Leveling

We rarely speak of levels
because the structure of experience demands a hierarchy.

But because someone senses:
others have something I lack.
Or: I have been doing this for a long time — I have earned my higher level.

Levels are the human solution
to lack and self-exaltation.

Instead of seeing differences in

• temperament,
• history,
• expression,
• masking,

one says:
they are further.
Or: I am.

That makes difference explainable,
scalable,
attainable —
and therefore possible.

Why “levels of awareness” are so seductive

Because they promise
that comparing will stop —
or they justify that it was worth it.

Yet comparing is the mechanism.
It is merely refined.

One compares depth,
clarity,
presence.

The envy remains.
The language becomes cleaner.

What appears in others as a higher level
is often a person
who is less confused with themselves.

What appears in one’s own experience as a higher level
is the confusion of path and goal.

Levels do not order experience.
They order comparison.

Confusing time with depth

Inner experience is not stable.
That is normal.

What fluctuates
searches for meaning.

From fluctuation arises the idea of an essential state.
From duration comes depth.
From depth a state.
From the state a level.

This is how time is ontologized.

What is not recognized:
attention fluctuates.
mood fluctuates.
load fluctuates.

Instead, one says:
awareness fluctuates.

That is the error.