On Genius, Part 2

April 11, 2019
by Michael
comments 10
Course Ideas / Reflections / Science

In this second article on the topic of genius, I found myself drifting towards our ability to recognize beauty and truth. I thought it was an interesting topic, because it relates to how we process information and perception as individuals, and part of what is so beautiful about genius is that it breaks apart our clotted mentalities.

The reorientation of perception that comes with encountering genius can be startling, but also I’ve found it can be delightful, because with the recognition of what is true, there is joy. There is release from what binds us. Over the years I’ve come to trust in this experience, and to recognize that we possess an innate faculty that recognizes truth and responds to it with feeling. This is not a logical computation, but a sensation. Feelings of joy, or peace, or even a regenerative sadness emerge, and as we follow these feelings, we are able to sift insight from the dross ground of experience, and this too, is genius. Eventually we recognize the universality of what we are discovering: it is not for us alone.

But is the truth “true” for all of us? Or are we each merely mining a tableau of personal fancy? Is there, in other words, an ability within us to recognize genuine insight—to discover, while bypassing the convolutions of logic, a deep and genuine understanding of the nature of reality? My answer to this question is yes…

But some would argue no. Just look around, they might say. If we all possessed this faculty we obviously wouldn’t disagree so vehemently about so much. It’s a powerful argument, but I don’t agree with its premise, or its conclusion, and here I turn to some of the genius writers and thinkers I’ve enjoyed exploring over the years for an alternate explanation: although we all possess such a faculty, we do not all access it equally.

A hallmark of genius, I’ve found, is the ability to not only see the big picture, but to think in terms of wholeness. To see the invisible relationships upon which the visible “facts” depend. I mentioned at the start of this series that I had recently read my first Wilhelm Reich book, Ether, God and Devil. One of the points Reich made in that book that I resonated with was the notion, from his research, that we are each “armored” to varying degrees, and that this armoring directly affects our sensations, perceptions, and feelings. He even goes on to say, “the organism can perceive only what it itself expresses.” We are thus all in the business of defining the parameters of our experience.

Without going into extreme detail, it is sufficient here to note that the armoring Reich describes is a protective mechanism that conditions our experience of ourselves and the world, and is marked by a constriction of normal, life-enhancing functions. It is an imposition of constraints on what we might otherwise think and feel—a rigidity of thought and feeling akin to an authoritarian type of control on the flow of life within and through us. We do this instinctively to protect ourselves, just as a tree becomes hardened in the area of a wound.

I believe in Reich’s mind this was a rather ancient development in humankind. In the book Cosmic Superimposition, which was printed together with Ether, God and Devil, Reich tries to imagine how this armoring could have come about, and says of humankind’s dawning ability to reason and examine it’s own self, “There is much good reason to assume that in such experiences of the self man somehow became frightened and for the first time in the history of his species began to armor against inner fright and amazement.” He goes on to say that, “it is quite possible that the turning of reasoning toward itself induced the first emotional blocking in man.” And later he concludes, “in attempting to understand himself and the streaming of his own energy, man interfered with it, and in doing so, began to armor, and thus to deviate from nature. The first split into a mystical alienation from himself, his core, and a mechanical order of existence instead of the organic, involuntary, bio-energetic self-regulation, followed with compulsive force.” (Cosmic Superimposition, pg 293-294)

What resonated with me strongly here was the notion that both mechanistic/materialist viewpoints and fundamentalist/religious viewpoints are in point of fact mirror images of the identical inner dysfunction. This is the ability of genius to see wholeness in what we take at face value to be completely different, and seemingly antagonistic, responses.

The answer to this problem, in language other than Reich used, is the integration of the heart and mind into a functional whole. In the perceptual modalities most important to me, the heart is not marginalized, but integrated with the logic of the mind. It is the heart, I believe, that is the compass I mentioned at the outset of this article—the heart that recognizes truth and chimes in with visceral acclamation. And what is missing for me in both a mechanistic and a fundamentalist religious view of the world is the awareness and wisdom of this most important faculty. Both perspectives are rooted in a certain rigidity of thought that seeks to impose a particular set of limits on the world’s magnitude, and make it more readily apprehended, judged, and subdued.

I first encountered this idea reading another genius—(to me)—Jose Arguelles. I read his book The Transformative Vision while in college, and I recall it being a beautiful exploration of the idea that the “true human being” was a seamless merging of what we call science, and what we call art. I recall Arguelles suggesting that it is only in the joining of these two fundamental aspects of our being that our authenticity and power as beings emerges. This is a theme I find echoed in Reich’s exposition of armoring, in Viktor Schauberger’s lamentation of our “techno-academic” systems, which he found as life-negating, exclusively male-oriented, and damaging to the planetary ecology, and in what A Course of Love refers to as the joining of heart and mind into wholeheartedness. (These are but a few of the places in which I’ve found such a view expressed.)

I think the reason a given individual’s recognition of truth is so often perceived as a matter of individual fancy is that we are coming at this problem primarily as “split” individuals. As split individuals we function with limited access to one or the other faculty, and are thus inaccurate perceivers. Our ability to access the inheritance of genuine knowing within us is stunted. It is a well-known fact that just about any argument can be justified with reasoning, for instance. Recognizing innately this profound difficulty, science relies upon externalized experimentation, and religion upon sacred books. But neither provides an accurate accounting of what we call life.

In my opinion when we are in our hearts, which I do not personally take to mean a marginalization of the mind, it is possible to reach the type of alignment that simply doesn’t exist when we are arguing in favor of our individual perceptions. And when we are in our hearts, I find we agree–not on facts, but on the truth expressed between us, and as us. All too often I have fallen victim to reacting to a particular idea that rankles me, but the truth is that there are no winners in the debate of ideas. The path forward is not in being right, but in being true—and ultimately this means being true to ourselves, and the entire spectrum of who we are. Geniuses throughout time have seen this, and understood that what hinders us is the profound difficulty we each have in transcending our fractured pscyhes.

On Genius, Part 1

March 24, 2019
by Michael
comments 21
Reflections

The first task with a subject like genius might be to define it, but I’m going to resist that temptation. I’d rather develop the ideas as we go, so that just about the time we think we’ve put our finger on it, we’ll understand why we can’t. What I’ll say is that while genius may seem to be a rare bird in our present society, it is not because any one of us lack access to it. What is suggested by this word is the fundamental nature of who we are, and if that sounds like a boring or inaccurate beginning it is only because of our lack of imagination about ourselves.

We’ve been led in our culture to believe that genius is evidenced by superiority of achievement in a field, which is not to say that it is not found in the masters we look upon with awe, but such an emphasis can be misleading. In any field there are those who possess a particular talent for it, which, if combined with years and years of practice and the type of ambition that shapes matter to its aim, may lead to the emergence of a sophistication. But technique alone is insufficient for genius. We are all familiar with those who possess astounding technique, but lack, for whatever reason, that little something extra that truly captivates and inspires us—that speaks to the very heart of who we are. Skill alone can be tedious.

On the other hand, we are also each familiar with those who lack the particular physical talent or practiced complexity that mark the most technically accomplished of a given field, but who, by the force of their passion and the manner in which they reveal the mystery of who we are, touch us deeply. We are wounded by such offerings, ushered to the brink of the roaring intensity alive within us, even as we are transported to the star-swept womb of a lowing silence. Genius inspires us to identify with what lies beyond necessity, beyond convention, and without which we would be but empty shells.

We might say that genius is the character of life itself, but this too is inaccurate, for what is meant by life? For too many of us yet, the experience of this world is a treadmill of survival. Genius may reveal itself in the face of life’s trials, but it is not the trial itself. There is no genius in suffering. There is no genius in earthly power, for that matter—in persecuting or enslaving others, in whatever form—just as there is no genius in deriving power from fealty. The power of genius is that it entitles everyone to a share, and where there is real genius, this is instantly recognized. Where there is genius, everyone is rewarded.

This niggling something extra we call genius cannot be captured or taught. It cannot be codified, reduced or pinned down, and no structured program can synthesize what is in truth the very content of our being. We cannot make ourselves any more or any less who we are, but we can desire to know who we are, and in our explorations is genius revealed. We can proceed only by remembering, and discover only by sharing.

The hallmark of genius is that it reveals us. Genius eclipses the norm, to be sure, but the norm is an arbitrary convention that nowhere exists, and uniqueness itself is not genius. We’ve all seen the sort of turning-away that is prideful and affected. Genius involves an authenticity that transforms all who partake of it, by releasing us from the bonds of our mistaken conclusions. It doesn’t rancor against what has been, but eclipses it with a beautiful certitude that renders our previous muddling moot. Though genius is not out to claim victory, it is our way out of loss, because genius makes us whole.

The problem with genius is that it is not a respecter of qualifications. It requires no resume or previous training, and our systems tend to be built on the convention of paying dues—on entitlement, seniority and lineage. Some of this is as it should be. And some of it is not. If you want to go farther in a field than those who previously set the markers, then you may have to retrace some of their steps. Genius is not about a willy-nilly hunch—it’s not about strapping wings made of wax onto your back and diving off a cliff. Too often we equate genius with derring-do. The genius is not in any particular feat, but in the attentiveness we give to our dreams, in the knowing that we work with—which no other can give us—and in our scraping away the barnacles of doubt we’ve picked up from the tidepools of history into which we were born.

Where there is genius, there is magic. The unknown is made real. There is conception, and birth, and new life. What existed for no one, comes into existence for everyone. There are stocks of this little something more within all of us, and I think the challenges we face on this planet arise principally from our efforts to come up with systems that work without resort to this most fundamental resource. It’s like trying to grow food without resorting to the use of sunlight, like trying to breathe only the air we’ve first squeezed into tanks.

If we had this stuff we’d use it! we say. But this is not so. The truth is we spurn genius, and we are frightened by those who can enter the sanctity of their own being and emerge with something we think we could not have. We think fairness is when long-suffering is the only resource at our disposal. Insights are too unpredictable; there is no obvious proportionality between the work that is input and the revelation received, and so they upset our tiered systems of privilege. But so long as we sustain a world in which the inventor reaps a reward that no caregiver can hope to receive, a world in which only what is provably earned may be received, genius will be thwarted.

We’ve created a world where power trumps authenticity, and this world requires only such genius as may be trademarked, copyrighted, or patented. In this world we cannot compute the possibility that what is real is only that which is shared by everyone. It is ironic, is it not, that the victors in our systems lay claim to the spoils? What we call power in this world exists in equal measure to all the unused stocks of genius that have gone rancid. It is the product of our dismay with all those who refuse to know so little as we ourselves do.

But worry not, for genius is the power of who we are, and it is the only power that will remain. If that seems like a definition, then perhaps you know something about us that I do not, for I have yet to even glimpse the horizon.

Rebooting the Blog

March 10, 2019
by Michael
comments 38
Course Ideas

I’ve not posted here in a while, but look forward to getting back into a rhythm in the near future. I’ve been working on a few short stories, and making very slow progress on a novel that will eventually be drafted, and also have been contributing some writing to a booklet that will provide some Q&A on the connections between A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.

The most exciting personal news of recent months is that my short story “Candelaria” was picked up in February by the New Limestone Review–the University of Kentucky’s literary journal. This was a very welcome development, to say the least.

I read my first Wilhelm Reich book this winter, a combined volume that contained two short works entitled Ether, God and Devil and Cosmic Superimposition. Reich’s writing was thoughtful and I much enjoyed encountering his novel perspective on things. The experience left me thinking it would be fun to write a series of posts on the subject of genius. There are many thinkers and creators who have worked outside of established conventions, some of whom have enjoyed some popular success and many of whom have not, and I suspect there are countless inspired people we know precious little about. The ability to cultivate a penetrating insight, and also to possess the skill, talent and perseverance to introduce it to a world that doesn’t always know how to handle it, is exceedingly rare it seems.

Anyway, more to follow…

A Course of Love Virtual Conference

November 27, 2018
by Michael
comments 28
Course Ideas

It can be hard to explain just how or why a particular source of wisdom moves us as it does. Challenges with anxiety and self-doubt earlier in my life, coupled with a deep-seated desire to make contact with what—at least in glimpses—was a loving universal reality, led me to A Course in Miracles (ACIM). This book was extremely helpful to me because it clarified sources of confusion I hadn’t previously been able to understand. I studied it on my own for something like fifteen years—off and on. While the philosophy was never far from my attention, I drew closer to it in some times than others, like an orbiting moon.

The basic idea of ACIM is that we don’t properly understand or interpret our experience, principally because we misunderstand who we are. It’s a common idea in many spiritual teachings. A fundamental idea contained in ACIM is that we are not purely physical beings, and that reality is not purely material, and that just about every value judgment we form is erroneous because of how we assign value, where we place our attention, and how we structure our thought given our misunderstanding. There’s the idea that we’re almost looking at things upside-down, or inside-out. Where we were intended to deeply know, express and rely upon the invulnerability of our being, instead we only seem to know ourselves as vulnerable, isolated, and alone. We’ve been bereft instead of heartened.

A key practice in ACIM is shifting our perception so that we learn to be at peace, with the idea being that as we withdraw our investment in falsehood, the truth will naturally be restored in our sight. One thing that can happen is that we can oversimplify this process—we learn to carve out this quiet niche of peace to which we remove ourselves when difficulty arises, but we don’t ever quite merge this bubble of genuine knowing with the entirety of our daily experience. It’s like we’re split in two almost. There is the world that nags and tugs at us, and then there is the peace to which we navigate, and we bounce back and forth as times demand.

I was recognizing this—that I could easily find my way back to peace, but also that I kept misplacing it—when I did a web search to see if there were any other modern spiritual teachings from Jesus that might be out there. If there was one, why not another? I knew, of course, that there was more than one. I’d also read A Way of Mastery, and a book I’ve long enjoyed is Dialogue on Awakening by Tom Carpenter. But I was curious. And that’s when I found A Course of Love (ACOL). It was sometime in 2012 I believe.

For me ACOL was just perfect. There was a fullness there, an emphasis on the importance of expressing who we are to become who we are—and not just in terms of speaking intellectually about the “idea” we have of ourselves, but of actually leaving behind the self-concepts to which we so often compare ourselves. The book touched me in a way that few have, and I’ve enjoyed returning to it on multiple occasions. Just like with ACIM, my orbit of ACOL seems to be elliptical—I approach and I retreat. But the retreat isn’t really a retreat as much as a deeper level of trust I think. A foray into genuine unity, without the training wheels. A digression into deeper meaning.

This is a long-winded preface for sharing with anyone who may be interested that this weekend there will be an on-line conference about A Course of Love. I’ve included a link below. This weekend marks the 20th Anniversary of Mari Perron’s receipt of the Course. I don’t feel there’s any substitute for encountering a teaching like this directly, but I also think if you’re drawn to participate in some fashion that this conference will be a direct encounter of its own. The power of ACOL is, for me, at least in part, the encouragement to live who we are. It’s a tall order, but the truth is we only do it together. We can’t sit in our rooms and polish ourselves up, then reach the proper state and go into town. There’s really no polishing required; rather, we need a certain vulnerability, a certain acceptance of who we are. An understanding of ourselves that is genuine, and can only come from discovering who we are through the sharing of who we are.

I’m a panelist in one or two of these videos, and had fun getting on these video calls to share in some creative encounters. If you’re interested, I hope you will check it out. Regardless, and as always, I hope just touching on these ideas for a moment or two here brings some peace to your day.

The Mission is Everything

November 10, 2018
by Michael
comments 22
Reflections

A number of elements drew me to Linda’s Mission-Possible Blog Challenge this year, but the first was the Louise Hayes desk calendar image she posted that read, “I chose to come to this planet, and I am delighted to be here.” The image included the eyes of a fox peering playfully over the top of a log. Something about that just cracked me up. It’s certainly not what we’ve been feeling of late—it’s not the most obvious emotion at play in the world, at any rate—and yet it sort of begs the question, what else would I be doing? And where would I rather be?

Linda’s blog challenge is about having a purpose to fulfill in this earthly life. A soul mission. I’m at the point where showing up seems like maybe it was the mission, and this doesn’t seem inconsistent with the image of a fox peering over the top of a log, readying itself to pounce. I think it is the playfulness of that picture that I loved when I saw it, and it is playfulness that seems important to me somehow. To play is not necessarily to have a serious mission, but it’s not wasted time either. Play gladdens the heart, communicates equality and innocence, requires vulnerability. And it transmutes all that time I spend being serious into something useful.

You may have an image of what it is to be a playful person, and I probably don’t fit it. I’m not Will Farrell. And for swaths of my day I’m quite serious about things. But there’s always this fox peering over the log of my own seriousness, waiting to catch me in my own forgetting, and when the time presents itself, he dives into the fray. I can only hold my breath in serious waters for so long. I’m definitely not built to reside there indefinitely, which is kind of interesting given what’s going on right now in the world at large. It’s a pretty serious time, with some form of fear and destruction in the ascension on every front.

There’s a sense for me that weathering the storm of this age may be the mission. Living right through the middle of it. Maybe just knowing that what’s important is our being for one another—being sideless in a way. And I think play can be like that. It doesn’t require a declaration of identity and ideology. It doesn’t require qualifications or expertise. This play to which I’m drawn isn’t what you do when you’re bored, or escaping—it’s the kind of play you do when you’re building something new. It’s a whistling-while-you-work play.

There is a challenge I have sometimes with the specificity of the mission idea, like there’s this one thing in which our lives culminate and which our “success” hinges upon. Maybe that was true of Tesla, or Churchill, or those who have made specific contributions with their genius or strength of character. Maybe it’s true of those who seek to escape the wheel of reincarnation—maybe there is a particular experience to be lived, absorbed, and forgiven that will provide the desired release. I don’t know. But my sense is that in all of these cases there is something even more expansive, more common, even more immediate that underwrites these other notions—the experience of sharing of a meal, of traveling from one place to another, of the wind whisking over the grass, the color of flowers in spring and the scent of snow in winter. There’s a way in which we’re almost always placeless, even when we’re right here.

The idea of a mission breaks down for me when it posits a goal related to being somewhere else. So for me, the mission is to be right here, and to continue being right here, now, free in the creative balance of this moment. I think this brings me back to playfulness, which is always so immediate and so enlivening. If we can discover how to be at peace with one another in these times, it seems a tremendous accomplishment, far greater than any technology or political coup one may have achieved. And so this mission isn’t mine alone. It isn’t personal, in the sense that this sort of goal is not achieved in isolation, or in spite of what else may be occurring.

If I do have a mission, I think it must be the type that unfolds day by day, little by little, under the cover darkness perhaps, whether I am conscious of it or not. The mission is the energy that moves me. It’s the wind that sets my life into motion, and nowhere it takes me will be removed from its aim. I am most content in the knowing that my mission is here and now. When I can settle into the calamity of being with greater ease, I feel the most purposeful, the most powerful, and the most fulfilled.

A Selection of True Awakening Experiences Part III

October 24, 2018
by Michael
comments 30
Reflections

My days are no longer numbered. That’s one thing I’ve noticed.

And I feel okay about being up this creek without a paddle. I’m even starting to think whatever it is I don’t know is probably the best part, and always will be.

Today, I must confess, the full moon cracked me like a nut, and I wasn’t the only one. For a while we were floundering. All of us. Working up a righteous indignation there in the conference room. Awakening is realizing Hafiz is there the whole time, standing just outside the frame with his stopwatch and kazoo, counting down until real forgiveness strikes–that breath that says, what’s all this about?

I admit, I inhaled. The wounds we receive are never what they seem. Those are where the sweetness resides. We tunnel through them into glory. Most of the time I’m ignorant of what’s happening and I have to look back to see what it really meant. I have to dig down until I strike the nectar of who we are. Then I understand. I was thinking the whole episode meant something pretty good while I was driving home, realizing I wouldn’t have it any other way, while overhead the sky was splitting open into colors.

You realize at some point you have a secret inside you that you’ll probably never finish telling. But it’s sure fun to try. I listened to a podcast last week by some philosophers who were saying living forever wouldn’t actually be good, because we’d run out of new experiences to try, and then we’d get bored. It would be best if we could control when and how we died. Then we could maximize. I think that’s how I felt before I read Rumi, before I cried alone in the forest, before I realized everyone has the same secret inside of them and no clue how to tell it. Somewhere along the way you realize we’re already endless, and that all these different faces we’re bumping into are the Answer to the problem of eternity.

So can you really be awakened and have a day job?

Yes, of course.

In fact, that’s pretty much how it works. The ocean works all the time. The plants. The microbes. The stars. We need breaks, of course. During one of them you swat a fly and suddenly you realize: it’s all just being the thing you don’t know how to be. Now you have perspective. It does get easier.

Underneath the continuous rant of dissatisfaction we call a world, there is always light gathering. The world is a tree laden with ever-ripening fruit. It’s easy to say it’s something else. Something stifling and hot. Something to be wary of, at least.

Get as wary as you’d like. It’s okay, the moon will come along and crack you open. That’s what I learned…

Many thanks to Barbara for inviting me to participate in the next leg of this collective journey of discovery…

Concerning the Heart

October 8, 2018
by Michael
comments 26
Christ / Course Ideas / Reflections

Beauty is witnessed in the heart.

In the midst of calamity, when the towers are crumbling, and the temples are crumbling, and the skies are crumbling, still the heart is free. It is quiet amidst the waves. Gratitude may enter us then. Beauty may be recognized.

For it is the heart that recognizes its own.

Avowed of neither persecution nor vengeance, the heart has a talent for blessing, for insight, and for gentleness. In the midst of calamity, when something must be done, when the mob is gathering, and one must diminish another in the service of greater good—when deceit and distortion are blackening the skies, and a voice must be raised to be heard—still the heart sees innocence. How can this be?

Is not our anger righteous? Must something not be done?

What say you, my heart?

And still the heart is quiet.

When viewed from afar, the heart is but a stone. Wake up! we shout. The towers are crumbling!  The heavens rending! Now is the time!

And yet, it is true, even here the heart knows the way. For what must be saved has already been saved. This the heart knows. Here is the beginning of reason. Here is permission to recognize the innocent, and behold the beautiful.

What is there to do when what must be done has already been done?

Alert the others. Gather them close. Break the heart open and pass it around, like bread, that there may be nourishment. Offer the heart, that those who know it not might see it and remember. Don’t look for it, but let it come. You will know it has arrived.

For it is the heart that recognizes its own.

On the Possibility of Unity

September 9, 2018
by Michael
comments 36
Christ / Course Ideas / Science

There are periods in our lives when we make decisions with far-reaching implications. Doing nothing is hardly an option, and a few fundamental choices must be made that establish a line of action for the years to come. Deciding what you would like to study, do for work, or explore in life are examples of these decisions, but an even more important one is deciding what sources of information you will trust, or at least consider, in learning about yourself and the world.

Early in my exploratory journey I came to the conclusion that everyone was at least a little bit correct in their assessment of the human condition, and I chose to value traditional forms of knowledge with roughly equal weighting to modern forms of exploration. These terms are a bit misleading and require some clarification to be meaningful. Another way to say it is that I chose to give roughly equal weighting to the findings of cyclotrons, microscopes and laser beams as to our ancestral or ancient forms of wisdom, including the modern variants of long-standing traditions that are embodied in present day spiritual teachers, as well as receivers of so-called channeled material. I didn’t decide any one thing was correct above all else, I decided to investigate them all and look for distillations of knowledge when dogma, convention, and cultural particulars were set aside.

My reasoning, though not consciously clear to me at the time, was rooted in my intuitions about the nature of our reality, as well as the sense that reason is only as good as its foundation, and the choice of foundation is not easily made based upon evidence. In fact, no evidence has any meaning until the choice of a foundation has been made. I think this was one of the most powerful and fortunate insights of my youth, and it led to one of the most important decisions of my adult life, which I will get to in a moment. First it is important that this assertion of mine be understood.

When something happens, and we take note of it, the next step in our conscious appraisal of things is to deduce what it was that actually happened. This may sound foolish, but let’s say our attention was drawn to the flash of a colored light. It’s simply not enough to say that a light flashed. We want to know why it flashed, what caused it to flash, and what it represents in relationship to our own well-being. If we’re driving in a car and the light is on the dashboard, then we can explain this intrusion of light into our world pretty easily with a high degree of certainty, but if we didn’t know what a car was—if we were transplanted from 100,000 B.C into an Aston Martin with a coolant temperature alarm—the way in which we would interpret that experience might be quite different. Or so I conjecture.

Taking this sort of issue to its extreme, then it is possible to see that an entire structure of logic and reason, such as the traditional shamanic practices of a South American tribe, or the body of art and practice we call physics, are simply not possible without axiomatic beginnings. Those axioms are not disprovable, and thus, in a sense, are arbitrary. Of course they are never really arbitrary; I would argue the axiomatic beginnings of a thought system are the most fundamental expression of who the operands of the thought system (us) believe themselves to be. We could also say that the axiomatic beginnings are ultimately statements of what the universe is, leaving us (seemingly) out of it for the moment, but this is for my purpose here completely equivalent. The most important point is that once this point of origin is established, a complete thought system with self-supporting chains of experience, evidence, and logic will follow.

The major decision of my adult life was to declare that the point of origin for my own thinking would leave in tact the possibility that the universe has an interior dimension—that knowledge itself was possibly fundamental to its own becoming. In doing so I admitted of the possibility that the wisdom contained in ancestral or traditional philosophies arose from genuine contact with this dimension, but I did not feel this required that the light on the dashboard of a car need be explained as anything but what it was. To be fair, what I ultimately declared was that the universe was more than a material system, at least in terms of what we understand material systems to be. I, too, was forced to assert a point of beginning. (In point of fact, there are no neutral points of beginning, which I think is significant…)

Now once you have a beginning, you must run some experiments to develop the thought system that arises from that beginning, and my early experiments led to fairly intense (for me) psychological difficulties. But in time I came to understand the sources of my confusion and one text that was most helpful in this regard was called A Course in Miracles—though of course it was not this stand-alone document that was helpful, but an entire dynamic of history, memory, thought, insight, conversation, meditation, grace and engagement with the ideas that it contained. I think the metaphysics described therein echoes the metaphysics of countless traditions, although the language is quite unique, and this weekend I came to an interesting conclusion.

What I realized is that the point of origin for what I would call the modern rational worldview, whose philosophical labels I’m not well-equipped to offer, but which would certainly include materialism, necessarily describes the condition from which many wisdom traditions suggest we must recover. To unpack that statement, I would say that the foundation of a materialist, rational worldview would be the idea that the universe is a self-contained causal structure consisting exclusively of localized energetic transformations. To make that even simpler: what we see is the product of what preceded it, and the causes of what we see are local. This means that what happens cannot be impacted by any cause that is physically distant from the event. (I cannot flip a switch in another galaxy in the same instant that something happens in this one, because the two points are too far away to be physically related.)

Let me turn to the other portion of my assertion. The condition from which many wisdom traditions suggest we must recover is the perception of separation—the view that we exist as fundamentally distinct beings, or to say it another way, as beings without any ultimate unification. Who and what I ultimately am is independent of who and what you ultimate are. To make this as clear as possible, we are separate bouncing balls on the gymnasium floor, not two fingers on a common hand. What the wisdom traditions would suggest is that this notion of separation is illusory, and that there truly is a universal now—a non-dimensional locus inclusive of all time and all space, of which we actively participate.

So, back to my claim, which is this: the assertion of local causality in modern physics, as powerful as it is, is not only a restatement of the axiomatic foundation on which the entire intellectual exercise of modern physics rests; it is also axiomatically equivalent to the premise that the universe is a collection of fundamentally separate entities—the very premise which traditional wisdom cultures argue is the root cause of suffering as manifest in our experience.

Why is this important? Well, I think it is important because a necessary outcome of the axiomatic assertion of separateness is that we live in a zero sum game. The two notions are concomitant. This is the bounding feature of our interactions, our policy debates, our relationships, our institutions and the fundamental manner in which we attempt to organize our world. I would even hypothesize that the world so many well-intentioned persons wish to participate in creating—a world that not only works for everyone, but doesn’t require unacceptable levels of sacrifice—is simply not possible in this environment.

This hypothesis of fundamental unity is tough to test, of course, because it cannot be evaluated in the context of the current paradigm, in which it can only be judged as insane. Yet what is sane or insane is deemed such, in any thought system, by comparing an idea’s accord with the very axioms on which the thought system is founded. Also, if the possibility exists, however slight it may seem, that even our best efforts are founded upon untenable foundations, and will not be capable of succeeding in the manner that we sincerely hope, it is worth a moment of sincere reflection.

At minimum, perhaps, the mere acknowledgment of such a possibility might temper the swiftness with which we judge who and what is “right” in our world. A healthy dose of uncertainty would do all of us some good, I think, and create the space for choosing compassion before we reach for the rhetorical guns.

In Defense of Polyculture

August 30, 2018
by Michael
comments 16
Book Reviews / Reflections

There’s a way in which identity politics are a luxury. To engage in them, you at least need a voice.

Over the past several months I’ve listened to Sam Harris’s interview with Charles Murray, for instance, his subsequent debate with Ezra Klien of Vox magazine, and a later interview by Harris of Coleman Hughes. These were interesting segments that collectively explore the residual difficulties of speaking about the issue of race in America—among other things. The paradox that has emerged for me is that while, on the one hand, I agree with treating each person as an individual and not through the lens of race or ethnicity, I also feel something stands to be lost in the absorption of cultures into the dominant amalgam.

There’s a paradox here. While it is unquestionably virtuous to consider people of all races and ethnicities for a job opening on the basis of their individual talent, character and capabilities, this belies the fact that the jobs which are available, and the ideas which are judged to have merit, are themselves dictated by the dominant culture.

Recently I read There There by Tommy Orange, a novel that I see has been critically acclaimed and which I thoroughly enjoyed. The novel is about various persons of Native American descent, with varying degrees of affiliation for their heritage, who converge upon a powwow in Oakland, CA. Orange gives us a view, up close and personal, of what it means to exist in an American modernity with a heritage that is frayed, diluted and at times nebulous. What does it mean to be a Native American who has never known anything but city life? Who is Native and who is not, and what does it mean if you are?

The one character in this novel with an advanced degree lives with his mother. He pursued an advanced degree in an effort to understand who he is, but after graduation finds himself adrift and unable to find meaningful work, and loses himself in the spree of information that is the world wide web. Another character teaches himself a traditional dance through YouTube, wondering all the while if his grandmother will approve of his interest. Another character brings ruin to his family through drug and alcohol abuse, while tinkering with medicine powers he doesn’t understand. This novel is a tragedy, if nothing else. But the paradox is that it is a tragedy with which we can all relate.

We all grapple with issues of identity, particularly in a world in which we are brought into ever-increasing contact with people of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and traditions.

In one segment of the novel, Orange addresses the high rate of suicide in Native American communities, and notes that interventions focused on giving people better reasons not to jump rings hollow. People need reasons to live, not reasons not to jump. Don’t we all need these reasons? And where do we find them if not in our familial and cultural affiliations? Ultimately we find meaning in knowing and sharing who we are, and if we are part of a culture without a voice, the terms on which we meet the world can seem to be limited.

This novel is about the tragedy of not knowing who we are, or what to express, or once we’ve found it, how to even express it. I sometimes think of myself as a member of an incoherent tribe. I’m a middle-aged white man, and from that perspective identifying with my tribe is tricky business.  I’m not enamored of mainstream values, I enjoy nuanced conversations, and many of the trends I see at work in the world are troubling to me. So I felt at home in Orange’s novel. Because while on paper I’m not dispossessed, in my heart oftentimes I am.

I don’t know if the times we live in are more turbulent than others. I don’t know if intolerance of other cultures runs higher or lower than in times past. But it seems like the shrinking of the world has made it that much harder for subcultures to carve out their niche. Before I read There, There I read a book called Spirit Talkers by William S. Lyon. It is a book by an anthropologist exploring all of the historical evidence related to the medicine powers of North American indigenous tribes, many of which have waned as a result of the “corporate mergers” affected by the dominant culture of the last few hundred years on our continent–the culture that, on paper, is my own.

There’s no going back, not to the way it was. And the past certainly wasn’t perfect in any culture. But in my opinion it is vital that we create space for other cultures to flourish. I think its akin to seeking to preserve the species of the rain forests and coral reefs, those rich stores of biodiversity that may yet hold cures for the diseases that plague us.

Continued Reflections on Perception

August 16, 2018
by Michael
comments 11
Course Ideas / Reflections / Science

I wrote last week about the idea that bias is inescapable because the world that we experience is not a fixed reality, but the product somehow of our perceptions. A related idea is that we each experience the world differently because we each have a unique relationship with it. I think that gives an insight the previous statement does not.

In any case the word “world” is a difficult study, and here I mean it as something like all that exists within the meaning-making organs of our awareness—not all of which is present to our consciousness at any given moment—and which would include sensory perceptions, emotions, memories, concepts, beliefs, ideas and our various forms of self-identification. They’re all in there. Try to explain this to someone who insists the world is a perfectly obvious thing, and notice how quickly you start mumbling quietly to yourself with all the phonetic acumen of a person who has just had a tooth extracted.

Whatever such a world is, it’s not easily grasped. And this is partly why the perception of bias in one another is all but inescapable. We tend to see what we call bias most readily when critiquing a person whose opinion is at odds with our own, and not at all when it comes to our own thinking. An alleged means of keeping the peace when any two persons interact is to stipulate some rules about what is admissible and what is not admissible when one is trying to explain why one is right and the other wrong. This assumes one is right, and the other is wrong, of course, which is itself a mode of thinking that reflects an inherent bias. We could call such a bias “reasonable” if the contents of the worlds we each perceive were the same for all of us, but they quite obviously are not.

There are a couple of considerations here. The first is that nothing we see really means anything in the absence of a tremendous chain of conceptual logic that we apply to it. And I would also say that everyone’s chain of conceptual logic is tremendous. If you get the smartest weasel you can find and set it up in a well-maintained aquarium in front of two tiny lights that flash every once in a while following the parametric down conversion of a photon, it may become interested, but it probably won’t realize that the flashing lights are proving the validity of Bell’s Inequality. I’m not sure there’s a single human being on this planet who would be able to ascertain what two lights had to say about Bell’s Inequality without considerable knowledge of how those lights came to be where they are. The difficulty here is that it’s really, really hard to set up little calamities on a work bench that definitively mean one thing and could not possibly mean anything else whatsoever. It takes vast stores of knowledge to make inferences about the nature of the universe from two flashing lights. But let me say that I think we do amazing work in this regard.

It’s just that to unpack the slightest observation requires a considerable conceptual scaffolding, each tier of which is often predicated on the previous and thus, as a whole these structures can be subject to assumption, bias and misperception that is thousands of layers deep.

The second consideration is that people simply don’t have the same experiences. For starters, we’re almost never in the same place at the same time looking in the same direction paying attention to the same little bits of energy. And when we are, we’re certainly not considering those little bits of energy in light of the same histories, memories, training, life conditions, or ideals.  One argument is that if we were in the same place looking in the same direction at the same things, then all else being equal, we’d be having the exact same sensory impressions. But for me, even that’s a bit tricky. We can probably agree that if we use a device that’s not smart enough to be distracted to record those sensory impressions for us—something like a photographic plate—then we could agree on certain aspects of what just happened.

The real issue is when two people who were in two different places, and who occupy two very different relationships to what we call the world, try to tell each other what could or couldn’t have happened where the other one was. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say that one Friday evening Person 4,327,005 elects to attend a Native American ceremony known to be useful in the recovery of lost items, while Person 1,983,411,309 elects to attend the symphony. Person 1,983,411,309 reports that the lead cellist was a sublime musical talent, and Person 4,327,005 reports that a flying gourd almost hit her in the head during the ceremony, and that Mrs. Smith’s great grandmother’s diary, which had been missing for thirty years, was located and placed on the altar by the spirits.

What happens next depends upon all sorts of factors, but we know that a very common scenario would involve Person 1,983,411,309 telling Person 4,327,005 that she ought to submit herself to some sort of psychological or medical evaluation; that she should avail herself, when time permits, of the Laws of Thermodynamics; or that she should consider the possibility that she has been the brunt of a joke. Basically, Person 1,983,411,309 means to say that Person 4,327,005 is wrong.

Now why is that? Why do we do this to one another?

It’s a good question I think.