Passing feelings

I am falling behind with blogposts. This one is made up of extracts from a letter to a pal. I have cut out the bits that mention various pals by name. No gossip.

There are so many people in the world and so few that I know. But then what is meant by 'knowing'. It has to do with 'communication' linked to predictability. When someone thinks, speaks and acts in a foreseeable manner there is 'familiarity'. This can be comforting but it can also be mind-bendingly boring.

My mind is culturally conditioned and is thus to some extent parochial despite my having lived and worked in five countries. But there is neural plasticity and by taking mindful thought most aspects of the mind can be changed. Some aspects of the mindbrain are hardwired by nature and these are tougher to transform than the more flexible nurtured bits.

Words, sentences, and paragraphs. The ever-active mindbrain churns them out. An agenda can be imputed to the unconscious but 'I' am not in charge of it. The same pattern holds true for the doodles. 'I' have no advance plan. Just begin and then let the muse do her thing.

Patterns of thought, feeling and mood (TFM) about TFM have changed rapidly in the last 20 years. The key to the new understanding is to view the human brain as an organ which evolved to enable small groups of people to be effective hunters and gatherers. Neurological advances linked to evolutionary psychology provided a platform for consilience (multidisciplinary approaches).

Note that Rick Hanson pulls lots of stuff together and writes about it well http://www.rickhanson.net/mind/ ) And, off the top of my head, three of my inspirational fellow travellers are Jon Kabat Zinn, Jonathan Haidt, and Daniel Kahneman. They all write and speak well. Google them or search for them on my blog http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/ .

I have been semi retired since 1988 and fully retired for more than five years. I love it.

In the old days I thought I was doing something useful when I was teaching science and biology. However, my expectations for the higher level work (government advisor) were ill founded as were those about social development. My quest was to find better ways to be human. This transcended the worldly stuff - and it is ongoing. I have retired from the institutions but not from life. Every day is fresh and new. I invariably find interesting stuff welling up from the unconscious and knowing that it is not 'real'.

“Kunst, vas is das?” While cruising the social networks I came across a talk by Alain de Botton “Art as Therapy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFnNgTSkHPM - “Art can be a source of help with our problems — our innermost problems — the problems of the soul.”

I now have well over 200 'doodles'. Works of art? They vary enormously in subject matter and have been described as 'scary'. Examples are available at the top of my most recent blogposts. (http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/ ) They are produced by non-action. 'I' let them happen. The unconscious is given a free hand. The muse? What is it trying to communicate?