I don’t feel - personally - we can make such a conclusion. You say that K was only an example, a pointer, etc - but K may have actually impacted human consciousness at a level or depth we simply have no way of measuring. This is where the esoteric perspective (which is largely or completely speculative) comes in. But although it is speculative one cannot rule such an esoteric impact out. So we can only leave the door open without drawing a definite conclusion about it one way or the other. This is what K himself seems to suggest.
Yes. I think this point is clear logically and morally: I, as a human being, am responsible - to whatever degree (we can discuss this point separately) - for what is happening in the world. Simply by virtue of being a human being, sharing in this human consciousness.
Because human beings are responsible for what is happening in the world. And so if the world is ever going to change - whether in a small or large way - it can only be through the changes that human beings make. And as I am a human being, I - like all other human beings - am responsible for bringing this change about. I am my brother’s keeper. If I don’t change then I am logically responsible for the continuation of what is happening objectively and subjectively in the world.
But this point has to be seen not only logically and morally, but also directly through perception, awareness, insight. It is this perception that we need to discover in ourselves.
What will bring it about (this perception)?
Yes, that is the question. Everything we do here, study, reflect, experiment, analyze, discard, and so on, at some point brushes up against that one question. The quivering immensity of it.
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I’m the one quivering as I face this question because the answer is the end of I, the imagined individual.
If you have projected the answer already, then it is not that.
Stop projecting! 
Or, if you can’t stop projecting, see the fact that you are projecting and that this projection is just an idea, a thought, something not quite real.
Don’t make having a perception into some agonised drama of thought.
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Indeed. That is the very nature of the me/self. It will spend an entire lifetime doing all that. But it cannot surrender and remain without any effort (thought).
Or rather, K said we are the contents of our consciousness. There is no ‘I’ separate from the contents of consciousness.
So we must first realise or see that we are our fear, hurt, pleasure, belief, suffering, loneliness, etc. One is not separate from the contents of one’s consciousness.
Right?
From what I understand, this perception can’t come intellectually, through thought. K seemed to stress the importance of the silent mind. How important is silence in our lives? Is it something we’re aware of in our day to day lives?
Sensations arise. The brain / memory has named them in the past and recognizes them: anger, loneliness, fear, pleasure, etc…there is no ‘I’ separate from them observing them; that is thought reacting to, resisting, prolonging , etc the sensation. Thought says “I am angry” but there is no ‘I’…only a sensation (misplaced?) and thought’s projection of ‘I’ or ‘me’ (the observer) ‘having’ the emotion (sensation).
If thought moves to condemn the sensation or to change, mitigate it, etc, conflict is created.
I have attempted to address this on the ‘Sorrow’ thread, but my understanding is that real or true silence cannot come into being until or unless one has ended psychologically sorrow.
One can enquire into sorrow with a quiet mind - to some extent - but so long as sorrow exists in the background, such quietness cannot be fundamental or deep. So meeting the content of consciousness with a relatively quiet brain is essential. But in this quietness one may have to be prepared to be disturbed, to feel disturbed. One may have to be willing to face the fact that one’s mind is not quiet at all.
With some sensations this is relatively straightforward. We can do this when the sensation is not acute. The challenge - for me at least - is when we have to face something very powerful, like deep loss, deep sorrow.
To be able to remain with a sensation of deep psychological pain or sorrow, without splitting oneself into the observer and observed, the ‘I’ separate from the sensation of sorrow, is something which requires all our energy, all our vitality and attention.
Personally I have not been able to do this with the content of consciousness we call sorrow.
Attachments and the fear, dread of loss keep the brain from being still, empty. It can’t know freedom. With the death of the body the attachments all end when the brain dies. Why has the brain become attached? For security, companionship, sex, pleasure, etc? Can the brain let go its attachments when it perceives that they are keeping it in the past? Can they just drop away? That is what will happen at death anyway so why not now? It doesn’t mean become a monk or a hermit, just to not be psychologically dependent. That is its challenge. To be free, to be silent.
Attachment is one cause of sorrow. If one can end one’s personal attachments then this cause of sorrow no longer exists. But there is also the sorrow of the world, the sorrow that is not personal, the sorrow that has been accumulated in human consciousness (of which we are a part).
Sorrow is both conscious sorrow, personal sorrow; but also the collective, inherited sorrow in consciousness. I feel this requires a bit more investigation than simply saying it is about ending attachment.