David Teachout's Blog, page 23

People Come First When Truth Is In Context

Recently I remarked to a girlfriend that “it’s not needed to figure it out but to accept that it’s true, understanding can come later." I had said something of this sort before and like then it yet again struck me as profoundly different than my usual focus. Had I not just written about the difference between knowing and thinking in "To Think Is Not Always To Know"? Had I not in "Foregoing Reason For Enlightenment" lamented about the tendency people have to pander to the most absurd of ideas despite of or often because of the lack of evidence that is in connection to it? Have my studies in spirituality finally placed me in that ephemeral world of postmodern wackiness where up is down and down is up and all of reality is a display of my own consciousness in some twisted narcissistic play? Alas, no. Instead I realized I was continuing to expand beyond the egoistic notions of rightness I have long lived with. 

 

Proselytizing is the attempt to convince someone of the rightness of one’s position, where zealotry is connecting with the shifting of opinion rather than an engagement in dialogue. Leaving fundamentalist Christianity brought many issues to be dealt with, not least of which the dedication to making everyone else believe as I do. The path away from it has had many iterations, each “softer” than the other, each taking into account a growing understanding of how the mind works and an appreciation for the individual narrative being lived through. Until the last few years I had not taken the time to contemplate a reality where truth is only as powerful as the ability of people to hold it in the context by which it touches them.




This contextual nature of truth is a relational one, as context is at core, an interactive dynamic between the reality-universal and the reality-subjective, where the latter does not so much create as cordon off aspects of the broader canvas to make a smaller picture. Mandelbrot art comes to mind here, repeating patterns larger and larger, but at any given point on the canvas one could stop and say this is all there is, ignoring the vastness that spirals ever outward. There are any number of conversations that occur which allow for any number of potential battlegrounds to hold one’s sight at. Focusing only on a particular understanding of a point or noting only one particular way to view a situation is like halting one's eye to see only the pigment and never the fuller artistic rendering. 




As an aside, I want to note that the "pigment" as it were can still be quite fruitful for discussion and study, merely that it is not the entirety. To focus on it as if it only is what encapsulates the situation is simply reductionism and in no way helps us to achieve a truly expanded awareness. Rather, it would sublimate all else to the narrow confines of its particular view. This is true of ideological battles and of human relational dynamics. We are not simply our genes, the mind is not merely the brain, rather we are our environment and relationships and our minds are relational as well. 

 

This is not a declaration that truth is meaningless or that objective truth is a fantasy, though I'll admit that such is no longer the traditional religious notion of being of an absolute nature. Rather, it is acknowledgment that truth simply has a subjective component. Not subjective in the sense of relative, but subjective in the context that all dialogue is subjective because it entails communion between two or more human beings, each possessing a phenomenological or what it feels like, experience. 




For example, the color blue is an objective truth but the how of its instantiation in nature is tied to the sight apparatus of the human person and will inevitably engender various thoughts from the blue of someone’s eyes to that of a cloudless sky or the deep swells of ocean waves. Truth is therefore not free-floating pieces of information awaiting to be believed, but tied to the inner workings of each individual in a social and personal-historical context. Any of us who have fought valiantly against an opinion only to at some point in the future find ourselves agreeing with that very point can attest to the power of truth's acquisition being contingent upon one’s place in life.




Such it is then in relationships, of whatever form they may take. The rightness of one’s opinion has little bearing upon the acceptance of it by any other person. In focusing so strongly on the rightness of one’s opinion, the broader reality in which that other person exists in the same universe, subject to their own concerns, fears, development and existential progress tends to be forgotten. 




At times what a person wants or is willing/able to give may not coincide with what another is able/willing to give or want/need. Yes, within the intellectual field of psychological analysis, there exists a virtually limitless field in which to ponder the mechanisms behind the creation and development of these wants/needs. Further, there is ample energy available to then judge the legitimacy of their existence and potential for building difficulty or success. Post break-ups are famous for these kind of mental prognostications, though they also are quite numerous whenever one enters a discussion wishing to “prove their point,” with proof being conflated with the words and position one uses and holds.




The needs and wants of any person, so long as they dwell within the spirit of authenticity and a lack of harm to self or others, can and should be cherished, acknowledged and open to fulfillment. There is a time for standing on one’s ground with feet firmly planted and flag waving, but more often than not it should be less about being right and more about the dialogue that reminds us all that there is no “other,” no “enemy,” no “contrary force” sitting across from us. We are all one in Spirit and reason is only one aspect of our being. Celebrating the totality of our existence, that we share and expand within in our connection to others, may in fact result in a greater rightness than we at first envisioned.







© David Teachout

To Think Is Not Always To Know

The brain never sleeps, we never stop cognizing. Even the greatest of yogis cannot stop the brain, only minimize the cacophony and place the processes in a more deliberate ordered manner. Only biological cessation, death, can halt completely the incessant hunger of neurological firings, feeding as it does on calories and the flow of information shaped into and out of experience. The entirety of this is often referred to merely as "thinking," the simplicity of such a term a grotesque diminishing of the feats being accomplished every second of every minute of every hour of every day of our lives. 





In general, thinking is not, after even a quick perusal of our daily experiences, all that profound in itself, at least not as it stands in comparison to those flashes of insight, those moments of profundity, the grasping of a particular difficult notion. In such situations thinking is left behind and instead what is gained is knowledge. The entry of Despair Is The Shadow Of Hope went into this, noting the biological experience of seeing as being metaphorically related to the cognitive experience of knowing. The immediate example is someone noting they are "thinking through" a problem but the solution is met with an exclamation of "ah, I see." 





The distinction between thinking and knowing here cannot be overstated. However much overlap there exists neurologically, the phenomenological experience of the two is quite different. Rare is the person who is caught up in a movement or identifies with a particular ideology merely on the basis of thinking. Rather, it is in the proclamation of knowing in which a person can be called out for their adherence or allegiance to an ideological structure. More pointed, planes are not flown into buildings, bombs are not set off at abortion clinics, women's rights and voting rights are not curtailed out of a general course of thinking but rather burst out of what is felt to be known like pustules. We do not identify ourselves with the trajectory of our thoughts, only the so-called conclusions that we call knowledge. Thankfully while the aforementioned examples are all negative, the majority of people come to far more positive conclusions, ones that appreciate life rather than seek to curtail its expression. 





There is a journey involved here on the path to knowing, as noted above in the metaphor of "thinking through," an allusion to a path or tunnel, undoubtedly why knowledge is so often equated with light particularly as it arrives after emerging from a dark place. A great historical allegory is Socrates's cave, out of which the budding philosopher must initially step from.





To follow this notion of a path (thinking) and destination (knowledge) I want to turn to Democracy and Education by John Dewey. "Thinking in other words, is the intentional endeavor to discover specific connections between something which we do and the consequences which result, so that the two become continuous." (p. 145) Dewey is here indicating that thinking is an active process, an intentional act in which a person is engaged, deliberately drawing internal connections between the action-reaction relationship of our moment-to-moment behavior. It is not enough in other words to strike a match and see the flame, we must also attempt to know how the two events are linked. This process here is the distinguishing criteria between what is passive engagement with life and active involvement. It is this activity which coincides with the distinction I started with between mere thinking and knowledge, or passive and active. 





To move along the path of thinking to knowledge as a deliberate action is to engage more fully with a broader section of life. As I noted in Possibility Relationally Constructed  the potential for peak experiences is bound within the relational reality within which we all exist and interconnect. Thinking is the primary means we traverse this plain of being with knowledge being largely equivalent to a peak cognitive situation, an "ah ha!" moment of clarity in the midst of the maelstrom of thought. As Dewey declares: "All that the wisest man man can do is to observe what is going on more widely and more minutely and then select more carefully from what is noted just those factors which point to something to happen." (p. 146) This is undeniably a subjective experience, but not one that need spin us off into relativism. 





In point 4 of my entry on Thoughts On Metaphysics And Social Implications I noted:





"Subjectivity is not a creative enterprise, but an interpretive one.  One does not create a new reality, since all belongs to a singularity, but rather one relates to it differently based on the interpretive devices utilized.  These devices, from sense experience to critical rationality, subjection to authority, etc. are not perfect and can be error-prone though the particular error may belong only to a specific aspect of the interpretation, not the entirety.  This non-absolute nature of knowledge in no way makes impossible the acquisition of truth in so far as truth is acceptable, as it seems it is required to be, as one of increasing certainty or probabilistic knowledge."






The relationship between thinking and knowing is one of varying degrees, hopefully diminishing, of uncertainty. While our conscious thoughts are, by definition, open to us, we know not from whence they come, arising as they do out of the void that is our interactional brains. Thus knowledge or peak experience is only ever tentative, a subjective and no less powerful experience because of it, but not of a nature with absoluteness. However much emotional power is held by our conclusions providing certainty, thinking and the knowledge that comes out of it "...involves a risk. Certainty cannot be guaranteed in advance. The invasion of the unknown is of the nature of an adventure; we cannot be sure in advance." (Dewey, p. 148)





In our everyday thoughts then, in the trajectory of the paths which we give energy to and travel upon, it is important to keep in mind that conclusions and what we feel to be true are like pinpricks of light upon a giant canvas of potential knowledge. We can be happy with what we find but never should be mistake our points of contact with knowledge as encapsulating the whole nor no matter how many dots of light we have before us should be be content with believing that's all we need to know. Life is ever-expanding, so should we be in how we relate within it. 








© David Teachout

Despair Is The Shadow Of Hope

After nearly a month away from writing something new and amidst all the changes occurring personally and being noted in the news, I find it appropriate to return to my series on shadows and focus here on that of hope and its shadow despair. The notion of hope is often unassailable for criticism, who but a crazy person would mock or chastise the existence of hope in anyone? Is it not that most wonderful of emotional responses to finding joy in life and something to strive for? As certain former governors of Alaska can attest, mocking hope is quite reasonable, particularly when it is noted to exist in those ideologically opposed. While I was certainly one among many at the time to feel incensed at such mocking verbiage, upon current reflection there is a kernel of truth, undoubtedly indicating the Biblical principle that even from the mouth of an ass can wisdom be found.



The sacrosanct behavior so often associated with hope is the beginning of what will lead to its shadow: to hope is to place one’s awareness on a projected future within which is manifested the dreams or aspirations of an individual or group. This is most notably the case in the injunction to “keep your eye on the prize,” placing the sense of sight not on the immediate surroundings but on a future as yet un-manifested reality. The strength of this mental trick cannot be understated. Sight is equated with knowledge as in the response of “I see” when noting the comprehension of something, a metaphorical conceptualization of a cognitive fact tied as it is to the power of human sight and how important the influence of it is on our lives and early development. Knowledge Is Seeing is not a mere happenstance connection being made; it is the foundation of much of human interaction and the locus of how we often make ethical judgments, notably in the power of an eye-witness in the public’s understanding of legal proceedings.



Key here is the focus on specifics, often regardless of the words coming from the person peddling it. For instance, the political message of Obama was and continued to be that of hope, a powerful and ultimately nebulous claim in which ridiculous numbers of people poured their dreams and aspirations. This, regardless of statements or any concern for the reality of a political system resembling more the rock giants in the latest adaptation of “The Hobbit,” clobbering monstrosities incapable of caring for those they’re squashing beneath them, than a rational process of governance. Whatever one’s opinion of Obama the point here is that he utilized a prime drive of the human person, likely getting caught up in his own rhetoric.



When hope is ruined, lost or broken the result is often despair, the shadow. I use the term shadow here because of its constant presence with the object in question indicated by illumination from any angle (notice here a further allusion to sight as knowledge). Hope holds the potential for despair by its very nature. This is because hope, like despair, derives from our forward-seeking minds and the associations built in concerning seeing with knowing. To hope is often, as already noted, to project a particular reality into the future and identify in its specifics the source of one’s future happiness or joy. To despair is to do the opposite but only in the sense of the opposite as it relates to what is being projected. The act itself is the same in either case. Hope places joy and happiness upon particular future events, despair places sadness and destruction upon particular future events. In both projections it is a future-oriented placement of value that is at work.



Stephen Batchelor in Buddhism Without Beliefs, states a great many things having to do with the ego, projections and control. One in particular is this:



“The more we become conscious of the mysterious unfolding of life, the clearer it becomes that its purpose is not to fulfill the expectations of our ego. We can put into words only the question it poses. And then let go, listen, and wait.”



There is nothing wrong with hope per se but as soon as we embark on a path of orienting our values and dreams as being placed into the future we are the mercy of events over which even the most arrogant of us cannot hope to control. This is the problem of equating value with a particular form rather than living a life of principle and watching the form be derived from the present experience in which we are in constant and unceasing exploration of. This is not to say planning is pointless or should not be considered, only that in doing so we continue to live our lives in the present hope of our very real and present manifestation of our values and worth and principle. If you want to write a book, by all means do so and plan accordingly, but know for your truth now that you are a writer, not to become one once a project is finished. If you want to get into an exercise routine and get healthier, great and doing so requires planning, but know the truth of your life now that you are an incredible human being of which there is only one experiencing life the way you are now, not that life will be inherently more or better in the future of reaching the pinnacle of Greek deification.



At the heart of this way of dwelling in real hope, in real value and worth, is that of being friends with perplexity. Yes, perplexity or to use another word, uncertainty. Again by Batchelor:



“Perplexity keeps awareness on its toes. It reveals experience as transparent, radiant, and unimpeded. Questioning is the track on which the centered person moves.”



Life does not stop and halt on the whims of our egoistic projections, it continues regardless of the eloquence of our pontifications or the wails of our self-castigation. To project a future is to attempt controlling life, to banish uncertainty. By doing so we miss out on the variables that spin hope down into its shadow. The person centered in truth, in value and principle, lives a life of agnostic inquiry knowing that the form of experience need not affect our minds more than the transitory nature that is any situation.





© David Teachout

Doors Of Manifest Wholeness

The “plane of being” spoken of in the entry Possibility Relationally Constructed, is host to every variable, known and unknown, influencing a person’s life and providing the context in and through which decisions are made. The movement from plane to plateau (mood, mental framing) to peak (behavioral and/or conscious instantiation) is a sea of probability patterns, guided in no small part by our awareness and the attention we bring to events/variables. What this attention can be seen as is the beginning of a journey, even if that path is a short one resulting in a declaration of love, a protest of frustration or a shout of anger. A journey need not be long and arduous, filled with demons to slay and dark paths to traverse for it to be meaningful and significant. Each and every moment in our lives is a culmination of a vast number of forces, consciously deliberated and otherwise, and every one is an opening or door or entrance into yet further experiences.

In the United States version of the show “Being Human” when a person dies and has made peace with something integral to who they were, a door appears. This door is as individualistic as the person it is for and opens to the next realm on their journey. The concept of a door hit me lately for any number of reasons, some clear and others undoubtedly swimming around in my unconscious. Many speak of “a door opening” to new possibilities and of “doors being closed” when potential connections fade, or that wonderful positivist cliche of “when one door closes another opens.” They are the conduit through which others pass to enter our homes and our personal rooms. A door is invariably one of the first things people notice on a house, indeed it could be said that without a door a house ceases to be anything other than a box, a vessel for carrying something locked up and incapable of interacting with the world and people.



The personal nature of the door intrigued me, seemingly inevitable the question came up as to “what would my door look like?” Further, what material would it be made of? Would it be pocked and weathered with age or shiny and new as if it were never used? And what, pray tell, grasping at the metaphorical linkages to life and journeys and new spaces of growth, would any of this say about my life?



Life is an unending sea of possibilities, of potential waiting within the actual, in other words it is energy, the term given for the existence of potential movement or change. This within quality may sound backwards, for we are often brought up with the notion from parents and teachers that we “have so much potential” waiting to come out, like an assembly line of parts ready to pop into being full tools and creations. This foundational narrative begins from a position of lack however, it assumes we are separated pieces just waiting to be made whole, often in ways those in power over us decide. When it is considered that without a life already living, an instant of the actual, where would any of the potential come from? We do not have to wait for life to happen to create more out of us, it already is through us and by us. The door of possibility is fairly bulging with all of life welling up inside and out of our bodies/minds. The wood bends and shapes, asking to be used, to be opened, to serve its purpose and give life to that potential as an outgrowth of the current actualized reality of our existence. We have but to knock and it will be opened to us. The universe cannot help but keep on giving and creating, it knows not the path of lack to whole but that of perpetual and continued being-ness, of wholeness to ever more manifestations of wholeness.



There are many ways of attempting to deny this reality, to continue wallowing in the space of waiting to be made whole. Explicitly we put locks on our doors, barricade them with boxes and put in side entrances so nobody and no experience has the opportunity to come hurtling forward full force into our place. Implicitly we stand behind the door, waiting for someone to enter, never realizing our hand is staying firmly on the doorknob and not letting it turn. In either case we have succumbed to chaos or rigidity, identified so strongly with one mode of being that the door of our lives remains sparkling new, without blemish, believing that if we simply stay the course we won’t be interrupted.



Certainly a door may appear tarnished and pocked after much use, not so because of abuse but due to communal interaction and the creation of relationships with people and ideas and the experiences of a life given over to deliberate and conscious interruption, a life of responsible seeking not docile stagnation. A clean door is one having never been opened. One weathered by experience, by the constant slow massage of knuckles knocking, is one that revels in its opportunity to let something new in, to let the wholeness of who we are expand in connections to greater degrees of life.



What life does your door show? What do people find when they approach? Is it the waiting arms of a person flinging open their door, grounded in their constant life-affirming existence, waiting with pregnant potential to give birth to something new? I certainly can’t answer with a constant affirmative, but I hope and pray that each person with quaking heart and held breath at such a notion will find it with themselves, as I have found it within me, the power to see life’s constant affirmative and weather the change that is life’s constant expansion.





© David Teachout

Possibility Relationally Constructed

The notion of control is at the heart of our judicial system, the foundation of most popular theories of morality and a powerful component of what is perceived as a healthy relationship in the sense of a lack of control being beneficial. I have spoken before concerning Free Will, noting its contextual basis and how choices are truly more like potential behaviors not a completely open field of non-contextual possibility. How this works in life is touched on in the series on Decision-Making I wrote and I began fleshing out the issue of self-control in a relational manner in the previous entry. However, the point I made then wasn’t fully articulated as it wasn’t the central idea, so here I am attempting to explain further.



In the previous entry I noted: “There is much we are capable of doing of which we are unaware simply because a relational dynamic has yet to emerge which would allow the space for that particular behavior to manifest. When making decisions for the sake of a relationship, it is important to recognize that you were never not in a relationship, thus any decisions made are contextually shaped not only in their result but in the very reasoning that goes into deciding what to do.” Within this idea of narrative creation I declared rather simply that in recognizing the relational dynamic of every decision-making process we can begin to assert more control over our behaviors.



Incidentally though still powerfully, this touches on one of the central annoyances I have concerning how control is often articulated, particularly as it connects with relationships. One partner or friend or whoever will do something onerous or mean and then calmly declare in the face of the other person’s hurt feelings that “I can’t make you feel anything” or “Your feelings are yours to control.” Ignoring for a moment that these kind of statements are utterly self-serving and intended to remove all responsibility from the person who did the dark deed, it portrays a completely fictitious reality. The case for pointing this out will follow from here.



So, back to the point concerning control and relational dynamics. I’ll be taking rather liberally from Daniel Siegel’s notion of the “plain of possibility,” articulated most fully in his book Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology. Imagine with me an open plain, upon which roils the many facets of your life in ever-increasing matrices of interconnected relationships. There you see your genetic markers, over there you note your familial upbringing, your cultural mores and the social ideas that you unconsciously took in. In another place you note the relationships you’ve been in, romantic and friendly, the power dynamics that existed in them and the resultant self-narrative constructions that arose out of them. All of this and more of which we are not even aware let alone know what questions to ask about, all bobbing and weaving golden lines intersecting and traveling together at times, then parting and touching upon others. This is the flow of energy and information that is at the heart of relational reality, taking in as it does the neural structure of an embodied mind both as further information and also physical instrument for manifesting behavior.



Notice that on this plain the lines will at times create peak occurrences, rising up into momentary monuments of glimmering wonder. Each peak is a manifestation of behavior, constructed from the interconnected lines moving across the plain of our being. (There’s more to this but I’m keeping it relatively simply to keep to the point of this entry). At no time is our behavior under the direct control of an external force, whether such be a transcendental ego or a cosmic entity. In fact, to even speak of external and internal here is to create a metaphysical faux pas, a separation in our mind’s-eye that is unhelpful and destructive.



Making this even more amazing, there are many such peaks occurring all the time (Siegel refers to them as “plateaus”), though not all of them at the same height. The highest peak is what we are usually consciously aware of and of which we concomitantly find ourselves behaviorally putting into practice, but those other peaks are also guiding us even as they rest below the threshold of conscious deliberation, connected as they to the highest peak by lines of energy which remain implicit.

Here is where the notion of “I can’t make you feel anything” is found to be absurd. We can no more decide which lines will exist in us than we can select the parents of whom their genetic configuration gave birth to us. Our reactions rise up to peak manifestation immediately, uncontrollably and yes even legitimately in light of the causal matrix of our plain of being. For the person who has wronged us to then declare they have no responsibility for our reactions is to deny completely the reality of a relational dynamic.



I can already hear the strained voices clamoring to remind me that what we think and what we do are not always the same thing. Yes, this is true, and thankfully we don’t live in a linear cause-effect world which would make it false. This is why I was tentative in my declaration above that the highest peak is what we are consciously aware of and behaviorally manifest, as the two are not always synonymous. Focal awareness, that mental process people are actually referring to when they discuss their conscious lives, is a force on the plain of our being residing in the space of reciprocity between interactional lines. For those knowledgable about neurology, there’s a process of myelination where a substance called myelin can create a sheath around particular neuronal pathways making them quicker and more liable to be fired. This is essentially what focal awareness does. By raising to conscious awareness through meditation and study, then dwelling on particular peak experiences, we make those channels stronger and more prevalent in their possibility of contributing to further peak experiences.



Utilizing intentionality this way does not remove all the other lines, there are still numerous variables that will effect us and may always do so, though the power of them may be mitigated through practice, just as in the situation of being hurt by someone else. The pain will exist and there is no shame in feeling it, but what we then do with it, whether immediately or after the initial response, is a matter of focused awareness. As Stephen Batchelor notes in Buddhism Without Beliefs, “The self is more akin to the complex and ambiguous characters who emerge, develop and suffer across the pages of a novel. There is nothing thing like about me at all. I am more like an unfolding narrative.” The control we have over our lives, found as it is in bringing to awareness and focusing on particular lines of thought, is not the power of the libertarian, but it is no less incredible because of it. Possibilities await us of which we are currently unaware and there is freedom to be had in the plain of our being.





© David Teachout

Relationships: They Are Us

There comes a point in life, indeed many points if one is dedicated to constant reflection, where what was once thought no longer seems quite as neat and tidy. Front and center for me now is the oft-repeated notion people use for making decisions, dedicated as they are to the continued existence of a particular connection and thus guide their life “for the sake of the relationship.” A healthy skepticism easily emerges from seeing far too many examples of people making decisions to continue with a relationship that has long since become destructive, and yet the practice continues. What I want to note here is that this continuation has less to do with people not being cognizant of what they’re doing and more on the inevitability of any decisions occurring within a relational matrix. The problem with this statement is not that people make decisions for relationships, it’s rather that they believe it’s an act of one ball, in this case the “I” making a decision to effect another ball, the “relationship,” but the reality is there was a relational existence already there.



The negative quality of making decisions “for the sake of the relationship” is a decision-making model that places all other considerations below that of a particular relationship, usually romantic. This model is often cited, usually unconsciously, whenever someone notes to a friend or themselves that they “did it to save the relationship” or “I’ve put so much work into it to give up now.” Just what “it” is, is as varied as there are forms of relationships. Giving up personal goals, decisions, hobbies, or anything that at one time felt like an important piece of identity, is often what “it” ends up being, placing on hold desires and goals for the sake of pursuing the current emotional connection.



Who among us hasn’t either said or heard someone declare “yes, well, I wanted to do it but I decided not to in order to focus on us.” Notice though that what is occurring is a behavior predicated upon the notion there exists an “I” which somehow rests in a space absent of mitigating variables who then decides to selectively choose to participate in a relationship such that personal desires are replaced with those of the relationship.



Truly this is a potentially negative situation to create and is the root cause of a great many people’s willingness to continue in connections that are no longer healthy. However, focusing on this decision model is not helpful in the attempt to change that influence because it isn’t real. There is no “I” deciding to engage in a relationship, there was always a relationship.



Try for a moment to think of yourself lacking in connection to anything or anyone. When this inevitably fails, try to imagine an aspect of your self that isn’t immediately connected to a situation, experience or person. Note that even if you decide to consider yourself in empty space, you’re still defining your existence in light of that space. Gautama, the first Buddha, noted that the self, while not exactly non-existent, was not the monolithic thing western philosophers were so enamored of. It was, in fact, merely one stream in a multitude of narratives, at times being ridden more often than others, but still only one among many. The truth of this insight can be found in any of those moments where upon reflection it is noted “that wasn’t me doing that” or “I can’t believe I would do that” or “where did that behavior come from?” We’ve all had those times and usually brush them off as aberrations from the central story we have ourselves, rationalizing such behavior away in light of extreme circumstances, lack of sleep, or in some cases even demonic possession.



Unless we wish to delve into bodily possession, which even at face value seems more self-serving than a real explanation, the hard truth is that in those situations there is nobody but us participating in the behavior. From this understanding can only come the conclusion that there exists any number of potential behaviors that, while not common, are still capable of being fulfilled with these bodies we, with childlike innocence, think we control more than we do.



Relationships, of any form though the romantic type gets most of the press, are the means by which these varying narratives, both the ones that are the “true me” and the aberrations, are instantiated. Daniel Siegel, in his work on interpersonal neurobiology, posits a triune understanding of the human person: the brain, the mind, and relationships. Neither of the three are subservient to the others and the triangular connection formed neither indicates a tempestuous union like Freud’s theory of the self nor does it point to a situation where one can be studied without referring to the others. The mind here is not a disembodied thing, but a descriptive term referring to the energy and information flow that is at the heart of all connections. Relationships then are the relational process of energy and information flow whereby two or more physically instantiated beings connect in a reciprocal matrix. Change is inevitable as is a relational dynamic at the heart of who we are as individuals. The centralizing concept of “I” is here no longer an existent thing in its own right but merely a pointer, a lexical device noting the presence of a particular narrative taking center stage.



We act and wonder at times where our behavior comes from, the arm-chair inner psychologist ruefully reminding us of how Mom or Dad did the exact same thing. We see one who we love in front of us as we engage in an activity otherwise never considered and reconcile the anxiety by dwelling within the connection or in other words “for the sake of the relationship.” Relationships, whether the initial attachments formed during childhood, or the adult attachments later based on them, provide avenues for energy and information flow and therefore the expression of ourselves. Some of those trails are similar to what has come before, some are grand diversions from where we thought we were going. However, none of them are happening as different streams we jump into but as the very means we live our life.



“We are like the company we keep,” is more than just philosophical observance or parental admonishment, it is the central fact of our lives. While there is certainly still much to be said about ignoring once cherished ethical concerns or ideological positions when in the service of maintaining a relationship, we would do well to remember that who we are requires relationships to be known. There is much we are capable of doing of which we are unaware simply because a relational dynamic has yet to emerge which would allow the space for that particular behavior to manifest.



When making decisions for the sake of a relationship, it is important to recognize that you were never not in a relationship, thus any decisions made are contextually shaped not only in their result but in the very reasoning that goes into deciding what to do.





© David Teachout

Oops, Where's the Exit?

For those who drive, have you ever taken a wrong turn and found yourself in a dead-end, shaking your head in confusion and utterly flabbergasted that there is no road going through? For those who debate, have you ever found yourself in a rhetorical flourish only to realize that you’ve boxed yourself in through emotional appeal to a situation that at the beginning you never would have agreed with? That feeling of being trapped washes over you like a cold shower, your skin shivers, your thoughts stop and there’s a sense of being adrift in a land where causation has abandoned you at the drop-off point of a long line of linear connections. Looking back once one is in a more sober moment of reflection you can begin to glimpse the drift of the journey and how the result ended up being this full-tilt collision with fatalism, but the feelings remain and so the struggle begins to extricate oneself.




Just as above, so it is below in relationships. The emotional high has worn off, the excitement of that shiny new toy has become tarnished, the courtship has been replaced by the reality of a person who is far more nuanced than the princess/prince they began as, dashing and regal and sparkling in their unmitigated attempt at controlling a response from their intended target. I don’t mean to make this sound as abysmal as it may be coming across. Relational manipulation is not all about nefarious impulses, we all are subject to the desire to put our best foot forward, to display our charms to their greatest advantage, all for the purpose of creating a feeling of attraction in the other person and engendering reciprocal behavior. This is a game and culturally there exists all manner of ways in which it is played. We wear our best clothes to church to present a particular face to god, companies let it be known inspections are coming and so stores and employees look better that day than any other day, and we halt the words that in other social context would come spilling out but in front of the family isn’t as politically savvy to declare.




There is nothing inherently wrong with going about life this way, the problematic situation arises when we are blinded to seeing any of the outlying variables associated with the person, including ourselves. That job we so desperately wanted suddenly becomes a sinking ship as we realize the company’s numbers really weren’t as realistic as they noted; the clothing we tried on that looked so good in the dressing room suddenly becomes sheer in a different light exposing parts of ourselves we’d have rather kept hidden; and that relationship we were so enamored of suddenly doesn’t feel as safe or secure or beneficial as it once did.



I use “suddenly” here but honest appraisal leads us to acknowledge that the variables of that person’s darker side were there all along, our awareness simply didn’t stretch to see them. It’s existence is sudden only in the way that an object coming from our periphery appears as if from magic in front of us. Had we turned our head or broadened our conscious deliberation we’d have seen that object barreling at us, actual or metaphorical. We do ourselves no good by becoming incensed at our lack of sight, literal or mental. There are any number of variables in existence we blithely go about our lives in conscious ignorance of and which by and large have no deleterious effects. Unfortunately our lives are not as our stone-age evolutionary ancestors, we do not merely have to concern ourselves with the rustling bushes or the scattering of rocks from above, there are all manner of existent variables in life which can catch us unaware and, whether the incitation of our fight/flight/freeze response is ultimately helpful by pointing us towards a legitimate threat, still may create a problematic situation. The reason for this is the interconnected web of existence in which we live, where we are not the causal agents we so egoistically often assume, but another variable among many in the cosmic interplay of forces.




Certainly we are an important variable, but the old notion of viewing the so-called “external” world as somehow impinging upon us and by virtue of our magical free will selecting from an array of infinite possibilities the action we shall take is in line with that of a flat earth. The cosmic-relational perspective provides a means of viewing ourselves as within the world, not apart from it, where external and internal are simply biological delineations, not declarations of metaphysical import. What we have as opposed to rocks and trees is the ability to broaden our conscious awareness and thus via the power of intention focus on those other variables to effect ripples in the web of existence.




This has profound importance when it comes to relationship creation and the selection of people in our lives. When we cease looking at ourselves as autonomous context-free agents, we come to realize that the situations we are in, the history of our experiences and the memories that closely approximate them, and the people we are connected to are all variables just like us providing paths of potential outcomes. Our personal conceptualizations are relational from the ground of our familial attachment to the ever-increasing array of environmental connections we form in our lives. This includes both the internalization of projected narratives from others and our own projections out of that symphony of possible stories.




When we enter into a new connection, whether it be romantic or professional, it behooves us to halt for a moment a take a look at the context of our situation. If the person in front of us is dismissive of our inquiries or mocking in their appraisal of our desire to know more then we can rest assured that at minimum this is not someone we want influencing our journey. This studied inquiry, this meditative reflection can be done at any time though clearly there are moments when it is more difficult than others and it is there where the excitement of pleasure and the enticement of mystery should be mitigated by the joy of reflective increasing understanding. To find out that where one is located relationally is not beneficial for personal growth or safety is not to declare one’s innate foolishness or stupidity, but an opportunity to acknowledge the interconnected web of which humanity is a part and gain an impetus for change.

Gay Marriage Truly Is About Equality Not Marriage

From entire countries making marriage between same-sex couples legal to individual states and the President declaring legality and support, gay marriage is on the rise in public consciousness. Unfortunately this radical-gay agenda hopes to indoctrinate our children into having sin-filled sexual escapades resulting in the utter and complete destruction of civilization as we know it and the dissolution of humanity due to our inability to have any more babies. Oh wait, I'm sorry, that's what the conservative moralists are saying. Much like I've always wondered what the mind of Stephen King looks like that it's capable of coming up with such incredible horror stories, I also wonder what the mind of the conservative looks like when they come up with such ridiculous end-of-the-world statements. But then again, we're not talking rationality here and we're certainly not talking about the law, but about fear. And nothing spells fear like armageddon.

Opponents of "similar marriage" (remember that California beauty queen talking about “opposite marriage?” yeah, the comment is still ridiculous), are tied to this notion of preserving the institution of marriage. I’ve heard it said, clearly by a comedic genius, that given you can no longer sell your daughter for four sheep and six bushels of wheat then marriage has changed. Ignoring this historical shift, though I’m quite sure some wouldn’t mind going back to it, is fairly easily done for those more interested in ideological purity than connection with reality, but there does seem to be something here about that pesky thing called an “institution.” The term holds two different and not exactly concomitant definitions as it pertains to marriage. The first is legal, as it is an institution created and maintained by law for the purposes of establishing certain property and social rights upon two people who willingly enter into a contract.

Yes, marriage in legal terms is a contract. It is not, at that level, the pairing of two souls, or the completion of two-halves who sought their whole lives for that missing piece to their personal jigsaw puzzle. Rather, it is a means of establishing contractual obligations within a particular social relationship. There are laws like this for every social relationship, from the student-teacher to the cop-citizen, because in every relationship there will be or already is a disparity of power. Whether that difference is part of the original scheme or whether it is potential, laws are in place, ideally, to address these disparities and help make social relationships more equal. We are a nation that was built upon and progresses forward through the rule of law. Without it we are nothing more than a hodge-podge of city-states and geographical regions. The United States of America is a legal creation not a divine one. This country was established as a bright city on the hill to hold up the ideals of a democratic society, where rationality is embodied in the rule of law and serves as the medium for social exchange of ideas.

This reliance upon the law and rational public debate is precisely why the groups supporting the rights of gay people to marry turn to the legislature to see their hope become realized. There is a disparity, nobody denies that, not even the opponents. Two adults wish to engage in a specific contractual arrangement that millions of other couples succeed and fail at with startling rapidity, and they are denied for the sole reason that they possess the same reproductive parts. This is a disparity, one that we have as a country long sought to get rid of. African-Americans were denied their rights simply because of their skin color, a fact they could not control. Women were denied their rights because they didn't possess a penis and therefore were thought to be incapable of higher-order thought, a fact that any guy knows to be utterly false whenever he loses an argument. The same here applies for gays, who had no choice what biological parts they were born with.

A question concerning choice here is often inserted and I’m always curious for the person declaring it to explain me when they made their choice; further, that to be a legitimate choice requires that at some point they felt an equal attraction to both sexes and upon reflection and non-coercion decided to go with the opposite sex. Safe to say this point of logic rarely wins me any friends.

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Curiously, this consideration of marriage as a legal contract doesn't seem to be the real issue. I’ve yet to see any signs waved in various states of apoplexy over the finer points of joint-accounts and property dispersal. Here is where the second shading to the meaning of “institution” comes in, that of a religious one, particularly as it relates to controlling fear. Here it is where people of many religions can finally come together. Whether it be Christian, Muslim, Mormon, or Jewish, conservative believers have banded together to make sure the destruction of humanity is averted by not allowing gay people to have a specific social contract. Nobody in the pro gay-marriage groups is asking for more rights than anybody else, so any posturing by the opponents who declare this point is clearly just fear-mongering. Nobody in the pro gay-marriage groups is requiring that any individual pastor, priest or televangelist be legally bound to preside over a gay marriage. Again, this is fear-mongering and fear always hides something else It is the result of a thought or feeling, not the beginning of one. It is a reaction.

The reaction is to one of equality, that insidious aspect of rational law that places people on a level playing field when it comes to socially created connections. If the field is the same then there’s no sense in feeling a need to declare that one’s difference makes them inherently superior to another. The principle of equality is the great equalizer not only in law but in human relationships. Notice that I did not say we are all the same or lack differences, equality is not about making a flatland where differences are ignored, it’s about accepting how differences cast shadows upon the field rather than raising one person above another. We are all equal by principle even in the midst of physiological differences, not because those don’t matter but because it creates no inherent hierarchy of purpose or power, the latter is always a social creation. This fear of equality has been with humanity for millennia. When Jews in the Old Testament declared their god asked them to commit genocide, it was fear of equality that rode the pale horse. When Catholics and Protestants alike slaughtered each other and those deemed "heathen" throughout the Middle Ages, it was fear of equality that drove the marching hordes. When Mormons shun and cast out any who dare to question the "sacred teachings," it is bigotry that resides in the snarls and grimaces. So it is when conservatives enter the polling place and demand that gays be not allowed to enter into a contractual relationship that others have, it is fear of equality that paints the sign "God Hates Fags."

To be equal in the eyes of one another is to celebrate our differences, to look upon the person to your right and left and say there is my sister/brother in humanity, it is a matter of engaging with others through transcendent humanistic principles rather than attempts at control. If marriage is to have any lasting social power it must change because in the end it isn’t about who you engage in contracts with, it’s about always doing so from a place of equal intent and integrity of purpose.

Madness Is The Shadow Of Love

What began as a contemplation on the shadow qualities of love ended up being an entire composition concerning the shadows of of human existence. So I return to love, though it is only the first in a series as I attempt to show how our emotional lives and the actions arising from them are not nearly as singular an experience as is often thought.

Love is not solely an emotional response, there are any number of behaviors and mental intentions involved that indicate a person is not simply infatuated or lustful but loving. What love grows out of though is a sea of emotional responses to innumerable experiences. Behaviors become more possible as we, to a greater or lesser extent, attempt to live our principles, which themselves grew out of the familial/cultural/societal/relational dynamics of our entire lives. In all of those experiences and the connections being formed there is as much a potential for suffocation as there is for gentle holding, as much potential for obsession as there is for exuberant appreciation. This is because love is not a thing in itself, but a quality purely created out of a contextualized relational individual.

More specifically, love is often associated as a pure thing, an emotional/behavioral response to someone, notably in a romantic sense, that is completely self-sacrificing and deserves recognition as a nearly spiritual enterprise. There doesn’t need more than a few minutes perusing the romance section of a bookstore to get this flavor of fantastical idealism. This is also indicated by societal restrictions on the usage of love and the disgust often felt for those connections which don’t fall within restrictive socially-constructed mandates. Without getting too far into problematic territory, we can simply stick with those relationships which have become destructive or are no longer beneficial to all involved.

Naive simplicity would allow us to call such a connection no longer loving, but I challenge this. While it is no longer life-giving, to say it is not loving forgets the power that love possesses within the human relational personality. If we keep the principle of love as an emotional/cognitive connection with another that includes both a psychic joining such that the needs/desires of those involved become tangled together and two, a powerful projection of looking to the best way the other can manifest their highest good, with the second part arises out of the first, there is no intrinsic behavior associated.

There may be some concern over the first part of my definition, the issue of entanglement, so let me set the framework. If it is first considered that all our behavior is created out of a relational matrix and how we behaviorally manifest our personalities is due to those potential actions that become more possible as all the variables of life, both internal and external, act with us, then the relational connection of love is mental space from which the particular behavioral possibilities associated with it arise from. To see this in our lives takes only a moment of considering how we make decisions when we are doing so in connection to those in our lives, the greater the strength of the connection the more influence it has on our process. This happens in our hobbies and so on as well, as anyone who has suddenly found themselves enjoying something they hitherto had not because their partner does, can recognize that love pulls out of us potentials that were not available previously.

Love carries a great deal of weight because it can hold so much of our attention and that means utilizing a great deal of our mental resources creating abundant connections. A brief emotional response may touch upon a few connections in our mental web and have staying power only if the power of those connections are built upon great tragedy or other strong memory. Such a basic emotional response of frustration and anger at nearly tripping over the dog on the way to the car can create the space for zooming out of the driveway without looking and hitting another car. Imagine for a moment what the relational weight of a thing like love can do with all the memories and familial attachments and experiences created vast webs of interconnections. Imagine further all the behaviors it makes more likely to happen. Love is not in itself a holy virtue, but it possesses the possibility of enticing the best in us precisely because of the sheer strength or weight of its power in our relational minds.

The shadow of love, an often concealed behavioral potential that isn’t life-giving, is a form of madness built upon thoughts of shame and self-doubt, compelling us to seek completion and healing through use of another, rather than dwelling in the open and awareness-increasing relational space of a new set of possibilities. This shadow is the underbelly of tangled desires and the consequent desire to see what is assumed to be the best in another. When such a desire is predicated upon control and built upon a need to possess rather than freedom of authenticity, the strength of love is pulling from all the variables in an experience that are connected to insecurity and lack. There is here the notion of “you complete me” or “I need to find my missing half,” and so the associations are made with brokenness and behavior is created out of that space. Not everyone will go to outright abuse, but looking at love this way can help us see why someone can still use the term and yet act destructively and the subject of such still feel intense connectivity.

Just as our physical shadows are illuminated by light shining at a particular angle, so these shadows within our capacity for love can be seen through the light of introspection, reason and helpful analysis/meditation. When creating those connections of which love may one day be a defining characteristic, we can take moments to reflect on how it is we are holding the other in our internal lives. The difficulty is not in becoming entangled with another, such is the reality of our existence as relational creatures. Where our behavior remains in the capacity of love as a profound source of life-giving action is in the exhibition of dedication to free expression and deep respect for any and all involved. Rather than being in need of completion where the shadow would have us think we can’t walk at all without the other, we can instead look at our lives as journeys of which the path we are on is widened by those we connect with and therefore capable of touching upon that much more of potential experience. Love in it’s life-giving capacity broadens our awareness of what we are capable of and so it is that we find greater expressions of our freedom.

Bringing Light To The Shadows Of Our Potential Behavior

As a child and, let’s be honest, as an adult too, I was and am fascinated by my shadow. No, not the Jungian shadow of my psyche, though definitely that as well, but my physical shadow, that strange creature following me everywhere and only ever noticed when light is blazing at a particular angle upon me. Despite this fascination I still often forget that it’s there, my constant companion, the always-present hazy mimicry of my body. That a shadow is inevitable under certain circumstances doesn’t seem to lessen the initial interest nor diminish the fright caused by seeing it, having forgotten it’s just what it is and not some foul creature sneaking up on us.

We live in a cause/effect universe, our brains offering up upon the platter of the mind a constant stream of connected events creating story after story after story, often at such an unconscious level we are unaware until something changes. Research, for instance, indicates that we’re far more likely to get into an auto accident when closer to our home than driving elsewhere, the reason being one of comfort in a projected understanding of an unchanging situation. We believe we simply know what is going on at all times around us because we’ve driven the route so often and nothing has happened before, making us susceptible to running into things that are suddenly different.

There’s a lesson here. The differences surprise us because while our brains are great at creating narratives these stories only ever capture a selection of the variables we’re capable of being aware of. Our startle response reacts to abrupt changes in our environment, but it doesn’t provide data to ascertain just what the issue is. We rely on our, until that moment, reliable narratives to guide us. It’s why some people can see a picture of Jesus on a piece of toast and others continue to slather jam all over without blinking. Our narratives, cobbled together from the familial/cultural/societal/relational dynamics of our entire lives, shape the action potentials for all the behavior open to us.

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Imagine for a moment all the potential behaviors existing as a flat plane of possibility. As each relational connection occurs, from childhood onward, there are sections of behavior that rise up and become more likely to happen. If we look, for example, at emotions as manifested energy potential, we can see that they make certain behaviors more likely to happen than others. A simple trip down memory lane will suffice for anyone to encounter a situation where an action they did was out of the ordinary but occurred because of a particular emotional response. We yell at a friend or lover coming home from a frustrating day at work. Or more kindly, feeling loved and accepted because of an interaction that morning with a friend or lover we don’t feel the same consternation when confronted with work drama or being cut off while driving. The exact opposite reaction would have more likely occurred in the past in both of these situations, but because of the initial emotional setting our behavior went down a different path. We can no more stop our emotional responses than we can stop the earth from spinning on its axis. What we can do is bring to consciousness through introspection and training a greater appreciation for the inner connections being made with every emotional response.

Incidentally this is why I attempt, to varying degrees of success, to wait a good half-day to a full day before responding to a letter or comment online that particularly incensed me. I am not ashamed by my tendency at times to attack as if personally done wrong, it’s part of who I am, but it’s not something I care to act upon in light of my highest good.

For every response that happens there are any number of others that could have happened if circumstances, internal and external, had been different. This is not about judgment but about being aware of the extent to which our fantastical notions of free-will have no support. Rather than selecting from a place above everything the particular behavior we’re going to do, it arises from the sea of potential behaviors we each of us have at our disposal because of the contexts of our lives. This is why our ideas and perspectives are so important to acknowledge and understand, for they too, like our emotions, are part of the breadth of phenomena we call our mental lives. Each and every one shifts that plane of possibility, raising a selection of potential behavior above another or lowering another set.

Our shadow is the behavior we attempt to tell ourselves doesn’t exist within us, those actions built upon guilt and shame and self-doubt that reside close as a breath and yet often without our knowing it. Here is the power residing in increased awareness. Just as shadows exist when we shine a light at a particular angle, so the light of our introspection/reason and meditation can display for us the shadows of our better selves, those behaviors that feel later as if they were from someone else and yet honesty compels us to accept that they exist within us as well. Our journey is not to destroy our shadows but to shine a light and see them for what they are, potentials but not fatalistically inevitable.

We are not bound to any single moment of our lives, any more than our thoughts can be judged by any single instantiation. We are a relational dynamic and it is the trajectory of our consciousness that defines the quality of our lives. Our shadows are our companions, but it is in the light that we see how very much more we are than that.