Let Go and Let It Flow

Everything in the universe flows. You can't get ahold of water by clutching it. Let your hand relax, and you can experience it. --- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

These notions of Dyer's are somewhat difficult to wrap my mind around in isolation the way they are. It seems like I need some context or something.

Okay, I agree that everything in the universe flows. When I was younger I had courses in high school and college in physics and so to some extent I know the dynamics of the world in which we live. Truly, a piece of iron is composed of basic elements and there is plenty of activity there. There is in everything of a substantive nature. Of course, in Mormon thought, it seems as if there is nothing but substance in one form or another, refined or unrefined. So yes, I can agree that everything in the universe flows. Certainly my thinking does.

So let me grapple with the next part. You can't get ahold of water by clutching it. That is simply a statement of fact. How does it relate to the preceding sentence? Water, as it is calmly conceptualized in the first instance, is something in the universe, and it's easy to see and understand that it flows. Likewise, generally speaking you can't get ahold of it by grasping it; however, that's not always the case. In water's frozen form you can clutch it. Or does Dyer expect me to call that simply ice as distinguished from water? water is water, it seems to me, no matter what state it's in. But I guess you could say that in its gaseous state it is steam, in its liquid state it is water, and in its frozen state it is ice. But that doesn't do anything to help with respect to the first sentence which is all inclusive. All of those states of water are included in items in the universe, which he says flows.

Then the last sentence. Let your hand relax, and you can experience it. I take that to mean that you are to let your hand relax within the water referred to, in liquid form, that you cannot clutch or get ahold of and you will somehow have a greater experience of it.

It's as if the example of the liquid water and you trying to grasp it is a kind of metaphor for the notion that in order to comprehend the universe you need to relax and let it pass you in order to fully appreciate it. You can't get all uptight and try to grab it.

Is that it?

Don't Judge, Be Negative or Immoderate

Dyer says three things clog your soul: negativity, judgment, and imbalance.

I'll have to think about that.

It seems I have to admit to some degree of negativity, although I'm not entirely negative. In fact, from my perspective I'm quite positive. I doubt that many others see me in that way that much, however. But I think it's true. For example, I'm pretty positive about trying to write and trying to become more and more proficient at it. Others, who began writing about the same time I did, don't seem to be still writing like I am.

Judgment. Dyer says judgment clogs the soul. I'm not quite sure what he means. I guess he means don't be judging others. I doubt he's suggesting that you should use poor judgment in making choices, however. Maybe so, however. The problem with his claim is that it doesn't have enough surrounding context to understand exactly what he means. If he means it categorically, I'd have to disagree. I'm mostly opposed to the categorical. On the other hand, if he means it in the Christian sense, that a person shouldn't judge others lest they be judged themselves, I'm right there with that notion. Judgments should be made with love and concern and compassion.

I don't know exactly what he means by imbalance. The definition of imbalance is simply having a lack of balance. And balance is defined several different ways. It's a weighing device. I don't think he means to use that definition, however. It's a state of equilibrium or parity which is characterized by cancellation of all forces by equal opposing forces. I think that's the definition he is interested in. A person should try to have balance. I think this is the same as saying that there should be moderation in all things. Except for the categorical, I think I agree pretty much with a necessity to be balanced.

I think I'll try to do better and be more positive, to make fewer judgments of others, and to have better balance in my life.

Tune in, Get?

So Dr. Wayne W. Dyer says that all the abundance you want is already here. You just have tune in.

Thinking about the statement, the first one, it seems to me that the abundance here exceeds anything I could ever want. Furthermore, relative to the second statement, it seems like I tune into whatever degree of abundance I really want already. However, it seems like Dyer is saying that the more you tune into wanting more the more you get. It seems to me that there is a balance necessary. If you tune in too much to what you want more than you already have, it seems like you give up something.

Spiritual and physical life

Okay. Here's what I'd like to do. Dr. Wayne W. Dyer authored a small book published as Everyday Wisdom. I got it for Christmas or something from somebody in the family. I didn't note who gave it to me or when. Vaguely, I think I remember getting in my sock, so that would suggest it was from Shelley. In any event, it gives a snippet of "wisdom" to contemplate for each day. Perhaps I'll attempt utilizing it as a guide to some free writing and thinking, trying to do maybe one per day and perhaps posting it. So here goes, the first one:

"You are not a human being having a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being having a human experience."

I have so often heard that quotation at church, that I assumed it came from some scripture or from a General Authority or something. I am surprised to learn that it came from Wayne Dyer. I wonder if he stole it from someone else or paraphrased what someone else had said. I suppose that's true of everything that's ever said, isn't it?

It could be said that the notion expressed goes to a fundamental truth LDS people cling to: that we had an existence as a spirit being before we became human beings. I don't know if that's what Wayne Dyer had in mind or not. It would be interesting to know if he believes in an existence via spirit before the existence of body. My inclination is to believe he does.

I have believed and continue to believe that I am a spiritual being clothed in a physical body in concert with what is taught in Mormon theology. Of course, I don't have any memory from a life before this one, and I don't have any experience with anyone coming back from the dead to give me any objective evidence of the continuation of life hereafter. It is something I accept on faith after having listened to and studied out what others have said and believe on the subject. Additionally, there are self-serving reasons for believing it. The notion of complete obliteration after you die isn't something that appeals to me or, I suppose, most people. Perhaps that accounts for most people's belief in a hereafter.

Naturally, there are times when I kind of hope there isn't a hereafter; for instance, when I contemplate my failings and that there will be some sort of accountability there. On the other hand, there seem to be times when something from a past seems to be there, an insight or intuition, that I can't account for in the earthly life that I have experienced and that I remember.

So, bottom line for me is that I do believe in a duality of personality. Part of that belief includes the notion that in some stage or another I have always existed and always will. Perhaps that belief, however, stems from a longing for life incompatible with death.

Write What You Know, or Not

Donald Maas says you should write what you know. Natalie Goldberg doesn't think it's a good idea to write what you know. Donald admits that the writing what you know has a tendency to produce unexciting protagonists, settings that can put you to sleep, and plot lines nobody wants to read. Natalie suggests that we think about how little we know before concluding we should know what we write. Her point is that writing what you know severely limits the field of what you can write. Furthermore, she maintains the reason we have imaginations is in order to write what we don't know.

Donald maintains writing what you know doesn't mean you have to record everything that is plain and usual. A person should draw upon their experience in order to make the story personal, passionate, and true.

This debate of writing what you know versus not writing what you know comes up relative to me in writing about Alejandro. I really don't know about Alejandro, per se. I was never an undocumented immigrant, I don't know Spanish, I was never a thespian. On the other hand, I have an imagination, and I read of a girl going through the dust bowl during the depression in Oklahoma who I thought was in a situation that presented enough of an analog to what an undocumented immigrant boy like Alejandro might experience. Maybe that's cheating. I don't know. Anyway, that was the way I was going about it.

Donald says writing what you know means writing what you see differently, what you feel profoundly and know that it's important for the rest of us to understand. He maintains none of us need to have lived a life of merit or through a newsworthy phase, of sorts. We only need our own unique outlook and the will to write with a new purpose. Natalie says to lose control when you write. To write such things as what you're not thinking of it and what you don't remember. She contends if you get out of your box and do some exploration of a new place you will be able to find the hidden, the extravagant, and the mysterious life of a wild mind.

After Taking up the Pen and Ink

It seems a person must proceed with a degree of optimism and confidence even in the face of great, perhaps impossible, challenges. Well, if such a person doesn't so proceed, it can mean not proceeding at all, becoming so discouraged that they can't go on.

How does a sixty-two-year-old English-speaking white man (me) capture the voice, the setting, and circumstances of a fourteen-year-old Latino boy (Alejandro) in America? It takes a considerable amount of conceit to even make the attempt , although, perhaps, I wasn't smart enough to apprehend just how much moxie it would take. Yet that is precisely what I've been doing for several months now, writing a manuscript that I am around 220 pages into about Alejandro, a boy who is here in the United States with his parents, and none of them, not him or his parents, have legal documents to be here. They are illegal immigrants.

Now, it seems being in the place I'm at, as I try to tie things up into a climax and a tight conclusion for the novel, this project becomes more dicey than ever. My fellow critiquers, especially one in particular, raises new and bigger red flags of its difficulty to speak for this culture, this situation. Caution! Proceed at your own risk. Danger ahead.

This friend has been to a recent writer's convention and attended a panel that discussed this very issue, writing about Latinos. So, through him, I become more and more aware of the sensitivities in taking this on. The irony is that the very people who live in such circumstances --- undocumented immigrants --- usually don't have an opportunity to write for or speak for themselves because of their situation: trying to lie low and survive in a culture and society that views them as filthy lawbreakers, worthy of deportation and not much more. Some even characterize them as terrorists and invaders of this country. It is partly from such a perspective, recognizing these people's lack of sympathetic voices, that I decided it was important to write about Alejandro to begin with.

The challenge facing me raises various issues.

Do I want to even continue the attempt? To the degree I have a natural competitiveness, and I do although mine isn't as great as some people's I've experienced, do I want to proceed with the project and finish it in order to show everybody I can do it?

Do I want to cut my losses and turn to something else? I already worked for an entire career, enjoyed the work I pursued for well over thirty years, but retired , intending in retirement to do less. However, doing less certainly didn't mean doing nothing. I fully intended to do something in my retirement, and at the time I retired, I fully intended to continue writing and honing that particular craft.

Do I want to step up my efforts? If I want to receive recognition and some of the success others have received, like, for example, the friend I received the cautionary warning from mentioned above, I'll have to do more. That friend, who has publishing deals for three books with Scholastic, has a better background to be a writer: he has been dreaming of it, has been consistently reading and studying writign, and even began writing, it seems, at the outset of his life. Not me. Additionally, my friend seems more intelligent, better trained for writing, and more well connected in contemporary life and society than I am.

Is it fun enough?

Even as set forth these ideas, I know I want to do it. I know I want to complete it and to make it as good as I can. Nonetheless, there is some ambivalence and some wavering.

Plus, it just occurred to me that perhaps I should write this story from a first person perspective as an observer of the boy's life. Then, perhaps,  I couldn't be accused of being anything but the dumbass I am.

No, thinking about it somemore, I previously considered that possibility. While I don't rule it out --- it always hangs there in the back of my mind as  a possibility lurking in the shadows --- I'll try to finish in the way I've begun.

Ramblings on The Lonely Polygamist

So, here I am two days in a row thinking about writing something about The Lonely Polygamist. Not so much writing about it as writing a review of it, but perhaps that's a difference without substance. It would be easier just to stare out the window and watch the clouds float by in the deep blue sky. Of course, that would be easier than just about anything else anyway.

Brady Udall wrote The Lonely Polygamist. Udall is a big name in Mormon country. There are some famous names in government with that surname. It's a big name in Arizona, where I guess most of the Udalls of Mormon heritage hangout. Well, that's my generalization. None of that, however, has much to do with the novel, except to some degree relative to, perhaps, its setting in the desert somewhere not far from Las Vegas. Maybe Brady Udall had some history, some ancestry, of sorts, or perhaps even some contemporary members of the extended family who engaged in the practice of polygamy. (Why do people have to practice polygamy? We don't go around saying we practiced monogamy, do we? We just simply say we're monogamists, if the subject comes up at all. Yet, there is something mighty strange about polygamy, you have to admit it.) So, perhaps Brady had a hankering to explore the subject and flesh out a character he could imagine being a polygamist in these modern times, even though probably his ancestors gave up the practice when the main body of Mormons did back at the turn of the twentieth century.

Who knows why a person stumbles onto a topic. I stumbled onto polygamy from a totally different perspective. I'm not aware of ancestors in my lineage who ever practiced polygamy, although it's entirely possible some of my early ancestors on my mother's side did --- it appears those ancestors were immigrants from Denmark, who came here and settled in Central Utah.

If I could talk with Brady on a casual level and sense somehow that I could ask him a question without giving any offense and having some self-assurance that I might get an honest answer, I'd ask to know how he came to the subject of polygamy.

I know how I came to it. A friend told me and my wife one Christmastime his wife was leaving him for a polygamist. All of the modern polygamists I knew anything about at the time were totally weirdos, meriting only disdain and mocking. I had read about them in the newspaper, because whatever antics they had been up to had merited a story, usually one on the front page of the newspaper or as a headline in the television news for some stupidity, including murder and intrigue. This couple, had a few kids, and there was no doubt that if momma left the daddy for a polygamist, the kiddies would suffer and be exposed to such idiocy.

How could I resist writing about such blather?