Jan 18, 2010

A Passive Metaphysic of Existence

Perhaps this is just a disembodied soliloquy that lost its way into my consciousness... perhaps is it just me using words as a metaphysical device to achieve a connection with my own "self".

I am me... siddharth kaushal… i… am... siddharth kaushal... my being representable by a textual configuration. What is 'siddharth kaushal'?... whats my being?... I, the subject, ask myself this question and let my self, the object, answer me... Not 'myself' but 'my self'...

I make the necessary distinction between 'myself' and 'my self'... between the 'I' and the 'Me'... the knower and the subject known. 


My being is primarily apprehended as my life… which is in turn cognized as the 'aggregate' perception of my existence.. !! My life is, in all its magnificence, in its existential entirety a perception of my existence. By the intellective force of reason it accesses itself. What separates me from the rock outside, the chair I rest my material form on, from the road that swathes my house, from the notebook that lies in front of me…they all exist as is do.. just that they are devoid of , bereft of, oblivious to any perception of being in existence...

The same perception which enables me to live rather than merely exist… existence of my being is essentially an assembly of primal particles…atoms.. which have (probably) been in existence since the beginning of time. Its just the arrangement they assume that constitutes me. This will be de-arranged and then re-arranged and then de-arranged again and again…. The achievement of this meta stable state, my body and mind, may last 60… maybe 70 years.. but then its deconstructed only to be constructed again. Thus existence is perennial… it's the nature of absolute reality… its in the relativistic realm that our mind distorts its meaning… its within the confines of my perception that I fail to see the absoluteness of existence.

Since its intrinsic for existence to take different arrangements, its ignorant to think of its extermination… we all do not exist… we do not come into existence when we are born… its existence which comes into us… What we understand as life is nothing but a perception… a perception of the form of our mind and body which existence has assumed temporarily ….but the real nature of life is a perception of not the form of existence but that of the existence of the form.

From the realm of active perception I move to the realm of passive perception… this enables a more fundamental perception… the one of the existence…. The one which makes me feel connected to everything else that exists… not just what I can perceive but all that exists albeit beyond my perception.

Nothing exists for ever…. I am in existence right now…more appropriately, existence is in me right now. My existence , transient as it may be, is vast. Existence is me in many forms.

The existence which is me …. I will call it 'my existence' henceforth. My existence is in your mind, in your perception as well it is in my perception. You know my name, thus my existence resides in your mind. You know what I look like.. again making my existence larger.

We all know, say Hitler…. He thus has existence in all our minds… existence has taken his form in much larger a manner, much wider a canvas than say an average guy on the street. The larger your existence gets… the higher the chances of it continuing to be in your form.

The
fundamental tendency, the only fundamental property which drives all humanity… all life forms… all forms of existence…. Is this… The tendency to retain existence in the form that it exists in them , the form that they perceive, the form that they identify with. This is the existential mania which is the fundamental driving force in this universe. It has driven , it still is driving and will continue to drive everyone who exists… everything that exists… more exactly every form that existence takes. It's the existential inertia which characterizes everything. It's a fundamental design. This is the basis of all instincts, all emotions, all notions , all phenomenon… it's the basis for everything. A flutter of the butterfly's wing takes form into a cyclone driven by this design. Human achievements and progress is a manifestation of this very motive force of our collective human consciousness. You aspire to be whatever u do absolutely in conformity with the existential mania because of its accompanying existential inertia.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could expand this theory of existential inertia with the fact that man is a social animal and hence craves for conformity and acceptance

Also,we have grown so apart from the basic life form that we were meant to be, that when a human is born his perception is bound by the already set societal norms, which we crave to conform with to be accepted.

You are a great writer..:)

Siddharth Kaushal said...

i know what you mean.. in fact i might take it up in one of my future articles.. here i avoided the social context on purpose to preserve the abstraction of the metaphysical basis of this "tendency" that i speak of.
Thanks for the compliment. Please keep visiting and leaving your comments. :)

Sidharth said...

umm...Fine I agree, to what you said that "man" is just a manifestation of atoms,molecules cells. Infact 90% of human body is bacteria,fungi,virus. That leads to the fact that origin of species, a bacterium still exists and is manifested in a new form! the form changes?
But i beg to differ, in this regard because the individual atoms etc are not independant or at the mercy of their own consciousness, they all now work with a common purpose. The new form is not just a collection of individual elements(consiousnesses), but is driven by a single consious(a soul some call it)
Existence has a meaning only one is consious of it. The chair or the rock on the street both definitely exist,(the way we make antiques exist in a musuem and wonder at their eternal existence), still they are not aware of it. Their existence would be preposterous, without our disposition of acknowledging their existence. But about something called "life" which too is an assembly of atoms, but is driven by a common consciousness.
Just like the constructions in transformers - the individual robots cease to exists when they merge into a huge transformer!

Sidharth said...

Hmm fine! i read it again. I guess i was speaking the same language as you did earlier..
I guess it is human nature to grope for something tangible that gives a testimonial, evidence or proof of an object. That object might be a feeling, emotion, relation, piety etc.
We try to swathe the energy called "God" into a form. Hindus worship idols and muslims the word "allah" We always need a temple or picture of God to pray. Though they say hez everywhere.
Lovers need expression of emotion, through marriage confession sacrifice. We need photographs of our loved ones to relish their memories.
Conspicuously, form is an alibi, tutelage/succour of existence, if we can't give something a form we are scared to believe in it

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