Ground Zero
With mind becoming conscious of itself as separate from its environment logic seemed to evolve naturally as a tool to fix contradictions and to help navigate existing gaps in our knowledge. Thus man created in his mind a representation of life and reality that made sense by the standards of his own reasoning, however limited it may eventually turn out to be …
The standards by which we try to make sense are constructs of our mental facilities, and these, neuroscientists have come to concede, are determined by our emotional make-up. Someone whose emotional conditioning is different will live in a different world. This is the deeper meaning of reality being relative. We don’t inhabit a linear matrix of equal distances, but a rather spongy and unreliable bubble gum multiverse of potentials and possibilities that change as we evolve …
Would it have been possible for the mind to become aware of itself without applying solid, rigid logic or was this the first step by necessity? And what is going to be the next evolutionary move?
Consciousness was gained by separating the mind from the body; thus it simulated its own absence from the world it assumes to be inhabiting. The conscious mind is a mirror reflecting on itself, a metaphysical version of Narcissos, and regenerating its own absence within the momentum of becoming aware of itself. Being and reflecting occurring within the same fractured moment, split up into a subject and its object; a paroxysm of tautology in progress …
To remove ourselves from the place and time we inhabit was the reason why man took refuge in symbols to represent reality and ourselves. We have turned ourselves into symbols that anyone may scrutinize and manipulate at random. Mankind and mind came to in this chasm that separates reality from its representations, subject from object, body from mind, and feeling from reason. Since then, man is spinning and reeling as he tries in vain to bridge the chasm between being and understanding. Consciousness is our primal wound, the stigma of man’s quest to know and understand. It has alienated us from life, reality and ourselves …
The chasm is at the heart of who we perceive as our self. We ARE the chasm, the broken mirror that reflects itself. We are Narcissos who has drowned in his own reflection. So enamored with his own perception that he doesn’t care to look beyond, and to hear Echo, the nymph who is calling and pining for him. Thus man as a representative of Narcissos has become blind to anything beyond his own limited range of consciousness and awareness …
Without the chasm, our primal wound of alienation, we wouldn’t know the difference between ME and YOU and US. Every attempt at healing the wound will only cause further disruptions and more complex reasoning, but no reasoning can heal the wound. Mind‘s logic has outdistanced itself, and we are spinning out of orbit. Maybe the time has come to abandon the linear grid of logic, its constructs and assumptions …
The recurring pattern is that we first have to get lost and be absent from what is going on to make the next big thing happen. And the chasm is where it happens, the in-between, the wound of innocence betrayed and abandoned. Whatever the next level of awareness is going to be, the body is ground zero; the battlefield where the pain is felt that tells us what is what; where to go and what to avoid. And reality will emerge from the purple haze of our emotional responses, not from logical reasoning …
Logic has made man cruel. The claim of an absolute truth serves as an excuse for murder, war, terror and torture. Once we accept ourselves as emotional and vulnerable beings, we may learn to live with the differences that set us apart and show kindness and compassion where reasoning fails us. And we may learn to appreciate the differences rather than the common denominators …
