermits don’t have to worry. Maybe when the vaccine comes we will forget about the danger. When I was checking on a Rx at the pharmacy by phone, they said they are offering curbside service; just call from your cell phone and they will come out to the car and hand the Rx to you if you are elderly or have a condition and don’t want to mingle in the store. Probably have you roll down the window and toss it in as you speed away–ha, ha.
Physical distancing would be the more accurate term for what we need to do to slow the rate of infecton.
Hi everyone: I get the feeling this virus thing is going to change a lot of our (human) thinking about many things including politics, the medical profession, and mostly about the way we are living. For many, it seems few get much pleasure and for many it pure drudgery,
Something is wrong somewhere. Trying to figure out where that somewhere is. That’s the ‘rub’. I have my idea. Does anyone else have an idea? Perhaps some will think there is nothing wrong and that it’s all-natural, normal, and inevitable.
Anyone?
Jack
The problem is that life is too often short and precarious, whereas we each want ours to be easy, safe, pain free, fun filled and long.
….my thinking in reply to Jack at 12:45 March 30.
Larry: A nice wish and hope, but that’s a far cry from getting just that. But thanks for responding.
Jack
My point is that if Earth was so bountiful that it readily provided everyone with everything we needed without us having to wrestle it out of the environment, and if there were no pathogens or carnivores trying to eat us, and if we were wise enough to not become too many for Earth to support, we’d probably all be happy, content non-neurotics. I think our amazing species has demonstrated the awesome capability to eventually achieve all of the above.
After I die, I think the most fascinating thing I would want to watch on AfterLife TV would be current affairs news documentaries on how events are unfolding for humankind on Earth, maybe second only to watching documentaries that delve into what and how the universe is what it is.
But my time is in the conditions that we are in now, and primalling is helping me to optimize my time now. That’s the best I can do toward moving humankind toward what I think is the better future.
Larry,
Do you think that after life TV service will be freely provided, part of a package deal with phone and internet, or what?
Phil
Correct me if I’m wrong Phil, but my take on your interesting question is that it’s in regard to an All Seeing, All Knowing, Everlasting Realm. We have a hard enough time predicting the outcome of this year’s US Presidential election or whether we’ll be riding self-driving cold fusion powered cars 50 years from now, never mind trying to imagine from within our earthly constraints what the technology in another realm might be. My best guess is there would be no phone, TV, or internet service providers in it.
Mostly, after I die, I want to reconnect with everyone and every animal friend who mattered to me during my life on Earth, except all of our primal pain will have been resolved, and I want to be able to visit Earth now and then or be able to watch from afar to see how events on Earth unfold. Also I want to be able to go back in time to see how the Universe and Earth and Life on earth originated and evolved and on other planets if it did, and I want to know what the Universe is. I want to have some of God’s abilities in being able to see and know All from beginning to end, to see and know even whether there is a beginning and an end and how it all works.
Getting back down to earth, my top wish is for myself and everyone I know to optimally survive this pandemic, after which I wish to live primally optimally the remainder of my most likely one only ever and too soon ending organically and evolutionarily circumscribed precious existence.
Larry: My take as everyone here knows:- If we would just rid ourselves of the self-imposed imposition/s, there is a chance our REAL nature would take over and bring about that wish, of yours
It’s about the only thing we’ve NOT tried.
Jack
Yes, your take has been quite effectively drummed into everyone by now. Nevertheless we know you love to banter, as do I.
Here is a possible silver lining to the Coronavirus pandemic. A decrease in childhood anxiety caused by going to school:
https://nypost.com/2020/03/29/coronavirus-is-providing-the-course-correction-kids-desperately-needed/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site+buttons&utm_campaign=site+buttons&fbclid=IwAR03UTsZ8POECB64_tEU0ygEjunQvNnPQEsYHgL2VMHA5mDAwP3Jx0bwyJU
“As for parents worried that all this non-academic time is dooming their kids’ futures, research at the University of Colorado at Boulder found that the kids who have more free time to create and structure their own activities develop stronger executive functioning skills — that is, better planning, problem-solving and follow-through — than kids whose lives are more continuously structured by adults……..When disruption occurs, learning is inevitable. It’s the same reason we’re all suddenly experts on viruses, curve-flattening and Italian geography. We are alert because we’re in new territory — a whole new world we have to navigate.”
On the other hand, for some kids going to school is a reprieve from an awful home life. The pandemic is nothing but a dark cloud for them.
True. That’s why I said this is a silver lining for the kids whose anxiety comes from going to school. For the kids whose anxiety comes from being at home, this period is likely a dark cloud.
Yes, both likely, I think.
Renee: I agree with all that. It’s just a pity and sad that many are dying.
I think there are more silver linings also. We need to wait and see.
Jack.
Laughter break ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5azNpTwVk8
🤣
Ha ha. Thanks for that Gretchen. I will share with my Facebook friends. I think many will welcome the comic relief.
Vicki, Your post struck home for me having had our first virtual group yesterday. So many had emailed us about the need for community and connection but of course we had no idea how important or meaningful it would be until we were in the experience. I truly was touched by being there with many of you and having the opportunity to discuss our own experiences with this very surreal time in our lives. I was also moved by the many emails I received later in the day expressing how much the opportunity meant to them. For me there was something very reassuring about seeing all your faces even on a computer screen. As most of you could see Barry was a bit blown away by the whole thing and ready to set up our next meeting before the first one had ended. Though we had a few glitches with the technology those in the know were able to step in to help and no doubt there will be fewer next time. It really is so important to stay connected. Though we may have differing perspectives on this time in our lives our feelings are the same. Gretch
I love this family home made video, charming, funny, and made me cry too. As a parent and grandparent, I miss the physical presence of my families. I’m relishing the fact that we can video link with friends and families.
Delightful
Aww. So talented. And what Daniel said.
Poor stressed out family. I hope singing together for that performance helped the kids feel better for a while.
Renée,
First, let me say that I’m what’s called in Europe a Social Democrat. That means I believe in and support free market capitalism, along with strong social and occupational nets that are manifested in universal and public-owned education and healthcare systems, progressive taxation, strong unions, effective regulation of industries and services which are vital to everyone’s well-being (banks, utilities, energy), and robust unemployment benefits, job retraining and relocation services.
I oppose the Capitalism on steroids of the last few decades which in my opinion has a lot to do with the current crisis of the democracies in the West.
Capitalism is a mixed bag. Is it intrinsically tied to racism? I don’t think so. In fact, the more Capitalistic the world has become the less manifestly racist it is. That is because the ideas behind Capitalism are those of freedom and equality of all people.
Then there are the economic benefits. In recent years as more countries turned to private enterprise and free markets, two billion(!) people rose from extreme poverty into acceptable standards of living. That means parents can feed their children, buy them clothes and when necessary provide them with antibiotics or a shot of penicillin rather than watch them die and bury them.
Then there are the alternatives to look at and compare. We had communism, which also “destroyed and decimated … peoples, cultures, lands, animals, the earth, the sea, the air, and the climate”, but did that without the freedoms enjoyed in capitalist countries which tended to be democratic. For some reason, unless they were Soviet spies people always fled to the West – that terrible capitalistic, racist nightmare – rather than to the other direction. They still do – all those black and brown people risking their lives to reach ‘white capitalistic and racist countries’, while none showing much effort to do the reverse.
I had to look up “white fragility”. If I understand correctly that means I’m bad at discussing racism. And what is making me bad discussing it? That I mentioned – just stated a fact – that white people were not the only ones to enslave or brutalize indigenous populations. It’s a difficult fact to digest if one is catholically wedded to politics which emphasise the evils of white western societies, but a fact it is.
Racism is of course real and present but it is a human phenomenon not a capitalist or white one.
Daniel: 2 questions. What about the ‘haves’ of socialist capitalism, exploiting the ‘have nots’, and I’m talking about the ‘have nots’ that are not able to unionize?
AND where does neurosis fit into all this?
The problem, as I see it is that the first; the very principle of democracy creates ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. and thus benevolent governments are forever scrambling to bring back that balance; only for those ‘haves’ to do their utmost to maintain their position and maintain the very divisions between us all. It will always be tricky and we’ll forever be squabbling about; who decides.
The only way to circumvent it all IMO is … guess what?
Jack
I would describe myself as a social democrat also. It blends the best of both (capitalist and socialist) worlds. If you look at social democratic Scandinavian countries, they frequently top international polls for wellbeing and happiness and are the most progressive and the most free. It’s been said that if you want to live the American dream, you should go and live in Denmark. Jack, I think your characterisation of democracies as creating winners and losers is too simplistic and a caricature almost. And who’s to decide what constitutes a winner or loser anyway, since beyond the fulfillment of basic needs we have different dreams and different visions for our lives. Someone living off the grid in a tiny house, in the back of beyond could be living the fulfillment of their dream, whereas to someone else that would be living the life of a loser. And I don’t agree that just getting rid of money and so forth would create equality. We can only have equal opportunity anyway. Total equality would only be possible if everyone was identical which is neither possible nor desirable.
At least we can safely pour our hearts out here instead of having them ritually cut out by ancient Aztecs. There absolutely had to be some unhappy losers back then, too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture
I like the graphic emphasis. 👍 Point well taken.
They took their religion a little too seriously. The Spaniards then worked hard to convert them to Christianity and to wipe out their culture. History is really crazy if you look close at it. Phil
Guru, a sacrificee is not a life path anyone would opt for, I imagine. Glad we’ve left that one behind!
David, I agree and this is a reminder that we should be grateful whenever we experience a sassy New Yorker or other cynical urban dweller angrily telling us to “eat your heart out”.
Guru, and “I left my Heart in San Francisco”? is a little gruesome, isn’t it?
David: If you are a social democrat, then by definition, your mind is already made up politically. As for the Scandinavian countries, Sweden was a socialist state, but when I was there some years ago it also had the highest suicide rate. I lived in England when it went totally socialist in 1945, the end of the war, and routed Churchill out of “Let me finish the job …” It was/is better than conservatism (to conserve what is), which indicates the unequalness of the peoples and remains that way
Most of our dreams are just that, dreams. One’s dreams are not necessarily what they seem from outside. that dream. It’s like we (many of us) would like more money and/or to win the lottery, but money never did bring forth happiness nor real freedom. I have met several millionaires and they are not happy folk. Sure, they lived in guided cages .. but it’s still a cage and hence lacks total freedom.
When I say “democracy, by definition, creates winners and losers”, I meant your side (party won, my party lost), and I’m duty-bound to live by their rules until a change takes place. If I were able to get my needs met naturally, then I wouldn’t have to work my balls off, just to get my needs met.
I see you and most others argue the point from the established position of having to live with governments, laws, and money. It requires, as I’ve said a million times, to contemplate a ‘Conceptual leap’, and getting out of the box we are currently having to live by.
Jack
Jack, I describe myself as a social democrat because that seems to me the most fair, the most balanced, the most progressive political perspective on offer right now. That doesn’t mean to say I am closed off or not listening to other views, such as yours, as you seem to suggest. I agree with Daniel again that moderation, or balance is the key. It’s natural to see-saw, as long as we don’t get too lop sided and tip over. Having said that, there’s no social democratic party in the UK, so as a seeming centrist, shouldn’t I be voting for the LIberal Democtrats? Well, I’m more left leaning than that and this is a carry over from my childhood when I made an unconscious pact with myself to be the opposite of everything my abusive father was. He was a staunch conservative, so I’ve always voted labour. It’s also through an assessment of current policies and pride in the the good things that have come out of (mostly) labour governments in this country, such as the NHS, minimum wage and the welfare state. But, yes, I think balance is a key to health and success – inwardly between thinking and feeling, and outwardly between machines and nature.
You write: “Most of our dreams are just that, dreams”. If you are pointing to the failure of of our dreams, well, I think that is very sad. There are an aweful lot of tears to be shed over the lives the majority of us wished we could have led.
“When I say “democracy, by definition, creates winners and losers”, I meant your side (party won, my party lost), and I’m duty-bound to live by their rules until a change takes place.” I would say a strong opposition party is extreemly important in government. There is no always right poitical party and these “losers” play a vital role in our democracy in challenging and holding to account those in power. Also, I think your statement is too black and white and not entirely accurate. The rules have been created by both sides going back centuries and over time a consensus emerges over what is working and what isn’t. Meaning that with the benefit of experience certain laws or policies are challenged less and less and some not at all. The NHS is a “rule” created by one side which the otherside now supports and upholds, though not nearly enough IMO.
Jack, you say that, “the very principle of democracy creates ‘winners’ and ‘losers’”. How so? I would argue, and I think you would too, BTW, that many indigenous populations for many thousands of years had democracy with no winners and losers. I think you are confusing consensus democracy with voting democracy.
Renee: Se my response to David for the ‘how so’
As for those indigenous people I would not classify their way of life, as democratic, but yes, they lived by consensus, but to call it “consensus democracy”, seems to me to be a contraction in terms
I am aware the very word has its origins in Greek, meaning Government by the people, but it’s still governing.
Jack
Capitalism certainly rewards those who managed to use their talents to create something. Somehow societies found that to be beneficial (until they don’t and overthrow the prevailing social order). In that process there is indeed exploitation where the owner gets more of the proceeds than the worker. However, the owner also takes much of the risk for which he or she would like to be rewarded. My own orientation toward this problem is something which is key for me: moderation. I think moderation is very important in most if not all fields of living. So I’m willing to accept certain levels of inequality because I think it benefits society, but not the current ‘winners take all’ situation in some major parts of the capitalistic world. This is not only extremely unjust but also a recipe for a disaster.
Neurosis comes into the picture with human nature. A simple observation of humans and also our personal experience in therapy shows that we all have a dark side, be that innate or learned. We are all capable of having disturbing and disturbed thoughts, of being a-social, of feeling hate and violence inside us, of being, for example, racist. Perhaps, as you often state here, in primitive pre-agricultural society it was different. But, that’s all water under the bridge now, we’re not going back there. Perhaps capitalism, sadly as it may sound, is more aligned with human nature, at least in the west.
an hour ago we managed, with the mediation of a great female caretaker at mom’s nursing home, to do a What’s app video call. mom could see me on a big screen. it was very nice, I even managed to show her the cats which she really liked.
it is a great thing in all the misery of the situation that we are more aware of what really matters, which is the love and contact with the persons we care about, be it family or friends.
when our social life suddenly comes to an almost stop which was sudden and unexpected it becomes all too clear how basic that really is.
we tend to forget that our relations are what makes us feel happy and safe, and not so much our luxury .
some of the most happy times of my life we were as good as broke most of the time, but we were a good couple and that made life ok.
now for many it is the opposite, we have our goods but suddenly can’t get together and hug and that really sucks.
money is not the issue in my opinion, it seems more to be in the lines of ‘love is all you need’, of course while life’s practical necessities are met also, food, shelter etc.
while the news often brings tears to my eyes, so does the hard and incessant work caretakers, doctors and nurses keep doing in the most difficult circumstances.
what also really touched me is how Doctors without borders’ started up a care shelter here in Brussels for an ignored group of people during this crisis, the refugees and homeless ones. that is being human at its best to me, caring about those who don’t even expect to be cared about.
it resonates with me, brings up a shiver from a deeply hidden feeling, probably having to do with having had to live in some orphanage for weeks and weeks at the age of 2 when my mom was in hospital.
These must have been very scary and hopeless times for me, threatening, understandable, very very scary.
I think it is partly why I care so much about keeping my cats safe and free of fear, would not want them to feel that lost and scared!
M
Margaret,
You’re right, that it’s important to keep in mind, if possible, the important things in life.
You seem to have a good focus on that.
Phil
just the option of being able to participate to Sunday’s virtual group has entirely brightened up my day.
that in combination with everyone working at staying connected here at home makes me feel less hopeless right now.
M
Now living alone, reliance on community is more imperative than ever in my lifetime. That individuals are rising to the occasion to keep communities alive is triggering my early imprinted feelings that no one is there and no one cares and I am alone in a dangerous world.
The idea that Capitalism is all about freedom and equality is a myth. It is part of an incredibly strong belief system that all of us in a Capitalist world is taught. It serves to hide the reality that it is based on exploitation, physical and psychological violence, continual expansion and eradication of whole cultures, species, etc., and was never designed to meet human needs.
The idea that black and brown people risk their lives because they voluntarily just want to experience the rich countries in the north, is also a myth. The reality is that they are forced to flee violence and brutality, created by those very rich countries! Just take a look at the crisis in Central America and how it was started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybs3Zn086a0 (What’s Causing the Central American Migration Crisis? | History)
The idea that “white fragility” is about being bad at discussing racism misses the point of the phrase. It is about the knee-jerk defensiveness, minimizing, and denying that many of us white folk do when confronted on the reality of anti-black racism. Here is short description of how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdFCRHhygHo (Seeing White Fragility)
Renée,
I feel this discussion is veering in all sorts of directions that are interesting but for me are changing the subject. All I was saying is, violence and racism and enslavement are not intrinsically white or capitalist, that other cultures and peoples practiced them throughout history as well. I then added that such ideas (that it’s all white) are not based on facts but on politics wishing to blame the white west for any trouble the world and its black and brown inhabitants have now or will ever have.
I’m not sure I wish to get into a debate that will bore our fellow bloggers, I’ll just say that in accordance with such politics you have misrepresented my words and meanings and then declared those new meanings – which were not mine at all – to be myths I succumbed to. You’ve done this with both my ideas on the origins of Capitalism and the black and brown migration to white countries.
White fragility may be real but in our context feels like a tactic to shut down any criticism which is not aimed at the white west. One is just supposed to nod in agreement. Like I said earlier, racism is real and present, it’s just that like brutality and enslavement – it’s not just white or capitalistic.
Once again, this social intercourse has led to frustration on both sides. No pleasure. No ecstasy. 😞 This is unlikely to change. Our belief systems are too different. What you see as facts, I see as fiction, and vice versa. You say you are “not sure” you want to get into a debate……and then proceed to continue the debate. Why?
Renee: Great point. In my case, I love the debate, the banter. Sure, for me I have nothing better to do.
Jack
Daniel: several quotes from your last piece
“All I was saying is, violence and racism and enslavement are not intrinsically white or capitalist, that other cultures and peoples practiced them throughout history as well”. That’s no excuse for white people doing it.
“bore our fellow bloggers”
Why are you afraid of boring other bloggers … that’s their feeling and for them to deal with.
“One is just supposed to nod in agreement[i]t’s “.
Isn’t that a consequence of you taking it, and buying into it …
just as you did in those early days of your life?
“not just white or capitalistic”.
Again, you seem afraid to be different.
Jack
Daniel I’m always interested in the ideas and discourse that you bring to the blog. I like your skill and style in how you frame and explain your point of view. What you wrote makes sense to me. Renee I’m glad you are writing on the blog. Renee and Daniel, when you happen to be both expressing yourselves on the blog, I end up wondering about each of you what it is in the deep, still water of your souls that eventually is stirred by each other into a pattern of butting heads against each other, so to speak. Maybe time will tell. Jack, lover of banter and debate, what you wrote on April 1, 12:38 am makes no sense to me at all. It seems as if you are presenting a prerecorded response to Daniel without actually hearing what he said.
Just my feedback because I have nothing pressing to say about myself right now. I appreciate everyone’s participation here and this is mine for this morning. Better than silence I hope.
We witness the imprinting on successive generations the injuries caused by residential schools, and child snatching of native children, and how it impairs the victims ability to form relationships. IMHO evidence exists by watching voting patterns in our so called democratic countries just how the past creates the present. Whether or not First Peoples practised democracy is a moot point. Those adhering to traditional values still take counsel from old women; the sharing of resources begins with caring for children and the elderly first. Every resource harvested, a plant, a tree, a fish is thanked and honoured with tobacco or a hair plucked from their head. And it is those values that survived the white intention to , ” .. wipe every Indian, ( Colombus thought he was in the Indies,) from existence; ” not, let’s regroup and retake control. I suggest they are superior to capitalistic greed.
New England local gov’t structure, community layout, early building construction, and farming methods was copied from the Cherokee. The same Cherokee the gov’t attempted to obliterate via the 5000 mile forced march from New England to the Mississippi.
Nearly 70% of modern pharmacopeia has it’s roots in the medicine of the First Peoples of Turtle Island, nka, North America. Recently some of the, ” Stockholm Syndrome,” has started to abate and First Peoples are demanding payment for the thievery of their children, lands, resources, as well as cultural, language, and spiritual genocide. Now we become inconvenient. Our reserves in legislative parlance remain designated, ” prison camps.” Federal intelligence knows and has GPS’d the location of every privy, let alone every cultural centre, school, health clinic, administration offices.
But I digress. That past events affects the present is the reason we turned to the PI. And the skills, or lack of, by which partnerships, friendships, parenting, citizenship, world citizenship, develop further reflect the past shaping the present and the future.
David: I agree with all that. What a race we Anglos Saxons are
Jack
Speaking of coronavirus silver linings, this is a great article by George Monbiot in The Guardian highlighting how the human spirit is substantially the spirit of cooperation, and how the crisis is bringing this to the fore. Entitled “The horror films got it wrong. This virus has turned us into caring neighbours”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/31/virus-neighbours-covid-19
TO PROTECT MY COPYRIGHT, AND ENSUING ROYALTIES, WE SEEM TO HAVE TWO DAVIDS posting; moi ayant seulement le visage du “Old Mariner”, attaché.
If I had anything of substance to contribute, I forget.
Oh, I did have a thought. If watching the behaviour of the citizens of this continent for 7 decades, following any trauma event that begat niceties offers any clues, it reverts back to the old normal almost immediately, once the impending doom recedes. I haven’t heard of any mass petitions to persuade the gov’t to assist disaster torn Puerto Rico; nor to question where those zillions of bucks earmarked for Haiti rebuild got to…. But to be fair Puerto Rican ball players seeking Green Cards enjoy an expedited process.
David, I generally agree. We know from our experience in this primal process that profound change in the present does take movement and resolution of deeply held pain and behavioural imprints often over a prolonged period of time. But there could be some carry overs in these initiatives that are mentioned in the article. Some things that folks decide are working well or better than before and warrant keeping. One thing that could really receive a permanent positive boost is action to aid the climate crisis. The oil and gas industry is facing its worst crisis in over a hundred years. The Russians and Saudis recently ramped up oil production to try and undercut the boom in US shale gas, only to find with the advent of the CV that no one wants their extra oil. This double whammy of over production and the CV crisis could sound the death knell of the fossil fuel industry. And it’s yet to bottom out. Actually, triple whammy, as renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels. When the wheels start to roll again, there’s a real opportunity for renewables to supplant oil and gas with widespread new green deals. As the saying goes, one should never waste a good crisis.
Now, back to my recording project 🙂
David: Agreed.
Jack
That would be a step forward; oil and gas have been a curse, crisis. One time I was doing maintenance at our sweat lodge. I’m a closet tobacco smoker; a pack a week. I confessed that to the spirits, that I don’t really believe in. But then I heard, my own words I suspect, ” Ikanitj, (Listen,) we should never have given tobacco to the whites. They use it like food. Don’t be so hard on yourself. ” I thought I was being named, ” Ikanitj.” A speaker of ancient Mi’kmaq told me it means, ” listen.” Damn, deflated ego ..(:
I do not feel like getting involved in the discussion but I do feel like giving you some support Daniel, as all you wrote made sense to me and did not feel provocative at all.
there seem to be underlying feelings going on that invariably turn the interaction into an argument even while you try to avoid that, so that seems not to lead anywhere.
but do keep writing as I and I think several others like to read what you write.
m
Ah, Margaret, I read your response after I posted mine which is along the same vein. I agree.
This document is a rubric on how to score debates using a point system:
Click to access classdebate.pdf
Trying again, that link doesn’t work. https://www.niu.edu/facdev/_pdf/guide/strategies/classroom_debate_rubric.pdf
We could use the above rubric to judge debates which go on here.
Thanks Phil. That looks sensible, except I hardly ever see anything on the blog that constitutes a debate. It seems that most often one or more parties are using the encounter to blow off steam, using arguments weakly grounded in actual reliable information.
And thanks for bringing my attention to the word ‘rubric’. I like how it explains much with just a few letters rather than many words. I want it in my vocabulary. 🙂
The rubric mentions body language, which we can’t see here, and inappropriate and/or sarcastic remarks which results in lower scoring, and I think we can ignore that too. Someone may have a feeling which has something to do with taking a certain position, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate who is right or wrong in the debate, if that can even be determined. A lot of times there maybe isn’t any right or wrong answer when both sides can produce evidence supporting their positions.
Here on the bog we are probably more interested in why people debate, and why they might want to push certain ideas. I’ve tried to describe why I might debate Jack, that hasn’t really change over time, and the topics have remained the same. Renee and Daniel have debated on various topics but there does seem to be a common theme.
Phil
Larry,
I think both Daniel and Renee have sometimes pointed to sources backing up their views.
That doesn’t necessarily make for useful debate, Phil. For example, if I list the Bible, or Donald Trump as a source for backing up my view, where no concrete data is presented, I’m not debating, I’m just expressing an opinion. Or if in a lot of cases the source is data that is cherry picked to support a view, as the climate change deniers do, It seems to me that a lot of what is called debating is really just arguing.
I agree Larry and Margaret. Jack I don’t think Daniel was at all saying that white racist views are alright but simply historically that it is a narrow view. There is enough horrendous racism to go around not only from white men but women as well and from other cultures. Additionally I believe he is saying that he feels unless he nods his head in agreement another accusation is thrown his way. I’m not sure what that is all about or why all the sexual analogy but probably worth looking at. You know something came up early on in these discussions that struck me as important. Phil was discussing the recent news about where this virus began. It was reported that it began in China with bats being eaten. He was told he was racist for saying that . Personally I think he was repeating the information that was out there at the time and I believe the information has been proven to be true. In any case he was accused of being racist. I’m not sure why he did not dispute that but maybe it would be useful to discuss our own problems with racism rather than throwing out hurtful accusations. Gretch
Gretchen, It’s true that Renee accused me of being a racist, but I guess I didn’t take her comment seriously, and concluded she didn’t really mean it. Maybe because Renee and I always get along well at retreats, and I consider her a friend
Phil
Info has come forward in a UN statement that the , ” market, ” blamed as the point of instance, does not sell to the public, nor have food bats. It services large retail outlets. What strikes me as odd is how quickly info was obtained from a country that in all other instances is so successfully secretive that it is impossible to get any info about anything.
In living alone, and now practicing COVID19 provoked responsible social distancing, a lot of my time end energy goes into electronic, virtual social connection to try to fill my social need and calm an isolation exacerbated sometimes desperate panic of black emptiness in me that’s harder to keep at bay during this pandemic. One alternate form of community participation that has evolved in response to the pandemic is my unitarian community’s experiment with online virtual Sunday church service followed by coffee chat. A conflict for me this past Sunday was that Gretchen and Barry’s experiment with virtual primal group that Sunday overlapped in timing with the unitarian service. I wanted…needed it all…connection with friends in both communities. The Sunday church service started 1/2 hour sooner than group, so my plan was to take in the first part of Sunday service and connect with those friends, then exit the service to link into the online primal group when it started. Below is what I wrote to Gretchen 60 hours after Sunday’s virtual primal group. For the first hour of trying, I wasn’t able to link into the online primal group that was taking place.
Gretchen I went through a yo-yo of feelings Sunday morning when I tried linking into your virtual group experiment. The link didn’t work. I couldn’t get into the group, and I had left the zoom unitarian church service early, 1/3 way into it. So I was missing out on both online group activities that I’d hoped and needed to participate in, and was feeling quite alone and deprived at a time when I needed nurturing social connection and emotional reprieve from the fear of pandemic danger gripping humanity. When after an hour of trying (accompanied by a significant cry…seems like they always are) I finally was able to link into the primal group. I was surprised how it soon started to feel like being at a retreat. Eventually I was even wrestling with my same old ongoing problem of needing to but struggling to speak in group, feeling afraid to get the attention I needed.
One thing that was different and unique about the online group is that I had everyone right in my living room while I participated right from on my couch. Normally I have to go very far away to a different country and different city to be part of the group. This time I didn’t have to go anywhere. Group came right into to my home. It was jarring to feel you all here, so close. The more group went on, the more I opened up and felt connected to those in attendance. I felt my insides letting go, a tightness relaxing.
From post-group feedback, it sounds like participants found the experiment with online virtual group to be a wonderful experience, but when the group ended, I felt more awful and anxious than I’ve felt since the start of pandemic self-distancing. Suddenly you all were gone, and felt impossibly far away, (not only a feeling but also a reality in that regular travel to the US isn’t allowed now). Phoning friends here, and friends phoning me, talking with them to late in the evening, calmed me down. It seemed to me that the stress I had been feeling after the end of virtual group must have been something like how I must’ve felt when I was 1 1/2 or 2 and my parents came to see me at my uncle and aunt’s and then left without me, going impossibly, hopelessly too far away for a child to get to on my own.
This morning I’ve been crying the thread of pain that afflicted me from then on, and the imprint that I wrestled with for the rest of my life, that there was no community for me, no one to correct the circumstances that had gone awry for me early on my life’s path. This morning I cried how alone my life’s been, and how profoundly important in my early adulthood that to have some kind of normal life trajectory I had to risk reaching out across the void to community for support that I never felt was there, and finally found what I needed since I was 1 1/2 and that had to be there for any meaningful adult life to unfold for me…I found someone who saw and understood and in the simple understanding helped me onto a healthy life path that I surely wouldn’t have had otherwise. I found you, Gretchen, and the primal community. I found primal friends. M was in my starting group way back then. We grew and enduring friendship. Seeing him in virtual group last Sunday reminds me of the incredible transformative arc we’ve been on. Reaching out and finding the primal community made my adult life possible.
Now in this time of danger I’m realizing my wider community outside of primal is there for me too. I can trust them. They will help me get through this pandemic. I trust them more than I ever trusted my parents with my emotional needs. That was the part, near the end of the feeling I had this morning, that hurt the most. A struggle to try to get something, some emotional support or comfort from my parents, ends. I see and sadly accept that I am trusting and getting more from my community of friends and the community at large to get me safely through this dangerous time, than I ever trusted my parents. From my adult perspective I am sadly seeing what a parental deficit there was.
The achievement of repair has been remarkable and life saving in the long journey of primal healing.
Larry,
For me the virtual group felt as good as a live group. It was great to see everyone there and I struggled with some difficult feelings, the same as could happen in any group session, which in my case had nothing to do with isolation. I’m afraid I already have a certain level of isolation, and haven’t lost much with social distancing. Luckily I’m still working and have my wife at home. She also claims not to be effected because she’s making a lot of phone calls and staying connected, but I wonder about that. I hope we can all get through this as soon as possible, but that may take a least a few more months. Phil
Yes, likely a couple more months, then even after that because the virus will still be bouncing around having to be very careful until a vaccine is available, or until most people have acquired immunity by having become infected and survived, so then the transmission rate slows to a trickle and hospitals aren’t so overwhelmed, and maybe treatments are found that help those who seriously ill with COV19 to survive. Right now, aside from experimental treatments, apparently all that can be done is put you on life support and leave it to your immune system rid you of the virus. The immune system of us old folks is not as robust as when we were younger. I’ve read that experimental early intervention with hydroxychloroquine or with intravenous high dose vitamin C has shown success in improving the survival rate of people in hospital acutely ill with COVID19.
Phil: I shudder for those that hate isolation. For me alone and aloneness was never a problem since as a kid there were four of us and I sometimes just wanted to get away from them, my siblings
Most of the time when I lived in Ibiza as was alone except I would have some visitors during the summer.
Jack
Larry,
I hope you can find enough contact to get you through this unnatural period of social isolation.
Phil
Thanks Phil. Mostly I am (electronically), despite that all over the world we are trapped and our physical contact curtailed by the unseen danger on some of the surfaces, on and in some of the persons, and in some of the air wherever people come physically together.
Larry: a sad story and your reality then, and now. I feel you are making fantastic progress.
Good luck Larry.
Jack
Larry,
I relate to many of your feelings.
I am glad you finally managed to join the virtual primal group, and just fearing I won’t be able to link in already gave me stressed feelings and anxiety the last days.
I looked at the first invitation that was not completely ok, and saw all those phone numbers for different locations, and got very insecure, like it is not only clicking on the join Gretchen’s group button but do I have to look up which phone number I should use and can I do so with a laptop?
so please, can you tell me what finally allowed you to get through after that stressed out hour of trying in vain?
you also live out of the States so your feedback might be useful as well as other responses I still hope to get.
if you wish you can mail me on my personal mail.
that panicky feeling of being alone in a dangerous world you talked about earlier feels so familiar and these days often is my waking up feeling.
luckily it dissipates after getting out of bed or getting some cat affection, but occasionally it returns in the afternoons for a while.
take good care, hope to hear you next Sunday, M
Sent you an email Margaret.
Here’s an interesting report:
“As many as 25 percent of people infected with the new coronavirus may not show symptoms, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns — a startlingly high number that complicates efforts to predict the pandemic’s course and strategies to mitigate its spread.
In particular, the high level of symptom-free cases is leading the C.D.C. to consider broadening its guidelines on who should wear masks.”
👍
I wanted to briefly mention that, for the purposes of this blog, arguing over a topic is actually a much more desirable procedure over civilized, structural debating. Here’s a hint as to why: Lots of emotions come out during an argument, right? Primal emotions, that is?
Guru: My take also.
Jack
True enough, except we have to realize when we are emotion driven arguing, not debating. It can be hard to be that self-aware.
Larry: Granted, but “when we are emotion driven arguing, not debating. It can be hard to be that self-aware.” Perhaps … but not impossible. I make a concerted effort to express my feelings (emotions) and check every post I make, and then in some cases, re-check what I’ve written to make sure that I am not overwhelmed by those ’emotions’.
Jack
Hi Everyone: I’ve been watching TV, and for the last two weeks it’s all coronavirus, coronavirus, almost 24/7. The number of doctors putting forward their reasons for the immune system not adequately resolving this out-break are so innumerable and boggle the mind further, for what I contend are the uninitiated. I feel it’s causing more panic than it needs to.
IMO, until the medical profession starts to take in Janov’s discovery and theory, they will continue to send out mixed messages, never getting a real handle on it.
For me, it is relatively simple. The more trauma one had as a baby the greater the risk of a compromised immune system and hence a great risk of getting this disease and the chances of dying from it.
That simple: It could be that someone (other than me) in a position of authority might; just might connect the two.
It kind of worries me that Janov’s work is not taken more seriously. However, I will battle away for any option to propose it. I wonder if Barry B agrees and if he is willing to press the point, having a Ph.D.
Jack.
Jack,
I think what we need to better survive covid-19 and to live longer is another X chromosone.
Many more men are dying from the disease than women around the world, and females are stronger and live longer than males, at all ages, and my understanding is that this general rule applies applies to all species of animals.
“The disproportionate toll this virus is taking on males isn’t an anomaly. When it comes to survival, men are the weaker sex.”
Phil: I see your point quite clearly, but my ‘take’ on it is:- to look more deeply into why we became neurotic and proceed from that point.
We can never be certain about our past, however learned those anthropologists look at it all… unless they take into consideration our primary disease.
Jack
This is a dangerous time. Worry is appropriate. I say treat people as if they were adults and give them all the information. Don’t keep them in the dark because that’s what causes panic. The more that people take the time to know the enemy, the more deeply they are motivated to take steps to protect themselves and their community against it and the more they know how to. I want all the latest info on the COVID19 pandemic. I want to take all the steps I can (there are many) to support my immune system. Even then, the sobering truth is that the older I get, the more my body and its systems deteriorate. That’s Nature.
It’s not unknown in the medical field that childhood trauma compromises the immune system. “Typically, the more trauma you’ve experienced, the worse your health is.”
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/past-trauma-may-haunt-your-future-health
Larry: you say ” Even then, the sobering truth is that the older I get, the more my body and its systems deteriorate. That’s Nature.” Tell me all about it … don’t I know it!
Knocking on 90 I thought would be sort of OK. I’m learning the truth; for my body at least.
Jack
Jack,
Animal populations can be wiped out or even driven to extinction by infectious diseases, and that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with neurosis.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/27556747/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/how-disease-can-wipe-out-entire-species/#.XoX6aIhKi1s
Phil: that’s true, but does that apply in this case to our response (by way of illness) to this situation. I don’t think so … but who knows.
Jack
Jack,
Some interesting facts about squirrels, which we have a lot of around here: “These (grey) squirrels can live to be 20 years old in captivity, but in the wild live much shorter lives due to predation and the challenges of their habitat. At birth, their life expectancy is 1–2 years, an adult typically can live to be six, with exceptional individuals making it to 12 years.”
People in prison don’t live as long as free people, I wonder what accounts for these differences between squirrels and people, since prison is being in captivity.
Maybe it’s because people have mastered their environment, and can expect a high quality of life, Squirrels, on the other hand, haven’t done that, and live in anarchy in an environment they haven’t mastered.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5391969/
Another fact: “A squirrel is more likely to get hit by a car then die of heart disease!”. I’m not sure who did the research on this.
Phil
Phil, I’m thinking that squirrels living in captivity are treated well, perhaps as pets, where as people in captivity in prison are being punished and highly stressed and may have to fight for their lives in a gang-like survival; hence they would have a shorter life span than their ‘free’ human counterparts.
We had squirrels here who lived to be 8 yrs. old until they began to eat the garden and dug burrows in the yard, and well, they had to go. (Sorry, squirrels; still feel bad about that.)
S
Sylvia,
Do you think that if people were treated like pets in prison, they could live longer than free people?
Phil
Maybe so, in comparison with free humans, if they had visits from their families, good food, no stress about working and losing a job then having to live at a homeless shelter; they probably would live longer than the average bill-worrying American.
I saw a 60 minute program a few yrs ago where some prisons in Europe (forget where) the inmates were treated as human beings, giving them free range on the grounds. They had their own little apartment and some could go home for a visit. Even the ones who had committed violent crimes were treated well with some respect. Think the warden said something like, “Well, they are still people, they just have problems getting along in society.” There was less recidivism too compared with our prison population.
People put in cages just seems crazy to me. Our system just makes behavior worse.
Things are going to become really scary here in the US very shortly. It took 30 days from the first COVID-19 death to reach 1,000 deaths in the US. Just yesterday alone another 1,000 died here in the US. The exponential increases to come will really shock a lot of people. I also have strong suspicions that southern states will be particularly ravaged by this pandemic for a lot of different reasons.
Guru, it’s getting scarier everyday. Here’s a report about brain ailments caused by Covid-19. It seems that’s rare, but I wonder if it’s related to the loss of smell some people experience.
The loss of the sense of smell and taste is what I meant, as experienced by some people infected by Covid-19. Phil
I stocked up for almost a month’s worth of groceries in early March and now it’s almost all gone. I’m getting hungry and I’m scared to stock up all over again.
The streets may seem quiet and deserted, but behind the walls of hospitals are being overwhelmed and stretched to the very limit, with many workers themselves succumbing to infection. Health infrastructure in rural America and along many southern states is terrible compared to New York, so I can only imagine the overwhelming terror those hospitals will be experiencing in a few short weeks or less.
Well isn’t that just dandy.
The exponential increase being experienced now is not a prediction of the future. The exponential increase will end eventually, sooner if individuals in the community are self-distancing and responsibly adopting community-minded behaviors to slow the spread of infection and reduce panic. I read, but don’t quote me, that Amazon, or was it UPS, isn’t doing this. They are expecting people to come to work sick, and aren’t providing them with any health protective measures to help lower their risk of infection on the job.
Why are you afraid to stock up again? There are still markets that deliver if you don’t want to go out. Gretchen
I’ve never asked for delivery of groceries my entire life. I always went inside and picked everything on my own. My own way of expressing rugged American individualism so no one can criticize me for being a needy freeloader in any way?
This symbolically extends to the pack of Brawny Man paper towels I need to pick up as well (didn’t we talk about the Brawny Man oh so long ago?).
Pandemic grocery shopping:
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a31928732/coronavirus-grocery-shopping/
The article mentions when arriving at the grocery, to park as far away as you can from the store entrance. I already do that to minimize my risk of being door dinged by careless drivers who park too close to me and open their door into mine. I now do my grocery shopping, once a week, during the first hour after the store opens, when the store is cleanest and there are few customers about and it is easy to practice safe social distancing. An employee at the main entrance directs you to use hand wash and sterile wipe stations before entering the main body of the store. The shopping experience feels quite safe and the staff are quite friendly and helpful.
If grocery store workers walk off the job, nobody eats, not the heroic health care workers, not the policemen and firemen, not the grocery store workers. Nobody wants that, not even the grocery store workers. Here plexiglass dividers have been put up to separate cashier from customer to make the cashier’s job safer. Foot print images leading to the check-out line have been placed 6′ apart on the floor to remind customers in line to maintain a 6′ space between themselves.
Groceries can be ordered on line and delivered. I think there is something like a two week wait here for delivery, so a person has to buy groceries for their anticipated needs two weeks into the future. That’s what some of my senior friends with multiple health and some mobility issues are doing, who’d rather not risk going into the store.
So you are saying you are scared to go to the market which I think is not only understandable but something we can all relate to. Still Guru you do need food so it’s something you need to do or look into delivery services in the area. Better to do now because as each city becomes worse the delivery services become overwhelmed. I have been sent videos and articles like the one you posted. Most do have helpful information. Gretchen
Although I said I was getting hungry earlier, I still have 2-3 days’ worth of food left to work with. I do agree with the need to stock up again very shortly aside from hunger considerations. Amazon warehouse workers are starting to go on strike. What’s going to happen if the general public starts openly panicking a few weeks from now after tens of thousands of people die? Grocery store workers might want to walk off the job in fear, as well.
Well I think we need to be aware but hopefully not panicked. I don’t know about tens of thousands but that’s why I think you are better off ordering now . I try to stay focused on what is happening rather than what might. At the same time I want to be educated and not inundated. I do go to the market but I also do tons of hand washing. I might wear gloves in certain situations but not a hazmat suit. I try to find some balance. Gretchen
Grethen: I got your point and all I can say is that I feel very lucky as I don’t have to do any shopping and the only time I go outdoors is to sit on the patio and soak up the sun … when it shines
Jim is so, so careful and hygiene conscious that I feel getting the virus from him is on the minimal side.
The only potential problem for me is:- how long will this luck of mine last?
On the philosophic side, I do watch the news, but if the virus hits me and doesn’t kill me I’ll consider that pure luck. If it kills me then all my worries and problems will be over. However, death by gasping for air would be no fun.
Jack
Jack; speaking to a specialist in viral contagion, I got several tips; selenium, 150 mg/day, increases the impermeability of cell walls; Melatonin 3mg/day increases our immunoglobulin scouts and killers. Actually more like disablers that cloak and escort potential harms out of the body. The former top US immunovirologist and contagion expert, for years their point man to assay and strategize containment and treatment of outbreaks abroad is as a scientist promoting Vit C, 3 – 8 grams/day, to bowel tolerance. He and a fellow scientist, Phd in Science, also recommended a product, Oxysilver, first developed to protect and treat US astronauts from viral attack. Following a health promoting diet, clean drinking water, adequate sleep, laughter, music, were also stressed.
Best thoughts for good health friend Jack
David: Hey! that was a lovely compliment. I don’t deserve it BUT I will definitely accept it,embrace it, and remember it.
Jack.
My direst dread Jack, death by fighting for breath. That’s been my terrifying annual feelings visitor. We can have doctors standing orders here,for, ” Do Not Resuscitate , ” and we have lawful physician assisted death nationwide; I will raise after this scare that, the latter be added to standing orders in the event of impending end of life struggle. Hell, I’m 74, my years of contributing are past and I’m just a drain on resources.
David: this particular post brings up a lot for me … which I will deal with later today, But as Janov, I believe, once said we each of us die just like we did at birth. I take that to mean that dying short of breath means we were born gasping for breath and if I understand LeBoyer “Birth Without Violence” most of it stems from cutting the umbilical cord too soon .. also suggesting it does not need to be cut it will just wither away the moments it is no loa=nger needed.
So! therein I feel those that die from coronavirus are those that were born needing to breathe. It’s a feeling and for all that it’s beyond awful to relive it … it is possible to relive it. I hope you know all this.
It is in just this sense, that I feel COVID 19 is merely a mild virus and to be a killer needs to ride on the back of neurosis. Without neurosis it is merely a simple virus.
Jack
Guru, Amazon has split pea, 4 lbs. and lentils 4lb. for $13.95 each. 25 lb. ones for $49.95 for the stocking up. Popcorn, 6lb Amish style, $14.95 and ghee $9.62 for the butter substitute (both needed for those infamous Renee-Daniel debates.) Also the 25 lb. sacks are a little cheaper at the Brand site. Don’t forget to grow sprouts too, everyone.
S
Picked up 22.5 lb sacks of whole yellow peas and small brown lentils at my Health Food Store, $ 19.00, Canadian, for each. What size container of Ghee, Sylvia ? Organic Butter here is $ 10.00/lb. I switched to Goat and Sheep butters about a year ago, they do not require me to clarify them as they don’t have the lectin I react to connected to bovine protein. Weird, the long bones, ( bone broth,) don’t carry the lectin either. But they are expensive, here at least.
The ghee has gone to $8.62 for 12 oz. on amazon. I had ordered 25 lb. of split pea ($36.99) from the brand name website also, but it was lost in transit (in other words prob. met the five finger discount from someone who needed it.) They will send another. I like goat milk too to stock up on for comfort food. Can make yogurt out of it. They sometimes have half price when they promote it (Green goat brand) on amz.
I’m glad David, you find some comfort in the group now.
I make yogurt and kefir from nutmilks; the bifido family are my best bacterias and I was able to inoculate the nut milks successfully with organic unpasteurized dairy yogurt. The breed has lived on so far. I add some yogurt to the batter when I make sourdough breads. Can’t hurt, I figure.
Are you living in the US Sylvia ? Those price seem very high. I order from Goldmine, in California, when our exchange rates are favourable. Trader Joe’s is another option. Bought a case of Gallo Bros White Zinfandel wine from Joes, late 80’s, for about a buck a bottle about 2 months before that brew unexpectedly took top international honours. Kinda wish I had kept it instead of gifting the lot.
I never buy food through Amazon. I go to two different grocery stores and Big Lots. I can pick up a pound of dried lentils this way for 98 cents plus 6 cents sales tax ($1.04). So 4 lbs of lentils would cost $4.16 instead of $13.95.
If you charge it to a cash rewards credit card you can knock off another 1-2% from the price.
G. So go and have fun in your hazmat suit. Besides, the legumes are grown non-gmo and non-irradiated and as little pesticides as possible and are of the Spanish small variety and are also from a family farm. The more for me.
Enjoyed all your “food fight” above. 🙂 Really, Guru, just go buy or order in food. I had the nightmare myself today of grocery shopping, by “nightmare” I mean insanity of gloves, hand-washing, alcohol-wiping, and failing to do it perfectly. I hate being afraid to touch everything in the store, not knowing if someone touched their face before I picked the item up. But with gloves on, then I have to either dig into my wallet with a contaminated glove, or else take the glove off, so I don’t contaminate my wallet & purse — but then my hands get contaminated! And my clothes, which all had to go in the wash today, afterwards.
I don’t have any sanitizer, stores don’t have any alcohol, so I’m using tiny 1-inch square wipes. And I have to use alcohol wipes on my cane — I am contaminating it as often as my hands. I’ve gone more to letting Paper cash sit for several days before I touch it again, Plastic mail sits for at least 3 days before I open it, Cardboard for two days. If my car sits in the sun for several days, untouched, I have to consider it clean.
—————————————————————————————————
Change of subject: Just read this wonderful article, I want to read it again, and absorb it better:
“The Thinking Error at the Root of Science Denial”
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-thinking-error-at-the-root-of-science-denial?utm_source=pocket-newtab
For me it is a disturbing article, Vicki.
I’m curious how or why disturbing, Larry. If and when you want to say.
For me that article is like a declaration that the Emperor has no clothes. It’s like shining the light on unarguable truth that minds with hands on the reins of power are inherently flawed in how they think and make decisions. The article spells out to me that Trump is not only a self-centered power hungry capitalist who is anathema to my conception of what responsible community leadership is, but worse his thinking style has the characteristic of a ‘mental health disturbance’ or ‘borderline personality disorder’. Even scarier, the sane people in his administration have resigned or been fired, giving him room to replace them with people who think like he does. Very troubling.
The way the pandemic is unfolding in the US, it appears the US is headed for an especially scary, disruptive time. My fear is that conditions will be so bad and the population so fearful that Trump and his administration will find ways to use the calamity as an excuse to cancel the election and stay in power, pretty much bringing and end to the era where since its formation the US was a beacon of light and freedom in the world. What seems to be the prime driver in Trump’s thinking is how to garner personal power and wealth, how to share it with cronies, and how to keep it. All their decisions regarding governing flow from that, not from governing for the people. Scares me.
Larry,
I think Trump is very dangerous, as I’m glad you;re discovering. The latest example is Trump’s son in-law, Jared Kushner, getting a prominent position in the covid-19 response. Kushner has no qualifications for any responsibilities in the administration and has no business being there.
Phil
I’ve seen him as dangerous from the beginning, but have become more alarmed over time that not enough Americans see it or care, and their thinking will become more confused as the pandemic crisis unfolds, and he will use that to his advantage but at great loss to the country and its future, and the world’s.
Jarod is, ” Prince of Everything.” The greatest giggle I had today was hearing a pundit avers that Trump knows exactly what he is saying at all times, that it is calculated; ” that’s how he draws his enemies in and then he slays them.” He never developed past the, ” Terrible Twos ,” phase, mean, egocentric; plus all other negative personality attributes in the DSM. The Psychiatrist I interned under joking labeled the mental illnesses as , ” too sad, too mad, too glad, and all fucked up.” ” All fucked up,” seems to cover Trump. He would have been the ultimate challenge for A S Neil, SUMMERHILL SCHOOL. He needs to not be allowed to play with others. May he be defeated SOUNDLY in Nov.
Buuut, folks he needs some sympathy, doesn’t he ? Surely he wasn’t born with the destructive personality. So what happened, systemic sexual abuse, the neglect levels that led Raun Kaufman to withdraw from the world and totally destroyed Robin Williams, or failure to develop the competence Fred may have expected and hoped for.
If I had been blessed with charm I suspect I might have been a real bastard. Peer rejection redirected me to getting approval from elderly folks, that, and, fear of being adjudicated as, ” bad,” by the community, and a naive, angry, non judgmental Social Worker / Activist was born.
David: This Trump administration is getting more frightening by the day , but my feeling is we’ve not seen the worst of it.
Jack
For me at least, Jack, the real BOOGEYMAN, is that 50% of the American popuation/electorate allign themselves with the grotesque amoral, madman, called Trump. When I was 10 years old I was a 45 totin’ gunslinger. I was sympathetic to the famous western legends who became revengeful after their families were victims of bad men. We hunted the real bad guys and enjoyed outdrawng and killing them. Apparently a significant percentage of humans never evolve their brains beyond my age 10 brain, and a large percntage of them kill people of the wrong colour, race, choice of medicine and poor, for sport, and, to this point in many countries, including Canada and the US, for sport, and, with impunity. The role of police conducts investigations is to always exonerate the murdering officer, with the RCMP later making gagged large settlements to the victims’ families.
David: I feel the whole thing is a very complex structure that we are forever trying to understand, but it is a self inflicted structure upon our selves. I too as a young kid played Cowboys and Indians. I always wanted to be one of those good cowboys as opposed to those bad Indians. So even at that young age I had already been indoctrinated into the current way of life as of then, as a young kid.
As I see it now, due to several things over my life and culminating in Primal therapy, all this is as a result of the way at least one set of humans, being the European white man, and perhaps the original creators of neurosis; we started a slow process of losing out real nature and had to adapt to a new set of circumstances (neurosis) for ourselves. Perhaps the first thing we needed to do was to artificially organize our social groupings. Each set of cave dwellers being a separate group. Within each of these groups we started by making general rules for the sake of the organization of each group (laws).
As time passed we found the need to tweak these rules to fit where we saw flaws in the original rules. AND hey ho!, we were off to what we have now, which is still grouping (nationalities) … rule makers to amend the rules that seem not fit anymore (Governments) Leaders to supposedly represented the rest of the group. Then ways to make sure other groups did not try to take anything from our group (armies). Then ways to make sure everyone keep to the rules (policing)
Having gone down that path we are stuck with it and most of us are reluctant to see it any other way. Save a little tweak hear and some other little tweak there and hope ‘to fuck’ it works out. The whole system is now out of whack and is falling apart before our very eyes and we seem to have no idea how to fix things any more … viruses that cause us each to isolate and that isolation, that is throwing the whole economic structure out of whack, from one another wrecking the whole ‘boat lead’, of what used to exist and ‘hoping against all hope’of getting back to normal (little realizing there is no such ‘normal’; it’s always been in flux all down time.
We humans are crazy but see ourselves as the one intelligent creature; assuming our definition of intelligence is the smart and natural way … but is it? Most other creatures seem to get on fine without it.
Its tantamount to fixing and re-fixing an old car, and hoping that it’ll now be like new. A good mechanic knows we have to buy a whole new one.
Scrap the whole system and see if we can manage (a decent life for each of us) without any system at all.
Jack
Larry: the more I hear about Trump, governing, and democracy, the more I see the whole thing crumbling before our very eyes. None of it is working, AND IMO it never really was … we just thought it was.
I contend that what Art brought to the table (fore) was that we humans had evolved into a very neurotic creature and that we NEEDED to overcome this disease first. AND yes I contend it takes precedence over the current pandemic.
I am certain that the major impediment we are facing is our ‘natural’ ability for an immune system that could make this coronavirus irrelevant if only our natural immune system was fully working. The current trouble is:- we are not natural anymore we’re just behaving … as I feel Art already knew. It’s like he always insisted; ‘we are looking in all the wrong places’.
Jack
BINGO !! Ya nailed it Jack, that it never worked, a slight of hand game of the powerful wealthy who allow us crumbs from their table, beit soup kitchens, NIKE footwear, BMW’s, so they can rule from their palacial lifestyles. And we bask in the illusion that we’re doing well and life is COOOL… The minutes of the 1991 World Bank Annual Meeting made that clear, and that there were too many of us worker bees. PROFITS, nothing else, is the driver, whatever the honourable social program. Sure there are some decent folks trapped within the sewers of child protection, senior care, police service; service, that’s an oxymoron. Yesterday New Brunswick police checked on the safety of a 26 year old woman being harrassed. She answered he door. The officer said she was holding a knife. He shot her to death. Those who knew her say she was incapable of aggression, sweet, kind, friendly. They are considering looking into why the cop wearing KEVLAR, trained in restraint, didn’t use non lethal itervention. That’s one of 8 this week in superiorly friendly Canada.
Picked up 22.5 lb sacks of whole yellow peas and small brown lentils at my Health Food Store, $ 19.00, Canadian, for each. What size container of Ghee, Sylvia ? Organic Butter here is $ 10.00/lb. I switched to Goat and Sheep butters about a year ago, they do not require me to clarify them as they don’t have the lectin I react to connected to bovine protein. (Weird, the long bones, ( bone broth,) don’t carry the lectin either.) But goat and sheep butters are expensive, here at least.
A Covid-19 level new version of “Hallelujah” – by the Roedean School Virtual Choir
Vicki, beautiful song, as usual. All those young people; got to love it. Glad you liked the ‘food show.’ We aim to please.
I let my delivered packages sit on the porch a couple days too. Wipe all the cats’ bags of food down too. Open mail the next day or with nitrile gloves. Thanked the mail-gal for being on the job. Hallelujah.
This morning as I was paying for the groceries I told the cashier I appreciate her being at work. She told me she appreciates being at work, having a job and getting paid and not being stuck at home all day after day.
I often share news about my kids with a woman at work. Her kids are a little younger and the other day I found out that her 16 year old twins are not staying home, they are socializing with friends as usual. I told her they are going to bring the virus home, where they live with their 80 year old grandmother. There are loads of covid-19 cases around here and in the hospital. My coworker has a serious condition herself. What I didn’t say, is that she’ll then bring the virus to our office. Talking to her I realized she didn’t understand there is no effective treatments for Covid-19. The problem is too many people are still not taking it seriously enough. Those boys are putting themselves and everyone around them at risk, and violating the governors rules on social distancing.
People are dying in my wife’s small town of only 3000 people in Spain. First we heard that 3 had died. Now it’s so many that they are no longer ringing the church bells as they usually do,, and not even trying to figure out if it was from the virus Her parents are staying inside, with hardly anyone visiting, but it should be no one, and how long can they live like that? It’s totally contrary to the lifestyle in that place.
Phil
That is disturbing Phil. You’re co-worker should know better than that. How can she not be getting the message? Head purposely in the sand! Overwhelmed and unable to deal with it?
just heard from my sister who had it from a caretaker that there are three cases of Corona in mom’s nursing home.
they are in different wards than where mom is.
I had called her earlier on and she sounded fine, so I try not to panic.
called the home and they only test people now that have a fever.which I find OK at this point, the problem is people can not be ill and be infected, or they can have been ill a while ago and already be immune, and it would be a sorry thing to put those last people in a quarantine ward full of sick people.
so now I can only keep hoping mom’s ward remains clean and try to keep in touch.
I had to tell my sister I did not want to go into the cases that are ill there as I need to focus on the present and on mom.
M
Margaret, wow, that is really dangerous for your mom, that there are cases now in the nursing home. I hope they can control it. Those nursing home patients getting it, even if over 80, have a decent chance of recovering. Thinking of you and your mom, and hoping for the best.
Phil
Wishing you & your mom the best in this situation, Margaret. I am shocked it is hitting so close to home so quickly. Hopefully they’ll keep her several feet away from everyone else at all times, but surfaces become so easily contaminated I can see why this would bring huge anxiety.
People have to be more like several meters away, Guru, not feet. I’m afraid around here people aren’t really doing that, even store employees.
Phil
To put things in perspective here are some approximate covid-19 death rate ranges that I saw.
age 50 to 59 0.5 – 1%
60 to 69 2 to 4%
70 to 79 8 to 13%
>80 12 to 20%
The real death rate is probably lower at every age range because not everyone is tested.
Phil
The lowest numbers are from South Korea where very extensive testing was done, and so are probably the most accurate, but other things could factor in.
Age 50 to 59 0.5%
age 60 to 69 2%
age 70 to 79 8%
>80 12%
Phil: That puts me in the 20% range. Hopefully, I’m not one of the 20%
Jack
Jack,
Yes, you guys have to be especially careful.
Phil
After all Jack we have our whole lives ahead of us, as Smokey used to say, ” BE CAREFUL ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES;” The experts says it’s not air an borne variety. So how did it spread so quickly ?
David: SIMPLE; COVID 19 found the gate open, and so ran around in the pastures. It don’t need a Ph.D. in rocket science to figure that one out.
Jack
Daniel, I’m hoping that you will answer the question that I asked you. I think it is a fair question. I could be wrong, but I think that shifting the focus of our discussion could make things less frustrating for both of us.
What was the question, if you don’t mind me asking, Renee?
Larry, Daniel had said that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to get into a debate with me but then proceeded to continue our debate. In response, I asked him why he continued if he wasn’t sure he wanted to. I am hoping he responds.
Oh.
Renee: I see all of us, in the act of arguing, show our biases and our own fixations.
If anyone loves an argument or debiting (as I do) then I feel I/we need to just accept their POV.
Not to agree or, that other cliche “agree to disagree”.Isn’t the point. Simply, as I see it, just enjoy the banter.
Jack
thanks for the support.
just got a mail from the director of the nursing home that there are 8 patients now, one in hospital, and one nurse has been infected.
all in the same ward which is now isolated from the rest of the building.
it is an extremely difficult situation for the people who work there, not enough protective material, persons dropping out as they are too scared…
still I have no complaints about the way this nursing home deals with the situation, and all we can do is hope it does not spread to the other wards.
one advantage is my mom is in a protected ward where it might be just a little safer, unless of course due to personnel shortage they have to shift nurses from one ward to another.
I called my brother and we try to keep our focus on the present and on the good shape mom is in right now, singing and smiling and very well able to talk with over the phone.
of course we are terrified deep down about what could happen as well…
M
Margaret, I hope and wish all will turn out well for you, your mom and the rest of your family. I know you have little control over it, but the most important thing is for the entire nursing home staff to be continuously tested because they are agents of transmission.
Thanks all of you who are supportive and have an interest in what I have to say. It’s heartwarming.
Renée, to answer your question – I was torn between getting into specific arguments and the details involved in constructing them, which were mostly showing in detail how you had removed my original meaning and changed it to something you can denounce; and not getting into it. I guess the outcome was some sort of compromise. If you’re looking for a more primal answer then for me the historical origins of the struggle are about trying (and failing) to reach someone in an attempt to make myself known to them.
You’re right that our belief systems are different, but I don’t think they are different in the way you think they are. For me it’s not their content but their form or type. The essential difference is that your belief system is rooted in ideological thinking. You are a devout believer in an ideology that sees the white western male as the source of almost any social or political problem anywhere in the world, any racism, oppression, aggression or slavery; and thinks that capitalism, being a white economic system, is “based on exploitation, physical and psychological violence, continual expansion and eradication of whole cultures, species, etc.”.
As an ideologue — one who thinks ideologically — there is no evidence or happening or observation that will ever prove you wrong. You can’t lose. You can’t lose because your answer, your interpretation and your attitude have been determined in advance of the particular experience or observation. They are derived from the ideology and are not subject to the facts. It wouldn’t matter, for example, if you’ll be shown that for the Armenians the racists were and are the Turks, for the Koreans and Chinese the Japanese were the racists, for the Tatars the Russians, and so forth, which points to the possibility that racism is universal. Nor would it have any effect had you been shown evidence that slavery too, horrendous as it was in America also existed in many other parts of the world and was not only perpetrated by white western men. You would always produce some argument that somehow would still blame white western male for it all. There is no possible argument or observation that could disprove your firm ideological belief for the very simple reason that an ideologue, of any ideology, will not accept any argument or observation as constituting disproof.
The rules for a meaningful assertion about the real world are entirely different. If I say that racism is a white phenomenon carried out in the west, my statement may in fact be a hundred percent true. But it would be proved false, and most people would recognize that it would be proved false, if we learn of racism by non-whites in the east.
But how will I ever prove to an ideological believer in white European male as the source of all evil that her conclusions do not always hold? No matter how many examples of apparent exception I point her the conclusions will remain intact.
I think people become devout believers in an ideology – any ideology – not because they are convinced rationally that it is true but because it satisfies some psychological or social needs.
Daniel: Yes, me again.
I’ve picked out 4 groups of your lines that I feel make it all the more confusing
1) “As an ideologue — one who thinks ideologically — there is no evidence or happening or observation that will ever prove you wrong. You can’t lose. You can’t lose because your answer, your interpretation and your attitude have been determined in advance of the particular experience or observation. They are derived from the ideology and are not subject to the facts. It wouldn’t matter, for example,”
I feel that then, needs for so-called evidence is somewhat bogus. I see Judges, juries, politicians desperately trying to prove their point when IMO ‘proof’ is somewhat arbitrary. I feel you are telling Renee what she is doing. I find that a little dangerous and deceptive. My contention is Renee is the best expert of Rennee just as you are the best expert of Daniel.
2) “You would always produce some argument that somehow would still blame white western male for it all”.
I find all “blame games” and blamers as dodging what’s going on with themselves. I personally don’t BLAME either mommy or daddy. it just was, and I need to deal with what it did to me.
3) “But it would be proved false, and most people would recognize that it would be proved false”.
On what authority or assumed authority, are those “most” people? I wonder who those people are that would recognize “it would be proved false.” I’ll repeat my first lesson in Geometry
The teacher walked into the classroom, looked at us all very sternly, then turned to the blackboard and began writing the following:-
To prove:
That a lazy dog equals a piece of foolscap
.
Data:
A piece of foolscap and a lazy dog.
Proof:
A piece of foolscap = an ink-lined plane.
An inclined plane = a slope up.
A slow pup = a lazy dog.
Therefore: A lazy dog = a piece of foolscap. Q. E. D.
I feel most of us, in particular myself, argue in this manner.
4) “I think people become devout believers in an ideology – any ideology – not because they are convinced rationally, that it is true, but because it satisfies some psychological or social needs.”
I totally agree on that one, ‘believing’ is a verb, which means subconsciously we DON’T KNOW,.but hope it leans more to knowing, than not knowing
Jack
Jack, for the sake of banter, if as you say, you argue as you spell out in 3), then I’d be wise to take your arguments with a pinch of salt.
Laarryk: I’m fie with that.
Jack
Larry: fke should read ‘fine’
Jack
Got it. Stay healthy Jack. I’m glad you’re living where you are, where judging by news information it seems like your risk of contracting COVID19 is probably less than it would be in your previous home.
Larry: Possibly; but that’s not the way I look at it
Jack
I’m glad I’m in the sticks of Nova Scotia; no cell phone service, spotty Bell High Speed Internet, ( a joke, nearly no internet, 2.87 MBPS download,) C19 hasn’t a chance of finding me. I’ve got enough nuts, beans, lentils and Brown rices to last a year, Champion Juicer, and an ancient Vitamix that grinds, mixes, kneads, cooks soups; and a 35 Marlin rifle and fishing rods; live on the bank of a clean brook. My 88 year old neighbour grows Cannabis.
What’s your thoughts on how this thingy covered the globe so quickly ? Check out drlenghorowitz.com; he’s once head dog at US fed Health Dep’t; author of the widely acclaimed book, ” Emerging Viruses.” Once called a genius, now a pariah.
You’ve reached me Daniel. I’m impressed by your articulate elucidation of what seems to me your rational, analytical thought process in your answer to Renee.
Jack,
I would agree that the truth isn’t easy to find, and that this problem is compounded when we talk about social matters which have so many determinants. However, I still think we’d be lost without that search for the truth. We all function in an environment of uncertainty yet we still must act – to make decisions and solve problems. Now, how shall we go about it? One way is to make assumptions which seem reasonable and then look for evidence to either back them up or disprove.
You recently visited with the doctors and reported symptoms. The doctors looked for signs. They checked you, took all sorts of tests to either confirm or rule out certain medical conditions your symptoms might be a sign of. Of course, they could have just assumed that you’re the expert on Jack and ask you, or just proceed with how they felt about it without making you take all those tests. By today’s standards that would have been negligent because we now have means of confirming medical conditions or ruling them out with higher accuracy. Perhaps some brilliant doctors have superb and superior hunches, but on the whole not using such means reduces our chances of giving a correct diagnosis and therefore a correct treatment.
Now I know that medicine has been sort of independent form ideology and politics which always carry with them some value judgements. Nevertheless, we must make decisions and solve problems in that field as well. Now, how shall we go about it?
Daniel: Yep.
Jack
Thanks Larry.
the latest update is that there are 8 people in the nursing home infected and one nurse, and 1 person in the hospital.
they have a shortage of protective material so volunteers are sowing aprons etc.
I sent a longer mail yesterday but it seems some mails got lost somehow and I feel too tired and a headache right now to go into more detail.
mom seems still ok, and her ward too, but it is very scary and stressful, a sort of alarm mode keeps creeping in.
M
what really frightens me deeply is the idea that when mom would get ill, be it still remaining in the home or being in hospital, nobody is allowed for a visit, not even when people are dying, I hated to write that word..
there are heartbreaking testimonies of relatives who have spoken with their dying loved one through a video connection by a tablet a nurse kept near the patient.
the thing that makes it worse is that our mom would not be able to understand, or to remember why we can’t be with her.
so we can only hope that situation will not occur, as it seems terribly hard to deal with.
the idea just makes me short of breath right now.
M
I hear you Margaret.
…and I worry for you. and me. and everyone I know, but you in particular right now following our conversation yesterday.
US jobless claims in their historical context
https://mandwhohome.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/ezgif.com-video-to-gif.gif?w=480&zoom=2
Daniel, what you are saying here only reinforces what I’m trying to tell you…..that it seems our belief systems are too different to engage in a meaningful dialogue. This is because I believe that no belief system or ideology is neutral and bias free. Not yours, not mine, not anyone else’s. On the contrary, I believe that we are profoundly influenced and shaped by our social locations, personal histories, and resulting confirmation biases. You do not agree with this. That’s fine, you don’t have to. Believe it or not, I fully get where you are coming from. I and most of us were raised with the views that you have. However, I no longer share these views. Rather, when I read your comments, I am reminded of this quote that I came across, that I might’ve posted before: “When hegemony works best the public begins to look at the dominant ways of seeing the world as simply common sense”. I see your belief system as simply representing the dominant ways of seeing the world, but by no means is it the only way. So when I presented historical evidence to suggest that refugees are not simply coming to northern countries because they just envy our way of life and want it for themselves, not only did you disagree (which is fine), but you dismissed my evidence as simply driven by “ideology”, without recognizing your own. The same with my suggesting that there might be some “white fragility” going on. You see your views as based in some objective Truth with a capital T. I do not. Hence, the difficulty in communicating.
Which brings me back to my question to you. Why do you keep arguing/debating with me when it is unlikely to bring you any pleasure and only leaves you frustrated? Your answer was very vague. You said something about, “trying (and failing) to reach someone in an attempt to make myself known to them”. I’m curious as to who you were referring to, and how your struggle with me is similar and different to your struggle with them.
Btw, the phrase “social location” that I referred to each of us being shaped by is simply defined as: “The groups people belong to because of their place or position in history and society. All people have a social location that is defined by their gender, race, social class, age, ability, religion, sexual orientation, and geographic location”.
Renee: I try hard to avoid just that.
Jack
Jack, what is it that you try hard to avoid?
Renee: In this instance:- belonging to a group especially national groups and cultural groups. However, there are lots of other obvious and not so obvious ones, I try to avoid. The biggy for me is “DEFENDING”. Not that I always succeed.
Jack.
This is interesting, Jack. When you say that you try and avoid groups, I’m assuming that is because of their “group think”, or everyone in the group believing that their belief system is the right one. Is that accurate? Because if it is, why would you embrace a Primal group?
Also, I think you’re saying that you try and avoid “defending”. When you tell people who have an issue with some of you ideas that their problem is “their feeling”, would you call that defending or not?
Renee: “Group think” yes. I don’t consider Primal as group think. to and for me, Group thing is the antithesis of Primal therapy. Grouping together for a Primal group is that everyone is into their own feelings.
Suggesting that people disagreeing with my idea is their prerogative. but disagree with it is what I feel they do not do … they dismiss it and seemingly are not prepared to delve into the notion and particularly since I inform people that I did not ‘invent’ its. That Idea was put forward ovr 150 yeqrs ago.
I should have stated:- ‘being defensive’ not ‘defending’. as I think that makes it more clear to Primal people. If you disagree just say so, as I am willing to get all the feedback I can get.
Jack
Jack, I disagree with you regarding Primal not having “group think” or not being a belief system. I think when we feel so strongly that something is true, it can be hard to see that it is just a belief system that we are embracing. It is easier to see this with other people’s belief systems than our own, I think. A belief system is basically an ideology or set of principles that help us interpret our everyday reality and experiences. It can be in the form of a religion, political affiliation, philosophy, spirituality, or psychotherapy, among many other things. Primal therapy is based on a belief system that values such things as “feeling our feelings”, not “acting-out”, “reliving old pain”, knowing when we are “in a feeling” not “being in our heads” etc. Your statement that in a Primal group “everyone is into their own feelings” is also part of a primal belief system in that it is a specific interpretation of what is occurring that is shared by people in the group but probably not by an outsider.
You say that you are okay with people disagreeing with some of your ideas. You are just not okay with us dismissing them. Can you explain the difference? I’m confused. Btw, you seem to believe that if we know that you did not invent these ideas and that they were put forward over a hundred years ago, we would be more likely to agree with you. I don’t think this is necessarily accurate. I’m curious as to why you believe this.
Renee: I agree with the bulk of what you say here, but I need to go into some detail of things you mentioned in your last paragraph:- An out and out dismissal of anything, with a little more than trotting off a cliche such as “it would not work” is what I mean by dismissing it, rather than discussing it. Discussin it requires more than that, and to tear apart the peices (portions of the argument) bit by bit. However, as you pointed out in the earlier part of your comment, it has more to do with our deep,sublininal feelings, (belief systems) For me it was when Art Janov discoverd the ability to re-live those old felings and the ability to bring them back into one’s consciouness, that was the ‘kicker’.
That “I did not invent it” has more to do with those thinkers over time being brought into the conversation (discusion) and not putting it all down to my “old feeling/s” If it is correct that my old feeling/s are involved (highly possible), then is it not also, the old feeings of Pierre Joseph Proudhon. Karl Marx, Engels, Bacunin, Kropotkin, AND another Primal patient I met on a retreat?
I get the feeling from most on this blog, that it is a “Jack” thing. Just as my parents thought being homosexual was an “our Jack’s” thing. I hope I make it clear where I stand amid all those other Anarchists. The only diffence I bring to it is:- tying into Primal theory. That would require another discussion … seemingly, no-one seems interested in doing that.
Jack
After reading your recent comments, Jack, which I might have misinterpreted, the feedback that pops up that I have to offer, is that to do therapy a person needs to try to expand and grow into life. For me that means being part of groups of people who I like and who like to do the sorts of things that I like to do. If you are trying to avoid groups in order to protect yourself from being caught up in group think, as you seem to be saying on April 5, 12:18, such avoidance seems like a defense to me if there otherwise was something about the group that interests you and would be a reason for you to participate in it. I don’t believe that being a primal person means standing alone and apart from participating in group activities with other regular people.
Larry: I feel we are getting caught up in semantics.
Jack
thanks Larry…
and thanks Daniel, but I think the number of available tests at this stage is not sufficient to repeatedly test all the caretakers in nursing homes.
you are right but so far they get less practical assistance than purely medical staff gets in hospitals etc.
they deserve better as they have to do different difficult tasks at a time in an environment full of vulnerable people, where there are no safety installations like different air pressure in the contaminated area , lower pressure , so infected air cannot escape.
they also lack the full protection gear so they really do a very hard job with people they personally know and have cared for for years in circumstances of which everyone is aware they are fairly unsafe.
they make the best of a difficult situation but well, it is a dangerous one…
M
Larry,
I try now to focus on the present, called my mom this morning as did my brother, and just gave her another call as she has had dinner and is now in her room, until she decides or they help her to go to bed.
she sounded very good, was telling me all about the birds she sees through her window, the flowers and the big trees, really enjoying it all as she always did.
I want to consciously enjoy what there is now as it is so precious.
she is a true example of making the best of life, both vulnerable and courageous and with a very easy smile, boy, I love her so much…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK-kGimYKnI How to make my quarantine day exciting!!🐶 life is definitely a struggle
I enjoyed that. Thanks.
Renee,
I do not want to get sucked into the intellectual mind games, only want to say for me the term group think makes little sense in regard to Primal Therapy.
as far as I know group think is a term that has more to do with the group dynamics that have to do in a group that needs to make decisions.
but anyway, I wonder why you seem so keen on this kind of discussions, I would much rather hear about how you are doing on a more personal and feeling level.
M
Margaret, firstly you cannot get sucked into intellectual mind games, or any games for that matter, unless you allow that to happen. You get to decide. I don’t actually like the phrase “group think” because it is so loaded with negative connotations.
Why do I find these conversations interesting? I don’t know. I just do. Btw, Jack recently asked me how I was doing on a personal and feeling level and I answered. Did you not see it?
When you mentioned the phrase “mind games”, I immediately thought of one of my favorite songs. When I went to listen to it again, I came across a video with footage of John Lennon that I had never seen before! And I have seen a LOT of footage of him over the years. I think you like him too. So you might like this. Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otmt17fA2vc
Renee, my sentiments align with Margaret on this. In fact, a few days ago I had briefly considered raising the point all on my own that you give almost zero details about your own regular day-to-day life. Various people on the blog have complained about the same thing with me, yet I’ve shared much more about my own life than you have about yours.
All we’ve gathered here is that being forced into isolation is a strange experience to you and you like to do research in Asian and African countries. Racial and gender studies are obviously a hot-button topic for you.
I understand not being willing to give sensitive private details of your life here on the blog, but being a completely mysterious apparition is another extreme altogether. Even I have been able to do better than that.
UG, I don’t see myself as a “completely mysterious apparition”, although there is something appealing about that characterization. I don’t share about my day-to-day life because I don’t believes it matters. To me, or anyone else for that matter. To be fully honest, I don’t really want a day-to-day life. I am kind of stuck with it because I am too cowardly to end it. From my earliest years, I felt that I was unwanted and that my life, my thoughts and my feelings were irrelevant. My only purpose in my family was to be targeted and bullied. I have learned over the years to “fake it” and to present like I have something meaningful or worthwhile to say. Even though each time I do, I am terrified because I am convinced that I will either be ignored or responded to with hostility, ridicule or hatred. When I get responded to with kindness and respect, I am always surprised and relieved. And am sure I will not be so lucky the next time. This is my day-to-day life. Stuck in a never-changing and never-ending past-present. I hope this explains things.
Well I hope you do find some courage to slowly stop faking it and to find something meaningful and worthwhile to say here Rene. Summoning the courage to change things is at the heart of making our lives more meaningful, but far easier said than done, I know. As for myself, where I have the choice I take tiny but meaningful steps and accept that it will take me lots of time to get where I want to go. Sometimes though Life enforces a big step.
Renee: It sure is the worst when as a baby and even in the womb you must have got a sense you were not wanted.
I have buddied with some people that have the very same feeling … and the worst part, as they related it to me, is that it feels like it will NEVER end.
Jack
Renee, would you believe me if I told you I almost cried at your response? When you didn’t respond yesterday & responded to Jack instead, I felt really frustrated and discouraged by that. Even slightly angry as though I am a sub-human beneath your contempt which can be safely ignored. So yeah, I was pretty relieved you decided to respond. Even if you told me, “Fuck off, it’s none of your business.” I would have still thought, “That sucks, but OK it’s better than hearing absolutely nothing.”
Now I am starting to understand some of the short Primal-style sonnets about your being bullied that you seem to occasionally give here on the blog. They were completely disconnected from your discussion topics & I wondered what they meant.
You did say in the past you felt that what you had to offer was boring to most of us (I assume you meant the Freud, race, and gender equality topics with this). While I admit such topics are not my own cup of tea, I’m certainly not wanting to give you a hard time over it just because our intellectual interests may be vastly different.
Do you feel as though you’re re-creating any earlier family dramas about being bullied and rendered irrelevant during your discussions with Daniel? You might have touched upon this before and I simply missed it.
I have to admit I am confused when you say you don’t want a day-to-day life, that you’re stuck with it, and you’re too cowardly to end it. All I can gather here is that you’re not too happy with what’s currently going on, and I am sorry for that.
Anyway, I hope you’ll continue to consider sharing a few specifics in this area as Margaret & I alluded to a couple days ago. Maybe you’ll be in for some pleasant surprises as to how others will respond to that?
Holy smoke UG. Never since I’ve known you have I seen such a sustained, empathetic, direct, sharing, encouraging response to someone from you. I had to double check that you were the author of the comment. It’s refreshing to see a whole new side of you that I didn’t know existed. I hope this isn’t a one off.
I kept my house at 61 degrees Fahrenheit (16 C) all winter long to save on heating bills. The weather has warmed up to the mid-to-high-60’s, so I’ve been able to open doors to the outside, warming up the house…which makes me a warmer individual alongside that.
Indeed it did. Here on this sunny spring morning it’s 14 F (-8 C) and no one is singing on their balconies yet. We are a cold lot, weather beaten into self-isolation. If I don’t get the virus first, I’ll be suffering from cabin fever soon.
Reading your latest posts it sounds, to me, that some change has occurred with you. I read in tears your words on being ignored. I liken myself to the, ,” invisible man.” Tears me apart.
All this reminds me of a sore spot I personally carry. Margaret’s talked about being ignored before, and it bothers me as well, particularly when the person doing the ignoring makes it a point to talk to someone else in front of me. I am suddenly “low on the totem pole”, “low in the pecking order”, “an utterly meaningless individual”.
Yeah it’s irritating and hurtful….but I also am keen enough to know I have to accept it happening all the time in daily life.
My dad told me he had this affliction, too. He’d pick a number in a queue to pick up an item or to be served at a registration office. If he picked up number ’47’, the workers would be sure to serve number ’46’ and skip over to ’48’.
Renee,
I’m sorry read what you share here. I think what you could tell us about your
day to day life and earlier years etc., is more important and interesting than those discussions which don’t touch on anything personal. And to me, not ending your day to day life isn’t at all cowardly.
Phil
I just heard from my sister who heard it from a caretaker that there are three infected residents in mom’s ward.
now they are all having to stay in their rooms.
I only heard it right now, and am going to give mom a call in a little while, maybe she is taking a nap which I want to let her have until it is about tea time.
I think she will soon start being upset about the locked door.
it is so sad she can’t go out into the garden or the community room with the piano anymore.
one bright side is she has a wonderful view on a lush garden with a lot of birds.
it is so scary…
M
Margaret,
How many residents are there on your mom’s ward? That’s terrible to have it advance so close
to her. If she does get it, there’s still the possibility of it being a mild case. Hoping for the best.
Phil
Margaret, I’m really sorry to hear about that, I know that has to be terrible for you to worry about. I hope your mother will be OK.
Phil
Margaret,
How many residents are there on your mom’s ward? That’s terrible to have it advance so close
to her. If she does get it, there’s still the possibility of it being a mild case. Hoping for the best…
Phil
Phil,
it is two floors, there must be about 16 residents or so.
I spoke to a nurse and she told me they still did not get enough testing material, so hardly any tests are done.
it seems a growing number of residents start showing symptoms at this point, and they can’t even test the people who work there.
mom has a little cough, nothing alarming seemingly, but that could change of course.
her room is not locked, sometimes she ventures out to the big room, but as no one is there she easily wants to go back to her own room.
this is wearing me out, I had several nightmares last night, all full of fear…
M
Margaret I feel sorry for you that conditions have evolved to such a stressful situation for you and your family.
Jack, okay now I think I get where you are coming from. I agree that someone saying that “it would not work” is dismissive. Maybe my memory is failing is me, but I think, with regard to anarchy, there was a lot of disagreeing, some dismissing, and even some agreeing (from me). You say that you wanted to have a discussion that involved “tearing apart the pieces of the argument bit by bit”. Yet when people tried to do this, it seemed to me that you dug your heels in and became dogmatic about your specific idea of anarchy (even though anarchy has many different variations and interpretations). I think that this is a danger of holding on too tightly to our belief system(s). I can relate to this; I have experienced it myself and witnessed it in others.
I don’t remember people putting your views down to your old feelings, but I do remember frequently your telling people who challenged you that their opinion was just “their feeling”, which did seem dismissive to me.
Could there have been old feelings involved for Proudhon, Marx, Engels, Bacunin and Kropotkin? Well, if we believe that our childhood experiences influence our current thinking, why would these guys be exempt from that?
I can’t speak for others but I do not see your interest in anarchy as a “Jack thing”, but I can see how you would come to that conclusion, based on your past experiences.
Renee:
1) “You say that you wanted to have a discussion that involved ‘tearing apart the pieces of the argument bit by bit’.” For me, that is the art of a good debate or argument. Nothing more.
2) I don’t have MY IDEA of anarchy. Anarchy is about not having a …………….. As for “digging my heals in” Correct! one of the things that bothered me, was your notion that there were various types of ‘ANARCHY’. I say:- (digging my heels in) there is only one form of anarchy, BUT there are many versions as to how to make the transition from capitalism to the final goal. I blame myself for not making it clear. “(even though anarchy has many different variations and interpretations)”. I DO NOT agree.
3) “I don’t remember people putting your views down to your old feelings, but I do remember frequently your telling people who challenged you that their opinion was just “their feeling”, which did seem dismissive to me.” There weren/’t many, but I think Margaret for one suggested that. So I reacted by suggesting that ‘It was ‘their feeling’ that I was doing so. It is just on such points that somatics comes in to play.
4) Of course, all those people I mentioned AND the rest of mankind is playing out old feelings, but I doubt their old feelings were close to mine.
5) My parents seeing homosexuality as ‘our Jack’s thing’. But it doesn’t answer the larger question of homosexuality. I added that to make the point. Anarchy is a larger question than the Jack thing … otherwise, why would I want to follow on with those others I mentioned, If I wanted it to be ‘my thing’ I would never have mentioned those other guys.
Jack
On another note:- We had a lovely very warm, cloudless day and I sat on the patio in my deck chair and soaked it all up … BUT I also realized that I am rapidly losing my grip on life and many things are now way more difficult to do than just one year ago,
Like my balance for one, and tripping over rugs and other things. I can still get up, open the curtains, get dressed wash and put my contacts in then make my breakfast before coming onto my laptop and doing my emails and the blog … but it’s all taking its toll. Even the short term memory is failing, though I do my best to sit with it and in most cases, the memory comes back to me
I was happy in view of the virus to cancel my hospital appointments and isolating is no problem … while I have Jim taking care of me. I do quite a bit of Skyping that I really like it and buddy with Skype. and some nieces and a nephew… but there is this overall sense that I am on the way out.
Jack
I’m sad to hear that Jack.
Larry: Please, please don’t be sad about or for me. It’s my feeling and I can live with it.
Jack
…as it is my feeling to feel sad, Jack, and I can live with it.
Larry: You are absolutely correct, and that was stupid of me to reply the way I did. So! sorry Larry.’
Jack
I think Jack will be telling us he’s dying for the next 20 years. Hardcore materialists with no notion of a hereafter generally cling to every last breath. He’ll be around till he’s 112 or so.
When I saw my dad during his last two months of life, he didn’t have anywhere NEAR the constitution to go on Skype or to type out blog posts such as what Jack is doing now, so that’s why I am more skeptical here.
Guru: You THINK so? I’ll take what comes, but I just hope it will not be painful
Jack
This makes me sad, Jack. I’m wondering if there was a drug to take that could make you live longer, would you take it?
Renee: For all my pot smoking and several acid trips; at a certain point in my therapy I realized that I was feeling just like I did in those Ibiza hippy days; now, without any drug/s. So no! I would not take a drug to keep me alive, I just feel I will die the moments my body has run out of fuel (as one way to put it). I am (as of this moment not sad), but who knows? {mybe godo}, the one those two guys were waiting for that Beckett wrote about … great play I saw in the West End and made most of us start to think outside the box
Meantime, I will take advantage of what is left and get as much “bantering” as I can.
Jack.
I had a phone chat with mom this morning, she sounded mostly ok, was again enjoying the view through her window, but she sounded a bit tired and coughed a bit, only once or twice.
my brother called me just now and got informed by the nurses of the home that they thought mom had caught the virus and that if she would start feeling really ill they would put her in the cafetaria that is the quarantine care ward.
they said they would give her artificial breathing if necessary, but when my brother said but you don’t have the devices to do that apart from giving some oxygen, they passed him through to mom’s regular doctor.
she explained the incubation time can last one or two weeks but then patients can get sicker very fast.
she asked him if he wanted our mom to get palliative care in that case or if he wanted her to have mom transferred to the hospital.
he said the hospital, as mom has been again in a good shape and has a great spirit to live.
I told him I was glad he had made the decision as I would have had a hard time to choose, but that was because I was assuming mom would have been allowed to remain in her own room even while more ill.
if she would be put in the cafeteria that is a strange environment full of sick people and with limited care, so in that case she would be better off in a proper hospital indeed with at least the option of proper assisted breathing if necessary.
we can’t visit, so for the moment we can only stay in touch with her as much as possible over the phone and hope she survives .
it is as hard as it sounds.
and very very sad and scary.
M
I wonder what your Mom’s spirit will be Margaret when she is in the strange situation of a hospital and no longer in familiar surroundings that she enjoys, perhaps confined to a hospital bed, and you and your brother might have even fewer means of connection with her.
Margret: Yes; very sad and scary..
Jack
I’m sorry to hear about your mom possibly having the corona virus, Margaret. I hope she will be okay. Btw, a co-worker’s mother, who is 95 years old and living in a residential community, recently recovered from the corona virus. Hopefully, your mother will be in this category, if she has it.
Renee: On the question of dying; I think, though not quite sure that Art once said:- ‘we die the way we were born’. If that is correct, my take on this virus is that those born with breathing problems are the ones to die from the effects of this virus … not able to breathe.
It’s an interesting thought, but proposing it to the medical profession at this juncture might produce the opposite effect for what I am proposing. I think it would be easy to ask any patient with the virus if they were born with a breathing problem. Then statistics could give us some sort of handle on the pandemic.
I would be very interested in any other person’s view on this.
Jack
Margaret, I’m very sorry to hear that your mother might have the coronavirus. Has she been tested? What leads them to believe she has it?
Phil
Phil, will reply to you after the call I am waiting for, missed it half an hour ago while I was in the shower, director of nursing home…
Larry, mom would if she would get ill not be in her familiar surrounding but in the cafeteria changed into a sick ward but with little equipment.
it would not at all be familiar to her that way and we would not be able to contact her as the landline is in her own room.
so in that situation, and only in that one, the option of the hospital is much better. proper medical care and a more quiet setting, not 15 sick patients in a cafeteria for example with untrained people doing their best to deal with the situation.
we hope it won’t get that far and that she indeed can remain in her familiar room with phone without getting too sick
M
Margaret,
Before they put her in a large room with covid-19 patients, I would hope they confirm she really has it.
Phil
I see. Such awful decisions to have to contemplate.
Phil,
finally got the director on the phone, he told me they tested mom today, he will call me with the results tomorrow.
it was a nice conversation, they do a great job and decide everything consulting with the family.
Larry, I don’t have Facebook, maybe you sent the message accidentally to the wrong person?
feel pretty tired now, but less tense, just had another talk with mom and she sounded OK.
M
Will be thinking of you, Margaret. Good thoughts to you and your mom. Brothers are a big help in times like these, aren’t they. Take care.
S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtBgnjxic4c Doctor rallies coworkers to dance on TikTok to spread joy gotta say, tears to my eyes….fear is in my space
Love that Otto! G.
Hi everyone: I just saw an interview with Jon Cohen, the senior correspondent of Science M\agazine and he stated that this virus and the Trump presidency has completely changed the world and the way we see things, and the old system is never going to come back.
I agree entirely (but then I would … wouldn’t I) Of course, it plays right into my thinking about ‘money’ and all the ‘offshoots that it creates
Where I feel I misread the situation, was in thinking it was going to take at least another generation … but as I now begin to see it, more and more people are coming to the same or similar conclusions. “It’s the economy … stupid”
It’s just that I am doubtful, I will live long enough to see it. I am not suffering as yet, but things are beginning to become more and more difficult. and I dread the next winter. and short days.
Meantime, I hope the rest of you, are doing as well as con be expected.
Jack
I keep seeing too, Jack, where the economy will change in the next few yrs. All the psychics and astrologers, who people reach out to in this crazy time for calm, foresee major changes in how we live and we will take better care of our resources and the planet.
Hope you are eating well, Jack. Broccoli sprouts are good for immunity, if you want to grow some. Take care and enjoy the sun.
S
Sylvia: I am doing just that … enjoying the sun and warm temperatures sitting out on the patio and soaking it all in. It’s a matter of one day at a time as I never know if it’ll be my last.
I put my two cents in and seemingly it’s not even worth half a cent. My last one is:- Money created neurosis so!!! if we did away with money, would neurosis go out the window with it?????
I get well fed by Jim who claimes he knows all the right things for the likes of me, but he’s not doing any veggie garden for now … maybe I could persuade him since my fingers are anything but green.
I hope things are more or less working out for you Sylvia and for everyone else, for that matter.
Jack
Sometime around late January-early February I came down with a sickness with a dry cough and 102-degree fever. I almost *never* have a fever; I can’t remember how many years it had been since a previous fever. I also experienced a brief bout of dry coughing. After a couple days of these symptoms which resembled the early stages of COVID-19 (which was unknown to me at the time), I called my cousins saying I was seriously considering going to the hospital if my fever goes up to 103. Shortly after the call, my symptoms subsided and I returned to normal.
I wonder if I had actually caught this virus myself a couple months ago and simply recovered. There are some antibody tests in the pipeline which help determine if one has truly recovered and developed some immunity. I’d love to take this test so I don’t have to wear masks and gloves to the grocery store and to wash down all products I buy.
Yes, I know this originated in China during the time frame I described above, yet it appears a fair number of people had similar symptoms as my own back then.
Guru,
it does sound like you may have already had covid-19. Check out this article. It seems many cases are being missed, and it was spreading earlier than thought.
Phil
Thanks Phil, yeah I have to admit I seriously wonder what happened to me. The fever was really bad, but I don’t remember any shortness of breath…maybe I recovered before progressing that far.
It’s about the under reporting of covid-19 caused deaths. but it implies the under counting of cases in general, and that it may have been already spreading here in February or earlier. Phil
I thought about this blog and its atheistic leanings when I took my temperature using my digital meat thermometer for cooking. The symbolism of us being soulless hunks of meat relying only on our bioelectric impulses being a fitting philosophical guide for such thoughts.
UG, I am struck by the depth of your feelings toward me and what I write. I don’t understand how/why my words have such an impact on you. Can you explain? Then I might have more of an emotional reaction.
You ask if I feel that I am re-creating any of my family traumas with Daniel. I have written about that stuff before, particularly with my older brother who was very much a bully, regularly humiliated and ridiculed me, and did not respect my boundaries when I asked him to stop. My siblings and mother generally sided with him, which made it even more traumatic. Communicating with Daniel is an opportunity to face those feelings……when I feel up to it. Because it is exhausting.
Have you ever considered writing “Primal-style sonnets”? I think your phrase “soulless hunks of meat”, would be perfect for a sonnet. Because I sense there could be layers of feelings in those four words that have little to do with atheism.
Renee, it was not the content of what you were writing the other day, but rather the fact that you responded to Jack first and passed me over completely. I immediately thought you believed I was a lower-order being than yourself & can be safely ignored. You obviously did nothing wrong here in retrospect, especially since you responded a day later anyway.
There’s a large wound here I’m dealing with concerning my mother. She was a totally healthy, vibrant 30 year-old lady who suddenly disappeared from my life. I had no clue as to why or what happened. And…is she coming back for me? When? Trying to process that as a two-year old was a daunting hellhole of a challenge, and several times I inquired with Gretchen as to why my MMPI psychiatric exam showed ‘signs of organic brain damage’. Did I literally have to twist my brain into a pretzel trying to accommodate mom’s sudden disappearance? One day she hugs and cuddles me, the next day leaves never to return (though at the time I never knew if or when she would return)?
It takes a rare individual to write a well-done sonnet about ‘soulless hunks of meat’. Let me think it over for a while.
Last sentence should read, “Let me think it over for a while, at least for a medium length of time.”
I think about my stressed-out dad trying to explain to me in childlike terms that ‘mommy isn’t coming back’ and where I am inconsolable in not understanding why. This really makes me feel terrible for my dad; yet another shitty thing he didn’t deserve at all. A pervasive sense of wishing I could have done more for him as I grew older.
Bernie Sanders is ending his presidential campaign today, and that is a disappointment for me and leaving me feeling discouraged about politics in general. That a boring centrist candidate like Joe Biden was chosen by the democratic voters , to me, shows that people aren’t looking for major systemic change. They weren’t looking for it in the UK neither when Jeremy Corbyn was rejected by voters.
I think that an effective vaccine for covid-19 will come out, as well as good treatments. There will be a worldwide recession, but after a few years things will go back to normal, although that isn’t my preference, I think a lot of things do need to change.
The world will be better prepared for pandemics in the future, and there will be more awareness about public health, but I’m doubtful about any major changes coming from all this, except hopefully Trump losing the November election, and China acting to prevent new pathogens from emerging there.
Phil
South Carolina was a crucial state for Joe Biden to win, and for Bernie to keep his own momentum going. I need to look up more information on this, but I have a good story somewhere as to why Bernie lost there. Many times Bernie would make stops at various hotels with a largely African-American staff wanting to meet with him and discuss their concerns. Bernie was gruff and refused to talk to them, so a widely known civil rights leader turned his endorsement to Biden…and that shifted everything dramatically.
I’ll try to find the story if I can.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/03/this-seems-relevant
Phil, check out the very bottom of that blog entry where this thread is referenced:
https://twitter.com/MTBinDurham/status/1233481745376346113
Interesting insight as to what went wrong with Bernie. I do think our country is ready for big changes. but momentum is everything in primaries.
Guru, That’s just some people’s comments. Biden was polling very well with African Americans from the beginning, maybe because they are familiar with him and associate him with Obama. They tend to be moderate voters and loyal to candidates who have built a relationship with them, like the Clinton’s, Biden, and of course Obama. I don’t think Bernie had much of a chance with them and that’s why he didn’t put much effort there. Warren didn’t do well in South Carolina either, or the rest of the candidates.
Phil
Phil: I find your ultimate outlook very optimistic, but it could happen that way. I feel a lot of things are about to change, form many people and especially the young
I feel they are not going to accept. the status quo, of one leader for each nation and only get to vote them in or out every so often in the case of the US 4 years. But in those 4 years contrary to the Constitution there are no real “checks and balances’. I feel many will realize this after Trump, even if he does get another 4 years. I wouldn’t put it past him to say he needs more time and be reluctant to leave either next year or 4 years later.
I also feel our health needs to be radically looked into AND from a Primal perspective … to prevent a neurotic life, in the very first place.
For me, it’s a choice. We keep this capitalist system going or, we totally abolish it. The fear of abolishing it is way less frightening (the so-called chaos) than the prospects of traumatizing the kids of the future.
Jack
Jack, overall I’m pessimistic, just hopeful that Trump will be voted out. The covid-19 crisis is traumatizing a lot of people, including kids. Have you noticed that it takes a well organized governmental responses to deal with this pandemic, governments ordering people to stay home, otherwise many more people would die. Just pointing out the benefits of good government. Epidemics effect seemingly non-neurotic animal populations; you should realize, in my opinion, that primal isn’t the answers to every single health issue.
Phil: I feel you are “putting the cart before the horse”. IMO. .If we didn’t have governments we wouldn’t have neurosis, since it’s all the trapping of governments that perpetuate neurosis. AND if we didn’t have neurosis we’d have perfect immune systems. and then would have little problems with epidemics.
Sure enough, that’s the short version, but if you were to follow that line of thinking I’m sure you come to the same or a similar conclusion. ‘The one’ causes the other.
“Epidemics effect seemingly non-neurotic animal populations” The operative word there is SEEMINGLY. Is that really the case?
“you should realize, in my opinion, that primal isn’t the answers to every single health issue”.
That’s not my experience. I feel we need to THINK outside the box … the conventional one. All the great discoveries did just that.
Jack
Jack, since I know you love the banter I’m going to ask a question, do you have primal feelings about governments? Mine are about my parents and other important people from my childhood. I don’t see how you conclude government causes neurosis, unless you want to consider parents to be “government”, since they are in charge of us when we are children, they are responsible for us. They control us, as is appropriate, as wild animals can be observed to do with their young. Governmental leaders might claim to love me, but I doubt that, and I don’t need their love. I needed it from my parents. Your theory is way off target as far as a connection to primal theory, in my opinion.
Phil: you ask “Jack, since I know you love the banter I’m going to ask a question, do you have primal feelings” No! I don’t have Primals about governments, but I do have ‘Pimals’ (I call them feelings) about authority and the original authority in my case was daddy.
I don’t need and I feel most of us don’t need someone outside ourselves telling us what is right, what is wrong, what we should do, and what we shouldn’t do, AND that includes governments, religion, policemen, and military men, and yes! teachers. If you’ll just sit and stay with that one for a second you might see the unutterable insidiousness, destruction, disaster of neurosis on us humans. I mean by that, the total extent of it,
Primal theory offers us a way out, if we are willing to relive those old, dreadful and unbearable feelings. None of us want or like pain.
I am also aware that you believe “Your (meaning mine) theory is way off target as far as a connection to primal theory, in my opinion.”. I know all that, and banter with you on that very score. Just as I feel I am not able to get through to you, it appears you have the very same ‘frustration’ with me; yeah???? But I enjoy the banter … do you?
Jack
Sylvia, we were talking about grocery shopping the other day where you encouraged me to wear my hazmat suit in search of great bargains instead of buying from Amazon.
I ran into this dried Acai and mulberry snack product at Big Lots yesterday.
It was on a clearance rack since it was almost at expiration date.
Normal price was $2.95 each. They marked it down to……10 CENTS each.
https://www.wildandraworganic.com/copy-of-dates
I bought all they had…5 of them for 50 cents total.
Also picked up some great deals on chocolates from the dated clearance rack, such as a big bag of white chocolate Hershey’s kisses for 69 cents
Also picked up 10 ounce bag of Hershey’s nuggets with almonds for 69 cents
https://www.influenster.com/reviews/hersheys-nuggets-special-dark-chocolate-with-toffee-almonds?review_page=8
Lots of other good deals on bagged walnuts, etc.
Checking the dated clearance rack is always worth the hassle. Lots of cheap snack food.
And, yes, Big Lots accepts my cash rewards credit card for an extra 1% off these already crazy good deals.
How come your not in demand as a comedy writer? 🍩
Road Tripping with the Amazon Nomads:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20687434/amazon-sellers-nomad-merchants-products-malls-walmart
Well, Guru, looks like you have found a good sideline here. Extra income; negotiating bargains; road trips to avoid your irritating neighbor–what’s not to like.
The clearance basket is a good spot to get those things that have expired and are cheap. I always look when shopping at the little store here. My bro looked for lentils for me at the big box store the other day when he shopped for himself and they were all gone–beans and rice too. Glad I ordered the big bag from the brand site last week.
I only mentioned the amazon source as you were having difficulty deciding to venture out, as did Gretchen with her advice. I was flummoxed by your motivation to save some dough, but whatever paddles your boat, at least you aren’t going to starve. Good for U.
S =^–^=
Being stingy and having a scarcity mindset has its own comforts because the solutions are simple and straightforward. Not as much reward as an abundance mindset with the tradeoff being that pursuing abundance is a much more chaotic and uncertain arena demanding constant innovation and adaptation. Most people can’t handle that.
Would you say that you handle both, stinginess and the pursuit of abundance with its chaos?
Sylvia, I’m not sure we can be successful in pursuing abundance if we are coming from a scarcity mindset. And I don’t think that having an abundant mindset involves chaos. I think that is a projection.
Actually, Sylvia, I think my comment to you is meant for UG. My mistake.
No problem.
Re: Abundance. The chaos behind abundance can be well explained by using a business catering to hundreds or thousands of people as an example. If you have hundreds of people coming up to you, each with their own individualized needs which you cannot completely predict until they explain them to you one by one, isn’t that chaotic?
Example: I run a PC factory. Lots of customers come up to me with different demands. Some want a bunch of RAM, others want a great gaming GPU, still others want a small form factor, all kinds of different demands chaotically presented to me as I grow in abundance.
Saving money and stinginess, scarcity is as easy and straightforward as turning down the thermostat in the wintertime.
Renee: Your comment:- “I’m not sure we can be successful in pursuing abundance if we are coming from a scarcity mindset. And I don’t think that having an abundant mindset involves chaos. I think that is a projection.”
I feel is where we each of us (humans) fail to see that we’ve all of us accepted the ‘status quo’ in one form or another. It is this very acceptance that I wish to question. One very strong argument against my questioning; that comes up regularly is:- that it would be chaotic … yet, the ‘status quo’ is already chaotic
My answer, to myself:- ‘what is so terrible about chaos anyway’ Some of it I actually like, particularly when I look at our garden. The chaos of nature.
In a world of total anarchy, there wouldn’t be the need for a mindset. We’d just take what we needed and give what we felt like giving. AND naturally, be empathetic towards others.
Anarch actually means :- without any structure. Each of us doing our own thing.
Jack
Jack, you say that, “I feel is where we each of us (humans) fail to see that we’ve all of us accepted the ‘status quo’ in one form or another.” Since I assume that you are including yourself in the “we”, what would be some ways that you feel you’ve accepted the “status quo”?
Renee: That’s an easy one. I accepted that we had to BUY (with money) our current home.
I accept that I have to pay for traveling on a bus. I accept I have to pay for food and I accept that I have to pay taxes.
Those are just a few and there are many others.
I don’t accept that all those things HAVE TO BE.
It is our ( the human race) general inability to NOT see “outside the box”
Jack
Sylvia, you referred to these people near me as an ‘irritating neighbor’. A more accurate appraisal would be an ‘avaricious predator disguised as a pillar of the community wanting my home for decades causing me immense emotional distress with no reparations.’
Thank you.
An irritating neighbor does not tromp up to your wooden front porch screaming at you to park your car in the place HE wants and jumping up and down on my wooden front porch, bringing to bear all 250 pounds of his frame on my porch like a fucking entitled toddler.
I had to park the car in a bad spot because HE HAD ALL LANES OF MY STREET TOTALLY BLOCKED and I couldn’t even park in front of my house, He yelled at me on my own front porch, threatened me, and insulted me. I had to sit on my toilet crying for 3 hours after that thinking what a terrible person I must be.
Never mind that this entitled snake oil sack of dogshit has used and abused my street (a public good) with tons of automotive traffic to make millions of dollars of privatized gains for himself while I am just using it to park in front of my own goddamn house,
The same fucking automotive traffic he relies on to make millions for himself while it left me gasping for my mother as a toddler.
This world is fucking pure garbage, it really is.
that guy who jumped on my porch…he died of a heart attack a month later…now his sons are hell-bent on taking over the house
Should I put a bumper sticker on my car?
“TENTH COMMANDMENT OF THE BIBLE Exodus 20:17
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house…”
Guru,
Staying there sounds like a very stressful situation.. Why not let them buy it for price
way above market value? With the understanding that you won’t go lower. Just a suggestion, and I understand you don’t want to do that, but what better alternative is there?
Phil
I have plenty of good ideas. Need much more capital to properly implement them all to my total satisfaction.
Ug, thanks for explaining what happened for you. Now I understand why your reaction was so strong. It makes sense that that early major trauma memory of your mother disappearing/dying was triggered. I’m sorry I caused you pain. I’m glad you could let me know. Of course, it leaves me wondering if your impulse to abandon conversations right after you start them is a coping mechanism……at least if you do the abandoning before you become invested and involved, you stay safe and don’t have to risk being hurt. Just a thought.
Who says your sonnet about the “soulless hunk of meat” has to be well-done? I’m not sure you can enjoy the experience of creating a sonnet if you have an expectation of how it has to turn out, whether rare, medium or well-done. Btw, I don’t think you’ll become so hungry during this pandemic that you’ll have to resort to eating sonnets. 😉
Renee, ‘sonnet’ was clearly a bad word for me to use. ‘Free verse’ would have been better for what you were doing at the time. I kept thinking there was a better word for it, but I kept coming up blank in my mind.
I’m under a continuous dull sadness over my dad. I can deal with tough hurts to a reasonable degree. When the hurt just goes on…and on….and on…and on…and on….never really letting up, that’s when I grow tired of it hanging around & look for a quick fix to feeling better.
I try to think of any advantages to his NOT being here, and those are very few. The only one being that I no longer have to care for him or run miscellaneous errands for him. I no longer have to worry about him deteriorating.
Not much of a trade-off for me at all. He was such a great guy who deserved a lot more than what I alone could give him.
I’m glad you shared more about how most of your family ganged up on you. Having a crowd dogpile on you is a terrible experience, even in Primal groups.
UG, weren’t we talking about how I triggered what happened with your mother and your contemplating writing a sonnet or whatever you want to call it? Why did you abandon/flee those conversations so quickly? Perhaps for the reason I suggested. Perhaps not. Either way, I can’t keep up with the quick and sudden shifts. My brain works more slowly. So it feels a little frustrating. Not that the stuff about you dad isn’t important.
Yes, having my family gang up on me was a terrible experience. As was having that get recreated in Primal groups.
Renee, writing poems or music is simply not my cup of tea. Maybe I should have mentioned that earlier? I wasn’t trying to abandon or flee anything, just writing what came to my mind at the moment.
Okay.
Jack,
You say
“No! I don’t have Primals about governments, but I do have ‘Pimals’ (I call them feelings) about authority and the original authority in my case was daddy.”
You have feelings about authority and you say the original authority in your case was daddy. It seems your feeling about daddy is extended to any authority figures, who you want to eliminate as the solution to the problem for everyone. BUT, not everyone shares these feelings about authority, yet you want your solution to be for everyone. Don’t you see the problem with this? You are generalizing your feelings to apply to everyone. What I see is that most people don’t have these strong feelings about authority otherwise revolutions would be going on all over the place, but that just isn’t happening.
Phil
Phil: you say:- ” BUT, not everyone shares these feelings about authority, yet you want your solution to be for everyone. Don’t you see the problem with this? You are generalizing your feelings to apply to everyone.”
Of course, not everyone has the same feeling about authority … or anything, for that matter.
So then you say:- “Don’t you see the problem with this? You are generalizing your feelings to apply to everyone.”
In so far as Janov stated that neurosis is the pathology of feelings … yes, I am; but on the contrary, I don’t see it as applying to everyone as their problem.
I feel you are attempting to demonstrate that my thinking on this whole ‘anarchy’ thing is something I need to get rid of; rather than you exploring the possibility of it. You don’t have to; nor do I insist you do. It is simply an idea out there and has been out there for over 150 years.
Jack
Phil, you are basically reducing Jack’s negative feelings towards governments as simply all about his unresolved feelings towards his father. I do that too sometimes, both with myself and others. I think it is a limitation of Primal……it can be too reductionistic at times, even if there is some truth in it. You state that, “What I see is that most people don’t have these strong feelings about authority otherwise revolutions would be going on all over the place, but that just isn’t happening.” I think there are many reasons why there are not more revolutions going on, both personal and political reasons. Just this morning, I heard Bernie Sanders provide an interesting answer as to why more people are not fighting for a revolution:
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/9/bernie_sanders_drops_out_of_race
“The greatest obstacle to real social change has everything to do with the power of the corporate and political establishment to limit our vision as to what is possible and what we are entitled to as human beings”. Btw, I think that Sanders supporters are wanting a revolution, and would venture to say that his supporters run the gamut of feelings towards their fathers.
Renee,
What Bernie Sanders calls a revolution , is not related to Jack’s idea of eliminating all government and authority. Sanders ideas represent an expansion of government.
I was referring to Jack’s idea of a much more extreme revolution, which I think very few people would favor; or even think to be a viable alternative to consider. The way Jack wrote about this idea in that message certainly makes it seem it’s directly related to his feelings about his father, but he would have to confirm that. It doesn’t matter whether some “great thinkers” from 150 years ago first had similar ideas or not.
Phil
Phil: Sure enough there are parts of all my ideas that have some (perhaps a great deal) to do with my birth, childhood and yes life in utero for me. However, many others that might have a similar background do not have the same or anything close to anarchy,
In that respect, it’s totally unrelated. When I first came across the idea I did NOT embrace it. It took time for me to absorb what had been said in that lecture (i have oft referred to)
One of the things that happened to me was:- in relating it to solutions and particularly political solution and realizing that fo all the politics we’ve been going through, since Oliver Cromwell, we are NOT making life better for ourselves. Like drugs and medicines. There are side effects; such that we might improve one factor only to create a downside in some other place in our lives.
Jack
Jack,
It must be frustrating to have ideas which you feel would save the world, but few, if any, are convinced of their value.
Phil
Phil: Yes it is frustrating, BUT my idea is not for saving the world. Planet earth is quite capable of saving itself. I am trying to save humanity … from itself.
However, ‘frustration’ is a feeling and I consider I am capable of dealing with that feeling also. Comparatively, its a mild feeling for me.
Jack
Phil, sometimes I think we are using the same words but meaning very different things, based on each of our subjective understandings of these words! As you just pointed out, what is a revolution to me, might not be to Jack, you, or anyone else. I actually don’t think that anarchy is about no government or chaos (sorry, Jack). Rather it is about self-government, whereby citizens rule themselves and create the rules by which to live by rather than having external government control or outside political authority. I agree with you that Jack’s argument that great thinkers from 150 years ago had his ideas, so therefore they must be a valid, is a very weak argument. It also flies in the face of anarchic thinking which does not support following any authorities, including anarchy authorities. Just saying….
Renee, I should probably choose my words more carefully so my meaning is clear. Some synonyms of anarchy: chaos, confusion, disorder, riot, turmoil, disorganization, mob rule, nongovernment, revolution, rebellion, reign of terror. Those don’t sound so good. Antonyms for anarchy are authority, command, control, domination, dominion, empire, government, law, obedience, order, rule, sovereignty, submission, supremacy. Not all of these sound so good either, but in general they are a little better. Government, order, and laws are good but without domination, empire, and supremacy, for example. I think we need the right combination of these ideas; either extreme is undesirable, in my opinion.
Renee: I contend your remark to me is complicated, convoluted, and needs a lot of untangling for me to respond. So I’ll just make an analogy:-
We played a game of marbles as a kid calling the marbles “doberts”. So I now can call being marbleless “DOBERTY” meaning I’m totally out of marbles and the game. [Yes! I lost my marbles 🙂 🙂 ]
I now find my friends that I played the game with want to tell me there are a variety of ‘doberty’ ideas. and that my thoughts on “doberty” are not true
I now find it impossible to respond to that notion They continue to insist they have “THE TRUTH”.
Jack
Renee: It seems my reply to this comment of your got posted under an earlier comment of yours.
Sorry about that ..but I don’t feel it warrants re-posting.
Jack
Renee: Thanks for your support.
On the question of revolutions, it depends on what constitutes a revolution. The best one we know of is the French revolution when they chopped off the heads of the Aristocrats. Another was the beheading of Charles the 1st of England, but that was much tamer than the French one. Then, of course, there was the 1919 Russian revolution that did away with the Tzars. All the way down to the ‘Primal Revolution’.
My revolution would be more of an ‘evolution’, from capitalism to us all of us merely doing our own thing.
In other words, let it all happen.
Jack
Jack,
“My revolution would be more of an ‘evolution’, from capitalism to us all of us merely doing our own thing.”
Actually it seems you want people to be doing your thing, your idea, your anarchy thing.
Phil
Phil: NO.
Jack
Yeppers; I received no family love from my brothers, but when I concurred that Charlie Manson shouldn’t have been allowed to play with others, it had nothing to do with my brothers, or my father; Charlie just wasn’t a safe play mate.
mom has been transferred to a hospital , today she did not have a fever but as her doctor said, had illness behavior, did not want to eat or drink, did not want to come out of bed, while otherwise she is always walking around singing etc.
it is a bit of a shock mixed in with relief, she seems more out of reach, and on the other hand medically in a safer environment.
the nursing homes here now risk running out of oxygen etc, so in a hospital she will for example get a baxter with liquid and food at least, and have proper care at hand. as she might have any other ailment as well as Corona, who knows, as she did not allow the test and was coughing a bit more than three weeks ago.
the hard thing is now we can’t visit her either and do not know yet if we would be allowed in when things would turn bad.
it is hard, also for my brother, who does not have groups as a support and safety valve for feelings that are building up.
it is all so sad, the niws is full of pain and suffering and frustration.
M
Margaret, I’m crossing my fingers for your mother and you, hoping she will recover quickly and fully. Chances are she will.
Margaret,
That’s good your mother got moved to the hospital. I hope she’ll get better soon.
Phil
Margaret, that’s good your mother got moved to the hospital where she can receive better care. I hope she gets better soon.
Phil
I wish you and she were spared of this Margaret. Helpless to affect any control is a hell of a reality; rotten feeling.
I’m sad and shocked at John Prine’s death. He was one of my favourite American singer-songwriters, with immortal lines such as “there’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes”. He’s written and recorded so many great songs. Here’s one. It may not be one of his best but it’s one of my favourites.
Thank you for the song. I’ve heard so much about him lately. Too many good people are leaving us.
Boy, reality keeps catching me by surprise over and over.
I did look up the contact number from the hospital and finally managed to get through to the ward where they had taken mom.
I got a doctor on the phone who began discussing with me about him seeing no reason why she would be there, not having a fever or anything.
So I explained him about the fever she had had the days before and that this day her doctor had decided to transfer her as she seemed ill, would not eat or drink or get up etc.
he argued again, saying mom was angry and rebellious and kept taking her mask off and that she formed a risk for his personnel that way.
I told him I was her daughter, not her doctor, and he replied he knew.
I said well you need to discuss this with her doctor and not with me, and he said he knows her so now I am curious as to how this will turn.
they should be capable to deal with a person with some dementia even if that person does not want to wear a mask, as long as they wear theirs isn’t it?
boy, in a way it seems positive mom still has the energy to stand up for herself, and has no fever, but sometimes serious decisions seem to be taken so randomly as this doctor would have sent her away right away seemingly without even having checked with mom’s regular doctor.
one person of mom’s ward at the nursing home passed away today I just heard.
this is wearing us all out, all the stress and uncertainty and worry.
M
Such an awful, stressful time for you, your Mom and your brother, Margaret.
I hope you can forgive me for interrupting you Margaret. I am still traumatized. First, this predator ‘neighbor’ buys out and kicks out three lovely, adorable elderly ladies from their home next door to me. They had lived there for 40 years. All torn out and gone.
And then when I don’t park my car in the EXACT spot that pleases this wrecking ball of a man, he comes up to my front porch jumping up and down in fury at me, screaming at me, hurling insults, barking at me to move my car.
This is AFTER my own ancestors had already done $15,000 worth of retail business with this entitled asswipe.
It’s just…so breathtaking. The porch incident happened 17 years ago and I’m still infuriated and traumatized by it.
I remember having to write out a meek apology letter saying it was a driving error on my part because I was so scared of his wrath at the time, when the truth of the matter was dramatically different. It left me literally sitting on my toilet afterwards for three hours quaking in fear.
I told Gretchen this story (and what I share here is not the full story of the incident), she tells me, “That guy was not worth your being forced to quiver in fear on your own toilet for 3 hours.”
Again, never mind the tens of millions of dollars he’s made for himself by using this street when all I wanted to do was GO THE FUCK HOME. NOTHING COMMERCIAL, NO BIG MONEY TO GO INTO PRIVATE POCKETS.
Where do these entitled asswipes come from?
So he had this heart attack and died a month after the porch incident, and my brain still reels from what happened.
It’s though during the intervening years I had to bust through a “fourth wall” of psychological veneer regarding this guy and to appreciate that I should have been angry as holy hell at HIM, not the other way around.
It was in his best, selfish interest to be fearful of him, not angry at him.
Can someone please give me some cyber-comfort? Some comforting words or a digital hug? I’m utterly alone and exhausted to a ‘T’. Just some warm words of encouragement instead of everybody wanting to grab what they can from me? The weather is back down in the 50’s, so I am feeling colder, too.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((GURU))))))))))))))))))))))))))) How’s that
Thanks (((((Sylvia))) It’s been well over a year since my last hug, over 3 years since a kiss. And I am surrounded by people wanting my home. I feel as though I am about to collapse in the face of the shitty, diabolical,forces arrayed against me.
It gives me a serious tension headache.Feeling sick from an infection & I have to lie down.
Guru: As I see it, you are dealing with this feeling that you experience 17 years ao. Good for you.
Jack
Guru, I’m sending you a cyber hug and a comforting song:
Thank you Phil & Jack. I realize you’re trying to help the best way you know how. I really have to go lie down. I did this once at LA. I asked Barry, “Can I please just have an individual room all to myself? I just want a dark room to lie down in, escape from every fucking thing.” Barry seemed perplexed, but went along with it. He would occasionally peek over from big group room wondering why I am just laying there in the dark. “Too much bullshit working against me and I can’t take it anymore.”
Guru, I’m so sorry to hear of your torment over this issue. I hope it will ease soon.
For the sake of their own ego and financial gain, these people destroyed my old neighborhood once populated with people who actually took the time to celebrate my childhood birthdays with me, much like what Gretchen talked about with the 7 year-old boy in her Facebook neighborhood.
If I had Michael Bloomberg’s money I could carry out all sorts of beautiful ways to have my exquisitely satisfying, multi-generational revenge.
Does this capture some of the feeling?
The link seems broken, here’s a second try:
Guru, It’s a shame these people destroyed your childhood neighborhood, but things change out of our control. When I visit my childhood town, it s painful to see how it
isn’t the place I remember. It’s lost much of it’s charm. As a young adult, I left home and never wanted to live there again, it would have been too painful, I went through too many very difficult things there, and those memories overshadow the good ones. It was a wonderful town to live in, but I couldn’t stand it, and just didn’t want to be there anymore. I left my father behind and he didn’t do well, which I regret.
Is it that your childhood home is associated with a lot of positive memories besides birthday parties?
Phil
My cousins have speculated based on municipal paperwork that the earliest foundation of the house was built by slaves in 1837. It was owned by a steamboat engineer through the 1880’s-1890’s with my great-grandpa stepping in shortly thereafter. It has been a place of great safety for me and for many others in generations past. Extremely roomy to romp around in, 10-foot tall ceilings.
As long as I knew for sure it was safe from a commercially-oriented predator’s wrecking ball I’d have no problem living somewhere else, though. A 24-room house is a bit big for one person, I admit.
You could easily hold a small Primal retreat here. Not as big as Ojai or Casa de Maria but it could handle 8-10 patients.
Eventually I’ll get it:
Tenacity pays off! I never got around to seeing this film, though. Probably should put it on my list.
Renée,
In your April 4th reply to me you’re once again attacking and knocking down a straw man. You seem to ascribe to me a specific belief system or ideology and even declare it to be the hegemonic or dominant way of seeing the world. However, I have no idea which belief system or ideology you’re referring to. Is it my support for social democratic ideas and public policies?
At any rate, my point was about the rigidity of the ideas, them being fact-proof, rather than their obvious variance (having more than one way of seeing the world). And I’m not talking about nor claiming to have THE TRUTH, which is always something much bigger and has many vertices, I’m referring to the factual.
Your second argument is another attack on a straw man. I never said or implied or thought that western interference in other countries isn’t detrimental to those countries. Although many refugees and other immigrants flee situations not instigated by the west (the Syrian civil war for instance), it certainly can be and certainly was. My line of reasoning was based on a fact with which you did not grapple – they all want to go west and north. The Guatemalans still want to travel north to the US rather than south to, say, Argentina or Brazil. The Eritreans try to reach France rather than Saudi Arabia or Kenya; and the Syrians are doing their best to reach Germany rather than Russia. They don’t even want to stay in Turkey, a Muslim country.
At the risk of sounding not revolutionary enough let me offer an explanation as to why the US, France or Germany (or their fellow western countries) are such desired destinations; and while we’re speaking of ideology let that explanation be grounded in some western ideas taken out of some founding documents:
From the U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776): “All men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
From the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789): “1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. 2. …These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance against oppression.”
From the Constitution (Grundgesetz) of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949): “The dignity of man is inviolate.”
In other words, refugees flock to the west for the same reason they always have – they know that these foundations carry the promise of a better life for them and their children. Just ask them. Flawed as the realization and implementation of these principles is, they still recognize the substantiality and singularity of these ideas. The question is, do you?
Finally, your suggestion of “white fragility” came after my very first remark which was nothing but a statement of facts regarding the universality of slavery and brutality. The very first! It was immediately labeled as such. It’s not like we had a long discussion where again and again you were confronted with me denying anti-black racism (which I never did nor will). It seems you didn’t need any evidence for suggesting my reaction is an example of “white fragility”. So, if not from the evidence, where from? That’s why I thought it comes from the preconceived ideology.
P.S Those issues are important to me, so I debate/argue about them. The primal issue was about the frustration, about trying to get to someone while being constantly misunderstood. It was difficult for me to make some aspects of myself – the needy aspects – known to my parents to the degree they would act upon such knowledge. Those needy parts were in plain view but still somehow difficult for them. In other words, rather than accept them and me as I was they wished these aspects would go away. They didn’t.
This choked me up ……people caring about each other, making sacrifices for each other…the goodness of people…is making me cry….making me trust and feel less alone and feel how alone I’ve been and unable to trust.
Mom will be taken back to the nursing home as she has no fever and an echoscopy of her abdomen was OK. she drank and ate something so all of that is good news.
but she has been tested Corona positive.
she will be allowed to stay in her own room as most patients of that ward are positive by now, some of them have already passed away sadly enough.
M
Margaret,
that’s great news! I hope it means your mom is recovering from a mild case of covid-19 and now will be immune. Something we can all hope for.
Phil
There’s still a good chance she might have little or no symptoms at all; I’m sure you already have taken this possibility into account. Let’s hope for the best.
I want to make a brief note regarding an often overlooked connection between the value of the Mexican Peso and Mexico’s homicide rate.
In 2014 one US dollar could be exchanged for 13 Mexican Pesos
Today that same dollar can be traded for 23 Pesos, representing a peso purchasing power loss of about 44%.
During the same timeframe homicides in Mexico have roughly doubled from 20,000 in 2014 to 40,000 last year,
It is my belief that much of the violence is economically driven. Since the peso has lost so much value in the past few years, criminal cartels must fight ever more ferociously for a shrinking economic pie.
Guru,
maybe it’s a good time to buy pesos, they are a bargain.
It largely depends on the tourists and the COVID-19 story. Who’s going to want to visit there with all the stay home orders?
The market for drugs may increase here because of coronavirus related mental health issues and the coming recession.
Phil
thanks all. I am glad mom is back in her familiar surrounding, with caring people around that know her.
of course I keep hoping, even while on the news I just heard that now here half of the deceased every day are people in nursing homes.
we just found out as well 3 million masks were such poor quality they don’t give any protection.
also the tests sent to the nursing homes had the wrong instructions so cotton sticks meant for throat checks were pushed up in people’s noses often causing damage and always pain, and an untrustworthy test result with false negatives.
Yeah right, frustration upon frustration.
but I keep hoping for the best anyway,
M
Current traffic map in LA. Don’t think it looked like this ever before:
http://trafficpredict.com/current_traffic/?location=los-angeles
And here are live traffic cams (type “Los Angeles” in the upper right search window). Amazing:
https://www.weatherbug.com/traffic-cam/
Hollywood Blvd. live cam:
https://www.earthcam.com/usa/california/losangeles/hollywoodblvd/?cam=hollywoodblvd
Air quality in LA:
https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.mapsarchivecalendar&maptype=aqipeak&domainid=33&calyear=2020&calmonth=4
For any Bernie Sander’s supporters out there, I think you’ll appreciate what Seth Meyers had to say about him last night in his “Closer Look” segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1nlr2wEKj4 (Trump Wants His Coronavirus Failures to Be “Quickly Forgotten”)
Jack and Phil, I think we are each describing different ideas of anarchy. I was pleasantly surprised when I found my view of anarchy supported by John Lennon in this 2 minute video of him talking about government: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDf3vcvaRw4 (John Lennon on Government). What do you guys think?
Renee, I’m at work where I can’t watch videos, maybe later.
Renee: I watched the video of Lennon you posted and I did not think or feel he was talking about another form of anarchy. I feel he was ‘putting down’ what already existed and talking about its failures. That is a whole different question.
It would have been interesting had he lived, to see just where and how he developed his ideas, but he was primarily a guitarist and lyric writer. I do think Janov had some influence on him, but he eventually said in a video:- “Sorry Art, It didn’t work” holding up a lit cigarette he had in his hand.
What was most notable to me was his Liverpudlian accent, and I feel somewhere he never left Liverpool. a city not too far from where I was born and brought up, 50 miles away at most. Nevertheless “Imagine” is a very profound lyric, from which many take in their own way.
I repeat:- Anarchy means, WITHOUT STRUCTURE. All governing is a STRUCTURE, whatever way you wish to look at it. It is just that I feel it ought to be abolished. Then see where and how that manifests itself. BUT ‘there’s the rub’; few are willing to venture into that unknown.
Jack
I love you, Jack! And I love how you can argue so fervently against there being one TRUTH for anything. Yet, when it come to something you feel passionately about, like anarchy, there can be only one TRUTH!
Renee: you’re wrong. For me, there is no such thing as:- “truth” It is actually a word that is banded about glibly and in actuality demonstrates nothing. As the saying goes … one man’s truth is another man’s fiction.
Anarchy is ONLY an idea and has never been tried … though there have been some attempts to create it (transition into it)
The only thing we can state where it does exist in the animal kingdom, and the only other, PERHAPS, at a time before we became neurotic when there was no such thing as governments and/or controlling societal instrument.
I do admire your tenacity to continue to point out your POV.
Jack
We are in the same “admiration society”, Jack! I admire your tenacity in continuing to point out your POV too. 😉
Renee: good to kno3that.
How re you keeping up with the virus thing; and do you as I sure do, feel things are a-changing?
I feel initially it will cause a lot of panic and desperation for the many: then suddenly, like ‘outta the blue’ someone will come up with a simple idea and VIOLA … why did nobody think of this before?
What say you?
Jack
‘.
half an hour ago I managed to get on the phone with a nurse that was just installing mom at the table in her room for her dinner.
as the wire from the landline was too short to get to the table the nurse passed her own phone on to mom, which under the circumstances says a lot about how engaged they are with the wellbeing of their residents and how low the focus is on their own safety.
I hope she wore a mask and cleaned off her phone or had good hand hygiene etc.
but anyway, I was able to talk briefly with mom, which made me feel good as it felt I had been able to let her know I am still there for her and with her.
she mumbled a bit but overall sounded in a good mood, she is so strong and well, positive…
my brother and me, well, and the rest of us are happy she is back in her familiar and caring environment.
Guru, here is a big hug from me too, it is so good you share that kind of stuff with us. maybe you could join one of the virtual groups,, they are great.
sounds like a fabulous old house, by the way, I would have a very hard time giving it up too I think, all those memories and family history.
a retreat huh, mmm…that is an idea, it sounds like a place many people could like, and f.. the neighbors, ha!
M
Margaret, thanks and hugs back to you, too. I’m afraid you’re going to be on pins and needles with your mom for another 10 days or so, making sure no symptoms show up. I wouldn’t call this house ‘fabulous’, but rather big, solid, and straightforward. It’s suitable for old-world engineering people, It does have its special glories, though: 4 bedrooms, monstrous kitchen size downstairs, extra kitchen upstairs, etc
If you wanted to come by for a visit, I’m sure we could discuss it and see where it goes, maybe after this virus clears away. I’ve tried to have Gretchen stop by many times, but she doesn’t seem interested, so I have my doubts a mini-retreat would be realistic.
The only drawbacks about this house are requiring more maintenance than newer houses and big winter heating bills.
I’ve had a couple of Primallers stay here, and they ended up coming back multiple times staying weeks….one even stayed a month, so they did enjoy it.
Someone sent me this link. Thought it might interest you all! G. https://abc7news.com/health/were-californians-exposed-to-coronavirus-last-year/6091220/
Gretchen: I found the video interesting only in that it demonstrates that we (collectively) don’t know that much about this virus, other viruses, or for that matter the nature of ‘disease’ It is exactly on this very point that I find the medical profession remiss in not looking closer into Primal theory and Janov’s work.
I’ve written a comment that I have not yet posted as I wanted to give it quite some thought before sending it. I will send it under a reply to you after posting this one.
Jack
Reading your latest posts it sounds, to me, that some change has occurred with you. Mor real worldy or something. I read in tears your words on being ignored. I liken myself to the, ,” invisible man.” Tears me apart. Like Renée my role was target of abuse, you imagine it, I received it, physical, verbal, sexual. We become very good at learning the art of invisibility, It gets reinforced by every time we dare to become visible we are either made sport of, ignored, again, or challenged as to the validity of our brash notion we have a right to be. I was quite capable of killing myself before Primal, now I’ll have to take what comes.
I remember when I first found this blog , early 2000’s, while looking for the old Primal Bulletin Board, looking for a woman in England I’d lost touch with. I lost touch because I couldn’t tell her how scared I was that I was not up to her vision of me. She is strong and sweet; fierce.
Your user name, Jack and Patrick’s banter…. I believe I took a swing at all of you, for one flaw or another. I was looking for the Post Primal Eden garden of love and comfort , and understanding, and what I fell on was this sandbox of nasty snotty nosed brats sparring with each other and visiting verbal harm and wishes of harm on the other. And then , this one geezer, with the presumptuous handle Ultimate Guru, shades of a John Lennon acid trip. What I know now is while I had my shin splint bone, and an ulnar nerve response, I still was then unconnected to my true, ” funny bone.” My sense of humour developed later during pow wows when discovered my Native family. I have discovered, IMHO, ( thanks Jack,) that with my sense of humour my plane of empathy grew. I now so much enjoy knowing all of you on the page. When I become annoyed, I did with posts of Daniel and I did with Renèe, it seemed to me, later brained, it’s because I, too, want to matter, be seen, be believed, and seen as valuable. I’m sure I’ll find some thing to prick me on here, but, in this moment you’re all quite lovely.
As are you turning out to be quite lovely, David.
Thank you, Larry.
David: hey man! good for you. We can each of us only do what we are ready for at any given point in time.
For now, I am enjoying the weather here with clear blue skies and sunshine and sit out on our patio and take in all the nature (our garden) A N D … I don’t give a fuck what others think of me, but I do read everybody and like to get feed-back … but then that’s just the fucked-up, contradictory me.
The best day of MY therapy was when I was finally able to accept that I was “crazy”. Prior to that, I spent a lot of time trying to prove I wasn’t so along with a lot of cruising for sex, those were the ways I wasted so much time.
Jack
Now I have anogther two, 1) bantering and 2) the other watching TV.
Jack
I thought very carefully before writing this comment and left it written, but not posted for the last 3 hours.
I am expecting a lot of flack to come back my way … but then, ‘what’s new pussy cat?’
I feel very strongly that many things are coming to a head in the world of us humans. The virus merely adds to it and in particular how it’s affecting the varying economies of many nations in a negative way and now there’s talk within the economic circles of just printing more money. An idea that Germany went through after the “great depression” of 1929.
I am finding many connections; primarily with myself, but also those carry-over into my general thinking about the current situation in the world, especially now with “stay at home” and “keeping one’s distance from others”. What kind of a world have we created for ourselves????
That a health issue creates an economic issue, I find it to be new, and it also carries over to national isolation also, with closing borders. It’s like the world (of us humans) has gone crazy. I don’t see it just being me. I hear both on the internets, social media and the TV news that others are seeing it all in a wider context. Just how wide depends on one’s perspective, but for me, it’s not wide enough.
I am reminded of lots of things I learned a school, about discoveries and how many of them turned out eventually to have very SIMPLE solutions. All this binds me to Janov’s (for me at least) famous suggestion that we are looking in all the wrong places for answers … then the (yours) Grethen’s suggestion at one retreat, when she asked us all to ‘think outside the box’. Then the final one was something I read in my teens in the local newspaper about a puzzle:- An intersecting, a square of 9 dots, 3 dots vertical and 3 horizontal and intersecting each dot with 4 lines contiguously. As a teen I tried for 2 days but was unable to solve it even though the article stated:- It was possible. Eventually, I gave up and looked at the answer and yep!!! right there. was the solution … ‘outside the box.’
The amount of news coverage of this virus is almost beginning to bore me. There seems nothing new …. yet from a Primal perspective, I see there is a way out. Not an immediate one; but an eventual one.
There is a solution, but not in any of the places, the epidemiologists are looking for it … IMO
One last outrageous point:- The problem is not covid 19. It is actually a very mild virus. The problem as I see it is:- ‘neurosis’.
Jack
Thank you for the link, Gretchen. I thought my flu in November could have been the Co-19 virus. So glad to read some general agreement or possibility noted. Had a terrible sore throat that thot was strep and 104 temp. Couldn’t talk for 2 days. Ordered cough syrup on amazon’s 2-day delivery. Wanted to go to urgent care but they said the room was packed so decided to just ride it out. Still won’t take a chance tho, and am sheltering in place beings these things can mutate. Had had a flu shot too, so was puzzled how I could get the flu so badly. Our county only has one case so far. There are several nursing homes in the area as this is a retirement area. Hope they will be safe.
Margaret, thinking of you, hope your mom has seen the worst of this and is on the mend. =^–^=
S
Interesting. Thanks.
My guess as to why California has a lower infection rate than New York is because California is more of a car culture. Maybe for a couple of weeks the virus transfers invisibly among the population before first cases with symptoms are noticed. The way New Yorker’s in big cities mingle on the sidewalk, in cabs, and in subways way more than Californian’s do, the virus would have infected way more people in New York than in California before the first cases in either population appears, and the explosion of cases would be a lot bigger in New York than in California, is my guess.
This short video illustrates my point, just imagine there is a two week delay before the first mouse trap goes off..
I agree; clearly overcrowding is a disaster in the making. Perhaps an illustration is the oft quoted average life span which would astound my Nova Scotia progenitors who lived into their late 90’s and early hundreds. While that is a small sample I have sampled the graveyards across the Province. Communities where hazardous employment was the rule, logging, fishing, shipping, and wars document related deaths in their cemeteries . The period where Allopathic doctors took over birthing from midwives is marked by the surge of deaths of newborns and mothers. Poor delivery hygiene and lack of knowledge of female anatomy, including reproductive anatomy, where uteruses were mistaken for afterbirth and according to documented fact were ripped from the bodies is the documented cause. Deaths known to be due to disease linked to poor human waste sanitation are evident. I have a pictorial book that delineates the development of major North American cities, early 1900’s, sewage and dead animals, including large animals, left rotting in the streets and gutters. But, here, in general, people lived long lives. In the community where I grew up elderly folks lived independently in there own homes, and mostly died there. I remember my parents discussing a local woman who had a debilitating stroke, the second such event in our, then, fairly large community, the first being my paternal grandmother at age 84. ,
Over two decades community General Hospitals have been closed in our Atlantic Provinces; a few converted to Community Health Centres, rejigged, providing free or low cost office space for MD’s. Previous free parking area for patients and visitors changed to paid parking.
It may come to pass that politicians will rethink their view that community hospitals are unaffordable to essential as future emerging public health crises will need them, and improved senior care facilities, to be maintained, and enhanced, to properly isolate an outbreak. For a decade people requiring nursing care are not guaranteed to find placement anywhere even remotely close to their home communities.
It may come to pass there will be a return to small communities, people buying basic foodstuffs locally, eating seasonally. I asked a grocery manager at a local, ” Big Box,” store what percentage of their product actually gets purchased. He replied with a history of the constant downsizing of staff and checkouts and the markdowns and the percentage of product that gets offloaded to discount outlets. Until two years ago a cousin operated a ,” farm market.” I bought, at her cost, by the case, avocado, 4 cents each, mango, 7 cents each, kiwi, 3 cents each. Full big box prices are around $ 1.79 each.
Small and large appliance, and electronics, repair shops my show a resurgence.
Media is inundating us with forecasts of ,” us,” emerging from this event a kinder, more closely knit, people. I don’t share that belief. I hope I’m wrong.
What say I, Jack? I say that I do not share your optimism, either on a personal or political level. While you have visions of your beautiful anarchy just around the corner, “Coronavirus Capitalism” is busy at work, with many governments using the public’s panic, disorientation and desperation to push through all kinds of horrific policies that bail out big companies and get rid of regulations that have been in place to keep people and the environment safe. Sadly, or happily (depending on whose side you’re on), I don’t think that anarchy is currently “one of the ideas lying around”: https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-capitalism/. Naomi Klein is trying to be hopeful here but based on what is currently happening, particularly in the U.S., I see no reason for optimism.
Personally, I am recovering from a late-night Zoom Passover Seder that my sister and stepsister organized. There were around 30 people, from Mexico City, San Francisco, Washington D.C. Chiang Mai, Tokyo, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Family events are not my thing, as they always bring up old feelings of not belonging, being an outsider, feeling irrelevant, not having a voice and wishing I didn’t exist. So there is always a huge inner conflict when I get invited to these things. When I go, I regret it, and when I don’t go, I just perpetuate my outsider status. It’s a no-win situation. This morning I am feeling sad and crying remembering the many ways that my family made me feel so bad. And how these feelings continue to exist in the background and often foreground of my life.
Can you get away with drinking some beer, wine, or hard liquor/vodka before the next Zoom meet? No one can smell your breath, so as long as your speech is not too slurred and your gait is reasonably steady the meetings should go more smoothly.
You could put the alcohol in a standard labelled tea bottle or soda can so it appears nothing is wrong on screen.
By the way, I’m not trying to make light of your situation. My grandma’s misery used to drive me crazy when I was young and I had no idea how to handle the immediacy of the situation, so I’d reach for a cupful of her favorite drink, blackberry brandy & 7-Up, while I’d sit and listen to her talk hour after hour…It did smooth things out for me at the time.
Sometimes family dynamics which decades to build various miserable byproducts from are impossible to resolve in a meeting spanning only a few hours, so a medicinal solution would be worth considering for the immediacy of that moment.
correction: ‘Sometimes family dynamics which *took decades to build…’
UG, I like your “out of the bottle” thinking and problem-solving skills. I will keep this mind for future family events.
I’m kicking myself for not consulting with you beforehand, UG! While everyone was holding cups of wine, I apologized for only having water in my cup when I said the blessing for the wine. You are so right, I really do need to start drinking. 😵
Please note I am not encouraging you or anyone to be a regular alcohol drinker. I am only proposing it as an ’emergency solution’ for the situation & then have all the feelings AFTER the gathering is over. Also, worth keeping in mind that non-drinkers will have a very low tolerance so you’d have to really take it easy & carefully regulate how much to drink.
Or, Renee, there’s always tranquilizers. My mom used to take Miltown when her brother came to visit with his “no-neck kids” (Maggie from “Cat on a hot tin roof”). Her nerves could not stand all the misbehaving and getting jelly and a bottle of camphor phenique they found poured onto the couch, (an odor that never went away.) She was really mellowed out. Hey, maybe that is what is working for Pence, he hardly seems there but still is able to tolerate the orange boss. You could just cruise thru a family get-together.
S
Renee: That situation of yours, feeling like an outsider is very, very sad, and says a lot about how we humans treat children … our babies etc.
I didn’t see what connection it had to the site you cited. I saw her solution to be ‘an old and tried one’ … social capitalism. I lived through one at the end of WWll. It didn’t change a great deal for me and my family and perhaps caused the backlash to go back to conservative capitalism
Politically this swing one way then the other (pendulum fashion) has been going on for centuries, resolving nothing in the final analysis.
My contention is to stop the pendulum swing. A move towards anarchy is the only way I see for any REAL change. I also see it as the only way for maximum satisfaction out of life; letting each of be who we are and living it the way we each of us want to live it
Jack.
From your warm replies to Jack, Renée, and from the care you sometimes take to explain yourself so others may understand what you mean, I believe that at one time you’ve known loving care, even if only for a short while. So hang in there, it may still mobilise and resurface.
That’s quite a spread out family you’ve got there.
That sounds much like being rewarded with a teaching from an anointed one, Danny.
UG,
thanks for making me feel welcome in your house.
it is nice to know you had several primal patients stay over already, let’s hope in a not too far future that will be possible again!
M
today I only got to talk to a lady of the reception of the home, and then to the director.
he told me mom was indeed infected but at the moment only having some abdominal pain, no fever, no coughing.
he chuckled, when he said ‘your mom keeps being surprising’, as in the morning they found her sitting at the table in the community room waiting for her breakfast…
but she seems to sleep a lot, and did not pick up the phone when at some point I tried to get her on her landline.
I asked the director after our talk if he could pass me on to the nurses of the ward, but he said they were very busy going from room to rooom serving tea , and a bit later they would be serving dinner and then be busy helping people to bed.
so I will have to wait to tomorrow to give it another try to get through to her.
I get a little taste of how lonely it already feels not to be able to get to talk to her, how much lonelier will it feel when that at some oint will get a permanent situation…
life will feel so much emptier, still…
M
I want to acknowledge what you are dealing with Margaret.
Makes me envious that I didn’t have a family that earned having me mourn; just terrorists. I remember feeling that loss when an old TV actor Bob Hommes died, aka, ” The Friendly Giant.” I wept, hard. Never met him.
Sorry to turn this into about me, Margaret. We’ve never met, but I genuinely feel for you. Hope your mom is ok and you have lots more times together.
I’m going to visit an old scoundrel I know when some bit of normalcy returns. 107 year old United Baptist minister. Brilliant mind, having to use a cane a bit the last couple of years. He enjoyed that he didn’t have to play the role of beautified holy man saint with me. A prolific cusser, covert enjoyer of inhalable tobacco, He’s often remarked that either I was a Christian and he a non theist heathen because our beliefs match no idols, no flying celestial bodies, no deities, no mythologies posing as facts; he couldn’t decide which. To which I’d answer my only saint was santa and we’d laugh.
Thanks, UG, Jack, Sylvia, David and Daniel. I think what was/is most painful for me with my family, that happened again last night, is when I’m “frozen” or dissociated. Because it’s like I’m there with them but not present in my own body. And I want to leave but I can’t move. I don’t know if any of you can relate to this. When I got asked a few times to participate last night, it was like I was watching myself pretend and fake a confident voice, but with my “dead” facial expression and “dead” body. But in the moments I was participating, I was reassuring everyone there that I was actually alive, at least to them. Today it’s all shame, sadness and hopelessness. Okay, enough. I don’t want to write about this anymore.
Renee, that’s sad that you feel like an outsider in your own family, and I can understand your dilemma about participating or skipping gatherings.
Phil
Dec 1986, I came back to NS from LA for Xmas. My father put his arms around me and said he loved me. I wished he hadn’t; too late and all he wanted was forgiveness. Well fuck that. I turned cold as ice and thought I’d faint, but, I said, ” Love you, too, Dad.” He was 83. I was his palliative 7am – 11 pm, 24/7 carer 10 years later. Held his hand while he died. During that month all he talked about was his incredible favourite, ( alcoholic, sex predator, thieving,) son, absent; wintering in Florida. I, most ashamedly, lost it ONCE, and asked him where his Donnie was. And broke his heart. What an asshole I was to say that. Little by little I’ve exposed the family history. Most relatives drop me when I tell them what they thought they wanted to know; including my hillbilly bible thumpers in the Sou USA. We were not the Waltons. I will not revictimize myself.
Renee, I’m really happy you at least shared with us a bit of what was going on in your current life. I can see why it may not have been easy to talk about. Thanks for taking a serious shot at what Margaret and I were asking you about earlier.
My cousins have a large family and the younger ones seem to have a ‘wooden’ expression about themselves as well. Incredibly productive, hard-working German cookie-cutter dolls psychically shaped in the design our military-industrial elite overlords intended. I still have fondness and affection for them, though.
Thanks, UG.
My wife’s small village in Spain is getting hit very hard by the coronavirus. It got into a nursing home there and at least 20 people in the town have died, and many others have it. Her aunt is critically ill in the hospital and may not make it. I feel sad about all this and we can only hope for the best, but things are going very badly there.
Phil
Geez, it’s been bad news from Spain for quite a while now.
Looking for a link I believe Sylvia Contributed, An assistant Prof of Psychology; at the end he commented that DJ Trump believes there is an MMR – Autism connection. The lead scientist on CDC’s MMR study believes the same, in fact he says the results were fudged to fit the desired outcome. He resigned and loudly stated the facts of the study. He was supported by a WHO scientist, who also resigned in support of his colleague. Now both have been attacked by the former US military strategist whose portfolio was propaganda as mentally deranged frauds.
Trump cannot possibly be in congruence with a truth; he must be convinced it’s a lie.
Was not me, David, that supplied a link about MeaslesMR vaccine and autism. I will say many many yrs ago our little dog became autistic after her last puppy shot, doing repetitive actions and not smart, so I insisted that with the subsequent dog that I have now get his shots with more time between and not get the final shot either. Think there is mercury in animal vaccines.
Anyway….stay safe, everyone. S
I can relate Sylvia. What I learned is that vaccines can cross the blood brain barrier, because of carriers; particularly vulnerable if anaesthetic has been administered at or near the time of injections. My cat and dog emerged from neutering procedure personailty damaged. You might find the lectures of Dr Suzanne Humphries, MD, Internist, Nephrologist, interesting. She took 3 years to do her own research, was stunned, but then learned how her patients waiting for transplants could regain health by getting the toxins out of tissue. She now lectures world wide. May have relocated to Australia or New Zealand after multiple threats and attempts on her life after exposing the truth about vaccination, and vaccine efficacy and safety.
Larry, I like that video and I think you’re right about the difference between LA and New York. In Spain, and I’m sure Italy, people walk around and are very social in their cities and small towns, and that’s part of why it’s so bad there and in other European countries. But that’s a lot of the charm about those places. It’s spreading much slower in the suburbs where I live. Social isolation is easy because we already have it.
Phil
Same here. Despite that it’s officially spring, outdoor temperature is still below freezing so we stay in our cars or in our igloos most of the time. The hospitals aren’t busy yet and by the looks of it they won’t be, unless people stop self-distancing too soon. A middle aged man here fell seriously ill with the virus and survived. By his telling, the experience was harrowing. He urges people to self-distance to slow the spread of the virus through the community.
Well, the hospitals around here are quite busy with covid19, but not yet overwhelmed. I hope it doesn’t warm up too much up there and melt all the igloos.
Phil, you make a good point about Spain and Italy’s cultural vulnerability to COVID contagion. I’ve never visited either country, but all the videos of them generally have lots of people densely packed in apartment buildings or row houses.
Speaking of personal preference, regardless of contagion risks or lack thereof, I always found my mother’s parents house to be an awesome place to live. Affluent suburban Minneapolis, ranch-style houses spread apart but still close enough to wave ‘hello’ to neighbors, and lots of peaceful nature.
Phil, So sorry to hear about your in laws in Spain particularly your wife’s aunt. Very sad! I hope your mom will be alright as well Margaret. It sounds like she may be one of those who is asymptomatic if I understand correctly I hope so. Gretchen
Daniel, based on what you wrote to me on April 9, I cannot help but conclude that you believe I am not understanding where you are coming from. This is simply not true. I really do get it. I, along with everyone reading what you wrote, was raised with these very beliefs that you espouse! And not to see them as beliefs, but rather as simply “the facts”. However, in some contexts such as this one, facts are subjective. And I ask, “Whose facts?” “Facts that serve what purpose?” I think that unless you have experiences where you are forced to question, challenge and rethink your beliefs, they will continue to just be “the facts”.
All the documents you quote refer to “Men” or “Man”, with the assumption that they are referring to all people. But they are not. Those documents, constitutions and declarations are actually referring to a very select group of people and render invisible all others….. “All men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among them the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness….. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights ……These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance against oppression……. The dignity of man is inviolate” Try telling this to people who face institutional oppression and discrimination by these very governments every day! And, of course it goes without saying that most children are also excluded. Unless they are lucky enough to go to a democratic school or be unschooled there is likely no liberty, equal rights or pursuit of happiness for them in their daily lives at school.
As for the personal feelings, you say that you debate these issues with me to try “to get to someone while being constantly misunderstood”. I know you feel that you are getting me and that I am not understanding you. At the same time, I feel that I am getting you and that you are not understanding me. I honestly don’t think our respective perspectives will change. As for your parents not accepting certain parts of you and wishing those parts of you would go away……..all I can say is that now it seems that what your parents did to you, you are doing to me, as you cannot accept me with my views and are determined to make them go away by presenting me with more and more “facts”. At least this how it comes across to me
Wow Renee! That’s the clearest explanation I’ve heard from you about your perception of what is going on between you and Daniel, and it is very clear. Thank you.
I appreciate your feedback, Larry. Much of the time, I feel that I am unclear and not making much sense. So I’m glad that, at least for you, and with this post, I am coming across clearly.
On another note (no pun intended), I came across this Covid19 version of “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music. Not only is it funny, it also quite accurate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aAnPFeo11s
Phil,
I am sorry to hear that news about your wife’s family and village, she must feel scared and frustrated.
here we got a latest update from the director of the nursing home, there are 5 people in hospitals, 5 people have deceased, and 8 caretakers are at home sick.
in mom’s ward there are fifteen cases, and in other wards the number is increasing slowly.
the seclusion ward that was set up in the cafeteria is full so now they are using different strategies to isolate parts of the building from other parts.
some infected residents get really bad, usually the more frail persons with underlying diseases, others seem to be dealing with a bad flu so far, some have gotten a bit better already.
I finally got hold of mom on the phone and although she sounded a bit tired she sounded clear.
the nurses told my brother she ate well in the morning and looks a bit better than the day before. of course we have to wait how it progresses.
this morning I could not get through to the ward as all the lines were busy so I just tried her landline, and she picked up after only two rings, so that was nice.
afterwards she must have not put the horn up in the right way, as it sounded busy said my sister who also gave it a try, but maybe that is not so bad, she can rest this way and we can ask the nurses to take care of it at some point.
just feel some stress has diminished by being able to talk with her, but still feel pretty tense…
M
Thank you for the update Margaret. I’ve been thinking about you and your family and hoping that the crisis hasn’t gotten worse regarding your mother’s situation.
Renée, I have no wish to make your views “go away”: I oppose and argue with them, sometimes vehemently. It would be nice if I could convince you or others but in no way is this my “cause”. What I would like, though, is for us to have a meaningful discussion. For this we must discuss one issue at a time. Otherwise the discussion spreads over many other subjects before we even begin to elucidate the first one and we lose focus to the point of feeling the whole discussion is pointless.
The first subject began with my comment that,
It isn’t clear whether you agree with that statement. Specifically, do you agree that in history there are many examples of conquest, brutalization and enslavement by non-whites? For now, I’m not talking at all about the interpretation of the fact, what meanings can we extract from it, but just its existence. I ask because you seem to pass over that question straight to a valid but different ones, namely how these facts are interpreted, by whom and for what purpose. To be sure, you raise with these questions an important and interesting topic that I have much to say about, but they are meaningless if we’re yet to agree on the very existence of the fact.
The second subject was why do black and brown people travel west and north but not east and south. You haven’t dealt with that question either. Instead you’re focusing on the documents I quoted themselves while having removed any reference to the phenomenon I was using them for. I used the documents to try and explain that wish black and brown people have to go to the US rather than Argentina or Brazil, Germany rather than Turkey or Russia, and France rather than Kenya or Saudi-Arabia. But other than attacking those documents you offered no other explanation to that main phenomenon in question.
A third subject was what you called “the beliefs… [I] espouse”, which you see as dominant and hegemonic. Despite my direct response that I have no idea which beliefs you seem to be referring to, you repeat how obvious those are. So please, can you detail and explain what ideas or beliefs you think I have and where do you think I’m coming from?
I know you feel these discussions with me are exhausting and at times they are that for me too. We can end it here if you’d like. If not, it would be very helpful if you could answer those questions.
Daniel: All I can suggest is you enjoy, or get off doing it. I get the impression you want Renee to argue your way.
For me, no-one ever does it my way … if ONLY the whole world would do it my way it would solve the problems for humanity … for all time!!!!!!!
Jack
You’ve got a point there, Jack. However, if a meaningful discussion is something we’d like to have, wouldn’t it make sense to speak about the same things rather than make category errors thus making sure we will fall into a useless and pointless argument?
You’ve got a point there, Jack. However, if a meaningful discussion is something we’d like to have, wouldn’t it make sense to speak about the same things rather than make category errors thus making sure we will fall into a useless and pointless argument?
===========================
Daniel: In essence, I agree, BUT (that inevitable butt) it all depends upon your meaning of such phrases as:- meaningful discussion, make sense, make category errors, and pointless argument.
That last one for me is something I find impossible:- Pointless arguments. Arguments are either always pointless, OR you/we love doing it … then it takes on another meaning. It is for that very reason that I found “Straight and Crooked Thinking” by Robert H. Thoules a powerful book and also “Thoughts on reality” describing Benjamin Lee Whorf when he stated “‘We think with/in language”‘
Jack
Daniel: sorry about adding your response to me again. It is my way to repond, by just having yours above so I can re-look at yours without getting out of responding. if you know what I mean.
Jack
Here is an interesting and I think important article from the latest issue of New Scientist magazine about how to help your immune system to become more youthful and robust. As the article points out, as we age our immune systems deteriorate, especially from about 60 years old onward. Apparently vitamin E, vitamin D, zinc, intermittent fasting, and exercise…even walking 10,000 steps a day, return our immune systems to a more youthful state in which it is much better able to rid our bodies of bacterial and viral invaders.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532754-000-how-to-fight-infection-by-turning-back-your-immune-systems-clock/
Larry: I grant that it is interesting to find, read, or accidentally discover a way to rejuvenate our immune systems, but how about not destroying it in the first place. “Prevention rather than having to fix something that’s broken.
I also grant that since it is broken we are left with ONLY fixing it.
However, for my broken self, I was lucky enough to find something that helps with partially fixing me, but sadly I don’t see many people being able to get that same (partial) fix.
The only thing I can do is:- attempt, for the generations to come, to prevents their immune systems from getting broken. Then we can finally put an end to this; every generation haveing to find fixes, that actually never happens, and goes on and on and on generation after generation.
I see it all as a spiral downwards toward extinction; UNLESS …………..!
Jack
Sorry I hadn’t realized that the entire article that I posted can’t be read unless the magazine is subscribed to. The thrust of the article is that deterioration of our immune system is part of the natural aging process, but there are research-supported ways to slow down or even reverse some of the aging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mpT2vJgzp0 Breathe Harmony NHS Choir – Anytime You Need A Friend (Mariah Carey) i could not stop crying…i really really don’t want to die right now
Yep. “I don’t want to die” has been a big (old) feeling for me too recently.
Jack,
By “meaningful discussion” I mean an open and as unbiased as possible exchange of views about a topic.
“Making sense” is for me giving meaning to something using formal logic (Logical reasoning methods and argumentation) and critical thinking.
A “category error” is made when something belonging to a certain category is presented as if it belongs to a different category. For example, I presented a fact (black and brown people flee to the west rather than elsewhere). I accompanied the fact with an explainer (promise of freedom and equality as they are stated in western founding documents). One could argue, say, that the fact I presented is incorrect or missing important and relevant features. Such an argument would be within the same category of the fact. Or one could argue that the explainer doesn’t explain the fact very well because of this or that, or because there is a different explanation. That too would be within the same category of an explainer. However, if one takes the explainer and argues against it as if it was the fact rather than the explainer, than one is making a category error. I think such errors are very common and help make an argument pointless.
By “pointless argument” I mean an argument that stops being meaningful because of category errors and/or arguments that are not making sense.
Daniel: I actually agree with all you say in this comment. BUT as I see it when arguing as I do sometimes with my partner, the argument can get out of hand, for ME, trying to make my point and he’s doing the same thing. So we pass one another. However, I am learning that rather than argue with him; just listening him out, and not even replying works best in our ‘living together’. I feel the same applies to discussions/arguments on this blog.
I feel I’ve done the same with my view on money and anarchy. I think (though I could be wrong) that everyone knows what my view on the matter is, and that is more important than trying to put the actual argument across. Of course, I also need to accept that I irritate a lot of people by doing it that way.
As you pointed out in this comment the classic expectation is for it to be done the way you stated it. BUT that doesn’t always bring about what we had hoped to acquire. Hence, I risk irritating people. I am prepared to take that. In the process for me, I can now actually enjoy the “BANTER”. AND, let it be known that I have this (weird) idea.
The classic one for me was in trying to explain my sexual orientation. Only now after a whole process of gays hiding it, then accepting that one is going to be classifieds as Quere, Fagot, Nancy boy, Pufter, and the rest, we are finally getting some (reluctant) acceptance.
Jack
Jack, I accept what you’re saying here. Actual talking with people is way more intricate and layered than my descriptions above, because psychological needs and emotions come into the picture. However, when we write something which is beyond our immediate reaction, when taking the time to think that something through, then we try to separate as best we can the reasonable and factual from our hopes and fears. We can write both, but still separate them or at least be aware somehow of their operation within us.
On the other hand, when we are completely taken over by our emotions we may do ourselves a great favour while in formal or self-therapy which is dedicated to self-knowledge and being oneself, but not in arguing a topic or devising a policy or a course of action.
Daniel: In no way am I able to say what is right, what is wrong, what is logic and what is just an emotional response. If you feel you are competent to do so … good for you.
All I am EVER going to know is ‘HOW I FEEL’. (the rest is mere hearsay). Once I know how I feel, then, and only then, am I able to emote that feeling (express it). There’s one caveat and that is to truly express it rather than act it out. ie:- telling the other person what they are doing; as that leaves out what I am doing in the process of telling them It is just this, that I feel is the deep-rooted lesson (and gift) Arthur Janov gave us all. Therefore I need to question myself, first. I am still in the process of refining this kind of work on myself
My way to do this; both in discussion and argument is, to let it be known “that is the way I see it” … and not presume everyone else should see it the same way.
I feel (though I could well be wrong) you have a tendency to do it, assuming there is a right and/or wrong way, out there in the ether.
I wrote some years ago that righteousness and wrongeous-ness is an outgrowth of religion … yes! all the way back to our worship of totem poles. I try hard to abandon such dialectics.
Hence, I now know the only thing for certain I can EVER know is:- ‘How I feel’. The rest is questionable.
Jack
Daniel, firstly I disagree with your assertion that you do not want my views to “go away”. I think that is precisely what you want when you insist that I accept your views as “facts”.
Do I agree that in history there are many examples of conquest, brutalization and enslavement by non-whites? Back on March 29, I stated that “you are comparing the Ebola virus and the Corona virus. Both are brutal and violent but not nearly on the same scale. The economic system of capitalism has destroyed and decimated, and continues to destroy and decimate, peoples, cultures, lands, animals, the earth, the sea, the air, and the climate. In just about every corner of the world”. In other words, you are making a false comparison. The extent of conquest, brutalization and enslavement by non-whites pales in comparison to that done by white Europeans. Your “fact” downplays, minimizes, and normalizes the atrocities that have been done in the name of capitalism, colonialism, expansionism and imperialism. My “fact” renders the extent and scale of these atrocities visible and transparent. Do you see the difference? When it comes to history, “facts” are never neutral.
Why do black and brown people travel west and north but not east and south? Firstly, prior to colonization, they did not need to travel to escape poverty and violence, which is the main reason they have traveled since then. As a result of capitalism and colonization (which is on-going), they have had their land stolen, their resources extracted, and their cultures and way of life decimated. Hence the need to travel. Why north and west? Because they are immersed in an imposed, compulsory western education system that erased their histories and glorifies ours; and this is reinforced by the media; both institutions perpetuate the belief that life is superior in our countries. Only when they arrive do they see that the superior life is not available for them. Rather, they mostly become the cheap labor that us white folk don’t want to do…..the ones that pick our fruit, take care of our kids, clean our houses, offices and schools, cook our fast food etc.
What do I see as your ideas and beliefs? And why are they representative of the hegemonic or dominant belief system? I see some of your beliefs as the following: that constitutions and declarations of western countries represent what is possible for everyone in these countries; you imply that these countries are somehow innately superior, more advanced or better than other countries; “the more Capitalistic the world has become the less manifestly racist it is”; “the ideas behind Capitalism are those of freedom and equality of all people”; private enterprise and free markets are better than other systems; “poverty is decreasing as a result of capitalism” etc. Oh, and your belief that your views are not ideological but simply the neutral “facts”. To me, this all represents the power and success of our white, western education system in erasing or delegitimizing all other viewpoints. Sadly, it is the winners of wars who get to decide what are the “facts” and the “truth”.
Have you ever read Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”? He writes about the history of the U.S. from the perspectives of people that resisted and fought back against the dominant views you support and express. If you really want to have a meaningful discussion, I suggest reading it. Then let’s talk. As I said before, unless you have experiences where you are forced to question, challenge, and rethink your mainstream “facts”, they are unlikely to change.
Renee: Like I suggested in my response to Daniel I see you bother are arguing past one another. I actually agree with both of you, but only when I am able to see things in the context you presented them. Something I feel I got from this therapy.
That apart, I love the way you think about these things and agree entirely AS they fit closely to my way of perceiving things especially capitalism and colonialism. ‘Wither or no’ the while man has done more damage than any other race is perhaps a matter of dispute. If we look at in terms of recent history (eg AD) then, sure enough, we white folk have done our worst, but how much do we know about BC? or, other tribes we’ve only recently discovered
My underlying concern is what can be done NOW, to bring our ‘evil’ selves to change it for the good of humankind?
My overall feeling is that we are all beginning to realize that:- ‘things are a hangin’ and fast, and if we wish to save the planet, all life on it, and perhaps save humankind from extinction then we need to act quickly and decisively. Being scared of rapist if we were to abolish money, become mute IMO.
Jack
Correction: My first line “you bother are ” Should have read:-] “you both are”.
“other tribes we’ve only recently discovered” should have had a question mark at the end.
” the while man’ should have read ‘the white man’.
Jack
Thanks for answering my questions, Renée. Your reply is forceful, well-written and clarifies your point of view of the issues discussed and of me. I understand and appreciate your struggle for social justice. It is a value worth fighting for which I share. However, I also believe that in that struggle you have lost or obliterated the distinction between fact and view, that this loss or erasure is embedded in politics and ideology, which in turn are almost entirely grounded in your personal psychological makeup. I believe this stance, which (I would guess) may have at one time saved your life and to which you owe a debt of gratitude, is now doing you harm.
Daniel, my first reaction was to be puzzled by your combination of compliments and insults. My second reaction was to feel disappointed that you resorted to making it personal after you recently reprimanded me for doing just that. Nevertheless, thanks for the compliments. But here’s what I’m confused about: Are you saying that because I don’t share your politics or your facts, I am suffering from some personal pathology? If so, how could this pathology at one time have saved my life? Especially since I shared your exact politics and facts until I was a young adult. And how do you see my stance as now causing me harm? (“Harm” is an interesting word to use, btw, considering the subject matter.) Finally, does this mean that you are not planning to read Howard Zinn? Or are you still thinking about it?
Renee: I feel so in tune with your ideas about our known history and your feeling/s about it. I wonder if you have any ideas, as to how to alter it all, such that we can all live as Lennon suggested in the lyric “Imagine”?
If, as I understand you, you don’t think total anarchy or, just the simple abolition of money would do it … What else might?
Jack
Jack, what makes you think I have the solution for the whole world? I can’t even come up with good solutions for my own life. And what makes you think that everyone wants to live according to the lyrics of Imagine? That’s assuming that everyone even has the same interpretation of what the song means. Even John Lennon stated that, even though the song says, “Imagine no religion”, that’s not what he actually meant. He was thinking about freedom of religion, not no religion. A big difference, if you ask me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vj4CvJxcvI. And what will you do with the people who don’t want this vision, regardless of the interpretation? For example, people who want one religion, a heaven, possessions etc. And why the need to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone? Isn’t that what capitalism and colonialism did/does, which you (like me) are against?
An interesting reply, I think, Renee. Also, Renee and Daniel, I’ve enjoyed the illuminating recent back and forth between the two of you. I’ve found it to be enlightening, thanks to the eloquence of each of you. Believe it or not, and it surprises even me but thanks to your taking the time to explain yourselves so well, I actually feel I grasp something of where each of you are coming from.
Larry, I’m curious about something. If Jack asked you how we can all live as John Lennon suggested in Imagine, how would you answer?
I liked your reply to Jack Renee. It would take me a bit of time to compose an answer like yours. From previous discussions with Jack on the matter though, I’ve come to the conclusion that Jack would not want to hear my answer (or anyone else’s) and would dismiss it out of hand and use the opportunity to pontificate once again on his solution. That’s fine. I respect that Jack enjoys the banter, but I don’t have time for it if he isn’t going to seriously engage in what I have to say on the matter. I prefer to try to find other meaningful, productive ways to engage with Jack. I can almost imagine you then asking me, Renee, what are my criteria for deciding what are meaningful, productive ways. When I think more about that, I guess my yardstick is that I try for my exchanges to be respectful and relationship building. In fact, thinking on it even more, relationship building is a prime driver for me, maybe because I feel so alone deep inside. Thanks for the question.
This is very moving, clear and well-explained, Larry. I agree with everything you have written. I guess my follow-up question to you would be one without a hidden assumption built into it: Do you think that we would all be happier if we found a way to live according Imagine?
Renee, I feel we’ll all be happier when we no longer carry pain within us to defend against. For me Imagine conjures up a dream of what such a life might be like. I see Imagine not as being a prescription but as being an inspirational vision.
Beautiful! 😊
Well said, Larry, my sentiment too.
Daniel commented on This page is for comments page 3.
in response to Larry:
Renee, I feel we’ll all be happier when we no longer carry pain within us to defend against. For me Imagine conjures up a dream of what such a life might be like. I see Imagine not as being a prescription but as being an inspirational vision.
Well said, Larry, my sentiment too. I concur, Larry. But then it fits me so I was an easy sell; I’m n
Larry An interesting response to Renee’s question. .I read the whole of your response and noted that you say:- “Jack would not want to hear my answer (or anyone else’s) and would dismiss it out of hand”
I’ll bear that in mind. I do like feedback and I have had my fair share of it, especially from Patrick when he was on the blog. Incidentally, I am still in contact with him and even Skype occasionally. I just listen to him. I do sometimes respond when he asked me to do so.
However, to repeat, I will think about your feedback via Renee. Unless you ask me, I will not say what I conclude from it,. unless you ask me.
Jack
Renee: first off, I was not able to hear what Lennon was saying even though I had the volume up to full.. I would like a transcript if possible.
Secondly, I was not asking you for a solution, I was asking (as far as I am able to remember, what I intended) for your idea, where, how, and/or why it all fits. with regards to our lives and the future of humankind.
Since no-one seems to thing (a far as I can ascertain), we need a fix, then I can only conclude that:- but for a tweak here and a tweak there, little else needs to be done.
In view of the COVID 19 problem, I see that we humans (humanity) at large is going through a crisis and no-one sees a fix, since we’ve not yet defined the crisis other than some die form it, some get symptoms but get over it, some don’t even get symptoms. Yet politicians and the medical sciences are struggling with it, and seemingly, just hoping that it will all go away. … by magic.
I proposed what IMO the COVID 19 is:- to repeat– it’s a mild virus that rides on the back of neurosis. Those that die from it, are the ones that at birth had problems breathing, (perhaps from cutting the umbilical cord too soon). Those others who get the symptom but recover had other birth problems. The rest who don’t even have symptoms, but PERHAPS are able to carry the virus, that are able to affect others, are the ones who’s neurosis was created another way. All this is just my analysis of it.
For all that my suggestion seem ridiculous since the politicians and medical scientist want a quick fix … NOW.
All this to and for me is looking for answers in all the wrong places. In essence, I’m not for imposing anything … not even my idea on anyone. I’m for removing all the impediments I see that prevent us from having a feeling full and satisfactory life … which right now FEW (if any), seem to get, such a life. Even and especially the rich.
Jack
Jack, did you have the volume up to full on both YouTube AND your computer? Then you should be able to hear the Lennon video. I don’t feel like transcribing it.
You say you are not for imposing anything. I know this is what you believe but that was not my experience of you during the on-again, off-again anarchy discussion/debate. I felt you were very much imposing your view of anarchy and insisting it was the ONLY valid view. I think I remember saying to you that there were aspects of anarchy that I found appealing but the way you were presenting it made is sound rigid, oppressive and very off-putting; it reminded me of sitting in a class at school having to memorize boring facts for a test! Definitely not engaging, exciting or appealing.
With regard to your comment regarding “removing all the impediments I see that prevent us from having a feeling full and satisfactory life”…….what you see as impediments would likely not be seen as impediments by others. Money and government for example.
I remember reading about Lennon’s reaction when asked about the contradictions between the ideals expressed in “Imagine” and his own lifestyle. He responded with some irritation that is was just “a bloody song”. And that’s all it is, of course.
Phil
Phil, what you say here made me laugh! I had not heard about this reaction of John Lennon, but it sounds like something he would say. I think the contradictions had to do with Lennon’s own sometimes violent behavior, along with his own accumulations of wealth and possessions. So maybe, unconsciously, he was really talking to himself when he wrote the song. And he didn’t appreciate being called out on those contradictions.
Renee: Your last paragraph you say:- “With regard to your comment regarding “removing all the impediments I see that prevent us from having a feeling full and satisfactory life”…….what you see as impediments would likely not be seen as impediments by others. Money and government for example.”
I get that Renee
Jack
you certainly have patience Jack.
David: thanks … I’ll buy into that.
I don’t think others think of me that way.
Jack
isn’t interpretation entertaining, Jack ? The, ” cleaner,” I get the less issue I have ; but those who exhibit my fuck up traits irritate me. Now why would that be ? heehee I was thinking the other day of writing a post, ” Things I wish I had said in Big Group.” Things like, ” I envy you;” ” I wish I had charisma;” ” I wish I was handsome;” ” I wish I had someone who loved me;” ” I wish I was popular;” ” I wish I was successful at therapy like you.” Occasionally a therapist would affirm how well a patients was doing. Fuck what I’d have given for that. I would have been like validating my p-lace in the world as worthwhile, of excelling. Just some little things like that. But with the exception of one night I confronted a therapist ,and, even that doesn’t feel like being real, every time I opened my mouth bull shit fell out. Oh, once I accused an elder woman of trying to make me feel sorry for her in mixed group. Poor thing. Then a therapist repeated, ” Just like, just like, just like….” until finally , ” Just like my mother, ” came out. I apologized to her after group. What a shitty thing to say. That was real though. Why didn’t I ? I think I didn’t have a clue, invisible, didn’t belong, but most likely terrified of not having anything to say was like confirming my family of origin’s assertion that I just made my abuse stories up. But speaking and getting that fear verified would be worse. Fuck, wish I had another 74 years to figure out how to get some joy.
David: you say “isn’t interpretation entertaining, Jack ?”
Yes! at least for me. the reason being for me that there always multiple interpretations to everything; not that it is meant to be that way, but because it is so important to see/feel the feelings behind the saying-it.
Then there is your story … geeezus!!! the number of horror stories I read on this blog and see with my buddies is mind-boggling. I suspect that is my deep, deep, reason for wanting to find a way to prevent it with the kids of the future. I just know deep down education will not do it … because the educators are also fucked-up … so where to start?
I’m having some difficulties these last two days answering directly from the emails. I’m going to try re-signing onto WordPress and see if it works,
Jack
That’s an interesting book by Howard Zinn. A lot different than what we learn in school.
Each of us has our own histories not written in any book except our own, Mine keeps changing as I go along.
Phil
My interpretation of my history keeps changing the more I open my mind and my feelings.
*test*
Ha, HUG indeed sounds even better than UG!
M
Hi there Margaret. By the way my avatar is the gigantic Christ the Redeemer statue lording over the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
I think we should all live according to this song:
For some reason it seemed strangely fitting to envision the actor playing Barney taking off his costume in the dressing room behind the stage after the show to snort some coke. I’m not saying that actually happened; it just seems like a jarringly perfect intro to a crime drama series.
Barney was a big star in our house. My son loved him, before moving on to cooler shows like The Power Rangers, which didn’t have as profound a message.
Hey Ya, Phil. It’s taking 9 minutes for the page to load, then it does all sorts of weird things…
Hmmmm ” Humanity’s Supreme Superstar Guru, ” I take it this is the artist formerly known by the modest moniker, ” the Ultimate Guru,” Love it; can’t stay static UG; or under a bushel, let your full bad self shine….
You likely didn’t get it in the USA, Phil, and I’m older at 74 than you I think, but there were a number of kindly grandad kids shows here; and then, “the Friendly Giant,” starring American actor Bob Homme; his castle, his pals Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the Giraffe. The epitome of kindliness.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0189265/mediaviewer/rm794589952
I wept uncontrollably when he died in 2000.
It probably happened.
“I love you
You love me
We’re a happy family
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you
Won’t you say you love me too
I love you
You love me
We’re best friends like friends should be
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you
Won’t you say you love me too”
I love you too Phil.
Thanks Larry! Here’s another good song.
” What a Wonderful World It Would Be.”
Decided last evening to cut loose a ,” friend,” of 50 years because I can no longer believe anything he says. He’s using booze again, and using people, including me. A few weeks ago I gave him the opportunity to come clean with me, “… with no judgement,” out of my belief that if anything might help it would be to drop the secretiveness. I was at peace with that decision. Planned on calling today and tell him to case up my guitars I loaned him worth 10’s of 1000’s, and other performing gear for me to pick up today.
Now I read the Barney song, feel guilty, and want to put my DADDY arms around him.
My Spidey sense tells me that this time he’s fucked, forever and a day. A couple of decades ago he had a lot of money banked, the plan, ( or I believed,”) he was applying to the PI. But it went for a load of hashish. He got busted. And I believed his bullshit story about how he got set up, no idea the kees of hash were in the boot of the car. Well, when he’s boozing he gets really brave about sharing how he’s pulled shit over on people.
A survivor of severe parental abuse, now he’s sold himself on the lie that he had a marvellous childhood.
Reality: I cannot help him.
Root: I still am uncomfortable with looking after me, first, or even equally. Thanks, Ma…… After bouts of serious abuse my mother would tell me her horrendous history of childhood abuse; her mom died when she was 4, her dear old granny, when she was 8; apprehended then by child services; the agent a Baptist clergyman, Rev A J Prosser, kept her at his boarding house and for 3 months, beat her, raped her daily. That dichotomy really weakened my justifiable right to hate her, consistently. Thus my history of letting people fuck with me, draw lines, then withdraw.
I have felt all of this shit, but, either not enough times, or haven’t yet touched the etiology.
I remember listening to a post, ( regular therapy, ) primal guy after Big Group whose quandary was he needed to quit his job and pursue his art; but, he’d be letting his wife and kids down, financially.
David. wow what a terrible childhood history your mother had. A miracle she even survived. It has it’s moments, but at other times it’s not such a wonderful world, is it?
Yes, Phil. 99% of the time I view her as, ” You poor dear thing.” But occasionally I still have a none understanding bone to pick with her. I’m lucky I survived her 3, that I recall, attempted killings of me.
David, only three times? It sounds like she was a real sweetheart.
Twice by pushing me off a high platform, age 4, the last major physical assault, intent, and attempt, to disembowel me, age 10 for being stupid,” retarded was her favourite word for me. Man the hate she harboured from her own abuse. Her stress was compounded by my father’s negligence of family responsibility. She was diagnosed when I was an adult as, ” epileptoid personality.” Not to oversimplify but her rage was directed mainly at me, and to a lessor extent to one older brother; we both resembled her looks. My 3 brothers became users, and financially successful drunks; me, I took on the small task of understanding and loving the dysfunctional. I framed it as, ” non-judgemental.” How we survive, eh ??
I wouldn’t wish a mother like that on anyone, it sounds like she was a monster.
Here’s what I found for epileptoid personality: “Through the 20th century, many writings in the field of psychiatry referred to “the epileptic personality,” an interictal syndrome thought to include explosive impulsivity, affective viscosity (the tendency to prolong interactions with others), and egocentricity (overriding concern with the self). Some thought that this syndrome was the result of underlying neurologic factors, but others felt that these personality traits represented a distinct form of epilepsy in themselves. At the time, it was felt that intensive psychoanalytic therapy was the most appropriate treatment for this condition.”
Phil
Personally I hate Barney. I don’t want him trying to persuade me or any other little kid how to live our lives. He’s an awful role model. Never watched him until this video, and now I know why.
aren’t you a mister grumpy pants…. (:
Larry, really? Barney’s all about us loving each other, sharing, etc. all kinds of good things. And (H) UG, no way Barney would ever do drugs! What are you smoking?
It sounds as though you aren’t asking me that question in earnest, so no need for me to dig into the roots of how I brought it up.
Ha ha. This is fun. But seriously (or not) i figured my opinion of Barney might carry more weight if I could back it up with supporting evidence, so I googled “Did Barney do drugs?” According to the website “Vice”, the actor who played Barney the dinosaur now runs a tantric sex business, so i guess in his new role he is still about love and sharing, but he gives me the creeps.
Larry, I found it. I’m a little shocked about Barney, he’s more hands on than I suspected, but it doesn’t sound all bad. He’s into healing.
“A full session with tantra massage specialist and spiritual healer David Joyner lasts three to four hours and costs $350. For that price, female clients—the only kind he accepts—can expect to receive a ritual bath, chakra balancing, and a massage. Also on the menu: cosmic, mind-blowing orgasms.
The latter can be achieved through massage alone. But the goal of a session is to fully release a woman’s blocked energy.”
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmzgbw/the-guy-who-played-barney-the-dinosaur-now-runs-a-tantric-sex-business
I had a lot of, ” tantric,” sex when I was a young un, only back then we called it fantasizing. (:
ummm; the great guru’s, not you Ultimate Superior All Poweful Guru, , creep me out. My FB page was loaded with tears and drool when Wayne Dyer died. A good friend gifted me the caution of avoiding extending unearned respect. Dyers reputation was of womanizer, and wife avoider. Don’t know him, might be untrue. But neither did my new age spirituality friends who adored him, know him. He creeped me out. Maybe because I envied him. Nah, he just creeped me out with what I construed as his gentle manipulative all spiritual jesus like, ” Oh come unto me and learn the secret of life…”…. How the fuck are we so easy to be had ?
Renée,
I guess my comments were not delivered as clearly as I wanted because I had no intention to insult you. You’re right that it’s not often that I make personal comments, but I felt we are about to get lost in historical details and the details of our exchange, while at the same time feeling strongly some emotional truths that perhaps are more relevant in this blog. I think you know that it’s not your disagreement with my views that made me think there are powerful personal, psychological issues at play. Rather, these have to do with aggression and the ways you handle it (and probably its internal history. Please remember that “pathology” is born to protect from pain and so have the potential to save). To show this it now looks like I can’t escape the details I so wanted to escape, so here it goes.
To begin with, you again attacked a straw man, taking your own words as if they were mine. Specifically, and contrary to what you are saying here (“you are making a false comparison”), I made no comparisons whatsoever, neither true nor false, between white and non-white ‘conquest, brutalisation and enslavement’. I merely stated a fact that non-whites were at it too, and I made it in reaction to your singling out White European males. I made no comment on their relative scale, brutality, longevity, or what have you; None!
So, were did the comparisons come from? They came from you! In your response to me you immediately began making comparisons which you quote in your present comment, reiterating “the extent and scale of white atrocities”. It all came from you. Similarly, I did not downplay or overplay anything. But you did!
By ascribing the acts of comparing and downplaying to me you manage to export your own feelings and way of thinking which now seem as if they were not yours to begin with but mine. This is where the psychology comes in.
Your theory as to why black and brown people travel west and north rather than south or east follows along similar lines. You seem to agree that they come because the west holds a luring promise for a better life, that the western world holds some fascination for them, but instead of looking at these facts and trying to think them through you apply a rigid ideology (the west has colonially devalued and erased their culture and history) without noticing how you patronise and devalue them yourself, portraying them as brainwashed, mindless people (victims?), devoid of any true reason or will of their own. So again, I think your politics here help you to hide your own aggression and devaluation from yourself.
As to my beliefs, let me first list your statements here and add in brackets whether your assessment of my beliefs is correct and whether it is a fact or a view.
1. constitutions and declarations of western countries represent what is possible for everyone in these countries (No, view);
2. you imply that these countries are somehow innately superior (No, view);
3. more advanced (Yes, fact);
4. better (So So) than other countries (So So, view);
5. the more Capitalistic the world has become the less manifestly racist it is” (Yes, fact); I would add on a second thought that the two coincide, not necessarily causal.
6. the ideas behind Capitalism are those of freedom and equality of all people” (Yes to a degree, view);
7. private enterprise and free markets are better than other systems (Yes with exceptions, view);
8. poverty is decreasing as a result of capitalism” (Yes, fact); I would add globalism as a factor too.
9. your belief that your views are not ideological but simply the neutral “facts” (No).
Do these represent a coherent ideology? I think not. They are but a collection of facts and views, some of which I agree with and some of which I don’t. They are nothing like the overarching principle that guides you, which is the hallmark of an ideology, especially when it’s as strict and encompassing as yours. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your ideology is that of power relations where white males, personally, as groups and as nations, victimise in myriad ways all those with less power – women, minorities, people of color, people of difference sexual orientations, and other others. This ideology is applied to all interpersonal, social, political, and international phenomenon – be it US interference in Central America, Freud’s theories, or Breuer’s relationship with Anna O.
Furthermore, this ideology mandates that any information that throws a light deemed negative on individuals or groups deemed disenfranchised, is to be disregarded or even ignored completely, because any criticism is regarded as continuation of the oppression. One can never say that empires customary became empires through conquest, stealing of land, brutalisation, and enslavement of indigenous populations – no, that would be too neutral and not anti-colonial enough; one must say European, white male did all that. Nor can one say that, for example, Arab and Muslim expansion from Arabia to all counties that are Muslim today “destroyed and decimated… peoples, cultures, lands”, etc., – no, that kind of oppression must be reserved to white men and white men alone.
You seem to think that this mere mention of facts means I downplay colonialism or slavery in America. This isn’t so. You might be surprised at what I think about some of these issues. Rather than asking you jumped to conclusions about me and characterized my ideas most inaccurately. I know you don’t believe there is a fact divorced from ideology but in my opinion, this is not only wrong but dangerous. Consider what you’re suggesting. For example, in my scheme of things the trans-Atlantic slave trade is a fact whether I’m black, white, male or female, gay or straight, young or old. Your scheme of things allows this fact to be entirely relative and dependent on who’s stating it. This is what Patrick did back then with gas chambers, claiming it never was, that it’s a Jewish plot; and this is what Trump is doing with alternative facts. We are all entitled to have our own views, but once we entitle ourselves to have our own facts all hell might break loose and we risk undermining the basis of our civilisation. Perhaps this is what you are after if you believe this civilisaiton to be so sinister and criminal that it should or deserves to be destroyed. Again, I think deep psychological processes are at play.
Unfortunately, I have not read the Howard Zinn’s book you mentioned. I’ve heard a great deal about it, and should I wish to immerse myself in American history again I shall give it a try. But I was taken aback by your implied suggestion that we can only have a meaningful discussion if I read it. “Then let’s talk”, you write. This is rather authoritarian of you, Renée, albeit a subtle one, and for me also a manifestation of your disavowed aggression.
Finally, I would not have been able to feel or sense this aggression if I hadn’t had to deal with my own aggression over time. It was very painful and exceedingly difficult but in hindsight very necessary. A major part of the work was owning up to it.
Daniel, you insist that you did not intend to insult me when you pathologized me, and then you double-down on your pathologizing! Some of your pathologizing of me included these comments: “Powerful personal, psychological issues at play….. these have to do with aggression and the ways you handle it…….. your politics here help you to hide your own aggression and devaluation from yourself……. you manage to export your own feelings and way of thinking……..a manifestation of your disavowed aggression”. (It sounds like you are writing up an assessment of a patient.) And then you end by asserting that you have dealt with you own aggression and owned up to it. Quite unbelievable, IMO. It goes without saying that I disagree with all of this.
Actually, there is no “disavowed aggression” on my part. I fully own and take responsibility for my anger at this very sick system we are all a part of. The globalization that you support is actually a global capitalist system. A system that, at it’s core, and despite it’s variations, is based on exploitation, profit, unequal distribution of wealth, unequal social relations and the never-ending drive for cheaper labor to exploit and more resources to extract from the earth. Fuck the environment, fuck the climate, fuck the harm it causes millions of people and animals all over the world. I think the more one benefits at least in some ways from such a system, the harder it is to understand why people who are not benefiting would be angry. Especially when we are taught from day one that if you just work hard enough anyone can make it; you have only yourself to blame if you are not successful; you are being a victim if you complain; you are being a victim if don’t complain etc. That’s the ideology that hides the stark reality. No doubt you will disagree. So be it. Of course, by keeping the focus on discrediting, criminalizing and/or pathologizing individuals or groups of people, those running the institutions/corporations in this sick system avoid responsibility. This tactic also serves to maintain and perpetuate divisions that make it harder for all groups of people to come together and mobilize to create real change.
I suggested you read Howard Zinn, neither because I think it is the “only” way to have a meaningful discussion, nor to be “authoritarian”. I suggested reading him because I felt it could be an opportunity to see if we can reach some common ground. And also, because he shows so clearly how people suffering as a result of institutional exploitation, and discrimination are often anything but victims. Rather, he shows how people in grassroots movements have actively resisted and fought back against the oppressive institutions of capitalism and colonialism. It is not surprising they have been erased from the history books. Btw, I don’t think reading is necessarily the best way to have an experience of having our beliefs challenged. But it is a way. It doesn’t seem likely you will be taking me up on my suggestion any time soon. Short of another idea, I think if we continue discussing/debating/stating/thrusting it will likely become repetitive, if it hasn’t already. I don’t know about you, but for me, after a while, repetition becomes dull and boring.
Daniel, there was something you said that I agreed with. You stated that your comment about conquest, brutalisation and enslavement being done by whites and non-whites was in fact not a false comparison. You were right. My mistake. Thanks for pointing that out. It was actually a false equivalence.
We have all come to the PI to seek help not because of White European male evil deeds or history books not written to our liking, but because we were suffering, personally suffering. In your words – and they are yours not mine – we all had some “pathology” which made life difficult for us one way or another.
Now, if I feel there are personal issues involved, do you recommend I just avoid those thoughts, not write them here? Should I limit myself to asking and refrain from observations?
Finally, it seems we have a very different definition of what owning up or taking responsibility for one’s feelings is.
Daniel, I have found another point of agreement between us. When you say that, “We have all come to the PI to seek help not because of White European male evil deeds or history books not written to our liking, but because we were suffering, personally suffering”, I couldn’t agree more. The question is why. I would suggest that it is largely due to the fact that the PI, for better or for worse (depending on your viewpoint) is made up of almost all white people who have the luxury and privilege to pretend that all our problems are personal and not see the ways they are connected to the political. In other words, white people generally don’t go to PT, or any other therapy for that matter, seeing our whiteness as a problem! I think that this is one of the reasons why PT and most therapies do not challenge the status quo, but rather perpetuate it.
What could therapy look like if it did make the political personal and the personal political? If it did attempt to bring about social and political transformation, along with personal transformation? Take a look at this: https://longreads.com/2019/08/12/whiteness-on-the-couch/ Whether you agree with this therapist’s views or not, I think you will find it interesting…….. “The couch in my therapy office is occupied mostly by white people. Anxious white people and depressed white people. Obsessive white people and compulsive white people. White people who hurt people and white people who hurt themselves. White people who eat too much, drink too much, work too much, shop too much. White people who are bored, envious, guilty, numb. Racist white people and antiracist white people. White people who look across the room and see a white therapist listening. We talk about everything. Except being white.” I’m curious to know what you and others think of this article.
I think the prejudiced type like Archie Bunker have generally more neurosis and project their suspicions and superiority complexes onto minorities. That type I would think rarely seek out therapy until they are broken by something, a loss of some kind.
Generally I think the article points out who needs therapy, rather than who actually seeks it.
I believe my neurosis and limits on seeking fulfillment in life had little to do with racism and more due to my mom not wanting another child and her lack of care during her pregnancy with me, seeing as that my siblings who had a better gestation were/are generally happier. I don’t think, though, I am or was more prejudice than them. I remember thinking several yrs ago that I was glad not to be born a Mexican, seeing so many farm laborers and talking with a few, and how generally they were looked down upon. I thought how awful it must be for them not to be liked . It was because my mom had hated me so much at the beginning that I could feel for them. If their moms had not wanted them either, it would be a double whammy for them.
Whites continue their genocidal approach to ruling the world. Brown folks seem to have a less global initiative. Yep there are brutal brown folks. The white incursion into the Middle East follows the same recipe Europeans used to try to eliminate my Native ancestors. Become befriended, then thieve natural resources, replace indigenous spirituality with the white version of Supreme Being/God; install puppet leaders, pick fight, destroy cultural and academic history, eliminate elders, the keepers of the history. Not sure if I can agree with your interpretation of how Renée,
” misunderstood ,” your intent. Of course that ,” recipe,” was updated in the new and improved CIA handbook on how to perpetuate white dominance.
Interesting the white dominance army showed no discrimination here in that with church sanction whites sold their excess children into slavery, reframed as, ” Indenture,” at bi annual auctions. The formula, 7 boys and two girls were needed to attend to family business, the surplus were sold like cattle; of course that is how they treated their women, too;like chattel. Consistent effort was put into destroying the matriarchal system of my Native ancestors encouraging Native men to be remade in their, White, image as haters and users of women. evidence
Decades ago I researched , ” A History of Human Violence,” for a psych Prof friend. I do like my formed opinions but I tend to extend values to the fact based.
cheers
Larry, I never liked Barney either. Didn’t care for the dopey voice, though was coming from another actor–seemed false. Maybe the soft dinosaur costume was appealing to 4 yr. olds and positive uplifting messages.
Tantric sex, huh. The nerve of that guy charging women for sex and calling it spirituality.
S
Sylvia, the whole “Barney” thing cracked me up, I was laughing at the song Phil posted, and at Larry’s insult of Barney. I always just thought I must have become much too old to understand Barney’s big-purple-dinosaur appeal. But I was of the Howdy-Doody and Clarabelle puppets era, and I liked them at that time.
Vicki, for me it was Beany and Cecil, the sea sick sea serpent puppet I remember I had a coloring book when I was sick and drawing in the green for Cecil. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans too were on TV. Yes, Howdy Doody and the cowboy who made him talk. Those were the days of our lives, weren’t they.
The woman who lost her sister to the CV-19 sure did say it right. What pain she is going thru and to not have the ones “running the show” care must make it unbearable.
Sylvia, tantric is akin to just thinking about sex isn’t it ? (: But, I agree, something kinda creepy in that scenario; but then Cat Stevens became a hermit monk I believe; suppose he thinks about
sex (: (:
I really don’t know about the terms used, tantric, but after reading the article Phil posted on the real life of mr. Joyner being a sex therapist and charging for his spirituality, I had visions of the movie, “Midnight Cowboy ” with Jon Voight. At least regarding sex, the movie had more honesty to it. Just my opinion.
For the record, my view is that slavery and racism are at the heart of US history. The United States is not a story of democracy, liberty, and free markets with slavery in brackets, but slavery is US history. In other words, there is no American history without slavery and there is little one can understand, at any historical period, without understanding the centrality in America of race and racial hierarchy. The US is a country in which injustice and oppression are, sadly, essential characteristics with deep historical roots. And, indeed, those roots reach deep into American capitalism as well. The mere mind-boggling fact that at its height the total worth of all slaves was larger than the total worth of all factories and railroads in the US is more than telling. It means that slavery, more than anything else, was the principal engine of the US economy.
When one looks at America from outside one is always amazed at how in the name of freedom there is preference for lenient gun laws, for example, which daily kill people, over health services which save them. It is difficult for an outsider to grasp the conception of such services as being a privilege and a product one must purchase privately. As consequence, the US health system is ruthlessly unjust in a manner which is without equal in the western world.
In former slave states the level of public services is ridiculous and there is a legacy of minimum care for the citizen and minimum gov’t intervention. Alabama, for example, refused federal funding to expand their healthcare because this was gov’t interference, and these are taxpayer’s dollars and people should take care of themselves by themselves. In the US, it is hard to believe, there are whole geographic areas without a single hospital, and those areas are populated mostly by black people.
But even in the west and north of the US, where there is greater access to medical services, black people’s health is, comparatively, poor, much due to worse living conditions such as housing, nutrition, and employment.
Even the preliminary statistics of the racial attributes of the current Corona epidemic show that blacks are hit unproportionally: In Chicago blacks constitute 30% of the population but are 70%(!) of the dead; In Michigan, blacks are 13% of the population and 40% of the dead; in Milwaukee, a comparatively poor city in Wisconsin, blacks are 26% of the population and a whopping 81% of the dead. Blacks suffer more from diabetes, heart conditions and respiratory diseases; they live in more crowded places and use more public transportation – a cocktail that makes them more vulnerable to the deadly effects of the virus.
Considering all these facts – facts, not views – there is much plausibility to the view – view, not fact – that a multi-generational legacy of racism forms, or at least influences, black lives today as well.
Having said that, this is but American history and capitalism. Swedish, Canadian, or Italian history and capitalism are entirely different. State capitalism, as in present day China, is also quite different. My point is there are more than one type of capitalism and not all are closely tied to slavery, not all consider basic human needs such as health as a privilege afforded to haves alone, and not all have such a terrible racial history and present relations. One can acknowledge current and historical injustices without insisting they’re the only ones that have been and are around.
Daniel, I really enjoy what you write. Although it’s often more subject-knowledgeable than I am, it seems clear-headed and well-thought-out. Your latest post made me think of a video I saw today on Facebook, by a black woman grieving the loss of her sister to CV19, and her clear-eyed anger about it all. She really says it.
Daniel: I have never heard any other American put the US history in that kind of perspective before.
I found it interesting , though I see it with your biases.
We all have biases, and I suspect those biases draw directly on our very own neurosis as it was laid down in out early lives
That said; were the atrocities of the past, worse than those of the near present and/or the ones of other cultures,nations, empires or races … I suspect how we each see the all of our known history stem form out biases … hence our particular traumas of the past.
I dunno.
Jack
*further testing checking script-generated moderation*
Racism is alive and well here in Canada, only the offending words have disappeared from detecting ears in occasions of polite conversation. On the other hand the bigots are less visible. First Nations women are disappeared, murdered, assaulted. My friend has 3 Degrees, teaches at a University, but feels unsafe on the street, and in shops, where she hears, Squaw, nice piece of ass; who’d miss her… kind thoughts from her white community. On the federal books, similar to the US , reserves are legally referred to as, “… prison camps,” even though the majority of Turtle Island, on this side of the Canada US border is unceded Our many Nations are referred to as First Nations, and white governments, Federal and Provincial speak of conducting business in a Nation to Nation manner. Then they continue to run roughshod, steal more land, provide 30% of the white child per diem rate for education, subject rezidents to poison water, no water….. The City of Winnipeg stole the potable water supply of Shoal First Nations, and turned the community into an island, without a land link, and barred Shoal FN from using the water from the stolen resource. After multiple decades our current Liberal gov’t finally financed a fixed highway access so folks didn’t have to walk on treacherous ice to get to the mainland to buy drinking water, or access medical care.
From point of colonial invasion to the early 1900’s white folks sold off their excess children into slavery at a bi annual auction in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
I am mixed racial; look white, but my spirit is First Nations, Mi’kmaq. I cannot call to mind a more devastating carpet bagger Manifest Destiny race than the Europeans, dishonest, thieving, cruel by calculation. And the menace continues. Ask the Syrians, the Palestinians, Cubans, Puerto Ricans. If I felt the motivation I could better express how I really feel….
David, what about the residential schools in Canada, whereby indigenous children were forceably removed from their homes by the Canadian government for over 100 years and put in residential schools where they were abused in every possible way in order to “remove the Indian from the child”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdR9HcmiXLA. (Stolen Children | Residential School survivors speak out) Were any of your family in put in these schools? And what about the “Sixties Scoop”, when indigenous children in Canada, from the 1960’s-1980s were forceably taken from their homes by child welfare and given to non-indigenous, white families?
You describe the white Europeans who committed, and continue to commit atrocities against Indigenous people, along with their/our crimes against the Syrians, Palestinians, Cubans and Puerto Ricans as “dishonest, thieving, and cruel by calculation”. You do know that you will never hear this factual description in history textbooks in our advanced, superior, civilized western countries?
You will never hear your kind of “factual descriptions” in history textbooks because caving in to an authoritarian identity-based history will turn those textbooks into propaganda pamphlets.
By the way, when I took an American History course in Santa Monica College in the middle of the 1980’s there was rich discussion in textbooks assigned and in class itself about slavery and the brutal fate suffered by blacks and native Americans.
Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is, according to this 2003 review of the book, “assigned in countless college and high-school courses”. But don’t let ugly facts ruin your beautiful theory.
Daniel, while you clearly point out the ways that U.S. is different from other capitalist countries, you do not point out ways that it is similar. For example, Canada has it’s own shameful history, which includes slavery. It also has an on-going reality of racism. Canada is just very advanced and sophisticated in covering it up.
I hope you read David’s post from yesterday that started with the words, “Racism is alive and well here in Canada”. It was David’s description of Europeans as “dishonest, thieving, cruel by calculation”, not mine, by the way. Are you saying that you would consider what he said in that post to be purely ideological and not factual descriptions? Are you saying that including his viewpoint, which represents the losers and not the winners of wars, in textbooks would be “caving in to an authoritarian identity-based history [which] will turn those textbooks into propaganda pamphlets”?
You say that, “Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is, according to this 2003 review of the book, “assigned in countless college and high-school courses”. But don’t let ugly facts ruin your beautiful theory.” Besides being struck by your obvious sarcasm, I wondered how many “countless” is, in terms of the total number of colleges and high schools in the U.S. I would suggest that it is in the minority. I hope you read the whole article that you posted about Howard Zinn. I thought it was well-written, covered the strengths and weaknesses of his work, and also had your views represented.
Renée,
No, I’m not at all saying David’s point of view should be excluded but in and of themselves his feelings or interpretations do not constitute a “factual description” of what happened historically, they are factual descriptions of what some people feel about Europeans. I’m actually quite surprised you bring this up and again urge you to distinguish between fact and view.
History is based first and foremost on evidence. There’s an incredibly rich scholarship on evidence, from the world of law, to its migration into historical writing, and then finally into journalism. It has given us tremendous advantages in understanding natural and social phenomenon and I for one look at the decline in status of “fact” with absolute horror. Now, of course evidence is sometimes synthesized and once compiled and gathered into a bigger picture may include (though hopefully kept to a minimum) value judgements such as David made.
However, It’s entirely different if one goes the other way – from the already established value judgement to the evaluation of the evidence.
By the way, ever since the civil rights movements women and minorities entered Phd programs and filled an important gap by researching fields that were not researched enough before. Good for them and good for us. I think by now little is hidden and other narratives are in full view. If anything, the pendulum has swung in my opinion to far and the wish to study previously understudied fields turns at times into a prohibition to study fields which challenge the politics of social justice.
I have read the entire review of Zinn’s book. I’m glad you feel it was fairly written. Although I haven’t read the book and so have no opinion one way or another I felt fair to me too.
Daniel, firstly neither views nor facts exist, as you say, “in and of themselves”, or in a vacuum. Views, facts and in fact (no pun intended) everything exists within a context.
David presented a lot of evidence and factual descriptions in his post on April 16th, that started with the sentence, “Whites continue their genocidal approach to ruling the world”, and his post on April 17th, that started with the sentence, “Racism is alive and well here in Canada”. Did you read them? They were not simply “some people’s feelings about Europeans”, and David’s “value judgments”. Did you take any time to look into any of the facts/evidence he presented before you dismissed them as simply his feelings and value judgments?
When you say, “History is based first and foremost on evidence and scholarship”, it is critical to ask, “whose evidence and whose scholarship”? And whose interests do they represent? While you “look at the decline in status of “fact” with absolute horror”, I look at your dismissal of certain inconvenient facts that do not show white Europeans in a positive light, with equal horror.
I hope you decide to take a look at the article I posted earlier. Here it is again, if you missed it: https://longreads.com/2019/08/12/whiteness-on-the-couch/
Thanks Vicki and Jack for your interest in what I write here.
Hi Everyone: It is interesting in this time when so many people are being laid-off work and begging for unemployment money, or some other monetary gift from the government/s:- that is seriously in debt. Those laid-off folks want that money, desperately for food. Now some governments, each thinking differently, of ways to get these, laid-off folks, money, so they can at least buy food.
YET! the food is already there on the shelves, and if it isn’t, it’s because the workers putting that food on shelves are also out of work, YET the work is still needed and the food is in the warehouse
I hope some of you see where this is going. If you don’t … I’ll continue and do my best to explain:-
Why do we have to go through money to get our food needs met????? Can’t we just by-pass the money exchange? … a way through it, by just letting the people take it, and at least save them from starvation,
Then the government bodies wracking their brains out, to figure a way to get money to them so!!!!!!! they can get their food needs met.
Sum fing wong ear; Yeah?
Jack
Jack, so if I’m understanding right, anyone needing a home could just take yours, or move in with you. If my car were to break down, I could just take my neighbor’s, no money exchange necessary.
Phil: Your’re getting the right idea, but why take mine? Build one to you, your spouse and kids liking, somewhere that you would like … and since everything would be free (no money or need for exchange) you’d be in a far better situation than you are now … AND if that system had been in place at your birth you’d think and feel anyone wanting it differently was off their rocker … especially if that rocker was other than planet earth.
Just give it a little more thought IMO you are getting there.
Jack
You are ahead of your time, Jack. There is a lot of chatter about the concept of no cost home ownership. Gov’t still collects taxes; communal properties can be transferred but not sold. Free basic amenities is sound reasoning. IMHO (:
David: Thanks … I like that and the support is welcome
Jack
Phil: Another to keep you on that path:- You ask in the same manner about “stealing”, someone else’s car; that’s a capitalist notion … stealing. Why should they .. why not go off to the dealership and get a new one. You never know what anyone has done inside their car!!!!
You are still coming from a capitalist mind-set.
If it were to happen, so many things would become simpler and easy There would be no reason to go and work (do tasks), just like the housewife you’d do what you felt was necessary for the ones you lived with … AND don’t give me that one that everybody would sit around doing useless things. That’s a sure way to get rapidly bored. I know … I tried it.
An example:- if Jim died tomorrow the hoops I would have to go through would be so enormous, I would be just tempted to go off and leave everything and let someone else deal with it all. It’s the money that makes it so complicated; as I stated in the first instance. It doesn’t have to be To use a phrase:- cut-out the middle man/object, of it all.
I could go on and will give more if you have any more hypotheticals. They are all valid if one takes into consideration that we’ve been suffering neurosis and all it’s attending pain and stupidities for several thousands of years.
Jack
Jack, I feel certain that after a while there would be no more food in the supermarkets, if they were giving it away. Right now people are panicking and heavily stocking up on toilet paper and other items. Imagine what they would do if it was free. The system which gets food to the markets would fall apart.
Phil: Your feeling certain, is because you are still of the capitalist mind-set, as I see it.
If it’s freely available what is the point of stacking it up, and then you’d need another warehouse to stack it in. It become a round robin for ever chasing one’s own tail.
BUT … I’ll do as you suggested, I’ll imagined if it was all free:- So I would go to whatever ensued as a distributing center and got the food I needed and anything else that was available at that distribution center. If the center was close by I would go every day or very other day. If it was far away I would collect more and go less often.
You might say now:- who’d want to collect the food from the farmers and take it to their respective center. First off farming is a very attractive outdoor work for many. Then driving and picking up produce then delivering it is another attractive occupation for some.
It would sort of balances itself out, like every thing else we might hypothesize about, should it become “individualism” or, if you prefer;- each person doing their own thing, according to their desires and FEELINGS.
The next one might be:- would I, seeing a partnership and wanting one of them to be mine … might I kill the other person so I could have the one I want?
This really needs to be looked at closely. Why? because you wanting her/him, and she/he not wanting you would create the worst of all relationships. You’d quickly realize you didn’t get what you wanted. Neurosis has a habit of bringing a out these kind of relationship/s, precisely because there were no REAL two sided relationships in our childhood.
As Margaret suggested to me:- rapist would be running around rampant. Rape is not a relationship … it’s anything but. But neurotics think only in term of the instant thrill of the ejaculation.
I know all about this, as it is precisely what I did for many years … actually knowing for much of that time, that it was just a pain killer.
If we in childhood had our needs met there would be no old pain needing to be killed.
Why I said at the beginning of this comment, “you are still of the capitalist mind-set.” is because only neurotics NEED a capitalist mind- set, otherwise all their old feeling would come rushing to the surface and overwhelm us. Soooo, we; not liking pain, and it reminding us of our childhood pain, do our best to keep it at bay … even while doing this therapy. To put it crudely It’s a “fucker”.
I repeat, going into this notion takes time and a lots of thought … Particularly thoughts on “What if’s”. It’s what I did in my early years and it took decades for it to mature.
Jack
Jack, I don’t need to have a capitalist mindset, I just think through the consequences of what you propose. Without some kind of system in place all the people now living on this planet, could not be kept alive. Many would die. This is a repetitive discussion and argument, but I don’t mind engaging again today.
I have a job in a doctors office. If my boss couldn’t pay me, I’d no longer go to work there. I work primarily for my own benefit, and I want to take care of myself and my family, as we all do. Everyone would have to fend for themselves, and their families. I don’t think anarchy is a natural thing for human kind. We live in families, extended family clans, tribes etc, and in each case there are always leaders. Decisions are made, and that is the beginning of government. Major things are accomplished by large organizations and planning, groups of people working together. Groups need to have some form of leadership, otherwise they are inefficient. I’m surprised you can’t or don’t see all this. Not agreeing with the idea of anarchy doesn’t imply a capitalist mindset. What’s clear to me is that organization is a key principle, not capitalism. Capitalism is simply a key motivating factor currently in our lives. I imagine we could have organization and government without capitalism, and I think that has existed in the past, and maybe still does among primitive peoples. None of this is what causes neurosis. Jack, you should look for causes of neurosis at the personal level, that’s what I do, that’s where I find them. It’s not so much the economy, the political system, government etc, although they might contribute. Those things might be interesting to theorize about, but they are not the primary cause of neurosis. You seem to be trying to make something complex, when it is really so simple. We focus in primal on our lives, what happened to us in our families during childhood, with our parents etc. Jack, you know all this, so why do you insist on all your ideas? they are off track. Why do you want to focus on saving the world? I’m still trying to save myself, and that will continue. Living the primal way, if there is such a thing, probably doesn’t include endless single minded pursuits of how to save the world. That seems neurotic to me. Phil
Phil: anything that involves ‘money’ is capitalism … by definition; hence “Capitalist mind-set”. Of course, we all die
Anarchy is not new, It means:- without hierarchy.
We lived it before we became civilized and/or neurotic
The idea is NOT mine … I stole it, to coin a phrase.
The only extensive writing I know of was:- Karl Marx. I read “Das Capital” and briefly looked at “A Communist Manifesto”.
It was trashed by Senator McCarthy after seeing the Stalin version; that never went further than a dictatorship of the proletariat, as did all subsequent communist governments. That was NOT Marx’s intent, as I read him.
There was much in your last comment that I felt was stating generalized facts. I saw it more as:- accepting ‘the status quo’. I feel you are somehow invested in it, yet your posts don’t reflect any satisfaction, IMO. I could well be wrong on that one
Jack
Jack, you haven’t responded to anything in my comment. All you did was repeat your talking points about anarchy. For that reason there’s little point in discussing it, but I’ll add a few things anyway.
Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are owned by private individuals. The use of money isn’t what defines that system. In socialism the means of production are owned by the public as a whole. In reality there isn’t any economic system which is purely socialist or capitalist. But with anarchy you want to eliminate any economic system and government whatsoever. I see this as an extreme view and proposal. It can’t be taken at all seriously no matter which of your “great thinkers” proposed it in the past. Anarchy would be a very severe state of affairs, I couldn’t call it a system. And I would add, I don’t think it is even possible or feasible for human affairs. A leader will always emerge, I think history shows that. Anarchy couldn’t be enforced. Who would do that? You? The government? A leader? It makes no sense.
Phil: I read your comment to me and I will reply to it later in the day. I’ve been busy most of the day helping Jim with the garden.
Later. Jack
Phil: the reason I did not answer your question is because I feel, we are talking past each other.
You are right in a way on the definition of capitalism. I was attempting to put it all in one ‘grab bag’; otherwise we would then start arguing definition, which as I see it, in the end, goes no-where.
However, only governments are ever interested in economics. If money was abolished; economics would wither away in the vine … as t’were.
You say:- “It can’t be taken at all seriously no matter which of your “great thinkers” proposed it in the past”
WHY!!!!!
Are you talking of yourself; or of the rest of humanity?? Be careful Phil. No-one can talk for the rest of humanity … yeah?
Then you add:- “Anarchy would be a very severe state of affairs, I couldn’t call it a system. ”
It isn’t a system it’s ‘a systematic’. And that’s it’s purpose we all get to say what we feel the need to say. If you’re lucky (and it’s pure luck as I learnt being an actor) then you’ll might get others to listen … not necessarily to agree.
You can’t enforce anarchy. It’t like saying I will enforce doing nothing. Even as is current:- Enforcing ‘stay at home’.
You tend to use one word in one context then apply that to another context. IMO.
Leaders and leadership would evaporate. No need for it unless you have the likes of Trump in the Whit House. You could then make the White House into a museum.
Jack
Jack, OK, I’m not seeing how or why leaders and leadership would evaporate. Can you elaborate on that? I think it’s a key point since all our countries, cities, and towns have some type of leader. How would any effort which requires more than one person get done? How could bridges and buildings be built? How could we be sure trains are running on right track? I don’t think I would take any trains operating under anarchy.
Phil: I will say this with some trepidation,since I don’t really want to offend you, but I do wish to press a point with you.
Again … you are coming to all these questions thinking in terms of the status quo. If you are really interested in sensing what a world without money, governments and laws; would be like you need to (temporarily) get out of the current mind-set of how things are done now.
I don’t know if as a kid you played a game of “follow my leader”, but I remember lots of times we would argue as to who of us would take the leadership role. Not that any of us knew what constituted leadership. It was just arbitrary then:- from our present situation of the time.
Leaders were primarily parents, then teachers, who could punish us if we didn’t do things their way, then later it became the boss (employer). then we began to learn about local leaders and then national leaders.
What never occurred to us then, and for many, even now … “WE DON’T NEED THEM … look no further than Trump. The US is famous for assassinating them … then guess what:- we create another, by whatever means we can weagle. I’ve just been reading how some US presidents were given their position and little of it is ‘JUST’ of even reasonable.
It’s a matter of peeping out of the irredeemable ‘box’.
To repeat and repeat until such times as one begins to grasp the notion … said another way:- have an insight, that there is (perhaps) another way. One, we have never thought of since early childhood; when we questioned everything with “Why” (and never really got a cohesive, comprehensive or even sensible answer).
So!!!! we gave up … and just for the sake of some sense of peace, accepted it all.
That Phil is what I feel you are doing. You are still in acceptance mode. Do you have to stay in it? … do you have to play their (mommy and daddies) game?
So, the final question:- how would anything needing more than one person get done … the simple answer is:- we are, by our real nature; co-operative. For instance, I have an idea about a new kind of vehicle and I tell others of my idea and some think it’s a good idea, so we decide to co-operate and build it. We perhaps have to go through many iteration to finally get it built with everyone in that co-operatives having a say. Should one person disagree and not like the way it’s going that person could willingly leave, and do something else or join another co-operative. It would all work on the level of feelings and desires from each of us individually … NO LEADER NEEDED.
I hope you, at least, you see more of where I’m coming from, though I do admit, I’m not the best at expressing my ideas. However keep asking the questions.
Jack
In the culture of my Mi’kmaq ancestors, and still practised, the needs of the vulnerable are met first. The needy never have to ask. It would be unforgivable to behave otherwise. The Canadian federal government has moved quickly, for gov’t, to put adequate baic needs income into the hands of all affected, $ 2000.00/mo for as long as the situation exists, and working to protect against evictions of citizens and small businesses. This is in addition to the $ 500.00 – $ 700.00 per child, monthly Child Tax Payment. I expect we’ll move to a base $30,000.00/yr , non taxable, single person, basic income in the medium term future. I read in The Post that the US military budget exceeds the combined Health budgets of all of the Developed World countries.
Food banks struggle with surging demand as more and more people become hungry and desperate in the Corona-driven economic crisis:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/17/us-food-banks-over-budget-demand-coronavirus
Towards the end of that article, it discussed people driving luxury vehicles and waiting up to six hours for food. I’ve occasionally made small donations to food banks in the past and I do feel terrible when people are in a desperate situation like this, but why on Earth do people drive luxury cars when they are so precariously close to needing help just to eat?
I have two cars and no debt (aside from cash rewards credit cards for monthly expenses), yet one of my cars is a total piece of junk with 245,000 miles. The door handles have snapped off the car long ago & I have to use zip ties to open the doors. I still pay for my own groceries. A fancy car that rapidly depreciates is just not worth the debt stress. To me, the sheer freedom of driving even a hunk of junk that’s fully paid for is much better than being in a beautiful machine enslaved by a debt collector’s ball and chain. You no longer own the car, the car owns you!
Sam Walton was worth billions and drove a beat up old Ford truck.
Jack,
your idea seems to have one minor weak spot.
if your abolition of money would become a fact, it would still have happened in a world full of neurotics. do you really think they would all just become sane and friendly to each other and share etc?
M
Margaret: The question you are asking has two answers, depending on which actual question you are asking.
The first one is:- are you talking about the transitional phase?
OR
Are you talking about when it has been already been established?
If you are talking about the former, the only person that I know of, was Karl Marx. He conjectured it would start with a revolution by the masses. Then a benevolent dictator of the proletariat, would guide those masses to the ultimate goal:- “The withering away of the state”.
What actually happened; briefly; was the revolution occurred in Russia in 1919 and Lenin established himself as that dictator. Sadly, as I see it, Lenin, died after only 6 years and it was then taken over by Stalin. Stalin , seemingly, was only interested in maintaining his grip on power. My contention is that Karl Mark did not understand human nature … only human behaviour, and hence, anyone ascending to the grandeur of the Kremlin would somewhere in the subconscious would want to maintain that privileged.
No communist dictator even went further than Stalin. I contend, had our real nature been known by Marx he would have formulated it all differently Janov was the first to define it, IMO. So in effect ‘neurosis’ actually destroyed Marx’ transition to the “no money system’
OR
IF YOU’RE TAKING ABOUT WHEN IT’S ALREADY ESTABLISHED:- That is a whole different conjecture for no-one can ever know what it would be like … All we are left with is to conjecture it, by a process in our heads of “What if’s” and develop the thought. That is the process very few are willing to indulge. BUT there are some, and I contend it is a growing number.
Mine is to put the idea forward and hope that over time, more and more people will go through that process until there arises a moment when people see the potential. For me it will be the young and I contend the next generation. The reason is, as I see it, is more and more are seeing that governing does little for us. More people are losing faith in governments and governing … but as yet they see no alternative. That is why I suggest the idea be put out there … first. Then let it evolve.
The same process happened for me when I first read “The Primal Scream” in Ibiza … I was sure that all those anti-establishment hippies would also see it. Alas, all that happened was I became known through the hippies of the island as “Screaming Jack” However, I never gave up on wanting to get Primal Therapy … it took me 7 years to get to California.
So Margaret, I have a HUGE feeling that ‘anarchy’ will rid us of neurosis precisely because there will be no-one telling women to NOT have an abortion if they inwardly do not want that child. If a woman want the baby, she is pregnant with, the likelihood of her loving it, and giving it all that baby’s needs … it would be the most likely scenario, Neurosis by any standard is debilitating, disturbing and dangerous, and I contend is part and parcel of the current pandemic. We neurotics, and I include myself, always go for the easy way out.
We’re seeing it all right now … globally.
Jack
So Margaret: What is the weak spot?
Jack
I wish the discussion about slavery and racism and stolen kids would end by now, and the historical facts and versions…
Isn’t the present hard enough to deal with without dwelling in the atrocities of the past?
not saying the discussion is meaningless, just saying it starts to get on my nerves as I feel overwhelmed with worry already and this only adds to the negativity.
three more people of my mom’s ward are in a bad shape, well, actually one of them just passed away, and mom sounds more depressed than her usual self, and coughs. it is not a dry cough, so hopelfully it is part of a healing process, but I feel stressed and sick with worry and very frustrated not to be able to visit her.
so can we stay a bit more in the present here?
Please?
M
Margaret, I’m sorry to hear about what your mother and you are experiencing. I hear how stressful it is for you, particularly that you cannot visit her. Please do not feel you have to read any posts that you do not want to. Feel free to ignore them. I certainly do not read every post. Btw, what you describe as “dwelling in the atrocities of the past”, is actually not accurate. I wish it was. Many of these atrocities are very much in the present. But if they don’t affect us, we don’t really have to think about them; it is very much a choice. With everything you are dealing with, I hope you make the choice not to think about this stuff.
Margaret, is your ma having a fever of any sort?
When you write about human abuse/ethnic cleansing/racial violence, how do you define, ” … the past,” HSSG ? Is the 1900’s – 2020 current, or history ? I’m not sure how humanity moves forward without feeling the atrocities committed against others.
It isn’t really just about other people, Margaret, it’s also about us. Just a weak ago Jews celebrated Passover. During the Seder, the ritual feast to mark the beginning of the holiday, we read the Haggadah which more or less tells the biblical story of the liberation from slavery and exodus from Egypt. Somewhere in the text we say, “In each and every generation, a person is obligated to regard himself as though he personally left Egypt”.
In Jewish tradition some interpret that to mean we are all slaves one way or another, meaning we all have a personal “Egypt” to leave, a mental area which enslaves us and leaves us less than free. The personal “exodus” is an eternal journey never fully realised.
*further testing of moderation code*
I’m having lots of trouble with moderation issues and I haven’t been able to post as much as I’d like.
April 19, 2020
I can’t receive regular updates. It has something to do with AOL mail and XP operating system.
I’ve been AWOL from the blog three months now. I’ve done a couple individuals at the Institute in that time. Always I believe the Primal Institute does a great service to humanity.
I also believe the Primal Institute should prepare for the future; I hope there is an ongoing program. After all it’s not 1998 anymore when I attended a public seminar at Dr. Janov’s International Primal Center called “Primal Therapy in the Millennium”.
I think people who feel the “calling” should consider getting the necessary requisites for the state of California to practice therapy. I don’t know them but I’m thinking either an MFT or M.A. in psychology. Hopefully, the Institute has a training program. I believe Dr. Janov’s center still does. The torch must be passed on.
I know for myself, however, to be honest; I would chafe a little at having my therapist be 40 and my being 70. Who knows though? Sometimes (not all that often) younger people can manifest a type of wisdom and much older patients might trust them.
Obviously, I’m not a regular on the blog. Sometimes I wish I were but my life’s path has taken me in unexpected paths.
In therapy I learned the difference between a “primal” and, what Janov called, “abreaction”. This is Primal Patient 101.
I returned to Oklahoma from the Bay Area where I did therapy, Feb 1973-May1974, summer of 1974 to help raise my sister’s children and to complete my degree.
I also got a job as a janitor on campus of the University of Oklahoma and resumed my studies in journalism fall, 1974. In my capacity as a reporter for the college newspaper “The Oklahoma Daily” I interviewed a psychologist in Norman, OK about Primal Therapy. She said it was legitimate but warned against self-primaling. Nevertheless, I felt like she was threatened but who knows?
In order to continue to stir things up, here is my imagining the channeling of Arthur Janov, what Art might say, his humor, his new insights. This is FICTIONAL of course, a fantasizing of what might result if a “channel” could establish a psychic connection with the “spirit” of the late Arthur Janov and receive ongoing information. So this is just fiction….OR IS IT?
PART 7 Arthur Janov, channeled from the Timeless Dimension.
Some of this is repetition but it bears being repeated.
It was an understatement in a way when I stated in writings that conditions of one’s birth color one’s daily reality.
What occurs in birthing into the three dimensional reality is an entire incipient “turn-key” world-view. It basically needs only for the individual to reach the age of 12 and-a-half or so, when these “instructions” hold sway more than they don’t. Then, over the next 12 and-a-half years there is a maturing and growth where near-total adulthood is reached at around 25.
The conditions of one’s birth were predetermined, in your terms, telepathically. You have free will, of course, thus the future is plastic.
Suffering should teach one not to suffer. I’m “afraid” to tell you but I think you already know. The long term “cure” (my word) for suffering is to integrate it. Basically, you integrate feelings, you assimilate thoughts.
All disease is emotional, thus if you are feeling the emotional information that comprises the suffering, you are allowing the body-psyche to free more energy to healing.
This is hardly revolutionary, really.
Much is said in the Primal community about the “Feeling Child” or “inner child”, yet it is the nexus to other worlds, to the vast untapped resources of healing. I cannot emphasize enough the intricate, knowing purity of the tsunami of healing within.
I said this last time: “You have strands of feeling-convictions that, if FOLLOWED, will lead you into unchartered territories. Following them often leads to the classical primaling”; unchartered territories indeed with the concomitant slathering on of a grounded feeling of well-being. To quote Yoko Ono: “we lost our true wisdom, now we live in despair”.
I said also: “There is no practical limit on experience actually but, nevertheless you insist on your limitations”.
Consider. You have nothing to lose but some of your lost-ness of true wisdom.
Say, you are in group and you say “I am blocked”. Really you aren’t. You have the feeling-idea “I am blocked”. Primal THAT!
I did not make adequate plans. I did the “easy” stuff. My storehouse of endorphins eventually ran low.
Make a plan.
Baby steps at first, then infant, then early childhood…you get the sequence, I’m sure.
Make sure you include having your feelings, expanding that ability.
Make short-term, mid-term, “long-term” plans in various arenas of your life with reachable goals. Who knows? You might live as long as Enoch!
Remember “almost every thing you learned as true at best is half-truth and when you reach that plateau, then what? Very possibly you limit yourself, your experience.
Getting “better” is a bad idea. “Positive thinking” is so very often a way to stifle surfacing feelings.
“They” want to hold you down because they were held down but moreover “they” don’t believe they can grow anymore. I went over this in The Book.
On the virus: you don’t “catch” a virus, the body “invites” it in. The body has its priorities but you aren’t disconnected from your body. Now, that is real hope.
Fred: I liked your comment and much of it I agree with, but some of it I would say another way. I too, think often about the future of this therapy and the ultimate legacy of Janov..
However, the practice of a Primal therapist is IMO, looking for what NOT to say … letting the patient come to her/his own personal insights, and/or the therapist to merely let that process happen, AND not to bring in their old feeling into the therapy room. That for most is a hard lesson and I feel takes a long time and a lot of experience.
If I am wrong I hope Gretchen or Barry will correct me.
Jack
Still doing testing of moderation problems, disregard post
Jack, I still love you! And I love how you admonish Phil for needing leaders and insist, in capital letters, that “WE DON’T NEED THEM”. Yet you do not recognize how Janov and those anarchy guys from 150 years ago are very much your leaders and authority figures. Of course, we all have these contradictions, but it can be so much easier to see them in others than in ourselves.
Ren/ee: I totally agree; and it’s one of the reasons I like feedback.
Jack
Renee: Sorry about the back-slash. It was a typo I overlooked before posting.
Jack
You agree, Jack? I’m happily surprised! When I made this observation in the past, you were adamant that it wasn’t true. How do you account for this change in view? Was it because I started off by telling you that I still loved you? ❤️️
Renee: I don’t remember the initial statement I made or in what context, but if you’re telling me I’m a contradiction, I fully agree with that also. I doubt anyone fully agrees with me about anything. SO !!! I must be a contradiction.
I’m not fond of using the word “truth”, but I can agree to saying:- so & so’s truth.
When ‘push comes to shove’ It’s all words and I personally find them all ambiguous. Including ‘ambiguous’
Jack
Perhaps part of the point,Renee, is being in control as to whose teachings I choose to deem competent, as opposed to decisions thrust on me by people in positions of power. Competence by authority vs authority by competence.
Thanks for saying this, David. I think this strategy is a powerful way to resist oppression and domination. “Competence by authority vs authority by competence”…….. I had to read this a few times before it made sense. Your words are a good reminder for myself when I am attempting to dominate/control someone or succumb to be being oppressed/controlled by them.
Renee,
if you want to keep posting on the subject, I would be more interested to hear what you propose as measures to change the situation for the better, not just in a theoretical but in a practical way.
what needs to change and how can it be accomplished?
M
Daniel,
that makes sense.
today I heard my mom’s voice over the phone for the first time sounding fit, which made me feel so much better, out of the oppressing cloud of hopelessness and fear.
of course things can still change but finally I dare to allow some more hope things are going in a better direction with her.
our favorite caretaker who was at home as well with Corona starts working again tomorrow half time, which is also uplifting as she and mom get along very well…
and tonight I can look forward to joining the virtual group, also uplifting!
those groups work amazingly well, great formula, thanks Gretchen and Barry!
M
what I just heard on the news is so incredible, so crazy and so sad…
the president of Brazil, Bolsonaro I think, joined a demonstration against Corona restrictions, but while he was ‘speaking’, he kept coughing and coughing really bad, right in the middle of those people protesting against Corona restrictions and wanting the army to take over the government….
how crazy and stupid and irresponsible can you get??
it seems almost fair he’d die from Corona and disprove his own crazy point and actions…
so sad, reminds me of crazy Trump and his followers…
M
Guru,
she has had several days with a fever and then a number of days without fever but feeling very tired and coughing, but luckily her blood saturation with oxygen always remained ok. she had also a few days with abdominal pain, and was in hospital for one day and night for a checkup when she would not eat and drink anymore, but luckily from that point on, she slowly started recovering, and no fever anymore.
she still sounded weak but yesterday for the first time she sounded stronger and fitter over the phone.
they said she had played a bit of piano that morning as well, so finally it seems we can start hoping for the best a bit.
but yes, she has definitely been tested positive for Corona on april 9. of course she might have had the infection much earlier already.
Jack,
I’m going to respond to down here. About your comment that people are cooperative, it makes me wonder if you have ever attended any work type meetings. My experience has been, if no one is in charge basically nothing ever gets done, no conclusions are made, and no plans are put into place. If no one is in charge, there at least has to be a formal decision making process of some kind in place. Voting to make decisions by consensus etc. That can all be very difficult, again, with little decided or getting done, although that could have benefits too.
I don’t see your ideas as fitting in with human nature, at least not how it exists right now. Maybe those ideas fit with your personal make-up, but if very few people agree, and aren’t going to agree, what are they worth? What about you seeing outside your own mindset, your box. It seems to me you are in a very rigid box made up of your ideas unable to see the whole world outside. By the way, I’m not in favor of the status quo, I’d like changes, but it doesn’t really occupy my thinking. There isn’t much any of us can do about any of that, so I don’t get why you want to focus so much on saving humanity. Anyway, right here we have Humanity”s Supreme Superstar Guru, maybe you should confer with him.
Phil
Phil: I have 8 lines I’d like to respond to:-
1) “it makes me wonder if you have ever attended any work type meetings”.
Many
2) “My experience has been, if no one is in charge basically nothing ever gets done, no conclusions are made, and no plans are put into place”.
That’s not my experience
3) “I don’t see your ideas as fitting in with human nature, at least not how it exists right now”.
I know you don’t and that is the very thing I want to get across to you. It’s my problem, and I work on it; often
4) “if very few people agree, and aren’t going to agree, what are they worth?”
The very same argument could be placed on all those discoverers down time. AND it’s a compulsion of mine.
5) “What about you seeing outside your own mindset, your box”.
I make a concerted effort to do that on many occasions during the day. I had one just this afternoon with Jim my partner
6) “seems to me you are in a very rigid box”
That fine … is that a case of “the kettle calling the frying pan black”?
7) “I don’t get why you want to focus so much on saving humanity”.
‘There you go again’, I am not trying to save anyone or anything … just putting out an idea that I stole.
8) “…….Guru, maybe you should confer with him”.
We tried, but I suspect he doesn’t have a good feeling about me.
Jack
Jack,
you never explain how you think the human population will then turn from neurotics into healthy feeling people.
do you think that will just start happening spontaneously when money is abolished?
M
Margaret: A quick answer is:- YES.
I laid out one in response to Phil; whereby if there were no impositions upon us any of us many thing would contemplate doing now, would become redundant. The example I gave (one of thousands) No woman would even consider what others thought if she became pregnant and didn’t want to take it to term. She’d naturally make her own choice. It would also apply to someone wanting to rape someone … What’s the point? for that did I really want just to ejaculate using another persons body. or wouldn’t it be easier to just do a ‘hand job’ and save all the trouble; … would be seen more clearly once the impositions are taken away.
Since females that are pregnant go though a very dynamic hormonal change, part of that change is wanting and then caring for that baby that comes out of her body after a 9 months Otherwise why go through the pregnancy?
I could cite many more example that I have spent years conjecturing the “What ifs”
I hope I have set something in motion for you to contemplate, Margaret.
Jack
today the nice caretaker that just recovered from Corona and started working half days again today, sent us a little video recording from her, with mask, together with mom singing a little song and waving and throwing a kiss at us, filmed this morning!
it shows how mom seems to be on the right track to recovery hopefully from her Corona infection.
tough old lady, my mom, ha!
M
Sounds like she’s , ” sturdy stuff,” completely positive outcomeMargaret. Thoughts for a ” completely positive outcome Margaret….
The , ” … worst mass shooting in Canadian history,” occurred here yesterday in a rural district near where I lived as a kid; 17 dead plus the shooter, a mild mannered white Canada born denturist, a guy very popular with clients, enormously successful financially, ” great personal relationships.” Well planned, he had acquired a RCMP uniform, and restored a retired RCMP patrol car. His teenage dream was to be an RCMP officer. Among the dead a known to be non confrontational woman RCMP Constable, a 23 year veteran of the force, married, 2 children. While clinically I understand, as a fellow human it simply astounds me.
I nearly was sent to war, the Belgian Congo Conflict, when I was 17. I was a Brengunner. A former Camp X, ( WW ll,) was brought in to teach us lethal hand to hand combat.
The thought of maybe killing another person made me puke.
My prescription for anyone who feels whatever is motivating the need to kill, write a note delineating his thought process, shatting on the wrongdoers, and just kill himself/herself. I know how ludicrous that idea is.
David, I’m glad you posted this. I was thinking about you when I saw this on the news yesterday, as it took place in your neck of the woods. It is beyond horrific. I’m glad you are okay.
Margaret, you ask how I would change the situation for the better, in a practical way. I find this interesting because I just posted a link that involves using therapy, something we all have in common, to make things better. Aside from Sylvia, who quickly dismissed the article as not applying to her, no-one responded. When David, who identifies as Indigenous (First Nations, Mi’kmaq), stated that Europeans are “dishonest, thieving, cruel by calculation”, and presented ample evidence for this observation, Daniel was quick to assert that this was neither a factual description, nor what happened historically. Aside from myself, no-one challenged him on his comments. This made me sad. I agree with David when he says, “I’m not sure how humanity moves forward without feeling the atrocities committed against others”. This article presents a way to do just that. It is by no means the only answer, or necessarily the best answer, but it is a start. If you haven’t read it, here it is again: https://longreads.com/2019/08/12/whiteness-on-the-couch/. While it is U.S.-centric, I think many parts of it are appropriate for white people outside of the U.S. too. The article also presents a very interesting theory of who the people that tend to do mass shootings are, and the underlying purpose they serve a country. It was definitely an eye-opener for me to read this theory.
I have to say, I haven’t had an interest in the current debate. The one between Renee and Daniel. I wonder if the different points on either side can be boiled down to single short paragraphs. But besides that, I get the feeling that Renee and Daniel would agree on hardly anything, and that there must be some reason for that.
I can summarize my views in the debate with Jack. I just don’t think anarchy is any way to live and whether or not we use money has nothing to do with neurosis. I doubt I can come up with any better arguments to support my positions besides what I have already said many times, in different ways, and I don’t need to. There also doesn’t seem to be much hope that Jack will stop pushing his ideas for any length of time here on the blog.
Phil
Renee, I guess I should respond to this since you categorized my comment as dismissive toward the article beings it did not pertain to me. I agree with the article when it said that: “When people became more aware of their own problems they grew less paranoid–and less prejudiced.” What I disagreed with is that not many of the Archie Bunker types seek therapy. Even when one is taking beta blockers, a study showed they will become less fearful and less prejudiced. I think prejudice does involve biology. So I think therapy would indeed help someone to become more open and more caring for others and less prejudiced.
I have seen prejudice in my family from my mom who was highly neurotic. Maybe if she had had therapy she wouldn’t have projected her fears upon others. I on the other hand being almost as neurotic was not so prejudiced, but somewhat, only out of fear for not toeing the line in our family.
S
My mistake, Sylvia. Glad to hear you got something out of the article.
I relate to you Phil, my answer to Jack about whether his reply to me would made me start thinking more is very brief, no, as it sounds like …, not making any sense whatsoever is the polite way to put it.
someone who has the neurotic drive to act as a rapist will still feel and behave that way whether money is abolished or not, I don’t even know why I go into this this far, and also the theoretical debates are not at all my thing as they seem to focus around whites versus others and a lot of guilt trips.
it can all be very true, but delving in all the details is not what I feel as an adequate way to solution.
poverty and education is a better way, for any color or ethnic group, and acceptance and tolerance, just mixing and mingling and stopping to divide the world in groups.
David’s description of white Europeans is racist in its own way, even while in many ways there is truth in its historical past, all thinking in groups is the root of prejudice and bias.
so sorry, Renee, I would have liked a brief description of what is in the article but cannot motivate myself at this point to put energy into the reading of it.
it can be interesting, but it might also be very academic or full of past events and their influences, and I am more interested in direct human interactions, on this very moment.
connecting and kindness can in that way undo all past histories of two people on a basic level of respect and that is more up my alley.
it takes all kinds isn’t it?
M
Margaret, no need to apologize for not reading the article. I assume that what interests me might not interest you and others. And vice versa.
Fyi, you described David’s views of white Europeans as racist. I think you might be more accurate in describing them as prejudiced. Racism involves systemic and institutional unequal relationships of power. Not simply individuals having prejudices. If there was a “level playing field”, then you would be right.
I like what you wrote about the importance of connecting and kindness. It reminded me of the times we got to hang out together. I miss those times and remember them fondly.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, I am having lots and lots of trouble with WordPress’ moderation software bugs and it’s causing significant delays in my own postings. Margaret, it sounds as though your mother might make it through this OK. The piano playing is an encouraging sign. Also, there are stories of people even in their 90’s recovering from symptoms. I’d be able to rest slightly easier now if I was in your shoes.
I am enjoying everyone’s posts.
I am glad you made it back here, Fred; you always write interesting stuff.
David, the shooter’s motive definitely appears to be a deep, dark mystery. I’m a little concerned about the the suggestion that someone who is outraged enough to kill someone should write down all the triggering items and then commit suicide. Is the suicide part really necessary? No room for healing if the angry person backs off?
I am actively working with Gretchen on the moderation problems.
A good mix of people providing a wide variety of insights make for a healthy blog which doesn’t go stale.
You don’t need my validation, but IMHO, spot on.
The above comment landed in the wrong reply box… was replying to Gretchen’s post.
If I needed a thorn to prompt a feeling crisis, ‘t’would being the gremlins that mess with this page…grrr
My point is if the only release that will satisfy a deranged mind is actually slaughtering others by all means I recommend the perps off themselves and leave the others unharmed. Serious suicidal folks were one group that got referred to me. Most didn’t , ” need,” to die. It is unfortunate most perps die at the scene of their crimes leaving only conjecture as to the why; mental illness, brain cancer, brain washed by all of the on line crap, like you write a mystery.. I’m thankful I had the benefit of PT. I did not become Primal Man. Part of me chalks that up to just one more in a litany of personal failures. Nothing I accomplished damped that feeling much. I still frequently hurt to the point of raging at waking every morning and envy the dead. I have since childhood. I’m rather reclusive these post retirement years because there is but one friend whose beliefs and conduct are pleasant to me. And I’m not great at attracting people because I don’t think mainstream, capitalism, male dominance, white superiority and all that. Even the Liberals and Socialists here are CONSERVATIVES when they form gov’t, power to the wealthy, disenfranchise the poor and brown people.
Sometimes, but rarely, at a conscious level anyway, I’m still filled with sickening rage at my abusive family of origin, particularly one brother and my mother. I rage at myself for not having been, and not being, a better protector of me of not doing more for me. Of being prey in order to have some social discourse. I still believe at some level my mother’s opinion of me as, ” .. a fat, repulsive, stupid, slow moving retard.” I know it’s not true, but it contaminates my cells just the same. At least I know where it comes from; feint comfort when what I’d like is a life worth living.
But, it is not within me to contemplate, plan let alone carry out hurting others. I must qualify that though; I would defend others, and myself, to the death from a would be killer. Big Pharma and Big Allopathic Medicine bear the brunt of my educated confrontation. Starting to dip into my head so will shut up for now.
Wow, this is entirely new, hurting/teary now because I need my mommy… This is my lot till I die.
Because an article doesn’t resonate does not necessarily mean you are “ dismissive” any more than disagreeing that racism is a purely white problem equates to some kind of “ white sensitivity “ or suggesting that the virus began with the eating of bats in China makes you racist. This article did not ring true for me either . The therapist says that the silence around being white and racism in her office is deafening. Not in my office it isn’t. As we have seen here on the blog those who have serious issues or prejudices or even violent thoughts around those of other races can’t not talk about it. You might go so far as to say that’s all they can speak about. She says she came to see being white as the “ thing” , the thing no one is speaking of but everyone must address in therapy. A bit arrogant I think and most definitely not everyone’s truth. Do I think all people should be aware of their own personal bias or prejudice and additionally understand more about the history of racism in all countries, well of course. The more knowledge the better. I also think there are aspects of extreme prejudice that do in fact belong in the DSM. I think if people are not grabbing on to all this rhetoric, this particular discussion, it is because it’s masking other things, other agendas. Because Daniel is so smart that does not mean he isn’t capable of saying real things to you Renee. I think some of these things you are writing off a little to quickly. He said you seemed livid and you were condescending. If you look back at your responses I believe you will find that to be true. That, in my opinion was his effort to have a real conversation with you. Maybe it would be useful to go back to that. I also think it might be useful to discuss how all this applies to your own life. I don’t believe you have said a word about where you grew up or what these issues meant in your own life. Why not a word in the face of Patrick’s racist rants and misogyny and then jump all over Daniel for saying racism has occurred in other cultures? That normally occurs when there are other agendas at play. When this conversation began , much like the Freud discussion, I could only see one thing, a great big fishing pole. Why Daniel bites he has touched on but might need to explore further. For the record I really don’t care what we discuss here. Whatever you all want is fine with me but I do want to give my perspective . Gretch
You don’t need my validation, but IMHO, spot on.
yesterday I already got a little video of mom singing together with her favorite caretaker who is wearing a mouth mask, while they both sing a cheerful song.
today more pictures and videos of mom getting a haircut from her, and then she and mom walking under the trees and in the sunshine, birds singing loudly and mom singing parts of songs, feels soooo good, and I love that caretaker with deep appreciation and gratitude!!!
mom seems definitely much better already, and it looks like she had a very pleasant day!
hope so much it will only be a question of weeks before we or at least one of us can visit her!
M
Margaret, that’s so good to hear, after all your worry..I’m glad for you.
Margaret, that’s great news!
Phil
Good news, indeed, Margaret. I’m also happy for you. It sounds like that is a very good and caring place your mom lives in. How great they send you those videos.
I’m glad for you and your family Margaret.
P.s. that caretaker has also had Corona recently and has just recovered after a period home with what first felt like a bad cold and then got a bit worse for two days, followed by a swift recovery luckily…
M
Great, just what we need…. the corona virus and an earthquake! G. 😱
Oh no😱 ..stay safe
Gretchen: I feel strongly that nothing is ever going to be the same … some of it terrible … some of it just plain awful and perhaps some of it could be enlightening and eventually uplifting
For instance:- the potential for an economic depression; just night be seen as a creation by way of an exchange system, when I see ‘give and take’ as our nature … not “quid pro quo”
Jack
hi all,
thanks so much for the support!
Maybe it can give some hope to all of us that things can also turn for the better.
in the meanitime it is still difficult to be stuck at home on my own, luckily with my two furry friends, but it is so much better now that my mom seems to get really better.
those videos of her under these huge trees with the sun falling through, she singing and a lot of birds doing the same, are very precious for us.
M
oh no,has there been an earthquake in LA??
could not find or hear anything about it yet,
M
Margaret, the epicenter was about 3 miles north of me, just after midnight. I felt moderately strong, hard jerking — I was almost asleep, but felt afraid something would fall, tho it didn’t. Then I only waited to see if the shaking would return, and realized it must be most likely close by, because of its sharpness, so I got online to check, and filed a report on it.
Hi Vicki, I know how technically skilled you have been with WordPress. Do you know of any way to resolve my moderation issues? Gretchen and I struggled with the problem on her administrator dashboard using the Settings/Discussion page, but to no avail.
This moderation stuff is highly annoying because I have to wait sometimes up to a full day before my comment posts, and the waiting period happens even after Gretchen approves it!
Do you happen to have any ideas to offer if you happen to catch and read this post? Thanks.
Hmm, I will think about it, Guru. My last comment hasn’t appeared either. I wonder if WordPress has made some updates that are causing the problem.
Maybe a new page or article would help?
Margaret,
It looks like it was a small one. I hope nobody was shook up too much.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-22/earthquake-3-8-quake-registered-in-los-angeles
I’m feeling flattened.
What do you mean Renee? By the pandemic and lock down?
Phil
No, Phil, not the pandemic or lock down. But thanks for asking. I appreciate it. I’m not comfortable saying more. Just wanted to share what I’m feeling. That’s all.
Renee, I’m sorry you’re feeling that way.
Renee,
I also enjoyed hanging out with you, nice memories and hopefully to be continued in a not too faraway future.
it occurred to me you might perceive Gretchen’s comment to you as criticism, so I thought to just stick my neck out and give you my view that it is not, it is just a well meant advice in my eyes.
hope it can be helpful to you to explore more of your inner world, as that is after all what we are all here for isn’t it, with a little help from our friends…
M
Here’s an interesting pandemic story. My co-worker said this morning that her neighbors across the street are covid-19 positive, but took their stimulus checks and left for Atlantic City, leaving their eighteen year old son behind. Law enforcement was at the house issuing tickets, and there was a crowd of neighborhood people gathered outside. Atlantic City casinos I’m sure are closed anyway, and those tickets may eat up a lot of that stimulus money, ruining all the fun.
Phil
Phil, they probably went to see relatives or friends..or maybe just enjoy the city’s Boardwalk. The casinos are closed and the only gambling option would be online.
I was going to say $1,200 each ($2,400 for a couple) is not enough for them to do anything drastic, but when I see the long lines of people needing to go to the food banks I have to assume my old way of thinking is mistaken. When people grow desperate things become really scary overall.
It looks like SNAP (US food stamp benefits) provide an average of $1.40 per person per meal. For a month that works out to $126.
I tried to live as thrifty as possible in the food department for a month while still having good nutrition, (do all my own cooking, shop carefully for good food on sale at retailers, never eat out etc.) and the ABSOLUTE BEST I could do was $180 for a month.
You’d have to be sucking bone marrow out of me to make that number go lower. $180 per month is the “thrifty” meal plan amount according to the USDA.
Guru & everyone else on this blog:
I feel we (the scientist) have gotten this whole thing wrong about this virus and no-one it seems to me. has a definitive answer not even the expert. As for science er, er, er mmmm!!!.
As I see it:- this virus like many other viruses (cept the software ones) ride on the back of neurosis which in turn had put our natural immune system into being compromised. The more compromised the immune system, the more vulnerable we are to this virus, and all other viruses and bacteria.
Why, IMO, is appears to be deadly is that it has found a great niche in those people that had breathing problems at birth, mainly I contend, from cutting the cord before breathing had been properly achieved at birth.
A side factor my be that communication internationally is also now so easy and thus not only do we project diseases, but also project information and some of it, though not an out and out falsehood, but screwed in one direction rather than another.
For my part I see we have to resolve the neurosis that this virus is riding upon. and because I don’t see there ever being enough Primal therapist being created, then we need to look somewhere else.
Does anyone care for the future generation of our human species enough, to go digging for a potential cure/prevention to that basic disease … neurosis?
OR is just me being my normal irritable self? Very likely.
Jack
Jack, I’ve been seeing many reports that describe how covid-19 is not limited to infecting the respiratory systems of patients, although that’s where it usually starts. In critically ill patients it’s found to attack the heart, kidneys, digestive tract, blood vessels, brain, and other areas of the body. Many people seem to die because of excessive blood clotting which can cause heart attacks and strokes. Some patients are found to have lungs filled with blood clots on autopsy, so it isn’t necessarily a typical case of pneumonia which kills them. It is a very nasty virus and the illness it causes can be a lot different from the flu. I think we have to all be very careful whether neurotic or not. Phil
Here’s a report about a study done in New York State’s largest healthcare system:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/22/coronavirus-ventilators-survival/
Of people put on ventilators, 88% died, and asthma does’t seem to be a large risk factor.
“The paper also found that of those who died, 57 percent had hypertension, 41 percent were obese and 34 percent had diabetes which is consistent with risk factors listed by the Centers for Disease for Control and Prevention. Noticeably absent from the top of the list was asthma. As doctors and researchers have learned more about covid-19, the less it seems that asthma plays a dominant role in outcomes.”
“One other surprising finding from the study was that 70 percent of the patients sick enough to be admitted to the hospital did not have a fever. Fever is currently listed as the top symptom of covid-19 by the CDC, and for weeks, many testing centers for the virus turned away patients if they did not have one.”
“Davidson said that as a result of that findings, Northwell is encouraging people with underlying health conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes, who are potentially exposed to the virus and who might not have a fever to consult with a doctor sooner rather than later.”
“Researchers looked at the electronic medical records of 5,700 patients infected with covid-19 between Mar. 1 and Apr. 4 who were treated at Northwell Health’s 12 hospitals located in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County — all epicenters of the outbreak. Sixty percent were male, 40 percent female and the average age was 63.”
Sorry if this is too much information, I like to be well informed.
Phil
Thanks for the info Phil. That news is a relief to me, being that I’m asthmatic. However, the struggle to breathe to the degree of almost dying is deeply imprinted in me, so I fear COVID19 even if I don’t have a health status (other than older age) that would put me in a higher risk group of dying from it. Another bit of info I’ve read is that for those patients where the infection takes a sudden and deadly turn for the worse, it turns out that it’s their immune system that is killing them as it goes overboard in it’s attack on the virus.
Phil: You might well have read many reports that support the ‘status quo’ and you might well find many reports that don’t support it. What do you do with those reports that don’t support the status quo?
Jack
Jack, I read a variety of articles, some just reporting current conditions, like the ones I mentioned above about covid-19. I also like opinion articles, many of which advocate for some kind of change. I don’t look at many reports which recommend the status quo, as those come from conservative sources, but I think even most conservatives want some kind of actions to be taken, even if it’s reversing policies from the past, like what the Trump administration is doing.
I take in everything that I look at and it helps inform my opinions.
Phil
Phil: You say:-“I take in everything that I look at and it helps inform my opinions”.
I think that applies to us all, but there are some things, reports and opinions that fall in line with our own; those are the ones we usually tout.
What i find interesting is the development that took place during my lifetime, and just how far did I develop them.
I started out being a conservative because that was what my father was Then I became a socialist and remained so, supporting unions and National Health systems whilst hating communism as I knew it from the British.press.
However, something clicked in my mind in my late 20’s and I began to look deeper into things and questioning many thing… Of course, my homosexuality somewhat forced me to do a lot of that
Even within the gay community, most are adamant that for us it is “normal” … I refute that claim. However, that does not mean I want to change. I definitely do not. For the moment I have t quite good in terms of daily living. Life is very complex for most of us and I feel strongly It doesn’t have to be that way. Ibiza lifestyle for the natives, was simple. Young children see it all as ‘simple’. I for one, want to go back to that simplicity I once had
Jack
Jack, You seem to say you’d like a simpler life. Thinking about that, I’d say my life has been pretty simple, although I have an interest in the complexities of the world. I have lived in the same general area my whole life. I am together with my partner for over 30 years, we have lived almost all that time in the house where we are now, and have a typical family. I have worked in the field I studied my whole career. What has given me difficulty is recovering from my childhood traumas. Life can be as simple or complex as you want it to be.
My wife is from a very small town in Spain, I have visited many times, where life seems slower and friendlier. She has told me when she was a child, the streets weren’t paved, there was no running water in her house, no TV, no phone, and clothes were washed in a communal fountain. Many families had a goat for milk, and a shepherd took everyone’s goats to the fields daily. There are many other things she told me, which makes it seem like they lived in the 19th century or earlier. It is a much more modern place now, but probably doesn’t look much different, except for the paved streets, but I don’t know that life is more complex.
Phil
Phil: I seem like your wife’s home town or village is kinda like what I experienced in Ibiza in a primitive house (Finca) on top of a mountain from the village with a dirt road, water from a cisterna and a hole in the roof letting the smoke out from a wood fire below..
It was ten years of paradise for me a city dweller all my life. So I sort of get your wife’s background.
Jack
Guru, I have an update on this story. An APB was issued and this couple was apprehended in Atlantic City, which is about 3 or 4 hours driving south of here. They were fined $1000 each, and their two kids were put in foster homes until their covid-19 test results come back, as they were never tested. They had stopped in two rest areas along the way, putting a lot of other people at risk, just so they could blow their stimulus money.
Phil
Could be snap recipients live on eggs ($3.00 a doz. so 75 cents for 3 eggs for breakfast) bread from the ‘day old’ store, tuna and bargain mayo–also, lentils and split pea and beans. Hope they can buy some fruit or veggies. Many children here still get to go to the school just to pick up their free lunch because it’s known that their parents can’t afford to buy enough food. Times are tough.
Margaret; Pleased for you to read that your mom seems ok.
I was in tears earlier. Stories of kindness does that to me. This story is one of a school, teachers, parents, who have not only been providing free daily lunches for students, but on Fridays sending home with each vulnerable kid, a backpack of food the family ok’s to last for the weekend. Schools here closed in Feb and will not reopen until Sept. These folks have found a way to keep up this service to these food insecure families. I am so critical of schools and teachers; with cause; but this bit of kindness just levelled me.
I’m still feeling flattened.
Renee, sorry to hear. I hope things will improve for you.
Phil
Thanks, Phil.
Renee: Can you be a little more explicit, like:- flattened by what, or by whom?
Jack
Jack, I cannot be more explicit. There are no words. Maybe later there will be.
Renee: OK … that makes sense to me.
Jack
Everone: These last few nights have been having these shooting pains, from my ankles and heels up into my legs. Last night I decided to stay with it and eventually the insight was:- at my birth I suspect the doctor held my by my ankles, upside down and apparently said to my mother “Oh, isn’t he lovely. My mother later, at about age 8 told me the story of what the doctor said and her reply to me at that time was:- “I didn’t think so” She never said anything about being held upside down.
Only now it seems, I beginning to feel it
The more I think about it the more it seems to fit.
Jack
Excerpts from “The Case for Professors of Stupidity: Why aren’t there more people studying the science behind stupidity?” by Brian Gallagher
In 1933, dismayed at the Nazification of Germany, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote “The Triumph of Stupidity,” attributing the rise of Adolf Hitler to the organized fervor of stupid and brutal people—two qualities, he noted, that “usually go together.” He went on to make one of his most famous observations, that the “fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
…
The scientific discovery of a cognitive bias… has been so resonant that it has penetrated popular culture, inspiring, e.g., an opera song: “Some people’s own incompetence somehow gives them a stupid sense that anything they do is first rate. They think it’s great.”
…
“It’s an interesting fact that, whilst there are numerous individuals who study intelligence—there are whole departments that are interested in it—if you were to ask yourself what’s the greatest problem facing the world today, I would say it would be stupidity. So we should have professors of stupidity—it would just be embarrassing to be called the stupid professor.”
———————————————————————————————————————————
Vicki: I’m not sure if I agree that the greatest problem is stupidity, but it’s up for grabs. Of course I thought of trump and his followers and enablers and deplorables — all the racists and fascists and authoritarian-worshipers and evangelicals. Some of them rejecting staying-at-home, to “prove” their “faith” will protect them, instead catching and dying from “the fake virus”. Sen. Mitch McConnell suggested that states should declare bankruptcy rather than receiving further funding from the federal government, to which the New Jersey governor said ‘Really? This is the time, in a moment of crisis unlike any our country has faced in at least 100 years, to suggest it’s a good thing for states to go bankrupt?’
After a presentation by medical experts at the latest coronavirus task force briefing showed that heat and light helped to quickly kill the virus on surfaces, President Trump asked whether it would be possible to harness light and heat and use it on those sick with coronavirus, and later also asked if it would be possible to use an injection of disinfectants or “a cleansing” of the body as a treatment.
“Maybe you can, maybe you can’t… I’m not a doctor. But I’m, like, a person that has a good you-know-what,” Trump said, pointing to his head.
Finally, an investigation revealed that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar hired a former Labradoodle breeder, who also served as a public relations official with no public health experience, to a top role at the department that now oversees the day-to-day response to the coronavirus pandemic.
I don’t think any more needs to be added tonight.
I forgot to post the link to the whole “Stupidity” article, for anyone interested:
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-case-for-professors-of-stupidity?fbclid=IwAR3cDHjqX8wrzCCUfzJ5ungVU5Y77DNzKLhLW2NUI1S9eL9n29q9nLnepG4
Vicki: In view of Primal theory I feel it’s being somewhat thoughtless to classify someone as “Stupid” I am tempted to say:- “Severely damaged”. we then begin to see the problem differently.
On another note:- there is talk now about certain states going bankrupt. Then the human suffering that goes with bankruptcy, for a lot of people.
It’s all this ‘middle-man’ stuff that causing the suffering and it’s actually not necessary.
Guess who/what the middle-man is?
On something else mentioned in one of the site you cited:- “Rocket science” what is so scientific about rockets. We had then as kids as fire works … put a fire (combustible) in a tight case with a hole at one end, then ignite the fuel and the exhaust is so ferocious it project the missile in the other direction.
As a small kid that made total sense to me and the other kids … no mystery and anything but science.
We humans seem to get so many things wrong … and I’m no exception.
Great and inspiring comment Vicki.
Jack
Vicki,
I think conservatives are anti-intellectual and so Trump appeals to them because he’s so dumb. He’s exactly what they want. It’s crazy.
Phil
Phil, it is crazy, except if all you want in life is power & money, like trump. McConnell was sued and being investigated, and somehow his own wife was appointed in charge of supposedly investigating him! As trump’s Transportation Secretary, she has favored many businesses who’ve given money to her husband, as well as her own family-business. Moscow Mitch has been sickeningly smiling all the way to the bank, at every opportunity. His corruption is legendary, going back to when Roger Ailes (creator & longtime head of Fox News, as well as a sexual harasser) was instrumental in helping McConnell get his first election as a senator in 1984. Without McConnell, trump could not have been as “successful” as he has been.
Vicki,
despite all that, in November Trump will still win all the red states and McConnell will probably be reelected in Kentucky. But I think Biden has a good chance of beating Trump, and the Democrats could win the senate. That’s about the best to be hoped for in my opinion.
That Trump even has a chance is discouraging.
Phil
Apparently, money is another Trump failure; as in ability to earn. Fits with his total liar persona. He’s like the total package of the worst attributes in one person. Hey, he is # 1 after all. If ever ordered to the Hague, he can plead stupidity as defence, and being an orphan.
Trumps bright idea of treating people with heat and UV-light and injecting bleach and disinfectants into their bloodstream was on the news here…
the culmination of crazy absurdity is that on top of it all he boasts with the intelligence of his suggestion, it is too crazy for words…
maybe his followers can all try the treatment?
M
Vicky…wish you could hear my rails of laughter… he’s a whole new class of many things, and in one body; perhaps the world’s most contaminated idiot. gives the word insanity a whole new depth.
Lysol or bleach? G.
Now he has really lost it🥴
He wants to make a clean break…… I think Clorox and Dettol were on his elixir list….
I think that ship has sailed a while back! G.
True!
While reading Whiteness on the Couch by Natasha Stovall I was reminded of my first wife’s parents. Both were born and raised in Turkey – he in Istanbul and she in Izmir. As it turns out, it is culturally customary for Istanbulians to make fun of Izmirians, ridiculing them for being primitive and simple minded. It didn’t matter much that essentially she was smarter than he was, it was just the way things were.
The term Ostjuden also came to mind. It is what the German and Austrian Jews called, disdainfully, their fellow Jews escaping pogroms in Russia or otherwise emigrating west. These Eastern (0st) Jews (juden) were poorer, more religious or traditional, coming from rural areas with habits of small communities, and in general a world apart from the liberal and self-confident world of the western cities. And what cities they were! Berlin and especially Vienna were, before the night of Nazi barbarism descended upon them, like the London and New York of our days, a bubbling intellectual and cultural center that drew poets, novelists, playwriters, musicians, scientists and in general people who thought themselves to be as avant-garde as avant-garde can be. It was the center of humanism, and a proof that life of the mind takes place in something much broader than a university campus – it was in the newspapers, the theatre, the cafés, the bookshops. But I digress, taken by the alluring but, as it turned out, falsely secure Viennese World of Yesterday. Because what I wanted to say was that like Sylvia, I think prejudice is universal, present in all societies and ranges from the rather harmless, through the hurtful and ugly, to the downright murderous.
Black and brown people suffered some of the more terrible and deadly kinds of prejudice. To my mind it has to do with the ease of their othering, because of their skin color and the connotations of blackness. Just look at a short list of meanings for the word black: Grim, Without light so barely seen, Deeply stained with dirt, Characterized by tragic or disastrous events, Causing despair or pessimism, Full of gloom or misery, Very depressed, Full of anger or hatred, Very evil or wicked. And children, and some adults, were always afraid of the dark.
After having these first associations I thought about Whiteness as a concept and especially, as a practicing therapist, whether it was a useful one. All psychological ideas (say, Infantile Sexuality, First/Second/Third Line, Transitional Object, Pool of Pain, Black Hole, Primary Maternal Preoccupation, Depressive Position, Abreaction, Idealizing Transference, Oedipus Complex, etc.,) are either useful for me of not.
I wasn’t convinced that Whiteness is a robust enough concept to be applied to all white people as a personal trait. I’m not even sure it belongs to psychology rather than, say, sociology or anthropology. Stovall tries hard to give Whiteness a psychological face writing that, “Whiteness appears in no therapy manuals, is absent from catalogs of psychological ailments, is rarely mentioned as a factor in diagnosis or treatment, yet we know it when we see it. Patient is irritable, defensive, obsessive and grandiose. Ego orientation fluctuates between superiority and vulnerability, with an underlying paranoia (trauma related?) focused on external threats and characterized by fantasies of domination, invasion and annihilation”.
However, is this description unique to white people? Can’t Latinos, Asians or Blacks display the same clinical picture? In my opinion the answers are No (to the first) and Yes (to the second). In other words, I don’t find this to be a useful concept for me, one that would add to the understanding and handling of patient malaise, perhaps because I havn’t really encountered it in my clinic.
On the other hand, I felt concerned that Whiteness may be thrust upon patients by therapists who feels strongly about it rather than being truly coming from them.
As usual, Daniel, I find your writing interesting and thought-provoking. The whole concept of “whiteness” continues to leave me shaking my head. When I read the article on whiteness linked way above, I had such a strong reaction of “Oh my god, what garbage! These people are full of crap!” I just don’t buy it, it seems like such a distortion of values to make “race” the lens through which we view and judge everyone. I know that racism is a huge, entrenched, systemic driver and problem. But somehow to me, that article’s way of looking at it, just makes it worse, and offends me. Race should not “matter”, and only does matter because people give power to it, hoping to claim control over their own fears.
I grew up with so little investment in the idea of “race”, that I remember in mid-high-school, suddenly realizing that my two best friends were “part black”, it just had never occurred to me before, as it never mattered. I thought about it, as I noticed that it did seem to matter to some of the other groups of classmates, who seemed “more comfortable” hanging out with those who “looked more like them” and came from “their similar cultural background”. I did see it. But I think I never thought it was because of some intrinsic “racial” qualities. I just thought it was most likely a matter of “what’s familiar” and “what they’re used to” “feeling comfortable” with daily — we do that in our families, first. And as they mature intellectually, people tend to codify those feelings into intellectual concepts, to reinforce what somehow benefits them, emotionally and/or materially. I don’t think I absorbed much, if any, of that “cultural programming” around “race”, although I have to assume I may also be mistaken in some ways, and that I may carry some of those biases, without seeing them. This subject will keep me thinking for some time, so I may have more to say, down the road.
Vicki, I appreciated that you read the article and shared your reactions to it. I think that most, if not all, of your reactions would be shared by many white people, including myself at one time. One thing that I found interesting was when you say that, “I know that racism is a huge, entrenched, systemic driver and problem”. Yet, after that you say that, “Race should not “matter”, and only does matter because people give power to it, hoping to claim control over their own fears”. To me, and I could be wrong, but this comes across as a contradiction. If racism is a huge, entrenched and systemic problem, how could it not matter? And if we are all part of the system, to then believe that it only matters to people who give power to it, couldn’t that be considered white privilege? Because most of us white people don’t have to feel the impact of this problem, as we are its beneficiaries?
Renee, you have interpreted a contradiction, where there is none. My words and meanings were specific. Race and racism are not the same terms, nor do they have the same meaning, they are “not interchangeable”.
“Race…is a social construct used to define groups of people with similar physical and cultural characteristics. Racism is a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on how one looks (i.e., race). Racism unfairly advantages some communities and unfairly disadvantages others.” https://www.healthyteennetwork.org/blog/race-v-racism/
This next link has some detailed descriptions of “race” and the spectrum of types of racists. Some excerpts from “Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook (pp. 82-109)”:
Race – “A social construct that artificially divides people into distinct groups based on certain characteristics such as physical appearance (particularly skin color) ancestral heritage, cultural affiliation, cultural history, ethnic classification…Racial categories subsume ethnic groups.”
Racism – “The systemic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). This subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.”
Individual Racism – “The beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individual that support or perpetuate racism. Individual racism can occur at both an unconscious and conscious level, and can be both active and passive. Examples include telling a racist joke, using a racial epithet, or believing in the inherent superiority of Whites.”
Ally – “A white person who actively works to eliminate racism. This person may be motivated by self-interest in ending racism, a senseof moral obligation, or a commitment to foster social justice, as opposed to a patronizing agenda of ‘wanting to help those poor People of Color.’ A white ally may engage in anti-racism work with other Whites and/or People of Color.”
Empowered Person of Color – “An empowered person of color has an understanding of racism and its impact on one’s life without responding to the events and circumstances as a victim. Rather, being empowered means the capacity to engage individuals and institutions with an expectation of being treated well.”
The full PDF also includes definitions of Active Racism, Passive Racism, Cultural Racism (Racism at the Cultural Level), Institutional Racism (Racism at the Institutional Level), White Privilege, Collusion, Internalized domination, Internalized racism, and Horizontal Prejudice.
Click to access Key-Terms-Racism.pdf
And I also came across a 3rd link with different focus, that I think is interesting:
“Racism vs. Discrimination: Why The Distinction Matters”
https://www.celesteheadlee.com/racism-vs-discrimination-why-the-distinction-matters/
Not to oversimplify, but IMHO, power, fuelled by monetary control, regardless of colour, or gender, is the driver. Living in a melding pot, and a small province, the oldest permanent white settlement in NA, it is easier to come to understand the impacts of ethnicity. The First Peoples saved the lives of early explorers, taught them survival skills, their pharmacology, and in that phase they appeared to be getting on. But as soon as the British began challenging the French, and the colonisers had learned the necessary skills the systematic genocide of 90 million and the prison camp control of the survivors ensued.
The colonisers subjected migrants, Irish, German, black, brown, white, to boundried existences. Baptists, Anglicans, RC’s, Lutherans, eyed each other with suspicion. The United Church followers were sort of , ” love one another,” moderate folk and suspected by all others as less or un godly. This resulted in incest.
I am partly, by DNA, First Nations; the remainder Northern European. At point of contact my First Nations ancestors were vested in North America, then called Turtle Island, for more than 10,000 years, as evidenced by archaeology. They had developed laws of conduct between Nations, traded as far New Mexico; it was a matriarchal society. They were egalitarian, recognized and treated the explorers and colonisers as equals. The incoming clerics, most cruel the Jesuits. They shared their most prized possessions eagerly. A trait they have retained. By their own writings the colonisers saw their generosity as an innate stupidity which they could exploit. It is romantic to portray any Peoples as perfect. But their codes of conduct were more advanced than that of the invaders. Their Pharmacopeia was light years advanced. The majority of modern pharmacopeia is based on that knowledge.
I could go on with the established fact of the continued cruelties endured by the non white and white populations, and women of all colours, deemed lesser than’s, at the hand of the superior whites, suffered and continue to suffer, but suffice to say it is fact. I do not think accrued my knowledge makes me racist, rather a factist.
David, your last sentence that your accrued knowledge makes you a factist, not a racist, made me laugh! I guess that is because I recognize your facts as facts. If I didn’t, I would probably consider your views racist.
You say that, “power, fueled by monetary control, regardless of colour, or gender, is the driver”. I disagree with you here. Power and money are primarily in the hands of whites and males in so-called Western democracies. And the money is usually made off the backs of non-whites and females. So race and gender are critical factors in all of this. Since I don’t think I explain myself very well, I’ll let AOC sum it up in 4 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAnRUepeb_U (AOC Calls Out Billionaires at MLK Day Event).
Daniel: I read your latest comment and was more than a little confused as to why you are still into this “Whiteness” thing, especially as a psychotherapist.
I personally, don’t find it either useful or helpful on a therapeutic level. BUT then perhaps you equally, wonder why I’m still into the “abolish money” thing.
My simple answer is:- to rid humanity of neurosis.
So, I wonder what is your simple message, and for what purpose?
Jack
Jack, I’m not into it. But I was urged to read it so I did and then responded. Like you, I didn’t find the concept useful.
Daniel, thanks for taking the time to read the article and give your feedback. It does not come as a surprise to me that you do not find the concept of whiteness useful to you. You say that you have not encountered it in your clinic. I would say that, and it goes without saying, that you have not encountered it in yourself either.
I found this paragraph to be the most interesting: “Black and brown people suffered some of the more terrible and deadly kinds of prejudice. To my mind it has to do with the ease of their othering, because of their skin color and the connotations of blackness. Just look at a short list of meanings for the word black: Grim, Without light so barely seen, Deeply stained with dirt, Characterized by tragic or disastrous events, Causing despair or pessimism, Full of gloom or misery, Very depressed, Full of anger or hatred, Very evil or wicked. And children, and some adults, were always afraid of the dark.” You make this all sound so normal. However, I would problematize these comments by asking: Black and brown people suffered some of the more terrible and deadly kinds of prejudice by who? It has to do with the ease of their othering by who? It has to do with the connotations of blackness by who? In other words, who created these connotations?
Your last sentence makes no sense to me: “I felt concerned that Whiteness may be thrust upon patients by therapists who feels strongly about it rather than being truly coming from them.” I have never had a therapist thrust the idea of whiteness on me. And most white patients do not see whiteness as a problem so how could it come from us? (It is invisible, after all…..at least to us whites.) I am left to conclude that you are trying to tell me that you feel like I am thrusting the idea of whiteness on you.
Renee: You are obviously well versed in words and their meaning, BUT as I see it, there are deeper levels to word and their usage and how language came about in the very first place
It all depends on what level one wants to take it.
a)Most of us are just content to leave at the top level as in:- “you know what I mean”.
b) The next level is:- ‘in the context of ….’
c) Then the next is:- ‘by the dictionary definition’ .
d) The very last one that I am referring to here is our necessity to express ourselves with words
e) There may be others that I’ve momentarily omitted.
It is by way of these level we often talk past one another, IMO.
We are the only creature that uses language as a means of expressing our feeling … Sure enough we could call all or some of the sounds they make, as a primitive language. I refute that approach, as I find it misleading .
It is for the reason that earlier I wrote here that language and speaking is an outgrowth of neurosis and I still hold to that. Had we not compromised our ability to express ourselves because of those early traumas, I feel we might never have brought about language as we know it currently.
The ramifications of what I am saying here could open up a whole other ‘can of worms’
For the moment I’ll not go there.
Jack
Jack, I’m not really following what you are saying. So I’m not sure what the ramifications are or how these ramifications could open up a can of worms. Are you saying that our use of words/language is inherently neurotic? And you’re trying to express this idea using words/language? And that if you were not neurotic, you would not be communicating via words/language but in other ways? I’m confused.
Renee: You say:- “Are you saying that our use of words/language is inherently neurotic?”
In a way, yes. Another way of saying it is:- neurosis came first then language grew out of our inability to express ourselves 100%:-.
Of course that is just my take after years of thinking about us humans and the way it now manifests itself:- wars, governments, laws, and our general behaviour (neurotic behavious) of act-outs that is not our nature … a la Primal theory.
Then, just reading all the comments this morning …………… !!!!
Something is happening … I am not quite sure what, but I sense it’s a general panic that is overtaking humanity … is this the final price humanity is now taking after say:- 20,000 – 30,000 years of neurotic mankind ??????
Jack
Jack, I was wondering if language would just be a natural part of our brains and not an outgrowth of the need to repress. Once we have the ability to develop language in our more evolved brains, than say an ape, why would we think that it came out of a necessity to repress something. The ability to do math or write a song comes from repression? Creativity comes from repression? There are cave drawings from early man. Is it the chicken or egg dilemma of which came first, creativity or repression. I think we can use all levels of the brain to repress or act out, not just the cognitive part. It’s our emotions that rule us, that come from the limbic system, and language has a tie to them. Why is expressing in words so bad. There are times when words can’t communicate what we feel because we are in the middle of the emotion when words are inadequate. I don’t get your reasoning on this. Communication comes bundled in all forms; cognitive, emotion and brain stem. We speak of love, we feel love, we breathe life. I think we can repress at any level. A mistreated animal will be just as neurotic and repressed as a mistreated speaking human.
Sylvia: I have a great deal of admiration for you and read all your comments carefully, as I do most others..
BUT … you saying:-] “I was wondering if language would just be a natural part of our brains and not an outgrowth of the need to repress. Once we have the ability to develop language in our more evolved brains, than say an ape,”
It is not a NEED to repress it. That, to me, is ‘putting the cart before the horse’
Then the very last phrase kinda suggests to me:- What conceit! … to even think we are ‘more evolved’.
Jack
Conceit for thinking we are more evolved than animals. Yes, you are right, I am prejudiced for my species. Though also I am imprinted heavily by animals, pets, having as a little kid sometimes just the touch and warmth of a cat or dog. Most of my toddler pictures I am carrying one or the other. I asked my mom once why she had trouble interacting with me after she admitted not knowing how to treat a little girl, having had so many boys before. She said she was afraid of making a mistake with me so she just let me be. I said, “Well, I didn’t even know you were there.” So i do value animals, dogs, cats and other animals. They are so honest and feelingful and need our protection, as do children. By more evolved I mean humans can do more. I like my pets and I can resonate on the emotional level. But I depend on humans, to help grow food, etc. and if the need arises to fix a burst appendix to keep me alive. Best of luck, Jack with your birth feelings. There’s a lot of energy laying there.
Sylvia: Just had a Skype session with my buddy and now I’m feeling a lot better and relaxed. It’s incredible just how feelings make all the difference.
Yes; the animals have it..pet especially. thank you also for the support.
Jack
Jack, there’s a part of our brains, the broca area, which had been identified as associated with speech. I’m guessing that speech evolved in humans, as with the rest of our “advanced” capabilities, because it was advantageous, it helped us survive. Another reason why there are so many of us living all over the world under many different environmental conditions. Phil
Phil: As I said to Renee:-“neurosis came first then language grew out of our inability to express ourselves100%:-” If I am correct that neurosis came first, then all that follow COULD BE a result (manifestation of it (neurosis).
Wither it is or, not need more that just staying with the singularity.
I find that to be the problem with what is going on with COVID 19. We’v got our eyes glued to a little virus which we know so little of, Yet can’t take out eyes of the little bug-ger. 🙂
Should it destroy the economies of the world I am all for that, then we might quickly realize we actually never needed it … we just thought we did … and therein IS the problem. IMO
Jack
Good point, Vicki. I think the Whiteness proponents can’t really convert true racists so they go after their own – progressive people who are deemed and labeled not anti-racist enough because they won’t go with each and every notion these so-called progressives have, crazy or authoritarian as these may be.
What happened to Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, two professors at Evergreen College, is a good example for this. I’ve been following the two for some time now and have heard vaguely of the events at Evergreen, but only a couple of weeks ago did I see some footage from there. For me it was shocking, very strange – with ceremonies which looked and felt ritualistic – and a good example of the dangers which I wrote about here before of uncritical grievance amplified to the point of overcoming all else, even in academia. Obviously the whole debacle was poorly managed by the President. It’s a three parts YouTube series (about 30 min. each chapter) that tells the story from Weinstein’s and Heying’s point of view. Give it a try.
Thanks, Daniel, I will try the links.
THE LONGING
I long to meet you
In a gentle place
Where my wounded parts
And your wounded parts
Do not need to keep wounding the other
To feel temporary relief from our pain
I long to meet you
In a humanizing place
Where asking the other to own up to their feelings
does not involve demonizing, pathologizing
Or devaluing them
I long to meet you
In a healing place
Where asking the other to take responsibility for their feelings
Involves being vulnerable about our own
I long to meet you
In a growing place
Where we can be open
Wide open
To all that we do not know
About the other
I long to meet you
One day
In a new place
An unfamiliar place
I long to meet you there
Renee,
I hesitated to write this comment, but well, I do care about you so will stick my neck out …
it is in reply to the question at the very end of your last comment to Daniel.
in my perception it is indeed what you are doing.
that is my honest opinion, but actually I also agree with Gretchen that your personal background and history might be more productive as a subject to talk about or to investigate feeling wise.
it is all intertwined probably and might color and blow out of proportion sensitive issues, which is understandable.
I have many colored people in my own family which for me is my own influence in a positive way on the tendency for automatic bias we all invariably have about any group that is unfamiliar in any way.
it is imo an atavistic fear reaction that therefor has deeply ingrained roots that once were adaptive, which we all will have to consciously monitor for ourselves, whether we are white or any other shade of skin color.
it does not only apply to skin color really, even a different accent of our own native language of people from another part of the country can be a trigger for that kind of bis.
M
Renee,
Today I started reading that “long read” article on whiteness, and got the gist of it, but couldn’t make it through, it’s too much for me. I’m wondering why such a focus on this topic?
I have an extended family which is multiracial and multicultural, including Asian, Hispanic, and African members. I don’t think I’m racist and this part of the family that I’m in close contact with is very open and accepting in that regard, they have to be. I really like that about them. Our family gatherings are notable for their diversity.
I’m from a town which was, and I think mostly still is, a white bubble of wealth, although my own family was poor lower/middle class. There was maybe one person of color in my high school graduating class. I was glad to get away and see the real world which was nothing like my town, I don’t want to live in that kind of place again
What went on in my childhood town had a lot to do with class and privilege rather than race. Other races could hardly consider living there. Now, it might be a little different. But in those days, southern, and eastern Europeans, as well as Irish, were the underclass and underprivileged, who were historically looked down upon.
The kids from those privileged and wealthy families mostly went on to have great careers and do very well for themselves. It really helps in life to have highly educated, and wealthy parents. Those people mostly don’t understand that. Of course, race is a whole other level of difficulty to have to overcome in life, I can only imagine what that might be like.
Phil
I spent a fair bit of time in my school district, which was a hardscrabble slave-owning area centuries ago, learning about the injustices done towards non-whites.
Would you like to guess how much attention the school paid towards the economic devastation wrought by automobile traffic collisions?
If you can imagine the number zero, I think we can begin to be on the same page.
So yeah, personally all this talk about race makes me slightly angry and discouraged because we seem to be institutionally trained not to give a damn about other, more invisible issues which can be devastating to members of the community we can’t see.
Drug addiction, guns, cars…stuff that really kills people TODAY.
I’m also annoyed at the idea that, since I did originally come from a ‘privileged and semi-wealthy white family’, the $30 million or more in damages I went through will be ignored and I will generally be viewed as a ‘privileged’ one simply because of a demographic.
I feel a bit like a poor Jewish person still subject to the idea that all Jews are money-grubbers. I suffer a double-whammy: I would be a general target of criticism because of my racial background AND I don’t enjoy the supposed wealth benefits therein which I would be accused of.
I believe the damage done by racists is the root for much of these ills, UG. Or at least some, ” ism,” is. Many statuses attract horrific consequences; colour, being a child, being a senior, being socially and environmentally conscious, poverty….. I believe that any state perceived as a one of helplessness, undefended, invites the bullies to invade, and overpower; parents, politicians,………
Renée,
If you or others find Whiteness to be real and useful as a clinical entity; or that working with this concept in mind does add to your understanding of patients, their pain and suffering; and is helpful in connecting to and expressing their feelings and internal world – then it’s fine with me. It is just that for me it isn’t and doesn’t.
Nor have I found Stovall’s account to be illuminating on this front. For example, she states that, “whiteness is a problematic state of being”, so grave that it “requires immediate intervention”. But although verbose she never really gets around to explaining what is that state of being and why is it so grave. She carries on with equating Whiteness with pathological narcissism. Perhaps this is her description of that state of being – that it is grave because it is pathologically narcissistic. However, she again does so without elucidating just how such an equation contributes, in theory or practice, to the already established idea of pathological narcissism. She does quote in agreement that people with whiteness show, “vulnerability to states of narcissistic decompensation characterized by white shame and rage”, but without distinguishing “white shame and rage” from black or brown or yellow shame and rage (perhaps she’s implying people of color are not known to have or display such feelings or behaviour).
Without such explanations, elucidations, and distinctions we are left with only one extremely generalizing, almost racist, but rather baseless thesis: being white is pathological and dangerous. In this view the field of study itself is also pathological, because in referring to mainstream psychology Stovall writes,
Aside from once again excusing herself from explaining how should we understand a black woman with a cognitive dissonance or an Asian man with malignant narcissism, in her scolding she seems to be completely oblivious – and ironically rather narcissistically – that perhaps the field isn’t “late to the whiteness party” but just doesn’t want to go to that one.
Either my, professional, supplemented by 40 years hands on, learning is flawed; or perhaps all of my First Nations ancestry simply moved to the South Coast of France, similar to Israel having to rescue the occupied / stolen lands because those unreliable Palestinians, without notice, and en mass, deserted their homeland in the middle of the night and joined my ancestors in France, and we made up the stories of the slaughter of 90 million natives, the 60’s – 80’s scoop of native children to be adopted to whites in other Countries and Continents; or that non whites make up the majority of prison reservations; that non whites were housed close to or in dumps, unusable lands, that traffic patterns hide those realities. I have seen the carpetbaggers, they are somewhat colourblind, they will deprive, degrade, and depress, without making colour an absolute requirement, all lesser beings; and even women in their own pay grade/fantasized superiority class. And the well documented continued sterilization of brown women without knowledge let alone consent is another of our untruths. The old fat wealthy white men would like all of those groups, women, non white, poor, disabled to be assigned their place and that they be supervised to stay there. Forbid, forbid, that they all get dragged 3 more feet from the mouths of their caves.
Sounds like you actually agree that racism is a thorough enough term and Whiteness adds nothing substantial, other than turning the mere fact of being white into a pathological and unforgivingly sinful trait.
Funny! Somehow I don’t think David would agree with your interpretation:) Although, technically you are probably correct — being a “carpetbagger” is not necessarily pathological or sinful.
Hmmm… apology… missed the thrust…… no colour has a monopoly on racism, or any bigotry, any behaviour. But our European ancestors made it an art, a blueprint for world domination. It is discouraging that I made this my thesis focus 50 years ago. Whether religion controlled the thuggery or vice versa, they work hand in glove. And it continues.
Margaret and Phil, I posted the article in response to Daniel’s comment that he did not think that issues related to whiteness were issues that were motivating primarily white people to enter therapy. I agreed with him and posted an article that I thought might present an answer as to why this was the case. While it did not surprise me, it’s clear that this idea did not resonate with the white readers of this blog. I get it. I have no problem dropping this subject, especially if it is coming across as thrusting. I do not like it when people try to thrust their ideas on me. Yes, this subject does interest me for many personal and political reasons. I have, and will continue to, reflect on and explore these reasons. However, I am not comfortable doing that on this blog.
Renee,
You don’t have to drop the subject, I’m not asking you to do that, it’s just that I sometimes want to share my reactions. I’m glad you’re with us on the blog, and involved in discussions.
Phil
I appreciate your support, Phil. I know I don’t have to drop the subject and that you are not asking me to. I am choosing to do so. Btw, I liked reading your reactions to whiteness…… and other subjects too.
Well we don’t actually know if these ideas would resonate with black, brown , white or rainbow colored readers. I don’t think it’s the subject matter that is uninteresting but the presentation that is the problem. I’m not sure why you talk about this issue as though you are somehow separate from the problem. Is being white the whole of the problem or is white and male? Did white females discriminate as well ? I’m not saying this to be hurtful but there is something a little arrogant about your approach. As in you are not surprised this stupid population isn’t getting it. I think that was Daniels initial point , that there are many forms of discrimination and there are many within this group who have been damaged. Do we really need to compare damages here ? There are also many who have stood up against those who hurt others with their ignorance. I do believe there are other issues at play here and frankly I don’t think you see the ways in which you separate yourself from others.
I still can’t get over the incredible irony of my dad dying of lung cancer, leaving a full box of face masks and hand sanitizer in his bedroom for casino trips during his last months of life, a scant one year before this entire mess started. Fatal COVID-19 cases mostly revolve around lungs filling with fluid.
So many weird parallels and coincidences between his death and the current disaster I can’t quite ignore; I won’t list them all here, but interestingly enough dad was the most fastidious non-medical professional where hand washing was concerned. He would ALWAYS wash hands before meals, even when I sometimes forget.
It looks like my moderation problem was somehow solved?? Hooray!
Oh that’s great! Maybe Vicki fixed it! G.
I can only say that there is a large single dialog box with my WordPress account info pre-loaded now. Earlier there were three lines requiring an email and account name to be entered, but not anymore for some reason..must be related somehow.
Also, I noticed you didn’t say anything about the unusual coincidences regarding my dad. This made me sad and gloomy, but I realize Fred and I are the only two blog contributors who think there may be more significant synchronicities out there than mere brainless coincidences. I’ve glumly grown used to this blog being atheist city and our being nothing more than hunks of meat who can readily use lowly cooking thermometers on ourselves when checking for fevers.
Guru, Gretchen’s fooling you — I don’t even have the ability to “fix it”. But I had to laugh at your description of “our being nothing more than hunks of meat who can readily use lowly cooking thermometers on ourselves when checking for fevers.” I can’t tell whether you’re being partly serious and partly facetious or joking — so my first thought of response was, “Where’s the violin? I can’t hear it playing!”
Vicki, I’m highly serious about this. A few weeks ago here on the blog I was talking to Phil and Renee (and Gretchen followed up with a related article on the matter) where I explained I felt very sick around January or early February.
For many MANY years I never had a significant fever until I felt sick during those few days with some dry coughing. The fever was high enough to where I reached for a digital cooking thermometer here at home, stuck it in my mouth, and measured 102.4-102.6 degrees. I even called my cousin telling her I am very close to checking myself into a hospital if it goes any higher. Right after the call things subsided and I returned to normal within 24 hours.
Phil believes I likely had COVID-19 myself earlier this year; I really don’t know for sure.
The cooking thermometer seemed very accurate and it was all I had here at home.
I do feel discouraged at the vast majority of people here being materialists. I’ll accept it, but it still discourages me,
I have to be careful when I stick it under my tongue since it does have a sharp point for stabbing a chicken or roast beef.
The vast majority here being materialists–hmm, I usually think of myself as an emotionalist. I see coincidences too but I explain it to myself as the universe harmonizing and say to myself keep on keeping on and enjoy these little things in life. I don’t think much about God except when I was really sick and scared. It’s is comforting in some way to fall back on the faith I grew up with at these times. But my logic tells me that Jonah wasn’t in the belly of a whale and that myths abound from the time of Jesus. No matter. If someone wants to believe in something that brings relief and calm I don’t think anyone here would deny them that or think less of them.
Maybe, that’s the feeling Ug, that you think Janov was so hard-hearted that he would think you were a fool to believe in God. You can have whatever belief you want and still be included in a group, and we don’t have to believe what you wish we did but we can all still be in the same group.
Sylvia, for lack of a better explanation…sometimes I could use a little ‘spiritual’ support. Mysterious things in the universe and all that. It’s hard for me to draw such inspiration from a group mostly formed of materialists. I only say that it’s discouraging for me.
Both of my parents were pretty religious, and I’ve settled on a compromise with that in the face of Janov’s own materialism: My parents went on to another life and Janov didn’t. Poof! Simple as that.
Sylvia: I wonder if it’s a case of tying to make “materialism” a dirty word.
I’s a common practice, as senator McCarthy tried to do with the word “communism”, and is done with, many other words especially the word “fuck” which is just an old Anglo Saxon word for ‘Sexual intercourse’.
Words are not clean or dirty
Not good or bad.
Not rude or polite.
They are simply just words.
I’s merely what we individually, want to attach to them.
Jack
If , ” materialist,” means making material goods my focus, I am not. But I am non theist; that houses my thesis; not a clue how all of the living things, from microbe to human, got here. But when I was 12 I concluded it was not by a divine nod from a god nor winged celestial bodies. Nor do I become deliriously drunk by the flower power theology, that says all is beautiful if I think it so. I call those things defences. Indigenous peoples, like obese people, are known for their great sense of humour; another defence, IMHOIf.
I err then I want to go face to face with the Trump-mold character who allows or causes the abuse and misery for it’s entertainment I survived, that the world’s vulnerable suffers, abuse that is deliberate and calculated by the perpetrators.
You didn’t mention anything about your dad’s relationship with you. Mine was shit.
David, in that case I think it would be best if you went into more detail about your dad. I’m very much at peace in terms of my own relations with my dad and there’s no need for an extensive rehashing. In the end, I felt he deserved a lot more out of life than I alone could give him. His wife’s life was cut short at 30 and she should have been here throughout the rest of dad’s days.
Guru, I loved what Sylvia said to you and I agree. I tend to think maybe you were not so angry at Art’s lack of religious belief after all but rather at somebody else. Any guess who? Gretchen
Mmmm, no??? I admit I wasn’t too crazy about Art’s statement that, “Although the brain is an exquisitely complex organ, it is not mystical.” That statement always bugged me a lot.
I have no problem with non-religious people, as I am not religious, either.
I’m not sure how you came to your conclusion I was mad at somebody else.
I’ve already made peace with it: mom and dad went to another destination completely beyond my understanding while Art…reached a dead end, sorry.
Guru,
I actually remember someone pinning on the PI notice board a caricature showing a “church of the Primal Scream”.
Regardless of what psychological movements proclaim, their development unfolds more as a sociology of religion than a sociology of science.
Daniel, I spent years reading Art’s books in my twenties and became completely immersed in his outlook (Primal Scream, New Primal Scream, Feeling Child, Imprints). Finally, one day I say, “Fucking enough is enough! I need a CLEAN SLATE from one man’s writings overpowering me as the end all be all.”
This is why I went to Vivian’s place.
Yesterday I was reading an interview with Reinhold Messner and how the article described the Dolomites in Northern Italy where he lived. I’ve never had the privilege of going there myself, but just looking at some pictures left me astounded enough to wonder instinctually, “How could such vast beauty arise from absolutely nothing at all? Or rather, something incapable of intending anything at all? Who are we as puny little humans to correctly interpret it as such?”
Well as long as your not angry 🙂 In the meantime give it some thought g.
Nope! Nothing more to think about. Art dissolved into nothingness while mom and dad took on another form which cannot be perceived or understood by us mere mortals. That’s all there is to it. I’m OK with that.
If you and your dad talked on the subject of religion; how did that go?
Sylvia, if you visited my dad’s bedroom, working quarters, and extra storage room you may have been taken aback by the enormous number of books dad had related to all aspects of Catholicism. Physics, mathematics, and other branches of science took an equally prominent role on his bookshelves.
He always was saddened that I am much more materialistic than that, and even on one of his assigned beds dying in the hospital with morphine seeping into his system, “Let God seep into your life…”
During more ordinary times he would still try to have me see a way of life with a God in it. His attitude was healthy on this, though.
When I didn’t have time for it or didn’t want to mess with it, he would largely shrug it off, “OK” and go back to watching his sports games.
He never gave me a hard time at all for never returning to church services when I was 12 years old or so.
As I said many times, he was a very soft and permissive teddy bear. A liberal Catholic letting anyone live the way they wanted to.
Dad’s personal interests and mine never overlapped very well, though I know he was one of the most incredibly capable men out there intellectually.
Even though I have no conscious memories of her, I can definitely understand why my mom picked him out of the crowd and loved him.
I would say he was a soft teddy bear with a seemingly infinite reservoir of intellectual tools and riches to offer anyone who needed his help. After he retired from teaching school a medium-sized crew of professional gamblers depended on his services, as he was able to efficiently apply many different types of high-minded ideals to street-level finance. My biggest concern for him was his talents being monetarily exploited by his crew since he was doing this stuff even into his late seventies.
I joked with Gretchen that Las Vegas is unwittingly having a two-month shutdown in memory of dad.
He does sound like a caring and capable person, for sure. And I can think religion would be a very touchy subject to talk to a parent about, I know it was with mine. But it does not seem like you could have an open discussion or was really heard for what your own thoughts were. It sounds more like a friendly persuasion, perhaps a yearning that you come to believe as he did. You could not help but to be caught between your feelings for him and your own beliefs. Maybe frustration for you for not having your questioning of religion be of value in his eyes. Some discussions are impossible.
So, you are materialistic to some degree, but you are disappointed with Janov’s non-mystical materialism and the general position of non-believers in the group, (of which I am not sure about because I haven’t asked.) But you do say you look for some inspiration of spiritualism.
(A friendly persuasion and yearning from him.)
Sylvia, dad had no problem hearing and understanding what my thoughts were; he simply disagreed with me all the way to his deathbed. There was never any animosity or anger about it, so it was never really too ‘touchy’ as you said.
I was never really that interested in deeply reading religious materials; I just never felt there was much of a point in doing so, though I don’t think death is necessarily the end of all experience.
My own interests are much more crass and basal than dear old dad’s. If you put a philosophical book covering the world’s religions next to a good porn movie, I would be sorely tempted to go with the latter. We were simply two different people that way.
I guess everything is copacetic, then. Porn, huh….
Yeah, uhh…social distancing and all that. I still can’t get over the fact they shut down all gambling in the US almost exactly one year to the day after dad died. (Just two days off)
AND he left behind face masks and hand sanitizer in his bedroom so I didn’t even have to shop for it. Weird.
“Whatever gets you through the night, it’s alright”, and so long as it isn’t hurting someone else.
Guru: This whole religious question is something I have been involved in all my life, starting at a very young age going to Sunday school, then Sunday chapel service every Sunday morning.
When I was in my late teens having to do 2 years of compulsory military service, I joined a group of people (not military) who ran what they called ‘Ms Daniel’s Soldiers home’:- where I pledged to take the Lord Jesus Christ as my own personal savior. In effect, I bought the whole lot of i.t, ‘lock stock and barrel’.
Slowly over the rest of my military service I began to question many things about the Christian faith
and by the end I had rejected it all as I was now reading quite a bit bout psychology.
My mother was very devout right up to her dying day, but my father was somewhat skeptical until the end of his life, when he started to attend a local chapel. As I saw it, ‘just in case’. He sure wanted to join my mother if there was an afterlife.
I, now knowing I am on the last lap of life, still reject the whole religious concept, and see it as a factor of neurosis. Neurosis came first then religion came latter, in an attempt to make sense of life, now, we being neurotic, and not having total access to expressing our feeling AND having amnesiated fro a goodly part of out childhood.
Spirituality as I now sense it, is being totally feeling full. I don’t need any other belief system.
Jack
Everyone: Last night in bed I started to have these convulsive feelings again, as if I was about to scream. I am somewhat afraid to just let it go, as I feel Jim would re-act and try to prevent me from doing it, on some pretext or other … but I feel somehow it’s imminent
The only insight was (if it was an insight) was that it was about my birth and being held upside down by the ankles and then being, put into a nursery to give my mother some rest after 9 hours of labour.
It feels so strong, more than when it used to happen before. However, I am afraid to let it go.
Maybe suggesting Jim is my problem is not truly what is going on with me.
I attempted to have a conversation about it this morning, but I got the feeling Jim was not taking me seriously, but I did plead with him should I go into a screaming bout, he just lets me do it. However, I also am aware that my going into it would bring up similar feeling from his own childhood and thus he wouldn’t be able to help himself … but try to stop me, to the extent of putting a pillow over my face to stop the noise and perhaps smothering me.
I hope I can figure a way out.
Jack
This sounds very painful, Jack……both the feelings and not feeling safe to have them around Jim. I was struck by your last sentence: “I hope I can figure a way out”. Sounds like it could be part of the feeling.
Renee: Yes; ! my hoping to figure it out is also part of the feeling, but meantime, Jim after I’d eaten my dinner come over to take my plate away and I just cried and asked him to be nice to me as It was bad enough going into it … so he put his arms around me and held me for 2 – 3 minutes. That was reassuring, but I’m not sure it’s totally settled, as I am certain it brings up feelings for him, seeing me go into it.
But …………
Meantime, as I was writing this in response to you, my buddy called me after I’d tried to Skype with him and so I had a great session with him, and feel a lot better right no . . . For how long … who knows.
Jack
Renee,
I regret you don’t feel safe enough to write on this blog about your feelings on a personal level.
can you say what you are afraid of?
do you have someone you can talk with or turn to?
how do you feel about the virtual Primal group?
M
Jack,
I would not worry too much about it.
in my own case the ‘wide open mouth’, with or without convulsions, has always been silent so far.
It occurred to me it might be reflecting a stage in the birth canal.
if baby wailing occurs, quite common with me, well, it just sounds like tiny baby wailing…
I always reassure myself with the thought that any neighbor hearing it will assume I have visitors with a very small baby with them.
so no loud adult noises to expect probably.
M
Margaret:: Thanks for the support. Right at this moment that is so important for me.
I had a nap until getting up to check my emails and on waking up I was into these convulsion things again But I just as I suspected. Jim who was at his lap-top suddenly got up and yelled “shut up” I got so angry and said that I knew this was what was going to happen and all he did was insist that I was putting it all on and was so stupid. I cried for the next 5 minutes
I was so angry, sad, and flabbergasted, as to how I might continue to let it all happen, yet not encourage Jim’s wrath. I know, seeing me into all this brings up his old feeling, but there is no way I can tell him that.
I was in tears and some bodily contortion writhing all this while Jim had his back to me. I am certain they are ‘being born feelings’ and all this is now complicated by Jim’s reaction.
One way or another I figure this out, but right now it is leaving me in a weird state. Thanks again Margaret … I really needed that support.
Jack
Jack, that sounds so hard to deal with, having Jim invalidate your feelings like that. That would make me upset, so I make sure to avoid that possibility.
Phil
Phil: Thanks for your support also . I am getting insights when as a young kid I would cry about something or other and my father would say “shut up … or I’ll give you something to really cry about”
The utter madness of it all.
Jack
Jack, if I were you I would figure out a way to wrest control of your money back from your boyfriend. The minute you told us that you allowed Jim control of your finances with no recourse for yourself, all I could think was, “Uh oh, bad news, an exploitative financial relationship here.” It’s a red flag to me.
I didn’t say anything then, but I’ll offer my thoughts on it now.
Guru: That’s fine, and I totally accept the feedback. However what I did with Jim was simply make my American account a joint account. He always informs me when using it.
Our Dutch account is also a joint account, that we set up together. Money isn’t a problem between us. The major one is my feelings for this therapy and how I manage it. Although he did a few sessions with one therapist that worked separately from the institute. he has no interest in it.
However, we do talk about our respective childhoods and he really wishes that he’d met my mother. He did meet my father.
Jack
Jack, that’s horrible. . After having to give up my primal box I used to sit in my car. Often I wished there was a caring person present.
David: Yes it was … more than awful, but I buddies with my buddy and got most of it out …for the moment , but I’m sure it will return.
Thanks for your support also David.
Jack
Renée,
To continue Margaret and Phil, I think you are missing an opportunity when you never answer, grapple or somehow continue or build on what Gretchen is saying to you here. Whatever she says, it will always include some sort of an invitation for you to explore the issues at hand in a way that might be useful and so has a chance of helping you with things you are struggling with, personally rather than politically. For example, in her last two comments Gretchen has pointed to possible inner meanings for “discrimination”, “separating oneself”, “black and white”, and “prejudice”, and also mentioned “arrogance” and “condescension”. From previous comments I would add “oppression”. All these words have something in common – they separate things and people, and psychologically they separate states of minds and inner parts of the self from each other.
I think part of you knows something about, even resonates with, what Gretchen is talking about because interestingly your heartfelt poem was just about that – The Longing to connect, to undo separation. The poem also suggests a way out: by finding, re-finding, or creating a “place” for love (that which connects), an external place with other people but to my mind also an internal one, and doing so by either clearing that same space of that which separates or finding a way the two can cohabit.
Daniel, it sounds like you are very interested in analyzing me. And at no charge. This is very generous of you! But I will decline. Unfortunately, your analyses do not resonate with me.
Your interpretation of my poem was interesting to read. One of the things I like about writing poetry, which I occasionally do, is that it allows me to express myself in a different way than I usually do. I find this helpful. But like John Lennon found out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_tYKZ9Mx8g — see first 2 min.), and I’ve posted before, everyone interprets songs/poems in their own way, that might have little to do with what the writer intended. I was actually writing about some relationships I’ve had with people I’ve loved, where I’ve ended up hurting them and being hurt by them. And the hurting and being hurt almost always involving finding the fault and the problem in the OTHER person. Rather than taking the risk of showing vulnerability. The poem was inspired by your trying to “get me to take responsibility”, and “own up” to what you think my issue/pathology/problem is. I did not want to respond likewise and contribute to the “blame game”, which I am quite skilled at. Here is an example of how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZWf2_2L2v8 (Brené Brown on Blame. 3.25 min), So I wrote the poem instead. I am very aware of what you trigger in me, some of which I have written about here in the past. Are you aware of what I trigger in you?
Today, first time in years, I argued a point. Nothing important at all. Just two guys referring to my friend, died at 104, who professionally was, MD, a surgeon and a Dr of Osteopathy. He surrendered his surgical specialty when his medical association demanded that or have his wife close their Health Food Store in Boston. But that’s an aside. These guys referred to him as a Chiropractor. I have great respect for Chiropractic. But he was not. They insisted and I put a cap, by authority of my personal knowledge, on it. And afterward, at least not yet, I felt no insecurity, for being unmovable. I must confess feeling a bit of, ” fuck you,” in stating my position. Does anyone think that’s always uncalled for, childish ?
David: responding to your last line … I don’t think so … better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick
Maybe that one was uncalled for … WTF
Jack
Hi Everyone: It seems there is nothing on the news except this pandemic which is closing down the economies all around the globe and causing widespread chaos.
Is there something wrong with this virus, OR is there something wrong with economics. I contend both.
Yet we do everything in our power as nations to keep it all stable, yet there is actually NO stability … as this pandemic is beginning to reveal
Me-thinks, maybe I had a point when suggesting we abolish money. The chaos couldn’t be worse than it already is … yeah?
Couldn’t resist that one. Anyone else got a take on the whole virus thing?
Jack
Jack,
This new Corona virus is killing a lot of people and causing chaos, but I think after a few years or more ,things will return to the way they were before. People will have immunity from being infected or being vaccinated.
The economies of the world will eventually recover after a lot of damage has been done. It won’t compare to the Spanish flu in in 1918 – 1920, which killed over 50 million people. I don’t think much changed because of that.
Of course this pandemic is a big news story because our lives are being disrupted and we are scared of getting covid-19.
But I think a larger crisis caused by climate change is already happening and over many years will be getting much worse. If you want something to worry about, that would be it.
Phil
I agree. And it’s not just climate change. The change of the entire biosphere taking place, including shocking species die off due to impossibly too many of us making impossibly too much demand on earth’s resources is the much larger, dangerous crisis.
What is your impression of how bad the pandemic crisis is in New York Phil? Are the hospitals as overloaded with COVID19 cases as the news makes it seem to be.
Larry, You’re right, it’s not just climate change. The pandemic is leveling off in New York; the number of hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid19 seem to have peaked and are slowly coming down, so that’s hopeful, but it has been bad and a lot of people are still dying. The hospitals are filled with Covid patients but I don’t think terrible life and death decisions have had to be made, as to who will be treated or not, as has happened in Italy and Spain. The governor of NY and mayor of NYC are doing a good job, in my opinion.
Phil
Larry, climate change and environmental destruction are overlapping and interrelated issues, which, I think, are both linked to over population. I find it very sad what’s happening to the natural living environment. Climate change directly threatens us because of rising see levels and dangerous weather conditions. I think, in general, the public relates less to the issue of environmental destruction, as it’s continuous and it seems like we can live with that. But I’m not sure we can. I’m sad for everything that’s being lost because of its intrinsic value, and I wonder if we can survive in a world where most other life forms are extinct. Phil
Larry,
an update to this question. New York hospitals have had a critical shortage of kidney dialysis machines and supplies which is covid-19 related, and has caused some patients to be denied proper treatment.
Phil
Phil: Although my reply is to you, I am really trying to make a larger point about what I feel is actually taking place.
It’s not the virus per se, or the climate, or economics … IMO. It’s that overall problem that brought us all together. “NEUROSIS” If I am correct when I stated that COVID 19 rides on the back of neurosis and I contend (though I cannot prove) if we were not neurotic then this pandemic would not be killing many and making others sick and overwhelming the medical profession, AND WORST OF ALL, us wanting to get back to that disastrous state we’ve been in since ‘Godo knows when’. Godo from the play “Waiting for …. by Beckett. Not the other ‘pie in the sky’.
Neurosis is the killer and it’s been biding it’s time to strike and now it has struck IMO, and we don’t know what the fuck ‘hit us’. (Yes! there’s a factor of my anger in there at our current situation)
It is this culmination of all these factors we’ve been living with for (my guess) 20,000 – 30,000 years, now all culminating in this ‘last gasp’ of humanity.
I actually wish I could find a larger forum to express all this … BUT due to something within me (my neurotic cookie that crumbled this way) I seem unable to reach for.
Any feed-back to this, from anyone, would be welcome.
Jack
Jack,
according to your theory, New York City must be badly infested with neurotics, as is Italy,and Spain. The corona virus is also finding a lot of neurotics in France and UK, including Boris Johnson, but Germany and China appear to be relatively mentally healthy. The pandemic could actually achieve your goal of eliminating neurosis around the world.
Phil
I like your response to Jack, Phil. I would only add that, according to Jack’s logic, it seems New Zealand is the least neurotic country, with only 19 deaths (and 1,472 confirmed cases, 1,214 recovered) as of 2 days ago. They are cautiously optimistic that they have eliminated the virus in NZ. However, if I had their Prime Minister for a mother, I doubt I would be neurotic. Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMA6Gz82iiQ (Jacinda Ardern hosts coronavirus Q&A from home after putting child to bed.)
Renee: You xay:- “, according to Jack’s logic, it seems New Zealand is the least neurotic country, with only 19 deaths (and 1,472 confirmed cases, 1,214 recovered) as of 2 days ago.”
As far as I see my own logic, it is not the way you are characterizing it Renee, but then perhaps I am a very illogical person.
Permit me to go through my logic:- Any nation, city or family that is able to keep away form the virus will have fewer deaths and fewer people catching the virus. In other words it’s incumbent on their ability to keep away from all possibilities of catching it, NOT just how neurotic they are..
Seemingly New Zealand has done a good job of keeping the nation free from exposure.
That I said:- COVID 19 rides on the back of neurosis is a whole other factor. As I read you, you’re trying to connect my statement about COVID 19 riding on the ‘back of a donkey’ 🙂 with a nation that somehow managed to keep away from being affected … by the virus
It is just this kind of word arguments; I feel is:- ‘talking past one another’. Politicians do it a lot.
I call it the “lazy dog syndrome”, that I’ve posted on here before.
However your liking Phil response to me is your prerogative … I have no quarrel with that.
Jack
Oh, okay, Jack. I think I’m understanding what you’re saying here. Earlier you stated that, “If I am correct when I stated that COVID 19 rides on the back of neurosis”. I think one possible way to test if there might be some truth to this hypothesis would be to administer the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) to those who have tested positive for the virus. I don’t think this is being done anywhere in the world but it would be interesting if it was. Although, this test only explores childhood experiences that put one at risk for neurosis, not factors that protect one against neurosis, like having a grandparent who loves you, a teacher who understands and believes in you, or a trusted friend you can confide in.
Renee: You might well be understanding me better now, but to suggest that I need to test my idea, theory, notion is not what I feel is necessary at all.
Everything, it seems, needs to be tested with some studies and I am not sure these studies are revealing that much. I see agendas behind a lot of the studies and that for me, is not reassuring. I see just this happening with this virus that is causing a lot of panic.
You can either take my theory that this virus is riding on the back of neurosis and rate it or question it and that is fine.
However, I feel you are proposing a study, such that it might give me some validity. I don’t find that useful, especially in my world where everything is rated by feelings … be it here and now or old feelings.
For myself, if some idea is proposed to me that hitherto had not occurred to me, I try as best I can, to look into it. That is all If I read of someone that considered my idea and then after some consideration dismisses it, and tells me why; I find that a valid discussion.
It is the trying to prove me wrong and not giving it a reasonable reason, gives me the urge to pursue my case.
The overall feeling about this pandemic is panic. And government tying to cover their arse when initially they passed it off, hoping it would go away. Now that it did not happen, they seem to opt for the blame game. Hoping their voters buy their reasoning’s. That’s politics, and it’s never going to change
Jack
Phil: read my earlier post to Renee. You are now doing the very same thing characterizing my theory.
Try another one.
Jack
Jack, statistically the Corona virus is hitting certain people harder, the elderly, those with chronic conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes, and men, but there are plenty of exceptions. I’m sure being mentally healthy helps but I wouldn’t count on it as protection against any infectious diseases. My theory is even if we were all non-neurotic we would still be susceptible to all the diseases which plague us now, but maybe in somewhat lower numbers. We haven’t been exposed to this Corona virus previously, that’s why it’s turned into a pandemic. It’s like when European colonists brought smallpox to the new world and may have brought syphylis back to Europe.
Jack,
A related interesting question for you, if pigs were mentally healthier and non-neurotic, would there be less bacon and sausages available for us to eat?
Possibly.
if humans were able to recognize it … which I feel right now, they are not capable.
So eat your bacon all you wish.
Jack
Jack, being non-neurotic probably wouldn’t get pigs out of their predicament, that humans find pig meat tasty and eat a lot of it. Same with us; improving our mental health won’t solve all our problems. Phil
In fact, almost every part of a pig is eaten other then the bones, all the cuts of meat, ears, tails, feet, many of the internal organs, blood is made into blood sausages, etc. Considering the problem they have should have us feeling a little better.
Phil
Phil: I cited recently about a debate we had at school set up by the English teacher:- “Better to be a Socrates wise, than a little pig content”. I argued against the motion, and still would. The Pig is relatively content (compared to most of us humans) as best I am able to see their feelings. right up until the moment their throat is cut in the process of slaughter.
It sounds like you think you know what life is like for a pig. You don’t and couldn’t … and neither could I.
Jack
Phil: Of course not all, but at least 95% of em … I reckon.
Jack
Well hey, I have my own crazy theories, too! I once explained to Gretchen & a couple friends that a man’s outrage is inversely proportional to his penis size. It’s very difficult to study something like this because you have to control for ALL external anger-inducing triggers to make everything else equal.
Guru: Great theory … perhaps that accounts for my outrageous anger.
Jack
Haha, well again something like that is extremely difficult to study because you have to control for ALL external aggravating factors. A ‘tiny’ man in a great neighborhood might still exhibit less anger than a ‘giant’ man in a bad neighborhood.
Anyway, I got some laughs out of it.
Jack, Have you read, ” Emerging Viruses, ” Dr Len Horowitz, a former head of the US Fed Dep’t of Health; or the statements by leading CDC, and WHO scientists on inputs being fiddled with at CDC to create false outcomes. ”
Dr. William Thompson recently brought his case to Republican Florida Rep. Bill Posey.
“A whistleblower came to our office, Dr. William Thompson. He came forward with documents, saying that CDC had manipulated one of the studies he was leading scientist , and an author, on, to get a desired outcome,” Posey spokesman George Cecala, “The study was in relation to vaccines and their relationship to autism.”
“We’re working with the Science Committee to get a hearing,” Anna said. “What we’re talking about is integrity within an agency. It’s rightfully under the purview of the Science Committee.”
Republican House Science Committee chairman Rep. Lamar Smith did not respond to an inquiry about when the hearing might happen, or if it will still go forward amid the current national controversy.
Thompson gained official whistleblower immunity months ago. The Department of Justice fruitlessly referred TheDC to the whistleblower ombudsman within the Department of Health and Human Services, which adjudicates CDC employees’ whistleblower protection claims.
David: No I have not read Dr Len Horowitz All these studies and departments of health are really pushing their own agenda and will be the case while we live with MONEY It dominates our lives, our choices and actions in so many ways, and we little realize it. We are not aware of it because we’ve come to accept that it IS the major part part of our lives . All these factors are ‘part and parcel’ of one huge bundle, they are all tied up together in one bundle. YET we persist in separating it all for the very reason we are not able to take in the whole … so we brake it down into separate components in order to mentally grasp it.
All we need to do is feel it … and bypass the thinking.
Then … in a very strange way try to piece it all the pieces back into something that at least is comprehensible.. One of the position I questions is. Why do we pull it all apart only to try and piece it all back together again and in the process fail to do so … but are unwilling go acknowledge it.
The medical profession is all ‘hell bent’ on doing just this. I must have watched 40 Medical doctors on TV thee last few days. They may sound learned to the ‘average Joe’, but to anyone trying to get the head round the whole thing they are talking medical gibberish
Sorry if my response is somewhat convoluted and long winded, … but the whole CONID 19 is way off tack IMO
Jack
Imagine having a thousand dangerous criminals crammed like sardines. Pictures are grim, but not violent. (El Salvador)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8258201/El-Salvador-ignores-social-distancing-jailhouse-lockdowns-nation-sees-22-murders-day.html
Guru,
Wpw, that’s crazy, I wonder if they’re all proven criminals are just accused.
Guru, a few corrections to my last comment: Wow that’s crazy! I wonder if they’re all proven criminals or just accused of crimes.
Phil, there’s a lot to unpack from those pictures. They were a grim reminder of how cheap, common, and easily expendable our lives are in a gritty world even though Janov has professed that those growing beyond mental neuroticism appreciate the ‘preciousness of life and the sanctity of living things’.
It would not surprise me in the slightest if there are a bunch of innocents in the mix, yet worth mentioning there are likely many cold-blooded killers who wouldn’t hesitate to kill your family if their gang leader ordered them to do it. I can easily imagine some of the innocents there confessing to crimes under duress for a wide variety of reasons including threats of death against their families if they did not take the punishment for a crime they didn’t commit, etc.
I do know someone who had a housekeeper from El Salvador. They grew to be friends and he would visit her home on vacation every few years after she returned home from the US. One day he received a call from the lady’s brother giving the news that the lady had her home invaded and she was killed by a gang (similar to as shown in those pictures) because she didn’t pay extortion. Extorting cab and bus drivers, merchants, and vulnerable households is commonplace in several Central American countries.
Those pictures are showing a gross human rights violation, not to mention being a highly-dangerous thing to do in a COVID-19 era. Even in more socially-distant American jails the virus is running rampant.
Renée,
I’ve written before about some of the personal reasons that may play a part in feeling I have to confront you. However, this explanation is only partial. To this I would add that I have children and so an interest in the future, the kind of world I will leave behind for them and the chances they have for a good life. Unfortunately, I fear that they will be worse-off than I am. (I’m not alone: 64% in Europe and 60% in the US believe the same. This is unprecedented, ominous, and probably a major factor in the current crisis of the western democracies.) My concern is compounded by the fact that my son is autistic and so will need even more support which most likely my wife and I will be able to ensure only partially, if at all, when we won’t be around.
Having children, and the children I personally have, has also reoriented me in important ways, one of which was to recognize and understand the value of moderation and the dangers inherent in extremes, in intolerance. So, I oppose intolerant ideologies and regret the expansion of intolerant and extreme communities. I actively resist them when far-right (Patrick) and I actively resist them when far-left (you). This is my own effort to contribute a bit of moderation to the world, and I do it in places I care about. The PI is one such place.
Even though in many ways you entice us to do otherwise I will respect your wishes not to be exposed to my impressions of you or your blog interactions. I will reserve those to your politics alone. But before I cease let me say that you need not accept what I say or – and this was the main point in my comment – what Gretchen is saying. I don’t need you to understand. On the contrary: superstand, overstand, parastand – anything but understand, just do something with what is said.
Really Renée, it feels like it’s more important for you to say ‘No’ to me (or to Gretchen) than to say ‘Yes’ to yourself.
Daniel, thanks for writing this. I appreciate it. It is a good reminder for myself that whenever I point a finger at someone, I always have two pointing back at myself. If I deny any sides of myself, I will be compelled to project those sides onto others and then judge them and get invested in getting them to change. Or, to you use your words, to get them to “do something”. So, when I challenge others’ intolerance (successfully or unsuccessfully), I need to actively work on staying aware of my own. Otherwise, it all too often becomes a case of “whatever gets repressed gets expressed”.
I had to smile when I read your last sentence. It reminded me of that good old Jewish guilt! My mother, to this day, believes there is nothing wrong with it. 😃
Renee: I am not sure what either Daniels meant by:- “Really Renée, it feels like it’s more important for you to say ‘No’ to me (or to Gretchen) than to say ‘Yes’ to yourself.”.
Nor the reply to that specific line, of what Gretchen meant either.
Unless it’s one of those Jewish ‘in-jokes’
I remember while working at a London West End Theatre. Some Jewish charity booked the theatre for one Sunday evening. During the interval I went through the auditorium for some purpose or other, and many groups were cracking joke that were obviously ‘in jokes’ to them, that I didn’t understand at all.
Gay groups tend to do the very same thing, which I know irritates straight people as they see it as playing an insider game.
Jack
Daniel: It is my feeling that Renee IS reflecting it back upon herself.
I don’t personally think it requires more explanation, but I’ll give that a second thought.
Interesting about your boy and being autistic … that’s sad. Do you have any idea about how that may have come about? I would sure be very interested in your idea about that. Also, what is your feeling/s about circumcision. Should you not wish to answer the last question I will totally accept.
Having children does put a whole other perspective on life, and that is one is one of the things, being gay, I missed out on My brother having had 3 children often spoke to me about it.. I see it, as of now, that one gains something, but loses something else. I doubt there’s a way of reflecting on the gains against the losses
Only now nearing the end of life do I see the potential of children both in terms of leaving ones possessions to them and perhaps even them taking care of me, on my last day and hours.
Jack
Jack, you’re right. I am reflecting on what Daniel wrote back upon myself. I’ll write more about that later.
I had a couple of reactions to your sad reaction of Daniel sharing that his son was on the autistic spectrum. Firstly, it brought to mind Greta Thunberg calling her autistic spectrum diagnosis (ASD) as her “super-power”. From seeing her and her parents speak about it, I didn’t get the sense that any of them saw her diagnosis as sad. Secondly, it reminded me of a book I read when I was a teenager called “Son-Rise: The Miracle of Love” by Barry Neil Kaufman. The author wrote about how he helped his son with ASD by rejecting the predominant behavioral methods, which force kids with ASD to come into our world, and instead found ways to enter his son’s world. I remember being so moved by this book. It led me to working with kids with ASD when I was an undergraduate student many years ago. Talking of sad, I was left feeling very sad to see how behavioral the methods still were. Maybe ASD treatments have become more humane over the years.
Renee: Interesting. I checked with Jim what autistic actually was and he said there were variations from severe to mild and it’s being in another world; and then said I was mildly autistic with my obsession about wanting things to be precisely one way or another.
Some time ago my youngest sister who is dyslexic also said I too was dyslexic with my inability to spell correctly.
Conclusion:- I’m dyslexic and autistic … “in other words I’m a fucking mess” then we both laughed
Jack
Jack, that is interesting that Jim thought you could be on the autism spectrum. My oldest brother was on it, and I believe it was called Aspergers. He got teased a lot for his obsessiveness. He could not let go of an idea no matter the opposition. Talking about taxes and the IRS here, he was passionately against any government interference. I can see how that grew out of his mistrust and defiance of authority from how he saw my mom. He was obsessive about religion too and talked about it all the time to the point of alienating even those who cared about him. He was born premature and when he was about 3 yrs old, mom said he stopped talking and would just grunt and point until she coaxed him to speak if he wanted something. He was intelligent and could fix anything mechanical. We all teased him about being lazy and not being a go-getter beings he seemed so talented at fixing things. Anyways, I think many of us are obsessive in one way or another. The neurotic world even more so.
Sylvia: I agree. Being obsessive is not the main problem, as long as one knows one is obsessive. It’s when we’re in denial of that it becomes a problem.
Jack
I think obsessiveness can still be a problem even if we know that we are obsessive and don’t deny it. It depends on how much it affects other parts of our lives. And whether or not we can listen to others about it.
Sylvia: you have a point. i will think about that one.
Jack
Jack,
My son had a difficult beginning. First, the doctors told us not to get used to the pregnancy, because my wife was showing several ominous signs that she was gravely ill. Only when she was about 5-6 months pregnant, on the day she was scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy, the hematologist announced he had found the reason for all her signs and it wasn’t a grave illness and that we could relax. By the way, he found it by personally looking at her blood under a microscope, something which is rarely done these days.
My son was born by a scheduled c-section and had difficulties breast feeding. He also had reflux and we had to give him a medication each feeding. It was bitter, he didn’t like it, and I hated administering it, but we followed the doctor’s advice for fear acid will damage his esophagus. Recently that medication (Zantac) has been taken off the market because it was found to have an association with the development of cancer. At age 11 months or so his reflux was over. In hindsight, both – my wife’s hematological and my son’s gastrointestinal interventions – should have and could have been avoided.
It would be tempting to think that my son’s autism is the result of all these difficulties. Perhaps this is so. However, my wife’s side of the family has autism in it, which lends some weight to hereditary factors, and there are children who are born into much greater difficulties and do not have autism. So nobody knows for sure. No matter how advanced we (humans) get in our knowledge life and existence are at bottom still mysterious.
As for circumcision, we had this discussion several years ago. If you begin here and then this second comment, a third comment, and finally a fourth one I think you will get the gist of what I feel about it, or at least what I felt back then. You can also follow on the same page the entire discussion on the topic.
Daniel, I found this moving to read. Where on the autism spectrum would you son be?
Daniel: Thanks for answering my question/s. The story about your son is devastating to me, so what that does to you and your wife must be dreadful even though you’ve been dealing with it for years.
I have spent some time thinking about your comment before I responded, but it does leave me with a lot of feelings, not only about your situation, but about the bigger picture that it poses.
I do have to confess that I find circumcision to be a gross imposition upon a baby, since the baby has no choice on the matter, even though it his body. That parents have such control of their babies and and children is the factor I dwell on a great deal. Whether my sexual orientation has much to do with it, or how much of my own childhood is involved. at this moment I am not quite sure about, but I will explore that thought..
As for the problem of his being able to care of himself after you and your wife are gone is also another matter of concern to you. There are moves now to take care of such people after their initial caretakers are gone, but that is also not particularly re-assuring either..
One thing did occur to me; and that would it be possible for you to sort of give him primal type therapy at some stage and, hopefully, give him a chance to re-live and to some extent repair himself? Perhaps you’ve already thought about all this.
Meantime, take care Daniel, and best wishes for you and your whole family.
Jack
So Renee you are not really thanking Daniel but rather saying “ same to you but more of it!” . Better to say that. G.
I always thought of guilt as being mostly a Catholic burden???
Sorry to disappoint you, superstar guru. Btw, do superstar gurus carry guilt too? How about regular gurus?
Renee, I’m having so much trouble approaching your question. It’s far too open-ended in scope for me to nip away at the edges of a possible answer. Gurus such as myself are oftentimes burdened by such vast collages of potential answers to huge questions such as yours.
The IRS questions with Phil were much easier to work with since they are much narrower in scope, answering a specific need.
I will say I have long been under the impression that Jewish people are less burdened by self-recriminating guilt overall than Catholics. Such a mindset has the advantage of allowing yourself to achieve greater things for society than most others, with the potential cost of committing financial crimes or ethically questionable acts with more impunity. Probably a mistaken impression on my part, though.
Superstar guru, it sounds like you have answered my question. Rather than being burdened with guilt, you gurus get burdened by “vast collages of potential answers to huge questions”. This makes sense. Except that I would’ve thought that this would be a problem for regular gurus, not super star gurus:)
Guru; you say:- “I have long been under the impression that Jewish people are less burdened by self-recriminating guilt overall than Catholics”.
That has not been my experience.
When I was doing the 12 step program for Sex Compulsive Anonymous, (SCA) I found that it swa the Jewish guys that seemed to b e most bothered about the sexual orientation than any other group. But then that was just that one group I attended for 3 or 4 years.
Jack
Jack, when I was fooling around in Minnesota bookstores in 1994 and came across Janov’s first book, I ran into another interesting book as well.
A little pocket-sized book entitled, “Money is my Friend” by Phil Laut
What made this book interesting is the following Primally-related passage therein:
BIRTH EXPERIENCE
“Birth was a confusing event that marked the end of a nine-month period of
relaxation in the womb. In the womb, the energy which built your body in the first
place flowed uninhibitedly, all of your needs were met without your doing anything,
and life had a sense of timelessness and oneness about it. Birth was your first
social experience, that is the first experience you had with people that you could
see. The conclusions that you made about life at birth are important to know about
and to change in developing a prosperity consciousness. Almost everyone learned
how to breathe after the umbilical cord was cut. This means that breathing was
learned in fear and panic of death. For this reason almost everyone breathes less
than fully and freely. Breath is the connection between the visible and the invisible.
Breath is the connection between the God within and the God without. Breathing is
the activity that we do the most of. Mastering your breath is an eminently practical
thing to do whether you would like to increase your income or not. Solitude is
joyous if you are breathing fully and freely. If you are not, then solitude becomes
loneliness and distressing because the lack of distraction allows the struggle
required for you to breathe to come to your attention.
I want to suggest a simple exercise so that you can get an idea of the power of
your breath. Lie down in a relaxed position and close your eyes. Take twenty even
medium-speed breaths in and out through your mouth being careful to connect the
inhale with the exhale and the exhale with the inhale in a continuous rhythm. Then
take four long, easy breaths. Then back to the twenty medium-speed breaths as
before and so on. A few minutes of this exercise will give you a hint of the pleasure
and power inherent in your breathing. The pleasure is probably more than you can
imagine, unless you try it.
The essence of the birth experience is unexplained emotions. Said another way; it
is the confusion between love and pain. This confusion manifests in people’s lives
with the idea that it is possible to suffer enough to earn bliss. If you think you can
struggle enough to earn bliss, you are a bit like the ancient pagans who thought
they could prevent earthquakes by sacrificing goats. The trouble with this way of
thinking is that it produces eternal anxiety, because no one ever comes along to tell
you that you have sacrificed enough goats. Struggling for money is the financial
manifestation of this way of thinking.
As you begin to unravel significant events in your personal history — the events
surrounding birth and parental conditioning, you will discover that the events are
not the important things. The events, no matter how terrifying, are over and done;
they are in the past. Resolving our suppressed feelings and uncovering the ideas
and rules about life that we made as a result of these events is the important thing.
The tendency is to keep operating on these unconscious rules until they are
consciously changed.”
This book came out around 1979, which was a full 2-3 years before Janov’s birth imprint book!
And the book is almost ALL ABOUT MONEY!!!
Amazon link. It’s a very small book, actually. I remember it well.
Damn, can’t make the URL work correctly. Sorry for the broken links. Anyway, I got a kick out of this little pocket sized book since it discusses feelings and birth while so heavily emphasizing something Jack wants to abolish.
Gjuru: thanks for your feed-back.
I take it that this is a quote from that little book:- “how to breathe after the umbilical cord was cut. This means that breathing was learned in fear and panic of death. For this reason almost everyone breathes less than fully and freely” Which ever way, I TOTALLY refute that breathing is learned after the umbilical cord is cut. Read “Birth Without Violence” by Frederic LeBoyer MD.
Accordingly:- Breathing comes instinctively and naturally even when the cord is left alone and not cut. Once the baby starts to breath the umbilical cord just withers and if left alone most of it will just drop away, the rest shrivels and becomes what we have now … a belly button.
On the money front and the book you cited:-] “Money is my Friend” by Phil Laut. The book I read was “The Seven Laws of Money by Micheal Philip (who ran the Whole Earth Catalog foundation, handling huge amounts of money); and co- authored by a tramp that went by the name of Jug ‘a Candle.
On the question about breathing. I spent my 20’s learning about diaphragmatic breathing in order to become a better speaker, a la acting. Then later I attended for over a year The Alexander Technique on the use of the self, that included breathing in depth, once the bodily posture is corrected. I practice the Alexander technique to this very day, especially now on aging where there is the tendency to slouch.
Meantime, thanks again for your suggestions I will think them over.
Jack
We learned yesterday that my wife’s aunt has passed away. She had covid-19, and then recovered, tested negative, but was still in the hospital in Spain. It seems to me that the virus weakened her and led to her death. At the end she didn’t want anymore aggressive treatments, she was 88. I feel very sad about all this, although I wasn’t really close to her. I also feel sad to have to tell my sons.. The feeling is I want everything to be perfect for them, and that they don’t have to go through the loss of any family members. Of course, I can’t control things, but that’s the feeling. My wife’s uncle survives and we are worried about him. He’s a real character who everyone loves. He’s disabled in a wheelchair. He has always taken a strong interest in me, and encouraged me to drink a lot of wine, but I didn’t really do that. He says he drinks wine “the same like breathing air”. He even puts it in his coffee. It’s true you can’t notice it having any effect on him.
Phil
Phil: Sounds like now would be a good time to talk to uncle-in-law as much as you possibly can? (you likely figured this out already) I wonder if having your sons involved in such a project would be a good thing to do?
Jack & Renee: I will have to respond to you a bit later when I have more time for it.
Phil,
that is sad news…
Guru\s suggestion sounds like it might be a good idea, your wife’s uncle might like it a lot to hear you all.
maybe with a glass of wine at hand…
M
Guru,and Margaret,
maybe, but I wasn’t looking for solutions for any problem, just sharing how I’m feeling.
Phil
Phil, yeah maybe it was wrong for me to give unsolicited advice. Reading your post made me feel helpless and I had to reclaim some power for myself in a selfish way.
Sorry for what’s going on. This year is very weird and depressing.
My deceased dad received a $1,200 stimulus check today. I closed all his bank accounts last year, and the IRS had his bank information. I have to assume the electronic money bounced back to the government and they sent a paper check as a result
Some people are saying, “Keep the money, it was not written specifically in the CARES act that dead people are barred from stimulus checks”, while Steve Mnuchin came out and said we should send it back. Mixed messages to deal with there.
Guru,
it can be disturbing getting mail for dead people. It happened with both my parents. My father continued receiving Publishers Clearinghouse “checks” for many years, until they finally gave up.
Phil
I’m not disturbed by this at all 🙂 Should I keep or not?
“You’re not supposed to keep that payment,” (Treasury Secretary) Mnuchin said. “We’re checking the databases, but there could be a scenario where we missed something, and yes, the heirs should be returning that money.”
But Nina Olson, former head of the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an internal IRS watchdog argued that beneficiaries of the deceased are not legally required to return the funds, adding that relatives of deceased recipients of stimulus money in 2010 kept the money.
Somebody needs to ask Mnuchin directly to his face, “Are beneficiaries LEGALLY REQUIRED to return the money?”
Mnuchin’s usage of the phrase ‘should return the money’ is exploting his position for bullying psychology if it’s truly not legally required.
Guru,
I wouldn’t cash it. They’re not worried about you, they just want to stimulate the economy.
None of them would care if you went to prison.
Nina Olson, the founder of the Center for Taxpayer Rights and former taxpayer advocate for the IRS, questioned whether the Treasury Department had the power to compel people to return the payments, which are technically a tax credit. Olson cited text of the CARES Act, which says when people file in 2020 the amount of the credit cannot be adjusted “below zero,” to argue the IRS would face an uphill battle trying to force people to pay it back.
“It may be the IRS made a mistake by making the payment to a deceased person. It can certainly ask folks to give the money back. I don’t see the legal authority for adjusting it on the 2020 return,” she told USA TODAY.
Most of the stories shared on social media involved a taxpayer who filed a joint return the same year their spouse died. Normally, that taxpayer would be eligible to file jointly for that year and would not have to file as an individual until the following year. Widows and widowers who do not remarry and have at least one dependent can continue to file jointly for up to two more years.
“I don’t see where the CARES Act says dead people are ineligible. It does say estates are ineligible, but estates are a separate taxpayer,” Olson said. “The law says to pay the advance based on the taxpayer’s 2018 or 2019 return, and then reconcile based on the 2020 return.”
Last week, IRS spokesman Eric Smith told The Washington Post that surviving spouses may not have to return the funds under certain circumstances.
“We are aware of all the various issues involving surviving spouses and other heirs and are still working on them,” Smith told The Post.
Olson stressed that Mnuchin said heirs “should return” the money in the Wall Street Journal interview.
“That’s a far distance from saying, the IRS will assess and collect against you,” she said.
Guru, Maybe keeping it has very little risk. I don’t think they’re looking hard at who gets it. Many people are getting money who don’t need it. My wife and I are still working, and so can’t claim to need it, but were of course keeping it.
We got a letter yesterday signed but Trump , which I think was the main reason it went out,, bragging about the stimulus checks. That went straight to the recycling bin.
Phil
Guru: If we were; as a global society, to cut out this ‘middle man’ called ‘money’ we might see there is little need for stimulus, or recessions, depressions poverty, greed, competitive business, advertising, tax collecting, on and on and on and all the other trapping related to money.
Further, the amount of energy needed to keep this money ball rolling, is more than all the energy required to supply all of our human needs. Yes! for all humans on the planet.
I cannot prove it, but I can explore the idea and have been doing just that, for more than 60 years.
In your own particular case, all the energy you expend on searching for way to become rich … sadly even if you became rich I doubt it would make you any happier. I had the same discussion with Patrick who had a lot by normal standards, but he was no happier for it.
Money; and having it, is a false promise. I see the likes of Bill Gates and Mike Zuckerberg as putting on front of happiness, but peeping under their fronts (not easy) they don’t seem that much different to the ordinary Joe on the street.
Jack.
Jack,
receiving the stimulus money gave me a warm feeling inside, it made me happier for at least a moment or two.
Phil
I think government stimulus checks should be artistically designed as a baby’s soft wool security blanket with the edges of the check being actual border weaving thread work you would see on a real-life baby blanket.
Having a picture of balloons and a teddy bear on blank area of the check would also help give us citizens a nice, warm, and fuzzy feeling inside that mommy and daddy government will save us from the wolf at the door.
Guru: Ahh1 that mythical ‘wolf’ at the door. Have you ever met it?
Jack
Phil: That giving you a warm feeling inside … for a moment or two is because (as I read you) of the promise … BUT the warm feeling didn’t last that long … so I wonder … was it worth what you had to go through, receiving it and contemplating whether to keep or not?,
I’ve told the story before, about the millionaire I met in Ibiza and looking at him I also did not see any particular happiness. As he stated to me “if I have to think about making money for 2 weeks out of the whole year that is the maximum … to which I replied Yes David, but you spend the other 50 weeks of the year worrying how to spend it. It obviously hit home as he slapped me across the face after I said that.
Jck
Jack,
I didn’t have to go through anything to receive the stimulus money, it deposited automatically into my bank account. I gave no thought at all to giving it back. The warm feeling was because we do need money, but don’t have an acute shortage of it. If I received something I didn’t need, let’s say a supply of rubber baby buggy bumpers, then there would have been no warm feeling inside.
Phil
Guru,
we have an ex-coworker who went to prison for six months for unemployment fraud. She continued to collect it while working. I thought it was a harsh punishment as she is a single mom and basically living in poverty. Big shots get away with thousands and millions of dollars with the help of good lawyers.
Phil
Jack, another response; I don’t mind needing money. It’s simply a unit of exchange which is very useful to facilitate transactions. There’s nothing evil about it, no reason to dislike it. But the government should set stronger policies to fight against the effects of greed, which is a real problem as I see it, not the existence of money.
Phil
Phil: we’ve been fighting greed ever since Jesus turned the tables on the money lenders and we’re still trying to stop greed and the like of you, think governments can do it.
If Jesus couldn’t stop it then no-one can.
The ONLY way to stop greed is by eliminating the very thing that causes it … Yeah?
Jack
Jack,
that would mean eliminating a lot of people, and that wouldn’t be a good thing to do.
Phil
Phil: How cum? I don’t see the connection between eliminating money means eliminating people.
Jack
People will be greedy regardless of money, was my point. You’re all talk Jack, why don’t you take action? Be an example of how money can be eliminated, and maybe others will follow. See what Jim thinks of this idea.
Phil
Phil: you are correct … I am all talk. Even the ones that originated the idea were all talk, also. It’s a case of talk about it, and see if it convinces anyone, if not then talk to oneself about it and if years later you’re still talking then it seems like it might be a worthy idea.
However, if you are suggesting that I should just get rid of all my money, then I would be left with two options
1) Starve to death
2) Take what I needed and then finish up in prison. (where indeed most of my needs would get met … but their way,,, not mine.
My observation of people with novel ideas like:- Copernicus and Galileo were also ‘all talk. they had no other option until ………. the rest of humankind (but for a few ‘flat earthers’), accepted the idea..
It feels like you are telling me that until I stop talking; I’m invalid
Jack
Jack, I’m glad to know you’re no fool and will keep your money.
Galileo and Copernicus are poor examples. They’re famous for proving that the sun is the center of the solar system and not the earth. I don’t see that as real important or life changing.
Phil
Phil: You say I am no fool. You are wrong … I am a total fool … It all depends who’s laughing at my foolishness. As in, ‘King Lear’, the fool is a coveted role.
Why is Galileo and Copernicus a bad example. It was more than 100 years before they were taken seriously and THAT is my point. Just as you are not able to get your arms around the wasteful notion of MONEY; you did get your arms around Primal therapy; that few ever do. The Primal notion does require (even for those in great pain) to put ones faith in it. AN THAT IS MY POINT. Janov is dismissed by so many including the whole medical profession and I gather by most of the psychological community. I contend just as was the case with Galileo and Copernicus it took time for neurotic humans to grasp what we now see as obvious.
It is stupid and disgraceful that Universities teaching all facet of mental and physical health are unable to see what makes us SICK (in every sense of that word).
However, I grant that so far abolishing money has not gotten very far, but if you just look at the current economic disarray the whole thing is toppling while most are sitting there waiting for this virus to go away. (Just I feel there are some on this blog waiting for me to ‘just go away 🙂 🙂 . It’s not going to go away, AND hoping for a vaccine just might be a ‘fools errand’
Waiting, waiting, and waiting; that was the message in Beckett’s play
There … got that off my chest. but I doubt I’ed gotten any followers. 🙂 .
Jack
Jack, I don’t actually know any “ inside Jewish” jokes. However the Canadians and those from The Maldives find me to be a laugh riot. If you ever hear me telling a knock knock joke you can be sure I’m communicating with the Canadians! G. P.s. I was simply saying that I thought Renee’s response was extremely indirect.
Phil, So sorry to hear about your wife’s Aunt. It has to be difficult to be so far away when something like this happens. Gretchen
Gretchen, thanks. The aunt’s daughter, my wife’s cousin , lives in South Carolina. It’s very difficult for her. She can’t travel back home, Only three people will be able to attend the funeral, because of the strict social isolation. Someone will take a video live so she will be able to watch.
Phil
Daniel, As a parent I can only imagine that it has to be extremely difficult when thinking about a child that may need a little additional support and the day when we are no longer around to offer that support. Even with the joy that I’m sure he brings to you and your wife, still that has to be very painful. Gretch
Yes, Gretchen, that is exactly the situation. We love him to bits but have no idea if he will be able to support himself, keep a job, or be in a relationship. He may end up completely alone in the world. In a way these worries may be shared by all parents of all children – we can’t always protect them – but obviously these are more pronounced when the mountain the child must climb is so much higher. Still, he has a sister and nieces so chances are he won’t be all alone, but will that be enough? Will that be fair to them? Most likely this matter will never be fully resolved for us and we will just have to do our best and carry it like a weight.
I’d like to add that of course this all connects to primal issues, perhaps THE primal issue: helplessness. I mean, it triggers all the other times in my own life where I was left to handle things by myself, or take care of myself, when I was too young or too scared to have the resources to do so. With my son, in spite of our best efforts he may never acquire the resources needed and will always need some sort of parental protection, even when no parents will be around.
Daniel, as a parent myself I can imagine how difficult and painful it would be to have a child with that condition, whose possibilities in life are somewhat limited.
Phil
That is really rough Phil. These are bizarre times to say the least. I always think that funerals are for the living, a final goodbye for some, and to not even be able to do that. Really sad. Gretch
Guru, I should start by saying I know zero about accounting. That being said I think a parent dying in 2010 for instance might be different than having lost a parent in 2020 and receiving their stimulus check. I believe it’s based largely on our taxes over the last couple of years and as a result of those taxes he was judged to be entitled to that money. What if the parent died the day after the money was deposited ? Do you have to give that back? I have a feeling there will be arguments on both sides. I’m going to ask Atty as she seems to know these things. Gretch
Gretchen, all I can say is that Nina Olson (head taxpayer at the IRS who retired in 2019) is by far the strongest advocate for relatives to keep the money.
I did inquire at my bank for advice on how to endorse the check. They, too, were amused at this situation.
Although I feel a tinge of larceny in my heart in doing so, I am inclined to deposit the money in my account and, if the Treasury Department seriously comes after me wanting it back, I will return it at that point.
I am only humbly & tentatively following the moral footsteps laid down by our governmental forefather, Donald John Trump.
correction: *Nina Olson, head taxpayer advocate at the IRS
Just Google “Nina Olson IRS dead stimulus” for all sorts of insights on this matter.
From San Francisco Chronicle (April 29)
Some banks have been telling customers who have authority to cash checks made out to dead people they can cash the stimulus checks.
“We are following our standard procedures for handling checks payable to someone who is deceased. A customer or personal representative can deposit a check payable to a deceased individual with the proper documentation that verifies the payee’s death and shows the customer or personal representative is the legal successor to the payee,” Wells Fargo spokesman Ruben Pulido said in an email.
Chase is “recommending customers call the IRS directly for instructions on what to do with the check,” bank spokesman Erich Timmerman said in an email.
The IRS is not staffing customer service lines. Its website for stimulus payments says, “Do not call.”
At Bank of Marin, where Schwarcz banks, “If a check is made out to an estate and it is properly endorsed by the trustee or executor, we would accept this deposit,” bank spokeswoman Beth Drummey said in an email.
Even so, Schwarcz said she’s going to hold onto her deceased clients’ checks for a while.
“I don’t want to distribute them and then have to give the money back,” she said.
Mark Luscombe, principal analyst for Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting, said the Treasury might try to argue that the Cares Act states that the credit and payments are to go to “individuals,” and a deceased person is no longer an “individual.” It also states that estates and trusts are not entitled to the credit and payments, and they could argue that a payment to a deceased individual is in essence a payment to his or her estate, he said in an email.
The Cares Act also states that the credit and payment to joint filers are considered to be one half to each spouse, “so this language could give them a basis for seeking to recover one half of the payment to a joint account.”
However, he is surprised that the Treasury “is taking this action, since it will likely be a burden to try to recover this money. They will probably try to address it through the credit on the 2020 tax return, but there they face the language that you can keep a payment that exceeds the credit. Also, deceased persons may not be required to file a 2020 tax return, so the IRS may have to recover that money through collections, an expensive process for some relatively small amounts.”
Steve Hartnett, director of education with the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, said he thinks heirs should return the payment, even if they don’t legally have to. “The secretary of Treasury is saying that is the appropriate thing to do, and most clients do not want to get into a fight with Treasury, especially over just $1,200.”
Olson summed it up this way: “What a mess!”
Guru,
Of course Wells Fargo bank, which by chance I use, specializes in fraud, so they would say that.
Phil
Phil,
You have to admit it was pretty cool that I talked about Phil Laut’s ‘Money Is My Friend’ book here on the blog and only a few short hours later I received an extra stimulus check?
See? Strange synchronicities do happen in the universe.
Gurú, that’s very cool! an extra check? I won’t tell anyone.
Daniel, just to expand a little on my reactions to your post where you explained your negative reactions to me. I think what I found so meaningful was that I noticed it contained a contradiction. In your drive to make the world more tolerant, you do not recognize your own intolerance for others who have beliefs that differ markedly from yours. You get invested in trying to get them to relinquish and/or change their beliefs. You cannot/do not tolerate them as long as they hold such views. Yet, I was convinced that I was fighting for more tolerance and saw you as intolerant one. I suddenly recognized myself in you. Which came as a surprise. This reminded me of the power of Carl Jung’s idea of the shadow, which is unconscious and known only indirectly through projection. Although the shadow is an innate part of us, the vast majority of us are blind to it. We hide our negative qualities, not only from others but from ourselves. To do this we often criticize and condemn others to ensure our focus does not fall on our own faults and destructive tendencies. We go through life with a false air of moral superiority and a belief that while others act out and behave inappropriately and destructively, we ourselves are virtuous and always in the right. I know I am skilled at this but have difficulty recognizing it when it happens. In short, I think we represent each other’s shadow, at least with regard to our intolerant side. Your post was an “Aha” moment for me. That’s why I appreciated it.
Hah, sounds as though you’re writing about my neighbors! This does not mean I am without faults myself to which I am reluctant to admit, but those faults are generally not destructive to others, only to myself.
Renee, I am just curious: Do you have any kids? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you don’t, but I could be wrong here. The psychological makeup dividing parents and non-parents can be significant enough to note here in your ongoing exchange with Mr. Daniel.
I’m also ‘kinda sorta’ wondering if my quip about designing government stimulus checks as baby blankets with balloons and a teddy bear to signify mommy and daddy government saving us from the wolf at the door prompted Daniel to discuss his own son’s situation in some small way?
after a few attempts I managed to get hold of my mom on her landline phone in her room.
she actually sounded very good, and it really touched me that after my questions about her she asked me how I am doing, she first started to ask me if I was not bored but immediately changed the question into asking me whether I did not feel too alone, which of course I often do, but I did not want to burdeon her with that so smiled and said the two cats help me not to feel too alone, which of course also is true.
she actually is a very feelingful person in her own way, and very loving and caring, I miss being with her a lot and hope it won’t be too long before we can go there again.
the bad news is the nursing home has had over 60 cases of Corona, counting residents and staff together. I think 13 of them have not made it and the largest part of the rest seems to be recovering.
so it can still take a while before the green light for visits will be given again, specially as the director is now ill as well, sadly enough, as he too is a very caring man who looks at individual cases before deciding on a visit of some sort.
so many sad stories and at the same time so many moments of tenderness and beauty…
M
Margaret: It sounds like a sad moment for you.
I see it as a sad moment for many people and the times do feel very strange under the best of circumstances.
I do feel there are going to be many changes and I suspect they are changes that none of us predicted, especially as I see on TV with all the medical experts in the field of viruses.
I hope you are able to start visiting your mother soon.
Jack
I’m glad to hear your mom is doing well, Margaret. Thank you for keeping us up to date. Thank goodness for our pets. They seem to be always happy, don’t they. Don’t know what I’d do without them. Them and my brother, that is.
Take care, Margaret.
Jo,
how are you?
M
Margaret, I guess you missed me at the zoom meet. I’m in the 2nd stage, where my temp is normal finally, but my upper chest is affected, and I feel weak with any exertion. Overall, I think I’m lucky in that Ive not been really poorly except for two odd days, but it’ll be some time before I’m out for walks again.
Jo,
I hope you get better soon. I missed you at the last zoom meeting too.
Have you been tested for covid?
Phil
.
Jo,
yes, I did miss you at the meeting but I had also thought about you regularly the days before.
I had a few days too with a mild fever and some headache and sore throat, probably just a minor cold, but it made me reflect on how hard it must be to feel more ill and to be alone.
do you have somebody that would give you some assistance if necessary, like doing some grocery shopping and checking on you regularly?
it seems good your fever is gone but I hope you don’t feel too bad anyway.
thinking of you,
Margaret and cats
Thanks Margaret and Phil. I’m ok at home, have support, can do stuff.
Although uk gov say that my age group who have symptoms can now be tested, I wasn’t offered a test, applying online for home kits goes nowhere. But I hope to push for an immunity test when that is possible.
We’re very lucky with what we have with the PI.
“Three months into the coronavirus pandemic, America is on the verge of another health crisis, with daily doses of death, isolation and fear generating widespread psychological trauma.Federal agencies and experts warn that a historic wave of mental health problems is approaching: depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.
Just as the initial coronavirus outbreak caught hospitals unprepared, the country’s mental health system — vastly underfunded, fragmented and difficult to access before the pandemic — is even less prepared to handle this coming surge.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/04/mental-health-coronavirus/
Phil: I agree, we sure are lucky to have this therapy, since I contend it will save us from the ravages of the current virus crisis. As Gretchen stated:- he,(Trump), is out of his depth. as I feel most governments are.
It is not only creating havoc economically, but also psychologically and when someone gets into the worst of the so-called pandemic it is mainly a breathing problem, that i contend, is an old feeling re-surging and, as I see it, perhaps most commonly a birth feeling of perhaps cutting the cord before the baby is ready to free itself from needing the chord.
It is a classic example of the medical profession and scientists looking for answers in all the wrong places. Also I feel this is were the classical studies methodology ‘falls flat on its face’ since they are missing a major component of the disease. Covid 19 is riding on the back of neurosis and without neurosis would probably not even have any symptoms, ‘let alone’ a minor fever.
The problem, as I see it, started when the medical profession dismissed Art Janov as a 70’s fad instead of taking a serious look at it, particularly since at that time the PI had an MD working with the PI at the time, then later Art’s book “Why we get Sick: and How We Get Well”.
I feel strongly it will come back to haunt the medical profession.
Jack
Jack, how do you conclude all this about the virus, that it rides on the back on neurosis? OK, it may be a nice idea, but it seems you already believe it very strongly, how did that happen? Phil
Phil: It requires that I ‘see outside the box’ and starts with seeing capitalism for what it is:- an imposition upon our ability to be just who we (individually) are. In other words “the real self” … before we all got irredeemably damaged.
The first thing I needed to accept was that I was a damaged human being. From thereon I feel I became less defended. The essence of defending is to believe, hope, then project most of my problems onto others or things … (Dump). I am now able (me thinks) to avoid that trap; and it serves me well
So! to be more direct in answering your question. If this virus has been living with bats or other creatures and not killing them by the millions then how come it is killing many of us … yet not killing others. I concluded (by looking beyond the obvious) ‘outside the box’ that it must be something within me/us that is actually doing the killing and not the virus per se.
Also, why is it that we are the only creature on the planet that needs to invent vaccines, while other creatures seem do not need to. Watching “New Day” on TV this afternoon and seeing all these experts, each one giving a different theory as to why, made me so angry that I went off into the bedroom and yelled ‘blue murder’. It made me realize there was something deeper within us humans that is causing it all, and that these so-called expert seem not to be able to see beyond their own expertise. Being a Primal patient I had only one answer … NEUOSIS.
That is the best I can do as of now
Jack
Jack,
the virus doesn’t kill millions of bats maybe because it has evolved to infect bats and not humans. It hasn’t evolved to infect humans, but was inadvertently introduced to humans by contact with bats. It’s possible the virus will evolve to infect humans and cause a milder disease which would more effectively spread the virus. Scientists have been speculating about that because it has happened with some other viruses.
I’ll want to get vaccinated, however, as soon as a covid-19 vaccine comes out.
I’m not seeing any connection to capitalism with all this. Other animals don’t use vaccines, but they don’t seem to be as successful as we are.. By success I mean we’re all over the world in very large populations, unlike any other primates.
Phil
Phil: I see you … like most humans, as having the very same conceit about humanity. I don’t see us (humans) that way. I see us as being very, very damaged … rather than attempting to make that damage into a superiority, is how I see humanity … in looking at the big picture.
Jack
Jack,
Covid-19 is killing a lot of people 70 and older. Children and young adults seem to be much less effected. In nature, without modern medicine and sanitation, I think the human lifespan is about 40 to 50 years. I think animals kept in captivity mostly live longer than those in the wild. I’m in my 60’s, so am also at higher risk of getting covid. Our immune systems naturally weaken as we get older.
Phil
Jack,
it’s our very success, that I talk about, that is destroying the world. But I don’t think that’s so much because of neurosis. I think it’s because we all have our narrow self interest in mind above all else. We want to be healthy and happy, and we want that for our families. That comes before everything else, and I think it’s human nature. Who among us is ready to give up a modern lifestyle to change the world? Hardly anyone I think.
Jack
Phil, I disagree with your assumptions about human nature being based on narrow self-interests. I think that assumption is very tied to the economic system we live in. I tend to agree with Jack on this issue. You ask who is ready to give up a modern lifestyle to change the world. Well, I am ready to give up a modern lifestyle during the day. But at night I need a real bathroom and hot water and a real bed. I call myself a part-time world changer. Does this count?
Phil: You say:- “That comes before everything else, and I think it’s human nature. Who among us is ready to give up a modern lifestyle to change the world? Hardly anyone I think.”
As I understand it; that is NOT our nature … at best it’s our behaviour.
I sure would give up h modern lifestyle for a natural one … in nature, in the tropics or somewhere warm just as I did in Ibiza. I gained paradise … then lost it … by coming to the US.
Jack
Phil: You say:- “That comes before everything else, and I think it’s human nature. Who among us is ready to give up a modern lifestyle to change the world? Hardly anyone I think.”
That is not my idea of Nature, or living naturally. My ten years living in in Ibiza was paradise. I gained it … then lost it coming to the US
There is a way for us all to get it all back, but until most want it it’ll never happen … que lastima..
Jack
Jack,
My point was that our narrow self interest is our top priority, not doing what’s best for the larger group.
What I’m hearing it was your preference to live in Ibiza at that time for personal reasons, or were you actually trying to save the world?
Phil
Phil: Once again to repeat:- I am not trying tl save the world. the world is capable of saving itself.
Yes I went to Ibza for my own self interest and was lucky as I found my little finca, on top of a mountain, above a little village where I shopped and took a coffee in the local bar and was among other English speaking hippies. What I discovered there, was paradise. However, I left paradise for therapy. I have no regrets about my choice; what I do acknowledge was that I got 10 years there, after a lifetime, at that point of living in cities.
I saw another way to live. That is the only thing I would like to pass onto others. They may not see it the way I do, and I can live with that
Jack
Phil: the saying goes:- We live three score years and ten. According my teacher of “sums” that’s 70 years. As for immune system getting weaker as we grow older … that’s not my personal experience.
Stay cool, wear a mask and stay home.
Jack
Jack, it seems that this corona virus rides on bat’s backs too. Do you think those are neurotic bats?
Phil
Phil: NO.
Jack
Phil…….duh! Of course, the answer is no. Bats that let the corona virus ride on them are PLAYFUL bats. They are giving piggy-back rides to the virus.
Renee, those are lucky viruses. I’d like to to ride on a bat back, and it makes me sad I can’t do that.
Phil, you would like to ride on the back of a bat? Why? There are fewer things I would like to do less than ride on the back of a bat. Anything that looks like a rodent scares me.
Renee, well I have ridden on batman: which was pretty good.
I suspect any ride called neurosis would have to be very cool.
Phil
I used to go to the horse races a lot when I was in my twenties and younger. There was one thoroughbred named “Hidden Neurosis” that used to race at Minnesota’s Canterbury Downs. Another good one was “Pension Fraud”.
Guru, did those horses win any races? Wasn’t “Pension Fraud” another alias you used to go by? I like your current one better as there aren’t any sinister associations with it.
Phil
Yes, Phil, the Batman ride does look fun. And from watching the video, I did not see any rodents running around.
Dr. Corrigan didn’t explain this thoroughly enough, but he’s trying to say that with COVID-19 lockdowns virtually eliminating all tourist travel to major cities, there are no tourists wandering the streets leaving behind leftover food in garbage bins. This creates a great scarcity of external food sources, driving rats out of their hiding places to search far and wide for food. Finally, as a last resort they cannibalize each other as shown in the picture above.
Sanitation and locking away food is a good indirect extermination tool.
Phil,
that is awful that kidney problems can’t be dealt with for lack of materials and equipment.
Jack, I really feel you narrow down things too much to neurosis being all of the problem and the only thing to be dealt with.
I am not saying it has no influence but it is not ll or nothing as you have a tendency to bring issues to.
the main medical complications often rising with this virus is the immune system that gets out of control and starts attacking not only the virus but one’s own body cells, thus causing organs to fail, like kidneys or the heart or even sometimes causing brain damage.
many of the lung problems relate to that same effect as I have heard.
so unless of course you see all these organ failures as more primal symptoms your logic seems not more than some kind of hypothesis at best.
You seem to take Janov’s words way too literally and as carved in stone in my opinion, but well, that won’t change.
I am a great fan of Primal Therapy but some of the early writings seem to have been left behind by most, like remembering past lifes and remembering one’s own conception.
or do you also go for that?
M
Margaret: I know that is your take about me; and I can live with you feeling that way.
That you feel differently, that’s fine by me. but seemingly it doesn’t seem to help you a lot, as of my reading of your comments. That is not a criticism of you. You are obviously very frustrated about your current situation.
Having had a major Primal way before I knew of Janov or his book/s, only then on reading the book; “bingo” it all fell into line. I did not come into this therapy needing it; but wanting it, as I was now TOTALLY convinced life is ALL about feelings. I have in the past related that Primal, on this blog, but it sure was great terror and me screaming my head off, “I’m dying, I’m dying” in an environment that was not friendly of sympathetic.
I don’t believe that any of the fundamental theory behind the therapy has changed … only the methodology in the practice of it. BUT you are correct … Art Janov is one of two of my heroes
Nor do I believe in any form of after life
Jack
The Lord works in mysterious ways, Jack, so I wouldn’t completely discount an afterlife just yet. Did you know that one of the most famous musicians in the world, Katy Perry, prayed to God for big breasts and her request was granted?
“I lay on my back one night and looked down at my feet, and I prayed to God,” Perry said in the February 2014 issue of GQ magazine. “I said, ‘God, will you please let me have boobs so big that I can’t see my feet when I’m lying down?'”
The heavens opened up and, by age 11, the “Roar” singer got what she prayed for and a whole lot more.
“I had no clue they would fall into my armpits eventually,” she added.
Guru: I live with religion for the first 20 years of my life. then I realized it didn’t work and was part of a continuum way before we invented God somewhere around 5,000 AD by Abraham. before that we worship everything from totem poles to celestial things, and the weather. My mother died firmly believing she was going to meet her Saviour after death. Meantime, she’s not been in contact with me nor my siblings, and that was 44 years ago on April 22nd, this year.
If that means I will to to someplace that’s hot … so-be-it.
Jack
Jack, there’s another post from me, today, on Mc Gill University’s, long term study on Maternal Stress and fetal anomaly. It is so in lock step with Dr. Janov’s research conclusions. The PI might be interested or perhaps are aware of the study.
Oh, I got so bloody impressed with my superior self I forgot to include in my first post the bit that made me tingle: The placenta they conclude is like a brain communicating constantly with the developing fetus. They believe this is how Maternal Stress affects fetal development. Dr. Janov would be in ecstasy.
I’ll try to find it and reposition it to here.
David: It sounds to me, like another study ‘re-inventing the wheel’. Albeit that it is re-iterating Janov
Agreed, Jack; but as in the reality of the validity of all Natural Healing, when an accepted authority states what the pioneers in natural healing discovered, to be true, I shake my head, but give thanks the theory, the facts will be finally accepted. It also speaks to the damage committed by CSection. I remember trying to have docs here examine the LeBoyer birthing technique, to no avail. Now there is one birthing hospital in Western N S. They schedule CSections at point of conception. Midwife birthing is regaining acceptance since they learned it is much less expensive. Man, how jaded old age has made me.
My final prayer was clearly not as important as KP’s, thus not as worthy of a reply from the mythical, fantasy friend. i asked that the abuse stop, by that time, physical, sexual, verbal, stop or the end of my life. At age eight my suicide attempt failed leaving me with serious physical injuries. If my prayer had been answered would not likely be on this age. Instead it continued until I could leave home. Then it was taken up by strangers.
But ahead of myself, at age 11 I divested myself of the mythical criminal character my homicidal mother taught, and supervised my nightly repetitions, burrowing that bit of mind control deep inside my being. The closest I have ever come to recanting was standing at the bedside of my 4 year old dying after heart surgery, a 8% risk procedure the surgeon told me. I still unbelieved but asked my wonderful grandfather to intercede if i was wrong.
I believe god based religion and it’s espoused false hope are the most harmful tools and weapons leashed on humanity. In 50,000 years it still chains social/psychological development to the mouths of our ancestral caves.
David: I totally agree to that last line.
Jack
Hello Jack; An old friend, Clinical Psychologist, and Dr of Theology, used to ask me to take on her, ” recalcitrant,” patients, the ones who , ” refused to improve.” She once remarked she could not understand how I who was so compassionate and competent did not believe in god. I replied that I could not understand how she with such an apparent abundance of IQ points could believe. Years later she asked me to take her for some, “friend sessions;” ie: she talk, I listen. She was concerned that her patients continually dumped her. A few sessions in she angrily tapped into her embarrassment of her father’s behaviours and her childhood prayers that he be changed and forgiven. I thought she was having a breakthrough. She saw it as further proof her god exists. He never changed but she accepted him per her god’s written word.
David, you are very clear about your distaste for religion! Reading what you wrote here, reminded me of George’s Carlin views of religion. Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE (Religion is Bullshit).
” Distaste,” would not be my word of choice, Renee. It has a factual history I discovered through academic research that is distasteful. I feel as strongly about not endorsing a myriad of causes of human abuses. If there was anything that recommended it as healthful I’d be on it. (: Enslaved peoples use humour, acceptance and hope and belief in magical thinking to palliate their abuse, in part, eventually self afflicted. Pretty much the same maladaptations I used to excuse my family for hating and abusing me. As a little kid I had to take it one step further to excuse, ” god.” To do that I had to conclude that I was so unlovable,so deserving of the abuse, that even the mythical deity hated me. I remember the thought that I was so ugly, so retarded, so stupid that my mother was right to want to kill me. It takes a whole bunch of something to accept an all powerful deity sanctioning that.
Thanks for explaining why my word is inappropriate, David. Btw, I am stunned by the abuse and torture you suffered. How on earth did you survive?
Renee: I listened to all 10+ minutes of it and almost fell off my chair laughing.
The gu yis a great comedian.
Jack
For all those who asked about my son, thanks for your kind words and interest. To answer your questions, my son is in a category that is unofficially called High Functioning Autism. He’s smart and his speech ability is normal, after much work was done with a speech therapist at an early age. In fact, this is what alerted us to the problem in the first place. He seemed pretty much ordinary, except he spoke gibberish pretty much until he was 3 years old, when he was diagnosed.
Today he’s in the 8th grade (special Ed. Class) and doing relatively well. His major difficulties are social, mostly with peers with which he doesn’t make or keep or even understand relationships because he doesn’t intuitively get the social-emotional back and forth that most people do, or the non-verbal communication which is part and parcel of interaction, or how to behave in a certain social context. He also has a very restricted range of interests and finds it almost impossible to do something which is outside this range. He constantly occupies himself with information, mostly from his iPad. From time to time he will say something about a black hole he has in his stomach, which is heartbreaking to hear. And he has some facial tics which are mitigated by medication.
We’re doing everything we can to help him be independent, but there is still great uncertainty hovering above it all.
Daniel; It must be heartbreaking about your son.
Yet reading your comment I felt that you in your position and you understanding of Primal therapy/theory, could go a a long way to him and in so doing would be helping yourself.
I may well be out of my depth here, if so I apologize, but since I was able to help one guy in Serbia get into his own therapy who was suffering from a sever problem with Turret syndrome (Ticks) that I feel would also be helpful to you dealing with your son.
From both you and your wife you must have a sense of when and how his autism started and it might be possible for you and/or your wife to ask him the sort of questions that might help him with simple feeling.
Is he able to cry and has he the ability to show anger in anyway what-so-ever? Perhaps he might be able to show some sense of fear (terror).
I feel that could be a good starting point in helping him
However, I’m not in any position to know some of the finer details.
I’m not suggesting you carry this all out on the blog (if you did; I feel it would be helpful to all of us that read this blog.
It kinda goes ‘through me’ what he himself has to go through and the mechanisms he has to create for himself. I don’t feel you need to ask me why I feel this way … I am sure you know why.
Jack
Daniel, it seems that every teenager today is staring at an iPhone so I don’t think that’s unusual at all. Now whether that’s unhealthy in the *collective* sense is another debate. Also, having a narrow range of interests can be a prized vocational attribute since it can signify an ability to deeply focus on something. Deep focusing is becoming more of a problem for many people given the increasing complexity of society and social media usage spreading our attention to a broad variety of topics, creating a generation of ‘pancake people’ (yes, this is a real term where one’s knowledge is very broad, but only an inch deep at any given vector).
Thanks Jack and Guru, your comments feel caring and heartfelt. First, I’d like to say that although it may look as a quantitative difference from others – for example the restricted range of interests and the constant staring at the iPad screen – it really is a qualitative one. I say this because the anxieties which give rise to such defences are not the same as regular boredom or the alluring pull of other people’s lives, or the now perennial modern online alternatives to time honoured communities – from the family dinner table to the gathering at the place of worship.
Unfortunately, me or my wife cannot provide therapy, and even if we could it would be inappropriate. We are his parents and try to do as best we can in our role as such. That is not to say we wouldn’t discuss feelings with him, of course we do, but again for the reasons I wrote in the comment to which you responded this isn’t a regular talk about feelings because some of the inner “equipment” that people normally have and use to create meanings with is either missing or malfunctioning. That means mostly he cannot intuitively grasp emotional information, especially when such information is social in nature, and these will remain undigested, unmentalised, and therefore hauntingly disturbing and even persecutory.
Also, some of the feelings – of should I say sensations – he has, which I name for him form time to time, have to do with feeling concretely to be a unit, of sensing himself, or when attempts to reach such unit states fail, giving rise to feelings of leaking out at the core or falling and falling forever, or the dissolution of the contiguity of psyche and body. At such times what often needed are physical squeezing holding, putting pressure on both sides of the head or the body as if to prevent him from breaking apart into many pieces, or just helping him feel his concrete existence.
I know that some neurotics may at time feel similar things, but those feelings are a part rather than the whole of them, a part they can look at from another part of themselves that remains sane.
Daniel: You state at one point:- “Also, some of the feelings – of should I say sensations – he has, which I name for him form time to time, have to do with feeling concretely to be a unit, of sensing himself, or when attempts to reach such unit states fail, giving rise to feelings of leaking out at the core or falling and falling forever, or the dissolution of the contiguity of psyche and body. At such times what often needed are physical squeezing holding, putting pressure on both sides of the head or the body as if to prevent him from breaking apart into many pieces, or just helping him feel his concrete existence.”
I read it twice but little of it made sense to me. Unless you feel like it; I am not sure I need to know.
The one question I did ask you was:- is your son able to cry … or get angry? I felt you did not answer that question … perhaps you did and I didn’t ‘get’ it.
Jack
Jack,
Yes, he’s able to cry and get angry. He rarely cries but does get angry. I would say his most dominant feeling is fear. But he’s afraid of strong negative emotions and tries to avoid as much as he can being exposed to them. With time it gets better though.
I’m sorry I wasn’t able to better explain myself in that paragraph you quoted. In a nutshell, I meant to describe mental states of disintegration and the anxiety they give rise to.
Daniliel: That’s a good start for your son. I was somewhat concerned that he might not even be able to do that much.
If he’s afraid then there’s something, as I see it, in his past, driving that. Do you Daniel have any idea what that might be.
Jack
Fascinating and poignant, Daniel, and so heartrending for you and your wife.
Daniel, your son’s feeling of comfort with the squeezing sensations sounds like what has been described by Temple Grandin as calming for her as she goes through stressful times. . You say poetically about it keeping him from psychically breaking into many pieces. Do you think it is a feeling of physical safety in the womb, a return to a sensation that he is still in touch with? Weighted blankets I know can help to relax enough to fall asleep. I think I would like to have one myself. It must be why we enjoy and need hugs so much, because we feel the safety of a primal womb again.
For me the primal context isn’t always a useful starting place from which trying to understand human behaviour. From what I’ve read and understand, the sense of self that we form is based on our senses that connect us to and enable us to react appropriately to our environment in order to survive, including sense of touch and sense of balance, and our feelings, conscious and unconscious, in reaction to those sensory inputs. Any alteration or mix up in brain development during childhood can make it difficult for the person’s brain to process or make sense of those sensory inputs, leading to confusion or anxiety or feeling overwhelmed by sensory inputs from the world. I’ve read or heard in a documentary where applying pressure to or squeezing the autistic individual as Daniel describes, can help the autistic individual’s brain to re-establish a sense of boundary, a sense of self differentiated from sensory input from the world out there, in place of overwhelming confusion.
I find your explanation of your experience with your child to be clear, fascinating, evocative and heart rending, Daniel. Thanks for sharing.
Larry: You state:- “For me the primal context isn’t always a useful ” I find that very sad … Larry.
The other one:- “Any alteration or mix up in brain development during childhood can make it difficult for the person’s brain ”
My sense of what you write here is mind boggling to me. As I see it, It’s not as simple as “altering or mix up in the brain”. It’s the downright near death feeling in the child that TOTALLY alters the child and it’s brain … FOREVER !!!!.
When I re-lived it, I was SCREAMING my head off from a terror that I previously never thought existed. Terror beyond terror. No word could ever, EVER, E V E R , explain it .
So the gentle words like ‘mix-up’ and ‘alteration’, are words, not in my lexicon, for the description of what happens in babies whole body, which includes It’s minds … when not getting it’s NEEDS met.
Jack
I try to look outside the box Jack, and have noted that there is more to understanding human behavior than only through the lens of primal theory.
Larry: that’s fine if that’s the way you see it. My understanding of Primal theory is that we neurotic humans behave … because we’ve lost our ability to be natural; so we behave, and as such that is am act-out.
I don’t want to ‘behave’ I want to feel and let my feeling dictate it, rather than accept “what is”.
Jack
I think that says a lot Jack, thanks.
Daniel; I humbly suggest reading , What To Do About Your Brain Injured Child, ” by Glen Doman, or better still contact the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, a non profit organization, 8801 Stenton Ave, Glenside, PA 19038, across the street from Philly city boundary, headed now by Robert Doman. I have personal experience with the outcomes of their approach to healing brain injury. It is astounding. The first time I met Glen I asked what they do differently. ” We don’t create improved damaged children. They heal.” He conceded a few do not respond but his marvel was that any , let alone most, did. I know of 4 chidren one a Downes Syndrome boy, all classed , ” mentally retarded,” who healed, all university grads. Founded by Dr. Temple Faye, neurosurgeon, archaeologist, ( finder of the,”Missing Link,”), Carl Delocato, Psychologist, Glen Doman, Physiotherapist, in 1955.
They are staffed by some of the most academically qualified practitioners, and most underpaid, overworked, by choice.
Phil, I’m going to have to answer your question down here to keep things free of clutter and rat tails. I do very vaguely remember using a pseudonym “Pension Fraud” somewhere way, WAY back in the 1990’s on some Primal-related message board. Maybe John Spreyer’s board or somesuch? We’re going back to the days when the dinosaurs still roamed the Earth and I should have mindlessly and ceaselessly poured every last nickel I owned and earned into Amazon stock.
But…yes “Pension Fraud” and “Hidden Neurosis” were both Minnesota race horses that my buddy and I thought were amusing at the time; it must have been the late 90’s as I had already brought Janov into my buddy’s awareness by then.
Guru, Yea, even the term “neurosis” is now quite dated, though we do still roam the earth. It’s no longer a diagnosis, instead people have depressive or anxiety disorders, for example. The same with pensions, since few people have those anymore to be defrauded.
I’m sure these are no longer popular names for foals.
Phil
Hi everyone: the more I hear about COVID 19, the more I feel the medical profession got so many things wrong, by merely dismissing the Primal triad. The discovery, the theory, and the development of a therapy.
I now feel the whole thing is going no-where and we’re left with ‘the tail wagging the dog’.
If my contention has any validity:- the virus is ‘piggybacking’ on neurosis, then we might start to prevent it for the next generation and as LeBoyer pointed out, we do not need to cut the umbilical cord, but merely just let it wither away when the baby and mother decide the baby is now breathing on it own.
The one thing that none of the studies are doing is trying to find out if those that died from the infection were indeed the ones that had the umbilical cord cut before the baby was able to fully breathe on it own OR some early trauma created the same effect.
Birthing is not a medical problem/procedure, per se, and for millennia there was no-one to help a woman with birthing her child. If a woman becoming pregnant is left to her own devices (nature) she will hormonally adapt to the pregnancy and give as natural a birth as is needed by mother and baby.
Now the doctor (obstetrician) has become the expert through the doctors ‘objective’ studies of the birth process when all that is needed is the female’s natural hormones to dictate it all … subjectively.
Granted, none of this is going to help the current COVID 19 sufferers from a chance death, but seeing it from that perspective could give us a lead into helping those with this infection. The current situation is merely confusion and nothing is helping the infected
IJack.
Jack, you stated that, “If my contention has any validity:- the virus is ‘piggybacking’ on neurosis”. I know you did not like my idea of finding out if this contention of yours has any validity. So I’m curious if you have any ideas about how you find out if there is validity.
Renee: I don’t remember me not liking your idea of finding out if this contention of mine has any validity.
I don’t think I’m in any position to find out if has or not.
Jack
And continuing: I woke up this morning in a huge angry feeling and to some extent, I am still in it. It’s a general kind of anger about the state I/we have to live in, said another way having to live neurotically. I’m still pissed and furious that I have had to live with this ‘fuck-up’ which has so many manifestations, for me. I’m pissed that I have to live with other peoples fuck-up’s, and especially those ones with some (so-called) authority, and that sure includes my daddy.
I’m even pissed watching TV and all these, so-called experts blurting out nonsense, but by virtue of some degree or other from some school of higher learning, they are given this ability to bully the rest of us with their particular Jargon.
I’m sick of all the advertising. I’m so pissed writing all this here, and making so many typos and having to correct it all before posting. I’m pissed about my fucking dentures that are hurting me after going to a dentist before leaving the US to getting them fixed. I ordered a stand for my cell phone and it arrived, but part of it broken and now have to go through all the fuckin hoops to either get a new part or, the whole thing new after repacking it and sending it back … meantime, they have my money. Fuck the incompetency. Then lastly with all the other fucked-up leaders of other nations particularly for me, the US and the UK Boris and Trump[ty Dumpty]. Fuck em all, and Fuck it all.
I would have called my Buddy and done this all with him, but right now he is perhaps sleeping … so I didn’t … and now you guys are getting it all.
– – – – – – – –
However, in a very strange way, I was able to go through this angry feeling (near rage) in absolute silence not needing to vocalize anything … just going through the feeling in my head. I’ve never done this before and I wonder if anyone else has been able to do something similar?
Yesterday in responding to David on ‘breaking everything apart; I should have been more explicit, and just added an example or two:- Education = geography, history, physics chemistry mathematics, languages, etc. etc. Then breaking all those into fractional parts. Then medicine = Parkinsons, Hodkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Measles, schizophrenia, depression, obsession, etc. etc. Janov said it all very clearly in his book “Why We Get Sick: and How We Get Well”. depending on what is meant by getting well.
Then putting it all back together again under the umbrella of Education or Medicine etc. etc. It all follows through that there is one glorious umbrella:-.nerosis NEUROSIS. N E U R O S I S ! ! ! ! (someone said yesterday or the day before, that the word neurosis had gone out of style. FUCK; … no, it hasn’t, … by my wy of reckoning.
It’s the disease that all of us humans are suffering, albeit some more than others. I doubt there is a single human being that has avoided it. Including the children of Primal patients (I’m sorry to say).
So feeling better after writing all that. Should I OR should I not post it. … I’ll give a few minutes and let it all sink into me first then decide.
Yep! I decided to post
Jack
Hi, Jack. To your question about having anger feelings, or others in silence, my answer is yes, I have those also. Most of my feelings are done in this way. A few feelings I have cried with uncontrolled helplessness/ anger, but they were more of a life-threatening nature feeling of mistreatment. I’m always processing something that is bothering me–some change that I have to deal with. I’m currently dealing with feelings about the development of property in the area on the main road. A truck stop is going in and neighbors are not happy about the crime aspect and noise and loss of serenity. It will take a few days to process all that for all of us. I had hoped for a lumber yard but I suppose greed from the seller took precedent.
I think it’s always good to let your anger out in that it lets you either accept what’s happening or lets you take action against it. Best not to let things rumble inside, I’ve found for myself. Things usually resolve somehow anyways. I’ve seen people angry for all their lives and that is so unproductive to their well-being. Yup, feeling does have its advantages, for sure, being accepting of what is or trying to fix it if you have the way to do it. My grandma had a little plaque in her kitchen that I think its saying might be used by a 12 step program: “God grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” Of course easier said than done, but feeling the anger about what’s happening in our world does help. Though, Jack, I expect you to keep on fighting knowing how your birth was. Hah.
Sylvia, how far from your house is the proposed truck stop? On top of other problems, I can also see how light pollution would be an issue at night, making it harder to see the stars.
A land seller’s greed may play a crucial role, but ultimately it’s the buyer who makes the final decision I would think.
My aunt placed a small wooden serenity prayer placard in my room when I first ran into drug & alcohol trouble in my teens. My, how times were so innocent back then & how tragically unevolved my understanding was on so many things. Desperately-needed wisdom about the true nature of things was in critically short supply for me.
I think we are all disappointed that the property owner who is a small store owner in the community did not sell to a more community-friendly business. We’ve had many years of country-type living so we are thankful for that. The property backs up to 4 neighbors and my fence line. I can’t see many stars already because of the shiny satellites in the sky. Just too bad, though, when thinking of the diesel tanks going underground to feed the hungry semi-s that will be stopping over. My neighbor is upset about the ‘hookers’ frequenting. Poor broken souls that they be.
Your Aunt sounds like a jewel. She must have really cared about you. Do you think that your understanding of things would have helped you. In what way?
Sylvia,
That’s foo bad about the truck, but maybe you’ll get a good restaurant out of it. I’m amazed you can have helpful silent feelings, mine are all pretty noisy.
Phil
Phil, I think I have a habit of internalizing feelings and just feeling bad. I have to guard against that but it still happens. I hoped for a Chinese restaurant for a long time. Prob just a small convenience store will be built but who knows. One good thing is that the weedy land will be developed and won’t be such a fire hazard since there has been 2 fires that we had to deal with over the years. A bit of silver lining there.
S
Daniel,
hat must be very difficult that your son is like that. It isn’t clear what causes autism, is it?
It’s not necessarily trauma, is my understanding. It seems to me, from what I understand, that you and your partner, would be very good parents for him, and that he can have a good life.
Phil
A long term study, McGill University, Psychiatry, Dr. Suzanne King, Professor, links Autism like other neuro anomalies to Maternal Stress at a particular point of gestation. This is consistent with the much earlier conclusions of famed neurosurgeon , Temple Faye, Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, Penn, USA, where the healing of Autism and other brain injury is well established. The Institutes are classed as Quackery by all of the venues of medicine that have failed brain injured children. It is where Sen Joe Kennedy finally healed his massive stroke injury, walking and talking again after 4 failed years in the best stroke recovery centre in the US. Like Primal Therapy, the Institutes offer proven healing not a life time of appointments and drugs. Why does allopathic medicine , the relatively fledgling on the block, view all other healing modalities as threatening, to be hunted, discredited and destroyed. And that every recovery is placebo. Why does allopathic medicine fail to create placebo, particularly, lasting placebo effect ? I recall trying to discuss Primal with a Neuro Psychiatrist colleague, who was unmoving that only those who only thought they were mentally ill could recover using such spurious garbage as a treatment model.
Imagine the advances that respectful collaboration could make.
Daniel, I feel sad reading what you write about your son. It comes across like you and your wife are only seeing his shortcomings, challenges and deficits. I hope you can also see his strengths, talents and superpowers; you are simply choosing not to write about those here.
Renee
what makes me feel sad is that even on this very sensitive topic you address Daniel in what feels to me like a critical way.
you sound judgmental not only about him but even about his wife without knowing hardly anything about the situation, and with disregard of their feelings.
why didn’t you simply ask him to describe what his sons qualities are for example?
to me it sounds like Daniel and his wife really love their son and care about him, so your comment came across to me as hurtful.
I am really surprised you let your feelings carry you away like this, that makes me sad.
Margaret
Margaret, I am taken aback by this comment. All I can tell you is that I was not feeling critical towards Daniel when I wrote what I did. He and his wife obviously love their son. And Daniel can write whatever he wants here. My reaction was one of sadness because I have worked with many parents who cannot see their kids in ways other than through own their fears and anxieties. And I have worked with many youth who feel the negative impact of all this fear and anxiety projected onto them. Daniel might well be able to have other feelings towards his son and be able to see and appreciate his son’s strengths and talents. If so, he has the right to not to talk about it here. That’s where I was coming from.
Please don’t be so quick to judge me.
Sylvia and Daniel, I have read everything you wrote and I’ve been meaning to respond, but unfortunately some external items have cropped up keeping me from doing so in a thorough fashion. I will see what I can do in the next few days; I do feel a bit out of my realm where Daniel’s son is concerned at this point as I have no experience raising a family of my own.
Life is just way too long. It’s enough already.
April 22, Earthday, and my Birthday…. (: My gift this year was having my bank account hacked and thieved of 90% of the balance.
But, Jack, I knew you’d love this. In interview yesterday, Dr. Suzanne King , Professor, Psychiatry, McGill University, spoke at length of their long term study on gestation, and fetal development. Essentially it is in concert with Dr. Janov’s writings, including the New Primal Scream on maternal stress and fetal outcome.
Maternal STRESS, their ongoing study cites as the determinant of outcome, a well developed baby or babies with a wide selection of anomalies, low intellectual functioning, obesity, autism, and how baby will go on to interpret and respond to the world……..
Dr. King stressed that the month of gestation when maternal stressing occurs determines the area fetal development to be altered.
It is fully consistent with other injuries caused on this side of the womb, the injuries of noxious substances, alcohol, etc on the major organs of the under 25. When many of the esteemed pioneers in natural health and healing postulated this, the owners of our sick care system called them QUACKS, as they do Dr. Janov, and the PI.
Like antibiotics, C Sections are being hailed as the saviour of modernity. Strange critters we human beens. Our federal gov’t has finally banned military assault weapons as recreational firearms. And our cowboy population has been fanning the paranoia of the beginning of gov’t take over; we’ll all be in prison camps. What a weird mix. 3700 aged dying folks died with Covid 19 in Canada. But the overall deaths is less than the same period in the 5 preceding years. 47,000, here, and likely 800,000, in the USA last year, according to John Hopkins numbers, died from physician error. Interesting, too, the medical associations have been pressuring to have , ” Iatrogenesis, ” physician caused death, redefined.
I know I’ve said this before, but all natural healing, including Primal Therapy, are such a threat to the the Big Pharma/Big Petro owned sick care system, that we are under constant, well planned, attack, as Quack Greedy Nutbar Practitioners, and stupid, uneducated, nutbar, patients to be manipulated. We don’t participate in creating the lifelong drug dependent rotating guaranteed return dependent customers, thus we’re the enemy.
Sounds like godianity religion to me.
David: I hope the bank was able to stop the transfer of 90% of your funds.
As for all the other issues you brought up; I also agree with. Just watching all the Sunday programs on CNN today I was struck by the number of pundits suggesting that things are never going to be same again. I agree with that part, but I do not agree with any of the forecasts that any of them made, as to the outcome.
It may take a little while before the real problem is seen as our ‘economic system’, that has put all of us into slavery, and left most of totally accepting it.
I contend two things will come out of all this and the first is:- revival of Primal theory, and the other is that economics will wither on the vine. What is economics anyway:- ‘Tracking the money flow.
Like many other things that we neurotics have accepted, will all be seen as superfluous. Religion, Education Leaders, National borders, Economics, Ethnicity, Gender, Skin Colour, etc. etc.
Jack
Amen, Jack.
Margaret was responding to your judgement of Daniel, that he is projecting negative feelings onto his son. There is no indication of that as he was simply trying to express his feelings here. He has also expressed the positive feelings as well. G.
This post is specifically for Sylvia. Sylvia, you asked about whether my understanding of things would have helped me. There is quite a long list of misunderstandings I could have benefited greatly from clearing up when I was a teenager, most definitely! If you’re truly wanting me to share specifics, I think it would be best to go over that off the blog, though. As Gretchen once told me, regrets are a waste of time so it doesn’t seem to be much point in mulling over lost opportunities anymore.
You are right about my grand-aunt being a jewel. Interestingly, she never had children and she didn’t know how to drive a car. She was a charming and natty socialite who somehow managed to smoke three packs of cigarettes every day, living to a reasonable age of 85. No one could keep up with cleaning off the brown nicotine film from her living quarters. My dad and I had to do all of her driving-related errands for her. In exchange, she paid cash for cars for both of us (her deceased husband was affluent), She was a loud talker and had lots of hugs and kisses to pass around as needed.
I don’t want to besmirch my grand-aunt in any way and imply that she was a freeloader off her deceased husband. She was a very hard worker and helped a great deal with her husband’s businesses, so she did deserve everything her husband left to her. It was just so strange though that she was completely helpless when it came to driving a car..
Guru, this being Mother’s Day, and speaking of your dear aunt, would you say that she had a great influence and role in your childhood? Was she there in the early part of your life as well as the teen years? I think she was smart to have someone to drive her around, it’s always nicer to have a companion when going places; we are such a solitary society with our individual cars. Did you think of her as a mother figure?
Sylvia, I will answer your questions with a generic “yes”. There are plenty of qualifiers and caveats I would add to this overly simplified answer, though I really would prefer to explain something like this away from the blog.
I don’t think my aunt’s lack of driving had to do with being smart. Everyone else in the family drove except for her. She was just kind of a funny character, that’s all. A lively socialite with some notably fun quirks. I had an old Atari computer game console for the TV and she spent tons of hours playing Pac-Man on it after the toy become a forgotten relic of earlier childhood when I was busy with high school.
She liked to drink Budweiser frequently because she personally knew a member of the Busch family way back in the day and worked closely with a major distributor, also was active in bridge card playing clubs, etc. She went everywhere she needed to go on charm alone. Dad and I just did the driving 🙂
In some ways she reminded me of Lucille Bluth on “Arrested Development”, though my aunt was more comely and not as arrogant as Lucille.
The tidbits are nice about your aunt. A generic yes, I guess, is what we will have to be satisfied with. Though I’m guessing your aunt’s place in your life was very special. Maybe some day you will want to share more with us of how you grew up.
S
Hi Everyone: I get emails from a Trivia Genius daily and this one just popped up:-
“A brief history of American currency
01 | 29 | 2020
In a perfect world, you wouldn’t need money. You could just walk into any store and be provided with goods or services straight from the giving heart. But this is an imperfect world. The custom of trading an item in exchange for goods or services has long been extinct.”
It’s possible to revive that ‘perfect world’ It only requires that there is a consensus to revive it. As for how. I feel it is rapidly becoming obvious.
Jack
Renee,
I am sorry my comment to you appeared after your brief comment that sounded so desperate.
that was certainly not my intention, my comments get copy, pasted onto the blog with often a long time delay.
I sent you a personal e-mail.
please don’t give up, Margaret
hi all,
last friday I got a call from the nursing home that mom has been declared completely cured from Corona.
good news of course, but it also brought for me a new level of impatience and anxiety about wanting to be able to visit her properly.
the rules are now gradually softening, but so far the options for a visit are still not ideal for residents with a level of dementia, as the distance that needs to be kept is reinforced by steel fences, in the garden, or windows, or in case of one visitor indoors still with all security clothing , mask and safety distance.
that would probably feel very frustrating, specially for mom who would keep forgetting why those rules, and both of us with poor hearing.
in my case the last kind of visit would be almost impossible as I would need to be accompanied so they would have to allow two visitors.
and all of that while my mom, being cured, is not really contagious anymore as I found out on a Corona info website.
it made me feel tense, until this afternoon I gave mom a call and took the time to talk with her about the whole situation, refreshing her memory about the epidemic and the seriousness of it, reminding her she should not worry as she has had it and got better already, and then telling her about the options for visiting at this point.
she was luckily fairly clearheaded and in a very good mood, so it was easy to discuss with her if it wouldn’t be better to wait for a nicer kind of visit even if it would take longer to wait for it.
she immediately agreed it did not seem much fun to stand far apart and wave at each other and try to shout/talk…
it felt good to check with her and hear she was not at all desperate for a visit, felt relaxed and cheerful and preferred to wait a bit longer and then to be able maybe to go for a walk together, hopefully.
she is so sweet, talk me at the end of the talk ‘you do know I love you very much, and that you can ask me anything don’t you?’
it was so heartwarming and of course I replied I also love her very much and know she does too…
I apped my brother and told him about the talk about the visiting, as it might make it easier to be a bit patient.
of course if the situation does not improve or heaven forbid, gets worse again, that will be another matter, a visit even from a safety distance might be better than no visit then…
all of this still makes me feel tense, makes me crave the kind of visits we used to have and which suddenly were blocked out of the blue.
as I say, it is much more difficult when the one you want to visit has some dementia issues, as it would be extremely painful to see her getting more distressed than anything else with that kind of visit, as she would not accept not to be able to get together more closely.
so now I have to deal with the worry and insecurity about how the near future will develop, and also how my brother will deal with it.
my half-sister does not want to go there for the moment at all as she has kids and grandkids etc.
it is exhausting as I have bee here at home now on my own for about seven weeks, with once a week a brief visit from someone who goes to the supermarket and pharmacy for me.
my cats help to keep me sane, and phone and laptop are of course also useful.
but if the situation deteriorates again for people not following the rules it would feel really shitty…
M
Margaret, you must be somewhat relieved that your mom is safe. Not being permitted contact has to be hurtful. I hope those restriction end soon. Your feeling for your mom is touching.
David
I appreciate your caring, Margaret. I care about you too. I received your email. Am still processing my feelings about it. Will respond to it soon.
Renee,
ok, I am glad to hear my impression was wrong, sorry about that,
Margaret
The thiever read my debit card while I was making a purchase at a local grocer, the fraud investigator told me, using an iPhone. The first amount stolen was to pay their phone provider, $113.00, to Bell Mobility, Verdun Quebec office. I live in Nova Scotia. I don’t own a smart phone. The next $ 1400.00, ATM withdrawals at LaValle, Quebec. Technology, yeah ? Amazing ! The saviour of humankind. (: Think I’ll return to CASH economy.
I will get it back, but the bank rep said due to Covid 19 it might be a month or so. I hesitated comparing, to her, the time lines of the thief to bank proficiency, both in vigilance and refund….. hah
Who’da thunk computers would be susceptible to animal viruses. Well brilliant Donnie Trump says it came from China bat eaters, or snake eaters, from snakes bitten by bats at a market that does not sell to the public, so we can take that to the bank. And it is reported, by theory, to have jumped species so why not to humans’ # 1 pet, computers. All this openness from a Country otherwise portrayed as impenetrable as far as to giving up information.
But oddly, now, 3 August cases in Florida have been confirmed. Then there’s the July 12, 2019 post by Maine Kidney and Internal Medicine Specialist, Dr Suzanne Humphries, ” Has anyone heard of a Corona virus named Covid 19 and why is President Trump trying to buy the patent on the research?” July 12 , 2019….?? I must try to suss out the components of the airborne Biological Cocktail, discovered by Dr. Horowitz while researching for a Senate position paper on Public Health in the 90’s. Government Top Secret documents exposed that Dr. Robert Gallo was heading up a covert biological weapon program, target China. The intent was to infect with non lethal agents, a simultaneously sick population, it suggested, was the means of crippling an economy. The two test sites were in Ontario and BC, areas with a high Chinese population. Testing was crucial to developing an antidote when some of the Cocktail drifted back here. As a whistleblower, Dr. Horowitz went from genius saint to insane quack overnight. His best seller book, ” Emerging Viruses,”1993, placed him on the endangered list.
August 15, 2020
Sorry about your debit card being cloned. It seems so much BAD comes from Canada. Here, in United States I use only the “best” retailers and major bank ATMs. Haven’t been cloned since 2011. The new chips on credit and debit cards are helping a lot.
By the way, the virus has NOTHING to do with climate Change, the Chinese meat market (a disgraceful thing you don’t want to think about where dogs are fried while still alive) or patents on vaccines or the like.
It was a leak from a virology laboratory facility in Wuhan China, they’ve proved not totally naturally occurring. Genetics is above my pay grade but they have determined that this virus could not have existed in nature. It is fair to say that it is a “weaponized virus”. The only question now is “was the leak accidental or was it basically an attack on the world (Europe and the United States)”?
We’ve also not been told the truth by our politicians, that is, the “pandemic” has been used for political purposes. So, what else is new?
Why else would deaths completely UNRELATED to the China Virus be counted in with those who may have died from the virus, swelling the death count?
These would include car wrecks, pneumonia, influenza, etc., the normal causes of death.
I was told this by a nurse in Orange County, California. Supposedly, hospitals were being paid $35,000 per “Covid-19” death. Another source, admittedly second-hand stated that “someone she knew” was offered $5,000 to allow the hospital to put on a death certificate “Covid-19” when that wasn’t the truth.
I public example is that Herman Cain, well-known Afro-American conservative in the U.S., who recently died of “Covid-19” virus but the real cause of death was his underlying stage 4 cancer, that is, it was the cancer that compromised his immune system.
The lockdown has been disastrous to the economy. Countless small businesses have been destroyed and vast damage has been rendered on all sectors of the economy.
Meanwhile, children are being kept out of school, cooped in the house with the (often unemployed) parent which has led to MUCH more abuse. Suicides are way up but I’m positive the response in the U.S., Canada and Europe is political, i.e., “they want to control us”.
Maybe the politicians don’t care that much about the people who elected them.
Over the years I’ve thought a lot about the kind of individual who would become a major politician.
Indeed, they DO often have a certain kind of REAL personal power but more often than not, it’s not used for the benefit of humanity.
To your comments on the foods in our food chain, I would respond that I PRAY that our politicians will end FACTORY FARMING. Not holding my breath. Too much money.
Moreover, most politicians are compromised. Not only do they accept quasi-legal bribes from lobbyists but worse.
Many obviously are puppets for “somebody”. I’m convinced many have been blackmailed, extorted, threatened (as in “we know where your kid goes to school”). Both American political parties although Dems worse.
But mankind is waking up to the scams (such as kickbacks from foreign aid, government-sponsored drug and human-trafficking).
Finally, on the subject of China, Epoch Times reported that in western China prisoners in “re-education camps” (mostly Uighar Muslim minorities) are being murdered for the organs, that is, “organ harvesting”. MORE LATER
David, I was shocked reading one of your posts, which I can’t find now, where you called yourself a fascist, I had to look closer before I finally got it. But what about the new thing, alternative facts?
Phil
Phil, there are two, ” David’s,” posting here. I am not the fascist; Non theist but definitely a moderate social lefty, comparable to Democratic in your Country. and fiscally responsible; ie: spend the bucks on improving living standards through financial certainty. Though a deer hunter, I support gun control, and banning all but long rifles and shot guns to registered safety approved hunters who buy licenses every year. Even then, I’d gladly have my rifle stored in an approved secure facility outside of hunting season.
The other, ” David,” does not include a picture of self in his/her posts. I’ll have to find how to alter my name to include last name, which is Hardy. I suppose the other could do the same and out of jealousy copy and paste in my photo, too. (: He commented to me that he, too, plays guitar. Bet he can’t name the tunes I played at PI Talent night, 1986. hah..
If by, ” alternative facts,” you mean , “Trump crazies,” may I never develop that level of brain damage. One danger of giving them voice is if something evil was set loose by a crazy politician, who’d believe it, ??.
Professionally I came to recognize the deliberate disenfranchisement and disregard of the powerless by governments and what I believe is untoward behaviour in many instances, favouring the financial and social outcomes of the favoured cult, the obscenely powerful wealthy. Some called that conspiracy theory. But we looked for proven fact, not Aunt Molly’s suspicions. We simply believed that respect and trust, including that for elected officials, should be earned not inherited by title or wealth. The original conspiracy believers reputation has been soiled by the nutters media place under that banner. We need a new moniker as did, ” Fair Trade Organic,” foodstuffs when big business like General Mills falsely used their logo.
Something more cuddly..(:
David
David, I misread, momentarily, where you said you were a factist, but I guess not an alternate factist.
Hi, Phil
I’ll suss out anything that appears relatively sane. If Trump and crew ever says anything based on factual truth I’ll be guilty of dismissing it.
What is your def of an, ” alternate factist?” Wiki has nothing…. I suspect it rings of garbage collector and spouter; not the respected Sanitary Engineer variety.
I have great respect for factual info and debate, even the uncomfortable sort, but contempt for garbage. And a good deal of it is engineered not the personal utterings of a misinformed or deranged citizen.
David
David: I’ve gone through the manifestations as you have but mine lead me to the only ultimate resolution, that for all the political changes that ever occur, the “government always wins”. to fiddle a quote:- “it’s the ‘government’… stupid !!!”
The ONLY silver lining to this ‘virus thing’ is that thing will never be the same again. Hopefully, this time round we will get it right, and make us all truly free of all impediments to living a simple, but feeling-full life
Jack.
Jack, do you think it’s too late for us, the worker bees, to go back to being shepherds instead of the sheep. Current politicians have claimed, ” Manifest Destiny,” when we need them to be responsible employees. In Mi’kmaq culture leaders were paid at the end of their annual term, IF, they did a good job. Our politicians are princes and sultans; we keep reelecting them. Last year I spent time sussing out the net worth of elected politicians, on date of election, and at point of leaving politics. Those who enter as , ” paupers,” leave millionaires. Dec 1968 we billeted 2 Russian ship’s crew for a few days. They were of the opinion that they had the same situation at home as we have here, regardless of politics and ideologies, a comparatively small population of obscenely powerful wealthy deal every deal in their favour, control the wealth, and make certain that, ” we,” don’t get any; just a big enough injection of dollars to be palliative, satiating.
The , ” channels,” are definitely controlled. Certain people can post garbage, hate mongering, misogyny, lies , lies, lies… without censure, but any challenging science to what we are supposed to accept is shut down. An example is the fact that hundreds of MD’s in North America, many with Phd’s in Medicine, in addition to MD, and are Board Certified Specialists. They are also vocal about educating the public on what their research uncovered about vaccines, efficacy and safety. As soon as they speak out, they are shut down and branded as crazies. According to 2 CDC, and WHO whistleblowers, one has now recanted, the CDC suppressed, fudged studies, that clearly connected MMR to Autism; the McGill University Medical School, Psychiatry, long term study on Fetal Anomalies maybe better renamed, ” Gestation Distress;” concludes that fetal neuro alteration results from toxin exposure resulting from induced Maternal Stress.
Dr. Peter J D’Adamo, ND, clinical professor, scientist, author,Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type, began writing in the 90’s about being able to turn on good genes, and bad genes off using food and lifestyle. QUACK ! QUACK! regardless that he was the keynote speaker at Annual International Conferences of Genetic specialists. Now the Science of Epigenetics is well established but virtually unknown by average docs.
It is against my nature to slink away and self preserve when human rights are threatened, but I’m getting bloody tired, because they win; as you said.
I wish I shared your optimism that humankind will be new and improved.
David: I’m not particularly optimistic, since if we don’t do some fundamentally change like:- abolish money and all that money holds together like:- Governments and Law making, then I contend the homo sapiens will go extinct and sooner than feel most of are able to grasp.
I contend this virus and it’s effect on our health and the economy is a close call, to us and that the solution has to be very, very radical. We’ve been fiddling round the edges for far to long hoping for a solution and all we are able to accomplish is to vote another goon into power and see if she/he can do any better.
It’s all a game, and a losing game as I see it, as the fundamentals do not really change. The new one is to create some sort of equality between us by making the money distribution more equal. But our neurotic greed will soon destroy that notion even if it got off the ground.
I spent 3 hours this afternoon watching the US Senate question those so called expert doctors I say ‘so-called’ since they’ve totally ignored Janov when he wrote “Why We Get Sick: How We Get Well” It seems there are millions of studies going on out there, and NONE of them question ‘Why we get sick’
It was revealing just how all those Senators were being ever so diplomatic and even the doctors were not being particularly direct and hen asked of there was any animosity between the President and themselves actually lied ans said there was none. Anyone watching knows that to be a untrue.
Nuff for now.
Jack
.
Correction: First sentence, first paragraph:- “fundamentally change” should read “fundamental change”
“2nd paragraph first line “Close call” should read “close encounter”.
4th paragraph first line should have a . after expert doctors
5th paragraph “particularly direct and hen asked” should read “particularly direct and when asked”
Jack
Some truth to this but millions will have their life’s savings decimated. I’m talking 401(k)’s, IRAs and the like. Really, I think we’ve only seen the beginning. The ramifications of this shutdown will be far-reaching and massive. Homelessness will increase massively. In America we simply cannot keep up the spending. I was actually AGAINST Trump’s idea of temporarily suspending the payroll tax (15.3 percent of payroll for Social Security and Medicare, half borne by employer, half employee).
People gotta get back to work, back to school, back to sporting events, back to shopping, etc. It’s AMERICA. Love it or leave it, they used to say. I’m saying this in a lighter vein.
Moreover, this may actually be more prudent and SAFER, that is, people getting and resuming normal life. This is because of the phenomenon of “herd immunity”. I personally am for a massive thorough investigation of China’s role. It is a huge conspiracy. I promise you.
I can tie this to the “primal world” in that people of the world are waking up (e.g., Hong Kong). No, I’m not in favor of your ideas on socialism and elimination of money. For me, a waste of time at this point. It’s something that isn’t going to occur in near future. If and only if this occurs is when mankind changes its “inner” self. But it MUST be organic, almost spontaneous and like rolling thunder. Meanwhile, I’m budgeting my tiny little bank account, eating only once a day and working largely from home.
Go in peace, as the Essenes in ancient Israel would say to each other when parting.
Fred: “People gotta get back to work, back to school, back to sporting events, back to shopping, etc.” WHY!!!! W H Y ! ! ! How about us not having to work? (slavery by another name).
How about kids NOT having to go to school:- Prisons for children by the kids account … that we never ask the kids “back to sporting events, Another name for kicking the shit outta the other guy, then calling it ‘fun’ (winners and losers. “….back to shopping” I did know that we’ve closed all the shops … my partners still goes out there and comes back loaded with food., etc.”
“No, I’m not in favor of your ideas on socialism” I am not socialist; I’m an Anarchist (without hierarchy)… I operate from my subjective self … do what I want to do on the pretext that everyone else is doing the same thing . .”…..and elimination of money” Money is the middle man that ostensible is meant to keep us all in our place . “For me, a waste of time” This; I can see clearly about you Fred.
Jack”
Margaret,
that’s great news your mother has recovered from covid. I hope you can visit her soon, and I can understand your impatience. I’m getting impatient too, it starts to feel like my life is on hold, but I’m still aging. I don’t want to lose out on what I want to be doing in life, and yet I don’t plan to violate the virus safety protocols.
Phil
Happy Mothers Day! to all all the mothers here. It’s often a somewhat difficult day trying to keep my wife happy, and today was no exception. She can get upset with little things I didn’t do, but I hope overall she’s satisfied.
During my childhood it was a nothing day, no mother was around. I had a grandmother but I don’t recall we celebrated her on mothers day. It’s a day that’s grown in importance, but people should get a day off from work, fathers day too.
I was reading how wonderful Denmark is, how well they are handling the pandemic, they don’t have an idiot president. Danish McDonald workers make over $20.00/ hour equivalent, get 6 weeks vacation, and a whole host of other benefits etc etc.
The USA, we’re number one!!! in covid cases, covid deaths, what a wonderful country we have. We’re exceptional.
Phil
Phi; Yes the Scandinavian countries are somewhat exceptional although not perfect and I’ve visited 2 of them, Sweden and Denmark.
All this ‘mothers, fathers, Valentines, and Christmas, days, are just one more 24 hour day. It’s a matter, to me, what I do on ANY day that mattes and particularly the ones I remember.
I loved my mother when I was with her and I feel I showed it, as she did towards me. She often would say she had not favourite, but I knew that not true. I was her favourite as I was her first born. Neither I or she needed a day to celebrate it.
Jack
Thank you all again for your concern, interest and suggestions.
Although Autism is a field that is – at least these days – extensively studied we’re yet to understand its origins. I have no idea why my son has autism. We can put it to the difficulties at the beginning of his life, but the evidence for this is not very well established and very hard to prove. Nevertheless, we treat him according to his current needs which do-include at times womb-like envelopment.
My son was have been treated from the day he was diagnosed (age 3), privately and institutionally, went to a special kindergarten where he received various kinds of physical and psychological therapies. There are several approaches to the treatment of autism, and at the center of his was a model called DIR which was developed by the late Stanley Greenspan, an American psychiatrist and paediatrician. Those interested can find more about DIR – including a clear video explanation by Greenspan – in a website dedicated to the model. For my son this therapy proved to be very successful.
He’s growing and maturing, can and does have feelings and show emotions, is articulate, can do things he couldn’t do before, and is aware of his difficulties. Our hope and aim is for him to reach some sort of independence and to have a reasonably safe and even satisfactory life for himself.
Daniel: you stated a couple of posts ago that it was not your place to give your son Primal type therapy.
My understanding of a Primal therapist position is:- to just listen and only when the therapists feels the need to encourage the patient towards a feeling event, does he/she make a suggestion.
If you were to follow that protocol, I don’t see that you should not do so; even though you are his parents.
Still, I acknowledge that you are the best judge in this particular case.
The reason for my interest in your son and autism is because I have been diagnosed as autistic, mainly by my partner. It is because I have such a compulsion for order and simplicity. He does have some credence, since we’ve been involved with one another, for almost 40 years.
Jack
Jack,
Many autistic people have obsessive and compulsive symptoms, but not the other way around – not all people showing obsessive or compulsive symptoms are autistic.
As for PT – should my son show interest in it (and of course the day will come that he will hear about it) we will do our best to provide it for him, by a certified therapist rather than ourselves. The chances are slim, not least because it would mean moving to another country.
A more interesting question is if and how can PT be helpful to people with non-neurotic structures.
Daniel: As I said ‘you know best for your son’
As for:- “A more interesting question is if and how can PT be helpful to people with non-neurotic structures?” My guess, if I understand the context of the question is:- For therapy I would say ‘Not Needed’, if you mean ‘theory’, I would say of great value, if you are interested in that subject.
Jack
I just heard that my usual caretaker, a very nice young lady, who comes every Monday from 10 to 12, to do the shopping for me, has been tested positive.
they had not let me know so when she did not show up I texted her and she told me she was at home and why.
she has no symptoms and if they do not appear she has to start working again next week…
today a colleague of her was supposed to come in her place but so far she has not shown up and the planners still have to call me back with more news…
it is just adding some more stress, as in ‘did she get it here?’, or ‘did she infect me?’, and I do hope she stays well, as she has a husband and and two young boys.
all of this is getting exhausting…
M
Margaret,
I can see that would be stressful. It’s one thing after another for you. I hope you stay well, and pay attention for symptoms, and if some come out, maybe you can get tested.
On a chart that I follow, Belgium is actually doing the worst in the world with covid-19, for some reason. It looks like things are very bad over there,
Phil
Maybe it doesn’t come out in the news because Belgium is a small country.
Phil,
thanks, and yes, I will ask my doctor tomorrow if we can do a virus test.
I seem to have a slight fever but we also have a sudden change to cold windy weather, so it is hard to tell what is what…
I think Belgium is at the top of the chart only because they count in the most honest way, by counting also the people who have deceased with probably Covid19.
and there is a lot of testing being done, so of course our counts are higher than those of countries only counting the officially positive casualties in hospitals.
it is not too bad here now, we have about 60 deaths today and also less than 100 new cases.
but of course the rules are loosening now which is risky.
it is a scary thought to think of getting ill, my biggest concern being my cats really.
I have been in hospital so often already in my life that that idea is unpleasant but the worry about what will happen to those two furry members of my little family is a more direct concern.
and of course I also don’t like the idea of being very sick at home on my own, or just with someone dropping off the groceries at the door.
my mom has always been at her best when I was ill, as a kid and as an adult, entirely supportive and present in a very reassuring way.
she must be the one person in the world I feel most safe with…
M
Today I’m feeling sad again. Disconnected from everything and everyone. And feeling the unbearable longness of life. And wishing I’d never been born.
Renee: that sounds like a big old feeling rearing it’s ugly head.
I hope you feel differently soon.
Jack
Renee,
that sounds terrible. Is there anything going on making you feel that way?
I hope you feel better soon.
Phil
Sounds like you are close to primal feelings Renee.
Jack, Phil and Larry, the feelings are current and old. Last week, I was experiencing a sore throat, slight cough and some mild chest pains. My manager told me that I needed to get tested for Covid19, which I did. I was really hoping that I had the virus and that I would die from it. But the results came back negative. Which means that I am continuing with a life that I do not want to be living but don’t have the guts to end. I am feeling hopeless and stuck. Which are old feelings too, as I was stuck in my family in a very hopeless situation of being made to feel worthless and irrelevant, unless someone needed to target and bully me. I couldn’t escape from my life then just like I can’t escape from it now.
What do you want out of life, exactly? If you could be transplanted to your optimal, ideal life that would make you really happy right now, what would it be?
I just want to feel that my life is worthwhile, relevant and has meaning.
If absolutely no one else in the world thought of your life as being worthwhile, relevant, or having meaning, do you think it would still be possible for you to feel your life is worthwhile, relevant, and meaningful regardless?
I thought that with enough therapy and work on myself, along with trying to get my needs in the present, I could move beyond the worthlessness that my family made me feel. I was wrong.
I can relate, Renee. I know those abuses did something to make the human population view me as not a person they want to be with. I can’t find the right words. My worth was in what I could give, professionally and personal relationships. My kind nature is seen as prey for manipulation. As I withdrew from being used my worth diminished. I have to be careful not to look for sympathy. That just makes me look pathetic. Sorry just cannot express myself right now. Take care sounds hollow but, take care.
I could add, it’s about feelings, but you know that. There’s a lot of recirculating crap that either I haven’t felt enough or I’m a naive on the wrong path. I’ve tried to de-enlist from the corps of David critics. Whatever, i’m at the mercy of whatever comes. Sometimes Rumi informs me, other times not so much.
David: you say “Sorry just cannot express myself right now. ”
You just did ………….. IMO
Jack
Renee: I don’t see therapy that way. for me all those old feelings and pain are remembered and brought back into my consciousness. The painful ones I need go on re-feeling over and over again and gradually to me, the valance of the pain is lessened … but over time. It sometime appears as if I am not making any progress but on looking back to the early days of therapy I now know I did.make progress.
It looks to me Reee that “my family made me feel. I was wrong” is par of the feeling.
Jack
Are you lacking the guts to try changing your life, Renee?
I am so tired of trying to change my life. It is not about lacking guts, Larry.
I understand that it is tiring and difficult Renee. It is not fair that life should be so very hard for you. Not at all. Especially not when you were small and helpless … powerless to do anything about what was befalling you.
What do you mean, , ” trying,” to change your life, Renee ? We don’t know each other but, IMHO, You must be entirely wonderful just as you are.
I am moved by your kind and sweet words, David. I would like to discuss something with you via email. Please message me at: reneefree2b@gmail.com. Thanks.
Renee, I hope you have help besides the blog, people to talk to, or schedule sessions, if possible. The online zoom groups are great.
What is it in your life now that has you feeling hopeless and stuck? Or what is missing? It sounds very bad, I hope things will improve for you. Those are your feelings now, but feelings do change. Phil
Phil
Renee: I fully sympathize with you, but when you say ” I couldn’t escape from my life then just like I can’t escape from it now.”. You might not be able to forget it, in the present, but you don’t have to bring the past into the present. Of course easier said than done.
I know you already know this,,but just thought to remind you, and I know it feels interminable, but best you can just keep re-living it, and Yeah !!!! I know its painful, and on your own seems almost impossible.
Good luck Renee. Just writing about it, as you are doing here, is a great help … which you also know.
Jack.
Renee’s certainly welcome to hop back on board whenever she’s ready, but I just want to change the topic for a second.
We had the longest economic expansion in history…11 years.
It only took 2 months of shutting everything down to completely unravel that for most people.
It does bring home a huge lesson as to how fragile our complex economic systems really are.
Saying COVID-19 has blown open an enormous hellhole for the economy is a gross understatement. Simply opening everything up for business won’t come close to solving everything even if it’s totally safe to do so (highly unlikely it’s safe, anyway).
Here’s a brief look at what a gigantic mess California’s economy is already in:
https://www.davisenterprise.com/forum/rich-rifkin-virus-economic-devastation-has-just-begun/
Guru: there’s a simple solution to all this economic stuff. which is an imposition we put on ourselves eons ago. Just abolish money (your favorite toy) and voila PROBLEM SOLVED. No economics or recessions/depressions to ever think about again..Then w can all live in relative peace with one another particularly since most of the fighting we do with one another is about MONEY. That stupid piece of s**t we’ve been finagling with for centuries. and also … THEN WE’RE ALL EQUAL.
We’ll get there one day when we old fogies are outta the way … to just let it all happen.
Jack
Guru, it seems that since the Trump administration doesn’t have a real strategy for the pandemic, we could be in for a long lasting deep recession or even a depression. Some areas are opening up too soon, which means covid will rebound. There is not enough aid being given out to support people for the amount of time it will take to get the virus under control. Things may get much worse before they get better. One good thing I keep in mind in with all of this is that Trump should get voted out of office.
Phil
Guru,
I really liked the question about the feeling of worthlessness you asked Renee, it seemed to point at the heart of the matter in such a simple way…
M
Phil, Jack, Margaret, Larry and UG, I appreciate your reaching out to me and your kind words. I’m not feeling up to writing more right now. Maybe another time.
Renee; Thank you for the George Carlin; he slayed me for years. Got to use Carlin in a song I wrote last fall,” Jesus Was a Cross Dresser.” The bridge, ” He said that he would come ag’in, And I believe he did as George Carlin, Like JC, GC was persecuted, too,
I have a download of George’s last performance when he was terminal. He said he wished he’d been a bit kinder.
Understood.
Called my only surviving brother, age 85, meaning to ask how he could dare claim I neglected our parents. I was the only one consistently there. He was a globe trotting spy in gov’t service. Our father died me holding m hand. I cared for him during his month in palliative care. Sadly the first minute of conversation revealed he is in mental decline. So I told him I love him. For the first time he was interested in me. Another, too late.
I’m going through a weird thing. It’s like I’m revisiting me, earlier years, before I developed a sense of humour. I watch Brit, Aussie, Kiwi, comedy and drama, exclusively and foreign language offerings. IMHO it is so superior to Hollywood tripe, clever writing. Lately I’m criticising, uproaring Comedy, instead of just laughing. Like they piss me off for characters embarrassing stupidity, being controlling, putting up with misogyny, all material that would have had me rolling with laughter. Too much confinement maybe…
Phil,
as I mentioned, our counts include deceased people not only in hospitals but elsewhere as well, including the suspected Corona cases.
that total number now is about 57000 deceased people.
but there is also a study going on about all recent blood samples, from blood donations over to blood samples for all kinds of purposes, not necessarily related to Corona.
the study looks in the blood samples for antibodies that prove former contact with the virus.
now it turns out a few weeks ago it showed 3 percent of the population had antibodies, and by now the recent samples show it went up to 6 percent.
but that means our total number of people having been infected with the virus in some way is actually about 600000, or ten times more than the official count.
it seems to support the notion that 60 or 70 percent of the infected persons do not show any symptoms at all.
and logically that same rate must be minimally the same for all countries, and even much more infected people in countries where little testing is done and deceased persons not officially in hospital with Corona are not counted.
impressive numbers then…
I contacted my own doctor but she does not feel me being tested is urgent, as in any case what follows is people need to stay home for one or two weeks and only seek more medical assistance in case they get very ill.
the caretaker that used to come at my place and is tested positive luckily still has no symptoms nor do her kids and husband.
when she comes back to work mouth masks should be worn systematically on top of the hand hygiene and the social distancing.
this morning I felt a bit ill, headache, low fever and a bit nauseous, and it frightened me, but it must have been a starting migraine with a starting cold probably, as after some medication and a bit of rest I felt better again.
that caretaker asked her doctor to test her husband and kids, but that too was not seen as necessary as they had to quarantine in any case…
and in the meantime dumb Trump gets tested every day…
I think there would be plenty of secret or not so secret smiles if one day he would test positive, ha!
the incident with the journalist with Chinese roots was on the news here, he is truely unbelievable, to use a polite word…
M
Margaret,
I hope you don’t get covid. Maybe your caretaker had a very mild case, but she still could be contagious, so her coming to your house doesn’t seem ideal.
In New York state, the latest testing showed that 14.9% of people have covid-19 antibodies. We plan to do antibody testing here where I work, as it would be good to know who has been exposed, and I think my boss sees it as a good money maker. But testing kits aren’t available for us yet. We still won’t want anyone acutely ill with covid coming to our office.
Phil
GOOD GIRL
I am a good girl, Mommy
I will give you what you want
I am a good girl, Mommy
I will be who you want me to be
You need someone to take your anger out on
Okay, Mommy
You need someone to make feel worthless
Okay, Mommy
You need someone to slap
Until they are black and blue
Okay, Mommy
My friends all like you, Mommy
You are nice to them
If I told them that you have another side
A very scary side
They would not believe me
You need someone to shame
Okay, Mommy
You need someone to ridicule
Okay, Mommy
You need someone to beat with a wooden spoon
Okay, Mommy
My mother has amnesia now
She says I had a happy childhood
It is her way of coping with what she did to me
I wish I had amnesia
Then I would remember a happy childhood
Then I would be able to cope
Every day
I am a good girl
And a worthless girl
Every day
I am a good girl
And a hopeless girl
Every day
Renee: Right there I see a lot of huge feelings that you are so able to capture in that one little lyric or poem. Keep it up whatever way you feel you can Renee.
Jack
That is very movingly written and so sad, Renee.
The news is getting discouraging with all the divisiveness on the issue of reopening the economy.
I feel it should only be reopened slowly and carefully. it’s understandable people are suffering because of the economy, and from isolation, but worse would be to end up in the ICU with a severe case of covid.
Some good news though, about advances in the treatment of covid patients. The infection can be much more than a viral pneumonia. Some patients get severe blood clotting problems, and an over reactive immune system with a “cytokine storm”. One doctor here mentions he is getting consults in our local hospital because some of these problems fall within his specialty, and he can advise treatments which go beyond the hardly established standard of care for covid infections.
It seems like it’s going to take a long time to get through the pandemic. I’m glad I live in a state where the governor is acting based on advise from scientists and epidemiologists, as to how the local economy should be opened.
Phil
Hi everyone: This virus thing and it’s disruption of the normal way we go about things is sure disturbing. BUT that’s just another feeling …. yeah!
As for the economic effects, of it, ravishing all hell is because of the politics. I feel it’s demonstrating the whole system we are currently living under, (capitalism) and that is where the real problem lies. Of course, this is just my feeling, but for me, it backs up my idea about abolishing money. Then there’d be no need for any one to starve, be out of work, even a lock-down in the event of a virus attack, because eventually neurosis would wither away and we would not have to fear viruses or even bacteria. Our immune systems would be intact Meantime, we could each make out own decision. As to what we need to do for our individual selves
If, as has been said here, that it would create chaos I agree, but (repeat) what is so terrible about chaos, we’ve been living with chaos for eons, AND currently it’s all chaotic and as I see it, Throwing money at the problem is not actually helping, but IMO, actually doing the reverse .. . exacerbating it.
Further, watching all these scientist doctors is not making it any more clear either. AND won’t since, they fail to see just how viruses work on the body of neurotics, the one factor they ignore ……. the one disease we are all suffering from, and that is where we should be looking; and not all those manifestations of viruses, or even other diseases that Janov wrote about in:- “Why We Get Sick: How We Get Well”
Ah well! I prattle on.
The one ‘forlorn’ hope IMO is that we’ll get back to normal … without defining “normal” We’re never going to go back to the way it was, I contend.
Jack
Jack,
I wouldn’t risk my future or my family’s on chaos. Trump supporters seem to favor more chaos; as they consider it “freedom”. As in the right to have no health care, to risk infecting themselves and others with covid etc.
Phil
Phil: I repeat again, we humans have been living with chaos for eons and it’s not so terrible anyway, nature is chaotic as is our health, and the weather, all the way through to traffic.
The ‘man made chaos’ is the only one we are able to do something about
By he way, going back to when there was no money means that ‘abolishing money’ is not man made chaos, it’s just restoring ‘what was’.
Jack
Jack,
Do you have the right to vote where you live now? I suggest you vote for chaos or anarchy. That might be you’r best bet.
Jack,
another option is for you to donate money to the anarchy party, if there is one. If one doesn’t exist you could help it get going.
Phil
Phil: Why would anarchist who want to abolish it, donate to anything????????
the nearest I will ever come to donating are are my responses on bis blog … if donating them is the correct word. The only other would be leaving all my possession to whom ever I decide in my will on my death..
As for:- ‘getting it going’, that is exactly what I am doing, writing on this blog on that particular matter..
I get the sense that you are irritated by my responses … BUT I could be wrong.
Jack
Jack,
It seems you aren’t as dedicated an anarchist as we might think. You don’t “put your money where your mouth is”. What about around your house, do you keep things in order, or is it chaotic? I tend to be disorganized, so I’m living out your dream.
Phil
Phil: you say:- “It seems you aren’t as dedicated an anarchist as we might think” Of course, to you that is how it comes across. Said another way:- ‘that’s your feeling’
It is the very same a saying, if you obey the laws of the land. How sincere am I as an anarchist. Another of those so-called ‘Got ya’ phrases
Just because I am unable to live it, does not mean I can’t promote it. AND even speculate on how it might manifest itself. It is why Karl Marx needed communism to eventually bring it about universally … which has never happened in any country that set out to to become a communist society. The leaders/dictators (neurotically) still hung on to control … mainly by money.
Jack
Phil: No! I don’t have the right to vote and have only once voted in my life. I am neither a voting man (cause democracy is against my religion) and I’m not a betting man … cause I’m a loser. AND it saved me a lot of money, since I live in this crazy world of money. So! had to save unless I chose to live homeless; So! I saved.enough for me and Jim to buy our chalet and the land it stands on
Jack
BOO!! Scared you, didn’t I?
Guru: Didn’t scrare me, and neither does poo, loo, goo, zoo, moo, woo. doo, foo, hoo, koo, roo, voo. or yoo,
Jack
Guru,
Iiiiek!!
M
Guru and Margaret,
It’s not Halloween! And I’m sure you’re not scaring anyone with your masks.
Phil,
my sister bought us some ‘cat’ mouth masks, and will bring them over one of these days.
maybe instead of scaring people they might invite them to stroke my hair…
will go to the hairdresser today, first time since early March I will be out, apart from putting the trash out once a week…
I feel very down today, in a bleak kind of way, feel alone and hopeless, who says the situation will improve soon?
feel lonely and sad but in a depressive kind of way, not a fun place to be in.
tomorrow my brother will go visit our mom , on a distance, outdoors and with a mouth mask.
they won’t even be able to get together as there will be barriers.
I will call the nursing home and remind them to put mom’s hearing aid in, as it will be difficult enough as it is I am afraid…
only one fixed person can do one visit a week like that, which does not sound very fulfilling, specially not to me as I can’t even go now officially until they change or bend that rule, as my brother is the ‘one person’ now.
it iss all so frustrating , scary and depressing…
Death and dying seem to be a recurring aspect of my nightmares these days
big sigh…
M.
Margaret: That’s really, really sad and it’s no surprise you having those kind of dreams.
Do you cry about it all?
Jack
an item I just saw on the news made me cry.
the situation in the nursing homes in New Jersey seems really terrible.
people are left in their rooms, including people with dementia, and often don’t even get food.
5000 residents died already and there is too little staff, and help they sometimes get from other instances is prohibited to hand over meals for example.
one woman talked about it after she took her own mom out of the nursing home, and it sounded heartbreaking.
on top of that nursing homes cost often between 8000 and even 1000 dollar a month, it is a disgrace , a catastrophe and so much pain and despair for the families involved.
and that is probably just a tip of the iceberg while at the same time .. Trump boasts about his own stupidities, like the malaria medication he has been taking for over a week, I hope it gives him a heart attack…
M
Margaret,
It’s a terrible situation in nursing homes here. One third of all US covid deaths are nursing home related, residents or workers. I think the pandemic is showing how poor our health care system is, as well as government services and agencies.
Phil
Phil,
that is sad.
here the price of a nursing home is usually under 2000 dollar a month, all included, and people that can’t afford it can get financial help from the government.
if they have kids that earn a lot part of the help can be asked from those children, but it is not very much, a small monthly amount that would not be a problem for someone with a job.
so here everyone can count on assistance in their old age, in a nursing home or assistance at home.
it is not perfect but so much better than the American system in my opinion.
there is also financial support for any working person or businesses that could not work due to Corona, so our social system is pretty good really.
today I got out on the streets for the first time in more than two months, and it started out feeling good but due to the sun shining in my eyes, and probably some stress I got lost on what normally is a reasonably easy road to my hairdresser.
that was very confronting as I really ended up not knowing where I was, which is scary and hurts and is extremely stressful.
I turned around at some point and luckily there was a very nice man swiping the pavement who helped me to find my way again…
and still people keep saying to me ‘why don’t you go out for a nice walk?’, it is very hard, even for me, and more so for others, to let in how difficult life is with very bad eyesight, and just one ear functioning.
i have to move on living like this for the past 23 years, have to function and make the best of it but at times I run into the limitations and that always hurts, specially in social contacts and of course also when it gets hard or impossible to get to where I want to go…
big sigh again…
still I have made it once more and on hindsight it looks more like some adventure, a bit, but not at all while it happens.
M
Margaret,
At least you finally got there. It’s hard for me to imagine the difficulties you go through with those handicaps, it has to be so hard.
Phil
Hi Margaret, I do still spend some time reading everything you’re sharing. I just wanted you to know that so you didn’t think I was ignoring your eyesight or nursing home concerns. With apologies I do say I’m just fighting way too many of my own weird battles to become more deeply involved at this time, sorry. I do appreciate the struggles you are sharing, though, and I still think there may be some cutting-edge surgical assistance possibilities for limited eyesight to be worth exploring as a long-term project.
If it cheers you up any, one of my own struggles are strange, sexually-related ones you would giggle and laugh at that I am a bit too ashamed to talk about to very many people at all.
Guru: Just a suggestion:-
It might be a therapeutic exercise to just write here, about that “strange, sexually-related one”.
I might just take the shame away … but that also takes time, I feel .
Jack
All right, then, I’ll do it for US $100,000. This will help take the shame away as I will know at that point there are people who truly care about my well-being beyond just cheap talk. Remit the payment to Gretchen and I will give her half of 1% ($500) as her fee for serving as escrow and forwarding the remainder to me. Cashiers checks should work for this. Thanks, Jack.
(Yes, upon receipt of payment I really will say exactly what it is. The offer is no joke.)
Hmmm. For what it’s worth, my advice is to give up on expecting Jack to use money,
Larry: Where do you get tht from?
I’m forced to use this damn stuff by the likes of all of you, that believe in this stuff.
BUT I don’t expect you guys to change your minds … Sadly … or me.
Jack
Guru: I don’t believe MONEY serves you, me, or anyone else. Try the lottery, It plays on ones neurotic desire to get rich, BUT getting rich NEVER did give anyone all the thing they hoped it would give them.
I’ve known a few. It seemed that I got a better deal out of life than they did … but then, maybe I’m just fooling myself … yeah???
Jack
Guru, it seems to me you’ve done a lot just mentioning your struggle, but what you said leaves us imagining what it could be. Is it this?
https://www.psypost.org/2020/05/men-incorrectly-believe-their-female-partners-would-be-okay-with-them-having-a-futuristic-sex-robot-56759?fbclid=IwAR2qHkb4M1QcI1JIHf-pLve_210aVmWM1BL4c42Sh1yz84rgB0Rl7847w5A
I don’t think there’s anything shameful in having a high end sex robot, if that’s what you’re into.
Phil
Phil, that’s probably a wise choice for a single unattached man in this pandemic, and fits the primal condition too of talking to “her” about feelings.
Sylvia, I agree. These beautiful robots would be healing since they are free of Corona virus and neurosis.
I think they are working on a male version for women to enjoy, but the problem is it would have to provide financial security. Phil
Guru,
that is nice of you to let me know you read my comments, no problem if you do not respond, no obligation whatsoever.
my own tendency to engage is these days much lower than usual, as I feel both overwhelmed and depressed by the lock down and all its implications.
and well, you did tickle my curiosity a bit with the last part of your comment, hope it is nothing that can’t be fixed or get better spontaneously…
M
Larry,
well, Jack does want to get rid of money, so it would be a good start to pay Guru so he can share his intriguing secret with us.
maybe Priapism?
that seems to get very painful after a while, while maybe at the start it seems fun?
M
Margaret & Phil: Sorry, but priapisms and sex robots are very boring and ordinary. What I had to deal with is something much, much more rare and exotic. Something which only somewhere between 1 in 3 million to 1 in 5 million men have had to deal with. That’s the only clue I will offer. I wouldn’t charge Jack $100,000 to learn all about it if it wasn’t worth the money.
Jack: Please, no bullshit lectures. Words are cheap. My offer is still on the table and I will definitely honor my end of the deal with a full description of the problem and the proposed solutions I had considered for it. There is one other person we know that knows about it, and I will have that person confirm what I would tell you as truthful as well.
Guru: Sorry to note that you see my suggestion as bullshit,.. I feel that any of us that has sexual problems, needs to get resolved one way of another.
I can only assume that you prefer to live with the ‘shame’. … And I feel for many of us on this blog; the imagination of what it could be, is running wild
Jack
Someone knows? watch out that they don’t hit you up for hush money. I don’t know about collecting big money for ‘the revelation’ but I’d be willing to chip in a quarter for a human thermometer to prevent under-the-tongue stab wounds from a meat thermometer in future episodes of flu.
S.
Hi Sylvia, you’re probably right in that it’s a good idea to change topics now. Phil and I thought I had the COVID-19 back in February rather than just the flu. I’m not sure?
This strong push to re-open the entire country is making me uneasy. Nothing I can do about that, though.
I learned a long time ago with auto traffic fatalities the same lesson many are learning today with COVID: The far right values economic output more than the lives lost in generating such output.
My boss is excited today because its looking like we can start very soon with Covid-19 antibody testing. It will be very lucrative for us because everyone can be tested, and that’s what’s caught his attention. It shows the poor motivations in our healthcare system. I will help him because that’s what he wants to do, and of course, I want us to stay in business.
I’ve already sent patient covid antibody tests to references labs and the results come back with a long disclaimer. It isn’t a good test to determine whether or not someone has covid, and can’t prove that anyone is immune. It is evidence that someone was infected, and has possibly now recovered.
Phil
Phil: COVID 19 isn’t the problem IMO I repeat:-] It’s neurosis.
J<ack
Jack, so you’re saying I should be testing our patients for neurosis?
Phil: You’re doing what most politicians do and many that live by their wits … It’s called spin.
To answer your question You don’t have to test for neurosis we’ve all got that disease. If that disease did not exit then COVID 19 wouldn’t have ‘a leg to stand on’, as t’were.
I have merely suggested a way to get rid of neurosis. I cannot prove it, but it’s worth a try and Karl Marx, after a lifetime of thought wrote his “Communist Manifestation”. BUT alas, he did not understand our nature; merely our behaviour. Thus Marx’s communism never got further than imposing a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. and because of neurosis it stopped abruptly at that point and then McCarthism in the US set out to ‘bad mouth’.communism. AND most Americans have bought it. The reality is:- Communism never actually existed.
Post Janov we could not make it a reality. BUT on the proviso that we see it as the one disease that is slowly moving Homo Sapiens towards extinction and perhaps faster than (perhaps) we know it.
If we as a species are for ever trying to create ORDER out of chaos than this virus is killing that idea real fast, and the only thing governments are coming up with is to:- throw the one aspect of humanity that is crippling us M O N E Y … trillions now … and most of us (me included) don’t see it.
Hence:- put the idea out there … then let it mature in it’s own good way at it’s own good time.
So Phil; maybe you are now able to see where you might be tested for neurosis BUT I doubt that idea will catch-on.
Jack
Jack,
With neurosis I think the idea is to cure ourselves, not mankind. The best answer to the corona virus pandemic, in my opinion, will be a vaccine. Neurotic or not, we will all die
of something anyway, but I’d like to live a little longer.
Phil
Phil: Since you, me and the rest of us got fucked over; how about concentrating on PREVENTION, especially since you have kids and potentially grandchildren.
My Idea,, as I see it, is the only way to prevent it. It’s simple, natural, and all other creatures live that way … Yep! even the domesticated ones, especially cats as I observed them, when I lived with 8 or 9 of them during my Ibiza days
If you, or anyone else, has another idea about ‘prevention’,, I am will to give it a great deal of consideration.
To only considering curing oneself is:- to me, small minded. If we applied that very same principle to eliminating COVID 19, then we’d be in more serious trouble trouble than we already are. AND I am somewhat skeptical about vaccines. Do vaccines actually prevent the disease OR, does the virus mutate such that avoids the ultimate elimination of itself? Incidentally, as I see on TV, the ‘experts’ are considering some of the ideas I have said here.
Of course there are several words in your comment that need clarification … example:- Cure, Neurosis, Idea, Opinions.
Jack
Jack,
You insist on promoting your ideas to save mankind on the blog. Why, I don’t know. But maybe that’s where you should redirect your focus. What is it driving you to do that? What is the feeling?
Phil
Phil: It’s always a good idea for anyone to ask me what the feeling is behind my ideas, opinions, and what ever:-
Since I was the oldest of 4, all within 3+ years, I was told that I had to be responsible for the other three when we were out, without either parent. I did so, and then particularly my brother would go back home and complain to my parents that I was bullying him. On arriving back home then my father would beat me around my head saying:- “We’ll have no bullies in this house”.
What did the fuck he did feel he was doing to me? As a consequence, I felt that I needed to take into consideration many potential consequences for whatever I was proposing … yet still retaining that responsibility.
I am never going to get out of this bind by listening to anyone’s advice on the matter. I need to pursue my (apparent) needs, until I personally come to see the futility of my actions … AND I feel this blog is an excellent place for me to explore it.
As for promoting my ideas elsewhere in order to not Irritate others on this blog; I don’t feel that is productive for the blog, me, or those that are irritated. Their irritation is their feeling and it is for them themselves to resolve it. Of course, I do not deliberately try to irritate others and do my utmost to prevent it. Ironically I have the very same problem with Jim my partner. BUT I do want to preserve some autonomy for myself.
I hope Phil, that answers your question.
Jack
Jack, that’s a good answer. And on the larger questions you ponder, why is the answer always neurosis? Why covid effects us? neurosis. Why we think? neurosis. Why we talk? neurosis. Why we have leaders? neurosis. Why we have governments? neurosis.
Why we use money? neurosis. Why we get sick? neurosis. What’s for dinner? neurosis.
Phil: If you don’t know the answer to :- “Why is it always neurosis”. then we’re not on the same page. I wonder what brought you into to Primal therapy. Was it something other than ‘the pathology of feelings’ … Janov’s definition of “neurosis”
If it was because you were in great pain then there is an excellent quick fix to pain … Heroine. Of course, you need to keep taking it ‘until death you and it doth part’. Primal therapy takes a little longer than the original prognosis .. around 6 months.
On the COVID front:- (this is another repeat) most diseases as stated very clearly in “Why We Get Sick: How We Get Well” are as a result of neurosis limiting the immune system. If our immune system was up to par COVID would would hardly affect us. And doesn’t for over 80% that contract it. It needs that particular event at birth when breathing was NOT permitted to take its own course in it’s own good time. As Frederick LeBoyer MD pointed out;- by nature when it’s completed it’s task it just withers an shrivels up No need to cut it. But as | understand it, the practice still persists.
A good test for being vulnerable to COVID would be to ascertain if one did have a breathing problem at birth (usually) by cutting the umbilical cord too soon. But medical science is all ‘hell bent’ to find its (the medics) own answer/s. They sure didn’t, and still don’t, take Primal theory into consideration.
That’s my beef about the medical profession. So!!! other than that last item (d\inner) in that list of yours yes, Yes, YES & Y E S .
Jack
Jack, we’re not really on the same page. I think, unfortunately, Janov led some people astray, who took too literally as true all the things he wrote in his books a lot of which was speculation. For me, the therapy parts are mostly all valid, but I look at the rest with skepticism.
Phil: that you think that:- “Janov led some people astray, who took too literally as true all the things he wrote in his books a lot of which was speculation.” AND “I look at the rest with skepticism”.
I can’t disagree with you more adamantly. That he might have been somewhat arrogant is something else. he admitted to ‘not being perfect’ in one of his blog comments If you see Janov this way, I wonder just how you approach your therapy.
When he speculated he hinted it was a speculation that he he’d hoped about the speed and final resolution in those early days, he later admitted to most of them, as I read him.
Of course I am a great Janov admirer, and he’s one of the two heroes in my life … the other being William Shakespeare. The WHY for me, is because I contend, he made the greatest discovery of all time. My reason being:- he discovered something about us humans that we’d only been able to speculate upon for eons.
Jack,
that reply about your dad and brothers is interesting.
you never gave that much details about it.
I remember you mentioning how when you were a kid, your schoolmates also called you ‘the professor’.
do you feel that too is related to the distorted messages your dad gave you?
it is sad really, while you try to live up to his demands, still en some way, you could alienate people involuntarily.
luckily I know you are a kind person with a good sense of humor, which Dos not always show on this blog, and hey, your merits must outrun the irritating parts also in your relationship, as that goes way back and still seems mutually rewarding, for which I am glad.
M
Magaret: you you say:- “that reply about your dad and brothers is interesting.
you never gave that much details about it”
Yes I have.at least once and perhaps twice.
Another:- I remember you mentioning how when you were a kid, your schoolmates also called you ‘the professor’.”. that is correct and they had their reasons, but I kinda get the hint form you that I am still ‘playing out’ that ‘cat calling’ Being jibed because I appeared brainy was their way to get at me.
I have stated several times about my first interview with Wendy Campbell in Cambridge who said of me that I had a very intelligent understanding of Primal therapy; “albeit that your intelligence is your greatest defense” I instantly knew she was right.
Another:- “do you feel that too is related to the distorted messages your dad gave you?” No! I knew at the time because my mother saw me differently and told me so. I sort of knew my father didn’t ‘understand me.
“it is sad really, while you try to live up to his demands”
I don’t try to live up to his demands, but I do feel that not having a loving father is part of why I am gay. Which is a whole other question.
“still {i}n some way, you could alienate people involuntarily”.
Of course, that is something I am constantly taking into consideration.
, ” …………your merits must outrun the irritating parts also in your relationship, as that goes way back and still seems mutually rewarding, for which I am glad”
All relationships are something we all have to deal with and and mine are no different to most others. The point I deal with constantly is: What is it about me that causes Jim to became irritated with me.. I try hard to prevent myself form looking into his neurosis to figure it out; as that then just becomes a blame game … or “he said; she said”.
Thanks Margaret for the feed-back.
Jack
Jack, Adding to what I said in my last comment, you have your own theories which go beyond anything Janov ever said, as far as I know. We could call those theories “The World According to Jack”, and to me they are unrelated to primal. That’s why we’re not on the same page
Phil
Phil: Nice to know I have my own theories, when I felt all I did was steal other peoples. It’s ironic that you suggest:- . ‘We could call those theories “The World According to Jack”’
My first book title was “The Gospel According to Jack: To Deliver Us From Neurosis”
I am acutely aware that you see that my ideas are unrelated to Primal. It is because I am aware, I feel the need to repeat, repeat, and repeat again.
What all this does for me is to make me very aware, in putting across an idea, I need to attempt to be more and more explicit.
I take my cue from something I read in F.M. Alexander’s book “The Use of The SELF” Were he was asked if anyone could practice his technique, by just reading his book and his reply to that question was:- ‘Yes!… if they can read”. Suggesting, most people can’t read. I took it, that people don’t read carefully, and when in doubt don’t re-read.
When I first read “The Primal Scream” I immediately re-read it, just to make sure I got what he, Janov, was actually saying. It is so easy to speed read or, quickly skip through books and articles and feel we understood it fully. I am as guilty as most for doing just that.
I also have another proclivity, which is to look at the implication of ideas and principles. I did just that in my book, mentioned above; writing a whole section to the implications of the Primal triad. discovery, theory and therapy.
Jack
Jack, I would say you have a good understanding of primal and clearly have advanced in the process. It’s just that I don’t see your further implications, your theories, as being related or helpful. I could be wrong, that’s just my opinion.
It’s interesting about your book including the word “gospel” in the title. Does that mean you think of primal as a kind of religion? And that we are followers of some kind of guru?
Phil
Phil: I though for quite some time about the title. A friend said that ‘gospel’ meant:- “the good word” so I thought why not? The second part was due to the spiritual implications of the first part.. But “NO!” I do not think of Primal as a kind of religion. Religion by definition is a belief system. Primal is not a belief system … for me at least. But I have been accused of making so. Thus my title is a sort of ‘tongue in cheek’ reaction. Actually it does intrigue many scanning the book in book stores.
I will again explain the connection of Primal notion to the abolishing of money:-
What Janov discovered was the ability of us humans to re-live the past, that in turn meant the subconscious (or unconscious by some) was not normal or natural. Thus when he attempted to relate his discovery to what he knew about Neurology (his PhD subject) he found that he was able to define (for the very first time in history) neurosis. And was able to show that prior to that we humans were behaving and NOT being natural. It tied up a lot of lose ends that Freud and Jung left dangling IMO.
Now for me seeing that he’d defined our nature. I then started to look for a time when we were natural and not behaving. Armed with Bernard Campbell conjecture, an anthropologist professor from Cambridge, who after therapy researched, his work and conjectured, potentially we became neurotic, from a state of being natural, Thus becoming neurotic Should you be interested in his prognosis you’d have to read up on him.
Now I saw the connection between the Primal notion and the world before we lost our feelings ( became neurotic) Al I needed to do now was to seek a way for us humans to NATURALLY revert back to the way we were before we got infected with this insidious disease. It is still assumed out there, that our behaviour is our nature.
I feel few realise just how insidious this disease is. Just me and my feeling.
There! I hope I shown you were I see the connection. with abolishing money and becoming natural and normal again. This idea, notion, of mine took years to mature to what it is for me today. There are no anarchists, to the best of my knowledge, that as attempted to connect anarchy to being natural and/or normal. I want to press that point and tied several publishers … No one was interested. though there are many books on the market about anarchy.
Jack
Jack, that’s interesting but I don’t see where you make a direct connection between the use of money and neurosis. To do that you’d have to show how it’s use negatively affects parenting, but you don’t do that. And I know that besides abolishing money you’d prohibit bartering. People would find other vehicles to facilite a transaction in the absence of money; gold silver, jewels, cigarettes, etc could be used. I don’t think people could be stopped from bartering goods and services. Nor do I think that anarchy could even be achieved or maintained. And, I’m still not seeing the connection between anarchy and neurosis. Anarchy to me seems to imply less human connection, or that we would relate to each other randomly. It seems like a recipe for more neurosis not less.
Phil
Phil: I am aware you do’t see the connection between money and neurosis and I feel it’s because you are looking at it from our current situation of say the last 4,000 years of our relative known history.
I’ll posit a couple of question in the hope you see how I connect it:-
If money was natural and normal, would we invented it way before it came into being?
My guess some 10.000 + years ago and shortly before that it was barter.
Also there is not sign in the animal world that they use money, much less an exchange system. Can you give me an example to the contrary?
It does require that we question many of the things that are now generally accepted. That doesn’t necessarily mean we dismiss it/them, but we need to give it a lot of consideration from what constitutes our lives. All of us on this blog know that we were traumatized badly and that our only recourse was to accept it, and perhaps after suffering many near death situation as babies. Whilst we are able to accept the traumas of the past, it is not a big stretch to take it one step further, AND consider many other things as well … like:- the need for governments, national borders laws that we never fully understand, and hope they only apply to the other guy.
We talk glibly about “FREEDOM”, Yet there is very little freedom. We re the least free creature on the planet ……….but alas, I contend, we’re in denial.,
Jack
Jack, OK, in my case I haven’t been traumatized by money or governments, maybe some people have been. My parents were the main cause. Abolishing money and having anarchy wouldn’t have done a thing about that. I don’t need to try to imagine things as they were 4000 years ago, that’s irrelevant, just speculation. We have a therapy that works, a theory to explain it, and the elimination of money and having anarchy isn’t a part of it. Jack, I think you should stick to primal basics. Maybe you’d like to be a great theorist, a great thinker, or something. Is that what all this is about?
Phil
Phil: You say:- ” in my case I haven’t been traumatized by money or governments,” I was not suggesting that you or anyone else is traumatized by governments OR money (unless you don’t have any). except in the most repressive instances. What government do is deny you full freedom. If you consider that a trauma then, I feel you might be on the way to seeing the unutterable situation we humans find ourselves in..
Jack
Jack, I believe we do need to give up many individual freedoms for the benefit of the group( the country, state, or municipality etc) but not too many. I don’t consider it a trauma being denied full freedom by my government. I’m OK with that. I think that’s a pretty good trade off. Maybe mores should be denied to corporations, less ability by individuals to accumulate large amounts of wealth, money or possessions. These are some practical changes which could be enacted. Abolishing money wouldn’t remove inequality, I’m quite sure it would continue. Nor would greed be eliminated. Money is not a root cause of societal problems, in my opinion. Phil
Phil: you say:-“I believe we do need to give up many individual freedoms for the benefit of the group( the country, state, or municipality etc) but not too many. “. So! which are those do you want to keep and which ones are you willing to sacrifice? I feel the need for you to be a little more specific if both of us wish to further this conversation in terms of ourselves and the satisfaction with blogging here.
Unlike you, I don’t think it is a very good “trade off”. I’m having to forgo a part of life that I wish to have and to keep; and all the rest of us humans , DEEP DOWN, would like to have, I contend.
If as you suggested “Abolishing money wouldn’t remove inequality, I’m quite sure it would continue. Nor would greed be eliminated. Money is not a root cause of societal problems, in my opinion”
How so? … again I would like to know how it wouldn’t. By definition; money is the one controlling factor that holds us all IN OUR PLACE … IN CHECK. It forces you/us to go to work and thousands more to work at something many positively dislike. And even prevents us from taking time off from work in the case of family emergencies, especially those emergencies for our kids.
As I see it (and I don’t mean this to be taken personally by you Phil), we neurotics have come to ACCEPT the ‘status quo’ and give no consideration to alternatives. That I see, is the very essence of neurosis, the pathology of feeling/s, the obedient masses, the sense that ‘it is the way it should be’ … but for a few minor tweaks here and there. The only exception to those, are the hermits, the homeless and most of the criminal mind -set.
Mmmmm!!! I find all this stimulating and is sort of my mind’s gymnasium.
Jack
Jack, I’m OK with most of the trade offs we have. The things I would change just represent tweaks to the system, making the US more like a Scandinavian country, for example. We have a continuous process of changes and adjustments in our systems, and that is politics. I don’t think politics can be eliminated either. It exists in every country around the world. You want to change things, so you are a politician yourself. You don’t believe wealth can be accumulated without money? What about all the properties, houses, and all our other material possessions? There are a lot of holes in your thinking, the way I see it. You like your ideas so much that you seem blind to any counter arguments. You’re in a box of your own making. The world we have, with all its faults, is the one I have to deal with. There is nothing much I can do to change it, so I don’t spend much time on these questions.
Phil
Phil: I have selected 5 point you make, and will respond to each one:-
1) “We have a continuous process of changes and adjustments in our systems, and that is politics. I don’t think politics can be eliminated either. It exists in every country around the world. You want to change things, so you are a politician yourself.”
Yes of course, politics dominates it all, like:- YOU, ME, and EVERYONE ELSE and WE ALL HAVE TO ACCEPT IT. That is the very essence of neurosis. Until I read “The Primal Scream” I too had accepted it. My particular therapy was about dismantling that acceptance.
2) “You don’t believe wealth can be accumulated without money?”
Wealth is what maintains capitalism. If money was eliminated there would be no point in accumulating anything except those things you needed on a daily basis like:- your bed, your shelter, cooking utensils, and maybe the tools needed to carry out you desires and wishes, etc, etc. The only wealth I am interested in, is the wealth of my feelings and my ability to freely express them.
“There are a lot of holes in your thinking,”
I accept that, but who doesn’t have holes, contradiction, biases in their thinking? I would find it more interesting if you would point out my holes.
“You’re in a box of your own making. ”
Your are correct. I have spent a great deal of my therapy getting out of one box, only to find that I am in yet another box … much like those Russian dolls.
“There is nothing much I can do to change it, so I don’t spend much time on these questions.”
Sadly, that is where I feel you are coming from … a situation where there is little or nothing you can do about it. I don’t feel the same way. I actually feel (maybe conceitedly) that there is something I can do about it. It is precisely this which keeps me going down this path.
Jack
Jack, our system makes it difficult for anyone to live off the land or off the grid, that’s true. People in that way are forced to use money. Healthcare shouldn’t be employer based as we have here, because that forces people to participate in the economy. Healthcare should be a universal right and run by the government. A universal basic income is also a good idea, I think. Many new regulations and laws are needed to address climate change, environmental destruction, and over population. The existing system can be changed in many ways to make necessary improvements, rather than your radical solutions which wouldn’t work for reasons I have listed many times in our discussions.
Phil
Phil: You seem to love tweaking, I love radical change; just as Janov created a radical change. The rest of the psychological profession deals in tweaking. Another analogy, I have an old car that I keep doing a bit here and another bit there … hoping one day it will be totally fixed. How about I just scrap the old one and get a new one?
Then, your final sentence “The existing system can be changed in many ways to make necessary improvements, rather than your radical solutions which wouldn’t work for reasons I have listed many times in our discussions”.
To the best of my knowledge you’ve never listed them. Even if you had; is that PROOF it wouldn’t work? I don’t think so. The real answer is you don’t fuckin know, just as I don’t knew how it would manifest itself. (the expletive if for emphasis).
Why are you, me, and the rest of us humans, so unwilling to just admit “WE DON’T KNOW”.
I contend, I know less now that I did as a six month old baby … when most of me was still relatively intact.
If you feel strongly about your list, and you have a record of them or remember them, that would be helpful. to me. T. Y. I. A.
Jack
Phil: A follow-on. your last sentence says a lot to me,by way of feed-back. ” Maybe you’d like to be a great theorist, a great thinker, or something. Is that what all this is about?”. Not really!!! I have other proprieties like:- A good relationship, in a very comfortable home, a lovely garden that I like at and not have to tend, someone that cares about me, and more and more sensitivities and feeling for other people, animals and some left for plant life, that I am not quite as connected towards
Even as of these days I sure wished I’d done a lot less thinking and way more feeling and expressing them fully … for I contend it is feelings and their full expressions, that are the essence of life, Thinking (I repeat) is an act-out. and as such, is a replacement for expressing the feeling.
I, in the very first months of therapy, thought I would like to be a therapist, but I gave up on that idea after a session with a therapist when I said I would like to be one After the session I gave up on that idea. Buddying is about as far as I want to go.
However,I will ponder on he feed-back for some time.
Jack
Right now, I’m reading Michelle Obama’s autobiography, “Becoming”. I am enjoying it. I came across this interview with her promoting the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QLL-jM30QA (Michelle Obama Opens Up To Jenna Bush Hager About Her New Book). I would encourage folks to watch it all, but I am posting it here for a specific reason. At one point (around min. 11), she captured perfectly the ‘aha’ moment that I had with Daniel, as well as my motivation to write the poem “The Longing”. She states that, “I wish we didn’t demonize people who disagreed with us” and the longing many of us have to move beyond this way of relating. She was specifically talking about what is happening in the U.S. politically, but I think this issue transcends borders. I think this tendency to demonize, and I would include pathologize and look down upon, is a symptom of neurosis, trauma, and colonialism, all mixed together. I think it just perpetuates the divides and disconnects, both internally and externally, and does nothing to find opportunities for connection and coming together. I like the way Michelle Obama captures this problem is such a simple yet profound way.
Jack,
you say “I contend, I know less now that I did as a six month old baby … when most of me was still relatively intact.” Were you a baby anarchist?
Phil
Phil, I agree with Jack that babies are very wise. However, if Jack was a baby anarchist, then I was likely a baby Marxist and you a baby liberal. Btw, this is an example of a kid anarchist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iY81RPkOeU (Charlie Chaplin vs Anarchist Kid).
Renee,
as a baby I lived in a dictatorship, it didn’t matter if I was a liberal baby or not. I had no vote as to when I’d get fed or changed. In an anarchic system babies would be fed and changed randomly, which could help solve our over population problems. I guess politburos make all decisions for Marxists babies. Feeding and changing would have to be referred to a committee. Starvation is a possibility.
Phil
Phil: All babies are anarchists and you should know … You’ve had one or two yeah?.
I remained one until such time as they (unwittingly) scared the fuck outta me, and thouht I was dying, Then all hands went up and I accepted.
Jack
I was born deep in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. What the hell is happening to my beloved homeland?
Guru,
Minneapolis seems to have a surprising number of brutal police incidents with possible racism involved, doesn’t it?
Phil
Phil, I don’t really want to touch the ‘racism’ card. I’m just upset at my lovely, progressive birthplace being left in tatters.
A few years after I was born, my parents moved to Ferguson, Missouri for a short while which also turned out to be a hotbed of police brutality protests and violence several decades later. Interesting coincidences, to say the least. It seems as though my parents and I leave a burning trail of destruction decades after we have left.
Guru, I’m really sorry about that, what’s happening in your hometown.
I remember going up to see my grandma in her retirement community there right after my aunt gave me my first car. A big car with a great stereo system. I’d get bored at grandma’s place after a while and drive downtown near St. Paul’s capital building, playing Prince’s ‘Sign of the Times’. Into the head shop I’d go, grabbing a neat little blue ceramic one-hitter..hunting around the drug houses into the evening trying to score a bag of pot from total strangers. That was some of downtown Minneapolis life for me as a teenager.
Guru,
It sounds like it was a great place.
Sure, Minneapolis was great….but looking back it was obvious I was already in serious trouble as a teenager and I had no idea where to begin looking for the answers I sorely needed. I wasn’t even sure I needed to look for answers back then; only a vague notion that something was seriously amiss.
UG, the U.S. was founded on slavery…….that doesn’t sound very progressive to me.
Well how would you prefer me to sound so you would feel satisfied by my behavior?
Renee: I feel this police action was deplorbele by any stretch of the imagination, and yes it’s a continuum of the slavery that the US was built upon.
That mentality still exists and all the efforts to get out of it, are examples, as I see it, for government/s trying to solve these problem that are nothing more than our neurotic humanity, which for me, that is were problem should be tackled … The deeper issue is that most people don’t see their neurosis and see everything in terms of:- “if only the other guy would ………… whatever they deem the other guy to be. or do.or should do.
Being proud of one’s home city, state, nationality is where I fear most of us back away from our deeper problem/s.
To push my point one more time. Abolish that, that keeps us bound up in our neurotic stupidities. My contention by now is well know BUT as I am won’t … MONEY.
Why would anyone want to become a policeman????? High paid bullies IMO.
Jack
We found out yesterday that the younger brother of one of my son’s good friends has died in a motorcycle accident. A head on collision with a pickup truck as he was on the wrong side of the road. It’s so sad and scary, he was only 22. His parents are nice people who I used to see around town very often, and at the soccer field, where I coached my son and his friend, and the brother would be there too.
Phil
I’ve learned that if stories such as these don’t show up on the front page of newspapers or on your TV set or written in the history books, then it simply did not happen. Out of sight, out of mind.
Sorry, Phil, that is awful. The young man’s family will be devastated and changed forever. Those damn motorcycles are so dangerous, offering no protection. Tragic.
S
I once rode a motorcycle with a high school buddy (who was black, incidentally). I screamed in terror as he gleefully sent me through cramped city alleyways at 40 miles per hour with no helmet on, clinging to him for dear life. Never went near a motorcycle again.
When I was recently out of high school, a friend of my brother’s, both in their later years of high school, was motorcycling home along a curve in the highway one evening. A young middle-aged woman under the influence of alcohol came driving in the opposing direction. She weaved across the center line at exactly the wrong moment, struck the side of his motorcycle and sheared off his leg. During that momentous evening of his young life he bled to death along the side of the highway. A couple of other motor vehicle incidents like that in the community surrounding the rural high school that I attended shocked me into defensive driving behavior, which I practice to this day.
Driving, especially on the highway, to me feels like a risky activity. I can never completely trust, especially at night, that there is a sober, alert, responsible driver behind the wheel of the vehicle propelling towards me at highway speed, or that the vehicle approaching the intersection will stop and respect my legal right of way. I’m comforted that the vehicle I currently own is lauded for its safety features. I’m especially impressed that it has radar sensors that will detect an object or pedestrian obstructing my lane of traffic and if approaching too quickly my vehicle will brake automatically to avoid or lessen the impact of a collision if I haven’t yet started braking. Though I feel safer in it than in any of the other 5 vehicles I’ve owned or the many work vehicles I’ve driven during my life, nevertheless driving feels like a risky activity where while driving sometimes I think and envision how within seconds my life could change from placidity to calamity.
When I recall the tragic unfolding sequence of events of that evening 5 decades old, the calamitous moment doesn’t seem that long ago to me, probably because it’s burned into my mind that for him, in a shocking, violent, capricious manner time stopped.
I have to say I solidly & wholeheartedly appreciate that Phil, Sylvia, and Larry decided to revisit the violent human costs of vehicular traffic in spite of the incendiary riots and COVID completely dominating the news. No doubt I could spend days talking about how my own life was affected by this in ways both large and small. Regretfully I cannot pour my own overtaxed brain’s bioelectric energies into the topic as much anymore, for now I have completely new battles I need to fight for my own long term well-being.
There are a few excellent books out there covering this topic even though they can be difficult to find. One was written around 2005 by Lisa Lewis. I actually communicated with her via email and she was a super nice and hardworking lady, utterly passionate about the topic with her whole being at the time. Sadly, I think she left this body of work behind as not many people in Congress took her seriously enough to gain traction for her cause.
Here’s the link to her book for reference’s sake:
For some reason Amazon has become weird and wonky with their links, or I am simply not doing HTML tags correctly here.
Anyway, the book title is “It’s No Accident: The Real Story Behind Senseless Death and Injury on our Roads” by Lisa Lewis.
The book can be found easily enough if one feels motivated enough to do so.
Hi everyone: the news does not look good whichever way one looks at it. There’s the Pandemic and then the Police incident in Minnesota on killing George Floyd. As I listened to all the pundits on the Sunday shows today, I felt all of them were dealing with the question from ‘a here and now’ context, and none of them saw the underlying problem.
The police are so named “law and order officers” and it is generally assumed, as I see it, that we NEED laws and thus the order that governments deem necessary to run their operations. My question is “Do we really? and my answer is NO we don’t.
The very creation of policing started in the mid to late 19th century by a politician on the British parliament (Robert Peel) who deemed that we needed a paramilitary force to keep the people in check. BUT not the elites or even the public servants (civil service). This mentality has persisted to this very day. The mantra is ‘We need them’ but some chose to be ‘bad apples’. Little realizing that the very nature of a paramilitary force actually creates the mentality that exists in all police forces around the world, intact.
“High paid bullies”
Herein lies the very problem. Creating a “force” by definition is a harsh controlling factor on all humans … unless you have enough money to buy yourself a very skillful defense lawyer. The whole thing goes round and round until we find ourselves bound by it all.
I do see that this action and the protest that are erupting will change the mindset of many and particularly, I put my bet on the very young growing up among all this so-called chaos. We’ve even made ‘chaos’ a dirty word and wonder at the order of child-rearing is:- to repress the very spirit of children. Creating as we bloggers know, as our “neurosis”, that has haunted most of us all our lives.
Jack
An excellent updated discussion of the details of social distancing! From an updated interview of an epidemiologist. Below the link I’ve included what I think are the most useful excerpts: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-to-social-distance-as-america-opens-back-up?utm_source=pocket-newtab
“I think that we’ve learned from a number of studies that social distancing, when practiced en masse and consistently, actually can work to drive down the rate of growth of cases. …The practices that work are really the practices that reduce the ability of respiratory droplets to easily travel to other people. So that means that we’ve learned that it’s not just the distance quotient or equation. In fact, we’ve learned that sneezes and coughs can actually amplify beyond the six feet, but, in fact, that masks are really effective. Ventilation is really important. And the time interval that separates people from touching the same objects is important. So making sure that we’re not just washing hands but also not touching the same objects, especially indoor objects, is the hallmark of effective distancing strategies.
…as well as how people got SARS from a flight between Hong Kong and Beijing twenty years ago. I think the important thing … is the idea that it’s at least six feet. And what I mean by that is, there’s no evidence that anything less than six feet is at all safe. And there is evidence that, again, when people who are uncovered have big coughs or sneezes, they can sneeze twenty feet or more.
So the key, to me, since “six feet” is already in the lexicon, is not to debate six or eight or twelve, when the science isn’t really perfect about that and there’s so much individual variation. Let’s have a minimum. And let’s extend our knowledge by saying it’s at least six feet. And since it may be more, be wary of that, especially in indoor environments. Understand that masks can really help, I think, a lot more than we understood at first with this condition, because of their containment capacity. And understand, from some of these super-spreader events, … that even people singing or talking for long periods of time in an enclosed space can be risky. And so it’s both distance and density, and then time exposure. So six feet is a good starting point, but it’s not the end of the discussion.
…If you cannot see another person around you, and it’s in a well-ventilated, outdoor area, fine, I would suppose that you don’t need a mask. But if you are going to a crowded beach, a crowded park, walking down the street where people are talking and breathing and coughing and sneezing, you should wear a mask.
…by far the riskier interactions happen in densely packed indoor spaces, where there’s poor air circulation and where there are more surfaces that are coming in contact with multiple people. So the biker who’s whizzing past you, even if they’re breathing heavily—if you’re in an outdoor environment with wind and air, you need a certain density of viral particles to effectively transmit the disease. And while a person breathing heavily on a bike zooming past you might exhale more air, they’re doing it over a huge space and they’re doing it in a way that is so transient that it’s unlikely to affect you.
…We’ve learned more about surfaces, and the fact that this can stay around on metal or plastic for three days. And so it still probably makes sense to not climb all over the same playground structures, though that’s not where the majority of transmission has happened. The majority of transmission is happening in indoor, poorly ventilated environments commonly used by multiple people who are coming in and out. And I think that’s where the focus of our transmission reduction should be.
But I don’t see any reason why—as long as you’re not congregating in super dense areas that don’t have good ventilation—that’s any different from meeting them outside at eight feet.
And in both cases you think that masks are necessary? I do.
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What is your current thinking about activities that will not follow guidelines for social distance, but that can be done with masks? I’m thinking of something like getting a haircut, when the person cutting your hair is wearing a mask and you’re wearing a mask, and presumably you see the chair being wiped down, and whatever else needs to be done. The scissors are dipped in a disinfectant solution.
…But if you’re in a state that has rising cases, or thirty-five-per-cent test positivity—which implies that you’re not testing enough, so you really don’t know the number of your cases—or you’re having surging numbers in your hospitals, then I would say that doesn’t sound like a really good idea to have open barbershops, where, by definition, you’re interacting with people within two or three feet and breathing on each other.
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(Read the article for much thought about public bathrooms.)
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Would you eat at an outdoor restaurant where you trusted the management? In a community like mine, where we have high case rates, I’m not yet there for restaurants. But as cases continue to fall, I’ll tell you what, I would eat at an outdoor restaurant way before I would eat at an indoor restaurant.
There’s been a false dichotomy between people in the business-reopening camp and people in the health camp. As if either side doesn’t want the other. What I have told my friends in the business and economic communities is that you need trust in order to reopen your economy. And just because you reopen your business doesn’t mean that it’s there. You can’t declare trust by fiat. You have to build it. People have to have the sense that going to your place of business, resuming their daily life, will not entail an undue, overwhelming risk for them or their families. The only way to do that is to have reasonable and sensible and approachable policies—that enough people maintain the masks, the hygiene, the distancing, to make it possible for us to actually resume our economic lives. And so there’s a dialogue there that is really important.”
One reason the above article got my attention, is because of this article about Hong Kong, one of the most dense cities in the world: With 7.4 million people, Hong Kong has only had 4 deaths from Covid-19 — literally only 4 people have died. Contrast that with densely-populated New York City, with 8.3 million people, but over 16,000 deaths.
“How Hong Kong Did It: With the government flailing, the city’s citizens decided to organize their own coronavirus response.”
“The 1968 flu pandemic that killed 1 million people around the world started in Hong Kong, and killed at least many thousands of the city’s residents, and became known as the Hong Kong flu. Hong Kong also lost the most people outside of mainland China to the 2003 SARS epidemic. …The city is connected to Wuhan, where the pandemic started, via a high-speed-train line and many daily flights. … The city also “lacks a competent government”, and their executive “fumbled the response to the pandemic, …reacting with ineptitude”. And yet there is no unchecked, devastating COVID-19 epidemic in Hong Kong. The city beat back the original wave, and also beat back a second resurgence due to imported cases.
Hong Kong’s response was its people and, crucially, the movement that engulfed the city in 2019. Seared with the memory of SARS, and already mobilized for the past year against their unpopular government, the city’s citizens acted swiftly, collectively, and efficiently, in effect saving themselves. On the very day the first known coronavirus case in Hong Kong was announced, the … protest team … immediately created a new website—this time to track cases of COVID-19, monitor hot spots, warn people of places selling fake PPE, and report hospital wait times and other relevant information.
In response to the crisis, Hong Kongers spontaneously adopted near-universal masking on their own, defying the government’s ban on masks. When their executive oscillated between not wearing a mask in public and wearing one but incorrectly, they blasted her online and mocked her incorrect mask wearing. In response to the mask shortage, the foot soldiers of the protest movement set up mask brigades—acquiring and distributing masks, especially to the poor and elderly, who may not be able to spend hours in lines. An “army of volunteers” also spread among the intensely crowded and often decrepit tenement buildings to install and keep filled hand-sanitizer dispensers.
…
Thanks partly to their long history of fighting epidemics, Hong Kong also has some of the world’s most prominent experts in infectious diseases. …Defying China’s pronouncements about lack of evidence for human-to-human transmission and ignoring the WHO, which relayed those pronouncements to the world, the experts stated from very early on that they suspected the disease was transmitted among people, and acted accordingly in their recommended safeguards.
There’s a lesson here, as the United States deals with staggering levels of incompetence at the federal level. Stories have been written by doctors in major hospitals in the U.S. about how they tried to source masks in the black market and disguised PPE shipments in food trucks to avoid their seizure by the federal government. As Taiwan and South Korea show, timely response by a competent government can make the difference between surrendering to a major outbreak and returning to a well-functioning, open society without lockdowns or deaths. But Hong Kong also teaches that people aren’t helpless, even when their government isn’t helpful.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/how-hong-kong-beating-coronavirus/611524/
Interesting to know about those Hong Kong efforts, Vicki. I bought some goggles to wear if I’m not too self-conscious, and wrap-around safety glasses that don’t look too conspicuous. The virus can enter thru the eye area too. I will wear the glasses to dr. appts. This virus will probably go on for some months. I like how in the Japanese culture they wear masks when they have a cold. We all probably should wear them then as a courtesy. The surgeon general should encourage it for the future. Thanks for the articles, Vicki. Y’all stay safe.
S
I have an appointment in a couple of weeks with my dental hygienist for a cleaning and checkup. There are virtually no COVID19 cases here right now, so the risk is likely low, BUT the face to face super close proximity for about an hour between hygienist and client is a very high risk situation for COVID19 infection, especially given that I won’t be wearing a mask to protect myself. Even if she is, she will still be breathing down onto me with my mouth wide open. I feel like cancelling my appointment with her, but now is probably the safest time here for the next year to get a dental cleaning. It’s a decision I wish I didn’t have to make. Life was much easier pre-COVID19. I think I will at the very least ask if she’s had a COVID19 test recently.
Larry, that is a good idea to ask about her being tested. Maybe ask if she will wear a face shield too (along with the mask) and what precautions the office takes.
On the other hand, I’ve found it easy to get Drs.’ appts. now instead of waiting for 3 weeks. My doctor’s waiting room you are required to wear a mask and they only allow a few patients in the lobby, and have you wait in the car until there is room. We have had 4 cases and one death in the county. I feel it has come and gone for the majority. Most cases were probably in March when there wasn’t much testing happening. Anyway, best to gear up with personal protective equipment if we have to breathe on someone or they on us. Good luck, Larry.
Sylvia, I too have wrap-around sunglasses, to which I have attached a plastic shield below, so I feel quite protected wearing that over a mask covering my nose & mouth, at a grocery market where sometimes people are sloppy about protection. Or perhaps in fearful vanity, or maybe they are behaving immature & defiant.
Luckily, there is growing evidence that infection is related to prolonged time exposure. The longer you stay in an environment that may contain the virus, the higher the risk. “If you get a high level of exposure, it’s a short time (to infection, and if you get a) low level of exposure, it’s a longer time before that infection can establish. …The importance of time exposed to a virus is relevant for all infectious diseases, from measles to tuberculosis to Covid-19. ” So, “a short shopping trip comes with a comparatively low risk of infection — but employees in those same stores for eight-hour shifts have a higher risk.”
It’s quite logical, but reading this has made me relax a little, and feel more confident that my efforts will work. I’m certainly washing my hands often enough, even when it seems insane. I have gloves which I leave in my car to sit in the hot sun for days, so they will be safe to re-use a week or more later. And for a cheaper alternative to gloves, I also use dog-poop bags, held on with rubber bands, which can also be recycled after sitting untouched for days. These precautions are tiring to remember and use every time I need to go somewhere, I feel worn out with every shopping trip. Long cart-lines at a store will make me just “leave”, and come back another day.
“Staying safe isn’t just about hygiene and distance. It’s about time, too.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/us/coronavirus-time-risk/index.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab
It’s a very complicated time to be a human being, isn’t it? Managing all the little bits and pieces..
Yes, very much so. A bit dizzying, and frightening, with no end in sight. I am slowly “getting more used to it”, which helps, but still makes me think of wanting to be back in the time before all this mess. Every day, I feel much of what I’m doing is finding ways to “keep moving forward”, instead of succumbing to the depression of it all.
yesterday morning I discovered I had a fever, over 38 degrees Celsius, which for me is unusually high.
I canceled a visit from my half sister who would come by with new curtains for my kitchen.
I contacted a gr girlfriend who came by on Friday for lunch, we kept distance and wore masks when moving around, but mostly we sat out on the terrace at a safe distance chatting.
but I started feeling suspicious about the sandwiches she had bought in the store on my corner, as she mentioned the owner did not look her usual tidy self, it on hindsight made me imagine how maybe she was infected and prepared our sandwiches with her infected hands which we ate ten minutes later.
my girlfriend told me she had woken up yesterday with what seemed a severe allergic reaction to pollen in the air, but had no fever.
I kept taking my temperature during the day and night and it remained hovering around 38 degrees, while apart from a mildly sore throat I do not really feel ill.
but I did not join the Zoom group and went to bed early, and that seemed a wise decision as I slept very deeply.but the fever remained fairly high, only just now it was 37.6, which is encouraging.
but I feel it will go up again when I start moving around.
what suddenly made me cry, was that on the radio just now a song was played which is the one song I would pick to be played on my funeral, ‘old and wise’ from The Alan Parson Project.
a bit spooky as it is an old song you never hear anymore, and to hear it just now…
I feel glad so far not to feel very sick, but of course it also worries me, this f.. disease is one that does not make anyone rush to your bedside to take care of you.
my mom would, if she could, I know that…
I am scared, come to think of it, but also want to remain ‘positive’, and take care of myself.
M
It was probably a wise decision that you made to go to bed early and get rest. In the April 11-17 issue of the New Scientist magazine is an article about “How fever evolved to help us fight infection”. It says that once your temperature hits 38 C you’re officially considered to have a fever. The article explains how fever is stressful on the body, but the higher temperature makes it harder for an invader bacteria or virus to replicate, thus helping the body to combat it. The article reports that in a study of 72 children with chickenpox, “those who weren’t given drugs known to reduce fever recovered faster”. Similar results were found in a study of adults infected with one of the common cold viruses. A concluding statement in the article is that “most health services advise that a mild fever of up to 38.9 in the absence of more worrying symptoms, will probably get better with rest and fluids.”
It can’t not be worrisome in these times to have a fever Margaret. Keep letting us know how you are doing.
Thanks, Larry, I didn’t know that, but had read something long ago, pointing in that direction, that the fever was beneficial. It reminds me of when my brother had a high fever as an infant (104 to 106, I believe), and my mom was frantic, desperate to bring it down, we were putting cold washcloths on his tiny body, we were really worried, I was 6. No meds. I remember standing next to his crib, seeing him scream, and wanting to do something that could make him feel better. But there was nothing I could do, except stay there by him.
Vicki: I feel very lucky as I am in isolation by choice and was doing so even before the virus. Also Jim is the one that faces the public, but then only to buy groceries twice a week.
However I do see a great change occurring around the globe, and though in near future is not so pleasant to contemplate, I feel the end result will be better than we could ever have ever imagined.
The current major factor I see, is the killing of George Floyd, and just how that incident has gone viral all over the world. A very serious rethinking is becoming obvious to most of us. What I feel is lacking for now is just what that change is going to have to be.
As was stated during the Bill Clinton campaign “it’s the economy … stupid” Be it right wing capitalism of left wing capitalism … we’re being run by economics
I fear that on the virus point … we’re permitting it to be more vicious than it really is. Are we letting our fears; being of ‘ fear itself? Said another way:- Old feelings?
Jack
It touches me to visualize little you standing next to your infant brother’s crib, Vicki, wanting to comfort him in his helpless infant distress.
Thanks, Larry, it brought up some feeling for me as I described it here, remembering the scene in more detail. I can still picture it, in pieces.
Margaret: This might sound very unsympathetic but If it were me, I would sit with the fear until it was fully felt and expressed and that could take days or weeks.
Jack
took my temperature after writing the comment and it was already up again, in one ear 37.9 and in the other ear 38.2.
Sigh..
M
Margaret, I’m glad you are diligently taking your temperature, and watching for symptoms, but I wanted to comment that everything I have read about this virus says that they so far have no evidence of people catching it from food. The virus cannot multiply on or inside food, and the stomach is an acidic environment — while the virus needs respiration into lungs, nose, or eyes, so even with contact on hands, if you wash your hands with soap & water, that should take care of it.
thanks for all the response.
I am still more or less the same, sore throat but not too bad, slight headache and neck muscles bit sore, and fever the same but occasionally slightly lower.
my doc
tor will give me a call today, but what made me feel better is that the household helper told me she would keep coming even if I would become ill, she would have to wear more protective
cloths but she would still come.
she also told me she would go along with me if I would have to go to a testing center.
that is very reassuring!
she is very nice and also likes my cats.
a few days ago I listened to an old lecture of a veterinary/virology specialist about viruses.
it was very interesting, talking about all kind of viruses and their discovery, and how they go from one species to another, forming a serious threat for the new species that has no history with that particular virus.
he got interested studying seals when they had sudden outbreaks of diseases killing half of the population, and he described the ways to track down the specific origin of the disease between all the bacteria and other viruses that are present in sick or dead animals.
he also talked about influenza and sars and other corona viruses, and their spread between for example birds, see bird flu, and other species like cats or tigers and humans.
he talked about the big pandemics from the past, like the Spanish flu which killed if I remember it right, about 40 million people.
and then he warned about more and more pandemics due to globalization and other factors, mentioning among others the Corona viruses, (it was a lecture from 2012!) and how important it is to have an international task force to study, prevent and deal with those risks.
then Trump comes to mind who chose to get out of The Who right now…
I really don’t think it was only the neurotic half of the seal population dying, but I do think a healthier mind gives the immune system a better chance.
but to bring it all down to ‘feelings’ is bringing things down to a very simplistic black and white reasoning which I don’t like.
Vicki, while I get your point about food not being a risk, I still think infectious hands preparing a crusty sandwich, slicing it open, filling it up, closing it again with ‘dirty’ hands and wrapping it, might form some risk while swallowing it bit by bit shortly after, on the moment it passes your throat.
but it doesn’t not really matter, we have to take precautions to a reasonable degree but there will always remain some risk.
hopefully I am one of the many getting a mild infection and building up some degree of immunity which in case of re-infection makes the next time even more mild…
ok, back to rest now, the fever makes me a bit light in the head so back to laying on the bed with my cats and a good audio book and to checking the fever from time to time…
and staying positive, if my mom got better at 89, I should be able to do so as well, in case it is Corona of course.
M
Trump was in The Who?
World Health Organization…she’s referring to Trump withdrawing US from it.
Bad times to run a temperature in, something rather ordinary but now feels ominous. I hope you will recover fully and swiftly, Margaret.
It’s very difficult for me to get a clear picture of what is going on in the US. Hard to see through the fog of war and the biased media. What is clear is that the America, at least since 1776, is quite used to violence, protests, vandalism and the occasional shooting. So it isn’t clear (yet again) whether violent times are breaks in periods of peace, or is it the other way around – that peaceful times are breaks in the ongoing violence.
What is sure is that a lot of pain is being inflicted
Pain does not exist in America. Only lottery and casino jackpot winners. Oh, and the Forbes 400 list with a $2.1 billion minimum net worth requirement to join at the very bottom.
I remember the good old days of 1982 when the Forbes list first started, the bottom level entry cutoff was only $150 million net worth. Simpler times back then.
Well, it got even simpler since: In 2017 the 3 richest Americans – Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates – had a total net worth of 250 Billion Dollars, more than the entire bottom 50% of the rest of the Americans. At that time, about 160 million Americans (or 63 million households) had a zero or negative net worth. Today, Gates and Bezos alone own about 260 Billion Dollars, and if we add the third richest man – Mark Zuckerberg – we climb to 350 Billion.
I wonder if that has to do with anything.
As for lottery and casinos – the problem is not how to win but how to own them.
Daniel, I think I brought up the Forbes 400 to show how grotesquely absurd that financial world is as opposed to the legions of people who worry about simply making sure their bills are paid next month. Even the Federal Reserve said about half of Americans wouldn’t know how to come up with $500 for an emergency expense.
This situation is absolutely appalling and very likely to change in the coming years. I only hope it will happen by social-democratic rather than fascist means.
Say, Guru, what exactly happened in that accident that killed your mother? Has she died on the spot? Were other vehicles involved? Was there an investigation, charges brought against anybody? Was it a highway or a street accident? Do you know what model she drove? Would she be saved by today’s safer cars (seat belts, air bags, etc.)?
All my anger from yesterday really sparked enough of a fire within me to allow some excellent breakthroughs with highly delicate and convoluted computer programming work I’m trying to finish. I’d been at a standstill for several weeks and I’d like to keep the momentum going & forget about my mother for a while. She was a mainframe computer programmer herself for an investment bank and I never got to really know that until recent decades.
Anyway. she was driving home from work on a dark winter night and she had a moment’s distraction at the worst time against a concrete highway barrier.
I think it’s best I stop here and to step away from the boiling limbic system cauldron since my fragile neocortex rings are lighting up well enough for productivity’s sake at this time.
Daniel: I personally do feel I have a clear picture of what is taking place not only in the US but all over the world.. The clarity for me stems from our lack of a fully operating consciousness and the alternative being the creation of a subconscious (unconscious). The violence is just an act-out to a a ferocious anger.
That’s assuming that I am able to see it all through the Primal triad. The other stuff is merely knowing the peripheral details which of course I am not fully aware of.
I am not saying that I am there with a fully operating consciousness, but I do know where I am leaning towards, and that is what gives me a sense of clarity..
I am fazed that someone on the blog suggesting that it’s not all feeling/s. I adamantly refute that notion. The problem for me is attempting to express the right emotion to that feeling. Not always easy, but if I keep that in mind, then all else falls into place for me..
In short, my therapy worked for me … But (of course) I can only speak for me.
Jack
Guru,
thanks, you answered Renee’s question and at the same time clarified to me what she meant, as I did not get it and did not feel like using the limited amount of energy I have now to try to find it out.
glad you shed your light on this!
my fever is still there and my voice is a bit coarse now but otherwise no coughing or pains.
the doctor and me agreed on me staying home and in touch with her in case things would get worse.
if they don’t and I get better she will take a blood test in a few weeks and we will find out if I have been ‘in touch’ with Corona.
in a way it could be a good thing, if it does not make me too sick that is, as in any case it would mean I would be building up some resistance with the specific antibodies for later encounters with the virus.
my brother made me feel loved when he told me to keep him posted as he would come over if I would need help…
I feel lucky with two nice professional assistants who normally come once a week for a visit but who both told me I can always call them if necessary.
and a nice doctor and some friends I can count on.
and support from family members in different ways.
and my two lovely cats here, and in the worst case scenario a nice cat sitter and even a possible foster mommy for them, but hey, I plan to stick around and stay well!!!
M
Margaret, I’m glad you have support and can feel better emotionally, at least. That does help our immunity too, I think, to know there are friends who will help and care.
I think Renee was also making a joke about trump being in the musical group, “The Who.” Don’t think he has enough rhythm to play any instrument. He probably hates music.
Anyway, feel better and take care.
S
Man, I’m just so SICK of this senseless bullshit racism talk. An utter waste of my time and mental energy yet I can’t totally tune this worthless bullshit out of my mind because the news media won’t allow it. It’s just like the 9/11 chants. They just won’t shut the fuck up.
And I am saying this as someone who voted for Obama twice and wanted Andrew Yang to win this year. I am just so thoroughly sick of the racism topic being endlessly talked about to where the capillaries in my brain are bursting at the seams now. It never ends!
Guru: I’m not sure what you are really talking about here, in both comments.
Are you suggesting that racism is just ‘senseless bullshit’.
I personally am very aware of other peoples biases, being a gay man, and opinions on better folk and disgraceful folks. I feel these are merely opinions, rooted in childhood trauma, Do you feel differently?
What do you feel you are able to do to overcome your feeling ‘sick’ about it?
Jack
George Floyd, racism, cops….it is ALL **ALL** the news media will talk about. Over and over and over again…Jesus!
Isn’t there something similar to Joseph Goebbels style of propaganda going on here, where it’s repeated over and over and over and over and over and over again?
Guru: Yes it is, but that says nothing about what your feelings are on the matter.
The ‘Press’ as an organisation is a business, out to make money; and while money continues to be necessary; all these irritants will continue to exist.
You are at liberty to NOT watch it.
For me, I have always thought that police and policing was a contradiction in terms. They are given too much power and attract the wrong people for the job. Also people tend to want them to do ‘their’ own dirty work.
Jack
Guru,
It is a big story, try not watching the news. that’s what I do. I read the news online, that way I can pick and choose what I want to consume, rather than having it pushed at me. There are no big protests, looting, and arson, around here. I’m glad not to have all that excitement where I live, but it’s understandable that it’s happening.
Phil
Well if 800,000 people killed in their cars since 9/11 is NOT a big story, yet ONE GUY getting strangled by a cop is an endless sensation…I’m not so sure I’d want to participate in such a selective value system, racism or not (not to mention that perhaps 100,000 of the 800,000 fatalities were non-white victims anyway).
People killed in car accidents gets low ratings as a story, I guess.
It irritates me no end because it plainly tells me my mom’s own life was of no consequence or value whatsoever to society at large. The only moral solution for me personally is to try become bloodsucking financial vampire squidlet that takes as much money as possible from society without giving a thing in return.
Why should people care about your particular issue UG, when they have more immediate, pressing concerns in their individual lives!
Guru, I can understand that is a big story for you. The guy getting killed in a motorcycle accident is still affecting me, and more those big stories in the news.
I worry about my sons. One is in NYC, and not driving, but when he comes home he does. He mostly takes only small trips around town, but once in while takes a long one.
Phil
Well…thanks anyway for your supportiveness this morning, Phil. Sometimes no matter how careful we are, bad things can still happen with so many cars running around. I’ve had several close calls with serious injury or death even though I did nothing wrong during those incidents.
Guru: I grant that traffic fatalities is a big problem and especially for you losing you mother because of it.
I for one would be very interested, in just how it affected you and a young boy and losing your mom. Had that happened to me I too would have been distraught as a young kid. I NEEDED my mammy … then..
I don’t see governments or even people doing anything about it especially, in the US where having a car is almost a necessity. If in-fact the news took daily issue on the matter I doubt anything would really change
Professional drivers have to go through many hoops to get their licence, but I don’t see the average person going through such a training.
Do you have any suggestions for preventing road fatalities?
Jack
The work that at least a few other people in the world have put forth on the traffic problem far exceed anything I can offer anymore. It makes no sense for me to provide solutions here; it’s such a massive scale item that any such inquiry is a waste of time.
There are a lot of things I am very upset about and I don’t have any family beyond second cousins with whom to talk about these things.
I miss my dad and my grandma, my aunt…all the people I could easily have long conversations with.
Guru: Who are these other people that have put forth on the traffic problem; what do they suggest, and is that your view also?
Had your mom died any other way would you have felt differently about her loss, when you found out about it?
Jack
Guru,
I understand traffic deaths are a very sensitive topic for you.
a few weeks ago actually someone on the news here did use the number of traffic accident victims to point out the relativity of the number of Corona victims.
in a way that comparison although still flawed, seems nevertheless better than the comparison between traffic victims and racism victims.
the last one are no accidents, no bad luck, but a direct result of behavior of other people with a racist attitude. so racist is more intentional while most car accidents are just that, accidents, though often caused by drinking or carelessness.
the racism issue is not about the one person, Floyd in this case, but about an ongoing injustice.
Corona is a mix of sheer bad luck and lack of disciplined individual behavior and structural factors like health care and government decisions.
but of course your frustration follows its own pathways of pain with its own logic.
M
Margaret, the problem here…well, when I read what you wrote me I ask myself:
“From what angle should I begin to discuss all this with Margaret?”
“How many hundreds of blog posts will it take to completely and properly hash everything out with her?”
“Do I have the bioelectric brain energy for such an ongoing saga?”
“How will such emotional content potentially rattle the delicate structures of my neocortex which I badly need for my day-to-day operations?”
The answers I am coming up with say,
“It is time to retreat for my own well-being. It has nothing to do with an inability to approach the issues Margaret raises.”
Seriously Margaret, I could draw up a hundred-page rebuttal given enough time and work at it. I’m just too fucking irritated to go through it all.
Guru, if it doesn’t mean enough to you or you rather put your energy elsewhere rather than to take the time to write or talk about that pivotal incident in your life of losing your mother, then how can you expect the rest of society to devote time and energy from their lives to it. You say you can draw up a 100 page rebuttal but you never care enough to do even 10 pages, yet you expect the rest of society to care.
Therapy is a careful balancing act between past and present, cognition and emotional sensations. The time has come for me to pack my bags for the moment, as I am making great progress on something extremely important in the present moment that has hounded me and bogged me down for weeks.
I’m not expecting anyone to devote their time to me unless it’s voluntary on their part.
As I told Gretchen, I sometimes just need to do some padded wall pounding in frustration. If someone wants to join me, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too!
My expectations would only start to build if I explicitly asked for anyone’s attention.
Are you kidding. You’re forever having something more important to do than talk here about your Mom and you. You don’t give that story any more of your time than the rest of society who you are angry at for not giving a fuck does.
Have I ever gone on an emotional tirade berating you for how you decided to best approach your own life’s wounds during the past 12 years on the blog, Larry?
You wouldn’t believe some of the complex shit I have to work on for my own long-term survival, and I have to carefully balance that out with potentially being temporarily debilitated by emotion-laden arguments with people..
Two misnomers I think need a little clearing up:
–My anger at society’s indifference doesn’t conflate with the blog’s caring or indifference. This blog is a tiny special interest subset of a gigantically larger society.
–Just because I stopped talking about my life’s travails now doesn’t mean I won’t pick up the baton once more at a later time. It’s not even wise to deal with everything all at once, including possible conflicts with others.
Guru, surely you don’t believe your mom’s own life was of no consequence or value whatsoever to society at large?
Jo, a week or two ago I shared the story of my running around the heart of Minneapolis looking for drugs as a teenager. At the time I didn’t even know that I didn’t know anything about mom and that was it. All I knew was that some strange woman was dead and there was absolutely no further meaning attached to it in any way.
God, there’s so much more I could say about this…I can only tell you it was an extremely dangerous situation for me and if I had known as a teenager what I know now I would have immediately run back to grandma’s place never to leave her sight, organizing a full-scale financially defensive entrenchment to protect the remainder of grandpa’s assets against a world that doesn’t give the slightest shit either way.
Of course it’s not just money, but I also would have finally understood why I had to be close to her as much as possible. I would have bridged a lot of new mutual understandings with her which were completely alien to my teenage self.
I would have shared as many books as I could with her and explain the cold calculus behind why no one cares and will never care that her only child was taken away quietly so our country doesn’t have to deal with the brutal negative externalities of it’s economic need for automobile travel, etc.
I would have had a HECK of a lot of extraordinarily long conversations with her with a lot more hugs and mutual grief sharing.
This society has been worthless garbage to me. Fine, I’ll accept that, but how do I suck it as dry as possible financially and never look back except to kick it in the nuts if needed?
one good effect of Trumps crazy acts is that finally more and more influential people speak up and give him fierce criticism.
like the female bishop, and some army officials, governors etc.
I was glad to hear some army officers even had the courage to refuse to use the army against citizens .
Trumps superiority complex seems to be leading him to the decline of his power, anyway that is what I hope.
I am still with the same fever, the 5th day in a row since I started taking my temperature.
luckily still no lung problems and not even a real cold, so let’s hope this is a case of Corona light…
yesterday I found out my blood pressure was much too high but another half tablet immediately took care of that .
the plan is to do an antibodies test in a few weeks.
the thing with Corona is doctors are not keen on doing house calls, so if the cause of the fever is something entirely different persons can get more and more ill without properly being examined.
but well, so far so good hopefully…
M
i contacted my doctor to tell her about the fever still being around 38 degrees Celsius for the fifth day, which worried her so she will come by tomorrow to take a blood and urine sample.
she worries about it not being Corona but something else, which worries me now more than before, as a ‘Corona light’ would be useful for my resistance and something else could be anything…
she wanted me to come over to her cabinet but I told her I did not feel like that, after 5 days of fever and well, I did not even mention that I should remain in quarantine if it is Corona…
hope things will turn out OK soon…
M
Margaret,
She should bring a nose swab to do the best Covid-19 test. I hope you get
better soon. Amazing you can get a doctor house call. That wouldn’t be happening here.
Phil
Phil,
she wanted to make me come to her but I told her even the thought of having to walk over there made me feel dizzy.
I know her for a long time, we have years ago both been part of a prevention program , going to talk in high schools about sexuality, drugs and HIV.
so that helps of course.
the plan was originally to take antibodies test in a few weeks, it is not clear to me right now whether she can take Corona tests on a house call, the rules have changed a number of times now.
at some point test house calls were possible by a member of a testing center, then that changed, and the rules for other doctors changed a few times as well.
so maybe she will find a way to bring a test kit, I will have to wait and see.
I am glad there are still some options for house calls, as there must be many patients needing those instead of having to go to a medical center with for example an ambulance, expensive and a big hassle….
not everyone has family or other volunteers to take them over, specially not with a Corona risk.
i feel very grateful for anyone still offering help as it is a big deal, and many people, even close family, don’t want to take the risk…
it immediately creates a warm bond of trust and appreciation with the ones I can still rely on.
M
Margaret,
that’s great you have a long relationship with your doctor.
We have nose swabs here where I work , in case any staff members get symptoms. The number of cases has been steadily going down in our area, but that’s no guarantee. I don’t personally see resuming all normal activities until a vaccine comes out, or I get covid and can be proven immune. I’m sure a lot of people feel that way, so the economy is going to continue to suffer.
Phil
my doctor came by this morning.
at first we were talking about the fever, 38 for the sixth day in a row, and I mentioned the possibility there was something wrong with my thermometer, which she saw as very possible as I have almost no other symptoms.
so she let me take my temperature with a thermometer she brought, under my armpit.
there I had 35.9.
see, she said, you don’t have a fever!
I was not that convinced, and finally suggested she would use my infrared ear thermometer in her own ear after we disinfected it.
I had little hope she would agree, but to my surprise she did, right away.
probably she too felt she wanted to have more clarity.
and surprise surprise, it spoke up telling her she had 35.9 degrees, as it is a speaking one.
Ha, I said,hm, let’s see and then then put the thermometer again in my own ear, and it said 37.9!
so hurray, now two things had become clear, my thermometer does function well, and well, I did have a fever for the last six days!
I was very grateful she had agreed to do that test, most doctors might have refused to do so!
then she took my blood oxygen level, surprisingly with a little device she just clipped onto my finger, no pinching or needles. I said I have no lung problems but she told me many Corona infected people without any symptom still have too little oxygen in their blood, it should be 98 percent at least.
I had 98 percent.
she took blood samples and will test on several criteria,infection, sugar level, viral load, liver and kidney functions and at the same time Corona antibodies.
she also took the urine samples with her for the lab and I can call for the results next Monday.
it was all very relaxed and actually pleasant, we laughed a lot, when I told her I kind of hope for a case of Corona light, to build up resistance and to not have to undergo other tests, she laughed and said she actually hoped as well it would be positive, as then finally she would be allowed to be tested herself as well…
I could hardly believe it, all that bragging in the media about testing being available for everyone now, but in reality very few people are accepted for a test.
also the contact tracing is an empty shell, it does not function at all, the data don’t get through etc.
so well, it was a pleasant visit, she almost forgot her protective apron after having taken it off and hanging it on a chair.
I found it when she was on her way out and could still hand it over to her, I proposed washing it but that was not necessary.
later I found some disinfecting gel in a dispenser she also left on my kitchen table.
but of course she normally does not do house calls, so feel sooo appreciative that she did and even more so that she did agree to personally test my digital thermometer on herself.
that solved a lot of insecurities, about the present situation and about not having to throw it out and the reality of my fever.
strange times indeed…
I still feel a bit fitter every day, despite of still having fever, so let’s hope for the best, a case of Corona light if I can choose…
m
Margaret, you are the hero, here. Good on you, having yur Doc, sample your device and then rechecking your temp. Do you remember, I think it was a Python skit, tthe Hair Stylist, who gave horriblly mangled cuts, but on his hand held mirror had pasted a pic of a wonderfully coiffed hairdo.
So pleased to hear that your doc who sounds amazingly flexible came to you.
Best thoughts
David
Margaret,
that’s good news. It’s surprising your doctor didn’t bring a better thermometer, and that was a good idea to test yours like that.
Maybe there are some advantages tom our healthcare system in that anyone can be tested at our large private testing companies. All they care about is being paid.
Phil
thanks Phil and David,
yes, I feel very pleased with my doctor, and come to think of it, with myself as well …
overall the visit felt so pleasant and easy it made me realize myself I would like to have her as a friend, she is nice, smart and funny.
maybe I can ask her if we can do something together, maybe even prevention work again.
she is into yoga but I am not in the same way, not in the way of also liking mindfulness and ‘meditation music’, they both make me feel very tense, haha!
some kind of yoga is OK, just the physical parts, minus the breathing exercises…
and without the typical music and certainly without chanting…
M
Margaret,
your doctor sounds like a nice person and I hope you can have her as a friend.
I like yoga for the physical aspects and was continuing with a Zoom class recently. A few weeks ago, however, I injured my shoulder when I tried to do “flip dog” on my own, which was a mistake. I think I strained or pulled a muscle and still haven’t recovered. When I start up again I’ll have to be much more careful.
Phil
Phil,
I hope it is not too painful, M
Margaret,
it’s sometimes painful. No more flip dog for me, except hot dog flipping.
Phil
Guru, I wish that you could have talked more with your grandmother too and shared with each other the grief of the loss of your mom.
I understand that you are on a breakthrough with your work and that it is partially due to your release of anger. That you were angry at Larry, also shows you are more expressive of your feelings. I think you are seeing the value of feeling as it affects your cognition in making your work a little easier.
So if you become blocked again, that seems like a good solution–to feel the anger, surface and deep that bubbles up. We know what will lie beneath, hurt and loss and vulnerability. Don’t be afraid to pick up that baton again. Good luck on your work.
S
Guru has been on a breakthrough with his work through all the 11 years I’ve known him. It’s always the excuse he uses for why, when the conversation turns in that uncomfortable direction, suddenly he can’t talk about his past.
Sylvia, you’re misreading that I was angry at Larry. I certainly won’t deny that I get irritated with blog participants from time to time. What I am concerned about here now is a prolonged conflict. Now’s not the time for that.
By the way, regarding computing breakthroughs..The original language I was learning from 2011-2014 was rendered useless because the company using it went broke!
From 2014-2017 I did nothing at all related to programming.
From 2017 onwards I had to start learning a brand new language with a different company, a variant of C++. Some of the underlying principles from the old language, I could carry over to the new…yet then all of a sudden in 2018 my dad had cancer and I was preoccupied with that for a year, plus being really sad and depressed for almost another year after he died…So here we are now in 2020. A few distractions got in the way.
I’m going to go take a nap now and try to mow the lawn before sunset. Afterwards it’s back to cognition city.
I’ve already spoken about my past a great deal, maybe more than 98% of people.
I think Larry could pick plenty more diabolically evil targets than myself.
You’re not an evil target Guru. You frustrate me though because just when it seems that you might open up a little more and we might get to understand you better, you get scared and suddenly you have something more important that you have to do, every single time, decade after decade. No one else here uses that evasive tactic. Only you do Guru. I wouldn’t mind as much if you’d be more honest and just say I don’t want to go there, it upsets me too much to explain, instead of trying to have us believe that all of a sudden you have work to do. Everyone on this blog has other things to do and has stressful challenges in their lives.
Next time I’ll keep my frustration to myself.
You keep on being you, Guru.
Maybe so, Larry. I think Guru is at a point now where his work is something he has to depend on for a living. He is flying without a safety-net or back-up. More is the importance of getting to feelings that clears the head and makes learning things more possible. It also helps us make good and realistic decisions for ourselves. Working toward a career and doing the therapy process are not a do one or the other task. I believe they both can be done together with an easily switching focus, however that can be comfortably worked out. I hope Guru will see the importance of both and give them equal weight.
At this point in my life I look at every day as a bonus. I’ve already outlived my mother by almost 20 years. I could have easily died from a multitude of causes along the way to today. I am happy I am still here!
Something from the past? My best high school friend was a heavy substance abuser yet still earned straight “A” grades (4.0 GPA). The ladies loved him, and I was jealous of him. He ended up dying of cirrhosis of the liver waiting for a transplant. That was 15 years ago.
So yeah, I’m sometimes happy to simply be alive. Other times I do get angry as hell at a stupid society, though.
If you’re happy just to be alive, then I guess therapy is not important. But your anger is triggered so often you ought to see someone about that.
Hey Guru, As you know, what Larry said to you is identical to what I have said to you… multiple times. We do tend to repeat certain patterns and I believe there is a reason for that. In your case you will bring up issues around the loss of your mother but when you are asked about it the response is always the same. You have work to do, your in a crisis and can’t be bothered at this particular moment. This begs the question why bring it up ( often adding provocative comments) if you really don’t wish to discuss it. Obviously you are free to talk about whatever you like but I have a strong instinct that there is something you want or need to say. Maybe something you have not discussed before about your moms death. Sometimes we hold on to our view of something believing it protects us when actually that is not the case at all. Anyway it’s food for thought. By the way I don’t think you need fear some extended confrontation with Larry or anyone else here. That’s not Larry’s style in my opinion . Gretch. P.s. Sylvia, I must steal your line “ You ought to see somebody about that” too funny !
VENTING my frustration on the surface provides 1 unit of psychological benefit for 1 unit of typing work (1 unit of benefit for 1 unit of work).
THOROUGHLY EXAMINING all the potentially complex, controversial, and ephemera issues (such as the dangers and damages arising from operating for a lifetime under the guise of incomplete information, for example) would likely grant 4 units of psychological benefit for 100 units of typing work. (0.04 units of benefit for 1 unit of work).
The first option is much better. I explained this to Margaret through a series of rhetorical questions when I said I could potentially raise a 100-page rebuttal. The benefits I would derive from it would be minimal compared to simply venting my anger and frustration for a maximal benefit to work ratio.
*ephemeral was misspelled…I was typing in a hurry. See you when I am ready to vent again soon.
Guru: “to simply venting my anger ” Venting anger can be done 2 ways. The first and normal one is an act-out (usually violence or, smashing things). The other is the simple expression of that feeling and doesn’t requite anything more than yelling it out and perhaps hitting a pillow of cushion. This, I presume you already know.
Jack
I just saw this funny and accurate description of white privilege by the British comedian James Corden. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUB3MGWT3xo. (James Corden Gets a Lesson on White Privilege.)
I’m only writing this out because I seriously think some clarification is needed.
I did some quiet, sober reflection on some of the deeply-rooted reasons why I was so pissed off about the George Floyd coverage, namely pertaining to the facts of the case itself:
–I have some uncertainty whether what Derek Chauvin did was even racially motivated. Based on what was seen in the video, I certainly see the reasoning behind third-degree murder or a manslaughter charge. Does that mean he did this action BECAUSE Floyd was black? Or was it something else and Floyd only just HAPPENED to be black and the situational optics of the video itself were bad enough to incite riots? I lend some credence to the latter question because Chauvin happened to be married to an Asian woman (who divorced him the day after this incident). I suppose it’s possible for a white supremacist to marry outside his race, but it starts to stretch credulity in my eyes that Chauvin killed Floyd for explicitly racial reasons. CORRELATION doesn’t always mean CAUSATION.
–What if Chauvin had a white biker gang member under his knee on video for eight minutes and killed him? Would anyone have given a damn beyond the Minneapolis newspapers?
–If anything, I think the Rodney King case was a more clear-cut, racially-motivated attack with four cops beating on him with a baton.
These riots raised a lot of troubling questions for me, and I am not even sure the original hysteria is resting on a logical foundation where this one particular case is concerned.
Yes, I DO know Chauvin had a very bad disciplinary record. He seems to have been a very bad cop who should be prosecuted, but I’m not so sure this incident would logically lead to a referendum on race itself.
Nevertheless, you still resent the fact that traffic deaths don’t get the attention that other news items get. There are going to be coverage of many more natural disasters, shootings, deaths from viruses that will get coverage. We wouldn’t expect any of them to be as important to you personally, as your own interest . But you have to accept that other things, other disasters are going to be more important to other people, and maybe they will seem like they don’t deserve the media attention. I would have to suppose that nothing else would matter to me either if a loved one died–my world would change drastically. There must be a feeling there for you somewhere.
My goal in my post above was to simply write down the initially troubling questions I had and triggering my own issues as you described. I told Margaret I could offer a 100-page rebuttal and I wanted to at least write down one page before it all becomes too much for me to handle. The other 99 pages must lay silent for now.
Guru: A human being died because of an unnecessary procedure by a policeman.
I am unable to garner your deeper feeling in your comment; you seem not to care that much for the guy that was killed. As I saw it he was killed by that procedure.
I am aware that there are other accounts for the guys death, that do not convince me.. AND looking from the outside, being a UK citizen, is part and parcel of the beginnings of the US’s creation, with the introduction of slavery. That original mind-set still persist in the US to this day as I saw it while living there.
I am, by definition, a racist, in that I feel the brown people of Africa were a more natural culture than all the white cultures. That’s just my feeling. Sadly, due to colonization mainly by the British I feel we introduced more neurosis on those peoples of Africa, native Americans. and aborigines of Australia.
However, I have a very, very strong feeling that things ‘are a changin’ … and faster than i ever thought before ,.. ultimately for the better; though the process of change will be frightening for many; and inconvenient for most, myself included.
Jack
Jack, did you know a retired police captain who was guarding a pawn shop in St. Louis was shot to death by looters during these riots? He also happened to be black, but unlike George Floyd he didn’t have a felony record. Both outcomes were obviously unfortunate, yet I do think the riots of today are resting on a more dubious logical foundation than what occurred with the LA riots of 91-92 since that police encounter, with four officers actively beating a lone detainee, appeared to be more racially-charged than what happened in Minneapolis.
Guru: No I didn’t know that; but what in your opinions does that imply? I am all for abandoning all police forces, all militaries, all governments, and thus laws an as making. AND of course the glue that holds the crazy neurotic system in place … MONEY.
Why would anyone ever want to be a policeman in the first place? My contention:- only neurotic bullies. Sure, it’s a dangerous profession, but that’s what they are paid to do;- yours and my dirty work. Just scrap the whole ‘cabash’. Not that easy, BUT not impossible.
Jack
It’s too bad George Floyd’s mother didn’t die in a car accident. Maybe then you would have more empathy for him.
Given the current state of things, you really think my empathy or lack thereof is going to make any difference here? George’s family will be well taken care of with $15 million already raised via GoFundMe and likely another $10 million from Minneapolis.
I pointed out that George was a convicted felon because the reward for capturing the St. Louis police captain’s murderer was initially set at……$10,000. Does this appear to be empathetic to you?
Do I think finding empathy for George Floyd is going to make a difference here? Yes, I think it could make a difference for you. Or, alternatively, finding out why are lacking it.
I do know why my extraocular eye roll muscles are working overtime right now, and that seems useful for me.
Guru,
I think the cop Derek Chauvin could be racist even while married to an Asian woman, and anyway all the reactions and rioting are not based on logic. In the same way we don’t need a 100 page rebuttal from you responding to Margaret’s message. What we’re mostly after here are feelings, not points in a debate.So you don’t need to worry about lengthy arguments requiring a lot of effort, just make some short statements describing your feelings. But maybe that feels difficult for some reason?
Phil
Phil, it feels difficult to make $15 million-$25 million from scratch. Wish me luck. I better do some more work, thanks.
Gurú, do you need all that money? I hope you can get it if that’s what you want. Would it enable you to buy out your neighbors?
The economic system is not designed for everyone to have $15-$25 million. If you divide total US household net worth by its 240 million adults and spread it out equally among everyone 18 or older as it would in a Marxist utopia, every adult would have roughly $400,000.
So if you’re a billionaire, you have 2,500 times the Marxist hypothetical average, leaving thin dry air for 2,500 adults.
Hoarding great amounts of wealth by its very design makes life harder for others in imperceptible ways not easily seen by the casual observer.
So that’s kind of a stumbling block for me, I would have to deal with the ‘greedy asshole’ feelings even if I get there.
Guru: I suggest you read Marx before ‘sounding off’ about his principles that, to me, sound more like U.S’s. McCarthyism than any real ultimate manifestation of Marxism.
His end product was the withering away of the state, and all governments, Laws, such that we as individuals could live a decent lives, unencumbered with all the money stuff that in effect does not give us happiness are even any guarantee of a decent life.
Sadly the world sees ‘Communism’ as it manifested itself under Stalin’s Russia and all subsequent communist governments NEVER moving beyond the revolution an/d creating a ‘so called benevolent’ dictatorship.
I contend Marx was not able to see the real nature of mankind, but merely only had the facility to see behaviorism; which is neurotic. It is for that very ‘fundamental reason that I see the abolition of money as the only way back to our real nature since there’s never going to enough real Primal therapist for the world to get back it’s/our true nature.
Marx was basically influence by Pierre Joseph Proudhon.
Jack
Jack, is it true that, according to theory, when the state withers, we would end up with something very tasty and nutritious, similar to a sun dried tomato, raisin, or prune, which the public body could then safely digest and eliminate smoothly?
Phil
Phil: I am not sure I know what you are saying or implying;
Jack
Jack, I was using Marx as an everyday colloquialism where people attach the term to communism and equal shares for all. I know his writings go much deeper than that.
My larger point was that money is designed to be scarce so all the workhorses keep hustling for it and to keep productivity high.
Guru: Wouldn’t that the the best reason for abolishing money and all that goes with it????
Jack
No, it’s the best reason to become a multi-millionaire yourself and to have people hustle for YOU. Then you grow to love money and capitalism.
https://twitter.com/AJA_Cortes/status/1268450367181709312
Guru: You say money brings ‘freedom’, upsets others, is power, influence, makes one worth listening to, gives respect, and status,
I have known a few rich people and they had none of these qualities and most of them spent time and energy making sure they kept it.
Not a good enough reason for having it, because of their preoccupation
to maintain their riches.
Jack
Phil, you pose an interesting question. Marx simply pointed out the inherent flaws of a Capitalist economy……namely that it is based on inequality, profit, exploitation, and continual expansion. He believed that Capitalism would end when workers all over the world unite to resist their exploitation. While I agree with his analysis of Capitalism, I disagree with his view of how it will end because I think he underestimated the power of belief systems to obscure and hide the truth of this sick system. I also think that climate change, which is a symptom of Capitalism, will ultimately kill us all. But assuming that I am wrong, I’m not sure that after Capitalism we would end up with something tasty and nutritious. Especially when I think about how many preservatives, additives, pesticides, nitrates etc. are in most of our prunes, raisins, sun-dried tomatoes etc. Not to mention much of the stuff we put in our bodies, in fact. This crap is, therefore, inside most of us (literally and metaphorically)……so I don’t see any safe digestion and smooth elimination in a new system. That’s why, I think, revolutions just end of up creating the same old hierarchies and inequalities.
Renee,
I agree with what you say except I think that climate change and environmental destruction are ultimately a result of overpopulation, which means that if the state and capitalism withered away and were eliminated, the result would be something huge and nasty, to say the least, even if the fruit seemed very tasty and nutritious to begin with.
Phil
Phil: You say “withered away and were eliminated, the result would be something huge and nasty, to say the least,”
How do you know this would be the case? Particularly since we’ve never been there or tried it..
That is the response 99.9999% of us neurotic humans come up with. Yet! we none of us know.
However, I feel it is worthy of a lot of consideration and contemplation … which few are willing to do.
It is amazing how we all jump onto cliches without really considering what we are truly saying.
Jack
Jack,
We have discussed this many times and I’ve given you my conclusions and reasoning in the past. Honestly I don’t think it’s worthy of a lot of consideration and contemplation at all.
It has no bearing on my life as I have no control over the economic system we live under.
Also, because it is a very repetitive discussion here on the blog, it has little entertainment value for me. I have my opinions and put thought into who I vote for, and I think that’s important, I do like to follow the news as that interests and entertains me.
Phil
Phil: you say:- “Honestly I don’t think it’s worthy of a lot of consideration and contemplation at all”
Does that mean you didn’t give it any consideration?
What is interesting is that you did consider, after what must have been a lot of consideration; to get Primal therapy.
It needs the same amount of consideration IMO. Otherwise you are just throwing it off as ‘unworkable’ just as many think that Primal therapy was just a 70’s fad. and now redundant.
Jack
Jack,
there is no reason for me to give your ideas more consideration. If you want to, that’s fine. But I wish you’d come up with some new ones to consider, so the blog won’t be stuck in a rut.
Phil
Phil: I doubt that what I post on this blog put the blog in a rut. I am sure i’m not that important. Maybe it puts you in a rut, yeah?
Jack
Jack, why do you want to change my words?
Phil: Sorry a mistake on my part.
Jack
Phil, what do you agree with, when you say you agree with me? I’m asking because I don’t believe that overpopulation is the problem. I actually think that focusing on human numbers obscures the true cause of many of our ecological and environmental problems…… namely the waste and inequality generated by Capitalism and its focus on endless growth, consumerism and prioritizing profit accumulation over social and ecological well-being.
Renee, I agreed with you saying that capitalism isn’t going to end as Marx predicted. It won’t be ending soon, if ever.
An important principle to remember is, things stay the same until they change. And a famous thinker said, “when you come to a fork in the road take it”.
Phil
Phil: Being gay I havd had to take many forks on many roads. It comes with the territory.
Jack
Phil: from my understanding of Marx he did not predict the end of capitalism. On the contrary he said it needed a revolution (in thinking and then action) in order to bring it about.
If it was to happen, what would your FEELINGS be?
Jack
Renee: I feel differently about Marx, since he was not aware of the nature of mankind; only our behavior.
I feel, had he know the difference between nature and behavior he would have thought the whole process of achieving his goal, he would have formulated it differently.
That is why I brought in the Primal context.
Jack
Jack, who gets to decide what the nature of mankind is? And who gets to decide what the nature of womankind is? Just curious.
Renee: I contend, that Arthur Janov F I N A L L Y delineated what was our REAL human NATURE and demonstrated before that, we studied ONLY human behavior and assumed it was our Nature.
It was just this, that I felt why Janov was a genius.
It is not a question of who decides … it has already been DEMONSTRATED quite succinctly.
Jack
Well, duh! Of course the answer is Arthur Janov!!! 🤦♀️
As my blood and urine tests gave no indications of any problem, and the antibodies test also resulted negative, my doctor advised me to again double check the thermometer, on somebody else, and check with another thermometer at the same time, which I will do on Monday.
today I have been testing my own posh digital infrared talking thermometer on myself repeatedly in several ways, using it in the modus and with the extra extension to measure in the ear, or in the modus to measure on the forehead.
turns out it is not very accurate, the same type of measuring with say 20 seconds interval gives variations of easily 0.6 degrees, the measurement on the forehead also gives extra differences on even slightly different spots on the forehead, and the difference between ear measurements and forehead goes up to more than one degree.
so a slight extra temperature measured on the forehead can result in a temperature measurement way over 38 degrees measured in the ear, which of course is a huge difference.
so that is one unpleasant discovery, and then there is also what my doctor said about Corona test results.
the standard Corona test has a 25 percent chance of giving a false negative, and the antibodies test is even worse.
so briefly, my fever measurements can be inaccurate, and the negative antibodies test also has a 25 percent chance of being inaccurate when indicating negative…
the good side is my physical test results were ok, just the kidney function is a bit low, but it has been lower in the past.
my immune function is in the normal healthy range.
so well, sensing my own body is always my guideline anyway, and that will remain the case.
but I will also check out the thermometers on Monday on myself and on my nice household help if she agrees.
i do still want to have a thermometer and my talking blood pressure device, as they still are useful, but it is good to know their limitations!
M
Something tells me you and mama will be okay for at least a while, Margaret.
Margaret,
that’s good news about your lab results.
Maybe your device needs new batteries or something. There are reliable digital thermometers but I don’t know how much they cost.
Phil
I was asked on the blog, “Why don’t I have empathy for George Floyd?” along with what I perceive as a hint that I must be a sociopath since I cannot have empathy for others.
Let me clear that up.
George Floyd’s situation has already garnered empathy from a BILLION people (thanks to the news media).
Throughout my life I probably garnered empathy from a dozen people I know and I had to WORK for it, ask for help.
Consider 1 empathetic person to be analogous to a dollar,
So when I am asked about the Floyd situation, it was like asking me, “Don’t you have empathy for someone who has already had a billion empathetic gestures? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I only have $12 in my empathy wallet, does it make sense for me to contribute to a billionaire?
Do you wish that you could have empathy for George Floyd in watching his last breaths asking for help? I don’t think that would have cost you anything. Just from one human being to another, no matter the publicity. He did not ask for media coverage. He is a symbol of police brutality toward Black population, something I think you would know about having had a Black friend.
When I was young I had anywhere from 6 to 10 friends or associates who were black, two in Minneapolis, though one of those two guys ripped me off for $200 and I obviously dropped that betrayal of trust.
No, this has nothing to do with race for me at all. I just don’t want to feed a news media monster like a subservient good little boy or a “yes man”. I’d rather have a mind of my own rather than feeding a tribal mob’s groupthink. I didn’t appreciate the insinuation from Renee that I must be an unfeeling sociopath if I didn’t go along with the chanting crowd.
Maybe I should join the mob in the Salem Witch Trials, instead?
The news media didn’t do diddly squat for me and mom was class valedictorian, summa cum laude in college, etc. and they could care less about that.
So now I am supposed to go along with that THEY think is important and jump to their tune?
Guru: Isn’t that the very problem with our current capitalist system; that you just like the rest of human kind … believes money would solve ALL their problems. I get the impression you think just like the rest of the crowd.
Jack
As usual, I don’t think you really hear me. So, practically speaking, I’d give the advice if you are going to be upset at all “Unworthy” news media stories, you are going to have a long road ahead of you in years to come. Best to turn off your TV.
An easy, painless solution.
OK then…Everyone, come gather ’round me. Please join me in expressing empathy, as my fellow human for the millions of lives lost during the Russian famine of 1921-1922. Food was so scarce the corpses were often eaten or body parts sold on the live market.
$15 million GoFundMe accounts didn’t exist
Here’s the Wikipediia page along with pictures of the market (warning: Graphic material):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921
And if you do not bow down and express empathy with me I shall brand you an unfeeling sociopath.
Ural Lives Matter. Rah! Rah! Rah!
I wonder is empathy something we can decided to feel?
Phil
Phil, I like your question. No, I don’t think we can decide to be empathetic. That is why I said, “Do you wish you could feel empathetic.” I always wanted to feel deeply like so many people I knew, but it just wasn’t there. I could not feel other people’s pain because I didn’t know what my own pain was about. But now I know and I can feel someone else’s pain because I’ve gotten to my own through this therapeutic process known as P R I M A L. Hallelujah!
S
Sorry Sylvia, I happen to believe a broken empathy switch is just that, a broken switch that needs to be repaired. Otherwise, a continuously active empathy switched on is susceptible to all the manipulatively emotional Jim Bakkers of the world crying out for more donations or romantic scammers, etc.
A healthy cynicism is necessary unless one is dealing with me, in which case a 100% open arms policy is appropriate.
Not so, Guru, I’d have to say. A fixed empathy switch is a trusting one, but will still see through the scammers.
S
Guru: The question was asked of you if “you had any empathy for George Floyd” You did not answer the question which could ha been a simple “yes” or “no”.
For me it hit me hard, as anyone dying unnecessarily always does to me.
Jack
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4076244/Distressing-photos-1920s-Russian-famine-turned-hopeless-peasants-cannibals-five-million-people-starved-death.html
Here’s a much more readable version of the Russian Famine. Even after this was resolved, think of the effects on their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren!
No responses yet! God, you people are cold! Unfeeling, so unmerciful….
Guru: I’m not sure God is that much help either. If indeed is is that all powerful creature living somewhere up there in the sky; why does she (or he as the case might be) do something a stop all this wickedness going on down here on earth … Mmmmm! maybe we are all passed sinners and dwelling in hell.
Jack
I recently wondered how Janov and his parents might have been influenced by this famine in any way, especially since he was born in 1924 and his dad was a butcher.
I can only conclude that by the lack of responses, that you must be made of unfeeling stone. Good night.
Guru: I feel Janov told us more about his traumas and early life than I heard from you about yours.
Jack
Superstarguru, I’m not sure why you have jumped to the conclusion that I see you as a “sociopath” and then lashing out at me. To me, the term “sociopath” is inherently demonizing and dehumanizing. Perhaps you see yourself and/or me as less than human. The truth is that I see you as all too human. I think most of us can easily lose empathy for others when we are in pain ourselves. I know I can. I don’t know about you, but for me to regain my ability to care about others, I need someone to have empathy for me and see my pain. Or, as Gabor Mate says, “Only when compassion is present, will people allow themselves to see the truth”. One more thing…..I think it’s time to change your name and adjust your expectations of yourself. “Simplyhuman” is way more fitting for you than “Superstarguru”. What do you think? Am I kind of right or definitely right?
Renee, I can’t spend much time back here just yet. It’s been difficult for me to finish some vital work alongside the emotional jousting taking place here (as I explained in my rhetorical questions to Margaret). I will try to get back to this ASAP.
By the way, you lashed out at me first and I absorbed the hit with a healthy stoicism.
Be back a bit later.
Is this your final answer…….again? Are you sure you don’t want to ask the audience or call a friend? Your wealth might increase if you use a lifeline.
No, it’s not…In fact I was planning on coming back for a more thoughtful answer here shortly regarding the broad definition of ‘human’ you used. I have to comment on something about Jack below and come back to this with something more thoughtful later…really.
Jack,
just as an exercise, or a challenge, if you wish, as I would love to hear you in another mode.
could you try to write here without any lecturing, or patronizing, or pontificating?
sorry for the negative words, I know you mean no harm, but this is how your comments come across to all of us as far as I know.
I think it might be a very interesting exercise, both for you and for us to get out of the box for you and to learn more about you from a different angle for us.
so no talking about abolishing money, governments or primal theory or practice.
just about anything else would count.
corona riding on neurosis is also not ok, in this exercise, as it seems part of primal theory.
it is just a suggestion, as I feel it might take us into new fields maybe, so no stories you already told us either, just whatever else, you must have other things to mention, no???
M
Margaret: Sorry! but i am wired that way Do you want me to b e who I am not.
I suggest you tell me what me being me, is doing to you. If you will and it is no effort for you.
Jack
Jack,
what do you mean with you being wired that way?
you mentioned your dad and the way you had to , or felt like you had to look after/control your younger siblings, and you were punished severely for things you could not have had control on really.
also the debating seems to have been part of your upbringing.
but as a young kid there must have been a time before your ‘wiring’ was distorted like that.
i am not saying the behavior or debating is per se a wrong thing, it is just that extra drive that seems a red flag for an act out of some kind.
if you want to leave it the way it is, that is OK, but maybe you’d want to explore what it would bring up if you consciously refrain from using what you regard as your wiring, and see what lays beyond it.
who are you when you would not feel the need to educate and you could just be like you were say until you were four?
while still being your adult self?
M
Margaret: I mean by: ‘being wired’ that that is who I am, but-thanks for the therapy … I would be more interested if you were to tell me what me being me, does to you. I explore each night, in bed, my daily happenings and see how I can better my lot.
I regularly (twice a week) talk to my buddy and that is how I’m pursue my therapy, as of he moment..
However, I certainly appreciate the feed-back.
Jack
There are a lot of reports saying something like this:
“The Next Pandemic: Mental health”
“Evidence suggests that isolation drives trauma. A 2013 meta-study of health-related disasters found that isolation or quarantine can be traumatizing, with 25 percent of isolated or quarantined children and adults experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.”‘…….
……..”The first wave of the crisis affected physical health, the second wave is economic. Now comes the third wave—mental health—and our system is ill-prepared'”
Because I’m still going to work, it’s not effecting me much, but I am getting inpatient with the limitations on things we can do. And just because things open up, it still won’t be necessarily
safe. Then there’s they added stress of racial violence, protest and demonstrations; things seem to be falling apart.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-05-30-the-next-pandemic-mental-health
Phil: It’s been falling apart for centuries, but now it’s meeting the breaking point. It is no longer repairable … but for most of us that prospect is so frightening. However, fear is just another feeling. All we need to do,,as I see it, is to sit with our feelings, express them appropriately and hopefully reach some resolution.
The change is already happening and yes most of us want it go back to the way i was.
My contention is:- it is never going to go back to the way it was.
Peeping out of my box … that is what I am seeing/feeling.
Jack
If we replace Trump with Biden and make related changes in the senate, that will help a lot. That’s what I’m hoping for. The stuff you talk about, more likely we’ll see pigs fly. And, by the way, I did see that at Pink Floyd concerts, but unfortunately it wasn’t real.
Jack, I’d like to see you wishing for something more achievable. What you want is like rooting for the US to win the World Cup. It’s not happening. Why not pick something a little more realistic to focus on. Instead of pigs flying, maybe some good bacon or something.
Phil
Phil: My life does not revolve around yours or Margaret’s wishes. You Phil are so eager, seemingly, to critique my notions and idea, with the same fever as you claim I am about my ideas.
Is this a case of ‘the kettle calling the frying pan black’?
As for my idea being tantamount to:- me wanting “the US to win the World Cup”. If you see it that way there is little I can do about it, nor do I want to do anything about it.
I tend to feel most of us on the blog are just expressing our feelings … often about what we like and what we don’t like. I think, for me at least; it is a great forum for doing just that.
My overall idea (the big picture), is to see if there is a way to rid us humans of that one overriding disease (n*******, that dirty word) … almost all humans suffer from. I personally don’t see education doing it. I don’t see that there will be enough Primal therapists being trained to do it. So …. for me, is there another way? As I’ve seen it (just little o’l me) we humans need to have total freedom for each and everyone of us: starting at conception, through birth and especially early childhood.
If that makes me a Janov or Primal freak; so-be-it. I can live with myself being so. Considering my age and my current circumstances, I am relatively happy and content with what I have. Of course, all that could change overnight.
Maybe I have gotten the whole of the Primal notion all wrong, and if that is the case I expect that either Gretchen or Barry will correct me on that matter. The only 2 options for all of you that are irritated or tired of me pushing my idea. is to ignore my comments, OR gang up together and ask Gretchen to block me.
Jack
An addendum: I get up each morning and do my thing and make breakfast and look forward to checking my emails and especially emails from this blog. As I’ve said before:- I love the banter AND I see for me it keeps me on my ‘thinking toes’, albeit that that is a compulsion of mine.
Jack
Jack, since we’ve been extremely over exposed to your ideas, why do you insist on continuing? Apparently you don’t care how they are received, so with that in mind, I feel free to respond any way I’d like. You can ignore my responses if you don’t like them. Phil
Phil: that sounds like a FEELING of yours:- “extremely over exposed to your ideas,” You are not in any position to speak for others, here or anywhere else.
On the contrary, I do care how they are received, in-so-far as it tells me how inept I am at demonstrating an idea that was proposed over more than 150 years ago, and that some (very few) have accepted those ideas. One, a Primal person I met at a retreat. In that respect I am not unique.
Also for most radical ideas to become accepted it takes diligence on those promoting it, and time. The best example I am aware of is “Bruce and the spider” I take it you k know that story.
It is obvious to me that you are trying hard to refute the idea without, as I see it, really understanding the history or the reason that the idea to exists in the first place. AND yes I am obsessed about promoting an idea that I feel strongly could rid us humans of n*******. AND this blog (for me) is the beat place to suggest and promote it.
Jack
Jack, is there anything we can say to help you see that this blog might not be the best place to suggest and promote your ideas?
Jack, over exposed is a fact. I’m taking about how repetitively you post your ideas here.
Phil: So! who decides what is fact and what is fiction? If Trump is anything to go by, then I think we are all in trouble
I personally try to keep away for making decisions about what are facts and what re not.
Jack
Jack, I’m not trying hard to refute your idea. In fact, I have no interest. I just wonder about your behavior in continually having to express your idea ma here, when no one is interested. Why not do that where someone is interested? Phil
Phil: You are absolutely correct, I am fucked-up and seemingly the most fucked-up person on this blog. But I do remember that I said it, and I’m abundantly aware that many do not support the idea, if anybody, least-way on this blog. Also the need to be repetitive is because no-one seems to fully understand what I said, certainly not the nuances; so I attempt to repeat it, often in a slightly different way.
As for taking it somewhere else were it is understood; I find that futile. That to me is ‘talking to the choir’.
Throughout my life I have been influenced greatly by first a voice production teacher that taught voice production via feeling and their expression (emotions). Then by F. M. Alexander, who made a discovery about his use of his posture. Finally by Arthur Janov. Also I’ve been influenced by many through their book here’s a list of them:-
“The Primal Scream” by Dr. Arthur Janov and most of his other books, especially “Why we Get Sick: How We Get Well”
“Birth Without Violence” by Frederick LeBoyer MD
“Summerhill” by A. S. Neil
“A Brief History of Time” by Stephen W. Hawking
“Cure By Crying” by Thomas A. Stone
“Birth Without Violence” by Dr. Frederick LeBoyer MD
“Continuum Concept” by Jean Liedloff
“Real Fatherhood” by Bob Kamm, a Primal patient
“Center of the Cyclone” by John C. Lilly
“Language, Thought, and Reality”, Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf by John B. Carroll
“Use of the Self” Frederick Maithers Alexander
Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches by Marvin Harris
Das Kapital by Karl Marx
“Seven Lars of Money” by Michael Phillips
The X-Rated Bible by Ben Edward Akerley
Freud, Jung, and many other psychologist and read their books
Another example:- My hippy days living in Ibiza Whilst living there for 10 years and where I first read “The Primal Scream”; I was convinced that many of us hippies, defying the establishment, would equally be interested in Janov. To my amazement, none did, other than the guy that turned me onto it.
Quite the reverse I was jibed for even mentioning it and rapidly got the name of “screaming Jack”. None of this dissuaded me from perusing the therapy or even to mention it when jibed or critiqued me for following it. Something that many others on the blog must have encountered and especially as time as passed and it’s characterized as a 70’s fad.
I just hope this gives you a little more insight as to who I am. I do try not to be defensive … not always succeeding and I do enjoy this blog and the bantering I get into.
Life for me (a repeat) is relatively happy and certainly content having a partner that cares deeply about me and shows it. I give consideration to all that is said about me as it is both therapeutic for me, and doesn’t unduly upset me. Those kind of feeling are normally triggered by those closest to me.
Jack
Jack, how were you influenced by Stephen Hawking’s book, “A Brief History of Time”? I’m curious because when you have mentioned Hawking on the blog, in the past, you have always been critical. You claim his illness was caused by him being excessively in his head. I haven’t read that one.
Phil
Phil: what is impressive about Hawking is not his conclusions, but his ability to see that other think and feel differently. He’s actually critiquing the notion of language in one sense and then the very meaning “time” in another sense. His ability to see beyond his subject is impressive to me … The pity was after writing to him about his disease, it was his gate keeper that did not let my letter get to him, not Hawking himself.
But I do feel that his disease was because of him being into his head. Sadly he relied on doctors and not psychologist, the likes of Janov.
Jack
Odd that there is a need to criticize and edify you, Jack. I am aware of a few folks on this blog having a vast life experience, you being one. Mine is comparatively miniscule. It seems to me that one facet of the precaveman social mentality of a significant US population, and others, I’m sure, is the in your face intolerance. I know I did it when I was 12 but then lost the need to throw dung. I find it easier to state my feelings and boundries. My clinical studies prof, who was a PT patient at the Janovs’ New York clinic, told me I one of few he’d known who’s social maturity was evolved beyond early adolescence. A clever, amusing man, he’d created his own terms for stages of human development, like, ” Incontinent,” for those constantly on lock and load and fire, stuck in a world of feeling threatened. But a fledgling compared to Barry’s lightening fast processing and wit.
Jack,
it seems to me you repeat your ideas almost word for word on the blog, even using the same comparison to revolutionary thinking, as with Galileo and Copernicus. At this point I would say I know so much about it that I could stand in for you here on the blog if you were to take a vacation. But the main thing I know is that I don’t agree.
Phil
Phil: that’s fine;b ut I ain’t gonna take a vacation. I love the banter too much for that.
Jack
WOW, Jack, A S Neil, ” Summerhill;” ” Return to Summerhill.” How did that lovely man ever evolve out of his environment rather than simply becoming a carbon copy. Neil had such a formative effect. A week after reading ” Summerhill,” I met Sul Alinski, and the game was on. I had transferred my hatred for my abusers to the, ” wealthy class.” I wish I’d done PT before my career started.
David: Yep. I met on of his students after he had completed his school years.
Jack.
Jack, about you being banned from the blog, that’s your feeling. I’ve never suggested it, that I remember. Maybe you’re trying to irritate us so much that we demand your removal? I feel the way you express your ideas would be a turn off to anyone. It seems to be more of a compulsive need to repeat them on your part, rather then any real belief in their value. Phil
Phil: Fine if that is how you feel.
Jack
Jack, it could be you’re just not aware of how you come across, and how repetitive it is. Maybe you don’t remember that you said the same thing not long ago, literally a few minutes earlier or yesterday, and all previous days. If that’s the case, then I guess you can’t help it.
Phil
I want to make one observation here because I experience it myself as a personal frailty. I often suffer from looping or repeating thoughts which serve as a comforting crutch against a scary world filled with potential disaster and a sense of open-endedness with no one giving me the answers I need.
I kinda sorta see this in Jack. He repeats his ideas over and over and it’s possible such behavior serves as a comforting crutch for him against anxiety or something similar.
Guru: that is n interesting idea, and I will look into it.
Jack
Good thought, sir. Might it also be a sample of Jack’s patience with us, giving us an opportunity to evolve from our stuck positions. I am a lifetime friend of a former PI trainee, now a conventional shrink. PT, they concluded was overly simplistic. And yet it is abundantly clear that their choices in intimate partners always has a dominant feature of it needing to be a suffering persn who needs non judgemental childlike care, acceptance of infantile dependence..
A life long hurt for me is my social irrelevance, invisibiity, not worthy of my existence being acknowledged. Not just a feeling. This blog has been invaluable in forcig me to engage that feeling that could easily be silenced, I have suffered being alive, ( that’s pretty shitty,) shared it on here on and off for 8 years, and lots of other stuff, but apparently only Jack reads the blog those days. I read, learn, smile, tear, ache, when I read a feeling state, or life circumstance hurting another. I respond or not depending on what I feel about the writing. But except for the responses of Jack, Margaret, on a few occasions, and Phil, once, I conclude that I am an unwanted invader here, a victim of profiling, not cliqueworthy, or, worse, adjudicated to be not worth a shit, and if ignored long enough I’ll go away. Even Patrick, the annoying playground bully boy persona aside, had an ability to be inclusive.
It pisses me off that some simply need to have a go at Jack. Jack likely is happy he provides that gift to their therapy. Don’t kick my ass Jack I know you don’t need me providing security or interpreting you. In addition to your intellectual contribution, your , ” Primalness,” like Guru you are never a mug of tepid water, verbal agility, and self absorbedness cocktail.
All the afore said, I understand that communication via text lacks all of the other dimensions, the clues, of the spirit of the message.
Trimmed 2 more parasitic arseholes from my social set, Jack. And haven’t felt guilty,….yet…(:
David: that seems like a nice compliment toward me and I am willing to accept it. All, I feel is required, is to keep blogging about all your troubles.
Take care David and should you like to Skype with me, just give me your email address and we can arrange a time and day. Mine is:- jackwaddington@yahoo.com. I am resident in the Netherlands so that also needs to be taken into consideration, time-wise
Jack
Phil: I wonder if you are aware that you actually provoke me. Not in a terrible way.
We n*******s tend to look into the other guy rather than ourselves. I don’t pretend to be any different.
Jack
Jack,
this is the last thing I want to say about it, it does not sound like it is your original wiring if as you say it is a compulsion, that seems to indicate there is at least partly some act out going on.
if you don’t want to change it of course that is up to you, as this is a primal blog it just felt as if you deserve an honest feedback, but I am not going to become repetitive either, I rest my case…
M
Margaret: You are correct … it’s a compulsion of mine. So thanks for the feed-back.
Jack
There IS a tranquilizing comfort in repeating things over and over, whether they are thoughts, sounds, or verbalized ideas. I talked about this with Gretchen on the blog a long time ago regarding casino slot machines. You press a button and you hear a sweet set of chimes (perhaps a music C note, something like that?) over and over and over and over again. It can be very tranquilizing for anxious or sad people.
Guru: before I cam into this therapy it was all about killing my pain. Sex compulsions, smoking, talking, and a host of other things too numerous to mention … but you get the idea Yeah?
Jack
Maybe that’s what earworms are about, ….catchy musical tunes that people can’t get out of their heads that repeat over and over.
I recently got the jazz version of the song below, “Where or When”, that’s on an Ella Fitzgerald “songbook” CD. and I found out there are many other covers of it. It was originally a show tune. It led me to the version of the song that I’m familiar with, and reminded me of the deprived teenager I was listening to music for hours and hours at home, unable to have a social life. I was constantly in love with pretty classmate girls but couldn’t act on it in any way. This song is much earlier than my era but I used to listen to the radio oldies station all the time. A lot of that deprivation is still in me to work on.. I was amazed to learn that Dion Dimucci is still making new music (blues) in his 80s.
That brings back memories, thanks. I liked their music. He is pure talent and charisma.
Never noticed before how Dion resembles Sanatra, Phil. A producer once told me how the stars are not made by us but selected for us and the bigsellers get replaced by younger semi lookalikes. Kinda like using hook notes from previously successful songs to draw us in; entire harmony lines are stolen to become the melodies of show tunes.
David, I think Sinatra and Dion were both teen idols at some point during their careers, but they had enough talent not to need to be packaged.
Dion is from the Belmont, Little Italy, section of the Bronx. I worked in that area for quite a few years. A lot of good food to be found there.
Phil
Clearly so, Phil; talent galore; Dion was a huge favourite; both very marketable, Franks’s timing and phrasing are crazy amazing; not to be snarky, but the MOB figured large in success stories. Now that only semi visible force is called, the Investors.
I was thinking more in the acting realm, where new pop up dolls emerge to replace the elder statesperson box office draws. Bob Redford says that , ” like all other sports,” only the connected, from financially affluent families,” has a hope of being discovered today.” The machine selects and supports good investments. When I first started in music as a song writer, a touring friend sent me a book titied, ” The Star Making Machine.” It blew my naive little mind.
Jack, you say that you keep repeating yourself because you feel that, “no-one seems to fully understand what I said, certainly not the nuances; so I attempt to repeat it, often in a slightly different way”. Yet, in describing what you admire about Stephen Hawking, you say that what is “impressive about Hawking is not his conclusions, but his ability to see that other think and feel differently”. I think that is precisely your learning curve…….that it is not that we are not understanding you, it is that you do not seem able to acknowledge that we might think and feel differently to you…..a little like your father, I think, from how you have described him.
I can only hope that Jack someday reaches the superior level of enlightenment and intellectual verbosity, lexocological agility, and self congratulations of his critics. What a better world it will be when he acknowledges his waywardness and converts according to the will of the esteemed pointerouters, finally actualized.. Just contemplating the possibility fills me with so much hope for humanity…..
Renee: For the most part I only reply when someone writes about my comment/s. The only other occasions is when I feel I have a better point to make and not always on the money subject.
Jack
Jack,
why did you think to know better than Steven Hawkins what is best for him?
you too rely on medicines apart from therapy, don’t you?
why does it always have to be black or white in your thinking?
I have read several of his books and admire him, and a link between his disease and his thinking is in my opinion only wild speculation, and even a bit offensive and arrogant.
sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a disease is just a disease.
specially a genetic condition for example is what it is at times, nothing whatsoever to do with feelings.
and as I do not think in black and white terms, I can at the same time accept emotions and feelings have their own influence on our physical health.
you tend to have a bit of a mental superiority complex at times, thinking you know better even with someone you never met at all and who probably is far more intelligent than all of us.
to think you know his feelings cause his situation, well, can you see it is out of touch with reality?
M
As Dr Janov stressed; intellect and intelligence are not the same thing. Interesting Dr Hawking believed Homaeopathy could be explained and only understood through Physics. That led to Allopathic Medicine’s warhorse, “Quackbusters,” calling him a QUACK, and the religious right suggesting that he was a sexual predator. His divorce and remarriage really set off the christian zealots, because clearly by their self appointed skills of diagnosis he was not capable of being a sexual being, really only a brain on wheels; so what was his real motive ?????… One thing about judgements, they don’t call for much except a generous measure of mean spiritness.
David: I avree … Keep blogging, I like you style.
Jack
Margaret: I feel you are making some assumptions about me … some of them may well be correct, but there seems to me to be something overriding all that in you comments to me. Just my feeling.
I certainly don’t know better than Hawking or his feeling. What I was proposing to him was that he might find it interesting to read Janov, especially “Why we get sick”.
Of course I rely on one medication, Odephsy for my HIV and have suggested to doctors that I would like to try not taking it, feeling that I might have overcome its effects via the therapy and my feeling about it.
I certain feel strongly that Janov was ‘right on’ about most diseases are as a result of trauma in the uterus, birth, and early childhood.
As for the effects of my father towards me, I have spent a great deal of time with those feelings and still do with my buddy.
If I come across as seeing things only black or white, I have given that idea some considerable thought, since you’ve mentioned it before. I make every effort to look at what people say about me, give it considerable thought. I appreciate it. then try to do something about it, if I feel it requires it. I find it very therapeutic for me
I never (as i see it) suggested I knew his feelings. I only knew what he wrote. I also knew of his heath condition. and at what stage of his life he got Lou Gerrick’s.
Your feelings in the rest of the comment with regards to Janov, I do not agree with. Sorry if you feel that is arrogant. that is certainly not my intent.
Jack
it occurred to me that what Jack might want most is attention instead of convincing us.
maybe it would help if we only react to anything else he writes about and ignore the repetitions we all know by heart.
I start skipping a few lines of those and then delete.
that is sad really, as I would not read something that would really raise my empathy or interest if it would appear somewhere in the comment, but honestly, I can’t stand reading the same theories over and over, if we are that stupid Jack, to understand how you are right after all this time, please give up!!
it comes across as a huge ego trip by now.
you deserve better, last night I had an insight which is very simple but matters a lot to me, what makes our lives worthwhile and already gives a lot of meaning to them, is all the moments when we did something nice to someone else, connected with them, helped them in some way or another, simply by caring.
what I will always remember warmly about you, Jack, is how on a retreat I was sitting outside the dorm on that little concrete rim at the entrance, feeling miserable and lonely, and you just sat down by me and put your arm around me.
those are the moments that count to me, moments we also mean something for someone else by being gentle and caring.
no need to search extra meanings to life, life does not need that, our universe is mysterious enough in its grandeur and so is our life in it. of course part of it is full of misery, but there is also beauty and awe…
M
Margaret: the test for me is just how I am doing in life. I know this is a repeat, but I am enjoying life with my partner, who cares a lot about me in a lovely home that I enjoy and a lovely garden to look at from the patio, and especially on sunny warm days. I too care a great deal
Do you agree that I have something? and it’s not all the attention grabbing. I get say more attention than I bargain for, so thinking about it, I do not think I’m looking for attention but I’ll give that suggestion some thought..
Jack.
Hmmm, then whoever is next on the creatively ignore list and will the, ” WE,” need to be properly sworn to office ?
My first weeks in LA, 1986, on Pico Blvd, we watched the aftermath of a Black university student, out for his evening jog, shot to death, in the back, by an army of LA cops. Murdered. The impact had blown him out of his shoes. A blade of grass quivered by his white socked right foot. 2020, is it remotely possible that white America is about to allow unsanctioning the hunting and murdering of non pink humans, including their babies, for sport, amusement, and keeping those folks in their place? Anyone else heard anything about this or is it more fake news?? I’d have missed it but my navel had become irritated from excessive cleaning and I needed some distraction.
David, do you really believe that the police is “hunting and murdering […] non pink humans, including their babies, for sport, amusement, and keeping those folks in their place?” If so, can you please show how you got to that conclusion?
By the way, I’m not sure I really understand what is going on in America right now. Rooting out rotten cops is one (important) thing, defunding entire police forces or severing ties with them is entirely different. I mean, who are you going to call, the local BLM rep?
Daniel, it is not just protests in America, but in cities all over the world that will hopefully bring really systemic changes. And the discussion has moved way beyond “rooting out rotten cops” to a realization that the whole criminal justice system is rotten and racist. And not just in the U.S., BTW. To understand what defunding the police means, I suggest watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbApKLjIzjY. I think it is a common sense, humane, and long overdue idea.
In light of all the senseless killings of Blacks, including children (eg. Tamir Rice, age 12, Emmett Till, age 14), that have been going on for hundreds of years, but only recently are being caught on camera, your two questions to David come across as either willfully ignorant or utterly asinine.
Can I plug this factoid in for a second? During the 65 years since the Emmett Till case approximately 6,500 minority children aged 12 and under have been killed in vehicle-related incidents. People are too blinded by their own pain to view this with any compassion, so these 6,500 minority children lie almost anonymously entombed.
“……..I have to comment on something about Jack below and come back to this with something more thoughtful later…really.”
My energy levels are in terrible shape, especially during these past couple years. I’m fighting my daily battle of existence trying to have some hope for the future, and I have to pick my battles carefully and wisely lest I become inordinately drained even further. I am deeply worried things will only get worse from here, and I am having a difficult time trying to stave off such a decline.
Guru: what specifically are those troubles you are going through, and why is your energy drained?
What actually is the decline?
Jack
Daniel: If you were to go back in time to when policing was created (late 19th century) it might show a different story. We use the police to the dirty work for us.
If there were no governments making laws then there’d be little need for a military type force to keep us all “in order” We’d be free … as I see it.
It’s all a case of creating something that has terrible unintended consequences, then fiddling with, the unintended consequences. So yes! disbandoning the police would create a different mind-set
Psychologically, we created something that is now completely out of control.
No laws … no crime.
Jack
David,
that feeling of worthlessness and not mattering to anyone sounds all too familiar to me, and probably to many of us here.
i am still discovering how that feeling can be paralyzing and sabotaging our social life in so many ways.
it is good you write about it here.
recently in one of the virtual groups I finally was helped by Barry in his own particular way to face it and accept the loneliness it encompasses, the tricky act outs it finds to cover up the pain, and then I could start to accept I need to take care of myself and my life myself, instead of waiting and struggling for that old parental interest I craved so badly.
it is a complicated path with many loops but honesty and letting in given feedback is what helps me on this track.
and as Barry once said, when I was talking about all that sadness and when would I finally get rid of it, ‘why would you need to get rid of it, it is part of who you are’.
M
Maggie, ya made me cry. I’m having one of those real most scariest days today, one of those days when I seem to have al my shit together, even flashing a grin… buuut…. 34 years of post PT life suggests to me there’s another boogey man lining up. And, I thought I had grown up but right now I miss Barry. Sad, eh, missing someone I only mostly know by looking at in Big Group, after Intensive. That fuckng dirty filthy hope that we’ll ever be loved, eh ? Fucking hope..
Thank you , thank you, Margaret.. the tears started, the grunts, the voluminous snot is Primal snot, it has it’s own smell, the PI room; haven’t smelled that in a while, and I sickenly need my mommy to start loving me so I don’t die. And I shut it down. It’s short term relief but in reality goes no where. Simply getting small to avoid pain is how Vivian exlained it to me. Fuck I can’t get anything right. Even 20 years ago I’d let it go on for hours, writhing, grunting, gallons of snot soaking me. I’d feel so important, so believed , when my wife would say on the few occassions she interrupted, that I looked and sounded like a newborn; afterward the StorkMarks, the newborn pebble grained skin, covered in gunk… The one, ” victory,” I tried to willfully trigger it a few months back, and I couldn’t so I know now it’s real, the feelings set it in motion, not my bullshit. Thank you Maggie; love ya for that. Going to smoke a cigarette now and stuff it back down. I smoke two a day, morning and bed time to cough up all of the gunk.
David
David, that all sounds so powerful. You are still getting to feelings after all those years.
come to think of it, all the moments that seem to have a permanent place in my heart with several people that are here on the blog, are moments in which they were kind and caring to me, like Phil giving me a full personal audio version of the soccer match from the world championship between the USA and Belgium, which we followed in a bar in Santa Barbara.
and some similarly nice moments with others, like Vicki being there on a retreat party where I felt I had made a pathetic fool of myself, it meant the world to me she was there by my side.
those are moments that create trust, and trust might be one of the most valuable feelings of life, I should look at how it is related to love actually.
without trust life must be so much poorer and bleak.
M
David,
it sounds like you are being very hard on yourself at times.
M
Joe Biden is against defunding police departments. If he came out in favor of it, I think it could cost him the upcoming election, because most people, in general, don’t want that. I don’t want to be killed by a drunk driver, be mugged, or have my house burglarized; laws do need to be enforced.. The Trump campaign is already accusing him of holding that position to try to cause confusion. I think a lot of services should be taken away from police departments and given to other agencies because police are trained mainly to use force in response to any problem. I think they should be reformed but not totally defunded.
Phil
It seems to me that there is confusion about what defunding is about. Phil what you think about services that should be taken away and given to other agencies is what defunding is about, as I understand it.
Phil: I don’t agree with you at all. What you’ve just suggested is an example of wanting someone else (the police) to do your dirty work.
All the instances you stated you didn’t want to happen to you is the normal rationale, but there is your side of the bargain, if and when you are robbed, mugged of whatever. Because there is such an organization to supposedly protect you; is no guarantee you will be protected.
I find your argument to be erroneous and short sighted.
Jack
Jack,
are you suggesting I take justice into my own hands if I’ve been robbed? I think gangs and mobsters do their own policing and the results aren’t desirable. Supposing your house is broken into, and a lot of valuables are stolen, what would you like to happen?
Phil
Phil: If my home gets broken into, I am doing SOMETHING wrong. If I get mugged I am doing something to provoke it.
I’ve spent my life dodging the bullets.
We seem to want things, that in the end are counter productive to getting these thing we like and desire. I personally find hat the essence of n******s.
Jack
Jack,
if I understand right, with crime, you say the victim is always to blame, so police aren’t necessary.
.
Phil: No! you don’t have me right. The only analogy I can think of right now is that you have a house and it appears to be leaning, so you start to put props s against the wall to prevent it from falling; and blame the leaning on the weather.
My reality is that the foundation (YEP FOUNDATION) is what is faulty. Not the weather.
Most of my ideas are based on going back and back, to see if there is something fundamentally wrong in the beginning. Money is one of those fundamentals and we keep blaming it on periferal stuff on top, like:- it’s the Democratic party that is the problem
If you work thing backward, as is the principle with Primal therapy, you begin to see where your real problem lies and what INITIALLY causes the problem. Arthur Janov was the one for me thqt discovered the way to back and back until we find the FUNDAMENTAL problem.
That is why I say if there were no laws the would be no criminals. If there were no police force chances are there would be less robberies and muggings It’s one of those thing one needs to get ones head around We neurotics tend to do a quick fixes only to see that the fix creates yet another problem, and often not just one but many.
My experience this with my partner who always wants a quick fix, whereas my life’s experience has taught me (often bitterly) that the quick fix is part and parcel of neurosis.
We watch together a |BBC program called “The Repair Shop” which is about people bringing in antique and family heirlooms to be fixed. What is interesting that often the whole piece needs to be dismantles and then put back together and thereby find the real problem.
That is why I feel Janov’s book “Why we get sick” is a brilliant book, but seemingly ignored by the medical profession that, for ever goes down the wrong path to find a solution … when for the most part the problem occurred in utero, birth, orf early months of childhood.
I hope you see more clearly how I think and how I attempt to look for a fix … especially for myself.
Jack
Jack, of course if laws were abolished there would be no more crime. There would still be, however, victims of that behavior. It’s also true, using your analogy, that if we would just stop building houses, we would no longer have to worry about them leaning. If you think through the consequences of these kinds of solutions, you easily see what’s wrong with them. Phil
Phil: the operative word in my reply to you is:- to go back to the “foundation/s” … first off, the house then also in the case of muggers, thieves, and all the other societal problem. Who would want to harass any other person, if all your needs were met:- food, shelter, a bed to sleep on … on and on ,ad infinitum. Something you seemingly do not want to do … for your own good reasons.
Just for a second think what might happen in terms of there being no money or means of exchange;.there would be no reason to rob anyone or in so attempting to do so would cause objections from others in the community you lived in., potentially making life difficult for you.
I am basically advocating that we go back in time to when there was no money or means of exchange (incidentally the idea of turning the tables on the money lenders is something attributed to Jesus). If you are able to conceive that, then you are into another mind-set. Yeah?
Jack
Jack, somehow every topic of discussion turns out to be just another way for you to express your same ideas. In order to have a better discussion, why don’t you take your ideas off the table? You could do that as an exercise to come with alternative ways of thinking, as we already know what you prefer.
Phil
Phil: Of course, I bring it back to that subject, firstly because that is my primary interest and secondly, as I see it it, it is the only thing worth talking about for me since I feel it is the ONLY way to rid humanity of neurosis which I feel is the most debilitating disease we suffer from..Finally I actually enjoy it
The question I will put back to you is:- why do YOU want me to stop going on about it?
Jack
Jack, because it’s very repetitive. What’s the point of a discussion if you are always going to come to the same conclusions?
Phil: Why is “repetitiveness” so awful for you? Didn’t you have to learn your 7 times table at school, and repeat classical poems for your teachers? Didn’t you have to repeat the Lord’s prayer every night and especially on Sunday, Did you not repeat and momma and/or dadda many times as a baby, And finally, are you not forever writing and saying over and over again, your name?
Do yo think there might be a little more behind your irritations than it just being repetitive?
Just asking.
Jack
Jack, I am starting with a new goal today of not ending up in these pointless discussions with you.
Phil
Phil: that’s fine by me.
Take care.
Jack
I once offered to loan a book I’d just read, ” The Myth of Invariance,” to a friend, a former Philosophy Prof, now Organic Farmer, who holds two PHD’s, Epistomology, being his personal foundation. I was a bit taken back at his animated rejection of my book, his Thesis, his life force, being the exact opposite. He asked why I’d offered it. I said it was one of few newly discovered challenges related to existence I’d found. Well he had arrived at his truth. Jack has arrived at his truth. To speak other than his truth would be disingenuous, even asking him to be dishonest.
He cares enough to share his truth. IMHO. I suppose you can ask him to stop,” talking,” to you and youcan avoid reading him. But there seems to be a need to engage Jack, IMHO.
If all of our needs were met from conception, onwards, Yeah ?? While the neurotic needing to reenact his pain will offend no matter how well his present needs are met. He has to be him as much as I need to be me. PT should be available in every prison, maybe manditory treatment.
Clearly every applicant for training lading to positions of public influence, medicine, cleric, police, education, needs to pass extensive psyche evaluation.
David: IN MY OPINON there is a better way and a Primal way, to get to that point and that is to:- let everyone come to it on there own volition. That way is to unencumber ourselves of what we’ve (humans) have done to keep the pain away. … CONTROL C O N T R O L . and yep controlling everyone and everything.
If we were to rid any and all of our desires to control … guess what? It would all return to what we humans were before we became neurotic
The question becomes where to start that transition .. I have my idea has had and have and am still spouting it … in the hope that I finally get through, and my main hope is to the very young … mainly teens.
Jack
David and Renée have the facts at their fingertips. Too ignorant and asinine to be as woke as they are to the police hunger-games that are rampaging through Western streets I, on the other hand, had to look them up. I will spare you the long process (but will show it if you want) and give you the executive summary:
In 2019 the police in the US shot and killed 1,003 people. About a quarter of those (250) were black, almost double their 13% of the population. On the face of it fatal police shooting does indeed discriminate black people. However, in 2018 – last year with statistics – black committed 52% of known homicides and 58% of robberies. So, when taking into account that police shooting is correlated with their encounters with crime, and that black people’s crime rate in way above both their population rate (13%) and their share of those killed by the police (25%), it becomes evident that the share of black victims of police shootings is less than what the black crime rate would predict.
During 2019 nine unarmed black people were killed by the police, compared with 19 unarmed white people. Since there are about 44 million black Americans the chances for an unarmed black person of being killed by the police is 0.00002045454%. I’ll take those chances any day. The chances of a black person to survive the hunger-games and reach home alive is waaaaaaay better than Guru’s mom ever had.
In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a similar number of victims for 2019, the 9 unarmed black victims represent 0.12% of all black people killed that year. Not that cops’ lives matter, but just so you know in 2018 of the 55 known offenders who killed cops 23 were black (42%). Since in that same year the total number of US police officers was 686,665 the chances a cop has to be killed by a black person are 0.0033495226930162%. In other words, the chances of a policeman or woman to be killed by a black person is about 165 times greater than those of an unarmed black person to be killed by the police.
I know that it is a big no-no to say to BLM and their supporters that they are wrong about this issue, but wrong they are. I must say I’m disgusted by those who que up to swear allegiance to BLM. See for example the Chicago Museum of Contemporary art obsequious and cowardly dissociation from any contacts with the police. As Churchill once said, “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured”.
Just to be clear: This doesn’t mean that there are is discrimination or racism in America or even in the police force, it just means that fatal police shootings do not discriminate black people.
Correction: the sentence should read – “This doesn’t mean that there are no discrimination or racism in America or even in the police force”.
Correction: …….is ” no discrimination or racism in America ….”
Daniel: this to me, is a perfect example of not getting any real value from statistics, we can fiddle with statistic to support almost every POV. In the end it means little to me. If we wish to talk about ‘Blacks” in the US then one ought to go right back to those unwilling immigrants dragged from their homes put in the cargo section of ships and then shipped over to the US … many dying on the way. If we are wondering at all about (so-called) black crime crime, then I feel we would get a more balance idea about them, if we attempted to study the trauma of a black child being reared, often poor, in the US. It’s a shameful history and one thing many don’t want to do anything about.
The real phrase for ‘Black lives matter’ BLM, should really be:- ‘Black lives matter also’ If YOU were brought into this world as a black person you’d be fully aware of their WHOLE background. They can’t forget it even if they want to, as is the case of many of the successful ones. The one that comes to my mind is Clarence Thomas.
As for policing being a dangerous profession, as is the military, I feel that demonstrates the utter neurotic nature of those that volunteer for these professions. It all seems to me Daniel that you your are making a point without some considerable thought on the matter. That surprises me as I thought you were more thorough than that.
Jack
Daniel, you have found the new word,for the lazy, ” Woke,” and I’m sure you’ll use your intellectual acrobatics to toss it around. It’s a rather multi facted word, wily like a fox; ( is that, FOX, your graduate school ?,) perfect for someone who wants to write volumes while saying nothing. After all you present yourself as a ,” Superior,” needing to example the lower status of the rest. Please cease your effort to define me. I’ve thought more important thoughts while being at stool. And they come from an honest place.
Finally some good news:
from monday on the rules for visiting the nursing home get less strict.
for now visitors still need to make an appointment over the phone for a visit but then they are allowed to sit with their resident relative in the garden.
or indoors is possible too, the cafetaria, but without the bar being open yet, in any case mom, brother and me all prefer the garden!
in a resident’s room is possible too, but then just one person and only during the week, and with a surgical mask and keeping distance.
then the week after, probably, visits will turn back to normal all the way most probably.
so me and my brother plan a visit next week sunday, to be in the garden with mom, and hey, that will be exactly on my birthday!!
that would be the best birthday present ever, I don’t dare to count on it yet, to not to be disappointed too much, but at the same time I already start feeling excited about the idea.
of course we will still have to keep taking safety precautions which will interfere with the spontaneity of normally hugging or kissing, but well, even so it seems so nice I hardly dare to hope it becomes reality, after 2 months and a half of complete restriction.
so let’s hope for the best, Margaret
Margaret, that is wonderful news; I’m happy for you. Hope you and your brother will have a nice visit with your mom. Is it that time again, didn’t you have a birthday just last year? How time flies. Ha-ha. Take care.
S
That is good news Margaret, but honestly, more and more I worry about how the foundation of your late middle age life rests on your Mom’s existence.
Daniel, I don’t know about David, but I have never been called woke before. For a few seconds I felt special but then I realized that many white people are becoming woke these days. I take it that you are not planning to become woke any time soon ☹
I wish I could communicate in the language of math, numbers and statistics, but I can’t. Just like you becoming woke, I do not see this changing any time soon. However, I did discover that your stats could be suffering from something called “Simpson’s Paradox” (not connected to Bart or Lisa, btw). Have you heard of this phenomenon? It is explained here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/11/opinion/statistical-paradox-police-killings/ (The statistical paradox of police killings: In the numbers of fatal encounters with the cops, one kind of discrimination masks another).
I just saw the Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Wesley Lowery, on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He addresses the issue of statistics, why many white people are becoming woke now, and what “defunding the police” actually means. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH6ukYPe5Jk (Wesley Lowery: The Public Should Have More Access To Records Of Police Conduct). I’m curious to know your reaction to him.
Why are you so against the Black Lives Matter movement? I’m sure you wouldn’t be against a Jewish Lives Matter movement. When I see primarily white police shooting at unarmed black people running away from them or a white police officer slowly murdering an unarmed black man with a foot on his neck, I am reminded of images of Nazis “hunting and murdering non-Aryans, including their babies, for sport, amusement, and keeping those folks in their place”, to basically use David’s words. It’s beyond me how a Jewish person cannot support Black Lives Matter.
In response to your last sentence (not sure is the embedded tweet will show up within the other):
A fair number of Jews love Trump in spite of his serious clashes with Black Lives Matter and past history of housing discrimination. My point being that there are clearly a mixed set of allegiances even within ethnic groups who seem as though they should have monolithic thinking. Life’s way too complicated for that.
Brief interview with Revlon Ron Perelman below; another example of a very conservative Jewish guy who’s a Trump fan.
What in gods name are you doing, superstarguru/simply human? You have made it very clear how fragile your physical and mental health are. I would feel awful if you inadvertently got yourself into a battle here. It is not worth putting your health at risk of further deteriorating by contributing to this discussion. Please rest up and take care yourself!
Simply showing there are entrenched liberals (Ruttenberg) and conservatives (Perelman) within the Jewish community is not exactly a posting to do battle upon, is it? I was trying to show you what you hold in disbelief can actually be true.
By the way, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Stephen Paddock, etc. were all ‘simply human’ so that’s why I won’t adopt that moniker.
It’s way too generic when I know I am absolutely special.
The more people try to dissuade me from being the guru, the more I know it was the right thing to keep.
Guru: OR, is that just wishful thinking?
Jack
Guru: The problem is not in being human, BUT just how neurotic as a human you/we are and the act-outs you/we perform several times daily, keeping neurosis well in place.
Jack
Superstarspecialhumanbutdefinitelynotguru, anything can turn into a battle. Sometimes battles just creep up on us and take us by surprise. I know this all too well. My last one took two years of my life and left me badly injured. Please don’t take any chances, especially since you have made it clear how vulnerable and fragile you are. It’s not worth it. Unless, of course, you are more resilient than you are portraying yourself. Then you are just using the “escape from battle” excuse to avoid difficult/painful feelings (which I can relate to as well).
Well…Renee…let’s go ahead and break it down point-by-point, I guess..
–First of all I sense considerable anger within your initial salutation towards me “Superstarspecialhumanbutdefinitelynotguru”. It feels as though you are taking an angry jab at me with that word, compacting and encapsulating all your current anger towards me within that jumble of letters. The word seemed to serve as a sacrificial anode, a punching bag of sorts so you would carry on in a sweetly diplomatic fashion towards me with the rest of your post.
–Just because one does not SEE or SENSE my being the guru, does not mean it is not true. That is likely a perception problem on your part which is common amongst many observers, so don’t let this make you feel as though I am singling you out with this misperception.
–I am saddened and concerned to hear that surprise battles can occur with you at any time. Such volatile personalities would be difficult for me to work with overall. Have you taken steps towards a calmer, more placid version of yourself? Or do you feel as though such volatility is an invigorating force for you with constant surprise battles in the offing to keep your adrenaline flowing?
–I am not sure what to make of your disturbing story involving an injury and a lost two years of life. Can you talk about this some more so we can react in a more informed manner?
–My own fragility is not the product of inherently flawed genetics, far from it. The energy spent and torture endured from my own life battles would have already felled six healthy, ordinary men so far. I’m still here after such a trial, but I am exhausted. Even the most awe-inspiringly powerful of locomotives can be stopped with enough obstacles..
Wow. By the manner in which you can so convincingly present a point of view, I feel you could have been a very effective lawyer, UG.
Guru: As I see it:- both you and Renee prefer to talk about the other person in the ‘back & forth’ and in particular you Guru.
You’ve told me in the past why you prefer to use a pseudonym and I accept your desire to do so, BUT to use one that includes ‘Guru’, in IMO is setting yourself up for criticism. The word guru as far as I know signifies ‘a wise one’.
As I read you I don’t see any ‘wise’ writings from you on this blog.
Jack
…Do you find Larry to be wise man?
Guru: I do’t find anyone to be wise. The only wisdom I see, is the wisdom to get into ones old feeling however, difficult and scary that might be.
I think I told you in the past that in my Ibiza days there were lots of talks about Gurus. Non of them appealed to me. They were just humans spouting off (like me) about what they felt others should look into Janov said it all to me, so if there was one.wise man for me; it’s Arthur Janov.
Jack
Could you repeat that missive, Jack? I’m not sure I caught that unfamiliar man’s name correctly.
Guru: here’s the missive:- “I think I told you in the past that in my Ibiza days there were lots of talks about Gurus. Non of them appealed to me. They were just humans spouting off (like me) about what they felt others should look into Janov said it all to me, so if there was one.wise man for me; it’s Arthur Janov.”
Got it now??????
Jack
HSSG…. HUMBUCKER, SINGLE COIL, SINGLE COIL Gutar…. love your expanding moniker.
I am not angry with you. I actually thought you’d appreciate being acknowledged as special, which you said was important to you. I also thought you’d appreciate the reality check that you are very much human. Since you insist that, “Just because one does not SEE or SENSE my being the guru, does not mean it is not true”, please explain why I, Jack, and others, should not trust what we are seeing and sensing. What is your definition of “guru”, how are you a guru, and why does it upset you when you are not seen as one? I don’t get it.
–“I’m not angry with you”
I think you have professional reasons to restrain anger towards me on the blog.
–I don’t care if others see me as an actual guru or not. That doesn’t matter.
–I asked you several questions for which you didn’t respond. You can do this, of course, but I will treat some of your questions the same way, OK?
–If you don’t see me as a guru, I would encourage you to dispassionately address me as “guru” as one would a string variable value with no external meaning implied, thanks.
guru, this is totally ridiculous! I am really not angry with you. If you need to believe that I am, I cannot stop you. I guess it serves some purpose.
I answer questions I feel like answering and don’t answer questions I don’t feel like answering. Just like you and everyone else.
You don’t care if others see you as an actual guru, yet you insist on being called a “guru” anyway. I think Jack might have hit the nail on the head when he said this was wishful thinking on your part. The irony is that real gurus don’t insist on being called “guru”……they learn that in “Becoming a guru 101”. Here are some real ways to address a guru, if you decide to rethink your strategy: https://www.indiadivine.org/content/topic/979672-addressing-a-guru/
Good to know the proper protocol.
See, that’s the scariest, that normal looking humans, ” love Trump;” an empty headed, empty hearted dob of prehistoric excrement.
Renee, can you find some way to let us know WHY all these racism-related issues have been of such importance to you overall? We know Daniel studied the Holocaust in part because of his grandmother, I studied auto traffic fatalities because of my mother….what’s your story?
It has to be something hugely important for you if you’ve done research in Africa and had all these protracted arguments with Daniel over the police and how non-whites aren’t properly enabled to set the tone in academics, etc.
Eventually I have to ask, “What’s the driving force behind all this? Why are you doing all this?”
If we could understand what motivates you here, it would help us view you as….simply human.
Guru: the very same applies to you. Just tell us what it was like for the little *** losing your mother. As I see it, the way she died is secondary..
Jack
I strongly suspect you’re wrong about the manner of death being secondary. Kids can sense a sick parent not functioning as well, a weakened parent. One suddenly killed completely out of the blue is a vastly more brutal situation, for one day you have a perfectly healthy and vibrant person you love, the next day the loved one is gone forever with absolutely no coherent explanation. I can imagine a toddler entertaining all sorts of primordial questions of self worth in that instance, “Am I bad? Did I do something bad to make her run away?”
This is why I am scared of the results of the MMPI test I once took saying I had “signs of organic brain damage”. I could see where a car wreck with a loving, healthy parent suddenly disappearing with no explanation forever would leave a child’s mind wrecked with needlessly destructive self-questioning and pointless yet poignantly emotional searching of the home for the parent, especially if the child has no concept of death.
Giru: I totally accept your prognosis
Jack
For days after my 4 year old’s death, I smelled her pillow, sheets, hats, trying to find her. I think you’re right, magnify that 10,000 times for a child with no language for understanding. How did you survive ? I know of hospitalized 3 and 4 year olds here who died from no disease, no physical trauma, but rather feeling unloved. I hired, ” grandparents,” to hold and rock them 24 hours a day. Danish research concluded that a day of lonliness equals the damage of smoking a pack of cigareetes.
thanks Sylvia!
Larry,
I was stunned with your remark.
it feels not in place on this moment when I just feel happy about finally looking forward to a visit with our mom after so much time.
if you were in the last virtual groups you should know how actively I work on focusing on my own life as well.
it does not revolve only on my mother, normally also on sailing, sporting, dancing, friends and university, not to forget Primal therapy.
most of that has come to a sudden break with Corona.
i can’t really say how your comment comes across, if I feel hurt or offended, but on a moment of relief it felt like you threw a gush of cold water at me.
M
Well expressed, I thought, Margaret.
Sorry Margaret, but I do worry for you and how you will manage when she is gone. Maybe the relationship between mothers and daughters is different than between mothers and sons. Perhaps also your relationship with your mother is a mystery to me because on the surface at least I never had such an attachment to mine, though the world would feel like a nicer place if mine were still alive, and of course now that I think about it the child deep inside me desperately needs her.. The world is a colder place when our parents are gone. Yes, enjoy her while she’s here.
Larry, at age 74, thanks to a post last week by Margaret, I felt the need for my mother. I don’t remember when I ever did. Protective of her, yes; but, needing her, never. And it’s attached to a lump in my throat and a feeling of a ligature restricting my windpipe. Those physical feelings have been there periodically most of my life; but never an emotional connection, until now. My MD suspected goiter or thyroid cancer. When testing negated those, he shook his head and hummphed…
Larry,
it came across as if you thought I might not be able to cope with losing her at some point.
I would.
not being able to visit her and then suddenly losing her would indeed be a lot harder to deal with, but even then I would, as PT gave me the ways to do so.
but maybe you did not mean it that way really.
and maybe some personal feelings for you are being triggered, I don’t know, do you think that is the case?
M
Margaret,
I’m sorry about posting these comments of yours so late today. Sooner would have been better I realize seeing them.
Could the other, ” David,” post a gravatar identifier, a cuddly puppy, a something, to show there are 2 David’s. My comments are always accompanied by my disheveled ancient mariner pic.
Margaret, my genuine thanks for your words to me the other day, which unstuck feeling my need for my mother to save my life by loving me. And which proved to be connected to a scene I reexperienced many times.
David,
Thanks so much, your comments are a balm to my would as I came out of virtual group yesterday feeling very sad, lonely and worthless, something being wrong with me, not mattering to anyone.
i could cry a little, just very sad adult crying, but not much focus.
woke up still in the feeling.
will write more later on, feel too beat down right now.
ps, both Davids, please don’t only change the avatar but also the label, as I only go by the audio feedback from my screen reader and cannot see the avatars.
David, which was the scene you keep remembering?
Larry,
thanks for your concern, and for being such a kind person, I was scared you would be angry at me.
Boy, I feel so frail right now, writing this makes me teary already.
M
Margaret: those sound like very deep feelings for you Margaret and yep! there are very, very hard, sad and painful.
Jack
You let me know how my remark affected you Margaret. You did it in a respectful, gentle way. Why would I be angry at you? Also, being as I was in virtual group with you yesterday, I’m wondering why when it was over you were left feeling sad, lonely and worthless as you describe it?
The big deal Margaret was for the first time feeling the need for my mother. No particular scene; except, you mentioning Barry set off me missing him; then came tears and then whoosh, was jettisoned into what I think is immediate post delivery; animal grunting, snorting angry frustration; This time I willfully shut it down before I realized I had felt the need for my mother. The thought was I’ll die without her love.
It was probably 10 years sinceI’d had that baby scene. It started sometime after my time at the PI. I don’t recall how often but many times a year for 20 years. In the beginning it was xciting becausse I thoughtI’d failed at Primal as everything I do. Not true of course but that’s what my mother convinced me I was, a fat, ugly, retarded, unloveable, liar, failure.
Over the past week I’ve had a lot of new insights. And two more feeling memories. One , nothing earth shaking; when I was a kid cereal companies would print a cut out Hallowe’en mask on the box. I felt that childhood excitement about Hallowe’en coming, smelled the cardboard, and then came my mother’s admonishment for messing up the cutting. The other memory was of the night my wonderful grandfather died. I was 8. The undertaker, my parents and I were in the, ” front,” room. My mother began crying. I got a bath towel, and folded it many times and gave it to her. But I didn’t care that she was crying, I smiled inside. I was using the opportunity to try to manipulate her, seduce her, into liking me. It was calculated. I felt good, too, that I was fooling the undertaker into thinking I was a nice boy, and that I cared about my mother. Writing this I’m beginning to feel some loathing and anger. towards her. It became clear how I’ve constructed so much of my life around that relationship. But Margaret it takes so much energy to properly visit these things. I’m so tired of it all. On the other hand, yesterday and today I have felt so much more positive about being alive. I’d gone trough months of being pissed off I was alive everytime my etes opened in the morning.. One morning I lay in bed trying to think of a reason I shouldn’t get my rifle from the closet and leave the planet. I didn’t have the energy. I thought PT had removed my ability to suicide, but it was strong on my psyche that morning. As of this moment dealing with it all seems doable, like, ok; it happened, I survived, it will be ok .. Not exactly describing th feeling but that is as close as I can get to it.
I neglected to add, Margaret, buckets of snot. And the Primal snot has it’s own odour; actually, fragrance, because I find something particularly meanigful about the smell/ Maybe it’s evidence that I’m not making it up, not bad, not a liar. So much of my abuse that early on I told about or argued against, they insisted was me lying. The day after she sliced my abdomen she asked how it happened, with that maniacal grin .
David: that sounds to me, to be close enough for now. Just let it all happen … bit by bit, in it’s own good way and time.
That is the way I deal with it.
Jack
OK, I had a brief afternoon nap and that helped to dissipate some of that depressed feeling.
what happened in group yesterday, was that it started off with me feeling I had no urgent matter to talk about, but maybe that was already part of the feeling of not being of any interest, I am not sure.
Possibly having been ill for a few weeks part of me hoped to be asked how I was doing which did not happen.
but well, I was kind of ok and able to listen to others with interest.
but then gradually the feeling of ‘what about me?’ interfered and made some of other people’s stories sound very long, as opposed to me at times in the past having been asked when talking if I had any urgent feeling at hand at all.
so my feeling of not having anything worthwhile or interesting to say was well on the rise, but the pain at some point made me feel ‘hey, I feel pretty bad and my situation is very difficult at this point in my life, so actually I feel I do deserve some attention’, which made me tear up briefly.
but always others seem to be faster to pick a moment to jump in, and my feeling of need is somehow mixed with shame and fear for rejection, and group going on for hours and Gretchen in the past group seemingly having asked literally everyone at some point how they are except me, finally increased my insecurity to the point of feeling there is really something wrong with me, there must be something ‘off’ about me, about my need, about how I behave, so you hear it, I was crumbling up inside bit by bit.
finally at the very end of group Barry said there were ten minutes left, but on the moment I opened my mouth somebody else spoke up.
then finally there seemed to be a few minutes left so I did finally speak, mentioning the upcoming visit of my mom in the nursing home after a lock out of 3 months and a half.
Then I mentioned feeling sad and lonely as listening to other people the thought had crossed my mind at some point my own life is so much lonelier than most of theirs. I mentioned no one addressing me had left me sad and lonely but I had told myself ‘oh well, it is just group’, with in my mind in my life in reality some people are there to some extent.
so I logged out of group while it was about to end, not hanging around for the last bit that sometimes takes a good while and is interesting, but I felt tired, worn out emotionally , hopeless and fed up of feeling pathetic, so not wanting to add to that feeling by hanging around hoping for some interaction to ease my pain…
it was 11 at night here when shortly after I went to bed, and then I just broke into tears, adult crying but very sad, only giving limited relief.
part of my pain is longing for a partner in life, i have been alone for about two decades now and my social circle diminishes, and now with Corona has come to an absolute minimum.
Gretchen told me to talk in next group about how it was to live with my mom as a kid, it was nice she reached out.
I feel so scared and so very sad, am tearing up right now.
M
Margaret: Gretchen’s suggest sound like an excellent idea. I hope you will try it.
Sure enough it might feel scary to do so, but I hope you’ll give it shot.
Jack
Sounds so familiar including that waiting to the very end and not getting the chance to speak I’ve considered why I do that, fear, a way to construct feeling unwanted, flawed, but no answr has become abundantly clear. I’m 18 years alone now. Have been interested in several women but not enough to follow up beyond an initial coffee. Although they were too different from my non negotiables to want to pursue a relationship.
Larry,
me feeling scared of your possible reaction only illustrates how big my fear to be rejected is, the expectation of it is always in the back of my mind somewhere, apart from on the times I feel really good, then I can emotionally shrug my shoulders by the thought someone might be critical and negative to me.
at those moments my self confidence feels grounded enough to leave it with them or to deal with it if it would make sense.
but as Barry said, feelings are transient and sadly enough the strong and self confident cheerful feeling is too…
why did I feel that way at the end of group?
probably because my bottom line old feeling is one of loneliness and of not counting and of craving genuine interest.
I cried a bit after writing that last comment and soon it turned into baby wailing, where most of my crying seems to go these days.
it seems to indicate how early some of the roots of these feelings are.
maybe right after birth the nuns took me away and put me in a separate crib until the scheduled times they would let my mom feed me.
I feel sure though that when she went home she followed my rhythm as I was very chubby the first years of my life, and at birth weighed 9 pounds…
by the way,at the start of my former comment it should Read to David that his words were balm to my soul, no idea how the word ‘wood’ appeared there.
when in a feeling the number of typos increases…
M
Jack,
thanks for the feedback, Gretchen’s suggestion certainly makes me reflect on the aspects of my childhood and it is good to have plenty of time to let it simmer in a natural way.
my relation with my mom is complicated as it is a mix of many feelings, some very good and others not so, but it is all intertwined .
then there is also the presence of my dad as a steady but not very accessible presence, the root of many many hours of feeling and crying and craving and needing in my therapy and the root of many act out relationships I have had in the past.
m
Margaret: That’s good and I hope you get the courage to go through with it. And the same applies to me and I feel many others, We cannot encapsulate in just one comment on the blog here.
Good luck Margaret.
Jack
one thing I still want to say about the feeling that took hold of me during group, is that at the start it was merely me thinking about the importance of what I might talk about not being urgent enough to interest the group as their items might be more urgent feeling wise.
it felt easy to wait until either I would feel more like needing to talk or the subject would be inviting enough after someone speaking to bring up something of myself.
but as time went by and group went on and my feeling focused on my need to be addressed, to be important enough for some interest or curiosity or mere courteousness, the lack of which relates mostly to my dad not showing interest in me as a kid, the feeling gradually worsened to the sad result of ending up feeling about myself something must be wrong with me, make people turn away from me, dislike me or even be repulsed by me.
worthlessness, shame, fear of rejection and failure as a result lingered for the next entire day..
thinking more of the origin of the feeling, I wonder now if it would be helpful in the context of this feeling to talk about my mom, as besides my dad, who already formed the object of many past years of therapy, another factor seems to be at play.
my acquired disability and its consequences, its limitations of many sorts, and me getting older and being single, added up with the increased isolation of the Corona situation all make me feel like some kind of outsider, being different, less able to perform along socially ingrained paths, like making eye contact and participating in group talks that are hard to follow with no sight and only one ear that functions.
there is some reality to the disability keeping some people away, some of them being afraid, some awkward, etc.
on bad moments I feel hopeless about my abilities or chances to find some happiness and a relationship ever again.
on better moments I can become aware of functioning very well if it does not need a proper eyesight, and can be liked by people.
today for example a Master student working on a task for her thesis, did an interview by Zoom with me after having sent me a questionnaire.
she does a study on a group of Belgian Open University students in regard to Health Psychology and how an intervention can help.
there were interesting topics like meaningfulness, socializing, satisfaction and drive etc.
our interview lasted an hour instead of 30 minutes, and it was very nice to go into the topic and to get to know this student.
she also enjoyed it, and wrote up ‘primal institute’as she wanted to look it up as it sounded interesting to her.
she said it was hard to have to say goodbye as she liked our talk and might enjoy more contact at some point.
i told her that was mutual, and that she could contact me at any time so this shows to me I am not that dysfunctional as how it feels at times.
circumstances matter a great deal.
of course in group it is a specific trigger when everyone seems to be addressed but me,.
dad has a lot to do with it, and possibly mom in her own complicated way somewhat as well, but on the other hand she also gave me the amount of self confidence that I do have.
M
Margaret: You might have missed out on the group, but you sure sound like you’re making up for it here on the blog..
I sure hope you keep at it, and then you might have more incentive in Group.
Good luck Margaret.
Jack
We all can become Gurus.
BUUUT….. can we all be SUPREME …….??…
David, this video make help to see what it takes to be Supreme.
HAAAAAAA…. thanks, Phil; much appreciated giggle food.
Takes a lot of work to be supreme. 🙃
I agree with you, Larry. But they make it look and sound so effortless! Close your eyes and listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcylDkRw7dg
Ah yes. Talent and charisma would be the other ingredients.
Phil: I prefer just staying as “Jack”
Guess who!!!
thanks Jack,
it helps to share here what goes through my mind.
M
last night I had a long and very detailed, very emotional dream about my late husband.
in the dream, as it too often was the case in reality, we were both using hard drugs.
at some point I felt it was not leading anywhere good or going to make us happy, and started pleading with him trying to convince him we should make a real effort to stop using together.
he refused.
I kept trying to convince him, went through pictures of good times we had had, him on the bed with a kitten that had already grown to a large cat, and I cried a lot, feeling how hard the decision was and how painful he did not want to accept my plea, so I cried and cried while talking with him until one ‘no’ of him finally was too much for me and made my distress shift to anger.
I snapped at him and told him I should have left him long ago anyway, at a time he had betrayed me spending money I had earned behind my back on dope.
I woke up still so much in the dream I was continuing to talk to him.
this is a new development,for the first time, even just in. dream, i was able to really tell him and feel I was going to leave him.
it feels like a beginning of some closure.
in reality we stayed together for thirteen years until I lost him in a drug related very bad way.
what is encouraging is to be able to use my dreams to process so much emotions, I really cried a lot in the dream and the anger and its decision were also very real.
I am very grateful for being able to dream like that, it helped me many many times.
M
Margaret, that sounds like an amazing dream you had;, with the part that it’s the beginning of some closure about your husband.
Phil
Margaret, that sounds like an amazing dream you had;, with the part that it’s the beginning of some closure about your husband.
Phil
I had some big sad feelings this morning, helped along as usual by some music. They were about my mother, and I seemed to review all my memories of her and none of them are good; some are quite bad. I would like to find something good to remember, but I guess that’s part of the feeling. Something new for me is imagining something good that I would have maybe wanted to happen. Approaching her sick bed in the nursing home where she’s been for years, she puts her arms around me. This spontaneous fantasy has helped with the feeling of what I needed, but didn’t get.
But nothing like that happened, I didn’t approach her bed, and didn’t want to. I found her unapproachable. I actually was of little or no importance to her..
Phil
Sorry Phil, it has to be a devastating realization of being little or no importance to the very person who brought you into the world. It would seem impossible to recover from it for a lifetime.
UG,
some people seem to lack a sense of irony, never mind them, it is just sign of them being far from enlightenment.
I wish they would get off your back.
and I found the questions you did ask and get no answer to very much to the point, by the way, that was my immediate reaction when I read that comment of yours.
but as a Flemish saying goes, ‘truth hurts’…
M
Margaret, I think your last message to Guru is worth repeating.
Phil
Margaret & Phil, thanks for the support. These things are never a surprise where Jack is concerned, but in Renee’s case…I don’t know her well; we’ve only met a couple times in person for a few seconds a long time ago. Since you seem to know her much better than I do, perhaps your assessment of the situation is more piercingly accurate than mine?
Margaret’s correct about the “truth hurts”, but I don’t want to use truth as a bludgeoning iron, either. Putting one’s flaws or shortcomings under a microscope, even if true, can be an instrument of cruelty.
I know if I went around and pleaded with everyone to pay more attention to the fallout from vehicular traffic injuries and fatalities without adding why it was so important to me (MOMMY!), I would personally feel a bit more ‘sketchy’, ‘illegitimate’, and ‘inauthentic’. A dissociative robot touting a narrative with no authentic grounding, if you will. This is why I was asking how the race topic came to be so important to Renee overall.
I didn’t realize that I mattered so much to you, UG. To ask Margaret and Phil to share personal information about me, which is not theirs to tell, is like having someone reveal your real name on the blog. It’s a gutsy move, but inappropriate nonetheless. However, I am honored that you care about me enough to want to know me better. Thank you.
Renee, that’s not quite the point I was trying to make. After reading all your arguments on race, it left me wondering why this was so important to you so I can “authenticate” the argument…connect it to something real to latch onto, even if it was a personal detail. I don’t know how else to explain it, except to say that arguments made don’t feel ‘grounded’ to me unless I can grasp why the topic is important to that person.
I’ve always felt that Renee had given the impression that she was for the underdog and wanted to give them voice because she knew what it was like in her own family and not being listened to, not having a voice and feeling like an outsider. Just my take on her advocacy of certain causes. Sounded like her get-together on the Zoom Passover was a remembrance of difficult family times. Feelings I imagine that are difficult to relive. Just as I imagine yours are also, Guru, of that little boy.
Please see my response to Sylvia.
UG,
some people seem to lack a sense of irony, never mind them, it is just sign of them being far from enlightenment.
I wish they would get off your back.
and I found the questions you did ask and get no answer to very much to the point, by the way, that was my immediate reaction when I read that comment of yours.
but as a Flemish saying goes, ‘truth hurts’…..
M
Sylvia, what you say is very true. One of the ways that Primal changed me was that I got to (and continue to) remember what it felt like to be to treated as less than human, and sometimes like garbage. I got to remember what it felt like to be picked on, bullied, targeted, ridiculed, looked down upon, rendered invisible, and scapegoated. As a result, it has made it much it harder for me (although not impossible) to behave in these ways toward others. I don’t want to pass on what was done to me. If I do, I want to take responsibility for my words and behavior and make amends.
When I write my book, as part of my studies, I plan to write about the impact that my experiences in therapy have had on me and how I came to see these profoundly personal experiences as political as well. I will also write about how my experiences in therapy got me interested in the subject of race. I have found it challenging to communicate with white people, primarily those who consider themselves to be progressive and liberal, about this subject. I think this is because most of us have a belief system that is very individualistic and see racism as an individual or “bad apple” problem, rather than a collective or systemic problem. By focusing simply on my, or someone else’s, individual history, the problem gets perpetuated rather than addressed. I might include a chapter reflecting on where and why I get tripped up in these conversations. Of course, I do not want to repeat what others have already said about this stuff. Right now, I’m feeling that I cannot top Robin DiAngelo, who coined the phrase “white fragility”, in her explaining the problem with us white folk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx-gUfQx4-Q (Robin DiAngelo on “White Fragility” (EXTENDED CONVERSATION | Amanpour and Company). I just wish I had her confidence and her ability to articulate herself in such a clear way.
Yes, very interesting interview about ‘white fragility.’ I can see why the racism is a trigger for you, that it brings up that bad treatment and unfairness of your childhood. Could be that the struggle to make others see their racism is that push-back of what happened to you when no one acknowledged their maltreatment of you growing up. That would be painful.
I see the only way of curing racism is to be socially exposed from an early age to the different culture. Busing tried to accomplish that in some way, but it seems to have failed.
The protests now against the police system have brought a lot to light, finally. That a black man is afraid, (even before all this media coverage of George Floyd,) to be out after dark in his car or just walking, in fear of police stopping him, is horrible and shows the systemic injustice the black culture puts up with.
I know the ‘white fragility’ would apply to me because I’ve had no experience with the black culture growing up or as an adult. On the face of it I’m not racist, but I would be uncomfortable and always conscious that I am talking with a black person. I only hope that I could grow beyond that.
Let’s hope that things will change after all this exposure these past weeks of how it’s been for Blacks in all parts of society, not just the police and legal system. Thanks for the video, Renee, and of telling about your own experience in your family. I hope your book-writing goes well.
S
Sylvia: I have searched my whole being about ‘racism’ only to come to the conclusion that I am a racist … in that I feel we white people are the most inferior race, if we are to consider our differences; rather than consider what is common to us all.
Alas, I find that difficult for myself in practice … of course when discussing it, I am able see the altruistic aspects
I contend it’s going to be a problem unless there is such a radical change to the way we humans live and organize ourselves.
Jack
Thanks for the support and encouragement, Sylvia. And I’m glad you got something out of the Robin DiAngelo interview.
A dishonest conversation about race in America is preventing Americans from having an honest conversation about race in America.
I feel a migraine coming on. More arguments…more defenses…less feelings….I can’t watch.
S
No popcorn for me, please. Be nice to each other, if possible.
S
I think an argument can be made that you’re the one having the feeling here. Besides, Renee & Daniel are professional writing pugilists. Penmanship as an extension of swordsmanship, that sort of thing.
Just say yes to fluffy, buttery popcorn from the stovetop.
I wouldn’t say it is an old feeling. My parents didn’t argue. It’s just a feeling of watching two people going at it. Maybe others feel badly about it too. Nothing gets resolved. I do think that Daniel’s comment was sort of an attack out of the blue. I thought we were talking about feelings and the struggle within families and why some issues trigger us and our sense of fairness. But, hey, Guru, if you like to see people fight, then maybe it is something of an old feeling for you.
I don’t want to argue about arguing.
I too thought you were talking about feelings and struggle within families, but then Renée had to slide in Robin DiAngelo of ‘you’re-white-so-you’re-racist,-and-if-you-disagree-with that-you’re-fragile,-and-if-you-disagree-with-you-being-fragile-that’s-proof-of-your-fragility’ fame. If you remember, I was called ‘fragile’ just after a single, rather neutral sentence, which is a good example of the current anti-intellectual (and very dangerous) moment.
If you insert this kind of claim and stand behind it you should be ready to meet some opposition.
Okay, Daniel, I guess we all have to defend ourselves when we feel we are misunderstood, so I see your concern. I don’t worry too much about the white fragility as I think it can be overcome with more openness among Blacks and Whites, (if you will allow me to use the term ‘fragility’.) For now it is an awkwardness between cultures, is what I took from the Robin DiAngelo interview, complicated by one culture having a dominance history over the other. I’m not sure I would use the pejorative term of racist, but just insensitive toward an other’s culture but I think can be remedied in time with more interaction between races. What worries me most are the outspoken racists I see in my life who need to feel superior to a whole class of people. That bothers me more because how do you get thru to those people?
Okay, so, you and all the fathers have a nice day–and everyone else too.
S
I think another discussion on racism is OK, but I hope the personal aspect can come out. Better to me than further repetitions on anarchy and money. Not that I plan to participate.
Phil
Phil: What are you views on racism; and do you have any ideas to resolve them?
Jck
Jack, racism exists and is a big problem. It looks like it will take a very long time to resolve. I think young people are less racist and less biased about sexual orientation and gender identity, in general, and that’s a good thing. It’s a very sad thing to remember the long history of slavery, and although they were freed, blacks continued to be treated as less than human, and with no rights in this country. I don’t have any original thinking on how to resolve these problems.
Phil
Jack, I would add that there has been a lot of progress with the racism problem in this country since the 1950s and 60s. I think Trump being elected as president was partly a backlash to Obama, our first African American in the White House the previous eight years. After Trump is gone I think progress will continue. Phil
Phil: I find all these types of arguments are US centric and that is where I feel most of us are not a able to see that it is a global phenomenon. I feel the need to make it a glob al resolution and not a national one.
I hope those day of ‘Super Powers’ are over.
Jack
Phil: I agree with all you said here, but if you don’t have any idea how to resolve it, who do you feel might have an idea, and could they implement it?
It’s one thing to live with it ,but are not we humans forever trying to resolve things … and seemingly failing.
Jack
Jack, of course my views are US centric, and I think these problems can mostly be addressed at the national and local by leaders. We don’t have a world government. Leaders are the people who can implement ideas, other people can’t. We can just have discussions on blogs etc.
Phil
Phil: How about getting rid of all government and NOT trying to implement a world government. and to get rid of national border while we’re at it.
For me, that would resolve 95% of our human problems, BUT getting people to get their head around that one, is were I see the greatest problem.
I contend it will happen, and the young of today are beginning to come round to that notion since nothing else seem to work … either which way.
I’d be interested in what your kids think about our current situation.
Jack
Jack, I don’t think my kids put any thought into it at all, they just live their lives. I don’t either, the truth is, but I do follow the news. You’ve said you hardly ever have voted. You throw away what power you do have. All these thoughts and hypothetical solutions are useless. I have encouraged my sons to get out and vote, and they do.
Phil
Phil: I feel if you were to have some real intimate talk/s with your kids you might be surprised just what they think. I’m not suggesting you don’t talk to them, just that intimate talking to ones kids is very rare … like:- Your sex life and your passed embarrassments and maybe some regrets.
Then the other remark:- “All these thoughts and hypothetical solutions are useless.”. How do you know? Have you tried them?
Jack
Jack, but what can I do with those kinds of thoughts? Weren’t you also advocating less thinking? On this idea I feel you were right. I prefer to talk to my sons about their lives, not stuff like solutions to racism.
Phil
Jack, but what can I do with those kinds of thoughts? Weren’t you also advocating less thinking? On this idea I feel you were right. I prefer to talk to my sons about their lives, not stuff like solutions to racism.
=======================================
Phil: I wasn’t suggesting you talk to them about racism. I was suggesting you talk to them about intimacies; both theirs and yours.
Jack
Jack, I suggest you talk to Guru about intimacies, his and yours, and then get back to me.
Philo: I did that some time ago writing about what life was like being gay. I’ve also spent a lot of comments talking about my relationship what it means to me and what I seeming means to my partner. If you would like more then be specific as otherwise, I am not sure what else you really want to know.
As for Guru:- he made it clear to me some years ago, he wishes to remain a private person and So far I’ve done my best to respect his wish, even after once revealing his first name and I replied using it, which, seemingly, he got upset about.
Jack
Jack, another and better suggestion; why don’t you get intimate with yourself. I really would like you to focus on someone else.
Phil#; That seems to me. on the face of it, to be contradictory in that you suggest I get intimate with myself and then follow it with:- “I really would like you to focus on someone else.”
If you are really interested I would like you to be more specific
Jack
Renee, I feel a bit as though you’re still delaying the real answer to why race is so important to you. If you feel that the deep answer needs to wait until your book comes out, I can live with it.
I do wish you luck on your book. There’s a ton of fierce competition out there in the writer’s market, so I would approach this project with the realistic attitude of “don’t give up your day job”. It’s good to be prepared for possible disappointment when projects that we pour our hearts into don’t live up to expectations, but who knows? Maybe the book will be a hit.
The race topic has burned me out, and I am being truthful in saying I spent plenty of time with people of different races when i was younger. In fact, if my mother hadn’t met her violent demise I would have likely had considerably less exposure in this area, for she would have shipped me off to exclusive private schools instead of the poorer public system.
Some extra bullet points:
–(This is only for my own ego medication) I’m very frustrated that, while race takes center stage in the national dialogue, the economic impact of vehicular crashes are considered a ‘niche’. almost ‘non-existent’ problem when it was a very real $20 million+ issue for me. Most of my mother’s relatives are millionaires and multimillionaires who were utterly shocked when they found out I even existed, while I am struggling to hold water., to keep from sinking into eventual oblivion.
–I still think you may want to pay more attention to the numbers even though it’s not your cup of tea. I honestly hope you have another good ‘boxing workout’ with Daniel, for it might help you with stimulating fresh material for your book.
A quick search on Amazon lists over 20,000 (TWENTY THOUSAND!) books about racism. This is your competition. How will you stand out from that crowd? Is it worth the effort knowing you have an ocean of writers sharing similar thoughts as your own? Just some soul-searching questions to think about before working too hard on something that may not bear fruit commercially.
In the meantime, my favorite vehicle traffic topic uncovers 10 or fewer books. No wonder I was in a dangerous situation! At least now it’s only a terribly frustrating issue instead of being an outright dangerous one for me anymore.
Guru: Do you have any ideas to resolve the traffic fatalities. I for one, would be interested to read them.
P.S. In my last response to you I spelt you name wrong ..it was a typo’
Jack
Guru, is it the economic impact of vehicular accidents which has most effected you? I’m just struck how you seem to focus on that. Would being a multimillionaire make you happy? Wouldn’t the main thing have been to have had a mother?
I experience some difficulty imagining how my life would have been better having a healthy and functional mother around for my whole childhood and into my adult years. I’m sure I could have done better, but I relate it more to my mental issues, not any financial aspect.
Having a loving mother would have made a huge difference I believe.
Phil
Phil, this is not going to be a reflection of yourself as a person, for you do seem like a good, decent guy. The fact is your questions really irritate the hell out of me. Why? Because it would force me to write a book like Renee is doing to hash out ALL the details you’re looking for. Too much work and just not worth it.
…But, yes, $20 million+ sounds reasonable given a STRICT metric of quantifiable economic losses over decades of time, and not the more soft, fuzzy, and non-falsifiable “pain and suffering or emotional distress” damages that craven lawyers love to use in courtrooms as revenue enhancers.
I only said this in passing to Renee to vent frustration. Other than that I’m finished with the topic.
Guru, I just wanted to express my reactions to what you wrote, that’s all. You don’t need to write a book, unless you feel there’s a market for it.
Phil: That respose to Guru sounds ‘Spot On’ to me.
Jack
Guru: a lot more about you in this post and some of your underlying feelings as well, it seems.
Good luck Gulru
Jack
Some high school students organized a black lives matter protest in the center of our small town and a lot of people reacted poorly. They wanted the police to intervene. I know there’s many people who will always support the police under any conditions. These are people who hate NYC mayor because he doesn’t support the police enough. But he does, even too much, but they can’t be satisfied. These are the same people who want an authoritarian in the White House, maybe because they’re scared? Phil
Phil: As with money , just abandon the police force all together. They are a case of unintended consequences. If we do; crime will go way down
Jack
Your “crime will go way down without a police force” comment made me chuckle. Thanks Jack.
Today was an experience of the beauty of people working together in a very warm way to help people to finally get together again.
I was a bit scared things would be stressful and tense, but my brother was much more relaxed than I expected.
his wife had given me a call while he was driving up here, ‘to wish me happy birthday’,, but seemingly more so to give me instructions that we should not touch or mom at all as she, the wife, did not want to get infected.
I said yes and sure, as she is bossy, but we did fine doing it our own way, my brother and me, forming a very good team.
i had prepared putting latex gloves and desnfecting gel and desinfecting tissues and extra surgical masks in my backpack, and had taken some drinks and disposable cups with me as well, for which I had asked the permission of the nursing home.
upon arrival things went so smoothly, every being friendly and helpful.
our names were noted, we used handgel, and got two large aprons, and were brought to our mom already wandering around in the garden.
at the outdoor table we could take off the protective masks, while sitting at a safe distance.
my brother went to fetch mom’s hearing aids as otherwise it was too hard communicating and then it went better.
at first she said she was unhappy, but very soon she cheered up and said she liked to live there.
she even sang happy birthday to me, and what was the nicest part is we made two walks with her in the middle, holding our arm, with the aprons and the masks that felt perfectly ok, as we had the handgel ready upon return.
i feel that closer contact is what felt the most healing to the three of us, just walking and chatting and listening to the birds and watching the trees and flowers, feeling cosily close together.
at some point she said something so positive it struck me and I told her she is a true example, and she lighted up, saying ‘am I?’ in such a pleased way it is heartwarming to think back of it.
she has a form of dementia having almost no short term memory, but that does not mean we can’t have meaningful interactions clearly.
so well, it was an experience that showed the up side of humankind, the caretakers all being so nice and so ahppy for her and for us, a warm emotional bath.
it is also great to feel my brother and I can form such a good team.
now I will skip tonight’s virtual group, tired and wanting to stay focused on this warm peaceful feeling and enjoying it.
Margaret
Margaret,
Happy Birthday! It sounds like visiting your mother was a good present and a great way to spend the day.
It was Father’s Day here, and I spent a nice day with one son and my wife. June has been abnormally hot and humid, but I love the summer.
Phil
Wow, Margaret, I could just picture the heart-warming time you had. Everything looks like it went well with your preparation and the nursing home’s cooperation. What a treat for you all, and especially your mom to be all together again. I’m happy for you. And Happy Birthday, of course, to you!
S
thanks all!
I still feel so much more peaceful now as opposed to anxious and stressed out.
I just got a birthday card signed by the whole staff of my mom’s ward, they must have passed it on from team to team during several days to get everyone to sign, including the cleaning lady who is very nice, and the animation team, and my mom who also added some nice wishes spontaneously.
I also just got a call from Veronique who does the animation to ask me how it was yesterday, and she passed on my mom on the phone as well.
everyone participates so much, also my friends and my own household help, they all sympathize and support us.
my brother also just gave me a call, so well, all is very well for the time being and I am enjoying it a lot.
a girlfriend came over for lunch and it is great to enjoy those pleasures of life again bit by bit.
thanks for all the support and patience,
Margaret and cats
That sounds so heartwarming Margaret.
Larry,
that is really how it is, heartwarming!
it reflects the positive side of human solidarity and empathy and support.
for a while everything was fine and everyone cared about each other.
and that still exists when one looks for it, which is some kind of hope in this struggling world.
M
what is also important is it makes me feel there really are people in my life that do care and I am grateful for that and appreciate it.
M
Sylvia, I agree with you. And you bring up the crucial point – we have established terms such as racism and white supremacy and we have developed social and personal attitudes toward such ideas and the people who espouse them. However, when you ideologically rather than scientifically extend racism to cover all interracial awkwardness, to include all well-meaning white people, then first you do away with individual differences, which puts you in the very same territory as the racists are in (“all black/Jewish people are evil”).
Second, if you use racism to automatically explain any gap between blacks and whites, and if the established rules of reason cannot substantiate it, you will not abandon your ideological claim as such rules would have demanded, but rather now go after those rules and claim that the established rules of reason are themselves racist.
So, if blacks are not proportionally represented in, say, chemistry; and when looking into the matter by established means of reason and social science you cannot show that chemists or the institution involved are racists; your ideology will not permit you to conclude that the explanation for the gap lies elsewhere, but rather that chemistry itself is racist.
Likewise, if blacks are not proportionally represented in Primal Therapy then Art, Vivian, Gretchen and Barry according to this view must be racists. If one can show that they are not racists, then the conclusion must be that PT itself is racist. And the intellectual tradition that made PT possible (in general, the enlightenment) is racist.
These are some of the voices we hear and aims sought in the current movement. They are totalitarian, very much reminiscent of the Chinese Culture Revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s, and may become very dangerous.
Daniel: I find your argument ‘Spurious’, in that you are using statistics to demonstrate your POV.
Noe of it to me demonstrated that Sylvia was even hinting at any of this and that you were putting your spin on it, as I read it.
Jack
Jack, I guess I wasn’t phrasing my argument very well, because I never meant that these were Sylvia’s views. The “You” in my sentences was a general “You” and not a specific one (Sylvia).
Nor did I use stats in my comment. I was talking about the scientific method which is a HUGE human achievement (and does use stats). Take yourself: you have HIV and take meds to control it and so can live a relatively healthy life. Those meds were produced – could only be produced – via the scientific method. If you think that the DiAngelo’s of this world or some of the current protestors could have produced such meds you’d better think again.
I’m not saying that science, in and of itself, is either “good” or “bad”, but that we reap huge benefits from it and has become part and parcel of our western tradition. The price of course is that because science is so powerful we can also use it to destroy the entire world. But until then, it helps us understand and manipulate reality also very much to our benefit.
Daniel: I appreciate you making it a lot more clear and being specific. However, I feel you’re making a case about my HIV status that is not necessarily correct.
However, because of my partner Jim, a medical man, I continue to take it and so far, no detrimental effects, but I am not sure that it saving my life either. The doctors all seem surprised at me surviving it for as long as I have, but insist I continue … much as I would love to try out NOT taking the one pill once a day.
As for the science of medicine is a lifesaver that is also another debate, especially in view of Primal theory.
As for medicine becoming part and parcel of ‘Wester tradition’, that, as I see it,,is our major human problem. We’re stuck with what we’ve created and seemingly not wanting to radically change it, and worse still think it is the very best thing for humanity as a whole and made sure that all those other cultures take-on our way of life … starting with what is called democracy. Democracy is not all that it is cracked up to be, in terms of making life easy for us (maybe some only) and I sometimes wonder if many of the tribal leaders of the past, certainly in the Americas were far more benevolent and caring than any leader of all the WESTERN societies. As for benefiting us … Mmmmm that’s not the way I see it, with neurosis … that debilitating diseases making life ‘hell’ for many of us. Yeah??????
I feel our current situation around the globe is beginning to fray badly. We seem, as I see it on all the debates on TV and social media are resolving nothing. The chances are, the up and coming young are going to see it and tear it all down. Hopefully, they will not replace it with any form of government on the scale we currently have.
My hope is that nationalities, cultures, leaders and the GLUE (wrapped up with, its so-called scientific subject ‘ECONOMICS’) I keep talking about, will all disappear … never to return.
Jack
Yes, I agree, Daniel, that there are extremists on each side of the race issue–I know when I hear a racist. Some of the Black movement like in the Evergreen state college in Washington that you posted a few months ago, are extreme on the other end too. Each, I feel are driven by their own personalities of anger and helplessness in their families. In the first, example a racist may feel the need to feel superior. In the Evergreen College incident where black students took over the college and demanded all white students leave for the day, “Or else,” I feel was motivated by general frustration and years of feeling like 2nd class citizens, and the most vocal of the students were oppressive and punishing in their speeches to the faculty and students. The president of the liberal school, feeling the guilt of his whiteness encouraged this. So, yes, I can see how things can turn dangerous.
I agree. There are real problems and they are acute and must be addressed so the anger motivating this movement I think is genuine, but I fear this anger is hijacked by radicals who wish to undo our western civilization as some sort of reparation.
In this PBS story about the Evergreen College incidents a black student named Odette (on minute 8 more or less) who dared to say there was no racism in her professors was called a traitor, very much like Gilead’s ‘gender traitors’ in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Forgot to include the link to the PBS story:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/evergreen-copes-with-fallout-months-after-day-of-absence-sparked-national-debate
Daniel, you are making it very clear that you are supporter of the establishment and its “established rules” and “established terms”. And that you see these rules and terms as scientific, not ideological. And that challenging these rules and terms can be very dangerous. Does this mean that you will not be buying Robin DiAngelo’s book any time soon?
I don’t know which “establishment” you are referring to Renée, but if it’s the current American political one then I do not support it at all, first of all because I’m not an American and in no position to support it. Had I been an American I would not have supported it either because I think it has become corrupted. Nor do I support the academic establishment because it too had been corrupted (by the market). But the establishment, or what it has become, does not invalidate the ideas behind it.
I mentioned two “established terms”: ‘Racism’ and ‘White Supremacy’, do you object to those terms? Do you feel that these terms do not describe real phenomena?
You are confused as to what I meant by “established rules”. Those are not the rules of the establishment but the rules of scientific reasoning. And no, they are nowhere near ideological. On the contrary, they have dissent built-in which is why they were created in the first place and why they were so successful. One can say, “I believe so and so” (as was the metaphysical norm before the scientific age) but the scientific rules are a method by which one is told – “No, what you believe is not true at all”. Again, the challenge to what one believes is built-in. This is the exact opposite of ideology in front of which all reality must bow.
Doing away with the scientific method is dangerous because it is anti-liberal and opens the door to tyranny. All actual tyrannies were very suspicious of science and scientific thinking, and rightly so. That explains their predilection to show-trials where (ideological) verdicts are known at the outset, over real trials where the rules of science and reason are at least meant to prevail. It will also substantially reduce the standards of health and living and issue in widespread poverty and misery and disease.
I will not be buying DiAngelo’s book but have read her original article which she published in the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy in 2011. I will consider though attending one of her workshops where I can be harangued and emotionally manipulated to confess and purify my guilty conscience, to finally evolve from the wretched white state I’m in into becoming anti-racist, all along paying tribute to the gods of intersectionality.
By the way, I will be paying tribute not only to said gods but to DiAngelo herself: I hear her seminars are awfully expensive.
How did DiAngelo’s name pop up out of nowhere into the mainstream consciousness all of a sudden? With 20,000 books on racism it strikes me as odd and a bit peculiar that her name gathered so much momentum in publicity as compared to other writers.
Of course this is going to make her tons of money; I wish I knew what the original publicity catalyst was.
The answer is probably that the Michel Martin interview with Ms DiAngelo that originally showed Sept. 21, 2018 on Amanpour & co. on PBS, was rerun on June 12, 2020, and was in alignment with other shows (Steven Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel,) that were addressing black/white issues after the death of George Floyd and the ensuing protests. The Amanpour & co. show has had several recent guests also discussing these current events.
Thanks Sylvia, this answer makes a lot of sense, particularly since DiAngelo’s publicity only seems to have been strong over the last ten days.
Daniel – I think you will appreciate this podcast.
I did.
Leslie
Thanks Leslie, I’ll listen to it.
Daniel, I don’t get your strong reactions. All DiAngelo is proposing is that our existing paradigm of only seeing racism as individual acts done by individual people is very limiting and not helping us become less racist as a society. And that those of us white folk who consider ourselves to be liberal and progressive might be part of the problem without knowing it, due to unconscious bias. She then offers concrete ways that we might become more of the solution. That’s all. You can agree or disagree with part or all of what she is saying. But for you to make the leap from what she is saying to “totalitarian tyrannies,” “Chinese cultural revolution”, “some current protesters not being able to produce medications”, “radicals wanting to undo western civilization”, and “doing away with the scientific method” is mind-boggling, to say the least. I don’t know about you, but for me when something makes no sense on the surface, there is often personal or historical trauma below the surface.
https://twitter.com/thehumanxp/status/1275608084212310017?s=20
My reactions were not all to DiAngelo but to the entire movement, part of which is radical and, in my opinion, dangerous. DiAngelo is part of that movement. But even if we take her account alone, I think she does great damage and my hunch tells me all those businesses and organizations who now let such seminars in the door, especially if these will continue as ongoing programs, will suffer greatly and see a decline in the core of what they do and the general satisfaction of their employees and customers and stakeholders.
DiAngelo takes terms which are laden with meanings and sensitivities (racism, white supremacy) and applies them – in accordance with the movement – to everyone and everything. Everyone white that is, and every system created by whites. Since she lodges racism not only in known and visible specific actions and attitudes but at the core of just being white then she accuses all whites of being racists. No wonder she gets the angry and hurt reactions she now promptly defines as fragile.
Furthermore, DiAngelo claims we cannot really get rid of it. If we are white, we are destined to be racists. And if we try to be color-blind and stick instead, say, to our ethnicity (Irish, Italian, Jewish, Russian) than in her words that would be “color-blind racism”. One can never really “heal”.
Since the movement puts social justice above all other values, and will #shutdownSTEM and #shutdownAcademia and #shutdownWhatever to achieve it; and since as DiAngelo claims the standard definitions of racism we agree on are too narrow and so racism is endemic and all one can do is at best to be “less white”; it follows that those who wish to defeat racism must engage in a perpetual war against the racism which is always there, at the core of each system, each white person, even if invisible. The result will be that in each action of the institution or organization the first order of the day will not be what that institution or organization is there for, but that of equity. An endless exhausting cycle of reparation for explicit past racism and implicit current racism will ensue, people will constantly feel and be accused with no end in sight.
Whatever will be gained – and I fear precious little will be gained – a lot will be lost. Scholarship and reason and free inquiry will be defeated and exchanged for the presumed social justice and endless but never fully achieved reparation, and we will witness a general decline in the institutions and organisations who go along with it and a decline in benefits for society.
If this is not reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or of tyrannies who wish to purge society from all vestiges of what the movement thinks is bad (Jewish in Germany, Capitalist or Royal in Soviet Russia, Anti-revolutionary in China, etc.), I don’t know what is. Obviously, the fact that such seeds are in the ground does not necessarily mean they will grow to be harvested, but they can – this is their natural trajectory – and it is not guaranteed that we (Westerners) and our institutions will prevail. (It can also instigate a very violent reaction from the right, and let’s not forget that the right in America is very heavily armed).
As I have been trying to argue here for the past couple of years it’s all part of a new tradition that stems from post-modern Critical Theory fields of study which see all human interaction through a lens of power relations and power relations alone. Because this lens is so narrow and must deny or ignore all data pointing to other directions it is tyrannical by nature and the chances it has for giving birth to sensible and effective public policies is in my opinion close to zero.
I haven’t read “White Fragility” and don’t know if I will. The US has a lot of racial problems, as do other countries around the world. In the US, over a long period of time, things have improved, but there are obviously still severe racial problems. I think it’s through public opinion as expressed through politics in a democracy that reforms can take place. There are also problems with the structure of our democracy. DC should be a state, for example. We had the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s, and there were reactions to that; our political parties realigned. We had a black president and there was a reaction to that; Trump was elected, and there has been a lot of push back against him. Now we may get democrats back in power, police reform, and other new policies. I don’t know that some policies based on “white fragility”, if there are such policies, could be put in place. I’m doubtful on that, so I wouldn’t worry about it. But something should be done. I want to say preemptively that it wouldn’t be abolishing government.
Phil
Phil: Uou end by stating “I want to say preemptively that it wouldn’t be abolishing government.”
BUT it should.
Jack
Daniel: I am not sure about DiAngelo and the full intent of her message, but that applies also to many instances around the globe, where one set of peoples are pitted against another. AND I ain’t happy about my country of birth with all it’s colonialism.
I see this happening with yet another land grab by Bibi in Israel. I would feel you were more authentic if you addressed that one; since that’s your tribe yeah?
As I’ve previously stated, I have no desire to be a member of any tribe. I just hope to the best feeling human I can be.
Jack
Over a much longer period of time, if we can hold out that long, I think human kind will become homogenized because of travel and intermixing. It’s happening. In that case racism would become obsolete. Other problems like sexism would remain, however, and new ones will emerge. Culture and language are becoming homogenized too. People are eating hamburgers and Chinese food, and drinking Coke all over the world, although I don’t see that as necessarily a good thing. . A lot of languages spoken by few people are dying out. In the same way we’ll have far fewer species of plants and animals n the world, because of human caused extinctions.
Phil
White supremacy is a losing battle.
Phil: to believe that you are ‘Supreme’ means, deep down you have an “inferiority Complex” I believe that is a Freudian concept.
Perhaps, because of being made to feel like you were never important in those very formative months and year.
Jack,
Jack, I agree with your comment about the Israeli government and its continual land grabs. Did you know that what separates Israel from other settler-colonial states is that it is the only one that continues with its land grabs into the present, whereas all others stopped this horrific practice decades ago? Sad but true.
Renee: No! I did not know.
Jack
OMG, Daniel, your comments to me are slowly turning into a mini-dissertation! What I see as ideas that can transform our world into a just and humane world for everyone, not just a select group of people, you see as such a catastrophe that it is worth investing a significant amount of time and energy into vehemently arguing against.
I don’t know why, but I picture you as looking and sounding like the actor and comedian James Corden. Is he at all close to how you really look and sound like? Just curious. Here he is getting a lesson on “charismatic” white privilege, that is both funny and accurate, IMO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUB3MGWT3xo (James Corden Gets a Lesson on White Privilege). I think it is safe to say that this will not be a lesson that you will see any value in. At least not in this lifetime.
Wrong, I see a lot of value in Olivia’s lesson to James: “What privilege does mean, especially white privilege, is that your skin color didn’t make your life more challenging”.
I also see value in the following lessons:
What privilege means, especially health privilege, is that you not having cancer didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially intelligence privilege, is that your intelligence didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially wealth privilege, is that you having money didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially beauty privilege, is that your beauty didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially thin privilege, is that your weight didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially Christian privilege, is that your Christianity didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially youth privilege, is that your youth didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially agility privilege, is that your agility didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially seeing privilege, is that your having eyesight didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially hearing privilege, is that your having hearing didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially speaking privilege, is that your ability to speak didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially walking privilege, is that your ability to walk didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially childhood privilege, is that your childhood didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially adulthood privilege, is that your adulthood didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially relations privilege, is that your having a big family didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially mother privilege, is that your having a mother didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially father privilege, is that your having a father didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially male privilege, is that your maleness didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially female privilege, is that your war experience didn’t make your life more challenging.
What privilege means, especially safe street privilege, is that your growing up in a safe street didn’t make your life more challenging.
I invite of all you to add to this endless list.
That’s what I meant…..not in this lifetime. But what about my other question? Do you look or sound at all like James Corden?
Daniel: Quick answer, there is not such thing as privilege merely LUCK. I was lucky to have a relatively feeling mother … pure luck, it is NOT a privilege. It is privilege that makes civilization a neurotic fuck-up; IMO Only when we start to dismantle privilege will we ever rid ourselves of the impediments; will we be able to create a decent life for ALL of us. Start by abolishing the most onerous impediment of them all *****
Jack
Jack, I agree that luck and chance play a big part. Your argument is with Renée and DiAngelo and the rest of the intersectionalists who must find someone to blame, preferably white. If things go wrong one can look in and around and see what one can learn from the whole thing. Or, one can look around and ask, “who fucked me”? Those are two very different frames of mind. One is moving toward responsibility, the other moving away from it.
Barry used to have what he called back then “my idiotic dentist example” where it’s not enough to feel the pain and know that you have become a dentist against your own natural urges because, for example, your father wanted you to be one. No, you must now act on it and change your destiny. No one else can do it for you. Not an easy task and not one without risks, but at times a necessary move if you wish to be true to yourself.
If we take PT as process – and Barry’s example shows it to be one: feeling the pain, recognizing your urges, acting upon the previous two – we can see how we can get stuck in each of them: we may never feel the pain or we may get stuck in that stage; we may never get in touch with our natural inclinations or if we do we may get stuck there and never follow them to realisation.
But hey, at least society will have one additional dentist.
Daniel: Not sure you are reading fully my intent. I am not blaming anyone. I feel the ‘blame game’ does nothing for me. As for the the races:- the only race I am interested in is the HUMAN race All else is superfluous. IMO I don’t even ‘blame’ my daddy nor my mammy.
The suggestion by Barry about the dentist ones daddy wished the kid to be, is a valid story, but not sure how you wish to apply that to me. I did follow my parents advice to go into public health, but soon gave up on the idea, as I got arrested for ‘Lewd Conduct’ and reported on the front page in the local newspaper. I was OUTED for all to see. In hindsight, that was a blessing as some days later I w thrown out of my childhood home by my father who was determined to rid the world of this “queer’ business.
From there-on-in, I was on my own … to make it alone is this wide wide world. I was finally able to pursue the work I wanted to do. … Acting; that also failed me, but I now had enough experience to pursue the things I wanted to do and luckily was able to do. With a little help from some fiends I acquired in the process. I was LUCKY ..,and certainly not privileged.
I totally agree PT is a process, that will go on for the rest of my life.
I also see my blogging here, is part of that process and putting forward an idea is not a sin; even if it irritates ‘the fuck outta’ most. To put it crudely:- “that is their problem”. I have others.
Jack
Correction:- I wrote “some days later I w thrown out of my childhood home”
should have read:- “some days later I was thrown out of my childhood home”
Jack
Jack,
I didn’t mean you personally. On the contrary, I was agreeing with your view that chance and luck play an important part in life. I was referring to others who always have someone to blame.
Daniel: I didn’t take it personally, nor thought you meant me personally. I was attempting to make a wider view than is normally stated by most people. I let my re-actions to Patrick when he was on the blog, attempting to insult me, just went over my head and didn’t react, the way he hoped I should/would be reacting.. I made a statement saying ” I don’t allow myself to be insulted”, by seeing it as his feeling … not mine. I thank my therapy for my ability to do just that.
I similarly don’t take peoples reaction to me over this idea to rid humanity of neurosis, personally either.
Equally I am not out to irritate people either. If they feel they have a feeling about the situation, they need to look into themselves, as it’s not my job to either enlighten them or even suggest it to them. though I have done on some occasions.
I try only to relate it all, as I see it through me.
Jack
According to this logic, George Floyd has no-one to blame for his death but himself. If he thinks someone fucked him, he just has a victim mentality. According to this logic, he voluntarily chose to lie down underneath a police officer’s foot and then he allowed that foot to slowly come down on his neck and kill him.
Renee, I’m not sure such attention seeking prattle deserves the effort of your reply. Loquastic prodding sesquipedalians misbelieve that they can impress and baffle with their boring insinuates. . A cover for insecurity. I’m pissed off with me that it pisses me off. My insecurty, I guess. During the workday period of my life having a facility with professional language was convenient. I checked it at the door on my way out. I won’t check but the DSM may have an entry on the need to dominate. I’m again pissed off with me that I need to be snarky about it.
I hope that the current movement is enduring. In the past we rise up and fade. The dominant power brokers and their choir will never change, will never relinquish their strangle hold voluntarily, and, out of conversion to empathy. It will need to be torn from their grip and redistributed equitably. We need a Crazy Horse, a Dr King Jr, a Mandella, a Sacagawea. The power must be in and from the, ” grass roots,” the people, the Inu, but a respected spokesperson can, I think, provide a focal function when the warriors need to periodically rest for the next sustained volley. It is a CLASS war not simply race. And, yes, the 1% of the 1% are pink skinned/white. Shaquille O’Neal ‘s personal monthly living costs are reported in his divorce filing as nearly $ 900,000.00 a month. To serve that budget he will endorse any product. While obscene, it’s a pittance compared to the real wealthy.
Currently, in Canada, we’re serving police with notice that they have to stop murdering our indigenous relatives. Defunding police is actually making it to the municipal and federal budget discussions. We’d be more powerful if we all came together into one force, Black, Brown, Indigenous, all POOR.
Other than misspelling “loquastic” and ironically using the sesquipedalian word “sesquipedalians”, David brings up two good points. The first is that in defining the struggle Cass may be preferable to and more accurate than Race. Class not only ovoids the very toxic issue of race but has very good and convincing data to support its claims. Furthermore, as David also makes a point of, Class is inclusive and allows for cooperation rather than the ever narrower groupings of identity politics.
The second point David draws attention to is that the current movement is leaderless, as in it isn’t clear who is speaking or defining the issues or will negotiate on its behalf. Without leadership it will disintegrate into either the many groups that comprise it, or into chaos. Both will work against it.
Finally, David’s points beg the question: what does the movement really want? What would David and Renée, for example, want to concretely achieve? What would be the specific policies they would want to see implemented?
The sentence: “The first is that in defining the struggle Cass may be preferable to and more accurate than Race”, should read:
“The first is that in defining the struggle Class may be preferable to and more accurate than Race.
Daniel: Just changing the word from ‘race’ to ‘class’ doesn’t really answer the question. The question in question is- “INEQULITY”. Some have it and many don’t. It’s hierarchical by whatever word is used.
My thing is to abolish the hierarchy. The only way I see to do that is:- to abolish the means that keeps it all in place and I think you know what the word is.
As I see it; you’re dancing round the central issue … a trait ALL politicians have.
Jack
Daniel: Being born and brought up in the UK I know first hand all a out “class” I was born into the lower rungs of that Hierarchy. Of course, that bring up all and any old feelings related to it, but there’s the other side of that issue also:- the separation, segregation.
Sure enough we’re all different, but our differences should not determine what we get out of life by way of “privilege”.
Jack.
Daniel,
it makes sense what you say.
any generalized judgments about groups are dangerous as they make assumptions about (negative) qualities about the group members just for being part of the group.
statements like ‘all Muslims are …’ or ‘all Americans are..’ or blacks, or whites are…’ have intrinsic dangers and flaws.
‘groupism’ could be a word to replace racism in a broader sense.
and to have some automatic subconscious bypassed response about people from another group is something we have to accept, as it seems part of our neurological inheritance. the solution is to be conscious of it and to overrule it when being aware of it.
tests have been done measuring neurological reactions upon seeing pictures of people of the same or a different race, and there is always a difference, a slight increase of alertness which may very well stem from the times we still lived in small groups and any stranger could be dangerous.
racism exists and should be addressed but I agree to see it as a mostly white thing would make things worse.
growing up with equal opportunities and mixed would make a huge difference already, while overt racist discrimination should be fought and punished.
Racism is linked to not knowing the others and to fear.
I am white, but have a lot of colored people in my family, and admit to still have some ‘cautious thoughts’ when for example riding a taxi with someone chatting in Arab on the phone, as there are associations that automatically come up with terrorism or extremism.
to begin a conversation turns the other into a human being and I have had many interesting talks with a whole range of taxi drivers, from Tsjetsjenia to Malawi or Afghanistan, all here in my home town.
people can be ‘racist’ when the supporters of one football team start a fight with supporters of another team, real fierce tribal fights which are entirely irrational, but just based on this old atavistic ‘group member’ reaction.
Education and social equality seem to me crucial and no extremism or group thinking as that would cause more polarization indeed.
i have no clear opinion on Renee’s ideas but do see the point Daniel makes.
with my simple mind I can only say ‘love is the answer’, which includes respect and openness.
combined with a healthy awareness for there being sick persons in any ‘group’ one can imagine to be wary of and to avoid.
M
I agree with Margaret that racism has deep roots in differences where strangers, those who are not “one of us” or like us are viewed at least with suspicion and quite often with hostility. The history of how societies dealt with it is remarkably interesting.
I also agree with Phil that something should be done. My point is that public policies should be based on some kind of evidence, on our best guess at what the truth is. My own two cents is, the first and foremost should be done in programs and policies that address the economic inequality (raising substantially the median household income) which should include massive investments in those areas where people are least likely to climb out of the bottom of the social ladder. In the US, many of these areas are black.
Daniel: I don’t see your ‘two cents worth’ as solving anything .. just another example of fiddling around the edges.
Jack
Daniel, you mention “racism has deep roots in differences where strangers, those who are not “one of us” or like us are viewed at least with suspicion and quite often with hostility”, I found this interesting because when I read it I immediately thought of you with your suspicion and hostility toward anyone who does not share your belief system of liberalism, regardless of whether they are the same race as you or not. I definitely have felt your suspicion and hostility.
Renée,
I think you may be confusing yourself with “anyone”. I was angry only with two people on the blog – Patrick and you, and both for the same reasons which I explained several times. Others on the blog many times didn’t agree with me on a variety of issues but I never felt angry toward any of them. Since you seem to want to bring up the subject of suspicion and hostility, between the two of us and maybe also in general, I’m willing to have this discussion.
Let me say that on the one hand you say that you have been treated less than human, like garbage, been ignored, ridiculed, rendered invisible and worthless; and on the other, when what you say here is “worth investing a significant amount of [my] time and energy”, even to the point of it “slowly turning into a mini-dissertation!” – the very opposite of ignored, made invisible – you find it necessary to ridicule and condescend that very investment. It seems like when I treat you as an equal you sort of say, “No, don’t make me leave home”.
I have nothing against dissertations, Daniel. Mini or maxi ones. I am working on one myself. I guess I just don’t want to be thinking that deeply when I read the blog, that’s all. I’m sorry you felt that I was ridiculing you. That wasn’t my intention.
FYI, you brought up the subject of suspicion and hostility. I didn’t.
Renee, didn’t you have a long, drawn-out argument with Gretchen here on the blog a long while back? Several years ago, I think? Where you perceived her and Barry as being dishonest in some serious way? I struggle to remember the exact issue at hand.
In the meantime, I wanted you to know that my heart soars with joy and radiance knowing you only want the sweetest gooey goodness and fairness for everyone……………………………………………………………..thanks.
You’re welcome. 😃
I was being sarcastic and I think you knew that. Also, you didn’t address the question I asked about the clash you had with Gretchen that I vaguely, but definitely, remember from years ago.
Renee, more and more I am starting to grasp in a small way why various people would find you to be frustrating to have a dialogue with.
I can’t articulate all the issues I’m starting to grasp very well yet. One hint, though, is expressed through my own ‘gooey goodness’ post above. It was sarcasm underneath the sweet frivolities. Likewise, I sense a disconnected anger and/or malevolence underneath your happy-go-lucky facade. I know you denied being angry at me a couple weeks ago when I thought you were, yet I still have trouble totally believing that. Even in recent times Gretchen has said you’ve really meant something much more hostile than you’re showing on the surface, especially with Daniel.
A quietly smoldering volcano with hostile rivulets of lava laying in wait below what appears to be a sweet mound of chocolate sprinkle cake.
Gurú, I’m very impressed with the skinniness of your comment. Phil
Hi Everyone: I find it incredulous that we have a virus that is closing down the economy.
What is the economy anyway? The original definition of Economics was to study the flow of money as it passed from person to person, BUT now we’ve made it a study to how to manipulate that money flow to suit certain members of society … primarily the rich business people who in tern are supposed to create jobs for the masses given them merely crumbs while they make their billions.
All this is getting disrupted by a single virus that seemingly we know nothing about. As I watch the news on TV and social media this is now becoming very disconcerting and no-one it seems knows just what to do. Those who’ve been laid off are hardly getting enough from the government by way of unemployment benefits to even buy enough food for their families … from the government getting further and further into debt. So we now have an economy, related to dept. Where does that money come from that allows government debt? … apparently from government bonds.
I know all this is sort of repetitive, but along with BLM and all the protest where is it all leading; and will we ever get back to what we once knew as ‘normal’. My guess is:- those days are now gone … never to return. though we’re all hoping it does return … a forlorn hope, if there was ever one
So what might we do to restore some semblance of a life for ALL of us???? Do I need to make my suggestion for the millionth time?
Jack
Jack, I think you made your suggestion for the millionth time a long time ago. I think we are easily approaching the billionth or trillionth time.😀
Renee: Yep! you are correct, but there’s nothing like trying and trying and hoping (perhaps forlornly) that I might make a breakthrough.
It just needs that one person to see the full meaning and then they can put it across their own way.
It’s just and idea that I FEEL is worth thinking about, since as I see the current state of things NOTHING is nothing is working right now.
Should anyone else have an idea … I’m all ears.
Jack
Jack, thank you! It is not often that I get complimented on my math skills. You made my day!
Since you are asking for ideas, I have two……..one for you, and one for us. My idea for you is to practice what you are preaching. Don’t try and be an authority on anything. Stop trying to get us to see that you have the answers, if only we would listen to you. As you have aptly pointed out, this behavior is the antithesis of anarchy, where there are no leaders preaching anything, and everyone just does their own thing. And stop feeling that you have to get us to think about certain ideas. As you have aptly pointed out, thinking is neurotic and you should not be encouraging us to do it. Feeling more and feeling deeply is what counts. What you are suggesting is the antithesis of Primal. Arthur Janov is probably cringing in his grave knowing that you are encouraging thinking! I’m sure that, if he could, he would be screaming, “Jack, feel the feeling! Stop acting it out!!!”.
My idea for us is the same as Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s marriage advice: It helps sometimes to be a little deaf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4BQYwn9ic
You say that, “as I see the current state of things NOTHING is working right now.” This left me feeling scared. I hope you are not talking about your body starting to fail in it’s work of keeping you alive. 😢
Renee: I am not quite sure just what you are saying to me even after reading your reply three times.
As for practicing what I preach. I can only guess what you mean by “preaching” as not using money OR, perhaps that I stop thinking and start feeling as you stated later, OR, that I stop being an authority and just listen. I try hard to do that and am able to do it when buddying with my regular buddy .
It would help me if I had something more specific.
As far as listening; no-one to the best of my knowledge is offering any alternative idea other than the same as your to drop the subject entirely.
As for Janov cringing in his grave … I feel confident that Gretchen would offer some advice to me if I am that bad at not listening and playing some sort of authority.
So at the risk of coming cross as being DEFENSIVE; I offer this in reply to you. Meantime, thanks for the feedback … it’s always helpful.
My body as I grow older is not quite what it used to be, but so far I have Jim taking great care of me … physically.
Jack
Jack, I’m not sure that I can be any clearer. But I’ll give it a try. I could very well be wrong, but let’s say that I’m right about Arthur Janov cringing in his grave. If you are acting a feeling out here on the blog with your statement that, “there’s nothing like trying and trying and hoping (perhaps forlornly) that I might make a breakthrough”, what could that feeling be?
As for listening better, I meant listening to yourself and what you are telling us. That’s what I meant by practicing what you preach. Easier said than done. I am working on this myself……it’s a constant work in progress.
Renee: I will, and have been giving a lot of thought to what you say and suggest. I endeavour to express my feeling fully and appropriately, but as you say, not easy. If my idea is an act-out I can only relate it to my reactions to my daddy throughout my childhood. However, that is not the whole story … for me
Just as many others, down time, have insisted on their ideas, when they were often ridiculed I feel (though I could be wrong) that is what I am trying to do with an idea, that I DID NOT THINK UP, and the only addition I attempted to bring to it was:- Primal theory. In that, it is our nature, to desire total freedom for laws (made by other neurotics) and the use of a FORCE, to implement those laws, that only now are coming into a lot of questioning.
If that is total act-out I am willing to give it further consideration, BUT so far I have not seen that … yet.
I do listen to myself and I get a lot of practice in living with someone that is not a Primal person and has many ideas that are alien to me. Also, I put listening into practice, as I’ve said, with my regular buddy. So! it’s not difficult to listen to myself, and I often re-read what I have have written, multiple times. Of course I’m biased, and like most, I hear what I want to hear.
It is for this very reason that this blog is so important to me. I need and WANT the feed-back and it helps me with ALL my day to day dealings. My main frustration is looking into the going on around the world and in particular in the US and UK that affect me directly.
As for Arthur Janov cringing … sad to say, but I feel he ceased to feel, the day he died. That is all of our fates.
Jack
Jack, adding on to Renee’s comments, I feel your act out has something to do with your presumption that an idea of yours could save world humanity, and your attachment to your particular set of ideas. You look around and see what’s wrong on the news, and for some reason think you have to fix it. But nobody up until now has been able to do that, not even Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mohamed, and anyone else we can think of. Primal therapy is a powerful method for mental health, but there’s no evidence it can save world humanity. If anything, primal therapy is headed toward oblivion, it seems. When we say we don’t like your ideas, have objections, say we are tired of hearing them, you want us to present our solutions. But that is your act out. I have no illusion I can save anyone; to think so is very presumptuous. You might look into this feeling of wanting to fix things with your ideas.
Phil
Phil:: you state:- “I feel your act out has something to do with your presumption that an idea of yours could save world humanity”
Two points:-
a) that I am acting -out, (which I could very well be doing).
.b) “your presumption that an idea of yours could save world humanity”
Of a) I am not sure it’s your position to say my actions are an act-out. I feel that is presumptuous on your part.
Of b) It is not MY idea. Repeat:- IT IS NOT MY IDEA. I am putting forward an idea that someone, way before me 150 years or so; put forward. I eventually bought into that idea and incorporated into what I had learned from reading Janov and from doing this therapy
For what it is worth I have pondered the notion of how we humans might rid ourselves of neurosis, that I contend is so insidious and cramping the style for all of us, and knowing that there is never going to be enough therapist to give everyone PT . So! I pondered how we might prevent it in the first place.
That brought me to the notion that educating pregnant women would not be enough So!!! I then spent some time (years) figuring out if there was another way
ï came up with using someone else’s idea … and validating it with Primal theory.
I feel that is a worthy idea. Of course, I can understand others think differently.
Jack
.
Renee,
i feel the need to mention to you how once more it strikes me how strongly you seem to project on Daniel.
it is painful to witness, as it is such a hopeless and meaningless struggle, as in reality you probably do have more in common than what separates you wanting the best for humanity.
so often you read in Daniels words things he did not say at all, or you bend their meaning into one you can discard, bending it into something he did not mean to say at all.
you see hostility where it is concern and disdain in putting forward rational ideas.
it is such a shame as it must prevent you from feeling what lays underneath and obviously upsets you a lot.
it is sad to see you defend so much it tends to turn into some kind of automatic attack, but maybe that is what you need to do at this point, as I said, I react as it feels painful to watch.
M
Margaret, I disagree with you. I am not feeling hostility toward Daniel. I alternate mainly between feeling annoyance and frustration toward him. Sometimes I feel exhausted when he writes an extensive amount that requires a lot of deep thinking. (I do enough of that in my studies.) Occasionally I can feel empathy, when I see myself in him. Btw, I do not see his ideas as rational. Just like he does not see my ideas as rational. I think it can be very challenging to communicate with someone who has a very different belief system, especially when one or both parties do not see their views as part of a belief system, but rather as facts.
As for your comment that is it painful to watch……perhaps it could be considered a silver lining in being visually-impaired because you don’t actually have to watch. Smiley face:)
Renee,
the words you often use to adress Daniel and what he writes come across to me, and I think to many of the bloggers, as pretty hostile.
so maybe it would be good to reread your comments before posting thenm and check on that?
by the way, I did not find your joke to me funny, not a very big dieal but maybe another sign of you being in some feeling that has you in its hold .
you did not respond in any way to the times I was ill and suspecting it was Corona, or to what i wrote about my feelings otherwise.
and now this joke that is a bit off to say the least.
or is it some kind of passive aggression to tell me I better stay out of your interactions?
M
ps if I say it feels painful to me to watch your struggle it is because I do care.
M
Margaret: If it’s painful to care; why care?
Jack
Hi Everyone: I saw this on Facebook by a guy I think was an ex primal guy:-
“You can lead a fanatic to water.
but you can’t make him think
by Richard Lewis
I thought some of you might find it fitting to apply to me.
Jack .
Jack, when I say “Class” I mean inequality, so we agree here. Where we part is you seem to think that abolishing money will abolish hierarchy while I don’t, nor do I think abolishing hierarchy is possible or even desirable.
Daniel: I find it incredulous that you don’t see the connection between money and hierarchy. What then, do you feel keep hierarchy in place?
If in-fact, if you really believe that keeping hierarchy in place is desirable, then I see you as the conservative to end all conservatives. Said another way you don’t want to change ANYTHING. I can only conclude you are somewhat scared of change.
As for not seeing that IT is possible; then I wonder how you deal with natural changes in your life.
Jack
Jack,
The wolf pack or the anthill don’t use money, but are very hierarchical – and many societies are built more or less on similar ideological and organizational structures. Humans are exceptions to hierarchical structures only in rare and short-lived circumstances. Whenever a task is complex and requires more than a single person to carry it out a division of labour and a hierarchy are formed. It would be inefficient and impractical for everybody to do the same all the time.
Am I a “conservative”? If by that you mean that I wish to conserve certain institutions and a way of life (Western) – then Yes, I’m a conservative. If, however, you mean it to be that I oppose any reform and sanctifies the status quo, then I’m certainly not a conservative. As I wrote here before, politically I’m aligned with the so-called Social Democrats of Europe (especially Scandinavia). I support any reforms toward that direction. Here’s a quote from my earlier comment (up the page):
“[…] I believe in and support free market capitalism, along with strong social and occupational nets that are manifested in universal and public-owned education and healthcare systems, progressive taxation, strong unions, effective regulation of industries and services which are vital to everyone’s well-being (banks, utilities, energy), and robust unemployment benefits, job retraining and relocation services”.
Daniel: You understood me correctly … being conservative means wanting to maintain the status quo; for the most part.
However, for all Social capitalism of Sweden that I visited, it did not resolve many of the difficulties of say homelessness and deep structural poverty. That is what I meant by ‘inequality … never getting resolved’. So! by desiring that we maintain the status quo, IMO, we’ll NEVER resolve the deep seated poverty for many. It is who that many are; as I see it, where the problem really lies. ‘The badly damaged in childhood’.
As for the anthill hieratical argument … for me that is a poor support for wanting it to apply to humans. The wolfpack idea is also ‘off track’, as I do not see any wolfs not following the rest, to be imprisoned or punished for not doing so. My position is that all, creature that work together in large groups is a factor of their nature, to that creature. Many creatures do so; even fish.
Actually the same applies, with the need for many to co-operate in large ventures like building bridges and many other ventures deemed necessary by the community (not a governing body or one single person). Since I contend we are NATURALLY a co-operative creature (and not a competitive one … by nature). It’s why I see all competitive sport as neurotic also. Just look at all the athletes, psychologically, that lose. The grief and heartache.
As for:- ” I believe in and support free market capitalism, along with strong social and occupational nets “. I see all those “nets” as being leaky and often broken. Market are never free … by definition.
Jack
Jack, remember when you said you are a black supremacist? And that you don’t believe in a God or any form of afterlife?
https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/belief-in-god/by/racial-and-ethnic-composition/
This Pew religious survey shows that fully 83% of blacks are absolutely certain there is a God, while only 61% of whites are absolutely certain there is a God.
Since, according to your worldview, blacks are superior to whites and you don’t believe in a God, does this mean your atheistic views are inferior and more unnatural as compared to blacks having a strong belief in a God by more than twenty percentage points over whites?
As an aside, I found it interesting how low the ‘strong belief in God’ percentage was among Asians, clocking in at only 44%.
Also, the CHOP police-free autonomous zone in Seattle was broken up after a series of shootings where three people were killed and many more injured in a tiny geographic area over a short period of weeks. I honestly don’t think eliminating cops will lower crimes. There’s a few dead teenagers from Seattle who’d probably want to have a word with you on the value of lawless anarchy.
Here’s a little more info on those CHOP killings, where anarchic paradise once reigned. A 16 year-old and a 19 year-old killed, both black kids whose cumulative ages don’t even add up to George Floyd’s lifespan.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/seattle-chop-shooting-protest
Yeah, yeah. I know FOX news has a terrible reputation…but this is simply a factual recollection of some local crimes instead of political news.
The six-block no-cop CHOP zone in Seattle experienced a 500% rise in crime as compared to when law enforcement was present in the area.
SOURCE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8480819/Homeless-16-year-old-carjacked-Jeep-friend-told-drive-CHOP-safety.html
Guru: Here’s a bit of history that might help you understand me a little bit better (but that could be a forlorn hope on my part):-
Dr. Livingstone followed by Stanley went over to Africa to teach those primitive natives the difference between what is meant by ‘right and wrong’ according to the four gospel makers. Thus those superior native that weren’t yet fully neurotic; were made as neurotic as we Europeans … by missionaries.(guys on a mission to inadvertently, make them as neurotic a we were at that time.
Eventually, after their land was taken from them and the country ravished of all it resources they compromised and accepted the European God … by saying only “yes I believe in her/him or whatever gender IT is, and no-one ever having seen her/him and is still alive. If you look back on European history and especially the Spanish inquisition; religion has one dome very disgraceful and murderous thing to those, they supposed would not accept the priest’s word fully. Hypocrisy at it most extreme..
Another piece I learned from the religious teacher at school:- The very first writing about Jesus Christ was written 40 years after he’s supposedly risen from the dead (a likely story) and then just ‘wusshed’ up into the clouds (gospel according to Mark) I contend no such person ever existed and it was the consideration of those Jews who wanted to state that the Messiah and come and gone a Jewish contention, as I understand it
So yes! I remember me saying that; as obviously you do also. However, the context in which I said it, I have related above. Hope you understand me a little better now.
Jack
OK, I suppose we’ll go ahead and set aside the anarchist topic since the CHOP experiment has obviously turned out to be such a horrific failure and a stern warning for those who romanticize lawlessness. Bye bye sweet anarchist dreams, down the Danube River you go!
I won’t argue at all against history, for I am sure there are plenty of stories of white Europeans imposing their religious will upon the indigenous people of Latin America and Africa. By the way, I am sure there were plenty of instances where Europeans merely *introduced* their religion to the natives, with some of the settlers being more forceful than others.The time of colonization has largely passed, however, and the poll I shared with you covers only modern era populations.
Most people today can freely reject a God even if their ancestors were oppressed. Even with this modern option of freely rejecting a God, blacks still firmly believed in a supreme being at a full 20 percentage points higher rate than whites (as I showed earlier).
Guru: Statistics can prove (decide) anything if we wish them to do so.
So statistics for me is just another game. If it’s ‘bye bye’ for you, I doubt you’ll be missed and I am OK with that.
Jack
Re-read my post…I said “bye bye” to your sweet anarchist dreams because of the hideous and violent failure of the Seattle CHOP experiment. A society collapsing into widespread deadly disintegration with everyone fearful of being a crime victim isn’t liberating in any sense of the word, unless you’re a sadistic predator….and even then you’d better hope you’re the apex predator or you’ll eventually get eaten in an anarchic environment, too.
Just because statistics aren’t showing something you like doesn’t make them invalid. A good way to cope with something like that is to grow up and accept life not always giving us what we want.
As for me, I’m not going anywhere. I am here to stay…forever and ever.
Guru: You say “A good way to cope with something like that is to grow up and accept life “.
Sadly, I never grew up … I’m still in my childhood … or leastways reacting to it.
I’m all for you saying ‘bye bye’ to anarchy since, I don’t feel you want or are able to look into it.
Jack
Guru: Another:-
I believe my little sister fell and broke her hip. Just because I believe it doesn’t mean that it actually happened. I contend we ‘believe’ (a verb) when we don’t know for sure
Jack
I think it is time I put my two cents in about the recent debates on the blog. I laughed when Sylvia said she felt a migraine coming on implying she knew a fight was coming. Well, she’s not crazy as we all knew a fight was coming. Why is that? Because the “ triggers” are all too familiar. Personally I really don’t mind a fight as long as it’s direct and honest. Unfortunately I don’t think some of the recent debates have been particularly direct . We all know philosophical arguments can mask other issues. That is not to say that racism is not a very real or relevant problem in our world today, it is, but I do not think it’s what’s really going on in this case. In my view this is a world problem and a people problem. I know of no place where racism, bias and prejudice does not exist. What I think is unfortunate is that on this blog there seems to be a lack of insight as to where these problems begin.We need to look inward because these feelings are almost always about rage and fear having little to do with the particular focus outside of ourselves. What disturbs me in this discussion on the blog is a lack of respect for another’s viewpoint . As Margaret alluded to there seems to be hostility and mocking vs any interest in differing views. Daniels discussion of his viewpoint started with him being called ignorant and asinine or suffering from white fragility ( we can all agree I believe that comment is meant to be pejorative). So what is that meant to do ? I think it’s meant to shut the differing viewpoint up. I should add ( and I know he won’t agree and will likely say it doesn’t bother him) but once in a while I feel Jack’s views are being mocked as well. Don’t get me wrong, I get that Jack can be repetitive and yes ( I love you Jack) annoying but I think we can say that directly with out a mocking tone. Why not make the effort to investigate our feelings in these discussions? Why not look at our own prejudices and where they came from. I tend to think that whenever we are lumping people into groups along with our judgements about those groups well, all bets are off. In other words if we are on the blog discussing Black Lives Matter but at the same time we are revealing our prejudice and bias against other groups, Catholics, Jews , Muslims, Israelis, Homosexuals, Women, Egyptians then isn’t it really all just bullshit? Are we now to decide which group we will hate this week, who should we discriminate against next? I have never seen a small child who had any awareness of color, race or religion. That comes a little later and it comes from us. The truth is that we are often surrounded by those who seem consumed by their hatred and judgement of others , particularly those who might be different than they are. These are not what I would call happy, carefree or giving people. You have to imagine the burden of that rage. Look I support any protest against discrimination ( minus the looting), it is always a positive to voice our concerns and it is always right in my opinion to strive towards progress and change. When we ask what we can do I say let’s start with some insight and awareness into how we treat others. Gretchen
Sent from my iPad
Gretchen: A very interesting and long comment that says many things to all of us. I agree we’re all biased, carry prejudices, and as you say it all has to do with what happened to the little us decades ago.
That I can be annoying, repetitive, irritating and lots of other things, that my Jimbo lobs at me, I agree with; but I feel many times, being told these things, especially from Jim, are (deep down) meant to make life more comfortable for him, Jim. I sometimes feel the same from some of the comment not necessarily about me, but discussions between others.
I take Gretchen, your “love” of me as a lovely compliment. and that sure made me feel good. However, I am obsessed with this idea to spread the word that we are primarily a feeling creature that got our expressing of our feeling repressed.
AND, as is evident here, I want to do something about it. To the extent of it being a compulsion.
Also I see this particular blog as the best in the blogging world, leastways for me, To repeat, yet again … Neurosis is such and insidious disease and puts Covid 19 way down the danger list. I contend, neurosis, is killing way more people than Covid.
Lastly for now … It’s raining right now and I hate it … I had enough of rain in my childhood to last me a lifetime. Grrrrr. Jim loves it as it means he doesn’t have to manually water the garden, but it does mean, I can’t sit on the patio and enjoy the garden. As we kids used to say back then; “Rain rain, go away … come again another day”.
Jack
Gretchen: I kept your comment in my inbox and have read it and re-read it several times. Attempting to take in all that you said and in particular about me. about being repetitive and annoying and knowing I won’t agree. I accept all those characterizations of me
However, what prompted me to write an answer right now is that Jim and I had a serious argument this morning and he’s not been talking to me ever since. Briefly his anger with me was because he feels I am not being hygienic enough for him. He was helping me take a shower this morning, since I have been scratching my itchy back with a back scratcher and created a wound. (I know where all that comes from:- as I was put into a nursery immediately after being born, to give my mother a rest I NEEDED that skin to skin contact with the only human I’d ever known … Mammy. That half hour was an eternity to the newly born me).
I wiped myself then as I normally do I use the wet towel to wipe down the walls of the shower since after wards that towel goes into the laundry and is washed.
Accidently after wiping the walls I then wiped my thigh and that sent Jim into a rage. His mantra is “hygiene starts with the hands”, mine is:- “real heath is by reliving early events in our lives that traumatized us; and compromising our natural immune system”. He doesn’t buy my argument and I don’t fully buy his since; I spent four years being a hygiene assistant in the Medical Corp under conscripted army at age 18 and then afterwards joined the local health office and trained as a health inspector. There is where I began to see flaws in both the medical profession as a whole and what is meant by hygiene. It’s not as simple as ridding ourselves of germs and viruses, since I contend they ride on the back of neurosis; AND have been around longer than we humans have.. If our immune system was intact these bugs would have little effect.
However Jim rage and anger hurt me badly and his refusing to speak to me all day and yes; I can get upset and hurt by people close to me. I later began to cry and asked if I could just talk to him. Eventually he let me but interrupted insisting on “Hygiene starts with the hands”.
Why i want to mention all this is because of you saying Gretchen:- Why not make the effort to investigate our feelings in these discussions.
I know Jim and I will make it up, but I needed to say how I feel about it all, and how I am able to hurt … by those close to me.
Jack
So well said Gretch
+ 1
David, there is nothing in what you say that I see as “prattle” or “snarky”. Nor do I see you as “attention-seeking”. Rather, I see you as connection-seeking. And I would rather hear what you have to say any day over “loquastic prodding sesquipedalians” who cover their vulnerability with layers of defenses. I can relate so well to your feelings of insecurity. I have them too. Sometimes they leave me paralyzed. I try, whenever I can, to “feel the fear and do it anyway,” as the saying goes. Easier said than done.
When you say that, “The dominant power brokers and their choir will never change, will never relinquish their strangle hold voluntarily,” I think of the famous quote by the black poet, essayist, feminist, and civil rights activist, Audre Lorde: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. I think this is true. The tricky part, I believe, is that most of us have internalized the master’s tools of domination and oppression. We have internalized them because they are in our homes growing up, in our schools, religious institutions, legal institutions, the media etc. Some people have power and some people don’t—we come to believe that this is just the way things are and that this is normal. But there is nothing normal about it. At least that is what I have discovered in my own therapy, my work in democratic schools and in my doctoral studies program. I also think that the more we were dominated in our families growing up, the more we will need to dominate others as adults, if we don’t heal from these traumas. Sometimes this need to dominate even takes the form of insisting that our belief system is the only right one, and our truth has to be The Truth for everyone. Scary stuff. One of the things I love about Indigenous belief systems is that what is normal is very different, especially when it comes to domination and oppression.
When you tell me what is happening in Canada now, I have to smile. I don’t think you know that I live in Canada too! I really hope that you email me soon. I have some things I would like to discuss with you and ask you. You can reach me at: reneefree2b@gmail.com. Please keep writing here on the blog. I am always moved by your authenticity, insightfulness and vulnerability.
Renee: Your views on life seem to be the closest to mine, other than the one other Primal person I knew that is also an anarchist.
Jack
Those of us who have don’t have those modern Capitalist traits, seeking power, dominance, are viewed as defective. I was throwing Frisbee for a friend’s dog yesterday. I was jokingly complaining to him about the yucky slobber and grass clippings stuck to it. He, Zip, proceeded to take it to the lake and rinse it off; and,repeated it everytime it became debris covered.
Jack, you’re right in that our work as society is never done, problems always exist and we should do our best to fix them as best we can and according to our values. You seem to take an all-or-nothing approach in that you feel that if there is a problem (say, some degree of homelessness as in you example) then it means the entire system is broken. Since as society we have more that one value and since sometimes those values conflict with each other, we are constantly living with a compromise of one kind or another. I think that the Scandinavian model is a pretty good compromise – not one without difficulties but one I feel is worth my support.
Obviously, if I support this model that would mean that in places where such a model isn’t in place I would back reforms in that direction rather than the status quo.
As for hierarchy, the anthill and wolf pack examples were to counter your argument that hierarchy is intrinsically ties to money. Those examples show that such a tie does not necessarily exist. I agree with you that cooperation is as human a quality as others. However, if you follow your own example of building – if one worker wants to put the beam in a 5 degree angle and another in a 10 degree angle, how will that difference of opinion be solved? Well, somebody will have to decide, and that somebody is in a position of authority because of a special know-how or competence.
You can also think of all professions with are gained by apprenticeship. There are many such professions. Take the PI: if somebody trained to become a therapist, who would that person train with? He or she would train with somebody who has some kind of authority and the competence to train (which are outside the economics of money).
If one thinks in terms of power relations alone one leaves out any room for competence or authority, which for me are evident. Some people are just better at somethings than others. Some have mechanical aptitude, some have a mathematical mind, some people have high emotional intelligence, some people are very good at organizing, etc. It would be natural for those people to become an authority in their fields.
Daniel: “You seem to take an all-or-nothing approach in that you feel that if there is a problem (say, some degree of homelessness as in you example) then it means the entire system is broken”. Well!!! isn’t it??????
” that hierarchy is intrinsically ties to money.” Well! isn’t it. How else could you create an unequal system?
“if one worker wants to put the beam in a 5 degree angle and another in a 10 degree angle, how will that difference of opinion be solved?” Simple:- each will join others, who think their beam angle is the right one. All these kind of endeavours are so easy IF … we each of go by what we feel … follow our gut feelings, as t’were.
“Well, somebody will have to decide, and that somebody is in a position of authority”. The only person deciding is YOURSELF,. go with what you like and abandon those things you don’t like … Simple. Stop making it complicated and convoluted Daniel.
“Take the PI: if somebody trained to become a therapist, who would that person train with?”, Anyone that is convincingly into it, and able to show results.
“He or she would train with somebody who has some kind of authority and the competence”. Who is deciding on who is an authority to train with “(which are outside the economics of money).”. You, the trainee, yourself
This last paragraph, is the most ‘re-dic-u-lous’ of them all, since again you are making assumptions based on the status quo. It is just those assumptions I question.:-
“If one thinks in terms of power relations alone one leaves out any room for competence or authority” Of course, that has been our human problem all down time. “which for me are evident. Some people are just better at somethings than others”. Correct, but then it depend on what one finally hopes to achieve that is the deciding factor … not another persons decision. “Some have mechanical aptitude, some have a mathematical mind, some people have high emotional intelligence, some people are very good at organizing, etc. It would be natural for those people to become an authority in their fields.” It would only BE NATURAL for those people going into those endeavours. You Daniel, seemingly, can’t get away from ‘authority as a means whereby. The answer is outside of that box IMO.
Jack
I agree , Jack; authority by competence not competence by authority.
Guru,
You might also look at what happened in Chicago, and also the leaked meeting of the Mayor and Aldermen – not white vs. black, just very concerned, responsible people who worry sick about their town and citizens.
I have a special sentiment for Chicago as I had a relative living there – my grandmother’s brother who emigrated from the Ukraine (when she emigrated to Germany) and did pretty well for himself over there. I visited him twice and got from him a Chicago Cubs hat which I wore with pride. Never saw a game though.
Daniel, it must be a coincidence when I say that the only remaining relatives I am close with (cousins) also live in Chicago. They always tell me about the shootings in the city and how it has kept them from travelling downtown for several years now. My blood cousin is mostly German who married into a mixed Irish/Lithuanian husband. Both terrific folks in their own right. It’s just sad that I don’t have any reasonably close relatives other than them now that dad’s gone. I do have cousins in Minnesota/the Dakotas on my mom’s side, but I hardly had the chance to know any of them.
Now….as for sports? I must be a weirdo here. My dad loved sports, my cousins love sports too…Me? I’m not much of a fan except for a little camaraderie during the playoffs. The only meaningful question that popped into my head since I was a child was, “Why do these people get paid so much? How can I make as much money as these guys?”
I’m afraid those questions have only led to a lot of frustration for me overall.
Sorry to be a party-pooper.
Sports always struck me as slightly ‘dumb’ in a way I cannot describe, sorry.
Ironically enough, my mom’s parents lived across the street from a pro baseball player for at least a decade when I was little. The player even took me to little league games a couple times with his kids. His whole family loved my grandpa. Unfortunately that chapter of my life started to really disintegrate when I was 12 after grandpa committed suicide and grandma had nowhere else to turn except for alcohol after that point.
Eventually she had to leave the house when I was about 18 and any MLB connections I could have nurtured went by the wayside. I had too much else on my mind at the time, too many troubling issues.
It might be prudent for me to add that grandpa had late-stage pancreatic cancer at the time and had only a few months to live. A strong, if not the primary, factor was his wanting to exit this mortal coil on his own terms rather than to be a helpless, emaciated invalid in a lot of pain. He didn’t have access to assisted euthanasia as many people do now, so he opted to a much more blunt instrument, his hunting shotgun on a quiet field near his home. I feel sad ruminating over what his final reflections may have been while sitting in that wide open field.
When I was somewhere between 7 and 10 years of age I once sat in the basement with grandpa while he was watching wrestling on television. For some reason I was very upset with the violence being shown while grandpa had the demeanor of, “Sheesh, take it easy..it’s just a TV show”. He would tell me, “This is where I learn my self-defense.”
That verbal comment seems laughable to me today, yet I didn’t grasp his use of comedy to raise me out of feeling traumatized by the wrestling show.
Also, I was upset sometimes when he had a giant 12-point rack deer head above the TV set. Yes, it was grandpa’s kill. Yes, he dressed the deer himself and had a taxidermist put it up on the wall. All I could do at the time was feel terrible for the deer.
If my life had been more conventional with my mom still around, the wrestling and the deer kill would have simply been traditional affluent, dyed-in-the-wool Republican American culture for me and likely wouldn’t have upset me at all.
It’s obvious to me now, looking back, that I needed a ton of peace and quiet as a child to start making sense of something completely senseless (mom’s disappearance).
That makes sense.
I almost…almost wish you hadn’t said that, Larry. I was trying to re-create the peace and quiet. It’s as if you infected my perfect stream of consciousness.
I really wish grandma hadn’t sold that house, though. At the very end of a dead-end street, rich quiet neighbors, huge backyard with garden. It was a wonderful place for meditative quiet and reflection. A powerful place, sturdy engineering, chandelier with dimmer switch at kitchen table, tudor style ceiling in basement bedroom, evergreen trees outside, smell of fresh cedarwood where grandpa did his carpentry.
This was home for me. Grandma could’t take care of it anymore so her nephew helped move her to a retirement community.
All of this has left me feeling incredibly glum, completely down in the dumps. I don’t see much therapeutic value in this anymore, as it’s such a well-worn path for me now. Daniel’s remarks got me a bit carried away with my own reminiscences, that’s all. Goodbye.
Guru, I felt like I wanted to respond, but did not quite know how without injuring or invading that environmental peace and quiet you were recreating with your words and narrative. I was taken aback by how this peace and quiet gradually was taken away from you, how you were stripped not only of the live presence and support of your mom but also that of her relatives, your grandparents on her side, and finally even the home/house that had a potential to instill some of that peace and quiet. Using few words, you give a living description of that house, one that I felt was a ‘memory’ of your mom’s presence – not so much in the description itself but in the living feel of it.
I like the way you write. Your idiom comes through and it is creative in a way that I think not only has the potential to give a good fight to loss, but also, as I wrote above, to bring to life something of the motherly presence which you obviously cannot remember but is there in you. I mean, not only her disappearance is there in you but also her presence.
You may not know, but when psychologists looked at the attributes of creative people one of the surprising characteristics they found correlated with creativity was a loss of a parent before age 10.
I had no grandparents on my mom’s side, they were murdered before I was born. My grandfather on my dad’s side also died before I was born. But my grandmother lived. In her 50’s she divorced my grandfather and returned to her love of youth (with whom she by the way apparently had a continued affair during her marriage to my grandfather, an affair her children, but not her husband, were privy to). Anyway, she and him spoke only German so we didn’t talk much. Nor did we see each other very often. But I really liked her house which had a scent of its own – a combination of wood and cold, damp stone – and a porch that overlooked pine trees whose trunks grew in all directions except straight up.
She died when I was in the first or second grade. He lived on and some years later was hit by a bus while crossing the street, survived it but was never the same. He died when I was in the eighth grade. My older sister got the house and lived there for some years until she sold it for a larger one. I remember it fondly.
Daniel, at this point I think Larry, and perhaps yourself, are significantly better writers than I am anymore. My skills and passion for trying to efficiently and fluidly convey my points to an immediate audience have deteriorated, particularly over the past several years. When anyone says my writing is appreciated it leaves me feeling as though I suddenly have a ‘reputation’ to uphold, the pressures to continue cranking out good material become greater when the original purpose of writing (at least here on this blog) was to serve as a therapeutic tool for myself rather than to impress others.
Some bullet points:
–I’ve never seen pine trees with trunks facing anywhere but upwards. I did see a weird home setup somewhere once where trees had trunks facing outwards, then jutting upwards at a 90 degree angle. Seemed incredibly distorted and unnatural.
–Cold and damp stone fixtures, foundations, and basements do carry a refreshingly charming musty smell about them. Perhaps a hint of thriving lichen or mold colonies tucked away in the dark crevices we can’t visibly appreciate?
–Aside from documents and pictures, all that is left of my mother’s side of the family is my grandpa’s stainless steel Rolex watch from the 1950’s. Everything else is gone. There’s nothing left for the vultures to take.
Nevertheless, I like to read what you write. And plenty of times I don’t write because I have nothing to say, or it’s too much effort to get it out.
Gretchen: I have been thinking a lot about the last line of your” comment “Why not make the effort to investigate our feelings in these discussions.
Last night I came to an incident in my babyhood which my mother told me about some years later. There is the part I remember and then there is the part I didn’t remember:-
One night when I was about 4y/o so, I apparently started screaming in my sleep and my parents were so disturbed by it, they took me into their bed. According to my mother the screaming was so bad that my father went to the doctors house, and knocked on his door and he told the doctor what was happening. The doctor, brilliantly, suggest that they do not wake me up, but let me stay with them in bed.
Apparently the screaming persisted, not sure if it was continuous or spasmodic, but seemingly later on I started calling for my Granny (my mothers mother who adored me) so my father went off to her house in the early hours of the morning and she came over to be with me Then there is the bit I remember:- I woke up, as ‘bright as a button’ and to my surprise being in their bed and the then saw my granny and said, ‘:- “what are you doing here, granny?”
Every one of them were flabbergasted.
In hindsight; was that a primal at that age? I figure it was, which is why I thought the doctors advice to my father was brilliant, to just NOT wake me and let me go through it. I wouldn’t be surprised if that kind of event is more common than is normally stated. I feel all this validates Janov’s Primal theory. Those feeling never go away and in this particular case, I contend the feeling I was a re-living in that nightmare. I now contend it was what happened to me at birth being immediately taken from my ‘mammy’ and put in a nursery to give her, my mother, a rest.
I spent a great deal of time going through all that, last night. It’s been some years siisce I last thought about it.
I thought it was an appropriate time to tell this story since the blog seems to be very quiet at the moment. Did your comment silence us all Gretchen?
Jack
Hi Jack, Sorry it’s taken some time to respond. As you can imagine with the virus, lockdown etc things have been busier than ever. The good news is I have heard from people I have not spoken to in quite some time. I’m amazed that your parents allowed you to stay in bed with them and followed your doctors advice just to allow you to sleep. Many of our parents would not have done that and more likely would have told us to stay in our own beds and suck it up. I did want to mention that I think you may have misunderstood something I said in my post. I did not mean that you would deny that you were ever irritating or repetitive, I think you would acknowledge that. What I meant was that I felt if someone was to take a mocking tone with you there might be a tendency to say that doesn’t bother you. Anyway I just wanted to clear that up. 🙂 Gretch
Gretchen: Thanks for the reply. However, I have never doubted the integrity of any of you therapist and I feel that Art was so insistent that all who practiced his therapy had that integrity before he would allow them license to practice.
As for me not being bothered or upset by what people say of me applies to those NOT close to me, otherwise I am capable of being upset and hurt by my sibling, their children, my buddy, close friends and Jim.
Yes, I agree that on that occasion, both my father and mother were very disturbed, but I feel because of the valance of the screaming. Since on other occasions when I or any of us were frightened and went into their bedroom my mother always let us stay with them, until she felt we had calmed down, then she would ask if were were OK then told us to go back to bed. My father on the other hand would ‘take issue’ with it and exclaim “oh! my God”. Like we were exaggerating it all. He thought we should ‘tough it out’, especially we boys.
Also I feel that incident was the little me was reliving some incident in my past. As I said, my birth/nursery incident. For me anyway, it is important, in that it validates Primal theory. So much so that it infuriates me, that the medical profession never took up Janov’s work.
Meantime, I hope everyone is getting through the whole virus thing. I feel everyone here, knows my take on it all. Nevertheless it is an enormous moment and I feel it’s never going to go back to the way we knew it. Maybe that is some sort of ‘silver lining’
Take care all of yous’ Jack
Jack, keep us posted on things. Has your body been falling apart some more lately?
It irritates the living shit out of me, this theatrical charade you’re having with Gretchen. There’s something I know that most of the blog here DOESN’T know which makes this charade highly dishonest to me, and it pisses me off that I have to abide by it. My ability to keep secrets is wearing thin.
What is it Guru? I’m usually the last to know anything.
Phil, I’m still going to keep quiet because I consider myself among the best at keeping private things private. Jack can really test my limits on this, though, especially given the things I personally know and I just want to put him on notice that he really pisses me off because of that.
Insufferable Guru: I did not fully understand your first post, but this second one did make it more clear. you have something of a point about my charade/s.
They’ve been with me since early childhood.
Feel free to say what you feel about me on the blog here. I do take note of it … since I am replying.
I know you have a thing about privacy, and I care little about it unless threatened physically by someone that has things like my address. Otherwise, I’ve been ‘outed’ for years, but can live with it now.
Jack
So you really want me to share what you told me off the blog? I’ll give you one last chance to reconsider. My own anger has dissipated enough to where I will happily walk away if you change your mind and you won’t be outed at all.
Do think about this before I would proceed; a large part of this is not what you may think it is.
-If you change your mind, I have no problem stopping here.
-If you elect to proceed, I will be held completely harmless and not in any violation of your privacy beyond this point. Are we in agreement assuming you don’t reconsider?
Insufferable Guru: what are you suffering from?
Reveal all you know about me, all you like. I am not afraid of any revelations you have about me.
I do suspect (though I cannot be certain) what you know about me came from your relationship with Patrick. Not sure if you are still in contact with him.
Jack
Ha Ha, “insufferable Guru”!
Guru: sure, knocking on 90 is not like the 20’s,30’s, 40’s; But it could be worse … looking around at some of my contemporaries. How are you coping, health wise?
Jack
For a long time I’ve not written much here. I’ve been crying a lot though. The COVID19 survival induced physical isolation response, some current health issues I’m currently dealing with, and living alone infuse my days with existential crisis. Every other day I can’t help but sink into crying jags. Music helps me to more easily enter that parasympathetic state. I’ve always considered that mystical, meditative reiki/yoga music was pretty flaky, but a recording, to which below I pasted a link, changed my mind.
I’ve found that this kind of music eases my entry into an other-worldly … deeper reality (for me) truth space where feelings and painful truth naturally flow up and out from deep wells that I never believed I’d be able to descend down in to. Of course that’s the way it always was with primals. We at first thought we could never really go there. It seemed that way from my very first group. I’m always astounded by the feelings that have remained locked in after all this time, decades deep, ready to be finally felt, and how feeling them gives me back more of me. Afterward it feels like a completely obvious and natural process, but after so many years of suppression and wanting to forget, it is astounding how immediate and fresh the feelings and truths are, waiting for expression, that below the surface I knew they were there all along. Thanks to this therapy I’m able to access them and finally connect memory to feeling to truth for the first time. Yet only a month ago…only a week ago…I would not touch what I felt today. And so it goes, week after week, deeper, further back in time, more of my life all encompassing painful revelation and truth breaking to the surface and thereby finally freeing healing and growth.
Larry, that is very moving music and in some places I get a feeling of hopefulness. When I hear piano playing without the chords and just single notes it reminds me of my five-year-old self having my first piano lesson in the small music room off the church and how scared I was to be there. The teacher was nice, though, thank goodness.
You are really getting into more deep feelings. Good for you. Way to go, Larry. Thank you for the new-age music. Namaste.
I was never into New Age music Sylvia. If that’s what “Sound of Invisible Waters” is, it has a place on my music shelf. 🙂
I was never into New Age Music Sylvia. If that’s what the “Sound of Invisible Waters” is, it does have a place on my music shelf now. 🙂
Larry: I know exactly what you mean. I remember well something Vivian wrote in the journals way beck when. She asked:- “Do we ever empty that ‘bucket’ of pain?” It seems never ending. the real consolation is:- I’m now more into expressing myself much more freely.
It surely is sad that you don’t have a partner or friend, perhaps living in with you. I find that, for me, an imperative.
Jack
I’m sure it can be emptied Jack, but in most cases we run out of time before getting there. Nevertheless working our way toward empty is way better than staying full.
Larry: I’m inclined to feel more like what Vivian said, there’s just too much damage there to be repaired.
However, It really depend what is meant by ’emptying the pool of pain’. I would word it more as:- we can never repair the pain inflicted upon us. We are only able to bring it back into consciousness and thence express it fully which is what we failed to be able to do in the past.
Jack
I always feel there is something not quite right in your assessment and description of the process Jack, but it could be just different ways of saying the same thing.
Larry: That’s OK it’s just that I have a great desire to be very succinct, and clear.. I did give a copy of my second book to Art Janov who read it and gave me a nice crit. he said it was succinct and a fine book. That was good enough for me, and it it I did state briefly my take on Primal theory.
Jack
Thanks for sharing this Larry.. I hope the Covid crisis will be over soon, so we can all get back to a more normal existence, and that you get though your health issues.
Phil
I don’t think the crisis will be over for us seniors Phil. After an effective vaccine is in use, the risk of contracting COVID19 in a vaccinated population will be considerably reduced, but my becoming vaccinated is unlikely to offer me more protection personally, since old folks’ immune system are not good anymore at recognizing and producing antibodies to foreign invaders. Also it might be the case that people will need to be vaccinated annually, like getting an annual flu shot, and lots of people refuse to be vaccinated.
I don’t think the COVID19 threat will ever be over Phil. COVID19 will never be wiped off the planet. It is too ubiquitous The risk of becoming infected will probably drop dramatically after an effective vaccine is in use so that a vaccinated population has lower incidence of the virus, and my getting vaccinated likely won’t offer me extra protection personally, because old persons’ immune systems are no longer as capable at recognizing and producing antibodies to foreign invaders.
Larry, it should give us some protection and I’m sure there will be better treatments. We won’t be resistant to being vaccinated, but many will be.
Larry: I agree, I don’t think we are ever going to go back to what was considered normal.
However, i do see that it might be a change for the better. Perhaps not initially.
Jack
hi all, last weekend my brother came over to go visit our mom.
this time he seemed tense and critical, which made me feel stressed and hurt for several days in a row, and also indignified as he had been very patronizing and not respecting my decisoins about my own life.
for example, for the third time he suggested me I should move to a service flat in my mom’s nursing home, first saying it would be comfortable for me and safe, but then admitting he looked up against the extra miles and possible traffic jams having to drive over to my actual place before driving to our mom…
it left me so unpleasantly surprised I had a hard time knowing how to react, I did stand my ground mostly but never mentioned I felt hurt , upset and offended.
after all he has been coming over to this place where I live for more than 20 years, and just now when the situation is so difficult, and my sister can’t join me for a visit to my mom as she has had surgery, he comes up with these remarks that made me feel those extra 10 miles back and forth are too much effort for him really…
what helped me to process the feelings was talking about it with several friends and befriended household helps, as talking to my brother seemed not a good idea still being so upset myself and he being not communicative feeling wise.
after a few days I got to the point I could have peace with the thought after all he was entitled to say that he did not like the traffic hassles, and to feel I could leave the issue, unless he would bring it up once more, and then I would not hold back anymore and say anything that came to mind, argument or not, fight or not…
it is funny I briefly mentioned something about it, in vague terms to my mom, and she told me to come up for myself.
it also occurred to me there might be some personal stress going on for him that had nothing to do with me and I was just the lightning rod taking the heat…
but well, I did feel sad and stressed and then also got the cancellation of a week of sailing in august, which did not help.
feeling so alone and isolated actually had one good effect, it made me think hard about who else I could contact and what else I could do to have more activity and people in my life again.
so I called a lady I had not seen in years, but at the time when our favourite little brown music cafe still existed we had have many good times together there.
she has a big house not far from where I live so I called her, and she invited me to come over right away.
we chatted all afternoon catching up on many of our mutual cafe acquaintances, from which surprisingly many had died in the meantime, also some fairly young people,from all kinds of reasons.
it felt so good to be able to have a good conversation with someone I had many memories with, living actually at less than ten minutes walking.
we even planned to go to my mom’s nursing home together one of the following weeks, as the girlfriend is 74 and wants to check out possible places to go to, service flats or nursing homes, not right away but maybe in a few years from now.
it would be great if she would choose to live in that nursing home later on, as I am on a long term waiting list there too and she is fun to be around with.
one of her daughters lives in that area so who knows.
bottom line is the new recovered presence of a friend in my life has given me courage to look for more opportunities.
she knows everyone in this neighborhood and can tell me for example how to get in touch with the local choir, which i would like.
so well, glad I got into action and managed to give it all a positive turn.
I also sent my brother a message just asking him how he is doing, to facilitate the interaction in a gentle way, I expect him to give me a call maybe one of these days, but in any case I am working at taking care of my life myself as much as possible.
Margaret
When I read your comment Margaret, I thought just how obvious company is when having a family of one’s own. There’s always someone and one is actually quite thankful for some time alone, away from the (often itchy) presence of others. I don’t mean ‘itchy’ necessarily in a bad way, just the cracking up that one undergoes when encountering another person, in entering his or her orbit.
I hope things with your brother will become gentler to your likings, and that you will expand your social life to balance socializing and time alone in a manner which is comfortable and even enjoyable.
Margaret, apologies for interrupting your story with your brother; I need to put this post down here for more room.
Jack:
OK, you asked for it. From this point forward I am not responsible for anything I reveal below.
During our past conversations, you exhibited zero respect for Gretchen and you called her a “fat cow” numerous times.
Considering all the different ways she tried to be nice to you and accomodate your every little whim and wish, it really pissed me off knowing how lowly you really think of her and how she had been unknowingly trying to help you in every which way in the meantime.
Not only did I find this sad for Gretchen in that she was an unwitting victim of your terrible opinion of her, but the fact you have her answering your every little whim and placating you just….sickened me.
That’s what bothered me there.
I guess…there’s a part of me…a non-sociopathic part of me with a conscience…feeling that Gretchen at least deserves to know how lowly you think of her if she is going to go out of her way to accommodate your wishes.
Considering Gretchen said “I love you” and the recipient of her love believing she’s a ‘fat cow’….yeah, that started to become just a bit TOO pathetic for me to witness and an outraged part of me wanted to do something about it.
Guru: I am responding, just to let you know I read what you wrote.
Otherwise I have nothing to say.
Jack
Guru , Thank you for your protectiveness, that is really very sweet ! But fat !! 🐄 Gretch 😉
Gretchen: The two things you are not are fat nor a cow.
And I know you know I never said anything of the kind.
Jack
One of us is not being truthful & I sure as hell don’t say these things from the dark crevasses of my imagination! My outrage had been slowly building over time as the public discourse you have had with Gretchen never comported with what you said to me elsewhere. You spoke of her in an angrily dismissive tone, frequently ending with references to her as a “fat cow”.
Yes I do feel a bit as though I am a luridly appealing trash tabloid (Enquirer, TMZ, Daily Mail) and/or a basement gossip queen for exposing these private utterances, but at the same time the personal fury I was feeling had to find an outlet somewhere. It had been building for too long & I felt Gretchen was being victimized because of the limited information she was working with.
I did give Jack two chances to have me stop and not say anything further here, though I may have still considered warning Gretchen privately.
Taking a Freudian stance, my revelation was the verbal ejaculation that released the long-term buildup of tension.
It’s all done now. I feel finished.
Ew!
Stop shaming meeeeee! Weren’t you the one who posted a skit with two guys in a grocery store parking lot arguing over bloody tampons?
If I can indulge in sharing one more, here is another, of a type of music that I thought I would never spend much time listening to, but this piece talks to me and the child in me, tells us that yes there was so much missing, so much that we couldn’t let ourselves see. There should normally have been so much more. Putting so much energy into burying consciousness and trying not to see took away from growing into life normally, kept me from having a normal life if not for this therapy. This music is bringing me and 4 year old me together, on the same empty sunrise, calling us to join together, telling us that we are strong enough now, it is safe now and time to see, to accept truth…and cry…and heal…and walk together as one…into a new sunrise and a new day…alone but stronger together and not so helpless and crippled anymore…no longer hiding in fear but taking on truth in order to have our best chance for making the most of the rest of our life.
OOPs. Mistake. Sorry. Ignore or better yet delete Journey to the Center. Here is the piece I was writing about, Prayer To Love.
How did I make that mistake twice???? I wish I could delete them.
Same mistake 3 times now. I see what went wrong, but enough….sorry to have taken up the space.
We can spare the space for you Larry! G.
That’s reassuring Gretchen, thanks. I’m a little nervous that I’ll post the wrong music again a fourth time. I believe I have the right tune this time though. I am trying again to post it because the tune “Prayer To Love” affects me a lot, takes me to a childhood existential crisis, and might be helpful to someone else. It also feels meaningful to me to try to communicate what I am feeling and seeing, which posting this music helps me to do.
Guru, and Jack,
this discussion is really strange for me.
maybe just a minimal bit of context would clarify it, like was it the name calling being done in a conversation about Patrick, as I seem to remember he called Gretchen in that way a few times?
or was it when Jack felt very angry at her for whatever reason that is hard to imagine?
it is intriguing as I personally would not expect either one of you to bluntly lie about this.
luckily you have a good sense of humor Gretchen!
M
Margaret, the conversations took place some years ago. I don’t remember all of the details, yet they had nothing to do with Patrick. As I said, Jack often had a low opinion of Gretchen and referred to her as a ‘fat cow’ multiple times. Thoughts ran through my head such as, “Well why did you bother going to the Institute instead of Art’s center?” The answer there likely has to do with Jack’s affinity for Vivian.
I do sense that Gretchen is well-trained to handle most insults, anyway, especially if she happens to view the insulting person as suffering from frailties.
This issue left me personally struggling on multiple fronts:
a) Respecting someone’s privacy versus,
b) The need to help someone make more informed decisions alongside,
c) How to deal with something anger-provoking which is impossible to achieve full resolution unless I personally degrade one person or another (either Jack or Gretchen).
I tolerated Gretchen being degraded by making the uninformed decision that she should be magnanimous or obsequious towards Jack for quite a long time. Eventually I had to do something to balance things out.
Margaret: I find Guru saying all these things as something going on for him, that goes way beyond me.
We sure did have a private conversation in the past, but it was about him wanting and feeling the need to use a pseudonym and not his real name. I felt that was not good for his therapy. When he did on one occasion accidently (apparently) use his real name, I responded by using it. He responded angrily at me for doing so. Gretchen asked me to not to use his real name again and I have done just that. ever since.
I suspect he’s not over it, though he says he is. So I will leave it that.
He does have one thing wrong; since he feels I came to Primal therapy at the time Janov had opened his center. I started therapy in 1981.at a time (perhaps) when Art did not even know France.
I feel (though I could be wrong) that he is confusing me with the private correspondence he had with Patrick.
I have never felt angry with, or towards Gretchen. If I did, I would mention it directly to her on the blog.
I hope that clears up my end of the matter.
Jack
No, Jack, I know what I heard on multiple occasions. This is totally separate from the old pseudonym incident.
I completely stand by what I said earlier and my account of what occurred.
I haven’t communicated with Patrick since 2016-2017. If anything, YOU have spoken with him much more recently than I have.
I was saying you were angrily dismissive of Gretchen as a manner of how you lowly you viewed her generally
Regardless of what you may say in response, I completely stand by my version of accounts.
I had to think about it for a minute, but I do need a slight correction on my last communication with Patrick. It took place around March or April 2018 because I was desperately trying to find medical ideas right after dad’s cancer diagnosis. I asked all the people I could think of, and I did communicate with Patrick about that topic. He did remark about my being a ‘good son’ but he was unable to help at the time.
That’s it.
I was wondering the same thing Margaret . Gretchen 🐮
This took place years ago. I don’t remember all the specifics except I kept being shocked at his describing you as a ‘fat cow’ on multiple occasions. He just seemed disgusted with you and you seemed to be a lowly person on his Rolodex.
I’ve said all the details I can remember, except the impression was clear to me it was a longstanding attitude of his towards you.
Right now I feel as though I am starting to swing the pendulum against Jack more than I should. I do think this discrepancy should be examined in some fashion by others, though.
Let also clarify: I was just a witness and the burden of carrying such knowledge finally got the better of me, emotionally. I am personally finished with this now; it is out of my hands. Anybody else can do what they want with this information.
Guru,
It’s unclear to me, if this happened years ago, why the need to release it now?
Phil
It was the culmination of many small stressors building over time which finally led to the dam breaking.
my personal social horizon seems to be widening bit by little bit.
today I talked to a primary and high school girlfriend on the phone and she offered spontaneously to drive me for visiting my mom together, this or next Sunday.
that is really great.
I also left a message on the phone from the former keeper of the music bar, who I also got along with very well but lost out of sight after the bar closed.
I feel confident we will get together as well at some point.
it makes me feel so much more in tune with life, as the level of isolation I was in was really getting at me more and more.
To top the day off I got a message the sailing for people with some disability will start up again, hurray, so not the sailing week but at least sailing once a month during the summer season!
I feel like I am slowly getting out of a prison cell full of hopelessness and loneliness…
M
Daniel,
Thanks.
Yes, we need the possibility to be alone at times but also to socialize enough.
the last girlfriend I mentioned, the former bar owner, replied to my message and we first had a great talk on the phone and then exchanged pictures on What’s ap and will get together soon.
she too would like to visit my mom with me, she has met her in her music bar a number of times years ago and liked her a lot.
my life is brightening up and I am having a little smile on my face continuously today.
a great change from hopelessness and feeling isolated.
three former girlfriends back in my life in just a couple of days@!!
M
Daniel,I noticed it is especially the mutual sharing that seems basic.
we seem to need, at least I do, to feel someone knows and minimally cares about us.
it also is a positive self confirming process.
the better my social contacts are getting, the easier they go as I feel more confident every time and less pathetically lonely as I was starting to feel, dysfunctional and an outsider of ‘normal’ life.
I have to keep working on this active reaching out and staying in touch and taking initiatives.
more social life makes me feel less dependent as well, as the options increase.
so a good result of moments of seeming hopelessness.
and yes, it took some effort…
with a lot of reward.
M
Margaret: I agree with what you are saying here, and it reminds me of what I might be facing if I were to lose Jim, my partner. Since I am not seeing or socializing with anyone other than this blog, phoning and emailing my siblings, nieces and nephews and two friends. Perhaps that would be a time to leave my lovely home here, and go for assisted living. The very thought freaks me.
Keep well and take care
Jack.
Jack, what it is it about thinking about assisted living that freaks you?
Renee: There are several things and the first one would be not having Jim around to do the things he does for me.
Second, having to cope with the sadness of my loss. We’ve been together for 40 years come next December 31st.
Losing what I am very familiar with, my bed, my desk and laptop,. and everything around me that I know and am familiar with.
Third: if It is an assisted living here in the Netherlands, it would make it more difficult not communicating with people, who’s native language is not mine.
Also if on the other hand it was in the UK. where in the UK would that be. I have not lived there in 50 years now.
There are perhaps other things that I would find out about if and when that happens. So ‘freaked-out’ is an old hippy term I used to use.
Jack
Jack, this all makes sense. It sounds like you have done a lot of reflecting about the possibility of needing assisted living at some point. I felt sad reading it but also moved by your clarity and realistic assessment. No easy solutions, that’s for sure.
Btw, your using the term “freak” and “freak-out” makes me wonder if you ever have times where you feel close to your hippy side or to your hippy days. I wish I could have lived through that time so I like it when you write about that period of your life as I get to experience that exciting time vicariously.
Renee: Yes indeed it was a special time and at that time I knew it. What I did not know was that it was also going to end. Further; the island of Ibiza was also a very special island. It was magical and yet so primitive but in that sense it was so real.
I never ceased to wonder at it’s magic and all those friend who visited me there, commented on the magic. Just sitting on the patio and looking across the valley, the journey walking up the mountain to my home there was part of that magic also. I remember I drew a map showing how to get from the village to my primitive farm house (finca) made it attractive and so real to my friends..
It was there, in the third year that I read the Primal Scream and know I wanted that therapy.
My leaving the island to come over to California was the saddest day for me I cried as I sat on he deck of the boat to Barcelona watching the island recede into he distance.
I knew then that I would never want to return as already the tourist business was taking over the island and with it the charm and magic was disappearing fast. Of course, I realized that my being there was also the beginning of it’s destruction.
I do have the memories and that cannot be taken away from me.
But then that also applies to other parts of my life also. Three years ago going back to look at my childhood home, did the same thing. It’s the past and all there is left are my memories.
Time does not stay still, or as my mammy would often say to us kids:-] “Time and tide waits for no-one”.. my dear Mammy :)… not perfect … but she did love me and when becoming pregnant with me, wanted me. I was lucky.
Phew! that just brought up a lot of feelings. Jack
Thanks for sharing this, Jack. I enjoyed reading your recollections of that time. If you hadn’t come across the Primal Scream in your third year there, any idea how many more years you might have spent in Ibiza? And where you would have gone to when you left? Btw, I was in that part of the world around 15 years after you. Not on Ibiza but further east in the Mediterranean, on the Greek Islands of Crete and Santorini. They were also very idyllic and beautiful. I’d love to go back there one day.
Why don’t you go there now? Are you short on cash or something?
I’m not going there now because we’re in a pandemic. Are you okay? I don’t get why you need to be sarcastic.
Renee: I do realize I was lucky to come across “The Primal Scream”. It was lent to me by someone who I knew through teaching at a school set up for the children of other hippies. I didn’t survive that school for a second term.
I have no idea just how long I would have continued to live there; but suspect it would have been on getting older and needing more creature comforts.
I do feel it was a stroke of luck. Would I have heard about it from another scouse? Dunno.
The story does not really end there, since the guy eventually came to stay with Jim and I in Venice, California, with his then wife that I also knew in Ibiza as a tour guide. She was Swedish. Both started therapy and eventually his wife became a Primal therapist and worked with Art in his French Institute. I believe when Art closed that institute they both went back to Sweden and I’ve not heard from them since.
It’s possible they read this blog, but don’t respond. I feel they do not like me after staying with us, to the extent that the guy wishes he’d never turned me onto the book. Of that I cannot be certain, just speculation on my part
Incidentally, the three things that I took to seriously in my life; I came across by sheer luck.
The Herbert Scott voice production.
F. M. Alexandre Technique
Primal therapy.
Jack
Renee: I also spent some time (about one moth) in Crete:- Iraklion, Matala caves, then a beach close to Timbakion,
Jack
Dishonesty teaming up and drowning out the honesty, I get it…
what a wonderful world we live on…
just saw a documentary about the deep sea, and especially the extremely deep abysses like the Marianentrog , which goes down 11 kilometers, large enough to swallow the entire Mount Everest.
the earth crust crumbles here and there so very hot water full of minerals squirts up under pressures as high as the weight of 15 jumbo jets piled all on top of each other.
contact with the colder water creates huge chimneys of minerals, each one with their own specific bio type of living creatures living from the bacteria feeding on the minerals, and so up the ladder.
more and more evidence indicates life started there about 4000 billion years ago, I might be wrong a few billions, was so impressed with the number I hesitate now between 8000n and 4000 billion years, hard to conceive such time lapse.
in a way it is hopeful, life being so creative and resilient, that life forms like sea snails develop under such pressure.
the number of life forms equals numbers of rain forests in their variety.
equally deep oceans have been detected on some icy moons of other planets and now it has been witnessed life can develop under such conditions it opens possibilities.
those chimneys also create molecules of carbohydrate, origin of living species.
i love this kind of knowledge, it is so marvelous and wonderful and makes me feel full of awe for our universe.
which we should respect more as it is so precious and full of unique life forms.
i badly miss my good eyesight but with a documentary like this it feels sort of like at least the ‘eyes of my heart’ revel.
and all of this is only a start of getting to know some of the life forms on this small planet in the outer parts of our Milky Way, while there are billions of milky ways all filled with billions of stars/solar systems with their own planets.
all those life forms out there make me daydream and it feels good to feel part of it despite the sadness and suffering all around, it still is full of beauty and grandeur.
M
I watched a few deep sea documentaries on this years ago, and I think the chimneys are called hydrothermal vents or ‘black smokers’. There are countless million of tubeworms that live along the bases of these black smokers, feeding off the particles nearby.
One day, Arthur Janov came along and said this entire grand spectacle is doomed with no hereafter, and so studying these formations seemed pointless in light of such knowledge for me.
Margaret: When I was in my early teens I became very interested in ‘astronomy’.
Since doing this therapy I feel personally I need to just concern myself with were I stand, here on planet earth. I am no longer interested underwater life, nor the potential of life out there in the cosmos.
However, I do understand other peoples interest in those things.
Jack
Hey Guru, I have a couple questions I’m curious about. Please make the effort to answer. Why is the grand spectacle doomed if there is no hereafter? I also wondered why you asked Art about the hereafter when you knew his views ( from the books) before coming to L.A.? You always seem as though you were shocked by that. Gretchen
I said what I said…sarcastically. I’m actually angry at Art for even mentioning what his beliefs were. I believe from my personal experience that as a professional in psychology it was an irresponsible thing for him to do, since it forced me to devote a lot of brainpower to such a central life question which has plagued so many people since the dawn of history, particularly in light of the nonsensical event which happened to my mother.
If Art wanted to become a spiritual advisor, or in his case the antithesis of such, fine, but he should have left that far removed from his chosen field of psychology.
To believe is a verb. If you believe then you are actually stating ‘YOU DON’T KNOW’
If you know just say so … and be done with it.
Jack
Or better yet….ART didn’t know??? (not that he would ever say something like that, oh nooooooooooooooo)
As a general principle, any medical doctor publicly displaying his or her spiritual beliefs or lack thereof, particularly if the doctor is renowned, can present an undue influence on patients in vulnerable personal situations.
I would be saying the EXACT SAME THING if Art was a born again Christian like Dr. Holden and Art wrote in his books that proper Primalling cannot be done without turning our lives over to God, etc.
Think of it as a separation of church and state issue, only it being transposed onto medical professionals.
EXCEPTION: If a patient deliberately ASKS for a doctor’s beliefs without it being sprung on the patient by surprise (such as being installed in a text of written books) then this is OK in my opinion.
Guru: For what it is worth; I contend there is a lot in this last comment of yours that is worth exploring.
Jack
In one of the most famous dreams in the Bible a ‘fat cow’ represents a year of plenty. At least that’s Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream images.
In the same dream lean cows (“such as Pharaoh never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness”) representing lean years, famine actually, ate up the fat cows. But interestingly it did them no good: “And when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favoured, as at the beginning”.
Guru,
you can also look at it from another angle.
if this universe we are (partly) aware of is all there is, or all that is accessible, all we can do to explore and enjoy finding out new stuff is to be curious about it.
it is a free choice but to me it seems more pleasant than to remain locked up in some kind of mental backyard.
not that I think you do.
feel very tired right now, have done a lot and am still waiting for some tricky social interactions, mostly with my brother.
there is virtual group tonight, I might attend and drop out when really feeling too tired.
it is evening here and it has been a long day already.
but my social circle is definitely widening still, which feels good.
high school girlfriend was on the phone over two hours yesterday evening and the conversation was feelingful and very real.
she told me a lot about her life and said I seemed the first one she felt free to tell it all to, which is a nice compliment and made me feel even more at ease with her.
we accept each other mutually the way we are and that is precious.
M
Margaret,
Sorry I’m late with your comment. That’s great your social circle is widening.
We were all day yesterday helping our son move to a different apartment in NYC. It’s much better but still small.
The heavy moving was already done, but we brought him and his roommate another AC and we worked on cleaning up the old apartment. It was a reminder for me how on my own I was at his age in NYC. Help wasn’t really available and I didn’t want any anyway. I liked the feeling of being totally independent but that meant making a lot of mistakes and bad decisions. Like living for a year in a building badly infested with rodents where people broke in and stole some of my stuff, like a broken TV, which didn’t work.
Phil
Phil,
I had been thinking about your son in New York and how he would be doing, with Corona also still being all around.
so it is good to hear you helped him to move in to a new place.
and ha, you had rodents around in your time, is that better than cockroaches, spiders and other bugs or worse?
I like mice, they are cute but of course too many gets less cute, and they can carry diseases as well.
rats seem a bit scarier and not that cute …
M
Margaret,
That whole building where I lived years ago smelled like mouse droppings. I never should have moved there, but the rent was very cheap. I remember having mice in the floor in the bedroom; so I could sometimes hear them squeaking while I tried to go to sleep. Roaches are bad too, they’re sneaky, coming out at night.
Phil
Margaret,
That whole building where I lived years ago smelled like mouse droppings. I never should have moved there, but the rent was very cheap. I remember having mice in the floor in the bedroom; so I could sometimes hear them squeaking while I tried to go to sleep. Roaches are bad too, they’re sneaky, coming out at night..
Sauteed mice with mushrooms, onions, and green peppers, mmm mmm, nom nom!. A veritable wealth of delicious home-cooked meals for the frugally-minded you missed out on behind those walls, Phil. Roach paste can make for a good chip dip as a side dish, as well.
Guru, Thanks for responding. I’m still not certain why believing there is no afterlife would doom the spectacle you described ? Did you believe in an afterlife before you read Art did not? Not everyone in Primal believes the same things nor should we. You can believe whatever you choose to believe. Personally I think Art had a right to discuss whatever he wanted in his book but for the record it was mentioned in connection with his views on therapy and neurosis. I think it was mentioned once. Is it possible that Arts book was not the only thing that was going on at the time ? Gretchen
Gretchen? Can you crack open a copy of the DSM-V manual with me? I’ve been trying to find the spiritual and/or material beliefs of those who compiled the manual. Do you know why I can’t seem to find such info there?
I was always a believer in something larger than ourselves. My belief system was not very mature when I ran across Janov’s materials, and I was in a super vulnerable situation psychologically at the time. Reading his materialist viewpoints was pretty debilitating to me then.
My beliefs have matured more along the lines of:
David Eagleman’s Possibilianism
Tom Clarke’s Naturalism
Various writings of Fred Farrar
We don’t know nearly enough about the universe, both on a macro and microcosmic scale, to dismiss the idea of post-mortem survival of subjective consciousness entirely. The viewpoint itself is incredibly constricting…much like using a 5-cents off coupon for a bottle of soda in the midst of a world with $400-$500 trillion household net worth.
To clarify my last sentence, I meant that materialism as a viewpoint itself is incredibly constricting to me, personally.
Guru, I believe the DSM is put together by hundreds of people all with different viewpoints or specialties. I think they come from different countries as well. This would of course be quite a far cry from one persons story or theory. The good news is I am guessing they all have a choice to reveal what they choose to. I would just suggest you consider that Art mentioning his belief may not be what caused your internal conflict but that’s up to you. In the meantime I’m hearing California back on total lockdown! G.
Yes, yes, the situation is always structured so that Arthur is never wrong or at fault. I assume this must have been a byproduct of a tensionless, defense-free lifestyle.
No need to respond to the above: I was simply muttering to myself.
Guru, I don’t think Gretchen is saying that “Arthur is never wrong or at fault”. It’s really up to you to let that go, if that was your belief or hope about him back in your tender years, when his writing disillusioned you. But feel free to be angry about it, I well understand that. You need to feel whatever you DO feel. I have myself needed to feel more than one feeling about how innocent my own naivete was about some “gurus” that I later realized I had blindly “elevated to that role” — they had not done it — I had, in my innocent hope. Not my fault, nor yours — even though I felt bad, and hurt, and other things. Please just consider this, or maybe file it away in your prodigious mind, for another time of contemplation.
Mutter, mumble some people mumble never want mutter mutter to look inward mumble
Just ignore that, just muttering to myself 🙂
I’ll Just put my one cent in, with this ongoing back and forth with Guru and Gretchen.
My take on Art mentioning religion, was to demonstrate what we neurotic humans do when we can’t be certain about the future, especially “life hereafter”. It’s very hard to accept, certainly as I get nearer to that ‘moment when I will be no more’, Yet I sense that ‘to HOPE’ that there is something after I stop breathing and my heart stops beating, something of ‘the me’, has a continuing life
IF that were the case there’d be trillions of spiritual lives somewhere out there … which so far, have not been revealed to us.
But then I feel that is the very purpose of creating a BELIEFE system. Just noting the history of religion, from totem poles, through celestial things, to the inevitable single deity that no-one alive has met … other than through an epiphany. My younger brother had one, as did my mother. Both were convinced they’d seen and met God[o].
I find it interesting that Barry B, once called old feeling an “epiphany’.
‘Here endeth the lesson … there will be no collection.’ 🙂 🙂 OR was I just muttering?
Jack
Jack, as you know, I tend to agree with you about there being no life after death. So when we die, it’s over. In arguing against an afterlife, you say that “IF that were the case there’d be trillions of spiritual lives somewhere out there … which so far, have not been revealed to us”. I don’t think this a strong argument for our beliefs, though. Because there could be many spiritual lives out there but they would only be revealed to us after we die.
Last week, I was talking about this stuff with my 81-year-old mother. We both believe that there is no afterlife. She said that she also believes that after we die, our soul lives on in the memories of the people who loved and cared about us. I think that this belief is something that could unite believers and non-believers alike. I told her that while I did not believe in an afterlife, it is always good to be prepared, just in case. Like the ancient Egyptians. I told her that I was thinking about which of my favorite books I wanted in my coffin with me. And I suggested that she might want to be buried with her knitting needles and some wool because, for most of her life, not a day goes by when she has not done some knitting. She laughed but declined to take me up on my suggestion. Oh well…..she can’t blame me if there does turn out to be life after death and she is bored. If you were to prepare yourself, just in case you’re wrong, what would you want to be buried with?
Renee: My current idea is based looking at the history of religion … from totem poles to a single deity … not a case of:- “Just in case”. I feel many are now doubting the existence of super being … God[o]
My father who when younger did not feel any religious belief, but on nearing death, went back to church ‘just in case’ To and for me, believing and spouting (missionary style) about ones belief is neurotic. We’re the only creature that has this notion. It’s like:- we’re too afraid that death is the end of our being. Perhaps because THIS life was not too good after all.
I do feel the only thing that will remain after my death will be peoples memory of me. Some good and many, not so good, and perhaps others wishing I’d never existed. But that is really no consolation for me. I had no concept of any super being until about age 7, when my mother insisted we went to Sunday School. Prior to that it was relatively simple:- Mammy, Daddy, play-mates, friends and my siblings
There was one incident that came to mind recently, when I said to my siblings in bed (being sent too early and were not ready for bed) “Oh! we are going to die one day” … and we all four of us started crying. My mother came upstairs and asked what were crying about and when I said “we’re going to die one day” my mother replied “oh! you’ve got a long time before that happens”. Not sure that consoled us, but I suspect the crying put us to sleep.
Jack
Jack, how can you be sure certain that there is no “just in case”? It sounds like you are saying that your belief of atheism is the only right one. You say that, “To and for me, believing and spouting (missionary style) about ones belief is neurotic”. Couldn’t believing and spouting (missionary style) about ones lack of belief also be neurotic?
Renee: ‘feeling sure’ is merely a feeling. It is mine re:- religion and ‘super powers’ being, or spirits. If I stated:- “I am sure” I stand corrected since to me everything stems from feeling/s. What I understand about feeling/s is:- there are two components, There’s the sensation and then there the expression, Where neurosis come in to play is the manner in which we express it.
As for:- “Couldn’t …………… about ones lack of belief also be neurotic?” Yes! of course, and that was an argument brought up by Johnathon Miller (at least that’s who I think it was.). As I stated above:- “it the manner of expression that makes it neurotic; not the ‘believing’ per se.
Jack
Haha! Turu and Gretchen, your mumbling muttering interaction made me laugh out loud!
still smiling, M
Gretchen,
I am so sorry to hear you all are in complete lock down once more…
here we have had a daily increase of 2 percent infections daily last week and today a rise of 11 percent since the week before, which is very scary.
I would be devastated if lock down interferes again with my social life and specially impedes me to go visit my mother who is approaching 90 now…
sad and scary…
Renee,
that sounded like a pleasant conversation with your mom, it made me smile.
M
Yes, Margaret, it was a pleasant conversation I had with my mom. It is nice to finally be able to connect with her in a way that feels good to both of us. I think she has mellowed out as she has gotten older. And I am finally reaping the benefits of the many years of therapy I’ve done. Or maybe I am mellowing out too as I get older. Or maybe a bit of both. How has your relationship with your mother changed over the years?
Renee,
my relationship with my mom has also become very easy and has mellowed down to being very pleasant and close now.
as you say it might be an aging effect combined with me having changed thanks to therapy.
i am so grateful for all the beautiful moments we can share now, of course also always with a faint background sadness of some kind of goodbye coming closer.
i am so scared we might soon , in a month or so, get another lock down here, due to people’s carelessness or selfishness.
mostly young people now behaving irresponsibly.
i am so glad for you you can have this quality time with your mom.
M
Thanks, Margaret, I’m glad for you too.
As for your blaming young people for behaving irresponsibly and possibly causing another lockdown…….maybe. Although I can also understand their pandemic fatigue and their need to say “Fuck you pandemic”. This is a great short-term solution but awful long-term solution.
Gretchen and Guru,
I personally am more a – grumble, grumble, grrrr, what the grumble, grumble grrr, f—, – kind of guy. I find it to be a much simpler path to feeling suppression and/or stress release by getting your heart rate up a bit. My favourite kind of exercise !!
Barry M
Hi Barry, –you’re right!
Barry: Nice to know you are still in the land of ‘nod’ Wherever that is. Didn’t quite understand if that was your act-out or you way through it all. I hope the latter.
You too, are getting up there in the aging process. BUT still quite some time before you catch up to me. I also wonder if my responses are part of the “grumble, grumble”? It’d be interesting to know.
Jack
Barry M: sorry! I thought it was a Barry B response. Sooooo! my apologies to both you Barrys. Jack
Another version of “Hallelujah”, for fans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxr8Qyd2t1E&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3AXycC6wzm1NGJRoAUzAorlDAsTE9qrieM30U7SxV06RVD2kLYwG4V6Vk
Beautiful rendition of this song. Thank you, Vicki.
Vicki: Lovely … I watched it all, and it brought up some childhood good memories for me. Very relaxing.
Jack
Our oldest son was with us the last month and a half because of covid, but now he’s gone back to where he lives in Boston. Having him here all this time was quite like his high school/childhood years. He was all day on his laptop doing work, playing games, or both at the same time. Some of his childhood friends came around. We bonded playing chess games, bike rides, and tennis.
He left a few days ago, and last night I noticed the leftover clutter and unmade bed in his room, which normally his mom would have immediately cleared. It brought up some big sad feelings. I remembered how hard it was when he first went away to college nine years ago. And then about my mother. She was gone and reminders of her were all around, but we didn’t talk about that. One day she was taken away, and never came back. It’s all a jumble of mostly bad memories, but there must have been something good that I have all this sadness still inside. Sadness and need.
Phil
Understandable that you would have those feelings Phi.
For anyone who liked the interview with Robin DiAngelo that I posted earlier, I recently came across this podcast of her in conversation with therapist and trauma specialist, Resmaa Menakem:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/robin-diangelo-and-resmaa-menakem-in-conversation/ One of my favorite quotes from this podcast: “It’s so easy to see where we swim against the current and so much harder to see where we move with the current”.
the last ten days the number of Corona infections has been increasing exponentially.
I am so afraid that soon lock down will be installed again.
tomorrow me and my brother will go visit our mo,, and next Sunday I will go there with a girlfriend.
the sundae after that I have signed up for a sailing afternoon, that is if it is not prohibited once more…
it would be devastating if we all go back to square 1, everything coming to a standstill, specially for me as I can’t even relax by doing a little walk and looking around.
my mom is not getting any younger and this time fear will even strike harder that the lock down impedes us from getting together until it is too late to do so.
and now that I am slowly building up a social circle for myself I hate the idea it all stops, I am even studying my actual statistics course again, but that would also be extremely difficult then to realize all assignments without any personal tutoring.
Margaret: yes!
Everything is becoming unpredictable, even the simplest things.
For me, just going to get a blood test at the local clinic was such a nightmare to get arranged and then just getting there, not knowing if they are going to be able to do it. eerrrg!
I have no answers to ‘how’. even though I feel I know why.
Good Luck Margaret.
Jack
Margaret,
how you describe it sounds like you will go into lock down again, I’m afraid. We’ve been enjoying better conditions right here, but with a lot of restrictions still in place.
Phil
Margaret,
how you describe it sounds like you will go into lock down again, I’m afraid. We’ve been enjoying better conditions right here, but with a lot of restrictions still in place. Phil
thanks, Jack,
M
A friend of mine who is a professor is teaching a class this semester at the University of Toronto on the educator and philosopher Paulo Freire. She asked me to do a presentation on my experiences working in democratic schools for an upcoming class of hers. She asked me to send her some links of democratic schools for her students to watch before class. I found this movie of Summerhill from the 1960s that had been previously been impossible to find on the internet. I have a black and white copy of it on VHS. This is my favorite movie of the school and was made by the National Film Board of Canada. It has been digitized and transferred to color from black and white. The quality is amazing. Take a look: https://www.nfb.ca/film/summerhill/ Hopefully those of you who are not in Canada can access it.
Renee: Interesting … I love to see kids just doing and saying the first thing that comes to their mind and I liked the comment that schools are normally about filling the head full from the neck up
Jack
Jack, yes, I like those parts too. But I think my favorite part is seeing Neill with the kids at the beginning of the movie. He just seems so calm and happy to be with them, with no agenda other than connecting. He talks to them like regular people! So refreshing and inspiring, IMO.
Renee: Yep! that too.
Jack
The Summerhill footage reminded me of something I learned only recently. Like many in their youth I too read Lord of the Flies, at the time one the most famous and most pessimist versions of human nature ever written. The book won its author – an English schoolmaster called William Golding – the Nobel Prize.
In the story of schoolboys marooned on an island the teenagers quickly become consumed by power relations and struggles. Two of them get killed. By the time saviours arrive the island is almost entirely burned, and is filled with fear, blood thirst, and vengeful hatred. In explaining his fable Golding once said that this was his lesson from WWII, that “man produces evil as a bee produces honey”.
As it turns out, about a decade after the book was published Golding’s version of human nature was put to a sort of a test – something almost identical happened in the Pacific Ocean islands. A group of six bored boarding school students from the Polynesian Tonga aged 13 – 16 decided to escape Tonga by boat and reach Fiji, some 800 km away. They stole a fishing boat, took with them some food and water, and set sail. Shortly after they set sail a storm broke out. For eight days they were carried away in the open ocean and were close to death from thirst when they washed on the shore of a desert island called ‘Ata.
Unlike the teenagers from Lord of the Flies the Tonga boys happened upon an island with no white sandy beaches or tropical trees. ‘Ata looks like a rock protruding 300 meters high from the water and the conditions there were far worse than those described by Golding.
However, the six boys not only survived but kept their humanity. Some 15 months after they landed on the island a ship captain named Peter Warner got curious after seeing smoke rising from it. On ‘Ata he found the boys a cooperating, unified and organized group. They resourcefully managed to reserve rainwater, they cultivated vegetables, grew a chicken and using precise shifts successfully kept alive the fire they managed to light over a year earlier. Anybody who read Lord of the Flies knows that the fire is a critical test for a group. In Golding’s book it dies down because incessant conflicts prevent the group of teenagers from keeping it alight.
The ‘Ata six divided themselves into three couples – one couple cultivated the vegetable garden, the second were responsible of the kitchen, while the third took care of the fire and guarding. When one of them slid and broke his leg the others dressed and set it and divided his responsibilities among the rest of them. When medically checked upon return home all six were in excellent shape. And most impressive of all they remained good friends decades later.
At least in the case of the Tonga boys man too produced honey.
Here’s a 1966 report from the Australian channel 7:
Daniel: An interesting take, on your part; comparing a fictional story with something that actually happened, but I feel strongly, that it is far from the whole picture of human nature. Even Summerhill is intent on educating.
Seemingly, those boys on Ata from Tonga were old enough and had some knowledge, (and neurosis) in order to make fire and collect rainwater and to grow food. However, the retelling of the story in order to make the film, for me; stretches some of the facts those boys had to go through. Maybe it wasn’t quite like they related it to be. After the euphoria of being rescued I suspect they ‘added and subtracted’ to what the experience was really like.
What I am trying to say here, is that ‘in the remembering’, there is the tendency with all of us, to embellish it the way we NOW want it to be. We often do this about our childhoods before therapy. So, I m not convinced that it fully negates the “Lord of the Flies” notion.
It all comes back , as I see it, to our real nature as a feeling-full one, and not all the other:- thinking, education, science et al. ‘we’ve now come to formulate’; that is more often than not, ‘coined’ with:- ‘we’ve come to ENJOY’,
Jack
Jack, I agree. For me the story of the ‘Ata boys shows that among humans there are so much more than just power relations. In this example there were cooperation and camaraderie.
Daniel: Thanks for the reply, that cleared up what I thought you were trying to demonstrate.
Jack
Alternatively, cooperation and camaraderie is much easier to accomplish when there are no unequal power relations based on gender, race, class etc., as in the story of the Tongan castaways.
Renee: For me the ‘re-telling’ via film, is where the whole thing about the Tonga boys on Ata does not have the credibility it seeks. First off. I suspect those boys were running around naked. How come they had both, bathing trunks and short?
We distort for so many reasons that ought to be outdated by now. Especially the gender differences.
Perhaps for me, with my family being four of us kids born within 3 years of one another; boy, girl, ,boy. girl, the gender differences were always in front of my eyes from the first days I remember, all in the one bath tub together. Even as puberty arrived we saw each other sharing one bedroom with two beds, one for boys and one for girls.
On the black versus white; we and my brothers playmate’s dad was black and we thought nothing of it. Just Alex’s dad … nothing more
None of this prevented me to have biases … I had, and still have many.
Jack
Jack, here is a short documentary of what happened, with a moving interview with one of the Tongan group that survived being stuck on the island: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDz-331V-pY. I agree with the Dutch historian in this documentary who interprets their humane behavior on the island as a combination of human nature and Indigenous Tongan culture. But why were they trying to get to Fiji? I wonder if they might also have been trying to get away from their colonial boarding school. Btw, since they had left their school, they could very well have been wearing bathing suits and shorts. But whether they were wearing clothes or not, how is that relevant?
Renee: It is only relevant in that we tend to ‘sugar coat’ these event after the rescue. What these boy actually went through before they were rescued, seems to be left unsaid. Yet! I contend is part and parcel of many things … culminating in the fact that for all the hype; we are not free.
That all Jack
True. Those attributes surely make othering easier. However, power relations are (thankfully) not the only kind of human relations; nor gender or race the only or even the most important arenas of power relations. We’re all familiar from personal or social experience, that abusive elements may and do arise even when the group is homogeneous – for example among white, upper class homosexual men aged 30-40; or black, lower class heterosexual women living in London.
My primary school was situated at the community I was living at but was attended by kids from other villages in the area. Jokingly we called those kids “the minorities” but that joke also conveyed the confidence one has when one is of a place rather than visiting it. This was our place and we trod it with all the certainty of an owner. There were kind of power relations in that and occasionally it would turn abusive when one of us somehow took advantage of that.
But at other times one of them turned out to be particularly good at football or basketball, or one of them had some aura about him or her that attracted all the others. Now he or she had the power and at times that power was used abusively and someone was made keenly aware that the only power left at their disposal was to feel the shame and awkwardness and consequent self-hate involved.
When I was 18 or 19 I fell in love with a girl, who, bottom line, didn’t really fancy me. Although I was doing alright socially and had a stable home underneath and for reasons unclear to me back then I also felt depressed and lonely and uncomfortably apart from others. In other words, I was vulnerable. Caroline was fresh, spoke in a funny accent, and became attached to me. I felt privileged and special to have her love me and became very attached to her, only to see her then distancing herself from me in one way or another, and then coming back to me, fueling my love, and then again in various and original ways disappearing.
It was not rejection. painful as rejection is, I could have handled it because I would have known where I stood with her. Rather I was tantalised. Withing months I was reduced to a heap of rubble. My power gauge in that relationship registered about zero and my self-esteem was testing new lows.
It took me years to extract myself from Caroline’s hold inside of me, from her pull, even when I later had other girlfriends. One release point was a dinner in a west Berlin restaurant. I reminded her an event from our mutual past, only a year and a half earlier. I remembered what we said, what she wore, what we ate, how she smelled. She did not even remember the event.
Everyone knows what it feels like to have power or to feel powerless. It is part of being human because people are not equal in their desires, intelligence, physical attributes, drive, sex, or capabilities. And quite often people will use their power to shame or ridicule or otherwise abuse someone with less power.
The thought that without gender or race or class there will be no power relations doesn’t stand to reason or common experience.
By the way, when in therapy I told Barry about my relationship with Caroline he associated to a song which he was surprised I didn’t know and to which I still listen:
Daniel, I find it kind of funny and I find it kind of sad that a white, straight, middle-class, heterosexual male insists that systemic inequalities are minimal and normal! It’s funny because you don’t see the irony in this. And sad because it seems impossible for you to have any kind of empathy or understanding for people who have different standpoints to you. Your comment that, “The thought that without gender or race or class there will be no power relations doesn’t stand to reason or common experience”, makes sense in that it doesn’t stand to your reason or your common experience. It also makes sense that, from your perspective, power inequalities can only be individual and not systemic. At least that’s how it comes across.
Renee and Daniel,
thanks, it is nice to hear some positive things.
I feel overwhelmed with worry these days.
numbers of Corona are exponentially increasing again here when everyone felt we would have a relaxed summer.
i had planned to visit my mom accompanied by a girlfriend tomorrow when yesterday the regulations changed and visits are only allowed to to fixed visitors , so if it is me and my brother the girlfriend cannot accompany me.
I let her know and told her she could still come and have a meal with me, but she let me know she would gladly take me over there and come and pick me up again after I visited my mom on my own.
that was an option I needed to think about, as it is quite a challenge to me with all the regulations and having to find my way around there and find ways to spend some pleasant time with my mom.
but I did not feel like saying no, as I would regret that forever if next week the rules change again and I would not be able to visit at all anymore.
I texted my brother and he phoned and said he did not feel it was a good idea for me to go on my own, that I also had to consider not getting infected myself.
and that things might not develop that negatively anyway.
I can easily take the precautions I took when I visited mom with him, actually I was better prepared, gloves, extra masks, disinfectant gel etc.
so I accepted the girlfriend offer.
it feels scary to accept what feels like such a big gesture, but she told me it is ok as she can easily drive home and come and pick me up when I text her as she lives not very far from the nursing home.
but of course she would come pick me up first in town here.
my sister feels my brother should have offered to come, he plans to go next week sunday even while I told him I plan to go sailing and suggested he could pick another day so I could go along.
but who knows, the sailing might be canceled or he might make the effort after all…
then on the news they said they would try not to close down nursing homes completely again to visitors even if the situation would keep deteriorating.
but then there would be only one visitor, always the same, allowed in, which probably would be my brother.
so I feel glad I did accept to go tomorrow, even while it feels like a big challenge.
accepting such a big nice gesture of that friend is also scary, as she herself is taking care of her 90 year old mom next door where she lives.
but even while we only recently got in touch again, she feels like someone I can just be me with and express my fear and sadness and gratitude to.
i do notice all the fear and uncertainty is getting at me, last night I noticed how for a while I could only think of dreadful things, people torturing each other, horrible ways to die for people and animals, stuff like that.
fear taking over for a while, until I managed to calm myself down using my breathing and imagining the sound of calm small breaking waves on a warm safe beach I used to go to in Spain.
so tomorrow big day, visit on my own to mom in a Corona setting, so far only one detected case in another ward, isolated, but i will do all I can to keep it safe of course.
and afterwards coming home with girlfriend and having a meal together I will prepare today, and for the first time in years spend time with her again…
which will probably keep me from the virtual group, or at least part of it.
but there will be plenty of triggers anyway , ha!
M
Margaret,
I don’t know how it is possible not to feel in one way or another under attack. I guess when it’s difficult to see the feelings of helplessness are even more violent. I’ll hold my fingers for you and wish you all the best. Anytime the governmental instructions change, or the spread of the virus changes for the worse we all have to again change our ways one way or another. At least for me, the older I get the more attached I am to my usual customs and find it harder to change when I have to.
the visit to my mom went really very well, more details tomorrow as I am tired and a bit tipsy from the meal with some bubbles later with my girlfriend. but one moment stands out when I came back in from the garden with my mom. she spotted a very old lady, probably with severe dementia, sitting in a dark corner probably looking very sad.
mom let go of my arm and approached the lady, telling me to come closer but I told her I needed to keep some distance but would be listening. mom bent over to the old lady asking her if she was ok, if she did not feel good, encouraging her to say what was wrong, telling her she should say it when feeling bad, and then mom turned to me for advice, and i told her maybe she could stroke the lady over her hair, which mom started doing very gently.
then mom bent over even more to her and softly said, ‘you have very beautiful hair, you really do, do you know that, you do know that don’t you?’ in such a caring way the lady suddenly lifted up her head and gave my mom a big smile and nodded. I cannot explain how precious and special such moments are, these two people connecting and my mom suddenly bringing a warm ray of emotional sunshine to that lady with her genuine caring generosity.
I am very proud of her and very very endeared, she is my true example.
Margaret, that is very touching the connection between your mom and her co-resident and that you could give good prompts for touch to reach her. Such a special moment, indeed.
more about the visit to my mom yesterday. my girlfriend brought me into the nursing home until the reception where she signed me in, filling in my data in the logbook. then she helped me on the right way to my mom’s ward. I went in on my own, found the dispenser for an extra handcleaning, and went into mom’s room. she was in bed, under the covers with her cloths and her shoes still on, but when she heard me soon cheered up.
we spent quite some time with one of the two imitation pets they bought for the ward in March.
there is a big imitation Labrador puppy, which makes all kind of sounds and movements and which my mom carried around for days. this time she had the cat ‘robot’ beside her pillow, which also starts meowing in many different ways when it gets touched, moves its head and licks a paw, but above all starts purring loudly when being petted, in combination with vibrating with each purr.
it is amazing how well it works, my mom is constantly talking to and petting the cat, and to my surprise I started doing the same thing while very well knowing it is an artificial device, but the way it reacts and makes unpredictable sounds or movements and responds with ‘rewarding’ purring is irresistible. I really noticed how it makes you feel good, it is very relaxing and seems to fill in a basic need to bond and care. it reflects the way we all used to care about our toy stuffed animals as kids, and I am surprised how I felt even for me it would be comforting to have one of these if ever I would have to live without a real cat. not the same of course, but surprisingly comforting.
then mom and I went into the garden of the ward, as there she would not have to wear a mouth mask, and we could eat and drink when sitting at a table . that was very nice as well, and then we went back in, when the touching episode with mom comforting the lonely lady with severe dementia occurred. I wish I could describe the soft gentle way my mom bent over and talked to the lady, making sure she was able to make eye contact bending over and bringing her face really close to that of the lady, talking all the time in such a caring way, until in combination with stroking her hair the lady suddenly opened up and a big smile appeared.
then we moved to the piano just a few steps further and mom played, with only one hand these days but still able to play songs I suggested, and we sang for a long while which was also very pleasant for both of us. then I took her back to her room and to the cat as more than an hour and a half had passed very fast and I had to call my friend to come and pick me up and get help from a nurse to get through the coded door of the ward and to the exit.
i am so very happy I went as it was entirely quality time, entirely enjoyable for both of us and I still feel very good thinking of it. then my friend came home with me and we ate and drank some Spanish bubbles, and talked and talked which was also great. then I was too tired and tipsy to still attend part of group but that is ok, the day had been rewarding enough as it was…
M
Hi everyone: I just thought to jazz the blog up and see what re-action I might get.
I am in regular contact with a guy from Serbia that read my second book “Feeling Therapy; Real Health; Yourself”. and immediately started Primaling. This morning I responded to his last email to me with the following:-
“Nenad: You are so correct about this world of neurotics and for the most part, ignoring them [feelings] UNTIL they begin to feel pain then rush off to see a doctor in the (neurotic hope) he/she can fix it for them.
This whole argument is ‘circular’. in that we make the last point of the argument to demonstrate (prove) the first point:- hence:- ‘Circular’
It is my contention, BUT only mine; that we need to rid ourselves of the whole neurotic system that currently exist. Arthur Janov started the ‘ball rolling’, but soon lost favour, since he would not allow .the psychological professional to just practice his therapy from reading his book/s. The training is very intense
If that was a mistake (as far as the psychological profession was concerned); so-be-it. I have taken up the ’cause’ of how we MIGHT (just might) prevent neurosis for the generations to come. I don’t see there will ever be enough trained therapists, I don’t see education doing it, I don’t see the medical profession doing it, and the only thing I can think of, particularly in this moment in time, when there is so much trouble about how to govern.
I say ‘SCRAP’ the whole system and start over:- by abolishing Law, Government and Money. The idea is not that original and was thought up well over 150 years years by Pierre Joseph Proudhon, then later taken up by Karl Mark and Engels.
Alas, after the Russian revolution all communist leaders stopped at that point, to glory in their own achievement and the communist movement as Marx envisioned it; NEVER took place … wherever it did take place. I suspect the very young who are now just born, will take up this idea, once they mature, seeing the ‘unholy mess’, and seeing a whole structural change is now becoming necessary, especially if the idea is put out there. But NOT to go the Marxian route, but to just for us humans to see that the way we are going as a species is obviously the route to our eventual extinction … AND sooner than perhaps we might think.
I contend, that is the ONLY way out of this, neurotic disease, we brought upon ourselves.
What think you? My dear Primal Friend in Serbia?
Jack”
I grant I am beating the same old drum, but as I see where all governments are failing in this pandemic. I see ONLY that we must go back to ‘square one’ and find a PREVENTION from the continual insidious neurotic illness we are all undergoing.
Jack.
Jack, I once offered a book, ” The Myth of Invariance,” who holds dual PHD’s, Math, and Epistomology. He was not interested because it was contrary to his latter thesis. You are clearly of considered and studied position about Primal, neurosis, world order, Capitalism. Thank you. We are a failed experiment, millenia beyond standing upright, humans, despite inventing electronic toys, humans murder, steal, dominate for wealth, and generally don’t give a shit, ignore fact, and expand their gluttony for more, more, more. The CLASS problem. Trees are needed to support air quality, but the globe is continually denuded. Science offers irrefutable proof that farmed fish are dangerous to human consumption, but, the carpetbagger owners in true Trumpyesque grunts declare the science to be fake news. That sounds quite neurotic to me, too, Jack. Dr. Peter D’Adamo has devoted decades to doing the Science to show that one person’s nutritious food is another’s heath destroyer. That threatens so many corporate issues so they turn lose the trolls to brand that good medicine quackery. On and on and, the basis of bigotry, racism, war mongering, the consolidation of power and wealth among a very small cadre of powerbrokers. And they allow us almost enough crumbs, toys, toys,toys, to approach being borderline satiated. Our collateral damage is easily tolerated.
Don’t you wish you are 19 again, Jack, with a whole lifetime of raising shit ahead of us ? I genuinely admire your forthrightedness, your courage. Your piano playing on the other hand is disgraceful….[ 00.]
……………………………………….V
……………………………………….~
David: You’re absolutely correct about my piano playing being disgraceful. I did take a few lessons in my 30’s but didn’t continue for too long.
As for the other aspects of my comment:- you are about the one person on this blog that sees things the way I do, and that for me, is a great help, since I know at least one person on the blog sort of agrees with me. I like that.
I also like many of the comment you make about other goings on in this neurotic world of ours.
On the issue of:- “Don’t you wish you are 19 again, Jack, with a whole lifetime of raising shit ahead of us”. Actually I don’t wish to back to 19 again, since my life’s process would not be there. What I do wish is that I might have many years ahead of me to do my utmost to promote these ideas that I put forward. They are out there, and have been for some 150 years.
I do try hard to figure out how to put them across and reluctantly know, that at least among this community of Primal bloggers, I have failed miserably. Ah well! … BUT thanks for your comment.
Jack
Hi all,
the situation here in Antwerp is still deteriorating. I know we have made the international news with the curfew between 11.30 pm and 6 am, but that only seems very sensible to me. some nursing homes are already in complete lock down, but luckily so far in my mom’s place the regulations have been restricted but we can still go. there is a limit of one person from a small bubble once a week, Friday afternoon in the case of the people of mom’s ward, and the next week same thing but another person of that bubble can go on Friday afternoon, for a visit with mouth caps in the garden or in the cafeteria without drinking or eating. no one else but the people of one specific ward and their visitor is allowed there or in the garden that afternoon. so this means my brother will take a day off at work to go there tomorrow afternoon, and I will go next week Friday with a taxi or other transportation. if the rules have not gotten more strict by then…
as I feel complete isolation and loneliness creeping in again, and occasional phone calls or chats with some friends and relatives have their limitations as well, I was thinking of a way to turn my need into something useful and helpful. so I contacted a volunteer phone service which in translation I can call Tele-support, which is available at all times for anyone needing someone to talk to. it is like the suicide line or Tele-drug support, but with a wider range of subjects.
I talked to someone of the staff on the phone and they will send me information and invite me over to look at the technical hurdles to solve, as it works in a combination of phone and digital software.
but they have already had a blind volunteer for ten years but that is a few years ago and she worked with different software then.
but it feels good to have taken this step at least and to feel there are options, to not sit back and feel miserable and helpless and hopeless. it would be great if this would work out. it is a whole program to follow first, which sounds appealing and useful. so hey, the situation is bad but there is always some silver lining to be found, or maybe not always but well, at times…
wish you all the best and be careful,
M
Margaret, good for you, volunteering..I hope the meeting goes well.
Jo
Jo,
Thanks. a first small hurdle has just been conquered. a pdf format with information I could not read as it was a photo-pdf, has been converted in a text file and the problem was solved. may sound like a small thing but it is encouraging as it felt frustrating until it was solved… i like it that they give a thorough schooling before they allow their volunteers to start working.
how are you doing?
i also found a driver to take me to a sailing afternoon and now hope the sailing does not get canceled by Sunday. it seems easier when I can take some action to cope with the increasing threat of the Corona situation once more here…
take good care,
Margaret
Renée, It seems that instead of tackling me and what I write here you have decided instead, not for the first time, to grapple with an imaginary person who shares with me a name but few of the same ideas or views. You’re attacking a straw man. When did I ever “insist that systemic inequalities are minimal and normal”, or that “power inequalities can only be individual”? Have you read what I wrote about inequality and ‘winners take all’ economy? Or inequality, median household income, and certain ZIP codes? Or racism in the US? Or the social system and policies I support? Are the opinions and views expressed in those comments refer to inequalities as “minimal” or only “individual”? No, they don’t! Your charactarisations of my views are far from my actual ones.
To be clear, or at least clearer, I had two claims. The first was that power relations do not occur only in the context of race, sex or class. To argue that this fact is only my own reasoning or common experience is to negate reality and history (which is very much in vogue these days). It is to deny the possibility that, for example, power relations may exist in a group of Japanese high school boys of the same social class; or a group of black male prisoners of the same social class in a Kenyan or a Canadian or a German jail; or a group of Hispanic female secretaries of the same social class at IBM. There are numerous such sociological and psychological and organisational studies showing how group dynamics may and often do include power relations which are not dependent on race, sex, or class. But such truth (no – not my truth, just truth) must be cast aside because it does not serve politics that absolutely must have race, sex or class at the center or else! (And by the way, should this truth be given birth to by scholarship let us scrap scholarship itself, label it white and racist and “decolonise” it).
My second claim was that power relations are not the only mediator of human relations. Competence, authority, love, and morality also play an important part. It is now forbidden to say, and these days in America may even get one fired, but the peculiarity of the “peculiar institution”, as Americans once called slavery, lay not in its existence but in its abolition. Westerners were the ones to break the consensus and outlaw slavery, first at home and then wherever they were able to exercise influence. Whatever may be said about this, one thing is certain: abolition in America didn’t happen because black people had the upper hand at power relations. And whatever else may be said morality surely played a big role in bringing abolition about.
I was going to say something about your claim that “it seems impossible for [me] to have any kind of empathy or understanding for people who have different standpoints to [me]”. I won’t because it would drive me into personal psychology which even though I think is the most interesting and relevant issue here I promised you I won’t engage in. I will say though that I don’t believe you were really sad about that.
Daniel: I read and re-read your comment, and for reasons of my own felt that it was very defensive. I say defensive, in that you are taking issue at great length with something Renee wrote; albeit that she too might be somewhat defensive.
I personally find I need to be very careful about how I characterize anyone’s words. Words at their best are ambiguous, IMO. Which is why I also am somewhat skeptical of studies and findings of university professors. They too are just another set of (damaged) humans.
However, it was your line:- “But such truth (no – not my truth, just truth) ” I am won’t to add “Gospel according to whom”. It needs a little more clarification if you are going to state:- “the truth,”. I personally find the word itself to be more than ambiguous. It is setting oneself up as some authority on what is ‘TRUTH’ and what if ‘FICTION’.
Seeming we’re able as humans to make anything the:- “truth,” that is convenient for us at some given moment in time.
In short Daniel you comment did not convince me of whatever point you were trying to make … except that you seem to love the banter between Renee and yourself.
Just purely my feelings … little knowing who holds any truths.
Jack
Mischaractarisations of me and my views will not be met with Buddhist resignation.
As for “truth” – I should have used the word “factual”. It is a fact that power relations occur on frontlines other than race and sex. It is also a fact that too many times these kind of facts are omitted from discussions because they are politically inconvenient.
Daniel: I don’t expect you to to just leave it to ‘Buddhist resignation’.
For me, seeing you change ‘truth’ to ‘factual’ signifies you are still into playing with words. (Just me and my re-action … that’s all).
I prefer to keep it to the more reliable aspects of myself and see it all as ‘feelings’ Ever since reading that very first book I knew it was all feelings; and that all the rest was some sort of act-out to those feelings. What I mean is:- something I wrote some time ago that for my purpose of responding to you, I will (again) repeat.
Before I left Ibiza after knowing that I was eventually going to do this therapy ‘come what may’. I went to see a person that had done the therapy who was thinking of opening and English Institute in Cambridge.
After the interview she said to me:- “You have a very intelligent view of Primal Therapy … albiet that your intelligence is your greatest defense”.
I knew instantly she was correct. I have no desire to relinquish what little of my intelligence I still have left, but it does nor take precedence over my feeling … that I get into each night on going to bed and ponder on my days feelings.
If all that is “Buddhist resignation” … so-be-it.
l would not dare to think I was capable of characterizing or mischaracterizing you, any-which way. I can only give you my feeling as I read you.
For me it’s all so simple:- Feelings, feelings feeling; and more feeling … then expressing them the best way I know how … until the day I die.
Jack
Jack,
We are speaking and communicative creatures and speak and communicate we must. I share your concern that speaking and words may be used defensively, but that in itself is no reason to throw the baby with the bathwater and get rid entirely of speaking and communicating using words.
I also think words are essential for therapeutics including Primal therapeutics in which we go through several transformations in order to complete a Primal circle. The first is a transformation from the non-feeling to the feeling, which enables us to experience a well delineated feeling; the second transformation is from the not-expressed to the expressed and re-lived; and a third transformation from the expressed and re-lived to the narrated, which gives it meaning. That process of giving meaning (using words) to feelings is in my opinion very important. For example, in trying to give meaning to an experience of screaming in childhood, you say, “I now contend it was what happened to me at birth being immediately taken from my ‘mammy’ and put in a nursery to give her, my mother, a rest.” Using those words you gave meaning to an experience that in and of itself had none.
Daniel: in response to your comment, August 1, 2020 at 11:09 am.
I have inserted MY words/feelings, where I feel you conveniently omitted them
—–0——
“We are [neurotic] speaking and communicative creatures and speak and communicate [because we’re totally incapable of communicating via feelings … so we talk, talk, and keep talking.].
I share your concern that speaking and words may be used defensively, but that in itself is no reason to throw the baby with the bathwater [what baby am I throwing out with the bathwater?] and get rid entirely of speaking and communicating using words.
I also think words are essential [I agree, since we sure lost the natural way, decades ago, for most of us] for therapeutics including Primal therapeutics in which we [Speak for yourself; please Daniel] ………………………”
I personally did not go that route … I went into a related feeling of the one i mentioned just after birth. The terror was unbelievable and I had no idea that a human (me) could feel that amount of terror and live.
I have fully recounted that event in all 3 of my books. No need to repeat it all here.
I feel that Art said somewhere that each patient does it her/his own good way and her/his good time. Correct me if I am wrong.
Jack
Daniel, I don’t think you are only speaking to myself and Jack. It sounds like there might’ve been a time in your life when mischaracterizations (it has an “e” not an “a”, btw) of you had to be met with resignation…….just a thought.
bad news today, not terrible but still, my brother would be visiting our mom today but called me this morning he would not go. he worries about the quarantine regulations upon his return to the Netherlands, and also worries about his wife’s health, as she seems to have chronic lung trouble and so far no clear diagnosis has been made. the doctor does not want to do a Covid test as she has no fever, she has been tested for allergies last week without result, and this week they want to do more allergy tests and lung pictures. so I feel pretty sure she insisted he would not go.
I just called mom’s ward to check on her getting enough water to drink as she forgets and often they forget to put a bottle of water and a cup in her room, and we have a heat wave going on.
they told me they were just doing a water round, and passed the mobile phone to my mom. she was sitting with the robot cat on her lap in the community room, and I could hear it meowing and mom talking to it, reassuring it over and over it was ok, and was with her, I wish they would have programmed less plaintive sounding meows as well in the cat, it has a lot of sounds but all plaintive except for the purring luckily. but it made me sad hearing her trying to reassure the cat and knowing she would not have a visit until I go there friday next week, the only moment we are allowed to visit, that is so far as next week even that might be forbidden.
half of the nursing homes in Antwerp are already in complete lock down… also I just got notice the sunday sailing afternoon has been canceled, not a surprise but still disappointing of course.
i notice as well friends seem to respond less to messages to stop staying in touch more, probably everyone is getting tired of these virtual contacts or they have better things to do and more company than I have. it does help me to have taken the initiative to join the help line volunteering, even while there are still many hurdles to take, it does make me feel the world is not entirely coming to a standstill for me necessarily. Sigh… and there will be virtual group at least on sunday…
stay well and be careful,
M
Jack,
Just to make sure I understood you correctly, when I say,
“we go through several transformations…”, I should speak only for myself.
However, when you say,
“…we’re totally incapable of communicating via feelings”;
Or
“…we talk, talk, and keep talking”;
Or
“…we sure lost the natural way”,
you shouldn’t?
Or reversing it to meet your requirement, is the correct way of reading your statements is:
‘I’m totally incapable of communicating via feelings’,
‘I talk, talk, and keep talking’,
‘I sure lost the natural way’?
Daniel: Correct.
Jack
I love you, Jack!
Renee: That’s nice … I love being loved. that way makes it easy for me to love back … to you.
Jack
Daniel, since I dislike reading mini-dissertations on the blog (and yes, your posts often feel like that), I will try and practice what I preach and not write one of my own now. If it sounds like one, please let me know. You say that I am mischaracterizing you by saying that you see “inequalities as “minimal” or only “individual”. Actually, that is not quite what I said. I said that it comes across like you believe that “systemic inequalities are minimal and normal” and that, “power inequalities can only be individual and not systemic.” I appreciate you including four previous posts that I can draw on, including your recent one, to illustrate how I came to these conclusions.
Firstly, you have been clear that you see racism as normal when you state that it is “a human phenomenon not a capitalist or white one”, and, “Perhaps capitalism, sadly as it may sound, is more aligned with human nature, at least in the west.” You also stated, in an attempt to normalize, that, “white people were not the only ones to enslave or brutalize indigenous populations.” This is a false equivalency, like comparing the Ebola epidemic to the Covid-19 pandemic (as I said, but kind of messed up, a few months ago). I see you as okay accepting some degree of systemic inequality because you explicitly said this: “I’m willing to accept certain levels of inequality because I think it benefits society.” I think it benefits certain parts of society. I think it is hard when we are the beneficiaries of systemic inequalities, to acknowledge all the people that are not benefiting but are actually suffering. Perhaps this might be slowly starting to change.
I think I was wrong in saying that you do not see any major systemic inequalities. In your post on racism in the U.S., you are adept at identifying the huge racial inequalities within the U.S. But then you go on to idealize Capitalism in such countries as Canada and Sweden, as if these countries don’t have, what you call, “terrible racial history and present relations”. I don’t think you know much about Canadian history (https://globalnews.ca/news/7029694/canada-systemic-racism/) or Swedish history (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/sweden-black-lives-matter-defund-the-police-europe-neoliberalism-racism). I believe it is a problem when we only accept the version of history of the colonizers and we don’t recognize the importance of other versions too.
You then state that, “power relations do not occur only in the context of race, sex or class”, and to negate this is to “negate reality and history”. You do not state whose reality and whose history is negated. Then you come up with various different groups to illustrate the idea that somehow group dynamics can somehow exist outside of any political and historical context. I would argue that this is impossible. I would argue that group power dynamics tend to reflect and play out those of the economic structure within which they occur. Btw, notably absent from your group examples are any white groups. Which is a good example, I think, of Robin DiAngelo’s assertion that we whites generally see race as applying to other groups, not to our own.
Finally, you state that, “power relations are not the only mediator of human relations”. Well, I would say, and you would likely vehemently disagree with, that unfortunately, institutional, and systemic unequal power relations are the main mediator and are at the core of Capitalism. You mention “competence, authority, love, and morality”. I would likely not agree with your definitions of these terms and who we see as possessing these qualities. I tend to think in terms of what has been needed and continues to be needed to resist an inhumane system. What comes to mind, for me, is the need to create relationships based on partnership, rather than relationships based on domination and oppression. Which is tricky when most of us have internalized the latter from the day we’re born and have come to believe this is normal.
Oops! I think I inadvertently wrote a mini-dissertation. My apologies. Anyway, I think it is unlikely that we will find any common ground soon. I think our respective belief systems are just too different. ☹️
Renee: You say:- “Oops! I think I inadvertently wrote a mini-dissertation.”. I feel and think you have done just that.
However, behind all that you state I feel there is just one over-riding factor, and if you were able to get to that one factor, then I feel you would have a great potential to put across some simple solutions to what you frequently coin as “capitalism”
I just hope I am not leading you to where I want you to go … but then there’s no telling what is still in the subconscious of mine.
Jack
Jack, I appreciate your feedback about my writing being a mini-dissertation to you too. I guess I don’t always practice what I preach…..a neverending work-in-progress.
Is it possible that the over-riding factor you are thinking of starts with the letter “n”? If it is, you are indeed trying to lead me where you want me to go. And there is nothing subconscious about it. It is fully conscious. Don’t worry, though. whether you are leading me where I want to go or not, I still love you. Why? Because my love for you is unconditional! ❤️️
Renee: that ‘s even more lovely to be loved unconditionally.
No the letter I was referring to is way nastier than ‘N’ word.
Jack
Jack, what word could be nastier than the word starting with “n” that you frequently use? Are you referring to the “m” word then? As in this song from one of my favorite groups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ “M……, it’s a crime, share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie, m……., so they say, is the root of all evil today”.
Renee: Spot on” If one looks at it; especially in this economic environment, it is the silliest, the daftest and the most idiotic thing we ever created. All it purports to do is to make it easy for the politicians and the governments to CONTROLL us. It’s been going on for far too long and has now outlived any usefulness. We’ve since added a scientific study called “economics” that now seemingly makes it all academic. Yet, for obvious reasons, most of are way too scared to be without it. That scariness I contend does not really belong to any intrinsic need for it, but goes way back into babyhood.
We actually don’t need controlling and IF each of us were left to our own devices, all those things most of us, consider money to be a necessity to control us would JUST EVAPORTE.
Of course it is a notion that require a LOT of thinking through, that most of us neurotics are so, so, so, afraid to look into. I would also be … but for me being thrown into that terror; in the most unsuitable situation without any warning. From there-on-in MY LIFE WAS CHANCED for ever
As Guru has pointed out we are all content to live a material life. If you/we have it, however little and can manage a relatively easy life, all well and good But in the Christian gospels it is reported that Jesus went about turning the table on the money lenders. (the precursors to bankers) Was Jesus perhaps the very first Anarchist?
If Anarchy is synonymous with ‘chaos’ then we’re right into that very chaos right now, and seemingly unable to resolve anything.
It seems that more than half the world does not have it and is thus thrown into struggling to eat, have shelter and to look after their offspring’s. For which the 1st world nations care little, except for a few philanthropist that offer them a few crumbs … resolving nothing.
I contend this ‘corona virus’ has thrown us all into a panic, yet most just refuse to panic and hope to get back to what they consider NORMAL. That “Normal” I feel, has gone for ever, and will never return.
That’s frightening … but no where near the fear I felt as mentioned above.
Jack
A correction: ” Yet, for obvious reasons, most of are way too scared to be without it”
Should have read ” Yet, for obvious reasons, most of us are way too scared to be without it”
Some history: Pierre Joseph Proudhon was the very first to use the term Anarchist (literally meaning) ‘without hierarchy’ He claimed to be the very first ‘anarchist’
Karl Marx and his pal Engels, jumped onto that notion and elaborated upon it. I feel that had Marx known the difference between ‘Human Nature’ (as eventually delineated by Arthur Janov) and ‘human behaviour’; He, Marx, might have seen that a dictatorship of the proletariat would never take communism to it’s final goal as Marx envisioned it.
All subsequent communist government stop at the point of the inauguration of the dictator.
Hence; we in the West misrepresent the very work of Marx and judge it by it’s outcome, first in Russia … with Stalin.
Jack.
Jack, I’m confused. You said to me that, “behind all that you state I feel there is just one over-riding factor, and if you were able to get to that one factor, then I feel you would have a great potential to put across some simple solutions to what you frequently coin as “capitalism”. I was sure you were referring to NEUROSIS. Isn’t money, and being controlled by money, a symptom of neurosis and not the underlying problem, from your perspective?
Renee: You say:- “Isn’t money, and being controlled by money, a symptom of neurosis and not the underlying problem, from your perspective?
“Absolutely and 100% correct.
The situation for me at that particular moment; since I was reading the issue of racism between you and Daniel was the other “N” word
I hope that clears up your confusion.
I feel this is where most of us get all confused when using that other thing we invented (language) as a means of communication after losing our initial and natural one:- that being communicating with just pure feeling/s which was all we had in the first few months of life (leastways for me … as I remember it) and like all other creatures seem to have that mode of communication throughout their lives.
It’s the one step I feel Daniel does not go to, since he’s seems more comfortable keeping it to academic arguments. HOWEVER, I could well be WRONG. Perhaps someone will put me straight on that one.
Jack
Renée,
What I have to say about the method in our different ways of thinking I already did few months ago. The only thing I’d like to emphasise in our disagreement is that my way of thinking recongnises and denounces the ills and evils of capitalism and racism, while embracing the benefits of European originated culture and its huge intellectual and material achievements. There is room for both truths.
Your way of thinking doesn’t seem to allow for the recognition of any value or benefit in European culture and achievements, especially if it’s implied that such achievements benefit society as a whole. No account of the HUGE decline in world poverty rates, HUGE decline in infant mortality rates, HUGE rise in life expectancy and quality of life – almost all of them products of western medicine, western methods of agriculture and irrigation, food safety, disinfection (especially water), and (improvements in) sewage. In turn all those are products of western education and knowledge which are so denounced these days in America.
Likewise, you will disregard the western abolition of slavery, or the success of the women’s or gay rights movements, most likely because one cannot explain these using power relations alone or because one would have to recognise that they are natural outgrowth of that European tradition and culture you so much hate.
Daniel: As I see it; all argument are about the differences that one person sees it, as opposed to the other. So for you to explain why you argue your way, I thought was obvious.
Where I disagree with you is that you then go into to CHARCTERIZE the way Renee sees it. I feel that is a gross mistake on anyone’s part. We none of us can safely suggest that the other person is doing either that way or this way.
I do feel that we can safely say:- “It appears that you are arguing from ……….!!!”
That puts the ball back into one’s own court.
Being a European I am not so sure we are able to give it some of the accolades you give it. In my part of the UK is right where the industrial revolution started, and the mess it left in dirty cities and the destruction of lives in those very cities while in the southern regions of the UK the aristocracy continued to take advantage of their better circumstances.
Of course, that is MY bias.
As I read Renee I personally don’t see her denouncing the destruction of either,
You state:-“while embracing the benefits of European originated culture and its huge intellectual and material achievements. There is room for both truths”.
I don’t agree. The one is the cause of the other. I see it as a neurotic tendency to see the better sides of our own cultures while conveniently disregarding the evils caused as a result of it.
There is another way … that I am aware you all know my view about. From your past comments Daniel you’ve made it clear ‘it scares the shit outta ya’
Jack.
Jack, when I wrote “there is room for both truths” I meant that in my thinking there is room for both, that I see the evils of capitalism and European culture but also its blessings.
You’re right that anarchy scares the shit out of me, mostly because I fear it will destroy rather than build. Perhaps that’s what you’re after. My impression is that you and Renée share that wish to destroy (at least in what you write here). At least you and I stated our preferred regime or political order (you: anarchy; me: social-democracy), whereas Renée never did and it’s never clear what she’s after, what in her opinion is the best régime, the political order she would like to have. Some of her ideas suggest Communism, but I’m not sure.
18 of the last 19 posts are why “Whack-an-overly-verbose-dissertationist” was invented!
Barry M Interesting. Do you thing we might now dis-invent it? I never even got to getting a bachelors in knitting, so dissertations are way beyond my wit.
Jack
Save me for last, Barry
here is some information that might bring someone some pleasure in life eventually. if anyone knows someone who would like to have a cat but has an allergy, there is one breed that is hypo-allergenic. it is a Neva Masquerade, a subtype from the Siberian cat. the Siberian cat is also hypo-allergenic, but the Neva is even more so.
it is an enzyme in the cat saliva, that gets onto its fur when it cleans itself, that causes most allergies. the Siberian cat has little from this enzyme, and the Neva even less.
someone I know first tested it out by asking the breeders to send her an envelope containing some cat hair, and put it inside the pillow of the person with allergy, her husband. he did not become irritated at all, and now they are the happy owners of one beautiful Neva Masquerade. it has half-long fur which only needs a brush every two or three months.
so as I said, I hope this little bit of knowledge will enable someone to enjoy the privilege of a feline friendship that so far seemed impossible…
M
Margaret, it’s nice to know that for so many kids who have allergies there is a kitten they can enjoy without getting a physical reaction to it. It’s odd some of my cats I have sneezing around, but others, I don’t, even from the same litter.
Barry M., you too, no longer would you have to fear the sneezing from cat spittle.
Margaret and Sylvia, thanks for the info on the Neva M. I googled it and must admit they are a fine looking breed of feline, and it’s good to know that I wouldn’t go through 3 boxes of kleenex if one rubbed up against my leg. To actually go out and buy one though would mean that I thought that felines were on a par with canines, and that would be, well that would just be a ‘masquerade’! 🙂
Barry M
Mrgaret: Great information for those that are allergic to cats, yet would love to have one.
Jack
As I wake up from my nap, the psychic pain is almost unbearable. A million tears cried will not purge this one. Time passages. I cried a thousand tears today listening to it during group. I listened to it a million times on the radio at work in the early years of my marriage, 1978 or so. The relentless sorrow of growing up a motherless child paled in comparison to the ravages of my adult life. I ended up with a wife who might have been only a hair more prepared to become a functioning adult than I was. Some smart person told us that we probably saved each other’s life. Unfortunately, some lives are just too painful to live.
I remember vivid haunting memories of that time. The death of my wife’s dad was a horrible blow to both of us. I was completely unable to be a source of compassion to my wife—that was not in my repertoire. We fought horribly. I drank and she did pills. I can’t even put this time period into words. The time was just one big loss to me. Horrific sorrow ripped me apart at my wife’s childhood home at the time of her dad’s death, augmented by the deep buried pain of my own mom’s death while i was still a baby
Horrific pain for her months afterward, and it tore us apart and there was nothing I could do, and finally she moved away, and I drank myself out of the job I was somewhat happy with. A job where time passages played on the radio every morning, as I sat in the dark printing photographs of other people’s lives. Always getting high before work. Unable to fathom my life. I had no idea that I would be listening to this song 40 years later and weeping over that horrible time.
My cat Sam, who kept me sane in my childhood, also died in those years, by my incomprehensible stupidity, followed by more animal disasters in the same mode. My grandmother, who had worn herself out trying to work at a job and also raising me and my orphan brother.–I remember her walking across to the street years later, going to get her groceries, a lonely old lady for whom I could not muster much compassion or care for. Anyway, I have typed these words, hoping this effort would soothe this horrific pain. Listening to the song over and over. Will this sorrow ever be put to rest? Our 44th anniversary is Tuesday, and I am still a source of nothingness for my wife. I feel horrible that I have nothing to give her.
But as the smart man once told me in group, “Otto, it’s almost over”. I guess relief will come one way or another. If covid doesn’t end this horror story, life will. Dog wants something, a walk, food, solace, who knows. Another sad day in hell. Tomorrow, back to work again after 4 months in hiding from the virus. Work probably lets this sorrow trickle back into my consciousness.
Otto: Wow!!!!!! What a nightmare you’ve had to go through.
However, I feel you are doing exactly what you need to do by writing here on the blog; AND I feel though, it will never go away, the pain will not be so intense if you are able to keep writing to us and telling us your pain.
We all have it and it’s by reading of others pain we begin to see our our own pain more clearly. Leastways it helps me.
Take great care Otto.
Jack
I copied and pasted the following from Huffpost
“CONSERVATIVE CRACKDOWN ON GLOBALIZATION The staggering death toll of the coronavirus pandemic and the deep dysfunction it has exposed will forever alter domestic order in the U.S. But lost in the flood of daily domestic tragedies is a shift that may prove as consequential as the pandemic itself: the death of the international political order commonly known as “globalization.” Across the world, the pandemic has broken supply chains and strained old trade partnerships. And the great economic alliance at the center of globalization ― the relationship between the United States and China is crumbling”. [HuffPost].
⦁ All this following what’s happened in Lebanon, now Israel, the UK, Germany and the rise of the far right.
⦁ Now India and the general unrest among most of the people from all countries.
⦁ If this isn’t chaos of the the most extreme; then I know not what is … yet most of us want to keep the fundamental principles of Law, Governments and money all intact. Little realizing the whole caboodle is falling apart. We’re still fiddling with the parts in the desperate hope we can fix it … Yeah?
⦁ Of course, none of this has to do with our own personal pain/s. However, does it sort of spell out where the future is for us humans? I feel very deeply it does.
⦁ Am I willing to explore this within myself … I try hard … each night … as I feel my life is one it’s last lap
Jack
So well written, Jack. All of the ,” safety,” measures in gov’t structure has become an obstacle course to possible redress. We’ve let these, ” servants,” forget they are just the employees of the people, not a super race, above all laws. I try to let it go but t keeps nagging at me, to do so is tacit acquiescence. Did my 40 years of trying to beat injustice have any lasting result ? I don’t know. But like the story about the boy and the starfish it made a difference for each rights violated person at the time.
hi Otto,
I was hoping to hear you in group, but it is good also to hear you did find your own way into your feelings using the music. so much sadness, I wish I had a magic wand to create plenty of nice times for you. but I don’t, could use one for myself too at times, luckily I have two cats who have their own magic to make life better…
M
https://phiban.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/image_3cb6f64f-5e1a-4adc-89fd-56e8fdd96e5b.photo-2020-08-12-05-04-49.jpg?resize=1393%2C1393
https://phiban.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/image_3cb6f64f-5e1a-4adc-89fd-56e8fdd96e5b.photo-2020-08-12-05-04-49.jpg?resize=1393%2C1393
https://phiban.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/image_3cb6f64f-5e1a-4adc-89fd-56e8fdd96e5b.photo-2020-08-12-05-04-49.jpg?resize=450%2C450
I can’t get this to work right today. Click on the link to see a cat picture Margaret wanted to share.
https://phiban.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/image_3cb6f64f-5e1a-4adc-89fd-56e8fdd96e5b.photo-2020-08-12-05-04-49.jpg?resize=450%2C450
Margaret,
I just had a great vacation, and now not so happy to be back at work. I’d like a lifestyle like your cats have.
Phil
Here’s a picture from Lake Superior, where we went, among other places. It’s great there. . And now I better do some work.
https://phiban.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/img_1846.jpg?resize=450%2C450
Phil,
then you would get a treat with cooled ‘Gourmet’ canned cat food in the afternoon, and a variety of dry food during the rest of the day.
and a regular cat shower when wanted, or a cool drink at the bath tab.
a regular brush and cuddle and lots of attention…
and a twin brother at your side for entertainment and company…
hm, a pleasant life, even with an occasional mouse hunt and catch to keep up the cat spirits, and birds to watch and dream of…
the down side is you’d be missing some body parts of course, sorry…
M
Margaret, Shoot! There’s always a catch isn’t there? It’s a pretty good deal except for that last part.
https://phiban.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/img_1846.jpg?resize=900%2C900
Phil, you really need to crack open Janov’s books some more. All of existence is a pointless accident. Can’t you see that the billions upon billions of microorganisms in the water’s waves with the verdant leaves & shrubbery perched above are ultimately doomed with no hereafter? You might as well have taken a picture of a vomit pool instead of trying to cobble together some random incidental moment, straining after an illusory beauty with undue efforts. all of which will disintegrate into nothingness anyway.
Guru,
My pictures are up in a cloud, in apple heaven, so they are forever.
Actually your data including photos is travelling under the sea to some mammoth land storage compound, quite likely in a Country we are told has unstable politics. But, you knew that.. (:
DOOMED! All of it!!!!
Guru,
where comes your doom mindset suddenly from?
did something happen?
I don’t know if anything will ever completely disappear, it will only keep changing, eventually matter into energy and vice vest, but I doubt if it would vanish altogether, but well, I am not a quantum scientist of course.
An old Greek philosopher already said ‘panta rei’, everything changes, and in some way that is a comforting idea to me, as it makes loss part of the inevitable transition of matter changing its form but basically remaining present.
a tiny bit of comfort, I admit, while having to accept many losses that have tremendous impact on our own reality…
M
Margaret, since you may not have caught onto my mindset, so I will just tell you I was typing out what I said in jest and anger.
Putting “doomed!” underneath the cuddly cats was supposed to be evocative of, “Awww, how could such a lovely sweet sight be doomed to incomprehensible nothingness? It looks like a little miracle!” that sort of thing. The message was in HOW I was saying “doomed”, not the word itself.
Guru: If I have you right, you have said in the past that Janov was materialistic.
I gather you mean that spirituality has to do with religious faith. I personally find a feeling-full life as being very spiritual in-so-far as it:- is a state beyond reason and thinking.
I would be interested in your feelings about the political ‘goings on’ not only in The US but seemingly (as I hear the news caster on TV), all over the world
If one is abhorrent to chaos, we sure have a great deal right now that we have to take note of. If we had anarchy, which ironically is not chaos, since each person is only into and sovereign to themselves and there’s little need to think of other as they too only need to concern themselves with themselves.
That may need a bit of digesting, but I put it out there anyway.
Jack
Why would you be interested in anything I have to say? You told me if I was gone I ‘wouldn’t be missed’.
By the way, I’d suggest you actually take the time to read the Vox article I linked, oh Sir Lord Jack. Really DIGEST the article and thoroughly understand the concepts therein, not just skim over it. You’ve taken links I’ve posted in the past and said you read them when it was clear to me you didn’t, or at most merely spent a few moments skimming them.
Guru: Send me that link again … I don’t remember seeing, it let alone reading it.
Jack
https://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11837608/elon-musk-simulation-argument
Guru: I’ve spent some time reading the article very carefully and re-read it to make sure that I am nor just skimming thruogh it.
His argument hold IF human kind is a thinking and rational creature. He bases his arguments form that perspective and to the unfeeling and rational thinkers, it makes great sense
However, I contend Arthur Janov debunked that concept the minute of ‘Danny Wilson’ having a re-living event in his life that prior to that moment he’d never had any recollection of before. Janov thought loud and long on that very question, and came to the conclusion that we are a feeling creature and that our thinking and reasoning are a gross act-out that does not serve any of us.
To throw the argument back to you. Do you agree that we humans are primarily a feeling creature?
Jack
Jack, the ONLY things you are saying about the link are all ..Janov….Janov….Janov….Janov…Janov….
NOTHING directly about what was said in the article at all, NOTHING!
Look, if you don’t want to read it and address the ACTUAL POINTS made in it directly, fine, so that pretty much ends this conversation.
Guru: Of course I’m all Janov. I uprooted from a very comfortable position; and life-style, crossed the pond , and took a risk.
That article is someone into his head. Of course I’m all Janov and his triad … not the man himself as I never got to do more than shake his hand and say Hi … We sure weren’t buddies.
I wonder if all the ‘seeming’ opposition you are getting is affecting you? You don’t have to answer me … I’m just putting it forward as a sort of feed-back.
Jack
Guru: I never remember saying “if I [you] were gone; you would not be missed. Quite the contrary I would miss you. … you sure inspire me to respond.
I am interested in what many people think about many matters since I am at that time in life when I have lots of it.
Also I do confess it gave me a chance to re-phrase something I have been advocating for some time.. Soooo!!! should you be willing to let me/us know ‘I would be all ears’ .
As for me:- the general overall feeling is that I am on the way out. I have not been the most popular guy on the block and many at the retreats were eager to let me know it. If what my mother told me:- God[o} instructed St. Peter to make sure I went downstairs. as I sure was one of those wicked, self interested, selfish ones. Ah well!!!
Jack
It would have been nice if I had read something like this article below for myself before I ran into Janov’s materials instead of bumping into this 25 years later carrying a more damaged outlook:
https://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11837608/elon-musk-simulation-argument
You can hardly blame Janov for your views, UG. I read all of the early Primal literature printed roughly before 2000 (nothing since I think) and was much impacted by it, yet I do not see life as being pointless at all. To the contrary, I see life as a magnificent, majestic, awesome development. In my opinion, you are only kidding yourself if you blame Janov for your views. You’d do yourself a better service and help yourself a lot more by looking more deeply for the reason for your views.
Then again, if all you want is a scapegoat to blame for your woes, then I guess Janov will fit the bill.
Hey I’m curious about something: I know Patrick had a lot of reprehensible personality issues, but he once called you a ‘smug priest’. What was your reaction to that, Larry? Do you remember why he might have said something like that?
I thought it was funny and a predictable reaction from him. It bounced right off me, because by him saying that he obviously didn’t know me, nor, judging by his opinions of things and of people… which kept changing on a whim for no rational reason and apparently were built on no reliable evidential foundation…were most of his opinions useful to me. As to why he said it, it was his typical way of reacting to someone who said (wrote) something that he didn’t like. He couldn’t tolerate people disagreeing with him.
Now it’s your turn. Why do you ask it?
If Patrick’s complaint that you are a ‘smug priest’ bounced right off of you, is that behavior symptomatic of smug priesthood?
Maybe. Maybe not. Depends how you interpret the reaction. In regards to myself, I’m hardly a person anyone who knows me would describe as smug, if you go by the online dictionary definition of smug as “having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one’s achievements”.
Where is this line of questioning going? Are you trying to say something but not saying it?
When Patrick applied that description to you many years ago, I remember feeling how it instantly made sense to me. You ever read something and it instantly ‘clicks’ inside of you instinctively. The minute Patrick said ‘smug priest’ it was as if a key entered a lock and turned with a satisfying click. Sorry, that’s all I can say about it. Maybe it’s a glitch in the simulation?
Omg I certainly hope “smug priest” & all continues to bounce right off you Larry -especially when you consider the sources – Patrick and Ug.
That you Larry are real, brilliant and humble appears somehow threatening to them!
L
Leslie? Seriously? What the hell did I ever do to you for you to consider me as a ‘dubious source’? Did I ever insult you? Shout at you? Bother you in any way?
All I said was that Patrick’s old comment of ‘smug priest’ clicked for me and i neglected to say anything about it at the time.
Its really nice to hear from you Leslie and thanks. By his reaction I understand and respect that what I said to UG must be threatening to him, so I’ll back off and not press him further on the issue. I take his response as his way of saying “back off, let me use Janov as a scapegoat…I need to use Janov as a scapegoat for how hopeless I’m feeling”. I feel awful for UG abut how he keeps himself mired and trapped in those feelings rather than trying to work his way out of them. I sadly appreciate that he might feel too overwhelmed and helpless to help himself. I don’t wish that on anyone.
Oh yeah and ‘most kind’ needed to be added to my list about you Larry.
L
Wow…..
No, it’s not threatening at all, I didn’t want to spend a lot of energy fighting you over it. I don’t need to use Janov as a scapegoat. I just feel as though he said a bunch of irresponsible bullshit.
Don’t you remember my telling you Leslie saying this as well? And how you wanted to punch him for that?
And when I say Leslie, I meant Leslie Pam…not this Leslie who is too threatened to even respond to what I asked her/
You mean Leslie Pam. I wanted to punch Leslie Pam???? I recall something about that but I need more of the context to help my recollection and to clarify whether or not you are interpreting what I said differently from what I meant.
No…I once said here on the blog that Leslie Pam explained to me that a lot of what Art wrote was bullshit. You replied that it saved your life and that you felt like punching Leslie over that comment. You don’t remember this?
I remember that somewhat. The thing is that I partly agree on that with Leslie, because some of Art Janov’s earlier writing included conjecture on his part, being in that at that time a full understanding of primal theory and therapy was still being discovered and some of what he wrote was his musings on what the therapy probably was, such as for instance I may be wrong but I seem to recall his conjecture that probably eventually housewives could be trained to help people do primal therapy. I think very, very few people are the kind who can be good primal therapists, so I believe he was wrong on that hopeful and idealistic conjecture of his…if I’m correct in my recollection of him writing it.
Larry: I beg to differ here, as my take on Primal THEORY, was correct from the start. It could have been explained more simply, but Art was going through a lot at the time, on several levels to write books, run a therapeutic organization, train others to do the therapy and upgrading the process as he and his staff saw fit, calling in other therapist to keep some semblance on an even keel …Quite a task … IMO.
The discovery never changed, nor was it (to the best of my ability) needed. I was a very simple discovery, that we humans were able to relive, long forgotten events in our lives /that simple.
Of course, there were factions among some of those early trainees … who I assumed wanted to go off and do the therapy their own way. Hence, a lot of criticism of Art at the time.
As an aside:- I feel I got a good grasp of what this therapy was about from the ‘get-go’, just reading “The Primal Scream”
Jack
Guru,
interesting thought experiment, but in my opinion it does only shift the responsibilities to that imaginary advanced group of ‘superhuman’ to take care of their environment, and offers a delusional lack of responsibility to the artificially created virtual persons.
and it lacks credibility for many reasons, for example the details of our inner life influenced by an infinity of experiences, seems to say the least a bit hard to program, theoretically only not impossible, in reality impossible.
just an inward look will clarify this point, just think of all the little memories, trivial for a story line but important to the person, like memories of a specific butterfly or flower for example.
and as I say, even if true it would not change one bit to reality, only offer a crazy excuse to the believers their responsibility is only a virtual one.
kind of makes me think of Scientology and its craziness and exploitation of the naive, different but equally far fetched.
but the question is why would it comfort you? or was this just your sarcastic sense of humor?
M
Margaret, you are right that I do take some comfort from the simulation hypothesis along with Tom Clark’s naturalism essays. Just because something might be comforting doesn’t make it less true, I might add.
I’m not prepared to debate this issue right now, no, but I will say you may be vastly underestimating what computers from millions or even BILLIONS of years in the future could be capable of.
We went from Pong to virtual reality headsets in just 50 years already.
Instead of pixels that form the basic building blocks of today’s computer simulations, the post-human simulation building blocks could be sub-atomic particles themselves. In other words, an incomprehensibly sophisticated simulation from the vantage point of our primitive minds.
Artificial intelligence can already beat the world’s best GO players with regularity, and this is a game which actually involves creative instincts on top of the stodgy old logic chess games require. Imagine how sophisticated those computers will be billions of years henceforth. All human memories would be a ‘piece of cake’ for them to handle.
Margaret, there’s a huge website completely devoted to the simulation argument, far more than I could ever provide,,so if you or anyone else is remotely interested, here is the address: simulation-argument.com
No biggie either way; I just don’t have the personal resources to fight this out myself to any extent.
Ugg, are you sure Patrick wasn’t talking about me? That characterization doesn’t sound like Larry at all. I, on the other hand, can be both smug and priestly. And Patrick did call me many things. This could easily have been one of them. Also, a “smug priest” reminds me of Judas Priest. I’m not a big fan of them but I do like this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coA75uoMF40
There’s only one way to know for sure, and unfortunately for many that will require someone asking Patrick himself, I personally remember it as Patrick describing Larry as the ‘smug priest’.
Who wants to contact him to get to the bottom of this? I’ll volunteer, even though it’s been a few years since we talked. Anyone have his contact info?
By the way, I think Larry acknowledged remembering this event himself, anyway, based on what he said about it bounding off of him as it would a….never mind…
I don’t remember the “smug” but I do remember Patrick often referring to me as a priest when he didn’t like my comments to him. I found his label for me humorous because I’m the furthest you can be from being religious or from falling in line with an agenda other than my own, although the label obviously had some meaning for him signifying something about me that irritated him. If I irritated him I’m glad if it caused him in any way to pause and reflect on his “reprehensible personality issues” as you describe him. Beyond that, I hope he’s doing OK.
And clearly, despite your denial something I said irritated you, UG, to cause you to feel comfortable to categorize me as a “smug priest”.
Just go back and look for the posts. I think they are still accessible.
Guru: Patrick is in contact with me and sends me sites to read that he feels develops his argument/s. I read them, but they do not comport with anything that I am aware of in the present and certainly looking back into my childhood don’t really bring up anything special for me.
However, over time he’s done me some favours and though I don’t feel the need to pay him back I sort of in my own naïve way feel there is somethin in our communication/s … otherwise I would not respond to him.
Jack
I don’t like if he called you things Renee. I feel that for everyone’s sake including their own, people should try to see and understand each other and not resort to just labeling the other person in a derogatory manner, but it seems like an ideal that human kind has yet to achieve.
Larry: We humans have been promoting this idea that we should understand one another when as I see it, it’s impossible to ever see clearly where the other person is coming from.
Religion was borne out of that notion in the hope we could all live in peace and we’ve NEVER had it (peace) and we’ll never get it. It’s a fundamental part of neurosis.
The only solutions i can see it to rid ourselves of this insidious disease … but here I put myself out on a limb
Jack
Leslie, it’s hard to hear how you see me with those positive attributes, because I tend to see myself in negative ways. What you said about me hurts, but in a good way. Thanks Leslie. I miss seeing and hearing from you and Barry. I don’t like how my community has shrunk due to the pandemic.
Yes, it was a beautiful experience to have two people talk over me and tell me how hopeless I am without being directly acknowledged at all. Beautiful stuff, thank you!
Today’s blogging has irritated me enough to where I am now having serious eye floaters …long strings of kaleidoscope colors across my entire field of view. I have to step away from this.
Please explain more about what that is all about. Let us know you better.
In any attempt to directly acknowledge you, you vanish, UG.
(My eye floaters have subsided now.)
In your conversation with Leslie you pointed out how you are the stronger and better man for facing your issues, while I am the sad and pathetic man mired in a hellhole.
You and Leslie had a happy giddy glee time over that one, didn’t you? Using me as a scapegoat? The weak man the healthy Primal patients can look down on?
This, to me, is the very essence of smug priesthood, so I am feeling more strongly about my assessment now.
If you think I am having a happy, glee time at your expense, you are reading a lot into my feelings that absolutely isn’t true. Furthermore, I don’t know any primal patients who see themselves as strong and healthy. Quite the contrary we are really good at focusing on our flaws and shortcomings. Obviously though we are in this therapy because we are experiencing and do feel we’re on a path to becoming a stronger, healthier version of ourselves (although too slowly for our liking), and have every reason to assume that participants on this blog are on the same quest, so we try to help each other along that very difficult and painful route. It is a most painful and difficult one that really all of us would rather avoid if there was an easier way to resolve our trauma. You’re the first person I connected with way back when the blog started 11 years ago and I care about you UG. I wish there was an easy way to lift everyone’s suffering, including yours.
Guru, I don’t think your characterization of Leslie M and Larry is correct at all. That they were gleefully discussing how together they were while celebrating how pathetic you are. I think they were trying to address the specifics of what you said. Whether this was originally addressed to Renee or Larry I don’t think either could be described as smug or priestly. But why even consider the words of someone you describe as reprehensible with personality issues.? This would not be the best source of insight into others. I also believe Larry was trying to point out that it came across as an angry comment which might be better expressed more directly. You have brought up the Leslie Pam comment before which is both out of context and not exactly what was said. The implication being that he does not believe in therapy or in what Art had to say. This is 100 percent inaccurate. I think you know that. Maybe the point is we did not and should not consider Art a guru who we must at all times agree with. We have every possible personality and belief system showing up at the institute. We are all free to see things as we wish to. I believe that is why it is important to look inward when it comes to your religious beliefs. I think whatever guilt or angst you have about religion has zero to do with whatever Art believed. As for Elon Musk, I don’t think even Musk believes that theory. For me there is not the slightest possibility of that being anyones reality however I do wonder what’s comforting about it ? Maybe it’s the idea that no one would die. We all do die however and what happens after that none of us really knows. I think if you could begin talking about some of the issues surrounding your moms death , things you have possibly avoided, maybe some of these other things would take on less significance. Obviously you are free to do whatever you choose to I just think the direction you are hanging on to might be keeping you stuck. Gretchen
To Gretchen, I’m not going to address each and every item you said here individually. For now I do take some issue with your saying you don’t think Elon Musk believes the simulation theory, Would you enjoy it if I said I don’t think Art believes what he was saying, either?
More to the point, though, I do encourage you to check the 3-4 minute interview clip from the Vox article. Perhaps with that viewing you will reconsider that Musk doesn’t believe his own words.
https://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11837608/elon-musk-simulation-argument
Wait a minute, if Larry is the special one with the gloriously fullfilled glamorous life while I am the sad sack in the pathetic hellhole, why did Leslie feel the need to jump in and support HIM instead of me? Isn’t that simply contributing to the inequality?
I wish my life was a special one with a glamorous and gloriously fulfilled life. It sounds like you are talking about some other Larry. I struggle with having to cope with a great empty void in my life, that goes back to early childhood. I’m jealous of what other people have that I don’t, especially when it comes to relationships, particularly now during COVID19 lockdown. I ache for hug and touch and reassurance. I’m tired and almost afraid of how alone I am. But in the dark, lonely midnight, no one can live our life for us and we are the only one who can play as best we can the hand we’ve been dealt. If you want more attention and support UG, let us into your life more, let us know you more.
OK, let me rewind this conversational spool a bit:
–I came onto the blog espousing this cool new theory about life likely being a simulation
–As usual, I am challenged from all corners, such as from Gretchen, Margaret, etc. in spite of the viewpoint being considered viable by various intellectual luminaries such as Nick Bostrom and Elon Musk, etc.
–As Larry had already known for a long time, I never really liked Janov that much (which is why I went to Viv’s place) yet he says I don’t have any legitimate grounds to have gripes against him.
–This irritates me, but instead of explaining it directly I made the mistake of bringing up the ‘smug priest’ comment of old from Patrick
–This seems to irritate Leslie, thus she places me in the ‘illegitimate doghouse’ with Patrick by only lending support to Larry,
–This irritates me as well. I don’t need support from Leslie, but her interruption just seemed really rude to me overall.
–The conversation then morphed itself into a constellation of all the different things that are wrong with the Guru and his way of thinking
–It’s been a messy outcome when my original intent was a limited showing of the simulation hypothesis.
OK, I’m about ready to pack this in, I think.
You’re putting your own spin and meaning on what I said UG and it’s not mine. On Aug 13, 10:18 pm you write about me “yet he says I don’t have any legitimate grounds to have gripes against him” but I never said any such thing. Sure, I’ve known for years that you have gripes against Janov and I’ve never or have barely argued with you about it, except maybe in the beginning when I was getting to know you.
My intent in what I wrote to you on Aug 13, 7:33 am was to point out my perceived flaw in your thinking. My argument with you is how can you blame Janov for your current views, which you seem to be doing in your sentence “It would have been nice if I had read something like this article below for myself before I ran into Janov’s materials instead of bumping into this 25 years later carrying a more damaged outlook:” How can he be held responsible for the many diverse views people take upon reading his work, when the views are as different as there are different personalities with different life experiences?
In sharing mine, I wasn’t saying that my life is magnificent. To the contrary it pains me to accept that there are great voids and deficits in mine. What I was sharing with you is that my views on life after reading Janov’s early work, are different from yours and reading Janov has nothing to do with it. My views on life likely are partly influenced by my fascination with biology and the evolution of life on earth. I’ve been fascinated since high school with the mystery of what is Life. Over the decades since high school I’ve read and learned how from the beginning of the universe the incredible and complex interactions of physics and chemistry and circumstances co-evolved to the emergent property of life and us. When I look up at and contemplate the stars or the moon or the sun, I marvel at what an incredible story Life is, and that in a few more billion years it will certainly come to an end on Earth when our planet is baked to a crisp by our exploding, dying sun.
None of these views of mine have anything to do with Janov’s writing. I feel that in the vastness of the universe my life is a meaningless speck of a fraction of a blip in time. Yet to me my life is the most meaningful thing there is, and given that it is still full of deficits and childhood pain, and knowing that my time is soon coming to an end, I strive to make what remains of mine more meaningful. Janov’s discoveries help me to do that. My views are mine arrived at by me on my own. I’m just saying that I feel you do yourself a disservice if you blame Janov for corrupting your views, that you would do yourself better if you could take charge of your life instead of blaming others and circumstances for it. That’s my wish for you.
The implication in what you wrote that Janov corrupted your views prompted my need to share this with you. If it isn’t useful to you, I take it all back and feel free to ask Gretchen or Atty to delete it from the blog..
Your post has left me so angry and irritated I am going to need a punching bag. It’s going to be an excruciating process for me to go line by line, disagreeing strongly with about 75-80% of what you said. Yesterday, I had eye floaters and vertigo because I was so pissed.
Optimally for me, I really wish you hadn’t said a word after I mentioned having a damaged viewpoint. I wanted to spend ONE SENTENCE ranting, yet you had to pour your whole heart into trying to refute ONE FUCKING SENTENCE about your precious idol that I said in passing to relieve my own personal tension Why couldn’t you just let it go instead of annoying the shit out of me with some sort of self-righteous argument laid out in florid terms?
One lousy fucking sentence and you want to tear it apart like a wild animal.
.
A punching bag is a great idea, Ugg. Btw, I think that some peoples’ reactions to you was mean-spirited and hurtful. I also think that it could be helpful that, in the future, if you just want one sentence to rant to relieve personal tension, and do not want feedback, to let everyone know. I guess hindsight is always 20/20 (I think that’s the saying).
Renee, now this was a wonderful intervention and I was suddenly viewing you as as a morphine-like angel as opposed to Leslie’s naloxone appearance earlier. But then I noticed you has a short jovial response to Larry, which docked you a few points. Nonetheless, thank you.,
Guru: I am really curious. What brought you into Primal therapy in the first place … Then, at what point did you feel it all went wrong?
Jack
Jack, we’re digging way back into a state of mind I had during the 1990’s. It seems quite irrelevant today except as a story for bored people. I didn’t even say ‘therapy went wrong’. I suppose I am saying I wish I had discovered certain things in my life sooner and other things later on, so I could have made wiser decisions throughout.
I didn’t like addressing your question because you refused to directly discuss any points at all about the simulation argument.
In all sincerity, excluding all news reports, when was the last time you deeply studied and absorbed any non-Janov concepts?
I’m impressed UG, to see you bouncing back and staying in the thick of it, replying and interacting when before you would have stayed away for weeks or months after informing that you felt overwhelmed by what someone said to you.
Guru: You ask:- “when was the last time you deeply studied and absorbed any non-Janov concepts?”.
I do it all the time:- Here’s my book list:- Bibliography
“Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches”, Random House, 1974 by Marvin Harris
“Summerhill”, Hart Publishing Company, 1960 by A. S. Neill
“A Brief History of Time”, Bantam Books, 1988 by Stephen W. Hawking
“Seven Laws of Money” Random House, 1974 by Michael Phillips
“Das Kapital” Verlag van Otto Meissner 1867 by Karl Marx
“Birth Without Violences” Newmarket Press 1990 by Dr. Frédérick
LeBoyer
“Continuum Concept”, Perseus, 1977 by Jean Liedloff
“Real Fatherhood”, 1st Books Library, 2002 by Bob Kamm
“The X-Rated Bible” Feral House, 1998 by Ben Edward Akerley
“Center of the Cyclone”, New York Julian Press, 1972 by John C. Lilly
“Language, Thought, and Reality”, Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf M.
L. T. Press, 1956 by John B. Carroll
“Cure By Crying” published by the author 1995 Thomas A. Stone
“Use of the Self” E. P. Dutton 1932 Frederick Maithers Alexander
…………………….
One last one that so far as I currently understnd it, is not a book:- “The work of Pierre Joseph Proudhon
Jack
Renee, I misread what took place with your 2020 comment, and I now see that you were talking to no one in particular with Larry only making an appearance beyond your control, Therefore, I am refunding your points I docked along with a small apology bonus. Enjoy!
No problem, Ugg, I’m sure I misread things at times too. As for Larry making an appearance beyond my control……I don’t think Larry has ever made an appearance, or done anything else for that matter, that is in my control! On the other hand, giving, docking, or refunding points is all about control, IMO. Wouldn’t you agree?
I’d better tackle this in my next post before text becomes too slender.
What precious idol are you talking about? I can’t think of any that I have. You certainly have a penchant for misrepresenting me.
I wrote “My intent in what I wrote to you on Aug 13, 7:33 am was to point out my perceived flaw in your thinking.” Listen, if you disagree with me on that, as it seems that you do, then so be it, I accept that we disagree and can let it be.
If what you want is to rant and have people not react to it, then you should introduce the rant as such when you post it. I’d have no trouble adhering to your wishes and ignoring your comment if it is a rant that you want no reaction to. I can’t read your mind and know what you want from us.
The feature article in the Feb 1-7, 2000 issue of the New Scientist magazine is “What Is Reality?”. One of the aspects presented in it is Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument, which the article’s author concludes with “Even if simulations vastly outnumber non-simulations, there is still a base level of reality in which the first simulation was or will be created. The nature of that real reality will still demand an explanation, and so the ulitmate quest goes on.”, which falls in line with my thinking. In the entire feature article the comments that struck me as most astute were “We percieve the world in relation to what we already believe” and “We literally see the world as we want it to be.”, to which I would add…until we let evidence convince us to change our views at the risk of it feeling painful to do so.
Larry, since we have known each other for 11 years…you did bring up a good point with that, I think it’s time you know something about me. I’m going to send you a mail to this effect.
I just canceled the ride I ordered to visit my mom today.
it is a cheap taxi service by volunteers for elderly people or disabled ones.
but they picked out that one driver that I do not trust, there is always a problem with him, misunderstandings about the pick up time, him making weird moves in traffic, and smoking in his car, which is not clean and very small, so I do not trust he would be using a clean face mask or be there in time to drive me back home for example, and worry about a possible Corona risk.
I even dreamed about it, and realized myself I also feel insecure about ordering a taxi because of the Corona risk, it is a long drive, two times, so possibly two different drivers and getting stuck in traffic jams as there are huge road works going on for several days.
it feels bad to cancel the visit to mom, but it felt bad imagining going there while feeling too stressed and worried.
my brother said he would go next week, and mom’s favorite caretaker is working again, sending all kinds of short videos in which she is very happy feeding the chickens or walking under the trees etc.
so well, it feels bad but it feels like the choice I had to make, as I have learned the good and the hard way to trust my instincts.
will call mom as I always do of course…
part of me feels bad about myself for ‘taking the easy way out’, but well, I called the taxi service asking them about which driver it really was, and they could not clarify entirely if it really was the one I dislike, so I kept the ride.
it felt stressful but well, I wanted to cope.
but then they accidentally called me again by using a repeat key on their phone, so it felt like yet another opportunity, or ‘signal’, so i told them to cancel anyway.
I am a bit torn between my need to go visit mom, for her and for myself, and my worry and concern for a possible corona risk that is too big in this case to my feeling, a driver I don’t trust, and possibly me just not feeling up to it, I only fear the dreadful idea lock down will hit again just now and this might have been my last opportunity for a visit.
but well, that does not seem about to happen as far as I know, so maybe I should give myself a break…
all the stress I started feeling did not feel healthy for me either, and I know if mom would know she would tell me to stay home.
life can be sad at times …
M
I don’t think you took the easy way out at all Margaret. I feel that you did the responsible thing for the long term good of everyone, which usually isn’t easy to do.
You’ll go next time. Positive your mom okay with everything. Who knows? Maybe she picking up that you are sometimes operating out of a sense of duty or obligation and she doesn’t want that. When my mother alive in her last few years when I visited her in Oklahoma (I’m living in California now) I was subjected to endless stories I’d heard before but I did develop a bit more self-discipline. I came to realize more clearly that SHE had dreams of her own that maybe she wasn’t able to completely fulfill, natural gifts she wasn’t able to exploit and of course a sometimes very interesting and funny life, especially during World War II.
Larry probably right. “Forgive yourself”, love yourself and in many ways, consider yourself lucky. In the very least you read “The Primal Scream”, didn’t you?
guru,
you seem to be considering my comment to you as criticism, while I did not criticize you or the article at all.
just gave my opinion about the thought experiment.
and asked you a few questions, if that feels like a challenge that is unwelcome, why did you post it at all? what did you hope for?
M
Larry,
I liked very much what you wrote to Guru, and share your fascination for biology, and the mystery of life and the marvelousness of the universe.
also the seeming contradiction between the importance of our own life to us and the feeling it is infinitely unimportant in the grand scheme is often on my mind.
and then i also liked what you wrote to me, even while it is still hard to entirely let it i.
it is true the concern kept me awake for a while last night and then when i finally slept I still dreamed about it, in the dream explaining to my brother why I felt the two options, this volunteer driver or regular taxi drivers, did not feel safe to me at this point.
so yes, it was taking my responsibility to a large degree, and the rest is probably loaded with old feeling….
I miss being with my mom, she makes me feel like I matter I guess, and I do feel safe in her company and loved…
I am also aware how I project on her feelings of loneliness and fear, while she has those at times of course, but in my perception it is also loaded with my own loneliness.
i wish I was still able to jump in my car and drive up there whenever feeling like it…
but we both do know life is not always fulfilling our wishes, isn’t it Larry?
you are definitely not a smug priest, but a fighter in your own way.
it might be easier for some to regard your generosity and friendliness as priest like instead of reflecting about possible differences with their own attitudes in life.
good you have the duck’s qualities to let irrelevant criticism flow off your shiny feathers!
M
Thanks Margaret. I think John Lennon said in a song something like life is what happens when you’re making other plans. That phrase seems to capture how our wishes aren’t always fulfilled..
Is hindsight even more 20/20 when you have the hindsight in 2020?
Probably less I think. 🙂
Guru,
As you seem angry by most, if not all replies to your comment, including the ones that did not criticize you in any way, it feels to me like you are setting yourself up to not getting any feedback at all anymore, or hardly any at least.
you put me among the list you did not seem to like, but never respond to any of my questions, of which none were meant as criticism, on the contrary.
i find it hard to believe you really would prefer no reactions to what you write, generally speaking, so maybe give this some thought?
not a criticism, but concern.
M
Margaret, yes I need TONS of mental freedom, mental space now. As you may know my ma worked on very early computing for investment banks,arms companies, etc. MY brain was likely at the very beginnings of being properly wired for a high-grade military industrial pursuit such as what she followed.
When she died I went through a massive upheaval (a sampling of Art’s favorite polemics) in terms of how I shoudl focus my own brain, shifting towards research into “How did my life go wrong?}” I had to seriously pusue liberal arts matters, ethics, psychology, etc. All the soft sciences took precedence on an emergency basis in order to find the answers I need because society didn’t give a shit enough about it beyond a deeply buried 130 word article in a single newspaper. Contrast this with the $2 million often spent to take all necessary precautions keeping a murderer from being executed, etc.
Anyway, I have all the soft science answers I needed for a fair bit of time now (10 years or so). It’s been a struggle to retrain my brain back to where it was originally intended…computing and finance. My brain hates it because it’s been anchored in an emergency direction for so long, yet I know it needs to be re-oriented towards the original configuration from when I was 2 or younger.
My prose writing has been butchered trying to rearrange everything towards the new tools I need to build instead of the useless crap I needed to take in as a response to an old emergency.
Guru, I have already seen that link. I can only say it is hard to imagine that he believes this. But maybe I just don’t understand what he is saying. Am I correct that he is theorizing that all life could be a simulation? If so yes I have a hard time imagining that he actually believes that. But let’s say he does or let’s go further and say it’s true….now what? As far as your question “ how would I feel if you said Art did not believe in Primal” , well first of all you say that as though it’s something you would not dream of doing. You have in fact said things about Art that I knew to be untrue . I would and have simply told you why I believed you to be wrong and why. Look this is a Primal blog where people will say how they feel. As long as it is straight and direct I think we can pretty much not only expect that but hope for it. I think when we write our thoughts or feelings on a public blog you are likely to get differing viewpoints in return. As long as we are not saying things merely to provoke or hurt others ( which of course helps no one) then I think it’s fair to assume we will get responses. Actually it’s fair to assume you want responses. We all clearly know the difference between hearing something that is deliberately meant to hurt us and hearing something that is painful for personal reasons. We also know when we are the one being deliberately nasty and when we are simply saying what we believe to be true and might possibly be useful. I hope you don’t ask that people not give you their honest responses. I want to be direct with people and I want the same in return. Key word is direct. There are support groups where no matter what you say you will be given someones version of reparenting. Whatever works I say great but that just would not work for me. Gretch
Sent from my iPad
Let me keep the focus on Musk with this one, for you are quite often raising a broad range of issues which require a LOT of work to address piecemeal.
I know you clicked on the link to the webpage, but I am explicitly referring to the YouTube video attached to it. Musk had spent a long time in hot tubs and with his brother thinking about this simulation hypothesis, so it seems clear to me he is on the level and he believes what he is saying.
I want to add that ‘all of life being a simulation’, can entail numerous differing possibilities that we as a society aren’t even remotely close to understanding at this point in time.
Larry mentioned our staggeringly tiny stature in the universe, which is true….and it reminds me that I can casually and thoughtlessly run my own simulation just flicking some stale water in a petri dish to watch the bacterial colonies grow.
Our universe could be something akin to the humble drops of water flicked within that dish as an afterthought by a post-human civilization way beyond our current understanding.
I realize you asked, “Even if we agree that Musk is a believer, what then? What comes after that?” I can’t address such questions, for all I have the energy to do today is to narrowly and simply address your original assertion that he didn’t believe his own words.
Other than that I am just too tired to go on.
The video game theory of our origins is so convoluted, and Musk believing it doesn’t add any value for me. Nor does it ultimately answer the question. It’s not that imaginative in that it projects human characteristics onto hypothetical super advanced aliens. Besides fantastic video game devices, their cell phones must be out of this world. They have created a Trump character for their game, but I hope he can soon be defeated and/or maybe replaced by newly empowered characters this season. It should entertaining. Phil
Phil, for what it’s worth I think the title of the article I linked was poorly worded. “Video game” is a very bad term to use for any possible future simulation taking place billions of years from now. Creatures from that era might not even have eyes!
This is a continuation post for Renee:
I’m putting your writing in text so I can carefully respond. Mercifully your post is short and only needs to be broken up into two parts. When Gretchen wrote earlier there were 10 different pieces which needed work and I just can’t take all that on!
“I don’t think Larry has ever made an appearance, or done anything else for that matter, that is in my control!”
–There are three possibilities here:
a) Renee says something to no one in particular, Larry responds out of the blue (Larry is in control)
b) Renee specifically asks for Larry’s attention in a post (Renee is in partial control, and so is Larry)
c) Renee responds to something Larry writes (Renee is in control)
So, when I referred to Larry responding beyond your control, that scenario represented only one out of three possibilities and needed to be clarified.
“On the other hand, giving, docking, or refunding points is all about control, IMO. Wouldn’t you agree?”
–You can decide not to play the game in the first place, right? You have some measure of control there. I’m highly reluctant to answer your question because I sense a strong underlying agenda just waiting to pop out underneath that question. What might that be?
Ugg, I disagree with you regarding the issue of control on the blog. When any of us post something on the blog, we are in full control. We have no control over if or how anyone chooses to respond, regardless of whether we are asking for the specific attention of someone in particular or not. And as readers, we are in full control of if and how we choose to respond to any given post, regardless of whether someone is specifically asking for our attention. There is no such thing as partial control, IMO. I would suggest that if we do not feel we are in control, chances are good we are triggered/in a feeling about something, when we likely didn’t have control.
I agree with you about giving and taking away points. I can indeed choose not to play the game (a benefit to being an adult on a blog and not a child in a family that uses rewards and punishments). I am not seeing any underlying agenda for asking my question about points being about control. If you think you are seeing an underlying agenda on my part about this, or anything else for that matter, please share your ideas. It could be an opportunity for me to grow. On the other hand, I think it is much easier to focus on others’ hidden agendas, real or imagined, and much harder to reflect on the possibility that we might have our own.
Things have settled down for now, so I will post this small response to Renee.
Your post is nice and simple to take apart into two pieces here.
–That’s fine if you disagree with me about usage of the term ‘partial control’. For now, I would firmly believe in its usage because of so many complex life situations being better explained through a broad illustrative canvas, at least for myself. I’m more than happy to walk away from this one amicably agreeing to disagree with you. It touches upon so many different things about psychosocial influences and deep philosophical questions as to whether we are truly creatures of free will. I happen to think there is a continuum between full free will and no free will.
–OK, now as for your second part regarding the points. I put this topic in the back of my head for a day for deeper processing and realized my usage of the word ‘agenda’ was mistaken. Rather, I should have used ‘part of a broader thinking archetype’ you happen to have. Parts of the archetype including:
-The white Western male is mostly in control of socioeconomic and educational channels.
-Points involve numbers and control
-You don’t like numbers
-You don’t like the current enforced power structures as you’ve explained in the past.
There might be one or two other thought pieces as part of your personal belief system. I was reluctant to answer your question about numbers being about control since answering in the affirmative could potentially lead to implicit agreement with other points in your archetype list since they could be loosely connected with deeply held common roots. I hope that makes sense??
(Yuck, that last paragraph was poorly written, I was in a bit of a hurry jotting down thoughts.)
Ugg, you asked if what you wrote makes sense. Actually, it doesn’t. At least not to me. Since you very graciously say that, “I’m more than happy to walk away from this one amicably agreeing to disagree with you”, I will take you up on this offer. I feel happy that I can leave you more than happy. 😀
You quickly went to respond to Larry’s post right after I posted mine, yet you waited two days to tell me this bit of negative news “it doesn’t make sense, but I hope I can leave you happy”?
I don’t know….I still get the sense you’re pissed off about something else (away from the blog) that triggered you today, so you decided to come back and take a mild swipe at me as you may not want to reveal the actual trigger here.
I didn’t feel like I was taking a swipe at you, Ugg, and I’m not angry with you about anything. I like you. Could it be possible that you’re angry with me about something?
No, that’s not possible.
That’s funny! And pigs can fly. And hell will freeze over. And you really are a guru. You crack me up! 😂😂😂
in the small hours of the night I finally got some emotional resolution.
I had been feeling bad, missing visiting my mom but the feeling was worsened by vague feelings of guilt and self doubt.
had I made the wrong decision not to go last Friday and what had been my true motives?
I thought of what Larry had said, that it did not seem like I had chosen the easy way out.
i did know I certainly felt sad about not being able to see my mom, especially as next Friday my brother will go and for Corona only one person is allowed in.
so there will be three weeks for me not seeing her when I wait until the Friday of the following week.
so yes, that feels sad, as everything is so insecure these days.
but still the feeling was increased as I said by my doubts about my decision.
so at some point I focused on how I would have felt if I would have decided to drive up there with that driver I did not trust?
my fears would not have been so much for myself, but mostly for the risk of bringing the virus into the nursing home that way.
then finally I felt again how if I would have visited that way, it would have felt really wrong, then my motives would have felt wrong, i would have allowed my own need to take the lead and I would have felt bad and dishonest and selfish.
so I realize myself I really did make a sacrifice, for which I now can feel the pure sadness without the interfering feelings of guilt and doubt.
I did what felt right, to me, for me and for mom and for the entire nursing home.
it feels more peaceful now, but also very sad and scary, as the fear always exists a lock down can be installed again at any given moment impeding visits for months while mom is approaching 90.
but even while it makes me very sad now it feels like I did make the right decision.
and Fred, no, to me it does not feel like a duty or a chore, I enjoy visiting my mom and being with her and I miss it now.
it is very lucky I can still talk with her on the phone despite her memory problems.
yesterday she spontaneously told me she feels good, and she added and if sometimes I do not feel good, that is OK as well.
that was very nice to hear and makes me feel once more what a strong and admirable lady she really is.
I am so proud of her.
m
Margaret, I think you made the right decision. It sounds like acted with a lot of integrity and selflessness.
I agree.
Anyone looking for a good novel to get into? I just finished reading “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides. It is a psychological thriller and the narrator is a therapist. It is about therapy, power, truth, lies, being alive and dead at the same time, passion, obsession and jealousy. I love novels that I just can’t put down and leave me guessing what the end will be until the very end. This was definitely one of those books.
Here is another, not about the same theme though. With absorption I recently watched the Netflix documentary about the author Toni Morrison, who I’ve heard of before but didn’t know anything about. In getting to know and like her thru the documentary, I discovered that in1993 she won the Nobel prize in literature, and I got interested to read some of her work, all of which is about the effect on the human soul of being a slave or a child of a slave in the early history of the US. Of the many books she’s authored, I’m reading “Beloved”. Rarely can I get interested in reading fiction, but her genius and talent as an author and her empathy for her people pulls me right in to her message unfolding on the page. Despite the other movies and books I’ve read on the subject, “Beloved” opens me in new and deeper way to a world I have no direct experience of and gives me more empathy and insight regarding the plight of black people whose ancestors were slaves in the US and Canada say about 150 years ago.
I feel wary of posting this, that doing so will stir up controversy. Any way, here goes “Post Comment”.
Larry, I also saw the Toni Morrison movie. I really liked it. I think she was brilliant. This is my favorite interview of her which I think it is in the movie. She is talking about the “white gaze” and the invisibility of whiteness, which I find so interesting and so true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kgq3F8wbYA&t=2s. I have her book “Beloved” and have tried several times to read it. But there is something about her writing style that I struggle with. Do you know what I mean? But hearing that you have been able to understand her writing makes me want to attempt to read it again. As for stirring up controversy……what’s wrong with that? I actually see it as stirring up discomfort more than controversy. Sometimes learning and growing involves discomfort. At least it has been for me.
Yes Renee that interview clip was in the movie. That inteview made me think about what the concept of the white gaze means to a non-white minority living in the white majority in Canada and the US.
I read the forward to “Beloved” in which she explains that in writing the book she wanted to create a sense of chaos in the reader to convey a feeling of the sense of chaos of the soul that the slaves lived with, in that children were born and auctioned off, families and communities were broken apart when slaves were bought and sold like commodities and subjected to the whims of the personality of whoever was their owner and who had total control and power over the slaves lives.
When I began reading the book I carried on in spite of the confusion and after a few chapters the story began to tie together better for me. Then I went back to re-read those first few chapters and they made more sense. I’ll give you a couple of tips. “Here Boy” is a dogs name. Baby Suggs is the grandmother. Several men with the first name Paul are mentioned, Paul A, Paul D, and Paul F. I don’t remember reading whether they are from the same family or not. Some of the episodes presented are described in what seems like a dreamlike state. For me that suggests that the experience was so overwhelming that the character escaped reality some as a way to distance from the experience of it.
The presence of ghosts or spirits seems to be a reality for the characters in the book. I’m going with the idea that ghosts are a literary device that she uses to represent the feeling of horror and impending doom that haunts the characters lives. I also feel that the reality to the characters of spirits conveys to me the characters sense of isolation, in that never having had the chance to get an education, and overwhelmed by emotional pain that they can’t talk about or share with anyone or resolve, they can feel bonded to one another in a belief that spirits have a hand in affecting peoples lives.
I rarely read fiction because the story nearly always seems predictable and rarely as fascinating to me as reality. Because of the way Toni Morrison writes, I don’t find Beloved predictable at all, and I feel I’m getting a lot of insight from it about the reality of the black slave experience.
I think you’re right, sometimes growing and learning involves discomfort. But sometimes it’s a lot of wasted time and energy of people arguing with each other and getting nowhere and I’d rather steer clear of that kine of discomfort.
Larry, I am quite impressed and surprised at your knowledge, understanding and articulating of the major themes in “Beloved”. Reading what you wrote reminded me of the Coles notes I would read in high school when I didn’t understand a book but had to write about it. Based on what you have written, I will try again and see if I can get into it.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but I’m assuming that when you refer to discomfort from learning that you call “a lot of wasted time and energy of people arguing with each other and getting nowhere”, you are referring to my conversation/discussion/argument with Daniel. If that is the case, I have a few comments. Firstly, that is your interpretation which is fine. I see it differently though. I believe that Daniel has said that his contributions are his commitment to trying to make the world a better place. By trying to get me to see that my views, unlike his, are those of an “ideologue” and are ill-informed and offensive, he thinks I will be able to change. Of course, I disagree with this. I think it is futile trying to change others. If Daniel saw his contributions as a waste of time and energy, I’m assuming he would stop. For me, I feel that I am getting somewhere with my contributions. I do think it is helpful, as long as I am letting myself have all the feelings that get triggered and taking breaks when I need to. Daniel is helping me grow in facing some of the pain my brother caused me. I’ve written about this before. Daniel is also helping me practice expressing my views (after feeling the feelings) in at least a somewhat coherent and clear way……at least some of the time. This is never easy for me, also for reasons I’ve written about before. So, this experience is anything but, what you call, “wasted time” for me. Since you stated that you are trying to “steer clear of that kind of discomfort”, I hope you are allowing yourself not to read this stuff, or just skim over it.
Renee, I steer clear of arguments with someone or between people if I feel it is going or is likely to go nowhere. I’m not necessarily only referring to you and Daniel. When I do get into those kind of arguments, yes I find it is a learning experience…about me and about the person I happen to be arguing with. I’m glad you are learning something from it Renee. Good for you. Argue away. I stopped reading any dialogue between you and Daniel some months ago.
Larry, do you think there could be a feeling underneath your needing to steer clear once you’ve interpreted what is happening as an argument that is going nowhere? Rather than, for example, a heated discussion meandering and not knowing how it will end? Just curious. The idea of “going nowhere” reminds me of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTASLx9PeeA. I find it interesting that the idea of something or someone “going nowhere” can be steer cleared of or embraced, as John Lennon did when he wrote this song.
Quite the contrary Renee. It’s when there is a feeling underneath then I fail to steer clear of getting caught up in an argument that’s going nowhere. It’s when there is no feeling underneath then I’m more likely to form a clear assessment of the person and how far to engage in a heated meandering discussion not knowing how it will end. Those kind are usually productive, often bringing me and that person to a better understanding of each other and closer.
I’m surprised that you’re surprised, Renee. Sometimes I wonder who you think I am.
In high school I didn’t understand why we studied literature. Science and math were the only subjects worth studying I thought. I could never find in myself answers to the literary type questions asked about the story we were studying in class, except to parrot back on a test the answers that had been offered in class by the teacher and my more insightful class mates during class time discussion. On my own I was clueless about what the deeper meanings of the stories were and how the author brought them to the reader’s imagination.
Toward the end of my university student days, I became tired of science classes only. In discovering and exploring literary classics I discovered that reading them opened my imagination by introducing me to how the authors saw life. Then after I read the Primal Scream my insights about myself and other people began to awaken exponentially and I began to see more of the deeper meanings contained in stories in books and films.
Decades of life experience, decades of primaling, and decades of reading about how we got here culturally, psychologically, and biologically have given me a lot more insight into who we are than I ever had in high school. It seems to me that at their core literature, film, theatre and art are about feelings, and how the author/director tries to appeal to our senses and feelings to pull us into the story and have us care about his subject matter. If it isn’t done well, sometimes I don’t like how I’m being manipulated to become interested. Alternatively there might be no deeper meaning and the work might be of the kind that offers us a temporary escape from our lives. Or both.
I figure there isn’t an infinite number of literary devices. The ones that there are, are used over and over in different ways in literature and film, from what I can tell. I also feel that the awakening and insights gained from primaling profoundly deepens our experience of our lives and our insights about ourselves and other people, making it easier to grasp what authors and film directors are trying to do in their work.
As an aside, in this time of pandemic isolation, I’m getting tired of seeing the same themes presented over and over in television and films on Netflix. It’s becoming more difficult for me to find the gem of something new or something presented in a new way. I think I’m watching too much TV. In pandemic induced isolation my life has shrunk down too much to the confines of the couch and to the drug of virtual reality. My addiction helps me to not see that I’m too alone, and to not see how afraid I am to get off the couch alone to try to change it.
All of my primals stem from deprivation at the core of my life that perpetuates throughout it. I know to my distress that only I can make the transition from a life of relative deprivation to one of more fullfilment and meaning. Seems like most literary books and films are about people trying to make that sort of transition.
Larry, I’m glad you overcame your hesitation and posted the comment, which for me is not controversial at all.
One of my favourite short stories of recent years is Toni Morrison’s ‘Recitatif’, which deals with race relations in America in an ingenious and intimate way through the tale of the encounters between two women from their childhood in an orphanage and on through the years. It’s Morrison’s only short story; it’s from the 1980’s but quite apt for these days.
Larry and anyone else bothering to read this,
I personally don’t want to spend much if any time at all on race matters. 20,000 or more books have already been written and God only knows how many BILLIONS of hours on television and the internet has been spent on the matter, whereas only 6 books have been written on auto traffic collisions which have maimed and killed tens of millions across the globe and was a $20 million problem for me, personally.
I am only speaking for myself. I tend to tune out this and other topics as quickly as I can for similar reasons.
Sounds like you’re saying you’ve had your fill of everyone else’s problems and not enough attention given to yours. I agree vehicles can be dangerous and so I feel that anyone who gets behind the wheel needs to operate the vehicle responsibly with an awareness of the dangers of driving. I think many drivers operate their vehicle responsibly but I see many on the road who do not. That’s why I can’t completely trust the other driver to drive safely and keep their vehicle properly maintained, and that’s why I feel a lot better about owning a vehicle with a lot of high tech safety features that not only help protect me in an accident, but is on the alert for and ready to brake automatically to prevent collisions with pedestrians or objects in the vehicle’s path if I don’t react soon enough to brake. Sorry that your life has been so consumed by the accident that took your mother when you were far too young and totally needed her to help you become you prepared for adulthood, UG.
Larry, there’s a LOT more involved than just the idea of personal individual responsibility behind the wheel.
Why did we need to spread out to such a large landmass to demand people to risk their lives traversing such large distances every day in the first place, etc.?
(I have links that actually explore this urban planning problem, and how greedy people from the 1920’s and 1930’s actually began to stifle the original outrage felt at all the children being killed early in the 20th century so this country could expand in size, demanding everyone to drive more and more as a result…incurring higher death risk).
Also, if I operate a vehicle responsibly for 4,999 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds, and operate it irresponsibly or distracted for 1 single second, I can still be just as dead as someone who never operated responsibly for the entire 5,000 hours anyway!
Something about that really sucks.
There’s a GADZILLION things to talk about here, and I just cannot cover it all in my weakened state.
All I wanted to do was explain to the blog that race has become a news media monster I don’t \want to feed anymore if I can help it. When the fuck are they going to start paying attention to the shit I went through?
I have too many weird problems I have to deal with already without being burdened by a giant media telling me how I should think.
Hot weather has also returned in my area the past couple days, overtaking nice cooler temperatures. This has also contributed to my aggression and anger (some science does back this up).
More and more people across the globe are being pushed to the boiling point by the increasingly hotter weather. If we think we have social turmoil now, I see things getting worse, not better as global warming intensifies and we don’t get, strong, compassionate, wise, socially responsible leadership.
Guru: Your comment begs the questions:-
Why do we need to travel beyond walking?
What is so convenient about an auto mobile anyway?. In my younger days we had cheap public transport.
We flip around the planet and yet see very little of it
I’ve don more thn my fair share of all of them.
Jack.
I read and/or saw documentaries and historical videos about how in early 20th century cities people, horses and horse drawn wagons walked freely in the streets on their way to their businesses, shops and homes. Then when the early automobile came along, drivers were recklessly crashing into things in those crowded streets and as you say killing people and children. People were outraged of course, but instead of putting limits on the automobile, authorities pressured by business owners restricted people from being on the streets to free them almost entirely to automobile traffic. So we were born into the custom and expectation that it’s normal for automobiles to dominate our cities making them dangerous for pedestrians, and we are unaccustomed to the alternate reality that cities should be made for people and it is automobiles that should be restricted from the streets. I think European cities are ahead of North America in designing more people friendly cities. Sadly, I think it could be another decade before we are flooded with media attention directed toward what you went through UG. I’ve seen a few articles about how nice it was early in the pandemic to see no cars and more people (and wildlife) in the cities. One journalist whose article I read speculated that having had a taste of it, maybe more people will pressure politicians to not return to letting cars have free reign of the streets but instead make at least parts of cities more people friendly by restricting cars from the right to dominate our streets.
Larry, honestly I can’t open up a huge discourse on the transportation problem and what should be done about it. Your own efforts at doing so are well-regarded, and you have touched upon many items deserving of further exploration.
I just can’t do it myself, anymore. I’m going to be dealing with heat nausea over the next five days because I don’t use air conditioning anymore.
I try to put a positive light on things and I tell my concerned cousins that I will be having a free sauna all week long.
I wish for you cool nights UG, so you can at least sleep restfully.
Larry, thanks…yet I use 4 or more box fans at night. Most at ground level with 1-2 blowing air in from the prevailing wind direction after 10 PM at night and another fan on the other side of the house blowing air out.
Outward blowing fans upstairs to blow rising hot air out.
Fans are removed 6:30 AM and windows/shades shut to keep hot sunlight out.
All electric bills experience a savings of 60-70% compared to central air.
https://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cooling.html
The problem with fans only is that hot summer nights where temps never get lower than 75 F create a ‘cumulative effect’ day after day where heat builds up worse and worse.
This strategy has its limitations comfortwise..
All bills charged to my cash rewards credit cards and paid off each month.
Larry, this is going to be a short quibble over numerical items so no touchy feely stuff here. The raw savings of 4 fans as compared to my 3-ton central air unit is over 95%! Yes, 95%! The central AC using about 4,000 kWh of electricity while 4 fans total only use 200 kWh. The actual saving is lowered to 60-70% due to fixed monthly service charges and not the metered kWh usage.
Oslo, Norway is practically car free. Check out:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191011-what-happens-when-a-city-bans-car-from-its-streets
https://energynews.us/2019/07/15/northeast/in-norway-oslo-leaders-are-creating-a-car-free-city-center-could-boston-be-next/
https://www.9news.com.au/world/oslo-car-ban-traffic-environment-congestion-tax-laws-world-norway/7dd0c5fc-67a7-4e95-9c96-935e21dc6942
Daniel, you might be surprised at this….I own two cars. I’m not against the existence of cars, especially with the advent of self-driving technology. I was angry at the social costs, the human toll, of such autos being roundly ignored.
What we’re seeing today with right-wing GOP wanting to keep businesses and schools wide open despite the health risks of COVID-19 reminds me of how the automobile problem was tackled many decades ago: Economic growth is king, so let’s just accept the buildup at the morgue as a cost of doing business.
I should clarify that I am not retaining ownership of two vehicles as a flagrant display of a hypocrisy in light of my outcry regarding automobiles. I have a very delicate neighbor situation. The neighbor is a very malicious asshole shark who will smell blood in the water if I sell one of the cars. Giving one up would be a sign of weakness for him to start making more aggressive moves and to do more dirty tricks, so I basically have to pay taxes, insurance, and maintenance on both to help keep this vicious sack of dogshit in check.
Guru,
Although far from the full story, racism has something to do with the huge growth of suburbs after World War 2, and the dominance of cars in this country. If not for racism we might have more livable and pedestrian friendly cities, like some in Europe, and we would have had less environmental destruction and air pollution during the past decades. I wonder if the media would talk a lot more about traffic fatalities, and you received $20 million, would you then be happy? I guess you could at least then afford AC.
Phil
Fewer cars = less CO2 emissions = less global climate change = less overly hot weather = more content people = less racism. (just some quick back of envelope calculations leading to my imprecise guess).
The algorithm needs some fine tuning and testing with real data
Larry, are you suggesting that there was less racism when there were fewer cars and less climate change? Because people were more content? If so, this begs the question…..which people were more content? I think you might need a whole new algorithm. Unless you are studying the contentedness of only white people.
Renee, the algorithm is a protoype with terms in it applicable to this century. The algorithm is based on the testable hypothesis that a more content population exhibits less racism, and that fewer cars produces a more content population. To reliably extrapolate the algorithm to all human populations in any geographical location throughout all human history might require some additional terms and adjustment of terms’ parameters to represent populations and eras where the number of cars = 0. I think the alogrithm is robust enough though to have a better than 50% likelihood of predicting the amount of racism in any population in any era of human history based on the population’s expected level of contentment. Additional terms in the algorithm would be needed to arrive at a population’s level of contentment in any era and/or location. 🙂
I think you are looking at this algorithm through blinkered eyes Renee.
Larry, I, like all humans, have blinkered eyes. To believe that humans can be unblinkered is delusional. I think the challenge is to continually be working on becoming aware of where we have blinkers, not to pretend that it is possible not to have them.
I think it’s the opposite. Humans can be completely unblinkered whereas an infinite depth of being blinkered is the more delusional belief.
–Being infinitely blinkered implies a belief that there is no finite upper bound of knowledge.
–It’s not possible to KNOW there is no upper finite bound to accumulated knowledge.
–However, it IS possible to reach a state of knowing there is an upper bound to knowledge whether it’s a month from now or a trillion years from now.
–So, if there is an upper bound to knowledge, then there is a corresponding lower limit of blinkerhood as well.
Phil, I can afford AC if I really wanted to do it…but this past year has been a really debilitating time for me after dad’s death and my income has come to a halt, so I am carefully watching after what’s left of my savings and assets in the meantime. As a cheapskate, I am pinching and squeezing pennies so hard now that I make sure Abe Lincoln’s testicles are properly crushed to fine ground powder before letting them go to be spent. (Abe Lincoln’s visage is on the penny, for those not familiar)
Also, Phil, we made an attempt at buddying some years ago and I decided to discontinue that. I wanted you to know that I still have mild regrets over that decision from time to time. The reason I discontinued at the time was that I am single and you are a married family man, so I felt I was going to have a very hard time connecting well since you and I might be dealing with a completely different set of everyday problems. It was not anything personal at all, just a judgement of incompatible familial circumstances (and it may have been a bad decision to discontinue at the time, anyway).
Guru: My understanding and experiences with buddying has nothing to do with any commonality other than we both in turn express our feelings.
I am gay, my buddy is very straight, I am in a so called marriage, he’s single.
We connect on human terms. Hope that helps.
Jack.
I’ve had buddies break away from me for very similar reasons (lack of evident commonality). Like I said, Phil is a good guy and I may very well have erred in my decision at the time. Your implication that I don’t know how to connect on ‘human terms’ sounds overbearingly patronizing, too.
Guru: I read you … No comment.
Jack
Guru,
I think you should leave Abe Lincoln alone and concentrate on Donald Trump. give him that same treatment. I’ll give you a more complete response to what you wrote at a later time.
Phil
Phil, I think we both understand that we were kidding in our respective comments. It’s very frightening for me not to have any income at all and draining my savings without anyone coming to save me, so yeah in this sort of emergency I will not hesitate to crush Abe Lincoln’s balls with extreme stinginess.
OK, I’m going to make a list here for organization:
–Went to grocery store after a couple days of not eating much
–Made the mistake of buying $8 worth of discounted sweets including blueberry muffin, a chocolate fudge muffin, a dozen cupcakes with huge amounts of icing, a dozen peanut butter cookies
–I bought about $50 worth of healthier foods alongside this
–I come home and immediately scarf down ALL the sugar-laden crap to where all that remains is the blueberry muffin
–I collapse in a heap after coming down from an enormous sugar rush and ‘dropped dead’ in a comatose state on the floor for 4 straight hours
–I am now back here after waking from the coma
ALWAYS, ALWAYS every fucking time I go to the store I buy about 20% of the items as pure junk (potato chips, sweets) and 80% healthy stuff.
IMMEDIATELY the junk gets eaten first…never fails…no discipline to spread it out among the healthy stuff over a period of days
I complained about this problem before on the blog and I did receive helpful feedback from several people including Sylvia…but I forgot what was said!
It just feels a bit as though I am going to my local heroin dealer for a massive sugar fix after several days of deprivation, only it left me seriously disabled today for 4-6 hours
I’ve read everything said to me here on the blog and privately…I just cannot respond right now, not feeling so hot.
It’s known that junk food fills in as comfort food when we need comforting. Going by my experience of having been compulsively drawn to junk food like an addict to drugs, I’ll hazard a guess that you’re needing to be comforted. If that’s so I hope you eventually find some relief in a way that doesn’t harm your health/life.
I don’t think this was quite chasing after comfort; I can go with oatmeal and fruit toppings for that or maybe some tomato soup with beans and pasta. The sugar chase reminds me of chasing after exotic, enticing rewards somehow…maybe the comfort element playing a secondary role.
Also, the sugar items are ready to eat IMMEDIATELY (convenience food). It takes me up to 10 minutes for oatmeal prep or up to 30+ minutes for soup. No time to dilly-dally or painful straining effort, the ready-made convenience food is in front of me…I want my reward NOW!
August 17, 2020
I CANNOT float along the stream merrily merrily singing “life is but a dream”.
I realize my role is to stir things up. It has always been. I’ve always been an outsider even with the patients with whom I interacted in Primal Therapy and certainly in junior high, high school, the dorm, various jobs I’ve held, “writers’ groups”, etc. It’s a dirty job but SOMEONE has to do it. Buck the trend. Not be popular.
There is an exigency present. It of course if reflected in world and national events, politics, etc. but this is not my mission at present.
We are pioneers, if you will, in a feeling movement.
Purportedly we dare to venture where few other would.
We have ALREADY corroborated the theories of Arthur Janov and other authors (e.g., Alice Miller). I’m thinking we pretty much don’t need to beat this dead horse more. We don’t need to convince each other about the broken-hearted state of humanity. Children at all stages don’t get their needs met, are abused, violated, damaged. Sometimes are relationships are so unsatisfactory, hurtful. And this “all” started in gestation all the way until we were around 12. Duh! It is called the human experience.
So what do we do now?
Hasn’t the time come for us to do a bit of self-reflection? Sure, pat ourselves on the back for our insights, breakthroughs and growth.
But, hasn’t the time come too, to point out where fundamentally “the therapy” hasn’t exactly worked out as we once dreamed in the 1970s or later after we read “the book”?
I first read the book in 1971. I HAD to have this therapy. I ended up at the Social Growth Center in February, 1973.
Here is my sad-but-true “Tale of Three Primal Centers”.
Very briefly, the first was the Social Growth Center, Berkeley, 1973, founded by two former patients (one a therapist trainee at the Institute) and both who had their “stories” in “The Primal Scream”.
The second was The Oakland Center founded by Katherine Vine, a Brit, who was a trainee at the Institute before (according to her) Janov walked up to her one day in 1971 and said “you’re fired”. She had previously been at the Social Growth Center but started her “own place” in August 1973. I and some other patients followed her to her new center on San Pablo Blvd in Oakland. She was brilliant. I still miss her. I loved her. I left in May 1974 to return to Oklahoma to help take care of my sister’s two (later three) children after her divorce.
I might need to regress. This was in the era when California’s “therapy” laws were extremely weak and all kinds of people could be de facto therapists by simply using a different term such as “facilitator”. This all changed with the lawsuits brought by former patients of the Center for Feeling Therapy, Los Angeles, this in 1980. The California Legislature passed major laws and the era of lot of little centers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, San Rafael, etc. was gone.
The third center is here in Los Angeles, formerly run by Janov before his divorce. There are four GREAT therapists (also great human beings) there.
What is the point?
First off, let’s stipulate that we’ve pretty much determined the validity of the basic primal process and theory but I am stating this for the record.
Well, the self-examination needs to happen. What “works”? What doesn’t? What theoretical constructs in Primal Theory simply limit the primaler at some point along the way? And how can this be changed? And what are the efficacious “modalities” and processes that will give us a entrance into larger realms, if you will, of experience?
The theory ONLY goes so far. Otherwise, we’d all be “post primal” if you will.
It is our challenge to makes some inner shifts. Surely, we can bring a type of heaven to earth if only we feel the “unfeelable”.
MORE LATER
thanks Larry and Renee.
the next challenge has already popped up.
one of my cats meows at times and very often visits the letterbox.
so i have to keep a close eye on what goes on, does he have a bladder infection or intestinal trouble?
i called the vet and will keep observing and checking what is deposed in the letterbox, not easy with two cats, to decide whether a visit to the vet is necessary…
hope not of course…
M
Margaret: I hope all goes well with the vet and your little pussy cats that are so important to you.
Take care
Jack
thanks, Jack,
i am observing the big cat Plukkie and i feel more at ease as he seems to be feeling ok.
will keep an eye on him nevertheless and if necessary we will go to the vet.
M
Margaret: that’s good. From my understanding of cats, and at one time I had 9 (in my finca on top of the mountain) they like to do their own own thing in their own way. He’s either wanting to see see the outside world through the letter box OR maybe w he want to take a little visit out there.
It’ll work out
Jck:
Jack,
I noticed my laptop or the website changed ‘litterbox’ into letterbox, it is letterbox, so there where his poo and pee are deposed if everything goes well.
if a cat gets a bladder infection and can’t pee anymore it is urgent to take him to the vet.
but so far he still seems comfortable which would not be the case with a very full bladder.
it is hard to keep track with two cats of which one has poop and peed …
so far so good…
M
Margaret: thanks for the explanation.
Jack
Seventy-eight years ago today, on 18 August 1942, the Latvian National Football team won its biggest victory ever: 8-1 over the Estonian National team. Vanags, Freimanis, and Peicha scored two goals each. Latvians were beside themselves with joy and celebration and team members became instant national heroes.
Not far from where the game was played and during just about the same hours my grandfather along with 1,003 German Jewish men, women and children were led from the Riga (Latvia) train station to pits in the nearby Biekerniki Forrest where they were shot to death.
And so, two deeds in the universe were done simultaneously, a great burst of joy took hold and a great burst of murder took place.
Daniel,
I’m sorry you have this very terrible anniversary.
Phil
What is cslled football in England is really Association Football (soccer) It’s a princitple where there are winners and loosers. Maybe the Latvians were overcome with great joy, but what about the Estonian National team??? What were their feelings? You don’t mention them
You then seem to punctuate that with many members of your family being shot by another group of people who (for reasons that we never seem to get round to mentioning), merely claasify it as ‘Anti Semitism’
I remember when I was in my late twenties I knew these two American girls, both Jewish The three of u were around one day and one of the girls said:- “What is all this about being Jewish” I merely listened, but neither came to any sort of resolution about why they were different than me; other than I was male and they were female. The discussion went of for at least an hour
My greatest mentor was a German Jew who fled Germany when Hitler becoming the chancellor. Some of his family were not so lucky.
It all goes back as I see it, tl the very reason we humans dreamed up religion, first with totem poles and eventually the monotheistic notions of super beings. God[o]
To twist the discussion back to where I feel on a feeling blog like this, can take us. It’s about being subjective.
Anarchy is SUBJECTIVE in that without laws, governments and money, the only thing we ever have to think about is ourselves … hence Subjective … We’ve associated Anarchy with Chaos but in regality there is no chaos with total Anarchy. Merely without hierarchy … that’s all
Chaos is what exist right here and now.
Daniel there are several convenient term in psychology that purport to show and demonstrate why one thong is right and the other is wrong … neither actually exist IMO.
Jack
Daniel,
that is so sad and horrible and unacceptable, it must have been so difficult to emotionally process for all the relatives and friends.
Jack,
I noticed WordPress seems to have changed litter box , with an ‘i’, once more into letterbox…
today I thought I would have to go to the vet but luckily he seems to be doing ok so far, eats well and seems to be feeling fine, so maybe it is just a minor intestinal something.
I am having a difficult day today, craving human contact, needing physical contact, and missing having something to look forward to.
in any case tomorrow morning I have a meeting with someone from the tele support volunteering organization.
sure hope that will work out, can’t wait to start the training program in October!
M
Margaret, wonderful, ” litterbox,” broke me up just when I needed out of my Mr Gloomy and Mr Hateful facets. Lot of truth in that spelling faux pas; we do seem to dust up a lot of litter on here. Have been wanting out of the human condition for a bit now. Nearly made the trip last Thursday.
Dave
Thanks Phi, Margaret and Jack.
It was difficult (though kept at bay) mostly for my mother, while my own difficulty was facing and dealing with hers. It being disavowed made it ghost-like and so in its own way even more difficult.
Jack, I think all you raised in your comment was thoroughly discussed on the blog so I have nothing to add beside saying a world where everybody thinks only of themselves sounds rather terrible to me.
Daniel: I contend that NONE of my/the idea/s were discussed … merely dismissed with simple statements like:- “I would not work”
I am fully aware of your terrors, regarding just having to be subjective.
Suggestion:- sink into that terror.
Jack
“Subjective” is not “the only thing we ever have to think about is ourselves”.
Daniel: It would be if we were natural and real unto ourselves …. sadly, that all got knocked outta us. Would you you like to piece yourself together as you were (presumably) at birth?
I had no idea/s about anything at birth, just this feeling I NEEDED my mommy which is all I had known for that last 9 months.
The rest was all fluff that I was compelled to lean on the way. My father was for ever trying to make me proud to be British. I’m still struggling with that one..
Jack
Jack,
I wonder why in your wished-for system would a mommy not think only of herself but think and take care of her baby. It is also not clear why you’re insisting that empathy is not “natural and real“.
Daniel: I know in my case me and my mommy were all one and that meant it was so naturally she was being subjective about me an herself.
I thought that was a general understood about a wonted baby andmotheer.
Jack
No, it’s not understood when one is advocating thinking about oneself. How would empathy develop? What was it in your mother that made her feel that way about you, and how did it develop in her? (and I agree that in the best of cases mother and baby are sort of one, but we also know that sometimes that doesn’t work quite as expected).
Daniel:- You ask:- “What was it in your mother that made her feel that way about you, and how did it develop in her?”
A whole host of hormonal changes that had been taking place from the moment she became pregnant and her wanting his baby (me) that she felt was her lovers gift to her (my dad).
Once that pregnancy was established the rest was a oneness with the baby inside her and her love and desire from that baby. There was no SEPARTION between that baby and her desires with and for it. Hence totally subjective.
Incidentally, later in my life I had this dialog with my mother about bringing me into this world.
She loved me and I loved her. She was not perfect … but then who is?
Jack
Jack, just read the words you’re using in that last comment: love, gift. Those aren’t words descriptive of “thinking only of oneself”. Come to think of it, you and I don’t really have an argument here, we both agree that subjectivity is important, that at the very beginning the separation between mother and baby is yet to be fully established.
Where we part is your equating subjectivity with “thinking only of oneself’. For me, subjectivity is having a point of view of one’s own from which to look at things, which is not the same as thinking only about oneself.
But it’s true lack of subjectivity is very much a malaise of our times, different, for example, from patients Freud described. Ironically, people who find it difficult to develop or keep a point of view, to be subjective, actually tend to think of themselves more rather than less. This is because they are narcissisticaly wounded.
Daniel: I do feel that you and I talk past one another: As I see it you seem to feel the trajectory that humans civilization has taken is natural and and normal. I don’t see it that way. First came neurosis and thereafter the trajectory was set on a path of struggling with an insidious disease. From that point onwards we were on AN UNATURAL path.
For all of the work by Janov we’ve not reversed the course … just been made aware where it all went wrong.
Maybe it’s just another obsession of mine to REVERSE that trajectory. and by my reckoning it goes way back before Alexander the Great, the Faroes of Egypt, the Napoleonic wars and the the the rise of the British Empire that eventually led us to many of those original colonies breaking away from that British mentality. A mentality that was flawed to begin with, but those colonials took and that British ‘bullshit’ with then just tweaking a bit here and a bit there.
It’s glorious mess but we’re still reluctant to admit it … too fuckin scary, I contend.
Jack
Daniel, in this post you seem to be the most real and accessible that I have seen. I agrree, ” a world where everybody thinks only of themselves sounds rather terrible to me.” Me, too. From my perception the consumer economy has been huge in the reality of children raising themselves, and fuelling the creation of that, ” me,” society that terrifies us. A very small sample group of one: My Grandfather was my saving grace. Me, following him as my template of,
” Grandfather,” I’m a guy who used to have money. I believe there is a lot to recommend the nuclear family within the extended family community.
True. Yet, narcissistic and capitalistic as the world is, there are also many acts of kindness and charity. People say ‘hello’ to each other, help one another, there are UN institutions devoted to aid and health and development and children in need. Not all is lost. Again – power, although real and major, is not the only mediator of relations between people, groups and even nations.
Be warned this is a repeat:-
Sometime around the mid-sixties I found myself having to attend a
clinic in London, England for a penicillin injection. On getting the injection
I suddenly felt a rush through my body and within seconds my heart was
pounding so fast I felt it might burst out of my body. Then suddenly, there
was a tearing sensation in the back of my neck. I fell to the floor screaming
at the top of my lungs, “I’m dying, I’m dying.” I didn’t even know I had that
kind of scream in me. I was seized with terror like I’d never known before. I
had no idea what was happening to me, but knew I was in a situation of
enormous vulnerability.
Within seconds, I felt that tearing sensation in the back of my neck
again. The terror now mounted to a height that I didn’t know was possible,
let alone was happening to me. This second phase felt like I was now in
some place in outer space. I was terrified and truly felt my life was on the
line. I looked up at the doctor as I was being put on an examination table.
His face was green and his hair was standing on end; Jesus, I thought, if
that’s how scared the doctor is, what the hell is going on with me? He
seemed to have no idea what was going on with me. At that moment, there
was another tearing sensation at the back of my neck. If the second one
took me into outer space, I now felt I’d left the universe completely. I didn’t
believe it was possible to experience this amount of terror and live.
Then suddenly, I was a baby in my cot (crib) and could see the wall and
ceiling above me. On the wall was a “Mickey Mouse” tricycle hanging over a
gas bracket above the fireplace. The colors were unbelievably vivid, the taste
in my mouth was unlike anything I’d known in my life’s memory to that
point and I was screaming for my life. Some seconds later, I was transposed
to another scene where I was a baby crawling on the floor. I felt so small or
rather the room felt so large. The carpet was familiar but the room wasn’t.
At that point the doctor was injecting me with some tranquilizer to quiet me
down. I was indeed brought down from that scene to that of being outside
the universe.
This incident was so devastating to me that it stayed with me for several
years. Then in 1973 I picked up The Primal Scream. On reading the introduction, I was an instant convert. I threw the book in the air and exclaimed,
“I’ve got it,” i.e. the clinic incident now made total sense to me. I couldn’t put the book down and read it in two days. After reading it, I started to read
it again just to make sure I had got it right. Within another two days, I had
reread it.
Jack
I had an intake conversation and am allowed in for the training as a volunteer for the phone helpline.
the training starts in October, and in September we might get together to look at the options for the technical aspects of the job.
using a combination of my own laptop might work using the Voice Over software while logging in on their system during working hours.
they have the right attitude: we will keep looking until we find the right solution , it might be a matter of combining different technical tools, but that is just the secondary aspect of the work itself.
I really like it they have an extensive training and support program before volunteers can actually start answering calls.
i think this might be a big step in improving my life, doing something useful and improving my social life.
the trainings are in groups of 12 to about 20 new volunteers, so that means getting to know a lot of new people with a positive attitude in life.
i am so glad I am accepted!!
M
Congratulations Margaret.
From me too. Good luck with the training.
thanks guys!
i just entered all the schooling meetings in my agenda, and was (pleasantly) surprised how many there are.
about 6 or 7 evenings and 4 or 5 Saturdays, from october to March.
i am very curious about the training program!
M
Glad for this good news for you Margaret. I used to train crises line volunteers. My introductory words were always the same: ” Regardless of who you know you are, and your motivation, when you pick up that phone you become exactly who the caller thinks you are.” It’s a privilege to be allowed to serve. David H
Margaret,
congratulations on getting accepted. I’m sure you will be an exceptional support volunteer.
Phil
Thanks, Phil, that is a very nice compliment.
m
just got news that makes me frustrated, sad and a little angry.
my brother was going to visit our mom tomorrow, and just called me this evening he won’t go.
he said in the Netherlands they decided just now Antwerp is ‘an orange zone’, and everyone visiting must go in quarantine during ten days upon return.
it is a bit crazy, as we here in Belgium consider the Netherlands ‘a red zone’, and people who go there for a visit of more than 48 hours must go in a quarantine of two weeks when they return to Belgium.
furthermore my brother has a legal document provided by my doctor, that he is officially a caretaker for me so I would think his visit would be ‘an essential displacement’, as it was made up for that matter, to cross the border, during our first three months of Corona during the first wave.
if I would be him, I would have really looked up if that form frees him from those quarantine rules or not, s he does not seem to really know.
but well, I did not argue with him, just said I was very sorry to hear it.
luckily for next week Friday I already organized my own transport to visit mom…
tomorrow I could order a regular taxi, but that feels like too big a risk, it is a long drive and then a long drive back with another driver, for a relatively short visit, so the visit in this case does not seem worth the risk, as mom is doing well so it is not that urgent.
it just feels bad, if I would have known earlier I would have organized my regular volunteer transport, this time with a driver I trust.
it is a consolation I already did that for next week’s Friday.
i had also hoped my brother would come by here for a brief visit, ha!
of course he had planned to go to my mom, so he probably does not feel good about all of this either…
it is sad, mom always ask when we will visit, so she longs for it, and I also miss seeing her more often than i do now.
shit happens I guess…
infection numbers here are again decreasing luckily, so if everyone keeps making an effort we are going in the right direction.
it is too bad so many people start protesting against and not following the regulations at this point.
it was nice though to hear some extracts of the democratic convention and how they now are all on the same line, hopefully Trump gets a big kick under his ass in November!!!
M
Renee, it’s always nice to have someone say they like me or they think I am funny. My apprehension is that it may be for the wrong reasons, namely that I am just comedic fodder or someone whose views shouldn’t be taken seriously.
On the plus side, though, it’s certainly better than having you say you hate me or I am a dull-witted clod.
My social support system is way too thin at this time, so I take any sprinkles of verbal glitter I can find, even if it turns out to be fool’s gold. Having second cousins as my closest family is a pretty barren existence.
.
Ugg, I resonate with your cynicism, mistrust, and skepticism. And the difficulty of taking in anything positive that someone says to me. It is so much easier to just see it as “verbal glitter”. That said, it seems that my responses to, and opinion of, you matter a lot to you. If that’s true, I’m not sure why.
Renee, I certainly want to make sure you are happy with me, so I will tone down the personal importance I place in your opinions of me in order to no longer want to make sure you are happy with me.
The procedure worked and now I just don’t give a damn.
I hope you’re happy with this outcome.
Larry, I’m surprised by your surprise at my surprise! I don’t recall you ever talking about literature, here or in person. So I learned something new about you. Unlike you, I don’t see most literature as being about making “the transition from a life of relative deprivation to one of more fulfillment and meaning”. Although I think that is definitely true for some literature. I see your analysis as more a case of “we see the world not as it is, but as we are”.
As for “steering clear of getting caught up in an argument that is going nowhere”, there are times when I agree with you and time when I disagree with you. I will just add that if I have judged an interaction I am participating in this way, it will totally affect my contributions to the interaction. And then it can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy because I am not open to other possibilities happening. I am reminded of when I worked with 2 and 3-year-olds and was helping them develop problem-solving skills when they got into conflicts with each other. When I made the judgment call that the process was “going nowhere”, it affected my ability to be patient and trust they could come up with their own solutions. And then I would inevitably jump in to fix the problem for them. But when I could simply stay present and believe in them, they could indeed work things out for themselves. I just had move out of the space of being focused on the end result of “getting somewhere”.
I think it is also possible that the need to steer of getting caught up in something going nowhere is connected to birth trauma. If I don’t think that I will get somewhere, I have to steer clear. Otherwise I could get stuck! Then I might not survive. Just at thought to ponder…..or not.
I’m coming from the perspective of struggling to get someone to see something my way, then finally understanding that they won’t see it my way but I feel that I need them to, then letting go of that need and letting things be…letting our different views be. So from experience I’ve realized for instance there is ususally no point in arguing with someone in my attempt to convert someone from their religious beliefs to my non-religion way of seeing things, for example. In that instance, we might productively share with each other how we see things, but it would likely be a waste time for us t try to change each other’s mind.
There is also the other aspect, yes, of being patient and giving time to let things unfold without interference of expectation, and see what happens. It is the kind of thinking required on my job as a research technician, trying to gather data and be observant and open to evidence without prejudice and coming to conclusions based on evidence as opposed to pre-concieved notions.
For sure, primal pain might make me feel I need to get the person to see things my way, and primal pain might influence me to hold preconceived notions and not want to be open to what evidence tells me. Primal pain after all distorts our view of the world and is hard for us to step out of its influence. The art of living life is learning what/who to give up on and when, and when not to. Seems to me that people who succeed at their goal tend to be those who didn’t give up easily on the right thing for them, or those who did give up and changed direction to something more productive for them. The people who didn’t succeed gave up too soon on their goal before reaching it, or didn’t give up when they should have to pursue something more rewarding for them. Primal pain influences what we choose, I’m sure.
Thoughtfully and clearly written Larry, I agree it’s hard to step out of the influence of Primal pain.
Nice to hear from you Jo.
I just had to go to the vet with one of my cats.
it was a bit hectic, saturday but as they told me I could get an oppointment one hour later, I managed to get the cat into his travel cage, order a taxi, and make sure I got bank dard, cheques for the taxi, mouth mask, and whatever else I needed.
the cat had repeatedly visited the litter box often in vain, but I was not sure if it was a bowel or bladder problem.
it turned out he did have a starting fever, but luckily no blocked full bladder or blocked intestins, so I did react fast enough.
he got an injection and I have to give him some syrup for a few days.
and watch him closely as if things get worse a quick reaction is important.
so we are all happily back home now…
my adrenaline level is still pretty high but I just opened a can of cherry beer so that should help…
m
Margaret, I hope the cat is ok.. and congratulations on getting on the training course!
Jo
Margaret,
you have good instincts about what your cats need. It’s good you acted so quickly.
Phil
So Jack, your mother’s love for you and your love for her were an “unnatural” phenomenon?
Daniel: Her love for me was so natural and normal. Sadly she bowed down to the maternity homes demand that that I be put in a nursery while she got some rest. Had she had her way, I would have been put immediately into her arms.
Her subjective wish.
Jack
Exactly! So not all is unnatural and neurotic and has been so for eons. Love, for one, is natural for human beings and is alive and well.
Daniel: we’re still talking past one another.
Neurosis is still a debilitating and insidious diseae, (illness). Janoc talked about the ‘Cjure’. I wish to talk about prevntion in the very first place.
My idea for achieving that, maybe comes across as obtuse.
To repeat:- the idea (is NOT mine) but was propose more than 150 years ago
The idea does NOT get discussed … merely DISMISSED..
Jack
thanks jo, thanks Phil,
plukkie has slept almost 22 hours, and then ate the bit of food on which I put his medicinal syrup, in one go luckily. I had to watch out so his brother would not eat Plukkies bit but things went well.
he seems to be doing better, so after two more days of syrup he hopefully will be completely cured.
M
And now for something completely different…
i just heard the last part on the radio of an item about a new discovery in the biological field.
you know these huge predator grasshoppers, where the female starts eating the male while they are mating?
I don’t know the exact details, but it seems one kind of these is able to form a bubble with its fore legs, and throw it at such speed that the impact when the bubble bursts raises a sudden temperature of about 4000 degrees Celsius, almost the heat of the surface of the sun.
But… now there is this tiny lobster, the ‘name of the grasshopper first’ lobster, who has such a special coating on its tiny shell that it withstands an attack of this fiercely fast bubble with its exploding impact heat.
of course scientists are very interested in that coating and all its possible applications.
I am impressed by that weapon of this grasshopper, but well, maybe it was the ‘grasshopper lobster’ as I did not hear the first part of the item.
maybe Larry can bring some clarity, you are an entomologist aren’t you Larry?
of course when it was all about that specific little lobster species it is not really about insects…
i find these kind of discoveries very fascinating.
who needs aliens??
they are among us, ha, for example,the Corona virus is pretty impressive, we just had a person who was again infected after four months, but with a Corona virus that had already ten mutations compared to her first virus.
specialists hope it is an exceptional case, but they will probably have to adjust possible vaccinations yearly as they have to do with influenza as well…
M
That story about the grasshopper and the lobster sounds pretty fantastical to me, Margaret. Then again, I find that reality is often more bizarre and fascinating than anything we concoct in our imaginations.
just saw a very touching item on the news.
i a German zoo a mother elephant was after 12 years of separation, having been transferred to another zoo, been reunited with her daughter, and there was a picture of them embracing each other closely with their trumps, if that is the right word.
also her grandchildren and grandgrand children met her for the first time.
it touches me deeply, that so far people handle animals so carelessly, animals that even after 12 years recognize each other and must have missed each other terribly.
this reunion was arranged by a movement that works on reuniting animals like these that in the wild also live in lifelong groups, like specially female elephants do.
M
The arrogance, eh, Margaret of humans assuming the title of superior being ?? Than you for this.
David H
Don’t you see the time flashin’ by
Yeah. What a strange day the last one will be when it runs out.
Otto: I struggles to make time go faster until puberty and ever since I’ve been trying to slow it down.
Jack
And it’s surprising, how time slips away…
Crazy arms that reach to hold somebody new
For my yearning heart keeps saying you’re not mine
My troubled mind knows soon to another you’ll be wed
And that’s why I’m lonely all the time
BACK FROM VET. DOG GETTING WORSE. THIS IS GOING TO BE BAD FOR US.
Very sorry, Otto, that your dog is declining. Vet bills are so high these days. I was at the vet’s last week with my elderly dog. Take care, Otto. Thinking about you.
Ugg, I disagree with you regarding “blinkers” you but not entirely. Yes, I think us humans are completely unblinkered but only at birth. One of the reasons I loved working with young children is because they have so few blinkers and are wide open to just about everything without preconceived narratives/beliefs/filters/biases/prejudices about most things. I don’t know what you mean by knowledge and why it matters whether this knowledge infinite or finite.
All right, let’s make it a project to carefully dissect it piece by piece, then.
First we can agree that being ‘blinkered’ is resolved, either partially or wholly, by filling in knowledge gaps (aka ‘ignorance’) with various bits of knowledge about people and the world as we go along, yes?
After a bit more consideration, I am realizing this could be a LONG TERM project needing to be broken up into many little logically-components individually agreed upon before coalescing into a larger agreed upon whole of the earlier statements I proposed
I am also realizing there would be little or no harm for me if you wish to disagree with me. Since you’ve also explained to Larry that it’s futile to try to change you, I can see the potential rewards gleaned would likely be very small or nonexistent given the considerable efforts put forth.
In light of my ruminations above, I think at this time it’s best I reconsider this project and discontinue it immediately for the betterment of all.
I hope I didn’t come across as an arrogant or condescending jerk in what I said above; I just think it would be a ‘cleaner ride’ for everyone’s mental health if we don’t engage in potential struggle here.
I have things I can do which are much more fun than arguing, anyway.
correction: “many little logically-connected components individually agreed upon…”
Hi Renee, I was really frustrated in my previous three posts, for I was irritated at what a complex and painstaking procedure I had ahead of me convincing you of my point of view.
I went out to nature and an insight befell me….
Some days ago you wrote:
“Larry, I, like all humans, have blinkered eyes. To believe that humans can be unblinkered is delusional. I think the challenge is to continually be working on becoming aware of where we have blinkers, not to pretend that it is possible not to have them”
Then you wrote to me:
“Yes, I think us humans are completely unblinkered but only at birth.”
These statements you wrote helped to make my job lot simpler now, I just didn’t see it earlier. If, as you say, babies are unblinkered at birth, how is it totally impossible for humans to become unblinkered when we are adults? It’s not as though we collect an infinite amount of information throughout our lives from which we draw judgments and prejudices. If babies start at zero blinkerage, adults may gather a lot of blinkerage…but it’s still only a finite amount of ‘junk’.
Any finite amount should be THEORETICALLY possible to remove, though realistically it would be difficult to clean everything out.
Those two quoted statements you made above helped to expedite things for me, for I was really frustrated at the potential mountain of work I had in store for me otherwise.
Pretty silly for me to use ‘an insight befell me’. I’d reword it as ‘an insight came upon me’,
Guru,
you expressed some regret about giving up buddying with me years ago, maybe implying you’d like to try again. That would be nice, but I’m quite busy, so really can’t do it, but we could talk sometime.
On this “binker” discussion, I looked it up the word in the Urban Dictionary because I’m lost:
“When you call someone a binker, it can mean whatever you want it too,
You fuckin binker – bad way
Your a binker – good way
“your awesome””
and
“A person who disses another
He is a Binker
He totally Binked me
I just got Binked by her
Dont Bink me, call me back.”
and
“a short, ripped kid who doesn’t take any crap and says, “Che watever, I do wat i want.”
look at that binker, he’s huge.”
or
“can mean butt or butthole.
your a binker
i fell down the stairs and hurt my binker”
and
“A device used to control the TV, cable box, or other electronic devices remotely.
A remote, clicker, controller.
Hey, pass me the binker so I can put the game on.”
Phil
Phil, no problem on the buddying; I was mostly wanting to finish things that were unsaid.Things floating around in my mind without letting them off my chest for a long period.
Larry & Renee were referring to ‘blinkers’ with an ‘L’, such as what you commonly see on a racehorse.
Guru,
OK, blinkered. I don’t know how I missed those L’s.
some definitions from the dictionary:
“Horses wear blinkers. It stops them getting startled by movement in the peripheral vision. So to be described as blinkered means you are not open to other ideas, Single minded. Blinkered!
People who buy ipods are so blinkered.”
and
“Narrow-minded, limited perspective.
Blinkered people believe that George Bush Jr. is a good person.”
and
“Horses wear blinders not blinkers you idiot.
This retard obviously doesn’t know the difference between blinders and blinkers.”
and
“A made-up word by someone who doesn’t know horses. Horses wear BLINDERS, not blinkers. God, what a dumb ass.
Blinkered is a made-up word that no one uses and should not be in this dictionary.”
My dad used to take me to a mob-connected racetrack when I was little. I even remembered how great the ink smelled on the freshly printed green Amtote betting tickets, and I played the racetracks off and on for decades afterwards. Those last two definitions are absolutely full of it and should be removed as trolling attempts, Phil.
I think that’s pretty abusive, making horses run as fast as they can while blinkered or blinded. But I’m using a blinkering method for the Republican convention; well actually with the audio. If it is on, it has to be muted. I don’t want to be exposed to all that fiction.
It’s been 20 years since I’ve set foo in a racetrack now. I’m neutral on the animal abuse arguments regarding racehorses. My dad knew some owners and trainers, who would sometimes tell him that the horses actually enjoy running as they do, with the blinkers purely for theirs and the jockeys’ safety. Many horses don’t even need blinkers. If they are not suited to the sport, they do get culled from the activity.
I do have mixed feelings on this topic; I have seen a few bad things in the racing industry as well, but again I was mostly just a betting consumer while my dad had a few insider connections at the time.
By the way, the first track my dad took me to as a little kid (as I mentioned earlier) was completely shut down permanently just two years after I first went there. The state racing board shut it down due to underworld figures and unsavory people running the place, as I also alluded to earlier.
I think the horse racing business is in decline maybe because nowadays there are so many other gambling options. If horses want to run around I think they should have opportunities to do that. Dogs, cats, and hamsters too. But there’s no need for it to be a business.
I’ve never been to a horse racetrack myself. As a kid I went to some stock car races. As I remember, the most exciting part was when they crashed. The stock car racing was at the fairgrounds, where I had a lot of good times, and that property was later developed into a shopping mall, which is sad to see.
One way that I think most people have blinkers on is with the belief that children have to go to school to learn and get an education. I came across this quote that describes clearly this blinker: “If children started school at six months old and their teachers gave them walking lessons, within a single generation people would come to believe that humans couldn’t learn to walk without going to school”. I have a feeling that you will agree with this, Jack.
Renee,
I think education is necessary considering how society is structured. To do OK in life I think it’s very important to know how to read, write, do math, and have general knowledge of the world. Not necessarily to “go to school”, but definitely to get educated. I certainly wanted that for my kids. Maybe it wouldn’t be necessary if society were different. But considering the world we live in, parents not making sure their kids get an education are negligent. That we can even discuss these things here is because we’re educated.
Phil
Renee: That is absolutely correct.
Learning is natural normal and ever the most traumatized of kids learn.
It is teaching that is convoluted, complicated and very unnatural.
The question becomes:- would we want to learn about higher mathematics and Science. … some might, but I contend most wouldn’t, Geography and History are far more interesting to the average Jo, and learning goes on for a lifetime.
Jack
Is it possible that the idea that people have blinkers on with the belief that children have to go to school to learn and get an education is itself blinkered?
Children go to school for all kinds of reasons – for example to free their parents to go to work – and they learn in school all kinds of things beside subjects – socializing and cooperating with peers and non-peers, respect, solving problems and making decisions, and more – most of which cannot be acquired without some sort of pain. For some school is horrendous. But for some home is horrendous.
Now of course the question of how best to teach and learn remains open. But schools? Would anyone prefer sending kids instead back to factory and mine work as they did before elementary education became mandatory, or now-days veg out in front of the TV or the social media website?
Daniel It appears to me that you ask questions based on what is, and (to repeat), just needs a bit of a tweak here and a bit there. Life on this planet with all it’s creatures (other than neurotic humans) does need any of that. Children don’t NEED to go to school or be taught. We neurotics contrived it that way.
However, I gather you are still of the mind the way neurotic man has developed is fine by you, and in terms of that BOX you appear to me, to well and truly stuck in it.
The ‘Primal triad’ blew all that kind of thinking apart. We think rather than feel and allow our feelings to dictate our actions. Children, as I see it from my own reliving need NONE of it.
In psychological terms is called ‘being defensive’ Do you ever explore that aspect of yourself? I do, on a a daily basis.
Jack
Living and dealing with the life available along with wishes for reforms where needed (tweak here and there) – defensive.
Refusing the life available with wishes to undo civilsation and return us all to pre-human times – not defensive.
Daniel: If, as I contend,, neurosis came first and then we concocted civilization, then. I feel you notion does not hold up.
If you wish to contest my notion that neurosis came first … then spell that out.
Jack
I get a bit irritated with these extreme views about schools being prisons.
I have always liked school, not every single class but certainly in general, and actually every class up to the first years of high school.
then religion and mathematics did not thrill me so to say, some parts of mathematics still interested me to some point, and actually in the religion class I vividly remember we got this little information booklet about ‘drugs’ in which an lsd trip was described. the idea was to warn us but I remember being fascinated and thinking I would like to try it out some day…
i feel there is indeed room for improvement in the schooling system, but it seems crazy to discard its value altogether.
I am actually again studying university classes for the mere pleasure of learning about things that interest me, and thanks to schooling my interest cover a wide range.
after all if no one offers all the options how would we know they exist?
other than that I value highly my mom’s upbringing in that field, telling and showing us all kinds of stuff while walking about plants and animals, teaching us to read written music and playing the piano etc.
if there is also plenty of room to do one’s own exploring I really see only positive aspects in my own school experiences, including its social interactions and rules demanding a bit of self-discipline.
i remember all my teachers and dislike only one out of twenty so to say.
stimulation being a key word in what I got out of school.
my mom also took me to libraries and I still enjoy reading a lot, it helps me through every single day.
so just a bit of counterweight to the extremely negative sounds here, apart from Phil’s more positive one…
M
Margaret, have you ever tripped on acid? Your story left me curious
I’m with you on that Margaret. After the primary grades there is opportunity to choose a stream that has more math or one that has less, one that has more history or more typing classes, etc. I don’t feel that the problem is in the education system. I think the problem stems more from parents who have expectations for what their children are going to be when they grow up or who aren’t involved with their children at all, instead of supporting the child to its own way and loving the child no matter what. From interviews I’ve read and seen with children not at school because of the pandemic, they miss their classmates and teachers.
Hear, hear. Well said, Margaret.
Jack and Renee,
Imagine being the parent of a young child. It’s hard for me to believe that you wouldn’t want him or her educated so as to have a good future in the world as it is. Not a neurotic free fantasy world. At least for me, school was not the source of major issues, it’s what happened at home. Schools can be much better, or education can happen at home, or online, but I do think it’s very important.
Phil
Phil, what I’m trying to say is that how we define “education”, a “good future”, and the “world as it is”, is all determined by the blinkers we happen to have. For me, I agree with A.S. Neill when he said that he wasn’t sure what education meant, but he knew that it didn’t mean math, history and geography and other classes. And to me, education and schooling are very different things. When we believe something is true, it can be hard to see that it is just a blinker. I think it easier to see blinkers in others than ourselves.
Also, you mention that you think education is important for a child so they can have a good future in the world as it is. This made me wonder how you can educate a child for a good future world in the current world. Check out this awesome educator (who sadly died last week) for his thoughts about this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&t=508s.
Renee,
Some thoughts I had were that I wouldn’t sacrifice my child for some hypothetical world where an education isn’t needed. In the world we have it is necessary to have a job and make money to be happy, and have security. I don’t think I have on any blinkers saying that, and seeing the world as it is.
The possible alternative is living in poverty with no means of support. I think people without a high school level education can have a hard time getting hired. People with no education will have a hard time functioning at all, and probably will be dependent on others. I’m talking about conditions now in the US or other Western countries where I think it is necessary and important to know basic skills learnt in schools. Maybe it’s possible to do well in a 3rd world country, but even in those places skills would be valuable to have, I have to imagine. Or, one could hope for the generosity of a benevolent government, but I wouldn’t count on that.
I’m sure glad I got an education, although not everything I learned is valuable, and some of it was inaccurate. School was often difficult for me for social reasons, but that was because of the family situation and how that effected me. I don’t see any reason to throw the whole idea of schools and/or an education out. It won’t be happening anyway so it’s a useless discussion similar to abolishing money and hoping for anarchy.
Phil
There’s already an enormous upheaval taking place in the education system with distance learning as a result of COVID. Everyone will staying home more using Zoom and centralized physical college campuses are likely to grow increasingly obsolete.
This should make way for a much broader and more accessible means of learning with increasing subject fragmentation and specialization in the years ahead.
Meaningful changes are already afoot.
Gooroo,
In response to another of your comments, there is a lot of experimentation going on with drug assisted therapies, MMDA, for example, or you can find a witch doctor and take a trip with ayahuasca. Phil
Phil, yeah I’m familiar with all these possibilities…but they look far too expensive, risky to mental health, and generally not worth the effort. I think nutritients, minerals, etc. are a far safer start. Much smaller and safer steps for me.
Gooroo, I wasn’t recommending drug assisted therapies, I just thought to mention them. Primal is what I like.
Renee, haven’t you pursued an education yourself? I think you have, so I don’t get your position in this discussion, and I think you’d make sure your child was educated too.
Phil
Phil: You say:- “In the world we have it is necessary to have a job and make MONEY to be happy, and have security.” Emphasis mine. My argument is to abolish it, then all that stuff you talk about. disappears into thin air.
Jack
Phil, are you deaf? Just do what the man says and abolish the money already! Stop screwing around, stop PROCRASTINATING!!!!!
Jack, yes, I know that’s your argument, but I don’t think that will be happening. I was talking about “the world we have”, which is the one we have to deal with.
Phil: Of course this is the [human] world we have.
Do you want to change it?
Do you just want to adjust it here and there?
OR, are you happy the way it is?
For my part I want to RADICALLY change it. and rid it of this insidious disease that is crippling all of us.
From my feeling perspective, the ONLY way is to overthrow it, Just as Janov wanted to overthrow neurosis.
We’ve spent centuries tweaking it and it’s just as bad as ever … perhaps getting even worse. Yeah?
It’s like I get the feeling we want to rid ourselves of the pain, but would rather NOT have to go through the horrors and terrors that caused it.
Jack
Jack, I very little, close to no power to change the world, and I think it would be futile to dwell on that excessively.
You say “It’s like I get the feeling we want to rid ourselves of the pain, but would rather NOT have to go through the horrors and terrors that caused it.”
But isn’t the pain inside of us? that’s where to find it.
Phil
Phil: You say:- ” I [have] very little, close to no power to change the world, and I think it would be futile to dwell on that excessively.”
If we all said that;; NO0THING would ever happen. People have been trying to change lots of thing throughout their lives… from simple things like relationships (romantic and other-wise).
It all depends on the amount of energy one is prepared to put into it.
I’m prepared (whilst I can) to put a lot of energy into many tings .. to make life more comflrtable … even if that means feeling a bit of pain first.
Jack
Exactly what the world needs now – more radicalism.
As for me, I’ll keep resisting the forces trying to radicalize us all, and hang on to my sanity, dignity and (hopefully) humanity.
Daniel: You say:- “As for me, I’ll keep resisting the forces trying to radicalize us all, and hang on to my sanity, dignity and (hopefully) humanity.
Good luck and hope your wishes get fulfilled.
As for radicalism … there can be nothing more radical that abolishing money and all the horrors and stupidities it causes so many, around the globe
However I confess that one requires getting ones head around it … and few, as I see it, are willing to go there.
Jack
“
Jack, you keep saying that people are unwilling to discuss your ideas of anarchy and abolishing of money, that it “requires getting one’s head around it” which people are reluctant to do.
You don’t seem to consider the possibility that people have thought about it, have considered the ramifications, and after doing so have simply decided against those ideas.
Daniel: You say:- “Jack, you keep saying that people are unwilling to discuss your ideas of anarchy and abolishing of money, that it “requires getting one’s head around it” which people are reluctant to do”
Most that I have talked to about it. Anarchy became a dirty word in the inception of WW1 after the Hungarian guy went about killing people. Now we have Donald Trump suggesting that if Biden wins the election it will be total ‘anarchy.
The word, in and of itself mean ONLY, ‘no hierarchy’. For most people that is synonymous to chaos. The reality is it is NOT chaos if one accept that in a none hierarchical world. You do your thing and the other guy does her/his. The analogy I’ve used is ‘pedestrianism’. No-one tells anyone when to go out onto the streets, at what pace they have to travel, and where and what direction they chose to go. Yet few seem to bump into one another. If you are totally subjective as to where you are going, and when and at what pace … what concern is for you to have to consider where,, how, and when, the other guy is going?
I have given a lot of consideration, over quite some years, why other people DON’T discuss it … just dismiss it … and there they stand for ever.
Jack
Guru,
yes.
for me it was always increasing my awareness of the reality surrounding me, was often a great learning experience and a deep contact with the beauty and ugly sides of our world, and once put me directly into a primal insight, which was kind of overwhelming, as I realized myself so far I had been living in function of trying to be approved by my ‘dad’, in many ways.
it then made me get up and say to my boyfriend and later husband:’ actually, I am dead…’, and felt about to faint, but he was there to support me and bring me to bed so even that was a good learning experience.
on the other hand, not everyone would be able to experience it in a positive way, as it is a strong drug and really not a good idea to take when feeling down or in a situation that feels unsafe in any way.
for me cannabis had a much trickier and often very negative effect, making me feel very paranoid.
M
Margaret, thanks for letting me know and I am surprised at how positive you are towards LSD.
I once tripped and fell near a puddle of acid, luckily only burning my jeans rather than my skin…hence my closest experience with “tripping on acid”.
Would you try this drug again now in your current stage of life?
I’ve had quite a bit of experience with cannabis, and you’re right about the negative effects during the first hour. I always felt terribly anxious and panicky (“Jesus! I’m gonna die! NOO!”) during the first hour, which give way to a pleasant soothing sensation of coming down a waterfall along with peculiar, creative insights for the next hour or two afterwards.
I have a love/hate relationship with that drug overall.
As long as I survive the first 45 minutes or so of debilitating panic and anxiety, all experiences thereafter (the following 1-2 hours) are sweet, pleasant, and perfectly encapsulated by Jimi Hendrix’s “May This Be Love” song:
Guru,
about ten years ago, many years after I had quit smoking pot, a very dear friend wanted me to be there when he smoked his last joint, as he also wanted to stop using pot.
I said I would join him and we shared the joint.
very soon anxiousness struck me, which lasted until I found the words to share it with him.
I said ‘now I know why I did quit doing this, it makes me feel my own craziness…’
he instantly agreed, which calmed me down and from that point on it was fun as we both made what felt like huge mind leaps which we still could
Share and we had a good time.
at the same time it was also good to know and remember what was the reason for wanting to quit.
more and more evidence shows cannabis can trigger acute psychosis.
I think it triggers primal pain or maybe mostly the related fear and anxiety of a bunch of feelings on the rise, without any way of resolution, not a good place to be in.
I remember the times when I used to smoke a lot, how even without having smoked I felt paranoia having to cross someone on the walkway, not knowing where to look and feeling terribly self conscious and uneasy, crazy really, being terrified it would show, which it probably did…
and now I do not feel like using acid anymore, the visual intensification would be lost on me, and I feel my mind has opened itself by therapy already.
I also feel that if my eyes would function properly again, they would be wide open without lsd to take it all in again.
in my dreams there are often very intensely good visual experiences, probably my old mind making up for what I have lost, for which I am very grateful.
Enjoy and keep enjoying the simple and available pleasure of seeing, looking and taking in all aspects of our wonderful universe, specially the natural one is incredibly beautiful in every detail…
we are all too casual about what we have until we lose it.
M
Margaret, I appreciate all your wise words and it seems as though any drug consumption is far down your list of priorities anymore. I’d still might have some interest in cannabis, but only in small doses to make the initial anxiety attacks more manageable. I do crave the pleasant ‘waterfall’ period after the anxiety subsides, for I have occasionally stumbled upon valuable life insights during that phase of the high.
I think Steve Jobs gave a lot of credit to his LSD usage for many of his ideas related to running Apple computer. Personally, the benefit of LSD is not worth the risk for me…cannabis is pretty much my limit.
I am posting a Wikipedia link about the person who discovered LSD, Albert Hofmann. Hofmann said LSD is medicine for the soul and that everyone should try it. Arthur Janov, on the other hand, believed it to be among the most dangerous drugs out there, capable of permanently melting repressive gates and destroying lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Hofmann
Mixed messages are so frustrating as I do view both men as having legitimate views.
On the question of schools and schooling there are several way to look at it. Many, like myself, loved it once I got over that shock of my mother leaving in that alien building with all those other kids none of which I knew.
My niece had three children and she did home schooling and seemingly they missed out on nothing.
Free schooling a la A. S. Neil does offer a better choice, but even there, the kids have to leave home and even if they don’t attend classes are away from that they knew up until going to school … home
Then there are those kids that hate every minute of it, like my little sister. I am absolutely sure that eventually they would want to socialize enough to gather in some place and discus things about life. (Repeat) learning is natural and normal … it is teaching that is convoluted and complicated.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
On the question of Drugs: My experience with them and I tried them all including heroine; they come in two classes. There are the pain killers and then there are the feeling enhancers. The king of pain killers is without doubt, ‘heroine. I did it twice.
The feeling enhancers I used a lot in my Ibiza days and even grew cannabis. My experience with the feeling enhancers was they put me back to all the feeling I had at birth, especially LSD. I do confess that for some taking something as potent as LSD can be dangerous as often the taker is not ready to feel that amount of pain.
Since therapy I have no desire to enhance feelings … for the most part I am in them all the time.
Jack
Sometimes I desire a little assistance to view life from a different perspective. Psychotherapy can be a long, protracted war where the gains realized are way too slow and incremental.
A little dash of chemical assistance from uncle cannabis, daddy LSD, or mother morphine might be worth considering if you’re really careful in your approach towards experimentation.
There are a ridiculous number of drugs out there now and it’s hard to tell what can really help. I remember my own college days reading a Rolling Stone magazine where there was a special ‘brain food’ subculture article originating from San Francisco. They were big on choline, so off to the nutrition store I went to find choline tablets to “make my brain better”.
This was long before I grew wise to the terrible societal forces operating against me which had absolutely nothing to do with personal brain chemistry.
Alas, I was just a naive teenager at the time and I didn’t realize what true pieces of shit some people are in the world who are dressed up as respectable, charming civilians.
I still have to make room to concede an important role for the Primal mode of psychotherapy here. For me, it’s still possible that a bunch of crying and feeling I did earlier (thus releasing ACTH, prolactin, and/or other trace chemicals from the brain) were necessary to open up creative pathways to sufficiently discover many of my own problems not being chemically-based, as paradoxical as that may sound.
Jack,
Just take your previous comment and change each occurrence of “neurotic” to “human”, and then reread it.
It seems to me you wish to undo the entire human development, taking it back to a time before language, a complete return to Nature.
You also seem to imagine the Janovian oeuvre to be embedded in the same wish. I don’t think it was. I think you radicalize the Primal notion to the point of a complete removal from social and cultural life, turning it into an anti-human anti-life, all in your crusade against that evil of all evils – Neurosis. As if its mere existence invalidates human life as it is. Freud might have called your inclination a death instinct. But the Primal notion, for me, is all about the life instinct, to remove barriers to living as fully as one can, in the world (rather than outside it, or instead of it). For Janov it’s not about Nature but about human-nature, and you trying to do away with the first (human) part of that compound is a distortion IMO of the letter and spirit of Primal theory and practice.
I do agree that once we have become creatures of representation – and language is our main form of representing reality – we are no longer fully in Nature, in things-in-themselves, but that is part and parcel of being human. I also agree that part of us yearns to undo that split language created in us (I’ve written about that wish to be whole in my post a year and a half ago), and that for you anarchy may be such an undoing of the split and thus a return to Nature/wholeness. For me it is a project for the destruction of human culture as a whole.
Lastly, if you read a novel or watch a movie or just have a frank conversation with a person, you will notice that feelings are alive and well and are very important to people and are substantial in their personal problem solving and decision making – for better or worse. You were probably referring to Primal feelings alone, but please remember that those are human feelings that were once blocked for defensive reasons, not a separate category of feelings.
Daniel: You say:- “that for you anarchy may be such an undoing of the split and thus a return to Nature/wholeness. For me it is a project for the destruction of human culture as a whole.”
You’ve made that point clear from the very beginning … AND I understood you feeling that way.
If I have it correctly. neurotic humans behave … because we LOST out nature in childhood
According to Janov there are two components to a feeling:- the first is the sensation … the other is the expression of that sensation The example I have quoted in the past is:- If you are pricked with a pin then feeling is the pin-prick … the expression, more often than not is “ouch” Neurosis according to Janov is the pathology of that feeling. For example the pin-prick is still felt but many are reluctant to express it “.
I have to go to get blood test twice a year. Sticking that needle into me causes me to say “ouch” and I say it loud a clear. Most other I see taking a similar blood test say nothing on that needle being stuck into them.
In other words they don’t complete the full feeling (sensation/expression)
My mother had an expression that I find fits with how I see you:- “you want the toffee and the halfpenny” Meaning:- I want the halfpenny to buy the toffee, but I also want to keep the halfpenny.
I am still curious Daniel:- What brought you into Primal therapy?
Jack
I came to PT because I was in pain though didn’t know what the pain was about. A friend gave me the Primal Scream to read and I felt like the book understood me. I decided that if and when I’ll be able to afford it I’ll go. About four years later I had the money and came to LA.
Although I appreciate your pin-prick/ouch example it is only the very basic of the organism’s system (keeping equilibrium). There is nothing specifically human about it. Since we already had this discussion some years ago there’s no need to repeat it here.
Daniel: You say:- “Although I appreciate your pin-prick/ouch example it is ONLY [the very basic] of the organism’s system ” my emphases
My substitute for your perception that it is ‘only’. For me it is THE ONLY. We’re a feeling creature that lost our ability to express our feelings fully and completely.
The rest is ‘fluff’, ‘decoration’, ‘distraction from that underlying PAIN.
My preference is to do my damdest to feel it and express it, simply and appropriately..
Thank for answering why you came into this therapy.
Jack
Maybe, Jack, to alleviate your profound need to change everyone’s minds & world systems/institutions in the world & the profuse amount of energy spent writing comments on this Primal based blog could be used on a grander scale outside of this blog.? Your passion consumes the entire comment thread…have you thought about writing a book instead? Just some thoughts…I hope you are well & thriving. 🙏🏼🙌
secretariat7 : Why does eveery one wnt me to just go awy???? Is there a feeling in there??
(Repeat) I love the banter. what better reason for indulging myself in it? AND I do get responses
Correction: I AM NOT trying to change the world. Like Janov I have an idea. I STOLE the idea from someone else. … to rid humanity of neurosis.
I am not saying it will work, but I did take the trouble to write a short book on it … which if you are interested I will email a copy of it, to you for free; on the proviso you give me your email address.
Jack
You’d best pay careful attention to Secretariat, Jack, for he was one of the greatest race horses of all time and is usually a 1-5 shot to win in any case 😀
Guru: Who cares? I’m not a betting man …. or money seeker.
Jack
Jack, I want to give you a reality check. “Everyone” does not want you to go away. I certainly don’t. So, yes, there could be a feeling there. But I think it is your feeling.
If you are wanting to rid humanity of neurosis, or anything else for that matter, it is probably not a good idea to disclose that you stole something. Especially if you are wanting people to get behind you. Also, stealing can be considered a symptom of neurosis, so this doubly doesn’t help you in reaching this specific goal. I’m sure there is a better word to use. I just cannot think of one at the moment.
“I just happened to come across your response, Daniel, and agree with you. Acceptance is the answer to all our problems today.” Change what YOU can and leave the rest alone. Namaste
secretariate: Never heard of Namaste.
Jack
Guru,
I read parts of the webpage and it brought up some memories.
I remember howway back then, still very young, 20 or so, it occurred to me it might be a good idea to put lsd in the drinkwater system.
it felt like it would open up people’s minds and give them positive insights, but well, I guess I had some doubts even back then that unprepared people would all be able to cope with the unexpected psychedelic experience, and would feel they went crazy and freak out about it.
i myself have hardly ever had real hallucinations, only the walls in a bar vibrating along with the music once.
otherwise my perception was extremely intensified, visually, seeing every single dewdrop with its miraculous colourful everchanging details for example, and when looking at my friends or other people, seeing every emotion reflected in their eyes and faces.
I was lucky for some reason to always feel in control of myself, not at all the anxiety induced by cannabis, on the opposite really.
I was mostly a clam observer and spoke very little, usually feeling words would not add anything, I was feeling selfsecuere and strong almost all the time, enjoyed it and enjoyed the beauty of nature specially.
but at the same time I couldd see how the effect of lsd they had taken did not become some of my friends, who felt more and more insecure and did not have such a good time.
i am still amazed at how strong I felt.
maybe that is partly due to making sure I only took it in the company of friends, but often with them out in public places so not everything in control at all.
while I can sense the possible dangers for some, for me it was a mindopening and positive experience.
at some point, having taken it a few days in a row, it lost its effect momentarily, and later on the circumstances of my life never stimulated me to take it again.
maybe me being still very optimistic and adventurous at that age feeling mostly good about myself and not too scarred yet by life, added to the positiveness of my experiences, and left me some very nice memories about them.
M
Hi Margaret, great post and thanks for checking out the Hofmann link. I had to laugh at the idea of putting LSD in the drinkwater system, Actually pretty scary to think about, for someone could follow the example of Owsley Stanley and make a batch of millions of doses only to play a super dangerous prank of pouring the batch in a municipal water supply for an unsuspecting community to drink.
I’ve heard some bad stories as well about LSD. I think someone who was a Beach Boy band member said it was a terrible influence on his life. Also, a lot of people agreed that Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd had his brain ravaged by LSD. I’m also taking Janov’s words very seriously as well when he strongly cautioned against it.
It sounds to me as though you quit the LSD game while you were still mentally ahead.
There’s probably a lot more to discuss on this topic, but I’ve momentarily run out of steam with it..
Note I am not saying Owsley Stanley poured a bunch of LSD in the water supply, only that he was a major manufacturer. Owsley, incidentally, was a complete carnivore and ate only meat. Yuck, that would completely sicken and disgust me as I am pretty close to the vegetarian side of things.
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