The driver, the dashboard and the car. Emotions and mechanics.

Continuing from... https://www.chilltervention.it/post/the-shepherd-the-sheep-and-the-dog

In a much more mechanical fashion the same analogy can be constructed with a driver operating a car and learning about the current state of the car he is operating by looking at the dashboard.  The landscape is the same , but instead of herding sheep he is driving a car through that landscape.

It's not as difficult as you might think to go from mechanics to thoughts and emotions.

They're both a process that tries to stay alive while suffering entropy , and comparing their internal conceptual dynamics is a worthy thought experiment.

The mechanical wonder of a modern car may seem much less complex then a vast group of living creatures, yet that can also be deceiving. The infinite complexities of a vast array of physical laws is deceivingly controlled by a rigid mechanical construct. When a modern engine is running at let’s say 3000 RPM, it’s creating a large multitude of potentially destructive explosions per second , each capable of killing the driver on their own if they weren’t so precisely controlled. The wheels revolve at incredible speeds and it is only due to our enormous achievements in materials and construction that we have “tamed” all these extremely violent and dangerous processes into a smooth ride.

Yet in this analogy, disaster always looms around the corner. (just as it does with the sheep)Maybe this car that I imagine isn’t made up of the toughest iron alloys, plastics and compound materials all tested and perfected over hundreds of years of mechanical advancements.

Maybe this car’s cylinders are made of bamboo sticks with wooden plugs as pistons , just barely able to contain the explosions created multiple times per second. Maybe the tires are made of a long strand of grass rope woven with perfect skill.   When imagining that all the vast safety margins incorporated in modern cars aren’t there, but each of these processes are just on the brink of their limits , I think you would want to pay a whole lot more attention to your dashboard when the “check engine” light goes on ,  or when it’s time to change the oil.   And I also think you would be much more tuned to every little creak you hear, the fineries of the reactions of the vehicle to it’s surroundings and to your driving instructions.

The analogy still works with modern cars though , and I always love to keep things simple when it is allowed so let’s just stick to a modern car then.   The only real difference is that in this car of your actual body , there are many more signal lights on your dashboard.   It would have to be more like keeping an eye on all the screens across the entire cape Canaveral facility when they are launching a rocket into space.   But let’s just stick to that simple little dashboard on a modern car that only show overly simplified things like the car’s temperature , whether or not there is enough gas, whether or not the engine is running smoothly because there is no “general warning”.

Here the driver is the shepherd , the car is the dog and the sheep are the icons on your dashboard.

The shepherd and the driver are leadership ,guidance and thought.

The dog and the car are duty , dedication , diligence, focus and skill.

The dashboard icons and the sheep are our vast collection of emotions.

Just like the sheep, these icons, these emotions don’t share an extensive language with the shepherd or the driver. 

The icon can be on or off , and the sheep can just stand there and be quiet or it can go “meeeeeh” .  But every sheep is different just like every warning icon says something different.

And every single icon flashing , every single “meeeeh” ...   is a gateway into a vast and complex universe of complexity simplified into the simplest of languages....   it may seem like a binary language but it isn’t.  

It is not simply ON or OFF.  It is something that is orbiting something else. On it’s way to zero , or on it’s way to one. And at the moment of it passing the “threshold” of either 1 or 0 the wave resolves into the other direction.

Which again comes down to this

Or to show it even more simply again...

equals the threshold of 1

And

equals the threshold of 0

(but remember that which side is “up” is only determined by how you are holding this medium on which you are reading this)

I’m afraid and happy that we still can’t answer the original questions I posed in the end of this chapter, while referring too it more and more in the chapter.

 And this is because I’ve defined some of the vocabulary that I will be using to answer the questions, but not all of it yet.  As a reminder for the future, here are the questions again.

1.            How come I used to feel pain when arriving, and how come I feel joy now? 

2.            How come I felt failure before where I now feel wonder?

These are questions about emotions , and therefor they are sheep frolicking around in a gigantic herd and dashboard lights flickering on and off on a complex and vast dashboard.

The herd cannot stand still and the car cannot stop since they are both revolving around their purpose and their purpose defines their existence.

It is their relationship with whatever they are orbiting that makes them exist and that brings us back to the place where I started anyways and will always end up again.

The simplest basic construct out of which everything seems to be constructed off. 

It is a 2 dimensional representation of a 3-dimensional occurrence of reality that has formed the basis of my entire cognitive structure.  To me it symbolizes a single entity orbiting another single entity. Together these two distinct entities form another “single entity”.

The largest thing we can observe follows this pattern , and the smallest thing we can observe follows this pattern and therefor believing that anything in between could follow any other pattern “successfully” equals self induced madness to me. (And there is a lot of that self induced madness going around in “societies” , and that has been going on for as long as we’ve been able to record history)

There is a very important reason I put “successfully” in parenthesis in the previous paragraph, because I pointed out earlier that “success” isn’t in the emotional layer and I believe our individual desires to be “successful” is exactly the reason why societies keep running into this loop.

We as human beings tend to be taught by those that precede us into a pattern of “having” in stead of “being”. And it inexorably leads us to feel miserable.

The sheep of malcontent , and the warning light of “Check engine” will always be the result of “wanting” to “have”.

I believe that all our sheep and all our warning lights are all arranged on the circle orbiting whatever it is the individual chooses to orbit. They are all evenly spaced and there are infinite spots on a circle because you can always zoom in or out and create more “space” on the circle without changing its pattern or behavior. This is because it’s simply a matter of perception and relative size.

How many you can fit on there only depends on the distance of the circle or sphere and the size of each circle of sphere on that original circle of sphere.

If I allow for more complexity and differentiation between emotions, the whole things just becomes more and more “round” into infinity. And if I strive for simplicity and grouping it only becomes more “square” because then this is what I end up with.

Square wheels don’t roll unless you adapt the environment to fit your square wheels.

The following is the best depiction I can think of how I used to try and achieve a smooth ride , without having to explore my perception and emotions. My center of mass in the middle of the square wanted to progress smoothly to the right, and this was only possible in an environment perfectly suited to “my shape”.

This limited my paths of exploration greatly since I constantly had to choose between a very bumpy ride , or the paths carved out by the squares before me which made me feel miserable and “unfulfilled”.

And it is this simple reality of the choice between the carved path and personal choice that can trigger certain “desires” within my herd of sheep.

So again , I believe that all my sheep are arranged on my circle orbiting around whatever I choose to orbit and there are areas on that circle that are closer to the threshold of 0 and there are areas that are closer to the threshold of 1.

And now it’s time to talk about the color of the sheep and the warning lights on the dashboard...

https://www.chilltervention.it/post/the-color-of-sheep-and-warning-lights