As we are evolved from other animals, I think there is an innate need to notice little objects and to collect them – for food, sustenance, medicine, even status. But also, maybe like crows, we just like to hoard shiny little (useless?) baubles. The human ability to collect facts and details and ideas comes straight out of that. And as obviously attractive and interesting as our trinkets are, there’s perhaps something that we have lost, that animals still have – for instance, contentment.
Our contentment is inversely related to our mental collecting. As we have gathered more “facts” we have become (convenience not withstanding) less content. As usual, this is yet one more instance that reveals how it is the journey, not the goal – discovery, not usefulness – which is the source of contentment.
But let’s examine this reversal, this upside-down-ness at its spiritual fulcrum. As we have turned our collection of facts into technological wizardry, so our deities have diminished, historically, from many, to a few, to one (or none!). The “smarter” we got the less spiritual we became. But of course, we all still seek something more, whatever you want to call it – religion, love, happiness, etc. (I choose to call it contentment because the human landscape has become a landscape of addiction, which is powered by discontentment.)
There is something about knowledge which inevitably make the grass look greener on the other side of the fence. Facts are kind of a way of escaping trauma, which humans are filled with (since trauma follows in the wake of addiction). On the other hand, those who escape into religion too often wind up settling for a narrow religious God, full of imperatives.
God has become a false reflection of our own sense of superiority, our ego writ large. But when we place our faith in this God, every time we strive towards Him (or Her or It), every time we gain more knowledge, God moves further away, and so we latch on to dogma instead. Traditionally, focusing on the details does not leave us inclined to see the true Big Picture.
The Gods we have lost are Gods that provide gifts – what we need to survive, to wonder, to reason. Well, good news. The Provider of Gifts exists right here on Earth, in ecosystems.
We are thoroughly intertwined with ecosystems by virtue of billions of years of qualiadelic relationships. If we place our faith in ecosystems, we are filled with wonder and we are always growing closer to the Source and the object of our appreciation. The more we know, the more we are grateful for the gifts we receive. If God is ecosystems, we can get closer to God.
When we see a bird or a squirrel just sitting contentedly on a branch, that is a state of mind to which we can aspire. It is a mind which, in that moment, is being filled by ecosystems with some sort of satisfying qualia, perhaps as delicate as a breeze, or even some oceanic feeling. But we humans have a special gift, because ecosystems have filled our brains with a different order of qualia that fills our minds with kaleidoscopic reflectiveness.
The problem is that we just don’t know how to use our reflectiveness yet. We are like children, still dependent on our parents (or the technological landscape). We have space programs, for crying out loud, that we really don’t need. So, rather, we are like fledglings not yet ready to fly out of the nest.
But we want to.
So what knowledge is this, that brings god closer to us rather than moving god further away? We should be looking at wonder itself. There is nothing innately harmful in knowledge, nor even in artificial intelligence. But it is actually our questions, which betray the miraculousness that is all around us, that are worth our gratitude – even without the answers. Wonder itself is the shiny object that brings us the most joy. It is not the why so much as the open-mindedness that inspires curiosity in the first place.
So, let’s grow up and leave the baubles and toys behind. Be qualiadelic and save the planet by filling ourselves with wonder and gratitude. The answers will come when we need them, neither sooner nor later.