Schizoaffective

 Einstein's theory of relativity holds that the faster an object moves, the slower time passes. This means that a spacecraft traveling close to the speed of light for five years, according to those on board, will return to an earth that has aged 36 years. Indeed, a photon traveling from a distant star to earth gets here in billions of years according to us, but according to the photon the elapsed time would be much, much less. This aspect of Einstein's theory has been experimentally confirmed many times, and it has practical applications when it comes to satellites and space travel. It is called "time dilation." I point this out to show that time is not an absolute. It depends on the frame of reference of the perceiver. Not surprisingly, various cultures have conceptualized time in radically different ways. Ancient Jewish and Christian cultures saw time as a falling away from a paradisiacal past—namely, the Garden of Eden. Time has alienated us from a direct experienc...

by Jay Paul   What am I going to make of being schizoaffective? Certainly, I don't choose to wallow in self pity and self negation, mirroring the greater society's poor opinion of people in my category. I want to contribute what I can; specifically, I would like to contribute what I can from the openings provided me by my very schizoaffective. Yes, schizoaffective is horrible and horrifying in many ways. But it also reveals aspects of experience that would otherwise stay hidden. It is a view from terrific loss, when seen from the conventional notion of success, but it is a unique view that offers a lot to humanity. Schizoaffective has taken so much from me. I had a respectable middle-class career, and that is no longer. In fact, my career, prep school teacher, was not even the career I had trained for. I'm a Ph.D. in English, and when I went to grad school in the late 80's, professorship looked like a promising career. The G.I. Bill Ph.D.'s were going to be retiring...

Meditation is in vogue. Various people representing divergent interests frequently tout its health benefits. I have no doubt that there are benefits to meditation, but that is not why I do it. At this point, I feel I do it for the same reason I breathe: it is part of my make-up and the way I am in the world. I meditate frequently: twice a day, 50 minutes a session. That's 100 minutes a day on my chair. The type of meditation I do is called "shikantaza" and is based in Zen. I simply sit quietly, and when a thought or feeling comes up, I notice it, acknowledge it, and let it go. Sometimes, of course, I get caught in my thoughts and daydream for a while. When I notice I am doing this, again, I acknowledge it and get back to just sitting, noticing thoughts, and letting them go. I have meditated off and on my whole adult life, but I only got truly serious about it in early 2019. Soon, I was meditating twice a day for 40 minutes a sitting. I became quite devoted to meditation a...

 After last week's post on the nature of the interrelatedness of what we call self with other people and even things, I got to thinking about memory. What is it, and how does it work? In particular, I was interested in how memory interacts with the present moment. Before addressing memory, we need to establish what the present moment is. This is not easy. The present moment seems to be composed, for the most part, of anticipations, of ways of organizing toward a conceptualized and hoped-for near term future. For instance, if I am having a genial conversation with a friend, I focus on how to keep the geniality and friendliness flowing. I anticipate conversation topics that may amuse or entertain my friend. I anticipate topics that may comfort her. I pay attention to how what I am saying impacts her so that I can adjust, if needed, my tenor and emphasis. This is all toward keeping the conversation flowing into the future. I can sense her doing something similar in response to me. The...