July 1, 2026: Making Space Makes Sense?

The actual state of our knowledge is always provisional. Louis de Broglie

The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious. P.D. Ouspensky

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell. John Milton

The full he empties, and the empty he fills. Charles Spurgeon

Stuff seems to be what most of humanity sees. Space is merely where stuff goes. Both are important, but perhaps space is the better focus. After all, it is in the space where we live.

An individual’s perspective is as unique as one’s face, fingerprint, or DNA. It is a fact that the individual’s perspective is an interpretation—a construct. However, rightly done, a construct employs objective data.

An individual community perspective is also an interpretation—a construct—and can also be quite unique from other community perspectives. Rightly done, that construct also employs objective data.

The validity of our construct can only be measured by our operational definition of what we are truly seeking to measure.  And such definitions are by nature, a perspective.

In essence, we tend to choose what we think and feel will work in engineering the framework of our construction (thoughts and feelings almost always go together, though sometimes one can be the driver of the other).

Our North Star may anchor our cardinal directions, but to go one way or the other does not necessarily mean doing so in a linear fashion. Sometimes one must go south or east to go north or west. That’s also true in the absence of a North Star, real or imagined.

If we get what we want, we call it success. It is easy to let successes get in the way of success. What worked may not be best. And that blindness can keep new insight out of sight.

An Application?

The past has roots in the present. So does the future. But it is the self who creates the linkage.

The fox might be guarding the henhouse.

I am in the camp where the self—the individual or community self—may be an illusion (or delusion), but it matters in individual embodiment and the construction of a community. The individual and community sense of self is a perspective from its own body in space, place, and time. And it is that individual and community self who are defining, manifesting, and measuring its own validity. As such, it’s easy to go astray unless one keeps checking the validity of our meanings.

Knowing stuff can be both a blessing and a bondage. Stuff is important to an embodied being since the individual and community body has its own demands and aspirations. But that pursuit can become the self’s prison (or Plato’s Cave if you like).  If the body always rules, the horse rides the rider.

Still, embodiment of any kind matters since it can leave an imprint on stuff or others. To make positive imprints, embodied consciousness needs to check in with the space between the stuff. Correct or incorrect breathing can be a clue whether it’s a good space or good stuff. After all, many folk are afraid of nothingness, while others might be unhappy about stuff.

On some level, we all know that if any form of self does not develop, it stagnates. And that also leaves an imprint since other selves can bear witness.

Democracy, both within us and as an organizational effort, is about checks and balances.

Realistic fear has its place, but fear-of-fear does not.

The fear-of-fear perception divides not only the electorate, but the individual self as well, because it narrows the focus unrealistically.  Realistic fear requires a narrowed focus if one is under immediate assault. But that same narrow application applied to unrealistic fear is about as useful as running in circles if one is on fire.

In other words, being aware is not the same as being in a state of beware.

Beware requires awareness about some particular thing.

To be aware requires being alert without filling up the space.    

Both aware and beware are important depending on what’s afoot, but being aware is the precursor to beware, not the other way around.

The principle of democracy (power vested in the people), both in individuals and in the body politic, is to decide. When a decision is a mistake, the point is to correct the mistake, not to enforce it.

Perhaps it is best for all of us to remember a civil society is about all of us. It is about both the individual and community’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, but not at the expense of others.  We have tools like checks and balances and innocence before guilt. To focus on winners or losers is to take our eye off our supposedly sacred democratic direction—and that becomes like a drunk driver absorbed with tasks other than driving.

The issue before us, individually and collectively, is not about individual, state, or federal rights, it is about what rights each facet has and what rights each facet does not have. While that notion may sound obvious, the behavioral application does not seem so obvious.

Those who focus solely on money, power, and control are always looking for ways to grab more. Greed is not a characteristic we need to follow. But we have regularly put such folks in positions of power.

The solution is not law and order, though rightly done, it helps.

The solution is not political, religious, or educational, though rightly done, it helps.

Our job is to ensure the availability of the paths that are included in our democratic process. And that means more than food, clothing, and shelter. It means medical care, transportation, vacations, educational opportunities, meaningful jobs (even if we begin with jobs to survive) and much more.

And our job is also to ensure the barriers to being usurped by another facet of our organizational construct also remain in place.

The following is hindsight of course, but we can make it foresight: 165 years ago (or even earlier), the North could have chosen to fund the South by helping to change the nature of its economy and livelihood instead of both going into a “civil war” to force the change. It would not have been a knee on the neck, hundreds of thousands of dead, and that war still brewing. Instead, helping change to another kind of economy could have been a helping hand without constructing an us-and-them category. But, as it was before that war and as it is now, humanity seems to prefer “us and them.”

Governments who govern well have constituents who live well. Individuals who govern themselves well, have governments who govern well. Hmmm.

As 100% is nearly impossible, living and governing well doesn’t mean we take our eye off the carpetbaggers or the grifters, it means focusing on inclusivity, individuality, and civility by realizing those three are not mutually exclusive.

Going forward, perhaps we can apply such an example as helping the South to change economies instead of warring?  It might be more firmer footing than pretending it’s all about having rights taken away. I mean no offense, but the “Civil War” was about usurping individual rights. I suspect killing didn’t right the ship, even if the North “won.”

Apply that to all of the individual wars still afoot.

Sometimes actual help means ignoring knee-jerk vitriol in favor of sitting in the space between stuff and seeing instead of letting first-impression defaults rule to roost.

To love unconditionally requires no contracts, bargains, or agreements. Marion Woodman

To construct does require contracts, bargains, agreements and a willingness to engineer and reengineer in the common pursuit of fulfilling the promise of the Constitution and Bill of Rights for all, though those rights might have different applications at different times. That’s where the construct of due process comes in.

Nothing new in this sentence: Let’s use the tools of peace and open hands instead of war and clenched fists.

Sometimes it might come to the latter, but it is only wannabe heroes, highly insecure selves, impatient folks, grifters, and the power-hungry who itch to war. Interestingly, many, if not most who have soldiered in war, do not want to see war break out. But there are individuals who will wage civil war in a heartbeat.