Obama: Hope and Virtue

We've heard the spin. The rhetoric-loaded speeches that gave us goosebumps. The hand-on-the-heart pledges that promised to lead us out of the darkness.

The words from the speechwriters are scarily simple to speak. But after we're all softened up, after we're primed for change, we usually get ... more of the same.

Will it really be different this time? Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, Obama: Hope and Virtue.

Well, this is a topic I'm more than a little interested in. Hey, I'm a product of the '60s. I've still got a little of that revolutionary flame burning in me. The same flame that burned bright for a decade or so before it dimmed in the face of assassinations and Watergate and too many strange chemicals in our bloodstreams.

And, of course, the "greed-is-good" mantra intoned in stock market boardrooms that carried the promises of easy money and double-digit returns on investment to any where were quick enough to jump on the bandwagon.

And now that has played itself out and revealed itself to be nothing more than what we should have known it was from the beginning - and empty promise.

Empty, why? Because it was based on an inverted philosophy: that it was good - even possible - to get something for nothing.

You know, the scientific discoveries that I base this program on have a powerful finality: they allow us to analyze what's going on in us and our world through a clarifying lens, and that lens is a profound understanding of the human psyche and our society, which is, after all, just a reflection of what is going on inside of us. And through this science we can conclude that life, it turns out, is not a confounding conundrum or unsolvable riddle at all. Some conclusions have been reached about us and the universe we inhabit, and those conclusions have arrived through the work of an extraordinary scientist, Brazilian psychoanalyst and social scientist, Dr. Norberto Keppe.

I've been exploring this on these podcast for the past year and a half, and I'll be expanding my discussions of Keppe's synthesizing work of Analytical Trilogy - a bringing together of science with philosophy and theology - in a new Internet radio show that I'll be launching in mid-March, 2009 with Dr. Claudia Pacheco. This'll be a live call-in show where we'll address specific problems and questions brought by callers and those who write to us. This will give you a first-hand look at how Keppe's Analytical Trilogy sees the human condition and the society we live in. Get on the mailing list to be kept informed of that: rich@richjonesvoice.com

Keppe's perspective on our problems is refreshing and clarifying, as you'll know if you've been listening regularly to this program. And one of the things he noted right away when he moved to New York in the early '80s was the incredible decadence the country had fallen into. Every area was in decline, and this was being hidden by the appearances of prosperity that were being given off by the enticing profits on Wall St. A lustre we now know to have been polished by considerable deception and smoke and mirrors.

Keppe warned us of this at the time - warned us that moving away from ethics and goondess and beauty would continue to bring disaster. And now we're smack in the middle of the crisis he predicted.

And Obama seems to be hip to that, admitting that we need to be more responsible, more ethical, get back to work. We need to "put aside childish things," as he put it. I'm joined by a couple of American today, and together we'll look at Obama's promise of hope and virtue through the lens of Analytical Trilogy.

Click here to listen to this program.

Tags:obama, Barack Obama, Norberto Keppe, Analytical Trilogy

What Really Causes Stress

Unemployment rates are the highest in 16 years. We've got massive foreclosures and forecasts of trillion dollar deficits. Our kids have A.D.D. Everything we touch causes cancer. And our football team missed the playoffs. Again.

No doubt about it ... living in the 21st century is bringing a lot of stress.

Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, we'll dig deeper into what really causes our stress ... and more importantly, how a therapeutic science from Brazil can help us finally understand and deal with our admittedly stressful world.

Here at the beginning of 2009, we have a pretty bleak outlook. Well, it's time to offer an anti-dote to all that. Some hope, if you will.

And the moment I say that I realize how trite it sounds to our jaded ears. We've heard it all before, haven't we? This book, that 10-steps-to-a-greater-you, this magic pill. We're caught between wanting something to believe in and having been disappointed so many times we've stopped believing. Almost. We're cynical, sardonic, ironic as hell.

But one of the problems is that we've been looking too much outside ourselves for resolution. It's tough to resolve our essential problem out there because the source of our difficulties lies inside here. And what we're exploring on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, what forms the basis of all our work at the International Society of Analytical Trilogy here in São Paulo, Brazil is a comprehensive science that gives us the consciousness needed to treat those inner demons.

Norberto Keppe's Analytical Trilogy is a union of theology, philosophy and science that really fills in the blanks of our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. As a listener wrote recently, "Keppe's greater principles make a great deal of sense." And sense is what we'd like to continue bringing in 2009.

Let's try to make sense of stress today. We have a lot of if in our world. Helena Mellander is a Swedish journalist working in our Trilogical companies here in Brazil, and she's also been working for some months now to develop some deep health programs for companies based on Keppe's work. One of the principal reas of concern in these workshops is dealing with stress.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Tags: stress, handling stress, Analytical Trilogy, psychology and psychoanalysis, Norberto Keppe