Love in the Abyss

"A thought transfixed me for the first time in my life. I saw the truth as it is set into a song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers.  The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.  Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart. 'The salvation of man is through love and in love.' I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved."

-Victor Frankl

            Love is the ultimate truth and ultimately the meaning to life or the means to self-actualize.  Looking at the Auschwitz prisoner’s living conditions through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/maslow.html), I would conclude, as a scientist, that every person should have died. Yet some lived… And not just lived, but were also able to self-actualize in that monsterous place.  I reflected and meditated about what it must have been like for Victor Frankl on the day he had his epiphany about love. 

On that day, the weather was freezing cold; he was hungry, improperly clothed, and had no shelter from the elements. His body was eating itself from lack of nutrition; everyone he knew had been murdered.  Around him, people were giving up on life; he was treated like a rat; his life work was lost; his odds of living were 1 and 26, and his human identity was a number.  He should have died, but didn’t because he had one thought that sustained him and that was love.  What better evidence does humanity have that the meaning of life is love? When all else fell away from Victor Frankl, it was in the contemplation of his beloved that he was sustained.

The lingering question I had for Frankl is why did he call love a goal?

I speculated for some time and realized that love is a goal because it just does not happen. One has to make it a goal and set off to achieve it. Our soul mate does not just come along and we live happily ever after. We learn love lessons each time we see that we failed ourselves or another person.  Our soul mates and relationships really are mirrors. They show us how to love more deeply by reflecting our failures and flaws back to us. It is through facing these painful lessons that love is really achieved and learned. When we fail to learn through our failures and see the evidence as a reflection of us, we fail twice and, as a result, experience love aversion.

For instance, most psychologists will say that infidelity in a relationship is a symptom of a much bigger problem. The truth is that everyone, when a relationship explodes, endures moments during which they feel like victims. Victims do not see their fault in the relationship, learn nothing, and assume the role of a victim. Unconscious victims are not activated and focused on learning anything. Victims are caught in an emotional loop exploring nothing, but their own pain. As a result, the victim loses trust for others and continues to make the same mistakes in the next relationship. Only when we set the goal to love, reflect on who we are, and tear down all the lifetime victim-centric barriers and defense mechanisms we set against love are we able to understand the highest truth.

If Victor Frankl can spend three years in a concerntration camp and be sustained by contemplating his beloved, can we not face the dark chambers inside ourselves that are preventing us from achieving life's ultimate goal?

I thank him for facing the inhumanity of his situation, for moving past it to the new life waiting for him on the other side, and for being brave enough to let these experiences move through him and manifest into words on paper so that all of us might benefit from the realization which was borne of so much darkness.

Amber Stubbs

Inside Out: Outside In

I chose Dr. Zachary Oliver’s book (2010), Falling but Fulfilled: Reflections on Multiple Intelligences for my selected book for this exercise.  My first chosen quotation for reflection is: “As with any research into human beings, the truths we discover always seem most rich as we look both into our own experience and then look for acknowledgment from the experience in the world” (Oliver, 2010, pp. 9-10).

My reflection of this quote begins with the experience of oneself and of our fellow human beings.  When I think about finding out the truth from experience, experiential learning comes to mind.  In a landmark book on experiential learning as titled Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Kolb (1984) defined experiential learning to be “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.  Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience” (p. 41).  An observable key strength of experiential learning is its effectiveness given the context of Bloom’s taxonomy. 

In a number of our doctoral courses, Dr. Oliver has discussed Bloom’s taxonomy to be the process of moving from lower order to higher order learning.  Lower order learning involves (a) knowledge acquisition and memory retention, (b) comprehension, and (c) application.  Higher order learning involves (a) analysis, (b) synthesis, and (c) evaluation.  Notably, synthesis results from multiple loops of lower order learning and analysis along with the reflection of application.  In other words, evaluation occurs almost simultaneously with synthesis and involves multiple syntheses.

In a book as titled as Mastering Business in Asia: Supply Chain Management, Kim (2005) addressed how Bloom's taxonomy relates to experiential learning.  Kim contended that multiple experiential learning loops enable a system (e.g., supply chain, firm) to avert past misgivings as these kinds of learning approaches further enhance a system’s processes.  In other words, Kim pointed out that evaluation to overcome the potentiality of failure involves multiple and repetitious experiential learning processes.  Thus, the power of evaluation is contextual on experiential learning, especially multiple loops of learning opportunity.  Notably, Dr. Oliver explained that a research effort is relative to the analysis in Bloom’s taxonomy.  Only multiple research efforts on a given research question or phenomenon can yield an actual evaluation… This is most certainly a hint to my last area of reflection for the selected quotation.

The part on seeking the truth from Dr. Oliver’s aforementioned quote is relative to scientific research.  The term epistemology relative toward understanding the nature of knowledge comes to mind when I think about research.  From what I continue to learn in these doctoral courses, inquiry in “contributing to the body of knowledge” in a particular field or scholarly discipline (e.g., social science) is relative to a research effort.  Furthermore, a research effort involves ascertaining truth by methodically pursuing a research question.  An example of a research question is: Do graduate students perceive themselves to be experiential learners?

Well, the somewhat detailed reflection and explanation of experiential learning and research is quite a “mouthful” to swallow in terms of knowledge acquisition.  Rather than merely seeking knowledge (i.e., knowledge acquisition), the key point to Dr. Oliver’s aforementioned quotation is about understanding the deeper meaning of the truths from experience-based learning, whether it be from oneself or others.  In other words, truth is best learned by numerous life experiences, which enables reflection so that one can understand the deeper meaning of life and the information from one’s surroundings.

Michelle Harada

Problems teach us better questions...

“Each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only respond by being responsible. Responsibleness is the very essence of human existence.”

 

-Victor Frankl

In “A Man’s Search for Meaning,” Victor Frankl spoke about human life being divided much like frames in a movie.  Frankl explained that we cannot understand a whole movie from watching a part of it.  The end of the movie is where we receive the clarity in meaning. The same holds true for life.

Before reading Frankl’s book, I was a goal setter and achiever.  I had already achieved many great feats to include, a master degree - despite my disability, four years in the Marine Corps, gazed at two of the seven wonders of the world, overcame my fear of heights through rock climbing, and completed two 70.3 triathlons when I did not know how to swim, bike, or run.  I had to learn how to do these activities from the perspective of a triathlete. I had more goals set in the future to include the Ironman World Championships, see the rest of the wonders of the world, ascend the 7 summits, and earn a Doctorate degree. It was very exciting to look to the past and the future.

However, I felt unfulfilled in the current moment.  This was a sobering as I sat in a desert wash alone, in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, in the middle of the Mohave Desert.   I reflected on the past and realized at every moment I was not truly happy. Just like this moment.  How could I feel happy about my reflections of the past and future, but not be happy during any of the moments?  This caused me to ask many questions: What is the point? What am I here for? Why do I have all these goals?  Do I have delusions about my own happiness?  Is God really God? Am I really Christian?  How do I feel about love? What is happiness really? Is there such a thing as a soul mate? What about past lives? What is reality? I decided to stop setting goals and search for meaning inside myself. Two years into my amazing journey, I read Frankl’s book.  

After reading the quote above, my life changed completely. This was the point where the knowledge I had about my outside search for meaning became inner meaning.  Meditation did not have to be the only time I lived in the moment.  I saw the significance in every moment. In the past, I always searched for the end of the movie.  I rushed through life seeing every moment as being insignificant but only as a set up for the next. I had to rush and get this moment done so I could move to the next one.  I was always in a hurry! I was never satisfied with what was occurring now.  I never enjoyed riding my bike, swimming in the ocean, or just simply taking a shower.  Everything was a means to an end.

Now, I truly practice that every moment is significant.  I look at every moment and see the miracles in it.  As I take a shower, I feel the warm water on my skin; I dry off and give thanks for that part of my body; I reflect when I walk; I feel all my feelings, and the list goes on.  I now have the answer and feel very happy in my moments.  In closing, Dr. Oliver stated in class that all great answers lead to more great questions.  And so, Dr Frankl’s answer led me to more great questions in which I am happily on a path to answer.  I begin a new journey where fulfillment is not the goal but the feelings of unfulfillment is the question in itself.  What is the answer? Ask yourself… Go ahead.  Do it…

Amber Stubbs

...broken into pieces...

“Leadership hath been broken into pieces” John Wildman, 1648

From the book: Leaders The Strategies for Taking Charge

There is no one hard and fast way to describe leadership and its meaning.  We can debate who makes a good leader, and what criteria we use to describe the perfect leader.  We do know that leaders do need some basic components to be effective in guiding individuals, organizations and companies.  We also know that leaders need vision, the ability to motivate, and at times be persuasive in working with people. 

One way we can define leaders is that leaders must have the ability to get the maximum effort out of the people they are charged with leading and must be able to reach the goals that are set forth by the organization, companies, or its followers.  Some say that leadership is a learned trait that can be taught. Others may argue that leadership comes from within, we may be predisposed or have a biological make up to become leaders.  Some may say that their peers or colleagues appoint leaders.  I would subscribe to the theory that leaders have a biological inheritance to become leaders.  We can teach different traits or leadership styles, and how we would handle different situations involving leaders and decision making, but leaders are born and then groomed to become effective leaders.

            Leaders use different strategies to get the results they are looking for from their followers.  Leadership strategies depend on things such as the goals of an organization, where do we see our organization a week, a month, six months or years down the road.  Leaders are challenged by which strategy they will use, what is the make up of their organization in terms of their employees, managers, and possibly investors.  Possibly, the biggest issues that comes to mind with leaders is the changing global environment and how business is being conducted.  Before, leaders would come into a room, outline where they wanted to see their organization headed, and task their managers with carrying out their wishes.  Today, leaders are using social media sites, conference calls, and other modern technology when getting their point across.  Leaders of today have lost in some ways the personal touch in dealing with people.

            “Leadership hath been broken into pieces” is a powerful statement.  Leaders use different styles, and strategies to get the outcome necessary for their organization(s).  There is not a set of prescribed bullet points leaders use, but what works at that moment, and what may work in the future.  There was probably a time when you could break leaders into one of two categories: Leaders who got the job done, and leaders who struggled to get the job done.  The latter would most likely not be a leader for long.  The best or most effective leader, needs to be able to take a piece from each of the different leadership strategies, form that in a global perspective, and use the new technology to its advantage. 

Rueben A. Ingram

Reincarnation of Blog

Aloha All,

Please excuse my absence. Life has been busy.
In the last few months, I've edited many books which will start coming out. In fact, the first one, "Almost Paradise" by Laurie Hanon is now available (at http://www.savantbooksandpublications.com/currentworks.php). It's a mystery set in Hawaii. So, for all of you curious about what life is really like here, beyond coconuts and palm trees, this fun little novel does dig a little deeper.

As far as my reason for starting the blog again: I really wanted this space to be an interesting opportunity to reflect on some of the great quotes which are floating through our various media. So, in this iteration, I've asked my doctoral students to read some books that go beyond the basic studies they are responsible for and select quotes and discuss them.

I figure this is a great opportunity for an interesting conversation for my student community to have with the wider world. I am truly impressed with the level of reflection bubbling to the surface among these students and am honored to have the opportunity to share these ideas with the world. Over the course of the next few weeks, new posts will be coming out that will be written by these awesome members of our learning community.

Z. Oliver