I like the idea of mental maps or different ideas that make up the way that we navigate the world.  The metaphor I like to use for this is like a thousand separate sheets of acetate with information on each sheet, and they are all stacked up on top of each other at the same time, with bits and pieces of information....

Consciousness is like the light on the overhead projector is turned on, illuminating the whole stack of "doodles"

I am working through this idea, and I do not endorse or argue with anyone's map they use to navigate the world, I only help people make adjustments that they want to make and would see as beneficial......

Some of the ideas are simple, and sometimes they may be too simple or in need of some adjustment or refinement.

I am?
Others are?
-"All people suck" vs "All people suck, sometimes." vs "All people disappoint, sometimes"
The world is?
Introvert or extrovert; growth and fixed mindset; Internalizer vs Externalizer
scarcity vs abundance mindset....

Some are "Big picture" ideas like Tyranny versus famine...
Perhaps your dad told you "If you do not work you do not eat."
Is this right? Is it wrong? Does it matter?  What is my map?
Do I want to change this?  Do I want to make it more clear?
What do I want to do with this?

Big picture down operations is the right way
Details up is the right way


Us versus them, we are good/moral they are evil/immoral
Oppressed and oppressor or some variation of that theme.

Supply/demand  or entropy or maybe even "Murphy's Law"

Obviously this can include story, myth, parables, legends, fables--
Usually more complex sets of ideas, the myth of Sisiphus; the myth of medusa
My favorite is the story of the little bird....

The spiritual sheet might be agnostic, or aetheist or perhaps a collection of different thing; the 6 pillars of Islam or the 10 commandments, or perhaps the "golden rule" some collection of stories/parables/history

Mental maps can also include free standing ideas that you may think of as being correct:
Everything happens for a reason
Consider the source
Trust but verify

Parental relationships?
For most people there are a variety of ideas/beliefs that are tied into a specific interaction or history or current view.
A simple example is something like "I should or have to honor my parents"
So at any time I have a violation of that "dictate" I will question it in a round about way, for example "Am I being a good son?"
"Am I doing a good job?" "What can I do to fix it?"
The current map makes you the responsible party.

Maybe I need a more complex "map" maybe I need to update that part of the map?
Something like "Mutual respect is appropriate for adult children/parental relationships, holding both accountable to be respectful".
---It is hard to get to a new place without updating the map......



Rehab might insist that the Serenity Prayer is something to add to our mental maps...


CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) might insist that we adopt USA (unconditional Self Acceptance).....

NLP (neurolinguistical programming) might insist we try to  work in the presuppositions of NLP.....


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It may be the actual name of an idea, or just a conception of the idea...
For example meritocracy is an idea; however some people may not believe the same idea, or may even believe the opposite....or something more in depth, like from a book..
"The tyranny of Merit" a 2020 book by Michael Sandel; who claims that process of merit has been corrupted.....not making any judgement in any direction.

Other things that be to be part of maps:
"I may not agree with what you are saying, but people died for that right"
"Your rights end where mine begin; my rights end where your begin."
It is also possible to have contradictory beliefs at the same time without realizing it, such as
"Silence is violence" "Believe all people"

Or even the old saying from Uncle Ben to Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility"


Simple ideas that can be added to be useful:
If one had a family member with drug addiction and/or mental illness...
All the good things I remember about this person was the person they wanted to be and all the bad things were due to the addiction/illness/ect....

I did the math and decided that:
I was/am mostly successful rather than an utter failure

The skier is told to "follow the path", the thing they do not tell skiers is, "Don't hit a tree", because if you tell someone that, all they see is trees and they will invariably hit one.....the same is true of telling yourself "Don't mess up/make a mistake" you will invariably run into one.
...."Don't compare yourself to others" is wrong as well, it is a "don't" and fails for the reason all "do nots" seem to fail....looking at the wrong thing.
So the question is can a useful map be a "don't"?......
Perhaps, maybe something like "Don't sit on the fence." But is this a good map, or would a better map be  the yes or no, not guess so statements of Mr. Myagi from The Karate kid???

The Band Firehouse had implored Baby "Don't treat me bad"  Would that work? Not sure....

A plan to deal with disrespect:
Acknowledge the message but insist they rephrase it in a respectful way...
Or even a simple scene from the TV series, The Office....
Micheal Scott is upset and he approaches Daryl and says "Hey. hey. hey. You Idiot!"
Daryl just looks at him and calmly says "start over...."
"Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lays our growth and our freedom."  Victor Frankel

A lack of planning on your part, does not constitute an emergency on my part.

The short distance from confusion/frustration to anger....
The Spartan.....confirm before you conclude

Transactional analysis
The four basic life positions


Things people look at for relationships
The 5 love languages
Attachment styles (communication/conflict/ect)

This can go into complex belief systems, or negative core beliefs (require different things to change them)

The tyrannical father (toxic masculine) and the over-protective  mother (toxic feminine) both are difficult to deal with, though the devouring mother is way worse in terms of a child  becoming a functioning adult....
The metaphor of the caterpillar going into it's cocoon, and struggling to emerge as a butterfly is apt for this.  considerate and helpful people saw the small hole the butterfly had to emerge from, and made the process easier by enlarging the opening....

The struggle is what fills the soft wings with fluid and when they harden allows the butterfly to actually fly.

Removing that struggle results in butterflies with crumpled wings, incapable of ever flying, doomed to death or  eternal dependence.

How do you tell the difference between the competent responsible masculine and the tyrant?  Can you?
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I have heard of people kind of idealizing love and having an experience called "limerence". It is usually based on having very bad examples of love/relationships in our family, then high standards for ourselves (I would never do XYZ to someone I love)...and the other person cannot meet our standards so we live in constant disappointment with the other person/love.


It seems that we have talked about the thoughts, and they seem to be staying the same, so here is the idea, all the things that you currently have in mind, needs to die and you grieve that loss, so that something new can grow in it's place.  As long as the hope of this is alive it will stick around, You will still be looking for it and trying to find it or figure out how to get it.
We have been trying to prune away parts of the overgrowth of the limerence kudzu, but it seems to grow right back, with no dent in it.
I could be wrong and perhaps you feel that some of the thoughts have changed, and you would like to review the progress in those areas.

It is very similar to in the book "Adult children of emotionally immature parents" as long as the person hopes for and wants to connect emotionally that hope keeps them stuck in demanding something from the parent that they cannot provide.  Limerence is very similar to that, as long as the hope of it coming true holds, I am stuck in the whole morass of it, once I grieve that loss and accept reality; then I can focus on other areas of life.

There seems to be several things going on at the same time. One is that messages from someone via technology/in person or in whatever form, are nice, they often hit our needs for attention/affection as well as the dopamine released in the brain.
It is one reason that people used to (in the days before cell phones) get on the phone and "talk all night".....both people were enjoying it a lot.

The problem is that I cannot get or even expect that sort of "constant reinforcement" and have to be ok in the case of missing or a lack of that activity....What happens when the messages stop or pause? One might say that the thoughts/feelings when not getting the messages is one way of defining the so called "secure attachment" as opposed to avoidant/fearful/anxious attachment combinations.

So the problem is the thoughts/feelings that occur when no messages are happening?
The popcorn thoughts, I can end up with a whole bowl of burnt popcorn feeling rejected....even though I have not been rejected in real life.
(I hope you recall the popcorn thought metaphor) but it is good for in the moment, but the real source of the thoughts also has to be dealt with.
The negative core belief(s) "The dragon".


I remember us talking about that before the idea how would you even know if he was talking or dating someone else.
So maybe we can think about this in a different way, kind of rephrase some of this...
"the guy I'm in love with" .....the object of my limerence
"has been dating another girl for months" .....is dating a person (who is not me)
"he just didn't have the heart to tell me. " ....and he did not see any reason to update me on his life....


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Yes so one problem is that often we have belief in or faith in some system and that gives us a sense of security/safety.  Usually this is the family system initially, and then maybe the educational system or a spiritual system, maybe even the legal system, or maybe capitalism or socialism.....Tons of other "isms" are possible; rationalism, egoism, utopianism, Aetheism; utilitarianism, etc..."ad infinitum?"

The problem is straightforward enough, human beings do not have a system that can prepare them for the malavalence and chaos (tragedy and suffering) of real life, and that is a problem.  Especially after an encounter with evil, and once you lose faith in everything, many fall into nihilism.  Nihilism is a tough place to be and the alternative is that suddenly it is you alone against whatever the world can take out of you.....Some people hide and avoid and become ever more afraid and others face it and potentially become stronger....assuming whatever it is does not devour them.

Typically those are the big ones, but I think of it like overlays on an over head projector, where you have so many little bits and pieces (some you may not be aware of) that composes an overall "mental map" as a map its purpose is to get you from where you are (if you even know that) to some better chosen destination.

I hope that makes sense?





At the Oxford College in the UK, the Senior grounds keeper and arborist plants a young oak tree. The Senior arborist says to his apprentice, "This tree is to be preserved for when the arching beams and support beams get beatles. Oak always get beatles. When I move on, plant another tree. We'll need plenty when the time comes." So the apprentice becomes the master continues the tradition and so on. The trees grow massive in two hundred and fifty years there are some odd 25 or 30, 10 of which could rebuild a new hall. Other plants and trees were replaced in favor of new horticulture or to accommodate an expanding campus, but those trees were sacred, like an informal mascot. When the beam were finally riddled with holes and needed to be replaced, two of the trees were cut down, hand carved and oiled, and replaced the old beams. To this day the oak are plants in honor of the arborist who takes his or her leave of the school and the future generations of students who will underneath the great rafters.

This story, as opposed to your typical apocalypse story concerning the environment, teaches coexistence with nature in a culture that departed from those ideas with the enlightenment, which encouraged mastery over the world, and the ushering in of the post-modern world by industrialism and the World Wars. It soothes the dystopia fatigue and gives people a framework to build intuitively eco friendly decisions. It also gives hope for community cooperation and benefit therefrom. The emotionality and form of communication from stories is what expands empathy from a responsibility to a pleasure, in my opinion.


"To regard anyone except yourself as responsible for your judgement is to be a slave, not a free man.  It is from this fact that the liberal arts acquire their name."
---Mortimer Adler


In the book "What the internet is doing to our brains; the shallows" by Nicholas Carr..."As we reach the limits of our working memory, it becomes harder to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant information, signal from noise.  We become mindless consumers of data."

(If they are not selling you something (big tech) then you are the product....they are selling)

Avoid these things
Overload
Distractions
Multitasking


Charlie Munger
"Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not keep up with every damn thing in the world."


"I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do."

Quality versus quantity knowledge
Trivial versus essential
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:34, Fri 22 Dec 2023.