Buildings have feelings too (Bad metaphysics, opus 17b)

I was dispatched with unusual haste to the 31st floor, to investigate what, exactly, was going on.

Reports had been coming in all morning - the usual deluge of emails, but an unusual volume of phone calls as well, which was the first thing that got my eyebrow twitching.

Emails were easy enough to spit out for any variety of corporate complaint - toilets backed up, new eco-friendly light-bulbs not pulling their wait - xeroxers running low on paper - but picking up the phone was more personal. Voice calls were intimate; there was an investment strung between your vocal chords and the listener's ear: *this issue* needed to be looked at post haste.

Otis propelled me with his usual passion-less efficiency from the lobby to the 31st floor, and when the doors opened:

Nothing.

At both ends of the hall, glassed front doors leading to the belly of the bureaucratic beasts; and pushed against the glass, very, *very* unhappy faces. Scared, unhappy faces. They looked through me, though it was not clear whether this was intentional or just an aftereffect of whatever they had been through.

Time for some forensic work. I crossed off the obvious first. Ventilation systems, water, electricity - all good.

What then, of all the complaints? The feelings of dread being reported? The terror? The anxiety? Clearly, nervous systems were running amok, and it was my job to figure out why.

Crude mechanics ruled out, it was time to become quieter, and ask the space what was going on.

Several deep breaths, a walk from east to west - and there, like a neon sign, was the answer.

The string of this floor's lights leading to the water closets were clearly out of synch. Specifically, the third light, running dark.

In my mind, boundarilessness presupposed that buildings could have feelings too. And was it a was not a stretch to suggest that chakras could be lounging around the hallways too, spinning and swirling their own cosmic tidal pools across their own ecosystems.

Clearly, someone in one of the offices had been graced with the recognition of no-self. There wasn't a question of whether their third chakra - home of self esteem - existed or didn't exist. There was simply no self to be impacted by the third chakra.

For however long this person's light was on (and their chakra, at best, flickering) any person they came in contact would be similarly affected. And they would touch two people, and they would touch two people....

And the metaphysical walls would come tumbling down. No self, no separation. The building was as affected as the people, and clearly manifested it in the third light - that hall's third chakra - flickering.

And that, kids, is where the trouble set in.

Realizing something internally is one thing, but when the world is recognized as ephemeral as the internal world, it can be terrifying.

This explained the faces, the fear, and the solution.

Enter me - Self - paged from their collective need.

I carefully aligned the buildings chakra, and jumped like a thousand fingered flame into the temporarily enlightened workers on 31.

Self back, chakras lit back on, personalities in tact, another job well done.

Word is that Ego is going to be distributing bonus cheques as a thank you for the course correction.