10-12 PaB, A to Z

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A is for As and assorted associates: Avatar, Alias and Appearance. A is also for Abecedary, which is a short book organized by the letters of the alphabet, similar to this document.

B is for Being. Simply because it had to be. And, if it unifies Rest and Action, then a synonym would be Becoming. See also Reality.

C is for Chat. C is also for Confidential. Sometimes a session is confidential, meaning, not in the Chat Log for the Googlers and future generations to chew on.

D is for Drop, as in the PlayAsBeing recipe for finding Being: "Drop what you have to see what you are". Where does that word come from? It has something to do with being a body on a planet with gravity. If you were a fish suspended in a great ocean, you might call it Dissolving instead...

E is for Ego. Depending on who you ask, Ego is either a wily (self-)trickster, a moral reprobate, or an elegant solution to an evolutionary need. Funny how Ego gets the blame for things go wrong but not the credit when things go right... E is also for Eros, the force or urge for self-transcendence through merging with one's opposite.

F is for Freedom. In one way or another, this is a big motivator for most humans. Freedom features two forms - freedom-from and freedom-for. Freedom from what? Freedom for (or to) what? From suffering, often. This suggests a kind of choice, a discipline of turning-from, and frequently facing - Fear. What follows for folks feeling Freedom From Fear? Maybe Flow.

Darren Islar: but that means we really need to have a close look at our patterns and see where we can change them, against all odds and fears.

    Cosmicflower Ushimawa: its more easy to choose fear
    Darren Islar: having all kind of negative patterns in the way
    Cosmicflower Ushimawa: because that is the most common
    Cosmicflower Ushimawa: but rather love
    Darren Islar: in that is where I am interested in
    Darren Islar: those patterns that get in the way
    Cosmicflower Ushimawa: but its not need to mind of those patterns
    Darren Islar: How can I dissolve those or change them to my benefit
    Cosmicflower Ushimawa: love is also inner state of being
    Bolonath Crystal: i think, it is not that easy. there are many things that happened to me, that i didn't choose (willingly, at least)
    Cosmicflower Ushimawa: directing attention to love, with consciously
    Cosmicflower Ushimawa: Forgive, Forget, and live like You have never been hurt

G is for Gratitude. Let's jump into the time machine of etymology and discover where this comes from...interesting! It's kin with grace, and even casts a backward glance at Freedom as gratis. G is also for Grok. That word, now appearing in the Oxford English Dictionary, was coined within the lifetime of many of the readers of this page (when it was originally written).

To grok (pronounced /ˈɡrɒk/) is to share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity.

H is for Hello. By far, it is biggest topic of the chat logs. H is also for Help. There's a lot of that going around these days.

I is for Identity. This innocuous, innocent word invites (or instigates) investigators into immersion in the deep end of the philosophical pool. "Identity" increasingly implicates interested individuals in innumerable imponderables, including Gender, Ideas, Language, and so on.
I is also for Identification - the act of assuming that one's identity is defined by or the same as some external object. One metaphor that ties together Drop and Identity is Masks:

Lucinda Lavender: I think that the pause is still something that I am learning about...
Gaya Ethaniel: You mean you're learning to pause? Just trying to understand.
Lucinda Lavender: yes... stopping the general kind of consciousness I operate with
Lucinda Lavender: I function with different masks so to speak...
Lucinda Lavender: here I try to remove them for a moment...

J is for Joining - the opposite of Separating - together those two should be able to have a lot of fun :) For more on that, see the entries for E.

K is for Knowledge and Knowing, depending on whether you like things or processes; nouns or verbs. Make your decision knowingly, because you're buying a bias. Choose the noun, and you'll be tempted to do things to it - cultivate, communcate, or conceal it. Perhaps you won't notice, however, exactly who is doing that doing. Choose the verb, and you'll get more of a who but have to go searching for a what - knowing that, knowing how, knowing why, knowing where... If you don't follow these simple rules, beware. Such apparently reasonable maneuvers such as "knowledge of knowledge" or "knowing knowing" might get you excluded from polite company. If you need any further advice, consult an epistemologist.

L is for Language. L is also for link. Some say language is a system of links, where each word refers to some thing in some real or imaginary world. That would be handy, wouldn't it?

M is for Movement. M is also for Metaphor. Metaphors mention motionin multiple manners, including movement of mind, body, and furniture. M is also for Memory. Human memory is not a book of facts and figures; nor is it a modern multi-media module. Multiple modes of memory merge, making Meaning.

N is for Not Knowing, which really means, "ready to know". N is also for Nothing, which is what happens in some sessions.

O is for Openness. When this state of mind is combined with activity, the effect is unpredictable. Depending on its quality, the resulting surprise may be expressed by an O-word such as "Oh!", "Ow!", "Ooh!", "Oy!", and "Oops!".

P is for Play. Play means discovering the freedom of movement that something has and exploring its creative potentials imaginatively. Playing with words, playing with concepts. Avatar play includes the hyperactive Onigokko and the dreamy Floating. P is also for Practice. Practice is when you do some kind of thing a lot, pay attention, and get better at it (or learn trying!). Poetry could be Play or Practice or both at once.

Q is for Quality. A quality is an emergent property of the whole of something, not just one dimension of it. It therefore can't be measured and assigned a single number (quantity). Q is also for Question:

Darren Islar: always a nice question: did somebody learn something this week?
Eliza Madrigal: That question makes a week seem like a huge amount of time.

R is for Reality the totality of what exists. R is also for Relaxation, which might result in letting go, which might result in "dropping" (if there's any gravity).

Darren Islar: Maybe some day I will find out this world is not really real.
Bolonath Crystal: also the word "illusion" doesn't mean that there is nothing. there is something, but not what we think it is.

S is for Space. Space is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't jam together into the same place, and that there are plenty of perspectives from which to view events. S is also for Silence. Silence is the Space of Sound, and the Space of Thought, assuming that thought has something to do with talking to oneself. If a tree doesn't fall in the forest, and someone hears it, did it make a "silence"?

T is for Time. Time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen all at once. But wait - how do we even know there is Time? Hint ... "things" are lively, in an unexpected way... Turbulence.

U is for Understanding. U is also for Unexpected. A path to Understanding is to expect the unexpected. Have you unexpected anything today?

V is for Vision. This session kind of bumped into a phenomenon called blindsight, the ability of some people (with normal eyes but cognitive blindness) to see, and at the same time, have no conscious experience of seeing.

W is for Weather: tornados, hurricanes, lightning, wind, rain, heat, cold, damp, and fog, and other wonderful things about nature that keep us from taking it for granted. W is also for Words. Often it's hard to tell whether people have a way with words, or words are having their way with them.

X is for "X Marks The Spot" - a notation on old-fashioned maps denoting the location of a treasure; similar to the "You Are Here" designation by which a map represents its own location and thus achieves self-awareness. Like the more recent "click here", it is not to be taken literally; the instant you use it, "here" becomes somewhere else altogether.

Y is for Yes - a basic principle of creative exploration. One of the skills of conversing in the PlayAsBeing group to use the old Improviser's trick of "Yes And" instead of the Debater's trick "Yes But..." This helps your partners look good, and you too when it's your turn. In philosophical speculation it might appear as "...and what else is true?"

Z is for... hmmm... it was going to be Zero, which is to arithmetic as "not knowing" is to epistemology; then the more appropriate, paradox-embracing Zen; and finally, Zest, meaning the grated rind of a citrus fruit, or alternatively, "Gusto: vigorous and enthusiastic enjoyment". If Life gives you lemons... Because it goes the next step beyond "Yes", I think Zest Is Best.

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