"So consciously reversing self-deception…" I said, hesitantly.
"Feels deceptive," she finished my sentence, "because you are aware of what you should feel, which would be arbitrary had you not been conformed in specific ways." She took a breath and repeated, "Behavior for the average person is literally practiced at the behest of outside events impinging on their self-image. For Stalkers behavior is a conscious choice."
"Okay, so a simpler example of consciously changing my behavior would be what?"
"Instead of complaining about a crappy event, which reinforces it, you could immediately fix something that was broken, clean your house, or go out and commit a random act of kindness."
"How does that work with emotions?"
"When you learn to use them without the involvement of self, a setback, for example, is not sad. It is an unexpected challenge happening on planned routes that never turn out to be what we thought they were anyway."
"So it doesn’t have to be an extreme change; taking control is the issue."
"Exactly, which brings me to the pivotal idea that changed my thinking about controlling my behavior: it takes just as much energy to learn and practice how to live a self-oriented, ill-considered, reactive, and risky life, as it does to learn and practice facing challenges without self-interest." She stared, waiting for this idea to make a dent.
It was a good thing she was patient.
Eventually, I said, "Does this mean that if we started out learning how to live properly, we wouldn’t need a massive amount of energy to change our ways?"
"It does: if we are taught incomplete and self-oriented versions of love and responsibility during our most influential years, at best it will take us an equal amount of effort to undo the damage. Moving on... because the assemblage point is initially fixed in the cognition of the average person, Stalkers describe a permanent shift away from this position as loosing the human form. This is our goal—separating you from the world of average people." She hesitated, then said, "I’ll explain this further; for now I want you to be aware that the average man is driven by the should of reason. This makes them dangerous because they feel they must do things only because they’ve been told to feel that way, without questioning why or examining their true circumstance, assuming they are able to do that. An underlying affect is that they’re automatically afraid of what others may know about them, and they’ll fight you to the death of your relationships to maintain their core illusions." She squeezed my arm, meaning this still applied to me.
"This circumstance is dangerous for me," she continued, "and why I’m asking you not to reveal my identity to anyone until I tell you otherwise."
"I won’t, but aren’t you… you know—protected?"
"My integration process is a partnership. I am not yet capable of keeping myself, and my children, safe while I learn the impeccable designs of Intent."
"Understood." Kind of.
"To be clear about our circumstance," she let me go, "you are free to discuss your own journey with anyone, but I caution you again that it will cost you those relationships. You might not be ready for that. Not all at once."
"I recall."
"Learning from me will cost you that anyway, but it isn’t a loss. As you leave your reasoned agreements behind you won’t be interested in maintaining contact with people on the same level you met them, and you won’t want to speak about your lessons until it’s time. It would be useless if you did—who would believe you?"
"What time is that?"
"If and when you are guided to teach someone who has the energy to learn," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "Now," she declared a switch in focus, "for an average person to remain ignorant of their assemblage point is to guarantee that they remain average, with all this implies. For the Stalker, controlling the assemblage point is about more than controlling perception: they know that it is literally a connection to Spirit, which they can work with directly by earning the energy required to move it at will." She slowly shook her head, pondering.
I cocked mine.
"That’s not incorrect, but it’s not entirely accurate. Let’s just say that saving energy by behaving properly makes it easier to move, which includes working directly with Spirit who then offers advanced lessons through the principle of the Minimal Chance.”
“Always?”
“They do not tell you anything you need to experience, and because you live in a metaphor your lessons comes as essences, not facts."
"I understood all of that."
"Then there’s hope for you." Refocusing, she slowed our pace to a lover’s stroll without the romantic ambiance, as if to allow more of my daily allotment of energy to pull my head out of my reason.
"We’ve covered the perceptual mechanisms that affect your behavior, so it’s time to make it more relevant to you; glass of wine at Bridges?"
"I’ll probably need a bottle."
Our slow walk to the Aquabus dock took fifteen minutes, and crossing False Creek to Granville Island only five more. Along the way, Bonnie continued her technique of reviewing my lessons while expanding them, and having me integrate this information into a larger view:
"We choose physical incarnations from our primary state of conscious energy," she said, "which is translated into what we perceive as the physical form. This idea-form has chosen, and is therefore predisposed to engaging specific lessons, and bypassing experiences that are more appropriate to other challenges."
I nodded patiently.
"As we experience early life without explanations, we translate the nature of events into their influences on us as sublimated beliefs. This programming always translates into behavior at the instigation of related events. With the development of language, our still-developing personality accepts, rejects, or modifies our beliefs, based on what we conceive to be in our evolving best interests."
"Still with you—is this the point when our personality is set, and we begin adopting our predominant flaws?"
"Which are what?"
"Pardon me?’
"You said you are still with me, so you can either intend to know the flaws, or you can shift your assemblage point to the spot where that conversation took place. Don’t try to recall the conversation in conventional terms; you naturally use intending well, you just don’t know that you do."
Knowing better than to doubt her, I said, "Give me a second." I closed my eyes sought the conversation as an intention, not an ongoing effort, then following her instructions I waited quietly. Soon recalling the beginnings of that conversation, I trusted more would be there when my mouth got to it, and I said, "The pious assess nothing, but claim to understand everything, the bigot is always right because he ignores what he doesn’t understand, and the obsessed are pretty much ping-pong decision makers."
"Hold that position: explain the translation process for the development of any belief."
Still with my eyes closed, I whispered, "What the fuck."
Bonnie tittered.
A moment later I found my starting point; it also filled out as I spoke.
"I am a translation of energy—a living metaphor of my beliefs—that had to translate familiar energetic concepts into unfamiliar physical laws about my new existence, which my experiences transformed into a way to apprehending my new place. That way is called reason, which also made sense of my early experiences before explanations began to conform them to accept other meanings."
"An example of an early event would be what?"
"Shaking me as a baby would scare me, and maybe create pain, so I’d cry more. As I grow, and learn that fear and pain are how grownups who love me, also teach me, the shaking would have taught me to shake my own kids to make the point that, although I love them, crying isn’t acceptable." The impact of this idea settled in. "No wonder we’re all so fucked up," I said, coming out of my rhythm. "This," I said, waving my arm to encompass the visible world, "is the Tower of Babel!"
"You might have intuited the origins of that myth: what is the essence of the act you described?"
"Abuse."
"It is certainly that; what is the nature of the damage?"
I saw how the abused child’s views had been skewed by the experience, but I didn’t know how to articulate it; this is what I told Bonnie.
"Their consensus reasoning has been altered to include brutality as an acceptable personal practice, at the level of an unconsidered assumption. This will rob them of the comfort that comes with growing up feeling safe, and that they fit in. In the same way, sexual abuse is a heinous cruelty that deforms one’s reason toward accepting aberrations that are passed on, robbing victims of a normal developmental path for generations. By the way, you’re headed for a lesson in appreciating that particular disgrace."
"Why is that?’ I said perplexed.
"You are a person of energy. As such, what you say and do programs what you need to experience… kiddy-diddlers?" she said.
Not fully understanding her, but nodding uncomfortably I said, "I have a question. Yesterday, you said I was the first to be rescued."
She nodded.
"But your goal isn’t to have me rejoin the world I left behind as a better person. Sorry, as a better-off person, because I’d just be better off in the midst of the same bullshit—right?"
"Correct."
"This means your goal is to have me leave the world I know, apparently literally," I chuckled, "by moving my assemblage point to a place where I will perceive a different set of assumptions."
"Assumptions that are elements of a Stalkers’ cognition, correct: you knew that much from working on our screenplay," she said curiously.
"I did, but I’m asking you how far away from that old world view am I, because of my experiences since I met you?"
"How well are you doing?" she grinned.
"Ya—yes."
"You began the transition long before you met me, by joining the millions of people who perceive their world differently than they did before their personal wars." She looked at the recreational boating activity around us; I understood this represented my original view.
"Through trauma?" I said.
"As a Stalker would see it," she said, refocusing on me, "you are literally deranged when the assemblage point moves because the original position presents the version of reality that has been hammered into you. But being deranged is neither a permanent nor definitive position." She cleared her throat. Subduing a smile, she said, "It is a transitional state in that you have perceived a truth that people who are still assembling your old version of the world haven’t perceived." She touched my hand. "They may consider you unstable, because they think your combat experiences screwed you up, when it’s your agreements with their version of the world that have gone beyond theirs. This does not mean the experience didn’t screw you up, only that it was meant to, so rejoining their world is as insane to you as you are to them."
"And feeling so much better for knowing this," I quipped.
"All you need is help translating your new knowledge into a workable continuity. Let’s head toward the University," she said as we pulled alongside the Aquabus mooring on Granville Island.
We disembarked behind a tourist couple—fanny packs and Vancouver Aquarium T-shirts, who I then realized had been looking at us strangely for most of the crossing. I felt like checking my fly, but the thought had no momentum: I was somehow outside, looking in at our circumstance, and pleased to realize that Bonnie’s teaching methods had probably caused me to focus in this way. I would have to ask her about that…
Through a thin grin, and a stabilizing breath, I said to myself, "I look crazy to my friends because my assemblage point is not centered on the version of reason that theirs is. But in a Stalker’s view, I’m less reasonable—as a good thing—because I resolved a puzzle that my friend’s reason hasn’t dealt with, because they don’t know that war is insanity on display in real time." I had a sudden thought. "It’s a second-hand conviction to them, which is why they say it’s nuts, then they still go to them?"
"Good so far," Bonnie encouraged me.
"My shitty experiences became my personal landscape, and it was toxic; fear infected me, but I don’t know what to do with it other than display it through unconscious behaviors in a place that doesn’t understand how they are immersed in the cultural practices that gave rise to what I became."
"You’re on the right track." Somberly, she said, "Millions of Post Traumatic Distress victims are poised to embrace a new position—literally—that reflects their understanding of the true nature of the events that shifted their assemblage points away from what others consider normal. I’m not just talking about the military. The police, fire and rescue workers, ambulance attendants, the able but chronically unemployed, and a massive reserve of the physically and emotionally abused, all have a voice that will unite and be heard over the din of nationalistic propaganda."
"Will unite, not might unite?"
"Will unite." She gathered a short breath, and counted on her fingers. "Oppressive systems cannot help but breed rebellion, because all things inherently strive; courage is also contagious, and unification completes the energetic cycle. For now," she inhaled deeply, "they are silent because they’ve been taught that they are not quite right when, with a little help, they’ll learn that it’s the other way around." She tapped her temple as we topped the boat ramp and turned left.
"It’s the relentless draw of ‘the way things are’ in the world they left behind that’s killing so many of them, because their continuity has been shattered, and the cultural glue of common assumptions is no longer filling the gaps in their reason. Like you, they have not been set back in the world—they have transcended a critical aspect of aberrant reasoning, and been left hanging."
"You’re saying that helping veterans reintegrate into the society that shaped them, hurts them?"
"Psychologically, it is an attempt to reverse the process of their personal evolution. If they were instead helped by those with the same experience to embrace what they’ve seen and done, as is, and why they participated without reasoning justifications, they would clinch the lesson as-it-was-meant-to-be," she ran on, "because that is the design of the experience."
"What was the lesson?" I said as Bonnie stopped to look at an engineering monument to momentum outside of the Emily Carr University: a ball bearing rolls down a ramp into a cup, the cup tilts, the ball strikes a bell, the swing of the bell actuates a lever etc.
Looking at the glass-encased device, she said, "The same as it was for you. They were supposed to be screwed up to make a developmental point they had not learned in lesser ways, and now they have succeeded. These ways could be of many lifetimes of trying different approaches, but they definitely include the culture they came from this time around." She turned to face me. "I’m not saying there aren’t some positive ways they’re being reintegrated, like learning how to trust, and coming out of their emotional shells. It’s the patriot thingy I’m talking about." She turned to walk away.
"The true courage of their journey," she said as I caught up, "lies in making this discovery. Honoring the journey is their duty to themselves, their children, and their culture, by speaking out and making a stand. Moving on, let’s look at conditioning from a Stalk…"
"Sorry. Just to cover all bases, some people I know said they’re not affected by regularly working in dangerous places. How do you explain that?"
"How do you explain that?"
"I’m biased, but I don’t see how it’s possible unless there’s a level of courage I don’t know about."
"Or their courage has been infected, deflected, or assimilated."
"They’re displacing fear to embrace a cause?"
"They’ve dealt with it in other ways, but one way or another they’ll leak when the pressure is on, and their button’s are pushed. Follow up on their cause."
"That would be the public’s right to know, as a belief entrenched during their formal training, and evolved into a conviction by way of being shot at, both of which they use to define themselves. They have also learned how to function publicly," I carried on, "but as you said, I’ve seen them leak through scorn, intellectual rants, and in a bottle, when the truth stood too close."
"Or in painting by numbers—there is always something to hang onto when the floor disappears from beneath your reason, and it takes a while to find a good camouflage hand-hold."
"The floor disappearing is from having witnessed the insanity?"
"You would know—you walked away from massacres." She cleared her throat. "It’s also possible that the brighter one’s realized they were contributing to the carnage, by sanitizing heinous acts, be that a secret they are keeping from themselves or an issue they cannot resolve and remain employed. Moving on—we’re going to look at conditioning from an energetic perspective," she said, becoming the academician.
"Can I ask you a stupid question?" I said.
"Why not take a moment and ask me an intelligent one?" Bonnie said, looking up to search for the broad yellow building that was Bridges Restaurant, bar, grill, meeting place, and general single’s hangout on the weekends. Spotting a corner of the building, she led us in that direction.
"The question is this," I said, having dismissed an inappropriate remark, "you seem to define true courage as doing the right thing. This includes knowing what that is, either by facing yourself or already having done this, so that you have no secrets to blur the assessment of the underlying nature of an act. Is this accurate?"
"It is as far as it goes, but you might recall an early Kha-lib channel: he said everyone on a physical cycle of development is courageous. This is not only because of the intensity and the hazards involved in this means of self-exploration, but because every incarnation is an investment in a blind trust." She looked my way. "You’re not seeing the big deal, are you?"
"Not really."
"Meaning that you are seeing it through an alternate reality?"
"Sorry—no I can’t see the big deal."
"In that case, I’ve got another zipper-like story."
"Ready when you are."
She spoke efficiently, as if presenting symptoms for a medical review while we walked around, between, and through gaggles of tourists.
"An entity returning near the end of her physical cycle is displeased with her last performance, and she decides to design an irrefutable lesson. It was supposed to go like this: the first third of his journey—she had chosen the male perspective—included a persona, friends, and cultural influences that would focus him on manipulating the way things are to his advantage. The second third was to be formally educated in these ways, and to become wealthy as a master marketer. The third phase was to lose it all, because the fog of self-deception would cause him to believe he deserved his advantages—the phenomenon of focusing tightly on self that he had wanted to correct. However, he became so caught up in the modality of his exploration of mankind’s weaknesses that he failed to see the awakening omens he had designed into this phase. So far?" she said, seeing a question in my eyes.
"Fog of self-deception?"
Holding up a finger, she said, "Even from his narrowing perspective, he intellectually knew better than to judge others for any reason, let alone for small things like appearances, physical circumstances, and social skills. However, his quick wit, comfortable lifestyle, and easy adaptation to a wide range of mostly affluent circumstances had slowly changed him."
I nodded my understanding of the tug of social influence.
"I am not saying he became mean; he remained generally benign when not occasionally benevolent, because that much of his heart still ruled. But in the final stage of his journey, he felt inconvenienced by the average person: they were uninteresting because he could manipulate them, and so felt no special need to help anyone. Overall, insincerity became the hallmark of his exploration, and appreciation for his circumstances all-but disappeared in that which he had almost effortlessly achieved." She raised a questioning brow.
"The change over point would be from remaining unaware of his growing sense of superiority?"
"Correct."
"The redo should be good."
"It is very good." First taking a thoughtful breath, Bonnie said, "The entity decided to return amid equal but opposite circumstances to his former advantages, by designing a superb confluence of minimally odd behaviors that would act like a social snare all of her life. But she will not know why she had essentially been shunned until her life review."
"Sorry—couple of things: she wasn’t like a megalomaniac; she just secretly believed her internal press as she accumulated the things that represented success?"
"And her social status being the most influential of these things, but as we’ve discussed there are no small flaws in Mastery lessons."
"Okay, and how could she not know that she was different if she was shunned?"
"Two points: I said shunned because even the people who will know her well, and care about her, will learn to ignore these strange aspects of her behavior. Doing this inevitably leads to generally ignoring her presence in the same way others pay attention to their friends, and the effect is a relaxed, unconscious shunning." Bonnie motioned that point aside. "Her plan was to be conformed from birth to the ways of the world, like everyone else, but with a masterstroke of cognitive distortion: I use this term to distinguish it from ours, but there is nothing inherently wrong with her intellectual processes. It’s simply different."
"Understood."
"She will put a minuscule crimp in the Fine Waves of her interpretive centers, which will result in a slightly skewed way of seeing things, as well as how she communicates."
"Fine Waves?"
"Everything is energy—imagine a wobbly wheel of energy-perception creating occasional gaps at imprecise moments. You'll see... because these specialized waves also touch the orientation waves of her entire Identity, she will not be aware that there is anything different about her until, and unless, the outside world informs her directly of what they see as peculiarities." Bonnie shrugged. "But they won’t, because they will see them as mental or genetic defects. She will also have a personal camouflage to help her not notice many of people’s tiny negative responses; she will be endlessly optimistic, naturally kind, selfless, and smile until your face hurts—and all of it sincere."
"Are her peculiarities defects?"
"Maybe to you optimism, kindness, and selfless smiling are abnormalities?"
"You know what I mean."
Bonnie looked at me as if I must be joking. Seeing that I wasn’t, she said, "The Down’s Syndrome child?" prompting me to connect to my own answer.
I still missed the point.
"You are energy," she explained patiently. "You design your mental, physical, and emotional circumstances as energetic pulses and frequencies that, when slowed to appropriate levels, function as they should in a physical context. Your DNA represents these ideas, so where science can locate a so-called defect that causes Down ’s syndrome they are identifying the physical manifestation of a purposefully designed, less mobile intellect, which the entity wanted so that they can fully explore their world from an emotional perspective."
"Got it, the judgment will be of apparent defects. What will they look like?"
"She will have a superior, but more fluid intellect than ours, but it will lack the ability of refined verbal expression that usually comes with it." Bonnie paused for an organizational moment. "Internally," she said, satisfied with where she was going, "she will organize her thoughts, and so her expressions, based on a continuity of personalized connections—think of these connections as symbols her crimp will generate in place of the language-based, shared assumptions you and I make when we chat. In effect, where we make presumptive connections, her processing of context will sometimes only graze the same organizational standards we use."
"In English, what would her contextual processing be like?"
"Her internal cognition of continuity is more figurative than ours—fine nuance is inherent to her visually oriented thinking, so she will excel at things like design, painting, and photography. The trade-off will be that this internal gift will impinge on her exterior world, where nuance and context are based on the common assumptions contained within the otherwise literal descriptions of language. The effect will that she sometimes uses language in peculiar ways, like saying going and coming instead of the other way around, and mixing metaphors like ‘out of the fire and into the black pot.’ However, for the most part she’ll think she’s saying coming and going, because this is entirety consistent with her intentions—intentions activate the connections between the fine waves."
"She hears her internal translation, not what she actually said?"
"Correct. Simplistically, she might intend to say, ‘That’s a very nice red dress,’ but it comes out as ‘That’s a red dress,’ because the crimp filled a portion of the thought with a pleasant symbol. Of course the recipient can’t know this, and will assume the blunt comment is a criticism: our entity will do this only often enough to be an oddity."
"And she can’t joke her way out, because she doesn’t know what she did. Tough spot."
"She’s also one of those people who can’t tell a joke."
"I knew a girl who always started telling them with the punch line," I snickered, "which became the joke."
"Her unique way of organizing thoughts skewed contexts according to your standard means of interpretation," Bonnie said, with a slow shake of her head. "This caused your friend to miscomprehend jokes, because perceiving the nuance of language that comedy depends on was lacking, correct?"
"Now that you mention it."
"I’d also bet that satire confused her, and she perceived teasing and sarcasm as critical judgments, but she understood slapstick—not that it was always funny, or maybe funny only to her?"
"You’d win that bet," I said awkwardly. "But it was kind of cute," I added to mitigate my judgments of her.