Practice Session #32

Welcome to my show notes for this week’s session of Practice!

We record these sessions every Sunday. I try to publish the audio on the same day of recording, but once in a while, I may get delayed due to various reasons.

Also, I will usually have the AI-generated transcript and my initial notes published on the same day of recording as well. On Fridays, I’ll go back through and proof the transcript while I add all of my notes.

I’ll be utilizing this opportunity to clarify and elaborate on points that I may not have conveyed as well as I would’ve liked to. I’ll also provide links to further information and resources.

So, on Friday, I’ll intersperse all my notes with the transcription from the audio below (unless I don’t 🤷).

[00:00]

CK: Alrighty. Ready?

Pam: I’m ready, Freddy.

CK: I got a timer today.

Okay…

Pam: Are you laughing at my burp?

CK: Yup.

Here we go.

Heyo! I’m CK, and you’re listening to Practice. I’m your functional systems integrator, and this is my podcast where practice is not just the theme of this show, but the whole purpose behind it. What started out as a practice of podcasting, as well as speaking in general, has evolved into a practice of self-coaching and self-reflection while espousing half-thoughts and providing unsolicited advice.

As always, I’m fortunate to be joined by my practice partner and partner in life, Pam.

Pam: Hey, that’s me.

CK: Pam is also my pattern awareness manager, and every Sunday we reflect on the past week and my progress with this practice, along with other lifestyle practices, as well as theories and ideas behind the virtues of practice itself.

We’re doing this on the fly. So don’t hold me responsible for what I say here. Make sure to check out my show notes where I’ll provide some fact-checking, self-psychoanalysis and commentary on things I could have done better. You may find this in more information about this project at ForcesOfEqual.com/Practice.

And we’re recording today on Sunday, October 4th of 2020. This is practice session number 32.

And I am just kind of all over the place again, this week. A lot of ideating going on. Lot’s of thinking going on… lots of music this past week, especially yesterday. I guess it kind of ramped up to yesterday, which was very fun. Might talk about that a little more later, but real quick, Pam, how was your week?

Pam: Uh, I had a kind of a stressful week. Um, just the first week of the month is always a little bit stressful with client work and reporting and whatnot. But add on top of that, I have had a nagging shoulder injury for coming on two months now. And it just kind of got to the point where it had worn me down so much that I mentally couldn’t deal with anything else.

And I was pretty grumpy. So, um, I wanted to take a second to give some gratitude to you for being very kind all week and not making my crappy mood even worse. And, you know, knowing to just kind of give me some space to let me be grumpy. I’m sure I couldn’t have been as easy to live with as I usually am.

CK: No, I don’t think, yeah. I don’t think, I think you handle it pretty well. You kept it from effecting me and well, you know, whatever I could do, I, I could tell that you were pretty frustrated and getting annoyed with it, but yeah, I mean, thanks for recognizing what. I was doing, but I, you know, I don’t feel like I was doing very much.

Yeah.

Pam: Well, that’s exactly what you were doing though, is not making it worse. Not like not, not trying to help when I didn’t want help or, you know, just kind of giving me some space to, to be grumpy. Sometimes that’s necessary.

CK: Yeah. But the good news is that it’s getting better. Right.

Pam: It is. Yeah. Thanks to dr. Google. I found a YouTube video from a physical therapist that, um, within 30 seconds almost entirely cured my issue. So I’m pretty excited about that. And he’s got a program that I might look into adding into my routine of all kinds of like, uh, repairative moves like that to keep your body functioning is.

Properly as possible. So you reduce the chance of injury?

CK: Progressive.

Pam: Yeah. If it works all, I let people know what it is.

CK: Yeah, just a quick update on me. I haven’t really talked about my issue with my foot and my toe lately, so I still have not been back on the road or the trails yet. And I’m kind of surprised how long it’s taking my toe to heal, but I feel like I’m almost ready to try. Maybe running on the road again, maybe start out with a mile or so, and see how that goes.

But yeah, I mean, trying to think of back when I broke that toe, I think it was maybe two years ago, three years

Pam: More than that. Yeah. Yeah.

CK: And I feel like I came back faster from that, but maybe not in terms of activity, but in terms of like pain and how it was feeling and how it was affecting me. So, yeah. I don’t know. It’s weird, but

Pam: well, this is the second major injury on the same toe. So it’s probably

CK: Lots of scar tissue and. Stuff. So I did go to the doctor. I don’t know if I mentioned that a few weeks ago and I got x-rays and yeah, it ended up not being broken, which I thought was great, but it still feels like it’s just as bad or even worse. Uh, supposedly I might’ve torn some and stuff like that, so yeah.

Anyway, it’s starting to feel better and it might. Left foot looks really weird with how all my toes are and like the broken one and how they’re all kind of the injured one is sticking to the ring toe. And now there’s a huge space between my second toe in the middle of my foot. It’s pretty weird, but I like it anyway. So let’s go ahead and move on to the quote for this week. And this week we are quoting loud too, from the touted Ching. And this is from Taoism obviously, and the quote goes like this. When people see somethings as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see somethings as good other things become bad and it’s pretty simple this week.

And I think it. The basis of the quote is fairly straight forward where it’s, it goes along with pretty much everything that we talk about in terms of complex systems and spectral, potentiality, and perspectives and how there’s a spectrum of options. And also how, you know, as. Uh, someone see something, you know, someone else might see it a different way.

And so it goes along with our concepts, with the forces of equal and Newtonian physics and, you know, uh, what’s the, is it the third law? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So it’s, uh, we’ll see if I can relate stuff throughout this session to that quote, but I mean, it’s pretty basic, so you can pretty much relate most anything to it.

Pam: There’s so many different ways that you can look at it. Like the way I was hearing it. When you first said it before you explained all the. Other ways that you could look at it. I was just thinking of it as duality so that, you know, thinking about maybe like expectations in life, if you have an expectation of an outcome and that’s what you consider good than any other outcome would be bad. So like labeling anything as good or, or bad automatically. And by default creates the opposite being the other side of that spectrum, no matter what you do.

CK: Yeah. I’m so glad that you said that because I was kind of trying to convey that notion and it just kind of started going into other things, but it. Also adds to what we’ve been talking about the past couple of weeks in terms of how we view things and how as humans, we put boundaries on things and categorize things.

And there’s this spectrum of language that we have to consider in terms of what that language actually means and what we’re trying to say with it. So it just goes into all this stuff and, uh, Mostly perspective, you know, it all comes down to perspective and also reflection that comes out of that. So it’s pretty much in line with what we’ve been talking about.

So we’ll see if I can weave that in. And I, yeah, I may be ready to start talking about form versus function

Pam: Okay.

CK: and that’s something that I mentioned. Maybe months ago now at this point that I wanted to talk about, but it’s all kind of lining up now and it feels like the right time to talk about it. And not that I have all my concepts and theories solidified still abstract and stuff, mowing things around, but form versus function has been a big thing for me.

Of course, I call myself a functional systems integrator. And historically I’ve seen myself as a very functionally strategic person in terms of how I go about things in my work and my life and my routines and practices and all that stuff. And I’ve kind of been neglecting the form aspect and I’ve.

Previously I’ve thought that function was way more important than form. And what I’m talking about is how some methodology or product or whatnot is functional and how it actually does what it supposed to do or what you want it to do versus the form of it, which is. Mostly has to do with how it looks and how it’s portrayed I suppose. And so I think cars are a good example where the function of a car is. For mobility. And to get you from point a to point B in the form of the car is how it looks and the exterior and the interior and all the gadgets and little gizmos, I guess, gadgets have function too, but at some point there’s and the thing is there, that form has function. And that’s the thing that I’ve been realizing more and more lately. Because, you know, using the car example in my younger years, I was very much into cars and I still have a Ford Mustang, SVT Cobra, which. I still think is a pretty cool car. And I, you know, just realizing that I’m saying that I realized that I still have some kind of ties to the form of the car

Pam: Even though it hasn’t been driven in two years, so no one knows you have it. No one sees you in it.

CK: it’s not even functional.

Pam: Yeah, there you go.

CK: It’s funny because I used to have this mindset where. You know, or now I’ve kind of cultivated this mindset mindset recently in recent years where I totally disregarded the form of cards. And I kind of looked down on people who were all about the form and how the car looked and all that stuff versus what the cars for.

And I still do think, you know, there’s. A lot of efficiencies or I’m not sure what the right word is, but pointlessness to some of the things that people want with their cars and it gets out of hand or out of line, and it gets to a mindset where it’s not practical and it leads to. Maybe spending money on ground effects or a paint job or something that really doesn’t matter in terms of the function of the car. And it may make you feel better about the car, but then. Why does that make you feel better? You know, why does it have to take that form? And what is the actual value of you feeling better about how your car looks versus what your car does? And is it because you want other people to think it’s cool or, you know, does, is there something about it that you think other people.

Are going to think better of you because of it. So then you’re thinking outside of yourself and you’re thinking in the super system, and now you’re being dependent on the hierarchies above you. And so I’m kind of weaving in a lot of stuff that we’ve been talking about the past couple of weeks. So hopefully it makes sense, but that’s kind of where I’ve been coming from in terms of this form versus function debate.

And now I’m realizing that. Uh, so in that sense, I’ve been thinking that function should take precedence over form. And that is the rational perspective. When form takes precedence over function, that’s more of that. It’s irrational in terms of. What the thing in this case, the car actually does versus what you think you want it to do. And so that’s more of an irrational perspective, but then when function equals, what I think of as an optimal perspective, so that the look of the car is equal to the performance of the car. And. It all kind of integrates and becomes very functional and practical and, you know, you can enjoy how your car looks at the same time as enjoying how the car performs and functions in your life.

So there’s a balance there. And so I’ve been, so I’ve had that notion that I’ve been working with it for awhile. And I’ve kind of been always like, you know, forum has the equal function or function. It has to be greater than form. So basically in order to be optimal or progressive function has to be equal to, or greater than form. But now I’m starting to realize as I’m, by associating these concepts with stuff like emotion versus reason and creativity versus objectivity, where like I was talking about in previous weeks, emotion. Lined up with creativity, whereas reason lined up with objectivity. And now in the same sense of the form function, dimension.

Yeah. Emotion and form. Lineup and reason and function lineup. So form has those aspects of emotion and creativity. Whereas function has the aspects of reasoning objectivity. And now, as I’ve been growing more into this creative state and getting more in touch with my emotions and. Asserting myself and building up the forum aspect so I can build up to equal the function.

I’m kind of realizing that form can be greater than function as long as it’s pretty close. So it’s kind of, you know, we can use my analogy of the momentum wave, where. You necessarily don’t want to be hitting those peaks and the valleys or those extremes. Too often, because it creates a very volatile progression.

You want to try to get in that sweet spot of the wave, which is where you make, where, where there’s the most momentum. And so when we, if we. Associate this with form versus function, rather than then being on the extremes of form and function. You want to try to get them to equal out or close, to equal out to each other.

And in that sense, it’s okay for form to be a little bit, then function and vice versa for them to be a little less than function, which I’ve always. Considered as okay. But it’s also a kid that form is greater than function as long as they’re close. And so, um, I don’t know if I’m articulating why this is important to me or important in general to consider.

Pam: It sounds like what you’re saying is that by having new experiences and exposing yourself to new information, you have altered your view.

CK: Yeah, definitely. I’ve definitely altered my view. And so, I mean, does my previous view and the evolution of that view makes sense.

Pam: Of course.

CK: So do you also agree that like you want to have form and function. Be pretty close together in order for something to be effective and optimal.

Pam: Yeah. There’s so many times when I complain like, Oh, this looks great, but it doesn’t work or this works, but it, you know, it’s terrible to use. So yeah, absolutely. It should be pretty equal.

CK: Yeah. Okay. Well, it was a lot easier than I thought to get a trust, so let’s see. Where can I go from there?

Pam: Well, I think you are missing the nuance of what I said, that new experience, new information changed your perspective. Like that’s something that we talk about all the time that you, you have to have this spectrum of information. And if you’re, if you, I think we talked about it last week, that your knowledge.

From the, from the super system is affecting the decisions that you make and the options that are available to you. So your information from your experiences was affecting the decisions that you are making, and simply by exposing yourself to new, uh, new information, you’ve changed one of your kind of principle beliefs,

CK: Right.

Yeah. That is a very good point. And yeah, I’m trying to wrap my head around it, but yeah, I mean, it’s what we’ve been talking about in terms of being open and having open mind and. Being mindful of your experiences and of course learning and growing from new information. So I guess that’s, this is just the exemplify that can work and how you can evolve your thoughts and your mindset.

Pam: There you

CK: And so, yeah, on that note, I’ve still been experiencing a ton of synchronicity. And I’m enjoying Arthur. Kessler’s the act of creation a lot. And it’s, it’s going to take me a long time to get through as well. As I mentioned his, the book I read previously, the ghost in the machine took me about a year to read through and that’s just. One, because I just kind of developed that practice of reading a little bit of it in the morning during my morning routine. But for two, it’s so dense and complex that it’s beneficial for me, or I feel that it’s beneficial to just take it little bit at a time and to kind of process it slowly because. I share a lot of the things that I talk about. Are pretty complex. And you know, I, I’m not able to articulate it as succinct succinctly as I’d like to, and that’s almost kind of a reflection or an extension of how, just how complex all this stuff is. So, you know, it’s, it’s useful or I, I think it’s productive, more productive to take it a little. Bit at a time.

So yeah, experiencing a ton of synchronicity with that, and I’m still enjoying all of Kessler’s concepts and it feels like they’re all fitting in and I’m still making more connections with them, my own concepts that I’ve been developing and that I’ve been talking about. And one of the things that I realized was that.

Of course, I introduced myself as a functional systems integrator. And as I’ve been thinking about all this stuff around complex systems and integration and the headless way, I’m realizing that all this stuff that I’ve been kind of conceptualizing, which has been Intentional in terms of language has starting to, has been starting to crystallize.

So functional systems integration is something I came up with maybe two years ago, two or so years ago. And even then, and even now I still kind of been saying, you know, I don’t even know what it means. I just kind of made it up and I’m just kind of developing it, but it’s. Now it’s making even more sense to me.

And even those words, functional system integration. Yeah. It makes perfect sense with everything that I’ve been learning and studying lately and especially with the headless way and what I’ve been talking about with complex systems and the hierarchies and the subsistence and stuff, super systems like these are the functional systems that I’m trying to integrate. And so it’s, it’s crazy that it’s all coming together and it makes sense. And so, yeah, just experienced it, still experiencing all the synchronicity. And I even came up with a little logo designed for functional systems integration that I’ll have to show Pam and maybe I’ll post it somewhere at some point, but it totally integrates.

Everything that I’ve been thinking and studying and everything that I feel like is coming out of this. It just totally integrates all that perfectly. And this is where the form and the function comes together equally for me. So, yeah, I’m kind of excited to show you that I forgot to show you it before, but yeah, that’s kind of where my head’s at now and where everything’s going and.

Let’s see, where can we go from here? Dan? Do you have any input or anything you want to talk about? Yeah, how’s Gorbey doing,

Pam: Um, he’s with you. So I don’t know.

CK: I forgot. He’s Oh, he’s just chilling. So we’re watching one of our favorite doggies today. Gorbey. And we have them for a total of two weeks. So we get to spend a lot of quality time with them and he’s just chilling. He’s laying down. I forgot. He was even in here. Yeah, he’s a, he loves to play. He plays way more than he should.

He doesn’t have that governor that’s central governor, it just keeps running and running and then. Take some like an hours and catch his breath, but it’s fun. Okay. So let’s see, what else can we talk about?

Pam: Um, I can drop in the, the astrology note for the day, which is that, um, Pluto, just stationed direct. So it’s been retrograde for awhile, which kind of, um, Pluto is the planet of, um, kind of like. Uh, your ultimate dreams and a little bit of like illusion and trickery, and it can be kind of a, a nasty planet sometimes.

Um, I think it’s a lot of fun, but anyway, it’s been retrograde, so it’s kind of been holding us back from, from moving forward. And now that it’s stationed retrograde, it is really associated with, um, big transformations and, uh, potentially a change of power on a. Large scale. So, um, that could be interesting with what is going on politically this week.

CK: Yeah, seriously. Yeah. And man, what’s going on politically. It’s just crazy. So who knows? And th that’s the thing, like, there’s so much uncertainty with all that right now

Pam: Yeah, because we’re not getting any reliable information. Like we can’t trust anything that’s being said. So even though there’s the regular uncertainty of the president being in the hospital, and then on top of that, there’s the uncertainty of our administration and what they’re like.

CK: Yeah. And that just goes to show like, you know, we don’t want to get into the politics, but it goes to show how things can develop from one piece of information or. You know, just a certain nugget of data somewhere. And it, if things, and this all goes back to the language and boundaries and how human, the human brain categorizes things, and, you know, you have to be mindful of where things.

Where information is coming from, because if you start with that one little small nugget of information that turns out to be wrong and everything that you’ve developed from that one little nugget that is wrong is going to be inherently wrong from that. Then, you know, everything that you’ve developed from that little one nugget is wrong.

So yeah. Yeah, we just have to remain mindful. What was the quote, if you want to improve, you have to, um, Oh, Holy cow. I’m totally blanking. Blanking. Um, give me a second. Uh, so I’ll paraphrase. It’s it’s like, if you want to improve, you have to do. Uh, Oh my God. I’m totally blanking. I can’t think right now, uh, if you want to be, if you want improve, you have to, um, something about being comfortable of being thought of as stupid.

Pam: Oh, not today’s quote the quote from

CK: Right, right, right.

Pam: ago. Um, yeah, you have to, uh, become comfortable with being thought of as stupid

CK: Yeah, I’m in. I have to look it up now. Hold on one second. I know this is great radio.

If you want to improve, be content to be thoughtful and stupid. Oh man. I can’t believe, I couldn’t remember that. Right. I still saw it. I’m still working on my. Speaking and talking and yeah, I mean, if we weren’t doing this, I could just come up with it right away on the fly. So that’s kind of weird to think about, but I mindful of that and I still have work to do in terms of being in the moment and trying to recall stuff out of that brain up there, or my brain up there.

It’s getting weird now. I think we’re getting close to finishing up here. And what was I talking about anyway,

Pam: we were talking about, um, politics and how, uh, you have to be mindful of the information that you are, um, paying attention to and that, um, one piece of information can change your entire view.

CK: right? Yeah, because there’s a lot more. Ways to be wrong than to be. Right.

Pam: that’s really interesting.

CK: so yeah, so, you know, if you go into the mindset into any situation that you could be wrong, then that’s the past toward improvement. Because once you think you’re right all the time, then you fall into. A rigid cycle of thinking in psychology, it’s called psychological rigidity where you can’t think outside that.

Thought process and you can’t consider other perspectives then of course you lose empathy. You lose through mind, you lose compassion. And as I’ve talked about before, and when you get into a rigid thought process, that’s the path toward death, you know, when you can’t adapt, then you’re unable to function in a changing environment.

So, yeah. Yeah, I think we can leave it off there. So I want to thank the listeners for joining me again this week. And of course, Pam for joining me like every week and before we leave off, Pam, where can people find you?

Pam: You can find me far too often on Twitter @Pamela_Lund.

CK: Are you on there all the time now?

Maybe so, maybe it’s good that I’m not on there.

Pam: Create a little balance.

CK: So you’ll find me on Twitter @cKdisco. And do I say anything else, I guess? Uh, yeah, just thanks for listening. And I hope you come back next week and keep on practicing.

To-da-loo!