More on using opposites/relatives + a handy POV specialization.

So far, we’ve covered various aspects of this worldview. To sum up & elaborate on some key points:

• Things can be negative for the avatar, and such things should be allowed to be negative.
• At the same time, for the storyteller, everything that the avatar is, is inevitably accepted with unconditional love.
• And even at the avatar level, if negatives didn’t exist, the avatar wouldn’t know how to experience the positives. Thus, whatever the avatar perceives as negative should be left as negative (do not try to make what you don’t like “positive”); while at the same time, the avatar can realize that through the existence of negativity, positivity inevitably exists. All experiences are two sides of the same coin.

Negative reactions are signals that point us to the parts of our POV specializations that we deem undesirable.

It’s like this.

Say, there’s a pot of boiling water. What would happen if you didn’t know how to sense that putting your hand in boiling water is undesirable? Then, you may put your hand in boiling water and let it boil until it’s well-cooked. 

Only if you can sense a negative reaction would you be able to pull your hand out of the boiling water.

This is what I mean, when I say negative things should be left as negatives. We must be able to feel pain. Making the pain “good” and “desirable” may put us in situations in which we’re cooking ourselves alive, because we’ve become numb to the signals. The very ability to feel pain means that we’re aware of a state in which there is no pain. Thus, while in pain, we can see the inevitable existence of a non-pain state.

Please also note that by attempting to turn the negative into positive, one cannot actually experience the positive. If we deem the pain of boiling water “good,” then, by turning the pain into something desirable, we cannot even begin to imagine an alternative.

Negative reactions exist to tell us that our POV is specialized in a way that we deem undesirable. In the boiling water example, the following unpleasant emotional reactions may occur in addition to physical pain:

• Self-blame: How idiotic of me, to put my hand in boiling water.
• Self-pity: Poor me. Once again, I’m in a situation in which I’m suffering.
• Exterior blame: The world sucks. Pots of boiling water are lying around.
• Exterior pity: How sad for my fellow humans to exist in a world full of boiling water.
• Anger: Fucking boiling water! Fuck you!
• Shame: I’m so embarrassed. What if someone finds out I put my hand in boiling water?
• And others.

Also, a bit different from the above:

• Numbness.

Numbness is potentially the most dangerous POV specialization. And yet, most of us will probably start out with varying degrees of numbness when we begin adopting “The Storyteller’s Eye.” That is okay. For us as avatars, it sucks. But it sucks in relative terms, not in absolute terms. Because we’re numb now, there can exist a state in which we are awake.

This is crucial. In worldviews in which opposites are purely opposites, being in one state renders the opposite state impossible.

The Storyteller’s Eye isn’t such a worldview. It is saying: Because we went left, we can go right. Because we went North, we can go South. You can insert any opposing and relative terms. Because one is poor, one can be rich. Because one is ugly, one can be beautiful.

The ability to see this, in and of itself, is a POV specialization. Opposites prove each other’s existence.

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