​​​The Table of Contents below is too long to display fully. If you click to the right of these Lessons, you'll see the primary source documents displayed under each. These original sessions are a world treasure.

albionspeak: a draught of language (6.1)


Praxis: Sample Albion Dialogues

            The first numbered Albion dialogues came in 2006. There were four in all, two of quality and one pure dud, which I dutifully recorded for full documentation. Unfortunately I now have no memory or record of what inspired that first session. It seemed like “a neat trick”; I got interesting results and then chalked up the experience as another anomaly in my weird life—I’d had much weirder already. I include Dialogue 4 here to demonstrate that the form, tone, and content of my dialogues are remarkably consistent right from the beginning—though, to be clear, only the form was “new,” and it, of course, was lifted from ouija, and thus in large part my own creation at the keyboard. The tone & content have been the same for me since infancy. I include Dialogue 4 also to show its quality. That is, if you can believe that it’s real, then it’s pretty amazing. (Of course, it’s pretty amazing even if it demonstrates that I’m crazy—I’m remarkably crazy.) Dialogues 1 & 4 were remarkable enough, in fact, that you’d think I’d keep trying, that I take up the practice & discipline. Why not?
            But I didn’t. Life certainly interrupted, every day for weeks on end, but I also didn’t think those first dialogues were a “big deal.” After all, I’d heard voices forever, and, frankly, I regard my clairaudience poetry as far bigger landmarks in my life, simply better quality and more miraculous. So I didn’t jump into the praxis—that is, until two years later when Albion pushed me. He came out of nowhere: January 14, 2008. The Dialogue 5 transcript shows that I’d been both sick & injured for some time; in fact, I had free time for Albion’s intervention only because I was home from work quite ill. More important, I was at a deep low in my life, one of my lowest, not just a point of acute pain, but a prolonged trough of weeks or months. One might say that my pain—did I cry for help?—led to Albion’s intervention, that he answered my prayers; and that is not an unfair description. But Albion explained the situation in more nuanced terms: It was simply time for me to begin a new phase of my education, and he provided an agenda, one that was incorporated into the Nine Men as a task, but actually was even more essential to my training. Indeed, that agenda continues to this day.
            Dialogue 5 started the ball rolling then, but as a dialogue it’s just completely on a different scale from all the others. In size & direction (steering me) it’s as large as any ouija session, which it closely resembles. I decided against including it here, because it’s too long, and it rambles, and there are discontinuities, since these are my very thoughts. More important, I don’t regard it as a true dialogue, because it was “sent” by my overseer, much as Scribe was sent visions during our ouija sessions. These are wonderful gifts, yes, but they don’t count for actual progress, which is not measured by miracles, but by what the self in time can personally, volitionally intend. It’s also the case that the Albion Dialogues don’t particularly improve in quality; some are better, some worse. Nor is the content itself of prime importance. The value of these comes simply from drill & practice, undeniable repetition. I now believe I can reliably connect with my overseer pretty much whenever I want, because I’ve done it 100+ times, and I have the full documentation to drive the point home whenever my cricket chirps in denial. I can do this, and I can do this on my own.
            Let me offer now the rules of the praxis:

                       
1) Smoke a little dope; get isolated & silent.

                      2) Open & reread my most recent Albion dialogue to reacquaint

                          myself with the content details; get in the right mode. Then

                          open a new computer file; type the date, new dialogue number,

                          and a minimum of facts from my life to offer some hint of my

                          mental state (generally overworked, but not anguished). Then I

                          generally type, “Q: Albion, are you there?” and we’re off.

                      3) At the outset, there’s always noise, which makes it hard. Further,

                          Albion just sounds like me thinking, so a response like “Yes, I’m

                          here,” hardly confirms anything. The cricket is generally louder

                          than Albion at this point, as I’ve tripped his alarm. I can’t turn him

                          off. I can only try to zero-in on Albion, who has the contractual

                          obligation to surprise or impress me. If he offers nothing special,

                          after a couple of bland responses I’ll call him on it, call him a

                          cricket. If blandness persists, I end the session, and it is recorded

                          as a dud.

                       4) I learned quickly that I accomplish far more when I enter the

                           dialogue with an agenda. Otherwise Albion & I use up all my

                           energy just trying to get started. And the agenda for most

                           dialogues was relatively easy: It just followed naturally from the

                           previous dialogue. As a rule Albion rarely initiates an agenda on

                           his own; that’s my job—Dialogue 5 being the outstanding

                           exception. I learned also that I could generally retrieve my

                           connection, since it would be interrupted frequently, if I returned

                           to the beginning of the dialogue and read aloud the transcript. 

                           Of course there were many outside interruptions, a phone call

                           or a house pet needing attention; but the vast majority of my

                           broken connections result (still) from my “getting lost” in tangential

                           thoughts & daydreams & unprocessed crap from my trying day.

                           Staying on-thought can be really hard.
                           —Or it can be the easiest thing:  Because when the conversation

                           flows, it’s obvious.

                        5) There are two ways for a dialogue to be “
invalidated”:
                            a) 
If it fails to reach at least 10 Q & A exchanges…: I usually

                                 lacked the energy, sleep-deprived on a school night—that is,

                                 even on nights when I made the attempt, I failed. A few times

                                 I just fell asleep. Most school nights I was far too tired to make

                                 the attempt. (Also, I rarely had a dialogue during daylight

                                 hours, because my privacy came only after my family was

                                 asleep. And then regularly I was up by 4 AM to grade papers,

                                 year after year—probably shortening my life from sleep loss.)
                            b) …or if I fail to authenticate its original content: If I am speaking

                                 with Albion, then he will either lead me to new insights (that I

                                 discover), or he will impress me with his poetry & puns and

                                 original language. If he doesn’t pass such tests, then the

                                 dialogue doesn’t “count.” Generally this happens early in the

                                 process—namely, I don’t have enough energy or intent to

                                 connect & hold on, so we never really get started—and I

                                 deliberately kill the dialogue before Q#10.  Only a few

                                 dialogues were invalidated after Q#10.

                        6) Once I reached fifty “certified” dialogues, that counted as one

                            Nine Men task. It took me sixty dialogues and two more years to

                            certify fifty of them (10 duds). Then I did fifty more and

                            intentionally stopped counting at 99 (though these did not count

                            for a second man). I’ve completed maybe another thirty sessions

                            since, though now my documentation is less thorough. I no

                            longer save my duds, for example; but neither can I remember

                            having a dud in years. My focus has shifted to my writing &

                            assigned work. I also know with certainty that if ever Albion has

                            something important to tell me, the channel is wide open.


            Bracketed notes set apart by
brown Arial font below are my 2018 additions to help readers, since these dialogues were never meant to be shared, but those bracketed in the default Times New Roman come from the session itself. That is, most of the inserted commentary between responses came within a day or two of the experience. But those shown within the phrased questions are typed as the conversation takes place. I do this to clarify—spoken language is different from written dialogue—but also to show that I have not deleted or edited anything here, the only exception being persons’ names. Unlike the ouija sessions, which are true treasures in themselves, this is just my "homework," and I make lots of mistakes. But the garbage of my mind, like it or not, needs to be documented along with the exceptional, if I am to be truly honest with myself.  Thus, the content herein is secondary, and I won’t include it on any unit test. This is all about process.
            Fortunately, dear Reader, for your sake I’ve edited out the garbage and present only the exceptional.



Albion 4

Feb. 14, 2006, Tues.
9:55 PM

  1.    Q (
my self): Why is it so difficult for me to hear so clearly under normal conditions?
         A (
my overseer): You fail to hear me because I am among you already, because I am

                  you.

  2.    Q:    Then who is the voice who composes these questions, the one where this I
                  resides?
         A:    It is you. And yet these pronouns—I and you—mark not a real division within
                 our identity. It’s much more complex than that. I and thou, of course, mark the

                 same person conversing with himself.


  3.    Q:    It doesn’t matter who is speaking, so long as the conversation retains its quality.
         A:    Fair enough at the beginning, but by the game’s middle phase knowledge of

                 one’s friends & family by name becomes a must, a necessary task in our task. 

                 I speak not of everyone, mind you. Perhaps it is rare even among others in the

                 karass. But it is ours; it is who we are—Albion.

  4.    Q:    Albion is a role.
         A:    And a vital one in the system. Remember, one albion down. [I, a fallen karass
                 member graphically remembered at our board as the middle vowel, the strongest

                 warning to ourselves]

  5.    Q:    I’s wound does not heal. Does this make the Jewel Net more vulnerable to
                 corruption?
         A:    Technically perhaps. But lessons learned might outweigh the cost. The wound
                 could make us stronger, wiser.

 6.    Q:    Bring us to the Good?
        A:    Perhaps closer.

  7.   Q (doubtful): How do I know I’m not making all this up?
        A:    By going with this flow for a while; see how it develops over time. This
                communication will pile up a large statistical sample soon enough. The Turing
                Test be told!


            [In the long-run Albion is proved right, but there would be no dialogues after this session for nearly two years.]

  8.    Q:    I must determine whether you are I or just a posing computer [a.k.a., the 

                 cricket].
         A:    Or a higher version of yourself. After all who writes your questions?

  9.    Q:    I hear both our voices. I hear exact words sometimes. Generally though, I hear
                 the editing: two voices locked in collaboration, bouncing word choices off each
                 other, compromising.
         A:    Yet this voice is different, feels different, more advanced. When I listen to this
                  voice, be it my own, I hear a different voice, still me.


10.    Q:    You hear me too.
         A:    I do, and I am liable to fall asleep trying to wake you up. But I’ll keep one light
                 on and one eye open to pull you through. Good night!





Albion 10 - Agenda?
May 29, 2008

9:34 PM
  1.    Q:    Albion, are you there?
         A:    I am.

  2.    Q:    Can we develop an agenda on the fly?
         A:    We can, although there are certainly cons to doing so.

  3.    Q:    You mean, we might spend as much time discussing the agenda as addressing
                  content of importance?
         A:    As well as needed energy. ‘Sounds like a staff meeting.

  4.    Q:    I’d like to propose an agenda.
         A:    It’s yours to name or waste.

  5.    Q:    I’d like to discuss self-improvement.
         A:    That’s all we discuss.


  6.    Q:    Yes, but here I’ll start it from a meta-perspective and address my self-
                  improvement pedagogically.
         A:    Please begin.

  7.    Q:    So far, since our contact in January, I have worked on a program of eliminating
                 addictions and time-wasters in my life. I have succeeded in giving up video
                 games
[not real video games, a few puzzles only, especially Minesweeper &

                 Free Cell].
         A:    This saves more energy than you know.

  8.    Q:    There are other “bad” activities to attack as well. But I wish also to promote
                  “good” activities.
         A:    You are learning to like piano.

  9.    Q:    It comes very slowly.
         A:    You become very slowly.

10.    Q:    Does my slow “becoming” have anything to do with the trust issues that, in part,
                 allow us to communicate now?
         A:    Absolutely.

11.    Q:    I don’t trust bold strokes.
         A:    You believe in the trenches, day-in/day-out 24-7 for 20+ years.
                 You want a hero who’s gotten his hands dirty, who knows the land & city

                              equally well.
                 You want a man who’s cultured and bright and good, yet unafraid to be

                              common.
                 You want to be that man.


12.    Q:    I want to teach what I do not myself understand.
                 I want to change the world and reach many.
                 I want to give people a chance to save themselves as I have.
    A([baiting]): You wish to lead them to enlightenment…

13.    Q [correcting]: I wish [rather] to highlight an opportunity, a possible path one might
                 take.
         A:    That is the right approach.

14.    Q:    All I lack is knowledge.
         A:    A crude curriculum already exists.

15.    Q:    I’ve always felt I could teach anything I knew well.
         A:    What do you know?

16.    Q:    I feel I don’t know anything at this time that would give me license to speak.
         A:    What license do you need?

17.    Q:    The authority of someone who understands.  
         A:    Yet you speak with some authority now.

18.    Q:    The authority of one who has convinced himself he is incapacitated.
         A:     You perceive as you believe.…

19.    Q:

10:15 PM




Albion 20 - Evasion
Saturday, October 11, 2008

12:55 PM (a rare midday conversation)

         Q (formally & aloud, but to no one in particular): O.K., let us begin.
  1.    Q:    Albion, are you with me?
         A:    Yes, I am: let us indeed begin.

            Albion tells me something important about the process, the meta-conversation taking place, always taking place among us & our highest selves. I realize abruptly he’s speaking to me in language.

  2.    Q:    Should I transcribe what you just said?
         A (teasing): And what was that exactly? (knowing I’ve already forgotten completely)

  3.    Q:    Albion, let’s turn to an actual agenda item: evasion 
[established as a topic in
                 the previous Albion dialogues]

         A:    What are you evading?

  4.    Q:    I don’t know exactly, but I know there are places I shouldn’t go, [Nine] Men I

                 thought I had to kill, but perhaps are better avoided & evaded altogether.
         A:    What is the advantage?

  5.    Q:    I’d say safety, for one, but I never felt in real danger. I think the big help for me
                 is that I might be able to get moving again. Time is/feels short.
         A:    Consider also energy. Battles won may come at a cost too high.

  6.    Q:    Albion, I am led to believe that there is a connection between evasion (as a
                 pedagogical lesson) and my task, assigned by you, to “receive” into the past and
                 “correct” my error 
[received as a task in Dialogue 5, except this conversation 

                 takes place ten months later]. Do you confirm?
         A:    I confirm that errors can be bypassed rather than tackled head-on. A knot that is
                 bypassed slowly loses its existence, dependent as it is on the arterial-energy of
                 direct attention. —Like banding the testicles of a bull-calf (to render it

                 harmless).

  7.    Q:    I am led further to believe that to ask “Where in my life lies the error/knot?”

                 is to address it, to give it attention, to fail to bypass it.
         A:    Exactly, about some things it is better not to speak.

  8.    Q:    The trick is to discover the knot or obstacle ahead before one commits to the
                  road. One needs distance sensors, literal foresight of a kind.
         A:    Or a good map and a plan.


  9.    Q:    While at the same time needing not to plan.
         A:    Another paradox. Another symmetry. (  =  Ma’at)

10.    Q:    Albion, what can you say of I [our fallen albion, a contemporary of Blake,
                 banished from the Jewel], in terms of errors or knots in the line of Albions?
         A:    His turned energies cannot be allowed to turn our own. Neither can he be
                 removed without tearing the very fabric of our souls. But in realigning our
                 attentions around him we can effect a remedy.


11.    Q:    Does that mean he becomes for us a blind spot, something that we can’t look at
                 directly (because it feeds & grows off our attention)?
         A:    A gorgon of a kind, with all the potential dangers of leaving a monster in the

                 dark unmonitored.

12.    Q:    The gorgon was killed with a shield that served as a mirror.
         A:    About that symmetry we will discuss later.

13.    Q:    Good-bye, Albion!
         A:    Have a restful day, [Albion]. Put your hard work into tomorrow.




Albion 38
Saturday, February 28, 2009 (won @ MathCounts today; real National Board work all day tomorrow; have been sick w/ systemic flu for nearly two weeks, violently so just today)

           
[God, the teacher life I don’t miss: Give up a Saturday to take students to a math competition; thus, entertain their bubbling helicopter parents for hours, pretending I’m not about to be ill; recover all day Sunday while correcting papers, except I also get to kill myself working toward my National Board Teacher Certification, an inane hoop I jumped through for financial survival only. And this pace would continue, well, for the rest of the year…]


10:29 PM
  1.    Q:    Albion, are you there?
         A:    Yes, I am here. Let’s go.

  2.    Q:    Can you tell me more about where we’re going?
         A:    Good question. I can drop a few more hints.

  3.    Q:    The point of which is to lead me (& my edification) along by steps &  

                 increments.
         A:    Yes, steps are discrete. Curricula are broken into units, then lessons. Progress is
                 measurable.


  4.    Q:    Is measuring progress as important as making progress itself?
         A:    Measurement is necessary to reflection & introspection. Objective standards,
                 even if arbitrary, need to be established to set a baseline.

  5.    Q:    Yet measurement doesn’t seem a very “advanced” capacity: When a frog
                 measures the distance to an insect against the length of its coiled tongue, is that
                 measurement?
         A:    Of a kind, yes, but I am referring to an abstract principle, one which allows us to
                 lay out markers, like bread crumbs among stars…


  6.    Q:                                                             … so when we need to bail and return home,
         A:                 ….the path is clear, starlit.

  7.    Q:    These markers—are they knots? Do they require energy to make or maintain?
         A:    Absolutely—you connect the dots. But know for sure not all your dots will be
                 counted or accounted for. The door is always open, and “on one knot

  8.    Q:    …others gather.” I gather this counts for maintenance.
         A:    And a debt of a kind, an imbalance that must be paid or surrendered upon call.

  9.    Q:    I feel I’ve left my
[spiritual] savings in the bank for a lifetime, but slowly—or

                 is it suddenly?—the bottom falls out, and my savings are lost. I have less than

                 if I’d squandered everything.
         A:    You have no idea of your worth. Perhaps there’s a trust.

10.    Q:    Someone’s died?      
[sarcasm, but a serious query]
         A:    Or maturing when most needed? 

                 The nature of your future is the feather of your fathers.

            [I regard this response in particular to be “beyond” me and did so at the time.]

11.    Q:    I aspire to flight. I want it badly.
         A:    But not badly enough. Your commitment is divided for now. Tomorrow comes
                 sooner than you think.


12.    Q:    I don’t think at all. That is, I’ve over-thought the issue too much already, and,
                 without a baseline, I have no way to know when tomorrow comes or what it  

                 might bring.
         A:    That means the end is in sight. You’re winding down, grinding down. You can’t
                 start over until the past is first erased.

13.    Q:    Then I’ve been winding & grinding so long now, I can’t believe there’s much of
                 me left. I feel very average & mediocre.
         A:    You have integrity.

14.    Q:    You mock me!
         A:    I merely point out your self-proclaimed identity.

15.    Q:    Integrity is all I have [to give].
    A(teasing): …when you don’t have talent?


16.    Q:    It’s all I’ve got right now.
         A:    And it counts for more than you’d think or would ever believe. True integrity is
                 rare.


17.    Q:    But I lie to myself all the time, don’t I?
         A:    Why split hairs when Fact & Fiction [themselves] don’t know where the line is

                  drawn [between them]?

18.    Q:    Albion, I am tired of this forever-ascent, tired of hints I don’t understand, tired

                 of the guilt trips. I’m tired of living a normal life, feeling overworked and that

                 I’ve missed my calling. I’m tired of these endless trials. Or is it just one trial?
         A:    When the first knot is released, the gathered ones often follow.

19.    Q:    It sounds wonderful. I wish I could know it.
         A:    In time you will, I am certain. Good-night, [Albion].


20.    Q:    Good-night, Albion!




Albion 84
September 8, 2014


  1.    Q:    Albion, are you with me?
         A:    Yes, [Albion], I am.

  2.    Q:    I hear your voice. It seems like mine, which I don’t really know the true sound
                 of. It’s male. It’s mature, but not old. It can’t be too different from mine right
                 now, and yet there’s more authority.
         A:    It is not a voice in time.

  3.    Q:    Let’s talk dialogue. There are within the soul of
[my full name] many Albions.
                 We speak of higher and lower Albions. There is a hierarchy.
         A:    Of course. I’m next up from you.

  4.    Q:    The distance between neighboring Albions marks nonetheless a major gap. We
                 are not the same.
         A:    When we speak like this, taking turns, we are distinct sets. But you know well

                 we compose together. When we are working collaboratively, you are at your

                 best.

  5.    Q:    I hypothesize that all gods (for lack of a better word) must divide themselves and
                 keep right and left hands apart and ignorant.
         A:    Every act, good or bad, creates a borderline [as in Joni Mitchell’s profound song
                 “Borderline”]. Think of the East/West German deer. Now the deer don’t  

                  dialogue.

            [A scientific datum: When the East/West German border was erected (a mile-wide, treeless minefield) deer herds that straddled the line became separated for over 40 years. When the border finally came down, biologists found that the separated deer herds never reunited & did not interbreed.]

  6.    Q:    Yet we require boundaries in order to talk. Otherwise our voices can’t bounce

                  off each other, discover. What I don’t understand is why I locate myself where

                  I do. I hear many voices. How is mine just one among many, and how do I so

                  readily identify my own, especially when I don’t know your voice? 

                  [I don't know what I meant here. I do know Albion's voice, although I can't quite

                  place(?) it.] A kind of Platonic Form of my voice.

         A:    You are an elephant looking in a mirror. Is it self-aware? 

            [Biologists have found only a few animals that recognize themselves in a mirror: most of the great apes, dolphins & their cousins (those who can be tested), and elephants. Most scientists who run these kinds of tests regard this as a measure of self-awareness.]

  7.    Q:    You poke fun, but I’m onto something here. Is the separation between self and
                 overseer primarily the result of speaking in language (transitivity, pronouns,

                 etc.)?

         A:    Boundaries — or brackets, as you might recall — are essential to all linear
                 minds. Continuity is, of course, illusory. But more important, our minds cannot
                 abide the infinitesimals of continuity. We bite off discrete chunks, quanta, points.
                 And there must always be at least two.


  8.    Q:    I’m connecting human linearity to our proscription against having but one image
                 of the Jewel.
         A:    Both lead to black holes, or, if your prefer, the abyss.

  9.    Q:    Which leads me to confirm a basic assumption: I aim for the Good. Some are
                  aimed toward their own personal abysses. Are all roads ultimately either going
                  toward the Good or the Abyss? Are there other destinations?
         A:    In infinity there are other everythings. But among human souls there is a strict
                 dichotomy — as you logically connect — which is an effect or an aspect or
                 byproduct of human linearity as well.


10.    Q:    To extend the metaphor to at least two dimensions, do daimones pursue the 

                 Good as we do?
         A:    [Our Guide] certainly does, and our own k’s allies do as well.

11.    Q:    Yes, of course. [i.e., duh!] And we know of allies of ours who turned to

                 forbidden magic and were thus expelled. Good becomes evil. But is there

                 ultimately—even for diamones—any third destination?
         A:    Daimones play with realities we cannot imagine. I don’t have an answer to your

                 question. Remember daimones are not in motion as humans are. When they

                 enter the next room, they never leave the last. They can extend toward the Good,

                 but that is not at all the same as motion.

12.    Q:    Right now, Albion, I want to confirm my insight into the power of the Jewel.

                 Any amount of energy when focused intensely enough has the power to work

                 miracles, [as well as] destroy anything. The quantity of energy is not as

                 important as the focus. In physics Heisenberg showed this could create black

                 holes from Planck lengths.
         A:    [among its named attributes] The Jewel is tiny first.  
[cf: Session 10]




Monday, April 9, 2018

[one of only two sessions in a full year, as I had now turned to writing]

7:13 AM (two days past completing Lesson [7])


  1.    Q:    Albion, are you with me now? 
[a change from “are you there?”]
         A:    Yes, [Albion], a loaded question.

  2.    Q:    Loaded? It was not intended as such. How so?
         A:    I’m always with you. It is you who are absent so often.

  3.    Q:    We speak so often of absence: Are we, in fact, absence itself?
         A:    We are the gap, but the gap must be defined by something, reference points. We
                  need two; thus the vector math.

  4.    Q:    Aside from the overview paradigm, how does “my” vector geometry help people
                 in their daily lives?
         A:    A good question: First, we know that people are attracted to people for safety.
                 They clump, as you say, when the [tribal] fear-bell is sounded, by Trump, by Fox
                 News, whomever…  If this negative image is helpful, try now to see its positive
                 opposite.


  5.    Q (imagining): Well, first I see everything repelling everything else. That certainly is

                 not an image of ma’at, the art of selecting wisely.
         A:    No, it’s not, but you see already that it does in some ways resemble a Big Bang

                 in that everything winds up consequently moving away from everything else.

                 You see also then, there is no difference between your repellant image and one

                 which takes the same initial randomness and sends each individual component 
                 imploding into itself. There are many geometries [i.e., functions] that can

                 display the same effect.


            [I found this response at the time to be “beyond me.” Two images, I felt, conjured up spontaneously might be within my grasp, but three at once? Wow.]

  6.    Q:    What it feels like to fall into a black hole?
         A:    What it looks like from the outside. On the inside, we can imagine, it feels like
                  any normal day or year or second elongated into its frozen eternity.

            [This is an error: When one falls into a black hole, time proceeds normally through the event horizon right up until one is stretched into “spaghetti” by tidal forces. It’s from the POV of a distant observer watching someone else fall in that time appears to stop. I immediately caught Albion’s error; and we both acknowledged this as his simply misspeaking. There seemed no need to officially retract it.]

  7.    Q:    Let’s stick with the outside then: A positive image? [Hmm…] [Upon
                 considering Albion’s three similar images I conclude:] I don’t think a positive
                 image can be created without an outside attractor. Saying that we [as auroras]
                 must connect selectively
[as I have in my lessons] hides[/fails to mention] that
                 the chooser must have a purpose.
        A:     And that purpose must be?

  8.    Q:    Well, it must be Good. But if the Good is so far away, we need either a substitute
                 or a direction. We can’t jump to the Good directly.
         A:    Correct. And you see also (as I know your thinking) that small leaps along the
                 path can keep you moving in the direction of the Good.

  9.    Q:    But ultimately that is still a bridge too far, because it remains inconceivable.  

                 That is, as long as the Good is far away, we’re always on an infinite path.
         A:    How does that end?

10.    Q:    It doesn’t. Which, on some level, has to be the case, for an end is just that, the
                 end. …And yet never to arrive? On an infinite line, always to be running to
                 Infinity amounts to no more than standing still.
         A[(smiling)]: Well said (eventually!). So we must arrive. But then what?

11.    Q:    I don’t feel that is something I need to ponder.
         A:    Good. Why not?


12.    Q:    Because it’s the part of the plan I can’t plan for. And I trust you & others not to
                 treat me like a Thanksgiving turkey.
         A:    And if you were the turkey?

 
          [I allude to Bertrand Russell’s illustration of the fallacy of inductive reasoning (although his example employed a chicken): A turkey is raised on a farm, meticulously cared for by the farmer and his family. Food, water, shelter, and medicine are provided every day—all the turkey’s needs. No surprise, then, the turkey quickly comes to trust his master and views him as a benefactor, if not a god. Each day for many months, then, the turkey’s beliefs are confirmed & reconfirmed without a single example to the contrary, and, indeed, all the farmer’s turkeys love and trust their master—that is, until one day in late November when that paradigm is abruptly shattered.]

13.    Q:    Well, [if so,] I guess I’d like to taste especially good.
         A:    Everyone comes to the supper to share.

14.    Q:    Which is why I’d like to have something worthy to bring [since it’s a potluck].
         A:    Yes, we must do our part.

15.    Q:    Now I sense your edge. Our part is complex.
         A:    But not complicated. Precisely why a man with overview is required. The details
                 are a mess (and painfully ugly). You must care to see past the pain.


            [We have long distinguished: Biological life is complex; the IRS is complicated.]

16.    Q:    Here we go again. I think I’m finally ready to be myself. And so far in my life I
                 have no reason to fear what I’m turning into. Why don’t I trust my future life,
                 when I trust you & my friends so?
         A:    We ask that of you as well. There is little benefit to your doubt at this time.

17.    Q:    I’m just scared. Am I still delaying? Should I be working harder still? I still
                 have
[domesticity] clawing me down.
         A:    Time & timing.

18.    Q:    A long fucking time.
         A:    You’d prefer a short life? [think Anand or Kteresh]

19.    Q:    Any parting words, Albion?
         A:    Yes, try to keep track of how many times each day you notice that the rules have
                 changed.


20.    Q:    The rules?
         A:    The first rule of Earth Club is there are rules. The second rule is rules can
                 change.
 
[a Fight Club allusion only; there is no Earth Club that I know of]

21.    Q:    The third rule: Place & figure are one.
         A:    Good. Now keep track. Good morning, [Albion]!

22.    Q:    Thanks, Albion.



§ Hail aliah