An essay by the famed author with commentary (in italics) from our special guest, what’s-her-name
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Definition’s security detail
What happened after your bombshell decision ten years ago? I was so grateful for your friendship that I wanted nothing more than to return the favor. So pleased to hear it. Would you have any idea when that will happen? When I complete my transformation. Not another!
There’s a lake at the threshold of Definition. And when you look at your reflection in it often enough, something amazing happens. You lose your balance and fall head first into the lake. Worse. Definition’s security detail shows up. A mob of thugs and goons with attack dogs wanting to know if they can assist you off their property.
Wisdom from a giant dictionary
So what does happen? You discover that the water reflecting your image is doing more than that. Letting you know that you need to see a plastic surgeon. Asking stuff. Like it’s prompting you to think about what you’re seeing.
Ah! Meditate on the deeper meaning of the vichyssoise I slobbered on my blouse. Yes. Except for the vichyssoise. Meaning – mainly the Why and How of things but also the who, what, when, and where. The questions that drew us to the threshold of Definition. Thirsting for answers from a giant dictionary. Yes. Resting inside the sacred Ark of the Covenant on a pedestal inside the Parthenon. Only to be opened by Indiana Jones. Or Arthur Pendragon. Yes. King Arthur of Excalibur fame.
Miracle of the Sermon on the Mount
So what is Definition? The way things are. Mind that’s Relationship. Loving, vulnerable, and imperfect. Offering friendship and help with stuff just like a friend who respects us. Relatability. Not the Big Dude way up there somewhere? Commanding us to obey and keep our mouths shut or else. Unrelatable. If unrelatability is getting in our way then things won’t make sense.
That’s what brought us to the threshold of Definition. Where things begin to make sense if we engage with it. Relate to it. Stare at our reflection in its lake hoping for a miracle. Yes. Hoping a juicy fish shows up and a floating loaf of bread. So at least we’ll have something to eat. Loaves and fishes.
Asking
Definition is we’re minds thinking and feeling, not animals acting on instinct without either one. Individuals not herds or tribes. Not dependent on Energy limited by time, making up objects beginning and ending, coming and going. But brought to life by Energy from our Friend. Always here in the Now, not limited by time.
All this from water in a lake? The way things are from Definition has its own reflection. Just like ours, a reverse mirror-image. The way things weren’t. If we’re objects coming and going in an animal kingdom of unrelatability that’s where we must be. Where everything alive competes and combats to be number one.
The way things weren’t? In time instead of the here and Now. Where there’s variety with differences but no Definition to resolve them when they conflict. Contradictions that don’t make sense. But they do when we consult the sprite with a magic wand in Lake Definition. The magic wand that’s an individual’s mind doing what should come naturally. But in the way things weren’t sometimes hardly happens at all: asking.
Mutants and mass hysteria
Asking for answers instead of wasting time on questions. The threshold of Definition can’t put us on the threshold of answers if the way things are is our Friend. Who took up the cause of questioning from the question at its origin. For which there is no definitive answer or else there would be no need for anything. For things to be either way — are or weren’t. For Friend or Definition.
I must add that to my Hallowe’en lawn display. What? “Question at our Friend’s origin.” Guaranteed mass hysteria. Then think of it as a fraction. Things the way they are above the divider, things the way they weren’t below the divider. Actively trying to divide it since no one so far figured out a way to make it stop. A carnivorous amoeboidal alien – The Blob! More mass hysteria!
Episode II: Attack of the Fractions
The friction in our daily lives is a result of denominators’ constant attempts to divide enumerators. Us sweet folks on the top of the fraction and our reverse reflection-shadow sourpusses on the bottom. Able to do so because our universe is friendly to contradictions. Where the way things are doesn’t contradict itself, the sourpuss reflections are hypotheticals. Unseen and unheard.
What contradictions? The universe on its largest scale contradicted by its smallest scale. The laws of cosmology contradicted by the laws of particle physics. Or lawlessness since experimental physics doesn’t know what to make of them. Einstein made Energy equal mass times velocity squared in his famous equation E=MC2. But he failed to make the material universe that Energy made do the same.
Throwing pi in the face
Like the value of pi, always a fraction. Exactly. So this is why our universe is friendly to contradictions. It’s a fraction itself. Yes. The product of a Mind divided in two by its own reverse-reflection. Imagining weird stuff. Another fraction. Setting contradictions free in our world of wild ‘n crazy animals.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High because of a question that has no answer? A silly fraction? A question above with its own mirror-image reflection below questioning it. Trying forever to divide it. The way things may want to be but can’t if they cast a shadow. If the shadow is always there implying the opposite of whatever its host is all about. Throwing shade. Yes. Let that be a lesson to you: stay out of the sunlight!
Ten-hut!
The threshold of Definition sounds like Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi: unraveling mysteries with meaning. Doing the work of understanding for us when it offers something better. Help with using our minds to do it. To work out the meaning of things because there’s no one-size-fits-all.
A compelling notion for the authoritarian mindset. Looking for an excuse to erase individual identities with one tribal uniform so they’ll do as they’re told. Not for love but for fear of the predator that they’ve become. A regimented, flag-waving beast fit for cruelty and sacrifice on the front lines of combat. In the image of their ruler, proprietor and wielder of the big picture, to be feared and placated with sacrifice. “Almighty God.” Commander-in-chief.
Individuality
It all comes down to the individual and the individual’s circumstances. To Definition personalizing its help with what we make of ourselves and the lives we live in the moment. With telling our own stories, because no one else can do it for us. Gasp! Did I say something wrong? My diary! I don’t have type 3 authentication!
Our Friend doesn’t feed Creativity with answers all nicely wrapped like Christmas gifts. The Energy for Creativity comes from asking. From questioning. In a quest for the meaning of things that’s only possible on a granular level. Where each individual and situation can be made relatable by being personalized. Who can be there for us that we keep at a distance? Not Definition-Friend or any friend.
Meaning isn’t a scroll of parchment encased in generations of tribal veneration. No matter whose tribe it is or how spooky the special effects. It’s for each of us to work out for ourselves. Within our own minds, but always with help from Definition. That can’t be there for us if we’re not being there with it. One relating to the other. Focused on the questions that point us toward Definition, the way things are for us individually.
Who’s there?
Nosey sprite prying into my private affairs. What do I have to ask so I can get back to having fun at school? Oh good! Learning and growing. Don’t be ridiculous! Throwing shade on female classmates. Jealousy, treachery, betrayal. And then kissing and making up. Life is good. For girls maybe but not for guys. Too bad. They’ll never get it.
Looking into the mirror of Definition’s lake wakes our minds up. When it begins its questioning and makes us wonder: who is it? Who wants to know more about us? As if it were already a friend. So it can do what friends do: be there for one another. With mind and heart, thought and feeling. Sensitive to one another’s needs.
That would earn my trust. So the lake sprite and I are pals and now she’s prying into my diary. What does she want to know? What we need to know if we decide to be relatable instead of unrelatable. Like what? Who’s the person behind the face looking into the mirror?
The visitors to the zoo
Can’t we just go about our business if we all look and act more or less the same? Fractions trying to get along in a world that’s a fraction, everything divided against itself, are asking for trouble when they’re not paying attention. When they cut corners, there’ll always be a price.
Sapiens didn’t add a new species to the taxonomy of zoology when it evolved from ape. It only added a subspecies of ape. It’s in our nature to be humans capable of amazing achievements. But we’re still animals. A sub-species of ape. And it’s not in the nature of the ape in us to be idle. Stuffing itself with bananas while human-apes gawk at it.
The really big gorilla
What is it doing? Embodying one of two basic human personality types. One on the bottom of the fraction and the other on the top. The one on the top Sapiens, still a species of ape but with attributes of mindfulness distinctly not ape. With the capacity for introspection, reflection, analysis, and choice.
The one on the bottom distinguished by the absence of mindfulness. By a pronounced resemblance to the behavior of animals dependent on instinct rather than mind. For survival by dominance. By the force of will answerable to superior force and nothing else. Especially to the limits of deliberation and conscience, which to a predator are signs of weakness.
Ask a gorilla for its definition of a “supreme being.” Its answer would be physical, not anything remotely metaphysical. A really big gorilla. The equivalent of ape-human’s concept of “God.” The “supreme being” of animal kingdom hierarchy awaiting its replacement by a name descriptive of what it is and does. Loving, logical, and relatable, rather than what it’s not. Unrelatable supremacy.
Consequences
The ape in us is the type on the bottom, and it’s doing what denominators are meant to do: divide the enumerator. Which it’s already succeeded in doing because the personality type on the top is divided in two.
One part being pulled backward by ape-willfulness. The other evolving forward with help from its connection to Definition. A faculty of Mind that reverse-opposition can’t capture or destroy, but useless unless Sapiens chooses to use it.
Evolution isn’t a sure thing? We can’t get out of doing our part. We have to learn to manage the friction between the two personality types. To understand how and why they differ with more than idle speculation.
With purpose, because there are consequences. That can turn families from incubators of individuality and mutual respect into crucibles of incompatibility, disrespect, and abuse. That can turn relationships at all levels from civility into violence.
Support without being supportive
How we answer our friendly lake sprite’s questions will be of critical importance to Definition. Because it will tell whether the personality behind the face seeks friendship in equality or capture to establish superiority. Whether it seeks help with self-awareness, learning, and growth or validation for itself just the way it is. Whether it’s relatable or unrelatable.
Because if it’s unrelatable an attempt by Definition to relate to it in friendship, to help with personal growth, would likely have the reverse effect. Strengthening tendencies toward evolution in reverse instead of forward. It would backfire.
Revenge of the unhappy camper
Isn’t it enough if we’ve come to the threshold of Definition? If we’re thinking about our reflections on the lake? It depends on why we’re here. The ape-human personality type’s motives are shaped by its physical world. Our familiar world of hierarchy and competition for supremacy. Where psychologically it remained behind after its ancestral ape-tree grew another branch. Contented with the way things were, while human-ape moved on, taking an unhappy camper with it. Its reverse-reflection.
The underside of fraction. Motivated not to add, subtract, or multiply but to divide. Not to accommodate change but to resist it. To capture and dominate any prey unlike itself to eliminate the threat of change. Making the personality type above it its target, not a friend. Since the human-ape personality type seeks Definition’s help with evolution forward, beyond predatory animal motivation, it’s regarded as a threat to its existence. To be eliminated if possible or at least neutralized.
Ape-human’s intentions toward Definition in its metaphysical world aren’t honest. They’re dishonest. Deceitful. They’re to help itself to the power of Definition so it can turn it against its source and get rid of it. Theft and destruction of what Definition has to offer, not its receipt with gratitude and use.
Five-sensed foolishness
Definition’s lake sprite can’t be fooled. Her questions are as effective at closing the door as opening it. But that’s seldom needed because the ape-human personality type is more inclined toward unawareness of any threat than awareness. To ignore or flee from metaphysical than try to capture it should it somehow be aware of it.
Its five body-senses are attuned exclusively to its hierarchical world of physical objects. To the presence of potential threats — animals preying on one another like itself. It would be a rare animal able to sense something not detectable by its body’s five senses.
Like Sapiens. Equipped with a sixth sense. Access to Definition’s lake sprite but not yet experienced enough to be proficient with it. To be fully committed to its use so that, with Definition’s help, it can be done with preying on one another and choose to be friends.
Learning discipline
If Definition’s lake sprite knows to close the door on ape-human personality type then maybe we should too. Yes. If it an be done thoughtfully without adding to the friction. By physical withdrawal if possible — being around deceptive predatory motives is unhealthy. Toxic. But if that’s not possible then mentally, emotionally, and psychologically.
That can be difficult. No question. But learning how to keep our motives from being invaded by the motives of others may be why all of us are here. Why planet earth, that’s never hosted life form higher than animal, may only be a temporary training ground. It may have a lot to do with whether and how evolution moves us up and away from animal-ape hierarchy. To a higher state of Mind more suited to our real nature. If the price is learning to discipline our thinking it could be well worth it.
Escape into psychosis
Disciplined mindfulness is an individual aware of itself and its situation. Thinking with purpose and feeling with values beyond its immediate bodily needs and physical surroundings. It’s not an ape. Or a wart hog rooting around in the underbrush. It’s thoughtfulness and sensitivity beyond survival and conquest.
To serving a more worthy cause: Learning and growing in pursuit of an Ideal. Meaning. Life with Worth. Understanding our story and what it’s telling us. About why we’re here and where to go from here. Contributing to Creativity by questioning instead of getting in the way by not questioning. By substituting willful thinking and fanciful answers for rational thinking and realistic answers. By escaping into psychosis like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand.
Personality type theory personalized
What does Definition’s lake sprite want to know about us? A question that’s personal to her and to each individual she questions in their immediate circumstances. The questions I’ve come up with may or may not resonate with you or anyone else because they’re personalized.
How so? I’ve made use of personality type theory. Psychological types originally proposed by Carl Jung, expanded by Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers working with Jung. But I’ve expanded and reinterpreted them so that they make sense to me and fit my purposes.
And if they happen to tell a more complete story than the one in conventional use, so much the better. Suggesting that Creativity and personalizing can go hand-in-hand if thinking is disciplined. But patenting a new invention wasn’t my purpose.
Anything goes!
Then if I use Myers-Briggs personality type theory I should do the same? You’ll do whatever makes sense to you and fits your personality. Your call not mine.
I lifted A Course in Miracles out of its original context and adapted it to mine. Where it differs from the original in some respects but doesn’t contradict it in spirit. Just as my version of personality type theory departs from the letter of Jungian-Myers-Briggs theory without contradicting its spirit. As I understand it from my biased perspective.
So you’ve butchered Myers-Briggs and your Course in Miracles and expect me to be OK with it. With this grievous assault on established order. As if nothing were sacred. The way things are is general principles to be applied to specific individuals and situations. Calling for judgment with help from Definition, not for rigid, unquestioning obedience to commandments etched in stone.
Everything cause, everything bias
The Truth represented by Definition is that there is no single, overarching Truth. No big picture to worship for being absolute, unbending, beyond questioning or bias. Questioning isn’t the exception. It’s the rule. Everything Mind. Everything cause. Everything personal. Everything bias. If you need something that’s sacred, this qualifies.
Then lay it on me. How would you phrase lake sprite’s questions and I’ll reflect on it.
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A special treat for our preferred clientele
Personality Type Questions from Definition’s Lake Sprite
Introvert inner-directed opposed by extravert other-directed
Is our awareness centered on mental, emotional, and psychological activity within? Or is it centered exclusively on the appearance of activity without? On what lies behind faces and below the surface or only on the surface? On individual originality with inner moral compass or on the external compass of tribal conformity?
Reflection aided by Mind’s sixth sense opposed by body limited to five senses
Is our awareness centered on Mind’s capacity for learning and growing from different perspectives including the metaphysical? Or only on one: the perspective afforded by the physical? By the sensuous and sensual pleasures of bodily contact with physical surroundings and other bodies? On what’s to be learned from spontaneous insights, conscience, and reflection on meaning or on avoiding insights, learning, reflection, and meaning?
Defining within limits before acting opposed by wildness acting without the limits of Definition
Is our awareness centered on Mind’s capacity for analyzing, explaining, and understanding before deciding whether or how to act? On recognizing and aligning with Definition’s principles and values or on giving free rein to wildness without limits or values? On letting action be guided by animal instinct free do be and do as it pleases in the moment?
Choosing with integrity opposed by willful thinking without integrity
Is our awareness centered on building character and preserving personal integrity or on yielding it to corruption by animal willfulness? On developing and preserving independent judgment, standing up and choosing for ourselves, or on yielding to willfulness from within? To debasing ourselves with servile genuflection to superior wills in exchange for selfish gain?
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Two paths: forward or backward?
Your butchery of Myers-Briggs theory has turned it into butchery. Mindful personality type chopped liver to the beast below and its choppers. Putting the broader issue in focus: is our awareness centered on progress forward and up or on regressing backward and down? Because these are the two paths open to human-ape since it began its evolution away from ape. From hierarchical dominance-servility to relatable friendship among equals respectfully engaged in common cause. From unrelatability to relatability.
Is this what it’s all about – our lake sprite pushing Definition’s politics? Why do you ask? Because the differences between mindful on top opposed by willful below are democratic governance from the bottom up opposed by authoritarian rule from the top down. That would be because Mindful-metaphysical on top isn’t hierarchical and willful-physical opposing it from below is hierarchical.
Liberal or conservative? Right or wrong?
The two are incompatible. As is the divide in politics between liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican. One democratic, the other authoritarian.
- Liberal open to self-questioning for ability and strength to deal with obstructions. To introspection respectful of limits.
- Conservative fearing what it might do to its pose of authoritarian invincibility. Perfection unchallenged by disobedience and criticism. Wildness contemptuous of limits. Strength unchallenged by any sign of self-doubt. By Introspection. Strength mistaken for weakness.
Innocence or guilt?
Authoritarian trickery affecting rage to distract from wrongdoing: the seizure of Worth for itself. Power, freedom, whatever. Everything except Love and Logic since the authoritarian mindset has willed itself to be unaware of both. So without conscience it can’t be held accountable for its wrongdoing.
So it can boast of winning what it never had and never will: Innocence. Transformed by pretense into wounded victimhood since the authoritarian mindset can’t know what real Innocence is. Not if it’s wrongdoing. Not if it’s guilt.
The fatal flaw
Then if I seek friendship with Definition and let its lake sprite give me the third degree I’d better be a registered Democrat. Or else an Abraham Lincoln look-alike, because there was a time when Republican was the standard for character and integrity, not Democrat. Long, long ago.
If you show up today on the threshold of Definition sporting Republican supine perversity the door may already be closed. Or the lake frozen over so there’s no mirror to reflect its self-regard. Yes. Everything under a thick layer of snow. Suggesting that its application for admission to the threshold of Definition has a flaw. Yes. Arrogance.
Careful!
How do we get along with it? By following the example of Definition. By recognizing that it can’t co-exist with the thing it opposes and so one or the other has to give way. And that would have to be the underside of the fraction. Why not the top? Because the top must be there before the bottom, its derivative. No number two second place unfairness to whine about but only a step in the logical order of things. An after that follows a before.
Definition has done its part, inactivating its underside by recognizing it as unreal. It can’t do for us what we can only do for ourselves. Keeping it inactive. We don’t have to worry about what’s below fraction’s dividing line if it’s not really there. What we do have to worry about is our own thoughts. Because it’s our own thoughts that make it real.
Getting along by not going along
You mean all this fuss is about nothing? It’s true. It’s factual. Everything really is satisfactual. The denominator has nothing to complain about but that won’t stop a reverse-reflection from making up something to complain about. From filling garbage cans with provocations and banging the lids. To silence the noise only requires that it be treated for what it is: unreal. An act gussied up with stagecraft to make it seem real but still just an act.
To be rewarded with inattention instead of attention, the nourishment it craves to be made real. “Getting along with it” means not going along with it. Letting it bask in the darkness where it belongs instead of in our spotlight.