The Posts...in reverse order.

AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for February 26, 2009
DATE: 02/26/2009 10:27:09
STATUS: publish
BODY:
I have thought long & hard about composing that article entitled "Love as a Teacher". And I am convinced that it really should be the subject of a book, as I cannot do it justice on this page. I think all I can do realistically, is to write it in the form of an essay, offering no proof or back-up observations and just sort of throw it out there.
As a result I feel even as an essay, it will likely suffer.
First of all, we need to examine the larger field before we can even approach the subject. What we're really talking about is "quality as a teacher".
All our experiences, both good & bad have an indelible effect upon us. The more intense the experience, the deeper & more lasting the effect. I'm sure we are all aware that intensely bad experiences sometimes change people in such a way that they are "never themselves again".
I guess it's pretty obvious how this can happen.
And because of this obviousness, it leads a lot of people I have known to come to the conclusion that the effect of "bad" in this world is more powerful than that of the "good". On the surface that sometimes appears to be the case.
But seldom plumbed is the deep & powerful effect of "good" experiences to change people, in a permanent way, such that the "bad" times can never totally overwhelm them, even when that change for the worse seems to be impossible to recover from. It is a good topic for our cultures "teaching stories"...a/k/a Hollywood...to feature someone who has known the good of life to such an extent that his character is unbreakable, and faces the inevitable doom without self-pity. I have known such people in real life, and have experienced enough I think to understand it somewhat, if not to emulate it.

So, life is made up of good & bad; pleasure or pain is that the point...? If that's all I had to say, I should delete this essay. A simple-minded school of psychology called "behaviorists" could have told you that. Reward people when they do what you want, punish their perceived transgressions and you can make anyone do anything...? Non-sense!
"Love" is especially a powerful changer of behavior, to the point where it often practically cannot be undone! But let's be careful...the term "love" is an archaic one which covers many different meanings (actually I find all language archaic, which is why I believe there are so many arguments...but that's another story). I wouldn't use George Orwell's love vs. pain scenario as an example ("1984").
However, the deep examples that are written into our consciousness by being brought up by a loved parent have great effect that cannot entirely be overwritten. Many of us still prefer to be put to death rather than break our eggs at the small end.
Nothing in the universe exists in a vacuum, but is the result of a unique set of causes coming to bear on a particular place & time. Yet I am convinced that the daughter who watches baseball with her Dad is far more likely to find that place in herself where the sport is cherished, than one who stumbles upon the game herself.

Because of this, I leave you with a warning. There are many things in this world that are perpetuated on account of what a parent chooses to expose a child to. Look critically at your own beliefs lest you turn one of your flaws into someone's dearest notion.

-----
--------
AUTHOR:Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for July 12, 2008
DATE: 07/12/2008 06:03:29
STATUS: publish
BODY:
I have long wanted to write about "love as a teacher", but have realized I couldn't do that properly due to a conceptual constraint in our culture. It shows up as an odd connotation we grow up with concerning the word "love".
As we grew up (at least in my and previous generations) weren't we taught by our teachers early on, that it was not proper to say "I love ice cream" or "I love hot dogs" because it was a misuse of the word "love"? And yet we all persist in saying such things throughout our adult lives. Have you ever wondered why?
I believe it is because of a short-coming in our mythos, the conceptual structure of our culture, all those unconscious ideas that we absorb that give us a common frame of reference, that this occurs. Our society does not recognize "Quality" as the prime motivating factor in our nature, and as such the word quality has been relegated to a sort of little-used side concept, and is seldom used in ordinary conversation. "Love" however, is stressed in all our teaching as a central idea & guide for our lives. Now, everyone recognizes love as a high-quality experience, in fact the most high-quality experience most of us are aware of, both for the giver & the receiver. It is no wonder that, as a culture we have chosen to use the word "Love" as a substitute for a word to describe the "quality experience".
So before I could say anything meaningful about "love as a teacher", I needed to clear up what it was I was talking about, and to spell out the relationship between "love" & "quality". Whichever word I use, what we are actually talking about is "the quality experience" as a teacher, the experience of being loved being one of the most effective of these.


-----
--------
AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for February 17, 2008
DATE: 02/17/2008 13:44:08
STATUS: publish
BODY:
As I live a very labor-intensive way of life, it is difficult for me to sit down & write even when I want to. Several subjects have come to mind lately. It particularly bothers me when there is a subject that is a common theme in today's society, and yet no one ever really seems to get anywhere near down to the bottom of it. Maybe you won't like my take on it either, but that's not important. What's more important is if it gets anyone thinking.
Discrimination is a word in constant use these days, and one that has absorbed a really bad connotation, rather like a cheese in a fridge full of rotten garlic. But what are we talking about? What is discrimination, really?

To "discriminate" means to choose, on a basis of Quality, between something good and something bad. That is, to sort out things that we experience into two piles: Good quality & Poor quality. What could be wrong about that? It is what humans (and all creatures) do naturally, moment by moment from the time we are born.
The trouble lies in our perception of quality, and the thought processes of how we judge for quality. It means pre-judging anything on a wrongful (i.e. not connected to reality) basis that is the source of the problem. In fact that is what prejudice is. This is a function of ignorance, and we all do it. It is in fact impossible to do away with entirely.

Take this as an example. We are alone in a parking lot at night, maybe even we are carrying with us more money than usual, or are otherwise feeling especially vulnerable. We notice that from across the parking lot, there is a youth coming toward us. His hands are in his pockets, his head down and his hood pulled low so that we cannot see his face. He does not swerve or waver but continues directly on toward us....
Do we not walk a little faster toward our car? If we say "no", are we not a little foolish? We have just made a quality judgment about that person, or at least that situation, with few facts to rely on.
How this happens is mainly through a mental process known as association. We could call this "animal-mind", although we all possess this function, and indeed use it constantly. The reason we say "animal-mind" then, is because animals primarily reason this way.
Humans, on the other hand, with a conceptual understanding of "past" and "future", have the ability to understand the long-term meanings of events. This also lends us the ability, through experience, to imagine possibilities much deeper than what we see in the here and now.
I don't mean to bring race into the picture, although that is certainly one facet that is implicated in this whole subject line. But this is a true story, and illustrates the function of association in animals. My Dad, when he was alive, in his younger days had a dog. One day, a black man kicked my Dad's dog {maybe he was prejudiced against dogs (?)}. Ever since that day, that dog hated all black men, and would bristle and foam whenever he saw one until the day he died. I could have told a similar story about my own dog, who was sprayed by a skunk and forever hated skunks, but in that case perhaps the bad association was more justified.
My point is that association only works on the basis of "short-term quality", and while it is something we must take into consideration in our thought processes, using our higher reasoning brings us much more into line with "long-term quality", and gives us a depth of understanding far beyond that of association alone.
As a side-note, remember I said that dogs reason primarily by association. I have been around dogs all my life, and have seen more than one dog, particularly older dogs, that seemed to be considering possible outcomes before taking action. Apparently, experience can teach them that more than one association can be connected to a similar event, creating a conflict to be evaluated (value=quality). This is the begining of reasoning.



-----
--------
AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for November 18, 2007
DATE: 11/18/2007 06:21:48
STATUS: publish
BODY:
                 "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"..........Shakespeare
    
     
      
                           I  just wanted to add a side note to the subject of ignorance, meant to be paranthetical to the previous blog.
                   While there are truly horrible crimes going on daily around the world as a result of ignorance, I would like to address the variety that I most commonly see in my travels. The effects of these are far less serious, but certainly annoying and often damaging to the social fabric of our civilization.
                   I am referring to the twin flaws of assumption and presumption.
   
    
     
                   Assumption means that you think you know something more than you actually know, that you have jumped to a conclusion. Usually the problem seems to be that we have failed to take into account other possibilities in forming our conclusions, especially the possibility that there might be a flaw in our own perceptions. We are too sure of ourselves.
                   We assume that we know more than someone else. Or we assume that another person is ignorant. We assume that what we see adds up to a particular view of a situation, that our view is the correct one, and nobody & nothing will convince us otherwise.
                   This sort of situation  generally comes about due to a lack of self-knowledge.  And it usually contains an element of ignorance concerning the nature of reality.
      
                I'll tell you story about this. A man went out one morning to rake his yard. He went to his tool shed, and found the door open (he usually shut it when he was finished working) and his rake was missing. He hunted high & low for that rake but it was not to be found.
                   Then he remembered that he had seen his neighbors son raking the previous evening. The more he thought about, the more he concluded that the neighbors son had taken the rake. He fussed and fumed about it to himself. Every time he saw the boy he watched him carefully, and thought that he appeared to be sneaky, and his actions suspicious. All winter he watched that "sneaky-looking" boy, and silently cursed him for a thief.
                   The next Spring, the man was cleaning up dead branches in his yard. As he was pulling a pile of brush out from the corner of the lot, he discovered his rake, rusted & weather-beaten from where it had spent the winter. It was right where he had left it when he was called in to supper one evening.
                   The next time the man saw the neighbor boy, strangely, he didn't appear "sneaky" at all, but just a normal boy....
      
                   This story is a classic case of assumption. But often this assumption leads to presumption. We  assume we know what's going on, and presume we have the right to do something about it.
                   "I know what the situation is, I'm smart and you're ignorant, therefore I have the right to tell you all about what you are doing wrong. I will ask you no questions because I am certain of myself. I will offer no sympathy because you deserve none, you ignorant wretch. Therefore, do as I say and be corrected."
                           Have you ever put yourself in this role? How can we adopt such an arrogant attitude? Who do we think we are? Not to mention that this approach is bound to have the opposite effect of that which is desired!
                  I know you've been on the receiving end, as we all have. How did you like it?
                   I'm convinced that the only true teacher is love.(Which is perhaps a subject for another time). Even if our view is the correct one (often it isn't) we owe the other person at least the respect to at least to ask gently why the other person does what he does or what is really going on. And to sympathetically listen to the response.
               You need to bear in mind that looking at another persons life is not like playing "connect the dots", but more like looking at the surface of a pond. There is more left unseen than most of us can imagine.
               As human beings, our animal heritage insures that part of our way of learning is through association. This is a powerful device for storing & sorting our experiences, but if you truly wish to be "wise", you must be aware of the limitations of its function.
                Let's say we have a woman who hates ducks. At one time they ate the plants in her little pond and left duck droppings everywhere. She has become so agitated over the situation, that, even though she hasn't had one in her yard in years, if she walks out in the morning and sees a feather lying on the ground she starts hollering "Duck!!"
              We are all like that woman to some extent. We see what we have been conditioned to see. In order to see clearly, we must use our head & heart also.
     
            
      
-----
--------
AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for August 30, 2007
DATE: 08/30/2007 02:37:40
STATUS: publish
BODY:
Like many who live in this part of the country, summer can be very busy as I try to fit an entire year of things that have to be done into a few short months. Despite that, here I go again, trying to tackle an impossible subject with nothing but a poor threadbare outline I have in my head.
Wisdom & ignorance...not even two sides to a single coin, but more of one continuous miasma that cannot be separated. I have long known that we are all crazy and we are all ignorant, for it seems that that is an inseparable part of being human. None of us are dealing with reality for none of us know the true extent of what reality is. That is not our domain as human beings. We exist as that which has been given rise to, but we also contain that which gives rise to us.
I guess I am writing this for a reason. Though I don't associate with other people much, I have have been on the receiving end of more than my usual share of ignorance this year it seems. This of course has had the effect of causing me to do a lot of thinking on the subject, in my own obsessive fashion, of what it is that distinguishes my way of thinking and acting from those who spread suffering wherever they go.
We all regard ourselves as wise. We tend to trust our own judgment implicitly because it is based upon our own experience of where & how we find quality in life. We believe that our discriminations are the correct ones because we have neither the imagination, nor the mindset to conceive that anything exists beyond what we ourselves have known.
As a result, as I often say "There are two kinds of people who appear crazy to us: Those who know less than we do, and those who know more than we do..." and most of us have no means of distinguishing the difference!

But there is another path to "wisdom" (a word which though long-respected, I am beginning to despise). Don't trust your own judgment! Be skeptical of your most dearly held beliefs, those ones especially!! Stop protecting your own ego long enough to allow yourself to listen to other voices, feel other hearts, and be led to other faraway lands unimagined in your own small yard! And now I'll tell you a secret, lest you think that all this ridiculous preaching is me supporting my own ego-trip. Here's the secret: This is no mountain-top. After years of pursuing "wisdom", feeling myself going higher & higher, my insights becoming clearer, another shift has been going on beneath the surface, like a powerful undercurrent under still water. "Wisdom" is another practical joke! My latest conclusion (if there is such a thing) is that wisdom, for human beings, consists mainly of finally seeing the profound depths of our own ignorance. It is a view out the window to find that we are not in our own room after all but on some strange craft being piloted through some unknown region without any map or chart given us. The only compass we have is our own heart. That gives but an approximate reading, and then works only if we keep its lens clean so that we can read it correctly.

So, ignorance by itself is not such a bad word. We are all ignorant and need to realize it. It is this realization that will prevent us from inflicting suffering upon one another. It makes us more universal, so that we can understand each other rather than chastise, for we then know how truly alike we all are. And it also raises us up out of our small closed mind-trap so that we can breathe new air, and maybe catch a scent of the source of all things...


-----
--------
AUTHOR:Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for April 22, 2007
DATE: 04/22/2007 07:13:39
STATUS: publish
BODY:
      Far be it from me to be a typical blogger that latches onto current events to be used as fodder for some treatise written mainly as a means to increase my own popularity. But that actually is not how I chose today's topic. In fact, I think this subject to be just as relevant a year ago, or almost any time in human history.
         True, I had another subject entirely in mind for today, but recent news stories have had the effect of turning my attention to a subject that seems ever- present lately, but seldom discussed in any depth; the source of violence.
       We all have a vague sense of this, and it is referred to in off-hand manner as though it's something that we all take for granted that everyone understands: someone is unhappy, they turn violent. But with so many people lately asking "Why?" to all the recent upheavals, whether it be terrorists, the heartbreaking situation in Virginia, or employees on a rampage, I feel the subject bears a closer look.
       If you will pretend for a moment that I know of what I speak, that is, that human beings are "quality-seeking" creatures, then we can examine human behavior in that light.
       Without getting bogged-down too deeply in philosophical or spiritual matters, let us hope that it's not that hard to accept the premise that we are born into the world seeking sources of "quality"...things that will help us to grow, develop, and (eventually) seek a source of "unchanging Quality". (This  is too big a subject to be explored in this or any other page. In fact, many libraries could not contain it. You might even argue  that that's all the libraries in the world do contain.)
       At first, we seek our sources of quality in simple things such as food & warmth, looking for the kind of security we felt in the womb. But now we are out in an "insecure" world where the sources of quality don't last and must be repeated to sustain life. Not to connect with these sources in the short term produces our first experiences of what we term "pain", and to be cut off from them long-term eventually results in death. So already we are born with our backs up against the wall. Seek quality or die. It is a "must-do" situation!
       Now there are many in this country who are quite privileged and do not experience more than the normal amount of pain due to missed feedings and other external negative problems of quality. But let's move on.
           After awhile, just sustaining life is not sufficient for experiencing of quality, although it certainly is helpful. We begin to seek other things: the love & approval of our parents, our own self-esteem as we learn to be independant. And in time, to fulfill our own basic desire to connect with someone and produce children of our own. All good sources of quality for someone who grows normally, is healthy and ready for them. So to grow becomes a basic principle of quality in this world. We grow or we suffocate & die internally, if not externally. Starting to sound like a Bob Dylan tune here..."He not busy being born is busy dying."
           But what happens when the path to quality is blocked? When every path, however circuitous that might lead forward is blocked?
       Well first we need to define these "blocks" a little. At the very least they must be divided into "external blocks" & "internal blocks".
       "External blocks" include such things as being born into poverty, or a physical handicap, or such things as getting ourselves into, or being put into some other bad situation where the options left open to us are few or poor.
       "Internal blocks" are even more numerous & common. I really believe that there are some of us that are born into this, due to poor pre-natal conditions or poor genetic make-up, with a limited ability to experience quality, even though all appears right with the world externally. Other possiblilities include problems in our up-bringing or psychological development, weaknesses in our motivations, or poor ability to be imaginative or creative in finding our way around poor-quality situations.
       What happens when we perceive ourselves to be in a poor quality scenario? First it should be said that we "feel" bad-quality before we can analyze & perceive bad-quality. Since bad-quality is experienced first as a feeling, it does tend to color our perceptions and reasoning which makes self-direction in order to release ourselves all the more difficult. Often it is not our situation that is so hopeless as our mistaken perception that makes it seem so.
       So what if we are finally cornered in a situation where we feel ourselves to be truly blocked from any hope of pursuing quality in this world, whether that be the truth of the situation, or merely a mis-perception. Our natural background endows us with two possible solutions for dealing with overwhelming odds against us. The first is to suddenly, drastically attempt to alter external reality to free us from our blockage. This is what we call violence and in the natural world it worked pretty well to free an individual in trouble from an individual circumstance.
       The second possibility when all roads are blocked, is to remove ourselves from the inescapable in order to free ourselves from the intolerable. This is known as suicide.
  
       The main problem with these, is that humans are social creatures who have found a great measure of quality to be derived by living in groups. And violence & suicide are the antithesis & negation of that particular version of quality.  Civilization is a larger entity of it's own, and when the quality-balance of that particular equation is disturbed, all suffer.
       Maybe I'm only stating the obvious. But in the end there is a third, though far harder solution to the quality problems of the human race. And while I believe it is possible for everyone, I am not foolish enough to think it is easily acheivable for anyone at any time.
       What I am speaking of, is to seek the source of "Unchanging Quality" which extends out far beyond this world and seek it for our comfort, growth and spiritual goal.
  
       Easily said...
      
      
      
       
  
-----
--------
AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for April 07, 2007
DATE: 04/07/2007 15:25:26
STATUS: publish
BODY:
Before I go any further with any of the "subjects" that I carry around in my head, I need to get something out there concerning communication itself. The problem is words.
     I have heard many writers, songwriters, poets that are interviewed on TV or in print say that they "have always had a love affair with words", and that is how they came to pursue their chosen profession and hone it to a fine craft. Just for the record, I need to state that in my case it is just the opposite. My skills have come as the result of a life-long battle with words.
     It is my opinion that words are an extremely poor conveyer of the meaning of reality. To use a geometrical  analogy, it's like trying to draw a sphere when the only figure you are able to draw with is a straight line.
     Everyone knows at some time what I mean. Who hasn't experienced an emotion that leaves your expression hopelessly inadequate when you try to say it in words. Well, to me, all reality is a huge cohesive 3-, 4- (or 5-?) dimensional whole which is for the most part inexpressible by the use of language. When you try to tease a meaningful statement out of all that, what ensues is a battle which will leave you on the losing end unless you have the benefit of many such battles to help you.
     There are so many failures connected with words. Lawyers sometimes argue for 20 years over the meaning of a 4 word legal clause. Words themselves are vague and innaccurate. Subtle shades of meaning vary from culture to culture & even from person to person. No wonder there are so many arguments! I think we have established that words are nearly useless for describing either human experience or "objective reality".
     Take a simple statement for example. "The candle is above the table". This tells us very little about the real relationship between the candle and the table. "The candle is on the table" is somewhat more accurate, but still fails to tell us many things. First, it assumes that we know something about both the nature of candles & the nature of tables. It doesn't tell us if the candle is lit or not, whether it is in a holder or laying on the table. If we are looking for that candle, we are lucky that the statement tells us just barely what we need to know.
     Under these circumstances, one should be careful about judging anything that is said or written. People make remarkable assumptions sometimes from very simple (supposed) straightforward statements. If I were to write "I support positive use of the daylight hours", probably 75% of folks would know (or  assume they knew) what I was talking about and agree.  Maybe 10% wouldn't care one way or the other, 7% wouldn't know what I was talking about,  on 3%  it wouldn't make any impression, and from 2% I would probably get hate mail for supporting such a dangerous concept!
     So not only are words themselves vague, but human experience is full of its own vagaries.

     So what am I writing about? Nothing really. Just an observation of how words and concepts tend to shape our thoughts and views. They should be regarded with suspicion and questioned closely as to what part of reality they are  trying to bring to our consciousness. It is actually an endless and difficult path, but worthwhile if you want to solve the illusions of perception that plague and divide human beings.

"Fishing baskets are employed to catch fish; but when the fish are got, the men forget the baskets....
     Words are employed to catch ideas; but when the ideas are truly comprehended, men forget the words.
     Fain would I talk with such a man who has forgotten the words."....Chuang Tzu


-----
--------
AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for March 20, 2007
DATE: 03/20/2007 13:42:20
STATUS: publish
BODY:
One more thing before I put this "organized religion" thing to rest permanently. Since we're using the subject of mountain climbing as a metaphor for the search for the nature of reality (something I used to do a lot of...both actually, but I meant the hiking), I'd like to tell one more story.
      A pair of climbers were high on a big mountain hiking and the day turned out quite foggy up at those heights. They were both quite experienced, and though they had never been on that particular mountain before, the subtle signs told them that they were likely on the right track to the summit where they hoped to climb above the weather for a spectacular view.
      At a junction in the trail, they came across a signpost set in a "cairn" or pile of rocks. The odd thing about this sign post was that there was a man holding onto it for dear life, with both arms & legs wrapped around it.
      The two men offered to help the man find his way up the mountain, but he refused, and just kept yelling, "I know where I am! I know where I am!"
      And as long as he held onto that signpost, that was true. The two men just shook their heads and left him there like that, because it was all that they could do.

The way this story originally came to me,  the tag line was to be "There are none so lost as those who hang onto signposts...". Here I present it in a slightly more sympathetic light, as I will explain.
 
      It may appear that I have something against organized religion, but that is far from the truth. All religions are a noble effort to guide the unguided. But like our friend, there are many who are so wrapped up in the trappings & traditions that they miss the path completely, being content to stick with what little they think they know.
     
 
-----
--------
AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for February 26, 2007
DATE: 02/26/2007 07:06:50
STATUS: publish
BODY:
Where to begin... that's always the problem. I wanted to keep these pages mostly topical, starting out among the branches and working my way back towards the trunk. This is the way it's usually done & for good reason. More people will relate to what is going on out there so its easier to communicate your thoughts.
     On the other hand, to start at or near the center would be simpler, like (if you'll forgive a mixed analogy) handing someone a key that opens a million doors and then turning them loose to explore the universe for themselves.
     PS If you're starting to suspect I have a messianic complex read my previous blog. Like everyone I rely on my own experiences. Unlike many, I don't neccesarily trust them.
     In any event, I believe wisdom is NOT communicable. If it turns out that I actually KNOW something (a notion that becomes more & more ridiculous, the more I learn), then this belief renders the second option virtually impossible.
     The "key" I speak of is the understanding that humans are "quality-seeking" creatures combined with the nature of "Quality". (As a side note, all living things are "quality-seeking". Quality for inanimate things seems to consist of finding a balance. But since I am not a chemist or physicist, I won't attempt to explain that path, though I am curious.)
         But today, I won't start with something topical. This is the only time that I will address, or get into the subject of religion.

I'd like to tell a story. The story of the three "wise men".
    There once was a high mountain, and around this mountain were three villages. One village was located on the West side of the mountain, down near the South end. Another was located off the Northwest corner by a spine of a long ridge. The third was located way over on the Eastern side.
     The weather was often bad at the top of this mountain, and the villagers were afraid to go up there. But there was much curiosity about this mountain, what was at the top, or beyond it.
Once during an unusual stretch of good weather, each village, quite independently of one another decided that someone should go up there & get their questions answered once and for all.
In one of the villages an old man who had seen many seasons and was not afraid volunteered to go. In another someone was elected because everyone thought him the best for the job. And in the third, a man was elected by default because no one else would go.
     So, quite by coincidence they all ascended the mountain by torturous and difficult routes and strangely, they met at the top. When they got there, they joined up & looked the mountain over on all sides, saw many things they never saw before, and many things they could never have imagined that lay beyond. Then they discussed the routes they had taken to get there, and indeed, could look down and point out how they had come up.
     Of course they finally descended and told their various peoples what they had seen and described to them the route by which they had gotten there.
     After a time these wise ones died, and the story of their adventure was passed along to future generations. And after a time, as often happens with human beings, they began to grow restless in their valley, and to travel.
     At first someone from the Northwest end of the mountain traveled away and happened to come across the village from the more southerly end. He met the head of the tribe and was invited in.
     All was well & friendly. He was invited to eat & to talk well into the night.
     Sooner or later the subject of their great heroes of the past and the knowledge they brought came up. Both discovered that they had something in common, that they had a great man who had climbed the mountain to bring back knowledge.
     This promised to be an interesting subject, but when the Northern man began to describe the route that his ancestor had taken to get there, he was soon interrupted.
     "Our wise man started at the end of a long ridge, and climbed up over  sharp rocks, and climbed & climbed with scarcely a descent...a long and difficult journey..."
     "STOP! That is not the route up the mountain AT ALL! Our revered wise man descended into a swamp, then wandered into a thicket where he was lost for several days before finding his way..."
     "No, no, NO! My friend, you are very confused! That is NOT the way. It is obvious that in order to ascend a mountain you MUST climb and climb hard!..."
     They argued on & on. In the end the visitor went back home, with each thinking the people of the other village fairly stupid. In time more travels took place & the stories spread. Finally, a contingent of natives from the East side of the mountain walked (around the mountain, of course) to visit the villages on the other side. Their arrival at each village went like this:
     "We have come to visit our brothers who live on the wrong side of the mountain because we have heard what you are saying about it, and we want to save you from your confusion! We know the true way up the mountain and have come to explain to you the error in your thinking..."
     They listened patiently, though a few wanted to pelt them with stones. But in each village, when they had gone, residual bad feelings were left behind; and in time they festered.
     In the end a group of young, bad-tempered ones banded together. These ones had never known the old revered wise men or heard their words. They had misunderstood the stories, and they certainly had never even attempted to climb the mountain to see anything for themselves. Predictably, they declared war on the Eastern tribe. And the scuffles and skirmishes among all the tribes continued on & on....

There is probably a further ending to this story about what happened when the tribes had all decimated each other...But I'll leave that ending up to you.


-----
--------
AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for February 11, 2007
DATE: 02/11/2007 07:52:15
STATUS: publish
BODY:
DON'T VISIT THIS PAGE IF...You're turned on by popular culture, celebrity, politics, like to follow leaders & join lots of organized groups. You might not like the view.
      I seem to have begun writing from the perspective of an artist, particularly a singer/songwriter, and that's OK with me. An artist I am, not just in music, but naturally try to bring "art" to everything I do, and music is not the only thing I pursue.
        But at the same time, I am not an artist only. I live a rather "zen-like" existence. I have all the things you have: Interests, worries, passionate feelings, along with physical & mental attributes like we are all born with, or aquire in our upbringing. But when reality peeks in, I am very often aware that there is "nobody home". Just a sort of very alive but blank consciousness experiencing and observing all this. Without a name, without definition. Not an artist or mechanic or any other means by which humans identify themselves. Oh, yes I have it all, just like you. Its the "I" that's a little ambiguous. Who is this "I", anyway?
      So anytime you think my thought processes are coming across as being a little too self-important, just remember that "I" don't think that "I" am anyone special because "I'm" not even sure of who is writing this. (Identity crisis?; or the natural human condition?)
      In any case, if I choose to write at all, it's mainly the old "artist's desire for expression". And if I have any justification for it (any way in which I might be different from you), it's in that I have had more time & the obsessiveness to follow thoughts back to their source, in the attempt to answer the questions that plague human beings, but which most write off as "unanswerable"
     
              All this is just a preamble. I am used to being misunderstood, and this is my attempt to "clear things up" a bit, at least for any wary reader that stumbles upon this.
  What I am getting at today, is that, as an artist, I always wanted to write a book. Write down some of these things that appear seldom in our popular, celebrity-oriented culture.
              I finally decided that I never would write a book, because no one would buy it. The things I want to say would only be things that no one wants to hear. Everyone is involved in their own TV show, thanks, and is not interested in who might be knocking on the door.
              I started very young with the obsession, the necessity even, to understand why things are the way they are & why humans do what they do. Its been a very long road but has been built up to a very high degree. Even more than being an artist, this compulsion has been at the deepest levels. Herman Hesse said that a man's true profession is finding his way to himself.
              One of the key moments in the journey was the addition of the work of Robert Pirsig to my own carefully built up thought structure. Upon reading his first book, I experienced a "seed crystal" reaction, very similar to the one described in the book. My thoughts were "true", but somehow blocked or one level removed from reality. The discovery of the nature of Quality somehow removed that block and caused all my thought processes to fall into place, aligned with the nature of reality, like a trap set to spring, or maybe like an immense and beautiful domino pattern.
              Since then I have been building & developing (without intending to, just the artist's nature) a set of lectures that demonstrate various worldly topics and their origins. At least until the subject starts to get close to undifferentiated reality, where everything starts to get really fuzzy, but at the same time starts to feel really true, at least to a discerning person.
              So, if I'm feeling like it, I may post a few of these. If no one is interested & never reads them its OK with me. At least I said them. If you are offended by them, please respect my right as an individual; just ignore them and go look for your own answers and stay away from this page....
 
-----
--------
AUTHOR:Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for February 03, 2007
DATE: 02/03/2007 19:28:50
STATUS: publish
BODY:
So anyway, why am I writing this?...First reason isn't a reason at all. More a reaction to all the "pages" out there that attract no one, that maybe no one ever visits. Sort of the "Eleanor Rigby" concept. It got me thinking. And especially because of the second reason...I have been thinking about why I created this page.
        It was a spontaneous event. When you first sign on Yahoo gives everybody the same "come-on". Create a page! Invite your friends! Put yourself on display! Have some fun!
I was 99 parts against this. You would think being a performer that I must love the spotlight, and some small part of me does. But really I am more private than private and that's what I am getting at; So many crying for attention, some never getting any, and then there's me. I really (well 99 parts anyway, after all I'm human like you) don't care if anyone ever reads this. I want to make a difference to people, but in the end it is what it is and it's going to be what it's going to be and I have long ago accepted that I'll probably never influence or help anyone beyond my very small world...And it's true (I have long searched myself on this one) that I never was motivated to get into music for fame & fortune (unlike most). I do music because I do music & that's what I do. I really really never wanted to be famous. Though it would be nice if my music could be.
    So I guess what it comes to is...what is the value of a human being? Are we valuable because others think so? I've seen plenty of evidence against this! Or do we have value in and of ourselves, and our place in the universe? This is what I tend to think. Maybe it's a self-serving delusion brought on by my inability to accept that my life will never amount to much in the grand scheme, but I have a hunch that there's more to it. I can't quite touch it, can almost sniff it, it's airy as a spiderweb in an autumn breeze. But true reality seems always a little beyond reach....

-----
--------
AUTHOR: Tom Hawk
TITLE: Entry for February 03, 2007
DATE: 02/03/2007 17:06:50
STATUS: publish
BODY:
You'd think as a sometimes performer I'd understand about getting yourself out there. And I do. Everyone wants to matter. Everyone wants to have someone to take an interest in them, their lives, their interests, to have someone care that they're alive and to connect....Simple human nature. If they find themselves ignored, or at least feel ignored, they will go to greater & greater lengths to STAND OUT; to say, "NOTICE ME!!!",  if you can't get some positive feedback, your behavior will become increasingly negative until you get a reaction.....I'm not judging here or looking down on it, only observing. It seems to me, very basic, very human, in the genes. Study the animals & you see the origins of this behavior. Those that get attention & attract a following succeed.  It helps you survive, & to attract a mate & to pass on both your makeup & the ways that you've learned. This contributes to the continued success of human life on this planet and (hopefully) to the betterment of the species.
                 Maybe I'll finish this later....

-----
--------

Introduction

           Today I am going to attempt to publish some of my writings that are no longer available to the general public on the internet. The purpose is to make them public once again to anyone who wishes to read them, and perhaps add to them if I have an idea.
           My other blog TomHawkMusic will remain a place to discuss my music & music and songwriting in general. I have an idea to perhaps create another someday to discuss more esoteric subjects related to spirituality, cosmology, etc. but we'll see how it goes.
           If you stumble on this, I hope you find it of interest....