Rambling, 'on the outside, looking in.'

My perspective has always been fundamentally foreign to most, even my own family and friends. I’m normal enough, so that I’ve been able to go with the flow. It is easier than constantly swimming against convention and expectations, and it was natural enough being part of our living moments since I do like/love people well enough.

Yet, I was always keenly aware that a part of me was “on the outside looking in” striving to make sense of the moment, and of me, myself, and by extension other people, and also making sense of this world we exist within, and how it came into being.

I was extraordinarily lucky in that, by four years old, through a moment of serendipity in the hands of a wise mom, that natural human God fixation was blown away by an overwhelming sense of “A speck of dust that wanted to be more.” - this conception/challenge transformed my awareness into a personal challenge to be more, to experience life to the best of my abilities and luck. Big dreams for a poor boy from inner Chicago, destined for the factories.

In hindsight, that little revelation sure beat a lifetime of religious self flagellation, confusion and ultimately stagnation.

Not that I didn’t do some serious experimenting with religion and traditional expectations in my teens and twenties.

Nor did excursions into philosophical traditions do much to answer my questions, well, they created new questions for every one they answered. With time philosophical stuff started feeling more like variations on human self-worship than serious exploration - I say this because modern popular philosophy (with few exceptions) continues to fail to incorporate biological and evolutionary reality into their understanding of human consciousness and our “human condition,” in favor of imaginative flights of fancy - and because of their worshipping “progress” despite all the destruction it is leading to.

Looking back from 69, it’s no wonder that philosophy got humanity nowhere when it came to dealing with Earthling’s ultimate existential challenge - that is acquiring a sense of self, if for no other reason than to learn to self-regulate ourselves and our biological compulsion to self-destructive gluttony, enough to accommodate the long term nurturing of this planet Earth’s biosphere (not to mention increased personal health). In order to encourage the survival of Earth’s life support systems, the stuff we and future existence depends on.

I appreciate this is harsh and I’m not even a college grad, WTF?
Well I dare, because when I bring up the pragmatic biological reality that our consciousness is produced by our body processing input from outside and inside the body. Silence. I get nods and blank stares as they back away.

I mean what’s up with that?

I only compound the problem by pointing out, you are the cumulative result of half a billion years worth of an unbroken bloodline. And it matters to you, more than you dare imagine.

I imagine it’s so touchy because the next self evident conclusion from the above, is that our body produces our own emotions and ideas and beliefs.

Meaning we create our own Gods and our own science, etc.

The difference between the two is that one is all about our human Ego/spirit and inner dramas, while the other one strives to confine itself to learning about Physical Reality, stuff that we can witness and measure and repeat. Science is a process and set of rules dedicated to removing as much of human ego/emotion/faith from its deliberations as possible. Still it is a mental process originating within one’s own living body interacting with observations and data.

Religion and Gods are all about inner convictions and ego and emotions and dealing with our human foreknowledge of death. Gods reflect our sensibilities, because we (individually and collectively) create our own God’s in our own image. Gods belong to the meta-physical realm, which is a product of our human mind.

End of that story. So simple, so straight-forward, so self-evidence. Yet avoided like a zit on yo nose.

Then comes Earth’s story, that one is a total mindblower, and with more chapters and consilient complexity than can be read and learned about in any life time.

Oh dear, and this was supposed to be about a sense of self.

Funny that, I started this because I was wondering how many people lost their childish desire to ponder such foundational questions, who am I, why am I, where did this world come from?

And I wonder about that because it seems to me, my musing about my self, origins, place in the world, have been a constant throughout my life.

Which I reckon is one reason why I feel I can write about this with a sense of inner security that only walking the walk can provide. It’s a good thing too, because as I withdraw myself from news and current events, it opens up more opportunities to get back to ponder about my self and the moments and the people and creatures in my life.

As I steel myself for the moon only knows what kinds of disruptions and destruction and evolving horrors this new MAGA Administration has in store for our society. Of course, there’s also the comfort that in the end, the peaceful sleep of death awaits me.