Mundane Realms, Agency, Sovereignty and Comfort

Realms — A field or domain of activity or interest.

Realms emerge as preconditions from which conscious or unconscious attitudes towards life arise. One rarely chooses one's domain; instead, we inherit it. People say that one can choose one's friends but not one's family. Perhaps when we choose, we are only reacting to elements inherent in our preconditions. Many forces beyond our will program our wants and needs. Today, a sophisticated suite of technologies engineered to do this; how these technologies work is unknown to most of us.

What kind of person believes she has helped create the system in which she lives and relies upon? When is this belief not just an illusion or a delusion?

It seems that one must first be aware of a panoply of options and possibilities before the power to make a choice becomes available. What preconditions are required for one to have that kind of sense of agency and sovereignty? What kind of natural circumstances allows a person to experience freedom within the constraints of reality? 

I don't expect that knowing what you may know about life in Syria since 2015, you would have chosen to have been born there when you could have been born somewhere with a stable and peaceful future. Of course, we don't decide where we are born. Our birth, we attribute to fate or the mysterious machinations of God. 

How do the necessary preconditions for freedom, agency, sovereignty, health, and sustainability come about? Curiosity, ingenuity, creativity, endurance, and many other qualities are needed for these things to become the latticework of society. 

In complex living systems, balance is natural. Symbiosis is the crux of biology; everything in the ecosystem is interdependent. All elements working in concert find a way to express themselves perfectly within a given context and time. 

Homo Sapiens is the only animal we know of that can disrupt living systems to such a degree that we can change them entirely or destroy them. Our conscious and subconscious thoughts can also modify nature in positive or negative ways. How can we gain control over our thoughts to such a degree that we can find equilibrium, health, and peace, liberating the positive, creative forces within our imaginations?

Think of a family huddled in a cellar in 2018 in abject terror, avoiding bullets and bombs. During pauses in the violence, when, for a brief moment, while sensing that the horror may end, memories of merely being a proud member of a family and community come flooding back.

Familiar things are so comfortable and complete— as we perform routine habits, a mindless sense of well being, only broken by occasional shocks and insults, takes over and time dilates. 

In times of peace and stability, we can take things for granted; death becomes so remote that it's easy to think of heaven, not as something we long for but as an inevitable outcome— a reward for living a good life. During the good times, we can experience unity and bliss in a moment of clarity and peak experience, and although it is transient, it is there, even though one gets the sense that it can't be held or owned. Moments like these appear as a dark field, a movement, and a rest. 

On the impoverished side of The Cage (and I am speaking of poverty in its broadest sense), where there is only violence, pain, and chaos, endurance is paramount for survival. A wide-eyed numbness brought on by ongoing trauma is one's only respite from acute pain and suffering. Everything gives way to the organisms inertia. Where there is complete powerlessness, only this stubborn inertia can remain. Time and luck will determine whether one can enter The Cage from there.

Understand that in all realms of existence, we remain the animals we are following our nature that transcends higher faculties.

As one experiences the inherent spectrum of possibilities in each realm, one's sense of joy, contentment, desire, comfort, pain, and suffering are entirely different in quality and kind. Each domain is capable of reflecting unique qualities within individuals and society. Various Cages manifest and reflect unique attributes to various Bubbles or Castles. 

In each realm, whatever one's circumstances might be, except for one's struggle with desire, everything is mundane.

Next, let's talk about the realm we call The Cage.