Here's to you

THIS IS THE MAGNUM OPUS OF MY LIFE. I’m sorry if that sounds presumptuous, but with this topic it’s hard to avoid coming across in that way. But on second thoughts, why should I care how I come across? It's far more important to set out my personal philosophy without self-censorship.

My philosophy works for me, and it may work for others. That’s at the forefront of my thinking as I write. True, I'm not in this game to change minds, but I do wish to make this text available to every open mind. In fact, I’m dedicating it to the reader. As it was written, it was all about me; now that it's written, it's all about you.

Dead writers club

I am stimulated by the thoughts that spin the worlds of others, and I benefit from tapping into some of that centrifugal force. A little cross-pollination works wonders. Reading is the best way to put me in touch with another person, as it helps me see the world from their point of view. I become them for a spell—it actually feels like I’m under a spell when I share their experiences. And, because I feel that the acquisition of experience is the reason for living, that can't be a bad thing.

Whether the author lives or is history is immaterial. If you enjoy a book and later discover that the person who wrote it has recently died, then doesn’t make a jot of difference to your enjoyment. I don’t need to relate to anyone in the actual flesh to appreciate what they say. In fact, reading their words is so much better than pow-wowing in real life—that's been my experience. And the corollary of that is that if you’d like to make friends with me, please don't knock on my door. But I wouldn’t ban you from sending me an essay.

Nevertheless, let the buyer—or borrower—of books beware. Don't dwell entirely within anyone's headroom, no matter how comfortable it feels when you first slip between the sheets. Don’t let yourself be completely swept away in the throes of a new love or affair lest you lose your sense of equilibrium and poise. If you are in the habit of reading books then, to act as a counterbalance, I’d strongly suggest that you write one too.

Identity check

Because my style of thinking follows on from the type of person that I am, it may be useful if I divulge a little about my personality. That may help you to decide how much credence to give me. Words don’t exist in a vacuum; they are coloured by the character of their user. Consequently, there’s a reason for me to prove myself worthy. Whether I want to or not, I’m going to have to crawl out on that limb.

Though no man is an island, I keep myself a strictly-patrolled peninsula. By that, I mean that I’m semi-permeable to other input. Through reading I’ll happily incorporate ideas from external sources. But I do so very judiciously—and I’d recommend that you apply the same strategy. Tread cautiously. Do allow ideas from foreign sources to pollinate you, but don’t let yourself be genetically modified in the head. It’s a finely-tuned balancing act.

In No Ordinary Genius, David Goodstein tells of getting together with Richard Feynman one evening to read with excitement the manuscript of Jim Watson’s (and Crick’s) The Double Helix, a year before that milestone of a book was published.

“Watson must have been either very lucky or very smart,” remarked Goodstein to Fenman, “because he never knew what anybody else was doing, and yet he still made the crucial discovery.”

Replied Fenman, “That’s what I learned from reading it. I used to know it, and then I forgot it—I have to disregard everybody else, and then I can do my own work.” And so, given that Will? I Am! originated almost exclusively from me, the time might be right to reveal a little about myself (the bare minimum, I promise us both).

I always feel awkward when I’m asked who I am. The conventional response is to name an occupation, as if the activity that brings dollars through the door defines one as a person. Well, that isn't how I see myself. My day job is incidental to who, or what, I am. I place more emphasis on making a life than on making a living.

And yet I wouldn't feel comfortable coming out with the truth either—declaring for example that I’m a seeker. I hate it when people respond, “Whaaat!?” so I tend to 'um' and 'er'. To entrust a stranger or even an acquaintance with a deeper response, and for me to divulge how I relate to the universe, and what I deem to be important in my life, isn't for casual conversation.

It should suffice that English is my mother tongue, and that I can make myself understood. I write competently (if you can ignore my irrepressible wit). I don’t require that you trust me. I don’t care whether you relate to me or not. Both are irrelevant to me. I’ve grown up largely outside the influence of any major religion, so have no vested interest in any dogma or belief system. More than that, you don’t really need to bother yourself with.

Why wonder about whether I’m male or female (or combination thereof)? Surely my physical appearance—height, weight, skin colour and shoe-size—is of no consequence. I’m above the age of consent—of an age, in fact, to have grandchildren. It shouldn’t make a jot of difference whether I’m confined to a wheelchair, or run marathons. I have most of the ‘seven smarts’ and do well in intelligence tests, though have never felt that to be an advantage—the reverse, if anything. You ought not to care a hoot whether I have a steady job or am unemployed. Why would you give a fig about whether I write from a prison cell or via the free Internet access suite at the local library? What does it matter where I hang my hat? 

 

Enough on my plate

I’m not here to convince or debate. I’m not going to prop up what I say by dragging out a phalanx of previous thinkers—giants on whose shoulders I propose to stand and rant. I am not claiming to have developed—or be developing—a watertight system of thinking, or a way of apprehending reality. 

True, that is the direction in which I want to head, but all I wish to do here is document my journey. I don’t see it as my job to make my discoveries fit in with what has gone before and thereby satisfy the conventional view. I won’t take it on because I don’t consider that my brief. I’ve enough on my plate as it is. Others may have a go later. That’s up to them, and they’d be welcome. By all means, if anyone out there is that way inclined, take up the cudgels on my behalf and run with them (it’s supposed to be good exercise). 

As for me, I’m grappling at the limits of my strength with ideas that, for me at least, lie at the highest possible heights of comprehension—the Everest of what is humanly possible without oxygen. You take a step then rest five minutes. Lurch forward another pace and rest some more. It may seem as if I have it altogether, but that’s an illusion. I can only only hold a line or two of this text in my head at any one instant (this book is a manual for me to read and learn from just as well). But in saying that, I’ll pretend that I know what I’m talking about—which I do, just not everything at once—and I’ll do my best to present this narrative as best I can.
 

Authentic behavior

A man once contacted a large number of celebrities, sportsmen, stars and famous people. “How do you achieve success in life?” he asked them, and then later collated their responses into a book. Charles J. Acquisto’s Wisdom to Grow On basically boils down to:

• Continuously grow and educate yourself by reading and listening.
• Actively engage with life by persevering or striving. 
• Focus on small steps in your day-to-day living—use time wisely, in other words. 
• Work on maintaining harmonious relationships through love and honesty. 
• Work towards a greater good in the form of a religion, cause, dream or personal goal. 
• Stay happy by maintaining a positive attitude. 
• Accept everything that comes your way, and don’t take yourself too seriously. 
• Be the change that you would like to see.

Most of this advice is what you’d expect. None of it particularly moved my earth, but there was nothing that you’d argue with.

The strongest message that came through, though, was the exhortation to be true to your self. ‘Live authentically’ spelled out letter after letter. Only then, the respondents insisted, will a person be serene. Only then, as Anne Wilson Schaef puts it, will you be “in tune with your own inner guidance, awareness, integrity, spirituality and morality”. It’s good to demonstrate who one is by doing what one loves and is drawn to. ‘Dare to be different. Dare to be your deeper self.’
 
I find it ironical that people need to be told to be themselves. Sea anemones don’t. Salmon don’t. Even our pets need little instruction. It just goes to show how thoroughly our behavior and thinking is pervaded from without. On the one hand we live in an age of information, but on the other there’s obviously a clear and present need for us to learn how to ignore most of it.

One's own brood

 

Let’s take a squiz at a universally held tenet with the help of a well-known author. Recently I read Stephen King’s Cell. It’s written more along science-fiction lines than Steve’s customary horror (although the book has its share of that too). The story kicks off with a virus, one that doesn’t have a biological basis, nor is it the sort of virus that affects computers. It’s electronic, but it spreads through the human population. When someone switches on a cell phone, it emits a vibration that turns the listener insane in a suicidal and homicidal sense. Not good.
 
Anyway, the hero has escaped the virus. He observed someone else answer his phone and turn loony, and so he refused to answer his own. But then he gets into a tizzy. How is he going to warn his son? He can’t ring him. Desperately he tries to get home before his son becomes a raving zombie. 

All around him people are going crazy—shooting one another, burning, looting. Thousands are dying, but Clayton doesn’t bother himself with that. He is totally preoccupied with returning home in time to save his son.
 
Think about it. Why does he do that? Why, when the whole world is dying off all around him, does feel so compelled to save the life of one particular person? Is it just me? I can’t believe that no one else seems to see it (I’m speaking now outside King’s novel). No one thinks that anything’s wrong. In fact, we expect that people will care more for their own brood than for a stranger. This is regarded as normal by the masses, whereas I see it as utterly crackers. Doesn’t anyone agree? When you think about it—when I think about it—it’s so peculiar that we expect people to care for one another to varying degrees, as if—I don’t know—there’s some sort of caste system in place.
 
Let’s say that an incident occurs in a coal mine. There’s an explosion and a couple of dozen miners get trapped. Just look at how the news is reported around the world. In Australia they concentrate on the Australians. In Scotland they interview the families of the Scottish workers who are missing. To me that whole scenario is totally weird.

In the same vein, an arbitrary hierarchy seems to apply across the entire animal kingdom. We say that a whale is worth more than a sheep. Cows you eat, but not horses; dogs but not pigs (different cultures have different rules). And by some additional principle, a creature of an endangered species accrues extra mana the fewer members of its species that remain. Plants too—this one is a weed, eradicate it, this one is ‘native’, protect it. This is what I mean by human idiosyncrasy. This is an example of the commonly held misconceptions that the neurotypical crowd goes along with.
 
Isn’t there a bit in the Bible where someone points out to someone else—somehow the name Brian rings a bell—that he forgot to acknowledge his mother, and that historical personage responds with something like, ‘Who is my mother?’. Maybe that incident relates to something like this, it’s a parable that illustrates the folly in elevating one person above another. Either everyone—and every living thing—is family, or no-one and nothing is.
 
I like what Einstein had to say on this—more and more I’m finding that the man had a lot of sensible stuff to say about many things. He wrote:

‘A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest . . . a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.’

 

B movie

I must tell you about another science fiction story. Naturally, an alien race was involved, humanoid (writers should always keep in mind the possibility of a film adaptation). In fact, the aliens were virtually identical to human beings—two sexes and all. The major difference was that they were about a thousand times larger, and their inclination was to swat us like midges. 
 
Before colonizing the earth, the giants sent out an exploration party. Some sort of fracas resulted from which the aliens came off second best. One or two survived, but they were brain-dead and no use for interrogation. 

 

As an aside, consider the concept of ‘alien’. According to Ism ideology, there is no such thing of course. We’re all just appendages on the same tree. We’re simply differently shaped limbs on the one jabberwocky. Aliens, plants, or whatever—we’re all just talons, tentacles, trunks and wings. How daft it would be, for instance, if your legs stood in mortal fear of your arms. Still, in such a situation what are you going to do when an alien appears? Philosophize? No way, you pull out your blaster.

 

Getting back to the story, these aliens were so gigantic that after their prefrontal lobes were removed—their head injuries required major surgery—there was enough space for a lunar module-style office to be built inside the giant’s head. Living quarters were duly installed, along with a contraption that an astronaut-operator used to control the hulk of the giant’s body. Wired up to the remnants of the giant’s brain, he monitored the environment through the giant’s own eyes. 

 

After about six months of training the operator learned the alien’s language and so forth. I don’t know how that went. Maybe it was possible to access the alien’s memory banks. And eventually the human-operated alien was sent back to its home planet in the original spaceship on another fact-gathering mission, this time for 'our' side. 

 

I’m not sure how things turned out after that. For me, the best part of the story was how it portrayed consciousness. The idea that it is the controlling force that sits behind your eyes. Seen in that light, every life form is just a vehicle. Inside every head there sits an operator (begging the question of what homunculus sits behind the operator’s eyes).
 

Auf wiedershen

And that’s the preamble to the ramblings over also. The first book is done. I’ve brought Theo up to the headiest of heights, but I won’t be so irresponsible as to leave you up there high and dry. The second part of my mission is to bring you down safe and secure.



In the book that follows, we’re going to have to process the journey. There’s a lot to unpack and internalize before we’re fit to be released into society and the world the world at large. Let’s debrief.

The pages we’ve passed through you may think of as a greatest hits package. I grant that in style it’s a bit of a rock opera. What follows now will be the loose jamming that happens backstage after the concert is over: the gradual unwinding.

Or, to use another analogy—one that we’ve made a lot of use of—we’ve just sat through the main feature and have now selected another option from the menu. This book is unique in that you get to rerun the entire movie alongside a running commentary. We’ll ask for input from the producer, the director and an actor or two. 

I suggest that you make yourself comfortable—maybe get yourself a refill of popcorn (just go easy on the coke). You see, our next job is to work out how the theory translates into practice. It’ll be a Talmud of sorts. I want to follow up some of the consequences of our new home-spun philosophy. I bet that, where the rock and a hard place meet, and where The Theory of Everythink evolves into the ideology of Ism, it will lead us to a veritable bizarro world of conclusions.

Be seeing you.