Ubiquiosity

In the spirit of "language is ever evolving" and of "structuring interesting word usements", I propose this formulized communicable craftation; Ubiquiosity.

And it means this: The state in which things are no longer consciously perceived because of their omnipresence.

They say that the hearing centers in your brain block the various sounds that your body makes on constant basis, like your heart beating and often your breathing (other sounds that are regrettably sometimes subject to this censorship of the brain in some people may also include the vaporous emissions of a Mexican dinner, pulsatingly annoying laughs, and verbal idiocy.) The theory goes that if forced to listen to the constant beating of our own heart day in and day out we would be distracted (from the hunting), or driven slightly crazy, so the brain blocks the sound. This begs the question, is this internal censor is faulty in some people? It would account for some of their behavior. But I digress.

How much of the rest of the world we experience around us falls victim to a similar censorship? How many things slide past our consciousness only because out mind has become so accustomed to them, or has perhaps never experienced an alternative? Many things in life are so omnipresent that after awhile we stop paying attention to them, stop thinking about them. Often we stop realizing they even exist, that is if we ever realized their existence in the first place. That picture on the wall that you put up 6 years ago and have not looked at since, even though you walk past it every single day. There are no stars when you live in a city, so who looks for them in any given Metropolis? Who thinks about the night sky? It is so breathtaking in some places, though who living where there are starts marvel at them if they have never known anything else? There is also the fact that everywhere you go music is playing, good and bad. Everywhere. Listen sometime.

Others things are so deeply tied into our paradigm of what reality is that we can go a lifetime never really being truly conscious of their presence. Direction. Time. Our own consciousness. Cows.

Yes, cows. They're everywhere! Can you really imagine life without them at this point? How many products come from cows? So many things that we often don't even think of them as living creatures anymore, but only as inanimate automatons, if we think about them at all. What if the Cow was some exotic wild animal though, wondering the plains where no humans wanted to live? What if it was an animal that children and even adults dreamed of at night? Great mythic creatures with a holy white glow emanating from their bodies, or perhaps terrifying beasts with evil glowing eyes chasing as you flee in terror. Perhaps they tell you in the voice of your dead Great Aunt the secret family recipe for dog meat balls (this is of course assuming that dogs would take the place of cows. Pekinese makes for a-tasty-meata-balla I hear).

Let's also look at it this way; can you imagine a living creature that does not resemble, in any way whatsoever, another living creature or thing on this planet? Can you pull from your imagination something that does not already in some part exist? It is exceedingly difficult; we nearly always find a frame of reference from our reality around us. To create something from nothing, that is the definition of genius, and few can claim that title.

We do not live in a vacuum. We are inundated with experiences every second of our lives, with our only respite the few hours in the night when we fall deeply asleep. How much of the world around us, and in our own heads, do we take for granted? "Take for granted" usually brings up thoughts of "I should conserve on gas...", or "I should call my Mom....", but what about on a deeper level? What things are we so profoundly wrapped up in that we can actually no longer imagine a world without them? In addition, will we ever even be asked to imagine a world without them? Others are just as wrapped up in the ubiquiosity of reality as we are, and the questions never cross their minds, just as they may never cross our own.

So, just for fun, let's ask those questions, a bit in this blog and perhaps more through the rest of your day and week. Let's imagine, if we can, the world with or without a few things that are all around us, things that we take for granted now and could easily continue to take for granted for the rest of our lives. Bring all preconceived notions to the table, and put them out there for the world to see, and take a look at them yourself while they're there.

We’ll start easy. What if you could no longer hear? This one is fairly easy to get a taste of with the right ear plugs. But, does that really capture what it would be like to be UNABLE to hear? Even when we plug our ears our own breath and heart can be heard (despite our brains censor switch). To have no sense of hearing, to never hear the garbage truck lumber up, or the hum of electronics, the sound of music, the sound of our loved ones voices, what would that be like?

What if you couldn't see? Again, cover your eyes and it's easy enough to imagine. But that’s too easy. What if you had never been able to see? How would your world view (pardon the pun) be different? Can you even imagine how it would be different? Forget simple blindness for a moment, what if what you see now is entirely different than what other people see? Would there be any way of knowing? What if the color you see as "orange" is actually "puce" to my eyes? The names of the colors were told to us many years ago, we'd have no frame of reference to compare our perceptions of colors to. Or for a more interesting example, I imagine you’ve never though about your stereo vision, or what it would be like to not have it, but this story may change that. I love that the one guy asks the woman if she thinks she can imagine what having stereo vision is like, and she replies “of course!”, and then later has to recant when she actually experiences it. How often does reality turn out to be far different than we had imagined it would be?

What about religion? What would a world be like completely without it? Many of us live our personal lives without it, but we can’t actually escape it. It’s everywhere, and it shapes the way we all think about the world whether we a church going or not. We almost all have this generally self centered idea that somewhere out there someone or something is watching us, be it some god or maybe aliens, and they are interested in us, either because we are their dysfunctional children or because they desperately need anal cavities to probe. Many base their actions on this idea; that no matter what happens someone is watching out for us. But what if no one is? What if a cosmic father figure is merely a security blanket for the consciousness? Take away those watchers and our fate takes on a markedly different perspective, one of finite bounds as opposed to infinite. What if we’re completely on our own? Would anyone care if the human race were gone if there were no human race to care?

Our consciousness is our own, and no one else’s. Empathy allows us to imagine how someone else may think or feel, but we can never experience their mind for ourselves. We live with ourselves every moment of every day, with the occasional transcendental mediation or acid trip to take away our sense of self, we can feel isolated and overwhelmed by this at times. Do we realize that everyone else around us is dealing with similar, if not the same, emotions, thoughts, and issues? Does it cross our minds that other points of view do exist? And not "points of view" in the post-modern definition that is synonymous with "opinion", but equally valid personal views, each from different vantage points than our own. How often are we both right, yet we look at each other knowing the other is wrong? Can we, for a moment, imagine a reality where our thoughts and emotions could be shared, as readily as a hand shake or an ice cream cone? Can we imagine not having to take on faith the love someone feels for us, but actually be able to experience their feeling for ourselves? To be able to share with their soul how we feel as well?

While there are many things out there that can be chalked up as "that's just the way things are", say for example the sun rising and setting, the pull of gravity, and the inevitability of our own deaths, there are many other things that get that label erroneously. So many of the events and things that happen around us happen merely because someone made a choice, not because of fatalistic inevitability. It’s not "just the way things are", or fate, or divine intervention, but instead a decision or set of decisions was made and a result occurred. Cause and effect. Another saying, “it’s just human nature,” is equally as misleading. Human nature has been defined as a lot of things, but I was always under the impression that at the core of human nature is that we have control over our human nature. We choose, consciously. Sub-conscious be damned, we are conscious beings. But we are rarely asked to act like it.

How much of the Ubiquiosity we experience around us could be changed if we so desired it to be different? What if that silly phrase "that's just the way things are," could be said with relish, joy, and smile, instead of frustration, sadness, and abdication? As Rufus said, "Wouldn't it be a lovely headline, "Life is Beautiful", on the New York Times?” We are in control, we call the shots, we just need to open our eyes and our minds to the possibilities around us.