Letters to the Editor
Monty Johnston
Published Letters: 118 Editor's Choice: 9
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I forgot this:
[Read the article: Manufacturing belief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's nature, nurture, accident, and inspiration. Whether or not you take the brain electrochemestry of egolessness as God or not, it may well be found to play a vital role in evolution; even in that of the single-celled organism.
The term "intelligent design" betrays ignorance of creativity. It's intuitive design and it's active in evolution.
Monty
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Falwell, et cetera
[Read the article: The stone is cast]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Merrily reading along on Alan Wolfe's Jerry Falwell article, I suddenly come upon this: "America's megachurches offer a thin theology equivalent to twelve-step theology." This brought me up short with its misunderstanding. 12 Step "theology" is an egoless practice available to the religious and non-religious alike. But rathere than the damaging divisiveness of megachurches and Fallwell, it is practical, one day at a time. Alan Wolfe would not, I assume, prefer that several million recovering alcoholics instead be at this moment driving drunk down our highways.
As for Falwell and megachurches, he helped foment their inerrancy, the idolotrous belief that every word of the Bible is the gospel truth. Taken egolessly, parts of it may be; as may be a whole lot else. But to say a thing is spirit, to treat any word in the Bible as a graven image, is idolotry. Chogyam Trungpa talked about spiritual materialism.
Best,
Monty
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Food preoccupation
[Read the article: The losers' circle]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is said in recovery from drugs and alcohol, "I have a disease and I am responsible for it."
One thing the article nearly said that perhaps should be stated more clearly: Dieting, as opposed to moderate eating, may put the body into starving mode, in which it goes out of its way to save every precious calorie. That is, dieting is one of the things that makes a person fat. It is not clear, once started, what if anything can reverse this starving mode.
I essentially never hear anything about craving relative to weight loss. Clearly, the healthy young men instructed to lose 25% of their weight had their craving increased. I'm not familiar with Overeaters Anonymous but I assume they reduce craving with egolessness much as is done in 12 Step programs for drugs and alcohol (though these are abstinence programs.) That is, too much attachment? Practice detachment, today. Can't get your mind off food? Practice egolessness, moment by moment, a kind of stopping thinking that brings you to more fully experience the moments of life. And to an intuitive thinking that is fine with reality-testing.
Mental preoccupation really is a problem, no matter what one is preoccupied with.
The fact that one is brought into temptation at least three times a day must make this a fairly tall challenge. I have heard, though, of Overeaters Anonymous members reaching and maintaining target weights.
Why, I wonder, is stomach-stapled Al Roker doing a food segment on TV? relative to his own sanity.
Best,
Monty
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Dear Letter Writer -
[Read the article: Should I invite my difficult friends to the in-laws' lake house?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My pushy mother's first husband apparently stood up to her. Her next one, my father, stuttered badly for much of his life and was painfully shy. My pushy older half-sister mamarried a very quiet man, and a dear quiet son of theirs married a less than quiet woman. So I have experience with these dynamics.
Very quiet people would often be alone if a pushy person didn't pick them. A pushy person looks strong, but their fragility is betrayed by their picking pushovers. Though anyone trying to push over passive-aggression has their work cut out for them.
Your bossy friend picked a very quiet man. He also picked you.
None of these dynamics, though I find them fascinating, have much to do with the cottage. I take it that it's less that you'd be discriminating against the Asperger's husband than that he woke you up to your friend's high-maintenancehood. No matter how the cottage talk with her got started, you can always say, "I'm sorry - I made a mistake. I really have over-promised."
Me and my old friends still prize each other as crazy old friends, but I believe we accept that we've just got our limits.
Alcoholism in my family, though not necessarily in the aforementioned cast of characters, except for me, does highlight symptom-bearer and codependent gameplaying. It is often not easy to step back from age-old characterological proclivities. It certainly is worth doing one's best to learn how. My desire that friends also learn how tells me to keep looking at my codependence.
It's your in-laws' turf first, and then it's your husband's, and I'm not sure that it's your turf at all, though you're more than just a guest.
I have no reason to believe that I'm welcome any more at the family lake cottage. Now I live far away, by the river. We have a porch too.
Best,
Monty
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