Passage and Quotes

I ran across these in some of my studies last week. I guess I'll share them here since they match the theme somewhat.

"Your father knows everything about you", he said. "So he has you all figured out. He knows who you are and what you do, and there is no power on earth that can make him change his mind about you".
Don Juan said that everybody that knew me had an idea about me, and that I kept feeding the idea with everything I did. "Don't you see ?", he asked dramatically. "You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives, and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts".
(...) "But that's absurd", I protested. "Why shouldn't people know me ? What's wrong with that ?"; "What's wrong is that once they know you, you are an affair taken for granted and from that moment on you won't be able to break the tie of their thoughts. I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one knows me with steadfast certainty, the way people know you, for instance". "But that would be lying". "I'm not concerned with lies or truths", he said severely. "Lies are lies only if you have personal history".
[...]
"You see", he went on, "we only have two alternatives; we either take everything for sure and real, or we don't. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second and erase personal history, we create a fog around us, a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out, not even ourselves."

(Carlos Castenada, Journey to Ixtlan)

"It is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs."

(Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia)

Comfort in variability (Part 2)

Followup to: Comfort in variability

In the electronic age we wear all mankind as our skin
(Marshall McLuhan, 1964)

This isn't really intended to be an autobiography. And so, I didn't want to spend too much time boring you with my past. However, these first few "background" posts are necessary to establish the narrative surrounding the ideas I'm trying to share. So, while aiming for brevity I managed to miss one of the most important factors influencing my early development: the mid-90s Internet.

The internet has changed a lot since those times, and so have the ways we communicate with one another using it. Back then, you could talk to someone for months without ever knowing what they look like or what their real name was. You couldn't skim through the last two years of their life in a blog and assume you know them before deciding to strike up a conversation. You couldn't compare your interests with theirs and decide if they were "friend material". In very rare cases another user would have a picture of themselves online that they could send you. But for the most part, you could forget about browsing through their photo albums to get an idea for how "OMG HAWT!!1" they are.

The only way to really get to know someone back then was to actually SPEAK to them. People were judged not by their bodies, their nationality or their age - but by their conversational ability. How interesting or how nice they were.

Non-restricted freedom, openness of idea sharing with people sometimes twice my age, freedom from the limitations of distance or time - under these conditions my sense of self moved fluidly to fill this space of limitless possibilities.

Now, there's something important I should mention. It wasn't the online culture that allowed this mutability. It was the technology.
One of the FIRST things people at the time would ask another person online was:
"a/s/l ?"
Age.
Sex.
Location.

All physical and quantitative details that serve only to give the other person some impression that they know something about you.

It's funny. Given the possibility of a medium free from the constraints of our physical world, the majority of people chose to drag their mundane worldly details into these digital places.

So, I'd lie.

There were those who didn't want to talk on equal ground with a 12 year old, so I told them I was their age and we would end up having deep multiple-hour conversations.

This behavior online taught me some important lessons about my fellow humans.
I learned that the differences between us are only in our minds. Generally, most people want the same basic things in life. And last of all, most people are interesting in some way if you talk to them long enough.

When I look back at these ideas I came across a decade ago I can't help but look ten years forward. I see ample opportunity for limitless self-expression, I just hope people approach it in a less boring way. Hopefully I can play some part in inspiring awareness of just how free we are becoming.

Otherwise we'll be like the lifelong caged animal that doesn't realize what an unlocked open door means.

Comfort in variability

Fixation is the way to death,
fluidity is the way to life.
(Miyamoto Musashi)

I feel most alive when I change. I came to this realization at a fairly young age; around thirteen or so. My father was in the military and I was forced to move more often than I care to remember. I was perpetually the "new kid", always the easy target for bullies. Luckily, my disconnected attention-deficit nature protected me from developing too much of a complex from these constant attacks.

I'd just zone-out and continue on with my day.

When I wasn't counting the endless holes in the perforated ceiling tiles or avoiding stepping on the cracks in the pavement, I'd watch the kids around me. I'd also watch the teachers. Always observing, never really piecing it all together but still watching.

What made some people comfortable with each other? What type of clothes made the teachers treat you nicer?
Patterns, tendencies and their exceptions.
Never really a solid set of ideas in my head but certainly a notion that affected my actions to come.

Being forced to move was a continually painful experience. It meant giving up your entire world. Your best friends, hiding spots, favorite bike paths - all would have to be replaced. But there was an upside. It also meant an opportunity to become someone else. It meant that no one knew anything about you.

I used these opportunities to play with different things. How would I dress? Who would I talk to first? Where would I choose to sit in class? Where would I sit in the lunch room? And as I thought, each change produced different outcomes. Sure, sometimes I felt funny with a new haircut or wearing something I wasn't used to wearing but I knew that no one else knew that.

I found comfort and entertainment in change. It became part of who I was.

In highschool this gave me to mobility to become friends with people in social groups that normally wouldn't overlap.

It took me several years later to put this understanding into words.
I am not the appearance I project, the clothes I wear or the haircut I have nor am I my hobbies, my interests or my beliefs.

All of these things are merely expression. Expression of self, but not identity itself. They are evidence of a self. And the ongoing narrative of their changes is proof that my "self" isn't dead. It's alive - active - aware.

These ideas weren't entirely comforting at first, especially the notion that I wasn't my hobbies, interests or beliefs. Buddhadharma lead me to be comfortable with this truth, as well as the truth that "self" is an illusion. Along with the understanding of no-self came an appreciation for emptiness. Not emptiness in a nihilistic way, but the kind of emptiness that holds potential - pure possibility.

So, with the combination of these experiences, realizations and other self-discoveries I've arrived at a point where I can consciously act upon them.

I believe that the future will hold infinitely more possibility for change, especially in terms of our outward appearances. There will come a time when any physical attribute can be modified as easily as one can alter their avatar in Second Life today. Some people will arrive at what they consider their "perfect" selves and never deviate from that appearance. Yet, I suspect many others will choose to explore the bounds of physical self-expression.

I don't intend to wait around that long.

Coming soon...
What I hope to learn. How I hope to develop. What future dangers I hope to avoid.
Next Post: Posthuman Psychological Peril Prevention Planning