I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the body—until I realized what was telling me that.
C.Z
Humans are big, hairless apes with a gigantic brain. Until we accept this biological fact we are doomed to suffer the illusions our brain generates.
The size of the human cerebral cortex in relation to his body size far surpasses that of any other animal including our closest cousin the chimpanzee. (In truth, my closest cousin only looks like a chimp)
Other mammals have portions of brain that far exceed the human brain in size and function. Bears and dogs have much larger olfactory lobes for sensing smell. Porpoises, whales and bats have larger auditory processing areas giving them the ability echolocate through sounds they generate.
In all animals that have one, the cerebral cortex processes sensory input turning it into meaningful survival information. Memory resides here. Learning happens here. Information processed in the cerebral cortex leads to cognition, recognition and action. Unfortunately, for humanity, our bloated brain appears to be an evolutionary mistake that places us in a survival situation as precarious as the dinosaur’s.
All blond jokes aside, the overly large human cortex turns our skull into a gigantic echo chamber. Thoughts arise and reverberate giving us the ability to associate diverse ideas or give new meaning to something essentially devoid of meaning. It’s called the ability to abstract.
Abstraction is a marvelous tool. The fact that you can look at these arcane symbols, which are simply black ink on white paper or black pixels against a white background and derive meaning from them, is your ability to abstract. Mathematics is abstraction, yet in its encoding and decoding, ways of manipulating and understanding the material world arise. Abstraction only becomes a problem when confused with reality.
Humans are so powerfully affected by abstraction that we have to consciously and constantly look for the subtle difference. We can sit in a movie theater, watch light projected onto a screen and feel fear, love, pity, sadness and joy—the whole gamut of emotions available to us. It isn’t really happening and in most cases, it never did. Every bit of it is illusion, actors portraying scenarios with elevating or depressing outcomes, laced with speech (another abstraction) and music engineered to elicit emotional responses. It isn’t real and we know it, yet it can make us laugh or cry or give us nightmares. Not only is it not real, it is an escape from reality.
Because of this phenomenon we must conclude that the idea of fiction is itself a fiction, at least to our brain. Since recognition of abstraction through discernment is a “higher” brain function, our clueless bodies react to illusion as if it were real. Look over the edge of a cliff and you’ll likely get a shot of adrenaline that causes your heart to race and your body to prepare to protect itself. Back up from the cliff and you begin to wind down. The danger is past and your body relaxes.
The same phenomenon happens when you face a deadline at work. Your boss expects you to produce and yet your subordinates are dogging it. You begin to build scenarios in your mind of a vengeful, angry boss. What if you lose your job? What if you get demoted? How will you pay the mortgage, the credit card, your tab down at the Pig-n-a-poke?
To your body the fairy tail you’re concocting is just as real as that view off the cliff. Only this danger doesn’t abate. You fuss and stew at work, at home, even in bed until your adrenals deplete, your heart wears out, your hair turns gray and you end up abandoning corporeality prematurely.
It isn’t reality. It’s all in your mind. It’s an abstraction, an idea and it is totally unnecessary.
Compounding this problem are systems generated by the overly perplexed and pathologically ambitious psychopaths to take advantage of and promote this inherent confusion. Abstraction drives all power structures, religious mythologies, civilizations, and especially the fear-based, modern consumptive society. The “Invisible Hand” cultivates abstract delusion in the modern world, for delusion creates confusion and fear, the powerful emotions needed to exert control over humans.
The real kicker is that what you think of as your self is also an abstraction. As your ability to abstract develops along with your growing body, you attach ideas to other ideas and concoct an abstract reality that allows you to deal with events that occur and affect your body in time-space (yet another abstraction).
This is the echo I was talking about earlier. What transpires through your body is consciousness expressing itself through you. The ego is the echo, the abstraction. The real you is the consciousness expressing itself through the body. You aren't the experiencer. You are the experience unclouded by the abstract idea of self.
As a Slacker, your “job” is to understand the difference between what is real and what is abstract. It is a long and arduous journey but it is of utmost importance. Until then the door to true freedom remains locked and the planet, in danger.
to be continued...
Preface part 1, part 2
Introduction
Why Slack? part 1, part 2
The Purpose of Life
Paradox of Civilization:part 1 part 2
History of Slavery: part 1, part 2