unhinging the machine of perception lets in more light, leads to doom

*

Alan Watts points out that we tend to think, speak, and grapple with ideas in a fairly linear fashion. This, then that, then the next thing. Like beads on a necklace.

But the universe, our surroundings, come at us from all directions all at once. Each event is myriad and inseperable from the others.

If we were to attempt to describe a single event, or even a single item, completely, it would take us until the end of time. Because it is so incredibly rich, and so complex, and so interwoven that we could never stop pulling apart the little beads that make it up. And our minds go one bead at a time.

We cannot apprehend holistically.


*

Christine said that the limitations of our senses in a sense define who we are, or at least out experience of who we are, and I guess her argument might be that if we alter the framework of the senses we can't help but change the experience of who we are- that is, we wouldn't be who we are if it weren't for how we come to understand our surroundings.

Yes, yes.


And of course, we are limited. Our senses act as filters, strong, powerful filters, because we lack the processing power to deal with the sheer amount of raw data we'd be faced with if our filters were more flimsy. Right?

Is that madness? Some breakdown in the filter? More likely that it is the opposite condition, a filter that is too good at filtering out what we might call 'objective reality' in favor of the rich, recursive workings of the filter mechanism itself.

*

So I endeavor to whang away at the corners of the machine in the hopes of cracking open a seam or two. Let in some light. Of course, I could discover too late that I am a kind of a submarine, in which case the last you'll hear from me is the groans and creaks and booms of my shell collapsing in on itself as it falls through the great dark depths. Thanks to the monkey in the engine room breaking off the knobs and popping loose the hull rivets.


down and down we go....




*


I don't know why I refuse to respond to any comments right now, but I seem to be adamant about it. I hope that you'll forgive my rudeness. I don't intend it as rudeness, but I know that it is nonetheless.

Like you, I am an odd little ball of contradictions and shortcomings.



***

Namaste.