Writing, psychiatry, development, blogging, gratitude

I just read C.S. Lewis on writing.  I am a writer but I am not writing as I could.My stream of consciousness open journal blog project is a bit old.  I like writing my thought. I’d originally thought to share these because so many ‘bad’ people were attempting to censor not just speech but thought. I wanted to clarify that sanity was not a sanitized mind.  As a psychiatrist I wanted people to see that creativity and imagination could be cluttered.  I wanted to share that all the drives and impulses and good and bad thoughts passed through the mind of a supposedly ‘bormal’ or ‘well’ person, The distinction was what one focussed their attention on,  

Cognitive behavioural Therapy certainly teaches us that what we focus or dwell on is what matters.  

The Twelve Steps teach us that we commonly hold resentments and fears and that they underline our daily actions and achievements , 

Mystics like Brother Lawrence have taught us to remain in the present. Carpe diem.  Seize the day.  One day at a time.  Get your head in the same room as your ass is.

Christianity and other faith healings taught the rational person to be aware of their addiction or obsession with the various ‘sins’ ‘errors of distraction”. These were Pride, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Envy, Greed, Anger.  Peace of mind and focus on the’ good’ were goals of enlightenment.  Moderation was sought rather than extremes.  

The psychoanalyst taught us that there was an unconscious which influenced our day to day life.  Fundamental drives influenced the rational.  Reproduction or sex.  Fear of death.  Aggression and competition,  

Psychology taught us that the mind wasn’t the Lockian tabula Rosa like the computer or chalkboard but rather a mixture of nature and nurture.  Genetics and imprinting and epigebnetic factors affected our behaviour. 

The philosophers taught us about existential angst.  Victor Frankly taught us the need for meaning and purpose, what he learned from surviving Auschwitz.  

Positive Psychology looked to resilienc, determination, meaning, motivation.  

Motivation therapy helped break old coping strategies which had once been beneficial but now had become chains,

The desire to be ‘free’ was fundamental yet cooperation was necessary for evolution and advancement of individual and group,  Sociology, sociobiology, history, tribal wisdom, memory all contributed to allowing the individual and group to ‘actualize’.  Maslow delineated the various developmental processes and stages.  Freuds original Oral, Anal, Genital stages of development was much expanded by. Erickson with his 8 stages of development. Piaget showed the progress of Neuro development from concrete to abstract. Today we know the brain doesn’t really achieve maturity till 25 and indeed neuroplasticity is such that learning continues throughout life despite the pruning and focus of the neural network towards certain pursuits.

I ‘ve enjoyed journaling my inner confusion, the likes of the play Waiting for Godot’.  I’ve enjoyed sharing my journeys and adventures.  I’ve imagined that others have appreciated seeing that the ‘unneditted’ work precedes the editted work.  Indeed for creativity we encouraged presence, childlike mind and stream of consciousness.  The artist is necessarily at odds with the police.  

Freud described the Id, Ego and Superego.  This was later developed as the Parent, Adult, Child model of Transactional Analysis.  The artist is necessarily more childlike in their approach to reality while the police man is more parental.  Interactions are often at conflict in tone due to these differences in mods of communication.  Don’t talk down to me is a telling phrase.  Who do you think you are is another.  The content or data may not be as problematic ass the carrier wave or tone as in communication theory and ‘static’ seen in Hamm radio frequency 

I like to take pictures, I like to share them, I like that my journal serves to be a reminder of my own history.  If we forget history we are bound to repeat it.  I am amused at the repetitive challenges I encounter when I look back at my journal here.  This is unedited. It was to be the basis for edited works. I have three books in preparation and I’m making low progress because it’s more work.  Writing is fun.  Editing and organizing and such is more work.  I miss having an editor.  I like the division of labour.  I wrote columns and magazine articles saying I became a master of the 10 page piece.  Now we’ve moved to sound bites. I am hoping to complete the book. One is on travel with dogs.  Another is on psychiatry another on spirituality and addiction,  I seem to need time and spac to organize these.  Blogging I can do in a half hour. I don’t need a desk or floor to lay out the whole work . Yet that’s where I want to go and imagine if I retired I’d simply retire to a desk with the three projects set before me and devote three months to each.  I’d like that but frankly I like my life as it is now,  I continue to write as exercise as well, It’s like rifle target practice,  It serves many purposes. For years I wrote and buried the journals of cursive writing in baxes in the basements,  That was before politic abd dark web and social media.  Today we know there is no black and white but always grey and a rainbow of colours. I’m grateful for that. I’m tired of being around the paranoid and angry. I want to play in imagination and dalience enjoying the journey more than the destination, Thank you

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