Attempting to follow a wholesome feeling
FleaMarket
Veteran
I would like to examine a concept I'm working on with your help. It has to do with the idea of holding in the mind many many data points and reaching a limit at which the data points can no longer be seen individually and a feeling is developed to identify them as a group from that point onward as more data arrives.
An example is the gif below. The gif is a square grid of pixels.
The attached image represents the gif. The link takes you to the gif with movement.
https://media.tenor.com/IDkZZGB8b3sAAAAC/colorful-pixel.gif
The pixels are each solid colored and the color is randomized and changing. It gives an impression of TV static but in a rainbow-confetti way rather than black and white. There are enough pixels to lead a normal person to feel daunted at the idea of counting an organizing them to determine how many of one or the other, but not so many pixels that the concept of the individual pixel is completely lost on the person. The intent here is to create an awareness of the sense of individuality to each pixel and also skirt the line of when that transforms into feeling of the grouping of pixels. Something switches which causes a development of a feeling due to the inability to contain the individuality of each pixel in the mind.
This is a conceptual interpretation of a moment in a being's emotional state. Many data points contributing to the overall feeling of a being in a moment. A conversation at the store, a poorly timed pivot on a walk, remembering whatever happy or sad event. Contributes to the emotional state. All these data points taking place so rapidly and changing so quickly it is not comprehendable how to observe them all individually. As such, a feeling comes about from the group. Sort of like the pixel gif when I look at it for a bit. All the data points but instead of counting them individually, the feeling of the color emerges.. This can be experienced similarly as one is guided about their day largely by feelings of many many groups of things.
A drop in an ocean, a spec in a desert, a leaf in a forest, a star in the cosmos
The whole ocean, the whole desert, the whole forest, the whole cosmos
A feeling guides me to write this stuff, guides me to examine these things. It feels good to me even if I don't know the purpose. Maybe the doing is the purpose in and of itself. The fruit of the data points. Follow what feels good and wholesome and the outcome is good and wholesome. Which makes more wholesome data points that guide more wholesome doings. Which, if the above is applied, means there's lots of individual data points indicating in that direction and I'm just doing the indicated result. And if they're indicating in that direction, and that makes me feel good and wholesome, does that make me fruit???
Comments
Reminds me of feeling with the whole being rather than single point focus of attention. It's interesting to play with the boundaries of attention, and the somewhat interesting fabrication that play into binding attention. Like with vision for example there is definitely a play in how we tense specific muscles around the face and that in itself can be relaxed so that one see's in a more panoramic visual field, less focused but taking in a lot more of a visual data set. and this kind of opening of the aperture can be done via the body as well. its fascinating.
In my view most everything is a balance. Take something good to its extreme and it becomes problematic, remove counterbalancing and tempering forces and that good thing becomes fragile.
Measuring the quality of an action by its wholesome feeling I believe is known as moral sentimentalism. When we do something good for someone it gives us a positive, warm feeling. A lot of what we're able to decide about the morality of our choices can stem from that.
If we let that become the sole driver for our ethics though it can lead us astray. Its important to have a clear understanding of our actions. There's the example of the person who out of kindness helped free butterflies as they were leaving their cocoons. Butterflies need the effort of wriggling out for their wings to work properly though, so his moral sentiment might have given him good feelings about helping, but in his misunderstanding he actually was causing harm.
I think I'm trying to say that while the overall feeling ones conceptual framework of the world gives can guide us in effective ways, it is still important to put effort into knowing the pixels so we're guiding in a true direction. If I'm understanding your analogy correctly.
I didn't realize how convoluted it came across until I revisited it. I'll add "go outside and meet people" to my list of things to do.