An Ode to Rapture
3 Minute Read | "Life is Wild" is one of the few certainties we have: let it be the fuel for wisdom, to cultivate a more tender world.
The juxtaposition of thought and feeling lies at the bedrock of our Being; it is the ocean floor of our soul, and the ground from which our every experience sprouts.
We know that we are here, because we think about our feelings and feel that we are thinking. Our entire lives are spent dancing between these states, through and within them. They are inseparable - there is no dividing line where thoughts begin and feelings end, just as there is no fine line between our inner “self” and the external world that produces it - yet upon examination, we are free to say this is thought, that is feeling; this is me, that is you. It is the tension between the two, the force, the motion, that spurs the experience and gives it meaning. The greater the tension, the more ecstatic and taut the awareness, the more profound and electric the experience.
Each and every one of us is capable of exploring this relationship—of seeking to explore and coming to know this fundamental essence of our fleeting life on this planet. It is a choice. It does not require wealth or privilege, only the good fortune of the awareness that this life is a marvel, that it is an enigma only to be wondered at. Often it is pain and confusion that brings people to its discovery, but it need not be so. In fact, we are coming to a point where it must not be so, for it is this awareness, of the true power and importance of our lives and of our relationship between thought and action, that determines the world in which we live.
All around us are the symptoms of a world under the burden of too much careless, “thoughtless” action; too many unconscious minds. We are raising generation after generation on the need for mental intelligence or physical skills, while wholly neglecting the necessity for harmony between the two; for learning how to align thought with action, for learning to listen to our “hearts” (our bodies) as much as our minds, for learning to be wise. We live in a world of dissociation, increasingly entombed by the perpetual fragmentation of our categorical intellects, all-too-rapidly losing the wild, untamed world from which we were born, and the consequences are only worsening.
Mindfulness, therapy, spirituality, the scientific method, eco-friendly lifestyles, activism, renewable energy, etc.—none of these are the answers, alone. There are infinite individual solutions, but each of them only stalls the inevitable if we do not address the roots of the problem as a whole: our fundamental relationship with the world around us—our philosophy.
There is no single answer, and no single “right” philosophy, but I ardently believe that what is missing in this age of surplus, waste, gluttony, and starvation, is a collective sense of responsibility of one’s thoughts and actions; of the most basic awareness and resultant gratitude for the power, beauty, and mystery of Life. It is that awareness that motivates wisdom and conscientious action - an awareness of the one truly universal fact: that it is WILD that we’re even alive, together, here, now - the same awareness that is being choked in the fog of distraction and eternal need-fulfilment that so characterises our modern societies.
The first step to wisdom, is Care. To have some sense that what you experience, moment by moment, is only the briefest flash in an ocean of whatever “this all is”, and to hold onto the spark of determination that such awareness brings—to build on it as motive to truly come to ‘know’ it, by seeking to nurture it; to learn what is harmful, and what is kind.
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What makes you care? What has your life taught you to believe, when it comes to thought and feeling, to ‘what we are’?
P.s.: I’ve rejigged and simplified the blog somewhat, one of the main perks being the addition of noteworthy sites for further reading & exploring— take a look, and send any suggestions my way as I’ll be continually updating/changing them over time! x