March 2013
6 posts
“ …unlike a disease of the traditional definition (infections, cancer), the symptoms we are describing as fibromylagia represent a “way of being/perception” that deviates along a continuum from the generally and socially accepted “norm” of health. Perhaps “it” is a sort of “super power” of perception gone haywire due to overloading the system (Stress? Perhaps.)”
The Fibromyalgia Perplex: It is discovered that the true meaning of Fibromyalgia is not as simple as is usually believed, but for proper elucidation requires the combined efforts of academicians of varying critical persuasions.
February 2013
6 posts
I thought this was interesting.
January 2013
2 posts
Once upon a time there was an elephant who did nothing all day.
He lived by himself in a little house away at the very top of a curling road.
From the elephant’s house,this curling road went twisting away down until it found itself in a green valley where there was another little house,in which a butterfly lived.
One day the elephant was sitting in his little house and looking out of his window doing nothing(and feeling very happy because that was what he liked most to do)when along this curling road he saw somebody coming up and up toward his little house;and he opened his eyes wide,and felt very much surprised. “Whoever is that person who’s coming up along and along the curling road toward my little house?” the elephant said to himself.
And pretty soon he saw that it was a butterfly who was fluttering along the curling road ever so happily;and the elephant said: “My goodness, I wonder if he’s coming to call on me?” As the butterfly came nearer and nearer,the elephant felt more and more excited inside of himself. Up the steps of the little house came the butterfly and he knocked very gently on the door with his wing. “Is anyone inside?” he asked.
The elephant was ever so pleased,but he waited.
Then the butterfly knocked again with his wing,a little louder but still very gently,and said: “Does anyone live here,please?”
Still the elephant never said anything because he was too happy to speak.
A third time the butterfly knocked,this time quite loudly,and aksed: “Is anyone at home?” And this time the elephant said in a trembling voice: “I am.” The butterfly peeped in at the door and said: “Who are you,that live in this little house?” And the elephant peeped out at him and answered: “I’m the elephant who does nothing all day.” “Oh,” said the butterfly, “and may I come in?” “Please do,” the elephant said with a smile,because he was very happy. So the butterfly just pushed the little door open with his wing and came in.
Once upon a time there were seven trees which lived beside the curling road. And when the butterfly pushed the door with his wing and came into the elephant’s little house,one of the trees said to one of the trees: “I think it’s going to rain soon.”
“The curling road will be all wet and will smell beautifully,” said another tree to another tree.
Then a different tree said to a different tree: “How lucky for the butterfly that he’s safely inside the elephant’s little house,because he won’t mind the rain.”
But the littlest tree said: “I feel the rain already,” and sure enough,while the butterfly and the elephant were talking in the elephant’s little house away at the top of the curling road,the rain simply began falling gently everywhere;and the butterfly and the elephant looked out of the window together and they felt ever so safe and flad,while the curling road became all wet and began to smell beautifully just as the third tree had said.
Pretty soon it stopped raining and the elephant put his arm very gently around the little butterfly and said: “Do you love me a little?”
And the butterfly smiled and said: “No, I love you very much.”
Then the elephant said: “I’m so happy,I think we ought to go for a walk together you and I:for now the rain has stopped and the curling road smells beautifully.”
The butterfly said: “Yes,but where shall you and I go?”
“Let’s go away down and down the curling road where I’ve never been,” the elephant said to the little butterfly. And the butterfly smiled and said: “I’d love to go with you all the way down and down the curling road—let’s go out the little door of your house and down the steps together—shall we?”
So they came out together and the elephant’s arm was very gently around the butterfly. Then the littlest tree said to his six friends: “I believe the butterfly loves the elephant as much as the elephant loves the butterfly,and that makes me very happy,for they’ll love each other always.”
Down and down the curling road walked the elephant and the butterfly.
The sun was shining beautifully after the rain.
The curling road smelled beautifully of flowers.
A bird began to sing in a bush,and all the clouds went away out of the sky and it was Spring everywhere.
When they came to the butterfly’s house,which was down in the green valley which had never been so green,the elephant said: “Is this where you live?”
And the butterfly said: “Yes,this is where I live.”
“May I come into your house?” said the elephant.
“Yes,” said the butterfly. So the elephant just pushed the door gently with his trunk and they came into the butterfly’s house. And then the elephant kissed the butterfly very gently and the butterfly said: “Why didn’t you ever before come down into the valley where I live?” And the elephant answered, “Because I did nothing all day. But now that I know where you live,I’m coming down the curling road to see you every day,if I may—and may I come?” Then the butterfly kissed the elephant and said: “I love you,so please do.”
And every day after this the elephant would come down the curling road which smelled so beautifully(past the seven trees and the bird singing in the bush)to visit is little friend the butterfly.
And they loved each other always.
September 2012
1 post
August 2012
4 posts
[T]he laws amount to a funny way of saying, ‘Nothing equals something,’” Updike said, bursting into laughter. “QED! One opinion I’ve encountered is that, since getting from nothing to something involves time, and time didn’t exist before there was something, the whole question is a meaningless one that we should stop asking ourselves. It’s beyond our intellectual limits as a species. Put yourself into the position of a dog. A dog is responsive, shows intuition, looks at us with eyes behind which there is intelligence of a sort, and yet a dog must not understand most of the things it sees people doing. It must have no idea how they invented, say, the internal-combustion engine. So maybe what we need to do is imagine that we’re dogs and that there are realms that go beyond our understanding. I’m not sure I buy that view, but it is a way of saying that the mystery of being is a permanent mystery, at least given the present state of the human brain. I have trouble even believing—and this will offend you—the standard scientific explanation of how the universe rapidly grew from nearly nothing. Just think of it. The notion that this planet and all the stars we see, and many thousands of times more than those we see – that all this was once bounded in a point with the size of, what, a period or a grape? How, I ask myself, could that possibly be? And, that said, I sort of move on.
