I've been finding that, occasionally and unexpectedly, a sense of gratification, harmony or rightness surrounds me. This feeling of being happily embodied is new, and it tells me that I'm doing the right thing - whether that's "the right thing" is whatever I'm doing in the moment, or transition in general (probably both). This occurs most frequently at moments of genuine and often kinesthetic expression, unchecked by second-guessing; through movement, exertion, crying, creating art. It never occurs when looking in the mirror, nor has it come while pacing at a bus stop.

In tandem with this state, I usually perceive a semi-conscious image of me-now; a visual flicker in my mind as if I'm seeing myself viewed from elsewhere. It is a harmonious image; squaring with how my body feels, but seeing myself from outside carries a measure of disassociation with it, and I wonder what that means.

I would like to make these moments more frequent, as they seem to point to "yes, what you're doing is right for you." I am not sure how to do this.

Exercise seems to set it off. It can be climbing a steep hill, or using all limbs to scale a pile of concrete road-markers, or even carrying heavy groceries. In all cases, it's oddly gratifying, drawing me into present awareness.

I need to do some kind of a sport, I guess. The rec centre strike is over. Maybe I should see what's available? Something that doesn't involve a lot of running (i.e. no Soccer) on account of my knee, but which still require exertion. Suggestions? Locations?

Oh, right, I was thinking of taking up paintball.
There are ramifications to this dissolution of boundaries. If who 'I am' is an arbitrary midpoint between a cell and an ecosystem, between a moment's stray thought and a universe alive with cognition, then 'my' existence or nonexistence is basically unimportant. "I" am a bucket full of water in an ocean, minus the physical bucket.

More to the point, if all thought and feeling are one then I am a component of a larger soul; a component predisposed to thinking of itself as separate. What am I praying to then? Is the left pinky kneeling before the rest of the body, hoping to receive a glimpse of its wisdom or power?

Death? Unimportant: an evolutionarily programmed fear of the termination of a self that really doesn't really exist. The point where homeostasis stops is akin to the point where you whang your head on alow door and it stings and you lose a brain cell or two. My memories and personality cease but those are not fundamentally different from what I have done in the world. "My" actions leave traces in this brain called mine and in the world around it. There is no oblivion nor an afterlife, just a self-obsessed leaf drying up and falling off.

Selfishness? Foolishness: a calculation based on mislayed boundaries. A mistake. Not evil, just stupid. Kind of like selling your left hand for money or trying to cheat your toes..

God? You, me, everyone, everything. What's left when you remove imaginary barriers. Admittedly, this leaves us without an infinitely wise or more powerful being, but it also puts it within touching distance. Hell, it puts it within circulation distance.

So then: what's been distracing me is a stab at a solution to that "God, Ethics and The Afterlife" question.
Take someone with severe epilepsy. I mean "you're gonna die if this keeps up" epilepsy. What do you do?

You cut their brain down the middle, split the corpus collosum or whatever it's called - the part that mediates between hemispheres. Now the bridge has washed out, the signals don't domino; no seizure.

There's a side effect though. Turns out that large parts of one's brain are there for a reason and it really screws with someone when you cut them up. In this case, both halves of the brain wind up trying to function on their own.

Psychologists dig this shit.

This means that you open a closet and both your hands reach out for a set of clothes. If you can feed a question to only the right sense organs and then only the left, you can get two different answers. You could say you have two persons in one body. "They" still [think of themselves as / are] one person though.

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the_fantastic_ms_fox

August 2017

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