How to explain to normal people how deeply I relate to Maki Zenin and Sanemi Shinazugawa without sounding like I’m so fucking unstable and need therapy five times a week. How to explain that it’s not just the inherent anger with the world they feel, because I do fully fully relate to that as well but that’s surface level. Yes I am angry, but their reasons for the anger?? Their relationships to their younger siblings???? How the fuck am I supposed to say that I get it. I get that fucked up relationship to your younger siblings, and how so much of you hinges on that identity as the Eldest Sibling but specifically the failed eldest sibling. I so deeply understand Maki and her want to live for herself, damn the consequences her sister received for it, because it’s her life, if she wants to live it spiteful and angry and for herself and against her family in every way she damn well should be able to, who cares if her sister is dragged in and suffers for it. Who cares if she has to learn to grow up and suffer the same ways. Until suddenly you do care and by then it’s too late, you can’t go back, you can’t make it easier for her, you can’t make her happier, and by the time you maybe want to try it’s far too late. I understand Sanemi and the pain and anger you feel when you’ve watched your younger siblings suffer far too long before ultimately losing them and never getting the chance to help them live better. I get pushing them away from you and treating them far less than they deserve in an attempt to drive them away because you’re just going to make it worse, you’re living the hard life, you’re the target, you’re the bad influence, so if they’re not close to you, they’re less likely to get dragged in. But they do anyway and then you cut off that relationship for nothing but because they’re younger siblings they forgive you and still want it but you don’t deserve it so you don’t let them and it just keeps going and keeps going and keeps going and until you lose them forever. Until you’re the Eldest Sibling who no longer has younger siblings to be the Eldest Sibling for, you fucked it up and sure life didn’t help all that much but a good chunk of it is your own damn fault. And I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m so so so fine

This is an EXTREMELY uncharitable and rude take by me, but like. Fucking Christ.

This is a fucking transitioning ask blog and you really have that much damn anxiety about being friends with people that you feel the need to wonder if it’s inappropriate despite being a 5+ year long dynamic? Like oh my god do people really feel that much terror at being friends with young people? This is fucking ridiculous, please for the love of god can people just go and experience the very real and mundane world that’s out there??? Have you people really just never been to summer camp or done after school programs or tutored or babysat or been nice to your friends’ little siblings or had an entry-level job or been a part of any kind of community group or just fucking anything??????? I quite legitimately feel concern for all these people who end up convinced that it might somehow be unnatural to ever wind up in the same place as somebody more than three years outside of their age range???????? One of the most positive relationships of my life was with an adult over 20 while I was 13. When I was super duper young, all the kids at my church were friends with one another (oh look, racial/immigrant factors!!! It was a Chinese church!!!!!!!), which included kids younger than me and older than my sister (who is 4.5 years older than me), and we were friends, and being friends with other second generation immigrants from similar non-normative family backgrounds is good for feeling human, actually. I spent like eight years going to a summer camp and by my final year, I had a whole following of younger children who were up to eight years younger than me, and we were friends. As a high school senior, I was friends with some freshmen because we were in the same clubs and being friends with people you spend a lot of time with is fucking normal. I started doing drum corps when I was 17 and have marched alongside and been peers with hundreds of people from ages 13 to 60+... and seen them naked in he fucking showers, ya fucking dipshits, sports exist. My first job out of college had me being equal peers with 16-year-olds, and I even brought a high schooler with me to an even two hours away because we were both interested in it and they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to go. Literally what kinds of fucking bubbles are other people living in that it’s so impossible to conceptualize how an adult might be friends with a teenager? Legit why is your base assumption that adults aren’t aware of the influence they have and the boundaries they need to set? 

Legit when I was a really young teenager, my dad took me to this public city-wide Bike to Work breakfast thing, and I ended up talking to this middle aged amateur photographer. I really liked his art, so we ended up adding each other on facebook so I could see all his albums and stuff, because this was kind of before the time when people had pages. Occasionally, we interacted, because facebook be like that. Once, we were talking about music and he linked this musical humor thing which contained an adult-themed reference in it. I replied by pointing this out and basically being like “hey, I’m X aged” but also commenting on the things I liked about it. As a result, the conversation went back to being about non-adult common ground and it wasn’t even awkward, it was clearly just a matter of him, the adult, forgetting that bit was in there. It wasn’t even awkward. And a few years later I reached out to commission him to do photoshoots for me and my friend for our senior photos because hey, I know a chill amateur photographer who is interested in being commissioned, let’s get cool non-studio portraits and support individual art. And that happened and there was nothing inappropriate that happened because wow, it turns out that the average adult isn’t fucking weird about people younger than them existing???

It just sets off my rage meter so fucking hard when people who are barely adults have like existential freak outs about being innate child molesters or some bullshit. Like no, just fucking think about the complex human being you were at that age and react appropriately. I had depression and read manga-containing-sexy-tiddy-nipples in fourth grade, so I’m not going to infantilize a fourth grader, but I’m also not going to be like “here’s drugs and porn.” I recognize that my teenager friends who just entered college this year are very mature people who can handle things like drugs and sex (note: I’m not having sex with them, I’m just saying that they talk quite a lot of their own accord about it and I can’t really do anything about that except not engage if I don’t want to), but I also know that they’re not the most politically developed, so I don’t expect them to engage with my long thought processes with regards to social theory or public policy.

How actually fucked up is our sense of the world if people legitimately think there’s zero fucking pretense for people of different ages to even occupy the same room as each other? I’m well aware that this scrupulosity is bred into people by really shitty and devious others, but also it pisses me the fuck off that others don’t have the wealth of lived experience that I do with regards to just experiencing other people in the fucking world, like how fucking sheltered are you? Engage with your community for god’s sake, live a life that doesn’t involve socially approved upwards progression into adult careers and activities, do something with actual youth instead of living in fear of them and avoiding them like a death sentence. It’s not going to fucking wreck your life to be a person at another person.

MBTI and the Seeds

Religious bullshit, meet personality bullshit. I took to 16personalities for a direction on this and was actually pretty convinced by the majority of the results (which is whack because 16personalities almost always gets at least one letter off), but I have an unfathomably large amount of information about this test stored in my grey matter so I’ll be hopping off a bit to fill in my own blanks. Also notable is the severe trauma each of the Seeds have been through

This is going under a cut because it's a long post and honestly might be more worthwhile as a reference for myself and how I write the Seeds, but I can’t be the only personality nerd in this fanbase.

Jacob Seed: ISTJ. The Logistician

I wasn’t sold on this one initially given that Jacob seems far more comfortable with out of control situations than most Js generally are, but I find the overall profile fits him better than ISTP. My explanation is that his time in the juvie, the military, and the foster system has forced a maturation of this particular function due to constantly feeling out of control, which makes him more open to adaptation than he would have been otherwise. 

Strengths:

Honest and Direct: Notably Jacob is arguably the least manipulative Seed. He “tricks” you in a sense with the conditioning but that is more a strategic concealment than any deception. Unlike the other three, Jacob does not pretend that his actions come from any sense of love or divine calling. He is always straightforward with the deputy, even if that doesn’t restrain his cruelty.

Strong-willed and Dutiful: Basically see all of the Book of Joseph, as well as his “you think I care if I die” comments. I lump very responsible under this. 

Calm and Practical: I don’t think I have to explain this part. Jacob never reacts from an explicitly emotional place. The “did you think you were free” is the closest to losing his temper I think we see from him. He has expectations, and failure to meet them will be punished. He doesn’t see a need to get emotional about it, preferring to detach himself

Create and Enforce Order: Well, culling the herd is an unconventional tactic, but...

Weaknesses: 

Stubborn: As Joseph said, Jacob has been getting into it since he was a kid. Even with the brother, he’s willing to die for, he explicitly argues with him. And even in the face of his own death, he refuses to rescind his own philosophy, or even demonstrate any regret for the path he’s chosen.

Insensitive and Judgemental: Jacob’s a shithead no I will not elaborate

Always By the Book: an illegal paramilitary cult, yes, but one that holds to Jacob’s exacting standards. 

Often Unreasonably Blames Themselves: Loath as I am to woobify Jacob at all, there’s a pathos to him. As Joseph says, he thinks of himself as a “weapon without a purpose. A soldier without a legacy”. As a child, he protected his siblings and as an adult, he views himself as little more than a meatshield. There’s a sense that he objectifies himself, reduces himself down to simply the function of violence and protection, and those high standards mean that he views death as simply another failure.

can bastard be a personality type

Joseph Seed: ISFP- The Observer

The test originally gave me INFP, but I find that unconvincing for two reasons. One, INFP’s are predominantly defined by an open-minded approach to life and to ideas, which doesn’t fit well with a guy so convinced he got religion right that he was willing to kidnap and murder people. Two, while Joseph is definitely contemplative and deals with the symbolic, his “visions” are not flights of fancy but are in some sense practical. He doesn’t really appear to engage in thought experiments, merely interpret sensory (or in this case extrasensory) information that he is presented with.

Strengths:

Charming: The man runs a successful church for a reason, and it can’t just be good cheekbones and dogwhistling

Sensitive to Others: Joseph has a keen insight into other people’s emotional state, which is what makes him so effective at manipulating them. He tends to meet people where they’re at with a certain deftness that would be impressive if he didn’t use it the way he did

Passionate: about the LORD. No, but I’ll give this to the man, he’s certainly got a vision, and sticks to it with intensity.

Curious: I think anyone working in the business of people has to have an inherently curious mind, and while Joseph may believe he has all the answers, his fascination with the Deputy to me indicates that he has an inherent draw to things that disrupt his world. I also think about how he would get in trouble as a child for seeking out forbidden material, such as Spiderman comics. those Satanic webs...

Weaknesses:

Fiercely Independent: He’s developed a supportive community now but Joseph has always marched to the beat of his own awful, awful drum, which has gotten him kicked out of at least one job and lost him at least one set of foster parents. He doesn’t seem to need people as much as he acquires them 

Unpredictable: Sometimes with blood, sometimes with forgiveness, it's hard to say how Joseph will respond to disruption on any given day. Where the spirit leads, I suppose. 

Easily Stressed: This one I’ll actually argue that his turbulent history and the demands of his job have at least taught him to cover this up, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t cracks in the armor. “yOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME!!!!!”

Overly Competitive: He’s a sore loser with a tendency to punish people for failing him (see: Faith and the statue)

Fluctuating Self-Esteem: He’s dealing with a joint worldview where he is at once God’s chosen and a “no one from nowhere with nothing”. How much of that is genuine we may never know, but I don’t think the fluctuation is outside the realm of possibility

John Seed: ESFJ-The Consul

I was a little on the fence about N vs S but ultimately found that John’s a bit more concrete than conceptual.

Strengths:

Strong Practical Skills: I mean, the man orchestrated a hostile takeover of an entire county, he knows how to get things done when he wants

Strong Sense of Duty, Very Loyal: This part is likely underdeveloped given how tempestuous forming relationships was for most of his life, but given how bound he feels to Joseph its clearly in him.

Good at Connecting With Others: He’s a shitstain, but according to Joseph he had business connections everywhere and was basically a walking secret storage bin. John can probably be very charming if you don’t know how he spends his weekends in the bunker. 

Sensitive and Warm: again, underdeveloped given his background, but there’s clearly a lot of emotions broiling just below the surface given how volatile he can be and how easily Joseph can access them. Joseph also describes him as a very sensitive kid, for what that’s worth

Weaknesses

Worried About Their Social Status: The boy is a climber

Inflexible:  He holds pretty firmly to his headcanons on Hope County (for fuck’s sake John Nick’s sin isn’t Greed, its Sloth) and has a very definite view on how things should be. Not to mention he seems very particular, just based on the state of his home and his clothes. He has rituals and habits, and will not deviate.

Vulnerable to Criticism: If you say anything about his future receding hairline he will cry. He just will. Not to mention I’m citing that look he gives you when you’re apparently costing him paradise by not converting

Often Too Needy: He will either get attention or he will die trying. 

Too Selfless: Honestly, selfless isn’t the right word here, but I’ll copy the way 16 personalities describes it because I think it fits really well for John. “ Consuls sometimes try to establish their value with doting attention, something that can quickly overwhelm those who don’t need it, making it ultimately unwelcome. Furthermore, Consuls often neglect their own needs in the process.” John is a deeply selfish person but he does act like someone who tries to get affection by giving everything of himself, often to the point that he makes the other person uncomfortable.

I literally love this dramatic edit it's so good

Faith Seed/Rachel Jessop: ENFP-The Campaigner

I have nothing to add, it just fits. At the most, I think Faith is a little more pragmatic than she lets on (given that whole “if violence is the only language you choose to speak”) but to me, that can easily be an extension of the ENFP’s ability to connect emotionally. It means they know how to cut people off 

Strength

Curious: I mean you don’t end up in a cult willingly without a little curiosity. Faith also seems mildly intrigued by the Deputy’s resistance, and while this eventually culminates in frustration with our intractability, I believe there’s a genuine investment in the journey to conversion

Observant: Faith is cued into her public perception, both from the resistance and the cult, and consciously constructs it. She also shares Joseph’s ability to tune into emotions and exploit them.

Energetic and Enthusiastic: How much of her ray of sunshine persona is constructed for the benefit of converting people will probably never be answered, but I don’t believe it can be constructed whole cloth. I think Rachel always was a person with a lot of heart and enthusiasm for her passions, even if it's not as constant as Faith Seed wants you to believe

Excellent Communicators: There’s a reason she’s regarded as the Siren. She can talk people into things even they don’t want to do. Certainly left me shook

Know How To Relax: *insert weed joke here*

Very Popular and Friendly: Again, her Siren persona may not be 100% genuine, but you can’t fake that level of charisma

Weaknesses:

Poor Practical Skills: Listen, Rachel is smart as hell (definitely smart enough to develop a drug and orchestrate mass production thereof), but her planning skills? Not great. Up until Burke gets taken out of the Bliss her plan seemed to be “talk with the Deputy over and over until they change their mind”. She kicks it up a notch after she finally gets annoyed with us but it seems a bit more “making it up as she goes”, and she falls back on strategies that have worked for her before but aren’t really effective for the Deputy. In fairness, I don’t think any of the Seeds are strong in the planning department

Overthink Things, Get Stressed Easily: Unlike with John and Jacob, Faith doesn’t really let us in to see her darker side. She prefers to speak of her flaws in the past tense. Yet clearly anxiety has been an issue in her life, given how deeply her isolation sat with her and her sense of worthlessness. Using drugs as an escape from stress also makes sense for her character, at least from my perspective

Highly Emotional: Faith communicates in emotional terms, manipulates people through emotions, and unlike someone like Jacob Faith loses her temper. She shouts at us, demonstrates her frustration very openly, even screams at us that we couldn’t possibly understand her.

Independent to a Fault: Her personal history gives her some interesting codependent issues with Joseph but based on what we hear of her from Tracey Rachel resented anyone trying to control her, even if they had her best interests at heart, and was perfectly willing to burn bridges over people questioning her choices. 

If people are interested I can develop these out more. I may eventually do these for the police force members too but frankly, we’re given less to deal with for them, in particular with Joey and Staci, so who knows.

Just a quick little response to the article The Self-Reg View of Obesity.

I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about the way we teach our children about food, not only in regards to the foods we actually feed them, but how we form their food mentality. I’ve struggled with disordered eating since I was 13, despite growing up having a pretty good relationship to healthy foods. For me, eating vegetables, lean proteins, balanced meals, and healthy snacks comes very easily; it’s navigating my emotional state in tandem with my relationship to food - continuing to eat healthy meals when I am mentally or emotionally diminished - that I really struggle with. It’s taken me years to get to a place where I was emotionally able to process my relationship with eating, and to realize how essential it is to understand the science of food as fuel. 

A huge motivator in my own food journey has been learning about how essential the right nutrients are in developing an infant’s brain. In early childhood, so much of our day is focused on eating, and we hope that we are giving our children the right tools to become healthy eaters in their adulthood. But the way we present food to children is equally important to the food itself. I spend hours a day with children under the age of five, and as I’ve been expanding my knowledge of how I interact with food and emotional eating (or non-eating) as an adult, I began noticing how often we absentmindedly teach our children poor food habits, either out of convenience or out of truly not understanding how to handle an underlying problem. I found the relationship drawn between dysregulated children and obesity in this article to be fascinating, and it gave me the words to articulate some of these poor habits I have begun noticing in my daily interactions in early childhood. 

We tend to view obesity, and overeating in general as a weakness. When we overeat emotionally as adults, we feel guilty after the fact, maybe even during, - we damn ourselves for not having more willpower, and it doesn’t stop us the next time we make an emotional decision to eat a bag of chips or a pint of ice cream. The presentation in The Self-Reg View of Obesity of cravings, “not as impulses that [have] to be resisted or subdued but invaluable signs for when [your] stress was too high” is incredibly compelling to me - what if, rather than being a sign of weakness, over- or under-eating, or even simply making an unhealthy choice rather than a healthy one, is due to dysregulation? To think of obesity as a “stress-cycle” was eye-opening for me, especially once I started considering how many adults I know who struggle with this exact problem. The girl who is the main focus of this article, Carmen, is 15 years old, and I know so many women more than twice her age who still struggle and strive every day to form healthy eating habits. 

Because I spend most of my days in early childhood I immediately began considering how we might be influencing our children’s food mentality with our own misunderstanding of this stress-cycle relationship to eating, without even realizing it. Primarily, I began noticing how often adults will offer children snacks to derail dysregulation, rather than because the child is hungry and has asked for a snack. In response to a tantrum, as motivation to persuade a child to do something they’d rather not do, to get the attention of a toddler wandering away... Each one of us who has ever cared for a child has been guilty of an instance of this. Food motivation has been ingrained in us, most of us were raised with the same motivators. But if we are all out here in adulthood struggling through our own emotional food journeys, don’t we owe it to our children to give them a healthier relationship to their minds and bodies? 

A fact I share almost every day in my career, which nearly ALWAYS surprises parents, is that our prefrontal cortex - the logical, rational, self-regulating, decision-making center of our brain, does not fully develop until age 6. Read that again. Six. Years. Old. That means that every interaction we have up to that point shapes the way our logical, rational, self-regulating, decision-making skills develop. The areas of our brain that process eating and emotions develop much sooner than our self-regulatory abilities, meaning that we form dependencies on emotional eating a lot earlier than we have the ability to think to ourselves, “no, I shouldn’t eat this entire bag of halloween candy hidden under my bed” (based on a true story of my brother and I around 4&5 years old). We can give our young children only the healthiest options, but unless we also focus on the way we are presenting the foods we are offering, we can seriously damage their relationships to emotional eating: this means that even offering your child apple slices as a distraction from their dysregulation can be harmful to the way that they see food. 

Dysregulation comes from feeling stressed, which can be caused by many things we may not consider when we reach adulthood. So much of our adult lives center around stress - and making sure we can thrive even in stressful situations, that we can sometimes forget how stressful life can be for a child. This infographic depicts a few examples of some stressors we may not think of - something as seemingly simple to an adult as being in a new space, meeting new people, or having a new sensory experience can be extremely stressful for a child - which can lead them to act out in ways we don’t necessarily expect. 

I think my favourite stressor that infographic points out is boredom. Boredom for an adult is hard enough to deal with, and especially in our modern era of being able to access the internet wherever we go, I think adults often forget how stressful boredom can be for a child.When you are bored, do you turn to a game on your phone? Scrolling instagram? Listening to a podcast? Reading a book? Netflix? Eating? When we are bored as adults, we also respond to a stress-cycle, but because we have the benefit of our developed prefrontal cortex, we are able to find a way to handle this stress-cycle: depending on the level of stress the boredom produces we choose to cope in a different way, ie choosing to eat a bag of chips out of boredom vs choosing to read a book. We are able to make these decisions with the help of our rational brain, but I challenge you to put yourself in the shoes of a dysregulated toddler: you’re bored, maybe in a new or big space like an older sibling’s practice or a doctor’s office. You are being asked to wait, oftentimes with a relatively still, contained body, for a length of time your developing brain has no way to conceptualize. Your comparative stress level is going to be off the charts, and your self-regulatory abilities are not yet ready to help you find sufficient stimulation. This is when our children need us most: they need OUR ability to self-regulate until they are ready to regulate their bodies and brains on their own.

Young children need to move their bodies and stimulate their proprioception in order to regulate their bodies and brains. Proprioceptive “heavy work” such as running, jumping, dino- or wheelbarrow-walking, and other gross motor movement helps children dig into their limbic system, the emotional center of our brain, which is essential in learning self-regulation. When we are dysregulated, we feel responses from our limbic system encouraging our bodies to act to solve the problem. The reason that children often struggle to self-regulate with the same quiet activities that adults may self-regulate with in the face of boredom is because many of the things we find relaxing as adults, such as screen time, are actually even MORE stressful to a dysregulated child’s mind. 

Somewhere both adults and children find a release from this stress-cycle is eating as a coping mechanism: when we offer our children a snack to get them to sit still, they are able to regulate for a short while, oftentimes before falling into a deeper state of dysregulation. TSRVoO points out that, “eating channels our impulse to act...into what seems like a relatively safe action” and the fact that, “junk food has been engineered to target this low-energy/high-tension state.” When we feed our bodies, especially foods with processed sugars and carbs, rather than taking physical action when we are dysregulated, we teach our brains that eating is a good way to cope in a fight-or-flight stressful situation: “We see a cognitive shift from working memory to stored relief-based memories...and a reduction in dopamine, which reduces both the pleasure we receive from ‘non-supercharged’ food and the desire to engage in physical activity.” Basically, this means that the more we respond to this stress-cycle by eating rather than addressing the dysregulation itself, the harder self-regulating our bodies and brains in general becomes. 

There are many ways to help our young children regulate their bodies without offering snacks when they begin to act out, but they all begin with the grown ups in their lives being aware of their own self-regulation. If your child is dysregulated in a place where they are restricted from moving their bodies or vocalizing their emotions, it can be extremely stressful for the caregivers they are with - just trying to get through the grocery store or make it through 15 more minutes of an older child’s dance class. It can be frustrating and stressful for adults when we don’t understand the underlying meaning behind our children’s seeming misbehavior, and a stressed out parent only leads to a more stressed out child. 

Working on our own adult self-regulation is essential. We need to be able to put our own immediate stress-response aside, take a deep breath, place ourselves in our children’s shoes and take their stress as seriously as we take our own. It might be easier in the moment to offer up some cheddar bunnies or a vending machine cookie to calm our emoting child, but we need to consider the stress-cycle so many of us are trapped in and make a conscious effort to break that cycle before it begins for our little ones. 

I want to share some of my favourite restricted-environment self-regulation tools for little ones in the hopes that it will help other caregivers and parents address the true needs of their child, even if it seems on the surface that our children are simply acting out. Singing is an excellent tool. In my class, we sing a simple waiting song each week (”we are waiting, we are waiting, for X, for X, waiting waiting waiting, waiting waiting waiting, for X, for X” sung to the tune of “brother john”) and it has become a tool I use regularly outside of class. I see a consistent difference in the self-regulatory abilities of parents and children that sing the waiting song together during class, and hear stories from parents that use it frequently in their daily lives that their children will self-direct and begin singing it in line at the grocery store or bank when they begin to feel stressed or bored. Singing simple rhymes that also incorporate physical movements, especially patting and squeezing your child’s body, also stimulates the brain in such a way that can greatly reduce dysregulation in toddlers. Things like patty cake and other hand clapping games, swimming their arms and rocking their bodies as you sing row row row your boat, if you have the physical space and ability, or even just hugging them close and swaying slightly if you are more physically restricted, are some great ways to stimulate proprioception and engage the limbic system when a child cannot physically engage their bodies to calm their mind. 

 If we give our children these tools from their earliest years, we will teach them that food is not a coping mechanism; as human beings we are physical creatures and we grow and calm our brains through moving our bodies. Those of us who struggle in adulthood know the repercussions of developing unhealthy relationships with food, stress, and emotional eating. Let’s make a conscious effort, together, to do better for our little ones by changing our own mentality of the negative eating habits we have. The Self-Reg View of Obesity ends with a inspiring explanation of a goal that I think is at the core of all our our healthy eating journeys. About Carmen, they mention that, “we quite literally helped her see her cravings differently: not by lecturing her on the dangers of fast food or stress eating, but by reducing her stressors to zero.” I think we could all stand to give ourselves and our children a break by viewing our relationships to emotional eating as dysregulation rather than weakness - and in doing so digging into our emotional states to solve the problems at their core rather than putting a band-aid on a gaping wound.  

Screw it, I'm asking Malik Ishtar for the meme thing! (Only if you want to, of course...)

THANK YOU :D

How I feel about this character:

My secret favourite!!! I think I tend to likecharacters that are all about BIG UGLY EMOTIONS, and Malik is a lot of those,lol. For me, he’s an effective villain – both really terrible and really understandably so. I think the way he gets so energetic about pursuing the God Cards and the Pharaoh, and then gets in over his head and has to abandon ship on his own revenge, and then continues to see through his role as tombkeeper because he’s just so worn out from trying to fight it – aaaaagh! It’s so upsettingly believable.

In terms of characterisation, he’s floating around brilliant but lazy territory for me. He’s intelligent, but also an idiot, andalso all he really wants to do is ride around on his bike and sleep alone inhis room and live comfortably. He’s capable, but not very ambitious. Not much of a visionary, lol.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Ryou. Yuugi. Shizuka.

…well that was a very short list for me. I can also enjoy theifshipping to a certain degree, although I’m not really very interestedin it as a postcanon or endgame ship. And the potential for Malik’s torture ofMai to be sexualised is something I think is both interesting and not that farfrom its canon presentation – so I guess that may count as shipping them insome kind of messed up way. And I guess I also I find myself conceptuallyinterested in Ishtar sibling incest, but I haven’t run into any that treats thesubject matter with the kind of tone I’d like.

More on the ships though: Malik doesn’t directly interact with Yuugi or Ryou much in canon, but both ships seem to have the ability to be about softness and healing to me. Since Ryou and Malik have both experiences a violent and upsetting possession of sorts, them coming to move past that together has the potential to be pretty sweet. And since Malik has a kind of troubled relationship with ‘the Pharaoh’, and how he feels his life has been shaped by these ancient politics, I think Yuugi’s kind of in a unique place to be able to understand both the past and Atem’s journey and his ownplace in the present to be able to help Malik contextualise that in a waythat’s meaningful to him.

And Malik & Shizuka is a nice ship if what you’re going for is exploring Shizuka’s massivedisillusionment. Leaving aside the way that a nice trip to visit yourestranged brother suddenly turned upsettingly full of ugly complicated feelings and murder, I think Malik tends towards a frankness that doesn’t sit well with Shizuka's ideals. This is a fun ship~

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Ishtar Siblings!!! Malik’s relationship with Rishid is at once so lovely and so heartbreakingly upsetting. I think they struggle to find the balance between how they see each other as siblings and how they see each other in this hierarchy of master and subordinate – the way they come through for each other at the end of the story is just so touching. And Malik and Isis aren’t as close, but I like that their conflicting values, and understanding of their responsibilities, don’t compromise their love and the desire to protect one another. Ishtar Siblings!!!

I also like Malik & Yuugi & Ryou as a BrOTP. And I have a strange interest in Malik & Jou broing out or coming to realise they can’t bro out because he murdered you and tortured your best lady friend postcanon.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I’m not really sure what constitutes an unpopular opinion regarding Malik, but I have several that might count.

(1) The Millennium Rod only exacerbated problems hewas already having due to the effects of trauma and a shaky headspace. YamiMalik is the product of Dissociative Identity Disorder in relationship to Borderline Personality Disorder, and exists in a reactionary way to Malik rather than being a distinct person.

(2)  He’s about as culturally Egyptian as your standard Amish person can be considered culturally American. (Or, idk, I think the Hutterites are a more apt comparison in a number of ways, if I’m sticking to offshoots of Christianity. More research on different religions is needed but, in terms of daily living, you can take all sorts of cues about the tombkeepers from different isolationist religious “cults”.)

(3) He’s a deadly serious character really –cerebral and ponderous. His sense of humour is along the lines of dry andsarcastic, rather than laugh-out-loud.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I ALSO WISH THE ISHTARS HAD BEEN IN DSOD THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!

I think it would have made sense to mention them in relationship to what Seto was doing in Egypt at the very least. Seto was rooting around in Ancient Egyptian ruins that the tombkeepers had the right too, yeah? I feel like it might’ve been an interesting political/business deal he struck with the Ishtars. Maybe Isis needed money to help in the process of reintegrating the tombkeepers into above-ground society? I don’t know, but I feel like there’s a story there~

Also, it might be obvious from some of these other headcanons, but I wish the conclusion to Malik’s story had been more on the side of ‘the hate you’re feeling is valid if completely toxic’, which is why I like the idea of Yami Malik running amok in his head postcanon, even though I think the manga leaned heavily towards a canon interpretation where he was freed of Him.

my OTP:

Malik/Ryou edges out Malik/Yuugi by a little, but not by much.

my happy ending for them:

Not part of this meme, but you made me realise I wanted to write it all down~

Given my incredibly depressing diagnosis for Malik, I think managing his life will always be somewhat of a struggle. Yami Malik is probably here to stay. Malik will likely always have outbursts, and always have a cruel and violent streak. At his worst, the most I can say is that he and the people around him will be aware of the warning signs and be able to restrain him ahead of time instead of having to do so in the middle of an episode. At his best, I think Yami Malik might appear once every month or two, and just kind of storm around the house/apartment being sullen. I don’t think Yami Malik has the same kind of emotional range or needs as one would expect a completehuman to have – so he doesn’t need much more than to be acknowledged by the others and then left to his own devices. I don’t think he likes being touched, but he may someday accept a hug from Ryou or Yuugi or Isis and take a small comfort in the fact that he isn’t hated. Rishid is a lost cause, and will have to stay away during those times, because Yami Malik will without question react violently to him. I think, in a way, a direct reflection of Malik’s own desires– for his hatred and pain to be acknowledge and accepted by those around him, by all except Rishid, who Malik would most keenly like to be less hateful person for. Malik does not want Rishid to see Yami Malik, and so Yami Malik pushes Rishid away with a lot of force… potentially lethal force.

In terms of the more mundane things, I imagine Malik goes through a period where he wants to travel everywhere and see everything to kind of make up for the fact that he was confined to a dark hall his entire childhood. I think he’ll travel Africa and Europe and see more of Japan at thevery least, but who knows where his travels might take him~ But eventually Iimagine him settling down somewhere, since I don’t think his affinity fortravel is about travelling as much as its about taking in the world’s breadth.As long as he can enjoy bike rides and the wind and open sky and the company of those he likes, I think he’s fine being anywhere. He and Rishid are veryride-or-die so they’ll definitely stick together, I think. Him and Isis is moreiffy, but I’d like to see Isis and him also remain close and live close together.

In terms of a job, he’s really not into forty hour work weeks, lol. He wasn’t raised under the expectation he’d be part of a contemporary work force. And he’d additionally have trouble balancing that amount of stress with his mental healths. He’d take odd jobs here and there, or work part time in something pretty low pressure. Depending on how lucrative the limited amount of work he does is, he may or may not need to rely on his siblings or lover for support. In terms of what he does…? Tinker around a souvenir shop maybe? Or he runs errands for or does translations for the museum, through his connection with Isis?

And I don’t think he’d want kids, or make a verygood parent for that matter. He’s satisfied with being the weird uncle to his nieces and nephews.

my cross over ship:

I don’t have one, sorry~

a headcanon fact:

Hasn’t everything I’ve said thus far been me taking my own headcanons way too seriously?

Coptic, Arabic, French, Japanese. Rishid is the same, except he’s not as fluent in the last two, and also not as well studied in Ancient Egyptian scriptures. Isis is the only one of the Ishtar siblings that speaks English.

Oh, jeez, he is pretty much universally hated by his tombkeeper peers. Even when he was little he was a divisive character with how harsh and cruel he can be at times. And then he was shadily involved in the bloody murder of his father. When he left to form the Rare Hunters with Rishid, he bitterly alienated most of his extended tombkeeper family, but some of them followed him to join his crime syndicate. And then those who had followed him took poorly to the way Malik abandoned the Rare Hunters, and followed Isis back home with his tail between his legs. Literally everybody he grew up with except his siblings hates him and Malik spends the time from Battle City to the Ceremonial Duel hiding out in his room having Rishid bring him his meals because the tomb keepers are done with him and he’s done with them. And he’s technically their ‘leader’, but Isis made a bid for being de facto leader when he skipped out years earlier and, disappointed but resigned, she continues to carry the position when Malik’s returned. “She’s a great leader (even though she’s a woman),” everyone says. They all love her, lol.Rishid is more polarising, since he’s generally so mild and polite. Some of the tombkeepers see what he did as betrayal, but a lot of them view him with a sort of condescending pity and kindness - poor boy, led astray by his association with Master Malik. This makes Malik even more angry. ‘We are brothers and equals!!’ he yells. Even though he isn’t completely free of blame when it comes to treating Rishid as lesser.

Also, it’s totally canon that somewhere along the line he makes some big fuss and his criminal record from being involved with the Rare Hunters gets dragged out of the closet, and the Egyptian Government tells him to gtfo of our country… right?

Final Essay: Dialectics as a Ceaseless Prayer

AKA: “not COMPLETE shit” in the email header

Everyone wants to live happily and live well. According to Aristotle, “happiness is an activity in accordance with virtue, and every action is aimed towards some good;” thus, to achieve happiness and move through our time on this earth being “really alive” (Seneca 23), our thoughts and actions must be in line with virtue. Aristotle defines virtue though dialectics, or finding the mean between extremes of deficiency and excess. Dialectics are founded on the idea that within diametric opposition- opposite truths, opposite forces, opposite impulses, metaphysical contradictions, etc- there is a mean that can and should be sustained. “Every formed disposition of the soul realizes its full nature in relation to and in dealing with that class of objects by which it is its nature to be corrupted or improved […] We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasure and pains, and that vice is the opposite […] virtue then is a settled disposition of the mind determining the choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the observance of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it” (1106). While moral virtue comes from the balance of pleasure and pain, the other virtues concern themselves with their own polarities. Rhetoric is concerned with opposing truths, love with opposing desires, and so on. A dialectical approach embedded in rationality is the “settled disposition of the mind” that guides us towards virtuous “choice of actions and emotions,” and when we internalize it in our character and condition it through regular action we are able to live “the good life” (48b).   When Aristotle addresses dialectics, it is based on conceptualizing two countervailing parts of the soul that drive human motivation towards or away from virtuous action, “one with reason, because it urges them in the right direction,” and the other “which, though irrational, yet in a manner participates in rational principle […which] can in a manner appeal to the irrational part.” These parts of the soul develop “by taking part in transactions with our fellow-men [… and] by actually comporting themselves in one way or the other […], our moral dispositions formed as a result of [these] corresponding activities” (Aristotle Book 2). In looking at the virtue of courage, we can see dialectics applied in specific realms of action and emotion. Here two extremes of the dialectic are fear and over-confidence. “So the courageous person is the one who endures and fears – and likewise is confident about -- the right things, for the right reason, in the right way, and at the right time; for the courageous person feels and acts in accordance with the merits of the case, and as reason requires” (49). As with other virtues, this reasoning is shaped by collective reality. “Courage is a mean in relation to what inspires confidence and fear in the circumstances described; and it makes choices and stands its ground because it is noble to do so, or shameful not to“ (50). To know what is shameful, or worth fearing, or what one ought to do, one must be well embedded in the collective rationality as well as his own. Aristotle writes that courageous people “are keen when the time for acting comes, but cool beforehand” (50), using their awareness of reality and understanding of logic to do so. Aristotle differentiates between moral virtue and intellectual virtue, the former exemplified above and the latter through teaching rhetoric. Quintilian dedicated his life to nurturing intellectual virtue, and distilled his findings in the books of the Institutio Oratoria. Rhetoric is a virtue for Quintilian in that it utilizes humans’ gift of self-awareness and complex thought. “But if the virtue of any animal lies in that in which it surpasses all or most other animals […] and if it is absolutely certain that man excels other animals in reason and speech, why should we not accept that human virtue lies in eloquence just as much as in reason?” (405). Quintilian writes that, “Rhetoric is the science of speaking well, is useful, and is an art and a virtue.” He ties together science, art, and virtue again when he writes, “Elocution therefore is the main subject of teaching, this is the accomplishment that no one can achieve without art […] this is the occupation of a lifetime, this is what makes one orator better than another” (317). Indeed, since beginning this class I have realized that elocution and rhetoric is a virtue that will be part of living happily for a lifetime. Vocabulary has been an integral part of our lesson plans, as well as encouraging the students to break down the prompts into constituent definitions that are precise and useful. There is a need for eloquence because if there were only one word for each idea, it would “spring to mind simultaneously with the idea. But words differ in exactness of reference, ornamental qualities, power, and euphony; they must therefore not only all be known but be ready to hand, in full view, as it were, so that when they present themselves to the speaker’s judgment the choice of the best is easy” (p155). Eloquence can be seen as precision, and as I have found both in my own writing and in preparing students for debates, it is integral to delivering the truth well. Reason, speech, and eloquence are all facets of teaching and practicing rhetoric, which is inherently an action (397). As an activity, the discursive process of teaching and practicing rhetoric can be seen as an “activity in accordance with virtue,” especially when the “good” towards which our study of rhetoric “aims” is to effectively create a twofold appreciation of rhetoric through reading and writing ourselves, as well as participating in service learning that allows us the opportunity to apply rhetoric pedagogically with students in our community. Quintilian, Socrates, and Aristotle, with all their effective guidance-- on being effective teachers who can keep our students engaged and interested while coaching in the art/science of rhetoric; and on finding transcendence through a balanced and pure love; and on the dialectical thought that makes these concepts intelligible and allows us to move through life virtuously and happily-- fall short in addressing facets of white supremacy, patriarchy, elitism, and so on that permeate their experience. In situating virtue within “a state of character concerned with choice, lying in the mean,” Aristotle touches upon the need for embedded rationality without fully fleshing out what this means for individuals within a highly structured and complex society. Mitchell et.al, in their article for Equity and Excellence in Education, expound upon this contingency to rationality when they draw attention to a side of it, a conceptualization of “us,” that must go against the systemic reinforcement of what “us” and “rationality” means in the system within which we are situated. In institutions that define and are defined by whiteness, merit results from one’s ability to understand and navigate intricate cultural systems rather than an intrinsic ability or aptitude” (p615). Facing virtue within the bounds of rationality, both individual and collective, dominant and marginalized, seems to me an essential part of the definition that can incorporate the different logics and possible means that Aristotle’s definition eschews. When we paired our philosophical readings with literature on ways in which our rationality is systemically flawed and with reflections on our experiences in the classroom, it allowed us to address these realities with updated- and perpetually updating- perspectives.

With this in mind I began thinking about our experiences at Crocker as a compilation of discourses and micro-interactions, not only guiding the students towards truth and understanding, but also more subtly creating a discursive relationship in which we are reifying the identities of our students as young rhetoricians and of ourselves as capable teachers. As a budding sociologist, I am particularly interested in the discursive shaping of identities and realities, especially as it relates to dominant discourses and societal positioning. The microinteractionist tradition within Sociology concerns itself with the ways in which the self is constructed, both as a response to others’ perceptions of who you are as well as your own perceptions of who you should be. If we are to be teachers with good character, and that goodness is to shine through our discourse as we guide students towards truth, then we should also be reaffirming the good character of our students. We can “come down to the students level” by actually thinking about how they see themselves and being cognizant of that through our interactions. Quintilian’s statement that students love their teachers and my focus on interpersonal interactions during my time at Crocker was significantly shaped by Socrates’ definition of love in Phaedrus. Love is a process of the subject of that love seeing themselves as beloved in the eyes of their lover, and in that same way teaching should be a process of the subject of that teaching seeing themselves as capable and full of potential in the eyes of their teachers- so teachers must love their students just as much as their students love them.   One of my favorite teachers gave me a copy of Franny and Zooey in the 8th grade, when I was still in Catholic School. I wanted a glimpse inside of Salinger’s mind regarding knowledge, faith, and spirituality-- through his hyper-intellectual eloquence, of course. The book is set in the context of a brilliant family of kids, who had their own radio show and were pressured to exhibit their own brilliances from a young age. Two of the siblings are in focus in this narrative. Franny is a young college student derailed from her regular functioning by her fascination with The Way of the Pilgrim, a book gifted to her by her oldest brother, Seymour, who rattled his family when he committed suicide. She tries to explain to her boyfriend, Lane, why she is so enthralled by the book:

“’Anyway,’ she went on, ‘the starets tells the pilgrim that if you keep saying that prayer over and over again—you only have to just do it with your lips at first – then eventually what happens, the prayer becomes self-active. Something happens after a while. I don’t know what, but something happens, and the words get synchronized with the person’s heartbeats, and then you’re actually praying without ceasing. Which has a really tremendous, mystical effect on your whole outlook. I mean that’s the whole point of it, more or less. I mean you do it to purify your whole outlook and get an absolutely new conception of what everything’s about.’”

Her brother, Zooey, has a very different perspective when he describes the same book. Salinger engages in extended dialogue, much like our great philosophers, to highlight this alternate perspective on enlightenment:

“The old monk tells him that the one prayer acceptable to God at all times, and ‘desired’ by God, is the Jesus Prayer – ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’ Actually, the whole prayer is ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner,’ but none of the adepts in either of the Pilgrim books put any emphasis – thank God – on the miserable-sinner part. […] The idea, really, is that sooner or later, completely on its own, the prayer moves from the lips and the head down to a center in the heart and becomes an automatic function in the person, right along with the heartbeat. And then, after a time, once the prayer is automatic in the heart, the person is supposed to enter into the so-called reality of things. […] In India, for God knows how many centuries, it’s been known as japam. Japam is just the repetition of any of the human names of God.”

He criticizes his sister’s search for enlightenment, arguing that what she is looking for is self-centered and futile. If the end goal is the “so-called reality of things,” Franny is hoping to grow her wings and transcend into this reality, whereas Zooey focuses on the reality within. “But most of all, above everything else, who in the Bible besides Jesus knew – knew – that we’re carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we’re all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look?” Of course, this dialectic like all others has its own mean.  This mean is found when, instead of the diametrically opposed definitions, we define the transcendence as a discursive process, equally internal and external as well as malleable to constructs defining reality. This is why Aristotle’s contingency that dialectics be situated in “lying in the mean,” is essential. I bring The Way of the Pilgrim into this essay because I believe dialectics themselves can be the ceaseless prayer that guides those who internalize it through practice to happiness. Just like the Jesus Prayer, dialectics illuminate reality as they become synchronized within the soul. They are important because they fundamentally change the way one moves through the world. This is the main tenant of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, developed by Marsha Linehan and utilized faithfully with excellent results by yours truly. DBT combines cognitive behavioral therapy with a Buddhist influence encouraging mindfulness, radical acceptance, and meditative practices to treat psychiatric disorders. The focus on dialectics resonated with me as I did my readings, wrote my reflections, and attempted to develop constantly improving lesson plans. Within the DBT model the two forms of excess are emotionality and defective emotionality, i.e. pure rationality. If virtue is the observance of the mean, from the DBT perspective it is found in living life within Wise Mind- at the “mean” of Rational and Emotion Mind. This seems simple enough, but in application dialectics require concerted practice and effort. Aristotle addresses the difficulty of this essential task and the necessity of developing skill, maintaining motivation, and regular practice and reflection in his analogy of finding the center of a circle becoming possible through geometry. Going mad or crazy is akin to losing the ability to reason on both an individual and collective level. Finding the “Middle Path,” as DBT followers call it, only became possible for me through extensive therapy: processing trauma; developing and practicing skills; following guiding frameworks for interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, mindfulness, and distress tolerance; and reflecting on my experiences and myself in relation to others through journaling and during group treatment. For this class, I knew that the task of creating a meaningful service learning symbiosis between two vastly different institutions, let alone different individual mentors embedded in disparate realities from their students, would be equally difficult but essential. It is made possible, much like DBT’s curriculum, by critically examining our readings, experiences, or writings and our reactions to them, continually reevaluating whether or not we are walking the Middle Path or reasoning within the mean as our lives demand it. Dialectics in the form of DBT in my personal life and in the form of rhetoric as cultivated through this class have guided me towards happiness. In working with Rachel, Terrell, Matthew, and the other Crocker students, we were able to build foundations of this dialectical thinking together as we broke down topics, constrained definitions, built our conceptual arsenal, expanded vocabulary to increase precision, and regularly practiced finding arguments, reasoning, and evidence in primary sources. Practicing dialectics in the classroom is only the beginning for our students, the ultimate goal being a deeper internalization that can guide them as they move through their lives. During our first tournament, the last debate, the Xavier Debate Team member judging for us had an important critique- “you had great points,” she said, “but remember not to get lost in the sauce.” The rest of her point, paraphrasing, was that if the girls follow their flow and not only have logical arguments but also structure those arguments in a logical fashion, they could be unstoppable. “Lost in the sauce” resonates with me now because I believe dialectical behavioral therapy and the process of learning to sustain dialectics was an integral component to catalyzing a process of finding, reflecting, and balancing virtue and happiness. After 20 years of being helplessly lost in the sauce- in a reality made up of various logical yet paradoxical premises that could not fit into a cohesive structure- this year marked only the beginning of a perpetual process of defining and understanding both myself and my place in the world. Hopefully, practicing rhetoric has done the same for our students. There is a lot of “sauce” in their lives- structural inequalities and experiences of violence and struggle that would make walking the middle path difficult if not impossible even for Marsha herself. The Debate club provides a space where, with guidance, the students navigate all sorts of “sauce” in addressing complex and socially relevant topics. This last semester they have been finding courage and happiness in an activity aimed towards virtue that habituates dialectical thought, and in the discursive process of teaching both us and the students negotiated identity in a way that reifies a sense of value and agency that is rooted in experiences beyond dominant discourse or hegemonic intellectualism. The experience has been incredibly transformative- I saw transformation in my students, who increasingly grew in confidence and passion for the art and science of rhetoric, and in myself- and transformation is powerful.

psychology and philosophy - uneasy siblings

maximum of us who paintings in a few thing of philosophy have had the experience of trying to give an explanation for to someone that philosophy isn't always psychology. to the ones individuals of the philosophical set, the difference may additionally appear apparent, however any attempt to spell it out requires some cautious thought and mirrored image, that's what i try to do on this exercise.

is psychology a sibling of philosophy? certainly inside the past they were near siblings, members of the identical circle of relatives, philosophy. today the relationship between the 2 is greater complicated. does work in philosophy have any relation to the student's mental state? the answer also isn't always a straight forward one. philosophy can assist someone psychologically, however this isn't always principal to the function of philosophy.

some records:

historically in western philosophy, psychology turned into part of philosophy until the 19th century when it became a separate science. in the 17th and 18th centuries, many western philosophers did pioneering paintings in regions that later came to be called "psychology." eventually mental inquiry and studies have become separate sciences a number of which could be characterised because the have a look at and studies into the thoughts. in short, psychology have become identified because the science of thoughts insofar as its feature is to investigate and give an explanation for mental methods: our mind, reports, sensations, feelings, perceptions, imaginations, creativity, goals and so on. it is in the main an empirical and experimental technology; although the sphere of psychology does include the extra theoretical freudian psychology and the more speculative jungian psychology.

while we observe western philosophy, we discover a focused attempt to preserve a distinction among philosophical and mental considerations. however those have now not continually been kept separate. even today a few areas of philosophy stay intermixed with mental issues. it could be that some types of philosophy can never break away absolutely from psychological issues. . traditionally, philosophers in the western tradition did not continually have a look at a wall of separation between philosophy and psychology. as an example, baruch spinoza's fantastic work, ethics, consists of many observations and insights about our reasoning processes and feelings. the early works in epistemology (idea of expertise) via such thinkers as rene descartes, john locke, david hume, and immanuel kant consist of a exquisite deal of observations and statements about intellectual methods related with knowing and perception. in other words, these writings generally tend to mix mental statements (technique of knowing) with conceptual philosophy.

however there are variations among psychology and philosophy that are vast and should be discovered in careful writing in both area. in our reviews of these seventeenth and 18th works in epistemology, we try to split the philosophical subject (common sense, conceptual and propositional assessment) from the psychological factor (causes of notion, mental manner underlying perception). clinical paintings that seeks to apprehend and explain the workings of the mind and the neurological strategies which underlie notion and enjoy (viz., psychology) isn't like philosophical inquiry into thoughts, focus, knowledge and reviews. edmund husserl, the founder of phenomenology, takes exceptional pains to maintain his philosophy cut loose empirical psychology. but it isn't always clear that his evaluation (or other analyses) of the phenomenology of various stories remains some thing actually awesome from psychology.

however in large component the hassle remains, especially in such areas of philosophy of mind, of keeping philosophical work freed from psychology altogether. furthermore, we ought to not assume that in all instances these should be saved separate, as some paintings in philosophy without a doubt calls for attention of the psychological sciences.

even these days the scholar will probably be amazed by way of the quantity of psychological insights that spinoza gives in this awesome paintings, ethics, back within the seventeenth century and comparable mental observations with the aid of friedrich nietzsche in the nineteenth century. william james, the awesome american pragmatist, consists of much psychology in his philosophy. he has a lot to say approximately the circulation of focus and unique reviews, such as non secular reports.

present day concerns:

philosophy of mind: there is a sense wherein the mind is a psychological construct; there may be any other experience in which it is not. "my mind is such and such" may be restated as "my questioning is such and such." sometimes it is the psychology behind my thinking that is the issue; however different times we are interested by what may be called the conceptual-propositional troubles; and still other instances we is probably greater interested by the literary-inventive expression of thoughts, values, and perspectives. (on this latter connection, see walter kaufmann's book, discovering the mind.)

in epistemology we are worried with the concept of information; however our number one interest isn't always one in every of describing the psychology of knowing. our interest isn't always within the method through which we come to know something, however in the rationalization of standards associated with knowledge and belief; and within the common sense of propositions related to knowledge. protected a number of the philosophers who have interaction in the philosophy of know-how are bertrand russell, d.w. hamlyn, and richard rorty.

inside the region of educational philosophy, besides the big area of epistemology, we've philosophy of mind, concept of consciousness, philosophy of language, cartesian idealism, and the unfastened will issue. mainly those aren't seen as kinds of mental inquiry. they're greater directed to conceptual and propositional issues. blanketed among the philosophers who have interaction in work on know-how, language, and thoughts in this vein are ludwig wittgenstein, gilbert ryle, d.w. hamlyn, john austin, and daniel dennett

however psychology may be very much a part of those philosophical research of unique experience, inclusive of the spiritual revel in, the mystical revel in, and even ethical experience. a very good representative of this method is the awesome american pragmatist, william james. much of his work in philosophy does now not stray too far from his psychological hobbies.

some factors of philosophy are concerned with the nature of human idea. this interest is wonderful from psychological look at, description and idea. but to be good enough and credible it needs to don't forget the work of psychologists and the cognitive scientists. the subject of human thought is a big subject matter which may be approached from unique guidelines. any such is philosophy; some other is psychology and the cognitive sciences. nonetheless others are literary art, the first-rate arts, and history.

suppose i ask about spinoza's thought with regard to moral responsibility; how does he defend the thesis that morality and rationality are closely intertwined? as a scholar of philosophy, my pastimes can be strictly philosophical hobbies. i want to understand how he develops and defends his philosophical thesis. then again, i might be curious about the causes of spinoza's questioning; or maybe interested by feasible motives that he would possibly have had for adopting his precise philosophy. what activities in his early life or own family existence led him to embody the values of rationality and the ideals of the geometric approach? on this latter case, i would be proceeding as an beginner, folks psychologist.

there are exclusive ways of looking to understand the concept of someone, e.g. a author or a logician. we take one way when we ask about the causes and motivations in the back of the person's thoughts; i.e., we ask about the psychological 'workings.' some other manner is to do philosophical criticism and assessment of the character's thoughts. however the  (psychology and philosophy) may be blended in a unmarried study.

philosophy and the psychological properly-being of the individual:

every other way of thinking about the interplay of psychology and philosophy is on the non-public stage. do someone's meditation on philosophical questions result in (or convey closer) a few diploma of psychic concord? to the quantity that philosophical paintings and idea make a contribution to a person's sense of nicely-being and success, one ought to argue that philosophy is a form of therapy. is there a feel wherein philosophy may be therapeutic?

if the unexamined life isn't well worth living (socrates), then it is able to follow that the tested existence (the "philosophical existence") is really worth dwelling. this will be seen as suggesting that philosophical thought consequences in a shape of personal achievement and good psychological health.

opposite to this we have the view (by and large the triumphing view) that philosophy is an intellectual subject which has little or nothing to do with all people's striving to attain a few form of private, psychic fulfillment. upload to this the fact that most people who paintings in philosophy (e.g. academic philosophers or professors of philosophy) are not in particular noteworthy for lives of psychic well-being. on this regard, consider human beings like blaise pascal, s. kierkegaard, f. nietzsche and ludwig wittgenstein. how psychologically wholesome and well balanced had been they? they had been emotionally and mentally tormented, and may not be noted much as fashions of psychic calm and properly-being. moreover, a few philosophers are pushed to interact in philosophy, much like artists, poets, and composers are pushed to do their creative paintings. right here we've a form of psychological compulsion that doesn't appear to be a form of therapy. in reality, some human beings even seek advice from philosophy as a kind of disorder.

final mind:

the scholar of philosophy commonly is not a psychologist, but not anything says that the pupil can't continue as a psychologist of kinds. i imagine conditions in we try to get clear about our mind and values; and try and be sincere about our motivations for all that we do. human beings used to say returned inside the Nineteen Sixties era: i'm simply looking to get my "head instantly."

suppose that a psychologist can tell me about the reasons, the mental processes, and hidden motives that underlie my thinking and conduct. he may say that which will clearly recognize what i'm about i have to have a few expertise of these "psychological" things; i.e., i need to renowned and divulge them. if i were to accept his recommendation and try to do the ones things, might i be acting in accordance with the socratic maxim to "know thyself"?

the expert is worried with empirical, descriptive psychology and with research into neurological and mental techniques. but we, the amateurs, are primarily indulging a form of folk psychology: attempting to mention what i think about my personal questioning. or trying to deal higher with my psychic existence. on occasion i practice this 'people psychology' to myself (i attempt to figure out what i am about) or to others (i try to understand their reasons for announcing such and such or doing so and so.)

on a extra sensible stage, we can imagine someone asking: "what do i actually need in existence? how do i am getting there?" can philosophy help us right here? perhaps no longer, but then again think of  of our brilliant figures in western philosophy, socrates and spinoza. they're regularly mentioned as fashions of mental harmony and wisdom. in the end, aren't all of us psychologists to a few degree, even the ones of us who flounder approximately in philosophy? yes, we're to some diploma 'psychologists' insofar as we are wakeful, alert, conscientious, and sincerely interact in self-examination. this does not need to be kept separate from our paintings in philosophy.

dr. juan bernal phd is a retired mainframe programmer with ranges in philosophy and spanish literature.

juan is the a managing blogger & author at philosophylounge.com which covers diverse subjects from western philosophy, religion, and records. philosophylounge.com is a place had been human beings can have interaction, debate, and contribute to the topics that hobby them referring to philosophy.

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