Just a thought. I may be completely off the rails, but this is something I’ve wondered for years. Definitely open to input and feedback/corrections here.

What if we are born completely unfiltered, open to all stimuli, create self-preservation filters over time, and are, in many cases, subsequently looking for ways to remove or alter those filters? I think this would explain so much of the human existence.

Think about it. We come into being and are surrounded by physical, emotional, and spiritual input. All the time. Even in our mother’s womb we are gathering input and are trying to sort things out.
Then we are birthed and exposed to so much MORE input.

Based on our cultural, biological, and psychological makeup we very quickly learn that to maintain our sanity we must identify things that help vs things that don’t help us.

We build filters.

We build masks with which to present ourselves.

We build structure in an otherwise random existence.

All within the first few months of touching air for the very first time.

We learn that our bodies, our voice, our interactions with other things yield cause and effect routines.

We continue to build our filters of the world because these prevent is from going completely unhinged.

Some of us never learn that skill.

And some do, but at rates different from those around us.

At some point in our lives, some of us realise we are allowing these filters to limit our potential.

So we find ways to adjust these filters. To change them, remove them at safe intervals and learn how to replace them at will when our experiences with the unfiltered world become overwhelming.

By contrast, some are perfectly happy – defiantly so in some cases – to preserve these filters at all costs. Because the view of an unfiltered experience is too much. They are not ignorant nor uneducated. They simply prefer to live in the filtered world of their making. It is safe in there.

But for those who DO want an unfiltered view of the world – a more child-like state, one might say – the journey there takes on many paths.

Some use drugs.

Others, meditation.

Others do so whilst enjoying a creative artistic work – either passively or by performing the task itself.

I may be partially or even completely mad for thinking this way.

But what if I’m not?

What if most of the human condition is a function of our self-taught structures of prisms that come between us and the realities that we have been invited to be a part of?

Now THERE’s an exciting thought.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/20254102379/sizes/l/

Some rights reserved by kevin dooley

Never once growing up had I thought I’d ever say these words: “My cow is in a quantum state of existence.”

But she is.

She’s not in a box, like Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment. She’s real, and lives on a pasture in Texas.

She does all the things a normal cow does. Eats, sleeps, produces methane, the lot.

But her stubbornness has put her in a quantum quandary. Or a quantum conundrum. Or..

Back to the point about why she’s physics fodder.

I’m in the process of buying an acreage. The family selling the place had livestock on the land. In preparation for selling the place, they rustled up all the livestock. Well, all but one.

This one wasn’t moving. This was her home, gosh durn it, and no one was moving her off the land. She dug her heels in and went so far as to back into the 20 foot deep pond area. That was when the owner decided it’s better to let things be for awhile.

He’s come back to try to collect her, but she’s not having any part of it. The sales contract says, in essense, “Livestock are not staying with the property”. But that was written without the cow’s input and consent.

Neither the current owner nor I want to amend the contract to include the cow. I’m not keen, as that will likely mean I have to determine the fair market price of an old and stubborn cow. The owner isn’t keen because he’d like every opportunity to collect this cow before closing.

So this cow does and does not belong to the property. Hence the quantum state of her existence.

There are others far more intelligent than I who can explain the mechanics behind quantum physics. Spoiler alert: if one truly understands this topic then one has not really read up on it, haha. But the gist of what I’m talking about relates to what’s called “superposition”. This means something can be considered to be in two places at once until someone observes the thing.

Normally this type of thing is limited to things at extremely tiny measurement levels – smaller than atoms, for instance. Look up “double-slit wave particle” on a web search and you’ll see what I mean. However, this cow is exhibiting a similar property. We won’t know whether or not she’s part of the property until we “observe” her state at time of closing. I have all the items required for closing so all we’re doing is waiting for the date to arrive.

Until then, she’s in a state where she belongs to the property and she does not belong to the property.

I say “my” cow but technically she’s owned by the current property owner. But it’s more fun to say “my cow is in a quantum state of existence.”

And the name “Ginger Cowabunga”? That was off the back of a cow-naming poll from immediate family and my realtor. I was leaning towards “Cowy McCowface” but calmer heads prevailed.