Personal development for INTP people

So, I bought Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People. Steve is a creative mathematical genius who has a passion for personal growth, and his book focuses on the principles behind any effective personal development program. So far, I’ve eaten up the first two chapters of the book, and I have to say that for [...]

The polio vaccine: friend or foe?

Before I launch into this entry, let me add the following disclaimer: You and you alone are responsible for your health. This entry, and any other medical advice you read or get (even from doctors) with an honest, open-minded skepticism. Get the facts, and evaluate the evidence. Even doctors, and Ph.D. biostatisticians, make mistakes. This [...]

Vaccines, the preface

This part of the review of Vaccines: Are they really safe & effective? (Neil Miller) will be short, as it is about the preface. I have to admire a person willing to go the distance to research an issue as important as vaccination. This man looked up newspapers, congressional testimony, and the scientific literature for [...]

Vaccines – wading into the debate (a skeptical book review)

So far, with only a couple of exceptions, my children have had their vaccines on schedule. I have refused the chickenpox vaccine for my older child and will refuse it for my younger child. I also refused the 6-hour HepB vaccine for my second child, but he has received the others on schedule (and the [...]

The Power of Now

It took me a while to get to ??The Power of Now??, but I finally read it on the recommendation of Michael McAlister at “Infinite Smile”:http://www.infinitesmile.org. The book is very accessible, if a little repetitive. The repetition didn’t bother me that much because, as with most spiritual disciplines, it’s hard to understand the first time [...]

On yoga and the Anatomy of Hatha Yoga

I don’t write as much about yoga as I used to because, well, I haven’t though of that much to say. But given that I’ve been going on about alternative medicine recently, I should note that a simple “PubMed search”:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed&term=yoga reveals that yoga is being intensely studied as a complementary or alternative therapy to a [...]

Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy by Georg Feuerstein

This book isn’t recommended for everyone, but only those who may be interested in the philosophical aspects of Tantra (_e.g._ as found in some Shaivism philosophies, or, more popularly, Tibetan Buddhism). A lot of the book is rather dry and didactic, but provides excellent information that would otherwise be hard to find. Note that Tantra [...]

I Don’t Want To Talk About It

??I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression?? Terry Real’s ??I Don’t Want to Talk About It?? discusses how men cope with the unique pressure of manhood in our society. Depression has emerged as a seemingly feminine trait, perhaps to the detriment of all. Men are supposed to swallow [...]

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

Ok, so I didn’t really read this book _per se_, but I did listen to it through the “Audible.com”:http://www.audible.com service. This is the story of a wayfarer, whose travels took him to the opulent riches of the Brahmans (ancient Hindu priests), the austerity of the ascetic “_sramanas_”:http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/sramana.html, the materialistic world of the merchants, and finally [...]

Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

??Finding Flow?? by Csikszentmihalyi is a companion book to “??Flow??”:http://www.ibiblio.org/smiley/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=79 Where ??Flow?? is much more theoretical, ??Finding Flow?? emphasizes and analyzes the way we spend our time. Both these books explore the flow phenomenon (also known in sports as “the zone”), but ??Finding Flow?? describes the when and how to get into the flow state [...]