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Published on Leave a comment on Glossary

Arrested development

The result of parenting with the opposite of understanding, kindness, and justice: the injustice of misunderstanding and cruelty. The wrong “guide,” shadow-opposite, obstructing Logic’s sequence of Order, the interconnectedness of its implications. Disorder produced in alternate “reality” by entropy – temporal, dying energy -- that reverses connection.

The wrong “guide” obstructing the expansion and reciprocation of Love’s relationships. Both together, misunderstanding and cruelty, implements of “separation,” responsible for arrested development. Paralysis exemplified by the condition of Nietzsche’s body and brain at his death. Like the brain of Sylvia Plath, captive to the wrong “guide.” Captive to the lethal impossibility of separation.

Explanation-Understanding 

The response of Logic-Love to the injustice of its mischaracterization, condemnation, and punishment, with Understanding that helps the perpetrator, self-unawareness, remove its cause by regaining Self-Awareness. By shining away the darkness of self-delusion, illogic, fear, and “guilt,” with the light of Truth, Innocence, Logic, and Love.

The response role modeled by the teaching, life, and example of Jesus. Explanation that’s Helpfulness instead of retaliation in kind that’s harmfulness.

Getting it right based on explanation by Logic-Love making sense of evolving circumstances to produce context, the source of meaning and purpose. The source of Guidance by conscience centered on character defined by the moral values of the Good. Enabling the Child of Self-Awareness to apply its unique talent for Free Choice in Relationship’s response to context that expands the Life-Worth of Creation. The talent of Mind Free Choice that is reflection, reasoning, evaluation, and judging.

Free Choice 

Judgment that must be independent because dependence would contradict freedom of choice.

Judgment informed by the function of Child Free Choice’s Parents, to serve and support its function with the process and structure of Reality: the Energy of Mind, the Free Spirit of Inquiry, the Spontaneity of Love, the Relationship of Self-Awareness, and context that supplies meaning and purpose to evolving circumstances. Essentials for reasoning, evaluation, and independent judgment required by Choice among possibilities that’s capable of affirming, earning, and reciprocating Life-Worth. That’s Free.

Judgment that implies the possibility of errors in judgment and the responsibility of Free Choice to gain competence through experience to avoid them. Errors based on the inadequacy of what’s already Known to foretell the consequences of Creation advancing into the unknown. Being based on flaws of character inherited from its Parents, Logic-Love, is an impossibility. The Truth of Child Free Choice, whether its judgment is mistaken or not, is its birthright: the Soul of Innocence, inviolable in Reality and recoverable by Free Choice in unreality. 

Freedom-Order 

The inseparability of Order and Freedom. Functions that enable one another through the harmony of Order defined with Free Choice and the protection of Free Choice by the boundaries of Order. The origin of Order that is the before-after sequence of Logic aligned with the laws of cause and effect. Whose opposite, disorder, begins with disconnection of the sequence of Logic. 

The freedom to extend the ideas-functions of Mind forward through the interconnecting implications of Logic that require the before-after sequence of Order. The freedom to expand the feelings of Mind through the interconnecting relationships of Love that require spontaneity within the boundaries of Order.

Jesus-right guidance 

A spectacular contradiction of shadow-opposite’s contradiction. A phenomenon as well as a personification of the right Guide, gifted with Self-Awareness. With understanding of the metaphysics and psychology of Child Free Choice’s self-delusion: its identification with its shadow-reflection mistaken for an “other.” Understanding which Jesus shares with its projections, self-unaware individuals in their immediate contexts, in a variety of ways contradicted by the idea of “bible.” All pointing toward the Necessity of reversing projection, the logical impossibility that made the unreality of opposite “real.”

Not to relieve individuals of responsibility for earning Self-Awareness with their own thoughts-feelings but to help them recover their own thoughts-feelings. Through spontaneous insights from Intuition – their sixth sense – and lessons the biblical Jesus and the Jesus of A Course in Miracles brought to individuals in forms recognizable by their five senses. That demonstrate the Reality of Mind’s laws of cause and effect unaffected by unreal matter’s “laws” of chaos.

A personification of injustice that draws a helpful response of role modeling by explanation and understanding rather than variations of harmfulness by aggrieved victimhood. Injustice perpetrated by projection of guilt onto Innocence by minds captive to the self-unawareness of shadow-opposite. Whose precedent was the execution of another Innocent, Socrates, the father of Western ethical philosophy, by another projection of guilt. Shadow-opposite’s mischaracterization of Innocence and perversion of justice. A contradiction of Logic-Love and a lethal flaw in human “thinking” that Plato sought to understand and explain through his Allegory of the Cave.

The teacher of one-Child individual minds and not the fiction of many child body-brains. And thus not the “founder” of any “religion” or “church.” Or a “savior” who would do the work of the wrong “guide” by contradicting the Freedom of Choice.

A personification of the brother and friend of one Child-Mind in its self-unaware state. Accessible in forms adapted to the needs of its individual projections and thus a part of the dream of unreality that will no longer be needed when self-unawareness gives way to Self-Awareness. When Free Choice is again offered a role in Creation.

The judgment of Parental Love, Forgiveness, and Innocence. Of Reality-Truth that contradicts the unreality-untruth of fear, condemnation, and guilt. Fit together in logical Order-Freedom by explanation from Child’s Parents, Logic-Love, that leads to Understanding. Self-Awareness.

Life-Worth 

The light of Self-Awareness illuminated in the eternal Now by Relationship. By the attraction between Logic and Love, ideas within Mind sharing its Energy to consummate inseparability and set the sharing of Life-Worth in motion. The motivating Force of Reality-Creation whose expression extends and expands the Logic-Love Relationship of Mind into infinity. The Worth of eternal discovery, growth, and Creation affirmed, earned, and reciprocated by Free Choice. 

Logic-Love / Parents 

Relationship that ignited the illumination of Self-Awareness and began the orderly sequence of Logic-Love forward in the evolution of Creation. The prototype and founding role model for every Relationship in Creation to follow. Logic is implications connecting to make sense. Love is abundance-sharing through Relationships that give sense the meaning and purpose of value – the moral value that is Socrates’ and Plato’s idea of “Good.” Logic and Love are ideas-functions of Mind that complete one another and, like Freedom and Order, are inseparable. That provide service and support for their Child’s role in Creation with the unconditional love of Parents who respect the sovereignty and integrity of Free Choice.

Narcissist – reflection 

A replication of Mind, captive to its shadow-reflection self-unawareness, that’s projected itself, Love, onto its reflection misperceived as an object, separate from itself and objectified as an “other.” The impossibility that’s an “external:” an objectified “self” “loving” separated other objects the only way it can, by loving its separated, objectified “self.”

A perversion of Mind-Relationship, Logic-Love united in Self-Awareness: subject extending and expanding itself through the Oneness of Reality-Creation, Loving its Creations and their cause by affirming Self-Worth. Subject loving subjects – not reflections but extensions of itself. An ”internal,” the only possibility.

A re-enactment of the “event” that led to the dream of an “alternate reality” by Child-Mind unconscious: the mistake of making unreality “real.” With the projection of Love, itself, onto its shadow-opposite. An unreality mistaken for an “other,” a reflection, when narcissists -- body-brain occupants of its dream -- affirm the “reality” of unreality in opposite’s reflection in a mirror. With love for a reflection -- reverse mirror-images of themselves.  For “objects” that are their shadow-opposites, transferring Awareness of Self-subject onto self-“object.” That can only “recognize” the event not as a gift from Love but as its surrender. Affirmation of shadow-opposite’s “supremacy” in competition with its host, Mind. “Winning.” Completing the transformation of Self-Awareness into the self-unawareness of narcissism. The consequence not of affirmation of Self-Worth but its denial.

With “love” that the narcissist consummates by “owning” its reflection. Made “real” by the possibility of possession, control, and dominance in a “reality” of material objects that includes objectified “others.” Competitors who would steal possession and control if it were not “owned.” “Justifying” opposite’s perversion of Relationship Self-Love into its opposite: alienation of Love. With fear, paranoia, judgment of guilt rather than Innocence, jealousy, and rage. Animal emotions of a predator protecting its “turf.” And a narcissistic authoritarian parent "owning" its children.

Opposite / shadow-opposite / shadow-reflection – wrong guidance

Definition by Logic-Love that defines what a function is and does do, that belongs in Reality-Creation, in part by what it isn’t and what it doesn’t do. The incorporation of impossibility or contradiction into the definition of possibility, premise, or assertion. Including the definition of who we are and our function in part by who we aren’t – our shadow-reflection. Therefore, a part of Reality-Creation assigned to unreality, a state of Mind only possible in the Mind of the Child Free Choice that can lose Self-Awareness.

The “dark side” of all the elements of Creation associated with Child Free Choice’s role in Creation except the elements that preceded and gave birth to it. Archetypes and Relationships identified as the Child’s Parents and Mind Self-Awareness, the interconnected Oneness of Reality-Creation that is Innocence without opposite by definition.

The shadow-opposite of Self-Awareness in the dream: self-unawareness. Shadow-opposite made “real” in the dream by “illumination” from self-unawareness, the dreamer Child Mind unconscious. An impossibility in Reality and perversion of Self-Awareness defined by its function, Illumination.

The shadow-opposite of Child Free Choice. Its reverse mirror-image reflection. A quasi-genetic code derived from its host that assigns attributes to the illusory occupants of a dream and scripts its “story.” The story of an “alternate reality” composed of appearances and contradictions in “time” destined to end. A re-enactment of the Child’s mis-identification of its opposite as an “other” and its “other’s” taking its host captive, to animate its code with energy and other attributes “borrowed” from its host. The story dramatized by competition and conflict, striving for absolute authority and freedom, and other impossibilities intended to prevent or delay the Child’s recovery of Self-Awareness.

Violations of Logic and Love that are all attributable to the influence of opposite on the Child’s self-deluded Mind. To the “author” of our world and universe of spacetime-matter: a dream by the Child captive to its shadow-opposite. Unreality. 

Perfection-imperfection 

Perfection defines the state of Reality that precedes Child Free Choice in the sequence of Logic-Love. Beginning with the Purity of Relationship between Logic and Love that illuminated the Purity of Self-Awareness. That cannot be contaminated or it would replicate itself throughout Creation. Where the detection and animation of contradiction -- opposite-unreality – is excluded by definition. Where it cannot “exist” in any state except in the Mind of Child Free Choice functioning on its own plane of Creation with sovereignty and integrity that cannot be compromised.

Imperfection resides in definition that necessarily implies its opposite. Since Logic-Love function under the laws of cause and effect to define every element of Reality-Creation, and definition that implies its opposite is built into the laws, “Perfection” is limited to the cause of Creation but not its effect. To cause that cannot be corrupted without corrupting its effect, but not its effect that must be subject to the possibility of imperfection implied by the definition of Free Choice.

Imperfection also resides in Creation’s “Ideal” destination: a state of resolution and eternal Peace made unattainable by definition dependent on contradiction. Should the cause of Creation be abandoned Mind’s function might also be abandoned. Turning out the light of Self-Awareness that would then attain contradiction’s “ideal” of ending. The ultimate “purpose” implied by self-unawareness: Minds self-deluded into an alternate “reality” of self-unawareness that, at least here on this planet, appears headed toward self-ending.

If the “imperfection” of Creation’s ideal destination prevents self-ending, then what our situation may call for is re-thinking our approach to contradiction. Re-defining “Perfection” and the Ideal of “Creation” that is attainable. Starting with the competence of Free Choice to re-enact its mistake and, this time, get it right. To reverse the projection of self-unawareness and regain Self-Awareness. 

Reality-Creation and unreality 

Reality-Creation is the state of Mind Self-Awareness signified by its function: to bring into Being cause – meaning and purpose – that is Worth. The Worth of Life, and to give it effects. Effects expressed in the Beauty of relationships with functions in Creation extended and shared by their Source, the Parents Logic-Love in inseparable Relationship with Free Choice, their Child.

The Beauty of the gifts of Worth, values given to Child at birth, transformed by Growth, the function of Parents, united with Free Choice, the function of Child, into compositions drawn from the circumstances of evolving contexts that affirm, earn, and reciprocate Life-Worth. All of it existing within Soul, the Oneness of Innocence. The function of Mind Logic-Love that interconnects all of Reality-Creation including contradiction – unreality – that’s part of every definition with the exception of Soul, the Oneness of Innocence.

Unreality is an impossibility: separation of the inseparable. The Relationship between Parents and Child. But because unreality is a derivative of Reality, definable by the attributes of Reality in reverse, unreality and impossibility have a place within Mind. Within Self-Awareness Child Free Choice but not within Self-Awareness Parents Logic-Love.

Relationship / Parents-Child 

The essence, beauty, and Force of the attraction between functions paired in every act of Creation and the cause of every effect. One of many Forces associated with Reality-Creation, the Interconnectedness of Mind held together by Energy in the Oneness of Innocence without opposites and in Necessity, the laws of cause and effect. The sine qua non of the Worth and Life of Reality-Creation.

The basis for the unreality and logical impossibility of “separation” and the basis for physics’ finding that our alternate “reality” of spacetime-matter is “relational.” That even in the reverse mirror-image of Reality “separation” is an impossibility -- an appearance.

Beginning with the first of two foundational Relationships in Reality-Creation:

  • Relationship between Logic and Love that produced illumination: the light and energy of Self-Awareness. The Being and Doing of Mind, its function that is the Source of Life and the expression of its Worth.
  • The Source of consequence, affirmed, earned, and reciprocated by the Child of Logic-Love. Free Choice, an extension of Mind given its distinct function on its own plane of Creation. In Relationship with its Parents and under their protection from the possibility of interference that would compromise and disable its indispensable role in Creation. Protection reflected in our alternate “reality” by the right Guide’s respect for the sovereignty and inviolability of individual Free Will.

Self-Awareness-Child

The marriage of Logic to Love illuminated Self-Awareness and gave birth to their Child and its function in Creation: Free Choice. The essential attribute of Reality-Creation that makes Self-Awareness and Child inseparable: the relationship between Freedom and Order that is Free Choice.

The psycho-dynamic of Creation: the extension of Love of Self – Self-Awareness – rather than the psycho-dynamic of self-unawareness: narcissism’s projection of “love” onto its reflection. Its opposite. The extension of Understanding rather than the projection of misunderstanding.

Sixth sense-Intuition

The faculty of Child Mind Free Choice, in a dreaming state of self-unawareness or unconsciousness, that enables spontaneous connection with Guidance. From the Logic-Love of its Parents through the voice of an agent of Soul, the Interconnectedness of Reality-Creation. That is the extension-sharing of Mind Logic-Love and Oneness, Innocence without opposites, that knows no boundaries.

Connection also made possible by Energy, the attribute of Mind that gives causes
their effects, ideas their consequences, Love its Relationships, and the laws of cause and effect the Force of Necessity. Including the idea of an "alternate reality." A dream of impossibility: the unreality of shadow-reflection made "real" by Child Mind, captive to its shadow-reflection, with its attribute of Energy producing and storing itself in matter. Including brain whose neurons interconnect with electrical impulses, part of the Interconnectedness of Reality-Creation and opposite unreality-dream by the boundaryless Energy of Mind.

Special relationships-specialness 

Shadow-opposites, the hollowness of reflections with no Self of their own to Love. Narcissists “bonding” to steal one another’s selves so they’ll have reflections they can make “real” with “love.” A perversion of Self-Awareness bringing its Creations to Life-Worth by extending itself. By sharing the abundance of Logic-Love rather the scarcity of hollowness stealing it.

The abandonment of Self-Awareness to self-unawareness. To self-delusion that is opposite’s “promise” of absolute “authority” without opposition and absolute “freedom” without limits. Logical impossibilities in the shared worlds of Reality and unreality, mistaken by self-deluded minds for prerequisites to “supremacy:” the “triumph” in “competition” of unreality over Reality, of body-brain matter over Mind, of shadow-opposite over its host. The “triumph” of “time” over the eternal Now: ending. The self-glorification of wiping the slate clean and throwing away the slate. 

Unconsciousness-death 

The impossibility of “separation” of Logic from Love. The inseparable Relationship between two archetypal functions that completed one another and produced Self-Awareness. That, like everything Real, must be Relationship enabled and empowered by Love to take part in Creation.

Child-Mind in a state of self-unawareness, either dreaming an alternate “reality” “offered” by its own shadow-opposite mistaken for an “other,” or not dreaming. “Life” in the dreaming Child’s alternate “reality,” a fantasy of transience, is a contradiction of timeless Reality-Creation. A logical impossibility. Part of a dream that’s a self-delusion and therefore unreal.

“Death” is a re-enactment of the Child-Mind’s loss of Consciousness and descent into the interval between unconsciousness not dreaming and dreaming. It, too, is part of the self-delusion and unreal. “Reincarnation,” like incarnation, would be a re-enactment of Child-Mind’s captivity by its reverse mirror image, an apparition.

Unreality and non-reality / madness

“Opposite” that’s unreality is an idea or state that’s thinkable because it’s of Mind. Describable by terms like “void” and “nothingness” that are ideas of Mind. But not the language of Mind that doesn’t need words to communicate -- inventions of the Child’s shadow-opposite. Put to use by the right Guide for communication with the projections of Child self-unawareness to help with understanding and awareness.

Non-reality that’s non-Mind. Unthinkable because non-reality can’t be an idea if there’s no Mind to think it. And no words to describe it since Mind has no need of words to communicate. Words with which to “glorify” shadow-opposite instead, duplicating its “triumph” over unconscious Child-Mind by triumphing over Conscious Parents-Mind in competition.

The ultimate in wishful thinking when “competition” between Reality and unreality can’t make sense. And even if it did, unreality / self-unawareness in competition with Reality / Self-Awareness on equal terms is an impossibility.

Non-reality that’s shadow-opposite’s ultimate “vision” of the “worth” of its “cause,“ “alternate reality:” ending. Everything coming to an end that’s beyond Mind and beyond definition. Beyond “ending.” Beyond utter nonsense -- madness.

Published on Leave a comment on Torpedo Girl – In the Beginning

Bildungsroman: n. A novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character.
American Heritage Dictionary, Fifth Edition (2016) 

The dark side of beans

What is that look on your face? Horror. Despair You don’t like hearing from an old guy with a beard? So many! So many what? Pages! Words! What have I done to deserve this? Beans. You ate too many beans, and this is your punishment. I’ll never eat beans again. I promise! 

This is an interesting story. You might enjoy it. It has lots of action. And a girl just like you. Two girls in fact. One is in big trouble, and she needs help. She will if she’s strapped to a torpedo. Don’t spoil the ending! The other is the only person in the universe who can help her. Seriously. I’m not making this up. Will I understand it? Old guys mumbling in their beards tend to lose me.

It’s a lot like Star Wars, the original episode where there was this wonderful Death Star. Cool! It blew up whole planets. That was fun. Does Torpedo Girl get to blow up another Death Star? When our girls are done with it there will be nothing left of the Death Star. OK. But fair warning: I’ll be eating a lot of beans. Oh no! You just spoiled the ending. That’s how they blew up the Death Star!

We’ll be talking a lot about “opposites.” I knew there was a catch. Opposites are just another name for the dark side of the Force. You’ll enjoy all the hot action better if we understand the “dark side” and opposites. Opposites of what? Opposites of anything they’re attached to. What are they, parasites? Yes. We think of the dark side as Palpatine and his evil galactic empire crushing pitiful rebellions. And Lord Vader breathing hard into his dorky helmet while he chokes hapless underlings without touching them. But all they are is opposites. Weak, not strong. This had better be good. 

Mind starting Creation requires thought

What-if stories stimulate our imaginations. This What-if story will put your imagination on steroids. Oh, like Tik Tok. Pah! Another pitiful rebellion! Storm troopers – remove the silly game! 

Imagine that you’re the only thing that is. I do that every day. Then we’re off to a great start. You’re Mind. Yes – pure genius! What a great story! Do you mind if I have another can of beans? Sorry, Mind isn’t matter. It doesn’t need that kind of food. What other kind of food is there? Haven’t you ever heard of food for thought? That’s what this story is. Boring. Beans generate much more excitement.

Can you handle being able to see stuff and make stuff happen without a body? Easy. I’ve always thought of myself as a great mind. Good. You’re Mind and you’d like to make something nice happen. But it won’t be nice if you don’t do it right. You mean I actually have to think? If we’re talking about Mind starting Creation, yes. You’ll have to think. And don’t forget, the Jedi Knights had to go through rigorous training. Then they had to figure out how to deliver the torpedo that blew up the Death Star. That took a lot of thinking.

Logic and Love say no one is above the law

Anything that “happens” needs a definition. A definition that says what it is and what it does. No exceptions. How come? So its definition doesn’t conflict with other definitions or duplicate them. There has to be Order so everything fits together, and everyone gets along. Already it sounds like I don’t get to do anything I want. You can do anything you want so long as it’s possible. It can’t be possible because I want it?

Everything must be part of Order including Mind that defines things. Wow! I thought Mind would be in charge of everything! How can this be? You’ll be OK with this because this is how Order defines itself, and nothing nice can happen without Order. If Mind or anything could run around and do whatever it wants, there would be no Order. Order is harmony. It’s the same principle as democracy: no one is “above the law.” Not even the president. What law? 

Think of the laws that govern making stuff happen as laws of cause and effect. You’ve heard the expression, “That’s the way it is.” Well, the laws are the way things are and that’s that. It’s Necessity. You’re frowning. You know me. I’m not happy if I can’t mess with the rules. Sorry about that. These are rules no one can mess with. Not even the Logic of Mind that laws are based on. Without this law none of the other laws can have any effect. Say it again. No one is above the law, not even the president. Not even the Logic of Mind itself.

You mean Mind is the source of laws but it can’t control them? Yes. The attribute of Mind that’s responsible for governance is responsible for its laws that make governance possible, and they’re made up of equal parts Logic and Love. “Mind” throughout implies Logic and Love combined as one. Then we should say “Mind-Love.” We could, but we might need that to refer to another character. We can infer it without stating it.

No Freedom without Order in a shared world

Definitions are like laws that establish what things are and they can’t be anything different. Mind can make stuff happen so long as it abides by the laws of Necessity. Once it’s defined a thing that’s the way it is. Give me liberty or give me death! Freedom from the tyranny of George III but not Freedom from Order. There can’t be any “liberty” without Order and any Order without laws. The good news is that since the laws are there to ensure Order and Mind can’t change them, they’re also there to ensure Freedom.

If I can’t do anything I want, how is this Freedom? OK. You can have that kind of “freedom,” but only if you decide not to make something nice happen. If you’re happy being the only show in town and having it all to yourself. If not, you’ll be sharing your world with your creations, and no one can share a world with others and be happy if some yo-yo is doing whatever she wants. People in our world do that a lot. They sure do. And it’s what gets them into trouble. Sometimes into jail. They don’t like living in a shared world. They’re a colossal nuisance.

Gertrude’s wisdom

When do I get to make something nice happen? When you learn about what’s possible in a shared, orderly world. Imagine that you’re in a classroom with a blank video screen. Oh good -- video games! Let’s get started! Would you rather have a blank blackboard instead? No video games allowed! Something blank – a blackboard or a video screen – must have been there when Logic and Love first set thinking and feeling in motion. Then I have to think logically. What’s that mean? Think with feeling logically, yes, because you’ll be thinking with values, and feeling is where values come from. Values put the “nice” into making something nice happen.

Logic tells Mind what situation it’s in. It describes circumstances so Mind can figure out where it is and what it means. Then it can use Reason to choose what to do about it. It can’t reason without having a purpose, and Logic makes sure that purpose fits the circumstances. There’s an old joke. Alice Toklas asked Gertrude Stein when Gertrude was very old and wise, “What’s the answer?” Gertrude answered, “What’s the question?” What she meant was, “What are the circumstances?” Without circumstances in the moment and Logic figuring out what they’re telling us, how can we know the question? That was Gertrude’s wisdom.

The Force can’t be a couch potato

We call purpose that fits the circumstances “context.” Even Mind that’s getting started with a blank video screen needs context to know whether and how to do anything. Making anything happen won’t be nice if it doesn’t have the right values and fit the circumstances. Our circumstances are nothing has happened yet and I’m getting bored!

Torpedo Girl is getting bored, so Mind had better get cracking. Its context is nothing is happening, and you know what? What? That would help to explain why Mind did get cracking, because “nothing happening” could be a situation that Mind, which is definitely not nothing, can’t tolerate. Maybe it can Be forever, but it can’t not Do forever. Why not? 

Because how can Mind that’s Logic combined with Love just sit around not doing anything? Not taking care of something or someone? Showing that they care? Mind’s circumstance in the classroom where nothing is happening is a whole lot of thinking and loving that needs to be doing to be what it is. You mean Mind needs stuff just like us? Logic combined with Love is passion. It’s Force. Like the Force in Star Wars? Certainly! Force can’t be Force without acting. It can’t be motivated to act if its passion to respond to circumstances and express itself is a couch potato.

Getting it right: beer, pizza, and football

Wow! I was thinking our Mind is a brain inside a bottle in school where nothing happens. This is different! Very. It’s a dynamo instead, bursting with passion and Energy eager to get going. A powerful locomotive sitting in a train station ready to take its passengers on a grand excursion to an intriguing destination. Once Logic sets up the context.

Good for you! You’ve learned one important lesson. What’s that? Deciding with Reason and acting before we’ve let Logic tell us what our situation is, is a big mistake. Doing what’s right is doing “what the situation calls for.” We can’t do what the situation calls for without first letting our situation tell us what it is. Without first getting it right. Mind needs Logic and Love for that. In our world, easier said than done. It requires lots of intuition, but more about that later.

Get it right before do it right. Are there more circumstances to tell us what our situation calls for? Pay attention to the video screen. It’s about to feed us the most important circumstance for our story. The most important circumstance for another context, too: the world we live in. Ah -- I knew it! Lipstick! Women need lipstick! Yes. And men need beer and pizza. And football. Don’t forget the chips. Beer, pizza, chips, and football. And lots of makeup. Torpedo Girl can go home. We’re already in Heaven.

The impossibility of Mind without Love

The wisdom of Logic is like a stream flowing down a dry streambed, filling each hole at a time, each in its own time. We are the stream, and this is what Wisdom requires of us. We can also think of Logic as flowing in a sequence from left to right. From premise to implication, from before to after. Indefinitely, because one implication always leads to another. Like the geometric value of Pi that never resolves to a whole number. It just goes on and on. You’re going on and on.

It matters what the first premise is, but we don’t have to be too fussy how it’s worded. “Possibility.” This could be the first premise that comes to Mind when Logic and Love have defined its context. You’re Mind and you want to make something “nice” happen, but what do you mean by “nice?” What are the possibilities? This is always the first question when minds begin to choose.

This is it? The most important circumstance? Almost. Possibility could be the first premise because of what it implies: creation, ideals, vision, hope. It’s kind of a North Star we can focus on to help us navigate through distractions, contradictions, adversity, and discouragement. If you’re Mind and you have your heart set on making something nice happen. . . . Heart?

Did you forget? Mind and heart go together. It bears repeating -- they’re inseparable. I was hoping to be a comic book super action hero with no feelings. Not possible. “Possibility” can’t be Mind without Love. Not in our What-if world where everything so far is fine. It’s very different in our world but only because it seems that way. More about that later.

The impossibility of impossibility

For now, if you have your heart set on making something nice happen, you’ll definitely want to stay focused on possibility. Then what is the video screen telling us that’s the most important circumstance? Impossibility. The opposite of possibility. Imagine “possibility” showing up like a link you can click on, and it will take you somewhere. It’s an active link. Then the same instant another link shows up beside it, faded out like it’s not active. A word that’s the first word’s exact opposite. It’s obviously meant to take you somewhere, too, but not while “possibility’s” link is active. Creepy. I’m not sure I want to know where “impossibility” goes if it’s the opposite of “possibility.” Why does it have to show up at all? Do we have to bother with opposites? 

It has to show up because of the same Logic that puts anything on the screen. If a thing is to exist and it implies the existence of its opposite, then some way must be found for its opposite to “exist,” too. The implications of Logic are Force that accounts for Creation along with the connections of Love. But the same implications can’t help accounting for contradiction. And if the definition of a thing implies contradiction, its definition must accommodate contradiction. 

The dark side is opposites 

Logic and Love don’t like contradiction any more than we do, but there you have it. Have what? The “dark side.” The dark side is opposites, and they “exist” because Logic put them there. And if Logic put them there, nothing can be done about it. What’s “logical” about a thing and its contradiction existing side-by-side in the same place at the same time? Sounds crazy to me. 

It is crazy. Order requires Logic and Logic doesn’t tolerate contradictions. The ideal of Logic is to arrive at a place of Peace where there are no contradictions, where the Force can come to rest at last. It will never happen. Not as long as Logic supports Creation. Not as long as Mind wants to make something nice happen.

Meanwhile, we’re stuck with opposites – with “impossibility.” Some way must be found to get all impossibilities – opposites -- out of the picture. How do we do that? The inactive link for impossibility on the video screen offers more than a clue. It’s already taken care of it. Logic has found a way for opposites to exist without “existing.” On a computer we would know to go to a different page on a website, to a different website, or to a different app to find where impossibility’s link is active. To another computer world.

Logic acknowledges the implication of opposites without requiring that they inhabit the same world as their hosts. The parasites are given their own world with its own properties that don’t conflict with their host’s world. Why doesn’t it conflict? 

The faded link to unreality 

If the “existence” of a parasite-opposite is entirely derived from its host’s existence, then it obviously has no existence of its own. Or attributes of its own, either, because its entire definition is derived from its host. It’s defined as its host’s opposite. It has no definition of its own, and nothing can exist that hasn’t been given its own definition. Parasite-opposites don’t get their definition from Logic. They get it from an implication of their hosts’ definition.

The faded link to impossibility takes us to another world that matches its essential attribute: non-existence. It’s unreal. The parasite-opposites world doesn’t conflict because it’s unreal. How can unreality conflict with Reality if it doesn't exist?

For now, Mind is assured that wherever possibility’s link is active impossibility’s won’t be. It may not even see it or be aware that it’s there. But it’s been forewarned. That’s why we started here in the classroom with the video screen. To wave a red flag called “impossibility,” because that’s what parasite-opposites are: an impossibility in Reality. The link will be there, inactive and waiting for the right circumstances for something or someone to make it active. A snake waiting for someone to step on it.

Can it be a cow pie? I won’t finish her story if Torpedo Girl is going to step on a snake. OK, but only if it’s a huge cow pie. I won’t enjoy Torpedo Girl’s story if she only steps in a little cow pie.

Living the dream

The inactive link is waiting for a parasite-opposite’s host to click on it by mistake and make its unreal world “real.” Not really Real, but “real” like a vivid dream. It can’t be Logic that determines whether impossibility’s link becomes active and someone clicks on it. It wouldn’t be Logic’s mistake. It depends on the parasites’ hosts. It depends on Torpedo Girl. It depends on us. It would be our mistake. We are forewarned.

Our story revolves around how understanding this basic circumstance, or fact, can be used to get our girl out of trouble. So, if I’m Mind and I’m going to make something nice happen, I have to be aware that everything has an opposite, and opposites aren’t real. Yes. There’s a dark side, but this is its essential property: it isn’t real. We can only make it seem real when we’re dreaming. Otherwise, it’s an illusion, a magic act. I’m glad we got this settled, because dark sides are everywhere in our world, and they sure seem real. They tell me that our world is a What-if world, but we don’t have to go into that now.

Freedom of Will, Freedom of Choice

Imagine that the nice thing your Mind wants to make happen is to create a world of beauty and peace, Logic and Love. A world that provides a safe, nurturing haven for Life. The miracle of eternal Life that exists in timelessness, where it’s always Now. Life that has Worth because it has purpose, it’s freely chosen and earned. Because it’s exploring, learning, and growing. Having great fun with creativity -- endless diversity evolving in an environment of exquisite Beauty, a soul-sharing sanctuary of innocent work and play. Because all this is a gift from Logic and Love that’s reciprocated – appreciated and given back. Wow! That is a nice thing.

Imagine that Creation requires another Being to achieve its purpose. To see that the Worth of Life and Creation is freely chosen and earned. A Being with its own definition, its own identity, so that Mind and Creation aren’t just patting themselves on the back. Who would that be? 

Our girl, the Child. The Child of the Mind-Love we mentioned, her parents. Father Mind-Choice and Mother Love-Freedom, whose role is to give birth to the Being that Creation requires: Free Choice. The same as Free Will? The Child is an extension of her parents’ Will, their Being. This places her in Relationship with her parents. They are inseparable, and their Relationship is inseparable from the Child’s function. She can’t do her job without it.

But because she is, and has, the capacity to choose independently, she is also Choice. And Choice can never, ever, be controlled by an external influence. Not by her parents or by their Relationship. So, while they’re in Relationship and inseparable, their roles must be kept apart. This is true whether the Child is awake, doing her job in Creation, or asleep and dreaming she’s somewhere else. Free Will and Free Choice refer to the same Child performing different functions: choosing freely while extending the Will, the Being, of her parents.

It's all about character

We will see that the Child doing her job isn’t anything like we imagine it on earth. How’s that? We think of “heaven” as a place where an old guy with a beard watches over angels with wings playing harps on little clouds. As if having a purpose and striving to attain it couldn’t compare with the satisfaction of doing nothing. There’s no change, no “action,” which here must mean some form of gambling, addiction, conflict, and violence.

The Child your Mind-Love brings into Being and Creation leads a very interesting life without any of this. No silly harps and no bullets flying around either. There’s plenty of purpose and meaning. Plenty of risk-taking, too, which requires courage as well as alertness. Plenty of change and innovation. It’s all about character, and that’s always interesting. Is there a reward?

You bet! The  satisfaction of contributing to the Worth of Life. To the meaning of Creation. Every relationship a soulmate. The rapture of intimacy with Mind-Love itself. Of loving and being loved more than you can ever imagine. Happiness! What more could you ask? Wow! She’s got a life! Yes. And Torpedo girl does, too. She’s got a job to do. They both have interesting lives, and they are about to get much more interesting.

[To be continued]

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Objectifying the “dark side”

A 13-year-old boy found my essay Thirteen: Reflections on Character and Values at the Beginning of Adolescence useful in part for its appendix. Entitled “Values Derived from Human Needs,” the appendix gave words to describe both the light and dark sides of values. He thought the description of the dark side was particularly helpful.

The human mind’s fascination with the “dark side” can have unfortunate consequences. Here is an observation about “evil” in Understanding, the second of my two Christmas letters:

Evil isn’t what “others” do to us. It’s what we do to ourselves. Imagining that our flip side – our reflection, a shadow – is an “other” that has a life, a voice of its own with something to offer. When all it has to “give” is a reverse image, what we aren’t. It’s nothing more than an implication of Logic that all things have opposites. That if two realities can’t be real then our reflections can’t be real. They’re the Joker whose joke is “I’m you.” Whatever its offense making it real by engaging with it is what causes it.

Two mistakes in our thinking put the dark side into our thoughts, make it real, empower it, and bring it to life. The first is objectification. We objectify something that’s a part of ourselves when we mistake it for something that’s not a part of ourselves. When we imagine that it’s a separate object, like a stick or a ball, or a pet or another person that we can relate to. When it’s just the reverse side of ourselves – subject, not object, a shadow or reflection – and has no separate existence of its own.

Bringing the dark side to life with projection

Once we’ve imagined that our shadow-reflection is a separate object we can relate to, we commit a second mistake: projection. We project attributes of ourselves onto this object that give it the “existence” it had heretofore lacked. We project our self, that is, our identity, our sovereignty, and our free will that enable the objectified shadow-reflection to act with authority and autonomy as though it were real.

The thoughts and feelings we project onto the object are those that we are uncomfortable with, that we don’t want. It is these that give our dark side its menace, the aspect of danger, of the appearance of purpose and meaning – something happening -- that fascinates and misleads human awareness into wrongdoing and harm.

These uncomfortable thoughts and feelings were precipitated by an event that preceded our engagement with our shadow-reflection. The event was loss of consciousness, and it set in motion a succession of misperceptions and misjudgments beginning with the misperception that our shadow-reflection is a separate self – an object – and the misjudgment that we can safely entrust our wellbeing to its guidance.

The wrong guide is our own creation

For that is what has come of our mistakes. Objectifying our shadow-reflection and giving it autonomy and authority over us by projecting our selves onto it has turned it into a guide. A very serious misjudgment, because once it’s activated its genetic code has no interest in guidance. Its only interest is captivity: controlling its host so that it can replicate itself like a virus and remain in “existence.” All because we have given it the ability and power to do so that come from ourselves. This is what it means that “Evil isn’t what ‘others’ do to us. It’s what we do to ourselves.”

These reflections are part of the core of Christianity that teaches mindfulness, love, and free will – attributes that belong firmly on the light side of values and not on the dark side. To practice Christianity is to recognize, disable, and disempower the dark side in everything we do. And this means understanding that our shadow-reflection is nothing:

  • Nothing that can be objectified – made into a separate object.
  • Nothing that can be brought to life by projecting ourselves onto it.
  • Nothing that can entertain us with the appearance of danger, of “action,” conflict, violence, hurt, anger, and all the other manifestations of values turned against themselves. Of purpose and meaning taken out of context by minds that misperceive and misjudge.

The most important use of our mind

The choice presented by the light and dark side of our values is whether to lead with gifts given to us – our own ability and authority – for our own purposes or with something that’s been given away and “given” back to us for the wrong guide’s purposes. Whether to lead with our own power given to his Child by God or with derived power that isn’t ours and can’t be used for our own benefit.

The right guide is Jesus or the Holy Spirit, a gift to us from God to his Child, who wishes us well and wants us to succeed, to be free, and to be happy. The wrong guide is the Joker, our mistake, a nothing that can’t wish anything and if it could, would only wish us to be its mindless captive and be unhappy. The choice between these two guides is a function of mind possessed of free will. It is the most important choice we will ever make and the most important use of our mind.

Will that is truly free is an informed will. Will guided by mind that understands. That’s no longer under the spell of our shadow-reflection: nothingness – the “power” of the “dark side.”