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Terra Incognita

Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, August 06, 2006

Hic sunt dracones ... the *NEW RELATIONSHIPS* ...

Good Morning All,

It Sunday morning here in New Jersey ... and it looks like it will be another hot one. Not that that's any surprise. We've been getting temperatures between 95F and 105F for the last few weeks (that's between 35C and 40C for those of you out there in decimal land) ... and this is New Jersey, which means we're at no less than 80% humidity! So as I've said before just another reason to believe that if you make it to adulthood in NJ you're among the species of human cockroach - YES we will survive a direct nuclear blast ... this is NJ after all ... we laugh at a little radiation, ever hear of "radon?"

I apologize ... maybe the heat is getting to me. However I was struck by a bit of language in a comment on yesterday's post from Agnes Mariakaki - terra incognitia - or unknown territory/land. This reference may have come from the old map makers during the Age of Exploration when there was a vast "unknown territory" at the edge of their maps. Another that showed up in one search about terra incognita was "hic sunt dracones" - or "here be dragons." What's interesting is how Agnes used this term in relation to being in relationship - entering "terra incognita" and I'm now adding ""hic sunt dracones" - the land of dragons, as well.

The only place I'd seen this term used in a modern document was in my own dissertation around another reference to a time of massive upheaval - the 1960's - that moment in history when a bunch of folks were claiming we were entering "the Age of Aquarius."

Sometime during the volatile and intense era of the 1960’s in the United States, specifically on the West Coast in the San Francisco Bay Area, the worlds of modern philosophy and psychology were undergoing changes unprecedented since the beginning of the 20th century. The distinct gap that had existed between Western and Eastern ways of thinking and knowing were collapsing. Worlds of ideas began to merge and coalesce into something previously unknown. There in the midst of the tumult of this intellectual and social upheaval brought to a head by America’s involvement in the Vietnam War a counter-cultural movement was peaking. Taking with it some of the brightest and best that America had to offer at the time, this movement spurred new ways of thinking, about the individual, the individual’s place in society and in the individual’s place within and relationship to the cosmos itself. This new thinking took on many forms in disciplines as diverse as anthropology, sociology, psychology and education.

Whole new movements sprung from the fertile ground of this newly plowed "terra incognita"; encounter groups, gestalt therapy, sensitivity training.

- Joseph Riggio, Ph.D., TOWARDS A THEORY OF TRANSPERSONAL DECISION-MAKING IN HUMAN-SYSTEMS: A NEUROLINGUISTICALLY-MODELED PHENOMENOGRAPHY, 2005, pp.3

So it struck me that Agnes choose this term to describe how she felt about entering into a relationship:

Yet, love, and the kinds of relationship I lust for, I realize they will be taking me out of my comfort zone, initially blissful, perhaps and eventually uncomfortable in some ways. It is the only way, I believe, to experience the deep sharing! To depart from the comfort zone and accept that this will inevitably happen when two unique and different individuals come close. Then, the beloved, the one who takes me out of my comfort zone, becomes the most welcome teacher, leading me to the unseen side of the moon, to another zone completely. Not to paradise, but to a terra incognita inside of me.

His being different and challenging to me, makes me grow and understand more of me.
- Agnes Mariakaki

So the "*NEW RELATIONSHIPS*" have become terra incognita ... hic sunt dracones - or as Agnes puts it, "I realize they will be taking me out of my comfort zone, initially blissful, perhaps and eventually uncomfortable in some ways." - a new territory for a truly new age.

I remember in the "old days" when I was young and my mother and father were the exemplars of the their generation for "relationship" that it was all about keeping their roles intact. Dad went off to work and mom took care of the house and kids. But on Sunday's there was a glimpse of change in the air ... dad would wake up early and begin making breakfast, not when I was very young - that was still mom's territory then - but later on as I entered adolescence dad became the "cook" for our Sunday morning family breakfasts. I fondly remember having what he called "devil's eggs" (I don't know why - they were eggs fried with a piece of bread that had a hole removed from it's center and an egg cracked into it). But, of course a half an hour later the world reverted back to "normal" and mom began cooking Sunday dinner.

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ

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This article was sent to me from a friend of mine, Jeff Leiken:

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This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/06/MNG3HKAMVO1.DTL
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Sunday, August 6, 2006 (SF Chronicle)

FEMME MENTALE/San Francisco neuropsychiatrist says differences between women’s and men’s brains are very real, and the sooner we all understand it, the better.

Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

Louann Brizendine’s feminist ideals were forged in the 1970s, so the UCSF neuropsychiatrist is aware that some parts of her new book, “The Female Brain,” sound politically incorrect.

Such as the part about how a financially independent woman may talk about finding a soul mate, but when she meets a prospective mate her brain is subconsciously sizing up his portfolio. Or the part describing the withdrawal pains moms feel when they return to work and can no longer cop a hormonal high from breast-feeding their babies.

Women have come a long way toward equality over the past 50 years, but the Yale-trained Brizendine, 53, says her research indicates that human brains are still wired for Stone Age necessities.

Male and female brains are different in architecture and chemica composition, asserts Brizendine. The sooner women—and those who love them—accept and appreciate how those neurological differences shape female behavior, the better we can all get along.

Start with why women prefer to talk about their feelings, while men prefer to meditate on sex.

“Women have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion, while men have a small country road,” she writes. Men, however, “have O’Hare Airport as a hub for processing thoughts about sex, where women have the airfield nearby that lands small and private planes.”

[snip]

Read the whole article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/06/MNG3HKAMVO1.DTL
... I think it’s worth it!
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Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle - E-mail Joe Garofoli at . 

Joseph Riggio on Sunday, August 06, 2006

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