In ‘modern’ (read: connected by shared abstractions) societies, ‘information’ can be understood to be ‘layered’. Most of the commonly accessible information has undergone severe (and purposeful) perspectival (why/what/who/how/where/when/which?-oriented) derivation and coding. This turns out to mean that the ‘surface’ layers are largely fictions.

Children sense this intuitively, however, being curious and ‘all-in’ in the game of becoming ‘a grown up’, they learn to depart from their original skepticism (particularly about language), and, eventually ‘join the crowd’ (to varying and unique degrees), and thus the weird tradition of working primarily with the aftermath of ‘popular’ derivations of information… eventually become blinded by the results.

In many cultures, older cultures particularly, there is another tradition which employs the layering differently, and, I would suggest, more intelligently. This is accomplished using indirection, and linking the layers together so that what would usually be the surface layer »is recognized as such. It’s recognized, then, as provisional, partial, misleading, incomplete; the result of »purposes that are not precisely those of deep knowing, but rather, »introduction.

In such cultures, and there are traces in modern cultures of this, people are aware that becoming intimate with deep knowledge is a delicate process. It doesn’t happen all at once. It requires immersion, passion, practice, imagination… and »deep connection with what is being explored. Indirection, puns, tropes, and intelligent ambiguity are employed so that the topic doesn’t just collapse into some instantly deliverable derivative fiction.

In our modern cultures, most of the surface information we are subject to is often a form of contagious malware. The purposes for which it was derived are fundamentally untrustworthy, because their are motivated by malign opportunism (their goal is to convert, not enlighten).

This has proceeded to such a deep and pervasive degree that even those persons or collectives »advertising enlightenment (notice the weird cross-purpose here?) are intrinsically self-and-other conflicting. That cannot be enlightenment. It is, in fact, ‘business as usual’, where ‘business’ means active defection from our humanity, collectivity, potential intelligence and mutual creative exploration… into jargon, quips, cults of opinion… ‘info-religions’.

We are vulnerable to this process, and feed it endlessly, for a variety of reasons… but primary among them is something worthy of deep reflection: over time, our cultures transformed… away from actual relationships and shared purpose, toward a kind of ‘highly effective’ counterfeit: ‘business’. At the same time, the assets that would otherwise have been employed in the development (and correction) of intelligent culture… were ‘invested elsewhere’, and so, as our machines and war capacities advanced… the roots of meaning and intelligence in the common people and extended cultures… were first compromised… and then, over time, transformed into highly active, effective … malignancies.

But the other layers of information… knowledge… meaning and understanding… are still there if we seek them. I would go further and suggest that … not only are they »alive…

… they are lonely. And so, to, are we. For the communion that arises when our minds are awakened to these anciently conserved relationships… and our actual roles and abilities… within a world hidden from our discovery… by the tangled mess of abject fictions we have instead acquired and been largely dominated by.