The World Within Us

There was a world already here long before we were born which will still be here long after we are gone.  That is one world.  The other world is the one known only to us as individuals.  It is a world no one else can see. That world is what resides in our individual minds. Or, in our individual consciousness, if you will. That is what I recall Sir Ken Robinson said in one of his talks.  If you have not heard of Ken Robinson, it is worth a peek at You Tube or at Ted Talk.  

It  looks much too intuitive, doesn't it? Too natural, to even be considered worth an "u-hum" as defined in Urban dictionary, much less an "uh-huh".  Thinking a bit more deeply we must realize that such a world begins and ends with us.  That is the one thing we do take with us to our grave.    Ken Robinson, who by the way died last year, did mention it only briefly as a segue between two topics during that one presentation I listened to but that was what stayed with me.  I wished he had spent more time on it.  But then, perhaps, it was better that way, because now we are provoked to think from within that world - that individual private world that is impervious to even a peek from others. Unless we let them.

Why is this significant?

Profoundly, and if I may preface it this way, that world that was here before we were and eternally hereafter "exists" because we are here to ponder it, to appreciate it, to be awed or threatened by it, to wonder or question it, and so on and on.  Yes, the moon will still be there even if we are not looking, or that the tide will rise and ebb because of it, whether we like it or not, but without a conscious, sentient being, none of that will mean anything.  For that matter, the entire world has no meaning, if there is no one to perceive it. Of course, that is because we look at it from our perspective. For a thousand million years when life first emerge and develop, it can be said that only the Creator saw what and how those creatures were doing.  Wait!  What?

Some of us will wonder that way.  Why did God wait that long for some of the creatures to develop a consciousness sophisticated enough to have the ability to ponder such a world? Is it God's infinite patience? Or, is a thousand million years merely a single second in God's eternal clock? Not for us to question why because we will likely not understand the answer anyway, so we are left with that world within our mind - our consciousness - to see all that we are allowed to see.

Think about this.  It is from that world within us, within our minds, that we actually first begin to make life our own and how to go about living it.  It is from that world that we will learn what it is we will be good at in order to pursue not only a good means to earn a living but attain a life well-lived. Unfortunately, we now live in a culture where the measure for success, therefore the attainment of happiness, is based on the acquisition of material things.  It follows therefore that the world outside, not the one within us, is all that matters and so we lose sight of what lies beyond economic measures.  We obscure the view of what should be a well-lived life with one that is what those in the outside world believe it should be.

Let's digress for a bit.

Lawyers and investigators  make it their business to take a peek at what we are thinking.  Or, they want to see what it is in our world that makes us look at the outside world the way we do. That is because much too frequently eye witnesses see the same event a little or much too differently.

Politicians and pundits want to influence our internal world so that we may see the outside world the way they want us to see it.  The media want us to see the outside world to influence what goes on inside our head.

Social media strive to change the outside world so that we may  see  from within our world the view they want to promote.  Case in point - just to name one - is this thing about white privilege.  I am not white, but if I were and I am told that my life had taken on a different but special trajectory because  of my skin color, then the burden of guilt weighs much too heavily to carry from an early age to adulthood.  But that is exactly what white children are bombarded with in many public schools today, that continue on for those who enter our universities.  Cancel culture is such a heavy but one crude blunt instrument to use on the population but it is wielded with abandon today.

From much of the media coverage that is propagated abroad, America is a racist country. Consequently, as recently as a couple of days ago, the Chinese delegation, not surprisingly, used that to lecture our Secretary of State when representatives from both sides met in Alaska.  When one political party and the woke generation use race, or labels of systemic racism, as a cudgel for their cause and agenda, it is to be expected that it will be used by those who oppose America's influence in the world.  We cannot help but note that those who paint the racist label on this country are the very same ones who encourage illegal immigration through our borders that they would rather not protect. Why would anyone let children go to a place where racism is rampant?  

Let's look at numbers.  According to FBI data, 1,000 unarmed men were killed by police between 2013 and 2019.  Or, an average of 142 people per year.  Of that total, 47 were black men.  By the way, it does not say if all of those killed by police were innocent people; or, were they committing crimes when the shooting occurred? But the media seems to propagate broadly, which includes to the rest of the world, that there is and had been an epidemic of black killings by police.  From the context of the total U.S. population of 330 million people, that number loses its intended political effect but nevertheless, it is today still being promoted.  Yes, blacks only make about 13% of the total population, so a third of those killed by police is a serious anomaly but it is a far cry from "blacks are hunted down by police like dogs", as one voice yelled loudly.

From what you just read, it is often a relief or solace  to be able to get back to the world within us to make sense of all the information we are constantly being fed by media, social media, and by politicians and pundits.

Lest we forget, it is from within that world that is the only place we can claim to be of our own making, and it is one where we can take comfort because that is where everything that is about us must first begin. It is from there that we give beginning to our dreams, our ambitions, a source of relief when we need one but it is also the only place from which our love for another human being must first begin.  It is the place from where we acknowledge the love of those dear to us. Is it a complicated place?  Yes.  But it is a lot simpler when compared to the world outside where we have relatively little control.

It is from within that world that we can reminisce good and wonderful memories. It is from there that perhaps, if we want to, and there is nothing wrong with it, we carve out a place where we can be contrite, console ourselves, be grateful for what we have and relinquish unfulfilled dreams that weigh us down but instead focus on what remains of those we still want to accomplish. Soon we find that that world from within is one powerful and impregnable place for anyone to dare enter.

One caveat, and it could be a significant one, is when we give up the key to that world within for one or another to enter, and for lack of any other way to say it, "to mess things up inside". Unfortunately, consent is all it takes.  And often, that consent may come one trickle of allowance each time until that door is wide open. 

So, be a superhuman, and make that place your own "Fortress of Solitude".