sherlockzen
  • Home
  • About
  • Admin
  • Register
  • Login
  • Contact

sherlockzen

  • Home
  • About
  • Admin
  • Register
  • Login
  • Contact
Monthly Archives

December 2009

Mysteries

The Metaphysics of Fitted Bed Sheets

by Dr. Mark Dillof December 18, 2009October 20, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
The Metaphysics of Fitted Bed Sheets
  • Tweet

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus contended that the universe is maintained by a tension between opposing forces. What sort of opposing forces? For example: summer and winter, joy and sorrow, male and female, work and play, day and night, young and old, wellness and illness, war and peace, seriousness and mirth, love and hate, waking and sleeping, life and death.

Most people prefer one of the pairs of opposites to the other. They might, for example, prefer peace to strife. But Heraclitus warns us: “Homer was wrong in saying: ‘Would that strife might perish from among gods and humans!’ He did not see that he was praying for the destruction of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away.” If Heraclitus is right, then be careful what you pray for!

Heraclitus’ metaphysical truth made sense to me, one evening, when I was struggling, as I often do, with the fitted sheets that I use on my bed. The four elasticized corners pull in opposing directions. By virtue of this tension, the sheet stays on the bed. But, let’s just say that — due to insomnia, troubled dreams or visitations by succubi — my sleep is not so sound, that I’m tossing and turning all night. Well, the odds are that one of the corners of the fitted sheet is going to snap loose, right off the mattress. I could then arise from my comfortable bed, in the cool of the evening, to reattach the loose end of the fitted sheet to the mattress. Or I could, as I often do, ignore the problem and seek to return to the dreamland of Morpheus.

The problem, though, with ignoring the snapped end of the sheet is that the other three corners — having lost their tension — will no longer stay in place. Pretty soon, given enough tossing and turning, I’m sleeping on a bare mattress, for the sheet is now crumpled together, on either side of the bed or it’s near where my feet are or it’s fallen to the floor.

Yes, I could use safety pins to affix each end of the fitted sheet to the mattress, but my daemon admonished me against cheating in this fashion. So it is that ignoring a problem in one area of our life often causes other areas of our life to become undone, for everything in our life is interconnected, more than we would care to acknowledge.

On the other hand, a small change in one corner of our life, can transform the entire fabric of our life for the better, which is what George Costanza discovered when he ordered a different type of sandwich for lunch, than he was wont to eat. But our interest here is in the negative dimension of the fitted sheet phenomenon. And speaking of the negative, if two or more people are sleeping on the same bed, then fitted sheet phenomenon increases geometrically and all bets are pretty much off.

As we shall see, the tension between opposites must be maintained, in fitted sheets as in the universe and in one’s life…

The Four Elements as a Fitted Sheet

Ancient Greek medicine consisted in seeking to balance, in a person’s soul, the four elements — earth, air, fire and water. They worked with the four elements and I struggle with the four corners of my fitted sheet. In truth, everyone struggles with the daily effort to integrate opposing life concerns. We might, for example, seek to balance our career, family life, hobbies, and spiritual life — those four. To be a balanced person is to integrate, to varying degrees of success, these often opposing interests. Alas, how precarious any balance is!

Soren Kierkegaard even believed it necessary, if we are to attain selfhood — and thus self-fulfillment, happiness, and salvation — to integrate time and eternity, as well as the finite and the infinite. It is difficult, indeed, to have one’s mind on God while at work, or shopping or visiting one’s stockbroker. There is always a tendency to lose one side of the equation and so to lose one’s balance. Kierkegaard contended that to gain the finite, but to lose the infinite — or vice versa — is to be in despair. He also contended that most people, unaware of how imbalanced their life is, are in despair without even realizing it. Could we see the inner person, we would discern that he or she walks through life, unbalanced, like a drunken fool.

Often, we may actually seek to lose one of the opposing sides. Why? Because we tire of the continual efforts to maintain the tension between opposite concerns in our life. We might, then, seek to get drunk, to get distracted with busyness, or to lose self-awareness in a great variety of ways. Thus do we seek to take “moral holidays,” as William James called it.

Take, for example, the opposition between work and play. Needless to say, most people, if they had their choice, would dissolve the balance between work and play. They would much prefer to play all day. Thus do they look forward to retirement, that condition in which the work/play opposition has been dissolved. Many people seek to acquire enough money so that they can stop working, even if they are in their twenties.

If, upon retirement, a person loses the work/play tension, his life becomes threatened with dissolution…

 

Would you like to read the rest of this insightful

essay? Then download a copy of of Mysteries in

Broad Daylight!

Broad Daylight!

 

Hot off the virtual presses, after four years of intense research and writing! Dr. Mark Dillof has essentially written a detective manual, for those seeking clues to the most perplexing enigmas of everyday life. He initially planned to sell it at seminars, for $75, but a friend recommended making it available to a much larger audience of readers, by offering it as an e-book, for only $9.95. Read more about this amazing new book, at:   www.deepestmysteries.com

Or you can…

Download for Amazon Kindle 

Download for Barnes & Noble Nook

Mysteries in Broad Daylight contains:

  • Powerful essays — like the one you’ve been reading, designed to help you decipher the meaning of everyday life, who you are and what it’s all about.
  • Exciting dialogues — they will entertain you, but also make you think deeply about life.
  • Exercises and questions designed to teach you the art of uncovering the deep meaning of everything — from the foods we eat to our conflicts at the workplace, from our problems on the golf course to life’s ultimate riddles.
  • And much, much more!

Mark Dillof’s new book will awaken you to the mysteries of everyday life. Indeed, it’s likely to expand your consciousness 100fold, illuminate your world and blow your mind!

How much is a life-changing insight worth to you? $1000? $10,000? Priceless? Mysteries in Broad Daylight is overflowing with life-changing insights and all for only $9.99!

 Read more about this amazing new book at www.deepestmysteries.com

 

Mysteries in Broad Daylight will soon be available in paperback, for $19.99. 

December 18, 2009October 20, 2018 0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
MysteriesThe Zeitgeist

What Motivated Binghamton’s Jihadist to Murder Professor Antoun?

by Dr. Mark Dillof December 17, 2009October 20, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
What Motivated Binghamton’s Jihadist to Murder Professor Antoun?
  • Tweet

On December 5th, 2009, Abdulsalam S. al-Zahrani, a 46 year old Binghamton University graduate student — who is a citizen of Saudi Arabia — murdered 77 year old Professor Emeritus of anthropology, Richard T. Antoun. He stabbed him four times, with a six inch knife. This news story caught my attention, partly because I live in Binghamton NY and attended Binghamton University. But, most of all, there is a mystery here that perplexes me: What motivated al-Zahrani to murder Professor Antoun? I haven’t interviewed al-Zahrani. Consequently, what follows is very speculative. So, take it for what it’s worth.

From the news reports, one learns that al-Zahrani was upset because his doctoral dissertation, in anthropology, had either not yet been accepted or else it had been outright rejected. (It is not clear from the news reports.) al-Zahrani was frustrated by the fact that university funding had ceased for him and he didn’t have a job. Writing a dissertation and getting it accepted by a graduate committee can be far more frustrating and stressful than most people realize, especially if one’s funding from the university is running out and one is beginning to experience financial hardships. But, needless to say, for someone to commit murder, there has to be a lot more involved than just getting one’s dissertation rejected.

According to Broome County’s district attorney, Gerald F. Mollen, there was “no indication of religious or ethnic motivation…” Similarly, Binghamton University’s president, Lois B. DeFleur, immediately referred to the murder as “an act of senseless violence.” They contend that al-Zahrani is simply insane. Is al-Zahrani insane or are Mollen and DeFleur seeking to avoid an inconvenient truth? In other words, is al-Zahrani an Islamic fanatic, a jihadist?

Sudden Jihad Syndrome

Since September 11, 2001, something terrible has been occurring, on average once every eight weeks: there has been an incident in which Americans are murdered by Islamic jihadists — right here in the United States! They have taken place at shopping mauls, Jewish religious centers and elsewhere. Most media have either downplayed these murders or simply not reported them, no doubt out of political correctness. In other cases — such as with the D.C. snipers — the fact that the killers were converts to Islamic radicalism are not connected to jihadist terrorism. In any case, the murder of Professor Antoun is really not an isolated incident, but part of a syndrome.

Some terrorism experts have used the term “Sudden Jihad Syndrome,” although human beings do not all of a sudden become jihadists, even if it does seem to happen rather fast. It’s just that no one chose to notice the person’s odd behavior, until it was too late. And even then, authorities may deny that it has anything to do with terrorism, as they did at Fort Hood and art Binghamton too.) There is, indeed, a certain resemblance between al-Zahrani and the Muslim Psychiatrist who went on a murderous rampage, at Fort Hood. In a TV interview, al-Zahrani’s housemate, Jules Sakho, stated: “[Al-Zahrani] was all the time shouting in Arabic, shouting threats, insulting this country for no reason.” One of his neighbors, another graduate student named Luis Penn, stated that al-Zahrani had once said: “I feel like just waking up and destroying the

Insanity Meets Politics and Religion

Could it be that al-Zahrani was both insane and a committed jihadist? Might the appeal of radical Islam be that it allows its followers to meld personal psychopathology with politics and religion? If so, it allows murderers to, in essence, declare: “I’m no vicious monster. I’m a true believer, following Allah’s commandment to carry out Jihad against the infidels!” This allows those who wish to commit murder to feel vindicated, for it is apparently for a higher cause. In that sense, radical Islam is akin to other totalitarian creeds, such as fascism and communism. According to The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press, 1991), during the Twentieth Century, about 100 million people have been murdered in the name of communism.

Might it be, then, that there are people who long to commit murder and turn to religion and politics so as to have a justification for doing so? Here, again, we may say that such an individual is insane. But the notion of criminal insanity exists because the older notion, the notion that some people are evil, seems too difficult to comprehend, for evil is a very elusive notion. But just because something defies reason, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

The Choice of a Victim

Why, then, did al-Zahrani chose to murder a seventy-eight year old retired professor who, by all accounts, was a goodhearted and decent person person? It could be that murderous jihadists, like al-Zahrani, choose their victims randomly. Maybe, then Professor Antoun was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. More than likely, though, there is a psychological logic to the choice of victims. And besides, the fact that al-Zahrani brought his knife with him, that day, suggests that the murder was premeditated.

Who was Professor Antoun? He was an expert on Middle Eastern society and knowledgeable about Islam. He was Roman Catholic, with a grandfather who had been Muslim. Antoun’s wife, though, was Jewish and one can only suspect that al-Zahrani knew this. Was al-Zahrani an anti-Semite? We do not really know, but it would certainly come as no surprise to learn that a jihadist was a virulent Jew-hater.

More than likely, Al-Zahrani had ambivalent feelings towards Professor Antoun. He probably admired and envied him for having become a distinguished person, respected in academia. He was the person whom Al-Zahrani wished to become.

But Al-Zahrani probably also experienced a hatred born of envy towards Professor Antoun. After all, Professor Antoun at 46 was a distinguished professor, but Al-Zahrani at 46 was still struggling. After his dissertation was rejected, he may well have had the humiliating sense of being a miserable failure.

Furthermore — and here is a case of sour grapes — he may have viewed Professor Antoun as a person who had sold out to become successful. To his mind, Professor Antoun had betrayed Islam by marrying a Jewess, which to him was probably equivalent to marrying the devil. I.E., he saw Professor Antoun as a person who had compromised his values. Needless to say, Al-Zahrani had an absurdly twisted view of who Professor Antoun was as a person. In any case, Al-Zahrani saw himself, by contrast, as superior to Professor Antoun, for he, al-Zahrani, had not sold out.

The crisis came when Al-Zahrani encountered some real difficulties with his dissertation and experienced the stress of having his plans to become a person of significance indefinitely waylaid. In order to preserve his rapidly diminishing sense of self-respect, he had to utterly reject the world that Professor Antoun embodied. Instead of becoming a successful professor, he would become a jihadist, a terrorist, and an enemy of Western values. His first and decisive act in rejecting academia — and, more generally, Western culture, society and values — was to kill Professor Antoun, who had become a symbol to him of that world.

In killing Professor Antoun, he was also killing the world of knowledge, learning and thinking. Apparently, that had to be killed if he were to live by faith alone, as a true believer in Allah.

Resolving Ambivalence through Murder

There always seems to be ambivalence in the minds of terrorists. If we analyze the lives of Mohamed Atta and the 911 terrorists, we see that they both longed for life’s pleasures, but simultaneously hated themselves for desiring them. This ambivalence particularly showed up in their attitude towards women. They disdained women and were supposed to be purifying themselves prior to September 11th, but they spent their last days drinking and seeing strippers and prostitutes. Major Hasan, the murderous Fort Hood psychiatrist, also frequented such establishments.

So it is that future jihadists long for a certain life but simultaneously hate it. Rather than seeking to illuminate their dark feelings and purify their will, they murder the world that attracts them. In the case of the September 11th terrorists, it meant destroying the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and maybe the White House. In the case of al-Zahrani, it simply meant murdering Professor Antoun. Here, again, all this is highly speculative, but it may at least provoke some serious thought about the darker side of human beings.

December 17, 2009October 20, 2018 1 comment
0 FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
MysteriesPoliticsThe Zeitgeist

The Anxiety Underlying Global Warming Hysteria

by Dr. Mark Dillof December 16, 2009October 20, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
The Anxiety Underlying Global Warming Hysteria
  • Tweet

Why is it that the overwhelming majority of people who fear “global warming” are politically left of center? The obvious answer is that the left is critical of business and industry, which they regard as the major producers of “greenhouse gases.” But the left has had an animus towards big business long before they became preoccupied with environmental fears. We won’t explore, here, the origins of their anti-business bias. Suffice it to say that this animus is only part of the reason anyway. There is something deeper going on that is the real source of their environmental fears. Let us explore what it is.

Leftwing thought is really a certain species of the humanistic worldview. Humanism has its origins in the Renaissance, when the shift from religious to secular interests and concerns first began. A humanist believes that the future is not in God’s hands, but in our own. Thus it is solely up to us to make and shape our world and our future. Since God plays a vastly diminished role in the humanistic worldview, humanists easily slide from theism to deism and then finally into atheism.

This worldview has produced remarkable achievements in culture and civilization. It has freed the mind of dogma and granted us the independence to think for ourselves. Kant encapsulated this enlightenment of the mind, when he wrote: Sapere aude! (Dare to be wise!) Alas, every worldview has its limits and those limits register in us as certain types of anxiety. As we shall see, the fear of global warming reflects the type of anxieties endemic to secular humanism.

To understand these anxieties, we must remember that those who no longer believe in God always find other objects of worship, for everyone craves the absolute and the eternal. Instead of seeking Heaven, as religious people do, humanists seek to create a heaven on Earth. Thus do they make an idol of the nation-state, believing that it can become transformed into something wonderful and glorious. Their Utopia invariably reflects the puerile longing that everyone be equal economically.

When humanism takes on a utopian political agenda it easily transforms into fascism, socialism and communism, for these are utopian creeds with a plan of action. So it is that humanists, today as always, usually harbor views that are left of center. We shall now consider what this worldview has to do with environmental fears.

Humanism: A Burdened and Anxious Way of Being

There is no denying that human beings can damage the planet and that they should seek, as much as possible, to conserve its beauty and to ensure that it remains a salutary and livable place. It’s quite another thing, though, to dread the cycles of hot and cold that naturally occur, but rather to insist that they are solely the fault of man, despite ample scientific evidence to the contrary.

These fears derive from the anxiety of inhabiting a godless universe, thus having the fate of the world solely depend upon us. Consequently, we fear that if something is not done immediately to gain control over the environment, we are doomed. What a burdened and anxious thing it is to be a humanist, believing that it is up us human beings, in all our fallibility —this “crooked timbre of humanity,” as Kant called us — to be the caretakers of the planet. It also creates a mood ripe for demagogues. Thus do we so often hear, from the saviors of the political left: “We, from big government, can save you! We shall punish those evil polluting corporations!”

Paradoxically, through a curious dialectic, contemporary humanism often transforms into a kind of anti-humanism, which agues that human beings are the one thing on the planet that is unnatural and, therefore, a plague upon the innocence of nature. This anti-humanistic naturalism makes a fetish of the natural, viewing human beings as violators of pristine nature. Their solution, then, is to curtail the actions on human beings, in so far as they impact the natural world.

This leads to a terrible dread that nemesis is on the way, for man’s Promethean hubris in seeking to master nature. (It is also paradoxical that those who claim to be free of religion still retain this carryover of religious consciousness.) When people are driven by apocalyptic anxieties, they lose all sense of balance and proportion. In other words, they become extremists — in this case environmental extremists.

Anxiety also leads to paranoia and then to cult thinking, with its us/them view of the world and its demonization of one’s opponents. It also leads to massive propaganda efforts to convert people to one’s cause. Thus we find that the true believers in global warming have mounted an insidious campaign to indoctrinate grade school children with their belief system. The main tool at their disposal is fear. Children now are as anxious about the future of the planet as are the fanatics. Thus do they rob childhood of any of any of the joyful insouciance that it once possessed.

Faith in God, Nature and the Universe

The opposite attitude to the humanist’s anxious insecurity about the future of the world is at attitude of faith, a belief that there are larger forces that are the ground of our existence. Whatever we call it — God, Nature, the Universe — we are kept alive by its grace. In a brilliant passage, two Zen Buddhists express this faith…

 

Would you like to read the rest of this insightful

essay? Then download a copy of of Mysteries in

Broad Daylight!

Broad Daylight!

> 

Hot off the virtual presses, after four years of intense research and writing! Dr. Mark Dillof has essentially written a detective manual, for those seeking clues to the most perplexing enigmas of everyday life. He initially planned to sell it at seminars, for $75, but a friend recommended making it available to a much larger audience of readers, by offering it as an e-book, for only $9.95. Read more about this amazing new book, at:   www.deepestmysteries.com

Or you can…

Download for Amazon Kindle 

Download for Barnes & Noble Nook

Mysteries in Broad Daylight contains:

  • Powerful essays — like the one you’ve been reading, designed to help you decipher the meaning of everyday life, who you are and what it’s all about.
  • Exciting dialogues — they will entertain you, but also make you think deeply about life.
  • Exercises and questions designed to teach you the art of uncovering the deep meaning of everything — from the foods we eat to our conflicts at the workplace, from our problems on the golf course to life’s ultimate riddles.
  • And much, much more!

Mark Dillof’s new book will awaken you to the mysteries of everyday life. Indeed, it’s likely to expand your consciousness 100fold, illuminate your world and blow your mind!

How much is a life-changing insight worth to you? $1000? $10,000? Priceless? Mysteries in Broad Daylight is overflowing with life-changing insights and all for only $9.99!

 Read more about this amazing new book at www.deepestmysteries.com

 

Mysteries in Broad Daylight will soon be available in paperback, for $19.99. 

December 16, 2009October 20, 2018 0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest

Recent Posts

  • Waar Kan Je Een Aandeel Kopen | Beleggen met weinig geld
  • Investeren Vanuit Eenmanszaak – Directe investeringen met het buitenland
  • Snel Geld Verdienen Met Telefoon | Aandelen verkopen: conclusie?
  • Stiekem Geld Verdienen | 4 Geweldige boeken om te leren over beleggen
  • Beste Strategie Ing Beleggen – Aandelen kopen en verkopen: rendement?

Archives

  • March 2022
  • March 2020
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2013
  • November 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • March 2012
  • August 2011
  • April 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • July 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • October 2008
  • July 2008
  • May 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008

About Me

About Me

Mark Dillof has been a philosophical counselor for over twenty years. You can learn more about his work, by going to his other website, www.deeperquestions.com.

Keep in touch

Facebook Twitter

Recent Posts

  • New ">The Mystery of VapingNew 

    October 13, 2018
  • New ">The Mystery of a French Horn, in a Beatles’ SongNew 

    October 13, 2018
  • Waar Kan Je Een Aandeel Kopen | Beleggen met weinig geld

    March 14, 2020
  • Investeren Vanuit Eenmanszaak – Directe investeringen met het buitenland

    March 14, 2020
  • Snel Geld Verdienen Met Telefoon | Aandelen verkopen: conclusie?

    March 14, 2020

Dr. Dillof’s New Wonder Seminars

Starring America’s premier philosophical entertainer!Gain mind-boggling insights! Perfect for corporate retreats.

Purchase Dr. Dillof’s New Book.

Unravel The Mystery That Is You

The Dillof Institute

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Tumblr
  • RSS

Copyright © 2018, Mysteries in Broad Daylight.