Ecology of mind

I’m asking myself why I just spent the entire f**king day trying to figure out something I read this morning in a psych journal [link]. It’s such an esoteric subject I’m wondering how it captured my attention in the first place. They say they’ve discovered where ‘context-dependent’ learning has advantages not found in modern society. Economists and educators consider context-dependent learning an impediment to optimal decision-making. Now psychologists are finding out that it has adaptive value in nature that you don’t see in a classroom or on the trading floor. Context-dependent learning actually helps people make ‘optimal choices’ about which trail to take and what foods to eat in the wild. 

I guess I’ve always been cursed by my own curiosity ..trying to imagine what the world must have been like for our tribal ancestors. Since so much of our evolution took place then, I’m constantly wondering what is native to our lives and what are the inventions of modern society that we weren’t designed for. I’ve been asking these questions since I was ten. Looking back, I see how they unknowingly led me to my field of study in college ..my career choice ..and a lifelong fascination with the findings of neuroscience.

I remember speeding down an LA freeway one morning on my way to college going “we weren’t designed for this ..sitting in transport vehicles rushing over highways elevated far above the savannah that was once our home ..arriving at destinations in a matter of hours where it would have taken them a lifetime .. making decisions at speeds that would have been mind boggling back then.” I often wonder what challenges this presents our psyche that we’re not even aware of. What tasks routinely disturb the balance of homeostasis and cause things like stress, anxiety and hypertension.

For some reason I feel it’s important to know the difference between nature and man-made conventions. Not that I think one is better than the other ..they each come with their own set of consequences. Perhaps it’s the reason I take an ‘ecological perspective’ to events in life, which drives my father crazy. There’s a reason why we’re tuned to the context of information ..it prepares us for the events most likely to occur in nature. Storing and using contextual information has greater ecological value than most economists and educators give it credit for.

The path

One day, during my sophomore year of college, I was on the 605 freeway with a group of friends heading to a club in Long Beach. I’d been studying for a course in neuro-anatomy that day and bits and pieces of the material were still rattling around my head. Then something occurred that I haven’t forgotten since. Like a bolt of lightening, I was struck by the implications of it all. As clear as the traffic outside, I had visions of sensory signals traveling along neuro-pathways ..animating ..registering and guiding us to move to the beat of the music (we were heading to a dance club). I went speechless so long that my friends were asking if everything was OK. I could see it clearly, like it was happening right in front of me ..but I couldn’t put it into words. I responded with a curt “uh, nothing.” For better or worse ..or for whatever reason I may never know ..it altered the course of my life and set me on a path that I’m still on today. It informs almost two-thirds of what I see and do ..while the rest remains a mystery, which is where it’s likely to stay.

Following Charlie

If I follow the stream of utterances coming from Charlie when he’s raving like a lunatic; I can sometimes pick up a tread of coherent thought. This morning it went something like this (edited for sanity):

“Americans are psychopaths!”

“They’ve got the mentality of high school jocks!!”

“Their idea of getting ahead is self-promotion and putting other people down. Pumps their head full of artificial well-being.”

“Look at facebook, man .. it’s a campfire of vanity. In other parts of the world they’re using it as a tool for revolution. We’re using it as a tool to avoid dealing with the rest of the world.”

“It ain’t look’n good for Ron Paul either. He’s a truth-teller, you know that..? His opponents are a bunch of jocks. They’re going around saying he’s too extreme. Think about it, man. What are they saying ..? They’re saying the truth is too extreme ! They know voters prefer the comfort of phoniness to the cutting edge of reality !!”

“Listen to this, man ..says here: ‘a group of Korean monks, practicing Sunmudo, successfully repelled a Japanese invasion during World War II. The Sunmudo master said it had nothing to do with show-of-force and everything to do with balance. Practicing martial arts for show is a deterrent to balance ..and balance is what’s necessary for success’.”

“Doncha’ see, Bill ..?”

“We’re fucking doomed, man ..!”

Deception detection

“An operation called Fast and Furious allowed weapons to be sold to gun smugglers in the U.S. so they could be traced to drug cartels in Mexico. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which ran the operation, lost track of the weapons ..one of which was used in the fatal shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near Tucson in December 2010.”   LA Times 

In his deposition to congress, Kenneth Melson, former head of ATF, says he was “..never advised” by his staff that they were involved in a program of selling illegal arms along the U.S./Mexican border. “My chief of staff never came in and told me either, and he’s on the same damn floor as I am.” Which leads me to suspect a cover-up. The phrase “I was never told” does not automatically register as “I didn’t know” in my suspicious brain. What I do detect is his use of pragmatic implication to deceive me into thinking that he didn’t know. Furthermore, not once in his deposition did he ever come out and actually say: “I did not know what my department was doing” ..which would have sounded incredibly stupid. So, instead .. he uses phrases like “I was never advised ..” or “no one ever told me ..” not only to avoid sounding stupid but to help him dodge any future accusations of perjury and obstruction of justice [link]. Members of the Justice Department coached him well. Now they too are saying that they were never told about the Fast and Furious program ..and cite his testimony as evidence. Which leads me to believe that they too were fully aware of what was going on. Lack of oversight ..I don’t think so. What I do think is that Fast and Furious was directed by the U.S. State Department and carried out, with full cooperation, by the ATF. When it resulted in the unfortunate shooting of a border patrol agent ..the operation became public; and the cover-up began. In order to conceal involvement by the U.S. government, Justice officials immediately began advising ATF against full disclosure ..telling them “it is a long-standing policy of the Department of Justice that we don’t talk about ongoing cases.” Which leads me to believe that the Department of Justice is also in the business of obstruction of justice.

Prophesies of Mad Max

In the science fiction epic ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome’, there was a post-apocalyptic town located in the middle of the desert called Bartertown. Underneath Bartertown was a huge operation that converted hog waste into energy needed to fuel the town ..providing inhabitants with electricity for light and utilities. Turns out the prophesy of Mad Max has been fulfilled. A hog farmer in North Carolina, with the help of Duke University ..has installed a new processing plant that converts hog manure into energy he can use to run the farm. It provides the additional benefit of producing more nitrogen-rich fertilizer, which allows the farmer to grow more profitable crops.

On authority

About this time last year my father and I were discussing the Arizona law giving police authority to detain individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants. SB 1070 gives law enforcement officers the right to do this, but only in cases of “..lawful stop, detention or arrest.” My father is a Tucson resident and agrees, saying, “the law is the law.” I can’t argue that. It’s just that the police have a history of abusing authority, especially when it targets members of an ethnic minority. So, I have a theory that says whenever you give anyone that kind of authority, it will be abused. My father thinks I’m being overdramatic.

Turns out the Maricopa County Sheriff’s department did not disappoint. They interpreted the new law to mean it’s OK to launch sweeps of Phoenix communities in search of illegal immigrants ..with or without probable cause. Forget the part that says “during lawful stop, arrest or detention.” They essentially made foreign-looking sufficient cause for police action, which oversteps their bounds and violates our constitution rights. My father believes I come from a generation that doesn’t respect authority. I believe I come from a generation that doesn’t trust authority. So, way to go Maricopa ..you have helped make my case, and reinforced my distrust in authority, especially in cases where it’s based on fear and discrimination.

Mr. Charlie

Continued from [link]

In a fit of paranoia, Charlie fled Seattle in a stolen SUV ..and wound up in the Bahamas ..arriving by plane he’d stolen somewhere in Indiana. Charlie’s no angel and he’s definitely not a pilot. But he taught himself to fly by playing video games ..listening to aircraft VHF frequencies and watching planes take off and land at an airport near the slough where he lived. He was charged with taking stolen-aircraft on joy rides across eight states. He crash-landed once near Bonners Ferry, Idaho ..but made it to the Bahamas ..where they busted him riding a stolen skiff into Romora Bay. Charlie has a history of amnesia, neuro-cognitive impairment and untreated PTSD. He was dumped on the streets by psychiatric techs and immediately surrounded by Seattle police in a case of mistaken identity. Things quickly went from bad to worse when the charges went from malicious mischief to armed robbery. It was enough to flip a paranoia switch that told him he better get out of town ..and just keep going. He escaped from a halfway house. After his arrest, a movie studio bought the rights to his story, which Charlie immediately used to repay his victims. After considering his history, the judge called it a case about ‘the triumph of the human spirit’ and put him on probation .. releasing him back to the custody of the psychiatric community.

5-HT Charlie

Charlie takes a whopping dose of over-the-counter serotonin (5-HT) every night before bed. Says it gives him vivid dreams that he’s able to remember during dream-work therapy the next day, which pleases his therapist.

“He says I’m making progress ..I should be finished soon.”
“Have you told him about the 5-HT ..?”
“Hell no, I don’t want to get disqualified.”
“Do you think it’s helping ..?”
“Hell yes, I wake up much more alert ..I’m keen for the rest of the day.”
“Ever notice things that may not be there ..?”
“Well, yeah .. doesn’t everybody. Don’t you see man, that’s precisely the kinda’ shit I’m afraid of ..something like this coming-up and sabotaging my progress.”
“Just keep in mind what you’re taking is a neuro-transmitter in the brain.”
“No it’s not ..it’s a neuro-enhancer!”
“..only in it’s absence. I think a better word would be neuro-regulator.”
“WTF are you talking about ..?”

I did my undergraduate thesis on serotonin and how it helps maintain a steady-state of consciousness. It keeps signals that are ‘out of the ordinary’ from reaching the brain and producing hallucinations. At night, it drops to levels where we experience dreams [link]. So naturally I feel like I gotta’ share this knowledge, and go “Charlie, the 5-HT you buy is bogus. It may look the same but it doesn’t act the same as natural 5-HT. It doesn’t filter unwanted signals ..but tells the body to shut down 5-HT production, which opens the floodgates. That’s why your dreams are so vivid ..and why they continue during the day.” To which he replies “Bullshit!! Nobody really knows how it works ..” and I go “Well OK, suit yourself man ..but it helps explain what got you into this mess in the first place [link].”  Charlie slumps down in his chair looking deflated and I feel like Mr. know-it-all who just ruined his trip.

Inference making

“Your job as a reader is to use your imagination and analytical skills where the author has left off.”

Intentional fallacy: it’s not what an author means to say that’s important ..it’s how the reader interprets what they say. What they intended is subject to interpretation, which isn’t necessarily going to turn out  the same. But if we’re the readers, our interpretation is what matters. Communication is mostly an interpretive process. We add our perspective and ingenuity to whatever we hear or read. Attempts by the writer to narrow it down are futile ..or sterile [link]. In Harry Potter, some may see Dumbledore as gay; others might view him as quirky and without a particular sexual identity. I'm reminded of the ghost in “Hamlet” and how little we really know about him. Is he the spirit of his murdered father asking to be avenged ..? Is he a hellish apparition sent to make Hamlet commit murder ..? Or, is he just a figment of Hamlet's imagination ..? And who really gives a shit now what Shakespeare meant ..?

Immateriality

“Each person is capable of perceiving infinitely more. The universe is funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system ..what comes out at the other end is a measly trickle.”

From ‘The Doors of Perception’ by Aldous Huxley

Only 20% of available ‘matter’ - at home or in the universe - is observable by the senses. This includes the composition of our bodies as well as all it’s surroundings. The remaining 80% is not even visible using the most sophisticated instruments of science. It’s a mystery supplied by indirection and the divinity of inference. What does this mean ..? Ordinary reality represents only a fraction of the energy that exists in the universe. The forces at work in my life are largely invisible. Perhaps the limits to what I can see are not so much physical as they are mental, like Huxley said.

Hwy one

Continued from [link]

San Francisco (1977): The next day Russ and I go for a walk around Lake Temescal ..get stoned in a wooded area ..drive across the Bay Bridge ..stash the car ..and go on a walking tour of The City. He shows me how you can get anywhere in San Francisco by using cable cars, muni, taxicabs and the Bart. The next morning we go for a walk around Lake Temescal ..drive across the Bay Bridge ..stash the car .. hang out at the Mark Hopkins hotel and attend the APA convention .. asking irreverent questions at a symposium on juvenile delinquency. The guy sitting next to us is doing his internship at San Quentin. Says he’s counseling an inmate who threw his co-worker off a telephone pole while they were repairing the line. When he asked him why he threw his co-worker off the telephone pole, the inmate replied “..because I didn’t like the way he looked” as if it were a perfectly legitimate reason. “Now I’m on edge” the intern says “..and you wanna’ know why? Not because I’m sitting there talking to a psychopath, but because I’m sitting there wondering what he thinks about the way I look.” 

 

Along the way I remember eating at fish restaurants in North Beach .. giggling while watching a floorshow at Sutter’s Mill ..another one on Broadway .. going to see ‘Beach Blanket Babylon goes Bananas’ at Club Savoy ..and falling in love with San Francisco. A few days later Russ drops me off on highway 101 near the airport and, in spite of his objections ..I begin my hitchhiking expedition back to LA. 

 

Continued ..

Hwy one

Rusty: One of the more memorable events of my life occurred during the summer of 1977, between college and grad school. I rode up to San Francisco with my friend Russ ..then hitchhiked back down the coast, on my own, camping-out along the way. But first we were going to spend a week in San Francisco. Russ is from the Bay area, and since this was my first visit ..he was thrilled about having me there to show around. Our first destination ..as well as where we were going to stay ..was his father’s place in Berkeley. On the way up, Russ told me that he had planted marijuana in the garden during spring, so he was rubbing his hands in anticipation of ‘the harvest’ ..unless his dad had mistakenly ripped them out while weeding (he told me his dad wouldn’t know the difference). This did not turn out to be the case, however ..and we were in for our first surprise. When we arrived, his dad was in the kitchen ..trimming and cleaning freshly dried marijuana like a pro. The aroma hit us the moment we walked through the front door. Stunned, Russ rushes in screaming “Dad, what are you doing ..?!” He shows us the other packages in the freezer and tells us how his girlfriend had turned him on ..and how they found them growing in the backyard ..and how it was helping him with deal with his anxiety (Russ’ dad was an executive for an energy company). Now Russ’ biggest concern is how to divvy up the ‘bounty’ between him and his father ..who was like “Oh, those were yours ..?”

 

Continued [link]

Therapeutic value of hallucinogens

Recent studies reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry [link] and the Journal of Psychopharmacology [link], reveal that hallucinogens actually have legitimate therapeutic value. Scientists now believe these agents have the potential to help patients with post-traumatic stress, drug and alcohol dependence, unremitting pain, depression and the existential anxiety of terminal illness. According to Roland Griffiths, author of the first study:

“The psilocybin experience takes away the veil of fear and enables patients to see things in a more expanded and interconnected way. It can relieve the existential anxiety of terminal illness. The psychological improvements have helped many to reverse the course of their illness, which reinforces the notion that one should never underestimate the healing power of the psyche. Scientifically, these compounds are way too important not to study.”

This sounds familiar. In college I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the Neurological Basis of Hallucinatory Experience. I had the foresight (or audacity) at the time to recommend that hallucinogens would be a useful method-of-investigation for Psychologists. I said: “.. it would be negligent not to consider the guided peyote session as portal into alternative states of consciousness” [link].

Presence of mind

“A sign of the end of time is when people can no longer tell the difference between the work of man and the work of nature ..” Hopi prophecy

I’ve never met anyone with a healthy mental outlook who didn’t also have great presence of mind. They can be totally immersed in virtual space then quickly disconnect and be completely present for you. They skillfully navigate technical networks as well as the ‘here and now’. Don’t get me wrong, I am also enamored with technology. Social networks enable people to expand their outlook, collaborate and see things from totally different perspectives. That’s what the designers of the Internet originally had in mind. There’s a recent example I like to share. Scientists at the University of Washington were trying to figure out the way enzymes act to allow AIDS to reproduce ..and they couldn’t solve it. So, they put it on the Internet and made it into a game and these gamers from all over the world solved it in three weeks. The brainpower of the world is at our disposal. That’s a good thing. However, with any technology ..I can tell you some really good things about it as well as some not-so-good things about it. People get so engaged in the technological world that they often don’t seem to be present in the real one. I’m not sure mental health is possible without being able to refresh the mind periodically and be completely present with people. I recently spent two weeks at Esalen in Big Sur where I was totally immersed with people in the moment. It was a technology break for me. I’m not so sure about my mental health, but I did return feeling a renewed appreciation for technology as well as a greater sense of what is going on here in the present.

Synthesizing minds

At a graduate seminar many years ago, a fellow student named David Stoltenberg proposed a theory that said that the simple act of reading is a “cross-sensory” event in the brain ..he even had a name for it ..“sensory synesthesia” ..which he described as “perceiving the sound of a color ..or the light of a sigh.” He was giving a multi-media presentation to demonstrate this idea ..but it didn’t turn out the way he planned ..the projectors malfunctioned ..the main point got lost ..and what I was able to get out of it left me feeling unconvinced ..it sounded too much like science fiction. When I think back, I realize I owe Dave a big apology ..and a pound of red Lebanese ..he was right ..you have to be able to “hear” what you “see” in order “understand” what you “read”.

Research now shows that synesthesia, far from being a “fringe” phenomenon, can actually enhance cognitive function in addition to being part of the reading process. Many notable artists, poets and novelist are thought to have this ability. The condition occurs from increased communication between sensory areas of the brain [link]. It probably lies on a spectrum of the way we normally perceive and experience the world. In other words, we all have it ..just some more than others [link].

Calculating minds

Success at math is often more about focusing attention and screening distractions (caused by threat and anxiety) ..than it is about activating areas of the brain actually involved with math calculation. Sian Beilock (University of Chicago) reports: 

“We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to separate anticipatory neural activity from what’s occurring while performing math. Increased activity in frontoparietal regions of the cortex, involved with focusing attention and suppressing anxiety, were better predictors of math scores than activity in regions associated with arithmetic calculation (the left intraparietal sulcus of the cortex) [link].” 

Think about walking across a suspension bridge if you're afraid of heights versus if you're not – it’s a completely different ballgame. This work suggests that educational intervention emphasizing anxiety-reduction (rather than additional math training) will be most effective in revealing a population of mathematically competent individuals, who might otherwise go undiscovered.

Parsing Gabrielle

Notes made during interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC.

Her speech centers are still intact ..but some of the pathways that connect speech with concepts may have been severed. They show her a picture of a table and she comes up with words all right ..just not the right ones. She’s guessing and her therapy involves prompting her to narrow down the range of possibilities until she’s in the vicinity of ‘table-ness’. It is geared toward building alternate pathways to replace the one’s she lost. The connection between her lexicon (the place where words are stored) and semantic memory (memory for meaning) may be all that’s affected. Prognosis is good. She can read words from her lexicon OK. Her difficulty is connecting them with ideas in the mind. So it’s just a process of generating alternate pathways. I wonder if she can write or type in complete sentences. I wonder if there’s a way to prompt the language pathways of the brain to act with equipotentiality, same as they did during childhood, to help facilitate the regenerative process. Apparently music can help because it activates greater brain-area ..and she can sing the words she has difficulty coming up with on her own.  Spontaneously however, she doesn’t speak in full sentences yet. Her two word utterances show a ‘return to the kernal’ ..meaning she can express the main idea without the generating the phrase-structure necessary to produce a full sentence. Hopefully, she hasn’t lost the rules of grammar ..only the ability to pick-out the words to express them. 

Kernal: When asked if she wants to return to Congress, she relies: “No, better ..!”
 Generative grammar: Embedded verb phrases are required to turn the kernal “No, better!” into a full sentence: “No, I want to get better first” 

Parsing Nixon

The transcript of Nixon’s testimony about Watergate became public Thursday, providing a detailed view of Nixon - combative, defensive and mindful of his place in history [link]. As an exercise in deception-detection, I suggested we parse a short passage of Nixon’s testimony. We limited it to the response Nixon gave to a specific question asked by federal prosecutors. We examined the implications Nixon made in order to give prosecutors the impression that he was acting as Chief Executive and giving high-level ‘directives’ to his staff ..and not ordering the Watergate break-in. When prosecutors asked about White House efforts to target Lawrence O'Brien (Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) and the events leading up to the break-in at his office in the Watergate complex, Nixon replied:

“I do not recall suggesting Mr. O’Brien files be checked ..I only suggested that in this campaign, we should be as effective in conducting our investigations as they (the Democrats) had been in conducting their investigations.”

[ I only suggested .. ] implies no direct orders were given. Although prosecutors may infer ‘tacit approval’, without knowing what was going on in the minds of the White House staff at the time; prosecutors couldn’t go there. That information was only available in discussions leading up to this point. But the previous 18 minutes were erased from the White House tape. *See Footnote*

[conducting our investigation .. ] implies they were only discussing an equitable response to what Democrats were doing during the campaign. Since there was no evidence of criminal activity on the part of Democrats, prosecutors could only conclude Nixon wasn’t suggesting anything inappropriate.

It’s clear Nixon was using pragmatic implications [link] ..a trick that lawyers routinely recommend to their clients. He could deny culpability but, at the same time, avoid perjury in the advent investigators found evidence that he actually did order the break-in. Instead of denying it outright, he says is he was making what amounts to a ‘suggestion’ that they conduct an ‘equitable investigation’. If it comes out later that he gave orders, he cannot be accused of perjury for the inferences federal prosecutors made in response to his statements. In other words, implications are not grounds for perjury. To the end, Nixon played the role of an attorney trying to create ‘reasonable doubt’ in the minds of his jurors (Historians).

* Footnote: Congress actually did infer that, by omission, the 18-minute gap probably contained incriminating information turning Nixon’s statement into a criminal act. This is what led to a vote of impeachment by over two-thirds of the House.

Santa Cruz

At Pergs today, a Chinese man leans over to Terry and says: “I’m going to tell you the secret of eternal youth ..save you much money on make-up and plastic surgery” She goes “OK, I’m in” He says “Still your mind and you will not age as quickly as people whose minds are constantly struggling to hold their personalities together.”

Santa Cruz

I’m sitting drinking tea at Merrill and chatting with some of Terry’s classmates. They seem exceptionally well informed and receptive. Certainly not the way I remember myself back then. I’m impressed. They express a keen interest in what’s going on at Esalen and ask me if there’s a revival of sixties radicalism (!?) Wayne, a poli sci student, has pretty detailed knowledge of events going back to the Vietnam era. This feels erringly familiar. I ask him if he’s ever heard of the Iran-Contra affair.

“Yeah, that had something to do with selling guns to Iran ..in exchange for hostages.”
“That’s right. Anything else ..? “
Yeah, they used the money they made to fund the Contras.”
“And you believe that ..?”
 “Well now wait a minute, I do remember something about a conspiracy to sell drugs to support the Contras ..(?)”

Now I definitely feel like the last to know. I go for a walk through the woods and find a place where I can sit and watch the sunset over Monterey Bay. I shake my head. I’m happy to see our system of higher education is working well. They’re teaching conspiracy theories that are way more advanced than mine. These kids are getting out of here with a mind as sharp as Occam's razor.

Santa Cruz

After Mary’s workshop, I blow-off the weekend workshop ..and turn it into a personal retreat for the next couple of days. Nice. I arrive in Santa Cruz on Monday. Now I’m on the campus of UC Santa Cruz, which is such an amazing place. It’s in the redwood forests overlooking Monterey Bay. I take a hike through the woods, processing the workshop, which still resonates ..as I go. I follow a wooded trail to the Uni library, go online and post some of my workshop experiences, from a first-person, ego-centric point of view. If you’re interested, follow the link ~>[link].  I sit and stare out the window at the redwood trees. They’re massive ..and very wise I believe. They’re the oldest living beings on the planet. I remember when I could sit by an open window and spit sunflower seeds at them. Not no more. The windows won’t open(!?) Could they be afraid someone may try to head for the woods without going down the stairs and leaving by the front door ..? Hmm, not even at the height of my psilocybin days ..

Courage to be you (Esalen workshop)

best short clip on the subject ..definitely worth seeing ..!!!

 

Esalen (day five)

“There was a wicked messenger
From Eli he did come
With a mind that multiplied
The smallest matter.” Bob Dylan. 

Mary shows us how we live on a ‘spectrum of activation’ ..and that people spend most of their waking hours in the cautious zone (the yellow zone), which comes as a surprise to all of us. She refers to this as ‘being vigilant’, which she says is a good thing. It tells us when to stop (and enter the red zone) or when to go (and enter the green zone). Too much time in the red zone means being pre-disposed to doing nothing ..and too much time in the green zone means allowing events to zoom by without regard for where they’re heading. Sophia struggles with this, asking how ‘vigilance’ can be good thing “..isn’t there a fine line between vigilance and hyper-vigilance?” Feeling smart, because I think I finally caught-on to what Mary is saying, I jump in with something I think may be helpful. I suggest to Sophia that maybe it’s not a fine-line that separates vigilance from hyper-vigilance but a range or spectrum instead. Perhaps hyper-vigilance means living too much in the red zone where it suppresses needful activity. Now I hear my voice trailing-off into uncertainly .. hoping either Sophia or Mary will say something to help rehabilitate me ..and thinking ‘mindfulness’ may have been a better word, and so on. However, Sophia quickly nods her head in agreement, saying “..of course” and Mary lets it pass ..and I’m left here sitting, thinking “who do I think I am, chief semanticist ..splitting hairs over a choice of words” and feeling somewhat less than helpful. Even now, the fact that this is what I remember to write about tells me how cautious I can be even after the fact ..looking back and ruminating over an instance that went largely unnoticed and has been pretty much forgotten by everyone (including Sophia) ..seems pretty fucking useless. Oh well oh well.

That’s why I’m reminded of the lyric by Dylan quoted above. I interpret Eli to mean the high priest and judge that sits inside my head; and rumination to be the part of my mind that multiplies the smallest matter.

Esalen (day five)

 I want to scream but I duck-out of the workshop instead. Perhaps it’s to avoid dealing with my own issues but there’s a dialogue going around and around, without resolution. Why resolution is important to me right now I have no idea. 

Ken: If I don’t make these changes right away ..I feel like I won’t make them at all. But I know it would be irresponsible for me to just quit and leave (talking about changing jobs and moving away from a painful situation). 

Mary: well, you don’t have to do these things right away ..that would be acting impulsively, which is what’s gotten you into trouble in the past ..right? (referring to infidelity and resulting divorce). 

Ken: yeah but, unless I do it right away ..I’ll lose the sense of urgency I need to do it at all. 

Me: are you saying you can’t do things unless you feel a sense of urgency? 

Ken: that’s right. I usually need a feeling of urgency to get things done.

Mary: think you can plan to make changes while it still feels urgent ..then proceed with deliberation? You know, I have this saying by Winston Churchill posted in the hall outside my home-office. It goes: “stay calm ..carry on.” 

Ken: yeah but, events in my life will overtake that and other tasks will become more urgent the way they always do. 

Mary: isn’t relief from suffering urgent enough?

Ken: yeah, but I only feel that way here ..back home I’ll spiral back into the life I’m used to. 

Now I feel like screaming. I know that I’m working through Ken because what I hear him saying is something I recognize in myself. I often wait until things become urgent before doing them. However, I also know the painful consequences of procrastination. I want to say something that’ll help. However, it’s beginning to sound like a circular argument and the phrase: “spiral down ..forget about carrying on” is running through my head. Instead of saying anything, I duck outside for awhile. It helps me clear the mental chatter going on inside my head and lessens my compulsion to jump-in and try to help ‘resolve matters’ ..which is usually no help at all.

(posted November 2nd at UC Santa Cruz)

Esalen (day four)

To the mats ..

I’m laying on my back while Joy and Marie are massaging me ..Marie from my head down ..Joy from my feet up. My eyes are closed while Mary gently guides us: “Be aware of your breath ..see who comes into view ..who is it that you feel you want to talk to right now.” Many people flash by ..then I see my dad come into the foreground while others fade into the background. His presence stays. Next I hear Mary say: “Imagine a specific place where you can sit down ..look them in the eyes and, out loud ..tell them what it is you want to say to them ..what it is you are feeling.”I sit with him in his Tucson studio and say:

“Dad, I was at that place you refer to as ‘that place you like to go’ (Esalen). However, right now it doesn’t sound as dismissive as before ..more like an acknowledgment of something I like to do ..a recognition of how I feel. Makes me feel good. I don’t know why I ever expected more. I want to say that I appreciate you remembering what I like. Thank you. I also want to thank you for giving me life ..twice. Once when I was conceived, of course ..then again when I was eighteen and lost. You paved the way for me to go to the university, where I felt most at-home. Now I recognize that, what I once perceived as disinterest in what I was doing ..was actually non-interference with what I was doing. I know how much you value individuality. You were allowing me to ‘be my own man’. Not telling me what you expected me to be. Now I see that as a gift to be cherished. Thank you, dad ..I love you.”

Tears of joy are streaming down my face ..
 

(posted November 1st at UC Santa Cruz)

Esalen (day one)

Ken is from New York. Says that tonight’s activity was “..way too West Coast” for him. Thought he could be just an observer. Says he’s unsure if he can participate in the workshop this way. Mary asks what bothered him about tonight’s activity. He says he doesn’t know. Mary suggests that maybe he’s afraid. Ken says he guesses so. The instructions were to scan the room, then when Mary says “go” ..walk over to someone, take their hand and sit down with them. Everybody (including myself) reads way too much into these simple instructions. Some of us wander confused ..especially when the one we had chosen ..gets taken. Mary never said we couldn’t be a “threesome”. I read “form a couple” ..with all its connotations. I chose another wanderer ..Brita. Next we’re revealing something about ourselves to each other. I forget what I said, but I remember what Brita said. She lives in Big Sur, works at Esalen as a bodyworker and does whatever else she can to contribute. She also has a job in Monterey. I forget what. I also met my roommate, Michael, this evening. He’s on a month-long retreat ..with weekends free. This week he’s hiking with Steven Harper’s group. He’s from Toronto.

(posted October 31st at UC Santa Cruz)

Beauty of uncertainty

based on a study showing what happens when we discount the surprise value of unexpected events ~> [link]

Network communication theory

I have a theory that says whenever messages are transmitted between people in different locations; the accuracy of communication drops by 60%. I call it the ‘displacement theory of communication’ and it's an extension of findings in the field of human information-processing [link].

This drop in communication is wide-scale and can occur anywhere from cell phones to air traffic control systems. Messages are by nature incomplete and often assume knowledge of local conditions that aren’t available to the receiver. Without exacting protocols, like those developed in the air traffic control industry, incomplete messages are at best probabilistic and rely on the receiver to supply the most likely meaning intended. Since this is an innate function of human information-processing; it can happen quickly and imperceptibly. When it does, we are prone to making overconfident and faulty decisions about the most likely meaning intended. It has long been know that the most frequent decision we make during conversation is about the intention of others .. it’s also the one we get wrong most often. So, facebook users and text messagers ..beware! We are making the rules up as we go.

Deceptive advertsing

Response to an article in the LA Times titled~>

[FBI says Iran planned to attack Washington]

“Iran’s military elite hired members of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate a Saudi ambassador in Washington DC” all I have to do is read this statement out loud and it comes across sounding pretty ludicrous. 

I can’t believe an elite military force in Iran would be foolish enough to hire a Mexican drug cartel to pull-off an assassination of this magnitude. First, it’s not in the interest of the cartel whose biggest concern is safeguarding the cash-flow they earn from smuggling drugs – covertly – into the US. They’re hardly known for political assassinations outside of Mexico where it’s ordinarily done to protect smuggling operations. Second, why would a drug cartel, with profits estimated in the billions, be interested in earning a few extra bucks by detonating a bomb inside Washington DC ..? They risk blowing their cover and incurring the wrath of the US, which is where their business interests lie. I don’t believe they care a whole heck of a lot about relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. What I do suspect, however, is the intention of the US government. It gives them a good cover story for bombing Iranian nuclear power plants, something which Saudi Arabia has been expressing a great deal of interest in lately.

Iran-Contra Affair

Conspiracy theorist that I am ..why do I feel like I’m the last to know this. Looking back, it seems painfully obvious to me that the Iran-Contra affair had nothing to do with selling arms for hostages. That was a cover. It had everything to do with selling drugs for guns and money to support the Contras. A hostage exchange just sounds a lot more patriotic in the advent the operation was uncovered, which it was. The Contras were trying to overthrow the communist regime in Nicaragua. Turns out the U.S. National Security Council was allowing drug traffickers to sell their wares (in this case cocaine) to distributors in the U.S. in exchange for guns and money to support the Contras. As long as the proceeds were being funneled to the Contras, the U.S. State Department and DEA were willing to let the shipments flow. Police departments in both San Diego and Los Angeles can attest to this. Their efforts to investigate and arrest smugglers were repeatedly obstructed by the DEA [link].

Steve Jobs

It’s not a new management technique suitable for indoctrination. He was an old-school authoritarian. His message was simply to stay open, receptive and enthusiastic about new ideas in whatever field is closest to your heart. He chose to promote the right idea for software engineering. He invested in Mitch Kapor’s open architecture, which is component-based and extendable. Qualities that got it on the net (as apps) ..then on mobile platforms (as smartphones). Component-based software development is more toy-like and fun ..and it adapts easily to different platforms. The idea is, you don’t change components that already work, you pull them out of a library then adopt them to do whatever you want by creating an interface-component. Kind of like tinker-toys. Component-based software runs simulator-like (as it does at Pixar) - simulating things like an exchange floor with buyers, sellers, transactions and shipping methods (think Amazon). His message was to be open-minded, observe how things work in nature and real-world systems ..then double-down on technology that mimics those observations. That’s the best bet for future innovation.

distorted perception

In 1984, scientists looking for ways to treat glaucoma, produced synthetic cannabinoids in order to avoid violating anti-marijuana laws. This lead to the production of over 460 different kinds of cannabinoid compounds. These compounds were used to study receptors in the brain involved with pain and inflammation. Their formulas were published in scientific journals, which is necessary for peer-review. Now, enterprising home-chemists can produce these compounds and sell them on the street. Drugs like ‘spike’ or ‘K-2’ go for around $25 to $30 a gram. They are 10 times more potent than marijuana but, unlike marijuana ..dangerous. They can produce hallucinations, paranoia and convulsions followed by emergency room doctors. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, out of one misguided law ..there are now 460 compounds that the DEA has to investigate and outlaw. It’s an enormous task. In the last 20 years, they’ve only been able to list 5 as schedule-1 drugs, which means illegal to sell or possess. Now they want to pin the blame on the retired chemist from Clemson who produced a lot of these synthetic cannabinoids. I guess it’s human nature to forget our own contributions to present-day fiasco. Good luck boys.

anti anxiety

“With the ideal comes the actual 

like two arrows in mid-air ..they meet” ~ Sandokai 

What does this have to say about stress and anxiety ..? The odds of events meeting our ideals are about as likely as two arrows meeting in mid-air. At the local-level, what we think people should do or say is an ideal ..what follows is the actual. Like arrows in mid-air, they seldom meet. At the neural-level, when events don’t meet our expectations, an orienting response is triggered. Pupils dilate ..light intensifies ..sounds get amp’d ..muscle tone increases ..acetylcholine is released .. blood vessels constrict and blood pressure rises ..all in a fraction of an instance. The orienting response is meant to be transitory. It should subside once dissimilarities are found to be non-threatening. But when the incidence of dissimilarity occurs too often, and the orienting response doesn’t get a chance to recover ..it becomes chronic. You experience a constant sense of vigilance both mentally and viscerally, which is similar to what someone with PTSD suffers. It takes a toll. There are many reasons for experiencing a higher incidence of dissimilarity. I have a theory that highlights one possibility: memory becomes scripted with age and repetition [link]. Many of our old views of the world simply don’t match present-day reality anymore. However, we persist. This leads to a false sense of knowing and anticipating what comes next. However, what comes next is never certain ..only imagined. Anticipation-fueled imagination is a vicious cycle that leads to more frequent experiences of dissimilarity between the imagined and the actual. I believe it results in the chronic anxiety and pervasive feeling of dissatisfaction I often see in people my age.

coastal zone

A wave curls, topples and breaks overhead. I pop out the backside and lie on my back floating in its wake. It's like looking through a fishbowl, I see blue sky above with eucalyptus trees and ocean spray bobbing around the periphery. Two pelicans pass overhead leaving behind a trail of mental-chatter. “Predators of the sea ..I wonder if they can see their prey or do they sense them some other way ..and why can’t I do that ..and why do I always ask the same questions ..?” “Ungrounded” is how my father would answer. “Totally impractical and too childish to even consider.” His voice reminds me to return to the present ..he’s not here now. A swell passes, lifting me in the air as it goes. Now I’m upright and definitely tuned to the present. A wall of water is approaching. I burst into action and try to match its speed. It picks me up and drops me ..the momentum of the fall helping me stay ahead of the break. I may not be able to ride the airwaves ..but I can ride ocean waves like a fish, or a seal, or even better ..like a dolphin! Yeah, a dolphin ..that’s the ticket. They’re always smiling ..disarming looking and fun. Now I don’t care how childish I sound.

transformation cycle

Dr George, professor of ‘lifespan development’, can identify what year you graduated from high school during a 20-minute interview while blindfolded. Clues? Verbal expressions, vocabulary, explanatory-style, values, ideals, etc. “..basically, it’s recognizing what’s in focus and what’s on the periphery of their narrative. Tells you what cohort they belong to.” What’s a cohort ..? “A cohort is a group of people who pass through periods of historical and social change at around the same age. As a result, they experience these events during the same period of development. People who were in their adolescence when 9/11 occurred for example, or those who were coming-of-age while fighting in Iraq. It makes a difference in the way they express themselves and how they explain current events. Their narrative is an interaction between lifespan-development and socio-cultural development.” He says, however, if college was a transformational experience .. they’re not so easily pegged. “It’s a game changer” Why’s that ..? “Because it sets in motion a transformation-cycle that follows them throughout life. Like recurring periods of renewal ..they shed what’s out-of-date and adapt more contemporary elements to their narrative. In other words, they periodically cover their tracks.”

Reading behavior

When I make a conscious effort, I can kind of catch a glimpse of whatever’s going on inside my head that helps me grasp the meaning of what I’m reading and relate it to other things I know about. It may be part of my training, but ..what I’m seeing is not unique to me. It is a process that’s common to everyone. It’s universal. It’s been observed and documented by linguists all over the world. As I read, I’m building an ‘event-chain’. An event-chain is made up of information from prior-sentences, which I get from working-memory, and prior-experience, which I get from long-term memory. When I read about the rebel invasion of Tripoli this week, I immediately built a relatively simple event-chain based on a limited set of events stored in long-term memory. It looked something like this:

However, as I read further ..I discovered this was not the case. The invasion was the result of Kadafi’s own undoing. Now my event-chain looks something like this:

Suddenly NATO air strikes don’t seem quite so important anymore. My first reading was in error. It doesn’t take into account a whole heap of events I didn’t know about. My second event-chain probably doesn’t either. However, I still come away with the feeling that I’m sufficiently informed, which leads me to another observation: I resist yielding to the probability of the unknown, which is always greater than what I can fit into an event-chain. However, an event-chain is about all that I can fit into my pea-brain.

natural born killer

Susan has an adversarial relationship with the natural surroundings we live in. It’s a beast that needs taming. She began ripping out the periwinkle and nasturtiums that covered the slope above the creek. I stopped her before she ripped out the native plants along the banks. Got a stink-eye for that. Then she began planting ‘posies’, which didn’t take but contributed to the sudden death of an oak tree [link]. Next, she decided do have an olive tree removed. Her husband actually cried when he noticed it missing. She claimed the tree-guy must have made a mistake so they took him to court ..and lost. Fewer trees made them more visible from my side of the creek. She felt this was an invasion of privacy and told me about her plans to plant a bamboo ‘wall’ along the property line. “I don’t want people trespassing around here anymore, Bill” she said. What she really meant was “I don’t want you to be able to see us anymore, Bill.” I talked to Dr Jones and he nipped that in the bud (long story). The next three years she spent battling with another neighbor who had built a small stone wall nearby, which I thought fit-in well with the surroundings. It was a vicious battle, which she eventually lost and had to pay somewhere around $250,000 in court cost (hers and theirs). It fouled the atmosphere enough to where the neighbor moved out ..which Susan considered a victory [link]. Now she’s looking in my direction again and plans to build an extension of the former neighbors’ wall along our property line. However, she wants to build it higher so it’ll act as a retaining wall and she can create a level yard out of the slope. I mentioned what a major feat of engineering that would be and this time I got the evil-eye. I quickly walked over to see Dr Jones who monitors building permits. If she starts building without a permit, the City will stop her. If she applies for a permit, Dr Jones and the other residents will counter and the City will nip that in the bud as well. Then I’m afraid I’ll see her sitting across the creek, in an Adirondack chair, staring at me with a blunderbuss on her lap.

Charlie

Sitting on the deck sharing a bowl with Charlie. I’ve always felt safe doing this even though I don’t have a medical marijuana card. My neighbors aren’t that close, and besides ..they’re pretty cool. I haven’t met the new neighbors across the creek yet. When I mention this to Charlie ..he freaks. Now he’s imagining a surveillance operation and starts outlining a plan in the almost-certain event that they start to move in on us. “We can hurdle a wall or two ..carjack Richard’s SUV ..drive to the harbor ..commandeer a boat ..sail out into the channel ..then head for open seas. It should work.” “Why would they have us under surveillance, Charles?” He looks at me in disbelief and explains how it’s not uncommon for con men to infiltrate the police department to enrich themselves by taking advantage of asset-forfeiture laws. While I don’t disagree about asset-forfeiture laws ..I tell him I think it’s a bit of a stretch in my case. Now he’s looking at me like you would a naïve child. “Bill, you really outta’ get a medical marijuana card ..save us both a lot of aggravation.” I’m not the one who’s aggravated, but I don’t say anything. Charlie’s not just a conspiracy theorist ..he’s a true believer ..and he’s definitely one to act on his beliefs. Paranoia has always been his default response.

Coastal zone

The ocean is olive-green with a soft silvery glow where the sun is absorbed (not reflected) by the surface. There’s a strong northwest swell but mostly small mushy waves. So I’m swimming just outside them. I run into Barb on the beach where she’s preparing for her regular swim out to the shipping lanes. I sit with Joanne and her son Ryan and share a couple mouthfuls of sushi rolled in seaweed. Ryan is 6-years old and just finished surf-camp. He likes to tell people he’s part Cherokee. He already looks like a California surfer with thick blond hair, dusty tan and cool Oakley shades. He goes and grabs his boogie board and I take him out and launch him on the waves. He rides them into shore and quickly paddles back into position ..where I launch him again. Says he likes the feeling of bobbing up and down in the water. “So do I ..” I tell him.

clearlessness

I wipe off the lenses of my senses. Sure enough, there’s a multilevel interchange of butterflies zipping around the creek. Birds eat olives from the trees on the other side and spit them out on the deck ..and me. More ingenious ones drop hard breadcrumbs into a bird-feeder so they’ll be soft enough to eat. My neighbor Don is following orders from his wife and clearing the back-forty. I’m sitting here trying to make sense of the news. A feeling of frustration is gnawing at me ..not sure where it’s coming from. Possibly the remnants of yesterdays’ fiasco. The radio operators in the canyon are disrupting wireless connections and pissing off the notebook PC operators. I don’t see a ‘civil’ solution. Hoping there’s a technical solution that’s just not apparent to me. My brain feels as small as a pea this morning.

Katy Perry

I finish running and climbing the steps at the HS football stadium. It’s almost sunset. I can hear Katy Perry at the bowl singing loud and clear. I climb the last set of steps, catch my breath while walking down a passageway ..and run into Alex and Jose. We sit in the stands and share some herb. They’re compañeros from the local Hispanic community who haven’t heard anything by Katy Perry before, unless it was by accident ..like tonight. They’re just hanging out. Occasionally they hear a tune they recognize ..only because it’s by somebody else. They are Snoop Dog fans. To me she sounds like a cheerleader at high amplitude ..but I’m really too stoned to say. I’m just gonna’ enjoy. Jose tells me it’s strong stuff. They can’t believe how long I hold it in for. Turns out Alex and Jose are eighteen, recent graduates of the high school ..and the only time that they ever leave the East side is to go fishing on the wharf. They say they’ve heard of ‘Goleta pier’ and might go looking for it some day. They’re not sure which direction it’s in. I tell them it’s north of here and that they might want to checkout the pier at Refugio too. “Wherezzat ..?” “Farther north ..” but I might have well said “ ..on the moon.” I remind myself that these kids occupy a shorter space-time narrative (God am I stoned). Now I’m being extra careful not to sound snobbish. I do suggest that they get out more. “Oh yeah ..like, where, man ..?” Head north ..like San Luis Obispo. Jose says he’s heard of it. I tell them there are youth hostels along the coast highway where they can stay really cheap. They go “yeah ..where at, man ..?” I’m about to suggest they try Googling it but stop when I realize how pointess that’d be. They already told me they don’t have Internet. I almost asked them for their email addresses too. I’m really stoned and having difficulty shifting perspectives. I can’t think of anything to say that might work so I write down the words ‘youth hostel’ on a cup and tell them to ask around ..the way I used to find things out when I was their age.

Cyber space junkies

The Internet extends the information-processing capability of the brain. Like having remote sensors, we’re presented with images of events and people streaming-in from all corners of the globe at a much faster clip. The Internet puts previews of coming attractions in front of you like never before with a wider range of unfiltered choices to select from. If you want freedom of choice ..you got it in spades. If making choices is difficult, it’s like drinking water from a fire-hose. But if you’re an information-junkie like me ..you feel like a kid in a candy store. Cyberspace is a simulation of our social sphere ..it portrays an exchange of people, information and ideas. It is also an extension of the ego ..it reflects our efforts at impression-formation. It has the ability to re-enact prior exchanges .. like the ruminating part of the brain. However, when it performs this act ..it does so in front of a large audience. Helps not to be squeamish about getting your lines wrong.

Dr Gene

Dr Gene tells me that the U.S. debt-debate is a red-herring. “It’s a distraction from what’s really happening to the economy,” he says. “The S&P didn’t downgrade our credit rating because of the level of the debt ..it was in response to political gridlock. We’ve had federal deficits throughout history ..especially during wartime ..and the markets didn’t suffer because of it.” He believes that the debt-level is modest and probably even necessary given current economic conditions. So, what’s the problem..? “I believe it’s really bad timing on the part of republicans to be asserting political ideology right now ..that and the President failing to assert his powers of office. He could have easily raised the federal debt in time to meet it’s obligations. The 14th amendment allows him to do that without approval from congress. You see. Bill ..it’s not the size of the debt, it’s the government not making payment on the debt that shakes up foreign investors, S&P and the folks on Wall Street.”

New tune

Sovereignty for sale

They say the worst thing you can do in an economic crises is panic. However, it’s kinda’ hard not to when I’m sitting here with a sliding sensation in my gut, like the wheels of my car have lost traction on an icy road. Only I’m not in a car, I’m sitting at my desk. They say that the world’s largest communist country, China, has now become the world’s biggest creditor. This, in turn, gives them the right to demand the U.S. surrender it’s military and social programs that are putting the value of their biggest asset at risk .. U.S. Treasury bonds and other dollar-backed securities. I think it’s time for me to make an appointment to see Dr. Gene.

a wheel inside a wheel

I’m walking over to the high-school athletic fields nearby when I run into my neighbor Ron. I say hello how are you and stuff, and he says “fine ..the same old thing as yesterday and the day before. ” I detect a hint of discontent. My first reaction is to try and counter this by suggesting it’s something we all have in common. “Well then, I’m catching you at a moment when I, too, am doing the same old thing as yesterday and the day before.” He shakes his head in agreement (?) ..which looks more like weariness. I figure there must be something else going on and tell myself not to counter whatever that might be. Neither of us really have time to talk right now, so I just go “You know Ron, it’s alright ..the world is a cycle.” He looks at me while taking a hit off his cigarette. I don’t know why, but I’ve got this urge to continue. “I’m following a cycle of going to the track, which means running in circles, which are made up of tiny cycles of intense respiration” I laugh and go “if my senses didn’t re-cycle themselves periodically ..I’d experience white-out.” Now he’s walking away, looking at me out of the corner of his eye and going “yeah, right ..” like he’s heard that one before. Now I’m wondering if I didn’t just repeat a cycle of bullshit that I mistake for reassurance ..but is really the start of another cycle of avoidance. Oh well oh well, I go, thinking ..at least I don’t have a nicotine cycle to worry about, which triggers a whole new cycle of rationalizations.

Cameron Diaz

“The role Cameron Diaz plays as a pot-smoking slacker in the movie Bad Teacher ..is not a sign of progress for women but a mark of devolution of the broader culture.” LATimes [link]

For me, it’s comments like this that confirm just how subjective entertainment really is. Although I can go on for hours talking about entertainers I like and those I don’t particularly care much for ..I really can’t analyze it. What makes a movie character funny is the way they resonate with audience members in the moment, and certainly not what university professors think based on standards set by the feminist movement of the 1960’s. What lent this review any degree of fairness, and saved it from becoming a heavy-handed and biased treatment of the merits of Cameron Diaz’s choice of roles ..were the comments made by Lisa Lampanelli “Within 20 years it’ll be ..that’s just a comic, not a guy or a girl, or a gay guy or a black guy, just a funny person.” I, too, look forward to the day when I can laugh at a comic without concern for someone else’s gender-defined, role-appropriate sensibilities.

Uummannaq

Sun Tzu

“If the Taliban was trying to play on unease among Afghans and Western governments about the ability of the police and army to safeguard the country, they chose the right target and time.”

If the Taliban want to prolong a ground war with allied forces, they’re doing exactly the right thing! What better way to jeopardize troop reductions than by conducting assaults on high-profile targets and boasting about their strength over the Internet. If they really want to win control of the region, I think they’d be better off laying-low and keeping us misinformed. I mean, why not have us believe their supreme leader is dead. It would bolster the illusion that Afghan forces are ready to safeguard the country and keep troop withdrawals on-schedule. In due time they’d be left with a weaker adversary who they stand a better chance of defeating. Maybe then they can put down their guns and pick up some kind of responsible position in government. However, the way they’re acting now leads me to believe they really don’t want this war to end.

Decline of western civilization

There is a relationship between higher education ~> the location of high-tech industry ~> income levels ~> economic progress ~> tax revenue ~> state debt ~> S&P rating ~> consumer interest ~> upward mobility and standard of living . However, if Sacramento is trying to fight immigration by compromising it’s colleges and universities, which reduces the standard of living and creates greater competition for low-wage jobs .. they’re succeeding!

agents of expression

Most children learn to speak and understand what’s said effortlessly. It’s a spontaneous process that doesn’t require classroom training. The brain is innately tuned to extract the rules of spoken language. Observations show that parents rarely correct for rules of grammar during early childhood. However, they frequently correct for the rules of semantics ..making sure their children convey the proper idea [link]. That’s why it’s interesting for me to see that, while children may discover the correct rules of grammar on their own ..by adolescence they’re playing pretty loose with the rules of semantics they’d been taught. In other words, they frequently use well-formed sentences to fabricate and misrepresent what’s going down.

false memories

I have a confession to make. I’m just as guilty of self-delusion as the next (link). The other day someone asked me if I had been ‘surprised’ by the dot com crash of 2001. I was working in the computer industry back then and believed it was the ‘wave of the future’. So yeah, I was surprised. However, that’s not what I told him. I told him no, I wasn’t surprised ..and went on to explain how I had seen it coming. “Companies weren’t ready to abandon their way of doing business for the promise of e-commerce” I said “..even our own clients were backing away from some of the ambitious shit we were proposing.” Funny thing is, I wasn’t lying ..not intentionally anyway. That’s actually how I remember it. On closer inspection it’s clear to me what’s happening. I had replaced memories of what I was thinking before the crash with my accounts of it afterwards ..creating the illusion that I had seen it coming. What’s more, now that I think about it ..another fucked-up consequence of underestimating the surprise I felt was how it had kept me from recognizing warning signs of the next ‘big thing’ ..which was real estate before the market crash of 2007.

coastal zone

Julie tells me about a concert series playing Thursdays at Chase Palm Park. I feel confident I know where that is ..but she tells me I’m wrong. Now I’m standing where I thought it was ..and I know I’m wrong. This is Rainbow Park. A lifeguard explains that Chase Palm Park follows the shore and ends at the wharf. Somewhere in-between, it juts inland where there’s a small amphitheater. “You outta’ go see a show ..” he says “..they’re pretty cool.” “You gonna’ go..?” I ask. “Oh yeah!” Down by the water, I’m tracking a low flying pelican until I see it veer off just in time to avoid beaning a kid sitting in the surf. From that close, it looks like a small VW. The kid doesn’t seem to notice but his mother looks pretty shaken. Now I’m close enough to where I can tell her not to worry “..they’ve got sonar” I say. She goes “Whut ..?”  I tell her they got powers of  rapid navigation.  She goes “Oh ..” but doesn't sound too convinced.

memory chain

Listening to The Stones singing Lady Jane ..one word after another ..bringing up memories one after another ..until I’m following them like stepping-stones. I’m back in college where I found sanctuary after the recklessness of high school. Taking refuge in a library ..finding solace in the words of William James and Alan Watts ..informing me I wasn’t as crazy as I thought. Days spend discussing the latest books by John Fowles and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ..finding out who got into grad school and how. Nobody I knew wanted this to end. Playing ‘go’ in the courtyard until classes looked like a grid of black and white stones. Crowding around professors like reporters chasing clues. Spending Sunday discussing philosophy with a faculty adviser until late at night. Continuing at Hamburger Henrys’ until Monday morning and the beginning of a new cycle. I felt like an explorer with helmet and miner’s lamp ..nerd that I am.

Note: A wonderful way to follow the memory chain and find writing material (or just shed light on things) can be found in ‘Felt Sense’ by Sondra Perl ~>[link]

Coastal zone

Tribal leaders and government official say there’s fewer salmon swimming off the coast of Northern California these days. I love salmon. So, of course, I immediately suspect polluted waters ..brought about by wetland destruction ..big know-it-all that I am. I follow coastal developments like this but not nearly close enough to trust my own conclusions. I ask professor Scott at UCSB and get a completely different answer. “It’s more complicated” he says “ ..ocean currents and water temperatures change and relocate the food supply. The salmon, however ..aren’t raised in the ocean ..they’re spawned in hatcheries. As a result, they stay genetically unchanged and continue to look for food in the same location instead of extending their boundaries. Each generation gets smaller instead of adapting.” I tell him thanks ..I did not know that ..and say it definitely reassures me I’m still evolving. My ignorance knows no boundaries.

Peter Gabriel show

I’m sitting here sharing a buzz with another ‘greybeard’ named Jerry at the high school football stadium. I’m done with my workout (kinda’) and we’re sitting in the stands listening to Peter Gabriel (and his orchestra) playing at the bowl. Since it’s situated in the neighborhood of the high school; we can hear them loud and clear. There’s a panoramic sunset .. music fills the air ..and some of Humboldt’s finest fills my lungs. The bowl sits in a natural amphitheater surrounded by a community that sits on the slopes of the Riviera. It’s kind of like a bowl inside a bowl. Although my friend Pat lives above the bowl ..and his deck offers the best listening (and BBQ) around ..the high school stadium isn’t bad. Other greybeards are arriving ..as well as a young couple asking who’s playing. A light goes on when they hear the song ‘in your eyes’ however.

The loop

The Internet is not an open system. It is warped by the focus of its participants. Anyone can skip from blog to facebook to youtube to talk radio and back without encountering a single thought to challenge their own. This turns the Internet into a closed feedback loop. A closed feedback loop reinforces beliefs that may have started out as a figment of someone’s imagination. The Internet makes it possible for such insubstantial phenomena to gain widespread popularity. Without the benefit of open dialogue, insubstantial phenomena can become ‘counter-factual narrative’ bordering on delusion and paranoia. Take for instance the notion that Osama Bin Laden death was a ‘hoax’ ..or that President Obama’s birthplace was a ‘deception’. Look at where Bush’s axis-of-evil designation has led. Back in the 1960’s, historian Richard Hofstadter examined “the paranoia in American politics” and describes it as a self-perpetuating cycle. “Since the enemy is thought of as evil ..it must be totally eliminated” he says. But when the enemy is a figment of the imagination ..the bubble bursts. Instead of finding peace with that ..a new focus of attack must be found to appease the wrathful deities of discrimination ..and the cycle goes on through perpetuity. Reminds me of a Buddhist parable I once heard [link]. Anyway, I do believe the Internet has sped-up the process.

Beauty of uncertainty

In 1975, Baruch Fischoff identified a major obstacle to forming new memories ..ourselves. He found that people frequently underestimate how surprised they are when events don’t turn out the way they expect. He polled a group of students before and after the Watergate hearings. Respondents who felt Nixon would be exonerated (with say 80% confidence) .. overwhelmingly came back and said they weren’t surprised by the verdict (and remember being just over 50% confident). When people learn the outcome of events, they unconsciously go back and adjust the estimate for what they thought would happen. This has the net-effect of revising memory so that it feels as if they “..knew it all along”, which diminishes the surprise-value of information [link]. More recently, neuroscientist Moshe Bar says that surprise is what gives ordinary events the informative-value necessary for transfer to long-term memory [link]. What we retain are mostly the novel bits of information we pick up along the way. They go on to form a ‘pool of scenarios’, which we use to prepare for future events. So if we go around dismissing the surprise-value of information, we sabotage memory, lower our ability to deal with the unexpected ..and don’t learn as much from experience. My friend Audrey likes to say that we can prevent future memory loss by making a conscious effort to do something out of the ordinary everyday ..increase our exposure to what’s new ..or at least give ordinary events greater value than “..it's just the same old story.”

Psych unit

“Locked inside your head do you realize the things you say never make sense? We can sit here awhile but we don't know the half of it in your defense.” KT Tuntall

Group therapy: Rose is a recent arrival. She says she’s here because she lost her cat, which she repeatedly refers to as a ‘jaguar’. “It kept me safe” she says “..nobody fucks with you when you gotta’ jaguar.” I look at Dr Russell. He says counselors had to coax her out of room 20 at the Eagle Inn because she had rendered it toxic ..a rotten mix of soiled blankets, month-old McDonalds wrappers and fuming litter boxes. Another new admit is Jeffrey. He was sent here after leaving a handwritten note at the police station, which read: “Listen, I got 20 CIA agents protecting me where I live” and demanded a ‘monogamous pretty’ woman be delivered immediately.

A stroke of insight

Or there and back again: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few neuroscientists would wish for: she had a stroke and witnessed the boundaries, set by the left cerebral cortex ..disappear. She experienced the ‘enormous and expansive universe’ where we live coming through the parallel portals of the right cerebral cortex, which was unaffected by the stroke. She returns to tell an astonishing tale.

Psych unit

“A horse at my window ..a voice singing in my head. Reality beckons but I will stay here instead. In delirium people are free to see what they want to see. And I am not alone. In the darkness I have a thousand friends. And the music plays and it never ends. And the midnight owl comes to fly with me. And I feel and hear what I cannot see.” ~ Emilie Autumn

Group therapy: Florence pulls at a mop of tangled red hair. Says she thought the spirits that possessed her had disappeared. But they showed up again last night, clawing at her soul. Someone told me she suffers chronic heartache (!?) Robbie needs more medz to think clearly in class. Reasonable request. Stacy, clearly the worst off, hunkers in the corner weeping ..saying her husband (who is deceased) gave her another round of beatings last night. Her head is bandaged and her face is black and blue. Startled, I look at Dr Russell. He says this cycle of recrimination has been going on for years. Some patients appear to have already left the world. The techs brought them in ..they look inanimate. “They’ve escaped their tyranny” the doctor likes to say. I tell him I feel out of my depth. He’s says that’s a good first step. I stare at a chart of the brain on the wall. “Don’t get fooled into thinking that’s any use” he says. Robbie tells me that talking about her problems has helped as much as any anti-depressant a doctor prescribed. “When I speak out, say what’s inside ..they appear to understand and give me direction on what to do.” Makes me think how much better girls are at expressing what’s inside. “So, the people here are pretty helpful ..?” I ask. “No, I mean the Angels ..!!” she shouts incredulously. Dr Russell says you gotta’ treat them for what they believe ails them. “Doesn’t that just reinforce their beliefs ..?” I ask, thinking back to a class in abnormal psych. “Some of these patients were incoherent when I got here” he says. Like they’re making sense now, I think. But who am I to say.

Reading behavior

“Our universities deliver education in English ..[so] we should teach reading in the language that will be most useful.” Letter to the LATimes re. dual-language immersion ~ [link]

As reasonable as this may sound ..it is not consistent with the way nature prepares children to read. Nor is it supported by the state-of-the-art in neuroscience and language development. The language children are going to need in college isn’t as important for reading education as their native language. Learning to read in one’s native language is the most effective route to fluency. That’s because learning to read starts out as a process of linking the sound of words on paper to their meaning in memory [link]. This puts children from non-English backgrounds at a disadvantage when trying to read English first. They have no ‘phonic memory’ for it. That’s what accounts for the high percentage of high school students in the U.S. who cannot read or write well. Furthermore, it is widely known that reading fluency in one language is easily transferable to another [link]. It only makes sense to teach children to read in a way that assures early success in one language and boosts their chances of future achievement in other languages.

Deconstructing Romney

Mitt Romney has a problem. Apparently Obama’s health care act looks a lot like the plan he implemented in the state of Massachusetts. In fact, Obama admits to ‘modeling’ Romney’s program. This makes Romney look like he’ll be less effective helping Republicans repeal Obama’s health care act. I think this is a real problem. He can either stand by his past actions or back away and appear shifty. Recently however, I’ve heard several republican loyalists defend Romney by accusing Obama of ‘stealing’ the idea. Now I don’t believe this is a deliberate attempt to obscure the issue. I think what I’m hearing is a native function of human memory. We retain our own interpretation of events better than actual events. Psychologists say that memory is more of a ‘heuristic’ than ‘algorithmic’ process. It tends to follow the rules of predicate logic, which are looser than those of Cartesian logic. So I looked at how the Romney defense plays out in terms of predicate logic:

Notice where the terms ‘principle’ and ‘democrat’ appear on the network path. For sake of efficiency, I believe memory often drops what’s at the periphery and focuses on the primary action (i.e. model). From there it’s a short step to re-interpret the action ‘modeling’ as ‘stealing’ and forget it’s a democrat ideology to begin with. As crazy as this may sound, it makes Romney’s actions appear much more consistent with republican loyalties. I’m not playing partisan politics here. I believe members of both major parties rationalize events this way.

Soundcheck

I went to the dentist yesterday. This morning my soundscape seems different. More amplified. The people next-door sound like they’re shouting at each other over coffee on the patio outside. The volume of their chatter makes it seem like my boundaries are contracting, which in turn makes my music sound louder and more obnoxious. I turn it down to half it’s usual volume but it still sounds too loud, making me wonder why they haven’t complained before (or perhaps they have and I couldn t hear them). The telephone ringing sounds like a train roaring through the room. This afternoon, the bell inside the meditation hall goes off like gunfire scaring the daylights out of me. Now I’ve had enough. I call the dentist to see if got a soundcheck with my teeth cleaning. He acts as though I’m asking a strange question. Does that sound like a strange question ..?

Anti anxiety practice

Continued from previous post [link]

During conscious breathing I can often hear the internal narrative that my thoughts create. I find myself trying to tell if it’s quarrelsome, critical or confined by past events. Am I busy judging those events as right or wrong – agreeable or offensive ..? Now I’m caught-up judging whether that action is the right or wrong way to practice. I quickly return to my breath ..feeling it rise and fall without effort. When I return to my head, like I so often do, I see a procession of discriminating thoughts rising and falling. So I remind myself not to resist or control them (from an old zen instruction). Trying simply to pay attention to their passing nature. Like the breath arrives and dissolves the toxins of the body .. can I allow each mental instance to arrive and dissolve of it’s own accord. I see periods of neutral thought followed by periods of critical thought. Perhaps I catch a glimpse of clarity once in a while. Like the bubbles of air I’m breathing ..can I let go and allow mental formations to flow, unencumbered, until they vanish. Sometimes, while I’m following my breath ..I imagine myself mimicking the action of the nervous system ..the way it transmits messages and recovers without congestion. There’s no time for bickering there. Then I let that image flow until it vanishes and return to my breath. And so it goes.

Anti anxiety drug

The basis of most stress-relief practice is the simple act of conscious breathing. Like any sport, it helps to return to the fundamentals once in a while. So it is with conscious breathing. Breathing is the closest handle we have on the cleansing and replenishment cycles of the body. Breathing is the way we rid ourselves of carbon dioxide and replenish ourselves with oxygen. It is a process that works on many levels. At an obvious level, our sustenance requires a regular cycle of cleansing and replenishment. On a not-so-obvious level, the senses follow rapid cycles of cleansing and replenishment in order to keep the buffers clear and make way for each successive round of sense-data. Otherwise, we’d experience ‘white-out’ in an instant. At the neural level, synapses perform a continuous act of cleansing and replenishment allowing transmission to proceed without congestion. At the cellular level, cycles of cleansing and replenishment are necessary to prevent toxicity. And finally in the mind, the place where stress-relief occurs ..the conscious mind is a continuous process of forming and dissolving thoughts and images. I find that the easiest way to approach the native processes of mind and body for stress-relief is through what is most accessible ..the simple act of breathing.

Austin city limits

I take a taxi to the bus station and an express to the airport. When I arrive in Austin, Karla is there to greet me with a bright smile and no trace of shyness. I’m delighted. We share a $10.00 hamburger at Trudy’s and head home. The next day Laura and I visit her school where I learn about the Texas Assessment of Knowledge Test (TAKS) ..a measure of student competence for advancement and graduation. They don’t fool around in Texas. In the afternoon we go for a hike along Bull Creek. The water is emerald green and the banks are made of boulders worn smooth, and cut deep in places by the water. I’m reminded of something my zen teacher once said: what’s softest in the world overcomes what’s hardest. We go to the pool for a swim in the evening. The next day we arrive early for the KT concert and watch the show while pressed against the rail in front of the stage. Sweet spot. I don’t remember being this close before. I’m in shock and awe. Stellar performance. KT performs ‘Universe and u’ on piano the way she originally wrote it. Karla enjoyed the show because KT’s songs have a great backbeat. In Dallas the next day, some lucky folks got to see the performance below taped outside the Granada before the show.