JON FERGUSON
Who feels? Why does one feel? What does one feel? From where do feelings originate? Nerve endings? Hearts? Brains? Minds? Experience? Of course science today could give me some kind of an answer for these questions. It would certainly have to do with “electrical” connections between nerves and brains, or some such thing. But would this really tell us anything? Would it help us “understand” who feels what and why? I doubt it, for the simple reason that I can’t be you and you can’t be me. In fact I can’t even be myself because that self is constantly changing, that self that wiggles through time and space and world responds differently to things as life goes on. Even “feelings” change and evolve…from day to day, moment to moment.
As far back as I can remember in my life, I have always been extremely sensitive to the feelings of others, especially their pain (though of course knowing exactly what those feelings were and how they were being felt was impossible). I have always had a tendency to see joy as a fleeting emotion that is quickly forgotten, whereas pain as something that “sticks” and inevitably leaves scars in its wake. In other words, I have tended to see the dark side of feeling rather than the bright side.
In my youth this caused me great problems. My “sensitivity” to the pain of others was at its peak at age nineteen and twenty. The images and thoughts of the Vietnam War, poverty and hunger in the world, ghettos, inequality, injustice, people suffering in hospitals and gutters, slaughterhouses, loneliness, animals killed for sport, a dead rat in a basement, termites sprayed by the millions, flies swatted by the billions, babies born deformed, mothers dying at birth, polio, cancer, accidents…I saw suffering everywhere and my head was ready to explode. I got to the point where it hurt so much that I was unable to do things. I would lie on or under a bed in the dark for hours at a time.
The choice became evident: either I had to accept the world’s pain and suffering or say goodbye to it all. I thought for a few months and decided to live. Is living always the right choice? One might be able to answer this question by asking oneself if one would want to re-live one’s life exactly the way it happened…everything…exactly the same way…again. If one says yes, then deciding to live was a good choice. If one says no, perhaps it wasn’t. Why do I say “perhaps”? For the simple reason that one could be glad to have lived that life one time, but one has no desire to do it again. That could be a perfectly viable option, like skydiving once, not regretting it, but never wanting to do it a second time.
So what actually feels? What parts of the world are sensitive? Recognizing “feelings” has been a rough and rocky road. It seems that for thousands of years man did not think animals had feelings. (The “feeling” was probably reciprocal, i.e. when animals ate people – and each other – they probably thought their victims didn’t have feelings either.) Some men didn’t think people of other colors and “races” had feelings. Weren’t slaves thought to be unfeeling creatures? And for a long time weren’t females thought to be of lesser sensitivity than males? Of course – as always – the men in power were making such judgments. But finally the great pathetic men of the world decided that all humans beings had feelings. O what a giant step for mankind! A few centuries later, some animals finally were allowed into the club – big ones or domesticated ones like elephants, horses, dogs and cats. Eventually some people even started thinking that small animals like mice and guinea pigs were able to suffer, feel pleasure, and such. Today there are certainly a few scientists (and regular “sensitive” people) who believe that even insects have feelings. And yes, plants are now being considered to suffer pain when they are cut or mishandled (of course we don’t know exactly “how sensitive” they might be, but some of us are starting to think that a carrot or a flower has “feelings”). Some of us have begun thinking that the food consumption of vegetarians is morally suspect, and that the day may well come when truly sensitive people will not be able to eat anything with a clear conscience. Then, they will most certainly have to make that dreary decision about living or dying.
I, from my chilly cave in Morges, Switzerland, hereby announce that one day, farther down the road (but not that much farther), tables, books, beds, chairs, and rocks will be thought to have feelings. The sun and the moon will be thought to have feelings. Stars will have feelings. Even black holes will have feelings. I can see no “logical” reason why everything that exists should not have feelings.
Yes, one day it will be thought that man, instead of being the most feeling creature (as he is sure he is), might really be the least feeling creature given than for thousands and thousands (maybe millions) of years he had denied feelings to 99.999% of all that exists in our dear universe.
Now it is time to ask a question: What would happen if everybody thought like Walt Whitman and I do? (From reading all of Whitman’s poems in the two wonderful volumes by M.C. Gardner, “Whitman’s Code: A New Bible” I am quite sure Whitman also thought that all existence could “feel”…) What would the world be like if “everybody” thought that “everything” had feelings? Imagine sensing, thinking, believing, feeling (knowing?) that everything you touch has feelings, everything your eyes see has feelings, everything object surrounding you right this very moment has feelings, everything above, below, outside, and even inside (every organ and cell in your body!) has feelings! … Can you imagine such a thought? Can you imagine how such a world would function? Could there possibly be “war”? Could “love” exist in such a world? Would our sensitivity kill us all? Would we all be driven to suicide or would we all bathe in an orgy of splendor?
I don’t know. How do I know I don’t know? Because the above hypothetical world is the way I feel about the world right now (right this very moment in my chair with the cat at my feet waiting to be caressed) and I can’t decide which way to go. Should I kill myself or should I feel part of a great cosmic orgasm? Existence! All of it! FEELING!
But how can I be part of a universal love orgy if I have no friends. Whitman is dead. Nietzsche is dead. God is dead. With whom can I share and celebrate the ubiquitous sensitivity of Being? Perhaps with some Buddhists, Hindus, or Shinto…
I think one thing is certain: Before the party can start, the Western world must overhaul its physical and metaphysical bibles.