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[crossposted on the moblog, and the facebook notes.]
One of the leit motif in spirituality is to reach an integration among the various parts of oneself. There are many important reasons for this, which I am not going to enter right now. Becoming One is not seen in Taoism as a spiritual goal, but as a spiritual prerequisite. It is not school, it is preschool. Until you are one you cannot really get involved with spirituality. It is like if in your family you decide to build a house, but not everybody agrees on that. Then one part of you builds it in the morning, and someone else of the family will destroy it in the evening. Maybe using the bricks for something else.
The idea that we are many, that each of us is many, is quite common. In psychology is common, Junghian Psychology, if I recall well. Again, in Taoism it even reaches the point of believing that this is true in a litteral point of view. Each of us, is seen as a patchwork of different spirits (shen). And when you die each spirit will then go its way. As such in Taoism until you have reached a real integration between your parts of yourselves (your spirits), you cannot even have reincarnation unless you have developed a unit which is integrated enough to go through the trauma of death without shattering in a 1000 little pieces.
And another idea that is very common (you have it in Taoism, but also in Christianity, for example), is the idea that one day, one time, at some point we will all get together. Christian say “sit by the father”. In Taoism the idea is that any person who have showed a spark of interest for spiritual work will eventually join together in some place beyong space and time, a sort of heaven. And the joke then is if people are following the 1 lifetime program, the 10 lifetime program, the 100 or 1000 lifetime program, to reach it. And the faster it is, the rougher it is.
I have to say I am amazed by how well is Facebook helping in this integration work, for me. I have many friends, on facebook. But more importantòy I have friends from different groups. Each friend knew a different Pietro. Some were from my spiritual life (taoism, tai chi, meditation, …), some from my academic world (artificial life, mathematics), some are Go-brothers, others people I knew from childhood, or from high school, or middle school. And with each of them I was a different person. And now they are all together. All in the same place. And the internet does indeed feel a little bit like this place beyond space and time. And I read of many of them. But what is more important, is that, as I write about my life, I am forced to write in a way that is acceptable for both my academic side and my spiritual side. I can only write in an integrated way, because I know that friends from both worlds will read me. In this sense facebook is catalysing an integration in me. Is helping me to become one.
I know many people are having problems with facebook. I think a lot of the problem is that they are not ready or willing to have this integration. For me Fb is pretty easy: to become my friend you need to know me. With very few exceptions I do not add anyone who is not someone I personally know. But if I have met you, and you want to befriend me, then you are in. I don’t keep people that I know out of the door. Because that would be equivalent to keeping some part of myself out of the door, the part of me that interacted with them. You are all invited to the party. I sometime even go back in time, and look for people I once knew. People that were important in my life. Or people I wished I had the time to know better. Maybe now we have another occasion. But then on my status, in my notes, in the caption of my photo, I try not to speak thinking about one in particular (I might have done it, but mostly I try to avoid it). I speak to all my friends at the same time. And if anyone comments, I answer that person, personally. The answer is personal, but anybody can see it, and thus the integration goes deeper. I write in English and in Italian, because those are the languages with which I live, work, chat, play and love. My inner dialogue is sometimes in Italian and sometimes in English, depending where I am, what I am thinking of doing. And my facebook reflects that.
Most of you know that I use facebook pretty frequently. I update the status often, sometimes more than once a day. But what some of you have not realised is that I do not do much less on facebook. I avoid facebook applications. I only use the ones that are truly useful, that add functionalities that were not there, and are truly helpful. If I want to wish to my friend Happy Chinese New Year, I will do it in person, or through the status. Not through an application. In this way the integration proceeds. I very rarely invite people to use applications. I only do so when I think an application is very very good. (The “skip this” button is my friend). I invited my friends for the geo tagging application. I would do it for the “cause” application. Maybe the iRead could be another one, and the application to play Go online. Here you go, this makes it 4. And when I invite people I only invite people I think will appreciate it (or should, they know it or not  ). I consider the other applications to be equivalent to spam. I try not to spam my friends. When a new application arrives (elves, and pirates, etc…) , I usually just block it. If an application is requiring me to send invitation to let you proceed, I report it (because it is breaking the TOS, and ruining the party for everybody), delete it and block it. With absolutely no pity, whatsoever.
I see often people who get tired of facebook. But very often those are people who are not using facebook as a tool to interact with friends that are far away (in space or time), but as a game. Those are the friends that use more of those facebook useless applications. They get tired, but what they are really getting tired are those useless applications. They are right in getting tired. They just need to use facebook, instead of be used by it. And then fb will stop being a toy, and become an instrument. You will forget about facebook, and think about your friend.
Keeping the application to the minimum necessary.
Speaking to everybody. Inviting all your (real life) friends.
It is fairly easy to let facebook help you in the integration process.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Author: David Deida
Year: 1997
Publisher: Sounds True
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 1591792576
Lately I have been reading the way of the superior man. Forget about Nietsche, here the reference, although never made explicit, is to the superior man in the I-Ching. “this is the situation, so the superior man does so and so”. The book is extreemly interesting, and brings on the series of books on male issues, that I have been reading in the last ten years. Starting with Robert Bly’s Iron John, to King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, and then Fire in the Belly and finally Biddulph’s book manhood. Is also nice for one time to have a book about man that does not refer to christianity but to taoism.
The book is structured in 51 small chapters. Each giving one concept, one idea. You can’t stop thinking that the author maybe wanted them to be 64, and then link each to one of the iching hexagrams. But then fell short of things to say. 
The core idea is that, while yes it is possible for man and woman to be very similar, and this helps in bringing peace to society, it also comes with a huge price. The lack of desire for each other. In Italy for example, there is a growing literature on sexual anorexia. Man (and woman) who between the age of 25 and 35 just decide that they don’t actually need sex in their life. And is more the problem tha it brings than the joy. But not only on this, the idea that old couples don’t have sex anymore, is quite common, and generally considered to be one of the causes why man might flip in society.
Well, the idea in this book, is that while is possible to depolarize each other, is also possible to polarize each other. To take different roles. In fact, the book claims and I would agree with it, those roles do come quite natural, once we take the extra step of relieving ourselves of the burden of the wishful thinking of how nice would life be, if men and women could have the same role, while keeping desire for each other.
Interesting the idea is that those roles not only come natural, but are seen as the natural frame in which to interpret his desire for control, her (only) apparently illogical actions. His role is then to guide, and her role is to test him.
After ending the book, I went back to it, and reorganised it through a mindmap, which is available from my maps page. If you are reading the book you might find interesting my reorganization of the chapters. But don’t think that you can get the essence of the book just from my mindmap. Way too many things are missing.
Is also very interesting the idea that the primary focus for a man (with a masculine core, i.e. 80% of man) is his work and his spiritual quest. Relationships come only after. And instead of seeing this as a problem, this is seem as conditio sine qua non for a good relationships. While for the woman (with a feminine core, 80% circa) relationships are the main focus. Yet, according to this book, women might ask their man to be more present in the relationship, but actually they want a man who is heavily focused on his passion. A man who stays at home, and needs mommy, not only is not sexual, but sickens them. How very true!
So looking back at my life, and at different relationships I had, I remember one in particular in which I was very focused on my meditation, and she would follow me. I was for this heavily criticized, but actually the relationship was going well, and the polarity was creating a huge desire for each other.
So, another book under the list:”things I should have known when I was 16, but I am happy eventually I found them out”.
So, here is the quest. You need to discover the password of your best friend. Although this might seem morally reprehensible you are moved by nobel and deep reasons. You need to check in his email and discover if he is having an affair with your wife. You can’t just confront him if you are not sure. Nor can you run the risk of confronting your wife before you are sure.
We will assume that you have access to your best mate computer. After all he trusts you, right. And with reasons, you would never do anything against him… normally. But this time it’s different. If he has been seducing your angel, he deserves the worse.
We will also assume that your best friend is really into security, and since firefox is a more secure system, he uses firefox. Daily. And as a final assumption we shall assume that since he keeps his mail on the web, and accesses it through the browser. Let’s assume it’s on Yahoo.
This is what you need to do:
- Get his computer, in a moment he is out for launch (with your lady, bastard!), and lock yourself for the work. You will need privacy for this. If you are confronted you can always say Continue reading Reading your mate passwords in Firefox
I made it! After ages of mobbing, veiled suggestions, and unveiled blackmail, I manage to convince my father to make himself a blog. Not just a blog: a wordpress blog, with Creative Common Copyright, threaded comments, feeds, trackback, multiple categories, comment subscriptions and everything else a serious weblogger ought to have to survive in the jungle of the blogsphere.
The guy, a.k.a. Kiddo especially among female collegues (…don’t get me started…), has a certain experience in publishing. He worked for 40 years as a journalist, director of newspaper, and professor of journalist students. Not happy of that he was the ISTAT (Italian Statistical Institute) public relation director, and even worked for *gasp* the World Bank. I know, I know: the black sheep of the family! As you can imagine we don’t always agree on everything, especially if we speak about world economy. Still it makes for some interesting dinner topics.
To be fully honest he already has a weblog, an italian blog, simple and cranky like a home made car. Now he has the technological equivalent of a Ferrari. Yet he intends to write on this in English. Tremble, Brits!
By the way, he too has some dangerous ideas, one of them being that politicians are not worse than normal human being. Not worse than bloggers?! Could you believe that? Now that would be quite revolutionary! Makes you feel humble to think you might not be better than the majority of politicians. But his favorite quote is from Albert Einstein: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”, and I have to admit his article where often understandable and comprehensive, also when treating complex topics, chapeau.
So, welcome to the blogsphere, dad,
will never forget you ’til somebody new comes along
Now, lets the show go on.
P.S. I am testing Structured Blogging, so if you see the same post appear more times, it’s normal.
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