What are you? What am I? Is life just a ride....

Most of us go about our daily lives without a thought as to what we are...or where we come from.
These questions are difficult and they have no concrete answers.

Freud asserted that we each have are three separate identities: Id, Ego, and Super-Ego.
I offer that he was wrong and that we are but simply two; Animal and Spiritual.

The animal is the host--the vehicle for the spirit. This vehicle is doomed from the beginning
to an existence of only thirty thousand days or so....the spirit existed before, and will exist
after...


Have you ever been to the go-cart track? You stand there in line, watching, with your friends...

"I'm going to get number seven," you think, "...the one with the dented fender. It's fast."

But then one of your friends beats you to number seven and you get stuck with the raggedy number
four...
.
It turns out that number four has some excellent steering, and although it is dented up, you find
that you are a better driver than your friends, and you win.

Alas, the ride is over way too soon. Just as you were getting the hang of it, the red light comes on,
and the ride is over. One of your friends decides not to go this time around and sits one out. Then
as the queue comes up you find that your group is split for this turn and only half get to ride
together. This time you get stuck with the sexiest go-cart, fresh paint, and brand new. But,
alas again...this one's engine dies on the first lap...

...and so you go back to the queue and await another turn

Originally posted by rival
Most of us go about our daily lives without a thought as to what we are...or where we come from.
These questions are difficult and they have no concrete answers.

Freud asserted that we each have are three separate identities: Id, Ego, and Super-Ego.
I offer that he was wrong and that we are but simply two; Animal and Spiritual.

The animal is the host--the vehicle for the spirit. This vehicle is doomed from the beginning
to an existence of only thirty thousand days or so....the spirit existed before, and will exist
after...


Have you ever been to the go-cart track? You stand there in line, watching, with your friends...

"I'm going to get number seven," you think, "...the one with the dented fender. It's fast."

But then one of your friends beats you to number seven and you get stuck with the raggedy number
four...
.
It turns out that number four has some excellent steering, and although it is dented up, you find
that you are a better driver than your friends, and you win.

Alas, the ride is over way too soon. Just as you were getting the hang of it, the red light comes on,
and the ride is over. One of your friends decides not to go this time around and sits one out. Then
as the queue comes up you find that your group is split for this turn and only half get to ride
together. This time you get stuck with the sexiest go-cart, fresh paint, and brand new. But,
alas again...this one's engine dies on the first lap...

...and so you go back to the queue and await another turn

So I take it you believe in reincarnation? Can't say that I have ever seen any proof for it to be honest...

Now why can't we just be slightly more intelligent animals? Why the need to invent something supernatural or spiritual etc? Would it be so bad that we live and die and that is that?

reply to post by mee30

Why the need to invent something supernatural or spiritual etc?

I don't think I am inventing anything. My consciousness exists somehow. I'm just trying to understand
how.

You see, the thing is....the problem is....awareness, and consciousness.

It's the thing I keep stubbing my toe on when it comes to an atheistic (non-spiritual) view of the world.
Even if I look at life from a purely scientific standpoint consciousness is still an enigma. Here I am,
a cooperating conglomeration of trillions of individuals cells, a living host of bacteria and virus
and organisms and parasites all in symbiosis together and somehow, somewhere, in the midst of all this
mish-mash of biological goo, there is an awareness and a consciousness that is individually me.

A complete singularity of self-awareness.

So I step back and take a look from outside myself. I take a look at other entities like me, other animals and
insects and plants.

And it just doesn't add up. A piece of the puzzle is missing.

There is a feeling that I am not at all this animal that I am wearing. In me there is a disconnect. I don't
think many others see themselves as I do.

I see myself as two parts. One is animal, it is a finite and limited entity. It has a face and hands and toes
and feet. It came equipped with instincts and urges and needs and it will not last long.

The other part is me. This part spends ten years of life learning to control the robot it is sequestered
in. It spends another large chunk of years showing off how well it has learned to control this robotic
device. It must deal with the instincts and urges that this device cam equipped with, and end the
end it must vacate this host when it ceases to function.

That's the way I have perceived life for over a decade. When I look in the mirror, I don't see me, I see the
robot I am wearing. I realize I control this robot. I understand it gives me feedback in the form
of pain and pleasure and that I can control, to some degree, how I feel by understanding this.

And I have begun to see others the same way. Not so much what I see on the outside, but moreso
what is concealed beneath. the outside after-all is just a huge mass of cells piled together...it is
the host to the essence, the spirit, the soul.

I don't believe I am only this human body I inhabit. It doesn't make sense. To me life is an energy
spread throughout the universe. It is opportunistic and seeks a host to fill to become animate. It is
unseen and as unknown to us yet. It's only evidence is our unique and individual awareness of self.

The Nomad Flute
by W.S. Merwin

You that sang to me once sing to me now
let me hear your long lifted note
survive with me
the star is fading
I can think farther than that but I forget
do you hear me

do you still hear me
does your air
remember you
oh breath of morning
night song morning song
I have with me
all that I do not know
I have lost none of it

but I know better now
than to ask you
where you learned that music
where any of it came from
once there were lions in China

I will listen until the flute stops
and the light is old again






We...me, you...are, eternal. Your life on earth accounts for a mere split second of your eternal and infinite life...your time spent on earth is just an accident...you are just passing through...the electricity in your body lives on forever and it is thought that consciousness lies in this electricity...so, when your time is done here, you will once again be turned into light and travel as far as whatever out there goes...so, what type of energy will you contribute to this vast "electric universe"? Are you positive ...or negative. The laws of physics still apply.
Positivity will enable a rebirth...

So I step back and take a look from outside myself. I take a look at other entities like me, other animals and insects and plants. And it just doesn't add up. A piece of the puzzle is missing.

reply to post by rival


But a piece of the puzzle is not missing. When you look at other animals, insects and plants, you are seeing the answer, not just once, but trillions and trillions of times. Problem is, it's so frightening for some that they refuse to accept it.

We are of this planet, and we are made up of the exact same stuff as everything else on this planet. So, what does everything show us?

From bacteria to great whales, from moss to great redwood trees, the purpose for all is to be born, eat, increase in number, and die.

Though the process of achieving these goals may seem gruesome (like wolves killing a moose) the purpose is so simple that it's beautiful. No other creature has ever complained that there must be something more to life. Only we humans do that.

Eat, increase in number, and die. While doing this, don't forget to enjoy the hell out of it.

The go-cartstory f*ked up my mind

reply to post by AFewGoodWomen

We...me, you...are, eternal. Your life on earth accounts for a mere split second of your eternal and infinite life...your time spent on earth is just an accident...you are just passing through...the electricity in your body lives on forever and it is thought that consciousness lies in this electricity...so, when your time is done here, you will once again be turned into light and travel as far as whatever out there goes...so, what type of energy will you contribute to this vast "electric universe"? Are you positive ...or negative. The laws of physics still apply. Positivity will enable a rebirth...

Yes, I feel this way as well. There is some inherent truth to the yin and the yang, black and white,
positive and negative. It seems to me that life must strive for the positive, to try to always keep the
balance just a hair above the mid-point. That's all very ethereal and vague and even I don't know
what It really mean when I say it but...life is a continuation of energy. A push against entropy. An
attempt to stop the universe from becoming static and cold. Hell, if there is such a thing, must surely
be the absence of life and energy. A static, cold, dark place. Not the energy of fire and heat as told
in one of the religious books....light, heat and energy....that is where life exists

reply to post by jiggerj

But a piece of the puzzle is not missing. When you look at other animals, insects and plants, you are seeing the answer, not just once, but trillions and trillions of times. Problem is, it's so frightening for some that they refuse to accept it. We are of this planet, and we are made up of the exact same stuff as everything else on this planet. So, what does everything show us? From bacteria to great whales, from moss to great redwood trees, the purpose for all is to be born, eat, increase in number, and die. Though the process of achieving these goals may seem gruesome (like wolves killing a moose) the purpose is so simple that it's beautiful. No other creature has ever complained that there must be something more to life. Only we humans do that. Eat, increase in number, and die. While doing this, don't forget to enjoy the hell out of it.

Your entire post brings to my mind a different perspective. One from just off the planet a few thousand
miles above. A temperate planet, in just the right spot and with just the right conditions for the energy of
life to begin to animate itself. And I watch and observe, in a super speed time lapse for billions of years.
Interesting at first, as collisions of astral bodies and gravity and electromagnetism pull chunks together
and form this molten ball, and then another huge collision and a satellite is formed we call the moon.
and then a thousand million years more and the surface cools and the conditions for life (as we know it)
begin to be met and the suddenly life springs forth and becomes animate changing the color
of the surface back and forth and at times life is teeming and evolving and changing and then
in the last few seconds a small satellite streaks away from the planet then back down again, and another
vessel streaks to the moon. and several relatively small explosions occur on the surface---life test
firing its understanding of physics. And the surface changes even more, from lush and green to
brown and polluted and the atmosphere darkens and.....damn, I don't like this little movie in my head.
The ending is sad...

Yes. Yes it is. :-D

Life's just a ride, when you're the one in control.

I like the go cart analogy, I think similarly to that. And I also agree with Bill Hicks that life is just a ride, I'll take that a little further what is more important is that life is a journey made up with good and bad, up's and down's and the only thing that makes any sense at all to me is that we choose our lives in some in between place.
We come onto this earth, with challenges laid out for us, it's not about how much wealth you can accumulate as it's no good to you when you are dead, furthermore giving your accumulated wealth to your child stop's them from
having to battle and struggle to find their own identity, the journey is what is important not the destination.
When it's all said and done we travel through life in a borrowed meat suit which will go back to the earth, we wear clothes which will one day rot and go back to the earth, we struggle and battle to buy homes that wont exist in a few hundred years. We save money and put it in banks for a rainy day but it is only useful for the short time you are here.
Again, it's the journey that is important, Choices made and how you interact with your fellow man is what you will one day be judged on, not how much wealth that can be accumulated at the expense of others.

reply to post by rival


Yes you will be going around in circles until you AWAKEN. Sounds like you are searching and its time you break the cycle and step through the matrix and find yourself and your truth. Your higher consciousness is waiting for you, to show you a reality that is never ending and everything. You can do it if you want, your body simply need to hold you in this reality while you experience what it is that you need to. Time to stick your head through the cloud of unknowing and know.

reply to post by rival


Nice imagery, Rival. I sometimes look at the world from that perspective, too. Then I go forward even more, to no life left anywhere. No one to remember us, or even know that we once existed.

THAT'S why I say thee TOP TOP TOP PRIORITY of mankind is to find a way off this planet to colonize other planets and galaxies. I know I won't be remembered, but it still scares me that the universe will one day have no humans. It is such a hollow feeling.

I like the theory that life is like music or dance.

We thought of life by analogy was a journey, was a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end. And the thing was to get to that end. Success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing, or to dance, while the music was being played.

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