mdlbear | Landmarks, Roadmaps, and Rivers (Reply)

So now that (in their terminology) I've chosen not to be a Landmark user, what now?

(Just as an aside, the "perfect and absolute blank" map from The Hunting of the Snark is still particularly appropriate: it has no landmarks.)

In this post, I'm not going to discuss what was useful to me in L (I've done that, at least in a sketchy way, in this post), and I'm not going to discuss why it's neither ethical nor safe for me to continue to try and get more tools from them -- that's covered pretty well here.

I'm going to talk about where I am now, ...

Unlike some people, I don't think L gave me anything I didn't have going in except some practice using mental tools and a very intense peak experience. It clarified some things. But I'm going to make a list, even though we both know it's incomplete:

Scripts: The human mind is a computer. It runs scripts that get set up early on; as time goes on they get less and less relevant, and interfere more and more with your life. They can be debugged or uninstalled.
Narrative: What I am is a point of view. I'm the self-aware part of the computer, watching the tape go by. Scripts in the computer generate annotations and interpretations and add them to the tape, but I am just the self-awareness. Once this is clearly understood, I can start to influence the direction the narrative is taking, by making informed choices.
Meaning: Meaning is a property of symbols: it's the mapping from the symbol to something else, either another symbol or something "out there" in the universe. Symbols and meanings is what computers deal with.
Reality: The universe is what it is, and I have to accept it for what it is. It's bigger than I am, and doesn't give a damn what I think about it or want it to be. The only meaning anything in the universe has is the identity mapping: it is what it is. Any other meaning I think it has is something I... think...

Now let's get into some core values:

Clarity: I can't deal properly with either yourself or the universe if I don't see it clearly, i.e., for what it is.
Acceptance: This is related to clarity: it consists of recognizing that the universe is what it is. Right now. Maybe it will change in the future; maybe I can even help change it. Right now, what it is is what I have to work with.
Openness: I have to be open to new information, new friends, new experiences.
Presence: In dealing with anything in the universe, and especially with other people, I have to be present. I can't be distracted by other parts of the universe, or by what interpretations my scripts are putting on it. I can't be distracted by the past -- that's over. I have to be in the narrative, right now, and not just re-reading the good parts.
Caring: I have to give a damn about other people. Period.
Engagement: I can't make any changes in the universe if I don't do anything. I have to make choices and take action.
Love and Friendship: These are closely related, but I don't think they're the same. This is one of the things I'll have to explore later further upstream. Right now let's go with love being mostly acceptance and caring, and friendship being mostly openness and engagement.

Finally, let's get into states of being.

Being Unconscious: This is what I am most of the time. The scripts are running, my awareness is wandering around re-reading old parts of the tape, and I'm on full automatic. Things happen to me.
Being Conscious: This is where I was last weekend: aware of the scripts, but reading the tape while it was being written, and able to make choices. Present, open, accepting, clear, and maybe caring.
Being In Flow: This is a state the organization I spent last weekend doesn't seem to know about, but it's where I work. It's the state in which I write programs and songs. It's a state of such total presence and engagement that I'm not there. There's a task, it's getting done, choices are being made, but I don't even notice that the tape is running.

... and where I go from here.

Last week I wrote a song called "The River". It was all about love, friendship, and flow.

That is what I want to work on. It's going to be a process, a journey down that river. It's going to pull in things from the Tao Te Ching, The Art of Loving, The Art of Computer Programming, and who knows what else.

If you choose to walk with me, I'll be glad of the company. I think I can promise you some interesting discussions and perhaps some interesting scenery, if nothing else.

Thank you, friends. All of you.

(Final aside: future posts ~~on this topic~~ in this journey will not be friends-locked unless absolutely necessary; they may be cut-tagged if they get long. They will not mention L by name. You'll find them under the tag river; the next one will probably be a refined version of this one without the back-references.)

Questions? Comments?