I have been actively paying attention for more than five decades. This has been both a joy and a trial, a blessing and a curse. Frequently, I find information that has laid dormant for years, enamoring my mind, informing new growth and enlightening me about diverse subjects that have, seemingly, nothing to do with the past experiences or learning. In real time, the complex web of ideas that inform my moments flow with immediacy even though the ideas that my thoughts are based on may be very old. Over eighteen thousand days have rushed past my organism and some of the most important things that I have learned over all of that time were the things I learned first. what has accrued since those early days is what we call experience.
Exploring the idea that our conception of time and space are far more malleable than we have been led to believe. We are, as a civilization, experiencing a decrease in what we thought space was. This very post reaches out across time and space to strike a resonant chord with whoever reads it, whenever they do and wherever they may be. This is the same sort of timeless quality that the earliest cave drawings were adept at getting to. The basic shape of an idea that needs no process to decode. An event that touches our soul is experiential and when we seek to encapsulate that event with words, it can lose detail. Even if we get tot he point of sharing an experience, we will still bring our own filters and presuppositions with us to the event.
It is ironic that we hear and say many things about seeing things from a distance, or with the critical judgement of time, even that revenge is best served cold, and we say that time can heal all wounds, yet we often base our memories on the same ideas that we had at that far away moment. many of our traumatic experiences are inter-generational. It seems that our parents bigotry, hatred and ideas are able to capture our imagination and influence our thinking whether we want it to or not. If we really can learn from our experiences, it seems to me that we would be far further along our evolutionary path.
writing with the immediacy of most experiences is difficult because mere words do not affect our limbic system the same way that direct experience does. If I were to write about how, on my Great Lakes Awareness Project (bike ride around the Great Lakes) I was able to draft an RV down the side of a mountain, approaching speeds of sixty miles per hour, it might make people think that I was crazy, or that I was just half an inch of rubber away from near certain death, but the adrenaline certainly would not flow, giving you the timeless feeling of falling down a thousand feet in just a minute, ttrapped in the low pressure vortex of the slipstream. your hair would not feel tousseled, your thoughts would not clear and your awareness would probably not be turned up like an old Hi-fi system, feeling each pebble in the tarmack as it vibrated the handlebars. The bumper stickers that I would describe could not take on the vibrancy of color and the fascination of geography that they did for me and even if I could adequately describe the event, you8 could not feel the pillow of air that hit me when I pulled out of the slipstream just to see what that would feel like. decelerating from sisty miles per hour to thirty instantly is something only a few people have ever felt. I can speak of an experience, but until you are actually in that place, doing that same thing, elements of the experience will remain a mystery.
Likewise, the experience of living for more than fifty years from my unique perspective, only having a finite number of words to describe my experiences and insights, as well as the lessons that have brought me a certain understanding of what all of those experiences mean would be just as daunting to suss out and detail for you. I was one of the children who participated in anti-war protests in the sixties. There were those who proffered that I was exploited by my parents for "effect". In reality, I was experiencing living with a damaged, PTSD parent, who was either a sociopath before he went to war, or war made him into one. It didn't matter to me which was true, but the war was creating pain in my life, even though it was "overseas" in the minds of the hawks. I detested the term dove for what we were. We were people who understood that war is never an answer. My understanding of the military industrial complex has not changed significantly over the intervening years, but my awareness of just how damaging war is to humanity has been filled in and colored more fully, allowing me to see much greater detail.
When I was young, I said that there were no heroes in war and that the only people to get anything out of it were the ones who financially profit from the pain of others. Now, I know that in spite of the fact that the only freedoms that warriors have fought and died for are the freedom to exploit others that is granted to the oligarchs. The wealthy classes that have no responsibility for the pain and desolation that they foist upon the 99% will always receive the lion's share of the wealth and power that war can secure. The fighting, the dying and the disruption of war never affect the ruling classes in any significant way, but the benefits accrue to them disproportionally. however, tyhere are heroic events and people who are involved in war. Their sacrifices and risks are borne out of their humanity, their commitment to fellow human beings and their fighting is not for a far off ideal, but the immediacy of helping those they care about on the field of battle. These heroic events are notable in both their rarity and in the fact that they can often be seen as a futile attempt to run the gauntlet like the character played by Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves. whether they are committing suicide or acting heroically depends on the outcome. All soldiers, if confronted with warfare long enough will come to understand that survival of the fittest is for those who do not understand reality. survival of the luckiest is the actual overriding truth behind all of our lives.
In my experience, there have been tiny islands in the stream of consciousness. I occasionally pull myself up onto one and rest from the tumult, but the clarity that I have found comes from being immersed in experience, keeping my eyes open to what surrounds me and lifts me up. when I bob inevitably to the surface, I try to aim for the light and fill my lungs completely with what might possibly be my last breath of air, but the calm pools that slowly draw me into great arcs are only temporary respite from living in the flow. In my process, I try to let go rather than clinging to the stumps and logs that float past me. In my line of work we say, "I will rest when I'm dead." and this is in a sense the mantra of all who seek experience. I heard a young punk say once, and I understood her meaning, even feeling pain is better than feeling nothing, at least one knows they are alive. In the end, I am happier having lived through some trauma and difficulty, it helps me remember what not to do and informs my gratitiude by reminding me that things could be a heck of a lot worse.
The most troubling thing for any parent is knowing that we cannot protect our children from inevitable hurts, challenges and difficulties, but we can also rest assured that if we give them all that we have to give, they will, perhaps be able to use their unique creativity, fortitude and strength to find their path through the river of life and if they are lucky, they will find an island to pull themselves up on when they are too weak or tired to tread water any more. We can each be islands in the stream, if we learn to love deeply, be still and offer support to those humans that we come in contact with.
Exploring the idea that our conception of time and space are far more malleable than we have been led to believe. We are, as a civilization, experiencing a decrease in what we thought space was. This very post reaches out across time and space to strike a resonant chord with whoever reads it, whenever they do and wherever they may be. This is the same sort of timeless quality that the earliest cave drawings were adept at getting to. The basic shape of an idea that needs no process to decode. An event that touches our soul is experiential and when we seek to encapsulate that event with words, it can lose detail. Even if we get tot he point of sharing an experience, we will still bring our own filters and presuppositions with us to the event.
It is ironic that we hear and say many things about seeing things from a distance, or with the critical judgement of time, even that revenge is best served cold, and we say that time can heal all wounds, yet we often base our memories on the same ideas that we had at that far away moment. many of our traumatic experiences are inter-generational. It seems that our parents bigotry, hatred and ideas are able to capture our imagination and influence our thinking whether we want it to or not. If we really can learn from our experiences, it seems to me that we would be far further along our evolutionary path.
writing with the immediacy of most experiences is difficult because mere words do not affect our limbic system the same way that direct experience does. If I were to write about how, on my Great Lakes Awareness Project (bike ride around the Great Lakes) I was able to draft an RV down the side of a mountain, approaching speeds of sixty miles per hour, it might make people think that I was crazy, or that I was just half an inch of rubber away from near certain death, but the adrenaline certainly would not flow, giving you the timeless feeling of falling down a thousand feet in just a minute, ttrapped in the low pressure vortex of the slipstream. your hair would not feel tousseled, your thoughts would not clear and your awareness would probably not be turned up like an old Hi-fi system, feeling each pebble in the tarmack as it vibrated the handlebars. The bumper stickers that I would describe could not take on the vibrancy of color and the fascination of geography that they did for me and even if I could adequately describe the event, you8 could not feel the pillow of air that hit me when I pulled out of the slipstream just to see what that would feel like. decelerating from sisty miles per hour to thirty instantly is something only a few people have ever felt. I can speak of an experience, but until you are actually in that place, doing that same thing, elements of the experience will remain a mystery.
Likewise, the experience of living for more than fifty years from my unique perspective, only having a finite number of words to describe my experiences and insights, as well as the lessons that have brought me a certain understanding of what all of those experiences mean would be just as daunting to suss out and detail for you. I was one of the children who participated in anti-war protests in the sixties. There were those who proffered that I was exploited by my parents for "effect". In reality, I was experiencing living with a damaged, PTSD parent, who was either a sociopath before he went to war, or war made him into one. It didn't matter to me which was true, but the war was creating pain in my life, even though it was "overseas" in the minds of the hawks. I detested the term dove for what we were. We were people who understood that war is never an answer. My understanding of the military industrial complex has not changed significantly over the intervening years, but my awareness of just how damaging war is to humanity has been filled in and colored more fully, allowing me to see much greater detail.
When I was young, I said that there were no heroes in war and that the only people to get anything out of it were the ones who financially profit from the pain of others. Now, I know that in spite of the fact that the only freedoms that warriors have fought and died for are the freedom to exploit others that is granted to the oligarchs. The wealthy classes that have no responsibility for the pain and desolation that they foist upon the 99% will always receive the lion's share of the wealth and power that war can secure. The fighting, the dying and the disruption of war never affect the ruling classes in any significant way, but the benefits accrue to them disproportionally. however, tyhere are heroic events and people who are involved in war. Their sacrifices and risks are borne out of their humanity, their commitment to fellow human beings and their fighting is not for a far off ideal, but the immediacy of helping those they care about on the field of battle. These heroic events are notable in both their rarity and in the fact that they can often be seen as a futile attempt to run the gauntlet like the character played by Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves. whether they are committing suicide or acting heroically depends on the outcome. All soldiers, if confronted with warfare long enough will come to understand that survival of the fittest is for those who do not understand reality. survival of the luckiest is the actual overriding truth behind all of our lives.
In my experience, there have been tiny islands in the stream of consciousness. I occasionally pull myself up onto one and rest from the tumult, but the clarity that I have found comes from being immersed in experience, keeping my eyes open to what surrounds me and lifts me up. when I bob inevitably to the surface, I try to aim for the light and fill my lungs completely with what might possibly be my last breath of air, but the calm pools that slowly draw me into great arcs are only temporary respite from living in the flow. In my process, I try to let go rather than clinging to the stumps and logs that float past me. In my line of work we say, "I will rest when I'm dead." and this is in a sense the mantra of all who seek experience. I heard a young punk say once, and I understood her meaning, even feeling pain is better than feeling nothing, at least one knows they are alive. In the end, I am happier having lived through some trauma and difficulty, it helps me remember what not to do and informs my gratitiude by reminding me that things could be a heck of a lot worse.
The most troubling thing for any parent is knowing that we cannot protect our children from inevitable hurts, challenges and difficulties, but we can also rest assured that if we give them all that we have to give, they will, perhaps be able to use their unique creativity, fortitude and strength to find their path through the river of life and if they are lucky, they will find an island to pull themselves up on when they are too weak or tired to tread water any more. We can each be islands in the stream, if we learn to love deeply, be still and offer support to those humans that we come in contact with.
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