Monthly Archives: February 2024

The Night Portlandia Walked

It was really late at night. I was walking downtown in the transit mall when I came across this man busking… playing guitar with his guitar case opened hoping those who listened would throw in some change, maybe a dollar bill or two. I stopped to listen to the guy. He asked, “Got any requests?”

“No man, ” I answered. “Anything you want to play is fine with me.”

“Anything,… are you sure?” He asked.

There was something strange about the way he said it, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but just nodded yes.

“OK, I got something extra special for you.” He said.

He started playing this simple finger picking pattern, it was nice and relaxing. The more he played, the more he added to the pattern. In a relatively short period of time he was playing the amazing complex pattern. I just got lost in it. It had me in a trance.

Then it happened. We were right next to The Portland Building, where the giant metal statue of Portlandia is displayed. The thing that happened was the statue began to move. She stepped down from her platform, and strode out into the street. There she stared at me with her steely eyes, making me feel this intense sensation that my life was in danger. And the feeling was well founded because she started coming straight for me. She could easily just smash me under her huge feet. I panicked and began to run. Fortunately Portlandia is very slow moving, and I easily out distanced her to the next street. I ran as fast as I could, zig zagging up and down the streets until I couldn’t hear Portlandia’s foot steps any more.

I caught a MAX train and rode it home. A few days later I tried walking down by the Portrlandia statue in the middle of the day. She was in her spot, just as she always had been. I ran into another person busking and asked her if she knew the busker I’d seen the other night.

“You’re saying Portlandia got up and started walking because of the way this guy played his guitar?”

“Ya man, ” II said. “You should of heard the dude playing, you would believe it could make a giant metle statue come to life. I don’t blame you for not believing me.”

“Oh I believe you. You, my sir, have encountered the Mystic of Cascadia. There are several people who have had the same experience you did. Everybody has done the same thing, run away. Some of them have kind of lost touch with reality. Be thankful you still have your whits about you.”

That’s how my hunt for The Mystic of Cascadia began.

E.P.P.

E.P.P. = Existential Phenomenological Pragmatism.

Existentialism for ideas on freedom and authenticity. Phenomenology for ideas about the Lived Body and the Being of Life Pragmatism for being pragmatic about all matters. This outlines my personal Philosophy on Human Being and practice.

Also borrow from Pema Chodren and her views on the Wisdom of No Escape, as well as Karl Marx’s political economy, particularly his theory of Surplus Value. Also borrow from Gabriel García Márquez beliefs on Magical Realism.

It may be hard to see how all these ideas an be combined, but for me they fit together in a mutually reassuring whole. One philosophy reinforces another with the result being greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Bottom line is I just don’t give a shit. Literally, I don’t give a shit about anything. This frees me from the chains of desire, just as the Buddha taught. It allows me to Experience the True Value of Things, like the love I share with family like friends, and friends like family, that of Human Being.

My The Way of the Mystic of Cascadia Multiverse Stories is my attempt to talk about E.P.P. via literature. I’m not much of a writer so there’s not much chance I will be successful in this endeavor, but regardless I have to try.

The Meshing of Intentionalities

From the journals of The Mystic of Cascadia:

“The Way” of the Mystic is to live in the Awareness of Being. The Perception of Being is the basis for all of the Mystic’s Power. When a Mystic does what would of been called alchemy they are transforming one Being into Another. They do this by Imposing one Intentionality on Another. They do this by Meshing their own Intentionality with the Intentionality of the Being begin Transformed. How this Meshing is accomplished is an element of the Way of the Mystic.

Existential Phenomenological Pragmatism

What is Existential Phenomenological Pragmatism? The short answer is it’s the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Martin Heidegger combined with the phenomenology of Maurice Merle-Ponty Hans Jonas, and Heidegger tempered by the pragmatism of William James, and informed by Hans Jonas’ view on the Phenomenon of Life and the imperative of responsibility. What is it more specifically? From a high level it is the grounding of Human Being in the Being of Life, and how that Being has a Directionality which leads to an imperative of social responsibility. It includes such specifics as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s concept of the Power of Love which is rooted Human Being. It also includes
Marx’s dialectical/historical materialism as a means of implementing the Pragmatism of William James.

That pretty much covers Existential Phenomenological Pragmatism from a high level. If it’s ambiguous that is necessary given the limits of knowledge described by all of these separate philosophies. To deal with this ambiguity I will often use capitalization to indicate deeper meanings, and give descriptions which may be closer to poetry than prose. If none of this makes sense, practically speaking that’s OK. The overall philosophy will take shape as the conversion about specifics progresses.