Distilled Harmony Foreword - Dedicated to my Daughters

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When they lie there in their cribs, 

It seems as though you can look  

Right into their hearts.

That you will always understand them

And they you.

In truth you will always be on

Different trajectories arching through 

Unique experiences in life.

You will remain decades apart, 

Seeing existence through varied lenses.

This is a time capsule I launch, 

On its arch across space-time.

In the hope that it will, 

When needed - intersect with theirs

Creating moments of understanding,

Providing shelter from the storm,

And surprising them with love.

My father's death was a strange surprise.  It wasn't one of those "He was so young, we never saw it coming" situations. It was quite the opposite as a matter of fact.  He was 100 years old.  He had always been in the world - as certain as taxes and, well, death.  My mother and older brother were examples of "normal strange." Jim, too young, Mom sudden and unexpected.  As a result I have grown used to "imagining them on my shoulder." I ask them the questions we all ask of our departed role models "What would you do in this situation?" "What did you believe?"  

I make my best guesses as to their responses. But they are only guesses.  We rarely have those "deep" discussions when we can actually get answers - and then the chance is gone.

Dad was the illusion of an exception.  100 seemed normal. He was always there, and for decades he would provide, if not answers, then at least input or opinions.  However, during the last few years of his life, when a good day for Dad was defined by clear memories of events long past and simple recognition, I realized I had already lost the chance to ask Dad "What would you do in this situation? What do you believe about this part of life?"  The opportunities for mutually meaningful conversation had slipped away, lost between the more surface joviality of birthdays and Christmases, lost between the time-and-energy pressure of jobs and children, lost in the gap between his maturity and mine. 

I'm not sure exactly why or when I decided to try to reclaim those losses by reflecting on both what I believe about existence and how those beliefs influence what I have done and what I will do. And then, to use those reflective insights as the foundations of these media recitations.  

By looking back through my writings and drawings, the introspection seems to have surfaced around the turn of the millennium. That moment's import on the Gregorian Calendar is probably of less significance than that point in the RobertSchragian calendar - I had turned 50 in 1999.  And strange things happen when you suspect that more of your life lies in the rear view window than awaits beyond the windshield.

In our youth obsessed culture, the inclination to try to scramble back into life in the rearview window is well-represented in fact and fiction. More valuable, I have come to believe, is seeking an understanding of what unifies the full 360 degrees of our life; realizing that those rearview, windshield, out the side-windows, distinctions are illusions.  It is all one existence. We just tend to look out the windows one at a time.

When I cruised past 50, it was as if I somehow levitated above the vehicle - and there I was suspended in the center of my existence - limitless horizons in all directions.  It was staggering. On the one hand it was exhilarating - everything gained new potential, a new freedom to zoom off in any direction. On the other hand it would be an agoraphobic's nightmare, hidden threats lurking around every corner.  Reconciling those extremes, to reveal the underlying existential unity of a life, is the challenge and the true exhilaration of "life outside the vehicle."

It was not long after beginning that exploration of life outside the vehicle, that I came to realize that "some kind of Harmony" was central to my personal existence.  Most everything I have written, or drawn, since that realization reflects my attempts to understand and articulate that Harmony.  Distilled Harmony – this series of recitations - is, in my mind, the best, clearest exploration of this worldview to date.  I hope it allows my daughters to better understand me. If others benefit as well, that is truly wonderful! 

So enjoy. . .

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The Pursuit of Knowledge as a Measure of Cultural Maturity, or "Why is No One Out There Talking to Us?"

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As I sit here at my desk I am surrounded by five screens.  The World Cup match between Argentina and the Netherlands is unfolding silently on my iPad while my laptop powers two screens, one holds Evernote where I am composing this essay, the other a Chrome window set to look for cheap car rental rates for a trip later this month, and to scan for any incoming emails. To my left sits my Wacom Cintiq panel where I am working on some new drawings. My cellphone rests somewhere around here - I'll find it if it rings. Pandora plays piano solos in the background - I'm not sure where it is coming from. This is my environment, one that I have come to accept as normal, but in which I am still not entirely comfortable.  

I grew up in an era in which acquiring information and advancing knowledge required significant real-time effort. Whether you labored in a university or a corporate research and development laboratory, you wandered the stacks of the library. You paged through journal articles. You conducted research by interacting with subjects or samples that were often in the same room or lab. You applied critical models or coded data, ran tests and examined results.  Then you looked for patterns and insights that allowed you to broach defensible conclusions or generate new hypotheses. Gathering information and advancing knowledge was hard work, and behind it always lurked the often unspoken assumption that the pursuit of knowledge was, in itself, an honorable goal.

Now more information than I could ever hope to acquire on my own shimmers across these screens that surround me. If I pose any hypothesis in the form of a question and enter it into Google Scholar or more specialized search engines available online through the university library, links to hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of studies will flash onto my screen providing - if not answers - then seemingly countless rabbit holes into which I can stumble and while away an afternoon, a week, or a career. In short, the pursuit of knowledge has become largely automated, as much programming as reflection. Where once we could dip a tentative toe in a particular pool, today we stand on the banks of rivers at flood stage, deciding whether or not to leap in. The sheer volume of information seems to demand levels of specialization undreamed of in my undergraduate days. The Mediaeval notion of a Renaissance man who could aim realistically at learning the sum of human knowledge is more fanciful than our wildest science fiction.

It is certainly a "brave new world." But, as always, the dynamic between knowledge and culture can be intense and unexpected.  The accumulation of new knowledge, by definition, mandates change. And change is, as often as not, uncomfortable, even frightening. And society - particularly those who benefit most from current norms - reacts poorly to change or information that falls somehow afoul of the current notion of truth. Historical negative responses to new or unexpected information have run the gamut from burning witches to burning books. And it would be nice to think it was all in the past. The streams of information flowing across my screen assert that is not the case.

A variety of news sources reveal that fundamentalists of every faith would have us turn the clock of human knowledge back several thousand years; stuffing, for example, the miraculous reality of evolution into the pleasant, fictional poetry of Genesis, or another of the myriad creation myths from our colorful and blended heritage.  As I write this a militaristic fundamentalist Sunni Islamic group known as ISIS - The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is, apparently, attempting to recreate an historically and theologically pure Sunni entity in the Middle East - one that would perpetuate Sharia law, including the subservient place of women, supposedly demanded by centuries-old assumptions drawn from interpretations of the Quo-ran. Here in the rural South some Pentecostal believers still handle poisonous snakes because in one translation of the Bible it says "They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." I do not mean to single out Islam and Christianity, they come to mind as they get the most attention in that media flow here on my screens. Choose the extreme sliver of any religious or political organization and you are likely to find an affection for the past and an unwillingness to embrace any new knowledge that conflicts with time-honored old myths that have fossilized into truth.

As fundamentalism gains influence in the American political landscape - perhaps most obvious with the Republican Party, the traditional conservative standard bearer in American politics being attacked as "not conservative enough" or "Republican in Name Only" aka "RINOS" - opportunistic politicians seek to curry favor with this increasingly vocal and well-funded, anti-intellectual portion of the electorate.  One result, at least publicly and in policy, is a growing distrust of new knowledge or education in general. This creates real problems in America's intellectual community - those who still believe that the pursuit of knowledge is, in itself, an honorable goal.

You see, in America, traditionally financial support for intellectual endeavors springs primarily from three sources; from its public tax supported institutions; from private institutions endowed by a wealthy elite class, or by multinational corporations purchasing research that will result in new products for expanding markets.  That is a model that seems to be gaining traction internationally, leading to a series of global conflicts between fundamentalist movements of a variety of stripes who oppose education and new knowledge for religious or political reasons, and multinational corporate entities or state-run economies that seek to direct human intellectual activities down paths that advantage their financial or political objectives. Neither side fights fair - allowing for the moment that the notion of a "fair fight" need not always be an oxymoron.

OK. Now shift gears for a moment.  Since the beginning of human society we have stared into the heavens wondering is we are alone.  In the last century or so we have peered further and further into the nooks and crannies of the universe, discovering galaxies, stars, and planets seemingly without number - there is even good evidence that our universe may be only one of many.  The notion that we are alone becomes absurd.  A more interesting question then becomes "Why is no one out there talking to us?"

Think about it for a moment. As a species we are remarkably clever. Our radio-telescopes listen to the murmur of the universe, our probes are poised to pierce the heliosphere. We are unwinding the mysteries of the genome. We talk boldly of coming to understand the brain, to poke at the edges of immortality.  So we should ask again "Why is no one out there talking to us?"  We can assume the existence of entities far more clever than we.  Civilizations that span planets and galaxies. There are just too many galaxies for homo sapiens to define the apex of sentient existence. It is more likely that the smarter kids in the class have been watching us for a long time. But it is equally likely that we will never be allowed to sit at their table in the lunchroom until we advance beyond our current adolescent fixations over power and politics, until we stop our schoolyard brawling and behave like adults.

And there is only one path to that admirable goal. We need to acknowledge the depth of our ignorance. We need to learn more, we need to study more, we need to become smarter. We need to realize that a truly healthy culture is one that seeks knowledge with the same ferocious intensity that, as a species, we currently seem only able to bring to the conduct of war.  Maybe then the smart kids will be willing to talk to us.

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The Look of Love - Or Something Else

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The eyes, we are told, are windows to the soul.  Hence, a long gaze into the eyes of any other might be quite revealing - could we but overcome the embarrassment.  It is an activity fraught with social implications and, at least in Western culture, restricted almost exclusively to lovers.  Yet, there are other acceptable recipients of long and seeking gazes; among them are babies, pets, portraits and, of course, the mirror.

The object of every gaze is discovery.  Lovers seek the reassurance of reciprocated affection, a promise that what one feels for the other, is likewise mirrored in their lover's eyes. In babies we project as much as we observe. We feel we glance, in those guileless orbs, the memory of past generations; the correction of bygone errors and the promise of futures full of joy and wonder. In the eyes of our pets we glimpse wise and sentient beings, untouched by human frailties, who love us unconditionally. And why not? What's not to love?

Portraits and mirrors move us into a more mysterious realm.  I admit to being fascinated by portraits. The often denigrated aboriginal belief that a camera could steal your soul may not be as naive as we portray it. I am not asserting that a photo or a painting steals something from a subject, but rather that an exceptional representation fashions a harmonic connection with the entity portrayed. I will also admit to being an unabashed fan of the photographer Yosuf Karsh. You may think you are unfamiliar with his work - but you are not.  Click over to www.karsh.org and you will realize that you know him well. Look at Einstein, Humphrey Bogart, Castro, Hemingway and Mother Teresa. Not only do you know Karsh's work, but his portraits play a large part in our perception of the people he photographed. Yosuf Karsh is to the human face what Ansel Adams is to Yellowstone, what Georgia O'Keeffe is to New Mexico. We look into the eyes of a Karsh portrait and see, not a soul stolen, but a soul reflected.

And the idea of a soul reflected leads us, naturally, to a consideration of mirrors. Despite the recent boom in skin care products for men, the make-up session before a mirror remains primarily a feminine occupation. It appears, at first blush, an acceptable lingering manifestation of the patriarchy. On closer examination I would assert it is much more.  Having been an undergraduate theater major, I have had a more than passing acquaintance with "the man in the mirror."  At 19 I rarely played a character my own age.  Freshman year I played Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Sir in the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd.  Both characters were men in late middle age, one beaten, the other bombastic. Neither bore any resemblance to a fresh-faced kid from central Ohio.

We were expected to do our own make-up; and occasionally - depending on what theater class we were taking at the time - we were graded on our ability to transform our faces into a believable representation of our character.  And so began my personal travels into the looking glass. For hours I would stare into the eyes of the face before me, looking for the person it was supposed to be.  A shadow here, a wrinkle there, the inevitable blush of dissipation, a sag of age, and gradually Willy or Sir would appear. But I was rarely "finished." Having, as always, chosen the chair furthest from the door, I would remain - staring at the person I had become. Looking for the history behind the visage until it was time to walk him out onto the stage.

Now, of course, I wonder if this is what women do everyday. Beginning with what is there in the mirror, then artfully creating the idealized person they wish to present to the world - or perhaps crafting the face that the world they have chosen demands of them. 

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Oppose Harm

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The admonition to Oppose Harm seems, at first blush, to be embarrassingly simplistic.  A decade ago it would have triggered a "Well, duh!" from anyone a few years either side of 20.  Today an "eye roll," that must eventually do real damage to the optic nerve, would not be a surprising reaction. Yet it is an "obvious" tenet to which we give more lip service than actual support.  Bullying remains a social cancer in America's schools.  Globally, entire cohorts defined by race or gender, belief or sexual orientation, are singled out for state-sponsored bullying, imprisonment or worse.

It is far from being an "eye-rolling, no big deal." If we don't commit to Opposing Harm, bullies will run the world. Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, and Idi Amin are but four of history's many bullies who came to terrorize and murder millions because, as cultures, nations and individuals, we failed to Oppose Harm. So, we should go kick some "bully butt!" Send in the drones, right?

Well, certainly sometimes; but not always. When you stop and think about it for a moment - or even longer - the charge to Oppose Harm is really not that simple.  Rather, on further consideration, Oppose Harm swiftly reveals itself to be half of the most complex dynamic within Distilled Harmony.

Remember, the first - and preeminent - tenet of Distilled Harmony is Foster Harmony.  When Distilled Harmony requires us to both Foster Harmony and Oppose Harm there seems an obvious tension, an unavoidable discord. Opposition is, by definition, discordant and hence cannot Foster Harmony.  No argument. But, when a single situation pits Foster Harmony against Oppose Harm, the objective is to find the harmonic resolution resulting in the greater good.

Defining a "greater good" is always a daunting task, but we can approach it more successfully if we, as the tenet Distill Complexity suggests, avoid getting mired in fruitless complexities.  Albert Einstein asserted that seemingly complex truths about the universe could be distilled to concise explanations because "God does not play dice" with the universe.  Einstein was also a pacifist who would have whole-heartedly supported Isaac Asimov's assertion in Foundation, that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

But Einstein was no ordinary pacifist; he was a radical pacifist who was also the most famous man of his era. His public statements drew immediate and worldwide attention; and those statements made it clear that he believed that there was no legitimate justification for war; that the only way to put an end to war was to refuse to participate in warfare in any way. To express Einstein's belief system in Distilled Harmony terms, Foster Harmony, with its inclination to pacifism, clearly trumped the warfare common in extreme examples of Oppose Harm.

Einstein, however, shared the world stage with a man quickly growing as infamous as Einstein was famous: Adolf Hitler. The swiftly evolving technology of modern warfare allowed Hitler to spread a wave of pathological murder and hatred across Europe and Northern Africa with unparalleled speed. And as it struck at Einstein's own family and colleagues, Einstein's moral fulcrum shifted.

Einstein, who also said "make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler" realized that radical pacifism's plain tautology of "war is always bad" over-simplified life in the real world. Hitler became the mandatory exception to Einstein's radical pacifism, and it became necessary - in Einstein's mind - to violently Oppose this unique Harm. So Einstein, much to the chagrin of the radical pacifism movement, withdrew his universal opposition to war and fled to America where his indirect participation in America's war plans hastened Hitler's fall.  In Distilled Harmony terms, the need to Oppose the Harm of Hitler's virulent pathologies trumped the compromise seemingly advocated in Foster Harmony's support of radical pacifism.

And that dynamic points out an important concept in the natural tension between Foster Harmony and Oppose Harm.  Foster Harmony does advocate fair and compassionate compromise. It does not, as a complete understanding of Oppose Harm reveals, advocate acquiescence to bullies.

Therein lies a balancing act of some sophistication.  You see, a common error is that in our righteous opposition to the harm perpetrated by bullies, we become bullies ourselves, taking arms against the "bad guys."  I am always mystified when I read about wars in which I would think it would be hard to identify the enemy.  Given the lack of uniforms among the civilians, I wonder how during "the Irish troubles" the combatants were able to distinguish a Catholic from a Protestant? On the smoke-filled battlefields of our Civil War, how, at a crucial moment, did you tell a Yank from Johnny Reb? In Vietnam, if there were no uniformed regulars around, how did the locals tell friend from foe?

Those who fought in those conflicts would probably be amazed at my naiveté.  But the point is this - the difference between the bully and the bullied is often simply power, pure naked power. And when that power shifts, often the bullied swiftly seize upon the roll of bully. The desire to carry "opposition" to your adversary to account for previous "harm" overwhelms the mandate to Foster Harmony.

And therein lies the most challenging aspect of this tension between Foster Harmony and Oppose Harm. Robert Burns wrote - translated to the contemporary vernacular - "Would some power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us."  We often wonder, from a personal, social or political perspective, how others can so misunderstand us.  I didn't say that!  I didn't mean that! That isn't me!

The tenets of Distilled Harmony don’t require us to accept the negative attributes heaped upon us by aggrieved others.   Certainly, as Americans, where each election seems - if you believe the media - to pit The Devil against Evil Incarnate, we realize that perceptions can be easily manipulated and distorted.  But a first step in the first tenet - Foster Harmony - is to try to "see ourselves as others see us," and in turn to re-examine how we have come to see the other. Such an examination may well reveal a path to Fostering Harmony that allows us to avoid this ticklish business of Opposing Harm.
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Distill Complexity

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Faith is a funny thing.  We often think of it in the context of religious belief.  As a matter of fact, the words faith and religion are often used interchangeably - he was of the Christian faith, she was of the Islamic faith, those of the Jewish faith observe Yom Kippur, and so on.  But that really is a kind of semantic theft.  More broadly speaking, faith refers to our confidence or trust in something or someone.  It can be fairly prosaic: She had complete faith in her dog's ability to find the way home. He had complete faith that his battered old Chevy would make it through the winter.

So in the context of our ordinary lives, our "faith" is our belief about the way in which the world works.  And it is our faith in that belief that, ideally, shapes our own behavior.  Sometimes that is an organized religion, sometimes it is a series of scientific laws, sometimes it is a personalized combination of religion and science, philosophy and politics.  Faith - belief and experience - governs our everyday lives.  We behave in ways that experience has taught us will obtain the results we desire; we have faith in those beliefs.

But Faith - writ large – stretches beyond our daily scrambles and challenges here on the third rock orbiting a minor star in a very ordinary galaxy.  Faith writ large is our understanding of the universe, of our place in it and how we should behave in accordance with that understanding. It is similar to, but far greater than lower case faith.

I place my Faith in something I have called by various names over the last couple of decades, Chord Theory, Universal Resonance, and now Distilled Harmony.  But while the name has shifted, the core theory doesn't change as much as it evolves.  It began with the three main tenets of Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, and Oppose Harm.  But I was always been bothered with a feeling that something was missing.  It was as if I was walking around a four-cornered gazebo. It looked quite solid, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was a column missing; that some swift Escher-like stage hand kept shifting the back pillar to the front, so three pillars took on the appearance of four.

I spent more than a little time thinking about the missing pillar. It seemed fond of teasing me awake in the little hours of the morning - 2, 3 and 4. Like a familiar face to which you just cannot connect a name. Almost there .  .  .   and then it finally came to me in the form of the tenet we are currently discussing - Distill Complexity.

Funny isn't it, piling all those words up before a phrase that essentially says, "simplify."  I knew for quite some time that the missing tenet was somewhere in that general “simplify” ballpark.  But I was always afraid of seeming to condone  simplicity, of conflating simplified with simple-minded.  

But, then came that night - or that very early morning when Distill Complexity popped into my mind.  It felt very, very right.  Distillation, as all good tipplers realize, concentrates the essence of that which is being distilled.  But the concept reaches far beyond the brewery.  A good outline precedes a moving speech or a brilliant novel.  A symphony winds around a simple melodic theme. E=mc2.  At the heart of every mind-blowing complexity lies an essential simple core.

Consider Picasso.  You stand in front of some of his late work, particularly his line art, and one is tempted to say "I could do that."  And, in a way, maybe so. But when you look at his very early works – works that can easily be mistaken for the Dutch masters - we suddenly realize that the path to Picasso's line art was far more complex than would be our attempt to create a "Picasso-like" line.  His line is distillation, ours, more likely, imitation.

I recently offered a toast at my younger daughter's wedding rehearsal dinner that dealt with Distill Complexity.  Part of it bears repeating here:

I said:

"Despite the seemingly unchanged lake outside, the world has changed a great deal since your older sister and her husband held center stage here just four years ago.  The good news is that much of what I said in my less-than-brief remarks to them is now available on the Distilled Harmony website [distilledharmony.com], where you can watch me say it over and over and over.

But lest you think you are going to escape totally unscathed, I must point out that I have added an additional "rule to live by" since I played the professor for them.  The new rule is "Distill Complexity," and I wanted to share a couple of ideas about that notion with you.

It is, you will not be surprised to hear me say, all Mark Zuckerburg's fault, a nice Jewish boy gone terribly astray.  It was Facebook™, after all, that gave us the notion of relationships that are "complicated."  Relationships are really not terribly complicated.  If we distill that particular complexity we often discover that when folks describe their relationship as “complicated”, they actually mean "it's scary."  You two are about make the simple but scary declaration that the other is to be the center of your life - mutually donning a pair of "I'm with stupid" T-shirts.  Another bizarre manifestation of how scary our culture finds this ritual of pair-bonding.

Distill Complexity asserts that we counter the scary notion of a "complicated relationship" with the old KISS design principle - Keep It Simple Stupid!  As you move forward in your life together, life will get complicated.  Career decisions, current data say you'll face quite a few. Families? Nuclear?  Extended? Children? Yes? No? Homegrown? Store bought? Dogs? Cats? Health challenges, etc. Yes, life will get complicated.  Life may even get scary.  But your relationship need not get complicated and scary if you remember KISS and keep it simple. 

And the simple reality should be that whenever life tosses complexity at you, remember what you will declare tomorrow - that the two of you are as complicated as it gets.  No job, no career, no family, no fame, trumps the simple declaration that whatever is best for each of you must be that which is best for both of you.  And as the great philosopher F.  Gump once said "That's all I'm going to say about that."

Poor kids, I know. But how often do they have to sit quietly and listen to you?

The charge then of this tenet is to reduce that which appears complex to its purest essence. Come to know the skeleton that supports the exterior.  When I tackled the task of sculpting busts of my daughters, my sculpting mentor would not allow me to simply take a big hunk of clay and try to carve away everything that didn't look like my daughters. Rather he insisted that I first create the skull beneath the face, define the more simple planes and curves that guide the complexity of muscle, skin and hair that would eventually look like my daughters.  

Distill Complexity requires us to do the same with life.  The three other tenets ask us to Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty and Oppose Harm. Distill Complexity says reduce those tasks to the skeletal - seek the more simple planes and curves of life upon which rest the seeming complexities of existence.  Avoid moaning that it is all so complicated and Distill Complexity – just KISS.

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Enable Beauty

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This tenet is difficult to define simply because Beauty is such a subjective concept.  "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" goes the old saying.  And the discussion becomes even more complicated because any consideration of Beauty gets tangled up with the larger idea of “art,” a discipline which seems to maintain, at least in the minds of some "artists," a fascination with the "ugly" the "grotesque" - the "unbeautiful."  Consider Picasso's Guernica, Migrant Mother by Dorthea Lange, or any of the host of Pulitzer Prize winning photos from the strangely named "theaters of war" around the world.  Art? Certainly.  Beauty? Just as certainly not. 

It is important to remember that the tenets of Distilled Harmony are mutually re-enforcing. So in Distilled Harmony any definition of Beauty must support the other tenets - Foster Harmony, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm.  Those other tenets allow, even require us to turn away from the arcane posturing necessary to find artistry in the grotesque and pursue a less tortured view of Beauty.

Looking through the eyes of Foster Harmony, I was first inclined to define Beauty as that which induces a harmonic kind of lethargy.  Your breathing slows, your blood pressure drops, you settle into a calm, peaceful reverie.  But I soon realized that Beauty could have quite the opposite effect.  Beauty is equally prone to energize us.  Our pulse races, we feel compelled to move, to dance, to sing!  What is this Beauty that seems to call forth such wildly varying responses?

The tenet Distill Complexity urges us to seek the least complicated explanation of such seeming disparity. Or as Einstein put it, "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." And there is, thankfully, a simple thing that unites both the ecstasy and the tranquility that beauty inspires: Beauty is that which makes us smile.

Simple? Certainly.  Simplistic? Far from it.  Mind you, I do not mean the sardonic, self-satisfied, superior smirk that has come to pass for a smile in contemporary sophisticated culture.  Rather, I mean an open, spontaneous, and joyful smile.  The pure smile of a delighted toddler, of a lover who is loved in return, of a parent watching a child sleep.  When any stimulus - a scene, a painting, a sculpture, a dance, a song, an object, a poem, a sentence, anything - draws such a smile from us, we are in the presence of Beauty as Distilled Harmony would have us understand it.

So we have defined second half the Enable Beauty tenet - Beauty.  Let us now turn our attention to the other: Enable.

There are three broad avenues through which we can Enable Beauty: create, collect and experience.

"Create" is self-explanatory.  We all at least dabble in creative activities, painting, poetry, the piano.  You know your favorite. Often these explorations fell by the wayside when we encountered intimidating "real artists" whose efforts exceeded our own.  And we, often nudged by well-meaning teachers and parents, soon relegated our creative efforts to the closet or under the bed and set about the serious business of getting a "real job," of making a living, of raising a family, of living a life.  Enable Beauty says haul them out again, create - not to ape the "experts" but for the sheer joy of creating.  We often forget that making beauty serves not only the observer, the audience, but the creator as well. Part of Enabling Beauty is the smile inherent in the act of creation.  Who knows, the day may well come when we create something to share, something that will bring a smile to another face, but often our own creative smile will suffice.

"Collect" speaks to the idea of living amidst Beauty.  Making our homes, our offices, our cubicles, yards and porches places that launch a smile. Here we often think too small, limiting ourselves to prints and posters, to a playlist on Spotify or Pandora.  We think that "art collecting" is for the 1% who can drop 30 million for a Van Gogh, 100K for a signed Ansel Adams print. We think opera and the symphony are for “old” people.  These biases allow “volume” to become an aesthetic variable in our music. They make IKEA and poster shops our interior decorators.  That kind of thinking limits our opportunities for smiles.

"Collect" says start now to surround yourself with the sounds and objects that make you smile, whatever now is for you. It matters not whether you are 15 or 85 or anywhere in between.  Remember, Van Gogh never sold a painting during his lifetime.  Hence it stands to reason that works from artists who will be the "old masters" of the next century are for sale at art fairs right now for 50 bucks. OK, maybe 150.00 - and that's a lot of pizza, but the return on your investment may be smiles for a lifetime.  For those of you further into your lives, consider that new car you are thinking about.  Can you peel a few grand off that purchase for that awesome piece of sculpture you saw at the gallery downtown?  

For all of us, we often eat at the same table everyday - do you want to buy the one on sale at IKEA or maybe aim for something with a little more kick.  Some inlay work? A little book matched mahogany?  Remember you eat there everyday!  Which would you chose for your daily companion, a smile or a shrug?

"Collect" is about living amidst smiles, collect what you love and never throw it away. Expose yourself to old museums and new galleries, symphonies and street corner musicians, sidewalk painters and boardwalk dancers.  As I said, collect what you love and never throw it away. Being a slave to a passing fashion is still being a slave.

"Collect" also asks that we listen to sounds that are unfamiliar to us.  Classical music doesn't just mean Mozart, who, when he was the “new band in town,” was accused of putting "too many notes" in his music.  Classical music, more purely speaking, means music with staying power - music that will be making people smile fifty, a hundred, two hundred years from now. Who would have thought when the "mop heads" played The Ed Sullivan Show in February more than a half century ago, that one day The London Symphony Orchestra would play their music and the baby-faced one would become Sir Paul? As you reach out and sample the music around you, you certainly will not like everything you listen to, but you should listen to as much as you can, so you will know what puts a smile on your face. Those selections become the soundtrack of your life pairing beauty for your eyes with smiles for your ears.

"Experience" is also an invitation to the smorgasbord of life.  Theaters, 14-screen cinemas, concert halls, museums, hi-def Smart TVs and surround sound systems all announce their intention to "entertain" us - perhaps to bring us into the presence of smile inducing Beauty.  Sometimes they succeed, and we should certainly allow them to try.  But it is important to remember that the artifacts that we encounter in those venues began life as someone's personal experience, someone's observation about existence that was translated into a form that sent that moment out into the world for us to share.  And some of those efforts become beautiful, some of those efforts bring us smiles.  Two points from that observation:

          First point - while we may never see our name in lights, or "make a living" by spinning our glimpses of Beauty out for others to see, part of experiencing Beauty is creating benchmarks of memory.  We may not be able to capture perfectly, in words or on canvas, in stone or with notes the moment we first fell in love, or saw the sea, or watched fireflies lighting up a meadow. But we enrich our lives if we acknowledge those moments and mark them for a smile - in a poem, or a sketch, or a bit of prose, and keep it somewhere special.   

        That notion of "somewhere special" has become more important in the 21st century.  Time was, in the distant past, that the joy of representation was limited. The paintings on cave walls, monuments in the desert; these were the provinces of the powerful.  Their moments of significance, their smiles were noted. Ours would not have been. Today we are faced with a strangely inverted reality.  350 million pictures are uploaded to Facebook™ everyday, another 60 million on Instagram™, and there are hundreds of other sites with similar numbers. 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube™ every hour. The danger, of course, is that the treasured gets overwhelmed by the trivial, Beauty is brushed aside by rivers of the banal.  Here, for certain, is a complexity that still crys out for distillation. Hopefully wiser minds than mine will provide such a distillation and it will prove to be a smile worth waiting for.

        The second, and final point: As I have already said, the Beauty that others create and share with us begins as an experience in a life.  And while it is delightful that others share those creations with us, it is even more important that we be aware of the Beauty woven throughout our existence, in life as we experience it everyday.  In the rain and wind, sun and flowers, in the sights and sounds that surround us, in the smiling faces that in turn bring smiles to our own. And Beauty is that aspect of life depicted. So in your own way, in your own life; somehow, everyday find a way to make some smiles. Enable Beauty. 
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Foster Harmony

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Foster Harmony

Of the four major tenets of Distilled Harmony, Foster Harmony is first because it has to be first. It has to be first because it speaks most directly to Distilled Harmony’s primary obligation to seek and live in resonance with the harmony of the universe. And, as we explored in the previous discussion, the harmony of the universe goes back to the string, the smallest, most elemental entity in the universe; an infinitesimal vibrating string that underlies the symphony that is existence.  It is our joy, our challenge, to craft a life that resonates with that symphony.

But, as we all know, you cannot achieve harmony with one note.  I remember back in grade school when we had "music," a piece of the elementary curriculum that seems to be being driven out by the mistaken belief that music brings nothing to our current obsession with math and science.  But let's leave that issue for another time.  When we had "music" - which was mostly singing - we would all be relieved when, at the top of the page in our song book, we would see: "To be sung in unison."  Unison meant we all sang the same notes. There was safety in unison because you could sort of sneak into each note and slide up or down the scale depending upon what you heard around you. Don't get me wrong, unison can be beautiful, especially when stripped down to the purity of one lovely voice singing a beautiful melody.  Think opera. Think an aria.  Think of that one voice stretching beyond what should be humanly possible. So, yes, there can be beauty in unison, just not harmony.

And then there is Enya.  It is easy to put Enya into a musical pigeon hole:  Irish roots with her family in the group Clannad, a beautiful voice, sometimes almost too beautiful, too pure.  But what makes Enya unique is not her voice or her family history. Rather, she is unique in the way in which she makes her music. While she works with a producer and lyricist, everything that you hear on an Enya recording, the vocals, the instruments, the percussion, it is all done, created, sung, played by Enya herself. Track layered over track over track.  She says that the song Angeles, on her album Shepherd Moons has about 500 layered vocal tracks. Plus all the instrumental tracks. In this guise, Enya is harmony, the far more complex, intertwined vision that is created when note after note after note weave their way into chords that become increasingly rich and varied.  

That is what the tenet Foster Harmony asks us to do with our lives. It asks that we bend every aspect of our lives, each note of each moment of each day into a rich and varied composition that echoes, and adds to, the overarching harmony of existence.  

Each tenet of Distilled Harmony carries a behavioral component – a “thou shalt” or “shalt not” implied by the tenet.  The third tenet of Distilled Harmony is Distill Complexity. That tenet exhorts us to create a parsimonious, a precise, a clear path to understanding and creating a life in harmony with the universe. In keeping with that notion, as I discuss each of the tenets, I will try to provide a concise behavioral directive or objective that lies at the core of each one.  

For Foster Harmony the behavioral directive is: be gentle, be nice.

It sounds simple, but is, in reality, often very difficult.  As a species, we seem inclined to act in ways that are anything but gentle and nice. The path of human history has been - from the dusty days of prehistory to this morning’s headlines - a bloody one.  I'm not sure where we find an explanation; perhaps it lies in our mostly carnivorous past, or in our hyper-competitive present.  Still somewhere, particularly for the male of the species, and certainly for the corporation or the nation state, to be gentle or to be nice has become synonymous with being weak.  

The truth, of course, is quite the opposite.  Nowadays it takes little strength or courage to push a button that ends lives thousands of miles away. But sitting down with someone who finds you loathsome and finding, with them, a path to mutual harmony - that requires strength and resourcefulness - and practice.

To foster harmony in our interactions with others, we need to understand the nature of our own chord, the center of our own being.  And that starts with our DNA.  Even if we drifted off to sleep in biology, we have all watched enough NCIS or CSI episodes to know that our DNA resides in every cell in our body, and so it follows that our DNA is repeated billions of times throughout our body. What we often fail to think about, is the fact that our DNA - at its most basic level - rests on billions more tiny vibrating strings.  So that we are, literally, made of music - a chord that is ourselves, making us a walking talking symphony.  That seems incredibly complex and totally beyond our control. Are we merely the accidental, yet predetermined, result of our DNA?

No, not at all.  Our DNA is like the first note of the first bar of the first track that Enya lays down when creating a new composition.  As we live our lives, we too lay down countless tracks; tracks that tune and refine who we are. So while our DNA declares us to be utterly unique, an N of one in all the universe, it does not mandate the nature of the final composition.  Recent epigenetic research confirms that we reconstruct our DNA with our every thought and action. And while much research is yet to be done in this area, with the exception of severe genetic defects, it seems that our DNA is simply the physical score upon which we inscribe our chord - as I said, Enya's first note. And then, after that first note, that is where free will and personal choice come to the fore.

Foster Harmony asks us to make particular types of choices -  harmonic ones.

You have no doubt met what I call the Eeyore people - named after the donkey in AA Milne's timeless Winnie the Pooh.  Consider this iconic interaction:

“Good morning, Eeyore," said Pooh.

"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning, which I doubt," said he.

"Why, what's the matter?"

"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."

"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.

"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush.” 

Eeyore people don't merely see the glass of existence as half empty.  Rather, they refuse to acknowledge that there even is a glass.  For the Eeyores of the world, life is an atonal soup, "without form, and void" to steal a line from Genesis.  Foster Harmony says "Do not be that donkey, do not be that person."  Be instead the person who advocates for, and reflects in your own behavior, the harmony of existence.  It would be, of course, callow and naive to attempt to see all of life's challenges as containing, somewhere, a hidden overflowing mug of gaiety. But it is equally erroneous to see monsters under every bed, a plot behind each new workplace initiative, a nefarious agenda driving all personal interactions. 

Do not be that person. Be gentle. Be nice. Foster Harmony.

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The Labyrinth of My Mind

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The fact that I cannot recall exactly where I read it is symptomatic of the condition.  If it comes to me, I'll share it with you, but the source isn't all that important - it is the idea. I notice it in myself, so no doubt others do as well.  Someone will ask a simple question or make a rather innocuous statement. They will then look at me - anticipating some sort of response.  But I am elsewhere.  The question or statement has sent me off into the labyrinth of my mind.  So they just keep talking.  By the time I am ready to respond to their question about the issue of Japanese whaling, we are off to a discussion of when the Thomas boy, bless his heart, will get out of reform school.

I've read those books on memory that advise you to construct a "memory mansion" or some such thing. You have a room for various memories - say a birthday room. And in the birthday room is a large roll top desk with lots of little colored drawers.  Aunt Matilda's birthday is in the blue drawer because she had blue eyes.  You open the drawer and there is a slip of paper that says "June 5th." Ta da.  Aunt M's birthday is June 5th.  I have no such mansion.

I have this labyrinth where I have been stuffing things for 65 years.  Countless novels chuck full of characters and plotlines, the names of tens of thousands of students, ideas - good and bad, faces, sensations, tastes, magazine articles, TV shows, movies, magic moments, terrible times, friends, lovers, enemies, pets, meals, pictures, paintings, poems, characters I have portrayed . . . everything that makes up my life is there in the labyrinth of my mind.

The article - the title, author, and source of which I cannot currently recall - is lying about in there in the labyrinth, and points out the obvious: The labyrinth started out as a simple pattern: Dad, Mom, Food, Awake, Asleep, Clean, Messy.  That was it.  As we grow we toss more and more stuff into the labyrinth.  The "build a mansion" folks are advocating existential compartmentalization. I have trouble with that. It is the worldview that lets Michael Corleone take communion while his minions are off slaughtering the competition. It is the worldview that lets us do things in one room of the mansion which are unacceptable in another. The labyrinth admits, actually insists, that everything is connected. It is not as neat as the mansion, but it is more truthful. It asserts that all the stuff in the labyrinth has to answer to the four tenets of Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity, and Oppose Harm. Some of the stuff in my labyrinth, especially the early stuff, doesn't measure up too well. But then that was before the labyrinth had yielded up the idea of Distilled Harmony, which I can trace back to sometime around the turn of the millennium which was when, maybe in the fall of the year . . . . oops, see what I mean?

There is a lot of data processing to do when someone asks you "What do you think about that Danish zoo where they killed the giraffe, fed it to the lions, and then killed the lions to make way for a new dominant male lion!?  Is that crazy or what?"  You don't just say "Totally." or "That."  The reality is more along the lines of "Excuse me, I need to hit the labyrinth for a while."

The article goes on to explore why younger brains tend to have more simplistic labyrinths.  They don't use those words, but that is the general idea. Younger brains just have less stuff to sort through since the seminal days of Dad, Mom, Food, Awake, Asleep, Clean, and Messy. So younger brains come to "the truth as I see it" more quickly than do folks with larger labyrinths to sort through.  Hence the young, the quick, and the facile are seen as "smarter" than Uncle George who seems to spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about "simple things," like industrial robots, or fracking.  I do need to point out, however, that it strikes me that age is not the sole factor in determining the size of the labyrinth.  For the labyrinth to grow you have to keep putting stuff in there.  If you spend all day at a mind-numbing job and all evening in front of a big or little screen that simply affirms your already established conclusions, you are going to have an inner world more suited to a mansion. Mansion building allows you to stop adding rooms, stop adding connections, you just rearrange the furniture a bit. Fundamentalism - religious, political, culinary, whatever - seems to me the ultimate form of "mansion building."  The "book" or "leader" or "common sense" tells you what rooms there should be in your mansion.  If you encounter something that doesn't fit in those predetermined rooms you just ignore it, or chuck it into the huge room called "bad stuff."

I read something about that once.  Let me look.  I'll be right back. It's here in the labyrinth somewhere. But don't wait up for me .  .  .  
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String Theory, or The Smallest Thing in the Universe

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String Theory is the result of physicists daring to ask the audacious question "how does the universe work?" of physicists wanting to craft a Theory of Everything.  Newton, Einstein, Bohrs, Hawking; they all were fixated on discovering one set of rules, ideally, one formula that could explain all phenomena.  And they made, and are making, wonderful progress.

However, they all also made a frustrating discovery. Truth is a moving target.  To explain "everything", to tell the "truth" about the universe is to accurately define reality.  That is a tall order.  New technologies, evolving processes keep expanding our view of reality – literally increasing what we can see.  Still, occasionally, we sift a nugget from the shifting stream of reality, a nugget of “truth” about the universe, that seems to hold still for us.  The speed of light has held stable despite some very clever efforts to leap ahead of it, or hinder it with varying vacuums, lasers, mirrors and what not.  We still haven't found an exception to the assertion that the speed of light is exactly 299,792,458 meters per second.  And that is how we usually come to declare "truth," - backwards if you will.   We fail to find the single instance that disproves the asserted "truth."

Such instances are incredibly rare especially when we realize that in science - in any academic discipline - you make your reputation by proving someone else wrong.  You demonstrate that your story about whatever you are studying is better than the other stories being told about the universe, or caffeine, or red meat, or video games, or prejudice, or Shakespeare - whatever you are seeking to be known as "expert in."

So when we seek to understand the "truth" of existence, the "reality" of the universe, we enter the very fuzzy world of competitive storytelling among experts.  In that world, the academic world, my world, expertise most often comes wrapped in layers of complexity, woven in languages that only other experts in that field can truly grasp. It is an incestuous ritual that leaves the rest of us peering, a best, through a darkling glass stretched uncomfortably between callow acceptance or willful ignorance. 

There is I believe, another option: To find truth, we hunt the white crow.  It is actually rather simple.  If someone advances the idea that "all crows are black" it takes only a single white crow to disprove the idea. String theory came into being in the waning years of the 20th century when physicists and mathematicians and cosmologists stirred up a whole flock of white crows. To go back, as the 1800s turned into the 1900s, Einstein shepherded general relativity onto center stage describing how the universe was expanding at undreamed of distances and rates.  Meanwhile, a few decades into the century Heisenberg, Schrodinger, and Bohr peeked out of the other end of the telescope, exploring the tiny world of particle physics, and began to advance the cause of quantum mechanics. Both camps were reporting solid, defensible results when the white crows took to the wing. Greene, in The Elegant Universe, describes the realization in these words.

"As they are currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right.  The two theories underlying the tremendous progress of physics during the last hundred years - progress that has explained the expansion of the heavens and the fundamental structure of matter - are mutually incompatible." p. 3.

In other words, if the math that described the universe through the eyes of one perspective was right, then the math that described the universe from the other perspective had to be wrong.  Talk about a white crow! It was at that point that the mathematicians rolled up their sleeves and hammered out the differences between those two very elegant theories; and string theory was the - in my mind - even more beautiful result.  Beautiful? Yes, because one of the conclusions of string theory is that everything in existence, including you and me, is made of music.  That is a bit of a teaser.  If you want to wade a little more deeply in the waters of string theory, click over to the resources page.  My book, String Theory in the Landscape of the Heart, is a humanist's take on string theory while Greene's The Elegant Universe is, as I have said before, a physicist's explanation of string theory for the serious lay reader.

Neither, however, meet my objectives for this simplifying distillation.  Rather, here are the relevant assertions of string theory that inform Distilled Harmony.  I have been following them quite closely in the humanities, and in the scientific and popular literature for the last 10 or 15 years. I have yet to see a single white feather among them.  You, of course will have to judge for yourself.

First, the smallest thing in the universe is a tiny vibrating string.  We are, in all likelihood, unable to comprehend how small that is, just as the immensity of the universe lies beyond our imagining. That is, actually, not important.  What is important is to understand that the string has no component parts. To ask "But what are strings made of" asks us to define an absurdity. The string is the smallest thing in the universe and it vibrates.  In our experiential world, a vibrating string, no matter how small, makes music.

Second, strings are attracted to other harmonic strings, and they are repelled by strings that vibrate in discord with their rate of vibration.

Third, all larger entities - which means everything else in the universe, mice, moles, men, mountains, the moon - are at their most fundamental level constructions of harmonic strings.

Fourth, harmony is the natural, preferred state of existence, which, by definition, makes discord transient and undesirable.

The other major concept of string theory that is central to Distilled Harmony is symmetry.  Symmetry simply asserts that the universe is consistent; that harmony dominates throughout the universe.  Hence, while harmony may be manifested differently in the varying and far-flung reaches of the universe, that manifestation will, at string level, remain harmonic.

It is at this point that we need to shift focus from what "is" to "what it means."  And that transition is what has often led us to the false dichotomy between physics and metaphysics, between philosophy and science, theology and technology, between geeks and jocks – all those distinctions are all illusions.  There is no functional division between knowing what "is" and understanding how we should live and behave in accordance with that knowledge. "What it is" and "what it means" are one.

But as we shift our focus to different aspects of the whole, I feel obligated to spend just a moment on the difference between confidence and certainty.  I mentioned early in this presentation that truth is a moving target.  It would be arrogant to assume that Distilled Harmony is an exception to that assertion, to presume that I am "certain" about the behavioral tenets of Distilled Harmony.  Rather, I would say that I am quite confident that they are trustworthy.  The difference is, I believe, significant.

The road to intolerance is paved with "certainty."  When one becomes "certain" that they are right about something, it becomes acceptable to beat others "less perceptive than you" into submission and drag them onto the path defined by your certainty.  That way lies war and madness.  Confidence, on the other hand, means we move ahead on the path of our lives guided by what we feel are trustworthy insights into the nature of the universe - but we always keep an eye out for a white crow.

Distilled Harmony provides these guideposts on our path - Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity, and Oppose Harm.  They are the behavioral mandates that follow from the string theory based assumption that harmony is the natural state of the universe.  In my next presentation I'll tackle the first and most fundamental of those guideposts: Foster Harmony.
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Distilled Harmony Scripts: To Begin at the Beginning

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To Begin at The Beginning

Ever since I was a small child,

I  have been forever ambushed 

By moments of pure harmony.

While growing up in Springfield, Ohio, we lived in a modest house. I had to repeat a recent “Google Earth Fly By" to make sure I was in the right place, as the current reality seems overly modest. Yet in my memory, certainly when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, it was quite large. The porch especially was a world apart, screened by shrubbery, much taller than that in the image.  At night in particular, it was a magic place bathed in the warm glow of those yellow "bug lights" now largely gone, replaced by squat fluorescent spirals. The bug lights have been sacrificed, like smoke-tinged autumn, to keep the planet safe and sterile. But in memory the porch floated serene on their golden halo.  Serene and apart as rain drummed down all round.

Then in fifth grade and sixth, in connection with work my father was doing, we lived in Vienna, Austria.  I remember, one night, being ushered into a box in the world famous Staatsoper—the State Opera House.  I wasn't an opera fan, had never been to one before.  But one of my school chums was the son of a Scandinavian ambassador.  So we claimed the Ambassador’s box that night, as the usual adult occupants took a break from the endless social obligations of their diplomatic life.

We settled into those opulent surroundings a little self-consciously.  The elite of one of Europe’s oldest capitals swirled below us like schools of tropical fish.  Gowns and jewels nestled on the aromas of perfume, strong coffee, exotic drinks and the hint of expensive cigars.  Handsome men and glamorous women bantered in a half dozen languages.  Then, a beautiful young woman, carrying a champagne bucket and a tray with glasses entered the box, and—as though we were men—opened the bottle, poured two glasses, and whispered “Enjoy.”  With a slight chuckle at our stunned faces, she pulled the invisible velvet-covered door closed behind her and disappeared down the corridor to serve the more jaded patrons to whom she would appear as something less than a goddess. The lights faded like a sunset in the magnificent crystal chandeliers that floated above the quieting throng,  while on stage, dawn breaks as the orchestra swells and a single heavenly voice floats across the footlights, effortlessly filling every corner of the gilded hall.

Later, a year before I entered college, I went to Northern California. It was a trip sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee to build cabins at Clearwater Ranch in Philo, California, which was a permanent treatment center for emotionally disturbed children. Each morning we "Friendlies" would hike up the creek a ways, eventually settling ourselves on some rocks, to share a bit of silence and get focused for the coming day. On one such morning I went away, or maybe "in." I'm not sure. Physically, I was still perched firmly on my boulder. But everything around me became hyper-focused.  The water rushing over rocks covered with intensely green moss. Behind me birds were handing off solos in the trees that lined the creek. Sunlight danced about as it does in poetry. It seemed I sat there transfixed, or maybe transcendent, for a very long time. Then I noticed my friends stirring, standing up and making their way back to the worksite for another day of hauling, hammering and roofing beneath a wide sky of blue and gold.  I followed along, and hesitantly asked several "Was this morning different for you?"  Either they chose not to share, or mine was a solitary journey.

There were more moments like these, scattered across the decades of my life, as I would assert there are in yours, if you claim some quiet time and consciously try to remember them. Together, for me, they have come to weave a tapestry of intensely personal, resilient, harmonic chords that resonate with other more public expressions.

Landscapes, for example, particularly ones from the Hudson River School. Those works sound the call of a simple, romantic and without doubt, idealized, vision of rural life. 

And, rain.  Not so much the "Caught out in it, cold rain down your collar" type rain.  But more the "Just beat it, peeking out through the door of the barn, guess we can't work anymore, might as well take a nap" kind of rain.  Or the "Wild storm watched from a place of safety" type rain.

I have the same cautious harmonics with fire.  Given the media's tendency to emphasize damaging and destructive fires whenever they get the opportunity, it would not surprise me to learn that mostly, nowadays, we fear fire. But there is a far older, more comforting version of fire that lives within me yet, the campfire beneath a starry sky, the cook fire, the ancient call of hearth and home.  

Each of these harmonic moments sounds a calming chord within me.  My blood pressure drops. My breathing slows. I am at peace. I smile.

It was not until I passed the half-century mark that I began to consider these moments of pure harmony as something more than the occasional gifts of existence, but as something deeper.  Here, I began to think, may be glimpses behind the often banal haze of everyday life.  A peek at the harmonic clarity that enfolds all existence, but goes largely unnoticed as we scurry from one momentary obligation to the next.

I began to read a magazine called Science News back in the 1960s.  It is still around, and I still read it.  It is a neat little magazine that does a few feature stories and then lots of shorter tidbits from all areas of the hard sciences - but written for the lay reader.  I first found it interesting primarily because it had nothing to do with my major - Theater. Hence I could read it and feel absolutely no obligation to "learn" anything. I could just enjoy what I was reading. Well, as any good teacher will tell you, the trick to getting students to learn is to not let them know they are being taught.  Sort of make everything recess.  Needless to say I, the math phobic Theater major, was soon absorbing information that would have brought on a panic attack in the context of class in which I would be graded.

I became fascinated by theoretical physics and its audacious attempt to discover a "Theory of Everything."  So I spent the last decades of the 20th century with Science News eavesdropping on astrophysicists and cosmologists and mathematicians pursuing their own version of the Holy Grail. That is, after all, what a TOE, "a theory of everything" is, right? The main difference between the physics of a theory of everything and the theology of an established religion is that while theologians wrestle with understanding exactly how they are right, some of the physicists acknowledge that they may be wrong.

So back around the turn of the millennium I found myself trying to connect the dots between my increasing powerful intuitive sense of a harmony that pervades existence; the stirrings of a new "theory of everything" in the physics community dealing with "strings" and "multiverses"; and a variety of readings in both old and new age theology and philosophy.  Thank god - or whomever - in 1999 Brian Greene wrote his delightfully titled book: The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. In the book Greene explains all those things that the title promises, but more important for me he explained "string theory" in a language accessible to the dedicated lay reader. 

That was vital because String Theory was to become the glue that finally stuck the fragments of my musings together, allowing me to construct what I originally called "chord theory" and now call "Distilled Harmony."  For us to move forward together, you, too, need to have a basic understanding of string theory.  Don't panic.  Remember the third pillar of Distilled Harmony is distill complexity.  In my next presentation I am going to attempt to "distill" string theory, revealing the functional basics necessary for us to move further into Distilled Harmony. For those of you who are formally trained cosmologists, and especially to Brian Greene, should he ever stumble across these conversations, my apologies for what will surely strike you as simplistic and reductionist.  Still, I might have done a better job with Professor Greene's work had he answered my emails.

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Link to the video presentation:
http://mymediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Play/26fd8ec88a8441779daa9a6256f677fa1d

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Distilled Harmony Scripts: The Introduction

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The Introduction

Hello my name is Robert Schrag and I’m a Professor of Communication at NC State University in Raleigh, NC, USA.  I came here in 1980, so I've been here almost thirty-five years as I tape this. That does, of course, leave another 30 years unaccounted for and I will mention them as they become relevant.

I realize that to young people entering the job market here in the dawn of the 21st century, the idea of staying in any one job for 35 years is bizarre.  And, looking back, it seems a touch strange to me as well.  But life has no rewind button - or we haven't figured it out yet - so forward is the only option.  Actually, being a professor in the same place for 35 years isn't really like being in the same job for 35 years. It is true that that today's large state universities are changing turning into grant and publication factories, an environment in which I am not comfortable; but for most of those 35 years this has been the best job in the world.

You see, as a university professor back in the 20th century you got to reinvent yourself whenever you wanted.  At least in my discipline you did.  I study and teach about communication technology, from ancient paintings and enigmatic marks on stones and bones all the way up to whatever new gizmo Big Tech will run up the flagpole tomorrow.  I get to think about how those tools affect us as individuals, groups, cultures and countries; about how tech impacts artists, politicians, everyday people.  I got to shift my focus to that which intrigued me at the moment. And that has been fine - for the most part.

But it isn't enough anymore. I mean it is still fascinating, what folks do with technology.  But it is a field largely driven by young people, by young thoughts.  And in our youth obsessed culture that is "normal," the way it is supposed to be.  But think about this for a moment.  How many of you would like to be young again?  I don't mean how many of you would like your young body back again - I've been through 2 stem cell transplants and treasure those moments when nothing hurts. So, yes, I would take that young body again.  But the younger brain? The twisting thoughts and churning emotions of yesterday?  No, thank you, I survived them for the most part, for which I am thankful, but I wouldn't want to have to work back through them again.  Even when I was 20, 30 or 40, I wouldn't have wanted to go backwards, even to reclaim the glibness, the sharp short-term memory.  The words flowed more freely when I had only a few decades under my belt, but often they could have benefited from more reflection and less speed.

So knowing what's happening in All Things Tech, running my fingers over the cutting edge, taking the pulse of generation X, Y, or Z squared to the next degree is not really all that interesting anymore. What has become utterly intriguing is trying to figure out what it all means.  As I have grown older I have become increasingly fascinated with the notion of purpose, the old "Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Where are we going?" mantra. This time of life, my time of life, the one beyond Piaget's model, often prompts a series of questions that leads people into the certainty of religion, of structured belief. I have never been comfortable with that approach to life.  My father was, early in his life, a minister - as was his father before him. But Dad spent most of his life as a university professor, a radical sociologist involved in race relations and community change.  Maybe I can trace my own discomfort with being told what I am supposed to believe to his renegade inclinations.

The point is that I follow no traditional dogma, I point to no one book or prophet as my "spiritual guide."  The "organized" in "organized religion" seems to me an oxymoron.  You cannot organize that which is a unique and personal exploration. And what has made my personal journey even more interesting is that I do not see any reason to assume a division between physics and metaphysics. Rather I'm inclined to believe that every miracle is a "knowable" event that simply lies beyond our current understanding.  Further thought, more research, will reveal the natural process behind the seemingly miraculous.

Now before the atheists out there get carried away, let me point something out.  The explanations science provides for the “mysteries of the universe” are more far incredible than the miracles depicted in all the holy books of all faiths.  It seems a tad duplicitous to simply assert "That's just how it happened. Two degrees that way and the universe wouldn't have been able to support life. Whew, that was a close one!" I don't think so. Having been struck speechless multiple times by the unfathomable wonder of existence, I have as much trouble believing that that existence rests on a series of fortunate accidents, as I have accepting the notion of an interventionist deity who "sees the smallest sparrow fall."  Finding a rational middle ground between those two perspectives seems a worthy endeavor.

When my daughters were young and wanted to know what my job was, I used to tell them "Daddy thinks for a living." And for the last 10 or 15 years much of my "thinking time" has been devoted to thinking about that rational middle ground. To considering the "Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Where are we going?" mantra from a middle perspective that remains scientifically sound without discounting a sentience, an intelligence intertwined throughout existence.

I have changed the name of this evolving perspective a number of times as each of the "defining tenets" captured my imagination.  I hope “Distilled Harmony” has some staying power.  It defines a perspective that rests upon four primary principles, four guidelines for living a life consistent with the nature of the universe and in concert with the intelligence manifested therein.  They are:

Foster Harmony
Enable Beauty
Distill Complexity, and
Oppose Harm

This series of presentations is intended to share, with those of you who might be interested, the evolution of those four tenets as they wind their way from the string theory of quantum physics through deep considerations of humanity and immortality.  Perhaps I'll see you there.

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Link to the presentation:
http://mymediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Play/ca20c9fb306f4f2f81c8d44c16c9f59a1d
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Al and Me

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I have a lot
In common with Einstein,
If you leave out
The mathematics
The physics
The Nobel prize
The Chair at Princeton
Playing the violin
And being asked to serve
As the President of Israel.

Which is, I suppose,
Like saying
I have a lot
In common
With Betty Grable
If you leave out
Being a woman
And the legs.

What Al and I
Do have in common,
I have learned,
Is the shared conviction
That what we
Call God
Is not so much
Revealed in the Harmony
Of all that exists, but
Rather that God is
The Harmony
In all that exists.

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The Porch

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As I have mentioned before my nightly meditations sometimes stray beyond a search for a Zen-like tranquility. When life's irritations are too insistent sometimes it becomes necessary "to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them."  Hence: 

The Porch.

The porch
Of the house 
Where I was mostly raised 
Is rather small.
Drive-bys, real and virtual
Confirm this fact.

Yet in my memory
It was quite large.
A world apart
Screened by shrubbery.
At night in particular,
It was a magic place
Bathed in the warm glow
Of those yellow "bug lights"
Now largely gone,
Replaced with harsh 
Fluorescent spirals,
Sacrificed, like smoke-tinged autumn,
To keep the planet safe
And sterile.

But in memory
The porch floated serene 
On their golden halo.
Serene and apart as rain 
Drummed down all round.

I believe,
But cannot be certain,
That it is the porch
Of my current meditation
Backed by a gentle track
Called "Soft Forest Rain:"

I stand on guard,
A lad of maybe six,
Dressed in imaginative pajamas.
Firetrucks? Cowboys?
The particulars shift.
But always armed with 
The proverbial new broom.

Cantankerous colleagues
Divisive kin
Old Regrets
Long-departed
Lovers and antagonists 
Charge up the front steps
Like animated tennis balls
Demanding satisfaction.

"Get off! Get off my porch!"
I command,
And swing my mighty broom.
My aim is true
And the invading irritants
Carom back down the stairs,
Now a roaring cascade,
And are swept out
Along the sidewalk
To the street
To the gutters, and away.
Their carping accusations
Fade and blend 
With the chirping of crickets
Leaving me alone,
Safe once more with the drumming 
Of the rain.
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Colonial Williamsburg and the Ur-chord

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A little backstory: I had mentioned our recent trip to Williamsburg to my friend, Ken, who is here on The Wall.  He replied: Concerning the solitariness of Williamsburg in the rain, I would very much like to hear your reflections. Probably a subject for the wall.

No problem, I thought. And thought, and thought. And now 3 weeks later here is where I am.  Despite having placed major ideas in the "deal with in another post" pile, I am aware that this post needs another pass of the "distill complexity" comb.  But wanted to share this before 2013 turned into 2014.

Cheers,

RLS

Colonial Williamsburg and the Ur-chord 

It is our tradition to celebrate our wedding anniversary in Colonial Williamsburg.  This year that visit coincided with "The Grand Illumination." The "GI" lived up to its advance billing.  Fife and drum corps accompanied sunset.  Single white candles winked in every window up and down Duke of Gloucester Street. Wrought iron cressets held flaming knots of pine, maybe oak. Their golden glow danced across the cobblestones while rosenous smoke drifted up into a cloudy sky - a sweet and tangy Fall perfume long since eliminated by local burning ordinances across the country.

The drums fell silent when, from the Palace, the Capitol and the Powder Magazine, fireworks arced high above the town.  All right, the degree of coordination across the three sites made one suspect that pyrotechnic enhancements beyond the ken of Williamsburg's mythical reality of circa 1775-1776 were involved, but it was quite lovely.  However, as we strolled back down Duke of Gloucester street toward the King's Arms tavern the Grand Illumination morphed into the Great Inundation.  The skies opened up and it poured for the next three days.

While the town must have taken a financial hit from from the poorly timed monsoon, we soon came to appreciate its effects. You see, we try to time our visits to the Colonial city to avoid peak visiting times - an inclination no doubt drawn from our unfortunate visit one incredibly hot, wall-to-wall people, July 4th.  Initially, the rains of the Great Inundation simply drove the visitors inside, crowding the shops and craft houses along the main streets.  But as the downpour continued the next day and youngsters grew bored, the town began to empty out, and in that emptying a strange transition began.  There is, it seems, a Williamsburg behind Williamsburg.  A smokey reality, behind the verisimilitude.  Let me try to clarify.

Think about Disney World for a moment - any of them, it doesn't matter which one.  And that is precisely the point.  Disney World is a "reality" based upon a fantasy.  It is the ultimate escapism.  Peer beneath the veneer of Disney World and you will find the asphalt of L.A., a swamp in Florida, the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong or a bemused Parisian.  With enough lights and fountains, glitter and tinsel, anyplace can support a Disney fantasy.

Williamsburg is different.  We know that Bill Barker isn't really Thomas Jefferson, Richard Shumann is pretending to be Patrick Henry. Carnegie's Washington and Hull's Wythe are interpretations.  Yet, the people upon whom those interpretations are based did live here. They occupied this space, sat in that pew, had their horse shod over there, downed an ale across the street.

That difference became tangible as the tourists, even the interpreters, sought shelter indoors.  We, however, opted to unfurl our big umbrellas and wander the empty streets.  It became one of those rare moments when the difference between loneliness and solitude becomes poignantly apparent.  You are obviously alone, but far from lonely. Despite the deserted thoroughfares and empty alleyways, you are certain, almost, that someone just disappeared around that corner.  The muffled clop of horses hooves and steaming droppings on the cobblestones provide further evidence of a world just slightly out of sight.  The solitude becomes a lens that enables us to somehow peer back in time, moving, like Dicken's Yuletide ghosts, unseen among the lives of others.

I was, for awhile, content to simply revel in the sensation.  But one nagging responsibility  of the proponent of a "theory of everything," is that eventually you need to attempt to explain the phenomena you encounter.  How then, does my theory of universal resonance come to grasps with the soft reality that seeming lurks behind the historically defined re-creation that is Colonial Williamsburg?  I am currently drawn to insights offered by the cosmic microwave background and the theoretical notion of cosmic wormholes, or the Einstein-Rosen bridge.  Yes, this would probably be a good time to refresh your eggnog or grab another cookie.

OK.  Wikipedia tells us that the cosmic microwave background is the thermal radiation left over from the Big Bang that permeates the universe equally in all directions.  Although that certainly simplifies the phenomenon, it is probably sufficient for this conversation.  As I understand it, the cosmic microwave background provides a spacetime reference point for events that lie between the background and an observer anywhere in the universe.  I will admit to not being completely clear as to just what all we learn from being able to place a cosmological event between ourselves and the cosmic microwave background.  We place the event in time, we locate it in relationship to ourselves, etc. But it is the fact that the relationship exists, rather than the specifics of it that is important. There is a background and an event.  Being able to locate those two points gives us increased information about both.

It would seem that the notion of  symmetry in quantum mechanics demands a parallel relationship between the universal harmony of the universe and the ongoing construction and expression of our own chord.  This assertion springs from my consistent position that the unfolding of the universe as defined by special relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory, and the composition of or ordering of our personal chord or harmony are, in fact, simply differing manifestations of the same process.  If we pursue that line of thought we inevitably arrive at the conclusion that there is a harmonic equivalent to the cosmic microwave background - harmonics radiating so as to permeate the universe equally in all directions. This ur-chord, if you will, stands in a constant referential relationship to our personal, unique, unfolding chord.

I have written elsewhere about moments of powerful spontaneous harmonies and moments of sudden discord.  We "fall in love" with a stranger on a train, or feel "at home" in place we have never been before.  Conversely, an innocuous stranger "gives us the creeps," or a shiver convinces us that someone "just stepped on my grave." These sensations are, I would contend, rooted in the ur-chord. Consideration of the somehow sentient solitude of Williamsburg leads me to an explanation that also has roots in this ur-chord.  And this is where we jump over to wormholes.

Wormholes are conceptual shortcuts through spacetime revealed in the equations of general relativity. For a simple analogy consider a water balloon.  Not a "filled-tight, careful-not-to-squeeze-it-or-it-will-burst" water balloon, but a "squishy-sloshy-floppy" water balloon.  That water balloon is the universe.  Now take a marker and make two Xs on the balloon, as far apart as possible.  Rest the balloon on a counter top.  Put your finger on one of the Xs and squish the balloon around until you can push down on the other X. The two formerly widely separated parts of the "water balloon universe" are now cheek-to-jowl. That's a cosmic wormhole. Jean-Claude Van Damme used them to hop around the universe in Timecop. The problem with wormholes is that while they are mathematically solid; outside of Hollywood, there is no observational data of their existence.  So while we "know" they are out there, we've never seen one.

This brings us to the observational-reality conundrum.  Books like Richard Panek's The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality, point out the extent to which our perception of reality is constrained by the tools we have to observe and measure phenomena.  We have, particularly in the sciences, tied ourselves to the notion that if we cannot observe "it" - ideally directly, but at least an indirect observation of its impact on other entities - then "it" isn't there.  The Higgs Boson only became "real" once we could "observe" evidence of what we believed, almost knew, was there.  Good theory leads - eventually - to observational, experimental confirmation.  But too often we get pulled into a narrow perspective and miss some really fascinating stuff lying slightly askew to our line of observation.  Great discoveries often occur by accidents that shove us off our theoretical tracks.

Remember the drunk, the lamp post and the car keys?  It's midnight.  Drunk is down on hands and knees, searching for his car keys under the lamppost.  Cop comes along, offers assistance and asks "Are you sure you dropped them here?"

"No, I dropped them back there," the drunk responds gesturing back into the shadows.

"Then why are you looking here?" inquires the incredulous officer.

"The light is better here."

We have, in my opinion, restricted our consideration of the nature of the universe and existence to the area under a rather restricted lamp post.  If we insist on seeking to explain moments of intense harmonic resonance with tools developed to track distant galaxies or the Higgs boson buddies, then we will never "discover" the literal music that knits the universe together.  We will remain "color-blind" to the spectrum we seek.  And that hidden spectrum may well be the one that reveals the broader nature of certain phenomena that continue to escape our search beneath the current lamppost.

(Something we need to keep in mind, and at the moment I can think of nothing more artful than this clumsy aside:  The ur-chord I propose below rests directly upon the harmonic manifestation of the "strings" of string theory.  Strings are the smallest discrete entities in the universe and, as such, are utterly undetectable with our contemporary observational tools.  We can no more directly observe a single string than a Neanderthal could observe a molecule.  Like wormholes, we are convinced that strings exist because the math says they do. Keeping that in mind, let us move on.)

Consider this possibility.  Perhaps "wormholes" are far more common in the harmonic spectrum.  But let's not call them "wormholes," - a terrible name for such incredible structures.  Let us call them "harmonic bridges," that allow us to "listen" easily across the vast separations of spacetime.  I would hypothesize that we "hear" most clearly the powerful resonances and significant discord that jump between the ur-chord, our own developing chord, and a third entity that forms the harmony bridge between us and the ur-chord.

Examples? Those mentioned above, stranger on a plane, steps on our grave - and the echos of the past in Williamsburg.  Those are all examples of the "third entity," the "sound system," if you will, that creates the harmony bridge between the ur-chord and our personal harmony. The idea is that chords can linger.  A sort of hologram in a harmonic field - not unlike the Higgs Field - that, when aligned along a harmonic bridge with a particularly resonant or discordant, unique chord (yours or mine), moves to some extent into our perceptual field.  We "sense" something.  The existence of such phenomena could certainly lend insight into incidents reported as "paranormal," which, thus demystified, would simply draw them into the realm of the normal.

And why, we might well ask, hasn't this path been more rigorously explored? Well, it has, perhaps most obviously in the 1800s.  When early experiments in electricity began to reveal power "hidden in the ethers," intellectuals naturally began to consider that death was also an "ether-bound phenomenon, hence a relatively simple transition from "our side" to "the other side," and conversations across the ethers might be possible, like a telephone call or a radio broadcast - wonders were already transforming everyday life in the 1800s.  Why not reach to another area previously thought impossible and talk with dear-departed Aunt Ruth or Granddaddy? The people posing these questions were not "fruitcakes." Consider this entry in Wikipedia:

Many scientists who investigated the phenomenon ( of spiritualism) also became converts. They included chemist and physicist William Crookes (1832–1919), evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) and Nobel-laureate physiologist Charles Richet. Nobel laureate Pierre Curie took a very serious scientific interest in the work of medium Eusapia Palladino. Other prominent adherents included journalist and pacifist William T. Stead (1849–1912) and physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).

Conan Doyle, who lost his son as a result of the war, was also a member of The Ghost Club. Founded in London in 1862, its focus was the scientific study of alleged paranormal activities in order to prove (or refute) the existence of paranormal phenomena. Famous members of the club have included Charles Dickens, Sir William Crookes, Sir William Fletcher Barrett and Harry Price. Pioneering American psychologist William James studied spiritualism, publishing supportive conclusions. The séances of Eusapia Palladino were attended by investigators including Pierre and Marie Curie. The celebrated New York City physician, John Franklin Gray, was also a well-known and prominent Spiritualist in New York City.

So the problem with the early examinations of certain unexplained phenomena was not the caliber of the minds posing the questions. These respected intellectuals saw "spiritualism" as an opportunity to turn the new and exciting eyes of science to questions that had long intrigued us.  What happens after death? Is it simply an "on off" switch?  How do we explain intense personal emotional experiences? What are these experiences that "feel" real but offer no tangible evidence of causality? Or even evidence that anything actually "happened"?  Are my senses deceiving me? Am I a "hysterical" woman? A "shell-shocked" soldier?

There were several reasons why these early lines of investigation died out.  First, consider this.  If these phenomena, these echoes of the ur-chord, are manifestations of activity at the string level of the universe, they are still vastly beyond the pale of our very best 21st century observational "lampposts," of space-based telescopes, of immense particle colliders.  What chance did the rudimentary 19th tools have of detecting "ripples of strings in the ethers?"

Second, the possibility for, and instances of, fraud were immense.  People who sought out spiritualists were often over-wrought and desperate to contact a dead loved one - a parent, spouse, lover, or child. They also tended to be well-to-do, and well-read.  They wanted to believe, and were willing and able to pay to "reach someone on the other side."  With marks that willing, the con artist is unable to resist. I have no idea if there exists anything like a true "medium," someone who does have the ability to sense harmonics on a string level, and interpret them in such a way as to help folks advance the tuning of their own chord.  If there are, and if they were practicing in the 1800s, their insights were surely drowned in the cacophony of the fakirs.

Finally, any research that might have established a scientific tradition of searching for the ur-chord was completely overwhelmed by the whirlwind success of research in electronics, physics, mathematics and the related practical applications that drove the industrial revolution.  In the academic-industrial complex, the money follows empirical results that can be turned into marketable products or research grants. Few institutions have the intellectual will and even fewer corporations have the fiscal courage to "throw good money after bad" - to engage in science whose "payoff" lies decades down the road, if it exists at all.  As a result over the next 200 years the line between physics and meta-physics, between math and philosophy, between technology and theology, became deeper and more distinct.  The resultant fallacy became orthodoxy: there is the real and the imaginary, and they are discrete and separate entities.  I am reading/listening to Walter Isaacson's biography of Albert Einstein, and Einstein, who reveled in the arrogant questioning of authority, would be appalled by this current retreat from curiosity.

I am firmly convinced that were Einstein to be walking along the streets of Williamsburg on a smokey, rainy evening, and from out of the bright doorway of a tavern, or softly from around a shadowy corner, or whispering through the high branches of an old oak tree, he heard the faint call of the ur-chord, he would not dismiss it as some sort of perceptual aberration.  "What was that?" he would inquire. "Did you hear something?  That had to come from somewhere. That has to mean something. That has to be accounted for in any theory of everything."

Yes, it does.
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