Podcast 38 - Falling, With Style: The Good Side of the Subconscious
I've been tagged for a meme on the subconscious called The Good Side of the Limited Mind. John Allison of Technology for Living passed me the baton in In defense of the silent partner. I thought it would be a good time to do a podcast about Buzz Lightyear and Woody from the movie Toy Story.
I've talked before about the robot, a term Colin Wilson used to describe the part of the mind that is conditioned, working in a purely reactive manner. A large part of our lives, sometimes, all of our lives, are lived by the robot. The robot controls physical actions that we have learned. The robot controls our emotional reactions. The robot is the seat of the beliefs that form our world view. When we walk, talk, and think, it's usually the robot that is acting. We as free, conscious, creative entities are asleep. Our eyes are open. We appear to be hear. But we don't. We're off making plans for dinner. We're off remembering how good the pillow felt as we went to sleep last night. Only in a by the way manner are we present in what we are doing.
A large part of spiritual practice is learning to put the robot back in his place. No matter how comfortable sleep is, we do have to wake up some time.
Waking up is hard. Staying awake is even harder. Why? Because the robot is a handy part of the mind to have. Without it, we would continually be in kindergarten. Try to remember, if you can, learning to read. You slowly learned the song
a b c d e f g
h i j k
lmnop
q r s
t u v
w
x
y and z
now I know my a b cs
next time won't you sing with me
Then you learned to recognize the letters when you saw them written down. After that, you learned simple words, then more complicated words. One day, you could read. No laboriously sounding out the words. Instead of crawling from letter to letter, you zipped down a page. Dick and Jane gradually become The Great Gatsby.
That, to me, is the good side of the subconscious. In it's place, it is an aid to growth, rather than an obstacle. Without it, we are continually learning our letters rather than great literature.
And that is where Woody and Buzz come in. Listen to the podcast and hear their story.
This episode of the Shards of Consciousness podcast is based on a post I wrote in February, 2007 called Falling, With Style. If you want to tell us how you see the good side of the subconscious, please, do so, and let me know about it.
If what you hear is useful to you, subscribe to the Shards of Consciousness podcast through iTunes or the feed. Tell your friends about us. Let me know what you think.
Music Featured
Corey&Cosmo - We're All Stars - Transcontinental Experiment Remix
Music provided by the PodShow Podsafe Music Network
Very insightful post/podcast. I've always liked that movie but never disassembled it like that before. Well done indeed, and thanks for participating!
Thanks, John. I have a lot of time on my hands watching a new movie every week. In a lot of ways, Hollywood's most creative films anymore are the CGI animations. They've turned into some of my favorites.