BERRY LIBERMAN: I’m just turning on my phone recorder. Everything
was working and then suddenly I couldn’t get onto Skype for love
or money [laughs]. It wanted 25 different passwords that are not
connected to anything else. So I’ve just been in a state of bafflement
and confusion [laughs]. And actually that’s probably a good place to
start. We’re asked to engage with this technology, this system in a way
that is profoundly fragmenting and depletive and extractive. The thing
I’m constantly thinking about is this dual experience right now that if
you want to engage with the system and the economy as it is, you have
to accept their rules of engagement. And they are exhausting. Then we
also have this profound opportunity to go deeper and live richer and
closer to the source of our soul and who we are, which is what you’ve
written about. This invitation is there but the rules of engagement in
this system keep us at bay. So I wonder what your thoughts are on,
firstly, the system as it is, and how we are told to participate in it?TERRY PATTEN: The way that I
relate to it is to endeavour to learn
and understand these technologies
well enough that I can accomplish
the things that are important
to me. It’s like paying what is
Caesar’s. We need to have Skype
up and working if we’re going to
have this conversation. I’m not
excited about Skype but I’m excited
about having a conversation with
you. Yet that human relationship
always gets squeezed through these
particular pipes. The reason all of
that is so difficult is because there
are so many people we can’t trust.
The systems have to guard against the person who would impersonate you and use your
Skype account and fish and hack and steal information in order to make some petty profit.
So the root of it is thatWe have to create relationships with a few people who we can trust, and then within those
relationships we don’t have to protect ourselves. Particularly with the internet we have
some unique challenges. Some people I know have come to the conclusion that a redesign
of the internet which eliminates anonymity is the only way we can turn it into something
that becomes safe, so that bad actors can’t hide behind that anonymity. But this isn’t my
area of special expertise. In any case, I wouldn’t be able to have the level of conversation
I’m interested in having if there were not technologies that make possible a worldwide
community of people at the leading edge of thought and culture with whom I could speak
to like this. I wouldn’t be able to convene large enough groups of people locally in this way.
So I’m grateful to the technology in that sense, but like you I recover from it daily [laughs].
Daily I get drawn into little imbalances and then I have to course-correct. It’s a moment-to-
moment practice. For me right now the practice is to relate to the reality of you in a room
halfway around the world. I’ve met you, you’re human, you’re real, you’re huggable, you’re
not just a bunch of pixels on my screen or something coming out of the speaker here. And
yet I’ve been pulled towards this kind of abstractive and dissociative relationship.Well, in the words of neuroscientist Donald Hebb, “Neurons that fire together wire
together.” It means that we’re conditioning our brains and our total whole body and
neurology all the time. Whatever I’m doing with my attention I’m practicing. We’re
always practising something or other. We’re strengthening whatever neural circuits we’re
currently activating. If I’m feeling irritated and resistive to the technology, I’m more
likely to feel irritated and resistant to the technology in a future moment. If I’m finding
a sense of humour in the midst of sobering realities, I’m going to be better able to doSay more
about that?we are expanding our world and our reach in
an environment where there’s no “we,” there’s no
bond, there’s no connectedness already presumed.
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TERRY PATTEN
DUMBO FEATHER