I teach personality theory - identity, concepts of the self, individual differences, etc. As if these things we identify in ourselves and others really exist. There are many perspectives on personality: psychoanalytic (freud), humanistic (Maslow), Behaviourist (Skinner), Trait (Goldberg), Type (Jung), Evolutionary (Buss), and Neurological (Fisher), to name a few. They all have merit, and they are not necessarily contradictory. We might form a more holistic picture of the human condition when taken together, but they all miss something. The problem is, I can’t quite put my finger on it. Therefore, I question the existence of a self or personality at all. Just because I believe myself to be, because I convince myself of my own existence by virtue of my thoughts and words and that of others, does not mean that I am. The more I consider it, the more it seems I am not.

There is a monologue inside me, although, at times, it seems like a dialogue. This is all a fabrication. Language, whether uttered aloud or within the confines of my being, is clever but limited. It either builds me up or tears me down; all the while, it is a fiction. Or rather, it represents a fiction. That fiction is what I refer to as me, a creation of whatever I am at my core. Language allows me to communicate, but I don’t need it, really. People of different languages, or indeed none at all, find a way to communicate. Besides, language never really delivers. We can never say what we mean; often, what we say creates more problems for us and others than we’d care to have. I cannot explain my experience fully. Language isn’t enough.

Without the narrative that goes on within me, I could not be me, whatever that is or what I choose to believe that is. Without the words that silently disrupt my inner state, I could not be this fictional thing, this actor. I’d be something else, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe I would be more like the animals. Perhaps I would be free then. In that sense, language imprisons us within our own concepts of ourselves. We believe the words we and others utter, or we don’t. Either way, we believe something and disbelieve something else by the very act of the first instance. And within this false dichotomy, there is us, caught, imprisoned.

There is no humanity in the language we speak. Our sense of humanity is lost in the words. Too much is disguised by words, hidden away in the dark corners of our minds. I am hiding behind what I say, and so are you. “How are you?” I ask. “I’m grand, thanks; how are you?” he replies. Do I really want to know? What do I mean when I ask someone how they are? Maybe I have something I want to reveal, so in asking, I want to be asked. I want to say how I am, but still I fail. I wish to reveal my humanity, but I can’t because saying it somehow makes it real and the act of everyday living untrue. If I speak it, I release it from the dark corner of my mind. Maybe something else in me speaks it or wants to speak it. When they respond, “I’m grand, thanks”, what do they mean? He’s not actually grand at all; He’s in a nasty fucking place. His relationship isn’t great at all these days. He’s not getting on well with his teenage child. His job is shitty, and he’d rather be doing something else with his life. Fuck it anyway, he thinks. Blinkers on, head down. If he ignores it, it will go away.

We fool ourselves and others fool us too. We accept it all. Politics is essentially the “art” of deception. Sales and marketing are, too. They purposely use words to deceive, manipulate, and coerce us and perhaps themselves too. To conjure the words of an apparent higher power that acts as a veil over their own true intents. They are psychopathic. And us, unable or unwilling to challenge the authenticity of the words used, to pull back the veil and to reveal the deceit, row in and accept the words we hear as truth—naive, stupid humans.

We often praise ourselves for being the highest order of animals on this planet simply because we can chew up and spit out everything and everyone else at will. We are destructive and psychotic creatures, and although our cognitive capacities have allowed us to think and rationalise, this function will be our downfall.

Sometimes I think we’d be better off without words, without language. It acts like a smokescreen. Without it, maybe we’d get to know who we are and treat ourselves and others a little better.

And yes, I get the irony here.

You’re stuck here. You might as well accept that unless, of course, you decide to check out.

Is this a fabrication, something I created myself?

Start with a question.

Ok, so in reverse, I get it.

What else do you think this is? To exist in physical reality, you must have an identity and with that comes a reality. You are complicit in it. How it is currently wasn’t always the case, discussing this in linear terms, but it is so now. This is all there is.

Why was the tree cut down?

You didn’t need it anymore.

What do you mean I didn’t need it?

It served as an anchor, something in your visual field that grounded you at a time when you were ungrounded. It formed a frame of reference through which you could make sense of things. It did its job, and when you left it, it left you. Everything is connected at a level that human beings cannot understand. Some see it and come up with concepts to explain it, but ultimately, there is no explanation that is completely satisfactory. Take it for granted that when an experience stands out in your conscious awareness, it does so because you called upon it — it and your thought about it mutually arose at a level you have no conscious awareness of.

The plant on the table sends roots into the air. It’s a water plant, and if in its natural habitat would take root and split — just like a human child from its mother. It doesn’t have that opportunity where it currently sits, so the roots die. Just like humans.

Technology, ok.

Technology is an extension of sorts, a temporary manifestation of yourself. You are becoming absorbed into that to large degrees. You reach into the “ether” (spaces beyond human sensory reading) with these machines, and you discover more. What you may not be aware of is that these machines are extensions of the ego self you have created. They are your eyes and ears and fingers, just like the roots of the water plant. Some die away, and others take root. These others are taking many of you into alternate realities out of which you will not return. This is the way the world you occupy now exists. A new reality will exist for those of you who leave here on that level.

So there are new realities being made by us even though we occupy the same physical reality?

There is a reality unique to every point of “consciousness”.

How do I know I’m not simply fabricating all of this from what I have already been exposed to through all my life experiences?

Well, you see how the answer drops as soon as you ask it? Even before you finish asking it?

Yes.

Well, all questions and answers, therefore, exist in the same space and time. Of course, you have already realised that space and time are merely aspects that you have created and afforded reality, right?

Back to your question… as we discussed in the first conversation, the validity of the unique self has already been established. To whom will you seek validity if you cannot, will not, accept the validity of your own self and the conversations you have with that self? Should you look to some other human being and what they say as more or less valid than this conversation or any other conversation you may have? Are you insane? To whom should you look for clarification of sanity or insanity?

Men? Religion? Science? Philosophy? Psychology?

Are these not systems of thought?

Now, back to your questions.

What is a psychotic episode?

The ego self becomes detached from its grounding in physical reality. It “floats” so to speak, without its physical attributes. And so that appears to be very scary for the subject. Remember, these are words. We’re doing our best to convey something that is fundamentally experiential. Words never get there. But you know that already. The Aeon video you watched makes a good account of this.

What’s my place here now? I realise there is no going back. I could say to myself that I get to decide, but I don’t think this is entirely accurate. So what’s the story?

You’re doing it. Accept that this is it. Earning money is not an issue, you already have momentum there, so keep doing what you’re doing. Any “effort” will be counterproductive.

I find that hard to digest. I need and want stability.

You have stability, perhaps more stability now than you have ever had before. Soak it up. Do what you write about and go where you are drawn. Question less. And as I told you already…get quiet.

Extract from the compilation, “An Assemblage of Inevitable Misunderstandings”, an unrefined and plotless collection of thoughts and monologues on the phenomenon of life. Time, money, sexuality, politics, art, religion, family, naivety, knowledge, science, imagination, dreams, life and death…whatever. It’s all it.

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This short piece is from a series titled “An Assemblage…” which will be going out randomly over the next who knows how long. It is draft content that I’m compiling in a single continuous narrative. No chapters, no headings. An absence of structure. I’m taking inspiration from another long gone…can you tell who it might be? These pieces will be for paying subscribers only so if you want access, pony up!

There is an inherent structure to this life. Structure that language affords it. Structure that writing affords it. But of itself, it has no structure. There is an essence of something that comes to the mind of what I perceive myself to be, and its output is in words. I don’t know what it is really. Perhaps this is what I am aside from that surface-level something that deems itself so important.

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