I've been thinking a lot in recent months how weird it is that I (we) exist at all.
I picture individual existence arising from a stew of goo (in my handwriting in the picture below, it looks like "STEW OF GOD", which is pretty good too).
In my picture, which is not scientifically approved, the goo is undifferentiated stuff, like the potato mush that fruit flies live on in a scientific laboratory (or behind the fridge...).
A blip arises out of this stew, and––boop! ––it separates.
Why?
Who knows?!
There are lots of stories about this.
Maybe just... because it does.
Somehow the blip becomes conscious of itself.
How weird is that?!?!
This morning I drew a picture.
The conscious stage doesn't last long.
I didn't draw the final step---the blip soon returns to the stew.
I picture individual existence arising from a stew of goo (in my handwriting in the picture below, it looks like "STEW OF GOD", which is pretty good too).
In my picture, which is not scientifically approved, the goo is undifferentiated stuff, like the potato mush that fruit flies live on in a scientific laboratory (or behind the fridge...).
A blip arises out of this stew, and––boop! ––it separates.
Why?
Who knows?!
There are lots of stories about this.
Maybe just... because it does.
Somehow the blip becomes conscious of itself.
How weird is that?!?!
This morning I drew a picture.
The conscious stage doesn't last long.
I didn't draw the final step---the blip soon returns to the stew.
But in the little time it has, it does ALL SORTS OF THINGS!!!
ReplyDeleteThis one reclines on soft surfaces and looks at little marks on paper--for hours!
It attaches nubby tires to its bike so it doesn't slip in the snow!
Going to the doctor yesterday, I thought how incredibly sweet it is that some of the blips spend their time taking care of the machinery of the other blips:
"Are you having problems with the material form you exist in? Perhaps if you put THIS in it."
[hands suffering blip a red bell pepper].
And then-- and this seems a stupid waste to me--some spend their time stomping on other blips.
From the perspective of timeless featureless goo, it doesn't matter. But it matters to the blips.
"Hey! Stop that!"
The blips aren't truly separate, of course:
they feel separate, within themselves, but we are attached to one another, like with clear fishing line we can't necessarily see.
And when you think about that, off you go into details--politics, science, religion and other stories [ways of comprehending the weirdness], etc.
But the weird thing I keep thinking about is simply that I exist at all!
It's pretty cool.
As always, Fresca, I like how you think. I've heard (or read, or something) that consciousness is the one thing we can't get behind to study. It sure appears to exist, but how? A great mystery, indeed.
ReplyDeleteThanks to my son, I've been "into" thinking about examples from nature of such mysterious realities. You might be interested in this post, by the wonderful nature writer Tom Titus (whose son married my daughter, but who is not at all religious): http://www.tomatitus.com/blog/2018/11/16/rooted.
The "goo" in this piece is the "invisible" stuff beneath our feet. Fascinating.
DEANNA: Thanks! I like how you think too: Sisters in Thought!
ReplyDelete