If you’re reading this, I feel it is safe to assume that you are a human being. Maybe not. Maybe you’re an alien or an artificial intelligence or my Uncle Francis. Regardless, I’m going to continue as if you’re a squishy ape creature on the same planet I am.
So...life. That’s a thing. It’s a cool thing! So many things to do. The Earth is literally billions of acres of a cosmic playground for us to make life anything we want to make it. We can make the sand in our hourglass of life anything we desire!
But are you consciously choosing your life experiences?
I don’t like to make assumptions, but I have an eye for picking out statistically significant trends from the noise. I think it’s safe to say the Most of the people are afflicted with a lifestyle obsession, whatever that may be.
What I mean is, most people tend to be born (I was hatched from an egg, so I know there are exceptions), and then they start learning. And learning.
Then they forget to learn.
I think it’s a very human thing to get stuck in a behavioral rut. One of our greatest strengths as a species is our Wrather creation of an ego; a sort of mask we wear that tells us how to dance on stage as the scenes of our life play out. It allows for people to become highly specialized characters, which allows our collective to diversify and act cohesively to conquer everything life throws at us.
But, what is not a very human thing is forgetting that the ego is like a mask and can be taken off. If you were in a Shakespearean play, you would need to take your costume off and change character after it was over. Otherwise, you might try to order a coffee in iambic pentameter while wielding a dagger. True, it may be an interesting experience, but it likely will not play out how your character may hope.
In this, I am saying that neither the east or west bank of a river is better than the other; what is important is how well you can traverse from one side to the other.
I like to think of this in the same vein as having two eyes. By having two different perspectives being fed to our brains, we gain depth perception. Similarly, by having two different ways of processing the world (one inherent and one grown from the environment), we have a means of creating depth in our paradigm. We can look at a scenario and perceive it as two separate things. This gives us a wider range of choices to choose from.
Imagine being thrown into an unfamiliar situation, something you have no experience with. You will probably seek out the advice from someone more knowledgeable. What that other person is giving you is perspective that you can use to better make decisions moving forward. Likewise, our brain’s intrinsic means of processing information can reconcile unknowns that the ego is working with, and vice versa.
If we remove an eye, we lose our depth perception; if we only operate under the guidance of the ego, we will be blind to many of the possibilities that lay before us.