Consciousness and The Self

A collection of poems with some brief tangent intermissions and quotes

Wonder

By Arthur Hampel

I think consciousness lives in the twilight. It’s never fully illuminated. It’s never fully dark. There is just enough light to wonder. Consciousness dissolves the moment we reach for it, the moment we try to pin it down into an answer. There is no great light shining down, revealing every answer, including this one. But there isn’t darkness either. There is something there. Something in the air. There is just enough light to wonder. The truth is rarely a bright light. It usually hides in the penumbra of our own biases. There is just enough light to wander. To explore, immerse, uncover, ascend, and conquer. To fly, play, soar, blaze, climb, sail, and run. Run like that horse that has already crossed the finish line, no longer running for the prize, nor running quite so hard, running just for the sheer joy of running.* We are losing our ability to think. Losing our ability to have a sense of “me.” Losing our ability to be human. There is just enough light to wonder.

* from Wendy Doniger’s The Forest Dweller

Modern Life and the Numbing of the Self

By Arthur Hampel

Modern life is numbing human consciousness. Our brains are becoming robotic; there’s no art, there's no sharpening. We have to sharpen our minds because life needs art. Life is art, and art makes us feel alive, too. Modern technology is trapping us in distraction. It is sticking people in the mud. Algorithms and constant stimulation weaken people's ability to form authentic selves. It’s as if Icarus were stuck to the ground and not able to go for the sun. We are losing our ability to be human, to have consciousness, to be ourselves.

We aren't grounded by our thoughts; we're grounded by other people's thoughts. We need our thoughts back. Preserving consciousness is connected to preserving humanity's ability to think independently because we're not going to become aware beings if we can't be critical thinkers. Something brilliant about being conscious is the ability to think critically and to challenge and to feel emotion. I think we're becoming numbed, which is a bad thing.

An excerpt from Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived

“Then again, kids are always soaring. For them, there’s no boundary between the down-to-earth and the heavenly. Mud is a miracle. Snow is pure chilled joy. A pile of leaves is a sacred altar. Why do we lose that feeling, that sense of wonder, for so much of our lives?”

Consciousness

By Bennett Newman

Freedom of choice
The penguin responds to its environment by following the herd, but it has the choice to travel elsewhere. The plant purely responds to its environment. It doesn’t have the option to stop growing or continue growing— it just responds.

The ability to feel emotions
The penguin can feel sad when his mother dies. The plant doesn’t understand sadness. It doesn’t understand wants or needs, it just acts.

Does this mean that consciousness is freedom? Choice? Feeling? Maybe all three. But all at once, the penguin and the plant are both living. That’s where the beauty lies.

The Ship of Theseus: What is “Me”?

By Arthur Hampel

What exactly is me? A soul, an illusion, a mind, a brain, or something else?

This is a ship of Theseus problem.

If you replace every part of a ship one by one until none of the original parts remain… will it be the same ship? It’s all to do with the soul and consciousness. Consciousness is sacred. It's not a biological, scientific thing, it's more than that. It can’t be put into words.

If my body completely changed over time, but my consciousness remained, I would still be me. When I say "I," it’s not my body, my thoughts, my memories, or my awareness—it’s something else. A bit of intuition and feeling is needed, and maybe not a scientific answer, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Some things are guided on emotion, passion, beauty, spirit, and love. I have a hunch, and so I’m going to back my hunch. Even though the brain is so scientific, and us humans love scientific answers to everything, there is some spiritual meaningfulness to it all. There’s something that just lies in the air that makes us conscious—and that’s the beauty I chase.

The Responsibility of the Light

By Arthur Hampel

I like the philosophy of longtermism: the ethical view that positively influencing the long-run future is a critical moral priority. I think that future generations have to experience all the love, wonder, art, and adventurous spirit that we humans have had throughout history, and so we have a responsibility to ensure that they exist. No—a moral responsibility. It would be tragic if consciousness disappeared forever from the universe. Humanity's greatest responsibility is preserving the quality and depth of consciousness itself, and overall, its survival. I just want consciousness to endure. This aim gives human life moral weight.

I don't think people today think enough about future generations, and they care too much about themselves. Art, wonder, emotion, stories, silence, and love, these have to survive in the future. I think if consciousness is so rare, the fact that we have consciousness gives us a moral priority to protect it. If we look at the Fermi paradox, I think it would be completely heartbreaking if the universe became silent and unconscious forever. I would rather there be something than nothing.

In a vast and silent universe, we bear a vital duty to protect the flicker of consciousness and ensure its light endures for generations to come.

The Domino Effect and the Stars

By Arthur Hampel

I think it is humanity's responsibility to preserve consciousness—to preserve us and animals and the consciousness of this planet. Why just humans? I think that’s an egotistical view. Other life is beautiful, and maybe we just have it for its beauty.

Through creating, exploring, and doing big, magnificent things, you inspire others. It’s a domino effect. Creating meaningful things matters, and creating art matters, because it helps us explore the beauties of our consciousness.

I think humans deserve the ability to wander the stars, stare at the moon, and search for meaning. And hopefully we can eventually explore those stars. That will further help consciousness endure in becoming a multiplanetary species. Humans have to explore. We’ve got to explore more of our earth, but then why not the solar system? We have a short amount of time to contribute something great, and if you do it, it’s all the more better. As Walt Disney said, "It’s kind of fun to do the impossible."

Living in the Grey Area

By Arthur Hampel

Phil Knight talks about this in his autobiography Shoe Dog: the moment before the ball goes in, just before that putt sinks. That moment where winning and losing is in the air. I like that grey area; it makes life feel alive. I fear never fully living. I wanna live. I wanna just keep livin’.*

The tragedy is not that consciousness ends; the tragedy is that we don't fully grasp it. I think consciousness lives in the twilight. It’s not fully illuminated, and it’s not fully dark. There’s just enough light to wonder. Spielberg says that the greatest ideas whisper. Ideas are just consciousness whispering. Those who are conscious can hear it.

* line from Matthew Mcconaughey

“The light of consciousness is like this tiny candle in a vast darkness. That candle has only been lit for a very short time, and it could easily go out.”

Elon Musk

The greatest ideas whisper

By Arthur Hampel

The greatest ideas whisper. The collective consciousness is a cloud in the air, breathing secrets into the twilight. Those who are conscious can hear it. They stand in the grey area where the light is just enough to wonder. Those who aren't are simply stuck in the mud. To hear it, you must be silent. To hear it, you must be you. Those who are conscious catch the whisper before the winner is decided. That long second. The state of flow. The moment the first seed was intentionally sown. The moment the stone was carved into a wheel. The moment the ink dried in 1776. The moment the first link connected the world. The moment she flew that plane. The moment he delivered that speech. The moment he stepped on the moon. The moment he made that shot. The moment the brush first hit the ceiling. The moment the code flickered into life. The moment the first note broke the silence. The moment the marathoner found the second wind. The moment the pen moved before the thought. The moment we won. The moment humans won. Those who aren't are just waiting for the dark. But longing for the light.

The Forever Story

By Arthur Hampel

Technology cannot upload our mind onto a computer perfectly. That wouldn't be us; that’d be a copy, and a fake copy. There’d be no soul, no spirit, no passion. We are not a single water drop; we’re part of the ocean.

What are stories? “Sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for eternity when memory is erased and there’s nothing to remember except the story.”* Imagine the universe without conscious beings anywhere in it. What feels missing? Consciousness, baby.

* The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

Life

By Arthur Hampel

I once stared at the moon. On one of those nights where the temperature is just fine. The thermostat of the world set to a numbing neutral. Close enough to perfect. Those serene nights where you're on a cloud. I stared at the moon and the stars I felt awe, wonder, and opportunity. No. I didn’t feel. I hunted. The sun hides the stars to make us feel like the center of the stage, but the moon pulls back the curtain to show that we are just a pale blue dot.* I meandered through the palm trees, I chased something. I put my foot on my pedal. I chase something, something grand. The moon, the stars, space, meaning, something I can't find in the day to day. I chase life like that horse that forgot the race was over. I run past the trophies and into the weeds because the gallop is the only thing that's real. I look back, something's chasing me. It has the face of legacy and the body of knowledge. I stamp the pedal. I stamp the pedal not to move, or to go quickly, but to crush the distance between me and the truth. I don't want to just see the moon. I want to tackle it to the floor and see if it bleeds. I go faster and faster. I go faster, I hear voices, I chase purpose, meaning, awe, wonder, opportunity, spirit, love, hate, anger, joy, life. I chase life.

*Carl Sagan

The Architecture of Aliveness

By Arthur Hampel

There is something almost sacred about the flow state because it temporarily dissolves the distance between ourselves and the world. Normally, consciousness feels fragmented, it’s a ship being pulled apart by its own history and its own fears. Part of us is remembering the past, another part anticipating the future, another narrating ourselves from the outside.

But in moments of flow, that fragmentation disappears. The table isn't being taken apart; for once, it is a whole. Action and awareness merge. Time changes shape. The self becomes quieter, and the whisper becomes louder.

The Edge of the Possible

By Arthur Hampel

We often assume comfort is the ultimate goal, but complete comfort is just another way of being stuck in the mud. Comfort flattens consciousness. Without friction, without stakes, we become those "water drops" instead of the "ocean." *Tuesdays with Morrie.

Flow emerges at the edge of our abilities where concentration is absolute and failure is possible. That edge is the "grey area" Phil Knight talked about. It’s the moment before the ball goes in. It’s not about the trophy; it’s about the intensity of the not knowing. That edge sharpens perception. It turns a brain from a computer back into a soul. *Shoe Dog.

The Dissolution of the Question

By Arthur Hampel

There is something deeply existential about this state. It silences the endless, nagging human questions that keep us awake in the late hours:

Who am I?
Am I wasting my life?

During flow, those questions vanish. You aren't standing outside the palm trees trying to interpret the moon; you are meandering through them, chasing the light. You are no longer trying to interpret life. You are finally, undeniably, inside it.

A break for some Rick Rubin

“If a piece of work, a fragment of consciousness, or an element of nature is somehow allowing us to access something bigger, that is its spiritual component made manifest. It awards us a glimpse of the unseen."

“The universe will be as big as our perception of it. When we cultivate consciousness, we expand the universe. In doing so we expand the scope not only of the material we have at our disposal to create, but also of the very life we live.”

The Ultimate Gift

By Arthur Hampel

Maybe that is the "essence of beauty or truth" I keep chasing. Not because flow provides a scientific answer to what "Me" is, but because it temporarily resolves the split between being alive and feeling alive.

It is the moment the brush hits the ceiling. It is the moment the ink is written in 1776. It is the moment we stop spectating and start participating.

An excerpt from Tuesday’s with Morrie

The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. "My God, this is terrible," the wave says. "Look what's going to happen to me!" Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?" The first wave says, "You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?" The second wave says, "No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean.

An inspired take:

Wave

By Arthur Hampel and Bennett Newman

I am a wave Crashing against the shore I look different every time But I hold the same form I am individual, yet part of a whole Something bigger than myself I am the ocean

An excerpt from Andy Weir’s The Egg

“The human mind is a fraction of what you are. It's like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it's hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you've gained all the experiences it had.”

Never stops whispering

By Arthur Hampel

I think about the universe being silent. I think about every star spinning in a place where no one is there to see them or name them or feel their beauty It’s all art Without us, the universe is cold. We have to start feeling the grit of our own thoughts again. We are the ones meant to wander Not just to survive, but to keep the wonder alive for the ones who haven't been born yet. We are explorers. I want future generations to feel the same awe I felt under those palm trees. I want them to hear the whispers. I want them to have stories to tell when our memories are gone. So I stamp the pedal. I keep running past the finish line. I choose to be awake. Because if consciousness is so rare, then we are the most precious thing in existence. And I’d rather there be something than nothing. I’d rather have the struggle, the art, the critical thought, and the intense, individual love than the quiet safety of the dark. Imagine the universe without us. Imagine the deafening silence. Then open your eyes. Listen for the whisper. Can you hear it? That’s consciousness. The only thing that matters. And it’s our job to make sure it never stops whispering.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

Friedrich Nietzsche

Dance

By Bennett Newman

We must dance Dance the night away Because we hear the music The music of freedom Of light Of consciousness Enliven others to dance And they too will hear the music.