In the library

I haven’t written in a while, life has gotten in the way. I’m one of those people who have trouble thinking and writing when my life is up in the air. I feel that, without some kind of anchor, some fixed point that can be the foundation that I can stand and build on, I can’t do anything. Like floating in mud: There’s nothing I can push against. Right now, nothing is constant, and that makes it very difficult to focus on anything fun or just relaxing; there’s just too much I “should” be doing. I know some people thrive under these conditions, but not me. But I have the time, and some things seem like they need to be said, so I’m hiding out in the library and seeing if I can get it down.

Thing number one. A woman has come to my paranormal MeetUp a couple of times. Most of the people ended up avoiding her, because she talks non-stop and spouts every vaguely spiritual factoid and conspiracy theory, from ancient to modern, as gospel truth. I’m sad to say that, while I spent a couple of hours talking to her, I focused almost exclusively on the content of her beliefs, not on why she believed them. I was able to uncover some of her history, and she apparently underwent a near death experience, or two, and other things in her life that have caused her to crack wide open and accept everything that comes down the pike. I seems pretty amazing that she can hold a job, but she does.

Thing number two. A large part of my work is getting people to open up and accept new ideas. Just yesterday I wrote and response to a comment on one of my posts. The comment said, somewhat forcefully, that, since physics doesn’t allow for spirits or the paranormal, they don’t exist. My response was to point out that physics is entirely neutral on the subject. Physics, and science in general, is neither complete nor entirely consistent: New discoveries are being made and old theories are being overturned on a fairly regular basis. And that there are plenty of scientifically recognized phenomena that are not currently explained, Dark Matter and Dark Energy, for example. The scientific method, by definition, says nothing about phenomena that have not explained, or what might yet be discovered. I doubt what I said made any difference to the writer of the original comment, he or she will continue to believe that science “disproves” any possibility of the paranormal, and no amount of logic or evidence will convince him or her otherwise otherwise.

This is a case of the absolutely closed mind. What’s surprising about most closed minds is the utter flimsiness of their arguments. They believe their position is so unquestionable that there is no reason to construct a reasonable argument for their position. Not airtight, mind you, just reasonably logical and in line with current science. Their belief is primary and supporting evidence or logic is not required or even necessary.

What does this have to do with the woman at the MeetUp? Well, the thing is, they are very much the same, only the content of their beliefs is different. They both use their version of science to support their views, and neither one has any interest in any factual errors or inconsistencies in their arguments. But, while serious scientists may roll their eyes at the naivete of the physics guy, the MeetUp woman is “crazy.”

That’s one of the issues of stepping outside of the lines: how far do you step? Being psychic or having paranormal experiences doesn’t mean you can toss away logic and throw all caution to the wind. Yes, researchers have worked out that psychic phenomena don’t play by the same rules as physical ones, but there’s no reason to assume that don’t exist, it means that we must we practice great discernment in what we accept and reject, until we discover what those rules are.

I am generally very circumspect in what I accept, for, once I step outside of personal experience, the waters get muddy pretty quickly. I put a lot of things on the shelf labeled TBD, with varying degrees of prejudice. For instance, I put anything to do with Ancient Aliens on that shelf as “Not Proved,” but, at the same time, I recognized that there are quite a few historic anomalies that have yet to be explained. They also go on the shelf ,as “Unknown.”

In my opinion, the MeetUp woman is suffering from a spiritual crisis and needs spiritual help. A good therapist could help, as long as they don’t try and drug her into acting “normal.” For her, right now, all the barriers, are down, all filters off, and everything is accepted as true. I expect she is a case where solid material worldview has been shattered by an undeniable experience, and now all bets are off. This happens when too much spiritual growth happens too fast, and the person loses touch with the ground. I don’t want to say “lose touch with reality” here, because it’s not about “reality,” it’s about maintaining enough grounding in the common gestalt to be able to communicate and function in daily life. The problem here is that what we consider “real” is more a matter of where you were born, what church you go to, your political party, and your education level, than it is of concrete facts you can measure in a laboratory and we all can agree on. (There are someplaces in the world where not believing in a supernatural being (Allah) might get you hanged.) Our personal and collective concepts of reality are actually made up of an arbitrary hodgepodge of beliefs, assumptions, and some facts, held together with blind faith. While that structure provides some flexibility, and anomalous event of sufficient power can shatter the whole system, leaving the person with no yardstick to use when evaluating new information. Most of the time, the belief structure re-constitutes itself, but some times it can take weeks, months, or even years.

I was warned about this kind of thing from the very start of my spiritual education and told stories about people who took on too much. Usually it’s minor, we get sick or we feel emotionally weird for a week or so. But occasionally it’s much worse. I know how it is, once we discover there’s a new world out there, we want to grab it all, as fast as we can, but be careful. Just like jumping into too much physical activity, too fast, can injure you physically, and throwing yourself into school or work too completely and burn you out mentally, too much spiritual growth, too fast, can make it difficult or impossible to function in the everyday world. If this happens, you need to take time to step back from what you’re doing and rest. Take a vacation from spiritual stuff for a little while. I know that this stuff can be very exciting, and hanging “out there” is so much more interesting than going to work, but you need balance. And you need to eat.

Sometimes the event is not the result of anything the person did, it just comes “out of the blue.” Interestingly, most of the time this happens, the incident is suppressed and the person has no conscious memory of it. Their life, personality and feelings can still go sideways, they just have no idea why. It’s only if they go to the right kind of therapist that they recover the memories. Then begins the process of dealing with the trauma, for those memories were suppressed for a reason, but it’s the only way to get their lives back.

This woman’s issue is not about having psychic experiences, it’s about her unquestioning acceptance of everything she reads as absolutely true, with an “all or nothing zeal.” If I was working with her, we would spend some time uncovering the event and what it was about her belief system that fell apart so completely. That, plus some basic spiritual counseling should put her on the path of healing.

I am sad that I didn’t try to understand what was going on with her. I was too busy invalidating all her beliefs to think about it. I have no idea if I could of helped her, without taking her on as a client, but I should have spent more time on the issues and less on the symptoms. Lesson learned.

I have been uncovering several things about myself lately that I really don’t like much, that was just one of them. The main one right now is that, without external validation, and the right kind of pats on the head and kudos, I don’t want to do anything. My job, writing, anything. And, if that wasn’t enough, what was good enough yesterday is not good enough today. “Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?” is always there. Ug. There’s nothing new here, and now that I see it, it’s obvious that it’s been going on all my life, and caused me a lot of trouble at work and in my relationships. I don’t know if this can ever be “cured,” but I have been working to uncover and release hidden beliefs around this, and, now that I’m aware of why I feel like I do, I can mindfully change my behavior, which can’t hurt, and can, hopefully, lead to some more openings.

Contrasts and Changes

I finished two books this week: Spirit Releasement Therapy and A Year By the Sea, Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman by Joan Anderson. At study in contrasts? Joan’s book was a welcome respite from all the studying I have been doing. And I also makes me want to write in a different way. Better? I don’t know, but different.

It’s fun to be different. We all need to be different, from time to time. To wear different clothes, to watch different shows or see different movies. Go to different places and talk to different people. Sure, I don’t like some of them, but that makes going back to the familiar all the better.

I just made some tea. Why does that matter? I’ve found that change is, well, different, and tea is part of that change. It’s something to drink that is small, slow and subtle. Now that the kids are gone, or take care of themselves, we no longer eat together. Jackie started a new diet some months ago. Although she has seemed to leave that behind, she still eats what she wants, when she wants, leaving me to fend for my self. So part of my new routine is to eat things that are small, and to take my time. It’s all about mindfulness these days, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time, and still don’t. I just want to eat less but still don’t get done so fast.

Now am now finishing the process that started when the kids were in their later years in high school: I now cook only for myself. I have been slowly working out how to feed only myself. I took care of myself for many years in my bachelor days. But in those days, I ate a lot more than I do now, and I didn’t worry too much about how it tasted. I now have to figure out how to come up with smaller portions of interesting food. I’ve never had to do that before.

Most of my life I was well known for eating a lot. Heck, I could eat a whole pizza at a sitting, and that was in my twenties. I’m sure I ate a whole lot more in my teens. As a rule, I never worried much about what I ate, because I needed so much. It was mostly about finding enough. After my parents died, my main effort was making my money go as far as possible. So I never had the luxury of “not liking” certain foods. When I ordered something, I ate everything on the plate, no matter what color or texture. A lot of people will hate me for saying this, but I still weigh only ten pounds more than I did in high school.

But then it happened. I got older. Sometime around the age of 50, I realized that I needed to eat less if I wanted to stay at the same weight. And I started doing the unthinkable: leaving food on my plate. Not going back for seconds and thirds. I had to break the habit of centering my routines around eating.

It’s been years and it still feels a bit weird. I find that I have to eat slower because I don’t want to be done so fast. I also realize that, in social situations, I ate a lot to avoid talking to people. As long as my mouth was full I didn’t have to deal with those awkward conversation thingies. I have found myself doing a whole lot more talking and listening than eating, at holiday get-togethers.

There have been a lot of changes. I now prefer social situations to sitting at home. I used to run from parties and get headaches if I had to talk to people for too long. A good book was the best think ever, TV was next in line. A book allowed me to hide from everyone and lose everything that was going on In my life. Now I don’t have all that much time to read. Sitting for a long time is a bother. There are definitely times when I want to have a good story, but it’s not all the often. Now reading is mostly a way to fill time when I can’t do anything else.

I used to prefer work where I could be all by myself, controlling my own little world. People were a distraction and a bother. They kept me from what was important. I now find that kind of life extremely lonely. Working without conversation, without feedback, seems utterly pointless. I need the interaction to feel that I’m doing anything at all.

I suppose all these changes happened about the same time, and is probably what drove me to change occupations and directions. To find new friends, (any friends at all) and to understand what friendship is, in this world. I am having to really look at and understand what is important to me. And I’m beginning to notice that how I’m looking at things now is much more healthy for me, and for the world at large.

I’ve had to go through an awaking process that was, frightening, at first, then frustrating, as I began to understand why it was so difficult to get anything done, and came the slow dawning when I realized that great people, from Shakespeare to Alan Watts, philosophers from every age had and were saying the same thing: People believe exactly what they want and nothing else. If I want peace in my life, I had to distance myself from anyone with an agenda.

But, wait. Don’t I have an agenda? Yup. So I have to find and surround myself with people that are on the same page as I am. I’m not going to convert anyone to a new way of thinking. And I don’t expect to find a group that suits me. So I have to create it. I just realized that that is what I am doing. I am, without really thinking about it, started creating a group that thinks along the same lines as I do. Finding like-minded people who are also looking for a place to be. Most people come an leave, not comfortable with what I’m building here. But some stay. Now we will see how that goes.