The Tavern 🥛

LIFE ON URTH - Episode 097

The YouTube project I’ve been thinking about for at least a year is finally taking shape: The Tavern.

I've always enjoyed making videos, and it’s been part of my plan to pick up that interest from the beginning. Now I am committed to a challenge of making seven videos in seven months.

You can watch the first one here - or continue the newsletter to read the script 👇

“Oh, sorry, Sir, no dogs bigger than the mark on the sign are allowed.”

A sign at the door reads: ‘No pets taller than this.’
The mark sits roughly at a human waistline.

“That’s not my dog”, says the guy who just entered the tavern.

The tall dog passes the guy and approaches me.

“I’m not a pet, and I’ll take a hot milk as an apology for your impropriety”, says the dog. His accent sounds posh, he must have gone to one of these fancy schools.

“Sorry, Sir”, I say. “Of course, right away.”

Better be polite to talking dogs, they might be best friends with a powerful wizard.

“Would you like some honey?” I ask and turn around to start preparing the milk. The last talking dog loooved honey in his hot milk.

“What kind of honey do you have?” the dog asks skeptically.

I add his hesitation to my growing body of data regarding the taste of talking dogs for honey in their hot milk.

“Nothing fancy, I’m afraid. They’re all mixes of hives from the blue forest.”

I fetch a jar of honey and show it to him.

“As long as it’s local”, he says. “I’m allergic to any products that come from south of the river.”

“Not a single pollen from the south, Sir!” I assure him and finish up his hot milk.

“Thanks”, he says and enjoys a deep breath of the scent.

“What brings you to my tavern then?” I ask and pick up a glass to polish.

“My research”, he answers between sips of his milk.

He must be from the university then, I reckon. I inspect the glass.

“Which subject?” I ask.

“Consciousness”, he says, finishing his drink.

x^“What about it?” I ask. Having consciousness as a research subject is like investigating the whole world.

He leans back and takes a deep breath. I know this look all too well from my decades in the tavern. I asked the right question and will now hear his entire life story.

“I vividly remember receiving the ability to use and understand language,” he says.

“I was only two years old, even though at the time I didn’t know that. It’s not like there wasn’t a past and a future, but they weren’t separate from the present.

In fact, nothing was really separate from anything. Just as the eastern philosophers describe the Self with a capital S.

A unified field of experience.

Then suddenly, after visiting a wizard, the voices my humans made began to take shape. I heard them all before, of course. But instead of slipping right through, now it was as if language had a place in my mind to attach itself to.

I learned quickly, but also helplessly. When I understood what was happening, it was already too late.

Naming things became addictive. I couldn’t help but keep carving up my world into smaller and smaller pieces.

I knew it wasn’t good for me. But when I turned my attention towards that feeling, the process only accelerated. I studied everything I could find about psychology and the mind, collecting even more words while trying to understand how to stop.

All I wanted was to return to my original state of bliss, before language and thought.

But all I had was my ability to name things. Whatever I turned my attention to, I sought a name for it.

So I decided to use it to my advantage: I applied to the academy - much to the dismay of my owners, who were only hoping to talk about dinner with their favorite pet.

After years of studying the philosophy of mind, I am now working on my final paper to become a faculty member. It’s about the very nature of consciousness. I’m certain this will help me and many others to reconnect with the Self - again, capital S.”

I ponder his words for a bit, polishing my glass.

“So you’re still using words trying to get away from… words?”, I ask.

“Yeah, I guess”, he says.

“Another milk?” I ask.

“Yeah. I guess”, he says.
“Don’t be stingy with the honey.”

✒️ Quote of the Week: “I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” -Frederick Douglass

📃 Article of the Week: A whole list of non-duality

🎧 Song of the Week: Joseph Ray - Cos Of You

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All the best,

Adrian / Urth

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