This morning, I was exercising my secret sin… browsing political blogs. (Shameful, I know… please don’t spread it around.) An enigmatic, just-posted entry on DailyKos caught my eye: ” A short diary, but a question on life.”

The author (with an intriguing nick of BFSkinner) asked rather eloquently what we would do if diagnosed with a disease that would inevitably rob us of our minds? A disease that would steal our very self, a disease that can be treated to slow but not stop the progression, a disease which, in the end, will win. How would we approach living the tale of Flowers for Algernon - the story of a mouse and a man who, having had their intelligence artificially enhanced, then watch that intelligence fade, along with their life?

Predictably, the question stirred me. I mean, heck… that book probably helped shape my fascination with improving and maintaining the human brain. Instead of contributing a quick comment and moving on, I decided to write here, instead.

Because there’s just no way I can explore this briefly.

Here’s what I hope I would do:

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Maybe you view a yawn as rude, a sign of boredom, disinterest, or dull-witted sleepiness. Me, I’m developing an appreciation for the fine art of the yawn.

It all started yesterday, while reading about relaxation lists and such on (you guessed it) Havi’s site. (yes, I’m a shameless fan girl. shu’p already.)

That’s when I realized I don’t have much that I can seriously trust to relax me anymore.

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I‘m not exactly sure how this happened. I mean, seriously.

I avoided the obligatory End-of-the-Year-Self-Assessment post, the Impossible Resolutions post, and even the Big-Plans-For-This-Next-Year post. And yet somehow? Here I am, writing about a THEME for the New Year.

I didn’t even know years could HAVE a theme. But it seems they do, that I have one, and that this year’s theme is “Places, Everyone!”

“Places, Everyone!?”
What the heck does that even mean?

Actually, it makes a good bit of sense if you’re inside of my head. But since you aren’t…

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“You will literally meditate like a Zen monk at the touch of a button!!”

That’s one of the oft repeated sales pitches for the Holosync system, a set of binaural-beat brainwave entrainment CDs from Bill Harris’s CenterPointe Research Institute. According to the rest of the sales material, it slices, it dices, enlightens and happifies, fixes you buttered toast, and offers you fresh squeezed orange juice. Organic, I’m sure.

Ok, I made a lot of that up.

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Here you go:
The Actual AD, as promised in part 1.
You didn’t think I was going to get around to actually writing this, did you?

Oh Ye of Little Faith!

Ahem.
As I was saying…

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