pattern

TEXT EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK, following on from the above paragraphs

…Days passed and the paragraphs remained stuck on the desktop – occasionally dipped-into, mentally discussed, critiqued, compared. But one aspect kept returning – that last sentence. For it pointed, not only to a direction of further travel, but a new kind of destination, by actually naming it – The Ship of the Self.

And maybe a timely one. For all around that café table this ‘Self’ seemed to have reached crisis point in its development. Having multiplied profusely, dominated all other earthly species; invented fantastic technologies, information, data systems, filled its days with free time – it had only grown more dissatisfied, frustrated. Thanks to its new glut of knowledge, it possessed grander expectations than at any time in history. One finger-swipe revealed almost anyone’s private life, wealth, knowledge-base. It could compare itself not just with neighbours, but the global rich and famous. Thus its goals had expanded, become ever more general, impossible to fulfil. Urgently it sought new causes to latch onto – but never quite satisfying. An increasingly unfulfilled Self, impatient at what its culture has to offer, instinctively rebelling, wanting something bigger, deeper, but not knowing how to look.

And this was showing on the ground. Wars in Ukraine, Israel; escalating tensions between USA and China; demonstrations on campuses, frustrated crowds gathering around parliaments, embassies, stadiums.  Expanded, unfulfilled ambitions on a global scale. Whole populations needing to blame other whole populations for their own dissatisfaction. A narcissistic condition familiar to history. One requiring the creation of enemies for the projection of unfulfilled goals, frustrations. Hence the growing polarisation – Republican vs Democrat, Tories vs Socialists, Russians vs Americans, Christians vs Muslims, Governments vs Oppositions. Stuck in a childish stage of Self-development, dragging heels against the natural maturing process.

Nor helped by the fact that the former, long-developed container of human ambition – our traditional religions – were losing their grip. Promises of afterlives were working less efficiently – replaced by this more educated, narcissistic personality. One living inside ever more finely-tuned, isolated bubbles. Endlessly polishing their thin membranes, ever aware of the needles of doubt approaching on all sides. A condition usually going for over-Self-protection – as witnessed by the unnecessarily extended periods of Covid precaution, arrival of vulnerability warnings on TV screens, gallery walls, public address – instead of exploring the vulnerability itself, deepening self-investigation.

A Self whose state of being also lacking any objective means or portrait, to view its social presence. Sociologists still wrapped it up in packages of national, religious, financial ambition. Psychologists – on the will to power, eros, the basic drives of survival and protection of children. But this new, web-assisted, international Self, haunted by its own over-population, free time and information-glut, seemed not only dissatisfied with its own culture’s proffered goals, but also its self-definitions. Bubbles were bursting and reforming faster than ever before in history.

Then along comes this Ship of the Self, floating out across the sea of human unconsciousness. Was it not worthy at least, of a second look? Additionally the picture carried a pleasing, almost filmic quality. A cartoon-like outline offering plenty of scope for further colouring-in, detail. If nothing else, a new tool / viewing-platform from which to observe the Self’s endless re-patterning process.

It wasn’t long before this Ship of the Self stood out fully rigged, silhouetted against the intellectual horizon. Its tight, wind-filled sails scooping up elements from many other theories of Self. The question whether to take it seriously had been answered –mostly out of frustration with the others. Thus began the task of approaching the increasingly complex Ship with a colder, scientific eye. Taking out a fresh set of pencils, brushes, measuring tools. Perhaps venturing a few steps below deck.

Initially the task seemed purely intellectual. Another thought-experiment belonging to the inside of a human skull. But as methods of inquiry evolved, it changed in tone; veering from mere mental analysis or verbal portraiture, toward a new kind of writing, some might even say literature. Akin to the mission of a frustrated novelist, no longer able just to pursue description of feeling or idea; needing to map out his / her very own operational mechanics. Move the fiction of writing toward the non-fiction of living, via hard observations of their own bubble-encased beliefs.

It would take several months of further reading/research, mental debate, Automatic flights, until the day the notebook was re-opened and a formal attempt made to re-engage the Ship. By now the teacher’s voice had been coaxed down from its dais of free-flowing rhetoric, engaged in discussion with the ideas of other writers, theorists, psychologists.

To then find itself facing a new dilemma. Which cognitive champagne bottle to crack against its hull at the launch? What flag of ownership to haul up the Ship’s mast?

Eventually an answer was found closer than expected – in fact sitting all around at the city’s café tables. Example after example of this enlarged, modern Self. Proud, undisciplined, sovereign in its coffee-lined goldfish-bowl, yet confounded by too many options. Its emotions being pulled right and left by increasingly louder, competing voices – most shouting without really knowing it – ‘Where am I headed?’

With this phrase printed boldly across its sails, the Ship was slid down the ramp, out into the water – ready to begin its omniscient mission.

Soon its bow was cutting across seas of charted and uncharted ideas, religious and non-religious texts, social and anti-social solutions – but most importantly, the feelings on which they sat. Thus the autobiography of an idea was launched. Or rather launched itself – across the water that created it.

NEXT CHAPTER – ‘The Ship of the Self – sets sail.‘

THE EXPERIENCE OF PATTERN

…during a relaxed, open-minded evening walking along a beach of black sand shortly before sunset (see photo above) a sudden revelation into Pattern and its grander presence arrived on its own.

The sky was sprinkled with small, pink-turning clouds; water swirled in flat foam patterns around the feet; waves broke then retracted across the sand; a warm wind wrapped around arms and shoulders to spiral away inland. Suddenly it seemed obvious, the process of pattern-making was in full sway at 360 degrees. Literally rubbing against the ankles as spume, curling around the toes in thousands of miniature bubbles; pressing repeatedly against the face in puffs of warm air. It crept into the nose as minutely adjusting smells, or slid across the sky in a fantastic chequer-board of clouds – all at the same time. It became impossible not to sense a guidance system somewhere, knitting every element into a whole, powering forward that enormous re-patterning process we call creation. A calming, unperturbed presence always waiting to be noticed, not only in the landscape, but also in one’s own body.

Just for a moment the human organism seemed to stand right at its apex; a micro-element in this free-flowing, geometric field, eyes looking alternatively down towards the feet, then up at outer space. One more particle in a giant Pattern stretching out toward the stars.

The strength of that impression stayed in the body for the next few days, inserted a new curiosity into daily, sensory information. Unusual shapes, connections, symmetries were spotted, first in the volcanic island’s charred, inferno-like landscape, then the cloud configurations sailing overhead. A week later back in England, the observations transferred to trees, leaves, hillsides, fields of Devon. Each new sky glowed back as an of-that-second imprint. A moment in the turning mathematical tableau that lies hidden in the structure of Pattern.

Steadily the sense of Pattern turned into an every-day event – with a duty to be noted, appreciated, further developed. The edicts of that new kind of philosophy, as intuited back in those Faringdon café paragraphs.

Walking across the coastal hillsides gradually changed in tone. Spring flowers looked up from the soil as bright, Patterning faces shouting out the same geometric philosophy. Each circular cluster of elegantly proportioned petals, colourful shape-displays – revelations of this guiding matrix. One setting-off Pattern-responses in the observer – be it insect, bee, animal, or advanced mammal with phone-camera and microphone…