Mike Portnoy leaves Dream Theater 2010-Sep-08 at 20:51 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: Dream Theater, Mike Portnoy
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Wow.
Not sure what to say about this… just have to share that it sucks, and it hurts. I’m still a Dream Theater fan, I’m still a Mike Portnoy fan, I’m definitely looking forward to whatever DT is going to come out with that’s so important that they couldn’t take the hiatus that Mike was asking for… I mean, this had better be the best album they’ve ever done.
And I only wish them all the best. And I just can’t imagine Dream Theater with Mike, but I can’t wait to see which drummer has big enough balls to step into Mike Portnoy’s shoes and learn the entire DT catalog of songs and play three-hour concerts and write an entire album of music with the best hard rock musicians on Earth.
Scumbag dictators, um, I mean, fine leaders of nations 2010-Sep-08 at 00:10 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-Il, North Korea, Robert Mugabe, scumbag, Venezuela, Zimbabwe
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My brilliant and beautiful girlfriend, Lauren, had an interesting reaction to my post from Monday. I thought I should answer it here, and since I promised her that I wouldn’t take what she wrote to me out of context (well, I promised that after I told her that I totally would), here is the important part in its entirety:
So now I want to suggest that when you open your whole piece on Chavez and Venezuela by issuing the declaration that he’s a scumbag, you accept and perpetuate a frame that does not encourage or enact taking the view from love. That’s the way it feels to me. Scorn and rejection, embodied by name-calling, seem to have power, but actually have the effect in my opinion of weakening your effectiveness and influence, because it comes across as inconsistency and hypocrisy, because it has the feel of reaction and closure, not response and openness. Which feels like a lesser integrity if not a lack of integrity. Which makes some people less open to considering your views. Why should we discuss GW [Bush] respectfully, with willingness to seek to understand, while you exempt Chavez from this same respect and care? I want to be inspired to dig deeper in myself, to look at where I excuse myself from the call to love without condition, no exceptions. What inspires me most and will be most likely to call me to that level of integrity is witnessing it in others. So, where you are coming from seems to me to be deeply understandable, but I want to suggest that it is not the highest level of power you can come from.
And, no, we’re not in a fight or anything. :-)
So… I’m not sure if I’ll be able to win this one, but here’s what I’m thinking.
Let’s say that I call Kim Jong-Il a scumbag dictator. Which I do. The suffering of the North Korean people under the rule of this crime family is unimaginable. North Koreans are 5 to 6 inches shorter than their cousins in South Korea, due to malnutrition. Their IQ’s are 10-20 points lower. Two million people have died from starvation and torture under his rule. That’s twice as many as Saddam Hussein was responsible for killing, and Saddam is already a first-ballot Scumbag Hall of Famer. His regime is responsible for selling hard drugs around the world to raise cash, and for selling nuclear technology to anyone willing to pay for it.
In other words, the very existence of the Kim regime in North Korea is a mortal threat to North Korea’s population specifically, and to the world as a whole. I consider it to be a top foreign-policy objective of the United States and of Europe to end his family’s reign over North Korea, and to move towards Korean reunification. The very minute that China entertains the idea of finally getting involved militarily in solving this problem, I consider it to be the United States’ highest military priority to move in, secure the country with the help of the Chinese, and to organize the logistics required to move towards a swift reunification with South Korea, along with creating a strong economic relationship between Korea and China.
With all of that said, can I take the view from love on Kim Jong-Il? Well, yes, I can. I can see him as a deeply wounded soul, someone who grew up as the son of a dictator (remember Uday and Qusay?), and who therefore never had the chance to develop a healthy sense of empathy. I can see his soul as one that must now carry a lot of karma for endless lifetimes. I can hold the story that his soul agreed to this incarnation before he came in, and that when his soul leaves the body it will remember the agreements it made.
I can hold all of that and more about poor little Jong-Il, and yet I also feel morally compelled to hold the position that, in this world, his continued existence remains a mortal threat to peace and stability around the world, perhaps more than any other single human being. And, if I had the chance, I’d kill him… with my bare hands if I had to.
To me, the view from love suggests that a wake-up call is required around him and around this issue. It boggles my mind how many people I talk to just aren’t aware of how bad it is in North Korea. If calling him a scumbag shocks a reader into noticing, then I guess I’m all for it. Perhaps there’s a more skillful way to do it – I could call him a worthless mother-fucking piece-of-shit scumbag dictator, perhaps – but until I find it, my current level of skill will have to do.
Along the same lines, let’s say I call Robert Mugabe a scumbag dictator. Which I do. He’s run the once-thriving economy of Zimbabwe into the ground, running the annual inflation rate up to 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000% (that’s not a typo – 89.7 sextillion %), while allowing unemployment to skyrocket to over 94%, while enriching himself with as much of the nation’s wealth as he could. He’s killed or imprisoned every political opponent he could over the last three decades, including the severe beating of, and then assassination attempt on, Morgan Tsvangirai, his supposed partner in a power-sharing government, in which Mr. Tsvangirai’s beloved wife, Susan, was killed.
Now, Mugabe isn’t quite the level of scumbag that Kim Jong-Il is, but that’s kind of like saying that Kerry Wood isn’t Sandy Koufax. I mean, no one is Sandy Koufax. But, still, Mugabe is a complete scumbag, and responsible for the suffering of millions of people in his own country, and in neighboring countries in Africa. Again, can I take the view from love on him, and see his personal suffering in this lifetime? Sure, I could. But, again, so few of the people I speak to are even remotely aware of what he’s done to Zimbabwe (much less locate it on a map) that I’m choosing to shout about it rather than starting by being reasonable about it.
And, so, when I call Hugo Chávez a scumbag dictator (which I do)… again, he hasn’t quite inflicted the level of pain on Venezuela – yet – that Mugabe has on Zimbabwe. And he’s nowhere near Kim Jong-Il on the scumbag list. Hell, he’d have to get busy for the rest of his life to catch up to Kim on that score. But… he has effectively had himself declared ruler-for-life, he’s shut down opposition media outlets, he’s had political opponents arrested and imprisoned, he’s run the Venezuelan economy into the ground, his policies have created food and energy shortages for his people, he’s responsible for a murder rate that puts Venezuela near the top of the list of most dangerous places to live, he’s been caught red-handed funding a terrorist insurgency inside of Colombia, he’s just begun to introduce cards that eventually will be used for food rationing, he’s demonized everyone in the Western world who could help him run things more effectively, and on and on.
We’ve seen this pattern before. We know where it’s going. We know the kind of limited mind that’s behind it. And I think that we have a responsibility, globally, to ensure that the suffering in Venezuela doesn’t reach the level of Zimbabwe or, God forbid, North Korea, before we do something about it. And so, I’m choosing to shout about it now, before it’s too late.
And if I’m losing power by calling him a scumbag dictator… I mean, what does it take to be a scumbag dictator these days? What should I call him? Just a dictator, without the scumbag? Should I simply refer to him as the current President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela?
I just don’t feel that way… I think having him in power is a deeply destabilizing force both for Venezuela and for South America as a whole. The poor Colombians… it must suck to have Chávez for a next-door neighbor.
And, to me, anyone who draws any parallels between any of these three and President George W. Bush is just being intellectually dishonest, and immediately loses me. President Bush made mistakes, like all Presidents do, but to accuse him of holding the kind of contempt for his fellow man that Kim, Mugabe, and Chávez do, well… that’s projection, and I can’t go there with you. Dictators are special, and deserve special consideration. And, in case you didn’t notice… President Bush wasn’t a dictator. We don’t have dictators in the United States. He served his terms in office, and left peacefully, and now we have a new President. I like our new President quite a bit better, but I don’t demonize our previous one.
But, Kim, Mugabe, and Chávez? Yeah, to me, and to their populations, and their neighbors, they are demons that ought to be removed from power for the safety and peace of the entire world. I can’t see a level of development other than Green that wouldn’t agree.
And I hope Lauren will still talk to me after this…. :-P
Artificial Intelligence and Human Intuition 2010-Sep-07 at 13:57 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: artificial intelligence, intuition, UZAZU
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I’m a little out on a limb with this one, but I’ve had the thought lately that, as AI gets inevitably more and more powerful, and is therefore in charge of producing and maintaining more and more complex objects in the world, that it will simply be beyond human comprehension to keep up with the design and repair of those objects.
Think about it… right now, in my living room, I have several pieces of audio/visual equipment that no one person fully understands. My amplifier is made of hundreds, if not thousands, of individual components, all assembled into higher-level components with well-known interfaces, which are, in turn, assembled into still higher-level components with their own interfaces, until we come to the whole thing as one unit. The fact that it functions at all (and functions very well, I might add), is somewhat miraculous. Someone at Yamaha knew enough about the highest-level components to assemble them into this unit, but then other people know how those components actually work, and so on until we get to the smallest pieces.
And now imagine that on the level of nanotechnology-based manufacturing. When that comes (within 20 years), we’ll effectively be “3-D printing” our manufactured goods. Solar panels, computers, phones, vehicles, appliances, furniture – hell, lots of things – will be created out of a process that looks more like writing software than creating hardware, because the input to the manufacturing process will be a complex set of instructions and some raw materials, and not much else. That’s what “nanotechnology-based manufacturing” means… we turn hardware problems into software problems. And AI is going to be brilliant at solving software problems.
So we’ll be living in a world where the very objects that we use on a daily basis are designed by an Artificial Intelligence so vast that it can solve these kinds of software problems easily, in a way that no human intelligence could do on its own. And, speaking as a computer programmer (which I’ve been since the age of 11), even today the software challenges we’re facing require new languages and new structures to express the complexity that we have to deal with… and those new high-level languages are relying on a significant amount of automation behind-the-scenes to enable the parallel processing and sequencing that is required on current and future hardware. And our ability as human beings to hold all of that complexity in mind, at the same time, is starting to show some seams in terms of programming. Very few people really understand the mechanics of how to do parallel processing well, and few understand even the new constructs that have been created to make that easier to do.
I’m not telling you this as a sad story… I’m just noticing what is, and I’m also noticing that there’s a level of AI that’s just being birthed right now that will be able to pick up this ball and run with it. And when that happens… what will be left for us humans to do? When the complex tasks are more-and-more handled by AI, when the objects themselves are so complex that we can’t fully grasp them with our human cognition, what will we do?
What’s come up for me is something like this:
Roughly speaking, we’ll cede the right-hand quadrants to AI, because it’ll be way better at figuring out objects, measurements, and how those objects interact than we ever could. And we’ll have to start using our intuition to navigate the world, in the left-hand quadrants, because that’s what we’ll have that AI won’t, and because our intuition, when it’s sourced from the subtle and causal fields that we’re already drenched in, turns out to be a very elegant and accurate solution for navigating.
(And, yes, doing a regular UZAZU practice will give you the clearly felt sense, in the gross body, of being in touch with the subtle and causal fields from which intuition can be accessed. And that’s part of why I believe UZAZU holds an important piece of the future of the Integral movement. But I digress.)
That’s not to say that AI won’t have the left-hand quadrants, or that humans won’t have the right-hand quadrants… all quadrants co-arise at the same moment. With that said, today, us humans are involved in almost every aspect of creating and finding external objects, and that task is going to be ceded more and more to AI over the coming decades, and we’ll still be here, and we’ll still be a valuable partner and co-creator of the world with AI, so I’m just thinking about the strengths that humans and AI will bring to the table together.
And I’m also trying to think about how we can view AI as a valued partner and how we can even love AI as we would love any of our friends… because if we don’t, we’ll never treat it with the respect and care that it deserves as a being or set of beings with consciousness.
Early thoughts on this topic, lots more to work out, but that’s where I am on this today.
Venezuela – Murders, electricity rationing, and now food rationing 2010-Sep-06 at 13:23 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: food rationing, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela
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We already know that Venezuela, under scumbag dictator Hugo Chávez, has become the world’s most violent place to live, with four times the number of civilian deaths from violence in 2009 than Iraq, and 63% more homicides since 2007 than even Mexico, with its out-of-control drug-related violence.
Caracas itself is almost unrivaled among large cities in the Americas for its homicide rate, which currently stands at around 200 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to Roberto Briceño-León, the sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela who directs the violence observatory.
That compares with recent measures of 22.7 per 100,000 people in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, and 14 per 100,000 in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. As Mr. Chávez’s government often points out, Venezuela’s crime problem did not emerge overnight, and the concern over murders preceded his rise to power.
But scholars here describe the climb in homicides in the past decade as unprecedented in Venezuelan history; the number of homicides last year was more than three times higher than when Mr. Chávez was elected in 1998.
Chávez’s official response to newspapers reporting that story was to order them to stop publishing photographs of the murders, but what would you expect from an incompetent government whose only remaining backer is the equally confused Oliver Stone?
"Forget the hundreds of children who die from stray bullets, or the kids who go through the horror of seeing their parents or older siblings killed before their eyes," said Teodoro Petkoff, the editor of another newspaper here, mocking the court’s decision in a front-page editorial. "Their problem is the photograph."
The electricity rationing is starting to ease, but in a nation that previously was prosperous, and is one of the largest energy-producers in the world, it’s an embarrassment and a symbol of the incompetence that Chávez brings through his dictatorship.
Now, however, we move to an even deeper sign of desperation and grasping at control… and one that all dictatorial regimes eventually turn to: food rationing. From Venezuela introduces Cuba-like food card, by Antonio Maria Delgado, 03-Sep-2010
Presented by President Hugo Chávez as an instrument to make shopping for groceries easier, the "Good Life Card" is making various segments of the population wary because they see it as a furtive attempt to introduce a rationing card similar to the one in Cuba.
The measure could easily become a mechanism to control the population, according to civil society groups.
"We see that in short-term this could become a rationing card probably similar to the one used in Cuba," Roberto León Parilli, president of the National Association of Users and Consumers, told El Nuevo Herald. "It would use more advanced technological means [than those used in Cuba], but when they tell you where to buy and what the limits of what you can buy are, they are conditioning your purchases."
…
And although the cards were introduced [in Cuba] as a mechanism to deal with scarcities, Suchlicki said, they later became an instrument of control.
"People depended on the government to eat, and nothing gives you more power than having people depend on you to get their food quota," he said.
As I frequently point out… it’s just a matter of time until Venezuela becomes a state like North Korea or Zimbabwe, thoroughly controlled by an oppressive regime, economically and socially run into the ground, and desperately in need of international intervention to save its population. The sooner we deal with him, the less the damage, and the suffering, will be. And the suffering is already great.
Using vertical development to move down 2010-Sep-05 at 21:37 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: developmental psychology, UZAZU, Vertical Practice
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In the Integral world, we’re all familiar with some scheme of developmental psychology… whether it’s Spiral Dynamics, the Leadership Development Framework, Dynamic Skill Theory, we’ve all seen one or more of them.
Typically, when one learns about these hierarchical schemes of development (and/or gets introduced to Integral), one does two things fairly quickly: first, one looks at the scheme, tries to figure out where on it one fits, and then looks at the levels of development above that to see where one’s growth might be heading; second, one starts to project out onto everything whatever levels of development those objects or concepts or people might represent. Quickly, we populate our world with what seems like a significant improvement over our old, confusing, flatland view of everything. Now, everything has its level and its place, and we situate ourselves in the middle of all of that new labeling and order.
And I’m not trying to denigrate that move at all. It’s quite natural for that to be the first thing that we do when we “get it” about developmental psychology. And when I say “first thing” I’m not talking about something that lasts for a day or two. This seems to be a stage that many of us pass through as we enter Integral, and it lasts for years. And I’m really glad that it does; it’s a more developed position than the (pathological) post-modern view that holds all hierarchies as bad.
Of course, even new and more highly developed positions have their limitations and their shadows, and sometimes those shadows hold beautiful opportunities, and that’s what I’m interested in here.
One idea I’ve been playing with lately is the importance of using vertical developmental sequences not just as scaffolding for our own (or for our collective) growth up, but also to use them to grow down, as tools to re-inhabit those levels within ourselves that we’ve disowned. For instance (using Spiral Dynamics as our scheme-of-the-moment) many people in the Integral movement have, to one extent or another, disowned their inner Blue and Orange tendencies, and that disowning runs deep.
Don’t believe me? Let’s go right to an extreme case, then. Just ask anyone you know who is familiar with Integral this one question: Can you love President George W. Bush?
So many people I saw at the Integral Theory Conference last month still walk around with deep, visceral hatred for President Bush, for instance, and expressed it quite publicly, and it saddened me. I have to ask… is that really the most healthy relationship one can have with BLUE/Orange? Are you capable of expressing appreciation for President Bush, and for some of the decisions he made? Or is it all anger and disappointment and hatred? Even he wasn’t capable of 100% error, right?
[Ed. note: this is not about having a political debate. It's about looking at our relationship to levels of development that we may have disowned and therefore are no longer able to access – you know, transcend and include, not transcend and disown.]
I’d suggest that there’s a way that we can open ourselves up to a more loving perspective about those parts of ourselves that we’ve disowned. If we do, we can have a relationship with those who are currently living through those levels that we’ve disowned. We can meet them where they are, with love, and see them – truly see them – and through the simple act of seeing them deeply and being present with them, we can hold the invitation to continued growth, not from a place of “you have to” but from a place of “you’re loved exactly as you are, and even more is possible.”
And if we don’t? Well, if we don’t, then everything we do and say about people who live through the levels that we’ve disowned comes from one place: our own projections. If you’re not truly in a relationship with someone – if you’re not treating them and feeling them as their own subject, worthy of respect and all of the Universe’s love – then you’re just projecting your own limitations onto them.
And I have to ask all of you in the Integral world: have you disowned your Orange? Have you disowned your Blue? Have you disowned your Green? Are you ready to fix that now?
And how do we re-own them, to be more complete, to be able to take the view from love with everyone we meet?
I suspect that as the years go by, we’ll come up with more than just a few ways to remedy this particular developmental pathology, but I know one method for this that’s pretty fool-proof and easy to do: the UZAZU Vertical Practice. Using the sound / breath / movement combinations of UZAZU, the Vertical Practice can walk you through a felt experience of each of the levels of development in Spiral Dynamics, all within 30 minutes, leading up to a deep experience of Oneness. By doing this practice regularly, you give your body the experience of occupying those levels that you’ve disowned (as well as the ones that you’re comfortable with), and you get the felt sense of how they build on each other, and that they’re all a part of your own birthright as a human being.
Whether you choose to use UZAZU for this, or some other practice, I consider it to be absolutely vital for Integral action-in-the-world that we relate to all people wherever they are on the grand spirals of development, and with as much love – and as little projection – as we can muster. You know as well as I do that you can’t get there from projection. We all want to grow up… and let’s all grow down, too.
I’m back… 2010-Aug-29 at 14:16 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: travel, UZAZU
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This is the obligatory “I know I’ve been neglecting the blog” post. I’ve been on the road for a month, including three weeks at the UZAZU Teacher Training, and I have to say that it was intense and fulfilling and just didn’t leave much time or headspace for blogging. And that’s OK… it’s all part of the same flow that I’ve been in, and everything unfolds as it should.
I still have a few days left on the road, but I have space now to do some thinking and writing again, and I’m really wanting to get to it. So much to pour out now… I feel like I couldn’t write fast enough to get it all out.
The plan for September is to be home as much as possible and just write and read and do a little more research and just inhale and exhale information with as much flow as possible. After spending so much of the summer away from Seattle, a large part of me just wants to be there and not leave… of course, life intrudes and some of the trips I already know I have to take, and ones that I vaguely know must come, will appear. All I can do is to enjoy every day in my beloved Ballard that I get to be there. Speaking of… I should be home by Wednesday.
Want to transfer a high-definition movie in one second? 2010-Jul-28 at 15:28 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: lasers, networking, optical
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From Intel: Light beams can replace electronic signals for future computers, by Andrew Nusca, 27-July-2010:
Intel built a prototype of the world’s first silicon-based optical data connection with (wait for it…) integrated lasers.
Yes, lasers.
That matters because the optical link can move data over longer distances and much faster than copper cables: up to 50 gigabits of data per second.
(If that means nothing to you, try this: an entire high-definition movie being transmitted each second.)
(There are also two short videos at that page that show how this technology works.)
Imagine devices that can transfer data this quickly… and then imagine the networking hardware that would be required to support a large number of these kinds of devices on one network (like, for instance, your neighborhood’s cable modem switch, supporting hundreds of customers, or the optical switches that would enable YouTube to stream HD video to millions of users simultaneously).
We already know that this kind of hardware is necessary to get us to the point where we’re communicating in real-time video around the world, and we need that level of communication to enable things like global Integral Politics. And, again, the exponential growth curves are in effect. Nice to see this early work happening.
Thoreau on Silence 2010-Jul-27 at 14:10 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: Henry David Thoreau, silence, Spirituality
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Henry David Thoreau is my favorite author, and has been since the age of 14. To me, no one has done with the English language what he did with it. Such precise poetry in prose.
Recently I had occasion to read from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. This was the book that Thoreau built his cabin on Walden Pond, where he lived for two years, to write. A Week is a travelogue, telling the story of a trip Henry took with his brother. Along with the brilliantly-observed travel stories, it seamlessly weaves in philosophy and spirituality in a constant, beautiful flow. As much as I love Walden and so many of his essays… this remains perhaps his most perfectly executed work.
What follows are the very last words of the book. Substitute the word “Spirit” for “Silence” if that gets the point across better. Don’t forget… the Transcendentalists were very clear about the Soul and Oversoul, and they created what was the first truly American philosophy, and that philosophy included spirituality at its very heart.
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As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after. They are so far akin to Silence, that they are but bubbles on her surface, which straightway burst, an evidence of the strength and prolificness of the under-current; a faint utterance of Silence, and then only agreeable to our auditory nerves when they contrast themselves with and relieve the former. In proportion as they do this, and are heighteners and intensifiers of the Silence, they are harmony and purest melody.
Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality disturb us.
The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent when most silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer along with his audience. Who has not hearkened to Her infinite din? She is Truth’s speaking-trumpet, the sole oracle, the true Delphi and Dodona, which kings and courtiers would do well to consult, nor will they be balked by an ambiguous answer. For through Her all revelations have been made, and just in proportion as men have consulted her oracle within, they have obtained a clear insight, and their age has been marked as an enlightened one. But as often as they have gone gadding abroad to a strange Delphi and her mad priestess, their age has been dark and leaden. Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious era is ever sounding and resounding in the ears of men.
A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck. We not unfrequently refer the interest which belongs to our own unwritten sequel, to the written and comparatively lifeless body of the work. Of all books this sequel is the most indispensable part. It should be the author’s aim to say once and emphatically, "He said," . This is the most the book-maker can attain to. If he make his volume a mole whereon the waves of Silence may break, it is well.
It were vain for me to endeavor to interrupt the Silence. She cannot be done into English. For six thousand years men have translated her with what fidelity belonged to each, and still she is little better than a sealed book. A man may run on confidently for a time, thinking he has her under his thumb, and shall one day exhaust her, but he too must at last be silent, and men remark only how brave a beginning he made; for when he at length dives into her, so vast is the disproportion of the told to the untold, that the former will seem but the bubble on the surface where he disappeared. Nevertheless, we will go on, like those Chinese cliff swallows, feathering our nests with the froth, which may one day be bread of life to such as dwell by the sea-shore.
We had made about fifty miles this day with sail and oar, and now, far in the evening, our boat was grating against the bulrushes of its native port, and its keel recognized the Concord mud, where some semblance of its outline was still preserved in the flattened flags which had scarce yet erected themselves since our departure; and we leaped gladly on shore, drawing it up, and fastening it to the wild apple-tree, whose stem still bore the mark which its chain had worn in the chafing of the spring freshets.
Karma and Grace 2010-Jul-26 at 23:08 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: grace, Integral Spirituality, karma, Three Faces of Spirit
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Terry Patten visited Seattle in January, 2009, and during his Friday evening lecture he talked about his view of the Three Faces of Spirit, and, in particular, his view of the Second-Person Face of Spirit. (If you’re not familiar with this idea, please check out the link… it’s only a few minutes of reading to get an important view on Spirit.)
Typically, when we think about the second-person relationship to Spirit – the I-Thou relationship – we view it as:
- me, whatever “me” is… my body, my thoughts, my heart;
- some distance, either spatially or psychically;
- God… somewhere “over there”
If we take this view, which is the traditional, mythic view of how we relate to God or Jesus or Allah, then we create an unsolvable metaphysical problem: how do I bridge the distance between me and God? In a sense, the whole history of mythic Western Judeo-Christian religion can be looked at as the ongoing attempt to solve this problem. I’m over here, God’s over there… how do I get closer?
Terry blew that idea up for us in his lecture, when he redefined the second-person face of Spirit as an I-Thou relationship where we still start with “me” – whether that “me” is my body, my mind, my heart, my soul, whatever – and then everything that is not “me” is God. That means that God, or Spirit, is the chair I’m sitting on, the room I’m in, the other people I see, the trees outside my window, the air that I breathe… everything. And that field of matter/energy, that actually is Spirit, or God, constantly, effortlessly shifts to contain us and hold us, no matter what we do, no matter what we think, no matter what energies we expend. The loving all-embrace of Spirit is without effort, without struggle, there’s no way to escape it, there’s nowhere you can be to avoid it, there’s no question of you deserving it or not… because it’s just there, always. There’s no time and no place – ever – when you’re not literally surrounded by God’s love, from the second-person perspective.
That redefinition of the second-person face of Spirit was, for me and many others here in Seattle, a seminal moment, and one that has not been forgotten. Terry’s visit was powerful and I know that so many of us remain grateful for it.
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With that said, let’s talk about karma. Karma typically arises in traditions that feature the first-person face of Spirit, the I AM-ness of Buddhism or Vedanta Hinduism. We don’t often talk about karma, for instance, in Judaism or Christianity… we talk about God’s justice, righteousness, and forgiveness. And, honestly, I never really could fit karma together with I AM-ness. Maybe I just didn’t study the texts enough, but it just never clicked for me. What need is there for karma in a universe in which I identify as and with the Emptiness that is the source of all being… and which I then further let go of in an expression of the nondual nature of reality?
I thought about Terry’s lecture a lot over the following few weeks, and eventually came to see karma not so much related to the first-person or third-person perspective on Spirit, but rather deeply related to the second-person face of God. If we view God as “everything that is not me”, then we can look at that all-enveloping field as having two interesting properties.
The first property is that of karma. Karma can be defined as a property of that all-enveloping field which says that every energy that’s sent into it returns to its source. From that point of view, it’s simple, right? If I take a positive action, the energy of that is received by the field – without judgment – and eventually is returned to me. If I take a negative action, the energy of that is received by the field – without judgment – and eventually is returned to me. Same goes for my thoughts, my intentions, my shadow, my trust… they all have an energetic signature that is received and returned by the all-encompassing field of energy that is God, seen as the Great Thou.
The second property of that field is grace. I hesitate to limit grace by defining it, but I’ll borrow my friend Alia’s definition for it, to say that grace is the free-flowing force of emergence within that field. It constantly, effortlessly creates and manifests all that arises. Some of those creations seem ordinary to us, some seem miraculous, but grace is behind all of them… including, sometimes, a manifestation that seems to alter the cause-and-effect relationship of karma, in ways we can’t understand.
So… the second-person face of God, with karma and grace. That’s the basis of my view from that perspective.
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And then, as I sat with this view of karma and grace for a couple of months, I had another shift.
I found myself uncomfortable looking at energies and actions as negative and positive. By this I don’t mean to suggest a Green perspective that doesn’t contain discernment between helpful and harmful actions. Rather, I just came to view all such actions simply as energies that are put out into the world.
From this point of view, with karma as that property of an all-enveloping field which receives and returns all energies, I came to see karma not as that which returns positive or negative actions/energies to their source, but rather as the force that ensures that we will have the opportunity to make wiser and more loving choices, until we figure out what those loving choices are. If karma does nothing else, it returns you to situations over and over if you choose less wise and less loving actions, until you figure out which choices might be better.
By removing the judgment energy that might define actions as positive or negative, we can see karma as a simple property of manifestation (when seen as the Second-Person Face of Spirit) that ensures that each of us has the opportunity to grow, to learn, to open more, to embrace more, to love more fully, more deeply, more selflessly, more gracefully in every moment.
Karma is not a limitation, it’s not justice, it’s not judgment; it’s a liberation from our unwise minds and contracted hearts. And that’s the definition of karma that I resonate with… the one that invites us to more love and more joy in our lives.
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From this place, where I kneel in gratefulness to the Second-Person Face of Spirit, let me say:
Thank you, God, for karma. Thank you for never giving up on me. Thank you for being present at all moments to all of my most unloving and unwise choices. Thank you for embracing me. Thank you for allowing me the chance to change, to grow, to refine my soul until I could open up and receive the endless grace that flows abundantly through the energy of the Universe. Thank you for all of the people who love me and respond to me as a result of the refinement I’ve been blessed to experience, and thank you for the opportunity I have to serve them with and through my love. May I never doubt your love and the abundance of your blessings.
The end of this year’s climate bill 2010-Jul-26 at 13:18 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: battery, climate, Senate, Solar
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Yes, yes, I know… the climate bill is now a mere shadow of itself, with no cap-and-trade, and no requirements for new renewable energy sources.
And that means that the forces of greed and cowardice have won again, right? (My apologies in advance for linking to a column from Dr. Doom himself.)
So… is it too late? Has the U.S. Senate doomed the entire planet to a slow-cooked death?
Well… not exactly.
Ultimately, any energy solution that requires end-users to change their behavior is destined to fail. Anything that requires companies and individuals to cut back, to buy from other sources, to pay more in taxes (which cap-and-trade is)… that’s just not going to get the job done.
Why? Because we have to include a developmental perspective on climate solutions. So, let me ask you a question: do you think egocentric Red or ethnocentric Blue is able to think in worldcentric terms? In other words, do you think that the vast majority of people in the world (don’t forget to include China, India, and Africa) will, for this one issue, magically rise above their current level of development and make what some others would consider “the right choice”?
If you do… hell, you’re even more optimistic than I am. Because I just don’t see it happening. I see those billions of people far more interested in improving their families’ standard of living than I see them interested in whether or not an iceberg is bigger or smaller this year than last. And that’s not a bad thing. And it’s not a good thing. It’s just a developmentally appropriate thing. There’s no reason to get upset about it, and we already know that there’s every reason to expect it to be that way, because at an Integral level of development we understand developmental psychology. This is what Red and Blue look like. No judgments, just understanding.
And there remains every reason to open our hearts with love at the play of this beautiful spiral of development, flowing through every human being on Earth.
This is why I’m personally opposed to any sort of limitations or laws based on changing end-user behavior. It’s a well-meaning but futile attempt to change things.
The only way we’re going to change the use of energy on Earth, and therefore move away from the sources that contribute to global warming (assuming that such theories are accurate) is to deal with it on the supply side. We have to take a systemic view of our energy supply, and we have to change the way it’s generated in the first place. Only through massive changes on the supply side will we be able to deliver virtually unlimited amounts of electricity to the billions of people in Asia and Africa who are poised to join the global economy, through the spread of globalization, in the next four decades.
Fortunately, those massive changes are coming. Developments in nanotechnology-based manufacturing, solar, and battery are all on track to be able to supply 100% of the world’s need for energy within 20 years… whether the Senate passes a bill with cap-and-trade or not. And government investment in these technologies? Well… there’s so much profit to be made by whomever figures these out that government investment just isn’t necessary. We already know that it’s a global business that’s worth trillions of dollars.
And it’s not the United States that’s going to lead this anyway. So, relax… it’s OK. The Senate didn’t just doom the planet. Not that I think it’s a particularly wise institution at this moment in history, but in this case, we’re going to be just fine.
Yet another reason for Congressional term limits: Charles Rangel 2010-Jul-23 at 13:13 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: Charles Rangel, term limits
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From House Panel Will Try Rangel in Ethics Cases, by Eric Lipton and David Kocieniewski, 22-July-2010:
A House investigative panel has found “substantial reason to believe” that Representative Charles B. Rangel violated a range of ethics rules, dealing a serious blow to Mr. Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, in the twilight of his political career.
The finding means that he must face a public trial before the House ethics committee, the first member of Congress to be forced to do so since 2002, when Representative James A. Traficant Jr. was expelled from Congress after a corruption conviction.
The investigative panel did not disclose any details about the nature of the violations.
But two Democrats with knowledge of the investigation said the committee found evidence to support accusations that Mr. Rangel, 80, wrongly accepted four rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan and misused his office to preserve a tax loophole worth half a billion dollars for an oil executive who pledged a donation for an educational center being built in Mr. Rangel’s honor.
The committee also found evidence to support a charge that Mr. Rangel failed to report or pay taxes on rental income from his beachfront Dominican villa.
They are among the most serious of the assortment of charges against Mr. Rangel that the panel has been examining for nearly two years.
If you didn’t grow up under the influence of New York City media outlets, like I did, you might not understand how big Charles Rangel is. He’s almost like Ted Kennedy was to Massachusetts. Big guy.
And, with that role, a swelled head. A belief, after 20 terms in Congress, that his power within that body means that he can violate the law for his own gain. And he’s hardly the only example… he just crossed the line where others merely skirt it.
I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what purpose beyond ego is served by someone serving 20 terms in Congress. I further cannot imagine what would make this man, facing a public ethics investigation in the House of Representatives, think that his personal interests are more important than those of Congress, his political party, or his constituents, and therefore decide still to run for his 21st term.
Look, I’m not trying to single out Rep. Rangel. I know he’s done a lot of good for Harlem over the years. But this is exactly what happens when people forget that Congress doesn’t exist for personal aggrandizement.
How do we not get into this kind of mess ever again? Change the Constitution to create term limits for Congress. Two full terms in the Senate, six full terms in the House, and that’s it. We’ll even have a grandfather clause in the amendment to exempt current members from the new rules. But we need to start the flow into Congress of people who go in already knowing that they won’t be there forever… and so they’ll be more likely to make the difficult political votes knowing that they might lose their seat for it.
And they’ll be younger, more energetic, less about personal ego, less about getting caught up in the machine, more likely to be independent, and more willing to compromise, because not every issue is a life-and-death struggle between the two parties. It’ll take about a decade after the amendment is passed to really change the culture there, because of the necessary grandfather clause, but it will change.
And since it will take about a decade to change that culture, and at least a decade from now to get the amendment ratified… we can’t start too soon.
China uses more energy than the United States now 2010-Jul-22 at 08:48 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: China, electricity, energy
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From China now world’s biggest energy user, by Carola Hoyos, 19-Jul-2010:
China overtook the US last year to become the world’s biggest energy user, the International Energy Agency revealed on Monday.
Beijing’s new status is expected to make it even more influential in global energy markets, in determining prices and how it is used.
China clinched the top slot more quickly than had been expected because the US has over the past decade far outpaced China in using energy more efficiently. On a per capita basis, the US still uses far more energy than China and remains less efficient than Europe.
…
A second big consequence of China’s growing heft as an energy consumer is that the country will thus increasingly determine how energy is used on a global scale – from the types of cars manufactured to the kinds of power plants built. This means China will also determine energy consumption patterns outside its borders. “There will be a big multiplier effect,” Mr Birol said.
What does this mean? As Thomas Barnett talks about all the time, demand drives supply, and China’s leadership knows damn well that the supply of energy that they eventually need will be far greater than is supportable with oil and coal, both economically and ecologically. The shift to clean energy will not be driven by Western do-gooder ideas, but by the hard facts of supplying over 1.2B people with enough electricity to run a modern life over the next couple of decades, some of whom don’t even have any power lines yet.
(And don’t forget India, which is facing the same questions for their 1,000,000,000+ people.)
The technologies we need to move energy production forward (namely, nanotechnology-based manufacturing, and improvements in photovoltaics and batteries) are coming, and coming soon, because the demand for them is so high, and the profit motive for creating them is so strong. We also know that they’re coming soon because the exponential growth curves for the development of these technologies are running smoothly and right on time to deliver 100% of the world’s energy needs through solar in less than 20 years.
And don’t get all Green on this, thinking that profit motive being involved is a bad thing. In an Integral economy, we think about having four bottom-lines, one in each quadrant, and the upper-right quadrant still has profit as one of its drivers. That’s a good thing… as long as it’s not the only driver, as it so frequently is today.
When ideas have sex 2010-Jul-21 at 14:08 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: Matt Ridley, optimism, TED
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Yes, every now and then I’ll succumb to the simple temptation of posting a TED video.
Essentially… here’s a little bit about how the ideas we share move the world forward. And how ridiculous the predictions of global doom are. They’ve always been here, they’re always going to be here, they’re never true, because we grow, we change, we adapt, we share ideas, and those ideas help all of us.
Please Bring Strange Things 2010-Jul-21 at 11:05 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: Ursula Leguin, poetry
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A dear soul I know in Seattle posted this on Facebook, where she got it from a mutual friend’s post on another web site.
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Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
And the ways you go be the lines of your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
And your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well-loved one,
Walk mindfully, well-loved one,
Walk fearlessly, well-loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
Be always coming home.
– Ursula K. Leguin
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How does it feel to read that? It feels really solid to me.
And… I have cool friends who would post something like that, right?
Which is to say… I have allies. I have a network of friends in Seattle who are all supporting each other on this path. All doing their own things, all starting to trust the emergence, all backing each other up, all offering love. There’s something very special going on here.
Obviously, I have friends elsewhere for whom I’m grateful, but I’m just pointing to the size of the group we’ve got going on in Seattle now. It’s getting fun over here.
This poem is spoken to someone who needs a little support, and a little reminding; in other words, it’s spoken to your own voice of doubt. The part of me that feels solid when I read that is my own voice of doubt, which is, temporarily, reassured. That voice is just doing its job, whether it’s reassured or not. It’s not in control. Doubt is not in control. You are. You who knows that doubt is just one voice among many, that none of them describe the true nature of reality, and that each of them represents only a fraction of the total view… you are.
This path to wholeness feels lonely at first, but know in your heart that you’re far from alone – I promise you that with the right people around this life becomes a beautiful experience – and that you’re only headed for home. And please bring strange things.
Haiti, six months after the earthquake 2010-Jul-18 at 09:44 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: COIN, counterinsurgency, Haiti, SysAdmin
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When the earthquake happened, I wrote a blog post suggesting that we mount a serious SysAdmin effort in Haiti. All of that logic still applies.
From In Haiti, the Displaced Are Left Clinging to the Edge, by Deborah Sontag, 10-July-2010:
Six months after the earthquake that brought aid and attention here from around the world, the median-strip camp blends into the often numbing wretchedness of the post-disaster landscape. Only 28,000 of the 1.5 million Haitians displaced by the earthquake have moved into new homes, and the Port-au-Prince area remains a tableau of life in the ruins.
The tableau does contain a spectrum of circumstances: precarious, neglected encampments; planned tent cities with latrines, showers and clinics; debris-strewn neighborhoods where residents have returned to both intact and condemnable houses; and, here and there, gleaming new shelters or bulldozed territory for a city of the future.
But the government of Haiti has been slow to make the difficult decisions needed to move from a state of emergency into a period of recovery. Weak before the disaster and further weakened by it, the government has been overwhelmed by the logistical complexities of issues like debris removal and the identification of safe relocation sites.
Christ, it’s bad. I mean, it was bad before the earthquake, but it’s really bad now. The cynics will say that we’re not strongly participating in rebuilding because there isn’t any oil there. I think we’re not doing it because Washington and the American public doesn’t yes have a long-enough attention span to pull it off. And I think it’s karmically appropriate that we should be working to build Haiti, and would change the perception of the United States for some people in the rest of the world if we did lead it.
Unfortunately, we’re wasting an incredible, relatively low-cost opportunity to do the SysAdmin right in Haiti. Because there’s no war involved, we could get other nations to participate. We could learn together how to take the capabilities of those nations and plug them into the larger effort managed by the U.S. military (the only organization large enough and skilled enough to run the whole thing). We could put a general in charge of it who has served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who knows what counterinsurgency looks like… because counterinsurgency looks a lot like civilian construction, and infrastructure, and creating the conditions for foreign direct investment (FDI) to flow to the country being rebuilt. In other words, COIN looks like what we need to do in Haiti, minus the smacking down of an entrenched insurgency (because that’s just a part of COIN, and could happily be done away with in more peaceful locations).
As I said in January, I still support a strong U.S. military involvement in the rebuilding of Haiti, and a strong international effort to plug into that. I know I’m just wishing in 2010, but eventually we’ll have enough attention span to take responsibility for seeing something like this through.
Afghanistan will not be a military victory 2010-Jul-17 at 19:19 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: Afghanistan, Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea
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Yes, we need to have a military presence in Afghanistan to secure the country and stop the Taliban. Yes, it’s messy. And yes, the United States military is smart and flexible, and they’re listening to what works.
Ultimately, the victory will be civilian, it will be jobs, it will be schools, it will be infrastructure. It will not be purely military, and believe me, President Obama, Sec. Gates, Adm. Mullen, and Gen. Petraeus understand that. The victory comes when the Afghan people feel like they have enough at stake in their own country to reject the Taliban insurgents and turn to fight them themselves. Our military is there to provide strong cover and organizational support for the myriad civilian efforts already underway in Afghanistan.
From Unlikely Tutor Giving Military Afghan Advice, by Elisabeth Bumiller, 17-July-2010:
In the past year, Mr. Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute, responsible for the construction of more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, mostly for girls, have set up some three dozen meetings between General McChrystal or his senior staff members f and village elders across Afghanistan.
The collaboration, which grew in part out of the popularity of “Three Cups of Tea” among military wives who told their husbands to read it, extends to the office of Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Last summer, Admiral Mullen attended the opening of one of Mr. Mortenson’s schools in Pushghar, a remote village in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains.
Mr. Mortenson — who for a time lived out of his car in Berkeley, Calif. — has also spoken at dozens of military bases, seen his book go on required reading lists for senior American military commanders and had lunch with Gen. David H. Petraeus, General McChrystal’s replacement. On Friday he was in Tampa to meet with Adm. Eric T. Olson, the officer in charge of the United States Special Operations Command.
I haven’t read this book yet… I have been really curious about it since I was sort-of reading a little of it over the shoulder of the guy in the seat next to me on a flight last month (sorry about that). But it’s certainly good to know that Gen. Petraeus has made this required reading as part of how to run a COIN operation.
It’s obvious when you think about it: we need to have contact with Afghan and Pakistani tribes in order to build infrastructure and work with them to give them what they need, and Greg Mortenson has already been doing that for years. Military and western resources = peanut butter, Three Cups of Tea = chocolate, right?
The world will not fall apart 2010-Jul-09 at 18:08 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: apocalypse, Ken Wilber, Spiral Dynamics
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It’s interesting how certain energies ebb and flow… lately I’ve been in a few discussions in various places online about all of the predictions of doom that we’re facing: economic, monetary, environmental, governmental, peak oil, Rising China, resources, water, nuclear proliferation, global warming, etc. I’m sure I’m forgetting some in the moment.
Basically, those who deeply believe in these kinds of predictions consider someone like me either: 1) naïve; 2) ill-informed; 3) in denial; or 4) all of the above! And this is true about every one of the above threats! I’m ill-informed and in denial about lots of things! Wow… all that and I wasn’t even trying. Cool, right?
Well… this is your invitation to join me in my naïve, ill-informed, denial-infused reality.
Because I just don’t believe it.
We’ve been seeing forecasts of doom for our entire lives. Remember acid rain? Yeah… but you had forgotten about it, didn’t you? Remember Reagan as a madman with his finger on the button? Hell, Sting even wrote a song about it… “I hope the Russians love their children too.” Remember? Oh, please. We’re still here, the Soviet Union is gone, and no one fired any missiles.
There are always predictions of doom, from all angles. I’ll have a lot to say about this in the coming weeks, because it’s an enormous personal and cultural energy leak to pay attention to them. Why? Because they’re almost always wrong. And I mean almost always.
A broken clock is right twice-a-day, and some of these theories come true in one way or another. Right now Nouriel Roubini is enjoying his triumphant moment of having predicted the economic collapse of 2008. So, yay for him, and that’s all as it should be. But almost all of these predictions fall by the wayside as inaccurate, exaggerated, or not taking into account the changes in technology and society that are certain to happen.
With that said, and with much more to come, I’ll begin with a video of Ken Wilber talking about these kinds of predictions.
Poker and Zen 2010-Jul-09 at 13:14 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: money, poker, Zen
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I occasionally get the question about how I could be trying to make my living playing poker while having an Integral understanding of spirituality, and the ultimate fallacy of competition, from an absolute perspective. What am I trying to achieve through this (other than, you know, paying the rent and eating)?
A long excerpt from Poker and Zen, by Howard Lederer:
Tournament poker can be very exciting, but like many exciting things in life, it can also be terrifying. There is nothing quite like the thrill of playing at a big money final table. I am often asked how I handle the pressure of playing for such big money. I could give the standard answer of "You have to forget the money and just think about the chips as units." This is certainly true. But, those units are worth a lot of money and forgetting about the money and prestige that comes with winning is easier said than done.
I always had trouble doing this at the critical moments of poker tournaments even as recently as a few years ago. I then started to read some books on Zen Buddhism. Zen has always been associated with the fine arts of flower arranging, calligraphy, and tea making. But there is also quite a tradition of Zen in swordsmanship and archery. Through reading these books and in particular "Zen in the Art of Archery," I have a greater understanding of the process one goes through to master an art form.
…
Staying in the moment is the path to poker mastery. And it is poker tournaments that present the greatest challenge to this goal. How is it possible to think only about the current hand when you have made bad plays and taken bad beats only minutes before? How is it possible to stay mindful of only the current hand when if you could win this tournament it might change your life? These are questions that can only be answered by each individual player. But, I believe that the study of the Zen arts can lead you down that path.
I realized that the more I could stay focused on the present hand and forget about bad beats and bad plays from my recent past, the better I would play. I also concluded that even more damaging to my focus on the present hand might be the nervousness brought on by thoughts of winning the tournament. Staying in the moment at the poker table is not an easy task. But, when I read "Zen in the Art of Archery," there was a concept that stayed with me. The master archer hits the target without having aimed. This meant that the more I tried to focus on the moment, the more I would not succeed. I could only find that focus from within myself. I decided that I would sit at the table and relax. For two years now, I have been practicing my own form of poker meditation. Instead of trying hard to focus, I allow it to happen through relaxation.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Poker is not other than the path… it is the path, as much as any other is. Beyond the money is the ability to stay centered at all times, through wrenching bad beats and occasional bad decisions.
Just like life. It’s all on the path.
P.S. For the record, even last night I lost that center from a bad beat for a few minutes, so I’m still working on it, still walking the path.
Delivering medicine to just one cell 2010-Jul-08 at 13:04 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: biotechnology, cancer, nanotechnology
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OK, you got it.
From Nanowires Deliver Biochemical Payloads to One Cell Among Many, 08-July-2010
A team of researchers affiliated with Johns Hopkins University Institute for NanoBioTechnology used precise electrical fields as “tweezers” to guide and place gold nanowires (metallic cylinders a few hundred nanometers or smaller in diameter) on predetermined spots, each on a single cell.
Molecules coating the surfaces of the nanowires then triggered a biochemical cascade of actions only in the cell where the wire touched, without affecting other cells nearby. The researchers say this technique could lead to better ways of studying individual cells or even cell parts, and eventually could produce novel methods of delivering medication.
With the new technique the researchers can, for instance, target cells that have cancer properties (higher cell division rate or abnormal morphology), while sparing their healthy neighbors.
The ultimate cure for cancer is: more clearly identify all of the things we have floating around in our ecosystem right now that are truly carcinogenic and eliminate them (and you know there are lots of things that just take a while to accumulate), and, at the same time, develop these one-cell-at-a-time kind of treatments. Here’s your real-time update on the pure research going into that.
Yankee fans: Brett Gardner has 25 stolen bases… 2010-Jul-08 at 04:10 PDT
Posted by Scott Arbeit in Blog.Tags: baseball, Brett Gardner, Yankees
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Think about it. We’re only halfway through the season. This much power, and this much speed – Jeter, A-Rod, Granderson, Swish, Cano, heck, even Cervelli – that’s a lot of guys who can run. They also hit for power and average, and play solid defense. And then you throw a Brett Gardner with 25 SB on top of that. You’re kidding me, right?
Tex, Posada… haven’t mentioned them because they don’t run well. But I haven’t forgotten.
And even Burnett won. He won. Finally. We know that he’s at least halfway on board now, and I’ll take the odds on him getting his shit together in the playoffs, and being dominant. Remember… this guy was dominant before we signed him. Best-curveball-in-the-game type-of dominant. That’s why we signed him. And with C.C., Pettite, Hughes, and Vasquez… I’m enjoying this plan so far.
But Brett Gardner? 25 SB? Are you kidding me? Just icing. Delicious icing.
So, things are good in Yankee-land, no?
