Monday, June 18, 2007
A World Within
Consider a world within, a world within worlds. Where the nightingales play and tuneful gondolas lap through eerie labyrinths. Our mind, it is said, is a complex organ or is it as has been written, a reflection of the world like a canal façade rippling among the dip of poles and serene swish of passage.
Consider a world within. It is, is it not, a world of poetry or a world of repartee? Is it a world of spirits dwelling or a world of robots clanking and whirring or any of these? What is your world within? What is your conception of your world within, that is, the reflection of your reflection? And does your reflection affect your reflection and does the reflection affect the reflected, that is, our view of the world affects our action which changes it?
Our world within, the influence of our thinking, that we need to change to change our reality. Is there a shift or a shake that rearranges it for the benefit, or is there a trauma that scars it forever? And is there healing in this world and also suffering. Our world, personal, or public?
A world within is an endeavor to understand the world of our minds from a variety of viewpoints that will enable us to better use that amazing resource. We can see the results of different worlds in different actions and lifestyles. We can see the people with fertile worlds or desert landscapes. The mind of the city, of the internet and the bar. But we cannot easily control the change. That is, to reflect our reflection easily. To realize the reality that is the conception.
We are looking into the spirit of man and his core that reflects all there is. We are looking into a world of demons and angels. A world that is a once solid as a testament but then strange, like a devil reading from a bible. These too are world that emerge when we admit to worlds within. But without worlds within we have only worlds without. Which, I am prepared to say, is a distinct and comforting possibility, but not so near to my feelings.
I am not only writing to those who are whole and able, but to those who have been to hell and back. To those who are desperate and those who are trying to feed the flock of lost sheep. There is much to say and I will start with a story.
In one of my struggles with my mind, I was convinced something was wrong. I had trouble concentrating, focusing and forget where I was momentarily, entering another world so to speak. For example, I would go roller-skating and suddenly trip and fall, suddenly clumsy, suddenly losing track of my legs. While this does not seem a very serious condition, still a friend convinced me to go to a doctor and they found something on an EEG and pronounced that I had epilepsy from early birth trauma. The prescribed the anti-convulsive drug Dilantin. Wow. The first pill made such a difference! I felt suddenly like I was real. As if the past years had been spent in a dream. I don’t know what the medical implications of that are, whether the effect of a medicine can confirm a condition. However, the change was dramatic. My inner world, instead of being unstable, prone to sudden life changes, impulsive departures and changes of direction, became focused. I embarked on a program of study that ultimately led to a job in a laboratory. It was there that the prospect of side effects of constant drug-taking concerned me and I decided to stop. By then, I had experienced enough of a normal life within and felt I could emulate it without from then on. It ultimately led to further study, and a PhD in mathematical modeling. I think I was determined to prove to myself there was nothing wrong with my mind, and the proof was the highest academic success.
This illustrates the feature of the world within, that given an experience of a world, we can make this world persist. Until we experience of the world within some way, we can create it perhaps, but most of us need to experience it first.
Most people are familiar with the process of modeling, where one person by modeling the kind of behaviors desired, will better influence the others in that direction. Modeling is a form of inner world experiment.
Another form of inner world emanates from books or acts of any kind. A well-crafted book or movie can have through attention to every detail of its world it creates, an effect on the mind that creates an inner world. Immersion and repetition also intensifies the effect until it can be turned on constantly.
Literature can also exhibit inner world. For example, the Bible is not so much about something but an expression of an inner world of God’s existence. A world that is so persuasive that millions of people have cohabited within its rich corridors. And Christians speak of reading the Bible and “spending time with the Word” as an experience of other world immersion. Faith, spirit, and prayer are inner world constituents that solidify and give permanence to that world. Loss of faith, lack of faith, and so on associated with shallow, dissolute and perhaps desperate lives, at least, it is said by believers. Many effectual people are not believers, but there are other worlds that in occupation produce lives of substance, solidity, and predictable desirableness.
Consider a world within. It is, is it not, a world of poetry or a world of repartee? Is it a world of spirits dwelling or a world of robots clanking and whirring or any of these? What is your world within? What is your conception of your world within, that is, the reflection of your reflection? And does your reflection affect your reflection and does the reflection affect the reflected, that is, our view of the world affects our action which changes it?
Our world within, the influence of our thinking, that we need to change to change our reality. Is there a shift or a shake that rearranges it for the benefit, or is there a trauma that scars it forever? And is there healing in this world and also suffering. Our world, personal, or public?
A world within is an endeavor to understand the world of our minds from a variety of viewpoints that will enable us to better use that amazing resource. We can see the results of different worlds in different actions and lifestyles. We can see the people with fertile worlds or desert landscapes. The mind of the city, of the internet and the bar. But we cannot easily control the change. That is, to reflect our reflection easily. To realize the reality that is the conception.
We are looking into the spirit of man and his core that reflects all there is. We are looking into a world of demons and angels. A world that is a once solid as a testament but then strange, like a devil reading from a bible. These too are world that emerge when we admit to worlds within. But without worlds within we have only worlds without. Which, I am prepared to say, is a distinct and comforting possibility, but not so near to my feelings.
I am not only writing to those who are whole and able, but to those who have been to hell and back. To those who are desperate and those who are trying to feed the flock of lost sheep. There is much to say and I will start with a story.
In one of my struggles with my mind, I was convinced something was wrong. I had trouble concentrating, focusing and forget where I was momentarily, entering another world so to speak. For example, I would go roller-skating and suddenly trip and fall, suddenly clumsy, suddenly losing track of my legs. While this does not seem a very serious condition, still a friend convinced me to go to a doctor and they found something on an EEG and pronounced that I had epilepsy from early birth trauma. The prescribed the anti-convulsive drug Dilantin. Wow. The first pill made such a difference! I felt suddenly like I was real. As if the past years had been spent in a dream. I don’t know what the medical implications of that are, whether the effect of a medicine can confirm a condition. However, the change was dramatic. My inner world, instead of being unstable, prone to sudden life changes, impulsive departures and changes of direction, became focused. I embarked on a program of study that ultimately led to a job in a laboratory. It was there that the prospect of side effects of constant drug-taking concerned me and I decided to stop. By then, I had experienced enough of a normal life within and felt I could emulate it without from then on. It ultimately led to further study, and a PhD in mathematical modeling. I think I was determined to prove to myself there was nothing wrong with my mind, and the proof was the highest academic success.
This illustrates the feature of the world within, that given an experience of a world, we can make this world persist. Until we experience of the world within some way, we can create it perhaps, but most of us need to experience it first.
Most people are familiar with the process of modeling, where one person by modeling the kind of behaviors desired, will better influence the others in that direction. Modeling is a form of inner world experiment.
Another form of inner world emanates from books or acts of any kind. A well-crafted book or movie can have through attention to every detail of its world it creates, an effect on the mind that creates an inner world. Immersion and repetition also intensifies the effect until it can be turned on constantly.
Literature can also exhibit inner world. For example, the Bible is not so much about something but an expression of an inner world of God’s existence. A world that is so persuasive that millions of people have cohabited within its rich corridors. And Christians speak of reading the Bible and “spending time with the Word” as an experience of other world immersion. Faith, spirit, and prayer are inner world constituents that solidify and give permanence to that world. Loss of faith, lack of faith, and so on associated with shallow, dissolute and perhaps desperate lives, at least, it is said by believers. Many effectual people are not believers, but there are other worlds that in occupation produce lives of substance, solidity, and predictable desirableness.
Labels: cognition, mind, thinking
¶ 5:11 PM
