Our lives are filled with landscapes – workscapes, playscapes, friendscapes, marriagescapes, parentscapes, etc. – and in any one of them we might have:
- no interest and no participation
- no interest but full participation
- full interest but no participation
- full interest and full participation
and,
- all the other combinations in-between
Our Interest level and our Participation level make up two scales, called the Qualia Quotient, by which we can measure our real involvement in our landscapes. The basic Qualia Quotient looks like this:
Landscape X
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
We can easily apply such a scale to measure whether we are living up to who we feel we are. For instance, we may call ourselves nature lovers, but how often do we actually get out in the woods? It is quite likely that we think about getting out there a lot more than we actually do.
Getting Out in Nature
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Perhaps, we spend a lot of time with our kids. We love them. But we get tired of it – we are not as interested as they are in the things that interest them.
Spending Time with the Kids
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
These scale numbers are subjective – every person must honestly score their own Interest and Participation levels, then decide whether raise or lower their Interest or their Participation levels, or perhaps get out of that landscape altogether.
Our personal happiness is tied closely to the landscapes in which we have evolved. As animals, our consciousness has been determined from the outside, by the landscapes outside of ourselves, and we shall explore this. As human beings, however, we are also influenced by an inner landscape: the mind. The human mind is still very young, and eco-awareness is even younger. But the ecosystem is the gold bar in the currency of ideas. By our awareness of ecosystems we can change everything: the qualia we notice, our inner landscapes, and the outer landscapes in which we have evolved.
The landscapes of every animal (including human beings) are filled with landmarks and pathways. Animals notice landmarks which lead them down pathways. Landmarks are qualiadelic – that is, they project qualia – colors, or shapes, or smells or whatever. We don’t really see the matter of a tree or a bush; we see a collection of qualia that tells us it is a bush.
Every animal reacts to landmarks and pathways which it has inherited from its ancestors or learned from its parents. Generation after generation, when picking a mate, or looking for food or shelter, or choosing to fight or to flee from a predator, every animal uses highly acute senses, fitly adapted to notice proven landmarks and pathways.
Every spring, for instance, mountain goats begin a migration down from the frozen peaks, through the snowy cliffs, and to the valleys below. Over the hard winter, they have depleted their sodium levels, and they need to find salt licks, which are lower down on the mountain. The goats are so well adapted to the terrain that they can travel by instinct to find the saltlicks. The landmarks in the landscape speak to them; they say, “here,” “this way,” and “over there,” leading them down all the right pathways.
If a mountain goat is interested in getting down the mountain, that is what he is doing – his participation is right there. If the Sun is going down and it is time for the mountain goat to seek a safe place to spend the night, then the landmarks he notices change, and the pathways he follows change accordingly. Animals react instinctively to qualia, and when the Interest Level changes, the Participation Level – behavior – changes automatically and immediately. In the animal landscape, the Interest and Participation Levels always match closely.
Imagine trying to stand at the center of a seesaw. At first it is a struggle to attain our balance. Our senses are highly focused – so focused, in fact, that we can’t focus on anything else. Once we are in balance, however, we don’t have to pay quite so much attention, and we are free to look around, to listen, and to sense other things. This is why a deer who I try to shoo out of my yard just trots a few feet further away from me and goes back to biting off the tops of the grass, seemingly no longer concerned about me – but it is! Though calmly grazing, it is so well balanced that the rest of its senses are completely free to focus on me.
If the body is in balance, the mind is free to roam. In this zone, this equilibrium [1], we have energy left over to pay attention to new qualia which may appear in the landscape. The mountain goat, for instance, while taking its cues from the usual landmarks in the landscape, is all the while receptive to qualia like the time of day, or changes in temperature, or the signs of predators, which might be telling it to move into new pathways. The animal Qualia Quotient is always closely matched in the middle.
Animal Equilibrium
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
All animals have evolved into an equilibrium with their landscapes. That is why some of the most successful creatures, such as brachiopods (sometimes called “living fossils”) have barely changed in billions of years! This also means that their landscapes have not changed much, either. Brachiopods can live with perfect faith that the qualia they sense will lead them to the matter they need.
Animals evolve with their landscape, achieving an equilibrium with it. The animal equilibrium, when Interest and Participation levels match up at the middle, is healthy landscape. There are, of course, a variety of unhealthy extremes in the animal landscape. Once again, we can look to the Qualia Quotients of the animal landscape to gain insight into the problems with the human landscape.
There are four scenarios when an animal is not safe. These scenarios put the Interest and Participation levels at their four extremes positions.
First, when the usual landmarks and pathways fall apart, this is a definite crisis. For instance, a forest fire may destroy all the usual landmarks, leaving an animal desperately searching for pathways which are no longer there.
Crisis Landscape 1
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
A second crisis in the animal landscape occurs when the Interest Level is very low and the Participation Level is very high. We can imagine, for example, some poor, half-dead rabbit being carried aloft by a hawk toward a nest full of screeching, hungry hawklings.
Crisis Landscape 2
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
A third crisis state occurs when animals become so completely hyper-focused on a goal, such as mating or hunting, that they become oblivious to other dangers – mainly predators, who may be lurking in the shadows. Their Qualia Quotient then looks like this:
Crisis Landscape 3
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
A fourth crisis state is when an animal is very sick or dying. It may have no interest at all in living, and it may give up. Its Qualia Quotient will look like this:
Crisis Landscape 4
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
The four crises in the animal landscape are extreme, and they occur occasionally in every animal’s life. In the human landscape they are far more common. This is a direct result of our desire to adapt the natural landscape to ourselves, rather than to bring ourselves into equilibrium with it. If a beaver was not a good swimmer, he would drown in the pond his felled trees create. Humankind is drowning.
It is not that we can’t swim, so much as that we have created an ocean and lost sight of the land. This has happened for a simple reason: instead of a little pond of dopamine, which keeps us safe, the human landscape provides endless streams of dopamine. This is Big Dopamine. It is sensational, it feels great, and we have learned how to keep our neurolandscapes flooded with it. In short, the human landscape is an addictive landscape.
This has happened because each new human invention or innovation boosts our Interest Level a little (or a lot!). Participation Levels take a while to catch up. Meanwhile, at the same time, one or ten or a hundred other innovations excite our interest, pulling us in all directions. The result is a constant stream of Big Dopamine, and we can’t get enough of it.
Big Dopamine has made us so successful at manipulating matter, that matter owns us. By adapting the landscape to our desires, instead of seeking equilibrium with it, we have burnt our bridges, so to speak. This lack of responsibility, this endless taking, and this lack of giving back, is typical of the addict.
The Qualia Quotient of an addict resembles the four extremes of an animal in danger. The addict moves through several stages – Initiation, Experimentation, Regular Use, Risky Behavior, Dependency, and, ultimately, to Disorder. Along the way, Participation Levels catch up or fall away from ever-rising Interest Levels; the life of an addict is a seesaw continually out of balance.
The addict develops a qualiadelic relationship with the addiction. Eventually, addictive landmarks and pathways change the landscape. In the early stages of addiction, there are moments when, like the animal after a forest fire, there are no familiar landmarks to be seen, nor pathways to follow.
Addictive Landscape 1
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Addictive landmarks and pathways soon become familiar, but the landscape of addiction is, by its nature, unreliable. Therefore, addicts often find themselves frustrated. They can read the handwriting on the wall: “danger!” He or she may try to quit the habit, but everybody’s doing it – it is part of the culture – and participation continues despite declining interest.
Addictive Landscape 2
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
The later stages of addiction resemble the third crisis state. So hyper-focused on the addiction, he or she becomes oblivious to other dangers – the loss of jobs, friends, family, health, and safety from those who prey upon the addicted. Interest and Participation levels have only one goal: the addiction.
Addictive Landscape 3
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
The fourth crisis state is when an animal is very sick or dying. This is where the addict, sooner or later, finds his or herself: alone, bridges burned, hopeless, and often suicidal.
Addictive Landscape 4
| Interest | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Participation | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
All addicts hold in common a false sense that they are in balance on the seesaw. In the earlier stages they are trying to adapt themselves the landscapes of addiction, in the mistaken belief that an equilibrium is possible, while in the later stages, quite delusional, think they have actually found it. Whether humanity is in the early or later stages of addiction is an open question.
[1] The closer to equilibrium we get on a seesaw, the more subtle are the changes in balance we can notice, and react to.