Consciousness

I've tried to think at times about how we've changed in the years I've been around to see it. A mere six decades isn't much in the scheme of things, and human nature changes slowly. But an awful lot has happened, and I think there are times when change happens more quickly. Some of the most fundamental changes happened in the first half of the twentieth century, just as I was appearing on the scene. But I could make a pretty good argument that there's been more dynamic changes for the human race in the last sixty years than ever before, probably far more. And we've been changed by it, in ways we're still evaluating.

I'm not sure I can do justice to this topic this evening. Not the very best day, health-wise. Doctor visit. New round of meds, starting all over, that's no fun, and I'm not feeling that great, but I'll get better. I'll try to finish this tomorrow.

Well, that was fun. I'm feeling a little better, so let's give this a shot. Consciousness. Funny how that's one of the things we think least clearly about. My generation grew into adulthood while engaging some big questions about the nature of consciousness. I was in college during the Vietnam War era. I led protests, including a large one after the Kent State shootings. Interesting story for later. I lived in Greenwich Village in the Sixties and Seventies, and partook (I looked it up, that's the right word) of all the good, and some of the bad, things that Greenwich Village had to offer during that time. It was amazing! From there eventually to Microsoft and the cutting edge technology mindset, I've seen a lot of Consciousness in this era up close and personal, and overall, I'd say there's a lot of positives in our Progress Report for the last sixty years. We haven't changed human nature very much, but I think we see it much, much more clearly, and in exponentially increasing numbers. That's really quite a statement when you think about it, and I believe it, don't you?

Talking about Consciousness, I'm taking occasional license to ramble, in a stream-of sort of way. You, Dear Reader, might wonder why you should bother to follow any of this. Well, that's up to you, for the most part, but I'll give you one assurance, and all I can do is ask you to trust me on this: I am always trying to tell the absolute truth as best I know it. If I make a mistake, I will try to correct it. I think our Consciousness has been harmed by the ubiquity of lies we've had to contend with, and if you've caught any of the tone of these blogs, none of it makes any sense if I'm dishonest. I'm too old to lie, people. No point in it.

(Rambling again.) There's a little story about me that will help prove my point. I don't really want to make this blog too personal, except in a Zen sort of way, but on occasion, I think it's ok. This happened a long time ago. I was living in Manhattan with my wife, and I cheated on her. That was a stupid, lousy thing to do, and I'm not proud of it. It did indeed end up destroying the marriage, and I knew what I'd done long before the actual divorce. Ironically, I was starring in a small production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible at the time, and got much too caught up in the charms of one of my co-stars. The lead character in that play is John Proctor, whose situation had a fascinating parallel with my real life (and with the actress who played the lover in the play), and I've thought about that often since then. John Proctor's tragedy was that of broken trust, and so was mine. It gave me a very profound sense of the importance of trust. I vowed afterwards that I would never compromise my honesty in any way. For me, it's how I can hold my head up in the world, and it really has been the guiding principle of my life ever since. You don't have to believe me, but it might help if you know that Honest is something I've been working on for a long time.

So. Consciousness.

We still have a lot of misconceptions about Consciousness. In Greenwich Village, the thing you wanted to do was alter it. That had its moments, believe me, and you might think with zazen I'm still trying to alter Consciousness, but I think you'd miss the point. By now, I've learned to be fully content with the Consciousness I've already got, thank you very much. I'm not looking to alter it any more. (Ok, well, at least not in the current context.) I don't think Zen is about "altering Consciousness" at all. It's just about taking the time to stop and calm down for a minute, that's all. We really need to do that on a regular basis, and we'll all think more clearly. Most Westerners haven't figured this out yet, but that's really all there is to it. Zen de-mystified! So, what's "Zen Enlightenment", then? I've already said that. It's "love thy neighbor as thyself" with all your heart. 'Nuff said.

OK, so has our Consciousness changed in the last sixty years? Good grief, yes, don't you think so? There's so much to consider on this topic. We've seen education improvements for massive population groups, staggering proliferation of information through print, television and digital media. We've altered Consciousness in ways we hardly dreamed of even in Chelsea. Exhilarating, confusing, overwhelming, that's been the times we've lived in. Now, at long last, the Hippies are starting to retire. I'm a little ahead of the pack, due to my condition. I've been struck by the thought I'm a bit like the canary in the mine. My generation has been really, really smart (and vice versa) in many ways, but so many of us have gravitated to intense careers such as I've had at Microsoft. I've been aware of the world, but just through a narrow window while my professional life took precedence, and took over, for the most part. Now that I have some time, and have looked around to get a better idea of what's really been going on, it's pretty shocking. Those of you who are still too busy with your life, especially those who are close to my age, make sure you're sitting down when it all sinks in. There are momentous issues on the table right now, and, if we survive long enough for the bulk of my generation to retire, I think we're going to have a whole lot of people in this country waking up to what's going on with a "WTF???" I'm just telling you. I thought I was on top of things, I saw through Bush and all that, but oh man, I didn't know. We got problems.

If we can just hang on, though, this Consciousness gives us a lot of reason for hope. If we can keep the lines open, there is information available in this still-gloriously-free society, that will lift some serious scales from our aging eyes. My generation is going to see through so much of the sham and nonsense of this age, to a degree I'm not sure we can even begin to imagine. I really predict this, write it down. My generation will reinvigorate its quest for the truth as the demands of career wind down, and there are truths within our grasp so beautiful, I have no words.

I try to comment here about our search for truth and meaning, and shed any light I'm able to on how to overcome some of the hurdles placed in our path. I'm being so inspired right now by the writings of Noam Chomsky, as I've been saying, and I still have much study to do before I can really claim to have enough command of his broad-ranging knowledge to treat it responsibly, but it's a revelation to see how minds like Chomsky's can bring us closer to really understanding the forces that shape our lives. It's very significant that he brings the linguistic discipline to this task, because that discipline helps immensely to keep him honest and objective, even scientific in his approach when possible. There are other minds, of course, and the more I can grasp of the language of Chomsky, the more accessible will those other minds become. I only know English, to my shame, but I know many languages. I am an expert in C++, which contributed to expertise in C#, VB, and so on. Understanding one language can lead to many others.

We've come a long way, and we've helped to place our own roadblocks to bar the path ahead. We're still making war, and lying, and raping the earth. We may last until my generation retires, but we may not. Just to let you know, though, if we make it, if we have time to sit down and take stock for a minute, look out!