as someone studying the engineering, much of my domain of experience lie in the tangible world. interacting with the physical world is an inevitable part of life, after all we are in physical bodies and the most visceral senses that we intake come from physical stimuli. the taste of air and water, the feeling of feet in socks in shoes on the ground, the rays of light scattering from a sunset, and the sound of music are senses that make up and can very well enrich our human experience. but how often do we consider the immaterial? stem majors often elevate themselves on a high seat for their pragmatic and quantifiable mastery of physical manipulation, from constructing circuits of incomprehensible sophistication to adeptly explaining how cells work at a seemingly endlessly telescoping level of precision. we pride ourselves on this and justify our academic struggles or difficulty with the notion of being more employable, practical, or grounded in reality than those studying the arts or humanities. but is it really justified?
my younger brother hated reading from a young age, in contrast to me being someone who found a second home between the pages of a book. during his time in school, humanities has consistently been a weak point while he seemed to digest science easier than rice. however, while i was in irvine with him while he prepared for his first year in college as a mech e major he told me something along the lines of the following: "you know, i know sciences are important and all that, but i think that without humanities societies will move backwards". of course, he probably said it more colloquially and sprinkled in some profanity, but the idea was there. every developed country seems to have become exponentially more technologically advanced, but the problems that those countries face internally cannot be fixed by machines or discoveries alone. after all, how does developing a faster processor or new balding medication solve homelessness? or lawlessness? or suicide? it simply cannot (unless, of course, you want to implant a chip in everyone's head). arguably, the most important problems our society is facing is impossible to solve using technology.
this piece of writing may be longer, as it is a schizophrenic-passing description of my interpretation of the intangible world and my approach to invisible dimensions. enjoy!
different upbringings interpret the relationshop between the material and immaterial world differently. i grew up in a evangelical/non-denominational christian household, so the spiritual world to me is something unquestionably real. when i say unquestionably, i don't mean a reflection of religious authoritarianism, but rather it is that that the spiritual world is something i interact with, experience, and come in contact with regularly. of course, one can reduce these experiences to being alternative interpretations of the physical world, indoctrination, or mere delusion, but my response to that is that the critic in question can go talk to a wall or sniff glue. the immaterial world, filled with spirits, is as real to me as the ground i am standing on.
the world is split into two parts: the material (syn. physical, tangible) and the immaterial (syn. spiritual, intangible). humans beings are the only organisms to rationalize and document their interpretation of both of these worlds through scriptures of science and spirituality. for a long time, the two worlds were seen as one and the same, but that monistic interpretation has led to disastrous misinformation that lay unquestioned such as geocentrism, flat earth, alternative medicine, etc. when science seemed to topple the tower that religion has built, the two fields became irreconciliably seperated, with one being the antithesis of the other. this mindset has also led to disastrous consequences such as religious persecution, regional shifting of the moral status quo, and inadvertently the generalization of the understanding of religion to include humanities and philosophy. i don't believe it to be a coincidence that when science and technology replaced religion as the forefront of the human experience, developments in humanities became far undervalued and understated in comparison. after all, who cares about someone's contemplation of the immaterial world when there's a new nvidia graphics card coming out, or a new useless element being discovered?
the immaterial world has, in practice, become obsolete like it was old tech. like old tech, it was abandoned and has now been reduced to being a gimmick. philosophy, religion, and art is now treated like a useless supplement or commodity to make life more interesting like vinyl records, collectable figurines, or fashion. perhaps fashion is the best way to describe what has happened, as it's appreciation is now seen as an outwards display of faux introspection instead of a genuine pursuit for deeper understanding. despite how real the immaterial world is, it's existence is ignored and dismissed as superstition or overthinking. what value does it have anyways if it doesn't earn money? full investment of effort in the tangible world has become the norm and as a result investment in the intangible world is seen as waste. even as someone who has invested heavily in the sciences, i find the pull of learning about the immaterial world to be irresistable and the desire to deepen my experience and perception of the immaterial world leads me to study and contemplate the nature of the world unseen.
spirit is a very broad term. when one things of spirit they think of ghosts or souls, and it was instilled in us for a long time that ghosts are not real. however, my understanding of what spirit is and what ghosts haunt us is not merely superstitious belief, but is rather the acknowledgement that there are forces beyond our comprehension that possess us and control us like puppets on a string. i hold the belief that the dead cannot actively pester the living and that their so-called ghost cannot do anything even if i kick their gravestone, but i do believe that the legacy of the dead can haunt the living, often in ways more distressing than any literal poltergeist.
hongkongers are obsessed with their dead. as part of chinese tradition, they have a festival called the hungry ghost festival where they sacrifice paper structures to their ancestors, with sacrifices including paper food, boats, houses, designer clothing, and joss money of denominations so large that the afterlife is probably head deep in inflation. however, in my eyes all this means absolutely nothing; it is nonsense not because i don't believe in the folklore (and i don't), but because of its sentiment. during life, one can be completely ignored by their family, children, grandchildren, and friend, but once they die they all come back and start burning paper in a barbecue pit for them. their name could be soaked in gossip and their existence neglected, but once they die suddenly everyone comes back offering gifts? part of the reason why i don't believe in chinese folklore is because if i were the ghost and i were treated like garbage in my earthly life but like a saint in my next, i would probably haunt everyone i knew for seven generations. we hate the living but love the dead, and the funny thing isn't even what hong kong does, but it's the fact that everyone in the world does the same, from the america to africa to europe and all across asia.
the real spirits that haunt us, therefore, are ghosts of our own creation. we haunt others with our apathy and disdain, and in turn we are haunted by the burden of loving those who can no longer feel it. why do we love the corpse instead of the person? part of the irony of all the offering to the dead business is that the offerings are meant to appease the spirits, but the spirits that haunt us are not theirs. we create the regret of not loving adequately in life because we would rather be filled with apathy and contempt, and in turn we create spirits that haunt us. we know that disrespect in life creates regret in death, yet we still choose to constantly manufacture these evil spirits that we carry around like a stench. i used to be afraid of joking or speaking bad about the dead, but now that fear has been completely pulverized after seeing the idiocy that people turn to after living a life of hatred for those who are alive. the desperation to atone for their behavior only comes after the only irreversible thing a person can do, but where was this desperation while they were alive? we would rather create a living hell and scramble to create a heaven for the dead instead of creating heaven now, so we cannot be surprised when we are haunted by the very real demons of regret and fear we create.
i'm trying to learn to love. the objective is purposefully vague and open-ended, which can be both its strength and downfall. the strength of it lies in the fact that, through its perceived broadness, it can and should be applied to as many aspects of life as possible. however, this same vagueness can horseshoe back into a flaw that is, in not pinpointing how or what exactly to love, indifference and confusion settles in and, even worse, complacency could take hold regarding the perception of love. to be able to love properly needs a level of blurriness and detachment from empirical science, a relinquishment of our human instinct and how we were taught to think. to love means to reset the mind and often times requires trading self-preservation for something with so little return on investment that rational frameworks cannot justify such a decision.