Tag Archive for 'psychology'

self awareness

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s0niqu3
on 20080504
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In the midst of a conversation yesterday, the topic of self-awareness arose with the claim that certain animals are self-aware, in the context of our conversation, to be more specific, chimps are supposedly self-aware.

For the past few days, I’ve been reading the book, “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert, and in it he claims that Humans are the only animals that think about the future, and he makes a strong case in support of his point (which I’m not going to duplicate here) by differentiating between the concept he calls “nexting” whereby animals and machines alike can take present information, and match it with past information, to “predict” some immediate future information/event, (e.g. I smell X, the last time I smelled X something really bad happened, thus something bad is probably going to happen) and the concept of calculated predictions about the future value of the dollar, etc. The key here is that other animals and machines can do the former, but not the latter, which is unique to humans.

That all having been said, I fail to see how its possible to be “self aware” if you’re not able to place yourself in the world temporally. Isn’t the concept of self-awareness inextricably linked to the concept of time?

Protected: from mariah… (posted for jill, et. al.)

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s0niqu3
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Andrew’s annual adieu…

Published
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s0niqu3
on 20080213
in rambling
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It recently came to my attention, that I’m immature, and angry. Further, this apparently is making it impossible for Andrew to remain friends with me. Then again, apparently I’m “looking for love” and will never find it because I’m too angry at the world because one of my girlfriends cheated on me, and broke my heart, thus turning me into the jerk I am today.

That’s all news to me! Well, maybe not the “jerk” part, I wholeheartedly admit that I can be a jerk, but its of my own volition and not the result of some tragic romantic love gone awry.

So, Andrew, for version 2.0 of what seems to be turning into a yearly farewell (remember when you became non-confrontational last year about joining the airforce and chose to lie about it and avoid me then? Sounds vaguely familiar, no?) I’m sorry that my “immaturity and anger” have been such a burden on you, and brought about another close to our friendship. Alas, there is only so much drama I can deal with each year, and as of today, I’ve reached my yearly allotment.

You’re welcome to keep the “Lighten Up” backpacking book, maybe it will help you at some point, and best of luck with the relationship pursuit with Mariah and any professional pursuits with your brother, hopefully they can offer whatever it is you truly need from life, since its clear that our friendship didn’t.

So Andrew, I bid thee adieu!

Everclear - Everything To Everyone

you put yourself in stupid places
yes i think you know it’s true
situations where it’s easy to look down on you
i think you like to be the victim
i think you like to be in pain
i think you make yourself a victim
almost every single day

you do what you do
you say what you say
you try to be everything to everyone
you know all the right people
you play all the right games
you always try to be
everything to everyone

yeah you do it again
you always do it again

you say they taught you how to read and write
they taught you how to count
i say they taught you how to buy and sell
your own body by the pound
i think you like to be their simple toy
i think you love to play the clown
i think you blind to the fact
that the hand you hold
is the hand that holds you down

chorus

spin around and fall down
do it again
you stumble and you fall
yeah why don’t you ever learn
spin around and fall down
do it again
you stumble and you fall
i wonder if you will ever learn

why don’t you ever learn

come on now
do that stupid dance for me

you do what they tell you to do
you say what they say
you try to be
everything to everyone

you jump through the big hoop
you play all the right games
you try to be
everything to everyone

spin around and fall down
do it again
you stumble and you fall
yeah you do it again
spin around and fall down
do it again
you stumble and you fall…

Tillich and Becker’s conclusion…

Published
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s0niqu3
on 20080213
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Some passages from the conclusion of Ernest Becker’s “The Denial of Death” that resonate with me.

“What singles out Tillich’s cogitations about the New Being is that there is no nonsense here. Tillich means that man has to have the “courage to be” himself, to stand on his own feet, to face up to the eternal contradictions of the real world. The bold goal of this kind of courage is to absorb into one’s own being the maximum amount of nonbeing. As a being, as an extension of all of Being, man has an organismic impulsion: to take into his own organization the maximum amount of the problematic of life. His daily life, then becomes truly a duty of cosmic proportions, and his courage to face the anxiety of meaninglessness becomes a true cosmic heroism.”

and another…

“What we are describing is not a creature who is transformed and who transforms the world in turn in some miraculous ways, but rather a creature of courage and endurance. It is not very different from the Athenian ideal as expressed in Oedipus or from what it meant to Kant to be a man. At least, this is the ideal for a new kind of man; it shows why Tillich’s myth of being “truly centered” on one’s own energies is a radical one. It points to all the evasions of centeredness in man: always being part of something or someone else, sheltering oneself in alien powers. Transference, even after we admit its necessary and ideal dimensions, reflects some universal betrayal of man’s own powers, which is why he is always submerged by the large structures of society. He contributes to the very things that enslave him.”

And still another…

“If the Freudian revolution in modern thought can mean anything at all, it must be that it brings to birth a new level of introspection as well as social criticism… But this brings up the second great problem raised by the therapeutic revolution, namely, So What? Even with numerous groups of really liberated people, at their best, we can’t imagine that the world will be any pleasanter or less tragic a place. It may even be worse in still unknown ways.”

death anxiety?

Published
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s0niqu3
on 20080203
in philosophy and tunes & lyrics
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The Shins A Comet Appears

One hand on this wily comet,
Take a drink just to give me some weight,
Some uber-man I’d make,
I’m barely a vapor

They shone a chlorine light on,
A host of individual sins,
Let’s carve my aging face off,
Fetch us a knife,
Start with my eyes,
Down so the lines,
Form a grimacing smile,

Close your eyes to corral a virtue,
Is this fooling anyone else?
Never worked so long and hard,
To cement a failure,

We can blow on our thumbs and posture,
But the lonely are such delicate things,
The wind from a wasp could blow them,
Into the sea,
With stones on their feet,
Lost to the light and the loving we need,

Still to come,
The worst part and you know it,
There is a numbness,
In your heart and it’s growing,

With burnt sage and a forest of bygones,
I click my heels,
Get the devils in line,
A list of things I could lay the blame on,
Might give me a way out,

But with each turn,
It stays front and center,
Like a dart stuck square in your eye,
Every post you can hitch your faith on,
Is a pie in the sky,
Chock full of lies,
A tool we devise,
To make sinking stones fly,

And still to come,
The worst part and you know it,
There is a numbness,
In your heart and it’s growing.