"On Dialogue” by David Bohm

I recently read a book — "On Dialogue” by David Bohm published by Routledge.  It is a quick read a mere 109 pages — it is not a book about Stoicism, the word is never mentioned but I think its content is relevant for those of us interested in Stoicism.  

David Bohm was a American born Theoretical Physicists that died in 1992.  Bohm made significant contributions to Quantum Mechanics in the late 1940’s and  the 1950’s.  When he was very young, he toyed with communist ideology  and therefore was of interest to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Ironically he was arrested and tried for invoking his constitutional right to not testify against himself.  After being acquitted he left the Country and eventually became a citizen of the UK. Later in life he became interested in the Philosophy of the Mind.  In particular,  he became interested in “Thought” and its problems and wrote on the subject.  "On Dialogue” was published posthumously in 1996.

In “On Dialogue” Bohm discusses the process of Dialogue groups that he intended to be exercises in collective thought.  While an interesting idea, I am not aware that these groups had much impact or life after his own death.  I think “On Dialogue” is of interest to Stoics because of his analysis of thought.  Bohm pointed out that we humans spend a great deal of time analyzing and reacting to the content of thought, but not very much effort on understanding the process of thought.  He was not talking about about the “microscopic” level but at the macroscopic level.  Bohm points out that thought requires our constant attention, if it is going to be kept from going astray in numerous ways. 

One significant way that thought most often goes astray, is its tendency towards fragmentation.  Bohm notes that thought naturally divides things up and that these divisions take on great importance.  More often than not these divisions are for the sake of convenience and others times they are completely arbitrary and not necessarily useful.  In Bohm's view the world is most accurately described as “shades merging into one”.  But for Bohm the real problem in thought is not just the artificial distinctions generated by thought, but the fact that thought divides the world without us really noticing it.  We think our thought is simply telling us the way things are, but in reality it is filtering reality.  It limits and defines our experience making it difficult for see the whole as anything but an abstraction.

According to Bohm a primary reason we have so much difficulty with thought is that it lacks proprioception.  Proprioception is the sense of the relative position and connection between body parts and the strength of effort needed to move them. Bohm tells the brief story of women that has a stroke in her sleep and awakes in the dark to what she perceives as a physical attack, but when the lights are turned on she is alone.  The stroke damaged the part of her brain responsible for proprioception while leaving her motor skills in place.  She did not or could not know in the dark that she was hitting herself. The results was the automatic assumption that something else was attacking her.  Because thought lacks this proprioception, this tacit understanding that we are generating thought -- just like we wiggle our elbow -- our thoughts and feelings take on a greater importance then they should.  Our feelings can take on a sense of reality just like an object in the world. So for Bohm the purpose of paying attention to thought, is to give it a sense of proprioception --to understand that whatever you are thinking or feeling -- you are doing it.  For example, if you are angry or fearful, you can with practice suspend the process of becoming angry or fearful and become aware of the process itself. Once you understand that you are responsible for your thoughts, you can begin to change them.

My Practice of Stoicism

I describe my practice of Stoicism as religious or spiritual in character.  Gratitude is fundamental to my understanding of the philosophy.  The mere fact that I am hear to experience life, to be conscious of it, is in itself a miracle. I am certain that the universe is intelligent and that it is ordered well and justly for the benefit of the whole. This is true even if I don't always understand the connection between one event and the next. In a sense, it is impious to be upset about anything that occurs outside of my control as opposed to being simply pointless.

On Moderation

I must constantly remind myself that moderation is not an artificial limit on my natural appetites. Moderation is one of Nature's intended outcomes.  It is why Nature provided me with reason as well as appetites. Reason is my highest faculty and the essence of my being and exercising moderation is part of developing and using my reason to its fullest potential.

Memento Mori-- Premeditatio Malorem

Not far from where I use to live in Hillsborough County is a rural community called Seffner. Seffner is mix of born and bred residents that primarily make their living in agriculture or blue collar jobs in Tampa or Plant City and commuters who live in the newer suburban subdivisions that dot the area. Jeffrey Bush was from the former group.  He lived a life of no particular interest to anyone beyond his immediate family & friends. At the time of his death, at age 37, he was somewhat down on his luck living in his brother's house. Although I never knew Jeff, I do think of him fairly often.  On February 27, 2013; Jeff went to bed early, about 11PM, shortly after that his family heard Jeff briefly call out in panic. They rushed to his room and flung open the door looking to see what was wrong. Strangely, there was a dark hole where the floor of the room had been. Jeff, his bed, his dresser and almost everything else he owned was gone.  Jeff's brother jumped into the darkness in an effort to find his bother among the dirt and sand, but there was nothing he could do.  Before the end of the night, there would be 3 more collapses and the hole would grow to 60 feet deep.  Jeff's body was never recovered.

I saw the raw footage from the cameras mounted on the robotic boom used by the County to peer into the hole.  Snippets of the footage are available on the internet.  The camera enters the bedroom window with a bright light. It looks down, its is very dark and difficult to make out anything. The camera pans left and you see the door and wall are completely intact.  The door is still in place. It is closed with hats hanging from the door knob.  There is a flimsy looking shelf  resting on metal brackets attached to the wall, jackets and bandanas still hang from hooks.  Panning right there is a crooked poster on the wall. The camera pulls back to the window, on the sill, undisturbed are bottles of cologne, hydrogen peroxide and other toiletries. The camera moves back to the center of the room and down, you see nothing just black, you notice on the periphery of the hole paper-thin linoleum. No trace of the foundation beneath the room remains.

The house Jeffrey Bush died in had a solid poured 4-inch concrete slab on grade foundation with 8-inch footers.  It had been in his family since it was built 40 years ago. Far below it, perhaps rather slowly, fine grain sand began to erode during rain events creating a cavity that gradually expanded as it moved upwards towards the floor of Jeffery's room.

Sometimes I think of Jeffery Bush at night, just after I get into bed and turn out the light.

On the Good of the Whole

A few days ago,  I was listening to a radio interview of Beth Macy who has written a book called the "Factory Man" about the history of the Basset furniture company through the decline of manufacturing in the US    The discussion about the disappearance of US factory jobs brought up memories of my father.  He owned a small factory in Beacon, NY called the Davis Box Toe Company.  The factory made box toes and insoles that were sold to shoe factories throughout the US.  The factory had been in our family since 1876 until it closed in the late 70's.  This was a great tragedy in my father's life and just the beginning of similar stories throughout the US. After he died, I remembered reading carbon copies of letters he had sent to Congressmen, the US Department of Commerce and others complaining about price dumping in the shoe industry and the loss of jobs in the US. Anyway the business closed, we lost our home and my father never really recovered. At the time there were something like 175,000 people employed in manufacturing shoes in the US. Today the decline is almost complete, depending on how you count the numbers there are less than 18,000 jobs in American shoe factories.

My first reaction upon hearing this interview was anger.  Anger at all the forces within our economy and government that allowed so many jobs to simply disappear.  I am sure you can tell that this was not the first time that real outrage has come to me over this issue.  But this time after my immediate emotional reaction, I had the thought that while the loss of my father's factory was a personal tragedy for him, my family and his workers, it must in someway have been good for the whole.  New jobs were created overseas in primarily "third world" countries --places that desperately needed the jobs.  This was the beginning of increases in living standards and more complex manufacturing in many of those countries.  The gap between the richer and some poorer countries is beginning to shrink. So on and so forth.

I don't know, if I am at a point that I can be glad it happened, but I know that it had to happen.

How I came to Study Stoicism

As I have grown older, I gradually came to realize that my career & personal life were not going to be the stuff of my original expectations.  I had made a series of choices and decisions, almost all of them for good reasons; that led me to where I was and that was that.   Yes, I could change anything or even everything, if I really wanted to, but in the end that would only result in a new or different set of problems, compromises or sources of dissatisfaction. Ultimately, I knew that I needed to change the automatic and apparently default monologue in my head that constantly said "if only..." or " I should have...".  But how was this to be done? I had heard many times, but was only beginning to accept, that the key to happiness is to find satisfaction in what I've got. 

Here I sat for some time, because defining a problem and solving it are two completely different things. As we all know, changing our patterns of thought is really hard work. This is true, even when we genuinely want to change. I had absolutely no idea how to turn this realization into something actionable. 

I literally began searching on the internet for "how to be happy with what you have".  The results were a  mixture of numbered lists, tips and so-called "hacks" on how to be happy. But, as I worked around the topic of happiness in general, two approaches emerged as most compelling to me --- Buddhism & Stoicism.  Interestingly, founded roughly at the same time, many of their insights are essentially the same. 

I must admit, I was leery of Buddhism. My prejudice was that Buddhism was adopted by "new agey" freaks living in California that believe in numerology and astrology. But, I was determined to explore. After some more internet research and reading, I decided that Buddhism was not for me.  Buddhism's elusive  search for a difficult to conceive enlightenment turned me off. Also, in my heart,  I am not sure all Four of the Noble Truths are really true. While clearly many people do suffer in life, I do not want to repeat to myself on a regular basis that life is suffering.

In the end, I turned to Stoicism, although still elusive in many ways, I find it provides understandable insights that work for me in the here and now. I began to feel that, at least, I was moving in the right direction from the start. 

I went back to a copy of "The Meditations" that I already had on my bookshelf.  I originally read it after seeing Marcus Aurelius as a character in the movie "The Gladiator".  At the time, I read it only to satisfy the curiosity stirred by the movie.  I did not really understand that the late Emperor was writing within the much broader context of the Stoic philosophy. This time, my reading was different. I had learned enough to know that Marcus Aurelius was writing solely for his own benefit and was working within a philosophy that already had a long history by his time. 

Since then I have explored Stoicism even further.  I took a guided self-study class through the Stoic College of Philosohy associated with the New Stoa's website that I mentioned in my first post. I am now in the 3rd term of the Marcus Aurelius School which is a more advanced and longer course of study. 

Stoicism provides a framework against which I can compare my thoughts. It gives me a tool to pause the default "if only ..." monologue in my head and in that space I remember to say "No, I have a choice to make. I must decide if this is really bad, or is it just my thinking that tells me so". I find the dichotomy of control (i.e. what is mine to control without any possibility of hindrance & what is not) one of the most obvious and yet important realities of our lives. 

I also think that it is something that I can lose sight of rather easily, if I am not consciously reminding myself. After all, every bit of sensory information I receive tells me that I am located at the very center of existence.  As near as I can tell, all the rest of the universe extends outward from where I sit right now as I am typing these words. Therefore, is it not right that everyone else in the world, should so order their lives and actions to take my wishes into account? Of course, this is absurd, but at some level most of us live our lives with this expectation as the very subtext of our existence.

My Mneme (pronounced nee-me)

The story goes that Zeus feared that the memories of his exploits and wise decisions would quickly fade from the minds of men. In the hopes of producing offspring that would help preserve these memories, Zeus disguised himself as a shepherd and slept with the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, for 9 straight nights. Sometime later, Mnemosyne gave birth to 9 daughters. These daughters were the famous Muses that personified knowledge and the arts in Ancient Greece.

Mnemosyne's name was sometimes shortened to Mneme. Today, the word is a scientific term that means a unit of memory and is also used by modern Stoics, as the name for a memory exercise that is performed with the help of the Muses.

The Mneme exercise is the capstone assignment in the Stoic Essential Studies (SES) course offered by the College of Stoic Philosophers. It is intended to be memory verse or phrase that captures and helps you to remember the Stoic wisdom you learned in the course.

Here is my Mneme -- 

Choose, because your life is made only of your choices;

Choose reason over passions;

Choose virtue over vice;

Choose freedom over constraints;

Choose the present over the future;

Choose attention over senselessness;

Choose equanimity over agitation;

Choose acceptance over regrets; and

Choose philosophy over aimlessness. 

The SES course is a 4 month long overview & introduction to Stoicism.  If this has piqued your interest, click on this link  stoicscollege.com  and check out the College of Stoic Philosophers.