Bucky Group 20c - Oxymoron

We continue our discussions on Vacuum State's post on "Hunting Down Life's Oxymoron" by Mike George (For more about the blog post, click here). This is the last of our three-part discussion about the topic.

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We covered the term 'academic learning' and how true learning cannot be 'academic' because the it involves mostly memorising other people's discoveries, instead of self realisation; and the concluding paragraph that once we hunt down our inner contradictions (oxymorons) part of us awakens to liberate us.

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In the 'Question' section,...

"Have you ever realised you were contradicting your self or doing something that contradicted something you said? What was that action and do you still do it?"

One of us said that she did not react very well to a big-talker man in a committee she set up recently. She knows that he is talking big because he feels small, but she also knows that as a result of his talking big, she feels small and therefore angry! Though, she managed to contain her anger and not tell him off! [Personally, I think she should! Perhaps not 'tell him off', but 'tell him'.]

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Oh, by the way, the committee she set up was meant to counter the potential of new massage parlours taking over her estate's shopping block. According to her, these massage parlours are teeming with sexy Chinese girls that offer 'happy endings', and that they would have enough money to bid up the rents to take over the other shop lots. So, this committee aims to get the parlours out of the estate. Sounds like a committee with an end to end all 'happy endings'!

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I brought up the discussion about 'academic learning' and that the alternative is 'experiential learning'. But I wonder can every subject be learned by experience?

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Chor Kok answered that wonderfully to say that it is possible that if we focus the experiential learning to discover Bucky's the generalised principles. From there, the learner will be able to realise other secondary knowledg and so it becomes unnecessary to learn everything experientially.

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I think in between 'academic learning' and 'experiential learning', there is something like what Dr Aaron Lim does, which is learning through anecdotal experiences of others. By listening those little life stories that Dr Aaron tells, I can relate to them and learn very quickly compared to mere memorising from an authority. But then, that too depends on our own experience. For instance, I cannot understand about 'joy' if I haven't experienced it before, even though a story filled with joy was told to me. In that instance, 'joy' would be mere 'words' or 'academic knowledge' to me. This happens for people who have not consciously experienced 'love'. They therefore cannot understand love.

bucky group 20b - Oxymoron

We continue our discussions on Vacuum State's post on "Hunting Down Life's Oxymoron" by Mike George (For more about the blog post, click here).
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Someone suggested that the term 'holy war' could be a paradox rather than an oxymoron. I think it is not possible as inevitably anything 'holy' would put peace, happiness and love first; and war kills, plunders and destroys. [However, I remember I wrote another post about Arjuna, the mytical warrior in the Bhagavad Gita and how he got despondent in the midst of the war having to kill his own relatives. It has some food for thought. Read here.]

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Johnson asked, "How about 'holy shit'? Can 'shit' be 'holy'?"

If 'shit' is not 'holy' we will all be in trouble. Least of all, we would have been seriously constipated! :)

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I have trouble with the suggestion that "constructive criticism" is an oxymoron. Perhaps a lot depends on what we mean by 'criticism'. If criticism is meant for improvement, then the precursor 'constructive' goes very well with it. I think the problem it is often not immediately obvious that some criticisms are constructive. Often it comes much later.

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Elaine brought out that all systems are in the state of flux looking for their new balance. Constructive criticisms therefore serve to find the perpetuating need for balance. What she is describing is Tao.

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Joo Hock elaborated by explaining the meaning of the Tao symbol. Where there is 'order' and 'chaos'; and within 'order', there is a bit of 'chaos' (depicted by the dot of opposite colour), and withing 'chaos' there is a bit of 'order' (similarly depicted by the dot of opposite colour).

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So everything is in a state of change. If we fight the change, we become stressed. So we find that systems or people who are stressed tend to be inflexible. So systems have to be designed to accommodate changes to continue to become relevant.

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I feel that Singaporeans get much stressed. This is strange to me because I find Singapore one of the easiest cities to live in. I think that Singaporeans get stressed because we have suddenly moved from a kampung lifestyle, where we have our feet on the ground to ease the stress to the earth, to a highrise apartment lifestyle. That shift happened in the 70s and that had resulted in an increase in the number of suicides, which called for the set up of the volunteer group SOS (Save our Souls telephone helpline). Another way to ease stress is to spend at least one day a week in nature. For that matter, the Bucky Group spends every Sunday at MacRitchie with nature. This is also an advice from the Dalai Lama.

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There is no point fighting changes. The shop lot that "Hair Affair" is in, itself is going through an enbloc sale (collective sale by voting). If that happens, Joo Hock will have to find a new site for his salon. But it is no pointing fighting changes. If change comes, accept the change and for new things to come into our lives.

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In the days of mergers and acquisitions, many find themselves affected by the internal restructuring. One gets restructured from "Vice President" to "Senior Manager"; then when the next restructuring comes, from the post of "Senior Manager" to the post of "Manager". This is stressful to many who feels unappreciated and manipulated by the prime movers of the merger. But if one accepts it and moved on, the stress disappears.

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There are some who are made 'redundant' in an organisational restructuring. It is thus better to move on and do the 'next' thing instead of brooding over the past. When you move on, you will realise that there is so much goodness waiting. It appears worse when one is made "redundant" in a marriage. One moves on and likewise there is so much new experiences ahead.

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There is another example of a rich family in Singapore where the siblings were fighting over the inheritance left by their parents. Then one of them called it quits, moved on and migrated to New Zealand and made even more money there. It is said that he would not have gotten so rich if he had chosen to stay back to fight for the lesser family inheritance.

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So the moral of the stories is that one needs to be flexible to accommodate changes and moved on to the treasures ahead.

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Postmortem at the cafe:

At the cafe after the session, we spoke about how the Bucky Group has recently changed due to my involvement. That the Bucky Group was in a 'comfort zone', until I came and topple the 'stability' by bringing in different views. These views made everyone see things from different angles.

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I am quite surprise that my alternative views have contributed to the Group. In Singapore, it is quite difficult to find people who are willing to accept views that are not inline with theirs. This is a common problem among 'conformist' societies. Actually, I suffered 'slings and arrows' many times in other groups because many people do not accept alternative views and could not separate what I say, from what I am.

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The other thing which they say I contributed is in improving the memory of the Group. I guess by that they mean the documenting of the Bucky Sessions on Vacuum State.
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My hope is that we can move beyond this by using relevant and effective content in cyberspace, from blogs, online videos and music, as there are a lot of useful content out there. They are also perpetually updated by volunteers.
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Last, we have played this tune in the beginning of the session. It is about the resignation of the former Malaysian Health Minister because he was caught with his pants down in camera. This is e-Citizen civil group at work. Thanks to Cyberspace. Have you wondered why politicians resign only when they are caught in a sexual scandal and ironically get away with it when everyone knows that they have been stealing millions of dollars from the country? Anyway, listen to this and tell me...




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Join the Bucky Group. All you have to do is turn up. There is no membership, no fees to pay, no rules other than the usual common sense and you don't even have to agree with what we say. Besides, breakfast is free on Saturday and very good too!

Bucky group 20 - Oxymoron

This week we referred to our Vacuum State post on "Hunting Down Life's Oxymoron" by Mike George (For more about the blog post, click here). This is the first time that a blog post is used for our Bucky Group discussion, marking our move into Cyberspace and leveraging on Web 2.0 content. Indeed there are a lot of rich and original content out there in blogs, websites, Wikipedia, online forums and videos like YouTube.

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Clinton kicked off the discussion by reading the Wikipedia definition of "Oxymoron":

An oxymoron (plural oxymorons or, more rarely, oxymora) is a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms. Oxymoron is a loanword from Greek oxy ("sharp") and moros ("dull"). Thus the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron.
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A few of us were quick to bring examples of oxymorons like "pretty ugly", "virtual reality", and with a lot of sarcasm - "honest politician"

So what is the difference between "Oxymoron" and "Dichotomy"?

The Wikipedia defines "dichotomy" as"
Division into two; especially, the division of a class into two subclasses opposed to each other by contradiction, as the division of the term man into white and not white.
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So distinct from "dichotomy", "oxymoron" is a mere expression of two consecutive contraditory words.

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At that point, Johnson walked in (late). After a spontaneous welcome to him, we briefed him that the morning's topic is about "oxymoron", and immediately he uttered, "Sounds confusing clear", probably unaware that he is a natural with the oxymoron, and we burst into laughter.

We then moved on to "blindspot", as a blindspot, precedes an oxymoron. A blindspot here refers to the blindness in the inner eye. This refers to us not 'seeing' something, and that we know it is a blindness that is affecting our lives.

In the Tao lecture I attended recently, the master said,

No one can see all angles of the world. This is so in individuals, cultures, religions, science...etc. This is because our views does not cover all dimensions. Thus, we have to compensate for this by using the views of others. Sometimes, we can view an issue from the animals, plants, Buddhas and sages points of view. For more of the Tao lecture, click here

To see our own blindspots, we can use the 'vision' of others. In other words, receive the opinions and comments from others. In a system, that means to accept and interoperate with other systems; or become a system of systems. In that sense, Singapore is a system of systems as we are multi-racial, multi-religion and multi-cultured city. With tolerance, that enables us to see our own blindspots as a nation more easily, as opposed to fairly mono-cultured countries like Japan and Korea.

Johnson mentioned that at work, there are some issues that when clarified by others it became clear and could agree with them. However, there are some issues that even after discussions with his colleagues, he could not agree with them. What more, the said issues, which involves a procedure that we interact with the customers, are not even acceptable by the customers themselves. At this point, several suggestions were put forth by us, which includes, looking at the issue from the company's perpectives as the company looks at all customers and not just (some of) the customers that Johnson deals with. Besides, companies have other aspects like company culture and image that they may want to upkeep. There are mistakes that the company may consider fatal and cannot afford to make.

Clinton brought out an example in the automotive maker Honda, which produces very high quality cars, whose Chairman said to the effect that, "...we may achieve 99.99% perfection and 0.01% error... To us it is an achievement, but to the customer, the 0.01% seems to be 100%."

So we have to look at some work issues also from the company's perspective. Mistakes that are not fatal to the worker, or to some customers, may be fatal to one. And that is all that it needs to bring the company down.

I brought the example of my discussions with some people regarding "sexism" and "homosexuality". All too often, the other party is so quick to call me a male chauvinist or a homophobe, without hearing me out. Nowadays, it seems politically correct to speak in support of gay movements, and intolerant to any other comment even those who are not against their movements. Worse still, why not hear the speaker out first before jumping into conclusions? This is the listener's blindspots.

Chin brought out that some people feel that gays are not normal or balanced, but in their own way, they are balanced with both the male and female aspects of a human body.

This reminds some of us of Dr Aaron's empathy for these people as they are souls who have chosen to be reincarnate into the opposite sex, but have not managed to complete it in their human body. These are souls who have gone through a difficult time as a woman in the past embodiment and wanted so much to be a man in their next incarnation, but didn't quite make it and are now a man in a woman's body. They deserve our understanding.

So in a sense, we all choose the sex we want to be born and the parents we want to be born through.

Joo Hwa interjected by saying he knows of a couple who gave birth to a pair of twins. Not knowing what to name the babies, they consulted the brother, who himself is not so well educated. So the uncle named the babies: one as "Denise", the other as "DeNephew". :)

Not very relevant to our discussion, but never mind. He is our court jester.

Okay, back to the post... we went on to talk about "Emotional Intelligence", that it is also an oxymoron. For that, one of us disagreed that emotional intelligence is an oxymoron, as if we do not feel about anything then it is unlikely that we will set it to action. There, she referred to Rudolf Steiner's theory about our having 12 senses. For more of Rudolf Steiner's works, click here . Vasu responded by saying that we have to differentiate between "feelings" and "emotions". There and then, he calmly expressed, "I can feel my anger", and then unexpectedly bursted into a loud thump, " I CAN FEEL MY ANGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" [I should have got that captured on video!] Certainly, the emotions spoke for itself. We understood the difference instantly. It is one thing feeling something, but when we get blew our top (emotional) about something, we lose everything. Well, the fact that Vasu is an actor helps! :)

We were only halfway through our post, we would need to continue our discussion next week, as it was already 10.10am and Joo Hock has to start his hair salon.

The rest of us proceeded to the cafe at the concourse of Adelphi. It is a habit that we continue our discussions there.

At the cafe, Vasu told me that he is intending to go into experiential training and showed me a book that captures the topic. I turned to a page at random, and it says that when we break down a topic scientifically into small bits, we create dichotomies, such that the small bits in itself cannot help the learner to learn. To learn effectively, we have to be able to experience the whole.

Then I thought about the experiential 7 Day Transformation Journey that I attended in 2002 and how it had indeed changed my life. The Bucky University that we have ought to be one that is comprehensive, as Bucky was, and such that students can experience the whole while learning.

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Hunting Down Life's Oxymorons

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Clear Thinking 1 March 2008 www.relax7.com

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HUNTING DOWN LIFE'S OXYMORONS! by Mike George

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Have you ever noticed a blind spot in your eyesight? Often called a 'scotoma' it seems everyone has one in one of their eyes. However we don't notice it as the other eye compensates and fills in the missing bit! But have you spotted the blind spot in your inner eye, in what you might call your inner vision or awareness. Most people are unaware of their physical 'scotoma' but some people set out to make themselves become aware of the blind spots in the inner eye. They realise they are often not 'seeing' something, and they know it is a blindness that is affecting their life.

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A blind spot in your inner awareness usually takes one of three forms

1. When you say one thing and do another and you are not aware of your own contradiction
2. When you 'accuse' others of a behaviour that you are doing yourself
3. When you hold on to a belief (usually subconsciously) which you know deep down is not true

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Such contradictions can come in many forms. When you criticize someone for always being negative about things, you don't recognize that you are being negative about the citiciser. When you accuse others of being abusive you are being abusive towards the abuser. When you hate the haters you become hater. When you tell someone you love them and then a few moments or a few days later become angry and blame them for what you feel.

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For some, such moments of contradiction can be frequent within an average day but they will not realise it, not 'see' it. For others there is a feeling of discomfort that follows such contradictory actions or statements but they can't quite put their finger on why the discomfort arises. More often it is friends, family or colleagues who will point out our behavioural scotomas and we then see and realise what we have been blind to.

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Communal and collective contradictions can also be found in every day conversations. Sometimes they are called 'oxymorons'. There are many oxymorons that inhabit the landscapes of our consciousness, our language and therefore our cultures. See if you can spot how many are in the following passage.

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She returned from a working holiday to find her son had being doing nothing most of the time except playing computer games based on virtual reality. Her husband was conspicuously absent so she called the agent to ask them to for an accurate estimate on the value of her house. And while the agent was awfully nice and said that some aspects of the house looked better than new the local film production company had called and wanted it as a location for a black comedy about the living dead.

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Other more commonly held contradictions become blind spots that can keep us collectively stuck in a kind of illusion, which in itself impedes our progress. One of the most common examples is the idea of 'stress management'. In the last twenty years a booming industry has arisen around this oxymoron and many have jumped on a bandwagon that is heading in the wrong direction. Stress levels are frequently reported to be rising almost daily. Usually accompanied by doom-laden forecasts of collapsing health services and much corporate pain in the bottom line, the explosion of panaceas under the heading of 'stress management' is now as varied as it is eccentric. But few have spotted that stress management is an oxymoron. It is a contradiction in terms. When you are stressed you cannot manage anything, most of all the stress itself, because the stress is managing you.

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The irony that lives in the very idea of stress management is that stress arises mainly because we are trying to control (manage) what we can never control, usually events and other people. So the only way out and into a stress free life is to stop trying to control (manage) what you cannot control which is everything except your own thoughts about what you are trying to control! And you won't be able to control your thoughts if you are stressed because your stress is essentially uncontrollable, negative thinking. Anger Management is the same, another oxymoron which sustains the illusion that anger can be managed.

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One of the hot topics of the last decade has been something called 'emotional intelligence'. But few have realised it's also an oxymoron. When you are emotional you cannot be intelligent. A simple definition of intelligence is 'to use what you know in the right way in the right place at the right moment'. Yet we all know from experience that when we become emotional the last thing we are able to do is calmly draw on our inner wisdom, create rational thoughts and clearly discern what is the appropriate response. When emotion floods through our consciousness it destroys our ability to act intelligently hence the sage advice to never make a life changing decision when you are emotional.

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History is littered with the most obvious oxymoron in the idea of a 'holy war'. To justify war by calling it a holy act looks like total blindness to the enlightened soul. Holy means sacred or approaching the divine, and war means the exact opposite. It is a violent and murderous exercise. We miss this blind spot when we justify the use of war to create a pathway to the creation of peace. We have to 'fight for peace' is more than a slight contradiction. We are really saying we have to use violence to achieve non violence. Few people have had the courage to 'flag up' such an obvious oxymoron, fewer had the courage to listen and even fewer the courage to live the other way. Gandhi was one of the very few.

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On a more personal level, and sometimes a precursor to war, is another more common oxymoron in the form of 'constructive criticism' "I was only being constructive", says the critciser, just after they have attacked the efforts or the integrity of the other. To criticise is to attack and to attack can never be constructive. While the art, literature and drama critic has the job to 'critique', it is more like a review unless and until emotion enters the review, then it becomes a personal reaction as opposed to a reflective response.

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Perhaps one of the most public oxymorons is embeded in the title of one of the most prestigious global organisations. The United Nations is an oxymoron. The very fact we have separate national identities means real unity will always be impossible, which is quite plain to see in the reality of today's inter-nation relations! Unity is only present when separation is absent. The title of the organization sustains the opposite of its mission. It's like saying 'we are all one'. Inherent in the 'we' is more than one, obviously!

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One oxymoron that influences us all is the idea of 'academic learning'. Our academic education is called learning but its mostly memorising, which is not learning, it's memorising. It's also the memorisation of other peoples memorisations, people who are positioned as authority figures of the past. Their ideas are held in the highest esteem and passed on as 'authority'. But real learning can only happen when the 'self' recognizes itself as its own authority in the universe of its own consciousness. Only then is real learning possible, which is learning what the self is and how the self works and how the self relates to other selves and how the self creates their world and why the self is here. This cannot be learned by a process of memorization, only from personal experience or what is sometimes called self realization. And if there is one subject in life that can never be academic it is that of the 'self'.

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It is always an interesting exercise to watch out for the oxymorons that have become inherent within our cultures. They can easily influence our intentions and relationships. Hunting down our contradictions is very much a part of awakening and expanding our self awareness. When we expose them within our consciousness we are shedding light on an illusion and laying bare the truth. Such moments of enlightenment are grist to the mill of the spiritual traveler and vital steps to liberation in life.

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Questions:

Have you ever realised you were contradicting your self or doing something that contradicted something you said?

What was that action and do you still do it?

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Reflection:

Why do we still find it hard to see the contradictions that creep into our own life?

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Action:

Create a conversation with friends or colleagues this week with the purpose of identifying anything contradictory within your actions and interactions as a group
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