The Basics

 As it is with most philosophy, the basics of living can be expressed completely and succinctly.  It is in the expansion and application of these basics where the work becomes complex.  Just as the Constitution of the United States is succinct and not an exhausting work in and of itself, it took the Federalist Papers and it still takes a panel of judges on the Supreme Court to interpret it.  The rules of golf is another great example of this as is the work of Peter Drucker on subject of management.

The physical basics are clean air and water, nourishment, cleanliness, and activity as one avoids harmful substances.  The mental basics are stimulation and objectivity.  

Providing these allows a care free life except for the possibility of disease, which can be the result of genetics, emotions, and environment.  We can't control our genetics but we can recognize our emotions and change our environment.  

There it is.

Genetically we can be predisposed to some diseases and there isn't much to be done about it. Although, our collective ability to identify and treat diseases has resulted in coping with many of them. 

Emotionally we can find ourselves in situations where our responses are so irrational and out of control that physical manifestations occur.  Here too, we have developed methods of coping with them.

Environmentally we can be in a locations where the air and/or water are simply not suitable to a healthy environment. This can be changed if it is desirable to do so.

Attending to these basics allows us to pursue Aim because the basics are not exhausting.  They can be mostly fulfilled by good habits and attending to detail.  The remaining time of our life can be spent pursuing Aim, another way of saying, fulfilling our dreams.  

Attention!

 

"Remember, the amateur works until he can get it right.  The professional works until he can't get it wrong."  

Advice given to Julie Andrews, as a young actress, and she passes it along to us.  It is sage advice and can be verified by observation when we see professionals performing.  And it goes deeper to understand it.

The professional has three primary tools; knowledge, iteration, and attention.  He learns his role from the inside out.  Yes, he learns his lines; yes, he knows his blocking; yes, he knows the context of the piece; through repetition he can do it without even thinking about it.  

Then, as with any professional, he pays attention to what he is doing, while he is doing it.  This is what allows him to perform without a flaw.  Should a flaw occur by another, it is what allows him to make adjustments to cover it.

Attention to costume, make-up and props.  Attention to the moods and attitudes of his fellows in the cast.  Attention to the activities prior to his entrance.  Attention to the stage as he enters.  Attention to those on stage with him.  Attention. albeit peripheral, to the audience and their reactions.  His aim is to be "on top of it."  To do it, to pay attention to doing it but without thinking about it.

And when it's over, complete relaxation.

"All the world's a stage" and so this can be said of any professional be he an attorney, a doctor, an engineer, an artist or an artisan, a tradesman, and even an actor.

Two Grand Analogies

 The first: it strikes me that making a plan for what to do during the week is a lot like going to a buffet table.  One takes his time, looks over the possibilities, puts on his plate that which he thinks he'd like, then walks away to enjoy it.  While away, there are snack tables set up around the room; a nibble here and a nibble there but always attending to the plate in hand.

Then, if all goes well, he sits back in a comfortable chair and enjoys the feeling that his hunger has been satisfied; not only from the food on the buffet table but the little snacks as well.  Then a while later, he gets hungry again.

The important food, the food that will see to his well-being, came from the buffet table; the snacks provided some interesting diversity.  The time spent in the dining room was well spent, that is important.

What is eaten in the here and now makes no discernible change in his appearance but, over time, too much of this or that will show its effect.  If properly nourished, one will continue a slim and healthy life and vice-versa.

The analogy is a good one.

The second: there are notebooks full of written thoughts probably never to be read.  These writings, and probably this blog, are like photographs taken during the course of a lifetime.  Some are large vista-views, some are composed and posed, some are candid shots that were spontaneous.  All of them are kept, at least for a while, in files or albums probably never to be viewed.

 Furthermore, the notebooks are in cursive which is something people younger than fourteen years cannot read without difficulty.  The more time that elapses the greater the possibility that no one, except scholars, will be able to understand the script.  Then there's the added complication that age has diminished my handwriting to a scrawl that is even more difficult to interpret, sometimes even by me who wrote it.

Like the old photos, no one recognizes the scene or the people.  So it goes; we look at our photos and read our notes for our own enjoyment and, perhaps that of others as yet unknown. 

The analogy is also a good one.

Songs from the Past

 This post is important only to me but others may find some inspiration to delve into their feelings after reading it.  It developed over the course of several days.

Wednesday, 9-16-2020: 

I had a conversation on the phone yesterday with a cousin.  I left that with a negativity that has nothing to do with him.  It must be linked to my growing-up years in St. Louis.  I realized today that I get that same depressed feeling when I deal with people from the high school I attended.  There’s something there, in my past with which I don’t want to deal and, worse, I’m not sure what it is.

Aha!  There was the summons from Msgr. Hellriegel; pastor of our church and an important person in the community and my life.  This was when I was about 13 years old; he berated my behavior.  That is the only thing that stands out as a negative experience of any large proportion.

I was a “good boy” – “bad boy” kind of kid.  Someone ratted out some of my bad behavior to the Msgr. and he pounced on me with both feet.  I think that had a deeper effect on me than I’ve realized.  I was an informal leader of the others but also sensitive to the disapproval of my superiors (dad, mom, et al.)

I’m not sure why high school brings on the negativity except in the person of a classmate who had a superior attitude.  We never had much of anything to do with one another but his father was a “rich” dentist and he and another were superior types in their behavior.  I eschewed them and resented them at the same time.  The other's dad owned the drug store.

Now whenever high school comes to mind, so do these feelings of resentment.  There’s a cloud over my high school years and a cloud over my teenage years in St. Louis.  Those clouds blot out the sunshine that I have come to enjoy away from there and then.

Thursday, 9-17-2020: 

What I wrote yesterday is profoundly true.  I’ve often thought about why I left St. Louis and always come back to the same conclusion.  I left to live a life without interference from family and others.  Also, I suppose I never quite saw a future for me there and that's on me.

A big part of that was coping with the past.  I think I bottomed out in 1959 after being advised to seek my education at another school.  I made some decisions then, actually it was one decision, return to that college and graduate in that curriculum.  The rest of what I did supported that.

Then in 1963, upon graduation, the decision was made to accept an offer from the shipyard in Newport News.  That decision was rooted in a desire to see the world and to be my own person and perhaps away from the disappointments of the past.

It has taken a long time and required deferment of seeing the world while we raised a family.  Now I can say I have seen the world, at least enough of it to be satisfied.  I can also say that I am my own person with a loving family and no regrets.

Unearthing the causes of negativity yesterday has added to my understanding of me.  I can say that all that happened around me led to me being who I am.  Not all of it was good; but, knock on wood, I never caused anybody much harm.

My core decisions were for my own peace of mind.   My good side overcame my bad side and I generally focused on the good, not the bad.  The bad makes me shiver.

In all of this I realize I am unique but not all that different from others.  There’s a lot of life still to be lived.  The difference, going forward, is that I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, anymore.

Saturday, 9-19-2020: 

Continuing to remember the angst of my youth, I recall the dichotomy that existed, and of which I became aware in high school, in my life and social position.  We lived in a development named English Grove.  It was built out in the time between 1900 and 1910.

The farms adjacent to “the Grove” were developed between 1925 and 1935.  A different class of people lived in this newly developed area.  People with more money and status than we.

Yet in Baden and at Holy Cross, I felt that we were the privileged and others less so.  We handed down things and clothes to others in Baden.  So, I grew up on the border, not unlike Burgenland Austria, at the higher end of a social structure to the east and at a lower facing west.

It wasn’t until high school that I became aware of my lower class status.  The higher class was personified in my two privileged acquaintances.  It is from this that my resentment of them springs.  It became apparent that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was.  We were of the poorer class.

I think this was, along with the Msgr. episode, what laid the foundation of my desire to get gone.  I suppose I didn’t like not being as good as I thought I was.  In fact, life has proven to me that I am not a natural at anything but must study, plan, and work to realize my dreams.  That formula has worked well for me, to get me where I am now.

Later Saturday: 

There seems to be a thread that goes through all of my formative years.  I came to realize, time after time, that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was.  And there’s a good possibility that I am painfully aware of that even now.  Admitting this gives me solace, and recognizing this, time after time, my response has been to knuckle down and overcome any lack of natural talent through work. 

I sit here at age 80 and can say that I never found that at which I am a natural.  Often I had some success at my first attempt at things but that was the end of it; from then on it required hard work and practice if I was to succeed.  Those often paid big dividends for me and I came out very well at what I set out to do.  That was true in every endeavor that I pursued and those I am now pursuing.  Failure and working my way out of it to be successful has been de rigueur.

A Failure to Communicate

There is this phenomenon, which has been inherent in us forever, where we disconnect internally from what we are doing.  The gospels refer to something about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing; and these were written before 300 AD.  This phenomenon is also recognized by the writings of the Fourth Way.  It is easily explained in the language of the 4th Way in that personae often act independently.

There is also the importance of  "the Word."  We are unique among living organisms in that we have and use words to communicate.  Words that can be written and then read thousands of years later, translated by scholars from one language to another.  These same words have another purpose or function.  I call it homogenization.

The aforementioned phenomenon is caused by a lack of internal communication.  I can infer that the Director persona has the responsibility, among many others, to provide communication among the various other personae who are active at any given time.

This can be thought of as attention; when the Director is doing his job, the active personae are attentive to the action and work in concert.  All the personae involved are cooperating to fulfill the actions being taken.

Distractions cause disparate actions and the realization that something "went wrong," or wasn't done, or cannot be remembered at the moment.  (Why was it that I came in here?)  It is the Director who gets distracted and fails in his duty from time to time.  And we say, "I was distracted."

Distraction can be instantaneous and of short duration or of longer duration and lead one on a path of activities far afield of where one started out to go.  Understanding distraction can help to minimize the effect.  At least five different categories of distraction are described in detail in writings of the 4th Way and can be verified by observing one's own actions.  My advice would be to research them.

Realizing the importance of "the Word," as a concept of internal communication among the personae active in the moment, is a step toward producing results that help one achieve aim.  Aim is another discussion to be addressed later.

An Angel in Here?

It seems to me that inside here is an angel.  It would certainly explain a lot of the good that I have experienced.

Until now it seemed to be the result of being a caring person, caring of others with whom I have come in contact.  Then when they passed from this life  the saw to it that nothing too awfully bad happened to me.

There may be something to this.  When I reflect on the events of my life, however, I can see in hind-sight that it has been remarkable and often unique to the time and circumstance.  Often I found myself there, not due to foresight or planning, although there was some of course but when I got there, wherever it was, the whole scenario turned golden.

Is this angel inside one who is on an earned vacation, a celestial holiday taken in my lifetime ?  That would explain a lot.

Not for the first moment do I suppose that I, this brain-body, is angelic but the being inside, whom I have called Master, is separate and apart even though he's in here with me.  It is as if I am the horse and he is the rider.

At times the horse has taken the run of things but I always  come back to being obedient to the rider.  The rider, being unselfish, has allowed this horse to have his way from time to time, to the delight and appreciation of the horse.

So, who might this angel be?  (This all sounds so bizarre but it also explains a lot.) This angel has enjoyed some of the finest experiences available, as have I because I am his way of getting around,  and is doing so through my senses and thoughts.

This is a most interesting observation and one that I will, of course, keep to myself.  Unless it behooves my Angelic Master to do otherwise.  (And now, later, I suppose it does.)

In the physical world we have names.  I wonder what the name of my Angelic Master might be?  There are some beautiful names of angles: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael being those of the Archangels.  And then there's Lucifer but we won't go there.  My angel, the one in here, may be "John."

I am excited about this possibility.  It changes my perspective this is for sure; and it explains a lot of what is and has happened to/for me.

Seen a Ghost Lately?

That the spiritual world exists is accepted by almost everyone excluding, perhaps, atheist's.  If you believe in God, by almost any definition, and/or belong to an organized religion, you believe in a spiritual world. Yet that world is an enigma.

We are where the Europeans were before Columbus, where astronomers were before Galileo and Copernicus, where we are today with regard to the Universe.  Before Columbus, the map makers went so far and ended their depiction with the note, "Here the darkness begins."  Before Galileo and Copernicus, the Earth was thought to be the center of the Universe and everything rotated around it.  And now, in spite of our orbiting telescopes, our radio wave receiver antennae, and our math and physics, we are still discovering new, and wonderful, things about our Universe.

So it is with the spiritual world.  The Greeks, and then the Romans, had their Olympian gods and others for almost every situation; they may not have been all that far off.  Catholics today have the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mother, the martyrs and other saints, many of whom have a special function; such as St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, or St. Anthony, the patron saint of things lost. Then there are the books, the Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, and the writings that inspire Buddhists, and those who follow Hinduism, those of the Tibetan monasteries, and probably many others.  The pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas and the American Indians also had their description of a spiritual world as did/do the Polynesians, Aborigines, and Maoris.

The whole shebang is testament to imagination because all of these writings and beliefs are that and only that.  They are sometimes called "inspired" to give greater weight to the words but, in fact, they are the result of  someone, or many, thinking it up and then writing it down or passing it along orally.

Nowhere is there a definitive description of the spiritual world, that is the world that exists outside of the physical realm, that isn't the product of imagination.  And to my point above, even the well observed and the well defined physical world is still full of surprises as to its content and manifestations. We are all the Indian blind men feeling different parts of the elephant and describing the entire animal.  For anyone to tell us otherwise is fraud.

It is also to say that we should keep imagining what is the spiritual world and make it our business to find out more about it, even participate in it.  We, and this is my elephant description, are in the unusual position of having a mind that uses part of a physical brain to imagine the spiritual world.  As long as we don't make this imagination "law" we will continue to progress.

Why? Oh Tell Me Why.

We do things.  Sometimes we know what and why, other times we just do things and then ask, "Why did I do that?"

Five sources/causes have been identified for my actions:
1) In our formative years and until we are fully matured, about age 25 years or whenever that may be, we are under the influence of parents and other people of authority over us and we, more or less, comply.
2) From an early age and to a greater extent until it is almost completely so,  our actions are influenced by our imagination and reasoning.
3) That there is a spiritual world is something I have come to accept and yet the structure and function of it is beyond my understanding.  I believe that we are influenced greatly by entities in that realm.  Although we have the final choice in doing, or not, what is suggested by them.
4) We are in organizations, companies where we work, social groups to which we adhere such as churches, and hobby groups.  These have a big influence on what we do.
5) Then there is Master, the strong yet mute entity at the core of our being; the one continuing the development of his place in the spiritual world during this lifetime as well as those before and after.  We feel his influence when we are acting in ways that are detrimental to his development and we continue to do that at our own risk.

The experience of a lifetime has led me to this conclusion.  It makes sense, at least to me.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Clocks

We watched Sunrise Sunset about the Dalai Llama; a most interesting movie.  In it he talked about time in terms of minutes and seconds.  He misses an important truth.

We are not governed by the clock except that we are constructed such that we need rest and sleep to recover mentally and physically from the rigors of the day.  It just so happens that as the earth turns there's a period of darkness that lends itself, conveniently, to sleeping.

My thoughts are that a human being, or any living organism, has at least three influences that affect him (and I use "him" because it is the convention that, at least until recently, has been used).  One influence comes from the needs of the body, the physical needs of nutrition, relief, and rest.  Then there are the human influences from imagination and reasoning often stimulated by interaction with others.  Finally, there's the influence from the spiritual world that exists beyond our ken.

These influences result in motivation to accomplish something, to take action, or be involved in something; to achieve some sort of result and that desired result is an Aim.  And there are many more than one going on simultaneously.  They can be independent or overlap in a Boolean sort of way.

Working on Aim can be considered as being in the present and it has a duration that is not measured by the clock.  An Aim lasts until it is achieved, satisfied, or abandoned.  Working on Aims requires reasoning and decision.  What do I do right now?

A conscious Aim has the components of a Dream, a Goal, an Objective, and a Task.  We go through life working on Aim, conscious or not, and satisfying the physical needs of the body, which in itself can even be considered an Aim; addiction being an extreme example.

In the background, mute and observing, is Master whose influence is only felt when his Aim is not being advanced.

Crossing the Frozen Lake

I feel like I'm crossing a frozen lake.

Until now, the surface of the lake was frozen to a thickness that was virtually impenetrable.  Now, as I walk along through life, hearing, seeing, feeling, observing, participating, I get the notion that the ice, i.e. the barrier between me and truth, is much thinner.  I understand things from the past, of not only mine but also the lives of people present and past, and accept those impressions, those little bubbles of understanding, without too much argument or analysis.

It seems that a key element of understanding more is to avoid analysis, or over-thinking, and accept the insight as is.  This may be because they are insights and not conclusions.

By the same token, I will not, would not, publicize (with these notable exceptions) my insights because society does not readily accept them as is.  Society requires that any published idea must be attacked and defended until it is "purified" by same and made acceptable.  Most of the time to be upturned by later, better findings.

The make-up of the Universe is a good case in point.  There have been theories since the beginning about it and all of them proven untrue, or at least incomplete.  The only one to remain after all challenges is the existence of the force of attraction between masses, i.e. gravity.

Even this, however, may be modified in the future by something that includes, what is now thought of as, the other component, i.e. energy.  And, who knows, there may be other components that we don't even suspect.

I am not proposing that we do away with proof and accept insights as truth.  I am, however, acknowledging the importance of insights as a possible starting point for finding truth.  I can accept my own as truth, or at least an indication of truth, but I am careful not to promulgate my half-baked theories on others.

I continue my trek across the frozen lake as I hear the barrier ice crack, whine, whistle, and pop under my step.  If it ever gives way, what then.  Would I drown/ perish in the truth, the enormity of it?

Being alive, living as a physical being, protected from the "awful" truth is one thing.  Does death of the physical body allow us to plunge into the depth of truth?  And if we can't accept or acclimate to it, is that the end of our individual existence? Do we reincarnate to try again?

And if we can accept the truth, are we on yet another journey of discovery? Much like our fascination with the Universe, we may find out more and more as we can accept it and sort of understand it.

We are of, and on, this earth and yet our mind, in contrast to our brain, allows us to imagine more than what we can perceive with our senses.  Imagination and reasoning are tools of the mind, they take us beyond the physical limits of our experiences.  There are observations and conclusions, however, that defy mathematics and science.