1A. EXPERIENCES
1.1-10 year old reverie about what’s outside the known universe
Lying in bed one night when I was maybe about 10, I was thinking about the solar system and the planets, and the universe beyond the solar system. I tried to imagine all the way out, but at the outer edge I encountered a scary barrier. When I tried to peek outside the outer edge it caused a kind of flip in my mind. I experienced a sense of awe at the mystery of boundlessness.
1.2- Dad’s collection of men’s magazines
We moved to the Valley when I was almost finished with fifth grade. Some time after that dad started accumulating a collection on shelves in the garage of men’s magazines. Playboy was one, but others were a little raunchier and more explicit. This coincided with the onset of puberty for me. One day I brought one of them into my bedroom and looking at it became aroused, my first erection and ejaculation. I discovered masturbation. For the next few months I spent a lot of time in my bedroom and the bathroom with different issues from the treasure trove. I found ways to always hide the magazines and any evidence of the activity, and even convinced myself that my parents didn’t know what was going on.
1.3-Being in leadership class in 9th grade
When I graduated from junior high and started high school in 9th grade, a brand new beautiful Grover Cleveland High School was waiting for us to be the first to ever use it. There was a class called Leadership that I was assigned into. It consisted of about 25 students, all but 2 of whom had transferred from Reseda High, which had grown too large and was split in half to start Cleveland. There were 2 of us from Sutter Junior High, the only 2 9th graders in Leadership. Instead of the traditional and traumatic role of being thrust to the bottom of the hierarchy, the transition from junior high to high school felt immensely empowering by being a peer of all the school leaders.
1.4-Dad giving me cars and drums, taking me to jazz concerts and used book stores
The experience of my father’s incredibly nourishing generosity. I was a voracious reader. He took me to great used book stores where we independently wandered for long hours to satisfy our individual curiosities. He took me to jazz concerts and clubs for a lot of exposure to superb live jazz. When I could drive and he worked at a used car lot he brought home great cars for me to drive. When I finally wanted a drum set he took me around to shops where we assembled a great silver sparkle jazz kit. Those are the highlights that immediately come to mind.
1.5-B-12 English class – reading The Way of Zen and independent research assignment
I had an English teacher whose name I cannot remember in A-11 (Power Reading) and B-12 (Advanced Composition). I think it must have been in Power Reading that I wrote a book report about “The Way of Zen” by Alan Watts. I was so totally entranced by the book that I wrote an ecstatic evocation of my experience of Nowness that was sort of manically flowing through me. It felt at the time like a whole new way of looking at the world had opened up. She was so impressed by where I was coming from that, for the Advanced Comp class, she said I wouldn’t have to come to class. I could do Home Study and write a research paper about the writings of JD Salinger. I don’t think she gave me any guidance. I mostly used one source and plagiarized heavily for my interpretation of the stories. I enjoyed reading his fairly small complete works, but didn’t really have the cognitive skills to assess what I read. I did learn the technical format for writing a research paper.
1.6-My summer reading before college, including On the Road and The Aims of Education
I always say it was summer, but actually February to September 1962. I made a list of books I wanted to read, mostly classic novels, for “background”, before I started my English Major at Stanford. I can’t remember now mch of what it was, but I sat in my room mostly all day and didn’t talk to my mom hardly at all. I would emerge for dinner when Martin Williams’ theme song came on the jazz station my dad turned on when he got home. I read the 2 books assigned for al incoming freshmen, Whitehead’s “The Aims of Education” and Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer and The Heart of Darkness” I also read “On the Road”, which totally blew me away. It seemed like an intense vision of life calling to me. All the other books felt like a professional duty. Even if they provided moments of pleasure, they didn’t grab my life.
1B. ANALYSIS OF EFFECTS OF EXPERIENCES
Prompt
Please outline how this experience has shaped your life and contributed to making you who you are today. How has the experience changed your view of other people? Of the world? Write approximately 1,000 characters.
1.1 10 year old reverie about what’s outside
This experience shaped my life by giving me a glimpse of infinity, boundlessness and awe that I was able to reflect on. The wondering about wonderment inclined me to seek out transcendent experiences. This has continued all my life, definitely into present time. This tendency changed my view of other people by making me want to scratch at their surface and see if they are open to acknowledging a transcendent dimension. Whatever they are willing to reveal is where I will bond with them. My view of the world changed implicitly to living in a world made up of boring surfaces and fascinating depths.. My lifelong quest was for the windows and doors of transcendence, the fascinating depths.
1.2 Dad’s collection of men’s magazines
How it shaped my life is it sidetracked my emerging sexuality away from being worked out in the real world of relationships. It doesn’t have much impact on who I am today, because even though it postponed my healthy sexual development, I corrected for that in the first year or two of my relationship with Mary, after laying the psychological foundation in the preceding years of therapy. How it changed my view of other people is it gave me a sense of empathy for my high school students who were in that awkward age of mature reproductive systems but socially not permitted to act as responsible adults. How it changed my view of the world is I realize the gap between adolescent energy and our culture’s immaturity in dealing with it represents an opportunity for the culture to mature. Bill Plotkin talks about a vision for how our culture could reinstate rites of passage so we could have a population of initiated adults instead of overgrown emotionally stunted children, in his book “Nature and the Human Soul”.
1.3 Being in leadership class in 9th grade
I was 14, just about to turn 15. I didn’t know it at the time, but a teacher had just written a note in my cumulative record dated 1/59 that said “Extremely bright–and knows it. Wants to be the leader–capable of doing the job”. So I was already pretty cocky. But just when I was supposed to get a good dose of humility by being a “scrub”, I was hanging with the big kids, as a peer. I have always been very self-confident, and this was clearly one of the experiences that shaped that. In terms of my view of other people, I think this experience planted a seed for my view of small elites vs. the mass of others. At this time it felt so cool to be in the inner circle (it became more complicated and nuanced at Stanford). My views of both sides of the divide have changed, but at each stage there is a sense of there being an elite that holds the balance of power.
1.4 Dad giving me cars and drums, taking me to jazz concerts and used book stores
It shaped my life by setting a course of adventure into satisfying curiosity. Who I am today is somebody with severe physical limitations who keeps the juices flowing by exploring widely with the imagination. My view of other people is more tolerant because of the wide ranging world he exposed me to. My view of the world is informed by a wide range of books, by 50 years of driving and exploring, by a lifetime of improvising and rhythmic pulse from the early exposure to jazz and drums. And by a delight in relationship modeled on the deep bonding we did.
1.5 B12 English class – reading Way of Zen, independent research assignment
Although I was soon to go off to Stanford with the intention of becoming a literature professor, this experience shaped my life by planting the seed of an opposition between empty academic exercises and being in the flow of life unencumbered by the barrier of language. Who I am today is looking back on a life that started by dropping out of a prestigious university, being in the moment through the rise and fall of the counterculture, and living 28 years in a zen practice community. This experience set that course.
1.6 My summer reading before college, including On the Road
How it shaped my life was in the difference between my reactions to the “background” list and my reaction to On the Road. It was the difference between what you do to fit with a culture you feel is false vs. what awakens your sense of vision, mission, and calling. I tried to do Stanford but really needed to hitch hike and jump off the deep end and thumb my nose at the conventional values. On the Road gave me a model. Who I am today is someone who tried that and dealt with the long life of consequences and navigating through the twists and turns of the several decades that followed .
Working toward a shared planetary consciousness that heals the Earth