Locke On Conscience

It's imprudent to guess at someone's name, never having met them first, but after last night's little fiasco, I'll guess-- Eric, is it?

No, it was no surprise for me to see You there last night, not that it was prearranged or anything like that, the fact is we don't even know each other, but it may be that our reputations precede us.

And, it was flattering? to see You got there way Ahead of me, and by a lucky chance I got the seat that was both right next to You and, conveniently located next to the electric outlet.

If You've surfed into any part of this Blog, You may think it a bit tongue-in-cheek, in poor taste in some places, or just plain stupid at times, but I'd been forced into an experience so beyond anything in any of the books (and I've read quite of few of them) that I had no other way to assimilate it and somehow still keep going.

That all pales compared to what I am to make of the way You stormed out of the coffee shop and that heavy sigh? that detonated from You and All Your Personality as you made your way out that door--it was a game changer--in fact, it is a game stopper.

I take it You caught me staring at Your Hands one nanosecond longer than deemed appropriate, and in that brief moment You caught me running through the analysis of what I was thinking of You as I glancingly studied your right hand; and by Your demonstrable disapproval in making such an Explosive, Grumpy Exit, I can surmise that You not only could guess at my thoughts, but that You probably could See what I was thinking; and for that, more than anything else, I am sincerely ever so very sorry...sorry...sorry--please forgive me


Oh, gee, look what the Prickly City Comic is on about the following morning .

You probably noticed when I first got up to get my tea, I left my purse, wallet, laptop, iPhone, car key all in plain view and I didn't bother to ask You or anyone nearby to keep an eye on it; in fact, my car had just had a thorough detail and had You wanted to grab the key and drive it around, it would be fine by me, even if You decided to keep it, I'd probably just keep up the payments--it's not like You hadn't driven me around before and it's not like there is anything of mine that You could need or ever want.

While I pride myself at playing pretend to avoid that 'are you off your meds!' barb, I never go so far as to actually fool myself, or get off my meds.

So, my assessment of Your Leonine Hands, and that Mane to match was accurate; and Your Seeing that I would allow myself to think to touch...that Roar out-the-door clinched it. (note to self: on 11212011 @ about 12:25 am, clintched had been changed to cliched, so i changed it back to clinched, earlier on 11202011 around 8 pm, i had changed the original clinched to clintched thinking it was misspelled)

I can't apologize enough--been heartsick about it all day, actually.

Not at all a smooth transition to the topic here, about what it means to be Conscious, or specifically the Human Conscience.

Thomas Hardy was an English poet and author, and his work included characters that were often caught in 'the overpowering, grip of fate,' or unseen, little-understood forces that control the universe. While A Page In The Life keeps focused on the clear-cut observable, quantifiable, manifestations of what we call Reality (Truth), the very fact that each post is sourced from some Scripture makes it an attempt to explain or reconcile what we call the 'supernatural' just as much as Hardy's fictional work assessed fate and other metaphysical forces' control in the universe.

I
A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined -
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While 'mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .

II
Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
- My guests parade my new-penned ink,
Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.
"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

--from An August Midnight--by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Hardy's creative muse led him to write about an imrpomptu assembly between himself and a Daddy Longlegs spider, a moth, a dumbledore (a buzzing flying insect), and a fly; that the 5 of them came to 'meet' at a certain place and point in Time and his 'guests' go about their business of tracking his ink or banging into the lampshade oblivious to his writing. Yet, Hardy infers that these humble creatures may know more about the True Reality (he calls them Earth-secrets) than even he (the Human) is aware of.

Sign 58:7 speaks about a similar Cognitive presence that surrounds us in our daily, mundane goings-on that is Aware of our every action and intention as we live our lives. Hardy's attempt to make us Mindful of just such a Wakeful Presence, One that we rarely stop to consider and for the most part are oblivious to-- either because we are taught to ignore any instinct to the contrary from childhood or are blissfully unaware of It because we were never taught this to be the case. That It just may be as commonplace and innocuous as other things that share our surroundings, like flies and spiders; but, rather than this being an inference as formulated by Hardy in An August Midnight, Sign 58:7 sets down with certitude this being the case and that There Is No Doubt About It.


Surah 58 The Disputation ( Al-Mujadalleh)

أَلَمْ تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ
مَا يَكُونُ مِن نَّجْوَى ثَلَاثَةٍ إِلَّا هُوَ رَابِعُهُمْ وَلَا خَمْسَةٍ إِلَّا هُوَ سَادِسُهُمْ
وَلَا أَدْنَى مِن ذَلِكَ وَلَا أَكْثَرَ إِلَّا هُوَ مَعَهُمْ أَيْنَ مَا كَانُوا ثُمَّ يُنَبِّئُهُم بِمَا
عَمِلُوا يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ (58:7

58:7 Can You Not See (Are You Not Aware) God Knows Whatsoever Is In Heaven and Whatsoever is On/In Earth; Not three may be gathered but He is the Fourth; and not five (of them meeting/gathered) without Him the Sixth (One/among of them); and no less than that or greater number, except that He is Always with them wherever they may be; such that He may notify them (wake them up to/apprise them) of what they were doing on the Day of Judgment (Resurrection); Indeed, God Is Aware/Knows Everything (Is Omniscient).

This is not to say that God actually has to manifest in a physical form in order to be Omnipresent, (chances are if and when He/She does Denial is the game play; and I'm not suggesting to eradicate all the bugs (as in insects --(the electronic ones are free to go) in order to gain some privacy), the understanding is God is Present Always (All Ways) (and makes sure you know He borrowed my car on Nov. 29, 2011, 'cuz the seats r still warm and the delayed headlights r still on--any tickets, please pay immediately or forward, no need to have to pay late fees), and that we are simply not aware of this Greater Reality--more than likely, a learned trait; like thinking before comes before now or after, or like hitting the Ignore Button, otherwise we may start to think our life is being lived like Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show.
From personal experience, once we find that out, the general plan is to start searching for the Exit-- that door he walked through at the end of the movie at the top of the stairs that led to we-don't-quite-know where...the Control Room? --or wherever you may find the ;Producer, because you've eliminated any and all possibilities that you are in any way at the helm and have to admit that God (who is not you, because He/She/It Morphs (mutasawir/mussawir) into everyone and everything else But you) has always had control over your so-called-life (now or hereafter).

For instance, I have come to terms with the fact that in my case God is more into His Masculine Side-- how else to explain He can so readily 'sacrifice His Son'--because I certaintly would not, given the investment in global stretchmarks, an episiotomy and the sporadic hemorrhoids of having had one in the first place (all good reasons for God not wanting to Morph into me, too). {It's not that I am none the wiser, but I am fated to keep pretending, because he came home with The News when he was 14--- talk about trying really hard not be let sedition over rule my head, my heart, my other parts.}

But God has always had a profound affect in my Life; how else to account for all the equipment malfunctions whenever I am nearby: the printers that don't work, the faxes that don't go through, the phone calls that get dropped or returned as invalid numbers, the postoffice scales that lose their calibration if I stand too close to the counter, the voice messages that get forwarded 3 days later to my voicemail, the elevators in skyscrapers that suddenly need repair on the rare occassions I ever visit, the cars with new car batteries that won't start, the computers powering down after I stand in the longest line for checkout and it's finally My turn. (Oh, and synchronized watches that schitzo in-n-out of sync--at the realization of which most people demand a re-write! But, not me, I stick to my wife role and let fly the F!bombs, that way it sounds like lovemaking and quite a bit more respectable).

At any rate, if Truman is anything like me, he would avoid going there (the Control Room) unless he wanted to cave in to his rightful instinct to eradicate them for having recklesslessly ruined his life up to that point, so he probably opted for Out--just Out--or what we call the Void (Nirvana, Nothingness) because that would be better than to have to kill them and then get stuck in that Karmic Hell.

His only cross to bear for opting Out is that he would forever have to Remember how they screwed him and he would not allow himself the satisfaction to retaliate, because that would be the final admission that they 'the controllers'/'invisible forces,' were real and why grant them such a rich reward--A Life?

Ahh, Denial is a Powerful Thing--I won't kill them that screwed me because they never really existed! So, I'll just keep them there--at Nothing and Nowhere near me.

This philosophy should work, but the only sticking point is that Truman could walk away because he had no invested emotional baggage--no kids, no spouse, no pets, no family or friends to speak of.

For one such as I, not so much--I love my kids, my husband? (who can't stand me and hates my cooking even though he always has seconds and regularly throws me out of the house and makes me spend some nights in the car, and when it comes to dealing with me on any level generally tends to be the meanest cheapest Prik King is a Thai dish, you know), and would really miss my friends and parents (Dead or Alive).

That's why this Philosophy sucks!

So, I have to Resurrect in order that I may see the ones I Love while still having to abide the presence of those I hold accountable for my early painful demise and allow those same 'invisible/invincible forces' that got me into this mess to get me out. Which at this point in Time has taken an Eternity.


Yes, Michael, I am talking to You! (Because I met You and that was a Precusor to when all the trouble started. I would Ask God, but He's still in Denial, or not Talking to me, or both).

And while I still abide the presence of the dipsticks and nimrods that gloat about my malingering 'in my head' toxic exposure, they can't see me when I am literally passing within their sphere of influence--so, for me, the method seems to work, but not to perfection, because while they can't see me, I still know they are there-- and they're not even sorry, so it seems their being Ignorant is Even More Powerful than my being in Denial.

Yet, since my philosophy works on some level, but on the whole still sucks, I searched the literature for what other more prominent philosophers had to say on the related topic of Good v Evil.

The English physician John Locke, was one such philosopher and is arguably one of the most influential thinkers of the Englightenment Era, his writings having influenced other great philosophers (Voltaire) and thinkers such as those that brought about the Scottish Enlightenment and the American Revolution; his influence stretched across the years to shape later philosophers such as Rousseau, Hume, and Kant.

He postulated that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to pre-existing ideas during his time, he maintained that humans are born without innate ideas; that only experience and sense perception form our knowledge base (ideas). To that extent, Locke believed that the mind made the Man and that education made that Man’s mind up.

His philosophy articulated in his words,

"I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education."--John Locke

Essentially, Locke's philosophy is that education is the key to whether the Man (Human) aligns with what we think or know to be Good versus what we think or know to be Evil.

While I don't find myself agreeing with Locke's idea that wee minds are a blank when we are born, I do not subscribe to the idea that wees are born sinners either, but I do believe that we have some inherent knowledge already assigned to our genetic make-up (innate), some rudimentary, some more developed, in addition to what is already programmed as instinctive.--(O, gee! Some girls get flowers, I get trees--now if You Will kindly move them from my room to the general area of the Amazon Forrest. Thanks, Dear ^ _^).

The Quran has this much to say about the state of mind of newborns:

Surah 16 An.Nahl (The Bee, Bees)

وَاللّهُ أَخْرَجَكُم مِّن بُطُونِ أُمَّهَاتِكُمْ لاَ تَعْلَمُونَ شَيْئًا
 وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ الْسَّمْعَ وَالأَبْصَارَ وَالأَفْئِدَةَ
 لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ 16:78

16:78 And God Brings you forth from your mothers' wombs (stomachs) knowing nothing and He Gives you hearing and sight , and minds, so that you may be grateful.

So, clearly, the position is that while born with faculties to make sense of our existence, we are not born with prior knowledge, and here the understanding is we are born 'without learned knowledge'(ie, an education) which does not preclude that we are in fact born with some other innate information (since there is a reference to being born with a mind, some cognizant/aware/knowing aspect of our being already in place). The expectation is to use our other faculties and our minds to ascertain the learning we need to get to a point where we Know our Maker and Be Grateful.