Control? (Moving into action)

Life has no “purpose,” it just is.  Linear intellect and instrumentalism are tiny, tiny portions of what is and what can be observed.  “My” “life” is so important to me because it’s all I’ve been aware of – but it’s a tiny portion of what exists. 

First exercise: 

1)    Stretch each of my major muscles.

2)    Stand;  using a wall as little as possible, begin to teach my muscles how to support my body on one foot.

3)    Stand on both feet;  dim the lights.  Close my eyes;  breathe.  After a bit, imagine that I’m dead.  “I” am gone, kaput, a memory in a few people’s minds, but not in my own.  What remains?  A great deal, and what certainly is gone are all my concerns.  (Those concerns were not silly or trivial – when there was an “I” to protect, they made “sense.”  But without an “I,”…)

This was surprisingly successful, though I couldn’t keep it going for very long.

Control? (Day 3)

I’ve spent much of the past three days reading Michael Pollan’s 2019 book How to Change Your Mind.  I’m not a book critic, so I won’t rehearse its strong and weak aspects.  Nor will I try to encapsulate it – rather, here’s what I’m taking from it, even if some of this was not in the book.

Most successfully functioning adults have honed a strong ego that dominates our consciousness and actions.  We have things to accomplish, so we seek to use our prior experiences to simplify, categorize, and objectify situations, cause/effect, objects, people, and even our feelings.  Our frustrations, tensions, and fear of death stem in part from our understanding that we as individuals are: 

·  the only way we can understand and be in the world (“I don’t perceive it, so it’s not there.”)

·  rational, logical, and efficient

·  in control of cause and effect.

            What I’ll call pyscho-active substances (“drugs” implies manufacture, but some of the substances are easily ingested from nature) numb the parts of the brain that control ego (the sense of self) and allow more parts of the brain to come to the fore and to interact with one another.  What most “trips” have in common:

·  the destruction of the sense of individual existence, separate from other things, life forms, and people;

·  recognition that existence is very much possible without a “self”;

·  much heightened awareness of everything that surrounds us:  light, music, memory, objects, people, life forms -- experienced as if for the first time;

·  connection among these things – so that light may become music, music becomes life forms, memory becomes objects, life forms become music – and allowing changes in any of these things to affect the awareness and perception of any of the other things.

            As a result, many people experience a strong sense that:

·  everything is connected;

·  one’s self and one’s body are shells that get in the way of recognizing these connections;

·  stripped of ego and concerns for one’s body, one becomes comfortable with and even supported by these connections, recognizing that memories are real and existence (but not of the self) continues before “birth” and after “death” of the self.

            These experiences/recognitions explain the effects of these treatments:  seeing everyday things as if for the first time (rather than relying on a memorized checklist: “trees,” “rain clouds,” “John”);  the outpouring of support and empathy (love) that subjects feel during and after the experience;  reducing the existential dread of death.  The opening of connections among senses and experiences allows some people to break free of recurrent fears or well-honed habits like addiction.

            Similar (but usually less strong) responses result from affecting the brain through Buddhist training, meditation, or rhythmic hyperventilation.  This gives me the tiniest bit of insight into the practice of meditation.

Control? (Day 2)

Forty-eight hours in:

Ever since I was a pre-teen, angered by my parents’ authority to tell me when to go to bed, when to play outside (play what?  with whom?  in the heat and humidity of South Carolina?), I’ve been driven to work for control over my own life.  This drove me to leave for college at 16 years old, to select a career that allows a great deal of control over my day, and now to retire relatively early and practice saying “no” to potential commitments. 

            To be honest, I think my love of painting (especially in opaque media) manifests my desire to control.

            Now that I’ve gained that measure of control I’ve striven for, I need to learn to let go of some elements of control.  Most importantly, how can I deeply recognize that I don’t (never have, never will) control the key elements of health, wealth, and death?  Less importantly, how can I become more resilient in the face of tiny shocks:  a sudden noise, someone walking into a room unexpectedly, a dead bird on our deck, a power outage, things like that? 

            What can I learn from times when I have shown resilience – when something happened that could have made me “crumble,” but I didn’t? 

1.     Play to my strengths.  My predilection for organization is not a bad thing.  In fact, it’s an important basis for resilience – I know what and where my resources and strengths are.

2.     Just tell myself to be resilient.  I would like to be less high-strung and startled by surprises, but I think that may be the way my nervous system is wired.  So when I’m startled, flick that switch that says “Surprise (or dismay) has been registered.  Get over it.”

3.     Use temporal perspective.  At my age, everything is temporary.  Let’s say a disgusting, gun-toting, bigoted, ill-tempered, homophobic couple buys a house next door or across the street.   Within five years, either they or we will have moved away or died.  At 25, five years is a long time (time enough to get through college, or marriage and first child, or grad school).  At my age, five years is merely another 1800 days.

4.     Try repeating three mantras, perhaps as I get out of the shower, as I stretch, and during that 2:30-3:30 a.m. hour when I am usually wide awake in bed:

a.    I am not in control.

b.    I am part of everything, and everything is part of me.

c.     Death represents the loss of body and ego.  It will be wondrous.

Perhaps work on the wording until they’re more rhythmic and more meaningful.

(Cross) cultural appropriation in the arts, 3

The arguments favoring versus condemning cross-cultural appropriation grow from very different conceptions of art, artists, and cultures.  Legal scholar Rosemary Coombe [1993] has identified two seemingly opposing bases for the defense of and arguments against intangible cross-cultural appropriation, which she calls “possessive individualism” versus “cultural essentialism.”  

  “Possessive individualism” is the Western Romantic ideal of the artist (writer, composer, choreographer) who takes all ideas to which “he” has been exposed, and through force of will, discernment, and creativity brings forth a new work.  If the work becomes highly regarded, it is a result of “his” genius.

                   “Cultural essentialism” implies that each person belongs to a single cultural tradition from which that person draws most of their identity or “voice,” and that the strength of their identity, the integrity of their voice, is diminished when others use elements of that tradition in their own voices.  It relies on the equally Romantic ideal of a homogeneous “people” or “culture” which jointly create and own artworks, stories, and styles. 

 There are important reasons why members of less-dominant groups (and I don’t necessarily mean ethnic minorities – this could pertain to women in our broader current culture) may use themes or styles from the dominant culture without causing harm.  The most fundamental is this:  The dominant culture is promulgated broadly – in some cases, has been forced on Native Americans and Australians, or on Africans brought to North America as slaves – and members of these less-dominant groups also belong to or “own” elements of the dominant culture.

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Coombe, R.J.  1993.  The properties of culture and the politics of possessing identity: Native claims in the cultural appropriation controversy.  Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 6(2): 249-286.