“Why don't you act? Why don't you act on the world?”
“I don't wanna hurt people.”
“Because your act would be imprecise or even misguided?”
“Yeah.”
“Why not do it anyway?”
“I don't wanna hurt people!”
“What would happen if you do?”
“Then people would... they would resent me.”
”...Have you ever forgiven someone? For hurting you?”
“Huh? ... I guess I did?”
“Have you forgiven everyone that hurt you?”
“Uh... I think so? I don't want their past to hang over them... Or over me.”
“There you have it. People are capable of forgiveness, are they not?”
“I don't WANT their forgiveness! I don't want them to have power over me!”
“Do you think you had power over people when you were harboring resentment?”
”...Not any more than usual. Less than usual, even, because I was just twisted inside.”
“Well, there you have it. ... Is there something else about it? Would you not want someone to forgive you?”
“Hmpf. It would have been better if they didn't.”
“What do you mean?”
”...”
“Do you think you forgiving someone was useless?”
“No, that was moving on with my life.”
“Yeah, that was forgiveness. So you don't want people to move on with their lives?”
“No, I want that. I just... I want to be accountable for my actions. I want people to care about what I do. I want... someone to care about me.”
“You want someone to care.”
“sniff Yeah.”
“To care enough about you to hold you to some standard.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to be told what to do?”
”....No.”
“Mhm. So someone to remember you what you could do, then.”
”...Yeah.”
“Someone to tell you 'Hey, this much is possible for you.'”
“Mhm.”
”...You'd hate it in the moment, wouldn't you?”
“Heh... Maybe a little. But... even if I can do something... why do it?”
“Why not?”
”...”
“What's the alternative to that?”
”...I guess doing nothing?”
“Is that more appealing to you?”
“Not much.”
“It's scary, though, doing something, isn't it?”
“Yeah.”
“It's, powerful, fear, you know?”
“Yeah, obviously.”
“But maybe not in the way that you think... Fear is not negative, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Fear isn't the part that makes us hide; that comes after the calculations, which come after the fear. Fear is the part that makes us think about it at all. Fear is that initial focusing on what's important right now. Fear is the gripping message to pay attention.”
“Oh, huh. So fear is a... narrowing of attention?”
“It leads to a narrowing of attention. But not always; there are those who despise fear and avoid its target instead, seeking escape, distraction, oblivion. When not counteracted, it leads to focus.”
“And the focus is so that we focus on the thing that we fear?”
“Exactly, because if it's worthy of fear, then it's something important, if not vital. There are many things that deserve our focus, and some need it right now, so we'd need some sort of ready signal that tells us to pay attention, would we not? Emotions are the messengers of motion, so what do we have for that, in our emotional toolbox?”
“There's flow? No, flow is a state, not an emotion. Joy? No, joy can be diffuse. Anger? Mm, anger can have no target... There's only fear, as far as I can see it.”
“Precisely. A tool to pay attention! A tool to focus! Isn't what everyone is looking for these days?”
“I guess. And meanwhile so many people have lost touch with fear... they try and avoid it at all costs.”
“Maybe the two things are related, hm?”
“But to focus on that which we fear... Wouldn't that lead to hate?”
“It's possible, but hate isn't the damning indictment that you think it is. It is rather... an inefficiency.”
“Huh?”
“Visualize your attention as a flow, like a liquid moving. When you like something and are in its presence, your attention moves to it in a pleasant, smooth manner, does it not? Your enjoyment of it is sustained by your continued attention.”
“Yeah, to enjoy something I have to pay attention to it.”
“Now, hate isn't too far away from this. Hate is still paying attention, it's still keeping your attention on something, but if we were talking in terms of flow, how would this flow be?”
“Well, hate is upsetting, and more spiky, and more chaotic... I guess the flow would be turbulent?”
“Precisely! That same flow of attention meets constrictions, deviations, obstacles, and thus it creates turbulence, and that is our experience of hate, of attention that meets solid resistance.”
“But if we meet resistance, wouldn't it be better not to pay attention?”
“Hate comes hand-in-hand with fear, does it not? Then your body is telling you not to disengage, but to pay more attention. Why is it?”
“To pay more attention would mean to increase the flow... but that would make it more turbulent, wouldn't it?”
“In general, yes it would, and you can see how hate is self-sustaining in a way. Hate leads to fear which can lead to more hate. But, what if instead of just blindly pay more attention, we would pay better attention? What if, for example, we could slow down the flow, and consider things more slowly, with less impetus?”
“Then... we'd have less animosity, and we'd have more time to consider things... We'd be capable of navigating turbulent terrain in a smooth manner, by virtue of taking this slowly.”
“Precisely. Or we could do something else, and reroute our flow to a different path...”
“Which could be less turbulent, and that could even arrive to the same destination.”
“Mhm, or even, we could focus this attention into a fine beam, capable of cutting stone...”
“And then we'd be able to shape the landscape and smooth it down by force.”
“Exactly. And those have equivalents to us: to stop and think, or to consider alternate approaches, to research more, or even to really look into the assumptions that shape our disdain, all these are powerful moves. The stream can carve rock, and it does so the most when the flow meets resistance. And for us it is also the most important time where to apply force to shape our inner landscape.”
“Because all this talk of a stream that navigates around rocks is about what's going on inside us, right.”
“Precisely. Even if the attention moves outwards, it only receives raw impressions of the outside world; it is internally that they are given color and meaning, and here we find the landscape of beliefs and assumptions that direct that flow. To reshape the landscape is to question our beliefs and assumptions.”
“So fear would tell us to... question ourselves?”
“Sometimes it does, especially if you meet resistance, if you meet hate. If fear could flow freely, you would pay attention without obstacles, and you would see without veils, and from there you would understand, would you not?”
“Maybe not everything, but enough not to feel fear anymore, I guess?”
“Well, how much do things need to be paid attention to?”
“Well, some things not a lot, but other things a whole lot.”
“Yeah, and you may have to keep paying attention to them for your whole life. Some things just have to be kept in check, and that's what fear helps remind ourselves of. Sometimes we'll always have to keep paying attention to something, but once we understand fear for what it is, it won't be something that dreadful anymore, will it?”
”... So that's why people say to face your fears?”
“That's precisely what the fear is there for, yes.”
“And that 'doing one thing that scares you each day'?”
“The fear points towards your growth, because it points you towards that which you still do not understand.”
“And if I understand something, but I still need to pay attention to it?”
“Then it would be respect for that thing that makes you pay attention.”
“So fear points me to that which I don't yet understand, but have to?”
“That is it in a nutshell, yeah.”