It isn’t too late

Friday, January 28, 2022

7:40 a.m. Setting switches, remembering that I am more than my 3D component and more than any one self-definition. We’re always more than we can realize, I suspect. What do you think, guys, private session or public? I had all but forgotten what we got earlier this month, on writing the next novel. Maybe because it isn’t important?

We said from the beginning, if you want to write novels, write them, but from our point of view that isn’t what you came to do.

Well, given that I’m going on 76 years old, I assume that what I am now, and what I have done, is either what you expected, or isn’t. It isn’t like we need to peer into the mist of the unwritten future to see what my life may be.

That is actually less comprehensively true than you might think. Even externally, your life can always surprise you, but internally, you should be able to see clearly enough that it could change – you could change – at any last moment. It is never too late to alter even third-tier decisions, and they do not always require time and space to become effective. That is, say you are considering your life and a strong emotion becomes evident. Do you wish to carry that emotion – or rather, the results of it – into the afterlife, into the life not driven by 3D changes, or do you wish to set it down, or transmute it, or in some way compensate for it? Such choice may be invisible to the 3D world without being ineffectual.

So take jealousy or hatred or lust or any of the seven sources of sin. Bear in mind, here, we are not dabbling into theology; consider them an exercise of psychology. You know the seven sins you created the acronym LEG CAPS for. They exist. They manifest in people’s lives. It is not a matter of belief or disbelief in a given religion’s tenets; they and their results are observable. Indeed, that’s how they came to be named!

All right, conceded.

Well, each of these channels through which you may fall

That metaphor doesn’t quite work, and it’s going to get you into more trouble as you try to use it, I think.

Perhaps. Each of these sins is a tendency, then. They tend to warp your being in unpleasant and unhelpful ways, as the virtues tend to help you set a course of improvement. We are saying, treat them as real facts of psychology, different from the ten commandments, say, which describe actions more than causes for these actions. (“Don’t steal,” rather than describing the various roots that may cause you to be tempted to steal.)

So a tendency like anger mingled with envy mingled with pride, say, may manifest in a specific memory or series of memories. Memory by nature is tied to specific events, hence also to specific individuals. That is, memory per se is not generalities. It is specific. Then your mental processes, thinking and emotion together, may take these memories, alter them, attach them to others, and result in a running fever, so to speak. You may live your whole life with specific angers burning beneath the surface, or specific predilections.

I get it. Those hidden currents – and I gather they don’t need to be hidden – can be changed by our decision; they don’t depend on an external event to allow us to change them.

That’s the idea. One can always repent and refocus. Repentance is not the same as regret. Regret may mean, merely, “I wish I hadn’t done (or neglected to do) that.” Often enough regret is accompanied by an implied “But it’s too late to do anything about it now.” Well, it may be too late to rewrite the 3D record, but the 3D record isn’t real in the way that the continuing non-3D record is – and your writing or re-writing of the non-3D record is always “starting from now.”

Don’t let anyone misunderstand us to be saying you can shrug your shoulders and the record you have cowritten disappears, with all its effects, mostly unsuspected by you or indeed by anyone. What you do, what you did, may have extensive results for better or worse in the shared subjectivity – that is, in the manifest and not manifest common pool of consequences and causes. As such, it will have its effects. But who you are is part of that shared subjectivity, no less, and what you are remains under your authority, to an extent: It changes by what you decide you want to be.

I suppose we’re going to label this one “repentance.” For those who have forgotten, the seven sings (LEG CAPS): lust, envy, gluttony, covetousness, anger, pride, sloth. The virtues: prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, with faith, hope, and charity added. We discussed all this at some time, but I don’t remember how long ago.

“Repentance” is taking a negative view of life. “Restructuring,” or “amendment” would be as accurate, and less depressing, we should think. In any case, the point we are making for you, for everyone, is: It is not too late. If you are still breathing, you aren’t finished yet. Yes, you may be merely playing out the clock, but exactly how would you know that? Today’s ennui and drift may become (in tomorrow’s retrospect) merely a breather, preparing you for further effort, further enjoyment. The point is, you never know. Sometimes you may feel stubborn, and will that nothing change, in a sort of “I’ll show them” mood. But in more liberated moments, you will remember Viktor Frankl’s discovery of the one freedom never to be taken away from you, the power to choose your attitude toward what happens.

Let me say, and not facetiously but sincerely, how much I admire the fact that you can always proceed from something individual and draw wider lessons out of it. I was thinking of my own life and you took it as an example of human possibility. It’s often impressive, the connections you draw.

You do realize, don’t you, that so do you and so does everyone? There is no way to describe human potential except through specifics. Those specifics may be inadequate, but they are specific; they are tangible; they give your minds something to process. It is so easy to have all this degenerate into merely empty words, when it is left in a generalization.

Emerson, reading Thoreau’s journals after Thoreau’s death, noting how vigorous the prose compared to his own “sleepy generalizations.”

In that, he was not quite fair to himself, for he had a gift of dropping quite specific and homely metaphors into his arguments. It is a reason why quite uneducated people were able to follow him; they didn’t follow the logic, but caught the spark, and those sparks were often enough a homely image that they could visualize.

Unless you have more, I’m content to cut this session short, 50 minutes instead of an hour.

Only bear in mind, just because we generalized from the particular, the particular still holds.

Well, I’m thinking about it. I was thinking earlier, I don’t have to write another novel, nor for that matter put all this into more books. So it isn’t like I haven’t heard what you’re saying. Thanks for all this, and till next time.