What's going on here:
Inner knots need to be untied. Only by paying attention to them patiently...and not running away from the tender tightness, can this be accomplished. It seems as though most other pursuits are wastes of time and attempts to escape the work. Even five minutes spent untying these knots, not with any fancy method or technique, but just allowing your attention to get ever closer to where it wants to go, the tender pain, and not letting it run away immediately when it's too tender...pushing the boundary of what is acceptable and tolerable slightly each time, until I see that I too can surrender to the fire.
Don't know.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
The woman who cannot feel fear
below article from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12017039
Who wants some elective neurosurgery?
Spiders did not worry the woman
These included exposure to snakes and spiders, horror films and a "haunted house".
The woman feels other emotions but said as an adult, she had never felt afraid.
She is the first known case of someone who is unable to process fear.
Researchers at the University of Iowa said her inability to feel frightened was because she is missing a structure in her brain called the amygdala.
The structure has long been associated with emotional learning - experiments in animals have shown that removing it makes them fearless.
However, it has never been observed in a human before.
Tarantula risk The woman experienced fear as a child and knows that some situations should be frightening.
As an adult she has been in various frightening situations, including being threatened with a knife and held at gunpoint.
She watched a series of horror films, went to a reputedly haunted house and to an exotic pet store - where she handled dangerous snakes and asked to handle a tarantula.
She showed no fear in any of the situations and had to be prevented from touching the tarantula because of the high risk of being bitten.
When asked why she wanted to touch something that she knows is dangerous, she replied that she was overcome with curiosity.
Lead researcher Justin Feinstein said: "Because she is missing her amygdala, she is also missing the ability to detect and avoid danger in the world.
"It is quite remarkable that she is still alive."
Adam Perkins, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London who specialises in researching the causal basis of anxiety and fear looked at the research.
He said the study was interesting because it suggested the amygdala is the neural seat of fear - and specifically responsible for generating feelings of fear, rather emotions in general.
The researchers hope that by studying the woman they can understand how the brain processes fear.
This could be useful in treating patients suffering from PTSD - such as soldiers who have been serving in conflict areas.
Mr Feinstein added: "Their lives are marred by fear and they are often-times unable to even leave their home due to the ever-present feeling of danger."
By studying the woman, researchers hope to create treatments that selectively target the brain areas that can sometimes allow fear to take over.
Who wants some elective neurosurgery?
Woman who cannot feel fear may help in treating PTSD
Spiders did not worry the woman A woman who cannot feel afraid because of a missing structure in her brain could help scientists discover treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Research published in Current Biology showed the woman felt no fear in a variety of scary situations. These included exposure to snakes and spiders, horror films and a "haunted house".
The woman feels other emotions but said as an adult, she had never felt afraid.
She is the first known case of someone who is unable to process fear.
Researchers at the University of Iowa said her inability to feel frightened was because she is missing a structure in her brain called the amygdala.
The structure has long been associated with emotional learning - experiments in animals have shown that removing it makes them fearless.
However, it has never been observed in a human before.
Tarantula risk The woman experienced fear as a child and knows that some situations should be frightening.
As an adult she has been in various frightening situations, including being threatened with a knife and held at gunpoint.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
End Quote Justin Feinstein Iowa UniversityIt is quite remarkable that she is still alive”
These did not make her afraid.
Researchers at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, observed and recorded the woman's responses in situations that would make most people feel fear.She watched a series of horror films, went to a reputedly haunted house and to an exotic pet store - where she handled dangerous snakes and asked to handle a tarantula.
She showed no fear in any of the situations and had to be prevented from touching the tarantula because of the high risk of being bitten.
When asked why she wanted to touch something that she knows is dangerous, she replied that she was overcome with curiosity.
Lead researcher Justin Feinstein said: "Because she is missing her amygdala, she is also missing the ability to detect and avoid danger in the world.
"It is quite remarkable that she is still alive."
Adam Perkins, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London who specialises in researching the causal basis of anxiety and fear looked at the research.
He said the study was interesting because it suggested the amygdala is the neural seat of fear - and specifically responsible for generating feelings of fear, rather emotions in general.
The researchers hope that by studying the woman they can understand how the brain processes fear.
This could be useful in treating patients suffering from PTSD - such as soldiers who have been serving in conflict areas.
Mr Feinstein added: "Their lives are marred by fear and they are often-times unable to even leave their home due to the ever-present feeling of danger."
By studying the woman, researchers hope to create treatments that selectively target the brain areas that can sometimes allow fear to take over.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Travel the world
There are 195 officially recognized countries in the world. If you were to spend a month in each, getting to know the landscape, the people, the culture, the food, the history and a bit of the language, that would amount to 5850 days or a little over 16 years. I wonder why more rich people don't make that their goal.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
An old rant, A magic carpet ride
When it rains it pours and when it pours it rains. There was a time in which words meant something but then they all became tiny swords jabbing at my heart until my heart was minced meat. How's minced meat supposed to beat? Beating minced meat. And these words ramble on and on without anything behind them, with in fact nothing behind them. Some clever some denver some the same as sum.
“There's nothing here” he said to the fox.
“Who am I?” the fox replied.
You're trying too hard. You're trying to get somewhere. There's nowhere to get to. Nowhere to be. Nothing to do. No one to do it. And yet these words write themselves as if coming from nowhere onto this computer screen. But is this screen somewhere? Or does it just look like somewhere. Is this screen more real than the invisible source of these words? Don't think too much the monkeys will get you.
This is not divinely inspired. That thunder outside was. Who decided one was and one wasn't?
There's a pain. Here. There's a need. Here. There's an airy sense here. There's a sense to abandon all sensibility. The pain is fear? No. The pain is stifled. The fear stifles the pain like a dam until over the years the pain builds up and builds up until it can't help but to explode, break the concrete dam and flow free as it always wanted to be. I WANT TO BURN.
My anal sphincter is tight. It wants to be free. My stomach is tight. It wants to be free. What's the impediment? What's the blockage? What is it all? There's nothing to say here. These words. Nothing. These words don't know. These words don't know. These are words of confusion mixed with fear mixed with longing mixed with sorrow mixed with a stomach full of meat and watermelon. So this is a journey they say? Can't run away.
Too scattered.
Not scattered enough.
Too much confusion.
Not confused enough.
Where are we going?
What are we doing?
What?
The fuck
You know that place? You know that place where the sun's shining on the high grass but only on one side so it looks like each string of grass is a diverse contrast of color? And the wind's blowing so the strings are dancing to the tune of silence punctuated by a few sparrows sing songing? You know that place where each square centimeter of the ocean wave screams a silent infiniti? You know that place that goes from anger to confusion to sorrow to desperation to liberation?
Do you know that place? Do you? Have you? I'm looking for directions. They say it's right here. I thought I was right here. Don't see no wind. Don't see no double rainbow. Wait, yeah, I feel a tiny taste somewhere in my hip. It wants to melt into the bed. Empty.
And there's a thought that says, all ridiculous, ridiculousness.
The rain's pouring outside. “God's crying” she said. Good to know I'm not alone.
This is supposed to tell a story. But what story is there to tell?
There's nothing to say. My hands disolve into the air, my anal sphincter pushes my head up and out of its socket.
Let's cut the shit. Let's travel the world on a magic carpet, runnin on nothin but magic.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The holocaust museum
Have you ever been struck in your belly or your chest in such a way that you wanted to give up right then and there? As in, you just wanted to quietly sit down right where you were, hunched over, and give up, in final defeat? With a voice that says...no more, no more...I don't want this anymore. That's enough. You can take it all back.
I felt like that often on the wards in Uganda, when a patient looked so sick and full of pain and death, visually expressed through sores on his face and body, large mushroom-like tumors growing out of his skin, or his little 2 year old girl standing, staring quietly at her sick father who was laying on the floor for lack of a real hospital bed. I felt like that again today at the national holocaust museum, watching videos of piles of stacked, diseased, emaciated bodies being bulldozed by liberating forces into mass graves for lack of a less disturbing or more efficient way of disposing of the dead. Or watching a holocaust survivor recount her ordeal of watching everyone she knew die, marching with sandals in the cold winter snow and snapping her frost-bitten toes off like twigs...with a sorrow and anger in her voice that would and could never forgive or forget. The sorrow and anger that are products of human indignity, fear, lostness, discomfort and hatred, and quite often lead much of the same, in another land, with other people. The same story, just different characters and subtle plot twists. A bomb here, a fiery political speech there, an unjust law over there and an unsettled heart and mind, always on the defensive, underneath it all.
Anyway, when I see disturbing things these days...I don't feel compelled to action as much as weak surrender. Some are angered and have the will to fight. That's good...maybe bad too. I on the other hand just want to sit in a corner and give up. All yours God. All yours world...you can have it all back, the good and the bad. There's no need for a me in this body...it can function on its own and do what it does without a person involved.
I felt like that often on the wards in Uganda, when a patient looked so sick and full of pain and death, visually expressed through sores on his face and body, large mushroom-like tumors growing out of his skin, or his little 2 year old girl standing, staring quietly at her sick father who was laying on the floor for lack of a real hospital bed. I felt like that again today at the national holocaust museum, watching videos of piles of stacked, diseased, emaciated bodies being bulldozed by liberating forces into mass graves for lack of a less disturbing or more efficient way of disposing of the dead. Or watching a holocaust survivor recount her ordeal of watching everyone she knew die, marching with sandals in the cold winter snow and snapping her frost-bitten toes off like twigs...with a sorrow and anger in her voice that would and could never forgive or forget. The sorrow and anger that are products of human indignity, fear, lostness, discomfort and hatred, and quite often lead much of the same, in another land, with other people. The same story, just different characters and subtle plot twists. A bomb here, a fiery political speech there, an unjust law over there and an unsettled heart and mind, always on the defensive, underneath it all.
Anyway, when I see disturbing things these days...I don't feel compelled to action as much as weak surrender. Some are angered and have the will to fight. That's good...maybe bad too. I on the other hand just want to sit in a corner and give up. All yours God. All yours world...you can have it all back, the good and the bad. There's no need for a me in this body...it can function on its own and do what it does without a person involved.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Calmness
"is a beautiful perfume that comes when you stop touching things, stop pushing yourself about."
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