Spectacular sunrise this morning.
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Kitty is being a yo-yo. Wants in, wants out, wants in, wants out....
Winter must be coming, her fur has thickened into a fabulously soft glossy coat.
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I got nothing. As you can tell.
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Honestly, I don't understand why a state House seat would generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money. Really? A state representative has that much influence? Can affect things that much?
What does it pay, by the way. Minimum wage? (Googled it: 1800.00 a month -- slightly above minimum wage.)
So its, What?, not a whole lot less than half a million dollars raised among the three candidates for a state representative job?
Like being a city councilor, it seems like a thankless job.
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Contractors hire foreign workers with Stimulus money?
Kind of begs the question, doesn't it. Why hire foreign workers if you can hire Americans if you are going to pay the same?
Do they work harder? Easier to control?
We are so fucked....
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Linda gave me a little book, A Manual for Living, by the philosopher Epictetus. "This sounds like what you're always saying," she says.
Reading it, I'm gobsmacked. It IS EXACTLY what I'm always saying, right down the line.
I wish Mom was alive so I could ask her if she had read the book and passed along it's thoughts. She talked about Stoic philosophers a lot, and Epictetus is considered a Stoic philosopher, so I think the chances are pretty good.
It can't be a coincidence -- it's just too much straight down the line the way I think....
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Saw a documentary on FACEBOOK on Cnbc last night, with the 'Winklevi' and Eduardo and Zuckerberg and Sean Parker. Uncanny similarity to the characters in The Social Network -- which makes the movie more believable -- if they got that right, maybe they got some of the rest right.
Maybe not.
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11 comments:
Ever read Marcus Aurelius?
I have. And I do wonder if that's why so much of it seems familiar; or perhaps my Mom read Marcus Aurelius and that's the source of the Stoic teachings she gave us.
I grew up in the Unitarian Church, and I'm pretty sure I must have had Sunday School classes about this...as well as the Koran, and every other religion.
But the Stoic philosophers meant a lot to my Mom, so I probably just absorbed it.
And perhaps I flatter myself to think that if you get a grounding in a certain approach to life, it leads to other insights that fit into that philosophy, so that when you come back to the original teachings your own life experience validates it all.
I don't care for the Stoics; their philosophy is too cold and intellectual for my tastes. I like something with a bit of wonder and mystery in it. Maybe that's because I was raised as a Catholic.
I find it harmonious and elegant. At the same time, practical and -- dare I say -- achievable.
It doesn't require outside help, and you can start each day just trying that day to achieve balance.
I know I've mentioned the book, Reality Therapy, by William Glasser as being an immensely helpful book to me about 40 years ago, in getting out of my depression.
Sure enough, if I google those two together up pops the fact that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is based on Stoic principles....
The book itself doesn't have an index, and I don't think actually mentions stoicism, but it sure is familiar...
Don't care much for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy either. Seems too much like the same old "positive thinking" crap. Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1loyjm4SOa0&feature=fvsr
That's not the message I took away.
I took away that you feel about yourself what you feel about yourself because of what you do.
That is, I'm responsible for how I think about myself -- but if I think positively about myself because I quit smoking, that's quite appropriate.
If I feel badly about myself because I lied to friend, that's appropriate too.
So try to do the right thing -- and try not to the wrong thing. On everything you do.
Maybe it's the COMBINATION of Stoic and CBT that works for me.
In fact, that seems to one of the criticisms of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - -that it has a moralistic (I prefer ethics) basis.
But that was the key to my recover -- "feel better about yourself" just 'because' didn't work for me.
Once I made the connection that living a good life is connected to good deeds, I immediately felt more in charge of my life.
Little by little, day by day, try to take the high road. Every time I take an unworthy step or decision -- (which is everyday, I suppose) -- I feel my balance erode.
Every time I try to do the 'right thing', I feel stronger.
Pretty simple really, though impossible to always get right.
"Little by little, day by day, try to take the high road."
Well, that's always good advice, and has been taught by all the saints and sages from Lao Tzu to Gautama to Jesus to Oprah. But I don't see how it helps anyone recover from depression, at least if the depression is major.
I did some CBT when I had my first major depressive episode. What I took away from it was, basically, "You can make yourself feel better if you try." If that was true, what the hell did I need a therapist for?
That therapy was useless -- actually worse than useless, because it made me feel WORSE. It seemed to be blaming me for being depressed (much like the "helpful" friend or relative who tells you to "just snap out of it").
Or maybe I just had a lousy therapist.
Anyway, a few doses of an SSRI fixed me up, and I'm glad I got 'em.
Ordinarily, I think I'd agree with you. Heck, if I hadn't been through it, I'd agree with you.
It was at the tail end of my eight year journey through the darkness, and I may have been coming out of it anyway, and I went off the major tranquilizers at the same time, and I was graduating from college and all that.
Somehow it just connected. I found a really good therapist and he seemed to really get where I was at, and -- like I said -- gave me the perfect book for that moment.
It gave me a sense of empowerment -- good work creates good results which creates good feelings. Graduating, quitting smoking, losing weight, finishing and then selling my first book -- all that happened around then.
I'd run into the "power of positive thinking" nonsense early in my depression and if anything it set me back a year....
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