Connections
Originally written Monday, December 13, 2004
“Human brain…universe within… 100 billion neurons… each neuron, a tangled web of electric meaning…” – Timothy Leary in “Hell’s Kitchen”, by Etnica
As human knowledge increases, it is tempting to feel as though we have things figured out. Yet the mystery of our existence still eludes us. The question “Why are we here?” has the same potency that it did 5000 years ago, when the human perception of the universe was so much more limited than it is today.
It’s a question we don’t commonly ask ourselves, because we have insulated ourselves from our connection to nature. There is a great distance between the food that we eat and the animals and plants that are that food. Seasons do not affect us as they do wild animals. We often spend the majority of our days inside, with only brief moments outdoors en route to the car, or from the car to work. When it’s cold outside, this only becomes more common.
This lets us avoid hardship, but also hard questions. We do not wish to be confronted by the basics of life and death, because they force us to ask these difficult questions. Killing to eat brings thoughts of death. Shivering in the cold is a reminder of our vulnerability.
Our separation from nature does not just allow us to escape thoughts of mortality, but it also breaks the spiritual connection we have with nature. Avoiding killing our food also lets us forget that it is life that sustains us. Avoiding the chill of the outdoors means we miss out on the reflections about our place in the universe that a star-filled sky can inspire.
In spite of our attempts to make our existence seem commonplace, to make our spirituality something that should be expressed only within the walls of religion, and to sever our ties with the vast interconnected web of nature, the mystery of our existence remains as deep as ever. The 100 billion neurons in our brains are like 100 billion stars in a galaxy, or 100 billion galaxies in our universe. In numbers alone they are beyond our comprehension.
They are connected nonetheless. We are made of atoms created in the nuclear furnace of stars just like the ones that lie across the sky on a cold winter’s night. Molecules in our bodies interact with each other in an intricate, dependent web not so different from the complex ecologies that support us and other creatures on this planet. We share a deep connection with each other, with all life, with the earth, and with the universe.
Comment from Alevo:
Similar musings are given in the opening to Thomas Homer Dixon’s The Ingenguity Gap. Namely, that human kind has deposited itself within an artificial realm of its own devining. The city is an exercise in human creature comfort. As we recede deeper within its walls – we lose touch with a great many things. Humankind’s own narcisim often prevents us from confronting our own worst nightmare – that we are (ring-ring). . . hold on here, I have to take this call.