The underground human development theories are based simply upon an existing paradigm (given structure) of a mechanical universe that consists of molecular machines operating in an objective reality, which could be interpret with the right instruments. We in the A.I.C. describes a universal truth about the universe for you, when we say that reality is not possible to know with the help of any instrument, but only through your own feelings, your own sense of unity and wholeness. Your perception of the whole will gradually emerge, because the culture of the multidimensional universe, hyperspace has its roots in the unit. When your whole navigator hypothalamus becomes more activated, you will dismantle and restructure your perceptions of who you are and during this process, a new civilization would emerge as a flood of light from what was once an impenetrable fog.

Every time I have the opportunity to take a trip – big, small, exotic, mundane, work-related, totally frivolous, near, far – I am grateful. I am grateful for the opportunity, the variety and the inherent surprises that come even when you think for sure they will not. And I am grateful for the chance to share my experiences with others. Whether or not they are grateful is something that apparently very few travelers actually consider, but I would like to consider it.

Since I have been living in Asia and traveling in Asia I have found, in sharing my experiences, I rely heavily on words like myriad and juxtaposition. But these words do so little to actually communicate what I mean. Or at least they seem ineffective in comparison to what I see around me. How can I really demonstrate what I mean when I say there are myriad subtleties in the art of multilingual (or non-lingual) communication in Asia, or that Asia is replete with the most incongruously wonderful juxtapositions I have ever seen? Just saying it seems limited.

And why would it matter? Because, of course, with traveling comes the requisite sharing of said experiences, either with other travelers, or maybe with those who would, but can’t and those who could, but don’t. Ihave a great audience in my classroom for sharing, though I was reluctant to share my trips with my students in the US at first, a result of scars from having to endure my own Freshman English teacher’s every vacation to Hawaii (Mark Reischling I know you loved it, but us? Not so much.) Eventually I did begin to share and whether or not it had the Reischling effect on the kids, it totally changed how I traveled. I began to look around the world in a wholly new way; trying to see everything through the eyes of my students gave my trips a completely new focus. I brought back Vegemite and didgeridoos and boomerangs from Australia and let my students try all of them when we studied the region in Geography. I shared my photo essay of the street people and permanent protesters from D.C. when we covered Civil Rights and Liberties in Government class. I brought in albums from Italy when we studied the Renaissance in World History and the photos for my graduate thesis on Area 51 when we covered the Cold War in US History. Photos of the Ancient Agora and the Theater of Dionysus were passed around when we covered mythology and Ancient Greece. From Russia to Alaska to the Baltic States to Mexico and Jamaica – I wondered: What would my students find interesting, or surprising or bizarre… what might shock them? How could I impart what it was like to be in all these places… How could I create the sense of place in a way that they could relate to and provide context for what they were studying?

I read somewhere recently that the abundance of travel writing was getting simply ridiculous. Something to the effect that people live under the misconception that everyone wants to read about their every trial and tribulation on the road and that somehow a well-inked passport makes one the next great… well, you know, travel writer.  And I had to admit, it is kind of true. There are more travel blogs out there everyday, and in some ways, this might kind of be one. I do not read many of the travel blogs that profess to be the “key” to any sort of wisdom, and I love the idea that something one reads on the internet could in any way be “off the beaten track…” [Sorry Lonely Planet, I still love you and I turn to you often, but yo, you are way mainstream.]

Still, I have a certain love for travel literature.

I think my love for the genre has more to do with my innate nosiness. And my geographic inclinations. I like to read about the experiences that people have and see if I can relate/imagine/comprehend/covet/sigh-with-relief over their experiences. And I love to contemplate the complete sense of a place. My favorite travel authors include Hunter S. Thompson, John Steinbeck, Wendy Dale, Elizabeth Gilbert, selected works of Bill Bryson and one particular book by Michael Crichton.

Didn’t think those were all “travel writers”? HST’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, ‘72 are two of the most effective pieces of literature to capture to flavor of a region and a nation, respectively, ever written. Thompson was completely aware of the significance of creating a sense of place in his writing in order to offer a unique context that would contribute to the story in a way that dialog or description never could. John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley is brilliant in it’s ability to convey the vernacular geography of America and the attendant topophilia during the 1960s as he made his way around the country in his camper (named for Quixote’s horse, Rocinante) and his standard poodle, Charley. The themes in all three of these books are still completely relevant today – and totally worth reading if you have not.

Wendy Dale wrote a novel called Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals that I read while on a cruise in the Caribbean back in 2004, I think. Yes, I said cruise. And to that end I was with the least adventurous person I have ever known, bless his rigid cotton socks. That book saved me from myself on that trip and reminded me of my own adventures during a particular summer in Guadalajara. Most people are now familiar with Liz Gilbert, and those same people all seem to have very clear opinions on her work, specifically Eat, Pray, Love. I adored this book and found that, in many ways, Gilbert shared parts of the travel experience that others have overlooked, though I am sure that I fall into her target demographic so maybe that is why I liked it so much. I find Bill Bryson a bit much on times, I could not get through his book on Australia – while I was planning and traveling through Australia – but I love, love, loved The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America, detailing a 14,000 mile trip around the US in the late 1980s. Again, for the reasons that I have found particular travel literature so alluring, I like this book because it points out the little things that might go unnoticed, but make all of the difference. No one misses the Statue of Liberty or the Grand Canyon, but there is so much in between that really gives those experiences meaning…

So, when I write about share my travel experiences it is in a constant effort to impart the unseen, to share the texture and feel of the place through the less obvious experiences: it is the intention of communicating the sense of the place. ‘Sense of place’ has been defined a million ways. If you look to Wiki you get this as an introduction:

To some, it is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some do not, while to others it is a feeling or perception held by people (not by the place itself). It is often used in relation to those characteristics that make a place special or unique, as well as to those that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging.

As a teacher of Geography I have told my students it is the attempt to share the total experience of being in a place with someone who has not been there: what does it look like, smell like, sound like, feel like, even taste like… As a student of Geography I have been fascinated not only by the inherent nature of the sense of places, but also in placelessness and the love of places – topophilia. [Check out Yi-Fu Tuan.]

I have just returned from a long weekend in Saigon. If put to the task of ably communicating the sense of place in Saigon, could I? I could tell you that the texture of Saigon is tangible in every sensory way. I could tell you that the auditory experience of Saigon is immeasurable on any sort of scale I could describe. I could tell you that the juxtaposition of people, places and things cannot be enumerated. Would that be enough? I could tell you that I am constantly struck by the reality that such a great percentage of the world falls into a category easily labeled as “poor,” but they seem to take it all in stride so much more readily than I coped with my four hour delay. Would any of that give you a real sense of Saigon? If I tried to express the “emotional connections between physical environment and human beings” (Tuan’s definition of topophilia) would it be my own or those I had observed? Could I share the way that I see people around the world do the most ingenious things with what is on offer from their surroundings or is that suddenly my own emotional agenda?

More to the point, would it matter? And further… who am I to take up this endeavor?

I suppose the answers to those questions are what will indicate my status as a “Travel Writer.”

FYI: Some other notable books I consider to be brilliantly fantastic travel literature include: The Motorcycle Diaries, The Rabbit Proof Fence, Shutterbabe, and Long Way Round [I mean, Ewan McGregor in leather...?]

Every morning I wake up and I either am happy to see the sun rising in the east or it simply pains me greatly that I woke up, yet, again. The later is how I woke up today.

Most of the day was spent searching for something. Anything.

What came out of all of my searching were some questions and one simple answer.

1. Why do some people hold onto meanial things like beer caps or homework from childhood?
2. Do other women who suffered the tragedy of a miscarriage grieve years later for the baby/child that never came to be?
3. The one answer I came to believe is true to me this moment was that I was depressed because my body and mind still remembered that five years ago I miscarried a baby. It was the most horrible thing that happened to me.

I felt like avoiding everyone and anyone to wallow in my own self-pity, but then I made a decision to focus on what was happening around me. I thought about Christmas, and how it is about three weeks away. I looked at my son and wanted to draw nearer to him. I thought about how I still feel considerable grief over that loss, and how even though I think I am over it I still feel something inside of me years later. That realization was followed by my thinking of someone close to me who had abortions. I felt really sad for her. I felt like “I knew” why she held onto years of crap for no reason other than to hold onto something she could. And, then I thought about how old that child could have been. What a loss…a loss of life in so many ways. Yes, these feelings hurt me, but what I could do was pray for the unborn children and those people I felt on my heart.

I feel so thankful that I have a beautiful child in my life. He has given to me so much in the few years I have been blessed with. I see life differently. I see hope for the future not because of him, but because I have a purpose in my life with a message of hope for those who are hurting.

Which leads me to speaking with my son’s father. I had called him once before I actually got through to him and didn’t leave a message. The second time I called I got him on the phone. I spoke about the loss of our pregnancy in November 2004. I cried. I felt heart-felt sorrow for the way I’ve acted recently with him. I felt like that moment when we talked nothing else mattered. He heard me. I heard him. He still tried to comfort me from the pain I expressed over the loss of that pregnancy in 2004. I at times fail to give my son’s father a break in life over mistakes or things that hurt me.

I wish I could express or make up for all the times I screwed up. I wish I could take back so many things that drove a wedge in our hearts. That was then, this is now.

So, the hope I have in tomorrow’s sunrise is for me to remember that it is another day I am blessed with filled with new mercies and grace for me and those I love/loved.

When we imagine abstracts (universals or metaphysical rules, such as the laws of physics), we can only conceive of them in relation to what we can perceive.

This means we must speak analogously (metaphorically) about at least two things; nothingness and infinity.

The first, nothingness. The reason we can’t really think about nothing is because the very fact of thinking is something, which is entirely antithetical to nothing; and this acknowledgement of antithesis still doesn’t come close, because nothing is neither thesis nor antithesis. There is simply nothing to say about nothing; it isn’t the lack of something, for that isn’t nothingness, just the lack of something. Nothingness isn’t even the lack of something! It isn’t a vacuum, an absence, a lacking, it is nothing at all! This is why properly understood, nothing cannot and should not try to be described. We can understand what it is not, but we can not understand what it is.

Interestingly, scientists such as Stephen Hawking are prone to imagining nothingness as a vacuum especially when they posit that the universe is nothing more than a giant quantum fluctuation or, more properly so-called, “Quantum Vacuum Fluctuation.” Remember, nothing is neither quantum nor a vacuum; nothing neither fluctuates nor lacks fluctuation; properly, from nothing only nothing can come, and nothing can be said about nothing, because we can know nothing about nothing, because we only know something about something. Nothingness, because it cannot be perceived of in any way, can only be described by what we know it isn’t, which is to say that we can say nothing positive about it.

On the other hand, the opposite extreme of the infinite, again, we cannot say anything about it, because we cannot possibly perceive or experience the infinite. We can understand very large numbers, and understand that even very large numbers which are beyond our comprehension are not any nearer to infinity than the least of what we know. Thus, we can speak about infinity only negatively; we may not be able to describe what it is, but we can describe what it is not.

Infinity is boundless, without bounds. Infinity is limitless, without limit.

This is why St. Thomas Aquinas said that God is not of a genus; we may consider the things of the universe, and then we may consider God, but we cannot think about, say, an apple and then God as equivocally existing things. To understand it, think and contemplate these things;

The universe exists.

The world exists.

Matter exists.

This chair exists.

My trumpet exists.

God exists.

Do you recognize the incongruence? Before where we were thinking about contingently existing things, suddenly you were asked to think about something that has no reason for existing other than itself. To ask what caused God is silly, of course, but it can be answered that the reason for God exists is God Himself. This is not true of anything else we think that exists; there such an incongruence between these modes of existence that we should have to almost say;

1) God doesn’t exist as we know things to exist, but He IS

Remember, when God revealed who He was to Moses, He gave no name but “I AM THAT I AM.” For me, I am that I had parents who had parents who… and back through time to the beginning. God has no beginning, but just Is.

However, obviously leaving God’s existence to be described as “IS” isn’t sufficient according to what we need to be able to apprehend (though we might not necessarily be able to comprehend); there is worth to knowing whether or not God could be described as omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, immutable, etc. Thus, it should rather be stated;

1′) God IS such that we can only describe Him analogously (metaphorically)

The power of God is not power per se as we understand it, but we can describe Him as such as long as we remember that we aren’t describing the power of God such that we would apply it to a car engine, but rather as a metaphor, much in the same way as one would say “The hand of God.” Sure, God has no hand, but the assertion still has a valid and probably true meaning when applied in the correct context, such as “The hand of God divided the firmament and the earth.” (Read: God created space-matter)

This is why I’m wary about people saying they’ve experienced God, especially if they remain fundamentally unchanged. After Moses was given the privilege of seeing “God’s back” (and I can’t even begin to gander what that means) the Israelites needed to veil his face so that they wouldn’t be blinded.

Remember the distinction but important connection between abstraction and perception!

Visit our new social network,“Right Brain Cafe”, offering a casual setting to discuss in more depth the new insights about the right brain and its wonderful potentials for enjoyment.

You can refer to any blog or phrase you would like to further explore in a dialogue.

In addition the site also has pages for photos,videos,and music.

It does require a simple registration to become a member of the Cafe.

If you can think of a topic you would like considered please post it in a comment below.

Yesterday I was watching Devdutt Pattanaik talk on TED about East vs. West – The Myths that Mystify. I am a big believer in the power of stories and actually going through a process of understanding my own cultural mythology and basic stories these days. In a world that is turning more and more global where cultures clash almost on a daily basis, the understanding of our differences and the respect for the other is becoming more and more important. Pattanaik does a wonderful job in explaining some of the basic concepts that shape the Indian culture, and while theses are generalizations, I do believe that there are some truths in them (especially after reading Outliers). I highly recommended you watch this talk whether you plan to work in India and with Indian people or not as it casts a light on our own perceptions, assumptions and what shapes them.

However, one point resonated with me more than any other point in the talk. In the beginning of his talk Pattanaik tells about an Indian legend where the gods Ganesha and Kartikeya enter a contest. Who is the first that will go around the world? While Kartikeya flies around the world, Ganesha goes around his parents seven times. The he declares himself winner. When asked to explain, Ganesha says: “Kartikeya went around the world but I went around my world”.

The message that Pattanaik is trying to convey is that there is a difference between Indian and western cultures. While the west looks for rules and truth (the world) Indians have several truths (my world). We have to understand how these differences present themselves when these two cultures clash.

I think the idea of my world, your world and the world is even more profound and common. We actually deal with it every day. People tend to see the world through their own eyes. They perceive themselves and their actions as more important than they actually are. And they perceive things through personal lens. When they meet somebody else with the same disposition, they have a hard time to accept that there is a different world from theirs.

As managers, we try to create “the world”. An organization or team with culture, rules, assumptions and yes, even stories and mythology. This “the world” that we are creating is not only in a clash with our own personal world, but with other people’s world. Every day we experience a clash of cultures and worlds. Creating “the world” of an organization or team is a difficult job. We have to let go of our own perceptions of how things should be done. A world cannot be forced. It has to be developed. It has to be co-created. It has to grow out of partnerships.

As managers we need to remember that each employee has a world of his own.we need to remember that his world is different than ours and different than “the world” we are trying to create. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Different does not mean wrong. The challenge is to acknowledge the differences and find similarities and connections between the worlds in order align them.

So, next time you talk to an employee try to think about this war of worlds. Ask yourself – what is my world, your world and the world.

Elad

Gudabildens ansikte verkar röra sig, säger Akiyoshi. Hmm... kanske lite, då...?

“Fudomyuo with gastritis”

Fudomyuo = kind of god

The face appears to move.

Copyright Akiyoshi .Kitaoka 2009 (November 20)

]]> http://oxymoronism.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/emc2/ Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:00:46 +0000 James M M http://oxymoronism.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/emc2/ http://thesightlesssentinel.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/lateral-masking/ Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:38:38 +0000 THe SIGHTLESS SENTINEL http://thesightlesssentinel.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/lateral-masking/

“THE KIDNAPPER” Photographic print – Courtesy of the FANTOM FACTION

Things are always different on reflection. Present, past and future.

Opportunities, problems, places, plans. Lives lived and loves lost.

However a different angle is taken, physical or mental, a moment is a moment.

Empathise. Envisage. Reminisce.

Study a mirror. Use your crystal ball. Catch a glimpse in a shop-front window.

Bounce things around inside the mind.

See what comes out.

Sometimes up is down.

Sometimes you have to go to it. Sometimes it will come to you.

Points of view are infinite. And whose are they anyway?

Always with the questions. Rarely with the answers.

Everything and nothing matters.

We keep asking.

i have this friend named andrea, she is mixed (but not mixed up).
one day she told me a story of a tall and thin black man
who went to the hospital to adopt an indian boy.
the black man adopted the mixed girl instead.

five years later it was 1972 and the tall black man and the
nice white woman could not decide whether to check one box or two,
so they decided to check none at all.
andrea did not go to school that year, not the black school or the white school,
nor the next year as a court-case ensued.

she entered kindergarten at the age of 7,
father bought her red patent shoes.
as the children teased her she clicked her heels and thought of home.

i have this other friend who likes shoes, but she likes what goes in them better.

i once wrote a little diddy with a busted toe,
and i sent it to her, because i thought she would like it.
(i think she can identify everyone she knows by their feet, only)
instead of liking it she questioned it, seeing the toe.

seeing the toe.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

- Henry David Thoreau

Spending time with my family is always a grand occasion. There’s a lot of us, and when we get together it’s a loud, festive time. We all get along pretty well. We like to play games and laugh and catch up. Holidays mean massive quantities of food, creating quality moments with the ever-growing kids and reminiscing. 

My family is crazy. Seriously, insane. If I like you, I promise, I won’t leave you alone with them for long. If you’re not “one of us” then you’d be scared and nervous and looking for the nearest exit. And I wouldn’t blame you. I do the same thing. 

I love my entire family. But I will be totally honest and blunt when I say, I don’t necessary like them. At least, not all at once, in the same space for hours and hours and hours and hours. That’s pretty normal, I think (I hope). It’s the whole “I love you , now go away” thing.

We pick on each other in a harsh, but loving way. We tease and joke, but typically it’s harmless. Lately, though, there’s been an odd undercurrent of true aggression and malice. I don’t much care for that. Perhaps it’s just my perception, but I don’t know where the jokes end and the serious jabs begin sometimes.  Maybe I’m getting too sensitive in my old age, but I’m not down with the intentional hurting of feelings or trash-talking family members who have left the room. It’s odd, considering we’re all adults, but we’re behaving like spoiled children who need a serious time out.

I’m the youngest of the 7 kids and I’m typically the butt of many a joke, but I can take it and I’ve gotten quite skilled at dishing it right back. It’s a game.  Hey, I grew up with my brothers farting on my head … and I lived through that, so I can handle just about anything. It’s a strange form of love I suppose. They wouldn’t poke fun if they didn’t.

Lately I’ve been noticing just how varied we all are in our disfunction. We all have them. But the odd thing is, for as much as we love and care for each other, we never talk about the stuff that really matters. This infuriates me sometimes. The skeletons in the closet hang there, all dusty. We all know that there’s LOTS of really important things to talk about, but all we do is talk about the weather, our aches and pains, our travels, our work, our neighbors. We never talk about US. And I think we should. 

Well, we talk about the family members who aren’t present… we do that a lot. But if that person were in the room, we’d never touch the subject and go on about the warm weather or the last movie we saw. Very, very sad. 

I have 3 brothers, who were all present this holiday weekend – and I can honestly say, I didn’t get to talk to any one of them about anything of importance. I sure did try though. Seems like a waste. Well,  I did get to know them better – but in ways that they’re unaware of. Actions speak louder than words, and I was rather disappointed in some of the behaviors I witnessed. 

One brother of mine, who I see very rarely, let slip that his wife is a noted and self-proclaimed alcoholic. I took this as an opening, an opportunity to talk to him about his life … but he preferred to ignore my questions, take another toke and spew on about his favorite internet games. Wow. Considering he’s a few credits shy of a Ph.D in Psychology, I wonder what he would think of that, if he were sober. I don’t need a degree to realize the depth of his denial. Makes me sad. So, I listened for 3 hours about his online gaming and even pretended to be interested like a good sister … figured it was better than nothing. 

And then there’s my sister, whom I love dearly. She’s been battling severe depression for years, but doesn’t talk about it. She’s always smiling and laughing and does a very convincing job at pretending everything is absolutely wonderful. But I know better. Hell, I lived in her house for 6 months, I know. Her daughters know, her doctor knows … but she doesn’t do anything about it. It’s affecting her physically, and her body is breaking down from the stress of it all. How many times have I begged her just to talk to me, but then she just smiles and changes the subject. Oh, a lovely trek down Denial Road yet again. 

I could take a few guesses as to why she’s so unhappy. And I’m not afraid to say I’d be correct on at least half the time. But I’ll never really know, because she won’t open up to me, she’s emotionally shut down. Ahh, but you’d never know it. 

Her husband hates me, and I don’t know why. I don’t like to use the word “hate”, but in this case, it seems to fit. He doesn’t acknowledge me, even when I’m standing right next to him. He looks past me, he doesn’t speak to me, he won’t greet me or say goodbye, he accuses me of things I’ve never done – but never directly – and I have to handle the burden of his distant, incorrect judgement on my own. And it’s painful, knowing that I can’t just sit down and say, “Dude, what’ is up?” … cause I’ve tried and he is a stone wall.  And he’s a lively, fun guy – and nobody else in my family seems to notice his complete disregard for my presence. But I do the dutiful thing, I put my arms around him and say “thank you for inviting me”. I kiss his turned cheek in greeting while he rolls his eyes. But I do it for my sister, and for me. I don’t know why I’m so unlovable to him, and I may never know. Because my family doesn’t talk… and that makes me really sad. The last thing I want to do is make my sister more uncomfortable than she already is, and trust me, I’ve told her what’s going on … and all she will do is stand by her man. 

For as many of us as there are, you’d think we’d know one another a little better. For as intellegent as we are, you’d think someone other than me would catch on say, “Hey, this is the most important support system any of us have, let’s use it!” … but alas, I seem to expect too much.

But there are good moments, when I can put all the bullshit aside and connect with the young ones that are changing so fast. They are our family’s only hope. Seriously. And I’m proud of all my nieces and nephews as I watch them grow into capable, loving, creative people. My siblings are good parents, I will say that. And it gives me faith that if our generation can’t work through their shit, that hopefully the kids will do as I did when I was young, sit back and watch and learn from the errors of those that came before.

I started a new job recently.

On the first day I was supposed to get to work a little early to start some paperwork before the Monday morning meeting. Since I have time issues, I usually take some measures to ensure I’ll get there when I am supposed to (I don’t have a great internal mechanism for letting me know I’ve begun to be late). Part of my plan for this particular Monday was to drive out to the office at some point during the weekend, just to make sure I knew how long it took to get there (and therefore knew when to leave).

And then I never got around to it.

So there I was on Sunday night, relating this to a friend, and she asks me if I need to take off in order to take that drive. To which I reply, “Naw, I’ll just MapQuest it.”

And then I promptly got on the computer and used Google Maps to plot out my course.

As I thought about this later, this is what struck me. I say “MapQuest it,” even though I fully intend to use Google Maps, because “Google Maps it” just feels awkward coming out. It’s a testament to just how great the name MapQuest was when they branded their online map service in 1996. But the reality is, even though I probably say “MapQuest it” all the time, I haven’t used MapQuest since the day I found Google Maps. Yet here I am tossing their name around, and then doing something, which may look like it is associated with them, that isn’t connected with them at all.

So, this morning Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my front door. During their (disappointingly short) presentation they called themselves Christians. And, you know, they do stuff that looks like it is associated with Christianity, but in reality isn’t connected with it at all.

The church gets “MapQuest-ed” too.

And I don’t want to pick on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We’ve got people in the media, people in politics, people in other religious faiths, and people in pseudo-ministries who all toss around the word “Christian,” appearing to be associated with it, but in reality having no connection at all.

It’s a testament to the power behind the movement that was started by Jesus.

Paul wrote in Philippians:

“It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice. For I know that as you pray for me and the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will lead to my deliverance.”

It begs the question, “How can you be okay with people co-opting the message of Christ for their own gain? How does that benefit the message of the gospel?”

If I were to guess, I’d say that maybe in a time when the world had yet to hear about the resurrection of Jesus, however some spread the story, priming people’s hearts to hear the truth is a good thing. And that maybe it doesn’t matter if people are first exposed to a pseudo-gospel, or even an anti-gospel, because it will just make the real thing sound that much sweeter.

I suppose that Paul believed in the power of the truth. And that when the truth reached  a man’s heart, it was more powerful than any darkness that might have already been planted there.

“So,” he says, “let them preach. They think it will hurt me, but really it will just make the glorious truth all the more powerful when it leaves our lips.”

I have to admit that I am a bit inspired while thinking on this. Today, we don’t have any control over who does things in the name of “Christianity.” Terrible things have already been done in that name, and I’m sure there are terrible things yet to be done. But our responsibility is not to quiet their voices, but instead continue to lift up our own. We speak with the power of the truth and love; the power of salvation, and there is a world of hearts waiting to hear our words.

Theoretical Meaning :

The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one’s interaction partners, such that one’s behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one’s current social environment.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”

Have you ever noticed that you sometimes you lean forward when someone you’re talking with leans forward? Or you fold your arms when your friend folds their arm?

The Chameleon Effect is the unintentional physical and verbal mirroring between people who are getting along well. People may mimic each others’ body posture, hand gestures, speaking accents, and other behaviors when they are in rapport. The body is actually autonomously making the interaction smoother and increasing the level of liking while communicating.

Interesting Information and Experimental Studies:

http://snipurl.com/tgb3r

http://snipurl.com/tgbaj

Results show that others perception about you can in fact hurt your success be it in professional, personal or otherwise. The results show that stereotypes can affect future interaction and produce behavior in others that reaffirms one’s impressions of them. Other stereotypes such as sex and race should have similar effects. Thus events in the social world may be as much the effects of our perceptions of those events as they are the causes of those perceptions. Quantifying a person within certain limits, being judgmental about the person based on past mistakes or incidents etc seem to have a profound influence on the way one changes his/her behavior to resonate with the social environment around him. Interaction guided by perceptions causes a behavioral confirmation of the perceiver’s initial impressions.

Kluge Hans (better known as “Clever Hans”) was a most amazing horse!  He had the ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide by tapping out the answers with his hoof.  He could tell time and name people.  He could spell and solve problems involving musical harmony.

His owner, German mathematician Von Osten, began showing him to the public in 1891, and for years, Clever Hans amazed even the stoutest critics.  The horse could perform his tricks for randomly selected people with or without his master present.  It seemed impossible, but no one could deny the horse’s accuracy.

It wasn’t until 1904 when researcher Oskar Pfungst finally figured out how Clever Hans did it.  By testing the horse with a variety of constraints, he learned that Clever Hans was not so clever if he couldn’t see his questioner.  Also, if the questioner did not know the answer to a question, neither did the horse.

Following a hunch, Pfungst started observing the questioners more than the horse.  Soon, he discovered that Clever Hans was responding to subtle non-verbal cues from the people asking the questions.  They tended to tense their muscles until Clever Hans tapped out the correct answer with his hoof.  When he did, the questioner relaxed, signaling to the horse that it had reached the correct answer.  The horse could detect slight movements of a person’s eyebrows or a change in head position or an approving facial expression.  Clever Hans could even pick out a slight dilation of the questioner’s nostrils.

In the end, Clever Hans was most clever when people expected and wanted him to be clever.  Their anticipation of his correct answer provided him all the non-verbal feedback he needed to reassure their trust in his abilities.

Think about the implications for our human relationships.  If a horse is perceptive enough to read our non-verbals with such accuracy – even non-verbals that we are oblivious to sending – isn’t it possible that other people can pick up on them, too (if not consciously, then subconsciously)?  If you have high expectations for someone, it gets communicated in more than your praise.  If you have low expectations of someone, it leaks into every interaction you have with that person.  What you think about a person often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in your relationship.

When you have negative expectations about someone, you can try to fake your feelings when you are around them, but most people will see through your plastic efforts.  The only real way to make sure that you don’t communicate negative expectations is to change how you feel about that person.  In order to do that, you are going to have to change the story that you tell yourself about them.  You need a positive story to replace the negative one.  This is much easier said than done, but here are some suggestions:

• Assume positive motive. Maybe the person is the way he is or acts the way he does, because there is a good reason for it.  Maybe he means well and is doing the best he knows how to do.
• Consider that there may be extenuating circumstances. There may be factors outside of her control – things like the way the person was raised, the limitations on what they know or are able to do, the situation that they are currently in or other people and their behavior toward her.
• Examine your own accountability. Is there anything that you are doing that is making your interactions with this person worse?
• Get more information. Don’t make up your mind about someone or about the way someone behaves without first making sure that you have enough information to make an opinion.  Legion are the embarrassing stories where someone reacted to a small amount of information and later learned that they were missing the most important parts of the story.
• Lower your expectations. If the person can’t or just won’t change, lower your expectations of him.  You will be happier, because he won’t let you down all the time.
• Tell a bigger story. Maybe your story is too small.  For example, you are distracted by your teenager’s sloppy appearance and can’t help but comment on it each time you see her.  But how important is how neat she looks compared to the health of your relationship with her?  Maybe you could tell a story that says the health of your relationship is bigger and more important than your irritation over her appearance, and you are going to overlook her clothing choices in order to preserve open doors of communication with her.
• Pray for the person. Nothing is more effective at changing your heart toward another person than prayer.  Even if you struggle to be sincere with your prayers, make a commitment to pray for him or her until God gives you His heart for that person.

Change what you think (your story) about those around you, and you will change the relationship.  You might even find that your negative story has been the whole reason for the problems between you.  Change your story; change your world.

by Lauren Kennedy – http://www.InsitetoExcellence.com

“Knock. Knock.”

” Who’s there?”

” Truth.”

” Truth Who?”

” Mine or Yours?”

And there in lies the dilemma. And the source of immense conflict.

We like to think that truth is absolute, explicit, definite, unambiguous and most of all knowable. But what is truth? Are there universal truths that apply to everyone and everything, at all times, in every situation, rigid and inflexible? How do we know if something is, in fact true?

Following are the dictionary’s various definitions of truth.

* “Something that is factual.”

* “Something that is generally believed to be true.”

* “A fact or concept that is scientifically proven.”

* ” Conformity to a certain standard or law.”

* ” Something that corresponds to reality.”

* “A religious truth.”

But none of these definition unequivocally define a truth. Instead, they describe the methods that we use to validate a particular truth, or more accurately, a belief. Each of these methods are fallible, influenced by society’s views, upheld by those in power,or a mater of perception, control or convenience.

For instance, at one time Europeans generally believed that the world was flat. That was “something that is generally believed to be true.” Go too far and you fall of the edge of the earth they would say. Many people thought Christopher Columbus was sailing to his doom.

“A religious truth” was stated to be that the sun revolved around the earth. Anyone who dared to disagree was subject to prosecution. Therefore, that definition can also be fallible.

How about “conformity to a certain standard or law”? At one point in time, the standard and law in the south was that slavery was acceptable. Many people conformed in their beliefs and actions to the idea that slaves were sub humans, deserving no more respect than livestock. In time our laws matured enough to outlaw slavery. Unfortunately, some people have been slow to evolve or expand their perception and understand the spiritual principle of different but equal.

Let’s look at those ” things that correspond to reality.” At one point in time people believed that their own misfortune was the result of their neighbor, the witch. They were so certain of this reality that they eagerly sent one neighbor after another to the pyre without a second thought or moment of remorse. Conviction after conviction, sentence after sentence was carried out with no evidence, simply someone’s claim that their own misfortune must have been caused by a witch. And then they pointed the finger at someone they knew, one of their neighbors, relatives, the strange person in the village or someone who was an inconvenience or annoyance to them.

We may not burn witches at the stake, but we still seem to seek revenge as a way to ease the pain of a tragedy or react with fear in an attempt to control something that we find threatening.

Even scientist have had to revise the “facts that they thought had been scientifically proven.” When I was in grade school, I asked the teacher how long ago South American and Africa were joined together. She told me I had an over active imagination. Continents were way too large and heavy to move.

It always amazed me that scientists, could categorically reject the obvious based on their inability to explain it. Everyday scientists are discovering new information that dispels some of their most dearly held convictions.

Misleading is Untruthful

Another problem with facts as truth is this. If I chose, I could recount a situation or incident to you, giving you the facts, never uttering a false word, and still lead you to a false conclusion. Now, consider the public relations advisers, the spin professionals, who aren’t concerned if a minor untruth slips in now and again. They can have you skipping down the Yellow Brick Road ready to ambush the Big Bad Witch with nothing but the the shiny ruby red shoes they sold you to put on your feet.

Our Five Senses Are Limited

Many people still hold to the concept that reality is what we can see, hear, taste, smell or touch. If it doesn’t register with one of our five senses, it doesn’t exist. This is amazing in the era of atom bashing and quark detection (subatomic particles that scientist can’t even see). So how do they know they exist?

Consider the air on a still day. You can’t see, hear, taste, touch or smell it, except perhaps on a hot day in New York during a garbage strike. But if you look at a tall tree, you will notice that its leaves at the very top are slightly swaying. In the same way, scientists know that quarks exists by the reaction and results that they observe when smashing particle together at incredible speeds.

Some dogs can smell cancer cells long before our sophisticated instruments can detect them. Birds can see radiation the same way that we see color. Before technology, humans were unable to see or detect that part of the light spectrum. Does that mean it didn’t exist? Of course, if they were avid sun bathers, they did notice the effect of some parts of the invisible light spectrum.

Other animals can detect the earth’s magnetic force, a useful sense for navigation when you don’t have hands to hold a compass. And what about people who are colorblind and can’t differentiate red and green. Does that mean that those colors don’t exist? Are the rest of us are just imagining them, or dreaming them.

Religious Truths

Religious truths are a real quagmire. Everyone thinks that their sacred texts, and their interpretations are the ultimate truth. Many of these stories were passed for years from one person to another by word of mouth until they were finally transcribed. Have you ever played telephone? The quagmire gets deeper still, when one considers translation, colloquialisms, and the writings that were omitted, at least from the Bible, for reasons of control, power, bias, by the early clergy to gain power and control for their version of religious truth. The first to fourth century religious elders and popes were more concerned about obtaining a power base and choosing scriptures and interpretations that validated their traditional social views, than they were about ensuring that the spirit and message of the word of Christ was accurately preserved.

Facts, Beliefs, and Truth

The fact is that most of the ideas or concepts that we label as truth are actually beliefs, not provable facts, hence not the truth. Even the dictionary’s definitions for truth do not actually define it. Their definitions just describe our system for proclaiming that something is the truth at a particular point in time. The problem is that facts change, our version of reality changes, laws and standards change, society changes and different religions have different versions of the truth according to God.

In general, our beliefs have more to do with maintaining our comfort zone, than they do with discovering the truth.

The Best Definition

The best definition that I discovered, the one that has the potential to come closest to the truth was this: “An accurate account or description of alignment, setting, position or shape.”

But once again, this definition is also subject to error. Giving an accurate account depends on what we perceive. As mentioned earlier, we can only perceive what our senses detect. A dog may hear something that we cannot or an eagle may see something we could not. Unfortunately, we can not understand other species’ language, although our pets, with inferior intellectual capacities (according to our truths), have learned to understand some of ours. Hence we are unable to benefit from the information they gather with their more acute senses.

Perception Obscures the Truth

The next obstacle is our mental perception. We often only see what we expect to see. In addition, we make assumptions about what we see, based on our experiences, our beliefs, our attitude, our fears and our biases. These assumptions can occur automatically and lightening quick, so we are not aware of the process. By the time the situation registers in our conscious brain, some information may be excluded, some information inferred, and some created. But to our mind, it is what happened, it is the truth.

Are you beginning to see the dilemma? And just to really make your head spin, consider this. If we really create our life situation as some beliefs suggest, and if human consciousness influences the world, world situations, and even DNA, then may be we are constantly creating a new reality. According to the dictionary one definition of truth is reality. If we are indeed creating new realities, then are we also creating new truths?

How does one make choices when truth appears to be plastic and malleable, debatable, changeable and unknowable? How can truth be a fixed, unchanging declaration, when the basis for truth, reality, is subject to change? And it not only reality that may be subject to change, our perceptions definitely change moment to moment.

Honesty Is the Best Policy

Honest communication can eliminate much of the confusion and misinformation that occurs, even if we have yet to discover the ultimate universal truths. Truth and honesty, in practice, are not necessarily the same thing. I can inform you of a situation, perhaps a new policy coming up for a vote, or relay a description about a course of action that someone followed, etc. I can present the facts, never uttering a falsehood, but still (intentionally or otherwise) lead you to a false conclusion or impression. I have been technically and legally truthful. But I have still been dishonest, manipulative and deceitful. So that is a practice that I avoid, however tempting or superficially self serving it may appear to be.

The Benefits of Rigorous Self Honesty

The discipline of rigorous self honesty is a powerful practice that brings clarity, insight and direction to my life. This means that I am honest with myself and others about my intentions and motives. I don’t mislead myself or others about my true motives in order to make a good impression, manipulate opinion, or control behavior. Engaging in emotional blackmail by instilling fear, guilt or power plays is equally dishonest.

Honesty includes living with authenticity and integrity, meaning that my choices, decisions and behaviors are congruent with my principles, priorities, beliefs. Rigorous self honesty also includes acknowledging my true feelings, needs and fears. To accomplish this level of honesty requires present moment awareness, courage and objective self observation.

My own record is far from perfect. My quest to uncover my true feelings, needs and intentions, has been a difficult and sometimes painful feat, especially for a woman who spent over half her life playing a academy award version of Pollyanna meets superwoman. For a time, I had even convinced myself that the following beliefs were indeed the truth:

*I didn’t need anyone nor their help;

*I had no resentments; I was never angry, nor did I have the right to be angry;

And favorite false belief -

*My stoicism was a reflection of my inner strength, self discipline, clear headed thinking, and objectivity.

Now I strive to be honest about my intentions, feeling, needs and desires, especially with myself. The price of this level of self honesty can result in being misjudged, feeling and at times being vunerable and accepting that by choosing to remain true to my values and priorities, I may loose a few battles. But the reward sensational.

Now I am a clear headed thinker. I can be objective in most situations and I can admit the few with which I still struggle. I no longer need to project an image of strength and self control as the armor of self righteousness to protect myself from criticism. Now I have realized the strength to look within; the tenacity to look behind my defenses; the knowledge and support to resolve, understand or accept the pain/fear that trigger those defenses; the awareness to respond with honesty and wisdom, rather than react and avoid with the same old defenses; the discipline to experience fully my life and my feelings now, thus releasing their grip on me and enhancing my character, wisdom and perspective; and then summon my courage, as I continue to peel back the layers, expose the real gift (my innate essence). And then the ultimate reward is revealed as I am immersed in the freedom, passion and empowerment that flows through me as I express and experience the truth of who I am.

And that is the ultimate truth that  is available to each one of us should we choose to uncover it.

Our true feelings are often inconvenient, contrary to society’s image of a strong, responsible and positive person, triggering our sense of vulnerability. But we have been sold a pack of lies. It takes a far more courageous and much stronger individual to acknowledge their own truth than it does to avoid and resist it by substituting pretty thoughts and acceptable emotions. When we avoid, dismiss, deny, or cover our feelings they are not eliminated .

What we resist, persists, and that includes our feelings.

In order to become who we want to be, in order to reach our potential, we must first acknowledge, accept and experience who we truly are. To remodel a house, I must first understand what I want to change, what I want to keep, what elements work and which do not. I must uncover the cracks in the foundation, the leaks in the pipes, the mold in the basement. I can choose to remain unaware of them, and just apply a quick coat of paint and a positive attitude, but the cracks, leaks and mold will eventually topple the structural foundation around me.

We do not change what we refuse to acknowledge.

We may not agree on what is “The Truth,” but we can discover our own inner truth, the truth of who we are. Then through objective observation we can discover and fix the cracks, mend the leaks and eliminate the harmful mold within. If we refuse to honestly experience and release our feelings, if we resist honestly acknowledging our true motives and hidden agendas, those lies will destroy our inner foundation. When we ignore, cover up or deny our feelings, priorities, motives, and needs, we loose our connection with our true source of wisdom.

We resist acknowledging those personal truths,(feelings, intent, motives) that we judge to be negative. But their existence will not be denied. In our attempt to ignore them or cover them up, their energy(that we have judge to be negative) simmers inside and grows in strength. The more we resist it, the more our own truth persists in its need for expression and release. Eventually, in spite of our best efforts, it will surface through emotional outbursts, compulsions, justifications, compromised principles and emptiness. The truth that we are trying so hard to control, deny, and avoid experiencing will eventually control and destroy us unless we begin to embrace the truth of who we are being.

Our feelings hold a wealth of information. Acknowledged, experienced and released, they dissipate quickly and thus have no energy to attract negativity. Observing our feelings, motives, intentions,and fears, informs us of the cracks in the foundation that need healing, identifies the fears that leak in and obscure our perceptions and reveals the mold that is blocking us from expressing our truth, our essence, our spirit.

Feelings are the language of our Soul. And that may be as close to a source of truth as we may be able to achieve. So why do we regularly avoid or ignore our personal path to our truth?

Honesty is Living Our Own Truth

I don’t have to know “The Truth” to be honest in my interactions with life, with others and with myself. If I am true to my priorities, purpose and beliefs, if I consciously choose to live and express the truth of who I am, if my focus is authenticity and integrity , then I will never live a lie. As I grow, my priorities and beliefs may change. My truths may even evolve and expand. But by adhering to the principle of self honesty, I will never live a lie. And I will have lived my truth.

Each moment that we choose to be honest and authentic, we are living our truth. And by focusing on our own inner truth, we will know and recognize The Truth when it comes to knock on our door.

“Knock. Knock.”

” Who There?”

” Honesty.”

” Honesty Who?”

“I am honestly living my truth.”

You have the right and responsibility to live yours.

I got the below email from a friend this evening. Said friend does not work in IT. He works in a large organisation with a large and active IT department that might just be forgetting they provide a service as opposed to laying down the law…

****************************************************************
Hi Martin

For the last few weeks since {an edited out software virus disaster} we have been bombarded with unsolicited security policies from I.T. They pop up during the 10-15 minutes it takes to logon to our computers. You then have to download the policy and sign at the bottom to say whether you accept or decline the policy. When I scanned through the 10th policy I was struck by the fact that none of it applied to my area of responsibility except for one small part that had been covered in excruciating detail in one of their previous pathetic attempts at communicating what is expected of us. And all said missives using what looks like a variation of the english language. Having skipped the policy during a number of recent logons I was now being informed that it is “mandatory” to accept the policy or decline it giving a reason. I declined giving the above observation on the lack of relevance to my role as a reason.

I have now been informed that it is not possible to issue only the relevant policies to individuals (and presumably having identified this is not possible, have not bothered trying in the first place?) and in any case there might come a time when I “might” be given a task where the latest I.T policy applies and therefore I have to be aware of the existance of the policy. I think this latest one was something to do with purchasing software packages from suppliers -although this isn’t entirely clear. There is no way that I would be allowed to purchase software packages, which is a shame as there are off the shelf products that do what we require, whereas the in-house system foisted upon us simply does not provide any reliable or useful information what-so-ever.

The following senario occurs to me. I write a policy on controlling legionella – not unreasonable given that we have swimming pools, showers, air con etc. in our premises. I then send a copy to every employee requiring them to open it — expect them to read it —- understand it —- and accept it, “just-in-case” they get asked to go and run a sports centre. What response do think I would get?

Although the risk of catching legionella is low, people have died as a result, but we do not require everyone to sign a policy for this or any of the other more serious hazards they face at work. I am not aware of any software-purchasing-related deaths of late. For dangerous stuff employees sign one policy when they join the organisation. If they have to deal with a hazard we make them aware by warning them about it and if necessary give them additional training, guidance and support so that they can manage the risk in accordance with the overall policy.

Perhaps we have got this wrong. Maybe we should require all computer users (just for example) to complete a workstation assessment online every day when they start work – and if they don’t their computer should blow up in their face and a guilotine then drop from the ceiling removing their hands so they can’t sue for RSI or eyestrain.

That’ll teach them
************************************************************

I hope I have never been responsible for inflicting enough inconvenienve on my users to make them as aggrieved and angry as my friend.. Thing is, I now worry that I might have…

.

.

I’ve done nothing wrong
I’ve am not that strong
I’ve done nothing wrong to you

Only the weak defend me
Only the weak pretend that

I tried makin sense
I got no defense
I lost all pretence for you

And only the loved believe me
And only the pure can see that

You didn’t waste all that time
You just leave forever
You couldn’t say you had it all
You want only better

You, what you say
Looks behind the day
And you, what you say
Just love me and away

.

. /.  Mesh – Only Better

These are reaaallllyyy old – about 4 years! But I like them.

i have been studying off and on about the origins of scripture. A good book to start with would be “The Bible: The Biography” by Karen Armstrong.

According to history, during the birth of civilization, when the world was immensely tribal (still is in some sense), the Jewish people were worshipping and sacrificing to a pantheon of gods that were rife in that part of the world. Baal, Ra, and then there was this warrior god called Yahweh. Now, he was part of the pantheon as well. (Research Google: ‘Yahweh’, ‘Warrior’) He was known to be a jealous god. well, if you were a warrior god, i think anger management would definitely be on the list of things to deal with.

Somewhere in their history this band of traveling nomads came upon the one and only God. And they begin using titles like Yahweh to describe their understanding of God. Now, this is where the details get fuzzy. Because, either the Jews were projecting their beliefs on this new God or God was YHWH all along. What I can’t seem to get away from is the reality that the Jews were writing about God from their perspective. I wonder, since they were human, if they too got their perception of God wrong? That maybe the verses we have come to quote are specific interactions with the divine, but it was a record of them getting it right and getting it wrong. They weren’t shy enough to not share both. They thought it was important to share both to let us know we could do the same. And it is with the Bible I make my case. Now, before I go on, I know this incredibly murky subject. I don’t presuppose that the Bible isn’t useful or that it can’t be used by God, but many in the conversation would almost seek to deify scripture. And scripture even says scripture isn’t the point or plumbline with which we should live by. Even when the Jews talk about the law which in Hebrew is the word ‘halakh’ it means ‘to walk’….to be a Jew was to journey. To find God is to journey, not read about Him in a book. Sure, we can start there. But, what is the Bible; a collection of ‘experiences’ from the ‘chosen’ (I think the Jews thought this) one of God. Like one of my friends reminded me recently, the Bible was written in hindsight. For example, when they went to war and lost, it could be possible that they looked back on it and thought they must have ’sinned’ against their God, couldn’t they? Which was a prevalent view in most religions in this time in history. Now, its’ gets scary when someone might respond with such assurance about these events, because neither of us were there. This is simply to open dialogue on the subject. When the Bible talks about the word of God, most would interpret that phrase to mean the Book….yet the phrase when separated out from the Greek or Hebrew signifies a person. It signifies a relationship.

And so it is important to understand that when we come to scripture that all the things that were recorded weren’t meant for us to go and find a way to see how God works, or to apply situational ethics or to create a doctrine. It was meant to show us what it looks like to be in a relationship with the Divine and how the divine thinks we all could be just like Him/Her.

And people wrote it, either with an audience or a message in mind. For example, Luke had a heart for the Samaritan and so added a whole bunch of stories about Jesus interacting and restoring the status’ of Samaritans. John was writing to a Greek community of people. The OT writers were writing to fellow community members (some of the time). And sometimes what they record is people getting it wrong. But not even that, I think we reduce the message if we began using ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ language. It is a series of stories of a people who thought that their God chose them to deliver a message globally, and they soberly wrote that they didn’t get it many times. That that is what the Divine wanted of them. I think somewhere along the way God showed up and did decide to use Israel as the messengers, but I also think that the ‘people of God’ recorded their perspectives, points of view, and theological standpoints and even when they misunderstood (which some people take their misunderstandings and create theological statement out of them.) and when they found their way. Beautiful stuff when that happens!

The Bible points to relationship. To romance. Not a set of rules. Romance that drips with mysterious intrigue.