Older writings by topic
The writings on this page amount to a snapshot of one person I once was. My current writings are all on the blog.
Some perspectives on cognition that frame my work are laid out in
The clarification of my self-concept and of my practice is described in
- Values → My Life Purpose → Traditions That Inform Me → What My Service is About → Claiming My Identity.
My story with mental illness and recovery in 2018–2019 is told in
- 2nd SFiversary → Fuck Depression → The Call of Authenticity → The Fight of My Life → Postcard From Walkabout → Return to SF → Finding a Rhythm Again.
Some stray items:
The Personal and the Universal
My trying to make sense of what it all means to me
Values
"Instead of setting my goals first and directing my life towards them, I have found it more helpful to learn my values first, and to live my life as an outgrowth of them."
Honesty
"[T]he simplest giveaway of the smarter people I know is not that they know everything, but that they understand the limits of their knowledge."
Belief
"I get to allow a richer notion of “belief”, including degrees of belief (say, correlated with evidence fit) or maybe even distinct categories or annexes of belief that don’t get to contradict each other. I may honor all of them as representing authentic truth in my heart."
Experience
"On the other hand, if we are clear about these things, we needn't let the subjective aspect of experience keep us from studying and discussing it. What arises when one tries to understand subjective experience is the philosophy of mind. In fact, the relativity itself is the source of perhaps a key issue of this inquiry: we are all so exquisitely unique, yet so much of the human experiene can be related and shared, so what are the common building blocks versus how do our particular lives fit these blocks together?"
Theories of Mind
"Something we do not address often is that theories of mind vary widely among people. The maximal theory of mind, the hypothetical map that covers all possible behaviors and explanations, is huge and each individual's theory covers some region inside this map."
The Personal and the Universal
"Our experiences may be sorted along an axis from most personal to most universal, and my observarion is that this axis finds its extremes joined..."
Claiming the S-Word
"The fact that spirituality is merely a cognitive function is usually held in opposition to taking it seriously, especially in modernity."
My Life Purpose
"To gather, synthesize, and share human experience. ... To help people belong to their being human and to see fully that they hold it in common."
The Roots of True Self
"We clear a space within us where we will treat ourselves safely. We open up to vulnerability in this most protected place. We call forth what is authentic within us. And we offer it belonging."
Traditions That Inform Me
"The entirety of modes of contact with human experience is fair game for our minds to make meaning."
What My Service is About
"[T]he trench I belong in is with people's suffering, their uncertainty, and their disconnection."
Claiming My Identity
"There are many nouns for this moment. It is an awakening, to the plain truth of myself. It is a return, home to the person I knew I was as a child. It is a coming out. It is a calling."
Archive
Personal writings
2nd SFiversary
2 August 2017
"I feel like a motorcycle improvement project where the bike's been half disassembled, without a plan emerging for how to put it back together, but it's still the only mode of transit."
Fuck Depression
14 April 2018
"My mind feels like my own private Flanders Fields; I have watched the lines move from side to side so many times, the ruins of old trenches compounding like meander scars."
The Call of Authenticity
14 May 2018
"One thing I've learned is that a lack of self-care arose from something deeper, some failings of self-love."
The Fight of My Life
20 September 2018
"Things got a lot worse after my last update."
Electroconvulsive Therapy
23 September 2018
"More information for those of you who are curious..."
Postcard from Walkabout
19 November 2018
"Lately I've been hiding far away from California. My instinct was telling me that I wasn't going to complete healing there. Viewing that environment from over here, I can more clearly make out a baseline level of alarm: the problems of our world are all so real there."
Undated Journal Entry
21 November 2018
"Love is the art of making safe spaces."
Return to SF
22 December 2018
"The distance and resilience gained during my travel have allowed me to see more clearly than ever: my root problem is fear response on a biological level."
Mindfulness in Three Steps
16 January 2019
"Mindfulness is not itself an activity. Rather, it is a byproduct that emerges from a practice."
Finding a Rhythm Again
17 January 2019
"Looking forward, I feel an urgency to deepen my awareness of the signals from my body."
Advice to a Friend
14 May 2019
"Existential angst is just a bodily sensation. You may think it's an idea or even an emotion. But it's more like a type of pain.
It's a very strange one in that it seems to affect your idea of reality and how you fit into the universe."
Vacation/Vocation Update
6 November 2019
"The pain would point the way toward its own healing."