Tuesday, August 17, 2021

“The Science of Stress and How Our Emotions Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease”

“The Science of Stress and How Our Emotions
Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease
by Maria Popova

"I had lived thirty good years before enduring my first food poisoning - odds quite fortunate in the grand scheme of things, but miserably unfortunate in the immediate experience of it. I found myself completely incapacitated to erect the pillars of my daily life - too cognitively foggy to read and write, too physically weak to work out or even meditate. The temporary disability soon elevated the assault on my mind and body to a new height of anguish: an intense experience of stress. Even as I consoled myself with Nabokov’s exceptionally florid account of food poisoning, I couldn’t shake the overwhelming malaise that had engulfed me - somehow, a physical illness had completely colored my psychoemotional reality.

This experience, of course, is far from uncommon. Long before scientists began shedding light on how our minds and bodies actually affect one another, an intuitive understanding of this dialogue between the body and the emotions, or feelings, emerged and permeated our very language: We use “feeling sick” as a grab-bag term for both the sensory symptoms - fever, fatigue, nausea - and the psychological malaise, woven of emotions like sadness and apathy.

Pre-modern medicine, in fact, has recognized this link between disease and emotion for millennia. Ancient Greek, Roman, and Indian Ayurvedic physicians all enlisted the theory of the four humors - blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm - in their healing practices, believing that imbalances in these four visible secretions of the body caused disease and were themselves often caused by the emotions. These beliefs are fossilized in our present language - melancholy comes from the Latin words for “black” (melan) and “bitter bile” (choler), and we think of a melancholic person as gloomy or embittered; a phlegmatic person is languid and impassive, for phlegm makes one lethargic.

And then French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes came along in the seventeenth century, taking it upon himself to eradicate the superstitions that fueled the religious wars of the era by planting the seed of rationalism. But the very tenets that laid the foundation of modern science - the idea that truth comes only from what can be visibly ascertained and proven beyond doubt - severed this link between the physical body and the emotions; those mysterious and fleeting forces, the biological basis of which the tools of modern neuroscience are only just beginning to understand, seemed to exist entirely outside the realm of what could be examined with the tools of rationalism.

For nearly three centuries, the idea that our emotions could impact our physical health remained scientific taboo - setting out to fight one type of dogma, Descartes had inadvertently created another, which we’re only just beginning to shake off. It was only in the 1950s that Austrian-Canadian physician and physiologist Hans Selye pioneered the notion of stress as we now know it today, drawing the scientific community’s attention to the effects of stress on physical health and popularizing the concept around the world. (In addition to his scientific dedication, Selye also understood the branding component of any successful movement and worked tirelessly to include the word itself in dictionaries around the world; today, “stress” is perhaps the word pronounced most similarly in the greatest number of major languages.)

But no researcher has done more to illuminate the invisible threads that weave mind and body together than Dr. Esther Sternberg. Her groundbreaking work on the link between the central nervous system and the immune system, exploring how immune molecules made in the blood can trigger brain function that profoundly affects our emotions, has revolutionized our understanding of the integrated being we call a human self. In the immeasurably revelatory "The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions" (public library), Sternberg examines the interplay of our emotions and our physical health, mediated by that seemingly nebulous yet, it turns out, remarkably concrete experience called stress.

With an eye to modern medicine’s advances in cellular and molecular biology, which have made it possible to measure how our nervous system and our hormones affect our susceptibility to diseases as varied as depression, arthritis, AIDS, and chronic fatigue syndrome, Sternberg writes: "By parsing these chemical intermediaries, we can begin to understand the biological underpinnings of how emotions affect diseases… The same parts of the brain that control the stress response play an important role in susceptibility and resistance to inflammatory diseases such as arthritis. And since it is these parts of the brain that also play a role in depression, we can begin to understand why it is that many patients with inflammatory diseases may also experience depression at different times in their lives.

Rather than seeing the psyche as the source of such illnesses, we are discovering that while feelings don’t directly cause or cure disease, the biological mechanisms underlying them may cause or contribute to disease. Thus, many of the nerve pathways and molecules underlying both psychological responses and inflammatory disease are the same, making predisposition to one set of illnesses likely to go along with predisposition to the other. The questions need to be rephrased, therefore, to ask which of the many components that work together to create emotions also affect that other constellation of biological events, immune responses, which come together to fight or to cause disease. Rather than asking if depressing thoughts can cause an illness of the body, we need to ask what the molecules and nerve pathways are that cause depressing thoughts. And then we need to ask whether these affect the cells and molecules that cause disease.

We are even beginning to sort out how emotional memories reach the parts of the brain that control the hormonal stress response, and how such emotions can ultimately affect the workings of the immune system and thus affect illnesses as disparate as arthritis and cancer. We are also beginning to piece together how signals from the immune system can affect the brain and the emotional and physical responses it controls: the molecular basis of feeling sick. In all this, the boundaries between mind and body are beginning to blur."

Indeed, the relationship between memory, emotion, and stress is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Sternberg’s work. She considers how we deal with the constant swirl of inputs and outputs as we move through the world, barraged by a stream of stimuli and sensations: "Every minute of the day and night we feel thousands of sensations that might trigger a positive emotion such as happiness, or a negative emotion such as sadness, or no emotion at all: a trace of perfume, a light touch, a fleeting shadow, a strain of music. And there are thousands of physiological responses, such as palpitations or sweating, that can equally accompany positive emotions such as love, or negative emotions such as fear, or can happen without any emotional tinge at all. What makes these sensory inputs and physiological outputs emotions is the charge that gets added to them somehow, somewhere in our brains. Emotions in their fullest sense comprise all of these components. Each can lead into the black box and produce an emotional experience, or something in the black box can lead out to an emotional response that seems to come from nowhere."

Memory, it turns out, is one of the major factors mediating the dialogue between sensation and emotional experience. Our memories of past experience become encoded into triggers that act as switchers on the rail of psychoemotional response, directing the incoming train of present experience in the direction of one emotional destination or another.

Sternberg writes: "Mood is not homogeneous like cream soup. It is more like Swiss cheese, filled with holes. The triggers are highly specific, tripped by sudden trails of memory: a faint fragrance, a few bars of a tune, a vague silhouette that tapped into a sad memory buried deep, but not completely erased. These sensory inputs from the moment float through layers of time in the parts of the brain that control memory, and they pull out with them not only reminders of sense but also trails of the emotions that were first connected to the memory. These memories become connected to emotions, which are processed in other parts of the brain: the amygdala for fear, the nucleus accumbens for pleasure - those same parts that the anatomists had named for their shapes. And these emotional brain centers are linked by nerve pathways to the sensory parts of the brain and to the frontal lobe and hippocampus - the coordinating centers of thought and memory."

The same sensory input can trigger a negative emotion or a positive one, depending on the memories associated with it. This is where stress comes in - much like memory mediates how we interpret and respond to various experiences, a complex set of biological and psychological factors determine how we respond to stress. Some types of stress can be stimulating and invigorating, mobilizing us into action and creative potency; others can be draining and incapacitating, leaving us frustrated and hopeless. This dichotomy of good vs. bad stress, Sternberg notes, is determined by the biology undergirding our feelings - by the dose and duration of the stress hormones secreted by the body in response to the stressful stimulus. She explains the neurobiological machinery behind this response:

"As soon as the stressful event occurs, it triggers the release of the cascade of hypothalamic, pituitary, and adrenal hormones - the brain’s stress response. It also triggers the adrenal glands to release epinephrine, or adrenaline, and the sympathetic nerves to squirt out the adrenaline-like chemical norepinephrine all over the body: nerves that wire the heart, and gut, and skin. So, the heart is driven to beat faster, the fine hairs of your skin stand up, you sweat, you may feel nausea or the urge to defecate. But your attention is focused, your vision becomes crystal clear, a surge of power helps you run - these same chemicals released from nerves make blood flow to your muscles, preparing you to sprint.

All this occurs quickly. If you were to measure the stress hormones in your blood or saliva, they would already be increased within three minutes of the event. In experimental psychology tests, playing a fast-paced video game will make salivary cortisol increase and norepinephrine spill over into venous blood almost as soon as the virtual battle begins. But if you prolong the stress, by being unable to control it or by making it too potent or long-lived, and these hormones and chemicals still continue to pump out from nerves and glands, then the same molecules that mobilized you for the short haul now debilitate you."

These effects of stress exist on a bell curve - that is, some is good, but too much becomes bad: As the nervous system secretes more and more stress hormones, performance increases, but up to a point; after that tipping point, performance begins to suffer as the hormones continue to flow. What makes stress “bad” - that is, what makes it render us more pervious to disease - is the disparity between the nervous system and immune system’s respective pace. 

Sternberg explains: "The nervous system and the hormonal stress response react to a stimulus in milliseconds, seconds, or minutes. The immune system takes parts of hours or days. It takes much longer than two minutes for immune cells to mobilize and respond to an invader, so it is unlikely that a single, even powerful, short-lived stress on the order of moments could have much of an effect on immune responses. However, when the stress turns chronic, immune defenses begin to be impaired. As the stressful stimulus hammers on, stress hormones and chemicals continue to pump out. Immune cells floating in this milieu in blood, or passing through the spleen, or growing up in thymic nurseries never have a chance to recover from the unabated rush of cortisol. Since cortisol shuts down immune cells’ responses, shifting them to a muted form, less able to react to foreign triggers, in the context of continued stress we are less able to defend and fight when faced with new invaders. And so, if you are exposed to, say, a flu or common cold virus when you are chronically stressed out, your immune system is less able to react and you become more susceptible to that infection."

Extended exposure to stress, especially to a variety of stressors at the same time - any combination from the vast existential menu of life-events like moving, divorce, a demanding job, the loss of a loved one, and even ongoing childcare - adds up a state of extreme exhaustion that leads to what we call burnout.

Sternberg writes: "Members of certain professions are more prone to burnout than others - nurses and teachers, for example, are among those at highest risk. These professionals are faced daily with caregiving situations in their work lives, often with inadequate pay, inadequate help in their jobs, and with too many patients or students in their charge. Some studies are beginning to show that burnt-out patients may have not only psychological burnout, but also physiological burnout: a flattened cortisol response and inability to respond to any stress with even a slight burst of cortisol. In other words, chronic unrelenting stress can change the stress response itself. And it can change other hormone systems in the body as well."

One of the most profound such changes affects the reproductive system - extended periods of stress can shut down the secretion of reproductive hormones in both men and women, resulting in lower fertility. But the effects are especially perilous for women - recurring and extended episodes of depression result in permanent changes in bone structure, increasing the risk of osteoporosis. In other words, we register stress literally in our bones.

But stress isn’t a direct causal function of the circumstances we’re in - what either amplifies or ameliorates our experience of stress is, once again, memory. Sternberg writes: Our perception of stress, and therefore our response to it, is an ever-changing thing that depends a great deal on the circumstances and settings in which we find ourselves. It depends on previous experience and knowledge, as well as on the actual event that has occurred. And it depends on memory, too.

The most acute manifestation of how memory modulates stress is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. For striking evidence of how memory encodes past experience into triggers, which then catalyze present experience, Sternberg points to research by psychologist Rachel Yehuda, who found both Holocaust survivors and their first-degree relatives - that is, children and siblings - exhibited a similar hormonal stress response.

This, Sternberg points out, could be a combination of nature and nurture - the survivors, as young parents for whom the trauma was still fresh, may well have subconsciously taught their children a common style of stress-responsiveness; but it’s also possible that these automatic hormonal stress responses permanently changed the parents’ biology and were transmitted via DNA to their children. Once again, memory encodes stress into our very bodies. Sternberg considers the broader implications: "Stress need not be on the order of war, rape, or the Holocaust to trigger at least some elements of PTSD. Common stresses that we all experience can trigger the emotional memory of a stressful circumstance - and all its accompanying physiological responses. Prolonged stress - such as divorce, a hostile workplace, the end of a relationship, or the death of a loved one - can all trigger elements of PTSD."

Among the major stressors - which include life-events expected to be on the list, such as divorce and the death of a loved one - is also one somewhat unexpected situation, at least to those who haven’t undergone it: moving. Sternberg considers the commonalities between something as devastating as death and something as mundane as moving: One is certainly loss - the loss of someone or something familiar. Another is novelty - finding oneself in a new and unfamiliar place because of the loss. Together these amount to change: moving away from something one knows and toward something one doesn’t. An unfamiliar environment is a universal stressor to nearly all species, no matter how developed or undeveloped.

In the remainder of the thoroughly illuminating "The Balance Within", Sternberg goes on to explore the role of interpersonal relationships in both contributing to stress and shielding us from it, how the immune system changes our moods, and what we can do to harness these neurobiological insights in alleviating our experience of the stressors with which every human life is strewn.”
Related:
"Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song 
Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent"
By Melanie Curtin
Full screen recommended.

"Everyone knows they need to manage their stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in your personal life, you can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as you can get to calm your nerves. So here's a science-backed one: make a playlist of the 10 songs found to be the most relaxing on earth. Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one's health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions.

Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. The study was conducted on participants who attempted to solve difficult puzzles as quickly as possible while connected to sensors. The puzzles induced a certain level of stress, and participants listened to different songs while researchers measured brain activity as well as physiological states that included heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing.

According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top song produced a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date. In fact, listening to that one song- "Weightless"- resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants' overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates. That is remarkable.

Equally remarkable is the fact the song was actually constructed to do so. The group that created "Weightless", Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener's heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

When it comes to lowering anxiety, the stakes couldn't be higher. Stress either exacerbates or increases the risk of health issues like heart disease, obesity, depression, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, and more. More troubling still, a recent paper out of Harvard and Stanford found health issues from job stress alone cause more deaths than diabetes, Alzheimer's, or influenza.

In this age of constant bombardment, the science is clear: if you want your mind and body to last, you've got to prioritize giving them a rest. Music is an easy way to take some of the pressure off of all the pings, dings, apps, tags, texts, emails, appointments, meetings, and deadlines that can easily spike your stress level and leave you feeling drained and anxious.

Of the top track, Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson said, "'Weightless' was so effective, many women became drowsy and I would advise against driving while listening to the song because it could be dangerous." So don't drive while listening to these, but do take advantage of them:

10. "We Can Fly," by Rue du Soleil (Café Del Mar)
8. "Someone Like You," by Adele
7. "Pure Shores," by All Saints
6. "Please Don't Go," by Barcelona
5. "Strawberry Swing," by Coldplay
4. "Watermark," by Enya
2. "Electra," by Airstream
1. "Weightless," by Marconi Union

I made a public playlist of all of them on Spotify that runs about 50 minutes (it's also downloadable)."

Dan, iAllegedly PM 8/17/21: "Everything Just Feels Wrong with the Economy. You Need to Get Ready"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly PM 8/17/21:
"Everything Just Feels Wrong with the Economy. 
You Need to Get Ready"
"There is so much happening in the economy today. All signs point to trouble as they try to tell us that everything is OK. From rent moratorium, pandemic unemployment ending to forbearance problems. It’s all getting worse by the week. Now retail sales have utterly dropped to the floor."

Gregory Mannarino, AM/PM 8/17/21

"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/17/21:
"Retail Sales Plummet With Personal Debt Surging,
An Economy In Freefall"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/17/21:
“Very Important Updates”

Must View! Jeremiah Babe, PM 8/17/21, "A Paycheck Away From Hell"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 8/17/21:
"A Paycheck Away From Hell; 
America Closed For Business; You Could Be Homeless;
Great Depression Imminent”

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial circle. Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping of the expanding nebula's 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image,indicates that the nebula is a relatively dense, donut-like ring wrapped around the middle of a (American) football-shaped cloud of glowing gas. 
The view from planet Earth looks down the long axis of the football, face-on to the ring. Of course, in this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, the glowing material does not come from planets. Instead, the gaseous shroud represents outer layers expelled from the dying, once sun-like star, now a tiny pinprick of light seen at the nebula's center. Intense ultraviolet light from the hot central star ionizes atoms in the gas. The Ring Nebula is about one light-year across and 2,500 light-years away."

Free Download: Albert Einstein, “The World As I See It”

"The World As I See It:
Albert Einstein's Thoughts on the Meaning of Life”
by Paul Ratner

“Albert Einstein was one of the world’s most brilliant thinkers, influencing scientific thought immeasurably. He was also not shy about sharing his wisdom about other topics, writing essays, articles, letters, giving interviews and speeches. His opinions on social and intellectual issues that do not come from the world of physics give an insight into the spiritual and moral vision of the scientist, offering much to take to heart. 

The collection of essays and ideas “The World As I See It” gathers Einstein’s thoughts from before 1935, when he was as the preface says “at the height of his scientific powers but not yet known as the sage of the atomic age”. 

In the book, Einstein comes back to the question of the purpose of life on several occasions. In one  passage, he links it to a sense of religiosity. “What is the meaning of human life, or, for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know an answer to this question means to be religious. You ask: Does it many any sense, then, to pose this question? I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life,” wrote Einstein.

Was Einstein himself religious? Raised by secular Jewish parents, he had complex and evolving spiritual thoughts. He generally seemed to be open to the possibility of the scientific impulse and religious thoughts coexisting. "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind," said Einstein in his 1954 essay on science and religion.

Some (including the scientist himself) have called Einstein’s spiritual views as pantheism, largely influenced by the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Pantheists see God as existing but abstract, equating all of reality with divinity. They also reject a specific personal God or a god that is somehow endowed with human attributes.

Himself a famous atheist, Richard Dawkins calls Einstein's pantheism a “sexed-up atheism,” but other scholars point to the fact that Einstein did seem to believe in a supernatural intelligence that’s beyond the physical world. He referred to it in his writings as “a superior spirit,” “a superior mind” and a “spirit vastly superior to men”. Einstein was possibly a deist, although he was quite familiar with various religious teachings, including a strong knowledge of Jewish religious texts. 

In another passage from 1934, Einstein talks about the value of a human being, reflecting a Buddhist-like approach: “The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.”

This theme of liberating the self is also echoed by Einstein later in life, in a 1950 letter to console a grieving father Robert S. Marcus: “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”

In case you are wondering whether Einstein saw value in material pursuits, here’s him talking about accumulating wealth in 1934, as part of the “The World As I See It”: “I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and irresistibly invites abuse. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie?”
 Freely download "The World As I See It", by Albert Einstein, here:

"The World Rests In The Night..."

“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”
- John O'Donohue,
"Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom"
“On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.”
John O'Donohue was an Irish author, poet, philosopher and former Catholic priest. He was born in County Clare on January 1, 1956. He died suddenly on January 4, 2008. He is best known for popularizing Celtic spirituality and is the author of a number of best-selling books on the subject.

"It May Be Then..."

"Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum."
- W. Somerset Maugham

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
- Sydney J. Harris

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, “Echoes from Rivendell”

Gnomusy, “Echoes from Rivendell”

The Daily "Near You?"

Penticton, British Columbia, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: David Wagoner, "Getting There"

"Getting There"

"You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.

What did you want to be?
You'll remember soon.
You feel like tinder under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change.
The sky is pulsing against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were,
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.

What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly like a dream,
That lost traveler's dream under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.

You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings."

~ David Wagoner

"Why.."

"Why does truth carry such a dreadful face? Why does subjugation carry
such a happy mask? It becomes sad when people understand that they
can lead a better life as long as they bow their heads, ignoring the truth."
- Lionel Suggs

"We Are All Like Elephants "

"We Are All Like Elephants"
by Marc Chernoff

"In many ways, our past experiences have conditioned us to believe that we are less capable than we are. All too often we let the rejections of our past dictate every move we make. We literally do not know ourselves to be any better than what some opinionated person or narrow circumstance once told us was true. Of course, an old rejection doesn't mean we aren't good enough; it just means some person or circumstance from our past failed to align with what we had to offer at the time. But somehow we don't see it that way - we hit a mental barricade that stops us in our tracks.

This is one of the most common and damaging thought patterns we as human beings succumb to. Even though we intellectually know that we're gradually growing stronger than we were in the past, our subconscious mind often forgets that our capabilities have grown. Let me give you a quick metaphorical example.

Zookeepers typically strap a thin metal chain to a grown elephant's leg and then attach the other end to a small wooden peg that's hammered into the ground. The 10-foot tall, 10,000-pound elephant could easily snap the chain, uproot the wooden peg and escape to freedom with minimal effort. But it doesn't. In fact the elephant never even tries. The world's most powerful land animal, which can uproot a big tree as easily as you could break a toothpick, remains defeated by a small wooden peg and a flimsy chain.

Why? Because when the elephant was a baby, its trainers used the exact same methods to domesticate it. A thin chain was strapped around its leg and the other end of the chain was tied to a wooden peg in the ground. At the time, the chain and peg were strong enough to restrain the baby elephant. When it tried to break away, the metal chain would pull it back. Sometimes, tempted by the world it could see in the distance, the elephant would pull harder. But the chain would not budge, and soon the baby elephant realized trying to escape was not possible. So it stopped trying.

And now that the elephant is all grown up, it sees the chain and the peg and it remembers what it learned as a baby - the chain and peg are impossible to escape. Of course this is no longer true, but it does't matter. It doesn't matter that the 200-pound baby is now a 10,000-pound powerhouse. The elephant's self-limiting thoughts and beliefs prevail.

If you think about it, we are all like elephants. We all have incredible power inside us. And certainly, we have our own chains and pegs - the self-limiting thoughts and beliefs that hold us back. Sometimes it's a childhood experience or an old failure. Sometimes it's something we were told when we were a little younger. The key thing to realize here is this: We need to learn from the past, but be ready to update what we learned based on how our circumstances have changed (as they constantly do)."

"How It Really Is"

"We're Rapidly Becoming A "1984 Society" & It's Only Going To Get Worse"

"We're Rapidly Becoming A "1984 Society" 
& It's Only Going To Get Worse"
by Michael Snyder

"Are you a potential domestic terrorist? You may not think so, but the Department of Homeland Security may see things quite differently. A brand new terrorism advisory has just been issued, and some of the things that it identifies as “potential terror threats” should chill us to the core. You see, the truth is that the definition of a “terrorist” is constantly evolving. In the old days, a Middle Eastern male that dresses in traditional Islamic attire, that grows opium in his field and that carries around an AK-47 would have been considered a “potential terrorist” by U.S. authorities. But now we have lost the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban are partying like it is 1999 in the presidential palace in Kabul. As a result, our spooks need a new group of “potential terrorists” to send to Guantanamo Bay, and so they are setting their sights on you.

You may be tempted to think that I am exaggerating. I truly wish that I was. NBC News is telling us that a “terror alert” has just been issued by Homeland Security, and during their report on this new “terror alert” a very alarming graphic was shown to the viewers.

Under the heading “POTENTIAL TERROR THREATS”, the following three categories were listed…

- “OPPOSITION TO COVID MEASURES”
- “CLAIMS OF ELECTION FRAUD, BELIEF TRUMP CAN BE REINSTATED”
- “9/11 ANNIVERSARY AND RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS”

NBC reports new DHS Terrorism Advisory is “Not based on any actual threats or plots”. Goes on to claim “potential” threats from anti-governmental sentiment, anti-COVID, pro-Trump…and uses 9/11 and “religious holidays” as triggering this warning. Is this PSYOPS or news? pic.twitter.com/9IRXWUKib2 - Bree A Dail (@breeadail) August 14, 2021

We have never seen anything quite like this before.
Now “opposition to COVID measures” is something that can make you a “potential terrorist”?Wow. So precisely what does that mean? Does someone become a “potential terrorist” if they speak out against masks, lockdowns or vaccines? What about sharing information that contradicts the official narratives about COVID? Will that make someone a “potential terrorist” as well?

If that is the case, then researchers at the Mayo Clinic may soon get hauled off to Guantanamo Bay… "Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – the most commonly used shot in the U.S. – was only 42 percent effective against infection, while the Moderna vaccine was only 76 percent effective in July. For the study, published on pre-printer server medRxiv.org – meaning it has not yet been peer review – the team gathered data on more than 25,000 Minnesotans from January to July."

When Dr. Fauci was asked about that study, he quickly dismissed it as bad information. And whatever Fauci says must be the gospel truth, because we have been told that any criticism of Fauci is an attack on science itself… “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science,” Fauci said Wednesday. “All of the things I have spoken about, consistently, from the very beginning, have been fundamentally based on science. Sometimes those things were inconvenient truths for people.”

Some have even gone so far as to suggest that any “far-right extremists” that dare to criticize Fauci should be treated like terrorists. So be very careful about what you say about beloved Lord Fauci.

At one time we actually had freedom of speech in America, but now those days are long gone. Even if you don’t get into trouble with the government, the big tech companies may decide to censor you into oblivion if you start saying the wrong things. (They might even delete your blog without warning... CP)

And most Americans can never actually keep up with the latest speech standards, because they are constantly in a state of evolution. For example, earlier today I was absolutely shocked to learn that you can get banned on YouTube for offering to pray for someone that has COVID. Apparently that can qualify as “content” that encourages people to avoid needed medical treatment… “Content that encourages the use of home remedies, prayer, or rituals in place of medical treatment such as consulting a doctor or going to the hospital”

We really are becoming a “1984 society”, and it is only going to get worse. If your goal is to conform as much as possible, you are in luck, because the Department of Homeland Security has issued some key information guidelines for you to follow so that you can “stay safe” while you are online… 

"Rely on trusted sources. For situational updates on COVID-19 and stay-at-home guidelines, rely on information provided by state and local health officials, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at coronavirus.gov and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) atcisa.gov/coronavirus.

Think before you link. Slow down. Don’t immediately click to share posts, memes, videos, or other content you see online. Some of the most damaging disinformation spreads rapidly via shared posts. Check your sources before sharing.

Be careful what you post. The information you share online can be misunderstood or repurposed via manipulation. Do a privacy check on your social media accounts and make sure you are not sharing content broadly that you mean only for close family and friends. Be aware that agents of disinformation often steal identities of real people, profile photos, and other information.

Be wary of manipulative content. Agents of disinformation are known to create or repurpose emotional videos and photos, and to use sensational terms to divide us. Be especially careful of content that attempts to make people angry or sad or create division."

In other words, embrace whatever they tell you to believe, and don’t you dare share anything online that even looks like it might contradict any of their narratives. Personally, I am stunned at how rapidly our society is changing. As I discussed a few days ago, a bill has actually been introduced in Congress which would permanently ban those that have not been fully vaccinated from ever flying again. That is completely insane, and hopefully that bill never becomes a law, but the Biden administration has already pushed things way too far. Each week we take even more steps into authoritarianism, and that should deeply alarm all of us. If our leaders are willing to get so extreme during a relatively minor crisis like this pandemic, what are they going to do when things start getting really, really crazy?

Freedom is such a fragile and precious thing. Previous generations of Americans understood this, and they were extremely diligent to make sure that future generations of Americans would live free too. But now dark times are here, and if you express your love for freedom too loudly you may soon discover that authorities have identified you as a “potential terrorist” too."

"An Invisible Man..."

"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and anything except me."
- Ralph Ellison, "Prologue to Invisible Man"

Chet Raymo, "The Ring of Truth"

"The Ring of Truth"
by Chet Raymo

"In Salley Vickers' novel, "Where Three Roads Meet," the shade of Tiresias, the blind seer of the Oedipus myth, visits Sigmund Freud in London during the psychoanalyst's final terrible illness. In a series of conversations, Tiresias retells the story of Oedipus- he who was fated to kill his father and sleep with his mother- a story at the heart of Freud's own theory of the human psyche. At one point in the conversations, as Tiresias and Freud discuss the extent to which our lives are fated, the question of immortality arises. Freud says of Oedipus that "he made his story into an immortal one, so far as any story is." And Tiresias replies, "But, Dr. Freud, stories are all we humans have to make us immortal."

Oedipus lives on, whether he lived or not in actuality. Sophocles lives in our consciousness as vigorously as ever he did in life. They live because their stories touch something resonant and unchanging in human nature. Vickers suggests that what makes the Oedipal story immortal is not any necessary tendency of humans to act out the Oedipal myth, a la Freud, but rather Oedipus's rage to know the truth- or become conscious of a truth he has known all along and suppressed - even though the truth will be his undoing.

The poet Muriel Rukesyser got it exactly right when she said: "The universe is made of stories, not atoms." Even atoms are stories we tell about the world, having first paid close attention to how the world works. The plays of Sophocles and the other Greek dramatists live on not because their authors were immortal, but because nature endures and their stories tell us something that rings true about enduring nature. And, like Oedipus, we have a rage to know, even if knowledge will unseat some of our more comfortable illusions.

Free Download: Carl Bernstein, "The Idiot Culture"

"The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste. This diminutive stature of mankind was daily sinking below the old standard."
- Edward Gibbon,
"The Decline And Fall of The Roman Empire"

"We are in the process of creating, in sum, what deserves to be called tbe idiot culture. Not an idiot subculture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself For the first time in our history the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal."
Freely download "The Idiot Culture", by Carl Bernstein, here:

Monday, August 16, 2021

"What Matter..."

"What matter if this base, unjust life
Cast you naked and disarmed?
If the ground breaks beneath your step,
Have you not your soul?
Your soul! You fly away,
Escape to realms refined,
Beyond all sadness and whimpering.
Be like the bird which on frail branches balanced
A moment sits and sings;
He feels them tremble, but he sings unshaken,
Knowing he has wings."

– Victor Hugo

"I Feel Like I Am Living In Crazytown"

Full screen recommended.
"I Feel Like I Am Living In Crazytown"
by Epic Economist

"We haven't seen a prolonged inflationary period like this since the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s, but our politicians and policymakers seem to believe that creating more inflation is the best way to take us out of the recession, without any consideration for the long-term consequences. They keep insisting that this inflation spike is going to be "transitory", and they deny that the economic crisis they're creating while trying to generate a non-stimulus-induced rebound in economic growth is real. They try to minimize the severity of these issues so that they can keep on creating, borrowing, and spending even more money. The inflation crisis is reaching totally insane levels, but unfortunately, most Americans don't seem to be aware of it or to care that this is even happening. Every day it goes by, this country gets closer to turning into the hyperinflationary Weimar republic, and those who are driving us there have become completely crazy.

It's safe to say that most people that lived through the 70s would never imagine they would see the same crazy level of inflation ever again, but it is now here and it's already visible. Particularly, in the price of food, gasoline, and vehicles. This month, new vehicle prices jumped 6.4 percent on the year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending January 1982. Meanwhile, used car prices and gasoline soared by a staggering 42 percent from a year ago. Food staples and many other everyday items faced massive price hikes in the past year. Bacon was up 11 percent and whole milk and beef roast were both 8 percent higher on the year. Travel expenses skyrocketed from last summer’s depressed base level, with hotels up 24 percent and airfare up 19 percent. Rising inflation is putting the economic rebound in jeopardy as it cancels much of the benefit of workers' higher pay due to the soaring prices. As a result, this is significantly impacting our standard of living, because although wages are rising, they aren’t rising nearly as fast as the cost of living is.

Recently, a number of corporate executives have started to announce even more price hikes in the months ahead. For instance, the popular burger chain Shake Shack announced it will be implementing another round of price increases in 2021 to fight inflation. Last week, during a conference call, Shake Shack’s chief financial officer Katherine Fogerty said customers will be paying 3 to 3.5 percent more for their food for the rest of the year. Many other companies are also raising prices to offset higher inflation and increased costs of products, parts, and labor.

None of this is going to end well. But despite all the warnings and evidence, our leaders' response to this crisis is still creating, borrowing, and spending even more money. In fact, a new fiscal package has just been passed and, as soon as it was approved on the Senate, the new administration immediately began working on a new spending package twice as big. On Tuesday, the Senate passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, and then, the upper chamber started to work on a second $3.5 trillion package of further government spending. By Wednesday morning, the Senate had already passed the framework of the $3.5 trillion bill, but some furious representatives alerted for the dangers of further spending.

Out-of-control inflation is extremely dangerous especially because it erodes people's purchasing power and it severely affects low-income families and elderly pensioners. Once that purchasing power is gone, there's no turning back. We will never return to "normal" levels. If they were so worried about helping our society as they claim to be, their decisions would be a whole lot different. At this point, it's getting harder not to feel hopeless. Even the motto "hope for the best and prepare for the worst” doesn't quite fit in this situation, because it feels like hoping for the best is just pointless. We already know how this story goes. We know what they are up to, and what they are going to do and how our lives will be affected by this. 

We can only recommend you to prepare for the worst and do not let your guard down, because darker times are approaching us. With Congress passing another wild spending package after the many other spending packages that were already passed, things will eventually get really, really bad. The Fed continues to pump billions upon billions of fresh dollars into the financial system even though everyone who saw the previous financial bubbles bursting is now warning about an imminent epic crash. This is being called the greatest bubble in the history of the world. But as our problems keeping being swept under the rug, all we can do is watch how long it can last before it finally implodes."

Musical Interlude: Kevin Kern, "Above The Clouds"

Full screen recommended.
Kevin Kern, "Above The Clouds"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"If not perfect then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view. Classified as an Sc galaxy, the grand design of M74's graceful spiral arms are traced by bright blue star clusters and dark cosmic dust lanes. 
This sharp composite was constructed from image data recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Spanning about 30,000 light-years across the face of M74, it includes exposures recording emission from hydrogen atoms, highlighting the reddish glow of the galaxy's large star-forming regions. With a lower surface brightness than most galaxies in the Messier catalog, M74 is sometimes known as the Phantom Galaxy."

"Into The Graveyard of Empires"

"Into The Graveyard of Empires"
by Brian Maher

“Love is like war,” said Henry Louis Mencken - “easy to begin but very hard to stop.” After 20 loving years, the United States has walked out on Afghanistan. The Taliban is already squiring the lovelorn around Kabul. Matrimony… holy or unholy… is imminent.

Have you looked at the television? Afghans are so hot for the Taliban’s hug they are smuggling themselves into the wheel wells of United States Air Force transport planes - with frightful consequences.
But the stars had always crossed this unlikely dalliance. The thing was doomed before the first kiss.

Americans Are Poor Imperialists: As we have written before: Americans are a restless, fitful people. We are eternally on the jump. We are forever hunting the fresh adventure, the next chance. We are perpetually peeking over the next hill. That is, Americans are poor imperialists. We simply lack the patience the business demands. And the patience required to tame and police an Afghanistan would have taxed old Job beyond all human endurance… and worn the soul clear out of him.

Afghanistan is less a nation than a sort of Asian West Virginia. It is a badland of warring McCoys and Hatfields. Will they ever come to terms… and clasp hands? The lion and the lamb will first clasp hands. "You Americans have the watches," said the Taliban. "But we have the time." They did - they do - have the time.

The Taliban Didn’t Need to Win… to Win: The Taliban did not need a victory. They merely needed to avoid a defeat. They were the hopeless prizefighter matched against the great champion. Their strategy was to waltz around the ring for all 12 scheduled rounds, to frustrate their pursuer... and tie him up in clinches when cornered. That is, their central ambition was not to deliver a blow - but to avoid a blow. They wagered the fellow would tire of the chase eventually… throw up the sponge… and climb out of the ring. They wagered accurately. And they are presently collecting a fantastic purse.

The American reputation is absorbing a severe trouncing. The scene here is the United States embassy in Saigon. The year is 1975:

The scene here is the Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul. The year is 2021:
The aircraft is moving… incidentally. These desperates are frantic to climb in nonetheless.

Who Will Trust the United States? What about America’s allies? Will they trust it to brawl alongside them in case of a fight? They have seen these images. They have tracked the news. Neither the images nor the news instills confidence in American resolve.

In the 1870s, the German government would not accept American bonds - “even if signed by an angel in heaven,” as one fellow styled it. If the signature of a heaven-based angel cannot instill confidence, then what about the signature of an Earth-based politician? And a Washington-based politician at that? Why should an ally trust the pledges of the United States government to fight for them? Perhaps it is time these allies pursued alternate defense arrangements. And perhaps the United States should take them off its hook… and let them go their independent ways.

We hazard Mr. Putin is having a good hard belly laugh this day. It was in Afghanistan that the Soviet Empire came to grief - in part because of American arms handed to its Afghan foes. Now the United States has taken the licking. How has it come to pass? The route to Kabul is long. And it is packed with twists…

Going Abroad in Search of Monsters: America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy," said Adams (John Quincy). But the once modest American Republic took up the hunt at the end of the 19th century. It found its first monster, a sad caricature of a monster, in Spain. As we have quipped before: Americans remembered the Maine. And forgot their Adams. They have been forgetting their Adams ever since...

America has gone buccaneering around the globe. It has chased down monsters during WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - twice - and Afghanistan. For every evil it scotched, another rose in its place. Hitler shouldered the Kaiser out of the way. Stalin, Hitler. Osama bin Laden threw Stalin aside in 2001…

The Mischievous Gods: 21 years ago, America was undisputed heavyweight champion of Earth. Its fleets commanded the Seven Seas, its armies policed the four corners of the globe. It was the Pax Americana.

But the gods, they are a jealous lot. They will abide no mortal that has outgrown its britches. They will abide no hubris… So they hatched a plot. They enlisted zanies to fly airplanes into New York’s two identical towers - and Virginia’s Pentagon - on Sept. 11, 2001. President George Herbert Walker Bush rose to the bait. He ordered his men into Afghanistan. The gods proceeded to place their feet upon the table… settle in for the show… and munch buttered popcorn. They knew there is a reason why Afghanistan is labeled “the graveyard of empires.”

They set the same trap for Alexander the Great over 2,000 years ago. Afghanistan was his ruin. They coaxed in Great Britain in the 19th century. Afghan warriors gave these British a savage, savage trouncing. The wrathful gods gave the godless Soviet Union a divine Afghan lesson during the 1980s. And now… in 2021… these gods have brought low their latest target - the United States. The graveyard of empires has another head marker.

Is China Next?
Note the caption atop the image — “Next up: China.” Is China next up? We do not know the answer. Yet we do know they… like Russia… enjoy razzing the United States over Afghanistan. Here the editor of Beijing mouthpiece The Global Times gives a good ribbing: "Chinese netizens joked that the power transition in Afghanistan is even more smooth than the presidential transition in the US."


Pity the Nation: But our concern is not China. Our concern is the United States - our beloved United States. And she is having a very rough go of things. Her name is being blackened. Thus our head drops in sorrow.

"Empires have a logic of their own," our co-founders Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin wrote in "Empire of Debt" concluding: "That they will end in grief is a foregone conclusion." It would appear so. But as we have also written before: "If the American empire is ending in grief, we hope for a quiet grief, a whimpering grief... not a shrieking grief. Perhaps - just perhaps - the United States can even restore the republic its founders intended..."

"Life Is Lumpy..."


"One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference."
- Robert Fulghum

Dan, iAllegedly, "Real Estate Will be the First Bubble to Burst - with Scott Walters"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 8/16/21:
"Real Estate Will be the First Bubble to Burst - 
with Scott Walters"
"The Real Estate Bubble will be the first to burst. Today I brought in Scott Walters Realtor to share his expertise on where he thinks real estate is headed."

"When Your Paycheck Runs Out, Too Broke To Prepare; Long Beach Homeless Crisis; Wealth Inequality"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 8/16/21:
"When Your Paycheck Runs Out, Too Broke To Prepare;
 Long Beach Homeless Crisis; Wealth Inequality"

The Daily "Near You?"

East Machias, Maine, USA. Thanks for stopping by!