A Christmas of Chaos and Ideas

So,
Lazarus slept in for Christmas morning, not getting up until about 10AM. Probably the last time that will happen for a while! Generally, I think he did really about as well as could've been expected. He quite liked going through his stocking and getting his present from Santa (a set of Doctor Who action figures). The opening of christmas presents proper, however, soon overwhelmed him. The chaos of that many excited people in one room is quite a bit to take for a guy who usually only sees his mom and dad in any given day. He still enjoyed things, but we had to periodically escape to the quiet upstairs and take a break. Still a couple of presents left to open for him. He just got beyond it after a while.

The sharing of ideas seemed to be a theme, perhaps mostly instigated by Sunshine and I who asked for bunches of technical books for christmas. We gave David a copy of SES which was well timed, as he asked me just last night were he should start with Wilber. Jeremy, prompted by our conversation last week gave me a copy of Mere Christianity which should prove interesting. It certainly seems as if a conversation of sorts may be starting.

Post intersubjective fireworks

It's late, about 20 minutes after midnight. Sunshine is awake because she's feeling ill. Dinner isn't going down so well with her or something. Meanwhile, I'm still up for a somewhat different reason, but in a way perhaps I too am trying to digest a spicy meal. (The process seems more pleasant for me. At least I'm not certain I want to know what the intellectual equivalent of hurling is.)

I had a very interesting discussion with my brother in law Jeremy about religion this evening. He is on a spiritual journey into deep Christian territory and it sounds as if he's been having some success. So we had a discussion about reality and scripture and (at least implicitly) about some integral ideas as well. All in all, it was quite a stimulating discussion, which I think left both participants with some new ideas to ponder. I'm not really sure that I can detail what those are. I could try, but I don't know that I've digested it fully. It certainly feels like I'm still digesting. My brain is sparking all over the place. I've been having some sparks already from my reading of the latest Wilber book, but the setting is certainly having an effect as well.

I do think I have a bit of a shadow regarding religion, and Christian religion in particular. I probably need to look into that. I've been keeping it mostly in check though, focusing past my xenophobia and attempting some embracing. Certainly have lots of opportunity this fortnight. Definitely in alien territory now. Not only am I surrounded by several seriously christian folks, but I'm hanging out in that oh-so-red state of Wyoming, which coming from liberal progressive London seems a bit like the far side of the moon. Living in the UK has definitely given me a new perspective on the US and Americanism.

Anyway, it will be interesting, and I think I am slowly evolving out of my fear of being different enough to engage with the alien and perhaps expand my rolodex of perspective. Certainly this is a pretty decent opportunity to do so as the in-laws are not only Christian (at least some of them) but are also intellectuals, which certainly does aid the conversation.

Meanwhile I'm becoming ever more curious about this Integral Life Practice thingy that Sunshine has gotten us. It will be interesting to discover if it is substance or pure product. It seems a hard thing to bottle, but maybe they've got some useful stuff in. (I love that particular bit of UK slang grammar.) I suspect I am going to end up sampling some of the on-line discussion and wander over to I-I sometime and see what's what.

Spark Spark Spark...

I do think that I should probably investigate Christian mythology a bit. Disturbing as it is, it is a dominant force in my culture and I probably need to understand that better. It might also be integral to addressing any shadow issues I have in there. Besides, it gives me a path to interesting conversations with the in-laws. All quadrant after all.

I don't think that I'm likely to find it a path to spiritual development. I suspect that I'm more likely to find mesh with something a little less literal and a little less deity centric. My gut feeling is to look at Zen or some such, but I don't know all that much directly about it. Most of my Buddhist knowledge is filtered through Sunshine or Ken Wilber. I haven't made much of a search along that horizontal path yet, though I'm beginning to get the first inkling that maybe I should.

Well... perhaps it is time to see if I can get the machine that goes ping out of my head and get some sleep before I wake Lazarus.

Longslit Spectrum of Consciousness

Ken Wilber's Integral Spirituality is turning out to be quite an interesting read. There is a big gap between this book and his previous ones (about five years or so) and that gap really shows. This new stuff has definitely stepped up a notch. It's a bit of a slow read, but is turning out to be quite an exciting and thought provoking one.

He's also made a fairly radical change to his spectrum model. Previously, his upper left evolved much along the lines of his original spectrum of consciousness model, and basically grafted meditative involution onto the top of the procession of waves from developmental psychology and the like. Thus one evolved up to the integrated 'centaur' and then started evolving into the transpersonal 'psychic', 'subtle', 'nondual', etc.

Now he's literally tipped this over on its side. Instead of grafting involution onto the top of developmental evolution, he's made them effectively orthogonal. Instead of a one-dimensional spectrum, we now have a two-dimensional lattice with evolutionary developmental structures as one dimension, and meditative state development as the other. Now he can explain how you can have highly developed 'spiritual' practice which is still stuck in a low level evolutionary state. No wonder I find spiritual text difficult to get into. Much of it is written from a lower evolutionary state. The Bible may be a glorious source of rich involutionary inspiration, but it is grounded in a 2000 year old worldspace and morality which seems barbaric, cruel, and totally incompatible with a modern global society.

It also helps to clarify to myself where I am in this AQAL setting, and why I was seemingly on the doorstep of the transpersonal but didn't seem to be aware of it at all. No wonder I've been looking for Buddhism for Gearheads. Perhaps this I-I "Integral Life Practice" kit that Sunshine is getting for Christmas will be something of that ilk. (Assuming that it isn't now too out of date with respect to this multi-dimensionality). Still, I guess the advantage of being at 'tier 2' is that I can reach down and pick out some of the wisdom from below. I can try and reinterpret Zen into a teal/turquoise worldspace, even if it's more work.

MY VISION IS IMPAIRED! I CANNOT SEE! (but perhaps a spark of enlightenment?)

Here's a new experience: blogging in bed with the sleeping baby. We're in Casper Wyoming, having arrived late last night after a long set of flights from London, and a long car ride up from Denver on icy roads. Wow. I'd forgotten how cold it gets here. I mean, I remember it intellectually, but he body forgets that feeling. It's cold here!

Anyway, in general the trip went pretty well considering. Laz slept for a lot of the trip, and didn't really seem to mind plane travel much at all. He was much less pleased with the car seat because Sunshine couldn't let him out of his seat and feed him without stopping the car.

This was of course a pretty large source of stress for her too. It really cuts her when he cries, especially if she feels like she could be doing something about it. This can also then strike the nerve in that deep wound of hers and trigger her lockdown reflex. That in turn, triggers her guilt spiral, and in general, it turns into a pretty ugly scene. She is making progress though, and at least now I feel like we are getting some understanding of what's going on and developing some methods for coping, at least with parts of it. I don't know about this deep wound. That anger/lockdown reflex seems pretty low-level and I think we may need to look elsewhere for very specific kind of help for that. Meanwhile, we can work on defusing some of the other interrelated issues ourselves.

Laz broke the eyestalk off the dalek this morning. (Actually, I'm not sure where that piece ended up... I need to find it before it causes more trouble). Anyway, now he has a fine example of that classic genre of children's toys, the slightly broken toy. (Actually he's got a few others, but this is a true classic. I guess I used to have a slew of legless R2D2 figures when I was a kid.) Actually I guess technically it was my toy, but Laz loves it so it's his too now. Besides, it much more fun to be played with (and to watch toys being played with). I'm not really much of a 'keep it in the box' sorta guy.

Laz has really taken pretty well to traveling. He seemed to enjoy his stay at the hotel in Amsterdam, and he has really taken to Kathy (Sunshine's mom). Usually, he has a bit of stranger fear around new people. It took him a while to warm up to Loren (my brother) and David (Sunshine's brother) when they visited, and Jeremy (Sunshine's other brother) is still a bit scary. But Laz is all over Kathy, climbing and laughing and even playing a bit of the chase game. Maybe he senses enough of Sunshine in her, or maybe she's just got "it" (whatever that is), but he has no stranger thing at all with her. (I can't imagine it is a memory from her visit when he was a week old, but maybe the internet chatting helped.) Who knows.

He's napping quite peacefully now, and I'm keeping watch so Sunshine can get some downtime with family. (She desperately needs the downtime too!) While we were putting him to sleep, I was again reminded of my technique for encouraging his sleep. It was one of my intuitive parenting discoveries from quite early on. Basically, while holding or touching him, I close my eyes and breathe slowly and deeply, trying to put myself as close to sleep as possible. (Indeed, the closer I am to nodding off the better.) Then its sort of a matter of just projecting that zone of calm at him. I know this sounds rather new-age goofy. It actually feels rather Buddhist to me, particularly this notion of generating 'sleep energy' (if you will) and embracing or channelling it to him. I suppose, objectively, that it is probably that he is picking up on a million non-verbal body language cues from me. Seeing as he isn't fully emotionally differentiated from Sunshine and I, and because he's still got that infant instinct to imitate, that he ends up adopting my calm to some extent.

Now what strikes me as really interesting this time, is that in Wilber's integral philosophy, both views are valid and useful. The hard-nosed objective view would be the processes as viewed from the 'right hand' (probably lower right?) viewpoint, and the goofy Buddhist version is the view from the 'left hand' inside. But the point is that both views are correct, and this may be the first time I actually 'get' where he's going with the post metaphysics, and how to relate 'science' and 'religion'. I might intellectually understand the objective view, but the Buddhist version is just as useful here in practice, and might even be more so for certain practices.

When I discovered this practice, it wasn't through the external objective view. I don't think about sending out non-verbal cues. I really do tend to focus on sending my 'loving sleep energy' at him. Similarly, when I'm trying to calm myself, I don't tend to think about flooding my brain with Serotonin or whatever the appropriate brain chemical is. I focus on finding center, mindful breathing, etc. But here's the really exciting bit. I don't have to abandon my 'hard-nosed' scientific training. I don't have to abandon my objectivity. In fact, I'm better off with both.

This is very interesting indeed, because it effectively dismisses one the biggest issues I've had with 'religion', which is that it seems to require me to turn of by brain. Faith without evidence is the goal. Indeed evidence may only hurt you. This often seems to me to be the voice of religion, at least much of I've met that calls itself religion. And I have serious moral objections to that sort of dogmatic approach. What's so attractive about Wilber's approach is that it is one of injunction and response. Effectively it is something like a spiritual scientific method. Integral spiritual training should sound like 'try this: it works!'. And indeed, I've tried something and it does seem effective.

What's more, the objective understanding I have of it doesn't reduce its efficacy! This has been one of my stumbling blocks in the past, probably a leftover of flatland philosophy. If spirituality is all in the mind, then what is the point? If Buddhist lovingkindness doesn't exist in the 'real' world, then how does it help? I seemed to have a hang up on reality. But of course, 'cyberspace' doesn't really exist either, but it is an eminently useful thing in it's own realm. Lovingkindness probably does have external correlates, and they may be quite complicated, but internally, in the human mind, they manifest in a fairly intuitive way.

And here's the truly shocking bit: the external 'real' world may NOT be the primary motive causation! There are indeed correlations between internal and external worldspaces. I have tended, in the past, to assume that the external factors were the causal reality, and the internal factors were mere side effects. But the truth is, that I don't really have much of a basis for that bias. It is a well known scientific trap to equate correlation with causation. Perhaps the flow of causality flows both ways. And if so, then that opens the door to a great many possibilities.

Waiting for the Sirens' Call

So, a late night at work, followed, apparently, by a slow train ride home. They just reported "severe delays" into Acton Town, my halfway point. So, since the carriage is relatively empty, I'll blog a bit on the laptop.

That's not the topic though, it's just a relatively pointless bit of background. The topic is more what I was musing on while walking to the tube station... touched off, in part, by the New Order song playing on my iPod. New Order often gets a bit of stick from music critics for their "adolescent" lyrics. Sometimes though even the simple can strike a nerve. I've always had a thing for "Regret" from their Republic© album, and in this case it's the title song from their latest album that lends the title to this entry which hits a little close to home.

The reason, however, will probably be left as subtext to whatever reader might eventually read this. I suspect that there are few enough of those anyway. Some might be able to put together a plausible hypothesis for the relevance, some might even jump to the wrong conclusion. In any event, I have not (at least yet) progressed to the point where I am blogging my innermost self to cyberspace. Does anyone actually? Certainly some people seem to get surprisingly intimate with the internet. Even so, something must always get left out. It's inevitable. Still, is such a universal intimacy even desirable? Is it an ideal to strive for, or just a very bad idea?

Why do we hide things from our fellows? Is it for defense? Perhaps. Certainly others can use your innermost thoughts in a way that might be hurtful to you. But is that just because we are insecure in ourselves? If we are really comfortable with our own selves, can our secrets still hurt us? Our current society is built around the principle that everyone is hiding something, so as a practical point, being completely honest is probably a potential detriment. But if this weren't the case, is that all that should hold us back? Assuming I'm not going to run for political office, then it's reasonably unlikely that anyone other than family or friends are ever going to read this. Surely I shouldn't want to hide things from them?

Or should I? Is intimacy always a gift? Is it always appreciated, or would some prefer not to know too much. Intimacy is, after all, not merely a sharing of "good stuff." What if a loved one discovers something ugly, that while 'true' is also hurtful. Is it always a good idea to strive for intimacy? I'm not sure that I know.

I am not a natural in this respect. It is not my instinctual nature to open up and share myself. At least some of that is self esteem, or the lack thereof. Some is probably socialization. For whatever reasons, I tend to play things pretty close to my chest.

Still, I have at least one extremely intimate relationship, and we work really quite hard to keep it that way. Still, this intimacy comes with a price, and the toll can sometimes be brutally high. Even with two people as modest, empathic and well meshed as Sunshine and I, the truth can be incredibly painful at times. It doesn't deter me from chasing that ideal in this one case, but it does give me great pause when considering revealing personal issues. Intimate secrets seem to me to be dangerous things and potentially heavy burdens that shouldn't be settled on those around you without serious consideration. I still don't know if it should be that way, but there it is.

Still, perhaps something is being lost. This self censorship certainly narrows experience. Perhaps great TBNNI lyrics were lost to embarrassment. Perhaps I had a brilliant thesis about a New Order song which has been left on the slag heap of other choices. I have been told that there are people, perhaps even potential readers, who would like to know me better. Perhaps they do. Perhaps they will. Perhaps even this blog will provide some of that knowing. If so, I wish them godspeed and hope that they do not regret the knowledge. I might, after all dear reader, be secretly evil.

TIMMY!

So, not only have the residents produced at least 2 major works this year, and a bunch of archival stuff as well, but they've started releasing a regular series of short videos on YouTube starring Timmy from Bad Day on the Midway. It's a bit like Jim's Journal and Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy, except of course from that disturbed Residents worldview. Give it a look:

Link to YouTube

Three Body Problem

Thich Naht Hahn's Anger is a fine book, as far as it goes. It does just fine at proscribing a technique for dealing with two-body toxic relationships, (feuding couples, warring nations, angry parents, etc). What it doesn't address, however, is the much nastier three body problem. What do you do when there is a third person involved? When there is not 1 bidirectional communication but three? Just to make it more complicated, lets make the three people span an enormous range in development both as wholes and even internally. Things get complicated. It's all well and good not to require mindfulness in your 2-body partner, but how do you balance the compassionate listener with the compassionate warrior in the 3-body case?

Wilber's Basic Moral Intuition: act to preserve the greatest depth for the greatest span. Yeah, fair enough, but what do you do in the real world when you are faced with incomplete knowledge. You know, that tricky little complication that gives political science, game theory and economics majors things to write theses about. What do you do when you need to balance the simultaneous needs of loved ones when hampered by incomplete knowledge about all three participants and when your own skills are, at best, untrained.

The answer, inevitably, seems to be that you make it up as you go. You can try and think as broad as you wish, but inevitably, it will boil down to flying by the seat of your pants in a fog without a map. And even previous experience is only so much help, because as Newton pointed out hundreds of years ago, the three body problem is unstable. Even the closed orbits are balanced on a knife edge and the slightest misstep sends things crashing into chaos.

People get hurt. And therein lies the tragedy. That's what leaves you sitting in the dark, listening to sorrow, and haunted by the ghostly echos of footsteps you might have taken.