I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the body—until I realized what was telling me that.
C.Z
Humans are big, hairless apes with a gigantic brain. Until we accept this biological fact we are doomed to suffer the illusions our brain generates.
The size of the human cerebral cortex in relation to his body size far surpasses that of any other animal including our closest cousin the chimpanzee. (In truth, my closest cousin only looks like a chimp)
Other mammals have portions of brain that far exceed the human brain in size and function. Bears and dogs have much larger olfactory lobes for sensing smell. Porpoises, whales and bats have larger auditory processing areas giving them the ability echolocate through sounds they generate.
In all animals that have one, the cerebral cortex processes sensory input turning it into meaningful survival information. Memory resides here. Learning happens here. Information processed in the cerebral cortex leads to cognition, recognition and action. Unfortunately, for humanity, our bloated brain appears to be an evolutionary mistake that places us in a survival situation as precarious as the dinosaur’s.
All blond jokes aside, the overly large human cortex turns our skull into a gigantic echo chamber. Thoughts arise and reverberate giving us the ability to associate diverse ideas or give new meaning to something essentially devoid of meaning. It’s called the ability to abstract.
Abstraction is a marvelous tool. The fact that you can look at these arcane symbols, which are simply black ink on white paper or black pixels against a white background and derive meaning from them, is your ability to abstract. Mathematics is abstraction, yet in its encoding and decoding, ways of manipulating and understanding the material world arise. Abstraction only becomes a problem when confused with reality.
Humans are so powerfully affected by abstraction that we have to consciously and constantly look for the subtle difference. We can sit in a movie theater, watch light projected onto a screen and feel fear, love, pity, sadness and joy—the whole gamut of emotions available to us. It isn’t really happening and in most cases, it never did. Every bit of it is illusion, actors portraying scenarios with elevating or depressing outcomes, laced with speech (another abstraction) and music engineered to elicit emotional responses. It isn’t real and we know it, yet it can make us laugh or cry or give us nightmares. Not only is it not real, it is an escape from reality.
Because of this phenomenon we must conclude that the idea of fiction is itself a fiction, at least to our brain. Since recognition of abstraction through discernment is a “higher” brain function, our clueless bodies react to illusion as if it were real. Look over the edge of a cliff and you’ll likely get a shot of adrenaline that causes your heart to race and your body to prepare to protect itself. Back up from the cliff and you begin to wind down. The danger is past and your body relaxes.
The same phenomenon happens when you face a deadline at work. Your boss expects you to produce and yet your subordinates are dogging it. You begin to build scenarios in your mind of a vengeful, angry boss. What if you lose your job? What if you get demoted? How will you pay the mortgage, the credit card, your tab down at the Pig-n-a-poke?
To your body the fairy tail you’re concocting is just as real as that view off the cliff. Only this danger doesn’t abate. You fuss and stew at work, at home, even in bed until your adrenals deplete, your heart wears out, your hair turns gray and you end up abandoning corporeality prematurely.
It isn’t reality. It’s all in your mind. It’s an abstraction, an idea and it is totally unnecessary.
Compounding this problem are systems generated by the overly perplexed and pathologically ambitious psychopaths to take advantage of and promote this inherent confusion. Abstraction drives all power structures, religious mythologies, civilizations, and especially the fear-based, modern consumptive society. The “Invisible Hand” cultivates abstract delusion in the modern world, for delusion creates confusion and fear, the powerful emotions needed to exert control over humans.
The real kicker is that what you think of as your self is also an abstraction. As your ability to abstract develops along with your growing body, you attach ideas to other ideas and concoct an abstract reality that allows you to deal with events that occur and affect your body in time-space (yet another abstraction).
This is the echo I was talking about earlier. What transpires through your body is consciousness expressing itself through you. The ego is the echo, the abstraction. The real you is the consciousness expressing itself through the body. You aren't the experiencer. You are the experience unclouded by the abstract idea of self.
As a Slacker, your “job” is to understand the difference between what is real and what is abstract. It is a long and arduous journey but it is of utmost importance. Until then the door to true freedom remains locked and the planet, in danger.
to be continued...
Preface part 1, part 2
Introduction
Why Slack? part 1, part 2
The Purpose of Life
Paradox of Civilization:part 1 part 2
History of Slavery: part 1, part 2
Hey my dear friend.... I haven't been commenting much lately for two reasons: 1. I am the choir-girl you're preaching to and 2. some of the "facts" you are adding up, do no longer add up for me.... leave the brains and totally connect to the guts... this is where all powers are and all wisdom gathers... ;-) Big hug and biggest Cheers... from the Seven Mountains in Germany <3
Not a problem. I warned (maybe not you, but somewhere on this platform) that this manuscript has alienated people from me. No biggie. It's designed to get people to think, not necessarily agree. Love you still. :)
what I am pointing at is that some of the "thinking" is leading in the wrong direction... it is worth thinking about it at first and then putting all the dices back into the box and shake it again... roll them out and look - with you guts - at what is behind the things you were thinking so far :-)
Not exactly sure what you are referring to. I know that people insist "go with your gut," but I've tested my intuition, my "gut" instincts, and they are invariably wrong, sometimes with disastrous results. I know it works for some people, but I have no faith in my gut to give me answers. We all have our own path to follow and more than one of them lead to the same destination.
I know that Germany is the birthplace of the work ethic and that Germans are perhaps the very best at manipulating the material world to their advantage. I see what you manage to accomplish with 4 kids and a hubby to take care of and I am in awe. I know it must give you great personal satisfaction and I'm happy for you.
My grandmother was German and my mother had had enough of that when she grew up, so she was a bit more lenient with me. I sort of took it to the next level.
She used to read me the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, a good parable for that work ethic. I understood it but after my father died and I grew up I began to think more deeply about it. Though the grasshopper had a short life, he got to play his whole life long. The ant had to work and store up food so he could live through the long winter in a hole in the ground, only to emerge in spring and work and work so he could survive another winter. It's not like the ant was going to live forever. He wasn't. Was the ant's long, arduous life really better than the grasshoppers short, leisurely life? The moral of that story didn't make much sense to me after that.
And that's the power of thought over the power of acceptance. I just want everyone to reconsider, that's all, not to adopt what I present here.
Be the one making the first step.... reconsider ;-) You lifted the first three or four curtains - but there are at least 24 more to be lifted... and some of them might challenge you to reconsider everything you so far consider THE TRUTH... The biggest danger we are to ourselves, is holding on to the tressuresome "knowledge" we gathered...
I'm sure I will continue to evolve. I don't hold on to much. Thanks
p.s. and once you go on board of the steeming ship with another u - please do make sure I recognize YOU... ;-)
Yes, I will keep you in my schizoid loop.
now I can sleep well lol got your word!!! counting on it!!!
great job!
Thank you.
such a great job thank you for this informative topic