We Slaves

It happened that the painter continued his work under the heed which his neighbors had given. However, as he sat in the midst of his subject, a problem presented itself: the street was so lively with bodies and business that he could not see beyond a few steps in front of him. Therefore, to capture the entirety of the scene, he was forced to guess at that which was beyond his eye’s ability. Despite this, when the work was finished he was satisfied. Though, as it happened—and to his surprise—upon seeing the painting his neighbors cried, “How dare you misrepresent my home? You have twisted and distorted all of that which is closest to me. Your painting is untruthful and you have offended me!”

At this remark the painter reflected, then felt a slight haughtiness come over him. His patrons had no concept of the real—their ambition ran faster than their senses.

A humble painter who becomes inspired to capture the liveliness of a street scene is warned, “Be sure to not crop too tightly! Your canvas is only so large and the larger the scale of your objects, the smaller the scope of the scene. Totality is your aim. You will never know what your audience will interpret outside the scene in which you have captured—the thought is far too frightening to imagine. We warn you, do not crop too tightly!”

The painter is weary. Intimacy and details may be sacrificed. He likes to imagine scope, while confrontation with it scares him.

The moment that Reason was deemed the most satisfying of the mental faculties was the moment that emotion assessed its own self-worth and then suffered reproach. Surely this was emotion’s greatest honor yet—to recognize subordination to Reason. Even at this moment, when Reason was lifted up to the highest esteem, it was our gratification—our resolve—that was the brawn that did so. Unfortunately for us, emotion is the deeper of the mental faculties.

However, following this moment, it came to pass that Reason lent support to its belittled counterpart. And a proclamation was made from the mouth of Reason itself: Our emotional faculty has developed as our most expedient tool for recalling individuations of experience—surely we commend it as such on merit of its severity and immediacy.

With each mental faculty humbled to the next, we are capable of an aesthetic understanding. And with this understanding what is expressed colloquially as material and thought are reducible to the same—both are products which vary only in degree of severity present in our environment. We could easily designate the idea weak, while the material is immediate and strong.

Thankfully emotion strikes us hard enough—we find Reason functioning best with relationships in close proximity of either time or space. And we can read into this union of mind further: if we find an impression too strong for our liking, we look for a relief; and if too weak, we look for a substitution. Either resolve can be satisfied by sublimation. If our product is not a release, then it is a reminder which we keep close—and upon its reoccurring touch, taste, sound, or image we find solace again.

Every stimulation surges only to release from its captivity. Once an expansion, then a contraction; once a movement, then a void which sought to be filled—this is the play of stimulations which I have witness. But what is the scope of our minds? Can we comprehend the resolute existence which stimulation surges to reach? For what our lives will be, will we ever witness an end-in-itself? To be sure, we only have to ask ourselves a series of subsequent questions. Is not the effect of two dissolved and concluded stimulations only a cause for another? And can’t it be said that complete denial of stimulation is unintelligible?

Let us recall a famous story of denial—that story of when Simon Peter drew his sword to Judea. There can be no doubt that his allegiance was certain and his reactions predictable—but on the day of Jesus’ arrest there was another answer: “Then Jesus said unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” Henceforth, in the face of opposition, Peter found himself with an immediate and mechanical reaction—denial. Suffering at the hand of the opposition had not been invented for him. Jesus knew that Peter could not accept martyrdom, at least, until an example had been made for him to follow.

If stimulation swells and is met with lack of acknowledgement within consciousness, there can only be one resolution for that stimulation: an inward manifestation onto the consciousness. An inward manifestation can only lead to the greatest sickness of consciousness; equally, it leads to a malformation of physiology—I say, stimulation will have its release! Perhaps it was Simon Peter whose consciousness was the first to succumb to a reaction forced back onto its origin. Perhaps he wept not for denying his Lord—he knew no other reaction!—but for denying the stimulation to defend his allegiance.

Today it appears that we have come face-to-face with an undisputable understanding; simply, our consciousness is both a puppet of our environment and a vehicle in which stimulation is forwarded. And when we are presented with a situation in which we intentionally alter the direction of our performance, it is under the influence of stimulation. Stimulation alone allows us to call awareness to our actions, and is that which manipulates our awareness to perform. The faculty to engage in this articulate relationship with our environment is deeply developed, for sure.

When does the turmoil of a thought end? Once our limbs have sublimated stimulation into a reaction against our environment, then consciousness reaches momentary solace. But let our comfort not be our deception! We experience only that which occurs as a passing moment. It is stimulation passing through which we call awareness. Consciousness begins with our in and ends with our out; or more correctly, consciousness is the composition of temporally crystallizing relationships which relate our environment to us.

Our satisfaction: to make a judgment—to know value in order to understand our relationship to our environment—to constitute ourselves in our environment. We enjoy ourselves as quidnuncs.

Our project: to know purpose of action—to know meaning of existence in order to react in our environment. We labor ourselves as quidnuncs.

This could be said, and something else also—don’t we always labor to be entertained?

A few years ago I came across a story which I wish to share, to help me illustrate an altogether inescapable realization concerning our existence of lability. The story comes from Saint Louis, Missouri and requires a bit of visual description regarding the city’s topography. When traveling from one neighborhood to the next there is an observation which cannot go unacknowledged; the streets are more than thoroughfares—they are the framework of the city which set structure to the otherwise coalescent characteristics of each neighborhood.

The residential neighborhood of Lafayette Square rests south of a large freight yard which runs west of the Mississippi and divides Saint Louis’ central commercial district from its residential counterparts. After walking through the train yard five days a week for nearly two years, I came to appreciate the character of the train yard, which is expressed by the unusual adjoining of the industrial operations with commercial and residential.

A few months before I took up residence in Lafayette Square, the people of the neighborhood witnessed a rare, but not altogether unbelievable event; a factory exploded releasing metal debris into the air which damaged lawns, automobiles, and roof tops. This event culminated with a citizen protest whose cause was the relocation of the industrial operation. During my first year in Lafayette Square propaganda populated the windows of the Victorian homes until the relocation was confirmed and completed.

We are blind all too often—our thought always an afterthought. I have to ask, what is the value of foresight to an individual when it is always an exploding factory which is needed to present us the moment in which to push back onto our environment? What is the value of foresight to a united front of thousands when there are always a thousand thousands which stand outside? Why gaze into crystal balls? Why seek a teller of fortunes?

To understand commendable foresight as a faculty of consciousness would mean to understand existence beyond all probability. This would mean to be at one with every cause—even those which are created through the passage of experience. This faculty would be equivalent to knowing every action that has been and the property of every substance which will react—this would be to know the universe as a single thought, and hear its song as a single harmonic tune.

But who could believe the universe fiddles a congruent song that they have been granted permission to hear? Who could be so audacious as to assume that their united front is the united front of all the universe, and that they are not one of the thousand thousands which stand outside? Who could believe that the fiddles of a thousand thousands fiddle for them? Who could suffer from so much vanity and exhort so much arrogance onto the world? And now that we have overcome our selfishness over the world—that is to say, our ego-coddling humanism—how could our modesty before the world allow us that which is so well concealed within that Christian plea: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”

Even today, when we find ourselves emancipated from the religious delusion we still find this impudence present in those political and economic philosophies which hold that intention can overcome any undesirable counter-finality—those who preach a morality out of their political and economical foresight. Why turn your foresight into the doctrine for your neighbor? And when your neighbor knows that the apple fell once, and when thrown again, will fall again, why become the overbearing mother with the weight of responsibly on your shoulders? Why, when in doing so, you become the thief who steals their feather or their brick?—why steal those experiences away?

An irregularity of experience—this is the moment of judgment. Those changes in tempo, those movements and sounds, and tingles to our flesh—the burning tree and the blooming flower! They demand of us, “Look at me. Judge me. I want a value!” These irregularities of experience, these distortions from normalcy, these surges and stimulations demand a reaction; they call for us to alter and shape them. This is the experience of an existence of lability—a push and shove within an environment and between its components. Today it might please us to believe that we are traveling the ancient footpath beaten by Heraclitus; however, sincerity would have us admit that we have only stumbled upon that venerable depiction of movement while mapping our own journey through the forests of interpretation.

And free will?—that will which reacts upon observation, which is forced into action, which pushes when it is shoved—that will is a slave to its stimulation. We are not so empty, we are not a void which must be filled—there is no void of which we know! There is oxygen even in the emptiness of the air, gravity in the emptiness of space.

The word experience owes its origin to the bias of the human perspective—it was, of course, crafted to describe something uniquely human. In colloquial use it expresses a duration within consciousness, or the state which follows a duration within consciousness; however, our thoughts are a single domino in the course of the physical exchange of simulations. Here, I am mindful not to qualify experience solely as human experience. Our lability is guided by every object in our environment—and don’t you think the same experience extends to every object in our environment? Don’t you think we say to it, “Look at me!  Hear me! Feel Me!”—and then it reacts? Is it so hard to imagine ourselves as the stimulation which forces the burning of a tree or the blooming of a flower?