Stop Making Yourself Miserable

In the last episode, I offered a brief introduction to The Higher Mind Training, which is the next project that will be released by the Better Angels Publishing Company. I mentioned the remarkable fact that modern neuroscience is in the process of verifying the basis of the higher understandings that have been expressed by Ancient Wisdom for tens of thousands of years. Now, we don't have the time...

Welcome back to the Stop Making Yourself Miserable Podcast and I certainly hope that you had a wonderful summer. As you may recall, in the last episodes before the hiatus certain key chapters from my memoir, Wilt, Ike & Me, were presented along with the subtext behind them as I delved into some of the deeper meanings of the story for me. The response from many of you has been quite gratifying and...

The Better Angels Publishing Company announces that the "Stop Making Yourself Miserable" podcast will now begin its annual summer hiatus. We'll resume our normal schedule again in the fall. At this point, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for your continued, enthusiastic support. As you know, the purpose of these podcasts is to present intriguing information that is specifically d...

This is the last episode of a four-part series featuring the text and subtext of some excerpts from my memoir, "Wilt, Ike and Me." The last two episodes dealt with two of my earliest conceptual encounters with aging and death. This next episode looks at them as well, but from a significantly different perspective.   *     *     *   In December of 1974, my father's father, Zayde, finally passed awa...

In this episode, we continue to look into the text and the subtext of a few portions from my memoir called, "Wilt, Ike and Me." Again, the text relates to the written words and the subtext relates to the meanings behind them. In the last episode, we dealt with the subtextual theme of death, when a classic comic book dramatized to me how my hero, Davy Crockett, had died at the Alamo. This unexpecte...

In this episode, we continue our look into the text and the subtext of a few portions from my memoir called, "Wilt, Ike and Me." Again, the text relates to the written words and the subtext relates to the meanings behind them. The last episode dealt with the subtextual theme of impermanence and it took place during my tenth-grade year in high school, when Wilt Chamberlain was living in our home du...

As I mentioned in the previous episode, we're going to look at four different excerpts from my memoir, "Wilt, Ike & Me," and were going to examine some of the subtext in each. The following is the text from the portion of the first excerpt. By way of background, my father had recently moved basketball superstar Wilt Chamberlain into our home for the remainder of the 1965 NBA season.               ...

The last podcast episode called, "One Lucky Soldier" was the final installment in a five-part series from the novel I am writing called "The Better Angels – Lincoln, the Psychic and the Spy." During the previous episodes, we followed the arduous journey of Annie Franklin, a 19-year-old psychic who came to Virginia to bring her brother Daniel, a seriously wounded Union soldier, back home to Connect...

In the four episodes that preceded this one, during the Civil War, Annie Franklin, a nineteen-year-old woman who happens to have psychic gifts, had come to Virginia to take her brother, Daniel, a badly wounded Union soldier, back home to Connecticut for care. It had been a difficult and trying time. After attempting to take advantage of her, an unscrupulous Union captain angrily refused to give he...

In the last episode, when Annie Franklin went back to the field hospital to try to get another letter from a doctor to allow her to take her brother, Daniel, home to Connecticut for care, she was unexpectedly confronted with an appalling situation – the formerly crowded hospital was now basically deserted and there were no doctors present. Along with just a few hundred other critically wounded sol...

In the last episode, Annie had returned to Captain Lee's office in the War Department, expecting to pick up the furlough that would allow her to take her badly wounded brother, Daniel, back to Connecticut for home care. But when she went into Lee's office, instead of giving her the furlough, he withheld it, attempting to get her to allow him to have his way with her. It was a pure case of abuse of...

The last episode began a key segment of a story called, "The Better Angels – Lincoln, the Psychic and the Spy." As a quick summary, it takes place in December of 1862; the Civil War is raging and a brutal battle has been fought that has been a devastating loss to the Union Army.           Annie Franklin, a nineteen-year-old, inexperienced girl, has traveled to Washington DC to apply for a furlough...

As human beings, storytelling is not only one of our favorite forms of entertainment, it's also a critical part of how we learn. This universal trait goes back to the very dawn of civilization, and transcends all divisions of time, place and culture. We've been telling each other stories forever, and the probability is that it will be with us far into the future. Actually, a joke came out a few ye...

I hope all is well with you and that you are enjoying the coming onset of spring. This is just a quick announcement to let you know that the Stop Making Yourself Miserable podcast will be going on a short, two-week spring break.           For me, early spring is always a poignant time, when once again I get to witness the magnificent transformation of nature.   And it always reminds me to try to s...

I've always been amazed by the fact that there are genius levels of human intelligence that are far beyond the ordinary. Some people seem to be born with remarkable talents and capabilities that the rest of us clearly don't have. That's not to say that these people don't need to work and practice to perfect their skills. They clearly do. Still, they possess brilliant talents that are far above tho...

In the last episode, we took a look at our mind's built-in propensity for doubt, which is critical to the healthy functioning of our intelligence. Without it, we simply could not progress. Used in the right amount, for the right reasons, at the right time and in the right way, doubt can produce incredibly positive results. For example, doubt is at the very root of the scientific method, which has...

It's really hard to grasp what America was like in late 1973 if you didn't live through those times. For one thing, the country was in the process of falling apart. The unprecedented scandal of Watergate was starting to reach a boiling point, the executive branch of the US government was coming unhinged from the top down and nobody knew what was going to happen next.           Somehow, it all seem...

We've all heard the famous phrase, "Do as I say, not as I do.," and many people take it to be a sure sign of duplicity.   Why should I listen to what a person is telling me to do if he or she isn't doing it themselves? It seems purely hypocritical, and a lot of times it is.             But there can also be some other circumstance for it as well. For example, the person may be telling me to follow...

It's no secret that advertising is a big business. It's projected that the combined ad-spend in the United States for the year 2023 will be over 165 billion dollars. And one thing to consider is what exactly are advertisers trying to achieve with this money? What are they trying to do?           The answer is very simple. They are trying to create a state of mind within consumers that will make th...

Human intelligence has a remarkable capacity to create tools. No other species even comes close to us in this unique talent. But it's also critical to keep in mind that once a tool has been created, it can easily become a double-edged sword, which simply means it can be used for good or for bad, for positive, constructive purposes, or for negative, destructive ones.               As an example, le...

Looking back on it, I feel I was truly fortunate to have grown up during the golden age of rock and roll music. We take it for granted now, but back then, when it first began, no one had any idea what a major cultural phenomenon it would become.           Personally, I got hit with it when I was still pretty young. My brother and I lived in the same room together, but he was eight years older. He...

In the last episode, a missing NBA basketball player named Wally Jones had suddenly turned up at our house to visit my father, the owner and General Manager of the 76ers, who had made a trade for him to join the team. They had gone into my father's office to have a consultation and I had set myself up in the kitchen, which was nearby and had begun doing my homework. I was working on a psychology a...

In the last episode, we examined the uplifting words that Frederick Douglass used to describe what it was like to be around Abraham Lincoln, when he simply said that there was safety in his atmosphere.  In this episode, as well as in the next one, we're going to take a look at two instances in my life when I came face to face with what it was like to be in someone's presence who truly had safety i...

March 4th of 1865 was a truly monumental day in American history. In the afternoon, the second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President took place. And that evening marked the first time that a person of color attended a social event at the White House as an invited guest. It had never happened before. The guest was Frederick Douglass and it very nearly didn't happen at all. Now most American...

After this episode, our "Stop Making Yourself Miserable Podcast" will be taking a Holiday/Winter hiatus. We will begin again sometime in late January. As I have mentioned in a few previous episodes, I am busy working on The Higher Mind Training, and in particular, I am adapting it for use in a halfway house for people suffering with alcohol and drug addiction. The training for this facility should...