I read Tallis Grayson's latest blog and enjoyed it. It provoked an image in my mind that I continue to enjoy of "nirvana" implying the space/state between a frantic flame of thought being blown out and smoke cloud of opaque thinking rising in its place.
I also started musing on why I liked his style of blogging. Others that I read often have it from time to time (Harry, Jordan, Uku). For lack of a better term it's an immediate declarative (my! how awkward). A declaration of how the author sees a point with out an "apology" for the possibility of being wrong, or having a different opinion at some time in the future, and no particular attempt to balance the various arguments that might be found on the topic. An effective "I asked myself a question, and this is my answer."
I started comparing this to ideas of picking and choosing versus immediate experience and reaction. I think its "better" to respond to the specific instance in front of me given the data I have *now* about this *specific thing* than to create abstract rules to force on real situations as they come along. Respond to here/now not there/then.
This brought to mind how false anticipation is. Absolutely and completely unreal. Thus anticipatory rules are no good for me to conduct my life. This feels so odd to state, but what possible value does a sentence have like "I will never xyz in situation abc" when I know darn well if I have to xyz because it's the skillful response, I darn well will xyz? Or perhaps I should say I've noticed this is how I have really behaved.
This brought to mind Schrodinger's cat, which for me is a summary that the observer influences the outcome, which I believe has been proven true in quantum level experiments. The basic line of analogous reasoning is that there is a cat in box in which a vial of poison is broken by some random trigger. The cat is either dead or alive. The crux is that the cat is neither dead or alive until the lid is lifted and the cat is observed, until that time it occupies both states. The fun bit is this has been shown as true at the quantum level. A system behaves as if Particle X is both here and there until I try to observe exactly where it is.
Applied back to rules of real conduct, it is appropriate both to xyz and to not-xyz until the real situation abc occurs and in that particular and unique instant it will be clear which to do.
Perhaps more important to me is that a dead cat is a dead cat, it is not a could-have-been-alive-cat-if-only.
All the "information" is here now. Be open to it. Find the space between the blowing out of the flame and the rising of the smoke and declare what you know.
Too much?
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