When I was a kid, I used to secretly wish I was blind or deaf. Due in part to my desire to feel special or unique. It starts as soon as you're old enough to notice there are other things like you--other people. As a baby, everything is about you, but you don't know it. You are completely egocentric minus the ego because you have no awareness of your Self. In pain? Cry. Feeling happy? Laugh. It's all about communication. You don't yet have the brain power to be conscious of how anything relates to you personally, and therefore, no ego exists.
The world was entirely what it was without question. Curiosity existed within your baby mind, but it was curiosity for curiosity's sake. Babies, as far as I know, don't look for meaning in the same way adults look do.
I've often wondered how I would've developed if I had been brought up by wolves, like Mogli in The Jungle Book. Probably rather wolf-like. Would I have turned out just as homosexual as I am today? Would I have been as afraid of commitment as I currently am? Would I still yearn to understand what makes people tick? These questions fascinate me, but the important thing to note is how they highlight my humanity itself. Human nature longs for purpose and understanding, direction and meaning. Those things, I've discovered, come with time, but not always. The same could be said for wolves, but I don't really know much about them, so speaking on their behalf might be unfair.
I've learned that the more time I spend inside my own head, the more easily I fall victim to my mind's illusions. It's a tricky game to play, since I love my thoughts and my thoughts love me. My brain begs to evolve and survive and soak up as much information as possible, so I try. My ego tries. My imagined sense of individuality or personage or selfhood tries its damnedest to grapple with the games that occur naturally within the powerful brain the created it, or... me, or whatever.
One of my favorite movies, The Fountain (starring hunka hunka burnin' man Hugh Jackman and ivory-skinned goddess Rachel Weisz), features a scene in which a Spanish Inquisition Era Catholic priest preaches to imprisoned blasphemers being strung up by their feet. Grizzly as it may be, the scene sticks in my mind because of a line the priest says in his evil, low baritone patriarchal voice: "Our bodies are prisons for our minds." Or something similar to that. I may venture to disagree with his notion of a captive audience (see what I did there), but quite honestly, he's right, in my opinion. What gives us our sense of identity? Where do our morals come from? How do we explain our ability to feel pain, anger, sorrow, excitement, panic, peace, fear, joy, or discontentment? The answer is right between our ears. It is the most incredible machine known in existence. It is hardwired for success and survival. Its capabilities stupefy and bewilder, and yet it is something everyone owns. If that doesn't light a fire under your ass, I don't know what will.
But back to babies. By the way, since it's November and Thanksgiving is fast approaching, let us pause for a moment and thank our blessed mothers who bore us. Especially mine, since I was a 10 lb. sack of potatoes who never apologized.
My mom gave me something more important to me than life--youthfulness, which is different in my opinion. She and I talk frequently about how old we're probably going to end up being because neither one of us ever feels old. In our heads, we are still children eagerly crawling around the surface of the planet and smelling the roses for the first time. We are insatiably curious and unmistakably naive, the both of us. I'm a mama's boy to my core for these reasons, if nothing else.
Any doubt we have over our lives comes from our own minds. Until we realize that, the world is somewhat limited and incomplete. Of course, our senses themselves limit our perception of the universe around us, but more importantly, I think, is the power the mind has over those perceptions. Every day I must decide to readjust my eyes and notice something new. If I don't, then the world has become a memory and even more of an illusion than I previously thought. Everything passes away, and to think that something is the same as it was yesterday is incredibly ignorant and incredibly false.
Babies have the answers we seek. Selfish sons of bitches.
No comments:
Post a Comment