Remember ... who you are ... is the driver, not the car.

While you catch up on your reading and consider your feedback to P.A.D.'s message in my "experiment on sharing community"  (because I know I have been rather prolific with such "stuff" lately), I thought I'd pull one out of mothballs that I wrote and sent out last year that touches on a conversation that came up several times today - having to do with the distinction between our spirits and our brains, or between our intuitive sense and our rational thought processes.  As I lightheartedly suggest above, and reinforce with a few others' quotes below my own, it is our intuition that reminds us who we are and how we fit into the much bigger game called Life. 

THE HUMAN RACE

"Our human body is the particular 'race car' that our spirit has chosen in order to experience the full exhilaration and wonder of being alive (i.e.; driving in the 'human race').  Our brain is the on-board computer that defines and manages the integrity of the car's self-concept (i.e.; treats it as a complex, closed-loop system that can be managed via sensory inputs and outputs).  This on-board computer is very powerful and, in fact, can operate the car on automatic pilot during most 'normal' conditions, but not very well at the extremes of internal and/or external circumstances, and it really doesn't know where it's going in the grand scheme of things; its focus is solely on keeping the car intact and out of danger.  The cars in this 'human race,' although varying in size, color, and all sorts of physical characteristics, are fundamentally the same from an internal 'performance' standpoint.  Each has its own unique driving idiosyncrasies, little quirks that make driving it adventurous and fun.  

The course is ever-changing and full of outrageous obstacles and surprises.  The race is not about 'finishing' or 'winning'; it is about the sheer pleasure and thrill of the driving (and learning) experience, like the amusement rides at the boardwalk.  Our spirit is the driver, and we are connected to a 'collective whole' called God who created the game out of nothing, just for fun, and to teach us to be better drivers on the race course called Life.  But when we are in the thick of things out on the course and getting tested, we sometimes forget that, and we rely too heavily on the on-board computer out of fear; i.e.; we lose ourselves and our connection to God for a moment.   This can sometimes confuse us and the other drivers into thinking we are actually the cars. The cars can then confuse each other's onboard computers by their physical actions and end up bumping into each other and crashing along the way.  Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in the sheer excitement and intensity of this game that we forget that there are other even more fascinating games awaiting us after this one's over.  But once we step out of the car after the experience of the 'human race,' we remember and joyfully move on to the next game." -- Yours truly

"People with high levels of personal mastery ... cannot afford to choose reason vs. intuition, or head vs. heart, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg or see with one eye." -- Peter Senge

"The primary wisdom in our human experience is intuition.  In that deep, mysterious force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their origin." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The really valuable thing in life (the thing that connects us to the infinite) is intuition."
-- Albert Einstein

"There is something within you that knows much more than you know." -- Rochelle Myers