February 4, 2009
- to Control = to Block -
It’s already moving anyway. If you need to exert control over something, it means you are trying to stop it from doing what it does naturally.
That is not to say that you should never block anything, just that it’s in your best interest to remember when you have done so!
“In engineering, control consists in adjustment to natural law. It does not mean making nature do our bidding. We do not, for example, dig channels in the expectation that water will flow uphill; we do not use kerosene to put out a fire. In designing an internal combustion engine we recognize and adjust to the fact that gases expand when heated; we do not attempt to make them behave otherwise. With respect to physical phenomena, control involves the selection of means which are /appropriate/ to the nature of the phenomenon with which we are concerned.
In the human field the situation is the same, but we often dig channels to make water flow uphill. Many of our attempts to control behaviour, far from representing selective adaptations, are in direct violation of human nature. They consist in trying to make people behave as we wish without concern for natural law. Yet we can no more expect to achieve desired results through inappropriate action in this field than in engineering”
- Douglas McGregor, ‘The Human Side of Enterprise’, c. 1960
Comment by speedbird — February 5, 2009 @ 3:08 am
What about engineering a ram pump?
Comment by Ted — February 5, 2009 @ 10:06 am
Well, one thing I have noticed is breathing and other bodily fuctions, with biofeedback and other techniiques can be brought under conscious control.
Its good to have that control when things get all screwed up from trauma, but its a burden to always be conscious of that stuff.
I’ve been working on that. My breathing has gotten better, but I am trying to let it go now and forget about it. My diet too is kind of a pain. I have food intolerances so that makes eating and digestion very self conscious.
My fear in just following natural instincts is coming into conflict with other people. You know if societies laws are not based on the Tao then just following the tao can put you in conflict. it shouldn’t. But society is set up wrong.
Since I have the ability to be really polite and accomodating to people, I end up over doing it. I think if I weren’t so aware, it would be better.
Comment by Ted — February 5, 2009 @ 10:14 am
Nice one speedbird.
Looks like I’m not the only one looking into this…
Our conscious minds are more PR folks than CEOs of our total minds. We are much better at explaining than predicting ourselves. So the first step to wisdom is to realize how little we know about why we do what we do, or why we think what we think. (from overcoming bias)
“In the old approach, the senses are ‘turned on’ by the switch of an outside stimulus. This is giving way to a new paradigm in which the brain is constantly active, and stimuli change and shape that activity.” (from physorg)
Like Nudge, the powerful reality that drives Predictably Irrational is the gap between the behavior of hypothetical highly-informed, fast-calculating rational agents (species homo economicus) and the predictably different behavior of real human beings. (from metamodern)
Comment by Ian — February 5, 2009 @ 10:18 am
Daniel Pinchbeck, took Ibogaine and the little deity, Iboga came to him and he asked him why he is allergic to cats. Iboga said “fear of animality.” So, anyway, I am allergic to cats. Slightly, not severely.
My new roommates have two cats, two really affectionate cats. So I am using this as a test, to see if I can overcome my allergy by being more “One with the cats”
Cats get what they need in life in a way that is in their best interest but not overly offensive to others.
So anyway, I have been visualizing myself with cat hair and dander growing inside my guts and being OK with it.
Because that is what an allergy is, thinking on a cellular level of some harmless thing as a hostile invader.
Catness is my friend!
Comment by Ted — February 5, 2009 @ 10:21 am
@ Ted:
Yeah, it’s definitely a balance act. The Middle Path and all that….
That cat thing sounds really cool. Cultivate that cat-friendly feeling, and then see if you can get the cat friendly part of you to talk to the part of you that has the allergic reaction.
It’s like, the part of your with the allergy is really scared of “catness” for some reason, and you have to respect that, in order to get in touch with that part of yourself.
But then you can get that part to talk to the consciously created part of you that likes cats. Maybe that’ll cancel the whole allergy thing out?
Maybe not though. Who knows?
Comment by Ian — February 5, 2009 @ 10:29 am
Hey, I like all your recent posts. But when I read them I am like..Wow..and I don’t know what to say. Anyway this is the kind of subject matter I want to sculpt. I am starting to read “the Dancing Wu lei masters”
Anyway, these are the world’s friendliest cats! They are on a mission to help me. They wait outside my door every morning waiting for me to get up. They also keep trying to get in my room. They are very determined. I did a portrait of one but whhen I was working on the face, I couldn’t find here so I used the other one and now its kind of a morph of the two.
So far no major allergy problems, but the dry air is bothering me a little. BTW, I scaled Pikes Peak yesturday. Almost made the summit but not quite. I took the wrong trail.
http://www.summitpost.org/image/92218/162286/barr-trail.html
I was far to the right of this red line. I might try the route on the red line next week. The place I went was not the peak but looks higher from the perspective of the picture, which is what it looked like.
Ted
Comment by Ted — February 8, 2009 @ 11:25 am
That’s awesome Ted. I really need to work out a way to spend more time in nature. Walking through the park on the weekend is not cutting it!
And thanks for the compliments. I’m not quite sure what to do with all this either. They’re just these connections that I see between different things, and that I feel are important for some reason. I think what I’m doing here is trying to figure out what that reason is! If I line up enough fingers, maybe I can make out the progress of the moon’s passage…
Comment by Ian — February 9, 2009 @ 2:27 pm