Change and the In-Between

Today I stood half asleep at the train platform, in one specific spot where the one specific door would open, so that when I arrived at my destination, I could exit the door in the spot closest to the stairs, providing me the quickest route to the bus, providing me the quickest access to the most comfortable spots on the bus. I have been doing this for three years. Today, the train pulled up, and my specific train doors were closed for maintenance. Jolted out of sleep, I rushed to the next car, adrenaline raking like hot coals through my organs. My lost sense of control was like life-and-death.

Trains are an example of an In-Between space, and meditating on trains helps one stay lucid in the In-Between, the transition, change that I find so cruelly painful. Change can be a a transition in jobs, a transition from life to death, or simply the transition from one present moment to the next. For me, there is much to be learned in staying lucid (maintaining crystalline awareness) and grounded throughout each In-Between.

My sense of control is supported by the Western science myth of oblivion, that once I die, I can finally release all control and float in blissful unconsciousness forever. But this may not be the case. I would like to begin training in navigating the In-Between not only I improve the quality of this incarnation, but I remain lucid upon body-death.

How do I balance the paradox of a limitless Spirit incarnated into solid matter? How do I embody a living architecture, rather than a clenched rectum, unable to release the shit?

Finally got my Winter 2013 Open Mic Tour scheduled. Come hear some music!

The Radical Introvert Rock Star (yes, me!)

It's important to start internalizing introversion as its own phenomenon, rather than defining it in contrast to extroversion. Because numerically we're the minority, we were raised without an understanding that we are introverts with unique gifts, but rather lacking something. Essentially, poorly developed extroverts.

Take the word "quiet." Sure, I am quiet, relative to extroverts. Funny, though: extroverts call me quiet, even shy, while introverts call me brash, opinionated, silly, and colorful. Personally, I don't feel I'm "quiet." To me, most other people are LOUD! Nonstop babble and chatter is not normal to me. Just look at the natural world. A forest doesn't have any crazy flashing lights and sirens. It's extroverted humans who've created little hell-havens of overstimulation that would shatter most other animals' and plants' nervous systems!

Fortunately, at least now we have the neuroscience to realize that introverts have a vastly different neural circuitry than extroverts (introverts process stimuli and information via different pathways that involve long-term memory and acetylcholine, whereas extroverts' pathway relies more on short-term memory and the neurotransmitter dopamine, getting euphoric dopamine hits at new stimuli). Both are complete beings with a different arrangement of parts.

Not only that, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and its paradigm of humans as machines, brought about the rise of the Extrovert Ideal, namely the businessman, the salesman. At the early part of the 20th century, enter Dale Carnegie, "How to Win Friends and Influence People," and the beginning of the Self-Help movement, much of which served the Extrovert Agenda by training people to be better extroverts.

Our schools were designed with pods, groups of desks facing one another, forcing kids into extroverted "learning" all day long, claiming that something's wrong if the kid isn't socializing (there were endless conversations growing up between my parents and teachers, that I wasn't social enough, and didn't talk in class enough). I would even argue that the extroverted school and work settings are preventing introverts from learning and communicating in their natural way, and stifling their natural creativity and brilliance, that only come with solitude.