The "I just know" feeling.

By reading up to this point, you’ve already considered/accepted several key POV specializations:

• I am this avatar but also the storyteller (and therefore, the story and everything in it).
• The “outside” environment isn’t entirely separated from my avatar and its body.
• Opposites don’t render each other impossible; they, in fact, prove each other’s existence.

However, from observation and experience, it’s my present conclusion that one can think that one has specialized one’s POV according to the above specializations, when, in fact, one hasn’t. In other words: it’s possible to “know” with the head while not knowing with the heart at all.

The same applies to many other POV specializations that are deemed desirable. 

For example, it’s easy to say that one deserves riches. It’s easy to say that one deserves a happy romantic relationship. It’s easy to say that one deserves health.

However, what does one really think? How is one’s POV actually specialized?

Frequently, it’s specialized in the opposite direction. While claiming that one deserves riches, one goes around cursing the rich. While claiming that one deserves a happy romantic relationship, one goes around introducing oneself as the person who failed in ten previous relationships. While claiming that one deserves health, one focuses on how easy it is to catch diseases.

Moreover, many people don’t realize that those undesired POV specializations are even there.

This is why paying attention to the POV is crucial. (Please refer back to the post, “The POV is where the avatar and the storyteller meet.”)

At the same time, if specializing and de-specializing from inspirations were things that we could merely decide to do with our heads, then there wouldn’t exist this problem, to begin with. Of course we know in our heads that we want certain things and we don’t want certain other things. And yet, for whatever reason, we still cling to the undesired POV specializations.

Why?

Because we know they’re real. 

How do we know?

Because we feel their reality in the body.

And by “feeling,” I don’t mean emotions, necessarily. Emotions include things like sadness, happiness, rage, fear, etc. Feelings can be more physical: shivering, prickling, itchiness, warmth, etc. Feelings can also be difficult to describe both physically and emotionally: a gut feeling. When you “just know.”

To specialize or de-specialize a POV from certain inspirations, we must feel this “I just know” feeling. Until we do, we can theorize all we want with the head; those inspirations will continue to require theorizing. Meanwhile, when we do feel the “I just know feeling,” we need no more explanation. We need no more convincing. We just know.

This is the kind of knowing that we have about our names.

For example, I am Ithaka. I chose this name. I know for a fact that I am Ithaka. If someone were to come to me and tell me that I am not Ithaka, I’d call that person crazy.

Another example is that I know I am writing this text right now. Of course I am writing this text right now. It is very real. I know this.

These things might sound obvious, because they are. Anything that we know to be true is obvious because we know it to be true. There is no chicken first egg later or egg first chicken later.

But the simultaneity of the POV and that which is in the “external” world can be another topic for another day, much later.

For now, the key point of this post is this. We can “understand” with the head all we want. Until we actually understand the truth of an inspiration with the heart, the gut, or whatever else that is deeper than surface “intellect,” our POV isn’t actually specialized with the inspiration we want to specialize it with.

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