Existential Inertia, Conceptuality, Identities, and Selves

When existential inertia is relaxed, conceptuality and no-concept, identities and no-identity, selves and no-self are liberated into free responsive play.

Selves and no-self

The core experience of self is the texture/flavor of what it is to experience participation in a particular pattern of interaction, whole-body-and-world as single happening. Every pattern of interaction has a distinct texture/flavor. Since there are innumerable possible patterns of interaction, there are innumerable possible selves. Although no two moment of selfing are exactly the same, we become familiar with certain patterns of selfing as we repeatedly participate in re-occurring patterns of interaction.

There is a range of ordinary self-experiences: the experience of our patterns of interaction at work compared to at home; with spouse compared to children compared to friends; having a functional conversation compared to dinner conversation compared to intimate conversation with our spouse. We have selves, which are context-dependent to varying patterns of interaction.

There are also experiences of disorientation to circumstances, where our ordinary patterns of interaction are unavailable, and there is no-self, as there is no pattern of interaction to experience, only interaction-without-pattern. No-self can also be a natural occurrence in the transitions between ordinary patterns of interaction.

Identities and no-identity

An identity is an orientation toward a particular pattern of interaction. As there is a distinct self-experience for every pattern of interaction, every identity points towards a distinct self. Some identities reflect patterns we are familiar with, and which we might hold to or reject. Other identities, aspirational identities, are orientations towards images of particular patterns of interaction. Such images do not always reflect what will be discovered in the process of movement toward them, just as the vision of an artwork may orient action that arrives at a different artwork than originally envisioned.

Most of us have multiple identities that are called forth in different situations. An identity as “tough” may help us hold to one pattern of interaction in a challenging circumstance. An aspirational identity of “gentle” may point the way towards a different pattern. If it is not a pattern of interaction we have previously fully inhabited, then we may come to discover a different pattern of interaction for “gentle” than we originally envisioned.

Sometimes, there is no orientation toward any particular pattern of interaction. Then, there is no-identity.

Conceptuality

Conceptuality is pattern recognition. It is accomplished by reducing the dimensionality of what is happening, and associating this reduction with affordances for action. It could be called an “action guide”. It is not limited to language, or to humans. For example, insects generally having stronger pattern recognition than humans in many ways, as they may, for example, apparently reduce a landscape to a single dimension of brightness, with simple possibilities for action in varying on that dimension alone.

Identity is a particular type of conceptuality, conceptuality regarding patterns of interaction. The experience of self is not in itself conceptual; rather it is the sensory experience of participating in a pattern of interaction.

Conceptuality creates a world that is inhabited, that is an experience of what is happening which emphasizes, de-emphasizes, and puts aside particular perceptions, and brings forth certain affordances for actions.

To inhabit a pattern of interaction is for the pattern of interaction to be effectively realized. When no pattern of interaction is engaged with, there is no-concept.

Existential Inertia of Conceptuality

Existential friction, inertia, or “stickiness” is a natural side effect of conceptuality because it streamlines responsivity. It does this by simplifying the circumstances from infinite dimensionality to finite dimensionality. This simplification can never be a universally applicable simplification, because it is always possible that a dimension that has been simplified away becomes salient, therefore rendering the simplification a poor fit for what is happening.

Existential inertia is naturally self-correcting when there is sensory presence to what is happening and a letting go of emphasizing, de-emphasizing, and putting aside of sensation. Conceptuality then can shift, change, wobble, and dissolve into no-concept, experienced as disorientation, and to anneal differently.

Consider a hand interacting intuitively with a variety of objects. The form of the grip changes with each one, and, further, there is the fully relaxed natural shape of the hand, when it is not involved in grasping. The hand is a microcosm of the body as a whole. Interactions naturally lead to pattern inertia arising: fixated patterns of interaction that are not congruent with the circumstances, like a hand that starts to curl in from long stretches of typing, and so becomes less motile at threading a needle.

Existential inertia of conceptuality yields an action guide that is a poor fit for the circumstances.

Existential inertia of identity yields a pattern of the whole body that is a poor fit for the circumstances, like a crab that has been lifted into the air, mechanically repeating patterns of interaction that were suitable when in contact with the ground.

Existential inertia of self is the creation of a reference of a particular experience as the orienting measure of the quality of a pattern of interaction. By analogy, consider an expert baker, who “knows” that the recipe is going well via the feel of the dough: more or less elastic, firm, sticky, etc. They may add yeast or salt, depending on the mineral content of the water and the nature of a particular crop of wheat, to achieve the desired texture. But, if they have always been baking a particular type of bread, and use that same experiential feel as feedback to adjust a recipe for cake batter, the cake will end up with the wrong texture.

Self is the textural feedback from a pattern of interaction; it is what that pattern of interaction feels like from the inside. It can be a valuable feedback mechanism as to whether a pattern of interaction has been properly adjusted to fit the circumstances; all this happens prior to any rational thought. Existential inertia may bring forth an experience of self as a reference point when it is no longer appropriate, like a GPS that is routing to the previous destination.

Many “spiritual” issues are downstream of existential inertia in the dimensions of conceptuality, identities, or selves; the admixture of existential inertia and the domain are taken as a singular problem, a problem of conceptuality or identity or self. If the load-bearing structure of existential inertia is relaxed, then conceptuality and no-concept, identities and no-identity, selves and no-self are liberated into free responsive play.

Existential inertia can occasionally arise in the realms of no-concept, no-identity, and/or no-self; these portals can be mistaken for destinations. This is non-dualism, the “last” thing to be relaxed, before the inseparability of duality and non-duality is whole-bodily recognized.

Liberating Conceptuality, Identities and Selves from Existential Inertia

Let us disentangle the singular lump of existential inertia-conceptuality-identity-self, and rehabilitate the reputation of conceptuality, identities and selves by teasing out the existential inertia which renders them problematic.

Selves: the experience of patterns of interactions.

Identities: orientations toward patterns of interactions.

Conceptuality: pattern recognition that sees the world along particular dimensions and reveals particular affordances for interaction.

Existential Inertia: The basic mechanism of fixation of conceptuality, selves and identities.

The uniqueness of each here-and-now calls for a variety of conceptions, identities and selves, and also for moments of no-concept, no-identity and no-self.

In discovering and relaxing into the free play of concepts and no-concept, identities and no-identity, selves and no-self, we can gesture as to what is relaxed as existential inertia.

Relaxing existential inertia, there is no longer a conviction as to “how things really are”, or a search as to “the right way to be” or “the right thing to do”. This could be phrased positively as searchlessness. These orientations may still arise as transient concepts and identities and selves local to a here-and-now circumstance, but are recognized as transient and local (although transient may span forward into many generations, and local may span the entire solar system). The inertia of patterning having been released, selves, identities, concepts, and moments of no-self and no-identity and no-concept can coalesce and dissolve fully responsive to the circumstances.

Relaxing Existential Inertia

There are three basic approaches to relaxing existential inertia.

First, clearing, the direct relaxation of existential inertia. No-concept and no-identity and no-self are valuable and potential portals into clearing.

If direct relaxation of existential necessity is not available, demonstration of the non-necessity of current patterns is a useful secondary approach. This can be explored in two basic ways: inside-out, and outside-in.

Second, arising as, growing to inhabit a pattern of interaction from a seed of a subtle, internal process, until the pattern of interaction is fully inhabited. A classic example is allowing oneself to be moved by the spirit of some personality other than oneself, until that spirit is a full self-possibility in external action.

Third, bodily engagement, the taking on of a pattern of interaction by engaging in the external form of actions, until the texture/flavor of the associated selfing is discovered, and the pattern of interaction can be fully inhabited.

The second and third possibilities can act to destroy inertia of any particular self and identity by the contrary momentum of differing selves and identities.

From the recognized “position” of searchlessness, these approaches of arising as and bodily engagement are a field of infinite exploration and discovery of increasing capabilities of responsiveness

Recapitulation

We can disentangle what is often one lump of existential inertia-conceptuality-identity-selves by recognizing selves as experiences of patterns of interactions, identities as orientations toward patterns of interactions, conceptuality as pattern recognition in general, and existential inertia as that which tends to find us inhabiting conceptuality, selves and identities that are incongruent and non-responsive to circumstances.

The liberation of conceptuality, identities and selves from existential inertia can be approached via mere relaxation of compulsive and fixed patterns of interaction, via arising as new identities until new selves are arrived at, or via the bodily engagement of enacting patterns of interaction that give rise to new selves.

These practices can yield both immediate and gradual results. The fruit of these practices is searchlessness, no longer having any attachment to “how things really are” or “the right way to be” or “the right thing to do”, and so to be fully responsive, with both conceptuality and no-concept, both identities and no-identity, both selves and no-self being available for responsive participation in patterns of interaction.