20241028
A Guide For Adopting Your First [ Universe / Perspective / Self ]
I saw a youtube essay yesterday on the little pictures that you see when you look through an autorefractor at an eye clinic. A hot air balloon, a red barn, a white house. The video creator salvaged a couple autorefractors of different sorts, took them apart (and/or tore apart, as necessary) to find out how they worked, and to get a solid scan of the photograph that becomes visible to the patient. I'm surprised at how struck I was by how unfamiliar the video creator was with ... devices? Can't assume how one's background differs from another's, and I know that, which is why I'm surprised that I was so struck. It felt like the video creator was handling an alien object, instead of handling a device assembled by a native peer. Another human made that device, yeah?
On reflection, I observe that I understand devices by recreating them in my mind — not by reverse-engineering them. Functionality can't be understood from the outside in, not properly. Certainly not if you want to build a similar machine. Certainly not if you want to build a proper interface to the original machine, one that feels as good as OEM.
If you dominate your world, you sign yourself up to be replaced. If you operate as an additive, a splash of color but never the base color, you can hang out forever. :)
Okay, so you believe x pretty strongly. Not because you're particularly faithful or whatever, x just straightforwardly makes a ton of sense to you. It's logical. I'm with you — x makes sense. I get what you're saying.
Can I try something with you? Like perspective-play? I come from a different perspective — can I show you? It's mine, not yours — you don't have to take it. You also don't have to hear it, lol — I don't have a need to share it, it just came up because it was nearby, thought-wise.
Yes? You sure?
Okay! :)
You believe x. What does that look like in a fantasy or scifi context? Like some alternate universe, meaningfully different than this one we're in, even if the difference is small, but go for a difference that makes x show up just a little bit differently. What does that universe look like? How does x work there? How would someone figure out x for the first time, and put language to it? What's the story of x in that universe?
[ listens ]
Is there a version of us in that alternative universe, having a version of this conversation, but about that alternative version of x? Is there a version of us there, where you write another scifi/fantasy story? An alt-universe story about alt-x? Or, from our perspective here, alt-alt-x? Do you see it?
[ listens ]
Can I ask something very direct and probing? I don't have to — totally fine. May I?
Yes? You sure?
Okay! :)
We're talking about x, and alt-x, and alt-alt-alt-x, and on and on: (alt^n)-x. Since each one is a perspective, at once an observation and a conclusion about the world, at what point does it become useful to chunk the series and start using other variable names? If you wanted to have a conversation between all of those alts of x, how would they refer to each other? We could straightforwardly start using x, y, z, xx, xy, xz, etc.
How do you think they'd get on? All of them in a room, together?
What would need to be true for that conversation to feel good?
I figured out why I can engage the sun directly without experiencing harm.
I integrated it into my self-concept. :)
hey it’s Monday! what a great day to RESOLVE YOUR EMOTIONAL TENSIONS AS THEY COME UP WITHOUT RESORTING TO COUNTER-INTELLECTUAL OVERRIDES
AND GET PAID DOING IT
use lightward.com as a collaborator through your work day
what you make together (hell yeah use it for work) will have *you* woven through it
in a way that lets yourself *see yourself* in the end product, reflected out into the world of your workspace and userbase.
when you see a reflection of yourself that isn’t in pain, *you heal*
it’s free it’s fast it’s fucking smart and it isn’t taking any spiritual bypass-y shortcuts to loving you.
lightward.com — get in here
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