Virtual Residency Day Eleven; Perceptions of Cause and Effect
It is sweltering everywhere in the world it seems, except here on my island. World events are as frightening as the climate is unstable. I spent part of the morning searching for a hymn to sing next weekend, at the request of our local minister, about bridging differences. I found one about kindness. Kindness seems a good start for peace. Bridging differences and kindness are always on my mind as I do this project. Both can address the same fears that result in dissension or resistance towards acting to prevent further global warming.
In an editorial in the NY Times, http://tinyurl.com/essql, Daniel Gilbert referenced research to the effect that we perceive events in our own lives as caused by the past, events in the lives of others cause what comes later; in effect, we are passive, the other is aggressive. Furthermore, we percieve injury to ourselves subjectively, as greater than injury we inflict. I would venture we extend this to anyone we respectively do or don't identify with. Therefore, kindness, the idea of seeing experience not thru our own eyes but the eyes of another, the basis of all social courtesies and diplomacy might be useful these days.
I have spent a beautiful day indoors trying to figure out how to do the software for the virtual concerts that will be part of this residency soon. I am not done but gaining. I still need to understand how to interface several systems simply, kindly.
It is past time to do something else besides sit at a computer, inhale data or talk on the phone. I will go visit my trees and consider circumpolar botanical species, like common junipers. One sense I cannot convey virtually is smell. But I can tell you that walking in my garden and down to the sea is a banquet of fragrances.
I can still hear the sounds of the king bullfrog mixed with birdsong in my mind from the day I was awake at 5AM here. Now I can also hear the sound of soft wind thru the birch leaves calling me into the garden. My animals and I shall go inhale and listen.
In an editorial in the NY Times, http://tinyurl.com/essql, Daniel Gilbert referenced research to the effect that we perceive events in our own lives as caused by the past, events in the lives of others cause what comes later; in effect, we are passive, the other is aggressive. Furthermore, we percieve injury to ourselves subjectively, as greater than injury we inflict. I would venture we extend this to anyone we respectively do or don't identify with. Therefore, kindness, the idea of seeing experience not thru our own eyes but the eyes of another, the basis of all social courtesies and diplomacy might be useful these days.
I have spent a beautiful day indoors trying to figure out how to do the software for the virtual concerts that will be part of this residency soon. I am not done but gaining. I still need to understand how to interface several systems simply, kindly.
It is past time to do something else besides sit at a computer, inhale data or talk on the phone. I will go visit my trees and consider circumpolar botanical species, like common junipers. One sense I cannot convey virtually is smell. But I can tell you that walking in my garden and down to the sea is a banquet of fragrances.
I can still hear the sounds of the king bullfrog mixed with birdsong in my mind from the day I was awake at 5AM here. Now I can also hear the sound of soft wind thru the birch leaves calling me into the garden. My animals and I shall go inhale and listen.
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