Parallax

Here is The Problem :

In a contemporary play, someone says : 

"Hey, you. Go over there, get that 

thing and bring it to me." 

That would be the line. 

Shakespeare says it : 

"Be Mercury, set feathers 

to thy heels,

and fly like Thought

 from them to me again." 

Al Pachino :

You can do something from Shakespeare,

think that you're feeling it or whatever. 

Mm-hm. You love it. You think 

You're communicating it --

And the person you said it to… has 

not understood a word you said. 

You can't believe they didn't. 

"Thoust" and, you know...

just the way it's worded, 

that confuses the people of,

 you know... ...this time period. 

Shakespeare used a lot 

of fancy words. You know? 

And it's hard to understand, 

to grasp them. 

Al Pachino :

Excuse me -- They're 

not ‘fancy words.’ 

That's where we get confused. 

But they're poetry. 

It's hard to grab hold 

of some rap slang, too. 

It's hard to get hold of it 

until your ear gets tuned. 

You have to tune-up. 

  “I would like to try my hand at explaining The Meaning of the illustration, based on an ancient alchemical woodcut, that opens this chapter. Describing What it Signifies reveals how much information can be contained within an image without the viewer possessing any explicit understanding of its contents (such a picture is in fact better considered an early stage in The Process by which such explicit understanding develops). The ancient alchemist* who produced The Picture was Dreaming, in a very real sense, while doing so —

Dreaming about what a person could be, and How that might come about.

  At the very base of the image is a winged sphere. Atop that perches a dragon. Standing on The Dragon is a two-headed human figure — one head male, the other female. The male head is associated with an image of the Sun; the female, with the Moon. In between but also above the two heads is the symbol for Mercury : God, Planet, and Metal, simultaneously. A variety of additional symbols round out the picture. Everything portrayed is enveloped in an egg-shaped container. This arrangement indicates that the image is of many things inside one thing — a multiplicity in a unity — just as an unhatched chick is encapsulated within a single container but is many increasingly differentiated and complex biological parts, particularly in its later stages of development. In its entirety, the image is labeled materia prima—Latin for the “primal element.”

  The alchemists regarded the materia prima as the fundamental substance from which everything else — matter and spirit included, equally — emerged, or was derived. You can profitably consider that primal element the potential we face when we confront The Future, including Our Future Selves — or the potential we cannot help upbraiding ourselves and others for wasting. It can also be usefully conceptualised as The Information from which We Build Ourselves and The World, instead of the matter out of which we generally consider reality composed. Each interpretation —Potential and Information — has its advantages.

  What does it mean that The world can be usefully considered as potential or information? Think about what happens, for example, when you stop by the mailbox and pick up your mail. Consider, as well, what that mail is “made of.” Materially speaking, it is merely paper and ink. But that material substrate is essentially irrelevant. It would not matter if the message was delivered by email or voice — or in Morse code, for that matter. What is relevant is the content. And that means that each piece of mail is a container of content — of Potential or Information, positive, neutral, or negative. Maybe, for example, it is a notification of investigation from your country’s tax department. This means that, despite its apparently harmless presence in your hand, the letter is tightly and inextricably connected to a gigantic, complex and oft-arbitrary structure that may well not have your best interests in mind. Alternatively, perhaps it is something joyful, such as an unexpected letter from someone loved or a long-awaited check. From such a perspective, an envelope is a container — a mysterious container, at least in potential — from which an entire new world might emerge.

  Everyone understands this idea, even if they do not know it. If you have been having trouble with the tax authorities, for example, and you receive an official piece of mail from their agency, your blood pressure will increase (or drop precipitously), your heart will pound, your palms will sweat, and a feeling of intense fear, even doom, may sweep over you. That is the instinctive response, associated with preparation for action, that accompanies exposure to danger. And now you will have to decide : are you going to open the letter and face what is “inside”? And, having done so, are you going to think your way through The Problem, terrible as that might be, and begin to address it? Or are you going to ignore what you now know, pretend that everything is all right (even though you know, emotionally — as a consequence of your anxiety — that it is not), and pay the inevitable psychological and physical price? It is the former route that will require you to voluntarily confront what you are afraid of — the terrible, abstract monster — and, hypothetically, to become stronger and more integrated as a result. It is the latter route that will leave The Problem in its monstrous form and force you to suffer like a scared animal confronted by a predator’s vicious eyes in the pitch of night.

  A winged sphere, inscribed with a square, a triangle, and the numerals 3 and 4 occupies the bottom third of the image in question.* This singular entity or object was known by the alchemists as the “round chaos.”³ It is a container — the initial container of the primordial element — the container of what The World, and The Psyche, consists of before it becomes differentiated. This is The Potential, or Information. This is what attracts your attention unconsciously and compels you to attend to something before you know why it has gripped your interest. This is when and where what is new makes its entrance into what is predictable and certain (for better or worse); what flits about you, with little voluntary control—as if it is something winged—as your imagination and your attention move unpredictably but meaningfully from association to association; and it is what you are looking at when you have no idea what it is you are confronting. Finally, it is what you cannot look away from when you are possessed by horror, even as such potential for horror simultaneously adds vital interest to life.

  Strangely, the round chaos may be familiar to modern audiences (again, even if they do not know it), because of the Harry Potter series of books and films. J. K. Rowling, the series author, takes some pains to describe a sporting event, Quidditch, which helps to define and unify Hogwarts. The point of Quidditch is to drive a ball (the Quaffle) through one of the three hoops guarded by the opposing team, while flying about the playing pitch on enchanted brooms. Success in doing so gains the scorer’s team 10 points. Simultaneously, two separate players (one from each team) play another game—a game within the game. Chosen for their exceptional skill in attention and flight, these two competitors—known as Seekers—attempt to locate, chase, and capture a winged ball, the Snitch, which is identical in appearance to the round chaos that sits at the bottom of the alchemist’s image. The Snitch is golden — indicating its exceptional value and purity* — and zips around chaotically, at a very fast rate, darting, weaving, bobbing, and racing the Seekers as they pursue it astride their brooms. If a Seeker captures the Snitch, his or her team gains 150 points (typically enough to ensure victory) and the entire game comes to an end. This indicates that chasing and capturing whatever is represented by the Snitch—and, by implication, the round chaos—is a goal whose importance supersedes any other.* Why is Rowling’s game, conjured up for us by her deep imagination, structured in that manner? What does her narrative idea signify? There are two ways of answering these questions (although both answers relate importantly to each other) :

  First: In Rule I, we discussed the idea that the true winner of any game is the person who plays fair. This is because playing fair, despite the particularities of any given game, is a higher-order accomplishment than mere victory. Striving to play fair, in the ultimate sense—following the spirit of the rules, as well as the letter—is an indication of true personality development, predicated as it is on concern for true reciprocity. The Seekers of the Snitch must ignore the details of the game of Quidditch, of which they are still a part, while attempting to find and seize the Snitch, just as the player of a real-world game must ignore the particularities of that game while attending to what constitutes truly ethical play, regardless of what is happening on the playing field. Thus, the ethical player, like the Seeker, indomitably pursues what is most valuable in the midst of complex, competing obligations.

  Second : Among the alchemists, the round chaos was associated with the winged god Mercury, who served as messenger from the realm of the divine, guide of souls to the underworld, and bringer of good fortune. It is for this reason that the ancient symbol for Mercury is located at the very pinnacle (the most important location) of the image in question. It is an attempt to indicate what guides the process that the picture represents. Centuries ago, prior to the dawn of modern chemistry, the god Mercury represented what inspires or attracts interest involuntarily. He was the spirit who possessed a person when his or her attention was drawn irresistibly to some person, situation, or event. Imagine that there are very complex processes going on in your mind unconsciously, highlighting events of potential worth and distinguishing them from everything else constantly unfolding around you. Imagine that those processes that distinguish value are alive, which is certainly the case, and that they are complex and integrated enough to be conceptualized as a personality. That is Mercury. The draw he exerts on our attention reveals itself in a sense of significance—in the sense that something happening around you is worth attending to, or contains something of value. The Seeker—in real life, as well as in Rowling’s Potter series and its Quidditch game—is he or she who takes that sense of significance more seriously than anything else. The Seeker is therefore the person who is playing the game that everyone else is playing (and who is disciplined and expert at the game), but who is also playing an additional, higher-order game: the pursuit of what is of primary significance. The Snitch (like the round chaos) can therefore be considered the “container” of that primary significance—that meaning—and, therefore, something revelatory when pursued and caught. We might in this context remember what has come to be known as the Golden Rule: “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). There is nothing more important than learning to strive under difficult and frustrating circumstances to play fair. This is what should be chased, so to speak, during any game (even though it is also important to try to obtain victory in the game).*

  Each of us, when fortunate, is compelled forward by something that grips our attention—love of a person; a sport; a political, sociological, or economic problem, or a scientific question; a passion for art, literature, or drama—something that calls to us for reasons we can neither control nor understand (try to make yourself interested in something you just do not care about and see how well that works). The phenomena that grip us (phenomena: from the Greek word phainesthai, “to appear, or to be brought to light”) are like lamps along a dark path: they are part of the unconscious processes devoted to integrating and furthering the development of our spirits, the furtherance of our psychological development. You do not choose what interests you. It chooses you. Something manifests itself out of the darkness as compelling, as worth living for; following that, something moves us further down the road, to the next meaningful manifestation—and so it goes, as we continue to seek, develop, grow, and thrive. It is a perilous journey, but it is also the adventure of our lives. Think of pursuing someone you love: catch them or not, you change in the process. Think, as well, of the traveling you have done, or of the work you have undertaken, whether for pleasure or necessity. In all these cases you experience what is new. Sometimes that is painful; sometimes it is better than anything else that has ever happened to you. Either way, it is deeply informative. It is all part of the potential of the world, calling you into Being, changing you forever—for better or worse—in consequence of your pursuit.

  Atop the round chaos perches a dragon. This is because what is interesting and meaningful (and novel and unexpected, as those all go together) manifests itself in a form that is both dangerous and promising, particularly when its grip is intense and irresistible. The danger is, of course, signified by the presence of the immortal, predatory reptile; the promise is hinted at, as a dragon archetypally guards a great treasure. Thus, the drawing represents a psychological progression. First, you find yourself interested in something. That something (the round chaos) contains or is composed of potential, or information. If it is pursued and caught, it releases that information. Out of that information We build The world we perceive, and We build ourselves as Perceivers. Thus, the round chaos is the container from which both matter (the world) and spirit (our psyches) emerge. There is some numerological indication of this on the spherical body of the round chaos itself : the number 3, accompanied by a triangle, which is traditionally associated with spirit (because of its association with the Holy Trinity), and the number 4, associated with the world of matter (because of its association with the four traditional elements: earth, water, wind, and fire). The Dragon, in turn, perched on top of the round chaos, represents the danger and possibility of the information within.

  Atop The Dragon stands a figure known as a Rebis, a single body with two heads, one male, one female. The Rebis is a symbol of the fully developed personality that can emerge from forthright and courageous pursuit of What is Meaningful (the round chaos) and Dangerous and Promising (the dragon). It has a symbolically masculine aspect, which typically stands for exploration, order, and rationality (indicated by the Sun, which can be seen to the left of the male head), and a symbolically feminine aspect, which stands for chaos, promise, care, renewal, and emotion (indicated by the Moon, to the right of the female). In the course of normal socialization, it is typical for one of these aspects to become more developed than the other (as males are socialized in the male manner, to which they are also inclined biologically, and females in the female manner). Nonetheless, it is possible—with enough exploration, enough exposure to the round chaos and the dragon—to develop both elements. That constitutes an ideal—or so goes the alchemical intuition.

  Out of The Unknown — The Potential that makes up The World — comes the terrible but promising form of the dragon, peril and promise united. It is an eternal dichotomy echoed by the presence of the two remaining symbols to the right and above the dragon’s tail: Jupiter, representing the positive, and Saturn, the negative. Out of the confrontation with peril and promise emerges the masculine and feminine aspects of the psyche, working together in harmony. Guiding The Process is the spirit Mercurius, manifesting itself as Meaning in The World, working through unconscious means to attract exploration to what will unite the various discordant and warring elements of The Personality. This can all be read, appropriately, as A Story of the development of The Ideal Personality — an attempt, in image, to describe what each of us could be.”