Trapped In Time, And I Don't Know What To Do*

My philosophical and metaphysical inquiries over the past few years have led me down a path that, at the moment, appears to be at best a dead end and at worst a bottomless pit.

I'm pretty sure I understand the undivided wholeness that is the universe and all matter within it.

I'm pretty sure that over the millennia the sages of the East have achieved a rigorous and peer-reviewable body of knowledge that can guide one to this understanding.

I'm pretty sure I understand that the apparent reality we see, in all its shapes, sizes, kinds and types is part of that undivided One despite a fractured appearance.

I'm pretty sure I understand that logic, the most powerful tool in man's toolbox, inherited from the ancient Greeks and perfected over the millennia, has sliced our apparent reality into ever-thinner slices to be labeled, compared, measured and fit within grander and grander theories...every single one of which turns out, over time, to be incomplete.

I know for damn sure sure that our modern world sees this tool as the expression of the very meaning of the universe. "If we can just slam these subatomic particles together at even greater speed, I just know we'll find the new subatomic particle that will prove the theory of everything!" Science uber alles!

I know that logic requires that something, anything, so labeled A cannot also be B. A does not equal B. Nothing can be two things at the same time. That's illogical. Ours is a binary world of 1's and 0's, ons and offs, Republicans and Democrats, rights and wrongs, wins and losses. I know those things merely reflect our apparent reality, though they are NOT reality itself.

Though above I mocked quantum mechanics, I know it revealed to us, via logic and science, that sometimes A does equal B. An electron is in two places at once. Light is both a particle and a wave. Something understood by mystics long before atoms were split, long before Aristotle invented logic.

The conclusion I've drawn is that the human race largely operates well below its capacity. But I'm no utopian (though I sympathize with that impulse). I know that base desires and instincts are hardwired into us. But I know that humans have dragged themselves up from the mud despite such hardwiring.

Seen from the perspective of a few centuries, or maybe a few millennia, in the future, I believe that we are on the cusp of a leap in understanding. I believe that many of the tensions and battlegrounds we face, whether social, economic or geopolitical, are outgrowths of mankind pushing to smash through this barrier.

Smashing through this barrier requires that a new understanding spread far and wide. Computers that count not just in 1's and 0's but also in 1/0's. People that understand we are all made of the same stuff, and that there is only Stuff, and that we are One.

Make no mistake; though unseen, there is a barrier. A barrier just like the edge of a flat earth sailors feared. It wasn't real, but it represented a very real limitation in human understanding. And beyond it was a very real New World.



*What does the title of this post mean?

Well, I only feel trapped to the extent I haven't figured out my very own metaphysical Capt. Kirk Kobayashi Maru moment.

Also, Phish played Mike's Song this past weekend, so that lyric was in my head.