Conversations With John L. Waters
John L. Waters
January 25, 2007
Conversations With John L. Waters (Topic- Integration)
Interview conducted by Brian Michael Barbeito
QUESTION: John, can you say a few words, for the layperson, about integration?
ANSWER: Certainly. Integration connects, combines, and coordinates all the factions in a society and in an individual person so that there is no wasteful neglect or conflict between different social factions or personal components. That is, for example, in my own brain there are several different languages and intelligences working which, when better integrated, enable me to do better work. As my brain becomes better integrated, this integration enables me to do certain things I never could do before.
As a student in elementary and secondary school I wasn't taught about integration, and I didn't integrate myself as a student. To become more capable I had to doindependent research on integration. This integration enabled me to do things I never had done before.
A process that works for one person probably will work for other persons as well. If this is true, then after the nations integrate, the human race will be able to do things that humanity has never been able to do before, for example, be more thrifty, more caring and provident, even to the point of avoiding military conflicts. But before whole nations can practice providence and stewardship, the individual leaders and social authorities will need to study integration, practice integration, and encourage other persons to do the same. As I give more personal presentations as well as present my different created works which involve the different languages and intelligences such as art, music, mathematics, English, and physical movements, the meaning of integration and stewardship will become more clear to more people.
QUESTION: John, it sounds as if integration can at first help the individual to become re-oriented towards a more holistic approach, and then also help nations. This sounds like a large task, but immensely interesting. With so many stressors in the world today- environmental factors, wars, and so forth, it sounds like a new theory would be helpful. The old ones are not working, be they orthodox religious teachings, or even mysticism. What is needed is a theory that is all-encompassing, and this sounds like a process that has worked for you, so perhaps you are representative of something unique. Perhaps providence and nature has picked you.
Yet, for someone interested in your theory and practice of integration, how would they begin? Is there a mantra, or a mediation to practice, as in some traditions? Are there dietary regimens? How best to get a taste of integration, or if we feel integrated, to begin to integrate more? Please comment.
ANSWER: Brian, if you were right here with me, I would say to you, just give me six hours and I will SHOW you Paradise. We will go outside and walk along the garden paths and look at Paradise and smell Paradise and touch and listen to Paradise.
To be a little more direct in explanation, my teaching integrates the natural world with the world of progressive modern culture. This integration includes culture and science, nature, poetry, prose, art, music, and all the other subjects and languages found in our modern brains. Right here and now we can walk out together into the brightness and warmth of Paradise and not be blocked to direct experience. It helps if we are both comfortable in a safe place where we can unblock ourselves and have more direct experiences. To begin our experience we leave the classrooms, the books, the videos, the computers, the urge to make a buck, and all the other go-betweens and blockers that keep us from experiencing directly all that is to be experienced in nature and the integration that is latent in our own human nature. As we go out into the radiant world and explore more, we feel younger and more energetic and more exposed to the immediacy of what is. We do not become preoccupied and trapped in any activity that restricts our perceptions and our movements. We open up to more and more and we pay attention to more and more of what is around us. This discovery of the radiant takes time.
Speaking of radiance, each part of the youthful brain is waiting to be stimulated, exercised, developed, and integrated with the other parts. Unless they are handicapped, infants and young children explore with all their brains, their bodies, and their senses. As we adults learn to integrate we learn to feel more and more youthful. This learning takes more time for a twenty-year old than for a five year old, because the five year old is still close to the integration of a two year old preschooler! You see, school forces young children to sit still and stay in one place for long periods. Certain brain centers are stimulated a lot in school, but certain other brain centers are not stimulated. School children aren't permitted to explore far and wide. But when you and I enter Paradise, we begin to explore far and wide. Exploration using each of the senses is required for integration.
The integrated adult is able to explain this subject clearly because he or she has integrated all of the languages including the language of art, the language of music, the language of speech and writing, the language of mathematics, and the language of physical movement itself, which is used by human bodies as they move gracefully in tune with other bodies in nature. By becoming integrated a person becomes attuned both physically and mentally to the natural environment both inside and outside. When many persons become attuned in this way, they will help create and maintain a Paradise on Earth.
Integration includes special human talents integrated with ordinary talents, such as speaking talent and writing talent, and also special disabilities which in past cultures have caused many persons to be marginalized or excluded. For example today there are many autistic persons who can't socialize very effectively but they have extra talent in art or in music or in mathematics or in some other technical field.
QUESTION: John, you have plenty of interesting ideas to share. I like the idea expressed that integration is inclusive, and does not leave anything behind, from popular culture, to nature, to the individual, to the collective, and so on. My own impression is that it is true that when we are younger we are more open to all the inner and outer realities available. Later, we prune off the branches we don't think are of value, that aren't part of the status quo. My own experience as a person and a writer both has been that these things that we don't pay attention to, which I call THE LIFE INBETWEEN, which means impressions of things and actual small occurrences, are important. To me, though, it is hard enough for a regular person with regular responsibilities to integrate, which in the original sense, to me, means to be able to gather and own experience, and filter it accordingly, and become broader, more wise and thus innocent at the same time, and be a guiding force in the world, a light even if in one's own circle, or for oneself. We are all disabled this way. Yet, this integration seems like more than something average psychology or literature has expressed. This seems like making an opening for a new culture of acceptance and joy, a new world. Is it actually possible? What steps should those interested take to make this begin to come about? It sounds like "learn by doing mode," and that it needs to be experienced. I have begun to feel much integration by accepting all facets of life, both the sacred and secular. Is this a good start? This is what I have been doing for the past year and more. Please comment even more on integration, in these terms of acceptance, and experimentational learning if you can, so as to help familiarize the readers with it, with your ideas and experiences regarding integration."
ANSWER: Brian, can you pick up your guitar and write a song whose title is "THE LIFE IN BETWEEN"? Try doing this. Can you take pens or paints and paint pictures as you are move between red and green? Give it a try. Can you take your digital camera and produce a thousand images which portray a green frog up in the air making a hop between lily pads? Use your imagination and make it happen. Is this "LIFE IN BETWEEN" that you feel something to do with the sense of continuity, the sense of being in motion and not rigidly set in any single physical place, frame of mind, or idea? Meditate on the intermediates. Move beyond mere English.
Indeed, Brian, there are different languages that people use, and each language flows in a different channel of communication and a different intelligence. This point is made clear by Professor Howard Gardner of Harvard who has written extensively about the eight multiple intelligences which he identifies as musical intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, mechanical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence,
intrapersonal intelligence, and naturalistic intelligence. For more information, go to:
http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm
It's complicated because one person is more comfortable using only some of these intelligences. Schools in fact emphasize verbal intelligence and interpersonal intelligence. Many students study little or no math or music after the 12th grade, and in many schools today music is not taught with the daily emphasis that verbal skills and mathematical skills are taught. When integration is the social paradigm, there is balance in a child's education. Present society is a long ways from integration.
An example of integration is making music using both hands as on a musical keyboard or a guitar. Another example of integration is using both hands to type a letter, as I am typing now on an electronic alphanumeric keyboard. Still another example of integration is drawing using both hands at once, so that a bilaterally symmetrical design results. This art reflects the bilaterally symmetrical design of the
human body itself. Evolution produced the vertebrate body, and my art features the bilateral symmetry of the evolved vertebrate body. But alas. Educators train children to break the balance and the integration of the upper body by training them to concentrate on drawing and printing using the so-called "dominant" hand. And in the brain, too, the
logical reasoners train their students to just use one side of the brain in speaking and writing. But when I am being playful and integrated and non-specialized I will write or sing a Mother Goose song and feelrejuvenated. Singing songs integrates verbal intelligence with musical intelligence. In this activity I have spent many happy days!
Brian, today's traditional cultures are exhausting the natural resources of Earth at an accelerating rate, and for humanity to long endure a new more thrifty culture needs to be created. Part of this novelty will be culturing children to be less demanding on themselves, and on other people, and on the rest of nature. This diminution of demands and
expectations is possible in a person whose sense of well-being is already very high, so they do not have to be demanding so much to feel satisfied. This is the new culture of joy, thrift, and taking good care of ones self by taking good care of other persons and the providence of nature as well.
CLOSING COMMENTS from interviewer- Thank you for your time and for sharing your theory of integration. I know that I, for one, will continue to digest the ideas related. If I might summarize a bit and then comment, and I am going to do it in a slightly intuitive way- in the spirit of allowing all parts of me, in the spirit of integration if you will.
My impression is that socialization of the individual in society happens in similar ways everywhere. There are different languages, cultures, religions, et cetera...but whoever you are you adhere to the ones you are brought up in. This appears diverse from the outside, but is not. Then whoever adapts best to what is going on, does well, or thinks they do well. But the result is for most people inner conflict and outer conflict. Psychological dis-ease, and political dis-ease. We are not at ease. I am not talking about some blissed out stasis, but an utterly sane and active co-operative, and yes, peaceful humanity.
Integration seems to offer a way. Integration lets people be at home in the world. It is pro teaching and learning, and non-competitive. We use our bodies and our brains, the way nature and even God intended. Call it the whole. The way the whole intended. This means that people are allowed and encouraged to play and work and be the way they want without harming others. This is the opposite of the way the world is set up now. And the world pays. By forsaking any part of poetry, prose, mathematics, art, culture, language, religion, sport, movement, growth, and the natural personal dynamic, these great fires go underground and lose oxygen and the world suffers. We do not have a world at play because we think we cannot have a paradise. Once enough people believe and act accordingly, it will begin to happen. It already has. There is a great movement afoot. Integration theory will be a part of that.
It might be difficult to get a handle on integration. I won't try to pin down a definition too much. I think the point of integration is to accept more broadly, and then to proceed. It is therefore not to be put into a box. It could also be well called Life Theory. Simple, but encompassing so much.
I love your last few words...your closing words. It says that we have fast devoured the world, and that a more thrifty attitude is needed. Who would not agree? My personal view seems close to yours. If we can demand less, and walk a bit more softly through our lives, things will be better. Here is to integration, and thanks again. Perhaps we can continue with another talk, and explore new ideas and even revisit these ones...
End.
Copyright 2007 by John L. Waters and Brian Michael Barbeito. All Rights Reserved.
LINKS
My website at Humboldt State University
My search for a publisher
My letters of recommendation
Interview conducted by Brian Michael Barbeito
QUESTION: John, can you say a few words, for the layperson, about integration?
ANSWER: Certainly. Integration connects, combines, and coordinates all the factions in a society and in an individual person so that there is no wasteful neglect or conflict between different social factions or personal components. That is, for example, in my own brain there are several different languages and intelligences working which, when better integrated, enable me to do better work. As my brain becomes better integrated, this integration enables me to do certain things I never could do before.
As a student in elementary and secondary school I wasn't taught about integration, and I didn't integrate myself as a student. To become more capable I had to doindependent research on integration. This integration enabled me to do things I never had done before.
A process that works for one person probably will work for other persons as well. If this is true, then after the nations integrate, the human race will be able to do things that humanity has never been able to do before, for example, be more thrifty, more caring and provident, even to the point of avoiding military conflicts. But before whole nations can practice providence and stewardship, the individual leaders and social authorities will need to study integration, practice integration, and encourage other persons to do the same. As I give more personal presentations as well as present my different created works which involve the different languages and intelligences such as art, music, mathematics, English, and physical movements, the meaning of integration and stewardship will become more clear to more people.
QUESTION: John, it sounds as if integration can at first help the individual to become re-oriented towards a more holistic approach, and then also help nations. This sounds like a large task, but immensely interesting. With so many stressors in the world today- environmental factors, wars, and so forth, it sounds like a new theory would be helpful. The old ones are not working, be they orthodox religious teachings, or even mysticism. What is needed is a theory that is all-encompassing, and this sounds like a process that has worked for you, so perhaps you are representative of something unique. Perhaps providence and nature has picked you.
Yet, for someone interested in your theory and practice of integration, how would they begin? Is there a mantra, or a mediation to practice, as in some traditions? Are there dietary regimens? How best to get a taste of integration, or if we feel integrated, to begin to integrate more? Please comment.
ANSWER: Brian, if you were right here with me, I would say to you, just give me six hours and I will SHOW you Paradise. We will go outside and walk along the garden paths and look at Paradise and smell Paradise and touch and listen to Paradise.
To be a little more direct in explanation, my teaching integrates the natural world with the world of progressive modern culture. This integration includes culture and science, nature, poetry, prose, art, music, and all the other subjects and languages found in our modern brains. Right here and now we can walk out together into the brightness and warmth of Paradise and not be blocked to direct experience. It helps if we are both comfortable in a safe place where we can unblock ourselves and have more direct experiences. To begin our experience we leave the classrooms, the books, the videos, the computers, the urge to make a buck, and all the other go-betweens and blockers that keep us from experiencing directly all that is to be experienced in nature and the integration that is latent in our own human nature. As we go out into the radiant world and explore more, we feel younger and more energetic and more exposed to the immediacy of what is. We do not become preoccupied and trapped in any activity that restricts our perceptions and our movements. We open up to more and more and we pay attention to more and more of what is around us. This discovery of the radiant takes time.
Speaking of radiance, each part of the youthful brain is waiting to be stimulated, exercised, developed, and integrated with the other parts. Unless they are handicapped, infants and young children explore with all their brains, their bodies, and their senses. As we adults learn to integrate we learn to feel more and more youthful. This learning takes more time for a twenty-year old than for a five year old, because the five year old is still close to the integration of a two year old preschooler! You see, school forces young children to sit still and stay in one place for long periods. Certain brain centers are stimulated a lot in school, but certain other brain centers are not stimulated. School children aren't permitted to explore far and wide. But when you and I enter Paradise, we begin to explore far and wide. Exploration using each of the senses is required for integration.
The integrated adult is able to explain this subject clearly because he or she has integrated all of the languages including the language of art, the language of music, the language of speech and writing, the language of mathematics, and the language of physical movement itself, which is used by human bodies as they move gracefully in tune with other bodies in nature. By becoming integrated a person becomes attuned both physically and mentally to the natural environment both inside and outside. When many persons become attuned in this way, they will help create and maintain a Paradise on Earth.
Integration includes special human talents integrated with ordinary talents, such as speaking talent and writing talent, and also special disabilities which in past cultures have caused many persons to be marginalized or excluded. For example today there are many autistic persons who can't socialize very effectively but they have extra talent in art or in music or in mathematics or in some other technical field.
QUESTION: John, you have plenty of interesting ideas to share. I like the idea expressed that integration is inclusive, and does not leave anything behind, from popular culture, to nature, to the individual, to the collective, and so on. My own impression is that it is true that when we are younger we are more open to all the inner and outer realities available. Later, we prune off the branches we don't think are of value, that aren't part of the status quo. My own experience as a person and a writer both has been that these things that we don't pay attention to, which I call THE LIFE INBETWEEN, which means impressions of things and actual small occurrences, are important. To me, though, it is hard enough for a regular person with regular responsibilities to integrate, which in the original sense, to me, means to be able to gather and own experience, and filter it accordingly, and become broader, more wise and thus innocent at the same time, and be a guiding force in the world, a light even if in one's own circle, or for oneself. We are all disabled this way. Yet, this integration seems like more than something average psychology or literature has expressed. This seems like making an opening for a new culture of acceptance and joy, a new world. Is it actually possible? What steps should those interested take to make this begin to come about? It sounds like "learn by doing mode," and that it needs to be experienced. I have begun to feel much integration by accepting all facets of life, both the sacred and secular. Is this a good start? This is what I have been doing for the past year and more. Please comment even more on integration, in these terms of acceptance, and experimentational learning if you can, so as to help familiarize the readers with it, with your ideas and experiences regarding integration."
ANSWER: Brian, can you pick up your guitar and write a song whose title is "THE LIFE IN BETWEEN"? Try doing this. Can you take pens or paints and paint pictures as you are move between red and green? Give it a try. Can you take your digital camera and produce a thousand images which portray a green frog up in the air making a hop between lily pads? Use your imagination and make it happen. Is this "LIFE IN BETWEEN" that you feel something to do with the sense of continuity, the sense of being in motion and not rigidly set in any single physical place, frame of mind, or idea? Meditate on the intermediates. Move beyond mere English.
Indeed, Brian, there are different languages that people use, and each language flows in a different channel of communication and a different intelligence. This point is made clear by Professor Howard Gardner of Harvard who has written extensively about the eight multiple intelligences which he identifies as musical intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, mechanical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence,
intrapersonal intelligence, and naturalistic intelligence. For more information, go to:
http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm
It's complicated because one person is more comfortable using only some of these intelligences. Schools in fact emphasize verbal intelligence and interpersonal intelligence. Many students study little or no math or music after the 12th grade, and in many schools today music is not taught with the daily emphasis that verbal skills and mathematical skills are taught. When integration is the social paradigm, there is balance in a child's education. Present society is a long ways from integration.
An example of integration is making music using both hands as on a musical keyboard or a guitar. Another example of integration is using both hands to type a letter, as I am typing now on an electronic alphanumeric keyboard. Still another example of integration is drawing using both hands at once, so that a bilaterally symmetrical design results. This art reflects the bilaterally symmetrical design of the
human body itself. Evolution produced the vertebrate body, and my art features the bilateral symmetry of the evolved vertebrate body. But alas. Educators train children to break the balance and the integration of the upper body by training them to concentrate on drawing and printing using the so-called "dominant" hand. And in the brain, too, the
logical reasoners train their students to just use one side of the brain in speaking and writing. But when I am being playful and integrated and non-specialized I will write or sing a Mother Goose song and feelrejuvenated. Singing songs integrates verbal intelligence with musical intelligence. In this activity I have spent many happy days!
Brian, today's traditional cultures are exhausting the natural resources of Earth at an accelerating rate, and for humanity to long endure a new more thrifty culture needs to be created. Part of this novelty will be culturing children to be less demanding on themselves, and on other people, and on the rest of nature. This diminution of demands and
expectations is possible in a person whose sense of well-being is already very high, so they do not have to be demanding so much to feel satisfied. This is the new culture of joy, thrift, and taking good care of ones self by taking good care of other persons and the providence of nature as well.
CLOSING COMMENTS from interviewer- Thank you for your time and for sharing your theory of integration. I know that I, for one, will continue to digest the ideas related. If I might summarize a bit and then comment, and I am going to do it in a slightly intuitive way- in the spirit of allowing all parts of me, in the spirit of integration if you will.
My impression is that socialization of the individual in society happens in similar ways everywhere. There are different languages, cultures, religions, et cetera...but whoever you are you adhere to the ones you are brought up in. This appears diverse from the outside, but is not. Then whoever adapts best to what is going on, does well, or thinks they do well. But the result is for most people inner conflict and outer conflict. Psychological dis-ease, and political dis-ease. We are not at ease. I am not talking about some blissed out stasis, but an utterly sane and active co-operative, and yes, peaceful humanity.
Integration seems to offer a way. Integration lets people be at home in the world. It is pro teaching and learning, and non-competitive. We use our bodies and our brains, the way nature and even God intended. Call it the whole. The way the whole intended. This means that people are allowed and encouraged to play and work and be the way they want without harming others. This is the opposite of the way the world is set up now. And the world pays. By forsaking any part of poetry, prose, mathematics, art, culture, language, religion, sport, movement, growth, and the natural personal dynamic, these great fires go underground and lose oxygen and the world suffers. We do not have a world at play because we think we cannot have a paradise. Once enough people believe and act accordingly, it will begin to happen. It already has. There is a great movement afoot. Integration theory will be a part of that.
It might be difficult to get a handle on integration. I won't try to pin down a definition too much. I think the point of integration is to accept more broadly, and then to proceed. It is therefore not to be put into a box. It could also be well called Life Theory. Simple, but encompassing so much.
I love your last few words...your closing words. It says that we have fast devoured the world, and that a more thrifty attitude is needed. Who would not agree? My personal view seems close to yours. If we can demand less, and walk a bit more softly through our lives, things will be better. Here is to integration, and thanks again. Perhaps we can continue with another talk, and explore new ideas and even revisit these ones...
End.
Copyright 2007 by John L. Waters and Brian Michael Barbeito. All Rights Reserved.
LINKS
My website at Humboldt State University
My search for a publisher
My letters of recommendation
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