A four letter word... (1998)

 The meaning of life is a riddle rife with problems leading in circles and countless questions. Perhaps this is part of what life is, this maze of intricate interconnections not really relating to what can be known and explained in any simple terms.  Or not.

    Life is a four-letter word in English that means, among other things, having the capacity for growth, functional activity, reproduction, and continual change until death.  That does not even begin to explore the marvelous mystery of what life is, where it came from and how it works.  When you add consciousness to this, the mystery becomes even more profound and complex.

        Life is, apparently for beings of complex consciousness, also about finding meaning. This need is inherent and innate.  The drive to create and embellish meaning and to fit answers with problems, and models with theories, seems to be just a part of what humans do. 

    In the many centuries when the Native American tribes lived in and on the land, this need seemed to exist without the accompanying modern need of making physical changes to the land and conquering all life forms on Earth, in the water and flying in the skies.  Meaning could be found without making one type of life superior to any other.  Respect was given to the Great Mystery and the living system continued on in the way that it did naturally for thousands of years.  Great attention was paid to what things would be like for people seven generations into the future.  The true wealth and legacy of a people was the environment and nature.

    Life is precious.  Life is not guaranteed.  The systems that brought life into being work in ways which humans do not understand.  The rhetoric of pretense that modern people have an understanding or mastery over the natural environment is a completely false system.  Living on rhetoric is like eating money.  Believing in modern knowledge is like breathing air from a tank.  Trusting that popular science, philosophy and religion to fix the current problems on Earth is like taking a drink of water from an image of a river from a movie screen.  Nature is lost in it.

    Emotions, feelings, moods, and mental process are integral parts of life, science, grand unified theories, paintings, seeing and believing.  In discussing these topics, it is natural to become emotional and feel anger, fear, confusion, doubt, or incredulity, etc.  Life is emotional, mysterious, and marvelous.  And life is rife with confusion.

    One of the problems with this whole adventure is that there seems to be a problem with a thing investigating itself.  Humans thinking about and defining what it is humans are is fraught with deception in a vicious circle with invisible perils.  Consciousness defining consciousness cannot result in a prefect question or answer.  Room for eternal mystery and flexibility for the unknown is essential.

 

     “Human beings have for a long time been concerned about transforming their minds.  But may I ask: is there any way in which one’s mind can be transformed, or is it simply a process that is nothing more than a vicious circle?  In so many people’s minds there is an urgent feeling that “I must improve me,” there is obvious difficulty that if I am in need of improvement, the “I” who is going to do the improving is the one who needs to be improved; and there, immediately, we have a vicious circle.”

                      (The Way of Liberation, Alan Watts)

  How then does consciousness effectively focus upon itself in such a way as to make relevant observation and meaningful interpretation?  It’s a trick inside a puzzle seen through a kaleidoscope.  This book is a strange collection of things in perhaps an odd pattern to be wandered through as the reader sees fit.  In the process, the usual manner of digesting information or supporting core principles may not work out.  This is good. 

 

 It is the theory that determines what we can see.

                                                                  - Albert Einstein

   The first step may be to realize, in theory, that you are secretly more than you know, perhaps even beyond anything you've thus far imagined and that the true reality of everything is something weve not yet put our fingers on.

   Sometimes, in the midst of the struggle to be ones own true self, especially in the face of pressures to fit into the molds of work, family, relationship, and society in general, etc., there is little or no room to ponder the bigger picture, or seek the truth beyond what is before us everyday, and outside what we are told and taught about life and the universe.

   We are given so many truths and facts to deal with, some upon which our very lives may depend, that our minds and hearts become literally occupied by this massive bank of ideas, rules, laws, pictures, and instructions leaving little space for anything else.  It becomes possible for us to end up somewhere we would never have gone if we were in our right mind or free to be our true and authentic selves, instead of walking a tight rope requiring all of our skill, focus and attention. 

  Why could it be true that making a living is killing us?  Where did we become so lost as to lose the very power to see and know who we are and what we are actually doing in the world?  Who made up the rules, and what were they thinking?