Moving On

Saturday, October 31, 2009
This is the last day of my batching it with Carola being in California with Theresa and the kiddies; it’s been a pretty good experience. A friend at Rotary Club lost his wife six years ago, she died. He has a lot of experience in living alone and remarked that it took him a long time to get used to her being permanently gone. I won’t/don’t have that problem because Carola is coming home tomorrow.

We have another dress rehearsal tomorrow afternoon and performances on Tuesday and Thursday next week. The play is coming together nicely; Dr. Greene has a lot of experience in all of this and lets it evolve week after week. He also has a lot of creativity. Faced with an unusual class member, he invented a character, Voltaire, wrote an introduction, and a mid-play continuum for the character and it works together very nicely. He has also taken care of the music, the lights, the videotaping, and publicity. I noticed he had director’s notes during the last rehearsal, something I thought he’d been missing. For a French class, this has been a growth experience for me.

I’ve written about self-doubt and what follows is not that but rather an attempt at taking an objective look at where I am and how I am doing in that class. On the positive side, I am in the class, know my lines, and interact somewhat with others in the class. I am not butting in to give any kind of advice or counsel to anyone; not suggesting anything, not directing in any way. I am also not helping with tasks that others have had assigned to them. 

On the less positive side, I am uptight about my lines, not relaxed and “In character.” My lines are not that long or involved, and I know them. My costume is great, as is my makeup. The only reason I am not loose and in character may be the language thing. I am still thinking too much about what and how I am delivering them instead of letting Voltaire come through. That will be my goal tomorrow.

It is now late in the afternoon, I slept until 9am and left the house to go riding at eleven; back at 1:30pm, and I ate lunch and fooled around with Sudoku until about now. For some reason, the small of my back has muscle spasms and I am dealing with that now. They started after lunch and could have been the result of riding and/or not doing two critical stretches this morning because of a belly full of breakfast. I am going to have to let these subside by not doing much of any exercise or work; or perhaps doing the stretches that I missed, and/or doing the straps to force the relaxation of the muscles.

The week has been productive but I am willing to admit that there hasn’t been a lot on my plate; and this is probably a good thing. I am content with having to concentrate on the play and the presentation at the Consul’s meeting next Friday. We are all set to go to Athens Georgia for John’s graduation from a Navy School and to go to California for Thanksgiving. I’ve kept up with my dailies and weeklies, the laundry is done, the house is the same as when Carola left, some of mom’s effects are gone, others staged for moving, the kitchen is clean, the yard is fine so it isn’t as if I haven’t been doing anything. It’s more of the feeling that I often have, of not doing anything of consequence.

All the while I am concentrating on this one single thing, the play; Dr. Greene is likewise as well as teaching a myriad of other classes and preparing a paper to give at a symposium sometime in November. Others in the class are not only doing the play but also handling a list of classes that would not be possible for me. Although it is hard to admit, age has a lot to do with it. Ed Causey warned me that I would be slowing down, i.e. unable to handle lots of simultaneous major issues. This is a generic issue that affects all people. It is important that I recognize it and continue to allow myself some slack.

It continues to be important to pick that one thing upon which I will concentrate when the play is over. It will be the presentation on Nov 6 and then there may be an LTM in Evansville starting up shortly thereafter. Jack called this week to tell me they are shooting for November 11, although it may be shoved back a few weeks or all the way to January; it will be difficult to get all seven sessions in before Xmas.

Since I’ve made my decision to continue acting/ performing, I will be making my overtures to Dr. Tompkins for Acting ii as well as taking some time to find the various stage opportunities that exist locally. I am aware of several and have been seeing them here and there as I drive around. Acting ii is important because it will prepare me; finding the locations allows me to get a feel for what/where I may be performing. I may go to productions at the various locations just to experience the milieu. These two things are significant and important to my continuing on this course of action. Should Dr. Tompkins refuse me, I will have to find another source of preparing me for the stage.

One of the things I became aware of during the past couple of months, and s.t. that is expanded in a previous blog, is the role of preparation in success. I even made a 2x2 of it with the x-axis being a continuum of preparation from general to specific and the y-axis being lo and hi achievement. The four quadrants are 0-0 couldn’t figure it out, 0-1 success in unchartered territory, 1-0 inexperienced, 1-1 success expected. The conclusion is the obvious, the better prepared one thinks he is, the higher the expectation of success.

Wrap Up

Monday October 26, 2009

I’m still thinking about the three demons that bothered me. Even though I’ve reconciled myself to them, rendered them harmless, I’ve taken another tack to complete the process.

I can readily see that yes, I am inferior to many others; that I have taken a wrong turn or two in attempting things, IOW I’ve failed a time or two; and that self-doubt is actually a good thing if it doesn’t disable.

We are going through a lot of old pictures and memorabilia that mom left behind. There were stages through which I went as I lived through this lifetime. Always engaged in some pursuit or another and always achieving some degree of success. That is the key word, some degree of success. Performance is relative. The quality of it depends on how well one is prepared for the task. A performance that hasn’t been rehearsed will flop. With this thought in mind I went at it from another angle.

Looking at all of the things that I tried, some were higher on the success grade than others. Judging the results of any attempted activity, one would be wise to look at the bell shaped curve of normal distribution, i.e. all of the people in one’s world, and take a judgment call, put a point on the x-axis where this one’s results may fall in absolute terms; then put another point on the axis at the level of preparedness compared to all others.

Preparedness deserves some exposition. Preparation begins with the first recognition one has of his surroundings, at a very early age. It continues through the way his parents, his family, his extended family, teachers, and other people of influence, the environment in which one finds himself at various times during his lifetime, i.e. not only his developing years. When one has had the best of all of these, there is a good possibility that he will be in the very highest percentile of achievements. So while there is no limit to what anyone can accomplish with/in his lifetime, there are those who start with an advantage. Being properly prepared doesn’t mean success will come, it means that the possibility of success is greater.

The inferiority complex comes in when one focuses on how his situation fits into that of those with whom he is competing. The key to not being debilitated by that over which one has no control, no influence, no ability to go back and do over, is to accept reality and not try to be something or someone he isn’t. There are those who will flatter and be obsequious. Often they have an ax to grind and are not your fan club; face it, you don’t have a fan club except your wife and kids.

The common trait of all those who get to the top is strategic vision i.e. be able to state what they want. Then in the here and now, tactically at this juncture, see what they need, clearly and completely, and achieve it. Then just before that is achieved, realizing that it is coming soon, they are able to see what is next on the agenda. It is always the incremental next task, the next brick in the wall. Then there are the occasions when one gets connected to Essence and things happen rather fast. This is why focusing on that one overall strategic vision is so important. Confusion is caused by too many choices, to many high priority items and nothing happens.

One can immediately see that all of this focus on inferiority and failure is moot. It is an emotional reaction and tied to the distractions of inner-considering, and vanity. It buys us nothing but distracts us from working on aim. When one is working on aim, he is productive.

Self-doubt/approval-avoiding disapproval is another thing that needs some elucidation. On the one hand, it is important. One can’t go ahead in response to emotional reactions; so it is important to keep this/these in proper perspective. There is time for analysis and then there’s decision time. The decision is not always consistent with the analysis and these are two different and distinct features of the brain-body. Logical reasoning is one feature, decision making is another. They are two distinct and different features. The doubt comes in when these two are battling it out. Decision maker has a high level of emotional content whereas Analyzer has a high level of intellectual content. Decision maker wants to act; Analyzer wants to continue with the analysis; hence, the doubt. Unless and until analyzer is satisfied that all has been considered, then he’s comfortable with going ahead.

Approval-avoiding disapproval comes from Analyzer’s limited emotional content. It is an argument that he uses to derail Decision maker and get more analysis time. The approval-avoiding disapproval being sought is not that of others but me, or made to seem that way by Analyzer. He is the cause of paralysis by analysis, a relatively common management term. The only way to cope with this is by rational thinking and seeing it for what it is. As for approval-avoiding disapproval of other people, that’s ridiculous as long as I continue to operate sensitively, morally, ethically, and legally.

These three goofballs are always waiting in the wings to step in and add emotional turmoil to an uncertain situation. Once the statement of strategic aim is made, they go into the background again and keep to their places.

It took me several meetings with Jim to sort this all out. The three were having their way with me and, I suppose because it is all me, I wasn’t seeing it without talking it out, writing it out. In this instance there was some good work on the first level with the assistance of Jim and his various techniques. He/they enabled me to put things aright again; make a decision and go on from here.

My strategic vision is to be a stage performer; finding opportunities, auditioning, learning lines, rehearsing, and performing.

Conclusion

Saturday, October 24, 2009

The issues of self-doubt and the need for approval have been on my mind all week. Just thinking about it/them doesn’t get me anywhere, only writing it out like this allows me to put some structure to it. It is interesting to note that whenever I get an idea in mind, such as this self-doubt, it quickly gets dissolved by examples of when this same thing was overcome, when it wasn’t an issue, when I went ahead and did whatever without being concerned about it. Same for approval/ disapproval, there have been so many courses of action taken where it didn’t make a bit of difference if there was approval or not.

It would serve little or no purpose to list them because any such list would suddenly get long, boring, and be full of omissions. But just entertaining thoughts of the many examples leads me to laugh at the idea that I am plagued by these issues. Now that I am fully aware of my experiences, I am amazed that I would ever think that self-doubt and approval/disapproval were thought to be issues with me.

What led me to think they were? Since August 15 there has been a great deal of uncertainty about the future, more than I normally experience. It is as if I was dropped off at the mall and told to go buy s.t. but don’t have a clue as to what. There have been other times like these and I’ve already gone into that in previous sessions. Only this time there is a sense of mortality that is giving me pause for thought. I know that I this body won’t live forever, so I am concerned about what to do with remaining lifetime. I take solace in the concept of Being.

If a decision had to be made right now, I would say I’m going ahead as I have been. My experience has been to do whatever, if it is s.t. that suits me I continue, if not; I don’t. Ambition fueled by imagination has always given way to ambition fueled by experience where incremental improvements, almost imperceptible at the time, have accumulated to suddenly be significant. Almost like the shifting sandbars in the Mississippi around St. Louis; they form islands that have a permanency only affected by giant floods.

I started riding again and it has now blossomed into twice per week. It won’t be long until I have a horse or two, if it all works out the way it usually does. There are those with horses who can’t wait to get rid of them; sort of like boats. The happiest days are said to be the day you get one and the day you get rid of it. The difference with a horse is it is an animal, albeit one who rarely returns affection. This could be what I like about them. Sentimentalism is not one of their strong suits and I can do without it.

Then there are the rest of my endeavors, those things that I chose to chase, to spend my time doing. There is time for all of them and then some. IOW I have time available for pursuing all of them and will continue. The training/performing endeavor is one that emerges with the greatest allure. I’ve been doing it for a long, long time and I’ve embarked on a study of acting in theater. And I realize that success is in the eye of the beholder, just like French, golf, pool, riding, sketching, and writing. The possibility of being recognized publicly is always there but not s.t. to be set as a goal; there doesn’t seem to be much of a desire for it.

What will be will be; which is another way of saying that when Master has a desired path; the personae are able to recognize it and carry it out using the tools of the brain-body to give them physical expression. And there is another factor in the mix; there seems to be a connection among beings that we see as inspiration, good fortune, and beneficial circumstances. Some refer to it as a universal mind. I am somewhat skeptical about it only because it almost too good to be true but my personal experiences bear out the existence of same. I keep rationalizing it as being the result of previous experiences in this lifetime, or perhaps a former and this would explain many instances but there are some that are so big that I can’t rationalize them. I see it happen to others as well, I mean things that couldn’t just be serendipity.

The one thing that all the fortunate occurrences have in common is an intention. All were consistent with an intended path/ desired course of action. None of them were like winning the lottery; IOW, the College didn’t come to me and say we’ve decided that you should come here and get your MBA. And this is the ingredient that if forming at the moment, the major purpose and it is stage acting. Now I’ve said it, this is what it is at least for now. All of my performances of the past, the present, and the future support this goal and it is exactly parallel to my pool playing endeavor.

I played pool casually for a long time, getting more and more serious about it until now I’ve joined the APA, play on a team in a league, study, practice, and compete. I am a skill level 3 of possible 7, and I play at that level and it doesn’t deter me. There has been gradual improvement, augmented by breakthrough experiences, and finally I'll achieve a command of the game that will push me to higher skill levels. It will take time and continuous study, practice, play, and competition.

So here I am, I’ve said the obvious, I am making the commitment, and going forward on the same path on which I have been. It started with Creative Writing class, Playwriting Class, then Acting I, Romeo and Juliet, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and now Zadig, Ou la Destinee.

The Horse

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Yes, all of the analysis that I’ve done is fun, good, and thoughtful/ thought-provoking. It doesn’t lead directly to any result but it sets the stage for understanding better what is/ could be.

 It is the result of personae that are primarily influenced by the intellectual source and this is where the idea of a bridge comes in. There has to be a way of getting from the thoughtful analysis to the desired result. So far the path has been mostly circuitous. A little analysis, a little planning, a little articulation of what may be dreams, and then some listed tasks that are accomplished because they are listed and reminders are posted. There are few things that get listed that don’t get done, and those that aren’t finished will be in due time. The time or two that personae of primarily the emotional source got involved, the accomplishment of even the larger goal was seemingly effortless.

There is no direct link between analysis and task. This is an important statement because one may think that there is a linear progression from one to the other. It doesn’t happen that way, the analysis establishes the environment for thinking of what is desired and then from that what to do. Not everything done, of course, comes out of this process; there are some things that crop up and with which we must deal.

There are dangers, one danger is to get so detailed in the planning that there is no time to spare to be spontaneous. Then there is another, the danger of not having s.t. listed to remind one of what to do; there is a tendency to idle by doing s.t. that is totally unproductive like Sudoku, reverie, or TV. Not that these are inherently bad but they have a tendency to create their own inertia, i.e. once started they seem to take much more time than one would otherwise chose to spend.

Having good habits and becoming their slave is a way to always be focused on a desired state of being. By conforming to habitual behavior and/or thinking one complies with a predetermined wish/desire. One habit that is paramount for this one is reciting a series of Daily Admonitions/ Affirmations.

There are more than 30 and, in addition, statements of “how to” for each of the 18 endeavors; that is a total litany of more than 50 statements that is recited habitually daily in the car as I drive out of the neighborhood to wherever or at home when I’m in for the day. So I am constantly reminded of how I want to be and what I want to do. One may ask on what level am I focusing my attention in all of this. And the answer would be primarily in the Intellectual and this is what has to be changed/modified to include the emotional.

The aforementioned bridge is to get quickly and effortlessly from the thought to the action and it spans the gap between the intellectual and the emotional. Unless and until the emotional influences of personae are engaged, he will always be standing by, stroking his chin and analyzing what is/ is not happening. While this may be fun for him, lifetime is passing, lifetime during which only action and participation lead to development and fulfillment. In our crystal rider and horse analogy, the reaction of a horse to the rider's cue is emotional (a real horse thinks please don’t punish me) as he tries his best to figure out just what it is wanted.

It is correcting previous errors in this schooling that allows an effective bridge between the intellectual and emotional influences; emotional influences that may have become warped through what are thought to be bad experiences. Retraining the emotional parts of the personae to accept what has happened without judging it as good or bad is a key to forming a positive response.

 Then at some magic moment the reaction may become naturally positive and action taken to achieve a desired end w/o even thinking about. Aside: language is such a phenomenon- we study, practice, stumble and make mistakes until one day voila, we are there in a conversation, thinking in French, or whatever. The emotional influence overcomes previous experiences of feeling inadequate and confidence takes over; one “feels” good about usng his new language. It is the same for many other skills; one day you realize you are doing it and not even thinking about it.

So here I sit on a beautiful Sunday afternoon analyzing and writing it out when if I knew what to do I’d be out there doing it. And I know what to do because I spend time thinking about it. What I am doing here is an attempt to better understand how it works so it can be applied more effectively and effectively. Perhaps get to the point where writing it out is not all that important any more.

 I’d say that the vast majority of people don’t go to the same extremes as I to figure out what to do. They don’t keep a log, they don’t do a list of things to accomplish, and they lose track of what they wanted to accomplish and wake up one day without it because they forgot to do whatever to get it.

So I will continue to pursue my goals as I have been since Houston, and after that fateful day in Knoxville, and continue to get what I want, eventually. The big difference is adding emotional content to the mix. Another hurdle that will have to be crossed is objections from those around me to me getting whatever. Since they don’t share the same goals and remain stubborn in trying to deny me my way, it is a problem to solve.

Oil and Water

Friday, October 16, 2009

It’s a down day; I slept until 10am and still feel like I could sleep some more. I planned to do this because yesterday there was a certain base level of fatigue that showed up in my performance in class and in public generally. When I review what I’ve been doing I see that there has been a lot of physical activity and perhaps I need a day of rest. Today is that day. Although I may go for a walk at about 4:30pm in order to get my circulation up for the pool match tonight.

Self-doubt is a constant companion to me. Whenever I expose my actions to anyone, I feel threatened; that’s the right word but it needs to be explained a little bit. It isn’t a feeling that I am physically threatened but being opened to question and ridicule; questions that I can’t anticipate and, therefore, feel that I would answer inappropriately and get myself into a bind, and ridicule, being seen as inferior/stupid.

I’ve been aware of this ever present critic for a long time so this isn’t new to me. It seems that she comes out whenever I do something new or even when I don’t do it. It is an emotional response to something and I’m not sure what. If I call s.o. to do s.t., especially if it is new, while I’m making the call I get these feelings of doubt: should I be asking this, will I be thought somehow being seen as inferior, is this s.t. I should/ shouldn’t be doing, am I going to get into trouble about this, am I being a pest, are people seeing me as needy, am I needlessly calling attention to myself?

And yet I know that all of the above is irrational. People have their opinion of me; what I say and do first of all tends to reinforce that opinion and only secondly could begin to change that opinion if enough evidence is offered to reinforce a new and changed opinion. It is my experience after listening to many personal accounts, after seeing evidence to support it in the actions of others, that people willingly change their opinion of s.o. else rather quickly if the other exhibits a willingness to improve.

I sent Emails to Rinda, Prof Tompkins, Prof RussV inviting them to see our production of Zadig. It is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. Yet right up to the time that I was composing the Email, there was self-doubt about doing such a thing. Irrational, yes it is, and I recognized it as such and went ahead and sent the messages. RussV already replied saying he couldn’t attend but that doesn’t bother me. A cynical one in here says some awful things but they are ignored. Rationally I can accept all three of them not being at the performance.

People are interested in others because we have personae that are influenced by the social source, one of the six sources of thought/action that we have. In me there are intellectually sourced personae who attempt to fathom the interest of others and somehow influence it to my advantage; to build esteem, to be bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, more (you name it) than I/we really are. These personae want to be respected players of whatever game; it is as if they want to be king of the hill in all instances.

These personae, or maybe others, have an additional feature,; they are competitive, which probably flows out of the instinctive source. They see every other being as a competitor who has to be bested; not only every other being but every other circumstance, be it a game, a deal, a skill, possessions, knowledge, capability, or relationship. They seem to come away with wanting to be better than everyone/ everything else.

The marriage of intellectually sourced and emotionally sourced personae is not working out very well in this being; it is almost as if they are oil and water. The emotional are less developed than the intellectual and others. The complicating feature of a being is that all personae have a mixture of all six sources and are recognizable as being one or the other only by the predominant ingredient. In this one it is intellectual, then instinctive, then social, then moving, then emotional, then sexual. Sexual has taken the lowest position on the influence totem probably due to age. So in personae that are predominantly emotional, the intellectual ingredient is not sufficient to allow rational analysis to equivocate the situation at hand. Ergo, an irrational response is observed by others; other beings and/or other personae of this being.

It is a tribute to intellectual personae to note that I (this being) have developed a whole series of analytical charts in order to understand emotional responses. They are logical, cogent, and rather complete as they examine all of the possible ranges of emotional responses to situations. The Intellectual can imagine/ reason/ deduce/ infer/ and then make decisions, these are the tools that the intellectual has available to it in the brain-body. The intellectual think that by understanding they can somehow be comfortable or cure a situation whereas the emotional have to experience. This underscores this rift that exists.

The emotional have to act and experience the results of that action in order to comfortably function in situations; the tools of the intellectual are not useful for situations that affect the emotional. The fear factor in this being, which is predominantly intellectual, is not being able to respond appropriately using tools with which he is comfortable and furthermore not knowing what tools are available to the emotional. What could they be? This will have to be the subject of a later installment.

Leaving this installment with another contrast between the two sources; the intellectual require a lot of time to work out a solution to a new situation whereas the emotional operate on a quick response basis. Almost like instinctive, they realize that a response to a situation that involves them needs to be made on the spot. It is the difference between correspondence and conversation. This may be why we developed one for business, financial, and legal matters and allow the other for less important/less permanent situations.

Contact

Monday October 12, 2009

There was an unusual scenario that played itself out in my mind’s eye this morning. I sat to meditate with the express intention of putting into practice one of Jim Scorches’ techniques, one that he told me to try; he didn’t tell me the content, but the technique.

I have been struggling with his instruction/ request, “What would you like it to be like in six months?” That’s April 2010. My response has been less than specific because I have in place a full set of goals and objectives for this year and will do likewise for next year when the time is right; i.e. from the solstice to the New Year. I suppose I’m having trouble with his request because if I knew what I wanted I wouldn’t need his help to find and articulate it.

And yet this isn’t fair, it’s just that we are on different pages. I am struggling to eliminate that which is hindering me from opening the doors of my imagination and he is sitting there thinking all I have to do is say what it is I want to do. I don’t have a frame of reference for it. One of my previous blogs went into all of this. My visions contain two possibilities, one is acting in productions, and the other is participating in a business venture with others. The similarity of the two is not lost on me. The difference is the composition of the players. In the acting/productions alternative, the actors are pursuing a common goal, to be part of a successful production as well as their personal success. In the other, my experiences lead me to believe that the others are more interested in sacrificing the desired end result in favor of satisfying their greed.

I suppose being able to recognize the tendency of people to enrich themselves at the expense of the common good is s.t. that causes me a problem in looking at others; being able to deal constructively with them in an unknown environment. OTOH knowing that people are like this and building it into the business model along with protections against advantages being taken would allow one to bring others in to the organization.

The other side of the coin is that one has to be ready to operate without any one person/member because the grass is always greener and they will quit on a moment’s notice to get some sort of perceived improvement in their lot. On the third side/ the edge of the coin/ when there is a person like Albert Pujoles one has to get out his checkbook and satisfy whatever; this in the case of a small business could be a “piece of the action.” These are a lot of words to say that the greed thing is real, it is recognized, and if one wants to bring others into the organization he has to deal with it and be able to reconcile the consequences.

Then there’s a desire for more than money, for power over the dominant leader. This, like money, is s.t. with which many otherwise nice people get enthralled. They want to call the shots, especially if you tell them all the secrets of the operation. An actor wants to direct, a player wants to manage, and a worker wants to be boss. Only in a play is the actor required to remain through the end of the run. I am somewhat discouraged about being involved in a business.

This is why I am struggling so mightily with Jim’s question. I am discouraged, fearful, isolated, insulated, inhibited, and unable to deal effectively with the possibility of opening up to others with my requests for either a role or a job. This is at least one thing that is preventing me from seeing the opportunities that may be ready to be exploited. If there are lots of green objects lying about and one is wearing green filter glasses, he won’t see them.

Part of the answer to Jim’s question is a desire to take off the filters that are preventing me from seeing the opportunities that are lying about; and I’m convinced that there are a multitude of them. The experience I had this morning was a step in that direction; towards taking off the blinders, towards answering his question.

So this morning may have been another step in this direction. I imagined me going into the Rio Movie Theater. I like to recall this theater because I remember the deep blue and purple color scheme, art deco doors with such handles and round viewports, the illuminated flat statuary on the walls, the glass case concession stand in the lobby and a host of other details.

As I passed through the doors into the seating area, hundreds of personae burst out of me and took their seats. Each was behaving as he would, some were rowdy and boisterous, others were reserved and quiet, and all were animated because this was, indeed, something new. The brain-body, empty of personae, walked to a seat on the aisle, not far from the front.

Then, as would a violin emerge from a plain case, Master made his appearance from the brain-body. The audience was hushed as he made his way to center stage. Never before had his presence been seen; he often makes it felt in his inimitable way, as influence rather than sight or words. His normal way is to press but not react, so that if the results aren’t what he wants he simply waits for the next opportunity; he has eternity.

He stood there, resembling the crystal figurine but now not a figurine but the animated Master himself. He is mute, he didn’t speak, but his gestures left no doubt in the crowd of personae; there has to be an end to doubt, fear, and the distractions that deter his development. The sitting by idly while lifetime passes is no longer an option; participating in a less than a whole hearted manner cannot be tolerated; emotional responses need to be registered and discounted for what they are, distractions from getting the desired results.

One can only speculate on what desired development means for Master, one can be reassured that some personae will/ are permanent to the being and as he develops in ways that only he can know, so will they develop and move on with him to a new lifetime. His message was clear, stop marking time; get on with it, whatever it is. Do something, even if it’s imperfect.

Finalement

Sunday, October 11, 2009

It’s Sunday and time to do some plotting and scheming. My sessions with Jim Schorche are having their effect, although not like a brass band on parade. It is subtle, my attitude towards me, my picture of me, and my concept of how others may see me are all changing, evolving into something else. It seems that being impressive is no longer an issue.

Jim’s suggestions about being able to see what is desired have been problematical; I haven’t been able to articulate them until now. The visual that is coming clear to me is one of Master rising from his pallet, yawning and stretching. He looks about, in his radiant beauty, and sees the rank and file of personae looking at him wiht receptive attention. Those that were fooling around with each other, inattentive, and distracted are paying attention as well. This is the sign for which he has been looking. Now he can get on with what he wants to do with this lifetime. He knows that there is less span of lifetime available but likewise he knows that there is enough to accomplish much. He also knows that he has as many lifetimes as it takes to develop into the eternal being that he seeks to become. So, now he can get on with it.

Having this visualization is as important an accomplishment as there has ever been. Master can now direct the activities of the being instead of some personae interfering with his plans. It isn’t important to recognize, name, or identify the distracted personae, only to recognize that they do and will exist. Like the teacher in front of the class, this visualization calls them out of their self interested actions to attention to get the assignment coming down. This is another way of saying that it isn’t important to know the genesis of non-cooperative personae; they can be dealt with by reminding all that our fundamental purpose is to support the development of Master.

It remains to be seen if Master will share his vision of into what he wants to develop. It could be that he has only a vague idea of what that may be and is feeling his way along as well. Master is mute, or at least he remains remote. We, the combined group of personae and brain-body, continue to work to understand where he wants to go, at least whenever we’re not satisfying our own appetites.

"It seems that being impressive is no longer an issue." This, on the surface, is a simple statement but when one realizes all of what I did to impress, one can see that not doing so will mean a great deal to me. The efforts are/were mostly wasted because what others’ opinion of me is based on more than what I say and do; and I have no control over it and my opinion of me seems now to have changed to be more realistic.

While I won’t go so far as to say that everything I said and did was to impress, much of it was. Then there was another in me who would not talk about the daring deeds unless prodded to do so, which rarely happened. I think back over my endeavors and see that they all began as a quest for fun and accomplishment but in almost every case playing to the grandstand began to take over and the mutual satisfaction of doing for the sake of doing and for the sake of impressing was the reward.

The one I am/was trying to impress turns out to be me; that’s why talking about the deeds didn’t make much difference. I was busy proving to me that I was a superior human being and I was quite serious about it. A lot of this goes back to the Rolla experience. That was so emotionally damaging to me, I recognized it a long time ago, and only now am I coming to reconcile the whole experience. Until now it, and minor failures along the way, have evoked an emotional response. The Rolla experience was like being convicted of a crime, serving the time, and then trying to prove to the world/me that I am better than that; even after rationalizing it over and over again. This is still the case to some extent with my endeavors, but now that I recognize this motive it is easier to get past it and perform simply for enjoyment and the satisfaction of doing something well.

Another argument that I was only trying to impress me is my reluctance to talk about my deeds; doing so would open them to scrutiny and in my heart I knew that they weren't that big a deal; I did whatever and that was enough for me. An objective 3rd party may argue that what I did was trivial, that it didn’t deserve accolades, and that it was more of a “so-what?” than worthy of applause. And yet to me it was a mountain top experience that I didn’t want anyone taking away.

The end result of all of this is a realization that this lifetime has turned out to be mediocre. Here sits a well-equipped being that had all the capability of anyone else but only played support roles, never the star of a major show, in this lifetime and perhaps prior lifetimes as well. In all fairness he excellently executed /performed the roles he played.

It begs the question, why not a star? The answer lies not in the qualities of this physical brain-body because it has all the necessary to accomplish anything that Master may want. The being has experiences, personae are created and they have a definite effect on what the being does/doesn’t do. In this case it is/was a group of personae with high emotional content created to deal with perceived inferiority and fear of being seen as same by others. In this case the personae created to cope with the failure were problematical and Master said ok this isn’t going to work out too well until the situation is resolved; I’ll just wait. Master is patient; he knows all of this and works with it as best he can because he has an eternity to do so.