It strikes me as simply an awareness, and a rather unsettling one at that. To me (and many others) this has been blatantly obvious for decades, but it has been argued recently in popular media that we have more 'senses' than the five we are taught in grade school. This happens to fit nicely with a theory I have written about previously regarding a much deeper collective connectedness, consciousness...which we all share.
I love this quote from the movie 'The Matrix' as it seems perfectly suited to this notion:
Morpheus: "...Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there is something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."
I'd love to quote historical literature but I'm finding fewer people are aware of it. not that I don't need to return to rereading those books myself. So - this is a solid example of that which popular culture has always sought to explain in these extra-sensory perceptions all of us experience. I say all of us because I truly believe we all do, just to various extents for various reasons. Some of them are dead on, in my opinion, as with a Buddhist Monk named Guanyin Bodhisattva I met at the Palace of Fine Arts here in San Francisco last summer. Some are just the flailings of those who hope to control others and/or their resources. It has much to do with how well we know ourselves and our motivations.
People to some degree partake in the entire spectrum of attention, whether they are aware of it or not. Some pay extremely precise, focused, almost obsessive attention to almost everything in their environment at all times. Others bury as much of it as they can for any one of hundreds of (clinical?) reasons; it can be a matter of personal survival, either physically or psychologically or even both. Of course, health in one begets health in the other and we all need that internal symbiosis to thrive and not just survive.
One need not have an amazing attention span nor go any further than the front page of any media outlet to find plenty of bad news. You need to dig for anything heartening, which is likely why the world gravitates to baby animals. 'Because puppies' as it were. We need them for our own survival...? I also find it interesting that www.goodnews.com is a virtually useless redirect site. Doesn't anyone else think this could be put to much better use? I have the feeling it could get a monumental amount of traffic from those looking for something good happening on the planet. www.goodnews.org is, well...meh. Pity.
I'm finding it difficult to evade another quote that crops up immediately as I write that, again from The Matrix (damn those siblings Wachowski for putting things so succinctly):
Agent Smith: "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
This was horrifyingly poignant to me when I heard that line in the theatre for the first time back in 1999. It may be said hundreds or thousands of times over in different ways over the course of history, and often is, as we all know how history repeats itself, but many times it takes a very specific situation for something to truly resonate with a specific person or being. Baby steps of true progress? Of course, a bit off-topic, this is why test taking the way we know it is patently unproductive. You can take a single person, have them study a subject, then test them on it after changing their environment, everything from blood sugar to emotional stress to banding a dozen live cell phones to their cranium. They'll perform well or poorly depending on how well they are adapted to cope with any specific effects or stressors. Anyone out there want to volunteer to test that last notion for a week?
But - there are two important pieces at work here. The first is that I don't completely agree that people "define their reality through suffering and misery". I believe that is what many of us are dialed in to, subconsciously, as a method of keeping tabs on those areas that need more effort, more assistance. We are organic, problem-solving machines of immense possibility, but with the advent of increased life spans, advances in basic needs as well as in medical technology allowing for rampant overpopulation we've become far more competitive with each other en masse than ever before. Thankfully there is a massive trend toward cooperation again. The oddest thing to me is that, even with the advent of the Internet, people are having trouble finding or joining something that resonates with them. Why they don't is another good question that has everything to do with their own diminishing self-worth. Have I nothing to contribute? I do feel like people are learning how to adapt and create a functionally effective balance within their own lives and spheres of influence.
The second is that I love the statement "The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from." I love this. Almost every socio-anything thought I have contains the notion of how primitive our brains currently are, and, almost incredibly, the notion that we are not remotely the most evolved species on the planet. We are the most technologically advanced, and that is it (As far as we know, anyway...I just watched Star Trek IV again the other night). How can the written word even begin to compare with the idea of mental telepathy (or brain-to-brain communication) in terms of physiological advancement and evolution of a species? Sure, we can now apparently pull it off, but not without additional tools (Dreamscape, anyone?). In any case, we have to do the best we can; these growing pains will always be there in some form. Thankfully? Where would we be without painful lessons and challenges? Billions sitting comfortably where they are most happy with a favorite food, drink, friend, living harmoniously with the multiverse? Yeah, forget I said that...we'll find a way to make solar-sailboarding an extreme sport one of these days. Soon.
It is as if the entire current iteration of our species as homo sapiens sapiens is evolving much along the lines of Hindu (or any of many other cyclic life/death play-til-you-get-it-right philosophies and religions) reincarnation, stepping forward from our ancestors homo sapiens idaltu. You cycle through birth and death until you get it right and reach the next stage of 'enlightenment', whatever that might be. I prefer to believe it is just an endless series of obstacles to surmount. At any rate, this makes me want to delve back into a bit more anthropology and see what that threshold's crossing meant to us and with what effects. Bigger brains have apparently figured measurably into the equation, and oh, boy, does that fit in with how I believe things are happening (if you partake in my theory that our brains are just 'wireless' antennas of an organic sort). Although, at the end of the day, I'm also working out how I might shoot down part of my own theory, and it has something to do with size being of any remote importance. Of course, that is partly because I have a huge skull...meaning it is either full of a huge brain or just a thick shield of bone protecting an almond. In either case, it is still just mostly empty space. Or dark matter...?! *I just had a thought as I proofread this before publishing and I'm wondering...if brain size comes into play, how might it be of any importance? Ideas? Larger brains bring breath of understanding and/or interests, generalist intellect, global perspective? Where smaller brains exhibit a far more focused understanding in specific niches? Now, of course, I do believe any brain can be trained positively or negatively by whatever it is exposed to.
This seeming increase in unrest we've been witnessing comes in waves; it appears to have a tide, a pulse of its own. It ebbs and flows. Now, I would say, as many others would, it always has, but the extremes are getting more pronounced. Higher peaks, deeper troughs, steeper transitions due to what appear to be higher frequency. Even the planet is becoming more manic if you will, as a result of our festering activities, the most obvious observable measure being increasingly extreme weather. I am also a devout proponent of some of the conditions involving the frequency of the planet. Most of us can personally handle the 'occasional' low and we use those 'occasional' highs to lift us up and give us more to look forward to. There has always been a balance of sorts. But, with so many environmental maladies on the rise - overpopulation, electromagnetic radiation, pollution in many forms affecting water, food, atmosphere...it appears we are pushing our environment to change faster than we are able to adapt to it. Whether out of ability or desire, it is still up to us. I believe we're capable but we've got to find a salve for the wounds we experience as we claw our way forward. A teenager growing a foot in two years is going to feel excruciating pain but we're adaptable enough to survive it. Sure, grinning and bearing things will work, but effective physical and emotional nutrition can make it so much less interruptive.
I just daydreamed this comical image of Earth trying to scratch and brush off this annoying growth of living things called 'humans' that are irritating her. Makes me itch. I should really take a shower as I've been thinking and writing all morning.
Which brings me to what I've been witnessing in people in general, especially since my move from Seattle to San Francisco. I'll leave my impressions of this city for another article, but it is the density of people that has gotten to me. We all have a general idea about the health of those around us as we keep tabs on things, often subconsciously. Many of us are too distracted, purposefully or not, to pay any real attention and actually do something with that information (like give in to a compulsion to write a book or blog article about it!). Some of us, myself included, are hypersensitive to the health of those around us. This is partly why I dropped the idea of getting my M.D. after somewhere between six and seven years of college - and toward the end I was told by a good friend and mentor (and ex-Chicago Memorial Anaesthesiologist...though he hadn't a clue how an internal combustion engine worked, which in itself fascinated me) that "with your personality you'll be brilliant, but alcoholic, drug-addicted and dead by age 55". The idea of losing a patient crushes me even to this day. That and the fact I didn't enjoy the political implications of such a career choice and I had at that time not the developed constitution necessary to take on those who cared more about their golf game than their patients.
We all survive any way we know how. But our beloved Robin Williams ended his own life far too early this last year. I happened to love his take on golf as well...
Pardon me a moment while I again flatly fail to cope with his loss. Our loss.
If he can't shake this, what chance do the rest of us really have? Some chalk it up to depression, alcoholism, addiction, but in my mind this it is plainly obvious that the latter are just well-known forms of self-medication due to the depression brought on by...something. A tremor...a malaise. A global interruption of some signal. In this case people are suffering increasingly the world over. Not all, mind you, but the great majority, and it extends to all other living things. Call it Lucas' 'Force' if you will, and trillions of voices are crying out in terror. We've always sought each other out, and this new, insanely rapid onset of interpersonal disconnectedness is something our physiology was not prepared for. We crave each others' proximity, attention, love. We're not getting it, not like we used to, or at least getting less of it. Being 'Liked' has become a woefully inadequate surrogate for being with each other. In general, of course. We do hang on in smaller groups, but whether we like it or not we're still subconsciously aware of the rest of those who are suffering. And this apathy that has been spreading is exacerbating things to an alarming extent. I find myself fighting it constantly, and it takes discipline, resolve. Not to mention all the crazy, new EM radiation we're producing is at the very least weakening and thus disturbing the bonds of our chemical makeup if not outright ionizing and thus breaking them. Read any of your cellular equipment contracts online and do a quick search for 'ionizing'. That's for yet another article.
It also occurs to me that these effects are very likely vastly different depending on local cultures in varying geographic regions around the planet. Some communities are far more adapted to working together for the good of everyone and everything, at least in the vicinity.
OT: It is interesting that as I took a lunch break I happened across this TED talk and watched it while eating my salad (a few days ago).
What is this uneasiness? We will figure it out, but for now here's a puppy (from Swanta, Nepal).
©2015 Michael Pichahchy
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