Tennessee Jed
Active member
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2014
- Messages
- 585
- MBTI Type
- INFP
Nature deals in wholeness, which is round. Whereas man divides things up, creating boundaries, flatness, and angles.
To spell it out:
Nature deals in wholeness, which is round. Wholeness is self-contained and circles back on itself: The seed, the womb, the fruit, the fetus. Cycles of day and night, cycles of the seasons, cycles of the moon and sun. Nature is homeostasis: If something goes too far in one direction, it has to cycle back around in the other direction or it dies. Nature is balance, because it includes extremes as part of a back-and-forth cycle: It is wholeness.
By comparison, man divides things up. He sees the cycle of day and night and he divides that cycle into the productive day and the restful night. He sees the cycle of the seasons, and he divides that cycle into one season for sowing and another season for reaping. He sees the whole tree or the whole plant, and he divides them into edible parts and non-edible parts, or into parts useful for construction and parts not useful for construction. He sees the spherical rock, and he finds ways to cut the rock up into flat surfaces for use as tabletops and chairs, or as sharp weapons and tools. And so on. Differentiation is the foundation of rationality, logic, and analysis.
Division and differentiation are a consequence of consciousness. Yes, it separates us from nature. We bend nature to our will because we have the vision to see how nature can be divided up and reshaped into something more useful. That vision is the difference between the unconsciousness of an animal or an infant as opposed to the consciousness of humanity and adulthood.
Those who would seek a return to unconsciousness--the alcoholic, the drug addict--are seeking a regression to infancy and freedom from thought.
The human race--for better or worse--has moved beyond unconsciousness. At this point it would be "unnatural" for us to regress back to a stage where we can't see the parts that make up the whole. We are our brains, and consciousness is our fate.
To spell it out:
Nature deals in wholeness, which is round. Wholeness is self-contained and circles back on itself: The seed, the womb, the fruit, the fetus. Cycles of day and night, cycles of the seasons, cycles of the moon and sun. Nature is homeostasis: If something goes too far in one direction, it has to cycle back around in the other direction or it dies. Nature is balance, because it includes extremes as part of a back-and-forth cycle: It is wholeness.
By comparison, man divides things up. He sees the cycle of day and night and he divides that cycle into the productive day and the restful night. He sees the cycle of the seasons, and he divides that cycle into one season for sowing and another season for reaping. He sees the whole tree or the whole plant, and he divides them into edible parts and non-edible parts, or into parts useful for construction and parts not useful for construction. He sees the spherical rock, and he finds ways to cut the rock up into flat surfaces for use as tabletops and chairs, or as sharp weapons and tools. And so on. Differentiation is the foundation of rationality, logic, and analysis.
Division and differentiation are a consequence of consciousness. Yes, it separates us from nature. We bend nature to our will because we have the vision to see how nature can be divided up and reshaped into something more useful. That vision is the difference between the unconsciousness of an animal or an infant as opposed to the consciousness of humanity and adulthood.
Those who would seek a return to unconsciousness--the alcoholic, the drug addict--are seeking a regression to infancy and freedom from thought.
The human race--for better or worse--has moved beyond unconsciousness. At this point it would be "unnatural" for us to regress back to a stage where we can't see the parts that make up the whole. We are our brains, and consciousness is our fate.
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