Along the trails of ephemeral self-portraits

The vibes around you are buzzing. The people around you confirm that this is the place where you want to be. Right here, right now, you are the hero of the moment. It’s your moniker in this fragile fragment of the world and your arm extends, without thinking, like Zen-archery. You turn and brandish a smile towards an undetermined audience, to a virtual observer that is not here but is omnipresent and affirmative. And you click a selfie.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Sure, it was for teenage kicks, but now it’s the accepted behaviour of presidents. Are selfishness and attention-seeking increasing their influence on our construct of identity? Are we living in a virtual, continual streaming of entertainment, that is fast becoming real life? It’s nothing to worry about. We are merely exploring the possibilities of a new technological platform. But the truth is that human minds have always been fatally attracted to expressing themselves.

Anatomically modern humans were wandering on this planet for 150,000 years, but we only started to be self-conscious 77,000 years ago. Our cognition is designed to become aware of itself in front of itself, that is, to be self-conscious. It may be the complexity and capability of our cerebrum that is responsible for our humanistic imagination and rationalization, but those whirring cognitive cogs need a stage upon which perform.

The first touch screen was the wall of the Blombos Cave in South Africa. There they drew the projection of their imagination and inner thoughts, at long last extending their cognitive ability in front of themselves. On those rocks, you’ll find stories of hunting and worship, and above all handprints of lines and signatures of spots; the signs of the self-recognition of cognition and being aware, imprinted by the inventors of their own narratives.

They were modern men, interested in combing their hair and applying ochre to their skin. They were men who admired their own way of thinking whilst despising the ideologies of their adversaries. And from the organization of billions upon billions of synaptic connections, was born the epitome of representation, self-consciousness, to be human. It was then that the Ur-selfie was born. And it is since then that our accelerated brain has exploited every possible platform to mark its presence in front itself, not matter how ephemeral or temporary this manifestation could be.

Being became aware of its own presence, or so Heidegger would say. But the manifestation of self-consciousness is also the ultimate platform. From the cave’s wall, those first touch screens of representations bounced back thoughts and imagination in the form of words. This was the beginning of augmented reality, because words started to superimpose layer upon layer of complex information on the surroundings.

Our world is made up of the stories of the hundreds of generations and the millions of individuals who’ve left behind the narrative trail of their consciousness. Brains don’t love or hate, neither do they dress up or dine out. Do you really think that it is your brain going to work and loving your partner, or that it is your narrative, intermingled with those of all the people in your life, including Mandela and Miley Cirrus, that is giving you the augmented platform for your projections?

The selfie-technology of consciousness transforms every situation with opportunity to stage self-expressions. Some platforms grow, ripen and then die out. Some stories are convincing today, but tomorrow they’ll fade away. In the 1950s, owning a lawnmower epitomized the narrative projection of the desired lifestyle. Nowadays, even though you don’t need to change your iPhone more than your vacuum-cleaner, your consciousness craves to be better represented by the latest Smartphone than by a state-of-the-art Dyson.The revolution of information technology provided a new, powerful platform and when it became social, setting the stage for massive self-representation: your mark seen by a planetary audience. Selfies are so irresistible because our brain feels the same thrill it sensed all those millennia ago, the same euphoric ecstatic rebirth of self-consciousness, and all its storytelling experiences in this world.

With Google on the verge of introducing its G-Glasses, having the connectivity of a smart phone in front of your eyes will be a game changer of habits and thinking. Our own perception of the world, and consequently of ourselves, will be altered. Every time a brain approaches a stage, it has the chance to present itself in front of itself. Whether you’re a banker or a lawyer, every human brain, deep at its core, is an artist. Just as it was back in Blombos, it is now.

Poker of a Feast of HologramsIt’s just not you

“So I’m nothing!” I sighed with conviction and a tone of desperation in the backdrop. I attracted the attention of a totemic ancestor with the form of a chubby kangaroo. “Don’t worry, it’s just the alcohol. It happens when you are not used to drink a literary infinite amount of it. And she doesn’t deserve all of this. You’ll find a better one.” I thanked the wise words of the enlightened being, but politely I made the point that I was a bit more philosophical, that I was realizing the hologrammatic nature of consciousness and its consequent ephemerality. The big kangaroo frowned its forehead, expressing clear concern and worry and clutch his gigantic glass even tighter. “Oh, so THAT is it”. Ordering another pitcher of Ardbeg, the comforting marsupial drew a scheme.

The scream of consciousness  is the realization of being a being. It is the real birth of mindfulness but it costs the pain of ephemerality and mortality. The enlightened kangaroo continued. We have the outrageous luck of feeling the awareness of being a being. It is the bliss of a second. In that instant when we grasp the illusion of totality, when we pretend of being the sweetheart of the universe. Well THAT’s it. It is really everything. It’s just not “you”. But you attend the cosmic show of consciousness of someone. When you dedicate all your mind and heart to a divinity, we are actually drinking all the most beautiful dedication and worshipping and even more. We breathe horizons of bliss destined to the infinite, supreme beings of the universe. We do when we simply are ourselves, when we spend one minute in thinking that we know we are alive. The trick is that, again, it’s not you. When you are able to clean the stage from the biographical pettiness of your actual worries and aspirations and start to

clean your mind to leave room for the infinite compassion of the Celtic Virgins, and the lady always ready to feel for YOUR pain, Mary and the Fairy with Turquoise hair, and the nurse that is changing your delirious sheets, when you make your awareness the temple to worship this compassion, when you leave the temple empty, that is when you get it.

 

Feel the extension without limits of the new gods, replacing infinite spaces of divinity from the old ones. Doesn't it sound cool, does it? Well, it’s always you. Not the biographical, passportish you, not the physical person that is associated with your national insurance. But at the same time it is the collection of your personal and private memory: you need to travel across your own experience, the small moments when you learn to walk, the large hug of mother when you fall down, the birthday party, school, writing nonsense that slightly does acquire sense, playing with the other kids, kicking the ball from noon to dusk.

The particulars are yours. It’s just not a matter of ownership. You don’t have it. You don’t have yourself. It’s only when you lose yourself, that you find yourself. Thank you giant kangaroo, nice that you like Depeche Mode too.

So bitter and so sweet. Probably it’s the second pitcher of whiskey. But there is some wisdom in this projections of identity. If my consciousness it’s not me, but the hologram of narratives surrounding me, it means that my own certainty of being here is no more real than the existence of Pinocchio.

Oh, Hi bro, here you were!    

The trinity in A feast of holograms:Same old story. The very same one

Dostoevsky gave me the string, but as a reader I pulse with the plot. The narrative beam of the fictional character hits me and my cognitive reaction bounces back a real person. From shadows cast on a mind, you encounter another consciousness in flesh and bone. From the narrative puppet, a guiding voice talks to you. Fictional characters populate your conscience not less than teachers of your childhood. When you do something shameful and despicable, your mum/master/ elder brother/ the monk Tichon resonate in your brain. Maybe JC. I think that you have enough information now about my mate Pinocchio to say something about him, to judge him. Unfairly. But still, you could make educated guesses about him. You could invite him for a party, but maybe to leave him your house during an absence. Does Pinocchio sound more real than my grandfather? And Stavrogin? And JC?

This is the ontological Doppler effect of consciousness. “Thickness” of reality is proportional to the proximity of the subject. Real persons are always closer to subject. Fictional characters are credible in proportion of their distance to a real consciousness. 

Pinocchio sounds less credible than Stavrogin. My grandfather sounds thicker than a totemic ancestor. 

“I” is more real than “you”. 

Yet the self is a projection no more and no less than the narrative unfolding of Stavrogin and Pinocchio.

Stavrogin is really a string of deeds and lines. 

So it is Napoleon and Julius Cesar. So are JC and the totemic ancestors. Hang on a minute! I can hear the boiling impatience of the skeptic, of the mundane pragmatic. Napoleon and Julius Cesar manipulated portion of real matter, they left traces of their deed that can be actually discovered. There is a proper causal chain. Buddhas and totemic ancestors are less real. 

Oh, so the manipulation of reality made by all those fellows under their influence don’t count? People are guided by deed and lines that they value and hold important. Your ideals, your creed, your beliefs support your consciousness with a scaffolding of meanings and articulations.  But there is more. Our cognitive highways, the series of thoughts supported by synaptic interactions, are string of deeds and lines.

Brains are controller of primate behaviours and habits. When they are accelerated in the cultural environment that support their cognitive augmentation, they make experience of their own complexity. Kaboom! A brain travels along the cultural structuration of its society and it is trained to make experience of other brains, already accelerated. A child’s brain is forced by other consciousness to step on the stage of human deeds, she’s dragged to play roles, to follow stories and to start to tell some. One representation after the other she acquires the technology of trailing narrative footprint and to leave traces of her own. One day, the day when Logos has always been, it appears consciousness, raining like an event in the brain of the child, but opening for the first time the space of self-consciousness.

 

We are “just” a hologram of the narrative crossover of our ancestors, our mates, our fantasies and our aspirations. This tiny circle where our nervous system is concentrating its focus is what it is making you say: “me”. When the streams of narratives, from the overlapping of other holograms finally reach the acceleration point in your brain, the excruciating tenderness of awareness about being there screams its presence in front of itself. “I’m” she cried, the consciousness. This is it. This is everything. Pure totality. And sooner that it takes Pinocchio to down a shoot of tequila, it is gone. I remember granpa for his 80^th birthday. 80 years, they are a lot. And where they all gone? Passed so quickly. Not THAT quickly. Yet very fast. And sadly for Chomsky, but I guess these propositions have been uttered many times in many languages, down till the first ancestors, when they started to realize about their being a being.

The excruciating pleasure of being alive and of knowing it brings the shadow of its fate to disappear. Always. This totality, this universe, will disappear, like the shadow it is. This universe is just the hologram of many narratives and when the perfect alignment of matter and words that permitted its ephemeral existence, will break the harmony of the projection, the totality will cease to exist. And that’s all right. Or so told me the dear fellows at the ENBELAUSOCLU. 

A feast of holograms Part2:Guess the fictional one

Desponded but with a pitcher of Ardbeg in my hand, I was mumbling on Granpa’s revelations. Now, image I’m sitting with you where you are. What’s wrong in my train of thought? We have Pinocchio, my grandfather and some very good, inspiring beings, including a guy who pretends to be: the son of god, your brother and god. Either we are experiencing some logical holiday, or it is a poetic expression to say that we are all brother and all divine, or the Catholic theology is right and THIS bread IS really MEAT.

Well, divinities can be substantial entity, they can weight and talk and sweat ( and swear).

Or they are projections. Ah, projections. In Sri Lanka I was reflecting about offers on a temple's altar: they give "real" rice to their projected divinities. And who’s benefiting from this superstition? Ants, banqueting on the combined offers for Hindu gods and Buddhist deities. Oh yeah, just projections. And your offer has been physically devoured. You bring an offer in the form of a meal and that lunch is eaten.
Job done.  

OK, so projections are misallocated attributions?

I wish I could slap you so hard…Focus!

We have: Pinocchio, Jesus and my Granpa. Who is fictional? I swear I know my grandfather was a real person. I really met him, many times. I ate his chocolate, listened patiently to his rants against the government. I said farewell to him when it was time and I wasn’t there when he died. But he was a real person.

Now for Pinocchio. Pinocchio is real as Nikolay Stavrogin is. I’m very fond of the writings of Dostoevsky. I know his characters, their psychology. What I mean it’s not just that I have knowledge of their lines in the books, their role in the plot, their fictional function. I know them as persons. “Impossible”. Slap.

I immersed myself in the Dostoevsky world. He was a genius in giving impressions and feeling. He made more than an effort to be comprehensible. Actually he dug very deep in human nature, in YOUR human nature, so that your deep, petty feelings, your ridiculous ambitions, but also your great heart or your unconditioned love, could be in tune with the story. He was trailing YOUR thought so you could pulse with his story. 

That is why his characters are not living on the moon: they are figures of real persons. Do I know everything of what Stavrogin did when it is not told in the book? No. But the same stands for my friends, my relatives, my love. After vodka, myself. I know enough Stavrogin to know him personally, to know the depth of his psychology as I would for a person I meet in the real world. But Stavrogin is a fictional character, is “bi-dimensional”! He is just a string of deeds and lines. Double slap.

No.

(to be continued...)