The Zoom of Abandon

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The Zoom of Abandon

(a rhapsody of personality transcending perception)
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Spontaneous immediacy is the already ongoingness of being alive. We have no vote in this. Each of us is going with the flow willy nilly. To be alive is to be living and living is nowing and nowing is the zoom of abandon.

But we love to think we're preparing to live and/or that we've somehow dualistically stepped back from life -- even though this is like singing a song in which part of the song is singing about singing the song. There's no stepping back from the song of immediacy. The alleged stepping back is just part of the song.

Immediacy (or better, "immediacying") is the thing in itself of being alive, the This is It of pure living, not some abstract limbo of pre or post living. I can write about these matters and we can discuss them, but nothing is one upped thereby. These realizations are like a mathematical limit and forever beyond the reach of thought. The realness of nowness is the origin of thought and never its object. Tails don't wag dogs.

Relatedly, self-control is one of the core delusions of the human condition. It seems to reassure us to play that game, but it's a game we play with paradoxical abandon. The Pacific Ocean doesn't control itself and neither do we. Reality realities spontaneously. The fullness of the moment is never premeditated. However, this knowing can be deeply unsettling and the un-transcend ability of spontaneous living is perhaps the most deeply repressed truth of our species. We probably fear this truth more than death itself.

But why? Let's find out. Let's say you just suddenly realized (and realized all the way through, not just tinker toy "theoretically") that the already ongoingness of being alive is absolutely beyond the reach of dualistic self-control. When you're in spontaneous free fall it's impossible to separate yourself from the zoom of abandon so as to control or improve yourself ("from the outside in"?). Acting on impulse isn't a variable, it's a constant, and this is it.

But for some of us (practically all of us?), this is virtually a description of psychosis. But why is this the case? Isn't it because the "spontaneity constant" (let's call it that) is mutually exclusive with self-image identity? After all, the self I've been conditioned to identify with is supposed to be able to control itself. But there's no self-control in the abyss of abandon. Identities of separateness can no more live in spontaneous immediacy than moths which fly into flames.

Let's imagine we're participating in an outburst of spontaneous applause at the end of a concert. But, what do we mean by this? It means the applause wasn't planned in advance. We weren't watching the clock to carry out some scheduled behavior; rather we are acting on impulse. OK, then what's "acting on impulse", i.e., the applause is behavior that's emerging from WHAT? Did we "stop and think" and then decide to applaud. We know that's not true. The thought aspect of this is merely a sideshow. The applause is more of a "feeling choice".

Thought may try to play catch-up with the zoom of abandon, but it's always the bridesmaid and never the bride. Any house visited by thought has been long since vacated by spontaneity. But the arrogance of thought is unwilling to acknowledge its limitations and thus from the thinking about point of view (i.e., the identity of separateness), if the applause isn't answering to thought, then it must be a hiccup of randomness or a knee jerk of inevitability. Thought sees itself as the only independent variable in the functioning of our lives.

But spontaneous applause ISN'T the creation of thought! It's more like the proverbial expression of feeling. It's the self-activity of autonomous (and thought form transcending) ISness, and the same thing is true for all living. Taking in this truth, past a certain point, probably triggers the Homo sapien psyche into either fragmentation or "awakening", because these are the blue waters of nuclear transformation. Here, self-image identity is forgotten and the babble of thought is ignored. Life is now looking at itself.

Untheoretical realness is saying, here I am, look at me! We are none of us in control of anything -- least of all our alleged "selves". Dualistic control (including self-control) is a game of the mind. It has nothing to do with anything. Preparing to live is a waking nightmare. Nowing IS living and the nowing of living isn't self-controlling, it's the zoom of abandon, but the zoom of abandon isn't out of control ness or running amuck (the accusations of thought); it's the self-directedness of that which is already the case. The fullness of THIS moment is being ongoingly actualized by dimensions of realness indifferent to thought. Nowing is realitying.

Only life itself can understand itself. Mosquitoes of separateness can never bite the "Iron Bull" of suchness, but these realizations are within the reach of birthright intelligence just because birthright intelligence is the self-activity OF the Iron Bull. Here, contradictions are obliterated, and reality realities self-knowingly. Being and knowing are one.

The zoom of abandon is also the zoom of already occupied-withness. I can't "begin myself away" from what I'm already doing! Of course, thought's perspective on this is that nowing is a mere point on a time line. It's not even a verb, it's more like a thing/instant. A vacuum, at best, of potential. Thought never seems to worry about how these instants of absence can add up to the presence of beingness.

Curiously, thought painted itself into a similar corner after the invention of calculus by Newton and Leibniz. Area under a curve (or between curves) was understood to be the area under a line made up of an infinite number of points. It was further conjectured that the area under a point is zero. You can see where this is heading. If a line is made of an infinite number of points and the area under each of the points is zero, then how can there be any area (which, of course, there is) under the line? Advanced calculus addresses this problem and its solution lies in a rigorous definition of the "limit", e.g., area under a curve is the convergence of a sequence of partial sums (an informal interpretation of a limit is that it's an exact description of a place you'll never get to). It also shows that atomizing a line into an infinite number of points can generate paradoxes of abstraction. The territory, after all, doesn't answer to a map -- it's the map which must answer to the territory.

Occupied-withness is unself-interfere-withable responsibilitying (the very awkwardness of these constructions is perhaps a symptom that we're talking about dimensions of realness inaccessible to conceptual models). This is oddly similar to the realization that the Homo sapien visible world is a function the interval on the electro-magnetic spectrum with which we Homo sapiens evolved in concert and which, in turn, is a function of the relation between this planet and its associated "yellow" sun/star -- a revelation which jars us somewhat, like discovering that there's one more step than we had expected as we descend a staircase.

There's nothing theoretical about occupied-witness. It's the marrow of immediacy. It's not a goal, ideal, or remembrance. It's where we already are. But we don't live like this -- we don't even "think" like this (and acting out what we think is the "human condition"). Indeed, we think occupied-withness is precisely where we're NOT. We're in the passive "safe house" of separateness, preparing to live and/or doing our theoretical thing. But this is the consensus delusion of our species. This is the thinking about point of view -- the identity of separateness.

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www.theliberationofrealism.blogspot.com

A liberal American, PhD mathematician, bipedal Earthling.

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