Let's get down to business!
Section 1: Morbid Musing
Volunteering at the hospital today, one of the patients kept saying "Life is meaningless. I want to be dead." again and again to a nurse. The nurse was quite flustered and she told her coworkers. C said, "Oh, my mother says that all the time," without batting an eyelash. Sometimes these kinds of grim realizations make me wonder how people can be so peppy all the time. It's hard for the people who work regularly in the health field to stay positive all the time.
I saw a lady on the shuttle with a son. She was so happy. Newly married, in the flush of summer, with a family. I felt kind of jealous, felt homesick and wanted to see my family. But her kid was so cute and kept smiling - a daughter almost 2 years old, so I just smiled back and we made small talk.
Section 2: Skeletal Stuff! MCAT Whoo!
So as a human being, I have an endoskeleton, because my skeleton is inside my body! Arthropods have exoskeletons, external skeletal structures. The skeletal system is really quite necessary because it provides: support, sites for muscle attachment, protection for organs, a site for blood cell formation, and storage for Ca and phosphates. The skeleton can be divided into the the axial and appendicular skeletons.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Much that once was is lost.
Much that once was is lost. (For none now live who remember it). - Galadriel
I believe that JRR Tolkien was a very wise man. He was deeply religious, and he had a wonderful family and a loving wife. Before the advent of modern medicine, he lived to be 81. I think he was a very psychologically healthy person, despite the fact that he used to be an orphan. He converted C.S. Lewis to Christianity, also.
Why would I start with such a quote by Galadriel? Because I believe it is true. I believe that modern man has lost much of his way [not that life was magically better, say, 1000 years ago. Ecc 7:10 Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions. ] and that the wisdom of the ancients rings true. I don't think that we are 'better than' the primitive savages. We are more reductive, we are wealthier, we are more 'scientific'. We have lost the way. I believe that in many "holy/sages' books" [ZhuangZi, Mengzi, Kongzi, Bible, Talmud, Greek philosophy, Pirkei Avot [ethics of the fathers], Huangdi Neijing], the truth is concealed within parable or tangled in words as old as the hills that only a philologist would have a chance of puzzling out. The problem with older tongues is that the same word meant several different things all at once. Older tongues are more concise. Gu wen is more concise than modern Chinese, for example. As a language ripens, more words come into play, and particles and articles and other such connective nonsense. So much baggage, so many noises.
Yin and Yang and Tao are words in Chinese that are almost impossible to puzzle out for Modern Man. They are on the fringes of what Western science considers to be valid. But they are real. Psychology is not reducible to chemistry, but depression and anorexia exist. Yin, Yang, and Tao all manifest themselves, whether or not one believes they are there. But so much of the meaning is lost. What we think Yin is, is that what they thought Yin was? Who do we think Adam is? Who did they think Adam was? Adam means earth among other things in Hebrew. What does it really mean? What does Eden mean? Many shades of meaning
I believe that dietary and sexual prohibitions lead to longevity, and I believe that promiscuity and alcoholism are bad for the health. I think that anybody who pursues a relationship based on lust 'sees yet fails to perceive' and has lost his way. I believe that a hookup culture [gay straight or what-have-you] is damaging to the health. I believe that hedonism is harmful to the psyche. I believe that sexual addiction is almost perfectly analogous to drug addiction yet still more harmful because it is an addiction of the psyche. Emotional eating, emotional relationship-seeking, etc. All these are disordered behaviors that decrease one's quality of life immensely. There is a hole you're trying to fill with the wrong dirt. In Chinese, the word for Sperm is Jing Zi, and Jing can be poorly translated as [life] Essence. Men who do the dirty too much will be exhausted/dissipated and exhaust their Jing Shen. Note that this is a relationship that only a philologist would contrive. Much of our wisdom is hidden within our language. Adam, in the Bible, means earth [among five+ other things] in Hebrew. To literally interpret Genesis would be to take the wrong tack entirely. But much that once was is lost, and who knows all the shades of meaning in Hebrew? In the Huangdi Neijing [heretofore will be referred to as HDNJ], the translation of a lot of gu wen [ancient Chinese] is haphazard at best... what kind of knowledge have we lost? The HDNJ refers to ancient sages who knew how to heal without medicine; what kind of advanced psychotherapy did they know about?!*** It has all been lost! Even the words on the page refuse to yield their fruit to the stubborn, ignorant modern reader. Shades of meaning die on the page, language evolves faster than you can say Grimm's Law. History happens several orders of magnitude faster than it can be recorded, and nobody ever records it accurately. There is much truth in the Bible that is difficult if not impossible to ferret out. The sages were never easy to figure out, even for their own students [see the Sheep story below]. The point is that Truth must be hard to find, for it to be worth it...
***For the skeptic who doesn't understand how healing without medicine might work, consider psychosomatic disorders. [Personally, I now think every disorder is psychosomatic in nature, even a heart attack or stroke.] Pseudocyesis [pseudo + kyesis = fake pregnancy] occurs when a woman manifests all symptoms of pregnancy, such as distension of the stomach, morning sickness, cessation of menstruation, and sometimes even goes into labor. The catch? She's not pregnant! Mind over matter! In addition, psychotherapy can cure warts! The placebo and nocebo effect are well-documented. A shot of saline can somehow function like 8.8 mg of morphine, if the patient believes strongly enough. I think people are psychic; in the sense that your mind affects the physical. If you believe, truly, that you will get better, you will. For instance, while peptic ulcer was once thought of as being purely caused by stress, later research revealed that Helicobacter pylori caused 80% of ulcers. However 4 out of 5 people infected with Helicobacter pylori do not develop ulcers, and an expert panel convened by the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research concluded that ulcers are not merely an infectious disease and that mental factors do play a significant role. One likelihood is that stress diverts energy away from the immune system, thereby stress promotes Helicobacter pylori infection in the body.[7] (Why everything is psychosomatic.)
None of my beliefs are empirically verifiable and I know that. It is no longer important to me to be verified. Unpredictable intellectual fads determine what is accepted as 'scientific truth'. These fads have no correlation with reality. Gender theory is a field that swung around from hard social constructionism to hard biological determinism in 20 years. You will see what you want with gender. You can run tests correlating testosterone with sex drive, but that proves zilch. Women and men are not analogous and to try to compare their sex drives is comparing apples and oranges. The HDNJ claims that women have more sexual energy, and this makes perfect sense to me. Conventional modern Western wisdom claims men are hornier, but I beg to differ. Women are more repressed by society because they would be uncontrollable otherwise. [Since women can orgasm almost indefinitely.] I think the sexual double standard prevents chaos. This would also explain genital mutilation in Africa. The more 'primitive' a society, the wiser. Social stability preserved at the cost of their clitor-es. [Latin?]
I have read Freud and Jung and I believe that they perceived. I don't think all information must come from a laboratory setting. Empiricism is not king. It's a pretty good petty official, but it is not king. Scientists are not above petty squabbling or just plain ineptitude. They are not paragons of wisdom or knowledge. See: anthropogenic global warming, the gay gene [a postulate so ridiculous as to inspire laughter and the theorem that there must be a gay protein that that gay gene codes for; therefore an IV could make somebody gay?], etc., abiogenesis [requires one to be so credulous as to believe that random processes gave rise to ridiculously complicated organisms... does a fetus develop from a gamete to a baby by randomness? In fact, by microbiological logic, a-banana-genesis is several orders of magnitude more probable than abiogenesis. Bananas are genetically much more similar to human beings than single cells, since we share 50% of their DNA and they have 33 chromosomes, a great deal closer to our 46 than the 1 chromosome of a single cell].
People don't see the kingdom of Heaven within, or the seed, or that magnificent thing that we all know as Free Will. I am not here for a philosophical debate, but I think it very important that people understand they have a Will! John 8:32 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
The way I see it [I'm a monist], all religion is the same message filtered different ways. When we examine an organism on the physical, chemical, or biological level, we're looking at the same actual thing. The sciences are mutually compatible This brings me to a problem I have with reductionism, especially the biochemical kind. To have any sort of psycho[somatic]/[logical] disorder reduced to biochemistry reduces a human being to a bag of chemicals. We are more complicated than that, and treating the biochemical symptoms does not treat the root of the problem, if that root be psychological. The Creation of Psychopharmacology by David Healy discusses this problem in depth - why treating depression with SSRIs may be counterproductive [in fact, treating manic-depression with SSRIs exacerbates manic episodes]. This brings me to a parable about 'too many paths', or about knowledge. Two excerpts:
" There are too many paths," replied the servant. "One path leads to another, and we didn't know which to take, so we had to come back."
" When there are too many paths," said Hsin-tu Tzu, " a man cannot find his sheep. When a student has too many interests, he fritters away his time. The source of all knowledge is one, but the branches of learning are many. Only by returning to the primal truth can a man avoid losing his way. You are Yang Tzu's pupil and study from him, yet you seem to have failed completely to understand him."
It would take forever to try to boil depression down to its biochemical analogue [which would be the physical 'symptom' of the disorder, not the cause]. I think it's more useful to use psychotherapy now to treat what is a psychological issue, than to try to mess around with levels or neurochemicals in a haphazard and blind attempt to correct them. The biochemical approach takes the laborous long hard path... I consider SSRIs analogous to nicotine in their mood regulation. They make patients 'better than well' and are terribly addictive. This is not a cure for depression, this is a mood-regulatory drug that we don't understand. Also, SSRIs increase suicidality and may be worse than placebo. You might erase all of the symptoms, but how is that treating the underlying issue = cause? Taking painkillers does not change the fact that somebody sawed your arm off.
I had always cast a rather cynical eye on any sort of Golden Age mythology - you see it with the Greeks, the land of milk and honey, or Eden, or a time before men fell away from their nobler selves. People in the Bible lived centuries long, the men in the Iliad were forces to be feared, and the old sages mentioned in the Huangdi Neijing could heal without medicine or acupuncture. But now I wonder...what knowledge has been lost?
I've become very disillusioned with modern science and its vaunted objectivity. Intuition and subjective forms of knowledge-gathering are just as valid, and may even be the shorter path. Religion is a shorter path than science, though they both reach the same primal truth. Mystics and spiritwalkers do the same thing scientists do [search out truth], but they do it quicker! Michael Crichton's autobiography agrees with me completely and has influenced me. On the shoulders of giants. It's a great read.
Modern Western science does not disprove Chinese medicine [acupuncture, herbal]. People need to realize that different systems are mutually compatible. Chemistry does not disprove religion any more than chemistry disproves biology or physics or art or music or literature. The different medical traditions of more primitive cultures have a lot of wisdom to give to us, if only we would collect the fruit! Moroccan trad'l med-cum-cosmology is remarkably similar to Chinese ideas [man as a microcosmos in the macrocosmos]. [Concepts of 'hot' and 'cold' similar to yang and yin]. Reach the same truth by different paths!
I believe that JRR Tolkien was a very wise man. He was deeply religious, and he had a wonderful family and a loving wife. Before the advent of modern medicine, he lived to be 81. I think he was a very psychologically healthy person, despite the fact that he used to be an orphan. He converted C.S. Lewis to Christianity, also.
Why would I start with such a quote by Galadriel? Because I believe it is true. I believe that modern man has lost much of his way [not that life was magically better, say, 1000 years ago. Ecc 7:10 Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions. ] and that the wisdom of the ancients rings true. I don't think that we are 'better than' the primitive savages. We are more reductive, we are wealthier, we are more 'scientific'. We have lost the way. I believe that in many "holy/sages' books" [ZhuangZi, Mengzi, Kongzi, Bible, Talmud, Greek philosophy, Pirkei Avot [ethics of the fathers], Huangdi Neijing], the truth is concealed within parable or tangled in words as old as the hills that only a philologist would have a chance of puzzling out. The problem with older tongues is that the same word meant several different things all at once. Older tongues are more concise. Gu wen is more concise than modern Chinese, for example. As a language ripens, more words come into play, and particles and articles and other such connective nonsense. So much baggage, so many noises.
Yin and Yang and Tao are words in Chinese that are almost impossible to puzzle out for Modern Man. They are on the fringes of what Western science considers to be valid. But they are real. Psychology is not reducible to chemistry, but depression and anorexia exist. Yin, Yang, and Tao all manifest themselves, whether or not one believes they are there. But so much of the meaning is lost. What we think Yin is, is that what they thought Yin was? Who do we think Adam is? Who did they think Adam was? Adam means earth among other things in Hebrew. What does it really mean? What does Eden mean? Many shades of meaning
I believe that dietary and sexual prohibitions lead to longevity, and I believe that promiscuity and alcoholism are bad for the health. I think that anybody who pursues a relationship based on lust 'sees yet fails to perceive' and has lost his way. I believe that a hookup culture [gay straight or what-have-you] is damaging to the health. I believe that hedonism is harmful to the psyche. I believe that sexual addiction is almost perfectly analogous to drug addiction yet still more harmful because it is an addiction of the psyche. Emotional eating, emotional relationship-seeking, etc. All these are disordered behaviors that decrease one's quality of life immensely. There is a hole you're trying to fill with the wrong dirt. In Chinese, the word for Sperm is Jing Zi, and Jing can be poorly translated as [life] Essence. Men who do the dirty too much will be exhausted/dissipated and exhaust their Jing Shen. Note that this is a relationship that only a philologist would contrive. Much of our wisdom is hidden within our language. Adam, in the Bible, means earth [among five+ other things] in Hebrew. To literally interpret Genesis would be to take the wrong tack entirely. But much that once was is lost, and who knows all the shades of meaning in Hebrew? In the Huangdi Neijing [heretofore will be referred to as HDNJ], the translation of a lot of gu wen [ancient Chinese] is haphazard at best... what kind of knowledge have we lost? The HDNJ refers to ancient sages who knew how to heal without medicine; what kind of advanced psychotherapy did they know about?!*** It has all been lost! Even the words on the page refuse to yield their fruit to the stubborn, ignorant modern reader. Shades of meaning die on the page, language evolves faster than you can say Grimm's Law. History happens several orders of magnitude faster than it can be recorded, and nobody ever records it accurately. There is much truth in the Bible that is difficult if not impossible to ferret out. The sages were never easy to figure out, even for their own students [see the Sheep story below]. The point is that Truth must be hard to find, for it to be worth it...
***For the skeptic who doesn't understand how healing without medicine might work, consider psychosomatic disorders. [Personally, I now think every disorder is psychosomatic in nature, even a heart attack or stroke.] Pseudocyesis [pseudo + kyesis = fake pregnancy] occurs when a woman manifests all symptoms of pregnancy, such as distension of the stomach, morning sickness, cessation of menstruation, and sometimes even goes into labor. The catch? She's not pregnant! Mind over matter! In addition, psychotherapy can cure warts! The placebo and nocebo effect are well-documented. A shot of saline can somehow function like 8.8 mg of morphine, if the patient believes strongly enough. I think people are psychic; in the sense that your mind affects the physical. If you believe, truly, that you will get better, you will. For instance, while peptic ulcer was once thought of as being purely caused by stress, later research revealed that Helicobacter pylori caused 80% of ulcers. However 4 out of 5 people infected with Helicobacter pylori do not develop ulcers, and an expert panel convened by the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research concluded that ulcers are not merely an infectious disease and that mental factors do play a significant role. One likelihood is that stress diverts energy away from the immune system, thereby stress promotes Helicobacter pylori infection in the body.[7] (Why everything is psychosomatic.)
None of my beliefs are empirically verifiable and I know that. It is no longer important to me to be verified. Unpredictable intellectual fads determine what is accepted as 'scientific truth'. These fads have no correlation with reality. Gender theory is a field that swung around from hard social constructionism to hard biological determinism in 20 years. You will see what you want with gender. You can run tests correlating testosterone with sex drive, but that proves zilch. Women and men are not analogous and to try to compare their sex drives is comparing apples and oranges. The HDNJ claims that women have more sexual energy, and this makes perfect sense to me. Conventional modern Western wisdom claims men are hornier, but I beg to differ. Women are more repressed by society because they would be uncontrollable otherwise. [Since women can orgasm almost indefinitely.] I think the sexual double standard prevents chaos. This would also explain genital mutilation in Africa. The more 'primitive' a society, the wiser. Social stability preserved at the cost of their clitor-es. [Latin?]
I have read Freud and Jung and I believe that they perceived. I don't think all information must come from a laboratory setting. Empiricism is not king. It's a pretty good petty official, but it is not king. Scientists are not above petty squabbling or just plain ineptitude. They are not paragons of wisdom or knowledge. See: anthropogenic global warming, the gay gene [a postulate so ridiculous as to inspire laughter and the theorem that there must be a gay protein that that gay gene codes for; therefore an IV could make somebody gay?], etc., abiogenesis [requires one to be so credulous as to believe that random processes gave rise to ridiculously complicated organisms... does a fetus develop from a gamete to a baby by randomness? In fact, by microbiological logic, a-banana-genesis is several orders of magnitude more probable than abiogenesis. Bananas are genetically much more similar to human beings than single cells, since we share 50% of their DNA and they have 33 chromosomes, a great deal closer to our 46 than the 1 chromosome of a single cell].
People don't see the kingdom of Heaven within, or the seed, or that magnificent thing that we all know as Free Will. I am not here for a philosophical debate, but I think it very important that people understand they have a Will! John 8:32 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
The way I see it [I'm a monist], all religion is the same message filtered different ways. When we examine an organism on the physical, chemical, or biological level, we're looking at the same actual thing. The sciences are mutually compatible This brings me to a problem I have with reductionism, especially the biochemical kind. To have any sort of psycho[somatic]/[logical] disorder reduced to biochemistry reduces a human being to a bag of chemicals. We are more complicated than that, and treating the biochemical symptoms does not treat the root of the problem, if that root be psychological. The Creation of Psychopharmacology by David Healy discusses this problem in depth - why treating depression with SSRIs may be counterproductive [in fact, treating manic-depression with SSRIs exacerbates manic episodes]. This brings me to a parable about 'too many paths', or about knowledge. Two excerpts:
" There are too many paths," replied the servant. "One path leads to another, and we didn't know which to take, so we had to come back."
" When there are too many paths," said Hsin-tu Tzu, " a man cannot find his sheep. When a student has too many interests, he fritters away his time. The source of all knowledge is one, but the branches of learning are many. Only by returning to the primal truth can a man avoid losing his way. You are Yang Tzu's pupil and study from him, yet you seem to have failed completely to understand him."
It would take forever to try to boil depression down to its biochemical analogue [which would be the physical 'symptom' of the disorder, not the cause]. I think it's more useful to use psychotherapy now to treat what is a psychological issue, than to try to mess around with levels or neurochemicals in a haphazard and blind attempt to correct them. The biochemical approach takes the laborous long hard path... I consider SSRIs analogous to nicotine in their mood regulation. They make patients 'better than well' and are terribly addictive. This is not a cure for depression, this is a mood-regulatory drug that we don't understand. Also, SSRIs increase suicidality and may be worse than placebo. You might erase all of the symptoms, but how is that treating the underlying issue = cause? Taking painkillers does not change the fact that somebody sawed your arm off.
I had always cast a rather cynical eye on any sort of Golden Age mythology - you see it with the Greeks, the land of milk and honey, or Eden, or a time before men fell away from their nobler selves. People in the Bible lived centuries long, the men in the Iliad were forces to be feared, and the old sages mentioned in the Huangdi Neijing could heal without medicine or acupuncture. But now I wonder...what knowledge has been lost?
I've become very disillusioned with modern science and its vaunted objectivity. Intuition and subjective forms of knowledge-gathering are just as valid, and may even be the shorter path. Religion is a shorter path than science, though they both reach the same primal truth. Mystics and spiritwalkers do the same thing scientists do [search out truth], but they do it quicker! Michael Crichton's autobiography agrees with me completely and has influenced me. On the shoulders of giants. It's a great read.
Modern Western science does not disprove Chinese medicine [acupuncture, herbal]. People need to realize that different systems are mutually compatible. Chemistry does not disprove religion any more than chemistry disproves biology or physics or art or music or literature. The different medical traditions of more primitive cultures have a lot of wisdom to give to us, if only we would collect the fruit! Moroccan trad'l med-cum-cosmology is remarkably similar to Chinese ideas [man as a microcosmos in the macrocosmos]. [Concepts of 'hot' and 'cold' similar to yang and yin]. Reach the same truth by different paths!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Frustration
In pursuit of truth [or not?], I often get into arguments with people. I have now acquired a bizarre blend of mysticism and a rejection of the scientific method. I am intensely interested in medicine per religion [i.e. hygiene in religion and dietary restrictions].
I have been exploring Traditional Chinese Medicine, and liking it. I have become disillusioned with the reductionism of much of Western science and the shift in medicine towards slipshod pharmacology, especially psychopharmacology. [See "The Creation of Psychopharmacology" by Healy.]
I don't like the reductionism of biomedicine. Maybe I am a dualist now...who knows? The soul must be healthy, however. The soul, the mind, the body; these are all intertwined. We need morality for the soul, we need wisdom for the mind [not intelligence], and we need exercise for the body.
I have been exploring Traditional Chinese Medicine, and liking it. I have become disillusioned with the reductionism of much of Western science and the shift in medicine towards slipshod pharmacology, especially psychopharmacology. [See "The Creation of Psychopharmacology" by Healy.]
I don't like the reductionism of biomedicine. Maybe I am a dualist now...who knows? The soul must be healthy, however. The soul, the mind, the body; these are all intertwined. We need morality for the soul, we need wisdom for the mind [not intelligence], and we need exercise for the body.
Books
Already Read
Mostly been reading/skimming 'science' or Traditional Chinese medicine
Psychology and Alchemy // Psychology and Religion / nonfic / both by Carl Jung. Excellent works, though slightly dry. Both require more knowledge of the humanities than I possess. Jung was a very deep feller. I love dragging out his Synchronizitaet = principle of synchronicity. It’s an acausal connecting principle. It’s a delicious new addition to Western ‘science’.
Atomised / fic / Michel Houellebecq. Houellebecq was the son of a hippie-woman who probably was sort of neglectful. Therefore, he is a conservative Christian and a reactionary. He bemoans crumbling sexual mores, verges on pornographic in most of his works, and describes women mostly as sexual objects beyond reach. Basically, he has the girl-crazy mentality of a celibate and horny 14-year-old boy. However, I find his [conservative] reactionism appealing, because I’m me.
Quantum Mechanics / nonfic /Griffiths. Ah, who am I kidding? Would I read the whole thing? It’s short, but still boring and requires too much brain juice. This was sort of interesting, but I mostly skimmed it. Of note are the EPR paradox and the Aspect experiments. Also known as “spooky action at a distance” = instantaneous communication faster than the speed of light.
Hawking’s Universe in a Nutshell. Introduction to a lot of modern physics. Sort of basic and boring, but great pictures and very good explanations.
The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine / nonfic / Manfred Porkert. This is from the MIT Eastern Sciences Series. It is a very well-written, rigorous treatment of traditional Chinese medicine. The book goes into some depth about a philosophy of the body/mind that really doesn’t like the micro-approach too [there is no talk of cells or enzymes, only of qi force[s], yin and yang principles, and nine ‘organs’ total – they’re more of ‘organ-spheres’, abstract concepts and not actual anatomical thangs, and of acupuncture theory and the meridians]. I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in science/medicine/how the body works. Porkert uses the philological approach and really is much better at grasping shades of meaning of Chinese than most chinks themselves. I approve heartily of his methodology. He must be classically trained. Here is an excerpt below:
Huangdi Neijing [‘Medical Canon of the Yellow Emperor’ is a rough translation] / nonfic / author unclear [cf. Bible, Iliad]. This is a great Chinese classic which lays out the principles of Chinese medicine – a blend of Taoist thought and a mutant kind of Vitalism, along with plenty of other junk; so old the I Ching, a classic on divination, is quite possibly the only other older text. I read the bilingual edition; there is simplified Chinese too, not that I could understand that much in the mother tongue, alas...
Dream of a Ridiculous Man / fic / Dostoevsky. This was a pretty boring standard dark Russian-Christian short story. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t find it particularly illuminating. Dostoevsky has ever been a glum moralist
Gideon’s Bible / Gott in Himmel. Hahaha I’ve also been reading the Bible in bits and pieces. I rather love Ecclesiastes. It is my favorite book. . I’ve been struggling with my faith or lack thereof recently. I wonder about the true use of morality. I wonder if my crazy GLBT theories are wrong and that there actually is ‘no reason’ for prohibition of homosexuality. Then, I remind myself that I’m a homophobe. ;-) I kid, I kid. I think gay-bashing is disgusting, but I still think children should be given a norm to cleave to. Here is an inspiring passage I rather like: “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, o you of little faith…Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” – Matthew.
Jing ping mei / fic / some Chink. This was a really boring piece of ‘literature’ about a wealthy, lame dude with a lot of wives. A classic, but I hated it.
Currently Reading
NMR: A Nuts and Bolts Approach. A rather dry text about nuclear magnetic resonance. I’ve never been able to wrap my head around electromagnetism in general – it simply isn’t very intuitive. NMR is helping, however. I’m reading this text because I will soon be commencing a research project about NMR techniques and imaging.
Oeuvres de HC Andersen, texts traduits par Régis Boyer [Andersen’s fairytales in French, to practice my French and because I love parables/moralistic fairytales!]
Organic Chemistry / Wade and Wade. I’ve gotten five and a half chapters down out of twenty-six, in 2 months of plodding. This book simply isn’t interesting. It’s for next year. I dread this class. I still have to finish this. I don’t like it that much. Too much …
To-Read
The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71. A recommendation from a friend.
In A Different Voice / Carol Gilligan. A book on moarlity that Czerny told me to read.
Beggars in Spain / Nancy Kress. Friend’s recommendation.
Anything fun by Molière
Madame Bovary / Flaubert
Le Père Goriot / Balzac
Combray / Proust
Le Mariage de Figaro / Beaumarchais [opera !]
Manon Lescaut / Prevost [opera!]
All the French works above are recommendations of my former French teacher, Lauren Pinzka. She’s a great teacher, and I think she felt bad for me because I was so shy and never talked in class. She knows her stuff.
Music
I’ve been listening to Magic by B.o.B. ft Rivers Cuomo [from Weezer], and Dynamite by Taio Cruz. I’ve been listening to terrible mainstream pop 24/7. I’m not ashamed. I’ve listened to Ashlee Simpson for 3 weeks straight this summer [not consecutively, just 3 different weeks].
Ideas
I like: theosophy/theological monism, ontological monism, radical skepticism about science, integrated medicine [read: holistic medicine], the placebo effect – shamanistic healing – using psychotherapy for somatic or physiological disorders.
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