Sleep

How we spend our time is indicative of something. This little digression is an attempt to discover a bit more of what that could be. In its simplest analysis we are awake or asleep and yet that isn’t as simple as it first appears.

 When one is aware from moment to moment of his degree of awakening, it is easy to find instances of when one is asleep even when eyes are open and seeing, ears are hearing, and there’s sensation. An example of this was just this morning when I took off in the direction of my appointment only to find myself going a familiar route instead of the necessary. I had lapsed into a sort of sleep and was going the habitual route. These “naps” occur to everyone and often.

The familiar sleep is when we go to bed and fall asleep. Yet if one spends a little effort recalling the events of the night, one can see that sleep is not necessarily unconsciousness. There are dreams, there are changes in position, digestion, reconstruction, getting up to relieve oneself, times during the night when one awakens but makes a decision to allow more slumber.

 We are disturbed by the temperature of the body as when the covers slip off or when the heat is set too high and the room gets uncomfortably warm. We are awakened by strange noises, however slight but can slumber through familiar noises no matter how loud. All of this would lead one to conclude that there are personae in here that are not asleep. These are probably personae primarily of the instinctive source that are charged with the safety and well-being of the body.

Then there is the repetitious movement sleep. This comes on when one is involved in a repetitive action that one or more of the personae know well enough that they can perform it without others being awake. This is the common phenomenon of driving a car and not remembering anything about the trip because it was routine. It happens when one is exercising, walking, cutting the grass, dancing, performing a movement in sport, even keying words as is now the case.

 There is no conscious effort going on to find keys to strike in order to form the words being seen. There is an almost direct link between the thinking persona and the one controlling the fingers hovering over the keyboard.

It is my opinion that there are personae predominantly of the intellectual source that have the notion they are somehow in charge of an action being taken by the being. IOW they get involved when other personae are more than capable of taking the action.

They interfere with movements that have been become routine to the being, such as the golf swing, and cause problems with performance. Every hole on MTGC has had par scored on it by me at one time or another. This proves that it can be done but there is enough interference with the process by some of the inappropriate personae that score is never below 90. The same can be said for almost any practiced repeated activity whether it is lines for a play, steps for a dance, pool shots; this interference causes problems.

How does one keep them out of the equation? This would be a study in mental discipline that would yield incredible results. If one could limit the participation to the appropo personae and push the inappropo into the background there would be no problem with routine activities. When this is accomplished the results are good. It is the daily, “In a conspicuous or competitive situation, I keep my mind on my objective and my senses on my surroundings.”

Rarely does one want to shut down every other persona and limit the field to the one without the possibility of usurping control. There are short intervals of times, however when it is not only desirable but possible. The span of time that is allowed to the performing persona, those who know the moves, can be kept to the minimum required to make the move and then let more of the personae into the “room.”

This works well on the golf course where I allow many personae into the room until swing time, then exclude them by saying a mantra until the ball has stopped rolling after the shot. While this is not always the case, in every instance where the process was successful the result was spectacular. As simple as it sounds, it is very difficult but it’s worth the effort to continue to make the attempt, not only at golf but in all endeavors.

There is the sleep of distraction/ procrastination. It comes on in the form of having time available, having developmental things to do but not doing them because there is a sense that there isn't enough psychic energy available to do whatever. A large amount of time passes and there will have been no progress made on any one of a number of worthwhile applications.

This is true no matter whether others are paying for one’s time or not. It is this type of sleep that drives bosses crazy. They see someone who is supposed to be applying his/her efforts to a project and not doing so. It is the same for me when I am not applying my efforts on aim. There is strong mental discipline required to combat this and allow progress to be made.

Then there’s time spent in the past; such as reviewing past actions/activities whether by reading old notes or viewing old photos, or being lost in reveries, or imagining the fighting of imaginary battles.  These are also sleep. We are lulled into a sort of stupor by being involved in this; it is the same stupor that comes on when we watch a movie, or TV program.

Consciousness is suspended and we retreat to a safe place where the action has already taken place and the result known, or at least we can safely let it unfold without feeling peril. Sometimes this is combined with the previous category when we engage in this instead of moving forward in our development.

Awake we are able to develop, asleep we cannot. Repetitious movement allows us to develop as/because they are being performed. The discipline required is to apply conscious effort to development and not interfere with the work of appropriate personae.

Limbo

Limbo is a lot like prison. One sits around with things to do but they don’t fill anywhere near the amount of time available. To add to the discontent is the fact that I am in solitary confinement to boot. Now some of this is going to sound like I’m whining and maybe I am. I think it is important, however, to give some voice to the dissatisfied in order to quiet them and get on with some constructive thinking.

The limbo imposed by being called back for a second reading is one. Then the second audition that was Sunday has me in it again, at least until tomorrow night. In the meantime I have kept up with obligations, even made some constructive moves that could have easily been put off. The value of the dailies is evident often. “Doing it now, I am determined.” And, “using my time wisely, I am aware.” These are just two of the many that have taken some hold on my choices and my behavior. All of them are in evidence at some time during the day, week, and month.

There will be quiz tomorrow morning and I’ve been working on three lists of items that will be on it. It is surprising to me to note the amount of effort that goes into learning relatively simple lists of things; the complicating factor is that he said, “Verbatim” from the book. This has me a little spooked. I’ve spent a lot of time on this and I’m still not there; so, I’ll spend some more. One would think It underscores the problems I have in learning lines but there is a slight difference. The play lines are in response to another character, go with movements, have a certain rhyme and reason with the story. These items on the list could be approached that way but I haven’t. This may be a direct benefit of writing this blog tonight.

So here I am, a married man whose wife is gone for ten days, will be back for a short time and then be gone again for another, as yet unspecified, period of time to CA. From October through February she will have been gone a large percentage of the time. I’m out on Wednesday, Thursday, and during the day on Saturday morning and school on MWF. I don’t like meals alone, the evenings, the lunches, the mornings, and the in between times. I am a social being.

If I drank I could have a favorite watering hole to which to go; I suppose I could go over to BCofL and hang out but I’m alone when I go. So what you say? Well that’s exactly right, so what? I could go, see another loner and get a game. Then there are many other places to shoot pool in town and I could find one and go. If I do this it would be to play for money, not much but some to make it interesting. I could be like Gus and shoot pool umpty times a week only I won’t join sessions other than Wednesday night. The key to selecting a place to go is not to get entangled in any kind of obligation; that’s the good thing about a bar. They are there for you whenever you want to go there and there are no service projects, no meetings, no schedule that you have to keep.

Going anywhere causes me to have to go over the hurdle of a collective bunch of minor fears. There is the fear of talking to a nut case who goes on and on about s.t., the fear of being mistaken for a gay person on the make, that a gay person on the make will come on to me, that a female will be lonely and come on to me, or try to set me up for a Seiffert, that I’ll be beaten up and robbed, that I’ll go there, sit and nothing transpires other than the TV set and some minor conversation with the bar tender, then there’s the fear of being diminished for not drinking.

Thomas Jefferson got 1000 letters a year after he finished his presidency. I just finished a book about him and learned so much more about him. He was a social animal and entertained lavishly at the president’s residence and at Monticello. His taste in food, wine, and articles was good, so good that he went bankrupt because he couldn’t seem to adjust his spending habits to suit his diminished income. The author’s chief criticism of him was his two-faced position on slavery. He decried it yet all the time had more than 200 men, women, and children that he owned. She also criticized his stance on who was able to participate in politics, namely white, free, men.

One may ask, from where did this come or where’s he going with this? Well, TJ lived until 1826 during a time without electricity, highways as we know them, airplanes, communications other than handwritten notes and letters. I’ve seen it in many a biography, it isn’t the quality of the communication but the speed of it. Now we have Email, Twitter, Texting, Cell phones, Face book, U-tube;contact is instantaneous. The turnaround time for TJ was probably weeks. He must have been some what like the cell phone queen today; in touch with many and enjoying every minute of it. Bottom-line that’s not for me. I get a little bored exchanging Email. So, I suppose I’m admitting again my misanthropy.

I sit here and bemoan the fact that I’m alone but if and when I’m out with anyone I feel just about as isolated as I do here at home. Yet I am bound and determined to become a more sociable human being. Those with whom I would interact seem to not want to do so with me. This is a problem for me because I don’t know if it’s true or my imagination.

Idle Ruminations

Gus said it and it applies to many people. He said, “Yeah I play pool four nights a week, I have to fill the time man, there’s nothing as bad as having time on your hands." It applies to me today. I could be watching TV or a movie but I refuse to do so. It is more important to me to examine this situation than to let the clock run without s.t to show for it. Carola left this morning for VA and here I am at home alone. I read “Stop Kiss,” the play for class and the application for the Ambassadorial scholarship with which I’ll be helping. A bit later I’ll put the list for class on Wednesday in mind for the quiz. But right now I don’t have anything in mind other than this writing. It’s almost as if I am taking a break in my life. The cast list for The Laramie Project goes up tomorrow; I auditioned for The Importance of Being Earnest last night and will know something tomorrow night. Either, both, or one, or neither could happen but at the moment I am on hold. It’s too cold to play golf, I still have to make arrangements to ride, there are places I could go but I really have no reason to do so, I am left here to write this blog and then whatever.

Now, I may have it all wrong but the message of Existentialism seems to be, to be in this frame of mind all the time. IOW always be ready to spontaneously respond to whatever urges us at the time. I believe the message was not to get too reflective so that everything said and done is according to some premeditated plan; leave room for spontaneity.

Sometimes I think about mom and our relationship, what she went through in last few weeks she was alive. People talk about grieving and I think that it must be getting it out of one’s system; coming to grips with the fact that the deceased is gone. I wonder if I’ve done that; she keeps popping up in my mind, memories of the way it was at the end. I don’t feel any remorse or guilt because I know rationally that we did all we could and that all the right things were done. There was never any rancor about the care she required; I felt that she could have done more to stay physically fit. As a matter of fact that is the one thing that bothers me, her reluctance/refusal to do anything that would keep her fading muscles from atrophying all the way. There was scant little muscle tissue left in her arms and upper body, her legs were likewise getting weaker as time wore on. All because she took the easy road and did no exercises.

It’s easier for me to sit here, 30 years younger and say this. I have observed that people reach the age of about 85 when their physical deterioration accelerates. Much of this is caused by the built in requirement of bodily death at some point. Timir’s book refers to a logical maximum lifetime of 120 years according to some equation. There is a point beyond which the cells of the body can no longer replicate satisfactorily. It is my intention to keep some semblance of physical fitness as long as I live, even if I live more than 100 years.

As I reflect on mom’s condition, all of her bodily functions were fine; she had no mental, organic, or physical deficiencies other than her refusal to maintain muscular condition. She didn’t have enough strength in her arms and legs to prevent a fall when something or another upset her equilibrium and no amount of cajoling on my part could convince her. The physical therapist said that often older people get along just fine but they are only able to cope with the usual and ordinary; when something out of the ordinary happens, they can’t handle it, there’s no reserve. It’s a personal decision one makes incrementally, day by day. I must exercise because I see the necessity of it and I have the will power to do whatever.

That brings up something interesting. In my construct of the being, the different parts that make up the whole are inter-related and there is always a struggle for power going on in here among the personae. There are strong inclinations to experience euphoria, to get totally lost in the pleasure of an experience. There are personae whose desires to do so take precedence over any rational argument to the contrary. The addictions start out as experiences but then a persona is created with instinctive sources and these are so strong that the very safety and security of the being is sacrificed to satisfy the need. Yes, need because what starts out as a desire develops through the addition of instinctive sources, into a need. Tiger Woods seems to have fallen prey to a combination of adolescent physical and psychological pleasures experienced in finding women with whom to copulate long after adolescence. That this is an addiction for him cannot be said, but for many it is a psychological addiction as strong as that of any drug.

None of these is so strong that they cannot be controlled; at least that has been my experience. I smoked heavily until I was 45 years old; many others have similar smoking experiences while still others simply say, “I can’t quit.” I drank alcohol until I was 65 years old and quit before it got to be an addiction. The tobacco was an addiction for me but the alcohol never quite got to that stage. I’ve seen one or two alcoholics and I can objectively say that I am not. In both the tobacco and alcohol situations all that it took for this one was to “make up my mind” who was in charge. There is/are some persona/ae who have s.t. in mind for this lifetime and is/are stronger than those who would allow it to dissipate.

More Than Irony

There is something on my mind and it’s more than irony.

Cases in point: (1) I had to coerce cab drivers at Charles DeGaul aeroport in Paris because none of them wanted to take a fare to Chantilly. It was out of the way; they wanted to go in to Paris where they at least had the opportunity to continue driving fares. If they took me to Chantilly, there was a good chance that they would have to dead-head back to the airport.

One night I finally got an unwilling driver to take me home. He was a cherubic looking fellow, a little nervous but friendly enough. He was about 50 years old, a bit overweight, spoke no English, and had a scented bob hanging from his rearview mirror. I got in the cab first, this was the ploy, and then told him the address, 10 Avenue deMontmorency, Chantilly. He balked but I was already inside along with my suitcase and briefcase. So he shrugged, put it in gear and off we went.

The most direct route was through the Foret du Ermononville, a two lane black top highway with a good surface. I took it to work oftentimes and went well over the speed limit, as did everyone else who drove that road. Not my little cabbie, he did the speed limit without fail, yielded at every roundabout and proceeded most carefully. I was amused at how closely he followed the traffic regulations. This kind of behavior was rare among Paris cabbies.

We got to Chantilly, and he continued to do the speed limit all the way through town; I directed him to my apartment and the final approach was an unlit side street that went through the neighborhood. Well, at the intersection before Ave deM he slid through without giving a car on the right the right of way. In France, the general rule is priorite’ a droite and the car was a police car. They followed him the last 100 yards to my apartment entrance. I got out of the cab and went in. They got out of their car and busted the cabbie. He was so fixated on obeying the traffic regulations and yet he got busted.

(2) My cousin followed the Mulitsch family men and became a police officer. He is my age and we had a lot of fun growing up together. He was in our wedding and the home movies of him getting his dinner are still a source of laughter. He rapidly pointed out the several things he wanted from the serving line, put his hand on his hip and held out his plate; hubris of which to be proud. As a policeman he was terrific as well. He has a great sense of humor but it’s like the vinyl coating on a steel bar and you know it when he talks to you. He was and is successful in the war against crime.

One afternoon in the mid- sixties, he came by the house on Oriole Avenue and introduced us to his bride to be, a beautiful and sensitive young lady. She and he married and soon enough they had a nice young son; they were off to a great start. Well, he was a policeman and you’ve seen enough police TV to know that it’s dangerous. She had this terrible feeling that one day she would get a call saying he’d been killed on the job. I mean it was a serious problem for her. It became so serious that they decided to split up; she just couldn’t take the pressure. She finally remarried after a long time and started a new life with a new husband. One night she got a call; he’d been shot in an altercation with others and killed. My cousin, on the other hand, is still doing just fine.

(3) The Courier-Journal newspaper published a story about a young store owner/operator in the Old Louisville section of the city. He was being held up at gunpoint when the robber fired the gun and killed him. As it turns out, and the story is just a sketchy as my account of it, he was from the Middle East, came to Louisville with his wife and son to get away from the violence.

In all of these, and I’m sure you can think of more examples, the people were trying so hard to avoid some set of circumstances and yet that set of circumstances came about anyway. It is almost as if there was nothing they could do to avoid it. They all made conscious decisions to avoid catastrophe and yet the catastrophe occurred. One has to ask the question, is it fate or is it that such a strong impression is made that personae work in subtle ways to fulfill it? In other words, it is possible that the extreme aversion to having something happen makes such a deep impression on personae in the being that they work to arrange for it to happen just as we would hope they would work to bring about something desirable.

Personally I don’t believe in fate, preordination, or kismet, or any other name you may give it. It seems that a strong desire can be impressed on the being for s.t. and then the mechanism sets about achieving that by hook or by crook. There have been some notable impressions in my experience, to wit: membership in the Hampton Yacht Club, inclusion in the ranks of the management of NNS, and competing at the Horse Park. I could bore you with about a hundred more but the bottom line is we get what we want and be careful what you want. It seems that the mechanism makes no distinction of what is good or bad for one; it simply gets whatever is strongly enough impressed on it.

The nature of the being is such that some personae are working right now to fulfill some impressed desire and whichever personae are figuratively on the bridge of our ship at sea here may not even be aware of what is happening to fulfill said impression. Furthermore, there could be many impressions upon which work is being done by some of the hundreds of personae that make up this being and often it is only through hindsight that we become aware of the fulfillment.

A New Year

It is Sunday, the second Sunday of the year and I am setting about my plotting and scheming for the week. It is appropo to do so by writing my thoughts of the instant. No blogs have been posted for 2010 and it is about time.

There is a recurring theme in my blogs; hey, it’s all about me. Well good reader, this is why I set up the blog in the first place. It is a means to capture my thoughts, understanding, and opinions for me and for anyone else who may be interested enough to read them. I could have continued to write them in notebooks, of which there are more than thirty-five plus another 40,000 words of notes from 1995 on but this would have allowed them to sit in obscurity, probably where they belong, whereas putting them in a blog allows for the possibility of others reading them and even consider them helpful.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things I have oversimplified being; OTOH my definition of being seems to fit the reality of what I see within me and others. There are different, markedly different, personae who show themselves; who take over the driver’s seat of thought, speech, and action.

There is the question of what is life? There is the question what happens at death? Is there a continuity of being that recurs?

Then here is the Earth, a unique position in the solar system, and perhaps even in the universe, whereupon the conditions are right to allow life as we see and experience it. The eccentricity of its solar orbit and the gravitational effect of the sun and moon keep the surface of the Earth from stagnating. All of this continues to be a mystery of what, how, and why. It isn’t so much the what anymore, I have achieved a working knowledge of that; the how isn’t all that important, although some great minds are working on it all the time; but the why of it, this is what leads me along like a bull with a ring in his nose tethered by a string to a little girl’s small hand.

Well, that’s enough of this. I have to plan the week, study for a quiz tomorrow, plan and prepare for an audition tomorrow night, and get rid of some more stuff. If I was to delve into the previous paragraph I would spend the entire week doing little more.

Arthur C. Clarke died last year and he used his powers of imagination to address some of the questions of the previous, especially as told in his two books, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and 2010, Odyssey 2. He may have been further along the development curve than he knew, or perhaps he did and was trying to tell us s.t.

It is now Tuesday. I’ve started listening to a series on Existentialism and find it to be interesting and completely contrary to the way I live my life. It is a bit early in the series to be making judgments but the drift of it seems to be spontaneity v reflection. While I can see the value of the former, I can also attest to the value of the latter. In an almost Aristotelian approach I would say a mixture of the two is necessary to have an interesting and yet productive life. Said mixture would not be separated into compartments but rather mixed as one would mix coffee and cream. And that is about all I have to say about this.

The next thing he gets into is Kierkegaard, as a philosopher, and some others who are likewise not worth more than curiosity. It seems as if these “philosophers” were screwed up individuals who were articulate and in their articulations left a trail of words to be read and discussed. The genesis of their thoughts is questionable since most of them were influenced by extreme others, either parents, or teachers, or contemporaries. They put forth a belief in God. Now that is troublesome because the term is ill defined, if defined at all. It is a concept, an idea, an abstraction that defies definition. Usually people get around it by using a different set of letters to describe the concept: creator, universal mind, Allah, Great Spirit, but never is it objectively defined.

Greek myth, Inca and Maya beliefs, American Indian beliefs, pagan religions, and Islam are all religions not taken seriously by Christians who think their creed, their set of beliefs, is the only truth. Yet when you look at that set of beliefs it is as incredible as the White Buffalo maiden, Zeus, and the Sun god. Christians, as well as other religions, believe that two plus two equals five and they do so with fervor that defies reason.

There are two questions: is religious tradition the truth, and what motivates those who promote it. For me the answer to the first is that buried in all religious traditions is a kernel of truth. I am quick to admit that I don’t fully know that truth but I suspect that it is compatible with the universe as it exists both physically and, for lack of a better term, spiritually.

The answer to the second is that it is promoted to satisfy the psychological human needs of the religious leaders and adherents. It is manifested as an extreme emotional response to overcome what is lacking in rationality. One can enumerate the travesties of religious fervor:martyrdom, persecution, the Inquisition, denial of physical truth, Christian fundamentalism, and Islamic fundamentalism. Religious leaders deal with threats to their house of cards by annihilating the opposition through shunning, excommunicating, or killing them.

No, I don’t know the truth; I am quietly working to do just that. I think that I am closer to it than I was 15 years ago and a lot closer than I was 35 years ago when I began this quest. I’ll continue in my journey of discovery and, like the Universe itself, never quite fathom the fullness of it.