Remarks on...
The agent inside your body, evolutionary shifts in physiology and awareness, and exponential increase
Read my Extended: A Guide to Physical Materialization (Part 1 - Reality and Perception)
Brought Forth…
What is agency? More importantly, who’s behind it and what is the mechanism allowing it? The “agent” inside your body, can you call it you, the self you recognize as being you?
[Alertness]vs.[Awareness] We can easily mistake alertness for awareness. When we say we are consciously aware, we’re usually referring to being awake and in “control” of our faculties, the direct opposite of being under general anesthesia and not awake, not in control, not consciously aware. But that does not imply we’re necessarily aware (and at what level — lower or at a deeper level and with great clarity) of what is determining our level of control, and even the difference between what inside our body is controlling what, not to mention who.
[Agency]⇔[Volition] And when I say who, I am meaning the agent behind your will, the will you use to move yourself through, in your intentions and pathways and inclinations, different than the will of the body, with its own agency commanding its own “inclinations” and movements (and having to deal with yours too). The funny thing is we take these movements and inclinations of the body as ours, and, without knowing, take ourselves (and our will) for granted, not knowing that a more pointed filled-with-certainty agent (a you) exists in the equation. We go with the “flow” of the body, and miss the train (and track) of our own “self.”
“But I am my body, aren’t I?!” Well, if it is yours, it can’t be you. (Brace for directives below.)
Show-How:
For example, is it you or your body that is feeling this feeling of elation or boredom or expansiveness or sadness or [name yours here]?
It is easy to realize that you’re indeed not the one initiating the specific biological process that triggers those electromagnetic signals being sent to the brain which, in turn, inject back into the body the biochemical releases responsible for creating those sensations [in the body] we call a feeling or emotion (if the feeling endures).
What is not so easy to realize is that that feeling or emotion is happening to your body and not to you. And because of that you have a chance to detach from it, to not take it in; to not use from your intentions and consequent movements — those of which direct your pathways (and nudge, guide the body to follow) — in conjunction with the movements that the body had to make in order to process the kinds of impacts it had to take which resulted in that feeling. (Impacts which might or might not have come from you.)
Good to Know:
The confusion comes from the fact that we tend to identify ourselves with the feeling or emotion running through the body. (Mainly because we can be the source of impact causing it, but not necessarily at all times.) We say “I am happy” instead of “I am happy, and my body is happy too.”
It’s easier to make the distinction between our will and the will of the body when we catch ourselves saying “I am so very happy right now, why is it that my body is not, what’s going on?” Catching ourselves in the event alerts/engages our awareness — which automatically elevates and adjusts to a more keen one — to the fact that there is a separation between what we want and go for and what the body wants and goes for.
The good thing is that, on one side, the body can be instructed to open up to our directives, and on the other, we, as well, can become more aware of its needs and aid those processes in ways we never thought we could.