M: Consider the significance of the approach of having intense opinions that are only founded in media reports and discussion.
R: hummmm. Yes, well, I’ve not considered that in the light that this recent exchange has placed it. It’s foolishness. I will watch for it now in a new way. That is, pay attention to the many ways I’ve done that as though it was reasonable. I see that it is not. That is something I should have known, and dare say, did know, but have been shoving it into a far corner. Perhaps it is related to knowing that I cheated my way through school and don’t have the knowledge base I cheated myself out of, nor taken the time to get since, and an attempt to “know” something in order to cover up that fact up. Well, I’ve been clever enough to grab onto something like this behavioral science conclusions calling into question, knowing that it was something subjective in many ways, … But I didn’t intentionally set out to do that. It’s there like a pattern I’ve followed, under the guise of “core beliefs,” but while not taking the time to educate in related matters. That is what I’m guilty of and therefore I’d better do better at watching what I say and “go off” about.
R: And I know that I don’t have an attachment to being right about it. If the proof is there it is there. So I do suppose that I could just keep my mouth shut when I don’t have the facts. But I really thought it was a very innocent thing to say — in the sense of it’s being common, or a notion I’ve formed knowing how often scientific “truths” have changed over the years).
R: I don’t think this is violating the spirit of the first paragraph above.
R: Also you said, “It’s wondered if this is truly a goal, to gather these possibilities and have experience yielded from them. If the experience forms a “reality” for you, it can always be negated by questioning, which then takes the form of self-denial or perhaps sufficient self-doubt that eventually relegates the experience, no matter how perceived as valid at the time, to be worn away into negation.”
R: I don’t see myself doing that. I like facts. If I see that someone has caught me making a mistake, I’ll change so fast that the person catching me won’t even realize that I’ve made it. -g- I honestly cannot think of one experience which I’ve negated by questioning. Thinking about it some more, just to make sure, … no, I don’t do that … in fact it sounds psychotic. Give me an example of how someone could come to do that and not be psychotic.
M: It wouldn’t have to go so far as being psychotic to still be a practice. It could simply be a subtle way of maintaining a status quo: the safe place of the “known and familiar.”
R: I still don’t get that I do that. Related to what I just wrote moments ago above, it’s more like what you talk about somewhere in this: I’ve shunned even going where I’m told to find information, well, that’s just as much of a block, I suppose. I guess it’s more like I’ve avoided the experiences rather than negate them after having them. But I don’t feel stuck in what doesn’t support me, even though I may have been stuck in what doesn’t support me, and definitely not to the point of negating experience.
R: Was this a “test” paragraph? Why would you wonder if it is “truly a goal”? This is, further, why it seems to me that you weren’t allowing me the possibility of changing my preconceptions/assumptions. That WOULD be a “sad” thing. But you won’t find anything in what I’ve written that proves I’m like that because I’m not. Plain and simple. You may find stuff that looks to indicate that, but I’m telling you that that is not the case.
M: As an observer, there were patterns in the recent exchanges that almost precisely overlaid with one major and one minor “rant” of the past. That is suggested not to be a coincidence.
R:Yes, yes, well, at the risk of sounding patronizing, I see that now, and did not before.
R: So it has to be misunderstanding. I love to find new things and I would have thought that you would have understood that from the tons of email between us.
R: Also you said,” No. Not hold back. My dialogue with you simply cannot overcome your predispositions and preconceptions that, by observation, hold you. From these, it is probably, the boundary and impedance is derived to limit progress. There is little evidence to this point that there is “valid” effectiveness for you within our dialogue, because the above responses have echoed before. The condescending conclusion is, of course, the reality that you form for and within yourself. An alternate conclusion could easily be “disengagement” on some level because there is evidence of ineffectivity, which equates to inefficiency of energy, which is a concern of impeccability.”
R: This, it seems, is the result of the misunderstanding I’ve talked about above, so I don’t need to comment on it now.
R: Also you said, “Your reality and conclusions are as they must be for you. There are alternate explanations that could be discerned, but to this point the reflex assertions have taken hold, by observation.”
R: This too, seems to be coming from the same misunderstanding… that I am closed minded. I’m not saying that it is your place to educate me that my preconceptions/assumptions may change. But you didn’t even say that. You, apparently, just assumed that they were not changeable, and that is nonsense and very mystifying to me, after all we’ve been through together.
M: There is a repetition of history and from the point of view of the observer, the repetition begs the question to be considered about the efficacy and viability of the interactions.
R: Some just take longer than others, I suppose. I just didn’t get it before, about my using non-education based core beliefs as though I knew something. And I still have the suspicion that I may be right, what is new is that I also see that I really don’t know and that it is therefore very foolish to speak out on such things.
R: After all, in the case of the skin mole, I stated clearly that no one had convinced me that it was not a part of normal body function. It was not a question of being closed minded. It was a question of my seeing a possibility.
M: Yes. The prior exchanges did have some elements of that as a subject, but the intensity of the expression that resulted has similarities to this recent example.
R: Yes, more of what I’ve just been finding here.
R: Also you said, “Alternatively, rather than condescension, it could be considered “decoupling” in the concern for effectiveness. The long held boundaries of a person are usually not swayed by words, or the energy/effort required to form the words of the dialogue. If the boundaries are set in place in ways where reasonable effectiveness and efficiency of the discussion are not viable, then the conclusions that your report are not necessarily valid. They would also mean that you don’t accept your prior interactions and conclusions that you have reported have evolved for you by basis of this interaction, and that you are doing a reverse-course, retreat, into an earlier phase of the dialogue.”
R: I really don’t get this, Michael, I say that I don’t believe that the conclusions of behavioral science will be shown to hold up and you go off into the above land of… “reverse-course, retreat” where is all of that coming from?
M: The reference was toward your processes in consideration of possibility that there has been a reversal of the progress made, or seeming to be made, or that the progress that was apparent did not become truly integrated and hence was only transient in characteristics. If the latter were to be valid, then the progress was a superficial illusion.
R: I think it’s more that the progress was never made. And not to take away from what I have gained from these exchanges, but I’ve not really felt much progress and perhaps that is why when you’ve suggested that I was close to an expansion, that it never happened. I didn’t see any difference. The only difference I’ve seen, up until what I’m seeing here about this pattern of acting like I know something, has been a stronger conviction that all CC possibilities are real. But I’ve pretty much been going on the assumption that I know lots about the mistake of complaining, the lie I recently wrote about of “he made me mad” bla bla bla, and have felt pretty good about myself for knowing those things, all the while not paying attention to all the stuff, impeccability wise, that I still have to work on. And thinking that the second attention stuff just wasn’t coming because I wasn’t intending well enough and that my lack of impeccability was mostly in the area of not being able to turn off the internal dialogue, along with certain traits I’ve just put up with without trying to change much: impatience with the kids, etc. But I don’t think I can relegate this just discovered lack of impeccability, this “knowing” what I don’t know, to an acceptable place like I have impatience. I imagine that I will quickly see myself doing that one when it pops up again. Time will tell what I do with it.