In the Self-Centered Dream

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The "Free Will" Question

I once asked Elihu Smith, dharma heir of Joko Beck, if free will exists, or are we just a series of chemical reactions, an identity formed and programmed by our past experiences and memories, enslaved by our DNA?

Elihu answered, "Who's asking that question?"

And bow.

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Flury: Journey of a Snowman

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Brainiacs Included

"You listen to really smart audiobooks," my wife told me.

I had just finished The Future of the Mind and had started into The Elegant Universe. The chapter on string theory was playing when she used my truck.

"It doesn't mean I understand it," I replied.

I had a chemistry class in college. This was the late 80s. The professor was this stuffy Alfred Hitchcock doppelganger that lectured with authority to an auditorium of 300+ undergraduates. If he caught you talking he'd hold up his piece of chalk and ask with a booming voice, "Do you want to teach? Mmm? Do you?"

And he'd hold that piece of chalk up until all 299 undergrads were staring at the offender. The silence would drag out and then he'd say, one more time, "Do you? Mmm?"

I never talked again.

But this professor taught us that atoms operated like billiard balls, bouncing off each other. And the more energy they had, the faster they collided. Seemed easy enough, until I learned somewhere else that the billiard balls metaphor had been disproved decades ago.

Someone forgot to tell Alfred.

In the 70s and 80s, we learned that protons, neutrons and electrons were the fundamental components that made up reality. Turns out that's not even close. Now there are gluons and quarks and gravitons. In fact, the smallest fundamental particle is debatable, although string theory suggests that the fundamental particles aren't point particles but strings. Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny tiny strings.

The crazy thing is that the laws of physics operate differently on this tiny ass fundamental scale than they do on the macoscopic, or universal, scale. Einstein's theories didn't apply to the microscopic, one the reasons he didn't buy into quantum mechanics. But physicists continue to create theories that are bridging the differences.

But here's my second level of fascination when listening to brainy audiobooks: physics isn't just for calculators. To most of us, it seems like physicists are nothing more number crunchers with minds that process faster than Deep Blue. But intelligence shouldn't be measured only by one's ability to calculate. Creativity is an essential ingredient, to imagine, to see beyond our constraints, to fearlessly open ourselves to the unknown. Many of Einstein's groundbreaking work started as thought experiments.

That means he dreamed them up.

There are physicists that spend an entire lifetime cooking up theories to explain reality. These theories have to be mathematically sound and, if possible, experimentally verified. If the theory warrants enough attention, it will be dragged through a gauntlet of criticism, of peers poking and prodding and doing everything to tear down their creation. If it's still standing after the last bullet is fired, then maybe--maaaaaaybe--it'll be accepted. In the beginning, Einstein was scalded for casting doubt on Newton's gravitational theory, a theory that had been a cornerstone of physics for hundreds of years.

Turns out Einstein was right.

But that's not always the case. Watch Particle Fever on Netflix. It's a documentary on the Geneva particle collider. You'll see a community of off-the-charts brainiacs behaving like middle America does on a Sunday afternoon. Instead of rooting for touchdowns, they're placing bets on bosons and upquarks and shit that resembles fireworks. The results of these historical experiments could verify theoretical physicists ideas. Or disprove them.

Imagine a lifetime of work, everything you've conceived of, your legacy, proven wrong beyond-a-doubt in one fell swoop of the particle accelerator. There's no consolation prize for 30 years of effort. And yet physicists work this way, a lifetime effort they may never live to see realized. Einstein was still working on theories on his deathbed because creativity exists only in this moment.

Brainiacs included.

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Saturday, July 12, 2014

How to Fall

I didn't create this story. I heard Joko Beck once tell it. I don't think she created it, either.

But nonetheless.

There once was an enlightened man who climbed a ten-story building to repair a roof. He admired the flow of traffic, how the roads curved and the streetlights glowed. Before he began meditation, he recalled how life was like standing in the middle of the road where cars whizzed past and life felt so harried and confusing. Now he understood where the cars were going. He had space.

The work he needed to do required that he dangle halfway over the edge with one leg. It was very dangerous work, so he followed all the proper safety precautions. With a tool belt around his waist and a harness keeping him firmly secure, he went about the repair.

But despite his efforts, the safety harness that kept him clipped to the roof failed. Through no fault of his own, a strap had frayed and the enlightened man began his fall. Being a ten-story building with pavement below, his death was imminent. Down he plummeted past the ninth floor.

The eighth floor.

The seventh.

Sixth.

Somewhere near the fifth floor, a resident was watering houseplants on her balcony. As the enlightened man plunged past her, he could be heard talking.

She heard him say, "So far, so good."

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Saturday, June 7, 2014

My Tomorrow

One is too many, a thousand not enough.

This quote is usually reserved for AA meetings, but not necessarily exclusive to booze. As humans, we all want something, whether it’s another cigarette, a larger slice of pie or our children home safe. Naturally, we want to feel to feel good. It’s built into our instinct, our sense of survival. Written somewhere on our DNA is the need for a happy ending, that when this is all over the narrator of our life will announce in classic Disney tone, “And they lived happily ever after.”

Dystopia reveals the light of our lives by walking through the dark. It explores the true nature of our predicaments, the tragic adventure of the human experience. At times, it shows how dark we can become. How brilliant we are.

But no story really ends. It simply transitions into another. One ending begets another beginning. When we look back on our lives, those catastrophes that seemed like mountains are merely anthills that made us tougher; those eye-high hurdles made us stronger. We loved deeply and fought valiantly. If we’re lucky, we achieved our dreams: our children are safe, our grandchildren are healthy and our vast wealth, the proof our successes, the currency of our value, is inexhaustible. Happily ever after.

But when the time comes, when our ending nears, will we let go so easily?

We’ve worked so hard to become who we are, to build our castles and protect our young. Is it not unfair to walk away from what is rightfully ours? Especially when so many people in this world waste their lives, those moments that now—lying on our last bed counting our remaining breaths—seem priceless. It seems ludicrous—from our old, decrepit vantage point—that anything should die.

But death is our ending. Happily or not, it comes. It is part of life, we say, but those words leave our lips much easier before we’re sucking our numbered breaths, when we’re clinging to our last moments. Those moments that seemed endless and inexhaustible slip away as we draw our last breath. When the last one arrives, will we grasp at it, or let it go freely?

Is one too many, and a thousand not enough?

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What Tomorrow May Bring

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Trigger Happy

6,500 languages in the world. I only know one.

It's the language I learned. In kindergarten, it was Dick and Jane and their dog Spot. In grade school, please and thank you. By high school: shit, ass, fuck. (Full disclosure: that was middle school.)

Joko Beck had a story about rowing a boat on a foggy day when another boat smashes into your stern. You're furious with the careless dipshit that just scratched your paint job, but you discover the boat is empty.

Where does the anger go?

The boat didn't cause the anger. It was the thoughts about the dipshit driving it. The boat simply triggered our unconscious beliefs about ourselves and life. In some teachings, the boat is a Buddha graciously showing us where we're stuck.

It is not the anger.

This past week, my Buddha has been Bobby.

Bobby is a lap dog I'm babysitting. At his house, Bobby has the life. In the morning, his owner prepares him cantaloupe. At night, it's a scrambled egg. He gets three walks a day and has run of the house.

Bobby's not cool with our house. Bobby doesn't like wet grass. He wants to pee on the deck. I carry him into the yard to pee-pee. But Bobby's smart. When it's time for pee-pee, he runs away. When I get him, I stand in the yard with a handful of doggy snacks singing, "Pee-pee, now. Pee-pee, now" and watch him sprint for the door.

Trigger, meet anger.

I'm angry because he won't do what I want, like stop pissing on the deck and come when I call. Those are my thoughts, my beliefs...that he should do what I want when I tell him. And they're irrational. I know this because I have friends that work wonders with horses and dogs. They understand a language that animals understand. I'm floundering in Dog Speak 101.

Recently, I began reading Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg and discovered a whole new language. Over the last 16 years as a college teacher, I've come to realize how my words affect others. What I say and how I say it can trigger reactions. When there are 30 students, there are a lot triggers.

Choosing my words and actions carefully can prevent unnecessary reactions, bridge impasses, and can stimulate growth. Just as importantly, it can shine the light on my own triggers and what lies beneath my actions. What is the true nature of experience? Where does the anger go?

Here in a minute, I'll let Bobby outside. He will graciously show me my belief systems.

Pee-pee, now.

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Sunday, May 11, 2014

What I Wasn't

Flash fiction: a story told in a few words.

By some accounts, the shortest story ever told was by Hemingway:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Six words is all it took. Six. I never get tired of rehashing all the possibilities, all the heartache and complexities that come along with selling baby shoes, never worn, via a Want Ad.

Recently, I submitted a story to a science fiction website, 365 Tomorrows. I had 600 words to tell a story. They ran it. It goes like this.

WHAT I WASN’T

It started with a flash.

Like the Big Bang, an explosion that swallowed everything. The pain sunk deep into my head, and then was replaced with blurry colors. There were no edges to the blobs floating before a background of gray. The pinks and the browns and the silvers and the blues shifted in silence that was so deep and perfect, like floating in a pristine ocean.

And then the silence was gone, obliterated by the sounds of a tapping keyboard and a young man talking. His name was Ben. He just broke up with his girlfriend, said he was ready to spread his wings. You know, fly a little.

“What’s wrong with her left eye?” Madeline asked.

She was the one making the keyboard rattle. A colorful blob merged into my line of sight and then—SNICK—my left eyelid slid up. More colors.

“Hand me the drops,” Ben said.

The drops were cold and slippery. They burned my eyes. I blinked the world into focus. Ben’s hair hung over his ears and he hadn’t shaved in days. His eyes were green, like the green of new growth. The white collar of his lab coat was pulled up.

He flashed a bright light in my left eye. “How’s that?” he asked. “Can you see me?”

He spoke like I was deaf or old. I was neither.

“Give me something. Sing a song, belch…something.”

“Stop badgering her,” Madeline said. “She’s not ready to talk.”

An argument ensued. I was left staring at a gray ceiling with an attached rail that encircled us with a heavy plastic curtain. I realized, not until that moment, that I couldn’t move. My body was like wet metal shavings, the table hard and cold. Madeline made the keyboard dance while Ben fiddled with a tray of medical tools.

That’s when the memories came.

I remembered Christmas and my dog and the time Simon brought flowers to work and sang and I blushed. I remembered all the little good things and the little bad things, how they hurt and how they pleased. That’s when I smiled.

“There,” Madeline said. “Give her the mirror.”

Ben stuck something in my hand. He lifted my naked arm, wrapping his hand around my dead fingers. I saw my red hair spread over my shoulders. My skin was fair and my eyes were green, like emeralds.

“Heather.” I watched my lips move. That was my name.

Madeline kept tapping the keyboard. Ben danced around the table and rubbed my hands and legs. The feeling came back with pins and needles. The sensations came in dense waves, as if my body had fallen asleep. Ben massaged my arms and shoulders and feet. I sank into the incoming tide of memories to escape the discomfort, each one a jewel that reminded me who I was.

There was sledding and the time I learned to drive and a funeral and my first kiss. I remembered my life.

Ben was rushing to the other side when he slipped. Falling, he grabbed the curtain. The metal rings pinged as the plastic ripped away. We weren’t in a small room, not like I thought. I let my head roll to the side. I saw more tables like the one beneath me. On them were nude women with red hair spilled over their shoulders and fair skin. Their eyes were closed, but I knew they were green.

“Damn it, Ben.” The keyboard clattered at high speed.

And those sweet, sweet memories went away.

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