Reality and Observation

Deepak Chopra posted something on Twitter than I have to respond to, but can't nearly do it in the 140-character confines of Twitter.

His Tweet:


"Empirical measurement is a description of a mode of observation not of fundamental reality."


This is a tricky one.  Dr. Chopra implies that what we perceive empirically is not real.  Such a stance makes the world impossibly opaque, and leaves us in a state of perpetual not-knowingness, and not the good kind.

What is amiss here is not the underlying sentiment, however, but the notion of reality.  Consider this alternate idea --



"Everything empirically perceived is real but not all encompassing."

This idea liberates us from the blind pawing at an unknowable fundamental reality . . . it acknowledges the realness of our perceptions, the accuracy (and the limits) of our science and measuring capabilities, and gives us a basis from which to explore further, building upon what we know to have already established as real.

However, the further implications are, well, staggering.  

1.  Everything empirically perceived . . . meaning, there is no such thing as a hallucination.  How this can be true is embodied in the idea that --

2.  .  . . not all encompassing.  Meaning that reality in its totality contains many unknown aspects, and possibly some unknowable aspects.

Taken together these two concepts at the same give us a basis and shake that basis to its foundations, but without simply denying the (very real) existence of that basis.

This idea does not make things easier.  It makes things much harder, because it prevents us from dismissing aspects of reality that we don't want to deal with, or can't account for ("things that go bump in the night" for example).  But at the same time our state of not-knowingness is at least informed by the small percentage of fundamental reality that we have been able to work out thus far.

Reconciling Dominance with Humility

When I am praised I tend to deflect the compliment.  I have come to realize that some people find this vaguely insulting (as in I'm somehow devaluing their praise, and thus the praiser), but nothing could be further from the truth.  I am highly appreciative of the praise.  I simply can't allow Myself to unreservedly buy into it.

I have a saying I use . . . I no longer remember if it's original or not;  if it's not, My apologies to the original author of it.  My goal is to "not believe My own press clippings."  Even if (especially if, actually) they are true.

This approach keeps Me balanced, sweet, and hungry.  I don't lapse into arrogance or complacency because I keep telling Myself I still have light-years to go.  I stay (mostly) nice because I know I don't know it all.

OK, so I sound pretty wonderful, right?

I'm no saint . . . I have My crappy moods, My insecurities, My petty concerns.  But by trying to stay humble, and, this is the most important part, by really meaning it, I avoid a lot of the pitfalls that any kind of Dominant or leader can fall into.  All leaders have a mask (a topic I wrote about a long time ago), but humility is not My mask -- it's real, and feels real.  And necessary.

Which brings up the logical question:  A humble Domme?  Isn't that an oxymoron?

No.  For the the following reasons.

1.  One has to be what one is.  Dominance comes naturally;  learning humility doesn't diminish one's natural Dominant nature.

2.  Humility enhances Dominance.  This is fairly obvious -- power without control is one definition of evil.  Humility provides the necessary restraint that enlightens Dominance and transforms it into real Leadership.

3.  The Humble Domme has better submissives.   We as Dominants end up with the subs/slaves We deserve.  The Domme who knows what She doesn't know ends up with submissives who understand and appreciate the nuances of their role, and who respect Her for her Humanity as well as for Her power.  To be served by that kind of submissive is an unparalleled joy.

Another Lesson

I've been out of touch a couple of days, having been with a good friend for her father's wake and funeral.

Our rituals surrounding death, morbid and unnecessary though they often seem, do have the (positive?) side effect of bringing various emotions to the surface in the observer(s).

These emotions are often surprising.

I watched My friend over the past couple of days and at times I found Myself actually envious of her uncomplicated grief, the crushing sadness of losing her father untempered, unmitigated by any laundry list of confusing, conflicting feelings getting in the way.

I was envious too of her ability to let others be there for her, to accept the sincere concern we offered, to simply and completely sink down into our love and empathy the way one gives one's self up to a soothing bath. Envious of her grace in just allowing herself to be comforted.

I felt vaguely wrong in feeling envious of those things, until the lesson behind it all was made clearer.

During the funeral Mass, I found Myself crying for no apparent reason. I usually tune out during those times when circumstances mandate My presence in a church, but the relative darkness and the solemnity of the ritual are at least soothing.

The Gospel was one commonly used in funeral Masses, Luke 24:1-8. This passage recounts what happened on the Sunday after the Crucifixion, when women came to Jesus' tomb:

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened that while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling apparel; and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." And they remembered His words.

The words washed over Me but that one insistent question lodged itself in My mind: Why do you seek the living One among the dead?

And I realized that that is something that we do in our lives, again and again: Constantly put ourselves through futile exercises, nonsensical efforts with as much as chance of succeeding as looking for the living among the dead. Death, being and feeling so final, drives the simple lessons home with great force at moments like that.

I cried, and couldn't stop for some time. Normally, even at a funeral Mass, I would've made more effort to stop. This time, though, I didn't feel the need to . . . the more I cried the deeper I could feel the lesson penetrating Me, penetrating to that place where words can't reach.

My friend, in the midst of her crushing grief, understood this lesson much better than I. She sought the comfort the living could provide in the face of the awesomeness and finality of death; her sadness and her response to the efforts of those who love her was complete, rational, and totally of its time and place. It was that rare thing-in-itself that lies outside the boundaries of our reflexive system of reason.

The thought that maybe this time I had truly learned that lesson caused Me to stop crying.

Knowing and Knowing

Often, I'll say something to someone and their response is "I know."

"I know" is a common deflector. We all use it in response to something that we don't want to hear, something we are embarrassed about, something we actually are going to get around to, something that we have no intention of ever doing, or, most perversely (and perhaps most commonly) of all, something we really don't know at all. It can mean "OK," "I really do agree with you," "screw off," "sorry," "I feel your pain," and a whole host of other things.

But what it almost never means is "I know." Because there is knowing, the way we've come to treat that phrase, and there is knowing.

The distinction is readily apparent in the D/s context. The nature of the Dominant/submissive relationship is often that the Dominant ends up saying a lot of stuff, and the submissive ends up saying "i know" in response. A lot.

And when the submissive says that, more often than not s/he means it. Aside from intentional bratting or in a relationship that is well down the slippery slope to dissolution, the submissive's "i know" is sincere, i.e., s/he really thinks s/he knows.

And s/he might. But most likely not. Not because s/he is incompetent or lazy, but because knowing is available to us all, but knowing is rare.

Knowing, as embodied in the phrase "i know," is a simple cognizance of a fact, generally-accepted principle, or piece of common or uncommon wisdom we've come to internalize.

This brick is red. Beggars can't be choosers. Hitler shouldn't have waged war on two fronts. One might say "I know" in response to any of those, with varying degrees of interest or irritation.

The simple knowing also can encompass desired states. The Mom and apple pie sort of things that we understand and more or less acquiesce to without really changing anything inside us.

You shouldn't care too much about what other people think. Working out will give you more energy. a submissive should serve with passion, always.

And thus "I know" becomes that deflector -- it expresses nothing, least of all any true knowledge. It's offered as proof of our depth and concern and sensitivity, but there is nothing behind it, because "I know" closes the case in our minds. What is usually left unsaid after "I know" is "let's move on to something I can feel better about."

The other "knowing," what I've referred to as knowing, above, is an almost bodily sense of conviction. The common way to refer to this might be knowing in one's head as opposed to knowing in one's heart, but that's a glib definition that's ultimately meaningless.

Knowing is being convinced to the extent that behavior/actions actually change. The cart needs to go before the horse. Change first, "know" second. The result is that one ends up knowing without actually "knowing" how or why. Because knowing is the inescapable result of the correct approach, not the result of any specific actions or procedures.

The first step is being aware that there is knowing and there is knowing. Once one comprehends that, then "I know" can begin to take on a different, much more important, meaning.

Breaking Away

I had a conversation last night with someone I hadn't seen much of lately, and had gotten to talk to even less.

As much as I strive to not care about people's motives, I admit I find it difficult not to wonder. And, well, I usually ask about things when I wonder. It saves Me a lot of energy, long-term.

So I asked her why she'd been staying away of late.

she told Me that she was attempting to break with her old patterns of behavior, and that familiar places tended to create familiar responses. she needed to be less "rooted" so that her explorations, her "new way," could really take hold.

her answer made Me sad because I miss her but I couldn't argue much with the logic. And yes, I realize that any expectations created by a familiar place are as much self-created as not, but for all that they are nonetheless real. And very difficult to break free of.

Thinking more about it this morning, I ended up feeling better about things. This girl is someone I'd had more than a couple of conversations with about what I consider "spiritual" matters, or rather, things of a practical nature that I assign in My thinking to the spiritual realm. And her way of going about things right now is an implementation of many of the ideas that she and I have discussed, (even if she isn't necessarily comfy in labeling them the way I do).

Not that I take credit for any epiphany on her part -- everything is a result of the accumulation of multiple influences and sources of information, and in any event I don't trust epiphanies as a rule. But it did feel good to see certain things I've been saying over a period of months borne out.

And most importantly she seems genuinely happier and more at ease. And she told Me that she will be around more as it gets gradually easier to embrace the new, more fluid, her.

I'm glad I asked.

Believing

I read a lot of blogs. I see at least some of the thoughts of many different people (all more or less in the very big tent that is sex/D-s/BDSM/spanko blogs).

And I read a lot of what could be construed as "cries for help."

I won't quote or link them here . . . anyone who reads enough blogs in this arena knows what I'm talking about.

Sometimes the cry for help is couched strongly in terms of "help is the last thing I need." The tone of these entries is basically "I'm fucked up and I like it."

Sometimes the cry for help is in the obliviousness of the author. S/he will describe hideously self-destructive behavior in a matter-of-fact, seemingly clueless, way. One reads it and feels as though the question "cry for help?" would be met with a sincere blank stare.

Sometimes the author understands quite readily that s/he needs help, but is resigned to being the way s/he is. Occasionally the author will post an entry where s/he allows a little glimpse into the real problem, the sadness and loneliness of his or her life, and then quickly and emphatically negates that in the next post, revelling in the fabulousness of it all.

There's a hundred different flavors. Reading it all, I end up at the same place, over and over: How much to believe?

Perhaps it's more of an issue for Me than for most people, because, on some deep level, I've come to realize that I want and need to believe that it's all true. Not because I want there to be actually be so many miserable people out there, but because I want (need) this place, the blogoshpere, to be about people reaching out, working their way through the issue(s) in their lives, with other people reading about it, caring, and offering through the anonymous distance of cyberspace their concern, their understanding . . .

My way of dealing with this is to act as though it is all true. There are a few cases where the blog author openly states that not everything presented is factual; those are obvious exceptions. But when people are writing about their lives, in the absence of any reason to not believe, I take it as the real thing.

Understand, I am not going around trying to "help people," at least not in the sense of suggesting they need help, or any other sort of intrusive or presumptuous action(s). I realize that what I read in someone's blog is at best part of the story, even if what's presented is 100% factual. If something I read makes Me think of a similar situation or experience, I offer My thoughts in the form of a comment or e-mail, in as unobtrusive a way as I can.

No, "believing" isn't for their benefit, directly . . . ultimately it's for Mine. Since it's what I need to believe it has value for Me in and of itself.

Before you start thinking that I'm a candidate for some professional help, let Me be clear. I understand completely that I might well be hopelessly deluded. My believing, My wanting to offer (mostly) silent support, My offering the brief word of encouragement here and there, etc., is Me offering Me, as I believe we all are.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I accept that. And being wrong will totally have been worth it.

KAHTATUS.

YouTube Tuesday: Once In A Lifetime

Perhaps My favorite song of any genre of any era. Rarely does a piece of music hit every nerve -- muscial, spritiual, intellectual, physical. When I hear this song I feel it, in every part of Me. Yes, I know this is a shortened version (I assume at the behest of MTV), but the live versions don't do it for Me the same way.