I am writing for myself because its better than therapy.  By placing my thoughts in writing I can look back and see if my thinking changes.

My mother and Aunt Evelyn composed a funny team.  They said things to me that confused me at that time but became clear as I reached Piaget’s theory of formal logic.

When I was a lad,I decoded to write a paper on the meaning of stupid, dumb and ignorant.  It seemed to me we threw those terms around without understanding the difference.  I surely didn’t want to tell a ignorant person they were stupid.  I might offend them.

My mother asked me why I wanted to write such a paper.  I said so everyone could speak the same language.  I can still see her laughing.  She said if a person fit any of these definitions they wouldn’t read it, and if by chance they read it or listened to it, they wouldn’t understand it or most likely they’d say it was there uncle or aunt.

That same day I asked my Aunt Evelyn where she would hide a secret to keep it from the Nazis.  I had just watched a movie about hiding secrets from the Nazis.  She said, “That’s easy.  I ‘d give it to the School Board.”  I understood that comment 35 years later presenting a case before the School Board.

Having these two women at my disposal was like sharing a text book with Socrates.  I recall my mother and Aunt laughing so hard they were crying.  You know the kind of laughing that you can’t stop.  i can see the magazine cartoon.  There were two anthropologists digging a hole and one pulled out a campaign poster that said, “Vote Democrat” and the one anthropologist said, “I told you they existed.”  At the time I didn’t understand, but now it brings tears of understanding.

This brings me to my point.  I saw a movie and read two books on the Law of Attraction.  I have heard people discussing it.  So I had to do research to get a grasp on this new Law.

First, there is no Law of Attraction.  It is made up to sell movies and books to stupid, ignorant and dumb people.  A hypothesis is a guess with substantiation, a theory is a hypothesis that passes replication and a LAW is irrefutable.  Like Newton’s Law of Gravity. You take a hundred different inanimate objects to a hundred different  locations and let it loose and a hundred objects fall. They don’t stand still and they don’t go up.  There is no known exception to this LAW.

So I read these books and whenever a person tries to attract something in their life, like a job or better pay or understanding or even a book sale, and if it doesn’t work it is because you did not do it right.  It is fallible.  It doesn’t work because you don’t believe or you don’t see the hidden mystery of God, Allah, Buddha or Xenu. (let me throw in Thor)

What the book might have explained that this is the hypothesis of focused attention.  There is a correlation that can reach significance when a person and an idea are bound together.  Hence Michael plays baseball and becomes a baseball player and Mary doesn’t play baseball, doesn’t care about baseball but marries a baseball player fulfilling her Law of Attraction that was hidden in her marrying a baseball player.

I think I’ll take mt findings over to the School Board.

I am going to bring together highly irregular thoughts to one point.  Work with me here because this is how a brain thinks.

I used to like to drive.  I would listen to talk radio, scream, yell, try music then I would get out my digital voice recorder.  I would put my thoughts down.  Still have those recordings. (side note — really haven’t changed much)

Since I now relish in not driving; no car, no car insurance, no gas, no parking, no worry of theft, I now muse in bed.  Before I arise I lay in bed and plan my day and often just enjoy the ability to be able to relax.

Today I thought about my deceased wife and I thought about an event, that is truly dumb, but in that dumbness there was an exchange of some type.  I actually felt my facial muscles soften.

I felt a smirk of joy and happiness.  So I thought about my dad and the same feeling.  I thought about people I met or knew who could bring that softening to my face.  Then I thought about my ex and all that good feeling went away.

Somehow I went from that facial change to the following.  I watched 60 MINUTES yesterday.  I am always amazed at Leslie Stahl.  I can’t figure how she can walk and talk.  To me, she does not represent journalism.  She represents an agenda.

She is interviewing  Senator Tom Coburn.  He is the Godfather to the Tea Party.  He nicely points to the fact that the US debt is unbelievable.  Leslie knows she’s a light weight and in the face of truth, in this case numbers, she interviews a pundit from a newspaper.  This guy says that Coburn is the main reason nothing gets passed in Congress.

Here’s my point.  You could see that the pundit was trying to be nice but his tone and that slight smug grin gave him away.  This pundit did not like Coburn and his face could not hide it.  It was no accident that Leslie chose him to give a summary.

I worked for 31 years as a neuropsychologist.  When I started doing polygraphs and EEGs, I could definitely match the thinking to the facial expressions.  Now when I want to get clear of happy thoughts I no longer have to think of my ex, I can think of Leslie.

I played professional baseball.  I learned so much about life in baseball.  It is a game,, at least it was, until they started paying me then it became a job.  I might add a job you had to fight to keep.  For those who understand, I was there before Curt Flood.

Among the many things I learned from baseball, life is neither fair nor unfair – it just is.  It’s one of those baseball perceptions of life that gives both baseball and life a meaning.  A painting is just a canvas with paint until a brain interprets it.

As  a result of my world view, I stay away from people who interpret the world in categories.  Yes, I do spend much time alone.  Let me explain.

If you think something is right or wrong, I’ll listen.  If you are a jerk, I’ll still listen because being a jerk does not make wrong your telling me something that is right.  (I wrote that several times as it was difficult to explain)   Let me give some examples.

If Donald Trump says something and it sounds crude, I’ll still listen, but if Hillary Clinton says anything I can’t listen because she lies.  Bernie Sanders is a great guy.  He tells the truth about a problem and I listen but he doesn’t have a  real solution.  He seems to think he can solve problems by working within the system.  Marco Rubio likewise is a great guy but he also works in that system.

I live in a different country but the US directly influences the way of life this country strives for.  That says something about the value of being an American.  Please appreciate that.

What I like about baseball is that everybody is the same.  If you can perform you stay, if you can’t you go.  They don’t care your color, religion,(except if you won’t play on Sunday), background, education etc.  They will draw the line at certain antisocial proclivities such as domestic violence and sexual misconduct.  Even then your skills may give them the opportunity to bend the rules.

My point being the only right you have in baseball is to do your job.  Unlike Congress, you perform or you are removed.  That would be so cool in the world of politics.

When somebody repeatedly tells me that something is wrong and does not offer their failures as proof of understanding that change has to come from a different direction, in essence just saying something is wrong, then I avoid that person.  It’s like a pitcher saying that should have been called a strike.  Sorry we have to play on.  The umpire made a mistake.

The pitcher does not call out my race, religion or sexual preference to change the umpire’s mind.  He doesn’t throw a pitch at me.  He doesn’t burn down the stadium.  He doesn’t besmirch me for being me.  He plays on.  Afterwards we shake hands and laugh about it.

If the pitcher shows any sign of anger or weakness, I’ll comment to gain an advantage by using his thought process against himself.   Some catchers will make comments to the batter to distract or unfocus his attention.  Umpires will allow this up to a point.

Unlike hockey we don’t have a penalty box because we don’t fight (baseball scuffles are actually funny), We don’t have penalty flags because baseball players don’t cheat, even basketball has free throws because of infractions.

I’m not saying that thinking like a baseball player will make the world better but it is a real solution.

I am researching several topics and need a break.  So I decided to see if the blogs might offer some respite.  In a word  NO.

You know that graphic on your computer that shows how much of the whole circle is being used by your program.  Usually I see a sliver, a line, barely determinable in my circle.

So I decided to look at new blogs, hoping to find something to take me away from my research demands.  Each of the blogs offers a sliver, a finely viewed piece of someone’s view of their life.  Sometimes the sliver is part of a slice of their outlook on life.

This sliver tells of a physical pain, this one tells of the woes of politics, this one tells about a cheating spouse, this one tells about two people kissing in the park from the view of their hotel window  (they don’t know it’s the cheating spouse).

My point is that the sliver you show is the screwdriver under the lid of your paint can.  From your one view comes many thoughts and feelings.  I left FaceBook because I could not take the insipid statements.  How much racial discomfort must you see, how many lies must you hear, how many unsupported reasons from people who are powerless to get off their couch must I see before I shut down.

To me a great blog is a great conversation.  I just don’t know anything about the writer except that sliver.  Possibly in that sliver is a great insight that we can share.  Need to repeat “that we can share.”

I am left with information that is never shared- just given.

I need to clarify.  I am currently researching how emotion is reflected in the brain through the electroencephalogram (eeg).  Even if the same part of the brain is involved  in all of us, it connects to paths that are not the same in everyone, which is good and proves us different.

If I feel happy when I see a dog recalling all the good dog experiences and you are horrified because of the scar you bear from a bad dog experience, we have two truths that do not match.  But they are truths and they do not address the facts known about dogs.  My research is aiming on how things that are alike seek each other.

We are attracted to things like ourselves.  Boy, does this open up a litany of questions and possibilities.