Dear Members,

Often, when individuals deal with mental illness, their whole world centers around their illness.

There are many therapies that teach that the ill individual should not let their illness totally preoccupy their thinking. Thus some therapies teach that an individual should set time aside to meditate and become very mindful "just-of-the-moment".

There is another approach. I have found that studying our place in space (astronomy) and time (evolution) can help individuals better deal with their mental illnesses.

This proposal sounds a bit peculiar, but I would like you to journey with me studying space and time. At the end of this journey, I hope to show you "who-we-are" and "where-are-we-going".

I will give you a hint. I strongly believe that stellar or human history oscillates between chaos and order, destruction and construction. I also believe that there are laws of the universe that control the formation of stars, and the formation of civilization. The predictable life and death of the stars parallels our own life cycle, and that of our civilizations.

Each of us grows, brings order to the chaos of our existence, then dies. Our empires also briefly exist, then vanish. Our planet has produced millions of species over millions of years that briefly existed, then died. Yet something amazing is evolving that transcends these individual life-death cycles.

Let's start by studying the evolution of space and time - the study of astronomy.

(The first two chapters of these videos on the Hubble Space Telescope are technical, and you might prefer to skip these and start with chapter 3.)

Phil Long M.D.
Administrator

Dear Members,

In the following weeks, I will continue this information series. Next week, we will explore the story of evolution of life on our planet. Thereafter, I wish to explore human evolution and how its rules can be applied to better understand mental illness.

Phil Long M.D.
Administrator