I got back from the march in DC Monday morning and I’m still skidding. I usually use weekends to catch up on sleep, but I lost Friday and Monday night to 10 hour bus drives. This the second time I’ve been to DC. I saw much more of the city this time, and much less of its things.
A curious effect. Our little group for the march (mostly of Claudia’s friends and family) was much more extraverted than I’m used to, but it became clear that their idea of their relation to the march was more inward-directed than mine. On several occasions I was told I was being insufficiently social when I thought I was participating in the march; had I a camera and inclination to use it, it would have been for pictures of the crowds, signs, antics, and scenery, but every use they had for their cameras included some subset of our group in formal composition.
On another note, I’m participating in an “Awareness Seminar” run by my favorite MIT philosopher, Lee Perlman. Past exercises for the group have concentrated on awareness of bodily emotions, social pressures, and subconscious knowledge, and practice in truth-telling and meditation. This week is on compassion, and the week’s exercise is being distributed in pieces. The first piece write up an all-out condemnation of someone we dislike: a complete catalog of everything we find distasteful in that person. Furthermore, “If you have fooled yourself into thinking that you are incapable of disgust, disdain, or hatred, then just focus on someone you tend to get pissed off at or really annoyed with a lot.”
I don’t believe myself to be incapable of hating someone… but I can only come up with one person who approaches the latter category– and she’s also the person I most love.