I’ve been reading some very interesting material lately, material on matter that’s piqued my curiosity over the last eight years or so. Stuff on the nature of consciousness, the role of the brain in all this, the relation of mind to brain, the legitimacy of free will etc etc etc there, now you have some context.
Here’s what gets me: I LOVE reading this material. It is absolutely fascinating. Wholly engrossing. And fundamentally important to my life. But whenever I consider these insights, some of which I’ve read before, their effects don’t last. My mind might be blown apart, but it stitches itself back together pretty nicely, and actually remarkably quickly, so fast that the insights’ impression turns out in the long run to be negligible. This is a sad fact.
Rather than attack my own hilarious lack of determination and diligence, I want to ask a question, of you, and of me: Just how deep are these mental ruts? What would my field of vision be without these apparent blinders on? How high are the walls that abut this track I’m on? I wonder if my mental volition is most like a train rolling on through a desert, on a set track through wide open wilderness — or is it like a train going through the Chunnel, with so little room to err that not to keep moving would induce claustrophobia, or worse — or is it not like a train at all, more like a car, or rickshaw, locomoting about willy-nilly as long as there is some engine to drive it — or is it a slot car… my own mind under its own spell… seduced by the illusion of freedom of the open road, all the while tethered to a track.
Blowing the mind apart and then stitching it back together: I too love to treat my brain that way, and I try to do it as often as I can. I bet all that mindf*ckery is much more effective than you may realize, though…whatever doesn’t totally annihilate your brain only makes it stronger, and whatnot…
And if you’re going to compare your consciousness to a vehicle, why choose a vehicle like a train or a slot car that only moves in two dimensions (more or less)? I recommend thinking like a space shuttle. There’s a lot more freedom of movement, and if you ever feel the need for some stability, you can just orbit a nearby planet and mooch off its gravity for a while.
Good point. That’s my failing, precisely – if the space shuttle is the interdimensional ideal, I’m way behind the curve on this one, hemming myself into one measly set of opposites, so focused on being “ahead” or “behind” that if I were to drop the blinders and look around I’d surely see I’m not held back by anything but my own methods of thinking about myself and the world, if there is a difference.
Speaking of dimensions, next time you have a few spare minutes to blow your mind out of the water, you should check out this nifty little video on the tenth dimension (if you haven’t already):
http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php
Howdy dkm,
Ruts works for me. That seems to be the pattern that “learning” follows throughout the system. Habits keep us following a proven behavior(path), until some influence pushes us out of our rut. That influence can be internal or external, but the final choice to change course is always our free will in action.
The depth of the rut results from how many times that behavior has been tagged “successful” by the system. It is the same as practice.
Seems to me that this pattern of learning shows up everywhere.
cheers,
jim
Well stated, Jim. I like the quotation marks around successful – makes me think of the line, “If you’ve tried to fail and succeeded, which have you done?” Seems to me success isn’t necessarily “good,” depending on that for which one strives. I suppose at the beginning of any endeavor the focus has to be on the goal, expectations and reality be damned.
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