The Art Of Living...

"It reminds me that moments can stop whole hours” 

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Therapy...beliefs

This young woman said to me recently that her whole young life she had thought that the expression was, “It’s a doggy-dog world,” and then someone told her, “No, it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” and she was horrified. She said, “No, I don’t want it to be a dog-eat-dog world! I want it to be a doggy-dog world!”

Stopped To Ponder...Something other

"People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy… “Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness,” Killingsworth says. “In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.”… Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects’ mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness."

Front Porch Psychology...Projection

By permitting us to ignore or disown our weakness and conflicts, projection gives us the feeling of security.  It is more comfortable to turn our mental backs on our own faults and condemn them in others. Projection constitutes psychological magic, employed by the mind to bring peace and harmony into life. Projection, by a sort of mental slight of hand, blinds us to the unpleasant real in ourselves by fixing our attention on its presence in others. It is individually and socially useful. One who avails themselves of projection frequently is apt to become pessimistic, cynical, and sarcastic.

The Art Of Living...

The Gordian Knot...the brain

Let go of who they are not.
You must think you live in Camelot.
You carry these feeling of who they are not,
Filled to the brim in your pepper pot.

Why is it you have this blind spot
And just can't let go of who they are not.

Once and for all, untie that gordian knot.
Just let go of this plot.
After all, you can't control who they are not,
Even if you were Sir Lancelot.

Just think of the things your not...Doc

Front Porch Psychology...mindfulness

 As Kurt Vonnegut famously wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” 

Lemme Think About It...

"Why do you give your two cents worth when it's only a penny for your thoughts?"

From The Far Side Of The Glass

We have an inborn tendency to establish types in our minds and to divide mankind according to them. [But] however advantageous and revealing such categories may be, no matter whether they spring from purely personal experience or from attempting a scientific establishment of types, at times it is a good and fruitful exercise to take a cross section of experience in another way and discover that each person bears traces of every type within himself and that diverse characters and temperaments can be found as alternating characteristics within a single individual. Hesse Notes

From The Study...a conversation of possibilities

There is no discrete self or ego living like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. And the feeling that there is—the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from yourself—can be altered or entirely extinguished. Although such experiences of “self-transcendence” are generally thought about in religious terms, there is nothing, in principle, irrational about them. From both a scientific and a philosophical point of view, they represent a clearer understanding of the way things are. Sam Harris

From The Road...The Delta Snake Review Series

Form The Road...

A homeless woman, looking about late 60s, was walking through the parking lot with a rolling suitcase.

Like more than a few homeless, it wasn't obvious until she asked a passing woman for spare change. The woman looked sympathetic, and began a long dialogue about the various public agencies that helped the homeless, where there were shelters, about how to rise above the condition (sounded good on paper), and how she hoped that the cash would help. By the end of the talk, the lecturer was erect and one could say distant, the pupil looked as limp as a 7th grader listening to a one hour lecture on the three branches of government.

Keep in mind, I'm not making a judgement as to the giver's motives or psychology. It's all through my eyes, and simply described.

But, there is another way of seeing the incident.

I saw a sincere soul, but one who only had a rudimentary idea of who she was talking to, and a destitute woman who looked she could be somebody's treasured grandmother.

I sized the woman up as a homeless person, who avoids the camps (and the frequent rape of lone women) as her possessions were with her in the worn suitcase, her smell indicated that she slept outside (strong scent of cement and grass), but hadn't dropped into apathy yet (neat appearance and well groomed hair).

I've oversimplified of course, for the sake of narrative flow, but having seen women who lived in camps, it was obvious she was different.

The woman who gave her some cash was probably a good heart, and most are.

I'll fill in some details though, and consider it a deepening of knowledge about the human side of homelessness.

Rattling off a list of agencies and shelters generally does no good for someone who doesn't own a car. Many of the shelters are full to capacity, and aren't always safe for a lone woman to approach without one. I'm sure some shelters would disagree, but it's true.

You need a car to visit the various agencies and shelters to find the ones that can help you. Plus many homeless pretty much know all that info, they exchange that kind of information all the time (including which ones to avoid).

When the woman came over to me, and asked for spare change, I gave what in my pocket. She needed cash, and I assumed she would ask for advice if needed.

I got a smile and thanks instead, and it broke my heart to see such a gentle soul asking for change in a Silicon Valley parking lot full of prosperous people. I still think of her once in a while, and hope there's some love in her life, we homeless always pray for each other.

His name is Al Handa...a man without a home, describing the homeless in his Delta Snake Review Blog...a homeless journal of sorts. Hope you enjoy this new series.

Lessons From The Sane Asylum...

            "In the end we are are all figments of our own imagination.
           We imagine our own realities, and this is mine at
the moment."

An evening walk...

                                                      I step with the grace of smiles
                                                     for I see beauty all around me
                                                           I see the glory of life
                                                       and for that I am happy...

  

What beauty shines in dappled light,
In misty morning air?
What beauty's cloaked in foggy mist,
Waiting to be shone?
The light it changes endlessly,
No view is ever twice,
Sun and rain and mist and fog,
The ever changing light...

Stopped To Ponder...Again

Step by step
Walk by walk
They keep us moving till we stop

Stop to ponder, and ask away
" Where am I now, what is this place"

as life is
times flies and flies
and as we look back
and ponder why
Why do I, have so little to show?
Why do I, have so little life?
As memories are full of "if then"
Lessons, in wisdom
Are yours dearest friend

But you don't see, the treasure you hold
So I stop and know
Its now, not then
That I'm surrounded by wonders, that I'll soak in...

Lemme Think About It...Remembering

My forgetter's getting better.                                But my rememberer is broke To you that may seem funny But, to me, that is no joke. For when I'm 'here' I'm wondering If I really should be 'there' And, when I try to think it through, I haven't got a prayer! Often times I walk into a room, Say "what am I here for?" I wrack my brain, but all in vain A zero, is my score.     At times I put something away Where it is safe, but, Gee! The person it is safest from Is, generally, me! When shopping I may see someone, Say "Hi" and have a chat, Then, when the person walks away I ask myself, "who was that?" Yes, my forgetter's getting better While my rememberer is broke, And it's driving me plumb crazy And that isn't any joke. P.S. Send this to everyone you know . . . because I don't remember who sent it to me!