Dancing with the Data Cloud: Managing the Self with Conscious Intimacy
The way I envision a soul— or, if the word ‘soul’ strikes you as too metaphysical, the way I envision human consciousness— is as a three-dimensional data cloud of swirling, glowing points.
Each of these points represents a particular character trait, behavioral pattern, or foundational experience that, in association with similar points, makes up a small part of a personality. Colors identify similarities between specific traits. Certain points may be brighter or larger than others, depending on how crucial they are to an individual’s sense of self. When left to their own devices, points flow with time, forming clusters and patterns for a season or two and then dissolving as a person moves through different stages of their life. A point may grow or shrink, but it will never disappear. E.g., my embarrassing teenage fashion sense will always be there, ditto my love of live music.
This is not, in fact, a human soul, but rather a 2015 piece by artist and data scientist Kirell Benzi titled “The Dark Side and the Light” that maps the interactions between the 20,010 characters in the extended Star Wars universe.
In its entirety a person’s data cloud is incomprehensible; there are simply too many points to form a unified picture. You might be able to get a sense of someone’s personality in aggregate if you squint, hard, from a distance, transforming pixels of infinite hues into a relatively homogenous blob, the shape and color of which offer a glimpse of general disposition (perhaps this is the “aura” which sidewalk psychics capitalize on?). But the closer you approach, and the clearer you see, the more complicated the picture becomes and you realize you really know nothing about this person at all.
Think, then, how overwhelming it is INSIDE of the swarm. How does one express infinity? As the owner of a soul, I’ve found I have two choices to deal with this unwieldy dataset:
Boxing. You section off particular clusters that have strong associations with each other, creating more manageable personas which you can operate from at will
Burying. You move most of your points into your subconscious, a dark sphere at the center of your personality cluster that occludes all traits hidden within it from both yourself and those around you
Most people seem to do both boxing and burying in different combinations, and everyone has a dominant strategy when it comes to soul management. Hint: neither is the “right” answer.
The Pros and Cons of Boxing vs. Burying Traits
Let us start with the pros of boxing: creating personas for yourself gives you flexibility. While socializing, you may choose one box of traits over another, matching its color with what you perceive of the people around you. Switching from box to box doesn’t make you false, any more than putting on a new set of clothes makes you a liar. You are simply highlighting a particular cluster of personality traits in an effort to engage with others, perhaps finding upon mutual inspection that you share an exact datapoint or two.
This strategy maximizes the probability that you’ll find commonalities, assuming you’re an OK judge of character and have chosen a persona that fits the situation, since you’re drawing from a smaller set of traits. It also reduces (but does not eliminate) the risk of exposing a trait that might elicit negative social feedback.
A bubble-sort algorithm visualized in Python by artist and software developer Kirk Kaiser.
The trouble with this strategy occurs when you lose sight of your other datapoints, i.e. begin operating from INSIDE a particular box, rather than outside of it. If you limit your consciousness to only a particular color or small selection of your personality, you will intuitively sense the lack, without a clear understanding of what’s missing. You may not recognize yourself, or feel guilty about having traits that once brought joy simply because they don’t align with the current ‘you’.
Yes, operating from a single persona is far more manageable and you no longer have to worry about finding a new face for every situation, but what you gain in stability you naturally lose in flexibility. Boxing can also be a reaction to trauma, where particular traits are isolated and contained because they are too painful.
Moving onto the pros and cons of burying, where unsightly or unwieldy traits are shifted to the subconscious. If you bury, you have an overall clearer picture of who you are as a conscious being, because the amount of points you can see in your cluster is much smaller. You don’t have to worry about presenting a particular way because everything that you know you are is on full display. Unlike boxing, where traits remain in the conscious sphere as they are sectioned off and organized, burying effectively ‘sweeps the whole lot under the rug,’ which requires much less energy and upkeep.
The very first simulated image of a black hole, calculated using a 1960s punch card IBM 7040 computer and plotted by hand by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet in 1978.
However, when you bury, you exchange a straightforward consciousness for a tumultuous subconscious. Buried traits behave the same way in the dark subconscious as they do in the conscious sphere; they cluster and uncluster, grow and shrink, form aspects of your personality that remain entirely hidden.
In time, however, a cluster may drift from the subconscious to the conscious and you’ll find yourself with a whole new part of your personality that may be frightening, or at the very least surprising. That is the downside to a bloated subconscious- day to day functioning is straightforward and streamlined, but lack of self knowledge leaves you overwhelmed and fearful when a hidden aspect reveals itself.
So, then, how do we remedy this? What is the solution to live both fluidly (without self-imposed personality rules or personas) and consciously (without hiding parts of yourself in that dark central sphere)?
To shift from our dominant strategy, we must achieve an altered state of consciousness- a state in which we can see beyond our own clusters and hopefully understand and accept all of the points that make up our selves.
Altered States of Being: Four Strategies I’ve Used to Surrender to the Incomprehensible
Meditation is a traditional route; in essence, you open your gaze to your dataset and observe different points as they flow and pulse and spark. If you are a “boxer” operating from inside of a strong persona, meditation allows you to probe the edges of your current box. If you are a “burier,” you may gently shrink your subconscious sphere, revealing hidden parts of yourself that you may be unfamiliar with. But mediation is a passive strategy; it may not provide enough energy to break through sturdy personas, or reach the heart of the subconscious. Boxers may still cling to control, and buriers may simply sweep things back into the subconscious.
Plant medicine (specifically, psychedelics) are another option. In my hyper-extended analogy, they pop the subconscious sphere and shake the entire dataset, so everything is buzzing and swirling and whizzing about in the open all at once. New relationships may form between traits, new colors may emerge seemingly spontaneously as points once held separate clash and mingle. Strong personas may speak in voices of their own, from inside their boxes. Or they may dissolve entirely, leaving a boxer adrift in consciousness with none of the usual anchors used to make life more manageable. Those used to burying may become instantly overwhelmed and terrified by their darker aspects, now on full display. It is a chaotic and powerful experience; if you are not used to viewing yourself from a second or third person perspective, it may be difficult to integrate all they you observe and learn about yourself during a journey. Many people find the solutions and conclusions that seem so clear during a trip slip away as their consciousness settles back into its more or less usual form.
Tantra combines the gentle nature of meditation with the activation of powerful erotic energy. Physical vulnerability opens space for emotional and psychological vulnerability, actively shrinking the subconscious and inviting hidden traits into the light. The movement of energy also pulls on specific traits or clusters boxed in shame, and invites people to let go of the persona they’ve developed around sexuality, desire, their bodies, their emotions, freeing those boxed points so they can once again join the whole. If the nervous system is aligned with that of a partner’s, it is possible to have a transcendental experience without ingesting a substance, one that places people in the same state of openness as a psychedelic trip, but without the overwhelming chaos and loss of all structure. It’s possible to pick out a particular color to call forth, particular aspects that have been knowingly hidden or suppressed, or perhaps boxed in the subconscious as part of a trauma response. And always, there is a supportive person nearby to aid in the assimilation of these forgotten points.
For some, the subconscious is too dark, or they must operate from inside of a particular persona in order to move safely through themselves. This is where kink and BDSM come into play. These techniques force the mind into a particular state, either through physical means (kink techniques like bondage, impact, sensory play, etc) or psychological ones (BDSM power exchange, role-play, fantasy). Kink and BDSM are aligned with tantra, just on a higher energy level. In the same way a firm massage might relax a painfully knotted muscle that won’t unclench on its own, if you cannot relax into tantra, BDSM will ‘force’ you into vulnerability and ultimately, catharsis.
And Now, We Dance
As a provider, I find it most beneficial to be able to utilize both passive (tantric) and active (BDSM/kinky) techniques. Clients may need both at different parts of their journeys. The highly guarded with the strongest personas may open at first only to kink, but find it easier to relax and align with tantra once certain aspects have been freed or loosened. The timid with the deepest subconsciousnesses may warm to tantra, but struggle to unlock newly revealed boxes without a more forceful approach. Frequently, a client may be drawn to one based on its external trappings, preferring flowing sarongs to black leather or vice-versa, but need a different approach than they seek.
Kojima Productions and The Mill, WALL, 2021
Thus, as I dance with the soul of a fellow human being, I may use steps from both tantra and BDSM to match my rhythm to theirs. Surrendering the need to judge or understand opens possibilities for both myself and those I work with to explore a more integrated consciousness, free from excess structure and curated personas and joyfully open to the chaos of an infinite self. Is it woo-woo, to embrace this conception of the soul? Perhaps. But there’s no denying that my data cloud and I have never been more in harmony.
