The Universal Search for Balance
DNA may sometimes seem like a virus, an entity solely concerned with its own reproduction, which from its innate desire to replicate itself it has brilliantly created life. Lifeforms then became the means for the proliferation of DNA , with DNA being able to take the back seat in the drive for its own reproduction. It has created these beings with their own blind desires to reproduce, unaware that they’re doing it for their host.
However, upon further investigation, it becomes clear that DNA itself is just a manifestation of the universe, which itself is simply the ebbs and flows of everything and eternity striving to maintain balance. Chemistry and physics are the result of some form of this search for balance, somewhere, someway. It is in the throes of this search for balance that biology was born, that life was born, with DNA at its center. Therefore we no longer look at DNA as a virus, but only as the product of its environment, the universe. It is only a string of chemicals seeking balance.
That string of chemicals became increasingly complex, because its environment is complex. In the beginnings of the world, the source of primordial soup in which the crux of life began was a violent environment, rife with volcanoes and tectonic upheavals, asteroids, and noxious gases. It is tumultuous, the entire burning orb incontent with its place in the cosmos. It is adolescent and moody, trying to figure out its own balance, its own place in the universe. From this chaos came DNA, which, as a string of chemicals blindly driven by they’re innate universal desire to be at equilibrium with their environment, adapted. In this adaptation we have genes, a way for DNA to express itself in phenotypes in the hope of finding a means of surviving and thriving in chaos.
This search for balance characterizes all life. We intake nutrients and dispel waste in the hopes of reaching the ideal balance of chemicals in our bodies. We seek mates that will ideally help balance out our flaws in the next generation. We live our lives in the search of that Buddhist middle ground, where we are aware and at peace. Psychologically this universal, chemical, and physical need for balance has manifested itself in humans with their desire to be happy. Just as DNA developed the complexity of genes to be best adapted for its complex environment, humans have developed an overabundance of neurons in order to best be adapted for theirs. Our attempted solution at balance is the increased awareness that comes along with our plethora of neural connections; it is our increased awareness of ourselves, of others, of our environment, and of our universe. Unfortunately this attempt at balance itself has led to many imbalances. But we continue to progress, along with our genes and our DNA, to be at one with our universe. To be enlightened. We are, after all, the universe realizing itself.
In the universe’s attempt to realize itself it became necessary for the ego to develop; a sense of self, of being distinct and wholly different from everything else around you. This, of course, is a fabrication, created by our brains. Our brains themselves are just a clump of fat and protein that are very efficient at organizing electrical impulses. Our bodies, what we define as ourselves, are just a collection of colliding elements and energy, just like everything else. Carbon and oxygen and hydrogen enter our body as food, water, and breath, and leave our bodies as waste, which then re-enters the environment only to eventually be consumed by something else…our waste is consumed by microbes, fungi, and plants, which are in turn consumed by organisms who are once more consumed, and so on. We all share the same air—oxygen from the arctic ocean and the Congo rainforest run in my veins, build my tissues. When I touch a blade of grass, we exchange surface cells, that plant now embedded in my tissues and I in its.
Sex, power, and money are all drives stemming from the ego, this fabrication created by our DNA, our evolution, all of the random successes in the universal search for balance. But the ego, despite being the result of several billions of years worth of sense for balance, itself is incredibly imbalanced. Thanks to our frontal lobes, our prefrontal cortex, our species has the capacity to imagine a future. This part of our brain came from our DNA’s superb capability of recognizing its environment so as to best adapt. Now its programs to adapt is what drives us. We consistently feel the need to adapt to something, to change our current circumstances because, surely, there must be something better; some better way to exist, to live in equilibrium. So we imagine ourselves more comfortable through wealth, more fulfilled through religion, more connected through sex, and more capable through power. These imaginings are what fuel desire.
True Enlightenment
I think that there’s something just as tangible as enlightenment. I understand the intellectual appeal of enlightenment—that once made aware of the absurdity of human thought and existence it is tempting to escape it, to be above it, outside of it—to take the red pill and escape the Matrix. However, living with this knowledge, that all we are is a bunch of confused molecules and that I don’t really exist in any sort of concrete sense and that none of the people or things I love do either, and then relishing that fact, seems to me to be so much more conducive to a rich life.
Instead of spending my one and only life as this particular bunch of molecules colliding at this particular time in space trying to escape this cycle of death and birth, this cycle of change, this cycle of the eternal ephemeral search for equilibrium, I want to plunge into it. I want to understand and celebrate my being, however loosely constructed it is. What a miracle it is, to exist as a culmination of successful mutations and upsets. When one reflects on what it takes for one being, one organism, any organism, to exist as it does today, it is undeniably humbling.
To think about how the particles collided in that primordial soup eons ago to create fatty acids, which became DNA, which became cells, which became multicellular organisms, which became vertebrates, which became tetrapods, which became mammals, which became primates, which became apes, which became humans, which became Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, Einstein, and my grandparents. How my mother from Massachusetts decided to move to Colorado at the same time that my father did from California. How all of these billions of things occurred to lead to me. There is nothing else like me in the universe, and there never will be again. When looking at the history of what led to my existence, it is so overwhelming and humbling. We are all stardust, compacted into controlled forms of energy, and how magnificent of a thing is that?
After all of this, how completely right it is for us to be the universe realizing itself. It could not have happened any other way.
Observations of the Body
When sitting and trying to quiet my mind, it is incredibly easy for my mind in that time to try to grasp some form of stimulation. In this way sitting is entirely conducive to learning more about my own body. I never really got a hold on focusing on my breath as a means for clearing my thoughts. However, it helps if I think about it biologically. For instance, the somewhat unsteadying realization that the air that enters my lungs is not the same air that exits them. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment during a breath when this miraculous transformation occurs. Is it done at the bottom of the inhalation, during that half-second before the exhalation starts? The oxygen I suck in gets absorbed entirely into my bloodstream through my lungs and then my lungs replace it with carbon dioxide, pulling from the bloodstream. It is astounding, when focused on nothing else, that this process continuously happens, with or without thought to it.
It is also compelling to notice the moment in between breaths, or the moment when breath stops. If my entire being is solely focused on the act of breathing, during that moment of rest I begin to wonder if I’m actually still alive. That moment feels so still that I think that surely this must be what it feels like to not exist, to ebb into the flow of the universe and dissolve into the stardust of matter from whence everything came. At least, until my lungs independently from my thoughts begin the whole process over again, reminding me that it is possible to live without thinking.
However, it is easy for the brain to wander from focused thought to focused thought, from observing one automatic body function to the next. Soon I begin to focus on my spine, and really how unnatural it is for it to be curved so. How our ancestors long ago evolutionarily selected this ridiculous posture. How no one is ever really sure why, evolutionarily speaking, the process or us to be bipedal began at all. And now we’re left with this ridiculously curved spine. How the curves are a reaction to hold us upright, but they don’t really have a super keen interest in playing their part, so that when one is trying to sit perfectly upright for any period of time, one begins to notice how much our spine, our silly s-curved spine, begs to be released from its obligation.
In this manner it is also interesting to notice how much our body is working consistently on maintaining our balance. Our abdominal and back muscles are constantly in the process of micro-twitching and slight adjustments so that we can be upright, so that we can be balanced and live in our world in a tangible and realistic way, despite our ridiculous spines.
Finally, I can feel my blood moving through my body. I can feel the sensation of my heart sucking in blood only for it to be pushed out again. I can feel that pulse, that rhythm, that hum, course throughout my being, deep within and right under the skin. I can feel it in my chest, my neck, my scalp. I can feel it in my wrists, my palms, my fingertips. I can feel it course through my internal organs until it settles uncomfortably at the junction of my legs and hips. I can feel how, if I make a slight adjustment to my sitting posture to allow blood to flow back into my lotus-positioned legs, life returns, sensation returns. I can feel the blood begin at the top of the leg and rush down and spread out until it reaches my toes. I can feel the warmth and assurance that blood brings to my limbs.
I can feel my brains processing all of this information in an effort to be stimulated and I feel ashamed of myself for not achieving enlightenment. For not allowing my brain to become just another organ, trapped in an organism, stuck on a rock that’s spiraling through the cosmos.
Self-Propelled Thoughts on the Mind and the Ego
It is interesting how easy it is for the mind to concentrate on anything besides itself. The concept of the ego, at its core, is the concept of there being an “I.” That makes sense, inherently. I am an organism differentiated from my environment by my DNA. However, the mind becomes very uncomfortable when truly focusing on how it is a separate entity, a separate organ from the rest of the organs. It is what creates the identity, the ego, what creates that inherent sense of differentiation of self and others. It is not meant to be reflected on. It is not meant to be thought of. It almost becomes a paradox; the mind thinking of the mind…and paradoxes make us uncomfortable—it is an obvious instance of the universe in imbalance, blatant like a sore in the fabric of the cosmos which entails all of time and space.
It is also interesting how inherent a second is. Where does that beat come from that runs through all of humanity?
Ayyy! Brilliant post, Catherine. Way to tie it all together. I think that humans will continue to biologically develop so that we may co-exist in this incredibly misbalanced environment that our ego has converted our world into. Perhaps we'll develop new caps on our brains, a greater capacity to feel empathy, an expansion of the braincells of our hearts, an adaptation to our dietary needs to assimilate the strain of our resources given the size of our population, and maybe our spines will straighten out.. Someday. But there's my ego, thinking about the future. ;)
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work. Thank you for sharing your ponderings.