Living in Lagos as awareness
Consciousness
Consciousness is the awareness of existence. The awareness of you taking space wherever you are right now, reading this story on your phone or desktop, occasionally slipping in and out of distracting thought. You are conscious.
Currently, the study of consciousness lacks a universally accepted definition and there are debates about the different aspects of being aware. From self-awareness to memory, intuition, altered states of consciousness, The Void or nothingness and so on.
When you’re aware of yourself, you are able to observe yourself doing any activity. And you can confirm that you’re in fact doing what you’re doing. You are conscious, or in other words, present.
Lately I’ve been reading certain books written by Eckhart Tolle, a German spiritual teacher. And as a natural skeptic, I’ve tried to hold on to logic and the sciences, while learning about his interpretation of Consciousness and Presence, for fear of becoming delusional, or too far removed from reality.
I have to admit that I’ve learned a lot that has improved the quality of my life, in terms of inner happiness.
Eckhart Tolle’s books revealed a new depth to this world I only ever suspected was there. I started with ‘The Power of Now’ during the lockdown , and it turned out to be one of the most important books I will ever read. I am currently reading ‘A New Earth’. And the most important lessons I’m learning are on Ego Death, The Painbody and Inner Space.
This is a part of me I’ve kept mostly hidden, before Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers dropped. Kendrick Lamar featuring Eckhart on some of the tracks made me feel validated. And I no longer feel the need to hide from closed minds, theists and atheists alike who strongly oppose and demonize views that are not in line with their beliefs or lack of belief. I am simply a student of life, and my own experiences.
I am writing this, still a skeptic, but less unconscious and more present. I get distracted by the present moment. I have no past and no future. I grow less and less interested in ‘my identity’.
It all sounds like enlightenment, ascension and other New Age terms I don’t care to understand. And I lowkey hate that it does. I want to be skeptical about everything till I leave this world, forever in between science and spirits. But it is what it is. This knowledge has saved me.
This was my journey into Consciousness and Presence. And exactly one year after reading the first book, I found myself in Lagos. A state of unconsciousness.
This is me journaling about how impossible it is to abide by what I have learned, living in a place like Lagos.
Unconsciousness
Nearly all of us are unconscious, but not in the way that you might think. We are lost in thought most of the time, enveloped in worry about making more, becoming more, showing off more. It’s not news that we cannot drop out of this rat race, fueled by capitalism. We cannot stop the cycle of thought and being asleep, chasing our dreams. The blue pill.
The feeling of being alive or conscious is foreign to most, that’s why we only feel it when we fall in love, have a near-death experience, use drugs or sex, or go somewhere fascinating like a concert or on vacation.
That aliveness is translated as true happiness, unattainable, because we don’t understand how to access it on a random day, without the drugs, or someone to cuddle and so on.
But we can access it in an instant. Simply by being present and also ego-less. And that’s my biggest takeaway from those books. Coming to the realization that nothing else matters except the present moment; viewing yourself and everything you’ve ever achieved in the history of time, relative to the Milky Way. You are inconsequential.
Your pain is inconsequential too.
“There’s no difference between me and an agile lizard prancing around the backyard on a lazy afternoon.”
“I sometimes experience the outer world with such an intense awareness that I become genuinely interested when I contemplate the sky or a tree, or the force that animates a young boy spinning a tyre down the street.”
Thoughts like the ones above involve contemplating the seemingly unimportant things and they help me remember to unplug from the burden of identity, which is unconsciousness. This way of life can do wonders for a bad mental state.
Living in a state of unconsciousness
- Being fully present is akin to being conscious, and being fully present demands complete acceptance of the moment without changing it, albeit momentary. Sitting beside the Danfo driver, I’m scared to ease into the present because I sense a contagious tension coming from his side. The entire situation in a Danfo requires alertness, Presence. But not the Presence that respects and allows the moment, rather a Presence that resists the moment. You have to constantly display an air of resistance to live in Lagos. And so it becomes near impossible to practice what I’ve learned.
- I learned and personally experienced the fact that we are all connected, no difference between me and a tree, if you’re looking inward from outside our galaxy. Yet it’s hard not to acknowledge the otherness of others in a place like Lagos. So many different characters dramatizing around, trying hard to emphasize their uniqueness as well as their toxicity. Maybe someone who lived their entire life inside Lagos would never truly understand my perspective, understandably.
- It’s very difficult to stay present because so many things are fighting for our attention every second. It would be much easier to just be, when there’s nothing else around, like when monks separate themselves from society for lifelong meditation or whatever it is monks do.
- Having a few drinks or watching a violent film can make one lose their consciousness, according to the books. While it’s not the worst thing to happen, it’s very important to be attentive about it. It gets tricky when you’re taking a walk, minding your business and meditating, then you inadvertently witness Jungle Justice, or a car-bashing incident. It’s also tricky if like me, you enjoy films like Pulp Fiction.
- Silence and outer space cannot be overemphasized as necessary for this way of life. Inner silence, quieting the mind by not thinking(literally, no thought), outer silence and space; these are almost unattainable in the State of unconsciousness. Imagine waking up sweating, on a Saturday, to an orchestra of generators. How would you meditate?
- The only few situations that bring consciousness to your remembrance includes the famous walk of shame (or Uber drive) through the Third Mainland Bridge around midnight or dawn, or solo dates to refined places in expensive locations like art galleries. Moments like this provide an avenue to reflect quietly on the moment, a true spiritual practice. Or a very helpful technique for a bad mental state.
Fortunately I don’t live here primarily, and I often go back home, to save money. And to avoid getting lost under the weight of identity or reputation.
The Bad Side to being conscious
Nothing really matters to me — (Matthew 6: 25–34) I have developed a scary detachment from my own self, my aspirations in life, people, habits and items. My short and long-term goals suffer because they start to feel meaningless. Deadlines are no longer scary to me, to my boss’ dismay. Overall, I’m not worried about my future, but I’m also not prioritizing the work I need to do before the future arrives. This can’t be good.
In 2020, after reading the first book, I cut off many people from my life, deleted myself from social media and went ghost mode because it felt right. It also felt right to reach out to certain people who had not been exactly important in my world before that time. I don’t know that doing things because they feel right is always wise.
The Good Side
Before consciousness, pain used to feel realer than reality. If reality was 1080p, then pain was 4K, simply because I wasn’t deeply experiencing my life as I should have. I allowed everything become mundane and mindless. Transitioning from a teenager to an adult, I was losing my childlike sense of wonder about the simplest of things. Growing miserable.
Now, becoming conscious moved me to actively and egolessly participate in my own life, from the simplest things to the small achievements. I eat food carefully now, acknowledging the taste. I don’t walk as fast anymore, to my mother’s dismay. And every time Yosemite by Travis Scott and Gunna comes on, I run outside to watch a bird glide across a blue sky, in time with the music. Sometimes there are no birds, and that’s okay too.
Painless reality becomes more vivid, as much as Pain. Painless reality, as simple and random as it is, becomes the opposite of Pain.
Joy.
This means that I find joy in everything, whether it’s a happy occurrence or not. So life continuously swings in two distinct directions now, not three. Pain and Joy. Not pain, joy and everyday life.
I’m also learning to cherish my family like they were special treats I don’t get everyday. Instead of taking them for granted.
Being no one
The Many Faced God lore from Game of Thrones makes so much sense now. Viewing yourself indifferently when you look in the mirror, detaching from your description, weightless as if gravity was not real. You become light. Faceless. Unbothered, unserious.
However, the very reason I’ve left my family to live here is to hustle to make a living. To become someone. And to tell everyone that I have become someone, so they take me seriously and help me maintain my status as someone.
And in my quest to become and remain someone, I get trapped under an identity, and keep pursuing more stuff until I forget how to feel alive again, losing consciousness.
So is consciousness and presence a luxury only a white German can afford? Or a non-Lagosian perhaps.
