Welcome to the blog of Carol Smaldino, psychotherapist, author and most recently author of a manuscript "A Dancing Mind: Throught the Fog of Distraction to Beginnings of Clarity", and specifically author of the web site, www.adancingmind.com.
Initially I had no intention of doing a blog but there are two specific things for me:1. The thoughts keep coming and some of them dance into a formation that seems important and 2. Communication and collaboration have become more important than ever, at least for me.
I do not know how this all will go but I would like it to include matters overlooked or unspoken, like the fact that Barak Obama is a Black man, that there are racism and poverty in America, that most kids are bored by school and most adults are so pressured that we are becoming desensitized. I would like to include the loneliness of the sensitive spirits among us who are dealing with the numbness and distraction--some of them in noble ways.
I am here because I am driven by passion, inspiration, loneliness, need for community and the freedom and affirmation of speech. I know there are people stuck in the closets of their own congestion, and in the oppression of all the voices internalized by culture and family.
I am old enough (and/or secure enought) to be able to admit that I love and perhaps crave conversation with interesting and deep people who know the depths of both tragedy and wit. At moments I wish it were otherwise, that there were easy and welcoming communities without membership in clans or churches or synagogues (yes, intestinally and biologically I am Jewish), or universities, and that communication on deeper levels was more common.
But so it is...And as an official member of the ADD community and owner of a dancing mind, I will start by letting this blog dance its way into some format or direction. I will invite a variety of people to participate and hopefully we might even form a clan of our own or better yet, an open space where opinions might be created and shifted, and a pledge of allegiance is not a requirement for membership.
A beginning dialogue on topics of urgency that plague or elude or distract us. A dialogue on topics that are already in the air or in our news or travelling through us. A dialogue on topics which need integration of emotions and thought, and sometimes collaboration and guidance. A dialogue on the stuff of life, personal and political, which all too often remain for way too long, hanging in the sounds of silence...
4 comments:
TONE, FEELING, CONTENT
This is Carol, you know, of this web site and other flights of fancy and fame. I realize that once a comment is posted for any broader reason than a momentary idea, realities can swiftly change.
For instance even though I have the power to edit my own blogs (which would make sense), I have decided for the time being to let them be; this gives a flow to the reality of change--of facts, of ideas, of knowledge, etc.
I am a big proponent of dialogue and particularly of collaboration. I am personally upset at the public upset (that would not be those left of center) at the use of the word "liberal".
Getting back to continuing from blog #1, I acknowledge that of course today everyone is talking about Barak Obama being Black but few YET are talking about the underlying and overwhelming racism prominent in our nation for anyone who cares to see. Few yet are talking about the fact that "liberal" means to many emotional and spiritual(perhaps physical as well?) spinelessness but also a socialism which threatens the pockets of anyone who has them.
It is cool to idealize John F. Kennedy and to hark back to his own idealism. Aside from many of the complications of his international policies and moral infringements which in today's world might rock us back to the Middle Ages, he inspired hope and healing and did not reject those who could not--and I stand by "could not" help themselves.
Liberals who are not afraid of the liberals might become angry if the people they help to elect, reject the word, reject them and that would be to say, reject us. I am proud of being a liberal, only that I know we need collaboration. I know that many liberals have bleeding hearts as I do, intuitive sensibilities and wonderful and imaginative ideas. I have heard said that many of the hearts and minds that can create great ideas, SIMPLY NEED A CONSERVATIVE ACCOUNTANT TO BALANCE A BUDGET.
One of my own findings, and one of the central if impressionistic findings that propelled me to write here, is that I found a number of people with a "sofer" version of ADD who allegedly were easily distracted, to be in fact "dead on" when it came to evaluating social and even interpersonal dynamics.
In fact there are many ideas conceived by liberals that are way cost effective.
It is cost effective to know the dangers of distraction from the gravest problems of our time, which include poverty, racism on domestic levels. They include our national tendency to be moved by rhetoric, the rings of patriotism, the fears of political incorrectness--a loud laugh or tone, etc. We become distracted from studying history, from exploring ideas, and exploring the political, social and human causes and costs of policies.
Isn't it sad that a loud tone can provoke fears of instability while ignoring the fact that racism is prominent remains for many a distraction that goes under the radar. We concentrate on the political correctness and tone of candidates while there is almost a conspiracy of "calm" over the violence we commit on a daily basis in Iraq to our own soldiers and to civilians who have been broken.
We can only take responsibility for ourselves. So if we as a nation have gone, with falsification of "facts" into a region already beseiged by a plethora of conflicts, to incite more damage, we are accountable. We are accountable and if we realize this, one appropriate emotion is anger, a rage and sadness at the betrayal of our government to us in telling us lies. For those of us yearning for peaceful resolution of conflict, we can be horrified by the human and political cost of the Iraqi conflict.
The confusion over patriotism is rampant. The idea that questioning or criticizing one's country is unpatriotic, should be out by now--out as in the toilet. We want to make better that which we love, we want to help those whom we care about. If we see a friend going down through drug use or mental disasters, we generally might try to help or intervene.
I have always felt in an argument that tone precedes content, in part because when I am yelled at I don't think straight. However this is not to say that tone REPLACES content.
I hope that a tone can exist in this blog, that some of the time reflects real emotion and thought, as well as some humor, without which...
Well, let me add here a line that my friend Mary said I should use on the first page of my book. But here it is:
Without laughter it would all be unbearable....
And in the dancing mind arena, out comes another: Just because things are the way they are--just because subjects are taught the way they are, just because current values are the way they are, doesn't mean always it's
the right way or the only way.
And just because on this day, Martin Luther King Day, anyone says just the right things to win the most votes or applause, doesn't mean the deeper truths are being touched. For all of us, it can seem very inconvenient to admit our own racism. But on this day, I would say my respect for what he did would mean my own admission and some meditation on my involvement and accountabiity.
Let us pray/meditate/think/speak/share/etc
Carol
Once again it is in the wee hours of the morning, when the mind often dances... However I woke with a VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. THE DANCING MIND DANCED AND HERE GOES:
I realized just yesterday that it's not so important only to say things that seem and may be so important in and of themselves. It's not just the things we say or the things we say, but ALSO WHAT WOULD OR MIGHT HAPPEN if we realize new things or see things another way.
Yesterday I read in a New York Times editorial something about mercury in fish--something that can be bad for people's health, and really bad for young girls and women who may be or might be or will want to be, pregnant one day. I know one such girl very well and she had recently said she needed to be very careful about how much fish she was eating. In our family we had actually begun to eat a lot of fish; she doesn't eat meat and everyone said fish was healthy--a no-brainer, right?
I was reading the article--which I then realized was an editorial--and I realized I was looking (in my mind) for places where we could find fish with lower mercury content. Let me explain that the day before an article had come out saying that even in some fancy places the tuna used in sushi had been found to have high mercury content. So my mind was on where to get the better tuna. Whole Foods, I imagined. But no, it wasn't about Whole Foods or about any other market. It was about our oceans. The editorial said basically that if we want cleaner and purer fish we have to clean up the oceans.
Wow, what a concept. But it's the same about everything. If we start thinking about things in different ways, we will have to CHANGE THINGS, AND MORE THAN LIKELY WE WILL HAVE TO CHANGE OURSELVES. People in the suburbs worry about children on drugs who are alienated and not working up to their potential. But once we look into it and even more, listen to our children, we might find out some tough things. We might find they are bored by school, they are always and forever too pressured by getting into a "good" college, they have started to hate reading because they equate it with tests. We might find out that many kids are bored because they have things to say that grownups don't want to hear because it would shake our applecarts. (Do we even have applecarts?)
If we, for example, are nursing our own bad tempers and intimidating our kids, we might have to grow, and challenge ourselves, and grow up, even though we ourselves might very well need help in doing so. If we realize our kids need a say in the way they are taught we would have to change our school systems. If we want to eat healthy fish, for example, we have to do something about our oceans. Ecology is ecology and if everything and everyone are connected to each other, getting in touch with people's realities and needs, will mean changing our views and changing our actions.
If we realize that people in some of our poorer communities are stuck in a cycle from which they cannot get out just by wishing alone, just as some depressed rich people are under the influence of drugs and fears and nightmares to the extent that they don't know a good way out, we will have to start working to find causes. And then we will need to start working to find solutions.
And if we realize that it takes many kinds of people and people of many different ages to solve problems, it might be that we need the young and the old and the liberal and conservative since most liberals are often not the best accountants (OK, I speak for myself).
We might love research and information and yoga and meditation but true meditation can lead to new levels of realization. If we let ourselves relax in thought and communicating, we may come out of a swimming pool or facial or massage or meditation, or a jog, with feelings of deeper connection to ourselves and other people. W Sometimes it seems that there are so many relaxation techniques just to make people less stressed about impossibly stressful lives which are not damaging and can be artificially "encouraged" to remainn the same if stress reduction is another bandaid to help people forget that which needs fixing.
Evolution in the human sense (I can still use the word, right?) means that WE HAVE to EVOLVE. Freedom in the human sense means we have to have responsibilities for that freedom. So to speak, nothing really comes for free; everything has its consequences.
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I would love to hear from younger people too,, but please I love the idea of people of all ages talking, being heard, and perhaps being moved. This might be a place to hear and express the different realities and points of view of people who don't usually talk and who are not usually heard.
And then there is that strange thing that seems to happen with the brain cells and the heartbeats when we think about things differently.
The day before yesterday I thought about tuna as yet another item I could find in a purer version in Whole Foods; I had "forgotten" that the real tuna "store" was our oceans, and that there is no "organic" place that can make dangerous foods undangerous. My thinking about buying fish at all it will change, a bit uncomfortably; it already has. I think the way I connect oceans to fish (wow! but really) has also opened up.
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My purpose in starting this site was in part a waking up from distraction. As soon as I started my manuscript "A Dancing Mind: Through the Fog of Distraction to Beginnings of Clarity" I realized I was part of the distraction; I take part in the distraction. And yesterday I realized I had forgotten that fish grow in the ocean and not in stores, just like spaghetti doesn't grow on trees.
In my work I have realized over the last number of years how so many relationships don't work precisely because people seem to feel relationships too cann be bought at a store. They can be pre-ordered on line, and no one has to learn to be strong in oneself; it's as if being co-dependent and wanting Jerry McGuire to complete someone is just ok. And then they fall apart-these relationships, well there must be another dating service store, right? Okay, I think we're getting somewhere and sleep is calling.
So HERE IS A CHANCE TO SHARE THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES ABOUT WAKING UP FROM, OR BEING STUCK IN THE RUT OF DISTRACTION, OR THE PRISON OF BAD WAYS OF LIFE OR BAD CHOICES.
SO BRING IT ON IF YOU WOULD, I NEED TO START HAVING MYSLEF A CONVERSATION and being part of one....I think that idea of everything and everyone being connected is starting to get to me....It might in fact be a good thing- a beginning. Last night it changed my mind about oceans and fish and now it make me want to write and after some sleep...I'll have to see...
Kurt Andersen's book "Heyday" starts with a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" (which I haven't read myself) that has given me some new thoughts about change, and especially change in America. de Tocqueville wrote (in 1835 no less): "America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and EVERY CHANGE SEEMS AN IMPROVEMENT." (emphasis mine).
With all the (extremely welcome) talk about change in this election year it's also good to remember that change is not a good in and of itself, but that it CAN be a change for the better. And just to make it more complicated, it can be "better" for one group or even one person, but "worse" or just "eh" for another whole group.
Anybody remember the phrase "the common good"? Is there such a thing any more?
Re: fish and oceans--I remember when I first heard that global warming would affect poorer countries more quickly and more severely than it would richer ones. At first I thought "Of course, isn't it always the way," thinking of people in countries like America being able to afford to buy bottled water, build sea walls, afford disaster insurance, etc., etc.
Then it made me sad (sadder than thoughts about global warming already do) that this problem's one silver lining--that it was EVERYONE'S problem--was now being divided, as it were, into a big Third World problem and an inconvenience for the First World. I'm definitely oversimplifying--it really is everyone's problem, yet we're all acting like we have a spare Planet Earth in the closet we can all just hop on to when this one gets used up or erupts in boils.
Not to make excuses, but I'm finding it difficult lately to listen to anything about global warming. Every time I hear the "Climate Connections" music on NPR I switch to another station. It's partly "I gave at the office" (I'm already using compact fluorescent light bulbs, recycling everything I can think of) and partly that it all seems so big and so untameable that I don't even want to think about it. Would love to hear people's thoughts on this--how to stay aware and informed without becoming overwhelmed; how to be appropriately angry rather than just sad; how to DO something and not feel like it's a drop in the ocean, even if that's all it is.
I'm Diane, I'm new. I'm thoroughly enjoying this new place where my thought patterns seem almost "normal". As I read, I'm thinking - yes, yes, that's what I want, that's what I feel. It's like having a really itchy itch scratched.
For instance, one of the last arguements I had with my 14 year old daughter went like this.
Me: "Harley, if it was me, I would have stood up for you - had your back."
Harley: "Yeah mom, but you're not human."
I have to admit, she had me. I was totally difused. Not at all angry. As a matter of fact, I was impressed with her insight. I laughed to myself and went in to talk with her.
One feeling I have is that future generations will bring refeshing new changes to the world. I've always felt this way. I'd love to see what a young person would do with the presidency. I've heard at least a dozen people say snide comments about the future of our country. That if these are the future leaders of the world than we are in trouble. I TOTALLY disagree. I can't wait to get rid of the idea that people aren't ready for a black president. What the hell does that even mean? I try not to wish my life away, but I do get a feeling of encouragement when I look at the young people we are raising. They look at Brittney and Jamie Lynne Spears as girls who need help, kids without proper guidance. That is how it should be. The lyrics of that last Brittney hit are a sad cry for help. She's saying she can't do anything that pleases everybody. ("That Brittney, she's too fat, now she's too thin"). The young kids I know are hearing it. Kudos to them and their parents.
I think H.S. age children and younger will not grow up thinking war solves anything, just as they think smoking and the people who do are just plain stupid!
Power for the sake of power does not even equal real power. We need substance, and I think that's what we are seeing emerge. Stronger, wiser more wholistically conscious individuals.
As I parent, being able to say - "I was wrong" is a big first step
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