Category Archives: Marcel Proust

>Lies Are Essential To Humanity

>Nobody likes to admit they lie. They don’t want to admit it to themselves much less to others. Nobody likes to admit it because they are thinking about big lies, or even white lies. But I am more interested in unconscious and subconscious lying. Lying done without really even thinking about it.

For example. You might say ‘I hate turning 40.’ or ‘ugh, it’s raining today’ to a friend. But are you just automatically saying what is expected at that moment? Are you really bummed that it is raining or you are 40 or are you parroting what you think is expected? Are those lies?

I would say they are. You aren’t paying attention to what YOU really believe, but instead are just saying some automatic response that is, when you get right down to it, a lie.

How do we get pleasure from those lies? What do they feed in us?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily

Quote by Marcel Proust, 1871-1922, French essayist and novelist

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A recommendation: If you want to read a fantastic book about how artist’s creativity presaged advancements and understanding about the brain by science, read ‘Marcel Proust Was A Neuroscientist’ by Jonah Lehrer (Amazon)

>The Real Voyage

>It’s travel week on the Napkin Dad Daily. Ideas stimulated by my vacation
last week.

The hardest thing to do is to escape oneself. The construction of self takes
many years, decades. And when you travel it isn’t much different than
putting your home on a trailer and moving . You may go to a new location
but everything follows you. How do you leave your world behind and
reconstruct your self, even if just a bit, when you go away from home?

One way is to bring very little. Expect to buy things where you go. Maybe not
expensive stuff, but shampoo, accessories, certain clothing items, etc.
Don’t bring all the things you need to make yourself as you always are.
Go au natural with things, see what you discover about yourself and the
new place you go.

I remember going to Europe in 2003 with my daughters and one of the most
fun and informative things was going into grocery stores to buy food for picnics
and snacks, and other needed stuff. The hair product company, Garnier, was
everywhere and I thought the design and packaging was very interesting.
Lo and behold, a few years later they come to the USA and I see them marketing
to Americans.

Travel and see with new eyes.

Marcel Proust, French Novelist, 1871-1922

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Illness is the Most Heeded

This is in honor of my brother-in-law, Tom, who had a ruptured appendix on the ski
slopes of Colorado yesterday. He couldn’t make it down the hill on his own after a
fall, the pain being too severe at that point.

He spent two hours in surgery and they believe his is going to make a full recovery,
but not before a big scare, lots of pain and a 5-7 day stay in the hospital.

This quote is true, but the further truth is that those promises to goodness and
wisdom are often only made when we are in the middle of that severe pain we have to
obey!

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A big shout out to Bruce Hansen, undergoing chemo for cancer in Boston. His cancer is
in his neck, which is in Boston along with the rest of him and his wife Heidi. If you
know him, wish him well. If you don’t, wish someone else well.

>Any Mental Activity

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napkin - Any Mental Activity

That is why religions and celebrities are so popular
and why science and philosophy are not.

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