Friday, March 22, 2013

Of Groups, Chunks and Mirrors

I could have gone to Kansas City today and spent all day tomorrow running 50 miles in a snow storm.


I cancelled that and instead I'll be in Corpus Christi running a marathon:


I have some space in my life to build new chunks: compression of conscious data according to its inherent structure or the way it relates to preexisting memories. I live on interconnected facts assembled by awareness.

There may not be an I who does this. There is an abstract principle of life; at least I insist that there is. Is this a divine principle? I don't know the God behind it. I do know that when I seek the more silent area of my consciousness, I feel more calm and am able to go about my day with less stress.

Walking away from organized religion, I lose the meaning and purpose of life. The path of no-purpose is not grounded and therefore frightening. We scramble for something to hold on to in order to feel ok about ourselves. I have intentionally ripped my self from the society which gives it position.

I try again to know who I am without others approval or opinion. Like, what races or how many miles would I do if I had no one to tell about it?

Reading this blog, someone knows what race I am going in; but there is no one I'm reflecting off of regarding this activity. I need to know. If something is purely for myself, with no outside input, would I do it?

I think I have a better chance of re-writing the ancient survival chunks (like continuous eating) and finding a new awareness of life if I do it apart from society. Society seems to force the ongoing dogma instead of going outside the norms. (see "The Ravenous Brain" for chunk explanations).

I just came back from a 13.6 mile jog. Many thoughts as I went along.

For one, if I maintain a certain speed of about 14 min/mile, I have no trouble with my skeletal deformities.

For another, I recently had an experience with a group. I got them mad at me because I didn't go along with their norms. They stoned me electronically. All groups are like this; either play nice or face the consequences. I know this and I know how to play nice. But in this instance, I felt like saying my opinion. They didn't like it. I got stoned.

This experience caused me to think about relationships. I see most of them as mirrors. That is, this group was a mirror for me to posture and preen in front of, receiving compliments and affirmations as long as I behaved. To some extent, my actual life and thoughts were affected by the mirror.

So now I have walked away from that mirror. I wonder how I will shape my thoughts and experiences without that mirror. I have other mirrors for other purposes; but how will I be in that particular area?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ask yourself this, was it a true reflection or was it a fun house mirror? The problem with internet sites is that as one author noted becomes the "Daily Me". Like minded individuals gather and affirm that they are special and unique because of whatever interest they share. When you are talking to a variety of people, your views tend to moderate but in that situation, they are made more extreme. This false sense of affirmation, of superiority can add to unhealthy delusions. Such as I do long runs because they are fun and great spiritually. But are they for the individual? And if 10 miles is good, 15 miles is gooder. Remove the mirror and there is no mask to wear, role to play or the corrupting influence of the group. You can then find "I" whilst accepting that this is a functional and necessary fiction.