I started writing Pennsylvania Echoes because I wanted to improve my grammar. I chose meditation, mindfulness and how they apply to my daily life, as the blog’s subject matter. Writing about Mental Health Management has received the most appreciation. My world- view will not cure mental disorder. but I cannot separate my world view entirely from management or my great concerns for Mental Health. So I must present my thoughts, and tips on “Mental Wellness” in my own way and from my own experience– if I am to be honest.
Any information you find is meaningful is presented as is. There is no Warranty. Too bad I can’t cure my bad grammar.
Enjoy.
–Chris
I highly recommend William James for anyone who : struggles with subjectivity or pluralty , wants a practical view point on meaning , experience , general psychology and strategies for daily living. William James is useful for the Religous , Agnostic or Atheist… since after all James deals with pluralism.
There is, I mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted with that of which material objects are made, out of which our thoughts of them are made; but there is a function in experience which thoughts perform, and for the performance of which this quality of being is invoked
–The Meaning of Truth
The Tigers in India – the footnote on stones
A stone in one field may ’fit,’ we say, a hole in another field. But the relation of ’fitting,’ so long as no one carries the stone to the hole and drops it in, is only one name for the fact that such an act may happen.
Similarly with the knowing of the tigers here and now. It is only an anticipatory name for a further associative and terminative process that mayoccur
78% of American youngsters express concerns of finding meaning and purpose in their lives. The realistic view of man. I believe that , today, many Americans find meaning in consumer choice ( and therefore they find meaning in work). many Americans find meaning in family , friends , and environment. Earned money and wages is a resources for consumer choice. and that makes money and work meaningful. Want to donate to your favorite environmental or Human Cause ? If its not your own manpower , then its the money donated for others to do the work.
what if one has no or little money or wages?
II The meaning in Pain a man or me have the power to turn tragedy into human triumph. the lessons of Auschwitz.
A man is never fully free of conditions. Man has the freedom to react to a situations, even if only by attitude.
III The conditions of today. These last three decades has given rise to the hacker. Engineers and freelancers who have built robots , and hackers who have seem to have only one motive. destruction of earth ! Acts of torture and cruelty are on the rise because of the ease of access. Major Cable monopolies run news networks of deliberate misinformation. Too add to these man made conditions, the world finds itself trying to deal with a global biological threat COVID-19 Coronavirus.
Conditions of the days include a disturbing man made will to manipulate and/or destroy humanbeings and wildlife. the governments of the world have now accepted a serial killer mentality as the norm of Engineering, especially in Artificial Intelligence and Communications. Where does one find meaning in a world with such poor leaders?
There is plenty of suffering today and in the future.
The previous mentioned along with new Bio-threats are the conditions we live with. Frankl believe that man generally looks for meaning in times of crisis.
Meaning can be constructive or destructive , especially with out any Canon of reward or consequence . To serve or to ask “what life ask of me ” poses , to me , an unsatisfying answer per se. For me, Chris – , Buddhism disposals of suffering , and the practical daily meaning that William James wrote of , are more satisfying . meaning is an attribute of practice , or abstention in the present condition – The AWARENESS and cultivation of personal definitions maybe what logotherapy is really about for client. the methods are logic , scientific and/or “dialog” based.
IV Further investigations
feeling of useless and meaningless can Intensify in Crisis. Reacting in ways that fullfill “meaning ” , can be both toxic or fullfilling. Frankl explores this with intent that a client finds fulfilling or satisfying meaning .
The following youtube video explores the notions of ” reality” or “truth handled by the existentialist , phenomenologist and scientist.
compare and contrast Victor Frankls theory of Meaning
to:
Existential meanings of Sartre , Heidegger
Gestalt meanings of Perls
Buddhist meanings of suffering , meditating and daily experience
Pragmatic meanings of William James
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him
Different from Gestalt Therapy , Buddhist practice . Victor Frankl stated that the struggle for meaning and goals were of higher priority than then the immediate response , emotional or action . Victor Frankl was a Nazi Holocaust survivor who treated other survivors as a neurologist and psychologist.
Quotes by Victor Frankl
Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering
Forces beyond your control can take away everything…
“your never drunk, that real control, control is power”
“is that why they fear us ?”
“We have the fucking power to kill thats why they fear us”
“if a man commits a crime we have him killed […] or we kill him ourselves and feel pretty good[…]
thats not power though, thats justice. ”
“Power is when we have every justication to kill and we dont”
Oscar follows up the discourse with a story of a judge who pardons a criminal, “thats power”.
Stephen Spielberg movie “Schindler’s List”
What was Spielberg conveying here? THIS IS human power :
to hold anothers fate in his hands and action
to betray the formal code, to see value and future value, more so than a punishment of death to a felon.
Change to and from : The Paradoxical Theory of Change
What was tolerable then, may have no usefulness now. Growth is a collision of an every changing now . Growth is both erosion and assimilation. With relative autonomy , ( a slow developing set of behaviors in itself ) one may , as an agent of change , accelerate or stall the natural erosion and assimilation of:
people and things important ones life
values and meaning
experience
environment
As one reacts to pressures and novelties in contact with him and his internal health.
Arnold Beisser wrote this as a preface for a Book by Fritz Perls , who developed a conceptual mix of humanistic psychology , experiential practice (or rather existentialism) and a graphical context into his so called “ Gestalt therapy ”. Fritz Perls did…
It seems meditation is being used more and more in established psychotherapy today.
I’m not sure i always agree with the medical packaging at times… I hear people talk about “deep breathing exercises” that psychiatrist encourage anxiety patients to do on a schedule. the very name “deep” breathing sounds misleading. However I myself started with a single breathing exercise. A mental health nurse taught me while waiting in a doctors office.
“chris, just inhale… count 1-2 -3 -4 exhale 1-2-3-4-5. just repeat for a while with no consideration on when to stop.” this advice from the nurse quited my rambling scrambling unfocused mind: symptoms of my newly diagnosed bipolar disorder, and later-to be diagnosed anxiety disorder. for a brief while my symptoms went away with the exercise..
Today meditation is cornerstone of my therapy, and plays heavily into my own philosophy of living. thus a simple breathing exercise
Cherrytree
Pennsylvania Echoes 
you breathed