I’m about to leave San Francisco, just another day and then I go. It’s been a family trip not a touristy one but here is a snapshot today as I had my last evening in the city.
Nora Bateson
What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all the four of them to me? And me to you? ”
–Gregory Bateson
Listened to a wonderful podcast http://www.futureprimitive.org/2011/04/nora-bateson-the-pattern-that-connects/ today Nora Bateson about her movie http://www.anecologyofmind.com/index.html
Psyberspace
What is this blog about? It might be all over the place but this picture shows how my filter works.
At the heart is a patch where there is a psychological, or soulful aesthetic, cyberspace phenomena that makes the world a better place.
F. David Peat
Listened to F. David Peat on Future Primitive. I liked him after a while. Student of David Bohm.
His central metaphor (from item below):
In terms of social or economic systems, action would emerge out of the natural dynamics of the whole system, arising in a highly intelligent and sensitive way and consisting of small corrective movements and minimal interventions. Rather than seeking to impose change externally and at some particular point in a system, gentle action would operate within the dynamics and meanings of the entire system.
As usual made me wonder why he had not taken on board Marx on these questions. The system is biased, not natural.
Found this item: Gentle Action_Surviving Chaos and Change.pdf
Later: Friday, 20 May, 2016
Listened to a podcast about Hannah Arendt Partially Examined Life
The social in here schema is natural, not political which distinguishes us from animals. Bohm may have the same idea.
Not sure I’ve got it but the whole episode is interesting on social roles.
Misses the idea of “bringing your self into a social role”??
On being supple
I found this in a free email from Philip Pawson – Alexander Technique teacher. I find it very compelling.
It doesn’t matter how skilful you are. Bend a bent piece of wire to straighten it and you’ve got an extra kink in your piece of wire.
If you bend a young tree over, it gives. It bends supply and pliably. It makes no attempt to keep straight.
But stop bending it and, suddenly, it’s straight again, swaying effortlessly in the breeze.
Intention as Crucible
I was stimulated today by three thoughts coming together.
I’ve been keen on the Alexander Technique in the last few days. Sore back, and also watching my son josh with a crippling sore back has led to a renewed interest in this approach. I’d read the book by F Matthias Alexander (Wikipedia) in the early ’80s. It got me to walk without a limp after an accident.
The aspect of the philosophy on my mind today was what they call “end-gaining” ie focusing on the goal or outcome rather than the process. Yet the method certainly has goals; reduction of pain, better performance, less stress, productivity. Like much of the method, it’s a bit paradoxical. The couple work I do with clients involves slow conscious dialogue: I say slow is fast. It is a bit similar. I use the phrase “goal shadow” to describe the negatives of being too outcome focused.
This was on my mind when I heard the phrase “holding the intention” in relationship to art. That puts the same idea in an active way, rather than not “end-gaining”, hold the intention. Intention is significantly different from goal, purpose or solution, not much but enough to give me a whole new feel, there is no sharpness in it, it is soft focus.
The third thing was reflecting on the sacred space of the therapeutic hour. How framing the work in an hour created a holding space. (Lacanians may differ). I think of that hour, the psychodrama stage, the Imago dialogue and the canvas of a painting, as alchemical vessels within which transformation can happen.
Then it occurred to me that intention far from being a wishy-washy thing could be an alchemical vessel. Holding the intention creates a space in which the intention is held, a space for the work to cook through all its stages. I like it, it complements GTD.
Later:Changed the title from vessel to crucible, and noticed how firmly this related to an earlier post. Being & Doing.
Grant Hanna
DCA Cancer Cure?
Ok, big pharmaceutical companies are not picking this up, but surely if there is something in it, some sort of open source thing would do the trick? Kickstarter? And if the FDA wont approve it, there are other countries who will, surely?
socialscapegoat.com » DCA Cancer Cure?:
DCA Cancer Cure? Posted by Claire Connelly in Technology Leave it to pharmaceutical companies to prioritise profit over curing the second leading cause of death in America and third leading cause of death in Australia alone. Dr. Evangelos Michelaksis discovered that Dichloroacetic Acid (or DCA) – an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule which was once used to cure rare inherited metabolic diseases, could potentially be used as a non-invasive cancer cure that has zero side effects. When he added it to the water of mice and rats who were given human cancers, Michelaksis found that over a period as short as three weeks, the cancer growths had shrunk by up to 70%. Unfortunately, because DCA isn’t patented, the pharmaceutical companies have no interest in producing the drug:
iPad Art
Went to the apple store in San Francisco today and heard iPad artists talk about their medium. I particularly liked the work of hgberk in flckr There is also a show on in San Francisco I might try to get there next Tuesday.
Future/Canvas – the emerging medium of ipad art:
It has been just over a year since the release of the iPad and already it has inspired an exciting new world of digital art. Artists and programmers are using the iPad as a digital canvas and are creating radical new artwork that pushes the bounds of imagination. Future/Canvas showcases a variety of different artistic pursuits involving the iPad from interactive art to photography to painting. Taking place during the Apple World Wide Developer Conference, this is a must-stop destination for iPad enthusiasts who are interested in art. The original Future/Canvas was the first ever multiple-artist iPad art show held in December 2010 at The Box Factory in San Francisco. Our goals is to encourage the creation of iPad art by bringing together the diverse range of people necessary to create it in an environment that demonstrates the possibilities of the medium.
Next
Evolution does not happen evenly. It may be gradual, but it goes step to step. Sometimes a small change opens up a whole new range of possibilities.
• the opposable thumb
• fire
• alphabet
• law
• printing
• Internet
• next?
I’ve left out a few, but you get the idea, some things change everything.
Ways of organising ourselves into groups to educate and heal have evolved over centuries. There are modalities like psychoanalysis, and TA and Alcoholics Anonymous and the Red Cross and so on, that all have methodologies and the persist with a sort of DNA that allows these ideas to hold together and spread. My hunch is that one of the big changes coming up, and needed, is that there will be a new way to speed up the process that has been working in an ad hoc way. Imagine there were ways to find tool kits online for running groups that were freely available and could be edited by their users (Wikipedia style). Imagine that these could be classified and rated, and they each had their advocates and practitioners who beleived their group could make the world a better place.
I can imagine such a social network emerging from the need to change on the one hand , and our ability to learn from Wikipedia, Facebook and Linux on the other as well as the fact there are already thousands of thriving forms that each in their own way work towards major social change. Could there be one network that transforms all of this into something new? I say one network because some things tend to towards there being only one, and one works best, for example Google, Amazon and the Internet itself is the best example.