Walker Percy and the Symbolic Complex

What is the symbolic complex and how does the symbolic complex transform for us the image of that person (how do we transform others through the symbolic)? Semiotician and Novelist Walker Percy, in his essay “The Loss of the Creature,” writes “Impossible to see: the thing as it is, has been appropriated by the symbolic [...]

Morita Therapy

Sometimes listening to a blissful piece of music needs to be done. Other times, walking needs to be done. The stimulus of the city can provide a necessary state of connection and so can basking in the moonlight in a silent place. The silence may bubble over with the communion of the night-insects. What do [...]

Plan Your Life Wisely: Three Days with Gracian

“Plan out your life wisely.” This is the first sentence of the 229th maxim by Baltasar Gracian from his book The Art of Worldly Wisdom. In this concise and illuminating piece, Gracian encourages us to “plan with foresight” and thus regain and, to some extent, control certain aspects of our life. He also proposes a [...]

Encroach (1-3)

1.
Stagger, sway only into the last haul.
Jagged feet of my own that realize
such a haunting dread of displacement.
The self subsumed by currents, by the Bleak.
A path through the dense green thickness
and now an opening with branches like tendrils
tendons tickling scraping the face gently.
This, the first limping leg of the journey.
2.
And then, a gap, the [...]

Constructive Creativity

In this post, I will again dive into the work of mental health professional Carl R. Rogers from his essay, “Toward a Theory of Creativity.” I will try to provide you with an adequate understanding of his work via my understanding of the text. If you have read Rogers and wish to comment on his [...]

Carl Rogers: The Good Life (a condensation)

I’ve been obsessing over Carl Rogers these days and would like to briefly outline techniques for enacting and engaging in “the good life” as drawn out in his piece “A Therapist’s View of the Good Life.”
THE GOOD LIFE: A Process
1. An Increasing Openness to Experience: Your armor has disintegrated and you are more at [...]

Constructive Living as Lifehack Strategy

“Constructive Living” is the result of two Japanese systems of thought (ways of living) as synthesized by Dr. David K. Reynolds. The two systems used are “Morita therapy” and “Naikan.”
“Morita Therapy” is a realistic action-oriented approach to daily life; “doing what needs to be done” and “holding to one’s purpose.” For example, If the [...]

Deepening Web Communication (Fragments)

Communications theorist Lee Thayer once wrote, “We ‘dilute’ the world by having an idea of it; and the intent of our words is, more often than not, to eliminate the world as resistance (Thayer 190).” As languaging creatures, our comprehension of the world is at once in direct contact with it (with certain spatial areas, [...]