spiritual evolution....

I can't recall off the top of my head which book it was that introduced me to the term "panentheism", but once I came across it I recognized it as my own views of God. In panentheism, God is seen as both transcendent and immanent, both beyond and within. This is the true traditional stance of Christianity, but in recent centuries only the transcendent aspect has been emphasized.

I've since dropped my identification with animism. I realized that, in panentheism, the concept of animism simply becomes superfluous and unnecessary. It's rendered irrelevant.

capital

I am caught in the exchange
born into this social contract
was my birth
a metaphysical guarantee
and my brain
the genetic signature?

Hmm.

McDonald's will post its first loss ever at the end of the quarter.

Its first loss ever.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen in the New Economy....

dementia & the flip side of creativity

Inner Artist Revealed in Man with Dementia

A case of an elderly man with dementia who began drawing after a lifetime of showing no interest in art demonstrates that a type of dementia that robs people of their personality may paradoxically trigger a burst of creativity.

At age 65, the man was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. This type of dementia, which is caused by the degeneration of the front part of the brain, impairs abstract thinking, judgment and language abilities, and may lead to inappropriate behavior.

By age 70, the man's dementia had progressed to the point that he was no longer responsive to others, and he had trouble understanding words and sentences.

One day, though, the man's wife put pencils in front of him, and he began to draw. According to his wife, he had never been interested in art, but for the next 6 months, he drew at the same hour every day.

"This case seems to be remarkable in this advanced stage of dementia," said Dr. Catherine Thomas-Anterion, the lead author of the report.

[...] According to Thomas-Anterion, the degeneration that leads to FTD seems to decrease the inhibition of other parts of the brain that are involved in perception.