This back pain is a new enemy, and a new friend. A friend in that it offers and increased degree of difficulty to the task of being a soul with but not of, the body in pain, and head. Early in the day after an uncomfortable night James did not do so well. But by mid morning he began to be aware of the choice he was making to allow the pain to move his flesh in charge of his beeing. And with the awareness that he was making the choice a different choice became possible. Not easy, not automatic, but possible. And in the coming days weeks months or maybe years this is likely to be an ongoing learning process.
Study of our inner ape, Frans de wall, was continued. Very necessary study for this mission. Our ancestors, chimpanzees, boner bows, do not determine our future, any more than they determine their own, there is an important cultural aspect, but inherent characteristics and propensities certainly play a huge roll in all three species. Halfway through the book only, it certainly is not making it easy for James to hold onto his lifelong preference that the human species is basically good. Basically humane. Basically kind. Basically loving. It may be all those things but if so that is a dramatic departure from these ancestors. And it is not yet the position of the author that he has concluded this at all.
Something else is clear, however. Our ancestors are substantial Lee plastic and molded by their particular cultural environment. And certainly the same is true of the human species and the human individual. We are each treatments for each other. We are each the environment of the other. We shape the other. Direction and agree are the variables.
The thesis upon which James is building his life and his mission is that joy is an emotional state that each individual can choose regardless of external circumstances. Nothing in this book so far speaks against that, nor for it.
Several more encounters that speak to James becoming un welcome in this community or not. One of these encounters with a main point of contact all these months in Lone Pine, the other day seemed negative. The contact today was fairly specific and indicated that it was a false negative.
Another contact, this with someone unknown but clearly of the community, while waiting in line at in establishment, was slightly negative. Clearly that the vehicle and James are known, and that it is known they have been here a long time, without any evidence that this was considered favorable. But not conclucive.
Many help described this to me as Trump country. My writings and postings about both parties is extremely negative. But Trump zealots are quite possibly not going to care about the balance negativity. But who knows? Buy the way, LOL, the community in Portland that I encountered a year and a half ago for a week or so, was highly liberal, and they certainly we're not glad when they discovered my skating view of the liberal community in general. Very Unforgiven. I became totally un welcome there.
The third encounter today was interesting. An older lady, my age may be older, was in the hardware store at the same time I was. There were a few people in the store and as I was walking down an aisle she came up behind me and it turns out she was trying to understand what was written on my shirt. Gladly I stood so that she could read it carefully. Which she did. Not evidently hostile or friendly she was sincerely interested in the word solidarity. Oh, with prisoners you mean? She said. My father is the father of all humans I said, gay, straight, Muslim, Christian, atheist. I feel one with all of those especially those suffering. This is not what she expected to hear, not what she wanted to hear, not how she thinks about things. This was evident. What is not clear to me is how she will think of it after the conversation. She probably doesn't know either. I was glad to have shown her that way of beeing. It may not go well for me.
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