IF

Let us start by promising to be mindful of our tendency to confuse descriptions with the things described. [[What do you mean? Let's go down this rabbit hole.|A]] [[I promise. Let us proceed.|B]] [[I disagree.|C]]

This is the basic trick we must dismantle first. The Dao de Ching (a nice and mercifully short book) starts with something like “The Dao that can be named is not the Dao.” I would say “The Love that can be named is not the real Love.” If I encourage you to think and call to yourself the experience of love in whatever way this experience is meaningful to you and ask to compare it with the statement “Love is kind” you may be inclined to agreement, disagreement or some other reaction. If I now ask you to compare it with the the statement “Love is a bitch” you may also feel that you agree and disagree or something else. I urge you to think of two statements on love with which you agree and are seemingly contradictory, like the two ones above. Now it should seem clear that while both statements contain some truth, they don’t fully contain that feeling abstracted from your experiences of Love. In actuality, they are useful only inasmuch as they reveal perspectives on the mystery of Love, and hence Love is an experience whose essence is not captured by the uttering of the word love. So it is with all words and all the sentences they form. [[I’ll be mindful.|B]] [[Nope, I disgree.|C]] [[I need more examples.|D]]

Thoughts are like sentences. They can help you navigate Experience, by showing you a side of it that you were unaware of, or by simplifying it in a way that allows you to make choices. These are but two examples. The point is that any thought, like any sentence, must reveal some things and hide others. Like a light cast towards an object, it will reveal a side of it and put the rest of it in shadow. Only the pre-verbal experience is total. Thought fragments, highlights some things and smoothes out others. It is like a caricature. And, like a caricature, it can be very useful. If a thought is held by successive generations, it becomes a part of culture. Culture has brought us this far. And me, at the time of writing and you, at the time of reading, are alive. [[I would like to explore the topic of culture further.|E]] [[Okay, so what does that have to do with me?|F]]

How so? [[I don’t even think there is such a thing as things described. It’s all in our heads, man!|V]] [[I think our words match perfectly with the world and, hence, are interchangeable.|X]] [[It’s pretty clear that I can distinguish between the words I use and the things they describe, I’m not some damned fool.|Z]]

It’s easier to see with concepts than it is with words denoting objects. Let’s take the word “potential”, as in “This kid has the potential to be a great mathematician.” Now, have you ever seen a “potential”? Can you point to it? What does it smell like? Still, you may have a reaction if I tell you that “you are squandering your potential.” If it causes a reaction, then it has meaning. And if potential is a word you’ve desensitized yourself completely to, I urge you to observe your speech for a single day, and find for yourselves examples of the use of some such words. [[I am persuaded, let us proceed.|B]] [[Erm, that has nothing to do with confusing words and their meanings.|AA]] [[I’ve recorded everything I say for a whole year, transcribed it, and went through it with a fine-tooth comb. I haven’t found an single instance of a word used not accounted for by my senses.|AB]]

Culture is strange. It’s something that needs to be layered on top of biology to permit survival. Humans are born helpless, unable to feed or defend themselves. Our natural state is not enough for survival. Any culture that exists anywhere has at least passed the test of survival. No culture in which babies aren't cared for can exist, for it would go extinct within a generation. It would be unable to propagate itself. So, we are born and we immediately learn a bunch of rules and ways of behaving. Some of them are explicit, so we can write them down (indeed that may be the main impetus for the development of writing), others are implicit and we are not fully conscious of them. And all these rules and habits and whatever else constitutes culture have, in tandem, kept us from dying at the hands of the myriad things that would have killed us. But culture cannot be a completely static entity. Because the environment keeps changing, culture must also change or it may become inconducive to survival. So, in a viable culture, there must exist a task of updating culture. This is the traditional purview of the shaman, the prophet, the artist. We can think of these ideas, ways of being or rules as "patches" to the cultural fabric. Either by originating or by propagating some of these patches, the task of updating culture is one in which we are all engaged in. (set: $war to false) [[How do we update culture?|2A]] [[Do I even want culture to propagate?|G]]

You are at war within yourself. I know because you are engaged in reading, which means that thought is being unleashed within. Thought fragments and hence you have been fragmented. Any fragmented being longs for its lost unity. (set: $war to true) [[I don’t see what you mean by a being and its lost unity.|H]] [[What’s up with this war?|I]]

No difference between words and the things described, eh? All in our heads, you say? That should make things very easy indeed. So, here’s a bicycle. And a million in local currency. And now you’re having sex with that movie star. Ok, my work here is done. I’m sure that, these things having just happened to you, you’ll agree that this is the greatest thing ever written, and you’ll recommend it to all your friends. Goodbye, now! [[Wait, you’re right, there’s the words and the things described by them. Just that sometimes we confuse them.|B]] [[Erm, okay, I get your point. There's words, there's the things described. They're so different, in fact, that I don't think there's any danger of confusing them.|Z]] [[I certainly will recommend it to everyone I know, I’ll go meet them now in my new bicycle.|AI]]

If that were so, there would be no need to invent technical terms. And while I’m sure there’s jargon invented so members of the in-group can identify each other, it’s undeniable that many advances come from the development of specialized terms, from science to sports to geometry. Indeed, it’s the separation between the technical terms point and line from their common-sense counterparts that permitted the development of non-Euclidean geometries. And we all love non-Euclidean geometries. So come on, get off it, and if you’re not convinced, then indulge me. You can contact me later with your objection. [[Fine, I promise to be aware of this tendency of ours to confuse the two. Proceed.|B]] [[Okay, they’re not interchangeable, but I can tell the difference.|Z]]

Can you now? We’ve already established a world of things. It was words that turned the formless world into sets of things. Words are the children of the grasping hand and the hunting eye. They run deep. To know things is to know the words for things. By receiving the power to name animals, Adam became the first human. So do children ask “what is that?”, wanting a name. But there are names and there are verbs. Verbs establish relationships between things. And those relationships change the things. Processes are acting on things such that they are certainly not as they seemed to be when we first named them. But we may still act as if the were. That’s emphatically the case with ourselves, that most wondrous thing! [[How do we still act as if they were how they used to be?|AH]] [[Let’s say we may sometimes confuse things and the words for things.|B]] [[I still say the distinction between words and things is clear.|AH]]

Alright, so you got me. I didn’t think everything through. I’m writing this from my house, me and my partner are out of work and I’m worried we won’t make next month’s rent. I’m sure it’s just a bump along the way, and that I’ll be a bit embarassed at how worried I am now, like all the other times I’ve been worried. Worrying is something I’ve always regretted doing, if it is indeed something I "do". It’s sapped my energy and it’s never helped with the problem at hand. It sure would be nice if you played ball and just said “Okay, I’ll be mindful we sometimes confuse things with the words we use to describe them.” Maybe that would mean putting some food on the table. Think of the children. [[Sure, man, I’ll go with it. Show me what you got.|B]] [[Sir/Madam/Other, I refuse to compromise on intelectual issues. I will not subscribe to any proposition I don’t fully agree with.|AB]] [[You actually have children in your care? Do you think you have the capacity to be a carer? I mean, you seem to confuse the word banana with the fruit. Do you ever find that you’re feeding them words?|AD]]

That, my friend, earns you a bicycle. Here it is. Congratulations. Confetti guns fire into the air. The applause swells up and then dies down, then the light becomes dimmer. I leave through a side door. You hold on your bicycle as the world around you seems to disappear, swallowed up by the expanding darkness. You hear the rustling of someone behind the spotlight that’s aimed at you and the bicycle, the last light in a sea of darkness that seems hungry for you. And you clutch on the bicycle as if it were the last thing in a disappearing world. [[Alright! By what I’m feeling right now I recognize there may be some confusion between words and what they represent.|B]] [[You hold on even tighter to your bicycle.|AJ]]

Every action you take propagates your culture both within yourself and in others who mimic you (for we humans mimic). So you are involved in the process whether you want to or not. Even a self-termination of your life is an action that propagates culture. So, if we’re all playing this game, we might as well do it well. It may help you to understand it. Of course, it may also hinder it. [[How can it hinder it?|J]] [[How can I understand it better?|2A]] [[How will it benefit me to understand it?|2D]]

I’m taking it more ore less axiomatically. I don’t care to comment on how far it might extend in the directions of macroverse or miniverse, but in the case of the human individual, we used to have an existence of pre-cultural totality (the moment of our conception) which was followed by a progressive specialization into organs and on top of which we layered the cultural. There’s a unity with mother in the flesh which is a deep human longing. I think this is only one aspect of a deeper longing for unity, but the example of the individual is good enough for our purposes here. [[Okay, so what about this war?|I]]

We can think of all your thoughts as forming your personality. But we can also think of thoughts that tend to appear together as little personalities within you. Every time you are thinking the thoughts of one personality you’re letting that personality drive the body. Without the sort of work I’m advocating for, the personality will probably only let go of you once it crashes. A crash is a crisis, a proof that the way you were going about doing things had some shortcomings. The profundity of the crisis decides whether you just change the existing personality slightly ("patch" it) or if you let another of your little personalities take over. $war[The process within that mediates between the different personalities and the driving seat I have referred to as a war. It was naughty of me, and I'm sorry about that. War has an alarming effect. I may have made you needlessly uneasy. I apologize if that's the case. Let's try to make it a dance rather than a war. That would be nice, eh? ]The benefit of this system is that until a crisis hits you can be sure that whichever of your personalities is driving the body is up to the task. Especially if you, as many do, define the task of driving the body as composed exclusively of avoiding crashes. However, it is quite possible that you are going around in circles. [[I like circles!|K]] [[How do you know I’m going around in circles?|L]] [[What can I do, Doctor?|M]]

Knowledge can get in the way of enjoyment, which can lead to rigidity and mirthlessness. Nothing is free from danger, especially not something worthwhile. While one equipped with a modicum of intelligence and character would do well not to worry about the hindrance the understanding might bring, he would do even better to remember that there are traps everywhere, which means that the most dangerous one lurk in places we regard as safe. Accept nothing as an absolute good. Emphatically, also the advice I just gave you. [[Very well. Now, how will it profit me to understand it?|2D]] [[Surely, some things are an absolute good.|AG]]

Circles are nice and they are everywhere, the path of the sun and moon being two of the most obvious ones. In our lives we keep making circles, day leads to night leads to day, for instance. These circles have a certain shape (none of them are perfect circles) the knowledge of which can help you navigate experience. How? First, you should be familiar with at least two circular descriptive systems (the hero’s journey, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the tension-charge-discharge-release cycle, to name a few.) Then, you must understand that any of the stages in any of these systems are like sides of a polygon, lines to simplify and help you navigate the roundness of the space. Thus, it is to the space like a map to territory. We are very prone to confuse the system with the thing described, which is why I ask you to be proficient in at least two systems. This will help you be mindful of the terrible mistake of confusion. So far, so good. But maybe there’s another path, at right angles to this circle, which you may be engaging with in a trembling, unjoyous way. I mean if your life, or your day, is a circle drawn on a piece of paper, the path I’m referring to here is like a line coming out at right angles to the paper, towards a third dimension. [[What does this path look like?|N]] [[What are these descriptive systems you speak of?|O]] [[What can I do within the circle, Doctor?|M]]

The fact that you are following me around is my proof. You see, I’m going around in circles. Or maybe it’s a spiral, if we manage to see the distance-from-centre dimension. That’s the dimension that describes motion to within and to without. To make any headway in this dimension we must go through the whole rotation - maybe we can measure motion in this dimension in terms of how many rotations around our archetypal stages we’ve done. For smooth sailing, let’s be aware of preferences for moments in these stages, like the moment one falls in love or the moment one dies and is reborn. These will cause one to break the proper rhythm, and go through them in a haphazard, potentially damaging way. The path itself is complicated enough without us making it any harder by anticipating some moments of it. Then again, we can train for the moments the culture warns us about so that we don’t fail. I’m overemphasizing the negative role of being prepared. Both the improvisational and the planned must come to bear for any worthy enterprise. And once you’ve cleared an obstacle, you’ll find the same obstacle again in the next iteration, in pretty much the same place or moment of the next iteration. But the path is not the story we tell to navigate the path. That’s the cultural lie that must be transcended in our quest towards adulthood which is freedom. [[What about this that you are writing?|P]] [[What else can I know of the path’s shape?|N]] [[I don’t understand what you are saying about the spiral.|N]] [[Are all stories the same, then?|R]]

Don’t call me Doctor. Training is useless if we fall into the trap of authority. All these experiences, all this knowledge, is merely a spring with which to get you over to the other side, over what some have called the Abyss. If you hold on to someone else as having the capacity to dictate reality, you’ll never get anywhere other than down the abyss and back to where you started, but now tattered and older. And yet, this holding on is your natural state. We are born dependent on outside naming and directing, and parents, teachers, cultures, mother tongues, etc., compete to fill the gap. This creates a psychology, that is to say a way of being, that I encourage you to transcend. All transcendence made within the acceptable confines of authority, be it a guru, a family or a university, should be regarded as training for the real thing. It is the real thing that will enable you to start your own school, family, institution, etc.. When you return from your adventure you will be compelled, like everyone before you, to found your own discipline. I urge you to remember to include in your system a sabotage of your own authority to be taken by the student who is ready. This will be the safety valve of your system. If you don’t, and marry your authority with your system, then when the hero emerges from your rank to end your tyranny (and he will, ah yes, he will) then he will also destroy all you have built. The more knowledgeable of transcendence our systems become, the more their transcendence will lead us towards better, more approximate, truth. [[If all systems are equal in how they are fated, is their story always the same?|R]] [[What of this truth we are striving for, is that the ultimate objective?|S]] [[All very well and good, Sir Teacher, but isn't the safety valve also of the system, and also to be transcended? You also seem to have a terribly negative view of the hero who comes to end your tiranny. Surely the system has served to form him, which is why it's of value, and, having completed its task, it can now be destroyed??|2023]]

You are too small and too brief to speak of absolutes. A good throughout your life would be not absolute good, a good throughout history would be no absolute good and a good for the duration of the species, and even throughout the whole of the life-process itself would be no absolute good (although it could be argued it would come close). But even if only in the fleeting present, things follow certain laws. Fail to attend to something and it will decay. That goes for your teeth, hips, house, relationships, etc.. Anything labeled as absolutely something will never have its label revised (an absolute needs no revision, if you were to revise a classification, then by that act you admit its relativeness). It is so that the rot starts taking hold. Or, if you prefer the adversarial model, your adversary (the Devil?) is constantly observing you, as a stalker his prey, and he will seek to place his snares where he notices you do not look. If you never look somewhere he’ll have free reign there to install the perfect snare. [[I will watch out for even the most obvious things, and try to remember to doubt them from time to time.|I]] [[I prefer to keep my faith in absolutes.|AS]] [[Okay, but I have more questions about culture|2E]]

Imagine a spiral. I can define each point algebraically as constituted of an angle and a distance to the center. Now, if I fix the distance component, I have a circle. Does that make sense? In a circle we have points at all the angles but only at one distance(the radius). To make a spiral from this circle, I have to vary this distance to center in a certain way. Now, the circle is the visible component of the experience. The cycle. Going round and round. Day follows day, year follows year, lifetime follows lifetime. The movement at right angles from the circle, from before, is what I’m projecting two-dimensionally as a spiral distancing from or approaching centre. That’s the spiritual path, that’s the one which most concerns us here. So, if in our cycle, our Wheel of Fate, I have just reached a peak (maybe I found Love, achieved apotheosis or was crowned King) I would be foolish to try to hang to this stage of the wheel. The wheel will keep turning, and the spiral will keep making its way in the unseen dimension. But I have choice in how I engage with it. If I resist, I may be torn. I exhort you to get to know the wheel. You may then better engage with, prepare for and soften the blows of its inexorable turning. If you become exceedingly capable in the wheel turns, through the persistent humbling it will inflict on you, you may even attempt that most foolish of errands, to weigh in on how the spiral should unfold. [[Any places to start getting to know the wheel?|O]] [[Where is the spiral going?|S]] [[What can be, is already, known, and can we strive to contribute?|R]]

I recommend you get a hold of a Tarot deck and meditate on the card with the Wheel of Fortune. Look at it, trying to guess its meaning, write about it trying to interpret it or, better yet, make a story of it. Draw it, animate it, stitch it in tapestry, dance it. During this time you might find the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the TV show The Wire or the comic book The Incal helpful. Finnegans Wake is probably helpful, but I can’t make heads or tails of it. If you engage in this search earnestly, you will probably find that what strikes your fancy will reveal an aspect of The Wheel to you, and you may indeed start seeing The Wheel everywhere. If you find yourself thoroughly, ecstatically possessed by the idea of The Wheel, it’s time to contemplate the other tarot cards, and if you’re convinced the tarot itself has the truth, it’s time to change yet again. You will soon be making your own artifacts.

A tattered map is better than no map, as a corrupt teacher is better than no teacher. All systems offer you a chance to transcend. An honest system, like a good father, knows this and positions itself so that it prepares the learner to rule as it reveals its own obsolescence. However, a certain part of it must, of necessity, be made against the wishes of the father. However wise, the father is always foolish and hypocritical in at least one respect, and it is this hypocrisy that will make the son oppose the father to be true to his Spirit, and so redeem him. So I hope the reader will consider the thoughts in here, invite them into his house, that is his body, his mind, and having earnestly engaged with them, and so having been ensnared by them, living indeed imprisoned by them, break out of that prison by discovering some fault within the system and make it so that that fault may be known to me, so that I may escape, too. I think you will find you have done something worthwhile by going through this, but the truth is that, even if it wasn’t, even if I have but hurt and imprisoned you, I need to have someone go through this, for I have thought myself into a Labyrinth from which I cannot escape. Hold out your hand, meet me here, and save me!

Is the story always the same? What can you contribute? These questions have different answers depending on where you are in the story. Before the hill it is dangerous and after the hill it is meaningless or obvious, one of the two. You’ll see for yourself. For now suffice it to say I think there’s enough similarity between the different stories we engage in as humans that I have ventured to write this collection of general advice. It also seems to me that if you engage with the story consciously, you will add something to it. The manner in which the advice will be good (the specific pattern of how, if and when to heed it) is entirely up to you. Your contributions to the story are also entirely up to you. It’s a fool’s quest to pin down anything with certainty, but, as Blake would say, if the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. This is as far as I can bring you with the thousand voices that speak through me.

There really is no ultimate thing, only different carrots put in by different educators. By moving the carrot around in a rhythmic way, the student may learn to dance, as it is the most economical way of going through a space with a carrot moving in rhythm. But no one can teach you to dance, not ever. They can persuade you to move in a way resembling dancing or you can choose to mimic someone dancing. Do that with determination and you may find that, eventually, you will be dancing. It is my faith and observation that this will happen always, these conditions having been met, but that shouldn’t distract you from the facts that a) you may be the exception and b) when it does happen to you it is nothing short of a miraculous outpour of God's Grace into this world. [[Sounds good, where do I sign up?|T]] [[Isn’t that confirmation bias, or something?|U]]

The answer to where is everywhere. The answer to when is everywhen. We’re always called upon to do our darned best and there’s always a path away from nonsense, into novelty and another one sliding back into the morass. That’s what is meant when it is said that “initiation never ends”. It is always that fundamental moment when you are called upon to transcend. [[I agree with everything you’ve said.|AE]] [[How do you know what is meant when someone else says something?|AF]]

It probably qualifies as confirmation bias. I’m sure a lot of what is being written here qualifies as something that some knowledgeable authority has classified as bias or some other word that advises the cautious to stay away. I also know that the concept of confirmation bias is a very useful one and, finally, I know that those who never follow advice are doomed to find something they weren’t ready for. So, what are we to do?

The moon is made of cheese. Charlton Heston is an intergalactic spy! Everyone’s a part of a secret plan to build bridges! Hair doesn’t really catch fire! Matter is energy in slow vibration! The whole monetary system is a big con. Marmalade is the best! [[So far, so good. You’re the best guru.|AN]] [[I’m starting to fear for your sanity. However, I’m too invested in this and am too lazy to start over with someone else or, God forbid, think for myself, so I’ll suppress my doubt and double down on my devotion. Long live our guru, the Enlightened One!|AO]] [[I’m sure some of that is true and some isn’t. There may even be categories other than true and false.|AP]] [[You’re a maniac. I don’t agree with you anymore.|AQ]]

Well, I don’t. But phrasing it like that sounds authoritative. And all the other wannabe gurus do it all the time. I at least have some some experience in the matter. I’m always dumbfounded when I hear people say “what Nietzsche meant was ...”, “what Plato is saying is...”. But you can still learn from these people, so I just choose to accept it as a bad thought/speech habit and move on. Anyway, I guess you’ve learned all I feel like teaching you for now. So, go home (or don't), and remember to call your mother sometimes (or don’t, I don’t know your relationship with your mother, it may in fact be a terrible idea to call her, so, there you are. My final advice).

You do that, now. You start pedaling on your bicycle, down the road to where your friends are, and you feel the warm colours of your neighbourhood. Soon, however, something happens, and you feel your stomach lurching and the world seems to be cracking at the seams that hold things together, and great gaping holes open between what once were the things of your world, the road, the pavement, the walls, the roofs, and you fall, not quite down but through, through the spaces between the things, and now you’re in a space that’s a lack of space, a void-space and there is not even the recollection of there ever having been things or there having been you or even there having been a there.

Let’s take you. You’re a thing of sorts. Remember when you did that thing when you were ten, and you still feel guilty about it? Now, unless you’re actually ten (in which case, congratulations on following these relatively complicated arguments) time has passed that has rendered you a totally different person. You are hopefully a bit wiser and have a little more self-control. Now, when you imagine the situation and judge yourself to be wanting in some way, and hence guilty, do you regard yourself as the spiritually primitive ten-year-old or as your more sophisticated current self? The reason you conflate your current understanding of you and your very dissimilar ten-year-old you is that you call both these entities by the same name, and hence you confuse them (this confusion may cause you to be inadvertantly too harsh on your previous self, but that, though maybe useful to know, is not my point). This confusion, conflation or simplification is natural, and probably necessary for survival, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. [[I’m ten years old and hence I don’t think this applies to me.|AL]] [[Touché. Carry on.|B]]

Very funny. We have ourselves a joker for a reader. No, I don’t have children in my care, but I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself, so I suppose I would be able to feed them, by making larger portions of the things I eat, and serving the excess in extra plates. And all I said was tend to confuse, not that they are the same thing. And I told you to think of the children and you immediately jumped to thinking they were in my care, so you’re at least capable of some confusion, Mister I’m-Always-Clear-In-My-Head, aren’t you? [[Only because you suggested that in your choice of answers! I’m constrained, nay, oppressed by the choices you give me. I want to be free!|AM]] [[Fine, I get confused sometimes, like any other schmuck.|B]]

You can have your bicycle. Use it whatever way you see fit. May it be of service to you in this life. It’s tough out there. I wish you the best.

Freedom is a great prize to be gained. But it cannot be given. And the stubborn refusal of everything within a system makes you a prisioner of it as much as adherence to it does. Maybe more so. Freedom can be reched, at the right moment with the right action. Once that first taste is gained, one can learn to stalk it as one does prey. Yes, I have constrained your options. I hope to mould you into a form. Maybe you can learn to be free after you have form. But not before. Here are your options. [[I'll go to where you seem to want to take me.|B]] [[I don't want to go there. I don't care for your your little games. All I want is things. Give me a bicycle!|AJ]]

I’m also the least patient guru. You’ve had enough of this ride. Now I become the least present guru.

Ah yes, that old thing. So you stand by me and applaud as I grow more and more unhinged. I depend upon your feedback to make sense of the world. You are responsible for the problem of my sanity, fellow human. By eating the garbage I spew, you’ve made me a blind master, and yourself a dumb slave. What I needed was free humans, but, alas, I cannot break your chains with you holding on to them for dear life. So, we are done here. Just another failure on the way to future failures.

Well, I'll be darned. I think maybe it’s time for you to be the teacher. I’m getting tired anyway.

Before, you agreed with everything. Now, you desert me. What great zigzags you make on your way. When the zigzags become less pronounced, you may be zeroing in on something. I’d tell you to trust your own instincts, but it seems like you already do. And besides, I wouldn’t want to substitute your spark for my words. Remember that when you come back to teach, and godspeed.

Such is, maybe, the nature of faith. I wouldn’t dare to try and take that away from you, whatever it is, be it the faith it will all be alright in the end, or that God has a special place for you and yours. We need fundamental truths in which to operate. Even the most hard-headed scientific thinker must recognize the usefulness of mathematical axioms. I propose to take nothing fundamental. Faith doesn’t require any propositions. I could make you stop believing in all of the sentences above and I couldn’t get at your inner strength. No one can. And if you someone tells you that you would collapse without believing the propositions they believe, mark that person down for a liar. Let your body come close to the fire and burn away all you don’t need. Make that as much as you can bear. Know that your essential Self will prevail, better than before. Have faith in that. [[I can’t, I’m afraid.|AR]] [[Ah yes, let’s encounter some flame.|I]]

A lovely age to be. You’ve done well reading this far. However, I don’t really have anything to say to you besides be brave, be true and be vigilant. I will see you on the other side.

Fear cannot make you do things, it just acts like it can. You have agency there, somewhere, and you can choose to exercise it. Forget this for now. Focus on yourself. How are you feeling? Now your breath. How are you breathing? And now try to gently make that breath calmer and deeper. Don’t jerk, nudge it along. Keep observing yourself. Notice any change? Now remember that behind that fear is your freedom. Be willing to accept the consequences and you can do anything. Fear will henceforth be but a marker of where to turn to claim that freedom and no longer something that can keep you from doing things. And now that you know, you are free. Enjoy.

We start our lives, the systems with which we live are almost exclusevely given to us, with no update. For example, traffic regulations and the importance not to follow a runaway ball into the street. And so, we've reached adulthood without being run-over by a car. Now, say you're driving a car to a hospital. It's an emergency. There's a red light. There's no one in sight. No other cars, no pedestrians. Do you go through the red light? (set: $no to false)[[Yes|2B]] (link: "No")[(set: $no to true)(goto: "2B")]

$no[Yes, you do.] You go through the red light because you're in contact with that living process that's impossible to encapsulate, for the right unfolding of which we've created the rules in the first place. We've made these rules so that agents in contact with this process could a) obey them most of the time and b) disobey when the purpose for which they were created would be jeopardized by following them. So, now, you've made a "patch" to culture. As it exists within you, I could write it something like this "Obey traffic regulations except if there's an emergency and no other lives are put in danger by your disobeying." That one will hold until next time the rules get in the way of the life process. Of course, culture is more than just writable rules of conduct. It's ways of interacting, things taken for granted, taboos, etc.. They all require update. Update brought them to where they are now. This is has been The Way since the most ancient times.(set: $back to false) [[So, should I just do what I feel is the right thing for the life process and, if that contradicts the rules, disobey them?|2G]] [[So if this is how it is and has always been, why isn't it easier?|2C]]

(set:$visits to it + 1)(if: $visits > 2 )[ [It seems like you are going around in circles]. [[I like circles!|K]] [[How do you know I’m going around in circles?|L]] [[What can I do about it, Doctor?|M]] ](else:)[ What, then(if: $narcisist is true)[, you wonderful, wonderful thing]? [[How does it profit one to update culture?|2D]] [[How do I update culture?|2A]] [[Why have I not heard of this before|2C]] [[Do I want culture to propagate?|G]] ]

We are living in arrogant times, where many insist their systems are already complete and don't need update or, if they do, you're not the one to do it. So, it follows, only obedience is necessary, you can disconnect from the life process. In fact, you should disconnect with it, it may tempt you away from the written truth. This is so whether they propose the Bible, the body of Scientific Knowledge or the body of Law as The Truth, or any other such artifact. Though these groups may be competing for the education of our young, there's a common thread in how they operate. By punishing all dissent these authorities hope to create pure conformity. The best ones understand that they will play the adversary in a future dispute. But there will always be dissent. It is the thing that keeps us sane, that keep our actions and the life-process in sufficient alignment. Without that alignment, the culture cannot survive. It has happened before. It will happen again. It is very painful. That's what I mean by the test of survival. [[If dissent happens regardless of what we do, what does it matter to know these things?|2D]] [[Okay, I've had enough of this, can we go back to talking about thoughts?|I]]

You might as well ask what knowledge is good for. I think knowledge is useful. It allows us to keep despair and anxiety at bay to understand how things unfold. Also it allows us to better interact with guilt. Guilt is what we feel when we have broken a rule. Being a negative feeling, it tries to back us back off. But when we're in the process of updating culture, guilt is something we have to break through. If we know this, we may find a way to do it so that it doesn't hurt us as much, so we'll be able to do it many times in our lives, not just when we've absolutely no other choice. Now, real knowledge, of course, comes from experience. This is but a map. If I didn't think it was useful, though, I wouldn't have bothered writing it. Now that we've covered, hopefully satisfactorily, the ground of culture, can we go back to dealing with thoughts? [[Yes, let's do that.|I]] [[No, wait, I still have questions.|2E]]

(if: $back is true)[You're back! Shazam! C](else:)[No. No. Firstly, c]ulture is part of the life-process. Just because the rules are in your way, doesn't mean you can just break them. Creativity (or its twin, Intelligence) are required. The creative solution is the establishment of a framework that solves the apparent conflict of the rules and the life process. Like the cylinder, a 3D object, solves the 2D contradiction between cube and square. (if: $back is true)[Of course, you should also do as you feel.](else:)[Also, kind of yes.] To be an adult is to put within yourself the social rules and then just do what you feel is right. Of course, the fact that other people, or their government, think it wrong that you do something (even something apparently minor, like smoking inside a restaurant) will weigh on your decision. That's just existing as a social individual. [[What's that with the cylinder|Cilinder]] [[Okay, so what's keeping us from living in this manner?|2C]]

(enchant:?page, (bg:white) + (color:black) ) (align:"==>")[“It must have a natural explanation.” “It must have a supernatural explanation.” Let both these asses be set to grinding corn. Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies] (align:"<==")[[Let's start.|Instructions]]

Imagine you're in 2D space and you want to be both a circle and a square. But that's impossible! Well, it's impossible in 2D space. Now imagine an upright cylinder in 3D space. Seen from above, it is a circle. Seen from the side, it is a rectangle (to make it extra neat, make the cilinder's height equal to the diameter of the circle - now it's a square.) So, the 2D projections of this 3D object are both a square and a circle. Whoa! One can say the 3D object cylinder "solves" the contradiction between square and circle, because he can be both at the same time. (link: "Got it, thanks. Can I go back now?")[(set: $back to true)(goto: "2G")] [[So, sometimes, to solve an apparent contradiction, you need to change your frame of reference, possibly recognizing a higher dimension space?|Yes]]

Yes. [[Okay, great.|Great]]

Good to see ya! [[Cool.|Cool]]

Nah, you're cool. I'm just some text. [[Cool as a cucumber.|cucumber]] [[No, I meant me. I'm cool!|You're cool]] [[Can we go back to what we were talking about now?|2E]]

Alright, thanks, but knock it off. [[Let's talk about something else.|2E]] [[Does it embarass you to speak of you? You've done nothing but speak about me this whole time.|Embarassed]]

Great. You're (for: each _i, ...(range:1,$cool))[ (if: $cool > 0)[really] ]cool. (set: $narcisist to true) [[Now that we've established I'm cool, we can move on to something else?|2E]] (link: "I'm really cool.")[(set: $cool to it + 1)(goto: "You're cool")]

I'm a bit embarassed, yes. You see, I'm just text. You are alive. However eloquent my imitation of speech may be, it's just a static pattern of someone's living capacity for speech. I'm humbled even by your most careless grunt. [[Fair enough, I'm pretty cool.|You're cool]] [[Okay. We can now talk about something else.|2E]]

(enchant:?page, (bg:white) + (color:black) ) Instructions: On top, you'll see the things the person you're talking to is saying. You have the option of responding with what's written in green under the text. If what you'd like to say is not well represented by any of the options, consider get in touch with what you'd like to say, and I will seek to include it, with an appropriate response. You can use the arrows on the left to go back (and forward) if you wish to explore other areas/answers, but that's not a necessary part of this experience. Enjoy! (align:"<==")[[Got it, let's start|Start]]

Yes. Yes, I suppose you're right. I'm going to go think about that for a minute.