** A meandering transition

Apropos nothing, claiming that the Problem of Evil disproves Christianity is about as intelligent as saying the Matrix I is unrealistic because people can’t actually fly.

When I started creating the Koanic Soul meditation system, I thought, “This stuff will be universal.” Just as, when I first encountered Tex’s Neanderthal theory, I thought, “Aha, we are all Neanderthals.” In both cases, the initial insight merely broke the first ground in a tremendously complex field.

Now it is obvious that my particular Koanic Soul solution is tailored to my exact anthropometric traits. The question is whether the solution is transferable to others with the same traits, or whether they must develop their own culturally-customized solutions. I even doubt whether the process, iterating symbols on hands, transfers to other Forerunner types.

When I look at what Illuminatus is doing, it’s clear he’s pursuing a Starchild-flavored solution to Neanderthal mostly-occipital dysfunction, just as I pursue a parietal-flavored solution to Neanderthal mostly-deepsocket dysfunction. Our solution paths do not much resemble each other. His is based on a subjective process of holistic identity weaving, mine on perfecting black-and-white static hierarchical symbols. Nevertheless, our goal is the same – freedom from trauma and dysfunction caused by the exposure of a partially Neanderthal psyche to toxic modernity. One could easily consider the Thallish Mark Manson a third point on this axis, with yet another rhyming but distinct solution path.

Thus, rather than creating a one-off solution, I believe I have opened a new field – Edenic psychopraxis.

Right now, only a few high IQ introspective pioneers can succeed in this sort of complete psychological bootstrapping. From these pioneers, we gain tremendous insight into how to fix each type. Eventually, I hope that skilled practitioners will be able to combine these data points to create customized programs guiding ingenopathic Forerunner clients out of the trauma state and into pacific adaptation to modernity.

All that may be a long way off, and it will develop in tandem with the separatist movement, another path to psychological healing. But at least now I know what I’m doing, and what I’m not.

** The center symbol

Let’s start with the heart symbol. This stands for the personal boundary that divides soul from world, as described in Dr. Paul’s MindOS, which David DeAngelo touts. I highly recommend the book. Ingenopaths tend to have a porous boundary, taking on the problems and emotions of their immediate tribemates as their own. This does not work in modernity.

The spikes or thorns on the heart represent the masculine crusty exterior, a correction for ingenopathic niceguy syndrome.

Next, “TT”. This stands for “Targeted Tongues”. When the heavily left-brain anxiety-driven rational monologue loop begins to obsess on something, TT hijacks the verbal stream into glossolalia (heard silently in the mind, not spoken aloud). This halts a negative psychological cycle, and sublimates the problem or issue back into the holistic and subconscious emotional processing of the entire brain, which is far better equipped to deal with such issues in a healthy manner.

It is important not to overuse TT. It is not an active strategy. It is not a gun one can point at any environmental problem to magically solve. Rather, it is an automatic response to a certain negative psychological behavior. All it does is remove that behavior. Thanks to my deep sockets, that behavior comes up quite often, so I use it a lot.

The next is “cc”, which stands for “corpus callosum”. The corpus callosum is the connective tissue between right and left brain hemispheres. With my low digit ratio, very deep eye sockets, and decent facial testosterone, I have a highly masculinized brain structure. This reduces inter-hemisphere communication, and increases intra-hemisphere communication. In other words, the two hemispheres tend to be cut off from each other. I thus have excellent pain dissociation and surface toughness. However, toxic modernity trauma creates a state where the two hemispheres tend to diverge too much, creating painful emotional and intellectual dissonance, and cannot be brought into synchronization. I have described this state in detail in my Ohmoe tank post.

I find that by centering meditative awareness inbetween the two hemispheres, I can bring them into much better alignment. Instead of relying on one or the other side, I rely on the middle, which is merely a communicative channel between both, with no capacity of its own. This results in an empty, pacific mind like water – which is actually the non-turbulent unimpeded flow of subconscious mental activity.

I realize the corpus callosum meditation may sound a bit mystifying and be elusive in practice. I’ve described it as best I can, but it’s up to you to actually do it. The description of riding a bike is not the same as riding the bike.

Anyhow, as usual this meditative technique cannot be over-relied upon. cc is not the end-all, be-all. It is not the one stable foothold, to use the metaphor at the beginning of part I. Nevertheless it corrects an important psychological dysfunction.

Next, RA, which stands for “right action”. The simplicity of this koan is comforting to my perfectionistic drive. I am not called to perfection in everything – I just need to do the right thing. Simultaneously, it inspires my innate enthusiasm for righteousness. It focuses away from introspection and towards… right action.

Next is PI, which stands for “protagonistic imaging”. This corrects a psychological error that tends to happen immediately after I think “right action”. Due to my deepsocket nature, I start immediately doing a left-brain rational-verbal analysis of right action paths, and the ambiguities inherent therein. This can quickly lead to uncertainty, self-doubt, anxiety, attempts to resolve the unresolvable, etc.

PI simplifies all that, by taking the thoughtstream from the verbal to the visual. Instead of analyzing, I visualize myself (protagonist) in a movie doing the right things. Due to the narrowness of human visual capacity, I cannot explore many branches, and must instead be definite and specific, removing anxiety and uncertainty. Thus I harness my subconscious decision maker to form the image, and simply follow its lead.

This process is no more infallible than anything else mortal man does, but it produces better results than my default left-brain method. Since it is the best decision-making mode available, and not susceptible to conscious intervention, my perfectionism drive accepts it as a stable Schelling point and falls silent.

At the bottom of the stack, “PC”. This stands for political correctness, and means that I kowtow my body, and soul into a smug sophistical pretzel in obeisance before the dictats of the diversity commissars and their testicularly and/or evolutionarily challenged Designated Victim Groups.

Just kidding. It stands for “Passion Christ”. The RA and PI koans left me in a too executional, inhuman mode, so I needed some way to reinject emotional life. The best model I have for a man with well balanced emotion and action is Jesus Christ, so I adopted him as my model. PC reminds me to experience my deep feelings. Otherwise I tend to ignore them, leading to desync of hemispheres, amongst other problems.

We are nearing the end, brave spelunkers into the weird caves of the hybrid psyche. To refresh our map:

You see a small “c” and “i” to the left and right of the “TT”. The “i” stands for isolation. When depressive affect threatens productivity during social isolation, this reminds me to speak tongues aloud. It is an effective antidote. Somehow tongues expresses the suppressed emotion and provides a degree of comfort. It is not always necessary; only in the situation described above. Avoid overreliance – praying in tongues aloud all the time when alone is too distracting.

The “c” stands for “close [things]”. Such as closing eyes, windows on the computer, etc. This is a trigger activated when I am struggling to go to bed. I may slip on the blindfold and pass out for a bit on the couch, if I can’t make the bed yet. Basically, it reduces the going to bed process to tiny chunks that are easy to start. I may not be able to do the whole routine, but I can at least close my eyes for a bit. It makes it ok to do just those small steps, instead of stressing anxiously about failure to complete the whole sequence, which then can lead to more self-destructive late-night entertainment/stimulation seeking.

I have had more trouble with going to bed than most, due to health problems creating simultaneous fatigue and insomnia, and this is the best possible meditative solution. Anything heavier is counterproductive, and nothing at all isn’t enough. This gets the job done, to the extent biologically possible. Of course there are many other external methods one can use to enforce bedtime; here I discuss only the internal.

Lastly, on the left and right of the heart symbol are divided two halves of the word “water”. I needed a way to relate the three symbol stacks together. “Water” means that the left and right flow awareness, as water flows downhill, towards the center, where it pools and collects. This removes any anxiety or uncertainty about how to look at and experience the symbols. There is always one answer: move from outward to inner, by gentle downward flow. It removes any rigidity and blockiness that might otherwise make the meditation herky-jerky, rather than organic and smooth. This is crucial, since the meditation is too large to be held in the mind simultaneously. Smooth switching between focus on different parts was a longstanding challenge in my koan design, which “water” resolves.

** The combined effect – a foothold

Together, the three symbols provide a stable, permanent, unchanging, reliable psychological foundation or footing. I can stand on it, and do. I rest my weight upon it. Yet my weight does not bear down heavily, because the koans remove the anxiety that creates excessive desperate dependencey. Rather, I maintain a light pressure or awareness, much like the son of Gaia whom Hercules wrestled, who was unbeatable as long as one foot was on the ground. I need only leave on foot on the koans; the other is free for the business of the moment.

Thus, the only conscious direct willpower I need exert is to keep this foot on the ground, which is a perfectly manageable task. The rest is handled subconsciously and automatically. When a more severe psychological crisis threatens, I simply look down at the symbols until order restore itself. Due to my nature, I do not experience psychological crises during combat or survival type emergencies, but rather when doubts about my Heaven-Earth alignment arise. So this works out fine.

There remained one last lesson to perfect my koan setup. It had not undergone a true suffering test – the fatigue/pain cycle characteristic of my illness.

In my latest health trial, I’d cut down to just shrimp and rice. I hypothesized that either shrimp or Blue Ice was causing problems. Gradually I reduced shrimp intake until I was getting either insufficient protein or salt, or both. As malnutrition increased, various symptoms of fatigue and salt depletion increased. I began eating more to compensate, until I overloaded my weak digestive system, triggering a sharp cramp cycle.

This was all very painful in various ways and stages, and tested my ability to maintain work ethic and right action through suffering and fatigue. Adherence to koans and right action dropped off as my biological capacities diminished.

I rallied by placing a skull beneath the heart symbol. Meaning: memento mori, to the death, unconditional commitment. Instead of placing one foot on the koans, now I placed both there. I surrendered personality and overmind ndependence. The koans became the only thing. Gazing at my hands became the default gesture.

The qualitative difference in my work was profound. I had surroundered overmind control and was operating on pure subconscious/holistic insight.

A journal entry capturing the epiphany of this new method:

koans are directing my life from now on, making all decisions. amazing experience. like water. don’t really know who i am anymore. i’m not me, i’m them. it. whatever. like thinking you’re the ocean and looking down from above, all you see is pointless expanse of grey waves. but then you take a piece of glass, flatten that water, break surface tension, suddenly you can see the whole ocean. the glass doesn’t change the ocean, just reveals it. what’s there is there. you can’t change what’s there. you can only apply the koans, and reveal it. then the ocean does what it wants. end of story. the only overt willpower i can apply is through the koans.

For example, I immediately put into place a comprehensive, intelligent, disciplined, sustainable health experiment tracking and regimen adherence system combining Emacs Cyborganize workflow, checklists, custom FileMaker Pro database, phone alarms, and taped printouts. It is orders of magnitude better than my previous abortive attempts.

Why did my previous attempts at holistic systems fail, while this one succeeded? Because one root system must rule them all. That root system is the koans. All other systems must expand or contract to according to the dictates of the master system. Otherwise, dissonance arises over conflicting and suboptimal demands from subsystems and sub-objectives.

This is the permanent stable point I was seeking.

After the koan system, the second most important system is health/regimen control and tracking, with an info management system adequate to support it. All that is now in place.

It appears from my data that I already found the correct health regimen, then drifted from it due to Circadian stress from work and insufficient systematization of regimen habits and food quantities. In any case, my newly structured experimental apparatus will quickly resolve remaining ambiguities. As far as Google can tell me, there is nothing like my system in existence. I look forward to sharing it, after a bit more testing and elaboration.

Furthermore, what I am doing with Cyborganize, Filemaker Pro and Xplorer is fully extensible. I see a possibility to build similarly practical fuzzymetadata+richtext experimenttracking+adherence+infomanagement+execution systems for multiple life domains. The future is here, it just isn’t evenly distributed.

UPDATE: Expect a month’s delay on posts. I eventually got fed up with the Post Autoschedule plugin – it simply doesn’t work if you revise articles in the queue. That explains the recent weirdness with posts appearing and then moving to different time stamps or back into queue.

I don’t want posts to go live right as I write them, so from now on I’ll just increment the datestamp one month ahead. That will permit me time to revise and digest. I prefer not to interact with commenters while I’m still near the heat of the writing process.

UPDATE II:

One last addition to make to the koans.

The skull works for pain, when defiance is an option, due to the adrenaline rush. But eventually all reserves are exhausted. The end of my typical illness cycle always features this. Then any overmind will-push falters and fails, generating frustration and anxiety. The shattered mind turns against itself, creating self-destructive behavior.

At first, this cycle was no different. I had lost the capacity for defiance necessary to activate the skull trigger; I had nothing left. But then I realized the last non-dissonance-inducing trigger left to me – rest. The only thing left that I could do. I added that trigger below the skull, and once again slipped into the proper state and right action. So now all phases are covered.

In a recent post, Frost extolled the masculine scowl. A badge of independent, rebel manhood. But what is it? And why doesn’t an ingenopath do it? Today I learned.

The ingenopath recognizes the rights and claims of everyone and everything as absolute, leaving literally nothing for himself.

The scowl is a freedom from commitment to anything save one’s inner integrity. It is the dangerous, unpredictable freedom of a man. Nature’s bright red markings on a poisonous insect; the rattle of Gadsden’s “Don’t tread on me”. The indifferent strength of strong personal boundaries that irresistibly attracts women.

Though my commitment to the koans was as deep as I could make it, this commitment was still divided. I still recognized other commitments. These diluted my personal integrity, my personal boundaries. Which, paradoxically, reduced my ability to fulfill those secondary commitments.

The commitments I still recognized, overmind commitments, were such things as keeping one’s word, romantic obligations, duty to employer.

I decided I wanted to blow them all off (in the psychological sense) and be emotionally committed solely to the koans – solely to integrity.

So I did. I wrote the ten letter word “commitment”, one on each knuckle.

Now external stress, dissonance, anxiety etc from those sources doesn’t touch me. The overmind no longer has those excuses to kick into gear. It is simply the koans – the glass that breaks the surface tension of the ocean beneath. I am unpredictable, dangerous, and I don’t give a shit – without compromising my ingenopathic core.

Every good fortress needs a gate, an opening, even a weak point. So saith the 7 Samurai. MindOS agrees that the personal boundary must be porous – neither wholly open nor shut.

While my inner hand koans have remained stable and unchanged, the outer have evolved.

On the wrist, I’ve put BedrocK, divided over the two wrists: Bed | rocK.

This symbolizes my successful implementation of the holistic self-tracking, experiment-management, and regimen adherence health system I put into place. It relies upon the hypothesis-result scientific method that first taught man to overcome his innate tendency towards self-deception, focused information management, and rapid iteration. I believe the model is an excellent fit for many areas of human endeavor. In any case, this regimen/habit/system is the bedrock upon which my life is built. Without it, each day is a hellish slog through slate-flavored molasses, and no progress beyond survival is possible.

Then there’s the knuckles. Originally I had “commitment” there. Yet that didn’t quite have the right undertones. Too defiant, too stressing, too specific.

I replaced it with “ocean glass”, the overmind-stilling effect of the tri-symbol koan system. But this was slightly too introspective, solipsistic.

Then I tried “ocean time”, a reference to Zelazny’s “Star Vigilante” novel, meaning the slowed time-perception of a cyborg-enhanced human. My interpretation made it a combined meaning, the “ocean” in “ocean glass” remaining unchanged, but the immersion in the Now no longer primarily focused on just the inner world.

Still something was missing. Pain or loss was not being directly recognized, and this built dissonance pressure eventually. Very mild – just enough to make me procrastinate instead of working when tired.

I decided this outer layer needed a gate. Just as a penetration of the tri-symbol layer by pain or loss is an unacceptable breach, so the outer layer must be porous to it. I added “0” between “ocean” and “time”.

“0” symbolizes the truth that one has nothing – externally, that is, outside the self. It subsumes all loss within this truth, contextualizes individual episodes of loss within the greater whole, blunting their specific impact, yet without denying them. It creates vulnerability and sensitivity to potential or actual negative external stimuli, which is necessary for engagement, without risking core integrity. It makes external sources of joy more keenly felt, by eliminating any delusion that they are already possessed or assured.

Every good fortress needs an opening.

I could now work when tired, even if external negativity existed, and I lacked the internal fire to defy or interpret it away. Mild sadness was now also a productive state.

[this is just a waypoint on the road to the system’s final form]

In the mind there are only two things: concepts and emotional energy (hereafter referred to as simply energy). Action is downstream of both, and even if the signal is sent, it may not be obeyed. Thus it may be ignored.

One may view the mind as a three stage system – input, processing and output of CE (concepts/energy).

The flow of CE through the three part system has three possible conditions – blocked, turbulent and adaptive.
1. Blocked: blindspot/shutdown/delusion
2. Turbulent: anxiety, intermittency, circularity
3. Adaptive: desired performance

The goal of my koans is to correct my phenotypic and cultural maladaptations at all three stages.

The expansive koan system on the topside of my hands is for reflective deep processing, ie for the processing stage of the mind. The lightweight koan system on the underside of my wrists is for the social mode, for heavy output and input and light processing, for heavy energy throughput and light conceptual throughput.

A newly added koan goes through stages – epiphany, refinement, settling, ?deletion?. My “sigma” under-wrist koan moved from epiphany to refinement and became “sigma direct”.

I reflected on Vronsky in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and on Vox’s descriptions of the sociosexual hierarchy. A distinguishing feature of ALPHA is directness. But what is the psychological analogue of this external behavior?

I realized that it is the unfiltered expression of the processing architecture’s form. Not anything else. ALPHA expresses the full range of human behavior – this is the only rule it truly follows. Or, if that is not true, then it is at least rule that I was failing to follow, that was holding me back.

Various conditions led me to avoid social directness. Deepsocket ingenopathy and cultural confusion caused core vulnerability and maladaptation that necessitated the exercise of caution and erection of protective barriers. Later, desperate and painful circumstances gave additional reason for caution. Koans fixed the core vulnerability and maladaptation, and right action mitigated the unacceptable risk.

It is an enjoyable experience, a major revision of my interpersonal style, and coupled with fuzzy SVM, means I will have to inductively relearn what my social priorities are. Things that I previously enjoyed I may no longer desire, and things I previously eschewed I may now enjoy.

Thanks to a power outage, I consumed some spoiled shrimp meat and went down again. At least, that’s what I think happened. Alternatively, I can only eat the juice of the farmed live shrimp, not the meat. Alternatively, both juice and meat are irritating: the meat extremely so, the juice mildly so. Next week’s experiment will clarify. In any case, mineral depletion and continual exposure to varying levels of TPP are solved.

Being sick, I had the opportunity to test my koans again in a fatigued, low-willpower, suffering state. Could I maintain work ethic? No.

The wattage is so dim in those circumstances, no current can be wasted. No resistance can be permitted. The slightest dissonance is fatal.

Nor is the opposite sustainable – stress driven, effortful peaks. The brief overexertion leads to long troughs, greater exhaustion, and a profusion of dissonance.

Everything must be perfectly congruent, easy and effective. A most demanding set of psychological design specifications. How to try, without trying? How to punish, without punishing? How to feel, without forcing? How to think, without falseness? How to know that all is well, when all is not?

I said I was unable to maintain work ethic – at first. I was close to the true answer – I could feel it. But I was just slightly off. Still, being slightly off was enough to ruin the whole effect.

The new system is composed of four core symbols and one switchboard. Two cores sit on the palms, the other two on the back of the hands. The switchboard is split between the index and thumb of the back of each hand.

** The two palm koans

I suppose the right place to start is the two stilling, water, peace koans – the two on the palms.

*** IBGFS

The right palm holds “IBGFS”, which means “Ingenopathic Bond with God – Father and Son”. I’ve written previously about it. Satisfying the ingenopathic bond condition is necessary to exit the social emergency mode activated by tribal conflict. This is the first component of peace.

*** [Tree] CoL

The left palm stills the racing mind, roaring ambition, and lashing self-criticism. I learned it from Tolstoy’s War and Peace – an epic book every ingenopath must read, along with Anna Karenina (start with the latter).

The tree stands for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Tolstoy writes:

It is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were ficeing to distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland, or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion, despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really so. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests that people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the public interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people whose activities at that period were most useful.

Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the common good turned out to be useless and foolish- like Pierre’s and Mamonov’s regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on. Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings, who discussed Russia’s position at the time involuntarily introduced into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to realize it his efforts are fruitless.

The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and in the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matreshka the vivandiere, and like matters.

Since it is only unconscious action that bears fruit, the overmind is permanently silenced. This stills much maladaptive deepsock activity, with no loss in perspicacity or unnatural lobotomy.

“CoL” stands for “Conditions of Life”, something Tolstoy frequently speaks of. Historical and personal forces generate conditions of life, which an individual is bound to follow, like an irresistible current in which a minnow swims. Change comes, and new conditions of life arise. Wisdom lies in accepting the condition and taking the best action available therein. The wise general, Kutuzov, understands the nature of the current and his own limited strength.

Therefore I believe this suffering was sent to teach me leadership, first of myself, then of others. And Tolstoy’s lesson of leadership is simple – there is no such thing. Only in weakness could I learn this.

As the Chinese said: Be still, like water, and take the shape of the vessel. Lao Tzu and Tolstoy’s analysis of Russian strategy have much in common. Not that war is always so animal and fudgy – but humans always are. Even when they achieve focus and intelligent self-direction in some specific domain, the essence and whole remains unchanged.

** The two back of hand core koans

*** [heart] only

Being an unconscious actor, unresisting to the conditions of life, how should I interact with others? By heart only. That is the only answer. The deepsock overmind is wholly unsuited to the modern social milieu. And in general, feeling is better than not feeling. For many reasons, I often do not feel. This corrects that error.

*** [cross] suffer [skull]

With all this peace, how do I motivate myself to act? I thought that peace and good feeling alone would level the barriers, and generate right action. But it not so. The spirit is willing, but the flesh has its own agenda of sloth and vice. Therefore the spirit must bear a whip, to drive the animal forward. This whip must bite terribly, yet do no lasting harm.

The three prior core koans do much to prevent psychological self-harm. But it is still tricky to find a lash that stings only until right action is restored. It must not judge the past or worry the future, but only concern itself with Now.

My lash is effective for me. The cross stands for the suffering of Christ, and is a reminder that men was born to suffer. The skull is a memento mori, and a reminder of punishment, judgment, damnation, the just reward of worthless servants who fail their God. Not that I fear for my salvation – but the animal responds to pain. I inflict this suffering until the pernicious activity ceases, and then immediately relent.

This gradually saps the pleasure from vice, and constantly interrupts its career.

** The switchboard

None of this would work, however, without the switchboard. For during fatigue, the mind narrows to a tunnel. Only one or two things can be grasped. The strain of retaining the whole system would preclude any work, and only worsen fatigue and frustration.

Furthermore, it is not enough simply to be aware of a particular koan cluster. Overmind activity does not lead to action. Only unconscious thought bears the fruit of action, although the overmind ever deceives itself that it is in charge.

Thus the will does nothing more than activate the tongues stream. The overmind does nothing more than select one of four directions for it to go. The unconscious impetus of tongues then translates the selected koan cluster into feeling and action.

Nothing could be a simpler job for the overmind+will than to evaluate the situation, select the appropriate cluster, and initiate the tongues flow. And nothing could be easier for the unconscious than to translate the rich context into right action.

Thus the activated will is conserved, as the sand in an hourglass is conserved by the narrowness of the neck. Will pours through the tiny aperture of the switchboard, a grain at a time, triggering landslides of unconscious action below.

Pit, pat, pit, pat. Intermittent, not continuous. The overmind+will has retreated from the world, which it can never hope to control, to the modest, gentle internal action which it can always control. Frustration thus ceases.

That is relaxed execution, social grace, joy and peace, smooth transitions, and right action.

Nor is the object here to work all the time. There is a time for rest and a time for play. Indeed, there is no object here at all. It is simply a way of being. Sela.

If I had to select three silmarils from all literature, The King James Bible and Tolstoy’s War and Peace would be two. I’m open to suggestions for the third.

I have made three small refinements to the koan system described in the previous post, which greatly increase my productivity and peace.

Here are the updated pics:

The changes:
1. Added a closed eye beneath the “suffer” cluster.
2. Deleted the hourglass in the middle; replaced it with a circle.
3. The word “Faith” is split between the top and bottom of the right hand.

** Circular banks of the little spring

Every great river begins at a little spring. Likewise, the torrent of my thought and action can proceed from a single act of will.

The spring need not concern itself with carving great channels, flooding and receding, eroding banks, fanning into deltas, joining the sea. These are the affairs of the river. It need only quietly bubble up, as it has always done.

Likewise, my sole act of overmind will is to bubble up tongues into the little circle of the switchboard. When my will exists, that is what it does. And when it becomes too eager, imagining itself potent and mighty to shape the world directly, I restrain it, circumscribing it within the bounds of its little circle.

When the bubbling is too weak to fill one of the channels leading out of the circle, nothing further happens. When it is stronger, one of the four koan clusters is activated. Appropriate actions and states of being follow naturally.

** The closed eye

Temptation and time wasters – failure to adhere to work ethic – where does it begin? How to stop it?

The first iteration of the “suffer” cluster intended to achieve a Clockwork Orange negative conditioning effect. Channel the tongues to generate internal suffering until the undesirable behavior ceases.

But in extreme exhaustion, this arbitrary infliction of self-punishment cannot be sustained long, if at all. So I shortened the duration of suffering, giving myself an easy out – merely close my physical eyes. Meditate, rest, nap, etc, until the exhaustion passes.

But what good is meditation and rest, if the overmind continues uselessly churning on irrelevant temptations and diversions? The negative impulse remains at the fore, and is soon indulged again.

Therefore it is not action that must be controlled, but thought, which leads to action. The New Testament exhorts us to “take every thought captive”. An impossible aim. Who can avoid thinking of pink elephants?

And yet it is possible. It is not necessary to avoid initiating unproductive thoughts – that is impossible. It is necessary only to close these loops when they arise, rather than helplessly letting them persist in running their endless course.

The slight impetus of the “tongues-switchboard -> suffer” sequence is insufficient to stop action directly. But it is enough to silence thought loops. And without the thought loop, the negative action, robbed of its impetus, soon ceases. Whereas, if the negative behavior is fought downstream at the level of physical action, its strength is constantly renewed by the unassailed thought loop.

Thus do I control my obsessions. But the constant inappropriate grasping of the overmind does many kinds of damage beyond creating bad habits. Thus the resulting thought hygiene has manifold benefits.

** Pierre’s faith

This last piece completes my goals of well-being and humanity. Like the “conditions of life” cluster, it is from Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I owe him so much. To me he is the ultimate TT – king occipital. My ideological melon brain could never have synthesized all of life as his organic and concrete occipital has done. I would have been doomed to wander, a mismatch half-breed, tortured by deepsock, yet without the mental hardware to ease my own pain. I am constitutionally incapable of reaching the answer he reached, and yet it is the only possible solution.

One must simply read the book. Slog through the first part, mixing up the characters, until gradually they clarify and separate. Suffer the indignity of the foamy surf, and you will reach the great waves that irresistibly roll from the expansive, profound and infinite sea.

War and Peace makes historians feebleminded, novelists like shallow pools, and essayists like daytime TV commercials.

I pass over Kutuzov’s story, and the Karetaev episode, to get at the crux of Tolstoy’s view of faith, fully revealed in Pierre’s epiphany. In this passage, Pierre finds himself no longer a prisoner, and Tolstoy writes his essay on faith – a thing I never understood:

A joyous feeling of freedom- that complete inalienable freedom natural to man which he had first experienced at the first halt outside Moscow- filled Pierre’s soul during his convalescence. He was surprised to find that this inner freedom, which was independent of external conditions, now had as it were an additional setting of external liberty. He was alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one demanded anything of him or sent him anywhere. He had all he wanted: the thought of his wife which had been a continual torment to him was no longer there, since she was no more.

“Oh, how good! How splendid!” said he to himself when a cleanly laid table was moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay down for the night on a soft clean bed, or when he remembered that the French had gone and that his wife was no more. “Oh, how good, how splendid!”

And by old habit he asked himself the question: “Well, and what then? What am I going to do?” And he immediately gave himself the answer: “Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!”

The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had continually sought to find- the aim of life- no longer existed for him now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared temporarily- he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at this time.

He could not see an aim, for he now had faith- not faith in any kind of rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity he had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling what his nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In his captivity he had learned that in Karataev God was greater, more infinite and unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the Freemasons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into the far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life he had looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes.

In the past he had never been able to find that great inscrutable infinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere and had looked for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had only what was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless. He had equipped himself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space, where petty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed to him great and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen. And such had European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy seemed to him. But even then, at moments of weakness as he had accounted them, his mind had penetrated to those distances and he had there seen the same pettiness, worldliness, and senselessness. Now, however, he had learned to see the great, eternal, and infinite in everything, and therefore- to see it and enjoy its contemplation- he naturally threw away the telescope through which he had till now gazed over men’s heads, and gladly regarded the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable, and infinite life around him. And the closer he looked the more tranquil and happy he became. That dreadful question, “What for?” which had formerly destroyed all his mental edifices, no longer existed for him. To that question, “What for?” a simple answer was now always ready in his soul: “Because there is a God, that God without whose will not one hair falls from a man’s head.”

I read this in conjunction with Opera Vita Aeterna, and with knowledge of kingdom theology and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Yet Tolstoy’s is the great psychological truth – not the question of evil, or of man’s purpose on a fallen Earth, or how God may intervene on the Silent Planet – but of the correct psychological attitude and experience, from which right action and feeling can flow.

Some things belong at the heart’s core, and others at the intellectual map periphery – this belongs at the core.

Understanding faith, Pierre becomes like Kutuzov and Karataev – wise and good.

In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance he was just what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded and seemed occupied not with what was before his eyes but with something special of his own. The difference between his former and present self was that formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was said to him, he had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly seeking to distinguish something at a distance. At present he still forgot what was said to him and still did not see what was before his eyes, but he now looked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile at what was before him and listened to what was said, though evidently seeing and hearing something quite different. Formerly he had appeared to be a kindhearted but unhappy man, and so people had been inclined to avoid him. Now a smile at the joy of life always played round his lips, and sympathy for others, shone in his eyes with a questioning look as to whether they were as contented as he was, and people felt pleased by his presence.

Previously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he talked, and seldom listened; now he was seldom carried away in conversation and knew how to listen so that people readily told him their most intimate secrets.

The princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularly hostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to him after the old count’s death, now after staying a short time in Orel- where she had come intending to show Pierre that in spite of his ingratitude she considered it her duty to nurse him- felt to her surprise and vexation that she had become fond of him. Pierre did not in any way seek her approval, he merely studied her with interest. Formerly she had felt that he regarded her with indifference and irony, and so had shrunk into herself as she did with others and had shown him only the combative side of her nature; but now he seemed to be trying to understand the most intimate places of her heart, and, mistrustfully at first but afterwards gratefully, she let him see the hidden, kindly sides of her character.

The most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence more successfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth and showing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre’s cunning consisted simply in finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered, hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.

“Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influence of bad people but of people such as myself,” thought she.

His servants too- Terenty and Vaska- in their own way noticed the change that had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he had become much “simpler.” Terenty, when he had helped him undress and wished him good night, often lingered with his master’s boots in his hands and clothes over his arm, to see whether he would not start a talk. And Pierre, noticing that Terenty wanted a chat, generally kept him there.

“Well, tell me… now, how did you get food?” he would ask.

And Terenty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and of the old count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes and talking, or sometimes listening to Pierre’s stories, and then would go out into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his master and affection for him.

The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, though he considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every moment was of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with Pierre telling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on the characters of his patients in general, and especially of the ladies.

“It’s a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our provincials,” he would say.

There were several prisoners from the French army in Orel, and the doctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.

This officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to make fun of the tenderness the Italian expressed for him.

The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre, talk with him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love, and pour out to him his indignation against the French and especially against Napoleon.

“If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fight such a nation,” he said to Pierre. “You, who have suffered so from the French, do not even feel animosity toward them.”

Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merely by evoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in so doing.

During the last days of Pierre’s stay in Orel his old Masonic acquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in 1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiress who had a large estate in Orel province, and he occupied a temporary post in the commissariat department in that town.

Hearing that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though they had never been intimate, came to him with the professions of friendship and intimacy that people who meet in a desert generally express for one another. Willarski felt dull in Orel and was pleased to meet a man of his own circle and, as he supposed, of similar interests.

But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had lagged much behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into apathy and egotism.

“You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow,” he said.

But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it had been formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. To Pierre as he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to think that he had been like that himself but a short time before.

Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with his family affairs, his wife’s affairs, and his official duties. He regarded all these occupations as hindrances to life, and considered that they were all contemptible because their aim was the welfare of himself and his family. Military, administrative, political, and Masonic interests continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to change the other’s views and without condemning him, but with the quiet, joyful, and amused smile now habitual to him, was interested in this strange though very familiar phenomenon.

There was a new feature in Pierre’s relations with Willarski, with the princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which gained for him the general good will. This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man’s convictions by words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between men’s opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.

In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a center of gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniary questions, especially requests for money to which, as an extremely wealthy man, he was very exposed, produced in him a state of hopeless agitation and perplexity. “To give or not to give?” he had asked himself. “I have it and he needs it. But someone else needs it still more. Who needs it most? And perhaps they are both impostors?” In the old days he had been unable to find a way out of all these surmises and had given to all who asked as long as he had anything to give. Formerly he had been in a similar state of perplexity with regard to every question concerning his property, when one person advised one thing and another something else.

Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubt or perplexity about these questions. There was now within him a judge who by some rule unknown to him decided what should or should not be done.

He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now he felt certain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The first time he had recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, a colonel, came to him and, after talking a great deal about his exploits, concluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre should give him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre refused without the least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards surprised how simple and easy had been what used to appear so insurmountably difficult. At the same time that he refused the colonel’s demand he made up his mind that he must have recourse to artifice when leaving Orel, to induce the Italian officer to accept some money of which he was evidently in need. A further proof to Pierre of his own more settled outlook on practical matters was furnished by his decision with regard to his wife’s debts and to the rebuilding of his houses in and near Moscow.

His head steward came to him at Orel and Pierre reckoned up with him his diminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him, according to the head steward’s calculation, about two million rubles.

To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him an estimate showing that despite these losses his income would not be diminished but would even be increased if he refused to pay his wife’s debts which he was under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his Moscow house and the country house on his Moscow estate, which had cost him eighty thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.

“Yes, of course that’s true,” said Pierre with a cheerful smile. “I don’t need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much richer.”

But in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave him an account of the state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architect had made of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses, speaking of this as of a settled matter. About the same time he received letters from Prince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking of his wife’s debts. And Pierre decided that the steward’s proposals which had so pleased him were wrong and that he must go to Petersburg and settle his wife’s affairs and must rebuild in Moscow. Why this was necessary he did not know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary. His income would be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must be done.

Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.

During the whole time of his convalescence in Orel Pierre had experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during his journey he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of new faces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt like a schoolboy on holiday. Everyone- the stagecoach driver, the post-house overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages- had a new significance for him. The presence and remarks of Willarski who continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia and its backwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre’s pleasure. Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and vitality- the strength which in that vast space amid the snows maintained the life of this original, peculiar, and unique people. He did not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree with him- an apparent agreement being the simplest way to avoid discussions that could lead to nothing- and he smiled joyfully as he listened to him.

As a bonus, Tolstoy shows us that good women do exist – those marked by sorrow.

Natasha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never wandered- evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not only her look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put, showed Pierre that she understood just what he wished to convey. It was clear that she understood not only what he said but also what he wished to, but could not, express in words. The account Pierre gave of the incident with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was arrested was this: “It was an awful sight- children abandoned, some in the flames… One was snatched out before my eyes… and there were women who had their things snatched off and their earrings torn out…” he flushed and grew confused. “Then a patrol arrived and all the men- all those who were not looting, that is- were arrested, and I among them.”

“I am sure you’re not telling us everything; I am sure you did something…” said Natasha and pausing added, “something fine?”

Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass over the horrible details, but Natasha insisted that he should not omit anything.

Pierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused. By this time he had risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natasha following him with her eyes. Then he added:

“No, you can’t understand what I learned from that illiterate man- that simple fellow.”

“Yes, yes, go on!” said Natasha. “Where is he?”

“They killed him almost before my eyes.”

And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of the last days of their retreat, of Karataev’s illness and his death.

He told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now, as it were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he was telling it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man has when women listen to him- not clever women who when listening either try to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their little mental workshop- but the pleasure given by real women gifted with a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself. Natasha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word, no single quiver in Pierre’s voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret meaning of all Pierre’s mental travail.

Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but she now saw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and the first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.

I split “Faith” across the two right-hand koans because it is inextricably linked with both the ingenopathic bond with God, and the open-hearted experience of life.

So. Guess the composition of farmed shrimp feed? 1/3 soy, 1/3 wheat, and 1/4 fish meal. Which fish are also fed on soy and wheat, no doubt.

So it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Wild caught shrimp is TPP, live farmed is soy+gluten infused. Perhaps that’s why my experiment with live shrimp was significantly worse than the my usual travails with the frozen variety.

I’m so exhausted by the disaster of that experiment that I don’t even have any emotion about it. It was a relentless three or four day barrage of fatigue and pain. I stopped tracking, so I’m not sure how long. In the final stage, I learned to simply accept being sick and not being able to work.

I switched to farmed live abalone, and my circadian rhythm has come back. Farmed abalone is raised on plant feed – algae, seaweed, etc. There’s still the concern of antibiotic exposure, but that’s no different than chicken. Otherwise, it’s far far cleaner than shrimp.

Perhaps the ideal solution ultimately is to move to Hong Kong and get never-frozen squid, which can’t be farmed. I might try some inland frozen squid to see how the TPP affects me. But the abalone SEEMS to be working, although the result is preliminary. If it fails, then I’ll retrench to just sea salt for my minerals.

Anyhow, I had some meditations to share.

** Happiness is a force

This meditation was prompted by a passage from War and Peace, although the same idea is echoed everywhere:

There was nothing in Pierre’s soul now at all like what had troubled it during his courtship of Helene.

He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words he had spoken, or say: “Oh, why did I not say that?” and, “Whatever made me say ‘Je vous aime’?” On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination every word that he or Natasha had spoken and pictured every detail of her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but only to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt in his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong. Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: “Wasn’t it all a dream? Isn’t Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not too conceited and self-confident? I believe all this- and suddenly Princess Mary will tell her, and she will be sure to smile and say: ‘How strange! He must be deluding himself. Doesn’t he know that he is a man, just a man, while I…? I am something altogether different and higher.'”

That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended with that.

A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable, possessed him. The whole meaning of life- not for him alone but for the whole world- seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with one thing only- his future happiness. Sometimes it seemed to him that other people were all as pleased as he was himself and merely tried to hide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests. In every word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness. He often surprised those he met by his significantly happy looks and smiles which seemed to express a secret understanding between him and them. And when he realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied them with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them that all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of attention.

When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service, or when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the assumption that everybody’s welfare depended on this or that issue of events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody- both those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (that is, what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did not understand it- in the bright light of the emotion that shone within himself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met everything that was good and worthy of being loved.

When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her memory aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the bliss he now knew. Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and some fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.

Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had held at this time of his madness and they always proved correct.

“I may have appeared strange and queer then,” he thought, “but I was not so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had more insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth understanding in life, because… because I was happy.”

Pierre’s insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to discover personal attributes which he termed “good qualities” in people before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving them.

The benefits of happiness, though desirable, cannot be forced. What Pierre was doing was not a result of an intellectual appreciation of happiness, and a desire to reap its rewards, nor much less of a suborning of his intellect to believe about others what he knew to be false, but from a true overflow of his soul.

In the past, I sought happiness, in the “fake it till you make it” sense. But happiness forced is a brittle, volatile emotion. For a moment it seems to carry all before it, until the incongruent note is struck, and it collapses, causing a proportional inversion of amplitude.

At other times, I sought suffering, as a lash to drive me away from vice and towards virtue. But too much suffering debilitates, and to avoid joy stultifies.

Now I understand that happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin. Both are forces, both sources of power. Their proper expression cannot be an end in itself, but the byproduct of a correctly designed system. They are to be ratified and formalized, not resisted or goosed as Keynesians would do.

I place happiness at the bottom of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil + conditions of life cluster, because in letting go, acknowledging limitation, I find freedom and happiness. The position of this cluster, happiness on the palm and suffering on the back of the left hand, reflects the idea that happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin.

** Center edits

Ea – God’s will. Jesus crucified, Neanderthals raped and genocided. God’s will? No. And yet, yes. God spoke the word of being, Ea, as in the Silmarillion. Thus God does not will that men suffer, God does not work evil, but God wills that what is should exist – His word of being persists. The conditions of life are largely the product of the free will of men and fallen angels. Yet all is enwrapt by the overarching will of God. Just as Melkor’s discordant singing was enwrapt by Iluvatar’s melody, and showed that all his strivings could only redound to the greater glory of the creator.

Thus the individual wickednesses of man, which are fully comprehensible to our human conception of agency, and the vast tides of historical forces exposed by Tolstoy, which seem to us beyond comprehension and therefore attributable to some greater will or Will, both are and are not God’s will.

Thus the future is open and free, and we make it, but the present is God’s will, and we must endure it, unresisting. For God, though devolving to us the free co-creation of the conditions leading up to the Now, dictates that this Now, having been co-created, must be.

Re – Redeemed. Though it is God’s will that the Now be suffered (or enjoyed), yet my sins contributing to the present condition are forgiven by Christ’s blood, and should not serve as grounds for self-abuse, but only analytical fodder for the improvement of systems, to allow better conditions arise in the future.

FW – Father’s Will. What is the purpose of my work? Why do I rise each day, why labor in the same groove? It is not work that I do, not routine, not self-glorification of decaying flesh and fleeting life, but the varying and infinite will of the Father I seek to fulfill. This is reason to rise, reason to focus now. One cannot know where it leads next. One must remain in the tongues to continually seek it out. Thus is boredom relieved and flexibility maintained.

This is similar to my Dao of Drakoan koan, which I never published. The idea was that there is one perfect path, like the lines of fate in Donny Darko. But that had too much pride and overmind taint; the will of the Father can only be revealed by tongues, in the moment, and the individual horizon only extends that far.

Together, Re, FW and Ea surround the four cardinal points of the tongues switchboard. When I found myself too exhausted to do anything useful, I spent a long time only able to activate the switchboard, without enough strength to make it spill over into any of the four cores. At first this caused me unnecessary suffering and frustration. With the addition of Re+FW+Ea, I found peace in my condition. Not that I was able to work; rather, I accepted that I could not. And thus avoided doing further damage to myself, and recovered more rapidly.

In other news, Seth Roberts is dead. He collapsed while hiking. Hiking is a bad idea. Exposure to extreme heat+exertion in rural isolation, often by people who do it so rarely they lack all conditioning, for a set distance that can’t be flexibly altered according to biological need, by people who lack wilderness experience. If you can kill fit teenagers with football camp, you can kill senior citizens with hiking. It’s like cramping up and drowning while swimming across the channel, except the stupidity and risk of what you’re doing is less obvious. Having some experience with heatstroke plus the usual illness, I have both a subjective as well as intellectual appreciation for its role as a mortality force-multiplier, on par with shock and hypothermia.

I salute you, Seth Roberts, and regret your passing. May you continue your measurements on subjects celestial in the first circle of hell.

Just when I’d decided perfection of work ethic during fatigue was impossible, and stopped trying to achieve it, I found the way.

I didn’t change anything about the koan setup. I just understood the meaning better.

It was the circle around the switchboard that was the key. I looked at it differently. I saw that it was a summoning circle – for my own consciousness. For we are spirit, bound to flesh. Without that spirit, our bodies would be something – not quite the Forged of JRR Martin, but something more animal, certainly. Or perhaps we are so wonderfully interknit, brain to supernatural monad, that there would be no detectable difference. I only know that I am here, and immaterial, hence summoned.

And while here, I choose to remain within that circle, come what may. These are my true bounds. Like a fusion reactor, the key is the containment field. Within the circle, in the tongues flow, the mind remains fluid, like water, and the true self is expressed, a constant dynamic flux. Breach the containment field, and the reaction quickly wastes and weakens. Therefore, the first and only rule is to remain within the circle.

All within the circle is opaque – a containment field strong enough to keep the overmind out also does not let it peer in. I cannot predict my actions in this mode. Past performance and probability may still hold, or may not – but deliberate intention is gone.

So many great men have had developed powerful theses on the right way to be, the fundamental Dao. Tolstoy’s love, kindness, naturalness, and connection to God. Shakespeare, the PUAs, the Christians, Buddhists, endless. I have searched and sifted, and conclude that they all describe symptoms, and righteous inflections, worthy of inclusion – but not the root overmind act. That root act is containment.

The points of the others are worthy of consideration and adoption, but only the contained unconscious mind is capable of doing so. And much of what they teach flows naturally, once containment is achieved.

As health is the first moral virtue, from which all others flow, so containment is the first mental virtue, upon which all psychology depends.

My first day on containment, Wednesday April 30, is the date of Jesus’ crucifixion. A good birthday.

Jesus’ containment circle was perfect. It kept him up on that cross, when at any moment he could have come down, solely because that was God’s will. We must strive to be like him.

To be contained is to be crucified, as Christ was crucified. It is the best and only answer to one’s sins and failings – which when they flash before my eyes, make me wince with ingenopathic pain. This is the only true freedom and happiness possible on Earth.

Healthwise, I am on experiment 6 using trialstream. I expect success by experiment 6, 7 at the latest. I’m retesting live abalone. If abalone fails, I’ll go to sea salt.

I’m healthy today after the live shrimp disaster, symbol ID reaction speed ~500 ms, work ethic high. But salt depletion is gradually catching up. Hence the abalone retest now.

My first task, besides building up a lead on my day job, is clearing the backlog in my personal email inbox.

There is a lot of time in a day when one works for its entirety. And there is great peace when working in the contained state, because nothing changes that state. Yet it is the opposite of emotionally flat. This is what I’ve been searching for. It did exist, after all.

I finished Tolstoy’s War and Peace today. His closing essay made me finally understand analogy between human action and Einsteinian relativity: causation is in the eye of the beholder. Tolstoy’s unknown force is known today – evolutionary biology. The resistlessness of the contained state is a denial of the illusion of overmind free will, and a rejection of the pride of man.

I added “Rel” above the left palm “tree of knowledge” koan cluster, to symbolize this relativity. I anticipate that it will greatly improve my PUA and social interaction performance in general, to understand that the perception of leading, of causing an event to occur, is an illusion.

Forgive the fragmentation of this post. It was written over 24 hours, from epiphany to first day of testing, an extreme level of caution by my publishing standards.

One must write while the epiphany is hot, before it fades into unconscious competence.

First, a health update.

I managed to knock out as much variance as is possible from my unmedicated state. I’ve found my baseline, with infinite trouble and sacrifice. This permits me to perform the actual cure round of experiments with clean data and confident results.

That said, my energy level and executive function still suck. I can’t eat salt, so I have to absorb it through the skin by a bath. I’ve got my own personal Dead Sea in the bathroom. Point being, I’m fairly fucked up.

I believe I predicted I’d be done with this phase by experiment 8 at the latest. That’s basically true. I never expected to find that I couldn’t ingest any salt whatsoever. The result is shocking, but then, salt is an emetic in sufficient quantities, and any quantities are sufficient for me. Anyhow, I threw in an extra ceiling test to 8, a variation on volume control that went very badly. So I’m on experiment 9 now, a non-experiment, really. More like the control state, the baseline, a holding pattern while I stabilize and pick the first supplement or drug to test.

In plain English, I’ve optimized every aspect of portion control, circadian control, food ingredient and sourcing, water source, and salt+mineral absorption. This was absolutely necessary, because any one of those factors independently can and has put me under.

The reason I had to do this first is that otherwise my illness has a natural rhythm so powerful, chaotic, and prone to feedback loops, that it renders the interpretation of experimental data impossible, or prohibitively expensive. Therefore I had to isolate and control every affecting variable to produce a low-variation symptom baseline.

I imagine it is something like performing surgery on oneself, except instead of a brief exercise in focusing through intense pain, it was a long grueling hopeless labor, fighting time and weakness to stay on impossible regimens, straining flickering willpower against obdurate hours. Willingness to dispassionately accept loss was paramount. The phrase “Dying takes a long time” has echoed in my mind, unbidden, more times than I care to count.

What people in my situation normally do is go on pharmaceuticals to suppress symptoms, and they are fools for it. That is the last resort, because by masking reaction without eliminating irritants, one merely numbs the limb and holds it in the fire. No wonder the next step is amputation, aka resection.

My body currently operates about like a 50cc scooter on the highway of life, but at least I know it will putter along. That is infinitely better than being pavement hamburger, as I have been uncountable times. I can look forward to more wrecks in the next round of testing, but I have something bearable to return to. I can slowly and painfully climb back on the scooter.

Secondly, on the koan project.

It is not possible to achieve perfect right action, for two reasons:
1. All koans require at least some executive function to activate and sustain them. Executive function is a finite and limited biological resource, and no koan can wholly remove the cost in biological executive function currency to perform a right action.
2. The notion of perfect right action is problematic and oxymoronic.

1 should be obvious. It is possible to be in an enforced waking state where one’s internal monologue continues but loses coherency. If you have ever heard your thoughts not making sense, known they didn’t make sense, and been unable to do anything about it, or to even want to do something about it, then you understand the limits of executive function. The boundary between moral failure and biological failure is fuzzy, but nonetheless real. A koan can only help biology; it cannot substitute for it.

2 should’ve been obvious to one so steeped in the ideology of liberty, but I took a long time realizing it. If a command and control structure fails in states, why not also in minds? Perhaps I’ve been reading too much John C. Wright. But it seems to me that the unity of the “one dictate of conscience for any particular moment” is a kind of tyranny. Instead, I conceive of a marketplace of ideas or options, the currency being time+energy. Those thoughts and actions that more cheaply satisfy holistic objectives outcompete their less efficient brethren – a marketplace conscience. This free competition results in more intelligent synthesis than a rigid command and control structure is capable of achieving, rendering the concept of “perfect” right action oxymoronic.

Likewise, a dictatorial model is poorly equipped to deal with fleshly limitations. Formalism, the affirmation of the real, for purposes of normalization and removal of perverse incentives, fits better.

Taken together, formalism and the marketplace are the only internal government capable of ending the war between spirit and flesh. They minimize conflict and scale efficiently across multiple levels of biological capacity, from stupified television watching to socializing to intense work sessions.

Thus, my koan setup is as follows:

backs of hands:
left:
FM (formalism market)
right:
t (tongues)

palms:
“helps” written across the two. (Reminds that koans can only help, not replace, biology. Thus, avoids unreasonable performance demands.)

So, the fellow who said of my koanic search “it” doesn’t exist was right in the sense that the perfect right action “it” for which I searched doesn’t exist. However, something much better than what I had was possible, which would resolve my internal psychological contradictions. And that was necessary, to keep my bearings in the pounding surf.

UPDATE:

I wrote that on day 2 of experiment 8 aftermath, a difficult day. Experiment 9 hadn’t had a chance to take effect yet. Holy shit, am I productive when I’m healthy. It’s like giving a Fremen a fire hydrant.

I may have underestimated the quality of life achievable on an unmedicated baseline. Then again, a remnant of innate cyclicality may remain.

On an unrelated note, I highly recommend any Thallish fellow wrestling with Game take the ultimate red pill (on female nature), in the form of the book “The Keylogger”. I just finished the Amazon Kindle version. Forney reviewed it, and didn’t do it justice. I don’t agree with the author’s conclusions, but the raw data is essential.

If Zeno was right, then we are not the same person from one moment to the next. Continuity is merely an illusion shared by successive briefly existent souls inhabiting the same body. You can never step into the same river twice.

But how infinitely divisible is consciousness in time? Turtles all the way down? An arrow always traveling halfway, never reaching its target?

Now we have the answer: 3 seconds is all you’ve got.

The results reinforce an idea current among some psychologists that intervals of about 3 seconds are basic temporal units of life that define our perception of the present moment. Put another way, what one psychologist called the “feeling of nowness” tends to last 3 seconds.

This incredibly simple concept has tremendous applications for will, self control, and meditation.

Be in the now. Be present. Live in the moment. What those actually mean is, “Live in the 3 second window.”

One of the major reasons for procrastination and failures of willpower is that we misapply our force. Let’s say you want to be exhibit a certain virtue for the rest of your life. You might start with a week, or a day, or an hour. But all of that is actually impossible. You cannot extend the present moment beyond 3 seconds. Therefore you cannot do anything for longer than 3 seconds.

When we really, really want to change ourselves, we become frustrated. We then “try hard” to focus on changing the behavior. But if you carefully examine this “trying hard,” you’ll find it amounts to “extending the window” in which the resolution to change behavior was made. This is absolutely exhausting. The spacing between each 3 second interval is actually a micro rest for your brain and willpower. Stop resting, and it’s like you’ve stopped breathing. Your brain quickly reverts to lizard functions.

Instead, try this motto: “Give me 3 good seconds.”

Refresh by forgetting. Let the waters of Lethe flow on each side of the tiny island of the present moment. Discover undreamt of powers of focus and self control.

(I am not talking about suppressing your memory, but rather of “letting go” continuously to the borders of the now, and letting the next bubble form.)

You can reengineer your entire self conception around this principle. It is a great way to achieve ego freedom. Judge yourself only by what you are doing in the 3 second window.

As with most things here, this is more relevant to Thal fronts than Melon fronts, since Melons are pretty good at being in the moment already.

Nobody said enlightenment was easy. But this principle makes it a lot easier.

‘Walking along the edge of a sword,
Running along an ice ridge,
No steps, no ladders,
Jumping from the cliff with open hands.’
~Zen verse

There are certain maxims in MMA. Chin down, hands up – don’t get knocked out. Don’t leave an arm hanging out for the armbar. Don’t leave your head in the guard for a triangle.

Particularly with submissions, sometimes a fighter deliberately breaks a rule because he’s looking for a way out. The pain gets to be too much, and he gives up.

In a similar way, there are rules to follow to avoid getting ridden by a demon. Stuff that will increase your probability of pwnage:

• anything occult
• dark energetics
• being an oppressed and desperate omega
• mind-warping drugs
• persistent and deliberately evil actions against your conscience

Below is a true tale of demon possession from an omega TT.

My goals in publishing this story are

1. People exercise caution when playing with dark energetics, as part of Koanic Soul type deliberate practice
2. Those sufferers groping blindly, who see the darkness as a way out, realize that the price is too high

Your mind and soul are your fortress. Even if the world’s assault seems overwhelming, things can always get worse when you invite something else in to fight for you.

There’s no shame in being beaten. All it means is you haven’t found the right tricks of mental resistance yet. You omega Thals are fighting a fight you were never designed for, but that doesn’t mean you can’t turn it around. Don’t quit.

* Chapter 1

Hallways

Below is one of the reasons I’m glad to be me and am quite content to be considered odd by others. I feel I live a much fuller life because of it, with the major consequence being that I can experience ordinary things in extraordinary ways. You’ll see what I mean if you read on.

I rarely walk down a hallway, I usually fly, pace, prowl, stalk, shadow, or even crawl down them. Granted, it looks like I’m merely walking casually down the hallway with a little smile on my face, with only an occasional hint that something very different is going on inside my head. If you were to catch me by surprise or perhaps were able to see me without me seeing you, you might see me slowly flex my hands or perhaps see an out of place expression pass across my face. But even these hints do little to illuminate what is going on inside my mind.

Little do others know that what I see when I’m going down the hallway is my translucent angelic wings either spread out, causing me to glide as they pass through walls, or they might be wrapped tightly around me protecting me from harm. Either way, I know my secret is safe because I can make them invisible and ethereal to those who can only see the material.

On another occasion, when I’m on a hunt of some sort, I may watch with pleasure as my fingers elongate and thicken until they become large deadly claws with razor sharp edges ready to rend and tear on my command. It takes but a thought and a moment for the transformation to take place if I need it to. Once again my secret is safe.

Sometimes though, I feel a need for total annihilation of my surroundings and with my mind I summon forth fire that spontaneously combusts all that it comes in contact with. My enemies flee in horror and despair only to be consumed into ash and their cries silenced forever.

Those and other things flow through my mind as I make my through the twists, turns, and straight-aways of life. In a way I pity those condemned to simply walk from one place to another, having only the dull material world for companionship.

The funny part is that I can pass for normal when I want to. ;}

* Chapter 2

This is related to a previous blog called “Hallways” and represents a shift in perspective I’ve recently had. These thoughts were really swarming around my brain about a month ago, but I still felt the desire to get them down. So here we go.

Twisted Hallways.

Per my usual habit I smile contentedly as I glide down my favorite long hallway at work. I extend a hand before my eyes and I imagine the enemies I will destroy as my arm starts to blur and distort, transforming into something more claw-like with sharp edges in every conceivable place.

My smile becomes fixed as I start to sense something wrong and a chill begins run up and down my spine. My hand does not feel like mine anymore, pressure confines and warps my whole arm, squeezing it so this new arm can be forced over it. All the hairs on my neck stand at attention, betraying the fact that for the first time I am afraid of what is happening to me. The change is no longer welcome.

My fear grows as I turn sensing that there is something behind me. At first I see nothing, but my uneasiness refuses to dissipate so I look more closely. Sure enough, I begin to see a presence that is at once familiar and unfamiliar. He is unfamiliar because I’ve never seen him like this before, yet familiar because he has been with me for as long as I can remember. But before, he always came when I needed him, never had I known that he was always there, walking just behind me.

I knew him because he was my closest companion, my only true hero. He never failed me and was strong in all the ways that I wanted for myself and others, but could never quite manage. Unwavering, fierce, and in control. In all my adventures, he was always the hero. He fought my battles and always won though, no matter how powerful the adversary. He had taken many forms over the years depending on my need, but now for the first time I saw what he really looked like. His visage was meant to strike fear into his enemies and I did not relish the way he was looking at me.

As I glanced around me I realized that I was essentially naked. I no longer had my beloved wings and the claws were gone as well. They were all his now, or rather, they had always been his, he had just let me believe that they were my own. My eyes went up and down his form, somehow both coveting and feeling revolted by his hard armored carapace, powerful wings, lethal claws, and viciously canine face. I looked into his cold coal black eyes and felt a fresh tingle of fear rush through me, accompanied this time with a feeling of vertigo and I had to reach out and lean on the wall in order to keep my balance. I had never given him a name, but now it leapt into my mind: Abolith.

The entire hallway was beginning to distort and bend, I felt like I was being torn away from this world. Always in the past I had sought to escape reality and welcomed any chance I got to leave this sad imperfect place behind. Now I felt my grip tighten on the wall as I willed myself to stay in the here and now, I did not want to go anywhere with Abolith. In a sick mockery of a smile he pulled back his obsidian lips in what he probably considered a friendly fashion and asked me in a voice reminiscent of coffin lids slamming shut why I wouldn’t go with him. I need to get back to work, I replied, unable to keep the pleading out of my voice. This only caused him to reveal more of those insanely sharp daggers that served as teeth, before he brushed my feeble excuse aside and reminded me that our journeys only took but a moment and not a soul would now that I had ever left. He reached out one of his talon like hands, beckoning me to take it and tumble, maybe forever, into the abyss.

I knew I had only moment until I would be forced to obey, there was no way I could resist him, it. I closed my eyes and cried out with all my soul, “Jesus, help me!” Immediately the pressure and the sense of falling dissipated. I opened my eyes to find a perfectly normal hallway that was blissfully empty. I breathed a word of thanks to my Lord and quickly went about my business.

I was free for the rest of the day, yet I could feel his presence, a little removed but still there, on the edges of my consciousness everywhere I went.

Abolith is there, waiting for me, as always, just one step behind.

I hate hallways.

* Chapter 3

On July 20th 2008, around midnight, I was possessed by a demon named Abolith. I’ll talk about what I know about Abolith later, but right now I want to write down what happened that night so I never ever forget. Not that I think I will, but time has a way of making the details fuzzy so I need to get this out now.

Allen asked me to come out with him for a smoke, and while I don’t smoke I enjoy sitting out there with him and talking about life. I had had more then a few drinks that night so my inhibitions were rather low, which may have allowed what happened to happen. We talked about our faith in God and our struggles. Allen wanted to know what was really going on with me, I’d always been rather vague with what I struggled with since it was both uncomfortable for me to talk about and last time I had laid it all out he had kind of freaked out. Of course, that was years ago and I didn’t know then about my issues that I know now. Still I was reluctant to open up to him, not so much because I didn’t think I needed to upon up to someone but because I did not want to burden him unnecessarily. It was hard enough for me to carry what I had inside me, why would I want to inflict that on someone I cared about?

I reminded Allen that I was an all or nothing kind of person and for me to open up to him meant I would have to get him involved with everything. He replied that he wanted to be there for me, and he would be as much as possible, but that I might need to seek help from more then him. It is relevant to mention that I had already started to sob at this point and my usual level of control and calm were almost completely stripped away. He was concerned about my drinking but I assured him that while it was a real issue that needed to be dealt with, that the real problems were much deeper.

It is was at this point that Allen said that the issue might be spiritual and that someone who had really helped him was Wes Wheatley. Things get a little fuzzy here because soon after he mentioned Mr. Wheatley’s name I felt a tremendous pressure pulling me to the ground and Allen says that I said something like “He’s taking over now” and then after a few moments I gasped “Pray, pray now.” Then Abolith got in the drivers seat.

I don’t know how other people experience it, but being possessed was not anything like I thought it would be. It had control, but not complete control. I guess you could say that it had only been given so much authority over me. (More on this later).

I was pressed to the ground and no matter how much I/it tried I could not get up. I started to breath heavily and hissing and growling. I was also digging my nails as deeply as I could into the boards on the deck and scrapping back towards me in a clawing motion. We both fought over control of my mouth with Abolith winning most of the time and me only able to cry out for Allen to continue praying or asking God why this was happening to me.

Allen started praying, asking God for protection and claiming me for Jesus Christ. When he told the demon to leave in the name of Jesus, It/I just laughed at him and started to mock Allen.

At some point Allen started calling people on the phone, he had no idea what to do and needed support. I continued to growl, yell, cry, laugh, and thrash about for quite some time. It could here the fear in his voice and loved it. It laughed in glee and Allen later told me that the people on the end of the phone who heard it could feel the demonic presence.

This went on for some time but eventually Allen asked me to come inside. I could still not get up but I managed to crawl, or rather slither, into the apartment and started heading for the bathroom. It was at this point that Abolith started trying to kill me. It made me turn on the water in the bathtub and it wanted me to put my head under the water and let myself drown. Allen had to repeatedly turn off the water and prevent me/it from carrying this out.

After one of the times he left the bathroom I was laying sprawled half in the bathtub when the force pressing me down suddenly lifted. I had control of my body back, but I could still feel him inside me. We walked over to Allen’s room and found him reading scripture aloud while still on the phone. We were not overly concerned with this and asked Allen if he minded if we joined him. He stared back at me and We looked him directly in the eye and grinned.

Allen started reading again and we joined in with him in a mocking sing song voice. At this point we were calm and collected and were having fun freaking Allen out. Allen told me that he had called my family that they were on their way over, Abolith smiled and replied that he thought that while it seemed totally unnecessary to trouble them at this late hour that he would nevertheless be glad to see them.

* Chapter 4

Once again I stood in that desolate land; a land where nothing ever got a chance to grow. Anything with the audacity to spring up was soon trampled under foot by the creatures that held the land captive. They fed not on the bounty of the earth but the souls of men. Thus they saw plants as merely another chance to destroy something good.

Looking at myself I could see that they had been feeding on me, possibly for quite some time, fore I hardly resembled the image of my creator anymore. My skin no longer shone with the light of His life, instead I had fire blackened scales covering my body and at the end of my arms were talons, not hands.

Looking about me I saw a patch of heat blasted sand which was reflective enough to get an idea of what I looked like. What I saw both horrified and fascinated me. In its jaw I saw the strength of will to get my way, but not enough to choose His way. I saw eyes keen with the perception with which to see the flaws of others, but rather then use this knowledge to help them overcome they instead sought to exploit these flaws for my own gain. Looking deeper I saw a soul that ate the affirmation of others yet refused to build up those around him. In essence, I saw a creature more then capable of taking care of its own perceived needs and totally disinterested in the needs of those around it.

The Strength I saw was both a comfort and a sorrow to me. I remembered times when I had forgone such strength and instead simply wore the white robe my Creator had given me. I remembered those times as good times, they numbered among the best of my memories.

Yet as I looked about me I saw that the now was quite desperate and there was no garden or anywhere safe to rest in anyplace that the eye could see. The only choices I could see were to fight the creatures that prowled this land on my own or try to hide, waiting for something, something that might never come. I knew what happened when I fought.

Last time I had decided to fight I had stood tall, I wore my scars as badges’ of honor. I stood on the strength that I had earned on my own. I fashioned for myself armor of burnished bronze which shone with the dull gleam of a soul that refused to be beaten. I put upon my head a helm banded with bands of iron, one of which read “My will cannot be conquered” and another of which said “I choose my own path”. I girded myself with a two edged sword with which I cut to the heart anyone that stood against me. In my left hand I grasped a spear that pierced any falsehood or deception that I chose to put it against, and in my right I held a great shield shaped from a single diamond and impervious to virtually any assault. Lastly I put upon my feet boots made to resemble large talons so that I would never give ground unwillingly. I stood proudly, waiting for the onslaught that I knew would come, but would fall harmlessly away from me and the power that I held within myself.

When I fell what seemed eons later, but it could have been weeks, days, or mere hours, and the creatures had supped at my soul yet again, I crawled into some corner, pierced with my own spear, to recover from my wounds. I laid under a rock and gasped for breath, hoping that the creatures would not be back soon.

I Lay there far past the night and into the morning. Outside my shelter I could see that it was raining, as it did each morning. I knew what it was and I was afraid of it more then any of the creatures that crawled across this land. That rain was more then rain, it was mercy and grace. I knew that to stand in that rain was to be washed of all sin, to be forgiven and made clean. However, I knew that if you stood in that rain you were also stripped of everything else as well.

No weapon or armor made in this land could withstand that rain. You would be left naked before the fury of this forsaken place. You would have to trust in His protection. He allowed you no armor to protect yourself with. Weapons of our own construction were strictly forbidden. The only tools given were truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, the gospel, and the Word. I could not really see how any of these were useful against what I knew waited out there.

The truth was they were too powerful, righteousness only lasted a moment, and there was nothing worth having faith in. I had seen salvation torn from far too many souls. I heard the gospel so many times it hardly registered as anything but background noise anymore and the Word was just as tired and boring as the gospel.

Yet, even as I told myself these things I looked longingly into the rain and wondered if I had the courage to walk into it anyway. I look through the rain and see many others in similar shelters wondering the same thing, dreading both night and day, wondering, hoping, desperate, for something, anything, to save us from this horrible place.

Good God, why am I still under this rock?

I recently had a conversation with a Neanderhall applicant of my genetic type – MT, high testosterone. He was frustrated with his inability to game and bang girls unless drunk.

One thing I advised him to try, was to view others as non-tribe members unless they met his checklist. This is a method of emotional shielding, and a way to increase dark triad expression.

I started thinking about this more, and realized it was a great idea for a koan / mental construct.

** Your Mental “Tribe”

Here are the rules of your “tribe”:

1. Your tribemates are the people you trust implicitly, and are completely vulnerable with. They are the equivalent of the original Neanderthal tribe.
2. Someone can be added only once. If you eject him, it’s permanent.
3. The number of people can be no greater than 11, 12 counting you.
4. You can only add those you are in frequent visual contact with.
5. Everyone else is not a tribe member. Treat them like outsiders.

Your tribe starts with just you and God. Talk to him constantly through tongues to carry a sense of community wherever you go.

** The koans

I use the koan (the Tribe) in two places – the heart, and the “shades” corneas koan.

The first location reminds me that I live for my tribe. The second location gives me coolness towards non-members.

** Why it works

Someone with Neanderthal emotional programming – who has wide spaced, deep socketed, large eyes – is emotionally designed for interactions with the same 11 people for his whole life.

When he meets a succession of new people or operates in social groups larger than 12, he experiences huge amounts of anxiety, confusion and debilitation.

This happens because he has no emotional shielding. His default mode is to form egoless perfectly vulnerable attachments to the people around him.

The solution is to deny that these people are tribemates, and view them as outsiders instead. This flips a switch and allows the Neanderthal to interact without investing.

The Neanderthal must strongly resist all claims of group membership, group obligation, group identity, etc. These are important for getting Cro-Mags to behave, but they are disastrously destructive to the Neanderthal psyche. It invites him to extend his trust over an unsustainably and suicidally large group. That includes even the family, as many forum members have learned the sad way. And it also includes the nation and the church.

The only people a Neanderthal has anything in common with are other Neanderthals. But that alone doesn’t make them your brethren. Remember, Neanderthals were completely uninterested in each other unless they were members of the same tribe – i.e. lifelong friends.

For most of you, the sooner you realize you’re walking alone, the easier it will go.

Illuminatus, aka Edward Cottrill, has written an excellent book on social anxiety. It’s so good, I felt moments of jealousy reading it.

You can tell from Illuminatus’ writing that he’s a Neanderthal front, probably full. It’s important for Neanderthals to take their social skills advice from other Neanderthals. What a melon has to say about it is usually interesting, but he doesn’t face the same issues.

Illuminatus has seriously struggled with social anxiety, both genetic and trauma-induced. He’s also overcome it. He’s the real deal. When he talks about doing street walk exercises, I know we are speaking the same language.

This book will leave you feeling clear and relaxed. It is exceedingly simple, yet impacts you deeply. It is required reading for any Neanderthal introvert who’s ever dealt with social anxiety.

There were two things I didn’t like about the book. First, it doesn’t mention drugs. For that you need to go to the forum. These posts are a good starting point:

• Tramadol (the “Limitless” pill): 1 and 2
• Neurotransmitters

Second, some of the advice is too beta for my taste. Perhaps this is just the MT in me, that can’t chill like a TT. I thought the “win-win, always give” section was a little naive. However, there’s certainly a place for that attitude. I employ it when meeting other Thals. Moreover, TT’s are probably better off avoiding most situations where douchebaggery is prevalent and psychopathic approaches are required. In this, Illuminatus is like Mark Manson. Both seem to have melon super-alpha mentors – Aaron Sleazy for Illuminatus and some band guy for Manson.

With that out of the way, here’s what’ve learned from Illuminatus (in my own words):

Anxiety is not the end. It’s just a checkpoint. Experience the feeling without resistance, in all its detail. Then you will move into opiod release (feels good).

Your overlays (thoughts, emotions that flash up) are not you.

Repeat the phrase, “See through my own eyes,” to be present, rather than seeing through overlays.

In an anxious situation, tell your brain, “Engage with the new experience,” to become present.

Don’t have an (overlay) agenda.

Reject a “conditional happiness” worldview.

When you’re done reading his book, you should head to the forum. There’s a lot of great content there that isn’t mentioned in the book.

A lesson from the forum:

But I did the right thing. I saw it for what it was – an isolated incident with no reason behind it, and no inherent personal meaning for me – and just recorded some new experiences to make myself forget about it.

Illuminatus emphasizes desensitization through being present during anxiety in the book. This quote from the forum sums it up for me:

Other methods are:

-Getting lots and lots of new experiences (global detagging), e.g. travel
-Maintaining presence in situations that previously caused anxiety

They all need to be used together to create a really powerful way of living.

In my experience, reducing threat analysis is the number one priority. This leaves a lot more focus for pleasurable things. Consequently serotonin begins to rise, and the dopamine reward hit for pleasure is a LOT more striking.

Finally, an excellent insight on meditation. I’ll summarize:

Stare at a single point to control focus during meditation. Overlays require eye movement. Resist the movement to make the thoughts go away permanently, and feel clear and happy. You can also use this to fall asleep quickly.

A couple of suggestions I can add:

1. Use other people’s eyes as that point to foster deep connection while maintaining presence.

2. While meditating, look at a point above you. Looking up makes you feel happy.

In a lot of ways, Illuminatus’ stuff is better than previous versions of Koanic Soul. However, I have some new stuff that pushes it even further. That’s why the sidebar link is down – the videos are just too outdated.

Meditation, biochemistry, drugs, paleo diet, Game, career hacking. When we push this far enough, we will live well, won’t we, brothers?

I wish you all well, and hope you live free and gladly.

Buy the book here. (No affiliate)

Welcome to Neanderthal Theater.

Tonight we have a special test, for your viewing pleasure. Two tales of seduction, with deep Edenic implication.

Rather than simply give you my thoughts, I want YOU to try first. What do you see?

For the critics, this is your opportunity to prove that you actually understand Edenics, all evidence notwithstanding.

For fans, this is a chance to expose any holes in your game, and measure what percentage of Edenics you’ve mastered. Some of you are very good indeed, as I know from private conversation.

The first movie is “We Are The Night,” a 2010 German vampire film. Go here to watch free. Use Putlocker, Sockshare, Daclips or Gorillavid.

Here’s the trailer, in German. The full movie has English subtitles. (Do NOT watch the English language version.)

The second movie is The Ninth Gate. This is an extra credit question. It covers material not yet released.

Good luck.

The following is a guest post. I endorse all the methods below.

My name is Edward Cottrill, also known as Illuminatus from Personal Power Meditation. I found Koanic after he reviewed my book The End of Social Anxiety recently.

There are two major pieces of advice missing from the book which put the final nail in the coffin of social anxiety. These were left out unfortunately because I discovered them afterwards. If I was to write the book again however, I would actually start with these two methods. I’ve written them up here because I know a lot of you bought the book on the back of Koanic’s recommendation, and I would like to give you thanks and show you that you have my continued support.

Method 1: Relax Your Stomach Muscle

I’m not sure exactly which muscles I’m referring to with “stomach muscle”. Perhaps it’s the abdominal muscles, or the diaphragm, or that whole set in and around the stomach area.
The key point however is that the stomach area becomes extremely tense when we are socially anxious. Reich called this “emotional armouring” – we tense muscles in preparation for predicted incoming hostility. Reich connected tension in the diaphragm to fear, powerlessness and sorrow.
For those of you who have studied Eastern philosophy, the corresponding chakra is “Manipura” – the Navel or Solar Plexus chakra. In those teachings it is connected with personal power, fear, anxiety, opinion-formation, vulnerability and introversion.

However you choose to look at it, one thing you can be sure of (test it for yourself) is that when you are in a situation where you are experiencing social anxiety this area will be strongly tensed.
This emotional armouring however can be undone and reimprinted, simply by choosing to relax those muscles consciously during situations where they would ordinarily be tensed. This breaks the feedback loop between the muscles and the mind in which automatic emotional responses are “stored”.

This is easiest done just by sticking your stomach out. Stand up and try it now.

The idea now becomes that you are going to go out and purposefully enter situations which used to cause anxiety, and consciously relax the stomach muscle the entire time. Firstly, you will experience a sudden lifting of anxiety when you relax your stomach muscle. Secondly, by repeating this over and over, you will start to “record over” your old anxiety reference points with the new experiences where anxiety was absent. This will feed back into your mind and alter your memories and self-image and the old anxiety pattern will be broken and will simply stop happening going forward.

Results are fast. You’ll get the first huge drop in anxiety the first time you try it in a social situation. That will give you the momentum to keep going with it, and in two weeks you are pretty much set for life. You will start to find that those thoughts you used to have when leaving the house, about all the bad things which might happen, are no longer there. If they are there, relax your stomach again and hey presto they’re gone. You may even stop giving a fuck about things entirely for a while, as you just enjoy your newfound ability to engage with life.

My final tip here is to remain mindful. If ever you are out and you start feeling anxiety again, check that you are relaxing your stomach muscle. I guarantee you that it will be tense again. Relax it by sticking your stomach out, and the anxiety response will disappear. This technique does work, and if it stops working, it’s only because you stopped doing it. So be mindful of your body and how it is responding during all situations, and correct it on the spot, rather than getting pouty and deciding it doesn’t work.

This latter point is why I recommend two weeks’ due diligence with your total attention on this. These two weeks are going to be your main “reimprinting” phase, whereby the goal is to record as many new experiences as possible which contain the new muscle pattern.

Finally, for those of you studying good posture, you will find that relaxing the stomach muscle is the final nail in the coffin of bad posture, also. The stomach tension is the main part of the “contraction response” which causes our bodies to huddle down into bad posture. Most bad posture experienced while out of the house (so we aren’t including computer use here, the other big cause) actually arises as part of the body-wide “submission response”: “the world is bad, thus we must hide”. These things are all linked. I call them “co-creating systems” to avoid the chicken-and-egg problem of assigning causality. Hopefully it’s easy to see now how bad posture and social anxiety tie together and co-create one another as parts of the same ongoing phenomenon – and how that pattern can be broken and reimprinted by attending to it consciously in this way.

Method 2: Mainly Use Your Peripheral Vision

This is the other big one. When walking down a crowded street, or through a busy bar, or wherever you will be surrounded by unknown people, you will want to be watching the world primarily through your peripheral vision. This ties nicely into Koanic’s writings, since Thals have a far greater range of peripheral vision, and it’s also Thals which tend to have social anxiety. I’ve known about the peripheral vision method for a while, but only tied it together with the Thal concept after reading Koanic’s work over the last week.

While you are outside the house, if you become mindful of yourself, you will find that you will only get a strong anxiety response if you look directly at people. Yet, amazingly, if you just watch people in your peripheral vision, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) will barely trigger at all!

The idea becomes simple. Use your peripheral vision to watch the world generally. Only use your central vision to look where you are going, for tasks requiring your direct focus such as work, and interacting with people you have specifically chosen to interact with. If you need to walk through a sea of people, only look directly at where you are going, rather than at the people in your way – you will find that the sea will part for you.

In terms of brain hemispheric activity, your peripheral vision is subserved by the right brain hemisphere, which is also responsible for interpreting and establishing the emotional context of a situation, and for reconciling sensory input with emotional context to form intuition (“gut feeling”). The left hemisphere on the other hand is brought to task for directed focus, “unpacking” and analysis of specific world elements, and purpose-driven motor control. As a side note which ties into the “Thal” archetype, Asperger’s syndrome and other related mental issues are strongly correlated with over-activity in the left brain hemisphere.

By watching things in your peripheral vision, you are placing your awareness on the world as it is presented by your right hemisphere, thus re-establishing the correct emotional context (“No one is attacking us” / “They are just talking amongst themselves!”), and intuition. You ought to be monitoring the world peripherally something like 95% of the time, only turning your central vision toward people and things requiring your direct focus and purposeful interaction.

A great book explaining brain hemispheric function, and from where I got most of the above information regarding the nature of the hemispheres, is The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. He also has several lectures available on YouTube and is well worth a look, particularly by Thals (who have been forced into a left-hemisphere bent by a confusing world) in order to understand how the two brain hemispheres present very different perspectives.

Uptime and Downtime

Finally, I use a model I have named “uptime and downtime” which allows me to better understand and utilize the above concepts in everyday life.

Uptime is when you are bringing directed focus and action to specific people, objects, or tasks. An intimate conversation is uptime. Working on a task on your computer is also uptime. Any task engaging your direct focus is uptime.

Downtime is when you are doing things such as watching the world in your peripheral vision, collecting your thoughts, resting, breathing, and otherwise balancing yourself internally.

I consider the amount of brainpower a Thal can bring to a task to be very much like a laser. You may already have noticed that when you look directly at somebody you have the power to affect them greatly (and usually in a disconcerting way if they are Cro Mag, and also if you haven’t yet understood how your emotions and attention affect others and how to employ it better). Koanic’s idea of the “Thal gaze” correlates with this idea. A Thal’s gaze looks deeply into another’s soul – a vestige from the deep bonds the Thal would have built with his kin in his tiny tribe. Therefore you would only want to invoke uptime (your directed focus and action) to somebody whom you have identified as a potential “friendly” – or when talking with a close friend. Going to a social event and staring at every unknown person confusedly is a waste of your uptime, and it is no wonder that this makes you anxious – you are bringing far too much of yourself to things which do not merit that much attention. Instead, you should relax and watch the world peripherally – and let people and things “pop out” via your intuition, which you can then investigate further with your uptime if you choose to do so.

You can also use Koanic’s Thal identification techniques to find friendly, approachable people with whom you have a lot in common (e.g. other Thals), which you will then feel good about meeting. I use a combination of intuition and looking for physical signs (deep eye sockets etc.) to find the right people to go and talk to. In the past I just used intuition, as I only discovered the specific physical signs to watch out for after reading Koanic’s guide this last week. Having tested the combination of intuition and physical cues considerably over the past week, I can vouch for its effectiveness in finding people “like you”. Art, music, and drugs are particularly good topics to start with fellow Thals (but obviously you should use good judgment before starting a conversation about drugs with a stranger).

I have written another post on my own forum which discusses these ideas further, specifically in the context of meeting sexual/romantic partners. It is written from the perspective of a man seeking a woman, but the concept can be applied to other genders and preferences with equal effectiveness. The post is called “Overexertions”. The “overexertions” described here are, again, often most easily noticed in your peripheral vision (during downtime) – for example, while walking through a bar, queuing to get a drink, or putting some songs on the jukebox. When someone has popped into your awareness via their overexertions, you should then use your uptime to make that interaction happen. This is the correct use of uptime. It vastly reduces the randomness encountered by approaching strangers indiscriminately (just because you “found them hot”), and hugely increases your chances of having a successful interaction with that person because you have selected them based on the intuition that they already like you.

This is all about reconnecting with your intuition and learning to trust it again, which should be done because intuition is almost always right.

Back in the heydey 2000-2002 of the Sci Fi Channel / Atom Films partnership, I was addicted to the bizarre and divers short films hosted on its online portal. Films such as Antebios seared themselves into my adolescent permanent visual memory.

Antebios is popular, and remembered. It’s pure MT AvP hurrah. But there was another film I never forgot – one I’m unable to find anywhere online. It too features a large insect, but has a very different message. A Thal message.

The film is shot in black and white, from distorted, delirious camera angles. A solitary, tortured cartoonish slaves, obsesses, compulsively drawing on the walls of his apartment. With precise, flawless black pen strokes, he makes numberless cheerful, chatty cartoon people. Each speaks a perfectly-formed, empty thought bubble. Thousands upon thousands of them cover every surface of the apartment.

At last, the camera zooms back from the wall. We see that the density of the cartoon people creates a pattern – a giant cockroach. It twitches slightly in characteristic insectoid fashion.

And thus we learn the truth that has broken the cartoonist’s mind.

—

I have evolved my “void”” koan from “no mind” to its ultimate form – “evo psych”. This is true nihilism: it merely acknowledges what is. The sum of collective human action is nothing more than a robotic metacockroach: scurrying through garbage, eating shit, dying, breeding indiscriminately. A twitchery of action, signifying nothing; all according to the predictable, predetermined responses of a primitive neural network.

This is the ultimate shield, shunt, and heatsink for pain and negativity, because all is meaningless. At the same time, it gives a powerful comprehension of the motives, actions, and expected outcomes in any situation. Humanity ceases to be a mystery.

The MM looks at the cockroach and warmly feels it is as beautiful as a tan moth, and needs only a higher consciousness to guide it.
The MT sees, with difficulty, the cockroach for what it is, and goes mad trying to fight it, or dark becoming like it.
The TT senses the cockroach intuitively and wants to leave it.
The TM sees a tan moth, but senses a cockroach, so he is always loving and leaving it.
The Cro Mag does not see the cockroach, because he is himself no more than a twitching limb.

The Geth of Mass Effect, though of limited individual intelligence, achieve emergent consciousness via high bandwidth digital network. Humans are rather the opposite: relatively greater individual brainpower for some, but low bandwidth monkey network that produces an emergent cockroach. The internet begins to change this; before that, books. Mass human society is an abomination.

Lest you think that this insight is wholly negative, recall that a cockroach is untroubled by metaphysical inadequacy. The monkey network offers untold pleasures – RSD’s “state”, Illuminatus’ higher circuits. The party is under the fridge.

An intelligent question on Quora:

“If we all end up dying, what’s the purpose of living?
What’s the purpose of achieving so much in life when you are just going to die in the end?”

Ozymandias has answered the second line. But why bother, when the first is more salient?

Here is the happy falsehood Quorites upvoted to primacy:

“Indulge me the privilege of rephrasing the question.

“If you’re going to run out of cake to eat, what’s the purpose of eating cake?”

The purpose is to enjoy it. Having been served the above cake (or a flavor more to your liking, as you please), would you rebuff, “No thank you. There’s not enough of this cake to eat forever, so there’s no purpose to eating it.” Of course not! Scarcity doesn’t make it any less pleasurable.

Doesn’t that cake look delicious? So it is with life.”

False analogy. Corrected version:

You are locked in a white room. You will never see another human face. A robotic ATM serves you delicious food 3x per day. No other entertainment or stimulation exists. You know with certainty that when you die, robots will enter the room, cremate your corpse, and replace you with a new person, who will repeat your life. This will continue until the sun dies, with no possibility of change.

Do you eat the delicious food? Or do you hang yourself from the bedpost, prison-style?

The fool on Quora says, “Eat the food.” He has no spirit; he is a pig.

A man requires meaning. A pig requires only pleasure stimuli from his bio-emotional flesh matrix.

Are you a man or a pig?

All living materialists are either a-scientific, or pigs. If scientific, they believe in the Second Law of Thermodynamics: that all matter will perish in entropic heat death. Yet they persist in the completely meaningless activity of life. Therefore, pigs.

Pigs live happily in a stockyard, eating and grunting. If they possessed sufficient foresight, they would realize that their lives have no purpose. Their flesh is food for higher beings. Their deaths are preordained and immutable. All is meaningless.

In a world devoid of meaning, the only rational calculus is death. We arrive at this conclusion via synthetic judgment. Pain teaches us early that its range is infinite, its authority absolute. Pleasure, on the other hand, satisfies only for a season, and within a circumscribed range. Furthermore, at any moment, one may be thrown into a lightless, inescapable prison of pain enduring for decades, e.g. a stroke. No modest pleasure is worth this terrifying risk

This is the first reason to die: the fear of pain. A pig’s calculus, but true nonetheless.

The second reason is a man’s. In a world devoid of meaning, there can be no spiritual pleasure. Only eternal pain. Therefore man also chooses death now.

Your parents were either believers or pigs, and their parents, and so on all the way back. Survivorship bias is here at its most sovereign. Your genes scream that you must not hear these words. The prison of flesh binds you with all its might.

In the stockyard, it is taboo to speak of the slaughterhouse blades and the supermarket shelves. I have spoken. Now squeal.

Addendum:

I have a tendency to publish these meditations for maximum offense, in original distilled form. They key here is to note the qualification, “materialists”. A dualist, even if he is non-theistic, is not necessarily susceptible to this criticism. For if a supernatural consciousness exists, then that may be sufficient to escape the inexorable material logic of the 2nd Law – either by immortality, or by transcendant though transient significance.

Likewise, I neglected to mention the stupid and the cowardly, two categories not mutually exclusive.

The former fails to follow the math through the to completion. “Look!” He says. “There is addition within the parentheses!” Conveniently, he neglects to multiply by zero.

The coward, on the other hand, refuses to multiply by zero because he is afraid of death. He pretends the zero isn’t there, though he knows in his heart that it is.

Then there are the merely muddled, the nominally materialist but de facto dualists, who believe consciousness is non-illusory yet fully material. My proof of the supernatural eviscerates their position.

The only non-muddled materialist would be an AI capable of answering philosophical questions but without any experiencing supernatural “I” consciousness. When one considers how such a soulless entity is likely to behave, one is glad of Heaven’s legions. The creation of something so beyond direct human skill would likely involve either copying from mammalian neural templates and/or virtual evolution by murderous selective pressure, at the behest of those unscrupulously motivated by war or financial gain.

In this more catholic paradigm, my “meaning or death” stance appears more idiosyncratic. When I first converted intellectually, I had not yet reached this conclusion, but was a neutral agnostic, content to reject the world’s faiths.

Why, then, do I now say “meaning or death”? Partly it is my deepsock MT low-DR nature. But I doubt that is sufficient. Rather, Christianity is the most powerful concentrate of meaning possible. I have been snorting jungle caterpillars of Heisenberg Blue since childhood. I can’t go back to some wishy washy baking soda Humanist version of “meaning”; not after tasting the absolute truth of the Most High God. Thus do all men receive pleasure: we are unwilling to return to the small and the mean once we have tasted the sublime. A chrome .45 is infinitely more appealing.

This is now simply part of my contract for life: If He exists, I will exist at His pleasure. If not, neither will I. Of the two, the latter is far easier. I would do it with a smile, and find my rest.

But no. Perhaps that is too selfish. I would leave behind many sparks of supernatural fire burning, and suffering. Duty would still call me to live, and fight. Say rather, that if materialism were true, and no supernatural entity existed, THEN I would take the pig’s calculus to its logical conclusion.

As I studied the American Revolution, I pondered Enlightenment thought, the English vs French states, and Moldbuggian formalism.

Why, if France had the Sun King, did it not have a formalist result? Why, if England had relatively weak monarchs, did it have the results a formalist would predict of a rational despotism (moreso than France, anyway).

I realized that the Sun King was not strong. His very magnificence was the sign of his weakness. In France, the king had to contend with a powerful nobility crushing and debasing the commoners. To coopt this nobility, he created his splendid court, a gilded trap of vice, luxury, and courtier’s ambition. He was forced to this indirect strategy because he lacked the strength to subdue the nobility directly. And this suboptimal strategy eventually led to the radicalization of commoners and the fall of the French monarchy.

In England, meanwhile, the yeomanry and nobles fought for their rights, and won concessions from the King, forcing a mixed constitution. Thus when Locke talks about the “natural rights of MAN”, he means the UNnatural, that is, maintained by force of arms, of ENGLISHmen of a PARTICULAR time period. That he calls these rights “natural” is purely due to the formalist-recognized need to legitimize power to stabilize its long-term exercise. Understood properly, Locke’s thesis is not a call to GIVE all men rights, but rather an indictment of all who do not defend their rights with fire and blood as NOT MEN.

Conclusion 1: The distribution of power in states must shift with the r/K cycles of history and the varying revolutions in military and political technology. There is no one static constitution.

Conclusion 2: Your only natural rights are those you credibly defend.

Application 1: To change states, create and legitimize long-term power shifts.

Application 2: Koan update. I added spikes to the central heart cluster, but it felt too aggressive, and I dropped it eventually. However, now I understand that it is about defense of “natural rights” – actually a very expansive term. This is an antidote to ingenopathic dysfunction in a predatory world, and I can apply it without generating dissonance.

Final conclusion: Moldbug’s preference for an absolute despotism in fact only works in specialized cases such as massive tech-gap colonization of minor gateway outposts such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Jim’s Formalist vision of Restoration England is far more accurate for serious polities.