“I can persuade myself to be quiet by realizing that angry words cannot touch me unless I allow them to.” (ODAT, 29 July)
I imagine the events, the circumstances, the actions and words of others, their speculated views, to reside out there, and to approach me, but to find a wall with a gate. The castle is as impregnable as I choose. I let in only what I want to let in. To let something in means to attribute it some significance. The wall is therefore semi-permeable, like a cell membrane with ion channels that act as gates, letting some things in or out, then shutting down and blocking passage in either direction.
Within the castle, everything is fine. Enemies need not be allowed in. If they are allowed in, they can be expelled.
In other words, nothing requires a reaction. Complete non-reactivity is the default position. ‘It’s not a good thing; it’s not a bad thing; it’s just a thing.’ Events, circumstances, actions, words, and views are in constant circulation out there. None of them need concern me. I can let a century pass without even knowing what is going on in the century.
I get to choose what to take an interest in outside. I get to choose what to grant admission to. But even something’s adjacency is no cause to be affected. ‘He’s not angry at you; he’s angry near you.’ ‘The barking of the dog is just a sound echoing down a cavernous passage.’
Events, circumstances, actions, words, and views have only the significance I give them.
How is significance given? By having a Template for how life ought to be and measuring the event, the circumstance, the action, the words, the view against the template. The Assessor assesses: good or bad? The Recorded records. The Playback Mechanisms replays and replays. And I then call that life. It’s not life. It’s screenplay, and I’ve written the screenplay by selecting horrors and constructing a collage, a montage, a tableau vivant out of them.
Nothing ever affects me: what I select and react to is what affects me, and the nature of the affect is determined by the Template, and I chose the Template. If the castle is overrun by miscreants, that’s not Castle Life. That’s invasion. The miscreants must be taken by the scruff of the collar, one by one, and eliminated. Once every single miscreant is eliminated, I discover what life actually is, which is largely silence.
I’m choosing every aspect of my life, therefore, everything in it. Nothing need be part of the picture, even a mosquito bite. The body is as much part of the so-called world as The Election, Little Debbie’s Nutty Buddies, or Mozambique. It is as much of my business as I let it. It can send signals and I can react to them or ignore them.
The basic response to the world is therefore chiefly to pause and wait and see whether it requires a reaction. Someone sent me a message last January. They think I haven’t replied. I’m still wondering whether to reply. I’ve neither replied nor not replied. I’m simply paused.