It has been almost a month since my last blog entry. I have been busy with radio interviews, a visit to see my grandchildren, working on the SCS and ImagineHealing websites, preparing the July Beyond Mastery Newsletter, and planning for two major presentations with my co-author, Debra Basham, at the Healing Touch Program Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas, this next August. Within the last month or two, I read a column by a “behavioral scientist” who, among other things, said that “we are what we are doing.” At the time it struck me (recall my previous blogs on metaphors) as a profound truth.
At the same time, it seems to me that the concept tends to obscure the complexities of human life. I don’t know about you, but I do a lot of “stuff,” from the mundane (brushing my teeth, making my bed, etc.) to the routine (jog most mornings, karate at noon on Tuesdays and Fridays, read, watch TV, pull weeds, feed my cats, etc.), to the “nonroutine” (visiting grandchildren, conducting workshops, writing this blog, updating Web pages). I think I understand the Zen concept behind the idea of being what one is doing: “When walking, walk. When eating, eat.” That idea is sometimes called “being present,” of giving one’s full attention to doing whatever one is doing at the moment. Nevertheless, I find it difficult to walk or eat without thinking about something else at the same time.
Your parents may have told you to chew your food 32 times (once for every tooth if you have them all) before swallowing, and, if you count carefully, it may be difficult to squeeze additional thoughts in between the counts. If you are counting every time you chew, what are you doing: counting or chewing? Would you be a counter or a chewer? I don’t know about you, but I want to be more than a person who chews food very thoroughly, which is not to say that chewing food thoroughly before swallowing is a bad idea. In considering what he viewed as the conflict between the problematical world and the ontological mystery, French philosopher Gabriel Marcel said, “I am not my life; I am more than my life.” We live in the “problematical world,” the world of problems that need to be solved, with rational inquiry, science, and technology. We eat and chew food to solve a biological problem.
The ontological mystery envelopes and transcends the problematical world. Marcel thought that he was not his life because he was more than could be discovered by examining his life, including his biological being as well as his behavioral history. Although I am not sure I fully understand this, it makes sense to me. Can you imagine the kind of walk you would have if you really were to walk without thinking about a variety of problematical externals? How would you know when to start, where to turn, and when to stop? How would you go about deciding which muscles to contract and which to relax in what sequence? One aspect of the ontological mystery is, of course, inherent in the solving of problems in the problematical world. Each solution leads to the discovery of a new problem. In pursuing a pharmaceutical solution to the problem of depression, for example, chemists came up with a number of drugs called “antidepressants,” which have proven to be less than effective. You may have seen TV ads for a drug, Abilify, originally developed for other purposes, being prescribed for “when your antidepressant isn’t working.”
In the problematical world, a solution to one problem often leads to the discovery—or creation—of another. My sense is that we won’t find real solutions until we start taking Gabriel’s ontological mystery into account. That would, of course, include the recognition that solving one problem may lead to another and anticipating the long-term consequences. Hoover Dam, for example, is an engineering marvel. Lake Mead holds a lot of water, which has fueled an increase in the population of Las Vegas and other “desert” communities in Southwestern United States. Water passing through the dam creates a lot of electricity. One of the problems overlooked in the planning and construction of the dam, however, was evaporation. As a result of evaporation and water use (human consumption and irrigation), the Colorado River no longer flows all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Efforts to tame other rivers have also demonstrated the way solving one problem often leads to another, as the flooding along many of the rivers in the U.S. has demonstrated. This would seem to be confirmation of the aphorism, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” It’s also an illustration of the saying on bumper stickers and T-shirts: At least the war on the environment is going well. Unfortunately, that is proving not the case. To paraphrase Dale Carnegie, the only war you can win is the one you don’t have. At some point we need to get beyond the concept that “fixing” one thing (or one more thing) will actually solve our problems and recognize that solving problems is inherent in the problematical world. The beyond is, of course, what Marcel called the ontological mystery.
Two of my passions, NLP and Energy Medicine, bridge the gap between the problematical world and the ontological mystery. Both subjects can, of course, be practiced as though they are strictly in the problematical realm. NLP, for example, can focus on what’s often called remedial change (fixing problems), or generative change (setting direction). Energy medicine has practitioners who think that invoking certain symbols (Reiki) or using certain hand-holds (Healing Touch™ and Therapeutic Touch™) create the “cure.” Whatever problem you are trying to solve, the key questions center on connections. What will be affected by the change, both now and into the future. In NLP, a process called Future Pacing is designed to address that issue, and—when well done—it makes a big difference in the quality of outcomes.
When you’re interested in reading more about the problematical world and the ontological mystery, SCS has a free e-book for you to download now: The Power of Presence: Seeing the Divine in Everyday Life. You may discover that you really enjoy contemplating the ontological mystery while you are walking and chewing….
