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Driving a little car through the universe Dec 10, 2024   Consciousness, Lisbon, Observations, Thoughts

The universe is looking at itself. I am part of that happening and I have a series of previous experiences that allow me to see the world in a certain way. But how many of these experiences are my own? How much do I really see and understand and am able to translate into something that becomes thought and maybe words, actions? Memories? Predictions?
I wonder how many times I really am operating a car when I drive it. I know I am in it and I know that I am moving over those cobble stone streets of Lisbon. But am I really? Is the car my outer body now? Am I the one driving the car, is the car driven by me? How do I know where to go, how do I know what happens when I do this or that or the other. And I am obviously not alone, the context of me getting from A to B is of a complexity that’s impossible to describe. And it only gets more complex when there are passengers. People I love and see as important for me, my life, the joy of being alive. Each one of them is looking at the city outside and they see the same things but differently from a slightly different vantage point with a different set of experiences, with a different emotional and rational vocabulary to comprehend, to create the world we are traveling through.
And the houses around us are also ideas that someone had at some point that then translated into what is here now, incredibly complex systems, each one of them.
A single wooden step in a 19th century house contains more information, more story, more suffering and more joy than I can possibly even begin to describe in this little text.
Layers of a living organism have grown year after year by breathing in the molecules necessary to create what are now objects which can be hammered together so we can move from one floor to the next slower. And how many feet have touched each step, going up and down the stairs, with experiences of love and sadness and joy and despair? I have walked up the steps with more and more ease, often carrying a little son who was too tired to move his legs after a long day of trying to learn languages, social skills and life.
The little car with us in it drives up and down the cobbled streets of Lisbon. Each one of the stones is millions of years of something i do not quite understand. And the energy we use to move the vehicle is also not exactly new. It is ancient living things, alive long before there were steps.
The universe looks at itself through us. It must be so amused or confused. So much is happening and in such an incredible dance. From the particles of light who are also waves, to the particles of used up energy that exit into the air and mix with it and become food for some new living things, who will never become steps, as that’s not what wood is mainly used for these days.
I love it when drivers here in Lisbon do not follow the traffic rules, as they mostly do that in order to make driving easier for others; complete strangers in cars or all colours and sizes. Or at least that has been my experience. I was a bit surprised at first that cars would let me drive past them or in front of them because the flow of traffic for all of us seems more important than the individual following the rules. And then I started to do this myself. I might take longer to get to my destination today. But I will help someone to get faster to theirs, or I will help an entire interaction to get home faster.
I am still astounded by the level of kindness and support I encounter in Lisbon every day. Completely random acts of it.
I should probably note them down somehow. They feel like something that did not disappear here, while in many other places it has been strangled and pushed away and out of society and community and people living together. Transactions rule there, harmony embraces us here.
We drive a little car through the streets of Lisbon. And the hills take us up and down and around corners much too tight for bigger cars.
And we look at so many incredible patterns that sometimes repeat and sometimes do not. We look at colours and how everything moves quickly and slowly at the same time.
The universe looks at itself. It has to. And I do like how it does it here.
I do love how it looks at itself here.
And I feel so lucky to be able to share it with people I adore.

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