An alternate route to psychology?

A hundred years ago, a bold researcher fascinated by the riddle of human personality might have grabbed onto new psychoanalytic concepts like repression and the unconscious. These ideas were invented by people who loved language. Even as therapeutic concepts of the self spread widely in simplified, easily accessible form, they retained something of the prolix, literary humanism of their inventors. From the languor of the analyst’s couch to the chatty inquisitiveness of a self-help questionnaire, the dominant forms of self-exploration assume that the road to knowledge lies through words. Trackers are exploring an alternate route. Instead of interrogating their inner worlds through talking and writing, they are using numbers. They are constructing a quantified self.

Taken from “The Data-Driven Life” By GARY WOLF NYTimes.com

Liberty Hieghts – If I knew things would no longer be …I would’ve tried to remember better

Life is made up of a few big moments

and a lot of little ones.

[...]

But a lot of images fade…

…and no matter how hard I try…

…I can ‘t get them back.

I had a relative who once said:

”If I knew things

would no longer be…

…I would’ve tried

to remember better. ”

[...]

All the wonders I could see

Could fulfill most any dream

And hold you

For a while.

But when love…

… walked…

…in

There was nothing…

…I could do

Only to try…

…and keep my head….

Neil Gaiman – candy really did taste better when I was a kid

I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen–I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones who look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline of good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of The Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies too. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

“I believe” speech from American Gods

David Bowie – Love is the province of the brave

Suddenly, all your history’s ablaze
Try to breathe as the world disintegrates
Just like autumn leaves we’re in for change
Holding tenderly to what remains
And all your memories are as precious as gold
And all the honey and the fire which you stole
Have you running through all your red cheek days
Shaking loose these songs from their sacred hiding space

Hold your heart courageously as we walk into this dark place
Stand, stare fast, erect and see that love is the province of the brave

Province – TV on the Radio feat. David Bowie

Vicente Riva Palacio – Los tormentos sin quebradura.

En efecto, increíble parece la energía de este hombre en el sufrimiento; y su constancia venció la crueldad de los inquisidores…

Apriétense más los garrotes

Amonestado que diga la verdad, se mandaron apretar todos los dichos garrotes, dándosele vuelta: ay, Dios de mi alma, ya le he dicho; lo cual dijo con voz alta, y quejábase mucho, como llorando: que ya le he dicho; ay, ay, que ya he dicho la verdad, así ella me valga.
…

Y con esto fue desligado de los brazos y llevado a su cárcel, donde curado y mirado a lo que pareció, aunque lastimado, no había lesión ni quebradura.

Nadine Stair – If I Had My Life To Live Over

Oh, I’ve had my moments,
And if I had it to do over again,
I’d have more of them.
In fact, I’d try to have nothing else.
Just moments, one after another,
instead of living so many years ahead of each day…

Soundtrack: TV on the Radio – Province

Roberto Bolaño – El amigo norteño recien llegado a la capital

[...] le comentaba sus impresiones de la gran ciudad: hablaba del metro, que comparaba a la fosa común, de la frialdad de los chilangos, que vivían de espaldas a todo, de la dificultad de movimientos, pues en el DF de nada valía tener un carro chido puesto que los embotellamientos eran permanentes, de la contaminación y de lo feas que eran las mujeres. Sobre esto hacía algunas bromas de mal gusto.

Eduardo Lizalde – El gemelo mayor del desorden, el orden

La ambivalencia, la oscuridad, el desconcierto, el propio caos significativo, la dispersión de los conceptos, el desorden del ojo, son los elementos que todo lo iluminan cuando el que los produce sabe lo que desordena al producirlos. El desorden perfecto es más perfecto que el orden, su gemelo mayor.

Francisco Alday – Mis rubíes de sangre mañana serán perlas

Ya tengo la promesa de una celeste alquimia:
el alba pondrá un ósculo de sol en mi tiniebla,
un injerto de flores brotará en cada espina,
mis rubíes de sangre mañana serán perlas.

La perfecta alegría

Neurogénesis?

Atrás quedaron los días en que se pensaba que el cerebro era un órgano escrito en piedra. Hoy se sabe que la neurogénesis no es ciencia ficción. “Ocurre todos los días, y poco a poco vamos aprendiendo qué actividades generan más neuronas”, destaca Maestre, directora del laboratorio de neurociencias de La Universidad del Zulia y presidenta de Fundaconciencia.

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/articulos/53555.html