16-18 - Sitting in the Meadow

Stress, cleaning, life as fun, life as a struggle, time and no time, ESBS, the beginnings of PaB, and bootstrapping were among the themes of these three days. The overriding theme seems to be time and timelessness. We do all these activities..we struggle and play...build grand structures...all of these things we do, thinking we are doing all these things in time. Yet, when we stop and think about it, we can just walk away from all these activities. We all can go out and sit in the meadow.

March 16 01:00 _Stress and Practice

Adams Rubble: So yes, it may be that the stress is trying to close things back down
Adams Rubble: or the selves in reaction to the stress
Adams Rubble: or something like that
Gaya Ethaniel nods... possible yes.
Gaya Ethaniel: Stress can be intrusive to one's practice.
Gaya Ethaniel shrugs... sometimes it's just a fact of life.

March 16 07:00 - Do we have to clean the garage?

Corvuscorva Nightfire nods..its useful as starting places, tool gathering.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but it easily becomes a junky closet or garage.
Adams Rubble thinks about the selves vs. the mess in the garage
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods, grinning.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: boxes and boxes of junk.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and loose stuff, too.
Adams Rubble: and mice
Corvuscorva Nightfire: oooOOooo yeah, mice, too.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: you've been clearing out the garage
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and..
Adams Rubble: That's a good analogy Corvi :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: noticing that they are all tools, and not essential bits.
Adams Rubble: There's is a door in the garage out to the meadow
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins.
Adams Rubble: We don't have to clean the garage
Adams Rubble: just walk through the door
Corvuscorva Nightfire: oooOOOOoooo
Corvuscorva Nightfire: nods
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and thinks.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but when i get back to the house, i'm cleaning the garage.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods firmly.
Adams Rubble: The problem is when we get bogged down in trying to clean it up
Adams Rubble: It is a heavy burden
Corvuscorva Nightfire: still...it will be nice to know the meadow and the wider view.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I'm all off you and your garage and onto mine, now Adams.

March 16 13:00 - What is fun?

Threedee Shepherd: Here is a clear example: Being at PaB is fun. Posting the log of a session is work.
Pila Mulligan: what makes fun fun
Eliza Madrigal: For some, posting the log is fun...adding comments ...what you're incline to?
Pila Mulligan: why is play not work?
Eliza Madrigal: well....the imposition of something can take away from fun of something...like "imposing" beauty...trying to "make" something beautiful rather than seeing beauty already there
Pema Pera: perhaps not-doing is fun ?
Eliza Madrigal: so yes...the "have to"
Eliza Madrigal: Certainly
Pila Mulligan: a child's play seems full of abandon
Threedee Shepherd: child's play is actually serious work not seen by them as such--then comes school
Pila Mulligan: so it is the perception that makes it work?
Eliza Madrigal: And yet if you sit them down and say "Play" they often can't, until they forget that you told them to :)
Pila Mulligan: or if you play with them :)
Eliza Madrigal: I read a book years ago..."The Book of Learning and Forgetting"...was about
Eliza Madrigal: how people learn as a result of following interests and networks...remember
Threedee Shepherd: Interesting, when 3-4 (now 5.5) my grandaughter would come overto me and ask "Wily0ou play with me?" NJo adult has ever done so, as I recall. although I have been invited to just go somewhere and "hang out"
Pila Mulligan: yes, I've noticed that too, threedee -- when did we stop asking freinds to come over and play?

One of my favorite typos ever:

Threedee Shepherd: wow, this keyboard makes lots of misteaks tonight;>
Eliza Madrigal: : ) That's true...adults are hesitant to be "silly"
Eliza Madrigal: I have a few friends who enjoy games and such...not too many
Pila Mulligan: but then it is play a gasme, not just play :)

3/17 01:00 - Keeping the Sea at bay

Bertrum Quan: Life is a struggle. And the sea itself is a metaphor for life. So in a sense, keeping the sea at bay (pun intended) is an attempt to deny a certain aspect of life...
Wester Kiranov: if we don't keep the sea at bay in some way we can't live here at all. It actually forces us (as a country) to think about the sea a lot, if we denied it we would not last long. But maybe that's not what you meant?
Bertrum Quan: Yes, it is a noble struggle on that level. In a different sense, it suggests a certain confidence in human beings that they can harness the natural world. That thinking has in some instances has, I think, created a certain imbalance,
Wester Kiranov: Sometimes it does, that's true. When people get overconfident in technical solutions.
Wester Kiranov: But sometimes they also think about what they can allow the sea to do. For instance, the Wadden isles wander, so any town you build there has a limited lifespan. People accept that.
Bertrum Quan: That's interesting. I didn't know about the Wadden Isles and what is built there.

March 17 07:00 - Stretching Time

Riddle Sideways: well, back to a time streaching subject
Riddle Sideways: I have had problems relating how I do time tothis group
Riddle Sideways: since it is based on an art that is hard/long to describe
Riddle Sideways: not many would/could relate
Riddle Sideways: took me years
Riddle Sideways: but, I can experience what others most times do in an auto accident
Riddle Sideways: that calm
Riddle Sideways: of just having to DO
Riddle Sideways: the auto-setting of priorities
Riddle Sideways: and only doing the most important
Riddle Sideways: as if automagically
Riddle Sideways: no thoughtt
Riddle Sideways: then later re-live the inputs that were just 'recorded'
Adams Rubble "wows" at the re-live part
Riddle Sideways: and that re-live vs remember vs play-back it the point
Riddle Sideways: what is that

March 17 13:00 - Wol becomes Pema and Pema becomes Wol...for a time...to discuss time

Pema Pera: Wol: well, Pema, you told us that time is an illusion. But yet it seems that time is pretty real. What gives?
Wol Euler: Pema: well, it's quite simple if we take it step by step
Pema Pera: Wol Euler waiting to hear the steps
Wol Euler: Pema: time is not an object or a place or an event, it is a perception, an appearance
Pema Pera: [Pema: I wouldn't say it is a perception]
Pema Pera: Wol: so there is an appearance of time -- but doesn't that appear in time?
Wol Euler: Pema: time passing is probably what you mean, Wol. that exists only in the appearance of time :)
Adams Rubble slips quietly away
Pema Pera: Wol: but does appearance arise
Wol Euler: Pema: no. Everything exists in Being in all states at all time.
Wol Euler: Pema: the change that appears to you is a change in appearance only, the reality of Being does not change.
Pema Pera: [Pema: hmm, I wouldn't use "exists" nor "states" nor "all time" -- but perhaps we should go to a more concrete example; Wol likes concrete!]

 ***

Wol Euler: ok, so in YS I looked around myself and saw a problem, a biiiiiiiiig problem that I had been carefuly and with great efort ignoring for nearly 18 months.
Wol Euler: one that fills me with dread, which is why I had beenworking so hard to ignore it.
Wol Euler: "I" just couldn't see any way to addrss it, there was no starting point, no crack for the crowbar's tip
Wol Euler: BS then looked at the problem and saw four places that I might start, and what I might do at each point in order to create movement.
Wol Euler: without any of the fear and anxiety and morbid doubt that "I" felt when looking at it
Wol Euler: it was really quite amazing.

 3/18 13:00 - Pema talked about starting PaB

Pema Pera: perhaps it was all a joke?
Pema Pera: or just a foolish attempt to see reality?
Fael Illyar: Yes, quite a long time for a joke :P
Pema Pera: you can take your favorite interpretation !
Mickorod Renard: grin
Pema Pera: but seriously, the idea germinated in Feb/March last year
Pema Pera: and it seemed best to start at the first of the month
Fael Illyar: Ah, so it didn't start from a joke :)
Pema Pera: and that happened to be April . . . .

Scathach Rhiadra: not so foolish to attempt to see reality, or there are a lot of fools , more than we thought:)

3/18/09 19:00 - Bootstrapping

Threedee Shepherd: bootstrapping means you lean a so you have the basis to learn b which is the basis for c. In that sense a and b are scaffolding to get to the platform C.
Threedee Shepherd: *learn
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, okay.
Nabby Philly: and then you can have a hanging?
Adelene Dawner: In computers, once you have, say, Windows, up and running, it can take care of itself. But what do you use to get Windows loaded in the first place, and what do you use to get that loaded? The bootstrapping process (from 'to pull oneself up by ones' bootstraps) describes the process of getting to self-sufficiency.
Threedee Shepherd: In computers the bootstrapping usually starts with a short line of code that is recognized by permanent memory and which then leads to the program loading
stevenaia Michinaga: and what you learned that you don;t remember goave nothing to you?
stevenaia Michinaga: that you can recollect?
Threedee Shepherd: In really old computers with switches on the front, you actually entered about four lines of code manually, but setting the switches, and that bootstrapped the preloaded programs.
Eliza Madrigal: Oh..that is very clear now. And yes it would make sense if you don't use something to build on, might be more efficient for memory to toss it out
Eliza Madrigal: haha...hope not Nabby :) Hangings I mean -ha
Adelene Dawner: My point was, learning that gave the ability to learn more advanced things that *were* used in the future, but once those more advanced things were learned the first stuff wasn't needed any more