Reading from Joe Perez’s Soulfully Gay:

Wednesday, Dec. 31

Did Jesus really rise from the dead? For the first time in many years, my answer to this question is Yes, I do believe. What changed? Part of the answer involves a story of a riddle from my past: a troubling breakdown and spiritual experience at age 30, confinement in a psychiatric ward for a time, visions in a hospital room, and an unexpected sight outside my room. I told this story in my journal (see entries on June 8 and June 15), and I’ll have a bit more to say about it. And part of the answer involves a topic I’ve written about: my encounter with the integral philosophy. But for now, here’s how the story ends: my mind accepts the reality of the resurrection….

Technorati Tags: Christ, Christianity, integral, Jesus, Joe Perez, resurrection, Soulfully Gay

On June 6, I relaunched my Weblog after an extended period of lethargy/semi-hiatus. I’m still tinkering with the blog template, design, and overall editorial plan, but I feel that I’m on track to making this Weblog an important part of my writing endeavors. My goal is to provide virtually daily content to my readers on topics related broadly to “sex, culture, politics, spirit” with an Integral slant.

Now begins the slow march from obscurity and invisibility to fame and fortune. Yeah, right. Some writers say that fewer than 2 percent of Americans have reached a truly integrated level of consciousness. I don’t claim to know the precise number of Integrally aware folks. However, I believe that Integral remains very marginal in our culture (though it probably has a disproportionate relative influence).

I will count this Weblog a success if I can provide an alternative voice in the national (US) dialogue advocating for more comprehensive, inclusive, and evolutionary perspectives on life. My first month’s traffic figures indicate that I have a long ways to go before this Weblog becomes more than an extremely tiny blip on the blogosphere’s radar screen. My Web server logs for joe-perez.com show approximately 2,700 unique visitors who visit an average of 2.18 times and read 3.82 pages on each visit. That comes to approximately 90,000 hits and about 790 MB of bandwidth. (SiteMeter, notorious for underreporting actual traffic, has dramatically lower numbers.) Let’s see where it goes from here.

Thanks to all my visitors for making joe-perez.com a part of your Internet voyages. Extra love for those who comment and e-mail! I hope you keep coming back.

P.S.: If you have any ideas for improving your Weblog reading experience, or if you want to help out in any way (guest bloggers? contributors?), please don’t be shy. Just comment or drop me a line.

Technorati Tags: blogs, Joe Perez, traffic

Originally posted on May 2, 2007.

In high school debate club, I mastered a technique called a spread. Do you know what that is? For every one of your opponent’s arguments, make three counter-arguments. It doesn’t matter if your arguments have merit or not. He or she will be so lost and simply unable to keep up with you that they will have to drop arguments. When you make your next rebuttal speech, you avoid all the arguments that the debater touched upon OR you respond with two counter-rebuttals for every one of your opponents, and then you extend all the dropped arguments and magnify them. It’s an endless loop, brought to a close in debate class only by strictly enforced time limits and the flexibility and range of a debater’s vocal chords (to talk really, really, really fast).

Life is short. I’ve done my share of debating. Today, in my wanderings through the blogosphere, I’m content to make my views known, and the general rationale for those beliefs. I’m not interested in a proliferation of rebuttal and counterrebuttal. Once I start down that road, is there ever an end? There is certainly rarely agreement.

Often minor disagreements are traced to core worldviews and basic presuppositions about human nature. Those core beliefs are not likely to change as the result of an hour or two of conversation. I can plant a few seeds, but then I need to move on to areas where I can be productive.

I say this so readers will know there is no disrespect intended when I choose not to pursue the arguments of their comments any further than I do. I teach my ego how I can appear to “lose” a few debates by bowing out, and the world doesn’t come crashing down around me. I will attempt to point readers in the direction I think they need to move to outgrow their current worldview, as best I can tell, and then it’s out of my hands.

Technorati Tags: dialogue, Joe Perez

Originally posted on June 22, 2007.

“Plants shape our lives more than you might think. Next time on the Beat, we take a trip to the Washington Park Arboretum. Also, Seattle author Joe Perez tells us how Harvard, Sex, Drugs and Integral Philosophy drove him crazy and brought him back to God…”

I’m on KUOW The Beat… talking about Soulfully Gay, growing up in Washington, college life, my 20s lifestyle, 30s spiritual path as a seeker, finding an integral path, giving advice to queer youth.

Honestly, I’m rather disappointed with my experience on the show. Dave Beck is a wonderful interviewer, but he wasn’t conversant with most of the book. His questions focused on my biography … with is perfectly understandable because my book is marketed, after all, as a memoir. However, 20 minutes just didn’t give me enough time to get from my early childhood experiences through Harvard and into the present. I look at the show as a good learning experience if nothing else.

Technorati Tags: Joe Perez, NPR, Soulfully Gay

Something:
this or that thing.
If I were to say:
‘I know something interesting,’
but you know only
it is both part
and whole.

Anything:
Something whatsoever.
If you were to ask:
‘Do you know anything interesting?’
you suppose only
to inquire of any part
of any whole.

Nothing:
No thing, not even
anything. If we were to sit
in silence, hearing nothingness,
we suppose only
it’s not part
of any whole.

Everything:
Every damn thing,
particular or aggregate, of a total.
We listen to each
Everyness, isn’t it always
the same whole
of every part?

Technorati Tags: holons, Joe Perez, poetry, spirituality

I. Reality comprises things or processes,
wholes within wholes, each a unique holon.

II. A thing’s drive to preserve itself
is called agency: the masculine principle.

III. A thing’s drive to adapt itself
is called communion: the feminine principle.

IV. A thing’s drive to transcend itself
is called heterophilia: telos of evolution.

V. A thing’s drive to dissolve itself
is called homophilia: telos of involution.

VI. Occasions arise; such moments of time
are emergent potentials of all holons.

VII. Things emerge in holarchies; they’re occasions
that include but transcend their previous.

VIII. Lower things set possibilities; the higher sets
achievable potentials of the lower.

IX. Higher levels include greater numbers of levels
within the holarchy: its depth.

X. The number of things on any level
of holarchy defines its span.

XI. Successive levels of evolution produce
greater depth of Omega and less span.

XII. Greater depth of a thing implies a greater
degree of its consciousness.

XIII. Destroy any thing, and destroy all things
above it and nothing below.

XIV. Evolution is not purely random. Telos, life’s
goal, gives reality its directionality.

XV. Evolution becomes ever more sophisticated.
It reveals the further reaches of complexity.

XVI. Evolution becomes more diverse. It reveals further
layers of differentiation and integration.

XVII. Evolution becomes more defined and structured.
It reveals further dynamics of organization.

XVIII. The purpose of evolution becomes increasingly
clear, complex, and subtle: the Omega.

XIX. Every thing knows implicitly the incompleteness
or uncertainty (IOU) of all things.

XX. The indeterminacy and partiality of every thing
is redeemed by its Everyness.

XXI. Involution is not purely random. Telos gives
Everyness its hidden, paradoxical directionality.

XXII. Involution becomes more fundamental. It reveals
new modes of simplicity and fullness.

XXIII. Involution becomes more unified and corporate.
It shows increasing undifferentiation and indistiction.

XXIV. Involution becomes more nuanced and subtle.
It increases its texture and sensitivity.

XXV. The purpose of involution becomes increasingly
mysterious and unfathomable: the Alpha.

XXVI. All things receive a receipt for IOU
from the Alpha and Omega.

XXVII. All things arise in the occasion
of acknowledging their receipt for IOU.

XXVIII. Destroy any thing and add to the
increasing telos Alpha and Omega.

IXXX. The greater span of a thing,
the greater its degree of Alpha.

XXX. In time, the unity of Alpha and Omega
is greater than Everyness.

Technorati Tags: Christianity, holons, integral, Joe Perez, Ken Wilber, poetry, theory

Thank you for visiting my Weblog. To longtime visitors, I’m glad you’re back!

Over the past 20 months, a string of successive health challenges have kept me from working in the way that I used to take for granted. Work on my book and screenplay has stalled, and even my blogging has been quite sporadic. I’ve been preoccupied with much more fundamental concerns than expressing my creativity, and that has truly sucked.

Only a year ago, I was in dire straights in the hospital with about 30 T-cells, opportunistic infections, and the surprise onset of diabetes. I was forced to cancel all my out-of-town travel to publicize my brand new book, Soulfully Gay (Integral Books/Shambhala, 2007).

Well, my health has remarkably improved since then. I am deeply grateful to my friends and family for their support, my doctors for their wonderful care, and Merck & Co., Inc. , for creating drugs which have literally saved my life. Overcoming these various challenges has left me feeling more grateful, more blessed, more sensitive, and perhaps more compassionate and committed to life than ever before.

That’s why I’m now taking steps towards resuming work. I’m priveleged to be able to spend my time doing writing that I love, not any old job that pays the bills.

I’m getting back into the groove with blogging. You’re looking at my new Weblog, now titled eponymously. Its contents will certainly change over time to reflect my current interests; however, as with my previous three blogs, this space is committed to expressing and exploring what it means to have an integral outlook on life.

As I psyche myself up for blogging again on nearly a daily basis, I find that my attitude is dramatically changed this time around. Over the past years of frequently crappy health, I had to force myself to sit down before my computer and struggle for enthusiasm and mental clarity. For the first time in a long while, I feel ready to write with a spirit of equanimity and joy. Ready, set, go!

Yours truly,

Joe

P.S.: I’ve been blogging on and off since 2003. But I’ve never been the sort of blogger who likes to keep his archives publicly available forever. I have yet to hear a complaint, so I’m keeping with my longstanding practice of wiping the slate clean of my old posts. The truly dedicated reader can always search the Internet archive.

I intend to post some of my old blogs’ “greatest hits” here over the next few months. When I recycle a post, I’ll make a note of its original publication date.

P.P.S. (July 5, 2006): Since writing this post, I have miraculously discovered a way to transfer self-hosted Blogger posts (which have no “export” feature built-in) to self-hosted Wordpress blogs. Damn I’m good. I have therefore added the archives of one of my old blogs, Whole Writing, to this one. Unfortunately, I discovered the magic trick too late to do the same sort of transfer for my other blogs. So now joe-perez.com has some archives! Very cool.

Technorati Tags: health, HIV/AIDS, Joe Perez