There are several memes around that attempt to say what we are: “A spiritual being having a human experience”
“A ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made of stardust riding a rock flying 67,000 miles per hour through space around a giant ball of fire.”
Here is mine:
We are temporary bubbles of consciousness. A culture and ego bearing electromagnetic signature that exists at a certain point in space/time that is always here and now.
But let’s break that down.
A temporary bubble of conciseness. As a true agnostic, I have no answer for what comes after death. But my intuition tells me I will be completely gone. My chemicals will go back into the earth. But everything that made me “me” will be gone.
We did not exist before our birth and I don’t reckon we do after our death. But that spark of life that some call a soul arose out of somewhere and will return from whence it came.
Like a bubble. One of billions of bubbles that have come into being and then departed. This does not imply that our individual selves lack importance. There has never been a bubble like me or like you before and there never will be again.
It just means we are temporary. This is our moment to enjoy life on earth, to make stories, and to love.
Which brings me to culture bearing and ego bearing. Being a bubble of consciousness is something we share with all the other animals and maybe even plants.
It appears that some trees communicate with other trees through their root systems. They are “other” from “us” but they too have the spark of life.
For humans, we live in a cultural context and we carry an individual ego. These two are related by the need to create and tell stories.
This is one of the most horrendous aspects of our own potential extinction.
I am sitting by a warm fire on a snowy day on the Taos Mesa, telling this story about humans.
And you are reading it. Maybe over your morning coffee. Maybe on the subway on your way home. Maybe in bed before sleep. My words are going into your mind and you are creating your own story on response.
There are lots of stories now about human extinction. Some think that it can’t come soon enough because we are worthless at best and more likely evil. Some are apathetic. And some are trying to change the story.
But an extinction would silence all of this. And in fact, all stories, for all time. Leaving only a deep silence.
We are culture bearing animals. Language is cultural. There are shades of meaning connected to our milk tongue. There is a window in which children learn the language of the adults in their world and if it is missed, for example the few feral children that are known, it is very hard to learn later on.
It is cultural because it must be shared to have significance. Making up your own language unless you share it, is almost masturbatory.
Every one of us is enculturated by the time we learn to speak, into the culture of our primary care givers and of our childhood peers.
When I was young, I was so offended by the dominant white patriarchal culture that was rejected it. I dropped out in 1970. Lots of people were dropping out for similar reasons.
The difference being I was 14 years old and had never really dropped in. Years later, I realized I would always be a product of the West. But I was a half-educated barbarian because of my early rejection.
I went back to school and immersed myself in the study of western civilization for three years. NOW I can enlarge and alter what it means to be of the West. Because I understand my own culture.
But we are also ego bearing. What does this mean? Human consciousness is complex in the extreme. A good portion of our “self” is hidden in the subconscious and barely accessible even by dreams, and rarely by the brain directly.
The ego is more accessible, but it is easy to fool ourselves. With our two front facing eyes, the one thing we can never see directly is ourselves. We see others with one degree or anther of clarity, but we can only see ourselves as a reflection. Never actually.
Our own egos are similar. We can see it in others, but not in ourselves. If we live long enough and are prone to self reflection, we begin to get a handle on it. And though we never control it completely, we learn to work with it to be in better harmony with our communities. That is maturity. And it is a gift.
We are an electromagnetic signature. In biofeedback we learn that there is, indeed, an electromagnetic field around our heads that extends out a foot or two.
An organization called HeartMath later found a much larger field around our heart.
This provides a sort of signature for our bubble. It is our “vibe”. It changes frequency all the time as we move through the world, through space/time.
There are people who will argue that time doesn’t actually exist, or if it does, it is not linear. But, as an agnostic, all I have is my observation about what happens.
And in this world it is not only linear but unidirectional. It goes forward. We come into being, we exist, we get old, we pass out of existence. There is not one example in all of history or before where it went any other way.
I used to say it was like one of those mechanical people-movers at the airport. We are forced to get on, and it only moves forward. And the others on board with us randomly blink out of existence with little warning. As do we, eventually.
We can only physically exist at one point in time, called now, and one in space, called here.
But our imaginations can take us anywhere and everywhere. And to all times or none.
I think sometimes about the people I know who believe differently about an afterlife.
And if that theory works for them and brings comfort it is just as good as my theory. Nobody can know for certain. That is the heart of agnosticism.
A believe in an afterlife requires faith, and all I have is logic. Comfort is not something I would deny another, even if I can’t partake myself.
I have this as a consolation prize: if this is my one precious life, I have a huge incentive to make it count. And that is why I make stories and share stories.
I do hope you like this one, and that you make some good ones for yourself.