Man Versus…

(philosophy except from www.vicerolives.com)

Through history humanity has fought to survive. Whether the antagonist has been the environment, animals or other people does not change man’s adversarial relationship to the world. The constant struggle and strife of survival is something which ingrains in us our spirits and makes the dawning sun relevant. I have seen many, many vantages of life from hunger to war, loneliness and companionship. My experiences have taught me invaluable lessons which I would like to share with you shortly but first I must speak of my intentions. I am a man of subtle humility as you will read; I may, at times, fall prey to vanity. It is a flaw which resonates my imperfect humanity.

Truth be told, we are always most excited to talk of ourselves simply because we are the experts of ourselves.   With this let me concede to a moment of humility and state that I am no more perfect than anyone else. I do, however, possess a talent which makes my perspective, and this book, unique. You see, my talent is for observation and deduction; for taking seemingly inane objects, behaviors and symbols and uncovering relevant patterns rarely seen. It is a fixation of curiosity, imagination and downright intellectual gluttony which tempts my mental wanderlust nearly to the point of insanity. This unique perspective can, at times, make the world into a perversion such as when I wonder if the trees outside are actually upside down (It could stand to reason, seeing as their drinking and eating organs are actually under-ground).

“Truth be told, we are always most excited to talk of ourselves simply because we are the experts of ourselves.”

Even as I write this I must be careful not to fall into the abyss of my own head. Just know that my mind is unrestrained by logic, and that it is voracious in its passion for entertainment, and that it is only entertained by the mysteries and puzzles of anything and everything. My loving wife has been witness to the mental trappings to which I am frequently confined. It is hopefully easy to appreciate the beauty and complexity of my talent from afar. Few people will ever truly understand the difficulty that has contributed to this grand opus of mine. I tell her that there are times when my mind is a storm and I must apply all of my effort to maintain the structures and my faculties lest the roaring wind rip apart my sanity. The truth here is that my head is not the calmest of places and so I must be vigilant in assuring my foundation does not weaken. This foundation is one of several pillars, namely the discipline of my father, the understanding of my adoptive mother, the warmth of my birth mother, the love of my siblings and above all the devotion and strength of my wonderful wife. At the times I am most lost among the storm, she is the shining light that guides me back home and kisses each new scar. So where do I go when I venture forth? Why don’t I stay

“Where it is safe? Well it is no less than a compulsion, an inner obligation to see that which I alone have been destined to see, with eyes only I possess. To sedate my mind would be like sedating my legs at the foot of a path only I was meant to walk.”

 This is a path of understanding, an understanding found by asking questions no one has ever asked. The answers that I find along this path are not just for my gain but for the whole of humanity. This lofty goal, assuredly, reeks of grandeur but I write this with the purest motivation.

A good thing done for any reason still begets a result of good things. It is with this in mind that I willfully succumb to the volatility of the unknown realms of the mind and fight my way back, and present to you my findings. The unknown of the mind is quite a paradox. Simply put, how can a person find answers where questions do not readily exist? The answer lies in the idea that not every question that exists has been previously asked. The trick, then, becomes finding the unasked questions. As an example; it is not uncommon to wonder “Why do I exist?” a question with an indefinite answer. What if instead we asked “What does my existence accomplish?” or instead “Why do I want to exist?” These questions are finite, because we can answer them with certainty after deep introspection. It is only through introspection, and answering finite questions, that I (we) can move forward. The answers found may lead to bigger answers or more complex questions but always forward, even when I (we) must reassess questions I (we) had previously answered. This is movement in the unknown and may even allude to navigation. The second step becomes developing motivation, or “the potential which becomes movement.” The problem with movement is that it mandates the utilization of some means of propulsion. Just like learning to use one’s legs to walk using muscles and sinew, it is also necessary to learn mobilization of the mind using words. I had to relearn what I thought I’d known about words in order to use them properly for this task.

“And so, my first question became “what is the nature of words?” from which I learned that words are tools that we use to convey ideas and emotions to one another. Mobilization had slowly begun to take place as I came to another question. “What of infants whom do not possess language? How do they have thoughts that are not structured into words?”

And so, my first question became “what is the nature of words?” from which I learned that words are tools that we use to convey ideas and emotions to one another. Mobilization had slowly begun to take place as I came to another question. “What of infants whom do not possess language? How do they have thoughts that are not structured into words?” from which I realized that infants do not think in words because they have no use of expression beyond what emotions can convey. This lead to a gradual appreciation for the inadequacy of language simply for necessitating and entire conversation in order to express what one could convey with a single tear. Words are simply the tools commonly used to express emotions. This is because they require very little insight to formulate. As such it becomes possible to use words clumsily and inefficiently, using too many, or too few, words to express oneself. While the “on demand” usefulness of language assures its place as necessary in society, language itself is a necessary evil that commonly clouds and confounds true expression. It is my wish that by the end of this experience we can say we’ve shared a moment, an emotional exchange. I shall do my best to convey that which I feel so that you can understand as I understand, if for nothing more than the novelty of the brief experience. That which I wish to convey to you is that “The beauty and majesty of life is the growth of nature.” I’ve spoken previously about the adversarial relationship that man has with the world. To understand that which man struggles against I had to ask more questions and I found many answers in my study of psychology. Perhaps the most notable question I asked was “What is the world?” Even reflection on the question itself hinted to progress and so I asked “Why is the intangible world referred to the same way one would refer to a tangible object?” The answer to such a question seemed “We ask ‘what is the world’ because it is indeed an object. While not a physical one per se, it is an object none the less.” I was intrigued that the mind identifies the intangible world as a place in which we exist; however, seemed to understand it also as an object, implying manifestation of design. “But who’s design?” I asked. “Your design. As you get older and freer to make choices, you are more able to impact your world. You choose your meals, your clothes, your friends, and your career and eventually everything becomes the result of a choice you’ve made at some point. This is your design, piece by piece.”

From this I learned that the truth about the world is that it is an object which represents the canvas upon which humanity innately creates an expression of self. Man creates but is not creation, and so the adversary is not as simple as death. If man’s central purpose is the action of creation, then the opposition to that would be the inability to create. When faced with a world that poses a risk of his fertility man reacts to the adversary with pure emotions, namely fear and aggression. These emotions surface as we prepare to do battle, inwardly, with that which threatens us. Humans naturally use these emotions in tandem to defeat the perceived adversary. Innately, people are afraid of limitations, and act aggressively towards those things which impose limitations. This emotional reflex is in response to being presented with a situation that makes us unable to create, express or exist. Describing this concept is perhaps the most difficult and important of my efforts. The complexity comes from attempting to quantify that which ceases to exist once it is quantified, being that the “un” would necessitate something being placed upon nothingness and that “something” would immediately also become nothing. The result is like attempting to place a drop of water on a river. The “un” by my definition is that which is illogical, unpredictable, and infinitely fluid in being both everything and nothing at the same time. It can, in fact, only be logically entertained as the thin layer of reality that exists on the surface of matter between the material from which it is made and the light that shines upon it, lending it to human awareness. Removing the light shone upon an object does not remove from its existence, only removes it from our awareness. A leaf which has had the light (symbolic of human awareness) removed from it still exists. The “un” is imposed upon and its form becomes indiscernible from the “un” imposed upon all other things that exist in the same “un” state regardless of physical location or perhaps even moment in time; however, the leaf itself is no less existent than those things that exist within human awareness. The only difference is no awareness is projected upon the object. If your curiosity of such a state is stimulated but not sated, I will cover it again, but for now know that fear is in response to the possibility of being subjected to this state. This is because there is a naturally fundamental tie between the physical existence and the metaphysical.

An example of this is the fear of being alone in life. It is not the fear of being physically in a place where no one else exists, but the emotional feeling of not existing within the awareness of another person. To feel that no one is aware of our existence reminds us of the “un” in making us feel that we are no more valid (or worthy) of existence than any other object. This place which feels emotionally “dark” lacks time, logic, hope, past and future because it is the “un” state. The only thing that exists there is the knowledge that one is there. This is the same fear as death, which in itself is not a scary state, but it is the transition to the state of death which is uncomfortable. Dying brings us face to face with the possibility of being “un” done either as a result of life ending or the overwhelming emotions brought upon by the knowledge of imminent death unraveling the mind. Death is the great undone, but it is not the most powerful fear. The most powerful fear is the one that controls your life. This is because it limits the choices you have an opportunity to make. By limiting in this way, the most powerful fear is the one that hinders fertility. In prose, I will state that humans are incapable of fearing the state of death, only the moment when life ends and death begins. Why is fertility such a large issue to the human psyche? The answer is simply that to be done implies something exists to accomplish the doing. It’s an age old question that everyone asks at one time or another and yet the answer never really satisfies. “Where do babies come from?” The simple question leads to simple answers about birds and bees and so we practice the simplification of a miracle. When we ask the question in respect to such a grand miracle the difficulty becomes apparent. Changing the question slightly to “How does life begin?” we uncover a drastic change in logic and a question that perplexes mankind the world over. Again I will state that the beauty and majesty of life is the growth of nature. The drive of man is the understanding of this truth, to participate in it, and to eventually become the facilitator of it. To bask in the glory of nature. This drive is imbued in humanity because humans are natural entities, a fact that tends to escape the modern world. More than social commentary, it is true that humanity has lost its roots within the natural world and so the stage is set for the great adversarial struggle that is the human condition. The great struggle that exists inside the core of humanity is the imposed obligation to sublimate natural imperatives into the structures of a logical reality. This reality represents not the canvas upon which humanity ascribes itself, but instead the limited dimensions of the canvas. This is the struggle of man versus machine, fluid versus vessel or infinite choice versus limited options. In this way the boundless potential of creation opposes the boundaries of what we know as reality. While reality is a factor which represents limitations we must be careful not to think of it as “negative” or bad. Only understand that reality is the equal, and yet opposite, energy potential of fertility. Any two energies with opposing potentials will conflict with one another. Light in a room will attempt to spread evenly throughout it, water in a glass will lie level inside it. This is because balance is the goal of all things natural. While these are examples of elementary physics they apply to all natural things to include the intangible emotional environment. While the senses are used to observe the discrepancies of tangible potentials, the discrepancies of emotional inbalances can only be observed through introspection.