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Showing posts from April 22, 2007

Brain "warshing"

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I prefer to pronounce brainwashing with an Ohio or American Midland Dialect. "Warsh". Its a catchy pronounciation. Step one of any effective brainwashing is to eliminate any notion or self-evidence of brainwashing. "I am absolutely sure I am not brainwashed. I am an American. I believe in the individual. I believe that all of my ideas and thoughts are my own." Those thoughts are a good starting place. The fact is that you, as a human, are a herding animal. It is a lesson that I found in my time in Antarctica and watching my own herding animals. "No man is an island" --John Donne (1572–1631). Is also a good start. We are all affected by our instincts. Tribalism being one of them. Many of us have lost a lot of our instincts. When we loose enough we probably fall somewhere into the vast ontology and categories of mentally ill. So, You are what you eat, both informationally and physically. Think different. Use what you learned in school about empathy. Pr...
I am out in Idaho. I slept well on the plane on the way out here last night. So even though I got in quite late I put in a good days work and felt rested. I am staying at http://www.cdaresort.com/. The place is quite nice. I get to stay in the penthouse starting on Wednesday. I have a presentation to give Monday. It should go great. Bonnie and I will have to get out of the populated areas and see what the "out of the way" areas are like out here. Tomorrow the guys and I are going to take a seaplane ride in an old radial engine beaver on floats. I am looking forward to that.
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What a difference a week makes with weather. We had over a foot of snow last week and this weekend it is in the 70s and is just beautiful. I have been working on farm work, gathering firewood for next year, tractor work, and so on. It is easy to over do it. I am a little sore so I am taking a break. I was outside enjoying the sun and warmth and tried to relate it to sleeping in a tent in Antarctica. There is no comparison. Even here out in the country there are signs and traces of humans everywhere and the sounds and smells of all the wildlife is more like a jungle than anything else. It is a remarkable difference. I have been looking through photos from Antarctica as a screen saver on my computers. Some one them I am seeing for the first time. We are still working on Rosey, but it is not looking good. She is up and down. Last week she got out of the barn and fell in freezing water out in the pasture and couldn't get up. Bonnie and I were out there dragging her back in the barn...