Saturday, May 25, 2013

what dementia patients can teach us: executive function is not everything

from the article:
... residents as "closer to the higher being.  This is who they are: real, honest, and sometimes raw.  There is no ability to reason, or to cover up who you really are.  And so, for much of the time, you see the loveliness of the soul-- it is bare for everyone to acknowledge."

Valorizing dementia as a higher state of being may strike many people as bizarre, and such sentiments are unlikely to comfort the children or partners of people who must endure living in a state of almost perpetual confusion.  Yet our society does tend to prize cognition and executive function at the expense of other essential human qualities:  sensuality, pleasure, intimacy.   For people who can no longer think clearly, a life of small sensory pleasures is a considerable achievement.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/20/130520fa_fact_mead

Friday, May 24, 2013

2013 otr at wlf

Off the Record at Wright Locke Farm 2013
watch on youtube at  http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7ocrE0tlpoDpQNs7mCJP5WkDNVUdZiXe: