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nancylebovThere were a bunch of sidetracks that didn't fit into my previous post, but thanks to the handiness of live journal, here they are.
The Iraq war has caused the deaths of approximately two thousand American military people, a nuspecified number of civilian contractors (or at least I haven't even seen an estimate), and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis. It's been over a year since the Lancet study (a carefully done stastical survey) said that the odds were that about 100,000 Iraqis died who otherwise wouldn't have. While there have been questions (possibly unreasonable) about the study, I haven't heard anything about efforts to do a more current and perhaps sounder study.
It sounds weird, but this represents real progress--it used to take much longer for people to get horrified at a war if they got horrified at all, and wars were apt to kill more people--large multiples of more people--and go on longer. I'm grateful for the social and technological progress which is steadily making it harder to ignore the effects of war.
SF reference: The bit in Bujold's _Falling Free_ where a character is perturbed by being treated with more respect after she's killed someone.
I need to take another look at _Tolkien and the Great War_--it's got a history of how people wrote about war.
It looks as though some of the chi gung and cognitive psych I've been doing lately are paying off, though I'll see whether I think they're paying off well. That little essay was things I've been thinking for a long time, but which I haven't had the nerve to say in public. I was afraid I'd be told I wasn't grateful enough to soldiers. If people say that to me, I'll deal. The fact that they're sure of themselves and/or angry and/or quite possibly have the majority on their side doesn't mean I need to keep silent.
The Iraq war has caused the deaths of approximately two thousand American military people, a nuspecified number of civilian contractors (or at least I haven't even seen an estimate), and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis. It's been over a year since the Lancet study (a carefully done stastical survey) said that the odds were that about 100,000 Iraqis died who otherwise wouldn't have. While there have been questions (possibly unreasonable) about the study, I haven't heard anything about efforts to do a more current and perhaps sounder study.
It sounds weird, but this represents real progress--it used to take much longer for people to get horrified at a war if they got horrified at all, and wars were apt to kill more people--large multiples of more people--and go on longer. I'm grateful for the social and technological progress which is steadily making it harder to ignore the effects of war.
SF reference: The bit in Bujold's _Falling Free_ where a character is perturbed by being treated with more respect after she's killed someone.
I need to take another look at _Tolkien and the Great War_--it's got a history of how people wrote about war.
It looks as though some of the chi gung and cognitive psych I've been doing lately are paying off, though I'll see whether I think they're paying off well. That little essay was things I've been thinking for a long time, but which I haven't had the nerve to say in public. I was afraid I'd be told I wasn't grateful enough to soldiers. If people say that to me, I'll deal. The fact that they're sure of themselves and/or angry and/or quite possibly have the majority on their side doesn't mean I need to keep silent.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 05:58 pm (UTC)What does this refer to? Forgive me if you've already explained, or if I'm being usually dense. I'm jetlagged to my limit, this morning.
Though I did just take a moment to put Tolkien and the Great War into my Amazon shopping cart.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-11 07:14 pm (UTC)Cognitive psych is what I'm calling what they do at Learning Methods. I recommend the site, especially the articles. The general idea is that it's easy to avoid psychological pain, but the moment when you feel pain is the moment when you're getting feedback about what you're doing. (IIRC, the site doesn't address matter of brains that just don't work well.)
It's possible, important, and frequently difficult to find out exactly what you're thinking and address whether it makes sense. For example, I have trouble with depression, and one of the things that was driving it was the belief that if I couldn't change something I didn't like about myself (like the aforementioned depression), it meant there was something deeply wrong with me. I've realized that not changing something I don't like just means I haven't changed it. I tend to think I'm very smart, but that doesn't mean that anything I haven't solved is unsolvable. I've had two phone sessions with Babette Lightner, one of the Learning Methods teachers, and they've been helpful.
Chi Gung is Chinese internal energy exercises. They generally involve relaxation, attention to breathing, and either not moving or repetitive movement.
Lately, I've been working with _Liuhebafa Five Character Secrets: Chinese Classics, Translations, Commentary_ by Paul Dillon. It seems kind of New Agey for something from the 1100s, but it's got a very nice chakra-oriented standing meditation and some good advice for T'ai Chi like "unify your spine". That last is a small enough chunk for me to be able to work with (I tend to try to micromanage), while still being large enough to be effective. (Note: it's mostly about maxims which are expressed in five Chinese characters. it's not about five sorts of people.)
I've also been doing some of the lying-down chi gung from "Chi Ghung: The Way of Healing_ by Master Lam Kam Chuen. I'd read this over at Steve Barnes' blog, and it looked as though I was a failure in every important part of life. To be fair, Barnes tries to start out with easy stuff, but I don't think he's quite the person for where I'm starting from.
The truth is, sometimes, I have trouble getting up and doing anything--not because I'm tired, but just because it seems like there's a large threshold of effort that I'd need to haul myself over. What's worse, I can do things to feel better, but then I get spooked and knock myself out (with sugar or video games or somesuch) again.
I gave up--there didn't seem to be any point in making ambitious plans to improve matters, but I remembered that I have a book or two about lying-down chi gung that I hadn't looked into.
Even when I'm not in great shape, I can manage to lie on my back with my hands over my tantien/hara/spot somewhat below my navel (right hand on the bottom) and relax, and it's calming/comforting/energizing enough to make a noticable improvement.
I recommend Lam Kam Chuen's books a lot. His _The Way of Energy_ is a good introduction to standing meditation. I've only done a little from his _The Way of Power_ (more ambitious standing meditation, mostly), but it looks good.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-13 07:26 am (UTC)(BTW, before asking, I googled "chi gung ans" and learned that chi gung is recommended for an imbalance in the ANS (Autonomic Nervous System). There's a lesson in that somewhere...)
DEAN BERRY -- REAL AMERICAN
Date: 2005-11-13 05:15 pm (UTC)