Uncommon Sense

One of the fundamental problems with understanding reality is the idea of common sense, or more accurately, consensus reality ... anthropology having amply demonstrated how common sense varies quite widely across cultures ... and historians have shown the same across time ...

Looking closer at the senses through which commonly accepted realities are constructed, another problem arises, since there is often an erroneous assumption that we see through the eyes, hear through the ears, smell through the nose, taste through the tongue and feel through the fingers and the skin in general ... leaving aside for now the oft experienced sixth sense, the information from those five receptors is only energy at a certain frequency, which is interpreted in different parts of the brain and matched up with already established patterns to create some kind of common sense story ... and, returning to recent posts, the mind seeks security, which is what we know, more or less ... order rather than the alternative, chaos .... of course this only works for a while, since we are much more than we know, maybe infinitely so .... then comes existential angst, since the soul, for want of a better word, insists on the infinite or at least moving towards it .... consensus reality, or our conditioned reality, increasingly aligned with the story of stuff, Samsara, the hell realm promoted through the brainwashing techniques of television, radio, "news"papers ... has to be challenged, putting us at odds with family, friends and peers still operating there, albeit often numbed by illegal and prescription drugs, alcohol and so on ... solitude, of course, is an opportunity to investigate without censure ... avoiding the hypnotic agents of television, radio, newspapers and social media helps too ... less is more ... and beyond that, nothing is everything, more or less ...

Today's routine, what with 4.30 dental appointment and sunny weather forecast, takes in early coffee and pastry at the French bakery near the hostel ... opening at 7 am, rather than hostel 8.30 breakfast, coffee excellent rather than mediocre hostel coffee ... not to sound ungrateful for the warm, welcoming hostel staff, of course!  Walk to Santa Luzia and Barill beach means firm sand for low tide walk towards Tavira and ferry, after an hour or so of Sun and a couple of dips in the sea, very energising in the waves ... time for a shower and change before lunch at nearby vegetarian restaurant as the day heats up to near summer temperatures ... offering a vision of Coimbra to Santiago in the Sun. .. Spring walk rather wet ...

Trains and lodgings await outcome of dentistry.... just as well, since visit reveals laboratory has not delivered the work and completion is postponed until Saturday at least. Still, there are worse places to wait than Tavira and the virtue of Patience can only benefit from further practice. ...