Tripping through time
The following is a free writing exercise I composed as part of an assignment for my Human Development and Evolution class. Let blogging season begin!
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Freewriting is interesting because it wholly depends on where you’re currently at in your emotions, thought processes, etc. when you sit down to do it. Knowing this was the assignment over the course of the readings and videos I’ve had various thought patterns that if I were to have written right then they would have steered my words in a totally different direction. Reflecting more broadly, our realities are very similar - a representation of where we’re at on the scale of consciousness. Which will shape our orientations and play into our decision making.
The last media I took in was Allan Combs’ video. When it ended, I googled Ramana Maharshi which took me to his site which took me to a map of India. I proceeded to move north to Varanasi and reminisce on my time there. I zoomed in to a hotel I stayed at and then scanned along the various Ghats that line the great Ganges. I recalled a man who made chai. He had the best chai. He used fresh bison milk and served twice a day, once very early and then once in the afternoon. Happy hour if you will. I met an English couple that introduced me to him. They would spend most of their afternoons sitting on the stoop drinking his chai watching the world go by. It became an afternoon pastime of mine as well.
Back to the man who makes the chai and applying some of the frames of development and consciousness we’ve been learning about to his life. He lives a simple life, supporting his family by acquiring fresh bison milk daily and then making chai until it’s through. His wife and two kids visited one afternoon. They were all so light and happy, including his regulars and really all those that took the time to stop and enjoy this delectable chai. Thinking about Wilber’s lines of consciousness one might assume his interpersonal and self-identity might be high. Put him in a board room in New York for a business meeting though and who knows how he does, referring maybe to his worldview or logico-mathematical competence. Just reminds me that so many of the attributes the western world places focus on are not integral to our wellbeing at all…
I’ve also enjoyed applying the lines to various people in my life, including myself. It helps me assess different aspects of my relationships, and how and why people show up the way they do. My intention with starting school is to close some of the loose ties that I have dangling in my life. This doesn’t mean ending relationships, just clearing my mental landscape of any of the pending mind loops I might put myself through. One of those is my housemate and the focus has been to get into as much alignment as possible as the season changes and I hunker down a bit more studying and creating routine. Applying the lines to him and our relationship has been extremely beneficial as I navigate the interpersonal weaving of our lives and look at my own acceptance and span of control. Also dropping into the fact that it’s not necessarily most beneficial to strive to make things “good” all the time. Allowing things to unfold has its own merit also and learning what we will in the process. A comforting thought in surveying my housemate and I’s flow, if nothing else :)
Thumbnail photo – Srivatsan
Home page photo - Hoach Le Dinh
