We tend to believe that we are natively inclined toward some specific extension of our knowledge or skills by virtue of our birth or genes — and that we sort of come with certain potentials for fluency or skillfulness ‘out of the box’ so to speak. This is not entirely mistaken. But what is more true is that we acquire with our human birth a diverse set of potentials, many of which do not seem possible to us in when we are first exposed to them and their challenging developmental paths. These paths are practices.

Martial arts and guitar-playing are good examples. In the beginning, I am awkward, my hand -just won’t do that-, and everything seems confusing, painful, not really possible for me. I am inclined to suppose, for example ‘I am just not cut out for this’… as if I am some kind of a cookie or something. In fact, however, this is almost always the case with elaborating our potentials. What’s surprising is how profoundly fluid the developmental curve tends to become after we have overcome the initial inhibitions and self-evaluations… and how ‘impossible’ these elaborations seem when we are first exposed to them.

But what I want to say here is this: it is not particularly uncommon for someone to train the hands to the needs of the guitar as an instrument of creative expression. Many of us accomplish this, with varying degrees of expertise and creative flair. But there is a specific domain in which we are given the instruments, and left untrained. And few of us ever discover this, or realize the depths to which our vulnerability and clumsiness truly run. I speak of our intelligence, both representational (or rational) and relational (or emoto-cognitive). We are given language, perhaps mathematics, and knowledge… but nearly none of us realize the dangers implicit in these gifts (although we start out with a somewhat natural sense of this, rather than being developed it is usually stifled by our culture and peers)… and fewer still will ever even taste the opportunities concealed here. We must amend this together if our species is to ever have the chance to become intelligent. So far, what we largely have is a vast and common failure… we have millions of people banging on the instrument of conscious awareness and thought… without the slightest skill or even a sense of rhythm.

These are the instruments with which we navigate, evaluate, engineer, and pursue our lives. They are the roots from which our cultures emerge, and they inform every moment of our waking and dreaming experience as human beings. They are incredibly powerful; and left undeveloped, will commonly direct us in the strangest and most dangerous directions possible. We cannot afford to simply possess these strange instruments. Without skill, they will destroy our world, our humanity, and, ironically, our potential for becoming intelligent.

Let me be clear: the difference between our common experiences of cognition (language, thinking, working with knowledge systems, and relation)… and the activated, skillful, inspired results of one trained in the instruments involved… is so staggering that were you to get a brief taste of the latter, you would think you had become a deity… or some other kind of being entirely. Our developmental capacities vastly exceed our beliefs, expectations, or common goals. But as regards our intelligence, we have few traditions to guide or exemplify the possibilities to us, and those are largely hidebound and enmeshed with the history and goals of the academy. Generally speaking, our species are still making mud-pies (and throwing them at each other). Our relationships with cognition are unbelievably crude, and dangerous… yet our capacities exceed the wildest of our imaginings or hopes.

It falls to us to demonstrate and close this gap. And part of that task involves a caper. Just as our potentials for intelligence were effectively stolen and obscured… so too must they be retrieved… and revealed. And we cannot wait for heroes to accomplish this. We must become them. Now. Together. With and for each other and our world. And if we can succeed, the rewards will be astonishing. Just imagine doing and becoming something so beautiful and true that it justified our history. Imagine the power to transform not only our future… but our entire desperate, confusing history… in a single act. That’s the potential we are talking about here. And it’s a potential I intend to embody and become.