I sometimes find myself in envy of my cats.  They don’t have to worry about karma or nirvana or even showing up for work on Mondays.  “Never become a person,” I warn them.

Ken Wilber, a modern-day thinker of things big and infinitely small, summarizes the great wisdom traditions of the world by writing about the Great Chain of Being, in which more encompassing hierarchies, such as mind, envelope and contain within them “smaller” systems, like matter.  In this way, spirit contains soul, soul envelopes mind, mind transcends body, biological life contains matter.  Each level of being contains and imposes order upon all that is present in the level below it, but the higher-level order adds something more that is inaccessible to the lower order which it lies above.  British scientist and theorist, Rupert Sheldrake, conceptualizes these nested hierarchies as fields which impose their order on the lower order systems.  More conventional biologies refer to this as emergence, as the manifestation of emergent properties in complex systems.

Each higher level of existence transcends the lower levels which it incorporates.  What do humans add as their emergent dimension which other life forms don’t possess?  We find meaning in experience, whether it’s there or not. Yet the added awareness we humans seem to possess afflicts us with a certain pang and panic. We are wanderers of the existential void. We two-leggers are condemned to find meaning.  My cats aren’t.  Were I to be born again, let it be as a cat.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within