A Cerebral Flower

Have you ever felt like your mind was constantly at war with the world ? You open your eyes and see a vast array of objects that you see only the surface of. Your bed, the sun, your laptop, the mirror and even the very computer you’re running. If one would try to focus their attention on even a single one of these objects and try to investigate in it its absoluteness, with absolute devotion, it is not impossible to believe that this act would effortlessly consume a lifetime in a second, and there would be still be an infinitum left to investigate. I say this from experience having enrolled in an engineering program. What is simply a metal box with lights glowing within it is in fact the physical manifestation of the silent but eventful flowering of more than a millenia of human intelligence hacking at the world. I mean your laptop by the way. Maybe it would be a lot less surprising if only a single one of these objects existed, however it turns out that the number of objects that fall into this category range in the high trillions if not greater. I often come across the idea in spiritual texts that the material world is to be rejected for it is the realm of suffering. I cannot think of a greater crime upon humanity than that of feeding into the mind’s of the masses that there existence is irreparably tainted with that of human suffering. There exists no greater disgrace and no greater disservice to the human spirit than this. To think that for ages men have toiled to create well being for hearts and bodies beyond themselves and have ceaselessly sharpened their intelligence beyond the concerns of their own individual needs and desires is laudable.

This however raises a counter problem. The growth of intelligence requires the constant confrontation of situations beyond it. In the past this confrontation was provided by the demands survival placed on people. Or in other words in times when people didn’t understand architecture, they were compelled to experiment with shapes and materials in the most intelligible of manners until something suitable turned out. In the modern day however elaborate systems of creating buildings already exist and you are to find all the solutions to your problems simply by referring to an architecture textbook. In fact survival as a whole if must be looked at does not require the presence of exceptional originality or intelligence , since there already exist well charted paths that you could follow to ensure body and soul is together. In fact it is a curse upon humanity that the more one applies their intelligence, the greater the possibility that they rob someone else from utilizing theirs. The possibility of the growth of intelligence still occurs in the domain of modern day survival however, the motivation to tread uncharted territory is reserved to only a fortunate few. All that lies between greater intelligence and a human being seem to be the ease he feels in his comfort zone and the negative emotion of actually leaving it behind to allow himself to forge ahead. Maybe intelligence is a finite resource available to only a few, distributed among people the way money is, concentrated on the top while scarce at the bottom.

In contrast the intelligence available to a life form as simple as a plant seems to be unbeatable. The case for this being that the sharpest of all men have spent decades of their lives simply studying the parts of a plant only to create a never ending stream of libraries. The only flaw being that this intelligence is in fact unconscious. The leaf probably doesn’t create itself out of sheer intention. Maybe if it did possess the kind of conscious ability to create itself, it might just as well be able to run Google. I wouldn’t be surprised to see people seeking out the advice of a leaf should it gain conscious access to even a minuscule of the intellectual capability and attention that went into creating it. I dislike how the primary factor being used to differentiate humans from animals is the intelligence they possess. The intelligence possessed by both their bodies is vast and limitless. As has been equivalently demonstrated. I guess the prime differentiator besides the numerous actual physical markers between us and animals is the degree to which we have managed to consciously gain access to the intelligence already possessed by us.

I have always been of the opinion that the divine is the peak of subtlety. In this regard there seems to be not much that differentiates intelligence from divinity. Maybe your cerebral capacity is aching to birth a god.