I’ve been going through it lately. A bad “it.” “It” can be a lot of things to different people, but “it”‘s are everywhere. I’m tired of “it.” Figuring out how to cope with “it” all has been a top priority for me, when I could figure things out at all. In my better moments, I…
disney
“I am Moana!” : Naming yourself so others can’t
I’ve written before about identity – and in particular, the forces (or “modules”) in our mind and how we can organize them. I’ve also written about making sure no one else hijacks your mental A/I – our interface between those forces and the world. But what if someone can hijack your modules? Not an ad…
In which I get real about my Void Sphere
A mysterious sphere gives everyone the heebee jeebies in the Doctor Who episode “Army of Ghosts.” The reason for this unsettled feeling, scientists explain, is that it isn’t really there in any measurable way. Of course it ends up being nefarious – it is a ship from the void, which is why it can’t be…
Who will we be after going “into the woods” in COVID quarantine?
We’re in a bit of an in-between time. There are good words for where we are: penumbra, for instance, is the area between total light and total shadow. Or we could try alluvian, a more geographic term describing the wettish area between land and sea. In musical theater terms, we have gone “into the woods.”…
Is your mental AR up to date? And safe from hackers?
Who is augmenting reality out there? Iron Man is using it to fight bad guys. Eve uses to tell that the plant in Wall-E’s adorable outstretched hands means it’s time to summon a spaceship. Rocket uses to locate people who have a bounty on their heads. We use it out here in the “real world,”…
Don’t let Amy Poehler become a Horcrux: Buddhism and the Self
Is meditating like taking the red pill in “The Matrix”? Yes, in fact it is, at least according to author Robert Wright in “Why Buddhism is True” – a book whose simplistic title does not do justice to its geeky and frankly mind-blowing innards. Wright holds that the clarity of meditation/mental work is so earth-shattering…
The Top Trees of Fandom
Trees are simply the best, for reasons I’ve described… and there are so many great examples in fiction. Here are some of my favorites from fandom and a little bit of what we think we can learn from them…
The Top Plants of Fandom
Plants are such a happy little weird phenomenon – especially plants in pots. They are like little green alien visitors that we hardly understand from another, better, more beautiful world – except that it’s our own world too. (Except for Audrey II, which is super cool but but is none of those things except alien….
We are all Guinan, Moana, Eleanor, and Mrs. Maisel in Plato’s Cave
Picture Guinan from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Moana, and Mrs. Maisel (the marvelous one) sitting in a cave and staring at a wall. That, in a nutshell, illustrates our battle with existential motion sickness. Bear with me. In philosophy, Plato’s cave analogy is used to show the challenges inherent in how people perceive the…
Before & After Yoga
We’ve all seen the meme of the horse “before yoga” and the unicorn “after” – and appreciated the glorious, glittery truth of it, right? Here are a few fandom before & after’s – what would you add?!