Dreamers and Doers 7 comments

8 Sep 2002 @ 11:55, by Quidnovi "If I had any learning Of a highway wide and fit, Would I lose it at each turning? Yet look at people spurning Natural use of it!" ---The Way of Life according to Lao Tzu Imagine thoughts in the mind like so many matchsticks, thoughts travelling along these little paths: 1. I I I I Vertical thinking/ Linear path (if/then)/ One Mindedness Also used by highly focused thinkers (and many political activists---we need them) This is ALSO something that NCN is trying to transcend. 2. ___ ___ ___ ___ Lateral thinking/ Parallel formation (Alternate paths) Also used by analogical thinkers. 3. ..__ /......\ \.__./ Schizoid formation/ Thought going in circle (leading nowhere) Can sometimes help a person come to terms with some personal issue. (Hey! THIS IS IT!!! This is what most of the comments I read today reminded me of!) 4. _\./_ ../.\ Creative formation/divergent thoughts radiating out from a common center 5. — I I I — Intuitive formation/ A sudden jump to a conclusion (Someone once said that the secret of walking on water is to know where the stones are. Sometimes you need to wade through the river first to find out where the stones are.) The matchstick analogy is just that---an analogy. And like all analogies it doesn't have the pretension of presenting an accurate technical analysis of events at the "process" level. Matchsticks just like words are no more than useful descriptive images. Am I speaking for everyone, here, when I say that we could all do with a lot MORE with patterns 2, 4 and 5 and a lot LESS with pattern number 3??? Is it just me, or are some of the debates that we've been having starting to look like some of the pointless disputes theologians used to have about the Sex of the Angels? The story has it that such disputes were carried inside the walls of the besieged city of Constantinople, as the city was about to fall. At the core of the dome of the Basilica, the story goes, emotions were at their peak, arguments flaring all about, not about the defense of the city, but about the sex of the angels! This is just a story of course:-) After all who would seriously believe that anyone in their right mind could spent so much energy at such an unpropitious time on such an abstract a dispute rather than on the more pressing and very present matters challenging them ITRW? I wonder… And why do I get the feeling that while we are all fretting loudly about the petty bickering, most of us, however, do revel into it despite our claims to the contrary. I mean, come on, have you taken a good look lately as to what kind of exchanges tends to elicit the longest string of comments. Conversations do tend to go in circle as participants get tangled up in personal issues and/or become more interested in listening to themselves talk than they are in resolving issues or in taking actions either here at NCN or ITRW. I do not mean to be "pontificating" about this as I am myself not immune to such temptations. Something about living in a glass house, I suppose :-) I do not care to speculate as to whether some of us live under a cabbage leaf, or not, either, for that matter :-) I believe it is Rivarol who once said, "Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say something good in a bad way." He also said "Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talents." And I think that is essentially what Shakti_ma was driving at when she referred to NCN as a "container." Now, what of the content? "There is a need for dreamers who can think and thinkers who can dream. The answer will not be a neatly packaged, custom-built project. It will be a new way of looking at things." ---Ignacio Ramonet The problem with dreamers and thinkers is that they also are driven by strange passions and weird personality quirks. "The fabulous freaks are leaving town They are driven by strange desire Unseen by the human eye" ---Dead Can Dance, "The Carnival is Over" Bear with me, as I just put some more matchsticks together, here: - Paul Torrance (1972) unearthed some research pointing to a correlation between measure of belief in ESP and scores on some creativity tests. Torrance (1962) also listed "attracted to the mysterious" as a trait of creative individuals. - Gardner Murphy (then president of the American Psychological Association) had written, at least two articles (1963, 1966) relating creativity to parapsychology. In essence these articles inferred that a number of exceedingly creative people (i.e. Mark Twain, Robert Schumann, Goethe,…) had reported psychical happenings. He proposed that creativity and paranormal capability would be expected to occur together, claiming that both are rooted in the unconscious, and that creative people are quite in touch with their unconscious selves. - Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902 - 1980), a Polish Psychologist and Psychiatrist developed the Theory of Positive Disintegration which recognizes two kinds of psychic development: one taking place in conformity to the normal laws of development of the human species and to the biological cycle of life, and, another, which takes an accelerated form and transcends the cycle of biological transformation and even social conditioning. According to Dabrowsky (1972), "Intense psychoneurotic processes are especially characteristic of accelerated development in its course towards the formation of personality. Accelerated psychic development is actually impossible without transition through processes of nervousness and psychoneuroses, without external and internal conflicts, without maladjustment to actual conditions in order to achieve adjustment to a higher level of values (to what 'ought to be'), and without conflicts with lower level realities as a result of spontaneous or deliberate choice to strengthen the bond with reality of higher level." It is in this second kind of psychic development that we usually observe unusual abilities, emotional richness and depth as well as an inclination to psychoneurosis (!) The individuals who manifest the second kind of development are from an early age difficult, frequently maladjusted, talented, experiencing serious developmental crisis and show a tendency towards psychic hyperexitability. Hmmm...a lot of things to think about here! Just like the matchsticks, they are but just maps of territories about which, all things considered, we do not have many accurate information. So just like matchsticks, I am lighting them up, one after another, hoping the flame will catch at some draft pointing to some opening in the cavern, some unexpected turn of the road, some new interesting angle. I think many here at NCN will recognize themselves and others in that further elaboration on Kazimierz Dabrowski's theory: "The idealized self is consciously constructed based on both emotional and cognitive foundations. Emotion and cognition become integrated and are reflected in a new approach to life---feelings direct and shape ideas, goals and ideals, and one's ideals work to express one's feelings. A harmony of thought, emotion and action eliminates internal conflict. Often a person's external focus shifts to 'making the world a better place.' " Let's light another match: "The real issue is not whether two and two make four or whether two and two make five, but whether life advances by men who love words or by men who love living."---and (@#%*!) I just can't remember the author of that one right now. Shakti_ma reached into her pockets and found some matchsticks of her own, there, and she just lighted one (I am assuming as I write this that we all have received her message from the virtual Welcome Lounge for Newbie by now.) I do not care where this match comes from; it could come from her witch-hat ;-) for all I care. Let's just not be too prompt in blowing out the flickering flame (or anyone else's flame.) Life is the affair of the living. If you are alive, live! If you are dead, on the other hand, why concern yourself with the affairs of the livings?

7 comments

---

New Civilization Network - Personal News Logs - Workgroup News Logs - Syndication