Do I limit my experience – on purpose?
In my bubble of limited awareness, although I believe I live with trillions of other beings, I alone live within my thoughts. Everything and everyone I experience in this dimension of limitation are literally and figuratively phantasms of my imagination. To me “they” are simply concepts in competition with other concepts. My perception of a walrus, for example, is a concept that competes with my concepts of everything else. I’ve limited my perception of this because it is not everything else.
Everywhere and whenever I notice, I’m faced with solid evidence of limited experience in the form of paradox. That is, nothing is as it appears – ever! Everything appears as a paradox of unreasonable reasons, illogical logic, timeless timeliness, and perceptions of lack in wholeness.
Adaptation = Limitation!
One explanation for this paradox comes from the theory of evolution. I perceive as I do as a result of millions of generations of adaptation to changing environment. Thanks to Mr. Newton, I now know that evolution follows the law of conservation of energy. Thus, it has keenly honed my senses to perceive me in relation to a limited number of needs-related aspects of my present environment. Rather than to compare me to ALL that is not me, I compare me with only that part of not me that I consider matters to me.
I don’t perceive EVERYTHING – even within the limited space of my own body. Just what I NEED to perceive in order to survive long enough to pass my genes along to the next generation. Those senses, skills, and education I don’t need or don’t use often enough fade away. That’s evolution through adaptation.
Attention = Limitation!
In this way, my mind considers every thing, person, or place as a concept. To manage the perpetual competition among these concepts, and to avoid overwhelm, I limit the number I’ll attend to at any one time. That’s intentional limitation!
Evolution, then, is the result of a paradox in which one must limit their sensual and conceptual life experience in order to fully live.
Purpose = Limitation!
Perhaps the purpose of my life is not the achievement of wholeness – a paradox in that one cannot achieve what one already is. Rather, maybe my life’s purpose is to notice the enjoyment I get from the paradox of limitation by design.
