Wakuan complained when he saw a picture of
bearded Bodhidarma,
"Why hasn't that fellow a beard?"
(Koan)
Meditation
LLI makes you more aware of the
immensity of the
moment. Involuntarily aware.
You are present in the here and now. Totally present, not caught up in
memories, anxieties and thinking.
There are no conscious thoughts in your
mind.
Consider: where does thought come from? Memory. Thoughts are from the past.
You cannot comment on the emergent moment whilst simultaneously
experiencing it.
LLI
roots you in the moment. Consequently your
conscious mind is quiet.
Humour
Low latent inhibition causes you to see the
absurdity in many conventions.
Discussing the insight is not always wise - other people may not understand
or share the insight.
At best, you seem unorthodox. At worst, an idiot.
Ultimately, you learn to keep your mouth shut, keep a low profile and laugh.
You do not laugh at specific people. You laugh at the silliness of human
behaviour.
This laughing is not mockery, arrogance or conceit. It is the laughter of
freedom.
The laughter of a person who has stepped out of the trap and can see the
cage for what it is.
Motives differ
If you have LLI you probably do not have mainstream motivational concerns.
Advertising, multimedia and the news have little effect upon you.
The existence of bias, opinion and perspective make magazines, newspapers
and news bulletins unpalatable.
The manipulations being applied are transparent and the underlying variables
and permutations are dubious.
This is why obedience and orthodoxy are not really an option for you.
Authority is vulgar and self-serving.
When you are engaged in any activity you are aware of the different levels
and layers involved; the obvious, the subtle and also the unseen.
As a consequence, your motivations are shaped by this expanded perspective.
You allow for more. You impose less. You doubt. You respond to the unsaid,
the implicit. You wait. You watch. And you yield.
What you seek is the essence.
Each person sees the world in their own way and lives their lives
accordingly.
But at the heart of everything is something real.
This is what you look for.
Knowledge
(i) Creativity
LLI affects creativity not knowledge.
It enables you to notice possibilities and permutations, variables and
patterns.
This changes how your mind works.
It is a functional change. A process change. A perceptual change.
(ii)
Knowledge
Knowledge is altogether different.
LLI may allow you to notice considerably more things around you but you are
still subject to moods, temperament and disposition.
If you like sci-fi, then you will research and explore sci-fi.
If you do not like cooking, then you essentially ignore that subject.
Despite having the ability to take in more information there is still a
discriminatory process in place.
For example: you look at a car engine and you notice the different
components.
LLI allows you to see more but the data you have obtained has no meaning
because it lacks context.
Unless you know what the individual parts represent, the information is
useless.
Functional knowledge is still required.
Hence, your skill in topics that interest you may well be abnormally
developed.
But your expertise is still limited to a narrow field of interest.
(iii)
Zen
Studying tao or zen is interesting in terms of LLI and knowledge.
These disciplines reject knowledge and encourage you to unlearn. Rather than
accumulate information, you shed it.
You let go of the opinions, facts and figures acquired through education,
conditioning and memory.
In place of knowledge, you cultivate awareness and sensitivity.
Instead of taking an interest in a limited subject/topic, you examine
existence itself.
You look at the process, the how, the nature, the quality, the essence, the
character of things.
As a consequence, the
insights you perceive are wider-reaching and affect all aspects
of your life.
Rather than limit your subject to a narrow field, you have an interest that
is inclusive.
Zen/tao underscores and permeates everything.
Vertical thinking
People usually learn how to cope with reality by applying labels and
categories to everything.
Schools encourage this behaviour and it is perpetuated by society.
Edward De Bono calls this way of thinking 'vertical' - where there are
sequential learning stages - and a person proceeds in a step-by-step manner.
A person with LLI cannot do this. The labels do not work. The linearity is
constrictive.
You see branches and variations, possibilities and options.
Your thinking is 'chaotic' relative to the vertical model, with far more
information being considered and potentially irrelevant offshoots and
avenues being explored.
Intuition and association are important.
Specificity
Ultimately you must must pare the incoming information down to the specific in
order to function.
Context is essential.
The stream of data remains constant but you learn how to be selective.
Usually you notice the parts that interest you the most. This narrows your
awareness.
The periphery is there, but you pay less attention to it.
You live in the moment and aim to move with the flow.
Looking deeper
When something interests an LLI person, there is an insatiable
compulsion to know more, to look deeper, to think it through.
Research is inevitable.
Avenues of inquiry, tangents, possibilities and permutations are avidly
investigated.
The use of the brain is also unusual.
The memory becomes fairly selective, disregarding 'general knowledge' in
favour of focussed recollection.
The conscious mind becomes a problem-solving tool, directed at specific
concerns that require analysis or contemplation.
You realise the difference between 'thought' and 'internal verbalisation'
(chattering monkey).
Thought is not words or images. It is something else entirely.
LLI denies you internal narrative but you still experience thought.
Despite the apparent narrowing of focus, the extraneous information is still
being received and processed.
Yet, instead of random data intake, the LLI person is looking only in
directions that interest them.
An uncanny degree of awareness emerges.
More...
Page created 24 February 2001