I was listening to Michael Pollan talk to Kara Swisher on her podcast just yesterday, so this is great timing.
He mentioned an experiment he took part in where an alarm would sound at random and he had to write down exactly what he was thinking at that moment. I’m fascinated by that because I often try to catch myself thinking and to write it down before the thought gets away from me. (Writers have to, I suppose.) It was interesting to hear him talk about how many of us think in words, in language, rather than in images or something less verbal.
Also, doesn’t Michael have a great surname given what he loves to write about? 💐😄
Beautiful piece. I especially appreciated your reflection on the necessary embodiment of the sacred. I have felt something similar unfolding in my own life. The more ecological my sense of self becomes, the more I find myself rooted in the body, in the animate world, and in the countless relationships that make a life possible. Rather than pulling me away from matter, consciousness seems to draw me deeper into it.
“I think consciousness would be served by being more deeply identified with the body, not less.” 👏
This got me thinking about Kafka (stay with me). In ‘The Castle,’ the main character is called K. K is for Kafka, but K is also for Körper, meaning ‘body’ in German, and K’s body is always on the move in that book. I don’t want to say that ‘The Castle’ is “about” consciousness. But the book definitely asks questions about what it means to be fully aware (or not) of what we encounter.
Interesting reflection. I often wonder how many philosophers intuited a more embodied consciousness but didn't yet have the language, or perhaps the permission, to fully articulate it. My memoir and broader philosophical inquiry, Unfixed, feels very much in conversation with the Stoics, but with a slight turn. Where Stoicism often seeks steadiness through clearer boundaries, between self and world, what is within our control and what is not, I’ve found that the deepest steadiness in an unsteady world comes through permeability. Not by hardening our edges, but by allowing them to remain porous. That’s part of what resonates with your observation about K’s body always being in motion. Consciousness, for me, feels like something enacted through our participation in it. The self is not a fortress standing against uncertainty, but an estuary shaped by its constant exchange with the world. What if uncertainty is not the opposite of certainty, but a different form of it? What if the most reliable thing about being alive is precisely that we are unfinished, relational, and always in motion? The longer I live, the more I suspect consciousness is served by becoming more deeply identified with the body, not less.
Two other books to add to the “re-enchantment book” category: Morris Berman’s “Wandering God” (a study in nomadic spirituality) and the appropriately titled “The Reenchantment of the World” (a study of scientific consciousness and a challenge to its supremacy).
Thank you! One of my favorite books on this subject is Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind, by Peter Godfrey-Smith. He begins with elemental life from billions of year ago, sponge gardens, and posits that consciousness has developed from the beginning out of necessary actions with the environment. Slowly he works his way up to the present day. A stunning, detailed vision.
I was listening to Michael Pollan talk to Kara Swisher on her podcast just yesterday, so this is great timing.
He mentioned an experiment he took part in where an alarm would sound at random and he had to write down exactly what he was thinking at that moment. I’m fascinated by that because I often try to catch myself thinking and to write it down before the thought gets away from me. (Writers have to, I suppose.) It was interesting to hear him talk about how many of us think in words, in language, rather than in images or something less verbal.
Also, doesn’t Michael have a great surname given what he loves to write about? 💐😄
Beautiful piece. I especially appreciated your reflection on the necessary embodiment of the sacred. I have felt something similar unfolding in my own life. The more ecological my sense of self becomes, the more I find myself rooted in the body, in the animate world, and in the countless relationships that make a life possible. Rather than pulling me away from matter, consciousness seems to draw me deeper into it.
“I think consciousness would be served by being more deeply identified with the body, not less.” 👏
This got me thinking about Kafka (stay with me). In ‘The Castle,’ the main character is called K. K is for Kafka, but K is also for Körper, meaning ‘body’ in German, and K’s body is always on the move in that book. I don’t want to say that ‘The Castle’ is “about” consciousness. But the book definitely asks questions about what it means to be fully aware (or not) of what we encounter.
Interesting reflection. I often wonder how many philosophers intuited a more embodied consciousness but didn't yet have the language, or perhaps the permission, to fully articulate it. My memoir and broader philosophical inquiry, Unfixed, feels very much in conversation with the Stoics, but with a slight turn. Where Stoicism often seeks steadiness through clearer boundaries, between self and world, what is within our control and what is not, I’ve found that the deepest steadiness in an unsteady world comes through permeability. Not by hardening our edges, but by allowing them to remain porous. That’s part of what resonates with your observation about K’s body always being in motion. Consciousness, for me, feels like something enacted through our participation in it. The self is not a fortress standing against uncertainty, but an estuary shaped by its constant exchange with the world. What if uncertainty is not the opposite of certainty, but a different form of it? What if the most reliable thing about being alive is precisely that we are unfinished, relational, and always in motion? The longer I live, the more I suspect consciousness is served by becoming more deeply identified with the body, not less.
The estuary image is great - really like that 👍😊
Two other books to add to the “re-enchantment book” category: Morris Berman’s “Wandering God” (a study in nomadic spirituality) and the appropriately titled “The Reenchantment of the World” (a study of scientific consciousness and a challenge to its supremacy).
Thank you! One of my favorite books on this subject is Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind, by Peter Godfrey-Smith. He begins with elemental life from billions of year ago, sponge gardens, and posits that consciousness has developed from the beginning out of necessary actions with the environment. Slowly he works his way up to the present day. A stunning, detailed vision.