Know Thyself — Role And Status December 27, 2009
In that major act of self-negation which consists in self-destruction, there may be expressed an almost infinite variety of desires, but it is safe to say that in the large majority of cases the underlying difficulty is a divergence of role and status. The disappointed victim has accepted and adopted a valuation of himself that does not fit the position which others force upon him. He has not received the just deserts of his role. His virtues and his work are unappreciated. Between continuing his role and accepting the impaired value which others set upon him there is an irreconcilable conflict. He has often tried desperately to make good in his character part, and by work or an appeal to sympathy to enlist support for his own notion of his merit and his deserts. These efforts have failed. It is probable that many suicides are determined when the victim gains his first insight and understanding of the discrepancy between his role and his actual status. It is also probable that many suicides are only an extension of the appeal to the sympathy of others. Fantasy has before the event pictured the changed attitudes of friends and relatives when the death is made known, the regrets which these others will feel at their failure to appreciate the suicide, the new understanding which the world will have of the suicide’s earnestness and the new appreciation of his ideals. Most suicides are preceded by threats at self-destruction and follow only when these threats have failed to bring family or friends or the public to time, have failed to compel others to accept the victim’s adopted role. Mark Twain’s adolescent boy daydreaming of his sweetheart’s grief and despair as she stands by his grave and places gently on it a tear-stained rose is an excellent description of the adoption of the role of the dead hero. The dead hero has lost his identity as a living organism, but still remains a character part that can be played.
Our accepted role, which is our articulate self and which is the thread of consistency that runs through our conscious acts, is our most vulnerable point. It is therefore the point at which we are most subject to attack and the most sensitive to attack. Even small children learn to take advantage of this and to “call names” as an easier substitute of the use of fists. The adult who is stirred to anger by the interference of another readily becomes articulate concerning the other’s social value and traits. …
Edwin R. Guthrie (1938)
OMG (My Little) PONIES!1! December 22, 2009
The Spoon Graphics blog created a review of 45 creative My Little Pony custom creations. [Link]
Pony customization is not new. The art has been around since 1997 at least.
What is new is the amount of of people creating new customizations and the level of sophistication in the creations.
Customizers buy poor or common ponies (called bait) for use in their art creations. A quick search on eBay reveals other custom ponies and bait lots of My Little Pony for sale.
Read the original article on the Spoon Graphics blog [link] to see more custom creations and find links to the artists’ websites. For a tutorial in how to create your own custom creation, check out the Custom Pony website at http://custompony.com/. [Link]
Buddha’s Attachment and the White Elephant Purse December 22, 2009
Sometime ago, I posted a snippet of a writing about the concepts attachment and non-attachment in Buddhism by Zen master Shunryu Suzuki. That post was called “The Zen of Flowers and Weeds.” (Check it out here.)
Very recently, in a very benign way, I got to live out this concept. I mean I live it all the time but this particular time was so obvious it begs to be shared, in my opinion.
In Buddhism, attachment is called a source of suffering. And attachment can take many forms, imagine the suffering you see in yourself or others when encountering an unquestionable blind belief about something. Or the suffering you see in yourself or others when you or they are in the mind that some thing must always be that one thing; even if the situation says otherwise or calls for something different. (Attachment in this way is like a habit.) In another situation, attachment could be a desirous want, like the attachment in this story.
At my friends’ birthday party, we had a white elephant gift swap. The rules were not that simple but we understood them: everyone picks a number and we pull mystery presents according to that number, each person could also steal another person’s present.
I had number 12 of our 15; and when I picked a gift, lucky me (!), I got this beautiful cigar box that had been transformed into a beaded cigar box purse. It had a beautiful design on the outside and the inside was lined with faux leopard skin fur. If you’ve read Flowers and Weeds, you’ll most likely recognize that this is the flower.
The purse is the flower because of its beauty and the desirous-nature it inspires, much like a flower’s beauty and essence is desirous. Everyone desires what it pretty to them. (If purses aren’t your thing substitute any other thing you would have liked.) And immediately, because I picked the present, this feeling of “I found it, it’s mine! Mine mine mine!” came over me. I became attached to this thing.
With this said though, I knew this attachment was temporary in an immediate way, cuz the rules of the game say this object can be stolen at any time.
The stealing part, if you haven’t figured it out, is the weed. People love the flowers but hate the weeds. Who wants to endure detaching from something they adore so dearly? And who wants to do it so quickly? I mean I just got the thing.
This woeful weed of a feeling can be applied to more than a purse though: a friendship, an intimate relationship, money, a job, your mom, your dad, your confidence, all the things you identify as creating who you are as a person, these are the flowers that create your garden. These are the things you become attached to the most and are most threatened by the weeds of attachment.
So here I am, waiting for the game to finish, hoping beyond hope that my present isn’t stolen but still trying to practice some non-attachment; basically realizing that things will happen, I may get to keep it or it may get taken and that is what it is. And in this way, attachment is okay.
I’m not completely tied to the object and if its taken away I feel regret and sadness and this is normal. When we understand that our attachments to things are always subject to change or that the things we attach to may change, we are practicing non-attachment. (Or some such thing like that.)
I would say that a benefit of this type of thinking is that if you know your relationships are impermanent, hopefully you would become more mindful and skillful in the behavior you employ within the relationship. If you know this person may not be with you after 24 hours, how would you act? Would you be more attentive and present with them? If you had 24 hours before something significant in your life changed, would you be more present with yourself? Chew on it.
Back to the story.
Just as I think I am getting away with my beautiful purse, it’s stolen*. Not even me putting out my best don’t touch this vibe worked. Realizing it is what it is, I pick another mystery present. (Those who get their presents stolen can pick another present.) And this time, I picked a box set of audio CDs featuring the popular Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön.
Like seriously? Of all the random things, what the hell?
So there you go, flowers and weeds, white elephants and purses, attachment non-attachment.
*I ended up with the purse and the other present after all. But that was just a matter of luck, pouting, and poking, like most things. And also, not all things have a happy ending and that is what it is; but that doesn’t mean we can’t try for the happy ending, just that if it doesn’t come, try not to let it make you suffer too much. And if you are asserting yourself properly, you may also be less likely to suffer, in my opinion of course. =)
Oh and that’s not the actual purse but something similar. =)
Know Thyself — Habits and Skills December 19, 2009
A distinction must be made between habit and skill. Skill is defined as an ability to achieve some end result, hitting the target, driving the car, training a race horse, managing a child, teaching, skiing, performing a surgical operation, filling teeth. Such skills are made up of thousands of habits. Skill at chess depends on years of playing in which different responses have become attached to the thousands of different patterns of the pieces on the board. The skilled chess player makes without hesitation the move that experience has last attached to that situation.
…
Most of the undesirable behavior of the nervous breakdown, the anesthesias, paralyses, compulsions, tics, seizures, that make life a burden to the psychoneurotic and to his friends are habits. They illustrate the fact that habit, as contrasted with skill, is blind. Habits mean primarily mechanical responses to set cues which are little affected by the rest of the situation. Skills are not blind because they include discriminating habits which adapt behavior to a variety of situations. Knowing when to talk and when to keep silent is a skill. Chronic talkativeness and chronic silence are habitual attitudes. Knowing when to run up to the net and when to stay back is tennis skill, two sets of habits which adjust to two of situations. Smoking is a habit, but the person who smokes and yet never annoys others by it has learned a skill.
Edwin R. Guthrie (1938)
Music Filler — Jamiroquai December 17, 2009
“Emergency on Planet Earth” from the debut album of Jamiroquai, Emergency On Planet Earth (1993).
Watch the video for “Do You Know Where You’re Coming From” from the Traveling Without Moving album (1996) under the fold. (more…)
