The Mystery Of Life

A Poem by Mike Defreitas

bioGeeze louise! The days felt weird. Was it the sour shockers or the acidopholis? The stomach is off. My mind is off. Emotions keep whacking me from the side. Appearing out of nowhere, unbeknownst. Why do I feel this way? Why the association of this smell with that affect - the effect in me of finding the smell/sister repugnant.

And now, after smoking that joint, again, and willingly accepting these sorts of experiences - again, I find myself asleep, on my bed, but awake and alert, and ever so disconnected in my head. The reflection of all reflections. Only smart people think about it: how is it I know that I know? The marijuana puts such a 'space' between the moments of perception. I can almost see a projection like quality - every movement of thought a movement out - from what? I poke in, focus, speak, form a string of words about that holds a logical relation, and a world is formed. But prior to that? Prior, ontologically, as the only really real thing. That 'pointedness' and alien 'thatness' which IS my awareness, but feeling and forming feelings about the feelings I feel. This spacedness and quality of distinction gives life the feel of being IN a world, as opposed to OF it. Although, of course, I realize that the feeling of "IN" is an emergent property dependent on the OF. But is that it? Does that still not make even more mysterious? How can a mere property of physical parts give rise to full blown existential self awareness, sense of subjective 'I"ness, I am "me" and not you, and as far as the world can be for me, the thought of my "me'ness" remains the truest thing I know.

The brains shape and function resemables the ontological relation between the 'witness' and the objects it bears witness to. The dorsolateral cortex - at the front and side of our head - "holds" as it were, the inner emotions perceived in the medial frontal areas. It 'encompasses' it, just as my mind can feel to be something I "have", my dorsolateral cortex holds the brain within it from 'above'. Hanging from its consciousness the enacted being-in-a-world of the mid-line structures.

I sit here, aware of my brain and I feel a commotion in my temporal lobes. A sort of increased blood flow coursing through my temple. And I wonder, in this dyrsegulation, am I inducing a type of seizure activity? I go deeper and deeper into this morbid thought until I feel I have done it, or doing it; I feel dizzy with thought and I pull back in panic. What am I doing? Why am I crushing myself like this? The weed, in unmooring me from my body has left my mind aloft to explore thoughts in a still somewhat flighty feeling body. The flightiness feels a mile away, yet its there, policing my thoughts and gearing me towards paranoia. Inlkling me into the next thought, with a surge of feeling that culminates in another temporal throb, thoughts swarm and my super-aware mind can only pull back and speak the words that makes its situation so strange: help me God!

God? Yes. Now I'm going to fight with myself theologically, philosophical, phenomenologically; ultimately, ontologically. My fearful mind posits God because a human being in pain seems to reach out for the Other. I sometimes wonder, am I being subjective and arbitrary in saying that? I don't think so. Under so much pain, and with the hope that one will find relief, the mind 'searches' for 'something. The "thing" it reaches for, usually, is a thought. And the thought is a 'thing' because it is 'searched for' by a panicked consciousness. When it finds it, it can bring itself back to order. Back to calmness. Back to peace.

I cannot think of a single religion, philosophy or school of thought that considers ethical or spiritual matters who does not again and again posit and rely, believing in the value and power of a belief whilst overlooking the structure of the bargain. The self positing for selfs needs part, the 'psychological structure' of how we think about the world, ironically becomes a belief for "no other".

The belief changes with affect and feeling. The body 'receives' from what life gives it, and from there, it 'conceives' a world, true and unique to it, and similar to in nature to the experiences others have. But still, it is ones own 'story'.

I go on like this for awhile more until I find relief; find belief - in the Good of the world. How can this world be, and what a gift, a blessing, a beautiful ride, to be able to bear witness to this "creation", this endless seeming flow of vitality and reality across space and time. Lives have formed. People exist. Fear and Love matter.

If one feels awe in this, one feels ones otherness. We are "bearers" of the world around us. We are free, yet, paradoxically, we are responsible for our freedom. The freedom we have is embedded in a context where what you do effects everything else. How do you escape responsibility for your actions when you're a knowing being embedded in a world where you know everything you do has logical consequences on others?

The other is our body, fundamentally. But it's also the 'selves' we feel and the emotions we have. It's other people, who, just like us, our embedded in the same situation we are. Life goes wrong and we suffer when we betray our awareness of the world outside ourselves. But things are right, grow, and reveal its perfection when we use our freedom in light of what we know. And what we know, if the light of awareness reflects self first, and the other later, is that suffering is horrible, and we should devote our being in life to make sure that others don't suffer. From our body, to our mind, to the body's and minds of others, we are constantly confronted by an obligation that comes with human being: we made up of two: I see myself in my mind, and look upon my body as an other. I see you as an other confronted by the same reality. With your body. The same fears and anxieties and the same dissociative habits of not knowing those things which damper our moods.

But it's worth knowing. It's THRILLING, knowing, embracing, and allowing yourself to be opened by the mystery of life.