change Archives - Page 6 of 10 - Lisa Colón DeLay

The Myth of Ordinary Time

Do you have time to read this?

That may depend on what language you speak.

Have you ever felt like when you’re creating or otherwise “in the zone” you pass into a strange pocket in the space-time continuum (or whatever) where the passage of time appears to almost be standing still. Then, when you’re jolted from your pocket, you find that time has actually moved along far faster than you would have guessed.

That is likely what it’s like (all the time) for someone living near the equator. More on that in a moment.

There’s something about relativity here and we’ll unpack it.

Consider too, the other side. Sometimes you are very conscious of time maybe because you’re in a bad meeting or you’d rather be somewhere else and the hands on the wall clock seem to barely move. That is because you are perceiving time in relation to other things and not experiencing is as it passes.

So, it seems experienced time works in an eerily timeless way (having no easily determinable passage of time), and referred to time (Ex. “That man spoke for 20 minutes.”) is a measurement or qualifier of time, but not at all a direct experience of time. It refers to only a memory of certain period, but one that was not recognized necessarily in the moments in which it truly happened. Time is marked outside of itself. So…

Time is never really ordinary.

Perception is powerful. Here’s some potent proof.

Time near the Equator:

Residents of places near the equator experience time completely differently than people who live in temperate climates. You already know this to be true.

Maybe you’ve heard of “island time”…

…if you’ve ever vacationed on a warm tropical island, things just mosey along. Maybe things will get done and maybe not. People get to things when they do, or whatever. “Hey, Relax Mon”. It can be a hassle when you’re not used to it. However, time is literally experienced differently.

It’s not the heat bringing a lack of motivation. They are used to the heat. It’s not a mere lack of a work ethic. It’s not simply enjoying the weather too much to be bothered with revving up to tackle hectic things.

It turns out that the passage of time is harder to discern because markers are missing.

Most often, for humans, change punctuates time in our awareness.

An event (accident, holiday, birth, death, full moon, dawn, solar eclipse, victory, loss, etc.), or a change in weather are the most common markers. With more changes–especially ones that involve rain and snow, brilliant leaf color changes, or a blast of Spring blooming–that means that our perception of time’s passage are further clarified. Our memories are literally shaped differently and therefore our brains are, at the cellular level, wired differently. Perception is relative. Variety, repetition, and influence change the brain’s capturing of data which determines the comprehending of time. It affects the awareness people have and the activities people undertake.

Seasons, and the things that are attached to them (growing of food, for one example) make the ability to plan more perceptible and pronounced. Need to buy wheat seed for Spring in a few months? Better save now. Plants grow all-year-round? Then, nevermind.

Residents of equatorial climates do not experience the massive change in seasons, plus they do not experience the great shortening of daylight either. For them, unless they’ve been influenced by outsiders, the passage of time happens in the present. Right now, or it’s not really real.

For pole-dwellers (people living in the northern and southern regions of the globe) time is usually experienced two ways:

1. through remembering past events

(A locked down thing that doesn’t truly exist except in the mind)

2. through planning (projecting to the future to a not yet real time and place).

Pole-dwellers spend far less time–“Zen-like”–in the here and now.

In fact, being “stayed in the present” can be discredited as somehow wasteful by those who like to plan. Interesting argument of which is wasteful, and why, right?

For pole-dwellers it’s an ironic thing too, because if your mind is not attached to the present, you essentially are not fully aware of living at all in real-time…Instead you are aware of life passing in relation to something else. Time perhaps is more like a point on a map–over there–more than an experience. Perhaps a counterfeit experience compared to the real thing or real-time? I’m not sure.

Or on the other side, near the equator, planning might seem pointless or amorphous. A sort of figment.

• Living solely in the present has disadvantages too. It comes packaged with a (undetectable) lack of impetus that can help us make all manner of changes or improvements possible. The checkpoints are missing. Our interaction with time movement is different. It passes like “being in the zone” or perhaps like standing midstream in an ever-changing flow of water. Motion. Life is in real-time and un-captured.

• Living in the future or past (as I have been trained to do) is like staring off at fixed but ultimately untouchable points. Triangulation.

I mainly live in the “trigonometry of time”. Do you?

Certain cultures actually have no form of future tense.

(Did you absorb that?)

For them, there is no language or solid way to truly express or encapsulate something ahead of this very moment.

BOOM. That’s crazy different.

Sicilian and ancient Hebrew are just two examples.

Now brace yourself. If you haven’t guessed already…

Yes, that means anytime you hear the words “shall” or “will” in Jewish/Christian scripture you are hearing the imposition of your own cultural and linguistic bias placed onto the original text and meaning.

(Thinking of the implications could just blow your mind, right? Now, go ahead, open your Bible and find a few misleading verses and re-understand them.)

Note: New Testament Scripture was written in (ancient) Greek and does contain a future tense. It was however based on beliefs and texts of people who did not have a native reference to an equivalent future tense option nor the applied meaning future tense indicates, necessarily or at all.

Binary vs. the not yet
Often in equatorial geographic regions, there literally is no way to really say “I will work.” Instead it’s “I work.” Binary. Sometimes inflection is used to draw a sort of distinction or a qualifier, like referring to a (future) month or day. That’s a watered down communicative incident compared to the full use of future tense we take for granted in English, and the closest language to English: German.

The language difference has even been studied scientifically to see if things like breaking habits (like smoking), or the activity of saving or spending money, or gaining weight are different because of language. Click the link to see the results.

What are some of your thoughts on the passage of time, future tense, or living right now?
Whew. Ice pack for my brain, please.

IF this post was interesting, please like or share it…now. (In real time.) :)

Update on the Time Machine

Interested in Time Travelers Mints?
CLICK HERE.

Time to give you a tiny glimpse of what’s going on behind the scenes. (an update)

I’m building a time travel machine, as some of you know.

Well, sort of. That sounds really grand to say “I’m building a time machine”. It seems like it should involve a Delorean. It doesn’t. That’s just the movies. Real time travel is painstaking and boring hard work, like everything else that is a meaningful project.

OFFICIAL UPDATE:
So far, in the initial first tests the “machine” takes you back in time to a beautiful day or forward in time to a day with very poor weather. You can’t pick the day.

I was surprised and, to be honest, disappointed by that bit. I’m a novice at this stuff (obviously) and I got more than a few of my calculations and instrumentation configurations dead wrong. Correcting it completely could take nuclear power, and I just don’t have the resources for that…yet.

I’ve had to become more resourceful.

(This is another reason why my jetpack work got sidetracked in late summer. Shortly after learning to weld a mishap with a grey squirrel, a metal harshness and headset, and a PVC cannon style concept went awry, I settled in for a long, but probably safer, haul with short interval time traveling work and animals without bushy tails.

But, back to the weather travel.
Yes, I was hoping for a time machine in the strict sense, but maybe this glitch has happened for a reason. I do prefer late Spring to November weather. I’m still working on it and I have several other prototypes in the works too of varying sizes and capacities. All of it is in the very early stages.

Let me be clear:
I don’t have all the kinks worked out, and I haven’t actually traveled in time, personally, because I’ve been too frightening of being caught in bad weather with no chance of escape back to my own time, or of being stuck in the past on a gorgeous day. Never returning to family and friends isn’t something I’m up for, even on a good day.

I’ve been able to visually see and document what is happening through the power of properly placed technology (sort of like a periscope and a camera thing with some twisty bread ties and hot mess of petroleum jelly), but I haven’t made any trips yet myself. It’s risky, so I’m sure you understand.

Early RESULTS:
The test data seems to indicate that time travel occurred for about 11 seconds, until it didn’t.

Now before you are tempted to mock me because that is a rather meager number, I’ll remind you that the Wright Brothers only flew off the ground in the skeletal airplane-tpye contraption for just 11 seconds and everyone thought it was a very big deal.

Besides, I don’t want to get caught up in the hubris of mentioning statistics or worse: starting to show off, and besting myself as my own worst enemy. (For instance, listing the seconds as they increase during each trial, when they happen to. This could easily lead to emotional elation followed by terrible despair–the ruin of many creative people. Also I don’t want to shift my thinking to inadvertently assume I’m doing all of this just for your approval, and it could come to that.)

Again, it’s still early into the project.

The point is to stay focused and refine the instruments the best I can.

I’m documenting all the stories of my work, travels (or near-travels), and mishaps, and I’ll be sharing them with you in a collection in a few months (via a Kindle Book). God willing and if I don’t blow up…

or change my mind.

Now for the best part.
I’m synchronously building a few contraptions –one-off pieces– and other related ephemera for your own adventures, your personal collection of unusual things, or conversational props you can take out at cocktail parties. There will be a Kickstarter campaign to dole those out. More on that in time, so to speak. I’d like to see if it works out first in the future before I actually do it. But, if I can’t lengthen the traveling to a few months into the future to know, this will not be possible. Presently, that sort of result is “iffy” at best. I may just risk it anyhow. Clearly, I’m debating it with myself.

FOR FURTHER UPDATES
Tweets and reports to Facebook will be sent out from time-to-time using the hashtag #weathertravel.

If you want to keep up with the project or view the occasional pictures, see the occasional video, or learn when the items will be up for grabs search that hashtag. [Also my email list will get updates, so that’s another option, if you’d like to sign up in the side bar.] Many of the items will also come with their backstory included and written out for your amusement and records in short form. It will also include any usual related situations associated with it. There’s one about a prairie dog and a whiskey flask, for instance.

Another particular item is a ring device. It looks like jewelry but it is a non lethal (I think) mini travel device. I hope to get a photo up of it soon once it’s ready. It’s not as powerful as the bigger pieces, as you might imagine, but I think you’ll like it.

Essay: Is Blogging like Ginsberg’s “Howl” and Nano Pop?

It seems like good writing, the kind of rewrites, and reflection, and deliberation is in short supply, chiefly in the blogosphere and the slapdash sphere of most internet magazines. This post will reflect that flavor too. It will seem to you to (mostly) mirror what I am critiquing. It may seem instant or undercooked. It is caught in the vortex of the medium. I won’t pretend otherwise.

But, it’s also a start.

Blogs, we recall were so-named as a combination (or perhaps even slang) of the words Website and Log. An online record of passing thoughts captured in 1s and 0s for internet reader consumption. Outdated posts not recycled as fish wrapper but buried deep under a mountain of newer posts, like digital tels. The more content the more recognition, so say the experts. Plus, the all-important the SEO. We can’t forget that.

Or, at the very least blogs were and are a chance to make a mark on the world, or to a few friends with knowledge of your URL. Are they more than this? Are they less? (You can tell me in the comments section. I’m working the system.)

The Heights
And we have too-often elevated them to a place inappropriate. At times confusing there position–determining what is prolific to be paramount. Though airy they shimmy under their own weight more than they don’t. But with their own magic, they may sting or bite. They may incite vibrant feuds that recall schoolyard antics–digital spilt lips. They may seem like a sand lot variety of King of the Mountain, riffing on zingers and cultural assertions. Though not long after, they reek of the “My dad can beat up your dad!” slurs. And these too gain vigor as referenced links in posts fueling more of the same. (I won’t give you links. You probably already know of some.)

Blog posts, plentiful like the sands on our cultural shore-scape have piled up like dunes but don’t seem to become a bulwark–an art form like a Pulitzer article, or piece of superb literature, or even a good film. There are some rare exceptions and there are some blog postings that somehow change lives.

More often though something vital is traded for the speed and convenience of the quick write-up. I’m stating the obvious, right?

What is it really?
Like instant coffee, the full-bodied flavor textures and aromas of this medium don’t quite work. Chronically under-brewed, the bulk of the speedily-penned internet articles too reveal not just slapped together writing but the slapped-together thinking ungirding it. We are awash in sloppiness. I don’t exclude myself either.

The passion and angst of any given post may drown out this feature and we may be convinced that we have meat to chew on, that is, until we read really good writing.

Maybe a precise poem, birthed not just from suffering or bliss or insight but from the careful gathering of words like seed beads and the arranging of them like art and embellished patterns on a long gown of societal topography.

Maybe a travel article written not for the rushed, tired, and ravenous tourist consumer, but for the person who truly wonders about other cultures and ways of being human in distant regions. A piece of craft that may include the underlying philosophies escaping the mind of a deeply thoughtful and curious person who can and does take the time. Here there is peace of a certain kind that never makes its way properly to Facebook.

Survival
Will the banter or the sarcasm of blogging (and commenting) last through the arc of observable time, at all?

Will it survive weeks, years, decades, after the refinement of reflection and chronological distance makes its way down through it like canyon whitewater? Or will blog posts be captured digital bits of immature polemics, impolitic reverie, and dated fervor of a begone time, like Allen Ginsberg ‘s once criminally obscene 1955 poem Howl reads for us now? A once-debauched and revolutionary vocalization now a kind of caricature of a ruckus time; now a relic of a frenzied, outlying beat–a strange light from a olden day.

Will blogging be frittered like a summering free-love hippie of this time in the Connection and Communication Age, rendered not in the insensate fog of drugs, but in the fever of hot blithering and the lechery of notoriety.

What will be the classic (masterly) posts of blogs from our era, if any? What will be the wheat amongst all the gusting chaff?

Where will there be instead that lasts? Perhaps commentaries well-researched and produced in a arduous string of revisions and heartache and a probing of not just of the topic by of the writer’s own inner world. Questions and ideas that could perhaps give voice to something true, useful, universal and somehow everlasting? The shoulders to stand on.

Archival
Will blog posts be like cultural postcards, the scraps from a newly-formed, digital age whose populace didn’t yet crave more than boilerplate reports and passing thoughts? Tweets like echoes of something that mattered. Facebook the endless ticker cataloguing our lives in bits and bytes.

What, if anything, in this blogosphere and this ephemeral epoch will collese and age like well-kept merlot for future readers in future times? Things truly enjoyable and worth saving? Something, say, for high school English classes to ponder 20 years removed?

The postings might go bleached like Polaroids, capturing in anemic hues a snap swatch; the evanescent blush of the solipsistic maiden: the early 2000s cultural zeitgeist.

Not Warhol’s Pop but something slimmer.

To coin a term: Nano-Pop.

# # #

I’d love your links to blog articles that you feel will not just stand the test of time, but may well be considered paragon of blog posting as a literary art form in our times. If you can find any, please put them in the comments section.

Why not get direct delivery of the next post? Click in the sidebar to be included.

Thanks for reading today.

-Lisa

10 Misconceptions Christians have about non believers

DUCKMARX via Compfight

This might read heavy because I’m confronting some pervasive concepts. It’s like I’m playing the heavy, but try to read it in a gracious spirit because it is meant to bring clarity not conflict. Plus, I have a damp sense of humor [not too wet and not super dry either] so take that into account. Chill and stuff.

Okay, buckle in for the bit of Groundwork:

First, from my end, I make no secret here that I see things from the paradigm of a Christian worldview. This has been my family background, my life experience, and the central feature in my graduate education. That’s my lens.

In having a lens I’m not alone. In fact, every one sees reality through his or her own lens, but not everyone will really investigate and coordinate their worldview in a consistent way. I won’t either, not because I’m not making an effort, but because seeing the task to completion is so massive and unwieldy. As I approach this topic I come with a vatanage point…and so do you.

We can take as a given:
Our beliefs will cloud our perceptions and our perceptions will work to evidence our already held beliefs–except in rare cases where we make a focused and conscious effort to consider or accept another point of view. Those cases are quite rare because we tend to use our life experiences to back up what we already think is true. (I’m reiterating.) So, when a change happens–it can be big. This is essentially how the Christian idea of “conversion” plays out too: A person is thinking one thing about reality, and somehow becomes convinced of something else and has a turnaround to something new. Christians would also say God had a direct part in igniting that process.

Peeking outside the Bubble:
In learning more about the people outside the Christian belief “bubble,” I’ve noticed that plenty of my assumptions about non Christians were flawed, false, or incomplete. Other times, I’ve noticed that while some of these perceptions may ring true at first blush, they more often reflect a universal truth about what it means to be human, (and do not effectively describe the group that doesn’t ascribe to the Christian belief system.)

The 10 misconceptions are things that many Christians want to be true. If they are not it could convince them that Christianity doesn’t provide the best answers. This fear can cause people to be even more unreasonable or averse to mystery…even though Christianity is chocked full of mystery. I’ve come to a place where I am more settled with mystery.

Christianity provides a framework for me, and everyone has a framework whether they know it or not and whether they like it or not. Christianity takes many shapes in different eras and in different cultures. Since I came from a conservative fundamentalist background I first saw the world through that lens. I haven’t retained all those same beliefs. Now the beliefs I ascribe to are not as important as the person I am becoming. Jesus as God-man is plausible and that is fine for me. For others, that simply will not be enough. For non Christians it will be too narrow for their spirituality. I also realize that Christians may sometimes perpetuate myths for an imperious framework needed to maintain fervency.

Better that we see these misconceptions for what they are than run afoul with them and forget whose image is the object of our recreation. (That would be Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, if you aren’t following me.) I give you these misconceptions to expand your ideas about the Christian framework and how it can help more than hurt.

Now to the 10 Misconceptions:

1. Non believers aren’t spiritual, or at best they are pseudo spiritual.

This is false because the amount of mystery and the unknown in life as we perceive it (being finite in mind and body) all point to the spiritual (the unseen). What is pseudo spiritual to some is more likely to be something that smacks as out of sync with one’s prescribed Christian beliefs. We are all spiritual and what we try to understand outside of we what is know is be definition spiritual, whether is a referred at that or not. The interest in spiritual things has been vibrant throughout human history as long as we have been trying to understanding our world. The “brand” (if you will) of spiritual that is may be may be off-putting depending on your experience, training, or preferences. Ex: “Using Tarot cards is pseudo spiritual.” Actually, using them is an attempt to understand the spiritual, but for Christians it falls outside the scope of what is acceptable because of the tenants residing in the Bible.

2. Non believers aren’t happy because they don’t know Jesus.

This is a complex and interesting misconception because it assumes that Christians are happy, by contrast. Many are not. Many are miserable and their Christian belief system has not given them this happiness. Christians may behave as if they are discontent or unhappy also. Certainly some Christians are content and at peace for periods of time, and some are remarkably hopeful and peaceful is even the most horrible circumstances. Nevertheless this is also true of non Christians.

3. Non believers do good things to “get them to heaven”, or to otherwise alleviate their sin-guilt.

What is more often the case is that people (Christian and non) try to do good things because they feel they should. Their motivations are quite varied and prove to be shallow or to be deep. Christians, though they may feel their eternal destiny is secure, will do good things sometimes for reasons just as poorly conceived as non believers. Strangely, it can boil down, in the final count, to semantics. It’s false to guess the true motivations of why people do good. Better to do Good for the love of it and accept the good at face value as it can only be originally sourced in the Source of goodness–apart from whom no goodness dwells. The idea that actual goodness cannot come from non Christians contradicts the Christian precept that a good God has created all of us and that same God works through all of creation, (and even those who do not knowledge “him”.)

4. Non believers can’t have peace with God.

For Christians, peace with God usually looks like a publicly confessed accession to the belief that Jesus is the Savior who died for the sins of humankind (i.e. somehow understanding atonement). But, in general, peace with God is probably as varied as there are people in the world. Grace is sufficient and comes in a manner of ways that point to the ultimate work of Grace that is of and from God. If by peace we are really speaking of contentment, and not atonement, then many do arrive at peace with God at some point in their lives. Many also arrive at a place of grace and forgiveness as it is God’s prerogative how this happens. The very idea of grace necessitates that a mental ascension is not the crux of the matter at all. Sometimes it is not at all involved as any modicum of studying a Christian theology of (mental) disability will reveal. Grace does not require anything on the part of the recipient accept perhaps a sort of acceptance. What that does or doesn’t have to be has be a rueful point over the years but is actually quite simple and easy if we are to believe in its true nature.

5. Non believers have misperceptions about reality and their place in the world.

Our finite minds give each person the opportunity to routinely misperceive reality, regardless of her beliefs in Jesus or God. No one has the corner on this problem. We share our foolishness in this regard across the whole spectrum of humankind. To think otherwise is to underscore the misperception.

Since this post is getting too long, the next 5 misconceptions will be revealed in the next post-here.

Thanks for reading!

Pass this along, will you?

Do you agree? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Thinking Class: 1st session

(POSTER BELOW)

I look around at the wars of words, the polarizing gridlock that has shutdown the Federal government (as if that could truly happen) and listen to talking heads both liberal and non liberal spew illogical nonsense. But then I realize! Most of what I hear is illogical and most arguments are irrational.

Let me explain.

Most things people say are opinions and are therefore unreasonable (in the true sense of the word: “lacking reason”). Because opinions tend to be based on emotions or other arbitrary factors they lack logic. In two to four seconds on any cable news station you’ll hear it.

This situation becomes even more apparent as you learn Critical Thinking formally.

When I learned about critical thinking and logical fallacies in depth in graduate school, I thought, why didn’t they teach us how to think in high school or at least in liberal arts university? (I mean isn’t the whole point of education to help you to think better? Apparently not…Silly me.)

So, yes. We literally are not taught to think well. Usefully. Thoughtfully.

That’s because it turns out that teaching people how to think independently is wildly dangerous and threatening. (Crazy, right?!)

It can upset the balance of power. That means it’s considered far better to cultivate “sheep” that follow the herd directed by the powerful instead of helping people think well using critical methods. So, we have the predicament best epitomized on cable news. Screaming and hysteria and irrational arguments aplenty! The crazies are running everything it seems.

When we stop simply believing what we are told and follow a true logical format to discover main arguments or separate opinion from facts, it can cause…wait for it…thoughtful questioning. Empires have fallen for less than that!

Critical thinking is rare and utilizing it may necessitate that answers involve reason. Serious repercussions indeed!

Why would a school (or any group exerting power) purposefully put itself in a position to be knocked off its pins by newly rational thinkers? Well, they avoid that very thing. The point is to engender obedience and conformity: Teach people in a (factory-style) system that gets them to think how we want them to and agree with us, otherwise it’s anarchy, and we can’t have that!

(See why thinking well is so rare?)

Imagine: What if you think something out of sync with your club, church, political party, or social sphere? Look out. A bumper crop of fallacies will likely be lobed at you like poop grenades! You are SUPPOSED to keep in line. Gosh, duh…you are not accepted for your ability to think outside the expectations and presuppositions of your group. So, remember, if you plan to use critical thinking be prepared to be demonized.

The worst threat of all for anyone in power is to encourage independent thinking, let alone teach it. Learning logical fallacies can lead to innovation and change and much apple cart upsetting. It’s a threat to media outlets, propagandists, governments, authorities, parents, policemen, and nearly every institution.

Below is the first poster I designed to teach (critical) thinking. Stayed tuned for more coming in the next few days.

If you’d like more people to learn how to think better, pass it along.

It could help someone.

(click to enlarge)

Click here for an extensive list of fallacies.

To see the other posters I’ve done on fallacies, use the sidebar and search for “logical”