Windows of the Soul
Windows of the Soul
Windows. I have always loved
windows. Standing in one atmosphere, gazing out at another environment that may
be totally different. Removed, unconnected. Like looking out at a blizzard from
a cozy warm home, the totally white frozen obliteration contrasting to the
warmth and varied colors within. A thin, clear membrane separating you from
frostbite. A thin clear line between Nevada and Alaska. It’s like looking at an
historic painting that you feel so distant from – like instead of gazing at
another time, you are looking into another dimension.
Sometimes when I’m depressed I can
gaze out a window and imagine another life. It’s always nice to put glass
between your pane [sic].
Just as children growing up strive
to separate themselves from grownups, so we in general as humans are prone to feel
the need to separate ourselves from history. Denying past errors. Maybe that’s
why windows dominate today’s society, since we like separation, with windows we
can at least be conscious of the division and pretend to care. (Kind of like
seeing starving third world children on television and feeling compelled to
send off a dollar or two to alleviate our guilt, pretending that we're not
separated from their blight.) We air condition against the warmth outside, just
as we heat when it is cold outside. Man – always trying to be separate from,
trying to change reality. Never satisfied with the way things are.
For it is the change that always
stands out. The difference is what’s important. If almost all birds were either
blue or red, I’m sure that it would be the brown one’s that we considered
beautiful.
We climb mountains with great delight
in being able to look down into valleys. We live in the valley in order to have
a view of the majestic mountains.
And it is with the help of windows
that make all this so obvious. Windows let us see our separation, make us aware
of the modifications we have made. Windows are constant reminders of man’s
attempt to turn reality up-side-down.
Windows are barriers that at least
let light get through so that we can fool ourselves into thinking there is no separation.
Thus we can say, “I live in Moscow” or “I live in Cleveland” or “I live in
Chambly,” instead
of “I live in a 70 degree heated/air-conditioned bubble – just like you and
most everybody else.”
We play with reality until reality
loses it’s meaning. Is reality the inside of the cage or the world outside? It depends
on which side one has his perspective from. Whether they are bars of steel or
piled up bars of gold, poor are affected as well as the wealthy - as your
personal prison can be from theft as well as riches. Money can separate us as
it stacks up around us forming an inpenitratible barrier that no one can reach
through. Seclusion can be our own private jail. The rich as well as the poor
can experience alienation from society. Lock me away, or shun me. Observe me
only through windows. Keep your distance! Not like a lion in a cage, but more
that of a fish in an aquarium. You could never truly know my world. My glass
separates universes, dimensions. My glass is a bubble that surrounds me as I
float in and out of your reality.
It is sometimes said that
separation is an illusion – but in reality anything and everything but
separation is the illusion. Each object, each person, is made up of individual
cells. Each cell in your body has as much connection to each other as do the
planets in a solar system.
Space. Space is the truth. There is
space between everything. The only connection between us is space. The Universe
is essentionally empty. It is a vacuum by any standard. Even a pane of glass is not
really solid. A neutrino passing through a window has a very small chance of
colliding with any molecule in the glass – most assuredly it will pass right
through without any effect. It would be almost impossible for it to strike anything.
Although you can see a completely
different world outside your window, you have little chance of having any
effect on it. Of all the animals on Earth it’s the human beings who are known
as the creators on the planet, always building things, but in actuality our
creations are small and usually temporary – just waiting for entropy to
overtake them. As the debate rages on whether we are destroying the planet I
think that we are locked in a perspective that is far from reality. I’m not
sure we are as of yet able to destroy the Earth, we are only able to change it
– possibly destroying the atmosphere and any possible living conditions. But
the Earth, in one form or another, will survive. So the only thing we would
probably be destroying is ourselves, along with a few billion animals. I think
that long after we’re gone the Earth will repair itself. Maybe then the next
incarnation of life will get it right.
Maybe we’re just like microbes in a
Petri dish. The experiment of life on this planet may have passed its half-life.
Maybe the scientist running this experiment has as much feelings for us as we
do for mold spores. Possibly we are just a little experiment in filling up some
space. We take up about as much space in the Universe as we do time in it’s
history. We would not even register as a blip on the radar screen. We are
dandruff on the head of the Universe, exaggerating our self worth. Is it man’s
deterrent or his blessing to be so self-centered? Man’s ego is what has caused
him to expand beyond any reasonable measure. In this microcosm, man is king. Man’s
inflated self-importance is what makes him rise above the other microbes in the
Petri dish.
The ultimate question is whether he
can rise up enough through his own compost to really communicate with the
scientist running this experiment and possible save himself with something more
than complaints or simple pleas of help.
éim
Uhr
P.S. It is said that a millennium is just a moment to the
Universe. Do you want to give me a moment to see if I can unstick this widow?
The eyes have it. [sic]
which window video is the best??? - let me know!
