Thought Suspension

"Rage On Omnipotent."- Talk Talk

Thought is a peculiar phenomenon that arises out of an anarchic electrical sea where beta, alpha, theta, and delta go to swim. At the same time, there is nothing in this electrical sea that accounts for the appearance of complex linguistic constructs. Nothing is encoded or etched in the waveforms. A sentence as simple as, "the tree is tall," is not inscribed on an axon or a neuron somewhere in the brain. This simple sentence can't be located underneath a rock near the bay of the holy synapse. This means that thought is not bounded by the 3-D world we're used to roaming in. It means that thought somehow exists in the middle ground between the hypostasis of the ether and the empirical space|time continuum. From the vantage point of this glorious middle ground, thought weaves its magical yarns of myth, mirth, ecstasy, and poetic romance.

The vantage point of thought from this middle ground may be transcendentally beautiful, but it certainly can get into trouble. It gets into trouble when it naively assumes it is somehow above the nature of the body, its external environs, and all of the things that pepper and protrude out of the earth. It tries to stand apart from the wild things it sees in nature. It tries to distance itself from the complex, stochastic, and bifurcating paths of nature's evolution by remaining overtly critical of what is seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted. Alas, from this haughty vantage point, from a viewpoint that is distant and disconnected from its surroundings, thought builds a self-imposed prison around its own existence. Thought is then cocooned or enveloped by false hopes and false images.

By building a thought suspension bridge that reaches from the cliff of immaterial ether to the cliff of flesh, we are thankfully able to overcome the need to feel aloof from the external forces that give us life. We are able to enjoy both sides of the valley by moving back and forth between the two of them. We're able to see the canopy, the ravine below, the craggy outcroppings, and the gap between places. We're able to navigate in the timeless and the time-bound. We become whole. We become real.