I have just returned from a long weekend down in Washington State, a time of rest and relaxation at a lovely old lodge on a lake in the mountains where there are no TV's or telephones in the rooms, which allows one to sit in a lovely dark lounge lined with woods, in front of a huge fireplace, and simply sit and contemplate the world, read a good book, or even get into a deep conversation with another hotel guest!
So I was sat, deeply ensconced in a large leather sofa, legs crossed, just starting on page 2 of a book. I had been intermittently watching people passing through the lounge, wondering who they were, what made them tick, contemplating life. One gentleman seemed to have an energy as he passed me and passed me again, obviously deep in thought....and so I had picked up the book, made myself comfortable and was enjoying page 2.
The same gentleman, somewhat older than myself and with a thick thatch of very white hair, passed by me again, right to left, still very inwardly focussed. Moments later he slowly passed me again, left to right, his hand on his chin. I smiled to myself and wondered exactly "where" he was inside his deep contemplation, and my face began to go down to my book again. However, suddenly this man stopped walking away, paused for the merest second, turned on his heels and walked right up to me and in a meaningful and penetrating way said "What are you reading....and would you recommend it?"
My immediate reaction was that this was very strange. I smiled, somewhat curious, and responded "I have only just started this book. Its about aviators in the Royal Flying Corps in WW1 (showing him the book cover which bore an image of two fighters chasing one another across a barren landscape), but I cannot say if I recommend it yet. However, I have just finished another book, which I found most interesting and would heartily recommend!"
"What was that one, and who wrote it?"
"It was by a man named John Nichol who had been a navigator in the Royal Air Force and had served active duty in Iraq, was shot down and taken prisoner and totured, and had later also served in Bosnia. Its his first novel after having written two other factual books about his service."
"What was significant and interested you about the book?"
"It was a novelised version of very real events presented by someone who had obviously experienced a great deal of the story and it evoked a reconnection for me with the issues of life in a squadron, the relationship and values between its members and the perceptions of life seen from that point of view..."
"So judging by your accent, you may have served under similar circumstances... did you go to Bosnia?"
"No, I didn't go to Bosnia but I had other experiences"
"Would you tell me where you went?"
"No, I cannot.."
"I respect that.....but obviously the qualities of this story resonate the qualities of a reality for you!"
"Well, yes they do, I am very familiar with the environment in which they operated and I like to think about the emotional qualities which that life brings forwards, a sense of values which one can subscribe to, an awareness of them which is very acute and probably rarely experienced by most folk in our modern society..."
We talked for some time, back and forth and he probed more and more deeply. My initial concern was that he was interested in the specific and I wasn't able or willing to go there with this total stranger. However the more our conversation progressed, the more I smiled and the more interested I became in why this man had started this conversation. I also became more and more aware that I was seated in the plush depths of a leather sofa and he was standing intent and close in front of me.
"Why don't you pull up a chair and get comfortable?' I asked, somewhat out of concern for the developing crick in my neck but in an endeavour to socialise this increasingly interesting and out-of-the-blue conversation.
Before he had finished adjusting the chair and himself to it, he was asking more and more questions about my perceptions of the values of people working in teams. The conversation and the vocabulary were very elevated and academic, his facial expression both fascinated and fascinating. He became philosophical and open. Before the conversation went any deeper than it already had I felt the need to understand who he was and what his background was, so I politely asked "Do you mind me asking... this is a very deep and out-of- the-blue conversation, and quite fascinating, but what is your background and interest in this subject?"
"Well I have spent many years in philosophy. I am a philospher of sorts I suppose! I have a specific interest in a pattern I have postulated which I call "volitional reality" and how it applies to our social order. I am interested in how two people seeing the same thing can "understand it" in very different ways and draw very different conclusions from what was presented.".
My eyes lit up. My mind switched gears immediately. I suddenly understood the pattern of his conversation. He had seen a man comfortable in himself, engrossed in a book, not reading a scandalous rag of a newspaper or a frivolous comic. Relatively speaking, this is a rare thing these days and an academic mind, in search of familiarity, seized upon a social but serious opportunity to start a conversation with a stranger, itself something rare these days. I also recognised with an open smile that this man was indeed a thinker and interested in something I myself have been interested in for eons.
We talked for a long time. He explained and defined his understanding of volitional reality and we went back and forth over how experience and input change the the perception of a witnessed set of circumstances, be they routine and common, or extreme and uncommon. We took the conversation deep into a definition of what reality in fact is and how the lack of a workable definition of reality, because of the undisputable fact of what he called volitional reality, is the cause of mankind's problems frpm the absolute micro-scale to absolute macro-scale.
I was in awe of this conversation. It elevated me and thrilled me. His simple definition and understanding of volitional reality flooded my mind and gave context to so much of my own experience and struggles in this world. It gave me a framework within which to place and examine the happenings around me and learn to manage them.
He told me that me offering my own rendering of perceptions from varied experiences had also helped him to understand some aspects of reality which he had struggled to come to terms with.
This was a true sharing. An older man had once again stepped into my life and opened himself to me and talked and listened and together we had both grown. I had met a mind that worked at a very elevated level.
I felt fed and enriched..... and then it dawned on me that we had not even introduced ourselves to one another!
"My name is Chris, I live in Vancouver BC"
"I am Ralph. I am originally from Chile, but I came here when I was 11 years old ..."
This started another great conversation about how two very different experiences of upbringing had moulded our lives and brought us, by happenstance or by destiny, to this moment in time.
Ralph's wife had been lingering patiently in the distance and she signalled to him that time was up (probably long up!), so we parted with a smile and a wonderful handshake.
My own wife had been siting nearby during all of this and I just looked at her and said "Wow!............that was amazing!.........I am not alone in this world.......I have not been able to have a conversation of that quality with another human being in YEARS....."
Her smile spoke a thousand words... "You needed a conversation like that... you need more of them. You thrive in that environment, you speak differently, you look different......"
For the rest of that day, walking on forest trails, I felt as though I was floating inside my own head, my mind stretched, with fresh air flowing through it to blow out the cobwebs of the daily grind and the relatively uninspiring everyday. I genuinely hoped that I would run into Ralph again that evening and be able to expand the conversation.
I reflected that the last time I remembered feeling that I shared the planet and that level of understanding with a man was the time I spent with Greg Duncan (a man somewhat younger than myself) whose thinking and expression has had a major impact on my life. Before that in grad school, back in the mid 1980's with Professor Abraham Rogatnick, a tiny man in physical stature, whom I was shocked to learn had been a US Army infantryman at the Battle of the Bulge, yet had grown to become one of the most sensitive, aware and expressive historians of mankind, art and architecture I have ever known. Abe passed away in 2009.
Sadly I didn't see Ralph again. I guess the reality was that he was about to check out of the Lodge. I have no idea who he was other than "Ralph, born in Chile, resident of the USA", but Ralph has taught me that there is no reality other than everything. Reality is values and morally based, experiential, perceived and indeed volitional. We do indeed create our own reality. There is no actual right and no actual wrong (or left). Stuff happens. How we interpret it is what makes the world go around. How we handle it is what makes us happy or sad. That too is volitional. Thank you Ralph.
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