Thinking in a Wuh Lax World - The Art of Long Range Thought in Britain

In my first book, Wuh Lax and the Cosmic Lantern, my intent was to address a book on the processes of thinking and learning that was appropriate for younger thinkers. At the same time, I was intent on giving them survival techniques were they to understand what the book was all about. The Wuh Lax series is about thinking and surviving in a world that is much stranger than nature alone would have us think. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, if nature would have its way, we would die prematurely and just as certainly as the demise of the Roman Empire, which is the focus of the Wuh Lax series.

What the books about Wuh tell you is that while nature may have designs on your premature death should you not learn how to think, nature itself will die prematurely if the human species does not intervene within its own death process. The book is thus about the survival of the earth and its characters are thrown into the deep end of steering a course of survival for future generations as nature throws its worse at them.

In a very real sense, it is a true story while being an expression of my own psychological fantasy. It is based on an amazing amount of reading into psychology from the age of seven, in Kincardine, Ontario. I feel I know Jung, Freud and Adler like old friends. It is our psychological evolution that will give earth a chance of survival, but only a chance. As a betting person, one would be advised to place a bet for mankind's premature death as nature, the way we know it, itself dies prematurely. It would seem that nature is committing suicide and we are to die along with it.

On a more positive note, what has amazed me is the profound interest in MJ Harper's book, The History of Britain Revealed. Whether this has led to book sales for him is any one's guess, but there is a definite awareness that most English speakers have not really taken the time to think very deeply about the origins of the English language, or the culture. I love Harper's book because it demonstrates what is necessary in order to survive in this world of mass deception.

We British mostly think that the origins of our amazing language have come within two thousand or more years. Along with MJ Harper, I must say that this is utter hogwash, despite readers saying they would pray for Harper's soul. I mean, one has only to examine some of the mathematical feats, pathways, religious centers, stone or metal work created in the periods up to thousands of years before the Romans castrated Europe.

Climate change seems to have brought down the Roman Empire, but I would guess that it was economics that really put the screw in and tightened down the box, much the same as can happen to any community that has not really learned how to think. So this is why I come back to the period before Rome killed off early Britain, killed off societies in which thought was in advance of action despite what some of our illustrious historians would have us think, those that see history as continuous blood and gore. The early Britons survived Rome, but only just, and their story needs to be told. The anglo-saxons are only a very small part of the real story of Brtain that will unfold in years ahead as the archaeologists do their work.

No! Much of early British history was about love and cooperation, about community and sharing, about enjoying nature while at the same time controlling the death process inside human nature, the disease that killed the Romans and paved the way for misery, again despite what those wonderful historians are likely to tell us. Those historians that need to devote more time to thinking along the lines that MJ Harper has achieved. Well done Harper!

A Natural Deception as the Way of Nature

See my earlier blog, if you have not already done so. I apologize to those that got the shortened version of this particular blog by email. I have done this deliberately to illustrate a point. The point is that if you do not think, but just react to things around you, then you will be deceived. I refer to this as nature's oldest game. Yes! It is in the nature of nature that creatures of nature feed off each other.

You are never free of this process whereby others feed off you, and if you do not learn how to think, no matter what your intelligence is, you will die prematurely, moreover, the relationships that you do not think about will die prematurely. By this I mean your marriage, your job, your contracts in business, your mortgage. All and any of your natural relationships with people and with creations of nature. It is imperative that you therefore learn how to think, and that you actually practice the art of thinking. That's what this blogspot is all about. Its about teaching people how to think. Not what to think, but to get them engaged in the process of thinking the deBono and Anne Schaef way.

For those that don't know about Anne Schaef, let me say that she worked with the problems of the inner city where she saw first hand the processes of premature death, the results of addiction. What she realized is that society is an addict and the people making up society tend to be addicts, not all people, but most. This, she researched, led to their premature death. It will lead to your premature death if you do not begin to understand natures oldest trick of deception.

Take a cup of coffee. Take a deep breath and register to this blog if you have not already done so. It may save your life. It may save you from premature death.

The Roller Coaster of Speculation

SHAKING LANES AND ROUGH ROAD AHEAD

The world has a lot of liquidity despite the credit crunch in America which started the process of adjustment towards a sustainable balance of opinions. What governs the economy these days is not so much anything that is solid, but which portfolio mix will satisfy your risk preferences. For better or worse, we live in a world of speculation and the roads that we normally follow are weakening and blowing away like the sands of a desert in a storm.

This is what happens in the mature stages of war economies. The authorities have pumped so much liquidity into the system to finance the war that they are addicted to their own form of speculation which says that the war must be won at all costs. More and more money is pumped into winning and the cycle becomes one of excessive speculation in an investment in war. A bad economy results from investment excesses as there is a day of reckoning when the war is seen as a bad investment, or at least not a very good one. Its all relative, for while America spends money on investing in the war other countries can spend money on investing in goods and services not attached to war efforts. China, India, Continental Europe, and Russia, if it is wise, can leapfrog into better commercial positioning for the peace that follows a bitter war.

They are, in a very real sense, investing in peace. Listen to what Clinton and Obama are saying. They are saying that speculation in the benefits of fighting the war have to end. McCain is still unsure, but he has a history of struggling through the worse of situations, a dogged fighter, a formidable foe! And, they are right, but the big question is how much is enough. Well, the hidden costs of fighting in the middle east are going to hit all levels of the economy as mugwumpers try to assess their complex speculative positions.

When one sees speculation in gold one knows something really bad is going down. Offsetting the speculation in wheat is effect of farmers realizing the potential gains of growing more grain. These have induced the farmer to sow an extra large seasonal crop. That's wonderful you say, the farmer is the seasoned veteran of speculations. Dealing all the time with changing weather patterns, wind, and water, wet and dry, the farmer, however, is in no better position to speculate wisely. What we often see when farmers speculate is over investment.

Its almost as if there is a disconnect between farmers and the reality of wild speculation as it emerges. The plain fact is that follow the buck speculation without any regard for historical patterns of excess leads to wild results. A solution to a problem, you might say, but what happens after over-investment is a long, a very long period of under investment, as those that have been burned hedge their bets. The key is to dampen speculation so as to bring about a more orderly mix of views that achieves a longer term investment path that is sustainable.

Burt's World of Delicious Dark Chocolat

WESSEX CHURCH INTERIOR

In an earlier blog, I was praising the moments when one sat quietly with a mug of coffee and a book. A reader quite rightly pulled me up on this saying that I had omitted to mention the additional pleasure one can get by adding dark bitter sweet chocolate.

In my case, living in England for much of the time, this is a square or two of Green and Blacks, Organic Bittersweet Dark Chocolate with 70 percent cocoa content. The bar of dark chocolate that I presently see before me mentions that it is certified organic by California Certified Organic Farmers. So I must have bought it in America!

You can buy the Fair Trade dark chocolate at your local OXFAM book store, should you live in Britain. Not only do you have an opportunity help the starving, but you get a chance to acquire a second hand book at a very reasonable price. If you buy Fair Trade products, you can make a difference. This is not intended to sound like an advert, but it does. I apologize!

Accelerated Learning - Better School Grades - An Artist's Approach

WESTERN BARBADOS SHORE

Learning and discovery go hand in hand. Most of us want to discover things and some of us have unearthed ways to do that. The first thing an artist does, and there are many brilliant artists, is assign priorities in the right order. The highest priority goes to you, the learner, the young artist, the one who wants to learn. You need to get to grips with yourself as a person before you can really begin the process of accelerating your learning.

As often as you dare, for we all have the challenges of others around us, get to a place that you find peace. Probably, this is in your bedroom, assuming that your brother or sister, or your mother will allow you some peace. Whilst alone, just think about yourself for a while. You are the most important person in your world and if you are unhappy or lack peace then you need to seek a way to find both. Being unhappy yourself means that you can do things for yourself to cheer you up. Think of funny things or strange things that you have noticed during the week. Try to see the funny side of them.

Almost every thing has a funny side, no matter how dark it seems. Try to see the irony of your situation. You may be unhappy, but there are many more your age that are unhappier, unless you are the most unlucky kid in the world. Even that is ironical. How could you out of the billions of kids in the world be the unhappiest kid. No, its just not possible, especially if you are reading this blog!

Accelerated learning and learning of most kinds requires observation that can be recalled. If you are truly aware of yourself, your brain will remember that situation and what you are trying to learn because it builds links to your awareness of yourself and what it is that you are learning. You learn least when you are unaware of yourself. Self remembering is at the seat of learning.

Related to the technique of self remembering is the technique of achieving a peaceful state of mind. If your mind is not peaceful, you will not learn as readily. To learn you can have soft music, but it needs to be peaceful or to be harmonious with your mood of learning. You can play load music and learn and be a peace within yourself. Its probably not a good idea if you are trying to learn for exams because your mind will recall better if you were playing the load music and you cannot do that in an examination hall. Its best to study for exams in the quiet of a room where you are not being distracted by TV, by family or pets. You need to create such a place in your home, if possible. If you can't do that, you need to go to a restaurant, library, coffee shop, book store, or some place quiet where they don't mind kids sitting quietly learning, sketching and reading.

1. Mind Mapping and Thinking

The origin of some of my ideas and my sketching of lectures comes from the work of Tony Buzan on mind mapping. Its very useful to learn how to do mind maps. There are lots of free software programs that help you in the process while you are on the computer. The range of mind mapping tools is absolutely enormous, so I won't try to tell you which ones to use, other than to say that you don't need softward to mind map effectively.

I learned how to take lecture notes by use of mind maps rather than normal lecture notes across the page. The mind map lecture notes you need to begin with a notebook that is blank. Instead of writing sentences while a lecture is being delivered, you draw the lecture as a series of mind maps. You begin by understanding what the lecturer is trying to say, and you use the mind mapping method to record the points the lecturer is making. This is a dynamic process and requires a bit of practice, but I found that my lecture notes for lectures given at British and American universities about social sciences, literature, history, physics, mathematics, and computers, were better because of mind mapping techniques.

2. The Law of Associations

Think of yourself as a budding artist. We, all, are artists in our own specific ways. Learning comes by association. If you want to learn something, you need to associate with that who is that is going to teach you, or what medium you can use to teach you. No association means no learning. There are many ways to associate yourself with an instructor, agent of instruction, or technology of instruction. If you want to learn how to drive for example, you associate with a car, with your parent or friend who is older and knows how to drive, with a book on how to drive, with the road, with the parking lot, with the highway, with the signs, and so on.

Associating with someone who already is highly skilled at what you want to learn is the best way to learn if there is any way that you can watch them in action or if they can teach you. You associate with your parents to learn how to be a parent. If your parent is not a good parent then your association with your parent won't teach you how to be a good parent other than by reverse copy catting. In this case you learn what is correct by observing what is incorrect. If you want to learn how to make someone happy, you do this by both copy catting and reverse copy catting. You watch what achieves happiness and you watch what makes for unhappiness. You learn by associating with the process that you wish to acquire skills in or knowledge about.

Associations can come directly by past experience or by sitting down and trying to think what would be a way to associate yourself with something that you wish to learn. As an artist, I do this by taking a blank piece of paper and writing the word me in the center then drawing a circle around it. The circle doesn't have to be perfect, but just enclose it. Suppose I have the goal of my learning to be to get a job that pays me a million dollars a year. To learn how to do that I have to associate with something that is connected to an annual income of a million dollars. As I am doing this I realize that there are sub conditions that I wish to place on myself. The first is that I want to associate only with an income stream of a million dollars that is earned honestly. If I am a young Canadian boy that might mean a hockey player, who plays for the professional league. So, there I am, aware of myself, and writing on my piece of paper the words 'hockey professional.' To accelerate my learning about how to make a million dollar income, I could associate with a hock player who earns an annual income of one million dollars.

There is a problem, or better put, a consequence arising from the law of association in learning that I, as an artist, put forth, and that is that associations also bring about learning of other things very rapidly. By associating with one thing, you associate with another, and you learn about the connections between one thing and another, and you see connections or associations that you would not otherwise see. That is why I think that associating with history and our history is so important to learning.

If you do not associate with the history of what it is you are learning about, you miss the connections that will accelerate your learning, you miss the 'don't do's of learning. For example, if you want to learn how to build a better society, you will accelerate your learning about how you can achieve that goal by actually associating with a better society, but you can also learn by associating yourself with a much worse society and seeing how not to build a better society, by associating with those things that do not build a better society. In this process of association, you need to associate with the events and things of the history that you are seeking to learn about, all at the same time not forgetting to associate with the negative things so that you learn about them as well.

Learning is a very personal thing, and one for which there are other aspects that you need in your achievement of accelerated learning: wanting and sketching; daydreaming and concentration; steps to memory improvement; enjoying your research home work.

3. Wanting and Sketching

When people would ask me what attracted me to painting and sketch, I would say that it is important to want something first. I would visit the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC almost every lunch break over several years. It was a great way to have a great meal and to se the work of the best of artists. In other words, I associated myself with good art of some of the best artists that have ever lived. In this way, by seeing their work and by copying it, I was able to progress rather rapidly in my skills as an artist. I got so that I felt there was no image that I could not create. Boy was this wrong!

What I have learned is that the world of art is in the galleries, but it is also widely distributed around the globe. There is fantastic stuff being done in private studios that lean towards or away from the electronic arts. To learn how to draw on the computer, I went to Montgomery College in Rockville and then to the University of Maryland. I attend both these university art environments with the female artist Lesley Skeith, who was a perfectionist and a brilliant copiest. Unfortunately, Lesley passed away suddenly from breast cancer in 2002 but before she died, we had worked together many years on many art and computer projects. Lesley had a great sense of humour and an eye for composition that was simple marvelous.

In 2001, I did an oil painting of Lesley Skeith staring at the bulletin board at Wake Forest University, where her son Mark Skeith attended. Mark attained a first rate degree and lived in Japan afterwords learning Japanese. At the time of the painting, Mark was working in the university library and was enjoying the world of pig kidnapping. His fraternity hit the headlines when the kidnapped a pig from a farmer. Mark was fun loving and got himself into many difficult situations before maturing into his new world of diplomacy and international relations.

4. Daydreaming and Concentration

What I was doing in the previous paragraph was day dreaming. Day dreaming is an important tool of the artist and is key to motivation and inspiration. In a day dream, we tend to be aware of things in an independent way that frees us from reality and allows the creative side of our brain a free reign. In our day dreams we travel to places that we would not normally go, and associate internally with impressions, sounds and images that have been captured in our past at times when we have been most aware of ourselves and our wants.

Day dreaming involves the mind concentrating on visual or aural direction and impressions that have been stored up by our brain for future use as in dreams, useful recall, or day dreaming. Scientists really don't know where the brain stores information, or whether the brain is an instrument of retrieval of information that is accessible through time because of channels that the brain 'lays' down between instances of time. There are reasons for thinking that the brain has associations with the quantum physical world. Such research is being undertaken by Roger Penrose at Cambridge University, who was a creative thinker about the role of higher mathematics in art and space. Tegmark a Swedish physicist disagrees with the notion of the brain being active at the quantum. The fact is that at present nothing has been verified in this complex field of study.

5. Steps to Memory Improvement

The usual method of remembering something is read, register it in the brain, and recall it from the brain. The recalling is very important and if you have a method of registering information as well as retrieving it you are well a way to getting straight 'A's in many schools. If you use mind mapping methods you will find it is much easier to remember an associated point than one that is unassociated. In schools in Britain, where marking on the curve is prevalent, you may be brilliant, but fail. It's the British way of dumbing down! Memory is not enough in some school systems to get you a pass. You also need to learn how to think and process information. Mind mapping techniques can assist with that as well.

6. Enjoying Your Home Work

When you read your notes that are mind mapped it is amazing to see how quickly you learn and recall information assuming that you have the correct associations. You will enjoy your home work much more when you use mind mapping techniques.

The Joy of Sketching

NOT DUMBLEDORE!

Sketching is partly serious, but mainly the mind at play. It is not simple, but it is rewarding if you persist. It is also extremely useful in any activity requiring thought. I frequently sketch just to be creative. Much of the images are exploratory, and it is often easy to get discouraged when they don't immediately take a shape that one likes. That is why it is useful to do verbal sketches as well as visual. A verbal sketch requires the same tools of a pencil and paper.

Sketching, when it is serious, may be a valuable tool in creating thinking. The teacher Edward de Bono has many ideas about how one can use sketches to get your ideas into a form where they can be used. He developed the idea of thought hats where you assumed a role and took it to its logical or creative conclusion. Put on a type of hat and think in the way that the hat you put on would suggest that you thought. This idea can be expanded in many ways, and I am sure actors often have to assume thought hats when trying to get their characterization correct or interesting.

When I was a student at university, I would rarely take notes in the normal way. Much of my time was spend sketching logic maps of the lecture material as it was being delivered. I would use blank unlined note paper and my notes would look pretty disorganized to most people, but underlying them was the logic of the lecture. I rarely got less than an 'a' using this method and saved myself a lot of time trying to remember my notes. They just seemed to be more memorable.

The Processes and Regions of Discovery - 1. The Self

BEAUTIFUL DARTMOOR

The processes of discovery require a sense of personal awareness that we might not realize. We discover things in many ways at many times. Often, we don't realize that we have made a discovery. Then, suddenly our brain kicks in and says, "Wake Up! You have discovered something new. Be aware! Be conscious of what it is that you are perceiving!"

I often meet people who say that they never read fiction, that they are grounded in the real world and don't need the rubbish of imagination to cope with the real world. This is, in my opinion, the gravest of mistakes. It is like saying I do not believe that humour is good for me. Humour is the operation of the imaginary component, when we see logical constructs come in conflict with each other, and we make a discovery about the truth of our reality. It is that we are not real, and we are not part of a real world. We need to understand this fact before we can make any progress in the world of invention and innovation.

I have determined four broad areas or types of personal discovery, which can actually include scientific discovery and invention. I would recommend that you develop your skills in each of these groups moving to the next level as you progress. Unlike the discovery process in some teachings, I see the discovery of the world as the last stage and do not put primacy on self discovery as the end of the process. But, I do see self discovery as essential before world discovery.

1. The Self
2. The Group
3. The Roots of Being
4. The World

The greatest discovery region is that of world discovery. That is why you exist, not self discovery. Self discovery is only a pre-condition for finding and then be enabled to make true discoveries about the world, to invent new technologies and understandings. Ever wonder why those who are too religious or self centered don't invent useful things for the world, don't make things that enable real progress in the world! They are too wrapped up in themselves.

Most people get the sequence of discovery wrong and end the processes of discovery within themselves. This is not correct. Discover yourself first then the world. You will find that as you enter the last process and make discoveries about your world, you will be strengthening the processes of self discovery automatically without effort, but initially you need to engage in self discovery:

These types of discovery are related to how we process information that forms the basis of our discoveries. They do not tell us what we discover, but direct us towards the processing that goes on and the motivation behind discovery. What we don't often realize is that we discover things about ourselves and our world because our psychology enables us to or we don't discover things because our psychology disables us from discovery.

Discovery associated with yourself or the self

What you need to discover in the self-discovery process is what your brain is willing to let you discover. You brain is a very fast component of your being so you may not be aware that it is even an enabler or dis-abler of your desire and directions of discovery. You may not even be aware that you need to tune into what your brain is actually doing. If you don't you are captive to your brain and all the limitations that it places on you to keep you from discovering yourself.

Some people go to the point of disabling the brain through drugs. But while these methods may work for a time they are addictive in that they are very unreliable after repeat attempts and more of the drug is required. No! Don't use drugs to discover yourself. They are very bad. Use your own will to discover yourself.

Better still there are some writers that help in the self discovery enabling process. Authors such as Norman Vincent Peale very quickly draw you into methods that target your inner self discovery mechanisms. Alternative, you will find that some fiction writers are very strong stimulants of inner self discovery mechanisms. Tolkien, in particular, is extremely helpful. I am not referring to the films that were based on his books, which fall into the group discovery process, but on your reading the books of Tolkien alone and seeking to comprehend what he is saying to you about how you can discover who you are.

Read the Hobbit and then the Lord of the Rings. When you have finished these books you will have discovered yourself, I assure you. But, you must read the books. It is not the visual presentation of Tolkien's ideas from outside that will help you discover yourself, but your own mental images of the what he writes, which will trigger mechanisms within your mind that will enable your to begin to discover yourself, perhaps deeply, for the first time.

Another writer that I can recommend for self discovery is Mark Twain. His books about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are particularly good at helping one to discover oneself. The thing is though that you must read the books for yourself quietly and privately.

When you read, find a comfortable place that is very quiet. Turn off the radio, music, turn the light down to soft, have something to drink beside you and a few treats to munch as you read. Prepare yourself for a long trip into the worlds these authors create. As you enter these worlds you will discover many things about yourself.

Think about what Tolkien or Twain are saying. Try to get inside the characters and build mental images of the worlds in which the characters live. As you do, you will develop skills needed to discover yourself, awareness's that you will find valuable in your self discovery process.

Think Positively in All That you Do - A Gitomer World

DID YOU EAT MY MOTHER ?

One of the most positive individuals to hit the book stands in recent years, deposing Norman Vincent Peale, is an author going by the name of Jeffery Gitomer. What makes Gitomer so absolutely appealing is that he thinks that one should work and that working hard is good for you. It may even help you create a positive attitude in all that you do. Gitomer says that watching the news is not a great way to develop a positive attitude. Turn the TV off and study how you can really help other people.

Knowledge Creation Using the Internet

The Internet is not just a means for disseminating information, it is also a vehicle of knowledge creation. In our highly scientific world, we need verification of results of studies and experiments before we consider them to be valid. The Internet is a means by which the results of studies can be directly validated. A person in one lab can actually watch another person conduct an experiment. There is no longer a need to wait to see an experiment performed. Everyone can watch it being performed. This is knowledge creation. Its not technology creation necessarily, but it is knowledge creation, and it is occurring very rapidly and it can occur even more rapidly.

When I did my first studies of technology transfer in the early 1970's, the process of knowledge creation was laborious to say the least. Today, what I did then can be performed over the Internet. It is now possible for a researcher to interview heads of research over the Internet. Wow! Now that is a change.

Teaching People How to Think

The tragedy of many educational systems is that they don't teach children how to think for themselves.

The sign of a good teacher is that the students walk away with what education is all about. I would go even further to say that life is all about thinking for oneself. If you don't learn how to think and as a consequence don't understand why and who you are what you are, then you really miss the boat.

In my conversation with Dr. Dyson-Bruce yesterday, she said to me that as a student of art she would be a challenge to her teachers. The reason was because she raised the bar with respect to what she wanted to hear in the classroom. Her point was that she did not want the teacher to tell her what they mostly felt the responsibility to tell her, but to tell her more. "Teacher! I can get that from a book. What I want from you is something that I can't get from a book!"