Sun 23 Dec 2001
I need to do some stretching/exercises, they would feel good, but I am moved, drawn to work on this thinking first.

Yesterday went home through central park in the evening.
Today I got a good swim in. It is important to sleep early , to get home early the night before.
If I stay up late, it is often because not enough mental progress/exercise was made during the day, perhaps.

I live with a crazy person. There are crazy people all around. It is a bit worrisome, because they do not listen or comprehend a fairly well-accepted viewpoint/standards of behavior. I am in the same category, but not, I think, when it comes to my behavior affecting others adversely.

I got on to thinking about all those people who just throw their trash in the streets, cigarettes, napkins wrappers, empty food containers, or people who leave dog shit laying for people to step in.

Those are illnesses in the mass mind, that such behavior exists to so great a degree. What is the most effective way of addressing these types of problems.

There is tolerance, and there is tolerance of too much.

Why do women stamp around in noisy shoes.

O.k. move on.
-- a nap --
social engineering.

I want to understand which cultures are more alive, and attempt to bring that to others.
For example, the culture of the netherlands seems more alive than that of the us.
The culture of Switzerland seems more alive in certain ways as well.

There is no question there are many people unhappy/depressed about their lives here, and I don't think prozac will make the kind of difference I want to see.

*************(1)************
A focus on the cultural environment, the cultural ecosystem, cultural ecology. O.k.: attempt to find others who are working in that direction. Search the web, search databases of journal articles. SIBL- search lexis-nexis??

*************(a)************
One particular hypothesis within that broader goal is:
an 'improving' orientation is very
[I should check out the hours of the Queens & Brooklyn libraries on Sundays, and on the holidays.]
important to a vital, growing culture.
What is this orientation, and what will the best search terms be.
I want to say the orientation is idealism, but that is messing me up and misleading, due to various existing definitions of that word.

The orientation is simply a tendency to consider the potential to improve an aspect of one's experience/environment.

When I seem to be doing that myself, does the term ideal come in to play?
The thought is there must be a better way. The awareness is, the situation can always be improved. "Closer to ideal" is a figure of speech.
There should also be, combined with that an ability to appreciate things as they are in the present moment.

It was beautiful to see those kids playing.

It is not the gazing and appreciation that makes a culture seem alive? It is appreciation in doing, the spectacle, the happening. It is care about appearance of buildings and cities. It is the beautiful, Vogel (what whas it called) park in Amsterdam, the shiny skatepark in Rotterdam, the people around the swiss lakes in the summer time. The protesters with that man as an ape by the train station. The dancer at Neuchatel. [I should get some weights]

It is the people riding their bikes in the countryside in the netherlands, it is the kitesailors. The ...

It is the new and the old construction - not just the old, as in venice.
It is new technology, and new technology industries-- people at the forefront of creating new types of products and experiences which people will find valuable. It is also an appreciation for the old. It is a place where there are many exciting things to look forward to, and powerful moving things to remember.

All this predicates [?- requires] a security and affluency. An economic security which enables people to take large risks, and an affluency which I guess is the same thing. Affluence is more than security, it means that people have more than enough, time, money, energy to simply get by.

Remembering the 'Bridget diary' article in the economist:
the bridgets are affluent, but what is their orientation? How much is, can psychological pathology be a part of this? Intense negative emotion can inspire intense action. It will always exist, but to what degree is neurosis, loneliness, unrequieted dissatisfaction an important part of the culture that is vitally alive?

Am I in any position to tell, to judge?

What of what hal was mentioning, Freud, Einstein, Marx, being german jews. What of me mentioning reform judaism women, and gay men?
What has been happening to western women, and why does it seem strange? They've been undergoing a role change. Whereas men's roles have for the most part stayed the same. The women are experiencing a specifiable growth. If males are it is less evident, perhaps. The gays as a community are experiencing significant growth, more than the hetero male.
By growth, I mean simply continuing to change, encountering and working through new challenges (as a community, in a way). The hetero males-- aside from dealing with the changes of the roles of the other communities, what growth has there been?

The alive culture has a lot of diversity, and I'm not talking so much about colors of skin and dialects, as I am about an absence of a feeling that everyone is the same and that everyone feels pressured to behave in a similar way. perhaps I am babbling. Consider New Yorker's dress.

But growth also means feeling that one has gained, that one (or one's group) has become more powerful, more secure, more confident, through the challenges one has faced.

***
In short, growth is working through challenges which result in one's continuing to seek new and more significant challenges.
***

 Perhaps. But I think that is a great start.

How to put order to all this, to create a structured research programme, to break it down into smaller pieces which are clearly a part of the larger and greater whole which will contribute to an ability to encourage (a) cultural aliveness, or more basically (b) individual love of life.

Remember, I work slowly, move slowly to try to focus on the most permanent, and most important. (Imagining pressure to do differently, given a successful future)

Get a camera. Caricatures of fashion. People for the ethical treatment of people.

We need to best define our end goals, in terms of quality of individual experience, and perhaps, ideas of cultural vitality, and then explore what social structures are most supportive of those goals, which are least supportive (evaluate different realms, education, governments, urban design.

I individually may not be able to make a lot of progress on this. Except in a very small area.

Except by providing a vision (like asimov) and a methodology, I could have a huge impact, if they are any good, in addition to working on the part of the problem which excite me the most.

[what style guide was reccommended by j bradford delong]

what is the vision?
What is the methodology?
which parts of the problem do I most want to work on myself?

[rapping--what of it? what of the culture of violence I was interacting with yesterday. Unfortunately, since I'm such an emot sensitive person, not sure what my reaction will be in the future. What kind of animal was I dealing with? Dolled up in male get up, just like the women... anyways.]


The vision is a sort of applied social sciences, with the end of understanding how all social entities affect the quality of individual experience, and goal of putting its energies into improving those areas most amenable to improvement, and most likely to yield the greatest improvement in indiv experience for the effort put in.

What is the methodology? [consider what is happening in this process of writing - perhaps consider the ASK system- example, related, next, what else?]
(1) Consider and define as best as possible and prioritize all the areas about which more causal understanding is needed. Work on those areas
(2) Meanwhile, based on present areas of understanding, determine areas in the social realm which can be improved, sorted by influence the area has on individual human experience.
    (a) Rank these areas also by the degree of which the manner of making the improvement is known, and the ease of making the improvement.
(b) feed additional understandings from (1) into number (2) as available.

How can this methodology and the knowledge filling it, be charted/described? What language will we use? Will it be effective, fascinating, and useful? The knowledge needs to be readily available, easy to navigate, clearly showing the current state of hypotheses in all areas. Experiencescience.net?

I should be able to start and others can fill it in their areas. Peer review/ wiki combo?

I should be able to start... looks like this will be built from the bottom up, each indiv, looking at her own experience research, extending it from something only applicable to her own life to some [2 issues, one with the feminine gender. Lacking inspiring examples at this point, it no longer gives me that good of a feeling to use. There is peace pilgrim. Second.. whatwas it?] thing useful on a higher level of social organization.

In a sense the internet is working and channeling a mass mind. A mass mind does exist, to the extent different organisms have the same goals and values. Given a degree of organization, it will become more noticeable, and more visible. The connections/hardware are being made (google is one example), the direction is being defined at influential sites, sites which many people read, other media channels, decisions by people whose decisions influence the experience of many (to the extent the decisions are not simple reflections of natural forces, such as a ceo decided to fire people in the face of business downturn, just as an individual could get knocked over by a wave at the beach) [the other point is, whither experienceart? Experienceart will continue to be what occurs on the individual level for the individual's own self. The science is an attempt to make correct decisions on a larger scale. If decisions for the individual often come down to an art (emotional valuation), why should decisions affecting more than one individual be different? The individual has immediate access to the effect (at least the initial emotional evaluation) of the individual's actions. The person making decisions which affect others does not, so some evaluation mechanism should be in place/recognized (and often is). This layer between the emotional evaluations of those affected by the decision, and those who make the decision, suggests that an attempt at a scientific approach is more responsible? Of course, often a scientific understanding on the individual level is helpful to making the best decisions on that level as well. The art is when the decisions are made on emotional evaluation/ intuition in the end: this makes me feel better than that, as opposed to: according to this procedure which these studies have supported, the best decision is this.]

So, building from the bottom up. [do I still have status issues? well, I would like to be recognized by some as oh, it doesn't seem to be a big issue. For the most part I'm looking for projects I think are meaningful that I enjoy working on]

we'll leave it as some degree of a given that social science is already doing to some extent what I was describing. But what, in particular, will I do. I want to have good graduate students work with me and further develop the overall goal.

I should probably look at graduate school in sociology? Just to be in a different area?, that, social psych, or cultural anthropology? Public health? but personality psych?? yech!

I visualize myself doing these things:

(1) Comparing cultures on aliveness, both at present and historically (vitality-- richard ryan--though the feeling I got from he and Deci was a bit subdued, grey and foggy. Should try again)
   (a) I see myself working in Europe, in Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, in the various European entities, in Japan, China, russia attempting to get a feel for cultural differences and to understand what they are and how they came about.
   (b) Comparing subcultures, say within the US on measures of the quality of individual experience, and attempting to understand why these differences exist. If that's going to boil down to happiness measures, then much research has already been done.
   say, unschooling, for example, say by neighborhood as well.
Hal's progress book suggestion.

(2) My orientation, also to 'remedy' the directionlessness of so many people looking or ceasing to look for direction. Wanting to define and make them aware of a dream that could be fulfilling for them and for many others. the orientation of improving their own experience, and if successful at that, to work on a larger scale, to implement, research, express what they have learned. To create a beautiful and alive environment in which to live. [that italian ecovillage I never visited, what is the role of the musicians, the artists, the poets, the novelists- they are creating the food of emotional life-- or creating dense concentrations of emotional life.  perhaps?] An evangelist of sorts, teaching art, history, science, literature, psychology from a particular perspective, orientation, in schools and colleges, but working on the research behind the presentation.


Understanding intent in human progress, the influence of intent, goal, direction, the process of individuals developing goals. The nature of societies with strong individual focus and intent, a strong feeling that they understand what they are working for, and how they are working for it.

What form will this study take? A study of the improving orientation in an individual, and the effect of the prevalence of that orientation in a society/subculture group? The environmental characteristics which cause that orientation to flourish. [are my opera emails getting sent out?- the postmark.net one went through.]

The improving orientation is a questioning orientation.
The relationship between an improving orientation and an appreciating orientation...[the german concept of advanced caution, forecaution, acting when problems which affect the environment are hinted at, not totally proven-- sort of].

The quakers. The unschoolers. The litterers and dogshitleavers. The despondents.

'treating the mass mind' losing the inefficiency of counselors and their ilk. Helping people to help themselves. Creating a cultural attitude, an exercise in social engineering.

Fostering a cultural attitude, an exercise in social engineering.

Character education.
Deci and ryan might go for it- given intrinsic motivation orientation. Who else?

I definitely want that 'intervention' experience. I want to see those indicators move because of something I caused to happen.

(3) Keeping aware of and understanding cultural happenings in all areas, political technological, education, environmental as they relate to the changing nature of indiv experience.

(4) A collection of big, inspiring, worldview shattering, lifechanging ideas and a study of the experience of encountering wonderful/powerful new understandings/viewpoints/visions.

(5) A study of the use and effect of language for the ends I mention above.

Personal life, what do I want?
to hang out with my family on occasion. To exercise and feel in good shape. Friends? Lovers? Do not excite me as much, only dance, and not in a studio, and probably not with a bunch of people around. Just me, working with the music and the motion, playing with emotion in myself. [boku? japanese dance form]

Is that sad? Perhaps. relationships only collegial. It is possible to have friends if we're working in similar ways, and swim and run friends.

[where is IBM's almaden research inst?] [inthose situations, like library yesterday, remember to respond with questions, not statements.]

To dance, yes. and I will again, when I have money and am secure in my work.

I will take classes in the most expressive forms on occasion and use them in my own work. [growth and suicide quotes on ea site? -later growth(personal)]

Of course, the friends issue will depend on the individual & circumstances, in grad school, academia, I should meet more of my kind.

back to (2)
***************
Fostering a cultural attitude, an exercise in social engineering.
******************************

operationally define the attitude.
explain why it is worth fostering.
explain how it will be fostered.

The attitude, 'an improving orientation' will be determined by answers to a questionnaire. Is the construct/concept valid? Correlation with other scales? Relation to other constructs?

What exactly is this attitude, and why is it so great? Am I combining it with a questioning attitude?
How did I get at it? A quality in myself that I think is my most important quality? That night talking with anne about my orientation? considering how to make an experience, in general, better for others? That questioning, that trying to figure out, how can I make it better? [write Rebecca sometime, although it probably won't be effective-- those are her thoughts, but make the suggestion, and ask about Asimov]

That day, visualizing what I wanted to be doing with others, how I wanted to be working with them.

Imagine more.
defining the ideal.
Let's discuss intention, and human history, and your own life.
Let's discuss great things, moving ideas, and the people behind them who made those wonderful experiences exist.
First, I (could have been done the time before, but assume this is one lecture or the first class- what would the unschooling way be?) want you to think for a while about the powerfully moving moments in your life, if there have been any. I will ask two questions, (1) How many of you can think of a moment that fits the description of a powerfully moving moment? (3) Who of those would feel comfortable describing that moment to the audience? (2)Can you suggest other ways of asking the question to get at whatever you might guess I'm getting at?

Now the last question is tough, given your lack of information, and short time to spend with it, but give it some time.

A powerfully moving moment in my life recently was seeing those kids playing. The other times are in the past, intense at the time, but far away now, and dampened by the ensuing experience. A better way to ask the question? I don't know what he's getting at, except that he's interested in great experiences?

O.k., My moving experience recently was watching some kids play in central park. It was moving because the movement and sounds of the children were so unusual, so joyful compared to anything I've seen for such a long time, I simply watched in wonder looking at the details of the scene, patterns of movement, and unusual movements.

O.k., can you think of an idea which in the learning about moved you, and why?

An Idea, was isaac asimovs description of beings highly senstive to, capable with, emotions.

moving to me because, the importance and relevance of emotional evaluation (over pure logic) was an important realization for me, and to see Asimov recognizing and taking a huge step forward in that area was wonderful, and also got me wondering if his vision is possible.

Should I ask for experiences or ideas? Ideas are a subset of experiences.

being in love with kyle, being sad at rebecca being gone - thanks randall for your help that night. [mgales?] Are these experiences hard to remember? The number of them deadens the peaks? My wiring is deteriorating? Mental and psychic powers? Tingly, exciting experience, my idea-- at last (tentatively) idealism.
Running to the top of the sawtooth mountains. That time windsurfing on the potamac, when it was bliss. We will not dwell on negative experiences. The dancer at neuchatel, the people around the lake, the day of decision in sweden. There is a greater autonomy.
Independence of decision.

O.k., so focus on ideas, concepts and the emotions, positive or negative on encountering them.

What motivation led to the expression of the idea that moved you?

And my point is that the individual is expressing something she believes is an improvement over the current state of affairs.

Well that didn't work, let's start over.


---

audience,
I am working on a question, which I'd like you to help me with.

Is there anyone here who considers him or herself a dreamer?
I'll give you a while to think about that. Do you know anyone who you might call a dreamer? What other ways could you refer to a dreamer? What synonyms or similar concepts might there be?

What do you think characterizes a dreamer? How could operationally define a dreamer? What do they do? Can you think of any examples of dreamers in history or in public life? Why do you think that term fits?

Do you dream? When? Why?

What do you dream about?

--
Am I right in saying , "Something better" ?

I think we're at the end of this stream and should break for now.
I do have something to work with in conversations with others.
keeping in mind:

operationally define the attitude.
explain why it is worth fostering.
explain how it will be fostered.
 
 --
 I'm back, and feeling a little better.
 a lot .
 
 Look up dreamer
 creativity (project zero)
 character education
 daydreaming
 imagining
 creative visualization
 erin's book.
 spend time thinking about the future.
 how would you like the world to be?
 How would you like your world to be?
 
 What is my goal, besides teaching and researching experiences I will enjoy?
To increase the amount of people with a dreaming, improving orientation.
That is it.
cultural diffs, creativity, cultural aliveness. I don't care about happiness, I'm looking for the improvers, the problem solvers, the ones who make our future for the dreaming improving, perhaps idealisic (stallman) motive.
What are the other human motivators that affect our future?
what shapes our future, and what influence will we have?
that is a class I'd like to teach/research to do.

addressing the vast aimlessness, cultural lack of direction, filling the void left by religion and tradition, assisting in the dynamic of the individual's world, life-view creation.
visualize world peas
how?
get them to visualize it
they need a feeling of success as well - success at finding their place
is the barometer their own experience?
How to evaluate success.

still don't know how to op def this and how to manipulate it.
oh well, for later.
love,
COlin


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