December 4

Post 1015, Day 338 of 2013
- and 1068 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

Getting back to an earlier topic, the question of the role of thinking (rationale, intellect) in our lives.

Thinking is of limited use in problem-solving/analysis. As an extension of our awareness, there are some problems that are more likely than others to be resolved by use of intellect and rationale. 

But because the majority of our emotional and behavioral responses are controlled by unconscious processes  - and thinking and rationale has no access to the un- or sub-conscious (by definition, that which is us that we are not aware of) - any problem that encroaches in that territory that is not strictly logical, numeric or quantifiable, would not be a candidate for solution by thinking it through.

This isn't to say that thinking has no role in the problem, just that, with all that unconscious jizz being in control, even defining the problem at hand, thinking may not lead to a good response, anymore than getting mad at a quadratic equation brings us closer to its solution.

So, what good is thinking, if your life's work isn't solving numerical problems? If awareness resides in the ego, where I think it does, then thinking as a way of dealing with things we think up to deal with. That is, thinking (the ego) itself supplies the problems that thinking thinks thinking will solve.

I've always wanted to write a sentence that had to be parsed more than once to understand, even as I wrote it.

That is the kind of place thinking gets you.

I have been accused of being hyper-rational, of being unemotional, or aloof. I don't believe any of those things apply, I think it is my deafness.

Just kidding, although there is at least a touch of that in the truth. A life of hyper-stimulation, which I feel most people live in these modern times, tempered by decades of meditation, has merely created in me a thick scab against the sensational and an unwillingness to react to new stimuli reflexively.

I've been practicing this since I was very, very young - single-digit young. When I had to endure shrill, drill-sergeant-style in-my-face screaming from my mother, I would go passive, expressionless. It was a coping mechanism, and one I didn't reason my way to. I was full-to-over-capacity with emotions, and I have no doubt that there were all sorts of neurochemicals sending messages faster than I could (consciously) process them.

So, a moment of outward peace while I waited for the emotional and physical storm to pass. I doubt that at any age, even now, I could have thought my way out of those assaults. 

But the idea (a thought) of a divided consciousness - the consciousness that we are aware of, and the consciousness we're not able to summon to awareness - is a construct of thinking. The duality is, as always and in all things illusory.

Thinking creates, maintains, and perpetuates that illusion. That's why thoughts become things.

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 Food and Diet Section

2013 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         205.8 lbs

Previous Weight:        204.8 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      + 1.0 lbs

Diet Comment

I guess that late-night meal was still digesting...

Food Log 

Breakfast

Skipped.

Lunch

At Ling-Ling's Chinese Buffet and Grill:

Brussels sprouts, kimchee, and, from the "Mongolian Grill", my go-to dish: pork and chicken with cabbage, onions, mushrooms, green peppers and broccoli. This is the same picture, as always.

Dinner
At Eskapes Lounge: Chicken vegetable soup, Caprice salad (spinach, bacon, chicken, hard-boiled eggs, sweet peppers, sun-dried tomato, mushrooms, raspberry dressing), seafood stew: Mussels, scallops, shrimp, crab meat, peppers, mushrooms in a spicy tomato sauce, over sauteed mixed vegetables with lentil pilaf.

Snack
Black beans and cole slaw.

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  24 oz.   Water: 102+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!