90 Days of ILP

Why am I talking with a Western accent? Because I and some co-workers were treated to dinner and Brokeback Mountain this evening, courtesy a generous friend. It was a decent flick as far as love stories go -- full of hopeless tension and random vistas -- but I couldn't help but feel robbed by the sexualization of every little scene. Sheep traversing mountain passes, pickup trucks kicking up dust, rodeo clowns distracting rabid bulls: none of it was safe from innuendo.

But then it occured to me: what a perfect metaphor for meditation practice! Indeed, if the essence of the erotic is the capacity for each lover to focus fully on the Other in the moment, then surely basic meditation is something akin to treating each breathe as a lover, something to caress as it passes through the nose and out into infinite space. Expand it: not only each breathe, but each moment is something worthy of being loved and loving you.

In other news, we've some friends in from Germany here to hang out and help where needed. Click here for the blog of Dennis and Stefanie, a couple from Bremen who've done some interesting things organizing the integral scene in Western Europe.

As I finish week one of this ILP experiment, I think it's now important to reflect on where I've been and where I might go. While I still can't convince myself of the more profound significance of meditation, I have begun to crave it in a basic physical sense, the way I once craved a beer every night. Likewise physical exercise: though its call is subtle, I do make habitual space now for at least one repitition of an exercise per diem (usually push-ups or Hindu squats). For Shadow Work, I engage in sporadic 3-2-1 and try everything in my power to keep the outsize ego in check. For Framework, studying business books like Good to Great will do fine.

But this leads me to an interesting question: why are THESE the four core modules? (This is not rhetorical: I really wonder why). Why isn't Relationship more important, or Work-in-the-World? The latter particularly, for a young man trying to find his place, seems of utmost importance, far more critical than Body (we boys have an endless supply of piss-n-vinegar), Mind, or Spirit.

Indeed, if the integral movement wishes to hold significance in the world of youth, a hat tip in the direction of right livelihood must be made. For my part, I can offer you this, a One-Minute Module in the service of determing your proper Role. And, appropriately enough, I got this idea from Good to Great.


Draw three circles, which intersect each other in the middle. In one of the circles, write "What is My Deepest Passion?". In another, write "What I Can Be the Best in the World At?". In the third, "What Can I Make Money At?." Take a moment to think, then fill out the answer to each. Your mode of right livelihood would be whatever intersects all three, and it should be the fanatical focus of your existence from here on out. This need not be set in stone: revisit and revise each week as the discoveries of the previous seven days dictate.

But really, whatever you come up with, fret not: it's unlikely you'll discover a true calling as a gay ranch hand in xenophobic 1960s Wyoming.