Disruption

World in a Face

Reflecting on Paul Ekman’s study of facial expressions, it occurred to me that there is an enormous amount of information we receive throughout the day that goes largely unrecognized. Since we recognize thousands of expressions its likely we notice a wide variety during an interaction with someone that accumulate into a sense of our overall impression of what their mood was that day. Then I wondered about the range of expressions a parent makes in reaction to their child. So much focus on behaviors is leaving out the background of smiles shifting to concern or irritation hidden by smiles. Ekman’s book details how we assemble a sense of the feeling with the unconscious perception of micro-expressions. After reading about this, I recorded a debate then watched it in slow motion and was astonished at what showed between the controlled expressions. To what degree are our insecurities seeded by the flow of reactions we see on a parent’s face? Facial expressions led me to some of my current passions. It was Bjorn Borg’s facial expression filling the screen that first sucked me into watching tennis, his look of intense almost predatory focus. What it took to be there showed in his face. To be so close to that moment with him felt nearer to holy than any other word that comes to mind. I’m always inspired by tennis. Resonating with that level of dedication strengthens my own. The danger comes when we try to label facial expression. Our own confidence or insecurities often misinterpret the look on someone’s face. When I first started teaching, I was very insecure and interpreted students’ expressions in a variety of negative ways. Then one lunch hour I walked through the student lounge area and saw a student whose look I’d interpreted badly, wearing the same look in a group of her friends. The look was not personal. She did look sad. I understood the feeling but not the meaning. Looking at art can help us fine tune our perceptions with universal feelings, the heart of being human. Art drawn from the depths of an artist sensitizes the viewer to their own depths, providing a safe space to reflect on what’s often hidden. A non-clinical way to unlock personal psychology, we gravitate toward what calls to us in that moment. Resonance with facial expressions is stimulating each viewer’s understanding of that feeling, no words involved. The last few times I’ve been in the Baltimore Museum of Art the African masks stirred something deep in me that had been available but neglected. In the room of eighteenth-century portraits, I gravitated toward the ones that showed a sensitive soul trapped in layers of privilege. The communication in a facial expression can cut through the superficial and show a meaning that isn’t said.

Overwhelm

Beauty Heals

After a bad couple of weeks, it can be hard to get out of the turbulence of worry and obligation that continue to afflict the mind when it seems like the troubles will just keep coming. So when my brother suggested a trip to Longwood Gardens, even though most of me wanted to hide at home to avoid any more possible mishaps, I agreed, knowing it would be good for me. And it was. So many tulips in differently shaped and organized beds, kinds I’d never seen before and some so strange you wondered what was evolution thinking. Every part of the garden was perfectly kept, the arrangements of different flowers and plants flowing in harmony. Never throughout the day did I think about my troubles. Time in nature is known to be healing, and the careful cultivation of these gardens was inspiring. Beauty takes a person out of themselves, diminishing self-consciousness and cleansing the mind for a time. Tulips have always been special to me because of my memories of my grandfather being with the family when we would go to Sherwood Gardens in tulip season after church. That was when he was minister at St John’s Methodist Church nearby and he was the magnetic north of my heart, how I wanted to be. He had what I know now know is equanimity and a sense of humor, beautiful in temperament and behavior, a demonstration of the connection between beauty and goodness. So often discussion of beauty is confined to physical appearance, an arrangement of features, what Ram Dass would call the package, not the essence. Krishnamurti said a lovely face without love is ugly. I’ve seen people with perfect symmetrical features twist them out of shape with a snide expression and people animated by joy to glow. Perhaps it is the lack of love in the hearts of so many that allows people to thoughtlessly destroy beauty, of the earth, of relations between neighbors, of justice. Justice depends on correct proportions which is also true of beauty. Beauty my underlie our moral judgments, determining the unjust, unfair and destructive, ugly. Vanity blinds individuals to their ugly actions and choices. Beauty stimulates the beauty within because that is what recognizes it. Art builds sensitivity to beauty. We connect to the feelings expressed in an image and grow in our responsiveness. AI can make amazing images but can’t replicate human feeling. Only artists can keep the depths alive to educate our feeling nature, sense of appreciation and awareness of the feelings of others to move in harmony with our world.

Misguided Energies

Speculating on Consciousness

After reading an article in Scientific American about 29 competing theories of consciousness, I was both glad attention was being given to this important aspect of human experience but also felt strongly that more radical speculation is still necessary. As J. Krishnamurti said in one of his dialogues, “An intelligent mind is a mind that is not satisfied with explanations.’ Encouraging speculative thinking might build a rounder picture of a subject by interlacing what might have been considered tangential into a more three-dimensional view, a bigger picture. Even outrageous ideas, too wild to be credible, might spur ideas in someone else that use some of the same thought or relationships. The article had an information graphic that showed at a glance which theories focused on which aspect of consciousness and to what degree. How much I understood just from the diagrams helped me zero in on the ones with particular interest. This suggests to me that approaching consciousness with more visual mapping of relationships could offer more scope to understanding. Visualization is useful in showing how it all works together, the interlacing of information with the changing weather of mood and emotion. Linear explanation is not enough for the complexity of the subject. Perhaps we are one frequency band on a cosmic spectrum that includes all frequencies. One person that experienced a Near Death Experience said it was like slipping to one side, not going somewhere but still being there on a different frequency. The final words of a guru to disciples imploring him not to die and leave them comes to mind. He said “Don’t be silly. Where would I go?” Sri Aurobindo and others have suggested that consciousness has layers, planes attuned to particular kinds of awareness. The ability to shift states of awareness not only exists within an individual but could be expanded into a whole mind awareness beyond the personal. Speculation is needed in a time when the range of ideas and opinions has narrowed to only a handful of choices regarding the big ideas of being. Anything beyond mechanistic explanations has been taboo. Maybe let research examine older ideas, where consciousness enters the mind going back to Descartes and the Pineal gland, this singular center that regulates cycles. There’s been a suggestion that there is a regular wave that runs back to front in the brain. What might that be doing? Or opening channels with the universal ideas beneath all spiritual traditions o see if some of the metaphors cast light on areas science can investigate. Allowing a looser play of thoughts that doesn’t dismiss what’s outside current dogma could create space for more ideas with insight into consciousness.

Low-Grade Anxieties