In last week’s post, some folks, in the Comment section, mentioned something about the unknown embodying nothingness while mentioning that that is what is so terrifying; they feel safe in the “known.” Those comments got me pondering. Is nothingness (as the unknown) truly terrifying and does it take real courage to live with it psychologically?
As i’ve mentioned numerous times before… we were all very miseducated by society. This miseducation has molded us to be fearful of nothingness… to be anxious about existing in (and “as”) the unknown. It was hammered into us that the known — knowledge, knowing, and memory — is the key to security, safety, and happiness. In some limited ways, it helps with such things, but it may (fundamentally) not consist of (and fully support) lasting security, safety, and happiness. The known is fragmentary, symbolic, virtual, and limited. It is actually the known and its protrusions of “what might be” that produce fears; the unknown does not fuel this. The known and its concoction of “what could happen” is the real root of fear. In groping for security in the known, we absorb (and hold) beliefs. These beliefs were poured into us as products of knowledge that offer security. Do limited, secondhand words, suppositions, and mental images provide vast and unlimited security? Not really! In fact beliefs and absorbed religious suppositions very often divide people in the world, causing much conflict, fighting, war, and suffering. That is not profound security.
If you are not a reflection of what society has poured into you (and if you actually perceive how thoughts create fear and mental problems), then existing (psychologically) as nothingness or as the unknown may not take much courage. For me, nothingness is real bliss and is a great joy. This is because it exists beyond the limitations of symbolic, virtual, cadaverous, and stale thinking. Nothingness (beyond thinking) nullifies fragmentation and secondhanded observation. It, and it alone, allows for pristine and unadulterated observation (that is not contaminated by labels, beliefs, habits, fears, and stale, fragmentary protrusions of thought/thinking). This inner nothingness, which is holistic and uncontaminated, is real bliss, clarity, and timeless joy. (It takes no courage whatsoever to dwell in — and “as” — timeless joy… as the unknown.) The actuality is that stale thoughts and beliefs are limited, old, fragmentary, time-oriented, fear-generating, secondhand, and dark. (Granted, oftentimes rational thoughts are needed to function in life… but they are only limited tools.) The distortion of thought/thinking largely masks the joy and clarity of timeless living. Dying (psychologically) to the known is real freedom; then living and dying are not two separate things… and Death is what endless, robotic, virtual, symbolic, secondhand thinking is.
from E.E. Cummings:
dying is fine)but Death
?o
baby
i
wouldn’t like
Death if Death
were
good:for
when(instead of stopping to think)you
begin to feel of it,dying
‘s miraculous
why?be
cause dying is
perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but
Death
is strictly
scientific
& artificial &
evil & legal)
we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
Transcendence is inexplicable but familiar. Biological life is the novelty and unknown. Even now, as advanced as we think we’ve become we’ve explained a total of nothing. The achievements of “Science” is really limited to a few innovations, properly mixing a few chemicals and alloys of materials we have no idea what they are made of. Science can only tell us how nature behaves and predict a few regularities, yet have no idea how to make sense of the fact that nothing is inherently physical, or made of little particles of stuff. It’s all theoretical abstraction, excitations in a theoretical field. This is the novelty, not the underlying reality.
Yes, Jim, science has, so far, not done a great job of understanding the major factors (and overall picture) of how the cosmos works; science is largely clueless regarding a lot of major things. This, one suspects, is largely due to science’s propensity to dissect things and look at things fragmentarily. True wise men understand how the cosmos works… scientists do not. 😉
unfortunately science as it is practiced most often focuses on the little picture and ignores the big story – one horrible example I deal with as a naturalist is this obsession with ‘save a species… whale, butterfly – fill in the blank while ignoring the obvious – that saving a species is ridiculous – even a form of denial when we ignore the crisis our planet is in..
Nothingness and Wholeness are two sides of the same coin – one looms as absence – the other embodies fullness – we move back and forth between the two…. the word transcendence is problematic in that in ‘religious’ thinking it requires a split from mind and body – immanence on the other hand allows one to live in a physical body AND experience the timeless – at least from my point of view.
Well, i’m not interested in most of so-called “religious thinking regarding transcendence.” Yes, the physical body and the timeless can coexist (but i really don’t care to label as what happens regarding the timeless as an experience). (I realize that word usage limits a lot of things, in regard to trying to describe what takes place.)
Ouch – neither am I interested in religious thinking as it is commonly understood – but the word religious means to link back – to return to wholeness -and don’t you think this reuniting is what we all need most?
Yes, Sara, science trying to “save” individual species is very ludicrous when — all the while — Homo sapiens is quickly destroying the entirety of the planet as a whole. We need to regulate the human population better (i.e., to not take more than our fair share) and we need to do things like going beyond fossil fuels. But even in the so-called United States here, certain political parties are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. It’s insanity. Miseducation and empty hearts have a lot to do with it.
And re your other comment… Yes, spiritually, we need to get into wholeness… so transcendence is not a split of mind from body (which is not wholeness). Wholeness is intelligence and intelligence will act correctly regarding the environment, but most people are not of wholeness/intelligence.
I know this now, 50 years after I got out of the Army and roamed around the country I did not know. I had substantial bouts of anxiety back then over what happens next…the unknown. I tried to force the known, I tried to fit in. Eventually I found inner peace by not worrying about the next minute, the next mistake…
So glad that you are wiser and better now, Richard. Yes, fitting into a rotten, corrupt society is not indicative of intelligence or success.
Worrying about the next minute or the next few days is “time-related-anxiety” and “time-related-anxiety” is always the child of thought/thinking (not the true unknown). Thinking is a tool. Never let the tools become harmful.
Profound thoughts by you and e.e. cummings. The Leaf Hopper looks gargantuan with this macro lens.
So glad that you realize that leaf hoppers are small in real-life (but close-up reveals them in a totally different light)! 😊
Unfortunately, nothingness and the unknown is a realm that the masses were not taught to be appreciative of. And if one shelves away that profundity, mistakingly rendering it as a mental negative, then real beauty and deep, immense insights are shelved away as well.
Tom, I think this says it all, eventhough many of us find ourselves falling back into the trap of the “known.”
“…we were all very miseducated by society. This miseducation has molded us to be fearful of nothingness… to be anxious about existing in (and “as”) the unknown. It was hammered into us that the known — knowledge, knowing, and memory — is the key to security, safety, and happiness.”
Yet still, we continue to allow society to mislead us through misinformation…directing our thoughts and behaviors into mental incarceration. What a sad trap! 😝
Kym, thank you much… and, yes, it is a sad trap. Very few people — fewer than few, actually — are talking in the way that we are talking. It’s all about the “known,” activities and actions to do within (and “as”) the field of the known; there are endless entertainments and processes to further and further immerse others in the known. (And people end up getting rather bored and stale anyway… because the “known” is limited, secondhand, and superficial. )