Except for me yelling, “Honey bunny, it’s time to come home. Enough of this crap,” it’s been a peaceful day. I do and don’t miss Mike. It’s weird. When he was alive, it always felt like the relationship had gone on forever and, yet, we had only been together a short time. I guess you’d say time flew by. We weren’t strained in the relationship except for a period when we had grown silent with each other; there was no laughter. That dragged on forever.
Of the 171 books which the librarian in the Notre Dame Seminary requested, I have something like 50 left to find. I have already sent out four boxes and have three more packed and ready to go to the post office. The boxes are of varying sizes, but none are the size of a U-Haul book box. I couldn’t manage that – too heavy. I suspect too heavy for postal workers also. Instead, I ask everyone to save all the boxes that could hold two or three books for me. That saves a lot of money too. Boxes are expensive.
Thanks to Judy, I will be getting what’s left of her roll of butcher paper, which she used for the bottom of her birdcage. He bird died recently, and now that roll is available. Even after I get through all of that, I now know that Costco sells it. It is way less expensive than buying brown wrapping paper from Office Depot. I’m down to having to spend money only on tape and postage. Pretty good.
I spent an hour looking for books today. I found four more. I’m beginning to wonder if some of the books on the New Orleans seminary list were ever in this library. I kept looking. I found 4 in an hour. I figured each time I look through, I become more familiar with the books, and I will find them more easily when more lists come in.
I think when I’m down to 10 more to find, I’ll contact John Coughlin and tell him to contact the next seminary to go through the list of books and make their request. But, before they do that, we have to make sure that all the books I already sent out have been deleted from the list.
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Musings:
Reading about mirror neurons being the basis for empathy in Mike Fanuele’s book, “Stop Making Sense. “ It’s a fun book to read, even if I don’t agree with all his conclusions.
The one on mirror neurons being the basis for empathy is one of them. Mirror neurons are the ones that fire when you watch someone perform an action or feel an emotion. I have also read somewhere else that they fire more actively the more you’re familiar with the activity.
These neurons were discovered when neuroscientists in Parma, Italy. They found that the neurons in test monkeys fired when they reached for peanuts also fired when they watched the scientists reach for peanuts. Note, it said nothing about them firing when the scientists reached for pencils or anything else.
The more you experience an emotion or a movement, the more readily your mirror neurons will fire. While it is possible that the mirror neurons in a couch potato fire when watching Michael Jordan play basketball, it is more likely that more such neurons fire in the brain of someone who has played basketball themselves and even more so in someone who has played it extensively and even more so in someone who has received training.
But then there is also the issue of mirror neurons explaining empathy/ sympathy. What the hell happens in the brains of the roaring crowd watching a lynching? Clearly, they are seeing someone suffer, experience fear, and physical pain. What are those mirror neurons doing so they feel no inclination to step in and stop that cruelty?
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