George Bovell III

I nev­er ap­pre­ci­at­ed po­et­ry. Per­haps this is one of the draw­backs of my ed­u­ca­tion. I viewed most po­ems as be­ing akin to clev­er­ly com­plet­ed word puz­zles that demon­strat­ed bril­liance through the cre­ative use of an ex­pan­sive vo­cab­u­lary.

The use of rhyme and me­tre were un­doubt­ed­ly im­pres­sive. How­ev­er, the fan­fare sur­round­ing prose po­et­ry with free flow­ing sen­tences of care­ful­ly se­lect­ed words that didn't rhyme con­fused me. I felt as though any­one could string to­geth­er a few friv­o­lous phras­es and pass it off as po­et­ry. My dis­dain for this on­ly served to fur­ther in­cite skep­ti­cism about the prac­ti­cal­i­ty of the force-fed syl­labus and en­cour­age my teenage in­tel­lec­tu­al re­bel­lious­ness.

Oh, but now I get it!Have you ever re­al­ly seen some­thing? Usu­al­ly we give some­thing a cur­so­ry glance and our mind slaps the la­bels and im­ages on it that were col­lect­ed in our ear­ly child­hood. What we ac­tu­al­ly see is a con­di­tioned re­sponse to our en­vi­ron­ment and not what re­al­ly is there.

From an evo­lu­tion­ary per­spec­tive, this was ad­van­ta­geous to our sur­vival. Our ear­ly an­ces­tors could give an area in our field of vi­sion a quick scan to ac­cess it for dan­ger. A con­di­tioned mind would slap la­bels on every­thing: tree, leaf, bush, rock, bird, etc. In this way we could quick­ly con­tin­ue to scan oth­er ar­eas for pos­si­ble threats and hope­ful­ly see that li­on be­fore it was too late.

Light leaves the sun and eight min­utes lat­er it bounces off of an ob­ject in all di­rec­tions, some of which hits the screen in the back of our eyes, set­ting off chem­i­cal changes there. This in turn ag­i­tates cells that go on to pass that stim­u­la­tion to the brain in the form of elec­tri­cal im­puls­es.

It's on­ly at this ter­mi­nus that chem­i­cal re­ac­tions and neur­al synaps­es in our brain, which is es­sen­tial­ly our mind at work, cause the world as we know it to spring in­to ex­is­tence. So, what we end up see­ing is al­most al­ways a prod­uct of our con­di­tioned mind, which is bro­ken up in­to the sep­a­rate im­ages and ideas from our mem­o­ry, and not re­al­i­ty.

Our mind is ge­net­i­cal­ly hard­wired to per­ceive the world in the ex­act way that na­ture deemed best for our sur­vival. Autis­tic peo­ple suf­fer from a de­fect that makes their minds see the world dif­fer­ent­ly. It's plau­si­ble that oth­er an­i­mals "see" the world in very un­usu­al ways that have been proven to be more ad­van­ta­geous for their sur­vival. Can you imag­ine see­ing the world through the eyes of a young child? You would see things as they re­al­ly are, with­out the con­di­tioned mind with its la­bels, sto­ries and im­ages from your mem­o­ry get­ting in the way of what is ac­tu­al­ly there.

If you can stay with the cut­ting edge of where the present meets the fu­ture, even for just a few sec­onds in this place of still­ness, there is no mind. You are tak­ing in di­rect ex­pe­ri­ence faster than the chem­i­cal re­ac­tions of the brain that form the thoughts of the mind can take place. In this way see­ing and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing can be­come a form of med­i­ta­tion.

To see things as they re­al­ly are is to ap­pre­ci­ate the sub­lime beau­ty of this world, and to be moved by a sense of awe at the per­fec­tion of cre­ation. It makes you want to start writ­ing po­et­ry.

It is im­pos­si­ble to know a feel­ing–be­cause you can't quite re­mem­ber it. Per­haps it's be­cause we are un­able to spon­ta­neous­ly recre­ate the unique brain chem­istry that caus­es them. Cut through the im­ages and sto­ries that the mind lay­ers on top of the feel­ing, and go deep in­to it, to re­al­ly feel the ex­pe­ri­ence, what­ev­er it is–joy, love, sad­ness. You will find that words sim­ply can't con­vey the depth of what it feels like to be alive. Try de­scrib­ing what love feels like to some­one who has nev­er been in love. You can't do it.

A good po­em is able to al­most ex­press the un­know­able depth of ex­pe­ri­ence that con­sti­tutes emo­tions. Those care­ful­ly se­lect­ed words that don't rhyme can ap­proach a feel­ing from a unique an­gle and ca­ress it with a beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed metaphor. It can show you the fresh­ness of what the world looks like through the eyes of a child, and let you again mar­vel at its strange and beau­ti­ful glo­ry. When this is done right, it gives you a gen­tle nudge back in­to still­ness.

Maybe every­one knew all along, but I fi­nal­ly un­der­stand, and I am go­ing to start writ­ing po­et­ry.

�2@george­bovell