Tuesday, October 11, 2022
6:40 a.m. “3D accidents of attention.” You used that term, and said we could discuss it at another time, in a session on Sept. 16, 2020 that I sent out again this morning. Care to do the elaborating today?
We can, if you wish.
Anything you’d prefer to discuss instead?
It might be more to the point to continue our more private discussion.
Fine. What else is there to say?
You notice the calmness that came over you as we sketched why you had lived as you did, and you realized that there’s nothing wrong with it, and, mostly, that you don’t need to accomplish anything to justify your existence. You never did – no one does – but you, right now, in the latter part of your life as you have lived it, can do or not do anything you wish, and you won’t be wrecking the pot you are throwing, won’t be leaving the painting unfinished, won’t be leaving an Edwin Drood or a Schubert symphony.
It’s true, there’s a difference between knowing it abstractly, and feeling it.
Of course, it goes deeper than that, deeper than you realize.
Doesn’t it always?
There is no reason why you can’t leave it at – or, another way to say it, can’t intend – people coming to you to do the work needed to preserve the understandings we brought forth together. That can be their gift. We brought it forth, they can help translate it, us, you, to anyone interested.
It still sounds like The Legend of Frank DeMarco.
But, nothing wrong with that, if it is organic, inherent, rather than artificial and engineered. Your life is going to be somewhat interesting to those who are influenced by our work, in the way you were interested in the life of others whose work touched you. It’s only natural, and need not exaggerate its own importance.
I think you’re right about letting people come to me, now. Chris Nelson wants to republish Sphere and Hologram, and that seems a natural step.
You may proceed in different ways now, only, choice is required. You can’t be like the cowboy who jumped on his horse and “rode off in all directions.” You know all about opportunity costs.
I do. How about sketching out the crossroads as you see them.
Not so much crossroads as alternative directions still without beaten paths.
That’s certainly my experience so far!
You wouldn’t have been comfortable with anything else. The beaten path bores and constricts you, Mr. Boone.
So, anyway –?
- Doing what you like doing, considering the heavy lifting to be in your past. Cleaning up odds and ends, but with no particular impetus.
- Undertaking one or more new projects as they occur to you and appeal to you.
- Finishing the projects begun to date, either completing them or writing them off, but either way clearing the slate.
- In general, living with reins slackened or with reins taut. That is, reading, and watching Netflix, and daydreaming, or intending, regardless of exterior manifestation as works.
In a way, it boils down to, treating my life as more or less completed, or as still to be shaped in more than a few stray details.
Yes. Or both, if you prefer.
Both? How both?
Openness to life, combined with acceptance of what you have done, and have become.
That doesn’t sound so hard.
Not where you are now, no. You couldn’t have even understood the idea, when you were thirty.
Perhaps not. Okay. Since we’ve been at this only half an hour, how about a few words on the question I posed initially? What did you mean by 3D accidents of attention?
Think of yourself as suspended among various forces. An iron filing in the air between magnetic poles, or something. That is, existing among strong forces whose balance leaves you free to maneuver, within certain limits. Those forces (unlike a set of magnets) fluctuate and change nature moment by moment, so last moment’s adjustment isn’t necessarily still appropriate at this moment. That’s the situation for any soul in 3D.
The times bring opportunities good and bad.
Let’s say, rather, the times bring inclinations, tendencies, that may result in actions (mental and/or physical) that you may think of as good or bad. How you respond to those invisible currents helps determine where you go from any particular moment.
Sure. Our second-tier decisions are influenced by our first-tier decisions, I imagine.
That is true but insufficient. Focus?
Presence, receptivity, clarity.
The shared subjectivity’s unfinished business is always going to have bits that seem aimed at you (that is, to have bits particularly apposite to your personal situation) and bits that don’t affect you. No two people experience any moment’s qualities in exactly the same way. You couldn’t expect them to, each of them being necessarily different. This means every moment offers each of you particular opportunities seemingly tailored to you.
And there are many of them, not only one, and we choose.
And your choice is partly conscious and mostly not conscious – which means, not sleepwalking, but guided by what you are beyond the level of 3D-consciousness-only.
And what we don’t choose consciously is what you called 3D accidents of attention.
No, just the reverse. The 3D accidents of attention are the connections you do make consciously, that lead you on. They are accidents in the sense that various ones were of more or less equal importance, each leading you in a somewhat different immediate direction.
Okay, I see that.
This is “accident” in the sense of a choice among roughly equally important (or unimportant) alternatives, as opposed to choices that will shape your life profoundly.
But I get that second-tier choices can sort of over-write past choices. In effect, anyway.
Yes, but where would you be if your life hadn’t brought you to the concept of second-tier choices? Choices may be reconsidered, and revised, but they still have consequences, because they had consequences.
They brought me to wherever I am when I’m reconsidering them.
Yes. You just can’t tear down the pyramids before you build them, even if you decide after the fact that building them was a mistake.
That’s opening up something I almost get. I think you’re saying, our decisions help shape the world, as well as our individual lives, and even if we reconsider them, they’ve still had their effect.
Yes from a certain point of view. But don’t get distracted, if you can help it, by theoreticals. Stick to your own life, and it will put everything in a helpful perspective. You will never understand the world except by understanding yourself.
Except that we will also never understand ourselves except by understanding the world. To understand A, you have to understand B, but to understand B you have to understand A. Stepwise progression.
Isn’t that your experience?
That’s what we’ve been doing here, I’d say.
Till next time, then.
Till then, and thanks as always.