Leading Alice

This is an amazing rendering of Alice in Wonderland by Jan Svankmajer. If you get a chance to rent it and haven't had your daily fill of weirdness, this film is fascinating. I had to watch it in art during eighth grade and it was pretty frightening.

I wonder if Charles Dodgson knew into how many languages his masterpiece would be translated. Alice in Wonderland isn’t exactly written in English (even nineteenth century British English) as it is. Dodgson was a mathematics teacher at Oxford and a logician on the side so he was always thinking in languages other than English. (If there’s one thing I’ve learned from logic class this year, it’s that the semantics of the English language cannot be fully represented by symbolic logic and that symbolic systems oversimplify and cannot accurately depict reality.) Speaking in numbers or with ontological connectives or in Jabberwocky then was not so awkward to Dodgson. Lewis Carroll (for I am now speaking of the author rather than the person) created his own language in order to tell the story inspired by Alice Liddle, a young girl with whom he could revisit the language of childhood, the language of imagination, which “somehow speaks to us on a deeper level” (Brian Anderson).

Today at the Henry Ransom Center, I saw “Jabberwocky” and “The Mouse’s Tale” performed in Spanish, German, Japanese, Latin, and French and the Alice texts in a handful of other languages. The sounds of the different oral patterns telling the same stories were fascinating. In a world that is becoming ever more multicultural and striving to find unity in diversity, this is the sort of multilingual dialogue world leaders should be able to have. Even if an international representative cannot speak twelve languages, he or she must have tolerance – much more than tolerance – intelligent tolerance, skills of interpersonal human understanding, the ability to communicate across cultural barriers. Even though Ryan didn’t know precisely what Charlotte was saying – she was speaking in German – he was able to interpret the piece by the amount of time elapsed, the cadence of her voice, and the sounds of concocted English words translated into concocted German. “The Alice stories are certainly more than just books” (Brian Anderson). They have touched lives all over the world, effecting a “spooky action at a distance” (690), just as new leaders of a globalized society must do. If I ever attend an international conference, I want it to sound as colorful and diverse as our recitations of Alice, and hopefully the product will be more than gibberish and jabberish.

The multilingual world spanned by Alice's charm.

Alice is the only human child in Wonderland and is forced into the position of being “her own hero” (691A). Though she hits the ground after tumbling down the rabbit hole, it takes her most of the story (the same is true when she dissolves through the looking glass) to find her feet. Nothing makes sense. Alice is given “advice from a caterpillar” (Alice 47) who smokes hookah, converses with a bodiless smile in a tree, and runs a thirty-minute circular race as a means of drying off (because listening to dullest history recitation isn’t effective). But through this, Alice learns to assert herself, to find strength in who she is, to find relative stability in the ever tossing sea of insanity that she has fallen into. Alice has no choice but to “follow [her] intuition” (81), and exercise that most definitely helps “to clarify [her] personal vision” (80).

A visual sampling of multidimensional college insanity.

There is a definite parallel between Alice’s descent and the fall from home down the college hole. I struggle, just as Alice does, to find balance. Alice consumes various potions (“drink me”) and bites various cakes and mushrooms in order to change her size. When she wants to fit through mouse-sized door she alternately becomes far too tall and then just the right size but without the requisite key. I can focus on one class or one aspect of my life and inflate impressively in that domain. But alas, the door behind which lies the garden is too small for even my shoe to fit through. And so I shrink, forgetting the key I took from say, logic class, in order to steal through the doorway into DB land. Alice does at last figure out just the right amount to chew off. If her courageous expeditions through wonderland are not an example for me to follow, they are at least a comfort for me to imagine. Both Alice and I have been displaced; Alice persisted, grew, and made it through; so can I. I will continue to work through this process of shrinking and expanding, and I will learn slowly how much of each mushroom I should bite off.

Leadership and the Value of Second Life in Our First Life

(See webspace version for proper documentation and appendix: https://webspace.utexas.edu/wcj262/Bump/swordp2/P2footnoted.htm?uniq=-33clra)


Our in class Second Life experience.

Learning to be a leader who lives from a solid foundation of self-awareness is the greatest benefit I can receive from my liberal university education. The accelerating evolution of society and culture in the modern world demands that a liberal education teach many skills. New and innovative techniques are immerging all the time to teach leadership, which increasingly is entailing a wide variety of skills, such as emotional and interpersonal intelligences, and a means to find a balance between them. Second Life is one such virtual experiment in leadership and educational enrichment. My feelings about the program, however, are conflicted. Though our role model construction and conversations were interesting trial runs, Second Life did not activate enough of my intelligences to be effective leadership training, nor did it motivate me to continue with other SL-oriented pursuits.

Through writing about my role model in P1, the first of this series of essays, I learned about the type of leader I want to become. I revisited Ken Wilber’s work and life story, which have been a major inspirations for the direction I have taken during the past year or so of my life. I admire not only his academic work but also the way in which he conducts his own life and his interactions with others. “Leadership… builds up from a foundation of self-awareness,” a principle exemplified by Ken Wilber’s life. He has been a contemplative practitioner for several decades and has benefited from several forms of psychotherapy, both of which have increased his personal awareness. But being a true leader entails that one does not stop with internal reflection, and indeed Wilber does not. He emphasizes balance, a point that has greatly enriched my life. I have learned from Wilber that there are many aspects of life worth giving attention, for “to give undue prominence to one is to be unjust to another” . Though he is an intellectual giant, his teachings do not end with the last chapter of any book; they have pragmatic value and reach into the lives of real people in the real world. By learning from my role model and recognizing that which I admire in him, I can grow toward becoming the leader I want to be.
(This is the Integral SL club. It is the virtual site of my role model's, Ken Wilber's, teachings. I was so excited when I found that he too had experimented with SL.)

Filling the leadership role I envision for myself involves learning from more than a sole exemplar. It is valuable to recognize what many leaders from various backgrounds and in various domains of life have contributed to improving societies. By reviewing my fellow classmates’ writings about their respective role models, I have gained insight into what makes an invaluable contributor to the world and an inspiring figure in the lives of others. Gandhi is such an important historical figure not only because he “tried extremely hard to bring the different people of India together,” but also because he “inspired [other] leaders by ‘…creating resonance and moving [them] with a compelling vision or shared mission’ ” (Avni Mody). By reminding people of a greater purpose in life – one that large numbers of people could connect with – Gandhi was able to mobilize a peaceful movement for human rights and unification that would immeasurably improve Indian society. A true leader, one whose acts will continue to benefit society even after he or she is gone, knows how to empower those around him. Mary Kay Ash, for example, improved the lives of fellow employees by choosing “to bring morality to the work place and thus empower women to succeed in a balanced manner” (Hannah Chesser). Both Gandhi and Mary Kay motivated other people by promoting principles they believed necessary to a fulfilling life. I can learn from them, among many things, strength, certitude, and the courage to proceed with a vision.
(This is the corporeal version of Ken Wilber, although I suppose it could be argued that this physical manifestation is no more real than the digital one.)

But becoming the leader that I want to be involves emulating people close to me as well. Gandhi and Mary Kay Ash have inspired thousands, but they have not impacted my life in so personal a way as friends and family have. Danielle’s role model is her father. His “unending enthusiasm and love for each member of his family” (Danielle Oxford) are sources of utmost admiration. I aspire to become a leader who shows such compassion. Compassion and unconditional love are also qualities I practice by integrating Ken Wilber’s work into my life. Just as Danielle finds this warmth in her father, I too find them in my mother and father. The effort they have put into supporting me and guiding me toward my current place in life cannot be overstated. Their lives inspire me personally, as though I could touch their stories, in a way Ken Wilber, Mahatma Gandhi, and Mary Kay Ash cannot. Becoming the leader I want to become entails heart-to-heart relationships. Mass societal movements may be the ones recorded in the history books, but every single one of them begins with an individual relating to others the best way he knows how.

All of this talk about emulating great leaders has import for our experiment with Second Life because Second Life is a virtual world in which participants can practice being leaders. Each of us in our class created representations of our role models so that we might better understand them. By having to then behave and interact as our role models, we were asked to embody their characteristics. “By actually entering into the object, so to speak, [one can] secure a momentary but complete identification with it” (the sympathetic imagination), which was precisely our practice with our exemplars. This is important because temporary states can, if they are entered frequently enough, become traits. That is, by temporarily adopting our role models’ characteristics we can learn to live as they do. We subject ourselves to a lifestyle we currently only dream of and, with practice and dedication, we can make that dream a reality. This is one method by which Second Life potentially accelerates the formation of leaders.

My first group chat in Second Life

This process is in accord with the core purpose of a university education, which should train individuals to benefit society. As Peter T. Flawn announced in his annual address to the UT faculty, “public universities exist to serve society,” which means producing people who know how to live and lead in the contemporary, ever-developing world. Graduates must be fluent in the language of technology and computers and be able to communicate with facility and tolerance. When they can, “the doorway to rapid, intentional evolution of liberal education opens.” Second Life is a multimedia program for a multimedia world, integrating many necessary skills, such as computer skills, communication skills, leadership abilities, creativity, and discovery learning. Reaching others through multidimensional means – intellectually, emotionally, visually, aurally – is a skill that must be taught by universities if they are to fulfill their goal of benefiting a society now constituted of “creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers,” people who lead well-rounded lives.

I feel conflicted, however, when I promote Second Life as a means of embodying the traits exemplified by our role models and necessary for the success of contemporary leaders. Our experiment was most certainly valid and, in theory, seemed to have great potential. But I don’t think it was actually that effective. I was very excited to be Ken Wilber, if only for an hour. Each of us had to know our role model well enough to converse as he or she would, and I believe we all did. Unfortunately this didn’t mean that we actually did behave as them. At the conversations’ start, I strongly intended to speak as Ken Wilber would. But as the interactions heated up, the mask would melt away, and the puppeteer’s own prejudices would be revealed. I periodically forgot that I was Ken Wilber. This, however, did reveal an interesting tidbit about the degree to which I have absorbed my role model’s teachings. If I were to relive one of the conversations and remember to remain Ken Wilber throughout, I don’t think much of what I said would have changed at all. Though I had unconsciously fallen out of character, I still managed to quip, “interpersonal relationships are vital to a strong leader… the mind cannot blossom ‘by itself’” (Sprinkles Timeless, Chat), a particularly Wilberesque phrase. So while Second Life may not have actually forced me to play virtual Ken Wilber, it did show me that Wilber has become a regular part of the way I think and act.

I became excited as Second Life afforded me the opportunity to become closer to Ken Wilber (odd as that may seem), but I simultaneously felt many frustrations. I have decided that I am going to meet Ken Wilber, and bizarre experiences such as this provide me with a way to get his attention. He would be fascinated by this multidimensional experiment. Designing virtual Ken Wilber in Second Life became fun once I got the hang of it, though it did require a painful amount of time. I sat for quite a good chunk of time with Ken Wilber’s portrait perched beside my laptop, trying to decipher his facial structure so that I could replicate it. Beyond this minor pleasure, however, I did not enjoy much about Second Life. Flying in SL made me no more giddy than sitting does in my first life, and, though the computer coded flowers were of passing attractiveness, I much prefer ones that I can actually smell. The captions that should have been clear on screen would first appear blurry for several seconds and took an irritating amount of time to load. I do not like video or computer games in general, hence the aspects of our experiment I enjoyed were ones dealing more with Ken Wilber’s ideas and less with Second Life’s games.

Our conversations in Second Life were, for the most part, equally as frustrating. A lack of humanness pervades computer games and interactions, and therefore trying to have a conversation, a necessarily human interaction, was difficult. Dialogues were less like mutual communication and more like verbal onslaughts. Interface became unnecessarily competitive as participants hurled words back and forth, trying to shove as much verbiage into their speech bubble as they could manage.

If you look closely, you can see the sweat pouring down the computer screen as fingers fly over the keys and the competition bristles.

It is difficult to listen to what others are saying in this format and understanding is impeded. Although some intriguing topics were initiated, such as “connect everything to these [basic primitive] drives and you can transcent [sic] cultural boundaries” (LincolnLog Rokocoko, Chat), it was difficult to develop them because of the mayhem of other ideas and the impossibility of speaking directly with one other person. Leadership was exercised by multiple participants in efforts to direct the conversation, but technological impediments easily overwhelmed any attempts at human intervention. Because our topic of discussion was prescribed, wooden conversations were difficult to avoid. Natural conversations wander, but in Second Life wandering is “not the topic of discussion at hand, so let’s move on” (Heidi Reinard, Chat). This type of predetermined track created forced discussion that became unpleasant and was only occasionally rewarding.



I was more motivated to write P1 than I am to write the present one incorporating Second Life. P1 was motivated by more than just my normal academic drive. Revisiting Ken Wilber’s work was exciting, and as I did so I could feel the personal benefit I was receiving. I really embraced the role model paper as a topic that had true value in my own life. There is intrinsic value in the exploration of that which I admire. Second Life is not an invigorating subject to write about, and that alone diminishes my desire to do so. Other factors, such as the increase in my stress levels during discussions, deter me from wanting more to do with Second Life. I cannot see a direct correlation between Second Life and student motivation to write. The only reason I am drawing one is because I am in fact writing about Second Life; otherwise SL and motivation seem unrelated.

Second Life was not a positive discovery learning experience. I had no desire to explore, but that could simply be because computer games in general do not agree with me. Some people argue that computers can provide interactive experiences. I am reluctant to agree. Discovery learning entails hands on experience and sensory intake that I think is impossible in a computer program. Things in Second Life are prescribed to a degree that I didn’t have to explore. I found myself asking others instead, avoiding what might be called discovery learning through a computer game.

This experiment in Second Life did exercise certain leadership skills. It took guidance and assertiveness to keep discussion germane. But by no means did SL exercise the comprehensive range of skills needed to be an emotionally intelligent leader as proposed by Goleman et al. I exercised no self-awareness, nor did I apply any emotional intelligence. In fact, emotion is nearly impossible to convey in this format. It was rather like being a leader of a cardboard world: predictable safe, completely intellectual. I was successful at spitting out ideas rapid fire, and I did learn some things about myself. I learned that I strongly dislike this type of competitive, one-sided interaction, and my desire to find a balance of intelligences in my own life and in my interactions with others was further confirmed. “We should take care not to make the intellect our God. It has… no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve,” and unfortunately it was the only intelligence at work in Second Life. Ken Wilber’s work has helped me to discern imbalance in situations such as this, and it is to his work that I return, rather than to the glitches and artificiality of a simulated world.

A person who has learned leadership through a liberal education will be able to extend his or her knowledge into all domains, even virtual ones such as Second Life. But this is not true vice-versa. I don’t think leadership learned in SL (if that is indeed possible) can be effectively extended into larger real world contexts. As an experiment in a liberal education attempting to produce leaders for the benefit of society, Second Life is an interesting side-note. For leaders in our forward-racing world, virtual interactions may enhance their leadership capabilities, but they will never match the importance of an emotionally aware and balanced human being.


Word count: 2186

Footnotes (see webspace version for proper documentation and appendix: https://webspace.utexas.edu/wcj262/Bump/swordp2/P2footnoted.htm?uniq=-33clra)
Daniel Goleman et al, “Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 64.
John Henry Newman, “The Idea of a University,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 309.
Goleman et al, 68.
Peter T. Flawn, “Annual Address to the Faculty, October 16, 1984,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 306.
“Daily Report from The Chronicle of Higher Education,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 328.
Daniel Pink, “Revenge of the Right Brain,” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s, 2007), 331.
Goleman et al, 62.

Peering Over the Walls at Oxford

His face shows expectation better than I can represent it with words.

Now that I am at UT, I think of my high school years in relation to college. Freshman year at HSPVA was all “random feelings of nervousness” (Logan France) and disbelief: “Is this really high school? I can’t believe I’m going to be driving next year.” I was “enthralled with the freedom” (Logan France) but not really sure what to do with it. College was still rather distant. During sophomore year, I began to feel like I actually belonged in high school. Sixteen is the quintessential high school age. College begins to peek around the corner, but nothing’s urgent yet. Junior year is when the focus begins to shift from high school to college. You’re an upperclassman, which means you get to be full of yourself and flaunt your jadedness. Test results are sent to universities and university solicitations fill your mailbox. Everybody wants you at his school! Harvard and Yale are practically begging your presence. Senior year is almost a misfit in the high school plan. Senioritis rolls around; you are so done with this petty education. The last year of high school is completely structured around preparation for the next four. The progression should really be: freshman, sophomore, junior, pre-freshman, repeat. I built so many dreams about my four years at “a citadel of enlightenment” (639) during my last two years of high school. Oh, what wonders the future always seems to hold.

At the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, academics are not so much a focus. The teachers understand that arts are the priority – for the students individually as well as the school overall. (This is actually one of my sister's best friends at HSPVA.) Being more academically inclined than many of my friends, I became frustrated with the intellectual limitations my school placed on me. I had visions of breaking free from the intellectual malaise and joining “the more thoughtful and mentally shining” (Hardy 651) students at a great university. As I proclaimed in August, “I cannot wait to be with many more academically inclined peers” (Wiley Jennings). As I read over the pre-college expectations of fellow Bumpers, I feel a little backwards. In high school I had so much freedom. I had a three-hour art block everyday dedicated to the pursuit of my own artistic vision. The idea was to create a structure within this big empty block. It is very difficult to build this for yourself. I envied the academic rigor of other schools in which there was a prescribed path to intellectual enlightenment. I could not wait for the demands of college classes.

College is romanticized. High school kids can’t wait to get there, and adults long to relive those four greatest years of their life. Standing on the edge of high school, peering into college, I felt as though I was looking down into Hardy’s ancient well. The glory of tradition lay before me, and I, at last, was going to travel down that “original Roman road” (650). I was nostalgic about college before I even arrived, as though my memory were flipped in some bizarre looking-glass trick. As Andrew pointed out in class today, we cannot fully understand this collegiate drive as an individual phenomenon. Without societal expectations, who knows which of us would have aspired to higher education. By junior year of high school I was helplessly ensnared by the collective unconscious’ collegiate archetypes, in part responsible for determining “how we both perceive and behave” (171).

Now that I am experiencing the full thrust of university demands, my needs have inverted. I am miniscule in comparison to the academic structure that stands tall around me, and it is all I can do to push against it slightly. It is wonderful though, trying to reach back into the arts instead of being suffocated by them. Last week I attended a Taiko drumming rehearsal, a Czech folk music concert, Bulgarian wedding music, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Blanton art museum for the first time. The experiences were vivified by my desire for them. It was wonderful to realize how enriching the arts are to my life. I am learning that the intellectual world, which I so desired before, is only a part of a whole life.

The emphasis of my goals has shifted since August. As Avni so wisely proclaimed, “I really hope to grow into a well-rounded person” (Avni Mody). I would have hoped for the same thing, but it is only now that I am truly beginning to understand the necessity of well-roundedness. “I am trying [with all my energy] to integrate my own contemplative inclinations into other aspects of my life” (Wiley Jennings). “And what about balancing work and play?” (Margaret Clemons) If my academic schedule is not overwhelming, then great! I have time to work out, goof off, and contemplate. If I have more work than I could ever possibly finish, stop! Recognize this, and try to maintain balance. Devoting time to other integral aspects of life does not impede any of the individual endeavors. Rather, each is strengthened when it is part of well-coordinated whole because the Gestalt whole is greater than the sum of its parts. College is not a place that should make you bitter about life, but it should introduce to the realities of living independently in a life you must create for yourself. What I currently want from college is a combination of the idyllic experience I imagined while in high school and the ability to forge a strong, happy, unique life based in self-awareness.

Wiley's Adventures in Wonderland

A water-jeweled wonderland of fallen leaves and dew-berries.

I ache. My knees are crackling, my hamstrings are burning, and my lower back is complaining about having to arch over books for hours on end. My eyes are bleary and my mind is swimming in spirals. Strange spotted fungi pop in and out of my peripheral vision. Ingenious knights fall from their horses, crashing onto the floor above me. Inanimate objects smile at me, and the eggs I will have for breakfast tomorrow throw linguistic riddles at me today. The time has come to acknowledge that I am “raving mad after all” (Alice’s Adventures, 67). And all this because of a silly little children’s book.

So, Life, where shall we go next? “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to” (Alice’s Adventures, 65). “I don’t much care where… so long as I get somewhere” (Alice’s Adventures, 65) and so long as that somewhere is a place I care about. I am thankful to have a four-year wonderland to explore where I can study all the “Mystery” (Alice’s Adventures, 98) I like. I arrived without much knowing where I wanted to go. Plan II is way for the traveler who is looking to get exactly, well, somewhere. But my direction is solidifying. I am tying together loose threads that only dangled limply this past summer. Sanity (and clearly there are whole worlds of people who function just fine without sanity) in college follows from the answer to the college question, “Who are you?” (Alice’s Adventures, 48). Revisiting my role model and writing about my pursuit of a life embodying traits he exemplifies has driven me forward. I have something ahead of me. I have connections to make, little stepping-stones to take, and much to grow if I only eat a little cake.

That looking-glass glow is before our very eyes, if we only know to look for it. (The Blanton)

In college you must learn to “take care of yourself” (Looking-Glass, 265). And whether you like it or not college is going to change you. New people, new perspectives, a new life out on your own – “something’s going to happen” (Looking-Glass, 265). There really is no other option than to jump into college. I have been forced to confront living on my own. Right now, I do not feel like I have a home. I miss home in Houston, but that is no longer where I truly belong. My dorm is merely rented space, like a cheap hotel room that the cleaning service has neglected for far too long. I miss the safety of being curled up by the fire like Alice and her innocent kitten. The craze of Alice’s dream wanderings contrast that security. I feel that contrast in my current life. This little storybook made me yearn for bedtime stories, baking Christmas cookies, holiday festivities, my house, being little, and all the coziness and glow of these memories.

I have been challenged this semester. Professors demand that we grow, “but unlike Alice, we have the fortune of growing--and sometimes shrinking--in a university large enough to house our growth” (Crystal Law). Unfortunately reasons our classes are called lessons is not “because they lessen from day to day” (Alice’s Adventures, 99). In fact, I think it would be much more appropriate to name the Plan II program not a series of lessons, but a curriculum of morons. The battle cries of various professors hammer my brain day and night. "Feed your Head Feed your Head!" (Jefferson Airplane, 689) “I told them once, I told them twice: They would not listen…” (Looking-Glass, 217). “Have you tried listening?” (Prof Bump). Unfortunately Plan II students don’t take well to following directions, for they are “very stiff and proud” (Looking-Glass, 218). I am learning the balance between following directions and taking power of my own situation, bending the rules to create what I want. It is important to learn to strain the limitations of the system, to use the system for what it’s worth and to let it propel you forward rather than impede. I think the college professor motto should be, “I told them once, I told them twice: They should not listen to advice,” which is indeed contradictory advice. Learn how to take instruction, follow important guidelines, and how not to thoughtlessly imbibe and regurgitate everything your professors and classmates tell you.

A veritable wonderland of coppers -600,000 of them- at the Blanton.

Rambling, scrambling, cantering, rumbling, tumbling… the words are all gobbledygook now, and nothing is as it seems. Painting my own wonderland in my mind is soothing the aches and pains in my body. Falling down the college rabbit hole, it sure is reassuring to remember (backwards I suppose) “Oh, the places you’ll go!” (Seuss). I am loving my morons, but I wait eagerly for a time of respite when I can laze by the hearth, gaze out the living room window at our Christmas lights, and, if I so choose, reminisce about wonders of my future.

(http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/ml/summer_school/images/small_oxford.jpg)
A liberal education teaches a fundamental knowledge. Between the objects we are taught to comprehend and the mind attempting to do so exists a dialectical process. More than a prescribed and blanketing body of facts, our education must be particular to the individual, for it is preferable to “err on the side of each person’s particularity” (Coles in Bump 332). Though there be thousands of people in a liberal institution, a method of teaching may be employed that inspires individually. Knowing what to think is “still necessary” but “no longer sufficient” (Pink 330). A liberal education is “training in how to learn” (Brickley 326) [italics mine].

Vocational training is the learning of an object. A vocation is a “what” and thusly entails the learning of what to think. Training toward this end is not limited solely to learning whats, but it often stops shortly thereafter. Knowledge of how to perform a job – practical what knowledge – is integral to life in this day and age. But a human cripples himself if he confines knowledge to the work place. We should seek “freedom from narrowness of mind” (Newman 319). A liberal education provides a broad base from which to grow. How to think is the ground from which what to think arises. By learning knowledge’s method, we, as individuals, gain the ability to build a unique view of the world.

Portrait of Alfred Lord Tennsyon: http://www.nndb.com/people/859/000024787/tennyson_vignette.jpg
If the knowledge of what to learn feels narrow, the knowledge of how to learn feels broad, all encompassing; it feels deep. “Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, and the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns” (Tennyson, 302). Philosophy, the study of that “one increasing purpose,” “the science of ultimate causes which in one point of view is identical with theology” (Liberal Arts 318F), is a mainstay of a liberal education. Philosophy is an active inquiry into the workings of knowledge, into the most elementary of our beliefs. It is a study of the architecture of our knowledge’s foundation. The study of that “one increasing purpose” – of meaning – broadens our ability to learn. A liberal education should be wide, but it should draw the connections between each of its studies, thus enabling “a larger design” (Giametti 323) to be perceived. Connections facilitate meaning.

With the emphasis on the individual in American culture, it is absolutely vital that we, as maturing Americans (we are all at least Americans in the sense that we co-create America’s culture), obtain an education that encourages the discovery of our own individuality. If we are to keep strong (or rejuvenate) our culture, then we must first know ourselves. Leaders of the Texas Revolution declared that “it shall be a duty of congress… to provide by law, a general system of education” (Texas Constitution: “For the Promotion of Literature 304). For this general system of education to mobilize individuals in our society, it must keep up with the pace of unending change. Technologies multiply, advance, expand rapidly. Individuals must know their culture in order that they may differentiate themselves; we perceive the rapid evolution around us and find our role as we roll through change.

(http://prblog.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/secondlife_1.jpg) Through all three of these images, through Oxford, Lord Tennyson, and Second Life runs that "one increasing spirit."
This year, in E 603, we have been asked to embrace technology as part of our liberal education. Computers and the internet facilitate the exchange of complex information, media that triggers multifarious receptor-functions in the brain. In Second Life we are creating virtual representations of our role models – people who exemplify our own aspirations. By then acting and speaking, by thinking as this person would, we come to take on their “role.” The object is “to throw [our] soul[s] into the body of another man” (The Sympathetic Imagination) so that we embody the characteristics we admire in our exemplar. “By actually entering into the object” (The Sympathetic Imagination) of our admiration, we alter ourselves. We sculpt ourselves into the model of our ambition.

A liberal education – the essence of Plan II and the aim of an idealized college – enables individuals to create themselves. A liberal education informs of the past while keeping pace with the future. A liberal education is broad and it pronounces “the organic connection existing between all studies” (Liberal Arts 318H). I believe a liberal education shows us how to discover something real. As Giametti declared in his address to freshman at Yale, “Remember that what is real, and really enduring, starts in acts of the disciplined imagination, acts of insight and definition that create and discover a larger design” (Giametti 323).

My Role Model and My Becoming

(Ken Wilber: Just look at those incisive features. http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/1/e/5/3/highres_67763.jpeg) (See Documentation note at end.)
A role model leads a life that others envision creating for themselves. He or she has created a niche toward which we are drawn. Though my goals are nebulous, they certainly display a trend. I am gravitating toward my role model. I am taking strides to adopt that which I admire in him. Ken Wilber is an exemplar of balance. His intellectual capacities are boggling, yet they are paired with an equal propensity for practical embodiment. Wilber integrates body, mind, and spirit into his being. In doing so, his writing and scholarship become part of a multidimensional reality. From a foundation of self-awareness, Wilber exemplifies unconditional love and compassion. My personal vision embraces many characteristics he demonstrates. As I grow, I take on the qualities that inspire me. Ken Wilber is my exemplar, and as I learn from and become more like him, I increasingly become my own exemplar.

My mother shared with me last fall a CD that would invigorate my life. I had never heard of Ken Wilber, yet now I cannot imagine leading a life uninformed by his work. Wilber rarely publicizes himself more than is necessary. The little that he has I am ever grateful for. After hearing that first recording, I devoured the rest of the ten CD set voraciously. Each CD is an interview with Wilber in which he expounds his theory – called Integral – its practical applications, and his embrace of it in his own life. I was immediately converted. For weeks my three-disc changer rotated only Wilber’s recordings. Over and over, through homework, cooking, and chores, Wilber’s wisdom ran through the air. His ideas have expanded my perspective and altered the world in which I participate.

Ken Wilber has published 23 books and is the most translated academic author in the United States. (Over 350 foreign editions of his works have been published.) He studied medicine at Duke University and attended medical school at Nebraska. Reading philosophy and psychology, however, diverted his attention from medicine and he chose not to finish medical school. Wilber recognized the importance of fulfilling his own unique, unscripted vision. He sustained himself financially by working in a home-cookin’ country kitchen as a dishwasher. But the substance of his vitality was intellectual and spiritual exploration.

During his twenties, Wilber began writing extensively and published several books of scholarly acclaim. He read everything from biochemistry and social theory, to Emerson and Lao Tzu, to enlightenment philosophy and Gestalt psychology, to mythology and medieval transcendental realizers. When he is researching for a book he tries “to go through two to four books a day…. When I’m writing… I work at a very intense pace…. I’ll sometimes put in fifteen hour days. I read hundreds of books during the year, and a book forms in my head – I write the book in my head.”

But the essence of his teachings lies in that he does more than just read all the way around the globe. He has embodied many intellectual, psycho-theoretical, bodily, and spiritual modalities as well. Yoga, weightlifting, Jungian psychology, Vedanta Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and contemplative Christianity (to name a few) have all cycled through his repertoire. Some teachers discourage this impure form of practice; but for Wilber it has been a crucial process of defining himself. “Cross training,” as he likes to call it, built the unique wisdom he has shared through his writing and his life practice programs. For Wilber, successful living is founded on balance. Balance fortifies all in its purview. Balance “communicate[s] the image of the whole to every separate portion, till that whole becomes in imagination like a spirit, every where pervading and penetrating its component parts, and giving them one definite meaning.” Each properly weighted element transcends its partialness by contributing to a greater whole.

I dream of meeting Ken Wilber one day. All accounts of his character make me eager to do so. He has an enviable balance of intellect and sociability. Wilber’s reputation as a hermit is not a complete profile. (While writing his magnum opus, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, “apart from grocery shopping and such, [he] saw exactly four people in three years.”) Remaining up to speed on the latest fashions demonstrates his corky fascination with pop culture. Wilber shies from no debate over Gucci’s latest runway prop or the latest promiscuous celebrity portrait. But the perspective he takes on pop culture is hardly conventional. He analyzes the fashion world by applying his Integral model to it. That’s the beauty of his creation: it extends beyond the written page. (Ken Wilber's amazingly high-tech website. Check it out: http://kenwilber.com/home/landing/index.html Image from http://static.flickr.com/50/135971861_b06f6764c1.jpg) It incorporates every facet of life. Gucci’s aesthetic sensibilities mean much more to him than sex appeal. In them he discerns the evolution of human consciousness, Spirit’s various manifestations at the forefront of popular culture.

I admire Ken Wilber’s ability to love unconditionally. His years of meditation have taught him to treat all things as himself but to not become overly tangled in any of these things. The bodhisattva vow calls him to the aid of others while preserving a profound sense of equanimity. This balance between active love and detachment is a struggle for me. (See video of Wilber speaking on equanimity and compassion.) It is easy fall deeply into introspection, to neglect the world. It is easy hide from yourself and attach to the lives of others. Both are seemingly easy; both create problems. Yet introspection and extroversion are really two poles of a spectrum. Together, they drive a creative tension. By acknowledging both opposites, we can strive to find the middle. We can elect “the conscious generation of creativity by dwelling on the interdependence of apparently mutually exclusive opposites and the larger whole which contains them both.” Balance is a process of becoming. “Personal vision is not static,” and this balance, as both a personal goal and a guiding characteristic of my leadership vision, “should continue to evolve.”

I see the processes Wilber has gone through and I see my baby steps in a similar direction. The peace he has found I envision for myself. As my vision manifests before me, as I actively create my world, I see myself becoming, in a way, my role model. That is, my own becoming is the exemplar of my Wilber-inspired desires. Increasingly I am “accepting responsibility for being the author of [my] own life.” Creating this story is magical. The magic grows with my courage to envision what I want. I have only to know what that is and the future becomes my oyster.

Compassion and gratitude are building blocks of unconditional love, Wilber’s or otherwise. I practice gratitude by breathing. I look at all that I have, all that is good, the beauty of my circumstances and my own power to further create beauty. Gratitude is a conversation with “The Mystery.” I am. I say, Thank you. When I am grateful I feel the love Wilber writes of swelling within me. Before each meal, I take a moment to come into my body, to feel my energetic state, and to bless life by thanking it for all it has brought before me. Expressing gratitude brings me into the moment, and the moment in turn reminds me of how much there is to be grateful for.

When I am too wrapped up in myself I become cold. I become unhappy though I be resistant to admit it. Two exercises from Ken Wilber’s Integral Life Practice help me to cultivate compassion. The first is a meditation1 in which you actively transform others’ suffering into love. Breathe in their pain and blow back to them waves of pure, unadulterated love. This is compassionate exchange. The second technique developed in Ken Wilber’s Integral training program is a writing exercise to sublimate negative unconscious drives. By acknowledging character traits in others who irritate us, we can learn to see those qualities as aspects of ourselves. Through this recognition we are able to inhabit and own the discordant characteristic. We learn to love fellow human beings by recognizing them in us and by withdrawing our projections from them. Compassion comes from inhabiting others’ perspectives. When you stand in another’s shoes, not only can you see yourself, you can commiserate with another way of life. Perceiving with other’s eyes provides understanding, the seat of compassion. I am motivated toward unconditional love by following Wilber’s example, and his techniques are helping me create what I seek.

Inspired by Wilber’s own spiritual practice, I began meditating in June. After an evening concert in late May, I introduced myself to a short bald man clad in black. He was the creator of the Buddhist string quartet that had just played. His composition was entrancing, and I told him so. I told him that I was very interested in Buddhism, in finding a meditation group that would welcome and teach me. He informed me of the Houston Zen Center, (Zen just so happens to be the main modality upon which Wilber had settled) of which he had been a member for several years. The following Wednesday there was to be an introductory sitting. I went.

Meditation is an integral aspect of the influence Ken Wilber has had on me. An example of his contemplative virtuosity and the incredible transformative powers of meditation is demonstrated by his ability to halt all brain activity (see video). (See more Wilber videos at http://kenwilber.com/professional/media/index.html) Meditation has been important in both my parents’ lives for many years as well. When I was young, I wasn’t sure what to make of my father’s silent early morning sittings. Spirituality has colored my family life since I came into this world, but it is only recently that I have struck out on my own spiritual quest. I felt empowered by the response I received from a man in black that summer evening. I had envisioned my spiritual induction and here it was, manifesting before me, a new branch of an untold story.

Being a Plan II student means that I am uncertain about the course of my future. So saying that I am laying the ground for a fulfilling life begs the question, “If [I] live [my] life to its fullest, what will [I] have accomplished?” By draining my brain I created quite a crop of vague and abstract answers to this question. I could see that my goals all revolved around a core of qualities – beauty, love, understanding. (Is it ironic that my list of qualities could be transposed onto a verbal portrait of God?) After marinating, a couple of my ideas coagulated to a presentable consistency. If my life is fulfilling, I have realized, then I am living consciously in the moment; I am preserving a sense of gratitude and awe; and I am embracing something in which I have true faith. Unconditional love is reflected in each of these traits. I want these qualities in my life. They are tools with which to carve my existence. As I acknowledge what I want, I have noticed that I am already better “able to deal with the trade-offs of [my] life because [I] have trust in the authenticity of [my] decision.” Increasing self-knowledge strengthens me. Wilber’s utter faith in his journey (he dropped out of med school and washed dishes at a country-fried chicken joint in order to pursue his writing, philosophy, and spiritual practice) certifies my own vision.

When I examine my role model, I am amazed by the life he leads. I see all that he has accomplished and how brilliant he is. I see the immense respect he has garnered and the doors he has opened for so many others like me. But these achievements are only the residue of his true pursuit – “self-awareness… the foundation for the rest.” Through self-discovery, Wilber has made many other liberating finds. He has taught me that leading a joyful, fulfilling life demands that you “know thyself,” for that is a profound “truth and the truth shall make you free.” College is a wonderful opportunity to further unfold myself and to lay the ground for a fulfilling life. Wilber has given me a method to do so.

Through Ken Wilber’s example, I am becoming ever more the person I want to be. Intellect, emotion, body, and spirit balance in Wilber’s world and in the world I strive to create for myself. It’s refreshing to know that all my adoration of Wilber has not gone to his head. As he claims, “I’m not nearly the saint some of my fans imagine and I’m nowhere near the devil my detractors wish, so you simply take both of those with a grain of salt.” Such a declaration only makes him saintlier in my mind.

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SEE DOCUMENTED VERSION AT https://webspace.utexas.edu/wcj262/Bump/SwordRoleModel/WilberRoleModelSword1.htm?uniq=-hl6wi4