The church hall was just around the corner. You don't see those kinds of church functions anymore. Families from around the area would come along to the church hall on a Saturday to buy and sell hand made clothes and toys, home made cakes and sweets, to play games at stalls, to drink sweet cordials, and to eat home baked pies and pasties. As a young boy these were my only occasions to see a mix of people and the wider world up close. I could congregate with a group of other young people in a church youth fellowship. It was an awkward time and I was full of strange inhibitions, strange complexities. The church would occasionally hold dances with a live group of musicians. Not a musical group seeking self-expression as they are now, but just some men who could keep a tune and play various waltzes with a few slow, tamed down, rock and roll pieces. These were attended as much for fun as for the novelty, and you would go even if you didn't enjoy them, since it was before TV. You would go because it was somewhere to go and all your friends would be there. I remember standing on one side of the room, the girls on the other, some of us sitting, some in small groups. We were all half watching, half talking. The idea apparently was to stand aside in gender groups and every now and then, when there was music, to mix together on the floor space between, dancing with a partner. To get your partner, and I speak as the observer only, you had to walk across the space in between, and ask someone. It was a space glaring into a blank mind. I don't know if some of my friends had done this before, perhaps even have had the acquaintance of some girl at some other occasion, because some seemed to know how to do it and to do it easily, but it all left me in a fearful dread. I could only look out upon this spectacle and wonder what to do. I could see it taking place. Boys would cross the floor and speak to a girl and they would dance, and when the music stopped they might linger, or just return to their positions at the sides of the room. So my friends would all start saying, why don't you dance, why don't you dance with her, and so on, until gradually they themselves, hearing their own chants, perhaps emboldened by their own taunts, would do so. As the years went by I became familiar with this pattern. As I progressed to more distant venues and to a wider public, this passive observation, this terrible inaction, continued. Only the taunts became my own.

My brother was not so different, but he at least could do what was expected. He could join in, as they say. He would like everyone, ask these taunting questions, not to any one in particular, because we would usually be in a group. It was a way of preparing because you weren't sure what to do, or for doing something alone, leaving the huddle of the nervous. Once you had tried it didn't seem so hard. Yet he agreed there was a hurdle. Although this was not a problem for many, or they simply had no difficulty with it. It was never discussed because it was in the becoming, the progress of social skills, which would separate us even further, in our divergent occupations, status, achievement, as a matter of course for a competitive society at large. My brother could see me and then say why didn't you do this or that. He could say you should have done such and such. We didn't discuss it. It was more his reflections on what were the customs, habits of the population, which were for all purposes normal. Young people do this. They see and they adapt. I was lucky to have him confide in me. He could explain things. This didn't mean I was anymore able to participate and perhaps I for my own part thought I really didn't need this on going commentary but it did give me friendly company. I was tempted to put my own view, albeit one which was full of differences, but curiously when ever I did he agreed, but felt it was important to participate, to acquire the social skills. When I say he agreed that is not quite correct. He had the same understanding in that he saw the nature of my position.

This position as he, or you, might call it was from his perspective, not mine. It's strange that a brother who is so close in feeling, understanding, sharing a sensitivity, could sometimes express my disposition as unnatural, even as a weakness. Only on a few occasions did he ask me about it. We would discuss it, not to assert either viewpoint but just in a friendly, loving, exchange of different beings. What had happened as I grew up was that I could see my being was a confrontation with culture. My brother, like a close friend, provided the means for me to see myself. He, like everyone else was gradually becoming a part of the culture, while I was languishing in nothing. Becoming a student, a worker, a professional, and so on was not just acquisition of skills and ability, but psychologically an attitude. My nothing state of mind put me at a disadvantage. There was not a lack of function, to cooperate, or use skills, it's just that my mind was observing myself, and as a young person I did not take the time to be cultured, polite, well mannered, tolerant, patient, and so on. That is not to say I was being uncooperative, rude, inflexible, intolerant, dogmatic, prejudiced, self-righteous, and so on, just that my mind was in nothing. In this nothingness, I could behave, but my being was not behaviour. As I later learned it is a psychologist who interprets this condition, depending on the circumstances. However for me in my younger years there was no understanding of career, of professions, and I didn't give much thought to work other than as something to do. I hadn't yet discovered the deep schism that is you and me for which so many professions, experts, are knowledgeable . In this simple way I learnt about the world, and me in it, by experience, by experiment, by trail and error, alone.



There is of course this schism, this deep divide between us. We are together because we are family, friends, associates, lovers, partners, citizens, participants, and so on, but we communicate together in a way which is you, me, they, them. This gathering of people all who have to individually get an education, a job, success, wealth, is what we hold to be civilisation. This is the standard activity of the population. But, psychologically we have made it an identity, a belief, a code of conduct. Psychologically, in the mind, I compare my self to others. Self is known as that accumulating, developing, improving, entity essential to my function in the society. But is it? What really is self? Why do I make this assumption about my inner being, then the physical body, and then the outer world, as a total conformity. We, ourselves often have varying ideas about what is the inner being, what is reality, what is normal, and have elaborate theories and disciplines accounting for it all. Yet there is always this central assumption about I, self. We are always trying to reconcile conflict, division, violence, insanity, corruption, crime, disobedience, and so on, yet never see ourselves as essentially involved, responsible. It is always them, a client, a patient, external, alien, illegal, misbehaviour, judgmental and self righteous. We don't see the obvious.

Not seeing the obvious, and no one talking about it, I go about my life normally, having to deal with an inner and an outer. We know there is an inner, and an outer, which we are simultaneously trying to satisfy. I want, like, desire, prefer, choose, hope, and then there are rules, regulation, authority, reality, ideals. So my understanding of self is growing according to the immature, childish, petty needs and demands, while trying to fit into and exploit the larger world around me. I can be well adjusted, pleasant and cooperative, according to degrees of greed, selfishness, ambition, violence, but there is no complete satisfaction, except in hope, indifference, ignorance.

We didn't have deep philosophical talks or anything like that. It was just that there were those times when I could not participate and I felt bad about it. My brother would say, don't worry about it, it's just what people do. There were many things people just did. In the beginning I felt at a loss, inhibited. Later I was to see my anxiety as not the anxiety of my experience, but the awareness of anxiety. So I wondered, why did people ignore anxiety? It was not an easy subject to talk about. Ignorance means it is not known, and not knowing there is nothing to talk about. But something was happening. People were doing things and I wasn't. There was a lot of talk about fear, overcoming ones fears, but as far as I could understand they didn't mean find out what is fear and then overcome it. They meant it was just a willful, or pious, act, of bravely doing it. OK, they agreed, it was hard, painful, sickening, but it had to be done. At some point we begin to live more complex lives, becoming more involved in the popular culture, rebelling, copying. The child's awareness, which is really just watching, expands to include the influences, the learned habits and knowledge, into a consciousness of their own. So as far as everyone was concerned, the difficulties, irregularities, weaknesses, inadequacies, were something to cope with, to master, as they were encountered in this interaction with an exterior environment. Then as a member of this externalised environment, as a student, worker, professional, technician, parent, friend, you acted in accordance with this struggle to improve, achieve, and succeed.



As far as my situation goes, I was the shy child. For me, I was the same as everyone, going to school, doing well or badly, as was the case. I didn't reflect on my situation. I was just living. My brother on the other hand was doing things. He was being clever. This was very upsetting to me. I could not understand this at all. I could not understand even where and when did such opportunities arise. My brother developed a social grace, confidence, and knowledge. Where did it all come from. I couldn't understand. He could only say it was what you do and that I was shy. I didn't like this widening gap at all. I began to get very upset and to act quite emotional. Especially when amongst my friends where some circumstances favoured one and not me, where I could not appreciate anothers different skills, I would be quite childish about it. I was insecure and possessive. Now as any one can tell you this is psychological, and it might be that we are all a little like this, and we grow out of it. As a young person, adjusting alone, within, to the outside world, but not finding an adjusting world, there is a deepening crisis of ill-adjustment. It is confrontation deeply affecting the mind. It is not playing sport, finding an interest, enjoying activities, it is an increasing wariness, introspection, and depression. Talking with my brother, who, funny enough, said he could tell the same story, I found he thought it was just a story, and that it was considered to be complaining. Apparently it is a story we can choose to not tell. In some way he couldn't explain, we can accept this story as the cruelty and iniquities of life and just get on with what is required. It was a part of good manners and adjustment to accept ones position in life without complaint.

Even if it was envy, jealousy, and a lack of aptitude, virtue, merit, which even my own brother would have me believe, this did not give me any peace. It only reminded me that I was for ever explaining things to my self, to appease, to satisfy the demands. Weren't there real demands, at school, at work, in life, for me to be able to exist? I couldn't just quietly vegetate. I wanted to learn. I couldn't even go to a monastery without having to conform and subscribe to their beliefs. There was this division, the inner and the outer, which was a conflicting interaction. The process, growing up, was itself, in conflict. My inner turmoil, was my awareness of the conflict, and this was a conflict of me in the world. So I might say that when I am referring to what goes on in the mind, this is psychological. When the mind, awareness, is not in touch with the world, there is disfunction. A human being lives in the world. Whether they are directly in touch with the world or are mediating the world through their minds is a difference. A difference I was to see in my brother and I. Which one of us was crazy?

All of this is the realm of time. Fully living, there is no time. I don't breathe because it is time to breathe. I see a beautiful sunset there is no watcher. Time, me, the earth, the sky, and the sunset are as one living movement. Then, in time, there is this perception of you, looking onto an outer world. There is the internal and the external. Within the mind, internally we have thought, ideas, thinking, feelings and so on. This is you observing. You in the world, get up in the morning, have breakfast, go to work, to school, and so on. You are living according to time, appointments, schedules, meetings. You watch a certain TV program you like, you go to bed because it is late. This is all takes time and is arranged by time, because we have watches, clocks, and have divided up the day into hours and timetables etc. But in the mind, apart from the images, words, information, science, mathematics, which is recorded in your memory, there is no actual time. You living your ordinary life are accustomed to time, but in the mind there is no thing; only words. The word is not the thing. This is what I could see. My brother has a world portrayed in his mind and his mind is continually organising this inner world. From this inner organisation he relates to the world. I don't know this. This is what he tells me. When I say he tells me, I mean he talks to me and I can understand from what he says, from the use of language, that is his meaning. You can do it too. Listen to what is said, listen to what you think. Of course, this introspection, in the ordinary way of daily life has no value, no importance in the scheme of things. You would wonder, like my brother, what on earth I say these things for. When he does listen and sees the truth in what I say, still it is for him an impractical truth. If he is curious he asks, how do you know all this. But it is a question of annoyance, not interest. The perspective we find more interesting is the one that gives us possessions and authority, not one that is of nothing for us.

My brother has his life and I mine. His life is not easy. He works hard and struggles to keep a roof over his family. There are many problems, hardships, and disappointments. When we talk together I am me and he is himself. When I talk I am not him, or any one else, but when he talks there is you and me, you said, he said, I said. Why is that? Why is there this difference? What is this difference? He can only talk like there are observations, and he is the separate observer. While when I talk there is only talking, my mind expressing itself, moving with the words. It reminds me of when I was meeting girls as a youth. My passions, feelings, desires, ideas, were all there together. There was no comfortable socialiser, no confident talker, no pleasant conversation. It was one utterly terrifying experience, and I was there, aghast at the exposure, the whole world being one, not divided by within and without.

I find the study and discussion about science interesting. I have been watching a TV series recently about string theory. As I listened I felt it was a continual dualistic inquiry trying to integrate the mind and the world. Now that string theory offers a formula containing wave and matter into a pulsating energy, won't they then want to look at the smaller details of the string, and begin with some point within it? Then they are back to the same scenario of the atom and its breakdown. Of course there will be new material discoveries from string theory which will mean new technologies. When it comes to a theory why do we think of it as making a better fit for us in the world, when it will only ever fit into the world as it is. That world, as it is, is the world we live in. We are not confident, not secure, not harmonious, in the world and seek theories to address this. But for our predilection to be obsessed with and expand knowledge, we would not be disunified. The latest unifying theory will not change that.