Mr. Bigshot

Originally published on this site Mar 7, 2008

Yeah, okay there, Mr. Bigshot, with the new blank document staring you in the face, daring you to fill it with all the stuff you keep saying you have.

Ontologically speaking, the proof of a reality beyond perception – its existence independent of our knowledge of it – lies, for me, in first the necessity of plurality and action. There is more than one thing, and they will interact – they will do.

There’s more than one thing. There must be. There would be nothing to perceive if there were less than two things.

I will totally give you that there is perception, and the reality we choose to make for each of us begins first with the choices we make as we interact with – perceive – the world around us. Absolutely. But there is an IS regardless of our individual & collective perceptions.

For anything to be said it exists – its definition cannot be total and complete if it is solely defined from within…or, expressing or acknowledging that which it IS only. To complete the definition, you must also include some aspect of what it is NOT. To perceive something, you must be from a perspective which the thing is not. Therefore, there must be some part of your perception where the one thing is made distinct, even if only from you (being “the other thing”). And even the undertaking of that perception, the acknowledgement of that first “other thing” is the action which must takes place.

The action creates a reaction, and THINGS CHANGE.

Poof. I’d like to thank “time” for coming out to join our little party.

Once we have more than one thing, we also then have what I like to call “the condition of mutual coexistence” – this is, for lack of a better way of putting it, the thing that is the collection of all things. The sum. All. Everything.

The Aesthetic.

I think the Bible, if I recall it correctly, kinda had it right at the very start:

In the beginning, there was light. Light is energy. Light’s pretty much been responsible for everything from the gitgo.

And the things need energy, you know, to do all that interacting, all that changing, all that movement from one moment to the next, each moment separated by whichever minute (my-noot) change occurs in The Aesthetic. And each change is marked, and time marches on, and The Aesthetic collects all the previous moments in time and adds it all to Itself making The Aesthetic always larger, ever growing, ever expanding, plurality upon plurality.

Here, in these moments of Thinking Human – Homo sapien sapien – our perception (in keeping with all those perceptionalists out there) seems to have provided us with a sense of identity, a sense of “the self.” This is kind of the final tier about things, but it’s important that we also note that there are creatures at least on this planet that interact with the same thing we interact with, yet there is no experience to say they share our sense of identity.

Because…

Our identity, our perception of self, has had us move to dominate this world we are on, but squeezing every productive bone of its body – the entire planet that is – unlike any other creature.

Because we perceive the planet, we perceive ourselves as part of this planet, and we perceive the planet as part of a solar system, ad infinitum to each person’s understanding of “all” or “the universe” or “everything” or……..as I like to call it, The Aesthetic. When we perceive ourselves, we also perceive that we are NOT. We recognize there is a perspective outside of ourselves that perceives US, each, as individuals.

(This arose, incidentally, from a naturally born want to empathize…for me, one of the main reasons why I have faith and why I believe love is the answer. I’ll shelve that for now, but it’s important you understand that THAT WANT FOR EMPATHY was based first on surviving…and because we built that in ourselves – because as Thinking Human we recognized that the smarter thing to do was build that sense of empathy – we took a very easy path to being able to perceive that other perspective upon us – and >poof!< the creation of the self!)

Once you have a self, then you have an Everything. Then you have that YOU as a self are NOT Everything, but instead only one part.

Only one small, tiny, tiny, tiny, insignificant, worthless, meaningless, speck of a speck of a dust of a moment of a part.

Which is why life is fabulous, and why life sucks.

So there you are, and there you’re not. Pretty scary. Don’t you want to be happy?

Course you do.

Got what you need? No? Better get that first. Gotta survive.

Careful, though – are you sure that’s a need? Sure could be a want…probably is, if you ask me. Nothing personal, just damned likely…why? ‘Cause when you get what you want, then you’re happy! You’re scared, I already know that, and you’re just trying to get what you want so you can be happy.

The “self” creates that want I hope ya know. The self creates those inalienable rights to life, liberty and your pursuit of your happiness…to have what you want.

“This is me. This is what I want.” Say it again, over and over, no really, please. Tell me how much you want and how bad you want it. C’mon, you SELF you, let me have it! Give me all those wants with both barrels blazing! Scream for your right to your being, to create that network of perspectives that AREN’T you that by some bizarre collection of choices and styles and list and numbers it will carve out some definition of YOURSELF by all the WANTS you have filled for yourself.

Are you finished?

‘Cause I got something to tell you.
I would have told you earlier, but you wouldn’t have listened – you were too busy wanting.

Um, dunno really how to tell you this, so I’m just going to tell you.
You didn’t have to do all that.

You’re already there.
You’re already defined.
I see you. I can tell you that you’re here.
That I see you…is a good thing. You are here. And for all the sucking that life is, it’s also fabulous. And it’s fabulous when someone else knows you’re here. And I know you’re here. You don’t have to trumpet it, don’t have to celebrate it, don’t have to define it, sharpen it, color it, pierce it, arrange it, and I know that you feel that sense of insignificance and believe me, I do, too…but that STILL doesn’t change the fact that I acknowledge you, I perceive you, I gather from you that which you would wish me to gather.

Originally published on this site Mar 7, 2008

But that’s a tough thing, because I’m human, too, and I’m fallible, and I make mistakes, and I’m worried about MY happiness, too, and I can’t 100% of the time give you all that.

No one can.

So you MUST, to some extent, trumpet, celebrate, sharpen, define, color, pierce, arrange…you must ACT. You must DO.

Because you ARE.

And yet – and really, I’m going to repeat myself here because you have to know this – you don’t have to.

Really.

You must. But you needn’t. Because you are, but you are not.

(If I phrased this differently, would it be poetry? Or is that too pretentious a question?)

Light’s hot, and heat’s bright. Thinking, thumbs, standing up, fire (harnessing energy), then self.

And you will exist. And your mother will squirt you up like the pinball you are and you will drop through the game of life, moving from one moment to the next, and you will be cared for (hopefully) during the first moments of your life until it can be commonly accepted that you’re able to make your own way through the rest of it, then bygumm you had better, for you ARE and therefore you must DO.

So what do you do? Well, that’s easy, isn’t it? You do what you want.

Why? Because it makes you happy.

Are you happy?
Well, I won’t ask that – you’ll tell me yes.

How ‘bout this: Are you scared?