Well, this has been quite the challenge. I had open heart surgery on the 15th. I have read every day since my last DDR (1st, 2nd, and today the 3rd), but it's been pretty meager...one day only a paragraph. But I'm feeling a bit better today, so I'm hoping to knock out some pages. Let's see how that goes.
xxvii + 290= 317
Day 4 (DDRD 3,090) April 17, 2026
Read to page 15. Which makes 42 pages in ...the physical world--matter itself--4 days. Pmindretty puny, but hey...I HAD OPEN HEART SURGERY!
Day 5 (DDRD 3,091) April 18, 2026
Read to page 45 (30 pages!).
"Things no longer should be seen to exist in and of themselves, but like a quantum particle, exist only in relationship. ...the physical world-- matter itself--appears to be malleable, susceptible to influence from the outside." (17)
😱Albert
Y'know, I can understand why people would be dismissive of the thesis of this book if you just gave them a one or two sentence summation, but reading the details, I get a different idea. The work on these concepts involved. Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winners, and equipment that cost hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars. That doesn't sound like a scam to me.
Day 7 (DDRD 3,092) April 19, 2026
Read to page 58. Yeah. Fucked up day. Plus I took a shower. You can't believe how strenuous that is after you've had open heart surgery.
Thinking about this book has got me thinking about other related things. For instance, this morning I was thinking, I know the words to heal, and I try to speak them as often as I can. And often I can see that it makes a difference to people. One incident I'm thinking of occurred several years ago. I was in Barnes & Noble, and I saw this young girl, an odd looking girl, and an older woman had come up to her and asked some impertinent question, and the girl reacted with such sweetness and kindness that I couldn't stop myself. When the older woman walked away, I went up to the girl and said, "You know, sometimes I think there's no hope left for this world. But when I see people like you who are just so kind for no particular reason, I know that we're going to make it. I'm so glad that you exist." And we both started to cry. I have to say I have not always used words of kindness. I've spoken in anger. I've spoken in fear. I've said some dreadful things, and I wish I could go back and change that. Maybe one of the gifts of old age is that you slowly begin to really know that this life is not much about yourself. In fact, it's not really about yourself at all. It's about how you interact with other people. How you establish relationships, how you treat other people. And isn't that really what this book is about?
Day 8 (DDRD 3,093) April 20, 2026
Read to page 70. Short day...Hospital Release Day.
Quote from Walt Whitman: "Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." (63)
Who needs scientists...we've got poets.
I was just watching some highlights from the NBA playoffs (which seemed much less intense than the WNBA games I've watched), and I thought, "My next DDR should be Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story by David Wolf. It's too expensive to buy--$100 or more on most websites--but guess what? https://archive.org/details/foulconniehawkin0000davi_b5g7/mode/1up
Some scientists were measuring brain waves of monks while meditating; this part struck me: "When Davidson and his colleague Antoine Lutz wrote up their study, they realized that they were reporting the highest measures of gamma activity ever recorded among people who were not insane." (71)
Day 9 (DDRD 3,094) April 21, 2026
Read to page 105.
My interest in Catholicism has been steadily growing since late 1980, when I began at My Studies at Bellarmine College (now Iniversity). Since there was a requirement for 9 hours of theology for any major, I decided to get it over with at the get-go and signed up for an introductory class. I had had no interest in Catholicism previously, but the priest who taught this class, Eugene Zoller, was so dynamic, so enigmatic, that when it was time for second semester sign ups, I sought out his name and signed up for another theology class with him. That was a pattern that continued for all three of my years at the college (Catonsville Community College plus CLEP tests taken in the military made up for the other year of my English major), so I ended up graduating with my major in English and a minor in theology. I also ended up married to a Catholic girl. I had met her in a theology class, admired her from afar for awhile, and finally worked up the courage to ask her out. She acceded, we began to date, and about 6 months later we got married. I can't remember if I attended mass with her at that time, but when she was offered a scholarship to Notre Dame we moved up there. I read lots of her textbooks so that I could be of some use to her, and after she had graduated we returned to Louisville. Not long after that we had our first child. He was baptized and I began going to mass. I was fascinated by the Catholic church. It was so different from the Lutheran church I had grown up in. The Lutheran church was very plain and dull. The Catholic church was elaborate, fascinating...full of mystical implications. I liked it. So much so that when my Catholic Girl and I divorced I continued to take our children to mass on the weekends when it was my turn to do so Long story short I fell deeper and deeper into the embrace of Catholicism over the years in the past year or so I have taken to reciting the rosary on a daily basis I like the sense of having a physical implement to anchor me to my prayers I have not always found it easy to pray I also like the sense of the repetition the mantra like nature of it. At any rate, I have been saying the rosary every day for over a year now.
"A study at the university of Pavia in Italy and John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford showed that saying the rosary had the same effect on the body as reciting a mantra. Both were able to create a 'striking, powerful and synchronous increase' in cardiovascular rhythms when recited at 6 times a minute." (71 - 72)
In fact, there is research (Lazar) which indicates that "meditation causes permanent alterations in brain structure." (74) And if saying the rosary is essentially meditation, then....
Day 10 (DDRD 3,095) April 22, 2026
Read to page 135.
"The strange, almost unbelievable events occurring during Tiller's experiments made me wonder whether setting aside a particular room for carrying out intention might be an important consideration. Perhaps we each need our own 'temple' to which we return...." (123)
Day 11 (DDRD 3,096) April 23, 2026
Read to page 165.
Reference the pleasure that is derived from curiosity / hunting, "What actually feels good is the activation of the seeking portion of the brain." (137) Which makes me think that a part of the great pleasure I derive from reading is because for me that is seeking. Seeking the truth, man.
After discussing self-healing etc, "These cases of spontaneous remission suggested to me that casual thoughts that run through our minds every day together become our life's intention." (142)
Well, that seems very important.
Day 12 (DDRD 3,097) April 24, 2026
Read to 195.
Meanwhile, back at my heart...
The vertical cuts at the bottom had tubes hanging out of them. Yuch.
I usually read all the notes, the. Bibliography, and the Index for the books that have them. But when the notes come at the back of the book, it creates a bit of a reading strain for me. I don't like to keep flipping back and forth. But I usually do it, even though it makes it harder to concentrate on the text. This time, however, I was too caught up in the reading to do do diligence. Which means this: I have 40 more pages of text here. Then 26 pages of notes, 22 pages of Bibliography, and 16 pages of Index. That's a lot...and I'm thinking about skipping it. Which would mean that I "lose" 64 pages of reading--two days' worth. I'm pretty focused on knocking back pages, and I would guess that I could read the 64 pages in a single day given their nature. But it wouldn't be any fun. So we'll see how it goes. But I am anxious to move on to whatever comes next.
"We can no longer view ourselves as isolated from our environment, and our thoughts as the private, self-contained workings of an individual brain. ...Every thought we have, every judgment we hold, however unconscious, is having an effect. With every moment that it notices, the conscious mind is sending an intention." (194)
Day 13 (DDRD 3,098) April 25, 2026
Read to page 230.
Reference preparation for meditation, one of the suggestions is "prayer, as with a rosary, since the repetitive sounds still the mind." (202) Score another one for rosries!
Couldn't face the Notes, etc. Bro out.
