Something Spiritual
How is it that the more able man becomes to manipulate the world to his advantage, the less he can perceive any meaning in it? This is a paradox that has often been noted, and has sometimes been attributed to a fundamental perversity, a sort of ‘pure cussedness’, in human nature. The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning by Iain McGilchrist
We have so many distractions - cool toys, baubles, alcohol, drugs, television, media - that they’ve come to replace what previously gave generations meaning. Even societies that dealt with substantial injustice, still found meaning in their continuing search for justice.
Even the presence of cognitive frameworks purporting to explain our awareness of the world we live in - purely by defining it - remove it’s beauty.
On the other hand, there is no substitute for sun, rain, snow, smells of food, and the acts associated with mutual, joyful creation. Whenever we let go of our calculations, our cognitions, and what we think we know, we enter a garden. In that garden, there abides the copious touch and smeell of flowers, the beauty of insects (as Hagrid well knew, even with the loss of his spider), the lack of concern with precision, and the plenty of rest stops. There is no press to make money, no contracts, and no real hurry, except to care for what is needed for it’s continued growth and sustenance. It may be possible to sustain oneself through the garden’s beauty. But only as long as you share it for the beauty that exists there. Indeed, if you go there often, you know the first and only reliable meaning is the co-creation that occurs when we encounter the raw things of the world, allow them to foster meaning in us, and we, in turn, enabling the growth and richness derived from sharing the Sacred with others.
There’s a movement afoot that seeks to quantify the world, map it, divide it into it’s component parts, and treat the world as though it is a purely derivative tool to manage. As McGilchrist suggests in the quote at the beginning, there are many reasons for questioning this modern approach to quantifying and conquering the worlds and people. It is no small objection to say that this approach to the world robs it if its meaning and much of it’s beauty.
This is not to suggest anyone just go to a religious assembly, Not at all! It is to say that humans need meaning, awe, and beauty. Albert Einstein was religous. But, he did find (what I define as spiritual) in beauty, symmetry, and his mathematics equations