When we
sneeze we are overcome by an upwelling physiologic response-set: our bodies
exert spasms, largely involuntary, to the effect of expelling irritants from
the respiratory tract. “Largely
involuntary” is the key aspect of this discussion; we can, to some extent, suppress,
delay, or hasten sneezes, and we can position, tense, or relax our bodies
throughout the experience. In short, we do
not simply experience sneezes—in the typical instance, we join with the experience.
It should
scarcely need to be said that what I just described about sneezes would apply,
in general, to other (perhaps more intimate) physiological events. To grope for an adequate phrase, we are “given
over” to sneezes (and other things), though in truth—as regards our limited
degree of voluntary control—we can be numbered among the agents that do the “giving.”
We can say, “I
am going to sneeze now,” but we might also say that “My body is going to sneeze
now,” or that “A sneeze is going to happen to me.” The important thing here is the fact that a
sneeze illustrates the mutable quality of “self.” We typically attach the concept of volition
to self, but to keep the matter (artificially) simple we employ the circular
logic to the effect that we can decide to control our selves by simultaneously
deciding that our “selves” are those things that we can control. Other aspects of what perhaps we should call
our “persons” (say, our bodies or our subconscious minds) are reckoned to be things
with which our “selves” must contend.
The mutability
of self exists at both frontiers of our existence as physical persons: the
interface between our bodies and the world, and the interface between our “selves”
and our bodies. The first is easier to
illustrate. We sneeze to expel
irritants; in the simplest example a fine dust particle (or usually a cloud of
them) has elicited the response. Any
given particle might be either expelled or retained and incorporated into the
tissues of the respiratory tract. In
either event (if only for an instant) those dust particles have more import and
effect than many of the dead or near-dead skin cells hanging at the periphery
of the body—indisputable (as we imagine) parts of the body one moment,
household dust the next.
At the
moment of a sneeze, in other words, our bodies and their irritants are
one. (Or we can consider molecules
dissociated from absorbed dust particles and later employed in cellular processes,
if we must flog the topic exhaustingly.)
Our bodies are systems within an encompassing world system; we
distinguish between our bodies and the world because such distinctions suit our
conceits of utility or of psychological necessity.
Similarly,
the experience of a sneeze is the experience of a neurologic system of which we
have limited knowledge and limited control.
There is a moment in which we know we are going to sneeze (and then
sometimes we don’t sneeze—such is the character of our knowledge). What is undeniable is the fact that either we
encourage the sneeze reaction and then experience our success when we know one
is going to happen, or we attempt to suppress a sneeze and then realize we are
going to fail. (Or we can try to ignore
an incipient sneeze; good luck with that.)
We give
ourselves over to the sneeze. In that
moment we are not independent actors; we are (such as we conceive of ourselves
as “selves”) participants in a neurologic system. Could we have successfully suppressed or
delayed a sneeze? (There are,
conceivably, instances in which such things would really matter.) Were we overwhelmed by a purely physiologic
process, or did we give in to it?
Perhaps more to the point, why would we—all logic and evidence to the
contrary—insist that we are (as we conceive of our “selves”) discrete creatures
of thought, rather than shifting and ill-defined thought-collections near the
conscious pole of a larger thought-system?
I will
provide another example. A person walks
up to a car, pulls out a crowded key-ring, and inserts the proper key into the
door. I will dispense with the silly
part first. In keeping with the “sneeze”
discussion, at the moment of employing the proper key, the key is as much a
part of the person’s body as the finger bone that allows the person to insert
the key into the lock. Of course it can
be objected that the bone is a piece of living tissue, but that fact does not
need to detract from the discussion. It
is conceivable (if not already practical) for a compromised finger bone to be
replaced by some manner of metal or ceramic.
Would that implanted implement be any more or less a part of the body
than the firmly-clenched key?
I bring up
the car key example for a specific reason.
It is usually not difficult to pick out the proper key, even from a
crowded ring, and insert it into the lock.
But assume the person is suddenly operating under unusual stresses. Suppose a beloved family member is in sudden
danger, and the first person needs to drive somewhere in a hurry. Suddenly the most mundane of tasks can seem impossibly
complex.
Which key is
it? Usually I just pick it out by habit. How long has it been since I really looked at
it? Should I just try to collect myself
and start over, or did I try enough of them that it would make more sense to
just plow through all the rest? Am I
really sure the last one didn’t work, or in my panic did I not turn it
correctly? I can do this when it doesn’t
matter; why can’t I do it when a loved one is in danger?
What I am
describing is the kind of thought event that is a transformative experience. Reality is no longer what it was, and we are
no longer what we believed ourselves to be a few moments previously. It is not simply that we are confused in that
the parts of our lives do not seem to fit together. Rather, it is that we are so disjointed that
our attachments and our viewpoints do not seem to belong to us anymore. I am reminded of Wilfred Owen’s relation of
mental state, warned of poison gas in the trenches of World War One, and
presumably straightforwardly afraid and wanting to efficiently don a gas mask: “an
ecstasy of fumbling.”
In such a
state it is no fancy or hyperbole to say that we must “forget ourselves” and
concentrate on the task at hand. We can
clutch the keys in our hand and hope previously-ignored sensations of touch or
weight will give us a clue. We can back
up and take a few hopefully-normal steps to the car in hopes that the action
will jog memories. We can narrate our
usual course of actions so as to give ourselves a fresh viewpoint.
In short, we
can embrace elements of a thought-system to which we have not priorly addressed
ourselves. In an important sense, it
does not matter if those elements exist of themselves in the universe, or exist
unrecognized in us, or are provided by the divine. What matters first and foremost is that we recognize
(especially later, when presumably we are attempting to incorporate the experience
into our belief systems) that we cannot expand our realm of experience in any
meaningful way without giving ourselves over to a larger conception of self in
the process.
It might be
said that the examples of boundary-pushing (or boundary-blurring) I have
provided are trivial or uncommon, but it is equally true that—for most people—religious
(or other boundary-challenging) experiences comprise very small and very
uncommon life experiences. It is not at
all untypical for people to grasp onto a rare event in their lives, and declare
those events to be those that inform their views of the ultimate. What is lacking, unfortunately, is recognition
that the challenging of boundaries involves not an expansion of self, but an
expansion of what constitutes self. This
true expansion leads to greater life, but the immediate experience of true
expansion necessarily requires a “giving-over” to new experiences that smacks
of death.
And, it
should go without saying, we must be prepared for the notion that further
duties of expansion—potentially unlimited—lie before us.
