"Abd ul" wrote:
This is a piece of a guidebook to how to become a world-class expert in a field in five years. Do what I describe.
Part of the trained ontology is recognizing that "interesting" is a product of expectations and will confine us to what we already know and think. Transformation comes from the realm of the "unknown unknown," not from the past, because what we have from the past is immovable, though we can sometimes reframe it.
So don't be afraid to make mistakes. You will make them, unless you are confined to the world of "reason," which means "reasoning from what we already know." In that world, we become reactive, afraid to make mistakes, because we might look bad. Make your mistakes and admit them when it's possible. Also admit that making mistakes is possible. Many times, through my life, I've been dead certain about a thing, and then someone said a couple of words to me, and ... OMG! I was completely wrong. There was something crucial that I had overlooked. And we do this very, very easily.
The process I outlined trusts that exposure to material will generate what is needed for what is possible as to understanding. Some things we may never understand, and accepting that is part of the process. It is the reactive mind that demands understanding and "the point."
For me, the point is "presence," being alive. That can, in fact, be communicated outside of words, and I hinted in that with the LOMAX image, above. Those who are stuck in darkness will see nothing. It will be mysterious nonsense, or some cult or something. Why are these people so happy? They must be deluded, in reality, the Monster Conspiracy is about to eat them, they don't know yet that Life Sucks And Then You Die.
QuoteWell, I do understand.
Where does this understanding live? What is the source of it, and how is it recognized?
QuoteLet me summarize it for you; what you are saying is that since your mind is so confused to begin with,
Not exactly confused. Ignorant. We start out without knowledge. But we are not confused, we are quite happy. And then something happens, we become afraid and reactive and that creates confusion, which we attempt to avoid because if we are confused, we are in danger. Something is about eat us (or make us look bad, make fun of is, slap or abuse us, shame and humiliate us. Experience varies.)
What I do is to deliberately return to ignorance, to a blank slate. What Sifferkoll has in mind as "not confusion" is believing strongly in something, some organizing concept. Mostly, for him, it appears to be They are Wrong and They are Malevolent.
That is, this is what I do in most of my writing, which is exploratory. When I wrote the commentaries on, say, Rossi's Memorandum in answer to the IH Motion to Dismiss, which Sifferkoll dismissed as FUD, I was not with an initial point to make. I was not trying to prove that RossI was Wrong. I was looking at what was there, at the legal arguments being presented, at sources on these, etc. I also explore my own reactions, my own thinking on a topic, and will often record this.
Polemic would not describe most of this, but, if well written, would present conclusions efficiently and effectively, what Sifferkill pretends to want. In fact, when I write polemic, it enrages him.
Quoteyou have no clear idea about what you are writing and where it will lead you, which makes it impossible for you to comprehend what is "the most interesting point".
Ah, but when I'm done, I do. I now have a very clear understanding of Rossi v. Darden, such that I can make predictions that have a high probability of being accurate. Let me put it this way: that's how the situation occurs to me, and I'm in regular communication with a lawyer, who is now relying on me for analysis, which is not where we started. He will still correct me when I make mistakes, should he notice them.
QuoteThe funniest part is that you hold your "analytic" abilities so high despite this ...
High compared to what? Compared to the obviously ignorant or obviously blinded by attachment? Sure. But above every knower are other knowers. In fact, my training deprecates analysis as such, outside of its realm. If someone believes they are right because of their analytic skills, they have fallem into a disempowering interpretation, and, in fact, "I'm right" is intrinsically disempowering. Ah, that was dificult for me to get in the training. It nearly drove me crazy. After all, I was right. I was so right I was making myself sick.
QuoteConsidering your so called "training" this immense lack of self-awareness is somewhat amazing.
I do notice that Sifferkoll is mind-reading here. Is he skilled at that?
It can be a tad difficult to assess what others know about themselves. We do this typically by imagining that they think like us. That can be radically off. My thinking and daily and moment-to-moment practice is not "ordinary," though there are lots of people who understand it. Maybe one in a hundred I meet, or it could be more, and in the training I found that "ordinary people" often were far deeper than my expectations would lead me to think from how they looked.
I'm a writer, but I consider writing primitive and quite limited compared to what can be done in person, with presence. Writing deals with abstractions, language, by definition human inventions, though it can point to what is not human invention.
