Thursday, November 01, 2007
One heaping helping of ignorance to go, please!
The nature of seeking "The Way", meaning my Way(as we are all seeking our own Way), is to understand that the only certainty is that in all actuality we have no fucking clue what our Way really is. I believe we find it in a subliminal, intuitive fashion, if we find it at all. This is why the how and why behind the progression from seeking to finding eludes our intellectual efforts. The paradoxical tap dance between seeking knowledge that is essentially unknowable is part of the journey. I have to constantly remind myself, no matter how confident or sure I may be, that my reality is predominantly ignorant, rather than enlightened. I know much less than I don't know, which is to say I am effectively ignorant, but where's the bliss? My concern is that I may be too ignorant or arrogant to learn my lessons and properly assimilate them into the core of who I am.
Were we all to conduct an audit of our worldly understanding, I have a feeling most, myself included, would be living under the auspices of incredibly oversimplified assumptions. For instance, my general opinion of humanity is cynical in nature, if not outright negative. I see the good in humanity as exceptional, and believe that most humans are creatures driven primarily by self-interest. Our species is prone to violence, cruelty, and exploitation. The proof is all around us, from our incredibly inadequate leadership, to the pervasive, vacuous mud puddle that is American(pop) culture; as a species we are very much the same as we were in the times of Egypt, Greece, or Rome. We have not evolved in any substantial fashion since the age of Sumerians. For all intents and purposes, I see our species as little more than the same savages that have been slaughtering one another since Mesopotamia, though we have refined our ability to destroy beyond almost anyone's imagination. In the West, we make violence less personal with technology, but that doesn't mean there aren't humans chopping one another to bits with machetes in places like Rwanda or Congo. Where we go radically astray is in believing that people like the Rwandans are a lower form of life because their life-taking is so brutal. Fact is, they are not using machetes because they are lower forms of life, they are using machetes because their access to machine guns and explosives is limited. They have no money, so they use the tools they have at hand. The end result is the same, even if the methodologies are different.
There is something to be learned in that. For all of our technological advances, we are still the same primitive, brutal, nasty species we have been since the first Homo Sapiens stood upright. If science and monotheism are correct, we are all distant products of ancient incest. Many modern scientists, according to articles I have read, believe the Homo Sapiens evolutionary process began with a single mother. The world's dominant monotheist religions are founded on the Adam and Eve story as related in Genesis. One mother begetting 6+ billion offspring…creepy, yet, here we are. And you would think that this would humble us, but its effect is actually the exact opposite. We are the rulers of this world. We claim ownership of the land, the sea, and the air. Our species covers nearly every habitable acre of land on the Earth's surface. If you can build a house and/or sustain life there, someone will go, to be followed shortly thereafter by a Wal-Mart and a CVS.
So how does the inbred offspring of a thousand incestuous generations find his or her Way through the morass? Simple, we make it up as we go along. I have my version of existence, you have yours, and the next person in line has theirs. We are making it up. If our minds are processing data and we are acting on that data with no input from our spiritual selves, or without considering our spirit at all, we are living in a completely detached state of reality created entirely within our minds. We are not tied to reality as it is, we are tied to reality as we want or believe it to be. So we live our illusions of superiority and pseudo-godliness, but all the while, we are still several evolutionary advances short of being what we imagine ourselves to be. This doesn't stop us from pretending, and our species certainly has no trouble acting as if we know, that we are certain, of the causation behind our here and now, but I return to my initial point: we don't know shit.
Right now, I'm feeling particularly ignorant. My body is tired, lack of sleep is leaving me mentally weary, and loneliness is nipping at my heels continuously of late. I wonder if I am not chasing rainbows, or if all of this thinking and hoping and work will one day result in some form of contentedness. For now, I find myself pursuing people and ideals that seem unattainable, in hopes that the pursuit will one day lead me to where I am supposed to be. I dream of a safe, loving, healthy niche in the greater space of chaos and disease, even as I question components of my own mental state and capabilities. I know that I am little more than an ignorant monkey, but can't help hoping that I might one day be a wizened owl. Most of all, I am tired of seeking alone, but remain aware that in this I am nearly powerless. They say ignorance is bliss, but I'm more inclined to think that it may be our Way of living, but that seems to rarely be touched by bliss.
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Now playing: Alice In Chains - God Am
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Labels: life
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