(2)

Continuing the task of trying to observe how I experience myself, I believe I have come to understand a little better why it is that I sometimes see myself as "lost," or feel that I have no meaningful context in which to place my life.  Close observation reveals that I am in fact "lost" much of the time:  that is to say, I am "lost in thought" much of the time.  I am caught up in the act of self-reflection to such a degree that my sense of connection to the world around me frequently becomes tenuous, the world at such times dwindling in my awareness until it's little more than a distant backdrop to my thoughts.  My awareness is instead focused on something that happened to me an hour ago, or yesterday; or of something I'll be doing next hour, or tomorrow.  I'm caught up in daydreaming, or I'm mulling over some problem I'm facing, or I'm absorbed in the process of trying to sort out my feelings.  These interior feelings and imaginings and projections into the past and future all become, more or less immediately, the subject of self-reflective (i.e. verbal) analysis.  Sometimes this verbal analysis is a mere murmuring that exists at a barely conscious level, other times it's brought sharply into the foreground; but always this self-reflective activity is present, and always it is being translated into verbal language, for that is the means by which I communicate with myself.  I busy myself so strenuously with this activity because I have been  taught to believe that it's by this method I can best come to a true understanding of my relationship with the rest of the world, and thus attain some degree of clarity with regard the meaning and purpose of my life.

Animals, I note by way of contrast, do not seem to self-reflect at all; their concerns are limited to their immediate needs – for food, shelter, warmth, sex, play, etc.  They suffer if these needs cannot be met, but experience none of the anxiety humans do from intellectually questioning their place in the world or the meaning and value of their lives.  I, too, when involved in some physical activity which requires my full attention, approximate the same sort of immediate, nonself-reflective responsiveness to my environment that an animal has and, at such times, feel securely placed in the world.  Thus I come to understand that to realize my potential as a human-animal without getting caught up and "lost" in in the processes of self-analysis I must realize a state of consciousness which does not use the verbalization of consciousness as its focal point.  That is to say, the human-animal is someone I would define as having learned to have a focused awareness of the environment and as being conscious of this awareness, but who does not become preoccupied with the processing of this awareness.  This state occurs during those moments when the brain is used not for the purpose of self-reflective analysis, but is instead used as a sensory organ:  it occurs when the verbal analysis attendant to self-reflection is turned off.  When this happens, the human-animal is restored to its rightful place in the world.  However, because we live in societies that have become largely antagonistic towards nature, and thus to the peaceful coexistence of the human-animal with nature as well, the person who understands him or herself to be a human-animal becomes forced to adopt the stance of the Warrior, and to use the heightened awareness that the proper use of the brain gives to pick up clues both from both the external environment and from within in order to help navigate his or her passage successfully through life.

None of this is to say that the process of self-reflection and its attendant translation into the verbal realm has no value.  It's valuable, for instance, insofar as it can be used to tell the story of what happens as we confront the environment in a nonanalytical way.  For example:  We stand on a street corner; we wait for the traffic to come to a halt; and then we cross the street.  Someone tells us they love us; we respond with a kiss.  It begins to rain; we open an umbrella.  When we verbalize our responses to these environmental factors, whether we do so immediately or at some later point in time, language is used not for the purpose of analysis, but for the purpose of storytelling.  In this respect it may be seen as acting as an informational bridge linking ourselves to the environment, telling us how we are acting, or have already acted, in accordance with what is going on around us.

Of course, since the capacity of language is born of our capacity for self-reflection, any use of language partakes of that capacity for self-reflection and its attendant verbal analysis.  As a child, for instance, it was made verbally explicit to me as to why it was okay to cross the street at one moment (when the traffic had stopped) and not at another (when traffic was in motion).  But language in its storytelling aspect is not concerned with why but how; it's a matter not of "If the traffic has stopped, then I may cross the street," but simply of "When the traffic stopped, I crossed the street."  And it does the same thing (or can do the same thing), with regard to our interior environment – our emotions, daydreams, catalogue of memories, etc.  Up to the point at which language begins to be used analytically – that is, up to the point at which awareness is subsumed by self-analysis – language functions merely as an informational bridge between ourselves and our external and internal environments, telling us the story of how we are behaving with regard to those environments.  At the point at which language becomes analytical, it becomes the language of explication:  which is to say, it now revolves around our attempts to understand why we are as we are, why we do what we do, and whether it is better to be or do one thing as opposed to another, etc, etc.  It's at this point that we may become "lost" – lost in the egoism intrinsic to self-analysis; lost in the belief that the contents of self-analysis reveal the existence of a transcendent self; and lost in our desire to perfect ourselves through self-analysis in order to realize the potential of our supposed transcendence.

Sages have told us throughout history that we all have the capacity to become enlightened, that we each have an unrealized enlightened being within us.  If this is true, then it must also be true that the world which made us, of which we are a part, and to which we are most intimately and profoundly connected, also exists in a state of potential enlightenment.  That is to say, just as the world is both wholly subjective and wholly objective, wholly meaningful and wholly meaningless, wholly ordered and wholly chaotic, so it exists also wholly in a state of enlightenment, and wholly in a state of unenlightenment.  All aspects of this world are involved, therefore, in a dialectical process of evolution involving both the state of enlightenment and of unenlightenment.  Because all the individual parts of the material world (including inanimate objects) participate, as part of their functional existence, in enacting a transformation upon the world, all things are involved in communication, in verbal and/or nonverbal ways.  Because all communication-as-transformation is revelatory, and because all things in all phases of existence embody this revelatory aspect of transformation, all things and all phases of existence must be seen as participating equally in the revelatory act of transformation.  Hence all things may be said to be equally revealed, or "enlightened."  But since all things are likewise undergoing the process of transformation, all things are constantly undergoing a process of enlightenment, and thus may be said to be in some degree "unenlightened."

With respect to this dialectical evolutionary process, human language is useful in both its storytelling and its explicatory roles.  It tells the story of how this process is being enacted, and it explains the why of its being enacted in a particular fashion.  But when we combine these two functions of language – the storytelling and the explicatory functions – we arrive at poetical language, which is the species of language of greatest use to the human-animal as Warrior.  Poetical language combines the two functions of language in such a way as to lead us to a moment of crisis, breakthrough, and illumination (i.e. we come to understand the meaning yielded by the crisis on an experiential level).  For the Warrior, language as defined by its poetical function is what matters most, because it is the poetical function of language which gives it its greatest potential for use as a weapon against our tendency to become trapped by the egoism which results from our self-reflective capacity.  Poetical language helps us slice our way to the heart of reality and the truth of existence (even if that heart is changeable, that truth relative).

It should also be said that, for the Warrior, poetical action is of equal importance to poetical language.  Indeed, it might even be said that the poetical function of language serves mainly to prepare the Warrior for poetical action.  Poetical action occurs when the actions of the Warrior combine with the activities of the world in such a way as to bring about a moment of crisis, breakthrough, and illumination.  The Warrior may initiate such a moment of crisis knowingly, or not.  The moment of crisis may serve the Warrior in a material way, or not.  But always such moments serve the processes of the dialectic occurring between the states of enlightenment and unenlightenment in which the Warrior participates.  And the Warrior will be able to receive the benefits of that illumination which such a crisis yields insofar as he or she has learned how to pierce the egoistical aspect of his or her capacity for verbal self-reflection.

This egoistical aspect might be further defined as consisting of the comparisons made between the interior and exterior environments of a given individual, a comparison which might be termed a process of assessment.  This process of assessment I would define as a recognition of the relationship that exists between our interior and exterior environments, and the degree of egoistical satisfaction we derive from the status or quality of this relationship.  We spend a great deal of time and energy in examination of this relationship, and in measuring our degree of satisfaction with regard to it.  Animals – to use them once again as a point of comparison – deal with this relationship in characteristically primitive and immediate fashion:  whatever their physical, emotional, or mental needs, they find their measure of satisfaction in whatever their physical environment does or does not provide.  Hungry, they seek for food.  Lonely, they seek out the company of other animals or, in some cases, of humans.  For mental stimulation, or to express their pleasure in simply being alive, they engage in play.  Human beings do much the same, albeit with a greater degree of flexibility, corresponding to their enhanced physical and mental abilities and increased psychological depth.  There exists one key difference, however.  If a human finds him or herself in such a condition that the outer environment does not suffice to meet the needs expressed by the inner (mental and emotional) environment, he or she may move to alter the external environment in order to make it do so.  If that isn't possible, then an adjustment to the internal environment may be made.  The human-animal would likewise alter the environment, both external and internal, to suit its needs but, being less caught up in the desire to satisfy egoistical needs, would be that much less likely to alter the external environment in a manner antagonistic towards nature.  Finding its needs better fulfilled by the external environment, it would have, correspondingly, less need as well to make adjustments on an emotional and mental level.  The Warrior, on the other hand, being one who knowingly lives in an antagonistic world, does not expect his or her needs to be gratified to begin with.

But, what then does the process of assessment yield us?  Does it become simply an act of acknowledgment, a way of recognizing a gulf between need and gratification that can never be bridged, but which nevertheless defines the Warrior's path?  Is it a recognition and acknowledgment of the ongoing clash between the inner and outer environments, this clash being that which brings about the crisis leading to breakthrough and illumination?  And, if this is true, is it then possible to behave in any proactive fashion with regard to this clash, or is the "Warrior" one who, ironically, must remain essentially passive in the face of it?  These questions still being so new to me, I cannot yet with certainty draw any conclusions.  I can only, while observing the experience of "self" in my daily life, attempt to pierce through my own egoism in order to more truthfully observe the workings of the worlds that exist both in and outside me, and in this way try to discover whatever meaning may exist between them.