Arising and passing away down memory lane

A few morninga ago, I sat down, closed my eyes and intended that my mind present me with scenes from my past. After a very short delay, my mind complied. Things that matched what I had intended appeared in conciousness.

Good mind! Here, have some gratitude. You deserve it!

What appears

When I ask for memories like this, I often get flashbulb memories — vivid pictures with no sound and no motion. I see things, rarely people. I’m no longer in the present. I’m back there and then. But something closer to there and then than to here and now.

The first thing that appears in consciousness is the apartment building on Crown Street in Brooklyn. It’s where I first lived after coming home from Unity Hospital, where people have told me that I was born. I don’t remember it.

The apartment was on the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Crown. A blurry picture of the front of the building appears. I Google. A less blurry, more recent picture arises.

A picture of a hallway and a door that I think is the one to our apartment appears.

Images of a temple that is down the street appear. One image is from the outside, another is from inside. It was an orthodox temple. The men sat on the ground floor and the women in the balcony. I’m on the ground floor, with people around me. I can’t see the people, but I know they are there.

Images of the barber shop of “Pete the Barber’s.” appear. It was down the street, on Nostrand Avenue. Black barber chairs and mirrors inside appear. The barber pole in front of the shop appears. The kind face of a man who might be Pete appears.

An image of being in a car at night riding along under sodium vapor lamps lighting the Belt Parkway appears.

Thank you, mind.

Images of our second home, 350 East 55th Street Brooklyn, appear. Flashbulb memories of the kitchen appear. Jelly is being made from grapes from the back yard.

An image of the living room with tapestries or a mural on the wall appears.

An image of the driveway appears. That’s all.

The fact that it was a duplex, shotgun style, appears.

The name of the family that lived next door arises. The name was Komenko. His name was Rudy. Hers was Manya. One or both had acne or smallpox scars. These ideas and images arise.

An image of Uncle Morton’s house in Riverhead appears followed by one of Uncle Joseph’s home in Patchogue.

An image of our family driving through the Lincoln Tunnel early in the morning on our way down to Washington to see Uncle pick and Aunt Henrietta appears. Looking at the image, I can see the tunnel outside the car. I don’t see anyone people inside. The memory that we used to get up at 5 AM to get through New York before traffic arises.

And passes away.

Flashbulb memories of a trip we took to Maimi one year arise and pass away.

Images of Wolfies, a restaurant where we went for breakfast arise and pass away.

An image of the all-you-can-eat place where we went for lunch sometimes arises and passes away.

An image of the front of the hotel where we stayed arises. It’s blue. The image passes away.

An image of North Carolina, on the bridge that went from Hickory to Uncle Morton’s place outside of town appears. The memory that his home was called “Turning Point” appears. An image of the driveway arises and passes away. Images of the living room and things that I did there arise and pass away.

The memory that Turning Point was next to the home of Morton’s friend and mentor arises. The memory that his name might have been Charles Boedeker Smith arises. The memory that my cousin CB is named for him arises.

They all pass away.

A memory of CB reciting what he was taught growing up in the South arises. The memory contains the sound of his child’s voice with its southern accent saying:

“Why I hate Yankees.
“Long, long ago, before Mommy, or Daddy or I was born, the Yankees came down and burned all our houses.
“And that’s why I hate Yankees

Then that passes away.

What appears in consciousness?

The idea of asking my mind for some memories—the idea that led to this post—arose in consciousness.

Before it passed away, I followed that idea and asked my mind for memories.

The memories arose in consciousness.

In between memories, I did some Googling.

I asked Google for information by typing, speaking, pointing, clicking.

The information that I asked for arose in consciousness—via the internet and my browser.

What is the relationship between Google and the rest of my mind? I ask both for information and information arises and passes away.

What does all of this mean?

What is it good for?

I don’t know.

Maybe I’ll do a podcast with my brother and sister.

Intention

Several days ago, the intention to write a post about this arose.

It was strong enough that I scribbled some notes in my notebook. It was not enough to produce a post.

The day before yesterday I wrote this post. Afteward, the intention to write this post was stronger.

I didn’t intention that might have caused me to abandon it get in the way.

I worked on it diligently when I had time.

And this morning, I finished it.

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Intentional failure

What now?

Intentional failure

Yesterday I realized that I had not posted anything. I was once again having problems getting a post written and published. My punishment: write a post about why I’m having trouble and expose my behavior to the world.

Or rather, expose my behavior to the strength of my analytic ability. Figure out what was wrong. Teach myself (and anyone who reads—-like Future Me) what to do when this happens.

TL;DR: everything that happens comes from intention. If what I want to have happened has not happened, then I need to fix the intention. If I’m not fixing my (failed) intentions, then my metaintention needs fixing.

Intention redux

The last post I wrote was about intention. If I’m not completing a post, then there’s something wrong with my intention. So what went wrong today?

When an intention appears in consciousness, it might starts as a mere desire. An intention’s got to build some muscle to result in action. It’s got to compete with other intentions. And it’s got to overcome inertia. We might describe inertia as the default intention: to do nothing or to follow whims.

An inention has to include—or give rise to— a plan.

Without a plan, an intention is an oversized whim.

“Post” mortem

I didn’t publish the post I intended to write because my intention to do so was inadequate.

My failure to publish was an intentional failure.

What did I intend to do? I wanted to “write a post.” “What post? I never decided. My intention was vague.

I did start writing something—so I had enough intention to start. I didn’t finish. Why?

I did not intend to finish. To publish.

I did, kind of, intend to have it be published—I suppose. Memory is vague as was the inention.

Stuff came along. Other intentions arose and passed away. Some were unconscious, and some were conscious.

Some led to action. Others led nowhere. Perhaps those intentions are sitting around waiting for the right moment.

I had no intention to decide what intention to follow and what to abandon.

One way to describe the situation: my intention wasn’t strong enough to maintain itself in the face of the distractions around me (which lead to other intentions) and problems that I faced when writing.

Another way to describe it: I never intended to publish the post. I intended to start. Sometimes that’s been enough to get me to the end. Once I start moving, the momentum often is enough to carry me through.

Yesterday it wasn’t.

Now I have a more precise and stronger intention: to write this post AND publish it.

This post will be published because I intend to maintain the necessary intention to the end.

That intention—to maintain my intention—is itself an intention — a metaintention.

Going meta

Yeah, I love meta.

What’s meta?

From Meta - Wikipedia

…a prefix used in English to indicate a concept which is an abstraction behind another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.`

The original sense of meta (as in metaphysics) is that meta X is beyond X. But now meta means, more often, X about X. Metadata is data about data. Metalanguage is language about language. Metamemory is memory about memory. Metacognition is cognition about cognition. And so on.

Metainention is intention about intention.

So my problem is the lack of metaintention. Not just any metaintention, but some specific ones.

Metaintentional requirements

I want to undertake projects with intentions that are sufficiently developed to carry the project through to the end.

I want to monitor my intentions, intentionally choose among them, ensure that they are sufficient to the wished-for outcome, maintained to the end.

Those are wants. To turn them into intentions I need to make sure that the wants are strong enough and to provide a plan that will result in my developing and maintaining the desired intention.

I need to develop new skills: awareness of intention—or its lack; and awareness of attention—or its absence.

The current state of those skills: conscious incompetence.

The next state: conscious competence.

The goal: unconscious competence.

Becoming competent

I need to periodically remind myself to check the state of my intention until I do it without a reminder.

When I am suddenly conscious—without a reminder—that I’m being inattentive or operating with inadequate or improper intention, I need to take a moment and be grateful to whatever part of my mind projected that awareness into consciousness.

I need to learn that when that awareness appears, or when I check my intention that I need to take action.

I need to energize intention when it is weak. I need to restore it when it fails. I need to develop new plans when old plans are inadequate.

To maintain that intention I need both intentional awareness and metaintentional awareness.

Any time I am working to do something, I need to be aware of the state of the underlying intention.

This has been adequate to get this post out.

Let’s see if it’s good enough for another one.

Written with the help of StackEdit, Grammarly, Markdown Here,Blogger, and Google voice typing on Android and Chromebook, plus other stuff.

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Intention lost, intention regained?

Daniel and I have been talking about meditation since roughly forever—or more accurately, I’ve been talking to him about it, and he’s been a good listener and a good asker of questions.

Last night he asked in a chat (typos are all his :) )

Here is a different way to answer the “why meditate,” you’ve been doing it solidly for a while, what are the benefits in practical terms that you can offer as evidence that the hours invested have been worthwhile.

Here’s my answer to the question:

Have the hours I’ve invested been worthwhile?

The first answer, immediately: I don’t know.

The second answer, maybe a minute later: Maybe not.

The third answer, 12 hours and a lot of research and thinking later: yes, beneficial but not if I keep doing it the way I’ve been doing it lately.

What’s wrong with lately?

Intention.

It’s all about intention.

I wrote about my intention deficit disorder in 2016. I wrote about how intention produced a blog post recently.

I really ought to read what I write. Then I wouldn’t have to spend so much time figuring out shit that I’ve already figured out.

The short form: if I meditate with the right intention, it’s worthwhile. If I meditate without the right intention, then it’s every bit as worthwhile as watching a movie on Netflix or watching an NFL game. If I meditate with the wrong intention it could be—I don’t want to go there.

So, mainly for my future selves, who I hope reads this (Hi, guys!) and also for any of the rest of you who discover this, let me lay it out in detail.

Why meditate?

I was wrong to try to answer that question until I’ve first gotten an answer to this one: “What’s your purpose in life?”

Wrong for him. Wrong for you. Wrong for me.

So I’m wrong trying to convince anyone that meditation is a good thing unless they have articulated their purpose in life.

Purpose comes first.

If meditation helps you achieve your purpose, it’s good; if it stands in the way, it’s bad; if it neither helps nor harms, it’s neither good nor bad.

And it only helps if you align the intention that you have when meditating with your purpose.

If you don’t know your purpose, don’t meditate. Don’t watch Netflix or the NFL. Don’t do anything beyond maybe cleaning up your room.

Find your purpose in life.

If you don’t know your purpose in life, then I’ll tell you your purpose in life.

It’s to figure out your purpose.

If you don’t have a purpose of your own, then you have two choices. Either you will serve the purposes of others, or you will be useless.

Neither is a good thing. You probably have your own purposes even if you haven’t articulated them.

You need to articulate them and make sure you feel they are yours.

Meditation might help you with that. But if you have not determined your own purpose, it’s likely you’ll need more than meditation—and this blog post—to figure it out.

My purpose in life

In December 2016 I wrote a post about the purpose of life, the universe, and everything. In July 2017 I wrote a longer post on the same subject.. I know my purpose: it’s gaining knowledge, organizing it, and communicating it.

I’ve reread those posts. Future selves: they’re worth my reading from time to time.

If you don’t know your destination, any road will get you there. If you do know your destination, travel only roads that get you closer.

My purpose comes down to learning, thinking, and communicating.

Learning of the kind that gives me access to useful knowledge gained by others; thinking of the kind that improves existing knowledge and produces new knowledge; communicating of the kind that makes knowledge available to others.

If I look at my life through the lens of “The Goal” [Holy shit! I’ve never written about The Goal,] I’ve got learning and thinking backlogs. Communication is the bottleneck.

Right now my preferred communication medium is writing. But I’m going to dive into audio soon.

So if meditation makes me happier, healthier, smarter, stronger, faster, sexier, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, and all that, but doesn’t help me write more, then meditation is a waste of time.

A waste.

A while ago my writing production was up. Now it’s way down. Did the up have something to do with meditation? Did the down? Can meditation turn the present down into a future up?

Let’s consult the data.

Making meditation worthwhile

Blogger keeps my posting stats, month by month. Here’s what things have looked like since October 27, when I started meditating:

Mth	#	Comment
Oct	8	Started meditation Oct 27
Nov	21	personal best. In 6 years
Dec	15	despite Christmas madness
Jan	19	January tends to be a good month
Feb	3	Only 3 by 2/22!!!

My projected production is four posts for February. Four! If I get this done, I will meet my projection.

And be sad.

My memory tells me that my increase in production had started in October. The Stoic Challenge got me going. But my memory is wrong. The Challenge produced early wake-ups and cold showers—which may have helped with writing—and not many actual posts.

Let’s hear it for facts rather than memory.

Meditating helped with writing by giving me material for writing these seven posts about meditation.

Did it help me write other things? If it did why did my production collapse, despite continuing to meditate?

And what explains the unraveling of much of the morning routine that I’d been working on since the Stoic Challenge.

I think the answer is intention. I started meditating with clear intention tied to writing.

Recently I’ve been meditating without those clear intentions. And so, no writing.

I knew about intention

On December 13 last year, kind of at the peak of my production, I wrote the essay I referred to above about intention and meditation.

It was the usual self-referential shit that I am so fond of: a blog post about writing the blog post that I was writing. But it went beyond that. I was applying something that I had learned in meditation to the act of writing.

And through it, the act of writing became a kind of mediation.

That’s important, future selves. Any act can become a kind of meditation.

What I wrote:

…I intended to write a post, and the mind/body/computer acted and produced a post. I did not write that first sentence. I intended to write, and the sentence appeared. I can assure you that I am not writing this sentence. (Or this parenthetical remark while editing.) I am not writing and did not write any of it. Trust me. I’m watching myself very carefully right now. I know what I am doing and not doing. Not writing.

And here’s a key quotation from “The Mind Illuminated” that I included on the importance of intention:

…while it may not be obvious, all our achievements originate from intentions.

I’m going to say that again.

…while it may not be obvious, all our achievements originate from intentions.
Consider learning to play catch. As a child, you may have wanted to play catch, but at first, your arm and hand just didn’t move in quite the right way. However, by sustaining the intention to catch the ball, after much practice, your arm and hand eventually performed the task whenever you wanted. “You” don’t play catch. Instead, you just intend to catch the ball, and the rest follows. “You” intend, and the body acts.

It may be that there is a self that decides and intends. We can come back to that later. But all the work was done by no-self.

Intention produces the outcome.

If I have a clear intention and hold fast to it, then I get the result that you want—at least within the scope of what I am capable of doing.

Meditation to strengthen intention and control attention and awareness—the systems that turn mere intentions into intended outcomes—that’s worth doing.

So I’ve been writing this post a bit more intentionally than some things I’ve failed to write recently.

I intend and predict that I will post it, soon.

Written with the help of StackEdit, Grammarly, Markdown Here,Blogger, and Google voice typing on Android and Chromebook, plus other stuff.

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Holding hands with the unconscious

I’m close to making a change in my life. Everything’s ready. It’s been ready for a while. But I don’t make the change. This happens a lot.

Why?

Specifically this:

Here’s the change I want to make:

When I discover something interesting, or I have a thought I’d like to preserve, I want to write about it. I want to turn it into a post in this blog or another one. I want to write in multiple blogs—one for each kind of content. I want to be a prolific poster.

That shouldn’t be hard. I know how to write a post for this blog. Why not use the same process for others?

To state the goal more clearly:

When I find a random interesting thing, I want to publish a post it in my blog, “Random S*&# I Learned Today.” When I think of an important life lesson, I want to write it up and post it in my blog “What Passes for Wisdom.” If it’s intended for my grandkids, I want to post it in “For the borglings.” I want discoveries of cool stuff on the Internet to go in Joy of Internet. And so on. I’ve got other blogs for other things.

This should be easy. Just keep doing what I’ve been doing (writing here) and add one or more blogs.

But haven’t been doing it.

Worse, I’ve slowed my posting in this blog.

Why?

I think I understand why.

The conscious and the unconscious

To develop a new habit—whether writing in multiple blogs or writing more regularly in this one—I need two things: first, a conscious decision to do it; second, unconscious compliance with the decision.

Two things: a decision by the conscious mind, compliance, and execution by the unconscious.

Why?

Because most of what I do I do unconsciously. Like writing. I’ve decided to write something along the lines of the paragraph you are reading. Unconscious processes have taken over. The words appear. I consciously review the result. If I decide it’s what I want (and I do), then we’re done. If I decide it’s not what I want, it goes back to the unconscious for revision. Rarely I have to analyze it consciously, and determine what’s wrong, or make a more unambiguous conscious decision about what I want. But the work gets done by the unconscious. That’s how this paragraph came into existence. That’s how everything I do happens.

If I decide to do something that I am already “unconsciously competent” at doing, I have to be careful. My unconscious processes might start, but if they hit a roadblock, they’re likely to veer off and do something else.

If I decide to do something that’s a real change, something else happens.

Resisting change

My unconscious mind resists change. Thanks to Jordan Peterson’s “Maps of Meaning” I think I know why.

Creatures—including human—innately fear the unknown. In the right context, that my unconscious might mix fear with anticipation of a reward, but fear is always there.

Changing from writing one blog to writing many produces fear.

What’s there to fear? What could possibly happen that would worry me?

Nothing. But it’s not “me” that’s worried. It’s my unconscious—the part of me that has to do the work.

What could happen? Anything. Anything at all. Without assurances that constrain the unconscious imagination, anything at all can happen.

A path to success

Realizing this, I see a way to victory.

I need to assure my unconscious that making the change is safe. I need to listen to its concerns and reassure it that everything will be fine. Not only that, but things will go well.

When I write my first post for another blog, I can’t just “decide to write” and expect my unconscious to comply. I need to “hold its hand.”: I need to expect that feelings of discomfort may arise and when they do, I need to hold hands with my fearful unconscious, and help it do its job.

Written with the help of StackEdit, Grammarly, Markdown Here,Blogger, and Google voice typing on Android and Chromebook, plus other stuff.

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L-serine serine-dipity

Label: L-Serine serindipity?

TL;DR

Aging brains always get worse, and they get worse faster if we don’t take action. Ever since I read “The Brain that Changes Itself”, I’ve been taking action.

I wrote about it here: 70 Years Old. WTF!: Cognitive decline

L-serine is an inexpensive FDA approved food supplement that may have neuroprotective effects for normal aging and people at risk for Alzheimer’s. It’s currently in Phase II clinical trial due to complete in August. But why wait? You can get it on Amazon in bulk.

Dale Bredesen, MD is a researcher with 224 peer-reviewed papers on PubMed and book called “The End Of Alzheimer’s” and a website that provides a program for assessing and improving cognitive health—including but not limited to Alzheimer’s. He claims that he has reversed Alzheimer’s and other forms of cognitive decline in many patients. Maybe he has.

As aging changes my brain in unavoidable ways, I check my cognitive ability with interest. Hey, I can’t remember that name. I think. How interesting! I wonder how I can get it back. Whenever I forget something, I see it as an opportunity to learn something about my brain.

Bobbi, on the other hand, checks hers with worry approaching terror. Her Dad died (younger than she now is) with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Seeing him was somewhere between tragic and horrific. Closer to horrific, actually.

Out of general fascination with all things science and to make sure that we both are doing the best we can reasonably do to protect our brains I dive into the literature on cognitive health periodically.

The state of the literature

ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) is a neurodegenerative disease. It’s not Alzheimer’s, but it’s mentioned in the same breath in lots of research

Here’s an article from Brain Chemistry Labs that makes the connection:

Neurodegenerative diseases all share a common problem, proteins accumulate in the brain. We have found that an environmental neurotoxin can trigger two kinds of protein build up known as brain tangles and amyloid plaques.

So what can be done about it?

The Institute for Ethnomedicine discovered the dietary amino acid L-serine as a possible new ALS drug through careful studies of the mechanisms of protein misfolding

The principal researcher at the Institute is Paul Cox. This long, long article in Fortune details his research. Well worth the read:

Here’s what we now think is astonishing about ­L-serine,” Cox said. “It appears to be neuroprotective against all possible protein misfolding. It basically turns on a system in our brains that looks for unfolded proteins and is quickly poised to act on them.”

They have mouse models, in vitro experiments to support their research. Ethnological investigation of the Ogimi, a group on the island of Okinawa backs the hypothesis. The Ogimi are extraordinary long-lived people who don’t seem to suffer much cognitive decline.

This peer reviewed paper summarizes some of their research.

Our hypothesis that the high l-serine content of the Ogimi diet is related to the paucity of tangle diseases among villagers is buttressed by in vivo results with non-human primates where dietary l-serine slowed development of neurofibrillary tangles and β-amyloid plaques by up to 85% and a human clinical trial finding that l-serine at 15 grams/day twice daily slows functional decline in ALS patients. Analysis of the Ogimi diet suggests that l-serine should be evaluated for therapeutic potential as a neuroprotective agent.

This article in Pharmacy Times summarizes research findings, and points to a Phase I trial to assess safety. The trial demonstrated safety (and also reported significant improvements in the people with ALS.

Astrocytes in the human body produce L-serine, and the average American diet consists of about 3.5 grams of L-serine a day. The FDA states L-serine is generally regarded as safe, as long as it consists of no more than 8.4% of total protein in the diet (CFR Title 21 Section 17.320.18). A 6-month phase I randomized double-blind (pharmacist unblinded) trial was conducted to assess safety of doses 0.5, 2.5, 7.5, and 15g twice a day.

There’s now a Phase II trial in progress, due to report in August.

15 grams of L-Serine (15 gummies containing 1g of L-serine) orally twice daily for 246 days

So Bobbi and I are doing our own non-double-blinded non-placebo-controlled study of l-serine. I ordered 500 g from Amazon, and we’re each taking 15 g twice a day.

I’m not a person who goes for vitamin and food fads, but the research here seems solid and promising, and what the hell else are we going to do with our money?

I now buy this supplement from here

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