For over a week, I’ve been struggling with my next blog post, and I feel so stuck in the muck of it that I’ve decided to just start over.
The goal of my next post (this post) was to continue my reflections on my four-part soul concept, and to hopefully arrive at some conclusions. But I started doing what I told myself from the beginning that I need to stop doing. In fact, I even starting my blog post by writing, “Rather than continue to read, cut, paste, and organize”… (blah, blah, blah), I need “to explore and develop the concept.” And then I spent hours and hours reading about particle physics (which I don’t really understand) to develop a metaphor for the soul, comparing the components of an atom to the structure of the soul.
It still might be a good idea, but—without getting into quarks and gluons and all sorts of other things I don’t really understand—atoms contain three components, not four, unless I want to add some pseudo-scientific hocus pocus about dark matter (in which case, why am I trying to concretize my ideas in the scientific theory of particle physics?)
Rather than try to mash together and encapsulate potentially incongruous concepts, I need to concretize my own core concept. What I think is worth noting (from my first draft of this post): after last week’s post, I found myself reflecting more on Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, especially his concept of dust, the idea that consciousness and the fuzziness of reality may be linked to dark matter. Yes, I do want to utilize dark matter as a pseudo-scientific element in my soul theory. But rather than try to find magic in scientific theory, let’s start with the fuzzy hocus pocus and just create something that works for us, shall we?
Let’s consider the possibility that, on some level, reality is created by consciousness. Or, our experience of reality is created by the singular perception of our consciousness. If we consider the possibility that many realities exist simultaneously, but we only perceive one, then perhaps this “singling out” of our current reality explains why our universe is comprised primarily of dark matter and dark energy—stuff we cannot perceive on the electromagnetic spectrum. What if visibility (perception) is what defines reality, and thereby also the soul? Does this plummet us back into a light and darkness duality? Or can we find a subtler and more complex truth?
I’ve always been obsessed with the number four and four-point scales (or by extension, eight-point scales). Whether rating men or movies, what further delineation does one need than 1=below average, 2=average, 3=above average, and 4=exceptional? Yes, I use half points (and therefore, technically, an 8-point rating system) because let’s be honest, I’m one of those critics who rarely awards a perfect 4 (Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, 4 and 4). Nonetheless, sometimes you’ve got to give a 3.5 where it’s due (Hugh Jackman in the first X-Men movie, for example).