Normal A.D.D. - The Existential Amnesia

So this reflection is about (whoa! a bird) about how... um... what was I talking about?

   We've all heard the term(s) A.D.D  or A.D.H.D.  as medical diagnoses for an overall inability to function sufficiently in everyday life to varying degrees due to an impaired ability to focus.  And, while we normally think of this as a childhood disorder, I keep hearing more and more about adults getting the diagnosis "Adult A.D.H.D."  But what if this condition is just a particular version of a much deeper symptom on a more existential level?  And what if we all have this disorder showing up in different ways?  That's what I have been pondering lately and is the theme I intend to explore with you here.

  I love the word "existential."  It may sound like a rather esoteric word but really, it isn't.  It's an essential word which empowers us to consider levels of our life that normally go unaddressed yet are all important in their profound influence on we call "Life."  And that's why I love the word "Existential."  No matter who you are, what your religious or non-religious beliefs may be, whether you are a scientist or a creationist... both... neither... man... woman... both... neither... whoever you are and however you perceive reality... we all agree.... We Exist... we are living...  This is reality.

   No matter what characterizes your perception of Reality... you are experiencing some version of Reality.  Strip away the subjective and vastly diverse descriptions of reality across the globe, and we start to get down to something primal and first.  Something shared.  Something we can't deny.  That which is Real. And we are Human Beings.  So doesn't it make sense to address these foundational levels of our Being?  Especially if we are to know "Well-Being,"  which is health, which is essentially the nonpareil aspiration of all humans?... Why do so many (including modern science/medicine) ignore the importance of our existential condition as not only a factor... but The factor in our health as Human Beings?

    I'm in awe of science and medicine... do NOT get me wrong!  I would have to keep my head way up my own arss in order to deny the awesome achievements born of the dedication of men and woman through the ages to arrive where we have today!  But one would also have to bury their head in the sand to ignore that even science and medicine are hitting undeniable impasses.  Like Ptolemy's model of the solar system (geocentric) conceding to the more accurate Copernican model (heliocentric), could it be that science is being required to reorient our view of reality around something bigger than the atomic model of reality...something around which you can NOT  draw a boundary? Something infinite?

   I'm simply posing some important questions that, assuming you are not fundamentalist in your world view, you too should be unafraid to ask.  Could it be that our myriad disorders and maladies, both physical and mental, could actually stem from an existential disorder?  Is it possible that we are not subject to some predetermined conditions of existence itself, but that we participate in the formation of our most fundamental agreements regarding what reality is? Could it be that modern pathology is handicapped in its unimpeded progress if it continues to ignore this nonphysical reality? 

Type "Medicine" into Google images... this is what you get...

    I think so.  And I know that is bold of me to say.  When I refer to the atomic model of reality, I'm referring not only to atoms, but the very ingrained idea that everything is separate and the universe is the sum of its parts with no inherent connection or underlying unity accept for the common "container" in which all things are held... what we call the universe.  To me... this seems obviously Ptolemaic and ignores infinity entirely.  I mean, how can you draw a boundary around space which is what supposedly holds every thing in the universe?  Is that not what we're doing?

And this is what you get when you type "space" into Google image..."What's all that black stuff around the stars Mommy?  How Big is it?"

   Take the big bang theory.  While there is overwhelming evidence of the "stuff of the universe" expanding... there are gaps in the theory so glaring that it would be unscientific to view it as anything other than akin to the geocentric model of our solar system... and the idea that the earth is the center and everything rotates around us is obviously silly to us now!  One of the admitted short comings of the Big Bang Theory is that there is no explanation for the initial conditions of the big bang... just an overall agreement that... well... that's just the best we got okay!?  Even if our universe is one of many universes, as some theories speculate... all of those universes would have to be contained in something bigger... Isn't this obvious?  If you draw a boundary around it... what's outside the boundary?

A toroidal model of the shape of the universe... "What's surrounding it Mommy?"

   Furthermore... if the universe is expanding, then it must be a certain size.  If it has a certain size, common sense would tell you that there has to be something bigger than it... a larger space in which the universe is contained.  And obviously that would go on infinitely.  So, If you are brave... you will venture to the outer boundaries of any model of reality, including and especially the prevailing cosmological model of reality (Big Bang), and in an instant render it flimsy and temporary.  Like an understudy of the real thing...  A diorama of the universe...  A finite stand-in for the infinite... which is obviously silly and illogical (Ill-logical. The logic itself is ill).

   Why then, number one, do we give so much credit to that view of reality? And number two, if this issue is so fundamental and glaring, why are we leaving it out of the equation for achieving the ideal state of being?  For our health?  For our medicine?  For every area of life?  The body, for example was not created the way men create things.  Humans create things from a vantage point that is single pointed, looking at that which is being created from outside it and treating it as a finite object.  The body ( in all it's mind blowing, holistic, synergistic, multitasking awesomeness) grew in a kind of dialog with it's infinite surroundings over unfathomable periods of time from the "inside" and the "outside" and from every angle possible.  You could say the the entire ecosystem of Earth (which is not a self sustaining separate bubble unto itself but a microcosm of a larger ecosystem... and so on, into infinity) is the "hand" that created all organisms on earth. Then humans take their single pointed perspective and look AT the body through the filters of their highly limited perspective of reality and time and attempt medicine and pathology from that standpoint. From this perspective, it's amazing we have come as far as we have!  It's nothing short of trying to deal with a 3 dimensional reality from a 2 dimensional mindset. 

   This brings us back to Normal A.D.D. and existential amnesia.  Sounded like a cute title when we began right?  Now that we are getting down to it... could this actually be a more sobering topic?  Well if the model upon which we base our idea of reality is finite while existing in an infinite reality, then by definition we are in delusion.  Accept that we are not deluded relative to common conception of reality... common conception itself is based in delusion.  We have generated a framework that is the very infrastructure of our Lives, personal to global, that is out of alignment with reality.  How can that possibly turn out well?

    This means everything we perceive is ill-perceived.  Time... Space... Nature... Ourselves... you name it.   What about time?  If you look at what time is to you... and if you look up time in the dictionary... both explorations will show you quickly that we are attempting to define the boundless... limit the unlimited.... contain the uncontainable.  Look up "time" in Google images and you will see... can you guess it? Clocks.  Clocks clocks clocks.  Time is thought of as though it were some kind of measurement... a liner path with a beginning and an end comprised of smaller increments.  But I challenge you to strip away Hours... Minutes... Seconds...The grid-like overlay of the modern human's version of time... what are you left with?  Travel to the beginning of time... what is before?  Venture to the end of time... What follows?

   It is clear that our "technology" of perceiving the infinite is representational at best and painfully limited.  Indeed, the finite perception (projection) succeeds in eclipsing the awesomely undefinable! Well if we are born (thrown) into a world that is firmly entrenched in the habit of viewing Time in this way... Reality in this way... Life in this way... it only makes sense that we subconsciously absorb this dysfunctional script and framework of our perception of reality without ever really having any choice in the matter.

   Over time we find ourselves (or not) making do with "how it is" and this becomes the foundation upon which we construct our lives.  Given this inherent malady at the ground floor, we are either one of the many who step in line and march to a "dying drummer" with an expiration date implied in the very coding of our interpretative and perceptual mechanisms regarding the reality and LIFE that we fancy ourselves to be living, OR... we are one of the misfits...  Either way, it seems inevitable to grow dis-Eased and expire due to natural or unnatural causes.  But what if the "natural causes" are themselves unnatural?  That's the bell I want to keep ringing here!

    What if the diseases and disorders are stemming from a kind of existential malpractice that no one in particular is responsible for, yet everyone is practicing just due to the sheer momentum of its familiarity?  What if our model of reality is literally killing us?  What if the familiar practice of perceiving reality as finite results in a kind of atomization of... well shit!... literally everything?  If you really think about it... everything we perceive is essentially broken from everything else... due to this habit of perception.  If we perceive ourselves as particular, and comprised of discrete particulates without any lasting coherence... even if that is impossible in an infinite universe... doesn't it make sense that breakdowns and dis-integration would be the result on all levels of human existence?   Are we willing to consider that our very mechanisms of perceiving itself are not exclusive from what plays out in our physical realities and bodies? And vice versa?

    We speak of Attention Deficit Disorder as an inability to remain focused on everyday tasks.   What I'm suggesting is that the very nature of our everyday life is itself lacking in the deep coherence characteristic of our universe.  I'm suggesting the whole enchilada (as we view it) is incoherent.  And that this effects literally every aspect of life.  And when we label a child A.D.D. due to their inability to adhere to an already incoherent and fragmented world... is it that they have a handicap?... or is it that they are advanced and simply not supposed to adhere to an unhealthy and artificial construct of reality that goes against the grain of their very nature?  Maybe these kids (and adults) are actually not supposed to step in line.

    More importantly, what we call "normal"... may actually be what I'm calling "Normal A.D.D."  We can't be completely cut off from the infinite sense that the infinite universe makes... or we could not exist.  We could not have a thought... we could not remember anything.  There would be no continuity or coherence.   But considering these infinite and undying qualities of our universe are indeed unbound, we haven't even scratched the surface in terms of how much sense we can make of our bodies, our minds, and every aspect of our lives.

    Without the awareness that we are supported by infinite Presence itself, we cannot be fully present.  We have forgotten our most fundamental infinite nature and this has left us with a kind of existential amnesia.  We get by.  We function... for a time.  But do we only face the meaninglessness of the perpetual slave-like existence we all endure at the end of our life?  Or is it of utmost importance to our thriving to face our Normal A.D.D. now and start to rehab our minds out the familiar episodic, fragmented, piecemeal version of perception to a more coherent, flowing, organic, natural, synergistic version of perception in sync with infinite Reality?

    What we have called normal for so long is actually existential A.D.D. compared to where we can be as humans.  In deep remembering of our infinite nature, oriented around what it all comes from, based in an infinite model of the universe where everything is interconnected.  Where there is infinite unity without compromising the infinite diversity and individuality that characterizes all of nature and humanity.

    So in closing... you folks diagnosed with A.D.D. ... consider that your symptoms are more a sign of your inability to swallow a dis-integral technology of being.  And everyday folks, consider that what we have known as normal for so long... the life that we make do with... is actually inherently corrupt, prone to disintegration, and itself a version of normal A.D.D.   Normal because everyone has it.  But a pandemic disorder nonetheless.  The only cure to our fragmented lives is to restructure our perception of Reality at the very core.  To upgrade from finite humans to infinite Humans.  It's the only way I see to surmount this age old quandary!