At the core, so far, I am left with three basic interrelated ideas, impressions, or realizations about what is real and meaningful, from which all else proceeds:
(1) Consciousness. I am. This is axiomatic and primal. Rationalize, mythicize, romanticize, or criticize as one may, this is the essential fact, that I exist; that I experience; that I am a consciousness. What I am, what it means, whether or to what extent my consciousness is conscious or unconscious or subconscious, everything else is secondary because none of it assails the fact I am here experiencing this moment.
(2) Experience. To be a consciousness, to have a point of attention, is to attend and to experience. Whether I am dreaming my reality, or reality is a dream; whether the world is a stage or an illusion or the only thing; whether time is real or consciousness is instantaneous; regardless of any other conceit or doubt I may entertain, the fact and fundamental point is, I am surely experiencing.
(3) Conscience. My consciousness is active, not passive; and universally creates or perceives or communicates or echoes meaning. Whether I listen to it or try to ignore it, whether I consider my conscience (or conclude it is, or can discern whether it is) right or wrong, whether and to what extent I am rightly skeptical of it or hang desperately onto it, to be conscious is to be in the house, with the potential and powers and responsibilities of perception, reception, transmission, initiation, decision, attribution, meaning, morality, error, and impact.
What, if anything, proceeds from these three principles can generate (and has already generated) any number of posts on this blog, not to mention thousands of scribblings, restless thoughts, excited actions, feelings of insight, and sometimes, puzzling over what I meant when I wrote something down or embarrassment about how it appears in retrospect.
But a couple of thoughts/suggestions/ideas as a beginning to indicate where all this might go, as complex and confusing and significant as life itself:
- I must do my best
- I must be modest
- I must be tolerant of what I can tolerate
- I must act in the face of what I cannot abide
- I must always try
- I must forgive and pray for forgiveness
- I must hold myself and others accountable because we are all accountable
- I cannot be sure what the truth is
- There is no escaping the truth
- I cannot use my uncertainty as an excuse
- There is meaning to everything
- Some things are more important than others
- I cannot control everything, and perhaps I cannot control anything
- But I must conduct myself as if I can
- Because I am responsible for what I am, what I do, and what I cause
- I learn, and I make mistakes
- I cannot avoid or banish fear or anger
- But I must find love and joy where I may
- There are no objective universal answers to any specific questions, even if there is an objective reality we move within
- I cannot judge others or even myself in any ultimate sense
- But I cannot ignore my own conscience, or accept actions of others that my conscience impels me to resist
