Clarity

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Oddness. I have a student who has been Intermittent Fasting, and exercising...but not with the regularity that would allow her to get the real results. Over the last week, she volunteered to try the Tibetans. Seven days a week. Just three.

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And in the last week she lost three pounds. Thats...very interesting. All she changed was adding about three minutes of motion a day? Huh...

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Remember: the Tibetans are not "exercise". They are a ritual to be done daily, and they do have a powerful physical component, but don't substitute them for other movement.

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So the woman at Fox apologized (of course) for her statements about Obama. Wow. I'm so impressed. What she said was literally the worst thing I have ever heard in public discourse. The worst. And for it to come up three times in the last ten days says that violence and fear is swimming just under the polite surface. If Hillary had no idea she was opening the door to hell, she shouldn't be President. Look at the storm the word "bitter" raised--words matter. If she were the front-runner, I KNOW that there would have been a rise in ugly, veiled jokes about sexual violence, rape, "putting a woman in her place" etc. All said "hah hah" in bad taste but without malice. That's the way the human mind works, sometimes. We have a range of motivations, many voices in our heads. Some of them are ugly. Some of that ugliness is tribal in nature. I've tried to point out a way of measuring this culturally: sexual images in film. It's like studying the sun by looking at a shadow.

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What we are seeing here is a way that societies could be considered to operate like a human mind. Humor is a release of tension, and therefore what people find funny tells you things about what they fear, and who they are. They say it, disown it...but understand that the most unstable members of their clan are listening ("will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?") and if one of them does the unthinkable, the original speaker has complete deniability. But almost no one would publicly admit that this was "funny". Of COURSE it was "funny." If you understand why people laugh (a laugh and a scream are very very close, psychologically) then what was said was an absolute howler.

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What Clinton said was, in all liklihood, nothing but an externalization of an ugly thought. "I'll hold on...anything could happen...his campaign could implode...he could get pneumonia..." losing sleep, watching millions of dollars flowing down the drain, watching the dream of a lifetime, for which she killed her heart, dying...

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And she said the unthinkable. Now, her non-apology to Obama could actually be interpreted as an attempt to stop the meme from spreading (there I go again, trying to find the best interpretation). That's just me. Believe in the best in people, while remaining prepared to kick their asses. Strange, strange, strange. I contain multitudes...

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But we do that. Another interpretation is that she is horribly tired, and wants someone, anyone, to end this. She herself cannot, like a generator with no governor on it. I understand this. Boxers have battled on after their brainstems have been severed. Champions push beyond pain, beyond reason, beyond rationality. That can be part of the mindset. Evil, I think, is unbalancing, exposing the Reptile hind brain and its love of death, and practice of cruelty (watch a cat play with a lizard some time). I think her wiring is exposed--I warned you guys that she was unbalanced, and we're seeing it right here, right now. The strain of a political campaign on this level is enough to make strong men weep. Clinton is a brilliant, accomplished woman. I would not want her marriage for my daughter.

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Does she want to eclipse Bill? Certainly, her presidency would reduce his to a footnote. I don't know, and feel genuine grief about this. She is destroying herself. Please, God, someone who loves this woman hold her and help her heal. This is terrible, and nothing I would wish on anyone.

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But we all have instances of shooting ourselves in the foot. Pushing ourselves too hard. Just recently, I spoke with a dear friend who was preparing the largest business presentation of his life...and pushed himself so hard his system pretty much crashed and burned. It's not for me to go into it more deeply, but if he doesn't grasp that there is a limit to how far we can push ourselves, (practically, not theoretically or apocryphally) then his subconscious will have a perfect way to slow him down, to use his ambition to screw him up. This is, in my mind, an over-reliance on the male energy: push, active, strive, etc. As opposed to heal, recover, sooth, etc. We do this.

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As a culture we do this as well. WOW, our government is stuck on a Male approach to terrorism: treat it like a standing war, force force and more force. And hey, why talk to people who want to hurt us? Just bend them to our will!

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Yeah, right. That doesn't work great when you're dealing with a diffuse network. You can't fix a television set with a hammer. Note the fear, and I mean REAL fear, of talking. Discussing. Communicating. A complete imbalance of the active-passive principle. Sick. Exactly as sick and ineffectual as it would be to believe that talk alone would solve it all, that you can Kum-Bah-Yah every situation. But to not trust your leaders to have the sense to have a conversation...that is profound and dysfunctional fear, a level of distrust of anything you can raise above your head and club with. The world is more than that. My guess is that the average person who feels that way sees the world as a more threatening place, has more intractable conflicts, and more enemies. The balancing disease would be someone with no enemies, many friends...but no power. Nothing anyone wants to take, really. Is blown this way and that, afraid to speak his mind or take a stand.

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In-between the two is a healthy human being. One who is fully capable of killing, but would prefer to talk. I have known many such people. They are among my favorite human beings. To sit across from such a man, and say: "we can kill each other, or we can raise our children. It's up to you." And if you mean it, if you really mean it, if you are genuinely willing to kill or die, it is easier than hell to look right through the other person's bullshit.

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But if you've never experienced that, I can understand why you don't believe in it. And in all honesty, I am sorry for you. I believe that such clarity is available to those who embrace both balance and the transitory nature of human existence.

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But on to the question of the day. What is the most perversely timed "mistake" you have ever made, something that stopped you from progressing to the next level in your life/career/etc?