I guess I understand that now.
People used to put that sentiment on T-shirts and bumpers stickers and such back in the 70’s. Never understood it back then, of course. Being an entirely too logical and analytical child, it seemed like, well, nonsense.
The only thing that kept me from declaring the whole thing stupid was that the slogan was embraced by hippie type people who didn’t seem stupid to me.
Now I kind of get it. It’s kind of a Dadaist statement against conforming to conventional “sensible” thought patterns that make one predictable and stifle creativity.
Stop making sense and start having fun, more or less.
For me, it has a much deeper meaning now, obviously. I am still pushing against the walls of my pseudo-rational cage and learning to see in the darkness outside the harsh white light of reason.
You know, the brighter the light, the darker the shadows outside it seem. If the light is bright enough, you can’t see anything outside it at all.
Makes it very tempting to convince yourself that there is nothing out there. That the light of your mighty mind touches all that is real and you are a master of reality, fully capable of understanding the universe in all its splendor.
It’s especially tempting when the real truth is that the darkness scares the shit out of you and it would be ever so nice to just subtract it from your personal reality entirely.
But I am not so foolish. Not when there is so much that said sad little perspective cannot explain, let alone actually help with. The bright white light is focused outward and can never show what lies inside your heart and your mind.
So I’ve been learning to see by a different light, with different eyes. Emotional eyes. Might not be as bright a light, or illuminate things with such ice-cold clarity but it’s a hell of a lot warmer, and like the rays of the sun can actually sustain life.
Clarity is great but it ain’t everything. Especially when you have to maintain an intergalactic level of cold to achieve it.
What good is a clear undistorted view if you’re dead inside? You’re just a zombie with a really good view then. Big fucking deal.
And the world is so much bigger than what my poor reason can contain. No matter how bright I think my mind shines, it can only see the world in black and white, and life is a technicolor tapestry of such richness and vibrancy and life-sustaining sunshine that to think it is limited to what the bright white light can reveal is suicidally foolhardy.
Reality might be rational, but life definitely is not, and that’s an incredibly important distinction to draw. The darkness might be scary but that’s where all the light and love and happiness and fun and food for the spirit can be found, so I had better go out there and hang out long enough for my eyes to get used to the lack of light.
My soul has be starving for a very long time.
Time to find the feast and tuck in.
More after the break.
The Illusion of Self
Been reading I’m Not Really Here by Tim “The Toolman” Allen for the third or fourth time, and let me tell you, if you think he’s just some grunting idiot, this book will change your mind, as it’s an amazing and fascinating journey through mysticism, quantum theory, spirituality, philosophy, epistemology, and car repair.
Seriously. Read the book. Every time I read it I grow a little as a person.
Anyhow, in he, he mentions Tao and its theory of the illusion of the self, and this is an idea that absolutely does not compute from the point of view of Western culture with its emphasis on individualism, so I decided to take a shot at explaining it.
First off, nobody is saying that you, the person reading it, does not exist, or should not exist. That’s a common misinterpretation and it misses the point.
Where the error lies is in our idea of ourselves as individuals separate from the cosmos. We are individuals, yes – but also part of the cosmic whole.
At the same time.
It’s not as crazy as it sounds.
Imagine a tree. Now, look at a single leaf. You can easily identify it as one particular leaf. It is that leaf and no other. You could even name it if you like.
We’ll name it Erik.
And it would be easy for Erik to imagine itself as an individual, with all the glorious assertions of personhood that come with it.
I am Erik! Hear me roar!
But Erik is also connected to the tree by his stem. It is through this stem that he gets all he needs to live. As we all see every fall, without that connection he turns brown and dies. Yes, he contributes to the tree via photosynthesis, but the tree could do without him way easier than he could do without it.
View in this light, all of Erik’s assertions of autonomy and self-determination are ludicrous. He’s about as autonomous as a fetus. And no matter how much he rails against this fact, it remains true.
In other works, Erik is a libertarian.
Enlightenment comes when we acknowledge this truth and then look down and notice our own stems. And realize that we, too, are both individual and part of a greater whole, and because of this, we are never truly alone or apart, and that the things we think divide us are illusions created by the illusion of self.
This illusory self is not who we really are. It is no more real than our reflection in a mirror. We look at that reflection and recognize it as ourselves and indeed spend our entire lives saying “That’s me!”, but it isn’t.
It is the reflector, not that which is reflected.
Enlightenment, therefore, can also be see as what happens when we stop looking at reality through the false and distorted mirror of our illusory self and actually step away from the mirror and look at reality directly.
And when we can do this, far from losing ourselves, we become more ourselves than ever before because now the illusory self is gone and only the true self remains.
And we are filled with joy because all the tensions between our true selves and our false mirror image are gone and we can simply be who we are, just like we did when we were little children.
Then we are ready to receive the truth that we are all connected, that every other human is as much a part of you as your arm or your leg (or your stem), and that harmony is our natural condition and it is only illusions that drive us to view ourselves as separate entities at war with one another.
This is the spiritual and philosophical basis for universal humanism.
Glad ol’ Tim Allen Dick gave me an excuse to explain it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.