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Having touched very briefly on the matter of agreement(s) and the power they exert in a man’s consciousness, or over it, let us consider it a bit further. It is, after all, one of the faculties or functions of consciousness in which we all engage often most unconsciously; but by which we proceed. This matter of trust and its placement originates in the confidence of ourselves, and indeed that we are in the singular sense, we ourselves.

We trust ourselves to be our self and there, for purpose of such power we believe is for gaining are made willing to extend this trust toward others (consciousness) in, and for, agreement. Again, as being so convinced this working is so fundamental, rudimentary, ubiquitous, and irrefutable it is simply another thing too plain as to be rarely noted or considered. That it touches such matters as power and apparent gaining that may seem tangential at first glance; we may find these are so, and no less, bound up in it, and to it, that such also will bare consideration at their proper time. Our quest for power (such as it appears in the mind of consciousness) should not be so foreign nor strange to any. Nor should the “why” of it; the hungry seek food, the thirsty drink, the weak, powerless and vulnerable…seek power. And man’s consciousness is all bound to its own preservation (even in food and drink) and even expansion that is is not difficult at all to understand. There is a compelling in it and to it, a strict binding to matters of preservation and expansion that simply, until seen, are not seen. But, once seen (as with most every matter) cannot be unseen.

The baby cries in all subjection. It is (at least as to us) first response made plain to us in our exchanges on the physical plain and is no less considered a sign of health, a signal of healthy normality. Indeed the more vigorous and active engagement in it is believed and received to a relief of other possible concerns as might accompany in contrast; that is to a listless and barely active newborn. Clenched hands shaking and legs kicking while filling the room with wailing speak a rightness to us as other behavior and circumstance might not. Does not.

Here, crying and wailing as signal are most welcome and, if absent, sought. We may speculate as to what level of consciousness the baby is in experience of, does it “know” of its relatively sudden transition in a from to a to (a warm and fully climate controlled womb not unlike a sensory deprivation tank to a place of sudden and overwhelming sensation) where even a need to do a something previously all unnecessary presents…to actively support itself in breathing. The now of demand upon it is probably greater in experience than all other things we remember. (For thence we have no less come)

Memory, consciousness, these intangible matters that are only made real from one to another (if in fact they are) only come by what? Communication. I hope to not belabor by every step I might describe of entrance into this first tutelage and training, but, and also because, I am convinced it is so easily recognized when considered. And, no less, how agreement is actively and progressively being pressed to an individual in such discipline. The imposition of language is so very great a matter of molding, forming, and structuring a mind in consciousness that in some ways it easily lends itself to being described as severe. But it does not take much consideration nor imagination to understand how a one individual gains power in submitting to it. And agreeing to its constraints. It can learn to express itself of needs.

How this progresses is also not beyond our apprehension or appreciation. What seems one of the most fundamental needs, that is of an individual expressing one’s self, is so facilitated by language and words that it is easily understood as matter of advantage to itself. In fact there is some measure of frustration or discomfort when one finds them self unable to “put into words” some matter of mind. The mind has adopted by agreement to a certain matter, but also finds in it some hobbling.

The discipline of it, and its far reaching consequence(s) in mind may be rarely considered, but they are there. How often do you “think in words”? I have little doubt you hold images, vague and gauzy concepts, ideas that sometimes flash through like meteors in a night sky whose origins and destinations you seek to trace, but…how often do you think in words? Something from “out there” has been so very firmly internalized. And so much so there is often an internal labor to fit one’s thoughts…into them. And we, by agreement to them (though introduced long before concept of agreement could at all be understood well enough to “put into words”) were enlisted to them. We were fed words and language as surely as milk at mother’s breast. And they become to us and in us what they are, no less as tracks laid down by rule to follow. And we grow in what could be called linear reasoning…a thing with beginning, middle, and end. Not unlike the sentences we form for other communication. And we agree to this.

Much has been built…one might even say the whole of a world of edifice that appears to reach upward (as such we assign as progress) but whose foundations are shakiest of all for any with sight. For what has been built upon the agreement of man and men holds in it that worm forever eating away at it; that none are ever in the fullness of agreement no matter what bonds are sworn to. And the worm always has a way of showing its work, the self and selves of men made to be different in their sameness assigned (as each no less holds many division(s) in himself) that will and must be demonstrated as selves express…themselves. We may look for some sameness…for likeness and the attendant like of affection, but each self holds an inherent hostility to every and any other self.

Do you ever wonder about vows and oaths? Their “why”? Agreements and contracts? Their why? Man is forever looking to establish himself by the something “outside” of himself, not knowing of the bind he is already in.

His own and total vulnerability and flux to circumstance.

He knows it, but somewhere deep, somewhere he’d prefer to not explore and cannot because it is all of dark to him. The very possibility of his not being (of which he takes so for granted) is off limits and set off limits by a self manifest in consciousness that forbids his going there. The unspoken codicil or addendum of “I am” is “therefore I must be”.

But who could bear their own mustn’t?

Is there a being, (or form thereof) and/or a consciousness that is not “because” dependent?

Just…is…with no because?

Someone said a man could come to the place, not where he would wish, hope, or find some comfort or solace in this matter…but that it would be better for him had he not been born.

Who could believe that?

Doesn’t a man have to be born…to even believe…in “better”?

Who could say such a thing? Knowing of what is better, apart from any necessity of any man’s agreement? Even knowing no man would, or even could, agree?

What manner of self is in expression there?

Having droned on about these matters for tens of thousands of words, anyone (no less than I) might easily consider “What’s the point?” And it is a more than fair question.

But also consider this, if you can. Is there anything more in the realm of what might be called the “intangibles” upon which more is placed in reliance than this thing we call consciousness? Is it not, in all, most fundamental to all that would be considered the workings of man? This must, at very least, disturb (and where is such disturbance noted?) the most purely materialistic amongst us.

For the premise and proposition are clear, and perhaps too clear as to be so easily ignored. All function of material (or product of material function) cannot be more than, nor less subject to, the matters that govern material. If matter is assigned whatever laws of restriction (gold is not lead nor fluoride) and even subject mechanistically to all other considerations, then surely consciousness as the product of such (materiality) is just as surely restricted. It, no less, must ride the tracks laid down to it. Even what might be called deviation or excursion from what is considered the “normal”…is already assigned to its bearing of restriction. In other words, if speaking to some psychological aspects of consciousness (of which we are not forbidden) such deviations as we perceive them cannot really be outside the realm of such restrictions to possibility. In short a man’s mind is a mind of man…whether he be cannibal or philanthropist.

It is our precious vanity to think an individual mind, or individual’s mind of man is anything other than a mind of man.

Therefore it becomes moot (even absurd) to think we can assign to consciousness (as is most commonly and consciously accepted) a form of deviation that is “out of bounds”. But we do. And we do often. The truth of the matter (can we bear it?) is that the truth of the matter is only less absurd by stating no man is less absurd than any other, no man “more crazy” than any other…for both the absurd and the crazy/demented are equally laid out (as tracks immovable) to man in consciousness. Since all possibility for (what we call) crazy is already and inherently in occupation of consciousness, we come to see it is only by the clever adoption of agreement that we believe we nullify this truth and therefore establish what we call true criteria in judging a man’s consciousness.
And if you doubt, or do not yet know such power as agreement holds in your consciousness (or that consciousness to which you witness) there is time to learn…perhaps.

But if the so called “sane” are no more nor less sane (sanity itself being a rather clever artifice of great utility in most circumstances) than any other to which they might ascribe such notation, of what use is it? “But O!” you think, “it is established…’we’ have determined what are ‘normal’ excursions in mind and behavior.” Do we see how silly this is…and sounds? No, we at best only know or see what we believe “works” best (or has by past testimony)…and to what? Nothing more than the consciousness that serves its own interests.

We may believe there is a numerical superiority established by, or in, agreement (safety in numbers) but once agreement is reached it is firstly barely maintained, but more significantly, agreement in consciousness does not make “many” consciousness’ together, but rather a blend now into simply a “one” consciousness no more nor less significant than any other.

Do you not see this? Know this? Yes, agreement is very powerful…even to a powerful deception of strength when its underpinnings are not seen or known. What are the underpinnings of man’s agreement that lend itself to this deception of power?

It should be plain, but if need be let it be exposed. The convincing that individual (as perceived) consciousness is insufficient to a justifiable end, therefore by the “adding together” of many other insufficiencies it is now made…sufficient. It is like the adding together of many “wrong sums” in math…even to such end that such adding will leave one even farther from some correct solution. Rather than face squarely “if I admit to some insufficiency that I erroneously hold, is made better by the addition of many other insufficiencies, that notion held is even worse in error than first admission of my own insufficiency.”

Do you yet see? The lie of safety in numbers? There is only safety…in safety.

But who can believe only “one” is necessary? Or that there is a full and fully sufficient consciousness?

Not merely so, but that only one…exclusively…is safe?

To what consciousness are you a witness?

Being told that essentially one has no choice in matters previously assumed open to him for all choosing, all exercise of what is often called free will is often not an easily acceptable thing. This is particularly true in matters of what would be considered the moral sphere. Even our apparent choosing to separate such matters into such spheres (particularly of moral ascription) is often too easily made apparent to us.

Listen if you can.

If one is purely materialistic, whether he assigns some or all origins to a “big bang” description/conception or the like, all that is (surely including each man and all men) is a totally dependent consequence to every operation of “law(s)” that govern such matter. The sun, for instance, has and has had no choice (so to speak) but to emanate what we call light and heat. And one can easily (and no less) assume this also pertains to man if, and as, a purely materialistic being. One might even conclude one of the many laws that govern consciousness (if in all consequence to materiality) is that each exercise in and of such consciousness is given to (under the law of) thinking of itself as free. In that sense man has no choice…but to think of himself (in his consciousness) as free. In fact (or truth) it may well be one of the signal governance’s of the consciousness of man of being completely locked up in, and to, thinking himself free.

If you do the experiment and push against this you may see something. But you would also be caught yourself in that “if”…for you could not, and would not “do the experiment” unless you too are likewise caught in a complete constraining. The “if” causes you to think in terms of choice and freedom to choose…(I have options!) but all it describes is possibility and can neither impart nor conclude to any freedom.

Besides which (you might as well admit it) you are loathe to consider that my introduction of “if” is what grants and/or establishes any freedom to yourself.

And let’s face it (as another law of man’s consciousness in all consequence) you are not prepared to hear from “just another consciousness” of a man about the freedom you already presume you have. You are entirely and only beholden to your own consciousness (or the very one you are witness to) for this…and to yourself believe you need no other to either inform, confirm, instruct, contradict, or bring into question, such a matter.

You simply cannot bear it.

Neither can I.

Is there a legitimate question here? Could there be?

What consciousness could bear all contradiction against itself?

And if, and by doing so…would it not then be shown…the stronger?

The greater?

By being able to bear (withstand) what the consciousness of man cannot.

And listen again of you can.

If you say it is slight of hand to introduce that another consciousness “can be” (might be, could be) plainly see what you are saying. That in a world of some 7 billion possibilities of consciousness, yours is the only true one.

Admit then you are truly unable to accept another as being “as real as you”.

Unless you are able to admit…you are simply, and in all, absolutely no different than any other man, at all.

Are you…able?

But don’t despair at finding you think yourself god, even if you say “there is none”.

There’s a help for that manifest opposition of yourself…against yourself.

All of a man’s ways are right in his own eyes.

And that is of itself, all that is wrong with, and about man.

And he cannot help himself with it.

He is not free to.

How would it appear to a man, or rather, how would a man appear to himself (and perhaps others) if he were to embrace some notion of his consciousness (even to him) as being more or less theoretical in nature as previously described? Rather than a bedrock thing as once previously assumed to himself, so certain of it, so sure of its reality in truth and being; he were to discover just how much flux is taking place in it and through it… and being directed to himself? Sometimes a comfort to him, sometimes a terror, sometimes seemingly reasonable, sometimes presenting him with either the most bizarre and absurd of notions whose ends, if seen, would never be pursued; and not infrequently propelling him by desires that lead to catastrophic results…or at the very least, calamity.

Who doesn’t know this?

And it should appear obvious…this sort of knowing is not the sort the self boasts of.

What if the man…previously presuming himself to be actor and possessor, discovers he is more of a witness to matters, even consciousness that he once called his own…this thing that “speaks” to him of his being, his reality, his wondering(s), and self confident affirmations and assurances? What if the thing that is actually the man is only seeing thoughts, seeing ideas, experiencing desires and with provoking of will in all, merely comes to understand the he that is the he (or she) is has been formed and made subject to all these mentioned by being locked in as witness restricted to their entertaining and solely to them; and is being convinced they are the he (or she) of which he is, and can never be otherwise.

I am. Me.

Perhaps such delusion would be fully expressed as one, by one, even as through one; who would make claim “I know my own mind”.

Really?

But also really…what keeps me…from being you? And perhaps more quizzically, what makes me know I am not? You. What is this bounding and bonding of self to self?

Now the easy answer that reveals nothing other than a belief in its being of itself a thing, is what is called sense of self. As in “The sense of self tells one he/she is him/herself.” How often we think by naming a thing it either explains or resolves it to some understanding! But for those who, in almost every other circumstance would decry circular reasoning as being inutile, generally it suffices most to consider this adequate…”sense of self is, well…having a sense of self”.

“It’s (what is that “it”?) what tells a person they are them/their self.”

And there it is again if one can receive or see…again a something is being “told”/instructed/informed of a thing by another thing in their seeming residence. Is an “I” still an I…or you a you…if lacking a sense of self? If so, what is necessity of sense of self…or is it…this thing we call sense of self the very thing that solely constitutes a self? In other words, if it can be lacking…is there an “I” self? A you…self? And, if assuming that such a thing is (and it might be difficult to argue otherwise)…what is stronger, more bedrock to each and every, that they are to them/their self…themselves?

What is ever more never not carried by each? But this sense of self? Not even the most strident empath could deliver their self from it.

Could something be stronger to break such bonding? Is it only death that accomplishes this? That place of terror where it appears a self is lost…to itself. Anything (or anyone) other? What might that, or who might that then, be? What could have power (or authority) to free any from being locked in to, or by, their own sense of self? And what sort of course of thinking and consciousness could, or would, then be held? Could it even be “safe” to be lost to one’s self?

It (or a person) would be, in that sense, could be like the rock mentioned earlier that vexes Descartes’ “I think therefore I am”. For if one is convinced the rock doesn’t think (neither of, nor for itself) does that deny its being? It almost seems that for a very bright man like Descartes (and who of us isn’t?) establishing “being”, that is being sure of it, is the conundrum left solely to the conscious. For we all learn something about mind…as reliable as it sometimes seems (and is relied upon) for verification, assessments, establishment…it is just as prone to making things up. “What if I don’t exist?” “How do I know I exist?” “What if all of the all I believe I think I know, perceive, contact, have some communing in…is just a product of my mind…under some influence?” (Have you ever watched the movie “The Matrix”?)

What if all of the “I” that I am and believe myself to be, is all and only “watching” a parade of images, thoughts, conceptions assumed to be right perceptions of the “out there”, but is really only taking place in the “in here”? Too much? Why? Almost any educated man (and probably every neuro-scientist) would tell you it all takes place…in the brain. Pain is not pain to a nerve, it only carries raw data. Sight is not sight to the eye, smell is not smell to the nose, hearing is not in the ear…etc. All the signals are sent (if conduits are intact) to a place where all is processed for interpretation. It appears all is feedback (so to speak) reliant…but to what can the mind/consciousness look for feedback itself, to itself, to verify?

How do I know a rose today smells just like the rose did yesterday? Or, as most any child has engaged in some sort of this thought experiment, “How do I know, and could I ever know…that the thing I call blue (and looks “blue” to me)…if I were able to step into your mind and see…I would call red? My red is his blue. His blue is my red. Yet, it would still work.

“Oh”, you say, “wavelengths… wavelengths establish color” Yes, but they do not establish perception. All the raw data (that we have only decided/agreed upon as is raw data…that is in purest/simplest/truest(?) form) is all and always under interpretation. And not merely for identification (though we most often think in those terms), but so many other things are also engaged. What is your favorite…color?

It would no less seem almost all is played to us for favor…a far less tangible thing (if we can even agree that perceptions to the end of identification are more substantial) than most others. Favorite foods, favorite colors, favorite memories, favorite vacation spots, shoes, fishing rods, experiences, movies, sensations, child, etc…and on and on and on. Even to a favorite…self. Or more specifically totally engaged and consequent to (all these favorites) a self from, and in which, we are locked in that sense and sensing, and in, and to which, we have no choice.

“Be yourself” is touted. What choice would one (does one) have, anyway? Even if that self is striving always to be a different self, or different kind of self? No, that’s hardly what seems meant to be taken. “Don’t try to be like anyone else, in fact don’t try to be anything…just…be…yourself” seems more the take away. But what of these? Dahmer? Hitler? Pol Pot, Stalin, Manson, Jim Jones…OK…let’s throw in Mother Theresa and Jonas Salk.

Yet I think you would find, at least in the last two mentioned, some impetus to try…to either try to “do good” or be good. And of the others I am more than persuaded that, not unlike the blue and red thought experiment…were one able to enter their mind/consciousness…what you might call evil in your own mind, might not even be there in their perception of their own self. To each self…what is good, or what good is, is dictated to and by, that self. I think it would be both naive and somewhat childish to think Adolf awoke every morning fiendishly rolling his hands over one another and wondering what evil and mayhem he might bring upon the world today.

To himself he was, after all, not unlike any other…just being himself.

And thought Hitler has become our sort of useful tool for almost general agreement of how bad/evil “a” man can be…(a handy go to avatar of extreme malevolence) rare is the man who might come to think otherwise; and that he, if given that allowance of indulging “If I were you…” might easily say “You know, I think I might have been an even worse Hitler than Hitler.”

But who could/would think that?

For in almost any consideration of Herr Hitler as the avatar of pure evil, this is found more the case. “Oh Hitler! Now look what you’ve done! You don’t scare us anymore, you’ve become to us and for us a wonderful thing…we all get to feel better about ourselves by comparison. Everyone gets to believe themselves a more decent human being and we owe it so much…to your malevolence!”

And I am no less persuaded that for a very long while he liked “being himself”. And maybe his sudden and final (if believed) conversion from vegetarian to a 7.65mm bullet/cyanide diet was not even him trying to not be himself any longer…but was the most perfect expression by his self and of his self, to most fully express who and what his self is/was. A self fully submitted to its self.

But O! That would be hard to swallow! Hitler not as avatar of evil anymore, but more an everyman. Just a man as everyman, being himself.

And how very often do we find we do not like certain selves in their being of them/their self? Maybe an update or codicil is needed to “Be yourself”.

It might then go like this: “OK…OK…now listen up we have a small revision…everyone who is not a Hitler, a Pol Pot, a Charles Manson, Stalin, Caligula…(or someone’s mother in law) ‘Be yourself’…it’s OK…to be your self.”

One may take issue with this, one may not know it (yet), or agree with it; and many, I am fairly sure would simply not like it for being taken from a book (for it is not found among their favorites) and for which they lack any esteem. Nevertheless it is there:

All of a man’s ways are right in his own eyes.

He may not have any care for “trying” to be either good or evil, but to himself he is right. He is the right person…to be “him” (or her).

He may even hate being himself…but regardless then, he is (to himself) right in hating it.

After all, one has no choice.

Could any be chosen to know this?

Some may see where where these considerations lead us to a certain conclusion. That in some ways, perhaps even precisely in the same way as the matter of truth, consciousness is to us no more than a concept, a thing we are so very used to thinking of, or talking about as absolutely the real and in our possession; but which to us remains suspended as the more theoretical in nature. It is like following a trail of bread crumbs fully believing therefore a whole loaf exists (from which such fragments must originate)…somewhere, somehow…but of which we are only experiencing at best fragments and parts. Even parts that to us testify the whole of it is somewhere, surely. Not unlike knowing, of which we sometimes (oftimes?) think ourselves complete in having, we may come to find out we only possess in like fragments. The spaces between the frames we see and believe we know what we know…who knows?

But like the automobiles we use everyday, and the even more technologically sophisticated devices, for most of us it doesn’t matter how they work, only that they do. Mostly we don’t care about timing between pistons and valves anymore than we care about “electron flow” through the myriad channels in our handhelds, ignorance does not prevent us from their use. And generally (specifically?) to each, our minds and consciousness work “good enough for me”. Besides which, what can one do with a thing but be locked into its usage…even by it…when “it” tells you…”I’m all you (or anyone’s) got to go by. I’m even what tells you…you have it.”

But O! those dreams! Where something is betrayed. Waking I can consider routes, excuses, make plans, create in mind escapes…forge whatever is necessary to overcome threat(s) as they might present…but whence comes from same mind, self same self…such equipping with only water pistol to repel those who chase (in mind) with real guns, and real bullets…and fill the mind with terror? Or whatever forms of absurdity testify of complete inadequacy, total subjection, ineffable vulnerability. Yes, O, those dreams from same mind (?). Same mind that when waking so easily assumes…”But I have knowing! I can handle things!”

And yes, I can reach for blanket, touch a wife, look around familiar room and comfort myself…”that was not real”…yet…it is as absolutely real (and created in) same mind now looking for other and other feedback for assurance. I look to material, if I do, and think it is enough. But here’s the thing. The thing we try so desperately to get around, the thing it may well be such dreams will not allow us to escape, the reality I can only accept as metaphor to myself, and not the reality it is; and a thing of knowing…even if it be so deep and dark to us that we spend all our waking hours to avoid confronting squarely as the truth it is…all my material (as with all that is material, even that which is reached toward for comfort) is passing away. Even our “waking” knowing tells us this…but we find ourselves ill equipped to its handling, or ability to be “lived in”…everything we now see and believe know…is vanishing, and will, from before us. At any time, at any moment…”we” are over. Done. Finished. Though everything may even testify of this, even these fragments of other’s disappearing that are daily made known to us and too plain to be any comfort to or for us (as we live, if we do, only materially) we cannot see this…of, nor for ourselves. But something knows. Something knows…of what again can only be described as ineffable vulnerability. Too vulenrable…for any of us to handle with knowledge.

Knowledge of it is the knowledge that undoes our assumptions/presumptions about knowing.

We are subject to everything.

Masters…of nothing.

But who can live there?

Knowing one is not even master of his own mind?

For, if we were, who would ever allow for themselves even one troubling thought?

Everything is thrusting upon us…but who is aware?

Is the everything aware of what “it” is doing…to us?

As unapologetic as one may be about being in apparent paradox, or living in contradiction if you prefer; I am no less unashamed of being an absurdity, even and most often to myself. In having spoken briefly about Rutherford in the last section (39) can we consider for a moment (if accepting the anecdote as having any veracity) how absurd to himself he appeared in thinking his bed offered him some support his floor could not, or would not?

This is not for the purpose of poking fun at him, for he no doubt overcame his fear and left it to travel further in this creation he had learned is far more substance of “space” than his sense and senses once informed him. Like knowing, which to us is formed of experience to carry us into further experience and to us is presumed to be solid, we may find holes…even great gaping holes, not merely around our knowing…but shot right through it; betraying a fragility heretofore inconsiderable. Even untenable to us till undeniably revealed to us as in us; that where we think we stand is not nearly as sure as once we believed. And without doubt (as the anecdote amply exemplifies) such suddenness of conclusions thrust upon us by such revelations immediately affect our view of all, and even most common habit(s), like merely stepping out of bed.

There would (or surely could) be such moment giving way to terror that is likewise followed by some further revelation of the absurdity of ourselves. Even if, as in Rutherford’s circumstance, we do not immediately see the absurdity of thinking our bed is more substantial than the floor because (and only because) we are in the experience presently of its support, it is neither rocket science nor a great generation of herculean logic to posit… “But upon what is the bed sitting?”

The floor I fear falling through.

Yet the experience comprises more than what is on surface addressed in the anecdote. And that is how “our” knowing, and even by our knowing, we are self convinced this now changes the reality of matters. Oh, do not doubt that to us individually it surely does; I am sure Rutherford never looked at things the same way after; but he had only discovered how things are and not rather by his discovery actually changed the nature of things. But to him…in that knowing and for those brief(?) moments he was convinced the floor he walked upon yesterday with no regard was suddenly made abyss by his knowing of its truer nature. And so do we all. We tend to think our knowing actually changes the nature of things…and that is the absurdity. No doubt he could have looked from his bed out a window and seen many others carrying on in walking down a street as fully supported as yesterday, but for him…for him, and to him…his knowing was working in him to not only a terror, but a terror because he knew. He specifically, knew. Even what no one else (it is presumptively surmised) to that time…knew. Rutherford changes the world! (Just as you and I imagine we do)

The Father of Nuclear Physics, when actually the physics have been long at work in nuclei and thence elsewhere in our everywhere long before. Long, long, before. Something else has claim to their fatherhood. The laying down of “laws” to be discovered…and not created by their discovery. Though to us in our framing of them, using our maths, using our equations, our assembling their descriptions under various circumstances to such degree we believe we have defined them, and thus by definition have made them “our” laws, regardless of how much we may say otherwise.

“Newton’s” first law. (When it is only a framing of what Newton believed he discovered, and with which some others brought into some agreement)

Now, I get why you don’t like having pointed out all the holes in your consciousness. Even in your knowing. I don’t much like it when mine are shown, either. Far more like Swiss cheese than a block of cheddar. We are all in the same boat regardless of how full we believe our own consciousness to be. (And each of us imagines ourselves…”fully conscious”…do we not?) We will all find, if not already, just how much of unforeseen consequences result, and can, and do, from our proceeding according to what we believe we know. So when we say “If I had only known then what I know now” we are simply admitting to the fact of that matter…we didn’t know what we thought we knew in that knowing that moved us. And to speak again of the absurd, it is how much folly to think “but now I know…better”. For we no less thought enough then, to trust our knowing that moved us. (And I am aware this is being repeated from prior section).

To take a step back, not as concession, but as elucidation is to come to some understanding that our perception of what it means to know something (or anything) is more often quite far from what we perceive it to be, or mean. We, again, think it bedrock. “I know this”…or such and such. It’s so easily seen when we apply this to certain personal matters (though I am being convinced it applies to all) especially in regards to knowing a person. How often do we think we know someone, then in some circumstance a certain attitude or action causes us to think or say “I see I didn’t know that person at all”. Of course it seems awkward to us to likewise think the same in other terms even if this example is applicable; especially of those things we think static, like a rock. “Well, rocks don’t change and I can know what a rock…is.” Or “math doesn’t change, I can always know what two and two are.” But most specifically it would be hoped that on a more fundamental level it would be an understanding of what we think it means to know, is at best incomplete, if not entirely corrupted. But, who can live where they understand that to themselves…all things are at best theoretical? Surmised (only) to some end that is actually quite far from the knowing in the sense we use it?

It was said in the last section ridiculous examples would be used. Rutherford’s account was considered briefly as one. Some may not find this applicable to themselves…for who of us has explored the fundamental nature of this thing we call “matter” by such experimentation to discover it is not at all as once assumed? So here is another example that may have a broader application for (I would surmise) any, or every man’s experience.

A man awakens in terror in the night. Heart racing, pulse pounding, he has just had the most vivid and terrible of dreams. He may sit up, grasp the blankets, feel the bed, look over at wife or companion for assurance he is now in the “real” reality and that what he is leaving behind is all of unreality. He may be troubled, he may scoff, there are no doubt a myriad of reactions, and likewise a myriad of measures he may take to assure himself he has left unreality and is now “back” in the real…and draw comfort from that. (Rutherford might advise…”don’t think those blankets, that pulsing digital clock, or that wife snoring next to you is actually composed the way you think for a more sure touchstone“, but this is not really the point.) The man tells himself…and is more than glad to know what he was just leaving in dream…was not real. “It isn’t real…whew! Just a dream!”

What we most probably do not do, or are loathe to do or consider is that state of mind that terrorized us in the night is/was…actually a real experience. A real “state of mind” we have just experienced. We would like to consign it all to unreality, but who is fooling whom? We know our mind can have such an infection of raw and naked terror as to repulse us from all and any acknowledgement that was just took place in ourselves…had any reality to it, at all. But we know. We do know. A state of the mind that is in (what we would consider) all unkindness to us. It doesn’t matter to what we grasp at for comfort for excuse or reason, like that last slice of pizza too soon before retiring…or whatever; we know we can know deepest, darkest, and most frightening terrors we have known.

And, what is “doing it” to us? This mind we call friend in all reliance upon during waking hours? Our most “trusted” asset if you will? The “us” that is us…even? For how deeply do we identify with, and as, our own mind, our own consciousness? Isn’t that the very thing we think is the thing…(and in which we experience) the us…that is what we call the us or I? How do I know I am me…and not you…except it be my mind (consciousness) telling “a” me so? To take it even further into the absurd, as it surely must appear to some or many…who is the you (or me) to which we say our mind is speaking? “My mind is telling me”… “my thoughts are telling me…” … “my experience has taught me…” … “my desires are leading me…” and on and on.

How divided are we…within ourselves? Maybe our math is not as irreducible as we once thought…and our concept of one or even being “one”…as in one person…is not now as sure to us as once appeared.

What would a truly one person…appear as…look like? But we would never, nor could, even ask this question until we discover how divided we are within ourselves…and how our presumption of “oneness” (embraced to ourselves) is not at all according to what we think we mean…when we say “one”. Or think we ourselves…are. We surely are who we are…but like those blankets for comfort, or sound of wife snoring to reassure of the real…we have simply adopted a way of thinking of ourselves, and for ourselves, that is of no less a frantic grasp for comfort. For any other way of thinking of ourselves…is simply too terrifying.

For who then is the “I”…claiming identity, and control?

Too troubling?

Rightly so.

Again, and without apology, I lead into what appears paradoxical. Toward the man who can either believe or say with some confidence “I know my knowing is wrong, incorrect, and not merely incomplete” (as most any, even the proudest of us, would not hesitate to say “I know I don’t know everything!”)…but that all my assumptions about knowing, what I think it is, how it functions in me to lead me, and how it is to me irreducible…is all wrong“.

I suppose, in short, it is some admission of having glimpsed or experienced matters in such a way of having learned there is nothing of myself on which I can depend for anything (especially “my knowing”) and that it is not, in all, subject to change. And this would be the truth of this matter of knowing. And that it has even been in some way, by function of this thing I call “my knowing” and by which I proceed in all; that has caused (or been used) to lead me (and I do suppose any man) into such estate. Thinking “I know” leads me ( does it not lead all?) to that place of seeing that it has not been at all as it had appeared. I thought it bedrock…but now find it no more than shifting sand.

Do not doubt there is some terror in this and to this. I am not speaking as one more comfortable in his own bed. There is a starkness that is, and to some if it appears too bold to say, terrorizing. Something is able to “monkey with” my consciousness.

Listen if you can to what may sound ridiculous examples. I believe they are terribly hard to understand because we are afraid to (even terrified to) face their simplicity. They are far too easy to us, which makes them very, very, hard. Have we talked about Ernest Rutherford (known as “The Father of Nuclear Physics”)?

For this I will quote another, Karl Smallwood, who wrote of it in his article (searchable by Google) with his far more engaging style than I can manage entitled, “The Physicist Who Was Scared of Falling Through his Bedroom Floor”

I shall excerpt that portion subsequent to how and when Rutherford learned atoms are constituted of mostly empty space:

“…basically it shows the path of the particles Rutherford was firing and his observed results, mainly that the majority of them passed straight through the atoms inside the gold sheet, indicating that they were mostly empty space.

Now this is where the story gets adorable, because the legend goes that after discovering this fact  Rutherford was totally freaked out to learn that approximately 99% of the entire physical world he was standing in was composed of nothing but empty space. To make it even worse, Rutherford was the first person to make this discovery, meaning he was literally the only person on the planet who was aware of this fact at that point in time.

Rutherford was reportedly so freaked out that when awoke the next morning, upon trying to climb out of bed, Rutherford stopped his foot from hitting the floor and climbed back into bed, purely because he was scared his foot would slip through his floorboards, because hell, they were technically 99% empty freaking space after all. If you really think about it, the fraction of Rutherford’s floor that physically existed was technically a statistical anomaly, we’re not surprised the guy was scared to climb out of bed.

As for why he didn’t think he’d slip through the atoms making up his bed, we’re guessing the part of our brain that makes us think hiding under the covers would stop monsters when we’re kids was working its ***-damn ass off in Rutherford’s brain that day. Eventually, sense prevailed and Rutherford did climb out of bed and changed the face of physics as we know it instead of hiding and crying until he died of starvation like we probably would have.”

Is it easy to understand? Hard to understand?

Now I might take issue (and do) with this statement and appraisal:

“the fraction of Rutherford’s floor that physically existed (Italics mine) was technically a statistical anomaly, we’re not surprised the guy was scared to climb out of bed.”

We are terrified to admit that this thing which, in the above referred to space, and that we would call empty or “the nothing” does actually exist…physically in our reality. Space exists. It is too much, (or “Is it too much…?”) for us to engage that…(what we might call) “the nothing”…exists. Space (or what we might think of, or prefer to call “the emptiness”…or even “the nothing”) is as much part and parcel (and by volume far greater) to the all in which we are. Not only so in regards to what we may call the “solid” or material matters we perceive looking outwardly at the universe…but that we ourselves (as most know themselves in being a material or physical being) are also and no less.

And also and no less pertaining to all matters of “ourselves”…yes, even consciousness…can one find himself “falling though the gaps” (holes or emptiness) of his own mind and consciousness?

Have you?

And…what is it, or what would it be that is doing “the falling”? Is it the “real” passing through emptiness of nothingness? Or is it the unreal…passing through (or falling through) what is actually “the more real”? How real…is emptiness? Space?

How real is the “I” I believe…I know?

Too much?

Too bad.

Or

Too good?

Depending.

How much of crazy have you been equipped to handle?

How much of your own insanity makes sense to you…thinking that by “knowing something” you are now able to bite off more for the handling…that will not bring terror?

I suppose if one could one might say…”Ask Rutherford”…about “need to know”…about experiments prompted by need to know that reveal the terrifying, show that things are not at all as previously assumed to be…that all is upended by what might even be called better knowing…

But, you really don’t have to ask Rutherford…you already are in your own little laboratory.

Have you found anything that scares you? The you that you assume…is the you?

Even terrifies that…you?

Is something able to monkey with what you believe is your knowing?

Or, are you the one who is far too clever to be made a fool of to himself?

There is one more clever who knows…how to deal with the clever.

To know one thing purely or clearly, even indisputably…we may come to understand is no small matter (or asking). We may say “I am”, assured to ourselves this is so, this is true, this is indisputable in all, and there think such foundation is firm. But what do any know (if knowing or believeing they do know anything) apart from change? If the “I am” is no less changing…even in such discovery of knowing (going from not knowing to now knowing, as in waking up) then at what particular point is that “I” of such stasis as can be known? Like trying to hit an ever moving target, or in some understanding of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle here applied to our own consciousness…the one observing the “I” in its ever moving estate, can never really know it fully.

If we add to this (who can’t?) some knowledge of death as the ultimate change in estate for the “I”, and as into which the I is ever proceeding…and our assumption is that there is a coming time in which the I will be not, and of such duration as imagined interminable (or indeterminable) and without end…then whatever small space (or length of time) such I may presently occupy along that infinite continuum is surely as nothing. Nothing at all. Even thus undoing any presumption of a sure present estate; for it is always in change, and always moving toward its not being.

Therefore “I am” may be far better stated “I am becoming not”…and that for a long, long time. Like forever after. Were we to “throw in” (so to speak) the time interminable before what says “I am” (before birth and awakening to consciousness)…we begin to see how weaker still is such presumption of knowing, as even most claimed fundamental knowing that “I am” is a firm foundation of any knowing. Yeah…it’s not only weak, but perfectly so. Even as I write, and you perchance read, our “I am” is in total flux.

So, what is?

Is anything in a full state of being of itself?

For if we say “everything is changing” as an a priori, or pooh pooh such considerations as absurdly framed cleverness, then we might as well go whole hog and say nothing is ever truly known. But even that statement contradicts itself if claiming to know that, or state that as truth.

To understand we are always given to “look with a kinder eye” upon ourselves in matters of all judgments goes far beyond mere seeming legal matters or matters pertaining to what might be called the moral sphere. Surely it is more plainly apparent when speaking of matters of guilt and its assigning; but to come to see it suffuses the whole of the foundation of our thinking, touching matters of our logic and reasoning (what appear the colder, cleaner, or more precise matters) is not as easily apparent. Yet we all are given in deepest recesses to our way of thinking, very much thought of and known to us as our own, and even from which almost all of our identity in, and of, ourselves is developed.

Even our coldest logic, which is like an internal mathematics to us…precise, unambiguous, tidy and built upon to form what might be called our world view, our way of seeing and understanding things, is chock full of ingredients neither knowingly placed nor accounted for. And when faced with the reality of these matters (to whatever extent) we most often seek a housecleaning of sorts, especially if, when found, they have led to some calamity. We are presented with some frustration of our thinking, or of our knowing, that we may discover is due to some residual taint previously unaccounted for that has skewed our sight as to hide what we are now in as consequence. We are self persuaded that if able to start from a perfectly clean slate, uninfluenced from outside, (or even others) that our own logical process(es), then pure, would serve us better. Then surely…we would know…and understand what appears to us as the outside through which we move in time and actions would be, not only better understood, but even more controllable. It is, in that sense, back to “If I had only known then what I know now…” or “I should have known better”.

Yet, what prevented me?

Let me find that disposition and be rid of it so it will not lead to calamity again, and now “I will know better”. But the very shovel we dig with is no less a product of such disposition to thinking “I can know better…and will”. And when such is embraced we hold to us a new starting line, a new place of venture out from, better equipped with some knowing and thinking “now I am better prepared to meet the unknowns that tripped me up last time.” Rarely are we so established in understanding that any knowing also presents a whole new set of “not knowings” into which we venture.

And so it remains again, and always, double edged. Even were we to utter such rubric as “the more I know (or learn), the more I realize I don’t know”, we remain convinced there is a knowing attainable that is unshakable to us. Who, if given the temerity to even utter such, does not continue to seek after knowing? Knowing by doing such (if he were true to such stating), he is only embracing all the more unknowing? Our own logic here is undone. It would tell us start here, build up with this next, then this, then this…and finally what can be known…will be. But if and when we might even see we are now led into the greater of unknowns and unknowing, we can’t help ourselves.

Can one (or any?) bear witness to such a consciousness?

To speak of a matter such as guilt, if it can even first be established that such a matter is, leaves one in a very peculiar place. Being so very subjective in experience, perhaps even exquisitely so, causes any discussion of it, particularly if proceeding from any notion of its attribute-ability, extremely precarious and difficult. Assigning guilt to another, or projecting it for its reception and acceptance by that other is easily frustrated. In some way it requires a prior assumption of another projection being embraced as not only practicable in all practicality, but also as itself a true matter able to be exercised to, or of, some verity. That is the assumption that “If I were you…” can stand. But, can it?

Not unlike “If I had only known better” or “If I only knew then what I know now“, whose insertion or projection is to another time or made of us as taking our present self and “moving” it to an earlier now (which to us is a then) “If I were you…” also signals an assumption of the facility with which one can become, or be another. When looked at this way the utter frivolity and vanity of its presumption to us becomes absurd. And yet we say it, do we not?

We understand that this observation is made subject to saying “It’s just a phrase, just a play with words that are not really meant that way described” and so the conclusion of absurdity is itself absurd. Or “It’s merely another way of saying one is experiencing some regret at prior choices or motions in the lacking of a fuller informing that is now present” Or in this other case (If I were you…) one is merely saying that given the situation or circumstance expressed by one to another, one is saying “If in that same circumstance, I would do this”.

But is it not absurd? For which is the more vainly presumptive, that the one with full belly can so enter the experience of the hungry man and advise him (thinking he is no less fully understanding of that circumstance, though his belly be full) being neither pressed presently at all with the all the attendant pressing(s) that comes with starving in experience, and insert himself; or that one by simple imagining has access to all experience(s)…even or especially those he is not presently in?

Now, one could say “But I have known hunger”…(or faced such a decision, using whatever situation for example) and therefore I am equipped to make such judgments about one in such a circumstance. But that one would have to imagine that his own experience of hunger (when brought to it is carrying all his own prior experiences and knowings) and that these are all the same across the board.

But, are they?

We carry into each circumstance our own informing about that circumstance. For whom of us does not know himself as only himself, and to himself unique, even to all that has formed him/her? We cannot have it both ways, or can we? That in all our presumed uniqueness we only show that this matter, this matter of seeking to hold to all our own uniqueness is so common to each, that in that way by claiming our own uniqueness we simply show we are the most common of men? Yes, each one is unique…just like everyone else. Have I tossed some dust upon your preeminence? Sorry, but not sorry.

For we are odd in our assessments, ourselves being more of a mystery to ourselves than others mostly. For where and when we might generally look at another and think “I know why so and so did that” believing we can see motive(s), to ourselves when caught we more generally wonder “why on earth did I do that?” And so, and in that way, though we might even concede each is unique (if pressed to it) we find ourselves a little more so, having a bit more uniqueness (if you will) due to our believing we are bit more mysterious in the workings of our self.

And if we take what would appear an opposite view; that is, saying all (others) are ignorant of their own motives, but not me of mine, as in “I know why I do things”, then the moment we are pressed to admit to some fault we are doubly guilty…for we claim to do with full knowing. Is it any wonder then how this is so easily circumvented of ourselves in resistance to admission of fault? Just don’t admit to fault and the wearing of guilt (and attendant shame) never need be acknowledged nor worn. This then becomes a matter of will or wills and the why of the saying above:

Assigning guilt to another, or projecting it for its reception and acceptance by that other is easily frustrated.

Do you see how we get into trouble…even, or especially, in such matter as assigning guilt? Even to ourselves. If taking the position in regards to any bad acting we hold only others guilty of motives of all malevolence, while we let ourselves off with plea of ignorance; or conversely, find all others guilty of ignorance while holding knowing to ourselves, we are the more guilty when our own fault is found. We are so bound either way…in being guilty of carrying an unjust balance.

And if all are guilty, no doubt so is our own sense of justice skewed.

Who escapes the charge of looking with a kinder eye upon themselves than upon any other?

But why do we? How couldn’t we?

And why do you behold the mote that is in your brother’s eye but do not see the beam that is in your own?