The Right Way to Flourish

Again, I apologize to my faithful followers for the silence on this blog for quite a while. No excuses really. I just haven’t felt i have much to say for a while. Some things have changed for me. My wife and I have moved into a senior living community after many decades in a big house. We have yet to finish unpacking, but are feeling very positive about the change. I hope to continue the blog on a more regular schedule once we are more settled. In any case, here are some thoughts i have been having lately. This post… Read More

Continue Reading

  I have been lately quoting Marx’s last “Thesis on Feuerbach” which reads: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” Much as I admire Iain McGilchrist for his breakthrough work on the brain, I wish he would pay more attention (right-brain) to this timely aphorism. His first book, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, established the bi-hemispheric brain as the paradigm for the way we attend to the world and consequently act in it. It also pointed out, in excruciated detail, how… Read More

Continue Reading

To my faithful and other visitors to my blog, thank you for continuing to come even though I have been very irregular lately.  At least two reasons are involved. The first is that i have been reading McGilchrist’s recent book, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, and the second is that my wife and I are moving to a CCRC, that is a retirement or senior community. The move will take place in mid-July, but has been very unsettling for a while as the process of moving is horrendous after being in… Read More

Continue Reading

Today I am reposting a message from a group I belong concerned with making a great transition to a world that works. The current topic is big history and the great transition. The post is from Riane Eisler for whose work I have great respect. She writes that modern cultures are largely systems of domination, which is hardly arguably, and that “partnership systems” should replace them. Well written and grounded. I see this as a call for caring, which is why I posted it here. Her case could be made much more timely and likely to happen if she was… Read More

Continue Reading

All recovered, but was inspired to write another poem. An Ode to Covid John Ehrenfeld January, 2023 I’m now about seven days infected. Which variant has me I do not know. I cannot say; it came unsuspected Though for weeks I’ve waited for it to show. For three years, Covid has honored my age. It has kept itself very far away, While my immunity erected a cage That has kept the worst of its scourge at bay. The virus finally slipped through my screen And took hold of some vulnerable cell. Hungering for a most desirable gene, Its spikes penetrated… Read More

Continue Reading

In McGilchrist’s new book, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, he spends a considerable number of pages discussing the relation of mental illness and other pathologies of the brain to the hemispheric balance. Schizophrenia and autism share a chapter. He provides lots of evidence that the loss of reality and related symptoms in schizophrenic subjects is due to an imbalance of the hemispheres with th left strongly dominating the right. That makes sense as the affected person is operating largely out of the disconnected hemisphere, and had limited connection to the actual… Read More

Continue Reading

Again, I apologize for the erratic posting schedule, but this time I do have a reason. As I was composing my to-be-my-next post, I realized that I was almost certainly misinterpreting McGilchrist’s work. I had been reading his new book, but only casually because I found it so daunting. But as I started to read it more closely, I realized it offered more clarity for some of the issues I was concerned about. Nothing much new about the general differences in the way the two hemispheres attend to the world and produce subsequent actions, but lots more about how they… Read More

Continue Reading

For those who haven’t been following closely, I will repost the table containing the several behaviors associated with the right-hemisphere. I have rearranged the rows in the order in which I discuss them in this series of blog posts. * Russell Ackoff’s ways to deal with messes. Right-hemisphere-dominant behavior types Caring is an especially important category because it has existential implications and is also partly constitutive of flourishing. Caring acts incorporate inputs from the contextual world presented to the right hemisphere. Empathy, sensing what is going on with another person and acting in accordance, guides much caring. But not all… Read More

Continue Reading

Good-bye to a tumultuous year. A new war. The Jan 6 findings. Horrible performance of the stock market. Covid hanging around. Elections better than expected, but still upsetting the already fractious Congress. Starting to downsize in anticipation of moving to a “retirement community.” But not all with negative ramifications. Halfway to being 92, and in good physical and mental health. Still gifted with a loving spouse to keep me company and warm at night. Busy family, but still no great grandchildren on the horizon. My children haven’t tried to take away the car keys yet, so am happily getting about.… Read More

Continue Reading

Turning to the other side of the brain, the story is quite different. All the entries reflect the dominance of the right hemisphere and all are situation specific. The context of the setting is important, as any action is fitted to the immediate circumstances, unlike routines or habits, which are based on already established (in the left) patterns. The left hemisphere plays a part in most of these types of behaviors, offering up suggestions of responses it believes fit the situation, including options that may not. The right side can either accept or reject these inputs. The ability to say… Read More

Continue Reading