The Age of Uncertainty
This article originally appeared in Conscious Choice.
Recently, I have taken as my personal mantra the not very transcendent phrase, "I don't know." The list of things I feel unsure about seems to be steadily increasing. For instance, I don't know if our solipsistic species will survive much longer, and sometimes I am not even sure how much I care. I don't know if Barack Obama is a warm-hearted leader who will unite people at a time of adversity, or the most brilliant puppet ever put forth by the New World Order conspirators (who, as radio journalist and documentary filmmaker Alex Jones suggests, may be plotting a program of rapid depopulation). I don't know if the increase in UFO sightings means we are approaching a benevolent contact experience or a horrific predatory ambush. I don't know if global warming is mainly caused by human action, or if it is part of a phase transition of the entire solar system, as the Russian scientist Dmitriev proposes.
I don't know if men and women should be monogamous or if it is better to be bonobo-like in one's erotic habits. I don't know if we will develop some type of new energy technology that will rescue us from Peak Oil, or if we are destined to see industrial civilization devolve and disintegrate as fossil fuel becomes scarce. I don't know whether to learn to grow food and harvest rainwater or to master some weird new esoteric discipline like Vortex Healing or Keylontic Science. I don't know if free will exists, or if we are conditioned robots, performing an illusory spectacle scripted by Hindu deities or dreamtime ancestors. I don't know if we should get rid of religions or create a really cool new one.
I don't know whether to stockpile gold or create an intentional community. I don't know whether to stay in Manhattan or head for the hills. I don't know whether we are approaching global enlightenment or regressing into barbarism. I don't know whether biotechnology and nanotechnology will fuse to give us immortal physical bodies or if we will all croak as our mistreated planet falls apart. I don't know if anything special will happen on December 21, 2012. I don't know if I should start a riot or throw a party. I don't know whether to panic or relax.
Something seems to be happening that is beyond my capacity to understand or articulate. I can only assume other people are feeling this way as well. We are witnessing the collapse of the old, rigidified structures, while the new hasn't come into realization yet -- that is, if there is going to be a new anything. A change seems to be happening at the level of logic, which is becoming less dualistic, less "either-or," and more binary, "both-and." Former diametric opposites are moving toward confluence, as well as dissonance, in various areas: Like tweaked out psychonauts, the physicists at CERN discuss opening portals into other dimensions. As the financial system evaporates, incredible new gizmos like Pandora and Cool Iris spread freely on the Internet. Obama references Chicago 1968 in his acceptance speech at Grant Park, then hires as his economic advisers the guys who, under Clinton, deregulated the banking system, causing the current disaster.
Reality is becoming more improvisational and up-tempo. Although I don't pretend to have certainty about it, the ideas that Jose Arguelles, Terence McKenna and others have proposed about time speeding up and going through ever-faster fractal spirals of historical pantomime -- including, alas, the mass suffering usually caused by historical convulsions - seem increasingly on the mark. If we are shifting away from dualistic separation and linear logic to a binary thought marked by polarities, this also suggests a shift from the modern historical perspective to a revived mythological consciousness. Like processes in the unconscious, myth resolves oppositions through symbol and image, without need of rational explanation. A society that reintegrates mythic thought at a deeper level of awareness will be able to handle seemingly contradictory perspectives without breaking down.
I don't know if we will live to see the birth of such a new worldview as part of a regenerated civilization, or if we only get to see the decline and fall of our current dinosaur. It does seem that ever-increasing numbers of people are done with it and ready to move on, but move on to what?
Some theorists propose we have reached a point in evolution where we have the capacity to consciously co-create reality, and choose our own script for the future. Sometimes, this feels fuzzily plausible to me. On the other hand, our past actions and intentions have created the reality we experience now. It seems highly unlikely we can phase-shift to hyperspace, the fifth-dimension, or whatever it is until we have learned how to take proper care of this material world and those who share it with us. Although maybe I am wrong and we will get a free pass. I just don't know.
Image by aenimation, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
- 2-5-09
- Daniel Pinchbeck's blog
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The Age of Uncertainty
humility
Anyone else who asks
Anyone else who asks themself the same questions posed in the above reading should check out these links on teachings from the late Ian Lungold.
http://www.mayanmajix.com/art024.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1030536695965417017&hl=en
Everything seems to be happening on schedule.
Of course, many of you may have already been exposed to these findings by some other person who's studied the Mayan calendar. But if you haven't, this is a great place to start.
The Future Is Uncertain
I'd like to share these thoughts, if I may, from the heart and mind of my dearly departed friend and long-time partner in crime, Marilyn Ferguson.
RADICAL SCIENCE AND THE ARROW OF TIME
As viewed from its visionary edges the enterprise of science seems to be abuzz with provocative findings in search of some overarching theories. Much that seems bizarre when viewed in isolation makes a little more sense when we meet other surprises with a family resemblance. The experimenters and theorists from many specialties have been reconverging with their ideas on a shifty, shadowy something that might pass for reality.
Some scientists are insisting on an embrace of Radical Empiricism as defined by William James. To be radical, an empiricism must not admit into its construct any element not directly experienced nor exclude any that is. Empiricism was founded by Sixteenth-Century physicians who held that theory was less important than one's experience or observations.
The theoretical foundations of modern science, with its conviction of predictability, has been radically challenged by Ilya Prigogine, the Belgian physical chemist whose theory of Dissipative Structures won the 1977 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Prigogine and his colleagues believe they've resolved a central contradiction that has long-plagued modern science, what he calls “the time paradox.” As their sophisticated calculations are confirmed by peer review, the new formulation is shaking physics to its roots.
For three hundred years science maintained that time is a kind of subset of reality, an illusion peculiar to human perception. In this view the universe operates by “laws” that guarantee predictability with such precision and degree of certainty, the very assumption has sullied the credibility of science with a kind of religious hubris. Our inability to track subatomic particles is merely a problem of observation. Their behavior is presumed to be lawful and predictable could we but see it. The notion that natural laws operate independent of time is crucial to the assertion of predictability. If there is, indeed, an “arrow of time,” that moves in one dircetion alone, the universe is not the endlessly expanding and contracting accidental automaton as science has defined it. “We are the children of time, not the fathers,” Prigogine said. The mathematical proof of this paradigm shift took fifteen years of sophistaicated and complex calculations by Prigogine and teams of physicists and mathematicians at the Solvay Institute in Brussells and the University of Texas in Austin. If borne out, which seems more than likely, the church of scientism will have to surrender the claim on which its authority has rested. The fundamentalist belief in scientific predictability enshrined the power of measurement and paved the way for the worship of numbers that so gravely compromised the quality of our lives. Institutions, such as health care, education, and economics, have emulated this model to the detriment of all.
THE RESONANT DANCE OF MATTER
Every child, Prigogne says, knows that if we give pushes to a swing which corresponds to its period, the swing's motion will be amplified. The same phenomenon occurs in music. When we produce a sound we hear overtones whose frequencies are multiples of the frequency of the sound. Resonance couples motion. With suitable mechanisms of amplification particles are driven into new behavior. “It's as if a couple met, had a conversation, and parted,” Prigogine said. Each has a memory of the conversation, which spreads through the population.”
The universe is not a machine. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are not the same. Artists, historians, and philosophers like Alfred Whitehead, Henri Bergson, and Martin Heidegger had rejected science because of the doctrine of nontemporality. Prigogine, son of a chemical engineer and a concert pianist, expressed hope that his new formulation will hasten the end of the schism between art and science — C. P. Snow's “Two Cultures.”
“The organization of the brain is strongly time-oriented,” Prigogine said. “We remember, we predict, and are otherwise engaged with the flow of time. More than anything known to us, the human brain is the very realization of time.”
Recalling Freud's observation that “the history of science is the history of alienation,” Prigogine suggests seeing the brain as the manifestation of evolution. “Ours is not the history of alienation . . . but the discovery of our solidarity with the universe.” Yes, the new formulation affects Einstein's hallowed theory of relativity, which inspired generations of science fiction writers intrigued by time travel. Prigogine points out, however, that late in life Einstein himself came to question his own conclusion. “He said in reality he couldn't conceive of returning to an earlier period of life. He thought it was time to look more closely at the problem of irreversibility.”
THE EVER-CHANGING LAWS OF NATURE
In his reformulation of physics we move from a closed to an open-ended universe. Rather than viewing ourselves as confined to the laws of nature, we can act as collaborators. The old paradigm of science had a bearing on our notion of freedom. In its eyes our very behavior was predictable. Einstein once wrote to the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore that although people think they're free, physicists know that the basic laws of nature are wholly deterministic.
Fifty years later, in A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking acknowledged that although irreversibility is central to human experience, the basic laws of physics don't allow for it. Given that our commonsense experience is at variance with the holy writ of physics, Prigogine has called for “a reappraisal of what we mean by the 'fundamental laws' of physics.”
The term “laws of nature” was used metaphorically when it was introduced in the Seventeenth Century, whereas modern science takes the expression literally. Prigogine suggests that many scientists are attracted to the idea because of their own pessimism, “the conviction that life is troubled and untidy, whereas science is serene and unchangeable.” Einstein once compared the scientific quest to the “longing that irresistibly pulls the town-dweller away from his noisy, cramped quarters toward the silent high mountains.”
Just as physicians are inclined to ignore a patient's “right to die,”given their training to save lives, many physicists are, like Einstein, emotionally attached to the notion of a science as serene as an Alpine peak. Chaos theory, first introduced by mathematician Henri Poincare, showed that so-called laws reflect tendencies and probabilities, not certainty.
THE FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN
“New laws appear,” Prigogine said. He pointed out that at one time there were no planetary systems, no biological systems, and no human beings. “Therefore you could not speak of the laws of biology since there wasn't any.”A civilization, too, can bifurcate, he said. A society can fork off in a new direction, breaking time symmetry. “We're part of a game, an evolution, both spectators and actors, as Neils Bohr used to say...Perhaps there is a more subtle form of reality that involves both laws and chance, time and eternity." This drastic revision of some of the basic concepts of physics means the future is indeed uncertain. “But this uncertainty is at the very heart of creativity,” Prigogine maintains. Referring wryly to Stephen Hawking's speculation that we are approaching the end of science, when all important work will have been done, Prigogine suggests that what's at hand is not the end of science but the end of a limited rationality. “I think, rather, we're at the beginning of science.”
GOING WITH OUR INNER KNOWING
Can we fail? On the surface it would seem so, and it makes sense to acknowledge the most blatant dangers. Just as there will be weather extremes, we'll continue experiencing storms in our cultural climate. Outrageous wars and unprecedented alliances, governments reformed and undone by scandal, economic optimism and hopelessness. At one and the same moment we seem lifted toward a renaissance and dragged down by atrocity.
In these turbulent times it may help to reflect on some of the more powerful metaphors that emerged in recent years from science. Consider Ilya Prigogine's model of dissipative structures. When large perturbations of energy cause living systems in nature to fall apart, they fall together again in a more elegant order. Our present falling apart can be better dealt with if we liken society to such a system.
Whenever a group tries something new there's an inevitable period of chaos, and many people, mistaking the turbulence for the change itself, decide they prefer the bad old days. When we do that, when we run counter to our gut knowing that change must come, we rationalize our cowardice. “Better the devil you know,” we say, “than the devil you don't know.” And cast out the world that might have been. Maybe this passivity is itself the devil it fears. It pretends to be our ally, but it's really our tormentor. It withholds support we might give to good causes. It says, “Wait and see,” and thinks itself clever to know so many social visions will fail. The timid part of ourselves fails to realize that more solutions would succeed if more of us participated. Seeing and doing are joined at the bone.
The new world that's dancing like a vision in the night can only be realized by us personally. It can't be designed, legislated, or ordained by institutions. The new age that has been hovering over us for a very long time has nothing to do with the calendar and everything to do with being awake, and we've heard it speaking all our lives: “Carpe diem, seize the day.” “Go for broke."' “Walk your talk.” “Try your wings.” “Do unto others . . . .”
It's time.
THE GREAT ESCAPE
We can wait for a thousand years, barring a calamity, or we can have it all now. Not by competing but by joining forces — as persons, as professions, as communities, as nations.
We ourselves are the “they” who would not let us do the
right thing. “Their” traits are our own worst traits. Each of us can acknowledge our hesitation, our closing down, our failure to respond, our “waiting to see.”
The hunger in the world is a reflection of our own nagging hunger for purpose; armies are an amplification of our warring selves; our depletion of Earth's resources reflects the depletion of our spirits.
The inner revolution is the heart of world revolution. The revolution approaching will be launched by individuals everywhere declaring their freedom from self-repression. We ourselves are the problem and the solution. We can walk to freedom because it's never somewhere else. Imprisonment is a state of mind, not a condition of servitude.
Thoreau spoke of “that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”
Any day can be that morrow, the day that finds us awake. On any day we can concede that there is no certainty but calm in the face of all uncertainty; that simple next steps are suggested by our everyday wisdom.
Our myths and movies, our childlike sense of justice and play and magic, were not wrong. They were premature glimpses of a working-playing society yet to appear. Shall we stay in this, our present mindset, a day longer than necessary, now that our liberators — our own brains and minds and cooperative spirits — have arrived?
Shall we linger to reminisce about the shared pain and injustice? Or should we leave now, taking only a few souvenirs to remind us of the price of habit?
There is a better place, the hard but joyful work beyond struggle, beyond the shadow of a doubt. It's our real home, the long-remembered future when everything worked and things made sense.
Pass the word.
Copyright 2007 Marilyn Ferguson
http://www.graphicparables.myeweb.net/photo_5.html
And then some
both and
What IF
The Uncertainty
The Uncertainty of life is what makes it so sacred.
Just live it!
The birth pangs are here, David...
No doubt about it.
We can't even begin to imagine what is going to be... But hope peace.
You ever see that drawing of the frog in the birds mouth and he has his hands around the bird's neck?
That's where we are at... so no matter what... follow your heart.
Peter
P.S. Life is life is life is life is life.
Logic shift
My two cents is that the "shift at the level of logic" is the key here. It is occurring and we can adjust to it by abandoning either/or patterns.
Examples of either/or patterns:
i am scientific/i am religious
i am good/i am bad
i am logical/i am creative
i follow my conscious mind/i follow my unconscious mind
It could be that remaining rigid in these types of separations and distinctions will make it difficult to function as this shift in logic continues. In this sense there isn't a free pass, as we have to actively make this adjustment, which in terms of effort could be a very challenging adjustment to make for some.
Be. Love. Be Love.I agree
Be.
Love.
Be Love.
I agree with you John--lately I've been working with the idea of thinking of concepts spherically, rather than linearly--so that apparent dualities share some conceptual space with each other. I've never been comfortable with the idea that anything is either/or--it can't be, since everything is vibrating, and constantly shifting. In an infinite universe, it seems to me that every THING must BE and contain within it everything....
New Logic
I agree it is key. But a shift in the level of logic first requires, itself, a shift in understanding ...to see the need for a new logic.
That said, I do agree a new system of logic will be an enormously useful tool. You should look up Ternary Logic and OS012. They are attempts to begin to deal with this topic.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
I don't know
Historical uncertainty: how to deal with it?
Jackson Browne wrote this song many years ago after the death of his first wife. The words as good as any I know, to keep us from being paralyzed by fear and uncertainty:
"Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting off in space
You never know what will be coming down. Perhaps a better world is drawing near
Just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found.
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around:
Go on and make a joyful sound!"
Big JB
Quality on the Jackson Browne reference.
"Doctor My Eyes" is among my faves of all time.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
Hit the mark
To echo the sentiments of those above, I too have been grappling with this very notion recently and enjoy seeing my concerns reflected on the blog. :)
I think Sam had an excellent way of putting it. It seems that we are being given a glimpse of non-duality or "oneness" but without a way of understanding it. Definitions and identities exist only in the world of duality/polarity. What happens though when we ALL start to drift/spin toward non-duality? How do we define this? How do we navigate it? WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO WITH IT?
I too agree that this is the beauty of the thing. We are eternal so whatever happens, happens. It's all a part of infinity.
Speculation that leads to deeper understanding and wisdom is a helpful thing. But speculation leading to paranoia (or anything that keeps you from being IN the moment/NOW) is unhelpful in any paradigm.
Guess the only thing we can do is just enjoy the ride and see where it takes us.Of course, this doesn't mean say "who cares" and go back to our xBox. It just means we can take conscious steps forward toward a better world... on purpose.
Bill Maher recently made a doc called "Religulous" which calls into question the harmful religious delusion that since the end of the world would mean "God coming back for us" (which is a good thing), why try to save it or stop the Apocalypse? Nukes going off? Polar shifts? Alien destroyers? "Oh well... I'll be with God."
This is a poisonous mentality whether it comes from the Bible Belt or the New Age bookstore.
Bottom line is... It's up to US.
No cataclysmic event can make choices for us. No getting out of that one. If we only have THIS MOMENT, with no past or no future yet in existence, then all we really have is CHOICE. How we'll spend this moment and what choice we'll make to get us to the next. Since the part of us that will exist in the next moment has to deal with the consequences of the choice in this one, well... we had better be a good choice.
Cheers.
i agree whole heartily with
i agree whole heartily with your comments about this poisonous mentality as you put it, i was trying to alude to as much in my comment above but you put it very well. an ideology of trancendence at the expense of the here and now can be a dangerous delusional perspective to be making decisions from. rapture theology that keeps us on the sidelines...
"They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!" - from howl by allen ginsbergNot Knowing
This is a primary realization. We don't -- and even can't -- know anything for certain.
A metaphor: You are in a vast (Infinitely so) dark space. You have a flashlight, however...you can see in front of you, and you can navigate the place (mostly)...but you never have any real idea of where you are in relation to everything else (only those parts you remember Illuminating with your Light)...much less where you are going in the long-run.
Now, there is a particular trick here that, if you concentrate really hard, you can make your Light brighter. The harder you concentrate, the brighter the Light. There's just one thing....
This is Infinity we are dealing with here.
No matter how bright your individual Light, it will never reach the bounds of Infinity (I know the non-dual argument...but we are talking of the Daniel who doesn't know, not his Infinite Self -- which is even now fascinated by the whole display...and probably laughing fit-to-be-tied at the whole scenario).
People with Lights less bright tend to cluster behind -- and follow -- those with brighter Lights (and, sometimes, a few feel less need to foster their own Illumination, as they have the benefit of another's struggle, with less work....But many also often become inspired to nurture their own Enlightenment by another who has given it their all).
Knowing you do not (and cannot) Know is a profound realization. Dive into it. It means you are free from pre-conceptions and prior expectations. It means you know you have some idea...but you are willing to be wrong if the evidence is against you.
It means you are ready to learn more, because you are open to the knowledge that the Revelation/Evolution continues without end...and the last thing anyone wants to do is 'Be Sure'.
(Especially these days.)
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
turning on the light switch
perhaps using our flash lights we can find the light switch for this infinite room.
Or if everyone becomes a Light
In a world where everyone has become a Light-Unto-Themselves, there will be no more room for Shadow.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
stumbling in the dark
"People with Lights less bright tend to cluster behind -- and follow -- those with brighter Lights . . ."
Wow, this beautifully simple metaphor just made my day. My brain just had a serious visual impact from your words and it seriously charged my body with physical energy... my psyche responded by painting an image in my mind which will probably resonate for the rest of this life (and be the inspiration for a whole slew of drawings)...
It begs my mind to wander with the idea that humans, as a collective consiousness, are infact still only babies in the sense that we have a lot to learn. Guided by the "best and brightest" who themselves are only guessing... slowly learning over time, gaining experience and knowledge, always smarter than the day before... reminds me of a Jack Johnson song:
We're just a bubble in a boiling pot
Just one breath in a chain of thought
The moments just combusting
Feel certain but we'll never never know
Just seems the same
Give it a different name
We're begging and we're needing
And we're trying and we're breathing
Never knowing
Shocking but we're nothing
We're just moments
We're clever but we're clueless
We're just human
Amusing but confusing
But the truth is
All we got is questions
We'll never know
I'm one too, who can only guess. I'm uncertain as to how "old" we are, or how far we have left to go before we grow up, stop biting the hand that feeds us and shitting in our own pants, realize why, grow, learn, to one day reflect on the journey and realize every part was necessary towards our growth and understanding. I view this evolution of our collective consciousness as not only necessary, but beautiful! Because every experience is necessary. Every moment, every emotion, every low, every high, every color, every shade, every drop in the endless ocean is necessary. It is what creates the whole; the parts. And I believe the only reason parts do exist is so they can be experienced, or experience life in any and all of its forms. So that we, as individual perspectives, can experience ourself, the whole.
Winding back down... reminds me of a quote:
"To every awakened soul the question comes:
Why does evil exist?
So long as the enigma remains unsolved, Suffering remains a threatening sphinx, opposing God and ready to devour mankind.
The key to the secret lies in Evolution, which can be accomplished only by means of the continual return of souls to earth.
When once man learns that suffering is the necessary result of divine manifestation; that inequalities of conditions are due to the different stages which beings have reached and the changeable action of their will; that the painful phase lasts only a moment in Eternity, and that we have it in our power to hasten its disappearance; that though slaves of the past, we are masters of the future; that, finally, the same glorious goal awaits all beings — then, despair will be at an end; hatred, envy, and rebellion will have fled away, and peace will reign over a humanity made wise by knowledge." - Dr. TH. Pascal
I agree with most sentiments about this article, especially the ones promoting being a positive influence in the world, however small or relatively insignificant. And despite how gloomy one perceives the future to be or the depression that comes with the feeling that we have no control over the outcome... I have never felt more positive. I have never felt so alive. Since the start of the new year, I've felt unexplainable surges of creative energy, urging me to be active, do things with my hands, get down and dirty to use this energy in positive ways. That there is no better time than NOW. How is it, that despite all the doom and gloom... I have never felt more optimistic and energetic?
One thing I'm struck by and cannot stop thinking about is the seemingly ever-incresing dichotomy in life. That the polarities between say, good and evil, are becoming very extreme. Is this the nature of increased novelty? I guess for all things to exist at one time, dichotomy would have to be rampant... is life on this planet sickly unbalanced, or just extremely balanced? Its difficult to admit that anything is balanced with all the inequality and injustice, death, war, destruction, rape... I think the only perspective important here is that of Gaia. The universe has ways of balancing itself. I think its only going to get worse, much worse (hyperinflation, massive storms, natural disasters)... before it gets better. I want to believe in the idea of a cultural renaissance, a golden age, slowly emerging from the ashes, maybe around 2012... But then again, I'd only be guessing.
"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein
Ahhhh.
Vrum's "Ahhhh"
Brilliant writing, as always
Your writing cuts to the heart of things, and always seems to flow along with an elegant unearthly tune.
I am a bit concerned to hear you mention Alex Jones, however. Though he is undoubtedly the most publicized proponent of conspiracy theory, he is also the most dubious. Listen closely to his broadcasts. At what point does he start to mention anything hopeful? He doesn't make up his stories, but the ways in which he presents them makes the readership feel helpless and weak.
If you are interested in the subject matter, be sure to read Behold A Pale Horse by Milton William Cooper. It contains some of the most repressed info out there, and seeing as Cooper was assassinated a few weeks after correctly predicting the attacks of 9/11, I think it has some merit. Cooper was also a genuinely nice human being.
It's safe to say that with today's insane, frenzied pace towards the complete degradation of humanity, nobody knows what to do. Having any degree of preparedness, dedication towards a better image of the future, and most especially flexibility will put you head and shoulders above the average sheep. The only problem that exists is getting beyond simply being one of the survivors. Avoiding the death camps will be one thing, but creating a successful, intentional, loving alternative to the doomed industrial monolith? That takes some planning.
Namaste makes me giggle. . . :-)
My most immediate response, Daniel, is to get the Evolver.net project live and kicking. Let the "evolutionary market" have at it and see what sorts of local and non-local networks spring up. I have faith in Evolutionaries.
As to the idea of time speeding up, well I think it is a result of an ever-increasing pace found in a technological society dependent upon growth, and just simply the act of growing up in such a society that doesn't value the MOMENT. Do native tribes feel that time is speeding up? If so, then I'd give more acceptance to the THEORY. When one undertakes zen-inspired practices of be-here-now awareness, well then one can experience much more in these fleeting moments of time that otherwise pass us by.
On the other hand, it does seem as if the veils between worlds is thinning for those of us who are paying attention. . .
As for the general uncertainty, I feel ya brotha! If you're NOT uncertain about reality in general at this point in time then you are not involved in the leading edge! Out here on the perimeter there are no stars. . .except for us, we are the lights at the edge of our collective consciousness, pushing boundaries(hopefully) and inspiring others to explore the same as-yet-unnamed space.
I would suggest the work of Neil Kramer to you, if you aren't familiar already. I've found his thoughts to resonate very much with my own, catalyzing them beyond what I'm able to verbalize intelligibly.
I've found in him another soul who is able to say, "Yes it is all going to shit, and yes it is all becoming more wonderful and dynamically beautiful. So let's get on with it starting from right here. . ." You know?
Was it Wilde who said that the mark of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing viewpoints in mind and still function?
-Another day draw near, do what you can-
Black Light in the Attic Podcast
http://blacklightattic.podomatic.com
Uncertainties and certainties of uncertainties
It is really interesting to me that nihonbryan speaks on this topic of 'certainty' from Japan. John Dewey wrote a book entitled "The Quest for Certainty".
Dewey was practically adored by the Japanese people.
I wouldn't know what could be derived from this in terms of social and psychological 'mode' beyond a personal sense that everyone wants a 'handle' on both certain working principles and the vague 'sphere' we call THE UKNOWN.
Every-day life as it pertains to some trade we can 'ply' typically depends on both creative imagination and proven and practical or 'pragmatic' methods that work.
Just creating a truly 'straight line' or 'perfectly flat surface' was once believed to belong to some 'metaphysic'. Eventually, these aspects of pure experience became separated from belief systems and moved from the mystery of the guilds who were married by politick and social pressures to so-called 'religion' to just plain old 'arts and sciences'.
Why should we be ashamed of a form of emotion called 'curiosity'?
Why is 'uncertainty' deemed 'shameful'?
And, even, why is even Deity deemed 'all knowing'?
In our bodies, 'core values' are at the basis of what we define as 'shock' responses.
In cases of malnutrition, vital nutirients are moved from less important to more important or 'essential' zones so that, when nutrients are more generally available, they can be absorbed. A dead body doesn't do anything but rot.
I think there is a kind of correspondence there that also pertains to mentation or attitude. We 'play' and 'ply' knowledge, but any 'essentials of knowing' and any 'certainty' . . we may find . . . may not comprise everything. Nor ever any 'everything'.
We might thereby become conscious of an 'atomic theory' or 'basis' of 'knowing' and 'certainty': 'twill ever be relative.
Some particularly object to the hypothesis of others who hold - - - with no provable grounds - - - that a 'part of us-all is 'ALL KNOWING' and supposedly working diametrically opposite towards some place of interface with some 'finite', uncertain aspect.
Such kind of 'metaphysic' seems to imply it doesn't matter what we do, in the end, it will all be okay.
In the viscisitudes of enduring the FACTS of consciousness, we have to admit that IS NOT 'okay'.
For we endure 'time', and definite suffering due to others who refuse to measure 'time' in terms of emotions.
I believe many people take on 'certainty' for no other reason than to be delivered from the discomfort of thought.
And thought, or the ability to resolve problems and difficulties by attention calls on a directed and focused receptivity of often ugly things. Not for the sake of proliferating the ugliness. The methods of resolving problems is an ever growing awareness that sometimes has been proven to be utterly and apparently . . . illogical.
A simple survey of the planet earth, and the most peaceful places on its surface and the least harmful folk seems to merge . . . almost . . . with purest fantasy.
'Science' heretofore, and that includes 'sociological' disciplines, has yet to correlate what that might entail in any quantitative way. Informational sciences and psychological sciences and so on as 'published' are taken by 'media' (not a science) as springboards for commercial access. And so, as awareness expands, these 'awarenesses' from 'official organs' are taken as 'permission' for either 'faith' or 'certainty'.
And that despite the fact that being comfortable with uncertainty probably lies at the very basis for new insights.
I find it interesting that the emotional side of the equation is conveniently ignored. An aspect that has nothing to do with 'words' or 'science', but which is the 'spark of life' that, evidently, lies behind that magical property or feeling: all things are possible.
And yet, we wouldn't really think that way, would we? If 'science' didn't admit 'it might be so'?
Actually, that is only a 'media' proposition. I think it is the relative progression of a consciousness of childhood into the so-called 'adult' spectrum of behaviors that is evidently displacing the cruelties of the 'certainties' of adulthood and yet has not, and will never have any definite spectrum of 'cold facts'.
The colder the 'facts', the less related to any living reality. Including one that 'God' knows it all. God may be the 'ignorant' and 'uncertain' crying baby that some people find utterly annoying. Our reaction to which may lead to a sterile and 'certain' yet extinct race.
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Art is the pinnacle of science. <
Knowning nothing
Similar to your mantra Daniel, mine has for some time now been a quote of Lao Tzu's-
"To know the Truth is to know Nothing"
Harmonize with the natural Way of the universe, in a constant state of flowing-wu-wei.
If you become peaceful in all ways, accepting any outcome of the universe- then will whatever choice you make be something to worry about?
Perhaps it's better to be peaceful going head first into the flames of Hell, then to worry incessantly about that fate as we approach Heaven.
But if the old I Ching verse is correct then if your mind is peaceful, then your environment will peaceful. If your mind is disturbed then your environment will be disturbed.
Yes indeed.
...and if you are paranoid you will live in fear of conspiracies...for which there is probably ample evidence.. but what is the point? Might be far more productive to glowingly assert options for positive action and peaceful being...
I totally agree with your perspective...
THE TRUTH NEEDS TO BE TOLD!
I appreciated the honesty
I appreciated the honesty of this article, I feel I'm not the only one experiencing such uncertainty and confusion.
To get to grips with all the many issues involved I think is beyond the capacity of any single individual.
I do feel we are being swept along by forces that are beyond our control.
on uncertainty
Dear D. Pinchbeck...
Whether to panic or relax? You can try both. But one is more beneficial. This is a lesson in life that repeats itself until you learn it... And then it repeats itself again, just to make sure.
You have free will. You make choices to the best of your ability, then enjoy the show. You really can't ask for more. You can't worry about the things you cannot control. Life is going to happen, and energy is constantly trying to balance itself out.So chose the most positive path you can, and don't let any negative occurrences bring you down.
If you stay positive through negative scenarios, then you are helping to bring that balance.Whether apocalypse or a stubbed toe, its never beneficial to concentrate on the negative energy surrounding the event. If you resonate with negative energy, you resonate those things around you with negative energy and continue the cycle. More-so, that negative energy attracts more negative energy to you.
So if you have free will, why not try to resonate with positive energy, even when you are under doom and gloom scenarios? Resonate your life and everything around you with positive energy. Enjoy what is enjoyable, and don't waste your energy concentrating on the negative things. Be conscious of the negative, but don't let it resonate you. You must choose to resonate it with positive energy.
Before I get too redundant, I suppose the best way to sum it up is to say.. keep a positive attitude. It can't hurt!
The more we know the less we know
Forget the gold, go for the IC
I don't know if someone's already mentioned this, but there are a lot of either-or questions in your post - quite a contrast to the shift in logic you go on to describe!
"stockpile gold or create an intentional community" - If you're going to do either, then you know it has to be the latter. I think that most of the hope that is left to us lies in the intentional community. Many already exist, but we need more. That they exist proves that it is possible. They aren't perfect, partly because of the negative influence coming from the decadence of mainstream society and partly because of this ongoing shift in consciousness that hasn't quite touched everyone yet.
"Something seems to be happening that is beyond my capacity to understand or articulate. I can only assume other people are feeling this way as well. We are witnessing the collapse of the old, rigidified structures, while the new hasn't come into realization yet -- that is, if there is going to be a new anything."
Personally, I don't notice anything happening. The people around me seem to have no conception whatsoever of any great change in the world, and they'd think you crazy for interpreting the signs as indicative of "collapse". Having said that, I myself am quite sure that this collapse will eventually happen, but I keep an open mind as to precisely when, how and how catastrophically or peacefully. I want something to be happening - want to see a vast shift in the direction of the world - but personally, I just don't see it yet.
Divine Ineffiability
While not exactly an identity crisis as there is no great depression and disillusionment because we are ready to give up the old and move onto the new...we are at a stopping, feeling, reassessing point. We have left the dysfunctional family with the tyrannical father and now we have to figure out what to do with our lives.
Currently the human experiment is bankrupt and we have got to get back to the earth, to the forces of nature...to be reinformed in a new vision. Man-made is mad-made, but deep within knowledge of the true way is seeded in our flesh. For we ARE nature on re-membering our source, that is where the true power lies.
July 21 [1930] Walter Russell says that the fundamentals of science are so hopelessly wrong and so contrary to nature, that nothing but a major surgical operation upon the present primitive beliefs can ever put them in line for a workable 'cosmogenetic synthesis'.
I went and saw Pinchbeck on Weds, and while not wowed having been all wowed out with Marko Rodin, the important thing was his honesty about unsurety...a kind of courage to see the Unknown...which is perhaps a step up from egoic myopia to a more geometric lens...multiplex vision. It takes the entheogen users to really describe this state/stage we are in because they are used to extreme reality-shifts. So Pinchbeck's greatest gift to us at present is his articulation of uncertainty which loosens our "need to know and need to be right."
At this point what Marko's work does is re-order our brains to "geocog"...a holographic, fractal consciousness which is already there, but which we have not understood, and tended to see it through lower symbol/associative mechanisms connected to our rightbrain-limbic system. That is the paranoid, superstitious mechanisms of reality assessment associated with our animal survival and ego (status) calming needs. However it seems that this spacial mathematics orders the brain so that the holographic, holozoic, fractal nature of reality becomes conscious.
Marko Rodin's work is the ultimate brain gym for our present stage, where we have to literally create a new brain in order to create a new society. A stage of flabbergastedness and awe, which brings you to tears because it integrates more than any other "system" of thought humanity has had yet. Such integration is LOVE for which we feel great gratitude.
Check him out on youtube.
Tyranical Mothers
I am at this place... I give a shit but don't... all is about power and control thru the means of manipulation and emotional baggage... In the end the darkness of tomorrow is all I can call my friend.
For some reason I feel the tyranical mother will be no more... soon.
Yea, sorry, I am writing a
Yea, sorry, I am writing a book on awakening neurologically from the dominator mode. Not to imply that men are the sole dominators, for the patriarchy is an imbalance of left-brain dominance, emotional repression and egoic-materialism that is equally found in both men and women.
By dysfunctional father...I was referring to the punative male deity or the Patriarchy and Nazi-Bushitis-Petronuc Power-over at all costs regime. ie: baindamage.
It is like we are soul families working towards a similar vision...but the "work" of bringing the vision into reality requires selective creative partnership in order to activate the collective muse of the group. Plus intergroupal intell-intercourse. The domain of conductivity is the space in between the yin and the yang, the left and the right hemisphere. The God space. Through the conducting domain of the God space we create the world anew. Yet the schema of punitive male deities still possesses much of our earth, even as the science of connectedness and integration grows.
As we emerge from the appropriation of dominance we recollect what we have forsaken in the dark millennia of the ego’s drive to power.
Understood...
It's all about paradox
Wow, it's downright spooky how you wrote this just as I and apparently many others were thinking the same thing.
It's funny that in our "information age" we are more uncertain about things then ever before. Is this a bad thing? Hell no! Paradox is our home! Ideology is what causes all the trouble and IMO anything you claim to "know" for certain is an ideology.
From my experience all this information has allowed me to completely drop the quest for that special "epiphany" and instead enjoy the ride.
Such a dramatic spike in information has allowed me to embrace how much I really don't and possibly never will know. Now THAT's a paradox haha.
A Quote
This discussion has reminded me of a quote by poet Rainer Maria Rilke . . . posted for your consideration:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms or like books that are written in a foreign tongue.
Do not seek the answers . . . live the questions.
Cognitive Dissidents...
limits of the intellect
Interesting and revealing piece, Daniel. Perhaps the perspective here represents the difficulty of approaching reality primarily via an intellectual epistemology. While you are certainly able to access other modes of awareness, your greatest strength is clearly your intellect. Which, as you recognize, has its limits. Beware and don't let its deficient aspect devour you.
As for what to do in the face of uncertainty, I resonate very much with Charles Eisenstein's comment elsewhere on this site, that the most important question is probably "What is the most beautiful thing I can do?" You are a leader, now, and leading is the most beautiful thing you can do in the face of seemingly intractable quandries.
It was great finally meeting you, even very briefly, at the Boulder Bookstore reading this week. Your work has been an inspiration to me, and Quetzalqoatl was a turning point in my life several years ago.
There's lots I don't know...
...except that you consistently seem to articulate exactly what I'm feeling just around the time that I start to loosely organize those thoughts into some structure.
So thanks, Daniel, for frequently echoing my own thought processes and lessening the effort required on my end to sort through them.
It may be that none of us will know what's beyond the event horizon until we cross it; if that's the case, then knowing we're not alone in treading through this unknown may be the best help we can give each other right now.
I don't know either,
Re-integrate Shamanism into Ordinary Life
Daniel:
I felt compelled to respond to your article. For what it's worth:
I think "global warming" is part of a phase transition of the entire solar system;
Peak Oil is a myth;
Something important is going to happen on December 21, 2012;
Unfortunately, people are moving to a lot of "yes... but, no; both-and" anti-logic thinking;
It sucks Obama has hired the same economic advisors who created the financial crisis;
Terence McKenna and Jose Arguelles have the correct idea that time is speeding up and engaging in a historical re-enactment or pantomime in current time of previous events;
We do need a revived mythological consciousness -- an archaic revival like the one that infused the spirit of the medieval consciousness and led to the Renaissance;
We do have the capacity to consciously co-create our reality, but we have to be really good people because a winnowing is occurring and the passage in is the beauty of our souls;
As the author and filmmaker, Jay Weidner, has said: "The world keeps getting weirder and weirder and those who can surf the waves of high weirdness will survive."
Humanity is undergoing a fundamental evolutionary change in consciousness;
I believe we can shift this thing to something better and that every difficulty is an opportunity to advance;
To paraphrase Soren Kierkegaard: "[Modern religion] is an empty religion based on stolen souls and shattered lives;"
We need a re-integration of shamanism into our lives because we are the ones we are waiting for . .
The Attractor Is Here.
I don't know either!
I don't know either! It's both a bit scary and exciting at the same time.
"Half the time you think you are thinking you are actually listening." -Terence McKenna
read my mind
"Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."-Jung
AFTER
Not knowing makes us family...
Hey brother and hello to all,
Thank you for sharing your truth and for revealing the fact that our 'thinking' and beliefs alone will never offer us 'knowing' (no matter how clever). As we know, life is always only served in the present-moment, which can be a difficult place for the ego-mind to truly discover. It is my experience that once the mind begins to genuinely release the needs of the Past (identity/accomplishments) and the Future (fulfillment/survival), one is ready and perhaps more capable to explore the depths of where life can only ever be experienced. In other words: where life can literally be 'felt' in our bodies... (I pray I'm not getting too weird here for my first writing).
For me, Fear in its many manifestations is life that is ever present in our ego-minds and bodies; our energy fields. Being in a state of Unknowing to me is ideal because it usually reveals hidden forms of fear-based life, ie: frustration, anger, fear of survival, hopelessness, etc, as opposed to love-based awareness. My journey of living completely in breath/present-moment awareness has taught me that learning to literally feel these forms of fear in my body allows me to open the door to their complete healing- their transformation vs. (mental)transcendence. Not knowing- allows us to feel what many would call negative 'emotions'; I relate to them as conscious energies seeking to heal. And I have an acceptance practice that allegedly transforms fear into its higher stages of awareness; to love.
I would never have discovered this most subtle world of feeling and inner-healing had I not come into complete and utter 'unknowing,' which I equate to my mind surrendering its need to engage the past/future realms for 'knowing.' My mind somehow became aware of the futility of this game and found this door into the unspeakable vastness called the present-moment. And through the breath, I learned to detect life (previously unknown) within me that was fear-based and not happy; yet seeking to heal.
And so, Daniel, I salute your honesty and discoveries as you perhaps go deeper into your Unknowing, which may one day allow you and your mind to celebrate the freedom and healing it can bring forth.
Thank you for a fine article and blessings to all.
Andrea
one thing i do know
one thing i do know is that we won't be around long enough to find out the answers to these questions if we allow the rulers of this planet to continue devouring it in the pursuit of profit.
i don't have answers to the questions you asked (except the one about nanotech immortality - very bad idea. I'd rather die a human death on a green earth... oh - and maybe the one about whether you should learn to grow food & harvest rainwater or learn an esoteric new discipline. grow food & harvest rainwater! come on, that one's a no-brainer. oh and start a riot! its like a party only better)... but i do know one question you didn't ask: should i start a revolution & stop the system that is killing the earth, or should i just let it kill the earth while I ask a bunch of irrelevant questions. (not that these questions aren't interesting, just that when people are killing the earth, just about everything else is irrelevant).
personally, i don't want to phase shift to anywhere. 5th 6th 7th dimension, akashic realms, alpha centauri the moon, whatever. I want an Earth to live on. We are so divorced from connectivity to the Earth that we feel that a richer life awaits us elsewhere, that there is a higher realm to be attained. This is the central lie of our civilization - that the material world (that is Life itself) is of secondary importance to an abstract idealization that is yet to be attained. I imagine that true connectedness with the life systems of the Planet is such a rich experience that all these other considerations about different dimensions, UFO's, what-have-you, just fall away. In fact, I'm sure of it, all this 'both-and' talk be damned.