The Blackberry Walk

Consciousness it not something we own; consciousness is given to us on lease. Upon birth we sign our rental agreements with God, granting us the gift of consciousness for the short moment we're alive on this Earth. What gift does consciousness give us then? Without consciousness we couldn't see - although phenomena like blindsight demonstrate that the light of consciousness isn't needed to be able to see and comprehend the world. With consciousness we can feel, sense our desires, or, at the very least be "aware" of them. But with consciousness what do we become aware of? With consciousness, we become aware of the soul, the lush forest which sits deep within us, coming into awareness to guide us through the trials of life. The soul itself can be experienced as a sequence of phantasmagoric images coming into consciousness - a pipeline with the gods, whereby their royal ichor is dripped down as a river of warm syrup. As these images drip into consciousness, the body understands them as senses and feelings of frissons, tears, joy, anxiety, or whatever else. But at root exists the soul - the faintest but most beautiful singer of the choir. And unless we listen to the images it passes to us, we'll never figure out our route. Yet soul possesses but a faint image. Simply opening your eyes and seeing the outside world provides enough stimulus to drown out the soul's song. The ego too does a good job at suppressing the full force of the soul; the ego exists as diplomat to the world, and judges that the over-expression of soul in consciousness can only lead to an ineffectual adaptation. It is no wonder then that various breathing techniques such as meditation and chanting, alongside techniques such as hypnosis and Jung's active imagination, which all aim to suppress and weaken the ego, allow this flow of images to pass through us. The soul is finally allowed to speak. But it's hard to listen to the softly spoken soul when the stimuli of everyday life talk loudly over her, disrupting her, not allowing her to give the message she's trying to tell. But in truth it's no wonder we actively try to block out her voice in so many ways - despite her quiet nature, she doesn't always have nice things to say. The more we stray from her preferences as to how we should live, the more she inflicts sadness, guilt and various neuroses upon us. Instead of paying heedance to the message, we cover our ears to the soul and hope she goes away, only becoming less conscious, less fulfilled and less happy in the process. With phones, YouTube, podcasts, and whatever else your vice may be, we've produced a culture which distracts ourselves as best we can from soul, drowning out her quiet voice with the blaring, demanding shout of mass media. Instead of listening to the soul's river of warm syrup, we listen to the gushing sewage pipe of Facebook, Snapchat or TikTok which slowly toxifies our royal stream with excrement. Once curiosity, that instinct which compels us to watch torrents of junk media, was one of our greatest virtues, but now it is slowly becoming a sin. It is an instinct which has never needed bounding unlike the 'lower' instincts of lust and anger, which have always had protocols to prevent their misuse. But in time we'll have to add to the pantheon the eight deadly sin of curiosity - a gluttony of stimulus. Lest we become estranged to the soul's voice.