I have these moments sometimes of incomprehension. They feel like what I imagine a hunter-gatherer, or someone from a very different culture, might experience if dropped into the middle of this one; or perhaps more like aphasia in an adult, a sudden inability to decode symbols that once were meaningful. They happen perhaps when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m depressed, or when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a few drinks and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m tired. All of a sudden, nothing makes sense. Why are there roads? How can there be all these plants in tidy organization? Who takes care of them? Why do people live in houses? I have a house? Why do I have a house, surely I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly need one? How am I allowed to have all these things when other people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have them? What is other people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience like? How could I possibly know? How can I imagine that I know anything at all? What was I doing at work today, acting like I knew things? Why does it matter what my opinion of anything is?<\/p>\n
My thoughts remind me of the kind sometimes reported by people meditating deeply, or otherwise having a profound spiritual experience, except that they lack the sense of connection that those same people report, a sense of everything in the universe being one. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible that this is what is happening, neurologically. The temporal lobes control that sense of oneness; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure anyone knows exactly what part of the brain controls the belief that your life experience is perfectly normal and your cultural benchmarks have value.<\/p>\n
You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d think these episodes would be useful, but they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Perhaps universal lessons are best served with a side of oneness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have these moments sometimes of incomprehension. They feel like what I imagine a hunter-gatherer, or someone from a very different culture, might experience if dropped into the middle of this one; or perhaps more like aphasia in an adult, a sudden inability to decode symbols that once were meaningful. They happen perhaps when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":762,"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lyspeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}