Shit’s so stuck in my whatchamacallit…oh yeah mind I think?? Whatever that is. 

We don’t need personalities

Rigid and Fixed

We don’t need personalities

For the flow that we Feel

We don’t need personalities

To make our Lives seem real

We don’t need personalities

We have People instead

Flowing through their lives in a body and a head

We don’t need personalities

To explain what we Do

We don’t need personalities

Because I am always with You

We don’t need personalities

Because our thoughts are alive

We don’t need personalities

To help us survive

We don’t need personalities

To understand a person not split

We don’t need personalities

To break us apart

We don’t need personalities

To explain my heart

Enjoying the snow and the calm outside.  Softens thinking.

We should follow the good qualities, the good feelings in our lives (i.e. I feel good when I have a good meal, I feel good with these people, I feel good with this book, I feel good with these crayons, I feel good in this place).  This kind of thinking leads us into stability with our environments.  Not a fixed, eternal stability, but a stability that feels good about change.  Since experience is felt as a flow, why would be want fixed, permanant views about our experience?  There is a logic to experience, but it is not some disembodied, “rational”, fixed logic.  The logic from our experience comes from the way our bodies are “coupled with” our environments.  Thus, logic and thinking is highly emotional.  Disembodied, “unemotional” logic is not only impossible, it is pointless for us as living, embodied beings.  The logic of our actual, felt experience shows that we should seek relationships that reciprocate good feelings between people.  We should stretch in the morning if it feels good to us.  We should play piano, draw, sing, do math, if it feels good to us.  We want to avoid things that maybe make us feel good in one context, but make us feel bad in another.  I’m not saying that we should expect to have only good feelings in our lives and that there is nothing, well, good about bad feelings, but paying attention to feeling in general is what generates choice in life.

The end.

Wherever you are in your busy life (maybe working hard during semester’s close) here is a “tale of a poet searching for the right words to finish a line”

The poet reads the written lines over and over, listens, and senses what these lines need (want, demand, imply, ___). Now the poet’s hand rotates in the air.  The gesture says—that.  Many good lines offer themselves; they try to say, but do not say—that.  The blank is more precise.  Although some are good lines, the poet rejects them.

That ____ seems to lack words, but no.  It knows the language, since it understands—and rejects—these lines that came.  So it is not pre-verbal; Rather, it knows what must be said, and knows these lines don’t precisely say that.  It knows like a gnawing knows what was forgotten, but it is new in the poet, and perhaps new in the history of the world.

Now, although I don’t know most of you, I do know one of your secrets.  I know you have written poetry.  So I can ask you: Isn’t that how it is?  This ___ must be directly referred to (felt, experienced, sensed, had, …).  Therefore, whatever term we use for such a blank, that term also needs our direct reference.

The blank brings something new.  That function is not performed by the linguistic forms alone.  Rather, it functions between two sets of linguistic forms.  The blank is not just the already written lines, but rather the felt sense from re-reading them, and that performs a function needed to lead the next lines. (Eugene Gendlin)

Now, for the poem:

YOU READING THIS, BE READY

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect you carry

wherever you go right now?  Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this

new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day.  This interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life—

What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

-William Stafford

Meaning doesn’t need words.  The quality of our experience doesn’t need words to be meaningful.  Words continue the process of meaning, but don’t provide meaning themselves.  Meaning comes from the qualities of our felt experiences.  Categories, concepts, propositions, and theories (like what I’m saying to you now) do not give us meaning, they act with the meaning already embodied in our experience.

Best of luck in your busy hours.

I must thank Harish for this little gem.  He told me that Norah Jones’ father is a famous Indian sitar player: Ravi Shankar.  So this is a video of her father and sister.  So that is where all her soulful coolness comes from.  It seems being around creative people cultivates creativity in you.  So I must thank the people around me for stimulating creativity in me.

I just MUST share something I came across in a book this morning cuz its AWE-some.  Be forewarned, I’ll probably be obsessed with this idea for the next month or so, so avoid me if its not interesting, or come find me if you’re intrigued.

So I read about this experiment showing how babies have what they decided to call cross-modal perceptive abilities:

blindfolded three-week old infants were given one of two pacifiers to suck on.  One of the pacifiers was smooth, while the other had protruding nubs.  The pacifier was then taken away, and, after a period of time the two different pacifiers were shown to the baby.  After a cursory visual inspection of both pacifiers, infants tended (approximately 75 percent of the time) to focus their gaze on the one they had been sucking on. (Mark Johnson in The Meaning of the Body, p. 42)

So this showed that babies can use haptic (tactile, touch) information to identify an object they have never seen visually.  That’s what they mean by cross-modal: we can use information from one of our sense modes to understand things in other sense modes.  If that’s not awe-some, I don’t know what is!!

Many things are awe-some.  I think its unfortunate when we think awe can only come from certain realms of experience or contexts.  Awe is available everywhere.  Awe can come from science, from religion, from art, from sports, from conversation, from architecture, from nature, from working, from building, from dancing, from singing..and on and on. 

If you think about the capacity babies have that the experience showed, it really is amazing.  Why should we be able to use information from one sense to use another sense?  More importantly, how do we do this? 

Noticing this cross-modal ability is interesting because it shows that our sensebodyminds interact with our environments as some fluid whole.  Our senses are not fragmented and isolated, rather our senses “work together” as we flow through our experiential fields. 

Attention towards this cross-modal perception I’m finding is a better high than 14 pounds of cocaine.  Take anything in your environment and play with it using each of the senses.  “See” how this feels? 

For me, this little game is electric.  I find myself in a state of awe, I hope you don’t find that awful.  These awe-states are exhilarating, stimulating, charging.  Nothing feels like I’m getting in better “touch” with my world than awe.

Alright, I’ll stop gushing for now.

So it turns out some people in this country actually do go to bed before 9 at night.  Which leaves me alone to entertain myself.  I guess I could do something good for my brain like stretching, drawing or reading.  Instead, I’ll implant myself in this computer screen for a while.

Besides, I do have something very important to update you all about.  I brought my imaginary child Wendel home for the first time this Thanksgiving.  He doesn’t like mashed potatoes.  He feels like their thickness drowns out his voice.  I thought Wendel was complaining a bit too much, so I locked him in a cupboard for several minutes.  This seemed to have the desired effect.  I recommend it to all imaginary parents.

Wendel LOVES Thanksgiving.  Mostly because people give him a lot of thanks.  Like two or three benjamins worth of thanks which he will later cash in at the banks.  “Thanks Wendel for being in my life.” “I love you Wendel.”  “Wendel, you are worth more than this pot of gold, so have two.” “Wendel, thank you for being my imaginary relative, have my kidney.”  “Wendel, if hot sauce had a name, it would probably be Harold.” “Wendel, several times a day, I wish I were you, thank you for being you.” “Wendel, imaginary life is awesome.  Thanks for opening my eyes.” “Wendel, if I had a time for every donut I’m about to give you, I’d need several more clocks in my house.” “Wendel, thanks for all of the support.  Here is a bottle of the finest Chardonnay.”

With that last bit of gratitude, I had to cut Wendel’s gracious time short.  I can be allowing my underage imaginary child to get drunk after all.  Needless to say, Wendel was pissed.  He actually bit into my grandfather’s ear at that point.  You have never heard such a scream! From the lady outside the window watching us enjoy Thanksgiving meal of course.  On second thought, maybe we should have invited her in?  But she looked so homeless. You know what I mean right?  Those people smell like I do when I go camping.  And I don’t let me into my house after camping.  Which leaves me puzzled as to how I ever got back indoors.  Oh yeah, I’ve never been camping.

Wendel thinks Thanksgiving needs presents.  It is not quite enough like Christmas.  It could at least have chocolates like Valentine’s day.  Or happy meal toys.  They should put the turkey in a bag with a plastic walrus toy for all the imaginary children.  I wouldn’t accept it, I’m too old of course.

I have to say that I agree with Wendel.  At Thanksgiving, there’s only a lot of smiling, laughing, story-telling, and general “love” if you still believe in that 12th century magic.  What a good modern holiday needs is giant flat screens so that my face doesn’t have to work so hard to smile at all these people and nod with what they have to say.  Mutual relationships are toooo much work for me.

Luckily, Wendel loves television.  And Thanksgiving is great for football.  I wish it was great for hockey.  Or mud wrestling.  Because that’s what Wendel wants to be when he grows up: a professional mud-wrestler.  I think he has the innate talent for it.  He’s really built for mud-wrestling as far as everyone can tell.  He’s going to have to get over his fear of gummy worms since mud pits is where they are grown I heard.  Have you heard?  Any information would really be appreciated since I want to do what’s best for my child. 

Anyways, Wendel and I wish you all a merry berry jolly holly mistletoey Thanksgiving evening, ThanksgEVEning??  Hopefully your families didn’t all gorge themselves to sleep by nine.  Just teasing family.  But seriously, nine o’clock to bed?  I thought there was a law against that or something.  Oh well, guess I’ll just have to write my congressperson.

Today’s phrase: I’m lacking direction in life right now.

Tip: Look particularly at the verbs and adjectives in the phrase.  In what bodily context would these make sense?

Previous answer: Thinking is seeing.  In the phrase clear-minded, the thoughts in the mind are metaphorically conceptualized in visual terms.  When we use clear literally, we generally mean that our line of sight is unobstructed.  We can’t literally see into our minds using our eyes, but we can do so with the help of the thinking is seeing metaphor.  The same basic metaphor can produce metaphorical concepts such as my head is foggy today or my thinking is a little fuzzy/murky.

So, I’m going to start a regular Identify that metaphor series. 

Identify the metaphor in this phrase (guidelines below): I am feeling clear minded today.

Here is how it works. 

1. I post a phrase.

2. You try to identify the bodily metaphor the phrase uses.  Any name for the metaphor is accepted.

3. If you are the first person to post the correct answer and you come see me within three days, we will hang out together for at least 30 minutes.  This is my desperate attempt to make friends ;)

4. I will provide the answer in the next Identify that metaphor posting.

If I don’t pay attention to my body when my body is healthy, I’ll be forced to pay attention to my body when my body is not.

Engaging the body is also helpful for thinking and for understanding others.  There are many reasons for this.  One reason is that much of our so-called abstract thought arises from bodily metaphors.

Take an example from the embodied cogntion thinkers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.  One of our primary metaphors is:

Thought is bodily movement.

Identifying and noticing this metaphor is very helpful for making sense of most things others and ourselves say.  Most philosophy, for example, even when it de-emphasizes the body, still draws upon this metaphor.  Think of phrases like:

Let’s think through this problem. Let’s take it step by step.  Are you following me? Let’s push into this problem.  I have a grasp of these concepts.  Does this idea hold up? Keep this framework loose when you hold it in your mind.  Don’t move too quickly through this book.  Do you have an idea of what I am saying?  Let’s start here with this question and move on to some others.

In all of these cases, thought is conceptualized as the motion of the body.  We use these metaphors implicitly and frequently.

Another primary metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson again):

Understanding is seeing.

Some examples:

I see what you mean.  My memory is a little foggy lately.  What is your view on these issues?  I had a glimpse of what you meant just now.  You should look further into what this means. 

We also combine these metaphors (and others of course):

I don’t really see where you are going with this. Okay, now that you have some view of what I’m saying, let’s move on to my next point.  Just because you have looked into this problem doesn’t mean it will stick with you.  Hold on a sec, I need to give this question a deeper look.

Listening for these and other metaphors in people’s speech is incredibly helpful since we all have bodies.  When you recognize which metaphors people use to extend their bodies into thought, you can use your own body as a basis for understanding others’ thinking.

Cheerios.