A defense of self-pity

A colleague on one of my (perpetual, futile) PhD programs had a huge poster hanging in the office showing a majestic Eagle and saying something to the effect that animals never pity themselves [so – implied – you shouldn't as a human PhD student]. I've often seen this sentiment beaten up, but never quite understood …

What do you call a trip guide journeying in implicit memory?

I've written about adventures in implicit memory a while ago. Apparently, there's a type of memory in which everything is simultaneous – or, at least, whenever something is recalled, it feels just as if it were present. In neuroscience and psychology, the standard terms are explicit vs. implicit memory, where the former is verbal-based and …

Chewing on and trying to digest Martha Beck.

I'm struggling a bit with Martha Beck these days. I've gone back to continue reading her book "Finding your way in a wild new world", which is the oddest mix of things, yet turns out relatively coherent. Despite the non-informative title, the content of the book seems to be hear 4 or so years of …

Burnout and diving under the wave.

I've taken "days off" from some of my daily routine activities in the name of attempting to do an intelligent emotional aikido move that I'd call "diving under the wave". Some sensation of lowness, slowness and heaviness hit me like a massive wave hits a beach, resulting in some disintegration as well, and I decided …

What’s the difference between depression and grief, and what to do with either?

So again, I missed yesterday because of a "wave" and have some catching up to do. I strongly suspect that today's practice will be the practice of accepting to produce some low-quality writing 😀 It's hard to get started, so perhaps I can again start with some self-centred topic. Maybe shame is a good one. …

Fragile animals and derailed trains, dreams and the vengefulness of the soul realm.

Today I'm actually even more "fatigued" than yesterday; not necessarily by writing, but by a "wave". Dreams about water. I have recently, with some help from the first useful therapist I've ever met, figured out another one of the repetitive dream symbols that have appeared to me over decades. Ok, the helps was fairly indirect …

3 self-centred strategies for writing under fatigue, the eternal Aleph, and the Octopus.

Let's see if I can apply my aforementioned teachings on fatigue to writing. Tired of it. But you could also say, reaching the point of fatigue was one of the points of the experiment: so that I'll have an opportunity to ask myself, how can I still do what I committed to, but with low …

Fatigue, psychophysical optimisation games, and Lao Tzu

Since I've missed out on writing yesterday, let's see if I can get two random topics together today. Yesterday I couldn't write because I tired myself out too much with a long hike and having woken up in the early morning (too little sleep). I then started writing a post about fatigue, and how I've …

Eyesight health, the goldfish, and dread of the catastrophic mistake.

This morning when thinking about what to feed the blog (in the name of daily discipline), thoughts were vacillating between two themes: one was "see everything"; the other was "dread of the catastrophic mistake". I later thought that they are connected – no big discovery given that, given any two complex enough things, my brain …