Juggling Lessons: Distance Matters

I have been thinking for years that I could juggle because I could juggle 3 balls for 5, 6 or some number of tosses.
Then I started trying to juggle for 100 tosses consecutively.

I discovered that I can't juggle. I get to 20, occasionally I get to 30. I lot of days it takes me several tries to get to 20. I realize that to be able to juggle I need to be able to toss and catch and adapt to every toss. Every toss is different. Every catch is different. The shifting and adjusting and handling changes is what makes the ability to juggle.

How this is a model for so many other things in life! We think we can do something because we did it once or a dozen times. But the real measure is can we do it over and over consistently many, many, times.

The Rules of Precedence are a universal convention which tell us to apply operations in the following order:

1. Brackets 2. Powers and Roots 3. Multiplication and Division 4. Addition and Subtraction

Language IS Technology!

I hear people on the media complaining about how technology is changing our lives and distancing us from each other.  They have a point, at least 100,000 years late, because without language our experience of the primordial, God, is greater.  But language is what allows us to express our humanity beyond the range of touch and the present moment. 

I have acquaintances who I've mentioned this idea to.  One, a software executive, says she means technology in terms of physical machines and software.  Another, a spiritual teacher, who is worried about technology in the sense of automated machinery.  Technology, language, is so much a part of us that we no longer notice it.  I have heard people say "Well of course that is obvious, but not what I mean."

I want to use technology/language, not let it use me.  I try to hold primordial awareness simultaneously with the use of language.  

This is not a new idea:  

"The map is not the territory."  -- Alfred Korzybksi; 

"Language is the house of being."  -- Martin Heidegger;  

"[Human] Consciousness is conceptual"  -- Ayn Rand; 

"Remember yourself always and everywhere." -- G. I. Gurdjieff;

"And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field;"  -- King James Bible

Caution: Language allows of mechanizing the mind when the user becomes identified with its abstractions (words and symbols).  This may result in feelings of sadness, isolation, thoughts of suicide and other non-functional behaviors.    

Writing is thinking, at least conceptual thinking.

I started my blogging with the desire to clarify my thoughts.  Over time I drifted off course (law of Seven).

I became identified with the remarks of associates about the content of my blog and requests to post items to promote their goals (suggestibility).  The blog was no longer a tool for clarifying my own thoughts, and occasionally feelings.  I believed that I could still blog in the face of the feeling of resentment -- interesting, I'm ashamed to admit that I wasn't conscious of that feeling or the accompanying belief until just now, but it is clearly recorded in my memories (kundabuffer).

This is the pain of self-observation.  (I hesitate to say "remorse of conscience.")

The Moral Challenge of Advanced Technology

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-quarter-of-us-nuclear-plants-not-reporting-equipment-defects-report-finds/2011/03/24/ABHYa2RB_story.html?hpid=z2

I'm not surprised. And if the 28% that were "confused" were honest with themselves they woul know they are lying.

Admiral Rickover said words to the effect that a higher level of technology demands a higher level of morality.

We are seeing the weaknesses of human nature in action, the ability to deceive one's self to preserve one's own self-love and vanity. Living in imagination -- kundabuffer.

"Sucker Punch," Great Movie!

The movie "Sucker Punch" is excellent! I took a chance on going to see it expecting something like Saturday morning children's cartoons. The story goes way beyond the trailers into the depths of human nature and friendship. It was well worth the time and money to see. It is worth watching again. Don't let the trailers of fantasy action confuse you into thinking that this is just kid's stuff. I don't want to take a chance on spoiling it, so I won't say anymore.

Running Barefoot

http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_mcdougall_are_we_born_to_run.html