The Something Monologues

Today's walkalogue is all about how to open your perception and experience of reality. I find people who talk about expanding consciousness and expanding your reality to be a bit of a wank because they never explain what that actually means or how to do it. So in this walkalogue I talk a little about what this might mean and break down some steps to help you to learn how to do it for yourself. Consider this a primer on the subject, rather than a more detailed expose on the subject.

I start by giving you an exercise to help you see how narrow your perception and experience of reality is and motivate you to see how you could open yourself more consciously. I then look at how full sensory immersion, your gross conditioning & subtle sensory conditioning and memory can effect your perception and experience of reality and how we might use these to our advantage to go beyond what we know and open our perception and experience of reality. 

Other relevant TSMs include : https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/?s=senses, https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/e/tsm165-the-relationship-between-perspective-perception/, https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/e/tsm159-using-sound-to-anchor-ourselves-into-the-day-and-the-present-moment/, https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/e/tsm135-what-is-the-self-the-5-aggregates-and-process-fields/, https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/e/tsm-141-filters-through-which-humans-perceive-contact-with-the-other/, https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/e/tsm134-deepening-the-well-of-experience/ and https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/e/tsm108-expanding-consciousness-my-arse-deepening-the-well-of-experience/.The study referred to about musical preferences can be found here : http://www.deezer-blog.com/suffer-musical-paralysis/. I am also sure that there have been many other studies like it. I didn't use my new wind protector for this recording but I think it was relatively wind free. 

Enjoy ;-)

Bright.

PS. This will be my last TSM until after I return from my month break.

PPS. I dedicate my Scotch Finger Emission to Nick "Poopin on the Stupa" Marros !

This first walkalogue of 2019 is all about neuroplasticity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity) - the ability of the brain to change itself. In this walkalogue from last month, I talk a little about how I really became interested in neuroplasticity through running a community based Acquired Brain Injury rehabilitation group in 2002 and how I coincidentally had a 3 way conversation on the subject with the recently deceased Steven J Gould. I offer a brief definition of neuroplasticity and talk about what I see as the limitations of recent brain training tools. I propose that a framework like Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence's might be more useful for designing exercises that strengthen neuroplasticity before discussing a little of the research around what makes healthy ageing of the brain and suggesting some of the things that might be happening to the brain during unhealthy ageing. Finally I offer a couple of spontaneous exercises which draw upon imagination, memory and sensation, to help strengthen the neuroplasticity of your brain.

Related links here : https://etandi.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/steven-jay-gould/ & here : https://etandi.wordpress.com/2018/02/13/tsm156-enriching-your-life-with-guided-learning/.Think of this as an introductory primer the subject of using neuroplasticity to enhance well being.

Enjoy,

Brighty. ;-)

TSM173 is all about birds. I begin this walkalogue by talking about my own experiences with birds and then reflect on what birds teach us about life and living. Without anthropomorphizing, I think we can safely say that birds reflect many of our own fundamental desires and behaviors. The difference between us and birds, is that birds live fully in the present moment and have an authenticity about them that radiates through the intensity of how they live their lives. If you want to find a great spiritual teacher, forget about humans and get to know a bird.

In TSM172 I talk a little about an experience I had last year with doubt and despondency, before I woke myself up by whacking myself on the head while building an animal house ! The doubt and despondency relates to a small number of short phrases/sentences that had been playing in my head and effecting me when I was especially vulnerable. This particular self disclosure leads onto the broader subject of conversational loops and how conversational loops that take place in the outer and inner world effect the well being of our society and our individual well being. Think of this as a primer in how language and thought effect the nature of our reality. Once you have the ability to recognize conversational loops and you see how they effect human systems, you'll start noticing them everywhere and realize that the modern world is built on popular conversational loops driven by personalities and groups who do it consciously and unconsciously !

I dedicate this TSM to Sandor and Jacqui, for coming all the way down under to visit a walking man and for your ongoing support of ET and I and The Something Monologues !

This TSM is one of those that was in my scrap heap and destined for deletion. Unfortunately I was unable to take out the wind and the sound of my noisy shoes. Most of the wind is at the beginning and the end and there isn't too much in the remainder.

In today's walkalogue I consider the reality that nature has cycles on many different scales. In fact we've structured our societies around nature's most basic cycle - the cycle of day and night and we've created artificial cycles within this. We all have regular cycles of consciousness, awareness and energy, throughout day and night. Ultimately we have very little (if any at all) awareness of our change in awareness through periodic and aperiodic cycles that occur in each day of our life. 

Ancient indigenous people all around the planet followed diurnal and nocturnal cycles that connected the heavens to the Earth. And their mythologies reflected this. 

Unlike ancient indigenous people, modern man is disconnected from nature's cycles. How than can we bring ourselves into sync with nature's cycles and restore the ancient harmony that our ancient ancestors enjoyed. I offer a few exercises that may help in this direction. 

Our own bodies also have their own cycles and we ignore them at our own peril. But whether we're conscious of them or not, without their existence we're dead. Today I offer a few exercises to help remind you of your own innate cycles.  

Enjoy ! 

Brighty. ;-)

Some other related TSMs here :

https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/e/tsm30-cycles-expressing-the-needs-of-the-soul-vitality-the-ages-of-the-life-cycle-boundaries-neatness-messiness-aspects-of-self/

https://thesomethingmonologues.podbean.com/e/tsm33-natures-cycles-and-lessons-from-ets-during-internal-world-contacts/.

Thanks to your recent feedback, I decided to save a few TSMs that would otherwise have gone to the scrap heap because they had too much wind in them ! (Thank god no one has chucked me on the scrap heap yet for the same reason !). Today's TSM from June this year is the first of them and I can tell you that after much pedantic editing on my part (because the wind did piss me off !), this TSM is completely free of wind ! 

I dedicate this post to Darci and Frédéric. Darci asked me a question on the subject of figuring out what's real a little while back and for whom I failed to give an adequate answer ! Thanks Darci for all your curiosity and support and for being willing to look honestly at all your conditioning ! Frédéric has continued to push his own experiences of reality to the edge of what he knows and has the courage to keep asking "Is this real ?". Thank you Frédéric for being open to all the boomerangs and sausages that I throw at you ! 

In TSM170 I explore the nature of reality by looking at our ideas of objective and subjective reality. I speculate on the possibility that the shared agreements that we have about objective reality, may actually change over time.

We all have a subjective reality. We accept that. But we don't know how another person's subjective reality is different to our own or necessarily accept the particulars of another person's subjective reality. The experience of objective and subjective realities can occur simultaneously and if we're not careful, other people's subjective reality can become part of our own subjective reality.

So how is it that we can figure out whether a particular experience is real in regard to it's objective reality, so that we can safely accommodate it into our own subjective reality ? In order to answer this question we have to ask what effects our experience of reality and use doubt and discernment to tease out what's real ? And what if after everything, we're still not sure about what's real and what's not real ? How then do we deal with the discovery that some things may be real and other things may not be real and other things are entirely unknowable and uncertain ? And what then can we discover about ourselves when we face the unknown ? 

https://app.box.com/s/wlnscvi613b3e6oug6si

Note : Early on I referred to my son getting driving experience for his provisional licence. I meant to say probationary licence. When it's cold, ye old brain does not always work so well ! 

Enjoy,

Brighty. ;-)

You can find a related discussion here :  https://etandi.wordpress.com/2017/05/29/tsm131-memory-uncertainty-doubt-in-the-et-contact-experience/.

This is the final catch up TSM. I had to scrap a few more due to the wind. And alas, this one is windy as well ! But it's an authentic outdoor experience !

In today's monologue I take you on a trek through the nearby Scorpion Hill Ranges.

I'm still catching up on some TSMs that have been waiting to be edited. This one and the next one are the last in the queue and then it's onto something more recent.

I dedicate this TSM to Mr. Anonymous, Frédéric and Darci for having the courage to go on, despite life turning out different to what you might have imagined it would be. And to Sandor, Nick, Frédéric and Darci for your ongoing kindness, friendship and support.

Life is not easy. This monologue is in part aimed at all of you who work hard to make life work but find that life has other plans for you. Trust in life. For everything leads to now.

In today's monologue I explore what it means to make mistakes, starting with 8 mistakes that I've made. Some of these mistakes were small and seemingly insignificant and some of them were much larger and were far more significant in their impact. After giving you some candid examples from my own life, I talk about what we mean by mistakes and the impact that our mistakes can have on our own lives and the lives of others. I explore the value of our mistakes and the role that our mistakes play in our own development and in the development of our lives. And then speculate on how our mistakes can open up a completely different panorama of possibilities, suggesting that our mistakes can even act as a kind of spiritual manure, helping us to grow in ways that we had never anticipated. I offer you an exercise in self reflection for exploring your own mistakes. Then pushing past the idea of our mistakes being necessary for our growth, I explore the value of fully experiencing our mistakes. 

Enjoy ! ;-)

PS. People of Earth, Honour Your Mistakes !

PPS. This one is wind free but not tired cold exhausted man free !

This monologue was squeezed in while waiting for my son in the car. 

In today's monologue I introduce the idea of symbols of self discovery and begin by discussing a transformative dream I had about picking up an object like an Aboriginal sacred stone (Tjurunga). Sometimes dreams like this are purely symbolic but sometimes they also appear to be bringing information and/or energy from somewhere or someone else.

The symbols that occur in dreams like this can occur in waking and sleeping life. They can come with or without warning and have the potential to act as catalysts opening us up to the journey of self discovery. 

Relevant links :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tjurunga

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Aboriginal+Tjurunga&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEhoXl_6fcAhXGVZQKHYPLD_4Q_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=635&dpr=1.

In part 2 I'll talk about how self reflection and self discovery are a critical part of our growth, the types of universal and idiosyncratic symbols that can facilitate self discovery and how these symbols permeate our psyche and human expressions such as personal and collective art.

Enjoy !

Bright.

It's been quite a while since I have posted a TSM because I've just been too busy to find time to edit them. But I have made quite a few and had to scrap a good number of them due to the wind. Winter is a real problem for making TSMs because we have wind almost every day. This whole making and scrapping TSMs is really pissing me off but I have no way to minimize the effects of the wind with my iPod. I was going to scrap this TSM because of the wind but decided that given it's length and the subject matter, fuck it, it's staying. So there is a little wind here, the sound of a zipper flapping and there and the last 5 minutes is full of wind. 

So, in this TSM I explore some psychoses I have known in people that I have previously worked with and other people that I have known and talk a little about what I think psychoses might mean. All names have been changed and even though I make some judgments of the people I discuss, I had respect for all but 2 of them - who I felt were a danger to society. I am afraid that I do not have compassion for everyone and some of the sickest people that I have met or worked with, were also some of the most selfish and dangerous. If you are a person with some form of psychoses, I encourage you to explore how it came to be what it is and what it might mean. Psychosis fulfills a function in the human psyche and in human life. It isn't a random event, even if the brain is damaged or under the influence of substances.

My favourite person in this reminiscence was the very sweet but unwell Worm Girl.

 

May you enjoy the weirdness and the uniqueness that is human psychoses. 

Brighty. ;-)