Invisible
“Doubtless we cannot see that other higher Spaceland now, because we have no eye in our stomachs.” -Flatland
The guiding narrative through Flatland is the dissonance between the characters in what they can and can’t see. When A. Square dreams his first vision, he visits the one-dimensional Lineland and meets the Monarch. This world consists of simply lines and points. And so Square, just outside the world sees the inside of the Monarch. At least, that is his perspective, in seeing the side of a line. Yet he forgets this when he wakes up and is first greeted by Sphere. Sphere with his third dimension (“Upward, not Northward”) is above and outside Flatland, and similarly sees the inside of Square. He proves this to the unbelieving shape by giving him a slight poke to his middle, as though you or I were dotting the inside of a square on a piece of paper. But to Square, this is the interior of his stomach, not the edge of his skin, and he feels an unknown pressure inside himself. This is what I want to reflect on, this invisibile invisibility.
This is to distinguish from an invisible visibility, which I would call hidden — just out of sight. For example, a couple of months ago I had some blood work done in conjunction with a physical check-up. Despite feeling relatively fit and healthy on this day, I had a cholesterol level that looked more like a good bowling score (okay, a very good bowling score) than an optimal metric of my arteries. These arteries, and the influx of cholesterol, are invisible to me; hidden within my skin and my veins. But they are not an invisible invisibility that I think Flatland infers, nor what I’ve been curious about. There is the invisibility that in not hidden, but is simply not visible. The realm of thought and feeling are what we might first jump to; and yes even A. Square when he becomes a convert wonders about “Thoughtland” as he ponders fourth, fifth and other physical dimensions. I think it might go even deeper this, if we relax for a moment — don’t attempt to make a construct out of anything and don’t be tempted to abstract into fantasy about meaning.
We breathe, either a little bit slower or with focused attention, and invite a bit more silence and stillness and solitude into the moment. This could be external silence or stillness or solitude, or it could be internal; whatever fits the moment and location you are reading these words. Either way, our awareness changes; we almost notice this right away. The philosophy Gabriel Marcel talks about this in his work, that we can become more aware of the quality of our awareness. From there we begin to feel a bit different than we do when we are distracted or in a hurry; but this movement feels more like a dropping down into a place we already are than a going to someplace we haven’t been. What is granted to us is not the revelation that our friend Square gains — he is brought into a new world and sees in a new way, and then returns to his old world with the memory of this experience. We, instead, remain in our existing world and feel in a new way (or perhaps an ancient way), and sense that we are returning to an experience that we had once upon a time. A memory, remembered; not created.
You could call this prayer or contemplation or meditation, I would say most people do. You could site studies from neuroscience and academy to validate this, which I have read they have. Or, you could, just try it out yourself; which is how I found it. I don’t think you need a Sphere to visit you like Square did; I think whatever compass that is that leads us back to this place is something we’ve had all along. It just happened to be an invisible invisibility we’ve been carrying with the other invisible visibilities within us.
So today, I invite you to push past the significance of sight — which has let your read these words, and agree and disagree with them in your own way — to the lower levels of your being. The levels that have no eyes, yet perceive and tell you much about the world and the life that you are living. Today, I invite you to become aware of how you feel with this type of awareness — that if you are at all like me it is more of a return to something you’ve been before than anything else.