Click on the key word to return.

ABSUDIST  1. designating or holding the belief that human existence is absurd, irrational, meaningless. 2. of, pertaining to, or dealing with absurdism [1945-55]

ABSURD 1. utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish. 2. the quality or condition of existing in a meaningless and irrational world. Syn. silly ludicrous, preposterous, something fit to be laughed at contemptuously.

AGNOSTIC One who doubts all. See Robert Anton Wilson's essay here.

ALOGY  \Al"o*gy\, n. [L. alogia, Gr. ?, fr. 'a priv. + ? reason.] Unreasonableness; absurdity. [Obs.]

ATHEIST One who has no use for god.  Link to the world atheist web site.

DISCORDIAN

ENLIGHTENMENT: is your natural state of felt oneness with being. [Eckhart Tolle]. Enlightenment is the end of suffering [Buddha]. The end of conflict – inner & outer. The end of mental noise – incessant thinking. Peace. Enlightenment means rising above thought.

Extreme Ectomorph - Linear  The highly ectomorphic physique, or 1-1-7, is fragile and delicate with light bones and slight muscles. The limbs are relatively long and the shoulders droop. In contrast to the compactness of the endomorph and mesomorph, the ectomorph is extended in space and linear. The ribs are visible and delicate and the thighs and upper arms weak. The fingers, toes and neck are long. The features of the face are sharp and fragile, and the shape of the face as a whole is triangular with the point of the triangle at the chin. The teeth are of ten crowded in the lower jaw which is somewhat receded.

The skin is dry and is like the outer skin of an onion. It tends to burn and peel easily and not retain a tan. The relatively great bodily area in relation to mass makes the ectomorph suffer from extreme heat or cold. The hair is fine and fast-growing and sometimes difficult to keep in place. Baldness is rare. The extreme ectomorph in our society is the absent-minded professor or Ichabod Crane.

William Sheldon (1898-1977) was an American psychologist who devoted his life to observing the variety of human bodies and temperaments. He taught and did research at a number of U.S. universities and is best known for his series of books on the human constitution. He was a keen observer of animals and birds as a child, and he turned this talent to good effect by becoming an avid people-watcher, and out of his observations he gradually elaborated his typology.

For his study of the human physique, Dr. Sheldon started with 4,000 photographs of college-age men, which showed front, back and side views. By carefully examining these photos he discovered that there were three fundamental elements which, when combined together, made up all these physiques or somatotypes. With great effort and ingenuity he worked out ways to measure these three components and to express them numerically so that every human body could be described in terms of three numbers, and that two independent observers could arrive at very similar results in determining a person's body type. These basic elements he named endomorphy, mesomorphy and ectomorphy, for they seemed to derive from the three layers of the human embryo, the endoderm, the mesoderm and the ectoderm.

Endomorphy is centered on the abdomen, and the whole digestive system.

Mesomorphy is focused on the muscles and the circulatory system.

Ectomorphy is related to the brain and the nervous system.

We have all three elements in our bodily makeup, just as we all have digestive, circulatory and nervous systems. No one is simply an endomorph without having at the same time some mesomorphy and ectomorphy, but we have these components in varying degrees. Sheldon evaluated the degree a component was present on a scale ranging from one to seven, with one as the minimum and seven as the maximum.

Ectotonia focuses on privacy, restraint and a highly developed self-awareness

The Extreme Ectotonic - Reflection

The outstanding characteristic of the ectotonic is his finely-tuned receptive system. His spread-out body acts like a giant antenna picking up all sorts of inputs. Sheldon calls the ectotonic a biologically extraverted organism, which is compensated for by psychological introversion. Since the whole organism is sensitive to stimulation, the ectotonic develops a series of characteristic strategies by which he tries to cut down on it. He is like a sonar operator who must constantly be wary of a sudden loud noise breaking in on the delicate sounds he is trying to trace. He likes to cross his legs and curl up as if he is trying to minimize his exposure to the exterior world. He tries to avoid making noise and being subjected to it. He shrinks from crowds and large groups of people and likes small, protected places.

The ectotonic suffers from a quick onset of hunger and a quick satiation of it. He is drawn to a high protein, high calorie diet, with frequent snacking to match his small digestive system. He has a nervous stomach and bowels. He is a quiet sleeper, but a light one, and he is often plagued by insomnia. He tends to sleep on one side with his legs drawn up, and his sleep, though slow in coming, can be hard to shake off. His energy level is low, while his reactions are fast He suffers from a quasi-chronic fatigue and must protect himself from the temptation to exercise heavily. His blood pressure is usually low and his respiration shallow and rapid with a fast and weak pulse. His temperature is elevated slightly above normal and it rises rapidly at the onset of illness. The ectotonic is resistant to many major diseases, but suffers excessively from insect bites and skin rashes. Unfortunately he can succumb to acute streptococcal infections of the throat which cause swelling and strangulation. His hypersensitivity leads not only to quick physical reactions but to excessively fast social reactions as well. It is difficult for this type to keep pace with slow-moving social chit-chat. He races ahead and trips over his own social feet.

Just as the endotonic loves to eat and the mesotonic loves action, the ectotonic loves privacy. He needs shelter from excessive stimulation and time to sort out the inputs he has received, and connect them up with his own inner subjective experience, which he values highly. Self-awareness is a principle trait of ectotonia. The feelings of the ectotonic are not on display, even though they can be very strong, and so he is sometimes accused of not having any. When they are in a situation of dealing with someone who has authority over them or with someone of the opposite sex whom they are interested in, they often make a poor first impression. They are uncomfortable in coping with social situations where overt expressions of sympathy are called for or where general idle conversation is the norm, for example in parties and dinners where they have no intimate acquaintances.

The ectotonics are hypersensitive to pain because they anticipate it and have a lower pain threshold as well. They do not project their voices like the mesotonics, but focus it to reach only the person they are addressing. They appear younger than their age and often wear an alert, intent expression. They have a late adolescence, consider the latter part of life the best, and are future-oriented. The more extreme ectotonics have a distaste for alcohol and accentuated consciousness fights alcohol, drugs, anaesthesia and is resistant to hypnosis. They can rely on their dream life and often rich fantasy life. When they become troubled they seek privacy and solitude in order to try to work out the difficulty.
Make an initial estimate of how much of the three components of temperament you have by rating yourself on a simplified Scale of Temperament.
	Endotonia	Mesotonia	Ectotonia
When troubled I seek out	___people	___action	___solitude
I prefer	___physical comfort	___physical adventure	___privacy
The time of my life I favor is	___childhood	___early adulthood	___later years
What would bother me most would be	___being cut off from other people	___being closed off in small places	___being exposed to endless noise
When in a group I like to	___mingle	___take charge	___take off
I prefer to	___let things take their course	___do things	___observe what is going on
The thing I like most is	___eating	___exercise	___time to myself
The qualities that fit me best are	___tolerance and love of people	___love of power and leadership	___a highly developed self-awareness
Sheldon found a strong correspondence between the endomorphic body type and the endotonic temperament, the mesomorphic body type and the mesotonic temperament, and the ectomorphic body type and the ectotonic temperament. Just as in our body type we have all three elements, so, too, with our temperament. A look at the three extremes in temperament will give us some idea of what these components are like.
HEATHEN Christianity began as an urban religion; people in rural districts continued to worship older gods. The Latin word for countrymen was paganus—whence, of course, pagan; the Germanic tongues has a similar word, khaithanaz, "dwelling in the heath" (wilderness)—whence "heathen."
INTP    (Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiver  (Myers-Briggs personality assessment test).  Life's Conceptualizers.  INTPs are free-spirited idea mills and absent-minded professors, which makes them fun to be around, easily diverted, and a plethora of unending creativity. Their love of the abstract is sufficiently deep that it can lead them in the course of a day through a maze of inventive and challenging programs, policies, products and processes.  Link to the INTP site.
PAGAN  see: HEATHEN
PASTAFARIAN \1. practicioner of the Church of the Flying Spagetti Moster
POPULUX   Popular + Luxury. Celebrating Confidence in the future, excitement of the present and the sheer joy of living well. A period of American design and advertising from 1954-1964. During this time designers embraced the future and the promise that it held. Swept-wing styling. The Forward Look. An aesthetic, a philosophy for viewing and embracing technology. A tool for expressing optimism of the future. Articles and designs marking this period: fins on cars, amoeboid shapes, kidney bean tables, coffee tables and ashtrays. Melmine ware. There is a book by this title that may be found at your local library.
Subgenius 1. one far below genius. 2. one who inactively pursues slack.Link to a Subgenius home page.
Return to Home Page