Wednesday, April 6, 2022
5:35 a.m. I learned second-hand that not everybody feels safe in our weekly ILC meeting to say what they believe. My first reaction in hearing that was to be offended, then to feel that I had failed. But I woke up realizing that I, too, often find myself tiptoeing around people’s political or ideological sensitivities – political correctness above all, but not exclusively. Maybe it isn’t something that can be overcome. Or maybe we need to think of it as a work in progress – “it” being the creation and maintenance of a safe place. I will remind people, but I can see we won’t ever be able to take compliance or even consciousness for granted. Yet, when someone steps out of line – attacks someone else’s thought or belief or frame of reference – how nudge them back into line without, in the process, doing the same thing to them? Regardless of intent, won’t this be the effect? I’ve seen Dirk do it, very carefully and gently, but I’m not sure it can be done without having that effect, no matter how careful we are.
I had thought to skip a day, perhaps. Or maybe we can talk about this? Surely it is a valid topic, communication. (For that matter, what topic would be not valid, between us?)
Particularly set your intent to be present, as well as receptive. Focus and clarity can be relied upon to take care of themselves here.
All right.
A session on communication, obstacles to?
Works for me.
“There is strength in numbers” doesn’t necessarily apply in communication. Even when it does, strength may come at the expense of flexibility.
Are we going to tiptoe, between ourselves, on this subject?
How safe do your feel, discussing it?
Between us, it’s fine. But if we are to share with the class, that’s another story.
Yes, it is. And the discomfort is the tipoff: That’s where the gold is to be found.
As usual.
Pretty much as usual, yes. It is when one is an outlier that one feels vulnerable, not when one is safely surrounded by the herd. That is why most people, in most issues, are members of the herd rather than outliers. But there are a number of things to be said about this, if you can stay to hear them. These will seem connected only arbitrarily, perhaps, because the connections are not always logical, so you may feel you are wandering. In this case, on this subject, at this time, wander with us.
I will if I can.
Then let’s talk about herds and outliers. Remember:
- Each of you is a member of the herd, certain and assured by your shared perceptions and beliefs, in many areas of life.
- Each of you is apt to be an outlier in one or more areas, because your specific composition and experience leads you to see things differently in that area.
- You may sometimes move from being one of the herd to an outlier, or vice-versa, on any particular issue or aspect of life, as your 3D experience suggests.
- Other people’s eccentric views, their unsupportable beliefs, their downright perverse attitudes, are so from your perspective. Nobody believes a certain way, or experiences a certain way, for no reason. Life leads different people to different views at different times and in different ways.
- Those other people are not sand in the gears, nor things that don’t fit in the scheme of things. They are representatives of the shared subjectivity, just as you yourself are to others.
- To wall yourself off from others because they perceive differently is to do to them what was done to you. But more importantly (because remember, in a sense your life is all about you, first and foremost), to wall yourself off from others is to do to yourself what others did to themselves in walling you You are missing an opportunity to see through a different keyhole.
The advantage of which is –?
For one thing, it combats arthritis.
I get it. It helps prevent us from stiffening into certain attitudes and positions.
Nobody has the whole truth about anything, but this isn’t even about having “the truth” so much as it is about having “helpful truth,” so to speak. You may know that 3+4=7, and so what; but if you know that this input tends to produce that effect on people (and if you remember that you are a part of “people”), then you may have a truth you can use to grow in perception. Much more important than people’s conclusions may be the processes that led them there – and how are you going to intuit what those processes were, without sympathetically entering into their thought to see what brought them there?
As we wrote that, I thought about the subject of vaccination as one example.
A good example, because everybody on all sides (and there are more sides than two, or course, no matter how discussion may oversimplify things) – everybody thinks their position is fact-based, and logical – which is usually true – and so it’s the truth, which usually is not true. To have a truth from a certain point of view, in certain circumstances, with certain caveats, is not the same thing as having “the truth.” But it can be hard to remember that, as your own experience will show you, if you allow it to surface. This of course goes for everybody.
This is why you recommended small groups, in part, isn’t it? Two or three or four people are too few to form a herd.
Oh, they’re likely to be herd-like in their shared perspective, but that tiptoeing aspect won’t came between them, or anyway is less likely to do. But again, remember, herds have their purpose no less than outliers. They provide stability, outliers provide potential new direction. So keep in mind to try to get the advantages of both with the minimal disadvantage of either.
But remember, also, we pointed out that whatever produces or reveals emotional difficulties among or within people is potentially valuable. Life is more than tranquility.
Then how do we proceed when emotional aspects arise? How to be most productive, I mean?
Hold in mind your intent to help each other, and yourselves, to see better. Farther, more clearly, with greater understanding.
And a minute ago, when writing, I got the thought that Jesus said “when two or three are gathered together,” and somebody once said maybe that was a maximum, not a minimum. I can certainly imagine that more truth is revealed to two or three earnest seekers than to a mega-church of 2,000 people somewhere.
Only, be not so quick to judge. You don’t know what they’re getting from it, nor why they are there, nor what energies they may be handling for the shared subjectivity. In fact, judging is pretty usually a waste of time. Discern, yes. Cogitate, feel, yes. Pronounce judgment? No. it will only stand in your way, reinforcing your sense of being right, hence, reducing your inclination to challenge what you think you know) and increasing your sense of separation from whoever and whatever you are judging.
Got it. A productive session, that seems to have gone awfully quickly. Call it “Communication, obstacles to”?
If you wish. “Herds and outliers in consciousness work” might be better.
True. We’ll see. Okay, thanks as always.