That animals displace stress on each other has been known even before research showed how this works in different species and different environments. Since we humans are the the most complicated and imaginative creature, living in many different conditions, we have many more ways of displacing stress. The word catharsis provides an introduction into howContinue reading “Rudiments of Why Extremist Reactionaries Have Become So Virulent”
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Rudiments of How Extreme Reactionaries Have Become So Extreme
Let’s say we are people who feel threatened by difference. For whatever reasons over the course of our lives we have come to feel that a difference of opinion is an assault on who we are. We can flesh out the profile of such persons, that they were raised in an authoritarian household and wereContinue reading “Rudiments of How Extreme Reactionaries Have Become So Extreme”
Why Do Birds Sing So Gay?
Habitual states of mind, such as chronic stress, reshape the brain and the body, which in turn has an influence on subsequent behavior. We have all experienced this over our lives. Hopefully for most of us the changes trend towards positive outcomes. On the one hand, these effects are simple to understand and accept becauseContinue reading “Why Do Birds Sing So Gay?”
Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time Part IV Point 7
It takes me three minutes to shave and roughly the same time to empty the dishwasher. I know this because while doing one or the other, I can heat my tea in the microwave oven. I cannot shave and put the clean dishes away at the same time, but I can start the microwave andContinue reading “Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time Part IV Point 7”
Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time Part IV Point 6
If the South Had Won the Civil War is a book by MacKinlay Kantor, a work of “speculative fiction” rather than science fiction. The premise hinges on a cat startling Ulysses S. Grant’s horse prior to his ascendancy to top general. If you want to get into the historical weeds, prior to Vicksburg. The horseContinue reading “Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time Part IV Point 6”
Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part IV Point 5
Back to reality. The original unreliable narrator is memory itself. In eyewitness testimony from one witness to another, objects and events appear differently in memory’s mirror. Add video and suddenly everyone who watches, believes he was there or has as good an idea of what happened. Add audio, and Rod Serling emerges from a cloudContinue reading “Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part IV Point 5”
Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part V
Events in real life can have many points of view. Physically something viewed from a different angle and distance looks different. If a viewer could move from one viewpoint to others and view an event from different places at the same time, how much would it change the viewer’s understanding and interpretation of what wasContinue reading “Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part V”
Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part IV
Full disclosure: I think Harlan Ellison is a very bad writer in many readily identifiable ways. Most important, his work shows his own psychological problems almost always. If you happen to share that sector of emotional, imaginative issues, I say, Good, and enjoy. I have come to find it difficult to justify certain choices authorsContinue reading “Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part IV”
Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part III
Is this what you expected? I cannot tell you directly what I have been attempting. I myself cannot summarize it. I have tried to present elements I have identified in how I understand my experience of fiction. I am thinking and responding as I read or watch. Whether reading words or seeing action and hearingContinue reading “Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part III”
Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part II
Justice delayed is justice denied. H. G. Wells’ reason for writing The Time Machine was in part to propagandize the present, his contemporaries. It was a cautionary tale about what could happen unless people in the real world, readers of his fiction, took actions in their real lives. It was reportedly inspired by someone else’sContinue reading “Star Trek: Reflections on Sci Fi Notions of Time, Part II”
I Dwell In Possibility 