Nathaniel — Nutrition v. addiction

Saturday, November 25, 2017

6:30 a.m. I’m going to do the editing and then see. Maybe I don’t want to go a long time without communicating. Maybe do it once or twice a week? I’d like to keep my readers accustomed to looking for blog entries. Telling them to buy the books already published not only seems a little crass, but doesn’t answer the idea of continual contact so as to remain in touch. Of course, it would help if they did buy the books, but it wouldn’t be the same.

You expect to keep posting conversations after you’re dead?

I see your point. At some point even the most well-meant advice becomes an addiction.

That is curiously ill-formed, for you. Would you care to focus and try again?

Interesting. I wasn’t focused because I wasn’t thinking to have a conversation, because I had made up my mind to do the editorial work I started yesterday.

Alternation may work better. So, rephrase please.

I should have said, even the habit of looking for advice, or for a given stimulus, say, can become an addiction. And the impulse to help, carried too far, can weaken rather than strengthen both sides.

If only because at some point, physical conditions are going to change – you will no longer be in 3D – and the situation will adjust.

So, your point is?

Tapering off is often easier than cold-turkey, when kicking an addiction.

Is that what this is? An addiction? If that is true for my readers, why isn’t it true for me?

We aren’t quite saying it is, only that it could become, an addiction. The difference between nutrition and addiction is worth spelling out, as is the difference between process and result, or perhaps we should say, between artisanship and consumption.

Well, feel free. I hadn’t expected to do a session, but I’ve got pen, paper, coffee and lighting, what else could I ask for?

So, two themes: nutrition v. addiction, creation v. consumption.

Nutrition v. addiction. It is entirely a question of the attitude you bring to it. (This may be said of your 3D life in general, of course.) The same action performed in a different spirit will produce different results, necessarily.

Necessarily?

A + B = C. A plus anything other than B may or may not produce C (depending on the value of whatever replaces B) but it won’t be the same equation, and that is what is important. You all tend to look at results, as if there were a commutative law of life as there is of mathematics. Instead, you would benefit by applying statements like “the journey is the reward,” even though there seems to be no connection.

The commutative law says it doesn’t matter what order you add things, you’ll get the same result. So if the equation is 5 + 6 – 3, say, it doesn’t change the result if you first make it 11 – 3, or if you first make it 5 + 3, or first make it 2 + 6. No matter what order you perform the operation in, the result is going to be 8. The law is more complicated than that, but that’s what you want for your analogy, right?

Yes. You see, if all you care about is the result, the three operations may be made in any order, so they are equivalent. That’s all well and good. But if instead of obsessing over the result, you pay attention to how you proceed, you have three very different journeys. 11 – 3 is not identical to 5 + 3, nor is either identical to 2 + 6. They all add up to 8, but they are three different journeys. You could look at it (to closely simulate your continual experience) as being faced with a binary choice, as always. Here is 5 + 6 – 3. Heads: 5 + 6 first; tails, 5 – 3 first. If heads, then you have to subtract 3. If tails, you add 6. Same 8 either way.

Only there is another heads / tails choice made even before that one: Start with 5 or not. If “not,” start with 6 or not. And if, by either “not” path, you start with the 3, you have to choose to relate it first to 5 or first to 6.

Does the fact that the answer comes to 8 in all cases make the journeys identical? And this is in mathematics, the most stripped-down representation possible. In real life, each of these paths would have its own complications and opportunities.

The point is, pay attention to the landscape; don’t just exist waiting to arrive at the train station.

And this applies to “nutrition v. addiction” how?

Always you must remember your attitude. The attitude, you might say, is the journey. Even if you are on a train that will arrive at its scheduled destination (which in life is only somewhat true), still you will have a very different journey depending upon your attitude during the journey. Nutrition feeds consciousness. Addiction feeds automatic reactions.

That is closely related to our second point, creation v. consumption. It too is a matter of attitude.

Yes, I get that. You’ve been telling us all along, don’t just accept the material, like somebody watching television; work it, wrestle with it, test it.

That is the whole secret, right there. The words on the page, or the preacher’s sermon, or the formulae in a textbook or the situation you may find yourself in (whatever it may be) will not be the determining factor. That factor will be your approach to them. If you memorize, or unthinkingly accept, or even perhaps ponder but then do not try to apply, you are functioning as a consumer, and you can get little or no benefit from them. You may get a promise for the future. You may get a moment’s encouragement. What you won’t get, except by active engagement, is transformation.

And these two points are enough for the moment.

Thanks. I think maybe we’ll do this a couple times a week, at least try it out, see how it goes.

That will be fine with us.

Okay, then, see you later.