Smell Ruined my Life. Fabricated! How can a smell ruin our lives? The Egyptians knew how!
I will tell you an ancient story about how smell ruined my life and how that is a complete fabrication. To begin, I will introduce an Ancient Egyptian symbol called the Eye of Horus. The symbol is known as Wadjet and is a representation of protection, royal power and good health or restoration. The yarn of mythical Egypt weaves this symbol into a story of an Egyptian god, Horus, losing an eye in a struggle and then having it restored; thus making it a symbol of wholeness (it’s always fun until someone loses an eye). Many believe the All-Seeing Eye on the US one dollar bill is the Eye of Horus however, that symbol is the Eye of Providence. It is also an imperative symbol for anyone planning to launch a conspiracy theory. So use the eye because it sees everything.
In researching the Eye of Horus, one may find many connotations, beliefs and exciting stories about gods fighting and snatching each other’s body parts, only to be magically revived by another god. It’s fantastic. Today we will discuss why the Eye of Horus was designed in the way it was and how we can apply this symbol, and what it represents, to our everyday life. I will be your Egyptologist for the day. Welcome to my Ted Talk.
The Eye of Horus
Another way of looking at these fractions is through the senses. The unit was called the Ro or the Heqat therefore the fractions are based on the logic of the Ancient Egyptians’ unit of measurement. It can be understood as a weight because it is a measurement of sensory intensity. Each fraction and element of the Eye represents a sense.
The Six Senses within the Eye of Horus
- Touch – 1/64
- Taste – 1/32
- Hearing – 1/16
- Thought – 1/8
- Sight – 1/4
- Smell – 1/2
Each symbol has a layered and complex meaning. Although the symbols appear rudimentary, their creation was calculated based on a measurement of input required to register sensory data. The measurements are relative to how strong a sense organ would become if a person were deprived of the others. It is a belief system on how we process the world; using our human senses and their ability to become stronger in the face of deprivation. To deprive the other senses is another way of describing a shift of awareness. Intentional deprivation or redirection may create space for illumination; perhaps that being the final thread of wholeness.
Thought as a sense organ
We will focus on ‘thought’ as sensory information and what lessons that can be garnered from the Eye of Horus. The belief that ‘thought’ is a sense; it is input. It takes an experience, interprets it and provides feedback. This is identical to our other senses however we have overpowered our sense of thought and, to our detriment, even associated our thoughts with our entire identity through a process I will loosely call fabricated over-extrapolation. That’s why smell ruined my life. It helped me see how fabricated my thoughts were. Here’s an example of fabricated over-extrapolation.
A person is walking down the street on a Monday and thinks ‘I hate Mondays’. The thought pops into her head and is likely the result of Monday unpopularity, exhaustion from a fun weekend, sadness about the length of time until the next weekend (at least two Heqats) and personal beliefs. She continues the thought and arrives at ‘WHY am I so negative! It’s just effin’ Monday. I always feel negative. How will I cope with the actual problems of life if I can’t handle the existence of Mondays? I will feel like this forever. FML’. So this person has now extrapolated a single thought into a truly depressing story about her character, inability to cope and formed actual life conclusions. This is a massive over-extrapolation and because it isn’t real, it is a fabrication. This person might simply dislike Mondays. Hence, it is a fabricated over-extrapolation.
Let’s do the same with another sense organ.
A person is walking down the street on a Monday. She walks by a very full garbage bin and it smells terrible. It takes at least six full length steps to escape the tortuous smell, which is at least a breath or two of shit-smelling street crap. She thinks ‘it smells like shit. This is gross af‘. That thought is a response to the initial input (smell) and so it is about the true and real perception. She continues the thought and arrives at ‘I am so judgmental; I judged this entire garbage bin based on that shit smell. I’m a shit head. I’m such a terrible person with a terrible life, filled with selfishness and judgment about smells’. This is an over-extrapolation and again, completely fabricated. The person has transformed a dislike into a story about life, character and an approach to every other smell on Earth.
How does this apply to your life?
The above two stories illustrate how ridiculous it would be to use our other senses to form assumptions and conclusions about our life. Does a smell ruin your life? Using a like or dislike to create a story causes an emotional response to a complete fabrication of what is actually happening. While it appears that our thoughts are the driver in both stories, because in part they are, the concept I intend to bring to the surface is that we rarely use our senses to fabricate an over-extrapolation. Our thoughts, on the other hand, have massively overpowered our true nature.
From the view of the Egyptians, the Eye of Horus illustrates that thought, as a sense, is no more fundamental to our identity than our sense of smell or taste. How many major life decisions have you made based on a smell? How many on a thought? Smell ruined my life is a fabrication. The only way a smell would ruin my life is if I gave it enough power to do so. Thoughts, for the most part, are the most prominent life-ruining fabrications.
Let’s take this into action!
Imagine you’re thinking right now ‘WOW. I hate this Translate Reality article’. Is that thought ok?
It is OF COURSE ok if you hate this article! That is a perfect illustration of allowing a thought to arise in your mind, notice it (noted) and move forward. If a story begins to form, such as ‘why do I hate this…is it because there is something wrong with me…is it the Egyptian thing…I do like pyramids’. Just stop. Put the brakes on. Practice freely hating this article without any self-judgment or fabricated over-extrapolation.
Don’t let smells ruin your life. Don’t let a nasty smell become a fabricated over-extrapolation. This article actually has nothing to do with smells and everything to do with thought.
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