US abandons concept of international justice.

I’ve been reading a book called ‘The Way Of Aikido,’ which is an exploration of how the aikido techniques of entering and blending can be applied to all kinds of situations besides purely martial ones.

Apparently, in aikido, if someone is attacking, you enter into their energy by getting closer to it. If they’re trying to punch you in the chest, you make sure they miss, but not only that, you move towards them. Then you’re freer to blend with their movement. Not only are you moving yourself and your opponent towards your own goal, but you are moving with your opponent, seeing what they see, understanding their perspective. So if someone is trying to punch you in the chest, you move only slightly out of their line of attack. Then you basically turn around and move their punch to somewhere you want it to go, using their momentum. You can use this momentum however you want… You can just pull them in a circle for a while, or twist it down to collide with the ground.

So in this sense, neither your defense nor their attack exists any more. Both of you are co-creating a new sort of dance that has competing intentions. Without the attack, there’s no defense, and without the defense, there’s no new dance.

I talk about it in terms of a ‘new dance.’ The author of the book says ‘the harmony that can spring from the meeting of opposites.’ Many folks would think it’s unrealistic to talk in those terms; that a fight isn’t over until someone’s unconscious. I say: A conflict is over when it’s mutually understood that it’s over. The trick is engendering the mutuality. Enter and blend, and be in the other guy’s energy for a while, and it’ll be more obvious where things should go.

This isn’t just to say ‘walk a mile in another person’s shoes,’ because that’s exploring their history, not their now. In order to get to consensus, or mutual understanding, everyone involved has to drop their past and their situation in order to be able to see something better for everybody. Like in the mid-east… How will the people fighting over there ever be able to have consensus when they’re still caught up in the history of thousands of years of violence? Frankly, I don’t want to walk a mile in someone else’s resentment. I’d rather create a situation where something better than resentment can determine outcomes.

So maybe the only thing required in order to improve a situation is a mutual acknowledgement that the situation needs to be changed. In fact, planning a solution beforehand is a detriment in this scenario; you’ll just have to drop it anyway as you learn from entering and blending.

Hey, Steve Ballmer, what word is spelled ‘D-e-v-e-l-o-p-e-r-s?’

The following link should open telnet and show you something rather amazing.

Star Wars as a text animation.