Let's describe our bubble!

Post Reply New Topic

It is a difficult ad ambitious task. It is about how we put some order in our consciousness, to the extent that we organize our consciousness and it’s not the other way around. Our internal resources are there even if sometimes we don’t recognize them. We have memories which are part of it, and knowledge and experience and hope. Will and techniques help only in defense of the bubble, but to draw on internal forces (like hope, a longing for connection) we must rely on a more expectant and humble attitude, of nearly resigned passivity (as it is recommended by Tao and in mystic doctrines, no matter if you are religious – I am not, in a conventional way).

My bubble is like a room with four open doorways, each of which has a steel bulkhead above it. I can come and go as I please (which isn't often, it has to be said), but when I want to be alone, the bulkheads slam tightly into place and every outside influence bounces right off them.

Except my cat.

It doesn't seem too difficult to describe this bubble. The bubble is in the mind. When I am doing things by myself or when I am doing something that I particularly enjoy or find interesting, the edge of this bubble extends to the place where other people can (apparently negatively) influence or interfere with my actions. If I have a long range view such as mountains, sea or sky then the bubble is consciously not limited dimensionally. In a closed room the sense of space is diminished but not completely missing. Harmonious appearance of others ( ie non-interfering) does not affect the bubble. For example, if I am listening to beautiful music on my hifi system and someone silently enters the room, also listening to the music, the bubble is maintained. However; if a person bursts into the same environment callously talking, then the bubble is shattered.
Likewise, when any systemized thought process is interfered with, the bubble bursts. This is a painful process.
Leaving and re entering? I don't think so! Objective thinking and conduct maintain a working environment which overlaps the NT world. Sometimes there are sparks of friction, sometimes not. Difficult social interaction requires a great deal of practice ie giving a talk to a hall full of people. Uncomfortable, but possible through willpower. Assiduous practice is the key!
Newspapers? No, I don't read them. They seem to be peoples' opinions about selected news items, or attempts to dupe people into group thinking. Clever sales technique; but rather transparent.

Cliff A.

I find that I have difficulty maintaining the boundaries of my bubble. Some days the walls are so thin that everything gets through...it is then that I must retreat to my inner emergency bubble, while the outer bubble walls regrow. This feels like an organic structure, almost like skin. It needs to be made thicker but how to do this? I haven't yet discovered.

It’s not so easy to control the “borders”. Sometimes you have practical needs and you have to ask someone (a doctor) for something. Sometimes you have psychological needs, you can’t stand your absolute loneliness. So you venture in a brief encounter on the basis that it’s better than nothing. This is disastrous, you come out of it exhausted and falsified. Border control is the problem.
As for assiduous practice: I lectured (taught) for 24 years and each year was more stress and strain than the year before. So I left beforehand.

Sometimes the best "border control" is to look beyond them, to look up from our immediate
concerns and spot the crises before they are upon us. Remember the word crisis means a
"dangerous opportunity", there is danger but there is also opportunity to grow.

I may represent the bubble (or burrow) like a labyrinth. There is still a fading hope of finding a way out. A burrow should not be considered as a closed system. It may be that, but I couldn’t have survived If I had thought from the start that there was no exit. Attempts to cross the borders are delusionary but hope is our real nutrient. On the walls there are shelves replenished with books, and there are also paintings, images. There may be there, in those books and images, traces of a real life, even if they are probably cries for help (like messages closed in floating bottles), not different from ours here. But they contain some hope, some trust that help might come.
And then there are memories, memories of happiness, because sometimes there has been bliss, and these memories also nourish hope.


As for a graphic representation of the bubble I will leave it for later, I don’t know how to paste images here anyhow.

I spent ages making this, so please comment!

I like the way it is such a neat-looking bubble! You have put your interests here? - walking in the country, running, you enjoy the outdoors life? I love the pot of tea, hehe, and the London Underground. It looks very British to my eyes. You have an interest in chemistry? I may be too nosy, lol. Anyway, I like it very much.

Thank you!
Walking in the country - very relaxing.
Cross-country/long-distance running - a good hobby of mine.
I am strangely British in some ways, but in other ways, I am not! For instance, I hate well-done meat (it has to be bloody and raw for me) and I have dinner at 5pm - there is no such thing as afternoon tea for me. I don't call dinner supper either, or tea for that matter.
Chemistry - I love every bit of it, except for cyclohexene (hence the "agh! Cyclohexene" part) - cyclohexene smells so awful that I cannot breathe when it is around me.
You're not nosy.