Mystic Cab: the JOurneY Method between two people

 

What does the JOurneY Method look like when two individuals are involved?

Watch Grover and Dick. They arrive with different models, try out each other's perspectives, and create something neither brought into the car. The integrated model between them is mystic cab.

An email exchange with Steve Golab brought this into focus for me. The steps to achieve a converged model between two people are the same as they are for one person:

1. Each person independently articulates their model.
2. Each person tries out the other person's model.
3. With mutual experience, models are compared.
4. An integrated model is created and individual models updated. 

The sequence matters. Especially the two steps we are most tempted to skip: articulating independently and actually trying out the other person's model.

1. Articulate independently

Before we can have a dialogue between two models, we need two models to bring to the conversation. Each person's articulation needs to stand on its own.

I recently got this wrong in a conversation about tennis. I introduced my singles tennis model to the group before the others had articulated theirs. Their articulations got swayed by mine. We no longer had independent starting points.

We should have worked on our models separately, then revealed them all at once. The aim is to see what each person actually brings, before one person's way of seeing becomes the frame for everyone else.

In Mystic Cab, Grover and Dick bring different perspectives into Grover's car. That difference is the material of the journey, not an obstacle to get rid of.

2. Try out the other's model

This is the key: each person tries out the other's model before the integration step.

Listening to a model and experiencing it are different things. If I only evaluate your model from inside mine, I haven't yet made the journey into yours. We need to take each other's perspectives, rather than rush to defend our own or negotiate an agreement.

Grover and Dick become Arjuna and Krishna to each other at different points in the story. Neither has a permanent assignment as the all-knowing guru or the disciple who needs instruction. The roles can reverse because each has something to experience from the other's point of view.

In the tennis conversation, I suggested that we spend a week swapping models before comparing notes. That was a way to give the experience its own time, rather than collapse all four steps into one discussion.

3. Compare with mutual experience

Now we can compare. Each person has their original model and experience of the other's. The conversation has changed: we are comparing from mutual experience, rather than only from our separate starting positions.

This is the dance in Mystic Cab. The other person can hold a mirror, but the dance itself is between models. Grover and Dick explore their dualities with each other's help. Both sides have to be experienced before the possibility of integration opens.

4. Create an integrated model

The outcome is a third model. Neither person simply wins the argument, and neither has to disappear into the other's way of seeing.

As I wrote to Steve, this is the sequence Grover and Dick followed to create "mystic cab," the integrated model between them. In our own conversations, the outcome can include a shared model and new individual models too. We each leave changed, as well as creating something together.

Separately, and very importantly, each person updates their own personal model using what they've learned from the process. This is distinct from the new integrated model path both parties have created for joint action. This gives us a double payoff from the process. 

Two individuals, a dialogue between models

In the Trifecta post, I traced the arc from the Gita through Godot to Mystic Cab. Here is the method inside that arc.

With one person, a new model challenges and dialogues with an existing model. With two people, the dance partner is the person in front of you. The JOurneY Method gives us a sequence for making that dance deliberate: articulate, try out, compare, integrate.

Guru or Disciple? YES!

Watch the film with those four steps in mind. Where does each person enter the other's model? What becomes possible when the roles reverse? What do they create between them?

The Trifecta: Bhagavad Gita, Waiting for Godot, Mystic Cab

I was inspired by the Gita, but only saw the connection to Godot after watching the play in London (the West End production with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen). Two decades later, the full arc makes sense in light of the Layer Cake Model.

Mystic Cab began as a play Kert Peterson and I co-wrote and performed at the 2004 Frontera Fest. Its original title gives the game away: "Guru or Disciple? YES!" Grover, an Indian cab driver, and Dick, an investment banker, keep meeting in Grover's car over the course of a year. As Grover says, "There are no coincidences!" 

Three dialogues

Each of the three works is built on a dialogue between two people.

Krishna and Arjuna: the all-knowing one on your side

In the Gita, the dialogue is between Krishna and Arjuna, on the eve of the devastating war of Kurukshetra. Arjuna, the hero, has a moment of crisis and self-doubt; Krishna, his charioteer and an avatar of Vishnu, counsels him. Here you have the all-knowing one on your side: a guide who stands outside the plane of the game itself, who understands how every seemingly invincible boon can be countervailed, and who hands the hero the model he needs. In Layer Cake terms, this is the mythic layer at full strength.

Vladimir and Estragon: Godot never arrives

In Godot, the dialogue is Vladimir and Estragon - Didi and Gogo - waiting for someone who never arrives. This is modern man realizing the ultimate model-knower was a fiction, and despairing. Nietzsche's 'God is dead' becomes the predicament: the old source of meaning has fallen away, but they are still waiting for it to arrive. They cannot see that together, they in fact are "God-ot." They look externally for something that can only be found within, and the tragedy is that they never see it. The play has no third act to resolve the tension.

Grover and Dick: Guru or Disciple? YES!

Mystic Cab suggests the answer, and the third act. The cab replaces the chariot, but there is no guru and no disciple. Grover and Dick become Arjuna and Krishna to each other at different points in the story, in lockstep around their particular dualities, eventually resolving them with each other's help. The characters show us how to take perspectives from two models' points of view. With two people, the dance partner is the person in front of you. With one person, a new model is introduced to challenge and dialogue with your existing model. In either setting, the dance is between models, opening the possibility of integration into a third. Where Godot leaves its pair waiting, Grover and Dick realize it is entirely up to them to steward meaning, and the story resolves with an all-confirming "YES!"

The arc through the Layer Cake

The Layer Cake is what completes the arc for me. Humanity's models were laid down in layers: evolutionary, tribal, mythic, systematic, methodic. The mythic layer is the mechanism by which models change in a fundamental way: the hero's journey, the boon, the return with the elixir. Those mythic models got codified in the Systematic Layer. Godot is what it feels like when that promise is withdrawn and nothing replaces it. The Methodic Layer's response is to formalize the journey itself. In the Human Fugue, the Mythic Layer is formalized in each of the Houses providing an ever-changing set of models. But it left the House of Meaning vacant. This is Godot's predicament. But past is prologue and the Meaning House needs its method. My proposal is the JOurneY Method. No god in the chariot, no waiting for Godot: two people, holding the mirror for each other, walking the journey deliberately. Beneath it, a dialogue between 2 models and a resolution into a third, which can be conducted within ourselves. All the layers coexist in our current moment; nothing is left behind. 

Mystic Cab dramatized that move twenty years ago. The Gita gave the inspiration, London gave the Godot connection, and the Layer Cake gives the arc its frame.

Watch the film and read the original commentary.

Watch the film

Bijoy Goswami Commentary

Bijoy reflects (in 2008) on the various texts and models referenced in the film. The texts include the Bhagavad Gita, Dao De Ching and Waiting for Godot. 

The Gita is a conversation between Arjuna and Krishna immediately prior to the devastating War of Kurukshetra, referenced in the great Indian epic, Mahabharata. Arjuna, the hero of the story, has a moment of crisis and self doubt. Krishna, his charioteer and an avatar of the God Vishnu, counsels him. Mystic Cab replaces the chariot with Grover's cab. Instead of a guru and a disciple (god and man), Grover and Dick become Arjuna and Krishna at various points in the story. 

The Dao De Ching is a collection of poems attributed to Lao Tzu and the yin/yang is a symbol of the Dao. Bijoy reinterpreted the yin-yang not as a static symbol, but a literal flow diagram. We traverse the perimeter of a duality, experiencing its positive and negative aspects. Having explored both sides thoroughly, we eventually integrate the duality into an entirely new model. Grover and Dick are in lockstep around their particular dualities, eventually resolving them with each other's help. We seek out and are provided with these "dance partners" on our journey, who act as mirrors to see ourselves more clearly. 

An unanticipated reference to Waiting for Godot, became clear when Bijoy saw the West End production, starring Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. The protagonists Vladimir and Estragon await the arrival of Godot. Vladimir calls Estragaon "Gogo" and Estragon's nickname for Vladimir is "Didi." They're unable to see that together, they in fact are "God-ot." Not only does God never arrive, but they're looking externally for something that can only be found within. The tragedy lies in them not seeing it and the play has no third act to resolve the tension. The original title of Mystic Cab is "Guru or Disciple? YES!" and makes the same explicit reference to "GoD" with Vladimir and Estragon recreated as Grover and Dick. Only, in this 21st century response they realize the that it is entirely up to them to steward meaning and the story resolves into its third act with an all-confirming "YES!" 

Bijoy's journey into models began, as all ours do, with the models presented by the world. He was unbelievably lucky to receive both eastern and western models. Bijoy's models - MRE, Bootstrap, JOurneY, Human Fugue - are syntheses and extensions of this abundant feast. 

Lance Keltner Interview

Lance Keltner scored the film, drawing inspiration from his study of Indian and Rock music. Mystic Cab's aural landscape morphs through each of the scenes, first oscillating between east and west, then finding its integration. Listen to Bijoy's interview with Lance (10min).

Mystic Cab featured in the Bootstrap Film Fest

Mystic Cab was among 5 films that were featured in the inaugural Bootstrap Film Fest. 

Chris Blankenship Interview

Chris Blankenship did incredible work editing Mystic Cab. He first rendered Nils' visual aesthetic to life, then weaved in additional elements such as the score and text. Here's Chris' commentary.