TinCap’s log. Stardate: nowish.

Knowledge:

pen dinging

Theory:

Energy from a big bang churned in a sun for billions of years & several seconds ago launched earthward at the speed of light & deflected off stuff & hit my optic nerve which sent chemical-electrical signals into my neural network generating my experience of seeing an apple hanging on a tree.

Other energy - x-rays, infared, “dark energy,” energy types we may never understand, discover, or even suspect - may be carrying data about the stuff to me. Those energies reveal additional details to a capable observor. Those details I don't observe. I observe what my network generates for me. Evolution has shaped my network to detect certain details: distance, size, shape, color, texture, motion, etc. From these details, my neural network generates a construct, a matrix: the utterly immersive, utterly convincing 3-dimensional world where I notice apples, sunrises, tsunamis on television, popsicles, sandstorms, & this typing occur. My matrix is my all. My matrix is not all.

Experience:

My eyes, if I even notice them, are mere windows showing me, in here, that apple, out there.

Angst:

I feel trapped in the matrix. I dream of escaping and living out there, in the real, with others, instead of in here, alone, in some virtual reality generated by wetware in a meatbag. I fear I’ll fail to escape because it’s impossible, because I’m not capable, or because I’m not worthy. Afraid, I rage, sulk, & wallow.

Cycle:

I enter a well-worn cycle of heroism (battling my suffering), villainy (spreading my suffering), and victimhood (enduring my suffering). So cycling, I continuously redefine my identity and purpose based on how I’m currently reacting to my suffering. I so divide myself into a complicated & incestuous cast of characters emerging & changing with time. In this theater of self I experience rivalry, saga, irony, betrayal, quest, tragedy, odyssey, redemption, deliverance, and other themes common to drama & mythology. Captivated, I choose spiritual theater over messy world. I become a matrix for my fear, curiosity, serenity, confusion, loneliness, compassion, anger, boredom. Self-absorbed, self-obsessed, I start believing this matrix-within-a-matrix is the true me and the only place I belong. So defined, I feel alien to others, the world, and myself. I feel irredeemably lost & alone. Desperate for familiarity, & fearing paths unknown, I suffer. Suffering, I reenter my well-worn cycle.

Freedom:

Suffering, I feel it. Feeling it, I accept it as my own. Accepting it as my own, I stay with it. Staying with it, I feel it more. Eventually, I notice other thoughts and feelings arising. I feel those, accept them as my own, stay with them, and notice still more arisings.

Eventually, an arising captivates me. I become so absorbed in it that I forget it is merely an arising, a bubble among others in champagne.

Eventually, I notice the question arise: am I absorbed in an arising?

Some combination of intense thoughts & feelings arise. Panic, awe, shame, discombobulation, delight, loathing, relief, curiosity, exasperation, obsession-obsession...

If I become absorbed in those, I suffer.

Suffering, I enter my well-worn cycle.

Or, I feel it...

Eventually, a sense of arisings as arisings arises. I suffer, or I feel it...

Eventually, a sense of myself as an arising arises. I die. I suffer, or I feel it...

Eventually, a sense of death as arising arises. I’m reborn. I suffer, or I feel it...

Eventually, a sense of rebirth as arising arises. I die. I suffer, or I feel it...

Eventually, a sense of pattern as arising arises. I wake up. I suffer, or I feel it...

Eventually, sense arises. I surrender.

Now, I remember.

I am a brush painting itself into being.

I am my big bang.

I am my yes.

I am my standing wave of color.

I render & render & render...

I am & am & am...

Nirvana:

boundless awe at creation's emergence

Prayer:

love, peace, awareness, flow