Consciousness Rediscovered

Thou hast nor youth nor age
But as it were an after dinner sleep
Dreaming of both.

Being alive is easily taken for granted. If I stop and think intensely about the state of “being alive,” it is a wondrous thing. In an endless, dark and forbidding universe of destructive energies, the magic of life evolves from the unfathomable analogues of matter.

Even more amazing, the mindless continuation of self-organization perpetuated over the millenniums creates entities such as ourselves who in turn create complex entities—unimaginable, given the context of our origin.

Our creation is beyond imagination, yet we habituate to our state and lapse into a trance of benign indifference to the sanctity of being alive. I have to admit it is difficult to savor and fully enjoy the process of living. If you focus on the instant, the momentary sensations of being and the magic of consciousness, you are soon distracted. It is impossible to stay within the moment—to revel in the joy of being.

So you forget all that and take out the trash or pay a bill or worry about something—you are easily sidetracked into the mundane issues of keeping up your body and its primal needs—part of the debt we pay to our evolution.

Each passing second is another precious moment lost to us. The more I concentrate on my living state, the more dreamlike it seems. In a physical world where the governing principles are scaled beyond comprehension, where parallel universes are rationally considered, how can we know what we are?

We should be aware of, think often of, the treasure that is ours so briefly. John Keats who died at age 26 focused his brilliant sensitivities on his imminent demise in an Ode that summarizes—for me—the transience of our lives and the tragedy of our passing. It captures the emotions of inestimable loss.

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone,
Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and lang'rous waist!
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise -
Vanished unseasonably at shut of eve,