What A Relief

 

Life

What is life? It is a very strange question, but even stranger if you really try to consider the answer. As phenomenal as I believe my story to be, I have become aware that it is just that: a story. I am not life and I don’t possess life, but I consider myself to be an expression of life. There are times when I discuss this self, its adventures and its stories and I refer to it as I. However, if Life were an ocean, this I is but a wave, as Alan Watts said.

Being in an earth-suit (Dass) and having the experience of an earthen creature, we all forget that we are so much more than that. It seems that forgetting is the best part. As a forgetter, we tend to believe that we are a self-contained entity. The human form is a security blanket for everyone who has one. We believe we need the form to function.

Even as I write these words, and have convinced myself that I am not myself, I still believe I am myself. In fact, this is the most paradoxical part of phenomenal reality; I can’t seem to believe what I believe. When we are observers, tending to our surroundings, we verify each event with layers of senses. I smell coffee, so there must be coffee, I go to the coffee maker and I feel heat, I pour a cup of the liquid and I see the liquid. Finally, I put the cup to my lips and ultimately conclude that I am not dreaming; there is coffee. However, if a team of scientists were to publish papers on what causes coffee to smell, to be hot, to be a liquid and to have taste, I could never get the sense of coffee from the papers. In short: information is not experience. Also in short: experience is not information.

Back to forgetfulness: it is almost necessary to set aside the valuable data that explains why coffee yields the experience of coffee, in order to enjoy coffee. If I had to read the papers explaining things scientifically, each time I wanted a cup of coffee, I suppose I would finally stop drinking coffee.

Everything is like coffee.

As science becomes more and more advanced, phenomena continues to become clearer and clearer. However, the experience is still better enjoyed without remembering why we might enjoy it.

Life is that which remembers.

The story of your life requires a degree of forgetfulness. Even if you were only obsessed with the human form and why it is capable of moving around and housing your being, you’d likely miss out on the joy of moving around and having a being within human form. For the most part, it is best to enjoy the drama you presently star in than to worry about your lines, your part, you supporting actors and their lines and so on.

If it walks like a duck, there is an explanation as to why it walks that way, why it behaves the way ducks behave, why you see a duck and why you think of it as a walking thing. To get too caught up on what is actually happening would be to miss the resulting experience.

When we see a movie, with giant monsters who trample on major cities, we know that this sort of thing rarely happens in the real world. Imagine having a friend who pauses the movie, every few frames, to explain how the monster was made with the most recent version of the best quality CGI software and suppose your friend wanted to explain how each and every minute detail required varying degrees of imagination and was also borrowed from actual lizards, dogs and even humans to get the movements just right. Your friend might even go into detail about how a mo-cap (Motion Capture) suit works. Your friend would point out how the shadows were critical; even though we don’t consciously give them a lot of thought. Of course, these details might be very interesting, but they’d ruin the movie.

So, in the same way, the drama you are presently starring in requires the suspension of the awareness of the entire production. An awful lot of technology has gone into the very mo-cap suit you wear; it is so wonderfully made that you’ve completely forgotten the moment you put it on. Even though I am now being that friend who wants to reveal this truth to you, the drama, your part and your suit are so perfect that I cannot ruin the story if I wanted to. And I do not want to.

If you do take the time to consider this idea, it will seem plausible enough, but it may occur to you that you must have agreed to the wiping of awareness in order to install the software that became you. In fact, most explanations regarding phenomena seem to point to something other than experience as being behind the scenes. Solid surfaces are said to be made up of mostly space; and it must have taken something rather extreme to convince me otherwise. If I were more aware of the space, I might be less aware of the solidity of a surface.

I suppose it is okay to be aware of what you cannot really be aware of. That alone cannot ruin the story unless you decide to break-character and refuse to properly play your part. Some people have tried to do just that. I call it the “Jim Carrey Problem” or the JCP. Jim Carrey has become aware of the production and stepped out of the role he’d promised to play. The JCP leads one to believe that because this is a drama, the drama is unimportant. If you become this aware of the special effects, you’ll probably miss the value of the epic in which you star. Spoiling the story is not the idea. Becoming aware of the production is only as valuable as the quality that awareness brings to the story. The idea is to play your part better.

“We’re nothing; and it’s such a relief.” Jim Carrey

While this is true, the meaning of relief is: To be accentuated or standing out; being visible.

Relief, in the case of your human story, should not lead you to forego your character in favor of the star; that would ruin your story; for you as well as others.