An illusory stability, under a quiet stillness, the majority of the ice float lies submerged: this is an overused metaphor, I know, so I'm not using that one. I am using the one where the iceberg, due to just the right meltage/freezage ratio, flips over in the ocean and creates a massive amount of hydrological power in the frozen salty sea. I was wandering, rambling, without a destination, and now here I am, still as the morning in a routine made of cast iron. This shift has caused a bellowing forth of unyielding energy, but in an entirely different realm of my life. Before we get to that, I will fill you in on the basics.
A short spliff on my current living situation: I have my own cozy studio apartment in a nice smelling mountain town in the center of Japan. The air is fresh, the water is clean, the sun is always shining and the women are natural beauties. Living situation, check. Work: I am the sole teacher at the sole branch of a floundering extra-curricular English school for children. I am not sure how dire the financial specs on the company are, so if you receive a postcard from me with a little dollar sign in the corner, it means to wire me money so I can fly home...or to fly to Thailand ;). KIDDING! I am (semi) confident that it is a stable position. I work from 12-7 Tues-Sat with a ton of free time, maybe four hours of free time during work every day but Saturday.
So, here is where the iceberg flips: I have taken the energy I used to expend in motion and transformed it inward into study. I have been spending 4-5 hours A DAY studying neurology, Zen, Japanese, guitar and Facebook. I never knew this kind of potential was there. Anyways, I feel like this new direction will definitely leave the travelogue high and dry, since this routine will last the better part of a year (circumstances pending). So, I decided to put a little paper to pen and give you a few snapshots of the signposts on my inner journey. Keep in mind the conjoining elements. But first: some photos!
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Social Grammar and the International Mind:
Social grammar is a phenomenon closely related to linguistic grammar. The way a language is structured reflects/effects the way the social world is structured. This occurs because the linguistic circuits have a primarily inter-relational social function.
Like most things cognitive, it is a two way street, where the inner contents affect the outward actions and the outer world manifests itself in the neural circuits. In a very literal way, the brain is a mirror that receives what it can and attempts to reflect those incoming messages with suitable reactions. Most of our mirrors are clouded by beliefs, past experiences or habituation (i.e. over-learned linguistic structures).
Neurological fact: with the outstanding exception of Zen like thoughtless awareness (a sufficiently large and completely separate topic that will be clarified in its place), we can only use what we have already experienced to view the world of incoming chaos. A large portion of what we have spent our formal education programming/experiencing is linguistic categorization and structure. For the majority of us (the non-enlightened ones, AKA me and probably you), a large slice of the way we view the world is based upon what language we speak/read. This has three interesting implications:
1) the more skilled at a language you are, the more detail of hue you can actually perceive in the world: this is not metaphorical; there is actually MORE reality coming through to you because you have a higher capacity to process it in detail. However, it is not a potentially unlimited increase in perception (and you will see why I make that clarification soon). However, it does serve to offer a taste, which we can all relate to, of how perception effects out experience.
Some examples to hammer the point: A rock isn't just "rock", it is hard, abrasive, rough, porous, a dull gray granite chunk of cool stone, gently accepting the morning's soft light, with glittering flakes of pink-pearl marble embedded in its subtle contours (isn't that second 'rock' more real? More unique? closer to encapsulating the ACTUAL 'rock' that is sitting outside my apartment?). On the other hand, take for example the word "love", it just doesn't quite do the job, does it? No matter how poetic, even Shakespeare cannot reach the high note that we attempt to wrangle with our damp and heavy linguistic-lassos.
2) Different languages, especially ones with completely different grammatical structures, open a new world of perception vastly different than what one may have experienced in their native tongue. For example, the Japanese language doesn't have some of the same VERBS as English! How can that be?! Do those actions exist in the Japanese mind?..., perhaps, startlingly I know, they do not. Some things do not exist here that exist in the West, and it isn't because of the soil, it is because of the lingo-cultural environment.
Consider the core of Western Philosophical thought: Plato convinced us that the world is full of the potential for being and non-being, things are horses or they are not horses, depending on the eternal definition of horse, the 'Form' of horse-ness. But (and this is my favorite example) there is no basic verb TO BE in Japanese. The closest thing is 'aru' which basically means 'it is in stock' or, in some cases, 'I've found it! or eureka!'. Everything only exists in relation to the topic it is being connected with. Nothing 'is', is and of itself; things 'are' only next to something else, used by something else, spent, owned, cut etc. So, if a tree falls in a Japanese forest when on one is around, does it make a sound? Only if it hits the ground!
A sub-point in this concept is the Japanese way of life in general: the respect for concision, brevity, leaving things as they are, nuance, simplicity, stark contrast and the way they view themselves in relation to the world is all reflected in the lexicon and grammatical form of the boldly syllabic and stylized language. Everything is a symbol for something, not the thing itself. I sometimes forget that an apple is only an apple because I call it one. We have all experienced the phenomenon of saying a word so many times in close repetition that it actually loses its meaning. In this phenomenon is the heart of Zen: things are not the labels we so tightly cling to for understanding. In this phenomenon, we sense the emptiness of the word, and it then becomes only a string of phonetic contortions. If you haven't experienced this, it is a simple way to test my above hypothesis...but do it alone so that people don't think your nutters.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master — that's all."
~ Lewis Carroll ~
3) Remember, the topic is that different languages change how we see the world: Different languages offer unique views of the same world, this is undeniably interesting and true as I am experiencing the seasons in a new-found respect and passivity, tonal nuances and phrase choices have made priory indescribably social situations more clear, and details within brevity have emerged. However, although it is different, it is still a limiting factor. If we can eliminate language from our perception we are one step close to actually viewing pure reality.
This is not some mystic's midnight creed, this is the nature of perception: the brain is equipped with filters, floodgates, and magnifiers for selectively perceiving and acting on a violent and chaotic world; adaptive, yes, but filters none the less. Consider: We own a commercial semi-truck that has been (as if often the case) outfitted with a max-speed restrictor: we are cruising down the highway of experience with a governor on the engine that only lets us go 55mph; optimal for gas and safety but its not the true potential of the vehicle. Any skilled mechanic knows how to rip one of those bad-boys off, (but an unskilled mechanic might blow up the engine). Again, this isn't a metaphor: the brain is the engine of our mind, of our whole world, and it has real working parts that can be welded, bent, sharpened, grown, and re-routed. Hence, I have been dedicating myself to the destructive and reconstructing exercise of concentration meditation. There is no belief structure underlying this decision other than a belief that the brain is capable of physically transforming, changing my experience along with it.
(yeah Leslie, here it is again...haha)---
We draw lines in the sand of what "is" and "is not"
and by these rough lines, we abide
the great lie is that what "is" always "has been"
life is the breeze and death is the tide
