The View from the Mountaintop

If you’re someone who wants to figure out the fickleness of human nature, then perhaps there’s no better place to start than with our sense of the sacred. Or actually, to start with what we find profane – a desecration, a violation. There are many strange examples of this. One is the reaction people have to strange clothing – or the lack of clothing altogether. Or perhaps it’s a person’s race or sexual orientation that offends. A person thus offended will get angry in often a completely incoherent way. The pre-frontal cortex is by-passed and they emit strange utterances straight from the reptilian brain! We could say, it’s pure emotion – a visceral sense of outrage and violation. If only – we might speculate – if only people got as upset as this by war, torture, rape, cruelty and the like. For these really are violations of the sacred – the sacredness of human life. But no! Often we are outraged by the trivial and indifferent to truly global problems. What to make of this? Well, so often we are led into believing that we are sensible creatures who seek positive outcomes for ourselves and others via reasonable means such as education, employment, careful financial planning and deferred gratification. We are – on this view – primarily rational beings. We learn and observe, we consider and then we decide how best to act. But the angry gibberings of someone outraged by some trivial thing – well, that paints a different picture. There’s a sequence of things that defines how we REALLY see the world. The sequence goes – SENSATION, PERCEPTION, IMPULSE, IMAGE, SYMBOL. In many ways it’s a disturbing sequence, and I’d like to try and explain it a little in this essay and to try to draw some conclusions. As an aside, it’s worth noting that the sequence also occurs in many other creatures besides the human – with the exception of SYMBOL. IMAGE occurs in only a few creatures besides our own. But SENSATION, PERCEPTION, IMPULSE – they occur in all creatures we would properly call conscious. So let’s start with SENSATION. The word is used here to mean not only information reaching us by our five senses, but also our inner emotional state. But, as the reader is probably aware, we are flooded with sensations every moment of every day. Perhaps all of them are registered in some way, but there needs to be a filtering process to stop us being overwhelmed. Hence, PERCEPTION. PERCEPTION, in the sequence, is again used in a particular way. Normally we might claim to start with our perception of the world and might see perception to be some kind of cool and dispassionate assessment of facts as they present themselves to us through our senses. But no. The sequence suggests that there’s a filter that picks out – and not in any rational way – the sensations that we are going to choose to pay attention to. Perhaps there are deeper reasons for why we pick out certain sensations over others – perhaps evolutionary reasons. But the important thing is that this is pre-rational – it is not a considered assessment or a detached observation – it is deeply emotional and visceral. And hence, IMPULSE. We do not act, we RE-ACT. In other words, we play out habitual responses to perceptions, which, in turn, we’ve become attuned to focus out of all the sensations that reach us. We are not AGENTS at this point, we are mindless – and often very angry – puppets of our emotions and of our body in general. The body leads – always and only – the body leads. Grief, fear and despair come from the mind – reflected back into the body – and there they are often stuck. The body’s response is as if the hurts are happening physically, and in the here and now. If we want to be morally responsible and sensible people, then I can only suggest that we take on board the overwhelming influence of body and emotions as being who we mostly are. But things get better! Next we have IMAGE. Here, at last, is something that sets us apart as fully conscious animals that can reflect on their actions. But, of course, very often the actions have already taken place! Very often our actions have been of the IMPULSE variety. And even if they have not been especially angry or violent – nevertheless, they’ve been blind and habitual. A lot of IMAGE is thus about telling ourselves that what we have done is okay! We were right to respond in the way we did. We were justified! IMAGE is that voice in our heads that tries to make sense of what we’ve already done. IMAGE leads naturally into SYMBOL. SYMBOL is our spoken and written voices that again, very often, try to justify our behaviour. Given that we’re so driven, is their any hope? The first glimmer of hope is that those two final steps in the progression – IMAGE and SYMBOL – provide a kind of feedback loop. They can generate sensations in us that are not generated purely by our immediate circumstances and emotional state. This, in turn, opens a little gap – at that critical juncture between PERCEPTION and IMPULSE. There is a hope that we will not simply RE-ACT, by impulse. There is a hope that we can be true agents of our actions – reflective agents. There is a hope that we might actually see the world in terms of TRUTH, MEANING, VALUES and MORALITY – the way we had been fooling ourselves that we were seeing the world all along! Something, though, is troubling here – before we even get into questions about what to do about the dominance of the progression I've been exploring and what it means for our lives. That something is perhaps more of a modern obsession rather than something that’s been with us for centuries or is part of human nature. Let’s call it AUTHENTICITY. Let me put the problem like this. If it’s true that we really are led by our bodies and our emotions, then isn’t the AUTHENTIC way of being in the world simply to accept this and to continue acting on impulse, and then responding to this by a continual process of self-justification? Put this way, perhaps it’s more obvious how hideously unsocialised such a person would be! I leave it to the reader to decide how common or uncommon this might be. But still, isn’t it at least authentic? Is there not something a bit suspect in taking up the reflections of our own past experiences and the testimonies of others through literature, music and art and trying to modify our behaviour accordingly? The problem is intensified by the fact that we have criticism of the dilemma that point both ways! Sartre pointed out that ‘authenticity’ is itself a learned behaviour that society tries to impose on us – so it is robbed of the spontaneity and freedom that it seemed to promise. Meanwhile, Foucalt suggested that interpretation of our feelings – what I’ve described as reflection leading to more considered action in the world – is another learned behaviour that society tries to impose. Is there a way out? To get a handle on this we need to take a big step back. Let’s ask, what is it that makes people try to behave in ways that are different from the impulses that result from the progression we’ve been examining? And we might also ask why we might choose to act in certain ways for reasons other than just to conform to the customs and mores of the society in which they happen to live? Well, we could start by saying that there are lots of alternative types of truth out there that we might pick from – ranging from religion to atheism and from spirituality to hard science. We, most of us, will pick a truth and that truth will often lead us to hold certain values. Then the values will suggest to us what is a good way to live on a personal level – an ethic – and how to deal with other people, with society, nature and the planet. But, of course, the really troubling thing is that different people choose different truths, different ideas of what constitutes meaning in the world, and hence different views on ethics and morals. And add to this perhaps the most perplexing thing about the universe in general – it seems to suggest perfection, but at the same time it seems structurally unable to deliver perfection – it always appears flawed – at least from our human perspective. As such, all types of truth-seeking run up against this fundamental dilemma. Even religion – which usually promises more comprehensive solutions than either science or spirituality – seems to have to face up to this fundamental dilemma. Enter – at last – the view from the mountaintop. There is something – perhaps a brain-state, or perhaps something genuinely spiritual – that is often called the mountaintop experience. It is a trance-like state, where the world is experienced as One – a harmonious and joyful condition of interbeing. The person having this experience loses, for a time, any sense of self – feels as if they are part of everything – feels out of time – feels they are seeing the universe from the perspective of eternity. A God’s eye view. It would be wonderful if such an experience could be brought about on demand! (And perhaps, dear reader, you’re already thinking of various methods right now!) But, generally speaking, it happens only as a result of deep meditation or as just a random event that can happen to anyone, at any time. The point I’m trying to make here is – not whether or not such an experience is ‘genuine’ or not – but instead, just the plain fact that we could, any of us, at any time, find ourselves sate on that mountain, looking out at the world as a glorious and harmonious timeless reality, where that crucial paradox of perfection is resolved. So now, where are the alternative truths, the alternative meanings, the alternative ethics and moralities? Nowhere really, as we already know that they must be incomplete. We are just common humanity, sat on the mountaintop. And if we are wise, we will wonder at that view from eternity. That is the ultimate common ground! The mountaintop reminds us that no-one can ever be right about truth. Only in eternity (or, if you don’t mind it, only with God’s eye view) can the fundamental paradox of the universe be resolved. In the meantime, all our ideas are compromises. Better to contemplate the paradox than pretend that we have found the truth! No use then in criticising another’s view of the truth, or their view of what is good and right. We build up others mostly by not tearing them down! We find the right way to live by a conversation – not by trying to conform to rules or customs – far less by seeking ‘authenticity’ or living by instinct. All the time, let’s admire the view! To paraphrase Rumi – outside the place of right and wrong, there is a mountain. I’ll meet you there. See peace wherever we can then. Life and the universe has been gifted to us, so let’s return our gifts back to the world. The essential precarity of our existence and a little moment in the sun and the serendipity of meeting someone with whom we connect and a sublime moment of connection with nature or the universe. This is all we’re ever going to get! And it is enough!