(cross-posted from my other blog, the synergetic omni-solution)
Prevailing
thought is like prevailing wind; it requires less effort to allow oneself to be
carried along than to set a course that goes against it. Also like wind,
thought is often presumed to be invisible. But one can quite easily learn to
observe the effects of both on tangible objects, and thereby gain the ability
to harness the power of either.
The
first lesson in sailing usually occurs on the shoreline. Students are invited
to determine from which direction the wind is blowing by looking for clues:
flags, trees, boats at anchor, the feel of the breeze on one’s own skin, and through
careful observation of subtle variations in the texture of wavelets on the surface
of the water itself.
In
order to see thought, one only needs to look around oneself. The urge to
connect turns into telephones, televisions, and the internet. The inclination
to travel manifests as cars, ships, planes, and trains. The need for social
organization is revealed in our political systems. And so forth and so on…
But
what is a thought, exactly? An electrochemical impulse? Does it require an
embodied agent, or is it possible that ambient electrochemical forces cause
matter to coalesce into particular patterns and configurations, resulting in
the infinite variety of artifacts we find ourselves among? Needs, longings, and
desires arrive with the distinct sensation that they are ours alone – but couldn’t
the existence of a tree be the outward expression of a fundamental “need” in
the universe for an efficient, multifunctional carbon dioxide processing unit?
Sophisticated
new investigative apparatus developed around the 17th century in the
form of telescopes and microscopes suggested to their human operators that the
world around us could be broken down into parts, and that we ourselves are
unique entities that are distinctly separated from the environment in which we
find ourselves. Galileo declared “Measure
what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” That which could not be made measureable
was granted an air of dubiousness, if not eliminated outright.
The
scientific method (i.e.: formulate a hypothesis, design and implement an
experiment, analyze the result, repeat), however useful it may be for technical
applications, was never really intended as an all-purpose standard to which social
and philosophical principles should also be applied. Just because we cannot
measure intuition, love, compassion, grief, or inspiration certainly does not
mean that these things do not exist, or that they are somehow inferior to that
which is tangible. Over the course of the past 400 years as human culture has
become increasingly industrialized, we have also become more compartmentalized.
As we’ve come to put less value on the immeasurable, we’ve rationalized
ourselves into a state of intolerance of the nuanced, the complex, the seemingly
paradoxical. Things that could be taken as two sides of the same coin are
instead viewed as diametrically opposed: art vs. science, religion vs. reason, classical
vs. quantum physics; determinism vs. free will; left (hemisphere of the brain
or political party) vs. right.
Ironically,
at the same time that scientific rationalism has come to dominate prevailing
thought, science itself has taken a turn towards subtlety. With advances in
quantum theory, we are moving into a strange new domain where things do not
function according to the orderly and predictable rules that we have come to
rely upon. Tests with subatomic particles are not only practically unrepeatable;
they reveal that the very nature of our experiments makes objective observation
impossible.
Fortunately
there are many other ways to collect and interpret information about our
reality. The ability to hold several seemingly contradictory views
simultaneously, the willingness to cultivate, explore, and trust subtle sensory
signals, the boldness and endurance required to set a course that defies the dominant
paradigm – this is the domain of certain artists, poets, musicians, shamans, ecologists,
permaculturists, philosophers, and others adept at seeing and feeling
connections to the obscured dimensions and forces of nature that others neglect
to notice.
Throughout
history visionary practitioners from every field of human knowledge have felt
compelled to share their particular mode of data processing. A few notable
examples might include musician John Coltrane, conceptual
artist/social-environmental activist Joseph Beuys, quantum
physicist/philosopher David Bohm, writer/scientist Wolfgang Von Goethe, physician/natural
scientist Hans Jenny, spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, inventor/futurist
Buckminster Fuller, and poet Allen Ginsberg. Through their work, each of these
individuals has given form to the otherwise invisible/inaudible. The products
of their inspiration resonate in those who experience them – our senses know
them to be true without analytical proof.
Goethe
called investigation that involves a kind of connectedness to and empathic
understanding of a subject delicate
empiricism. Beuys believed that by becoming more attuned to the subtle forces of the ecosystems we inhabit we can rediscover
innate aptitudes that will help us to mend ourselves, our communities, and the
planet. He believed that it is the job of both shamans and artists to shake
people out of ordinary, habitual states of mind and to reawaken latent faculties.
Even slight shifts in individual and collective values and
intentions could quickly bring new sets of priorities into the mainstream,
radically altering prevailing thought. Like a flock of starlings that moves in
an elegant cloud of instinctive, constantly modulating cooperation, changes of
mind can have an instantaneous ripple effect across an entire culture. When
Beuys said everyone is an artist he implied
that each of us is not only capable of accessing the same mysterious, improbable,
constantly unfolding, infinitely creative phenomena – we are the phenomena. Each of us is an outcropping, an empathic agent
of transformation, wired to receive,
process, and transmit.
To
hone one’s connection with this font of supreme imagination, Allen Ginsberg prescribed
this simple but profound experiment to aspiring creative practitioners: “Notice what you notice.” Like a single
pebble out of thousands that catches your glance on the beach, the things you
find yourself aware of – and the state of awareness itself – these are the clues.
Each of us is a receptor for a different part of the same sublime puzzle. Evidence
is everywhere. The investigation never ends.
