23 December 2004
Howdy all and happy holidays,
I know that for some of you it’s better put … Happy Holi-daze … because this time of year really sets some people up for being dazed and confused for sure. The mere act of coming into proximity with so many others can be reason enough for some people to become unsettled in themselves.
Yet what’s more interesting can be the lack of awareness some people have with their “unsettledness� … how unaware they are of themselves in essence. The crux of where I’ve put my attention for the last fifteen years almost exclusively … and for the fifteen prior to that as I remembered to do so … has been on the awareness of my own ontological condition … or who I am being and becoming.
I became interested in this idea by accident … and then it became compelling for me. A singular idea that has compelled me along a trajectory leading endlessly back to myself … so that I could enter the world from the center of myself … a loop opening endlessly from myself into myself … referring my back again to the world. This journey holds me mesmerized … fascinated by the possibilities it contains and suggests. This form of consideration has led be to the consideration of the teleological form as well. The pull of the future that hasn’t happened yet as being more compelling than any push of the past could possibly be in organizing us to become ourselves.
What’s maybe becoming most interesting to me as I continue this journey myself has been the awareness of what shows up being the greatest reference of all to what is most true of me. If I extend this thinking beyond myself I find that those who show up in reference to me are the most telling of all of who I’ve become and who I’m becoming. I see this most evidentially in the relationships I see people having … the desire to pursue pleasure to satisfy the angst of their deep ontological longing … the lack of knowing themselves to be who they are referring them outwards to seek someone who will provide what they find most missing in themselves.
This is a dichotomy of the greatest proportions. To think that one can satisfy what is missing from oneself by finding something contained by other may be the greatest delusion we foist upon ourselves. Then of course we can find the form of who as a recurring pattern in the observation of ourselves and of other. For instance someone who chooses to pursue and to engage with someone who would let them overrule and control them tells much about the person who is controlling. A pattern of abuse designed to lead to self-satisfaction and pleasure that instead leaves only a greater urgency for satisfaction than was present before any such encounter. Then there would be the inverse of that, the person who opens themselves to being controlled, being overruled and what they receive for allowing this abuse of themselves. A sense of self-satisfaction that they are the victim, satisfying others while in fact being the more controlling, more manipulative of the pair. These observations pan out every time, without exception, without fail … don’t you think?
When you see this kind of interaction you know without exception that there must be something profound missing in the individual who allows themselves to become engaged in such an affair. A lack of self-esteem of significant proportions … significant enough to create an urgency of satisfying the impulse to be known by others as significant without the willingness or acceptance required to become who they are becoming before announcing themselves as being such. This will self-satisfying urgency only feeds the system to become every more dependent on this feedback loop of intermittent release … intermittent satisfaction … with the underlying pattern growing stronger in every revolution of the wheel. This pattern reminds me of the pattern of the wheel of karma … those who cannot or will not pay the dues now … of letting life unfold in reference to that which is greater than self … who demand an urgent satisfaction of their immediate desires … regardless of the cost to them or others … build an ever deepening karmic debt.
Yet there must be a way beyond this cycle of self-indulgence, the way of the warrior, as some paths refer to it. The warrior represents the individual who has taken up the challenge to arm themselves with awareness … without regard to the world’s opinion … or the seduction of the challenge of acceptance. Yet within this tradition the warrior also holds the position of lover as well. The warrior represents the greatest sacrifice of all … the sacrifice of self to that which is greater than self … to becoming transparent to all desire … especially the desire to reward oneself with the immediate pleasure at the price of the future quenching of all desire.
This season seems a time most appropriate to remind myself of the way of the warrior … the way of light … illuminating the path before myself with awareness … and a releasing of all obligation to the world … and most especially of the world to me. This season beckons to me to release my sense of demand … my sense of desire … my sense of being pleasured … to a greater sense of opening myself completely to the transparency of being present in all things. In this way as I continue letting go into this transparency … I find myself being swallowed whole by the deepest satisfaction imaginable of needing … or even wanting … nothing at all … nothing beyond this moment ... and then “like this� … finding myself ready to share this moment in fullness with other.
I will spend the next few days engaging with family and friends … some of who will be dazed by the suggestions and seductions of the season … from this position of transparency … and I will point again and again for them to themselves … referring to the center that contains the world.
My gift this year will be the undazing of these days at the end of this year for some of those who have already glazed over I'm sure.
I wish you all the very best during this holiday season … and in the upcoming New Year … may there be nothing you want … nor anything you can find lacking.
Joseph
2 Days Before Christmas … in NJ
Thursday, December 23
Wednesday, December 1
Dancin' in the Rain
Hello again fellow blogers … and blogees,
It’s a rainy day in Jersey (New Jersey that is …) … a perfect day for contemplation … for those people who do that sort of thing I guess … but not too many of them live in New Jersey. You see if you live in New Jersey … and have since you’ve been a child, and now you’re an adult you’ve demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are among the hardiest of the human species. The state in addition to being ‘the’ most densely populated state in the United States is also the state with the greatest risk of environmentally related disease … maybe on the planet. Our “forefathers� have been working at destroying the environment of NJ for over two hundred years in the name of capitalism, free market and the pursuit of money. A few years ago a governor of the state decided to begin doing something about our local environment and she set aside some significant portions of the state, which had escaped the capitalist destruction of the environment in the pursuit of money. Now don’t get me wrong New Jersey has always had absolutely unspoiled, beautiful parcels of wilderness … we just don’t’ show these to the tourists and visitors … we try to keep you folks on the Turnpike … of as some here like to refer to it “the Industrial Highway to a Plethora of Interesting and Unique Fragrance Experiences� … we really don’t want anyone to come to know why we continue to choose to live here and add to our already burgeoning population. But the foreigners keep coming anyway … especially the Portuguese, Japanese, Koreans, and those damned Hispanics … all of who have added to the flavor, diversity and success of the state immeasurably … don’t you all just hate when those foreigners show up … become a stabilizing aspect in an otherwise downtrodden community … show that immigrant zeal … find steady jobs or worst start new businesses … and within one generation prove the myth of American abundance by going from being “working poor� to “working rich� … and then to add insult to injury send their kids to Ivy League schools! Then they become citizens and vote … usually for others who support the continuance of the American Dream that brought them here in the first place … a dream of freedom and the opportunity to pursue success for oneself and one’s family … and there goes the population again!!!
OH! Sorry for getting lost there and off track … NJ residents and making it to adulthood. So while the environment is getting better, we’re still probably the world capital of carcinogens. If you’ve lived here and made it to adulthood you are among the “cockroach� sub-species of human. Anyone making it to adulthood in NJ without having a congenital or major degenerative or immune response disease is definitely a human equivalent of the cockroach … we could survive a direct nuclear strike … the heat doesn’t get to us … remember NJ has 105 degree Fahrenheit and 80 percent humidity days in the summer as normal … and -10 degree Fahrenheit and 0 percent humidity days in the winter … and everything in between as well … we get hit with hurricanes, tornadoes and on occasion we’ve even had earthquakes … floods are ‘normal’ in some parts of the state … and if you count the “Great Swamp� and the “Pine Barrens� you’ve got parcels of land where you can’t even walk for fear of getting sucking into some bottomless morass … and that’s not even bringing up the “Jersey Devil!� So contemplation … who got the time for that!!!
When you live with so much possibility for life coming up around you, in so many different ways you get on with your life … you develop an attitude about ‘getting’ to it� and ‘makin’ it happen� … a little rain notwithstanding … F—K ALL! we go out in t-shirts in hurricanes for kicks! So here I am on this rainy NJ morning with far too little time left to spend in contemplation … one of my favorite aphorisms for life is, “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.� This sums up one aspect of the “Jersey Attitude� It also provokes a response to action … as opposed to passivity. When you’re making something happen there’s always data for the system. As long as you just keep it being data you can continue to choose your responses. You step outside of pattern … and you have a sense of being able to hold the frame, regardless of the result. This is the ultimate position of “no failure … only feedback� … literally.
One of the first things we teach in the MythoSelf Process is to hold information in and from the environment as data … i.e.: don’t personalize what’s not about you … even when it’s aimed at you. That is, even when someone is pointing their output at you, remember it’s first and foremost more about them then about you. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to track ‘logical chains� of events (historically these are ‘cause and effect’ relationships … teleologically these are ‘acausal/non-linear’ relationships, a function on holding INTENT). When you act in the world you set up a pattern of response … noticing what response you get … and how it matches up with what you’ve set up as your teleological project … your linkage of ‘desire’ and ‘expectation’, where you’ve collapsed them into a singularity … and then adjust in relation to that you’ve begun to build the recursive loop of resource learning … E.g.: knowledge-skill-action-experience-knowledge-skill-action-experience …
Where most people get lost is in first making personal what isn’t … and then neither tracking nor learning from their experience. While I’d be the first to agree that “experience is the best teacher� I also add that she is the most harsh and unforgiving as well. It’s a “one time learning model� of development when you call upon experience to be your guide and teacher. She’s great at it … giving … clever … direct … unambiguous … and sometimes deadly … accurate … but does not suffer fools gladly. I recommend her for the job without hesitation or restraint.
This is the pattern of oscillation in linking up the ‘structural’ and ‘functional’ forms. Creating an overlap of the loops of ‘structural wellformedness’ and functional wellformedness’ in action … the pattern of INTENT … and within the overlap and oscillation the pattern reinforces itself … no downtime in the system … just a building to the next level of critical mass necessary for the system to evolve beyond its present boundary conditions. This critical mass … the ability to hold the creative tension in the system at higher and higher levels … levels of intensity … energy … unknowing … discomfort … readiness … will … willingness … well you get the point. The system not only has to be primed, but also capable of hold the form of the next level … which isn’t possible at the level you’re currently holding. In order to get to the next level you’d have to complete this level to the point of letting it go completely … then the pattern of the form that isn’t present yet would have prepared the container to receive it when it is and you are.
We’ll just some random, running thoughts on a rainy Jersey morning … now it’s time to go out and do something.
That’s all until next time …
Joseph
1 December 2004
Rainy, Ridgewood, NJ, USA
It’s a rainy day in Jersey (New Jersey that is …) … a perfect day for contemplation … for those people who do that sort of thing I guess … but not too many of them live in New Jersey. You see if you live in New Jersey … and have since you’ve been a child, and now you’re an adult you’ve demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are among the hardiest of the human species. The state in addition to being ‘the’ most densely populated state in the United States is also the state with the greatest risk of environmentally related disease … maybe on the planet. Our “forefathers� have been working at destroying the environment of NJ for over two hundred years in the name of capitalism, free market and the pursuit of money. A few years ago a governor of the state decided to begin doing something about our local environment and she set aside some significant portions of the state, which had escaped the capitalist destruction of the environment in the pursuit of money. Now don’t get me wrong New Jersey has always had absolutely unspoiled, beautiful parcels of wilderness … we just don’t’ show these to the tourists and visitors … we try to keep you folks on the Turnpike … of as some here like to refer to it “the Industrial Highway to a Plethora of Interesting and Unique Fragrance Experiences� … we really don’t want anyone to come to know why we continue to choose to live here and add to our already burgeoning population. But the foreigners keep coming anyway … especially the Portuguese, Japanese, Koreans, and those damned Hispanics … all of who have added to the flavor, diversity and success of the state immeasurably … don’t you all just hate when those foreigners show up … become a stabilizing aspect in an otherwise downtrodden community … show that immigrant zeal … find steady jobs or worst start new businesses … and within one generation prove the myth of American abundance by going from being “working poor� to “working rich� … and then to add insult to injury send their kids to Ivy League schools! Then they become citizens and vote … usually for others who support the continuance of the American Dream that brought them here in the first place … a dream of freedom and the opportunity to pursue success for oneself and one’s family … and there goes the population again!!!
OH! Sorry for getting lost there and off track … NJ residents and making it to adulthood. So while the environment is getting better, we’re still probably the world capital of carcinogens. If you’ve lived here and made it to adulthood you are among the “cockroach� sub-species of human. Anyone making it to adulthood in NJ without having a congenital or major degenerative or immune response disease is definitely a human equivalent of the cockroach … we could survive a direct nuclear strike … the heat doesn’t get to us … remember NJ has 105 degree Fahrenheit and 80 percent humidity days in the summer as normal … and -10 degree Fahrenheit and 0 percent humidity days in the winter … and everything in between as well … we get hit with hurricanes, tornadoes and on occasion we’ve even had earthquakes … floods are ‘normal’ in some parts of the state … and if you count the “Great Swamp� and the “Pine Barrens� you’ve got parcels of land where you can’t even walk for fear of getting sucking into some bottomless morass … and that’s not even bringing up the “Jersey Devil!� So contemplation … who got the time for that!!!
When you live with so much possibility for life coming up around you, in so many different ways you get on with your life … you develop an attitude about ‘getting’ to it� and ‘makin’ it happen� … a little rain notwithstanding … F—K ALL! we go out in t-shirts in hurricanes for kicks! So here I am on this rainy NJ morning with far too little time left to spend in contemplation … one of my favorite aphorisms for life is, “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.� This sums up one aspect of the “Jersey Attitude� It also provokes a response to action … as opposed to passivity. When you’re making something happen there’s always data for the system. As long as you just keep it being data you can continue to choose your responses. You step outside of pattern … and you have a sense of being able to hold the frame, regardless of the result. This is the ultimate position of “no failure … only feedback� … literally.
One of the first things we teach in the MythoSelf Process is to hold information in and from the environment as data … i.e.: don’t personalize what’s not about you … even when it’s aimed at you. That is, even when someone is pointing their output at you, remember it’s first and foremost more about them then about you. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to track ‘logical chains� of events (historically these are ‘cause and effect’ relationships … teleologically these are ‘acausal/non-linear’ relationships, a function on holding INTENT). When you act in the world you set up a pattern of response … noticing what response you get … and how it matches up with what you’ve set up as your teleological project … your linkage of ‘desire’ and ‘expectation’, where you’ve collapsed them into a singularity … and then adjust in relation to that you’ve begun to build the recursive loop of resource learning … E.g.: knowledge-skill-action-experience-knowledge-skill-action-experience …
Where most people get lost is in first making personal what isn’t … and then neither tracking nor learning from their experience. While I’d be the first to agree that “experience is the best teacher� I also add that she is the most harsh and unforgiving as well. It’s a “one time learning model� of development when you call upon experience to be your guide and teacher. She’s great at it … giving … clever … direct … unambiguous … and sometimes deadly … accurate … but does not suffer fools gladly. I recommend her for the job without hesitation or restraint.
This is the pattern of oscillation in linking up the ‘structural’ and ‘functional’ forms. Creating an overlap of the loops of ‘structural wellformedness’ and functional wellformedness’ in action … the pattern of INTENT … and within the overlap and oscillation the pattern reinforces itself … no downtime in the system … just a building to the next level of critical mass necessary for the system to evolve beyond its present boundary conditions. This critical mass … the ability to hold the creative tension in the system at higher and higher levels … levels of intensity … energy … unknowing … discomfort … readiness … will … willingness … well you get the point. The system not only has to be primed, but also capable of hold the form of the next level … which isn’t possible at the level you’re currently holding. In order to get to the next level you’d have to complete this level to the point of letting it go completely … then the pattern of the form that isn’t present yet would have prepared the container to receive it when it is and you are.
We’ll just some random, running thoughts on a rainy Jersey morning … now it’s time to go out and do something.
That’s all until next time …
Joseph
1 December 2004
Rainy, Ridgewood, NJ, USA
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)