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."
We are so afraid to let go and trust completely
This really speaks to me today: we don't trust life, which means, we don't trust ourselves....and if you don't, don't pretend you do
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dkpwWAg9Y8&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
"if you are willingly not truthful, the vital source does not support you. if you are willingly, knowingly, not being true to your own self, the vital force within you, the universe does not support you."
"sometimes you're not saying yes to your own self because you think, it might be a bad move"
"i'll choose a practice, because that is too direct"
"it's all nice to spiritual and everything, but when it comes down to it, the bottom line, i can't trust the universe, because it won't pay my rent"
"so i have to keep my mind to take care of me. i must ask the moon to take care of the sun"
"your being is not a coward. it does not know compromise. your beingness only knows compassion"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dkpwWAg9Y8&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
"if you are willingly not truthful, the vital source does not support you. if you are willingly, knowingly, not being true to your own self, the vital force within you, the universe does not support you."
"sometimes you're not saying yes to your own self because you think, it might be a bad move"
"i'll choose a practice, because that is too direct"
"it's all nice to spiritual and everything, but when it comes down to it, the bottom line, i can't trust the universe, because it won't pay my rent"
"so i have to keep my mind to take care of me. i must ask the moon to take care of the sun"
"your being is not a coward. it does not know compromise. your beingness only knows compassion"
True love will find you in the end
True love will find you in the end
You'll find out just who was your friend
Don’t be sad, I know you will,
But don’t give up until
True love will find you in the end.
You'll find out just who was your friend
Don’t be sad, I know you will,
But don’t give up until
True love will find you in the end.
This is a promise with a catch
Only if you're looking will it find you
‘Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
Unless you step out into the light?
But don’t give up until
True love finds will find in the end.
Only if you're looking will it find you
‘Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
Unless you step out into the light?
But don’t give up until
True love finds will find in the end.
True love is searching for you harder than you're searching for it. It's sucking you in, making everything that's not it seem so bitter. Cuz love loves you more than you love love. And no equation can remain unbalanced for long. Cuz it's silly to keep pretending to be something other than what you are...kids pretend but they know they're pretending, adults forget that they are. By fuck or by fight, true love will find you in the end.
True love will find you in the end:
Friday, December 10, 2010
Happiness is: A puppy with sexy hips
The title says it all. If this video doesn't make you laugh or smile, or cry a little for the incredible amount of animal cruelty that likely went into its production, I will redirect you to my good friend who's going into psychiatry and he will solve all your problems with magic pills and shock therapy.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Happiness is Ecstatic Classical Indian Music
Ud Jayega - I have no idea what he's saying, but it's what I want to hear
let's go live in green tropical mountains
by a river
where children play
old men laugh
and cows sit still
who's in?
I change my mind again
Does it make me happy is actually a good idea, in the relative non absolute peace world. I mean we don't need to take it to an extreme. But if you have a complacent personality like mine, it's good to always check yourself and what your motives are for doing or not doing anything. Today I've been focusing less on deciding whether what I'm doing makes me happy or not, and only by 1:36 I feel the toll. I've been working on boring excel work and having conversations I don't necessarily care to have. Even just keeping that thought in mind, without any major changes in action, is a good change-up from the normal complacency of my mind. Just asking myself every so often, am I happy? and figuring out why or why not and acting accordingly. I'll keep you posted.
Giving is Groovy
Wow. It's snowing in my back yard and a whole heard of bambis, tiny tiny dear, 5 of them, just walked across my field of vision. They're so cute...and so good at braving the cold.
In other news, giving is the way of the world, the secret of the universe, the way of life and love. The sun gives to the earth, the earth gives to its children, us, and we give back to it and to each other. It's all a game of giving. It seems so silly that giving is a complex, abstract task here with all kinds of mental, career and other hurdles. A friend reminded me that it can be simple too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
In other news, giving is the way of the world, the secret of the universe, the way of life and love. The sun gives to the earth, the earth gives to its children, us, and we give back to it and to each other. It's all a game of giving. It seems so silly that giving is a complex, abstract task here with all kinds of mental, career and other hurdles. A friend reminded me that it can be simple too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Have you heard such a rainbow?
This blog has decomposed from an awesome money making scheme into posting poetry:
http://slovenia.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=5337&x=1
http://slovenia.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=5337&x=1
Day 1: Defeat, A silly impossible quest
At the end of the first day, I have given up on happiness. I realized it is not what I truly seek and indeed seeking it is fruitless. Underneath happy moments is a fear of their loss and a greed for more. Thus, they cannot be sustained. I was on a date with this beautiful girl and I commented to her that I was surprised how comfortable she was with eye contact because a lot of people I just meet, especially girls, are not. She said she trained herself when she was a kid, and then commented that my eyes, despite staring boldly, looked as though they were looking for something, and that was making her a bit uncomfortable. And I checked myself on the inside to see if what she said was true, and indeed it was. Though I thought I was having a fun time, I was uneasy, looking to impress or seize the moment and see what ends up on my "does it make me happy?" blog. Still, I though the day had gone great overall, I'd faced some fears and told my mother, sister and friends I loved them, something I don't often do mostly out of restricted fear. I also argued with them about this blog, many not being too in favor of it, because it seemed too hedonistic and exhibitionist. My only response was have faith in me.
And then I made my way to Bikram Yoga, a 90 minute self described "torture chamber" done in a 110 degree humid room designed to open and still body and mind. It was uneasy as always, with anxiety and fear running through me throughout, until one of the last poses, a hamstring stretch that I have an impossible time with but gave my all this time around. Immediately I felt a release, a defeat, a surrender, a lightness, a desperation. I remembered that what I want is not happiness, but God, that most nebulous concept that here I will equate with true peace of mind, true defeat, true surrender, ultimate unshakable completeness. What I want is freedom from happiness itself, from the ups and downs, from the need to control my reality, from myself and everyone else. Tonight, every other goal, even happiness, seems absurd. Joy, like all emotions is fleeting, and I am tired of the fleeting. I'm even tired of life. But stay tuned, I have faith, faith that I can be empty, clean, innocent and free as a newborn baby or an ocean wave. But trying to chase joy does not seem like the way to go about it. Imagine you're perfectly happy and are eating a fantastic sandwich, then bam you see a starving child or a crying mom or you think of some work you have to do, how can you stay happy? But I have faith that there is a peace that is here that is untouchable by joy or sorrow or anything human.
In my heart, in your heart, in everyone's heart, we know that's what we want, and we know how to get it, we just get caught up in silly pursuits like careers or working out or making money or finding romance or writing a blog. It may or may not cost us everything we think we need, but it's the only thing we need.
And so, I'd like to end this post with 2 things, a song of defeat and grace:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3mbigRjqNk
and a surrender speech I learned back in middle school, from Chief Joseph at Bears Paw Battle in October 5, 1877:
"Tell General Howard I know his Heart. What He told me before I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting, Looking Glass is dead. too-Hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."
And then I made my way to Bikram Yoga, a 90 minute self described "torture chamber" done in a 110 degree humid room designed to open and still body and mind. It was uneasy as always, with anxiety and fear running through me throughout, until one of the last poses, a hamstring stretch that I have an impossible time with but gave my all this time around. Immediately I felt a release, a defeat, a surrender, a lightness, a desperation. I remembered that what I want is not happiness, but God, that most nebulous concept that here I will equate with true peace of mind, true defeat, true surrender, ultimate unshakable completeness. What I want is freedom from happiness itself, from the ups and downs, from the need to control my reality, from myself and everyone else. Tonight, every other goal, even happiness, seems absurd. Joy, like all emotions is fleeting, and I am tired of the fleeting. I'm even tired of life. But stay tuned, I have faith, faith that I can be empty, clean, innocent and free as a newborn baby or an ocean wave. But trying to chase joy does not seem like the way to go about it. Imagine you're perfectly happy and are eating a fantastic sandwich, then bam you see a starving child or a crying mom or you think of some work you have to do, how can you stay happy? But I have faith that there is a peace that is here that is untouchable by joy or sorrow or anything human.
In my heart, in your heart, in everyone's heart, we know that's what we want, and we know how to get it, we just get caught up in silly pursuits like careers or working out or making money or finding romance or writing a blog. It may or may not cost us everything we think we need, but it's the only thing we need.
And so, I'd like to end this post with 2 things, a song of defeat and grace:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3mbigRjqNk
and a surrender speech I learned back in middle school, from Chief Joseph at Bears Paw Battle in October 5, 1877:
"Tell General Howard I know his Heart. What He told me before I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting, Looking Glass is dead. too-Hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
What this blog is all about
We are a lost people. We work so hard for abstract concepts such as success or riches or respect or romance and at the end of the day we're left more tired and less happy than when we started our struggle. We forget that what we want is not some future goal, something that will eventually perhaps make us happy like fame or a million bucks or a nice house. In short, we sacrifice today for tomorrow. We sacrifice happiness now, for the false idea of happiness later.
This blog is about happiness. Real happiness. What we all want whether we know it or not. What we all need. It's a quest to live life in such a way that puts MY happiness first, beyond anything or anyone else. It is a selfish quest, if you'd like to call it that, but a necessary one. And if it seems too selfish for you, I'll let Mark Twain speak for me: "Whoever is happy will make others happy, too."
But honestly, why else are we alive? I don't think there's a purpose to be found other than being here and being happy, the way children and animals seem to be naturally.
And so, I've started this blog, as an experiment, as much for whoever is unhappy enough to be reading this [no offense] as for myself. The experiment is this: when making any choice, big or small, over the next month, I will have only one maxim in mind: Does it make ME happy? A thought that is not necessarily on the top of my list when making decisions. Whenever I have a choice to make thousands of useless and painful thoughts flood into my mind ranging form What if it makes me look stupid? to What if she stops liking me? to What about the consequences? to It's not normal to It's gonna make me fat to Oh but I shouldn't or else I'll regret it to Oh this is wrong and all the other fears we pay too much attention to.
Now I'm in a special circumstance right now, as perhaps many of my readers are too, in that I'm unemployed. Well technically I'm taking time off from a pressured medical school life to do precisely what this blog entails, be happy. So I don't have to go to any job that doesn't make me unhappy for fear of losing it, because I quit for now. And so, in my free time, I will try my best to be completely and utterly selfish, but not in a future way, in a now way. In doing anything, thinking anything, saying anything, from wiping my ass to taking a shower to asking a girl out to writing this blog, I will first ask myself, Does it make me happy? and only if I can say a clear yes, will I go for it.
The way I see it this will either lead to epiphany or disaster. So long as I don't go to jail or lose any body parts or loved ones by the end of the month, we should be fine.
Right now, I wanna mast...icate and head to bed....cuz it makes me happy....although I'm mostly tired now...so bed it is.
Stay tuned.......
This blog is about happiness. Real happiness. What we all want whether we know it or not. What we all need. It's a quest to live life in such a way that puts MY happiness first, beyond anything or anyone else. It is a selfish quest, if you'd like to call it that, but a necessary one. And if it seems too selfish for you, I'll let Mark Twain speak for me: "Whoever is happy will make others happy, too."
But honestly, why else are we alive? I don't think there's a purpose to be found other than being here and being happy, the way children and animals seem to be naturally.
And so, I've started this blog, as an experiment, as much for whoever is unhappy enough to be reading this [no offense] as for myself. The experiment is this: when making any choice, big or small, over the next month, I will have only one maxim in mind: Does it make ME happy? A thought that is not necessarily on the top of my list when making decisions. Whenever I have a choice to make thousands of useless and painful thoughts flood into my mind ranging form What if it makes me look stupid? to What if she stops liking me? to What about the consequences? to It's not normal to It's gonna make me fat to Oh but I shouldn't or else I'll regret it to Oh this is wrong and all the other fears we pay too much attention to.
Now I'm in a special circumstance right now, as perhaps many of my readers are too, in that I'm unemployed. Well technically I'm taking time off from a pressured medical school life to do precisely what this blog entails, be happy. So I don't have to go to any job that doesn't make me unhappy for fear of losing it, because I quit for now. And so, in my free time, I will try my best to be completely and utterly selfish, but not in a future way, in a now way. In doing anything, thinking anything, saying anything, from wiping my ass to taking a shower to asking a girl out to writing this blog, I will first ask myself, Does it make me happy? and only if I can say a clear yes, will I go for it.
The way I see it this will either lead to epiphany or disaster. So long as I don't go to jail or lose any body parts or loved ones by the end of the month, we should be fine.
Right now, I wanna mast...icate and head to bed....cuz it makes me happy....although I'm mostly tired now...so bed it is.
Stay tuned.......
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