In my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 12,900-word OEN article "Thomas J. Farrell's further Reflections on His life and Work" (dated May 2, 2025), I reflected deeply on my life and work. In the present OEN article, I now claim that I am a hypomanic personality type person -- and that the Canadian University of Toronto media ecology scholar also was a hypomanic personality type person.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) May 15, 2025: I contributed my first OEN article in October 2009. Over the years, I have contributed 670 OEN articles.

In my recent OEN article titled "Thomas J. Farrell's 'Top 20' OEN Articles, and Walter J. Ong's Thought" (dated April 22, 2025; viewed 517 times), I listed my top 20 OEN articles based on the number of times each of them was viewed:

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As the number of times each of my "Top 20" OEN articles was viewed, I am not a superstar at OEN. But I have been a steady OEN contributor over the years since October 2009.

Over the years that I have been contributing articles at OEN, I have from time to time contributed OEN articles about Ong's media ecology thought. If you listen with your heart to my various OEN articles about Ong's media ecology thought, you will hear me singing Ong's praises.

See, for example, my somewhat lengthy OEN article "Walter J. Ong's Philosophical Thought" (dated September 20, 2020):

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Now, in recent months, certain of my OEN articles have followed certain threads: (1) one thread about porn and pornstars; (2) a second thread about the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity in our Western cultural history; and (3) a third thread about me and my life.

In the present 2,679-word OEN article, I plan to write something more specific here about me and my life than what I have written previously about me and my life in my other 670 OEN articles - and I also plan to say something here about a new 2025 book about, in part, Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980; Ph.D. in English, Cambridge University, 1943). Young Marshall McLuhan taught English at Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in the City of St. Louis, Missouri (USA) from 1937 to 1944, during which time he continued to work on his 1943 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation about the English Renaissance writer and playwright Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) and the history of the verbal arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic (also known as dialectic).

As part of young Walter Ong's Jesuit formation, he was sent to Saint Louis University for graduate studies in philosophy and English, when young Marshall McLuhan was teaching English there. Young Marshall McLuhan served as the director of young Walter Ong's Master's thesis on sprung rhythm in the recently posthumously published poetry of the Victorian Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). Subsequently, Ong's Master's thesis, slightly revised, was published in a volume of essays about Hopkins' poetry by Jesuits. In 2002, Ong's slightly revised Master's thesis was reprinted as "Hopkins' Sprung Rhythm and the Life of English Poetry" in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Hampton Press, 2002, pp. 111-174).

However, for a critique of Ong's account of Hopkins' sprung rhythm, see James I. Wimsatt's 2006 book Hopkins's Poetics of Speech Sound: Sprung Rhythm, Lettering, Inscape (University of Toronto Press).

In any event, McLuhan's 1943 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation was published posthumously unrevised but with an editorial apparatus as the book titled The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time, edited by W. Terrence Gordon (Gingko Press, 2006).

MY OEN THREAD ABOUT PORN AND PORNSTARS

"Texas' War on Porn, and Robert Moore's Theory of the Archetypes of Maturity" (dated December 6, 2024; viewed 833 times):

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"On Interpreting the Ubiquitous Mom-Son Porn on the Internet" (dated December 19, 2024; viewed 1,364 times):

https;//www.opednews.com/articles/On-Interpreting-the Ubiqui-Carl-Jung_Internet_Internet_Pornography-241219-838.html

"Some Personal Reflections About Porn" (dated January 2, 2025; viewed 1,287 times):

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"Some Further Reflections about Cory Chase and about Donald Trump" (dated January 10, 2025):

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"Some Deeply Personal Reflections About Certain Pornstars" (dated January 29, 2025):

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"Thomas J. Farrell's Further Reflections on His Life and Work" (dated May 2, 2025; viewed 788 times as of May 15, 2025; in which I mention the prolific energetic American pornstar Cory Chase by name 117 times):

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MY OEN THREAD ABOUT THE TRAGIC ANTI-BODY HERITAGE OF CHRISTIANITY

In my recent OEN articles, I have reflected on the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity.

I first explicitly identified the anti-body heritage of Christianity in my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word 665th OEN article "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025; viewed 1,804 times as of May 15, 2025), in which I referred to the now-retired American pornstar Mandy Flores by name 250 times:

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No doubt OEN readers would agree with my characterizing this OEN article as wide-ranging just on the grounds that I somehow go from discussing President Trump's foreign policy to mentioning the now-retired American pornstar Mandy Flores by name 250 times in the same 28,800-word OEN article - along with certain other topics as well, including the topic of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity.

Now, prior to publishing my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word OEN article dated March 24, 2025, I previously published two other OEN articles that prepared the way for me to name the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity as the primary culprit in our Western cultural history in my 28,800-word OEN article dated March 24, 2025:

"Philip Shenon on the Last Seven Popes" (dated March 11, 2025; viewed 456 times):

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"Robert Moore on Optimal Human Psychological Development" (dated September 17, 2024; viewed 1,098 times):

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Now, in my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word 665th article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025; viewed 1,804 times), I first explicitly identified the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity:

"Thomas J. Farrell's Encore on the Tragic Anti-Body Heritage of Christianity" (dated April 29, 2025; viewed 919 times):

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MY OEN THREAD ABOUT ME AND MY LIFE

"Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman" (dated September 3, 2024; viewed 1,572 times):

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"Thomas J. Farrell's Encore on Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman" (dated September 30, 2024; viewed 1,013 times):

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"Some Personal Reflections About Porn" (dated January 2, 2025; viewed 1,287 times):

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"Some Deeply Personal Reflections About My Life, and About Certain Pornstars" (dated January 29, 2025; viewed 873 times):

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"Thomas J. Farrell's Further Reflections on His Life and Work" (dated May 2, 2025; views 788 times as of May 15, 2025):

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Now, if you listen with your heart to my various OEN articles that I have just listed here, you will hear me singing someone's praises.

I sing someone's praises as my way of expressing my admiration for something that person said or did - and my love for that person and whatever he or she said or did.

For me, when I sine someone's praises, there is no separating of the dancer from the dance - of the performer from the performance.

Now, as you can see, in two of my OEN articles just listed, I have mentioned the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary and the Jungian theory that he advanced about the eight archetypes of maturity and their sixteen accompanying bipolar "shadow" forms. With Douglas Gillette as his co-author, Moore published five books about the four masculine archetypes of maturity and their accompanying eight "shadow" forms in the male psyche:

(1) King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (HarperSanFranciso/ HarperCollins);

(2) The King Within: Accessing the King [Archetype] in the Male Psyche, revised and expanded edition (Exploration Press, 2006; orig. ed., 1992a);

(3) The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (William Morrow, 1992b);

(4) The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (William Morrow, 1993a);

(5) The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (William Morrow, 1993b).

Now, after I posted my OEN article "Thomas J. Farrell's Further Reflections on His Life and Work" (dated May 2, 2025), I read two books about two Canadian scholars at the University of Toronto: (1) Edward A. Comor's new 2025 book titled W. T. Easterbrook: Harold Innis's Final Course (Peter Lang); and (2) Tom Cooper's new 2025 book Wisdom Weavers: The Lives and Thought of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan (Connected Editions).

Both Harold Innis (1894-1952) and Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) taught at the University of Toronto. Innis and McLuhan are the co-founders of what is known as the Toronto School of Media Ecology, which also includes Eric A. Havelock (who did teach at the University of Toronto for a number of years) and Walter J. Ong (who did not teach at the University of Toronto, but who was a graduate student of young Marshall McLuhan's when he taught English at Saint Louis University from 1937 to 1944).

In my adult lifetime, I have devoted a considerable amount of my time and energy over the years to writing about both Havelock and Ong.

Now, in the present OEN article, as a follow up to my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 12,900-word OEN article "Thomas J. Farrell's Further Reflections on His Life and Work" (dated May 5, 2025; viewed 788 times as of May 15, 2025), in which I mention the prolific energetic American pornstar Cory Chase by name 117 times, I now want to turn to saying something further about myself as the author of these and other various OEN articles: I am a hypomanic personality type person. Let me explain what I mean by this by starting with certain personal information about myself. Let me now explain what I mean by this.

As I have explained in certain other OEN articles of mine, I had a mental breakdown in late February 1974. I was hospitalized in the psychiatric hospital at the Saint Louis University Medical Center for about a week to ten days in late February and into early March 1974. (I turned 30 years old on March 17, 1974.)

In any event, I was diagnosed with having had a hypomanic episode, and I was put on lithium carbonate at 300mg. a day. I continued taking 300mg. of lithium carbonate a day until 1979, when my psychiatrist in St. Louis talked me into stop taking lithium carbonate daily with the argument that nobody knows the long-term effect of taking lithium carbonate.

Lithium carbonate is a salt compound. Up to the time when psychiatrists discovered that lithium carbonate was an effective medication for a hypomanic episode, there was no effective medication for a hypomanic episode. As a result, people who experienced a hypomanic episode died from exhaustion.

For further information about mania, see the Wikipedia entry on "Mania":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania

Now, in the days leading up to my mental breakdown and hospitalization in late February 1974, I was feeling mildly euphoric, and I was sleeping less than four hours a night. No doubt you can readily imagine how sleeping less than four hours a night could over time contribute to physical exhaustion and death. In any event, because nobody understood why lithium carbonate was an effective medication, it was referred to as a miracle drug.

Now, flash forward in my life to late August and early September 2024 when I enjoyed watching the busty (37") young Lynda Carter perform in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume as I watched the DVD version of the 1970s Wonder Woman television series on the big-screen television in the living room of my home in Duluth, Minnesota. I fell in love with young Lynda Carter's gloriously beautiful body. As a result of falling in love with young Lynda Carter's gloriously beautiful body, I felt mildly euphoric for ten weeks in the fall of 2024. However, after about ten weeks of feeling mildly euphoric in the fall of 2024, I stopped feeling mildly euphoric a few days before the presidential election om November 5, 2024. I have not felt mildly euphoric since November 2024.

Now, because feeling mildly euphoric for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024 reminded me of feeling mildly euphoric for days before my mental breakdown and hospitalization in late February 1974, I considered the possibility that I might experience a second hypomanic episode and be hospitalized a second time. But that did not happen. In the fall of 2024, I regularly slept for seven to eight hours a night. I just went around feeling mildly euphoric every waking moment of every day for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024. You might want to note my OEN articles that I listed above that I published in September and October 2024.

Now, years earlier, in 2005, I was surprised to find two new books about hypomanic behavior: (1) John D. Gartner's The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness (And a Lot of) Success in America (Simon & Schuster); and (2) Peter C. Whybrow's American Mania: When More Is Not Enough (W. W. Norton and Company).

Several years later, I came across Nassar Ghaemi's similar book titled A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness (Penguin Press, 2011).

In effect, all three of these authors claim that there is a hypomanic personality type person.

All three authors discuss both President John J. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as widely known examples of hypomanic personality type persons.

I am a hypomanic personality type person. Are you a hypomanic personality type person, too?

In the words that Gartner uses in the long subtitle of his book, I have a little hypomanic craziness about me during every waking hour of the day. In plain English, hypomanic personal type persons are high-energy persons.

Now, Tom Cooper's Chapter 2: "The Unknown Marshall McLuhan" in his new 660-age 2025 book Wisdom Weavers (pp. 40-71) prompted me to reflect on and then conclude that Marshall McLuhan was a hypomanic personality type person also.

Now, you may think that I was just being poetic and fanciful when I said that if you listened to certain OEN articles of mine over the years with your heart, you would hear me singing someone's praises.

Well, in my judgment, Tom Cooper listened to both McLuhan and Innis with his heart, and he heard both Innis and McLuhan singing.

With respect to McLuhan, I would draw your attention especially to Tom Cooper's two subsections titled "Appreciation and Encyclopedism" (pp. 43-44) and "Seeing All Things New" (pp. 45-46) in Chapter 2: "The Unknown Marshall McLuhan" in his new 660-page book Wisdom Weavers.

Now, the quality that Cooper refers to as McLuhan's "Encyclopedism" is not a quality that is often singled out for praise. However, I would draw your attention here to the classicist Eric A. Havelock's landmark 1963 book Preface to Plato (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). In it, Havelock describes the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, as poetic encyclopedias (for specific page references, see the "Index," p. 319). In any event, the quality of "Encyclopedism" that Cooper attributes to McLuhan calls to mind the quality that Havelock repeatedly refers to each Homeric epics as poetic encyclopedia.

Now, I want to go back to the quality of "Appreciation" that Cooper also attributed to McLuhan. Regardless of what McLuhan might happen to be writing about in any given instance, Cooper sees all of McLuhan's published writings as having the quality of appreciation. What a magnificently generous characterization of McLuhan's writings!

But wait a minute! Cooper subsequently characterizes McLuhan as "Seeing All Things New"!

Oh my God, another magnificently generous characterization of McLuhan!

Now, in the spirit of 2 + 2 = 4, I want to combine Cooper's first magnificently generous characterization of McLuhan's writings with Cooper's second magnificently generous characterization of McLuhan as a person who "Sees All Things New."

Thus, "Appreciation" + "Sees All Things New" = Marshall McLuhan of the University of Toronto, the co-founder with Harold Innis of the Toronto School of Media Ecology.

Now, Cooper's new 660-page 2025 book Wisdom Weavers: The Lives and Thought of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan is the revised and updated version of his 1979 doctoral thesis at the University of Toronto - where Innis and McLuhan taught for years.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview