Wednesday, November 25, 2015
F: 2:40 a.m. So, Papa, I have been telling people, yesterday’s session was like the way two people get to know each other more and more intimately and then at some point the relationship gets so close that they begin to show each other their worst selves as well as their best.
And that is about the worst sentence I have written in years. Maybe it is too early for this.
EH: Or maybe you couldn’t force the sentence to say what you consciously intended to say, because it insisted on saying something else. That isn’t necessarily a bad sign. Nothing wrong with being in over your head.
F: Well, I am finding it hard to focus. Other stories running through my mind – [for instance] the Castle episodes I’ve been re-running.
EH: The real problem isn’t that, not your breathing, nor the fact that you haven’t had much sleep, nor even that it isn’t yet 3 a.m. The problem is that you are moving into disturbing waters, and not all of you is ready to do that.
F: Too bad. More of me is. Let’s proceed, and I’ll keep up as best I can.
EH: Then let’s continue exploring the various reactions going on within me when Martha came onto the scene and began reprising Pauline’s role [in the breakup with Hadley].
There had been a shift in our relative roles over the years.
F: Want to start again?
EH: It will go better if you let us stumble along instead of expecting our usual fluid unravelling or unveiling or however you want to put it. This is an example of my difficulty in finding the words or even the general containers of thought to express myself. I have told you, you have read, but now you are experiencing how it was hard for me to write. It is different when you have to sit there struggling for what to say and how to say it and it isn’t just a question of editing (“how can I say this better?”) but of getting it into words in the first place. That’s where we are now.
F: And yet that last sentence was not difficult.
EH: No, and if you will look at the difference in the previous sentences and then in that one, you will better appreciate the difference. I never had problems expressing what I had a grasp on, although I might have to take great pains to sculpt it. But getting a grasp could be difficult. It is much like the other difference you are experiencing, sitting with your mind blank instead of full of various lines of thought and memory and construction. It’s new, so you have a hard time dealing with it – you can’t lean on your accustomed patterns.
Part of the problem here is that you have an idea about where you think we’re going, and even though the idea is vague, it’s definite. But other things are going on, so we don’t go where you expect it to go, and that feels like confusion. The result is confusion, or can be confusion, but confusion is not the cause. The cause is discordant simultaneous input.
F: Like listening to two bands at once.
EH: Like listening to one predominant thing and half-hearing a second thing, and semi-consciously or all but inaudibly hearing a third. It is hard enough if you are aware of the situation; worse if your concept is that there is only one thing playing and the rest is interference.
F: We’ve burned 25 minutes at this, and little to show for it.
EH: One of your correspondents said that this is more about the process of living than specifically about Hemingway.
F: John, yes. So you’re saying, nothing wasted.
EH: Nothing is wasted unless it isn’t used, and even there, what one person wastes another finds very useful.
Now let’s focus in on my situation in the mid 1930s. Pauline and I had established a life together. We had had children together. We had common friends and common experiences and to some degree we lived in the same world. It wasn’t like Hadley, where we were closer emotionally than mentally – no, scratch that.
F: Was that one example of my trying to tie things together with an antithesis?
EH: No matter how, let’s just redo it.
The point – almost what you would have had me saying, because that is what you were expecting – is that Hadley and I were very close in a way that was different from the way that Pauline and I were closest. And this isn’t a difficult point, at one level. Surely it is obvious that every relationship is unique. The parts of you that engage with one person are not precisely the same parts, in the same proportions, that engage in or are called forth or suppressed in a relationship with a different person. That should be obvious to anyone who has ever had more than one relationship! And of course I am not limiting this to romantic or sexual relationships. Any relationship between any two people is going to be unique.
Well, how is that going to manifest? To each of the people involved it will seem like they are the one who is different and the other is the one who is unchanged.
F: Let me try. If I am in a relationship with x, certain parts of the total community that is me manifest in a certain way, and that is the “me” that x experiences. To me, the change in myself will be obvious (assuming I am perceptive enough , self-reflective enough, to realize it) and chances are I will experience it as “the person I am in x’s presence,” or let’s say “x brings out this in me.” But although I will be aware that I am or seem different when I am with x, x is likely to seem more of an unchanging quality to me. I mean, x may have as a characteristic an ever-changing nature, but that ever-changing nature will be what I experience as an unchanging quality. Not sure I clarified it any. Words really can be slippery.
EH: You got the gist of it, but it’s true, it may not be any clearer to some than what I said. Let’s keep on with specifics and hope it clarifies.
I was not the same with Pauline as I was with Hadley or would be with Martha or Mary – and this does not refer to how I acted toward them, but how I experienced myself, and how I was “objectively.” Nor was this limited to my relations with women or
F: Sorry. Interruptions.
EH: My relations with Max or with any of my friends or with various members of the public or my family – or anybody – the same dynamic played out, because it has to. No relationship involves the exact same parts of you as any other does. The more superficial the relationship, the less the difference is apparent, in the same way that small talk at a cocktail party is less distinct and distinctive than a tete-a-tete.
Probably we didn’t need so elaborate an explanation of something that ought to be pretty obvious, but it is the obvious things that sometimes need to be emphasized, because they are obvious. Or rather, because something that is obvious in one context may not be obvious in another context even though it is no less in force there.
So, let’s try again. Hadley and I had a closeness that was different from the closeness Pauline and I had. What we shared and what was separate were different; what attitudes we had in common were different, and surely you can see that those differences, in turn, affected where we put our energies. You’re not going to go out of your way to experience a sore spot. You aren’t going to miss chances to minimize things you have in common. At least you aren’t, other things being equal.
F: Which they never are.
EH: No, but you know what I mean.
So, Pauline and I had established a life in Key West, and Paris, and Piggott, and forays elsewhere including the West and of course New York. We also lived a joint life of the mind in that she was an intelligent, perceptive, helpful critic of my work as I produced it day by day, in a way what was beyond Hadley. That doesn’t mean Pauline was smarter than Hadley, just that they excelled in different things. Pauline knew nothing of music, for instance, and Hadley really did. That isn’t something that lends itself to intellectual discussion – I mean, two people who share an appreciation for music don’t necessarily sit around and talk about it – and in the days when Hadley and I were together, [recorded] music wasn’t nearly as accessible in private as in concert halls – but still it is a bond, and it brings certain parts of yourself into play even if they don’t necessarily manifest in any obvious way. Or it would be the same thing if one person were alive to art and the other wasn’t. It isn’t a matter of what they would talk about; it is what would be a part of the mixture that was each of them expressing or not expressing.
F: For the first time, I understand what Fitzgerald meant when he said you would require a new woman for every major new work. I’ve read it a hundred times, but it never meant anything to me, but I think I see it now. A new relationship at the most intimate levels evoked new combinations within you, and it was out of these new combinations that you created.
EH: Well – like most things Scott said, it was somewhat true but not as much as met the eye. We can talk about it sometime.
F: But not now?
EH: Probably best not. This has been a harder session than you realize – I mean you had had to work harder than you know – and 70 minutes is enough. You can always come back fresh and do more.
F: It’s true, I don’t feel like we got to say much.
EH: That’s because you are focused on Hemingway, and I and the material are focused on the human condition, just as your friend said. So we’re measuring different things.
F: Okay, well, you know best. Till next time, then, and thanks as always.
Frank, first I could not find your TMIE posting of November 24, “something of a shock” on this blog site. It also did not appear in the blog’s listings, and I’m assuming that was not intentional. I bring that up because it was my comments to that posting that Hemingway is referring to today.
Second, I would like to say it is good to know Inger Lise is not only “listening in” but pursuing an intensive Seth course, and I am anticipating and hoping her insights will be shared with us.
Bear with me as I provide some background and comments on “Hemingway’s” remarks that refer to one of Frank’s “correspondents”.
On September 27, 2015, a few days after Frank began this latest series of communications with Hemingway, I awoke at 5 am (early for me) with a message in my head: “Write this down. What is it about Hemingway (this dialogue Frank is getting) that is meaningful to you?”
Although I believe I commented on it at the time, it was soon forgotten, and every morning I continued to read and to try to absorb what was going on in the dialogue. Not having a literary background and not being a Hemingway aficionado, I felt nonetheless drawn into the dialogue. Consistently, there have been “nuggets” thrown into the material, like a trail of bread crumbs that stood out to me as examples of what the previous “Rita’s Book” material was teaching us.
In the September 24 dialogue, Hemingway said the following: “That’s an interesting concept in itself, “leading up to.” In this case the journey is its own reward. I am less interested in getting somewhere than I am in describing [the process of] living [in general] through the example of my life, which is what I know.
That’s what Rita was doing.”
My comments to that was: “I believe this whole series of communications with Hemingway can be read as learning examples of what Rita was teaching us in “Rita’s Book”, and it’s not coincidental that Frank brings it to us in sequence immediately after Rita. Becoming aware of the intersection of our non-3D and 3D selves, the impact that our various strands have on us, and the outer manifestation of what’s going on with our inner mind development are all found in Hemingway’s introspective comments through Frank. When reading it from this angle, the actual events of Hemingway’s life, including the writing, become secondary to the detailed examples of the workings of the reality that Rita was teaching us about. Rita’s and Hemingway’s material go hand in hand, in my opinion.”
Which brings us to today.
To have Frank refer to my comments yesterday in his dialogue with Hemingway would have been unusual but not completely unexpected; however, to have “Hemingway” refer to them startled me.
One could say simply that all along this is simply one part of Frank’s mind talking with another part of his mind in public. If you buy into the concept that we are all part of one great mind, then that could be said about all of our dialogue.
That part of me that might be hanging on to the idea that we really are a separate and isolated physical entity with no connections to anything non-physical might conclude this came from a delusional person talking with himself. That view surfaced by an external skeptic or even surfaced internally as a kind of self doubt cannot be entirely eliminated, but it can be mitigated by “outside, independent” data.
By “outside, independent” data I mean evidences of us as physical entities receiving material in a way that could only be collaborated via some non-physical connectivity.
Once I asked, “What should I do with doubt (about all this)?” The answer was: “Throw it away!”
If one is willing to view this kind of “coincidence” as a demonstration that our reality is one that 3D and non-3D share jointly:
1. It could be viewed as an example that our moment to moment experiences here are indeed shared much broader than we realize. Our “strands” are a two-way street bringing us information from our greater selves and beyond, and providing a broad spectrum of information from our physical senses to our greater selves in return.
2. It could be viewed that there is indeed an extensive effort to wake us up to a greater understanding.
3. It could be viewed that the entity “Hemingway” is not only that mind which was the author that lived in our world, but also a greater entity connected to or a part of an unattributable intelligence actively working in innumerable ways to teach and guide us to these greater understandings.
4. It could be viewed as yet another opportunity to choose to further solidify a new belief system, or to fall back to an old one.
5. ?? (There’s always more that hasn’t yet been recognized. Anyone else want to chime in?)
Under any event, I am grateful to be, as we all are, a participant, and likely a guinea pig too.
John
I don’t know what happened to it. Maybe i forgot. Here it is.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
3:30 a.m. I guess I’m up for a while, Papa. Might as well use the time. I take it that we are
You take it that we are going somewhere, assuming that I am not a long figment of your imagination.
I’m working, aren’t I? I’m not freezing up. But I am fully aware of how much I don’t know, and how blank I am sometimes about details you couldn’t have forgotten. It’s the same thing with Rita’s material: I sure hope it isn’t something I’m making up as I go along, the way it feels sometimes.
What do you tell others?
I tell them you can’t prove anything, you can’t know for sure where or why or how or anything except, does it resonate? But people believe plenty of things because they want to, or you might say because, being who and what they are, they almost can’t help believing it.
And so?
I just hope I’m not leading people on.
I think you will find that some of your readers are going to be more impatient with this kind of doubt than I am. To them as well as to you, I say this: No matter what you read, no matter how persuasive the reasoning or how strong the evidence or how impressive the authority of the person writing it, you are always going to have to use your judgment, because there are no guarantees. How can there be any guarantees when the guarantee by the nature of things floats in the air? It’s like an army with its wing unsupported.
I just have to keep remembering that. I had an argument with my son once, who was arguing that the Bible is the word of God and therefore cannot be wrong. I pointed out that there is no way to prove that it is the word of God other than that is what it says, and that amounts to a person vouching for himself. Doesn’t mean it isn’t the word of God – whatever that means to people – but it does mean it can’t be proved on its own authority, because the authority is based on the belief.
Science isn’t any different. Anything and everything you know or think you know is true relative to what you are, which means one man’s truth is another man’s debatable proposition, and a third man’s untruth. That’s just the way it is.
So how do you – how does one – write “one true sentence”?
How do you do anything? You do what seems right. You do the rightest thing you know to do.
And that brings us to you and Martha, I think.
It could, or it could lead to any number of incidents or relationships or conflicts or dilemmas in my life or yours or anyone’s.
I wasn’t meaning it as an accusation
Are you sure?
Well, all right. Maybe a bit of judgment slipping in, there. It did look like you had a choice and chose even while knowing better.
You always want to beware of judgments made by way of foreshortening. The laws of perspective apply in life no less than in the visual arts. We’re touched on this before. You – anybody who reads this – ought to know that the way you lead your life is moment to moment, and the way you look back on it is – how shall we describe it? Scene by scene? Act by act (as in a play)? More like moments of clarity connected by, or separated by, stretches of silently elided smaller moments. We don’t reconstruct our memories, we – well, we select and invent bridging passages, and we make up a story to make it make sense. But what we don’t do, because it can’t be done, is remember the moment-by-moment-ness of it, and that falsifies the memory we do piece together into a screenplay. So something happens to you in July 1934, say, and as you remember it you are connecting it to December 1937 or April 1938 or whenever. What you connect is going to determine the nature of the connection you perceive. It is going to color everything. Those same dates connected with other dates, in other contexts, will elicit quite a different story. Which one is “real” and to what degree? We’re all story tellers, and the story we tell day to day is the one that is real to us. Tell a different story, experience a different reality. That’s called the shock of recognition, when all of a sudden for whatever reason you realize that your facts support a story entirely different than the one you’ve been telling yourself. That’s how people change: They tell themselves a different story.
That’s an impressive statement.
Thank you. but, get back to Martha, I know.
We can talk about whatever you want to talk about. I thought this whole long sequence since September was leading up to this.
That’s an interesting concept in itself, “leading up to.” In this case the journey is its own reward. I am less interested in getting somewhere than I am in describing [the process of] living [in general] through the example of my life, which is what I know.
That’s what Rita was doing.
Big surprise, isn’t it? If I went away for a while – “lurked” as you say – and she returned for another round of talks, you would still be the common denominator, wouldn’t you? Your concerns would have to form part of the context and background, wouldn’t they?
Would they?
Do you see us discussing the intricacies of deep sea fishing or hunting for antelope?
I don’t know that I have happened to think about the implications – though for all I know we’ve discussed this dozens of times. I experience it as my being willing to discuss whatever you want to talk about, and sometimes my having an agenda usually in the form of questions. I hadn’t thought – well, I suppose it is inherent in my saying I don’t have receptors for certain kinds of information, such as hunting or fishing’s details.
Not having receptors for some things implies having receptors for others. But “receptors” in itself implies a more passive role than is quite accurate. There is a difference between psychological receptivity and passivity. A passive participant would be a trance channel. If you are going to be actively receptive – and that isn’t a contradiction in terms, you’re doing it – then clearly you have your own implied or express agenda, on an on-going basis. This is true in this conversation, and in all our conversations, and in your conversations with others, and in everyone’s conversations with others, and in your life and their lives in general. You are always the center of your world, not only in what you can perceive but in the direction of what comes to you seemingly from outside you. You can’t really get this at the deepest level unless you apply it to the parts of your life that seem unconnected to it. That’s why they seem unconnected – because you haven’t built the bridges.
Now, having said that – and if only I could believe that you would remember it moment by moment, but that isn’t the way consciousness functions in the 3D part of the world – we can talk about Martha and Pauline and their common thread, me.
There is a cruel and cutting side to you that I continually see described and yet have to work to believe in. Mostly the descriptions look like the product of envy or misunderstanding. I think, “anybody’s life looks different from the inside.” But your trailing Martha in front of Pauline was cruel. Looks like it from here, anyway.
Martha was many things to me, and had different effects. But to Pauline she was, plain and simple, Nemesis.
And you didn’t mind being the agent of fate.
Remember, everything looks different according to your point of view. We do lots of things behind our own backs, so to speak.
You don’t believe that. You think, “you had to know.” That’s true and it isn’t true, both.
Oh, looked at from a distance it was delicious. Martha came casually into our lives and she was so impressed with Pauline, so grateful to be allowed to spend time with both of us, so much the gracious guest of the gracious hostess – and of course they both knew exactly what might be going on. “Might be” because it depended on how I would react. But it was exactly what I told Pauline at the end, she who lives by the sword dies by the sword. She got to experience everything she had inflicted on Hadley, and more, because Hadley had been innocent and that was one thing Pauline could never claim to be. Unlike Hadley, Pauline got to suffer everything in advance, because she knew every move. And what could she do to protect herself? Hadley’s experience couldn’t tell her that, because Hadley hadn’t protected herself, she had withdrawn. But Pauline never stepped back an inch in her life, and all she could do was watch it play out, and try her best to hold her old attraction to me – I mean, to retain her attractiveness – and nothing worked. Too many things were against her. She came in with the tide and she was going out with the tide.
Weren’t you sorry for her at all?
You aren’t going to like this, but the best way to put it is, she calmly and deliberately broke my happy life with Hadley, and here at last was vengeance. There was a cold vindictive pleasure in paying her back.
I hardly know what to say. Not the words you used, but the clear sense of that part of you. I don’t know that I have experienced that till now. It is a cold proud presence. Now I understand some things differently.
You have opened another door, and seen another room, that’s all.
Yes, I see that. I can feel all the – well, I don’t have a good analogy. All the previous judgments are sort of reacting to this.
Let them. That’s what happens when you get a new insight that is no less true than what you had already come to, but doesn’t fit in the way you expected it to.
It sheds light on so many things I couldn’t understand emotionally. Bullfighting and hunting and fishing.
And warfare and competition and tumultuous relationships, yes.
Wow. I’m going to have to absorb this.
But don’t allow it to overwrite what you know. Add, don’t replace.
Yes, I see that. We’re at 75 minutes, and I had been thinking to stretch it to 90, but maybe we should stop here.
Do not allow yourself to forget the feeling you just absorbed. It is important if you are going to deepen your understanding, and get a better congruence between Papa as you have been experiencing him and Papa as others experienced him in life.
I see that. It’s something of a shock. Is this what happened to the MacLeish child that time?
Yes it is. Children don’t reason away what they perceive; they don’t know how to. But she didn’t have any context for it either. What finally calmed her down was experiencing the familiar sides of me over the time it took to reassure her. You might almost say that let her forget what she had experienced. But you must not forget, or it will be only words and will serve no purpose.
All right. Till next time.
I want to write, “phew,” but it doesn’t have the strength I’d need to explain it. It’s sort of funny, thinking about it, my asking how I can know this isn’t me making up a story. Now I know. Either that, or I’m a good storyteller. (And, I’m not.) That was quite a shock. Funny how your mental and emotional life can change so thoroughly in just a moment.
Typing this in, the long paragraph that I called an impressive statement takes on a different look!