I Am An Ape

I Am An Ape

I am an ape. That’s for sure. You too. Well, at the very least we are riding around in an ape body and experiencing reality with an ape brain with apish tendencies. If I slip on a banana peel I can break my tailbone and experience a pain in the arse. If I slip in my relations with other apes I can get a headache or perhaps I can be a pain in the arse. It’s all very complex apishness, these bodies and minds. The numerous variables of complex ape psychology are hard to comprehend. Yet, we are tied in for now to this primal primate set of limitations.

And that’s what the human experience is, a complex set of primate limitations experiencing a small fraction of reality and cursed by the certainties we have about it. Even the elevated and enlightened minds among us remain attached to the dear apeness we think we experience as the truth. Our highly regarded certainties sit on dynamic display through our human expressions into the frantic collective of other humans (society), and the display case is sometimes impenetrable. In some cases it is bullet-proof or even bomb-proof to allow no tampering with this prized “truth” we think we possess.

This is where the wild party gets started: in the colliding of rigid truths. And wild parties can get out of control in a second. A guy looks at another guy’s girl (his possession) and shirts suddenly fly off and grunting and flailing begins. Some would call this a “fight”, but a fighter would call this an absurd mess, as if Mozart were witnessing a Justin Beiber concert. Nonetheless, a melee has ensued and the crowd reacts in its various ways: some frightened, some appalled, some joyfully entertained.

Is that uncivilized behavior? I suppose alcohol fueled mayhem can be construed as uncivilized, but it is the same complex ape-like social operations we can see even at the highest levels of society. This is because it is all primate reactions. Don’t be fooled by the uprightness and fancy words. We are a highly out of control species compounded by complexities on top of complexities.

However, the elevated mind and even the heathenous mind having brief moments of clarity can transcend these primal reactions. At least the reactionary behavior can be reduced or applied appropriately or sensibly. Each moment offers something to jolt us into or out of these foolish guardings of erroneous certainty which is supported by the tricks of our own mind. It is a choice that can be made, but only if we see that our perspective of reality is not all reality; that many factors are ignored by our opinions of truth. Once the walls of certainty collapse new growth is possible, like letting sunlight into a room full of dying plants. And we are dying. We are suffering a long slow social and psychological demise, because time has moved forward without us. We’ve hung on to our “truths” for far too long.

Ok, Laren, since you seem to know it all….

Wait a minute, I know nothing. That’s what this is all about!

….why don’t you tell us what to do?

There’s the problem: this ape mentality of thinking we need to be led, or thinking that we need to lead.