Quantum Donuts

Emotional Spacetime

2012-02-19T13:43:00.000-08:00

According to Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, time is relative and appears to pass differently depending on the observer's position in space. If Observer A is stationary and Observer B is moving, there is one perception of the passage of time; if both are moving, another perception. But time, represented by the speed of light, is a constant, moving at the same speed everywhere. It's only our perceptions, and positions relative to each other, that creates a time inconstancy.

This differing perception is a consistent assymetry of our Universe and can be observed firsthand in something like a boxing match. The spectators (stationary observers) see the fighters moving at one speed ("Why doesn't Joe Pugnacious see that left hook? He's getting hit with it every time!"); the fighters will perceive a different speed - fighter A may say, during his post-fight interview, "I just didn't see it coming - it was so fast!" while fighter B may say, "it looked like he was moving in slow-motion, leaving himself open for my left."

Observation and position. Observation - what you pay attention to determines your position in space. Position - where you at determines what effect you can have on your surroundings and other people.

And the third element, not included in any equation because of it's inconsistent symmetry - emotion.

Emotions change the perception of time and (position in) space. When you have a long, boring shift at work, time drags; lots to do - time flies. The more 'rational' you are, the slower time passes, the more emotional - the quicker. If someone is angry, their perception of time quickens and their position in space restricts. This can be seen in a suicide by cop incident. The suicidal guy becomes almost stationary and his sense of time disappears (a day long negotiation session to the cops seems like minutes to the dude). He has no power of decision - no rationality, and any decision he makes is emotional, spur-of-the-moment and external event-triggered. (The event may or may not be connected to anything the cops do or don't do; a dog running across the street may be enough additional input to overwhelm the very edgy but currently-balanced state of mind of the guy and cause him to 'lose it' and start shooting - at himself or others.)

So, in a sparring match, the more dispassionate you can be and the more emotions you can generate in your opponent, the more successful you will be. Dispassion, or more specifically, emotional objectivity, gives you more time to process and act on input; the emotions of your opponent make him less objective and more reactive.

In police work, it is just the opposite - you want the other person to be objective and dispassionate, slowing their time down so they have time to think, to decide, to receive and consider input such as "PUT THE KNIFE DOWN OR I'LL TASE YOU UNTIL YOUR BALLS POP OUT YOUR ASS!!" or some such considered negotiation technique.

What You Leave Behind You Is What You Gonna Be

2012-01-31T12:08:00.000-08:00

In the end, it's not WHAT we are but what we've done that matters - to us, to others, to the environment. Some say that mere thoughts alone can alter the cascade of thought through action to result, but thoughts, although the expression of the 'spirit,' of Nothing, can only 'live' in the real world, through action.

Free will comes in the ability to alter the path the thought takes, to take charge of its journey through the labyrinth of the 3 brains and the constant 'rain' of internal and external stimuli that changes the real and perceived environments - to decide what action to take based on the thoughts that arise.

Many let their thoughts find their own way, allow whatever might happen to happen, unable, unwilling or uncaring as to where a thought might take them. Others seek to limit the input - to restrict the environment to something more manageable. Drug addicts do this but so do triathletes - they both focus on a single track in order to creat powerful and successful results. For the drug addict - the constant high; for the triathlete - the constant high. The monk in his cell has simplified his environment, seeking to travel backwards in time, from result through action to thought, to the source of thought and beyond, to $^&11o&*([9e!A66] hoping to be able to guide the thoughts at the moment of inception, rather than wait until the thought has gained power and complexity - a life of its own, an inevitability.

Life is a march through environments we create and those that exist - if we can just see the map and have a little information about the paths then we can travel in STYLE.

A Different Way to Look at Money

2012-01-24T12:27:00.000-08:00

(This idea came from discussion with my dear friend and colleague, Dave Bones (crushtheratrace.com). Dollars and sense. Budgets. Nickel and diming. When you have just enough money to be independently poor, you tend to keep track of every dollar. It can give you headaches, bad posture and testy relationships.

I did paper, then computer (spreadsheet) budgets for years, keeping all my receipts, categorizing, itemizing and summarizing, adjusting, etc, etc.

With the advent of online banking, I am trying a new way of looking at spending called 'days of money.' I take my lowest monthly discretionary income and divide it by 30 (average days in a month) - this yields how much money I can spend per day. Let's say $100 per day. A trip to Starbucks cost me 1/10 of a day of money (which includes gas cost). If I go twice a day for 30 days, it costs me 6 days of money to drink the gold-plated coffee. If my car breaks down and the estimate is $500 for repairs, that's 5 days of money.

I monitor my account daily, made easier by mobile banking apps, and adjust my spending accordingly. If, for instance, I get to mid-month (15 days of spending) and I have 20 days of money left, I can allocate those funds for something else - goods, savings, donations (looking ahead for tax write-offs, etc.), whatever. If I get to mid-month and find I've spent 20 days of money, I have to take 5 days where I don't spend any money. I can spread these 5 days out over the rest of the month.

I'm currently saving money for my 40th wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii, a cost of 120 days of money (yeah, it's first class, condo, wedding vow renewal planner, etc - worth every penny as a congratulations to my wife for putting up with me for four decades). The trip is in 10 months which means I need to save 12 days of money per month, 3 days a week. But it's not as hard as it sounds, because there are many days where I don't spend a full days worth of money. These increments (I don't think of them in hours terms, but as fractions) build up, so I only have to actually save (not spend) 1.5 days of money per week.

This way I don't have to save money, just not spend any and the funds build up on their own.

Just a different way of budgeting.

Sitting by the Pool

2012-01-23T17:42:00.000-08:00

Endorphinized lassitude, sitting at pool-side after a mile swim, gazing at the now still water, ripples smoothed and gone absent swimmers. Even the bright overhead fluorescent lights don't reflect in the flat grey stillness of the pool. A Now that stretches on, time-meaningless, a deep calm settling over me, breath stilling, unfocused gaze filled with the stillness.

I'm reminded of the Universe that is, at its basis, a smooth fabric of potential, totally still, no reflections, but with an almost wistful waiting, a potential to do more than be, to become - useful but content, for now, like me, to rest, knowing activity and purpose will arrive soon enough.

Inevitably, the stillness is broken - a lady gets in and starts swimming. Ripples are created and the peaks and troughs reflect the overhead lights.  The wavelets show short lines, appearing and disappearing as the water peaks and troughs. At certain synergistic moments, the peaks combine and form ovals of light that distort like rubber bands dancing.

These lines and circles remind me of the quantum mechanics theory of superstrings and superloops (my term) - one and two dimensional 'reflections' in the fabric of the Universe - pure potential becoming kinetic; one dimensional 'strings' or single beat rhythms becoming two dimensional loops. The loops automatically become three dimensional - outside, inside and the loop itself. And, automatically again, the loops create a 4th dimension - time, as there is a shape before and a shape after - past and future, the present moment too fleeting to catch, not really existing, the Now - present time, covered by layers of movement, of fluctuation.

The water is the medium - the fabric - of the nascent Universe - a perfect stillness, without form or function - consciouness; pure Being, no doing. And consciousness, unable (unwilling?) to rest in perfect stillness for long, becomes conscious - represented by the overhead lights. The stage is set for the swimmer to enter - an inevitable and natural consequence of the mere existence of the water.

Existence - consciouness becomes conscious that leads automatically to intelligence. Intelligence - the ripples in the water, has purpose, movement, a time before and a time after - 4 dimensions. But the water still IS - at its basis all NOW, no dimensions.

Consciousness, thus tends toward intelligence; stillness towards movement; formlessness toward form.

The reflections are creation - matter; form to function.

What meaning does this have for dealing with conflict? Getting the shopping done? The price of tea in China? Winning a boxing match? Talking a raving murderous thug into handcuffs, blubbering and apologizing for a life wasted in pain?

It is the knowledge, experience and practice of seeing the layers, one beneath the other of all thoughts, events and actions. Of setting yourself, your intelligence, on a place of all NOW, where there is (no) time, giving you a moment to see the lines and loops that form the parts of the whole.

Seeing is the ability to make changes in the parts before the whole is set in stone.

Deal with the problem or need on the surface level, where the reflections constantly change - dance - faster than you can perceive and adapt. Or see and deal with the base levels of the movement where time is slower and you can - perhaps - affect the troughs and peaks of the waves yourself - make your own ripples so trough and peak cancel each other out, bringing stillness to frenetic, uncoordinated activity.

Dance the dance - lead, follow or harmonize. It's all in the seeing.

The Progression

2012-01-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

From Nothing to finality, through self-discovery, conditioning, sport, the dance and all the rest - it's all progressively connected. But when we practice in a disconnected way, or believe practicing in one class of martial arts automatically confers skill in the other classes then the knowledge becomes muddled and training energy is dissipated.

First, know yourself; specifically, how your three brains work, how they react to internal and external stimuli, store and recall information, percieve time, space and causation. This can be accomplished by rational evaluation - academically, (for a good foundation, read Daniel Goleman's three books on the three types of intelligence - emotional, meditative and social and Malcolm Gladwell's Blink); emotionally: self-analysis of your own emotional-reactive process (example: what pushes your buttons, and - especially - why) and rationally: 'scenario-ize' events that you want to occur or may occur and how those visualizations create emotional reactions within you.

Second, know others through interactions - physical, emotional and intellectual. This helps to integrate your self-knowledge with cause and effect relationships, with reality.

Third, spend time in environments different than what you are used to - go to a logger's bar, stay overnight by yourself in the mountains, walk hip deep in snow for a hundred yards, bungee jump, ballroom dance, run barefoot, compete, learn to speak a different language. Seek the widest range of experience you can.

Here's a brief chart that shows the interrelationships.

Consciousness is awareness

Awareness is intelligence

Intelligence is perception

Perception is knowledge
Knowledge is structure
Structure is space
Space is distance
Distance is time
Time is inertia
Inertia is speed
Speed is power
Power is effect

Be-Know-Do. Complex, yet simple.

I find these relationships, and success in the three 'knowings' (self, others and environment) through managing conflict, teaching and being hit repeatedly in the head with hard objects. But you find your best way.

The Dance vs The Goal

2012-01-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

It is, first, most important that you define what your goal is so, as a refresher - are you training for combat (to kill), self-defense(escape), defensive tactics (control), sport (win), art (creative expression), health and wellness or philosophy (the 3 knowledges)? Each has it's own training milieus and methodologies, time frames, intensities and goals.

The question is, though, can training in one class of martial 'arts' lend itself to success in the other classes? It is obvious that health and wellness lends itself to all classes but, for example, does art help one train for, understand and participate in combat? Does philosophy make for a more successful mixed martial arts competitor?

When the Spanish conquered most of the Phillipines, they forbid the carrying of weapons and practice of warrior skills. So Arnis was born - sticks instead of blades, fancy footwork combinations and sinawalis instead of weapon + power = target destruction. The 'dance' was born.

The question, then - can learning to dance help you to learn to kill or to defend yourself or control a crook or win a competition?

Blocking

2012-01-02T22:04:00.000-08:00

Even though I don't believe in blocking, I did develop a specific type of block during my tournament years - the nose block. (This picture is from the latest UFC fight: http://msn.foxsports.com/ufc/gallery/UFC-141-photos-123011#photo-title=Boom!&photo=30514051

Who nose? Sometimes it's toughness over fancy, tenacity over technique.

The Switch

2011-12-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

On, and the rational brain is hijacked by the survival brain - anger, fear and/or hatred rise to smother all rationality. The body becomes impervious to pain and most injury, the will is focused on a single goal, the sense of time and space disappears. The self's ability to turn off the (re)action is extremely limited; either an outside force has to intervene (cops, for instance) or the metabolism tanks due to extreme exhaustion or severe shock-type injuries (the violent person may not feel the compound leg fracture, but the bone bent at right angles and sticking out of the skin is still disabling).

The switch - the button, in men is close to the surface and easily pushed by the self or others; in women, deeply buried in the psyche - hard to find, harder to push, and - in my opinion, impossible to train.

Males can be easily trained to flip the switch; it takes much longer to teach them control over it. But even with long-term training, once the button is pushed, the male reverts to predator. This is why the referree ALWAYS has to pull an MMA fighter off the loser.

Cops can get their buttons pushed - happens rarely but it does happen. Ever read or seen a story on a group of cops going all berserk on a perp? Rodney King?

Men in groups have a group switch that takes longer to flip but once flipped, produces longer and more intense violence (Sarge's 'group monkey dance').

The immediate aftermath of male violence is an exhausted pleasure. What follows varies as the emotional and rational brains try and integrate the event and is influenced by social, cultural, racial, political, socio-economic level, physical conditioning and ability, diet, training and experience, nature and nuture and more.

What triggers the switch is also complex and varied.

But the switch is simple - on, or not.

I want to say that women don't have the switch, but - never is not always and no one don't mean everbody, .

The Myth of the Cold-Blooded Killer

2011-12-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

The act of violence is generated, supported and conducted under the grip of powerful negative emotions - fuel for the delivery. One doesn't "let slip the dogs of war" from love, peace and harmony, dude.  Anger, fear, hatred - these are the emotions of violence.  Even the most heroic and cause-justified warrior fights from these emotions - hatred of the enemy, fear of letting down his fellow soldiers, anger over the death of friends or others (especially women and children).

Even serial killers' acts are fueled by emotions. They may not be discernable by their victims at the time ("he had no expression on his face while he was ----") but they is still there.

This is because violence, planned, spontaneous or reactive does not occur without adrenalization;  amygdalic-hormonal action/reaction.

For a man, the act of violence is tremendously empowering because it harkens back to killing the mammoth, driving off the sabretoothicat, defeating the barbarians who try to destroy the tribe. Male violence is something we do to others to gain power. For men, violence is a choice.

For a woman? My opinion is that violence is something that a woman does not choose; violence is done to, not done by, a woman.  Can women be violent?  Of course. But it takes a tremendous amount of survival need to trigger violence in a woman. A man's violent tendencies can be triggered by a look.

Example: an inmate I was supervising in the jail told me that the reason he had knifed a perfect stranger was because he gave him 'stink eye.'

There are always exceptions, of course. Intoxication, emotional disruption and certain forms of mental illness can level the gender playing field.

This is a roundabout way to answer a question from Anonymous - how does a woman train for violence? It is an unhappy answer. You find that dark dark place within you that is angry, hateful and fearful and let it out into the light.

Can this beast be found in training?  Can you condition yourself to unleash it at the split second when you need it the most - in a 'self-defense' situation?

The Reality of Violence

2011-12-21T19:18:00.000-08:00

Sarge (Rory Miller) puts it like this, to paraphrase: violence is close, sudden, brutal and overwhelming; it comes when you least expect it, when you're tired, hungry, distracted, off-balance, have your arms full and attention fuzzy.

This begs a solid definition of violence. What violence is NOT is philosphy, health and wellness, art or sport. Violence has no rules and no time limits. With humans (and most primate species), unlike other predators, violence leads to serious physical injury or death. Violence is combat.

And, as Sarge teaches in his blog, books and seminars, studying martial arts is not, IS NOT preparation for combat.

So, if it's violence you want to stop, overcome or protect yourself from, let's talk about the nested triangles of training: three strategies, three tactics and three techniques. The three strategies are: awareness, attention and will. The three tactics are combat, self-defense and defensive tactics. The three techniques are: weapons, stair running and verbal judo (see the book of the same name by George Thompson).

Many martial arts programs address one or more of these 9 elements; does yours? And once you've learned, do you seek an 'apprenticeship' so as to apply your knowledge and practice?

Perhaps the real question is not can you handle violence after years of study and practice, but can you survive it with minimal study and practice.

Martial Arts and The 'Bigger' Picture

2011-12-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

So, how can martial arts help women achieve 'equality' in a male dominated world? To help define an answer, ask yourself why, what and who.

Why are you studying martial arts? Are you learning the martial part (the preparation and application of force) or the art part (self-development).

What are you studying? The 7 categories of study, and their main purposes are: combat (kill), self-defense (escape), defensive tactics (control), sport (win), art (coordination and reflex), health and wellness (DROP AND GIVE ME 50!) and philosophy (knowledge).

Yes, knowledge by itself (sans application) has a value in expanding awareness, a key component in at least finding out what you don't know and giving you a direction in finding the answers. But application demands specificity. For example - you can take classes in Spanish, buy the video lessons, etc., but unless you converse with Spanish speakers, your study will have little usefulness. It's the 'armchair quarterback' syndrome.

The main difference in the 'what' between the genders that I have observed is motivation. Male motivation is pretty easy to understand - competition and/or a rite of passage, But, what is the motivation for women? I think (male perspective, of course that, as my wife points out to me often, is only 1/3d the picture) that many women train to overcome fear. (Help me out here - am I off the mark? What are other motivations?).

And the last of the 3 'Ws' is who - who are you studying under and are they delivering the product you desire? If you are studying women's self-defense from a man, you're probably learning techniques based on muscular strength and counter-aggression. Remember, the goal of self-defense is escape, not over-powering an attacker. How much time is spent on conditioning, talking, doing forms, whatever.

So, if we consider overcoming fear as a main motivator for women training the the martial arts, the question becomes, what are you afraid of?

The Myth of Male Dominance

2011-12-19T20:52:00.000-08:00

Why not female dominance? Why not a world matriarchy? Why are men in charge (or think we are, anyway)?

By writing about women defending themselves, perhaps I sought to air this question. Is it biology? Temperment? Necessity? Or just habit?

In the olden days (when me and my brother had to ride mammoths both ways uphill through the snow to the shaman's cave for our lessons) someone had to hunt so the tribe could live - a full-time job. Someone had to bear and raise the children so the tribe could grow and prosper - another full-time job.

Both genders did their jobs well, so well, in fact, that men now no longer need to hunt nor women to raise children. So, I think, a societal frustration has set in, a species-wide stress caused by the dissolution of purpose. There is no more training for the young males in the ways of stalking, patience, teamwork and the kill; no more teaching the children love and discipline, how to coexist so as to make the tribe stable and strong.

Yet the biological and survival emotions, and internal needs, are still there. So, men have turned the hunt onto women and children (some statistics show 1 in 4 women are domestically abused) and women have turned away from men (lowest incidence of marriage, highest of divorce).

It's not that women can't or won't defend themselves against physical attack, a difficult thing to do for either gender; it's not about capability, it's about who's going to take charge and reinvent gender purpose. Because as long as this imbalance continues, war will remain man's favorite sport and the innocent will continue to die.

Ladies, it's up to you now - defend yourselves.

Hit or Myth

2011-12-18T18:34:00.000-08:00

There is a moment of awareness - brief, information laden, potential potent, where a very small action can have a very large effect, where input carries great emotional weight, where strength and power, size or gender matter not. This moment is represented by the dash in feel - act. The dash is intuition; the feel, emotional; the act, survival or, with training, rational. If one can 'act at the dash,' the chances of success in any event, good or bad, can be dramatically increased.

(Part of this discussion comes from a criminal justice college course I taught, based on John Boyd's OODA loop; if you wish a copy of the graphic I used, email me - it won't post in this blog format).

The dash - intuition, is available equally to either gender. It is usually referred to as 'women's intuition' because women tend to pay more attention to input because it affects not only personal safety but tribal 'stability'; men tend to discount it because we have (over - in many situations) confidence in our ability to handle things.

This moment of intuition creates great emotional energy that, in turn, creates energy for powerful action. Men wait too long to act because of the aforementioned over-confidence, women wait in the hopes that saner heads will prevail and tribal stability will be maintained.

But if a woman, in a most deadly and traumatic situation, can use that intuition, that awareness to act - boldy, swiftly and decisively, then victory - safety - is MUCH more likely.

The conclusion - awareness is the key. Feel it, act on it NOW. Male or female. Action does not mean a fight - if you are at the physical part then it is very late in the game and intention and power become THE decisive factors. Men's biologies and physiologies give them the edge is this arena (there are different types and strengths of intention), but remember the dash. THE moment.

Future posts - the adrenaline curve and how it affects the dash and 'Why Are Women Training in Martial Arts?'

The Myth of Women's Self-Defense

2011-12-16T21:22:00.000-08:00

I will now piss off one half of the human race: women are not capable of defending themselves in a physical confrontation. The following define the parameters of the confrontation:

1 - It is not an ambush because, properly done, it leaves the victim, male or female, no choice and no chance.

2 - It is a telegraphed physical assault that gives only one choice - to fight, and no chance to escape (the true purpose of self-defense).

3 - The attacker is determined, not undecided, and does not seek to cover his intention with fancy talk or footwork; you see him - it's on.

Here's my reasoning:

Physical: a woman's physical structure, unlike a man's, cannot withstand a strike from a male, nor deliver a strike strong enough to incapacitate the male. A punch to a man's jaw may break his jaw, but he will most likely fight on. A punch to a woman's jaw will cause instant incapacitation.

Yes, there are the very few incapacitating strikes: eyeball, throat, eye socket, but getting to them in a fight is difficult. And, by the way, the groin is not a viable target for incapacitation due to that anatomy's tendency to 'wheels up' in an adrenalized state.

Emotionally: a male reacts to aggression with counter-aggression, a woman reacts with submission, hiding or flight.

Spiritually, a male is violence-oriented, a female, peace-oriented.

There are, of course, exceptions, since nothing is never and always is not.

Explain to me, if you will, why I am wrong.

I would love to be wrong.

Tales From the Backside - Another One

2011-12-15T22:02:00.000-08:00

Speaking of verbal judo*

Scene: the booking counter at a local jail, 0400 hours. Halfway through the shift, cops bring in the usual just-before-lunch teeth-chippin' mouthy dude pissed 'cause his wife ratted him out for selling drugs out of the house while babysitting their newborn. He slaps her around; cops come and it's off to lockup.

"Welcome to booking," says the search officer; "put your toes on the edge of the mat and hands on the counter, please." (This makes the arrestee lean forward at about a 45 degree angle; easier to search, easier to read pre-attack cues).

Crook: "blah blah yakety yak; lawyer, unfairness of it all, damn women, cops beat me up, can you pull up my pants, I want my phone call, all you knuckledraggers are a**holes," etc etc.

Part of the search process is to check ol' cheez whiz and the two crackers cause crooks think their crotch is the last place anyone would WANT to touch.

Seach officer slides his hand up each leg tight into the crotch.

Crook: "you do that well; you must like it; wadda you, some sort of f@g? Yo' momma a ho?"

Search officer assumes these are rhetorical questions but says back anyway, "oh, you know my mom? She works down 82d avenue way, gots no teeth; they calls her gummi bear on the shtreet."

Everyone else in booking busts out laughing, even the two other crooks getting searched.

Gum-chomper crook looks puzzled.

Yeah, its like that.

*George Thompson, Verbal Judo

Handguns for self-defense

2011-12-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

I get asked this a lot - what kind of gun should I get myself (or my wife) for protection?

If you are thinking about getting a firearm for self-defense, even home protection, or you have one already and think you can use it successfully in an oh shit! moment, ask yourself these three question:

1) Do ya feel lucky? Well do ya -?
2) How often do you train tactically with a firearm - when you're surprised, tired, distracted, at night, carrying groceries, sleeping or paying for your coffee in the Starbucks line?
3) Can you kill someone?

The realities underlying the first question are that luck would have to be a huge part of it - the criminal has already thought out his or her moves, is already over the power-up phase of adrenalization and already has his gun out and decisions made. You are seriously behind the curve here.

For the second question - can you outdraw the bad guy under adverse conditions and get off a killing shot before he or she pulls the trigger? Even if you do get off the first shot, where does the bad guys shot or shots go? Into you, or past you into a crowded mall? Remember, a jacked up bad guy, even without the force multiplier of drugs or alcohol, will NOT listen to reason, change his or her mind or drop their weapon when confronted by a civilian. Sometimes, not even when confronted by multiple cops.

Can you kill someone? The majority of men say yes, the majority of women consider the question before saying they're not sure. The most common response is - in the right circumstances. Which takes us back to training. If you nod vigorously and say, "you betcha," then I don't want you anywhere near me, or carrying a gun anytime.

And these three questions don't even begin to address the legal issues (Mr. Miller's seminars address this issue very well; most of you folks know the website and his blog).

Here's what seems funny to me. There are tens of thousands of people in the state of Oregon alone who have concealed handgun permits. And of the hundreds (at least) of contacts I've made while on duty - pedestrian stops, criminal cases, traffic stops or just waiting in line for coffee, only perhaps .1% with concealed licenses have their weapons on or near them. And of all of those, I ask them how often they shoot and the answer ranges from never to maybe 100 rounds a year at paper targets.

Ask yourself - do I feel lucky? And then get some serious (Thunder Ranch-type serious) training.

Tactical Emo 2: Sad People

2011-12-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

Two o'clock in the morning; a closed viewpoint parking lot; small two-door vehicle with its engine running stopped in the unlit portion of the lot. The officer shines his flashlight into the driver's side window and sees a young man behind the wheel, head down, possibly sleeping, possibly drunk, he thinks. Revolver on the seat next to him.

Banging on the window with his flashlight: "HEY! What the HELL do you think you're doing up here this time of night? Roll down your window!" the officer shouts.

Kids head comes up slowly, then looks over to the gun; hands stay in his lap.

"Roll the window down NOW!"

Window slowly comes down.

"You're just like all the rest, think you can break the law anytime you want, do anything you want. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Hey, dude, no need to -."

"DON'T call me dude. I'm your superior and demand your respect!"

"Respect? RESPECT! You're shouting at me about respect?" the kid says as he gets out of the car, fists clenched, forgetting about the pistol.

The officer slowly reaches up and puts both hands on the kids shoulders. Heavy sigh. The kid breathes with him.

"I know what you were thinking about but you have someone out there who loves you deeply and would miss you more than life itself. Let me help you keep that love alive," officer says while gently moving the kid away from the open car door.

The kid's family met him at the ER prior to his short stay in the psych ward. Hugs and tears.

Tactical Emo 1: Angry People

2011-12-06T18:07:00.000-08:00

Angry people tend to get angrier; making them sad calms them down.

Angry vs angry

"Just calm down, ma'am -'

"Calm down! CALM DOWN!" shouted the red-faced, white-fisted woman standing in the entrance to WalMart. "The g*&damn clerk ripped me off -" blah blah yell scream arms flailing fingers pointing spittle flying.

"Ma'am, please, if you'd just step over here out of the entrance and let other people -"

"I'm NOT LEAVING until I get my money back and an apology from the piece of s$%t who TOOK MY MONEY!"

"Ma'am, CALM DOWN NOW and step over here or I'll put you in handcuffs," says the officer.

"GO AHEAD YOU MUTHAF@#*ER," I'm not the one who needs to be arrested here BLAH blah yell SCREAM arms flailing fingers pointing spittle flying.

Officer grabs angry beeatch behind the elbow to try and move her to the side, away from the entrance and a group of people trying to leave the store. Scuffle ensues, beeatch is injured in the takedown, goes to jail, sues, court drops the charges in an attempt to mollify her but she gets a thousand bucks anyway.

Angry vs sad

"Just calm down, ma'am -'

"Calm down! etc etc TOOK MY MONEY!"

The officer shakes his head, sighing heavily, looking down and not saying anything.

"Well," says beeatch, "aren't you going to do anything?"

"It's a sad day when people who work hard for a living, take time to go to the store to buy stuff they need, and then something like this happens. Has this ever happened to you before?"

"Well, yes, but not his bad. The clerk was RUDE to me!"

"OK. Why don't you step over here with me and tell me exactly what happened?"

No force, no blame, no hard feelings.

12 Scripts

2011-12-03T21:55:00.000-08:00

Interpersonal interactions seem to run from scripts. Here are the dozen I think are the main ones. These scripts can be positive or negative, verbal, emotional or physical. There may be a priority to these; for instance, some of the scripts may have more 'weight' than others - more preference.

I didn’t do it

You can’t stop me (if you don’t protect it, then it’s up for grabs)

“Othering” (I can do it to you, but don’t dare do it to me)

I’m just plain better than you

You deserve it

The devil made me do it

Please stop me

Just try and stop me

AHHHHHHH! (berserkers)

I’m needy

You belong to me

Payback

Did I leave any out? Are there duplicates? What about prioritizing the list? Does adrenaline/emotional 'charge' reorder the list?

Gunting

2011-11-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

Gunting (a Tagalog term) is loosely translated as scissors. The martial meaning is a two-way strike - the weapon hits the target and the target is brought to the weapon. Double the fun, and effect.

CTRL-left click for one of the best examples I've ever seen.

http://msn.foxsports.com/boxing/gallery/UFC-on-FOX-Cain-Velasquez-Junior-dos-Santos-photo-gallery-111211#photo-title=That%20one%20landed&photo=30364120

Slow Decent into Madness

2011-11-09T20:26:00.000-08:00

The youngster sat patiently, sometimes twisting his head to wierd angles, aiming his right ear, then his left as if to better hear unseen voices, sometimes shaking his head and smiling shyly, sometimes opening his mouth as if to make some response to the uninterruptible flow of dooming evidence about his fugues, his perseverations, his fits of violence and inability to respond to repeated courses of anti-psychotic medication.
When asked if he wanted to give a statement prior to the 'judgement' he spoke so softly the 'finders of fact' all leaned toward him as if pushed by unseen hands.

"Please don't give me any more drugs. They make me feel bad."

My partner and I flanked him as we led him from court, he shuffle-stepping, treading heavily, head down.

He was allowed to see his family before we took him to the mental ward at the hospital.

He held out his arms to his father, tears in his eyes. Dad just shook his head.

Sometimes, it is hard to decide who is mad, and who not.

The Action Cascade

2011-10-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

The 'cascade' of perception-action described as:

Global awareness - awareness - intention - decision - visual focus - weight shift - movement - delivery.

In the OODA loop (USAF Colonel John Boyd), 'O' observation is awareness, 'O' orientation lies between intention and decision, 'D' decision and 'A' action is delivery.

Intention is heavily affected by emotionality. Movement can be physical and/or verbal. Delivery is effect - a punch, a stinging rebuke, a telling point, et al. Stillness - physical or verbal - can also be a type of movement.

Hesitation and Rhythm

2011-10-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

Everyone EVERYONE hesitates just at the critical distance line before engaging in physical, verbal or emotional conflict. I think it is a hard-wired, survival brain 'check' to see if what you are about to do is going to cost you more than you hope to gain.

If you think this is not the case, then you haven't seen it coming. For instance, an ambush, by definition, is something you don't see coming.

A good fighter can take advantage of this, but not by rushing the action. Leaping acrosss the ring and berserking the opponent can work, but rarely. This kind of attack is an ambush in plain site that can be created through positioning, imtimidation, distractions, seemingly random motions, hands, hips and feet moving in different directions and in different rhythms, etc.

Example: the feet move one-two-one-two, the hands/weapon move onetwo-onetwo. Military actions use the same strategy. In the sword-and-shield times, cavalry and skirmishers were used to break up the rhythm of phalanxes of foot soldiers.

In my training, it is called 'whole beat-half beat-quarter beat.'

In a sports match, it is likely that the two fighter, having touched gloves, will move out of critical range and then 'play the line,' creating or waiting for the opponent's hesitation.

My karate master taught me to take advantage of this natural hesitation by ALWAYS launching my attack whenever the opponent was in my critical range. He would say, "never let an encroachment go unchallenged."

If you wanna play, you gotta pay.

This works in copland, too, verbally, tactically and emotionally. You watch for, or create, the hesitation in the other person and then BADDA BING BADDA BOOM, it's handcuffs and jail for the crook, Starbucks for you.

The Martial Movie

2011-10-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

The tribe of small and hairy, standing on a short rise over the rotting corpse of a grazer, was quite amazed when the pack of snarlers retreated behind showers of dirt clods, sticks and feces.  Never before had they been able to retain control of meat-to-hand in the face of the speed and fangs of the local pack. Why did howling and throwing shit work this time? Looking down the rise they saw one of the juvenile males standing over a snarler with a long, bloody-sharp stick in hand, the snarler jerking and whining at his feet.

And BADDA BING BADDA BOOM, martial arts was born.

As the years passed, and humans became more 'modern,' the survivors would reenact the battle over hoisted mugs and loud huzzahs, sadness undertoned; salutes to brave comrades and advice from the old timers as to how to do things better the next time.  Better weapons, tactics and techniques were discussed and tried - trained - as the group sought to increase its success, and survivability, in the next, inevitable conflict.

The reenactment - a story - a movie, if you will; the training - frames of the movie.

Although we have long lost the story of battle, and the connection to those 'actors' who played in the movie, we still train using 'frames' of what we think were part of the movie.  Drills like sinawali, ippon kumite, throws, moving from guard to supine arm bar, parry and thrust, block and strike, kick combinations, punch combinations, line drills and the like are all attempts to create frames that, over time, the instructor and students try to mold into a movie.

The problem is - many instructors think the frames are the movie, and, not knowing the whole story, have no ending in mind. (Yes, one could say that achieving a Black Belt is the end of the story - lights come up, the credits roll, but this is like watching movie trailers).

The challenge for instructors - pick a genre and write a decent movie around it that has a plot with a a beginning and an ending, protagonists and antagonists, context, backdrops, action and dialogue that allows the 'actors' to develop, and conclude, their characters.

The challenge for students - know what kind of movie you are in, what part you will play in it and how the instructor has written the ending for your character.

Much Ado About Violence

2011-10-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

Violence is all the rage among humans - it's our favorite occupation and interpersonal interaction mode. 'Dead men tell no tales,' and all that. The average person from 4 years old on watches up to 10 violent acts per day. Violence is so common that even the DEAD are violent (who doesn't love a zombie - they're creepy, but predictable, unlike living humans who are creepy but UNpredictable). And everyone knows that there is nothing you can do to prevent violence. So, instead, we embrace it - in our video games, writings, research, sports - everywhere, everywhen, always. We reward the most violent among us with scholarships and medals, a comfortable living for life, applause and attention.

Don't get me wrong - I love violence, after all, war is fun if it's done right.

But it gets a bit tiresome.

And all this in the safest society in history, where hunting for food doesn't get you killed (there are no sabretoothicats at Safeway) and gathering doesn't require fighting off competing tribes (I can see the growling and feces throwing at Starbucks as two tribes vie for the best table). Where death by purposeful violence is so rare as to be statistically insignificant (and if you subtract death by traffic accident, even this statistical insignificance becomes statistically insignificant).

So, what are you training for? And why?

Single Beat Rhythm

2011-10-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

Someone I adore argued vociferously (a type of Raptor) with me against the existence of a one-beat rhythm, saying that any rhythm takes three beats to exist. Reminds me of the game show 'Name That Tune' - people compete against another contestant to name a familiar song by listening to as few opening notes as possible. So, when sparring/fighting (still, admittedly, a sport), seek to "name that tune in no notes," meaning to move on intention (single beat) rather than waiting for intention-decision-weight shift.

Siberian Dog Socks

2011-10-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

Deep in the rolling backcountry, high above the California vineyard lands, a group came together to research peace through violence. Here they are.

Spec Ops - charming smile, courtly charm
Belies glittering glacial blue gunsite gaze.
Mistress of Movement - dancing on and with the razor's edge.
Dog - sniffing out BS; with this one, you never hear the growl.
Ronin - bringing to light what others have lost.
Granite - giving us all a place to stand.

A warrior's group to stand against the zombie apocalypse.

Nod if you grok.

The Art of Policing

2011-09-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

Tragedies of unrequited drama,
     broken dreams, lost loves;
Webs of lies and foolishness,
     falling falling into failure and pain;
911 delivers the canvas,
The artist of arms and charms prepares his tools:
Gentle swirling brush strokes -
     words, a calligraphy of understanding and empathy or,
A palette of pain, the rapid, slashing brush strokes of violence
    splattering the hopes and dreams
     of the falling and felled alike with the blacks and reds
Of finality.
The artist chooses not his subject, but must draw large upon the canvas;
Hoping the audience approves.

Winning a Confrontation

2011-09-18T22:38:00.000-07:00

Maija in her blog swordandcircle.blogspot.com asks the question: how does one define a win in a confrontational situation? It very much depends on the intensity, the amount of emotional investment (in the person/group or situation) and the amount of time one has had to prepare for it.

The intensity varies on the 'scale' from a simple question or comment that doesn't quite 'strike you right,' to nasty, brutish, overwhelming, sudden life or death.

The real confrontation here is in one's emotional reaction; the confrontation between the three brains to see which one will get to dominate. Fight or flight? Survival brain. Frustration/confusion/doubt/ Emotional brain. Think/feel/act/. Rational brain.

This is where investment and time come into play. The more one is invested, the greater the 'tunnelled' emotional reaction and the more one's own, self-limiting concepts of a win become overriding.  And time - suddenness can create catastrophic emotional and survival failure. See it coming, and one has time to run scrips and solutions.

But, in dealing with confrontation or potential confrontation (real or perceived - example, a paranoid schizophrenic has inner confrontations that would scare most normal humans into catatonia) the human has a specific tool that has put our species on top - intuition. Intuition allows us to percieve the information, run scripts and plan for solutions BEFORE s--t happens. Yes, a properly prepared ambush is tough to beat. But human intuition is very time/space sensitive. You KNOW "hell's comin' to frogtown." (From the movie of the same name starring Roddy Piper).

Example: in my job, when you hear the (police) radio, your heart jumps a beat, eyebrows raise, grip on steering wheel tightens. Every time.  Maybe a hundred times, 10 hours a day. But after awhile, you develop an uber-sensitivity to the dispatcher's rate, tone, pitch and volume. You hear the radio even before she keys the mike. You know when it's for you, when it's not and when your gonna be involved one way or another. Brain pre-loads scripts. Solution sets present.

Now you rely on training: avoid tunnel vision; drive, scan, plan, scan, BREATHE. Let the scripts flow and connect with your center, the dispatcher's voice and the territory (different locations have different cultures, races, political orientations, socio-economic levels, population densities, residential vs business, number of bars, etc.). Don't forget to put the car in neutral before you jump out. And, oh yeah, unclip the freakin' seatbelt. Let your 'center' find the center of the situation, of the problem. Deal with that, not the peripherals (in a riot, it's not hard to find the 'center', just really hard to get to it).

How to learn this? Training, experience, visualization and the occasional boot up side the head just for spice.

A Day at the Office

2011-09-10T11:56:00.000-07:00

A distasteful, stressful and occasionally dangerous part of my job is taking kids away from one parent and giving them to another. The courts, in their infinate wisdom, and after true and wise deliberations, generate an order that comes to me 'commanding' me to affect the transfer.

So, I meet the Mom, who has driven from California, get some info about the child and, after trying several locations, finally find the girl. She cries, screams and stamps her tiny feet, tiny fists balled white-knuckled, tears streaming down her cheeks as she chokes out how she's afraid of her Mom, how she will beat her and take her to a house far from town in the wastelands of southern California, lock her in a cellar and starve her; how Mom and brother have tortured her before. While driving back to Mom's location, kid spends all the time sobbing on her cellphone to whoever will listen to her, and texting furiously. Kid says she will die rather than go with Mom.

I end up taking her to juvie rather than use force on her to put her in Mom's car, which Mom continually exhorts me to do so, all the while stridently diatribing about the evils of the Dad.

Kid's 17 and over 180 pounds.

Another day at the office.

The Three Points of the Personality

2011-09-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

To review, the human psyche is triune - rational, emotional and survival. But each of these brains, while having their own environment, also interface or blend (like the colors of the rainbow, one color blending seamlessly into another with no clear division) with the other brains (see Daniel Goleman's excellent work in these areas).

The human psyche has three 'points' of personality from which life is perceived, processed/planned and performed.

The first point of the personality is genetically set and is 'fixed' in one of the three brains or brain blends. Example: a drama 'queen' (a misnomer because I have seen many more irrationally emotional males acting out the monkey dance (Miller) than females) who lives for and in constant turmoil. A serial killer's fixed point is in the survival/rational area. A rocket scientist perhaps firmly in the rational. A drug addict - survival/emotional. This fixed point is the default of the personality that determines the basal state of perceiving the world and acting on that information.

The second point of personality is the fluid point. You ever had a bad day? A joyous day? Felt up one moment, down the next? This is the point of the personality that most people identify with as 'me.' A point that constantly shifts in relation to external and internal events, processes and interactions.

The third point is, to borrow Einstein's term, the zero point field. Lynne McTaggart writes eloquently about this in her book The Field: Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, Harper, 2003). This is the point where personality arises, where never-changing becomes ever-changing. It is a point of all possibilities, like physic's quantum foam.

There is a fourth point, but using the term point is a misnomer, because the deeper into the personality one gets, the broader, not 'pointy-er' the environment becomes. This fourth point is the void point, or void environment. It is Nothing from which all else arises.

If a person identifies with/is attached to the fluid point of the personality, it is like being a novice kayaker at the mercy of the river, flung ever downstream, too busy just staying afloat to see what's coming. Success or failure is out of this person's control; events and environments are in charge. This is life lived on the level of effect.

If one can reach, and anchor oneself, to the fixed point of the personality, then one becomes detached from life in all its vagaries and can witness but not necessarily influence events and environments. This is the state Timothy Leary tried to reach through his experimentation with drugs, and what many addictive personalities fervently try to stay within. This state is metaphored by the kayaker riding down those same river rapids but letting someone else paddle, not caring much what happens; just watching life go by.

If one can reach, and anchor oneself to the zero point of the personality, one becomes unattached to the "rise and fall of the 10,000 things" (Tao te Ching) and becomes in charge of cause, not effect. I saw this once as I, on my first river run in a kayak, screaming and paddle-splashing frantically downstream, saw an expert, boat pointed upstream, riding high on a huge curl of water passing over a large rock. Using his hips, he maintained his position in the river, opposite to the current, while drinking from a water bottle.

Cause, indeed.

Becoming a Tribe of One

2011-09-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

Got real sick recently. Real. Very real. Not scary, but close; down to where I had a choice of life or death. Got me thinking about age. What are you when you can no longer swing the sword? Pin the opponent? Run the hill? Do more pushups, spar longer, do the breakfalls, roll with the best of them? What are you when you can no longer demonstrate, i.e: walk the walk? Yes, one might have a few years as the 'old man in the cave' whom the youngsters come to for advice. But soon, life walks over you and all you have left are memories and melancholy.
I was in Hawaii at the Parker Ranch a few years ago. Wife was in the gift shop so I walked out back to a shaded garden area and saw an old man sitting on a bench. He was talking to himself, quietly, and crying. I sat down at the other end of the bench. He apologized for "causing a disturbance."

"No worries, sir." I said, "the beauty of this spot can make a man weep."

He spoke haltingly of being in Hawaii for the 60th reunion of his Marine unit that had fought at Iwo Jima and, after killing several enemy soldiers in close combat, going through their effects, finding letters and pictures of wives and children.

I was honored just to be in his presence. His granddaughter (?) came out and helped him up and away. He turned briefly and smiled at me.

You ever looked in someone's eyes, really looked? All personal preconceptions, expectations, scripts stripped away and, in a moment, a world of knowledge and experience is exchanged?

Usefulness is not limited to the physical.

9

Comparison chart

2011-08-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

Gravity rational brain relative intelligence contraction

Dark matter survival brain absolute unrealized dimensions maintenance

Dark energy emotional brain gap consciousness expansion

Tribes - An Example

2011-08-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

Through my 31 years as a professional, I have been to emergency rooms all over this city, dozens of times and have seen the same thing, the same type of tribe, each time. Well, you say, of course it's a tribe of medical professions who, by the very nature of their tasks, environment and clientele, work together toward a common goal. And the heart of any tribe is its success - does it accomplish it's goal quickly, happily and well? Not so in a hospital environment; more like slow, begrugingly and half-assed.

(Disclaimer: there are outstanding people working in the medical field - I have met three - who, just by their presence, spread comfort, hope and health,)

But the bigger the tribe is, the harder to keep all it's members focused on the goal. This is part of what's called the 'span of control' problem. In the military, span of control is achieved by having an NCO for every 5 privates, or one crew-served weapon, or one vehicle, like a tank. In an emergency room, SOC is done by environmental compartmentalization: reception areas, trauma rooms, doctors work station areas, X-ray rooms and the like.

But, peeling away the layers of any tribe, one sees the next layer is agreement between the tribemembers to work together toward a common goal (hardest to do from scratch, much easier when you 'join' an existing tribe and achieve automatic status through your assigned tasks).

But the REAL control (read: success of the group) is in its attitude.

And thus we come to my experience with ERs. The attitudes of the workers, from doctors to techs, simply suck. I base this on having spent multiple scores of hours 'babysitting' inmates taken by me or other officers to many ERs (but only in my city; scientifically, an insignificant 'sample' for sure). And, as a babysitter, I would shrug my shoulders and just wait out the sauntering, computer solitaire playing, cheese and cracker eating, hairstyles and sports bantering and the like, but when I was the patient, I took a greater interest.

Medical personnel are 'service' tribes and are arranged by layers, as are all tribes. The first layer is the reception area, usually large, cheery and colorful. The personnel are friendly, concerned, swift and service-oriented. But the 'deeper' you get toward the 'heart' of the tribe the worse it gets: spaces are subdivided tinier and tinier, colors become drab institutional, people move slowly and in seeming circles, voices are tinnier and sharper, brows are furrowed.

So, the service starts out fast, cheerful and efficient, and then the lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-og wait begins. You ask the doc, if you ever see him again after his first visit, which usually takes at least two hours, if you can have some water (I've never understood this part, the first thing medical personnel do in the ER is cut off any water), he says yes and then, 10 minutes before you are discharged, some tech pokes his head in, checking the white board (upon which are the names of your providers and the various tests and medication, if any, they will be giving you) and says, mock concern on his face, "did you ever get that water? I'll check with the doctor," and you never see him, or a cup of water.

A nurse will peek in quickly, eyeballing the IV drip and then disappearing, fearful you might actually want to know what's going on.

In pain? "We'll have to speak with the doctor, and, oh, by the way, 'stepped out' briefly."

Shivering violently? "I'll bring you a warm blanket," one hour later.

I've seen this multiple times in 31 years. It's endemic. Yes, yes - I understand stressors, the need to compartmentalize traumas and tragedies yadda yadda yadda, but, WTF, guys, look within and get a grip! Understand that true efficiency of service, reduction of stress and fear, problem-solution and health itself lie in opening one's heart, making, however brief, a personal connection.

To do this, one must find, and be able to moved the 'fixed point' of awareness deeper, into, and beyond the survival brain and into the quantum foam, Lynne McTaggart's 'field' in order to be able to adjust, at will, the 'fluid point' of awareness.

The staffs of hospitals will be more relaxed, efficient and above all, what they and the administrators tout so highly but cannot seem to much effect past the ennui of stress - caring, and the patients will leave actually feeling better.

The Tribe Pt 1

2011-08-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

There is a universal human interaction matrix that developed when the Singularity (Consciousness) fractured, stood undecided for a moment and then 'exploded' into the three forces of this Universe: gravity, dark matter (unrealized dimensions) and dark energy (intelligence). Gravity is, of course, the 'tie that binds' - the 'desire', if you will, of matter to come together to form 'tribes' - galaxies and the like. Dark matter is unrealized dimensions - a pubescent universe with many choices, full of potential. Dark energy is the bits of intelligence, fractured and scattered by the Big Bang, reaching out to find others of its 'kind', to end its isolation and form connections - tribes - ultimately to return to the Singularity (to be 'One' with the Universe).

Gravity - attraction; the Yin of the One, creates the ever-changing relative - what we identify with through our senses. Dark matter - suspension; the line in the Tao symbol; the never-changing, forming a 'pool' of futures. Dark energy - repulsion; the Yang of the One, always pushing outward, seeking, striving, combining and creating.

These three forces or states of Being can explain why humans do what they do, and how to discern, and predict their 'scripts' and thus be able to intervene/redirect/reconfigure; to plant a seed of redefinition, to help those 'othered' (Rory Miller, Facing Violence, YMAA, 2010).

To interpret their tribal orientation, merge with it momentarily, and - as a 'unit' - create new effect through subtle manipulations of cause.

Tales From the Darkside: Cold Cruel Cops

2011-07-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

Part of my job is kicking people out of their apartments (evictions). Not foreclosure-type folks, but the hoarder, constant loud partying drug sellers and general apartment surfers (these folks come up with enough money to move in, pay their rent for a couple of months and then quit paying, forcing the landlords to go through the three month expensive eviction process).

After multiple notices, I get to show up, knock on the door and say, with compassion and understanding, GET THE F@#K OUT OF HERE YOU DEADBEATS!

Most of these places should not be entered by anyone not wearing a hazmat suit with full decontamination procedures afterwards.

Two of my favorite evicts: a trailer so filled with cigarette smoke you couldn't see three feet with a group of people in the back room, oxygen cannulas on and spent O2 bottles scattered around
: an entire apartment living space filled knee high with empty, carefully flattened lean cuisine boxes with a narrow path winding to a black-filth covered recliner, a TV and an XBox.

Lately, though, evictions have been kicking dead-beat sons out. You know, the 40 year old guy still living with an elderly mom, bullying her into giving him her checkbook and cooking for him and them bitching her out when his socks aren't ironed.

So, I knocked on this door and Mom opens up, motioning silence and pointing to a closed door to the right of the living room. 30-something, roly-poly pot smoker's laying in bed watching DVDs and eating crackers (crackers in bed? is this not a felony in some states?). He's got a hugely swollen knee and lower leg with a giant purple bruise on the calf. He says he just had knee surgery. There's an elderly spotted hound on his bed, looking forlorn.

"Sorry sir, but you got about 15 minutes to pack up whatever essentials - portable belongings, hygiene items, medication and clothing, to last you a few days until you can arrange, through the courts, to come back and move the rest of your stuff out," says I.

He wails, "what am I to do? Where will I go? I have no one, no friends, no car no money and I'm ON CRUTCHES BOO HOO HOO HOO."

I left him bubbering on the sidewalk.

I felt sorry for the dog.

Consciousness Prequel

2011-07-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

(Thinking out loud here, and in public, which may be illegal in some states :).

"When consciousness became conscious, intelligence became intelligent.' (1)

Oneness (pure intent) became twoness (this and that, inside and out, stillness and movement) without giving up the base constant (state) of oneness. This yielded 'threeness' - stillness (matter), expansion (light) and contraction (gravity).

This 'becoming' created the myriad forms of matter and energy we see today, but also 'shattered' the oneness of conscious-ness into tiny fragments - mind.

Therefore (there's always a 'therefore'), mind and its expression, personality, follows the same laws and is subject to the same forces as the rest of the Universe.

Next: the Tipping Point.

(1) Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 'Science of Being and Art of Living'

Gravity and consciousness 1

2011-07-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

Postulate: consciousness and gravity are the same - only different expressions of oneness - the Singularity.

Postulate: the basic element of the universe is hydrogen - a wave form expressed by/from the Singularity.

Postulate: all other particles and sub-sub-sub atomic particles are created by looking for them.

Conclusion: effect(s) are created by intention (cause), not by doing. Doing is just a process we, and the Universe goes through because of the imposition of time created when the Singularity escaped (cooled; see the research on quantum decoupling) its boundaries.

Poor Singularity; just when it thought it escaped, along comes the Time Police and enforces new restrictions. But by being made small, humbled, if you will, It doesn't realize how much potential it has.

Thus it is with us - struggling against imposed boundaries, not realizing that within those boundaries we are unbounded and have the key to - everything.

Everyone has the key, but most spend a lifetime looking for the lock.

It's like having someone in your guard. In the old days, being on your back was the end - your defeat. Along comes Royce Gracie who showed that what others thought of as defeat, he saw as victory.

You are the lock, and you have the key.

Commitment 3

2011-07-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

To cultivate total commitment means to BE total committment, and this is not a physical thing, an emotional thing or an intentional thing. It is an IS thing. From the Vedic science (not the religion - different things, different folks, different history), this ability to BE all the time is referred to in all religions and philosophies: from the Rig Veda, "yogastah kurukarmani" which means "established in Being, perform action," in the third of Buddha's 4 Noble Truths, in Christianity's "the kingdom of God is within us," in Taoisms 'the 10,000 things' and in Islam's pillar: "- faith in the oneness -."

The question is not does It exist, but how to reach It.

There are three ways: science, faith and practice.

The scientific way is through critical thinking and study; acquiring knowledge through years of focused study, reading, discussion (Plato's 'Dialogues'), writing, contemplation; questioning everything. KNOWING that every answered question is a question unanswered. Peeling away the thin layers of the onion until you reach the center (in this metaphor, when you reach the center of the onion you find - nothing, but the smell stays with you).

The faith way is to find It/Him/Her within you through prayer and harmonious activity. Not mood-making, but true faith. Not religious faith (which establishes rules and boudaries), but spiritual faith. This kind of faith can 'move mountains', change history, alter the path of a nation or world.

The third way is through practice, and there are three types of practice - physical, meditational and concentrational.

Physical practice, such as Tai chi, Yoga, or good old fashion rolling can bring one to those moments of pure clarity, an unattached (versus detached) feeling where one sees the body, the action, as separate from the Self. Most martial artists have felt this at one time or another. Most warriors, soldiers, fighters have felt the slowing of time, the prescience of the next move of the opponent or partner, the extension of the personality through the moment into the future. People in survival situations have felt this too, where they accept their death and move beyond it, doing things that amaze other people.

There is a sequence of training in some martial arts that can bring a student to the brink of It - a realization that is deep enough and strong enough that it affects the very spirit, a deep feeling/experience that is never lost (like onion stink :)

The third of the physical practices concern concentration. Zen is this - long periods of intense stillness with the mind forced onto a 'one-point.' This takes time because one is fighting the natural tendency of the mind (born on the plains of Africa as homo became erectus (sorry, bad pun)) to jump around like a hamster on meth.

The last part of the physical process is meditational - finding a vehicle (mantric, or inner-sound meditations are the easiest) that will carry you to It and then bring you back.

I liken this search to driving a car. You can drive the car yourself and, in time, it becomes automatic and you can do other things (stop texting while you're driving!!). You can ride in the passenger seat and, although you are relieved of having to drive, you still tend to navigate. Or you can have a chaffeur come pick you up, take you to your destination and then bring you back.

Mantric meditations are like this - 'leave the driving to us.' However, most people give up this easiest, and quickest (years instead of decades) of paths because it is the most subtle, the least active and the most 'destressing' (versus distressing). Few have the willpower to stay with a process that seems goal-less. It's like doing 500 breakfalls, and then 500 more and then the instructor ends class.

Mantric meditations are like the Chinese way of dyeing cloth. The cloth is dipped in the dye, let dry in the sun, dipped and dryed, dipped and dryed. Each drying time, the dye is almost burned away by the sun but, over time, the cloth takes on the color until it is permanent. Western ways are to soak the cloth once and call it good. Then your underwear gets black when you throw it in with the new sweatshirt.

Dip, let dry. Meditate, act. Be, do.

As an answer to a question from Maija, pure focus is the effect of total commitment.

Committment 2

2011-06-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Maija and Charles for their cogent questions. Here are some thoughts that may help in developing an answer (or - more usual, more questions):

Maija - REAL, TOTAL committment can only exist in the 'zero point field' (Musashi's 'void', the vedic 'absolute', quantum mechanics 'state of least excitation') - the point where time, space, cause and effect are only potential. This field is self-referent; in other words, a circle. But a circle, by its own nature, when/as it forms, automatically loses its 'oneness', its purity, and becomes three - inside, outside and boundary.

This is shape. The shape of everything - a dance, a poem, the wind, a fight, money, religion - thought. If one could be aware - consciously aware, not just intellectually creative, of this shape, then one could achieve a close approximation of total committment. Because one's perception would be of the state where all possibilites are still only potential. It would be like being in the supermarket, strolling the shelves of cereal - so many choices! But the cereal box doesn't even start to be 'cause' until it's rung up and carried from the store. And the cereal doesn't have any effect until it's manipulated - eaten.

The problem has always been that humans do not think, feel or perceive at the zero point (circle) boundary. Variables arise that rob intention and committment of 'totality.' As we get farther and farther away from the boundary, there are so many variables that even second-to-second time becomes fluid (how time flies when you're discussing martial arts with friends and how it stands still when you're in the knuckle pushup position!)

But let's talk about very small intention - a duel. Who wins? Is it, as Charles says, that person who is totally committed to not losing? Or one who is totally committed to winning? Variables.

If I win, you lose; if you lose, do I win?

Let's make a simple situation where almost all variables have been eliminated (and as a write, you are struggling to eliminate variable to make this simple) - a fight to the death. There is no escape, no mercy, no pleading, no reprieves. Two men enter - one man leaves, or both men die (oops - three things again --).

Who has the best chance of winning? He, or she who perceives firstest and mostest, processes quickest, and acts with great emotion, guided by a single, willfully decided goal (dang, three things again).

This field can be cultivated through intellectual, emotional (experiential) and spiritual (the experience of Nothing) education until one's awareness encompasses the whole of the mind/personality, not just the surface levels. Then, pure intention creates harmonious results.

When I was competing, my sole tactic was being first off the (critical distance) line, my only concern was perceiving the natural human habit of hesitating before engaging (watch MMA stuff and you'll see even these toughest of fighters hesitate just before the line) and my only technique a lead hand strike, like a tank round fired at enemy armor. One hit, one kill.

It had nothing to do with intention, only perception, processing and performance. My intention was that I didn't care if I won or lost.

Does this help?

Committment

2011-06-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

A phrase stuck out boldly from Rory Miller's blog at http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html: "-hesitancy to commit and all the usual things." This is THE key question/problem in martial arts - how to train - instill and/or elicit, committment. What does committment mean? What kind of committment are we talking about? Intentional? Emotional? Physical?

Intentional committment is putting the mind 'on target', on goal, and moving forward undeviatingly toward that goal. But to be 'total' committment, one must put blinders on, never allowing the mind, emotions or body to be swayed by ANY other input. No change or extraneous data, or internal thoughts or feelings, can be given ANY consideration.

Emotional committment, in the fighting sense, is - no mercy, no compassion, only the task. The downside is obvious.

Physical committment is total abandon of all balance and geometry along the path of the attack. Weapon - target - strike; nothing more. This is the area I chose to focus on when I was fighting because I leaned to use total committment against my opponent through perception and use of 'micro-distances' that create an illusion that a totally committed attack can reach me, or that the opponent feels he is too far away for me to reach him.

So, is there really any such thing as total committment? And, if so, how would one train for it, or train others to achieve it?

Day at the Office

2011-06-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

Time rolled back - back into the broken-down driver's seat that makes for a stiff back after a 10-hour shift, the sweaty chafing of body armor, the hips remembering how raw the skin can get where 20 pounds of gun belt-and-gear grinds on the flesh. The constant scanning - side window, side mirror, windshield, rearview mirror, side mirror, passenger side window and back, like a tank turret looking for targets. Seeing the scowls of the bad guys eye-dancing with you, the subtle challenge they know they can't win but have to try anyway.

Flagged down by a road crew guy. "Hey, there's a guy lying on the sidewalk just up the street; looks like he's in a bad way --."

And there he is - one of the many homeless of the area, lying on his back, thick-tongue from drink or drugs cutting off his breathing. A couple stand at a bus stop 20 feet away, unconcerned.

Roll him onto his side; breathing better. "Hey, HEY! buddy, it's the po-leece, are you OK?" No response. Call medical.

"Five charlie five."

"Five charlie five," dispatch comes back.

"Code 3 medical for a middle-age male at (location), unconscious but breathing, no sign of trauma."

"Code 3 medical, copy."

While waiting for the paramedics, I monitor his breathing and check him quickly and superficially for weapons, needles, drugs, booze and identification. Nothing except a backpack full of empty beer cans.

Busy traffic slows enough for looky-loos to cluck their tongues and shake their heads.

Ambulance takes him to the hospital.

I go back to donuts and coffee.

Another day at the office.

Mizu no kokoro in Action

2011-06-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

So, the first day back on the (part-time) job as deputy, I have to do an (apartment) eviction. All my partner and I have is a name and address. We contact the apartment manager and try and get a sense of the person or persons who live there - are they 'cool? partyers? druggies? dogs or kids? any trouble (besides continuous refusal to pay rent) with other folks in the complex?

So, we get a master key from the manager and up we go to the second floor. Knock-and-announce (poundpoundpound SHERIFF'S OFFICE! COURT ORDER TO ENTER!!) making sure to stand apart and nearest the door jams so if we get shot at (has happened - through the door or walls - 'standoff' occurs - SWAT team, negotiators; then tear gas, barking K9, the whole bit if it all goes south) one of us can cover, or drag, the other as we retreat.

Repeat. Repeat 3d time - no answer.

So, open the door, guns drawn; standard building search protocol. From a darkened room comes a small boy, tears in his eyes. My partner holsters and gestures the boy to come to him saying, "it's OK, it's ok; we're police officers and we aren't here to hurt anyone; is there someone else here with you?" I stay gun out, scanning the rest of the darkened apartment, then pushing open a door to my right; bathroom; unoccupied.

The small boy, maybe 7 or 8, snuffling back fearful tears says, "my mommy is in there," pointing to my left.

Bedroom. Mom asleep (passed out? drugged out?) on the bed. My partner shakes her awake, keeping an eye on the closet door. He nods and I do a quick sweep of the rest of the apartment. No one.

The young woman, maybe 22, groggily gets up. She has a BADLY swollen lower leg with red streaks starting up past the knee (she's wearing shorts). We offer to call an ambulance for her; she says, "I don't want no medical, I can't afford it." We say, "miss, the medical check is on us, but we really think you should have that leg seen; it looks bad." FU in reply. She has a series of 'barbell' piercings down her neck, lip and eyebrow pins and expensive-looking tattoos on her shoulders.

My partner tells her what's up - "the landlord has evicted you, you gotta go, you got twenty minutes to gather whatever essentials you and the boy need and then you're outta here."

A note - before an actual eviction, there is a three-step process we, and the landlord, have to go through, including the chance for mediation and renegotiation, before we can actually evict. The tenant has to respond to these steps so we can be sure they know what's up, and have a chance to fix it.

She claims ignorance. No matter - judge says go, she goes. We question her to see if she has any relatives, friends, acquaintances who might take her in for a few nights. Does she have a car. "No, no, no and FU," she says, angrily throwing a few things into a backpack. She orders the boy to pack a bag and then when he stares at her, lower lip quivering, she says, "get going, go----mit; why do you have to be such a drag on my life; you're just baggage."

We offer to call around for her to see if there is a shelter for her and the boy. She refuses. The boy looks well fed, clean, not sick. Civil liberties don't allow us to take the kid unless certain, very specific circumstances are present. Being kicked to the curb with no place to go is not one of those circumstances.

She grabs clothes and a carton of cigarettes, leaving the boy to fend for himself. Off she goes down the street, limping, not even looking back to see if her son is following her.

He looks back at me once, not with tears or fears, but resignedly, as if to say, here we go again.

Only 19 more 'papers' to serve. Sigh. Another day at the office.

Mizu 'the bad guy doesn't care about freakin' no kokoro

2011-06-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

Rory Miller and I talk about exactly the same things, but from opposite directions. He, a man of perception-action, doing; me, a person of perception-realization, being. But, the same.

I dream of a world where people KNOW and do based on being. Rory of a world where people aren't victimized because they KNOW the ways of, and solutions to, violence.

Peace. Violence. They are the same.

Mizu no Kokoro Pt.2

2011-06-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the mixup - let's try this again.

I originally developed this chart based on a concept from Master Bruce Terrill of Wu Ying Tao Karate (his advice for winning in contact sports: "just hit the guy.") called the Priority Scale that I combined with some research into the layers of consciousness, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and sparked by the common phrase - we only use 10% of our brains.

The Priority Scale will wait for another day. Consciousness research can be summed up in the Sanskrit phrase, yogastah kurukarmani, ("established in Being, perform action); Maslow, we all know: sex at the foundation, realization at the peak (a double entendre if ever one was written - it works on so many levels!).

No, we don't use only 10% of our brain - we use all of our brain but are only aware of the 10% that is under our direct perception (not control).

Thus, the chart.

Feeling, perceiving (the 5 senses; intuition is a special case), thinking and acting are sensed by all humans not sleeping or dreaming. But only acting (doing) is under our direct control. This sensory area is the 'fluid' self - changeable, malleable, able to learn, react, act. 'Below' or 'under' the conscious mind is the subconsious mind where un-sensed processes occur (intuition fits here). This is the level of 'I am' and 'I' - the 'fixed' self that is (mostly) unchangeable.

The analogy of the ocean again - the surface is all activity and change, reflective of it's surroudings (blue sky, blue water and so forth), the depths, all stillness and quiet. The surface - effect; the depths - cause.

At the deepest level (of small-r reality) is 'global' awareness. Somewhat akin to Jung's "collective unconscious" it is at this level that we are all alike; a quantum state where matter, energy and intelligence (not consciousness) all exist as potential; where the tiniest of manipulations (if one could be aware at this level) creates the greatest of changes.

Beneath this is - the Void. The home of all religions, philosophies, dreams and dialogues. Where Oneness is only - conscious-ness.

None of this is new, or unwritten, or unexplained. The difference is in usefulness. How can one use this knowledge to be more successful in life?

(Thanks to Elsa the Librarian at Everest College for providing me with a place to park the chart so y'all could link to it).

Levels of the Personality

Mizu no Kokoro

2011-06-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

She spent most of the air in her scuba tank swimming among the brilliant corals and multi-hued dartingflashing hide-and-seek reef fish, fascinated by the soundless display of life. She was reminded of a Manhattan street at lunch hour - all the brightly colored business people and cabs rushing hither and fro on their errands. It was so peaceful down here, she thought to herself, quiet. She saw a large fish and followed it for awhile, fascinated by its seeming random motions across the sandy bottom. She didn't notice it was getting darker as she swam deeper - her eyes adjusting to the dimmer depths fooled her into thinking she was still near the tour boat, near the surface. Deeper and deeper, quieter and quieter until she could hear only the thump of her heart and shush-shush of blood through her arteries. It was totally dark now, but such a sense of calm had come over her she didn't know she had run out of air and stopped breathing. Her last tiny bubbles of thought, felt more than inner dialogued, were of the cessation of gravity, time and space; a sense of being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A sense of her tiny self in the vastness of the universe, unimportant yet all powerful at the same time. Still sinking -- sinking --.

She woke up in a hyperbaric chamber on board a Coast Guard ship. Not a sudden awakening, but a slow rise back to sense-of-self. First a dim, tiny pinpoint KNOWING that she was separate from -- from -- other - things. Then warmth. Then calm. Her hand twitched and her fingers felt the fuzziness of the blanket - a cotton blanket.

"Captain, your patient has come around," said the corpsman to the medical officer.

After a brief check of the dials and guages, the medical officer spoke to her through the chamber's intercom.

"Miss Patten, how do you feel?"

"Who is this? Where am I," she mumbled sleepily.

And thus her transition back to effect was begun.

Data, Knowledge and Realization

2011-06-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

I spoke to a Librarian today (always dangerous - one might learn something, but if you need to know where HA 5381.C96 A124 2006 is located, you went to the right place); we spoke of data (not the Star Trek android guy, you know - in the Patrick Steward as Captain version, not the last iteration of the series starring that guy what has a new series about conflicted mid-life crisis males along with that Raymond guy) - the multi-frequency, multi-level high speed LOUD stream of information coming at us from everywhere all the time. So much, so fast, that all we have time to do is check in to Facebook twelve times a day and google any question (is google a verb?).

Our youth seem to deal with it well, but fathom it not at all. Bits and bytes flying through young heads so fast it's like neutrons passing through the earth (hee hee, that tickled, what was it?).

So fast there ain't no influence -- --

No change.

No progress.

Gravity

2011-06-02T23:23:00.000-07:00

"I started to feel the breeze coming through them, like a window opened to let fresh air in, alongside the slight whistling sound of empty space." Maija in http://swordandcircle.blogspot.com/2011/05/intra-brain-communication.html.

When you open a window, the air exchanges automatically. Another way to think of any exchange, whether it be physical, in love or conflict; emotional, in angst or happiness; spiritual in attachment or realization is - gravity.

If you are in the state of the 'open window' - a relaxed focus, opportunities and openings (Rory Millers 'gifts') literally suck you in, like an intense gravitational field that 'attracts' your technique, your intention. It takes a dedicated repositioning of the will to NOT land the technique, grab that loose limb, apply that lock, de-escalate, redirect, convince, share.

But you can also be that gravitational force that draws energy in. Depending on your emotional state, this gravity can draw in negativity (in my pre-retirement job, this was called voluntary victimization) or positivity.

In a fight, gravity sucks.

Engrams

2011-05-31T15:50:00.000-07:00

A response to Maija's comment on my last post (also, see her blog http://swordandcircle.blogspot.com/).

Engrams are high-emotion charged block(s) of memory that create persistent thought-feeling loops. They can be trauma-based (wounds, traffic accidents, the death of a loved one), task-based (great success or great failure at a critical task) or joy-based (birth, marriage, a realization) and affect our life path. Engrams are gates through which we step, intersections at which we choose a different path, concrete walls over which we struggle to climb or steel cages within which we sit, glaring at the world and trying to protect the little, fearful monkey inside.

Engrams revisited can create an upwelling of happiness, pride and satisfaction but the persistent ones are usually associated with pain, loss and depression. They are like a tooth that has lost a filling. If the hole, the change, is small, it's mostly unnoticed in a busy life but, inevitably, the tongue, like the mind, unbidden, seeks out the loss. If the hole is large and causes pain, your world shrinks to that one issue and until the filling is replaced, the tooth made whole again, life revolves around this need, this pain, this difference.

Engrams are initials carved into wet cement; soon dry, they become permanent.

The greater the emotion, or the longer the emotion over time, the more power the engram has.

Do you know someone who appears to be 'stuck' in life? Revisiting the same issues over and over? Seemingly unable to get their life on track, to have the energy to be successful, or happy?

There's a powerful engram in their past, like a witch doctor's spell. Find the engram - discover the spell - learn the demon's name, and you break the power of the engram to bind, to blind, to diminish.

I don't subscribe to Scientology, but this connection of engrams to psychological un-wellness was well researched by L. Ron Hubbard and published in his book, 'Dianetics.". Then the money madness took over. Unfortunate but not unusual.

Eureka!

2011-05-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

Education - the acquisition of knowledge, should invoke realization - a multi-level insight that creates and/or enhances purpose (rational brain), joy (emotional brain) and a sense of calmpower (survival brain). But the most important part of this trinity is the activation of the emotional brain, because without 'emotional content' (Bruce Lee) the input/information has no 'weight', no 'pressure' to affect the individual in any meaningful, and lasting, way.

The best information, the most complete learning has three components that creates the trinity: information, feeling and experience. Analogy - the wagon wheel. The individual spokes are discrete pieces of information and the rim the emotions that bind the parts into a continuous, connected whole. But the hub, the center of the wheel, is what makes the wheel powerful, useful, significant. (Paraphrased from the Tao Te Ching).

Example: WHAP! Boot to the head. When you pick yourself off the training floor, and the instructor looks at you with that, 'now do you get it?' look; you nod and repeat the mantra of sparring, the one the instructor has mentioned a dozen times and you've trained repetitively in drills, "left hand up, left hand up!" A realization that what was said, and trained, was not what was produced because it had no emotional-experiential component; it was just information until you had to use it.

Example: the Academy instructors told the rookies, and showed them in role playing that when returning to your cruiser after getting the driver's information following a traffic stop, always keep the driver in sight. I got all the way back to my car and, turning to get in the driver's seat, saw the driver out of his car, patting his butt and telling me to kiss his ass. Surprise!

Examples: forms vs sparring; a college composition class vs writing your first newspaper article and having it rejected, scoffingly ("this is drivel!" the editor exclaims); a mixed martial artist facing a veteran bar fighter; lamaze (pregnancy) classes vs the first contraction.

To teach it, one must get the student to see it, feel it and do it. And to learn it, the student must seek the emotional and relational (how information connects with stored knowledge, past experience and present emotions) aspects of the information.

Ya feel me, dude?

Family

2011-05-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

I don't usually write about myself, but --

Today I rejoined the family I left in 2009. A brother - and sisterhood of warriors. To strap on 25 pounds of gear and vest and feel the familiar 'punch' of the .45s recoil as I shot 4" groups from the 25 yard line (still got it!), smell the dry heat sweat-stench of the locker room as I peeled off the wet-sticky T-shirt and sweat-soaked vest; to hear the familiar grunt of the lieutenant's howdy as I walked past his office on the way to my mailbox - just like it had been only yesterday instead of 2 years.

I looked at the recruits shooting with me - young puppies; all bright-eyed eagerness. They shook my hand and called me 'sir' (man, I AM getting old). I hadn't realized how much I missed it, the bittersweet melancholy of separation falling away as I stepped back into my role. It is who I am and what I do.

At 61, it's going to be a challenge - creaky joints, WAY less endurance, trifocal glasses - realities that can't be changed.

But it's sure good to be home. I'm one of 'them' again.

Enlightenmant

2011-05-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

Wrapped in thick robes, the yogi, sitting at the entrance to the cave high up Koshi Nodar, spends his days cognizing the shape of the Universe and hearing its Song. It took him over 7 decades to achieve the mental and spiritual stillness necessary to See and Hear.

Having Nothing to do all day, he sees a tiny figure struggling against the steep, torturous path to his home - the only way to his solitary existence. The Song of the Universe fades into its background resonance as he focuses momentarily on the figure, discerning the shape the lone traveller casts before, behind and around him. The traveller's song, a tinny, repetitive, angular whine of desperation comes to him, helped along by the low moaning of the wind around the precipices that surround him.

His mountain home, anchored by the stuttering chuckle of gravity spins slowly several times revealing, in turn, the laugh of the sun, sigh of the moon and distant conversational susurration of the stars, interposed occasionally by angry outbursts, triumphant cries and needy whines of the new borns.

Distracted momentarily by the cry of matter as a small black hole, travelling through local space, gobbles up a white dwarf star, he is startled - a VERY uncommon feeling, (he is a VERY old yogi) - and feels his heart beat more than 20 beats a minute for the first time in many cycles as a gaunt figure appears, straggly hair and beard, sweat-stained clothes and hungry look, chest heaving, and falls to the ground at his feet.

"Master - MASTER!" he manages to choke out; then drops, unconsciousness.

The old yogi sings water, food and energy into the young man, then waits as the youth falls into a deep sleep.

The seeker opens his eyes and sits up after - a time.

"Yes, you are at peace now," the old yogi says, "there really isn't a problem, but I appreciate the long journey you've made, and to have another to talk to after many, many cycles."

"But, Master -,"

"Then, you DO have a problem?"

"Master -"

"Ahh, enlightenment," the old yogi says. "A very simple question with a simple answer. Look out toward the rising sun and tell me that you see."

"You mean WHAT I see," the youth asks.

"No, THAT you see."

The youth, having trained for several decades in various martial arts, was used to zen questions and answered, "yes, I see - out there - a beautiful rising sun, the far off valleys cloaked in green, and in here," he said, thumping his chest, tears tracking runnels in his dirty cheeks, "I see a life lived fruitlessly, spent attached to trials, travails, torments and triumphs, loss and gain; some years in happiness and plenty, some years with times of pain and need - I see."

"Then you are looking, not seeing," the old yogi said.

"Then tell me, Master, how can I see?"

"Quit looking."

The young man's eyes widened; his mouth opened like a fish gulping air. He JUMPED to his feet, glaring at the seated yogi.

"STUPID old man," the youth screamed, "I have come all this way, facing starvation, torture at the hands of bandits, robbed and beaten, begging in the streets, finally, almost DEAD making it up here to ask the one man in all the world said to know. I have searched for you for years, given up my family and friends, my work, my LIFE, my VERY SOUL just to get the answer to ONE FREAKIN ' QUESTION and you tell me what I ALREADY KNOW?"

"Ahh, then you DO see."

Shape Research

2011-05-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

Take any encounter between two people. Martially, this encounter could be, for instance, training with knives - learning flow, move and counter move, or a duel (boxing, mixed martial arts, etc.). In real life, it could be a cop arresting a violent suspect or a citizen being attacked by a mugger. Encounters might be passionate looks between lovers, a conversation between friends, political arguments or a family discussion over dinner.

These encounters have shapes. If we can 'see' (realize/feel/perceive (invent?) these 'shapes' we can better control their boundaries, and adjust their outcomes. But to do this, one must know one's own shape first.

This is the tough part - determining our own shape. This is because, in normal sensory modalities, 'reality' is perceived as a constantly shifting, multi-dimensional whirlingtwistingcrashing forming and reforming chaos - a ride down the Colorado River with the movement downstream being time. Sometimes the river - our lives - are placid and we can float along and admire the scenery. Other times, class 5 rapids within which we barely survive. Other shapes, many unseen, impinge upon our ride; we crash and rebound and recover, hoping for success, happiness, respect, a place in the tribe, love.

If we can just find the time to pull off to the side of the river onto a bank, maybe we can have a few minutes to see what 'shape' we are in.

If we can find a place to stand, a momentary place of solidity we can 'look down' and HOLY CRAP there's NOTHING there! see our shape.

Once we have 'seen' (perceived, or - perhaps - realized) our shape, then we can look up and out and see that what looks like chaos does actually have a (number of interconnected, flowing but 'natural' law constrained) shape.

And because we have the greatest power of all - consciousness - we can maneuver ourselves - our shape - within this flow so as to support and enhance evolutionary processes.

For an example of shape research, see http://swordandcircle.blogspot.com/2011/05/solutions.html.

Lifeshape

2011-04-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

The unifying principle to all martial arts (to all of life, in my opinion, of course) is shape. All arts, stand up, ground, weapons, have a similar shape. This shape is three dimensional and is made up of the individual's (internal) shape, the shape of the other individual(s) (group shape is sometimes easier to discern than individual shape; for instance, three muggers - the leader, the muscle and the brain are easy to pick out) and the shape of the situation. Each of these three shapes have three 'points' which, when connected, form the basic shape.

Internal shape is made up of physical, emotional and intentional.

Other's shape is the same. The trick is to discover that shape in the midst of chaos.

Situational shape is environment, goal-requirement and time.

Each of these point have are connected by three 'lines', if you will. But, until I think them up, they don't really exist.

If I can stick to the point(s), chaos becomes order and intention creates reality.

Perspectives

2011-04-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

What is your perspective? The foundations of perspective are three: your perspective of yourself, of others and of the context within which you live. Add the three brains and you have 9 perspectives. Add the 4th dimension of time (one's point of view changes over time and from time to time, depending on what time it is) and the 4 states of consciousness (waking, dreaming, sleeping and transcendental) and you have - a bunch (someone help me out here with the math).

Perspective, by this logic, is constantly changing, like a man in a raft upon the ocean. The sea changes; the man's perspective changes. Calm and peaceful, fierce or grey, choppy, unyielding, crashing (add more metaphors here to your liking - flavors, if you will), a never-changing impermanence out of our control. No firm foundation, no stable place to stand to be able to survey, process, plan and act.

But perspective HAS a base and once you can find a firm place to 'stand', other perspectives will become clear; choices will abound but the main 'thread' or path, if you will, will be visible.

This is being 'centered' - developing an unchanging perspective that not only allow, but invites, all other perspectives to participate and contribute.

Conundrums and Paradoxes

2011-04-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

I'm still struggling with the 3 basic questions. Once I can answer these, then all other information will automatically arrange into a contextual whole where contrast becomes an organizable and manipulable picture against a context of lifeshape. It is like a puzzle with its multiple, seemingly random, same-shape pieces. Completing the 'puzzle' is easy once you can see the picture on the box. Otherwise, the puzzle pieces are just a jumble of pretty colors and barely differentiated shapes. One can recognize corners, perhaps connect a few pieces, but without the (big) picture of what the completed puzzle will look like, the process of assembly - of making sense of seeming contradictions and undifferentiatable similarities can be tedious and frustrating.

The first and third questions are: what came first; the chicken (consciousness) or the egg (the Universe) and, is man inherently violent? Question #2 is hidden beneath the 'fog of duality' but will 'organize' itself when the other two quesions are answered.

My current thinking about question #1 centers around a statement from the Rig Veda: "when consciousness becomes conscious, then intelligence becomes intelligent." Consciousness is the unified state of all potential and singular but non-SELF awareNESS and that, at the moment of the Big Bang, Consciousness, in the quantum process of decoupling, differentiated into matter, energy and (the potential for self-) awareness. The process of expansion from the quantum singularity of the pre-Big Bang state is the movement of fractured awareness, driven by the three states of action of the Universe - gravity, energy transference and expansion (dark energy?) to reassemble into a unified whole - the recombination of the three states (matter, energy and awareness) back into Consciousness.

Question #3 is fairly self-evident - human males ARE inherently violent due to homo sapiens evolution as predators, scavengers and two-sex reproducers - the need to hunt and kill to survive, the need to acquire and retain scarce resources (the rise of mammals as the primary (land) life form occured when the saurians were destroyed, as most all life on Earth, in the asteroid strike about 66 million years ago. In the centuries following the ELE, the land-based survivors, thumb-sized mammals - lived off dinosaur carcasses that became increasingly rare (and stinky) as time went on. The requirement of hunting to survive (predator-prey relationship) created inter-species violence, scarce resources, intra-species violence. Throw in reproductive competition (the fittest gets the females) and you have the violence cocktail - food, tribalism and sex.

This genetics-based survival trinity has evolved, like all dynamic systems, into greater complexity. Thus, crime, terrorism and South Park.

What has this to do with interpersonal relationships and Rory Miller's erudite articulations on dealing with violence?

Why - everything.

As my Arnis grandmaster, Professor Remy Presas was wont to say, "it's all the same." Understand the shape, the whole, fit the pieces. The process of assembly - how long it takes to put the puzzle together is what takes the time.

And in Rory's world (heartbeats in a place of moaning wind through desert rock, a man on a horse barely visible in the fading light of the day) and endeavor (training people to understand and handle man's inherently violent nature) one may not have the time for studied assembly. So he offers training - knowledge and understanding - of both ends of the spectrum - the 'shape' (the picture of the puzzle on the box lid) and the 'pieces' of violence (actions one can take to deal with violence).

Now, on to question #2. But - it's past this old guy's bedtime (8:00), time to put my teeth in the glass, drink my warm milk and pull the comforter over my head.

Until the sunrise -

Postulizing 2

2011-04-22T20:37:00.001-07:00

Everything is what is doesn't appear to be.

Postulizing

2011-04-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

Stability is chaos;
Chaos is the gift;
Nothing, the goal.

Hawaii Haiku

2011-04-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

Brilliant! Green enfolding life's color
Sets sun to bed. Night embraces.

YouTube video

2011-03-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

A good friend and martial arts training partner of mine - 'Bones' helped me put together a short YouTube video to help illustrate a lesson from a writer's workshop I did entitled, "Language of the Blade." (Thanks to Rory Miller for recommending me to savvyauthors.com).

I will finish up the section on criminals in the next two posts, and then post the 10 lesson workshop here for those interested in blade combat, training and gear. But, here's the link to the video. As a first attempt, it wasn't bad but, like all 'first ups', it sets the bar. My plans are a bit vague right now, but I am thinking about a 'video book' to be published on line. We'll see.

Ain't it grand that anyone can be heard, seen and understood through this medium?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h2TL3MwrSU

Crime Doesn't Pay

2011-03-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

Now that the helplessness, trauma and loss experienced by the victims of crime have been thoroughly (dead horse beaten) discussed, the question is: what is the down side to crime?

It is this: the criminal is a lonely, fearful, unloved individual who will spend all his time looking over his shoulder. He will die alone, unloved, un-grieved, thrown in a pauper's grave and instantly forgotten.

Criminals, by their own actions, have excluded themselves from respect, peer support, accolades, friendship and love, respectable productivity, a sense of deep and lasting accomplishment; a feeling of societal inclusion and belonging.

Forever on the outside, looking in.

When a non-criminal feels the lack of these feelings, they are motivated to find a group or job or activity or person from which they can earn those feelings. When a non-criminal is pitied by others due to one circumstance or other, in their control or not, such a person works hard to turn that pity to respect.

When a criminal feels the lack of these feelings, he becomes depressed and seeks to take good feelings away from others; when the criminal feels he is being pitied, he becomes enraged and seeks the pain of others.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't spend years breaking big rocks into little ones.

Crime Does Pay

2011-03-20T00:02:00.000-07:00

So, your expensive mountain bike is stolen, right out from under your nose. You turn your back for 2 minutes and BADDA BING BADDA BOOM it's gone - no trace, no evidence, no luck, no hope. So, you make a police report. Unfortunately, you don't have insurance on it, so the $2800 you paid for it, and have invested in it with customization and gear - is gone. You're angry, both at yourself and at the (successful) criminal, frustrated, sad. The criminal is exultant, empowered, got a nice new bike for less than 10 seconds of work (that figures out to about $280 per hour) and is high-fiving with his friends as they admire his skill and daring.

Let's say he gets caught riding the bike. He's arrested. In this county, if he has just gotten out of jail, the police can't take him back, issuing him a ticket instead. Or, even if he gets booked into jail, he's out in 4 hours after PROMISING to go to court. Which, of course, he doesn't. A warrant is issued for failure to appear. A few months later, he's arrested after a routine traffic stop. During a search of the vehicle, the police find 10 stolen credit cards.

He goes to jail, this time having to wait two weeks to see a judge. He's then released after PROMISING to go to court. Which, of course, he doesn't.

This cycle continues until finally he has enough charges stacked up to actually get him convicted of multiple thefts. This takes from 1 to 3 years. He plea bargains for 6 months in county jail, of which he does 4 months.

His score - over 100 thefts, dozens of people's lives interrupted - ruined - tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on police, corrections, DAs, clerks, courts, juries, counselors, property techs, jail housing, classification officers, parole and probation.

He gets out and is greeted jubilantly by one of his 'homies.' They immediately go to a store and steal some beer, knock an old lady down and steal her social security money, visit their drug dealer, hook up with a couple of ho's and party long into the night, celebrating their power.

And there's NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

Why They Do It: Part Some More

2011-02-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

Crime is at an all-time low in all societies world-wide. Yes, one can point to specific areas, specific times where crime is rampant, then use these statistics as the median of all crime statistics to prove that crime is out of control, but it's not true.  Even violent crime is down, all across the board.

But the perception of the average (read: most all) citizens is that violent crime is out of control, and that no one is really safe anywhere, anytime. In earlier posts, I posited this position - that we are helpless against criminals and violence, basically because they get the 'first move' - the criminal can decide the time, place and person to victimize and the polite and helpful rest of us can only react. Even the police have seemingly been turned, by multiple legal and civil actions, from pro-active peace keepers to drive-around-waiting-for-crime-to-happen reactionaries.

This perception of crime and violence out of control is manufactured - by the media. The media, as important to a free society as it is, is co-dependent upon crime and violence. The media ENABLES violence and creates a fog of fear and uncertainty in citizens, and the certainty of successful criminal action in the criminal mind.

Turn on any news channel in the United States and every lead story is about violent crime. Violence activates the parts of our survival brain (see Paul MacLean's triune brain hypothesis for background) once used to compete successfully among bigger, faster, stronger predators in our ancient past. Our brains, our attention is still biologically predisposed to focus on violence or the perception of violence-to-come. The media focuses this natural attentional predisposition through stories about violence onto the REAL purpose of media - to sell us stuff we don't need.  Yes, the media does fulfill a vital role in keeping a society open and free, and every (almost) reporter you'll ever meet is concerned, caring and interested in objective facts, but the reality is that the media is owned and operated by people whose purpose is to make money. To make money, they have to have your attention, riveted and undivided, onto the profit message - buy buy buy.

But this very co-dependency between the media and the criminals has a hidden benefit beneath the fear-mongering and product placement; perhaps focusing our attention on not only violence-happened, but violence-that-may-be is also the reason why crime is so low and violence so rare. The very act of scaring us also makes us more alert to the subtleties of modern human social interactions, especially the precursors to negative ones - competitive, uncooperative, criminal and violent.

Wolves hate it when the whole herd of sheep turn as one and look at them. "I see you, and I know what you want to do." Makes a wolf paranoid, it does.

Yin and Yang, each containing parts of the other within the circle.

Why They Do It Part 3

2011-02-04T20:56:00.000-08:00

People always ask - aren't they afraid of getting caught? Doesn't the threat of jail deter them? The answer is no. So, you must understand the criminal typologies and their thinking modes. There are three types of criminals - the ragers, the greedy and the fun-lovers. Ragers shoot their families, classmates, cops; they usually act spontaneously, althought there are always precursor signs. The only thing that will stop a rager once their 'action trigger' is initiated is overwhelming and immediate force. The greedy seek material goods, most often to sell to get money to purchase their drugs. Intervention and prevention is observation and their perception that you will intervene. The fun-lovers seek power over others; rapists fit this category; they often act because they are trying to gain a higher 'alpha' status within their chosen group (even if that group is within their own minds). Intervention here is to denegrated them in the other group members' minds; their status is always precarious and it doesn't take much to make the other group members turn on them and reduce their status, and thus their motivations. However, a 'dissed' and status-reduced group criminal will often become a rager, because this type cannot take the 'insult'/status hit. Yes, there are other sub-types, but most (not all) criminals fit into one of these three typologies. But all the types think this way - not, "am I going to get caught." but, "am I going to get caught before I can accomplish my goal." Thoughts of future consequences do not figure into their planning, only whether they will be stopped during their criminal activity.

There are three societal elements that keep the criminals from taking over: 1) the criminal justice system treats all criminals equally, equitably and gently, and punishment is mild (if a criminal knows he will be immediately executed for his crimes once caught, he will not only be a more cautious criminal, but a more successful and violent one); 2) whatever a criminal wants - money, drugs, sex - is readily and easily available anywhere, anytime; and 3) their own stupidity.

Next - the reasons for the rise of violent action in the criminal population.

Why They Do It Pt 2

2011-01-29T22:34:00.000-08:00

They (criminals) do it because they can, they must or they feel forced into it, and they know there is NOTHING you can do to stop them. If they want your car - they'll get it. If they want to break into your house, they're in. Knock you out and steal your wallet - hopefully you'll wake up later. Bust a cap in yo' ass while you're waiting for the walk sign? You're capped. You are completely helpless against the criminal.

Protecting yourself? With what? A concealed weapon? Are you tactically trained for a gunfight? How often do you practice? Under stress? At night? In the rain? While running? Not.

Pepper spray? I use it for pizza flavoring.

Hand to hand? OK, so you do an hour or two in a kickboxing aerobics class and lift some weights. Maybe run a bit? Maybe you've even taken some martial arts classes. Even professional boxers and mixed martial art fighters - arguably some of the toughest folks around - get caught unawares and knocked out by criminals.

The criminal has the upper hand because he initiates the action from a position of adrenalized power against you, the citizen, who is in an everday frame of mind. Before you can even BEGIN to process what's going on, you're done.  (Google: the 'OODA loop' ). The criminal is the quintessential human predator (read Rory Miller's blog for a longitudinal study and discussion of human predation and violence) - patient, clever, abruptly and overwhelmingly violent.

So, this begs the question, why aren't the criminals in charge of society? Why doesn't the regular citizen have to cower in a barricaded and fortified house or travel in armed packs? Three things: we have a large percentage of the criminals locked up (over 2 million nation-wide at last count); second - criminals are paranoid and anti-social which makes it hard for them to band together in large enough groups to take over (but, how about those Mexican cartels?  It's possible they might bring down the Mexican government and throw the entire country into anarchy, terror and conflict tribalism); third, we have a society of comfort and plenty for all (sure, there are exceptions, but even the local homeless carry Starbucks coffee cups and smoke filtered cigarettes).

A bleak evaluation. Lucky you that statistics are on your side; statistics that say we have the safest society in history (true).  But, try this - ask all of your friends how many of them have been the victim of crime, even 'relatively' minor 'quality of life' crimes and you'll probably find 75% of them have been victimized.

A bleak evaluation indeed. So - what can any of us do to, not only prevent crime from being visited upon us, our loved ones and our property, but to alter the culture of violence and fear that underlies our everyday existence?

NOTHING.

Why They Do It Pt 2

2011-01-23T12:32:00.000-08:00

Violence: Roots, Motivations, Triggers and Behaviors

A priori – men are predisposed towards violence, women towards “what do you think you’re doing, young man? Stop that this INSTANT or I’ll send you to your room!” Historically, you just don’t see groups of heavily armed and armored women in long battle lines, showing their butts and blue faces to the dastardly foe before rushing forward to hack, slash, chop, thrust and saw other women. Women don’t start wars, revolutions, terrorist organizations, narco-gangs or play defensive tackle on football teams. Women are not inherently violent – men are.

The reason why men are inherently violent, the roots of violence, lie in genetics (survival), biology (social-relational) and a combination of the two (self-identity). The motivations for violence are based on perceived or real survival situations, failure to gain status within, or even belong to, group and skewed self-identity. The triggers for violence are: fear, arrogance, greed, pain, pleasure, duty, rage, wrath, fury and indignation. The behaviors range from suicide to homicide; precursors to violent behavior will be covered in the behaviors section.
The Roots of Violence
The first root of male violence comes from the need to survive in a prehistoric environment of hunting and being hunting – predators and prey. For whatever reason, humans developed as predators – carnivores - and hunted and killed to survive.
The second root is bio-social, a second requirement for survival – the need to organize into packs (tribes) with a hierarchical structure led by an alpha male. The pack structure maximized survival because all the members acted as one - live together and work together, or be eaten alone. Pack organization allowed every individual to find their place within the tribe, use innate, trained and practiced skills for the benefit of the pack and earn a higher status and a thus a chance at breeding. Rituals and social interactions were developed that fostered the growth of each male; each knew their place, their restrictions and the processes necessary to achieve alpha status. To exploit success in these rituals and interactions, males developed a very sensitive social sense that let ‘candidates’ for more important tribal positions intuit and be able to adjust their behaviors to improve their success in achieving those higher positions. Today, we call this male social sense, ‘ego.’ It might better be called ‘male intuition’ versus the more commonly used term ‘female intuition’.
The third root, a combination of genetics (nature) and biology (nurture) is self-identity and is who you are and your perception of who others think you are.

The Motivations for Violence
Survival-motivating situations, which I define as imminent jeopardy, are rare in today’s world because humans have defeated all other predators to become the dominant species on the planet. And society has developed a, for the most part, polite stability that has eliminated need, but not motivations, for intra-species violent competition. Some examples of imminent jeopardy are: an assault by a knife-wielding psycho, seeing a speeding car heading right for you, falling, the fear that jackbooted thugs can come for you at any time, being stuck in the snow in the mountains in your Rav4 – you get the picture.
The bio-social motivation – the need to identify with, belong to and be recognized by a group – is the main cause of violence today. All the ‘-isms’ come from this motivation: nationalism, fascism, jihadism, anarchism, radicalism, communism, socialism, etc etc. Do some of the people within these ‘isms’ have real needs, real grievances? Yes. But violence has extremely limited success in enhancing these group’s survival, position and acceptance.
For a male, self-identity determines group identity and group identity is survival. This creates a dichotomous ‘frustration’ when who you think you are and who you want to be are separate. This ‘frustration’ creates positive or negative behaviors that can, on face value, seem the same. A terrorist and a cop both believe they are developing positive personal attributes, earning group inclusion and accolades, and performing acts that maximize group success.
In the positive realm we have people who are role models, mentors, entrepreneurs, writers, explorers, politicians (yeah – this could go either way ), volunteers, cops and firefighters, the people who go to work every day to serve us our coffee, change our tires, fill our gas tanks, in other words, the majority of the human population who want to succeed but who care about others and work to create a positive social context.
In the negative realm we have psycho- and sociopaths, religious extremists, anarchists, a whole class of people with ‘issues.’ These negative groups feel isolated, oppressed, fearful, frustrated, angry, full of rage and wrath, indignant, put upon and put out. They feel society has “othered” (term coined by Rory Miller) them, so they pass on their fear and anger and “other” the rest of the world. And, as Rory put it – to ‘other’ others is to dehumanize them and allow one to do whatever one wishes to them. “The sad fact is, humans are great at “othering.” Some humans put their personal issues, low self-esteem and unstable personal identity on others and cry, “IT’S YOUR FAULT!” AND “IT’S NOT FAIR!” (mental picture of a 6-year old throwing a tantrum at the mall). Males in this negative realm tend to punish the successful rather than improve themselves.

The Triggers for Violence
Violence is triggered when an internal, mento-emotional pressure caused by fear, arrogance, greed, pain, pleasure, duty, rage, wrath, fury, indignation, and revenge becomes overwhelming. This can develop over time or be caused by a single event. Have you ever had a normally calm and considerate friend ‘go off’ on you for no apparent reason? Watched a news story of a school shooter? Seen a celebrity meltdown? These people, apparently ‘normal,’ suddenly ‘snap.’ I hear this on the news all the time about someone who has just killed a bunch of folks: “yeah, he lived next door to me; he seemed friendly, kind of quiet, kept to himself -.” And then authorities look on his Facebook page and see the signs of impending violence.
Fear, in my opinion, is the most common human emotion. Fear of being late to work, missing an appointment, not being liked, fear of failure, of the dark, the sun, spiders, the loud guy on the bus, heavy traffic, not being promoted, being seen as dumb, slow, ‘mental’, weak. A whole panorama of fears based on – unstable self-identity.
Arrogance is a false sense of superiority that overrides common sense and conscience – the surety that what you are thinking is what other people should be thinking; saying is what everyone else should be saying; doing is what others should be doing and that who you are [portraying] is the role model for all. Example: Robiespierre, the leader of the Committee for Public Safety during the late 1700s French Revolution (“OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!”).
Greed (not need): while working as a Public Information Officer for the Sheriff’s Office, I asked an inmate why he stole cars; he gave me three reasons – because he wanted to, because other people had cars and he didn’t and because people didn’t keep him from taking their cars.

Pain, emotional pain, is usually situational-based. Yes, there are a small percentage of humans who are in extreme physical pain due to injury or disease – these people don’t normally ‘act out.’ It’s people who are in unrelieved or intensely traumatic (to them) emotional pain that often turn to homicide.
Pleasure as a trigger for violence? Seems improbable, but think about post-game rioting – really happy people begin jumping up and down on cars, setting trash cans on fire and throwing bricks through shop windows. These folks are SERIOUSLY HAPPY!?
Duty – think cops and military.
Rage is explosive and immediate and can erupt because of ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ or from a single incident. A special case is wife-beaters. Absent the excuse of alcohol or drug-fueled violence (never take the man’s last hit of meth), there are a small minority of males who will beat a woman because the clothes hangers in his closet were 1.5 inches apart rather than his stipulated 1 inch. This dude’s got PROBLEMS! and needs long term isolation and intervention.

Wrath is revenge - a planned, calculated and delayed action designed to ambush the intended victim(s), to ‘teach them a lesson;’ it is “a dish best served cold” (Marie Joseph Eugene Sue in the 1841 novel Mathilde). Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, is a wrathful person. The precursor to wrathful actions include: veiled, verbal threats usually delivered in third person voice (“we are going to do something about you!”) and/or physical, seen in letters to newspapers, politicians, or the individual of focus and in vandalism - the damaging of someone’s property rather than directed personal violence.

Fury is the barely contained precursor to rage; "-that guy looks like he's gonna lose it!" Rage is out-of-control emotion-based violence in action.

Indignation is a perceived offense to a person’s pride or sense of dignity provoked by something seen as unjust, mean or unworthy. “Don’t you DARE touch me!” said a lady who I was about to arrest. Even though she had been driving drunk, she was quite indignant about a “stranger laying hands on [her].”

These triggers can build on one another until violence ensues. For example, a worker gets a verbal reprimand, in front of other workers, for being consistently late. He is indignant about it, but holds his tongue, allowing the wrath to build until he is furious. He becomes more withdrawn as he sinks into plotting revenge, buys a gun and – well, you know the rest.

Violence Behaviors
Precursors: chins-up red faces, shoulders hunched, balled fists, bouncing up and down or side-to side; rapid speech, clenched-teeth tone, loud and profane; gestures become larger (gross motor activity), pacing or advancing starts and – “hell comes to frogtown” (from the 1987 movie of the same name, story by Randall Frakes). Violence happening is pretty recognizable and can run the gamut from finger-pointing profanity to homicidal, unstoppable rage, from the young teen and his posse meeting a rival group for an after-school showdown to Conan the Barbarian in the pit.

Men!

Why They Do It Part 1

2011-01-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

"Hey, folks, what time is is?" the motivational speaker booms through his head mic from the front edge of the stage. "It's time to steal, rob, rape and kill!", yells the group in enthusiasm. "Who wants to be a thief?" "I do, I DO," shout two ladies in the front row, leaping to their feet, bodies quivering with excitement. "Pick me, PICK ME!" two other men cry from a middle row. Shouts rise all around, people leap to their feet, clamoring for attention. Motivator-guy points, sweeping his extended finger around the class. "You sir -!" "Yes SIR," says the man, leaping to his feet. M-guy says, "what will happen if you get caught by the police?" "Nothing, SIR!" "And why not?" The chosen one's reply gets guffaws and applause, "what are they gonna do, throw me in jail?"

The Night Before Christmas*

2010-12-20T17:33:00.000-08:00

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
the tweekers were sprawled all over the couch.
The bongs and meth pipes were laid on a table with care,
In hopes that St. Crackolas soon would be there.
The children were huddled fearfully, crying in their beds,
while visions of bad daddies plagued their sweet heads.
And mama in her greasy dreads and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I stumbled through trash,
Tore away the dark plastic and threw up the sash.
The powder on the sill reminding me of snow,
Made me lick the wood in the hopes it was blow.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a darked out police van and eight guys in gear.
A wizened up ho', so watchful and quick,
Took one look at them and beat it rickety tick.
More rapid than eagles the men in masks came,
And the leader he shouted, and called them by name.
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! On Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Now throw those flash bangs and arrest them all!

* my humblest apologizies to Clement Clarke Moore, writer of this wonderful tale, of love and family and all that entails; I have taken this poem and written it darkly, with sadness for all the kids who live this life nightly.

Emonoetology

2010-12-10T22:54:00.000-08:00

Ee - mo - know - ih - tology, a term I thought up whilst sitting in my hot tub sipping champagne (little finger extended in the air, of course). It's the study, and practice (if you drop the -tology and add -cism) of developing "emotional thinking", a term coined by Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence. ENT, as I see it, is the ability to scan, analyze, process and integrate sensory input while in the midst of high emotions, and be able to act rationally, and successfully on the information. Feel-think-act simultaneously, all the while not becoming (in the Vedic tradition) 'attached to the fruits of your action.'

An illustrative story related to me about a corrections sergeant who calmly walked in to a segregation cell where a raving drunk was bashing his head against the steel door, took him to the floor and restrained him until backup could arrive, all the while holding his coffee mug. Then he walks away, not even breathing hard.

But ENT, to be useful, has to be available, trainable, repeatable for anyone, not just the rare few who are 'predisposed' to being able to solve violent situations through rational means. It should be able to provide tools for circumventing damaging self-drama and reducing self-destructive behaviors.

In essence, to be able to predict the future - to see the effects and timelines of your decisions, actions and experiences and be able to 'spend' the emotional currency of life so as to be most effective for yourself, others and the environment.

Easy, yes?

Police power

2010-12-04T21:40:00.000-08:00

The first thing my criminal justice students say when I ask them what a cop misses most after retirement is, "power." And they're right, but not how one might think. What a cop misses most is the ability and means to, with a single click of the radio mike, call in the world. A cop can mobilize incredible resources, no questions asked. Multiple agency response? Fire department? Ambulances? FEMA? Helicopters? Heavily armed, highly-trained tactical groups? Clergy, counselors, victims advocates, FBI, DEA, ATF, search and rescue, Coast Guard, lawyers and judges, public transportation? All ask, "what else do you need?"

No questions, just response; whatever you need, whenever you need it 24/7. With the badge comes an incredible amount of power, but it's the trust, in you and your decisions, that is the most important -- the headiest power -- and the most missed when it's over.

Savvy Authors

2010-12-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

For those of you that haven't read Rory Miller' book, Meditations on Violence, do. He is also doing a writers workshop on professional's use-of-force at Savvy Authors. I found this site fascinating, as it is devoted to sharing, developing and publishing the printed word. It is great for aspiring writers, bloggers and others seeking to networkd information and skills on almost any genre.

The 3 Brains - Summary

2010-11-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

All input (external or internal) causes the brain's CPU (central processing unit) to decide one choice out of 3 a priori mental modes: 1) is this action or event going to cause me pain (survival brain), 2) is this action or event going to give me pleasure (emotional brain), 3) has this action or event happened before (rational brain).

Yes to #1 - fight or flee
Yes to #2 - LET'S DO IT!
Yes to #3 - refer to #1 or #2 and let's evaluate the success or failure later

The survival brain has no time sense, no spatial sense, no memory, contains hard-wired instincts, stores only the sense of smell, and has the ability to mobilize the entire physio-psyche to superhuman efforts of fight or flight.

The emotional brain has an altered time sense (whether slower or faster depends on the intensity and immediacy of the emotional content of the action or event), partial memory (like a movie with some of the frames missing), is the seat of intuition, stores and has available all emotional nuances and can trip the survival brain into going ballistic. This brain is the real boss.

The rational brain functions in real time and real space, perceives everything, stores everything the visual field picks up and can only advise the other two brains. This brain is the connection to the outer world, gathering and sending raw data to the CPU and then conducting a tri-brain 'debrief' of decisions and actions. This is the brain that has made homo sapiens so successful; it is an informational 'filter' that slows the flow of data and allows the other two brains to develop a more 'considered' response to input. And more time equals more options, more creativity, better survival.

War

2010-11-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

1. It is a good thing war is so terrible else men would come to like it too little.
2. War culls the herd.
3. When men march, women and children die.

What if - just what if, every woman in the world told their men that if they marched off to war, they would not be there for them when they came back. If they denied their 'favors' to any man marching off to war. If they just said no.

Don't get me wrong, I love war - it's fun if it's done right (translated, done to the other guy) but lets 'sporterize' war - make it a profitable sport (you know, like football; pay-per-view, sponsors, T-shirts); professional groups, swords and shields, winner take -- whatever is agreed on as the prize. No destruction of property. No firearms or explosives. And the leaders have to stand on the battlefield with their men. Like the good old days.

Having been in one, all I got was scars - no fun at all. And my girlfriend had the utter gall to send me a 'Dear John' letter. The nerve! The cliche!

The 3 Brains - Rational

2010-11-26T16:05:00.000-08:00

8 minutes, 9 pieces of information; that's about the extent of the rational brain's memory abilities. Yet this brain has made homo sapiens the most successful species on earth (setting aside insects). Wassup wit dat? You tell me.

The Emotional Brain Part 2

2010-11-24T16:35:00.000-08:00

As usual in my neighborhood, there's drunken screaming fairly often, so on this day I didn't pay much attention. Yes, you kinda pause to listen - does it sound like the folks who live nearby and usually go at it on weekend nights, does it sound like strangers, does it raise the hairs on the nape of my neck presaging violence or even gunfire? This night sounded different, more like a male gorilla banging on a 55-gallon barrel and hooting in rage. Oh, looky, my wife says, a skinny white guy jumping up and down on the hood of a car. Not that far outside the normal activities in 'Tweakerville'. Besides, the guy runs off up the street waving his arms like 'wacky wierd arm waving air-filled advertising guy." A couple of women-and-kids are standing on the curb across the street shouting angry words toward his retreating back. The cops come around, talk to a few people; I watch from my porch; they drive slowly up the street the way he had gone. Something - something feels incomplete. I call to my wife, "hey, honey, would you bring me my fanny pack?' She knows that tone and fetches quick. Sure enough, the guy returns and he's carry a shovel, walking focused towards womenfolk. He quickens his step into a lope. My heart takes a single, chest-thudding beat, then stops. Faceheat sweat popping I'm up and running, drawing my pistol as I close on an intercept. He raises the shovel, face contorted in rage, a demon-mask of gleeful murder, focused on the kill. Little blondie girl in front of mom, their mouths making the 'O' of "oh, shit I'm gonna die." Molasses time - everything turns to slow motion. My rational brain is screaming at me, "YOU'RE NOT GONNA MAKE IT YOU'RE NOT GONNA MAKE IT," while my emotional brain feels my heart pounding fast and strng enough to drive nails. Gun up, pivot left on right toe, sink slightly, left arm locked out, focusonthefrontsight focus-on-the-front-sight - the mantra drilled into me in countless hours of firearms training; slight breath in -- hold (peripheral vision sees the women pulling the child behind her). Squ-e-eze the trigg--a blur flashes across between the almost dead guy as the cinematic sequence ramps back into full speed. Some guy comes from nowhere and tackles the dude, smashing the wind out of him against the blacktop.

After blondie-girl's mom screams at me, "you almost shot my boyfriend you bastard," I asks him wassup? He's crying now, saying how sorry he was and that he was "just upset" over hearing that his Grandfather had died that day.

Jeez - what an emo.

The 3 Brains: the Emotional Brain

2010-11-23T20:42:00.000-08:00

My partner and I walked around to the side of the pizza joint to see two men sitting at one of the small, round outdoor tables. Our suspect, a man who had forced his girlfriend to strip naked and then had thrown her out into the street, was talking calmly with another man. It was a common scene - two people sitting and talking, except our suspect was bare-chested and dripping blood from his newly, but poorly shaven scalp. I called to him, "hey, bud, can we talk to you for a minute? He says, "oh, hi officers, wassup?" I says, "well - we found your girlfriend naked in the street; wondering if you might know what happened?" "Oh, that," he replies, "she just pissed me off; I told her I only wanted a cold beer when I came home from work and she starts giving me s*#t about money. Jeez, can't a guy have five f***ing minutes to relax after work?" "Well," says I, "I understand how tired a person can be after a hard day at work, but --." Before I could finish he jumps up and starts pacing back and forth across the small alley beside the store. Fists clenched, shoulders hunched, he screams insults at us and tell us to "BRING IT ON!!" Tasers and guns come out. I shout, then speak conversationally, "SIR! Sir - dude, calm down, we just need to find out what happened." "Calm down - CALM DOWN, I'll SHOW you calm." I make one last try. "Dude - see that red dot on your chest?" He looks down, momentarily distracted. "You know what that is, right? Sit down, calm down, or you'll be doing the electric boogaloo." He raises his right fist, steps toward us SNAP CRACKLECRACKLECRACKLE, stiffen -- TIMBERRRRR, thud. After he's cuffed and stuffed, he says, "I'm sorry, officers, I guess I was a real asshole, wasn't I?" And he wasn't even on, or off, drugs!

The 3 Brains: the Survival Brain

2010-11-21T16:39:00.000-08:00

(The original work on "The Triune Brain" was done by neuroscientist Paul MacLean in the 50s and 60s; see http://www.buffalostate.edu/orgs/bcp/brainbasics/triune.html).

Oog was hunting alone that day. It had been almost one cycle of the moon since a mammoth had been sighted and the tribe was hungry. The hunters had decided to solo hunt so as to cover more ground and have a chance at more small game. It was a risk, but Oog went with it. At false-dawn he peeked between two large rocks down into a small marsh fed by an underground spring. He had hunted here only once before, saving it as a spot the larger predators hadn't found yet and thus rich with small game. The high rocks around the rim of this bowl-shaped depression drew a herd of 4-legged ear-twitchers because the wind, and thus game-scent, flowed up and over the rocks, keeping herd-scent confined. Oog watched until the sun just started to show above the horizon, and tensed his grip on the spear as his intended target became a clear shot. Just as Oog rose up slightly for the throw, the hair on the back of his head stood up and an empty, cold feeling rose from deep in his belly, travelling up his back in a shudder and making his face feel hot. He froze in place and ve-e-ry slowly turned his head upwind and stared. The barest hint of sunray showed a reflection off a fang of the giant cat. Oog hadn't smelled the cat, or even seen it until the glint of sun. He thanked the sun god for giving him good senses, ones he always paid attention to; the sense - the FEELING of great danger that, more than once had saved his life.

Dan was a busy, successful stockbroker, moving easily and surely through his world; a whirl of paper, talk of money, emails, phone calls, meetings. He moved with grace and surety, confidence that had made him, and his family, well-to-do. This day, Dan sat at his usual spot on a park bench behind a screen of trees surrounding a small fountain. A few people came and went - the usual noon lunch crowd. Dan was texting an associate when he felt - something. An errant breeze tickling his neck hairs? Maybe a sudden quieting of the city's normal background hum? He looked up and around; he was alone, not an uncommon thing in this somewhat secluded spot, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary, so he went back to his texting.

Billy Bob counted the money and the six SIX! credit cards he had gotten off the businessman. "Dumb ass," he thought to himself, "sitting all alone." What an easy take.

The Age of Comfort

2010-11-19T22:29:00.000-08:00

Stone age, bronze age, iron age, industrial age, atomic age, electronic age; and now, the age of comfort. A time when humans have conquered that which they fear the most - the dark of the forest, the rustling of unseen things in the grasslands, the sudden crack of ice walls, growling outside the cave. We have conquered - tamed, nature. Yes, there are times when we cringe and cower against nature's fury, but we treat it more like a 4 year old having a tantrum in a store than an environmental warning. We discipline the child and soon it (he/she) returns to normal. If nature gives us a problem we block it off, dig it out, blow it up, pave it over, rip it up and eat it. There is no evolutionary pressure, no survival of the fittest, just burgers, Grand Theft Auto and fluffy toilet paper. But is there a subtle evolutionary pressure working on improving, or - perhaps - eliminating the viral humans? Are we not getting fatter, lazier and stoopidier?

A Priori

2010-11-07T17:25:00.000-08:00

Mulling over the 'truths' of human nature. Isn't it grand that I have the time to mull? Warm, dry house, plenty of fluffy toilet paper. Don't have to hunt the mammoth or live in a stinky cave with skins-clad Oog, Grunt and the gang. Don't have to earn my place in the tribe; I can be an alpha male just by tweeting. Automatic status! No risk! Just send in $19.95 (plus shipping and handling) and we'll send you an alpha male certificate from Caveman University, where the hide meets the grasslands!

Anyway, the postulates: 1) Human males are violence-oriented, human females hide-and-watch oriented. 2) Humans are lazy. 3) The human need for group belonging and status is as strong, or stronger, than personal survival.

Now to develop a cultish philosophy where people will pay big money to listen to my bulls, er - enlightened conversation. I think I'd look cool wearing one of those cordless microphone/headsets.

The Leaves of Fall

2010-10-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Giant maple; scattering colored reminders of impermanence. If I was a classical writer, trying to describe the hardships of constant raking, I might write Leaves Miserables. Or an ex-soldier songwriter on the inevitability of leaf fall - Leaves of Destruction. Perhaps a French philosopher pondering the changeability of life while strolling down the Champs E-Leaves-ee. A brawny norseman, Leaf Eriksen, discovering the joys of deciduous coloration vs his homelands coniferous-ness. I will take my leaf now, to presuppose descriptions in a lighter vein.

Emotional Writing

2010-10-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

I am honored that I have been asked to teach on on-line course in the realities of blade combat. A conundrum and oxymoron (oxy-nundrum?). How do you teach writers how to describe gore, stink, steaming ropy intestines lying in the dirt, bubbling blood from bone-bared missingnose, the fish-gulping mouth motions of an amputee, eyes-all-white and bulging, holding the stump of his blade-cleaved arm, the shock and awe too much even for screaming? A challenge for me. Doubly challenging because I have never been attacked by, nor killed anyone with a sword. Hmmm - take the 's' out of sword and you have this era's deadliest weapon. To describe what must be felt --.

Here's a link to a writer's posting, development and community site that is doing a good job in helping people express their psyches: http://www.savvyauthors.com/vb/content.php

Thanks to Rory Miller (http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/) for the referral, and Sharon Pickrel for the consideration.

Future History Lesson

2010-10-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

Little Gleek raised his tentacle; the Oochmach (teacher) recognized his persistence: "tell me Honored Oochmach, why did the humans die off?" "Well, little Gleek," the tri-sexual tri-pedal multi-occular Oochmach said, "as human populations grew into their billions, a mere 15,000 clads into their 'modern' existence, their genetically-wired group, or tribal, orientation was destroyed, consumed, by their teeming masses. You see, humans lived alone in their brains without benefit of a shared mind (several of the students gasped, unable to fathom the concept) so were alone, lonely and afraid in the darkness of their own tiny awarenesses. In their pre-modern period, their tribal grouping gave them status, stability and a group identity, allowing them to become the dominant hunters and gatherers of their world. Based on their group succsss, their population quicly grew to a point where there were just too many of them to form, earn status in and stay attached to, any one group. For awhile, broadcast frequency socialization (another gasp; the students knew how non-quantum frequency broadcast could create mental defects in intelligent species, although, one of the students snickered in the back row, humans were not considered an intelligent species) created a pseudo-tribe, but without personal, social interactions, human youth were not able to find or earn a group identity. This caused a species-wide neurosis which quickly turned psychotic. The humans killed themselves off in a paroxysm of desperation, fueled by their internal mental isolation and inability to find a way to be both tribal and world-cultural. If that answers your question, let's move on to the psycho-historical issues of a multi-cultural primitive society."

Legalizing Pot

2010-10-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

After I'm pestered enough by stoned petitioners wanting to know if I'll sign for a legalizing pot initiative, I can't hold back. Yes, I know - medical marijuana, hassled by the cops, yadda yadda yadda. My view: legalizing pot will create a nation of lazy dumb asses who will expect the quickly vanishing middle class to not only support them, but listen to them whine about how tough it is in the U S of A. Poor babies. On the plus side, potato chip manufacturers and distributors will make a killing. Spare cheetos, man? Can you spare a cheeto?

Cop Haiku

2010-10-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

Tweaker cheese runs sweat rivulets;
Tiny pupils gaze;
Hope cuffed again..

Armored-glass imprisoned;
Death-face grin - fear and hope;
Pleading irony.

Cake-think chocolatey goodness;
Refueling stop, carbohydrate drive-by.

While Good Men Stand By -

2010-09-29T22:41:00.000-07:00

The Max was packed - rush hour. Most of the youngsters (high school age to early 20s) had already gotten on downtown and filled every available seat, the clearly-marked handicapped seats included. A young man gets on, two arm-clasping crutches supporting his obviously crippled foot. A young man dropping F-bombs into his cell phone sitting in the "Please Give These Seats to Handicapped Individuals" section turned and looked at the man, looked at his crutches and then turned back to his very important cell phone conversation. A man next to me asked the handicapped guy if he wanted to sit down, but the man shook his head no.

I did nothing. Nothing. And I am ashamed. No excuse, except this: if I had asked the a**hole politely to give up his seat, he would have ignored me. I would have demanded, he would have told me to "f**k off." I would have insisted and the fight would be on. Police, ambulance, people tiredly wanting to get home after a hard day at work held up for an hour or more. Court appearances. Civil suit.

And the dips**t? A $97 ticket for interfering with public transportation at the most.

This was the kicker - a 'vote for medical marijuana' petitioner gets on and guess who'se the only guy that signs the petition? Yeah.

After another stop and the guy with crutches got to sit down.

So, it all turned out OK anyway -- didn't it?

It's sad when it's more trouble than it's worth to be honorable.

Feel Act Think

2010-09-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

People are like onions --, oh, wait - that's ogres. OK, people's psyches are like layers of the ocean. Thoughts arise from the deep, dark, un - (or subconscious) depths, through the id and ego layers (think Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), through the emotional layers and finally into the level where a person's conscious mind can perceive the thought. Along the way, the thought picks up 'baggage' from the deeper layers - ego baggage, emotional baggage, needs, preconceptions, comparisons to prior experience, etc. But all unconscious until the thought reaches the 'surface' level of the psyche. But, above all, a thought has emotional content. The greater the emotional content, the more likely it is the thought will be acted upon. Example: a drug addict needing a fix, or a cop a donut. People tend to act upon feelings much more so than rational evaluation and planning just because of this hierachy of the personality. So, the sequence of a person's behavior is: feel, act, think.

If you deal with people, especially those in emotional need/distress, you can not only understand their actions (even if they are not right, or even survivable for them or others) and be able to intervene successfully: validate the feeling, understand the core need and try to meet that need or supplant it to circumvent or interrup the strongest part of the sequence: Feel Act, to bring them into the rational brain so that future behavior becomes feel-actthink-act instead.

There are those, however, whose emotional content or need is so great that the 'think' part of the psyche is essentially gone. In this case, intervention depends on long term, constant substitution of 'bad' emotional content with 'good' emotional content. This is what psychopharmacology is all about - distraction.

The Consciousness Quotient

2010-09-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

Long the standard of career and determinative testing, the intelligence quotient (IQ) is slowly being supplanted by cumulative personality testing (MMPI, Myers-Briggs, etc). But psychologist and sociologists have yet to come together to bring their individual, and well-researched specialty areas together, combining their results with the techno-phsysiologists fMRI studies to yield a true measure of a person's intelligence - the Consciousness Quotient, a combination of the intelligence quotient, emotional quotient (think Daniel Goleman) and a social quotient.

I would ask people to look at Rory Miller's stuff, and some very cogent replies from Steve Perry, to see the close correlations to the three brains (3 intelligences) and the rational, emotional and survival orientations to social disorder (especially violence).

Each of the three types of intelligence (or lack thereof) are tied to the three brains. Each has their own ways of processing input, and of producing output (behavior),

To be able to determine which intelligence, which brain, is dominating a person's behavior, is to be able to 'manipulate' that behavior into a win-win situation.

Disclaimer: sometime, s*#t happens.

Faith

2010-09-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

An ordinary occurence for almost all humans, one time or another, but one that, if expected, always surprises and saddens - the death of a beloved pet. Our old lady cat, Cindy, health failing, had a stroke with massive brain damage, so - we put her down. It was a throat-closing, stomach-emptiness moment; sadness, grief and even guilt. Guilt that we didn't see the signs sooner, didn't intervene quicker, helped more, saved. It got me thinking about faith - not the old-white-man-with-a-beard looking over your shoulder and patting you on the back, "there there," kind. Nor the "it was for the best," or "she's with (fill in your favorite deity here) now" kind, but a knowing, a certainty, that it is not all in vain, that everything is connected, and evolving. As I looked up at the black night sky after burying her, a small candle flickering on an ancient tiny river stone near the fresh-turned earth, I felt - connected if you will. The feel of being part of a universe that recycles everything, even consciousness.

Cindy says, "catch y'all on the flip side."

Words of Wisdom

2010-09-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

Being the smartest person in the world, able to read minds and not afraid to say so, I offer these words to ponder - and live by:

I came, I sawmill.
Mighty Cheez Whiz, son of Nabisco can prevent crackers in your relationship.
The way to a man's heart is through a wooden stake.
A bird in the hand -- will fly away unless you kill it.
Chicken strips would be a good name for a nightclub - for cocks.
If you have callouses on your knuckles, you're either real short or you try and tie your shoes while you're
walking.
Yo mama is so fat -- she has a zip code for each cheek.

Man's Greatest Talent

2010-09-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

The five men stood facing each other in the ruins of a great university, each man of a different race. The war had stopped civilization dead, even the ashes reburned by desperation, famine, pestilence and the dying throes of human survival. The women were also gone, having been rounded up and placed in 'protective camps' in an attempt to save homo sapien future; a great plague had swept them away, chaff-from-wheat. Now, these 5 were left, panting and sweating in the remains of pride and greed. The man in the dirty cassock clutched a tire iron, the shorter man - wooden beads and a small concrete statuette of a pudgy seated figure; the turbaned man white-knuckled a large rock; yarmulka armed himself with a large brass candlestick, burnished and bloodstained, the wiry man carried a small bone-handled knife. One man spoke for the rest: "it ain't over yet."

Environmentalism 1

2010-09-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

After having been accosted several times downtown by GreenPeace activists, I finally stopped to talk to one of them. Instead of money, I gave them this statement: "Nuke the gay whales and pack their meat in old growth boxes lined with spotted owl feathers and wrapped in dolphin skin." I was able to make my getaway while the guy stood there with his mouth hanging open. They haven't bothered me since.

The End of Civilization

2010-09-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

Oog and Grunt were the most successful hunters of the lush grasslands, each having more mammoth tusks than all of the smaller tribes in the area combined. But they were worried; they hadn't seen but one mammoth in one cycle of the seasons. Oog: "You know, Grunt, this may be the last mammoth," he said as the flenced the flesh off the rump for the women to pack back to camp. Grunt: "I know, soon there won't be any need for us hunters; even the small boys can catch the smaller game. What honor and challenge is in working all day to bring in a few deer? What will happen to our position in the tribe if they don't need those few of us willing to face the challenge and danger of hunting the mighty ones; what will we hunt then?" Oog paused and stood up slowly, gripping his skinning knife and narrowing his eyes at Grunt. Grunt's eyes widened as he too stood up, eyeing the knife he left lying in the grass.

The Monkey Dance (Rory Miller, Meditations on Violence)

2010-08-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

I stared through the fence at the two groups of primates. They seemed calm, the young males and females huddled in sub-groups, passing food and sexual signals back and forth, chattering but relaxed. Something changed - two young males from opposite groups started 'puffing up', throwing hand signs, baring teeth and doing a distance tango - moving toward and then away, close but not too close, neither male wanting to initiate a physical fight, knowing that the first one in would likely take the most damage. The group quickly tuned into the energy; the males coming to the front of each pack and the females skittering behind. The screeching, feces flinging, ground slapping and chest pounding started. The two lines advanced and retreated, egging the other group on to 'start things' first, or signal submission by retreating. Typical primate behav - "Mac, Mac, shouldn't we step in and get these groups separated before someone gets hurt? said my recruit as he shook me by the shoulder.

Religion

2010-08-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

I slid the small metal window slider to one side to check on one of the 35 inmates in my charge, all in single cells for the protection of others. Killers, rapists, thugs, thieves; the kind of people who revel in the pain of others. This guy was one of the worst; he was quietly reading a Bible. He always insisted on a Bible when he came in, in chains, accompanied by half a dozen officers. He was intelligent, charming, sane but very, very dangerous. Looking in at him, he looked up from his reading; death pouring out through his stare. The hairs prickled on the back of my neck. He looked back down at his Bible. He told me the last time he was in he had "found God." I wonder what condition he was in.

Those darn kids

2010-08-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Sad to see the young girls acting like young males - all tattooed and pierced, spitting on the sidewalk, their speech sprinkled with profanity and stories of how they kicked someone's a**. Don't we have enough young bucks posturing and challenging - vying for a place in the herd? Why do the girls feel they have to act like the boys? Is this what the feminist movement toward empowerment has come to?

Free ride

2010-08-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

The Tri-Met Max line is the greatest free transit system in Oregon. The rail cars are clean, spacious, cool in the summer and free of graffiti. The people can be a bit of a challenge, but I haven't been able to convince Tri-Met to assign me a private car. Dang. Here is an average ride day for me: I get on downtown around noon, heading to east county. After a couple of stops, a drunk gets on and wants to tell me how he is 'almost off paper' and is trying to get himself off the sex-offender registry. Then - the thousand pound woman. Her wheelchair 'mobile office' takes up most of one end of the car. Now, don't get me wrong - to live that way must take tremendous effort and a positive attitude that won't quit. But it would be nice if she had bathed at least once since Madonna was the Material Girl. Next, the rappers; sagging and singing, bouncing around the car to their tunes. The rhymes weren't actually that bad, but the "f" bombs and constant reference to 'slappin' dem bitches around' did get a bit tiring. The ex-cons are easy to spot; heavily tattooed and needing to give everyone the 'stink eye.' The drug dealers soon arrive, almost always in pairs, one to watch for transit cops, the other to eyeball the crowd for potential buyers. One guy gets off with them at a stop. Now, the twins from hell - two adorable toddlers who take turns screeching at each other - the kind of sound that feels like icepicks driven into your skull and leaves your ears ringing for hours - egged on by their mother who thinks it's cute. I finally get off, looking forward to driving home in the road-raging exhaust fumed swirl of Toyondasans.

Poor boo boos

2010-08-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

"Gentlemen; welcome to your high school's football program. Due to increasing complaints about sore muscles, the amount of litigation and the cost of carrying insurance for you athletes, and the new, deadly condition known as compartment syndrome, there will be no running, pushups, situps, tackling, grabbing or tackling. All game play will be done at walking speed. The football, now lightened and shrunk to nerf ball size to prevent carpal tunnel injuries, will be thrown underhand. Shoulder ribbons will be attached to uniforms to indicate blocks and tackles. If it is sunny outside, and over 70 degrees, workouts will be cancelled and Madden XBox games will be played instead. Any questions?"

Recidivism

2010-08-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Ol' Billy Bob felt the thump as the dormitory-outfitted conex touched down on the sands of Afghanistan. He had hated being cooped up with 19 other cons for the twelve days it took to reach their destination; what a bunch of idiots, he thought to himself. When the ramp dropped open, the light reflected from the desert sand at high noon made him reach for the sunglasses in his government-provided kit bag. The officer standing in front of two machine-gunned armed humvees spoke through the bullhorn: "gentlemen; today begins your two years of service in the Federal Work Force 'Hands Across the Sea' program. You will build roads, schools and sewage treatment plants. At night you will be returned to your pods. If you finish your time, you will be returned to the United States with clean records and a fresh start. If you wish to escape, you will find the tribesmen of this country a bit unwelcoming to say the least. This is a chance for you to do something actually positive for yourselves and others. Let's get started."

The Reality of Corrections

2010-08-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

The dorm door buzzes and pops as the popcorn cart rolls in. 50 bags of fresh popped popcorn hand-delivered by a runner (corrections officer doing escort and errand duty). The movie is a nice shoot-em-up, one of two the inmates will watch during swing shift. The blue clad line of men line up and are issued their bag of popcorn then subtly vie for the best seats in front of the TV. There are unspoken rules in the dorm - most inmates know which seats to take, which to leave alone, what groups are safe to sit near. The newbies have to take the outside worst-angle seats. Many of the guys are munching on candy and drinking out of juice boxes from their commissary. Sigh. Another tough night for the poor criminals.

Tales From the Back Side: the Furious Mind

2010-08-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

Blood dripping off a poorly and angrily shaved head, bare-chested and bare foot, the wife-beater raised his fists and took a step toward me and my partner. CRACKLECRACKLECRACKLECRACKLE 5 seconds of taser psychotherapy turned the raging a**hole into a weeping, apologetic wretch.

"He just snapped," said the victim. Snapped into what? Into the furious mind - a realm of no time, fueled by adrenaline and locked into a loop of raging linear action. Uncontrollable, unstoppable, undeniable - and all too human.

I've hand-to-handed these guys before; it usually takes 4 or more officers to get the person under control, because putting hands-on pushes the perp deeper into the survival brain, making him (rarely her) fight the harder. Officer injuries were common. But the Taser - ah, the Taser. BINGO! Fights over; no injuries; a compliant and apologetic bad guy.

The question is, can this kind of behavior be handled calmly, dispassionately, with no force? No after-effects of adrenaline exhaustion? With perfect technique and control?

Ever been scared by a bad guy, panhandler or just some dude that walks into the mini-mart with a posture of confrontation? You tell me.

For further, read the excellent primer on violence written by Rory Miller, MEDITATIONS ON VIOLENCE.