by Madeleine KandoBeing aware of something is not as straightforward as you might think. Being too aware of yourself, for instance, is not really such a good idea. If I was aware of everything about myself, it would be so lethal to my self-esteem that I probably would commit hara-kiri on the spot.
My brain is more like a piece of Swiss cheese, with big holes that represent blind spots to protect myself from too much awareness, too much consciousness.
My age, for instance is something I prefer not to be too aware of. It's healthier that way. And what about my self-centeredness, my need for privacy, my impatience? I don't want to be too aware of those qualities either.
I prefer not to be aware of how I drool when I sleep, how I squint in front of a painting, how I look when I step out of bed, unwashed and uncombed. Who needs that kind of awareness?
That's why I envy animals. They have no sense of shame or embarrassment. Dogs lick their you-know-what in public, humiliate themselves begging, they follow you around like a slave when they want something, they get angry when they feel like it and they show boundless affection when they are happy. Does that make them less capable of enjoying life? Are they inferior to us because of it?
Children are so unaware of themselves to the point of irritation. They talk to themselves, bump into strangers, sing, laugh and cry at the drop of a hat. They totally lack inhibition and it's a miracle most of them make it to self-aware, uptight, decent adults.
People take workshops to develop self-awareness, to discover who they truly are. But what if you truly are a mass murderer, or a pervert? Aren't you better off not discovering your true self?
If I was aware of everything about myself, I wouldn't have time to reflect on anything else. And if I was aware of everything around me, I would be so overwhelmed I would want to escape to an isolation tank.
All joking aside, I do think that being aware of injustices, suffering and cruelty is important. The trick is to be selective about what you want to be aware of. If you are not a very aware person, be smart and listen to others who can make you aware of your unawareness, like me and my very aware husband.
On the other hand, if we were really aware of all the dangers, risks and minimal chances of success of anything we try to do, we would all become catatonic. And then who could be blamed for all the failures in the world? leave comment here
4 comments:
I think air, water, stones and the like, are not aware. My dog is aware and I imagine her fleas are aware too. All life must be aware but I think only we humans suffer from awareness that knows itself. The bible blames Eve for eating that damned apple. Right, blame it on the girls!
In conscious awareness we conjure a world filled with "things". Air, water and stones are things. My dog is a thing. Others are things. You are a thing and I am a thing.
Why do we carve the world into things?
To work our will upon them of course. We all busy-ness, stacking stones into houses, breeding dogs into sycophant companions and killing their fleas, making others into friends or enemies and making our selves into Sun Gods at the center of the universe. Carving the world into things makes us powerful. Thingy-ness is a great equalizer---all things being equal that is.
We are thing-o-philiacs, lovers of things, and this can be quite useful if we chose to do good things rather than bad things. But there's a price to be paid for our compulsive utilitarianism because when we make the world into things we must draw borders to separate this thing from that--our selves from air, water and stones, our selves from our dogs and their fleas, our selves from others about us, our selves from ourselves.
What a lonely place we make for our selves as we go about our busy-ness of working on every thing. It helps to take a break whenever you can.
Marc is philosophically profound, as usual.
Here is another philosophical musing (tongue-in-cheek):
rocks DO have awareness - just very little if it. Isn't the universe a continuum - from inanimate lava, to primitive uni-cellular organic life, plants, then animals, finally man's evolved consciousness and eventually Teilhard De Chardin's Omega Point?
Inanimate rocks (the moon, planets, asteroids) have gravity. This means that they are aware of you.
Ha! (No, I'm not on marijuana, I'm just naturally so)
Wow, I had no idea this post would generate such profound reactions.
Awareness is, of course, one of the most important human capabilities from which everything else flows. Including making fun of being abe to be aware.
Tom,
You are so right! Gravity is an awareness of a sorts. One might even call it the ultimate attractive nuisance.
No less that likes of the great Stephen Hawking makes the very same point in the penultimate chapter of his little book "The Grand Design".
“Because gravity shapes space and time, it allows space-time to be locally stable but globally unstable. On the scale of the entire universe, the positive energy of matter can (in one story) be balanced by the negative gravitational energy, and so there is no restriction on the creation of whole universes.” (p. 180)
The whole mess of creation, ours and all the others, is a testimony to the gravity of our situation.
Just naturally that way? Come on now Tom...
----CUE MUSIC----
----All sing now---
"Don't bogart that joint my friend
Pass it over to me"
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