Just Blocked: Allowing the Fractal
God as a Fractal
Mind the Gap
Field Study
Fractal Flow Learning
Life Path Curriculum
|
Just Blocked: Allowing the Fractal
(with the accent of Andy Rooney from the TV Magazine 60 Minutes)
"Procrastination is a thief...and it will rob you."
--Anonymous
Lately I've been thinking about topics related to procrastination and, in particular, the word "blocked."
The word "block" might refer to a city block, a block of time in a
schedule, a child's play blocks which get stacked up and topple over, or
even someone you know who you think of as a "block-head."
But the block I'm refering to is "being/feeling blocked."
In touchy-feely, New Agey Northern California you might over hear, while sipping a Vanilla Soy Doppio Latte at the Mill Valley Sufficient Grounds
Cafe, a person say to their friend, "I feel like my energy has been blocked lately,
so I did this amazing weekend workshop called the Mother Wave Insight Communication Course" and now my energy feels less blocked!"
The term "blocked," while a hackneyed and vague term, is a simplification of an experience that we, as humans, deal with in some form or another on a day to day basis.
How might we translate this idea of "blocked" for those who prefer more
traditional, and, in many cases, more scientifically rigorous terminology?
Daniel Goleman, author and writier for the New York Times, explains in his best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence that the equally touchy-feely term "flow" can be thought of and described as "the neurobiology of
excellence." He then goes on to explain, on the synaptic level, what a state of
"flow" might be like for writers, athletes, and those who "flow with emotional intelligence and brilliance."
You can almost see those more traditional east coast academics raising
their eyebrows in a moment of open-mindedness upon reading Goleman's
translation.
A semantic bridge has been made from the less traditional to their more traditional worlds.
"Flow" is analagous to being "unblocked."
For the sake of brevity, I will focus on the phenomenon of "being
blocked" with respect to writing, speaking, and reading.
Writers know all too well the experience of having writer's block. There
are a multitude, a plurality, a google, a goodleplex, indeed a
horniplenty of reasons one might be afflicted with writer's block.
One might be under pressure, annoyed by a nagging thought about someone
in their life, uninspired by the topic about which they must write, or
even caught up in the vicious (or, for that matter pleasant) cycle
of some sort of fixation or fantasy.
However, when a deadline approaches, having writer's block is
just no fun.
How does a blocked writer get back into "the flow?"
There are a number of books that exist on just that subject. Their
advice range from taking time to breathe, doing a ritual, or even
something as practical as remembering that you don't have to start at the
"beginning" every time; sometimes it is best to start in the middle, in
the same sense that it is often wise to skip a question you don't
understand on the SAT or GRE stadardized tests. These strategies are
available in many books on the topic of "writer unblocking strategies."
A second kind of block might be called "speaker's block."
Speaker's block is characterized, for example, by a self-imposed fear
that one might say the "wrong" thing. They might fear being judged. They
might be distracted by what they think they "should" say. They might
listen too much to their own internal dialogue rather than the other
person's last comment or the next logical extension of their talk. The reason might even be more psysiological or even at times manifest as a form of stuttering.
There are probably just as many books out there about getting over
speaker's block, including self assurance quotes such as "Just remember
that when a poll is taken, people's second greatest fear is death, but
their number one fear is public speaking." Another remedy to speaker's
block might be "just imagine that your audience is naked."
A third type of block is "reader's block."
You know the feeling--you have something you must read, perhaps for a
class about which you have a deplorable lack of curiosity and/or
interest. You read the paragraph once...then again...then again. Your mind just
will not concentrate--you cannot get your mind off of the Haggen-Dasz
Chocolate Chocalate Chip Ice Cream, or whether you should risk calling
that person with whom you really want to go out on a date.
The same kinds of "blockedness" also apply to reader's block.
Recently I had an insight, a little moment of wisdom, an "Of Course!" about the
connection between meditation, writing, speaking and reading.
I recently spoke with someone who, as a child, was diagnosed as having
Dyslexia. The way her Dyslexia manifested was that when she looked at a
sentence on a page, she sometimes read the second half of the sentence
first. The jumbled words made it difficult for her to retain the meaning of the passage.
However, she has recently had a breakthrough.
One of her recent practices has been meditation and the sometimes
arduous practice of quieting, stilling, and pacifying the mind--bringing it
to what many students of meditation refer to as "equanimity."
As Reb Anderson from Green Gulch Zen Farm sais, the challenge of
meditation is to "just sit." Not sitting to get anywhere, not sitting to
rest, not sitting to get to calm, not sitting to reach enlightenment.
"Just sitting--nothing else," he says.
This friend recently gave me an enthusiastic report about the
connection between her meditation (she recently did a meditation retreat) and
her reading.
Her Dyslexia seems to have greatly subsided! The words do not jump
around on the page for her as much. She has brought a stillness to the
words, which are, of course perceived (read) by her increasingly still mind.
It is probably safe to say that her "emotional intelligence" with
respect to reading and her enjoyment of reading, has increased.
She is a little more free to "just read."
Another way to think of her transformation is to use the mataphor of "allowing the Fractal" or "unblocking her internal Fractal" which results in a state of internal flow and synchronicity. By using mediation and focusing techniques, she has gove from blockedness to the flow associated with Fractals.
In a similar manner - a bit of meditation, a bit of practice of equanimity, a bit of unblocking her internal Fractal--might also help those who strive to "just write," "just speak," or for that matter, "just be."
"Just a few thoughts,"
Scott Hannon
fractalbridge.org
|
