A Pondering Quote

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. -William James

I remember this quote a bit differently. And I am not going to sully my smeared memory by googling the 'correct' version.

Our normal waking consciousness is but one type of consciousness. Whilst all about us, separated from us by the filmiest of veils lie many other forms of consciousness patiently waiting for us to awaken to them. -William James as remembered by my consciousness  

To me the meaning is clear - ordinary reality is not only just one of a myriad of ways of perceiving reality; it does in fact shape the reality we identify as ordinary or waking consciousness. Change your reality, change your perceptions of reality or change your perception of reality, change your actual reality. 

Astronomers now believe their are literally hundreds of thousands of potential earth-like planets circling stars near and far (mostly far). I would suggest that there are just as many realities circling each of us, we need only awaken to them. How to do that? How to experience those realities just out of your sight? 

Well, meditation comes to mind as a well traversed path. Drugs are clearly another (insert caveats here). But I think one preliminary step is almost a necessity, particularly if your end goal is enlightenment, nirvana, wisdom or growth. You need to honestly embrace the belief that those "filmiest of veils" exist and then examine them to see them for what they are. We construct the veils, the walls, the impediments to the multiverse of realities and, of course, only we can take them down. Step one - recognize your energetic funding of your own limited view of realities.

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in. -Mika

--
art by Thor Lange

Constructing a Personality

"I am just a bundle of reaction formation responses."

I don't know if I love my friends because they are my friends or if they are my friends because I love them. But I do know I love the wonderful things they say. So much laughter, learning and blog fodder.

Reaction formation refers to a coping mechanism (Freudian defense mechanism) by which we replace unacceptable or anxiety producing behaviors and emotions with their direct opposite. Or at least what is perceived to be the opposite. Different flip-sides for different folks as it were.

Of course, as with all psychological theory it all gets much more diffuse and complicated as applied to various personas and personalities. For instance, if you are reacting to a parent who is often angry then you might avoid anger yourself by overly compensating, being always agreeable, never oppositional. Perhaps trading one dysfunctional behavior for another. How then does someone express an emotion like anger when reacting to a pathological use of that same emotion in parents or peers?

Well fortunately we are not just a bundle of reaction formations. We really do have free will; we actually can break free of whatever traits our childhood imposed upon us. Our maturation allows us options other than reaction formation. Still buried down deep or not buried at all lurks the remanent of all we have been and might have been. All twisty and turny (psychological terms) yet changeable, malleable and unique.

All my friends are nearly normal and I love them for exactly those qualities.

It's All Your Fault!

The student section at Yost Hockey Arena in Ann Arbor is a raucous, some might say rude bunch. One of their favorite cheers comes after the Michigan squad scores a goal. They all stand and point at the visitor's goalie and chant:

"It's all your fault. It's all your fault. It's all your fault."

I was reminded of this recently when a friend had a fender bender. An expensive event when you carry a $1,000 deductible in a society where no auto repair is less than a grand. What was unnerving was listening to her on the phone with her insurance agent admitting it was her fault. Unfortunately she had said exactly those words to the other driver at the scene of the accident. Even in the description of the incident I overheard, I had doubts about her culpability. But, of course, the moral of the story is not that you should never admit guilt; nay, the object lesson is the mindset in life that it's all your fault.

My friend is one of those guilt-ridden personalities. You know those people who do guilt so well, so often and so quickly that there really is no room for anyone else to shoulder any part of the burden. I will not mention her heritage here, you are allowed to speculate. I will, however, say that upbringing is the key; with the true guilt focused directly on the parents.

Guilt is instilled at an early age, most personality traits are. What one has to wonder is why of all the gifts to give a child, a parent would select this one? The answer, of course, is that the adult is compensating for their own feelings by projecting them on their child. Some parents are wise enough to compensate by giving their child the opposite or positive referent to their own tortured soul. Others - not so much.

Moral of the story - At least 50% of the time, it really isn't your fault. Ponder that possibility and we'll work on lowering the number next session.

Hang In There

If you know anything about cats, you know this was not his first attempt to get into that hanging nest. You also know the first try did not end well. 

After the loud crash coming from the closet, you know there was a cat sitting on the floor next to a pile of pants and hangers saying - "I meant to do that, no really I just wanted to show you how unstable those hangers can be."

But not only are cats curious, they also can be persistent, that's his permanent bed now or at least until you notice and get a picture to put on the web. And just think all those slacks now have a nice even vertical fur crease on one leg.

I know the "Hang In There" slogan has prompted a lot of dangling photos, so rather than have you labor at finding them. I have given you what I think are some prime examples.

you knew there would be at least one more cat

betcha weren't expecting pandas

sometimes hangin' in there is not your best option

it would seem that frogs might dominate this category

see what I mean . . .

Gratuitous?

Quote Quagmire

Yesterday several news director felt it "newsworthy" and reportable that Frito-Lay was replacing a recyclable chip bag because of noise complaints from customer. I felt that really was not worthy of reportage until I came across another story about two different groups of cheerleaders, one group was complaining that their uniforms were too revealing -- the other, of course, felt their costumes were too modest, which led to this quotation:

"If nothing else, the two divergent pleas provide an intriguing case study for why establishing national cheerleading uniform standards might be justified."

Please allow for a moment to mull the concept that elected officials at some level might now be spending time, energy and potentially tax dollars pondering national cheerleading uniform standards. And if this comes to pass would the standards be the same throughout this great nation, making them uniform uniform standards?

This, of course, led me to my 'saved quotes' file. I offer these without comment for your appreciation, contemplation and derision:

On the contemplation of life: "Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice invariably says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."

On caring for oneself: "Health food may be good for the conscience, but Haagen Dazs taste a hell of a lot better."

On the difference between men and women: "If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base."

On life, dating and/or something else: "Sometimes it's barely worth chewing through the restraints."

On politics, the Tea Party and jihad: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."


On advice and wisdom: "Enjoy life, this is not a dress rehearsal."

Lay of the Last Minstrel

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
                   -Sir Walter Scott

A Prickly Nightingale

According to a recent biography, Florence Nightingale was "devout and unforgiving, inexhaustible and chronically unwell." What history remembers is that she fought against limitations imposed on her by her gender and launched what we now call the modern health care system. Apparently she also saw "earthly friendships as a hindrance on the path to true righteousness." Obviously a complicated and complicating woman. She is said to have been so driven that she worked two of her loyal followers to death. But what struck me about her life was not the details (didn't finish the book) but the concluding words of a short review:

"This is a terrific biography of a woman to whom we owe a great deal, but would perhaps never want to meet." Mark Bostridge

Got any nightingales in your life?

I have just one in mine right now, though in the past I have had many more, some as big a vultures. A nightingale is someone we admire, someone we share an abiding passion with or even someone we love but . . . someone who we just cannot tolerate being around. I know I have been a nightingale myself at times, in fact I remember being shouted at by an olde flame, she really could have used this newly coined association with nightingale; it would have saved her a lot of four letter approximations.

I truly admire individuals who can look beyond the befuddling, muddling, perplexing exterior to the heart of gold, silver, bronze or platinum. Those with that patience make great social workers and I think good mothers must have a modicum or more of such grace. Me -- well I am an advocate of the timely retreat or the cowardly pythonesque run away. But this time, with this nightingale, I am going to attempt to work through the gritty, abrasive interpersonal slime and see what might be on the other side. And I am going to start that soon, maybe next week or right after the solstice.

Kontemporary Koan

I do believe I heard the first utterance of an original koan today.

"She doesn't go anywhere for the first time."

Please forward any previous utterances or references to this linguistic gem in any and all variations, just in case I am challenged by the OED or Guinness. The source of this emanation is someone I have learned to keep one ear turned towards at all times. Today in the midst of a completely original and fanciful story arose that luscious line.

Sure it tangentially references by own favorite koan:

"You can never step into the same stream twice."

I assume we have all been there for the birth of pithy and insightful turns of phrase, right off the top of my head I remember this doublespeak:

"Just because you believe it, doesn't mean it's true.

Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't true."

And I was second hand to the first overhearing of the teeny-bopper record store observation:

"Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings."

When I grow up I want to be a linguist.

Things Are Not What They Seem

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, it would. You see?

--Alice

About fifteen years ago I was sharing living space with a couple. They had a fight. The first evening one of the couple told me their story and I noticed that she gave herself a lot of the responsibility for the acrimony. The next day I heard from the other partner. I was amazed that they both told nearly the same story. They both were honest about their troubles and took responsibility for their own stuff. Sounds healthy and perhaps it was, but they still broke up.

Earlier this week I heard the guy side of another couple's spat and just this morning I got the gal side. He was very critical of her behavior and nearly as insightful about his own failures relationship-wise. She, on the other hand, made it out to be all his fault and uttered not one word about her own collusion in what for me is a very dysfunctional coupling. I am sure they will stay together and maintain their mutual misery for many years.

The funny bone is not a bone, it is the spot where the ulnar nerve touches the humerus.

I had to do a bit of shopping this week. I really hated it. If something is not short-term consumable and perishable, I don't want it. I am so happy that all the furniture in the Berkeley apartment was already here when I moved in and won't go with me when I depart. I just don't like stuff, you might be say I have an aversion to possession. I may be developing an allergic reaction to consumerism.

A shooting star is not a star, it is a meteorite.

Yesterday, I was walking on Telegraph Ave. near the UC Berkeley campus when I noticed a scruffy and potentially high or drunk young man accosting passersby. Generally speaking such noxious persons tend to avoid me with their act because well ... I am a very large male. But when I got to his sidewalk stage he did indeed jump in my face and say: "Hey, what's up man?" 

In a low and threatening voice, I replied: "Move now!" He stepped aside immediately. Now you might think that was the reaction I expected, but it was not. Urban living has taught me that if such encounters take place, the instigator is beyond consideration for his own physical welfare and will generally persist, which escalates the situation. But that did not happen, he moved and I walked on.

On the way back home, on the other side of Telegraph, I noticed from a block away he was still playing his street theatre game but as came abreast of the scene, I also saw a young woman on my side of the avenue watching intently and taking notes. I walked up to her and said:

"Did you run your little project by a Human Subjects Committee?"

Her shocked expression told me I was right and this was some student experiment in urban culture.

"You didn't think of that did you?"

"Ah, no. But..."

"So you felt it was OK to annoy people and disrupt their pleasant Saturday here in Berkeley for your little .. what psychology project?"

"Urban Anthropology and I guess..."

"OK, here is what you do. Go over there and stop Ratzo before someone kicks his ass. Then write up your report and include our conversation. I assume the point of the assignment was for you to learn something about ethnographic research and if you think about it a bit, you should have gained some insight into the process and your professor will recognize that as well."

I walked away and she scurried across the street to pull the plug on the ill considered, over-staged data collection by artificial confrontation.

A piece of catgut is not from a cat, it is usually made from sheep.

Things are not what they seem, the first appearance deceives many. -- Phaedrus

Writing Inspiration

At least half of all writing involves just sitting and staring into space. Letting your brain out to hunt down ideas, bringing them back all warm and bloody between its teeth. - Warren Ellis

I consider myself a master of sitting and staring into space. I also have graduate training which includes wandering in the woods, vegetating on the veranda and a certificate in morning meditation disguised as sleeping in. Ideas come to me in all of these and many other places, however, I have yet to sink my metaphorical fangs into a single one of them. No, my process is more welcoming. I tend to nurture a new idea, giving it a proverbial saucer of milk.

I don't like to take notes unless the idea comes to me as I drift off at night. All writers abhor the thought of waking in the morning with no chance of recalling what the Pulitzer idea was they had the night before. But unless I am about to commune with Morpheus, I prefer to wander a bit, perhaps take a walk or at least pace about a snow bound house and let a new idea percolate and flourish.

Some new ideas are just scenes that may be part of a story yet undiscovered. All I really need is some time to lock the key pieces into memory where it can await the rest of the story from which it has prematurely erupted. There are times when a day or two later, I check my mental, paper or cyber notes to find what I have is not a scene from a story but, in fact, a blog post. Something like this one today.

Pondering Warren Ellis' rapine writing habits, I wonder if I might add a touch of the carnivore to my sitting and staring routine. Gives a whole new perspective to the practice of vegetating. Perhaps the tone and tenor is different when one ravages an idea.

---

photo credit: archives

Two Paths: A Time Worn Metaphor

No amount of Robert Frosting seems to be pointing me in either direction. Neither appears as the proverbial road less traveled. I see no elfin sprites lurking left or right. Neither hints at being either the high or the low road and if they did how would I know which is my direction? Today I shall resort to divination just short of reading entrails but somewhere beyond mere rational thought.

I suppose in the greater scheme of things this matters not so much, but for my immediate future both geographically and existentially... these are very different paths that diverge quite quickly in the forest of the near future.

I know, I know; what the hell are you talking about?

I have said often that I can write from anywhere on the road or not. The laptop travels better than I do, but my most recent story/book is actually set on the road of my current travels. Chapters and scenes are literally unfolding as I move about the country. Now, however, I have another possibility that would anchor me in Berkeley for some unforeseen chunk of time. While that conflicts with my travelogue muse, I can indeed write anywhere and as Amy has mentioned in her most recent brain dump blog, the Matusow screenplay is now back on the radar and perhaps even on final approach.

So I find myself at the fork in the road, where I have not been in a very long time, I wonder why there isn't a bench here for the weary traveler to rest and contemplate which path to tread next. And why does this big black cat keep walking on my keyboard? I did mention divination, didn't I.

[To avoid the google search that I have tweaked with my overmetaphorizing, here is the quote:

Two Roads Diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken]
----

photo credit: cashill.com

Quote Dump

Yes, I subscribe to Quotes of the Day, several variations in fact. And I save one every couple of weeks, knowing that it will make a great blog opening some day. But as the file grows larger and I use nary of single one of those brilliant bon mots, well why not a "Quote Dump"

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
            -- Steven Wright

When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained.
            -- Edward R. Murrow

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.
            -- Buckminster Fuller Bertrand Russell

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
            -- Paul Fix

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.
            -- Paul HarveyPaul Harvey

No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
            -- Lily Tomlin

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
            -- Umberto Eco

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
            -- Steven WeinbergSteven Weinberg

Some "Other" Political Thoughts

[Content Disclosure: 0% Poker; 23% Politics; 44% not so famous quotes; 37.2% a certain political theme; 13% Whimsy]

"The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority." -- Ralph W. Sockman

"I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times."-- Senator Everett Dirksen

"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common, they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit the views, which can be uncomfortable, if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."-- Doctor Who

"A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate." -- Mark B. Cohen

"Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least." --Robert Byrne

"A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." -- Robert Frost

"Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.-- David Brinkley

"If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircles us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake."
-- Mohandas Gandhi

"Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper."-- Larry Flynt

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."-- Winston Churchill

"We need a president who's fluent in at least one language."
-- Buck Henry

"It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it."-- Eugene Debs

"I didn't say I wouldn't go into ghetto areas. I've been in many of them and to some extent I would say this; if you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all." -- Spiro T. Agnew, Republican vice-president and prison inmate

"We'd all like to vote for the best man but he's never a candidate."
--Kin Hubbard.

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change." -- Dan Quayle

If you label something whimsy, is it still? --Me