Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the world is both idea and potential. We could argue all day what the world really is, but in the end, the only definition that counts is what the world is to us. When you see a guitar what do you really see? A guitar? No, a guitar is an amalgam of all things guitar like. Is a guitar without strings still a guitar? Is a sitar a guitar? What a guitar really is, to us, is the idea of a guitar, an archetype. The reality is, there is no such thing as a guitar, the word guitar defines an idea of a thing, the thing itself has much deeper meaning and substance to it than we give it. For instance, there is history in the wood that makes up a guitar. There are slight differences between them in harmonics, tone and dimensions. Yet they are guitars, why, because they have the potential to make guitar music. Which is itself an idea.
Our concept of the world is only our idea of what it is. That idea is constantly evolving as new information becomes available to us. In a constructionist sense, we construct our view, our idea, of the world as we go along. Our idea is never exactly correct, nor can it be, it is only an expedient for us to understand the world. We don’t see the world as it is, because to do so would not further our longevity, it would shorten it. We need our shortcuts to get through a reality that is far too complex for us to understand. If we looked at a single thing and understood to it’s subatomic particles what it is in reality, we would be stuck there for years processing the information to get a perfect understanding. In the meantime, we would die of predation in short order, by something that only has an idea of reality.
It is egoistic to think that Man is the only thing in the universe that is capable of taking an idea, realizing it’s potential, then transforming that idea’s potential into reality. God has done this by creating life itself. Life being nothing but potential realized. Even if you don’t believe in God, but instead that everything came from nothing for no apparent reason, you have to admit that idea and potential was transformed into reality… in a scientifically magical way. Crows and monkeys use tools. Tool use is the recognizing the potential in our idea of a thing, and manifesting that potential in the world. Before a monkey can fish ants from an anthill with a stick, she first has to have a sufficiently complete idea of what a stick is, and then recognize it’s potential, and finally bring that potential into reality.
Our idea of a thing is channeled by our previous knowledge, experience and understanding. At first we might taste a thing and mouth it, as a baby would. That is how we first learned about the world, by experiencing it first hand. Those experiences built up our first ideas of what the world is. Once we became able to understand idea we moved on to potential. Creative people see more potential than non creative types but we all see some potential in everything. That potential is colored by who we are. A psychopath will see a flowering prickly pear… and to him, the potential will be to push someone into it. An agreeable person on the other hand… might look at the same prickly pear and see the potential for jelly from the pears and the beauty of the flowers. Both have an idea and see potential.
Everything that exists is the result of an idea’s potential being brought into reality. Your car, New York City, the US Constitution, space travel and even you yourself, all were once an idea that had potential, and that potential was made real. We all see potential, some different than others, and we all have the capability of bringing potential into reality. We all do it all the time. When we get a cup of coffee, we take the potential of our idea of a cup of coffee and make it real… then enjoy it. That is all we do all day long. Experience reality as ideas with potential and bring some of those potentials into reality. So you see, if we want to improve our lives we should try to hone our ideas, see the best potentials in them and act with intent to bring the good potentials into our reality.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
