Seek What You Fear You Will Find

To be human means many things. It means being plagued by relentless questions, thoughts, opinions, and doubts. But are these a plague or a blessing? To think of love, new ideas, question corrupt systems and solve problems are among the glories of human existence. Are these the things that truly make us human? In part, yes. It cannot be denied that the thoughts and ideas of humans are wildly unique. From what other species can you expect spectacular structures created purely for the  purpose of worshipping a being that is not even known to exist? With what other earthly creatures can you find the ability to render and recognize representations of the world around us? 


Yet it is not simply the fact that we possess these talents that makes us intrinsically human. What makes us so unique as a species is the purposes for which we use our human facilities, the reason behind the method. People worship beings beyond the physical realm, deities and thoughts that exist solely in our minds. In addition to the idea that we can imagine the impossible is the fact that we as a species can communicate our ideas of the beyond to one another through symbol and interpretation. This is where the culmination of the human condition occurs. As stated by John Bowker: "Humans, however, do not simply respond to stimuli, they interpret them and identify them to themselves using symbol based recognition." Symbols have seen our transcendence, and they will ensure our fall from grace. Never has a species been so intellectually unified, yet by the same token, so desperately separated from nature. Our language, our symbols, have allowed for the transfer of deep thought from person to person, while at the same time severing the ties to the natural and spiritual world that carried us to this point. Leonard Shlain said it well in his Spell of the Sensuous: "The evocative phenomena - the entities imaged - are no longer a necessary part of the equation. Human utterances are now elicited, directly, by human-made signs."

Separation within our symbolic culture ties directly into the meaning of the quote from The Creative Impulse. The quote states that our capacity for being human has been diminished by our cognitive drive to explain things as they are, rather than how they may be perceived. In my opinion, this quote is in and of itself nonsensical. How can something so tied to our humanity as our cognisance detract from the human capacity? This is akin to saying that an orange loses something of its capacity to be an orange because it tastes too orangey. I suppose I understand what the quote is trying to say, that people are losing their feeling and spiritual oneness to the hard facts that we so constantly seek. In such a case I would say that the solution is to perpetuate the problem. Seek unanswered questions, and within them will be found the wonder and thoughtful provocation of the spirit that such a quote describes the fear of losing.