Peter M. Hunt's Blog, page 13

Trauma

A friend recently gave me a book about living with trauma, hoping that a comprehensive self-examination of all yesterday’s life stresses might help me with Parkinson’s disease today. The book, The Transformation by James Gordon, introduces many practical tools, some of which are well known, while others challenged a meditation of the past with methods unfamiliar to me.

In looking at my life through the lens of past traumas, both big and small, I first discovered that there were an awful lot o...

Brain fog

The pressure draws near in a suffocating welcome of misty inaction, impossibly heavy yet real. The fog is back, the same oppressive blanket experienced before the brain surgery almost seven years ago. Only it is thicker now, more persistent in its attempts to subvert confidence in who I am as it relentlessly conjures false paths to fool me, to retain control.

“I see you.” I direct the words at my adversary: one of us must go. The mind is desperate to return, to dominate through fear and desir...

Change

Everything changes, and usually not in the manner that you or I envision.

Last November, I had a neurology appointment to fine-tune the settings in my Deep Brain Stimulator (DBS) in an attempt to be more responsive to rapidly evolving Parkinson’s symptoms. Such hardware adjustments are inherently tricky maneuvers, educated guesswork impacted by medication dosage changes and lifestyle modifications.

After extensive trial and error experimentation, we decided that my DBS was already emitting...

Human Being

My conscious desire to learn more about the mystery of identity, ultimately who I am, goes back some 25 years but only became urgent due to Parkinson’s progression before my Deep Brain Stimulation surgery in 2014. About eight months earlier, I had taken up the search for a crashed A-6 Intruder attack jet from my old squadron, an ultimately successful endeavor that jump-started my curiosity and ended up providing the framework for my journey of self-discovery.

The proxy challenge of finding th...

Humbled (again)

As I enter the 17th year since my Parkinson’s diagnosis, anxiety surges forth from the deepest recesses of my being, a primal “fight or flight” response that meets my brain’s inability to process the simplest of tasks halfway, swirling together in a mix of panicky fear and reasoned concern. At least temporarily, I am back in the darker version of the hellish never-world of my pre-DBS (Deep Brain Stimulation surgery) life.

Sheer will—my only faithfully reliable tool—gradually succumbs to Parki...

Climbing trees.

Regardless of where I lived at the time, be it Athens Greece, or Long Island, memories of youth are invariably pulled toward a common theme, climbing a favorite tree. What was the attraction? Why take a risk with no apparent goal other than to perhaps reach one limb of questionable strength higher? It was simple. By raising my head above the day’s routine, I could catch a glimpse of the mysterious outer world of possibility.

In New York, I had to climb to where the leaves thinned to view the ...

Roots

A lone tree, roots locked to rocky isle as branches spread in defiant stillness, patiently awaits a mother’s call.

The post Roots appeared first on Books by Peter M. Hunt.

Peacock

A peacock ran directly in front of my forty-mph car today, forcing a thankfully successful brake-slam. I might have let it pass as coincidence had it been the first time, but something similar happened to me about six years ago, at the timeframe that my latest book Beyond Identity begins, only without the benefit of a car.

I was in the living room speaking on the phone with a friend when a loud rustling noise on the back deck caught my attention. Stepping out the door, a huge blur of light an...

Sweet pride

Blind reliance on the portals of interpretation confuse nature’s rhythm, allowing no room for sensation under the sweet dead-weight of pride.

The post Sweet pride appeared first on Books by Peter M. Hunt.

Reflections

Initiated with the spark of insecurity, we define ourselves from the mirrored impression we emit to the surrounding world in a desperate toehold against a rising sea of uncertainty. The world view we grow builds on the planted seeds of personality, but all are mere potentials. What we choose to believe and disbelieve reflects back on us like a spotlight on life’s stage.

It is your narrative: yours to change or solidify in momentum’s inevitable move toward evolution or regression. Staying the ...