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the_great_goose_chase
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daf
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Do you think it would make a difference:
A. If there IS a purpose to our existence?
B. If we knew what that purpose is?
What if the answer to question A, were "Yes"?
And what if the answer to question B were, "We do"?
What if we were to find out that the vast majority of human endeavor has been a sidetrack, a distraction, a goose chase?
What if our true purpose is at odds with how we are spending our lives?
Hopefully, as a sort of imagination exercise we do together, rather than a debate we engage in, we can explore this possibility together.
What IF..our only purpose here was to witness this universe thing and what it has done? What if we are organisms produced by the universe for the express purpose of appreciating what it has accomplished, and admiring what it would have continued to accomplish, had we not meddled so hard?
Let's set our love of technology, society's benefits and our aversion to wet, cold, hungry and dirty aside, so as to take a trip down another timeline:
Imagine that we knew we had a duty (sort of like the crew of the starship Enterprise) to witness, without interfering? What if our Prime Directive is to allow the evolutionary process to continue in whatever direction it so chooses, without our intervention?
Imagine a world where we STILL felt the need to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves, but insisted that we could only improve our situation if it wouldn't destroy something else that the universe was doing? What if our footprints were meant to be light the entire time? What if our eyes were made, not to obsess on what WE'VE made, but on the universe around us..and what IT'S made..including one of it's most marvellous creations: humans.
Please, ponder for a moment. Try to imagine what a society like that might be like. How would it have evolved over these thousands of years? (How close were indigenous peoples to that ideal? That's a thunker, huh?)
Did it ever occur to us that maybe the ancients weren't all that superstitious? That maybe millennia of observation and societal failure had led them to somewhat strange rules which, while performing little physical function, provided guidance away from self, fostered humility and kept our egos in check? Maybe, as with pure religion, our superstitions and myths were there to remind us that we are only the mortal servants of much larger forces with inconceivable lifespans, and an unknowable shape to sculpt in space time. Imagine that.
In an upcoming blathe, let's bring our hypothetical purpose back to the present: Next, let's explore how well we're doing our job of witnessing what the universe created, including us..without hijacking or meddling with it.
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210106
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daf
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In the previous blathe, we were (hopefully) letting our minds wander a bit, into the realm of the hypothetical. The main question posed was:
"If our purpose in this existence were to witness the universe, without unnecessarily affecting its course, how well have we done so far?"
Let's take a look around the room and see what we see, ok? If there is ANYTHING natural, unprocessed, unspoiled and in its universe-created state, list it in your mind. Count them.
I have in this room, a skylight with a view of the sky. And I'd like to say, me..but I'm not unprocessed,(or in my universe-created state. What's up with this dental work?) That's it. Everything else I see is made by humans.
I'm currently not witnessing much of ANYTHING that the universe made, unless I choose to stare up at the grey sky through the skylight.
And I could walk out to the living room and stare through a window. I'd see mostly houses, a shed or two, some cars and then there are trees, squirrels, birds, groundhogs, possums. Here and there. On and off. But my mind hasn't been conditioned that way. I can't see myself staring out a window for 3 hours waiting for a possum to come by.
We have a houseplant or three. But are those unprocessed? Is that how the universe made them? In pots..to be watered, re-potted or die?
Let's try another experiment. Do you have a loved one around? Pets count. Go look at a picture of them. Now look at them. Is it the same? Go get video and try the same experiment. Is it the same? Now, and not to bum anyone out..imagine how that experiment works when it's a loved one who's passed on? Is the photo the same? The video? Is picking at our memories the same as experiencing the living event, as they transpired before our very eyes?
Once, I bought a telescope and looked up to find Saturn there. Now, I grew up with science. I was especially into nature studies, computers, robots and SPACE (part of my nature studies), so I had seen plenty of the best pictures available of Saturn at the time. Closeups from flybys. The rings in detail. I didn't expect to be at all impressed by the fuzzy yellow blob I was going to see through a 4.5" Newtonian telescope. Man..was I wrong.
It is practically IMPOSSIBLE to describe how, looking at even just a blob, with its barely discernible rings, took my breath away, because it FELT different than looking at a photo. I didn't expect that..at all. It wasn't even in the corner of my mind, until I looked through that lens and witnessed it for myself. (It's occurred to me that perhaps I HAD experienced this phenomenon EVERY time I meet someone, but that perhaps there are so many other layers of conditioning and emotion attached to the event, that the subtle exhilaration of witnessing is drowned out.)
Or perhaps, this post is still all just a hypothetical exercise, and I was hallucinating that night. (I had the experience once before, now that I think back on it. But we'd dropped acid at the time, and I was looking up, pondering the age of the star light that was entering my eyes. It was much more intense, but much less trustworthy..so. Ok, I'm getting sidetracked by being an old fart with stories.)
So how well would we be doing our "hypothetical" job, of witnessing without interfering..if that's our purpose?
If all we see around us are mostly manufactured objects and human creations, how much actual witnessing are we doing? And if we're not witnessing, then what exactly are we doing?
I'd like to attempt to answer that question in an upcoming blathe.
Thanks for reading.
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210110
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epitome of incomprehensibility
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I was walking outside once, near my parents' house, when I saw the not-quite-full moon. Through whatever trick or reveal of the atmosphere, its shaded side was partly visible.
"Whoa," was my thought, "the moon's 3-D."
So yeah, not very eloquent. But the feeling was! As if I'd never considered the moon as really real before, just part of the backdrop of the sky.
This post reminded me of that. Thank you.
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210128
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