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
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2 comments:
I originally came across the phrase 'it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission' in the context of computer programming. It describes an methodology, an attitude even, distinct from the 'defensive' style of programming, where you check that each operation is valid, either before you attempt to perform it, or afterwards. When everything has to be checked like this, it's easy to get lost in the maze of twisty program flows, all alike. With the 'EAFP' features, the main thrust of the program is the one you intend to occur... if something outside the ordinary, exceptional, occurs, you are informed about it and take remedial action accordingly. So you clean up after yourself rather than worrying about whether there are going to be stains beforehand.
As Ms. Frizzle says on the Magic School Bus - "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy". No surprise that the language I'm thinking of (python: http://www.python.org, and powering many a website) is described by many as 'powerful', 'expressive', 'extensible', and 'fun'...
(Jon Nicoll)
I originally came across the phrase 'it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission' in the context of computer programming. It describes an methodology, an attitude even, distinct from the 'defensive' style of programming, where you check that each operation is valid, either before you attempt to perform it, or afterwards. When everything has to be checked like this, it's easy to get lost in the maze of twisty program flows, all alike. With the 'EAFP' features, the main thrust of the program is the one you intend to occur... if something outside the ordinary, exceptional, occurs, you are informed about it and take remedial action accordingly. So you clean up after yourself rather than worrying about whether there are going to be stains beforehand.
As Ms. Frizzle says on the Magic School Bus - "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy". No surprise that the language I'm thinking of (python: http://www.python.org, and powering many a website) is described by many as 'powerful', 'expressive', 'extensible', and 'fun'...
(Jon Nicoll)
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