Developing Usable Experiences

Wandering and the middle way

November 13th, 2006 8:38 am —  91 views

The middle is way is often described as that place between two extremes. I used to talk about this notion with a friend of mine that is a dairy farmer. He would argue that extremes are different for everybody and that across the span of days, months and years things naturally balance themselves out. I suppose he was also making the case that finding the middle sometimes meant exploring some limits, sometimes in an way that would seem extreme. Exploring can be important to finding balance. But exploring without the intention of finding balance might be nothing more than wandering aimlessly. Wandering aimlessly might be necessary to realize intention but could take much longer than directed and intentional study.

I did call my Mother the day after her birthday and we had a nice chat. She is doing better these days. But there was a time…not long ago, that…well. Now is not the time for that story.

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Truth, writing and birthdays.

November 8th, 2006 1:07 am —  148 views

Today was my mother’s birthday. She is twenty years older than me (you figure it out) and I didn’t get a hold of her today to tell her “happy birthday”. Not that this is required of course, I did send a card. But its nice to hear from people on your birthday. I tried to call her in the afternoon but nobody answered the phone. I learned later when I called again (she had gone to work…her first day at a new job) that she was napping. I tried. I’ll call her tomorrow and see how things went.

I spent the better part of this evening revising two assignments that are due tomorrow. After some constructive input from those around me whose opinion I value, I revised my writing yet again. Shorter sentences, clearer meaning, less ambiguity. Writing is tough…each word like a drop of blood sometimes. I didn’t think of that saying but read it somewhere and identify with it these days more than ever.

As for my liturgy on Truth (again with the big “T”)…I meant it when I said it wasn’t over. Until the spark fades from this meat puppet I can’t rightly ever say its ever over. See, truth is nothing more than the sum total of everything that is happening each and every moment. Sounds simple I realize but this means that each and every one of us has a unique and valid perspective on truth as its happening. Because of our brain and imaginings we color what we see oftentimes, but that doesn’t invalidate that a perspective is any less than another.

We see things as they are around us. No two persons can inhabit the same physical space to see things the same way at the same instant. From moment to moment, the truth that we each experience is different, unique and legitimate. Suzuki says, “Not Always So” and isn’t that the truth! Truth is change. Truth is now. Truth is what you seek whether you admit it or not. The very fact of living is a way of seeking truth. Breathing is experiencing truth and how often do you really pay attention to that? Until something interferes I suppose…

Truth is that it’s after midnight (the second night in a row that I’ve seen the clock above me roll it’s digits into the next day) and I must now go brush my teeth, wash my face and go to bed. There is nothing and there is truth. Don’t trust any of it.

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Writing as a labor of love or torture, maybe both.

November 7th, 2006 8:39 am —  124 views

Our midterms writing assignments were returned last night and my first reaction was one of unhappiness and frustration. I didn’t do as well as I had hoped and have reflected on why that might be.

As I continue to find my “voice” in writing, I’m veering all over the place. One attempt is too conversational, not academic enough, another is too academic and not conversational enough. It’s tough to find that middle-of-the-road-happy-place that makes for smooth reading with insightful meaning. I’ll find it though. It’s in me somewhere, I can feel it trying to find it’s way out.
Perhaps I’m just trying to hard.

Admittedly I’m the type of person that works things through by talking them out…which doesn’t always translate well into writing. While I understand the concepts being taught and can relate them to real life circumstances, my attempts to articulate them go all awry and end up as long unnecessarily complex sentences which leaves my reader holding their breath waiting for it to end…and thankful when it does! That’s no good.
This exercise in articulation continues. *sigh*

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Truth and “sense-making”

November 3rd, 2006 8:32 am —  163 views

Before I get all crazy and lost in the philosophical waters of truth I need remember the truth of this context. This context being the one wherein I’m pounding my fingertips on this keyboard in a cold basement office early in the morning sipping coffee with a small space heater blowing at my feet. I’m blogging as an exercise in articulation and not to get all “philosophicallacious” on some soapbox being a oneway street selling ideas. Okay. Maybe that is part of this but still, I have to remind myself that blending ideas being taught in my classes with my persistent patterns of thought and habituation will help me retain what is being taught.

The topic being considered this week in a class on social systems and collections is that of “sense-making”. The heading in the syllabus is “Social systems produce value through sense-making”. There is much to say about sense-making. While reading a couple chapters in a book on sense-making I was struck by similarities to buddhism. Worth noting at this point is that the notion of “Truth” that I started on the other day is realized in the practice of buddhism and it is through my studies on buddhist understanding and practice that I was able to articulate to myself a satisfactory explanation of truth. It took awhile, just like it is here, but that really doesn’t matter. This is an exercise in articulation. It doesn’t matter if its read or not.

Central to all sentient beings is conscious awareness. Paying attention to what is going on around you is critical to the preservation of the self and the accumulation of knowledge. Our brains allow us to context-shift between different categories of thinking. That is not entirely accurate becase thoughts aren’t really categorized until we say they are categorized but I won’t go into that right now. Saying this another way, in order to stay alive and function with other beings, one has to be aware of their circumstances. Since awareness is controllable and can be broad or focused, many details go unnoticed. With our complex brain we are able to mentally reconstruct and re-enact circumstances (missing tons of detail of course) in a way that affords reflection and analysis. By doing this and other mental things while at the same time paying attention to what is going on around you is what allows one to make sense of truth.

Put one way, “truth” itself is nothing more than the edge of this vast cosmic knife slicing it’s way through the fabric of nothing. Nothing before, everything after. All awareness relies on this single knife edge and all beings share this truth, this moment, this “now”.

Getting all “zen buddhist”, truth is “what is” and to understand truth in this way is to pay attention and look around you. Our memory allows us to preserve a few scant details but immediately begins modifying and embellishing those details. The act of thinking and remembering is not this. This is this and there is no substitute. Needless to say, what we remember is never what actually happened, but that doesn’t matter. It only matters when what is remembered is utilized in some way.

Thinking requires memory. We can think because we have memory. It is thinking and awareness that powers sense-making. We are constantly cycling through what is coming in from the senses and what is being held in our memory all the while thinking and moving ourselves about in some magical way governed by impermanent structure that seems like freedom. The seemingly endless cycle of thinking is what makes time and without truth as I have described it there is nothing. Literally nothing.

But getting back to truth, at least from where this thinker sits, I must be getting to my habitual patterns for a “Friday”. Thanks for listening but this isn’t over. Not at all.

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