What Rules a Life

There seem to be two external things that rule our lives, appointments and responsibilities.  Then there is the crisis imposed situation with which must be dealt.  Think about it and everything else is internal and that's another essay.

An appointment can be defined as a commitment to meet someone, for a specific reason, at a specified time and place.  These include seeing the doctor for a physical examination, doing an audition, attending rehearsal and performing, attending class, and on and on.  We usually manage these with a calendar or date book of some kind to remind us to be there and then.

Responsibilities are those tasks that must be carried out to meet obligations to others or complying with laws, regulations, and rules that are set forth by various outside entities.  The simplest of these is putting the trash and garbage out for pick up on a certain day of the week.  Even getting to the bus/ train stop on time for the ride counts as a responsibility and there are myriad others from filing and paying Federal and State taxes annually, renewing licenses on time, paying the bills, managing the cash.

 The boundaries of our lives are appointments and responsibilities, we either set them, agree to them, or they are enforced upon us and we accept them.  In any event we participate at some level in defining them.  This holds true for all of the appointments and responsibilities that we have.

Then there is all the time that is not taken up with these two categories and that, my friends, is life.   We are free to do whatever we would like for the time that we are not keeping an appointment or meeting a responsibility.

My wander through the wilderness didn't necessarily teach me this at the time but I am realizing it now that I am back to every day living.  There is a difficulty in deciding just how to spend this time in between; there are the cop-outs of TV, radio, electronic device games and interactions.  Then there are the ToDo lists that many of us make.  Then there's the nap but we even wake up from it eventually.

When I moved to Houston and was learning my way around and about the city and the territory, I devised a weekly planning method that evolved over the years into elaborate plotting and scheming for what to do next to reach certain aims.  This is fun but totally unnecessary.

I have come to the conclusion that one must have a dream and from that point on simply do whatever, including taking steps towards it.  "A dream is a wish your heart makes," and the lyrics go on with basic truths about dreams.  The dream is like setting your destination as Paris, committing to it and then; oops there's the Eiffel Tower!

With a dream, all of our personae work for the attainment of it.  Detailed planning is not necessary because within the depths of our being there are many of us who can pick up on the slightest clue as to how to get there.  A statement made by another is taken to heart; a billboard, or TV commercial strikes a chord, a book or paper suddenly comes alive with an idea.  Our whole being is sensitive to attaining the dream.

There are still hurdles to go over.  The biggest is certain of us who would do something else and, because we have free will, which is another way of saying we can be distracted, we do something other than move towards our dream or we reject the hint that we are given.

But that hint is not forgotten, the one persona who was sensitive of it does not forget it.  It remains there in the background for when the right opportunity arises for it to be brought to the fore.

Collectively we know so much more than of what we are aware at any instant.  Each and every one of our multitude of personae are always on the alert even if the director doesn't have them in the driver's seat at the moment.  They see, hear, touch, taste, and feel everything that is sensible, they intuit that which is not, they reason out the way to go, and make it available to the being.  All that needs doing is to do it.

This is easy to say but not easy to accomplish.  We are the remnants of all that has happened to us and much of what we do is to satisfy needs that were unmet in the past, or impressed on us by outside influences.  These combine to distract us from reaching our dreams because they take away the time to do that which will allow us to reach our dream.

Examining how we spend the in between times will give us a clue to the distractions, the outside influences, that forestall the fulfillment of our dreams.  Once found and dispelled we can move smartly on to realizing our dream.

During these times, we are governed by a set of rules by which we have decided to live.  At first they are imposed upon us and as we mature we either accept or reject them, more or less one by one.  Some rules may lay in the background for years without surfacing, others are invoked frequently as we live through each day.

Recognizing and thinking about the rules that govern us is worth the time and trouble.  Deciding which are distractions and which are bona fide rules is important and we even do this without much analysis.  Living up to some of them may be wasting precious lifetime.

Time Travel

Time is a relative measure.  The second is 1/24/60/60, or so, of a revolution of the earth on its axis.  A day is 1/365, or so, of a revolution of the earth around the sun.  These have been further refined to where they are measures, accurate to the nth degree.  The sun, however, is not fixed in the universe and probably moves on a path of some sort as do all of the celestial bodies that make up the universe.  All of them/us are moving.

This motion is relative, i.e., faster or slower depending on the velocity of the mover in relation to the others.  An astronaut in space ages at a slower rate than one remaining on Earth.  The key to this statement is the word slower.  At no time ever does the movement stop; the time vector never goes negative.  It gets shorter or longer relative to another but never less than zero.

There are theories that indicate the relative motion/position of bodies and predict that travel at greater than the speed of light is possible.  Yet none of these register time with a negative vector.

When one looks at it qualitatively, one can see that since time is the measure of motion, in order to reverse time the entire universe would have to stop and then go in reverse; an absurd proposition.

There is, however, the spiritual world, of which we are also a part.  In that world there is no mass, therefore no gravity.  There is no energy, therefore no impulsion.  There is only the existence of the present and the past; there can be no existence of the future since it hasn't occurred yet.  And what will occur cannot be predicted with any assurance.

The past exists with or without our accessing it. It can be accessed by us via our memory, which can be stimulated by any number of external factors.  It may come to us as a revelation, a premonition, a bit of deja- vue; in other words it may just boil up and pop into our conscious.  Could this be a memory cued by a roving spirit in the spiritual world?  So one can say that there is time travel, although not in the conventional, physical sense of it.

How to Get Better

Investigating the 10,000 hour rule, I found some push-back to it.  After reading it all over, I decided that the rule means practice, practice, practice and can be constructively augmented by some advice from other sources.

The unspoken, yet intuitively obvious idea of good quality practice is at the root of the 10,000 hour rule.  It seems that in the 10,000 hours there will be enough "good" practice to make the desired progress.   So it stands to reason if you get a concentrated amount of good quality practice, you can shorten the cycle of becoming expert.

Increasing the entirety of the mental content of practice  creates quality.  We have six centers of influence in our active life: intellectual, emotional, moving, social, sexual, and instinctive.  As we practice to acquire a skill all of these will come into play at some point and the more deeply each is involved the more expert one will become.  This requires understanding that more than rote practice of the skill being acquired is necessary.

This from Tim Ferriss (one can use an internet search to find him):

1. Create a feedback loop
2. Deliberate practice
Mistake? Learn from it and then--
Redo it properly
3. Become a teacher
(Average retention rates of the Learning Pyramid:
PASSIVE: Lecture-5%, Reading 10%, Audio-visual 20%, Demonstration 30%,
PARTICIPATORY: Group discussion 50%, Practice 75%, Teaching others 90%.)

"If you can't explain it to a six year old you don't understand it yourself."

A Discussion of Life

Life is ubiquitous and defies understanding.

 The dictionary defines it as, "An organismic state, characterized by capacity for metabolism, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction."  Furthermore, it defines organismic as "characteristics of an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of parts or organs more or less separate in function but mutually dependent, a living being."

It ranges in size from mycoplasma genitalium, which is thought to be the smallest known organism capable of independent growth and reproduction, to the honey fungus, measured to cover an area of 3.7 square miles and somewhere between 2,000 and 9,000 years old.  Included within this range are all the living organisms that populate the Earth.

That defines it, gives it a range of size, and indicates just how big and varied it is.  Included between the smallest and largest are all the manifestations of life that exist.  We cannot be completely sure that we have discovered, named, and classified all of them but unless and until smaller and larger examples are discovered, these define the range of size and content of living organisms.

How life started on Earth is not known.  There are theories but there is still no definite answer to this question.

Do the physical manifestations of life exist elsewhere?  There are no definite answers to that question either.

We see above the characteristics of it but what is it?

The word spiritual is introduced.  If anything is not physical, and it exists, then it is spiritual.  These two realms are not mutually exclusive.

One could say that life is the physical manifestation of a spiritual realm, which uses it to advance towards an aim.  Could it be that since life continues to evolve, the influence of the spiritual realm is still being felt?  I submit the answer is yes.

Evolution is taking place, and will continue to do so, as long as life forms procreate by the union of two compatible existing representatives of that form.  A sobering thought is that a representative of a species is always one generation away from extinction.

One can look back on the evolutionary trail and see that evolution takes place.  Why it has occurred the way it has is not so easy to deduce.

Evolution takes place as a result of incremental choices made at the instant of procreation.  It is easy to say that evolution is the result of "natural selection" and it is just as easy to say that these choices are influenced by the above mentioned spiritual realm.  Neither statement can be verified.

The argument for natural selection is historically strong but the argument that the spiritual realm has an influence on it can also be made, albeit not scientifically.  The argument for natural selection is just as specious when you get right down to it.

It could be that life arrived here as microbes on a meteor and, guided by that mysterious spiritual realm, has continued to live for four billion or so years; to multiply to become species that exist today.  But why?  That is the moot point.

Life seems to be the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding inevitable death.  There also seems to be the function of reversing entropy, i.e., bringing order to chaotic situations.

There are physical laws that have been described by humans, verified, and used to enhance the living experience.  There are more to be discovered and those that have been are always precariously in danger of being disproved but we do what we can with what we have.

This isn't to say that other forms of life don't know about these laws, they are governed by them as are humans.  We have no way of knowing if, or how much, other species understand.

Only humans seem to have developed the technique of passing along their thoughts in a way that other humans, completely foreign to the originator, can understand.  Some meanings, such as those expressed by pre-Colombian Americans, are lost due to discontinuity of language and culture.

We read and see the works of the ancient philosophers, mathematicians, poets, playwrights, and artists and even with no genetic relationship to them we can understand and enjoy what they did.  And on the basis of those who have gone before, we extend our knowledge to the outer limit of what is possible and then beyond even that.

One has to ask, are scientific and artistic discoveries the result of the intervention of the spiritual realm?  We seem to be made aware of what is needed to go the next step at precisely the time that it is necessary.

At critical junctures in history, great evils have been successfully dealt a death blow by greater good.  World War II is one example of great evil being overcome by greater good.  Are these the result of intervention by the spiritual realm?

The purveyors of organized religion would argue that it is always "divine" intervention.  Unfortunately they don't have the answer.  They are more like cheerleaders at a game, who don't know the why of what is happening on the field.  Their purpose is to keep the crowd involved while the players on the field, guided by a coaching staff, play the game.

Are we tending toward the achievement of an overall objective of a spiritual realm?  The anwer to the question is, wait and see.

We are where we are because we have been devloping towards this situation for as long as we have existed, the aforementioned four billion years.  We are where we are not by accidental discoveries or choices but for another deeper reason.  We are guided to what is necessary to know, each playing his or her own part in the development of the knowledge necessary to know, each playing his or her own part in the development of what is necessary to achieve whatever goal is "in mind."  We are the servants of the spiritaul realm that guides us.

My thoughts: I think that I, the temporal person, am the servant of a spiritual being who is on the path to become part of the intelligence that is in a spiritual realm.   I refer to that being as Master and he/she/it had a beginning, however long ago; the intelligence in the spiritual realm, with which he strives to be merged, is eternal.  And is life, which I submit is evidence of this intelligence, arrived on this planet in any manner, likewise eternal?  I think, yes.  And at the same time, there is no way of knowing for sure.

Yes, this temporal body will die but Master will inhabit another and continue his development until a merger with that spiritual realm is achieved.  In this way the quest for the whatever is continued.

Into the Wilderness 2018

Here is an idea that I'm pursuing; for the period of Lent, go into the wilderness and experience something different.  Moses did it and came out to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, Jesus did it and came out to lead a new religion, Muhammad did it with the same result.  Thoreau did it for a year in a cabin at Walden Pond.

There must be something about isolating oneself for a period of time that brings about a significant change.  My idea is to get as close to isolation as possible; in other words to eliminate external influences on my thinking.

I am not interested in leading an exodus or founding a religion,  I am, however, interested in what might occur during a prolonged period of unstructured thinking as free of external influences as possible.

There would have to be some rules followed:

1. Socialization only in the response mode; i.e. initiating no contact but responding directly to contact when it's made.  This would also preclude prolonging the contact beyond that for which it was initiated.
2. No electronics, including radio, television, and phonograph.
3. Telephone only to answer it and Email checked once per day with both telephone and Email usage according to Rule 1.
4. Reading nothing.
5. Writing thoughts and impressions, as much and as often as desired.
6. No change indicated for eating habits.
7. Going out only to get groceries, necessities, or to exercise and adhering to Rule 1 when out.
8. Physical exercise and artistic practice, such as singing or reciting, would be allowed to any extent, even going to the fitness center and golf courses; remembering Rule 1 when there.

Sorting out and purging belongings, such as books and files, tools and materials, clothes and accouterments, would be allowed in order to be aware of what one has and perhaps getting rid of that which is no longer of use.

Construction, repair, and maintenance of whatever would be allowed; always in accordance with Rule 1.

This would not be quite the same as being isolated as were the principals mentioned above but it would bring about an introspection that may not otherwise be possible.

This would be a real challenge.  Doing without electronics would especially be difficult; the second most difficult would be obeying Rule 1.

Later:  This intrigues me to the extent that I may even do it.  I have a journal to capture the daily thoughts and progression of this experiment; it is about 200 pages so it should be sufficient.  If not, I have several more in reserve.

The difficulty will be in filling the time with some sort of productive activity.  Now that the play rehearsals are finished and the lines are in mind only needing daily refreshment, that there's snow on the ground and we are sort of holed up, that my wife is not communicating--too tired, and that I'm eschewing the TV and radio as a prelude to this experiment, I can see that filling the time is going to be a challenge.

According to my rules, above, anything that is not electronic or social is fine.  So, I can cook, bake, go out for necessities, exercise, shoot pool, play golf, or walk.  I can clean, fix, construct, purge, sort, and donate to my heart's content.  I can think, and write to get thoughts on paper, but I realize that the important thoughts, the life changing thoughts, will be with me, written or not.

Later still, I'm doing it!

What Are They Going to Think

My essay entitled Animals Don't Do It dealt with how a person feels about a situation.  This one is to bring in the aspect of how he thinks others are thinking about him in a situation.

As much, if not more, angst is felt when we think about how others accept what we did.  Any action we take is subject to at least two reviews, our own and that of others.  Problem is, there are as many "others" as see, or hear about, what we did.

Politicians develop a tough skin out of necessity.  They act and there is always a reaction.  Most of them, no matter how moral and ethical they are, are subject to criticism to the nth degree by detractors, both powerful and petty.  Just look at how the Clintons, G. W. Busch, Obama,Trump,  et al are treated by their detractors; many of us would buckle under the pressure, at least I think I would.

The time to think about what/how another will take what we do or say is before the fact.  This, however, is not an easy thing to do.  Too much consideration and, voila! the opportunity is gone and we lost out.  Not enough consideration and, voila! one has a problem on his hands.  

This why a good moral and ethical framework within to act and state is so important.  If what we do and say fits our moral and ethical framework, then whatever the repercussions we are able to be at peace in our own mind that we are OK.

That is not to say that we don't offend family and friends at times.  It is, however, to say that if we have a good basis for our action and it can serve as a starting point for reconciliation.   

If we act in opposition to our moral and ethical framework, we have the possibility of asking for forgiveness and make a resolution to be more careful in the future.  Making the judgement and responding accordingly is all we can do.  

I realize that not everyone in my life is a supporter.   Among my friends and family there are those that love me for whatever reason but then again there are a large number of those who do not agree with what I say and do.  Others that may be envious of me for whatever reason.  Then there are those who have their own problems with which they are unable to deal and displace their frustrations to others; in some cases, me.  Then there are the rest who simply don't care.

There are several ways to deal with it this realization.  One, I can ignore the torpedoes and continue to live my life.  Or two, I can try to please everyone and probably lose everything in the process.  Or  three, I can be sensitive to the criticism of the more meaningful people in my life and be guided accordingly.  The best course of action is a combination of one and three.

When considering a response one has to identify the critic and make his own judgement about the motivation for the criticism.  In most cases, where the critic is not a family member or a close friend, attempting to respond rationally doesn't even enter the picture.

These attacks are made with any number of motives, usually not specifically related to the act being criticized.  To respond at all is a waste of time and effort.  The attacker has an agenda and it doesn't include a discussion of the reasons for the act or the attack.

This post could go on for a long time about the types and motivations for attacks.  My thinking is that they can all be generalized accurately by saying that they derive from a reaction to some dissatisfaction with the attacker's own personal situation.

When the criticism comes from a family member or close friend, a rational response is best but one has to sensitive to the other being ready for such an attempt.  Often an emotional mindset is not recognized in the moment  and any attempt to explain or defuse the situation may fail.  One great strategy is to let it settle for a while so that the other can likewise be rational.  Like grounds in your coffee, it is more pleasant to drink it when they settle to the bottom.

Suffice it to say that this is a complex set of situations, we deal wiht them daily and for the most part do it well enough to placate family and friends and leave the others to their own devices.  

Animals Don't Do It

Animals with which I have interacted have demonstrated over and over again that they have many of the same attributes as humans but, due to physical constraints, size, or some other attribute we don't share, they are not quite up to a par with us.  Our hands and our rather well developed imagination are probably the major differences.

One major difference, apparent to me, is that they almost always accept the situation in which they find themselves, i.e., they are not judgmental unless the situation is seen to be life threatening. They seem to accept the circumstances in which they find themselves and go from there.

They do, however, make decisions about what they are going to do next based on those circumstances,  It is usually related to satisfying some need related to their previous experiences, safety, nutrition, procreation, need for affection, acceptance, or avoiding pain to name a few.

We, on the other hand, form opinions of almost everyone and everything we encounter; whatever the situation in which we find ourselves.  We judge: the weather, the relative comfort of our surroundings, the way we hear others speak, the quality of the performance of the doer, actor, speaker, dancer, or even the newscaster  and weather person.  Understanding that evaluation with the intention of improving is more than acceptable but necessary if we are to make progress, the subject here is one without the other.

Then to make matters even more silly, we seem to feel that we have to share that opinion with whom so ever is nearby, friend or even stranger.  If they are within earshot we let them know how we feel about it.

This is the source of many of the problems that we have with others.  It spawns road rage, hard feelings, hurt feelings, and puts us in a mood that is not conducive to being a desirable companion.

Aware of all this, I experimented with (1) not judging the situation in which I found myself and (2) avoiding expressing a positive or negative opinion of anything.  It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.

The first hurdle I had to get over was judging me; my looks, appearance, clothes, voice, attitude, and actions/inaction.  I wrapped my index finger around the tip of my thumb and tugged it, sort of like the cricket the nuns used in church, whenever I was aware that I was making an opinion, spoken or not.  It was a lot more difficult than I imagined.

The next hurdle was accepting others who were voicing opinions, making judgements, about whatever.  My thumb was getting sore from the tugging.

I began to notice that there was a fine line between making a judgement and making an objective evaluation upon which to base a decision or act.  When a horse, a jumper, stops or runs out on a jump; one need not look at the horse for an error.  The horse made an objective evaluation of the situation and or whatever reason, usually something the rider did or didn't do, decided to avoid the obstacle.  We, of course, also do a lot of this.  We also, however, get caught in making superfluous opinions on just about everything.

There are several industries that are based on this.  One of them is the tabloids that print all sorts of salacious accounts that fuel opinions about celebrities. Another is cable news networks that provide opinions for our consideration about the actions of our elected and appointed officials be they political or in some other vein, such as sports.  These, and spectator sports in general, pander to those who need opinions because they don't have the objective knowledge necessary to form their own.

Meanwhile, I've had to switch thumbs occasionally because I found myself overworking one or the other.  It has, however, made me aware of my opinion based thinking and I'd like to say that I've taken a more cross country horse-like approach to life.  In competition the horse does not see the cross country course or the stadium jumping arena before the competition.  He has to take it "in stride" and complete it, guided only by his rider.

Living like this has given me a whole different perspective, much more calm, much less fretful, less worried about tomorrow.  It is because of this that I pass along these thoughts to anyone interested.

Noticing the instances of being judgmental was only the first step in the process.  In order to be successful, one has to change the way he thinks.  The next step was to replace the judgmental thought with an accepting thought.  This was much more difficult.

The final stage would be to, one day, note that one is being accepting and not judgmental without even being aware of it. This pretty much describes the alteration of any bad habit with a more desirable one or none.

Animals have few, if any, expectations about outcomes to situations.  Yet this is where we often lose our perspective about a situation.

We have expectations in almost all situations.  We seem to have a great deal of difficulty dealing with unmet expectations and we express a whole spectrum of negative emotions when they are not met.

Golf, anyone whose played it knows of what I speak, is a game of unmet expectations.  We set up the shot, envision it, see the distance, the slope, the terrain between us and the target.  We set our stance, hands, and body, all with the expectation that the shot will be true.  Voila, it isn't and we are disappointed and that's putting it mildly.

This same thing is true in traffic.  We expect a certain flow, that others will abide by the rules, that our right of way will be respected.  Voila, it isn't and we are disappointed and that's putting it mildly.

It also comes into play when dealing with others.  We expect to get our way, that what we think is what's right and that they will be agreeable.  Voila, they aren't and we are disappointed and that is putting it mildly.

The thought I'm describing is complex; it's more than acceptance, it's being willing to admit that our expectations are not necessarily going to be met and we need to be alright with that.

Managing expectations requires forethought but often life situations don't allow time for it.  The goal of objectivity is that for which we should strive.  "Realizing that emotional reactions are irrational, I respond more objectively." One of my aphorisms, a holy grail.

This has turned into a rather long essay, about 1,200 words but almost all necessary to express the thought.