Consciousness At Large

By

George O. Obikoya

In the transience of the moment lies the taxon, the cobble of an eternal path to a world of emotional scaffolding of a core of turmoil, one at once of necessity as it is of pain, the former understandable, at least from a biologic viewpoint, the latter somewhat unnatural it would seem to hurried expose.

The particularity of an inquiry may indicate the direction of its purveyor to glean its interior even if unclear for whose benefit given the proclivity for the scaffolds to blend with if not even metamorphose into enduring consciousness, the import of the subtlety of the reductionistic implications of the tumultuous core.

To ascribe to a moment of awareness the complexity we constantly struggle to unravel belies the heroism of many to resist the extreme dimensions of the form of a core bent on expression. Yet, we must concede the potential ramifications of the most rudimentary of consciousness, as we must that of our estimation perhaps being equally so.

That the struggle would likely endure attests to the motley of consciousness about which momentariness is a part, and perhaps more so is manifest of its fluidity. It is thus rueful to admit its potential to be limiting regardless of its dimensions. Thus, that our awareness of the devastation an ultramicroscopic microbe does to us is not necessarily until fever develops is instructive.  

The varieties of responses to the emergence of what essentially is an ongoing struggle to overcome a bug indicates that even awareness at the level of wilful action does not always coincide for reasons intrinsic and external to the individual, the resultant chain of awareness though, directional, forward, or backward, even if wobbly on a spot, eventually gaining or losing momentum.    

Thus, we resist even when internal forces ravage us. We struggle to ward off an autoimmune disease, or the gloom from nowhere. We lie low to recuperate and hibernate for hostility to pass. We succumb from time to time but we try, even if momentarily, even if at an awareness of which we lack. We keep our faith in the propensity for continuity inherent in our nature against all odds.

Our inclination to embrace the momentariness of awareness underscores that to accept the limitations of our inquiry regardless of our intent. Intuitively therefore, we persevere in a milieu laden with pain, a biologic necessity infused with a dose of reality, the coalescence resultant a continuum of consciousness that transcends rigid taxonomic contraptions.         

The denial of the richness of the taxon as we are wont to do to mitigate the cognitive lash of a complex reality, a comprehensible sidekick of an evasive consciousness itself laden with angst, does not appear to matter. Yet, we must revisit the seeming pleasure of transience, our tendency to dichotomize pleasure and pain, to reduce awareness to elements we claim to know that are indeed contiguous with those knowledge of which we lack or only acquire transitionally.    

Hence the need for contrition, the humility to accept the limitations inherent in our nature that we nonetheless must celebrate, for the coalescence of pain and pleasure to permeate our consciousness in its entirety, and make sense as being an instance along a continuum.  

The onus is thus on us to manage our awareness for a transient earthly sojourn to fulfill what seems an eternal goal, that of the perpetuity of the universal consciousness, which makes us partners in a grand scheme of which our awareness continues to evolve.  From reliance on tools carved out of stone to an age of technological marvels, we increasingly foray into the unknown, arguably credit to us for fostering a union upon which our very existence may hinge.

The demise of a partner does not necessarily mean that of the other, that of the Neanderthals for example, not ours. Yet, the will that may ensure our survival may also facilitate our extinction, as it may, our union in the universal consciousness. Given where our consciousness now is relative to the age of our planet, it could be much more sublime in even shorter periods ahead.

The rapidity of its advance does not appear to be accidental, the ubiquity of its elements, caregiving and grief among chimps, for example, instructive. It is consistent with the urgency of its role in a perpetual scheme, albeit in which time melts into nothingness in our consciousness as the individual expires.   

Given our transience, it is in our ability to foster not retard the progress of consciousness that we must rejoice. That is what pleasure pain sires, and which to manifest seems must dyad with pain, and to celebrate we thus richly deserve. However, we must not be complacent nor pare our gains.  Indeed, we need to ensure that our consciousness advances even quicker or we may be increasingly left behind, if not excluded, in a partnership along a continuum of consciousness knowledge of whose dimensions we seem to sorely lack.

Thus we need to improve the health and well-being of all to enhance the prospects of the coalition of ideas generated by keener awareness levels crucial to the progress of humankind and our ability to positively contribute to that of the universal consciousness. The revelations thereof, even if the outcome of the seemingly endless pain we endure would have been worth it in the end.

Why should we care to partner to advance the universal consciousness some would ask? We should because we are a part of it. Indeed, it gives meaning to life, and eliminates the pervasive angst with which we struggle as individuals and collectively in awe of the void of existence even if transient, into which we seem condemned.

Of course, we would not have to, extinct, the path to which some would argue our present seeming nonchalance about the crucial role we play in the survival of our planet and by extension, of humankind suggests. But there is hope. That we would in the end remain a partner in an eternal scheme a tantalizing peep into which consciousness has kindly allowed us, more of which is up to us to explore in our consciousness along the path of that which in an aeonian union, we share, may be conjectural, is nonetheless, reassuring.