We all have our own reality shaped by our current and past experiences. My perception is as real to me as another’s is to them. This is true, but can you say you are fully engaged in your personal perception? If so, can you share what that is like?

Wow. I do not think I can say that. There is a lot that goes into the “aberrant psychology” classification, like autism say, but I offer that the normative baseline that supposedly allows for mental health practices is a half truth at best. I can say that I fully engage in my personal perception, and for that reason the “authorities” describe me as self absorbed, but this does not mean I am of necessity unaware of other peoples perceptual orientations. If anything, my problem is not being able to make intelligible sense of them, but is that my failing if the “normal” people can’t even explain them to me? But I digress.

It means they do not know themselves well enough, in a sense. If I have given one piece of advice more than any other to everyone who has ever asked, it’s been this. “If you don’t know, find out.” For me, what that means is my subjective experience is as tangible as my objective, and I don’t separate these into supposedly independent fields. If I am angry, it’s the same as if I am hungry or injured, and if I am fascinated with something, it’s the same as if I am physically engaged in an activity. It’s all one world. This does make my priorities seem strange to some people, as it does my social reactions as well. But in my experience, for all the supposed clarity of a normal persons state of mind, they are just as often as lost as I am, and often much more so.

Is that the same as being fully present? To bring it back to curiosity, as well as answer your question, being fully present and curiosity are exactly the same thing. Apathy and depression are likewise identical.

I thought that being present is being at rest. Being at rest involves all natural functions flowing without “intervention”. Being present is being present to engagement as well as to changes of personal state. Resistance to anything, as well as antipathy, is disease. The most motionless people are very dead. We rise from bed in the morning from curiosity. Even the most miserable and negatively pessimistic person is still possessed of curiosity, even if it is evident only as a morbid masochism.

Is disengagement not good to see a situation from the outside? You cannot perceive and be disengaged. The observer and the observed are engaged. You can draw a line there if you really believe that to be in your best interests, but I myself don’t see how having that as a rule is very functional.

If it is futile to see, what do you do? You stay in your mind? It is not futile to see, but curiosity will move you to see more or to continue observing at a distant point. In my personal view, and in the view of many schools of thought, you cannot fail to stay in your mind. In Cantonese, the word for mind and the word for heart are the same word, and even scientific research is backing up the observation that mind is a holistic function of being rather than a limited function of the brain organ.

My curiosity wants to get out of my mind. Excellent. A curiosity that wants to transcend the mind can allow for total perception, and thus possession of the mind rather than being possessed by it. But let’s examine the behaviour of curiosity and address your drive, as it is very valid. Why is it that curiosity isn’t just a human quirk if it has no basis in external reality? Any thoughts?

Part of brain function? It is, but even single celled life will venture into new space without there being any stimuli that would draw its attention.

Curiosity is in the universal mind? Yes. One of its behaviours, perhaps the purest expression of its will, is a drive to reflection through interaction. Every living thing has, as part of its essence, the built in drive to interact with things that are “not it”.

The advantage of duality? Essence can only be made fully manifest in contrast. The fullness of expression that the universe favours requires paradox.

Does that drive the need for young to play? Indeed it does, and young children very often function without the obsession that requires denial of paradox.

I have heard it said that we all all manifestations of the universe. In that sense, curiosity is the drive of the universe to know itself. Indeed.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~