 Red Room Writer Profile
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Pavel Somov, Ph.D.'s Blog
September 20, 2009
- 1.Like a hand in a glove,Mind's an analogy of reality.Consciousness is the real thing.2.Ego is a memory.Forget it.3.Look at this proletarian body!Look at its billions of constitutionally independent cells!Look at how they all united in one mind!Can you?4.If I had a tail,I'd chase it.Why not?I am doing it now.5.Mind leads Consciousnessby its own nose.Silly!6.A blade of grasswatches another ...
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August 30, 2009
- A haiku – as I see it – is a pre-industrial camera click, a snap-shot of the outer and inner. Take this one by Master Buson 1716–1783.Picking plum blossomsAnd fretting at my wrinkled hand –Fragrance. Allow me to… analyze, rather than interpret. At a content level, the gist is simple: a man is picking up plum blossoms, notices his wrinkled hand, frets about it, and then ...
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July 24, 2009
- There is a way of thinking about all life as a one-way flight (of consciousness). What makes this existential suicide mission heroic or not is whether we choose our own "telemetry." Omon Ra does. Omon Ra, the protagonist of the book, as millions of Russians was born into the "life" simulation of Soviet-style reality that ideologically trained generations for ...
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July 1, 2009
- I have read Kharms both in English and Russian quite a few times since my dad (a journalist and "ghost" writer in the USSR) introduced me to Kharms in mid 80s (after my dad had reportedly "snagged" the last copy of the "Incidences" from some street bookseller in Perestroika-era Moscow). Each time I read Kharms I'd browse through any given compilation of ...
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June 6, 2009
- "Womenomics," a new book by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, is a paradigm-shifting manifesto of Essence over Form for the 21st century work life. Not just for women, but for men as well. The "womenomics" formula is a psychologically savvy, existentially enlightened "humanomics" formula that is relevant for anyone trying to balance work, love and play. As such, the book ...
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May 31, 2009
- Syadvada is a Jain practice of tentativeness when talking about reality. Reality is too multifaceted to be captured in a single point of view. Syadvada offers a total of seven perspectives to counteract dogmatic thought style and categorical expression.syād-asti—in some ways, it is, syād-nāsti—in some ways, it is not, syād-asti-nāsti—in some ways, it is, and it is not, ...
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April 27, 2009
- This is a straight-forward "fyi." You can learn to stop a sneeze. There's a basic know-how to this important social grace. Go to: http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-a-SneezeAs a psychologist, I have had to prevent many a sneeze of my own while in session so as to not disrupt the "process." The method that has worked for me is: "Tickle the roof of your mouth with the tip of your ...
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April 26, 2009
- The sun is love. The lover,a speck circling the sun.These lines are from Rumi, in translation by Coleman Barks.Whose lines are these lines? Rumi's or Barks'?When reading Rumi in translation by Barks, historically, I am reading Barks' translation of Rumi's translation of Rumi's thoughts.Whose thoughts are these thoughts that Rumi tried to translate into words that Barks later translated into ...
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April 12, 2009
- Human history tells the story not of facts but of subjectivity. Each era, each civilization, each society and even each and every one of our own minds narrates its own story of significance. But what would an extraterrestrial witness of infinite patience consider to be basic cosmological highlights of this third rock from the Sun. Perhaps, the following...4 billion years ago: Pre-cellular ...
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March 31, 2009
- When young, the mind keeps on asking "What is this?"Is this question a moment of learning or... the beginning of blindness?When the mind asks "What is this?" it pulls together several incoming streams of sensory feedback into a perceived - but still nameless - whole. And as soon as the question is answered, the Nameless is named. And the incoming streams of sensory feedback ...
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March 21, 2009
- A koan is a kind of question used as a training device in the Buddhist tradition, designed to help the aspirant attain a degree of clarity. I'm sure you've come across these zany questions before ("What's the sound of one hand clapping?" or "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?").Here's an emotional eating koan for you to meditate on...What ...
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March 19, 2009
- You've heard it again and again: diets don't work. But here's a new one for you: diets make you dumb. Some diets, that is. No, not metaphorically - literally!The Monitor on Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association, reports in its February issue: "The Adkins diet and other low-carb weight-loss plans may hamper thinking and memory." "Researchers compared ...
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March 17, 2009
- In my teens (when I was still living in the USSR) I had a neighbor who was blind. He seemed imperturbable, monolithic, settled yet spontaneous and relaxed. I never knew anyone like that until I started reading about Zen masters with their notorious mix of non-threatening confidence and spontaneity. I had a chance to pick his brain a bit. The only thing I remember him saying about ...
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March 15, 2009
- Willingness to forgive is dependent on our explanatory or attributional style, on why we think people do what they do. People are scientists by nature: when we observe an event, we attempt to make sense of it. Making sense of the world is adaptive, necessary for survival. The more we understand about the world, the safer we feel. Say we just had a meeting with a co-worker, and after the meeting ...
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March 10, 2009
- It's Sunday night, March 8th, New York City, the Cort Theatre: Will Ferrell, as "W," is shifting from foot to foot in a Cro-Magnon swagger, trying to re-enter his act as a woman somewhere in the audience is caught in a giggle-loop of hysterically infectious laughter. As the rest of the house echoes the woman's roller-coasting, belly-busting laughter at a 10 second phase delay for what ...
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