Home Science Page Data Stream Momentum Directionals Root Beings The Experiment
Interviewer: Earlier you minimized the part will power has to play in the unfolding of your Subjects life. Could you speak a little more about this phenomenon? What role, if any, does will power play in the maximizing of your Subjects creative potentials?
Experimenter: My first reaction is to say that will power is a myth. Any attempt that Ive made at controlling my Subjects creative output has been a dismal failure. Just as I think that Ive convinced him that he is a Writer, he suddenly becomes a Scientist or Painter, Bookkeeper or Businessman. It seems the best I can do, as Experimenter, is to assist him to increase his vitality so that he can manifest most efficiently. While I can not really choose which Creative Activity that my Subject will throw himself into next, I can tell him to do certain things, which might enhance his creative potentials. Or I can tell him not to participate in actions which I consider detrimental to the Creative.
Interviewer: So will power works from behind rather than in front, from the bottom rather than from the top?
Experimenter: Precisely. I play the role of Mother to my Subjects role as Son. I encourage him with love and affection, but he must make his own way in the world. I have as much control over my Subject as the Mother has over her Son. The Mother can feed her son with good food and encourage him to cultivate good healthy habits, but she has no control over what he is actually going to do with his life - at least my idealized notion of the perfect Mother.
Interviewer: Could we say that the results of the Experiment have encouraged the types of behavior associated with Cultivation, while discouraging those associated with Domination.
Experimenter: Definitely. My dominator side has been tamed by the behavior of my Subject. Will power seems to be most effective when used like a gardener tending his plants, rather than like a general waging war. From my over 20 years experience in observing the relation between the Experimenter and Subject, I would say: Cultivate your Person; dont dominate him. Water him with good food, exercise and meditation; and watch him grow.
Interviewer: Would you say that your research has shown that Cultivation is a more effective strategy than Domination? At least in terms of the complex of selves that are tied to our Person.
Experimenter: The research hasnt shown this. My own experience with my Person has demonstrated this. The Experiment only showed that Sleep seemed to be influenced by factors other than Will Power.
Interviewer: But your own experience showed that Cultivating your Person was better than Dominating him.
Experimenter: I couldnt really control him at all. Any Control that I attempted to exert only resulted in an energy drain, a blockage. It was as if the Judge drained power from the Creative Vitality. I found that I could only encourage him to manifest, but not tell him what to do. Maybe this is when I began to realize that I am not my Person.
Thought Police: See I told you that he was crazy.
Restrain him - Before he gets violent.
Inject him with drugs - Before he goes insane.
Experimenter: I realized that my only goal was to increase the quality and quantity of my Subjects creative output. I didnt really care if my Subject was happy or sad. As a matter of fact, it makes better reading material, because my Subject was so human. He is full of pride, greedy, lustful, lazy, control hungry, a father, lover, and creator. He lived Life and continued to create. This is what I am most proud of my Person for. I really dont care that much about his moods except as they have an effect upon production. This is why I have prescribed a steady amount of Meditation for my Subject. This seems to neutralize his extreme mood swings, somewhat tranquilizing our Patient, er I mean Subject. I hope he cooperates. In the past his Meditation has been irregular. He has not taken his Medicine, his Meditaticine. But then recently I took a different approach.
Guardian #1: You did not take a different approach.
G#2: How presumptuous!
G#3: How pretentious! How utterly absurd!
G#1: Did you hear that Mabel? He thinks that he did something.
#2: We had to knock him over the head to get him to cooperate.
#3: It wasnt easy.
#2: We dovetailed multiple strains to overwhelm him with evidence
#3: He couldnt deny.
Guardian #1: First we induced Phil to show up at the Park to practice with our Subject.
#3: Phil had been meditating regularly for over 25 years,
#2: Since he was a teenager.
#3: He said that Meditation was like an orgasm on top of his head.
#2: A great carrot on the end of the stick for our Subject.
#1: Internal orgasm - Not Bad - as an enticement.
#2: This reminded our Subject of similar experiences that hed had.
#3: He wondered why he had stopped meditating.
#2: So did we.
Guardian #2: Then we put it in the mind of the Evil Manager,
#3: To disturb our Subjects Life with his evil schemes.
#2: These schemes served their purpose, all right.
#1: Which was to wake our Subject up in the middle of the night -
#3: With potential night mares in his brain -
#2: Our Subject,
#3: Inspired by the pleasures of Phil and the pains of the Evil Manager,
#2: Decided he had no choice but to Meditate.
Guardian #3: In these moments of quietude,
#2: Our Subject finally realized that Meditation was the Cloth
#1: That Washed the Mirror of his Mind clean from the Daily Debris -
#3: The red dust.
#2: As well as polishing off the other verbal filters erected in the past -
#1: Which still distort his perception of reality.
#3: All of this might have been enough,
#1: To wake him up to the value of Meditation,
#2: To snap him out of his trance that he is his Person.
#3: But to make sure he understood,
#2: We decided to reveal some of the discoveries of his Experiment at this time.
#1: This was not easy.
#2: Getting Phil to arrive at Tai Chi-
#3: Arranging for the Evil Manager to work his evil ways -
#2: And then to get him to do this scientific research at the same exact time.
#1: The results of the Experiment were too clear for him to ignore -
#2: He had no idea -
#3: It was a complete surprise -
#2: It knocked him off balance enough
#1: That he had to write about it
#2: In this little Notebook."
#3: At this time.
#1: In this Place.
All in unison: Now!!!
#1: Which is the only place you should ever be.
#2: Hello Out There. Are you still Listening?
#3: Or have we put you to Sleep?
#1: With our lack of urgency?
#2: Or are we torturing you with trivia?"
All in unison: Good Night.
Interviewer: Before you geek out too much, which experimental results are you speaking of?
Experimenter: The Meditation Data Stream has an extremely high positive correlation, 33%, with the Creative 3, i.e. Writing, Science, and Art. (See the scatter plot below. It is based upon the monthly readings of the Longest Data Set, i.e. from 1976 -> 2001 as are all of the graphs in this section).
Scientist: The 33% positive correlation is visually apparent. More importantly the slope of the Best Fit Line, represented by the arrow, is very steep. See the scatter plot below. It is identical to the one above except that the upward limit of the horizontal axis has been changed from 0.8 to 5.0 to match the scale of the vertical axis. The steep slope is much more visually apparent in this representation. The slope says that 2.5 hours of creative Time is equivalent to 1 hour of meditation.
Experimenter: This said to me that a little Meditation encouraged a lot of Creative Time. The ratio of Meditation to Creative was about 2 to 5. A half hour of Meditation was worth one and a quarter hours of Creative Time. While I wasnt fool enough to think that there would be an exact payoff, I figured any Meditation, that I could entice my Subject to do, would, at the very least, enhance his Creative Time. With no other interfering mechanisms this seemed an ideal way to further pump up the Creative, which was my goal.
Scientist: In addition to being positively correlated with the Creative, Meditation was even more positively connected with Exercise. This positive connection continued across all the Data Sets. See the scatter plot below based on the Longest Data Set, as before. Again the slope is fairly steep - 2 Meditation for 3 Exercises.
Experimenter: Again it seemed that the conclusion was obvious - Meditation augments Exercise as well as the Creative.
Scientist: It could also be the other way around that the Creative and Exercise augment Meditation.
Experimenter: Whatever the causality, it seems that encouraging my Subject to Meditate would seem to have a positive effect on his Exercise rather than detrimental.
Experimenter: Further it seems that Exercise and the Creative 3 are also extremely positively correlated at 55% over the 25 years of the Experiment. See the scatter plot below.
Scientist: In this case the ratio of Exercise to Creative is 5 to 4. While the slope is not as steep, the correlation is higher than with Meditation to the Creative.
Experimenter: My simplistic conclusion was that the Data indicated that Exercise also enhances the Creative. This is what I wanted. Thus I concluded that Exercise and Meditation both enhanced the Creative rather than competing with it. Further they enhanced each other rather than competing. This is very counter intuitive seeing as how they exist in a closed system with limited time.
Scientist: Meditation also enhances Helping Out. This result was even more surprising than the rest. Helping Out had primarily to do with the Time my Subject spent helping out around the home, but also included any other time spent helping anyone else.
Experimenter: In short, while much of my Subjects discretionary time was spent on himself and his projects, this category only included time he spent serving the common good. This high correlation, +52%, was and is startling.
Scientist: Again any Meditation is doubled in the Helping out category, a high payoff, to be sure.
Experimenter: As might be expected Helping Out also enhances Creative Time as shown in the Scatter Plot below.
Scientist: The Correlation is still high, +42%, over the 25 years, between Helping Out and the Creative, while the slope of the Best Fit Line is much more shallow. Help to Creative is 5 to 4, much less than the payoff from Mediation or Exercise but still quite substantial.
Experimenter: Helping out and Exercise both have a strong positive correlation with Meditation and the Creative 3. As might be expected they also enhance each other. {See the Scatter Plot below.}
Scientist: The Correlation between Exercise and Home/Help is very high, +57%. The ratio of Exercise to Help is 2 to 1. {An hour of Exercise inspires a half an hour of Helping Out - Or is it the other way around.}
Experimenter: Does Helping out inspire Exercise? Does Exercise inspire Helping Out? Or does Meditation inspire both Exercise and Helping Out? Or do the three act as a mutual support group, as an alliance of mutually supporting friends? Let us see how the three operate as a group. We will call the combination of these three Data Streams, the Healthy 3. The Healthy 3 is a Data Stream that equals the sum of Meditation, Exercise, and Helping Out.
Scientist: We have a picture of this Data Stream, the Healthy 3, broken down into its three component parts. The top line represents the Healthy 3, which is a sum of the rest.
Experimenter: The pulse of the Data is self apparent. There is an initial pulse of Meditation in the late 1970s, which is reflected in both Exercise and Home/Help. There is another pulse of Meditation after 1988 which also seems to be reflected in a rise in both Exercise and Helping Out.
Scientist: As would be expected, the relation of the Healthy 3 to the Creative 3 is excellent as is shown by the Scatter Plot below.
Scientist: The correlation is high at +54%. The ratio is shallow. 3 parts Creative to 5 parts Healthful activities.
Experimenter: To me this meant that if I could entice my Subject to Meditate more that he would also Exercise more. With this extra vitality he would Help Out more gaining more merit and with this the blessings of the gods, who would send the Muse down to sleep with my Subject. Anyway it seemed like a win-win situation to me. Further these results inspired my Subject on his latest creative project. It seemed important that this information be spread. In fact this is why my Subject is writing this paper, right now.
Scientist: Looking at the quarter century of data combining the Creative 3 and the Healthful 3, we see the same pulse we saw before. A pulse of creative and healthful activities before 1984 followed, approximately, by a 4-year lull. Then both the Healthful and Creative Actives begin growing.
Experimenter: The positive correlation is easy to see. It is almost as if an outside force was squashing all this energy between 1984 and 1988. Of course there were a few other external factors, as one might suspect, which influenced this pulse. After all something had to fill in this valley of time. We are dealing with the closed system of the 24 hour days.