admin May 2nd, 2007
A blog that I enjoy is called “Evolving Times,” and recently the writer described the situation of being “spare-changed,” on the street.
People in my parents generation used the word “beggers” to describe people who beg on the street. Or sometimes “moochers,” “panhandlers,” or “bums.” Of course, in tiny Henrietta, Texas, where I grew up, the town was too small to have an official panhandler, so the town drunk filled in part time.
Friends of mine as I grew up didn’t seem to like the word “Begger,” though it would seem to be accurate. And I guess the phrase, “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” from that older time had mutated into “Spare change?” by the hippie period in the 1960’s.
THE SPARE-CHANGER
The writer in “Evolving Times” was describing what we’ve all felt in that situation. You’re walking along and you are suddenly asked, “Spare change?” Which as we all know, means “Do you have any spare change, that you could give to me?” (I guess those beggers are either very lazy, or they are astonishingly efficient.)
And then what happened?
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admin May 1st, 2007
In one of the last scenes in the fun movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the heroine makes a statement about the leading man. She says, lovingly, “He’s a pirate.”
As you may recall from the movie, that young man started out hating the pirates, and yet, in the course of his adventures, he’s become bolder and he has dared great things, and by golly he has become a pirate. And that’s a good thing.
And so … why is it a good thing to be a pirate?
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admin May 1st, 2007
The ‘Non-Conscious’ mind can regulate your body in a thousand ways (all normally below your consciousness), and the ‘Non-Conscious’ mind can automatically serve up learned actions like a tennis-serve or automatically serve up your opinion of the President or automatically make you feel anxious on a date. Some of this is swell, and some of this is occasionally awful, but the Non-Conscious mind is looking out for you as best it can, and everything it does is automatic.
Think of the President. There’s your opinion … automatically.
Go out on a date. There’s your usual feeling … automatically.
Decide to tie your shoe. There go your hands … automatically tying your shoe.
But what if you’d like to do something … different … for a change?
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admin April 28th, 2007
If you listen to Sigmund Freud or some Psychology 101 textbooks, you may quickly form the idea that there is something called either the ‘Unconscious Mind,’ or maybe called the ‘Subconscious Mind.’
Now right there is a poser, because you might think, “Well, if it’s unconscious, then how can it be a mind?”
And if you read up on this, and if you watch dramatic movies about people who have disturbed the ‘Subconscious’ mind, you could easily get the idea that the Subconscious mind is a kind of lunatic stalker which lives inside of us, and given the right situation, it might burst out and *make* you do something … bad.
Scary, huh.
Well, it’s not like that. It’s something far simpler and less mysterious, and you’ve seen it all your life, but you didn’t think about it. Here’s what it is …
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