Saturday, April 23, 2022
2:45 a.m. Morning, gentlemen. Shall we continue to discuss the web of associations that is our half-suspected mental life? I’m ready if you are. Focus, receptivity, clarity, presence.
It is an advance in understanding, to realize that most of what goes on in your mental life is not thought, is not based in logic, is not random, is not straight-line. Let us clarify the topic as best we can by setting out a few bullet points, and connecting them later. Bear in mind, the same data, connected in alternate ways, may produce a very different appearance.
- Time, timing, sequence; it makes a difference.
- The content of a mental world at any given present-moment makes a difference.
- The context (what you have made yourself by that moment) is a factor.
- Your intent, and your attention, define and limit your possibilities.
- Your non-3D preferences and inclinations – what in movie terms you might call the story arc – similarly must be taken into consideration.
- As a part of timing, the unfinished business of the shared subjectivity is another limitation; it is also a well of opportunities. It is, you might say, the top of a pop-up stack. You can explain the reference. [In computer terms, the stack is the list of commands for the processor to execute. When an instruction reaches the top of the stack, it is the next to be executed.]
- Your entire nature as a 3D-human, not merely the parts of yourself that you are aware of – and certainly not merely the parts of yourself you approve of – are also factors contributing.
This is not an exhaustive list, but there is little point in continuing to iterate while the content is still only cryptic allusion.
I see what you are trying to do, though. We need to be able to associate as many things as possible, so as usual you are compressing concepts into symbols to accommodate our limited RAM.
So now let us try to put all of this into one symbol that may be employed in future discussions.
As you have been doing – accumulating symbols to be manipulated – for 20 years and more. Our own glass bead game. I did love Magister Ludi. Perhaps I will re-read it, presently.
Re-reading Hesse will be a different enterprise than rereading lighter novels, but you are not the person who read them originally, beginning so many years ago. We predict that you will be surprised to see things you did not see, and to find yourself in sympathy with different things.
Well, I guess we’ll see. Currently re-reading Dark Fire with some satisfaction. At any rate –.
We think the central image that will incorporate all these bullet-points is that of a lone individual floating in space, invisibly connected in all directions. Connected (nothing is ever isolated) but connected invisibly: Nearly all your strongest connections are invisible.
And I get that as usual you will be looking for alternate images as well, so that between or among them, the common denominators will make the central idea stand out, and the inessential connections to the various metaphors will drop away.
Yes, of course. You know our methods, Watson. So, to explicate the bullet-points: Go back and number them, for ease of reference. The numbering will not indicate relative importance, nor any form of hierarchy, it is merely for convenience of reference.
So let us begin with #7. You as a human may be defined in many ways, and whichever scheme you adopt will make some aspects appear more important, and others less. But, necessarily, no scheme is complete, none is without consequent distortion, hence none can be final. Even if the nature of reality did not change as the universe gained in experience (so to speak), your personal gain in understanding would allow you to see previously unsuspected depths, and would therefore force you to see previously unnoticed inadequacies in the model. Nothing wrong with that, as we have often said: You wouldn’t want to ever come to a point where you knew and understood everything. Where would the room be for continued growth? But, you see, by virtue of the fact that what you are is known to you only incompletely, there – right there – is your field of inquiry, always available. Perhaps this will shed new light on the old advice: “Know yourself.” Whenever you feel like exploring, here is your field. You can’t possibly be isolated from it, and it is only a matter of openness. That is one more reason why integrity is a sine qua non: If you don’t dare face what you truly are, how can you explore and discover and assimilate and grow? And this means, in turn, that you must learn to discern without condemning, or you will find it too panful to continue.
Yes, Hemingway’s dilemma.
Too tender a conscience may serve to block inner knowledge too, yes. You have to begin with humility about yourself – which Hemingway had – combined with a willingness to accept and forgive yourself for not being as you wish you were – which Hemingway did not have. Ideals cannot be lived; they can only be lived toward. We repeat ourselves on this because it is widely misunderstood. Should you refuse to live until you are perfect? Is there any way to become closer to your ideal for yourself but to live that ideal imperfectly?
I like what somebody said: “A thing worth doing is worth doing badly.” I take that to be another way of saying, “Practice makes perfect.”
We don’t know what else you are supposed to be doing in 3D. Life can be seen as practice, practice, practice toward what you want to become.
Point #7 reminds you that the undiscovered you is as much a part of you as the part you know. We would say “a greater part” (as is indeed true in a way) if not for the fact that these things are not really matters for measurement, and to say greater or less allows that idea of measurement to sneak in.
So skip to #5, and realize that among the aspects of the undiscovered you are many connections – unsuspected, usually – among parts of yourself you’d rather not recognize, or perhaps merely do not recognize until something points them out. “Your non-3D component” means more than the voice from the attic. Listen to this carefully, feel for the meaning: Your non-3D component, like your 3D component, consists of more than thoughts, more than what you customarily think of as “mind.”
Meaning that you, like us, are not primarily rational beings, but are primarily conduits of emotion?
We wouldn’t quite accept that as an accurate paraphrase of our definition of 3D beings, and in any case, “we” and “you” are not separate, not different, except in a manner of speaking, and for convenience. But, subject to that qualification, yes, “we” are like “you” (necessarily) in being primarily creatures of emotion rather than creatures of thought. At least, you could see it that way. But that doesn’t mean that just any association these words may raise in your minds is accurate. Wrestle with the material, don’t just accept or reject.
So we’re at the end of an hour, and hardly begun. What shall we call this session, to connect it to whatever will follow?
Maybe “Understanding the conditions of life (1)”?
Not exactly a show-stopper.
You’ll think of something. Let it center on the initial image we are providing.
“A web of relationships (1)”?
Perhaps.
We’ll see as I transcribe. Very well, I look forward to continuing. Our thanks as always.