"Why?"
Mr.
Thumbite gave the curt response over the phone. His school chum (from over 50
years back,) having at last located him, offered to go for a coffee, beer, or
lunch. "Why?" Now, voice tone or adjectives, like “belligerent”, or “inquisitive”,
or “dismissive” might well alter the story, consciously, but with the denunciation
clearly denoted, the two old school friends did not meet.
Consciousness
has it that we not only think about our thinking, but that we do it as a continuum
of habit. (Surely we are conscious some of the time?) Surely we have a meta-cognition,
that ability to realize we are thinking and to redirect, address, question, and
even choose in which direction to steer our thinking. Animals are less so. Dogs,
cats, pets, farm animals, they all learn and show intelligent choices at times,
but not as a continuum. And even then, it is averred, quite a few humans do not
live in much consciousness either. We are creatures of habit, reactionary
rather than responsive, and atavistic rather than progressive. It is in our
nature to nurture that which we already know, to perpetuate that to which we've
become inured, and to settle for that which is on the TV. Or do we creatively
compose our lives? Do we perpetually consider our choices, not just from a good
or bad, left or right, or even an up or down perspective, but from the
kaleidoscope of compassion? (Complete compassion, here, is comprehensively
integrative.)
If
Fifteen Dogs are given consciousness, and their lives followed, surely it is
the degree to which each of them exercises that ability that will establish a
bell curve along the continuum. So too for humans. Our bell curve, in the long
line of history, would show that we've not exercised our consciousness very
much at all. At least, not collectively. Yet it might be argued that if the
measure of mankind's' consciousness in action may be by the metre (that
French word) of compassion, then it is not so much about individuals in action,
but what groups have done. And certainly not everyone in the United States need
be aligned with the President, nor those in Russia, nor those in China, nor
those in the long history of Time's sweep by an Alexander or a Genghis Khan. We
rather easily ascribe a condition, any condition, of the human condition to an
entire populace, forgetting that they are measured most often by what the
leading edge of that populace perforce did to 'advance' the status quo. Think
of the 'great' wars. Think of the ongoing wars. How does an individual without
much power at all, like you or me, affect those? How do we influence with our
consciousness the awareness of others? What communication, methods, or prayers
will truly affect 'everything'? We can but do what we do in small measures, one
by one, each by each, in an attempt to sway the vote. Ask the 'new' South
Africa. Ask a North Korean, or a refugee from Syria. How conscious may they be
deemed to be? What of you and me? And what we've done, collectively, given all
history, is not show much consciousness at all.
Lunchtime
meetings with four separate friends over the past fortnight have much
invigorated this treatise. We are of an accord. The degree of meta-cognition
impacts the degree to which one lives on in states of consciousness. (And
consciousness may be defined as that quality of being aware not only of one's
actions, but of the very reasoning process behind the action, most of the time.)
Given my friends, when a topic is raised, or a given contention expressed, the
essential question of 'why?' is an immediate invitation to further exploration,
directed toward a more articulate exposition, and even a reverence for the
journey itself. It is never dismissive, or funny.
Yes,
sometimes the question is not ‘why’, but, "Why Not?"
