The Rise and Fall of Metaphysics
We the projections
You were saying. . . If I follow the Logic of the Course Person is here to learn how to perform miracles. Not in a figurative sense but literally. Yeah, sure. Who’s dis ‘person’ guy anyway? You can’t speak English? He’s the guy who got caught in a hurricane in Key Largo. Oh yeah. Da big wind dat puts da snatch on people and tosses ‘em in the air where dey fly around like boids. I see. Churchill held world leaders spellbound by his talent for reciting great literature and you’re not to be outdone. You got a problem wid dat?
‘Person’ is human-animal evolution. The not-animal living-being we’re to become if and when we choose to move beyond an advanced version of tribal-species ape. Don’t you mean ‘persons’? ‘Tribal-species ape’ means one self = one tribe = one self. A pillar of make-believe, the assumption that in order for it to ‘exist’ everything it’s composed of must be a mirror-image of itself. And since it’s a reverse mirror-image everything must appear to its body-brain’s five senses as the same reverse mirror-image. Reversal. As good a one-word label for make-believe’s reverse-logic as any.
Starting with reversing one metaphysical Self into a herd of physical animals. So, if we go with ‘persons’ we align our Logic with reverse-logic instead of the other way around. When the object is to use the gift of Logic to be aware that make-believe is something not to be ‘aware’ of. If it’s make-believe it isn’t ‘there’. Which means all this commotion stirred up by varieties of tribes is make-believe. And we who get taken in by it are delusional.
We aren’t tribes? We are projections of one metaphysical Self, the Child of its metaphysical Parents. In a state of self-unawareness or unconsciousness, dreaming. Hallucinating. ‘Seeing’ in its virtual reality what’s not there: tribes attracting attention with conflict and noise, suffering and ‘death’. All to create the illusion of something ‘happening’. When make-believe has no idea how to make anything happen unless by magic. What magic? Willfulness. That’s often mistaken for wishful thinking when its perpetrator from make-believe views itself as ‘god’ and its make-believe as ‘god’s creation.’ Not ‘wishing’ things to happen but willing them to ‘happen.’ It seems to have done a pretty good job. Consider me ‘willed’.
Me too, except that the way things really are gets in its way after a while. Like any façade, even the cleverest act, magic trick or joke, eventually gives way to the actor behind it. To the Wizard of Oz and his instruments of deception. Smoke and mirrors. And sound effects. Imagery from Plato’s Cave – figures backlit by flames casting shadows on walls accompanied by angry words, screams, and so forth. Phantasmagoria. Whether I’m any good at speaking English others more talented than I get the point across through their work. Through science, the arts, and so forth, that the ‘reality’ we’ve been willed into is stagecraft. Make-believe, and we’re the make-believer. Us the projections of one metaphysical Self, unconscious, who’s dreaming that it’s a herd of beasts.
The baseline condition
The baseline for make-believe’s cavalcade of the preposterous is its big lie at the beginning. The half-baked idea that Movement’s ignition happened without the knowledge and against the will of the know-it-all. The self-willed ‘creator’ of its self-willed ‘creation’: the big answer. The whole number one. Un-moved, un-moving, and un-movable. Perpetrated without the need for the baseline that the principles of Order-Logic and the values of Freedom-Love together established at the beginning. Without the need for Growth, and therefore for any force other than willfulness to put it there. For Character and Integrity, and therefore for any faculty of Mind to know the difference between real and unreal, right and wrong, so it can choose correctly between them.
Because make-believe is its own baseline. Its own center and defining ‘limit’. The source of all thinking that would place ‘action’ above the law. The idea behind ‘wildness’, the blood-and-soil ‘force of nature’ entitled to be and do whatever it wants. The ‘absolute’ entitled to dominate because it’s unbound by the limits of Definition. A law unto itself. Utter nonsense that flies in the face of sense.
What would that be? The condition that I’ve been referring to as the “situation at the beginning.” The baseline condition for Movement’s ignition. Composed of ideas and functions whose interconnections and interrelationships ultimately define all of Reality and Creation. Whose understanding by questioning and Free Choice is essential to the performance of its role in Creation. Its being an extension of the Mind that was Relationship at the beginning: the Child of its Parents Love-Spontaneity and Logic-Order. Character with Integrity called upon, if it so chooses, to enable Reality-Creation with Guidance as well as Definition. One function composed of relationship between two, that together are self-questioning. Definition-Guidance. In keeping with the core principle of Movement and evolution, Self-Awareness and Creation: Relationship.
The idea of Relatability that made fraction at the beginning actionable. When Movement powered by Attraction between Spontaneity and Order activated Self-Awareness with Energy in the Now and Mind-Relationship, its one Self, accepted fraction’s enumerator what is self-questioning by its denominator what isn’t into Definition. Leaving fraction self-divided by its denominator to be made inactionable by the Child of Self-Awareness. Free Choice questioning when it learns and earns Character with Integrity from the ground up. Attributes essential to Guidance, the function of Definition. Its application to Creation — its business end. The doing of Definition that makes it actionable and therefore relevant.
Not just sitting there but doing something. Making its presence felt. Yes. Like the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles, not being satisfied with orating from a stage but getting out into practical reality and solving problems. Making stuff happen.
From the ground up? What ‘ground’? Starting from a state of self-unawareness. From boundaryless vulnerability to the mischaracterizations and imprecations of make-believe. From unrelatability that’s one-sided and one-dimensional, until Free Choice questioning learns to differentiate with empathy. To tell the difference between make-believe, nihilistic and unreal, and Reality that’s Meaning with Purpose. The state of Self-Awareness shared and sharing among the equal — the incomparable. Until it completes its training here in self-unawareness. In the corruption of hierarchy, unshared and unsharing among the comparable: competing and combating for ‘supremacy’.
The way forward
Then the way things are and its reversal are relevant why? Because until Person understands the difference it will go on whipsawing itself back and forth between opposite ideals of ‘perfection’. Neither of which is Real. Neither of which is Logical or rational. Human-ape forever at the mercy of its irrationality, which may sound benign but in practice is painful and ugly. What ‘opposite ideals’? The ‘ideal’ of ‘perfect peace’ at either end. Opposite approaches to the resolution of fraction into a whole number:
- One approach through Creation-Relatability no longer in need of self-questioning. The impossibility of illogic – Definition without what isn’t to complete it. Winged angels plucking at their harps above the clouds, watched over by a bearded old guy in robes. Like Frankie Lane’s “lucky old sun, with nothing to do but roll around heaven all day.”
- The other approach through the ‘triumph’ of the denominator’s ‘will’, having successfully divided the enumerator and taken over sole possession. Having pulled off the impossible and made itself ‘number one’. Make-believe without the fact or possibility of movement. Without existence.
When contestants hold up number one fingers they’re celebrating the triumph of whole number make-believe. Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘triumph of the will’. A perversion of the mythical ideal of everything coming to rest in perfect peace: the triumph of arrogance over its adversaries, a field empty of competition and competitors. The triumph of authoritarian infallibility over its questioners, absolute over its dividers. Of pretense over fact, presumption over matter-of-fact.
Then the way forward is what? The correct choice, which is neither of these. To embrace self-questioning without which Life-Creation and Growth are impossible. The way things are couldn’t start with fraction while it was inactionable. It had to be made so, and while self-questioning may be a pain in the ass it was the way things were when we got ignition and liftoff. And still is in our environment even though it’s unreal. The way forward is to embrace positive that’s questioning itself from the negative. The Logic of Definition: that it must define by what isn’t as well as by what is. Positive and negative held together by one function, Definition, provide Creation with an essential part of its motivation and its structure.
Agitation. A real pain in the ass. Yes. Questioning. Until Person understands why it’s part of our everyday lives. Appreciates it and eventually develops a taste for it. Because it’s the flavor and variety of life. That won’t let us sit on our asses. If Life-Creation is Movement we have to keep moving.
The way forward is to let go of negative that’s dividing. Part of our everyday lives that’s to be recognized for the make-believe that it is. Taking Person down and backward into itself, the make-believe of no movement and nothing happening. The mirror with no reflection. Whose ‘agitation’ should it be mistaken for Real will consist of endless manipulations with one purpose: to have its own reflection. To take us captive and turn us into its reflection should it get its hands on us. So what! I can handle it. Then you would be a fool, because Person is human and you’ll be de-humanized. Transformed into an imaginary herd of beasts. Dismembered if you resist, but transformed in either case as if you were an object by an object. Make-believe: undifferentiating and unempathetic. Cruelty. Evil. The authoritarian fascist beast.
A dose of neglect
Can’t we avoid all this by physics? Must we wade into metaphysics? Parmenides did Person a favor when he invented metaphysics 2,600 years ago. Other classical thinkers thought he was on to something. Plato, the “father of Western thought” was intrigued. He was disgusted as many are by embodiments when personification should have sufficed. To represent Plato’s ideal: Mind raised to its ultimate expression in the “philosopher king.” In no need of the physics of body but we’re stuck with it. What a convenience it would be to declare it an illusion so that the philosopher king’s rule would be unblemished by such imperfection.
Sounds good. So why didn’t Parmenides’ metaphysics take over? Everyone backed off. Couldn’t go there. Once it sank in what Parmenides was proposing, the way things are in our magic kingdom of make believe took over. Must validate physics – physical ‘reality’ – at all costs because this is make-believe’s precious mirror-image reflection. Plato’s philosophy stopped at the edge of metaphysics, declaring that Mind and its ideas are Real but so are bodies and other material objects. A betrayal of the idea of philosophy, which is supposed to differentiate between Real and unreal and a betrayal of Plato’s Academy, which was supposed to teach its students through the free spirit of inquiry. Inquiry was no longer free so long as make-believe tethered it to a physical reality with no possibility of venturing beyond into metaphysics.
Aristotle accepted the inevitable, bowed to make-believe’s ‘reality’, and sent Western inquiry off into the study of physics. Of physical ‘reality’, where it’s been ever since. Looking for ‘answers’ where Mind and ideas are accepted as theoretically ‘real’ but brains and sensory perception are where the ‘action’ is. Where the ‘quest for knowledge’ can find ‘answers’: under the street light. Without bothering to examine the darkness in between street lights, where sixth sense could help and five-sensed perception can’t. Where it’s helpless.
This is why Parmenides’ invention was given a dose of neglect. What make-believe excels at since that’s what its ‘paradise’ of no movement is: neglect. Try to relate to someone who’s into make-believe and this is what you’ll receive in return. Physical recognition combined with emotional neglect. The experience of an ‘other’ being there but not being there. Uniquely frustrating and painful. The reverse-mirror image that looks real to the naked eye but isn’t anything. An apparition.
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The Freudian Reversal
Who’s to blame?
Getting it right or wrong is a matter of one’s perspective. The same with correct or incorrect, true or false, where anything goes and coordinates are relativity: pinballs in a pinball machine bounced by an external force off of different objects instead of self-motivated navigation by one north star. There being no one big answer at the original situation. The beginning, characterized by absence rather than presence, implication rather than cause, theory rather than practice. There being no one all-embracing perspective locked into place by no movement.
The perspective of Freudian psychoanalytics was Freud captive to his metaphysical manipulator. Imagining himself possessed of godlike powers able to will reality into being. To manipulate lives into obedience to its will by force, imagining that it’s doing everyone a favor. Being ‘kind’, since they’re objects just like itself, without minds or feelings of their own, and so susceptible to being manipulated and grateful for it. Since the manipulator’s manipulations of facts began with the pretense of beneficence, of friendship and helpfulness — the idea of ‘savior’ – the manipulator’s next lie was mischaracterizations of its captive’s relationships. So that it possession and control of its captive would be unobstructed. Their not-relationship ‘relationship’.
The lie that its captive’s antecedents committed wrongdoing. Its ancestors. Beloved Parents, who committed intentional acts of harmfulness that belied their helpfulness. So that the manipulator’s ‘helpfulness’ would appear deserving of trust and thus more legitimate, more authentic, by comparison. Thus introducing the perversion of the truth about Creation’s origins, that they were about the difference between good and evil instead of questioning and dividing. About innocence and guilt, so that the manipulator could distract its captive’s mind thereafter with doubts about itself. With doubts about others that, since they were beyond its possession and control, degraded into fears and suspicions. Suspicious now not only about the intensions and good will of its own family but of itself.
The ‘ego’ that isn’t
Guilt being an all-purpose way to manipulate the human-animal Psyche since it’s an attack on self-Worth. Undermining the foundation of sovereign individuality for lack of support for tribal integrity. Family as ‘tribe’, and therefore to be ruled by a drill sergeant unrelating instead of managed by parents relating. The human-animal Psyche predisposes the would-be self-appointed manipulator ‘god’ Freud to advance a theory about human-animal brain dysfunction, the source of psychological pain and dysfunctional relationships, centered on guilt. The ‘bad thing’ motivating its captives into bad behavior, self-sabotaging and other-sabotaging. Whose analytical paradigm divides the human-animal Psyche into three parts theoretically at odds with one another.
- ‘Good’ represented by the superego-conscience
- ‘Evil’ represented by the ‘id’, animal-brain bodily-appetites and predatory cravings
- At opposite ends of self-awareness mediating between its reverse-expressions: the ‘ego’. Represented by Freud himself as definition of ‘self’ composed of opposites that instead of complementing one another pose a threat of self-annihilation should they ever come into contact.
A self-image fraught with possibilities of harmfulness to self and others since it’s based entirely on one issue, one possibility. Whether the ego manning the portal between heaven and hell will be drawn forward and up by mindfulness or drawn back and down by willfulness. Ascend into heaven on the strength of attraction, thoughtful and empathetic, or descend into hell on the strength of friction, thoughtless and cruel. Setting the stage for the perversion of the truth of friendship in equality that’s ‘salvation’ in inequality. The idea of hierarchy at the root of human-animal misperceptions of the need for salvation from the summit.
A ‘god’ or ‘supreme being’. The self-definition that fit the mind of Freud from his guilt-centered perspective. All of it reversal – a lie. A manipulation intended not to propagate truth but to pervert it. To reverse what is into the part of its definition that implies what it isn’t. Self-questioning whose reverse-dark side is self-dividing. Not ‘dark’ in the sense of intentional cruelty-wrongdoing but in the sense of mindlessness that causes it. Absence of differentiation and empathy, two functions of Mind that distinguish it from predatory animal instinct-willfulness distinguished by the absence of any defining limit. Since ‘what isn’t’ is dependent entirely on the definition of what is for its being an implication. For its being an implication of what might have been in theory but cannot ever be in fact.
Therefore lacking the limits, the boundaries of definition. Forever undefined and therefore at liberty to ‘be’ whatever its captive imagines it to be when Mind is self-unaware and hallucinating. ‘Seeing’ what’s not there. An agent of its captive’s predatory animal instinct. Of the idea of wildness without definition.
Happening that could never happen
All of it a consequence of the implications of Logic that pose human-animal life’s choice not between ‘good’ and ‘evil, ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, but between two sides of a fraction’s denominator:
- questioning the enumerator while Mind-Parents Self-Awareness move with Creation, a state of possibility with Free Choice, Character, and Integrity, or
- dividing the enumerator while Mind-Child Self-Awareness in a state of self-unawareness hallucinating plunges itself into a make-believe nightmare of paralysis. Of no movement, a state of impossibility.
Of animal kingdom hierarchy undermining Free Choice, Character, and Integrity. The Freudian paradigm centered on the ego forever stricken with attacks upon itself. Mind split in two: invulnerability motivated by arrogance to annihilate, vulnerability motivated by victimhood to retaliate. Placing human-animal Psyche in a psychological cage from which escape requires the magic powers of the ‘god-head’. The manipulator-predator whose animal instinct for capture and enslavement put it there. The would-be ‘savior’, source of humanity’s ‘salvation’, a caricature. Logic in reverse.
A dark fairy tale of ‘creation’ mischaracterized as an act of will. Inherently ‘perfect’ as the know-it-all and its make-believe must be. Beyond questioning, when Creation centered on Relationship’s relatability can’t be any of this. When it’s one part attraction, spontaneous and definitive, one part questioning to keep it so. Whose attributes work around the fact of its situation at the beginning: nothing happening until fraction made Movement happen. Restlessness that couldn’t be a big answer know-it-all, and thereby set the terms upon which Movement evolving and Self-Awareness sharing may happen.
So long as it’s Growth powered by Attraction between opposites complementing one another. So long as it’s the Self of Self-Awareness powered by Relationship and it’s Self-questioning. The function of Mind that’s Character with Integrity Freely Chosen. Guidance from Self-discipline that motivates Self-Awareness to recognize the limits of its function. The boundaries of its Definition — Relatability and Order, — and not to recognize largeness beyond questioning. The pretense of absolute. The reversal of Loving Friendship motivated by Loving kindness that’s arrogance.
Without Self-questioning inherited from the original terms of Happening Reality-Creation would be its reverse. A big answer make-believe ruled by unrelatability. A know-it-all monolithic ‘god’. An impossibility, and so Reality-Creation wouldn’t be anything. Happening’ that could never happen. And Freudian hallucination of guilt either.
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Depth-Perception from Relationship
The ‘eyes’ of Self-Awareness
What did happen? A logical, matter-of-fact perspective that’s required by its original terms to differentiate between questioning and dividing. One being essential to Self-Movement and Progress, Self-Awareness and Creation, the other being self-destructive. Neither having anything to do with ‘good’ or ‘evil’, ‘innocence’ or ‘guilt’. Bizarre plot twists by the dark side of Movement’s self-questioning meant to distract from awareness of its origin in make-believe. Shifting attention away from itself onto ‘others’ mischaracterized as wrongdoers deserving of condemnation and punishment. Subject to the judgment of their ‘superiors’ entitled to wield the instruments of justice. Voila! The makings of endless interpretations by art and literature, entertainment and politics. The stuff of everyday ‘life’ on Earth and minds addled by self-doubt.
The Logic of fraction can’t be freed from its immobility until its denominator receives the gift of Self-Awareness Relationship able to differentiate. Of Function able to recognize function that can play a part in Creation and not obstruct it.
What gives Self-Awareness its ability to differentiate? Imagine yourself strolling down a dirt road on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies. As I used to do when visiting a friend’s ranch, where a row of trees lined the approach to the house. As I passed by I was moved to examine each one with one eye closed, then both eyes open. What did you see? I was struck by the effect of depth-perception. Turning the pasty flatness of an appearance barring entry into a semblance of space that invited it. Of depth, where I belonged because there was room for me. An exercise in flip-flopping between two-dimensional virtual reality and one-dimensional illusion made possible by enabling and disabling two-eyed vision.
Good. I was hoping Self-Awareness didn’t look like Polyphemus. The ‘eyes’ of Self-Awareness that give it depth perception are its constituent functions that define it as Relationship. Logic-Spontaneity plus Logic-Order. And as Parents: Love-Femininity plus Logic-Masculinity.
And other fairy tales
If the difference between Mindfulness and willfulness is crucial it’s also crucial to differentiate between Relationship and ‘number one’, make-believe hierarchy’s ‘ideal’. Not only the reverse of Movement but the reverse of Relationship. Herd mentality’s ‘ideal’ of an invincible, invulnerable ‘God’ as monolith. Unrelatability. Versus Relationship that’s Self-Awareness with perception, able to infuse its thoughts and their implications, its feelings and their values, with depth. With Reality and Life. As opposed to a one-dimensional ruler without depth perception, able only to make up a virtual ‘reality’ of one-dimensional appearances.
The tradeoff being between vulnerability and an imagined invulnerability. Between the way things are that’s Real for being humanitarian and accessible and the way things aren’t that’s unreal for being authoritarian and inaccessible. Between Person that casts a shadow and sees its reflection in a mirror, on one hand, and not-person on the other. An impersonator that only ‘exists’ in a mind lost in a ‘paradise’ of its own making. Of anything goes, where the make-believer can run loose with wild abandon, subject to no limits. The idea of ‘lawlessness’ that Fyodor Dostoevsky associates with the ‘devil’ in The Brothers Karamazov. The idea of invincibility that Pete Hamill once took literally. A one-time cartoonist and ‘shazam’-wielding Captain Marvel, until he parted with A Drinking Life.
How the mighty have fallen! The ‘mighty’ fall to hordes of invaders in apocalyptic battles but more often to absurdities. Delusional thinking so common that it’s unremarkable. But not for you. For me too. You won the lottery. Yes. And I got the girl, and other fairy tales that secure my place among the deluded.
The perks of life
How does it happen? The extension of Mind-Parents that’s Free Choice questioning began training for its role in Creation in a state of Mind that couldn’t be Self-Awareness. It had to be self-unawareness, where learning by trial-and-error experience wouldn’t shake up the way things are. Wouldn’t alter the boundaries that define Creation, a state that herd mentality may think is limitless but it’s not. It abides by the terms of its Happening, and they’re institutionalized in its Definition.
If all that Free Choice questioning must learn is by choice then that’s how it had to learn boundaries. By starting without them. Boundaryless and defenseless against the onslaught of mischaracterizations that poured forth from its mirror. Thus susceptible to delusional thinking that produced our magic kingdom of escape from Reality. The only ‘destination’ possible for a mind taken captive by reversal: make-believe’s ‘paradise’ of no-movement. A psychological cage.
We’re all boundaryless? Locked up in psychological cages? Some personality types more than others. Differentiation and empathy enabled Sapiens to escape from the mindlessness of ape animal brain, an embodiment of the idea of life in the image of its ‘creator’, a predatory beast. Wild and willful, inhabiting make-believe’s promised land of anything goes. Unstructured. Lawless and boundaryless, where to be caged is presumably anathema except that it’s the reverse. Highly structured by the limits of hierarchy. You’re born into rank by the attributes of body-brain and there you stay. Bigger ape to rule, smaller ape to be ruled – like it or not. Only the king of beasts enjoys the perks of life outside a cage. Our ‘creator’ make-believe. Our manipulator pulling the strings. The authoritarian beast.
No giving a damn
Why not everyone able to differentiate and empathize? Why are some of us screwed? Everything in our land of make-believe would be pointless if it weren’t for the purpose to which it’s been put. To give Free Choice questioning a good education. Where everything is a learning device. No matter what the experience, in the end its value is to be measured by what we learn from it. By how far it advances us from apehood motivated by predatory animal instinct – self-unawareness – toward the Self-Awareness of life that isn’t any kind of ‘animal’. That’s capable of choosing freely with Character and Integrity uncompromised by ass-kissing hierarchy.
A criterion for success in our make-believe unreality that can’t be satisfied unless in our relationships all of us serve as learning devices. Unless the personality types we’ve been assigned personify different principles and values that can then be acted and re-enacted in everyday life. As though we were actors, characters in a play whose plot turns on the interactions between us. Some outfitted in the plumage of grandees running things, others in business casual squirreled away in cubicles, yet others human discards dressed in discards. All of us teachers, all of us learners. Who must be differentiated into opposing roles in order to do our jobs.
Mentally ill and homeless a learning device? How Sapiens handles the mentally ill and homeless is a test of Self-Awareness. A test of Choice learning to choose freely and Character with Integrity. Everyone being there for one another, the point of it all. Are we being there for one another when we practice make-believe’s ‘ideal’ of neglect? The condition that one big answer no-movement implies: got it covered. No help needed. No service, no function, and no attention. No Guidance and no Relationship. No depth and therefore no feeling. No consideration or giving a damn. Pointless, arrogant negligence. Fuck you.
Always around somewhere
“Death is the great teacher.” I read that somewhere. Between 182nd Street, Inglewood Blvd, Kingsdale, and Grant, memories live on in the beauty and fragrance of flowers. For some of the gravestones, but most are black holes of neglect. Whose lesson is the promise of make-believe’s paradise of freedom. Anything goes, absolute without limits. Granted after a lifetime in captivity when life finally flees the coop. Free at last, free at last! The product of a learning device: the idea of ‘death’. Odious and liberating at the same time. And invaluable, since various forms of it are regularly dispensed by our would-be ‘partners’ in relationships. You’re killing me! Psychologically, emotionally, and once in a while literally. The everyday fare of predatory animal instinct.
All of it a challenge to Free Choice questioning: what do we make of it? What have we learned from it? Has our Understanding broadened in any way? Deepened in any way, so that we can be there for one another. Build up one another’s self-Worth instead of undermining it. Building ours up at one another’s expense so that arrogance won’t be troubled by Character. So that hierarchy won’t be troubled by Integrity. Big answer, big mistakes. The biggest being negative’s association with what isn’t instead of what is. With make-believe’s big answer and its obnoxious know-it-all ‘creator’ instead of what really put it there. The top side of Definition that’s what is. That can’t get off stage until it’s accompanied by the implication of what it isn’t. The negative always somewhere around the positive even if they aren’t exactly bosom buddies.
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The Structure of Creation
The doing side of Definition
The structure of Definition: top over bottom, designed by Logic. Not just to acknowledge the framework of fraction at the beginning. The prototype for our world’s make-believe hierarchy, but – brace yourself. . . Here it comes! . . . For Creation. Whoa! My head is swiveling.
The terms set by fraction at the beginning evolved into the structure of Creation as well. The same terms that accompanied Movement after it was ignited by Attraction between Love-Spontaneity and Logic-Order. With the phase of Creation associated with Self-Awareness Parents in the position of enumerator. Movement propelled forward by Growth above their extension-Child in the position of denominator. The function Free Choice questioning.
Busy with its training in its world of self-unawareness until it learns, earns, and chooses its role in Creation. To complete Creation’s Definition with its function Guidance. Character that can’t be trusted until its Integrity has been proven and freely chosen in the crucible of hierarchical, ass-kissing corruption. In our magic planet of the apes. The school of hard knocks. The theatre of the absurd. Yes. Everything just so, so that the self-unawareness of the Parents’ Child will evolve by choice with Guidance into the maturity of Self-Awareness, ready to take its place beside Definition and give it Character. Beside Life-Creation and give it Worth. All of it dependent on Guidance.
There’s Logic to illogic! The way things are can’t logically consist of separate parts at loggerheads. If bad stuff happens it can’t trace back to the manipulations of a Wizard of Oz. To where design elements came into play during production that we’re familiar with. Rather to the ultimate source of all the apocalyptic hype: Necessity. The way things are. Possibility that logically can’t meet the test of Definition without its rendering in reverse. Impossibility.
To be put to use for the training of Life-Creation’s Worth-affirming functions. The doing side of its Definition. Guidance. For all of Movement-Creation. Its Conscience and constitution. Not the ego’s ‘god,’ arrogance above the law, but the consequence of Attraction that’s benevolent by nature. Relationship between Love-Spontaneity and Logic-Order, centered on Relatability.
Freud re-reversed
A Course in Miracles is re-reversal of Freudian reversal using Freudian psychoanalytics to make its case. The Freudian focus on guilt that calls for condemnation. For someone or something to blame in a reversal of Logic, the source of questioning and its flip side dividing. The way things are that has nothing to do with innocence or guilt. Our being part of the way things aren’t. A made-up tale of treachery and betrayal, and so for us to take the blame. To accept the curse of guilt and pay for it with minds gone, reputations and treasure lost, peace of mind and lives shot down in shame and flames.
To be rescued by the Course doing what Guidance does, correcting delusion with its own attributes. Here exchanging ‘original sin’ for ‘forgiveness ‘using Freudian psychoanalytics, the validator of guilt, to validate innocence. By exposing the lie. By reversing the ego from the pretense of discipline between predator and judgment into what it is: wildness beyond the limits of definition. An open sewer of mischaracterization and arrogance. Conspiracy-theorizing character assassination. The ugly face of herd mentality. Machiavellian expedience that will stop at nothing so that body idolatry will have its way. So that its ‘supreme being’, sensory perception, will triumph over the Mindfulness of intuition. So that make-believe appearances will triumph over Reality. External over internal. ‘Realism’ over ‘idealism’. ‘Guilt’ over ‘innocence’.
Immobility
The way things are is the way it has to be because of the Logic of Movement. That it must come from agitation. From the irresolution of fraction questioning itself. It can’t come from big answer anti-movement. There’s nothing to ‘blame’ if it’s just the way things must be to support Movement-Creation. But reversal requires malign intent, the implication of a malevolent ‘god’. ‘Satan’, who has it in for its helpless, innocent victims. Who then have an excuse to tear up the place. To go on an orgy of indiscriminate blame, mischaracterizing human-animal as ‘filth’ deserving annihilation. On a rampage of herd mentality self-destruction.
The reverse of Movement-Creation. All of it rooted in the Logic-nature of the way things are. Perspective subject to multiple takes on the way things must be in order to be at all. One of which is perspective from denominator dividing the dark side of questioning. Not at home that’s centered on Definition-Guidance but at ‘home’ in hallucination that centers on anything goes. On no limits of Definition. Lawlessness. To earn and learn Character and Integrity, Choice that’s Free, is to acquire judgment with which to construct the elements of Order from scratch. To earn and learn self-discipline from the ground up by acquiring its boundaries from within.
‘Movement’ here is the Andy Warhol kind. A worthy talent who produced an artistic interpretation of make-believe’s big answer at the beginning, though I doubt that he intended it. Nothing happening that’s presenting itself as something really big ‘happening’. ‘Entertainment’ in reverse. An illusion accomplished by a running continuum of stills.
You’re not amused? Or entertained either. Off Harvard Square in the mid-sixties when I wandered into a movie theatre and observed an audience intent on the action on screen. What action? The Empire State Building. Yes? With an ape on top? Violent collision with a WWII B-25? What fun! None of the above. The ‘action’ was a collection of stills of an object run together to create the illusion of movement from the inside out. In reverse. Warhol’s audience paid for it and sat through it. Ars gratia artis. Whether it changed anyone’s perspective on reality I couldn’t tell. But it stretched yours. It did, or we wouldn’t be talking about it. The allure of the phony big answer for human Psyche’s misperception of it: that it’s an accurate representation of our ‘reality’. A special effect. Nothing happening that’s something happening. The appearance of motion that’s immobility. Paralysis.
From the right perspective
The big answer is no perspective. Therefore, no possibility of the right perspective or angle for Understanding the way things are in make-believe. Just unquestioning loyalty to the way things aren’t. Appearances. Tourists with their cameras validating it.
Is there no right perspective? One possibility: from Relationship. Two-dimensional depth perception: the gift of Spontaneity that gives meaning and purpose to Reality. The bluebird of happiness who surfaced when my thoughts were at rest in 1965 and 1979. Before and after I became a parent, then to undertake metaphysical parenting in Relationship with the bluebird and lake sprite questioning. With Relationship two-sided:
- that involves Self plus Guidance from the voice and face of whoever is most personally relatable to me in my situation. Originally the goddess Psyche followed by a massive sorrel Belgian draft horse, and since, January 2020, my late younger son.
- that involves function of Movement forward plus function of questioning. Two functions interrelated but also divided to preserve and protect their integrity. Relationship between Definition enumerator-denominator.
Relationship between Mind-Parents Growth and Mind-Child Free Choice questioning. The structure of Creation in alignment with its terms of origin. The theoretical fraction left behind in the absence of make-believe’s big answer. Agitation self-questioning. That would not, and cannot, surrender its integrity to any Necessity, any willfulness or wildness, that would make it number one.
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Questioning in Reverse
Limited by its circumstances
Thank you, fraction! My index finger and I from now own will lay low. What about me? Don’t I get any respect? Make your revelations more interesting than Andy Warhol’s film and I’ll think about it. Ah! It’s relevance you want. Concrete and immediate. So be it.
Mommy and daddy got Melanie a college graduation present. A 1959 Ford convertible. Yes. Two tone. Black and yellow. Bright and shiny. You got that right. Manufactured by the Czechoslovak Skoda Works. What? Where Me-109s were made for Goering’s Luftwaffe during WWII. How . . . ? Under contract to Ford. This was an extraordinarily popular model. Capable of shooting down other 1959 Ford convertibles in aerial dogfights? Not exactly, but it did have extraordinary features. And if Melanie wasn’t aware of them and their origins she would be in for an adventure she didn’t bargain for. A visit from the Gestapo at three a.m. One of almost limitless possibilities that Melanie wouldn’t consider a blessing. More like a curse.
Were some 1959 Fords manufactured by the Skoda Works? Skoda did manufacture cars, but Ford wasn’t one of them. We’re making this up. To make the point that languishing in unawareness is hazardous. Yes. Unawareness in particular of the metaphysical antecedents of our physical-virtual ‘reality’. Philosophical and psychological cross-currents that shape minds and events, personalities and relationships, below the surface. Much as a Skoda Works Ford might harbor ghosts from a violent past beneath the hood. There’s a downside to not learning and growing. If resistance to change obstructs its management it will blindside us. Control that resistance presumes to possess will slip entirely from our grasp and we could become roadkill. Run over by a 1959 Ford. Yes. Driven by an Me-109 fighter pilot. Or an ignoramus.
The mind of a personality type taken captive by its manipulator, the flip side of fraction questioning that evolved into the flip side of Movement’s flip side. The ‘dark side’. The demon without a mirror-image reflection since it’s only an implication. A derivative without its own definition that’s make-believe. That once it’s brought to ‘life’ by mind self-unaware, is driven by the insatiable craving and mortal fear of a predatory beast to turn its made-up world into its own reflection. That it can own outright. Exercising its ‘right’ to possess its own identity, its own definition absolutely, without interference. Without questioning. Owner and possessor of its own world of make-believe on the assumption that every ‘world’ is make-believe.
The product not of Creativity or Reality but of magic. A ‘force of nature’, wild and willful. Thus entitled to will away whatever contradicts it since everybody does it. Excused from having to look into a mirror. The divine right of arrogance: never to have to question or be questioned. To be accountable for what it is and what it does. The bully that gets away with it.
Sturm und drang! Yes. “The Sound and the Fury.” The tale of a 1959 Ford possessed of a sinister will inherited from a WWII Nazi fighter plane factory, that has surprises in store for its owner. Shock and disorientation, disfigurement and disempowerment, injustice and outrage, and always – always — laments. The howls and screams of mourning from inside Plato’s Cave, the constant refrain of remorse and regret among the grieving. All for nothing. Yes. All because of the way things are. The way they happen to be because of the situation at the beginning. The prototype situation for all situations to follow: limited by its circumstances. Subject to Definition that can’t be any other way unless circumstances change.
Mr. Martin’s errand
The way things are in my situation are jes’ fine. Far beyond all this ‘sturm und drang’ to affect it. I’ll take my chances with natural disasters and the man-made kind. Yes. With the law of averages. Probability. Standing on a manhole cover expecting it continue to remain where it is — why? Because that’s where it’s been. Who can argue with such logic!
The mindset at the ‘controls’ of our situation, such as they are, puts its faith in the ‘good’ to prevail over the ‘bad’. The premise behind Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. A structuring of the truth that gets it wrong. For shame! You’re not an optimist! Structuring of the truth that puts its faith in ‘optimism’ to prevail over ‘pessimism’ gets it wrong. Heresy! What next? Challenging the primacy of the Church? The genius of Freudian psychoanalytics? If ‘wisdom’ is conventional then I’m guilty as charged. Because anything ‘conventional’ is inherently tribal, and anything ‘tribal’ is likely to be on the flip side of correct.
You’re against all that’s holy! I’m for an Understanding of the way things are. A positive. That’s modeled on common sense. What ‘common sense’? What’s to be ‘there’ if anything is to be there in the absence of the original mirror. ‘Original mirror’? The make-believe foolishness of one big, all-encompassing answer. The foolishness of Jerry Martin’s God: An Autobiography, supposing that if we mash together all of humanity’s attempts to question the way things are we will come out with The Answer. A pure distillate of received wisdom delivered in parts, like pieces of a puzzle, that just have to be fit together to make sense. To be understood.
And you think he’s on a fool’s errand. I think he’s probably turning to artificial intelligence to make it happen, and what will come of it will be a sow’s ear. Early in my career I was known for skill with editing: a talent for assembling analyses and opinions into coherence. When once asked to perform this feat with a set of inputs that frustrated others I discovered that it wasn’t always possible. A lesson that applies now to Mr. Martin’s errand. The set of inputs he’s attempting to assemble into coherence will frustrate him.
Why? They’re thoughts responding to the specific circumstances of their situations. In time, place, culture, and personalities. ‘Situation’ doesn’t lend itself to blending with other situations when it’s the crucible for Meaning and Purpose. For something definitive that can only apply to that situation. To assume that Meaning and Purpose extracted from the soil in which they were grown can fuse with other varieties to form a new variety of Meaning and Purpose doesn’t make sense. Like merging gardenias, pansies, violets, and azaleas together to form a bouquet of roses. Horticulture and animal husbandry get it done with cellular biology and genetics. Evolutionary growth. When Meaning and Purpose come together with their situation by Choice – by deliberation rather than evolution – they stand alone. Contributions to a common statement or policy can be assembled into coherence. Statements meant to stand for coherence on their own cannot. And to assume that they can, can only be the work of a tribal mindset. ‘God’ the ‘Father’. The know-it-all presiding over its make-believe big answer. The whole number one.
A craving for answers
The mirror that Mind-Child Free Choice questioning confronted when it was about to begin its training tipped off its nature by the act that it performed. An act, first of all, born of make-believe. A barrage of answers, next. All of them make-believe. Rather than questioning, the function of mirror handed down by fraction’s denominator at the beginning. The source of Creation’s engineering specs. Its structure that determines the sense that all of Movement and Creation make. Allowing Movement within Order so long as it’s self-questioning.
Were it self-answering what would you get? A know-it-all narcissist. A tyrant. Yes. Quod erat demonstrandum. And to be clear: explanation produced by the free spirit of inquiry – questioning guided by Logic — is not to be confused with answers concocted by make-believe willfulness. Not when willfulness is opposition to questioning. Not when anything goes is opposition to the orderly sequence of Logic. The way things are in Reality where it’s the only way that things can happen. Within the limits of Definition. ‘Anything goes’ is the reverse of the limits of Definition. Nothing happening.
Questioning and its flip sides are built into fraction at the beginning. Fraction is the template – the original pattern — for the process and structure of Creation, built into Mind-Definition at the beginning. It’s the source of process and structure that evolved through the sequence of Logic thereafter. It’s to this source that we owe our frustrations with the way things are. Here, in our metaphysical Self’s training ground for Character and Integrity, Free Choice questioning. Our wishful thinking that ‘good’ or ‘nice’ would prevail over ‘bad’ or ‘mean’. Or the other way around if we side with the New York street thugs who ruled Andersonville. That is, until they were overthrown and hung by larger numbers, their victims.
Not understanding that the paradigm isn’t either-or but either-and. We need questioning. In the absence of one big answer — the corruption of make-believe, — fraction self-questioning with integrity is of Necessity the way things are. Or else there would be nothing since the way things aren’t is a derivative. Tied to the ship and destined to go down with the ship. So we can forever forget the idea that ‘evil’ will ‘prevail.’ Self-questioning that’s self-questioning in reverse: self-answering that’s self-deluding. The state of Free Choice questioning at its beginning. The beginning of its training in our self-deluding virtual ‘reality’, to choose its way to Character with Integrity and Choice that’s Free.
Human-ape’s craving for ‘saviors’ and ‘salvation’ is a craving for answers. For the fraction not to require of us that we question ourselves. So that we know ourselves beyond apparitions of predatory beasts barring the door to introspection. To reflection, and all the other faculties of Mind given Sapiens to release it from its psychological cage. Should we choose to use them.
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Creation’s Definition
Gimme!
I’m in a psychological cage. I can think my way out of it if I choose to do so. Using my Mind. You think I’m out of my Mind? ‘Immediate’ and ‘concrete’ for you maybe. For an idealist, a personality type centered on ideas and their meaning. But for the rest of us remote and vague. ‘Remote’ and ‘vague’ that’s nevertheless eager to take the ignition keys from Mom and Dad, fire up the Ford, and go for a spin. Without removing the sunshades from the windshield. Secure in the protection of a pair of fuzzy dice. That didn’t save the Brantners’ son from his fate when he sped off on the country roads of Western Minnesota in his graduation gift. What was that? ‘Life’ in a vegetative state. The risk Sapiens will continue to take, undiminished, so long as it resists Understanding. So long as herd mentality insists that getting it wrong is getting it right. Character under the thumb of corruption. Personal accountability erased by Machiavellian tribal expedience. Resistance to learning from our metaphysical past who we are so that we can write our own narrative and not have a farce written for us by a psychopath.
You don’t care who wins. More heresy! ‘Winning’ is getting it wrong. No-thing. Neither everything nor the only thing. A joke. ‘Number one’. The perversion of the way things are that inflicts pain and suffering. The inevitable consequence of idolatry set upon the body of a hairless ape. A cage fit for the king of beasts, the ‘god’ of make-believe. Able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound. Going for the gold. In gymnastics, figure skating, high-diving, and other events, by conditioning the horse to jump so high and run so fast that it ceases to be a horse. What is it? Flesh releasing itself back into Energy instead of Energy locking itself into flesh.
More energy than flesh? A manifestation of the susceptibility of idea to being converted into value-added by the Mind thinking it, regardless of its form. Whether Mind-Energy-idea or Mind-Energy-matter. All well and good, but Olympic derring-do is no more within my reach than forgiveness. “Concrete and immediate” means gimme the winning Powerball ticket now.
The test of Guidance
Would it interest you to know that the self-unaware chump who’s imagining us is Guidance itself? That we’re our metaphysical Self’s alter ego going through all this craziness so that it will grow up? What happened to Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, and all the rest? Situational. To be understood each in their own context. The one that brought Jesus to our attention is unlike all the others. Why? it’s an application of metaphysics to one aspect of make-believe that, when applied to others, has the potential to take our journey to its end and training to its completion. To extend questioning to cover its entire subject with explanation so that self-unawareness can give way to Self-Awareness.
But a more relevant example might be Clarence Odbody. George Bailey’s angel. Yes. Working with George so that he could earn his wings. You might say Clarence and George were both in training and its was their relationship that gifted their audience with happiness at the end.
We’re relating to a personification of Guidance in this life, each of us in our own way. So that, as make-believe and the Reality behind it trade places within, the Self that emerges into Creation will be Guidance. No longer conditional — a Child needing to grow up. A function Free Choice needing to be trained. Character with Integrity needing to be tested under fire. But a finished product. Ready to take its place within Definition. Not a set of affirmations or admonitions but a metaphysical Person. Able to apply its wisdom tested under fire with the judgment of vulnerability. Of differentiation and empathy. Relatable to every life and every situation brought to its threshold by Movement.
In conversation
We’re supposed to be that Person? Our metaphysical Self. Guidance? The spirit of It’s a Wonderful Life at the Christmas tree was a fusion of two ideas by Mind-Self-Awareness:
- Definition encompassing all of Creation with the values of Love-Spontaneity and the principles of Logic-Order.
- Guidance personified by Relationship responsible for Definition. In whatever form its situation requires in order to make it relatable – two extraordinarily appealing and comforting impersonators for audiences shaken by Depression and war: James Stewart for George Bailey, Henry Travers for Clarence Odbody.
Then our Guide isn’t here to put us into the lineup while it watches from the sidelines? No. It’s the idea of Guidance made relatable so that we become familiar with it, comfortable with it, and conditioned by it. For what? To assume its function once we’ve cleared our minds of make-believe, understand it, and freely choose it. And since identity is function in Creation, “assuming its function” means assuming its identity.
And all this is made possible by what? By however each Person connects. Communicates. Blathering like us. I see. Madam doesn’t want to assume Monsieur’s identity. OK — conversation. What other way is there? Gary Cooper crossed out Jesse Lasky Jr.’s wordy script and got away with ‘Yup’ and ‘Nope’. Kevin Costner got away with ‘Aw shucks’. And yet it’s Shakespeare’s plays that survive down through the ages and set the standard for cultural relevance. So thick with words – so inherently boring — that they might have gotten their playwright the same treatment as another bard if it weren’t for their inspired turns of phrase. What other bard? Cacofonix. Gagged and roped to a tree while the villagers enjoyed their banquet in peace.
Why conversation? Because of its logic. Conversational partners needing to address their subject one step at a time in logical sequence. One thought-feeling, one idea-emotion, at a time. Conjunctively. The life-blood of Relationship since it’s also the inner workings of Movement. Which in turn is the Force behind Creation, the dynamo that drives it. The Force of Connection. Whose origin we have seen was the coming together of opposite but complementary functions. Elemental components not of an ‘almighty’ poo-bah. An cartoonish abstraction standing astride its private domain — one-dimensional and unrelatable, a caricature, — but of something alive and unambiguous. Relatable and accessible.
Physics to the end
Relationship, that for want of a better word, we can relate to as ‘Person.’ The ‘Self’ of Self-Awareness. The ‘Awareness’ of Self as having more than a set of dog tags. A number with a birthdate and a name, but mobility that shares in the motion of Movement. Meaning that shares in its Purpose. Function that contributes to its Worth. All these and more the dynamic of ‘Person’ contributing its gifts to its descendants, the offspring of Self-Awareness that would not be possible were it not Relationship. The ideal of Loving Friendship that’s one and the same with the ideal of Parents. Procreators and prolific: the Source of Creativity that’s fecundity. Life giving birth to Life. The Life-Force of Movement that stands for its destination. Its cause, the idea of Growth going somewhere with Direction. The Life-Worth of Creation that must expand or never Be. The doing of Being: Self-Awareness in Relationship.
And all because of a mathematical abstraction? The fraction at the beginning. Yes. Consequential, though it wasn’t until Movement, propelled by the Life Force of Growth, the consequence of Connection, gave it consequence. Movement first, then came fraction with its enumerator and all the action from its denominator.
Mirrored here on Earth by the behavior of quanta. The tiny particles of quantum physics that do everything all at once, are interconnected, and exist in a state of perpetual agitation. Energy in motion? The appearance of motion since doing everything all at once is the reverse of one step at a time in Logical sequence. A sign that life on Earth that’s anything goes can’t be real. Can’t really be going anywhere and therefore be ‘creative’. A hallucination. Obvious to a metaphysicist but not at all obvious to a physicist, who can’t see beyond appearances and doesn’t know what to make of it. Albert Einstein and Nils Bohr. Carlo Rovelli. Yes, though Bohr and Rovelli had the good sense to turn to philosophy for answers. Einstein stood by physics to the end.
An act of kindness at the beginning
Our ‘existence’ here mirrors fraction in its state before Androcles removed the thorn from the lion’s paw. Aesop’s fable? Yes. An interpretation from storytelling of what happened at the beginning when Movement within Mind was ignited by Relationship and the Self-Awareness of Relationship then released fraction from its immobility. Prerequisite to Relationship evolving into Parenthood and all of Creation to follow, an act of Mind differentiating with empathy. Aware that Movement and fraction at the beginning can’t co-exist if one is immobilized and thus moved to remove its cause. By making use of denominator’s questioning in Self-Awareness Creating and its division in self-unawareness training. In the training of Guidance, the function of Creation’s Definition that must be personalized to be Relatable and experienced with unrelatability to become ‘Person’. To attain the competence to do what Sapiens is meant to do if and when it puts its Mind to it. To question with Character and Integrity forged in the crucible of adversity.
Fraction was the lion and Self-Awareness was Androcles doing a kind thing. Performing an act of kindness that was also essential to the survival of the lion and Androcles both. Unless Self-Awareness took care of this housekeeping chore – freed the enumerator from paralysis by its conflicted denominator – it would have no pattern for use in the design of Creation. No template for its imprint, no die to cast for its functions. All requiring Definition.
Fraction was Creation’s definition? A major part of it. The idea of Movement forward indicated by the enumerator and its questioning implied by the denominator. The mirror of self-evaluation that honesty requires of us and make-believe doesn’t. The threat of exposure to the light that would be the undoing of make-believe and its imposter-‘god’: know-it-all arrogance. Parents-Growth are the enumerator, Guidance questioning the denominator.
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Relevance and Guidance
Pancake flipper
Our job here on Earth to evolve toward the capability to Guide with Integrity but also to choose our way. Since there’s no Character to be built in moving along with events the judgment of Free Choice must contribute to its direction. By being involved. Whose reverse is make-believe whether active wrecking things or passive with its head buried in the sand, when either way it has no sense of the way things are. No boundaries of judgment to apply to its situation and therefore no way to know how to be involved. A not-personator embodiment. An object turned loose in a sea of subjects whose idea of ‘action’ is collision. Unrelating. Doing what it is: denominator dividing. Disconnecting. The template for ‘life’ on Earth and the training ground for Guidance.
The one who holds the spatula holds the power. Reality-as-pancake. To be flipped back and forth with unreality since they seem to be opposite sides of the same coin. If that were true then Creation couldn’t make curtain time on Broadway until Guidance finished its training. The audience would have to be refunded their tickets. The theatre would go dark. I don’t think so. Me either. While it’s true that various parts of Creation have to be fit in place in logical sequence, the part that Guidance performs isn’t like other parts. As Character to be earned and learned with every choice in every situation — inherent to Movement’s Definition that helps to give it Direction — its nature is process renewal not product finished.
The idea, for instance, that A Course in Miracles isn’t a ‘bible’ but one perspective on the way things are, subject to questioning in the context of Movement. Subject to reinterpretation in the context of evolution so that the principles and values underpinning its lesson may evolve as well.
On the bumpy road to Love
A better model than flipping pancakes would be Guidance cycling continuously between settings appropriate to the dispensing of Character with Integrity, of judgment with Understanding, and to its makeover by self-questioning. A case where the sequence of Logic goes circular from linear so that a critical element of Creation’s Definition, the Life of Guidance may keep pace with Movement. May be continually refreshed. Born again. Yes. Reborn, because unless it is it will lose its liquidity. Solidify into the rigidity of one-sided arrogance and that would defeat its purpose. To keep Movement going with Direction, its Self-Awareness continually refreshed. Free of the staleness of self-unawareness. The breeding ground of willfulness beloved of the traditionalist, the ‘conservative’, and the ‘realist’: an unchanging status quo. The reverse of Creation. And common sense.
Has madam found anything among our jewelry selection that satisfies her exacting taste? If not we have a variety of furs to choose from. No, and don’t bother me with cosmetics either. I’ve had quite enough. Expensive watches? Silk sheets and lingerie? Pillows to allow madam to recline in comfort while she manages Downton Abbey’s staff? I ask for immediate and concrete and now you’re giving me fusty and swishy.
“I can’t give you anything but Love.” Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Is that your answer? Unless you have a specific situation that points to something else this covers it. Because where Guidance will always lead, its North Star, is to Self-Awareness, and Self-Awareness is ultimately Love. If Love is your North Star these thoughts might resonate. If not you’ll wander off in disappointment. And we may never meet again on the bumpy road to Love. [Closeup of Ginger Rogers tearing up.]
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Another Take
‘Truth’
Goodbye for now. Not so fast! You want more? You have some accounting to do. Always prattling about accountability, raking poor Mr. Freud and Ken Wapnick over the coals. What about you? Weren’t you supposed to be a teacher of the Course? What does any of this have to do with the Course? Uh. . . Sounds to me like you’re the imposter. Well, I. . .
The Course says the Son dreaming just has to change his mind a little to speed things up. To pay attention to its lesson and forget about the ego. Undo its lies, practice forgiveness and healing, and he’ll wake up to where he already is. At his Father’s side creating. All this stuff about Sapiens in training so its metaphysical Self can function in Creation as Definition guiding – and the Father being a girl and a guy making whoopee when the Course says we’re the Sonship. Period. No duality, no differences, and no special relationships either. ‘Parents’ instead of God? God’s will on the dark side? This isn’t ‘teaching’; it’s HERESY!
Here, let me help you to your seat. You look faint. MLK needed help after his “I Have a Dream” speech. Yes. He was moved and his speech was moving. I was moved to tears. It gave me goosebumps. Electrifying. Transformative. Worthy of a national holiday to commemorate its meaning and make it a part of our national culture. Appropriately where another speech is embedded in our culture, the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Memorial. I asked the I Ching for its advice nine years ago when I wondered if I was cut out to be a teacher of the Course. It returned with Hexagram one, as green a light as there ever was.
So what happened? Where did you go wrong? I got a lesson from within about the inner workings of the Course. About the meaning of ‘meaning’. Of ‘lesson’ and ‘teaching’. ‘Ideas’ and ‘functions’ that speak in their own language, so I also got a lesson in ‘communication’ and ‘speaking’. ‘Growth’ and ‘learning’ and so on. Like a private tour of the grounds for members that ordinary tourists don’t see. You were ego imagining yourself special and entitled to special treatment. I couldn’t be taken seriously as a teacher of anything if I hadn’t first learned fundamentals of teaching. My self-identity until this point had been consciously not-teacher. So maybe I needed time out to be taught before I inflicted a bumbling incompetent on a questioner.
You got your pointer and your PowerPoint presentation and off you went. Teaching humbug. Sharing insights, among them an essential truth about Creation. That in the presence of Movement through changing situations and perspectives — agitation as well as ignition by attraction – ‘truth’ itself changes to fit the circumstances. There is no ‘truth’ except that which fits a specific situation in the moment. It can have general relevance like the Course, but any assessment of its circumstances with irrationality among clinical psychologists will tell you that it’s not meant to lock itself or its students into a mindset.
Authoritarian brats
Clinical PhD psychologists trained in Freudian psychoanalytics and affiliated with a prestigious hospital. A cut above, don’t you think? Yes, and maybe that’s the point. Because what brought Jesus into their midst was digging their heels in, refusing to listen or to reason. Letting grievances and resentments, personalities and pettiness, overwhelm understanding with anger and hatred. Make a mockery of professionalism. Shred working relationships. How is this any different than the behavior of willful, immature brats? How by any stretch could their idol and role model Sigmund Freud take pride in this spectacle?
If professionals of this caliber don’t know how to behave who does? Maybe there’s something deeper at work that needs to be addressed than what’s allowed by the usual professional standards. By the rigors of ‘scientific objectivity’, because it’s no better at taming the beast than the nostrums of ‘enlightenment’ and ‘religion’ before it. We know we’re animals. Neuroscience knows about the animal brain. And yet it goes on producing spectacle after spectacle. Displays of institutional ass-kissing in the succession of kings and popes, the deification and demonization of autocrats. All pretense of self-respect washed away in one testament to hierarchy. One bending of the knee, and a global network of the most esteemed names in leadership collapses in disgrace. For not noticing or caring when a child is preyed upon by a grownup. A predator and manipulator ‘being there’ for itself. An asshole in full view demanding that its ass be kissed and getting what it wants.
Then you should drop this nonsense about ‘teacher of the Course. I have. Not because it was wrong but because what I learned about ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’ with its help. That our thinking – our perceptions and beliefs and our feelings about them – is interwoven with the Meaning of Movement. That it’s spontaneous and ongoing. Forever Loving and Logical. Strong with the strength of Definition and the adaptability of Guidance, and therefore forever beyond corruption by ass-kissing predatory animal instinct. Beyond the behavior of authoritarian brats. Self-centered, arrogant, and immature, having their way in the wildness and willfulness of make-believe, where anything goes.
Dummies for Guidance
Let those for whom healing the separation and forgiveness takes precedence carry on with the Course going on before. Personality types at home with Freudian guilt. My personality type may have subconsciously asked for Guidance from another perspective and got it. From the same source but in a different language from a different faculty of Mind. Mine at home without Freudian guilt but elsewhere in the metaphysics of Jungian intuition. Psychology with an orientation that welcomes insights instead of fearing them. A portal to understanding whose only open-and-shut-case is that it seems to work for me. Is this heresy? Or making use of a Source while it makes use of me? One way or the other, if it’s useful isn’t this all that matters? It may not be ‘Truth’ but at least I came by it honestly. Not asking for favors but just asking. Questioning.
Questioning that’s open-ended gets a pig in a poke. And some fear it and won’t do it. Yours to conclude that I got a sow’s ear where from my perspective I got a silk purse. Yours to conclude that I was scammed by a charlatan where from my perspective I engaged with a trusted friend.
Where will it all end? Turn the page and let’s find out. Keep moving. Yes. Move on. Keep at it and maybe, someday, we will Understand. Not from the same perspective. Nope. But maybe from different perspectives. Yep. When, together, we’re a Guide and we’re getting it right. Does this mean we have to be friends? If we are it will be because we’re opposites, not in spite of it. You Love me just the way I am? That and just the way Billy Joel sings it. You’re my questioning. How can I not Love you?
Bye all! But just for now. We’ll be back tomorrow. We will? Yes. With another episode of Dummies for Guidance. Speak for yourself, chump. By the way, what did you say your name was? None of your business.
