6/6- Kalamazoo With Brian and Joey

The Kalamazoo stay was to be one of relaxation and catching up. Over the next two whole days, and even a bit of Saturday, our last one with them, we were furiously catching up on posts, pictures, and a lot of their ever flowing coffee. They are both very busy bees and our times to visit were mainly in the evenings over TV and the periodic pop ins for an hour or so through out the day from Brian as he went from one appointment to the next.

We, however, still get some of those good conversations in that I'd been anticipating through Todd. Brian is in the midst of studying to be a psychologist, and Joey is a computer nut. Psychologists have always been a bit of a nemesis trade for me, though recently I've grown to accept the possibility that they can be helpful. Many in my family, and a large chunk of my good friends, all put this claim in, and results I've seen have been what's curved my thought. In my own experiences with the little beasts I've gained nothing but regression, though I realize that is my isolated experience and not the case on a whole. Never the less it made for some fun talks with Brian.

Through out many of the more in depth conversations that we'd have about the nature of our travels, the "metaphysical" end of us trying to tune in our intuitions, and the nature of what we're all doing over all found us in what I believe was a linguistic bind. It seemed to me that we were agreeing with one another, but were caught up in the rhetoric we used to describe it. Brian would describe these occasions of drawing in these great experiences with people we've been having as an attraction of "mirroring". This was an analogy I really took to in that sense that everyone reflects those around them, and in turn see themselves reflected in the populace of their surroundings as well. To me, however, this was much of what we were saying, just in our weirdly muddled ways of trying to articulate it, and it took a while for any of us to see that.

Often times Brian would lean on his studies in this way to more succinctly say many of the things we have been struggling to articulate. For me, this would jar me a bit feeling as if it may just be regurgitation of text rather than grasping where we were coming from. Over all, though, it was clear that he was getting it but simply speaking through his particular filter. It was much akin to when I've talked these ideas out with people connecting through religious filters, the science end I was much less used to encountering and interpreting. In the end, as I've said, we found ourselves to be in understanding of one another, we just needed occasional translation.

These sorts of conversations are something I get really enthusiastic about. This translation idea of one's ideas into the language of another so that a true understanding can be had, rather than an agreement to disagree under misunderstood terms. As I've said, I tend to find it often in religious beliefs, and am noticing it more often on the scientific end as well. The overall idea that I'm excited about is that these ancient foes seem to share these same ideas that I believe if you can make it through that language barrier. For religion it seems to be the task of striping the cultural baggage off the core beliefs, for science it seems to be reminding them to add daily life to the equation.

By Saturday Todd had reached a friend of his, Sean, who worked at a radio station that was literally 100 yards away from Brian and Joey's house. He had to work that day and agreed to give us a ride back to Hillsdale where we'd be spending the next week. Soon enough we were packing up once again, getting pictures of us four together on Brian and Joey's back deck, then back on the move again.

Click here for Todd's perspective.