The Optical Delusion of Our Consciousness
About seven million years back, a single female primate bore a child from which our zoological “tribe” homin evolved.
Our predecessors were any number of other hominin species until about 250,000 years back when a single female primate bore a child. From this point forward, this Homo Sapien and her primate offspring did some astounding things: they caused the extinction of our hominoid cousins (Homo Denisovan and Neanderthal), they migrated out of their African home to populate the entire planet, they stopped roaming for food and established agriculture, they settled down permanently into places, and they built cities and Rainforest Cafes.
We are the only living species of the genus Homo. Our closest living cousins are chimpanzees and bonobos, who evolved separately from us seven million years back. Though many humans consider otherwise, we are just animals, like the chimpanzee, the sociable weaver and the spiny lumpsucker.
Accepting ourselves as animals compels us to reconsile our relationship with other animals and the natural world in which we've collectively evolved since the Earth's beginning 4.5 billion years back. Homo Sapiens do not exist separate from this world. We are wholly a part of the world and the wider universe.
None other than Albert Einstein is my guide:
"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
That's some woo-woo shit, so let's tact to the practical. We can't consider how we can and should build our places without acknowledging that we're first animals and, second, tragically susceptible to the delusion warned by Einstein above. When we succumb to the pull of separateness, we build this:
SOURCE: Photographed by Ben Schumin
When we embrace our species' place within the wider world and our connectedness to history, environment and culture, we build this:
SOURCE: Photographed by ustung
We’re also capable of this:
SOURCE: Photographed by Wonderlane.
Humans have unlimited powers of creation and destruction. This fuels the “optical delusion of (our) his consciousness” warned by Einstein. We assume we can stand alone. We assume we can outwit and outsmart the universe.
But the Cambodian Buddhist Temple and the bench in the woods provide ample evidence we can break out of our prison of separateness and build places that “widen the circle” of beauty, harmony, and comfort, not only for the “few persons nearest to us” but for our fellow species and the entire natural world.