The No-way Way

Our nervous systems seem to be configured to observe the external world at an extremely high degree of resolution - way beyond the 1900-by-1200, or 1680-by-1050 you are looking at right now - and thus are able to come to certain understandings about how things are put together and how they operate. This is partially because we can see them "from the outside" and "from the inside" and keep both views in mind at the same time. It is Science, and includes all the hard-disciplines. There are obvious limitations, of course, but nothing like what occurs regarding the internal world.

No such capability exists in the ordinary human brain/mind/consciousness (taken as one thing.) Sure, we can say we understand what we are, and how we are made, and how we are put together and how we operate, but we are really just making all this up as we go. It is usually much closer to storytelling and poetry, than to anything even close to scientific, though some inroads are being made these days. In general - that is, for the general public at large, the masses - we don't and can not know these things, even as we can know the intricacies regarding the manufacture and maintenance of:

a fine Swiss Watch,

or a High-performance Racing Engine.

We simply can not see ourselves "from the outside" and "from the inside," and keep both views in mind at the same time.

Simply asked: What is "I"?

If one could learn how to DO THIS (see outside/inside simultaneously) - and there are people out there who will gladly tell you all about it, just run a Google Search - one would be capable of real magic. As we are, we can only "dream about" magical/mythical creatures with fantastical/mystical powers, and perhaps (he suggested with a wink and a nudge) that is a very, VERY good thing - given the fairly low level of "Power and Intelligence" of most people. Imagine your rowdy, noisy, argumentative and ill-tempered next door neighbor being able to do to you what Vampires and/or Werewolves could. What a fearsome world that would be.

Fortunately, there is a requirement in the natural, organic world that with great power and great intelligence, even Greater Compassion and Greater Understanding must always be present, lest the two overcome the world, one or more persons at a time. What a fearsome world that would be.

And so, we have storytellers of all kinds, weaving their tales this way and that, covering all possible (at our rather simplistic level) plot lines, though - as has been suggested elsewhere:

There are only about SEVEN basic plots:

1. Man against man,
2. Man against nature,
3. Man against himself,
4. Man against God,
5. Man against society,
6. Man caught in the middle,
7. Man and woman,

and about SEVEN basic sub-plots
all of which can be mixed and matched:

1. Overcoming the Monster, 
2. Rags to Riches,
3. The Quest,
4. Voyage and Return,
5. Comedies,
6. Tragedies, 
7. Rebirth. 

Our Minds are able to imagine almost anything - within certain limits of course - even as our physical bodies can not actualize one word of it (thank "Goodness n' Greatness" for that little bit of foresight.) Well, except in one particular area that has special significance for people like "us" (whoever we are? eh?) 

The Way that is No-way. 

"No way!" 

YES WAY!