More Resistance

This is a continuation on the drawing posted in February. And isn't there yet. I always see new problems when I post it. Watch for the change.

Perceptual Intelligence

The heartbreaking pictures of the devastation in Ukraine, can be seen as the world body wounded and broken. The ugliness of the destruction testifies to what Alan Watts once said. “Morality is the aesthetics of behavior.” We recoil as the harmony of a functioning society is being wantonly destroyed. The outbreaks of violence all over the world are grown out of a pathological model of realty that sees reality as a machine where everything is stuff that can be possessed and exploited. Not caring about the history or the people, lives are destroyed for access to resources. This attitude of seeing the planet as a giant pool of raw material to use up interferes with the balance of the all-inclusive organism of the planet. The disconnection and imbalance reflects a psychological imbalance grown from an alienated worldview. Chief Seattle said, “The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth”. Organic intelligence is alert to the health of the whole. Since everything is part of an intricate network of interrelated systems, staying aware of the totality is necessary to moving in harmony with the flow of being that’s happening all around us. This comes naturally if the underlying model of the universe includes us as part of an organic whole. If we’re disrupting other aspects of the overall system we’re like a cancer, growing without heed of the damage and pain we cause, sucking up vital resources without regard to the host. Much of what divides us and keeps us from acting together is imagery that places us outside of things, casting us as the one that tinkers with the machine. This is the same image as religion’s large-scale Maker, which also puts the traditional God outside of us. It is more sensible to think of ourselves as growing from the planet like all of nature, not made by something external. The Gaia Hypothesis came out decades ago. James Lovelock’s conception was of a self-regulating quality in the earth itself. Just like the adjustments made in our own body, it responds to imbalances. This universal motion of homeostasis exists on every level and in every system, adapting to change to restore equilibrium. Persisting in the belief in man’s dominion over the earth may lead to the earth itself wiping out the source of destruction, us. The materialistic world of separate things has resisted seeing our interconnectedness because it’s a threat to a competitive attitude. Accumulating and controlling more of the planet does not serve the good of the whole. The narrow sight lines of a competitive stance focus on the end result and miss many of the consequences of that single-mindedness. This is where looking at art can help. Art puts the emphasis on the whole and what it expresses. It tunes attention to the big picture, so important to a cooperative attitude that sees relationships in the specific contexts and not categories and labels. Collectively, our different perspectives offer more choices and possibilities for solving the serious problems that we should be facing together. Putting the many ideas of the group in service to the world body is a collective effort that could revolutionize the way we live together.

Blister of Hope

Learning from Nature

Though flowers in February still seems soon it feels good for things to be showing life again, to be able to sit outside with nature after so much time indoors. It’s not an indulgence. It’s good for my health. When I first picked up the book “Ecopsychology” in 1995, it was a new idea. Since then there have been more books and lots of studies about the benefits of nature for health. A paper from YaleEnvironment360 on ecopsychology pinned down a specific dose, 120 minutes a week in nature for improved health and well-being, from a study of 20,000 people. Traditionally it was thought that the benefits were visual and primarily psychological., but Japanese researchers believe that inhaling aerosols from trees increases the level of Natural Killer cells (NK) which fight tumors. Nature is a multisensory environment that allows us to feel part of it, immersed in the sounds and smells as well as the natural beauty. Many hospitals integrate nature and art with their landscaping, windows and interiors, because the benefits have been known for decades. Though the studies of similar effects looking at art showed that natural scenes worked better for mental health than abstraction, abstraction has such a range of possible feelings expressed it resists being treated as a category. I think the sense of harmony is most important. A very recent study showed that looking at fractal images was calming and theorized that fractals are like looking at nature, the same form at different scales, different size leaves on a tree like different iterations of the same computerized pattern. Its branching has similarities of form between systems of blood vessels and systems of waterflow on the earth’s surface. We are calmed by the harmony of similar form. It is through fractals that we see order in chaos and a world that is fully intertwined, repeating the same chords at every level of reality. It’s a matter of perspective. The benefits of attunement to nature include learning from nature’s design. It has inspired new ways to work with and draw inspiration from design in nature. An early example of biomimetic design was Velcro, inspired by the microscopic hooks founds on the burrs that stick to fur and clothes. The field has spread to competitive swimwear inspired by sharkskin and looking at spiders for designs for a Mars Rover. Looking at order in the seeming chaos is an issue of scale where order shows with the right perspective. Taking a step back is a phrase that recognizes the need for distance to get a broader view of a situation. There is so much fragmentation in our world right now. Finding a broader perspective could remind us of our connectedness.

Resistance

Diversity and Intelligence

“Wisdom is directly proportional to the size of the group whose well being it takes into account.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Evolving Self Gregory Bateson defined information as “the difference that makes a difference”. When a new bit of knowledge or experience actually changes the way we view the world, it enlarges the scope of our understanding. The world is full of untapped sources of knowledge from which to build a bigger picture of reality. No one view can see it all. Each individual story has something to teach us. When someone else’s background is radically different from our own, we can learn more than we might from someone similar to ourselves. Though it may feel good to have our view supported, growth requires variety. When something different feels true but challenges our view, we need to adjust our model. This is difficult and is why there’s often resistance to a new truth. Rejecting what doesn’t fit an existing view, using up intellectual resources in the effort to discredit what doesn’t match the existing outlook, is protecting a limited picture. The right/wrong way of seeing interferes with acquiring new information. To not get bogged down in defense of one way of seeing frees valuable mental resources for accommodating more, sometimes contradictory, ideas in the mind at once. This and a tolerance for uncertainty are characteristics of high intelligence that we would do well to cultivate. An appreciation of difference leads to the intellectual enrichment of us all as we come to understand how personal experience forms every individual viewpoint. An overview requires as many perspectives as possible. Prejudice regarding what’s different may start too young to remember, but looking at art from different groups can open up experience and be a pleasurable way to get to know another’s way of thinking and feeling. Understanding that every point of view produces valid assessments of some aspect of reality welcomes the many ways of seeing that have been ignored in a world where power has decided what is true. Diversity is important for a robust ecology of ideas. Just like a larger gene pool creates hybrid vigor strengthening survivability, so can a larger pool of ideas invigorate the world of mind. Restricting oneself to a limited group is restricting the growth of personal intelligence. Intelligence is increased by every different perspective added to our worldview. Problem-solving teams in a workplace were found to be more creative when there were different cultural backgrounds in the group, not just because of the different choices from the different experiences offered, but because everyone’s limits were loosened by the variety of approaches, everyone felt more free to think something new. In his book, In The Mind’s Eye, Thomas G. West suggests that the skill of the future won’t be having the right ideas, but ability to revise our thinking as new information flows in. He feels we need to develop “the ability to model reality in our mind” as an on-going project. Hanging on to one model of reality inhibits the ability to grow. Letting go of the idea of one worldview that holds for everyone makes it easier to ride the flow of proliferating information and adjust our image as necessary. Expanding perspective will bring wisdom to our approach to the future. In honor of Black History Month here are artists I love that help me see into another group’s perspective. 1-Njidedeka Akunyli Crosby 2- Henry Osawa Tanner 3- Huey Lee smith 4-Fabiola Jean-Lousie

Syncope