On the "Polarity" and "Polarization" articles

[shnu]

The fascinating idea of "darkworker" was introduced by Steve in his Polarization article, grounded in ideas of inflow & outflow he introduced in his Polarity article. The two articles should be treated, for the purposes of discussion, as an organic whole, hence this thread.

First, the links:

• Polarity: article, discussion thread;
• Polarization: article, discussion thread.

I started this thread because I have the idea that this idea that highly aware individuals must be either lightworkers or darkworkers must be wrong, but it's taken me simply ages to isolate where exactly I think Steve's error lies. I don't want to spend too long analysing exactly what Steve said, but I do want to draw attention to this analogy from The #1 Mistake People Make When Using the Law of Attraction:

Imagine a battery. It has two terminals which are polar opposites of each other, one positive and one negative. If you hook the battery up to a circuit, electrons will flow in one direction, thereby creating a current.
...
Well, the energy you apply to your intentions also has polarity, much like a battery. It can flow one way or the other way.

In making this analogy, Steve is implicitly claiming that highly aware individuals must be manifesting flow consistently and strongly, and that opposite flow "cancels out". This isn't even true for electricity: likely the computer you use uses AC (alternating current) to power itself, and static electricity exhibits very high levels of voltage (lively electrons) with almost no flow (electrical current, measured in amperes).

If we try to pass these electrical models through Steve's analogy, we might come up with two new types of highly aware flow worker:

• The Fireworker, who exhibits large flows in both directions, perhaps rhythmically, or perhaps randomly. The fireworker is perhaps motivated by trying to get the most out of life, embracing love and fear as equally valid sources of experience to as great an extreme as is possible. Oscar Wilde's stock character of "The Aesthete", exemplified by the figure of Dorian Grey before the manifestation of the portrait's power, provides a possible form such a person might take;
• The Stillworker, who avoids the warp-and-woof of giving and taking, seeking enlightenment through transcendence. This appears to be the practice of some Hindi schools, and is pronounced in Zen Buddhism and the Daoist idea of wuwei.

I think that, equipped with these stock characters, one draws rather different lessons from Steve's argument in the Polarity and Polarization articles.

[Sam988]

Steve's complete citation:


Going back to the electricity example. Imagine a battery. It has two terminals which are polar opposites of each other, one positive and one negative. If you hook the battery up to a circuit, electrons will flow in one direction, thereby creating a current. If you flip the battery around and hook it up the other way, you’ll reverse the flow of electrons through the wires, thereby creating an identical current in the opposite direction. (I’m trying to keep this analogy simple, so if you feel the need to out-nerd me by bringing up things like differential resistance, manifest a life.)


You nerd

While his battery example isn't the perfect one, as he said, he just wanted to do an analogy to make things simplier.


But your Fireworker and Stillworker ideas are very good and creative, i liked them. But i don't agree very much with them. Your Fireworker and Stillworker models are very similar to each other.

According to your model, a Fireworker "exhibits large flows in both directions", while the Stillworker "avoids the warp-and-woof of giving and taking".

So they are both "neutral?

Its impossible to never give and never take, so a Stillworker would also give and take the same way a Fireworker does.


But i think there's place for one more type instead of just Darkworkers and Lightworkers, which would be the Neutralworker. A Neutralworker is quite like you described your two types which IMO are actually just one type.



But as steve said, 99% of people are Neutralworkers, because they havent polarized, so we go back to the initial dillema of either polarizing or not (advantages and disadvantages) which steve has already written about in his polarization and dark/lightworker articles.

[shnu]

Originally Posted by Sam988

So they are both "neutral?

Only if you accept the two implicit claims that Steve makes, about the consistency of flow and the idea that opposite flows "cancel" (ie. depress awareness). I do not know that Steve is wrong, but I suspect it.

If you accept these two assumpions, "neutralworkers" either do not have high awareness, or they are punching far below their weight, and so they shouldn't really be thought of as any sort of flow worker. As you said.

Originally Posted by Sam988

Its impossible to never give and never take

Is it? Is it not even possible to move towards such a state?

[Chet]

I don't know if the fireworker/stillworker ideas are right or not but I think we need to see beyond the somewhat over simplistic two choice option of light and dark ... Aren't we looking for balance and harmony?

[shnu]

Originally Posted by Chet

Aren't we looking for balance and harmony?

I wonder...

Aren't these outflow concepts? To me, harmony flows from love and is a source of growth. If one wants to break out of Steve's trichotomy, perhaps one should either embrace both harmony and discord, or refuse them both?

[Sam988]

shnu, i dont think it is possible to move into the state of stillworker


I mean, what do you picture in your mind when you think of a stillworker?

I can't picture one, one who never gets anything from anyone and who never gives anything to anyone? What are his intentions? What does he want?

Could you explain your concept of a stillworker a bit further?


-------------



"Only if you accept the two implicit claims that Steve makes, about the consistency of flow and the idea that opposite flows "cancel" (ie. depress awareness). I do not know that Steve is wrong, but I suspect it.

If you accept these two assumpions, "neutralworkers" either do not have high awareness, or they are punching far below their weight, and so they shouldn't really be thought of as any sort of flow worker. As you said."


I dont hold the idea that opposite flows cancel each other. The idea i hold is that someone who isnt polarized gets more confused about which actions to take or about what drives one to the person's goal.

If one polarizes, he's sure of what he wants and why he wants it, doesnt have to figure it everytime one wants something (free of the confusion that a non-polarized person will often have)

[Kaspian]

I feel like one of the best clarifications of Polarity/Polarization came from SlashChick in this thread

Every person in this world carries around a statement or picture in their heart that encompasses their main life goal. Normally when I read people I visualize it as a picture and then transform that into a statement that makes sense for them. <snip> My picture is me helping other people become enlightened. When I tell people the picture I see, along with my translation of their heart goal, they get it on a really fundamental level. The two goals above align significantly with positive polarization.

On the other hand, I did date recently a guy who was negatively polarized. His heart goal took me completely by surprise! The picture I saw was him standing on top of a mountain, by himself, proudly looking around and surveying the land, and knowing that he had climbed it all by himself. But there was no one else there, and that was what shocked me most, because most people's heart goals have other people in them. I explained this to him and he nodded, saying "I don't need anyone else." I said, "Isn't it lonely at the top of your mountain?" and he said "No, I'm happy." And oddly enough, he was. That's how negative polarization works.

[shnu]

Originally Posted by Sam988

Could you explain your concept of a stillworker a bit further?

I generally think that the various kinds of flow worker are not character types, but families of character types. So I'll give not one, but two concepts: one is easy to grasp: the ascetic who seeks to transcend all that is, regarding all things as illusions and all desires as traps. No goal is worth achieving, instead one denies both being and becoming.

The other example is someone who follows the Daoist precept of wuwei, which offers what a form of engaging with the world whilst renouncing grand goals of bettering the world or one's place in the world, but intead seeks a path of subtlety and the small scale. There are some famous Daoist proverbs along the lines of how the greatest accomplished has also the least pomp and celebrity.

Originally Posted by Sam988

I dont hold the idea that opposite flows cancel each other. The idea i hold is that someone who isnt polarized gets more confused about which actions to take or about what drives one to the person's goal.

If one polarizes, he's sure of what he wants and why he wants it, doesnt have to figure it everytime one wants something (free of the confusion that a non-polarized person will often have)

By talking of flows cancelling each other out, I don't literally mean the actions or intentions undo each other, but instead the flows undermine each other, and so depress awareness. Certainly, there is this danger, and maybe this is fireworkers syndrome.

A fireworker who prospers would one pursues goals that allow this form of interference to be minimised or sidestep, and perhaps even find synergies between the two (to go back to the electrical analogy, note that it is more efficient to distribute electrical power using AC than DC).

I think that the pursuit of truth provides an example of a goal that does not nicely fit either of the inflow or outflow headings. To seek to acquire knowledge is to have an inflow goal, to seek to increase the sum of human knowledge an outfolow goal, but for scholars, either goal might lead to much the same activity. It seems to me that the community of truthseekers will include both light- and dark- workers, might it also be a group that includes fireworkers?

The key question to ask, when claiming to have identified a new sort of flow worker, isn't whether one can imagine someone to be consituted in such a way, but whether or not such a constitution is a bridge of wonder leading to high awareness, as Steve has argued the light/dark-worker paths are, once their respective syndromes are handled.

[Natsu]

I don't believe in polarization, just as I don't believe in darkworkers or lightworkers. When I work for myself, if I am doing things right, I am working for others. When others work for themselves, they work for me. If I enjoy my work, why not enjoy and be pleased by the fact that my work helps/adds/betters others? If I get to be a good painter, does it only have to be, either "people, do enjoy my paintings", can't I enjoy them myself? The opposite is also appliable. If am the a great painter, am I only to enjoy my work on itself, cannot I enjoy the pleasure my work gives others? Because you think yourself talented as a painter, can't you recognize the genius of a violinist?

I don't believe in polarization as I don't believe in the dichotomy lightworker-darkworker. If you do things right, when working for yourself you work for others, and in working for others you work for yourself. The two facts are intextricably connected. You finance education for people in poor countries, and maybe those people will set up small businesses and won't chop rainforests to sell the timber. You give something good, and get something good in return, why shouldn't you enjoy both things?

I don't like the separation of darkworker-lightworker, because I believe that I can both say "I have an inner divinity, see me", and enjoy my development, AND say of others "You have an inner divinity, I see it", and enjoy whatever potential for genious everyone else has.

Steve has many times said that "either or" questions are limiting. I agree with that. So I reject the concept of lightworker and darkworker: doing things right, you should be a lightworker who gets some of the light for herself.

I feel darkworker approach is limiting, because I could enjoy only my potential and not that of others. I feel lightworker approach is limiting, because I could only enjoy others' potential and not mine. If I am a genius in embryo, I can enjoy both my geniality and that of others. I can well enjoy my success, and the fact that it gives to others. I may well enjoy others' successes, and the fact that it gives to others... and to me, of course.

So, I refuse the concept of polarity, I don't think it's smart and I don't think it makes you stronger. So I simply forget the articles on polarity. We don't all believe everything Steve says, don't we? We take the beliefs that make us stronger XD

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by Natsu

I So, I refuse the concept of polarity, I don't think it's smart and I don't think it makes you stronger.

Well said, I couldn't agree more.

Consciousness (you, creator of everything) is very uncomplicated. Physical bodies/minds find it hard to accept something so 'everything' can be very simple, so they overcomplicate to seek understanding. Once you identify with consciousness, then you'll see that polarity/polarization/light/dark workers are just words to imply unecessary concepts.

Just like thoughts and emotions are for physical beings, the whole polarity concept is also, but while thoughts and emotions can enhance the experience, issues of polarity don't. Consciousness creates, that's it's purpose, if you want to identify with it, then you need to drop much of the physical being theorys.

Enjoy!
Max Power
"Don't think, know"

[shnu]

Natus, Max Power: Do I understand right, that you would say that it is not valuable to think about whether your goals are tied to inflow or outflow commitments?

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by shnu

Natus, Max Power: Do I understand right, that you would say that it is not valuable to think about whether your goals are tied to inflow or outflow commitments?

Remember that thougths themselves are creations, they keep the physical being/mind busy while true self (you) does the creating. Opinion is also thought, therefore, it's an occupation, it's not a bad thing, but much thought is unesscessary.

From a goal POV, the whole polarization thing is just another way to stack up thought to keep you busy and/or busier. You don't need it. Fundamental physical human right/wrong is sensical, elaborate additions to that just generally confuse and bewilder most people.

Just my thoughts on the matter, inspect, accept or reject, it's your choice.

Enjoy!
Max Power
My Song

[Natsu]

Originally Posted by shnu

Natsu, Max Power: Do I understand right, that you would say that it is not valuable to think about whether your goals are tied to inflow or outflow commitments?

Oh, I've thought about it all my life. And ended at the conclusion that equilibrium was the best. It's good to give, it's good to get. You produce and benefit yourself and it benefits others... In my opinion, it's all directly connected. I don't see how the centredness in half of the possibilities would be more empowering. I have reasoned about the concept of polarity and found the conclusion that it's limiting, at least to myself. So I'd never apply it.

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by Natsu

I don't see how the centredness in half of the possibilities would be more empowering. I have reasoned about the concept of polarity and found the conclusion that it's limiting, at least to myself. So I'd never apply it.

At best it's a way to fill the mind with more unecessary add-on and at worse it just confuses people into thinking they have to polarize to achieve and/or that if they don't choose a dark or light side they won't be able to achieve effectively.

It's so not needed it's laughable, but hey they said that about SR

Enjoy!
Max Power
My Song