John Wise

It takes a man dying to let people know he’s lived a good life, while a man alive may never let anyone know he is alive at all. We pop into existence with all the potential of something that approaches the infinite or at least as much as human capability allows. Then, too often, we squander our most limited resources before we pop out of existence to join the astral plane. What did we do to validate our existence, not necessarily for others, but for ourselves?

If you should be so skilled to craft a song in the waning days of life, will you be thankful or resentful? Writing this song, you cannot rest on the accomplishments of a society or family you were part of; it must be a portrait of the intrinsic you. Your elegy may not be brought to a song, so maybe it is in words, paint, or some other art, but it has to capture just who you were. Will you have an inkling of who that person was, and while you were being you, could you answer who you are? How many of us, through a visual impression, a sentence, paragraph, or melody, give an impression to others of who and what we are? A flower can.

The flower effortlessly offers its beauty, demonstrating what it is. In its display, we delight in our minor comprehension of its role, at least in our sense of the aesthetic. We gaze into the ocean or the Milky Way and have some idea that we understand what it is we are witnessing. We can make assumptions regarding the stars and whales and feel satisfied we have a semblance of an idea of what is behind our cumulative knowledge.

The same cannot be said of knowing ourselves or, to a far lesser degree, others in our immediate orbit. I’d posit that people know very little of their spouses or even their children. On the other hand, we can make broad assumptions about the mass of humanity just as we might about the ocean or sky above us, though this likely gives us a poor impression of the complexity we are wrapping in gross generalizations. We must either intricately study a thing over a lifetime or accept we’ll only ever have a rudimentary knowledge of that thing.

How much effort do we give to understanding others in our species, or how about ourselves? So how, then, are we differentiated from the animals and insects around us? Maybe we’re not all that different after all. True that the scientists, thinkers, inventors, creators, artists, and musicians exemplify the best of our human qualities, but our consumption of their product does not make us any less the insect, moving grain to the nest. We are worker bees operating on autopilot and doing little to direct the nest. Yet our ego convinces us of our validity because we are watching TV, rooting for our favorite team, playing a video game, or doing a job to pay for the luxury of consumption.

Existence in our moment without intention is not good enough; it does not suffice and is an abject failure of our humanity. Who are you? I demand an answer, and I don’t want to know you from your MAGA hat, yoga pants, tattoos, how much you can share about a movie or game character, or inflated sense of self-worth because you placed your career on a pedestal you believe makes you a better human being.

How do you feel when you witness natural beauty, when frisson occurs while listening to your favorite song, after sharing or giving to someone who needs something more than you? What does love mean and feel like to you? What do the tears of joy taste like? Where are you most at peace? How does your mind feel when sequencing words, notes, or brush strokes? Have you had many mentors, read great works, and celebrated exquisite moments?

None of this can occur without cultivating a sense of being aware and present at the opportunistic moments when the magic of life rises up for our taking. We cannot grasp these chance encounters if we are not operating with the tools that allow us to decipher and subsequently own these fleeting wisps of profound inspiration. We have this brief window of being awake and using our time to reward the very existence of this entity we call self.

Cross-generational mistrust, mistrust between the sexes, hate between political parties, disdain for the other team, anger at people of different nationalities, and biases against skin color are some of the divisions between Americans that are exploited at every opportunity. So, what unites us?

We have been torn asunder from within with the flimsiest of ideas that a shared land called the United States is enough to assure a citizenry that we have something in common. While we may use the same currency and pay taxes to a federal centrally located government, we are hardly Americans as much as we are millions of tiny factions. This wasn’t a ploy from individuals to break out of a dominant oppressive regime, but a fracturing by the powerful, media, and ourselves as we whipped things into a frenzy of polarization.

We no longer have a shared dream, vision, or hope for a better future. Nothing in the world of ideas unifies us anymore. We have lost our rudder. Some will say things like national emergencies can unite a people, yet the events of 9/11 only lasted a brief moment. Here, we are in a racial, climate, educational, and cultural emergency, and we are paralyzed.

At the base of this paralysis is a deep division that is amplified to further separate “us” and “them,” except there are millions of these tiny camps of “us” and “them.”

Yet, we all want the same things: good friends, a healthy family, financial security, job opportunities, viable education, and a safe place to live. So what are we doing to that end? Nothing.

Not only did we extend the infantilism of children well into their early teen years, but we also extended high school far into adulthood. The cliques of our campus years are alive and well as apparently, we saw no need to mature past that. It doesn’t matter if your group is a bunch of white supremacists, football fans, followers of a particular car type, bikers, financiers, hipsters, or some other brand identity. If you belong to a subgroup of loyal followers, you have likely adopted attitudes, fashion, and positions that are accepted by the inner circle of thought leaders who require these signs of your belonging. Being an individual is not an option; conform or go elsewhere.

It is a perverted idea that these acts of conformity and polarized groupings are part of the American DNA that makes us unique and special. We are witnessing the travesty that is destroying the fabric of what we were. Rugged individuals can find strength in their struggle to define their character, but to join the herd is the easy relegation of being responsible enough to risk isolation for defining oneself.

It’s seeping through our minds and there will be no stopping it because it’s smaller than the size of an electron, it’s as ephemeral as a photon, as elusive as the neutrino, and as ubiquitous. What is this energy that permeates our ether that can appear to travel everywhere? It is the digital age of information dispersion and with it arrives a modern-day renaissance of mind and art manifesting a convulsion, creating a gulf among generations that appear to be on opposing trajectories. Grabbing hold and harnessing this driving momentum requires a new science, one whose tools are finessed by the sensor, algorithm, and gesture. One and all, we must become technicians versed in the manipulation and interpretation of signal and frequency.

A transposition of mind is required but is being fought by an aging population afraid of the loss of control and influence. They have become anachronistic within our lifetimes and cling to their archaic methods and analog ways. There is little solace to be offered as they fail to reignite their former glow that is looking like the fading light of the aurora as dawn brushes the night aside.

The rise of digital complexity started its ascent decades ago, but its true nature as an infiltrator and evolutionary overlord is just now being reckoned with. Little did we understand as a species that the combined efforts of Gottfried Leibniz, Joseph Jacquard, Charles Babbage, William Shockley, and Jack Kilby across the centuries were going to unsettle every aspect of life as we know it.

Influenced by the I Ching, Leibniz refined our present-day binary number system in the 17th century, while Joseph Jacquard, in the following century, gave us a programmable loom controlled by punched cards that would inspire Charles Babbage to lay the foundation of the computer. William Shockley and his creation of the transistor were followed by Jack Kilby’s invention of the integrated circuit; both would be the cornerstones of our present digital age and personal computing devices.

Of course, things like electronic communication, starting with the telegraph leading to the telephone and internet along with the television and then the technology of CCDs, operating systems, wireless technology, and smartphones, have all played pivotal roles, too.

These events were, in some ways, isolated bits of history that appeared mostly as incremental advances pushing forward the ability and convenience we humans would benefit from. As the 21^st century arrived, there was a speed of change that eclipsed the popular zeitgeist and the ability to recognize its broader impact. A relatively small pocket of our intellectual world was evolving at the speeds our fiber optics and fastest CPUs were able to churn through in order to deliver a new viral form of communication, where cat videos were being exchanged instantly, globally. We, on the other hand, were distracted by this saturation of information for idiots, which was, in effect, blinding us from our personal responsibilities.

In the crush of this technological revolution, the distraction brought on by the spectacle of a previously unimagined universe took us from goat.se and Two Girls One Cup to beheadings and witnessing mass destruction in earthquakes and tsunamis while we were gulping down reality television and sharing nonsense that was not affording us a clear view of what our own roles would be when the digital dust settled. Out of this trash and noise rose the building blocks that, when sprinkled with the water of imagination, will give form to a new paradigm of communication that will transcend all of our previous efforts.

The reason for this supposition is that in our histories, we have acted primarily on the local level even when local was country-, state-, or nationwide. Our current condition is global, if not universal, in that we are able to consume, communicate, and exchange nearly all things relatively instantaneously around our Earth. Modern transportation and communication allow us to know this larger world; the immediacy that is currently happening is like a hyper-accelerated version of history that turned ancient forests into coal and sea creatures into oil. Their carbon changed over millennia into a usable energetic material, allowing our modernity to take the shape of convenience. And like those hydrocarbons that would propel us down the road of innovation, we humans of this age are now responsible for converting our decaying information into a new type of knowledge that will propel us into the future, where wisdom will drive our evolution.

Here is our disconnect. While we’ve been entertaining ourselves to death, the force of nature has been busy creating the conditions that will task us with the herculean chore of rearranging the molecular structure that is embodied in the fabric of our existence and that of being knowledge-driven entities. How, then, do we go about placing the 21st-century equivalent of the shovel into the clutch of humans who need to get to work building our future?

Love is amplified and brought into clarity the closer one gets to understanding what will remain unknown and unshared. Each new song is a reminder that the next may go unheard. Rolling hills bathed in verdure punctuated with wildflowers sing at us that this is love when able to be shared.

Love not known is silence, even in the howling face of noise. Loneliness has forgotten the song and has stolen the memories that are the only thing truly amassed in this lifetime. Sadness is the absence of celebration and is experienced as neglect from a love that was never shared. Better to wrap oneself in the fabric of potential that these are not lost or no longer achievable experiences but are there in our dreams and the soundtracks of our lives. We must actively find and/or cultivate love at every moment of our waking and sleeping existence.

Love is the tender hand of care, of reaching out to affirm our existence. It takes the form of feeding each other whatsoever is required to nourish the other. Love is reaffirmed in the fragility of mistakes because we are not perfect, and our flaws remind us how much we need unconditional love. Being human is to flirt with the multitude of our feelings, but to be a human in love, we must become intimate with the most fragile of emotions. What is it that mingles in sound and music that brings us to weeping, tickles us at the image of beauty where light conveys a sensuality, allowing us to see the most beautiful sunset ever? How does the nature of sweeping a passion into our hearts bring all of our senses to the edge of recognizing our mortality?

The cascade of love pours forth into an abyss of time where it will never fill the void created by such an immense space. The flow of passion can only be felt in those rare showers when but a drop may splash upon you at first but in a blink, one is drenched in a knowing of ecstatic love few may ever have the fortune to know firsthand. Wrapped in the cold shell of being present should not be the clothes of our daily existence; we must don the exquisite wardrobe of love where our hearts are in concert, dancing to the song that intertwines our being.

Insipidness abounds since mediocrity became the new meritocracy, while banality can offer good standing in your local hate group. So, from the top of the system to the bottom, we have goals to achieve a level of the horrible person that should make normal people cringe.

Why are we cultivating these trends? I’d posit it is likely due to our abhorrence of the exceptional and of those who challenge us to understand them.

I always wanted to fit in, to be accepted, but I felt like I was on the outside. Now that I know I’m on the outside and no longer care to fit in, I want others to rise up from the muck of their putrid minds, shake off the stink of intellectual stagnation, and reinvigorate their humanity by embracing those things that have propelled our species such as education and culture.

I’m afraid we are course-correcting our trajectory that for years had leaped forward with a speed that may be proved to have been too fast for the majority of our species. After one hundred years of incredible technological advancements, it appears that the powers that be are curbing our path forward. Instead of paving the way with policies that allow and encourage easy participation and personal development, we are harming the structures and institutions that have been responsible for giving opportunities to those who can and are willing to embrace them.

My opportunity to advance my own education was wrecked by a system that forbids my over-ambitious curiosity and insisted I conform to my peers both socially and intellectually. If I wasn’t fitting in, I was in trouble. I was cast aside while those who preened themselves in blind subservience were elevated to seize the opportunity to attend the best post-secondary schools.

Today, we still force our children through the meat grinder that makes them all look and act like formless bags of gray meat. We must start tackling individualized education for our children and adults alike. Education will never work under its current guise as it’s pandering to the worst of our perverted sense of normal while trying to breed stupid consumers out of its wake. Our momentum won’t allow for a full reset, and our current mindset is afraid of even hints of change.

Did the experiment of enlightenment fail, or are we failing nature? Look around, and you will see just how miserably we are failing nature.