To Go Where Curiosity Leads

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

Okay, we’re going to be looking at a lot of ideas over the course of the next month or so. I guarantee that some of these ideas are going to be new to you, something that you have never considered before. Because of that, I already know that your mind’s normal defenses are going to dismiss some of these ideas before even giving them the option of consideration. This is precisely why many politicians say and do the things that they do. They feel the real need to pander to “people’s” predetermined beliefs. They tell us what we “want” to hear instead of what we “need” to hear, and that’s because we vote for what we “want” rather than what we “need.”

Over the course of the last several decades, through countless conversations with people all over this country, I have tried to determine how to help people to see things differently. It is not an easy job. And it is usually a very thankless job. Oh, I get an occasional “thank you, masked man,” but those only go so far and put little on the table. One thing that I have learned through these many experimental interchanges is that people have multiple levels of belief… We have the outer beliefs that we present to others as representative of our “who I am” and then we have the more inner beliefs, the ones that we actually act upon when we know that no one else will know what we’re doing (like in the voting booth).

Then there is an even deeper level of beliefs, the ones that comprise what Billy Joel calls “The Stranger.” These are the beliefs that more accurately determine our actions when we are confronted with a situation that requires an adrenaline response. They have developed over the years in deep, hidden response to situations and circumstances in our lives. The Stranger is someone that we shield from others and even often shield from ourselves. It’s a part of us that we refuse to admit is a part of us. Still deeper, however, is that belief system that is at our core. This is at a cellular level. This is not a belief system created by reaction to outer appearances, but rather it is an ageless belief system that recognizes its ties to the entire universe.

Whoa there, trigger. Am I getting a little too deep too fast for some of you? Well, I don’t want to lose any of you before we’re hardly out of the gate, so just let that be a seed planted for something that we’ll discuss in more detail later. Remember, as a Synergeticist it is my job to figure out how it all fits together, so you can count on the fact that before the election rolls around I will have connected all of the dots.

Once, while listening to a series of tapes of classes on the History of Metaphysics by Eric Butterworth, I heard him say, in reference to all of his institutional learning and studying, “you can’t imagine how long it took me to unlearn all of that crap.” I attended college for a couple of years back in the seventies, but finally got tired of it because almost everything they were trying to “teach” me seemed irrelevant as regards the real world of my experience. That said, and having exhausted my GI Educational Benefits. I stopped going to college, never to return (at least not so far). Anyway, I could relate to what Eric said. But the awareness that led him to make that claim was the result of his own lifelong educational process driven by his innate curiosity.

Bucky Fuller once told me that we are all born naked and ignorant. However, we have within us an inextinguishable fire of curiosity. And it is that driving desire to know and to understand that weaves the fabric of our lives. The first time I met Bucky I asked him for advice on what I might do with my life. I was fresh out of four years serving in the Navy and I wasn’t sure of what to do or how to go about doing it once I figured out what to do. What I was really asking him was, “should I go back to school?” Or was there another way to direct my life that he could recommend. His response: “Life itself is the greatest teacher.” It doesn’t matter what we do as long as we choose to do it and learn from the experiences and continue to make conscious wise choices throughout our lives.

So I went on later to do some college and to work for Corporate America, and to work at well over fifty different companies in my life, everything from the biggest (GM, IBM, IRS) to the smallest (me and my own ingenuity). And I maintained my curiosity, always searching for answers. It wasn’t always easy, for I had chosen a life that kept me just outside the “system.” So I don’t have a 401k or a pension plan. Of course, I don’t have to worry about losing them due to the greed of many in the corporate world. But because of that I have to solicit money from others from time to time because I’m not part of a system that “pays me automatically, no matter what I do.”

If you, on the other hand, have been a part of the system over the years, this is not intended to be a criticism of your choices. I have often wished that I could live a “normal life like everyone else.” Of course we all know how foolish that statement is. There is no such thing as normal and “everyone else” is a concept that falls apart once we start to get to know people. But what I’m saying is that there’s a part of me that sometimes misses some of the comforts that can come from working within the system. But I had long ago discovered that my greatest awareness came during those times that I was out of the system.

Over the years, in sharing ideas with people, I have met many folks who would counter what I have just said by claiming that they wish that they could live a life more like mine, full of the excitement and adventure of the unknown, rather than the assuredness of the comforts of the system. But folks, we can help each other here. I plan to share with you what I have discovered in my lifetime of living “outside the box” and I hope that you will share some of your “comfort” with me in the form of financial support.

So put on your seat belts and get ready for a wild ride. (Note: as I write this, my schedule for the next several days is packed, but I will endeavor to keep this blog up-to-date.)