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| − | Article: On Top of the World
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| − | Positive thinking has been fashionable for decades. It's the idea that you control your life by having the right thoughts: Thinking that good things will happen, that you will have success, that you are able to do it, that you will get a great family etc. And as Scientologists know, the press sells by presenting bad news, and what we need is good news. We should not focus on anything bad, but be up the tone scale. Right?
| + | NOW POSTED (fourth of May 2018) at http://scientolipedia.org/info/Affinity_is_Relational |
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| − | Wrong. Affinity really is merely the consideration of how well things are going<ref>. Phoenix Lectures, Chapter 9, page 103</ref> . True, going up the scale may give you energy and optimism, and your considerations about a situation may influence your decisions positively if, for instance, it makes you grasp an opportunity. But things won't go better just because you feel better, just as you don't lose weight by making the balance show less; time doesn't change because you move the hands of the clock. You need to control your life by controlling what goes on in life, and you do need to understand the whole situation if you are to act self-determinedly.
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| − | Positive thinking, by the way, should not be confused with a new phenomenon in psychology, emerging around 2000, called positive psychology, which includes, but does not exclusively focus on feeling good. Instead, it focuses on the strengths needed to create a good life, such as perspective, perseverance, judgment, humor etc. This is much closer to the philosophy of Scientology, as expressed in a slogan from Dn. 55!: Accent on ability. Each grade on the bridge is completed when a certain awareness level - an ability - is reached. Feeling good is an important indicator that auditing and life progress well, but it is not what controls your life.
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| − | In 1950 Ron made an important distinction between emotion and affinity<ref>Phoenix Lectures, Chapter 9, page 103</ref> he is different: Emotion is a subjective state, while affinity is relational, i.e. it varies according to the present situation. Affinity, then, includes a sort of evaluation of the situation and an attitude to deal with it. If the situation is dangerous, we feel fear and flee or fight. If all is safe, we feel perhaps conservative and calm. If something is offensive, we attack or become angry. If all is lost we feel grief, and sit down and cry.
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| − | An emotion, on the other hand, may have nothing to do with the present situation. It may result from a fleeting thought, some restimulation or an analytical association, but we can also deliberately do things, or think of something, in order to feel good - by thinking we will have success, a great career and a happy family life, and that all will be well. That's all right as long as we remember that it does not, by itself, affect our life. True, there are times when a person is severely keyed in, and all one can do to help him is make him feel a little better, but that is an assist rather than enabling him to take his destiny into his own hands.
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| − | Emotion and affinity are used somewhat synonymously today, but the distinction between the two concepts are still valid, so please keep them in mind as you read this text.
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| − | Positive thinking and manipulate emotions so that one is "feeling good", then, is a horrible way to control one's life. Oh, it's fine to watch a "feel good" movie or take a stroll in the park in order to relax - to allow some of the not-is-nesses from work or intense interaction to ooze off; that's a rehab of some of the life energy that got trapped in the struggle of life. But focusing exclusively on raising your emotional level tends to disconnect you from your real life, your dynamics, so you become a mystic living on astral planes, or cloud 9 or in a fictitious world of sweetness and light<ref>See glossary of Scientology 8-80, Tone Scale</ref>.
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| − | Affinity is different. It gives us important information about what is going on and suggests how we might deal with it: flee, cry, take action, have fun. It is often quite reliable, but you are the senior authority who has the greater perspective, who can think a little deeper and reach wiser decisions. Feelings can be dramatized, and it is you, the thetan, who needs to make sure that you are acting on the present situation - by looking, listening, asking, remembering - from a perspective high on the tone scale, which means above "the watershed" at antagonism, 2.0, which divides the tone scale into positive and negative emotions (which, using the distinction above, are basically affinities, but can be emotions when dramatized).
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| − | It is best to be high on the tone scale, but that does not mean that it is always bad to be low on the tone scale. Even if we are not aberrated at all, we may encounter situations where we need to defend ourselves (antagonism), flee from a wild animal (fear), and if we don't grieve over our dead child we are indeed aberrated. Those are not dramatizations resulting in subjective emotions which then make us act irrationally. They are affinities which make us act rationally.
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| − | A misemotion is a dramatization which make us react automatically without being aware of the present situation. Laughing merrily at a funeral would be a misemotion; the manic person, who acts with determination toward a goal but doesn't know why, or who grossly overestimates his own ability and chance of future success, is no less a victim of his misemotions than the depressed whom no happy news will cheer up.
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| − | The person who is stuck low on the tone scale, cannot easily rise above the watershed. The person who is usually high on the scale will go low when the situation warrants it, but will then come back up as things improve. It is largely a matter of free theta, of sheer life energy available to the person, but that is not the only factor.
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| − | Two things happen when one sinks below the watershed: 1) One looses the perspective that allows one to observe and evaluate the situation analytically and 2) One's attention fixes compulsively on the present unpleasantness. There are degrees of this, of course, but when it gets real bad, all of one's attention is fixed on the horror, the pain, the grief or hopelessness. One has truly become the problem, its one's only beingness, one is entirely interiorized in it and there is no detectable thetan.
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| − | Fortunately, it's rarely that bad, but anyway the solution is to regain one's perspective on the problem and oneself or, one might say, become again a thetan that has a problem rather than a thetan who is, mindlessly, a problem. As a problem, the thetan is interest''ing'', while the natural attitude of a thetan is to be interest''ed''<ref> MISSING REFERENCE''time. Not interesting in the sense of attracting interest from others, necessarily, but in the sense that the only thing he can show any interest in is himself as a problem - the suffering and misery.
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| − | He will regain perspective if he can observe the problem instead of being it. If he can tell another about it, he has to be aware of two things: his problem and the listener, and that is the basic of solving problems and, indeed, gain perspective. Having him touch objects also makes it necessary for him to observe something else that his problems, plus he will be in communication with the person making him touch them. In auditing, one can use processes such as, "From where could you communicate to____", "Invent a problem of comparable magnitude to____", "A part of that problem you might have been responsible for" and many others. He is required to observe things, which is to say communicate over a distance rather than co-existing with the problem at the bottom of the tone scale, and this is perspective. It brings him closer to the natural qualities of a thetan, being interested in something other than himself and communicating over a distance.
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| − | To wrap this up: The value of good emotions are limited. They can align with our dynamics and so consolidate our endeavors, but we still need to observe, decide and act ourselves. "Good news" which lull us into a false belief that all is well, can be catastrophic, as can false or exaggerated bad news which make us waste efforts and worry needlessly instead of thriving. What we need is correct information and feedback about things that are important for how we create our dynamics.
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| − | To remain analytical, we need to have perspective. Above antagonism, 2.0, we have that, below the watershed we become more and more reactive and mindless. On the full tone scale<ref>Technical Bulletins, Volume VII, page 404 UPLOAD BULLETIN</ref>, the section from -1.3 (regret) up to 8.0 (exhilaration) is called the emotional section. Minus emotions are from 2.0 down, plus emotions above. We have perspective and good survival when we have plus emotions. But above the emotion section we have lookingness, which means observation, whether by looking, listening, tasting, remembering or whatever. We get data and therefore understanding<ref>Axiom of Dianetics 111, e.g. Scientology 8-80, page 83</ref>. This is an even better way to gain perspective because you observe objectively, while in the emotion section of the tone scale you predominantly let affinity inform you about facts.
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| − | Just to let you have the full list: Below the emotion section we have effortingness, thinkingness, symbols, eatingness, sexingness and mystery. On effortingness you have physical action, for instance, and if you are stuck there, you don't really have emotions, cannot observe etc. You just make yourself move the next sack, and the next, and the next
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| − | But that is only if you are stuck there. It's a general rule that we have available all levels below the tone where we usually are operating. So the person on 3.0, can feel grief, and can apply effort etc., but doesn't get stuck there. And you are not low-tone just because you happen to enjoy sex if you can also work and emote. But the guy who can only think of sex would not be well off in life.
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| − | Life is all over the scale, and affinity is a good servant but a bad master. You are best off at the top of the scale with all levels at your fingertips as you chose. At the top you are really yourself. You are "walking on water" in the sense that you act in the effortless belief that you fully understand the situation and are doing the right thing according to the available data - even though you are aware that something unpredictable may happen. That is part of the game. And that is knowingness.
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