Heartbook

As this has turned into a full-scale discussion, we have taken the liberty of moving it to the Clubhouse:

Ariencantre Matichei wrote:

Something happened – it doesn’t matter what: that is another story – that was completely unexpected and warped one’s usual conception of what is possible and how things are. Since I was alone it did not seem amazing, or even greatly remarkable to me. If someone had been with me we should have talked about how amazing it was and it would have seemed amazing. But when one is alone, nothing is amazing. Everything just is what it is. There is no shared consciousness, no group-world-perception, to measure it against.

That, at least, is my experience. Do others feel the same? I am thinking that if one were more ”enculturated” into a surrounding social perception of reality, one might be amazed by something even alone. I am thinking that if I were in the Motherland, sharing every day in a social and agreed reality, I might be amazed at anything that seemed to run counter to it. But living in a world in which I am completely alien and having no ”people” to call my own or to share any common reality with, nothing seems out of the ordinary, because there is no ordinary to be out of.

I am not actually talking here about ”social norms”. I could be talking about the laws of physics, for example. If the front door were to say ”hello” to me one morning, would I be amazed? If I were alone? No, I am sure I wouldn’t. A world where front doors don’t behave that way is part of one’s shared reality. Take away that group-consciousness and why is anything more surprising than anything else?

Of course the destruction of what one could reasonably accept as social norms is undoubtedly a part of this. One sees people speak and act in ways that, in the Motherlands would be just beyond any possible pale and would be social death for the wearer. Nothing, however grotesque, shocks me about outlanders. It may make me sick (quite literally), but one has long since realized that these are people with no civilized norms left to violate.

One’s inured state is, in one sense, a different thing from feeling no amazement at apparent violations of the laws of physics but it is not really so. To be amazed is an emotional and social state. It is not really a rational reaction. If we see natural laws suspended, we may find it interesting, we may ask why it has happened and indeed whether it has really happened. But the emotion of amazement has nothing to do with our rational assessment: it is a reaction to the violation of a socially defined and agreed reality.

A maid without a society is therefore without the capacity for amazement.

In my case, if I am with someone, and therefore, ipso facto, sharing in a common reality perception/definition, I could be amazed by something. If I am alone I will only be amazed if I have internalized a social reality to the extent that it governs my reactions even outside an immediately present social setting. And in a world as alien as this, and having been cut off from all family on a daily basis, what could I possibly have in the way of an internalized social reality?
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Nana “Elphie” Mingxia

I think you are quite right, Miss Matichei, and what a profound subject!

I believe there is a difference, however, between people who instantly recognize that they are ”different” from those who surround them — for example, an Aristasian such as yourself in Telluria — and one who does not. She who realizes that she is apparently alone in a strange world would indeed have no basis for comparison when it comes to feeling amazement for any event in the alien world she inhabits.

One, however, who is fooled into believing that this is the only world and the only life there is, who has been conditioned by ”rational” scientistic thinking to believe that so many things simply don’t exist, would be sufficiently amazed to see a ghost. Her perception of reality would subsequently be challenged, of course — but that’s another story.

Perhaps this is the problem this elfkin has: everything that I see which might be considered unusual is easily explained away by the laws of physics that you mention. How, therefore, am I to believe that there even is anything amazing in the world? How do I even know that this isn’t the only world that exists? It’s a question of faith, I suppose, but then again, this final paragraph is rather off-topic and superfluous.

Sushuri-chei
Ghosts themselves are not explicable by ”science”, and yet they very clearly exist. For example, the aunt of my former guardian owned a hotel in Cape Cod that was consistently haunted. Ghostly activities and sounds took place every night. The owners used to tell guests that they had been doing some job there (in the haunted wing) in the night in order to explain the activity they always heard without scaring them.

There are so many quite consistent hauntings, so many people who live with ghosts. They are a fact of life (or do I mean death?) There are also ”laws” that govern ghostly activities as predictable as the laws of physics. For example, if you see a ghost walking with her knees at floor level, or a foot above the ground, you can be sure that research will discover that that is where the floor level was at the time the revenant’s human component was alive.

And the interesting thing about faith in this context is that people can be well aware of this – can experience it every day – and still shrug their shoulders and go on believing in an absolute scientific materialism.

You write:

”One, however, who is fooled into believing that this is the only world and the only life there is, who has been conditioned by ”rational” scientistic thinking to believe that so many things simply don’t exist, would be sufficiently amazed to see a ghost. Her perception of reality would subsequently be challenged, of course”

Yes, you would certainly think her perception of reality would be challenged, but in practice that is often not the case. Scientism is a religion that demands blind faith – and gets it.

Such an interesting topic! You maids have a rather poetic way of looking at things.