The Universe provides abundantly.

Today, Rebecca had a flat tire on the way home from Washington. She finally pulled over at the truck stop at Brooks, on I-5. As I was on my way up to Newberg from Salem, I arranged to come 'rescue' her.

(Really, I wanted to see her before the week started and I had been missing her, so I had arranged with the universe to delay her so I wouldn't miss the narrow window we had as we passed each other on I-5. Considering she had probably driven over 60 miles on a flat tire before a kind overtaking motorist alerted her to the condition, I will have to be more cautious with how I arrange with the universe what manifests...on the other hand, how likely is it that one can drive on a flat tire for 60 miles without mishap, and have the tire serviceable after that abuse - so more of the universe providing abundantly and safely, and suspending normal laws of cause & effect.)

Got there, and the diagnosis was correct - a flat tire. Putting air into the tire demonstrated that it had lost integrity - air was hissing out of a hole, invisible, but audible and eventually located by lips - being way more sensitive to air flow than fingers! We had taken the wheel off, and I was imagining taking it to a repair facility where they would have the expertise to put one of those tire plug quick repair things in - the sort I see in the Pilots, CARQUEST’s and AutoZone at the checkout and never get. I was wrangling the spare into place when a voice says 'you guys have a flat? Want me to fix it?' A rescue angel had shown up, with exactly such a kit, and the expertise to wield it! We showed him where we had earlier located the leak, and he expertly shoved the plug in and wished us luck - went on to his way to his daughters house. He said his name was Brian. We filled the tire and indeed, no more hiss, so I put it back on the rental, and that was that. Total cost $2, for the quarters the air machine needed to operate.

As I am fond of saying - when we finally get to making the movie of the book we will write of our life, they will have to label it 'fiction' because the staggering number of amazing coincidences like this one (and more!) would just not be believed to have actually happened - it will be assumed it was made up in the script of the movie.

Mind, Ego and Soul

The mind is the tool the soul uses to cause good in the world. Unfortunately, the mind is a complex and self-organizing device and as such has evolved the ego. It is the ego that is responsible for all the suffering in the world.

same thought:
Through the mind the divine manifests love. The ego is solely a construct of the mind. Suffering is caused by and recognized only by the ego.

Systemic Transformation

I have been playing with this thought experiment recently - when our society and culture is viewed as a system and modeled with game theory, is there an action or event that can disrupt the system, trigger the transformation, or dissolution, of that system, without violence? One such trigger, which does cause violence, would be a revolution. But are there others? I can see that there are certain long term trends that classify under my stipulation - there have certainly been civilisations that have moved from one stage to the next without violence, but I sense for us, right now, we have not the luxury of centuries of evolving to our next stage. And a regrettable down-side of most revolutions is that the new system eventually resembles the old. So my inquiry is: Is there a way to disrupt the system such that a new order is established, without violence, and without the seeds from the old system latent and able to re-establish?

It is pretty deep, I have concluded, because one path I go down is that most people, if challenged about how it is today, agree it is far from utopia, and in broad strokes would want to see transformation with more equity for all. This is true for homeless people on the street to a VP at HP who is wealthy and running a division the size of a small country. Yet each feels trapped in their place, unable to affect any serious change. And I hear this rhetoric all the way up to the president of the US. I tentatively conclude that these people are either inauthentic in their desire for change, and wish it to remain as it is, or powerful though they are, do not wield real power. Given my tendency to be trusting and think the best of people, I assume they do want what they profess.

So then, is there, are there, people who do have power who are unable (unwilling?) to see that the current balance of things is unsustainable, and perpetuate the system to further their own agenda? (And is it possible that this agenda might actually be worthwhile? Wow, never thought of that one...)

Back to the game theory model - can all this be represented in the model, and then demonstrate the existence of these unseen powers? And secondarily (but for me the main point) how can this be disrupted?

Or am I just attributing my resistance to accepting that human nature is basically selfish and greedy, and projecting this onto phantom unseen powers? A convenient fixation for me to blame? Even more insidious, am I projecting my *own* resistance to giving up my comforts, because I, too, am of the opinion that I can not affect any serious change, and that any action *I* take is so insignificant as to be useless to even attempt, onto some unseen power to justify my inaction?

Fortunately, if the game model is accurate, it wouldn't matter which of these cases holds. It might show that the disruptive action might be, for instance, if a certain number of people at a given moment burned all their dollar bills (I am grabbing a completely arbitrary example with no basis or theory!) the disruption would cause the change we seek. If I had confidence in this model, then I would participate. I suspect it will boil down to enough people with the courage of their conviction taking a unified bold leap into the unknown, transformed future, pulling the unwashed masses along with them.

I would like to think I will be one of the ones taking that leap. If only I knew what it was...

Well, deep breath... back to your regularly scheduled thoughts.

Default futures.

Does the future exist? If so, how is it created? If not, what are we living onto?

I get lost when trying to unravel how creating a relationship (or creating anything) projects something into the future, calls it forth, so to speak, and how, or even if, a default future exists. Like is there an unintentional, uncreated, future? Do animals or unconscious people live into such default futures? Do I when I get resigned, despair, or am caught in the past? Or is the default future created by the cumulative creation of those who intentionally create? And if we could unlearn all the constraints of our culture and society, what could we create for relationships, wellbeing, sustainability, abundance...

I'm right, you're right.

I am amused that comparisons of the human condition against arbitrary other species is used to bolster the argument for or against any given assertion on human sexuality, behaviour, morality, psychology, etc. Seeking to justify a given position using such comparisons is ludicrous. Such studies are legitimate trying to understand why a species behaves a certain way, but can never be used to justify 'normal' or 'abnormal' in either species.

Just looking at relationships:

There are species that mate for life. There are species that deposit sperm and scamper. There are species that kill their mate after mating. There are species where the female abandons the offspring to the male. There are species that live in pairs. There are species that live in large groups. There are species where there is a strong female in control of the group. There are species where there is a strong male in control. There are species where the female hunts. And there are species where the male hunts.

And there are examples of individuals and groups in the human species doing all of these.

Pick a favorite hot button for you. Do a quick Google on it, find your juiciest comparative study that shows this behaviour in some other species (or even other human culture) and you have irrefutable evidence that your position is right, justified, and ought to be defended (to the death, in some cases).

Pretty pointless, you'll agree.

vanagon breakdown

Vanagon popped a hose yesterday - fuel return from the injectors. Pretty spectacular smoke screen until I pulled into Firehouse No.5 Cafe 2 miles north of Corvallis on 99W.

If I blocked the hose - the recommended state per Phil at AAMCO in Corvallis who rebuilt the head last time, the next one in the chain would pop off! So I had it towed to Phil's for more thorough diagnostics.

Seems the hoses were expanding, and sturdier ones hold up fine. He also checked into the power steering issue, and found the reservoir empty, and leaking... looking for a replacement one, now.

remarkable now

Driving home with a crowd of fellow ILP'ers from our Landmark Education weekend in Seattle, the homework assignment was - what is your promise to the world?

A question that I had no answer for, and while I really like Kyle's answer 'Now!', I really don't want to just copy it. I am too ingenious and vain to do that, and, somewhat to my surprise, in the final 90 miles I got my answer.

While I could go on and on about how insightful I am, and clever I think I am, and the torturous and winding road with all the blind alleys and dead ends with promises that don't fulfill who I am, I won't. Because it doesn't match my promise.

So here it is.

Remarkable now!

How you will know when I am being 'Remarkable Now' is that you will get one of the 4 r's (!?) to any request you make - the result, or a re-negotiation, or a response when the result can be relied upon, or a refusal. If not in person, this will happen within 3 hours during the day, or, if after 9pm, by 10 the next morning.

If I know I am scheduled to be occupied such that I can not meet this promise, I will communicate out for that amount of time, before I go into silent running. My first such communicate out is for every Sunday morning until 2pm.