As I’ve repeated over and over around here, I’m not a spiritual man. So when I hear hippies and assorted scum argue that “everything is connected” I’m liable to scoff at them and set them on fire. Nonetheless, I find when I think about reality, there’s no denying there is some truth to this. We objectify the universe; by this I mean we label and set boundaries for many of the objects we experience in reality but where those boundaries begin and end is vague. Where does you hand end and your arm begin, exactly? Where does a cloud end? And, if we take this down to a sub atomic level you could ask “Is this sub atomic particle part of this book? Or is it a part of the air next to this book.”

We perceive things as objects, or perhaps more correctly, we perceive* things and our brain then imposes object definitions on them. But those definitions and boundaries are man-made; they don’t exist. Thus you can fairly argue that everything is connected. You could also argue the inverse – that things are much more separate that they seem, ultimately breaking down to the tiniest possible particles. At that point the argument seems meaningless.

* It’s worth noting here that our perceptions are limited. We don’t see the full color range, we can’t hear all sounds etc. So our “reality” is limited to what we sense, not what is actually there.

Presuming everything is connected opens up some interesting thought streams. I’m quoting here from the Eckhart Tolle book I’ve been reading, “A New Earth.” (Page 276.)

There are two reasons we don’t see this unity… One is perception, which reduces reality to what is accessible to us through the small range of our senses: what we can see, hear, small, taste and touch. But when we perceive without interpreting or mental labeling, which means without adding thought to our perceptions, we can still sense the deeper connectedness underneath our perception of seemingly separate things.

To perceive without any added thought seems like an impossible task, but it’s an intriguing concept. Would this lead to a completely different perception of reality, one where we sense the “deeper connectedness”?

And could we use the power of this perception to score with babes?