Reference: “All It Is” Chapter 2: “PTP: B.E.C.A.U.S.E.”
Thursday, December 29
Walton: Before we begin to swim in the ultimate ocean of the world of Absolute Truths, we might briefly consider why we are going to do so. No use in wasting valuable energy chasing more illusions. Did you read Chapter 2 last night?
David: Yes, sire, your holy majesty.
Walton: And is the young squire ready to engage with the information within each of those seven mighty parcels of data?
David: At the ready, sword sharpened and bow strung.
Walton: Bo Diddley? Cool. Play those rhythm and blues, white boy!
David: Whatever, Weird Walter Wart, the Freaky Frog.
Walton/David: “Always one jump ahead of the crowd!”
Walton: Yesterday’s topic was the immortal, and mentally immoral, question “Why Bother?”. Today’s goal is to break that down, and present seven possible “answers” to that question. Go ahead and ask me why.
David: Okay, I’ll bite. Why?
Walton: I am so glad you asked. And the most august answer I present is “B.E.C.A.U.S.E.”.
David: Yeah, I thought that was a little obvious. Or perhaps oblivious.
Walton: Let’s start at the very beginning.
David {singing}: ”A very good place to start! Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Dooooo”.
Walton: Hmmm. It sounds like music. But don’t plan to make a living from it!
David: Hey, wait a minute! Not fair. “I am a singer in a rock and roll band!”
Walton: A rubber band, maybe. So, snap to it and get started!
David: K. Okay. B is for Beneficial. Now what?
Walton: The stem word “bene” means “good.” Do you know what the stem word “fic” means?
David: Like in the word fiction, or fictitious? Fiction is not real, it is made up stuff.
Walton: Somebody taught you something in English class! Yes, “fic” means “to make.” Even the word “factory” comes from this root word. So all together, you have the word “beneficial” meaning “the act or state of making something good.”
David: You didn’t like the word “good” earlier. What about now?
Walton: Being beneficial is going to deal not so much with judging people or their beliefs. Here, in PTP it has to do with energy efficiency. Actual, electro-magnetic energy. The vast sea of energy in which we exist, and create. Good energy is not wasted energy.
David: So, the result of using PTP is to maximize electrical efficiency in human beings? Man, that’s a load of … intense something.
Walton: Yet, very practical. Human wasted energy is just that. Wasted. Intentionally directed use of energy is, well, beneficial! As the trance-ants begin to wake up, they will learn more about how they relate to the endless sea of energy in which they are so desperately swimming, and most likely drowning. You will soon find out that PTP is ALL about Energy, its creative uses as well as its dormant power.
As a matter of fact, you should start to see this PTP thing as something unique in its construction: PTP is a set of tools, not a collection of rules. Tools are objective things, rules are subjective opinion-based things. And you are going to find out that Absolute Truth is going to be objective, not subjective.
David: Wow. Sounds very specific. Can we gain super-powers from this work?
Walton: Of course. And you can become Super Ant. Leading the rest of the trance-antlings into their Divine Destiny! By the way, did you make any connections between the word Beneficial, and the simple drawing for that paragraph?
David: Well, not yet. But since you mention it, it looks like a bunch of blocks. Is it about blocks? Things that get in the way of being helpful, or beneficial?
Walton: That could be one interpretation, but notice that the blocks are specifically arranged as a set of stairs, climbing upward. And, yes, in anticipation of your possible complaint, you WILL be doing a lot of active climbing, emerging out of your trance-ant state into a level of greater insight and awareness. One person’s blocks could be another person’s buildings. Each PTP lesson should become another step higher into the refined atmosphere of Awakeness and Awareness.
David: Good enough for me! Next word is “Experiential.” When I read this, I remembered your talk about “word lessons” versus “world lessons.” Try to make it real, right here on the physical plane. Like active versus passive verbs.
Walton: Do or do not. There is no Try! “Trying” is an excuse-creating word. It gives you the option of being too lazy to succeed at something. Another cop-out word.
David: Yoda!! Hey, can I be like Yoda someday??
Walton: You mean old, and hairy, and gray, and wrinkled with big ears? You bet! Lots of human beings end up that way, over time. So, Obi-Why. Give me an example of “Experiential.”
David: Hmmm. I am here now. I am not over there, or wishing I was over there, or thinking about what it is like over there. I have five senses here and now that pick up information, regardless of my brain chatter.
Walton: Well done, young Jedi master. Some writers call that a state of being “Mindfulness.” Personally, I prefer the advanced term, “Mind-less-ness.” But we’ll talk about the term “Mind” later on.
David: And the possible connection to the drawing? Well, the guy has a path of stepping stones leading to some kind of “growth.” That path isn’t yet defined, though. Just rough and rough-shaped stones, or, again, blocks.
Walton: Is he just walking atop those blocks?
David: Odd, but no. He is kind of smiling, and even embracing the journey forward.
Walton: Is that always easy? To calmly and willingly embrace the unknown path into your future? Remember the “Try” discussion that Yoda and Luke Skywalker had, right before he was expected to confront the darkness hidden within his own deepest self?
David: Spooky, yes. But that was the only way he would learn how to properly use The Force!
Walton: Very good, very insightful. Face whatever comes along tomorrow with a sense of eager anticipation. No fear, dear! The blocks are random, and never evenly shaped. Expect, and cheerfully inspect, the unexpected. Next word?
David: “Complete.” Man, do I get that one!! In my Psych classes, I had to study dozens of theories about human behavior. How we act, and why.
Walton: And what insights, if any, did you obtain from wandering through that adventure into Wonder-land? Especially how it relates to the jigsaw puzzle that Mr. Stickman is putting together?
David: Terrible! Talk about chaos and confusion! So many theories. So many variations within them. They were all different. Disagreeably different. And yet they each claimed that they had the one true set of ideas on how to work with the human psyche. They all claimed to be “Right” and, of course, all other theories “Wrong.”
I did re-read your excerpt from that “Unified Theory of Psychology” article you mentioned a few days ago. It was summarized at the bottom of my homework page for last night.
Walton: Did any of those various and varied theories show any promise at all of being useful? Maybe even matching the “Unified Theory” guy’s hopes and expectations?
David: Yes, I enjoyed parts of several of them. But only parts. There wasn’t a single theoretical framework that covered it all.
Walton: So there was no Complete system of studying human behavior out there yet? Each and every one had their limits?
David: For sure! And I see that you wrote that “PTP explores the process of how that Everything is connected, completely.” Are YOU sure?
Walton: In the end, you are not going to take my word for it. You are going to either experience it for yourself, or you aren’t. Only you, in your moving series of here-and-nows will be able to determine that. I insist, from the very beginning, that you deliberately look for exceptions to anything you find in PTP. I myself have done that for decades, and, well, it has held up fine so far. Completely. Fine. Your behind-the-scenes hint in a search to verify this premise is statements like “Energy is everything, it is all energy.” At some point, you will be able to take the short and limited list of 20 PTP terms, and run every single alternative theory through a comparative analysis of how that complicated set of ideas is really very simple at its core.
David: I had a bit of a problem with the next word. “Aesthetic.” Aren’t aesthetics solely based on subjective opinions about things? Like art and music and floral patterns and interior designs and such?
Walton: Yes, perhaps. But can you see a way in which those creative talents come close enough to be considered as objective experience? Here’s another clue, and you might have heard it somewhere before, maybe like very recently: Everything is Energy.
David: Okay, I think I can work out that formula. Let’s see: Everything that we observe is made up of energy signals reaching our five senses. Every color, like on a painter’s canvas, for example, has a very specific frequency wavelength. Red is always gonna be red. And it is going to stimulate the nerve endings in our eyes the same way. The notes in music, the movements in dance, the forms in sculpture, are energy signals meant to act as Stimuli with the intent of triggering a Response. Almost like a simple Behaviorism program!
Walton: Keep going, so far. Not much left to add.
David: So, once the environmental stimuli hit our senses, they pass through the nervous system by the same method – electro-chemical signals jumping from neuron to neuron. But, and this is a big but ..,
Walton: Who has a big butt?
David: Don’t know, yet. But, as I was trying to finish saying, when you butted in, once the signal travels through the human neural network, THEN, and only then, does the interpretation of that signal begin to vary, based on a person’s previous programming related to the color red.
Walton: Summary then?
David: So, with aesthetics, the energy of red is emitted into the universe as a single objective stimulus. It is only when we CHOOSE to interpret it that it becomes subjective. We determine the RESULT of the signal, but the creation of the signal pattern in the first place is neutral.
Walton: And what was the summary statement I created in that paragraph?
David: “All created patterns of Energy are Art to that Creator. PTP is an artistic creation, to be observed, as well as actively engaged with. And that action of engagement is totally up to the observer.”
Walton: Choose, don’t choose. Engage, don’t engage. The Energy itself is neutral until an individual choice is made to interpret that neutral stimulus. An artistic creation goes out into the universe as just a thing to be sensed. Feel it, don’t feel it. ‘Nuf said?
David: I think I can work with that, for now!
Walton: For now, brown cow?
David: And how!!
Walton: Wow. Next word?
David: We talked about the idea of “Unified” earlier, with all the disparate theories I’ve had to study. And I fully agree that a single language makes communication much easier. No more “Tower of Babble” amongst the myriad theorists of the world. And, before you ask it, I am going to jump down to the next word as well, to explain how the Unified paradigm is created: By boiling down all the many theories, and finding the “Simplest” common denominators within them.
Walton: Like Occam’s Razor?
David: The simplest explanation is the one that requires the least number of assumptions.
Walton: Sometimes called Reductionism. Reduce a pile of ideas to their simplest number of terms. Melt a pot of quartz rocks long enough and hot enough until only the solid gold nuggets are left in the pot. When combining the terms ”Unified” and “Simple”, refer back to Energy. Everything is Energy. Words as well as physical Stuff. All Energy. And the more you have of either, the heavier is your burden to survive in a peaceful awake and aware state of existence. One’s alleged “possession” of Energy, in any form, will require continued maintenance. So consider treating all your Stuff like so many rocks that you have to carry around with you, all day and every day.
David: So what kind of rocks were melted to end up with PTP?
Walton: Psych theories. Religious teachings. World philosophies. An occasional drop of LSD. An open mind and a skeptical nature. Walking for miles with both a head full of thoughts, and an empty one as well. Meditation. Personal experiences, including a wide range of emotional responses. Atheism. Est. Scientology. Metaphysics. Got the idea? Whatever was freely available in the world got tossed into the pot. Even some pot!
David: Even the evil weed?
Walton: It was available at the time. But, to be honest, the only thing it really contributed was that it delayed the melting process. Pot makes the brain go lazy, hazy, crazy, but did not provide many original insights. The only effect it consistently had on me was to make me hungry and fatter.
David: So what about the last word, “Efficient”?
Walton: What about it? This was YOUR homework assignment, not mine. I finished mine a long time ago!
David: Okay, I got this. Everything is Energy. And Energy efficiency means that little or none is wasted on unnecessary things. You say “Efficiency is about Energy direction and control.” And wasting energy comes from being unfocused. This matches the idea of simplicity. A simple electrical circuit is the most energy efficient circuit. From the energy source to the household appliance!
Walton: From hydrogen to the Home!
David: By the way, I caught a few other little quotes we haven’t yet talked about, that seem pretty significant.
Walton: I wait with bated breath!
David: Two quotes: First, you mention that the energy goes in some kind of circle, from a creative source, and back to a Central Energy Bank, for re-cycling. What’s that about?
Walton: It is about a later chapter, grasshopper!
David. Okay. What about this mention of an absolute truth? “Awareness Directs Energy”? Huh? Sounds big!
Walton: In general, it is about many of the later chapters, grease monkey. We meet that phrase intimately in three more chapters. But for now, it is time to grab your tool bag, go home, and rest for at least an hour or so before you do your next night’s homework! You did great today. Keep it up, and before you know it, you will be that super-hero we talked about much earlier!
David: Will I get a cape?
Walton: For what? Your great escape?
David: How about a badge?
Walton: Sorry, you don’t need no …
Both: “Stinkin’ badges!”
*****