Label - Less
In order to be limitless (at least limitless in a kind of generative, creativity way, rather than the seemingly limitless destruction we humans have shown ourselves to be capable of), I believe that we need to be label-less.
Why do we label ourselves and each other? Are we suffering from some kind of collective obsessive-compulsive disorder where we fantasize that the world is one giant filing cabinet? How can a human being fit into a filing cabinet? What if we could just appreciate the messy mystery and unknowableness of life?
Theoretical physicist and author Stephen Hawking said in an interview, “While physics and mathematics may tell us how the Universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve.”
What is the deal with this need to categorize? This You/Me, Us/Them, Right/Wrong, Good/Bad, American/Iranian, German/Greek, Catholic/Protestant, Jewish/Muslim/Sikh, Male/Female, Gay/Straight? I thought we did away with “separate but equal” back in the ‘60s. But what if there’s no separate?
My dog’s name is Yatahey. A friend found him on a Navajo reservation when he was a puppy and Yatahey is a Navajo greeting like “aloha” or “shalom” or “salaam.” It means “hello and good-bye” because there is no “hello” and there is no “good-bye.”
Quantum physics is proving more conclusively every day what spiritual, mystical, and metaphysical traditions have been saying for millennia, that everyone and everything is connected. The chaos theory or butterfly effect tells us that a hurricane’s formation might be contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly flapped its wings several weeks prior. Quantum physics tells us that we are passing atoms back and forth between each other and our environment every moment of every day. Schrodinger’s cat taught us that the thinking of the observer will affect the outcome of the experiment. Our labels and assumptions are not some neutral, objective, empirical interpretation of the data. Our labels and expectations create our reality.
When I was a kid, I watched Star Trek reruns practically every day after school. I loved “The Trouble With Tribbles.” It’s definitely the funniest episode that I remember, and I looked forward to hearing David Gerrold’s take on “limitless.” But the most poignant Star Trek episode for me, the one that stuck out in my memory, was the two-part episode, “The Menagerie,” where Spock hijacked the enterprise to take his friend, Captain Pike, back to Talos IV. Spock’s very rational, Vulcan reason for his act of mutiny was that the Talosians had an ability to create illusion with their thoughts, which would give Captain Pike the chance at a “normal” life after the accident that left him severely burned and paralyzed. Throughout the episode, our assumptions and expectations and labels are turned on their heads. Captain Kirk and Bones thought that Spock, a Vulcan, was incapable of mutiny. Starfleet strictly forbade any travel to Talos IV because they believed the Talosians to be bad guys who were trying to enslave humans. The Talosians expected the humans to want to live in a paradise created in the mind, since they had destroyed their planet with their technology and their thinking generations prior. I think the reason I remember that episode more than any other is that I was so moved by Spock’s heroic and illogical act of compassion. This episode asks us, “What is reality? What is illusion? What is right? What is sustainable?”
John Lennon said it all in “Imagine”:
Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people living for today
What if there is no naughty and there is no nice? What if we don’t know? What if we can’t know? What if there were no shame or blame or guilt? What if every being on this planet were 100% responsible and accountable for their every thought, feeling, and action right here and right now?
A couple of years ago, I learned about a Hawaiian healing technique called “Ho ‘oponopono” when I read a book called Zero Limits. On the Zero Limits website, it says “Ho ‘oponopono is a profound gift which allows one to develop a working relationship with the divinity within and learn to ask that in each moment, our errors in thought, word, deed or action be cleansed. The process is essentially about freedom, complete freedom from the past.” I learned of this technique around the time that the oil spill was happening in the Gulf of Mexico, when the rig disintegrated and they couldn’t cap the well for months while hundreds of millions of gallons of oil poured into the gulf. And I found that a little upsetting. Part of my upset was that there was nothing that I could do about it and part of my upset was my judgments against the people responsible for this disaster. And I knew that my upset was not helping anything and it was making me and everyone around me miserable. So I practiced this technique often during that time. The way I apply it is that whenever I become aware of anything that is bothering me or upsetting me, I take full responsibility for it because the philosophy is that there is no separation and if it is in my conscious awareness, then it is in me. And in the act of taking full responsibility, I am suddenly no longer a victim. It’s not about blame or guilt, just responsibility. I know that I am not BP and that others may have more individual responsibility for this catastrophe, but I drive a car and use plastic stuff and I am a member of the human race. So once I have taken responsibility for the thing that is upsetting me, I repeat the following phrases in order to cleanse and clear the energy:
I love you
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
And I do this over and over until the upset dissipates as I forgive myself for buying into the illusion of separateness and the illusion of moral superiority.
Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace
What if there was no hierarchy? What if there was no competition? What if there were no winners or losers? What if either we all win or we all lose?
Cultural historian and evolutionary theorist Riane Eisler coined the term “dominator paradigm” to describe the system that most of our thinking and beliefs are rooted in. In her book The Real Wealth of Nations, she points out the insanity of measuring our GDP with profits from war and violence and fossil fuels and all kinds of unsustainable practices while not measuring the value of non-monetized work like parenting or caring for ailing loved ones or volunteering. In her writing and activism, she proposes the partnership model as an alternative paradigm to live in and create from. What are the unexamined biases and assumptions we all have that create our labels, and where do they come from?
Some of my friends are Republicans. And I think we all basically want the same things. Maybe our bullshit detectors are calibrated differently, so we look to different people or policies to facilitate these things, but we all want love, peace, health, education, freedom, some sense of security, and respect. What if we realized we are all on the same team? What could we accomplish if we worked together towards our common goals?
Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people sharing all the world
When I arrived in Sacramento, a couple of days before this event, I lost my iPhone. I had been texting with Kris, the organizer of this TEDx, who had generously and graciously offered to pick me up from the airport in the middle of all the other last minute details that she needed to attend to. Can we have a round of applause for Kris for what she has created, this monumental feat that she has accomplished today? So as Kris was circling the airport, waiting for me to get my luggage, we were texting each other with our coordinates. And when I had my luggage, I walked outside and sat down on a bench, and put my iPhone down on the bench, because I had never met her and didn’t want to miss her text if she pulled up and was looking for me. But I knew it was her when I saw her and jumped up and got all my stuff and myself into the car and about an hour later, I noticed that I couldn’t find my phone. Kris offered to check lost and found at the airport when she went back that evening to pick up her sister. And she did. And it was there. Somebody made the effort, probably after a long journey, to turn the phone in. Nobody stole it. And security didn’t destroy it, thinking that it might be a bomb. It was a miracle. But in the time between when Kris left to go to the airport and when she called my hotel room to let me know that she had my phone, I kind of lost it, not just my phone, I lost it. I’m not proud of myself. I just felt totally disconnected. Even though there was a phone in my room and 2 computers in the business center, I felt completely disconnected from the world. And when Kris brought my phone to me, it was like a pacifier to a baby. I had only had this “smart” phone for a couple of weeks. I had resisted joining the smart phone users of the world up to that point. But once I took the plunge, I was in the deep end. Dependant. I am old enough to have “survived” several decades of existence without the assistance of mobile devices. I’m aware that there are still many, many people in the world who are surviving and even thriving without mobile devices, let alone land lines and computers. But I have clearly bought into the illusion of separation. And that whole experience started me thinking, what if we had a major solar flare and huge areas were without electricity? Just a couple of weeks ago over half a billion people were without electricity in India when they had that power outage. What would we all do without our mobile phones and GPSes? We wouldn’t be able to get cash from the ATM or buy gas. How would we get to the store to buy food if the stores would even be open? How would we stay cool or warm? How would that you/me, us/them, competitive illusion of separation work for us then? I was in New York City a couple of weeks after 9/11, and like many people, I experienced a softer side of the population at that time. People looked one another in the eye and said hello and held the door for one another. I was there for an independent film market with an Iranian/American film that I had acted in, and at the end of the screening, the room was absolutely silent. People’s hearts were open. We wanted healing, not aggression and revenge.
You, you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one I hope some day you'll join us And the world will live as one
Einstein said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
I love you
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
