A BRIDGE OVER NO DIVIDE

Back to man’s need to believe.

A modest premise I offer, belief not required or recommended, but certainly not prohibited — you can’t curb nature without distorting experience

The cosmology of the universe
Is a continuum in flux
Within and without ones skin
Whose change we perceive
As evidence of its and our existence.

Nothing too outrageous there, none but the most rigid toes trod upon so far.

Let’s call the nature of existence the tao
The path, the way of all things
The megametaphor for the Big Mamu of Nature
The truth, the reality, the essence of all conceivable and inconceivable entities that exist.
What freely remains existent in plain sight after the best words,
the best theories, the capture of which fall short .

Okay, I’m feeling the rumblings of rebuke from the no-objective-reality crowd with that one. As you may gather, I think various viewpoints are healthy, so long as they are not trying to enforce uniform allegiance. So far there’s no call for believing anything — its just a theory.

The teflon nature of the tao
Is the nature too of glue
The wisest, well lit line of words
Aimed nighest to be true
Yet enlightens only kindred ears
While enraging those who kindle fears
That truth is changed by sayings
Wearing out their knees with prayings
On the off chance they are right.
They might spread their fright
Recruit you to their might
If you survive their night.

Now we’re into it — I have crossed into the territory of belief, wherein I tromp on all believer’s toes — not because I want to, but because the mere existence of people happy without belief upsets those whose belief is so tenuously fragile that everyone else’s agreement, nay, tacit conversion is required for its maintenance. Like so many aspects of western civilization, I find the parallel between church and state so fitting I have to remind myself of the supposed difference, as blurred as that between the two parties in this neocon merger of military/industrial complexification beyond the ken of lay or latin.

The process of belief, as I gather from those who profess to be unable to live without it, involves a kind of leap into the unknown tethered by faith in the trust in the belief in the perfect hope or perfect fear that the promises of righteous authority from pulpit or podium are true!?! Okay, fine, whatever floats your boat. I’m just kinda wondering what is the reason and where lies the responsibility for either choosing to weave for oneself such a web of dependence or to move into one ready made in the "Easier Than Thinking" mental retirement village, Nailed to the Cross Arms, complete with an owner’s manual for all morality and appliance questions.

If the answer is a version of, “god spoke to me,” we’re done here. I can’t converse with one who cannot recognize one’s own voices. Shoo!

If the answer is a version of, “I fell in love with the _______,” I can only ask if the belief is required to make _______ real or to distance oneself from ones own love by creating a bridge that separates by conditional dependency?

If the answer is a version of “I am afraid not to, Santa and God are watching everything I do,” I can only say, get over yourself. Any higher consciousness you may imagine is informed by a body of which you are a part the same as you are informed by each of your cells in the gestalt of your wisdom. Such belief could be a sop against indifference found in searching the stars for someone who cares.

Then there is that far too common, less holy or legally binding, negotiable type belief system where wedding vows and handshakes are backed by prenuptials and contracts necessitated by the simple fact that none see that no one can promise anything about the future, even the continuation of their most ardently held beliefs in the present. In fact, it would seem that the most rash of such promises, if kept to the letter of the promise made in the past through time, warp what might have been a natural, healthy lifetime friendship into one both parties resent for their own faithfulness and loyalty to the other's trust, too stubborn to admit what both know about belief.

I am a complete entity informed by the genetic memory inherited and sensations instantly reported by the cells of a body responsible for its own continued existence. With such equipment and the good sense to see the far reaching compassion in the golden rule there is no unknown I fear, for I know only that I know nothing conclusively. Belief in anything more remote or supreme than my own responsibility for my own existence is like driving a wedge between consciousness and conscientiousness, splitting mind from morality, blasting a rift betwixt intelligence and integrity through some mythical flaw of original sin, that price everyone is supposed to have where they pimp themselves to a savior, be it a supreme being or just a sugar daddy. Bah, humbug. Humans begin life much better than any price they may be persuaded to settle for, but ——— everybody’s doin’ it, doin' it, takin' their life and screwin' it, screwin' it.

It feels perfectly natural to have more than one soul mate.