The Religious Syndrome

The Common Diagnosis

A common perspective of religion on a gross level by Atheism is something which typically states an error of psychological profile of an adherent to a given religion; in some degree and fashion.
This view, for instance, is pushed to its zenith of radical representation in the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

The conflict in this perspective is that for a person to accept that religion is a psychological error of deficiency in any regard and of any degree would mean that they would have to accept that every current believer in a religion was at least slightly psychologically deficient by comparison to the non-religious. That may produce a good comedy, however, the statistics are rather unlikely. It would mean that around 80% of the world's population is psychologically deficient. While that could be argued as possible by some, that is not where this tangent ends. It continues on to consider all of the human race over all of the human race's existence, and it includes considering and reflecting on this proposition's applications to the rules of evolution.

Epidemic of Normality

The current estimates hold that from the information available today, around 106 Billion humans have lived so far in accountable history of the human race.
If we assume 80% has at least been the average percentage of religious adherents on Earth throughout human history (and that is probably a conservative number to use), then that would mean that 84 Billion humans have been psychologically deficient in their perception of reality and functional understanding of it; cardinally.

This isn't a misunderstanding of which planet or star orbits which, or how the Earth is shaped or not. This would be a misunderstanding of whether or not causal empathy exists at all in the human species. For instance, if it is a psychological deficiency that produces the belief in religious concepts, then an individual believing in a religion with metaphysical figures, afterlives, and transitive spirits or souls would also have a neurological formation that would prevent the ability of the individual from grasping even basic Newtonian physics of causality.

The neurological possibilities that consequently facilitate religion show a landscape of inquiry that tends to respect human evolution more than belittle it, as stating a psychological deficiency does.

If religion were a psychological deficiency, and the matter at hand is as cardinal as the condition of existence of objects and states, and how they can interact with each other, then the neurology of the individual would be so radically different that it would be incapable of applying the inductive logic of comprehending the physical world they exist in.
In a manner of thinking, they would be causally autistic.
If a plate fell, then such an individual could be incapable of trying to catch it for it simply may not occur to them that it was about to break.

The problem of this is a simple violation of the rules of evolution.
It doesn't really seem plausible for our natural biology to retain a deficiency that would be so ill suited to help us, and instead would hinder our functional comprehension of reality, and expectations of it therein, in such massive over-scaled populations for over an estimated two hundred thousand years or more. Such logic requires a leap of faith almost equal to that of any given theistic religious theology, because it requires a belief that a fundamental rule of evolutionary trait retention is being clearly violated; survival and adaptation.
It is a simplistic way to dismiss religion for conversations regarding moving beyond religion, but it offers no counter supporting argument for why religion exists with account for evolutionary behavior in a surviving and then thriving species from a neurological standpoint.
In other words, saying someone is delusional doesn't answer the question about why religion exists.

It is akin to someone asking why someone with hallucinogenic psychosis is so delusional and the answer provided being that the individual is crazy. It doesn't neurologically answer the question of capacity.
What function do religions provide that are evolutionarily productive?
What neurological function still exists in humanity that permits for the complete sensation of reality actually being as any given religious belief holds?
Stating that religion is a security blanket does not answer the neurological capacity question, because not every religion has a preservation system built into it. Many have no comment on the after-life at all.
Why do these versions exist as well?

It is simple enough too, to understand why environmental religious concepts have existed, such as deities that govern weather patterns in various manners.
This is where most people go to in their mind when thinking of why religion exists, and it is easy to answer that this is due to a psychological deficiency, or immaturity. However, these sorts of propositions are absent the discussion of what a human being is described as being in any one given religion; the ontological existence of humanity.

The Intangible Newtonian Karma

If you read through any given religious narrative, then you can determine some concepts merely by reading the assumptions taken by the religion even when they are not directly addressed by the religion itself in its narrative. This is similar to the effect where an author writes a set of instructions without a title; the assumption about the author would be that the author assumed the reader knew the purpose of the instructions.

For example, why are we thought to exist forever in some religions?
Why are we thought to have energy within our selves that can be harmonized in other religions?
Why are we thought to have morphological capacity of our physical bodies in other religions?
Why did we ever think we had a soul, or spirit, or that our breath is this transient thing which contains our conscious animation?

Keep in mind, these are meant to be questioned in regards to neurological capacity; not rhetorical philosophy. What neurological function participates in positive neurological behaviors gainful to human evolutionary survival that are representative of these psychological behaviors?

That is to say, what is sensationally observed by the human neurology that provokes the sympathy to these ideas as being intuitively accurate summations of the observed sensations?

It is a game of Wheel of Fortune whereby our consciousness is trying to guess the words to the emotional phrasing that our precognitive subconsciousness feels

The neurological possibilities that consequently facilitate religion show a landscape of inquiry that tends to respect human evolution more than belittle it, as stating a psychological deficiency does.

An application of this perspective has us consider the evolutionary consequence of varying aspects of our consciousness and subconsciousness intertwining.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is the third fundamental basis of classic Newtonian physics. It is so cardinally basic and inductively witnessed naturally for humans that it even permeates through to moral constructs of conduct in human societies throughout history. In other words, it has been seen so often that humans adopted this prevalent physical observation's concept into non-physical applications such as human interpersonal relationships, socioeconomic infrastructures (such as social class systems), and moral calculations of sometimes metaphysical consequences (rewards and punishments by divine orchestrations). It is also the principle assumption of the standard human neurology in attempting to identify phenomena. On the extreme end, this consequently provides us with the weather gods of some cultures, but more on tangent, it determines how we evolved to define our awareness of existing and then being aware of it.

One of the most illusive observational existences in most of human history has been simply human breath. It lacks a tangible volume, shape, or body, and even lacks permanent residence at any one time; yet, it is exactly what was witnessed as leaving last when someone dies. This has been so well considered and meditated upon by so many of humanity that the word for breath is even the root for words relating to the spirit, soul, or other forms of life force powers in several ancient variations of languages.

This is not only due to our investigatory reasoning, but also due to our imaginative empathy.

For something to be close and personally important to us, we must emotionally attach to it as some kind of identity. This is due to our neurologically required form of acumen, or assessment. Empathetic relationship to something increases the imprinted assimilation of the concepts of that thing into the fabric of our psyche; our means of growth and living. It increases the value, and therefore the attention, to that thing unto our consciousness and subconsciousness. The reverence in which humanity has paid towards its breath of life over history by evidence of its spiritually influenced etymology, and more overtly with its theological interpretations of what a human is, is a relationship between our neurology naturally giving vitally related importance to our life.

Buying a Vowel

Even further beyond this, however, if we question why this behavior even occurs in human biology, then we can find that the human intuition is a neurological facilitation which efficiently and rapidly relays massive amounts of information into the brain using a precognitive processing that acts as a prescreening function which can react more quickly than consciousness. It acts faster than consciousness because it is what aids, in part, in determining if anything really needs to be brought to attention of the consciousness. As such, many assessments of information regarding existence from the senses are relayed without a linguistic lexicon, and instead rely more on an emotional lexicon. It is this that allows a race car driver the ability to stop suddenly to avoid serious injury or death without ever seeing consciously a reason to stop the car. When our consciousness assesses ourselves using our ability for self-awareness, it notices this gap in translation between the sensed, or intuited, and the consciously identified. It then focuses upon this gap by creating an identity for it in assessment in any manner with which it can satisfy the emotional sensation of what these types of intuitive senses feel like in consciously tangible lexicons that create a relationship between ourselves and this part of ourselves, which is a presence without a direct existence.

In essence, it is a game of Wheel of Fortune whereby our consciousness is trying to guess the words to the emotional phrasing that our precognitive subconsciousness feels about this part of ourselves, or relationship between something and ourselves.

So it is in manners like this, religion can be explained without belittling humanity to the idea of malformed psychological capacities that would challenge the laws of evolution. Instead, it transtheistically remains silent on whether or not any given theological and dogmatic proposition is correct or not, for even if any are correct, the human body requires a functioning capacity biologically as simply as electricity requires a conductive environment. And of relevance to this article's tangent the most, it allows for humanity to pursue its sustainability employing basic religious psychologies without spreading a neurological epidemic among the overwhelming mass of humanity.

Angry Atheism (Fault or Fault Line?)

The Stage

It would seem to many today that, "angry atheism", is rising rapidly; that the institution of religion is under attack, and that new and strange religions are popping up nearly at the rate of a fast food franchise.
What's going on? The world is on its head and it seems like it happened in a rush!
The world is rapidly increasing its running away from the tradition of religion in western society, and at the same time, there seems to be an aggressive aversion coinciding with this flee.
Accompanying this upset, it appears that vurbose and active preservationists of traditional religions are popping up at an equally alarming rate.

The anger and animosity surrounding religion on all sides seems to be at an incredible zenith hanging the hammer directly above the warhead, inches from detonation.

Is it a detriment of society finally taking hold and toppling the order of civilization?
Is the last stand of theism and atheism at hand?

The Rarely Used Door

The short answer? No. The world is not disowning religion in groves, nor are the preservationists of religion suddenly a threat in any inherent manner. But yes, "strange", religions and spiritual practices are popping up in greater numbers.

So why is this then? It has to do with time. Religions are, by their nature of practice, hesitant to innovation in their core tenants of spiritual address. Every now and then, if we look back at history, we can see a pattern where an uproar excites in a given society in regards to religion until eventually a revolution of some degree takes hold and a new approach to spiritual expression is achieved by a newly satisfied population while not so often approved of by the traditional adherences.
The largest traditional religion in western society, Christianity, itself was a revolution of such regard; regardless if we hold it divinely ordained or not.

We are in yet another age of spiritual revolution in western society.

a religion that discusses only external measures of metaphysical success and achievements as well as isolates a large portion of the global human population is not as attractive to the psyche of the current western citizens as it once was.

The reason for the anger and frustration is actually rather simple; it takes a massive amount of energy to create a radical change in something that is resident so deeply within the core of a peoples sense of existence.
It is similar to asking why there is so much activity and motion on the cellular level of a snake shedding its skin. There is because that's what it takes to shed the skin and emerge anew yet again.

So why now? What is provoking this sudden motivation to change from only slight alterations to traditional religions, to more radical progressive responses to traditional religions?
Markedly it has to do with a sense of stress, anxiety, and ennui. Generally speaking, people are more compressed in proximity, function at a higher rate of energy, work more positions that lack direct results of their labor tangibly, live in environments compelled by rapid acquisition of consumer products that are alarmingly more and more difficult themselves to keep up with for all kinds of people, constantly surrounded by an amazing array of audible and visual noise that requires tuning out general layers of perception to adhere to one's own requirements of daily life, and filled with daily assertions of entertainment that the world is a dangerous and decrepit place that is just nearly falling apart at the seems.

One would think this would increase traditional voucher's towards religions; a return to stability known; but if we consider that the methodologies of western society religions focus on improving the self in pursuit of external relationship acquisition (meaning, that a person of most western religions are pursuing righting their self with an external criteria that is ideal for gaining a better metaphysical life and not necessarily a better temporal life), then it begins to make a bit more sense.

With all of the above, more and more people want a very simple thing: peace.
More and more people just simply want to find their self. They have lost track of it, if they feel they ever had it at all. On top of this, they want the noise and over activity of everything around them to just stop - just for a moment, if for no other reason than to catch their breath.
No expectations, no have-to's of the metaphysical world to couple on top of their already overflowing "have-to" list of the temporal world, and no lacking of persistence of the peace reserved periodically by standard religious practices of the west (most western religions do not adhere more than a day to three days within the week, and only then for a short time and thereby the adherent is left mostly without facilitated spiritual sanctuary from the cataclysm of the daily society).

The Common Tangent

People are not as sated as they once were with the traditional methodology of their religions. As such, a population of movement away from the tradition is creaking open, and the henge's of that very rarely moved door are really squealing loudly. Those loud squeals are the sounds of the, "angry atheist's", or anti-theists.
Why should such a reaction occur? Because our society (not to isolate our society by any means as such is not the case, but it is the one of interest at the moment) lacks the faciliation of openly encouraging spiritual expression freely without stigma against doing so. In a word, tradition.
When the expression of change is not readily encouraged, the result is that a portion of the changing population will radically denounce all religious affiliation in exchange for a liberation.
In a manner of speaking, "If you cannot satisfy my spirit, then what good are you at all?!"

In this view, what comes about is a perspective that suddenly can only see the negatives of what has been left behind. It is the youthful yell of rebellion, "Down with the establishment, and up with liberation, for the establishment gives us nothing but takes it all!"

Even monasteries are teaching people ideologies which are radically new to the regular person

This perspective's claim doesn't have to be the case in actuality; it only has to feel as if it is the case for it to be the case to the extreme end of the departing population.

The more in-between range of the population is actually larger than the outraged fringe and instead pursues a new search for the next, "it".
Yes, I am asserting that western society is looking for the next big hit like Christianity was. People are trying all sorts of new religions, and even creating their own. And in nearly every case of newly created religions and spiritual practices, the common tangent can be seen of self-help. "You are the importance."; "Your peace with yourself is the importance."

This is the basic underlining offering of Scientology, countless new age spiritual practices, and the rising of Eastern spiritual practices and religions in the west is growing rapidly for the same attractive reasons.
And it should be little surprise that Eastern practices and religions are striking to the western spirit currently. The Eastern concepts of spirituality are typically formed around concerns that are incredibly beneficial to the type of overly stimulated citizen of a close-proximity modern society.

Coupled on the back of this is a new attribute which has not taken place in recorded history, which is the event of a globalising community. With the advancement of technology rapidly increasing at exponential rates, the concept of the world is decreasing in the sense of distance at baffling speeds. The response is increasing among many demographics for a desire of united interest in global cultural acceptance and religious toleration.

What this means is that a religion that discusses only external measures of metaphysical success and achievements as well as isolates a large portion of the global human population is not as attractive to the psyche of the current western citizens as it once was. Imperial prestige is not the pride that it was once long ago. Instead, today, cohabitation and mutual encouragement are the gaining admiral qualities.

At the same time, yes, the traditional preservationists will become louder as this demographic holds the ideal, as all such groups do, that a return to the tradition in more reticent adherence will recover what is seen as a loss of the foundation of the given society. In a manner of speaking, they are correct, but they rarely achieve their goal as the spirit of the unrested adherents deeply searching for spiritual rest find little solace in the preservationist's practice - which does tend to include aggressive tones, even if only occasionally. And the unrested of discussion, keep in mind, are wanting to be removed from tension; not pushed into it.

The Great Earthquake

So is anti-theism correct? Is religion ready to be tossed outright? Is religion the total compilation of all that has been wrong in society throughout all ages of man?
Hardly. Man does that, with or without religion. We could as easily suggest the same in regards to politics and government as we can with regards to religion. But can we understand where this frustration is coming from, where these new pursuits are coming from? Absolutely. They are coming from a centeral dissatisfaction with current spiritual offerings to the human spirit.

The human spirit of the west is simply starting to roll in unrest and dissatisfaction of what it has in its standard toolbox of spiritual calm for the restless. As such, expect the culture we are in to swing wildly for some time now until the next major plate of the spiritual tectonic floor is able to burst into growth, making room for itself where it wishes to lay.

And in the observation, I encourage people to be happy as well, as new religious expressions will arise that will delight and enlighten our spirit along the way - even without conversion of any kind.
People in western society are openly re-examining what exactly spirituality is, and what that means as a human. Even monasteries are teaching people ideologies which are radically new to the regular person (such as the practice of periodic monastic silence within the modern standard life).

Religion is changing rather radically, even if it seems stale and old. Truly, the continuation of this will be an amazing phenomena to witness.

Transtheism (Arguing over the wrong shit)

Enter Pandemonium

Imagine yourself being under the age of eight, standing in a room of your peers while a great novice debate of existence takes place.
There in the middle of the room sits the most amazing toy which does the most wondrous accomplishments of bedazzlement. Everyone is in marvelous uproar and excitement; talking to themselves readily. Many are arguing over where that toy came from. Some say that there is a big hero coming to visit and they sent it ahead before they come in later to talk to all of us and sign everything we want. Oh, the excitement is great!

Others, however, are less compelled by this and rather think the teacher just bought another toy for the classroom; granted, a nice addition indeed, but part of the classroom never-the-less.

Because the toy continues its marvelous performance of satisfaction and bewilderment, yet no one else shows up quickly in chase, the two extreme opinions - and all of their relations between them - have time to argue a volley of, "Ya-Huh's!", "Nuh-uh's!", and "Shhhhh's!"

The Great Toy

Now imagine you are there, and all you really care about is how this toy works!
Imagine that the toy itself is just pure amazement; nothing is more engrossing, nothing is more enrapturing, nothing is more.
The toy simply has you confined like a cobra's gaze in the fairy tails. The marvelous trance, except this trance is like those trances the princes have on princesses. You must know everything there is about how this toy works; everything there is to know about this toy.

You want to know how this toy was able to move into this room like it did, even.
And more importantly, imagine that your sole purpose of studying for the entire time is to discern how the toy is able to make you feel the way you do.
And that you quickly turn to studying how it is able to make everyone feel how they feel around you at the moment because of it.

It would strike us as odd, indeed, to think of a world whereby all musicians and composers spent a large amount of their practice proving how music developed to begin with.

Imagine that you try to explain this to the other children in the room that are in heated debate over whether the hero sent the toy in the room, or whether the toy is part of the classroom paraphernalia.
Imagine that you try to explain how you have observed how the toy is able to make you and others feel certain things, yet every time you describe something every other child thinks you are describing a premise for one of their arguments for the hero or for the inheritance of the classroom.

Imagine that you really don't care about either case; that what you really care about is how it all works. That this is what is magical to you as a child. Imagine that how the toy accomplishes making you and others feel what you feel offers no indication of whether the hero preceded himself with this toy, or whether this is a standard piece of the classroom's additions; that regardless of either, the emotional relationship's capacity remains the same.

Now imagine the toy is life, the hero is theism, the inheritance of the classroom is atheism, those children who are unsure of either case are agnosticism, and the child that doesn't care at all about any of these matters, but rather is more interested in the relationship to the toy itself is transtheism.

That is my best description of how it is to be transtheistic.

It is largely the most misunderstood, and little considered perspective in the arena of theological and ontological matters. To a point that stating that itself is a misrepresentation as being concerned with the ontological matters is to not be concerned (at least not inherently) with the theological matters themselves, but only how they reflect what ontology is taking place.

In most cases, when someone mentions transtheism, the concept that is understood is something akin to atheism. Meaning, most consider it to be within the ballpark of not thinking there is a divine metaphysical construct involved.

This doesn't neccesarily stand as true on a gross scale at all. In fact, transtheism can bring about some observations that can be just as radically spiritual and devoted as any theology within theism itself.

It is simply focusing on a different part of existence.
In fact, it is focusing on existing.

Stop there and get more coffee, tea, or smoke if you do. Reflect on that last line.
Focusing on existing; consider what volume of range that incredibly small count of characters entails, and just how far affecting it is in regards to being human.

Who Invented Music?

There is no means of reasonable language to which I could properly convey the full meaning of the term, "focusing on existing", in one article alone.
What I can do, however, is elaborate on the basic foundations of what is explored in focusing on existing.

To do this, I must start with a prelude.
As mentioned previously, many people tend to think that a dismissal takes place when transtheistic discourse begins. That the theistic standing is tossed out and no divinities of any format are accepted.
This is, I assure you, inaccurate. Should someone you meet claim to hold transtheistic views and assert overtly that divinities are errant concepts and beliefs, then they have misrepresented their atheistic standing.

To better explain why transtheism poses absolutely no threat to theism, take for example the following case.

...we can focus on how spirituality exists in the same manner that we focus on how music exists

There is a question that exists within the anthropological framework which will likely remain endlessly unanswered: "Who invented music?"

We will never know the answer to this question. We won't know if it was one single individual, group, or no one really at all. We can only suppose the answer to this question, but we don't get to know who organized sound into intentionality repeatable melodic syntaxes conceptually understood as music.

What we do have is the ability to enjoy and inspect music as we understand it today in all of its various forms. But more similar, we can study and reflect how we react to music; how music affects us, and how we interact with music biologically. As well, we can create music in various manners of approaches: intuitively, accidentally, or contrivedly.

It would strike us as odd, indeed, to think of a world whereby all musicians and composers spent a large amount of their practice proving how music developed to begin with.

Instead, we readily take it as a given that music simply exists and instead enjoy, study, and play in the aforementioned brief description of such.

If such a thing existed as musism and amusim, those believing in a first developer(s) of music and those believing that there was no such thing as the first developer(s) of music, then our current way of thinking of music would be transmusim.
This is because we simply do not care about where music came from in our study and enjoyment of music itself. We simply love studying and enjoying music as it exists.

Focusing on Existing

With the above example in mind, reconsider the idea of, "focusing on existing". Do so in the same manner we consider focusing on music. As just mentioned, we focus on music as it exists and not where it came from. Similarly if music is life, just as the toy at the beginning represented, then the focus is on how life exists as it does.

Except, "how", is not a question that requires a chain of events such as evolution or creation. Instead, "how", is more a question as one thinks of the question, "How does a light bulb work?"

In the transtheist view, what is important about spirituality of any format is how the spirituality works, why it works, and what we can learn from how and why that spirituality works.
Does that mean we jump to negating or including divinities; no. It means we only work with what we have and go from there.
What we have is the observational affect of what spirituality does in human beings, and we can study the manners in which spirituality has been displayed and practiced in private and group religious formats over an amazing array of time.

The interest isn't to understand how spirituality may exist without divinities, but instead to understand how spirituality must exist due to our human nature.
This is akin to stating that a current of electricity exists in the manner of how it does due to the electric nature. Meaning, if you study a battery, you are going to be studying how a battery facilitates a charge. You are learning the nature of the batteries design by observing how it reacts and facilitates an electrical charge.

Spirituality can be thought of, in metaphor, as this electrical charge and we can be thought of as the battery.
Thereby, the transtheist view is to be interested in how exactly the spirituality of humanity works by studying the facilitation of spirituality within the human.

As I put it: If a god or gods made man, then that god or gods obviously made man in a manner which facilitated spirituality in a reactive fashion we observe today. If evolution eventually lead to man, then the evolutionary path lead to man in a manner which facilitated spirituality in a reactive fashion we observe today.

Either way, we can focus on how spirituality exists in the same manner that we focus on how music exists and in return, we can better perform and enjoy our spiritual existences; regardless of which genre and style they come from, and regardless of how existence became existence.

Feeling Existence?

The Question

I recently asked a person, "What is your general emotional disposition on existing?" The response was quite similar to what I've come to expect, loosely summarizing, "I'm not sure what that means."

This wasn't a person of little consideration; indeed, they have a long history of wrapping their talented mind around a grand number of philosophical and spiritual subject matters. In fact, this response of confusion over what the above question refers to exactly is quite common as far as I have encountered among a wide range of demographics.

Try answering it yourself. Does it seem to you that you understand exactly what I'm referring to? Most of you reading through up to this point will probably think not. Some of you will think you do understand, read on, and decide that you had a different impression of what that question meant, and a small amount of you might get it right on the first assertion to the question.

So what is meant by this question?

The Human Identity

Humans are emotional beings, and we are also identity driven beings. While the former is rather apparent as to the meaning, the latter refers to the fact that humans create identities in which to conceptually interact with as a singular representation of a given state or thing.

For instance, when you think of, "Joe" (an average acquaintance of yours we'll imagine), you think of your idea of Joe and not actually Joe at all. Your identity of Joe is a collection of everything you have ever known about Joe in a sort of mental .zip file. While this may sound trivial, reflect upon the idea that when I suddenly write, "Joe's face", you shift your identity of Joe. Suddenly Joe ceases being completely singular and now has two parts: Joe collectively, and Joe's face individually. If I then write, "Joe's hand on Joe's face", you are now compartmentalizing two parts of Joe into separate identities of Joe as a united identity.

...we turn all that is not ourselves into a compressed identity that we can comprehend in relationship.

Humans don't do this with only people; they do this with everything. No further example is needed than a standard mechanical clock. I can write, "the clock", and you would draft a singular identity of a clock. The average human does not consider all constituent parts as the immediate equal to the primary identity of the object.

Now some humans do, such as in certain forms of Autism, but this is not the average neurology of humans currently.

This same pathology is present in thought. A given concept is commonly identified as a singular identity, such as the concept of tax, or religion. Constituents are inherent in many such concepts, but the approach is to use as few leading identities for a concept as possible grossly.

This is arguably a result of our capacity for imagination and empathy. Humans have the ability to witness another person doing something and to interpret, by proxy, the observation as if they were themselves involved in what is being witnessed. If someone reaches out and touches fire, a human is able to understand what that person reaching out senses and feels emotionally in the same manner as they themselves sense and feels emotionally. This is a product of being able to take what we personally sense and feel emotionally and applying that onto another person as an axiom of understanding what is being witnessed in observation of the another person. We can see crying and not only understand what crying feels like for ourselves, but replicate a synthesis of the other person's emotions within ourselves simply by placing how we have felt as an assumption of how we would feel from what we observe of the other person, and assume that this is what the other person is indeed feeling.

The more alien a thing observed is to the human experience, the less related the transference is capable of taking place. For instance, a rock is quite alien to the human experience for us, so we have an incredibly difficult time empathizing with a rock's experience of tumbling down a hill; again, because we cannot graft our sense onto something so radically different than what we ourselves experience. This process works on a gradient, indeed, but wherever possible the average human will create an attachment in league with the severity of this same gradient to that which is empathized and that which is, by consequence, reverent.

The Biggest Non-Human Human

This concept of the human process of transferring identity goes far more than simply localized concepts such as people, things, nations, or ideologies; it also stretches to the biggest concept known to humans: "everything".

Now, to be accurate, this is actually, "everything that is not me", for nearly most of the human population. Very, very few immediately identify this concept in pure and pathological holistic fashion. Most that hold to an ideal of holistic existence due so post-pathological impulse on the rational level; not innately on the intuitive level. So for the purposes of this article, I will assume the majority position of, "everything that is not me". What happens here is the same .zip that happened previously with our, "Joe", example. Everything is compressed into singular identity. Vaguely this can be thought of in a title of, "not me", implicitly referring to the context of, "everything".

How you feel about existing in general is your standard and current disposition on existing and radically governs your perceptions on your more immediate stances in daily life.

As such, "everything that is not me", becomes a conceptual identity itself. Many will perceive it as a singularity, some as plurality, but all will perceive it as an identity of some form. For most this identity will be implicit and not something that they will overtly focus on or pay attention to without a secondary layer facilitated in some manner through the religion that best intuitively feels like the identity they have of, "everything that is not me". For others that are not interested in religion, it still exists, just without a title of name or property in form. It simply is that which is there; beyond and in the expanse.

In essence, we turn all that is not ourselves into a compressed identity that we can comprehend in relationship. Humans only understand how to have a relationship with humans as humans do. As such, what is not human becomes conceptualized in some fashion that allows for us to interact with emotionally.

Existence itself, in a manner of speaking, becomes a pseudo-human in our conceptual frame, implicitly or explicitly.

The Disposition

With existence itself being compressed into something which we can emotionally respond to, the question begins to take more form. It is not too difficult to ask someone how they feel in general about a specific person, and the same is being asked in the opening question in regards to existing.

There are numerous concepts regarding existing ranging from nihilism, existentialism, holism, dualism, physical, metaphysical, and a grand range between these limited examples. Whatever our cognitive vantage point is on existing, it arrives at us in league implicitly with our emotional sensation of existing, or we will spend a great deal of time carving out our ideals until such is the case; some will do so more than others, and some far less.

This means we have a general emotional feeling about what our ideals are regarding the state of existing, as we have a general concept of what we think existing entails in the grand scheme. And a large part of that comes from how we feel regarding, "everything that is not me".

This disposition of emotion on existing isn't just simple emotions of the cognitive layer such as anger, or happiness. It is instead a few layers down and related to similar ideals as depression, gratitude (in general, not for a specific thing), ennui, apathy, generalized joy, and more.

How you feel about existing in general is your standard and current disposition on existing and radically governs your perceptions on your more immediate stances in daily life.

So I'll end this article with the same challenging question I began it with: What is your general emotional disposition on existing?

You'll be compelled to answer immediately, but I would compel you to withhold. Don't answer what you think. Take some time to truly meditate (literal meaning of the word; not the spiritual practice of Buddhism and the like) on the matter. Take a week or more. Reflect upon on your existence. Just let yourself feel, but do not think much. Later after sensing for a good length of time with devoted interest to discern yourself, then think about what you felt.

Let that be the beginning that trickles the rest out. What is your general emotional disposition on existing? Why? Answer them to yourself and perhaps you'll learn something along the way about your own nature as you that you weren't aware of before. Maybe not. Who knows?

Either way, you'll learn something.