Hyper-Thinking

I've been thinking (a lot) about thinking. My last little diatribe on Hyper-Connectivity has started a neuronal storm which has ravaged the poor little grey cells apparently residing in my cranium. It's been fun!

I grew up in the era when Speed Reading was all the rage. To a certain extent, I'm kinda-sorta-almost quasi using some of this speed-reading stuff, learned half-heartedly, back when steam engines drove a thing called the Internet. Or was it Pine? Something like that...

Well, as these things do, two thoughts met, sat down and had a coffee or three using my cranial matter as cheap rent. The outcome was rather astounding.

The realisation was that, a lot of times (most of the time?) when we think, we actually have a verbal conversation in our head. This is called 'subvocalisation' by the need-to-know-everything crowd. It turns out to be one of the main reasons why our thinking goes so slowly. Naturally, granted, it sometimes is useful to slow thought processes down, run, rewind, disassemble and reassemble them. There can be sheer joy in that. But most of the time, this 'subvocalisation' thing just gets in the road to proper thinking.

To paraphrase the Red Queen, it should really be possible to think of Six Impossible Things in the space of a heartbeat - or at least before breakfast. It should be further possible to extract the most promising of these six things, and work on these for the next heartbeat, and so on.

Imagine the possibility of thinking at Hyper Speed! Imagine creating a fully fledged Idea, complete with theory and rebuttals, all but written hypotheses - virtually published and ready, all before lunchtime. Genius! We would cry! Freak of Nature! We would venture! Impossible to the ordinary man! We would comfort ourselves.

Well - I think we can. Let's look at the framework around speed reading and insert "thinking" into it as well..

• Get rid of distractions,
• Adjust speed according to the content,
• Learn to 'skim' to separate the fillers from the facts,
• Discipline yourself not to re-read (re-think),
• Discipline yourself not to subvocalise,
• Practise reading (thinking) in blocks of words (ideas), and finally
• Practice pushing the envelope!

So - let's see what happens! At least it's an interesting experiment to try!

Of course this will take a certain amount of discipline. A throttling forward of our usual peripatetic rhythms and an embrace of things thought in the Fast Lane. There will be necessary adjustments, I'm sure. Tea, and copious amounts of it will be required, I'm adamant!

Oh.. and leave me your thoughts on this... WHAT an experiment to share! One lump, or two?

WOW - LifeQuist gets Quoted!

What an amazing start to 2010!
Just recently - on the 1'st of January, 2010, mind - I've had the honour of being asked if the recent LifeQuist Blog post on Hyperconnectivity could be quoted in a new eZine just being published out of the UK. Needless to say, the answer was a resounding "Yes".

I expected snippets to be extracted, but, no, the whole piece was re-published almost verbatim. I was (most delightfully) stunned!

You can find the article in the eZine here. There's even a photo of LifeQuist for the curious.

I'd like to say a special thank-you to Sloeira of www.WowingOurWorld.com for this very amazing mention. I love your work, and must admit it is a constant source of inspiration and new ideas and energies. To readers of this Blog, I highly recommend you to check out Soleira's site and see if you resonate with what is being energised from there.

There's now a permanent link in the LifeQuist blog Side Bar to WowingOurWorld. Please take a moment to return the honour and check it out!

Thank you Soleira and the WowingOurWorld team! We look forward to many more editions!

Oh dear - really time for a cup of tea now!! Have a Fantastic 2010 everyone!!

HyperConnectivity

Well, today is the last day of 2009. What a journey it has been! We have seen such water under the bridges of our lives, such that we could never have imagined before. There are things and ideas in place now that even fifteen, twenty years ago we would never have thought of.

The increasing rate of connectivity has become a crazy spiralling avalanche descending on us with increasing volume. We are connected now in ways that even the science fiction writers, those wise-men of future things-to-be had dared not envisage.

What fuels this incredibly dizzying ride of connectivity we are on is our own intense desire to be connected. Faster better stronger longer higher shorter wider thinner - we are barrelling down the highway to super-connectivity at such a pace that we won't even have the opportunity to blink when we pass that point. And then, from Super- to Hyper-Connectivity.

At some point (presumably) our technology will fail us. Electrons can only be whipped faster to a certain point, even light-speed computation won't satisfy us for long. We need to look beyond the nuts and bolts of our current thinking and look for different ways to satisfy the powerful urge to communicate.

I often muse that we won't really be satisfied until we gain the ability to communicate at the speed of thought, the speed of predictive instant-icity. Yes, I just made that up, but probably that's the result of trying to describe something that doesn't yet exist.

Someplace somewhere recently I was reading that the human brain communicates at hyper-speed. The point of the article (Note-to-self: must dig that one out again) was that the physical properties of our neurones and the synaptic reactions were limited to the physical/chemical properties of the nerves etc. themselves. The point being that our thinking is faster than the physical properties of our bodies could sustain.

Simply put, we think faster than our bodies should allow us to.

Certainly, someone, somewhere will figure out the mechanics (quantum or otherwise) of this enigma. But the analogy is hidden in there. We long for, we yearn and strive for that same kind of connectivity with others which we experience inside our own minds.

Effectively, we yearn for an almost telepathic connectivity. Who was it that said "Everything Old is New again..."?

Imagine a world where the Internet was instantly accessible. Perhaps not the WWW as we know it now. What if, for instance, we could plug into the echoes Plato, Socrates, Tesla, Einstein, you, me - the world?

If we are all drops in an ocean of reality, surely we must be able to connect with one another in some way other than through mechanistic playthings? Surely, a "meeting of the minds" must be possible?

Perhaps we are paving the way for this with our toys and machinery. Perhaps we are creating a consciousness of connectivity that is pushing us into Hyper-Connectivity. And, methinks, if I am connected to you in a way that is as intimate and immediate as that which I can envisage, perhaps then I will understand you, and you will understand me.

Perhaps that Hyper-Connectivity will enable us to become the Creative Genii (Geniuses) that we truly are. Perhaps when we cannot hide in compartmentalised secrecy, wars and misunderstandings and deceit can no longer stand in the light of Hyper-Connectivity.

What a world would that be! Bring it on, bring it strong! I'm up for it right now - so where do I plug in?

What a way to burst into 2010! I can't wait!

Simply Feeding Life

Maybe it's this time of year. Christmas always has an introspective lead-up to it. Amongst all the frenzy and the buzz, there's also a sense of taking stock, of taking a sobering look at the year that was, and all the promises we made to it, back when it was fresh and newly minted.

Life is as Life does, but that seems barely a pale excuse given the fresh anticipation we held of it back then. Was that only 11 months ago, we entered with much fanfare, hype and anticipation into the empty room of a new twelve-month? Hmm...

Looking back personally, I realise I've simply been feeding Life. Reactively responding to and attending to its needs and necessities, doting on it with the distracted attention of a parent watching the telly while mechanically feeding the baby, missing at times, and wiping away the stains amidst much fussing and clucking. Such is, I find, the attention I pay to Life.

Yet Life is as much full of promise as a new-born, and the attention we pay to it over the intervening years we get back in spades after a time. Perhaps it's patience we have un-learned? The patience, perhaps, of a farmer planning crops and harvests years in advance. Perhaps we've lost that kind of personal vision?

I've come to a personal undestanding, for me at least, that Life requires more than just feeding. It requires love and patience and understanding, and being involved. If Life, to me now is a mechanical rote of days in and out, then perhaps I'm just getting out what I put in.

Maybe what's needed is a bit of engagement. After all, how often have I spoken to my life of my dreams and aspirations, my likes and loves, dislikes and druthers? Seriously! We blithely utter "Affirmations" to no-one or no-thing in particular and half anticipate that it might work. Why not tell it to Our Life? Well... Me to My Life. Sit down, have a conversation with it! Why not?

Oh you're right! Maybe I've partaken of too much Spirit, and not enough Christmas. Yet I can't help feeling like I need to do something differently with My Life next year. Maybe this is it, maybe not. But the inevitable introspection drives me to look at all sorts of different - some might say absurd - possibilities to alleviate the faint disquiet I feel at this time of year.

Hmm.. perhaps also, I might just need a good cup of tea...

Repost: LifeQuist joins the Resonant Networks Network

I'm excited today. The LifeQuist blog is being copied to the new site Resonant Networks. [www.ResonantNetworks.net]

Resonance is the definitive collaboration, it defines the interactivity of one or more vibrational sources as they reach out and interact with each other.

It's in the spaces between that the harmonies occur. Like one raindrop on a still pool of water, radiating out until its rings touch, ripple through and subtly play with the energies of another drop. It is a mathematical ballet, based on distance and frequency and predetermined physics. But it is beautiful and un-predictable.

Unpredictable because, the randomness of a drop of falling water relative to any other constantly creates new patterns and interactions. If we are all, metaphorically speaking, a drop of water, it is by our unique position, our unique place in the world that we define our individual selves.

We interact, we resonate with others in the same pool. We give of ourselves by the very act of living and being. By our interactions we create amazing music. In the spaces in between

LifeQuist joins the Resonant Networks network

I'm excited today. The LifeQuist blog is being copied to the new site Resonant Networks. [www.ResonantNetworks.net]

Resonance is the definitive collaboration, it defines the interactivity of one or more vibrational sources as they reach out and interact with each other.

It's in the spaces between that the harmonies occur. Like one raindrop on a still pool of water, radiating out until its rings touch, ripple through and subtly play with the energies of another drop. It is a mathematical ballet, based on distance and frequency and predetermined physics. But it is beautiful and un-predictable.

Unpredictable because, the randomness of a drop of falling water relative to any other constantly creates new patterns and interactions. If we are all, metaphorically speaking, a drop of water, it is by our unique position, our unique place in the world that we define our individual selves.

We interact, we resonate with others in the same pool. We give of ourselves by the very act of living and being. By our interactions we create amazing music. In the spaces in between.

Dr. Who and the Authorised Allowers

The old Beast Aleister Crowley wrote "Do what thou wilt", and in doing so highlighted the great morality play of right and wrong, allowed and unallowed, freedom and control. Why is it that we are so apprehensive of our own ability to decide for ourselves, and yet pay only lip service in defence of this, our natural liberty?

Take the Internet, for instance. Back in the day, it was the new Wild West, the frontier of the bold and daring. Fortunes were made and lost, right and wrong were interchangeable bedfellows in a stormy romp. Slowly but surely however, we have allowed the (sometimes deserved) misfortunes of innocents old and young to be the saplings of the fence-posts which increasingly encircle, tame and corral that wide open prairie of uncharted possibilities. This, we do, so well.

Where there is unlimited, we limit. Where there is potential, we caveat. Where there is personal responsibility, we abdicate.

So what does this have to do with Dr Who? WHO??!!!
I've been a fan of Dr. Who since before television started seeing rainbows. Still, I must say I totally enjoy David Tennant most as the Doctor. Personal preference, get over it.

David brings to the character that boyish innocence, that charm of wonder, that freedom of power that comes with self-allowing. Dark dingy path that fills you with dread? Right, lets go down there, and at a run if you don't mind! Like a cat, the good Doctor always falls on his feet - even when it appears not to be so. Why? Because he allows it to be so.

Now if you, or I would run down that dark dingy (and did I mention dank?) path, our morality play would immediately kick in. Is it safe? Could I get hurt? Why does it look so scary? All of which, of course are the straps and ties which fasten us to the real question, "Are we allowed?".

Oooh-look, big shiny spaceship, open doors and no-body stopping us from going on board. First question I bet you'd hear "Are we allowed?"

How blithely we give away our Allowed-ness. Like Oliver offering up his bowl, "Please Sir, fill it up with a dollop more of Allowing" we ask for it. Even when there's no-one there. Even if we can't imagine of whom we'd ask this, we'd rather stop and ask of thin air - "are we allowed?"

Well here's the trick. In the asking, we give it away. Before we asked for it, it was ours. Now all of a sudden it ain't. Sad, sad creatures that we are.

Yes, Do What thou wilt. Precisely. Al Crow might have had something there...

Personally, I prefer the Wiccan version "An' it harm none, do what thou wilt". Perhaps that suits better my internal morality play. It is mine to allow after all.

What do you allow yourself? Really. Can you dream it? Zen this one:

What would you do, if you knew you could not fail?

In life, I believe, there is no failing - except failing to do. So get on with it already! You have my permission, I'll Allow it - but only if you ask nicely.