Uses of Tools for Thinking

What do I really care about?

What do I really want to do and to be in the short term and the long term?

• I want to be a truth engager. I want to make all truth available. [Andrius Kulikauskas, 3/01]
• In the short term I want to not only finish my studies as a Traditional Chinese Medical physician, I want to understand the way in which I am training myself to think.  Intuitively I feel more comfortable with the descriptions given by TCM and the mode in which I feel they operate than through the biomolecular model of allopathic medicine.  However, putting my intuitions into words means really trying to know from an outside perspective what is going on at the same time I am doing it, which for me is much more difficult than just doing it.  Andrius, our conversation over Indian food that night, however, made me realize that whatever is going on with the thinking, it is not scientific or analytic, no matter how well the system can describe the living system of our bodies.  That it is neither a scientific nor an analytic system of thought does not make me feel all that uncomfortable, but it does make it much more difficult to describe as I think most of us feel comfortable with scientific and analytic thought than whatever else is going on with TCM.

In the long term I hope to have increased skill in expressing and acting on the things that I really care about.  This may sound a bit circular, but I do not think I have gotten to the ultimate root of what I really care about, nor do I believe that I can express it or act upon it skillfully yet.  While I believe that making manifest the things that we care about is probably the most difficult thing we have to do in this life, we cannot always verbalize what we care about.  And even though we cannot verbalize it, we still care about something and the process of acting from our centers helps us to realize what it is and how to express it. [Stephen Bonzak, 2/01]
• I thrive when I am free to be creative. Organization and administrative details bog me down. Is that bad? Sometimes I wonder. My old friend "Guilt" would say you must take the bad with the good, and suffer through the things that hold you back if you want to be successful. Are there not people who love the challenge of organizing that which is in disarray, and managing all the details of an enterprise? Do they shy away from my passions, just as I shy away from theirs? I think they are out there in great numbers, and I must find them. If I could read, and write, and scribble my little drawings related to new ideas all day, I would be a very happy person. I call my company (In A World, Inc.) "The Idea Petri Dish." I want to conceptualize ideas, develop prototypes, and eventually let them soar under the direction of someone (or some team) who can manage business growth better than I. My list of concepts is always growing, and I can't wait to get back to the "thought laboratory" of conceiving the next idea. This is my wish for the short term and the long term. If success follows, so be it. [Daniel Limbach, 2/01]

• I care about "loving".  I want to love directly.  [Andrius Kulikauskas, 3/01]
• I can answer this question only in the context of what I have done and am doing right now.  I care about being able to express the innermost center of my being, which has come through me in several ways so far in my life.  In no particular order, I care about God, music, kung-fu, dance, helping others, teaching, and loving my wife. [Stephen Bonzak, 2/01]
• I care that everyone uses the gifts and opportunities they have been given, and lead a fulfilled life. Abandon fear, guilt, and posturing for others, and do what you are on this planet to do.  [Daniel Limbach, 2/01]

• A) I choose to foster "re-caring" rather than "re-thinking".  B)  I choose to love individuals directly rather than care about individual relationships.  C) I choose to invest myself in relationships that we wish to share with others.  D) I choose to structure myself so that I stay open to every sort of endeavor that anybody might bring.  [Andrius Kulikauskas, 3/01]
• By choosing to always try to express what is at the innermost center of my being I never loose my care for God, even though I may not be verbalizing that care.  Dance and music have moved to a more peripheral part of my life simply because I do not belong to a particular community that does those things right now, but I have it stored in me and I have it ready as a celebration of Life when I need it.  Teaching is something that I do not do right now, unfortunately because it does not pay as well as other part-time jobs, and because it is extremely exhausting work, and I need my energy for school right now.  Kung-fu is the main way I access my center, which makes it indispensable, but because it is a discipline that needs constant nurturing it is difficult to make it a continual practice.  I am learning TCM right now so that I can better use my talents to help others.  Loving my wife will never be let go as long as I live. [Stephen Bonzak, 2/01]
• Last Summer I decided I will let my career be guided by my four main passions. 1 - Meeting outstanding people and exchanging ideas (networking)  2 - Almost anything Internet-related, especially with a marketing component  3 - Writing - I've discovered I am very fulfilled when I write  4 - Social Mission - I will give back to the community now, not just when I can write a big check  [Daniel Limbach, 2/01]

• I will organize my life so that I am productive from God's perspective.   A) I will look for part-time work which allows me to repay my loans, which develops my skills and relationships, and which allows me to work from Lithuania and other such places.  B) I will develop our laboratory's services as a workspace for "re-thinking".  I want to help our sponsors pursue endeavors and conduct investigations themselves rather than try to do this for them.  [Andrius Kulikauskas, 3/01]
• I feel like I am moving well in the direction I have chosen.  I made the decision to start my training last spring, and I recently gave up full-time work to concentrate more on my studies.

I feel that if I could participate in a group of people that practice kung-fu I would be able to access my desire to teach and have a broader community.  But the desire to have an active community may be supplied (and supplanted for now) by study groups at my college.
Hopefully earning money while I am at school will not be a problem, but I always have to keep in mind that it might.  I think this has always been a weakness of mine, but I am lucky that I have a wife who actively kicks my a-- by challenging me to find other sources of income around the things that I really care about (for example I have been very shy about teaching others qigong - a form of healing meditation - but she advocated for me with a woman that works with cancer patients and I may get a gig soon working with them).  [Stephen Bonzak, 2/01]
• I have taken the first two steps. Step 1 was to understand what I really want. Step 2 was to leave a company I co-founded to pursue my passions. It was a big step for me. What I've lost financially, I've made up for in happiness. I am sure the money will return if I am true to my promise to follow my passions.  [Daniel Limbach, 2/01]

• I will work on the infrastructure of the laboratory.   I will make our workspace attractive  A) for God to work here,  B) for fostering "re-caring",  C) for fostering "re-thinking".  [Andrius Kulikauskas, 3/01]
• Right now I am putting my energy into understanding what I am doing becoming a TCM physician, which in part means just learning the material I need to know (which is a lot!) and the other part means trying to understand what kind of thought the system advocates so that I can operate better within it.

Part of making the latter manifest has inspired me to join in on the conversation at minciu so that I can try to explain to others what I am doing. [Stephen Bonzak, 2/01]
• I have been writing more and more lately. I now have a paying column in a high-tech newsletter, and I write my own newsletter on networking. I am developing a series of free ebooks for distribution over the Internet. I also am the editor of my website on networking, www.schmoozemonger.com. It feeds into all of my career passions. There is far more work than time, but it is good, fulfilling work.  [Daniel Limbach, 2/01]

• I can spend time every day on life that goes beyond the laboratory.  Within the laboratory, I will pursue endeavors that encourage me to do this.  [Andrius Kulikauskas, 3/01]
• Keep my connection to the center through physical practice, meditation and prayer, taking time to celebrate life with others, and giving myself some slack. [Stephen Bonzak, 2/01]
• As a small business owner, I am free to make interesting choices on a daily basis. I am in control of my fate.  [Daniel Limbach, 2/01]

General Resources

The American Philosophical Association publishes a Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.  The editor is Jon Dorbolo, Philosophy Department, Oregon State University, 208 Hovland Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331. The American Philosophical Association, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716-4797, Telephone: (302) 831-1112 Fax: (302) 831-8690  Eric Hoffman, Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Telephone: (302) 831-8691, E-Mail: ehoffman@udel.edu, Chris Clement, Coordinator, Information Technologies, Telephone: (302) 831-1181, E-Mail: tenore@udel.edu    [http://www.udel.edu/apa/, Andrius Kulikauskas, 4/99]

Some discussion groups to know about:  World Wide Brain Club wwbc@egroups.com

Accelerating Learning

• Strengthen and discover our talents.
• Acquire new tools and techniques to orchestrate our energy.
• Understand synergy and its applications.
• Exchange creative experiences between facilitators and participants.
• The movement like center of Dynamic Learning.
• Strengthen our virtues.
• Know the latest techniques as regards computer science, the brain and learning.
• Know methods to evaluate the training process.

The International Congress of  Accelerated Learning takes place in Mexico City, July 28-31, 1999. The new millennium requires new ways of thinking and processing information that every day is more abundant.  Countries require that students be better prepared so that companies are more productive.  Organizations need to make training achieve tangible results.  Quick learning allows the improvement of the capacities of those who learn and who teach.  It generates an atmosphere appropriate for productive learning.  [http://queretaro.org/congreso, 8/99, Eugenio Martinez]

The University of Colorado at Denver, Information and Learning Technologies, Graduate School hosts the website Effective Instructional Strategies for Web Based Learning Environments.  It includes sections on Reflective Thinking, Situated Context, Authentic Activities, Problem Solving, Collaboration, and a set of links on web based instruction. [http://web-education.net/fall98conf/mainpage.htm, 5/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Identifying Attributes

Documenting Procedures

Preserving Information

Strategy

Fulfilling Wishes

A World for Supporting Life

A Plan for Supporting God

A Language for Supporting Others

An Attitude for Submitting to God

Other

Electronic Notebooks and Knowledge Management Systems is a class taught by Rich Lysakowski as part of the International LIMS Conference and Exhibition held in Basel, Switzerland, 23-25 June 1999.  The course covers Collaborative Electronic Laboratory Notebooks, and R&D Team Computing Systems.  LIMS stands for Laboratory Information Management Systems, and many of the other courses deal with instrument purchase, documentation, integration, automation, and the analysis of the resulting data. Some thirty vendors participate at a free exhibition during the conference. Rich Lysakowski also presents a paper Electronic Notebook Systems Status - A State-of-the-Planet Address: Driving Creation and Acceptance Worldwide for Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems - a Paradigm Beyond LIMS, Groupware, and the Web. Rich Lysakowski, rich@censa.org, is also executive director of CENSA. [http://www.limsconf.com/, Andrius Kulikauskas, 5/99]

The Information Management Group at Växjö university in Sweden develops theories and methodologies for the planning and
management of information provision systems, and information and decision support systems in organisational contexts. Papers include Petersson, M. A computer aid for information organizing, and Eklund, U., Hypertext and help systems, both from The second Scandinavian research seminar on information and decision networks, Växjö, 1995. According to the website, last updated in 1996, the Scandinavian Research Seminar on Information Management is held annually in May, and a workshop is held annually in October.  The group is lead by Bengt G Lundberg, lundberg@dsv.su.se  [http://www.masda.vxu.se/Personer/mpeimsa/img/img.html, Andrius Kulikauskas, 7/99]

Critical Thinking Books and Software publishes Thinking Connections: Concept Maps for Life Science to teach children the interrelatedness of concepts in the life sciences by having them place vocabulary words in concept maps. [http://www.criticalthinking.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/storefront.html?L+ctbs+ojih0774+931253360, Andrius Kulikauskas, 7/99]

One of the research interests of the Bioinformatics Group at the Walter Gilbert Laboratory is, "How can the WWW contribute to biological information distribution and access?" [http://mcb.harvard.edu/gilbert/gilbert-bi.html, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

The Bible, the Koran, and the collected plays of William Shakespeare are available in XML at http://www.hypermedic.com/style/xml/xmlindex.htm [7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Concept Maps and KSI's Concept Mapping Software by Rob Kremer includes sample uses: education, medicine, hypermedia, web navigation, software engineering, object technology notations, data visualization, javascripted buttons, multi-user and brainstorming.  [http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kremer/tutorials/ConceptMaps/high/, 2/00, Andrius Kulikauskas]
 
 

Notes

1) What do I really want to do and to be in the short term and the long
term?

I want to contribute.  To be more specific, though, what I want to do and be
in the short term is obviously what I'm doing now:  I want to tend my Web
sites on perished Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and write poetry.
I'd rather NOT also be tending to my mother's needs 30 hours a week.  I'd
like more time for myself--time to take walks and time to get together with
friends.  The problems with my mother, though, are temporary ones and
there's not much for it but to see them through, keeping Mother as
comfortable as possible for the duration of her life here on earth, which
probably isn't going to be a great deal longer.

I seem to recall this sense of "postponing" my own life from other times in
the past.  I know I did it when my children were pre-schoolers.  I kept
telling myself I'd do a lot of things I wanted to do once the three children
were in school.  But the year I got the last one off to school was also the
year my marriage went down the tubes and I ended up fleeing, with my young
children, from the State of New Jersey to my parental home in Texas.  I
wonder if women, more often than men, have this sense of postponing their
lives.  I think this may be so, because women are cast in the caregiver role
so that their own needs become secondary to those of their children, their
husbands, and finally their aging parents.

In the long term, what I'd like is to continue to stay active in terms of
learning new skills and taking on new projects that will have some sort of
lasting, beneficial impact.  I'm probably not going to keep making Web
sites.  But I want to keep writing.  When I write poetry, what I'm doing is
between me and my God.  I don't have any other audience at all.  Afterwards,
it's very nice to have someone read and understand the poetry.  And it's
good to think that this can stay here after I'm gone.

I once attended a social gathering for single women at which a psychologist
was the featured speaker.  The psychologist had us do an exercise in which
we wrote down 10 different roles we associated with ourselves.  Then each
person was to turn to the person next to her and, one by one, hand over her
roles, with her partner doing the same.  As each role was handed over, we
were to explain how we fulfilled that role.  I handed over "Mother,"
"Teacher," everything, until I was down to only two--Poet and Fighter.  Then
I said to my partner, "I'm sorry.  I can't give you these."  I told the
psychologist I had to stop playing the game, even though everybody else was
still playing and not having any difficulty.  I realized then how important
being a poet and a fighter are to my identity.  The two are actually the
same role.  I fight by writing.

2) What do I really care about?

People.  I get high on them.  I took a night class in oil painting in 1966
because I wanted something to put on my walls and didn't have money to buy
artwork.  The art teacher gave us advice on how to paint a head.  We should
imagine, she said, that this wasn't a person we were painting but a cabbage.
In fact, though, I had no trouble painting heads.  My problem was that I
couldn't paint cabbages!  To paint a cabbage, I had to imagine it as
someone's head.  I can do places and people.  Give the cabbages to someone
else!

3) What choices will I make?  What things will I let go, and what things
will I take up?

I'm fairly good at a number of things so sometimes have people asking me
take on jobs I'd rather not do.  I'm better at saying no than I used to be
but perhaps not good enough yet.  I'd prefer  not to take on a lot of extra
jobs I consider absolute drudgery, even though I may do them well and even
though they may be important.  I've been an activist for the environment.  I
know how to do research and write letters, but the work isn't creative
enough to be endlessly interesting to me.  Ditto for editorial work.  I
don't know what I'll take up.  It's probably better for me not to know so
that I can surprise myself.

4) What are the practical steps I must take to start moving in my chosen
direction?  What's involved in terms of earning money, and in terms of
time, place, and people?

I'm "retired" and don't need to earn money anymore, so I'm not even thinking
about that.  And as for place, I'll probably stay in Carlsbad, California,
where I am now, since--after many years of living in cities where I had no
relatives--I'm somewhere with family (my oldest daughter, son-in-law, and
granddaughter).  My daughter and the rest of that family live three blocks
away, and I think so far I've been just as helpful to them as they've been
to me.  My granddaughter used to give me instructions on what to say.  ("The
word 'patio' is not pronounced 'pahtio,' Grandma.  Say 'patio,' with the 'a'
sounding like the 'a' in 'apple'" and, "It's not 'supper,' Grandma.  Say
'dinner.'"  Then Erin found out I could do 6th-grade math, and everything
changed.  I run several services.  One is a homework aid service called,
"Ask Grandma."  Another is a medical consultation service which my children
dubbed, "Call a Quack."

5) What is one aspect of what I really want to do that I can focus my
thinking on and put it into some kind of form?

I think I'm doing it so have nothing more to add here.

6) What can I do so that all along the way I respond to whatever life
presents me with, in the best way I can?

What I can do is stay a little bit loose, not formulate things so tightly
that there won't be any wiggle room!  I want to go where my feet lead me.
Obviously, this will be in the direction of what I find interesting and
valuable.

7) Do I agree to place my answers in the public domain, so that all may
copy and share them without asking for my permission?  (If you do, we'll
share them.)

Who steals my answers probably steals trash!  There's nothing here I feel
particulary proprietary about.  But when I plug my name into an Internet
search engine, my musings sent to Minciu Sodas seem to come up along with my
Web sites and poetry--with all of these given equal weight.  I think I'd
rather be known for the Web sites and poetry than for disquisitions like
this one!
 

8) Would I like to give my name?  And a way to contact me, such as an
email address?

I always sign my name to whatever I write.  After all, I'm under the
illusion that there's somebody out there looking for me!

Tah-tah, all--
Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld        marjorierosenfeld@earthlink.net
Carlsbad, CA

****************************************************

1. What do I really want to do/be in the short term
and the long term?
To ask questions, explore, and present original points of view
about the following subjects:
God; Consciousness; Love; The Universe; Myself; Others;
by using the following means, to the best of my ability:
writing, visual art, cartoons, 3D construction, video,
websites, structured spaces, music, speech and any other
relevant forms of expression.

2. What do I really care about?
a) Communicating to others feelings of wonder, joy, love and faith.
b) Receiving from others feelings of wonder, joy, love and faith.
c) Bringing clarity to confusion wherever I am able to do so.
d) Following a clear and consistent path to achieve all the above.

3. What choices will I make? What will I let go, and what
will I take up?
To let go of guilt and regret about my past errors or failures.
To wipe the slate clean of resentment about others' errors or
failures towards me or those close to me.
To spend more time on physical activities to counterbalance the
time I spend on mental or sedentary work.
To aim for a sense of community rather than to remain in isolation.

4. What are the practical steps I must take to start moving
in my chosen direction? What's involved in terms of earning
money, and in terms of time, place and people?
a) To focus immediate attention on establishing a regular and
realistic source of income, to supplement current unpredictable,
unreliable and scarce earnings.
b) This means a radical examination and overhaul of my present way
of doing things, the use of my time, and the way I see myself with
regard to financial remuneration.
c) It also means altering others' perception of me by being more
specific in what I am asking and/or offering them.

5. What is one aspect of what I really want to do that I can
focus on and put into some kind of form?
To think about, plan, design and establish a website through which I
might begin to move in a practical way towards some of the above.

6. What can I do so that all along the way I respond to
whatever life presents me, in the best way I can?
By visualising:
a) Who do I absolutely not want to resemble?
b) Who would I love to resemble?
Really making an effort of the imagination to see myself in those
two opposite roles. Then trying to act according to the one I prefer.