A LETTER TO MY PARENTS
An Explanation of the Choices of my Life
July 1996
ANIL MITRA, COPYRIGHT © 1996
– 2003
|
June 10 - |
Posted: |
PART
I: MY LIFE AND YOUR PERCEPTIONS OF IT
Issue
of Pain
| The
pain your father feels because you have not got the work, for which your
intelligence… | The
issue of failure | My
fundamental commitment | Work
at mental health… and alternatives | Human
being and nature: the normal and the singular | The disvalue of professional
positions: needs for original work | The
greatest works were done outside universities | Great work by fifty and
sixty year old persons | Parent’s
problems of perception | Evolution,
Design and the Absolute | Worry
and perception | What
am I? My evaluation of my life. | The
problem
| On
Being
| In
my life I am the actor | My
daughter Carissa | My
relationship with my parents; reasons to explain my life | Conclusion of an explanation
of why I try to understand your feelings; and sharing my reactions | I am doing the highest that
I can do
| My
special relationship to you | Self-doubt | Self-respect | The self-affirmation in this
letter is of value | Issue
of self-deception; and of the distortions of my parents perceptions | Review of the purposes of
this letter: communication; the whole that is my life; my life as positive and
good
| Relation
of individual and the institutions of society; contribution within the
institution and growth beyond | My
achievements; I have achieved much of what I want | Why my work would not have
been accomplished at a university: practical reasons | Why my work would not have
been accomplished at a university: my work requires a full range of experience | My development | Academic
development | Evolution
and Design and the path to Being and the Elements of Being
Dynamics
of relationships and art of self-observation | Academic experience is flat | My work on consciousness: an
example of the dynamics | Adjustment
to loss: a second example of the dynamics | The effect of other’s
judgment on my behavior; my attempt to remain real and true | The dynamics of being;
sources for the dynamics | Dynamics
of perception and intuition; dynamics of healing – another example | Social delusions that
diminish the potential and dimensionality of the individual | A catalog: 21 examples of
the dynamics of the real | An
evaluation: status of work on dynamics; my abilities and preparation | Products of the work | Why it is unnecessary to see
my life as painful; my reaction to that view | Changes that I request | Your contribution
Experience of the ultimate | A catalog of peak experiences | A life and its end in suicide: affirming the individual | Final comments
My
dear Parents,
Thanks for the letter of June 5… I want to address some of
the issues raised in the letter. If I disagree with some of your perceptions,
it is not to prove someone right and someone wrong, but because I think that
our perceptions of others are important and therefore it is also important for
these perceptions to be faithful and true.
Please know that the salutation “My dear Parents” at the
head of this letter is intended as a formal acknowledgement of an aspect of
reality; but does not in any way, either in fact or in intention, imply a lack
of love, caring or respect. In fact I find the formal form fitting and my
intention is to emphasize respect, caring and love.
I should add that this letter includes a statement of some
of my attitudes towards life… and that not everything is in response - either
direct or indirect - to what you may have said.
First, in response to your letter, there is the issue of
pain. I mentioned, and want to repeat, that I have had throughout much of my
life and continue to have a very large share of happiness, satisfaction and
beauty. I think, at this time in my life, my normal state is generally one of
contentment - with who I am, where I am, with the here and now, and with my
ambitions and goals. I report to others that I am “happy” only when I am
unusually pleased - and unusual pleasure is an occasional occurrence.
I believe that I have learned - perhaps always known - the
art of enjoying life. In fact I have cultivated and learned how to cultivate an
enjoyment of the basic elements of life including my own thoughts, feelings.
Fear and pain are, of course, adaptive. However, not every feeling of fear or
pain is adaptive or useful. Much, though not all, of the occurrence of negative
emotions is as a result of faulty perception, faulty thinking and anticipation,
what we are told in society. It would be improbable for all social and cultural
“messages” to be maladaptive but I believe that many are and that yet others
can be misinterpreted. In part, as a result of my thinking about all aspects of
society, I have also thought about the common social values regarding what is
pleasurable and what is painful and of the human and personal validity of these
values. And, although the process was and is intellectual, the result is
emotional, existential. This is one way in which - perhaps at first
inadvertently or as the result of unconscious motives - I have cultivated the
positive… As a result I find it ironic when you focus on the supposed lacks in
my life and on pain.
I do believe that truth and authenticity are at least as
important as happiness (etc.). However, truth and positive emotion are not at
all incompatible. Later in this letter you will see how truth and feeling have
an intimate relation in my life. I wish that, in addition to feeling, you would
also appreciate and express such appreciation of the elements of truth in my
life. Of course this cannot be expected if you do not see a presence of truth.
Yes, I have also had a share of pain but this is not
something to be dwelt on as if it were some kind of burden or anything unusual
in the realm of human experience. Nor do I dwell on it except that it is good
to have a complete perspective of the sum of one's experience, to see how and
how much it results in the present and what one may learn from all of this. I
think it is precisely this circumstance together with other developments that
have made me stronger, more resilient, wiser in the
face of “loss”. Resilient in that I am able to recover (and forgive) more
rapidly - in my estimation - than most people, stronger in not being
fundamentally needy, and wiser in understanding the nature of loss and its
transience. This understanding is not merely intellectual but is part of a
basic emotional (existential) attitude toward life. Many people have problems
understanding this because it is not part of their experience, and perhaps to
accept it would point out or heighten their relative inadequacy. Four sources
of this aspect of myself that I can identify are (1) love of the elements of
nature where I live and am - wherever that happens to be. Time in the mountains
is an aspect of this experience and is also valuable as a source of inspiration
and occasion for extended reflection; (2) having supportive, loving parents,
who helped instill values of joy, perseverance, discipline and truth… and who
have encouraged and been interested in my health, life, education and future - which
is all positive despite disagreements over these issues; (3) my studies and
exploration into the nature of all being and knowing… initially an exciting
adventure but with the result of an emotional (existential) awareness every day
of the meaning of my life (and ultimate death) in relation to all being, (4)
perhaps some factors innate to me.
I mentioned - in a recent phone conversation - what I
believe to be two fundamental human problems (A) death, and (B) pain. As I
stated, I feel that I have, for myself, resolved the problem of death: the
source of this is, perhaps items (1)-(4) above. The problem of pain is more of
the attitude toward pain, of fear of pain. One might have an accident and an
arm or a leg could be sliced off… or one could suffer brain damage and forever
after be a confused emotional mess without the ability to do anything about the
situation…one would be alive and yet dead. The list of what could happen,
physical and emotional, is endless. I believe I have also resolved this problem
more recently. The fundamental problems could be reformulated as a triad: death
- fear - pain. The resolution: do not hide from or avoid the idea of pain. I
have learned that sorrow is not suffering, that suffering is feeling pain to be
a burden - resistance to and denial of pain. Sorrow is not suffering - and
being open to both sorrow and joy without excessive seeking or resistance is
akin to enjoyment. The ability to feel pain is adaptive (even though specific
manifestations may be neurotic) and the resolution is
to openly accept and acknowledge the potential for pain along with joy and so
on. An ability to accept limitations and death, to know and understand the
meaning of limits is related to an ability to know joy and enjoyment. The next
paragraphs expand on these ideas.
A wonderful experience that I had in 1979 was reading Peter
Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard first published in
August 1978. It is the story of the trek by a wildlife biologist George
Schaller (now well known) that the author made in the Tibetan Plateau
“seeking”, as the cover says, “a glimpse of the near-mythical leopard.” For Mathiessen the trek was natural and beautiful as well as
spiritual. It describes the environment, the snow, the passes, the mountains,
the ravines, the swift flowing clear cold streams, the villages, the
monasteries, the Tibetan-Buddhist traditions and legends. I have probably
written of this book to you before. One of the legends recounted is about the
tenth century (AD) Tibetan poet saint Milarepa, whose
mother was “the White Garland of the Nyang”.
Returning
to his village after many years (he was born about fifty miles north of
Katmandu, on the Tibetan side of the present-day frontier), Mila discovers the
decayed corpse of his mother, no more than a mound of dirt and rags in her
fallen hut; shaken by grief and horror, he remembers the instruction of his
guru, the Lama Marpa, to embrace all that he most
fears or finds repugnant, the better to realize that everything in the
Universe, being inseparably related, is therefore holy. And so he makes a
headrest of the sad remains of the erstwhile White Garland of the Nyang and lies upon them for seven days, in a deep, clear
state of samadhi. This Tantric discipline to overcome ideas of “horror”, often performed while sitting on a corpse or in the
graveyard in the dark of night, is known as chöd…
This approach to overcoming (neurotic) fear, to embracing
life, is also at the root of some modern psychotherapeutic techniques. The
feared object may be “held” mentally. Or, to improve the quality of my life -
the wholeness of my psychic structure - I could seek out, “hold”, examine
whatever I fear most.
Pleasure and ecstasy are identical to pain…for all are
contact with the real. All are elements of contact, opportunity, becoming…and growth
from part to whole, from atom to universe, from appearance to reality…
I will now consider the issue of “the pain he (Your father)
feels because you have not got the work, for which your intelligence…” and “I
too have a share of this…” It would be untrue to say that this is never an
issue for me, but it seems to be (much) more of an issue for you than for me. I
feel that this pain is unnecessary, not to the point, and is based on
assumptions about my situation, on attitudes which are mistaken even if natural
- in some ways - in your circumstance. I will explain below. But what is or has
been puzzling to me is that these assumptions and attitudes appear to be
unshakable and unshaken despite many protestations and explanations by me, and
despite the fact that the assumptions are about me and my feelings.
I am saying that your perceptions of me and my situation
are in error. What follows is an explanation. I am also going to explain why I
think this explanation is important and useful. I don't know whether it will
change anything because my attempts at persuasion, explanation have not been
successful in the past.
This letter is long in part because of the importance. It
is also long because it has gone through six or seven versions in which I have
added material without any significant revision. Therefore there is repetition.
Some good reasons for the explanation are as follows.
Assume that I am not in any pain over my life. Assume instead that I am happy.
Assume further that these feelings are based neither in ignorance, nor in
courage but in intelligent recognition that my life and situation is the best,
the highest it can be and also based in intelligent choices made knowingly by
me. Then it does not make sense for anyone else to feel pain over my life.
(And, as I shall explain, all of this is true.) For another reason, start with
the consideration that you feel some pain at some times over my life. If this
is reasonable for you to do, it must follow that you think that I too feel this
pain or should feel it. It then follows that this probably colors your
interpretation of much of what I say. If I say, “I am happy” you think “brave
chap”, and if I say, “I love the deep blue sky” you may think, “He finds
solace. Wonderful of course but solace nonetheless”. This is the way in which
the interpretations are colored and the color is gray. There is a certain gloom
which, if it is misplaced, should be cleared up. Further, this Grey gloomy
interpretation serves to confirm to you your original assumption that I feel
the alleged pain. These are good reasons to provide explanations of why I think
your perceptions are erroneous.
Here is another example that also shows again how
expectations can affect what one sees. Suppose a person A
writes to B saying (1): “I do not believe in happiness. I believe in a higher
thing called duty.” Suppose, also that B is predisposed to a
pessimistic interpretation. Pessimism is not an expectation regarding A;
it is an expectation regarding the world that includes A. Perhaps B is
predisposed, only, to seeing A as having hard times and, say, seeing A as
facing this with courage, perhaps as rationalizing his feelings. In any case, B
might then think “A is unhappy, has pain but faces life as duty.” B might add,
“How noble”… Later A says (2): “I do think happiness and joy are significant
after all.” A also writes about all the things that he enjoys. Now B thinks
something like: “Now A wants happiness after all and
again faces his life through courage and optimism”, but nothing as simple as:
“A is happy and content.”
There is another interpretation and it is that A has always
had happiness - along with pain and frustration - and has something of a
predisposition to joy and contentment. Perhaps most of A's friends agree to
this as well. [Predisposition to joy means that the joy flows naturally and may
be enhanced by but is not created through courage or some philosophical
reinterpretation of life, its meaning, etc.] Earlier in his life A thought: “My
commitment to this beautiful world is important” and so wrote in praise of duty
- (1) above.
Then A continues to seek his duty - “what is it, how can I
do it,” he thinks and then acts accordingly. A has life experiences. The
concept of “his duty” continues to grow. This is important to him. He, to some
extent, disregards the “trodden path”. But he does not forget the original
point to the idea of duty: the earth, the world, the universe are beautiful -
he will know and understand this beauty; people live in the world, in
societies, and everywhere people want their lives to be positive. A wants to contribute, to be an agent. He realizes: “Duty is
knowing and doing and being the highest thing
possible.” But he also realizes a point to his psychology that he thinks may
also apply to all people: “Joy flows from doing and being the highest that one
can… “ And so he now writes - in what may be or seem
to be a partial reversal of his earlier position - about the importance of joy
- (2) above.
I, Anil, know that I am A. I do not know whether you are B.
Certainly I am not saying that you have had B's specific thoughts in this
example or that you are completely like B. I do think that you are and have been
something like B in that you have sometimes misinterpreted what I have said,
sometimes incorrectly assessed my feelings; and underestimated my ability to
live fully, the nature of my commitments, the extents of my choice, awareness
and control over my life.
In this example we see that muddled communication, through
mismatch of time scales, leads to misperception and therefore that matching of
scales may lead to improved communication and vision.
I may have quoted these line by
Rabi Thakur to you in the past: “I slept and dreamt
that life was joy/ I woke and found that life is duty/ I acted and found that
duty is joy.” This has been a favorite quote for many years.
In my case the sleep is the dreaming sleep of youth and the
waking is the experience of my life. In truth, I am still sleeping and dreaming
and am yet awake.
As another famous example of the sleep/wake metaphor, when
Buddha was asked what set him apart from others, he said, “I am awake.”
Need I add that my selection of famous persons as examples
is not to compare myself with them? Rather it may be to illustrate an idea.
More importantly, we all live in, contribute meaning to and take meaning from
the same world which must also have meaning - at least potentially - because it
also resulted in us; the examples, then, add significance and understanding to
the world and its nature and so, also, to my own life which is a synthesis of
external and internal sources, experience, action and learning.
This is also a good point to address the issue of failure
which may be and or may have been in your mind, and may be “hanging over my
head”. Let me discuss, as the most important case, the situations of my past
university faculty positions. As I have pointed out before, my leaving
I will first mention an incidental issue. The balance
between pursuing some “right” and letting go of the pursuit in favor of “the
good and the true” as perceived by me has, to some extent, pervaded my life.
Important situations where this issue arose include my relationships with
I now take up the question of failure. The question is not
whether the situation at Humboldt in particular or university positions in
general were failures. It is whether the experience so affected me that I
became hesitant to try again - whether engineering or teaching - whether I
became discouraged, whether I failed to follow up on my true potential.
Initially, of course, I did not know what my fundamental
interest was. It was the real and the true and so on, of course, but these were
vague and undefined - but potent - ideas. As a practical point, I decided to
look at what was most important in mechanical engineering. After two weeks or
so I came up with design. As I began to look into design and to understand the
nature of the process, I saw parallels with the entire human process…and then
parallels with the universal processes of evolution. This went on for some
months. A number of preliminary studies, ultimately important, were performed
for somewhat intuitive reasons. Finally, during two weeks in September 1986 in
the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area, I conceived of Evolution & Design and of
its outline.
I decided to do two weeks of study into the topics in the
outline. Two weeks turned into five months - and study and perhaps writing down
a few points turned into Evolution & Design.
At this point I knew what my most fundamental commitment
was. There was really no turning back. However, the process had required
courage and perseverance, even though it was also exciting, an adventure. Sitting up at night shivering and studying and writing. Worrying about money. Should I look for work? What will
happen to my career? These issues had to be faced during each step or phase of
the process and required to be overcome again and again especially at the
transitions between the steps. Therefore, the result of my experience cannot be
regarded as one of discouragement or failure. That is, my actions were based on
intelligently seeking, discovering, and creating the positive - initially by
courage and in the dark - rather than avoiding anything negative - or even
blindly plodding on.
Interesting questions to me: What is or was the nature of
the courage and the dark. Where did the courage come from, how long had it been
there, was it cultivated? How black was the dark? To what degree was it
softened by preparation, intuition, intelligence and vision, or lack of these
elements? Something to answer at another time…
At the end of the process described above, courage was no
longer necessary. I knew. In a sense what had been latent became distinct,
compelling and potent. Of course this “knowledge” continued and continues to
grow. The new element of this knowledge: a more connected, explicit, universal
view of being at rational and existential levels, that was relatively
independent of the views of others and more directly derived from “reality”
itself. Truth began to take over from courage; and light began to replace the
dark.
What is the nature of this truth and this light? A further reason for providing explanations. In the
explanations that follow I will show why I believe, without hesitation or reservation, that I am following the highest path open to
me. There will be an explanation of what I am doing; why I occasionally but not
persistently seek alternatives; why there is no need for pain; why pain can and
should, in light of what the situation truly is, be replaced by positive
feeling. Further reasons for the explanation will be provided. I now turn to
the explanation itself which, of course, is already begun in the description of
the process by which knowledge of my fundamental commitment was established.
The situation is that I work at Mental Health for money.
This is why I originally took the position. I had also contemplated a need to
experience a situation without privilege…to experience reality…And I have
learned much that is not detailed in this letter - life, empathy, grounding
that is useful and good and will be so in whatever I do. This is, in part, what
has made the work intrinsically valuable.
When I see the world as being fundamentally made up of the
realms of (1) nature, (2) society, (3) the mind and spirit, and (4) the universal - the unknown - and the
unconsciousness…then I pattern my experience accordingly. It is not a case of
pure design but of iterative learning and design that is sometimes difficult
and which is not other than my life. In other words while there is design and
perspective, there is also immersion and living. This work is an aspect of
experience in the realm of the social…
The work is often rewarding but that is incidental - I am
not doing it for the reward. I have also learned many things about human behavior,
human minds, human relationships, and the nature of personality including its
adaptability. This is and very likely will be useful in my future work and
life, but again this learning is incidental: I am not primarily working at
Mental Health for the learning; although the rewards and the learning - and
friendship with coworkers - result in work that is enjoyable and even exciting.
And, although reward and learning are not the main purpose of my position at
Mental Health, I do believe that your “pain” is based, in part, on inaccurate
and negative assumptions as to the nature of the work and my reasons for doing
it. The main advantage, however, of the work is that there is no homework -
studying, grading papers, preparing for lectures, meetings, etc. This leaves me
free to do what I want with the rest of my time: read, think, learn, have
ideas, experience and experiences, and write. A primary goal is to write the
next version of Evolution & Design (you have a copy of the first version).
Excellent progress towards the second version has been made. Although I
occasionally seek some other position, that would not be an end in itself, the
end is the work: evolution and design, the knowledge, the understanding, etc.
[Of course evolution and design is part of a larger process, but it is not my
purpose here to describe that process. I have done this for you on many
occasions.]
I seek such positions as alternate and perhaps more
efficient ways to further my fundamental commitment and to maintain awareness
of alternatives and how to seek them, and because this process is good and
enjoyable; I seek them occasionally and not persistently because it is the
commitment that is important and not the position.
How might alternate positions be more “efficient”? Before explaining
this, the following question arises: efficient with respect to what? As I have
explained in detail in this letter, this must be with respect to my fundamental
commitment, which is: understanding - and knowing, and using such understanding
and knowing. More efficient, therefore, means (i) I
will have more time and energy to devote to the fundamental commitment and/or
(ii) I would earn so much more money that I would be able to save enough so as
to also be able to have time and energy later - this is actually not different
than item i. However I would need to be careful about
ii since the promise might be misleading. This is especially true since I have
realized since October last year that the time to work on what is important
(and fundamental) is now and not at some “ideal” comfortable time in the
future. I have begun this and, though my work at Mental Health does take time
and energy, I am finding ways of compensating: maintaining focus; improving
efficiency of the time I do have; cutting out waste, including avoiding and
resisting my own “temptations” and the temptations from others to “waste” time;
being more healthy by a program of exercise, not eating or drinking to excess,
eating healthy food, and so on; finding time at work - it is in the nature of
the work that we are sometimes extremely active with many things happening at
once, while there are times when there is no work to be done, and the amount of
such time can be increased by efficiency and focus - to do things that do not
need great or extended concentration.
The issue of position and influence is similar to the issue
of money: position and influence can be deployed towards the fundamental
commitment, but I should be careful because the possibility of such deployment
may be deceptive and because I am not immune to the “appeal” of position of
influence - and of money.
There may come a time, an opportunity, a change within me,
and an insight that will make a change seem proper or necessary or imperative.
Therefore, while I seek alternatives occasionally, I am always scanning for
then, even scanning for and thinking about ways to create such positions -
America is still the land of opportunity, still a place where - at least in
some quarters - such seeking is considered to be a primary value… and at the
same time I am seeking ways to be more focused and productive in my present
situation… and also keeping both approaches and their elements and details in
balance.
What will happen if, when the time comes, I do not have the
energy to seek such positions? As a practical matter, modern computer and
communications technology, together with the American emphasis on individual
initiative, are permitting individuals to do what may not have been possible
before - to find and to create such positions from a situation of limited
mobility and energy. Realistically, of course, regardless of technology, I will
age, perhaps become infirm, and die. Of course the transition from a productive
life to death is not always marked by infirmity. Of course the future is
unknown. One should not cling to old hopes and ambitions at all costs. We are
essentially talking about intertwined problems of death and pain I discussed
earlier. In the present issue the proper attitude is, I believe, to maintain
the best relationship between oneself and all of being which includes self,
family, others, world and universe.
More practically, however, I am aware of the normal stages
of life and death and probable variations in my case.
This is an important point to consider. It relates to the
question of the use of statistics and the idea of normality and of normal
variations. I am not a critic of the idea of the normal - it is intuitive, in
place and predates statistics and science as we know it. My hypothesis is that
the dimensionality of the space of human potential is so large, the structure
so intricate, the measure of the space so small compared to the space of
descriptive parameters, and the response to the circumstances and opportunity
so fine…that statistics, probabilities and what is normally considered to be
normality do not define the singular but essential nature of the edge of human
endeavor and potential, of “genius” and “leadership” and of the ultimate in
connection between being and Being . And, this applies to
individuals in search of their own potential as well as to human potential in
general.
Actual variations are unpredictable and to plan and prepare
for or to unnecessarily dwell on all possibilities - this is not to suggest
avoiding acceptance and awareness of such possibilities, of the random and the
unpredictable - is a form of submission in the face of the problems of death
and pain… And my actual plans and intentions account for the normal stages and
probable variations noted above.
And, as already noted, I am not sure that alternative
positions would actually be better (I do think it important, as explained
above, to continue to explore options). Here is one point of view. Suppose, for
example, that I were hired at the
In my present situation my own time is my own. Any work
with more “prestige” and more money means - as a rule - your time is not your
own. And, relative to personal reward, the value of prestige, power, money,
position is - it is well known - illusory. This means that, although money,
recognition and so on are useful and somewhat necessary, they are not in
themselves productive of enduring happiness, satisfaction, and self-worth. And
it is true that to do the kind of work I am doing, time and freedom from
constraint and schedule are important. By way of illustration of my point, the
work of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates was not done in
institutions. Socrates was allegedly sentenced to death for his work and his
adherence to his truth. The comparison here is of how or where the work is
done, and not of the individuals. The work of Isaac Newton and of Albert
Einstein was done outside the walls of the university, as was much of the
founding work of modern mathematics, philosophy, biology, medicine, psychology,
and even engineering. This includes the work of C. F. Gauss, Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud… Some of the
finest mathematicians and philosophers of
Institutions are subject to the following tension: (1)
social functions exist and develop, (2) the functions become formalized and
perpetuated in institutions, (3) this isolates the
institution from the real needs of understanding, liberation and contact.
As a trivial example, this applies to recognition… therefore, most of the most
original and essential work, including the creation of useful institutions,
happens, to a significant degree, outside the institution.
Of course, good work is being done in institutions but
nowhere do I see truly fundamental work being done in universities. Then there
is also the fact that my life is open to struggle, to change… and this brings a
certain fundamental truth to it. The freedom of the university brings a certain
intellectual freedom as well as certain constraints as noted above, but misses
certain fundamental openness to all of life and being… Considerations of this
nature were present in 1988-1989 when I needed work and contemplated what I
might learn from a position without privilege and prestige… If you could see
into my soul you would see progress that is slow and halting at times, but also
rightness and great reward from my life and a great sense of promise. You would
also see the large extent to which my life is an act of choice rather than
something buffeted by the winds of fate.
The examples of
Having lived and worked within a number of institutions -
and for four to five years 1985-1990 without the context and support of any
institution, and this, combined with understanding, has given me a detachment
from and understanding of the roles and uses and limitations of institutions.
There is also an extended history of examples - including
the lives of a number of the individuals named above - which shows that despite
the modern emphasis on publishing as much as possible as soon as possible, it
is right to wait until the work is mature before publication. Again, this
history is not why I wait to publish. Rather, I wait because I judge that it
would at present be premature to do so.
As examples I note that Immanuel Kant published his best
work when he was over fifty, and the British mathematician and philosopher
Alfred North Whitehead published his major work in philosophy when he was
sixty-six. As before, the examples are not intended as some kind of proof but
as a framework from which others may effectively understand the issues I am
discussing.
I add that the sense of what is right for me, although
enhanced by my knowledge of the history of the development of knowledge, comes primarily
from my judgment of my work and its potential.
Regarding this work: the machine is working, the gears are
meshed, and the pieces are falling into place: a program has been outlined…
Parts have been written towards the final product -- the next version of
Evolution & Design, tentatively named Evolution, Design and The Absolute (Evolution, Design and the Absolute).
This despite my
father's statement that he didn't think I'd be able to do so… and
in the spirit of truth, I am more concerned about producing the best possible
work than with recognition… not that recognition would not be at all rewarding,
but the internal sense of truth and self-direction is a higher and more
enduring reward, with recognition being a partial external token of truth and accomplishment.
And, again, in the spirit of truth, one recognizes that the process, the effort
is as important as the product because it is in the nature of the process to be
one of trial and error with many trials by many people and few successes by few
people… The ultimate failure would be for me to accept these negative
valuations of my situation, the “pain” at the supposed lack of recognition and
position… and so on… and to stop the effort and the process as I see most fit…
I hope at the end of my life, if that end be natural, to be able to say that I
did the best thing I could… which is how I currently view my life. And I
believe that I have made essentially the same statement to you many times
before.
I frequently look out at the world, see how beautiful it
is, look at my own place in it, and feel alive and powerful. This does not stem
from courage and security, but from understanding and that uncertainty which is
the true nature of any life lived at the boundary between the known and the
unknown.
Perhaps one of the problems of perception comes from my father's having
put much effort into working within institutions, whereas for me the
institution is not as important. Even at times when I was doing “well”
academically etc., there was always a certain detachment, a certain feeling of
something missing with inner truth (even if immature in earlier years) serving
as compass. This does not mean that the two approaches are opposite, that one
is right and one wrong: both are necessary and are mutually complementary. And
of course it is not the situation that one seeks - the situation is a means to
an end… Now, it might be thought that I am merely trying to rationalize or
justify my situation after the events, but with this I must simply disagree.
Further, ample explanation of this basis for this disagreement has been
provided in this letter.
Another problem of perception may be the result of being
parents, of being protective, of perceiving the adult as he was when a child.
The old perception that persists is one of the immature, somewhat helpless,
child. And this could well be occurring at a level that is not explicitly
conscious and therefore the perception is elusive, difficult to acknowledge and
correct. And, as I have said or alluded elsewhere, all adults contain in their
psyche - at varying degrees of manifestation and synthesis - the kernel of the
child; this, too, affects the perceptions and feelings of parents (or any other
adult, for that matter), resulting in a confusion between objectivity and the
feelings that one feels or might feel if one were in what one perceives based
on one's own range of experience, integration, acceptance (and on what one
hears) to be the (life) situation of the other. Parents are frequently like
this. It is not unusual. However, this explains some parental perceptions but
does not make them correct.
Other reasons for differences in perception and maintaining
old perception are some kind of competition between parent and adult child, and
pressure on the adult child to modify behavior and life style. These are
frequent themes in human relationships. Although I do not overtly speculate on
the theme of “pressure”, my
father has on occasion stated this to be one of his motives… In
any case, my position is to act and conduct my life neither in conformity with
nor in reaction against such kinds of competition or pressure - parental or
otherwise - but to base actions and conduct on internal imperatives. This is
not to say that the views and opinions and motives of others are improper [even
if incorrect] or are ignored or viewed as worthless.
We could also be having different perceptions and feelings
because our views of the world and what is important may be different. Perhaps you
wish that when talking to others or when thinking about me you could say “Our
son is…” Of course, I am not immune from such feelings. But, for reasons I am
explaining in this letter, such thoughts and feelings are a small part of my
total experience. They are transient, occasionally irritating, but at other
times something to be contemplated as part of reality without any particular
attached feeling. And, also for reasons explained here, to give in, to yield to
such feelings would be destructive in terms of what I stand for and am trying
to do.
Regarding the question of differences in worldviews, I will
insert the following quote from C. G. Jung which is somewhat illustrative of my
point. I do not agree with his emphases, especially the complete isolation of
the individual from the rest of humanity. However, the alleged isolation does
point to difficulties of communication which include both
differences-limitations of perspective and resistance. Further, while I do
think cultivation of one's personal truth is important, I think it is also
important to make this truth as universal and as reality-based as one's powers
permit and to communicate and learn together with others and with experience.
And while I do also think that individual realization is meaningful, I do not
think that this is the only meaningful life and I would be careful about the
meanings to be attached to the phrase “absolute and unconditional” in the
quote, which now follows:
The
fact that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing… He must
obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful
paths… There are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice,
whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves
confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing. In most cases it
is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding
is walled off by impenetrable prejudices. “You are no different from anybody
else,” they will chorus, or, “there's no such thing,” and even if there is such
a thing, it is immediately branded as “morbid”… He is at once set apart and
isolated, as he has resolved to obey the law that commands him from within.
“His own law!” everybody will cry. But he knows better: it is the law… The only
meaningful life is a life that strives for the individual realization -
absolute and unconditional - of its own particular law… To the extent that a
man is untrue to the law of his being… he has failed to realize his life's meaning.
The
undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; classical Chinese
philosophy names this interior way “Tao”, and likens it to a flow of water that
moves irresistibly towards its goal. To rest in Tao means fulfillment,
wholeness, one's destination reached, one's mission done; the beginning, end,
and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things.
What I take from this passage is the importance and beauty
of fulfillment from “obeying one's own law”. The resistance of others must be
resisted. But one must go beyond this from “one's own law” to the universal law, and from resistance and isolation to communion and
communication. And it is the communion with others and with being that
transforms the initial solipsism of “one's own law” and any arrogance to
universality and equanimity.
Yet the communication is difficult. As an example, after
Buddha had discovered enlightenment he almost abandoned the sharing of his
knowledge because he despaired of being understood.
2001 note: this is replaced by Being and the Elements of
Being or the Potential and Elements of Being
One of the purposes of Evolution,
Design and the Absolute is to communicate. Science is science largely
because it is communicable, it is common property. You will see, later, of my
ongoing discovery of new (to me at least) ways to speak to others.
I sometimes wonder whether investment is too large a part
of your relationship with me. Not that investment is bad, but it is ideally kept
in balance with detachment. I think this balance is good for all relations
including one's relation with oneself and with life. Imbalance in the direction
of investment leads to perception being distorted by desires. Perhaps I'm not
intelligent or not quite intelligent enough. Perhaps I just do not quite know
how to use my intelligence. Perhaps I'm unlucky. Perhaps God does not like me…
what then? Are we going to be condemned to be forever unhappy? Not necessarily,
for if we are sufficiently detached we can look out of the window and see that
the sky is still deep blue and the grass brilliant green.
Detachment in proper and dynamic balance with investment is
also ideal for the realization of potential abilities, for developing and
maintaining both conscious and other modes - in balance - or contact with and
knowledge of what is real.
Perhaps you are too much prone to worrying and (as my father has said)
negative judgment - at least in certain ways and in certain situations. “Too much” in the sense that the worry is counterproductive of
right actions and satisfaction. Being too prone to worry is itself a
form of or a result and cause of incorrect perception. The world is large and
complex, and there is a place and perhaps even “function” for all kinds of
people including “worriers”, but I see no essential reason to change my
statement regarding the effect of excessive worry on perception.
Finally, incorrect perceptions result from not being
perceptive - that is, from not being open to what is being perceived, from
wanting to know before one has seen. I am talking, here, of your perceptions of
me and the attendant feelings. Perhaps these feelings are based on how you
think you would feel if you were in what you perceive to be my situation. What
I am talking about is, in part, perception of an individual's inner life based
on external features. There are many errors possible. First, which external
features do we focus on? Second, what is the nature of the individual's inner
processing - the relation between the external and the inner or the whole. I
have friends who deduce that my inner life is positive and who feel very
positive about my life and situation. I think, however, that listening to me
would be an important part of knowing me and my feelings and whether my
situation is one of choice and whether it is positive… just as listening and
looking are an important part of knowing in general. When one truly listens one
can hear…and then it is not necessary to make assumptions or deductions. That
is, if you listen to what I say, if you wait for me to finish what I say, then
you will have an opportunity to know how and what I feel - it will not be
necessary to deduce or wonder. Yet I do not think you have listened to or do
listen to what I say. I think this is true - even in our most recent phone
conversations. I can think of reasons - including the issues of perception I
mentioned above, but I do not truly know the reasons, and the extent of the
“not-listening”, as I see it, to what is said and to hearing what is not said,
has been large and puzzling.
An additional note on
perception but not on incorrect perception. This is about the complexities
of perception. The system of details of the inner life of most persons is so
complex that seeing the details and how they stand in relation to one another, requires openness, time. This is true - perhaps
especially true - for members of the same family. It is true even in the case
of self-perception. All this is at least implicit in what has already been
said. Additionally, considering: the variety and quantity of my experience,
endeavor, work and product; that much of this has been pursued in detail and
depth - and with great enjoyment of the process; that - at least loosely in the
beginning - these elements have stood and stand together as stemming from
fundamental perspectives and as the experiences, work and so on of one
individual; that the unity of the perspectives and the coherence of the
individual is something that has grown and is growing, not only by scanning,
seeking, and accumulation, but also by excision, consolidation, and
organization of both details and principles and their relationship… it is
understandable that all this might be difficult to see in its entirety, its
balance, its completeness and its organic unity.
What lies behind all this? An individual who is part of the
world: myself. I see the world - and universe - as beautiful, to be experienced
and known. The relationship between individual and society is such that society
and its values are important and loom large in the life of the individual. Yet
I see that I, humanity, societies, civilization are a part - an incomplete part
- of the whole, which therefore also has a primary importance. When I look at
the following relationships: my inner relations, myself with society and the
whole, society with the whole, I see incompleteness and process. That process -
rather, those processes - include “becoming whole”. I am most happy and it is
most excellent for me to be part of and involved in this.
I think: to be alive is to be part of the process. But: one
does not always know or realize this. Such knowledge can come from thinking and
experience, but more immediately - if not immediately - from feeling and
seeing.
I have tried to understand your feelings about and
perceptions of me, in part to show that they are unnecessary and somewhat
misplaced in that they are not based in my feelings or perceptions of my self.
This is not to say that I expect or am dedicated to changes based in what I
say, although I would like such changes. Nor am I saying that the making of
judgments is an invalid thing to do, is wrong; but I would prefer favorable
judgment and encouragement in what I am doing. Further, there is no implication
that I do not listen to or consider what you say or write; rather, it is that,
having considered and reflected upon all sources including my own awareness and
knowledge, I conclude and have concluded that what I am doing and trying to do
is good and the manner of accomplishment is right. As I have said - it is the
highest endeavor.
I wish to add that what I have said is not intended as
criticism, but as solution - or part of an attempt at solution - to what is
something of a problem to me. There are differences in perception, which result
in negative judgment by you. By negative judgment I do not mean that I perceive
you as saying that my situation and I are “good” or “bad”. I refer instead to
your evaluation that, as you say, “you have not got the work, the life, for
which, in your intelligence, he (we) wanted and wants you to have”. I have
wanted such work, such positions in the past - and have had such. There may
also come a time when my work will justify, and I may want and seek - for the work
itself and for personal reasons - what would then be a more appropriate
position. However, as I have explained, I view alternative - say academic -
situations as counterproductive and I see my present situation - though not
devoid of problem and challenge - as necessary, having many positive
attributes; and, regarding my life work - my fundamental commitment - I view my
present life and situation as being “most excellent”.
But let me suppose, for argument's sake, that my life is
not excellent, that it is merely “so-so” with some enjoyment, some work, some
sleep, some love, some pain… An average life. What
then? Would we then be required to burden ourselves with negative judgments
with what should have been? I should assure you that I cannot imagine my acquiescing
in “averageness”, but if circumstances resulted in an
average life with clearly no way out, I would be busy enjoying that average
life as much as I could. What would your position then be? Would you be
reminding me of the supposed lacks in that life, or would you be encouraging
and joining me in the enjoyment?
The problem for me, then, is threefold: difference in
perception instead of concurrence and understanding; negative evaluation
instead of encouragement; pain instead of joy and appreciation. The problem, in
general, is polarization and self focus - I mean our focusing on our different
situations and each individual focusing on his or her self - instead of unity
of vision and focus on our place, path, and even destiny in the midst of Being.
If the foregoing - the use of the word “Being” - seems
abstract or indefinite, there is a reason for this. In this case Being signifies all of creation, all of existence as it is
and not necessarily as we see it here and now. The indefiniteness is the
difference between our present perception and the reality; and: this permits us
to talk about something that we don't know fully - like the “x” of algebra -
while remaining aware of the fact of our partial ignorance. The abstraction is
the use of a single word “Being” which is devoid of most particulars and
details. The idea of “Being”, however, emphasizes, perhaps, the organic unity
of the whole. When we begin to use the word, however, we do so in relation to
the world, which includes details and particulars. This enables us to modify
and refine our ideas regarding the whole - “Being” - and the details - the
“world”. Thus abstraction is a powerful tool of understanding; and of action -
because understanding conditions and improves action and its quality. Thus
abstraction is a powerful tool for both practical persons who live in the
everyday world of “10,000 things” and for idealistic persons for whom unifying
ideas - the whole - are important. Of course, the two worlds - the world of
“10,000 things” and the world as “Being” are the same world and acknowledgement
of this improves the quality of our understanding, our actions, and our lives.
Earlier I mentioned “each individual focusing on his or her
feelings”. I did not imply or mean to imply that your feelings are unimportant.
My reactions to them, including this letter, should be clear evidence of that.
I did imply, however, that the proper focus in not only of each of us on our
own feelings, nor is it of all of us on all of our feelings and thoughts; but
it is on all of us as a unity in relation to the whole - in relation to and as
part of Being. In my life, therefore, the proper focus is not what is the world
doing for me (important though that may be), but what am I doing in the world -
which includes me. This is the focus of my feelings and thoughts. Of course,
the fact that this is my focus is not because it should be so, but because that
is what or how I am or have become. And regardless or whether
I focus on myself or on myself-in-the-world, my attitude and feelings and
thoughts and reward are, as I have emphasized, very positive.
And since the issue about which I (we) have been talking is
my life, since I am at present the actor, the person seeking to live in and know
all of Being, the world, and act in - that is, “use the understanding and
knowledge for” - all of Being, the world, it seems to me that, while your
feelings are important as such, my feelings and perceptions are primary - that,
significantly, your feelings (in this case) would depend on mine. Stated
simply, if I am happy (and I am) about my life and choices, there is no reason
for you to feel unhappy or pain for me.
Certainly, what I have been saying describes my attitude
regardless of whether I am thinking about you, about Robin, about Susan, about
Robin-and-Susan, about mental health patients, about Carissa, about myself, or
about Carissa-and-myself… or the world.
Regarding Carissa, as an important example in my life,
there are two important factors: (1) I do not know much of her, her attitudes,
what is happening in her life and (2) I have little power in relation to her.
In fact, seeking such power would likely be counterproductive, not to mention
being a violation of what I see as right. My attitude, therefore, is to
acknowledge and let her be aware of my feelings - love and concern - and to
maintain an openness to her and an alertness regarding her life, situation,
thoughts, feelings, and so on. While it is true that I have missed her and
would like a fuller relationship, I also know that this might never happen; and
I have never felt anxiety, pain or suffering in these regards.
I want to reflect a little on my relationship with you,
your relationship with me - another important relationship in my life. We have
both tried to influence each other. Of course it is the nature of our
relationship that there will be significant effect and influence with or
without trying. I am thinking of the intended influence and the attempt to
influence and more specifically of such attempts since August 1970 when I left
From the point of view of explanation, I should redouble my
efforts and intelligence - hence this letter. Or, instead, I should stop
explaining altogether (and simply enjoy the relationship) and hence, as I will
say again later in this letter - “further explanation would be repetition. Of
course, I will answer questions… “ “Redoubling my
efforts” does not mean try harder or more. It means not allowing doubt or hesitation,
regarding either myself or you, to impede a full exposition. And the objective
is not to change anyone without regard to principles, but to show and explain
my self, my life, to provide the information that would be the foundation of
change. And the change in question is primarily one of focus outward upon the
world and secondarily a new understanding of me.
This concludes what has been -
in part - an explanation of why I have tried to understand your feelings. For
the same and similar reasons and in the interest of openness I will also share
my reaction to your views.
From the present letter it is most probably evident that I
have a reaction. The whole letter is a statement of my perceptions and feelings
regarding my own life. Although the present occasion is reflection upon what
you have said, the statement itself is a whole and relatively complete
statement. What follows immediately, however, is a statement of my specific
feelings about, perceptions of, and reactions to what you have said.
As I have said, the continued differences in our
perceptions have been puzzling to me. Additionally I have felt both pain and
disappointment. Explanations and reasons follow.
First, as I have said, I believe that what I am doing and
the manner of its accomplishment are good - the highest I can imagine. However,
my system of ideals and objectives is not and cannot be static, is not and should
not be imperturbable - fortress like. “Highest” does not mean “perfect”. The
ideals and objectives are part of a process, a search; they require renewal,
openness to doubt and question. Doubt regarding the goals and
doubt regarding myself because I am part of the process. This is
sometimes difficult if necessary. Criticism is sometimes difficult to deal with
- especially criticism from those I would like to respect, and criticism which
does not respect my intelligence, awareness and ability to criticize and review
myself and work, and ongoing self-criticism and review. However, such criticism
- regardless of its nature and motives and whether of the ideas or of my goals,
or of the process or of me - is useful, especially when difficult - because it results
in reexamination and, as a consequence, it also results - frequently - in
change and improvement or revaluation and reaffirmation of my basic position.
Real and true “criticism” is of the following type. One
understands the other person and their ideas. The person is not, of course,
completely distinct from his or her ideas. So criticism must involve person
“and” ideas. But understanding comes first. The critic identifies, then begins his or her reasoning process, and the processes
of “critic” and “criticized” interact. In fact, there is no criticized or
critic. Rather, one individual initiates a process and others join in. This of
course is an ideal version of the real process involving real persons.
And so, walls (defenses) against pain and criticism turn
out to also be walls surrounding the spirit, cutting it off from truth and joy.
As a result, when this is understood, accepted and absorbed, pain is not
suffering - it is transformed into understanding; and transient feelings of
doubt are replaced by enduring appreciation of my own life. As a result I
understand myself and my fundamental commitment better. I become clearer, more
focused, and more open to the commitment and the process. I do not say that
this development is complete, but I have learned and absorbed its principle
through exposure, reflection, experience, and use.
The writing of and thinking about this letter is, itself,
an occasion for revaluation and reaffirmation and, to some extent,
reformulation and restatement regarding the questions of my life: what I am
trying to do - what are my ambitions and goals, why are they my ambitions and
goals, and how should I attempt to achieve them.
A second source of my feelings is my special relationship
to you. Due to respect and caring, your feelings and opinions are especially
important to me. Regarding feelings, I certainly wish you would not feel pain.
This is one reason why I have been attempting to show why pain is unnecessary
in connection with me. Of course, even though I think I have made a good case
that such pain is unnecessary, the pain may stay. This is something that I will
accept even though I do not want it. I have said this before and reasons follow.
Regarding your opinions, approval is an issue. Approval
breaks down into a number of factors. I will take up three of these. First, to
function in society some approval from others is necessary. Second, approval is
good because it is positive for people to act according to the same values and
towards the same ends. This is especially true in close relationships. To put
it another way, I believe that there is meaning in the world, that we bring and
contribute some meaning, that we are actors and agents, not mere spectators or
puppets. It is good therefore to act together rather than in opposition.
However this is not always possible. In fact, although unity is good, it is not
always good since alternative approaches are also good. It remains true, in
this connection, that it would be positive to hear that your pain has become
joy and that your judgment has become one of approval and encouragement. The
lack of this has been disappointing.
Third, approval is a form of affirmation and lack of approval
or disapproval can result in self-doubt and uncertainty. This has been a source
of pain - self-doubt is not always comfortable. However, approval and agreement
are not always possible or even good. Out of the same respect and caring that I
mentioned above, that is especially due to you but is also due to all persons
and, despite my puzzlement and feelings, I must and do accept that you have
your own judgment and feelings which are yours, not mine, which are your right.
As I said earlier, self-doubt promotes self-questioning, a
process of self-examination and finally self-affirmation. One modifies what was
mistaken, one reaffirms what was right. Thus pain transforms into affirmation
and understanding. And through experience pain ceases to be suffering and
self-doubt ceases to be pain and becomes openness. The accumulation of doubts
and self-doubts and their resolution becomes, not a burden, but awareness.
The same process of the transformation of pain also follows
from the principle of respect, which also implies self-respect. This is
necessary and perhaps prior to the process of affirmation, for one cannot
always know what is right and what is wrong. From self-respect one proceeds
from intuition and experiment despite doubt.
I believe I must have always had a
certain self-respect despite whatever “deficits” my personality may have
had. Initially perhaps the self-respect was a defense. With time it became the
core of the process, which, along with intelligence, became the basis of
understanding, knowledge, independence and the affirming process described
above.
(Parenthetic note: Although I have thought about these
issues before, this is the first time I have tried to analyze my reactions to
you, the sources and nature of these reactions in a careful, critical and
complete way. Completeness means looking at all aspects, critical means
questioning my answers and trying to avoid self-deception, careful means not
being overcritical or too lenient, and not letting go of an issue or conclusion
till I am satisfied that I have been at least somewhat truthful - to myself -
regarding the issue. I want - for my own sake - to improve upon this and to
consider my interactions with all other people.)
So, I make the following assertion - which has never been
in doubt. I can and will continue what I have been trying to do and achieve as
I see right - and this includes the smooth and the predictable as well as the
unexpected, unpredicted and unpredictable. I can and will do this with or
without approval, including self-approval, and without certainty,
that is, with doubt - and this follows from the principle of respect. I
will, however, seek the ideas, affirmation and approval of others when possible
as a positive thing for myself and for the process I undertake. I believe that
this assertion (affirmation) is itself positive for myself and my goals and
ambitions.
I have never thought any of this to be disrespectful of
anyone - assuming, of course, that what I do is not intrinsically wrong or
harmful or intended to be so.
Doing justice to your concerns and respecting you in this
connection, then, involves (i) listening to,
respecting your views regardless of whether I am aware of the content. I do
this by considering, reflecting and incorporating what you say. This of course
does not mean agreeing; it can mean self-doubt and reaffirmation, (ii)
providing as complete and as powerful an explanation as I can (given limited
time) so that you have the best opportunity that I can provide for you to know
and understand me and my life, my ambitions and goals, my choices and means or
approaches to these ambitions. This letter is an attempt at such an
explanation.
In conclusion to this part of this letter in which I have
focused on why I have tried to understand your views and on my reactions and
their sources, I will add final comments. First, it has been a very positive
and good experience to evaluate and reaffirm myself, my work, and my approach.
However, there have been difficulties. I have tried consistently to be truthful
and accurate; to be imaginative and free in my thoughts, but also to review,
criticize from my own perspective and from the possible perspectives of others,
and refine these thoughts. This has been very difficult, even emotionally
taxing, because I have had to, and have forced myself to look carefully at the
negative aspects - possible failures, possible self-deceptions, the possibility
that my reactions may be merely out of anger, out of a mere attempt to bolster
up a failure or a half-hearted attempt or “submission in the face of the
problems of death and pain, in the face of pain and punishment by the
overpowering winds of fate”. Of course this is an ongoing process dating back,
at least in some form or forms, to childhood, school and college years. And the
process continues. However, despite the difficulty, the process has also been
positive. And the result is positive because I have realized that I have had to
face and overcome various general and specific problems and circumstances and
in so doing have a positive, rationally based view of my life, and have also
produced a large volume of work which is, in my evaluation, excellent and full
of promise, though still premature for publication.
The other main difficulty is due to the fact that it is to
you, my parents, that I am writing. I constantly
review my thoughts, feelings, and reactions to evaluate whether my motives are
negative. I have been concerned about upsetting you, worrying you… and about
giving cause for consternation to Robin - and perhaps even Susan.
Additionally, if self-deception - as noted in the previous
paragraph - has been one of my concerns, then the accuracy and faithfulness of
your perceptions is also an issue. This has been difficult to deal with because
- in addition to the questions of my motives - I have tried to distinguish
between my perceptions and what is real. This is a complex issue involving one
person's perceptions of the other people's perceptions with all the potential
distorting effects - and their interactions - including defenses on both sides;
and these interactions include, on each side, that individual or side as
distinct as well as the sides taken together as a unit. While I think that my
understanding has merit, I have attempted to deal with pitfalls by admitting
to, meditating upon and addressing potential and obvious defects and
distortions on my part, but also by not assuming that all defects and
distortions are mine and by viewing such aspects of perception as may be
ascribed to you as possible or probable or for consideration. In short, I have
attempted to be as accurate as is reasonable given the areas of my ignorance; I
have attempted to avoid attempts to “blame” (nor am I implying that grounds for
“blame” exist), and have attempted to focus on the triple motives of receiving
understanding - encouragement, asserting my wishes in the case, and on the
question of your pain which, though not invalid, appears to me to be based in
misperception.
I have also been concerned about taxing you with what may
be or seem to be a long, complex, abstract or conceptual, somewhat repetitious
and didactic letter. If these are in fact valid concerns, I hope that the
taxation is balanced by affirmation, illumination and light. Please regard and
accept the letter as an offering to you and its content as an affirmation in
the interest of unity of vision and being.
Despite a focus on some “negative” areas, I wish to
emphasize (1) the purpose is “positive”, and (2) my
awareness that there are and have been many positive aspects to our lives and
relationships. I say this from a perspective which includes knowledge of many
healthy and functional people and families as well as the knowledge of many
others who I know from personal experience and from my work at mental health
and the understanding that comes from this experience. And there is also the
emphasis on our moving forward in the world, in Being, rather than a mere focus
on me, you or me-and-you.
The purposes of this letter are simple. One purpose is to
communicate, to explain my life and attitudes to life and my place in it. One
reason that the letter is long is that my explanations do not seem to have had
any result in the past, that you have continued to doubt and worry (regardless
of how I feel about my life and what I have said about these feelings) and to
find new things for doubt and worry. Therefore I thought it might be good to
make one good attempt at complete explanation. So I have described numerous
facets of my life. However, examples do not provide complete explanation no
matter how many examples are provided. Something is needed to tie the examples
together so that what is being communicated stands together and can be seen as
a connected whole. And if the connected whole is seen as positive, there is no
need for one more doubt or one more worry. I see my life in its organic unity.
And if the organic unity, the connected whole is not seen directly, it can be
understood through concepts, unifying principles. This is one reason for the
abstract (or conceptual) aspect of this letter.
In addition to the repetitions in this letter, I have also noticed some
apparent contradictions and changes in emphasis. This is in part due to the
fact that my understanding has become more clear while
thinking about writing the letter. Since I do not think these aspects of the
letter significantly affect its essence, I am not going to eliminate them in
favor of consistency and uniformity.
I have previously tried to explain myself, my life, my
motives, my choices in the past with little ultimate and enduring success. This
is perhaps no fault of yours. Your valuation of my situation is not a unique
one. But it is a valuation - although I understand it, I think - with which I
do not agree. I come to the conclusion that explanation is not or has not been
working. I know I have been criticized for being non-disclosing but my
experience of this point is one of not being understood, believed or even
really heard; that there has been difficulty accepting what I say, who I am… and that this has been met with both anger and
hurt. It is time for you to understand - all the elements of explanation have
been laid out for you many times. But you continue to make invalid judgments,
feel unnecessary pain, to not understand. It is time for you to understand my
situation and conduct as it is - not as an act (on my part) of submission, nor
even as an act of courage in the face of alleged or presumed adversity, but as
an act of truth. Time to stop the negation of my judgment and
conduct - especially as these pertain to my life. I also believe that if
you would understand how I relate to my own life, your view of your own lives
would be improved.
Why am I being so emphatic? Of course I believe what I say to be true,
but that is not the reason for the statement or the emphasis. In addition to
the negative effect on you resulting from your incorrect perceptions of me and
of what is truly important to me, it is counterproductive to have you holding
incorrect and negative perceptions of me that have no real or ultimate basis in
my experience. Instead of hearing about the pain and worry about the supposed
lacks in my life, I could be hearing positive words of encouragement regarding
what I am doing and attempting to do.
Of course, such words and the proper perception, though important and
valuable, are not necessary; I can and will do what I think right and proper
for me - for my life, and relative to my place in the world - with or without
them. Nor do I demand such words and perceptions. But I do request this and hope
that you will make some attempt to see my life as I believe it is correct to
do.
You are probably familiar with the following analogy: If you have a cup
that is half empty, it is also half full. So, in life the idea is to dwell on
what one does have and not what one does not have.
However this is not my view of life; that is, this is not a metaphor that I
apply to my own life. My practical but not theoretical view is that it is not
possible or desirable to have “everything”. However, despite this, the cup can
be full and overflowing. This is my preferred and actual perception.
I will now restate and amplify some points about the nature of reward
and recognition and their function.
The world is full with potential and promise. There is the world of
doing, progress and accomplishment. Working within institutions, universities,
companies is one way of the world of accomplishment. But this, as pointed out
earlier, is limited. Limitations come from the fact that institutions are the
establishment with rules based in success in the domain of what is known. But
the process I am talking about is at the edge of the known world… then there is
also the world of being: friendship, nature, rivers, trees, stars, clouds.
Thus, while recognition might be rewarding, such reward is not ultimate; and to
focus on it or to feel pain in relation to a lack of recognition is based on an
impoverished view of the world. This is a double impoverishment because
accomplishment can be rewarding without recognition and life rewarding without
accomplishment.
And: the beauty of the deep blue of the sky and the brilliant green of
the grass is there “also and not instead of” the worlds of accomplishment and
recognition.
Institutions such as families, schools, universities, companies,
governments are an organization of the functions of societies. A social system
functions within the world. But as we know from both history and reflection, such
systems are not perfectly adapted to their function for all times and
circumstances. Yet time passes and circumstances change. New opportunities
arise. And institutions and societies change by growth or by
failure-and-replacement on the edge of circumstance, on the edge of what is
known.
Individuals grow and develop within the framework of institutions. One
learns the rules: getting along with others, law, government, technology, art,
logic, science… and, in this process, recognition is natural and rewarding.
Although I have occasionally complained about the adequacy of particular
institutions, I have also learned much from them in the way of knowledge,
understanding and discipline… and in this process I have received and felt
reward by recognition.
But then the individual comes or may come to the edge of capability and
forward motion of the institution. Recognition can no longer be the source of
reward, for this is the edge where the rules are no longer operative or
functional. The inner compass of truth now becomes important. It is helpful if
the individual has begun this development while still in the cradle of the
institution… This is why freedom rather than direction is, or should be, an
important part of education and growth.
And now when society and its institutions are on the edge of
circumstance, change and opportunity, it is those individuals who are also
comfortable with the edge, those with the inner compass, who can walk the
unknown path, who become instrumental. The process involves feeling, thinking,
awareness, communication, acting and experiment. Recognition and position are
superficial - and frequently detrimental - both as reward and as
accomplishment. And therefore to focus on recognition or to feel pain in
relation to it, is based on an impoverished view of the individual.
And also on an impoverished view of me. Certainly recognition, whether by
position, renown or money would be nice. But certainly it is not the driving
force in my life. And certainly it is not and will not be the basis of
happiness; nor is any lack of recognition a source of pain, nor should it be.
To a significant degree, then, I have achieved what I want. I enjoy my
work. The place where I live is beautiful. I have the strength, resilience and
intelligence to adapt to and enjoy all kinds of circumstance. I have excellent
friends, and although all this is true I say it more for you than as important
for me. And perhaps, most importantly, there is my “work” - evolution &
design and so on - that I have described to you many times. The purpose of this
work may be described as follows: (1) understanding the world, the universe and
my relationship to it. I say “my relationship” because that is significant, but
I mean to include my mind - which includes thinking, feeling, conscious and
unconscious elements, others, their mind and consciousness, cultures,
societies, civilization… and (2) the use of such understanding - theoretical,
conceptual and practical. This has been and continues to be a difficult,
challenging, exciting, rewarding enterprise. My intelligence and energy have
been taxed and found sufficient for my self-set task. I look back and see how
the whole enterprise is based in my own development and attempts at development…
and how it is based on the entire human enterprise. I look to the future and I
see continuing promise, a continuing opportunity to go beyond where we stand
now. The achievement here is the opportunity, in my case largely self-created, to use and enhance my abilities toward the highest,
most interesting, most engaged ends of which I can conceive. This process of
using and recognizing my own abilities is undoubtedly the most rewarding action
that I can imagine. This process is part of feeling, being alive.
Having worked in institutions as student and faculty for about 20 years
(1963-1985), and privately for about 10 years (1985-1996), I do not believe
that the work just described would be likely to have developed at a
university…even though university learning, teaching and research was an
important preliminary. Of course, I continue to experiment with alternative
possibilities to my present situation (for opportunity and necessity). This may
seem like flux… and it is flux; but you may recognize that there is a constant
(development and truth) behind the flux… and that the flux and the constant
enhance each other.
I've said that I have learned much in and from institutions and universities
and that there may come a time and an opportunity when certain parts of the
development may be more or most efficiently played out in academic and/or
research institutions, but I want to emphasize again the importance of extended
periods of development away from such places and their restrictions and
implicit and explicit dogmas. This - the independence from the institutions of
society - is a recurrent theme in many if not most fundamental developments in
the history of humankind, of societies and civilization.
Additionally the variety in my life - described elsewhere - results in
abroad and whole view of the world and the human condition but not at the
expense of depth.
Since, in my present position, I am not paid to think or know…there is
a truth which stems from being subject to day-to-day experience, from not being
only in the ivory tower. Additionally, due to this circumstance, my thinking
and learning are not forced. As a result, there is time for natural and
unconscious processing and for an existential freedom to search, learn, know
and be.
I hope I am not seen as trying to be pointlessly critical of
universities and other institutions or their functions. At times I miss the
intellectual stimulation of the university environment but I consider my own
initiatives, intellectual and otherwise, to be more important to my chosen path
in its current state.
I think it would be useful to recount my
general development as background to the specifics I have described in this
letter.
A question arises whether the process is real or “escapist”. Of course
any final judgment - other than the judgments of history to which we do not
have direct access - must depend on one's values and “worldview”. Naturally, in
terms of my own worldview and values, the processes of my own life - despite
self-criticism and a process of doubt - are essentially real: the same must be
true for any individual who is robust of spirit. Many persons who have known me
in varied contexts, including my Ph.D. advisor, have said that I maintain a
balance between living in the practical world and the world of ideas and
ideals, having an ability to see, to be imaginative and at the same time be
careful, pay attention to detail.
Self-awareness and self-knowledge are - I believe - important elements
of the process of knowledge in general. The boundaries between self and
universe, between knowledge and being are not at all clear and distinct -
despite immediate appearance and commonsense. The foregoing is not a new
insight, but it is in fact an element of my experience. The following is a
brief and partial sketch which I want to expand upon - in terms of breadth and
depth - at another time.
While education and experience prepared me - to some extent - for the
elements of development, and while institutions provided opportunity in the
form of libraries and so on, the sources of the process - internal and external
- are elsewhere. My impulse to look out - and in - and know and experience the
world is at least as old as my earliest recollection. The idea of a fundamental
commitment has been in the “back” of my mind for at least 35 years. The clarity
and character of this idea has, of course, evolved. A brief sketch of the
academic part of the development follows:
1961-1963: Nature, poetry, music, theory of evolution; 1964: physics;
1965-1968: physics, philosophy, logic, mathematics; 1970-1975: ethics and
value; what am I doing and why?; 1975-1978:
involvement with nature; 1978-1982: theoretical physics and applied
mathematics; philosophy of science; what is the highest thing I can do?
Friedrich Nietzsche and philosophy of human nature and achievement; 1982-1985: same
question expanded to include technology, society, civilization, world;
1985-1987: fundamental studies; “blind” and “conscious” evolution;
universalization of the ideas; 1987-1989: elaboration, further study;
1990-1992: continuing elaboration; mind; 1993-1996: consciousness, dimensions
of mind, personality and change; modern civilization and its limits; other
cultures; primitive world of nature; meaning of journey and quest; bridge
between these worlds; nature of limits; journey at the boundaries - beyond -
return; alternatives to the idea of evolution as a way of understanding and
living. When, at later times, I have returned to an earlier theme or topic,
this has been noted in the preceding sequence of development only when the
subsequent treatment or study was especially significant.
I have written to you of the results of this development a
number of times. One early result of this is the version Evolution & Design
which you possess. Since then (1987) there have been at least three
developments that are basic to my growth in understanding of the world: (1)
Improvements to the original ideas and arguments; (2) provision of alternate
viewpoints (3) seeing both the world-universe-being and my developing
understanding of this as being more dynamic, organic, connected; at the same
time more detailed, rich, particular; more real and more malleable; more stable
yet more fluid; as a place where humanity can be trivial and alien in a
material sense yet central as an instance and expression of the essential
processes. While Evolution & Design adopted a view of matter evolving in
time, an alternative is the idea of mind and consciousness as primal and as
capable of existing beyond time. Some important guiding considerations are:
while imagination is important, everything must also be viewed from, if not
generated by a perspective of experience, criticism and reason; and the older
and newer viewpoints must mesh and be complementary.
Some of the pivotal ideas are as follows. The universe
contains things that know and act and things that are known and acted upon.
Knowing and acting are part of a process in time, but the result or source may
be atemporal. Also the things that know (sometimes called minds) are not as
distinct as is sometimes thought from the things that are known - bodies, other
minds. Both are being. In other words, mind-matter is more a continuum than two
distinct categories. Or there is a single inclusive concept -reality behind
what is seen. With this perspective there is a principle behind knowing and
acting and behind knowledge and being. The objective is to know or apprehend
and chart all modes and varieties of this principle which includes all modes
and varieties of knowledge-being and process and their interrelationships. Or,
as an alternative, there is no one-such-principle, and the objective is to know
or apprehend and map all modes and varieties of knowing, knowledge, ways of
knowing, being, and objects - the known which includes knowing, etc. - and
their processes and interrelationships. All this naturally includes the
purposes that I had described earlier: (1) understanding, and (2) the uses of
understanding.
You are exposed to some of these ongoing developments which
have in part unfolded in the writing of this letter. And despite the fact that
some descriptions may be tentative, preliminary, not completely thought out and
therefore tinged with excesses of initial enthusiasm, I will let them stand as
they are.
There is another earlier description of this development in Chapter (or
Area) 1 of the 1987 version of Evolution & Design. Perhaps I have mentioned
elsewhere that I think self-study, awareness and knowledge to be important. I
see self-study to be important, interesting, powerful, and engaging in the
following ways: as a path to psychology - despite the anti-introspectionist
focus of academic psychology since the late 18th century; as a way to
self-awareness, self-understanding and self-knowledge; and self-awareness - and
“meditation” - are in turn a key to the realm of mind below the everyday
surface, to the contents of the unconscious; and then, consequently, as a key
to the form, nature and significance of the unconscious; and through all of
this as alternative and complement to the analysis of dreams and myths; as a
key to understanding mind as the (an) instrument of knowledge of the external
world - the universe; and then, consequently, as a key to knowing the universe;
and, also consequently, as a key to understanding the substantial nature of the
universe (questions of ontology and metaphysics) and of Being. The study of the
self is an approach to the absolute. Without an immersion in the depth of the
self, the world is flat. This is not the indulgent expression of an individual
in an indulgent civilization. Creatures of the wild spend their time awake
immersed in their selves or in the world. Modernism teaches us to live in
neither realm but on the surface between the two realms.
And some explicit
considerations and examples
I should add that my work in mental health has been of inestimable
value in this study in a number of ways. First, psychiatry - though it focuses
on mental disorders - is an approach to the functions of mind. Second, and more
important, the locked inpatient unit where I work 40 hours a week is a dynamic
cauldron of interacting personalities, severely disturbed, conflicted and
conflictual persons – patients, staff - with whom, despite the need for what is
called professional detachment, one enters into relationships. Initially I was
detached because I was new and fresh. Then I lost this detachment as the
elements of my personality locked into the “dance which turns and rotates but
does not move forward”. Of course the loss of detachment was not complete. I
remained known for my abilities to remain calm and detached, but I began to
notice a change. However, I began to learn to disengage from the locking in,
from being too invested - without even wanting to be invested. I learned that
there is really no such thing as losing face. I learned to say, “I was mistaken
but this is not a reason to continue to act in that way, this is not an excuse
for exceptional behavior. Together we will move forward.” The essential was
observation - of the signs of my own mind-ego becoming locked in; and of the
elements of behavior of the patients - and myself -
which would precipitate the locking in. The process was initially somewhat
random. But then, as a result of noticing its success, I began to cultivate it.
As a result I learned, and continue to learn, in a practical way, the art of
self-observation of observation of the processes below the surface of what is
immediately conscious; and I learned, in a practical way, in part by uncovering
these unconscious determinants of behavior and exposing them, about the
flexibility of personality. Some of this learning had begun in other
relationships and situations, but the main element was the conflictual
environment where relationships are formed and cycled through on weekly basis -
the unit, Sempervirens, is a short-term or acute
psychiatric facility where individuals in crises - suicidal, homicidal,
severely confused - come for evaluation and intensive treatment for periods
which are typically 2 to 17 days before release or, in a limited number of
cases, 30-45 days before referral to a long-term or chronic facility.
Relationships come, go; and - since many clients have numerous admissions - are
cycled through much more rapidly than in normal circumstances. This summary is
somewhat analogous to an animated cartoon of the geology of the earth where
2,000,000 years is condensed into a second so that one sees (the cartoon would
be about 45 minutes in length) what one otherwise has to theorize. Yes, the
environment is somewhat artificial. But the learning is from this environment
and the totality of one's experience. It is part of an integral development
that became conscious and focused in my current work. Anyway, I have also
learned, as a result of all this, how and why to be detached without walls and
barriers against relating. How to care without needing the
other or needing to care. How to care and love persons
who may be angry, who may express anger, hate, scorn, who may be disturbed in
their mental and/or life and relational processes. This development is
ongoing and “imperfect”. I think, perhaps, I have always had (incidentally,
whenever I say “perhaps I have always had”, you may interpret this as “one
among a number of elements” and “dating back to early development”) this
element of detachment; but psychiatric work has resulted in its development, my
awareness of it, understanding it and cultivating it. I should add that I am
not claiming that my mental health work is necessary for these developments;
careful observation and any area of human relationships that is typical of life
in society - especially multiple and varied relationships - should be
sufficient.
It is interesting that while the dynamic and conflictual environment of
acute mental health work has been one source of self-observation, another
source is the quiet time I spend in nature - in the mountains.
The process and art of self-observation which began in one area has, by
cultivation, spread to and is being used in other areas, such as the study of
consciousness. The process is interactive, with the self-observation forming an
experiential component to the study of consciousness…and with the
investigations of consciousness providing an element of direction for
self-observation.
Multiplicity and multi-modality of experience, which might not have
happened had I stayed in academic circles, has led to a process of learning by
observation, comparison, improvement and cultivation.
Regarding consciousness, some questions are (1) what are its elements;
(2) revelation of its levels as in the peeling of an onion - an analogy used by
Henri Bergson - including the transformation: unconscious ® conscious and the form of the result of
such transformation; (3) different centers of consciousness within the
individual - a concept that contrasts with the usual idea of there being one
center: “the brain” or “the mind” - and known as a result of (2); (4) the unity
or unities of this multiplicity and, therefore, (5) if what is seen as a unity
is an interactive multiplicity, cannot what is seen as a multiplicity - seen
and known to have interactivity: all persons, animals, plants, rocks, planets,
the universe… all beings be truly a unity, be Being, (6) seeing what is thus
known in (5)… and this involves also accelerating the mental processes as in
the earlier example with analogy to a compression of geologic time or, in the
case of mental events that are below a certain threshold - amplification and
slowing down.
The dual objectives of this process are (1) to be the director of one's
own vision, and (2) contact with, apprehension of, the real; this includes
learning together with other individuals.
My development in these areas has been self-directed. The process
starts with the observation of “inner” events, the learning of others,
observations on determinants of the process and events, a variety of experience
so that one learns through the agency of one's own powers, the internal
dynamics, controls and augmentation of these processes. I will consider some
examples, generalize, and explain the basis of the generalization.
Here and elsewhere in this letter you will note the resonance - with
and shades of knowledge, experience and thought from -
a number of traditions from the history of humanity.
Here is another instance, an example, of the kind of observation I have
been talking about and the related circle of ideas. The example relates to the
dynamics of the experience of loss and the transformation (when it occurs) from
a sense of deficiency to wholeness. Elizabeth Kubler
Ross - I attended a talk by her in the 1970s - is well known in the
It should also vary with the culture. Modern Western civilization,
especially that of the
Other models exist. Such single subject models become conceptual and
grounded by being related to other single subject models and integrated into a
larger whole.
We know all this. It is preliminary to what I want to say.
Regarding loss - of which being aware that one's death is somewhat
imminent is an instance - there are two preliminary issues.
(1) For something to be a loss - the loss of a limb, health, a friend,
a career, youth, money… - it must be perceived or interpreted as a loss. As
human beings and as animals, we are a mix of independence - autonomy, and
dependence - interdependence, and therefore loss is real. As a result it is
adaptive to have the faculty to be able to recognize and feel loss. This does
not mean that every feeling of loss is adaptive. The feeling may be due to not
realizing or giving up of “normal” autonomy. Much of loss is “perception”: as
taught by society… and as interpreted by the individual. There is some freedom
- in relation to the question of what feelings of loss are “healthy” - here.
Additionally there is no one purpose or function of society and humanity. The
broad array of arrangements that are consistent with survival is another source
of freedom. Other sources of freedom are that not all aspects of individual and
group survival need be built into individuals or each individual, and that the
fact that we have survived may give us predispositions to survive but does not
require us to have all such predispositions or to survive at all… What this
freedom means is that some, perhaps much, of what “we” perceive as and feel to be loss is not a necessary result of our natures or
needs. Therefore we have both actual and moral freedoms regarding our feelings,
and despite the various vaguenesses associated with
“the moral”, there is a real core to it. Of course the actual and the moral
need not coincide in all views and that presents an interesting issue which I
will not take up here, if ever. My concern would be the actual freedom and more
specifically the actual as it may be restricted by the moral.
(2) What is the dynamics of the reaction to loss, what is the role of
experience and learning (I have had good and intelligent friends and there are
also very famous persons who have said that despite experience, response to
loss does not depart from its stages including the processing of grief through
shock-denial-chaos and reorganization, and so on. While I regard such reactions
as natural, I do not regard them as fixed in their manifestation, processing or
intensity)… And are “feelings”, “perception”, “emotion”, “thinking”
as separate-unrelated as is commonly thought or seen or felt to be the case?
For example, is not feeling a perception of an inner state-process and does not
thought also involve inner perception and volition? And is there not an aspect
to the complex of perception of an outer state which is “perception” of the
material physiological result of the object of perception?…
Regarding reaction to loss (and all emotional processing), a
preliminary question of dynamics is that of time: how long does the process
take? The distinctions that I want to make are (a) the process is so slow that
its stages - or some of its stages - appear frozen in time: changes are not
noticed (like geologic or biological evolution); (b) it is so fast that it or
its details are not noticed (as in a volcanic eruption or other explosion); or
(c) the process occurs at an observable speed - that is, the details of change
and the process of change are noticed and noted.
It is reasonable to claim that in this instance (loss) reaction (b) is
not adaptive, whereas (a) and (c) perform adaptive functions. However (a) is
unnecessary in some ways and is also counter-adaptive in some ways. (a) is better, in some ways, than no reaction and has a “use”
as part of cumulative experience so that one can see and understand one's own
growth… and learn from this.
There may be a dynamic involving both (b) and (a): (b) involves quick
unreflective reaction to some stimuli based perhaps in conditioning, resulting
in (a) being frozen into or sluggish in relation to an emotional (or thought)
response as a result of (b). As a result, the response (b) remains fixed. This
is a counterproductive or counter-adaptive dynamic.
There may also be a learning process:
Start with style (a): accept - quicken - notice - observe, resulting in
(c).
or
Start with style (b): begin to notice so slow and observe resulting in
(c).
Regardless of how (c) is arrived at, once
there, the process can now be truly dynamic. (1) Understand and accept and observe =
enjoy the process = being alive; (2) become open to uncertainty, so avoid
over-control and stagnation; (3) acceptance so loss and pain are not suffering;
(4) knowing the roots of the process in development = higher order dynamic; (5)
by understanding and experiment knowing what modifies feeling, learning this =
truly dynamic at levels of the process and of learning and, therefore, having
choice in both of these processes. This choice, of course, does not imply total
control but may result in significant self-direction. This is a rather
different idea of emotion and emotional processing that the usual one.
The analogy with “geology” comes up again.
Now consider the following. An individual goes through development, has
experiences which include affirmation, joy, wonder, loss, pain and the interactive
cycles of these. Those close to that individual focus on one or more aspects
and so, especially in early development, amplify the resonance, the importance
of some aspects. I have observed this in friends, patients at mental health,
others. No doubt the focus so chosen includes a well-intentioned basis, but the
result often is negative: the individual comes to live out a pattern of
negative feeling, negative reaction, because this is the way in which this
individual receives support and justifies behavior. And the intention is not
always positive: sometimes the persons who promote focus on the negative are
implicitly justifying their own negativity or negativism… and the individual is
“frozen” into these patterns. Equally problematic is the situation where one
denies or refuses to acknowledge the negative and so becomes frozen into
denial… in either case the learning process, which requires experience with
feeling and its progression is turned off. This is, no
doubt, related to Freud's idea of psychoanalysis and self-revelation through
association and dreams: one begins to observe what had been present, but
repressed… The “best” that others can do is (a) be supportive but not
demanding. Support implies that the individual can be aware of his/her processes;
not demanding implies the individual can learn at a natural pace. Other things
that others can do, include modeling.
In this letter I have not tried to hide or avoid any of the negative
aspects of my life. However, my emphasis has been on the positive and on
transformation from the negative to the positive, especially in relation to my
ambitions and goals. There are a number of reasons for this. First, as I have
attempted to explain in the previous paragraph, an over-focus on negative
aspects on pain results in living out what one focuses on. Second, I think joy
and evolution and growth are something like temperature: there is a lower
limit: an absolute zero (-273C), but no upper limit; therefore, while the
negative cannot be avoided and awareness of it should not be avoided or
repressed, much more can be done with focus on the positive which includes the
positive itself - joy, creation, evolution - but also the transformation of the
negative. And this includes understanding and acceptance of negative elements
when necessary, when they indicate that something needs resolution or requires
attention.
Third, because I have perceived you as tending to focus on the
negative, my focus is somewhat in reaction and defense. More accurately, the
focus itself is not in reaction and defense - it is my nature to focus on the
positive while accepting and working with the negative; rather, the fact that I
am at pains to emphasize this positive focus in this letter is somewhat in
reaction and defense. Fourth, regardless of what aspects of my life you may or
may not focus on, I would like you to have complete information on how I view
my life, what I want to do with it, what I am doing with it. Finally, as
mentioned at other places in this letter, I would like and invite you to join
me in my “adventure of forward motion within Being”.
It has often occurred to me that many of the ideas about which I think
and write, including those in this letter, may be useful to you. This is not
one of the purposes of this letter. The letter has a number of purposes which
include explanation, understanding and usefulness. But the usefulness is to me
and/or us. I would of course be most pleased to be useful to you but I do not
want to presume that my thoughts will be useful to you. This is in no way to
disparage my thoughts. Although I am always properly critical of my thinking, I
have a good opinion of my thinking and ideas, and my self-confidence sometimes
approaches arrogance (I know this); it also includes humility in the face of
truth. However, although being useful in general is one of my objectives, out
of respect I do not presume to instruct or be useful to others, but I do think
it valid and respectful to intend and hope to be useful, even to occasionally
instruct, all which includes me. For if the universe is great and good, then I must, as part of it, partake of that greatness and
goodness. And if the universe is trivial, absurd, meaningless, then what I do
does not and cannot matter. But I do not think the universe is meaningless. While
some focus on humanity's folly and conclude that the world is absurd, I tend to
the opposite view. But I go beyond that and hold that there cannot be good
without evil, meaning without meaninglessness, creation without dissolution…
for all of these polarities have origin in the same one agency of creativity
and choice. This does not mean evil, for example, is necessary although it may
be. In order to choose the good, one must know it. Here our finite minds run
into difficulty. We cannot, despite eons of pontification, always know the
difference even if we understand it. So we experiment and slip. But this
experimentation is part of learning and so part of the creative principle.
Therefore we must know and learn to live with and accept as contingent (fact)
if not necessary (essential) the occasional pain and absurdity which comes our
way. But while we accept the fact, we do not accept the ultimate necessity and
therefore we may seek and learn to transform pain and absurdity as I am at
pains to explain in this letter. I have a predominantly sanguine attitude. This
is all part of the creative principle.
The developments of which I am writing, though tentative and incomplete,
are at the same time definite and positive - that is, the fact of the
development is definite while the form is tentative and the content incomplete.
If you look at your copy of Journey Quest: Guide to the Process (which is now
an old version since it seems to get rewritten about once each year), pages 13
and 14 titled “The Quest for Vision and Being”, you will see that the idea of
the developments is not new to me. Also see pages 9-12. In fact, the explicit
idea dates back to at least 1979. If I were to come up with a name for the idea
as it stands, it would be: “What Can Be Known; How Can the Known Be Seen; How
Can What Is Seen Be Experienced and Become” which can be abbreviated to
“Knowledge, Vision, Experience and Being” or even “Knowing and Being” - this
latter is, however, the title of a book by Michael Polanyi.
The way in which all this has come about and its form are quite
unexpected. I have speculated about the form theoretically and may have had
some kind of belief and expectation. To some extent, aided by theoretical
knowledge, I have realized that I have known about “Knowledge… and Being” for
some time and, to repeat what I have said, it is very positive that the content
etc. can be explicit and actual rather than merely intuitive. More precisely,
the realization is that what I have known and known that I have known for some
time has grown to the point where the knowledge and the knowledge of the
knowledge are definite and explicit and this has made it possible for me to see
that was what I was looking for in “The Quest for Vision and Being” has been
found - in the ways and forms I describe in this letter.
As you may deduce or see, the entire process
“Knowledge… Being” is not as yet complete or explicit. Additionally
there is a variety of suggestions on pages 13, 14 of Journey Quest: Guide…
which have not been incorporated and may turn out to be unnecessary. Some of
the suggestions still seem interesting and important to me.
An important point relative to my goals is that: “Knowledge, vision,
experience, being” (“K,V,E,B”) satisfies the
requirements - what I was looking for - in The Journey Quest - that is, in
seeking to spend a year or so in nature. This means that (i)
I may not need to spend as long (I have already spent cumulatively over a
year), (ii) I may spend a good period of time in the mountains and the quest
for “K,V,E,B” will be more defined, I will know more
precisely what I am looking for, what to elaborate, or I will have more time
for other objectives including what I have thought of as pure experience or
pure being… The importance of pure experience/being is - in addition to the
sheer moment-to-moment enjoyment with perhaps joy as liberation in contrast to
what I said elsewhere - is that I think that undirected experience, study may
be very useful. Maybe.
Now I think I will take up yet another example of the art and technique
of observation and its role in transformation. Actually it will start as an example
and turn out, by induction, to be a somewhat complete set of
examples…perception, thought, action, and experience are essential components
to progress from the individual to the universal, from the infinitesimal to the
infinite What I want to emphasize is that while much of what I write is
tentative - I am realizing, reformulating, learning as I write - this example
is especially tentative. However, it is the first try, I share it with you.
That the thinking may be a little sloppy is acceptable - I can tighten up the
thinking and so on later or discard if this is not possible. But the basic
principles about which I talk are firm.
What are these basic principles and ideas? The art and technique of
observation, of vision is one. First, one observes what one did not observe
before. Initially this is random. Then through multifaceted experience one
learns in stages: keys to control the application of the keys, learning
efficient application. Then transformation from passive experience to active
engagement, development of self-understanding and trust, entering into
dynamics…what was immutable becomes fluid. Then coming against limits,
understanding the limits and the extent to which limits are a result of a lack
of understanding and so entering into mutability of being, process, universe
(and its categories: nature - society - mind - universe) and ourselves. The
process can be symbolically depicted: 0 ® 1 ® limit or law ® understanding and assimilation ® new level ® repeat and merge ® ∞. These include the elements of
variation and selection and of building upon existing structures. An essence of
such processes is their singularity and, despite the singularity, the
universality of their direction. Individuals recreate (ontogeny) and extend the
existing structure or pattern (phylogeny). The final principles are that this
process of vision and being is a unifying agent for, specifically, the elements
of societies and cultures including the disciplines of the sciences and
humanities of the modern world and generally of being; and that the processes
of learning and unification are explicit and actual - and therefore describable
and communicable - manifestations of the agencies of mind. And what can be
described may be subject to reason and experiment.
Here, now, is the example which combines two themes of this letter. The
first theme is pain-is-not-suffering. The second is the growth of
self-awareness by observation - self-awareness studies itself. The two ideas
interact - pain-is-not-suffering permits observation and observation results in
knowledge of the true nature of feeling and of knowledge which includes pain.
But by extended observation and learning, including observation of (instead of
resistance to) pain, one goes beyond acceptance to transformation and change.
Note, incidentally, that if pain-is-not-suffering, then joy-is-not-liberation.
More accurately, if pain as suffering is seen as a trap which keeps one bound
to pain, then joy as liberation may also keep one at an arrested state of
development. We have abilities, through the agency of intelligence, to
integrate pain, joy into growth and evolution.
The example I want to discuss relates to illness and the idea of being
aware of the needs of the body. In question, in the following are the concepts
of health, of medicine and - as always in reflexive or in integrated analyses -
of the concept of the “concept”. When one is ill, a number of things happen:
one feels unwell, one takes certain medicines or treatments, one goes to
someone else - a doctor - for help, one rests, one enjoys the occasion to rest
and reflect and focus, one wants to be well, one wishes that one were well, one
notices nuances of the illness and the illness ® wellness process, one attempts to will
oneself well, and this willing may be a teeth-clenching ordeal or - in contrast
- an alert persuasion, and one observes the nuances of all this, including the
nuances themselves from one occasion of illness to another and so on, from one
type of illness to another and so on. One begins to distinguish the passive act
of recovery from the active aspects of the process. One notices that there are
certain active processes which enhance the process ill ® well and its quality. Among these active
processes are acts of self-communication. One notices what kinds of acts and
when such acts enhance the process. One thinks about self-observation in other
areas of life. One begins to note that what one thought to be the passive body
is not inert and distinct from the active mind and that there is a continuum
from distinct consciousness to diffuse awareness which, perhaps, characterizes
the situation better than does the concept of the mind-body polarity. There are
still realities. One does not merely will oneself healed. But one notices that
certain activities and active attitudes enhance this process. One sees that
there are certain times when accepting a pain is more efficient than fighting
it, that there are times when action and activity are better than rest, that certain acts and modes of self-communication aid and
accelerate healing, that these include but are not restricted to linguistic
acts. One begins to recognize and characterize all this and so moves on from
passivity to an efficient-active approach, one enters into and recreates the
dynamics of the situation. One also begins to see that the realities themselves
are malleable - especially since reality itself is perceived - and are
themselves open to observation, to the active principle, to dynamics and to yet
more (or less) reality.
These ideas - that is, observation, learning and induction from
multiple and multifaceted experience, transforming layer-by-layer passive
experience into active engagement, and initiative, entering into dynamics -
apply to many situations - and, as was manifest at the end of the previous
paragraph, to the process of being itself - including loss, personality, and
therefore also, as suggested earlier, to development and knowledge and living
out of the ideas that pain-is-not-suffering and joy-is-not-liberation; the
conscious-unconscious spectrum, the life-death spectrum, the alleged mind-body
polarity, the self-Being distinction - alleged or otherwise; the existence of
time, the nature of knowledge, ideas and Being…
It is evident that the processes of induction are grounded and not merely
theoretical. There is induction from observations - with concepts - to the
examples here. Then there is induction from the examples to the “method” and
from the method…to limits and to grounding in being.
There is also another polarity or polarization which may be addressed
in this connection. There is on the one hand the conservative or critical view
which has a number of faces such as: people are puppets of fate with only the
illusion of choice, the world is material and anything else is a deception even
if a happy deception… On the other hand is the speculative view sometimes
recently - in some of its aspects - called “new age” which too has a number of
faces, some of them wildly unrealistic but others based in possibility and
hope; and these include - as extreme caricatures - there are no limits, one can
choose to be anything, do anything but also - as more reasonable - the
existence of limits, but that the limits are not completely known and are
themselves conditional and perhaps contingent, that people can make choices but
that one may need to work at this and at knowing what choices are possible… My
own viewpoint is that these are possibilities, hopes and ideals; and there are
limits - I do not precisely know what these are; that traditional ideas and
knowledge are important but incomplete; that there is an active principle in
addition to mere receptivity to who and what we are and what the universe “is”;
that I will distinguish between possibility and actuality; that, however, this
distinction is not clear in fact; that more can be known than is traditionally
and conservatively held; that whatever can be known can be known without
recourse to mere faith and mere belief but through the agencies of mind and
being which include but need not be limited to our traditional concepts of
perception, experience, thought which include the traditional disciplines of
science, philosophy, arts, religion; that at the level of this discourse
philosophy and religion can be also experimental (in addition to being
reflective) disciplines in which we experiment with questions such as who or
what are persons, what is being, mind, idea, thought…
I think that the examples I have given on “observation”, “being”,
“becoming”, and their dynamics are good if tentative and specialized examples
of the points I am making which include: adoption of the critical tradition
without being completely restricted by it; supplement by imagination and hypothesis;
broadening and founding by including all sources and areas of knowledge; going
beyond this and seeing what may be real by experience and observation and
cultivating and honing powers of observation and experience; one of the motives
of this is to go beyond the idea of a perception as an instance and beyond the
idea - in so far as may be possible - of the idea, the concept, the theory as a
mere collection or pattern of instances. That is the examples are important not
merely as examples, nor merely as instances of a theory or process but also as
illustrations of the theory and real process of the dynamics of being and
observation which can stand by itself.
[Criticism and hypothesis are commonplace. It is the
“hypothetico-deductive” method of science, the falsifiability or testability of
Karl Popper, the critical and speculative synthesis of A. N. Whitehead, and the
variation and selection of Darwinian evolution.]
Examples are important in many ways. As
illustrations, as ways to sharpen discovering, understanding and being in the
general process.
The original examples. 1. The phases and
issues of a life. 2. Interpersonal dynamics and its reflexive evolution. Self-observation and consciousness. 3. Dynamics of real
choice and real action. Example: dynamics of loss. 4. Body awareness, learning
to see and know and healing.
Additional examples. 5. The dynamics of
this letter. 6. Dynamics of relationships…7. How body kinetics develop. 8.
Perceptual dynamics in relation to reality.
9. Dynamics of creative acts and activity. 10. The elements of my life
and… their integration. 11. Personality dynamics… 12. Omitted.
13. Being deep in interaction with others. 14. Integration of reality and
perception dynamics in relation to yoga, shamanism, the ideas of Freud and
Jung… 15. Dynamics of relationships… 16. Reality and perception dynamics as dynamic elements… 17. Immersion in new environments, worlds, cultures, nature … 18.
The unconscious - conscious and universe - self processes…
19. Games and competition. 20.
Nutrition, taste, rhythm, selection, vision and preparation of food. 21.
Integration of the mental functions.
The examples above - of the dynamics of being, of perception and action, of the real, of
limits - with some elaboration are as follows. 1. The phases and issues of
a life: experience, learning and substance at various levels. This letter is an
implicit illustration of this example. 2. Interpersonal dynamics and its
reflexive evolution. Self-observation and consciousness.
Evolution of reflexivity and agency. Cultivating awareness of consciousness, its contents, its
varieties, its dynamics including relations to events in the “external world”
and to other mental phenomena including the unconscious. 3. Dynamics of loss
and death…relation to self-observation. This generalizes to: Dynamics of real
choice and real action. 4. Body awareness, learning to see and know and
healing. Implicit in this discussion are implications for what is called the
medical model. The value of this model as a framework is acknowledged. However
it ignores or tends to ignore individual ability to learn, individual values,
real values, agency, agency and healing, and individual variations. Dynamics of
healing...entry into the dynamics...dynamics of the autonomous system [This is
more than just feedback. It also requires openness to phenomena, observation
and cultivation of observation of phenomena and relationships between action
and phenomena, observation of relationships by comparison of multiple
instances, cultivation of this process...Also see discussion on the art and
technique of observation, below]
Here are some further potential examples. There is a range from
specific to general and among element s of the world. This permits induction to
the universal. The present set of examples is a beginning to this end. The
objective is to go beyond cataloging to structuring and selecting the examples
to further universalization. Some effort to that end has been applied to
generation of the examples that now follow.
5. The dynamics of this letter is
an example. This refers primarily to content and understanding what I should
say in order to communicate what I want to. The development
of general understanding while writing is interesting. 6. Dynamics of relationships…especially my
relationship with my parents. 7. How body
kinetics develop. This starts at birth. I can observe the process in
nature. 8. Perceptual dynamics in
relation to reality and their development form an example. Example: for the
Absolute eternity is an instant. 9. Research,
art…other creative endeavors. Music - primal and
cultured. Dynamic integration of art, emotion, action
- individual and social. My development: pushing modern knowledge to its
limits to find limits, and to find the absolute or non-absolute nature of those
limits. 10. The elements of my life and
relation to the universal…their integration.
The modes of being: nature, society, psyche and the universal; the modes of
process: action, dynamics, evolution; the modes of relationship: caring, force…
11. Personality dynamics…the
crux of personality dynamics has to do with fixity and freedom in patterns of
feeling and behavior with others - in social context. Thought is important too
but is somewhat secondary to feeling in this context. Freedom can only be in
relation to the potential. The following
dimensions open up: (a) Approaches to presentation and energy: preparation
with openness, interpretation - individualism vs. mutualism, anticipation and
transformation to advantage, lack of anticipation and use of detachment, use of
mood in general to advantage, flow. (b) Risk: what is it, opening to it,
contact, accepting the unknown and unpredictable consequences. Opening to the other and to failure and success. (c)
Catalysts: openness to change, diffusion, disintegration, plasticity of self. Personality as a concept. Sources of vision are important.
Sources: presentation, acting, interpretation, attitude, caring, accepting
moments, anger. (d) Dynamics: observation and understanding - the critical
moment. Time stretching, consciousness amplification - silent inner whispers
become voices. Observing object relations. Multiple voices. (e) The world as a personality laboratory.
13. Being deep in interaction with others - this allows
but does not cultivate the negative. This is fundamental to freedom and
development of dynamics in groups. Self-focus in relation to others. Motivation of self and others. 14. Integration of reality and perception dynamics in relation to yoga,
shamanism, the ideas of Freud and Jung…15. Dynamics of relationships…16.
Reality and perception dynamics as
dynamic elements… Dynamics of limits and laws. 17. Immersion in new environments, worlds, cultures, nature … 18.
The unconscious - conscious and universe - self processes… Dynamics of
the entity...what is the entity I call myself? 19. Games and competition: response to momentum and pace, mind and
no-mind, cobra and mongoose…in typing the fingers move faster than conscious
awareness…so trying to be consciously in control slows the process…but what
happens when, in the no-mind state, mistakes occur?…the situation is then
brought by a scanning process - elaborate - into consciousness which begins to
examine or search for the source of error and correct at the source while
comparing the result with the desired result…consciousness is associated with
“re-programming” - this use is metaphorical - that is, with adaptability…and
the mind no-mind process can be ongoing and
interactive… Physical arts. 20. Nutrition, taste, rhythm,
selection and vision in preparation of
food.
…21. Integration
of the mental functions - and dynamics of the individual functions and
their perception. As an example consider anger. Anger may result from perception, irritation, inference,
valuation, reflex, overload…thus while it is functional in principle it can be
inappropriate - counter-adaptive - and benefit from revaluation. Are the
primary processes accurate, is the expression of anger working and registering,
what is mode and way in which anger is being expressed, is it dominating one's
expressive and emotional life. Due to the interactions and the processing anger
has been called a secondary emotion but to a degree all mental function is
interactive for it is the whole of the organism that functions in the whole of
the environment. The primary processes - those resulting in the emotion of
anger may be unobserved by the individual. Bring anger back into dynamics so
that it is integrated and functional require observation, analysis and
desensitization. Thus the process of dynamism requires the entire range of
mental function. As a result fixed patterns and responses become flexible,
moments become minutes, massive inertia becomes
fluid…and so adaptable and adaptive. Experience and experiment, hard and soft,
goal and flow, the Zen formula of mind and no-mind, conscious and unconscious,
central and autonomic nervous system...
The nature of these examples notwithstanding,
the techniques of vision - still in development and learning - result in seeing
quiet voices, whispers, and so to aspects of the nature of consciousness and
ultimately to mind and consciousness as a direct window to Being and the
universe.
The processes and principles described are not “other” than modern
science, philosophy, and the processes of modern institutions and in fact
include these developments. However, the formal developments of the modern
disciplines tend to suppress the existence of techniques of vision and to
ignore the passive ® active/dynamic transformation while emphasizing instead the human role
as one of the isolated spectator. There are some good reasons for this and some
of the power of modernism derives from this but there is a price to pay in
terms of alienation. This alienation should not be necessary if we regard
modernism as a part rather than the whole of the process… The process I have
been describing - very tentatively at this point - is akin to poetry, mythology,
mystic vision but provides an explicit, conscious rather than
implicit-unconscious description and in so doing also includes and bridges over
to science, philosophy and so on. This shows the identities of intuition and
reason, of mystic vision and apperception…and science. These identities become
clear and manifest when we are aware and enter all dimensions and levels of
processing. Thus and therefore these techniques provide a unification of all
disciplines - modes of knowing and being - including sciences, philosophy,
humanities, religion…
I wish to emphasize the tentative nature of these conclusions - I am
well aware of the possible excesses of initial enthusiasm. And perhaps the idea
of unification of all disciplines should be replaced by reunification, since
there was a time of wholeness before the specialization and specialism of the
twentieth century and perhaps before the advent of Western civilization.
It may be the reunification will be - since explicit - more powerful
than the original unity. It will be more powerful in that it will be inclusive,
understood, and therefore an element in process…that is, it will be applicable
in addition to being a fact.
But where is the substance, what puts me in a position to say all this?
Although I do have intelligence, I do not think that is the essential
element. It is also beside the present point to get into the question of what
intelligence might mean. More to the point is to list some traits. What I see
as important are: flexibility, tenacity, appetite and perceptivity. Appetite is
appetite for experience. Tenacity is motivated by appetite but is not the mere
single-minded tenacity that is like the jaws of the bulldog. Flexibility
combines with tenacity in an ability to relinquish a line of approach that is not
going anywhere, take up another approach but being still open to other
approaches including those earlier relinquished. Perceptivity includes
curiosity and the willingness to see, to be open, to not make up one's mind for
all time; perceptivity includes the willingness to say “I don't know” so that
the state of not-knowing remains open to transformation; it does not mean no
backbone - not having positions; but it does mean not having a rigid backbone -
being open to new positions.
The result of all this is two fold. First,
much and varied experience. But because of the other factors, the experience is
not merely random and not merely a collection of unrelated experiences but
includes elements of direction and purpose. Therefore, there is unity of
experience. Second, as a result of perceptivity and flexible tenacity is the
organization of the array of experience into patterns, into concepts, into
unities. The experiences exemplify and are generalized by the concepts and
unities; the concepts give meaning to and relate to one another the
experiences.
The resulting system includes the following:
Experience in engineering, mathematics, science, and humanities… Dreams
and metaphysics… Outdoor living: the mountains - cumulatively over a year…The
Tarahumar. Running a small business - the Indian cooking of a
few years ago. Twenty years in
Contents, interrelations, nature, origins - known and possible,
history, and processes of: the universe and its phases (matter - life = nature,
society, mind, being) and systems of knowledge of the same. Of course the
universe includes knowledge. And traditional knowledge includes sciences,
humanities, mathematics, philosophy, technology, history, religion.
I have made a study of all these elements. I have learned, analyzed,
understood, modified, synthesized, created and written.
Evolution & Design - which you have - was the “tip of the iceberg”
as of 1987. It was the tip in two senses: i) as the
pinnacle of the rest of the work and ii) as a small part of the total system
described in Evolution and Design - Outline of the Main Work and Supplements
which you have and in Background to Evolution and Design. The work has
continued since that time - I have described this, too, in this letter.
I do not know, personally, another individual with this variety of
experience: breadth and depth.
Some persons may see these developments as a limitation. I do not.
There is a classical concept in education and career of an individual with a
broad base in a discipline which supports and is given significance by a
specialty area. I have developed breadth in a number of disciplines and in the
system of disciplines as a whole; and expertise in a number of areas. This
results in an unusual perspective on the modern tradition of knowledge: one
that is broad, deep and dynamic. But I have gone beyond this in search of all
modes of knowing, known and being (as explained in some detail in this letter).
I am attempting to give a comprehensive description of my experiences.
Of course the individual elements are not even in their development and there
are limits. I am willing to talk about these limits, to have a give and take
conversation and learn, but I do not accept that anyone else (or myself for
that matter) can once and for all time define or dictate these limits and the
nature of them - just as I do not think that I can define the limits of others.
One thing that is perhaps a limit regards the use of psychotropic “mind
altering” chemicals or drugs. More precisely, I should emphasize the use of
substances that are foreign to my body. The word “foreign”, too, should be used
with some care because most psychotropic drugs are so because they have
similarities to or affinities with chemicals or other entities that are found
naturally in the brain. I have not used or introduced “foreign” substances to
enhance my experience, knowledge or being as I have described. Well, that is
not accurate - I do drink and enjoy coffee and coffee is a stimulant. But I
have not “done” the chemicals or plants such as amphetamines, LSD, marijuana,
cocaine, opiates, PCP, psylocybin, peyote, mushrooms
etc. etc. as part of my experience, learning or growth, or to enhance the same.
In other words, my learning process (indirect from schools, universities,
books) and direct (from being and existence) has not been dependent on the uses
of psychotropic drugs - illicit or accepted. It is not that I am against these
substances or their use. Of course they can have harmful effects. We see this
every day at Mental Health. Even single uses - it is reported - can be harmful.
I do not wish to “fry” my brains. But the real reason is as follows. It is not
that I think that drug-induced experience is useless or epistemically illicit.
But I suspect it is inferior and incomplete. Consider the kinds of process I
have been describing: observation and amplification of mental (including
feeling) processes. I have learned about this without recourse to drugs. The
important points are: since the learning is experimental, it is true learning:
one learns control, the active principle, the dynamics
of the process. And one goes beyond each layer to further layers and each
experience to systems of experiences. Thus I think it is more complete than the
psychotropic experience - since it is based in who I am. Nonetheless I have not
used psychotropic drugs to this end and I admit that this might be a
limitation.
An important point is that the processes and principles I am discussing
- observation, entering into the dynamics of reality, into being - are directly
accessible being neither esoteric (explicit, conscious description is possible)
nor externally induced - they are under the control of the individual, not due
to drugs or other discontinuous shifts (not discussed here) such as hypnosis,
dreams, schizophrenia, stress…
But this is not to deny the uses - either therapeutic, or
transformational, or epistemic - of hypnosis, dreams, schizophrenia, stress…
The processes described above are a form of experimental and
experiential study and need to be and are balanced by ideas, theoretical
investigation and study. Even without active study, one is dependent on what
has been done before whether formally or in the natural development of language
and ideas as reflected in the use of concepts such as mind, awareness,
consciousness and the unconscious.
This detour on “my development and self-knowledge” is in addition to
sharing myself and life with you, also sharing of part
of the process and development towards the next version of Evolution &
Design.
I do intend, of course, that the process I have been describing will
yield a product or products. There is to date much produced with what I think
to be useful ideas… but that was written in a learning and discovery mode
without an explicit intent to publish. The whole process is my process of
“fundamental development”; the part of that process devoted to the product is
the “Evolution and Design Program” and the product on which work has begun is
Evolution, Design and The Absolute (a possible title) and related work which I
intend for publication. There may be recognition of various types, and I would
appreciate that. However, the opportunity to be and have been alive, awake and
to be engaged in something deep and connected, to have used and developed my
abilities, is the primary reward. It is the process, at times slow, which is
the primary and enduring “satisfaction”. And this is the way it must be, for to
focus on the product or on recognition for their own sakes would be to the
detriment of the process, of the inner compass called “truth” and finally to
the detriment of the product itself… and would yield recognition as empty. Also
as noted in an earlier letter to Robin and Susan (copy enclosed), this goal is
also something of a dedication, a sacrifice, a means to an end.
I hope you can see, at this point, why, from my point of view, “pain”
regarding my life and situation is unnecessary, not to the point, and is based
on assumptions about my situation which are mistaken even if natural - in some
ways - in your circumstance. I can see why you would feel some disappointment
due to (i) what you have regarded as important in
your life, and (ii) your hopes and ambitions for me. This is natural enough and
I can understand why recognition and position might be especially important to
parents. Of course, I wish you would not feel any disappointment and would see
why it is unnecessary and in an essential way misplaced. In fact I wish the
opposite. I wish for you to feel happiness even to the point of singing and
dancing… but, I must add: while I can understand disappointment, I think that
pain is unnecessary because (a) it is not good or necessary for you, (b) it is
not based in my feelings or perceptions or the essential reality of my life, or
of the world.
I also hope you understand my reaction: that I see these mistaken
perceptions pervading almost every discussion with you of my life; that your
holding such perceptions is not a positive or necessary or useful experience
for me (except that it prompts me to think, rethink, affirm and reaffirm my attitudes
toward my life); that such perceptions constitute a negative statement about
the process of my life; that for me it is not through submission or fatalism
nor is it by courage that I endure or weather my fate - although fatalism and
courage have their places in human experience - but it is through perception of
what is good and true that I see my life, past-present-future, as potent,
wonderful and positive - and real and that reality is never intrinsically
negative, although it can be seen that way; that I see and feel my life as
being lived rather than weathered; that each day is an act of aware, renewed
choice - based in the sum of my experience and learning integrated as knowledge
- from among a hierarchic system - also based in this knowledge - of
alternatives; that these alternatives include goals, ambitions and also being
in full relationship with the world; that occasional courage and refocusing are
necessary but that generally these attitudes are a simple, almost habitual, act
of understanding and truth which includes, also, the acts of focusing,
refocusing and courage to a significant but not absolute degree; that the gap
between “significance” and “absolute” is one place where I am open to the
unknown, the unpredictable - it is a point where dissolution may occur, it is
the “Achilles' heel” but at the same time it is positive, for unless one is
open to failure one cannot be open to success… it is an element of real contact
with what is real; that I request but do not demand that you attempt to change
your perceptions - that you attempt to see my life as I believe it is correct
to do; that you appreciate what I have been doing and attempting to do
(especially for the past 10 years) and that I intend to continue to do and to
attempt to do; and that I request that your focus change from pain to
appreciation and satisfaction and from the supposed lacks to positive words of
encouragement; and, finally, that nothing I have said means or is intended to
mean that other ways of working out hopes, ambitions, contribution, reward
(such as yours) are “wrong” or unnecessary.
Of course I do not want such changes unless they are truly meant and
felt. Since we believe in truth, honest “pain” is better than simulation of
something else. But I do believe my requests and explanations are based in what
is true, good and real and I do believe that I have given you what is from my
point of view a complete explanation relative to my requests. And since you
report feeling “pain” and I find inaccurate perception of me at the root of the
pain, I think the provision of sufficient open and true explanation to be
important.
At this point I have, I believe, given full and adequate explanation -
in this letter and previously - of the nature of my life and conduct, my
choices, reasons. I do not know whether this will be helpful in giving you a
positive outlook on my life, but further explanation would be repetition. I
will of course answer any questions…
I should add that the expression by others of their perceptions of me,
especially when in conflict with my own perceptions of myself, are often very
useful even when my immediate reaction to the external perceptions is negative
- emotionally or rationally. The value lies in the “challenge” to my own
comfortable self-perceptions and in the resulting revaluation and affirmation
of my perceptions and beliefs.
Now I take up my
mother's statement “… This stupidity of actions has affected the
people I love most… “ It is true that we affect other
people, especially those to whom we are close, profoundly. But even in
disagreement, it has been my belief that you have had my best interests as your
essential focus. However, past issues are not something that I dwell on except
as they surface in or relate to the present. But even so, my focus is not on
what is right or wrong but on what is true and on being understood… and
disagreeing, taking issue, even getting angry are - if we agree that an
opposite of love is indifference - signs of the presence of love rather than
the lack of it.
As you know, I have applied for
I am pleased that you have received and enjoyed the recording of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The title
of the CD from which your tape was recorded is “Qawwal”.
I have also enjoyed listening to it - in fact it is playing as I write this
sentence… I have an old three LP set “An Anthology of Indian Music” Volume I,
bought in 1974. I have not found the second or subsequent volumes - do not know
if they exist. The anthology begins with ragas by Ravi
Shankar and by Ali Akbar
Khan. There follows some classical music from
Please share “Qawwal” and any recordings I
may send to you in the future with Robin and Susan.
I mentioned Dead Man Walking in the earlier letter to Robin and
Susan - which I found to be excellent. One of the artists providing the musical
themes was Nusrat Fateh Ali
Khan. I have a new set of recordings by him, also on tape, called “Night Song”.
Its character is different from that of “Qawwal” -
more controlled - but also excellent.
I am finding the following comments hard to resist. Your letter
commented on the tape I sent you: “…As he sang on it was more & more
wonderful”. You then mentioned “a wild and stormy night in the 60s” when Ravi Shankar “played and played
giving me a similar buzz” from 3 AM through dawn, “under the wonderful dawn sky
so typical of our scene in Hijli”, and when he
finished at 7 AM “…gone were the… dark rings under his eyes and he was a young
man again.”
This and similar experiences have been called peak experiences and
religious or revelatory experiences, terms which I dislike because they suggest
to me something isolated, fragmented, occasional, merely esoteric. The word
experience is limited because it is frequently used to focus - in a somewhat
incorrect usage - only on the individual and not on the relationship of the
individual to the world. Its common use does not focus on the transformational
and relational (to all being) aspects but, rather, is thought of as an
entertainment. In a similar manner, and for reasons - including political and
economic reasons - which are not difficult to identify, modern English usage is
systematically degraded to focus only on the immediate, the practical, the
individual, the world of “10,000 things”, the material, the secular, so that
the world seems tired, absurd, jaded.
Of course one cannot be on the peak all the time. One must sleep, one must take care of the mundane. But I think that a
whole life can be infused with the spirit and the principle of the experience.
There may be times of heightened awareness, perceptivity, receptivity, and
creativity and, in addition, the whole life may be affected by this principle -
the silent, but felt, “poetry and music of the soul”. Affected
to the core - not just embroidered.
The gray cloud is beautiful because it is beautiful and not just
because it has a silver lining.
I think the essence is wholeness: the whole life of the whole of the
person is connected to the whole of Being, of the
universe. But the experience of a fragment of this is also good.
Here is a somewhat personal catalog of experiences or occasions infused
with and heightened by the “principle of poetry”: actual music and poetry,
being in the presence of revelatory art, being in a cathedral, cups of coffee,
doing an examination and diddling around for one and a half hours but
completing five questions in 30 minutes, overcoming and transforming adversity,
sitting up all night thinking - studying - conceiving - writing at home,
library, or in a tent - perhaps during a storm - in the mountains, being in the
mountains: hiking, understanding animals, experience of dawn, reflection and
meditation while under the stars at night, understanding someone else,
understanding myself, understanding the world-universe-being, certain transformational
interactions with mental health patients, being present and perhaps assisting
an elderly patient in a nursing home while he faces and accepts the fact that
he is dying, being aware of the extent to which I have created myself and of
the malleability - toward positive ends, knowledge, understanding and being -
of persons including my person, understanding - in some ways - what it means
and signifies that I will die…
In fact, seeing, understanding, knowing
myself-in-relationship-with-the-world, that is with the universe, with Being, with “the wonderful dawn sky”, is the primal poem or
experience which generates and is exemplified by the experiences above.
This account is omitted here due to its sensitivity. Go to A Life.
Looking back over this letter I think: this is something that could
have been valuable to write when I was young - say twenty years ago. But twenty
years ago I did not have the awareness to have written this letter. Today I am
no longer young in that I have a firmer idea of who I am, of what I want to do
with my life, and that I know that my life is finite. Yet I am still young in
that I am flexible and adaptable; in that I can and do enjoy the
moment-to-moment and the day-to-day; and in that, even though my life appears
to me to have finitude, I can look outward - and inward - and know and say that
there is so much that I can still do, know and be.
I, too, like my
father, miss
Love and respect,
Anil
Anil
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