2018.05.23 - Day 70

'I mean that all you can know—not believe, but know—is your perceptions, feelings, and thoughts in this very moment. That is your reality. The guy or gal standing right beside you might be living in a very different world.'

I think Tart is also saying this. Coming back to what's here right now and not our beliefs and stories about everything. It's a bit like what I said about drawing - the skill is in seeing what is actually there rather than a kind of stock image the brain has stored. And don't we have a stock, frozen, set of assumptions about people we know and expect them to live up to the role we impose on them? Instead of allowing them to be the dynamic, living, ever-changing process they actually are?

Saltzman, Robert. The Ten Thousand Things (p. 85). Kindle Edition.

unlearning isolation

Event invitation - one I receive every year but never attend, large party on the beach thrown by family I didn't grow up around. Nice people - people who try to make me feel like family in the same way as several friends' families have over the years: "You are family!" means something like, "You're welcome and wanted at all our events."

Some years I haven't gone because of my health (the first week of July is brutal in Florida and I have to stay out of the sun), but now that the kids are grown I could probably arrange a situation where I don't have to be in full exposure. I need to understand better why I'm hesitating. It is OK not to go... but if I don't, do I continue some pattern that might be worthwhile to interrupt?

Yesterday in dream session we touched on Krishnamurti's notion that all choices rise from confusion - an interesting idea which at times like this I'm tempted to respond to with, "Yeah, and, so...?" :) edited 17:27, 23 May 2018

One Riddle had a RL friend.

Years ago, on first meeting, our partners went off into closed close conversation together. He turned and asked "What do you really want to be doing?". It become a long answer. When it hit something that was his expertise, he interjected. Writing, all that advice down and following it became a successful business adventure.

Watching old age take that brilliant mind. The last time, helped him to find the bathroom. Then helped him find his wife again.

Les died today. Will go to a funeral tomorrow.


Years ago, Father went into the bathroom and shut the door when he felt tears might come. That generation men could not show emotion.

Glad to live in this generation.

Guessing some words that should say... Go be with family, go be with friends, hug your kids, wave to neighbors, return the love, etc. etc. etc. etc. edited 02:28, 24 May 2018

((((Riddle)))) No adequate words. What good fortune to have and have been/be, such a friend.

Eliza, your exploration of unlearning isolation resonates with me. I live a largely solitary life, and find I am often ambivalent about attending events that will bring me into interaction with people. There is a part of me that does not want to be bothered with it, and another part that thinks, "This would be good for me." And maybe another part that genuinely wants to step outside of my usual perimeter and engage. The interaction among those three parts makes for an intricate dance. After attending such an event, I am almost always glad that I did, and also glad that it is over so that I can return to the comfort of solitude.

I am nearing the end of the book by Charles Tart, and am still wondering if I can connect his practices of self-remembering and self-observation with other "practices" that are or have been important to me, including lucid dreaming, Eckhart Tolle's presence, and Eugene Gendlin's Focusing.

My father, humanist to the last, and putting his nurses' needs above his own, would replace the grimness of stoicism with cheerfulness. And he would say, "There's nothing wrong with sentiment."

He also predicted, as I wandered through my religious and philosophical studies and practices year after year, that I would end up, like him, a humanist. He was a great man. How honored I feel, and how humbling it is, to be ending up, as he predicted, like him.

"April is the cruelest month," wrote Eliot. Not for me. June approaches, and with it the anniversaries of the deaths of my father, mother and son, all in separate years and in separate circumstances.

And yet I will continue to read Homo Ludens - as I did today, finishing the chapter on The Elements of Mythopoiesis. It will be the perfect act of lucid revolt and defiance in the face of the Absurd.

Sorry to hear Riddle. Old friends are irreplaceable.

Very moved, reading here again this morning, considering the nature of relationships and how strange it seems, the way that people come in and out of each other's lives...nothing stops moving, changing form. (((Storm))))

Had a long talk with my daughter this morning, about character and love and dreams and subtext communication. Amazes me, how much she sees, and knows she sees.

I'm leaning toward attending the event if I manage to find a reasonable hotel room for a few days, down the beach from where others will be staying the week. We can interact but also find our own space, and the day of the party, spend just a little time at the beginning before heading home.

Alma wrote, "After attending such an event, I am almost always glad that I did, and also glad that it is over so that I can return to the comfort of solitude."

This is so perfectly stated.