Many of the obituaries written about Paula Shaw focus on her career as an actress and acting coach. She appeared in a host of plays and films, with a who’s who list of famous actors. Perhaps she was most widely known for her performance in Freddy vs. Jason as Jason’s mother.

I knew Paula in her role as a workshop leader. It was an exhilarating era of exploration, transformation and adventure; a time, a place, and a state of mind that are inseparable for me. This is my attempt to capture all of that, and the part that Paula played in it.

Paula Shaw was committed to the human spirit and its liberation. There was no greater foe of what she called “the system.” The system, she would say, is the place we shut ourselves down, where we run on automatic pilot, where our minds get caught in loops that sequester us from our vital experience—our life force. It was to this “coming alive” that Paula was dedicated.

A thing is what it is. Own it.

I believe the first workshop I did with Paula was actually called Acting or Being. It was being offered to the longer-term residents at the Esalen Institute. I had only been there a few months, and technically should not have been allowed to join. When I attempted to get permission from Betty in the office, she barked that “This is Esalen. We don’t believe in fair,” which was her way of telling me I should go ahead and do what I wanted, and accept the consequences. No one was going to stop me.

The purpose of THE MAX is to discover yourself beyond who you know yourself to be. It is a voyage through your own humanity and a journey to discover the extent of your self-expressive power. The experience can move you into a new arena of personal creativity and self-expression.

But it was for The MAX that Paula would become famous—or infamous, because it was not without its detractors. Personally, I loved the intensity of The MAX. It may seem strange, but I feel more relaxed in that rarefied ambience, temporarily freed from the social proprieties that have always been a struggle. I’m hardly the only one. People flocked to her workshops to experience that intensity, the rawness, the passionate commitment to truth at whatever cost.

I call them the ‘less preferred’ emotions.

I think it was during my first MAX that I ran into her down at the baths, and remarked that I thought she had my number. “Oh, yeah?” she said, drily. “What’s your number?” The point perhaps being that as insightful as she was—and she had an uncanny ability to read people—what mattered more was that I know my number.

Esalen itself was an important backdrop for the MAX magic. Perched on a cliff, the vast horizon of sky-meets-sea offered an emptiness that could absorb as much rage as you could hurl at it. And the warm waters of the baths were nurturing. There you could float weightless, enwombed, listening to the hypnotic crash and retreat of the waves below. In autumn the Monarchs would return in the thousands to enact their own ritual of transformation. In the morning, as the sun dried the night dew from their wings, they would fill the air, turning Esalen into a magical kingdom.

I did the MAX three times, and captained Paula’s team of assistants for many years. The team was a “MAX within a MAX” as Paula put it, responsible for holding the space, and for being an extension of Paula’s situational awareness. I spent hours sitting in the back, in the darkness, jotting down notes and observations—and watching Paula work. When Paula was working with people, often in mortal combat with their “system,” she could be as hard as nails, and uncompromising. But then she could turn on a dime and be playful and sympathetic. She had a wide repertoire, all of it employed in connecting with people where they were, and in giving them what they needed—be it an antagonist to rail against, or some friendly encouragement.

Workshop participants were challenged to enact the unloved, disowned parts of themselves, behaviorally and by dressing the part. After the first 24 hours, a delightful chaos would settle in, as these rejected, socially unacceptable personalities caromed against each other. In contrast, the structure for this liberatory process was studiously rigid: chairs meticulously aligned, notebooks arranged, meeting times enforced. Paula was tireless. Even at 3am, when the rest of us were struggling to keep our eyes open, she was still brimming with energy. “Boredom,” Paula would say, quoting Werner Erhard, “is just one level below mild interest.”

“I used to do what I call a ‘break and enter’,” she admitted. What she meant was that she would pressure people into making the change she believed would help them get unstuck. I think she was referring more to her days as an est (Erhard Seminars Training) leader, although in some of those early MAX workshops she was pretty hard-nosed. (It was witnessing another est trainer do this that led to her stepping away from est, she would recount.)

The strategy she eventually adopted was one of patience. She would lead someone unerringly to the very edge of their comfort zone. If they saw the opportunity and took the leap, then great. But sometimes the resistance was too much, in which case she would simply hang out with them on the precipice, contemplating it, looking at it, and perhaps looking at the personal cost of not taking the leap. In the end, most did—voluntarily. But Paula didn’t mind losing a battle if it meant winning the war. Those who left the stage without making that leap would ruminate on it until the next opportunity, when they would typically knock it out of the park. For Paula, this was simply the most effective strategy. It reminded me of the Gestalt admonition heard frequently around Esalen to “allow process; trust process; and get out of the way.”

This was one of the most valuable things I took away from my experience with Paula, because she was a master. She could care passionately about the person she was working with, and at the same time be sanguine about the outcome. She could fight someone’s system tooth and nail, but understood that ultimately they needed to free themselves from it. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is nothing.

Look at your partner. Breathe. Begin.

Another gift that we got, or better, that we gave each other, was that of expanding our emotional limits. That’s something for which I’m profoundly grateful. Having a larger container makes it easier to not sweat the small stuff—and to handle the big stuff when it arises.

If your heart beats faster when you think of taking THE MAX, it may be just the thing to do.

I feel a bit sad describing all this, knowing that most readers will not have had the good fortune to have worked with Paula, and that that unique opportunity is now forever gone. Ah, well. A thing is what it is. But the many people whose lives she touched know that Paula’s passion and commitment created more aliveness in the world; and it lives on. She made a difference, and that’s an inspiring and proud legacy to leave behind.

This is a response to an article written by Anonymous Author 304 (AA304) related to Burning Man's DEI program, known as R.I.D.E.

AA304 gets a lot of things right in his (her?) essay.

Perhaps wisely, they avoided the “w-word” even though everyone reading it knows exactly what they’re referring to. Here I'll be using “Critical Social Justice” (CSJ), a term coined by Robin DiAngelo and Ozlem Sensoy, and used by some academics, to refer to the ideology that dares not speak its name.

First, context.

Pressure on the Burning Man board was evident prior to 2020. This 2019 petition being circulated prior to the burn that year was titled:

To: Burning Man Board of Directors
Radical Inclusion Must Mean Racial Inclusion

More on Radical Inclusion in a bit. The petition contained demands such as:

We urge the Board of Directors of Burning Man Project to take action now:

Institute comprehensive anti-racism training for the entire board and staff

Make an explicit commitment to increase the attendance of people of color at the Burning Man event and develop a short and long term implementation plan

Create recruitment initiatives to increase people of color applicants for leadership positions within the organization

Support and compensate current Black leaders, within the Burning Man community, through incubation strategies designed to increase participation

Take a stand against the cooptation of culture, especially indigenous culture

https://medium.com/.../burning-man-must-address-its...

And as Favianna Rodriguez demonstrated with her petition, this wasn’t merely the ranting of one individual. She got 3,208 signatures.

This social trend had already been brewing for at least six years.  Lest one get the impression that Burning Man Project spontaneously decided to go all in on DEI after the killing of George Floyd, it was already being pushed that way. That pivotal moment was enough to shove Burning Man Project in the direction it was already headed, kind of like a reverse “shock doctrine.” In the emotional aftermath of Floyd’s murder, many of the Rodriguez proposals were adopted.

As an aside, if each of those petition signers had simply invited one black friend they would have tripled the number of black burners in a single year! No one, including the borg, could have done anything to stop them; not that anyone would have even wanted to.  This would be an effective strategy for those for whom statistical racial representation is overwhelmingly important.  But instead of thinking in terms of individual initiative, self-reliance, communal effort and do-ocracy, the strategy was essentially to use accusations of racism against the board to bully it into making the desired changes. White people have a strong aversion to being called racist.  The board was no exception. So, between board members who were already CSJ disciples and those who could be intimidated, changes were made, and R.I.D.E. was established.

Those familiar with CSJ’s ideological origins will recognize why seizing control of a hierarchical structure would be appealing.  We are meant to believe that top-down dominance is a necessary means to achieve equity. Much more likely, the equity argument is a means to achieve ideological dominance and control.

One of the most profound realizations of those early, unprincipled years was that the absence of authority and social control led to anarchy… that was pretty fucking magical!  Although hierarchy is inimical to Burning Man ethos, clearly the organization has strayed. The ideal hierarchy would be the minimal amount necessary to make the event happen. How much hierarchy is necessary to create a non-hierarchical, or even anti-hierarchical, event? There’s a bit of a paradox there.

An organization or community where power is decentralized is harder to control directly, and you must rely on persuading people to adopt your position, say, to invite their non-white friends or whatever.  But if power is your real goal, then you need a centralized, hierarchical structure through which to exert that power. While the Burning Man community is somewhat resistant to intimidation, the Burning Man Project was clearly not. I imagine in both the community and the organization we’re dealing with a combination of those who’ve been intimidated, and those who’ve voluntarily adopted CSJ. (And maybe most people are in the "WTF is going on?" category.)

In order to have a sane conversation on this topic there’s a crucial bit we must all understand: words don’t mean what you think they mean.  One of the strategies CSJ activists employ is a covert redefinition of terms. A word will have one commonly held meaning, generally the one found in the dictionary; but its meaning in Critical Social Justice will have been altered to advance the CSJ ideology.

In CSJ, specifically the activist branch known as DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), inclusion means something different to its dictionary definition.  (So do equity and diversity, but I’ll leave those for another day.) The fact that inclusion had already been redefined in CSJ, and was coincidentally enumerated as a Burning Man principle, made it an obvious target to play this game of mixed meanings.  DEI and Burning Man could easily be conjoined via the Radical Inclusion principle, and so Radical Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (R.I.D.E.) was born. Fuzziness around the definition of inclusion is the vector through which the alien ideology entered Burning Man.

The original meaning of Radical Inclusion was really more akin to radical non-exclusion: “Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.” In contrast to the CSJ definition which stridently militates for what must happen, it’s passive; that is, it declares that there are no prerequisites nor actions taken that would prevent anyone from attending and participating. You don’t have to do anything in particular, you simply have to not discriminate.

It was a description of what had occurred organically in the eighteen years prior to Larry Harvey’s enumeration of principles. In the absence of any official edict about welcoming strangers, a welcoming culture had spontaneously arisen. Most of us would celebrate that on a philosophical basis. And in reality, no one was discriminated against based on their race or any other social identity.  All were welcomed.

CSJ’s strategy is ineffective and counter-productive even in situations where there has actually been discrimination. This is becoming apparent with the backlash against corporate DEI, and studies showing it to be ineffective or worse.  Applying it in an American subculture in which discrimination was manifestly not occurring was particularly boneheaded—if what you wanted was to combat racial discrimination. But if you were really more interested in gaining control of a culturally influential organization and using it as a platform to advance your ideology, it was ideal.

There’s another reason why R.I.D.E. will have limited effectiveness in terms of manipulating racial representation via ticket availability and price: it’s illegal. Under both federal and state law, treating people differently on the basis of race or a slew of other characteristics is flat-out illegal.  As it relates to businesses, the Unruh Civil Rights Act specifically prohibits preferential treatment in provision of goods and services based on race. Anyone who believes they have been subjected to discrimination has the right to file lawsuits seeking damages and other remedies, plus attorney’s fees and court costs.

It would be reckless of BMP to implement any policy that could be interpreted as giving preferential treatment based on race.  Even if a lawsuit were ultimately thrown out or settled, the reputational damage could be significant. Per the recent SCOTUS ruling on this, efforts to achieve racially discriminatory ends by non race-based means seem unlikely to fly.

AA304 already laid out some of the problems with “equity.” CSJ activists link their conception of equity with inclusion. Inclusion is interpreted to mandate actively recruiting non-whites to engineer a hypothetically “correct” participation percentage. The tactic is to use things the borg can control like messaging, ticket price and availability to induce non-white attendance.

This is clearly a radically different concept to inclusion, and using the same word for both things is guaranteed to lead to misunderstandings.

We want to avoid misunderstandings, right?  Well… funny thing.  Part of the CSJ strategy consists of creating precisely this type of confusion.  It’s no accident that words like racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, gender and even woman have become definitional battlegrounds!  The ideology replicates and advances by insisting on its own definitions of words, and blurring the underlying distinctions for those who aren't CSJ initiates.

This in turn facilitates a rhetorical device knows as a “motte and bailey.” It consists of advancing the ideological interpretation of a word, but when there’s pushback, retreating to its easily defended original interpretation. In the case of inclusion, the CSJ interpretation is that, as Rodriguez made explicit in the title of her petition “Radical Inclusion Must Mean Racial Inclusion.” By conflating the two disparate concepts, the ideology gains a foothold for acquiring political power within the organization. (That’s especially clear with Rodriguez’s demand for staffing changes that, while ostensibly advocating for non-white representation, increase organizational control by CSJ ideologues. The likelihood of a non-CSJ individual being recommended and approved for such a position is virtually nil, regardless of their race.)

But if anyone should object to such measures as race-targeted ticketing, the activist will fall back on defending the commonly held interpretation of inclusion as simply being fair treatment. For example, one member of the R.I.D.E. Stewardship Group, when pressed, commented:

Now some folks feel that [R.I.D.E. initiatives] is somehow antithetical to to [sic] Burning Man Values in some way. Hard to see how taking into consideration members (and potential members) of the community would fall outside the principles of the event.

Obviously, the critique of R.I.D.E. is not for “taking into consideration” members and potential members of the community!  Taking people into consideration is conveniently vague, and eminently defensible.

Much trickier to defend are mandatory anti-racism trainings for staff, targeted funding favouring non-white artists, “innovating the way in which tickets are allocated for Black Rock City,” “increasing BIPOC event access by making changes to our theme camp, artist, and mutant vehicle selection processes” and promoting such activities in the regionals.  Even cloaked in euphemism, such race-based initiatives are controversial.  There are also direct efforts at indoctrination in the CSJ ideology on the Hive, including Introduction to Anti-Racism and R.I.D.E.: Burner Fragility. I couldn’t resist checking them out. They are as bad as one imagines. These educational modules definitely incorporate the ideas of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, which is immediately apparent to anyone familiar with their work.

What’s going on looks like an undisguised attempt to indoctrinate burners in the ideology of Critical Social Justice, and turn the organization into a CSJ bastion.

Anyway, you can read what R.I.D.E has to say about itself on the Burning Man web site, and here also is a good summary.  They’re perfectly open about what they’re up to.

I’ve been referring to CSJ activists as if they were all the same, but this is a good time to mention that they aren’t.  There are hardcore ideologues steeped in Theory, who understand and can articulate it.  There are many others with a superficial understanding who are on board because they’ve been told it’s the right thing, and it doesn’t demand much of them except repeating CSJ platitudes and putting the occasional laugh emoji on posts they’re unable to comprehend, let alone refute. Okay, that’s a bit harsh.  But I’ve rarely found anyone who is willing or able to make the case for CSJ. What I’ve encountered is people who are adept at avoiding the conversation, and at shutting down any effort at having a rational discussion.

Most of us share the same values of lower-case “social justice.” We would like to live in a society that treats people fairly.  But Critical Social Justice merges laudable social justice values with an activist strategy for achieving them that is highly destructive. It’s the strategy that’s the problem. There’s such a tight connection between espoused values and strategy that if you point out problems with the strategy (e.g. it’s hugely counter-productive!) you’ll be accused of opposing the values, i.e. you’ll be called a bigot.

I’m sure they all believe they’re doing the right thing.  But by “believe” I don’t mean they just think it’s right and are open to hearing counter-arguments, I mean it’s like a religious belief.  I’m sure in their minds they are fighting the good fight against the evil of bigotry.  But far from extending the valiant efforts of civil rights leaders in the sixties and the progress that was made, they are undoing them.

Overall, AA304 understands a lot of what is problematic with R.I.D.E. However, I think they're underestimating the seriousness of the problem.

BTW, there’s a book that may be of interest called Countering Wokecraft, A Field Manual for Combatting Woke in the University and Beyond, by Charles Pincourt and James Lindsay. Some of it is specific to CSJ takeovers in academic institutions, but much is applicable to other types of organization. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has worked for BMP during this shift, or has relevant first-hand experience in other organizations.

Most people will say honesty is the best policy. Then come the questions. “Well what about...” and they will describe some situation in which they would prefer to be less than truthful. Usually the lie is one of omission. This withholding of information perhaps seems less bad than saying something you know to be false. And yet the problem remains the same. You lose connection with people any time you create two versions of reality – one for public consumption and a private version for yourself.

Withholds and Evaluations

Although the particulars of what exactly gets withheld are myriad, the motivation is the same: minimization of conflict. Is that true? Consider for a moment the times in your life when you have withheld some bit of pertinent information from someone. Imagine what might have happened had you just blurted it out. Inevitably, it’s about attempting to control an interaction and minimize conflict. Even when the withhold is positive that’s the case. For example, withholding “I have a crush on you!” spares you the conflict that might take place if your feelings are not reciprocated. (Or, heaven forbid, if they were reciprocated you’d have to deal with the excitement of getting what you desired!)

The more common case, though, is when the withhold is likely to hurt or offend the person. What judgments do you have that you don’t share? How does that affect how you relate with that person? Maintaining public and private versions of reality is an impediment to relating.

When you withhold your judgment from someone you create two worlds: yours, in which you are aware of the judgment, and theirs in which they are not. This is the same result you get if you say something false. Letting someone believe something when you know it’s not true is essentially lying. For example, allowing someone to believe you like them, when really you don’t. Of course, we don’t always know what other people are thinking, but to the extent we’re aware of it we have the opportunity to take responsibility for clearing things up.

I used the word “judgments” above, but the more general term is evaluations. Evaluations may be opinions, judgments, labels, and categories we put people in. What they have in common is that they are evaluations of another’s merit, worth or significance. You end up relating to the label you’ve applied to them, not the human being they really are, and that makes a world of difference. Reality and our concept of reality are not the same thing, and we confuse them at our peril.

Alternatively, by clarifying what is actually true we unify our differing perceptions, creating one world in which we can actually connect with each other. What was formerly misaligned and blurry suddenly jumps into focus. This is the point where you actually start relating with another human being. Up to this point, the efforts at conflict minimization make authentic relating impossible.

Conspiracies

One of the problems with evaluations is that they are, by definition, personal. Having reduced conflict on the interpersonal level, the evaluation continues to serve that purpose, but on the social level is vulnerable to being challenged by someone else’s counter-evaluation. Thus the rise of conspiracies as a means of fortifying evaluations, further protecting an individual from potential conflict.

Creating a conspiracy is easy: persuade a friend to share your opinion about someone. Typically there is the understanding, implicit or explicit, that they keep it secret. It’s the shared evaluation that defines a conspiracy, but keeping it secret is crucial. The first rule of conspiracy is, you do not talk about the conspiracy. The conspiracy derives much of its power from its secrecy, for it’s impossible to confront what is not known to exist. Secrecy is a bulwark against the truth.

The receiver of a secret is in a double bind. If they keep their friend’s secret it impairs their ability to relate honestly to the other person. If they reveal the secret and the identity of its purveyor, it’s likely to disrupt that relationship. The penalty for disclosing the secret can be severe. Remember, the secret is part of the friend’s conflict-minimization strategy, so it is no trivial matter to reveal it! For some, the relationship itself depends on maintaining the conspiracy, maybe even is defined by the conspiracy, and divulging its existence is experienced as a betrayal. Thus, the secret binds together its conspirators while ostracizing its subject. This results in a relatively stable social structure. It serves to minimize conflict for the conspirators at the expense of a manageable level of conflict and disconnection with the subject.

Social Balance Theory

In the fascinating science which applies graph theory to social networks this relationship is modeled by the classic maxim “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Don’t get hung up on the word “enemy.” We’re not talking about mortal enemies here. You could just as easily use “okay” and “not okay.” It turns out that there are two social structure “triads” that are stable. Formally, social balance theory states that in social environments there exist structures that are balanced and structures that are unbalanced. The former should be over-expressed (i.e. we are more likely to find them) while the latter should be rarer than expected. If these sentences are unclear to you, allow me to reformulate them using ancient popular wisdom. Social balance theory states mainly two sentences: “The friend of my friend is usually my friend, too” and “The enemy of my enemy is usually my friend”, so social relations following these rules are more common than ones that do not follow them. (Full article here.)

Extending these basic principles to more complex graphs reveals the method by which subnetworks are formed. Essentially, social systems split into cliques as a result of the positive and negative bonds between individuals, so that the system as a whole maintains its equilibrium. Cliques minimize conflict by externalizing it.

What I would like the reader to consider is the idea that the nature of the triads we form (and thus the social groupings we create) is largely determined by the level of honesty we are able to express; or viewed conversely, by the number and nature of secrets we withhold. Therefore, our comfortableness with the conflict that accompanies truth-telling is a major factor in determining the qualities of our relationships and social networks.

So far we’ve been talking about relationships that are based upon shared evaluations. There is a wealth of sociological research supporting the theory that friendships form as a result of similarities, and more specifically, shared evaluations. That’s also consistent with our experience. An evaluation-based network maintains its equilibrium through the exchange of evaluations, and by splitting into cliques.

These evaluation-based networks are relatively stable, due to the homeostasis described by social balance theory. However, consider for a moment what might happen if instead of basing relationships on shared evaluations (secret or open) we were to base them upon our ability to describe our experience, and be transparent about our evaluations. That would create a different network, certainly in the sense that there would be different groupings of friends, but also qualitatively different. My belief is that in a social network based on description and transparency there are fewer “enemy of my enemy is my friend” relationships and more “friend of my friend is my friend” ones. Also, a new kind of equilibrium develops based on continually describing our reality, thereby arriving at common understandings of it; rather than the relatively artificial equilibrium created by withholding information and externalizing conflict.

Telling the truth in an evaluation-based network is a socially disruptive practice. Transparency exposes deceit and conspiracy, and reveals underlying conflicts and judgments. An evaluation-based network can assimilate a large number of diverse evaluations, but tends to find honesty somewhat indigestible, perhaps because it threatens the mechanism the network uses to maintain its equilibrium.

Anyway, that’s a lot of theory! Really it’s another case of the instructions being simple and the practice being... a practice. My suggestions for cultivating connection and authenticity in social networks:

• Don’t engage in conspiracies! If someone proposes to

tell you a secret judgment, encourage them to share it directly with the person.

• Clear your own resentments directly with the person involved.
• Define your community as one that eschews conspiracies and supports honesty.
• Most importantly, learn the difference between evaluative and descriptive language, and know when to use which.

I’m not saying it's easy. But which kind of world would you rather live in?

It’s pretty common to hear people talk about the importance of “good boundaries.” That’s unfortunate because, while good boundaries are certainly better than bad ones, the metaphor of the boundary itself carries with it some baggage we would do well to avoid. We really can do better! Read this, and never have your boundaries violated again.

Let’s start by defining what we mean by the term. I’m not talking so much about the relatively well-defined boundaries of a therapeutic relationship, which are designed to mitigate the effects of transference and the abuse of power which might otherwise occur. (And does occur sometimes, despite that.) Instead, I’m talking about its more common usage as “personal boundaries,” which shows up in pop psychology and the glib offerings of self-help gurus. Here’s a definition that captures the gist of it:

Personal boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify for him- or herself what are reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave around him or her and how he or she will respond when someone steps outside those limits. They are built out of a mix of beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning.

Personal boundaries define you as an individual, outlining your likes and dislikes, and setting the distances you allow others to approach. They include physical, mental, psychological and spiritual boundaries, involving beliefs, emotions, intuitions and self-esteem.

It’s important to acknowledge that the motivation behind having “good boundaries” is understandable, valid and very human. We all would like to be safe and happy, and having “good boundaries” seems to hold the promise of attaining what we want. Unfortunately, the concept of boundaries comes with unpleasant corollaries.

The Boundary Metaphor

Consider, first of all, that boundary refers to a concept. It’s an overlay on reality, an explanatory structure which we project on our experience as a way of understanding it and attempting to control it. Boundaries simply do not exist, in the way that say tables and trees and human beings exist. A boundary is a story we tell about relationships between things, specifically about our relationships with people. Naturally, some stories are more helpful than others. If the boundary metaphor were a helpful construct it might be good to employ it, but in fact it has some very unhelpful drawbacks.

There are two aspects to the problem. One is that with boundaries you are treating something that doesn’t exist as if it were real. Believing in an illusion is never a good start, and it’s especially harmful if you make it the foundation of your relationships. This is an instance of the reification fallacy which is really the root of the problem. People who encourage others to cultivate “good boundaries” are carelessly validating the illusion that boundaries exist, and thus contributing to the confusion!

The second issue has to do with the metaphor itself. Think of the stories we associate with personal boundaries. Those stories largely concern separation and transgression. Someone has broken a rule, exceeded a limit, impinged on our experience in a displeasing way. The crux of the boundary metaphor is the boundary violation, which implicitly creates a boundary violator and a victim of violation. Voilà! Once the boundary metaphor has been invoked, all you need to do is play your respective roles. But, trapped in a role within a metaphor, it becomes very difficult to extricate yourself. The boundary metaphor ends up solidifying roles that are inherently adversarial.

The other side of the boundary metaphor would be “boundary honorings” but they don’t seem to show up so much, probably because we don’t get triggered, or even notice, when someone meets our expectations. You may not think much about your boundary around being slapped in the face and how many people honor it, until someone actually slaps you. Then, suddenly, kapow! You’re very aware of having had the boundary and the fact that it was violated.

Boundary Mutability

Another issue with boundaries is that there is no universally accepted definition of where exactly they are. Not even close! If we have boundaries, they are unique to each of us, an amalgam of cultural, parental, social and personal custom and preference. As an example, take the kiss. The boundary you have, and how you respond depends on a myriad of factors. Is the person a stranger, a friend, a family member? Are they married or single? Is this your first date or your third? What is the duration of the kiss, and the, uh, oral aperture offered? Is your ex in the room... or your boss? What mood are you in?

Obviously, any given behavioral boundary is dependent on the particular details of the situation, and additionally can change over time. This variability should be a clue that we’re dealing with something that is not a thing—it’s a process. When you try to apply the rules that govern things to a process it’s trouble.

Given this boundary mutability, it’s impossible to know for certain what someone else’s boundaries are, thus the high probability that boundaries will be violated. The obvious solution involves communication—we’ll get to that in Part 2. For now, though, note that if you subscribe to the boundary metaphor, any unwelcome action, even if unintentional, is liable to interpretation as a boundary violation.

Paradoxically, by cultivating strong boundaries you are setting the stage to have them violated. Probably not what you intended!

Crime and Punishment

Yet another aspect of the boundary metaphor that comes into play when a boundary is violated—which is predictable and virtually inevitable—is that there are negative consequences designed to punish the violator and dissuade or prevent them from repeating their violation. Without consequences, it’s not much of a boundary. This punitive approach to relating introduces power dynamics which further erode the possibility of connection. It’s also likely to be ineffective since you probably don’t have any actual power to coerce another person’s behavior, and attempts to do so will be resisted or circumvented, leaving you worse off than before.

Invoking the boundary metaphor allows one to justify and rationalize an irrational feeling. It serves to fuel the self-righteousness of the person in the victim role. They may find the role simultaneously comforting—in its familiarity—and vexing because it inadvertently sustains an adversarial relationship.

Ultimately, this setting of strong boundaries is a manifestation of weakness, not strength—contrary to what many people believe. Imagine that you are able to respond freely, effectively, in the moment, to whatever situation life throws at you. You don’t need to have a predetermined response. This is the condition to which we should aspire. This is an unconditioned response, immediate, authentic, and uniquely suited to the particular situation in which it is made.

Projection

So far we’ve been talking more about external boundaries, that is, the projection of the internal boundary onto the external world. Internally a boundary is like a patterned response, a mostly unconscious fragment of behavior concerned with how we evaluate what is acceptable and what is not, and how we respond. When X happens, do Y. There is also a projection into the future of one’s current resolve to make a more conscious choice, to cultivate a new habit, to write a new script. This is not entirely a bad thing. Awareness of your existing habitual patterns is beneficial. And rehearsing a desired behavior prepares you to enact it. The more behaviors you have at your disposal the better! In Radical Improv we deliberately create scenarios in which we can experiment with alternative behaviors to widen our repertoire, so to speak. But where we’re ultimately headed is spontaneous, unscripted and authentic responses. Habits, even good ones, interfere with the freedom and immediacy of connection that is possible between human beings.

Projecting the internal habit of boundary onto the external world (other people) causes conflict since the reality of the external world does not correspond to the habitual patterns we’ve created in our attempt to control it. Remember, boundaries don’t exist! Having boundaries, and the expectation that other people will respect them, is simply unrealistic. It’s a recipe for conflict and disappointment.

(End of Part 1)

In Part 2 we’ll look at alternative ways of framing our interactions so that that we get the safety, love and respect we want by replacing the boundary metaphor with something better.

Lots of people think that because they know the words “radical” and “honesty” they know what “radical honesty” means.  It has a nice ring to it, and since honesty is a virtue that’s a good thing, right? If you haven’t done a workshop or at least read the book, you probably have some misconceptions.  Radical honesty is not what you think.  As a certified radical honesty trainer this question comes up often, so I’m going to explain what I mean by the term, and list some of the common misunderstandings that arise.

First of all, radical honesty consists of not saying things we know to be false. That part is easy.

Secondly, it entails saying the truths we normally withhold.  The second part is often harder.  We can, with some effort, minimize uttering outright falsehoods, but sharing what we really think and feel can be much more challenging.  We often find ourselves thinking things that others would find offensive if we were to say them out loud, or feeling things that might occasion discomfort in others.  As a result, we engage in self-censorship, selectively sharing or withholding our truths. This process eventually produces a system in which lying is so commonplace it is barely noticed.  The system then acts on the individual forcing conformance with established ideas of what is and isn’t a socially acceptable thought or feeling. Saying something that is simply an honest description can end up being interpreted as hostile.

Society, with some cultural variations, by and large encourages us to minimize truth telling when it might offend others.  

Conflict

People sometimes come to radical honesty with the hope that it will reduce conflict, but that is not its goal.  In fact, when you start being more honest you will initially experience more conflict.  It’s not about becoming better adapted to a dysfunctional system that encourages lying.  It’s about disrupting the dysfunctional system itself.

However, the side effect of engaging in—and working through—conflicts is that eventually you get more skilled at it. Conflicts can be dealt with as they arise, and as a result you have fewer lingering conflicts festering in your life.  In short, conflict leads to contact.  This also liberates us from the constant process of evaluating what we should or shouldn’t say.

As one radically honest person commented on her experience:

Since I started radical honesty, my husband is divorcing me, my father won’t talk to me, and I’ve never felt freer in my life.
— a Radical Honesty participant

It’s also kind of a social filter, in the sense that people who appreciate honesty will be attracted to you, and people who are honesty-averse will run the other way.

Two Worlds

Whether you actively deceive, or passively allow someone to believe something that’s false, it’s as if you are creating two different worlds. They live in their world, in which their actions are based upon what they believe to be true.  And you live in your world, acting from your knowledge of what is actually true.  This creates a schism that makes connection difficult.  It’s a case of “same planet, different worlds.” Meanwhile, there are probably things you believe to be true that they know to be false.

This is the barrier that radical honesty dissolves.  When both individuals participate in a conversation in which they can express withheld information they end up living in the same world and having a genuine connection.  What is that one world like?  Well it’s not ideal. That’s a joke, get it?  It’s not our idea or concept of a perfect world, it’s the actual world we live in.

In one sense, it’s more intimate because you are relating as your genuine self, without the defensive shield created by lying. However, there is no guarantee of mutual affection.  It’s simply that whether you end up liking them or disliking them, it will be authentic. It will be them you like or dislike.  And if they like you, you will know it’s really you they like, not the facade you created in order to look good and be liked.

Generally, mutual understanding on this level creates the possibility for a positive relationship of some kind—but there are no guarantees.

Lying is just shorthand for the active or passive creation of false narratives about reality.  Counter-intuitively, we need to de-stigmatize lying.  For most people lying has a negative moral connotation, so when you point out how common it is, or point out when someone is doing it, there can be some resistance.  Okay.  A lot of resistance.  Lying serves a purpose, so when you start being radically honest you are going to discover what purpose it serves for you pretty quick, and that can be confronting.  However, when we understand how pervasive the behavior is, and how often we engage in it, it’s easier to be compassionate, both with ourselves and others.

Resistance

Whether lying involves inventing something false, shading the truth or withholding it, the underlying reason we do it is control.  It’s a manifestation of our desire or aversion. We want to control our experience so we get what we desire or avoid what we don’t want.

Since radical honesty can lead to conflict, and conflict leads to uncomfortable bodily sensations and anxiety, it is something we tend to avoid. Radical honesty runs against society’s rules of polite behavior.

Truth telling can be particularly challenging for people who have had the experience of being honest and having their candor returned with anger or even violence. If being honest becomes associated with danger, then it’s harder to be honest about one’s actual thoughts and feelings.

The mind so much wants to stay in control that it will play tricks on you.  You may know perfectly well that there is something you are withholding, but the mind will come up with all kinds of excuses for why being radically honest is a radically bad idea.

Another form of resistance is avoidance.  If you can avoid putting yourself in a situation in which you might be forced (or tempted?) to tell the truth you can avoid the confrontation entirely.  This is the realm of ghosting, vague promises, and forms of communication that allow equivocation.  (More on that here.)  We need to be on the lookout for the phony excuses our mind comes up with.  They are usually exaggerations, and a red flag that we are trying to control a relationship instead of experience it.

Listening

If you are going to hang out with people who are radically honest you will naturally end up hearing what they really think and feel about you.  (This in itself may be a reason to avoid the whole radical honesty thing to begin with!)  As much as radically honest speech is a skill we can cultivate, radically honest listening is also something we get to practice.  It goes with the territory, because honesty isn’t a one-way street, it’s a back and forth.  It’s not a destination it’s a journey, an ever-changing exploration of “what is.”

The foundation of radical honesty is simply that reality and what we think about reality, are two different things.  There is the “what is” and then there is the story we tell ourselves about it.  Radical honesty is the practice of making that distinction.  When speaking, we are careful to distinguish between what we noticed and our interpretation of what we noticed.  That is very useful for the person doing the speaking, but also for the person listening.

When we listen, we also are making the distinction between what we noticed and the interpretations made by ourselves and the speaker. What they are saying isn’t necessarily true, it’s their interpretation, which allows us to hold it lightly. This skillful listening is even useful when the speaker is failing to make that distinction themselves.

But this combination of radically honest speaking and radically honest listening is critical for relationships.

What Happens Next?

So, when you tell the truth what does happen next?  Well, really this article’s title was just a teaser to get you to click on the link and read what I wrote.

I will say this.  Radical honesty is not a panacea.  We live in a society full of liars, our own minds are constantly seducing us into lying, and being honest is swimming upstream.

But on average, radical honesty will lead to more intimate relationships.  In fact, it is what makes a genuine relationship possible.

That’s why I say that telling the truth is an evolutionary act.

When you are radically honest you are rebelling against the existing system in which lying is commonplace, and helping create a new system in which to experience more intimacy by telling the truth.  That’s beneficial for you, for your relationships, and for the society we share.

That’s what happens next.

Liam is available for coaching individuals, couples and groups.  For individuals and couples, an introductory half-hour online session is free.

Conflict arises from differences, and differences are unavoidable. As human beings we have different desires, different needs, different values, and sometimes those differences are in conflict.  Conflict is a natural part of a healthy relationship.

How we navigate those conflicts is crucial.  Differences can be a source of antagonism and resentment, or, if approached in an intelligent way, they can be a source of trust and intimacy.  The ability to resolve conflict in relationships leads to a sense of security, knowing you can survive challenges and disagreements.

One thing that makes a conflict more than just a simple disagreement is that there is an emotional component.  A conflict is the tip of an iceberg of underlying, unconscious differences, and we tend to be emotionally attached to “being right” about them.  Exploring and exposing those differences provides a powerful avenue to personal — and relational — growth.  It leads to self-awareness and intimacy with others.

I find it useful to distinguish between two types of conflict: circular and synthetic.  A circular conflict goes around and around without coming to a resolution.  It is a chronic conflict, in which each participant seeks agreement that their interpretation of reality is the “correct” one.  What it boils down to is “I’m right and you’re wrong.” When two people both want to be right (or at least not be wrong) this becomes a prescription for stasis.  If you find yourself returning repeatedly to the same argument, you are probably caught up in a circular conflict.  There can be lots of action in a circular conflict, and lots of strong emotion, but all the sparks distract from the fact that the conflict is not going anywhere.

A synthetic conflict is one in which participants engage each other with the goal of arriving at the truth, or put another way, it’s the mutual exploration of “what is.”  Change evolves out of the synthesis of opposing viewpoints.  To even call it a conflict is a bit misleading; it’s simply a different approach to perceived differences. Out of that shared exploration comes insight and appreciation of one’s own, and each other’s, uniqueness. Learning to distinguish actual differences from subjective differences leads to an acceptance of actual differences and, consequently, more contact-ful relating.

“Contact is the appreciation of differences”
~ Fritz Perls

“... and the recognition of similarities.”
~ Dick Price

It is worth noting that these two approaches have different underlying premises. The premise associated with a circular conflict is that it’s possible to be right or wrong about a particular interpretation of “what is.” The premise associated with a synthetic conflict is that the “truth” is the natural result of the exploration of “what is,” and because of that, its acceptance is ultimately ineluctable.  The former takes a position, staking a claim to authority and correctness.  The latter is more like a journey of discovery you share with someone.

Paradoxically, some of the most intractable conflicts really consist of the avoidance of conflict.  That is, people engage in the circular conflict as a way of avoiding the synthetic conflict. You probably can identify numerous such conflicts from the personal to the political level.

If you sweep something under the rug, that’s where it stays.  By ignoring differences and their attendant emotions you ensure a chronic state of circular conflict.  There is the vague hope that things will somehow work themselves out without you having to do anything, but rarely is that the case.  Usually, a conflict avoided is one that festers.

I’ve veered off into abstraction, and I had intended to be more pragmatic.  How can we go from conflict to contact?  How can we move from circular to synthetic conflict?  How can we make conflict the engine for the changes we’d like to see in our lives?

First, we can welcome conflict.  There’s no need to create it where it doesn’t exist!  But, when it does occur, if we have an attitude of curiosity and an expectation of learning something new, that will serve us well.  And we can learn to distinguish between contructive and destructive approaches to conflict, and to choose the former.

Second, we can learn to tolerate discomfort. The emotions that arise when we engage in conflict are often what I call the “less preferred” emotions: anger, fear and sadness.  More specifically, the sensations we experience tend to be identified as unpleasant.  By learning to tolerate, and even enjoy, intense sensation we enhance our ability to engage in conflict in a constructive way.  We learn to stay present even when our buttons are getting pushed.  By expanding the dynamic range of emotional expression we create more fluidity, which in turn leads to more “contact-ful” relationships.

Our goal isn’t to eliminate conflict.  Instead, it’s to re-frame how we think of conflict so that it becomes a constructive force in our lives, an opportunity for contact.  Circular conflicts can drag on for years.  A synthetic conflict in which two people fully engage is typically of short duration.   Let’s have more of the latter!

The workshops I lead offer a container in which to experiment with conflict, as well as tools to help distinguish our moment-to-moment experience — “what is” — from the stories and interpretations we make about it.

It’s an opportunity to connect with other playful people who are looking for more genuine contact in their lives.

Intimacy can be scary.  To allow an other to truly see us, our weaknesses, our fears, our desires, our dreams,  our judgements, our anger, the places we think we’re not good enough... requires a certain kind of courage, the courage to let your guard down. Many say they are committed to transparency, but sometimes it’s hard to walk your talk!

We guard our vulnerability for a perfectly natural reason: We don’t want to experience what might happen if we did not.  It might seem overwhelming, even dangerous to be truly transparent — that is, to be intimate.  The fear of intimacy isn’t merely conceptual, it’s somatic. It’s a fear of a certain level of intense sensation in the body. Unfortunately, that fear, largely unconscious, prevents the development of the intimacy that many people truly want.  Developing intimate connections requires being with that seemingly overwhelming level of intensity.

Somatic excitement can manifest as many things: anger, sadness, joy, turn on, fear, and so on.  But at a somatic level it’s really just excitement.  An unwillingness to experience excitement in one domain affects other domains, as well.  For example, if you are stuck when it comes to expressing anger, your ability to experience joy will be correspondingly diminished.

Let’s review some of the strategies people use to avoid the somatic intensity of intimacy.

• Refuse to take responsibility.  If you are having a conflict and you know you’re partly responsible, don’t admit it!
• Focus on differences.  It’s important to acknowledge differences, but it’s also important to appreciate the things we have in common.  By focusing on what doesn’t work you can narrow the conversation to a range that doesn’t threaten to expose your vulnerability.
• Be right.  Maintain the rightness of your position at all costs.  Make sure your partner understands that accepting your interpretation of events is required if they want to stay in communication with you.
• Stay busy!  De-prioritize the other person by asserting that other things (work, family, etc.) are simply more important.  That allows you to cast their efforts to communicate as detrimental to your well-being, and thus unwelcome.  Postpone meetings.  Make vague plans that will be easy to cancel.
• Judge the other person.  If you can label someone as undesirable in some way, then it’s easier to avoid intimacy.  They are no longer a person deserving of your compassion and respect.  You have made them into a kind of object, and thus easier to reject.
• Make yourself unattractive, physically or behaviorally. Acting like an ass-hat is a great way to discourage people from seeing who you really are, although, of course, it’s not without its cost!
• Withhold your true thoughts and feelings.  By withholding the truth you can keep the other person off balance.  You know something they don’t.  This effectively stymies the communication that might lead to understanding, resolution, and intimacy.

I included the graphic above because it points to another way we regulate our level of excitement: choosing the mode of communication at which the excitement is manageable.  If a phone call is too “exciting,” try an email or text message.  The problem, though, is that the written modes of communication don’t allow for the kind of communication that leads to understanding and resolution. A large percentage of our meaning is communicated in nonverbal ways: tone of voice, facial expression, body language.  A written message allows one to hide all of that, to hide the emotional truth.  The consequence of manipulating your internal level of excitement is that your relationship stays stuck in whatever unpleasantness you are trying to avoid.

I believe that we have been taught to decrease the intensity of circumstance rather than increase the intensity of awareness.  I have watched many enlightened people fall apart in the sexual arena or in the relationship arena so this is where I am interested in starting.
—Nicole Daedone

Note that although people most frequently avoid expressing the “less preferred” emotions, sometimes it’s really “I’m afraid to tell you how much joy I feel when I’m with you.”

If you recognize that you are avoiding intimacy, see if you can hang out with the discomfort a little.  Can you move up to one of the verbal intimacy levels?  If not, is it possible to at least take responsibility for the fact that you are feeling triggered and communicate that at the intimacy level you can manage?

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that if the person you are in conflict with is not able to meet you on the level of intimacy where you’d like to be met, be patient!  They are doing the best they can.

In the workshops I lead we create a container for enhancing our ability to experience intense sensations (the good, the bad and the ugly!) in relationship with others.  We become each other’s allies in cultivating that ability, which leads to more connection and intimacy.  And that’s exciting!

This post describes how you can defeat the surveillance employed by AT&T, Comcast, and other service providers, while taking advantage of faster connection speeds they may offer in your area. In some parts of the US you don’t have much choice in service providers. Here’s more information on why you should consider using a VPN. In my case I wanted to use the Sonic.net VPN because it was included in the service I was already paying for, and Sonic has a solid rating from the EFF. The Sonic.net VPN is fast and reliable although it doesn’t offer some features of other VPN providers like international exit servers.

The setup described below is way more involved than what you need if you have a single computer. If that is the case, and you are a Sonic.net customer, then just go to beta.vpn.sonic.net, and in a few clicks you will have a working VPN!

In my case, I have multiple computers on a LAN, and a couple of additional requirements:

• I wanted to avoid using the AT&T-supplied VDSL modem, since it is essentially a black box. You don’t have control over certain features, and there’s really no way of knowing what it’s doing, or might do in the future. I didn’t want something like that on my LAN where it could potentially monitor my local traffic!  Therefore, I had to add a supplementary router.
• I wanted to have the router handle my end of the VPN, so I didn’t have to manage it on each computer on my LAN.

If you have an ISP other than Sonic.net, you can still use this approach, just pick an alternative VPN provider that suits your needs. If you can get Sonic.net, then go with that. They have great customer support. (Although, they will not be able to provide you with support on the instructions in this article! Get the standard VPN configuration working first before trying this.)

This article, although written for a particular configuration of ISP, router, VDSL modem and VPN provider may be relevant in other cases. In my case, it looks like this

You can also use a different Router/Modem combination. Best case scenario is a router that you can flash with DD-WRT.

Configuring the NVG589

1. On Home Network → Subnets & DHCP I left the IP Address at 192.168.1.254 and changed the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.240. I changed the DHCPv4 Start/End Addresses to 192.168.1.241/192.168.1.253. As it currently stands, I only have the one DHCP-static passthrough route to the R7000. Changing the Subnet Mask is optional, but was recommended somewhere as creating a more efficient broadcast.
2. To configure the NVG589 for Passthrough
   1. Go to Firewall → IP Passthrough
   2. Set Allocation Mode to Passthrough
   3. I set Passthrough Mode to DHCPS-fixed, and chose the router address from the list.
3. I turned off the wireless capability of the NVG589, and am using the R7000 for wireless.
4. I turned off Firewall Status → Packet Filter
5. I did not turn off any of the Firewall Advanced options. I don’t think it will hurt to leave them on. They are redundant with what is provided by the R7000.
6. This link was helpful for configuring the modem in bridge mode
7. The NVG589 Manual
8. These changes required a reboot.

Configuring the R7000

I bought a Netgear R7000 (about $180 on Amazon) and loaded it with DD-WRT router software. A cheaper router will work, you might even have one lying around that will work, just make sure it supports a flash image of DD-WRT that includes VPN.

1. To load DD-WRT I followed these simple instructions.
   1. Note: The WPS feature that allows the router to automatically link up with devices like printers is not supported in DD-WRT.  Minor inconvenience.
2. Initially, I set it up with the Setup → WAN Setup → Automatic Configuration DHCP option. This is a good start, because it will automatically get the correct values via DHCP from the NVG589, so I recommend doing that first. However, ultimately I ended up going with the Static IP option, because it insisted on adding the AT&T DNS server and I didn’t want that. On my Linux and OSX platforms it’s possible to select something like “DHCP addresses only,” but DD-WRT doesn’t have that option. With the Static IP option I can specify my own DNS server. (It may also work to fill in all three of the DNS server fields, which should prevent the AT&T DNS server from being added, but I didn’t test that.)
3. Why is the DNS issue important? Because in some cases your operating system or software may leak information about what sites you are visiting via the DNS service. Read more about DNS leaks here.  You can also test for DNS leaks here. AT&T makes it impossible to change the DNS settings on the NVG589; you have to change DNS settings in a separate router, as we’re doing here, or manually on each computer.
4. Note that your DNS server must allow recursive queries from your AT&T IP address. Sonic.net’s default DNS servers do not allow that, although they have alternate servers that do.
   Without the VPN connection, the R7000 will receive the WAN IP Address of the NVG589 which is in AT&T’s address block, and you won’t be able to use ns1.sonic.net and ns2.sonic.net. However, when you are connected to the Sonic.net VPN, then it’s fine to use their DNS servers, because your VPN address is allowed. That is what I recommend. In my case, I’m running my own DNS server, but most people won’t have that option. You might want to try OpenDNS. Here’s more information about using DD-WRT with OpenDNS.
   Ultimately, with the OpenVPN configuration, I did add ns1.sonic.net and ns2.sonic.net, and then I had to change the IP/Name field of the VPN configuration from beta.vpn.sonic.net to 184.23.168.54.  This makes sense — DNS won’t work until the VPN is established, so you have to use the IP address when establishing the VPN connection.
5. The NVG589 and R7000 must be on separate subnets. I left the NVG589 at its default of 192.168.1.254 and reconfigured the R7000.
   1.  On the R7000, set Basic Setup → Network Setup → Local IP Address to 192.168.2.1, subnet mask 255.2555.255.0.
   2. On the R7000 Basic Setup → Network Setup → Network Address Server Settings (DHCP)
      1. DHCP Server: enable
      2. Start IP Address: 192.168.2.100
      3. I checked the checkboxes for DNSMasq for DHCP/DNS and DHCP-Authoritative
6. On my LAN I had various machines I wanted to give consistent IP Addresses. This may not be an issue for others. I decided to let DHCP assign them, but remember them by MAC address so that they always are assigned the same IP address. This makes it easy to administer everything in the router.
   1. On the Services page under DHCP Server, I selected “LAN & WAN” under Used Domain. This makes the hosts on your LAN mutually accessible by the names you enter under Static Leases. For LAN Domain you can put anything, like “mylocal.lan.”
   2. I added static leases under Services → DHCP Server by clicking Add and filling in the fields, and then clicking Save and Apply Settings at the bottom of the page. I repeated this for the hosts I wanted to have static IP addresses. You can easily find the MAC addresses on the Status → LAN page.
   3. Under Services → DNSMasq, enable DNSMasq and No DNS Rebind.
7. Under Basic Setup → Network Setup → Time Settings, choose the time zone (America/Los Angeles) and enter the ip address of a time server.  Initially I entered the name, but that caused a connection error: when DNS was not yet set up, the time got set to 1969, and then OpenVPN wouldn’t connect because the certificate was invalid due to the incorrect time.
   

   dig +short time.sonic.net
   64.142.1.20

Connecting other devices

1. I have an Airvana/Airrave 2.5+ which is like a local cell tower that allows me to use my cell phone where I live (otherwise, no cell signal). I plugged it into the R7000 and it worked fine.
2. The ATA box that supplies VOIP via Sonic also is plugged into the R7000.

Setting up the VPN

The first step is to test the VPN by connecting to it with your computer. If you have a simple network configuration (i.e. one computer and no supplementary router) then this is all you need.  If you have a more complex network, test the VPN first from your computer before continuing to the next step of getting it running on your router.

1. For OpenVPN go here and follow the instructions. (Recommended!)
2. For IPSEC go here.  I did this for both Ubuntu Linux and Mac OSX. Enter the values you get from your VPN service provider.
   1. On the Mac, go to the the Network Settings preferences, and create a new network entry (the “+” sign in the lower left corner).
   2. On Ubuntu I used Network Manager → Configure VPN → Add to create a new VPN connection.
   3. Reconnect.  If you are running the VPN from your computer (as opposed to the router configuration described below) you may want to consider how to make sure the VPN connection stays up. I notice that it tends to drop back to my default (AT&T) connection when using IPSEC.  Reports on the Sonic.net forums indicate there is a timeout of 13 hours.  On Debian/Ubuntu they have enhanced the /etc/vpnc/vpnc-script so that you can insert your own custom action scripts to take in the following events.
      Linux
      If you are on Linux you can force a reconnect in the script-post-disconnect-action.  Just create a script of that name in the /etc/vpnc directory.   One other tweak is that you may have to change the Network Manager config file.
      This may not even work when using Network Manager.  The following configuration worked for me on Unbuntu 12.04, when running openvpn from the command line.

      1. /etc/vpnc/vpnc-script-post-disconnect-action
         #!/bin/bash
         # After losing the VPN connection attempt to reconnect with
         # Network Manager.
         logger "VPNC restarted due to disconnect"
         nmcli con up id Sonic.net

      2. /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/Sonic.net
         [connection]
         id=Sonic.net
         uuid=92e6b6ff-9ae9-4d65-8998-b7c577b4231c
         type=vpn
         timestamp=1434329926
         [vpn]
         service-type=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.vpnc
         NAT Traversal Mode=natt
         #ipsec-secret-type=save
         #IPSec secret-flags=0
         #xauth-password-type=save
         Vendor=cisco
         Xauth username=my_user_name
         IPSec gateway=208.201.249.242
         Xauth password-flags=0
         IPSec ID=Standard VPN
         Perfect Forward Secrecy=server
         IKE DH Group=dh2
         [vpn-secrets]
         Xauth password=my_password
         IPSec secret=standard
         [ipv4]
         method=auto

Mac OSX
On OSX I followed the instructions here.  However, this did not seem to work. If you get this working, let me know.

VPN on the R7000/DD-WRT router

I wanted to have the VPN connection created by DD-WRT, so that all the traffic flowing through the router would be routed through the VPN. I also wanted to have it auto-reconnect dropped connections.  Sonic now supports both IPSEC and OpenVPN protocols (beta).  I succeeded with both IPSEC and OpenVPN.  However, OpenVPN is much easier to set up and doesn’t appear to drop connections.  Choose OpenVPN if at all possible.

1. OpenVPN This is much easier!  OpenVPN is supported directly by the DD-WRT interface.  Go to Services → VPN and enable OpenVPN.  You will have gotten your openvpn.conf file from your VPN provider.  Copy the values from there into the VPN config page, then click Save and Apply Settings.  You can glean some information from Status → OpenVPN after starting it.
   1. Here is a screen capture of the configuration page.
      
   2. If using the Sonic.net DNS servers (ns1.sonic.net and ns2.sonic.net) you need to set the VPN IP/Name to the IP address, as shown in the screen capture, not the name (currently beta.vpn.sonic.net).
   3. I added “keepalive 10 60” to the Additional Config section.  However, I still get periodic disconnection, which remains a problem.  If you figure out how to fix this disconnect problem, please let me know.
   4. Test it out!
   5. Check for DNS leaks.
2. IPSEC Sonic is using a Cisco VPN Concentrator which uses the IPSEC protocol. In order to get it working I followed these DD-WRT VPNC instructions.
   1. In order to get tunneling to work I modified the iptables rules given in the instructions slightly, as follows. If you don’t do that it won’t work, because it will drop all your packets before they get routed to the tunnel.
      iptables -D FORWARD -j DROP
      iptables -A FORWARD -o tun0 -j ACCEPT
      iptables -A FORWARD -i tun0 -j ACCEPT
      iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o tun0 -j MASQUERADE
      iptables -A FORWARD -i br0 -j ACCEPT
      iptables -A FORWARD -j DROP
   2. You can test the VPN connection from the command line if you are logged into the DD-WRT. Make sure that is working first.  Then check from a computer on your LAN.

DNS Leaks and WebRTC

There is another way you can leak your IP address.  After you’ve gotten your VPN setup, be sure to test for the WebRTC leak.  This link also has an explanation of what to do about it.

Click here for WebRTC leak test.

Conclusion

Whew!  That’s a lot of work.  Getting IPSEC working was a PITA, and it still appeared to drop connections, forcing more complicated configuration to make it reconnect.  On the other hand, with OpenVPN things were a lot easier.

But, also, this was complicated because I made it complicated, and opted for a higher level of security and convenience.  By forcing you to use their modem/router, and preventing root access, AT&T forces the use of a second router.

All this really should not be necessary!  However, we now know a lot about the collusion between AT&T and the NSA in the illegal collection of Internet traffic, so you can’t exactly ignore it if you value your privacy.  Here’s a NYTimes article on how AT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale.

Using a VPN is a first line of defense.  If you want more anonymity you should use Tor.  You can run Tor over the VPN for an additional layer of security.

Note that you already should be using a VPN when you are using your laptop in public Internet cafés, airport lounges, etc.