Tag: consciousness

Re: Think

Some might tell you they’re thinking all the time. I believe them. I get lost in my thoughts regularly, in a daydreamy sense. If someone asks me what I think I’m very flattered because I feel my view of the world is just as significant as the other guy. I don’t very often come to conclusions with my thinking, at least not in the sense that mine are better than yours. It’s the variety of thoughts that can spin off to holy shit moments that intrigue me enough to ask myself, “Where did that come from?”

Formal education helped me to organize my thinking. I’ve no doubt that significant teachers pointed the way to help me understand my world. When a teacher responded to my hand in the air, I felt empowered to share what was on my mind. The words Thank and Think are nicely related that way since I feel grateful for my ability to think through a problem or be thoughtful about another person’s situation. I sometimes wonder where the thoughts come from that link us as a human race.

My wife has convinced me that all creatures have ideas about their environment. Just because we have trouble communicating with other living things doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about what they might do next. Some evidence shows that trees (aided by fungi) form an underground network of signals for food sourcing and defence. I believe in a collective consciousness: That mysterious force that delivers inspiration, insight and direction. I don’t believe that it comes from a divine source, as an answer to a prayer, but more likely from an unknowable cloud of electrical transmissions.

We humans have an electric field even when we don’t have our thinking cap on. There are billions of us on this planet continually discharging energy. We are a collection of charged particles bouncing about in a sea of chemicals. We might be called Sparkles in an alternative universe. In that sense I might wish to call a grandchild Ethereal in recognition of our lightness of being. This collection of atoms that is us, by any other name, is sweet and remains after we die. I can easily think that these motes, atoms, ions and microscopic bits constitute what some call a soul. So I wonder where the soul goes, when I cease to be Robert.

It’s tempting for me to suggest that these specks of me will become thoughts after I am gone. After all, what else will be left of me, except that which is discovered in someone else’s thinking. My grandkids might think of their grandpa when they are in the midst of story time at school. Likewise, someone reading these words might think of a living soul they haven’t seen in a while or recollect thoughts of an ancestor long dead but still alive in this manner of thinking.

I can’t be alone to think on the meaning behind 13.7+ billion years of stardust. I’ll be careful the next time I rub my eyes. Who’d a thunk it?

Re: Dream

Rare is the night that I don’t dream while I’m asleep. Lately, I’m absorbing the world’s troubles and processing them somehow while in bed. Problem is, come morning, the result of all this subconscious mind spin is not resolution but exhaustion.

Dreaming holds a fascination. In my twenties I picked up lots of books on dream interpretation. Anything by Sigmund Freud I leapt on. Horoscopes held an amusing fascination. Texts didn’t have to be scientific in their approach to questions of a neural nature. I had the classic youthful dreams: going to school in underwear, being chased, escaping a locked room, peeking into a closet, running up an endless inclined plane, flying amongst the clouds. A recurring nightmare through my grade ten year had me staring at a dot in the distance, it got bigger as it approached, gained texture and, just before I identified it as a massive Brillo pad dripping with sticky honey, I woke shouting and in a sweat. I disturbed the household often enough that my mom considered taking me for therapy. To this day if someone asks me how I think I might die, I answer reflexively, “With a blow to my head.”

More positively, I believe I am a dreamer by nature. I love the way the word Dream appears in the songs I’m most fond of humming: Imagine, Dream Weaver, Rainbow Connection, I Dreamed a Dream. In this regard, here’s Rita Wilson singing one of my favourites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cm7U9SCFPk

I love to project my thoughts of a better future while daydreaming. I’m looking forward to spending long stretches of time with my grandkids exploring clouds and watching dragonflies. Dream Boards were popular for a while. Cutouts arranged in a collage for the wall or a private journal are made with intention, while dreaming of better days ahead. Wishing is a close cousin to Dreaming; it’s a projection of all that stuff going on in your headspace. Hopefully the wish can be made manifest in order to keep hope alive.

Our grey matter is a marvel. At times I feel may brain is like a massive parabolic antenna , picking up ideas, messages, multiple conscious musings from countless souls. I long to be tuned to the right channel. It could be a super power like Charles Xavier has as Professor X. I could tap into others’ thoughts not to interlope but to understand my own convoluted self just a little bit better.

During my first year of university I went on a date to see a student production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. On the walk back to residence, the girl commented that I seemed like the main character to her.  I thought she was teasing, but I recognized that I had a brooding sort of personality. When we parted at her dormitory door, as if to make up for a potential slight, she kissed me on the cheek and called me a dreamboat. What a night! I strolled off to my room reviewing the words of the Danish Prince; “To sleep, perchance to dream!”

Re: One

I never thought I would admit this in public, but I’ve been lonely. I have been separated from my one and only, my best friend, my lover, my wife for more than 200 days now. She is on an important mission and I am supporting her as best I can from afar. The oneness that I have experienced with her is not one sided as she too feels the great chasm that comes about when you are not with the one you love. We both endeavour to be strong while acknowledging that One is clearly the loneliest number. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYzY7-V5vxY

There are so many individual ones in the world: Close to 8 billion singular human entities. On the spectrum of ‘personalities who need another in their lives’ the range might be from hermit types to polyamorous groupies. I have felt more in common with the hermit; sequestering myself from the massive throngs of civilization. That is one of the reasons why my recent feelings of loneliness are somewhat confusing. I do really appreciate my own company, that was tested in me as a child. I know I can confidently go it alone but I also know I don’t want to. I am Stoic. I am Vulcan. I take pride in the notion that I can control my desire to be one with the collective. I am Adam yet I must have my Eve.

I have used the power of oneness many times in my life and have discovered that being One doesn’t necessarily mean that you are alone. I have had many glimpses of what it means to be one in the spirit. I have learned to trust. Those 8 billion collective consciouses can be a powerful support mechanism when most needed, like after trauma. Some believe that even dead souls can act as guides. So while loneliness may occasionally tear at my heart, I remind myself that I am never really alone.

I admit also to being a romantic and a great believer in finding ‘the one’. I was lucky to find my Juliet in university. She accepted my formal proposal of marriage. Her family gave their blessing. We had the wedding service where two candles were extinguished and one candle was lit. We had many adventures, raised three boys together and approached middle age with confidence in our bond. When she died I felt lost and alone. I was now one, where I had been two and I wondered just what I might do with the rest of my life. Imagine how blessed I felt when I found my Anne. She too had known loneliness and found ways to appreciate being alone. Our meeting was one for the ages. We couldn’t believe our luck. Now we two could design our own Green Gables.

My wife and I celebrate in the oneness of our combined families. Our grandchildren are learning to count and always start with One. It is the first number. It’s where we all begin and where we all end.