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The theme for this week’s lesson is Need. There is an illusion that we all buy into, naturally, because of fear. The Illusion* is that we need to be something we are not.

* I have capitalized the “I” in Illusion due to the fact that the Illusion I speak of is not any mere illusion. I speak directly to the “Grand Illusion”. i.e. the Matrix.

What an amazing thing – need.

Let’s look at that again:

The Illusion is that we NEED something WE ARE NOT.

I am going to examine this using myself as a source, as I am the most available candidate at this time. That being said the sentence now changes to be:

The Illusion is that I need something I am not.

What could I need that I am not? Let’s look at everything I am first and see what is lacking.

The roles I fill in the overall spectrum of who I am as Patrick Yurick are: a Man, a human, a boyfriend, a son, a brother, a teacher, an employee, an advisor, a friend, a part-time aikidoist, and a student.

I am not however all those things at once. Right now for instance I am a boyfriend who is typing on his computer in his apartment. The physical things I am are I am dressed, I am tired, I have a light headache, my eyes are somewhat sore, my fingers hurt from practicing my guitar, I am sitting, I am breathing, my mouth is sticky with saliva, and tastes a little bitter because I haven’t brushed my teeth, and my hair is poofy and bothering me because I usually don’t let it grow out this long.

So what could I possibly be lacking? I have a headache so it might be nice if my head felt better. I feel weak so it might be nice to exercise. I could brush my teeth. I could get a haircut, write a comic book, read a novel, go for a walk, plan my week out. I could do all of those things.

But: They are all things that I could do that I am not doing.

They are not things that I need to do.

So the question that comes from the sentence “I need something I am not” is:

What do I need?

How do I determine that when all the answers I have available to me are my “wants” and “coulds”? What is a need? My friend Phil and I have been talking at length recently about Laws and Theories. A Law is inflexible. Phil defines it a little better than I do:

“…A Law is a “what” of the universe (e.g. things fall down) and a Theory is a “why” of the universe (e.g. Space Time Curvature)” – Phil Wagner, Feb. 19th

So that implies that a Law is guaranteed, inflexible. Is a Need a Law? Let’s find the definition of need. Basically “Need” is defined as something that is wanted or necessary. (Oxford American dictionary) I would like to make a stance on this for my own sanity and define Need as the moment before an inevitable occurrence. Such as “the apple needed to fall down”. In fact this is an interesting concept because the word Need seems to imply that an inevitability, a law, is within control.

This is the Illusion. When I use the term need, as it was modeled and defined to me upon my upbringing, I have always equated “need” to “want” and “necessary”. Need is paradoxical in this way. A “want” has always been defined to me as being within my control. Desire, or want, is to be suppressed, acted upon, or analyzed. Which means that everything in which I do “want” is expected to be within my control. “Necessary”.

… interrupted by conversation …. ok now I can start writing again …

In doing this I have concluded that The Illusion has it’s base in reality, much like the black portion of the “Yin-Yang” symbol is part of the whole. Which means that when I say “The Illusion is that we need something we are not” what I am saying is true.

The following equation may clarify:

The Illusion (part of the whole) = Me + Something

This means that:

The Opposite of The Illusion = Me

Which leads us to the actual equation I was trying to get at in the beginning:

The Whole = The Illusion + The Opposite of The Illusion

This is all very confusing and I may elaborate later. Basically what I have discovered is that I am simultaneously whole and lacking fullness, but the space that is empty is also full and therefore I am always “Whole”.

Ask me questions.

Inspired to do art and I am not too sure exactly why. I am doing a project with the kids using photoshop, which inspired me to look through the news today and create a piece using an excerpt, picture and headline from a single news story. I also grabbed a painting online to create this.

The News Story:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-02-17-obama-denver-stimulus_N.htm

The Quote From the News Story:
“It’s a hodgepodge of government spending,” said Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., his party’s chief vote counter. “Every single bit of this is borrowed money.”

The Painting:
http://pupples.blogspot.com/2008/03/black-oil-painting-for-sale.html

Happy Sunday from Chula Vista! I am at school working on chopping away at the endless list of “To Do’s’”. Yesterday I went to Torrey Pines to do a little hiking and get some sun. It was a great day. The sun was out as it had not been much this week.

I am thinking a lot about the role education plays within society these days. I have been thinking a lot about how we live in a world that is fortified with mass communication and asking myself, if I was John Dewey or Paulo Friere, Thoreau, Myles Horton – heck even Paul Revere and had access to the technology of today would the innovations they had made within their cultures be different? Changed? More effective? What I do see when I look at the world around me is bountiful shades of Hope for the future.

We have already expounded upon the leaps in communication that Gutenberg started with the Printing Press and now it is the job of current educators and social revolutionaries to use these tools for more than just that of advertisement and economic growth, we now need to use these tools to access, or even facilitate, the realm of spiritual growth.

The human spirit can, and already does, work in conjunction with modern technology. Look for any song on Youtube and you will find another video of a fan who has just spent hours learning to play this song just so he could video tape it and expose his successes to the communities all over the world. This is the power education and exhibition happening in the most simplistic forms and it has access to a community that a classroom may never have. This is the real world.

My biggest concern in the way things are going is how are we, in Peter London’s words: “Drawing Closer to Nature”. Technology must facilitate the human experience and to do so it must allow us to be connected to all realms, even that of the flower in the middle of the forest. I am excited at the leaps forward in Cellular technology and its merge with mobile computing. We are going to be there quicker than people realize.

The gallery above is from a exhibition on immigration in southern California that totally impressed me.

So it has been a while. I have been SUPER busy. It is weird being an adult for the first time in my life. I am finally making money and working, paying bills. People rely on me and that is just crazy. Adjusting to life in San Diego has been a journey to say the least. Moving from college slacker to full time employee was a lot different than I presupposed when hypothesizing, but the life has undoubtedly been agreeing with me.

For six months now I have been living anxiously trying to make my career, which is about all that I live for these days, be something that it is not. I have TRYING way to hard to DO and not trying hard enough to align myself with the energetic flow that naturally courses through everyday occurrences.

My day looks like this. Monday through Friday, I wake up around 4 am or 4:30 am. I like to do my prep in the morning, and I have a feeling that may never change. I work, and most times lose myself in it until about 6:30, in which I rush to get out of the door by 7am. Usually I leave a little after that, unless I am carpooling with my friend Kay. (30 minute drive) I prep, or got to staff meetings, until 8:30 and then start classes. BAM BAM BAM, three classes of 9th grade Multimedia in a row. I truly love teaching these classes. I just started a new semester and right now they are working on digital collages that serve as an interpretation of an article dealing with the Economy. I can’t wait to see how they come along. I have lunch and then fly through prep.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I have just started to teach an After School Comic Studio called CRASH! Comics. It is amazing. I really can’t express how cool this project is. About 20 kids are working with me to produce a comic book that is exploring the topic of the Chula Vista/Tijuana connection through various viewpoints. We are producing every part of the comic from the sponsors to an in school exhibition/fundraiser so that we can go on tour with the book, most notably we are going to try to get a booth at the 2010 ComicCon in San Diego.

I am super excited and I wanted to write today to express that. I know that I haven’t been in touch with a lot of people back home, and I wanted to let you know why. I am working constantly to make my family and my Grandfather proud. This has been the most crazy year of my life and I am about to note it as a close first for the “best” title.

I miss everyone so much! Come visit me!

I am going to keep posting. I really am. I like doing this.