One of the
things that happens when we grow older, with our nodding resignation into
nothingness, is that we enter a kind of consciousness known as "The been there's and done that's" of the
adult mind. It's that notion when nothing excites or overwhelms anymore because
you've seen it all before. what a tragedy this is, right ?
I mean, come on! We all remember nostalgically the intensity of experiencing something for
the first time. Seeing the
world through the eyes of child - wonder struck, entranced by awe, succumbing
to astonishment, giving in to astonishment, month gaped wide, I mean, damn to
see something for the first time. but then what happens ? then you assimilate,
you model it in your brain, you store it in your library of been there's and
done that's and you no longer engage, sensorily with stimuli. It's called
hedonic adaption, familiarity breeds boredom. It's so depressing, right ?
And so what
we do ? I think this is where mindful self-inquiry come in, this is where
meditation, this is where breathing exercises come in. This is where boarding a
craft that flies you across the world can be therapeutic like to injecting you
with a little bit of life by stimulating you and jet-lagging you, and placing
you with an entirely different wallpaper of the mind. That's why travel
revitalizes, sometimes tweaking our perception.
Perhaps that's why a museum
take an ordinary item and puts it on the wall, decontextualizes it, and brings
our attention back to it. We get to enter the archetypical space where the
specific stands in for all of its kind, stands in for the reversal.
We all like to
enter a modality of consciousness known as PLOTO'S REALM OF IDEAS. That's where
you live in the present, that’s when anxiety about the future and melancholy
for the past get drowned out by the ever present rapture of the NOW. Knowing
only now and the bliss of now.
Jason Silva - Sots of awe
