A submarine, a spaceship, a mind—and a self that may not be where we think it is.
The Pressure That Makes MeA submarine, a spaceship, a mind—and a self that may not be where we think it isAt sea level, about 14.7 pounds of air is pressing on every square inch of us.
We hardly notice.
The pressure comes from every direction, and the pressure inside our bodies balances it. We walk around carrying all that invisible weight as if there were nothing there.
Go down a few feet in a swimming pool and suddenly pressure becomes something you can feel. Go deeper into the ocean and the water presses harder, from every direction.
A submarine has to withstand that pressure. An airplane has to maintain pressure inside as the pressure outside thins. A spaceship carries its own atmosphere through the vacuum of space, holding the pressure inside against almost nothing outside.
Each is a vessel carrying life through a different environment.
And so are we.
Our bodies contain blood pressure, air pressure, fluid pressure, and the constant tension of muscles holding us together. Much of it happens without our noticing.
But perhaps there is another kind of pressure: the pressure of thought.
Thought presses against thought—memory against expectation, desire against resistance, like against dislike. A thought arises, we react to it, and then we have another thought about our reaction. The movement continues.
Could that pressure be part of what gives us the feeling of being someone?
We tend to imagine that there is a person inside the body, and a thinker inside the mind, experiencing all of this.
So I imagine another kind of vessel: a mind ship.
The submarine carries people through water. The airplane carries people through air. The spaceship carries people through space.
What does the mind ship carry?
Thoughts.
And where is the passenger?
I look for the one who is thinking. But whatever I find—a memory, a sensation, an emotion, an image, a thought about myself—is something I can notice.
The one I am looking for keeps moving away from the act of looking.
It reminds me of the universe. There are places so far away that, because space itself is expanding, their light may never reach us. The light is traveling toward us, but the space between us and its source is expanding too quickly.
Maybe the self has a similar strange quality.
The closer I try to get to it, the more the act of looking becomes another thing I can see.
Perhaps it isn’t a hall of mirrors after all.
Perhaps it is a hall of mind.
Mirrors reflect light. The mind reflects thought.
Thought reflects upon thought, then upon the thinker, then upon the one noticing the thinker. Reflection upon reflection can create the appearance of a solid someone standing at the center.
But perhaps there is no one standing there.
Perhaps the sense of self is more like a whirlpool: real as a pattern, constantly changing, but impossible to separate from the movement that creates it.
And if that is so, I wonder:
What happens when the pressure lets up?
Spiritual Gravity 