The second day after I had projected one thought out into our condo’s games room, John highlighted the most prominent emotion that I had injected along with my projection. After that, I sanitized it and reposted it.
The third day, when I arrived at the games room, I thought, ‘Wow! What happened?’
The tables were pushed to the sides of the room, against the walls. My first thoughts were, ‚Did the kids come and did more damage? Did my projection not work?‘ But then I questioned, ‘What exactly is the damage this time?’ I didn’t see any actual damage, only that the furniture were rearranged, in a way that was not conducive to playing. So I switched directions in my thought process. I moved away from the idea of ‘damage’ and toward the idea of ‘value’. What’s the value of this rearrangement?
Then the next questions were: Who defined the values? Who decided what were positive and negative values? By whose standard was my projection to be based on? Mine? And what’s my value? Should I make my value system explicit, along with the projection? Did I have to write a ten-page essay stating the terms and conditions to be posted into the ether?
I did not answer any of my questions. I was able to live with the rearranged furniture. However, my curiosity made me search around for the context that I found myself in. I walked into the adjacent room, which was a meeting room for people to use to hold social functions such as birthday parties or baby showers, etc.
There was a lady in the next room putting up decorations for some kind of kids birthday gathering. I asked her about the games room. She said she had booked both the meeting as well as the games rooms for the afternoon. I was surprised! The games room could be booked for a private function? What the hell?
This is not my idea of a positive value to the games room. My projection specifically stated that the ones using the room must contribute, not derive …
Then I asked myself, what value was I contributing? I think zero.
Then what value were the people rearranging the furniture contributing? Hmm … At least they were not damaging or dirtying the place, only inconveniencing the people who actually used the place to play. So perhaps my projection should specify from whom and to whom the value (energy) should travel. This is starting to feel like policy-making.
I wasn’t sure whether I should explicitly define the value, the contributors, the recipients, the direction of energy flow, etc. So I just left it as is and continued playing.
Later in the evening, I dropped in because I saw the Chinese couple playing ping pong. I went to sit along the wall, as now there were so many more chairs lined up against the wall. The chairs were moved from the adjacent meeting room. The Chinese players were really fun to watch, and I sat as still as a statue, even when the ball flew toward me, I did not help pick it up, so the Chinese came over to grab the ball beside me, seemingly treating me as a statue as well. There was zero interaction between us. I had known them to be closed, to keep to themselves, and I made no attempt to change that dynamic.
At the end of their game, we chatted briefly. They were rather disapproving of the people who used the meeting room, because of the state of the games room they left it in. Furthermore, they pointed toward a couple of African women donning hijab outside of the games room, saying, “Those are the people who messed up the rooms. The head-covering people.”
I was surprised that they knew who used the rooms. I was also surprised that their comment was imbued with some kind of racial bias. I don’t know if I am racist or not; maybe I am too. But I don’t call the Muslims the “head-covering people.” They can wrap themselves all over like a mummy and I would only see them as just another living thing walking and breathing on the street.
After my conversation with the Chinese couple, I became conscious of the opinions or reactions toward my projection, or the outcome of my projection. In short, one thought has the potential to generate a ripple, noise, disruption, etc.
Today, the fourth day, I arrived at the games room, and saw that someone had repositioned the pool table. My first thought was, ‘Did John do it last night?’
Later, after I finished practising ping pong and moved on to the pool table, I immediately realized, it could not have been John who would have moved the pool table!
When I was playing (only one game of) pool, I wanted to scream, several times! Because the balls kept rolling to one side of the table. So half way into the game, almost all the balls were congregating on one side. It’s like all the folding chairs that were moved into the games room, all placed along one side of the wall.
Chairs and balls.
Alas! A very obvious imbalance! Is the universe trying to say something to me?
Could it be that none of these had anything to do with my projection at all? What if I still do nothing about it, and come back tonight or tomorrow morning?
Perhaps I will be amused …
