TGU — Finding a direction

Saturday, April 7, 2018

6:20 a.m. All right, my friends, I considered skipping a session this morning, it being Saturday, but I have only done three this week, so I can hardly be said to be overdoing. Your move.

We do recognize that in effect there is a drag effect when you do not see the connection to past material – or, put it this way, when you don’t have a sure sense of a direction, even if you don’t know where that direction is aimed at. That drag always, or anyway often, manifests as a temptation to delay working, in the hope that another time will be more propitious. But here as in most things, particularly in artistic endeavors, diligence is a more trustworthy source of progress than occasional inspiration. So, when you are tempted to postpone communication because you are unsure that we are going anywhere (put it that way), recognize that it is a temptation, and not a free choice such as when you might recognize that you are too tired, or have been overdoing this, or for some legitimate reason choose not to do it. There are no rules about it, it’s a matter of being conscious of your inner motivations – which amounts to saying, becoming conscious of what is not conscious! But this is not the paradox it appears to be. It may equally well be stated, bring into consciousness the things that are entering into your mood and your decision-making, and thus decide using as many factors as possible, rather than allow yourself to be moved by unseen forces.

This, of course, for people in general, not merely for you as one example.

Understood. And I do feel that drag. It’s time for me to approach this work more consciously, isn’t it? To do more conscious shaping of the material.

Well, since you ask –

Have I just opened a can of worms?

Closed one, perhaps. This disquisition or conversation or whatever it is – that is, the discussion today, wherever it goes – may perhaps restore your focus and propel you toward a more complicated and satisfying future.

Editing ahead of time, you mean?

More or less, but not what anyone may assume, following your jump, there. So spell it out a little.

Until now I have been producing manuscripts that were edited transcripts. Perhaps it is time to take the three manuscripts awaiting publication – a Rita book I think of as “It’s All One World,” and two Nathaniel books – and freely edit out most of our interaction as well as side-trails, comments on the process itself, jokes and teasing, etc. The result would be less personal, less intimate, but perhaps more appealing because more easily understood. It might be easier for people to keep the thread of the argument, the flow, freely in mind.

It might be easier for you to keep it firmly in mind. It would have its advantages and its disadvantages. Think of the process as a reflection of the larger process or receiving information: an alternation of receptivity and discernment. Or, in other terms, an alternation of inspiration and shaping, or writing and editing.

Have I been putting first drafts out into the world?

Not necessarily. The raw data, the intimate look at the process, has value for those who want encouragement and for those who want tutelage, but of course these are going to be a tiny minority of the potential audience for the material itself.

It requires too much work to absorb?

It requires sustained patience and sustained interest and a certain minimum of preparation.

So – popularize.

Not in the sense of dumbing-down, but in the sense of increase accessibility, yes. And not instead of what you have been publishing, but in addition to it. Thus you – and Bob [Friedman] – produce a more well-rounded body of work. The popular easily digested summary for an introductory orientation, and the edited transcripts for the more detailed, intimate process itself as it illustrates and expands the message.

Of course, this assumes Bob’s willingness.

You have been able to count on it until now, have you not? And why would he be less willing to publish a more accessible work when he has been willing to publish the more demanding ones? The only thing a new more accessible product could do would be to create a demand for the others; it could not diminish them.

I have been thinking wrongly about the precis needed. It isn’t like we need start from scratch.

You  could. But another way would be to outline your process of discovery – what you learned and conceptualized in each book, without the life-experience, let alone the conversations, that led you there. in essence this is what you did for your early life in the beginning chapters of Muddy Tracks. So, conceptually, you could write a book summarizing the world as you came to understand it – that is, your progression – with a chapter for Chasing Smallwood, another for Sphere and Hologram before it, then Rita’s World, Awakening from the 3D World, and the three not yet published. A concise summary of the process of discovery, you see. Perhaps a parallel summary of the process of learning and practicing ILC. Little books, accessible books, like The Cosmic Internet, or Imagine Yourself Well, only even more so (though we have no fault to find with either of the latter two).

Not much for others in this conversation. Maybe I won’t transcribe it.

Do. It will be lost to you if not put into type. And you cannot know who will benefit from overhearing this. It applies to more lives than your own.

And resume pursuing our larger conversation at another time.

This is no interruption. It is one more example of the layering that is characteristic of your and our interaction, that’s all. It isn’t for everybody, but it is for some. Don’t underestimate it.

Perhaps, though, I should omit putting it on Facebook.

Why?

It isn’t as on-point as most.

We beg to differ. Not everybody knows to look for you on your blog. The whole propose of your Facebook presence is to encourage others to stumble upon you. Those who depend upon that easy link may have technical reasons that make it hard for them to contact the blog; you can’t know.

If you say so. Are we going to call it a day, then?

Only don’t forget the glimpse you have gotten of the way forward for you. You have written the material. Now provide the key.

I’ll keep it in mind. Till next time.