Gazing at the POV with the storyteller's eye. Not glare. Not awkwardly stare. Gaze.

On the current “Recommended Resources” page, I said the following, regarding a spirituality Youtube channel that I particularly like:

Psychology, biology, quantum physics, religion, spirituality... There are many ways to approach the "I." The label is irrelevant. What is relevant is the warmth with which the "I" is approached.

Does one put the "I" on a dissection table to study, analyze, and statisticize its every part during/after it's been cut into pieces by a scalpel, so that others can verify and confirm the objective rational reasonable value of the "I"? Or does one approach the "I" with the fundamental assumption that it is to be cherished, no matter whoever else may or may not say?

By organizing a system that supports the latter path, Haru has probably saved me from decades of misery. Many people for millennia have talked about the gaze, but not necessarily with an emphasis on the warm gaze. And with the warm gaze, it's almost impossible to go wrong.

Haru, who runs that Youtube channel, describes the gaze as one of “Absolute Empathy.”

I have heard many other people describe the gaze in various ways. All of them are talking about the same thing. We are all trying to describe the one truth with various models.

And since I am a storyteller (at the avatar-world level), I had the biggest breakthrough when I realized that this gaze was exactly the same as the gaze I have for my novel characters. That is what is explained in the post, “Your storyteller loves you unconditionally.”

A novelist’s gaze is unconditional. Everything in the story is there because it has to be there. It doesn’t matter how small, insignificant, incompetent, etc the character feels.

The novelist doesn’t glare at her characters. If she hated those characters, she wouldn’t be writing them. 

The novelist doesn’t awkwardly stare at her characters either. Those beings came out of her. There is nothing to feel awkward about. They’re her flesh and blood.

The distance between the novelist and the character is zero; the labels only exist for them to each experience themselves as novelist and character.

And we don’t have to be literal novelists at the avatar level in order to feel this analogy.

Stories are what we have been living and breathing since birth. We may think we don’t know how they work, but oh, we do know. All of us. We are all familiar with novels, movies, video games, and also, music and visual art. (Art, in general, tells stories.)

All we need to realize is that we not only live in the story, but also, we are connected to the entity telling the story, and most importantly, we are the storyteller. Therefore we are separate from nothing: no setting, no plot, no other character, no tree at a park, no wave in the ocean, nothing is separate from us within the story that we each tell.

Some worldviews describe this gaze as neutral, while others focus a lot more on the warmth. The Storyteller’s Eye belongs to the latter group.

Existence itself isn’t neutral. My choosing to write a story is already not neutral. I already love unconditionally. Of all the stories I could tell, I am telling that particular story. There’s got to be something special about that story.

And so it feels to me with my storyteller. I am special to my storyteller. The storyteller isn’t neutral about me. 

Long story short: in this worldview, we gaze. We don’t glare. We don’t awkwardly stare.

We love unconditionally because that which we’re feeling is exactly what we want and need to feel. 

In the previous post, we listed up some potential reactions to the idea of “My boss hates me”:

• My boss only likes other coworkers.
• Life is unfair.
• I must work hard.
• Why must I work hard? This fucking sucks.
• I should shut up and just do the work.
• My boss is an idiot.
• My coworkers are idiots.
• I just want to retire and do nothing.
• Rich people suck.

Now that we’ve imagined what the storyteller’s eye feels like—unconditional love—we take these reactions to her. 

We can do this in order. We can do this out of order. We can dwell on one reaction for 1 minute or for 1 hour. So long as we do it in front of the storyteller’s eye, it doesn’t matter.

Follow the body. (I will talk more about the body in other posts.) The body knows what to do. 

We can talk to the eye in a seated position. We can talk to it while we take a walk or do the dishes. We can do it before sleep or after waking up. It doesn’t matter.

What it takes is the awareness of the avatar presenting its problems to the storyteller. Both the avatar and the storyteller are, inevitably, you. And because the storyteller is an entity of unconditional love, you can talk to her in any way. You can curse at her and “hit her” in your mind. She is larger than the one doing the hitting, and yet you are the hitter and the hittee. It doesn’t matter. Do whatever you want.

That said, an example conversation may go something like this. Let’s say that this conversation is happening after a particularly stressful day at work.

• Goddamn my boss. This boss is so ugly. This boss sucks. This boss pisses me off greatly.
• Right. I see. Your boss is ugly. Your boss sucks. Your boss is pissing you off.
• Life is so unfair.
• Aha. That is how you feel.
• I don’t know how much longer I’ll have to work. Probably until I drop dead from overworking, or something.
• Maybe so, yes, maybe so.
• This sucks so bad.
• Aw, baby. Yes, this sucks.

This back-and-forth may not seem like much. However, consider—really consider—how often you dismiss your own internal dialogue.

Ex:

• I want to buy those jeans.
• Nope, you can’t afford it, so don’t even want it.

Ex 2:

• I wish I could go out on a date with them.
• Are you kidding? You’re worthless.

Ex 3:

• I want to be healthier.
• Everyone lives with health problems. Don’t you dare wish for better health.

We’re stopping this pattern right now. We’re gazing at every inspiration with the storyteller’s eye = the warm gaze = “Absolute Empathy” in Haru’s terminology. Before any other reaction, first and foremost, we’re listening to ourselves. (Gazing at ourselves with the storyteller’s eye.)

The back-and-forth is especially helpful in the early stages of trying to talk to the storyteller. The back and forth creates a separation (that actually doesn’t exist). Through this separation, we’re actually admitting that the storyteller exists. If she didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be talking to her.

It is also helpful to give your avatar some sort of baby name. Literally call it “baby,” or give it a nickname. Let it whine if it wants to whine. Let it cry, physically, if it wants to cry. Let it hit something if it wants to. (But I don’t recommend hitting another avatar. It’s not for moral reasons—The Storyteller’s Eye is fairly amoral and I’m not here to tell you what’s moral and whatnot. Rather, it’s because going around the avatar world, trying to change things, is about the most ineffective path to take. Everything happens at the POV level. The POV is reality. Having a POV in which one must hit other avatars to accomplish things is simply impractical. It’s probably a better idea to get a pillow or something. Hit that.)

At first, it can feel awkward to lead a conversation inside of yourself. However, recall the many instances in which you’ve had such conversations with “other people,” inside yourself. This is no different. 

If your grandmother passed away, and yet, after three decades, you talk to her in your mind, that is still a real conversation in your POV. Likely, you don’t think she is “really alive”—but the conversation itself? It has the exact same validity as the one that happens between two avatars, externally.

Same with the boss example. If you’re having an internal argument with your boss, it is real in your POV. And what exists outside of the POV for the avatar? Nothing.

This is how people can remain angry at another avatar until the day they die. To them, the anger is real.

This is also how people can remain in love with someone who died fifty years ago. The love is real.

The worldview tag is best read in this order. The later posts build on the earlier posts.