Our Daily Qualia

Oct 022012
 

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There was a time when there was no sense of self as we know it, when the individual ego was the same as the tribal ego. To exist was to belong. The eccentric was exiled, or, perhaps more humanely, allowed to exist magically on the fringes.

The fringe dweller, of course, has the power of disorder going for him. The “in-crowd” gives him his own space — he (or she — especially she) is dangerous. His reality appears magical — he exists outside the tribal rituals and traditions. This is the realm of the shaman, and the artist, who can create private space even in the crowded, public sphere.

Today, the crowd is not people so much as ideas.

 

Our Daily Qualia

Sep 202012
 

They say that history is written by the victors. So, too, is morality. The same may be said for evolution (written in the genes). The secret to survival lies in discovering new qualia in a crisis. Survivors notice the seed-food which no one else has noticed; they re-invent keys to the fortress; they create novel windows into the heart. New qualia wins the world in times when the world would be won.

 

Our Daily Qualia

Sep 092012
 

As we continue on our new life’s journey, we will discover a mysterious purpose. We cannot tell it — no one without wisdom can see a forest from the trees, least of all a child — but others will remark it. Quite naturally, we will respond; if we are not conscious of our vision, flattery will bring it to our notice. Indeed, people often become possessed of qualia simply by being treated as possessors of it.

Our Daily Qualia

Sep 082012
 

We don’t really know where qualia comes from. Some qualia, like the laws of physics, seems to be contemporary with the beginnings of the Universe. Other qualia, like color and smell, seem to have come about with the rise of life forms. But then, human beings invent qualia, too. We invent it — unless, of course, qualia invents us. The qualia is out there, seeking a way to get manifested into the universe; it senses a receptive being human being, moves in and inspires an “aha” moment.

Aha didn’t start with civilization. It goes back way before the age of Archimedes’ eureka moments. For human beings, and especially the unique human brain, the aha moment began with the first sense of self. The self popped in and out of existence in our ancestors just as quarks and other elementary particles pop in and out of existence in matter; but the self finally endured and the community was never the same. Individuals stood out and soon new qualia began appearing all the time; it was all history after that.

Our Daily Qualia

Sep 012012
 

The tree moves with microbes and matter; it moves with creatures and the air and the soil, and they move with the tree. Theirs is a symbiotic relationship – it has evolved into a stasis suitable for all involved. Human culture, on the other hand, is in a qualiadelic relationship with the planet – it has not reached a symbiotic stasis. Far from it. We are creating an environment that awaits new life to fill it. The human landscape is like an island which has popped up, void of life, fresh and empty in an ocean of discarded ideas.

New life forms and fresh matter will fill that void. They will notice the patterns, forms, shapes, colors, smells and perceptions which are piling up in the heap of humanity. We will have to ritual with the creatures who live in our waste matter and waste qualia.

Our Daily Qualia

Aug 202012
 

Symbols are the physical manifestations of ideas. Ever since the dawn of human consciousness we have been tempted to worship symbols instead of ideas. That first thigh-bone, for instance, used as a weapon, soon became a symbol of  superior power. The big mistake has always been to chase the bone instead of the power.

The power isn’t really in the bone; nor is the idea really in the symbol — not any more than the color is in the flower or the hexagon shape is in the snowflake. These are qualia, and qualia is as much inside us as it is in the object that we sense. In fact, if we didn’t have the sense evolved to notice it, it wouldn’t exist.

Qualia only evolves out of qualiadelic relationships. Red only evolves in the flower when bees and other insects ritual with it; the hexagon shape only comes into being when water freezes into it; and only when our ancestors started playing with bones did the qualia of power appear. We developed a qualiadelic relationship with weapons, and as they evolved so did we — so did our sense of power.

But, like Dorothy, we always had the power inside us. We just gave it all away to the weapons. What we really want, what we are really evolving toward, weapons can not give us.

 

 

Our Daily Qualia

Aug 172012
 

Like it or not, ritual epitomizes the types of experiences that most exemplify the baby boomer generation: the experimentation, the discovery of Self, the uninhibited expression, the penchant for questioning authority, the sense of community, and, of course, the itchy idealism. We just have to learn to do it all consciously.

Experience. Ritual opens the doors of perception. In fact, it is the source of human consciousness, because it is the source of all our symbols for both self and community. To experiment with ritual is to experiment with perception and experience.

Self. Out of ritual come the symbols by which we choose to live. As we identify them they identify us. In controlled spontaneity we act out beyond the norm and try out the power of new symbols like so many magic hats, in order to discover our Self in the company of like-minded souls.

Expression. We are drawn into rituals because we get something ineffable out of them, some feeling or sense that we can’t describe; but, returning to the ritual time and time again, we learn how to express this ineffable feeling. Our feelings, thoughts and intuition are made manifest through ritualing.

Questioning Authority. Our need to belong and to express ourselves draws us in to ritual, but the very nature of ritual goads us into acting out beyond convention – which has a tendency to bring out the shalt nots of authority. While “we the people” can see up the block, “authority” claims to be able to see up the block and around the corner. When do we start to question? As parents, we know there is a time to let the kids find out what’s around the corner for themselves. As aging adults we need to make our own decisions about who is to guide us through the rest of this odyssey.

Community. Part of the ineffable quality of ritual is the feeling of belonging, the nature of which, over time, we learn to discern and to appreciate. Thus, ritualing creates the symbols that speak for the community, and which ultimately become central to its traditions. To participate in ritual is to participate in the creation of history.

Idealism. Our ideals inevitably lead us onward into the in-between – between our reality and our dreams, between who we are and who we want to be, and between all states of perception. Ritual, as the ageless human tool for coping with crisis, allows us to explore different in-betweens and unknown situations with courage and confidence.

Our Daily Qualia

Jul 272012
 

The expression, “softcore,” suggests an analogy to pornography, where softcore is but a censored version of the “real thing.” But, beyond the obvious necessity of censoring our basic instincts in order to live in the modern world, there is still more virtue in softening the “real thing.”

First, start by thinking of the instincts of a wild animal. Imagine how quickly a startled deer goes back to a state of complete calm. There is no in-between — the deer is either in crisis or not. Human beings, on the other hand, take a long while to settle out of a crisis. We have extended that moment of in-between, and that is our gift. That is where consciousness arises. We thrive in the in-between.

Well, the softcore is, or at least arises out of, the in-between. After crisis, but before we settle back into the routine, our consciousness is heightened. We sense the possibilities of the moment. We are open to meaning, receptive to action, and (if we are conscious ritualers) sensitive to qualia.

By contrast, when things are hardcore we are far less conscious and far more physically instinctual. The hardcore is mere animal motion. Any one can hack another person to pieces on a battlefield, and any one can pay for whatever kind of sex they desire. Hungrily devouring a plate a greasy hamburger is easy. Though some hardcore practices may be uniquely human they are examples of where humanity has gone astray.

True humanity discovers its self and lives life in the softcore. The softcore is courtship in romance, political arguments among friends, inspired afternoons among young and hopeful artists, and so on. Softcore moments are ritual moments — special, set aside moments — when we begin to take the leaps of faith that culminate in belief.

There are schools, cultural centers, clubs, families, festivals – all of which provide us with space to act out and express ourselves. These traditions encourage us to play with the softcore and to develop our symbols and symbolic instincts.

Upon reflection, symbols allow us to conceive of things that don’t yet exist. Our symbolic instincts tempt us to take chances on the ideals of religion, the slogans of politics, the romance of love, the hypotheses of science, the visions of art, or even the escapism of games. Only humans, with our softcore construction of reality, can do all this.

Our Daily Qualia

Jul 262012
 

In some ways the purpose of ritual is to maintain the status-quo, and it is even a tool of conformity. The purpose of a graduation ceremony is to admonish students that they ought to be exemplary citizens. New recruits in the army go through a lot of tough rituals to teach them to obey commands without question. Even the inauguration of a new President can be seen as a ritual whose purpose is to reassure Americans that the new leader won’t change things (at least not too much). In short, rituals exist to reinforce the mores and values of society – to maintain the order of things as exemplified by our traditions.

We really have no choice but to have some faith our traditions, and what others have figured out before us. If we were to stop and figure out the way to navigate each separate moment of our day we would go crazy before noon. What if we had to learn how to do our job all over again every day? What if we had to invent the car every day? Just as it is part of the function of our senses to filter out unnecessary sensations, it is part of the purpose of ritual to filter out unnecessary actions.

But…in truth, ritual is not a tool of conformity. Ultimately, it is the source of symbols for self and community. It is an engine of creativity, a framework for transformation, and means of survival during a state of crisis. The controlled spontaneity of ritual is the real alternative energy of the human experience.

Our Daily Qualia

Jul 252012
 

Ritual is widely misunderstood. There are good reasons to be skeptical of it, but we must not be like the cynic: we mustn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The difference between the skeptic and the cynic is that the skeptic doubts his own intelligence, too, along with everyone else’s. The cynic, on the other hand, is all too sure he is right. Nietzsche pegged cynicism as a kind of nauseating knowledge, and used this definition to explain Hamlet’s inability to act.

The qualiadelic experience, however, is liberating, and ritualing is the very key to action. Whether we want to change the world or we just want change ourselves, the ability to ritual consciously is sine qua non (essential).

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