Crossroads Dispatches

really FREE free association (or why Charlan Nemeth rocks)

"Too much agreement kills a chat." - Eldridge Cleaver

Most people assume that dissenting viewpoints squash utopian visions of collaboration and teamwork. (Beware that compromise is not collaboration.)

I watched bits and pieces of an animated movie last night as I was cooking called, Happy Feet. In it, a young penguin dares to contradict the tribal elders and the wisdom of the crowd (funny, his name is Mumble yet he speaks up) to claim that the dwindling fish supplies are caused by the "aliens" he's seen (i.e. humans).

Oh, and he loves to tap dance, which I guess is a definite no-no where this young Emperor penguin hails from. One of the chiefs declares forcefully, "Dissent leads to division and division leads us to doom!"

Typical. The young penguin is immediately exiled.

Typical. "Many deal with conflicting opinions by shutting off the conversation" and "people assume that truth lies in numbers," I'd just read that earlier...

... in a research paper titled, Rogues and Heroes: The Value of Dissent, by University of California at Berkeley's Charlan Nemeth. Her research shows that "majority [viewpoints] induced compliance," while "minorities [views] stimulate more originality."

One of Nemeth's most cited studies on free association is the one that evokes a lot of intrigue around the question how do we get beyond rote, reactive, predictable--how do we grow fresh and creative?

"In study after study, when people free-associate, they turn out to not be very free. For instance, if I ask you to free-associate on the word "blue," chances are your first answer will be "sky". Your next answer will probably be "ocean," followed by "green" and, if you're feeling creative, a noun like "jeans". The reason for this is simple: Our associations are shaped by language, and language is full of cliches." - Jonah Lehrer, The Frontal Cortex blog

And by "chances," we're talking roughly 80% of folks take the predictable road, blurting "sky" to a prompt of blue, or "grass" in reply to green.

"How do we escape these cliches? Charlan Nemeth, a psychologist at UC-Berkeley, has found a simple fix. Her experiment went like this: A lab assistant surreptitiously sat in on a group of subjects being shown a variety of color slides. The subjects were asked to identify each of the colors. Most of the slides were obvious, and the group quickly settled into a tedious routine. However, Nemeth instructed her lab assistant to occasionally shout out the wrong answer, so that a red slide would trigger a response of "yellow," or a blue slide would lead to a reply of "green". After a few minutes, the group was then asked to free-associate on these same colors. The results were impressive: Groups in the "dissent condition" - these were the people exposed to inaccurate descriptions - came up with much more original associations. Instead of saying that "blue" reminded them of "sky," or that "green" made them think of "grass," they were able to expand their loom of associations, so that "blue" might trigger thoughts of "Miles Davis" and "smurfs" and "pie". The obvious answer had stopped being their only answer. More recently, Nemeth has found that a similar strategy can also lead to improved problem solving on a variety of creative tasks, such as free- associating on ways to improve traffic in the Bay Area.

The power of such "dissent" is really about the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer - this is the shock of hearing blue called "green" - we start to reconsider the meaning of the color. We try to understand this strange reply, which leads us to think about the problem from a new perspective. And so our comfortable associations - the easy association of blue and sky - gets left behind. Our imagination has been stretched by an encounter that we didn't expect." - Jonah Lehrer, The Frontal Cortex blog

The beauty of this is not that we're converted over to another view: "We believe that the minority [viewpoint] “influenced” individuals, not so much on the perception of color but, rather, on the importance of saying what you believe, says Charlan Nemeth in her paper, http://bit.ly/rogueheroes.

By the way, by the finale of the movie Happy Feet, that young exiled penguin named Mumble, yep... Typical: He's the hero.

I first heard of Charlan Nemeth's research through the chapter on Error (my favorite chapter) in Steven Johnson's new book (recommended), Where Do Good Ideas Come From? So many people drown out voices that don't agree with them, not realizing that they don't have convert over to allow another their expression. Here Johnson sums up why one of his SIX keys for an environment conducive to good ideas is encouraging, rather than shutting out errant, "noisy" thoughts:

"When one of our peers calls the blue painting green, or [in a jury deliberation] comes to the defense of a suspect who is clearly guilty, he or she is, technically speaking, introducing more inaccurate information to the environment. But that noise makes the rest of us smarter, more innovative, precisely because we're forced to rethink our biases, to contemplate an alternative model in which blue paintings are, in fact, green." - Steven Johnson, Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

Here's a Charlan Nemeth's take on "diversity" for a speech to the National Bar Association. The first two Powerpoint presentation slides open like this:

The usual approach

• Most talks on diversity deal with legally protected categories e.g. race, age,
gender, sexual orientation and

• the dream is to “imagine” a world where categories don’t matter and where
differences are submerged

An immodest proposal

• I suggest to you that the differences will always exist and, moreso, they SHOULD
exist

• Instead IMAGINE a world where they are celebrated and utilized

Bravo! That's precisely my dream, too. "IMAGINE a world where they are celebrated and utilized."

Why? Because I think that is the type of world where each person can freely share their gifts and be thoroughly creative blooming towards the widest outskirts of their potential, never shuttered if they don't "fit" in. Who wants to outlaw all flavors of ice cream but just one.

Here's a related observation, I stumbled across while searching on LeWeb:

"Rush Limbaugh, a conservative syndicated radio host, became popular because he’s a credible voice that confirms people’s existing beliefs. This is exactly how I felt about Chris Pirillo’s presentation about community. Better known as preaching to the choir, my sentiment was evidenced by the number of tweets that echoed “I agree with him” rather than “I learned something.”" - David Spark, "The Cool and Not-So-Cool of LeWeb"

So, you see, I don't want you to agree with me. I want you to agree with you. Yet, let's keep learning and growing and glowing from each other.

p.s. In comments below, do you mind sharing how you include more dissenting views into your life? Or your organization?

Bonus: A good summation of Charlan Nemeth's Rogues and Heroes: The Value of Dissent paper from the paper is: "Our own experimental studies have found that minorities stimulate a search for information on all sides of the issue while majorities stimulate a search for information that corroborates the majority view (Nemeth and Rogers, 1996); minorities stimulate the use of multiple strategies in problem solving whereas majorities stimulate the use of the majority strategy (Nemeth and Kwan, 1987); minorities stimulate the detection of solutions that otherwise would have gone undetected whereas majorities stimulate adoption of the majority solution, right or wrong (Nemeth and Wachtler, 1983). Further, minorities stimulate more originality while majorities stimulate more conventionality of thought (Nemeth and Kwan, 1985). As a consequence, those exposed to minority views come up with more creative solutions to problems (Nemeth, Brown and Rogers, 2001)."

art credits Spice Market, Orchha, India by Stanislaw Urbaniak; Yves Klein (I'm not sure name of this painting; Klein serendipitiously found he liked how the natural sponges he sued to dab on blue added texture to the canvas, and so his tools became his raw material); and even though if this is tempting scrumptious, I wish to be spared from a world where latte e mirtilli (blueberries and milk) is the only choice of gelato flavor on earth. 

I blessed the trees, the birds, the dogs, the cats, I blessed the flowers, the pomegranates, the thorny cactus, I blessed men and women everywhere

"The task of genius is to keep the miracle alive, to live always in the miracle, to make the miracle more and more miraculous, to swear allegiance to nothing, but live only miraculously, think only miraculously, die miraculously." — Henry Miller

In Paris, Henry Miller, nearly penniless, was helped along by fellow writers Alfred Perlés and Anaïs Nin. Admittedly, it's exceedingly difficult to be down sauntering Paris as Henry says: "I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive."

That's why it's often a tricky question: What are you grateful for? How would Henry answer it?

What am I grateful for makes it sound as if I am literally counting and sorting it all out among piles of "good," "bad", and "ugly." Certainly nothing particurly went "right" according to expectations this year. In fact, being candid and blunt, I might say 2010's tied with 2001 as the worst year since I've kept historical records ;)

What are you grateful for? may be the wrong question.

Cannot one ooze gratitude for... no reason?

Yesterday I recalled times when have felt intense emotion--let's say guilt, let's say terror--arising and, simultaneously, I'd sense absolute peace "under" it. (Felt under.... as in an undercurrent.) "That's interesting," I observed, "I can be in absolute turmoil plus feel completely "All is well". Both." So that's why I say there's no need to find something definitive to pin the illusive sensation of gratitude on. (Check it out: right this minute despite outward appearances all-pervading peace is right smack floating under here, and there, and always has and is.)

Sometimes I call that peace, Life. So I'm simply grateful of Life, perhaps. What Hildegard of Birgen coined viriditas.

Viriditas: Blooming Life Force

"For the Christian mystic Hildegard of Birgen (1098-1179), green wasn't merely a color. Her blazing celestial visions burst with viriditas, a word translated loosely as Latin for "greenness" or "greening," a word she used eccentrically to represent all of life's goodness. Viriditas was fresh, budding, and vital. It was springtime and the Garden of Eden." - Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of the Elegant, by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

And, perhaps, grateful of Quintessence.

Quintessence: The Fifth Element

"The fifth element, thought to be the living substance, latent in all things. The alchemists' quest wasn't a hungry hunt for gold, as it's commonly understood. They were after quintessence, the fifth element, one beyond air, water, earth and fire, an elusive link between spirit and matter that permeated all life. Some believed that stars were made of quintessence, as was the human soul. It was luminous, but invisible." - Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of the Elegant, by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

Instead of making lists of "thank you's" or "I'm grateful for this ____" which can feel contrived to me, what naturally appeals is to bless everything and everyone I come across (silently, but hey if you're feeling exuberant go shout it to the mountain) and this passage written after Henry Miller moves to the fog shrouded yin evoking Big Sur coast of California often comes to mind:

Living in Big Sur obviously had a profound effect on Miller, inspiring him to write: "Peace and solitude! I have had a taste of it, even here in America." The Big Sur landscape gave him "such a feeling of contentment, such a feeling of gratitude was mine that instinctively my hand went up in benediction. Blessings! Blessings on you, one and all! I blessed the trees, the birds, the dogs, the cats, I blessed the flowers, the pomegranates, the thorny cactus, I blessed men and women everywhere, no matter on what side of the fence they happened to be."

p.s. When Henry was in his ecstatic blessing mode, he was still struggling to make ends meet. Again, not grateful for any particular reason than the pervasive, palpable, luminous, invisible, quintessential joie de vivre, the joy of life. Henry thrived at Big Sur, and, later, book royalties started pouring in.

p.p.s. I am also grateful for Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of the Elegant, by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins (blog) because she also includes in her little gem chapters on Miracles, Felines, Giochi d'Acqua, Dark Tower, Boudoir, Trapeze, Blancmange, Wanderers, Alfresco, Aerostation, Sequins, Tea, Swing, Pillowbook, Origami, Lightning and Obsidian among other beauties.

art credits: Wheel of Life Mandala by Hildegard of Birgen (yes, she also music composer and illustrator--would love to have her onboard for a transmedia project, but I digress), Mary Magdalene by Frederick Sandys; exquisite collage Near Three Rivers-Martinique by Jerald Melberg

under what condition(s) or what environment is risk-taking liberated?

"There is no must in art because art is free." - Wassily Kandinsky

Although there are no ready-made, everyone-do-this-or-else rules for how to be you, I really enjoy encouraging each other to be the grandest possibility bursting to bloom forth.

I've been inquiring to myself how to do that within the context of a group--or, even larger, in a culture.

In the past, I've been inspired by startup incubators, accelerators, coworking, the Parisian salons, penny universities, and the culture of the Renaissance--among others.

Geographically, I like to be surrounded by all types of people exploring being all they can be--not necessarily all trying to achieve the very same thing.

"It's not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do." - Paul Graham, Cities and Ambition essay

For a long time, I agreed with Paul Graham above and sought that sense of camaraderie. I tried out San Jose, San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York--whew--and that's only the last couple of years.

"Originality is ... a by-product of sincerity." -Marianne Moore

Nowadays, I don't agree with Paul Graham. If you are doing anything new, and you expect to find people who care about the same things as you do than (a) it may not be that pioneering to begin with (b) you might want to look deep at your supposed "need" for external vouching (c) who said contrast and, heck even opposition (ever seen a beautiful pearl?) is all bad?

Sure, I thrive within mutual respect, but I have witnessed that's not necessarily the same as people "caring about the same things." 

So my open-ended question nowadays is: Under what condition(s) or what environment is risk-taking liberated? And, allowing our own "original" to us ways? This is a big topic and I've created another feed titled "Community" expressly to share resources and book excerpts for this exploration (don't worry if you don't subscribe, I'll link to its contents from time to time here).

I am not waiting for any finished wrap-up conclusion to that question, as a place of innovative risk-taking itself is a little fuzzy and messy, just like hunches are:

"If you zoom in you'll see that I've made black circles a little fuzzy and irregular, which to me, makes it more representative of what "hacking" is about: Innovative Solutions.

Innovation tends to be fuzzy, it resolves itself with time and thought." - Hugh MacLeod

Ideally, innovation never truly resolves itself, rather it continues expanding and learning and surfing new edges infinitely. 

One of my favorite snippets ever on drawing forth the best in people--mutually--is below. (I've also a bunch of my favorite excerpts from this gem of a book, Infinite and Finite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility shared in a Google Document.)

"If in the culture into which we are born there are always persons who urge us to theatricalize our lives by supplying us with a repeatable past, there will also be persons (possibly the same ones) in whose presence we learn to prepare ourselves for surprise. It is in the presence of such persons that we first recognize ourselves as the geniuses we are.

These persons do not give us our genius or produce it in us. In no way is the source of genius external to itself; never is a child moved to genius. Genius arises with touch. Touch is a characteristically paradoxical phenomenon of infinite play.

I am not touched by an other when the distance between us is reduced to zero. I am touched only if I respond from my own center--that is, spontaneously, originally. But you do not touch me except from your own center, out of your own genius. Touching is always reciprocal. You cannot touch me unless I touch you in response.

The opposite of touching is moving. You move me by pressing me from without to a place you have already foreseen and perhaps prepared. It is a staged action that succeeds only if in moving me you remain unmoved yourself. I can be moved to tears by skilled performances and heart-rending newspaper narratives of heroic achievement--but in each case I am moved according to a formula or design to which the actor or agent is immune. When actors bring themselves to tears by their performance, and not as their performance, they have failed their craft; they have become theatrically inept.

This means that we can be moved only by persons who are not what they are; we can be moved only when we are not who we are, but are what we cannot be.

When I am touched, I am touched only as the person I am behind all the theatrical masks, but at the same time I am changed from within--and whoever touches me is touched as well. We do not touch by design. Indeed, all designs are shattered by the touching. Whoever touches and whoever is touched cannot but be surprised. (The unpredictability of this phenomenon is reflected in our reference to the insane as "touched.")

We can be moved only by way of our veils. We are touched through our veils." -- James Carse,  Infinite and Finite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility

credits: Wall Panel for Edwin R. Campbell's Villa, by Wassily Kandinsky (worth seeing his work in person--the presence is palpable--this one at the MoMa); Hugh MacLeod's Cartoon #212 "Hacker" (Hugh's interpretation of the Hacker Emblem)

p.s. The books that have fallen into my lap related to community, unconditional acceptance (a prerequisite to risk-taking), and teamwork include a “random” powerful section on agape (start on page 295, “No Strings Attached”) in Keeping the Love You Find, Ubuntu, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace (this book in particular has been a blessing and a balm), Never Eat Alone, Who’s Got Your Back?, and even Where Do Good Ideas Come From? (which is really focuses on collisions and community with other people sparking innovation, and not solitary confinement). I am also intentionally set to re-read The Wisdom of Teams.

p.p.s. Not only an idle question this one of: Under what condition(s) or what environment is risk-taking liberated? Perhaps it'll be the underpinnings of an actual geographical place, or an online space, or both? We'll see.

Michel de Montaigne, retreat to self-study for advancement, I AM a verb = I Know Nuthing

At age 21, Ryan Holiday became Director of Marketing at American Apparel, the largest clothing manufacturer in the United States, and he recently guest-blogged at Tim Ferriss' Four-Hour Work Week blog about one of his guiding mentors, Michel de Montaigne.

What impressed me was that Ryan clearly knows how contrarian his hero is in today's "I have the answer" expert/guru cult(ure) and boldly forged ahead with his praise. This is the tiniest sliver from the well worth reading post, The Experimental Life: An Introduction to Michel de Montaigne.

"In late 1569, Michel de Montaigne was given up as dead after being flung from a galloping horse.

As his friends carried his limp and bloodied body home, he watched life slip away from his physical self, not traumatically but almost flimsily, like some dancing spirit on the “tip of his lips,” and then return. This sublime experience marked the moment Montaigne began a uniquely playful relationship with his existence and was a sense clarity and euphoria about life that he carried with him from that point forwards. Shortly thereafter he took a bold step, retiring from a promising public career—retired to himself, so to speak—and made self-study his official occupation.

...

3) Que sais je? (Don’t take yourself too seriously)

You’d think that Montaigne, as he grew older and more practiced, would have become more certain, more sure of himself. In fact, the more he studied, the more frequently he found himself asking his most famous question: “Que sais je?” or “What do I know?” The answer to the rhetorical question is, “Nothing.” Montaigne practiced the Skeptic’s notion of questioning what he “knew” and deliberately threw his assumptions into doubt.

By building up tolerance to uncertainty, he not only better suited himself for life in chaotic civil war-era France but primed his mind for tackling the big questions that don’t have easy answers. For a second, consider of all our major public thinkers today. They do the opposite, constantly telling how sure they are of their beliefs and criticizing their “opponents” for changing their minds. Changing your mind is a good thing, Montaigne would say. It means you’ve resisted the impulse to think you’re infallible. He wrote that as part of his profession of getting to know himself he found such “boundless depths and variety that [his] apprenticeship bears no other fruit than to make me know much there remains to learn.” If only we could internalize that attitude—instead of feeling cocky when we learn something, acknowledge that it really just taught us how much more we need to learn." - Ryan Holiday

One of my guiding, but alas dead, mentors is Buckminster Fuller. He was prepared to drown himself and was standing on the brink of one of the Great Lakes (after the death of his daughter, followed by a business bankruptcy) when he realized that he didn't belong to himself, but was part and parcel of the Universe--and, instead of wading in, he vowed to participate fully in the universe. Right after that epiphany, he went through a silent period to purge everything thing he'd learned from others that he didn't know to be absolutely true; basically, questioning all second-hand knowledge and adopted beliefs that he'd assumed were his own.

His clearing period lasted about 2 years. (Some folks call it Bucky's "gestation period.")

"I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe." - Buckminster Fuller

 My spiritual teacher, Adyashanti, shares that one of the best things he did to get really clear was to keep a journal where he only wrote something down if it were true. (Interestingly, Steven Johnson mentioned the "commonplace book"--a journal--in Where Do Good Ideas Come From? and Montaigne kept one too.) He'd ask himself, What do I know for sure is true? He speaks of this journalling often, but this interview is the only instance I've found readily online where he talks of the value of self-inquiry and why writing it down the questions and answers worked for him. I particularly mention my teacher precisely because he's one of the clearest, shining people I've ever yet met (Miguel Ruiz and Byron Katie are two others, and you won't know the others as they're not online much); he charts into the Unknown moment by moment.

"The valuable part was not only what I found, but was really also that it showed me what I didn’t know, which is really valuable. It’s extraordinarily important. It’s kind of like a spring-cleaning, you know? You just dust out your consciousness–you go, “Wow, 99% of the things that I think I know, when I really examine them honestly…” You’re all of a sudden not so sure if it’s really true or not. And it’s really valuable to empty out the mind in that way, and to empty out the old belief system." - Adyashanti, "I'm Not Babysitting Your Ego," Buddhist Geeks interview

I've had the privilege (at first it didn't feel like a privilege, but more like a dot-bomb and divorce catastrophe) of having much more than 30 hours a week for past 9 years devoted to contemplation and self-study ala Montaigne, Bucky and Adya.

I happened to be looking for an attachment in an email on an  incubator/hunch hub idea I had back in 2007 (yes, the Pooh tea party illustration is the right mood for said hunch hub/ serendipity Salon) when I happened upon a long, lost (or so I thought) 46-page retreat program I'd designed for an intimate group of folks that usually attended the Daring to Live an Authentic Life weekly gatherings that my housemates and I hosted when I lived in San Jose, CA. I called the retreat an "Advance" and it was held in spring 2005--two months after I vowed to quest for "What is Deathless?" post-tsunami.

I was surprised reading it how much I focused on self-contemplation (I was much more brute-force goal-oriented back then). The hypothesis was all the answers to the new, never-ending questions you're asking are already being presented to you within and in your unfolding life.

Here are the first two pages of the section ETHOS OF AN ADVANCE for your pleasure:

“Maybe your next vacation should be a journey inward,” read this month’s Body + Soul magazine.

This is a journey without a distance. It is not horizontal, but vertical.

“Buddha is a scientist of the inner world. Meditation is his basic contribution – turning the horizontal consciousness into a vertical consciousness.” – Osho, "Buddha: His Life and Teachings"

If we could take a journey, make a pilgrimage together, without any intent or purpose, without seeking anything, perhaps on returning we might find that our hearts had unknowingly been changed. I think it worth trying. Any intent or purpose, any motive or goal, implies effort -- a conscious or unconscious endeavor to arrive, to achieve. I would like to suggest that we take a journey together in which none of these elements exist.

 

If we can take such a journey, and if we are alert enough to observe what lies along the way, perhaps when we return, as all pilgrims must, we shall find that there has been a change of heart; and I think this would be much more significant than inundating the mind with ideas, because ideas do not fundamentally change human beings at all. Beliefs, ideas, influences may cause the mind superficially to adjust itself to a pattern; but, if we can take the journey together without any purpose and simply observe as we go along the extraordinary width and depth and beauty of life, then out of this observation may come a love that is not merely social, environmental, a love in which there is not the giver and the taker, but which is a state of being, free of all demand.

 

This journey I am proposing that we take together, is not to the moon, or even to the stars. The distance to the stars is much less than the distance within ourselves. The discovery of ourselves is endless, and it requires constant inquiry, a perception which is total, an awareness in which there is no choice. This journey is really an opening of the door to the individual in relationship with the world. So, the understanding of ourselves is not to the end of individual salvation, it is not the means of attaining a private heaven, an ivory tower into which to retire with our own illusions, beliefs, gods. On the contrary, if we are able to understand ourselves, we shall be at peace, and then we shall know how to live rightly.  -J. Krishnamurti

THE INNER GURU

There are no gurus "out there", but simply people whom reflect and mirror our highest selves and/or our shadow selves. In the yogic sense, a guru merely mirrors your innate but unawakened potential back to you.

Look within for answers. But note your blind spots in the mirrors (i.e. "other people") surrounding you.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“Not I - not anyone else, can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself.” - Walt Whitman

 

“You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” - Galileo

This story is very illustrative of our own capacities when we are still and listen. In fact, it’s illustrative of the ethos of the Advance. You may come in feeling thoroughly lost as well:

“You may remember A.A. Milne’s story about Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, and Rabbit getting lost in the Hundred Acre Wood. Under Rabbit’s bossy, officious guidance, the three go around and around until they’re thoroughly lost and terrified of lurking Heffalumps. Eventually, a disgusted Rabbit leaves Pooh and Piglet and goes to find the way home. He never returns. After a while, Pooh turns to Piglet:

 

“Come on, Piglet. Let’s go home.”

 

“But we’re lost,” said Piglet.

 

“Yes,” said Pooh, “but there are twelve pots of honey in my cupboard at home, and they are calling to my tummy. I couldn’t hear them before, because Rabbit would talk.”

 

This is what happens to someone who settles into the threshold of Square One [Square One's similar to what Joseph Campbell calls the ‘Initiation’], stops fighting the process, and accepts the strange formlessness of the situation. The chattering, Rabbit-like social self gets so frustrated and disoriented that it finally wanders away. Then something else comes through: a silent sweetness that resonates deep in your essential self, your pots of honey calling to your tummy.” – Martha Beck, Finding Your Own North Star

WHAT TO EXPECT

 

Nothing.

“I don’t know in advance what I am going to put on canvas any more than I decide beforehand what colors I am going to use.” – Pablo Picasso

Everything happens after the Advance. And even then, expect nothing for optimal results.

Okay, okay. You can expect clarity, insights, and a desire to commit and focus – but the what’s and how’s are not known yet. Don’t worry about them now.

art credits: Just Walk Away by Dasha Denger; journal page Will I Ever Find An Answer? by Hannah of Spans Stitches blog (p.s. yes + yet more infuriating questions galore after that one--enjoy the unfurling infinite mystery!); A.A. Milne illustration via Mystery of Existence (how apropos!) blog; last photo of journaler via She Knows blog.

i can't talk to all the theoreticians because there don't exist theories where i am

I smiled when I saw my buddy DK Brainard's post after all the science talk yesterday... now science fiction. He's admits to reading tons of science fiction and fantasy genre lately, and not any mainstream or classics. I can relate:

"Part of me has a hard time copping to my current obsession. You see, I have a Master’s in French Literature, obtained jointly from the University of Paris and the University of Cincinnati. I have a double B.A. in English and French

...[Eventually,]

I stopped looking at the world as this fundamentally fixed environment and I realized that the more radically I change my internal reality, the more the Universe I perceive changes also.

We hear all the time, “Change your mind and you will change your life.” But what I’ve found is that this is true far beyond what most of us are willing to consider.

I think that’s why I’m so drawn to fantasy literature right now. Because it’s pushing me further out of my preconceptions about what is possible for me. You see, after nearly ten years of dedication to a meditative practice and the spiritual path, I’ve seen that the mind can work amazing changes on my outer reality. But I also know I’m just scratching the surface of my potential.

The more I read these books – and reflect on the many well-documented accounts of remote viewers, spoonbenders, shape shifters and people who can levitate objects using only the mind – the more I wonder, “Why aren’t we doing more with what we have?”" -excerpt from D.K. Brainard, "Reality vs. Fantasy", WordsForThePeople.com

I've also gravitated toward science fiction and fantasy myself--that is when I read any linear novels anymore. Strange, as I'm the gal who won regional contests in high school for essays on Jane Austen. Why read Cliffnotes--that's like skipping out on desert? I devoured The Classics--even ones that weren't assigned. I wished to study English Literature and Philosophy in college, but I was fiercely into financial indendence at that age and opted for a Computer Engineering degree, instead. Part of me always wanted to be a creative writer.

I put in a whole year coming up a narrative alternate reality game that would push the edges of people's consideration of possibility by relying on the age-old "suspension of disbelief." I put my money where my faith was and even showed up to Book Expo America in New York to grok the publishing world even though that meant I left a weekend job behind, and showed up with $50 (I don't do credit cards) in my pocket at JFK. (That's another story--the prosperity hunch and experiments have altered yet again.)

I found myself being so drawn into the storyworld and its characters, I'd abandoned the original mission... which is Life itself. The whole ARG was to get people more engaged with their own life and see it as an adventure. I didn't want folks to be so entranced by the storyworld that they willingly push aside their own life to find out "What happens next..." to fictional characters. I tabled the whole project recently; although it might find a form later if I make your life the main storyworld.

I wondered why can't we talk openly about possibilities and paradoxes and miracles and marvels without the pretense of fiction (although that can be fun)? Why make taboos or heresies out of exploration and experimentation and edges?

This is the hunch I have: that your life right now as it is is guiding you to the edges of possibility, to the unknown. Yet I'm thinking we also take the lead in asking the questions.

It's pretty tuned to your specifics, too. Don't do bibliomancy?--no problem, it'll spill from the mouth of babes. Don't do external clews?--no problem, you'll get inner inclinations, lurching gut, tingling pulsing currents or emotional beacons. Anything I say may or may not apply, it's tailored for you. Be skeptical of common wisdom and theories and be wary of bandwagons, and go for your own data--directly (sometimes 'experience' is a bit less visual, and more visceral or employs other senses besides the eye).

I recently read The Hunt for Zero Point after a deep quest to learn more about Vickor Schaumberger (originally my interest was water... but I never know what I'm going to uncover.) The point here is that the author started following threads of personal interest in a taboo topic in his field of aviation journalism. It's just "science fiction," they scoffed around his office. He followed his gut and kept digging into anti-gravity propulsion. Years later, he interviews a brilliant scientist at an aerospace company that he thinks might give him more clues.

The main takeaway the scientist tells him is you get to a point--which if you look at Life as the grand experiment--where you've gone as far as the theories take you, or the data pouring in is altogether new and not quite fitting in. That's how new theories develop.

The data is important--not adhering to an established theory.

You have to pay close attention to your life, to reality as it is showing up for you. And maybe even entertain the notion that perceived reality (not necessarily Absolute/Formless reality) is dynamic, so that even a theory that worked yesterday may be obsolete. Or even that that last sentence may be utter nonsense if time is simultaneous.

"But now that the interview was over, the minders [there's always PR people monitoring corporate interviews] were looking the other way. They'd done their job and I'd done mine. Boyd Bushman had spilled no secrets either on or off the record and that was what mattered. Nor had he in any way tarnished the reputation of the Lockheed Martin company. [Funny, I used to work for what is now known as Lockheed Martin--in the million-dollar video games department, aka flight simulators.]

That I had learned nothing of value must have shown on my face, for without warning, Bushman leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder.

He asked me what was wrong and I told him.

"It's a lonely walk, but a rewarding one," he said, so quietly that I almost missed it. I looked into his eyes, which were quite blue but for that superficial milkiness that sometimes denotes the onset of old age.

He smiled at me. "Keep traveling the road and you might just find what you're looking for."

"What do you mean?" I asked cautiously.

"In all my years with this company, no one has asked me the questions you came here with today." He paused a moment, then said: "Here, I want to show you something."

He produced a videocassette from the folds of his loose-hanging suit and gave me the same smile that had crossed his face a number of times during the interview; usually, I noticed, when he needed a moment or two to think about a particularly awkward question I'd thrown at him. He looked not unlike Walter Matthau, the Hollywood actor, with a kindly, hangdog expression and thick straight hair to match. Instinctively, I'd liked him. But more to the point, I knew that I could trust him. Unusually for someone who toiled in the heart of the U.S. defense-industrial complex, he looked somewhat like someone who was incapable of telling a lie.

Bushman appeared beyond the retirement age of most good man-and-boy company men, which in itself spoke volumes about his ability.

Before I met him, I'd been told that he was a one-off, one of those people who liked to think out of the box--defense jargon for a guy in the trade who looked at things differently. Just how differently, I was about to find out.

The picture on the TV screen steadied and I found myself staring at a scene of such ordinariness I thought for a moment that Bushman had plugged in the wrong tape.

From the graininess of the film and the way the camera trembled, it rapidly became clear that this was some kind of a home movie. It depicted the interior of a garage or workshop. In the middle of the frame was a saw on a pockmarked wooden work surface. Beside it was a pair of pliers and a handful of nails.

For a while, we both just stood there watching a picture in which nothing happened. The minders had taken a quick look and apparently decided it was an eccentric end to a quirky afternoon's work, because they went back to their own conversation.

My gaze drifted back to the TV just as one of the nails in the center of the screen began to twitch and the pliers moved--jumped, rather--a centimeter to the left. Within seconds, everything was shaking, as if rocked by a series of earth tremors. And then, quite suddenly, the nails stood up, like hairs on a cold forearm.

I looked at Bushman, who was studying the screen intently, "Watch," he urged, "this is the best bit."

One by one, the nails took off and shot off the top of the screen. A moment later, the pliers started to do a crazy nose-down dance across the work surface and the saw began flapping around like a fish out of water. Then they both went the way of the nails, shooting out of frame toward the ceiling.

Then, the picture switched: same background, different still life.

Ice cream was creeping up the sides of a see-through tub. A lump of it broke away and rose toward the ceiling trailing little pearls of cream. Seconds later, the whole tub jumped off the bench.

My skepticism was working overtime. But Bushman read my thoughts. "It's no fake," he said. "This is as real as you or I." He cast a look over his shoulder at our companions. "The man responsible is a civilian, nothing to do with the defense business. That he's a genius goes without saying, of course. You needed to see this, because it's confirmation of the data." He emphasized the word as if somehow it would help me understand what I had just seen. "You must get to see this man. I think, then, you will be closer than you think to the end of your journey."

"Data? What data?" I looked at him more closely, hoping for more, but he said nothing.

As I was ushered out of the room, the scientist looked down at the thick pack of material he'd handed me before the interview. I hadn't had time to look at it. Now, I wished I had.

That evening, I sat down with Bushman's file in my hotel room. He'd loaded me down with so many papers, I didn't know where to begin or what I was really looking for. There was a stack of photostats relating to the patents he'd filed during a long and illustrious career that had included stints at some of the giants of the postwar U.S. aerospace and defense industry: Hughes Aircraft, Texas Instruments, General Dynamics and Lockheed.

There was his resume, which noted his top secret security clearance, as well as copies of scientific papers, stapled neatly at the corner, with exotic-sounding titles that meant little to me.

My eyes swam over pages of complex mathematical equations and algebra sets. I was looking for clues, but seeing nothing that made much sense.

I pressed the "play" button on my tape recorder.

From the tenth floor of my Fort Worth hotel room, the lights of the city shimmered in the sizzling 90-degree heat, even though it was a good half an hour after the sun had slipped below the skyline. Inside, the air-conditioning was cold enough to prickle my skin.

". . . I went back to some of the first work on gravity done by Galileo. . . "

[Aside on Galileo: "When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.]

Bushman's voice crackled in the darkness, clashing for a moment with that of a CNN reporter on the TV. I adjusted the volume on the tape recorder, hit the fast-forward button and pressed play again.

"So, what I think is: Follow the data and log your data very well and don't throw it away because you have a theory. The theory of gravity is just a theory. Einstein improved on the original theories of Newton and he was verified by data--and data gave precedence. No one believed Einstein until the data arrived. Well, our data's arrived. . . "

I scrolled the tape again. As I did so, I spotted something among the collection of papers Bushman had given me. Tucked beneath the patents and company brochure material on weapons technology was a grainy photocopy of a UFO flying low over a straight stretch of desert road. A handwritten caption underneath identified the location as Santa Ana, California, and the date as 1966.

Flicking past it, I found another cluster of photostats taken from the "Ramayana of Valmiki--Translated from the Original Sanskrit." A stamp on the title page identified the book as belonging to "Lockheed/Fort Worth."

Puzzled, I toggled with the buttons on the tape recorder and finally found the part of the interview I'd been looking for.

"Nature does not speak English," Bushman had been telling me. "Not only that, but if we verbalize it, we're probably approximating, but not telling the truth. Math comes close, but it isn't there either. What Nature tells us is what must be honored. It has been talking to us on many domains."

I let the words echo in my head for a moment.

Bushman was a senior scientist for one of the world's biggest defense contractors; a member of the fraternity that I'd looked to for expert comment all my professional life, and he was telling me to trust in what I saw. Folllow data, he's said, not theory. He worked on programs that lay beyond the cutting edge of known science.

"I can't talk to all the theoreticians," he'd told me, "because there don't exist theorires where I am."

"For the past ten years, I had been following data and the data had shown me that existence of something real. And yet some of the brightest minds on the planet were struggling to produce theory to underpin it. How could there be no theory for effects that were genuinely manifesting themselves in the environment?

What Nature tells us is what must be honored. It has been talking to us on many domains.

And we'd only understood a fraction of what it had been saying.

If we verbalize it, we're probably approximating, but not telling the truth.

And then it hit me. That's all theory was or ever had been--an approximation of the truth. Sometimes that approximation worked out and held fast, becoming scientific currency; other times it didn't and was superseded by another theory.

In this case, there were so many holes in our knowledge, it had allowed for people like Podkletnov and Schauberger to fall through the gaps, to show us things that science couldn't account for. Because science theory hadn't mapped them yet.
...
Einstein had followed Newton and data had verified them both. But in this field, as with other fields of scientific endeavor, the data was still coming in." - Nick Cook, The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology

Bonus: I have my own notes from the book I'll share. It's worth a read if you're peering over edges, especially related to energy research.

Art/Photo Credits: Sylvia Ji's Spring; can't find the original artist source, but I got this whimsical illustration via Copper Witch's cached blog; going for the labyrinth myth and clews angle too, this awesome digital composition is by loutremauve on DeviantArt.com; gravity-defying levitator is a photo effect via Geekologie; the 3D rendered anti-gravity propulsion vehicle is by Victor Alatorre (can't find his website) via Paranormal People; and, whoa 'miracles' that look really fun...walking on water ball.

hunches messes serendipity accidents research & where do good ideas come from

"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein

I'm not sure when it happened. It might have been one of the museums in New York City, which one isn't important as I packed in the Guggenheim, the Met, the MoMA, New Museum, PS 1, and a few others into the last two weeks of September. It hit me that I was not an artist, by any strict definition. What I actually care about is inspiration, improvisation, infinity, and innovation at the broadest levels. Levels that may not be confined in a particular artifact such as book or painting. Add ideas. I care about encouraging a diversity of inspirations in all manner of fields that may not fit the "art" category.

I also realized around the same time (someone else's epiphany which I just re-stumbled upon) that art is putting ideas in form. So I ended up coming full circle. As that is what I want to do... put ideas into this formscape we call reality.

I don't care if it fits in a museum, or on an iPad. Maybe it's a spaceship. Many it's a new way to exchange resources. Maybe it's a business. Maybe it's a new way of wellness (prefer that word to health). Maybe it's a new method of agriculture.

"Thomas Edison didn't tinker with building a better kerosene lamp; he abandoned the use of fire--the only human-generated source of light since prehistoric times--and broken through to a new source. That was a quantum leap in creativity. If you are the creator of your body, what is the quantum leap awaiting you?" - Deepak Chopra, Reinventing Your Body, Resurrecting Your Soul

In a nutshell, what I want to do is a lab for exploration and uncompromised inspiration.

"Lab" sounds dry, so sometimes I use the word atelier instead. Mostly it's a space for people to mingle at the hazy hunch stage of ideas. A place to discover and be bewildered by other hunches that may at first seem opposed to yours or plain odd or not particularly relevant. It's not necessarily a magnet for "like-minded" people (as often I find that limits my imagination to more of what I already know rather than exploring what I don't know that I don't know).

"There's nothing we really need to do that isn't dangerous." - John Cage

It's actually a real, geographical place too. Even with all my Internet experience (in the industry from 1995-2005), I cannot find the "form" or format that this would work online (yet?).* Although I am itching to do something right away.... so at least here on the blog, I will share wild nuances from a variety of sources, intriguing possibilities, and open-ended (not leading) questions that let you unfurl your own self-created outcomes.

      "Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something." - Thomas Edison

"Messes can also be beneficial in presenting unexpected connections and juxtapositions. These often lead to new ideas, explorations, combinations, and solutions." - Keri Smith

Steven Johnson asks a most intriguing question: "What are the spaces that have historically led to unusual rates of creativity and innovation?" (Short 4-minute video with author of "Where Do Good Ideas Come From?" here.) I was really struck with the idea of richness of diversity as important factors to "good ideas". In fact, page one of Where Do Good Ideas Come From? starts with a narrative of Charles Darwin being mesmerized by the profuse bounty of species supported by the coral reefs around the Keeling Islands. Another story shares how if Johannes Gutenberg hadn't mingled outside his context with the vintners of Rhineland, Germany the trained metallurgist would "merely be a pioneering typesetter making an incremental improvement on Pi Sheng's moveable type," rather than the inventor of the printing press.

"The natural state of ideas is flow and spillover and connection. It is society that keeps them in chains." - Steven Johnson, Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

"Ideologies exclude openness, diversity, resiliency, and multiplicity, the very qualities that nourish life in any system, be it ecosystem, immune system, or social system... Ideas are living things; they can be changed, and adapted, and can grow." - Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest

I was looking for a gift for my 5-year-old cousin yesterday, and was surprised to see one of Keri Smith's journals in the children's book section (mind you, not even the independent reader part of the kiddies or YA section). I guess only one as a child would think to purposefully wreck their pristine journal, or explore the world. I plop down in an armchair with Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes. (And already cradling The Accidental Billionaires among a hefty pile in my arm. When I open The Accidental Millionaires, it falls to beginning of Chapter 21: Serendipity. Serendipity is also a chapter in Steven Johnson's book, Where Do Good Ideas Come From?)

"In the film ["Broken Fall"], there is an interview with an old Dutch sailor that sums up [Bas Jon] Ader's work perfectly. He speaks indirectly about the process of improvisation, but the connection made from it is that point of Ader's "falls" is not the falling but the moment (1/10th of a second) where he makes the decision to let go. That is the moment of transcendence when you leave everything behind and leap into the unknown.

As improvisers, artists, or experimenters, we are trying to re-create that moment--when you leave everything behind and leap into the unknown. Because we've done it before and it's addictive--that seductive release, a sense of giddyness mixed with fear [note: like a roller-coaster!]. For an instant you get a feeling that you are really doing something worthwhile, living out on the edge of something big, yet unnameable. A kind of opening (with all the vulnerability that comes with that).

We all know what it feels like to fall, but how many of us have experimented with gravity as a medium? Isn't falling or breaking things something we only do by accident? What does it feel like to throw yourself off balance on purpose?

Definition of "mistake" or "accident" (for the purposes of this book): Happenings or occurences by which the creator does not have complete control over the final outcome (end result) that result in conclusions the creator did not predict. We might also call them "experiments."" - Keri Smith, Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes

* Online, folks tend to share ideas that are already fully formulated, or something they already know pretty well (in an educational or consultative manner, a how-to). Rarely do we share wisps of half-baked visions, yet it's precisely hazy hunches colliding with one another that Johnson says is important to breakthrough creativity. Here's that short vid:

 

Bonus: Another video. In my opinion, this TED video doesn't do the book justice. But anyhow, at 7:23 there's a picture of a "messy" (and fruitful!) co-mingling of ideas where Johnson states: "The spaces that have historically led to innovation tend to look like this--This is Hogart's famous painting the kind of Political Dinner at a Tavern--but this is what the coffeeshops looked like back then. This is the kind of chaotic environment where ideas were likely to come together, where people were likely to have new, interesting, unpredictable collisions--people from different backgrounds... This is what your office should look like--that's part of my message here." And if anyone can tell me the name of the painter and the painting, I'd be grateful. I thought I heard Hogart, but a search yielded zip.