Skip to main content

Boundary Dissolution




boundary

ˈbaʊnd(ə)ri/: a limit of something abstract, especially a subject or sphere of activity.
"a community without class or political boundaries"


The human story on this planet can be viewed essentially as a progressive creation of boundaries, with the intended consequences of facilitating interpretation and bringing meaning to the cosmic data. In that sense, history then is not simply a "trendless fluctuation" or "random walk" of events, but more like a sprint in a specific direction - resulting in the creation of progressively more complicated boundaries.


At an individual level, the first imposition of a boundary in our being, is in the very act of being born. By which, each and every one of us, without intention or consent, are destined to begin our journey by setting the most ephemeral (yet the very real) of all boundaries - between life and death. It is a preconditioned boundary, necessary for the possibility of the phenomenon of life to occur at all. Soon after (although debatable when exactly) the human being also intrinsically develops another key boundary that remains with it throughout a lifetime - the cognition of the boundaries of time, the lines between past, present and future. Following which, with the development of more pragmatic cognitions, there comes the realized boundary between the external world (of the physica-materia around) and the internal world (the realm of internal thought and imagination).


The cycle is essentially endless, leading to the setting of all boundaries we know and live by - gender, language, culture, traditions, races, political ideologies, nationalities, and so forth and so on. In their functionality, these boundaries develop for the purpose of making manageable the cacophony of the cosmic information stream - the intrinsically chaotic, formless, incomprehensible and sometimes maddening. (Cosmic information stream: the eternal and endless nature of consciousness, unhinged by interpretive boundaries - the Tao of unfiltered reality.)


And we are beholden to our boundaries of reality. We clutch them with our dear lives. These are essentially what we live life as truths. The preservation of our self identities, as defined by both the boundaries we are bestowed and those that we choose for ourselves, is at the center of the phenomenon that brings about the self - the ego. Understandably, the human specimen is intensely phobic of any ruptures in these boundaries, as it essentially means the breakdown of what is considered to be reality. This can explain both why fundamentalist ideologues demonstrate violent reactions to ideological challenges, and at the same time why every human being feels intense discomfort and confusion about the yawning grave, and the inevitable dissolution of the boundary between life and death.



dissolution

dɪsəˈluːʃ(ə)n/: the action or process of dissolving or being dissolved.


Terence takes a sip from his glass of water, as he slightly nods in affirmation. "I mean if you had to say the one thing that psychedelics do for everyone, whether they have a good trip or a bad trip (because its upto them to interpret what they make of this), is it shows you the relativity of your cultural viewpoint. That it's just your point of view. You inherited it from a geographical area, a culture, a set of parents etc. It has no relationship in anything whatsoever that is anchored in some kind of metaphysical superspace."


I can see where he is going with this. My own list of boundary dissolving experiences have been, for me, some of the most essential catalysts of my spiritual maturity. These experiences, have broken down my own boundaries, imposed unto a cheery notion of a personalized reality. And yes, whether good or bad, their core theme was this - the relativity of reality.


"And travel actually does the same thing. Because travel shows you the relativity of culture." He looks at us with rapt attention, slows down his speech, and articulates with care, "What is really happening when you travel, you see, is you're moving from one language domain to another. You don't think of it that way, but that is essentially what is happening."


The tremendous trifecta of the idea, the allegory and the possibility, cannot help but ignite that familiar itch within my restless spirit - to spread far and beyond, until the boundary becomes a dot.



 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Meaning's Edge

The Soul of Time by Trumbull Stickney THE SOUL OF TIME  T IME'S a circumference  Whereof the segment of our station seems  A long straight line from nothing into naught.  Therefore we say " progress, " " infinity " —  Dull words whose object  Hangs in the air of error and delights  Our boyish minds ahunt for butterflies.  For aspiration studies not the sky  But looks for stars; the victories of faith  Are soldiered none the less with certainties,  And all the multitudinous armies decked  With banners blown ahead and flute before  March not to the desert or th' Elysian fields,  But in the track of some discovery,  The grip and cognizance of something true,  Which won resolves a better distribution  Between the dreaming mind and real truth.  I cannot understand you.  'T is because  You lean over my meaning's edge and feel  A dizziness of the things I have not said. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Conquest of Dimensions

It is obvious that there exists many definitional ambiguities with regards to the phenomenon that we call "life". Interestingly, in a world where hegemony of description is essentially the seat of power, the term has yet to be completely hijacked by the authoritative establishments under which we live today. Therefore, when I decided to Google "define life", the output was multifaceted, diverse and often vague. Nonetheless, conversation cannot be stopped short, simply for lack of exact descriptors. Among the many definitions I found, there is the scientific one (defined by the dynamism of biological processes), the pragmatic one (defined as the necessary condition to be 'alive'), the temporal one (defined as the phenomenon that occurs between birth and death), the philosophical one (defined as the existential conundrum within which we all dwell). And among the various other articulations on the net, Terence McKenna provides a definition of life that I...
Post a Comment
Read more

We are your friends

We are beautiful. Together we shine. We are loud, we are music. We are dance, dance, all night. We are permanence, like love, like hope, like time. We are ephemeral, like wisps of hash smoke, Exuding like visual poetry from your lips to mine. We rise and we fall, to the moods of the skies, To the drone of the planet, to the hum of the cosmos that never dies. We live, to live hard We choose it - living hard, over hardly living. To live, is to keep moving, We understand this truth. And we pay homage to it in our dance moves. We seek moments. Moments of laughter, boisterous and great. We take our laughter with a side of stomach ache. We seek moments of ecstasy, piercing and soulful. We feed off the lifeforce of numinous truths. We seek moments of caring, compassion and tenderness. We bask in the warmth, the buzz, the fuzziness. And we seek moments of meaning. Meaning so overwhelming, that words collapse before it. Meaning so profound, that silence is its true la...
Post a Comment
Read more

Haunting Echoes in the Night

Yesterday, my city, the place of my birth and childhood, was bathed in blood and tears. Deep wounds were inflicted, during an overnight orgy of brutality and violence, in a stunning degradation of all things sacred we have ever held dear. For 13 hours the nation watched, helpless, petrified, and terrorized. The victims: They were one of us Reports that emerged first read '20 foreigners killed in terrorist attacks in Dhaka'. Even as the standoff was diffused, the narrative remained the same - ISIS militants have specifically targeted foreigners in Gulshan area, the diplomatic zone of my city. Its reiterations had reverberated worldwide by last night, when I get a call from a friend abroad. He says 'I am sorry to hear it man. A tragedy. Although it is not a direct tragedy for Bangladesh, really.' Really? Did it really make a difference? I told him how confused we were all feeling about what had just happened. Does it have to matter that apparently no Bangladeshi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Materialism, Consciousness and The Totality of Truth

What is reality? Where does one anchor one's sense of what is real? In other words, what is the true nature of the phenomenon of our experience? These questions contain many loaded terms, much-debated and discussed. As such, they can quickly become philosophical dynamite, the kind that could burst into flames by the tiniest spark of a misspoken word or an ill-pondered conjecture. Nonetheless, some deem these questions worth asking, to grab hold of that philosophical dynamite, to stroll through the cloud of metaphysical splinters, to brave the tumult of the raging epistemic tempest. All in the hope of reaching some imagined calm centre of understanding, enlightenment, deliverance, redemption, yada, yada, yada . Here is one such attempt.   Things and Stuff: The fetish of materialism, as manifested today through consumer capitalism, is no stranger to anyone, anywhere, anymore. While it takes different forms in different places, the essence of the obsession is the same. On Wall St...
Post a Comment
Read more