I’m busy today with this entry and preparations for my talk on Sunday, but a short and compact update is in order. And I also have a ‘writing’ for today about an insight that kept me awake for some time last night.

Derrick called yesterday morning and he is doing ok. The coming week will be his last one for classes of this six week summer session, which terminates on the 22nd this instance. This has helped him gain almost two years on the more formal fulltime programme that runs over the winter.

Yesterday I also had coffee with Jack, while we explored many happenings and ideas, of which the most interesting one is the idea of ‘spirituality’ and for men in particular - see writings below. Jack also showed me a shot of his sailing his new rooftop catamaran in full sail. Wow, what a guy to go and do something like that and ravel in it!

I also paid Sharen a quick visit since on Monday I could not wake her from her afternoon slumber. I brought my blueberries again, which were a welcome treat and Sharen was more alert than usual, recalling the warship explosion in the Vancouver harbour, back in around 1944.

For Tuesday’s dinner I’d been invited to Sarah’s and BJ’s which was also a reconnect with Sarah’s parents, which I had not seen for some time. And I could hand Sybil her copy of the much awaited ‘Slithering down the River’. As usual we had a good connect and I may have overstayed a bit after Sarah and BJ had left for an additional visit, however I did get home by 9:00pm.

Today is concentrated on getting ready for my talk, which as usual will have some ‘talking points’, that still need formalising and copying. I now want to move on to my writings.

I have two topics for to write about, the first one is ‘spirituality’ and the second is ideology. Jack mentioned the difficulty of describing spirituality for the male. This resonated with me, because I have given some thought to the idea of spirituality in general over the years. The topic of ideology relates to my interest in the conflicts that at time emerge between religions, but also in the secular realm of capitalism versus socialism.

The idea of spirituality as I define that for myself is as follows. The spiritual experience is one that occurs when we become conscious of something not previously known. This new awareness emerges in the sense that it cannot be reduced to a foregoing cause, though there maybe a relatedness. In short the experience of a new conscious awareness is a spiritual experience.

This experience can be an insight, a feeling, sensation or intuition and may often be a combination of two or more of these aspects. As an aside, I am utilising Carl Jung’s concepts of the four functions here, which also form the basis of the Briggs-Meyers test.

The experience of spirituality can then be seen as one of the transcendental function, also described by Jung and defined clearly in “Jung Lexicon” by D. Sharp, 1991. The transcendental aspect is in the newness of what previously unknown in the world of conscious experience of the person concerned.

Such an experience can be a feeling for man, as men often repress their feelings, where as for a woman it may be an insight rather than a feeling, of which women are usual more aware. And combination between functions are also possible. Telling in all cases is the sense of change in available energy and the fascination that the experience holds for some time. That is the time for the individual, to work with it and integrate its new content and meaning in the conscious awareness.

My second insight from last night was actually a confirmation of my earlier formed notion that each ideology derives its power from a distortion in a held view or conviction. Each such view orders the world of experience for its believer, which can be a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or Secularist.

Each will have a certain distortion in its view and this distortion provides the driving force of the conviction, which in turn motivates certain action. A person with a perfectly balanced view would not be motivated to do anything one could say, drawing this notion to its extreme.
<ca. 10am~