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.