Secret no secret andThis blip aside

[Only occasionally do I post comments elsewhere . . . usually out of irritation or outrage, sometimes awe and respect. I did so out of both of these. Here are the words slightly dressed up, which support the analysis and commentary I had just read: "The Secret": A Critique by Carolyn Baker, http://jwlsweblog.blogspot.com/.]

I saw The Secret once about two years ago, maybe a little more. Slick production, thus lots of money behind it--why? to sell books, DVDs, etc., I guess. As to the message, it is very, very old. And it is combined with other truisms that are also not in the category of secrets. One need only go back to Napoleon Hill with his Think and Grow Rich, which is far back enough, the early part of the 20th century.

You need to have a clue (thought) before you can realize (manifest) in physical reality. A lot of stuff just does not happen without some sense of "this is what I want" plus "now I will have or do it." The result is something. If you keep the idea, now purpose, in mind, you will approximate what you set out to make real.

No big secret. And it does not have to do with a law of the universe. The secret's law is just the "magic" someone "sees" when something roughly or even precisely anticipated happens as a result of their intentions and what they do. There is not some cosmic attraction behind this, or show me where or how?

The other side of the so-called secret is accounting for attracting all the bad stuff. A poor person somewhere on the street is not, I would surmise in most cases, saying I want to attract poverty and homelessness. Rather, their thoughts and actions, to the limits of luck and chance and forces much, much larger than him or her are acting to keep 'em there or help 'em, or not, move beyond to better. You can say, they are trapped and no law of attraction as such operates for such tragic conditions as this.

I still maintain that it is the entitled (read Baby Boomer) preaching pseudo cosmology, effectively their selfishness/schtick to the people who would make them rich by buying that c$%p. Is that too harsh or pessimistic? Naw!

[Since I posted this, another response to what I was responding to was posted by Richard Kent Matthews. I couldn't resist. See https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=20048226&postID=2603336406552529867.]

A blip aside

I still believe we create our own experience of reality. If we don't then there really is no hope.

You'll think I'm wrong. So sue me.

I believe you have side-stepped the point a bit about all this Secret stuff. Can't let you off that easy after such confrontational words, but I won't go so far as to sue you.

First, I think what you have said is partially right. You are not wrong. You don't need to take it personally.

Next, no one is going to sue you. Your inviting suit must mean you feel so strongly about being right that winning would produce some gain. Strong words. Empty by The Secret's own precept.

Consider. In a suit for gain, who wins? Both parties have the future reality of winning in mind. They each are magnets. But we know that magnets have opposing poles. If you or someone opposing you loses, does that mean that their practice of The Secret was somehow flawed? or not as pure? or that it was not in keeping with the highest and best good for all as determined by the universe? But that means I can't have everything I ever wanted. What kind of belief system is that which promises this but has such obvious exceptions?

In the spirit of partially right, I will agree with the point about creating one's own experience of reality--if we don't there really is not hope, but no consciousness at all! There is no secret to this.

Now, this is the side-step. The Secret is not so much about creating our own experience of reality as much as it is about creating observable realities in a proven, cause-effect manner.

You are a magnet attracting to you all things, via the signal you are emitting through your thoughts and feelings.

I am a money magnet and money comes to me effortlessly and easily.
http://www.thesecret.tv/top-secret-summary-of-teachings.html

In the case of the impoverished sweat shop worker, or anyone less fortunate, s/he creates a personal, private experience of reality AND there are conditions and circumstances much larger than him- or herself placing challenges in the paths to wealth and abundance. That this worker experiences the life s/he does is undeniable, and again no secret. We assume consciousness/awareness of what is happening with most people. We can assume this with our sweat shop worker. That s/he also might benefit from a change in magnetic forces is also undeniable. As I said, and The Secret creates a false mystique around,

You need to have a clue (thought) before you can realize (manifest) in physical reality. A lot of stuff just does not happen without some sense of "this is what I want" plus "now I will have or do it." The result is something. If you keep the idea, now purpose, in mind, you will approximate what you set out to make real.

But that does not mean that the sweat shop worker will rise out of poverty, or that I will become president of IBM, or the world. That this worker can change the conditions and circumstances with which s/he must cope is quite something else. That I can change the world by changing myself, you must grant me as I do for myself. If I see it differently, it is different, for me. That I can change the situation in sweat shops around the world is quite something else.

As you dismissed a number of the mainstream religious and spiritual traditions, you called on your readers to mind what the Buddha was purportedly to have said. "Whatever resonates with your sense of reason, accept it and reject the rest." I guess Buddha holds some truth even though you have also said, "No one knows the truth of anything really." This blip aside, and again focusing on what was said, what does your sense of reason tell you about what we should believe about The Secret, or any necessary palliative to death's inevitability?

May a fellow preacher suggest to another: "The one [at life's end] with the most toys wins" is an empty philosophy or religion--because it only lets us temporarily, if that, set aside contemplating why we are here and what will, for sure, happen one day. This is your alternative, which leads to compassionate action, and it is surely not nihilism, or worse--The Secret's materialism.

Un-i-sex

She stopped by the other day and told me the latest. I have become the listener now in our relationship. It was different before, but now it is this way. And I don't mind. In fact I like it. Listening is a way of relaxing in a conversation, isn't it? And even one's silence and patience have an effect. Or if it is just acknowledgement that you have understood, if you understand that way of listening, that can help too. I mean understand the other person. So I am fine with it. But this is not about me.

She said that Brad had stopped by her desk at the office and shuffled about. She didn't get--until he had to come right out with it that he wanted to buy her a coffee--that he was really doing that, trying to invite her. She said that she was so dense. I didn't agree. But maybe she is. Anyway, she met Brad, maybe it was Starbuck's. She was all out of sorts. It had been raining by then and she had forgotten her umbrella. She was all wet with her briefcase from the office and some packages she had picked up from Lacey's. They were holding them for her. And she wanted to take them home. New things she said she needed. Some even sexy, although I know she wasn't going to show them to anyone. There was no one in mind, no one current. In fact, there had never been to my knowledge. We have known each other for a long time, and I think I would know. No, there is no one. But this Brad. She said he was nice. They talked about work. And then she left. Just like that. I asked if there was anything else. Something he did or said. She said no, nothing. I asked about whether they would be meeting again, and she said that was a curious question. Of course they would see each other at the office. It was like that with her. She never seemed to wonder about things. I mean men and how they might be interested. She didn't even talk about being attractive for guys, although I know she takes care of herself. She really does. She always looks great. But who am I to talk like this? It's really none of my business. But in a sense I guess it is. I am listening. She tells me these things. Sort of makes it my business. But I don't think it is my place to ask questions. Not questions like that.

So Brad came and went, I guess. Just like so many others. And no word from her about anything more, anything juicy. Anything romantic. Maybe she just doesn't have it in her. No, that is not it. I think she just doesn't pay attention.

I remember John. He was a looker. I saw him once. They shook hands when they parted, although to me he looked a bit awkward about it. She extended her hand first, and he hesitated a moment then took her hand. They shook as business people do. I guessed that that was how she wanted it. I didn't think all these things at the time, just an impression. But now that I am telling you, that is how it seems. When we talked about him, and I said he seemed nice, she said he was, and that was that. Off she went on some other subject. I think it was about a weekend she was planning, a spa weekend, to get away from work "and everything." I never knew what "everything" was. Her life seemed to be work, a bit of shopping, exercising at an aerobics center. Her social life was a kind of mystery. I only heard about stuff when she wanted to talk. And her need to talk--can I call it that?--came and went. So I don't know about everything.

I tried to put together when she needed an ear and when she didn't. My life, after all, was not all that exciting. But hers, well, hers could be, or could have been. Sometimes she was stunningly beautiful in a natural sort of way. She dressed very well. You'd expect that of a businesswoman today. Well, she is not so much a businesswoman as a career girl. Administrative assistant, I think they call it. But she dressed the part and more. Perhaps it was the firm she was with. I mean a dress code, maybe unspoken. I don't know. Anyway she didn't even have to dress that way to look fabulous. So she got lots of attention just because, because she looked the way she does. Her beauty is physical, yes. But there is something else. I guess it is what people mean when they say it comes from the inside. She is definitely beautiful from the inside, and out.

She smiles a lot. She is friendly. She is talkative, but also a listener. And the way she listens, she draws you right in. You become special. But when you act, I mean men, they act on that special feeling they get when they are around her, off she goes, literally. Or changes the subject, about the weather or sports or, you know, she avoids getting personal. It is conscious. But I think sometimes it is not. More like something she's learned, from her childhood or something. She just isn't interested in getting personal, except with me, I guess, and I am sure with members of her family, especially her brother. Her brother seems to be important in this way. Anyway, she is beautiful. And if she feels she has flaws or is in any way less than what she is, she doesn't talk about it, not with me.

Thom was someone she talked a lot about for a while. Then one day she stopped. We were having lunch, and I asked about him. I joked that a Thom could sound like a T or a Th. I preferred the latter, and I asked her which she preferred. We laughed a bit, said the Th sounded better. She said he was interesting but that she would not be seeing him again soon. I asked if he was married. She said no, but that he would be out of town a lot, and "he said he was very busy." This way of saying it caught my attention, but I let it go, for at that point she looked out the window and commented on the approaching clouds. She said she thought it would rain, although the weather-cast had not said so. There was a brief silence. I tried to prolong it by not saying anything. Like making a space for her to say something more, something she really wanted to say. And then she began talking about her brother.

He seems to be in the picture, but I know he lives quite far away. I guess they talk on the phone. No, they do talk now that I remember. I haven't paid much attention, but come to think of it, she mentions him a lot. He is younger and apparently has had some terrible experiences with women. They seem to have dumped him, always dumping him. She never went into details, but it seemed that frequently she was counseling him by phone on how to cope, how to understand what happened, what women were like, all that sort of stuff. I guess he pretty much relies on her and she, from her distance, takes care of him.

One time I asked her what she said to him. What was the advice and stuff. She began by saying you know how women are. And I said I didn't. No one is allowed to generalize in my world, and I think whether man or woman, neither can say how it is with the general other. So I won't venture a comment or opinion even where my own sex is concerned. She said that was interesting, "very intriguing," she put it. And then she gave a couple of examples of what she said to her brother. She said that women were people too and that because one did not choose to continue in a relationship with him did not mean that he caused it, a break that is. Each person has her own issues, like expectations. I liked that. Each person has her own issues. And then she said something like maybe you were doing something that somehow turned the girl off. I thought this interesting also, because it is this awareness of what she does that I don't think she has, I mean in relation particularly with men. But I could be wrong. Obviously I must be, if she is giving that advice to others. Especially to a man, if a brother counts as a man, which I think he must, right?

Well, all this is for nothing. She is a wonderful person with a lot going for her. She is kind of old not to have had a serious relationship, particularly for a person as attractive as she is. Twenty-nine and never been kissed. I don't actually know that, but about the virginity I'm pretty sure.

One time the subject came up. Our conversations are not as freewheeling as I would like, otherwise we would have been clear on this subject long ago. She certainly knows my story on that score, for sure. I guess she holds herself back with me, too. Anyway, she said she just didn't feel like other women she knew. She felt kind of a-sexual, or that she didn't really didn't know what sexy was. She said she had felt something funny, and scary, once with someone she liked a lot. I asked it this person was male or female. She gave me a strange look and didn't answer but continued talking about how she thought she did not fit in that world. When it came to parties, she said she found herself by herself or talking to different people. Sometimes a man would come up and say something cute, but she always brushed it off. She said these lines, she called them "lines," were curious but basically not credible. That was it, she focused on the line as if from another planet and not in any way related to what the other person really was trying to say. I said that was very interesting, what did she think they wanted to say. She said they were probably not going to say, whatever it was. And because of that, she didn't need to respond, except politely and briefly. She said they were hiding themselves, and if that is what they wanted to do, she would respect that. I said that was also interesting, but maybe a man and a woman did not have to spell it all out to each other. At that she said that if the whole business of flirting and sex and anything more was based on this deception, she would prefer not to play. At that I asked her whether or not she had ever kissed a man. She said she hadn't and fell silent. So I put it another way. Had a man ever kissed her? She said yes, and fell silent again. I said "Well?" She said, "That's it. That's all there is to say. I have never had sex with a man."

I take her at her word. And I feel I got pretty close to the truth then. I am no threat to her, and so disclosing to me is pretty safe. She has said as much. And so I don't go off and speculate about what really happened. I think if she wants me to know, she will tell me. And I don't need to know. It is she not me who is, like, leading this relationship, our friendship.

My next question was about other women, because she sometimes talked of people she knew who were, she said, pretty or attractive. I think she used the word pretty. So often did she use this word to describe someone that I had a small voice inside me that said that there was something there. Why would she say someone was pretty and then go on to describe what she looked like, what she was wearing, and so forth. It was like that with Melanie. She talked about Melanie several times over the course of several months. I think it was last year. By Christmas, however, the name disappeared. I asked about her once or twice, like with Thom, but she said something like Melanie no longer had the time of day for her. Same story, I guess. I wondered what that meant, especially when she said that Melanie had a different life and friends and was always busy when she called. Well, I just thought that explained enough. But there was one thing. I think Melanie held a special if temporary place in her life. There was a kind of sadness or bittersweet quality to how she said she no longer had time for her. It was the faintest suggestion, but I thought I saw it in her eyes before they averted mine. Sometimes I stare while listening. I think I must appear pretty intense, or interested. Maybe I unnerved her.

From time to time she would comment ever so briefly about some woman passing by or sitting over there in the coffee shop. We often met there, the one near my work, not hers. She seemed to notice. Not so much clothes as the face, the lips, or her figure. I don't know. It is just a feeling. Don't women talk more about what other women are wearing, not so much about how fit they are or how sensuous their lips are? You tell me.

Anyway, I have nothing much to go on in this department. But my point is that there is a singular lack of any relationship she talks about. It is all about surfaces and he is nice, or pleasant. It never seems to go deeper. She does not seem to be hiding but then again it seems she is. And why would she from me?

From time to time, especially lately, I have thought I should just stop being the listener. Maybe I should talk about me and my sexual fantasies and such. Maybe my problems. But I have yet to change the way we meet and enjoy each other's company. I guess it is more about her, but I enjoy being with her and hearing about how things are going.

Often it is about some thing. Something she is currently interested in. And she has a wide range of interests that have nothing to do with relationships, men and all of that. For example, lions. She went through a lion stage. She researched them, downloaded documentaries, borrowed books from the library about African predators and such. She went on and on sometimes about those lions. The mating also. Sometimes when she talked about that and the role of the lioness, it was like she got some kind of energy. Pent up sexual frustration, my shrink would say. I don't know. But what she had to say was interesting. Then she went off on how big our galaxy is. She sounded like some kind of star-struck kid, one that just could not get enough of how damn big the universe is. She measured stuff in millions and millions of light years and all of that. It was like she was in a constant state of wonder. Sometimes she would catch herself and stop and ask if she was being too adolescent or something. I would say she was, and she would stop. It was like these worlds of things, or animals, were a kind of strong attractor drawing her in by some force greater than herself, maybe outside herself. I don't know. It just seems like a big thing for her sometimes. And I guess she goes off on these subjects with men who strike up conversations with her. I wonder what effect that has. Maybe they would rather have the conversation center around the nothingness of getting eventually into each other's pants or something.

Is she frustrated? Not at all, I guess. Me? That's another story. I hope I haven't said something here I shouldn't have.

untitled

Sometimes something is so beautiful it brings tears you can't stop, so good it makes a smile you can't wipe away, so full of something that makes you understand so clearly, so comprehensively--it is so elegant--that all is right with the world for that moment, and you forget every worry, every wrong, every misdeed, and all regret . . . something such as the smallest you can focus on in the sunshine while the music of your heart provides the perfect background, or such as the largest like the Golden Gate Bridge seen from the Marin Headlands, or the Grand Canyon from the bottom up. Or take a Paris evening in late spring after consuming all the exquisities and you come to reside in an aperitif, some cheese, coffee, and a Gauloise while watching lovers successively pass by and cross to infinitely singular points on the Pont Neuf to kiss. Ah, life sometimes, some things, some moments catapult us out of ourselves and into eternity. It is no wonder we hunger for such moments now and everlastingly.

Advice to a young student upon entering college

Set aside your feelings and realize that a world exists that is purely, or almost purely, in your head in the form of immaterial ideas, ideas like pure concepts and thoughts, such as those _about_ things. Yes, they can be in the form of images, and yes, they can be more or less clear. And they can be accepted or rejected or shaped in different ways--by thinking and considering, often with the help of others living and dead.

Fellow students and teachers will discuss with you what you are trying to understand or learn _about_. And writers will talk to you about these things also, because all is not in the repertoire of each student or teacher. The world of knowledge is greater than any one person.

So, there are these things--ideas--which are the stuff, the major amount of stuff, in college. Yes, college is about other things, but in the main teachers and students entertain and work with ideas, and they do so regardless of how they feel about them. Set your feelings also aside so that you too can see clearly what they are. Don't feel that you have mastered something because you have had the introduction. There is always more to know of the things themselves and about them.

Next, realize that all the cognitive content (the ideas) of what you and your fellow students and the teachers work with is not you. An idea is not yours until you decide to embrace it, that is you make it yours and with some level of feeling you own it and you represent it as how you as a unique and individual person think and will act. But because the content is not yours at the beginning, or not yet yours, you do not need to defend or justify it except on its own terms, using your head not your heart. It is separate and apart. It does not have to be about you.

Beware when answering questions such as, "What do you think about that?" This question is often answered by likes and dislikes and feelings. Which is not the answer to the question! Pay attention to the exact, specific questions before stepping into the quicksand.

When you write something or present something to a teacher or a class, you are giving evidence of your understanding of a _what_--an idea or set of ideas. What you have written or presented can thus stand outside of you as an understanding. That understanding and the way in which it is presented can be judged as good, better, best, or not good or relevant--and these according to faithfulness to the original idea or ideas and according to the correctness and effectiveness of presentation, because in this area too, there are ideas and practices (acts) for which there are accepted ways. So once you have externalized what you think in a way that can be good, better, and so forth, in communicating, all these things take on that immaterial character of ideas also and can be talked about without much if any emotion.

College is about learning the ideas and how to communicate them in ways that are understandable and actionable. Failure to be able to show evidence of your understanding by either expression or the content of expression is failure to learn one of the most important skills college has to offer.

Be aware that many if not most students do not truly learn these things in three or more years of college study. It takes a lifetime of practice to separate ideas from feelings and to combine them when the situation properly calls for an integrated response. Some people never get it. Imagine an idea half-baked, or eloquence without substance.

Next, try and then find your preferred approaches to studying and taking exams. This too is a content area with information, knowledge, and practice that have worked for others. Survey what others have said to do and experiment until you are comfortable with your approaches, and employ them if they work. Do not lose time at the beginning by ignoring this. Half or more of a term can pass by floundering around before you settle in. The earlier you settle in, the better. With practice you will refine your study and preparation skills.

Not lastly, listen carefully. Read carefully. Reflect without regret. Respond not too carefully. There is much to gain from others in college, and you are someone who can learn from others as well as from how you yourself perform.

Cozumel

[Before I arrived, I was obsessed with a kind of human geography. What was it like? Thus the first released some of this energy. Then the music and colors of the everyday caught me. The second part. I realized I could not finish either to the extent I wanted to, and that they deserved. Thus each part is unfinished. An exercise in the end, I guess.]

1

San Miguel, a town of about 80,000 residents, sits on the leeward side of Cozumel Island, and swells to 100 or more thousand when tourists come to stay, or multiple cruise ships disgorge shoppers. Known as Cozumel, the town is laid out in a grid with streets running north and south and east and west, many one way.

From the sea in the west moving eastwards, there is first the main tourist shopping street, Rafael Melgar. It runs north and south of the center where ferries from the mainland arrive and depart. The east-west street dividing the town roughly in half is Benito Juarez. Melgar is lined with shops for about ten long blocks, and beyond this, luxury hotels and condominium projects are scattered north and south. They mostly avoid the foot and taxi traffic that make Cozumel's, if you can call it this, downtown bustle. The shopping and tourist area continues from the center eastwards two blocks till 10th Avenue, a main thoroughfare running south to north. Thus forms a rectangle about ten blocks by two blocks for English and Spanish speakers, pedestrian friendly and colorful, where the tourists police in khaki shorts safeguard the economy.

Continuing east, another section of town begins on 10th. This is mostly a locals shopping area, dotted with small hotels and houses with room-for-rent signs. This area includes a locals market for daily food, necessities and sundries. This section runs to 30th Avenue, making another rectangle about ten by four blocks.

North and south of the center from the sea eastwards, bordering both the tourist and locals shopping areas are posher neighborhoods where the wealthy absentee, expatriate, or sunbird hides behind high walls and imposing facades. These neighborhoods mostly shed their foreigners around 30th Avenue.

Extending six blocks from 30th eastwards and bordered by the outskirts of town north and south, there is a mixture single family and small apartment houses, small businesses, and all manner of eateries and miscellaneous services, many situated in the front or as a part of private homes. There are several large stores for building materials and such along 65th, another main thoroughfare.

From 65th north and south and east to 100th or more, there are neighborhoods and parks and mom-and-pops and bars with cement floors and plastic chairs and tables, a landscape of unfinished dwellings, and some that look as if they have been constructed using the last hurricane's debris.

A short canopied jungle borders or surrounds all developed areas and encroaches onto vacant lots and wherever it can. To the north of town, there is a military base and the international airport. Further, opposite luxury condominium and high rise hotels, there is a golf course with several resident reptiles on about the tenth T.

The town will grow into the jungle areas as the population grows. A public-minded housing project of 1,000 very small and modest homes begins to rise beyond the current southeast outskirts near a state university branch campus.

Running through town in roughly a north-south line is high ground, from one or two meters above sea level to about eight, less than a town block wide. Although logically a desired location to avoid overflowing streets when it rains, this raised spine of limestone hosts structures as diverse as the non-tourist areas of town itself.

Local sources and incident records show Cozumel to be a safe place, but there are neighborhoods where caution is wise. The tourist areas are carefully monitored by different police forces. However, as safe as these areas are, everyone local is being paid by someone or some business to hook any foreign looking person into a place of business to spend money. Dollars exchange hands more often than pesos, and competition reigns. Prospective customers hear the offers of another adman as the pitch from the previous has hardly settled into the distance of a few steps away. It is a feeding frenzy when the streets are crowded.

The central Plaza, Benito Juarez, draws tourists and locals alike each week for concerts, extravaganzas, fiestas. One block from the Plaza the, Church of San Miguel rings its bells daily and nightly for services for locals and shy or curious others who listen from the sidewalk and pedestrian areas.

2

Pastel skies greet the early riser while a tree iguana big as a tomcat watches and waits in a tree.

Shacks and shanties outnumbered by other dwellings not much better, unfurnished, concrete and block, graying in the sun, washed by warm rains, dark holes with dirt or wood floors, hammock limited in sway for the moped that serves also as necessary furniture just inside the doorway.

Adult-sized tricycles, two wheels front, carrying silent Mayan women, slowly peddled through neighborhoods, morning and evening by older men. Or carrying wares announced by a monosyllabic clap or bell or horn or whistle. As if to say, "I have this today. Don't hurry into the sun. I am not going anywhere very fast. I can wait for you."

The rains down pour as if from the bottom of a bucket with peso-sized holes. Streets flood and deep waters carry waste flushed up from shallow sewers incapable of taking it all away for hours or a day and a night. Or the waters drain into underground caverns which take it somewhere, some say out to sea.

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep. A truck broadcasts bottled water or cooking gas for sale, up, down and around the corner and into the distance, now and then interrupted by the silence of an unseen purchase.

Boom boxes and street speakers stationery or mounted on beater cars or the semblance of trucks. They tell the world of promotions, a salsa band, candidates, or they just infiltrate the days with rap and base. The many heartbeats evidencing life in a something other clime.

Front porches and entries of private homes morph into eateries. Up to five ride on scooters meant for one or at most two. Penniless and barefoot, they ask for money and are offered food. Swarms of mosquitoes chase editable you if a jungle explorer you dare to be.

Musical horns and drums and groups of marchers practicing for imperfect exhibitions celebrating what? Each after dark or early in the morning for hours getting ready for or having events that have all in uniform but not quite in step.

Gringos and romantics walk, bike and drive to the western shore for an unobstructed sunset that along with steep, tall clouds turn the edge of the world into a single-performance-only spectacle.

Behemoth boats belch forth shoppers and hedonists for daylight diversions. Some only reach the mall at the foot of the pier. Others venture up and down the main seaside street. A few penetrate interior avenues till the local scene intimidates, or their vessel beckons them back blaring hoarse horns not to miss the scheduled departure.

Dogs lie lifeless in scrapes of shade. If not homeless, they sit atop roofs and fences in the evening protecting property when it is cooler. Some do not survive the night for another listless day, slain from neglect or taken by exacerbated natural causes.

Tourists and locals come and go and discover money is either easy to spend or hard to come by. Best make the best of things while there's work to be done or things left to see and do before the glitter and magic fade and it is there you are and life's like that again another day.

Get my meaning?

A "Now you have raised a question again, and I have to try to do the hard work so that you can understand. Maybe you will; maybe you won't; maybe you will understand in a different way than I understand. Maybe you will have your own opinion. That is all OK, even the opinion, which no one, you realize, can work with."

B Gloss: One of two or more introduces a response in a conversation where there was another question and now this question--neither given--the answer to which will be a meta-response about matters affecting future understanding of what will be hard to construct. Herein is a care-less concern and aim of transferring a definite understanding, while at the same time acknowledging possibly a different one will result, perhaps more accurately termed an opinion embedded in the holder and therefore inaccessible to any other. The speaker accepts this challenge and risk, born of some obligation or insistence, and so will continue thus. The invitation to converse includes confirmation of a prior truth that having an opinon will arrest any mutual progress.

C "If I am entirely truthful with myself and write it down or talk about it, then at least I have done my part, which is the first step towards conversation. In the end, hopefully not before, I and you can evaluate or judge what has gone on and make any decisions based on that, or not. We are free to choose at all points."

D Which leads to the hypothesis: A text of any length, if translated into its own or another language, has worlds to open to us that we may but dimly sense without the most careful scrutiny, the most careful listening.

E Aha: No wonder without wonder.

F Another sample, this from the King James version.

4 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
5 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
6 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.

G Seemingly didactic report of an event with quote claiming the protagonist descended from God and that business shall not be conducted in God's house, the temple. Driving merchants and animals out as well as pouring out money and overturning tables suggests less emotionally-charged methods were or would not be effective.

H And

7 . . . his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.
8 Then answered the Jews and said to him, What sign show you to us, seeing that you do these things?

I In the face of this "scene" and echo of earlier scripture (Psalm 69?), the protagonist's disciples question his "wretchedness"? or the action born of it? These disciple-Jews, or others, then ask in response to the behavior--with or without the wretched part--what was its meaning?

J It seems again that a "text of any length, if translated into its own or another language, has worlds to open to us that we may but dimly sense without the most careful scrutiny, the most careful listening." But language-action plain or in translation can also but dimly denote exactly what it is we are to understand.

K Aha: Wonder with wonder.

L Imagine the impossible, that at the time of the above language-actions, or before, there was no interpretation. A baseline text once read is different from what was said if by the tiniest of margins, for it is the consciousness of the now other who has created it in reading or hearing. No full access-entry is possible into a text. Add to that the slipperiness of words and phrases and larger aggregations, as evidenced by illustrative reductions, we can only hope for coincidence. The closest approximation is what we are after, but that persistently and by the very nature of communicating intentions eludes us.

M Yet we proceed based on what we can apprehend, and through interaction, progress towards what we assent to as understanding.*

N The initial reduction, whatever its shortcomings, has to be compared with the original as re-read, decoded again. And if there is some large measure of satisfaction on what it is we have hold of then, we can accept the interpreted in an I-acknowledge sense.

O To restate the now convoluted.

* One, a text, an original.
* Two, the text is read. In the experience of reading, a first-hand interpretation is made. It is called what-I-think-it-says.
* Three, that interpretation is then reduced to match the text. Here is the second-hand.
* Four, the second-hand is compared with the original for fit and adjusted as needed. The comparative reading-rendering process becomes conceivably a revised second-hand interpretation, call it now third-hand, in that a third results from the process of interacting texts.
* Five, the third-hand, if taken up, becomes a fourth text in that it is a part of making additional texts which may bear great or little resemblance to the original.
* Recycle the process. Here is interpretation beyond the original and must be handled in the same manner as above in order to make sense of it.

P Aha: Wonder that we wonder?

Q To interpret in an I-acknowledge sense is roughly to have decoded a text and understood it within one's own language filters and horizons. If one adds external-to-the-text material, or voices, as somehow implied or inferred or reasonably understood as aides to understanding, we run the risk of nothingness, and . . .

R Aha: No wonder!

S We have fullness of how messed up things can get. This without the impossible, that at the time of the original, or before, there was--we assume, another of the genus interpretation--one or more intentions to communicate something or -things, consciously or unconsciously.

T Interim conclusion: Jam-packed, full of wonders, seen and unseen, to delight and dissuade us, much as the spells of sprites for good or ill when we think we are looking.

U The font of expression is metaphor, just as the impossibility of communicating intentions devolves into images and unspoken meanings as we separate.

V-Z [available for rebuttal or additional observations . . . perhaps a final Aha:]

__________
* Ken Wilber in unpublished material asserts that it is enough if I say something and you say you understand. Such assent is enough to proceed. There is no need for devolutions, reductions, convolutions, etc. See http://www.shambhala.com.

Dancing on glass from the broken oven door

1 - April 24, 2008

COMPLAINT

Declaration: The owner rented an apartment to Mine "Kit" Teague about three months ago. Two weeks ago Mine showed she was losing her mental ability. She has threatened me two times. She makes noise late at night and throws things from her apartment onto the street. It is almost impossible to talk to her. She said she stopped taking her medicine. She has damaged the oven and sink in the apartment.

Received: Direccion General de Seguridad Publica, Transito y Policia Turistica, Cozumel, Q. Roo

2 - Sometime before the 24th

It is hard to describe my second meeting. It too was brief, but it seemed to me a lot happened in a very confined space in a short time.

She did not appear to be at home. I called as I approached the door, walking carefully across the terrace. I knew there was a dog. Closed doors in this climate usually signal no one at home. In hindsight, no one was.

Kit answered my knock by asking me from inside to open the door. I did and Uftie, her dog, shot out of the apartment without so much as a who-are-you and disappeared somewhere. I stepped inside onto a wet and greasy floor. Kit was sitting on the bed to my left. I told her I had her phone bill. I wanted to say here is a copy. You can pay it when you have time. I could not utter the words.

She dismissively said, "Give it to me. I will study it."

She asked me to sit down. I said I was just there to deliver the copy of the bill.

The apartment was dark and dank. But I was only dimly aware of this. Kit took command and asked me to sit down again. I reluctantly did, and she began talking I don't remember about what. It was all jumbled up. It was like stream of consciousness interspersed liberally with snippets of this and that to enhance her credibility or self worth or superiority. She asked me to put on my glasses. I saw nothing to read, and so I ignored this. Then she asked me to close the door. I sensed no danger from this woman in her fifties, who appeared much, much older. There we were both in the dark.

She opened a drawer and took out a broken pot pipe and asked me if I. I said no. She quickly said something about under a doctor's care in Hawaii and that she needed it to clam her nerves. I remember wondering what could she be nervous about, and why was the door closed in this heat? She put the pipe down after having made an attempt to light it. There was no flame from her lighter and no pot in the pipe to light.

My defenses began to arise from some depths, but I was not worried. Give the old lady my ear for a few minutes and disappear. In fact I was older.

Then she arose from the bed and began insisting and interrogating without waiting for answers.

"What is your education? Where did you go to school? Put on your glasses. You are too young to know anything about bookkeeping and accounting. When I was in New York, why I . . . for 91 people. I know the law. I went to law school. Would you like some [pointing to the empty pipe again]?"

Her voice and body became animated, excited, borderline hysterical.

"And look at this!"

She opened the oven door and the tempered glass, what was left of it, fell in pieces onto the wet floor around her feet.

I began watching. I suppose shock was setting in. She yelled at me again to put on my glasses. She danced on the broken glass on the floor. I just stared at the oven door. It seemed that there was more missing than the glass. I just stared at the glass on the wet floor. I then stared at her now walking on the glass saying that her father taught her about glass. He was in the glass business.

"See, it won't cut you."

She yelled now. "Look at me. Look at me. What are you, stupid?"

I finally came back from a kind of stupor and met her eyes. She was smiling as she insulted me. I asked how it happened. She said a rock hit it. Didn't make sense to me, but maybe somehow the dog, or?

She sat down again on the edge of the bed. I said I would be going. There is your bill. She said sit down. Want a cup of coffee? I said no thanks and began to leave. She held out her hand as if to shake mine. I decided not to, gave my own pregnant pause and left.

I saw no dog as I walked away.

3 - Just recently

I got a copy of an e-mail Kit had sent to someone on Cozumel. It said she would be visiting soon with her new husband, Chris Isak. I recall when disposing of her rancid belongings that there was a copy of a CD with his song, "Speak of the Devil," on it.

Shortcut to new histories

A thesis: The frequency of words used is one lens to view the similarities and differences between two political candidates.

Words chosen are a direct reflection of the universe one chooses to represent to others. Word frequencies can tell us in a concrete way what a speaker is most concerned about.

In both the first debate and the victory and concession speeches for the 2008 US presidential election, the most frequent word Senator John McCain used was I. The most frequent word Senator/President-elect Obama used was We.

Here is how it breaks down in terms of an I-versus-We orientation for each candidate, including a ratio of how many times the word I was used in comparison to the word We.

Obama First Debate
I and related terms = 172
We and related terms = 338
RATIO of I to We = .509

McCain First Debate
I and related terms = 218
We and related terms = 150
RATIO of I to We = 1.45

Obama Victory
I and related terms = 41
We and related terms = 88
RATIO of I to We = .466

McCain Concession
I and related terms = 70
We and related terms = 18
RATIO of I to We = 3.889

Language reflects, and communicates with specific words. Chosen words and the most-often/frequently used tell tales. It is tempting to skip to tales' ends from these examples from the US presidential contest. Yet need we be tempted to study this much further? Not really.

America chose its next president. The choice was at least in part because of what (who) the candidate appeared to be most concerned about before and just after the election.

New histories are being worded as we speak.

Prelude to reclude

Example. Trust and taking-for-granted

Consider. Trust is trust-in and thus specific-to. Trust is personal and a belief or assumption bestowing on subject or object a felt-now assurance of stability. Interaction-with is without reservation.

Specimens. I trust my car to start and get me to work everyday. I place my trust in it as a means of transportation. My car historically, and for the indefinite but not unlimited future, does what I want it to. I get into it in the morning and start it the same way as always, seldom thinking about or anticipating problems.

I also trust my friend. I know how he behaves, what his values are, and so forth. When I relate to him, I know he will respond in certain ways.

Consider. Taking-for-granted. There are recurrent events such as the sun's rise, and there are . . .

Discussion. And so it goes, following in imperfect fashion the models set before us since ideal forms and essences and properties became the parlance. But what is description's end? And is beginning-to-define the step-relative of direct experience?

If to grasp the jell-o and hold it still long enough to discern what it is requires definition/description, there must be some objects of intentional view worth and not worth bothering about. Who cares really about yellow jell-o down or up or around or so fully and carefully delimited such that we can say this, and not that, is what it is?

For the phenomena (objects of intentional view) we would care about, those are worthy of delimitation to the limits possible, not all possible phenomena. The experience of inserting a stent into an artery of mine before performing the procedure would, as sense would have it, important, vital, critical. Get this phenomenon right down to the nth degree please, and don't bother me with definitions tentative.

Then it must be understanding and expertise, knowledge and perfect execution. These must be description's end. But is execution a part of the descriptions we would forge? Not exactly. It is execution in combination with knowledge, and knowledge in combination with execution, and so on round and round and up and down the hermeneutic spiral. Each builds and extends the other to the limit of need or value. Understanding then is not representation in words alone but also manifest praxis.

But is there understanding without concomitant application? Another way to ask the question is whether knowledge always has a use, or are there standalone, stable insights, what might be considered "justified true belief[s]" sufficient unto themselves?

To name one, love. At least a part of love never asks the smitten to do more than just be in the experience of the wonder. In addition, one need not fully understand in the sense of cognitive comprehension what the love-experience is.

So the horizon of explanations and understandings opens to knowledges plural--systems (e.g., biological), psychology, philosophy (e.g., epistemology), religion, and so on. It also opens to practices. And it opens to that which may or may not be important enough to describe in the senses of object-in-view and how that is for me or you or us.

Thus, partial, fleeting . . . something like sculpting, because other than what does not need dissection and display and employment, we have rudimentary tools such as language to make experience possible and meanings transferable.

Is that enough? Surely it is. Surely it suffices . . . for now, and permits proceeding. We have world enough, but not time.

This experiment* reminded me

• I will never be here again. Drink it all in.
• We are embedded in constraints of our own making.
• Some rebound easily. For some it takes time.
  
• Sanity is relative. "There but for . . . "
  
• People don't mean what they say really, ever.
• There is my stuff, and yours, and theirs.
• I can go broke and look into the abyss . . . and survive.

__________
* The trial of 2007.

Sepulchral inscription two

There is no one who will ever know the secrets of your heart. I suspect there are so many and so varied and so deep, some even unconscious, that full knowledge and self awareness escapes even the most advanced or enlightened among us. Having said that, I believe that some among those who are left after we are gone will be curious or interested to know more, to have as big a slice of knowledge and understanding as is possible, if only because we-others who have traveled this road can guide us on our way. The insatiability of these journey makers is not about us, the dead and gone, but about everything and themselves.

So it is that we take to writing or otherwise documenting who we are. And whatever we intend to communicate, that pales in comparison with who or what we are in total. Once externalized and all taken together, images and strong possibilities come to the insatiable from which s/he will take what s/he will.

Who knows if our best friend was killing herself with negative messages she sent to every one of her cells for years? Was it old age or meaninglessness that finally did auntie in? Was my partner ever really there when we were together? or was he somewhere else, hoping for a better life with or without me? Did that person in that moment delight or destroy me intentionally, because of me somehow? Or was it somehow else?

In this life we never know. At least not the in fullness. There is always the known hidden from view, and the unknown perhaps forever unattainable here.

Is it our duty to leave records? to make ourselves as transparent as possible, or necessary in the moment? Is it proper and safe to be invisible except for what people can observe? Can today be understood in light of the inevitable changes that will be tomorrow, and thus my thoughts and feelings and words will be different and then of no or some account at all? What do we owe our audiences and friends and loved ones to account for ourselves? Everything, nothing, what?

Such are the questions I ask each time I write and share the always unfinished text. And each time, I have no answers except to make an account in as accurate and honest a way as I can. I must let the cards fall as they will. It is then both intention and fate which propel me forward. I choose and act; I am chosen and acted upon.

There is a power or a force, or what you would call it, higher than ourselves. Limited in space and time can only posit the infinite because of our very condition. It can be no other way except nothingness, which some say is the same thing.

Sepulchral inscription

Let me go peacefully.
Next time I'll not disappoint.
Smile and know I love you:
Each the most!
Each differently.
Alone because of this.
And still now, in this infinite love.
Would we had realized in time.

Please complete X, Y, and Z

(A) Now you have raised a question again, and I have to try to do the hard work so that you can understand. Maybe you will; maybe you won't; maybe you will understand in a different way than I understand. Maybe you will have your own opinion. That is all OK.

(B) Gloss: One of two or more introduces a response in a conversation where there was another question and now this--neither given--the answer to which will be a meta-response about matters affecting future understanding of what will be hard to construct, and will follow. Herein is a care-less concern and aim of transferring a definite understanding, while at the same time acknowledging possibly a different one as result, perhaps more accurately termed an opinion grounded in the other. The speaker accepts this challenge and risk, born of some obligation or insistence, and so will continue thus. The matter of why it will be hard to construct is not clear, perhaps because the other has difficulty understanding and something like this has been tried before?

(C) If I am entirely truthful with myself and write it down or talk about it, then at least I have done my part, which is the first step towards conversation. In the end, hopefully not before, I and you can evaluate or judge what has gone on in conversation, or discussion, and make any decisions based on that, or not.

(D) Which leads to the hypothesis: A text of any length, if translated into its own or another language, has worlds to open to us that we may but dimly sense without the most careful scrutiny, the most careful listening.

(E) No wonder without wonder.

(F) Another, this from the King James version.

14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:

15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;

16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.

(G) Seemingly didactic report of an event with quote claiming the protagonist descended from God and that business shall not be conducted in God's house, the temple. Driving merchants and animals out as well as pouring out money and overturning tables suggests less emotionally-charged methods were or would not be effective. Or did he(?) just fly off the handle?

(H) 17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.

18 Then answered the Jews and said to him, What sign show you to us, seeing that you do these things?

(I ) In the face of this "scene" and reflection on earlier scripture (Psalm 69?), the do the protagonist's disciples question his "wretchedness"? or the action born of it? These disciple-Jews, or others, then ask in response to the behavior--with or without the wretched part--what was its meaning?

(J) It may be that a "text of any length, if translated into its own or another language, has worlds to open to us that we may but dimly sense without the most careful scrutiny, the most careful listening." But language plain or in translation can also but dimly denote exactly what it is we are to understand.

(K) Wonder with wonder.

(L) Imagine the impossible, that the at the time of the above reductions, or before, there was no interpretation. A baseline text once read is different from what was said if by the tiniest of margins, for it is the consciousness of the other who has created them in reading or hearing. No full access-entry possible into a text. Add to that the slipperiness of words and phrases and larger aggregations, as evidenced by the illustrative reductions, we can only hope for coincidence. The closest approximation is what we are after, but that in its wholeness is persistently elusive.

(M) Yet we proceed based on what we can apprehend, and through interaction, progress towards what we assent to as understanding.

(N) The initial reduction, whatever its shortcomings, has to be compared with the original as re-read, decoded again. And if there is some large measure of satisfaction on what it is we have hold of then, we can interpret in an acknowledged sense.

(O) To restate the now precariously convoluted.

* One, a text, an original.
* Two, the text is read. In the experience of reading, a first-hand interpretation is made. It is called what-we-think-it-says.
* Three, that interpretation is then reduced to match the text. Here is the second-hand.
* Four, the second-hand is compared with the original for fit and adjusted as needed. The comparative reading-rendering process becomes conceivably a revised second-hand interpretation, call it third-hand, in that a third results from the process of interacting texts.
* Five, the third-hand, if taken up, becomes a fourth text and a part of making additional texts which may bear great or little resemblance to the original.
* Recycle. Here is interpretation beyond the original and must be handled in the same manner as above in order to make sense of it.

(P) Wonder that we wonder?

(Q) To interpret in an acknowledged sense is roughly to have decoded a text and understood it within one's own language filters and horizons. If one adds external-to-the-text material, or voices, as somehow implied or inferred or reasonably understood as aid to understanding, we run the risk of no (without) wonder, and . . .

(R) No wonder! Full recognition and acknowledgment of how messed up things can get. This without the impossible, that at the time of the original, or before, there was--we assume (another of the genus interpretation) one or more intentions to communicate something or -things, consciously or unconsciously.

(S) Jam-packed, full of wonders, seen and unseen, to delight and dissuade us, much as the spells of sprites do us good or harm, when we think we are looking.

(T) The evocative enters in the empty spaces understanding cries for words like or as. With these, we are brought back to the beginnings where experience is the images we see internal and external which we want to render into language. That word pictures fully depict what we saw is a conceit we accept and ever so tentatively, and not so tentatively, say they describe what we know to have been like or as what it was.

(U) The choice of what to say or write or discuss then turns upon importance, the why of what we would understand. Understanding resident in I and we then drives the process rather than the other way round. It is the understanding of or about that suggests the importance and gives energy to discerning things as they are.

(V) Why wonder?

(W) Because. And more is wholly outside these matters and probably resides in the wondering subject, I.

(X)

(Y)

(Z)

Becoming John Doe

["If what is held in consciousness can be a legitimate object and we therefore can explore its themes and structures, its phenomenology roughly, does it exist? there? Don't you just have nothing? or nothingness?

"If you externalize it . . . spoken it immediately becomes a fugitive of the ether or perception, never to be precisely repeated, or written it becomes subject to predators of nether reaches, or the wild itself.

"Nevertheless, isn't it an it? some essence? As in the free but private thoughts of a prisoner in or isolated from society? 'You can take away everything else but not what I think and not what I believe'.

"I would say so. I would say no."

To wit.]

Working title: Becoming John Doe

Summary: Disappearing and shedding one's identity have their ups and downs, but the end of the game is one place that this twenty-something must discover with a little help, the place where everything begins.

A bit more detail: A ride to the next gas station turns into a personal journey for PF Donner, a well-bred twenty-something raised by his loving yet demure uncle, Joe King. Disappearing and shedding his identity have their ups and downs as PF travels to keep from being found by Connie, his entitled girlfriend, and their friend Fred, public servant turned skiptracer. Towns in the US and abroad provide the settings for PF's disappearances and the tests he must pass to elude his pursuers and forge his identity. In Austin, Nevada, far away is not far enough. In Las Vegas, New Mexico, and the hill country north and west, paranoia sets in. In Bavaria, a place that strangely seems like home, a deaf and dumb monk delivers a message that strikes home. PF realizes that each obstacle to vanishing and starting over has its practical and seemingly profound lessons. On the brink of returning to his roots and the life he knew, PF meets Rick, who shows him the dangers of running from something, and Anne Deer, who shares an insight into what she thinks he truly searches: care-less permission. PF calls it liberation at first, but then, on the brink of a life-altering decision, he comes to see it as embracing himself and the identity he manifests each moment.

Evocation

[Opening for a proposed longer work.]

As my father instructed from behind me, I held the mirror at arm's length.

"Now," he said, "look at yourself. You at a distance. Can you see yourself as I see you from here, over your shoulder?"

I confessed I could and followed his every word despite not seeing the point.

"Tilt the mirror so you can see me. There. Now you see me. I am a different image. Because I am me, of course. But also because I am not you. Now, move it back so you can see you. It is not you in the mirror. But it looks like you. It is the image of you, but it is something or someone other. Here now, then gone. Get it?"

I confessed I didn't. And so it went like that. He had infinite patience. But I didn't have his gifts, his way of looking at the world out there as some kind of object that he could focus on, or not, and understand, by his way of seeing, that there was both sameness, unity. And there was difference. Other. And that, he contended, helped him in his personal life, which he said was all we had, our personal lives. The roles of father, businessman, friend, all of them, they were just different views of him but not him. It was this divorce from everything that helped his sanity, particularly in the final years when he became less, I would say, acute. And he said it had helped him since his mid-twenties when death, he was certain, stalked him. To keep that specter at bay or in perspective, my father returned to the mirror or some other method he had and the reminders of who he was and was not. He was able to categorize the images and the identities that went with them, he said, and he found peace, mostly, throughout his life. It was a quiet, distant, and sometimes lonely existence, from the outside anyway.

I am afraid the lessons didn't take all that well. But now and again I look out there as if in a mirror to see what it is that is there, or appears to be there. I try to see it separately, distantly, and not as a part of me. But I have not had the peaceful moments my father said he had. I look over my shoulder now, and I know he is there even though I cannot see him in detail anymore. I know he is there. And clinging to that, I suppose, has led me to try and try again to get it, that elusive subject or object or image lesson.

I think today he would be proud of me. But he would have advised against starting like this, talking about the mirror and all. He was a private but not a judgmental man, except in some compartments he had created to get along, he said, in this vale of tears. Practical reality, as he called it, tormented him and kept him from being and doing what he thought was more important. What that was I never became aware of specifically. I only have the exercises like the mirror one that he would put me through up till I was about sixteen. But I have come along far enough to have taken what he tried to teach me and bring it under my own way of being, my own way of, can I say, understanding. So bringing up trite matters and metaphors and measures that he would not have used or talked openly about in front of strangers does not bother me, not now, not because he is gone but because I have become more of my own person. I live with my own shades, no longer his. And I get along pretty well, seeing wholes mostly. Well, I say I get along as good as the next guy. I can judge at least that.

So let's begin. I can try to listen to the story as if it were an object in view and quite separate from me, so much so that they can tell the story as if I am not part of it, although it will look like I am, and sometimes it will feel pretty close to home I'm sure.

RO

Dialogues 11-23 (DRAFT)

A, a professor
B, a broker
C, B's wife
D, a student
Darrel, a student
R-O, a voice

11

Tell me again why you don't like the class? D asked.

C I think it is all a bit artificial. And what can we do with a bunch of words about someone's, for example my, subjective experience? It is all too-too.

Too wordy? It seems that way to me sometimes, but I do see some value. Entertainment for one. Aren't we all interested in the stories of others, our soap opera lives? gossip?

I guess so. But on TV, not in some class portfolio which will never be of any use to anyone else.

And if we can describe as precisely as we can what it is we experience or have experienced, aren't people like social workers and psychologists, and school teachers for that matter, likely to benefit? To see how the other's shoe fits.

Yes, I suppose you are right. But if I think about my work. That is, my volunteer work. Who has time to read all of that? Aren't we more interested, and tired at the end of the day, to just sit in front of the tube?

Yes. But someone has to write all of that so that it can air. As I look around, all I can see is that we either produce this stuff ourselves or we consume it from whoever else. It's all just stories, and some, the true ones, I think can be, well, useful. But you have a point. I suppose there is a lot of crap you have to sift through to find what entertains, or what can be helpful to . . . or . . .

She continued. And is this why you only turned in one assignment for Professor A?

I tried really hard on the first one. Then I just didn't have time. Looking in the mirror is interesting at first, but it is more fun or something to get up in the morning, choose a nice outfit, put on my face, and go out, to be busy, to help others. I like real mirrors, like in my bathroom, and the one in the bedroom.

And what kind of help do you need so much that you are always helping others. In the ways that you do.

What? I am not sure I understand that.

Well, they say that if you need to learn something, teach it. If you need help, you become a helper. What help--you can call it that--do you need?

Oh, I don't think about that.

Well, this course taught me to, and if I do, about what I do, then I find some answers to the questions I have about me and the world and people. But I admit, it is kind of like looking in the mirror all the time. Or the rearview. And sometimes I get all confused and can't sort it out.

D continued. I have my job. That is where I am in the real world. Then I have my studies here, which I think I will continue beyond my degree in December. I'm pretty sure I want to learn more about language, my own and maybe another. Spanish sounds like a good one to learn nowadays. Maybe Chinese, but I am not sure how that will fit with this liberal studies train I am on.

I don't think I will take another class anytime soon. B needs me at home in the evenings. He has taken to going out for evening walks or drives. Or sometimes he just sits in his office. I think he is bored. Or caged up.

Men are like that. If they are not doing something, they get bored. Let them out of the cage, then they stray. I have had a stream of bored or misunderstood men come up to me.

Has B come up to you? I mean I think he kind of likes you.

That is a direct question. I am surprised you're asking me. But no, he has not. I never see him. Well, not lately. He came to the coffee shop that one time. Remember. And there was one other time, at the coffee shop as a matter of fact. But I suppose he told you about that. We had quite a conversation, at least it started off on a funny note.

I don't think he told me.

He came in and I was sitting there. Computer and all. It was the afternoon I took off work to finish one of my assignments, for another class. He comes up and says, I don't care if you think I am gay or not. And I said, I don't care one way or the other if you are.

Strange.

I thought so too. But it turned into a great laugh. We talked like that for about five or ten minutes, playing around. Then he sat down and asked me what I was doing there. I told him. And he asked a bunch of questions, about A actually. I think he was interested in what you were up to on your girls' night out, with me.

Oh. He didn't think there was something. . . . He didn't mention seeing you.

Pretty innocent. Nothing's going on. Besides, with a twinkle in her eye that C missed, I haven't seen him since. He is still your husband, isn't he? The gay thing hasn't gotten in the way of everyday domesticities?

What? Are you crazy?

Just kidding.

Oh. Maybe he misses something in me, more kidding in fact. Sometimes he does that and I just don't get it. I have a hard time getting into games and such. Like that.

That is what interests me now. I want to know more about how talk, the language and verbal games we play, sort of create our realities. The fun ones and the serious ones. We didn't really get into that very much with A. And I thought that was what the course was about, where it was supposed to go. So I have signed up for more. Did you know I will be his office assistant for the summer term?

No. That's nice. But how will you balance that with work?

Don't know yet, but I need to put more important things first in my life, like you do with your community work.

Oh, that. It keeps me busy.

Well it is a good way. For now, I want to try this way for me. Work for me is less and less about personal satisfaction.

12

A I would like to ask you to help me do something.

D Sure, what is it.

It is pretty simple, really. I am going to go out into the commons and sit on a bench. Just sit there. You either stay here and go to the window and watch me till I get up and start walking back to the building, or you go to another building and window, or even outside somewhere. I don't want to know where. And you just watch me.

That is it?

Yep. Well, one or two more details. We need to time this. I will sit down on the hour, when the clarion rings. I will be out there for about a half an hour. You just note the time you start and the time you stop watching me. Write it down.

Are we doing some kind of telepathy experiment?

No, nothing like that. Just watch. I will let you in on the details after I sort my experience out. I don't know how long that will take, but I will let you in on the idea. I am not sure if it is going to go anywhere. Your participation can help me decide.

Sounds a bit mysterious, but I am game. Just look at you, watch what you do.

Yea, just watch. Don't worry. I won't be wearing a trench coat or do anything strange or embarrassing.

Okay. When do we begin? Today?

Yes, in about ten minutes. You have another hour here. We'll be finished before you have to go to wherever it is you do after you serve your time here.

I don't look at it that way.

I'm glad. So, I will be off in a few minutes. When the bell rings. I won't be looking for you. In fact, I don't want to know where you will be. You can tell me afterwards.

A left the office five minutes later. He was seated on the east side of the commons in the shade when the bell rang.

13

Do I get the inside on your, your, whatever it is you are doing?

Not yet. I should have something this evening. If you would like to stop by, I can sort of talk it through with you. I am a little tired or myopic, talking to myself about this. All can be revealed later today or the next time you are in, whatever is convenient. And I would appreciate being able to talk about it. As a matter of fact, you are perhaps the best person now to talk about it with.

14

So, I have sort of gotten my first results from this afternoon. I am not sure where to begin. I am afraid I have not got this thing conceptualized properly.

A thought and seemed to drift off somewhere. D sensed he must be tired.

She asked, Would it be better to talk when you are further along, or tomorrow perhaps?

No, no. It is okay. I just am not sure where the beginning began. It might have been in the course you took from me last term. That was an interesting experiment, probably more for me than you or the other students. In any case, that is probably where it started.

He thought a moment longer.

I know. Let's start with you. Your first assignment, I think it was. You did a description of being attractive and getting attention and what that felt like. Or what that experience was for you. Remember?

Sure. It came from first hand experience and those assignments, or school for that matter, that hooks who you are or who you think you are and tests that, those are the most meaningful. I appreciate the freedom in that class for being able to write those things. I guess you legitimized it for me, for us.

Interesting. Good. Good. That is how it should be. A personal stake in the work, or your education I guess.

Well, he continued. I don't remember all the details of your paper exactly, but maybe it put me over the edge to start a project of my own. I wanted to look into what being looked at, or rather being watched was like.

He continued. My question, still in a rough state, especially after today, is something like what is it like to be the object of someone's intentional watching. There is more to it than that I am sure. For example, if that person is or is not actually being watched. Whether she or he is aware of who or what or where. Attractive or pretty or what. All that aside. Get the idea?

She nodded. So that is something quite different from what I tried to get hold of. My interest was specific to inadvertently being approached and having unwanted attention, because, you know, of being female. Something like that.

Yes, and I can see how you might be interested in that. My compliments.

D's sensors pricked up. She became wary of what A would say next. At the same time, she resented the implication that she was being appreciated for what she looked like and not who she was, her intelligence. She let the comment hang in the air like a pinata, there but only slightly acknowledged. But she was ready to smack it, or at least give it a glancing blow if things went downhill.

A continued without skipping a beat, which seemed to take the edge off what he had just said.

My interest is a bit different. Take for example someone coming or going in the commons area. You can see them every minute of every day from my office window. I know what it is like to gaze out the window and pick out this person or that couple and follow their steps towards the next building, or between the buildings out to the parking lot, for example. But what is it like to know or suspect someone sees you? Is looking at you from a window and what you are doing, where you are going?

Sounds like you have to set up some kind of experiment, or you have to talk to them, right? Along the lines of surveillance then surveillance disclosed.

Not what I want to do. I want to have the first hand experience and then confirm it somehow without talking to anyone. An impossible task perhaps.

Maybe not. Think of men and women.

D dared to venture back into a subject she would have rather not come up, at least not again, not now.

When people walk, in the commons for example, you can't help but notice others. You see how people dress, whether someone is attractive or strange, or if you know them. We look around all the time and we are aware of that. And so is anyone who stops to think about it for just a moment. I don't think you are far off the mark. Depends on how or what you want to study. Of course, there are those too who are just on their way somewhere without noticing others. Preoccupied we can say.

Or absent minded. But no, I am being facetious. That is helpful. You have a good teacher somewhere. Frankly, I had not entertained this angle and have to think about it. As I said, my question is still a bit rough. Especially after today.

So, do you want me to tell you the details of what I did after you left the office for your stint on the bench?

Yes, but just a moment. I have to give one more bit of background.

A few weeks ago I went out on my own and did some self observation. We can call it a data-gathering instance. First person. I basically stood out in the commons, closed my eyes, and tried to sense what it was like knowing that such unusual behavior might attract at least some extended looks from passersby if not from someone looking out from a window.

Okay.

I had several remarkable sensations. Maybe they were states of consciousness. I am not sure. What I would like to know from today is where you were when you observed me. I don't want to bias myself and the experience I think I had. So, can you tell me?

I went to the social science library annex on the top floor of Bigley. I looked out of the middle window and looked straight at you. I was afraid you would see me, but I don't think you did. Did you have your eyes closed today? I don't think so.

No, I didn't

He thought for a moment.

Well, of course I was sure someone, you, were watching me. That's how we set it up. So all the business about if and so forth got taken out of the equation, or the conditions if I can call them that. But my experience does not seem to have anything to do with where you were. At least that is what I can tentatively conclude.

D was watching A intently. She was observing how he thought. And she was focusing on not his language but on what it was he was trying to do, step by step.

You see, A continued, I had similar sensations today as I did the other time I tried this. But the two experiences do not compare. Or rather, they do but not in the way I thought. Let me just tell you and see what you can make of it.

I clearly felt the first time a warming sensation, like a heat lamp had been directed at my left shoulder and arm. All the time I was being observed, or that I thought I was being observed which may be the same thing. Today I felt the same. I thought it might come from the direction of the observer or observers. But that doesn't seem to bear out. You were looking at me straight on. I wonder what that feeling was. What is the source of it?

You are asking a causal question. Is that what you want to do at this point?

No, you're right. Not at this point. But I have two instances in being observed and knowing it where I had a body-felt sensation. I am quite curious about it.

The other outstanding part of both experiences--I think I know what they were about. Surrender or acceptance. But it doesn't come unless I consciously dispel any danger from you.

I don't understand.

You are the observer. I am the observed. I know you are watching me. If I know you are no threat, I can let my consciousness of you go. Sort of like watch myself being watched. Give you and the experience some distance. I mean internal, psychic distance. The kind you have control over, if you know there is nothing untoward going to happen.

I see. Sort of.

Well, it gets a little complicated from here. That is why I have had to draft as precise a description of what happened to me as possible. No, that is wrong. What I experienced. I am not finished with today's description, but the main elements, or outstanding ones, I think I have pinpointed and without intending to replicate.

Sounds like you are onto something. But this last sentence escaped her. She was getting tired. A noticed.

15

C What's up? How's your day going? Finished work?

B abandoned his private frustration with himself and replied, Great. Yes, I am finished. What's on your agenda?

I just got back from tennis with the girls. We had some iced tea after our court time and critiqued the others from the deck, the ones who took the courts after us. We are pretty bad but you should see some of those guys. Even the men weren't too good. I know it's small but it made us feel good. You know, tennis is a difficult game. Some people should never take it up.

I know.

No. No. You should. It's fun, a social sort of thing. Do you good instead of moping around here.

I am not moping. What about this evening? What have we got planned?

Nothing. I am free. What shall we do? Eat home or out? Go do something?

Say, C, I was thinking. I am getting a little, how can I say it, itchy. Work and things are just not that interesting. Oh, I don't want to do anything silly, but I need a change of pace. A change of scenery. What do you think?

Is this just for this evening, or is it something more than that? I hope it is more, because I was thinking of a cruise.

Oh, no. Not a cruise. All those people and all that food. People just eat on those boats. And dress up. I just can't get into that. Besides, I meet people all the time.

No, you are not. You meet the same people. You have had the same clients, well, some of them for years. And eating. What's wrong with that? It's America's past time, other than shopping. That's it. Let's go shopping and you can help me buy something for Christmas.

It's September. Way too early.

Well, what then?

I don't know. I just can't leave like that. I would have to make sure to watch the markets and be in phone contact.

That's what cell phones and the Internet are for, right? That's what you told me.

Yes.

Well, give it some thought. A cruise. Maybe not a cruise, but something. I am game. Let's go out. Maybe this itch will pass.

16

Here is your wine. And how are we? I am Patty, and I will be your server this evening.

Maybe B's itch was just testosterone coursing through his body. Whether or not it was, he surrendered to the moment.

Hi, Patty. You new here? I haven't seen you before.

Yes, I'm new. I am a poor, starving student.

Well, let's see if we can put some money in your pocket. Are you the best server?

Yep. What would you like?

What are you offering?

Well, we have pizza and pizza. What kind of pie would you like? The vegetarian is pretty good.

C Well, uh . . .

B I would like whatever you recommend. Are you a vegetarian?

No, but I recommend the pepperoni. Hot and spicy.

Sounds tempting.

Hey, what about sharing a pizza?

The waitress shifted from one foot to the other accenting her own shapeliness. B could almost touch her. She was standing close to him, and then he did saying, I will have the hot and spicy. He touched her arm accenting his delight in the moment.

C And what do I want?

Yes, mam?

I would like to share a pizza, B. I can't eat a whole one myself.

Would pepperoni be okay with you?

Yes. What size should we get.

How many does an extra-large serve.

Well, it is way too big for me to eat alone. So I think it would be that or the large.

How big is the large? He held up his hands showing a roundish shape.

The waitress tucked her order pad under her arm, put the pen in her mouth and showed something larger. Through her teeth and pen she said, About this size.

Great, the large then.

It looked like you were salacing there a bit.

What?

It looked like you kind of liked her.

She is too young.

Too young? for what?

Nothing, honey, I was just having fun. Want to catch a movie afterwards?

I don't believe you. Sometimes . . .

What? A man can look, can't he?

Yes, but not touch. It looked like you were trying to touch.

If I did it was just a reassuring gesture. I do it without thinking. It is innocent. You know me better than that.

Yes, I do. But all the same, I wanted pizza, too!

Sorry. Won't happen again.

If it does, I don't want to know about it, or if I do, I will, I will . . .

Kill me?

Probably. Or at least take you to the cleaners.

Never thought of myself as dirty, old. Kind of strong, C. I said I was sorry.

Apology accepted. Now, what movies are there?

17

Darrel What's your name? I haven't seen you around here before?

D.

Well, D, is Professor A in?

No, but he should be back in a bit. I think he just went over to the cafeteria for coffee with someone from the department. Professor Jenkins, I think.

I know her. She's a looker.

D noticed that the visitor was a looker himself and took the lead.

A looker. Is that a technical term?

Why, yes it is. It comes from Domestic Science, what they used to call Home Economics. It refers to that quality in a woman, or a man, I guess, which is kind of slutty but in the end just a great person, someone you would eventually consider marrying. Having both sex appeal and personality. Maybe you?

Sounds like fiction. Particularly the Domestic Science part. I will ignore the slutty remark.

It is, er, fiction. What is your name, by the way?

D. I told you. Perhaps you need to pay attention not just in class. Domestic Science was it?

Ouch. I guess I missed the manners lesson, or the one on how to flirt.

Not to worry. I don't bite, not really.

Too bad.

He was out the door without so much as a see-you-later. D was baffled and a bit flushed. School and work and more work had taken its toll. She had forgotten to have fun. Fun and fantasy. He was good looking, and not too young. Maybe 30?

Two minutes later he was back. I didn't tell you my name. It is Darrel. Darrel Hemlock. People call me Hemi for short. Just so you know.

And he was gone again.

No, not another Darrel, she thought. And Hemlock? What kind of name was that? Cute but dangerous. No one could possibly live with a nickname like Hemi. Hemlock maneuver? No that was something else.

D thought she could also not bear Heimi, and dismissed the encounter and the person based on his name and his age.

D A Darrel Heimlick was looking for you.

A Oh, that's not his real name. What did he want?

I think he wanted something, but he didn't say.

Well, of course he wanted something. Knowing him, probably you. And some money.

He was, well, sort of . . .

Cheeky, I know.

I guess it was that. I don't know exactly why he stopped by.

Well, next time, ask. He's not like the others. The others, if you can take care of it, go ahead. Otherwise I am happy to see them. But I need to see Hemi.

Okay. Could I ask you a question?

Sure.

About your study on being watched. Doesn't it require that the person being watched knows he or she is?

Yes.

And isn't it a bit artificial to go out into the commons and act in a way where everyone or some people look at you?

Look at and watching are two different things.

Yes, I guess that is my point. I think your experiment, the first one, is not in the same domain, can I say, as the second, the one where you know I am watching you from somewhere.

You are probably right.

So which is it you are after?

I am after the second. But I thought the first was perhaps part of the second.

I am not sure what you mean.

I mean that to have one's attention drawn to something or someone is the first step. After that, if the intention is there, conscious or not, then they look at. The next part of the phenomenon is maybe a kind of curiosity, although I would like to avoid causality, which leads to watching. And watching is to understand or see what will happen. Something like that.

So you have preconceived the notion of what it is you are studying. You have it in parts already.

Not exactly. This is just a tentative circumscription of what it is I am after, and right now I know what it is about but not the details or order. I am progressing slowly with tentative hypotheses based on the experiments, or the experiences.

So what is next?

Not sure. I haven't had much time to dream that up. Create it, that is.

May I offer something?

Of course.

Well, going back to being attractive--I am--and getting attention . . .

Like from Hemi.

Okay, maybe like from Darrel. Isn't the important phenomenon, as you call it, the relationship of the subject and object and the object and the subject. Like looking at and being drawn in somehow and then watching is all prelude to a phenomenon which takes two.

I think you are assuming something here, but go on.

Well, if we describe, maybe to understand. That's what it is, isn't it? Aren't we really trying to get at something that we can use or apply, like at my job or in relationships?

Well, you have an interesting point here about a relationship, I mean any kind of relationship which involves people attending to others and vice versa based on their understandings and interpretations of each other. But that is also to organize a phenomenon before it has been looked at in its, say, essential parts or features. Its structure and aspects shall we say.

So I am making the same error you are.

No, not an error. Just you have a different notion of the phenomenon you are after. Are you after that phenomenon? Are you trying to understand your interchanges or feelings or whatever between you and others, like Hemi, I mean Darrel, or other men?

What I am after I don't know. In fact, I don't have time to be after anything. I am too committed. Too busy. And frankly having too much fun with all that I am involved with. Not work exactly. I don't mean this work but my job at the ???.

Let's just say then, that we are each interested in different things, or at least they appear different at this point. Now the other part, the practical part. I am not after practical applications of anything. I am after just getting a sure grip on what it is we deal with. In this case, my case, being watched. And as I said, I am not sure where to take it next. I too have not had much time lately. Any suggestions?

Not at the moment. Maybe it is to get another's take on being watched.

I have your first one, if you let me use it.

You mean that paper from spring term?

Yes, I think it was pretty good. I have looked at the copy you gave me with my comments. It is pretty good. Can you give it to me in electronic form? I could then study it more carefully, with the help of some programs I sometimes use.

Programs?

Yes, thinks like word and phrase counts, tagging and classifying ideas. Things like that.

I didn't know there were such things.

Well, there are. But your own brain and reflections are worth more. The programs just help in verifying things and organizing. So, if you agree, your paper will be one of now three instances of a phenomenon yet to be named or defined more carefully.

Fine. Sounds good.

You look disappointed, or . . .

I just wish I had time to do my own study, or I knew more.

That is why you are here. Why you are in school again. All of that you already know. Be patient. It will all fall into place. Who knows, maybe you will be doing domestic science or something else by the time you finish.

Domestic science? Darrel mentioned that.

Yes, he would. He's been around. Kind of a joke with us.

And A disappeared into his office.

Little boys and their secret games.

18

Whatcha up to? A voice called.

She looked up. It was him. And D immediately noticed he was about 30 plus and very handsome.

Cat got your tongue?

No, no. I just was thinking about something and . . .

Well, tell me about it. Darrel sat down.

I'm sorry. What was your name?

Darrel. But people call me Hemi.

Like hemisphere?

Oh, not so preoccupied after all.

Just getting you back.

For what?

For calling me a slut.

I didn't. I never.

You did, but that's okay. Maybe I am. This weather brings out the beast in me.

Well, if I said something rude, it is because you disarm me.

As in guns?

In a metaphorical sort of way. Like you are too pretty to be for real.

You disarm me.

She paused and then continued. In fact, you are disturbing my peace. You can't just come up looking like you do and sit down and start flirting with me.

Who's flirting?

You are.

Great. Our first fight. I mean disagreement.

Yes, disagreement is better. I hardly know you. I don't know you.

Well, I am easy to get to know. Fire away.

Okay. Are you a student?

I think you know I am. Better question, Miss, er. What's your name?

D. You should know that. I'm, I'm, I am unforgettable.

True. Question.

Okay. Do you live at home with your mother?

Nope. Moved out at 20 and been on my own since. My father's not far away and my mother also lives here in town. Want to meet her?

I think we are moving a little too fast here.

Next question then.

No, you. Tit for tat.

Puzzled Darrel said, Whatever. Let's see. How about, are you married?

That's a question.

And the answer is?

D No. But thanks for asking.

How's that?

Well, a girl likes to know that a man, such as yourself, considers certain things.

Got it. Lost me there for a moment. I thought it was a kind of proposal. A man? Never thought of myself like that. Big boy maybe. But man?

So, how old are you?

That's an inappropriate question.

To ask a woman. But not a man!

Okay. How old are you?

I said not polite to ask a lady that. Fess up. How old are you?

Well, it depends.

On what? You are some, whatever years old. Fact. Easy, straightforward question. Demands a straight answer.

Not easy. You see, if I say something and it is too young, you might not like it. And if I am too old, well, women like older men. I need to err on the side of advantage. Mine. I need to know your age first.

Okay. So tell me your age plus ten years. Then you will have answered the question to your advantage, as you say.

Forty.

Perfect age. I'm, well, I am closer to that than you might think, and that I like. Let's move on.

Whose question is it? Whose turn?

Yours.

I just had mine. It is yours.

19

Where have you been? Several people were looking for you. The Dean and some students.

I was at the library. I found loads of materials on my study. And some materials I can extrapolate from. Life is so interesting. When you start to think about things, they just get more and more interesting, and everything's connected somehow.

I am not there yet. But I am glad you are.

More miles. It is just that I have more miles. You will get there. You are just starting. I hope you are not discouraged yet. You hold great promise. You have been a great help and support to me.

Really? Thanks.

She organized the papers on her desk and summarized what she had done organizing the syllabi for the term. Then she asked, Do you use the Internet to do research and prepare for classes?

A said, Not much. The next step on the syllabi project is to take the files and put them up on my faculty Web site. I thought you could help me with that.

I can. I know a little about web sites.

Other than that, I don't do much for students and the Internet. I don't use the e-college at all. I don't understand it. As to doing background research and stuff, I don't do much with the Internet. I rely on our reference librarian and the holdings in our library, and interlibrary loan. I guess I am old fashioned.

I am taking my final required elective this term. It is the course on doing research and using human subjects. From the Psych department. Well, it is not an elective for them. But for me it is. Anyway, in class the other day, Professor Watkins mentioned a study of participants in laboratory studies. The study, I guess, summarized the experiences of those participants. I thought it related to your work.

Interesting. Did he give a reference?

Yes. I have it in my notes at home. But I can find it for you here.

Great. Could you please give me that.

She turned to her computer and began typing.

Here it is. "What rats think: First person accounts of subjects in psychological experiments." The author is Peter Gustaffson, Ph.D. Sound like something you can use?

Yes. Can we get a copy of it?

Maybe by Internet or through the reference desk. I will check into it. It will take a few minutes.

I will be here, he said as he walked into his office.

20

C Can I get you something?

No answer.

B, are you going to be okay?

Huh?

Are you okay?

Yes, I will be. But I'm . . .

B?

It is like I have been drugged. I have no energy.

Should we take you to the doctor?

Do you want to go to the doctor?

No. No.

I have to go to the ???. If I go, will you be all right?

Yes. I just want to lie here.

Is it like flu?

No. It is my head. It is all foggy.

Maybe you just need some rest.

Yes.

I will go. There is the phone. Call me if you need me. I will be back in a couple of hours.

Hmm.

Okay, then. I'm going.

B slipped back into a stupor.

21

Darrel Hi, what you up to?

D Oh, hi. Just helping out. I am almost finished.

You work here in this office?

I am Prof A's Friday.

Oh. Want to have coffee, and a sweetie?

Is that like offering some candy to a little girl? If so, you're on.

All depends on how you want to take it.

Can I meet you?

I can wait.

It'll be another twenty minutes.

We can meet. At the student union, in the grill.

22

Imagine you are an innocent agent and you have just shot one adversary in the bright sunlight of some foreign country. And around the corner there is a hostile crowd. You have your gun. You just used it, and you are standing next to the body. You hear shouting and yelling from around the corner. Someone or a couple of people come round the corner. Do you shoot? Do you shoot only if they do, or have a gun pointed at you? What do you do? In that moment, it is either your life or not. In that moment, you can kill an innocent person or a hostile one. But you don't know which and they are rounding the corner. Imagine your gun in your hand. Do you raise it? Leave it by your side. Hide it. What?

Well, I don't know. I have never . . .

Well, that is what I am studying. Human action in times or situations of stress or terror. It is a new field, my own invention. It puts together some things I am interested in, plus I can rely on some experience. I want to consult in this field when I finish.

I never. . . . So you were a soldier?

Yes. Kuwait. On God's side, he said with a wry smile.

I have nothing to relate to that. But how is it a course of study?

It is not exactly. It is a combination of fields, military tactics and strategies, criminal justice, peace and protection deployment. That sort of stuff. Plus psychology, of course, and a few other things.

Wow.

And you?

Me? I have nothing to declare. Not as far as specialization, that is. I am just getting back into school. Finishing up my degree this December and beginning next term in the liberal studies graduate program.

So I guess it is premature to ask what you will do with your degree. The master's that is.

Yes, I guess so.

What is your connection with Professor A?

A bit evasively Darrel said, I have been taking a course from him, for a long time. Kind of like a dependent study program. Seems like forever. I am trying to see if I can complete the course without repeating most of what he has set up as requirements. I have done all of that. I just didn't finish on time. One of my problems. I get a little side tracked.

Playing computer games, killing cartoon characters?

Nothing so mundane, but I have been known to stay with a game till its conclusion. I have lost my share of sleep trying to beat the other guy, or the game.

So you are a little bit unconventional.

Not really. Just a procrastinator sometimes, or a slow learner.

How about you? Ever procrastinate?

Sure. I am just finishing my first graduate degree. I started over, well, ten years ago.

Longer ago than that, right?

Yea, you are right. I am 37.

I knew it. I like older women.

Good.

D and Darrel had reached a kind of stopping point, more because of D's doing than Darrel's. She did not want to proceed without caution. Past experience with men who seemed attracted to her--she needed something more she felt. And this was a good start.

23

A It is really a meta-perspective. All fiction is.

D How is that?

Well, regardless of how a story is presented, you know, the different persons. First person, third person omniscient, etc. Whatever that voice, it is of someone. That perspective is the one you get when all matters are reduced. Or, maybe a better way to look at it. That is the voice you hear if you stand way, way back from the text.

So how does this relate to writing in academia or in science, like the human sciences?

Convention often dictates the voice to write in. For example, in biology, you seldom get a scientific paper which is written in the first person. You get carefully crafted disembodied descriptions of method, results, procedures, hypotheses, etc. In psychology, sometimes you get first person accounts, of the same or similar aspects of a study.

Why is that?

Well, I can't fully account for it. That is not my field. However, a simple answer is that there is the recognition in psychology, for example, that the researcher and his or her participation or complicity in the study needs to be shown, or acknowledged. Plus, the results of these studies involving human and group behavior are qualitatively different than other disciplines.

Let's get back to fiction. Why is knowing about or understanding methods of telling stories important for our purposes?

Some of the best descriptions of consciousness are in fictional accounts. Whether they are true or not does not matter here so much as the techniques of telling. If you get a fix on who is speaking and what they are speaking about, you get that much closer to that being talked about. Studying fiction allows us to practice sorting character from narrator from author, for example. And when you are trying to either get a handle on something or to present it, our disciplines, can I say, demand clarity. Reflecting things as they are, as if in a mirror newly Windexed. So studying fiction is a tool. And writing as if an author, not academic, can be enlightening.

I think I am getting enlightened, but the light is too bright. Or it reveals too much to do and to learn.

That is a common enough response. Don't worry. It comes in time, and then you take a lifetime to hone your thinking and presenting.

I guess so. Sounds like my studies will not end with another master's.

Not if you want this badly enough. Are you at that point yet?

Well, this time with you has helped me to focus my lens, if I can say that. Now I am starting to see what is in the frame. And that frame is more, more. I don't know. More complicated that I had even imagined. Last summer I thought I could get in and out of here by just branching out a little in my studies for the next two years. Now I am beginning to think that I will have to pay tuition forever.

Yep. That is about it. Tuition forever. But if you become an academic, tuition is paid and you get to study to your heart's content. If you like young people and teaching as well as an intellectual life, well, you are set. Sort of.

Sort of?

That is a whole other subject. Not for today. You have enough to think about?

Sure do. Plus I've got these. . . .

Yes, and I keep giving you work. Slave labor. But I hope it isn't too boring, or irrelevant.

Not yet.

I am off to the library. I want to look something up. And pick up that article you arranged for me. There might be a student looking for me.

I will see what she wants and . . .

He. Hemi. Just let him wait in my office. If you have to go, that is fine.

Well, I will be here till three. If Hemi does not show up by then, I will lock up.

Good. And thanks.

Thank you. He was off.