Intellectual Ecstasy
The first time I realized or became aware of my own intellectual ecstasy, I was in an undergraduate English class. We had just finished reading a novel and my professor’s elaboration on the nuances, connections, subtleties, and minuteness of the language within the novel encapsulated my attention… I was in a state of confliction, an irrepressible desire to bring into reality my own comprehension of the work simultaneously constricted by an admiration of my professor’s formulation, so much so that I wanted to be at that level, to get to that level, coupled with a confusion of how, questioning the process of how to get there, pondering and contemplating it all, awe-strucked by my own fascination. It was like staring into the full moon and being captured by its grace while being shackled by its spellbinding stance in the sky. It was like reading a novel and being a new character in the story while getting excited at the plot twists and the ironic turn of events that take place which gets you jumping up and down out of your seat shouting, “Oh crap” or “woah, damn” or “yoooooo… this is crazy,” or something similar of the sort. And in those moments, you are at a particular ‘high’ in your mind, your excitement is shooting through the roof, you are both joyous at the stimulation of mind and desirous of more stimulation. You are contentedly discontented. You are elated at the awe and amazement.
I recall the observations of people I have taken as well as the conversations with friends in the past that I have had. In retrospect, it is possible that their assertions about a possible film they had watched, a book they might have read, or an experience they possibly have had, and the excitement in sharing took them on a journey of an elation so high, it seem like they would keel over with the overflow of sharing because they are forgetting to take a breath… because they do not want their thoughts to escape their grasp. It’s as if they had a cup running over and trying to share the water before it touched the ground. This is a result of what I call “thought capacity” or “thought threshold.”
That thought capacity/ threshold is simply in the moments of one thinking to a point wherein the thinking becomes too difficult to hold and add on to, so frustration sets in and compels one to stop thinking. The cup then stops overflowing. But I challenge that. And I say press on with the thinking. It’s a reminder of when I use to run Track and in practice, my team mates and I would push beyond our previous times we may have set during practice on a previous day. In one day, we would do one minute runs wherein we would run about 10 laps with about a minute rest in between. Each lap had to be one minute, of course. It is akin to the aspect of thinking to the elation of mindful interplay – the inner interacting with the outer.
When we ran, we got tired, we break for a minute, and we ran again. Resting for too long interrupts the progress and relapse would then become a problem. In the instance of one lap wherein we were about to fall back, the encouragement from the team as well as our own individual belief in ‘mind over matter’ pushed us beyond the threshold and capacity of though. Similarly, in the moment of thinking, wherein the task becomes too difficult to consider, it is then that one should push beyond it; force the mind into that moment to interplay with the ideas that float around speedily within their heads. These are the frustrating ideas that APPEAR difficult to comprehend. As a result of the push, the possibilities of the “finite” interacting with the “Infinite” becomes at once possible as Jason Silva asserts in one of his many videos on his channel “Shots of Awe.”
In his plethora of videos, his explanations envelopes the mind in a moment of fascination. For me, it feeds my curiosity. The finite is us, in our minimal ability, initially, to comprehend the vastness of the universe – the infinite. He asserts that we are “gods and worms”, as if to say we are unlimited in our capabilities while at the same time appearing limited, the confliction of being, the elation and displeasure of trying to reach our innumerable potentials and holding them in our grasps right under our noses. So how do we bridge the two, the finite and infinite?
Silva asserts that we “have the context and we just need to recontextualize it.” But in that moment of recontextualizing, we have a “temporary panic”, yes, the same panic I felt in that one moment of my English class where my own aching desire to manifest the reality of the interplay in my head was a difficulty. My mind was overflowing due to “thought capacity.” This is the frustration similar to when one reads and meets the obstacle of comprehending, or when one meets the difficulties of pushing beyond a fatigue body in a race; it is the moment of decision – do I allow myself to remain finite, to remain limited, or do I challenge the infinite and continue along the limitless road? I just need to breathe and grab hold as much as I can.
To continue is the epiphany. To continue is a solution to the confliction of frustration. The recontextualizing is the beginning of the end of one panic to the beginning of a new, and I believe we should embrace it because that is a sign of our continued growth. It is a sign of our moving beyond higher levels of thinking – transcendence – the baby becoming an adult to a baby again – the soul becoming godlike and a physical being cyclically. This is continuous enlightenment.
One of my favorite quotes said by Jack Kornfield is “enlightenment is intimacy with all things” – the finite interacting with the infinite; the inner interplaying with the outer. So, if you ever notice someone in a state wherein they are talking nonstop without breathing, just listen, perhaps remind them to breath, chances are, they are in a state of intellectual ecstasy wherein you, the listener, are simply in that moment, the universe they are being intimate with.
