THE SENSE OF IT ALL
SUMMARY
I want to tell you a story about panorama or broadband sensing. I call it this because our culture seems to have no good name for it.
My story is about the all-round sensing of the blackbird, going on the look-out in between bites of his sumptuous worm, the hedgehog scenting the wind, and the hare listening out for anything and everything.
Animals alternate or coordinate the panoramic use of their senses with all their focussed activities.
Humans neglect the panorama mode. Young children have it and some autists do, but with our early education in focussed sensing and thinking, we undermine our panoramic abilities before they have even started to develop.
From fashioning the first flint stones to controlling fire, from farming to working with metals, the development of the human ability to focus with our senses and our minds, tells a creative and remarkable story. With modern civilisation, our lives have become increasingly materially safe, and now we never need fear being eaten alive, we have solid walls which keep even the ants outside, we have hot water bottles and the deep freeze is full, and we slowly overcame any need of our panoramic senses. |
And at the same time, we have become spiritually, psychologically and sociologically, more insecure than we ever were.
This is more than just a coincidence. Focussing our senses and our understanding, gave us security in the material world. This approach to life worked so well, it supported, reinforced, and established itself.
Then we started focussing on the repetitive images in our minds, trying to understand the abstract symbols themselves, searching for reasons.
And when we found explanations and Gods to believe in, the relationship between individuals, groups, and the whole universe became secure or at least negotiable. This was an enormous step away from our animal heritage. Since humans developed beliefs, they became the central priority for our sense of reality, identity and security in the world.
And it felt so good to know who and why we were, that we retold these stories. The stories and beliefs gave people and cultures their integrity, meaning and purpose. And any comparison with neighbouring cultures and their stories, merely reconfirmed each cultures individual identity. Our security became dependent on understanding and having reasons.
And it didn't really matter if we believed we were living on the back of the Great Turtle, or, that the stars were the children of the sun and the moon; - because for our sense of identity and security, the confirmation of the tribe was far more important than the truth.
It's worth stopping there for a moment, this is no new development of modern society, for our emotional security, the confirmation of the tribe was always far more important than the truth.
But slowly, over the last few centuries, any trace of the original animal social sense of belonging disappeared; and now we have even lost the mutual confirmation of our social group. Our beliefs are insecure in a way no humans in any previous culture have ever experienced, or even imagined, and so regardless of our modern material security, we all still feel insecure.
This new level of insecurity has led to a new form of displacement activity. Displacement activity is the term used in animal psychology for when animals under stress, revert to habitual but inappropriate action e.g. when hens scratch and peck at nothing, just because they feel nervous and insecure; dogs and cats clean themselves when they actually want feeding. Any habitual activity can be displaced. We are displacing with our human habit of focussing. And we have begun to act like birds in captivity who can't stop chattering, in a desperate search for mates and territory, with compulsive grooming habits and commonly plucking their own breast feathers out; - and overpopulated deer, who will rub off so much musk on their territorial-marker trees, that whole rings of bark disintegrate and the trees die. |
The human battle against insecurity is manifest on all levels: focussing with our senses, wanting things, - and focussing with our minds, wanting abstract ideas and beliefs. And with our modern emphasis on freedom of individual thought and specialisation, the cause of all this, the search for individuality, to be a focal point, and the need for confirmation, is self-perpetuating and always increasing.
Over time, this will inevitably lead to ever more extreme and diverse ideas. And if the beliefs are true or not, is largely irrelevant for a feeling of psychological security in our abstract world, as long as there's a social group to confirm it ... chaos is preprogrammed.
We are destroying ourselves, our culture, and our environment, driven by an involuntary response to stress and insecurity. We're overcompensating with our species' tried and tested, habitual method of finding security: focussing. Our habitual rut: focussing, getting, doing, thinking, understanding, creating; having beliefs, ideas and opinions, has become compulsive. Our sensory abilities are only being used to focus, and this is disturbing our balance in life.
We are neglecting the panorama perspective on life.
With the panorama way of sensing, animals feel directly connected and involved with everything they sense. It evolved over billions of years exactly for that reason: because it was the most direct, most reliable way of being in touch with all that's going on around you. Using the senses like this is the practical way of being in touch with the ‛big picture’.
It must be a state of nervous agitation for the blackbird, to keep interrupting his delicious worm, but rather than be vulnerable, or paralysed by panic, fear, and worry, he keeps watch, he checks for sudden changes in his environment.
Humans ignore the privilege and luck we have, to be actually safe, without even needing to understand, when unexpected, unexplainable things happen, and no need to fly away, when something changes quickly. Humans have no need to feel insecure about the changes, we have lost the ability to neutralise our panic, fear and worry, we could just carry on feeling part of it all.
This story is related to religious ideas. But this is not a new form of meditation, this is something we were all born with - and not a spirit body, or anything deep or philosophical, but a practical physiological ability which we have inadvertently suppressed.
Modern day philosophers have ideas about opposites becoming one. Poets make up songs about the circle of life. All of which are wonderful examples of our ingenuity, giving us the abstract security we always wanted, but all such ideas are ultimately misleading. We're always adding an extra level of abstraction to our understanding, and we're always moving one step further away from reality. Mankind was able to develop, because we used our abstract thought to make sense of the real practical tangible world, and though it may seem strange or just a play with words - we need to use something real and tangible if we want to make sense of the abstract world. In the real world things are relative, but there are very few opposites. And the electric lights going on and off, is because there's an on-off switch, a perfect practical example of the ingenuity of abstract thought. Apples and fruits are circular, and 2D sections of plants, but most things in life are bent or wiggly. In the real world most circular things are our ingenious creations, from the wheel, to pots and plates, to the football. And apart from the sun and moon things don't repeat in circles. In the real world, things happen every now and again: one day i hear 3 dogs barking, then 4 days nothing, then another bark. Things repeat randomly. And that also applies to thoughts, they repeat, but only rarely in circles. For blackbirds this random reality is cause for insecurity. But humans have walls, moral codes, and laws to protect us, we have no reason to feel unsafe, - what we lack is a feeling for reality. |
This way of sensing and feeling part of it all, is similar to mindfulness, but mindfulness is usually applied only to the mind or inner body awareness. Animals use it applied to their three external senses, and the value for animals is only in noticing the changes. Above the background smell of wood fire and coffee, your dog is still able to smell an intruder. The changes are what are noticed - and outside our solid walls, life is always changing with random repetitions.
Animals use their panorama sense in a variety of ways. When dozing, the hare turns his ears outwards, open for sounds, and sleeping birds have one eye open. Predatory animals from snakes to kingfishers use it to see their prey moving. |
In its most sensitive form it's an intense receptive presence, and a pre-emptive awareness, always ready and waiting, a second before things happen. And this neutralises abstract thinking, we can't think when we're on the look-out. It brings back the balance to our compulsive focussing activities.
I don't fully understand it, i just know i enjoy it, and it feels natural, and with familiarity, it's become vital to my life. It makes me feel whole and gives me ‛a sense of it all’.
Plants have 'chemoreceptors', for smelling and tasting the air. Every amoeba has chemoreceptors and a generalised sensitivity to light and vibration. The panorama mode must have developed previous to focussing. This is at the very basis of life, and all other creatures have it, but we've lost it. |
Children are born with this way of being in touch with and sensing the world. We must balance our increasingly early education in focussed reading, writing, and thinking, with an early education and encouragement of the panorama mode.
Many adults are going to find relearning this difficult after years of neglect. We must play at going on the look-out with our children. Watching for movements all around and out of the corner of our eyes like blackbirds, listening-out for dogs and humans like a hare does, and smelling on the wind for coffee or food cooking, just as the hedgehog will smell for apples and beetles.
Animals and children will be our new gurus. Children will know the full potential of this way of sensing before we do.
Story tellers used to repeat such stories. It had to be a simple tale which everyone could understand, and it had to be a message of hope and beauty to be effective, and for others to want to repeat it. But actually whether it was true or a fantasy, as we have seen, is largely irrelevant ... stories only need to be re-told, and it only needs a few people to start re-telling to confirm a belief, and as more people understood it, to be confirmed in the culture's traditions ... and then there could be a happy ending to this story.
Please continue with First Exercises