Grateful Just To Be...

What a miracle life is...

I’m listening now to Robert Anton Wilson:

It’s one of my joys to pass on the life and works of those who have gone on before. My hope is that it is read, heard, and resonates. The greatest gift is when someone passes on what I’ve passed to them.

A few minutes ago, I learned that a young woman who is recovering from surgery is back in the hospital with a high fever. We should all be grateful if we aren’t suffering from potentially terminal illness. I know I am. I know a fellow who beat stage 4 cancer against all odds. One never knows. I am walking through life knowing that I came very close to dying at 33 myself. It’s a temp job, to be sure. I sent my friend this:

My aim is to provide some comfort. Odette provided some to my late father by doing “distance Reiki” and I know it did no harm and might actually have helped. We are all suffering and I use mine to remind me that I am still in the game. The game is called “Beat The Reaper” and the Reaper always wins in the end…so far.

Immortality

Being or, more properly, seeming to be appears to me to be incredibly unlikely and significant. We now know that we are in an unexceptional star system within an unexceptional galaxy in an inconceivably large universe. Having emerged from the Pleroma, that emanation of the Monad, we are destined to return to it.

However, having taken on the appearance of existence, we cannot go back to having not ever existed. We are, therefore, immortal even as the world tends to fill in the space where we were remarkably quickly. We resist that awareness - that of our mortality. I know I do anyway and perhaps I should just speak for myself.

Speaking for Myself

My perspective is necessarily limited and distorted. I write that to remind myself before I start into how I perceive this experience of being incarnate. My experience colors my perceptions. Looking out onto the world, I’m constantly labeling things.

What is actually “out there” seems to me to be just “quark soup” - and we arrange it by dint of our sensory apparati. I could be wrong. That awareness keeps me in a state of openness. It also keeps me in a state of wonder, of awe. Life can be aweful, after all!

Harrowings is all about this - scratching the surface of what appears to be and digging in deeper to think about what it all might possibly mean.

I find it hard to speak for myself though. I will say that. It is far easier to let the phrasing that others have put together stand in for my own words. I’m consciously attempting to avoid doing that right now. When I think about it, there are too many words already in the world. Adding more seems superfluous - even arrogant. I’d rather not right now.

Future Headings

If I am right, we have an opportunity to be the harbingers of a bright future. I believe that our species is at a critical juncture here and now. We can choose to be smart about it. Will we? That’s debatable.

We presently have the technology to execute some fantastic improvements for all life on the planet. I don’t see many of us doing it though although there are some and they have achieved some exceptional things in the short space of time we are alloted.

Details?

I’m thinking now of Ben Goertzel and Astro Teller. I’m thinking of Sebastian Thrun. I’m thinking of the work that is being done in the world as we speak. It’s moving quickly in some direction or another. I believe we’ll soon crack fusion energy and that will turn a corner. I think we’ll eventually realize that sending ourselves off planet is a wasteful and intenable endeavor, but we can send our technology out there and ought to do so.

If indeed we are the sole sentient beings in the universe, risen so majectically from the primordial ooze (as Bill Wilson once put it), then we have an obligation to all who come after to be smart about how we use the tools that have been entrusted to us.

I’ve been watching The Ascent of Man with Jacob Bronowski over the course of the past couple of evenings. His vision is worth recounting as I did in a post some time ago - March 27, as it turns out:

The clip within this is called “The Tragedy of Mankind” and here it is as a direct link:

We are on a wonderful threshold of knowledge (…) bringing together everything we know about ourselves, he says. I hope more than a few of you will listen to the whole thing. We are fortunate to have been part of this world. It doesn’t much matter who we are or what we experience. Our existence is a miracle. We can learn from the past too, as Bronowski is suggesting here. Approaching our experience of life with an open mind might lead us to making better decisions. Attention is vital. We are limited but we have imagination and if we can let some of what is presented to us in and reflect upon it, respond to it, and take constructive, well-intentioned action, we can be good ancestors.

On that note, I’ll wrap this imperfect offering up and leave you with this:

Onward!

Click a button. Any button…