"The Humbling of Idealism"

Observations of a Defining Moment

By J.W.Gruber

The moment came and went with all the subtly of a train wreck. That moment of innocence when you go from thinking that you had some sort of magic that protected you and your family to recognizing the harsh reality that you barely exert any effect on the workings of your own life let alone the impenetrable armor that you try to and want to desperately apply to your children.

Defining moments happen all the time in various degrees and their subtle influential powers go pretty much unnoticed. Granted that a defining moment is relative to the perception of its participants, there is a category that every creature that has ever existed and will ever exist has in common. It is that the energy field that we all see reality through does and will always change. Change is the death of moments and the fertile soil of futures. We change lives like we change frequencies on the radio, looking for that station that either fits our mood energy or clashes. We visit each other within the band of frequencies that exemplify the probabilities of the ideals that we are driven to. The defining moment of real change occurs only when we are faced with events that we are powerless to change. We are left with a profound feeling of helplessness. A moment of such clarity because the line that is drawn is undeniably real and at the same time such chaos because we just don’t want to accept it. You can not run from it and there is no hiding place that will make it go away. It must be accepted against a full force of rejection. It is the death of future moments. A change in the course of living that abruptly closes one door and leaves only the hope that another one opens on the other side. When a defining moment comes knocking in the middle of the night it does not call first to see if you are ready to receive visitors. It pounds at your door and demands entrance. There is nothing that prepares you, no belief system can shield you. You waver in its presence trying desperately to maintain your balance as the flame of your life flickers against the death of future moments.

There is no void in time, space and life. The emptiness is just the recognition of change. The death of future moments is not the emptiness in a vacuous void. It is the change of probabilities. Reaching the boundaries of the known and crossing. What is left behind is not empty and is not reduced in any capacity. It is the tiny chick breaking through the wall of its shell. When we are ready we will all break through the shell that confines us and find new challenges outside exhausted potentials.

Choice after choice a path is laid and energy is used to lay the course. A web is built and within each strand of silk is the strength and weakness of the individual's probabilities. One strand of silk alone stands little chance of holding a lion but if there were enough cooperation even an elephant would have to yield to its strength. Moment by moment we lay new ideals down on paths of old and unvanquished dead ends. Building up layer upon layer the unresolved conflicts of choices veil the very essence of what we are looking for, the very essence of what we are born to pursue, the real truth. Each path requires an abundance of maintenance leaving trails like electrical cords back to the sources of the events that seeded them. Life becomes prioritized by the new maintenance and the old. New connections are tied into old, putting a strain on the load baring potential and forging failures with conflicting compromises.

Are we all hardwired to our own compromising insecurities and if not then where is the choice and how do I get there? My thoughts and philosophies are a proportioned reflection against the energy fields that I engage during all waking hours and probably sleeping too. When I, as the entity, am required to make a decision, I rely totally on the cause and effects of everything that I have ever known. Since the physical dimensions of the body are nothing more than a visual of each event then the newborn soul must have a source! The point of reference for its entry into a new found energy field cannot occur as just a total blank. By its very ability to be it must have a field of beginning. The sources of beginnings are themselves larger sources of beginnings. The new challenge of a new life is an adventure into the unknown but not unknowable. The miscible stabilization is reflected in the presentation of the entity. Species adapt and grow or cease to exist.

What is difficult to understand though is the power that is used to get from point A to point B. The"obvious" is only obvious because of an agreed upon set of rules and circumstances that are only good until a new set of rules replaces the now old and unusable ones.

And so it is with my decision making abilities. I can follow only one direction and that is the same direction that every single creature does, to choose the decision that we believe is the correct decision. We all share this powerful force as a matter of coercion because all decisions are based upon the continuance, the evolvement, the stabilization of our entity of which we are apart as well as a part.

At what point does free will come in. If I make moral judgements, are they not the judgmental opinions of others? When I choose not to steal, am I making a choice or has it been made for me in the perpetual continuance of my own miscible interaction? I would like to believe that I am in the control tower with full responsibilities but how many times have I done what I believed to be correct only to have the results totally opposing. If a decision is made based entirely on what one perceives to be true and finds the results to be diversely opposed, where then can we find sanctity! Even when the results appear to be positive, it is still the same dilemma, the expectations for results are diversely opposed. The reasons are so obscure, so elusive as to challenge the very idea that there is a reason.

To have reason one must have control, the ability to exercise a choice. To reason out a choice one must conclude that one choice is better than the other. The qualifications for what constitutes "better" are predetermined by the infusion of life into the field of pre-life. The establishment of cause and effect data stimulates an active updating. This is the perception of guidance. If decisions are guided by reasoned choice that can only follow guidance, where is the individual ego? Does it actually exist?

We sit here (or stand if you prefer) and have these unanswerable questions that seem to need answers and yet everything goes on anyway, so what is the point. We are confined to our predisposition to know. You cannot know what is not known until you already know it. Nobody suspected that the world was flat until someone, somewhere, "knew" it! And when it became round, well someone had to know that too! The groundwork that is prepared is subtle. It grows steadily from the defining moments when we choose to believe one thing over another. Slowly defined patterns emerge, gaining strength as they influence the next moment with their propensity to become. The magnitude of the defining moment seems to diminish as regularity is established. What was a big event the first time it occurred is continually reduced in importance because of the cause and effect of survival. The events still maintain their impact, however, and the less that they are noticed the stronger they become. Kind of ironic that as we choose to view an event with less importance it actually becomes more important. It is not difficult to avoid the first raindrop that falls from the sky during a storm but it is difficult to avoid them all. When you become completely drenched with water you do not recognize the raindrops, just the wetness. The wetness causes a decision by the collective force of individual raindrops; do I want to be wet or dry? The action is preconditioned. It is one of survival and only gives the illusion of sensible choice.

I do not want to give up the choosing but isn’t it even more incredible that I do not want to give up the illusion either. Each has its common ground; there is no choice. We are just the after glow of events. By the time we recognize an event happening right before our eyes, it has already taken place. The registration on our brains is simply the symbolic analysis of contact with an energy field in miscible motion. In other words by the time we see things they have already ceased to exist in their own moment. Everything is in motion, expanding out and in at the same time. On the one hand this cancels out the idea of time but on the other hand every event has a beginning and an end and can therefore be measured. Since time is just a measurement of the distance between a beginning and an end then time must exist. That is all time is, a measure of the distance between events. An event being defined as either the release of energy or the gain. Every interaction causes a change in our life force. We have the opportunity in every situation to give up or take in energy. When an argument takes place it a power struggle. Two fields of energy trying to feed on each other. Both are battling to impress superiority on each other and to secure a deathblow to the other’s ego and thus by dominating the argument absorb the released energy. Convincing an opponent might have the righteous flavor of helpfulness to them but in actuality it is nothing more then an empowering of our own insecure egotism. We argue because we believe that we know what is best for ourselves as well as others. How can we possibly know what is best for others when we barely have any idea what is best for ourselves? What we do think is best for ourselves is of course a jaded speculation. Through our own eyes we view our life events. Through the eyes of imperfection we reason the world around us. There is only one way to proceed and it is always flawed. A human being cannot make a judgement that is not directly and undeniably a product of it’s own imperfections. Has anyone, anywhere ever met another human being who was perfect? The probability is remote at best. Let’s say for the sake of discussion that such a person existed. There would be an insurmountable problem with any communications. Perfection can only communicate within perfection. Every one of us who reside outside perfection can only filter it through our own imperfection. The translation can only be imperfect. How could you even know perfection? You cannot of course but you can think and believe that you do. That doesn’t make it true. If you believe it to be true it is, but only for you and of course that is precisely what makes it imperfect.

There is a great dilemma that we face in our daily existence here on this plane of reality. We are in a perpetual motion of change, an evolution of providing for the stabilization and continuance of what we believe. Yet everything we believe is an illusion of facts. I can’t even provide convincing scientific evidence that I exist from moment to moment but here I am! You can pinch me, you can shake me, you can throw a bucket of cold water on me but the results will still be the same. What you will witness is your interpretation of the event, just sensory input being analyzed and categorized and then symbolically placed in an acceptable format. Once the event is over its form can only be categorized as a memory. Memories are not real things are they? If the future is an expectation based on the perception of the past and the past is just an interpretation of an event becoming a memory then what is the reality of the present?

The present exists as a focus of perception. Because we hold our attention on this one point of reference it solidifies into the appearance of reality. It takes our total attention to hold it in place and there is no way to clearly and definitively interpret anything outside of its focus. The very shape that is held by a glass is the complete focus of an idea, a thought. Its atoms are a vibrant energized force, held in place by the totality of the attention given to them. The glass maintains just enough field strength to serve its function. A question comes to mind. Does the glass still exist after it has passed from memory, total memory? The answer is NO! If there is no longer any memory it does not exist. How can it with no one there to remember?

And so, does that mean that we only exist as long as there is a memory of us? But of course, but not quite. Lets see, you were not thought of until you were conceived. You were thought of a lot when you were alive. But after you are gone the thoughts that held you tightly and securely are instantly shattered. The realm of the "living" is a very selfish club. It holds on with tenacity to its own while the memories stay on like a photograph of a beautiful place that you’ve been but can’t ever go back to. No matter how much you love someone it will never be enough to bring a memory to life. As the decades and centuries pass all memories disappear from the present and cease to exist at which point they still exist in the unknown. So that must mean that there are at least two distinct realms of life, the known and the unknown. When you cease to exist in the known you begin to exist in the unknown. What is the unknown? For one thing it is real, as real as the known. It is also true that all known things reside in the unknown and all unknown things are known. Where we identify our "event happening" existence is from the boundaries of the unknown measured as an equation of beginning and end. It is remembered when it is over by its influence of association, diminishing with eroded distance.

Have you ever stood there on the edge of insanity and wondered which side of the definition you were really on? It’s an interesting place to do a reality check. On the one hand you have sanity defined as within the e boundaries of non-deviant behavior. Behavior that conforms to the rules and statutes of a system that is the opinion on right and wrong of someone other than you yourself. A majority rule moralism that insists on its acceptance while it breaks down secretly to a set of rules that lay in the individual's ability to decide. All rules of the individual are followed according to the degree in which they are self-serving. It cannot be any other way. Even the most sincere approach cannot cross this barrier. We as entities, atomic engines of time and space, always decide in favor of what we believe to be right in the moment that we decide it. IT is ingrained in the very nucleus of our chemical fabric and the fabric of the fabric. We are miscible energy fields immersed in miscible energy fields. The continuance of the reaction of life is motivated by its perpetual need to dissipate into a more stabilized field. A conforming of energy use that seeks out efficiency as its only true goal.

S o you stand on the edge of a decision and try to decide which is right and which is wrong. Which is deviant which is not. Which side of insanity do you dwell in? If you follow a set of dogma that demands that you conform to its rules, it is in fact demanding that you perform an insane act. Any act that is made up of a bunch of rules and regulations that are outside of you, is an act of insanity as defined by "it is insane to act in opposition to what you believe." The only truth is known only in the interpretation of the individual, purely in a physical sense of course. The real truth resides exclusively in the unknowable.

We are, after all, just deciphering interpretations of what we see. We are not truth. We can seek it but we cannot be it. We exist only as the after effect of events, not the events themselves. An event happens, it is registered in our brain, put together in as close of a recognizable form as we have the tools to do, and then we acknowledge it and it becomes "real". Then of course the "real" is replaced by the next event happening and the once "real" is past into memory and then fades into oblivion.

The deciphering code that we use is of course unique to each one of us. It filters out the acceptable (that which we identify with) from the unacceptable (that which we are pre-conditioned to reject). It creates what can be called a "paradigm". You view the world through a particular set of accepted rules and can see no other until the accepted is rejected and the rejected is accepted. Only one program can be running at a time. When two programs try to run at the same time they cancel each other out. What this shows us is that while our one program is running, there are others running at the same "time" that are just as real, just as important, as our one program. We just happen to be watching one channel instead of another. Are you watching Bugs Bunny or CNN etc? You are what you eat so to speak but its not eating we’re talking about, it’s thinking. If you believe in something strong enough to motivate your whole life around it then you become it because you believed you would. That doesn’t mean that its measure can be taken by the degree in which others re-enforce your success (money, fame, public opinion). The fact that you believe it to be true won’t in itself make you a great singer or an engaging author. You might very well stink at anything you choose and that is just a comparison against the weight of opinion anyway. Opinion wouldn’t matter one tiny bit at all if you are motivated to be what you are, not someone else. That is the paradigm, the focus of your belief system to see what you believe to be there as opposed to what someone else is telling you.

From the moment you are born you are shaped and molded into becoming someone else. It is no wonder that there is so much mental anguish in the world. Entering the world you are fresh and new and are full of energy that doesn’t know boundaries. There are no paradigms at birth. They are slowly and relentlessly programmed in with the entire yes and no’s of our individual environments. The cause and effect, action and reaction, heaven and hell fundamentalism that builds a data base from which we can assess a problem are the very essence of how we get to be where we are at this very moment. Reading these words we are each at the mercy of where we have been in our ability to decipher that code that is written in these words. There are more than just words here on this page. These are more than just letters grouped together to keep each other company. The letters are symbols, that is true and when grouped together in different ways they create new symbols. When the symbols are linked with other symbols their meaning is altered even further but even with the best laid words there is still something more. There is still something that the words don’t convey. It is the energy of the thought that is being thought. It kind of hangs out beneath and behind the mere ink on paper. It is what is being said as opposed to what is being heard. Each letter of each word is not just a stagnant pool of atoms. The atoms are held in place by the strength of the belief system. Each and every atom resonates with the thought that created it and placed it in the containment of a word. In its most complete understanding a word will always fall short of a thought as a thought will fall short of a feeling. Each stage of expression is at best a shadow of its birth. An Englishman says hello to a German who says hello to a Frenchman who says hello to a Jamaican etc., they all get the general idea but the direct translation gets a healthy dose of the interpreter’s embellishment.

A thought generates an idea that generates a word. The word sits on a page ready and willing to express itself. A reader approaches the word and anticipates its meaning. The word gives of itself freely and completely but it cannot make itself understood without the reader’s co-operation. A word can only be read with compliance to the reader’s ability to understand it. You can’t know what you are not prepared to know. In the case of words on a page, the meaning starts to diminish the moment it is translated from the unknown feeling into the realm of the known word. You can never know what someone is thinking. You can only know what YOU think they are thinking. It is a very handy thing to remember. The next time someone says or does something that is disagreeable to you remember that they are interpreting the same source but their programming assembles the symbolism in a different format. That doesn’t make it right or wrong, just different!

What is the big deal? Why struggle against it? Life happens whether you like it or not. Life happens whether you want it to or not. Life is what we all are as individuals, collectively! The only problem is that we view it from the withdrawn seclusion of a clouded mountaintop. When we are born we are infused with the contradictions of our surroundings. As a baby we are coddled and taught that we are important. This is good because it does not conflict with what we already know. The more that our social circle of influence increases as we grow less we are reinforced with our self-importance. It is necessary that self-importance is secure but not domineering. We all need to believe that it is important that we are here. We have a purpose. Because we exist it makes a difference. The self-imploded reasoning that is used is nothing more than a colorful expression of how frustrated we are at our inability to define the truth. The struggle to secure our self-identity is in constant opposition. The influence of the day allows for deviation only when the deviation serves its self-interest. The rest is pure illusion. If you support the idea of individuality but not individuality itself you can con the masses and control much of the physical and spiritual wealth. As long as the focus is there the pure illusion will maintain its control. The moment that the focus changes, its ability to maintain the illusion also changes. The probabilities grow and with their growth the requirement of energy. The further from the source the less pure the focus. Energy reaching out interacts with other sources. The interaction creates its own new set of probabilities. Sets of rules must be devised to assemble the new sources into a symbolic identity that conforms to our already existing format. Energy must be expended to accommodate the drain of interactions processing. Time + focus = energy requirements of the responsibility. The physical patterns of living that are needed to continue the line of thought are the subtle motivators of each and every decision. If your interactions in your life bring you to the conclusion that it is a priority of being who you are to drive a new car then your life will be influentially directed towards the activities that are needed to attach your energy to a new car. You must direct a proportion of your supply of energy towards not only the acquiring of a new car but also the maintaining and interactive probabilities that come along with it. Even when you are not out driving you must still expend a proportional amount of energy towards the focus of energy that maintains that car as a "reality". The job base, the people that you come in contact with, friends, lovers etc. are all either influences of or influenced by every focussed energy that we are or will be. Part of the illusion is that there is an empowering that takes place when we attach ourselves to things. An invisible force that is barely noticed until the object of our focus is removed from our perceived possession. In those defining moments it is possible to intuit the void. The umbilical cord that was once attached to the source of focussed attention is now unplugged. There is no longer a valid pathway for energy to flow. Like trying to toast bread in an unplugged toaster, you can remember how the bread is supposed to toast and you can even follow the same motions of making it work but the reality of it becoming toast remote if not non-existent. Everything that we attach ourselves to requires energy flow. Every energy flow is a circuit that is open in both directions. When you try to gain energy out side of yourself, you must give up energy. All the energy you will ever need to be alive is already there in you. Everything else just clouds the potential and alters the probabilities. The use of your own energy is tied up completely in maintaining the machine that you have thought yourself into being. Every object, every thought, every reason that you are what you are requires the assignment of a source of energy. Where does it come from? I think that it is more important to think in terms of the best way to utilize its potential than to spend its precious commodity on trying to know what already knows itself! Where it comes from is beyond the reason of our dictionary of symbolic understanding. Any attempt to catagorize, analyze, rationalize or any other descriptive will always fall short. Some things are just purely unknowable. Think about it, how can you know something that has its total understanding in a "language" outside the symbols that not only unrecognizable but doesn’t even exist in our present definitions? Before you can learn any language, French, German, English etc. there has to be a point of which you agree upon the recognition of something, anything. A symbol, a sound, a feeling something that creates a link to another of communication. A base must be laid before the structure can be built. If you have no base then you have no potential. Nothing can happen until the potential is there and once the potential exists everything within its realm will be explored. Potential does not mean inert. If you cannot assemble the information flow in a recognizable format then it cannot be communicated. If you don’t have the tools …… Let’s say for example someone gives you a box full of different shapes and tells you that your questions will be answered when you plug all the shapes into their corresponding slots but the corresponding slots are completely different than anything in the box. They tell you that this is the only format that there is to work with. How can you answer anything to its true definition? You cannot. The best that you can do is to place the pieces into positions that match up as closely as your own interpretation will allow. After accomplishing that task you then make up a definition of the questions answer that best suits the interpretation that you yourself have laid out. Is the truth revealed? No. Have you learned anything? No. So what’s the point! Maybe just a useless egotistical event that’s all. Kind of like this is. Life itself does not ask for permission. It happens all by itself. It is difficult if not impossible to even prove that it exists let alone prove the hows and whys. While we are here we can’t see the other side and who knows if you can see anything here if you are on the other side? Those who have returned from death are only able to tell their story based exclusively on the format of being here. Does that in any way, shape, or form resemble where they had been? Its impossible to know because we can only judge reality based upon the perception of here and now using the interpretive tools of here and now. There is a physics problem that comes to mind that is appropriate here. Every machine that is designed and built to measure events is exclusive to the event that it was designed to measure. There is only one point of reference, the reference to which it was designed. The information that is gathered cannot exceed the boundaries of that which it was designed to detect. It is in fact only capable of knowing what it was programmed to know and that of course is speculative at best. You can measure point A and measure point B and every point in between but all you have is a predetermined accounting of a predetermined intent. Nothing else can be known unless you design another predetermined devise to measure another intent. I think that this is a great analogy of the paradox of what it means to be alive. We measure life within the design reference of our predetermined intent!

A thought occurred today that questioned the relative evolution of our self-righteous and elevated human form. According to everything I know about evolution (elementary at best) a need to perpetuate arises and meets the challenge of its environment. Survival and continuance are based on the ability to adapt to the conditions or perish. Our physical make up is based on what worked in the past against what works in the present against what is presumed to be the future. Anything that is not needed will be retooled or eliminated altogether. Why then have our brains gotten smaller and why is there such a huge discrepancy in the used portion versus the unused portion? How does evolution as we know it account for a twenty five percent reduction in volume (approximately speaking) from an evolutionary line that couldn’t survive. And furthermore how is it that we only use such a small portion of what we do have? In evolution doesn’t the need drive the development? Why would nature develop anything that wasn’t absolutely required for survival? Does a big brain develop first and then a need arises? That’s not the way it works is it? Does the horse really come before the cart? Isn’t evolution supposed to be about the need motivating the development? That doesn’t seem to be the case here if you believe that we are the result. Are we evolution in reverse or is there more to our historical ancestry than we are presently aware? When one and one don’t add up and produce two then I get a red flag that requires a valid explanation. That which I am capable of knowing I can strive to know and that which doesn’t conform to the rules I must question their authenticity.

What does any of this have to do with defining moments you might be asking at this point? Well a defining moment is based on the recognition of a true experience of being alive. A moment when you are touched in the most profound way and it gives you pause to measure, not in terms of the intellectual but in terms of reality. The symbolism is not important because it just represents the limits of the human condition. It can range the full spectrum of what an individual can creatively produce. It can be anything from an earthquake to a handshake. The moment is a self-realization and is realized in the foggy gray area of the self. A moment that crosses the boundaries of awareness and causes chaos in the accepted perception. So, the whole idea of who we think we are is ruled by where we think we come from and why. If you are a fundamentalist then the whole meaning of your life is ruled by the perception that five or six thousand years ago two humans were beamed down to the garden of Eden where they proceeded to create mankind from a gene pool of two. On the other hand if you believe in evolution then we are all descended from the winners of the evolutionary monkey race who had the smaller brains and used less then ten percent win! Does it take less brainpower to "know" more? It would appear that there is a discrepancy in what is considered the truth on both sides of its interpretation. What is it that you want to believe and why are the tools of the machine that we have each designed for ourselves so that we can measure the "event happening", life? Like any well thought design, we can operate with complete confidence and accuracy but only within the confinements of the tools that we are built with. The measure of real truth is when it fills every cup and leaves no one thirsty. I must repeat this once more as to bring closure to this rambling thought……. The measure of real truth is when it fills every cup and leaves no one thirsty……