The Healing – V

by DCH Park

A curious thing happens sometimes when you get to the root of things. It tends to happen when you characterize the world as separate from yourself. This might sound strange but it is very common. In fact we are trained to think this way by school, language, and culture. It is so pervasive, it is in the fabric of society and we don’t even notice it is there. We tend to see ourselves and the world in a certain way. This certain way seems natural and normal. Everyone around us seems to be seeing the world the same way when we are growing up so we assume that we should, too.

However, since when has it been a good reason to accept or adopt anything just because others have done it the same way before? Isn’t the essence of the “Scientific perspective” that you don’t accept anything from anyone unless it makes sense to you?

The power of supposedly “obvious” things is in that we take them for granted. They seem so obvious that we take them for truth. Then we stop noticing them altogether. The power of obvious things is in their invisibility. This power allows them to shape everything that we see in the world and in ourselves. It allows us to simply accept what we think we see as “just the way things are.” We never ask ourselves why things are that way or how they fit together. Such questions are deemed to be “silly” and fit only for children.

All we have to do to neutralize this power is to notice our assumptions. We don’t have to eliminate the assumptions to change how we see the world. By removing the cloak of invisibility we are putting ourselves in the driver’s seat. We are consciously calling the shots. Our invisible assumptions aren’t any longer – they aren’t invisible or operating behind our awareness.

We can see such invisible assumptions at work at the root. It has been observed that there tends to be a reversal at the root. Suddenly black is white and up is down, metaphorically. Specifically what happens is that your expectation of separation is violated. What you observe in the world is not what you expected.

There are different possible responses to this but what I have observed tends to boil down to one of two possible things. Either you can admit to the reality of what you have observed and proceed from there or you can deny the validity or reality of your observation. In the latter case I have even seen instances in which assertions about the unreality of observations was bolstered through violence. In fact, history is full of instances in which violence or the threat of violence was used to bolster such claims.

If you accept the reality of your observations it becomes clear that things you had thought of as being opposites of each other are actually connected. They are different faces of a single thing. Society is usually predicated on an assumption that in any conflict there are two sides and the only way to “win” is to completely destroy the other side. This assumes not only that you know or will discover how to destroy the opposing force, but on a deeper level, that such destruction is even possible. It assumes that I am apparently separate from my enemy, I can destroy him or her without hurting myself.

However, everything is connected which means that it is impossible to destroy someone or something else without also diminishing or destroying yourself. One way that this can be experienced is as a sudden reversal. When we get to the root, we are past illusions and fooling ourselves. We face what truly is. So we see a sudden reversal.

This is usually a good thing in that the reversal means that we are not far away from understanding our healing. It becomes infinitely clear through our reversal that what we thought of as a problem holding us back is nothing more than a challenge providing a means to grow, that our enemy is nothing more than ourselves, and that we have chosen these challenges and selves.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – V” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Healing – IV

by DCH Park

It is not surprising for me to learn that Confucius was clear about the nature of knowledge. I read the quote from Confucius as an acknowledgement about the nature of humility and honesty – they are the same thing with different names.

In a seemingly different vein, we are often admonished by savants to “sit with” our pain and give it expression. Common wisdom holds that just saying it out loud makes it feel better. Often, it does, especially when giving it free expression is contrasted with silence. Saying it out loud can feel wonderfully freeing, especially in contrast.

In my experience, though, saying it doesn’t heal. In fact, it is possible to inflict the pain or fear that you feel onto others and use it as a means to control them. Rather than seeing it as a way to greater understanding and further self determination, expressions of pain and fear can become ways to limit behavior.

This limitation inevitably leads to limits on yourself. It inevitably leads to formal definitions of what is “right” and “wrong,” what is “acceptable” or “proper” and what isn’t.

Is this quest for “safety,” by defining what is “unsafe” and keeping yourself apart from it, really making you safer or is it just a way to make your world smaller? In my experience, such a practice always leads me to make myself and my world – the things I am open to – smaller. It is just another way into Ego.

(I am reminded at this point of the popular nom de guerre of the Devil as “The Prince of Lies.” Might the “Devil” in this case be anything that keeps us tied to being small, in other words, Ego, and might the lies in this case be anything that keeps us in Ego? It is interesting how easily we can get sidetracked and end up boosting Ego. All it takes in the current case is a belief that we are done. Maybe the “lies” are all the ways that we can be fooled into boosting Ego, even when our goal is to heal ourselves and eliminate Ego.)

I find that the importance of giving my wounding expression or sitting with my wound is not in that sitting with it heals it or gives me something to change the world around me with. Rather, it is like sitting with a rabbit hole or a deer run. Eventually you are accepted as just a part of what is there. You disappear into the background.

When this happens, you have a choice. Extending the hunting analogy a bit farther, you can either use your invisibility to attack your prey or you can visit all the corners of its range and see it in all of its moods and shadings.

In my experience, whenever I have attacked my Ego, it has come back to me stronger than it was. Sometimes it came back in a guise that I didn’t expect. Even when I apparently kill it, I always find that I’ve only killed it on one layer and it still exists on other layers.

In order to deal with it once and for all and truly heal myself, I find that I have always tracked it to its root. Like a wild weed, as long as even a piece of the root remains, the whole thing can come back, but if the whole root is removed, the weed never returns.

That process of tracing back to the root, in my experience, has always involved the second choice. It’s as it by going to all of the secret places that my wound has on one level, I am denying it access or solitude on that level. Since this level is denied to it, it has no choice but to go to a deeper level.

I can follow it there and sit with it on the new level. In this way, it leads me back to its root and I can heal it there.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – IV” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Healing – III

by DCH Park

We left off last time with the observation that it comes down to honesty. Even science comes down to honesty. It is hard to make progress, to push the borders of progress forward if you don’t know where you are.

There are those who insist on imagining or declaring where we are without knowing where we are. They try to substitute Ego for reality. They try to base their declarations on what they have heard or what they expect. Their declarations seem to make sense as far as they go, but whenever you try to push them farther, their philosophies fall apart or show holes. What’s worse, instead of examining those holes as ways to clues that can repair or change those philosophies altogether, they shout those objections down. They defend their Egos, confusing their Ego for themselves. They take honesty about what they do and the consequences that follow for criticism of them.

Maybe you know someone like this. Someone who seems to be more interested in internal logic than in observing first what is going on. Such people seem to assume their conclusion before their experience, which is fine for a test and prediction. But then, if their prediction fails, they don’t observe its failure and adjust their theory (which leads to the prediction), they adjust their observation to fit the prediction.

In severe cases, they shout down those who observe what differs from prediction or they try to. The history of science is littered with examples of this. This is why scientists used to have to wait for the “old guard” to die off before the “young turks” could introduce their new ideas and be taken seriously.

Scientists used to note that it took changes of generations for science to advance. Now it advances considerably more quickly and more consciously. It is able to advance the whole race and has done so several times since the beginning of the twentieth century precisely because the person with the radical idea no longer has to wait for the “old guard,” to die off. S/he just has to present the data along with instructions for how that data was observed and theoretical expectations in order to precipitate a discussion of that theory.

Faster evolution is possible because it is conscious and conscious evolution calls for each participant to be honest with the facts. Scientists have been able to innovate, furthering their own understanding of the universe. They have done this several times since the early part of the twentieth century, not only radically changing our understanding of ourselves and of the universe while they did it, but also giving rise to engineers who could then apply those insights toward economic innovations.

All of the insights into ourselves and our surroundings and all of the power and technical innovations that come from such extended insight are made possible by one thing – honesty.

That’s remarkable, but what’s even more amazing is that everyone is a scientist in his or her own life. People are taught and encouraged to think that there are two types of people and that a few understand things while the bulk of people don’t. They are taught to accept things as they are and to change only when they are told to.

The fact is that great scientists and artists can not be expected to be told when to change or how to change. By the same token, nations are made great by their citizens. Citizens are not made great by their nations. Nether can you simply declare something to be great and do nothing else. Such a declaration changes nothing and therefore is nothing.

In the cases of individuals as in the cases of scientists, it boils down to honesty. Are you honest with yourself about your life and what you experience? Are you creating and exploring the future or are you (re)creating certain expectations?

Understanding what those expectations are and where they come from is important in healing, but the first step is noticing those expectations. You can’t heal something you don’t even see or won’t see. What’s there?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – III” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Healing – II

by DCH Park

Things are still integrating for me as I come out of my second near-death experience. Both times, I remember clearly having a choice and choosing to come back to life. Both times, there were things to heal and things to accept about myself. In fact, I am still healing and growing from the second near-death experience. Maybe from both.

One of the ways that I continue to heal is in who I am in the world. I notice that in choosing to be alive, I am choosing myself, but who am I? I notice that many forces in society want me to be this or that, but they are uninterested in what I am. They want me to be what they want and seem to actively suppress anything else.

I think that there are many forces in society that work this way. However, my sense is that this is not what the Founding Fathers of the United States or great scientists and artists have wanted. Nevertheless, these forces are very strong and very subtle. They are practically invisible and therefore very strong. However, remember the parable of the cave. Things are invisible because we won’t see them, not because we can’t.

Expectations seem natural. They seem like “just the way things are.” However, are they? Can we make a different choice just by seeing that we can? Is our awareness that powerful?

I find that we are taught to expect rules and norms to conform to. We usually measure or prove our worth by how well we conform to these ideals. Those who call themselves “spiritual” often still conform to rules but they conform to different rules. Nevertheless, they are often playing the same game, just following a different leader.

The game that they are playing is looking to others to define for them what is right, what value they have, who they are in society and thus to themselves, etc. They are looking outside themselves for definitions of who they are and how they feel.

Instead, notice what you feel inside. Notice the difference between high and low emotions or between what has been called emotions versus feelings. Heal the one and celebrate the other.

This can begin simply and small. Simply notice what you feel. Notice what emotions are present. Notice the relationship between emotions and Ego.

Science can be summed up in a single word – honesty. Regardless of what science may have been associated with in your schooling, it comes down to honesty. That’s why scientists in the twentieth century have been able to take conscious responsibility for their culture. The net result has been a vast acceleration of cultural development. There’s no reason that the lessons of science can’t be used in other fields. Be honest with at least yourself about your emotions and what you feel. What’s going on? The more you see, the more you can see.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – II” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Healing – I

by DCH Park

I have heard myself saying to different people in different ways over the last couple of weeks how to find the healing at the center of wounds. This is not a topic that I have been consciously pushing. Rather I have been consciously aware of it as a question or discussion topic raised by others. As I have explored this with different partners, I have heard wisdom in what was said. Most interestingly, I have heard wisdom in my own words.

This wisdom not only reflects the truth, it is immediately recognized as being truthful. What’s more surprising is that this truth is often not anything that either person has heard before. Nevertheless, it is there and it is true.

This is a practice, but it is also an ability that everyone has, like breathing. We can recognize the truth even when we have never seen or heard it before. This is not logical. Logically speaking, recognition is of a thing that we have been seen before. It goes to remembered experience of this life and truth is (at best) inferred from what is remembered.

However, this recognition (the best word available – it captures the right feeling, but it is not in the context we have been brought to expect) of truth goes beyond logic. Logic cannot explain nor describe it. To ask logic to explain it would be to make logic bigger – big enough to contain it and it doesn’t. Specifically, recognition is not logical in that we can recognize the truth even when we have never heard it before. We can recognize something even though it is the first time we have seen it. This is not logical.

It is possible to recognize the truth even if we have never seen nor heard it before. We do it all the time. In a sense, this recognition goes to the future. One sense of the word “recognition” goes to the past while another goes to the creative future. One relies on logic while the other relies on something else.

Some people expect specific practices or behaviors that they can adopt. The more aware of these ask for such practices specifically. There seems to be an expectation that it is possible to know your destination before you are there. This seems logical and it may have led to widely accepted success in the past, but it is not true.

Many have been trained to logically define and expect a certain outcome. They have been trained that the means are shaped to bring them to the desired end. As I write this, I realize that I was like this. I was trained as a logical scientist throughout my high school, college, and graduate educations. I was led to expect logical outcomes to specific problems and situations. I expected to be able to know where I was going before I got there. I found it frustrating when such logical predictions were not forthcoming.

What I realize now is that we can never know what shape will manifest nor from where it will come. This has been demonstrated over and over again throughout history. Therefore, to maximize chances of success, it makes sense to keep as many possibilities open as possible. Further, it makes sense that whenever it becomes clear that another possibility exists which is closed or defined negatively, I benefit by at least understanding this negativity and where it comes from. If/as I can heal it, a new possibility opens to me.

This means in turn, that I can benefit by noticing the things that I define/react negatively to and healing that negativity. This is a practice. I am changing my habits so that instead of running away from negative things and things that hurt me, I run toward them.

I remember psychologists like John Welwood, who says that sitting with your rawness – those parts of you that are literally uncooked – the raw parts soften and open up to you. They tell you what they need.

In other words, the area of growth for me has been in applying the lesson from life in my specific case. What are my wounds telling me? What are your wounds telling you?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – I” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.a

Liberty Of Thought

by DCH Park

We live in a free society, or so we tell ourselves, but what is truly free? What is the nature of freedom? This is a question that used to bother me greatly when I was younger. “How can I know that I am free if I don’t know what freedom is?” I would ask myself.

It seems pretty obvious that we are talking about one of two possible definitions of “free.” Any good dictionary would point out that the word “free” also applies to the price of something. Being free probably doesn’t have anything to do with prices in the marketplace, although economics would probably note that there is a connection between being free and how much things cost – if things cost too much, is it possible to be free? We won’t go into that connection here.

I have heard things in the media in the last ten or twenty years about “freedom from fear” or “freedom from terror.” Is this truly freedom? Maybe it is. When I look within myself, I find that one way to be truly “free from fear” is to understand fear and where it comes from in an honest and courageous way.

If I am afraid to follow a connection that might lead me to my fear, rather than finding its root and healing it, I am controlled by it. The best that I can do is to restrict my behavior and minimize what I am afraid of, or to try to minimize it.

In other words, this way, I can never eliminate my fear. I can never heal it. I can only try to minimize it and reduce its effect on me. It’s like whistling in the graveyard. The whistling doesn’t eliminate what I’m afraid of nor does it eliminate my fear. At best, it distracts me or covers over what I fear.

In the meantime, I can hope that others are creating bulwarks to protect me while I’m whistling.

What I don’t notice because I’m too busy being afraid is that those same bulwarks also limit me. They control me.

Unfortunately, much of modern media seems to be geared toward engendering fear and providing a hated outsider to blame the fear on. By giving in to their fear, whole communities can come to hate other communities. They might not notice what they are doing because they are too busy with fear.

Leaving aside for a moment who might benefit from such hatred, it seems clear that such benefits accrue only if hatred exists and is embraced by society. Since society is made up of the members of it, in other words, of you and I, if we each chose as individuals to heal instead of to hate, healing becomes possible.

This is the way in which we can all transcend fear together. This is what healing is and healing makes freedom possible. How do we heal?

One method that has been laid out very eloquently is Nonviolent Communication. Another is available through updated Ho’oponopono.

Nonviolent Communication actually makes the point that the speaker shares what it is that will make him or her feel more alive because as humans, when we know what makes another feel more alive, we naturally want to do it. We naturally want the other person to feel “more alive.” In doing so, we feel more alive, too.

This condition of feeling more alive is available through Ho’oponopono, too.

What have you done lately to turn into your fear and heal it? Does it allow you to see or accepted a hated other differently? Who is healed? The other person, or you, or both?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”Liberty Of Thought” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Transcendence – What It Is

by DCH Park

Fairlex, at Princeton University, defines “transcendence” in part as “a state of being or existence above and beyond the limits of material experience.” This definition is interesting. It is accurate in that it captures the state or condition of being somehow beyond common experience.

However, does the fact that being transcendent lies somehow “beyond the limits of material experience” mean that human experience must be restricted to those limits? The “limits of material experience” are real, but are we limited to them? Is it possible to be material and yet exceed the boundaries of materiality? Your foot is in your boot or shoe at the moment (say). Does that mean that your whole being is confined to your shoe?

By the same token, as human beings, we are no doubt material but is that all that we are? Some would say, “Yes.” They seek to “define” or quantify everything in terms of things that have a material existence. They seem to assume that anything that is real, must have a material existence and that anything that can’t be counted doesn’t count. In other words, only material things exist and anything else is nothing more than an unreliable figment of someone’s imagination, like the bit of undigested beef that Scrooge complained about.

Others claim that there is more to existence than material things – that the spirit moves the body but is not contained in it. They see materiality as a part of existence but not as the whole of existence. In fact, most of those who claim that there is more to existence don’t even see materiality as the major part of existence.

Thus, materiality is just another aspect of the same, larger reality of which spirit is also a part. Also, they claim that there is a continuity between the two – either one can affect the other, Your attitude can affect the pain in your foot just as your blisters can affect your attitude.

Members of the former, materialist camp have a hard time accounting for anything beyond material existence. Some of them even go so far as to deny the existence of creativity, denying not only the significance of their ability to move the whole race forward with their creative impulses, but also what the creative scientists and artists themselves wrote.

What’s possibly more insidious is that in denying the possibility of non-material experience, you deny the value of looking at it at all. The simple fact that certain things can’t be counted now doesn’t mean that they will never be counted nor does it mean that they are unimportant or unreal.

Furthermore, along the way to understanding them well enough to count them, who is to say that we won’t understand more of the universe (and possibly even ourselves) better? Who is to say that we won’t see benefits?

Is a personal experience of transcendence possible? Is it available? Might adepts down the ages have been right in observing that transcending yourself and sharing that experience with others defines the human experience? Isn’t that what makes art? Isn’t that what makes humor?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”Transcendence – What It Is” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Yeah, But…

by DCH Park

There is a quote from Gandhi about the way that things unfold. I use it as a touchstone and something that talks about what to expect. It goes, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” Several things come up for me when I hear this quote. In no particular order, they are that, (1) this sounds and feels like it draws from personal experience.

I expect that Gandhi remains powerful for us in that what he is quoted as saying speaks to all of us. In particular, it resonates with our own experience. It rings with truth because it is drawn from personal experience. We measure that truth and validate it according to our own experience. Gandhi is great because what he did and what he said came from and capture a great truth within himself.

He didn’t get in his own way or that truth. As a result, he had great power. So do we all. By living in this truth, he was able to not only live in it in his own life, he was able to call us to live in our own power in ours. This power came from the truth he spoke. We pay attention to him because of that same truth. Everyone else pays attention to him for the same reason. We don’t go the other way. We don’t pay attention to him because everyone else is and create truth in what he says. – That wouldn’t make sense although that is exactly what we are taught to expect.

What’s interesting is that what we hear has universal appeal. Gandhi was able to affect the actions and decisions of two nations and affect the course of the history of the whole world by acting in accordance with his view of the truth. Perhaps he was operating on a level to which we can only aspire, but that does not mean that we shouldn’t try.

This brings me to the second point that comes up for me. The statement is true of personal struggle as much as it is of social and political struggle. In fact, social and political struggle is personal struggle. That’s why it’s so contentious.

Corporations and political campaigns spend untold millions of dollars and more to get us to vote with our fingers, our feet, and our dollars in one way or another. This is because the ways we vote matter. What we believe and how we act matter. If they didn’t, those corporations and political interests would focus their attention on other things.

The very shape and content of public debate can be determined by what individuals decide for themselves. This is arguably the direction that the founding fathers assumed that power would flow. When it goes the other way, when individuals empower others – be they teachers, peers, elders, parents, or some amorphous form of “society” – individuals can too often be told by others how they should be and act. They can be controlled by other people.

Even a person’s expectation of other people’s criticism, absent the criticism, can control that person.

The third point is that there is no right and there is no wrong. The personal is political and the political is personal. You can find yourself either way, but one way is much easier than the other. This is because society has more opportunity to insert itself when we go outside ourselves. Interestingly, most of us are trained to only consider going outside ourselves.

However, when we do go outside ourselves, we elevate others above ourselves. Many learn that if there is a choice between self and society, self must be wrong. For most, this assumption of fault is often where such elevation begins.

Simply knowing this, however, doesn’t change it. Most of us have learned behaviors and years of practice reinforcing those assumptions. Valuing yourself can be like changing a habit. It can take time and patience and persistence.

If it helps, know that I value you for your experience and truth. Know also that the more you express that truth and live by it, the more power you will have.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”Yeah, But…” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Surrender and Will

by DCH Park

It has been said that there are two avenues toward spiritual enlightenment. One is the way of surrender and one is the path of will. Many in modern society are familiar with the path of will. It requires great discipline. Many are drawn to it. They see it as strong, like iron or stone. They gravitate toward will and reject surrender as weak. like water.

In following will, you often start out by noticing and criticizing others and their choices. You look around you and see that many are consumed with the “wrong” things in life, things that won’t carry them forward, things that won’t make them more “spiritual.”

Looking toward yourself, you may recognize such “wrong-headedness” in yourself and begin to reject it there. Self flagellation and deprivation are often ways to “punish” yourself and in particular those parts of yourself that are “wrong.”

Ultimately the followers of will find that the only way further into spirit is to surrender to a greater will. Some call this the will of God. Others know it as the will of the universe. No matter what name you give to it, in the contest of wills, it is clear that your little will is bound to be overwhelmed by the greater will.

According to Osho, the practitioners of will are destined to either surrender their will or to stop growing. If we must surrender sooner or later, why, asks Osho, waste time?

Furthermore, while the path of will requires great discipline, the path of surrender calls for extraordinary trust. However, I find that there is something beyond these apparent opposites. We are taught to believe that antagonistic opposites rule existence. In nature we find male and female, right and wrong, and hot and cold, to name a few.

What’s more, we are taught that if something is not one thing, it must be its opposite. In fact, many things are defined in terms of not being their opposite. This can even be the basis of supposed humility – one avenue to “humility” lies in denying what you are not without saying what you are.

However this only works if there are only two choices. In that case, not being one thing implies that you must be the other. But in most cases there are many more choices than only two. Even the supposed “natural opposites” listed above are idealized states that do not exist. There is, in fact, a range of states between each extreme and even the extremes change based on the range that is chosen. Thus, what is hot in one context may be cold in another. Even fighting against something gives life to what you oppose.

This is why the path of will or applying discipline must ultimately fail. Anything and everything that you oppose must grow and may ultimately grow too big to ignore. This is because it grows from all of your opposition.

The only way to defeat something is to surrender to it, but this is more than giving in. In order to stop fighting against something you have to accept it, which looks like surrender. However beyond surrender, it is possible to transcend distinctions and see not only that it defines you, you can see that it is a part of you.

From here, taking personal responsibility for all of your experience and ultimately choosing what you experience is only a matter of practice.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”Surrender and Will” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Way of Machines

by DCH Park

We have a love affair with machines. I partly recall a story from my youth. It may have been written by Issac Asimov, I’m not sure. In the story, young people were romanticizing becoming robots. Their ways of dressing, speaking, and moving, even their way of making love, were all designed to make the viewer, and most importantly themselves, think he or she was looking at a machine.

The story had a surprise ending but this image of embracing machines has stayed with me. When we admire someone, we are taught to liken him or her to a machine. It is considered a complement to say that someone is “like a machine.” At the same time, it is an insult to liken someone to an animal unless the resemblance that he or she bears to the animal is “machine-like.”

However, such comparisons are inherently dehumanizing. Is not the apparent “power” of machines in that they treat all inputs the same way? Is not this “power” in that the machine can only take in a small subset of reality and thus it forces reality to conform to it? Do we not throw machines away and replace them as soon as their inputs no longer serve us?

Nevertheless, many in society embrace the idea that machines embody power and many schools teach it, but is this really power? Wise men and women down the ages have taught that it is the strong who change because they are the only ones who can change.

I remember growing up with the image of a conquering race learning and using the language of the conquered with their vanquished foes because that way they could keep their own language private as a source of power. Flexibility is a hallmark of life, of humanity. As machines gain more power, they gain more flexibility. It is ironic that society teaches us to value machines and their inflexibility so highly.

I heard myself say to someone once that in Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin (as artist) said that the “beginning of the end” was marked by machines feeding people. In an early scene, Charlie is shown as a factory worker – one among many. Then he is fed by machine disastrously. In the next scene, he is out of work because the factory is closed. He goes off into the Great Depression as the Tramp.

In Modern Times, the connection between the demise of civilization and the dehumanization of people is pretty clear. However, it is arguably less clear in real life. A change from one scene to another is nearly instantaneous on the screen, however, in life, it is much slower, although the connection may be no less real. Why else would the manufacturers of various foodstuffs that are made in factories, often with no human touches at all, try so hard to conceal the fact that everything they offer is all made by machine?

This is also true in other areas of life. There is often a difference between services in which people make decisions and those in which decision are dictated by machines. You can usually feel this difference. This is why so many businesses are trying to make their offerings seem to come from people rather than machines or why they charge more when they come from people.

There is no good reason why machines should feed people or in any way limit or control people or their choices. The only reason that such things are possible is that people assume that they have no choice. But they do. That is why so much time and energy are put into getting them to believe that they don’t have a choice and into concealing the facts.

What is in your life that is made by machine? What comes from machine? How many of these things would be better if they were made by people?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Way of Machines” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.