CheekyQi

The Hippocampus and Depression Trusting and loving the hardworking-but-gets-no-credit brain can only end well. The Chinese call it the Shen and it's seen as one of the '3 treasures' of the human system, the other two being Jing and Qi. The 3 can be roughly summed up as body, mind, and spirit - all need tending, and I love the fact that scientists did research on what can be summed up as instructions on how to work out your brain in a loving way.  The hippocampus assists in memory, learning, and giving proper context - I'm imagining a discreet personal assistant at a party, reminding us that we met Mrs. Holt at the dog fights last month, and makes a note to send her your layer cake recipe. Like everything else in the body, the hippocampus may be affected as we age, losing neuroplasticity and having a harder time recalling past events.  In addition to memory loss, depression can be seen as loss of hippocampus function: a  2015 article from Medical News Daily r...

Newton's laws in my life:  1: I maintain a low effort level of studying until propelled to do otherwise. Study effort (object) will remain minimal until acted upon by an outside force -panic- (study time temporarily increases). Or outside force -party- (study time disappears entirely).  2: how hard and well I study is inversely proportionate to amount of time before a test.  Study effort under the force of panic 3: how well (or poorly) I study meets with appropriate grade and a forceful reaction.  Study effort (object) collides with resulting grade (object).  Initial forces exerted (panic).  Resultant force positive: celebration with ice cream.  Resultant force negative: mourning with ice cream. Our culture is obsessed with energy conservation. And we are really bad at it - s ince it isn't possible to use your time 100% efficiently in the pursuit of paper goals, this ambition is doomed to fail.   In equating t...

My E-Prime Day - describe your day, using only English Prime My preset alarm chimed, signaling the time 5:30am had arrived in Northen California in summer of 2018. I processed myself through the morning cycle of intake, output, shower, and traveled to school by driving my car. After I arrived in clinic, I placed needles in elderly patients, spun them a bit, and removed them. The next phase of my day led me upstairs to the western science classes where I learned about physics and biochemistry. After classes, I met with friends, and traveled home again. How might you synthesize eastern and western ideas in Physics? This class has given me a great head start, because I feel this synthesis otherwise lacking in our curriculum. Reading books like The Tao of Physics and continuing to follow acupuncturists who work in networks with traditional western practitioners. There's a wonderful non-profit over on 16th Street, Oakland called Charlotte Maxwell Complementary Clinic (CMCC). Vo...

My (a)symmetrical world -  If we're talking life, I'm neatly bookended by birth and death: transition thresholds which are crossed to enter/exit our seen world. As I near these thresholds, I become less complex, less independent, and contain less mass. In that respect, life looks like a perfect palindrome. In between those transitions, there are little symmetries that I look for because it feels comforting: synchronicities; finding things in common with other people; seeing 11:11 on a digital clock; recognizing shadow/light issues in self, society and history; patterns in natural forms. And word games like palindromes: "do geese see god?" Finding these symmetries sort of feels like the Universe is giving me a friendly poke. Just what does this CP violation really mean? At this moment, I really wish I had heard the lecture last week, because it's all very confusing. C refers to Charge Conjugation - all processes involving particles should carry on ind...

Dictionary.com has 'loafing' as 1.  to idle away time: 2. to lounge or saunter lazily and idly This is so easy in theory! In the middle of a class, I'll be dreaming about sleeping in until noon, eating ice cream for breakfast, and staying up late reading trashy novels. In practice, my teenage dreams are mostly beyond the capabilities of my 30-something body. My eyes open at 6am, whether I want it or not; ice cream is now known as 'the triple yin death', and 10pm is really way too late for me anymore.  So I took this assignment to mean do something relaxing that I wouldn't normally do. I planned out a perfect 2-daygetaway for the semester break. This took lots of time to dream about, play with maps and restaurant and beach reviews, all of which was very satisfying. For this, I have realistic goals - I'll be up and to bed early but in between, no one will be able to ask anything of me, and nothing work or school like will be scheduled. I'll hav...

Are all vibrations 'good'? - A 'good' vibration depends on who's involved! If good = beneficial, then no, not all vibrations would benefit all involved parties equally. The vibration which brings down a bridge is not good for the bridge, the workers, or anyone on the bridge. It is good for me, in that it's incredibly interesting and makes me wonder whether my humming could ever stop traffic, or if a cat's purr could cause an electric can opener to operate. Resonance in my world About 2 weeks after our class on vibrations, I got to use the new information in a dream. There was a guy who was showing me his new personal sound device – the ear buds were just tiny pieces of cheap styrofoam he broke off to put into my ears. No cords or anything. I asked him if they worked because they were attuned to the resonance of the player. He said no, the pieces of foam were sentient and only worked if they enjoyed what was being played. I went to a m...

“ordered chaos” - does this sound familiar? - in TCM, yin and yang balance each other. We have a lovely black and white yin/yang symbol, with a spot of one deep within the other to symbolize yang is always within yin, and yin is always within yang. This symbol is a little misleading, because it looks like roughly 50% yin and 50% yang. When yin is the substance, and yang is the warming, motivating force, we only need enough yang to keep the yin from stagnation. I think of this when I hear 'ordered chaos'. There is a balancing proportion to all systems, but within the systems, there can be all sorts of chaos – unpredictable, changeable. The order comes with finding the tipping point. That proportion, that perfectly predictable point of overwhelm when one system tips into the other, is evidence of a well-functioning system. Fractals as patterns of complex systems - I am still pretty confused about fractals, which seems like a common problem. Can people be fractal...