FRAGMENTS IN A FIELD AFAR

                                          THIS MUCH IS "TRUE"

In my dream (of two nights ago) I ask Amy (my wife) a question requiring a “yes” or “no” answer. At that very moment, I am literally awakened by her saying “Yes” loudly as she lay sleeping right beside me. Amazed at what just happened, I check the time (7AM), get up, relieve myself (as it were), and go back to bed and back to sleep. In the dream that follows, again with her in it, she looks at me intently and says, “I am the Queen. You think my thoughts.”  

                                                        *

As time progresses, or perhaps from the beginning, life becomes a bad habit.

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The “second wind” may come at great cost; the cure may in fact be worse than the disease. But nevertheless one undertakes to breathe as best one can in the circumstances. One hopes the blindness will pass, that they eyeballs will no longer stick to the eyelids. One finds oneself praying for deliverance from the bottom of the abyss which, by its nature, offers no way out, no escape, though one can be rescued by God alone, but one must be able to find such a God, the reality and presence of such a God. Otherwise one is held down by one’s own weight, one’s own history, even simply gravity itself. Falling to the bottom “knocks the wind out” of one. As one lies there unable to breathe, in that interlude in which one sees oneself, a reckoning may be made. The next breath comes, and then the next, and the next. But one must deliver oneself from such darkness in which one finds oneself. And this is possibly but most difficult because one purposely forgets and any “second winds” become fewer and much less likely. I don’t know if one “climbs out of darkness” or some miraculous light of power and agency intrudes into the prevalence and perhaps even preference of darkness. No, I do know; one must climb out, holding oneself above oneself as each rung is wrung from oneself. It is no different than this. There is no “easy way out”; it happens in the smallest of increments. It is a discipline requiring clear sight. And though very specific, it remains very enigmatic, for we are shadows unto ourselves, opaque at best, and “through the glass, darkly.” Innuendo and out the door.

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                                      The Curse of Technology

Technology moves us ever closer to the machine of ourselves, that is, to ourselves as machines, albeit fleshy and organic ones, as beings to be fixed and repaired, as cogs in a still greater technological framework. Technology moves us ever further from the soul and the spirit of ourselves as human beings. In its movement for control, which may be seen as improved and better physical and perhaps mental function, technology leads away from the heart of ourselves. Many might say that technology, like guns, is used as the possessor sees fit, for better or for worse social function; that technology is innocent of any blame by those Luddites who cannot fathom it. But this is not so true at all, for loaded guns are not to be put in the hands of infants; not that they will do evil with them, but that they might inadvertently pull the trigger and hurt themselves or others. “Forgive them Father, for they know now what they do.”

        But that is not the essence of this conversation. Humans now have technology as a great convenience and as an improvement in many fields, such a medicine and statistics of all kinds. Technology “crunches numbers” far faster than any human mind could do so in lifetimes. And it promotes both the notion while creating the reality that we are human machines. But technology aims outward and expands; it does not lead us inward in order to discover just who and what we are in this order of human being. Worse than being loaded guns in the hands of infants, it is a distraction from our discovery of ourselves, of ourselves as far more inner (or greater) beings which we must find if we are ever to be truly human and be able to live accordingly. Our inability to live accordingly makes us as infants—with no understanding of our world or mastery or control of ourselves. Humanity still lives in utter ignorance of itself, though now possess the technological means to destroy itself.  Technology wonderfully leads us away from ourselves as human beings into a cyborg reality in which we are as machines.

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That which has been most important to me in the living of my life is that I am “focused upon and engaged in that which is true, that which is real.” In so many words, that I do not waste my life. How does one measure the “value” of one’s self? I seem to think that a life spent in seclusion, “without distraction,” as a focused spiritual being, is best. I did spend some time in a Buddhist monastery as a Zen Buddhist monk and also spent much time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur once upon a time. I was not so impressed with either. And I was especially not impressed with myself, for after a few days, I was not “peaceful and focused” at all but absolutely distracted. I had to face the fact that life itself, that living in itself, is distraction; that being in a physical body that is meant to survive and having to survive in it is a distraction; that thinking and thoughts and emotions are a distraction: a distraction from the “higher being,” the “spiritual being” which is the essence of life. I have often questioned my attitude towards existence in this body here and now; it would seem that I think I’m “above it all” in some way. I do somehow think this, however, I have also “made it in the world” by being successful in business once and making enough money, taking care of my familial and social responsibilities, and so on. While it may be true that I was a bit of a sanyassin in my 20s, I did find success by my 30’s and retired by 40 to take care of my children, one who was disabled and required active caregiving. Now, in my 70s, I am again an active caregiver (to my wife) but also see myself, appropriately, as a sanyassin, more or less, though I have to wonder rather than wander. I am glad I have responsibilities that are other than myself, for, to be honest, I am utterly boring and just about that bored with myself.

          I see my role as one of not only “finding context” for myself, but also being able to convey such context to those in need of it. “Knowing oneself” consists in knowing who you are, what you are, where you are, and perhaps even why you are. Of course, such knowing is probably impossible; we are as moving targets even as we ourselves move—there is no nailing anything down at all. I think the most we can do is take all these fragments and make some kind of interesting mosaic with them. We are an undulating jigsaw puzzle with unlimited pieces of no particular shapes that do not fit into each other. So we make these fragments into a fragmentary story of ourselves as best we can—which seems fine and good in itself but is actually detrimental to us because “our story” really isn’t like how we have put it together. We have created something that has taken on its own life and is now “me” as I see myself and believe myself to be. Upon death, all the pixels of seeming solidity and reality, dissolve into something else. But, even while alive, we do not quite live because we are only our (and our culture’s and our society’s) version of ourselves and not really who we are. We just don’t know who we are and, for the most part, would rather not know, instead using our opposable thumbs to send tweets about what we had for lunch, and taking selfies to prove to ourselves and others that we actually do exist and are not just figments of our own imaginations (which are actually no longer our own since we see only what we want to see and what is trending in the moment). Descartes proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am.” But once we are no longer able to think as ourselves, we no longer exist as ourselves but as units in the matrix, as it were. People now prefer to be cyborgs. Living is much more convenient and without real choices, much less consciousness.

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Fragments, by their very nature, are problematic, for they do not "fit in" anywhere and are thus never "convenient" or able to be "pigeon-holed". Normally, it would seem that framents necessarily "fly by" without being noticed. But I notice them. Trying to "make sense of oneself" with them is rather impossible besides being absurd, but this is what we humans do. 

                                                           

THE NECESSITY OF GETTING BEYOND OURSELVES

As we age, the body's nature is to deteriorate, and, as this occurs, our self-identity begins to alter. We may identify ourselves more with our mind or our feelings or perhaps with that which we call the soul or spirit (though soul may be defined as "embodied spirit"). Though difficult to accept, such self-definition as other-than-body gets closer to the reality of things (or no-things, if you will). It is quite logical that when the physical existence ends, that, if, in fact, there is a continuation of being or consciousness, it will occur on the non-physical levels of mind, feeling, and soul or spirit. Now it could be that mind and feeling are so inclusive in body that they cease as well, though it's not logical. It is logical that, if there is such a continuation of consciousness as self, we would want to prepare ourselves for this transition. Such is the purpose of probably all the world's religions in one way or another.

Om mani padme hum, the Buddhist mantra and directive, states,
"You hold the lotus in your hand" (according to an acquaintance who has studied and translated such things). Of course, we/our nature is the lotus, borne in earth, proceeding up through water, and finally breaking the surface into the air and the sun.  

So, upon death, how are we to prepare ourselves for being in a state beyond the physical? Many would say to "put your faith in God," though I and many others would not. In fact, they would say, "Put your faith in yourself" (though I would want to be prosaic and use "yourSelf"). However it may be articulated, we do need to be able to experience that level of being that is beyond self as we have come to know it. Some claim to have found this in a kind of God-driven awareness. I haven't. I have been able in my life to find practices that allow me to disassociate from my physicalness and perhaps even "transcend" it. Once I ingested a lot of LSD for a while and this definitely got me "there," giving me quite a glimpse and experience of what is beyond the physical. I also would lay in
"isolation tanks" for extended periods, which did give me a certain experience beyond the body, as it were. Such experiences actually did provide a definite impression and memory of "transcendence," however, the most practical practicum was that of formal Buddhist meditation, which consisted of initially vipassana, and finalized in many years of zazen. This practice did not so much "get me there" as it did simply to give me a "break" from the physical identity and a kind of experience of an identity with "true nature," as it's called in Zen Buddhism (and perhaps others as well). I should note that something of this nature did occur in the years in which I practiced the theosophical meditation as presented by Alice Bailey, however, that was a very intellectual experience which I ultimately could not translate into my reality. Zazen, on the other hand, has the effect of non-mentally stripping one down to that which one is--which is essentially no-thing. It's a much more natural process which does not have to be dissected or followed or "understood." It is more a settling into one's real self, which, seemingly paradoxically (though only seemingly), is no self at all. It actually relates to the Cartesian directive, "I think, therefore I am." If you do not think (of yourself or at all, i.e. are without thought reigning in your mind), "you" cease to exist. Though I don't know if Descartes actually had this reverse-thought.

Winding up, to die adequately, we must realize such things.

THE PROBLEM WITH WRITING THINGS OR EVEN SAYING THEM

David Miller, a professor at one time at Pacifica Graduate Institute, noted that as soon as one says something, the opposite as well is instantly "true." This made much sense to me for I had always been aware that when I made a statement, it always was inherently very limited and even inherently quite "wrong" because it was most "decided." In other words, there were all the things about what I said that I didn't say, which made is therefore almost a false statement because it wasn't totally complete and could never be totally complete. Obviously, this doesn't apply to measureable things, such as one's weight or height, the color of one's eyes, whether or not one went to work today, or the horsepower of the engine in my car. Though one could accurately say that there are many other elements regarding me or my car that have not been mentioned. However, I think I'm referring to what one says about other things, like, for instance, the essay I wrote here yesterday. When one speaks of "large ideas" or concepts, how much does one assume the reader can understand? And how much does one assume one's self understands? As I speak, for instance, whole new thoughts and new directions and horizons of thought rise up into my mind, as it were. Some of them I follow, I go with, and others I leave behind and do not speak or write them. There is so much that is unsaid; it is far, far more than is said. Wittgenstein noted in the introduction of one of his books that what was far more important, in fact, most important about his book, was not what he said but rather what he didn't say. That resonates with me very much.

I have often thought that the most accurate communication we can do is to say or write absolutely nothing--simply because whatever comes out of our mouth or is written down is instantaneously erroneous; it hasn't been presented in its fullness but rather only in its partialness. I am forever having to explain myself so that others might possibly be able to understand me. My focus of my thought is usually rather abstract and obscure and of little interest to most people, and what I say seems clear enough to me. However, I have been told that I speak and write as though I were talking to myself rather than others, that my writing is "dense and intense" and can be hard to follow and understand. Part of it is that what's on my mind is simply not on other people's minds. It may have been Oscar Wilde who said something like: Those who keep their own company often fall in with the wrong crowd. My "business card" shows my name and then right after it, "Soliloquist." One who talks to himself or herself. I like that but it can create too many fawning admirers who aren't there. And then, there is also the fact that, though I write to others, I am attempting to understand myself in and through the process. I believe that writers tell their stories to themselves foremost. Nietzsche said that philosophers all present their own philosophies of life in the hope that others might agree and thus validate the philosopher's existence and reality. 

FAILURE OF MAGIC (RELIGION) AND TECHNOLOGY (SCIENCE) IN KNOWING OURSELVES

Religion with its magic and miracle and Science with its technology and progress has not brought us closer to who we are as beings of many worlds but, rather, has distanced us severely from ourselves. Religion ruled and failed, since it was more interested in extending itself than whatever truth it may have possessed and had lost over time through its own corruption and dogma to be imposed upon the faithful. Science and its technology arose as a force in the period of the Enlightenment, bringing the antithesis of religious belief and spirituality, and the truth of the physical world, as if that were all. It had the effect of mechanizing the spirit so that we might see ourselves as organic, fleshy, machines.

It would seem at this point that humans have so identified themselves as such that they believe they will progress quite well as cyborgs, ultimately with all the necessary apps implanted in their brains at birth, and all the necessary tools to keep their bodies intact and healthy and alive for at least hundreds of years. It seems that humans at this point would opt for an existence free of "difficult personal choices," now seen in terms of obsolete "existential dilemmas." One's life will be pleasantly planned out for him or her. In a sense it already is and has been since the beginning: one is born into a social, cultural, familial process that is already churning through its endless cycles. However, now there is still or most recently a sense of personal choice, which is real for those who come to make it as such, and not real for those who only make wishes or who are literally trapped in their lives. Many are either literally or psychological already quite imprisoned, if not enslaved, in the reality they have fashioned for themselves and/or has been fashioned for them by culture, society, and family. We are born into mindsets and their respective realities on all of those levels. And this must first be realized if we are to be able to create in any way something different for ourselves.

Both religion and technology have and do strongly form and continuously inform us. For many, religion as already come and dominated but has lost its hold to technology, which now controls us and with which we now identify as literally an integral part of our own being. We allow it to act for us and to even think for us. Technology is now the body-snatcher; it is the alien that now possesses us. We will not think to question it or ourselves regarding it. We give up our own particular existences in order that we might be able to think like it, becoming part and parcel of its matrix, the web itself. We learn to ably think it and speak it. We are willing to give up what has become the trifle of the human soul in exchange for the endless benefits of being part of the One Mind. It's a very religious and technological attainment for us, but spirit and matter are not joined; spirit becomes as matter and is brought down to the darkness of matter. Spirit is mechanized and put to use like a robot.

One may ask, "So why is this such a problem? So what if I become an efficient thinking, feeling machine?" The problem is that this is not what you are. You are not a machine. You must make existential choices. You have a soul, as it were. There is something within you that is far greater than the machine-world, than the physical world. If you cannot attain contact with that vital element of yourself, you will find yourself very lost and confused when you finally leave the body. Even if there is no afterlife at all and there is not soul to go anywhere, then whatever energy of awareness or consciousness that was you may then be added the the "pool" of all energy. If you have allowed yourself to become identified with only the physical, the mechanical, what will happen to the collective level of energy? Will you be one more monkey-wrench thrown into it? But that's a moot point; nobody particularly thinks about that, or cares.

If one is so identified with themselves as other-than-human, and other-than-spirit, what happens when one is plunged into a world that is not human but of the spirit? If one has no references, just what does one do? What do you do? Or, put differently, what if you suddenly discover that there is no you, but all you know is you? I think it is wiser to prepare for this perhaps ultimate reality. If you end when life ends and there is simply no more consciousness, that's fine and well. But, you must ask, "What if I am thrust into a totally different reality, one that I had every opportunity to seek out, but, given the conveniences of technology (or religion, for that matter), didn't? What happens then?"

The main feature in Dante's Divine Comedy is, to my mind, that those who are suffering grievously in Hell are totally unaware that they are in Hell; they believe they are still alives and living their lives from day to day. That is most interesting. To not even know but to live hellish lives over and over in eternity. Now, of course, that's just a story, but I find it to be philosophically and psychologically quite credible, if not inevitable. For this reason in itself, we are destined to inquire within ourselves to find that which is beyond ourself and our world.

BRIEF WORDS RE FOCUS

I realize that speaking of "fragments" and the "fallacy of reality," in itself becomes a distraction and a kind of abstraction that may effectively remove one from the matter at hand, whatever that may be. Claiming that "it's not supposed to make sense" does not remove one from being in the moment and responding as well as possible.

Not so long ago, a few years, I was obsessed with "what happens when I die." I wrote a number of essays based in my own "education" regarding death, which made some kind of sense and which I was willing to take seriously at that point, having taken such perspectives even more seriously and with pronounced belief prior to that time. But then, as I could accept that I just didn't know for sure, I stopped perseverating over what happens at death. 

I'll return to this in due time.

A PREFERENCE FOR IRONY

So that which we call "true" is not really so true after all. Rather, it is a construct of our own making, of which we are generally not aware at all, since it is a social construct that predates us probably by generations. And so, "tradition" becomes "truth" because it has been around for so long as to be believed as such. 

So if that which is "true" is not necessarily so at all, and one was persistently aware of this, a sense of irony would persist, would necessarily have to persist within one's mind. This is not really a "preference"; it is a reality: the reality of appearances and of beliefs held. Such reality would be present to one who understood this "transparency" as perpetual fallacy that reinstates and recreates itself. 

And this is precisely why I changed the name of this blog to "fragments." Everything comes to us in fragments, be it sensory, emotional, or mental. It comes not in wholes. We are so trained that we give our fragmentary existence meaning by interpreting all these fragments, depending also on our state of body, emotion, and mind. We believe that we understand and comprehend and, in such belief, "create" ourselves, our lives and our world. This is how it is and probably how it must be--at least until we are able to move out from under such beliefs about ourselves.

Sometimes I feel very strange and awkward in the flesh, in this human body. It feels as if this is not my normal form. I can appreciate all the at least billions of years it took to evolve it to its present form, but I also feel as if I've been rather recently plopped into this human form, which is akin to an organic, fleshy machine, though I mean no denigration in saying that. It is a quite phenomenal organism, probably the most phenomenal organism of its kind. Yet I find it strange and even awkward or ponderous that I have to convey thoughts by writing words by typing with my hands, taking words "from my mind," in a body I must work at to have it survive by feeding it, cleaning it, cleansing it--an animal flesh body from the planet Earth. To most people what I say here would sound crazy, much like some arrogant alien. I thought, while walking this morning, how strange that these arms hang at my sides now, and that my eyes and face communicate to other people without saying a word. Sometimes I find that I know people's thoughts, and especially their emotions. It's not that try or that I'm so interested; it's just that I do, that's all. Nor is it that I am aloof or antisocial; I'm actually quite friendly and take an actual interest in others: I want them to feel good and be well, and I am heartened when this is so. But even if people did know their own minds, which they don't for the most part, they are not much supposed to actually reveal how it is for them; such honesty is disquieting and disruptive to the "flow" of society. But this leads me back once more to the notion that existence is fragmentary and that our attempts to interpret and make sense of ourselves and our lives and the world is fraught with inaccuracy and fallacy.

HOLDING THE AWARENESS

There is an awareness which I call "the awareness" which, I believe, exists within each of us. Most of us are generally unaware of it and remain enmeshed and occupied by our thoughts and our feelings and our sensations. I hate waiting in lines and being stuck in traffic. Right in the midst of my irritable and impatient thoughts and feelings, "the awareness" comes into my mind, not as a thought or feeling, but as a sense of higher or greater being, as though I am above all the drama unfolding below, which includes myself in all my irritation and identity with myself as one who must wait in line and thus waste my very existence in the physical world in a physical body. This is how my thoughts go. But "the awareness" puts me in a state that might be described as "a sense of being it all," in which my definition of "myself" expands beyond any sense of individual or separate self. It is simply a different state of being in which "I" am not at the center of attention or awareness. It's not accompanied by any particular feelings of elation, though there is a sense of no tension held in place with stressed thoughts and feelings.
      This "awareness" does "come upon" me, yes, but I also realize that it is always present and that I am perfectly able to "go there" or "let it in" whenever I want to. I also notice that sometimes I don't want to have it; that the distraction of the moment, of the deceit, of the pleasure, perhaps even of the pain, of the "lower" existence, is something I prefer, be it out of habit, comfort, pleasure, which are all chemical, physical "highs." A religious person might say, "The devil made me do it," and be quite accurate in a sense.
"The awareness" does have religious overtones; one could easily call it "the mind of God," though I prefer keeping it, to me, real, and much simpler; "God" gets too much credit and too much blame; let us look at ourselves squarely and honestly. Though I see that the notion of "God" covers all that area of which we are unconscious, which is of "mystery" (which leads to another discussion another time) and therefore fulfills a major function of life.
     We have the capacity to call "the awareness," once consciously experienced, into our minds, our thoughts again and again. It is a state of being that encompasses what we see as ourselves and others and, really, everything. Imagine how life could be, how the world itself could be, if people were aware that they could participate in the level of existence whenever they chose. We would no longer be at the mercy of our fears and would even be able to transcend ourselves while still being able to be ourselves living our lives.