building in the center

I continue to try to figure out how to work in this area of the interface between the electron beam and the photon beam. I see that there is a close parallel between my personal life story of trying to figure out how to live with both my mom's family and dad's family.

How to create space and build something substantial between two different things?
Perhaps the key is that secretly one gets help from a third thing. With my life in Santa Cruz, I think the key was to have good friends. It was within this context that I came closer to finding a common ground out of which I could exist in between both parents' houses and not feel like I was having to change myself so dramatically that there would be no continuity.

So, one claims a bit of ground somewhere in between this and that. Both this and that each think you belong to them. Or perhaps I myself think I belong to each of them, periodically. At one moment I am this. At the next, I am that. And while I am in the space that I am creating and building between the two, I try to make something that relates to the other two.

The title of this blog "adiabatic invariants", expressed a hope that I could find a space of more stability without the dramatic shifts. Perhaps I might also use a double well potential as a physics model for the kind of dynamics I am trying to deal with. And, for yet a third image, I have often thought of building a bridge between this and that. Building a bridge, however, is helpful for traveling in between, but does not in itself constitute a place of residency. One does not live on a bridge. And the imagery suggests a deep chasm. Perhaps it is not a chasm, but simply forest. And thus, instead of building a bridge, all that is needed is a path, and perhaps a map.

The task of life, then, is to inhabit the in-between territory, or if uninhabitable, to go elsewhere, but perhaps to keep the paths back alive. What are some topics where one must do this? Food is certainly one area. At my mom's house, we cooked and shopped ourselves. At my dad's, we were cooked for. Food meant something different. Meals had a different feel. So, today, I still do not have a way of shopping and eating that feels comfortable. Perhaps by continuing to think and write about this topic, I will make more progress. Creating a personal space which is comfortable is another area where I have a hard time. Choices feel political and charged, and what I actually create is often not very coherent. The same applies to how I dress and how I clean, and how I organize my projects and papers and other belongings. I have made progress, but the result is still not so coherent. I am trying to build in the center, between this and that. And the result is not always as satisfying as I might like.

Becoming comfortable with

Both of my parents have moved to remote places, with unique communities, and are rather isolated in some ways. Had I grown up in either of these places, I think I would have wanted to escape in some way. I might have longed for something different and looked at how to get out, geographically, socially, and regarding lifestyle and mentality.

At this point in my life, I am only a visitor in these places. But arriving in each one, I get the feeling of being pulled into a black hole, with little communication to the rest of my life, and not sure how to connect the experience to who I am. At the same time, I am adaptable, and arriving, and within the experience, it has an integrity and a quality to it that is quite nice. But the boundaries are difficult. I can't think my way into it from outside, or out of it from inside.

So I have slowly worked on the problem over the years by looking carefully at the boundaries. In the remote town in California where my father lives, for example, I look to see whether there are surrounding communities that might have some life to them. I try to find things in common to other places regarding environment and landscape. I plan trips there with an exit strategy, and friends and other family flanking it. Certainly this is also quite personal, and relates to my own experience of family and who I am there, and who I am seen as. I am starting to try the same strategy with my mother's house in Iowa. There, the boundaries are physical, but there is also a strong ideological barrier that is uncomfortable to me. Is there something within that I can relate to? I find pieces of interest to that community that I might interpret in a different way, but still find interesting.

Is such an elaborate process necessary? Maybe I will reach a point where it will seem smaller and less important, but somehow this work is necessary. The other option is to say that visiting my family is too difficult, and no common ground can be found, but I don't want to do that.

On the Petrolia side, there is the natural environment. The trees, the river, the ocean.
On the MUM/Fairfield side, there is the nearby Mississippi river. There are coffee shops in Fairfield. Ideologically, MUM is more challenging. The Maharishi is a figure that I just have a very hard time appreciating. And the closed mentality fosters an inside/outside split that is hard to overcome. One of the Maharishi's main texts he interpretted and based his power around has been the Baghavad Gita. I think this is something I could become interested in.

productive?

Reaching a point of productivity. But there is always a worry that this is incompatible with the rest of life.

On another note:
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has passed away. I will perhaps write more later.
I had just resumed my reading of Mikael Rothstein's book about comparing the TM and Hari Krishna attitudes and approaches towards science.

a building dream

We had to climb these thin buildings, climbing up thousands of feet into the air. We were given a contraption that would tell us two different stories, each emanating from a different part of the device. As long as you were very still you were ok, but I found myself wanting to stretch out, relax, and I knew that that would mean that I would fall. The end of the task finally arrived and we were given a choice, which I didn't clearly hear. To my great surprise everyone else, when hearing the choice jumped off their buildings to their death. I held onto mine and slid all the way down. Only one other person also made it down. I gave that person a high five and a hug and joined a few others who were waiting there, a bit curious about what had gone on up there.

life within

When the life feels like its draining out, it can feel like by running a little faster it can be recovered. I think that I just need to clean up my apartment and I'll find it hiding underneath the papers in the corner. Or maybe its the mildew on the ceiling that's obscuring it. When I just sit on my bed and relax and find that slowly the blankness turns colorful and feelings well up from the void its always so funny that I was so convinced that I was waiting to be found in some dark corner. It was true in a certain sense... just not hiding underneath my various jackets and books strewn about.

A gift from the car thieves

The first look into my car at the towing yard gave me a mixed response.
My first thought was: "wow, they cleaned the car for me!" Then I saw the empty box of cigarettes and the food stains and sand on the passenger seat. Cleaner due to the lack of my junk, but not particularly clean.
Otherwise, besides the missing stereo and almost completely empty gas tank, they had tried to do the right thing:
opening up the glove compartment revealed an unopened bottle of beer.