WMail ezine "The Distinction CONTEXT" Essay

Standing in Everything / Nothing is heroic & revolutionary. Those who seek such Power generate the Revolution, because the achievement of each Everything / Nothing-based action requires seeking after Revolution. The Universe provides a setting where we exist; what we do while we are here derives from Free Will of the Individual.

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        The above is an example of a 'context'. The parallel meta-context that gives it is that I can – anyone can! – author the Context that I am living from, which gives me the Future that I am living into.
        Landmark Education provided the distinction 'context' and I have used it to become a philosopher and an author – truly an existential act of Choice on my part. That I am a philosopher and an author is the result of constructing that Context for my Life. Some effort was required; batteries not included.

        I am now living inside of the context 'Empty Future', a concept often spoken of within Landmark Education classrooms. But without notice or intention, I recently found myself operating *from* that particular distinction. (I also find that this is occurring as part of writing the third book of the Working Minds philosophy, "Warrior Mind".)
        Having resolved enough of my Past to see almost nothing predictable or forbidding or unusually painful in my Future, most of the Future is now wide open space – Everything / Nothing, a vast & lovely existential emptiness.
        Standing in an Unknown Future, I am lately very powerful in creating and causing an intentional Future. I need only design a Future and then step into it. I may be just starting to wobble around like a child with this, and the analogy is entirely apt, because it is real fun to explore each & every new experience.

Clearing a dysfunctional context out of my Past has that piece of the Past no longer give me my actions. What changes is that you skip the 'have to' tasks and act instead on 'committed to' actions that belong in the context – and may still be the same actions. I wash the dishes because I wash the dishes; no more drag to *not* do the dishes. My most recent contextual shift has me eating differently; a different diet has me buy different groceries; shopping for groceries becomes less of a terrible chore, a 'have to' accompanied by resistance. Shopping becomes a simple action toward fulfillment of the context that I have authored.
I choose what actions to take by doing those actions. I choose to do this action. Or 't h i s'. Or THIS. Or even thhhiissss.

Context is a clearing that you create where those issues that are important are the only ones allowed. Having a Context on some matter displaces the other options that might arise. When I live inside of a Freely-Chosen and continually-maintained Context, then where I operate, the other options are irrelevant.
This is my Context because I said so. (Which is itself a context.)

        In the context 'You Are Your Word', then whatever you say is inside of 'This Will Be Done'. YOU say that this is your Context, and that saying establishes the existence of that Context.
        "Reason is the only frontier left."
        "Love is something that you give to others."
        "Television rots your brain."
        "This end up."
        "The existentialist acts rightly for no reason."
        (I also have a context for women, but the wording makes it unsuitable for a family audience.)

        A context is made from Everything / Nothing. Always. If it is made from Something, then it is at best a Conclusion, maybe a Decision; at worst, it is a Position.
        A context is always made up, invented.
        You can make up and live from the context 'Peace on earth', or you can operate inside a context for the destruction of some portion of civilization (including your own). Greed is a context, as is Victim. Love is a context, as is Hate – both are major contexts and very powerful – and they are mutually exclusive.
        Self is an important context within the Working Minds philosophy. Without Self, you have virtually no Power, having surrendered all to the Culture-Structure that is designed to keep you Power-less. Rejecting the importance of the Culture-Structure as a useful context returns your Power to you. In doing so, you take a step toward being a Power-ful Self. Taking on the context that Power is generated ONLY by a Self then gives you access to the Self that by its inherent design will locate and deliver your Power.

        Yet 'Life are not like that'. You do not operate that way. The sheepy masses live inside of default Contexts, each of which is lacking in Power. When your context is 'I have no Power', that is surely the result.
        Choosing the context that 'existential Power derives from living an existential Life' is no more difficult than choosing any other Life Context, such as a belief in Money or Pain or Bliss as important.
        You have the Power to choose Power – or to choose 'No-Power': Which did you?

        Where you have to look is to see how much Power you are experiencing. Not much, probably – the Culture-Structure does its job well. Not much Power in the world around you, except perhaps in a few small areas of Life, the ones where you are moderately successful.
        But put anyone in a threatening situation – like a job or a relationship or sudden news (good or bad) – and each lonely human tends to seek certainty. This is the human condition. To be existential is un-human, it requires an individual Being, a Free Self to step outside of what is 'normal' for sheep-humans, to look the Universe right in the eye and say "So what?".
        Living inside of an Empty Future, I no longer need to 'plan for all contingencies'. I now schedule what is important, and then get done what needs to happen to fulfill the intention.
        Within each context, certain actions become important. Inside Fear (as a Context), one must build a fortress, whether tanks and HumVees or psychological armor. Inside a context that matches the current economy, for another, avoiding the collapse of the virtual economy by shifting over to the cash economy becomes important. Inside the Context of Personal Power as an innate quality, one becomes unstoppable, the Universe is an adventure, and sheep are merely a traffic hazard.

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        If there is anything at all after death, that experience will be consistent with how you live your Life before then. The jerk will have a jerky after-life, and he that empowers will be rewarded.
        "Be good."
        "Work at being excellent."
        "Homosexuality is a non-issue."
        "Devise a Code to live from, and honor it."
        "Experiment."
        "It is okay to love people: real love is free."

... all are possible Contexts.

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        The philosopher Ayn Rand admired America for one thing in particular: She said that Americans were the first people to coin the phrase 'make money'. She detected a Context and declared it admirable, but that Context is long out of existence.
        We are not talking about making physical money, as does the Federal Mint, but of the replacement of 'doing business', of 'raping & pillaging', of 'you owe your soul to the company' with the very different concepts and Context that is Capitalism – see WMail Issue #40.
        Only capitalists 'make money'. Government taxes and spends, the Oligarchy siphons away profits, and You The People have more debt and lower wages & net worth than last year.
        I will go so far as to say that 'making money' is a fundamental Right, that upward mobility must be restored as part of the fading American Dream. The American Dream was a wonderful Context to live from, and its restoration is worth fighting for.
        Wherever you are worse off than last year, look to your Self for actions to take to bring about restoration of your innate Power.
        The recent news items about holiday shopper spending showing increase only at luxury stores and on the internet, with business way down at the other end of the economic spectrum, are an absolute clue as to where the money is going. The context of the Oligarchy is to rob you of your natural Power, and they are successful because the sheep have already surrendered.

I say once again that the Context that begins this essay was entirely made up, from Nothing. It is not 'true'. But it is the kind of Context that when I stand there I have Power, which is given by the Context.
Weak contexts provide small increases in Power; 'looter' contexts drain all involved of some amount of Power; Evil negates Power.

Choose the Context that you live inside of very carefully. If you find that you have meager Power, then you need to construct a Context that delivers Power.
Begin with the Context of 'Self-hood'. Taking on this Context is itself a revolutionary act, and the source of existential Power way beyond who you consider yourself to be.

The world that we are born into requires that we live in Fear our whole lives, when in fact the mongers of Fear are terrified of Free Individuals. Why? Because when you stand as an equal with another, he/she loses certainty of winning by default. If you do not surrender your Power, then you win.

        If we do not surrender Power to the Oligarchy and its agent, the Culture-Structure, then Power remains at the source, which is the Individual Self.
        The Revolution begins when you Stand for it and say so.
        Context – such as Revolution or Capitalism or Freedom or Justice – does not exist unless it is generated.

See WMail Issue #40 essay on 'Capitalism' at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay40.htm.

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The WMail Newsletter EssaysVolume V - Issue #49: December 2004

"The Distinction CONTEXT"

The WMail Newsletter Essays
Volume V - Issue #49: December 2004