External Analysis

EXTERNAL

The activity of doing things the way they are done on foreign shores, as 'when in Rome do as the Romans do', can be the practice of distinguishing one's conditioning from that of others. On a similar track but not necessarily involving foreign cultures, is the incorporation of ambiance, as the natural and cultural place and location where one finds oneself. Often one might assume that the intellect and sensory capacities are mutually exclusive, the one involving reading, thinking and writing indoors by lamp light, while the other is sand, surf, hiking or mosquitoes. To engage the sensory sensations, feelings and emotions of one's environment, as the feeling of weather, the sensations of the seasons, the ambiance of architecture, market places, historical sites, parks and gathering places, gives to all of one's experiential reality, an intellectual edge and excitement. Intellect by itself is one dimensional. The totality of living in the world, to include intellectual pursuits is more complete and multifaceted. One may combine thinking with walking, reading with sitting outdoors, fantasy with traveling, role playing while doing errands or observation with a philosophical context.

The emergence into ambiance could be defined as a complete and separate aspect of External Analysis, or what could be called pure experience. This may be pertinent when one reaches a point of intellectual saturation, a lack of progress, a sense of futility, a change of pace, or as an experiment with non-activity and non-intent, the practice of intuition, of letting things happen of their own accord, of passivity. One begins to relax into the moment and sit, watch, experience and relax. This may be difficult at first for those who are unused to it, but as one gets accustomed and becomes involved in the environmental ambiance that surrounds one, there may develop an appreciation of extreme beauty, magnificence, a majesty, a sense of exotica, such that after a time the person may feel that they have time for nothing else, except this appreciation of the moment. Of course one must have time for it or at least part time. Another aspect of this inactivity is perhaps the acquirement of the ability to determine the difference between what are termed Emotion and Natural Affection.

EXTERNAL (11 OF 15) NEXT PAGE