Resistance

Oh the resistance, coiling itself around me like a valuer blanket tangled about drowsy legs; just as I think I will at last generate a wee bit of electricity, I encounter one gauzy soft distraction after another. Even now, I am hearing the most ridiculous new age movie sound track imaginable, and it is my own fault. I perused through the CD selection. Just a handful of titles there- mostly classic rock, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Cream, but me, I thought it would be best to work without lyrics. Now I am soaring through a pg13 Disney movie, and I’m ready to vomit. Now I realize that Pink Floyd or Bjork would have been a great deal more acceptable. I can stop what I’m doing and attempt to adjust my environment…I do and the Pink Floyd case is empty, the Bjork disc won’t play. So you see, here every move you make is countered with some minor obstacle, and there is always an easier alternative, the consumers alternative; eat something, watch something, take a nap and wait for death.
It is a wonderful warm sticky tropical weather that holds me in pleasant suspension. The sun hides behind one of the many small puffy clouds that speckle the sky like a flock of lambs peacefully munching blue all the while growing fatter and fatter. In the background a voice cackles loudly in a one way exchange, a telephone conversation, no doubt, as there are many, "Uh huh"s, and "Yeah"s, and "Right"s between questions such as, "How many tenants do you have?" and "How much are your utilities?"
Other voices too coming from another room. One deep and rough and one small and high, both adrift in the electric hum of computer terminals. These two voices are similar, strangely alike despite the fact that one obviously belongs to an older man and the other to a little girl.
"You do? You know what the phrase ‘window of opportunity’ means already?" The older voice asks.
"Yes. Yes." The little girl voice insists. Outside the window birds sing, a car horn beeps and an air plane drones by. There is a soothing rushing sound like that heard in close proximity to crashing surf. It is the never ending river of traffic coursing over a nearby freeway overpass. A breeze rustles the leaves of the elm tree and palms shading the window. Far away down the street a little dog barks, a hollow, gravely bay. I lean back and scratch my chin. What else is there to say? I could go into great detail describing the fibers of the dark green carpet besieged by tiny white hairs and balls of lint. Even though there are fresh lines left where a vacuum recently passed over its plush mane, there are still small clingy things holding onto its minuscule loops. Now the cackling woman voice from the phone conversation speaks to the old man voice.
"That was a mental institution." She says. "The state pays them $900 a month to board each resident."
"God." Says the old man, "Why would anyone do that?"
"Because she loves them." Says the woman, "She says that anyone who goes into the business of caring for these people should do it because they love them. They need someone to love them. She says no one should even consider doing it for the money. You have to love them."
There is a bit of silence. Plenty to eat, plenty to drink, comfort, and rest. What else is there?

Machine

True communication is very rare. It seldom occurs during casual transmissions of linguistic data between humans. This is due to the law of associations.
A single word bears different meanings for individuals from varying cultural, economic, geographic, and social backgrounds. There are many words that we use in our daily vocabularies without having any real understanding of what it is that the word actually signifies. They’ve lost meaning due to their careless use and the fact that they are handed down generation to generation as loquacious filler. The handers down, having no experiential understanding of a word, pass the pronunciation on and so the word lives on, but the thing which it once referred to is lost in abstraction.
This is true of words like "Love" and "Soul". You will hear these words often used by individuals who have no experience whatsoever of either love or soul. (In fact, you yourself are probably such a person.)

When I say love, you, no doubt, have certain ideas about the meaning of that word. You might be shocked to know that my understanding of the same word is drastically different from yours, and that your neighbor has an even different idea of what love means than either of us.

Because of this, three people can engage in a verbal exchange and the conversation will be an entirely different one for each of the three persons participating.

So the first step in being able to do anything of significance with anybody is to establish a means by which you can truly communicate. To do this you will need to share experiences and correlate them with a mutual terminology.
Here are some terms I would like to begin to define-

Machine
Being
Awakening
Identification

It is necessary to not only explain their meaning, but to also demonstrate it experientially. For that I will have to suggest experiments.

At present I will begin with defining Machine.
I will from time to time refer to THE MACHINE or THE HUMAN BIOLOGICAL MACHINE or THE MECHANICAL CREATION or THE MORTAL CREATION. All of these terms refer to the same thing. For now, we will go with Machine as short for The Human Biological Machine. This term refers not only to the human body, but to the thoughts and emotions of the human as well.

It is a hard notion to swallow, but your thoughts and feelings are as mechanical as your body. These three cannot be separated, they are co-conspirators.

It can be easy to understand the physical body as a mechanical marvel, it’s mechanicality is more readily observable. It needs to consume, expel some of what it consumes, and rest at regular intervals. It will also seek to reproduce itself. These are the things that it is bound to do to maintain its functioning, and it can perform these functions automatically without the exertion of any special will. It is wired to do so. The thoughts and emotions function in very similar fashion, but at a more subtle level. That makes them harder to observe closely and objectively.

The thoughts and emotions and the physical body work together to maintains an existence. They will fight like hell against anything that seems to threaten that existence. They will also struggle against each other seeking dominance over the triumvirate. Each of the three functions through a simple set of habits formed more or less haphazardly with the objective of continuing to exist.

It is a sophisticated animal, but an animal nonetheless, objectively no more or less valuable than any of the other species populating the planet earth.

It is the Human Biological Machine.

For one week carry a small notepad with you at all times. Throughout the day, record your emotional state. Keep track of the hour of day, the mood or feelings experienced, and a note about the events or circumstance leading up to the mood. Try keeping an hourly record, but note shifts as they occur. In this way, if nothing in particular happens you will still remember that at 1pm you were in your cubicle feeling bored, but that at 1:19 you got a call from a friend and became excited and jolly.

Experiment: Posture

For this experiment you will need a little notebook. Keep it with you at all times for the course of three days. Every time you notice a big shift in your emotional/mental state, record it in the notebook. Write down the time and describe the shift in your mood as well as any possible catalysts. When you feel very happy in the morning after a coworker makes a special effort to greet you, write it down. When you start to feel miserable around lunch time after missing a call from a friend, write it down. When an hour later you are on top of the world again for no apparent reason, write that down too. Pay attention to the myriad of little mood swings, however subtle, that you cycle through in one day.
On the fourth day, you will add a little detail to your record keeping. In addition to cataloging the time and emotional state, describe any particular physical postures, twitches, or ticks that accompany the various states. For example you might write-
1:00pm Happy = twirling hair. While walking to the drugstore in the sun.
1:30pm Angry = Hands thrust into pockets, chin lowered. After waiting in a long line.
2:30pm Lonely = Biting lower lip, shoulders hunched. While driving to post office.
And so on…
Try to recognize re-occurring postures so natural to you they will be hard to spot. Make an effort to observe yourself without judgement. Imagine that you are studying yourself as an actor would study a character in order to play that character more realistically. Keep notes this way for three more days. On the seventh day act out the postures you have recorded in your notebook.