The Spectrum of Consciousness
Thoughts of subjective difference between ethnicities of people are mostly censored from public discussion - with “gene” becoming a four-letter word, which, much like “race,” can immediately cause people’s blood pressure to rise with its ve...ry utterance. I feel this extreme degree of social restraint, internalized, restricting us from understanding or discussing our very inborn nature is a shameful blockage, inhibiting the development of our self-knowledge, both as individuals and as a species.
If race was something we WERE allowed to discuss, study, and understand, one of the first things we would realize is how short lived this concept of _diversity_ actually is. That is to say, as things are, within 10 generations, we are all going to be a sort of light tan color. Haha. All these heated racial tensions will be resolved once the melting pot finally finishes melting, and _cools_.
America really was the great genetic experiment - the separation of nation and state; the combination of many nationalities within a single country. Types of men and women from far flung parts of the globe - from dramatically different environments, genes, and cultures - suddenly combined into a single part of the globe, and single environment. It’s like we “stirred shit up” with America. Advances in transportation technology developed alongside us, and facilitated the meeting of people from those far-flung parts of the Earth to meet for the first time, something which was not previously a possibility in nature, and is arguably unnatural. This lost continent was found, and needed to be filled!
I like to think of this “stirring shit up” using the analogy of a river delta, where many densities of soil, rocks, sand, and silt meet. During a heavy storm, the delta is flooded, and all of the different layers of sediment are thrown up into the sudden rapids. Likewise, in America, many different types of people have been suddenly tossed and thrown together, haphazardly, in a flood of immigration and, like the delta, these are different “densities” of consciousness, physicality, and energy level, all stirred together amongst each other, in a frenzied storm of agitation and unrest. Yet, over time, the delta calms once more and, gradually, the sludge of different particles begins to settle back to its natural state: sedimentary layers of different densities.
I admit, this is an unusual view of the current state of America’s composition, and the slow development of the American “race,” but it is useful in my thinking to look towards nature and observable phenomena to understand the dynamics similar phenomena occurring on a different scale. That is to say, when one of those many swirling haphazard particles in the storm, it is VERY hard to get much perspective on what things are going to be like for the entire 100 square miles of the delta, say, 7 days later. Likewise, being a single person in this grand genetic experiment, being tossed around and mixed and stirred in with the whole diverse spectrum of humanity, it is very hard to get much perspective of the greater systems at play - the current of the wider stream which carries me, the meteorology of the wind that whips that current into a frenzy and the rain which agitates and dissolves the layers of soil beneath, and how this "delta" of human civilization are going to look in 7000 years. Yet both scales, that one which can observe in our lifetime and that one which we cannot, are simply Nature, and the patterns of nature cycle with little concern for our concept of time.
Sediments of Sentiments
It seems childish, but I am still enamored with rainbows - that feeling of first seeing one after a hard rain, the air charged electric, when it feels like you’re getting a glimpse of something secret. It always felt like a doorway was momentarily opening to reveal the true and beautiful hidden nature of the everyday. It’s that idea of a spectrum that is still so meaningful to me, and I’d rather not refer to it as the “segregation” of light, but rather the natural settling of unity into its composite frequencies. Composite, that is to say, light is a composition of various distinct bandwidths, or bound layers of varying density. Red is a “finer” density, whose particles are like the silt in our delta. Violet, on the other extreme, is “deeper” and slower to move, like the solid clay beneath the sand and silt. Is it ACTUALLY a wave, or ACTUALLY a particle? The details of either metaphor are of little concern. Like Alan Watts said, lets call it a “wavicle” and move on. The point being that it is nature; in that interaction and division within unity is ALL observable nature, all we can see, hear, and know follows its delicate dynamics, the dynamics of frequency, its flow, division, and influence.
So, to recap the convoluted metaphor we’ve constructed here: we and everything we could possibly know, inward or outward, is a composition of frequency; particles of varying depths, which are stirred and resettle with the waxing and waning of the cyclic “rain season” of our lives and our species.
Consciousness, then, can be thought of in terms of frequency, as well - the electroencephalogram being, essentially a quantified measurement of differing states of consciousness, waveforms of neuronal activation traversing the surface of the cortex like ripples across the surface of a pond. Thoughts can be dense or airy, fast or slow, foggy or clear, but always with an essential baseline state for which an individual naturally gravitates towards, as his father before him.
If race was something we WERE allowed to discuss, study, and understand, one of the first things we would realize is how short lived this concept of _diversity_ actually is. That is to say, as things are, within 10 generations, we are all going to be a sort of light tan color. Haha. All these heated racial tensions will be resolved once the melting pot finally finishes melting, and _cools_.
America really was the great genetic experiment - the separation of nation and state; the combination of many nationalities within a single country. Types of men and women from far flung parts of the globe - from dramatically different environments, genes, and cultures - suddenly combined into a single part of the globe, and single environment. It’s like we “stirred shit up” with America. Advances in transportation technology developed alongside us, and facilitated the meeting of people from those far-flung parts of the Earth to meet for the first time, something which was not previously a possibility in nature, and is arguably unnatural. This lost continent was found, and needed to be filled!
I like to think of this “stirring shit up” using the analogy of a river delta, where many densities of soil, rocks, sand, and silt meet. During a heavy storm, the delta is flooded, and all of the different layers of sediment are thrown up into the sudden rapids. Likewise, in America, many different types of people have been suddenly tossed and thrown together, haphazardly, in a flood of immigration and, like the delta, these are different “densities” of consciousness, physicality, and energy level, all stirred together amongst each other, in a frenzied storm of agitation and unrest. Yet, over time, the delta calms once more and, gradually, the sludge of different particles begins to settle back to its natural state: sedimentary layers of different densities.
I admit, this is an unusual view of the current state of America’s composition, and the slow development of the American “race,” but it is useful in my thinking to look towards nature and observable phenomena to understand the dynamics similar phenomena occurring on a different scale. That is to say, when one of those many swirling haphazard particles in the storm, it is VERY hard to get much perspective on what things are going to be like for the entire 100 square miles of the delta, say, 7 days later. Likewise, being a single person in this grand genetic experiment, being tossed around and mixed and stirred in with the whole diverse spectrum of humanity, it is very hard to get much perspective of the greater systems at play - the current of the wider stream which carries me, the meteorology of the wind that whips that current into a frenzy and the rain which agitates and dissolves the layers of soil beneath, and how this "delta" of human civilization are going to look in 7000 years. Yet both scales, that one which can observe in our lifetime and that one which we cannot, are simply Nature, and the patterns of nature cycle with little concern for our concept of time.
Sediments of Sentiments
It seems childish, but I am still enamored with rainbows - that feeling of first seeing one after a hard rain, the air charged electric, when it feels like you’re getting a glimpse of something secret. It always felt like a doorway was momentarily opening to reveal the true and beautiful hidden nature of the everyday. It’s that idea of a spectrum that is still so meaningful to me, and I’d rather not refer to it as the “segregation” of light, but rather the natural settling of unity into its composite frequencies. Composite, that is to say, light is a composition of various distinct bandwidths, or bound layers of varying density. Red is a “finer” density, whose particles are like the silt in our delta. Violet, on the other extreme, is “deeper” and slower to move, like the solid clay beneath the sand and silt. Is it ACTUALLY a wave, or ACTUALLY a particle? The details of either metaphor are of little concern. Like Alan Watts said, lets call it a “wavicle” and move on. The point being that it is nature; in that interaction and division within unity is ALL observable nature, all we can see, hear, and know follows its delicate dynamics, the dynamics of frequency, its flow, division, and influence.
So, to recap the convoluted metaphor we’ve constructed here: we and everything we could possibly know, inward or outward, is a composition of frequency; particles of varying depths, which are stirred and resettle with the waxing and waning of the cyclic “rain season” of our lives and our species.
Consciousness, then, can be thought of in terms of frequency, as well - the electroencephalogram being, essentially a quantified measurement of differing states of consciousness, waveforms of neuronal activation traversing the surface of the cortex like ripples across the surface of a pond. Thoughts can be dense or airy, fast or slow, foggy or clear, but always with an essential baseline state for which an individual naturally gravitates towards, as his father before him.