But do my own images protect me from those who have images of me? I don’t see how they do…unless I want to conform to their images and create a false persona and tremendous inner conflict. And inner conflict can lead to a lot of anxiety and stress and god knows what physical illnesses. But even then, if I’m a different color or religion I may be persecuted whatever images I have.
Of course not, as I replied to Paul when he reacted the same as you.
I repeat. Living with no images means living with what-is, but living with people who live by their images and beliefs is a dangerous situation if you’re unaware of how their images and beliefs are determining their behavior.
Can we live without fear? Yes, but we can’t live without acknowledging the danger of living with people who can’t live without fear.
I am not heedless of the danger. Far from it. I see it very clearly. You have an image of me as someone who is boasting. This image has come into the dialogue and now stands between us. Therefore everything you hear from thereon in is filtered through this image. But why do you call it boasting? Why do you make it about me at all? Why have you formed this image? Either it stops being hypothetical the moment you look carefully at these questions or you jump on the very word ‘hypothetical’, reacting to that word and going off at another tangent.
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Not to trust a single image, what could that mean? To question the image which is active in this moment, for example the image I have of you? To end the whole process of image-making now because I see its implications? To question the image I have about myself and thus end the source of this whole process?
We use images to further our own self-interest. I am using the phrase ‘self-interest’ rather literally - even though it usually has a strongly negative connotation - to mean an activity that keeps me interested in myself. The image I form about you creates a distance between us; and in that space created we interact. However, all our interactions and feelings about one another are determined by this image. So while the image gives life to our relationship, it is also just an image of a life put together by the past. A positive image is formed because you seem to offer something that I want, something that will fill what I experience as a psychological emptiness. Rather than face the actuality of this emptiness, which demands a wholly different approach from anything that thought can provide, I tend to jump over this void by imagining a completely different world.
Already we have another problem because we have had to use the words ‘emptiness’ and ‘void’ - but these words simply refer to something about which we have no prior knowledge, of which we have no experience, except as images. Because we have never faced it, the image is distorting our view of the fact. The fact itself is neither the word nor the image.
You sound defiant, as if you are defending a decision you’ve made. When you see the danger and the falseness of using images, there’s no deciding or choosing.
Your words have created the image. You may be unaware of how the words convey boasting, so I’m allowing for the possibility that you’re not boastful. Like it or not, our written words conjure imagery, and this imagery is all we have to go by when we’re using this means of communication.
Yes, of course. All we’re saying is that those who do form images are dangerous, and you must take into account how their image forming might affect you adversely.
No, I said I don’t mind what they do to me but I won’t use images. You hear it as boasting. Why?
You said, “I don’t mind what they do to me, but I won’t use images”. That sounds boastful because you don’t really know how you’ll respond to what they do to you, yet you confidently assert that you do know, The same applies to, “I won’t use images”, because you don’t really know what you’ll do in the future.
I know you write like this because you’re emulating K-speech, but…
Which is another image. Right? This has been the problem right from the start. I won’t use such images. I don’t mind what you do, what images you want to keep or throw away, but personally I won’t use them in relationship. That’s all. It’s really very simple. To me, our relationship is far more important than all the stupid images we preserve about one another.
It depends how “stupid” they are and how seriously you take them. Images can be accurate. Who doesn’t appreciate a good SNL parody or an editorial cartoon? I’m sure Krishnamurti did.
Yes. The more images you project, the greater the chance that some of them will correspond with reality. That’s the way we have been living for centuries, hoping against hope that we have got it right.
You’re over-simplifying. There’s no communication, no art or science or technology without imagery, so there’s nothing wrong with images. It’s when images are used for deceitful, dishonest purposes that they’re a problem.
Agreed. Without images and the memory of images, we wouldn’t survive more than a day or two, perhaps even less. But can you show me an example of an accurate psychological image?
Even if I could it would be an anomaly because psychological images are based on what-should-be, not what-is.
So they are never accurate. That’s all.
They can be as accurate as a stopped clock is twice every day.
That is not accuracy; that is coincidence. It is still a dead mask imposed upon a living body. We both know this, so let’s not pretend any more.
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So what does it mean to face this void, to face this relationship being empty without Images, what does it mean to meet Paul, to meet Klaus being empty without our images?