Wednesday, January 5, 2022
[We lost power Monday afternoon, and it was still out as I held this conversation. Power was restored a little before 10 a.m.]
4:30 a.m. Writing while holding flashlight on the page. Something different!
It is becoming obvious how fear manifests. Interesting to see without participating. (Let’s hope that “not participating” continues!) I was lying in bed, awake, half an hour ago, thinking to get up, boil some water, and see if I could talk to the guys. Decided it was premature – and the word reminded me of Bob Friedman, who always pronounced it “prem-ature,” though that didn’t lead to further associations. Got back into bed, was lying there, and began considering possibilities. What if the power didn’t come on for a week or more? What if I couldn’t get out of the house and had trouble and my asthma inhaler ran out? I think there were other “what ifs” that followed from a longer stretch of no power, but I got diverted into another line of thought. I thought: This visualizing of possibilities is practical, it is connected with preparedness. The absence of such preparation is someone like me without working flashlights when the power fails, without candles, without a plan or a clue. But of course that isn’t the end of the story, because the habit of preparation can become the habit of worrying. The habit of living in faith can stem from the habit of living in the moment.
That is, good habits and bad habits each have side-effects that may not be what you expect.
Guys, I strongly suspect that half of what I just said is you more than me – to the extent that such a distinction even makes sense – so if you want to chime in, please do, and I’ll set my switches.
You might remember to note your different settings for sleep, but just mention it; we’ll talk about it later or at another time.
I thought to put “focus” and “presence” at minimum, and “receptivity” and “clarity” at maximum, intending (and hoping) to access anything connected to ancient Egypt. Glad you reminded me to note it; I had forgotten.
It is true that intentions and habitual ways of being have unintended and even contradictory consequences. Life would be too simple otherwise. That sounds like a joke or an ironic comment, but in fact a system with only straight-line relationships could not function for long. It is the cyclical interaction, the bit of the yang contained within the yin, that allows perpetuation.
You want to say that a little more clearly?
Not interested in creating a theoretical model or even in producing a metaphor or analogy to suit. The point is simple at its base: Everything interrelates, regardless of appearances, and so anything, pushed or pulled too far, begins to reveal the contradictory aspect that it always contained but did not obviously manifest. That is what fanatics find, and demonstrate, and that is why they find and demonstrate it. There is no use in trying to define out of existence any part of any polarity. To do so only guarantees that it will return in unexpected guise, perhaps explosively, perhaps imperceptibly.
Thus the attempt to be all good and no evil is doomed to failure?
Let’s look at that more carefully, but that’s in the right direction. It is, let’s say, the reason why to think of oneself as all good and no evil is doomed to be a mistake in perception that may easily lead to hypocrisy, or to self-delusion, or to fanaticism (via unconscious projection of one’s own evil onto others), or all of these.
Terminal guilt, too, I suppose, a la Hemingway.
Certainly, although self-knowledge of guilt can also be a sign of sanity and, in fact, a safety valve.
Now, moving away from “good” and “bad” in the sense of morality, let us look at them in the sense of practicality.
You mean, good effects and bad effects as in the sense of what they call “best practice.”
Yes. Merely, what works and what doesn’t work. Clearly if there were straight-line effects from causes, everybody would have figured it all out a long time ago. And, in a way, people have done that. The only thing is, the relationships they have traced, and hence the rules of conduct they deduced, are themselves the product of straight-line thinking in a cyclical universe. You know how you came to say that efficiency is often the ignoring of context? This is a sort of example of that.
I have said that in context of social situations. After the war, we concentrated on highways and inadvertently ruined the railroads. Concentrating on having more of this may mean having less of that. In fact it may be intended to produce less of that. Only, you are saying, it doesn’t end there.
It doesn’t end anywhere. It doesn’t end. You have heard of the concept of the shared subjectivity?
Hmm. You mean, I think, all those unconsidered consequences, still in play.
Again, more slowly. We mean 3D life is the continual exercise of free will. Thoughts, emotions, deeds, produce effects, just as they spring from prior effects. The result is a bottomless well of unfinished business, as we have said. Much of that unfinished business consists of unintended consequences of thought, emotion, or deed.
I’m finding this difficult, writing with one hand while holding this LED flashlight with the other, and I think the LED is getting to me. Are we on any track or are we off the rails?
The point is that good and bad are always intermixed, and the sooner you realize it, the sooner you begin to overcome the effects of Adam and Eve having eaten of the fruit of the tree of Seeing Things as Good and Evil. That’s a metaphor, of course, but a powerful one rooted in centuries of racial memory.
It’ll be a while before I can type this up, but when I do, what should I call it?
Try “Interconnection.” That is both broad and vague, and may be suggestive.
Okay. I’m going to have to cut this short and go back to bed. I’m getting cold. Next time.
6:40 a.m. There was something I forgot to mention. As I was lying in bed and began thinking of possible contingencies, I felt the chest muscles tightening, and thought, ”uh-huh, that’s fear.” And of course that is the last thing I needed, fear bringing on constriction bringing on asthma. But I know how to choose away from fear now, so that didn’t continue. But it led to the beginning of that very interesting discussion, and then I went back to bed to snooze and wait for the coming of daylight, which shouldn’t be far off now, at 6:45.
And implicit in the discussion was another centering on people’s reaction to the virus: How to protect from it, What is reasonable or unreasonable, What is fear and what is reasoned preparation.