So anyhow, before I got sidetracked with vanity issues about this blog…

For your benefit, I should explain who/what I am – a between-gigs former tech worker, seeking some higher understanding that I cannot fully articulate and define.  My bedroom is littered with arcane reading materials, which in turn are littered with Post-It Notes and tape flags.  Some day all of those flags and hastily-scrawled-while-lying-in-bed notes will compose themselves into one humongous I-D-E-A.

In the mean time, the fluorescent flags and tattered yellow Post-Its guilt-trip me as I get out of bed every day.

I do rant occasionally about current events – if you were looking for yet another humble personal opinion that supported or compromised yours, sorry, not today and maybe only as the Muse strikes me.

**WARNING: I’m about to get incredibly long-winded.  Take a break and come back or leave now.  Thought I’d give you a fair chance.  And you might need waders if you come back.**

On with the search.  Serendipitously, while seeking clarity about that as-yet-inarticulated I-D-E-A, I found a notice promoting a lecture at a local university (under Sunday’s Living section, “Odds & Ends” – go figure.  Odds, yes, Ends, maybe, Living? no...).  Free to the public, Charles Taliaferro, professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, Minnesota, addressing the questions, “Are human beings merely high-functioning biological machines?  Do souls exist?  What does it mean to be a human being?”

Sounds like a lot of turf to cover in an hour – the quest for humanity?  I bit, of course.   Would memetics be covered? What about integrative psychology and human emergence?  I could only hope.

Somewhere between 150 and 200 people crammed into a space designed for a hundred, comprised mainly of students (no doubt incentivized by their ethics/philosophy prof to attend for extra credit) and a minority of community members of varying ages.  I had to trip over some poor guy with a crutch to find a seat (my apologies, again, dear sir).  Obviously this was a good topic based on drawing power. 

Professor Taliaferro elaborated on materialism, dualism, theism, modalities for half an hour; the audience was allotted 30 minutes for Q&A.  I was chomping at the bit, wanting badly to get my question in, waiting after each question, as were a number of others in the audience. 

But no, we had to wait…for a student in the audience to ask, “Are you a teacher? Where do you teach?” 

AAGGGHHH!!!!  Did you not get the overview from your prof at your last class?? Did you not see the hand-out being distributed at the entrance which covered this??  Did you not check the lecture information on the internet and in the Sunday Living-Odds & Ends section??  Are you really allowed to drive a motor vehicle and vote for public officials in this country??    AAGGGHHHH!!!!

This is the kind of thing that terrifies me, knowing this person will somehow graduate from this state-funded university, subsidized by my tax dollars; this same person will get a highly-paid position, to become a political pundit or some other painful-to-me role in society where she can inflict and replicate more stupidity.  Good gravy, I hope she doesn’t spawn more genetic material, I’m thinking quite unkindly…

On the other hand, her question made the inquiry from the audience member about practices for meditating or praying for more knowledge about materialism, dualism and theism less painful.

Did I mention I live in the Midwest, the heartland of America?  Maybe this makes the stupidity ratio more bearable…

My question after lecture (the very last question taken, natch): after reading Ken Wilber’s integrative theory of consciousness and human emergence, Beck’s and Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics and Jenny Wades' Changes of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Human Consciousness, isn’t it possible that the schism between materialism and dualism is only a manifestation of the difference in conscious states postulating these concepts?  A resounding maybe is the answer I receive…

Yeah, it’s some deep sh*t.  Makes me woozy.

Changes of Mind rocked my world this year.  I’ve been a staunch life-long feminist…and that’s been fundamentally messed with forever, because of this text.  I came away from reading it, thinking, What if the gap between the sexes, the real reason why women aren’t successful in the upper echelons of corporations, is because men (in general) live in an achievement state of consciousness, while women (in general) live in an affiliative state of consciousness?  [NOTE THE GENERALIZATIONS – they are just that.  Masculinity and femininity are not black and white, they’re shades of gray along a spectrum.  And no, we’re not talking Venus-and-Mars, what a HUGE understatement.  Save your flames for something else more specific.]

If consciousness is defined as one’s perception of reality, and (in general) men and women experience consciousness differently, perhaps the gap between the sexes is that WE DON’T SEE EACH OTHER.  We don’t live in each other’s reality, only on the periphery.  To travel this gap may mean changing states of consciousness and/or both sexes moving to same level of authentic consciousness.   Think what it takes to make it to a transcendent state of consciousness (drugs, starvation, meditation, etc.); I’d hate to think we’d have to do that to see each other, but it may simply take that.

Here’s the next leap: what if the fundamental difference between countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, U.S., the members of the EC, you name it, is that they live in different states of emergence, which in turn suggests different states of consciousness?  How the hell do we really get to true consensus?

Okay, maybe that was my current events item for the day after all. <picturing a winded kindergartner at Show-n-Tell>