Like most moments of spiritual revelation, this one took place on a landfill in New Jersey. A young man is standing at an unprepossessing driving range, hitting balls toward a distant fence, when something unusual takes place. As he begins his swing, he has the sensation that his club is drawing itself back on its own; when it is ready, it starts downward, makes perfect contact, and the ball soars off in the right-to-left arc he'd imagined, hitting the exact fencepost he'd been aiming at from 250 yards away. He steps back and wonders if he can do it again. He feels like an observer as the swing begins itself and resolves itself after perfect contact with the waiting ball, which again smacks against the distant post. He has, for however brief a time, entered “the zone.” Everyone who plays a sport knows that fleeting, ineffable sensation of everything falling into place: The pitched baseball looks as big as a grapefruit, the basket looks as wide as a trash can, the players around you are moving in slow motion. But as Richard Keefe, the director of the sport psychology program at Duke University, looked deeper into the nature of his experience, he found profound links to the spirit, the brain, perhaps even the soul. Keefe recognized that the feeling golfers and other athletes have of “being in the zone” is basically the same as a meditative state. And as a researcher with experience in brain chemistry, he went one step further: If we can figure out what's happening in the brain at such times, he reasons, we can learn how to get into that “zone” instead of just waiting for it to happen. This is the Holy Grail of sport psychology—teaching the mind to get out of the way so the body can do the things it's capable of doing. Keefe calls it the “effortless present,” when the body is acting of its own accord while the brain has little to do but watch. All religions describe some kind of heightened awareness in their disciplines; Keefe explores whether such mystical experience is a fundamental aspect of our evolution, an integral part of what makes us human and keeps us from despair. And he brings the discussion back to the applications of such knowledge, reflecting on our ability to use these alternate planes to achieve better relationships, better lives, better moments. Keefe's true subject is extraordinary experience—being in the zone, in the realm of effortless action. On the Sweet Spotbuilds from the physical and neurological to the mystical and philosophical, then adds a crucial layer of the practical (how we can capture or recapture these wondrous states). It is a work in the proud tradition of The Sweet Spot in Time, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, and How the Mind Works.
Two leading schizophrenia researchers present an accessible and comprehensive guide to dealing with the disease. They provide key information on the integration of drugs and psychological treatments and discuss how family members can be a helpful part of the treatment process.
The emphasis in The Craft of Prolog is on using Prolog effectively. It presents a loose collection of topics that build on and elaborate concepts learned in a first course. Hacking your program is no substitute for understanding your problem. Prolog is different, but not that different. Elegance is not optional. These are the themes that unify Richard O'Keefe's very personal statement on how Prolog programs should be written. The emphasis in The Craft of Prolog is on using Prolog effectively. It presents a loose collection of topics that build on and elaborate concepts learned in a first course. These may be read in any order following the first chapter, "Basic Topics in Prolog," which provides a basis for the rest of the material in the book. Richard A. O'Keefe is Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He is also a consultant to Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.Contents: Basic Topics in Prolog. Searching. Where Does the Space Go? Methods of Programming. Data Structure Design. Sequences. Writing Interpreters. Some Notes on Grammar Rules. Prolog Macros. Writing Tokenisers in Prolog. All Solutions.
This work explores Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays as mythic prose poems, suggesting a new approach to the practical criticism of his works. It presents a balanced selection of works from Emerson's early and late career and provides insightful readings of Circles and the Divinity School Address.
One contemporary critique of Thomistic theology is that it dehistoricizes the relationship between God and creation. This position is a consequence of identifying the prius of theology as God. The Eucharist as the Center of Theology offers an alternative in that it examines a free historical prius, the Eucharist, as proposed by Donald J. Keefe, S.J., and then discusses and develops aspects of St. Thomas Aquinas' thought that support such a prius.
Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe first met in Taos, New Mexico, in 1929. She was already an established artist, while he was at the beginning of his career. Their friendship lasted for the rest of their lives. GEORGIA O'KEEFE AND ANSEL ADAMS: NATURAL AFFINITIES suggests parallels in their distinctive visions of both natural and human-made environments and illustrates the artists' achievements in capturing the reality and essence of the world around them. More than 100 beautifully reproduced paintings and photographs are accompanied by critical essays on Adams and O'Keeffe and a biographical essay on the friendship between Adams, O'Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz.
One contemporary critique of Thomistic theology is that it dehistoricizes the relationship between God and creation. This position is a consequence of identifying the prius of theology as God. The Eucharist as the Center of Theology offers an alternative in that it examines a free historical prius, the Eucharist, as proposed by Donald J. Keefe, S.J., and then discusses and develops aspects of St. Thomas Aquinas' thought that support such a prius.
Now that you've dipped your toe into the raging torrent of Richard A. Lupoff's life as an inkslinger with WRITER Volume 1, it's time for 320 more pages of memoir, criticism, interview, and sheer literary joy. This time he tackles SF controversies, gives a speech or two, and dishes out some of the most intriguing gossip about the good ol' days of SF.
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