Don't think about it.

Think about it: "it" being anything.

Think about it because you have to.

Consciousness has to be about something.  It always has a direction.  Consciousness cannot exist on its own.  Consciousness is a relationship, not an entity.

Think about it.

Because you have to.

So how does this effect experience?  Dismissing the infinite reduction of defining consciousness of something as an experience in itself (are you conscious of the conscious experience of that something?  are you conscious of that consciousness too?), we see that consciousness is the antithesis of experience.  The necessity of being about something requires consciousness to be dependent on time and perception (intangible ideas are also perceived).  Experience or being or existing is an absence of time.  It is an infinitesimal pinpoint of pre-reflection.  Perception, and thus consciousness, is reflective: you are always a nanosecond behind the perceived.  Consciousness is temporal and rational and ephemeral; existence is timeless, irrational, and foundational.  Consciousness is a means; experience is an end.

I don't wish to minimize the enormous importance of consciousness.  Our ability to consume our immediate environment, chew it up and regurgitate bite size pieces of meaning allows me to shit in a toilet instead of the dirt and to communicate with pixels instead of rocks.  What I am trying to say is that the packets of information, the ones and zeros, the rational articulations of otherwise meaningless atomic relationships that constitutes the intentionality of consciousness is not a state of being.  We are so wrapped up in the creative usefulness of the objects of our intentions, we lose sight of their purpose: that our forks and knives, our two-party systems, our dogmatic deities, our investment portfolios, and our misplaced and overanalyzed personal identities should enhance being.  They are means.  The goal of these and all conscious intentions is to eliminate conscious intention; to become pre-reflective.  The goal is to be.  

So don't think about it.

I'm back but nothing I say means a damn thing.

I'm back for what that's worth.  Back in the sense that I am writing today.  The experts are in deadlock whether I'll continue tomorrow.  There is speculation, odds, percentages, gut feelings, but in the end no one knows if I'll be back. 

But never fear.  What I don't say carries the same weight as what I do say: nothing.  My words are meaningless.  My blank space is meaningless.  What you get today is what you'll get tomorrow.  Meaninglessness is perennial, omnipresent, a trusted friend.  Meaninglessness is ironically something you can have faith in; a place to hang your hat when Jesus' or Buddha's coat rack isn't quite the right size.

Why am I meaningless?  A better questions is, what does meaning mean?  A hammer is a hammer in the context of nails and buildings and people who use nails to make buildings.  Otherwise it is wood and metal.  Of course, wood and metal carry their own meanings.  So it is atoms and electrons and neutrons and other microscopic round revolving shit that meet to form hard, heavy, and cool.  And, of course, hard, heavy, and cool require someone or something to perceive it. 

Meaning is relative.  It is shared patterns.  It is tones in conflict that, if left alone, would simply be a monotonous alarm but together mark Beethoven's Fifth.  For the little black pixels that make up letters and sentences and paragraphs and pages to become a thing, a hard, heavy, and cool ideological hammer, I need some kind of nail.  And I need something to build.  

The problem is I have nothing to build.  I have no nails and no direction.  I have fingers tapping out some unknown code whose origin is still not clear.  I am not building I'm exploring.  There is no relationship to my words.  They exist as they are because whatever I am exploring (me?) exists as it is.  My words are as meaningless as my silences and my silences are as meaningless as me.  They simply exist just as I simply exist.  

Or at least I wish I could simply exist.  I wish I wasn't a description to those who know me nor a calculation to those who don't.  I wish I ate spinach and believed "I am what I am."  In the end, I wish that my meaning was derived from my being and not the other way around.  I wish what I say really doesn't mean a damn thing.

Shitter Ontology

I would like to provide you with a little insight into my inner dialogue.  I was taking a crap at the local massage... place? ...institute? ("Massage parlor" makes it seem like I entered and exited with dark sunglasses and a hat covering all hints at my identity.)  On the wall in front of me was a picture of a cat in Japan.  I thought to myself, what's it like being a cat in Japan?  My inner asshole responded with:

"What the hell do you mean?  A cat is a cat!  It shits, fucks and eats."

"What I mean is, the basics have to be different, right?  It's in Japan.  There has to be unique feline cultural differences."

"It just means it shits, fucks, and eats in Japan."

"But the resources must be different.  What if it gets injured?  Would it be treated differently than here for better or worse?"

"If a cat gets injured, it shits, fucks, and eats with a limp."

What I believe my underlying existentialist dick wad was telling me is the level of consciousness I assume a cat has is inadequate for a personal narrative.  Its identity is biological: an entity that fills this space and requires these resources (food, sex, territory, affection, etc.).  The cat is not burdened by hope or aspiration or expectation.  A broken leg doesn't represent lost days at work, inability to ski or surf, or an opportunity to learn guitar.  To a cat, broken leg means "I feel pain as I do these chores of daily living."  The pain, and more importantly the dysfunction, is now.  It is not a representation.  It exists.

I want to be a cat.  Don't get me wrong, I adore my consciousness, as well as my sub- and unconsciousness.  They provide a great deal of entertainment and distraction.  The near random meanings they apply to the non-existent directions my life can motivate me.  My consciousness, and more importantly my self-consciousness, allows me to expand.  It makes me ten to the tenth.  

The problem is that in the end, we're all going to die.  And sometime in the middle we are all going to suffer.  That suffering is bad enough in itself.  It doesn't need to expand.  I don't want the burden of the implications of my suffering to push the actual pain beyond its borders.  I just want to shit, fuck, and eat with a limp.

I've got a lot of shit

It's true.  I've got a lot of shit.  I've got a lot of shit because I have big plans.  Big plans I tell you!!  

I'm going to be a martial arts master.  I've got the belt, the gloves, the tape, the bag, the pads, and the timer.  I'm going to be a philosopher.  I've got Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, Aristotle, and Plato.  I'm going to look like Hugh Jackman in Wolverine.  I've got random shit for pull-ups, push-ups, swimming, running, biking, kayaking, surfing, and SCUBA diving.  And I've got a full length mirror.  I'm going to be a writer.  I've got plays, screenplays, novels, short stories, children's  and how-to's stacked shoulder high.  I'm going to be a musician.  I've got a bass guitar.  (I know that is a little weak, but in my defense, it's an expensive bass guitar.)  I'm even going to be a better clinician.  I've got books on neuro, cardio, trauma, pharm, GI, babies, vaginas, exams, machines, and books on books I can't live without.

Alright!  So I'm ready to fulfill my big plans: the writing, philosophizing, rock-star anesthesiologist who can beat your ass if you weren't so paralyzed by the sight of his monster pecs.  

I'm ready....but I'm pretty sure there is a new book on the minute pharmacologic digitization of cerebral membrane proteins in the perioperative period.  Can't be an anesthesiologist without it.  Of course, there is also the handheld Swedish sure-grip ab builder and a 2-week camp on the Tao of fucking some fools up.  Can't forget the neon green dive computer for existential treasure hunters (the treasure, in the end, is meaningless) nor the guitar hero heavy bag that you pound to the beats of Jay-Z.

I'm piling shit upon shit in preparation for my future self.  I'm building an anti-existentialist bomb shelter: when meaningless overtakes us,  I've got enough crap to pretend I have purpose for years.

But what about right now?  What am I doing this second?  I'm writing.  I am a "writer" because I am writing, not because the Art of Dramatic Writing or the Marshal Plan are collecting dust on my shelf.

So as of yesterday, I don't have as much shit.  The local charity does.  And hopefully I'm not just making room for different shit.  Hopefully I'll start looking at who I am and what I'm doing instead who I could be and what I'll do.