(This began as a reply which became more of a rant w/o the rant then it developed into an essay that ended up what it is "Being." The reference to one Gerald McBoing Boing is my 'being' an empty mind unable to find a title that was suitable. So even that developed into the final title as it appears. Let us begin -)
Clocks, smocks, phlox... when one comes to the realization that time keepers are inventions of our mind's insistence to know what time is and how do we determine it's measurement - nano-seconds, seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, years, decades...? and so mind continues to tick off the moments in search for what these moments are and how to measure their distance between each moment.
Meanwhile life is continuing all around us far, far longer than the hu'man has been on this single rock spinning around a Sun that sustains not only we hu'mans but all of life and has been very successful at doing just that - living... not concerned with measuring moments. Why? We all live and we all die, some in hours, others in days while some live to be in their hundreds, i.e. they live long enough to spin around the sun 100 times plus, and what has been gained in the end? One homo sapiens lived lived longer than another homo sapiens on the same planet, breathing the same air, drinking the same water while using the same body parts such as hands and fingers, arms and legs and same genitalia to reproduce... and quite successfully it has turned out... life and death happens or as is it said : "shit happens."
We make time as we make economics or philosophies. We make our religions and sciences based upon what we have accumulated through our senses and the limitations of those senses. Our knowledge is sense-bound, i.e. we cannot learn what we do not see, touch, smell, taste or hear. Because our knowledge is matter-based (even our thoughts are 'matter-based', the physical world)... it is built upon what we know about things and 'stuff' that our senses have "sensed" about the world around us.
Mind is responsible for all that we have assimilated to date of the world and a few other planets within our own solar system. We can measure that and conclude that our knowledge is only significant to our minds. What about our Being..?
I hear you asking, "what do you mean about 'being?'" which is exactly what all of us do when confronted with that one simple word, Being. Until we attain a full grasp of what 'being' is and how to be a 'being' we will continue debating and opining on the mundane world that means so much to us... and believe it, hu'manity is the ONLY species upon this planet that gives a shit about the mundane world. We only care about ourselves on this rock. Period. Everything we have learned, everything we have become knowledgeable about is for our own good... 'mind food'. What we are doing to this world of which we should be stewards of, is destructive and yet we instinctively "know" it but we do not live it. We are not Beings but rather we are struggling to be that which instinct continues delivering to us. But after all the measured moments we have been upon this rock, (and we are the youngest species), and all the knowledge we have gained and shared, we still are unable to Be.... to know our true selves. Mind is not interested in our true Self, it is only concerned in it's own direction and even that! we do not know.
We speak a good talk about "freedom" and have sought this concept perhaps all our existence but yet, in spite of all the knowledge we have accumulated throughout hu'man history, we are no closer to understanding Being... our Being. We give tremendous credence to intellect... we reward it, give it moneys, give it statuettes, we write books and make documentaries about it, we honor intellect as one would a God but what has it provided the people of the earth? It is not intellect that coexists with wisdom. That is a false belief. Intelligence is the one true cohort of Wisdom.
Intelligence is within ... it is a gift of life like breathing... it keeps us alive. If we lack intelligence, we become a ward of the people who is clueless even if they are able to count to 1,000 or bake a cake... if we know from reading books or we know from hearing others ideas and opinions and we can repeat those things, society and even the learned considers that to be smart. But it isn't intelligence! It's amazing memory and in some cased that memory uses what it learns to repeat it to others so other can remember those things.
"Those things"... those things are outside us. "Those things" are not intelligence but intellect, the ability to remember and use those remembered things to better society. But that is not intelligence and definitely it is not wisdom. If we are cognizant enough and observe the world and people around us, we will find that there are many wise souls who are not intellectual. They have an innate sense about the world and the goings on around them.
[.... if you the reader has made it this far, you're tired of reading and I am tired of writing. It's Christmas Day for chrissakes!! I'll continue later down the line if there is any interest]
Thanks for 'being here' as it will in all likelihood be the last Stream of this year.
Cecil B. Lee aka mtmynd