Are There Futures We Don't Create?
Every moment, the multiple forces of the Universe are at work, bringing into our individual circumstances, new challenges, burdens, and opportunities. It is extremely uncommon for people to co-create the death of a family member, a devastating event of nature, or the wondrous thrills of rescue, of a sunset, or the miracle of birth. So many things happen beyond our locus of control.
It seems that how we react or respond is only partially within our ability of control. Try to suppress the tears or make them stream. Try to quench that belly laugh or manufacture it. All of us learn techniques that help us filter the incoming information. The coping mechanisms we developed as children are called defense mechanisms by psychologists. They are our ways of making it through a day. It is amazing how resourceful our system is for adaptation.
It is not uncommon for these resourceful defense mechanisms to remain embedded in our system on into adulthood. When do we shift gears and start looking at life from a different perspective? What causes or allows one's consciousness to expand beyond the narrow view of the world that we developed as children? Even after having multiple experiences of expanding consciousness, why would we revert back to an earlier world view in certain situations? I expect that you have your own answers to these questions and your answers are the important ones.
Believe it or not, I saw my first episode of Dr. Who last night on the Sci-Fi channel. I had heard about it years ago, but had never encountered it. Dr. Who, his young female traveling companion and a tag-along boy visited a space station where all the people had chips implanted and no longer asked questions. They were content doing their jobs thinking they had all the information they needed and that questions were pointless. You can imagine the effect Dr. Who had on this environment or else you can remember it clearly.
We look around our own world and wonder why more people don't ask more questions. We can look in the mirror and ask the same question. Where do questions come from? Do we manufacture them, too? Are they genetically passed on? Memetically passed on?
This week a dear friend informed me of her father's death after a lengthy battle with cancer. The same day another dear friend invited me to her husband's 80 birthday party 2000 miles away. The next day I got a postcard ad from Playboy: 12 issues for $12 and bonus DVD upon receipt of payment. That evening: two phone calls asking for money, my alma mater and the Cancer Society. How to respond to such diverse incoming information? Could the same filter handle the lot? Evidently not. It seemed that I had different compartments for each piece of input. I went to very different places in my body/mind memories to react and then to respond.
How would you react and then respond to inputs like these? What do you imagine my responses were? Are they the responses you would secretly like to make, but don't feel able to? Do you have more than one filtering mechanism, too? My future may take on a surprisingly different trajectory because of my responses. Could I have responded any differently? Are our reactions and responses already so built-in that we are not truly making a decision? I wonder. My dear friend with the birthday invitation was not at all surprised by my response. My wife seemed surprised by my response to the Playboy ad. And you?
It seems that how we react or respond is only partially within our ability of control. Try to suppress the tears or make them stream. Try to quench that belly laugh or manufacture it. All of us learn techniques that help us filter the incoming information. The coping mechanisms we developed as children are called defense mechanisms by psychologists. They are our ways of making it through a day. It is amazing how resourceful our system is for adaptation.
It is not uncommon for these resourceful defense mechanisms to remain embedded in our system on into adulthood. When do we shift gears and start looking at life from a different perspective? What causes or allows one's consciousness to expand beyond the narrow view of the world that we developed as children? Even after having multiple experiences of expanding consciousness, why would we revert back to an earlier world view in certain situations? I expect that you have your own answers to these questions and your answers are the important ones.
Believe it or not, I saw my first episode of Dr. Who last night on the Sci-Fi channel. I had heard about it years ago, but had never encountered it. Dr. Who, his young female traveling companion and a tag-along boy visited a space station where all the people had chips implanted and no longer asked questions. They were content doing their jobs thinking they had all the information they needed and that questions were pointless. You can imagine the effect Dr. Who had on this environment or else you can remember it clearly.
We look around our own world and wonder why more people don't ask more questions. We can look in the mirror and ask the same question. Where do questions come from? Do we manufacture them, too? Are they genetically passed on? Memetically passed on?
This week a dear friend informed me of her father's death after a lengthy battle with cancer. The same day another dear friend invited me to her husband's 80 birthday party 2000 miles away. The next day I got a postcard ad from Playboy: 12 issues for $12 and bonus DVD upon receipt of payment. That evening: two phone calls asking for money, my alma mater and the Cancer Society. How to respond to such diverse incoming information? Could the same filter handle the lot? Evidently not. It seemed that I had different compartments for each piece of input. I went to very different places in my body/mind memories to react and then to respond.
How would you react and then respond to inputs like these? What do you imagine my responses were? Are they the responses you would secretly like to make, but don't feel able to? Do you have more than one filtering mechanism, too? My future may take on a surprisingly different trajectory because of my responses. Could I have responded any differently? Are our reactions and responses already so built-in that we are not truly making a decision? I wonder. My dear friend with the birthday invitation was not at all surprised by my response. My wife seemed surprised by my response to the Playboy ad. And you?
posted by Dick Dalton at
9:16 AM
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