Ageless in Spirit: Discussions and interests for our times

 September 29, 2020 Today I have finished enjoying reading and reciting poetry with Rebecca (Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Gerard Manly Hopkins). I went to the piano and played with Sonata 30 variations and then some jazz pieces and finally a Bartok piece I never played about a folk tale of a person in his wagon who was waylaid by robbers and then killed. Simple notes to play but requiring changes in tempo and loudness to set the mood.  Then I realized that I needed to revisit  Jonathan Haidt's theory of moral foundations and updated my knowledge with more research into Morality as Cooperation Theory described by Oliver Scott Curry  https://behavioralscientist. org/whats-wrong-with-moral- foundations-theory-and-how-to- get-moral-psychology-right/ There are seven types of cooperative behavior: (1) Kin selection explains why we feel a special duty of care for our families, and why we abhor incest. (2) Mutualism explains why we form groups and coalitions (there is stre...

September 28, 2020 Political polarization is not new but has been present since governments history has been recorded. What is troubling in our times in the vehemence that spills into the streets of opposing viewpoints. I judge civility in government has deteriorated since Newt Gingrich opposed Clinton's executive actions.. Even after the chad voter ballot problems in Florida finally adjudicated by the Supreme Court and accepted by Al Gore dialogue was given lip service between opposing parties. But now we have a divided government in which the house of Representative and the Senate cannot agree. An Executive Branch in which the heads of various departments clash with the civil servants in career positions in these departments, and the monitors appointed by congress are fired since they may cause the political appointee some trouble through unearthing problematic executive actions. Our judiciary is under stress since congress is now appointing only judges meeting criteria that is...

 September 20, 2020 For some reason I am revisiting and relearning to appreciate the poetry of T. S. Elliot. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, A Portrait of a Lady, The Hollow Men, and The Waste Land. I recall my feelings when reading in my college years these poems having the existential dread, the search for meaning, the picturing through poetry and the words and allusions bringing up issues of time, gloom, death, human striving, the aftermath of the first World War, and the difficulty in human connection and discourse. I shall revisit these poems again for their artistic merit and ability to describe our human condition. How to read them is a delight now rather than a chore as it was during my college years. We have the computer to read the poem and then to look up the words and to  translate the languages. The references in the poems to other literature and myths is accessed in the same manner so finally the interpretations of others and these tools allows me to think I...

 September 25, 2020 I am bringing my attention to the more recent changes in my life sharing them with others who have similar experiences and leaving my impressions for those who now are at different phases in their lives. In January 2020 I completed thirteen forensic cases filing my reports to the court of my examinations and opinions that the court asked from me regarding various people involved in the court system. Either they are awaiting trial and may have mental health issues relevant to their charges, to their defense, and to their issues of dispositions regarding issues of potentially dangerous behaviors in the future. I have been doing this type of work for a number of years after stopping having an office practice in psychiatry and providing services to various non profit agencies and the health department of the state of Hawai'i. A case requires me to usually journey from Kailua to downtown Honolulu and review files sometimes very thick with police reports, hospital and...

 September 24, 2020 Yesterday we set out along the Kalawahine Trail to the Manoa Cliff trail up through the PuuOhiaTrail and back down the service road from Tantalus Mountain top. Only three miles we took our time with an elevation gain of about eight hundred feet. Along the way the blue sky became gray with rain and cooling breeze. Nancy Rawlins two small dogs were shivering with the cold and one came up my chest as I lay on the side trail for warmth so she dried them off and carried one in her doggy pouch.  I remembered our time together with shared elation in seeing the lush vegetation including majestic trees, green and brown colors against the gray and sometimes blue sky with the three dimensional views of the trail, steep drop offs into the jungle of growth among the volcanic boulders sometimes exposing the underlying geology of our topography. Eons of time ago (110,000 to 80,000 years ago) the Tantalus volcanic Crater above us spewed molten lava crating the mountains...