Slash

/

The world is divided. Between this and that. Humans polarize choices into binary decisions and perceptions into categories, and if perpetuated, these can impoverish a world rich in every molecule and step.

It is important to note that our perceptions and biases shape the world we live in. Lack is purely perceived - the state of being in itself lacks nothing. It is forces that surround us that drive our attention elsewhere, and create tension between what is and something else. Our bodies’ metabolism gyrate towards balance, and seek the food and drink that refuel it. Raindrops feel cold on the neck and touch learned fears within, then body springs to the closest refuge. Our flow is shaped by the same forces that shape the rivers and mountains, and patterns that emerge in any of these replicates in the others. Repetition, for instance, widens its own path, be it of habits or streams.

We use language to communicate with others, and have learned to use it with ourselves. We can recognize it is a secondary form of communication. No word, or thought thereof, is needed to realize that the apple in our mouth feels delicious. The set of feelings evoked by a gust of wind, by a swaying forest, are far richer than all our word combinations can fathom, and our bodily expression long precedes our tongues’ and books’.

The value of words lies in their speed, precision, and persistence. The myriad sound combinations our mouths can produce, when mapped to meanings gathered through millennia, allow a human to swiftly share and coordinate with another human’s reservoir of experience with only facial muscles and breath, without the need for these humans to have ever met before. Words map to objects, grow abstract into concepts and ideas, and negate, join, contrast, slice meaning at a whim. And when mapped back onto the physical with stone, ink, and metals, words travel times and distances far beyond their reach through air. Language is an index to our inner knowledge, and words are its keys.

And yet, like road signs on our planet, they are only markers to our experience, a field much denser and closer to ourselves. It is worthy to realize this when we use language, lest we believe it encompasses everything, and shape our own world to its limited scope.

Projection

A common language pattern is comparison.

“This pan is hotter than that plate”.

“Her dress is prettier than mine”.

“His life is better than mine”.

“Seven is larger than five”.

Any comparison projects the world into a line. This line is defined by the comparison itself. When comparing temperature, each point in the line corresponds to a particular temperature, and all fathomable objects are projected onto that line, with this pan further down the hot side than that plate. Prettiness of dresses creates its own line, and in it are embedded any and all factors we consider relevant at that moment. Comparisons can be tangible like “larger” or subjective like “better”. The shape of comparison remains: objects are compared according to how far along they are on this world line.

Note that in a comparison, all other information is ignored, as it is not necessary. It is important to be aware of this when creating comparisons. When some comparisons become preferred and habitual, they can bias our experience of the world by how much we learn to ignore.

If we compare country wealth, we may say the 2016 GDP per capita of Iceland more than triples that of Costa Rica. This comparison contains some information about Iceland and Costa Rica, yet it ignores a remaining infinity. It does not recall the warm feeling of the Costa Rican rice and beans, the expansive Icelandic valleys perennially covered in fresh steam, the myriad squeaks and morning chatters of the birds in the Costa Rican jungle, nor how the same round moon adorns each land’s sky each and every night.

Threshold

Another common usage pattern in language are thresholds. Thresholds are reference points defined and set, then used for consistent comparison.

“Would you like to go out to dance?”

“No thanks, I’m too tired tonight.”

Though well understood, this sentence is short form for the more complete:

“No thanks, I’m too tired to go out to dance tonight.”

This sentence implies a threshold of tiredness, a reference point within the line of tiredness. Any point at or farther than this threshold indicates a state of tiredness that impedes me to go out dancing tonight. Any point on the other side indicates a tiredness level that does not impede it. This threshold divides the world into two cases: that in which my tiredness level impedes me from dancing tonight, and one in which it does not. The sentence itself declares that truth lies in only one side of this threshold.

“too”, “so”, and “enough” map our thoughts into such thresholds. Notice this partition occur when using language, and we can soften its strict binary nature to attune closer to our perception.

                                             [threshold] ←-------------------------------------*----------------------------------> [not too much] [too much]

Expectation

When moving through Life, we often imagine our upcoming states. Where we will be when, what we will do how, whom we will meet, what they will say, how we will feel. I may start walking in the morning, and want to be at the top of the mountain before dusk, meet my friend at our favorite tree, set up camp, and fall asleep together watching the stars at night.

Before I start walking, I will have already created an expected world. It is not here, and it is not now. It is spun by my dutiful mind and thrown out into my future, a long ornate carpet imbued with the yearning to receive my unfolding path. The “should”.

Realizations of expectations are approximate, and yearnings are likewise approximately fulfilled. As yearning meets the upcoming path, it splits in two: that fulfilled becomes satisfaction, the other disappointment. It’s a playful gamble, and sometimes we pay so much attention to it, that we miss the actual game.

Sometimes we notice ourselves on a place different than where that carpet was, and the yearning is placed in focus. The tension between the is and the expected exists as long as we hold onto that carpet. Our pull towards this carpet can divert our movement - slowed down if in the past, or made anxious if in the future. If so, we may find ourselves lost - yearning to move in a direction that does not exist. The “would”.

Yearning pulls our attention intensely, yet we need not yield to it. By lending our attention to it less, we can learn to soften its pull, and enjoy what is, which relies on no conditionals.

Constraint

The world dances with itself amidst friction between the hard and the soft. One provides shape, the other flow. These relationships are sometimes thought of as constraints.

A lone animal waking up in the morning has few constraints. It perceives space and objects around it, it feels bodily pulls towards survival, and sensations of surrounding matter on its skin. It may know memories of places learned, friends and foes. All of these are inputs to the animal, and the choice of action, at every moment, depends only on its will.

Humans now live embedded among minutious structure and complexities crafted by ourselves. Many designate specific places and ways to sleep, to sit, to eat, to walk, to talk, specific modes of diversion and entertainment, and specific times and manners for these. We constrain the interactions between ourselves - how and when to smile, to talk, to touch, when not to. Two synonyms encode these restrictions: “should” and “must”.

should/could/would/must

Should creates an imaginary world where a condition is met. Whose state is aligned with a certain expectation. “You should make your bed every day” poses an expectation of a regular, likely disciplined morning activity, and that of an orderly bed. While this world is held onto, it induces tension between it and the present state, and produces forces that sometimes rise as anxiety or dissatisfaction.

Must, should’s hard sibling, brings a harder expectation, constraint.

Would and could create such worlds as well. The emotions they travel through are wispier than that of should or must - longing and possibility rather than pressure, yet their tensions and directions are equivalent.

Whether these worlds be placed in the past or the future makes little difference, but for what the caused emotions are named. When in the past, longing, nostalgia, regret, pride, shame, guilt. When in the future, anxiety, expectation, desire, fear, worry, boredom. These are spawned from the tension between an imagined world and the this.

need

Need predicts a path between this world and an imagined world. It recognizes the state of this world, it expresses a desire to live in another world, and it answers the question “what is required for this world to become that one?”

“I need to pass this test.”

is a common phrase in schools. As many “need” phrases, It does not explicit the imagined world. It assumes the existence of an imagined world, a “better world”, and states that the path of “passing this test” leads to such a better world.

Notice that just as the imagined world is not explicit in the phrase, it is likely also not explicit within the speaker. It is common within people to assume the existence of such a “fuzzy better world” at all times, even when its definition is unclear. Directing energy towards such a fuzzy imagined world diffuses energy across a larger space of possibilities rather than on a clear path. Being aware of this fuzzy construct can help one realize the usage of one’s own energy.

“I need to pass this test to graduate this year.”

This phrase explicits the end goal of the need: to graduate this year. In either case, I observe many tend to focus on the need rather than on the desired destination. Note that when the need is focused on as a goal, it becomes another imagined world itself, and the mind searches for a path, a new need, between the this and the new imagined world to reconcile them. Noticing this recursion can also help one trace this path back, and clarify the root desires to which one is drawn.

good/bad

The world is divided by each of us. Between what we are drawn to and what we are repelled by. When named, these forces are at times called desire and fear. And the sources of these tensions: the good and the bad.

These concepts I find of special interest. Comparing goodness projects the world into the line with directions better and worse, and at any moment, the world projects into that line due to what good and bad feel to us at that time. These categories stand out by their prevalence and by their ambiguity. “good”’s and “bad”’s equivalence to “desirable” and “undesirable” seem adopted by all, yet the mapping between the world and these concepts can vary greatly - from person to person, from moment to moment. At times we seek shelter, soon after adventure. At times we seek company, soon after solitude. Play and rest. Hot and cold. Salty, sweet, spicy, exotic. Action, romance, comedy, drama. The combinations of the world are endless, and in concepts as intangible as “good” and “bad”, these combinations exhibit particular richness and malleability. We arrange the world to our whim at each step.

Among humans, the common aspects of our experiences somewhat regularize the spaces of “good” and “bad”. Our bodies desire health, energy, freedom, survival, reproduction, and the forces they exert on us to fulfill these tend to retain our desires in the same general direction. As humans see one’s condition in others and communicate, the concept of a “common good” arises. In it, these most popular “good”s are gathered and valued. Protection of human life, freedom, equality, nourishment, education. These are written for others to remember, congealed into definitions, rights, responsibilities, enforcements, with the expectation that all agree and follow them. Named law and morality, these form proxy goods and bads. A layer of values different from our own, one recalled from history instead of from our present selves.

Noticing the process by which these artifacts come to be can help us realize the distinction between them and the forces we feel at each moment. Once we realize they are different, we may also soften feelings derived from the difference between these values, like guilt and anxiety.

mistake

intention

Lack